iTwister

Every now and then I come across a site that is valuable. So valuable that I can’t help but post about it.

FreeMacWare.com posts about handy, free Mac applications. I’ve found lots of good tools that I’ve never heard about. Like:

Pixen – A simple, yet handy graphics application.
Quinn – Tetirs like game.
GL Image Browser – Fast photo viewing app.
Bleezer – Blogging app, however I haven’t gotten it to work well yet.
MediaCentral – Front Row type app from my pre-iMac days.

FreeMacWare.com is the best resource for new switchers, poor college kids, or anyone who wants to find great software for the Mac but don’t want to pay for it. Freeware, I love freeware!

Technorati Tags: free, apple, mac, imac

Never miss Lost or Desperate Housewives again! You can now download them from iTunes for only $1.99 an episode. The quaitly is pretty good and the only thing required is a free iTunes account and iTunes (that’s free too)

Technorati Tags: lost, desperate+housewives, download, abc, itunes, free

Anyone know how custom fields work in wordpress? I’m going to try out one with this post and see what happens. I’d like a few custom fields for each post if possible. Humm.. Testing 1-2-3.

Not to be outdone by the XBox, Sony released information on the Playstation 3.

The successor to the popular PlayStation 2, the new machine will go on sale next spring. That will put it right on the heels of Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which is expected to be on store shelves this fall. Microsoft introduced the 360, its new game console, in an infomercial on MTV last week.

As Microsoft did with the 360, Sony touted the high-definition capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and its networking features. The device will support the 1080p HD TV standard — the highest current resolution of HD televisions — and will have built-in Bluetooth, WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet networking.

Sony officials spent much of the more than two-hour press conference touting the technical abilities of the upcoming device. At its heart will be the Cell processor, co-developed with IBM and Toshiba. According to Sony officials, the Cell processor in the PlayStation 3 will be considerably more powerful than the IBM PowerPC processor that will be at the core of the Xbox 360.
- The Street

It will be interesting to see these two battle it out. Now where is Nintendo? I guess, if they were smart, they’d wait until all the Xbox Playstation media blitz was over. Why compete against them, let them duke it out and then release something new late next year.

Technorati Tags: xbox, xbox 360, playstation, nintendo, playstation 3

I guess Microsoft slipped up and allowed a preview viewing of their new Xbox system. People were supposed to keep it a secret, however some didn’t and the information leaked onto the internet. Here is what I’ve heard…

The Xbox 360 will be unveiled in a special show on MTV on May 12. Leaked Xbox 360 specs and Xbox Live details via Ployer. It’s said to come with customizable Xbox skins and the design, this time around, is much nicer. Other devices that appeared in the shot include a headset and a Web camera.

2 types of Xbox Live:
Xbox Live Silver (no subscription required)
Xbox Live Gold (subscription benefits)

Features for Gold service
* Also for Silver
# Also for Offline

- Seamless transition to Xbox Live account from Xbox to Xbox 360
- Access to MMOs (additional fees may apply) *
- Free Xbox Live weekends *
- Multiplayer online gameplay
- Avatar for gamer profile * #
- Motto for gamer profile * #
- Personalized look for Xbox System Guide * #
- Offline achievments * #
- Online achievements *
- Access to other players’ Gamer cards via Live *
- Cumulative gamer score * #
- Location/language profile * #
- Reputation *
- Enahnced matchmaking using above
- Skill level matchmaking
- Gameplay style profile (casual, competitive, etc.)
- Recent players list *
- Free and premium download game content *
- Free and premium downloadable movies, music, tv *
- Downloadable demos/trailers *
- Microtransactions *
- Custom playlist in every game * #
- Play music from portable devices * #
- View images from digital camera * #
- Strem media from Windows XP * #
- Interactive screen savers * #
- Track info for CDs * #
- Communication with voice, video or text *

360 HW:
1. Support for DVD-video, DVD-Rom, DVD-R/RW, CD-DA, CD-Rom, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 cd, JPEG photo CD
2. All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
3. Customizable face plates to change appearance
4. 3 USB 2.0 ports
5. Support for 4 wireless controllers
6. Detachable 20GB drive
7. Wi-Fi ready

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
- 3 symmetrical cores at 3.2 GHz each
- 2 hardware threads per core
- 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core
- 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance
- 9 billion dots per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
- 500 MNz
- 10 MB embedded DRAM
- 48-way parallel floating-point shader pipelines
- unified shader architecture

Memory
-512 MB GDDR3 RAM
- 700 MNz DDR

Memory Bandwidth
- 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
- 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
- 21.6 GB/s frontside bus

Audio
- Mulitchannel surround sond output
- Supports 48khz 16-bit audio
- 320 independent decompression channels
- 32 bit processing
- 256+ audio channels

Ever wonder what this bittorrent thing was all about? Or how it works exactly? Well WikiPedia has a great page all about torrents and bittorrents.

BitTorrent is a popular protocol for downloading various files ranging from pictures and research documents, to fansubbed anime, and much, much more. This is a tutorial written to guide users on the usage of this protocol and various programs that harness its power.

Check it out.

Some stupid hackers got in and screwed with things. Must have been a Mambo hole or something. Oh well, fixed good enough for now. It was just the main index area, not the blog.

Technoratied: mambo, hackers

I’m still working with Blogger at times and I have to say that that system is not the best. It use to be good, however I think it’s gotten to big for itself. It’s always throwing up errors, hardly ever works correctly and doesn’t support more than one type of feed. It’s also great for spammers to go and create new content for no reason. It’s amazing that it’s a Google company and it’s quite lacking.

Technoratied: blogger, blogging, wordpress

It was leaked today and Adobe is quickly trying to clean up the mess, but it’s to late. Adobe Photoshop CS 2 is on it’s way.

New/Improved Photoshop features mentioned in the press release:

* Enhanced Spot Healing Brush
* Smart Objects
* Non-destructive editing of 32-Bit High Dynamic Range images
* Vanishing Point
* Image Warping
* Adobe Bridge
* Access to Adobe Stock Photos
* Camera Raw 3.0 workflow
* Event-based scripts
* Multiple Layer Controls

The official press release date was April 4th, 2005 and more details should surface around there. Photoshop CS2 will start shipping in late May/early June for $599.

Want more details? Read the PDF.

Technoratied [ Adobe, Photoshop ]

More web browser news, now there is a new site for Safari users to find out how to customize their browser. There is much more you can do that you probably don’t know about. Check out Pimp My Safari.