My Favorite iPhone Apps of 2009

With 2009 coming to a close, and a time for giving thanks, I thought it would be a good time to talk about my favorite iPhone apps of the year. These are all apps I’ve purchased (some are/were free), and which I really enjoy or use frequently. Hopefully this short list can be of some use to others, by introducing you to some fantastic apps.

My Five Favorite/Most-Used Apps:

1. Reeder & Byline - Two very good Google Reader/RSS clients. Reeder currently has the advantage, with built-in Instapaper/Delicious support.
2. Tweetie 2 & Twitterlator Pro- Two fantastic Twitter clients. I switch back and forth between them.
3. Instapaper Pro - Essential app for offline reading of articles and websites. I use it constantly!
4. 1Password Pro - Synced with my Mac to access all of my randomly-generated website user name and passwords.
5. Facebook - Self explanatory; It’s a shame its developer Joe Hewitt has called it quits for iPhone development in protest to Apple’s App Store review policies. I understand & applaud him for his stand, it’s just the Facebook app is/was so good!

Note: Currently, Reeder & Twitterlator Pro have earned a coveted place on my 1st home screen.

Honorable Mention - Apps (in no particular order):

• Dropbox - A great free little app to sync documents with my Dropbox account (which deserves special mention itself!).
• GPush - Even though I use Google Sync (push Gmail via Exchange), I use Gpush to receive pop-up notifications of new emails as a work-around to Apple’s complete lack of an iPhone notification system. Hopefully Apple will implement email notifications, and I can drop Gpush.
• Sportacular - Sports score app with a fantastic push notification system for score updates.
• GVMobile - Available for free via Cydia for Jailbroken iPhones; Was on iTunes until Apple banned it in July, along with Google’s own client, for an unknown reason (probably competition)
• Mint - An iPhone client for the personal finance site.
• Wikiamo - A great free Wikipedia client.
• Delivery Status Touch - A great way to keep track of packages, and syncs with the free Mac Dashboard widget of the same name!
• Ultralingua French-English Dictionary - The most expensive app on my iPhone ($19.99), but one that comes in very handy for a French student.

My Ten Eleven Favorite Games (in no particular order):

• Harbor Master - A highly enjoyable Flight Control clone with more depth.
• iBlast Moki - The best physics-based puzzle game available for the iPhone.
• Doodle Jump - A very simple, yet very addicting platform jumping game.
• The Creeps - A great tower defense game with frequent updates.
• GeoDefense & GeoDefense Swarm - Two of the most difficult, yet rewarding tower defense games on the iPhone.
• Hearts Solo - Fantastic free Hearts game
• Bejeweled 2 - A great implementation by PopCap of the now classic gem matching game.
• StoneLoops! of Jurassica - A fantastic Zuma/Luxor clone; It’s a shame it’s been pulled from the App Store after a complaint from Luxor developer Mumbo Jumbo
• Tiki Towers - A fun physics-based puzzle games involving monkeys.
• MotionX Poker - One of the first iPhone games I purchased in July 2008, and still one of my favorites.
• Monopoly - A last minute addition to the list, I haven’t been able to stop playing it since I purchased it a few weeks ago. The classic Monopoly is much better than the year-old ‘Here & Now Edition,’ with improved graphics and stability.

Honorable Mention - Games (in no particular order):

• Rolando 2 - An original platformer made strictly for the iPhone!
• Castle of Magic - A very good platformer. Perhaps the best on the iPhone.
• Toki Tori - A puzzler involving a cute little chicken.
• GloBall - A fun little puzzle game, which was a top seller over the summer.
• Isotope, geoFighter, & PewPew - Three fun space shooters. Isotope is the best of the bunch, but geoFighter (a clone of Geometry Wars) and PewPew are also good for free.
• Peggle - PopCap’s other classic. Fun until I finished it, but not sure about the re-playability factor.
• Let’s Golf - A good, cartoony arcade golf game from Gameloft. Arguably better than the Tiger Woods game right now!
• Sky Burger & Scoops - Two similar, fun games involving stacking items of food. Sky Burger has a little more depth than Scoops.
• Fling! - A great puzzle game I was lucky enough to download when free. Still worth it at $0.99 or $1.99.
• Eliminate - The iPhone’s free FPS king with a very interesting business model involving in-game power-up purchases.

