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There it was: "THOUGHTS"! How could I not have seen it before? I was sitting at the dining room table in my aunt’s house in Massachusetts when I looked up and noticed this needlepoint sampler for the first time....

This is a pretty simple set, but one that I think will be fairly popular. It is a bunch of flowery vector designs, all of which are high resolution - about 1500 pixels. Just sat down today and played around with various flower designs, and this is what came out! (posted by Jennifer Apple for www.PhotoshopSupport.com)

Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts

Last week's talkcast was a lively evening's chat, as Dave, Erica and I diverted from Mac geekery into Trekker nerd bingo (yes, that's not a $6 cab ride away, so no big surprise). Download the show from Talkshoe, play it from the Flash player in the continuation of this post, if you like, or pick it up on iTunes.

Tonight we'll be welcoming at least a couple of our newest team members to the Sunday night festivities, along with your veteran favorites, so do drop by and join us for all the fun at 10pm ET / 7 pm PT. Bring your Mac and iPod/iPhone questions along (no, we don't know when the 3G phone is shipping -- yes, we will be talking about the availability constraints) and we'll do our best to tackle them live on the show.

Continue reading Reminder, talkcast at 10 pm ET Sunday night

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Filed under: iPhone

AT&T has been teasing us with free iPhone wifi. First it was on then it was off, and AT&T didn't seem to be saying anything. Well the New York Times finally got somebody to say something official and apparently the launch of the service was "human error" but AT&T "has long planned to offer free Wi-Fi to customers with iPhones and other phones that have Wi-Fi capability" as a "way of differentiating the AT&T network and giving customers another reason to choose us over a competitor."

The upshot: free iPhone (and other smartphone) wifi is coming from AT&T, but they're not saying when. My guess is that they may roll it out to coincide with the launch of the 3G iPhone.

[via Gizmodo]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Googles 2008 logo for Mothers Day - Happy Mothers Day to all the moms!

Filed under: Features, TUAW Business, Weekend Review

Welcome to the latest installment of TUAW's best of the week, where we gather up our favorite posts for your easy clicking enjoyment. TUAW would like to give a big welcome to our three new bloggers: Robert, Steve, and Joshua.

AT&T disables free iPhone WiFi?
Just as quickly as we saw it appear, it suddenly disappeared -- leaving many angry iPhone owners. The free service later reappeared on the iPhone AT&T service plans, but once again AT&T took that down. TUAW Faceoff: Screenshot apps on the firing line
There are tons of applications out there to make taking screenshots "easier," but Christina shows you which ones are worth your time and money. Broken iPod: fix it or replace it?
Every iPod owner is (or will) be faced with this issue at least once in their lifetime: what to do with that broken iPod? Well, look at this article to find out! Vodafone to sell iPhone in 10 countries
With iPhone sales soaring through the roof, Apple is looking to move into several other countries. No doubt that iPhone will be the most-sold device in Apple's history (excluding, of course, Macintosh). Boston's Apple Store to open May 16
With Boston's first flagship Apple Store fixing to open in just a matter of days, there's only one question ... will the members of the Boston Red Sox show up? Well, you might just have to go to the opening and be sure to say "hello" to Dave! iMac turns 10
The iMac was a defining point in Apple's history back in 1998. Apple was down to life or death, and the iMac saved it. Therefore, TUAW gladly celebrated the iMac's 10th birthday this past week. Rumor: .Mac relaunch to coincide with iPhone 2.0?
Could .Mac be revamped and include some new iPhone specific features at the WWDC '08? Well, our tipster seems to think so. BREAKING: New iPhone SDK & Firmware released
Earlier this week a new iPhone SDK and Firmware for iPhone 2.0 was released. There were a couple new features in the firmware too. iTunes: Free Tuesday
Get some free tunes. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

It is quite likely that you've never heard of Cholie's. I hadn't. It's not a national pizza franchise. Nor regional. It's not a famous local joint that people travel to. It's not even its hometown's most famous pie. Cholie's is a small chain in Chicago, with three locations, aptly named Cholie's, Cholie's #2 and Cholie's #3. Its logo is not even a logo per se, it's whatever the sign painter can muster using the name, and a pizza with a slice coming off. So why in the world would we be reviewing it?

Item 146 in the 2008 University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt list.

Since 1987, the University of Chicago, nestled in the beautiful South side neighborhood of Hyde Park in Chicago, has hosted what has become the world's biggest scavenger hunt, The University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt (or Scav Hunt), a nearly four-day marathon of scavenger shenanigans, requiring the completion of hundreds of items — and one of this year's items, worth 9 points, is to "Rebrand Cholie's and make sure your new design is up to the standards of the discerning folks at Brand New." Of nine competing teams, we've heard from the Armydillos — the Snell-Hitchcock house team, a six-time winner, whose mascot is an armadillo, hence the name — who submitted their redesign of Cholie's #2, located near the university, for review and final judging by the Scav Hunt committee, today at noon central standard time.

