Best ‘Joy Of Tech’ Yet!
This has to be the best “The Joy of Tech” comic that the guys over at GeekCulture.com have ever done!
Absolutely Hilarious!
Amazing Aerial Photography!
Thanks to a twitter tweet, I came across this video and was truly amazed. What a great idea and the footage that comes off this rig is astounding!
See for your self:
As cool as a setup that this is; there is no way on Earth that I would ever be able to take advantage of it. First, I can’t afford the camera, though I could use a different camera with the rig. However, the biggest problem is my lack of ability to fly such a rig.
Eric Austin runs a site offering his services and his portfolio has some amazing videos shot using the helicopter rig. Check them out.
Apple releases WWDC ’10 session videos
Apple releasing the videos to the WWDC sessions is nothing really new. Except this time they are releasing them to everyone who is a member of the free developer program.
In the past, you had to be a member of one of the more premium memberships, $500+, to download the session videos. I’m not entirely sure what changed here that Apple is allowing anyone who has signed up to the free developer program to have access, but I’m very pleased.
I’m currently downloading pretty much all the videos now. 25GB’s of data that includes all the session slides in PDF format.
They also have iPhone Development Resources, Safari Development Resources and Mac Development Resources along with the WWDC 2010 Sessions – HD and WWDC Sessions – SD. Those links will only work if you have signed up, so if you are a budding developer, or even just someone who wants to create some extensions for Safari 5, head over to Apple’s Developer Program sign-up site and get started!
So far so good…
So far the transition to WordPress.com has gone better than expected. The DNS transfers went very smoothly. WordPress.com and Google both have very good documentation on doing the transfer so that if you know even a little about computers, you can probably make the transition with no problems.
I have also been pleasantly surprised that search links to the site, even though they point to addresses like: http://metzener.com/davemblog/2010/06/08/weblog-kind-of-quiet-here/ when the user clicks on that link in Google or another search engine, WordPress.com figures out what page its supposed to go to and takes the user to the correct URL: http://metzener.com/2010/06/08/weblog-kind-of-quiet-here/.
I was really worried that since the site is hosted at WordPress.com, the fact that my self-hosted site used a subdirectory /davemblog/ that when folks clicked on links, they would be taken to 404 pages. This is great that they are not.
So for a mere $10 a year, you can have WordPress.com host a blog with your domain name and you can even use Google for email. So I have gone from just under $200 a year to just under $10 a year.
There is one drawback to using WordPress.com. They don’t support MarkDown in posts. I have quite a few articles that use MarkDown (links look like this: [Google](http://www.google.com/) ). As I find those posts, I’ll go in and correct them so that the links work as they should. If you come across such a link, just select the URL text and past that into a new browser tab for now. I’ll be fixing them shortly.
Welcome to the WordPress.com hosted site!
If you are reading this, the transfers have been successful and all is well.
I’m writing this before the starting the process so when the process is finished, I’ll write up a short article on how it went and just how easy it really is or isn’t.
Weblog kind of quiet here…
Actually, I’ve been busy posting articles on a podcast site called: MyAppleAnd.Me. A friend, Stephen Hargrove and myself, host a weekly podcast about all things Apple. It’s not much, but its fun to do.
So, whenever I find a piece of news about Apple, it goes over there which is why you haven’t seen much here lately. I hate cross-posting and so I favor the podcast over this site. Don’t leave this site though, I’ll still post stuff that isn’t Apple related. I just won’t be posting as often as I had been.
So if you want to keep up with stuff I might have talked about here, add MyAppleAnd.Me to your subscriptions.
Mobigame Announces that Edge has Officially Been Released
Razorianfly has posted an article that Mobigame has sent out emails to iPhone App blogs that report that they have won the right to sell their game “Edge” on the App Store!!
During one year we had to fight a fraud to release our game in the U.S and in the U.K. Today the justice will take care of him. We fought not only for us, but also for other indies and bigger companies. We were not alone during this year, and we thank all of you for all your efforts. Thanks to US the word “edge” is now free to exist on the App Store like on any other marketplace, and games like Mirror’s Edge, Shadow Edge, Killer Edge Racing or Edge by Mobigame can live on our iDevices. If you want to read more about this story, please read http://chaosedge.wordpress.com/.
chaosedge.com has a short post about Edge being restored to the App Store. They are being a little tentative by titling the article: “For the Last time?” Understandable really considering that previous times the app was restored to the App Store, it was later removed by Langdell.
So it appears that we have heard the last of Tim Langdell and his claims that “Edge” is his trademark.