And finally, I’d like to give a special mention to Google Sync, which provides free push Gmail, GCal, and address book sync via Microsoft’s Exchange protocol. It’s fantastic, and works great! My only complaint: There’s currently no way to map deleting a message to moving a message to the trash, as opposed to ‘archiving’ the message. Also, you have to live with Apple’s current OS limitations, such as lack of email notifications (why I use Gpush, but is a bad substitute) and support for only one Exchange account.

Converting a .mkv to .mp4, & watching it on an Xbox 360

I recently came upon a 720p .mkv Matroska video file I wanted to watch on my Xbox 360 and HDTV. This presents a couple problems. One, the Xbox 360 doesn’t support the Matroska container. Two, the video file itself is over 4GB, and the FAT32 file system on my flash drive only supports files under 2GB. So, I needed to find a way to transcode the movie over to a .mp4 container, and split the resulting files to be smaller than 2GB.

I started out by looking at the video and audio tracks of the Matroska file with Mediainfo Mac. I discovered that the video track was standard .h264, while the audio was Dolby Digital (DTS). I didn’t want to have to re-encode the video (and loose additional quality) during the conversion to .mp4, so I threw out some common tools like Handbrake, in order to focus on tools that offered video pass through. One option is to use Quicktime 7 Pro to pass-through the video to a .mov file (which the Xbox should play). The audio track, however, becomes a problem, because you can’t passthrough DTS audio to a .mp4 file or .mov file (you must re-encode as AAC, and loose the Dolby). This also doesn’t solve problem two (the size issue). For more on using Quicktime 7 Pro for this task, & streaming via the excellent Connect 360 tool (which I didn’t want to do), check out this tutorial.

So, I think I found a better tool, which happily solves both of the above two problems - MKVTool (unfortunately, not free). The first thing I did with MKVTool was split the original Matroska file into 5 smaller Matroska files. Then, I converted each one individually over to .mp4, using “pass-through” for video and AAC for audio. Note that selecting passthrough for audio results in a completely dropped audio track, as the .mp4 container can’t take DTS audio. I also tried creating a .h264/DTS AVI file, which MKVTool warned probably wouldn’t play, and it was right.

Success! Using MKVTool, I was able to split and pass-through my .mkv movie over to the .mp4 container, and successfully play it off a flash drive on my Xbox 360. The only downside is loosing the Dolby surround sound during the conversion to AAC, but the resulting audio still sounds good to my ears. I’ll keep looking for better/free tools, and a way to keep the DTS audio so if you know of any, feel free to leave a comment!

The iPhone sucks in the US, & it’s AT&T’s fault - & Verizon’s, T-Mobile’s, & the FCC’s!

The iPhone sucks in the US. First, however, let me preface this by saying the problem isn’t with the iPhone or Apple - it’s with AT&T (and Verizon, T-Mobile, & the FCC - read on for more). In fact, I believe the iPhone is currently the best mobile device in the world. The opposite could be said about AT&T - that it’s the worst mobile network in the world - and that’s where the problem with the iPhone in the US lies.

MC Siegler over at TechCrunch recently wrote a sharp rebuke of AT&T for it’s network problems and handling of the iPhone. It’s good reading, and I have to commend him on his well deserved public condemnation of AT&T. Others, including ComputerWorld, have also covered the problems. Now it’s my turn. As you can read in depth about the problems in that blog post, I’ll only highlight some here:

• Visual Voicemail has been down for some for weeks, causing missed voicemail and no comment at all from AT&T
• AT&T’s online iPhone activation fails (2 years in a row) on iPhone 3Gs launch weekend, causing Apple to give free iTunes gift cards to rectify the unhappy sentiment
• iPhone OS 3.0 launches in US without support for MMS and tethering (2 of it’s big features) because AT&T can’t get its act together. Weeks later, these two features still are not available, and there’s no ETA.
• iPhone 3Gs users everywhere [else] enjoy faster 3G access due to built in support for 7.2Mbps 3G - except in the US, because it’s not supported by AT&T network (and won’t be until well into 2010 or 2011).
• AT&T ends iPhone pre-paid option, screwing both US customers and foreigners traveling within the US, who want local access, and are used to purchasing local pre-paid SIM cards wherever they go. The US is really the only country that doesn’t offer or makes it extremely difficult to do this. Read more here.
• AT&T’s network coverage sucks, and frequently goes down completely, leaving iPhone users unable to connect. For example, during the SxSW music festival in Austin, the network just crashes. People can’t get signals in major cities, and I, as an example, get cut off conversations with many times more static and dead spots than I used to a few years back with T-Mobile.  Why can other country’s mobile carriers have working networks in large cities, with just as many users, and without any of these problems, and AT&T can’t is beyond me. The blame has to be with AT&T.