The logo was designed, in less than four days, by Luke Joyner, a University of Chicago alum now residing in Paris and a former Summer resident at Hoefler & Frere-Jones — which explains the sophisticated type choices in the logo, Whitney Black Condensed for the name, and Hoefler Text Bold Italic for the tagline. "For the re-design itself," explain the Armydillos, "we wanted to combine the existing Cholie's concept with something Scav Hunt-friendly, which usually turns out to be some type of witty joke. This year's Scav Hunt judges tend to appreciate things that are slightly more crass, so we decided to accommodate their interests (and our own) with this wonderful logo." And crass it is, specially considering that no one knows what college students are wont to do with a slice of pizza, as exemplified by the new tagline, "Fill your holes with Chol's." The optimist in me wants to think they are referring to the mouth cavity, but with the disclaimer that the judges are crass, I wouldn't want to be initiated by anyone at the University of Chicago.

The logo itself also indicates that something's awry, with the slice of pizza taken off from the bottom, as opposed to an upper side, like the existing logo. Unlike other logo reviews, exceptions have to be made, and new standards applied, so I will say that the tag line complements the new logo rather poignantly. There is also the nice gesture of using the slice of pizza as the apostrophe, although I'm not sure why the slice turned from red to yellow. The typography is an interesting choice, maybe even unintended. The noncircular "o" used to make the pizza is, of course, not round, perhaps signaling that Cholie's is not about perfection, but about finding joy in the unexpected and singular results of each pizza baked by the establishment. And the top angled edges of the typography are a clear homage to one of Chicago's most iconic skyscrapers, the Smurfit-Stone building on North Michigan Avenue.

Considering the timeline of this logo, the audience, the context and the result, I would deem it up to the standards of this discerning logo critic.

Most every night Kian gets a bath, or a good soaking in the kitchen sink. The latest interest when in the sink is making sure he has a clean tongue… he feels it’s very important. After his bath, we all sit in the living room and decide what to watch before bed. Should it be Classical [...]

Filed under: Multimedia, Software

Photon, the speedy digital photo workflow app and labor of love from Mike Bernardo's Green Volcano Software, has been updated to v1.1.

Photon differs from Aperture, Photoshop, and the like by focusing on the front end of the photography workflow. Importing RAW images from DSLRs is fast, and Photon's stacking feature simplifies sorting and culling your photos. The update includes:

• An overhauled caching engine to improve import speed and responsiveness
• A "Discards" stack for unwanted image files that provides a direct route to Trash
• A "File stack" feature for moving existing files to a new spot on your hard drive(s)
• Improved memory card download performance
• The ability to save and recall stacks when re-launching the app.

The update is free to registered Photon users, or you can buy Photon for $69 (Universal Binary).

Thanks to Mike B. for the tip!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Software, Switchers

Parallels, Inc. yesterday released a new version of its flagship virtualization app Parallels Desktop (3.0.5600), which includes support for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows XP SP3. It also fixes some kernel panic issues, unusually high CPU usage, and provides improvements to Shared Folders.

Parallels allows Macs with Intel processors to run Windows apps alongside Mac apps. You can follow our past coverage of Parallels here.

The update is free for existing Parallels 3 users, and is available as a 88 MB DMG package.

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Filed under: Software, UNIX / BSD, iPhone

Linux users are a bit left out in the cold when it comes to the iPhone, but if you're a Linux user who wants to sync your music library with your iPhone, Lifehacker's got a tutorial on how to do just that. Video syncing seems to work as well, but images are apparently a little idiosyncratic.

You'll have to jailbreak your iPhone using ZiPhone, and the actual steps involved seem fairly involved...but hey, if you're a Linux user, you're probably cool with both fairly involved technical tweaking and voiding warranties.

Go forth, brave adventurer.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Daniel Burka, co-founder and head designer for Pownce, has generated some buzz by posting a screenshot teaser of an upcoming release.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Retail, iPhone

As many of our intrepid readers have pointed out, iPhones are unavailable at the online Apple Store in both the US and the UK. As we mentioned earlier in the week, cell carrier and Apple retail stores on both continents are reportedly facing shortages as well.

With all the buzz surrounding the 3G model, the international rollout and the SDK, this is just one more sign that the release of a new device is right around the corner.