So, congratulations to Mobigame and all the folks that worked very hard to convince the powers that be that “Edge” is not a valid trademark owned by Tim Langdell anymore as well as being able to sell one of the best games in the App Store that no one could buy, but now can. 
Also, Mobigame is celebrating this victory by putting Edge on sale for $0.99 for the weekend. This is the best time to grab a copy if you were not able to grab the game while it was available in the App Store previously.
Edge by Mobigame is Back in the App Store!!
Its hard to say how long it will be back for, but the game Edge is back in the App Store!
I haven’t seen any news from Mobigame or anyone else yet as to why it’s returned. I’m hoping that Mobigame and Langdell have finally resolved their differences and this is a permanent change. Up till now, every time Edge appears in the App Store, it’s removed a few days later.
There is nothing on Mobigame’s website since the game had been available in almost all other country stores except the USA and UK stores.
Hopefully, this is great news for us customers. Edge is an amazing game and well worth the $4.99 that is being asked for it. If you haven’t been able to buy it up until now, I suggest grabbing it now before it disappears again. Unless there has been a change in the relationship between Mobigame and Langdell, I suspect that Mr. Langdell will be contacting Apple shortly to have Edge removed again. Hopefully, I’m wrong and the huge saga is finally over, but this is Langdell we are talking about here. The man has a huge screw loose, no lights at all on in the house, etc…
Parents: Be Aware!!
Its really sad when Apple, a company that I feel is pretty trustworthy, allows developers to sell applications like the ones I am about to talk about for amounts that are so out of the ballpark that one can only assume that they are trying to take advantage of the single click purchase system.
Case in point: A company called [Mini Fun World](http://www.minifunworld.com/). According to their website, you can get all their applications for $0.99.
(Click above thumbnail for full size image)
So then you click on the App Store image on their website to take you to the App Store so that you can purchase the application only to find:
This is no typo as one might imagine. A little research at AppShopper.com and you can see that the developer had actually set the price to $449.99 for nearly a month before bringing the price “down” to $399.99.
(Click above thumbnail for full size image)
This is no exception for Mini Fun World either. Apparently, Mini Fun World feels that all of their applications are worth well over $100 each.
(Click above thumbnail for full size image)
There was another developer that was increasing his apps price over time as an experiment. After the app got to about the same price as Shapes N Colors here, they pulled the app and banned the developer. Mind you, that developer dissed the App Store at a conference for independent developers recently. Still, you have to wonder what Apple is thinking when they see apps priced like Mini Fun World’s apps.
So parents, make darn sure you pay attention to what your children want for their iPod touch and iPads. Don’t just look at the developers website and say OK. Check the App Store to make sure. Also, create iTunes accounts that are not tied to a credit card for your kids. You can control the account and send it an “allowance” to make sure your kids don’t accidentally purchase a program that is advertised as $0.99 but is actually $399.99!
ZOMG!!! Pinball Remote & The Pinball For Mac Is Out!!!
I haven’t been more excited for a game coming out than I am right now! The Pinball and Pinball Remote is a very unique combination of pinball for the Mac and iPhone/iPod touch/iPad that allows you to play pinball on your computer using your iPhone/iPod touch/iPad as the flippers/ball launcher.
Both The Pinball and Pinball Remote are free and gives you the ability to play Wild West Pinball for free as well. The Deep and Jungle Style Pinball are in-app purchases for $2.99 each.
The following is a screen shot from my Mac as the Wild West Pinball table is being flown over (click the thumbnail image for the fill sized image):
Once The Pinball is launched on the Mac, go over to your iPhone/iPod touch/iPad and launch Pinball Remote. Once you have selected a table to play and pressed the play button, you are presented with this screen:
The screen shows two very dark blue buttons (left and right paddle buttons) and a slider in the middle for the ball launcher. The button above the slider is the pause button. You can quit the game, adjust settings, etc… from there.
The performance is astounding and the tables are gorgeous! I loved the original pinball games: The Deep Pinball, Wild West Pinball, and Jungle Style Pinball for the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad. Each only costing $0.99. They were easy to afford and a lot of fun to play. Now, they are even more exciting simply because they are running on a full blown computer. The best part is that since you use the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad as a remote to play the tables, you don’t have to be sitting at your computer to play. So hooking up a MacBook to an home entertainment system and playing on a 42″ LCD television is going to be totally outrageous!
I can’t recommend this game enough! It’s easily worth “FREE”, but it’s also completely worth the $5.98 for the other two tables!
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