All of these problems are truly reprehensible, and the blame lies entirely with AT&T. It also reflects poorly not just on AT&T, but also Apple due it’s exclusive arrangement. Unfortunately, it seems AT&t is just another example of an arrogant company that truly doesn’t care anymore! It makes no apologies for it’s failures, and makes no promises for fixes. AT&T should be doing everything possible to fix these problems in it’s effort to court Apple, and its not! This is just further proof that Apple should not renew its exclusivity contract with AT&T, or any other carrier.

However, I believe AT&T’s network and iPhone problems are just one piece of a much larger problem: the US mobile industry itself. Specifically, the fact that CDMA is used by half of the carriers, which decreases competition, and lousy foresight and steering by the FCC. Granted, AT&T is solely responsible for it’s own failures, but the fact that there is no competition (to force fixes & upgrades) is systemic in the US system (and furthered, of course, by AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity).

First, let’s examine the problem with CDMA. The US & South Korea are essentially the only countries using CDMA-based mobile networks. Every other country solely utilises GSM networks. GSM allows for cross-compatibility, global roaming, and increased competition at the network/service level. Thus, as CDMA carriers, Verizon & Sprint aren’t truly viable as competition to AT&T and T-Mobile. Then, there are the problems of varying GSM network bands in the US, which are often different from those used in rest of the world. T-Mobile’s 3G network band is all by itself - it’s the only network in the entire world on its band, making it entirely incompatible with AT&T and all other GSM networks, and like with CDMA, requires phone manufactures to create phones with specific support for T-Mobile USA (which is too small to matter to most manufactures to justify such a cost). This problem can be blamed squarely at the FCC, along with not mandating GSM and standardized network bands from the beginning. Then, there are anti-competitive business practices, like mandated phone exclusivity, long-term service contracts (even when a phone isn’t subsidized), and locked phones in general. All of these issues need to be corrected before the US mobile market is competitive and provides consumer choice.

In a globalized world, we can’t afford to be looking so internally, thinking that having an iPhone on Verizon would solve all of our problems. Likewise, we can’t look at the domestic-only compatibility of CDMA and not conclude it isn’t a huge liability. The GSM world standard exists for a reason, and it’s past time for the US to fully adopt it. People are too mobile, and phones manufacturers are too global-focused not to. For example, unlocked CDMA phones aren’t available; you can’t just switch out a card to change providers (in fact, you can’t change CDMA providers at all); and CDMA phone models are extremely limited (mostly to South Korean manufacturers), because a phone maker would have to build a phone specifically for the US market and a specific carrier. Indeed, Apple would have to build a version of the iPhone specifically for the US market and Verizon, which cant be used globally and can’t be used on any other network besides Verizon. This just isn’t practical! The only other GSM carrier, T-Mobile, isn’t really much competition because it’s 3G network sucks and isn’t even compatible with the 3G bands supported by the iPhone and 99% of other phones (leaving you with 2G only). However, Apple should end the AT&T exclusivity and allow T-Mobile to sell the iPhone, and leave it up to consumers which carrier to choose.

Surely, this lack of global compatibility is the largest overall problem with the iPhone in the US market. Just for comparison sake, consider Australia: There are four national GSM carriers, each carrying the iPhone unlocked (!), leaving consumers free to shop around for the best network and service prices. This kind of competition is what the US needs, and will only happen when the carriers all utilise the same network technology for cross-compatibility!

I, for one, refuse to even consider Verizon (even if it does have the “best” network) because I don’t want a phone locked to a legacy, isolated technology (CDMA), that won’t operate on any other network, or even globally. Besides, I want phone model choice and new technologies, and that only comes with GSM because it’s just not available with CDMA. Luckily, Verizon appears to understand, and is planning on migrating its network to GSM LTE 4G in the next couple of years (although I’m unsure what band). Unfortunately, that doesn’t help American iPhone owners now or next year. Until then, all we can do is light a fire under AT&T and hope they get there act together!

