Space Settlement Art: Portrayals of Life in Outer Space

This is an inspiring gallery of various artists’ renditions human settlements in outer space, in the not-so-distant future.[...] Thanks to BrettFromTibet for providing this nice story on Digg.

What other users say about this:

BrettFromTibet: how the hell did I end up submitting this to “Apple”? It was supposed to be outer space

Apollo IM 1.0 Released

The first just got better. With help from the iPhone community, the new Apollo IM is more polished and feature packed than ever before. Now supporting AIM, .mac, ICQ, and MSN, Apollo IM delivers communications beyond any individual network’s limits.[...] Thanks to OneManArmy for providing this nice story on Digg.

What other users say about this:

HSC1073: I appreciate your work–I am having some difficulty though. MSN loads but does not display any of my contacts; AIM loads my contacts briefly before it crashes your IM app.

xqb4dpx: wowwwwww it still sucks

Vancouver: ok.. The .mac does not work. i have tried several times to log into aim with my .mac and it just hangs. any ideas?

rande: Alex C. Schaefer throws things at me from his cube when he is not head programming and founding iPhone projects.

gyronic: Gtalk!!!!!

kk tkxbye

HairyPoter: zillions of apps here
http://addfone.com

thisisunique: They should add this to the website, but in order to get this on your iPhone you MUST install the BSD Subsystem. Otherwise, if your on EDGE, you will be sitting through a 4MB download only to get this requirement at the end, thus preventing you from installing Apollo.

BSD Subsystem is 6MB, find WIFI.

BalooUrsidae: Why does this support every IM standard but the official IETF ratified XMPP? Shouldn’t it /not/ support anything but the standard?

paulgibson: That looks really cool. All I need now is an iphone.

indiekiduk: when I try to log into MSN it just quits.

kawai: I can receive msg fine on msn but when i try to send it to someone else nothing would show up…

very weird.

loganhuddleston: i dont know about anyone else, but edge sucks. the app doesnt even work on atts network for me. its all wifi or nothing. BUT the app is kick ass.

Erukian: meebo.com – optimized for the iphone and does the basics well, including server side chat history.

damnyooneek: still pretty buggy.

Macshiba: Awesome news. I’m about to buy an iPhone within the next few days, and am really excited about everything that installer.app futures, including this new version of Apollo. Before this, I thought the only good way of using AIM on iPhone was using x.aim.com.
Nice work guys!

‘Dugg’ – A Digg Widget for Dashboard

I’ve been scouring the ‘net in hopes of locating one. I finally ran across this little gem. This is a great, Apple Friendly dashboard widget. You can search on Digg or directly inside the widget. You can display anything on Digg, or what your friends or you are digging, submitted, or commented on. It’s collapsible and resizable. And it’s free![...] Thanks to SeaMowse for providing this nice story on Digg.

What other users say about this:

dharasick: PC version, anyone?

meekar: I made one of the first digg widgets, but when my project died I moved over to this one. It incorporated a lot of the features I had and more, but I think it did it a lot better. It’s a really good, simple, well-done widget.

fightzero01: This is a nice Widget, but it has one major flaw: You can only monitor a single friend at a time.

mariachi: 208k? Jeepers.

Dramamine: Awesome! I’ve been looking for this!

Samji: Nice widget. How much do you bet that Kevin Rose will use that?

IIIKrazyKiDDIII: My Digg Widget is on my Google Homepage and I’m happy.

Tezdoll: everytime i hear “widget” i think of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_(TV_series)

Logal: Finally! An Apple Friendly Dashboard widget.

Richggs: It’s just a simple RSS reader just skined to be blue, nothing special.

GeorgeinBoise: Two words “Adobe Air” .. I so want this as an app for my PC desktop .. come on guys stop with the single platform development.

zombiemosess: Here’s my ss. http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=mb6f14&s=2

Armor1901: I don’t have a Mac, I use Vista, and I’ve been looking all over for this same thing for the Sidebar.
Dugg because at least someone’s search is over, good for them. Let’s hope someone makes one for Sidebar now

deathsquadx: So I open up Dashboard, look at my Digg widget, see this story, think to myself “Oooh, a new Digg widget!”, click on the link, and…AND… it’s the same widget I already have.

ClarkNoHeart: When it’s available for Yahoo! Widget Engine, let me know.

Watch HDTV on your Mac

Using a few simple tools provided free by Apple, a Firewire cable and your HD-capable set-top cable or satellite box, anyone with a Mac can watch beautiful HDTV (and standard def, too) on your stunning Apple display. No adapters or extra money is required, just use the free devel kit and VLC. Start streaming HDTV to your Mac right now. Here’s how.[...] Thanks to Acebo for providing this nice story on Digg.

What other users say about this:

KisforKeller: How do you convert the MASSIVE mpeg2 .m2t files to compressed .movs or .avis?
7-8 gigs per hour of recorded TV is a bit much

robbiemuffin: I predict 10000 diggs

rajb245: This has been around the blogosphere a few times…its still a great feature. Keeping backups of my favorite HBO broadcast movies and TV shows from my DVR is my favorite thing to use this for. And you CAN get around the 5C encryption, at least on some models of DVR from Motorola (Comcast). Play around with play/pause buttons while recording…that might do the trick.

adam84a: can’t wait to get home and try this, I have been wanting to do this for a while.

Billions: So trollz cant reed there articalz????? Macz can has som HD????

heavystone: So macs cant use higher rez on there screens????? This HD marketing is going overboard. Computer have far more rrez than HD, yet idiots think they need som software to see HD movies on their computer?? Idiots.

ShinRaTDR: For all you in Canada, if you have a Rogers box, and live in Ontario & Quebec, the FW ports are disabled so this won’t work, and if you live anywhere else in Canada you probably have the unlocked Motorola boxes, in which case this might work.

NeoRicen: EyeTV all the way thanks. Costs money but it’s worth it

2Stupid4Me: any way to get the recoded programs off my DVR? I got the tuner part working. I have a moxi dvr

DarkFusion: MIght be the 5C encryption. Check to make sure its not encrypted.

defylogik: Same problem here, connects to box, recognizes it, and i can even pull streams down from the box, but they are all garbage and no compressor/decompressor can recognize what they are. but they DO take up hdd space ..

chrisbarr: I’ve got a Scientific Atlanta cable box and nothing’s really working. Any ideas?

zouhair: Ok, First : Buy a Mac
…

mrhuhk: So, this guy touts the HDTV capacity of his Mac, and then shows a screen capture from Scrubs?! Scrubs isn’t broadcast in HD.

tdous: Who me? But I don’t have a Mac. *confused*

The future of open source at Apple

Apple has always been an open source-friendly company. In fact, as the company’s website declares, it is “the first major computer company to make Open Source development a key part of its ongoing software strategy. (Ways Apple can get better with Open Source.)[...] Thanks to TSSaloic for providing this nice story on Digg.

What other users say about this:

deadbaby: 1) Improve developers network: Sure. Good suggestion.

2) Invest in OpenOffice: Meh. Sun has more than enough money to develop OpenOffice. I don’t see why Apple should invest any time or money in the project. They should focus on improving iWork which is, IMO, better than OpenOffice by leaps and bounds.

3) Invest in FireFox: They already are. Any code developed for WebKit could be ported to Gecko if someone saw fit to do it. WebKit is one of the most standard compliant renders out there so it’s a stretch to say Apple is undermining FireFox in any way. If you develop good code it will work on any platform that complies to proper web standards.

4) Don’t lock down the iPhone: Uh they haven’t.

rebelyell2k5: @daftman

rtfa.

daftman: Apple? Open Source? Hahahaha. Apple rips off Open source software much more than it contributes back. Apple is all about control, from software to hardware. Open source will take that control away from them.
When Apple releases Safari or iTunes as open source software, then they’re serious about open source. Other than that they are no more serious about open source than Microsoft with their Ms-PL

WiseWeasel: Some good points. I disagree with the third point, to stop developing Safari and support Firefox. Safari’s rendering engine Webkit is not only a GPL open source project (meaning that any other GPL-compatible project – including Firefox – can take advantage of it if they want), but it’s also the most efficient and tightly-designed rendering engine on the market. Apple would be insane to give that up, and open source software (including KDE’s Konqueror) benefits from work on the Webkit project. It might turn out that Firefox will be the one to abandon their own rendering engine Gecko, and adopt Webkit for their rendering needs.

Apart from that, I agree with the points made. It would be nice if Apple threw some resources at Open Office, as it’s pretty embarrassing to have Sun, Apple’s competitor, dedicating more developer resources for a Mac version of Open Office than Apple itself. I know it competes with iWork, but the market is large enough for both. I suppose Apple’s tenuous relationship with Microsoft might be further jeopardized by such a move, and that alone might provide enough of a justification for the lack of support.

The issue of open development on the iPhone is a no-brainer, and Apple should have little choice but to support this.

iPhone Dev Community to Steve Jobs: We need to talk.

If we sit here and wait, the iPhone will become a closed platform, and then we won’t have a chance to change our fate. If we don’t do something now, we won’t have a chance to later. It’s time to show Jobs that his most loyal customers are not going to hold on much longer.[...] Thanks to thecompkid for providing this nice story on Digg.

What other users say about this:

aduzik: Have you seen the apps people have been cranking out for the iPhone? While they can do some pretty cool stuff, their user experience is pretty terrible. (Example: Installer.app freezes up for a good 10-20 seconds every time you start it while it reads in the packages lists) There are two ways to go: provide copious documentation, HIG, etc. to encourage developers to write apps in the “better”/”Apple-approved” way, or disallow application development altogether. They seem to be going with the latter option, which is a real pity.

onezero2000: Everyone asking Apple to push out an SDK really have to think about what they are asking for. The code on the iPhone is hacked together to get the basic applications to work. One look at Safari on the iPhone, not implementing half of Safari 3’s funcitonality should tell you that. I don’t think they were close to ready for release.