While I'm obviously not privy to any official dates (or even unofficial speculation), my past experiences in the cell phone retail world lead me to believe that an early June release seems very, very probable.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
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Filed under: Software, Freeware

If you're a fan of the ever so popular BitTorrent client, Transmission, then you might like to hear that a new version was just released. According to the release notes some of the fixes included:

• You can now reset global statistics
• Support of multitracker torrents has been improved
• UPnP port mapping now faster on startup
• Ability to IP block using the Bluetack Level1 blocklist
• Dock badge images have been updated

The new dock badges provide greater readability of the transfer in progress. Transmission is freeware and can be downloaded from their website.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Mac 101

As a Mac switcher, my Mac's built-in spelling and grammar checking has been a huge productivity boon for me. I'm someone who often gets stuck on a word, and since nothing's ever good enough for me, I've often wished that Leopard also included a built-in thesaurus. While that's not currently in the cards, there is an alternative. How many ways are there to say "Whoops?" Of course, Leopard does include a built-in thesaurus via Dictionary.app. See the continuation of this post for a screenshot. Thanks to everyone in the comments for keeping me honest.

If the Apple offering isn't to your liking, Nisus Thesaurus, a free app from Nisus Software, works as a standalone application and a system service. This means that it installs in the Services sub-menu of your Mac and is accessible from any program you use that is able to interact with the Services sub-menu. These applications include Mail, TextEdit, Safari, MacJournal, and countless others.

Once installed, using your new thesaurus is as simple as highlighting a word that you would like to look up, and pressing the Nisus Thesaurus Services sub-menu hotkey (Command -, and voila; your new choice has replaced the original word.

Continue reading Mac 101: system-wide thesaurus at the touch of a hotkey

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Filed under: Humor, Multimedia, Video, Odds and ends

A digital filmmaker named Dennis Liu has made an amazing video for The Bird And The Bee's lovely song "Again & Again". The set? His Mac desktop. You sort of have to see it for yourself to understand; luckily, Dennis has dropped it on YouTube so that the world can see it in low-res glory:



Innovative, and definitely cool. It doesn't seem to be an "official" video for the song...but if it isn't, it oughtta be. (Hey, Bird! Bee! Y'all paying attention?)

Thanks, Ted Roddy!

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Filed under: Software, Developer

Do you like Growl? Do you use Xcode? Then chances are you'll like GrowlCode. GrowlCode is a plugin to integrate Growl's on-screen alerts into the Mac OS X developer app, Xcode. GrowlCode integrates the following actions: Build Succeeded, Preprocessing Complete, Compilation Succeeded, Clean Complete, and many more.

To use GrowlCode, you will need to download both GrowlCode and Growl (which is available at Growl.info). GrowlCode is compatible with Xcode 3.0 and Mac OS X Lepoard (10.5) and Tiger (10.4). Instructions for installing can be found on the GrowlCode website.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, iPhone

Planning some activities out on the town this weekend, or searching for a Mother's Day dining option? The fine folks at Schmap have a treat for you -- they'd like TUAW readers to have the first whack at their new iPhone City Guides and Local Search before the Mobile Safari-optimized site goes into official beta on Monday, May 12.

Point Safari on your iPhone or iPod Touch to www.schmap.com, then enter the pre-launch preview access code: 724627. Once you're in the site, pull up a Schmap Guide for your favorite city for info, maps, and more. Some of the search features aren't wired in yet, but they should be done soon.

Schmap's website has several Flash demos of the features of the Schmap Guides for iPhone. Check it out!

Thanks to Donald at Schmap for the invitation, and Kyle for the tip.
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Filed under: Software, Freeware, Internet Tools, Universal Binary

Adium, the tasty multi-client Mac chat app, is about to get even tastier: developer Evan Schoenberg announced today on the Adium blog that he's adding Facebook Chat to the ridiculously long list of instant messaging protocols already supported by the app. He even included a screenshot of the new protocol in action, seen on the right.

No word on when the new release will be available, unfortunately, but you can keep track at the Adium blog.

Thanks, Chris!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Retail

In June of last year, we wrote about the Apple Store that has been planned for Munich, Germany. At the time, rumors identified an opening date of "...the 2nd half of 2008."

Today, Apple has posted several retail job openings for Munich, from concierge up to store manager; eleven in total. If they've begun looking for employees, the store must be near completion.

The iPhone was made available to Germans in November of last year, and a June store opening would coincide nicely with the rumored 3G iPhone release.

If you're a TUAW reader in Munich, head down to 1 Rosenstrasse (formerly home to Sport Schuster sporting goods) and let us know what you find! The time has almost come for Germany's first Apple Store!

Thanks, Chris!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments