Today Kiro posts his top 5 dashboard widgets. And one of them caught my attention: Delivery Status. It allows you to track shipments from all the big couriers.

Now I can keep track of my Mac Pro very easily, automatically updating every hour, AND it supports Growl! Yey!

Only thing I miss, is the ability to track more than one shipment at a time. For instance I would love to be able to track both the Mac Pro, AND the extra RAM I ordered. With that being said, it’s not often I need tracking multiple packages, or even one - at least with the international couriers. Most packages in Norway are sent via the postal service, because they happen to be doing a decent job over here.

Download link at Kiro’s blog

As some of you might know, I’ve been working on my bachelor project recently, which involves creating a graphical profile as well as a website for a local store that sells car stereo and home cinema equipment. Today I fooled around in Photoshop and created a starburst effect, something that I have seen quite often over the years, and always wondered how to make. The solution really, if you know it, is dirt simple. No dragging around with the polygonal lasso tool. No downloading custom Shapes. Keep on reading…
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A couple days ago I started replacing the smilies used in WordPress (for entries and comments), into iChat-style icons. First I took a look at the smilies included with WP, located under your_wp_folder/wp-includes/images/smilies. Then I had a look at the iChat icons, found under iChat.app/Contents/Resources. Some icons were quite easy to replace, as they communicated the same feeling/emotion. Others however, were not so simple.

Today I found a few more icons in the same style as iChat. Some direct rip-offs, other were new icons made in the same fashion. These were part of a PHPBB installation. No idea who originally made them.

Because of legal matters, I won’t be posting any download links, but if you are smart enough to locate my smilies folder (some right-clicking might help), feel free to grab them. Not all of them have been replaced, and there are some duplicates. No hotlinking please. Also, if you make any changes or improvements, I would appreciate it if you email me the changes (address in the sidebar).

But first are foremost: I made these changes for you my dear readers

April 24. - 25.

Desktop Tower Defense. It’s addictive. Let’s hope you can do better than a score of 975 and level 31 on your first run. Easy difficult setting I might add.

[via dl.tv]

Not really sure who the dummy on this book is, but talking into an iPod obviously won’t do any good, unless she knows something I don’t…

I know the “for dummies” series of books is aimed at, you know, dummies. But just how dumb do they expect them to be?

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The ol Giz has a rumor up today that the AppleTV might soon be seeing some updates, speculating that a bigger hard drive, and support for additional video formats would be likely candidates.

Bigger hard drive? Sure. More video formats? Maybe…

We all know Apple is a hardware company, and that they make money on the iPod, not the iTS. Can we say the same about video? Probably. I don’t know what kind of money Apple makes off the videos sold through the iTS, but I would guess that they are more interested in selling the AppleTV, than a season of LOST.

But: doesn’t the AppleTV already support all the formats that QuickTime does? I find it hard to believe that Apple would add support for DivX or Xvid, and almost as hard in regards to WMV and Real Video. This has to do with licensing and such. Well, technically Xvid is an open format, but it’s still nothing you see embraced by any of the big players.

And would Apple have anything to gain by such a move? The target audience for the AppleTV is clearly, as Engadget put it: “those happy to live in the iTunes ecosystem”. And those people would have no use for any more file formats.

One problem here could be that literally the only people who would have any use for such codecs, would be the pirates. I’m not going to be the grumpy guy saying that Xvid is a pirates codec, but face it: most of the stuff in Xvid format is pirated material. Do I care? Not at all. But the companies who are supplying Apple with content does…

I hear a lot of people saying that the goal of the AppleTV is a sort of an Airport Express for Video. And I guess that can be true in it’s current state. I believe however, that those who wish for it to be more like a Media Center PC, might not be out of luck just yet. Could Apple add a DVD drive to the AppleTV? Absolutely! Could they also add a TV card and DVR capabilities? Most certainly. Would it then not simply be a Mac mini?

No. And yes. I don’t think the goal of the AppleTV, or any “media extender” is to be an underpowered PC, with just the basic hardware. What sets it apart from a regular computer lies within the software. Again, just look at the Windows Media Center PCs. It’s a regular PC, put inside a slightly prettier box, and running a custom version of Windows. Not too different from the AppleTV now is it?

Apple already have their custom version of OSX ready, and adding more features and more hardware… it’s just a matter of time. I don’t expect the AppleTV to be a big bulky black box anytime soon however… in fact, I think it will stay the way it is right now for quite some time. Just saying: the possibilities are there, and the current path looks familiar.

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Wow. Ok, I might be the last person on earth to know about this. But have you ever tried holding down ctrl when using the scrollwheel on your Mac? Try it. I think I’ll actually use this during these holidays, since I’m home, and the only display I have is the 12″ on the PowerBook, yet I’m still using an external keyboard and mouse, so the display is quite a length away.

Description: ctrl-scroll will zoom in on your screen, allowing you to move the zoom around with your mouse. It’s like the Wii web browser, except systemwide.

Gizmodo has a post up on how you can get two-finger scrolling for pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks, using the freeware iScroll2.

Now on the PC, it seems to be all pretty much standard what you can and can’t do with the trackpad. Apple’s hesitation however, has spurred a slew of 3rd party alternatives, each with it’s own configurations. Some keep it “old-skool” (ie. you can’t really do anything with the trakpad), some enjoy the two-finger scrolling, which I have to admit is kind of nice, but still kinda stupid. Why fix it if it ain’t broke? I have mine set up to scroll along the right and top edges, vertically and horizontally respectively. Just like on a PC. For some reason, this STILL isn’t intuitive for Windows friends who try to use it, because they have somehow learned that “Mac’s scroll with two fingers in the middle”. Not to mention all the people who excessively try to tap on my trackpad, instead of on the button. Yes I can also turn this feature on, but I personally hate it. Too much accidental tapping. My driver of choice is SideTrack, from Raging Menace.

So how is YOUR trackpad set up? And what drivers do you use (if any)?

More details on the EMI/iTunes deal has surfaced since yesterday. Short version: “EMI approached Apple about DRM free tracks, not the other way around”. And: “EMI is cool with any other music store doing DRM-free tracks. Those stores can put songs in any format they want. The iTunes premium price and AAC 256 kbps format are Apple’s Marketing decision”.

So what is the cool thing here? When other stores can pick any format they want, instead of having to pick one with DRM support (WMA unless you happen to be Apple), I have a feeling many will start offering MP3 files. And maybe also unprotected AAC. And hopefully higher bitrates. 256kbps MP3, or even 192kbps, doesn’t sound too shabby. If you can get DRM free, high-bitrate files, without the premium price that Apple charges, would you switch to another music store? Will we be seeing more aggressive pricing soon?

Why is this a big deal? Because DRM-free files can play on any platform, any software, and any portable player!

One place I listen to a lot of music, is in my car. And I don’t have an iPod adapter, so I’m still burning out CDs. My player can read both MP3 and AAC files however, as long as it’s not protected. This is good news for me! No more burning audio CDs, or burning and importing again in unprotected format. Hasta la vista DRM!

How will the loss of DRM affect YOU? Do you have any devices that will benefit from it?

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