The New MacBook Pro 13” vs Previous MacBook

About a month ago, I recieved a brand new MacBook aluminum unibody, maxed out with a 2.4ghz CPU, 320GB harddrive, and 4GB of memory. I love it (except for a slight ding in the aluminum out of the box), although it did take some getting use to the smaller resolution after using a 15” PowerBook for almost 4 years. Fast forward to last Monday, when Apple announced that the MacBook aluminum model is being renamed a “MacBook Pro,” and gaining a few new features to go along with its new “professional” moniker. The upgrades over my last-gen version include:

• Slight CPU bump (from 2.4ghz to 2.56ghz)
• FireWire 800
• SecureDigital card slot
• Upgraded, non-removable battery
• Upgraded display (higher color gamut)
• Standard 4GB Ram (now supports up to 8 GB from 4GB)
• “Pro” name designation
• 64-bit Bootcamp driver support
• Removal of digital audio input
• Cheaper price ($100 less)

That’s it! The rest of the system remains the same as the previous-gen MacBook - same GPU, same chassis, same display resolution, same multi-touch trackpad, same weight and dimensions, but at about $100 less than the previous-gen. At first I was a little upset, but then I came to the following realizations. Sure, I would love a FireWire port and built-in SD card reader on my MacBook, but I would only use the Firewire port with my old digital video cam(which I haven’t used recently - I actually only used FW on my PowerBook for Target Disk Mode). I can always use an external USB card reader for reading my SD cards, and my dSLR uses CompactFlash anyway. The small CPU bump isn’t going to make much of a difference, and while I guess it would be nice for my MacBook to say “Pro” on it, the name really makes no difference. That leaves the upgraded display and battery as the “upgrades” I would benefit most from, especially the display (a better display is always nice, although I should note that its the same resolution as the previous MacBook display, which I haven’t noticed any problems with. It also would be a moot point if you use an external monitor).

The new MacBook Pro comes standard with 4GB of memory, which I already have in my MacBook, but it now supports up to 8 GB (I don’t think I’d ever install more than 4GB, but its nice to have the capability. As there are no chipset changes, the previous-gen MacBooks also could support up to 8GB, but must be artificially capped via firmware. Apple could fix this via an upgrade, but I doubt they will.) Along with the “Pro” designation comes 64-bit Bootcamp drivers from Apple, allowing you to run a 64-bit version of Windows (which is required to take advantage of more than 2GB of RAM). This is one feature I would definitely take advantage of, and one feature my current MacBook is actually already capable of. That’s right, any Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook is capable of 64-bit, but Apple has purposely blocked their non-Pro computers from installing the Drivers. Hopefully, Apple will rectify this crazy software-only feature distinction with Snow Leopard, since 64-bit is useful to all users (although again, I’m not holding my breath).

As far as the battery, the new battery features new technology that supposedly allows it to last doubly long before beginning to degrade (from 500 charges to 1000 charges) and get more life out of each charge. Gizmodo has done some preliminary testing, and the difference appears to be about 40 extra minutes (see diagram below, and read thereview over at Gizmodo), which is pretty significant! However, there is a downside! The new battery is non-removable by the user, and must be replaced by Apple, where it will cost $175 for replacement rather than $120. Likewise, the longer life claim has yet to be proved in general use.

So, all-in-all, the upgrade is a great one for those needing to upgrade. I really have to applaud Apple for creating a really great computer! But at the end of the day, I’ve concluded that not having the latest and greatest “MacBook Pro” isn’t really that big of a deal. Sure, the new model has some great features, but my last-gen MacBook performs just as well in almost all areas (with the exception of the CPU, display, and battery), and so far, I can say I don’t have any complaints!

Diagrams from Gizmodo.

My iPhone 2010 and OS 3.x/4.0 Wishlist

Now that the WWDC keynote has come and gone and all of the announcements have been sifted through, it’s time to discuss the iPhone 3GS. Most of the rumors turned out to be inaccurate. The 3GS doesn’t contain a front-facing camera or iChat app, nor did it drop the chrome bezel gain a light-up Apple logo, or a rubberized back (but it does have a new “oil and print resistant” glossy back, whatever that means). Likewise, the rumored FM radio support is nowhere to be found. However, the iPhone 3GS is not all disappointments. It’s 2x faster than the 3G, due to a memory and presummable CPU/graphics upgrade, but we’ll have to wait to see this new-found power taken advantage of by apps and the OS (bring on the multitasking!) beyond increased general snappiness. The 3GS does indeed have an upgraded 3mp camera with video recording, a compass, improved battery life, and answering one of my biggest requests, finally voice control (although I don’t understand why it’s not supported on older models). Additionally, the 3GS has faster 3G (which won’t be supported in the US until AT&T gets around to upgrading their network by “2011.” Finally, the price is right, at $199 for 16GB or $299 for 32GB with a two-year contract (unless you’re getting screwed by AT&T, which I’ll save for a later post). So, it’s time to cross off the features from my wishlist that came true and will be available on either the iPhone 3GS or iPhone OS 3.0, and which features will have to wait for the next hardware or software revision. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if I can wait a whole year or longer for some of these features (like smart notifications & push Gmail), so I hope Apple has some of them planned for a 3.1 or 3.5 update in the shorter term.