They can’t help but break stuff with software updates. They are probably building the frameworks that an SDK will be built on. They will rip out everything under the GUI and rewrite every line of it, you can count on it. Then they will release an SDK, they have to.

If you are doing unlocks, while it doesn’t make sense to pay $599 for a locked phone, lots of us did it, so it must have been worth it. We knew it would only work on AT&T, and we knew how many applications were on the iPhone when we bought it. We got the iPhone for what it will be, not for what it is. I don’t blame Apple for waiting on a SDK. A hack that poses as an application could do major damage with access to your mobile account.

keia71: I bought two iphones in the past few weeks that if the unlock was not released I would have not done. So that is 800 that apple got. Thats just me i’m sure there are many like me. I would love to see the sales stats after the unlock was released

qpdb: I don’t mind a some what closed platform for quality but I expect some damn nice apps soon. Voip and Chat client, I need skype and gtalk. I want my iPod games on my iPhone NOW. There is a lot more but I could go on for a long time.
Is there a website where the users post and rank what they want for the iPhone? Send me a Shout and let me know.

ilgaz: Uh, if you have “dugg down” every sensible comment that says “It should have SDK”, “It should have at least J2ME” and went to line and purchased the device, you have no right to whine to Apple.
You should buy a real smartphone like Symbian or WinCE or even Linux.(Qtopia) if you want “non hacked” binaries and commercial software/ 3rd party freeware.
Have a nice day, don’t forget to digg me down.

defylogik: i personally want it a closed platform. then i will know that it will work when i go to use it, first time. right now my phone is locked up sitting downstairs waiting for the battery to die because of 3rd party apps that froze the whole phone. hrmmm LOL

toetagger: I want it as much as the next guy… but come on! Whining that it’s not easy? Please! That’s like bitching that MS or Sony doesn’t make it easier to mod the consoles or Mitsubishi makes it difficult to add a hard drive in their TVs. Apple said the iPhone is not a computer. If you want it to be, fix it. If you can’t too bad. It’s their design… their choice…

glitchbit: Fat chance, it took you this long to realize that Apple does not care about 3rd parties? This is why Windows in #1 and Apple is not, open up your APIs or Die.

crees!: “So, instead of just hitting the back button and blowing this off, or calling me an idiot for trying, please just try with me.” Actually, I just pulled a CMD-W.

mynameisjesse: Sure, it’d be great if they opened it up, but either way I would buy it. No one will EVER be 100% happy…I just find this insane. They make an amazing product, but it’s never good enough. Remember hoping Apple would come out with a phone? Well they did, and so far so good. Cut them some slack.

Now stop to think for a second….legacy support makes windows what? Ok, now you have a rev. a product that needs to have the kinks worked out. If it was open right now, you know how hard it would be for them to go in and fix a major flaw while worrying about all these 3rd party apps? I mean think people, it’s not always as simple as you make it out to be.

tuxracer: http://www.openmoko.com/ Stop begging Apple ’nuff said

smaragd: Dear Steve Jobs,
Closing the iPhone is not just stupid and bad for Apple — it’s GIL AMELIO stupid and it’s GIL AMELIO bad for Apple. Got that?

dalesmatrix: I wouldn’t hold your breath, they haven’t exactly rushed to open up other products like the AppleTV to developers now how have they.

ddonahue: Jayhawk had it right. It’s the contracts with AT&T that are at the heart of blocking release of an iPhone SDK here. I think it likely that Apple wanted “unlimited data” everywhere and had to concede to AT&T that they wouldn’t let apps like Skype run on the iPhone that would cut into AT&T’s profits.

Such guaranteed voice profits are the only thing making AT&T’s unlimited data plans cost-effective in it’s deal with Apple.

Personally I think that AT&T could make a lot more money by being more open and charging less at a greater scale, but I think that that’s where AT&T executives are coming from (that and protecting their existing cash-cow of cellular voice services).

I also think that the contracts prevent Apple from chatting about the contract terms like this (also it’s poor form for Apple to say things that could be construed as negative about it’s partners).

Moving forward, how do we get the our 3rd party apps on the iPhone then? Well if’s it’s fear of Skype that is blocking SDK release, then lets remove that from the equation. Setup kernel level or hardware blocking that prevents the microphone from being active while WiFi is active. This get us most of what we want without triggering AT&T’s anti-Skype penalty clauses against Apple (I realize that a few, otherwise acceptable, audio input 3rd party apps are inadvertently blocked as well).

Sometimes it’s necessary to compromise to achieve progress. Apple probably did that in it’s contracts for unlimited data with AT&T, we may have to concede Skype to get our iPhone SDK and 3rd Party Apps.

bladefist: haha ooo, you guys are gonna show him lol

pissed off fanboys, scarey. lol