So, without further ado, let me present my iPhone 2009 and OS 3.0 wishlist iPhone 2010 and OS 3.x/4.0 Wishlist (Note: My absolute, must-have features are in red and I will continue to update this post as new feature requests come to mind, and features get added to the iPhone):

iPhone Hardware:

• Faster processor and more internal RAM - Feature included in iPhone 3GS!
• Front facing camera (for video chat)
• OLED display
• Lacks chrome bezel; slimmer (like iPod Touch)
• Higher resolution rear camera (with video functionality) - Feature included in iPhone 3GS!
• 720p HD Video - iPhone 3Gs hardware is capable of this, just needs a software update!
• FM radio
• Wireless iTunes syncing (w/o MobileMe) and charging
• Louder speakerphone - unknown whether included in iPhone 3GS?

iPhone OS 3.0:

• Application multitasking w/ Exposé app. switching (true multitasking, not just push notifications)
• Smart Notifications: No more obtrusive pop-ups! Use smooth slide-up notifications that appear on bottom of screen like Palm WebOS. Notifications for Mail, SMS, iChat, Calendar, iPod, etc. Developer API. iPod music control via slide-up notification bar as well.
• Voice Calling/Control - feature included in iPhone 3GS!
• Easier way to turn on/off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, & Airplane mode (perhaps through menu bar dropdown menu toggles); usable from any app
• Mail: IMAP-Idle for Push Gmail; multiple Exchange accounts; unified inbox (for multiple accounts); ability to select a different “from” address for sent mail; custom SMTP servers; attachments (multiple photos & documents)
• iChat: Multi-service IM; video and audio chat; background support
• Search: Searches Mail message contents; Internet searches (Google, Twitter, etc.); Developer plug-ins for installed apps
• iPod: Create & Edit Playlists on iPhone; Easier update to all “subscribed” podcasts (w/o having to open iTunes app); Internet Radio
• Calendar: To-Do lists w/ desktop sync; Built-in Google Calendar sync; Ability for apps to read/write cal data(ex. Movie app scheduling a show time in calendar)
• Safari: Flash support; increased browser cache (to speed up reloads when re-launching app); additional search providers
• Springboard: Increase installed app limit; folders; improved icon organization (perhaps through iTunes); custom wallpaper
• Maps: GPS supported turn-by-turn directions (through 3rd-party apps like TomTom); social friend-finding
• Document Editing/viewer (with local storage & Office file support)
• Camera/Pictures: Improved autofocus; digital zoom; video recording; Tagging/Rating; uploading to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, YouTube, etc.; Better way to manage Camera Roll photos on device (multiple delete at once, folders)
• Social/Web 2.0 Integration: Built-in support for Web 2.0 services like Google address book/calendar, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr throughout the OS; allowing internet searches; automatic push synchronization of address book/calendar; status updates; picture posting, seeing friends in map via GPS, etc. (like Palm WebOS’s Synergy feature, but better!)
• Spell checker with linked dictionary/thesaurus app (like OS X has, useable in any app.)
• Combine iTunes & Apps store app into one “iTunes app” for all purchases
• Built-in RSS app. with full Google Reader integration/sync.
• Notes syncing - included in OS 3.0!
• Copy/Paste - included in OS 3.0!
• Voice Notes - included in OS 3.0! (as a separate app, not integrated into Notes)
• Internet Tethering - supported in OS 3.0, but not by AT&T (and probably too expensive when finally supported “later”)!
• More gestures to do neat things and make use of the iPhone’s multi-touch

iPhone OS 3.0 Wishlist (Old)

Apple will be holding a special media event on March 17th to announce the next revision of the iPhone OS, and in order to stay competitive with up and coming OS’s like the Palm WebOS and Android, there are a few things I would like to see included:

• Background Apps / Multiple apps. open at one time
• Exposé - a way to switch between open apps without having to go back to the home screen
• Notification area - interactive notifications (not pop-ups) like on the WebOS for incoming Mail, SMS, events, IMs, etc.
• iChat - Built-in iChat client with voice and video chat support (utilizing the next iPhone’s front-facing camera)
• MMS - I never use text messages, and if I do I don’t include a picture, but many people wish the iPhone had MMS from the beginning!
• Multiple exchange accounts
• Built-in web service integration (Google/Yahoo/Facebook contacts and events show up and sync to iPhone, etc. like with WebOS)
• Notes syncing
• Tasks/To do list support in calendar
• FLASH!!!
• COPY/PASTE!!!
• More apps on switchboard (perhaps through folders)
• iPod: Edit playlists on iPhone; internet radio
• PUSH GMAIL!!!
• Document editing (a TextEdit mobile if you will)

Note: I updated this post after Apple’s media event, striking through announced features.

My thoughts on Safari 4

Earlier this week, Apple released a beta of its latest and greatest version of Safari (4.0). Utilizing the latest WebKit, Safari 4 makes impressive leaps in standards compliance and speed, incorporating a speedy new JavaScript engine called Nitro and many HTML 5 features, such as client-side database storage. Safari’s interface also features a facelift, which in my opinion, is long overdue! Some of its new eye candy includes a revamped toolbar, which moves slimmer tabs to the top (à la Google’s Chrome), a “smart” address and search bar, CoverFlow for bookmarks & history, and a new “Top Sites” view, which displays your most visited sites in a 3D fashion (a version of Chrome’s “Recent Pages” page, with souped-up eye candy). I’m very thankful Apple is moving Safari forward, but I am a little concerned that with the current speed of Chrome and FireFox releases(and MS’s new-found intensity with IE 8 ), it’s taken the company almost two years to do it. Apple can’t expect to compete in the browser space (at least on Windows) if major Safari releases only come once a year - Safari needs to be constantly updated with new features. Like many people, I spend the majority of my time in front of my computer using a browser, so not surprisingly, I want my experience to be good, fast, and lightweight on resources. Now that I’ve made my rant on update frequency and browser usage, let’s look at some individual complaints I have about Safari 4 after a day of use, and my wish list of features for the future:

Safari 4 Complaints:

• Speed/Performance: While Safari 4’s speed is touted as a major feature, and its render may be faster, the whole app feels slower - and this is ultimately what counts! On my PowerBook, Safari 4 uses more resources and feels at least 50% slower than Safari 3. On Windows, rendering common web pages and navigating the app in normal usage felt at least twice as slow as my current browser of choice, Chrome. I’m wondering if any of this has to do with the new eye candy - CoverFlow and “Top Sites” views - if so, it would be nice if we could turn them off. I don’t want to sacrifice speed for superfluous eye candy. Bottom line: Safari 4’s interface and the general app needs to be faster in order to compete!

• Not Good - “Safari Webpage Preview Fetcher” using 90%+ of my CPU: This is not good at all, especially on a laptop. My PowerBook’s fan is spinning out of control, and I’m being burned (not to mention the battery is draining extremely fast). It’s been doing this all day, and luckily, I’ve been close to a power source. This in itself will make me ditch Safari 4 and go back to Safari 3! I mean, come on - I have about 5,000 bookmarks. This is ridiculous - I don’t need or want all of them cached or fetched, using precious system resources and capped bandwidth to do it!!! Bottom Line: Fix it! Allow us to turn it off! I don’t want this running all the time, fetching my bookmarks even if it doesn’t use resources like this.

• No top bar for window management: On my Mac, there’s no top bar to grab an inactive window. If I click a tab at the top, Safari changes to that tab. I’m hesitant about clicking the top to move the window around as well. This hurts usability, and clashes with the Mac user interface guidelines. Bottom Line: Either there needs to be a little top bar (which even Chrome has a little of), or tabs shouldn’t change if the Safari window is in the background.

• Grabbing a tab: With Safari 3 (and Chrome), you can grab a tab anywhere on the tab, and rearrange it or drag it to a new window. With Safari 4, there is a specific spot you have to click to drag it. This is a step backward. Bottom Line: Bring back the old behavior!

• Top Sites: I like the idea, but I have mixed thoughts on the implementation. Off the bat, it’s a lot slower than Chrome’s version, no doubt due to the 3D UI. It looks cool, I guess, but I don’t think it works better. In fact, I feel it’s slightly more difficult to find the “Top Site” I’m looking for than with Chrome’s version (perhaps due to the roundedness?). I also like how Chrome integrates recent searches into this page. “Top Sites” also doesn’t seem to be refreshing the site thumbnails to the last loaded version - it’s still showing a log-in prompt from earlier on one site, and CNN from this morning which makes it even more difficult to tell what it is, and thus, less useful. It’s also slow to load the site after clicking a thumbnail - there’s a little zoom animation, where the thumbnail enlarges but remains dimmed for a few seconds until the page loads. Bottom Line: Fix the thumbnail, speed, & usability issues.

• No way to turn off or hide the CoverFlow view: I’ve never found CoverFlow particularly useful in any of its various implementations (iTunes, my iPhone, in the Finder), and I don’t think I’ll find it useful in Safari. Instead, my initial experiences confirm my 1st thoughts - it draws a lot of resources to cache and display the web page previews. Additionally, and here’s my biggest gripe - it takes up a lot of room in the bookmark/history window, and there is no way to turn it off or hide it!!! Bottom Line: There must be a way to turn off or completely hide the CoverFlow view in Bookmarks (either by a “Show CoverFlow” menu item or a preference option).

• Smart Address Bar, not so smart?: I’ve tried typing in both the names and addresses of some bookmarks and frequently visited sites into Safari’s version of FireFox’s ”Awesome Bar,” and it doesn’t show the expected sites. So, it doesn’t seem so smart or awesome, and it certainly isn’t very useful! I’ll keep testing, and report back, but the bottom line here is that it should work. If I type in Mint, it should return one of my bookmarks and frequently visited sites - mint.com (it didn’t). Another example, if I type “Wordpress” or “Blog Admin,” Safari doesn’t return my blog admin site (called in my bookmarks, “Jeff’s Blog Admin - Wordpress”). Useless!

Feature Wish List:

• Bookmark Tagging/Starring: One of the features I love from FireFox 3 is it’s bookmarking system. I can easily star a page, which I use to mark temporary sites I want to go back to - the star amounts to a bookmark in an ”unsorted” folder, which I can later delete or file away. I can also easily add tags to a bookmark when adding, making it easier to find or sort later. One other nice feature of FireFox & Chrome is the pop-down bookmarking interface from the toolbar, accessed by clicking the star, which is a lot better than Safari on OS X’s roll down sheet or Safari on Window’s pop-up menu.

• Bookmark Separators: Come on Apple, I’ve been wishing for this for years. Those little lines that make it easy to organize and divide your  bookmarks. Please? Pretty Please?

• Extensions: I’m sure I’m wishing for pie in the sky here, considering Apple’s legendary reluctance to allow outsiders to add or alter their meticulously designed user interfaces. Not to mention the fact that extensions could slowdown performance and/or stability and degrade the overall Safari experience. However, extensions are the one and only reason I come back to FireFox. When Chrome gets extensions (apparently by May), I may no longer have a need for FireFox at all. Bottom line: Safari’s lack of extensions only puts it farther behind the competition!

• Custom Search Provider Plug-ins: Firefox and IE do it, so should Safari. By the way, why do Window’s Safari users get an option to choose Yahoo for the search box, but Mac users don’t? Strange!

• Multi-process Windows/Tabs: For speed and stability, I’d like to see Safari use individual processes for each window or tab. This would help keep the entire app from slowing down when a single site is running slow due to a flash or a script (and I’ve experienced this more than I care to admit), crashing, and allow the app to release memory as a window is closed (and we all know how much of a memory hog Safari is).

• Visual Indication of Private Browsing: I like how Chrome darkens the app UI to indicate a window or tab is in “Incognito” mode. Safari should offer something similar. There have been many times where I have forgot I had private browsing enabled, and wondered why site’s were complaining about cookies not working!

How-To: Route internet traffic through an SSH Proxy

Say you’re out somewhere (a wi-fi hotspot) for example, and you either want to access a site that’s blocked or you want a little more security, you can create a SSH tunnel from your computer to a remote computer. If you don’t have a UNIX box at home that you can connect to, a web hosting account works great! Here’s how to do it the quick an easy way, with a GUI, and then a different, slightly more complicated way.

The Quick and Easy, Automated Way:

• Download a free utility called SSHTunnel
• Fill in your SSH account info in the ‘Servers’ tab (note: SSH usually connects over port 22)
• Go back to sessions, and select either Ethernet or Airport proxy (depending on your connection), select your server, and click on.
• That’s it! SSH will turn on, and all internet traffic will be routed through the remote SSH host via an encrypted tunnel. (Note: SSH internet tunnel usage will probably count against your monthly hosting bandwidth - so, be careful!)

The More Advanced GUI Way (A little complicated, and unnecessary):

• Use SSH Tunnel Manager
• Setup your server, and enable it (see below for more) - For this technique, you have to set up each and every port redirect (HTTP, for example, is usually over port 80)
• Setup your SOCKS proxy (see below)
• Browse away!

The Down and Dirty CLI Way:

• Open up the Terminal, and type ‘ssh -ND 9999 user@host.com’ (9999 is the local port to be forwarded - you can use whatever as long as its not already in use)
• Enter your password when prompted (or set up SSH key exchange for password-less access)
• It will look as if nothing has happened - the ‘-n’ flag cancels the SSH interactive prompt
• Go into your browser, and enter the just setup SSH proxy info (Safari uses system proxies, FireFox has its own settings) - Select SOCKS proxy, and enter ‘localhost’ as the server and ‘9999’ as the port
• Browse away!

For more, check out these posts:

• http://lifehacker.com/software/ssh/geek-to-live—encrypt-your-web-browsing-session-with-an-ssh-socks-proxy-237227.php
  
• http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/05/16/how-to-surf-securely-with-ssh-tunnel

Top Tech of MacWorld & CES 2009!

Here’s a quick rundown of my favorite announcements coming out of MacWorld and the Consumer Electronics Show:

• Palm Pre & Palm’s WebOS: Serious iPhone competition! Look for a future post.
• MSI Wind X320: A fantastic copy of the MacBook Air (at only aprox. $800 too!)
• Sony Vaio P: An incredibly thin and tiny netbook, but expensive for what it is.
• Apple iLife 2009: Looks like there are some good updates to iPhoto and iMovie - Places will herald the arrival of GPS-enabled consumer cameras; Faces; iMovie image stabilization
• Yahoo Connected TV Platform
• Thin, light, pocket HD video cams: with USB 2.0 (in lieu of FireWire)

Amazon Kindle 2.0 Wish List

I’ve been looking at the Amazon Kindle for a while now, and have never been quite ready to take the plunge and purchase the device for its $350 asking price. Don’t get me wrong - the Kindle is a fantastic little device, I think truly heralds the forthcoming e-ink revolution. However, there is a lot of room for improvement, and with the recent rumors about a forthcoming Kindle 2.0 (next year) and a “Kindle for students,” I thought I would weigh in with some feature suggestions that would truly excite me:

• Smaller, thinner, lighter - better design (Apple-like), black/metal (since white gets dirty)
• Richer formatting: Perfect for textbooks, images, and those many newspapers & magazines
• Native Document Viewer/Editor: Supporting .doc, PDF, rtf, etc., supporting direct copying via USB or wireless without having to convert the file or pay a “small fee.” Being able to edit (with keyboard)/annotate/highlight said documents would be an extra special touch).
• PC Viewer Software: Lightweight PC/Mac viewer, allowing us to view our Kindle purchases on our computers in full color, synced over the air with all of our annotations,bookmarks, and highlights. Being able to view richly-formated color pages would be perfect for textbooks, with diagrams, and newspapers with vibrant images.
• Multi-Lingual Dictionary: As a language student, consistently reading French novels and textbooks, a multi-lingual French and French-English dictionary would be a fantastic addition to the built-in English dictionary (as long as its quick/easy to lookup needed words) - great for when reading my Le Monde newspaper subscription as well!
• Touchscreen
• I don’t care about the media features, as I would listen to MP3’s and audiobooks on my iPod anyway - focus on books and document viewing, and maybe through in some internet features to take advantage of the Whispernet (at no or a very small fee), such as:
  • Web browser
  • Google Reader RSS integration
  • Email reading (with push)

The Kindle gets a lot right, including cheap book prices and fantastic (repeat - fantastic) newspaper and magazine subscription options, at great prices. I especially like the international options, such as Paris’s Le Monde. Hopefully, Amazon can bring more non-English/international novels and material into the kindle universe in the future. With richer formating, multi-lingual dictionary, and a native document viewer, the Kindle would be a must have device - and I would be right in line among its first buyers!