ZuDfunck

ZuDfunck's Perfect Twitter App: A Unibody MacBook

So I just downloaded A Twitter Client on my MacBook
And then it occurred to me
I don't need this Sh#t
My MacBook is my Twitter client!

Maybe folks who have big time work machines
With all the applications firing need a little cubby
That they can say is for Twitter

I am not so confined I have a 2.4 GHz MacBook
Devoted to the Twitter thang
Mostly a Firefox browser with some 8 tabs
Holding stuff I found from my RSS reader
Waiting an appropriate time to throw up from
My Hootsuite interface
Then monitor with my Twazzup search set to @ZuDfunck
As well as the Twitter homepage on another Tab.

Am I wrong or isn't that the perfect Twitter App?

So folks stop trying to sell me on the perfect Twitter App
For the Mac
The Mac is The Perfect Twitter App!

I would relish your comments
As I feel that is All
Unless you have something to say!

iPod Touch Bursts Into Flames While in Kids Pocket

As we turn our attention to things non-twitter we see this unfortunate kid who had an iPod Touch burst into flame. We are skeptical, but hey, we all got to get along.

The mother of a kid living in Cincinnati, Ohio is suing Apple and 10 unnamed retail employees from the Apple Store in Kenwood over an iPod touch that allegedly exploded in the child's pocket. According to the complaint filed yesterday in the Southern District of Ohio, the plaintiff had the "iTouch" (as the lawsuit refers to it) in his pocket during school when the unfortunate accident happened, resulting in hospital bills and other monetary losses thanks to the disintegration of the iPod touch and, well, the kid's clothes.

As the story goes, the iPod touch was sitting in the "off" position when it unexpectedly popped and caused the kid to feel a burning sensation. At that time, he stood up and noticed that his pants were, in fact, on fire. "Plaintiff A.V. immediately ran to the bathroom and took off his burning pants with the assistance of a friend," reads the complaint. "On said date and at said time, the Apple iTouch had burned through Plaintiff A.V.'s pants pocket and melted through his nylon/spandex underwear, burning his leg."

<!--Nerd alert -->

Upon learning these facts, much of the staff here at Ars took an inordinate amount of time out of our busy day to discuss whether this was a reasonable possibility. The lowest melting point of nylon is approximately 374 degrees Fahrenheit—a temperature that an iPod touch could not reasonably reach without you noticing beforehand (that's hotter than the temperature it takes to fry an egg, by the way). However, because the lawsuit claims there was fire involved, all bets have to be off. Fire is most definitely hot enough to melt nylon, and if there was an explosion to cause the "pop," then there may not have been a way for the kid to notice the heat beforehand.

<!-- End nerd alert -->

Source

Tweetie 1.3 Rejected for Offensive Twitter Trends

The App store must be managed by different folks than the dudes that built my MacBook. I just can't imagine the same people who design and manufacture such a beautiful machine could make such uninformed and ignorant decisions such as these:

Apple Trying To Catch Up with Palm & Windows Mobile On Stupid Decisions?

Oh boy.  We’ve known for quite a while that Apple has been making some inconsistent (and often absurd) decisions within their approvals / rejections process for App Store apps.  We’ve even seen recent anecdotal evidence that the approvals process in fact has no system at all, and decisions are subject to the whims of each individual reviewer.  Today we have news of probably the worst example yet of dumb decisions in this area.

The latest update to Tweetie – a hugely popular Twitter client for the iPhone – has been rejected on the grounds that it displays offensive language.  But … the language in question is found in Twitter trends search results displayed in the app.  In other words, it is found in a web search of a popular social network.  It is not language that is integral to the app itself.  As many others have pointed out, you could easily find more offensive words (and more) via searches in Apple’s own Safari app on the iPhone, or the much-loved Google Mobile app, and plenty of others.

Just a ridiculous decision.  An indefensible one I would think, if even a small amount of logic and knowledge of how the web works is applied.

I think Nilay Patel at Engdagdet has summed it up perfectly …

Look, Apple — this is a nadir. Rejecting a Twitter client for Twitter’s content is simply indefensible, and it’s a sign that the App Store approval "process" is broken beyond repair. It’s time to drop the seemingly-random black-box approach — which has earned nothing but well-deserved scorn — open up, establish consistent, easy-to-understand rules with a well-defined appeals process, and actually work with innovative developers like Tweetie’s Loren Brichter to push your platform forward in the face of newly-stiff competition. The massive popularity of the iPhone and the App Store may prevent a mass exodus, but the best devs are going to leave if they feel jerked around, and we doubt a store full of fart apps and misogynistic jiggle apps is really the vision you had for your platform. Think about it.

Continued

Apple MacBook Touch: Rumor or Reality

Although you all read Engadget I had to have this post on ZuDfunck just to capture the moment I heard  about this. I have been dreaming about a touchscreen MacBook forever!

Yesterday's Apple netbook rumor courtesy of the Commercial Times / DigiTimes combo just received a boost of credibility by sources (presumably independent) speaking to the Dow Jones Newswire. Citing "two people close to the situation," the DJ pretty much regurgitates the same info: Wintek will provide the touch-screen display which Quanta will manufacture into an Apple netbook as early as the second half of the year. The only new bit of information is the screen size said to be between 9.7 and 10-inches.

[Thanks, Sam; Image courtesy of Frunny]

Safari 4: The Day After It Killed My Cat

Well it is the Day after the Beta Rollout of Safari 4 and boy are my arms tired. If you monitored the twitter search here you can see where I got the inspiration to proclaim:

But Seriously, I loved that cat! He use to crawl in bed with me and...

The release of the Safari 4 Beta yesterday has generated a massive number of comments. Here are a few interesting tips, tricks and observations.

CNet benchmarked Safari 4's Javascript and found it to be 42x faster than IE 7, 6x faster than IE 8 and the fastest compared to any browser:

Javascript is a key scripting language that is heavily used in interactive websites such as GMail and MobileMe.

We previously discussed the inclusion of CSS Animation into Webkit and its long term implications. Well, the latest Safari 4 beta incorporates these new features which allows you to view these impressive demos that use CSS/Javascript (Safari 4 or comparable browser required):

CSS Animation: Falling Leaves, Bouncing Box, Pulse
3D with Canvas: JS Cloth, Miku, Touch (via Kawanet and Ajaxian)
Presentations: Sample slideshow (use right/left arrows to advance)

Finally, those who are still trying to get used to the new Safari 4 changes might want to follow these tips:

Safari 4 Hidden Preferences - how to move the tabs back to the bottom, restore the blue loading bar, turn off URL autocompletion, Google Suggest and more.
1Password - How to get 1Password to work in Safari 4

Via

Krapps Reviews iPhone App, Spank The Monkey

I am always thrilled at the ingenuity of Blogs and I frequent twitter in order to detect that ingenuity. Since everyone is abandoning Blogs for the sake of the Next Great Thing: TWITTER. I am delighted to find a Blog that I cite below named KRAPPS. It's a play on words that I don't yet understand. It's a review site of Applications available at the iTunes Store. Very delightful, he will be busy for as long as he wants:

Apple Is Creeping Us Out

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s been some really strange KRAPPS hitting the App Store lately. And no, we’re not talking about those sophomoric frat boy crude apps (sorry frat boy) like farts, burps and vomit. We’re talking some seriously weird apps … stuff most normal folks wouldn’t even think of.

Take for example those stress relieving apps … Zen Garden, Stress Reducer, Koi Pond, etc. Legit apps … they serve a purpose … we get it – it’s all good. But when Apple starts thinking that spanking serves as a legitimate stress reducer … well sorry, that’s just really demented. Yes, you heard it correctly … the KRAPPS bar has been raised - SPANKING APPS!!

Last week two spanking apps were approved by Apple … the Spank app and the Spank The Monkey (STM) app. Both are positioned as stress relievers and amazingly, Spank The Monkey is sold within the Heathcare & Fitness category. LOL … I seriously wonder if Steve Jobs even realizes the KRAPPS that’s being offered for the iPhone. Hey Steve, was that really your vision for the iPhone … for some screwball to use it for their spanking desires … errrrr … “stress relief”? There are so many places we could go with Spank and Spank The Monkey, but we’ll refrain and keep it at PG-13. DUUUDE – STEEEVE … COME ON!

And of course, what’s a KRAPPS without an entertaining app description – especially the plea in Spank about not using the app in a sexually suggestive manner … GEEZ!

Maybe it’s just us … maybe we need to broaden our horizons … but never in our wildest dreams could we imagine iPhone spanking apps. Something is going on at Apple and it’s really starting to creep us out. Source

iPhone Users Can Vote on Who Will Win the Oscars

Macworld covers the Apple World like no other, so please don't come after me for ripping this article:

Slumdog Millionaire, please collect your Best Picture Oscar.

Here’s how the Best Picture race is shaping up, according to Sonic Lighter.
Sonic Lighter users can use the color of their flame on the virtual lighter app to register their choice for Best Picture.

Oh, sure, the 81st Annual Academy Awards won’t be handed out until Sunday night. But if the users of the Sonic Lighter app for the iPhone and iPod touch are any indicator, then the makers of rags-to-riches story of a Mumbai teen might as well start memorizing their acceptance speech.

Sonic Lighter is a $1 novelty app that turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a mobile lighter. There’s a social network aspect to the app, too, as its developer, Smule, can track wherever someone “ignites” Sonic Lighter anywhere in the world.

To that end, Smule puts out Sonic Lighter updates that let users weigh in on issues of vital import—in this case the winner of the Best Picture award. As of this writing, Smule’s Sonic Lighter map shows Slumdog Millionaire leading the way with 37 percent of the vote. The lamentable Curious Case of Benjamin Button is in second right now with 27 percent, while Milk is in third with 16 percent.

Skeptical about the wisdom of iPhone-toting crowds? Smule notes that past Sonic Lighter surveys have correctly predicted the U.S. presidential election and the outcome of Super Bowl XLIII. (Though to be fair, barring a surprise surge by Ralph Nader either at the polls or on the gridiron, Sonic Lighter really had a 50-50 shot at calling either event correctly, didn’t it?)

Other Oscar-themed iPhone apps available for download in advance of Sunday’s festivities include:

• iSlumdog Millionaire : Speaking of Best Picture contenders, this $1 offering from CyberNet Consulting lets you listen to the movie soundtrack and look at production stills of the multiple Oscar nominee.
• Movie Challenge Oscar Special : Redwind Software produced a $1 Oscar-specific version of its Movie Challenge trivia game.
• Awards: Oscar Edition : The $1 app from CoreyDale offers Oscar history as well as a way to mark off and share your predictions for this year’s awards

The Case of iFart Mobile versus Pull My Finger

Sometimes posts just speak for themselves:

iFart Mobile takes Pull My Finger to court

Posted on February 13, 2009 02:38 PM by Joel Comm

My team and I came up with the idea for an iPhone fart application in summer of 2008. We knew it would be a hit. We just needed to develop it.

We took great pride in developing iFart Mobile. It was more than another iPhone application. It was a true entertainment machine with a unique interface. It didn't LOOK like an iPhone app.

When we submitted the application to Apple, it was put "in review". We were surprised because we had heard that Apple had rejected similar apps in the past.

So the app sat in review for several months.

On December 12th, I received notification that iFart Mobile had gone live in the app store. I believe there were two or three other apps that went live that day.

I immediately went into marketing mode, sending emails, making phone calls and writing press releases.

TechCrunch did an article that day, focusing on iFart Mobile and another fart app called Pull My Finger.

I've got nothing against the people who make Pull My Finger. In my opinion, their app was inferior to ours. My team and I strongly believed that when people were given a choice between the two, iFart would be the clear winner.

We were right. People LOVE iFart! We've been written about in dozens of publications all over the world, and my blog entries detailing our rank-to-sales numbers are now legendary in the iPhone development and tech community.

Pull My Finger debuted high on the iTunes charts, but fell very quickly as word of iFart Mobile spread. Combined with my direct marketing campaign to editors all over the web, iFart became a cultural phenomenon while the other app drifted into obscurity.

Differences Between Microsoft and Apple Retail Stores

These are great, I love the rivalry between Microsoft and Apple because it creates such emotion and humor. PC World offers up this:

Microsoft announced plans to open retail stores,hoping to boost visibility of many of its products and its brand. The move seems to be an effort to mimic the success that Apple has had with its retail stores. The news is just too tempting not to have some fun with. So here are some yet-to-be-officially-revealed details about the Microsoft stores.

1) Instead of Apple's sheer walls of glass, Microsoft's stores will have brushed steel walls dotted with holes -- reminiscent of Windows security.

2) The store will have six different entrances: Starter, Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. While all six doors will lead into the same store, the Ultimate door requires a fee of $100 for no apparent reason.

3) Instead of a "Genius Bar" (as Apple provides) Microsoft will offer an Excuse Bar. It will be staffed by Microsofties trained in the art of evading questions, directing you to complicated and obscure fixes, and explaining it's a problem with the hardware -- not a software bug.

4) The Windows Genuine Advantage team will run storefront security, assuming everybody is a thief until they can prove otherwise.

5) Store hours are undetermined. At any given time the store mysteriously shuts down instantaneously for no apparent reason. (No word yet on what happens to customers inside).

More

Go To Jail 5 Years For Jailbreaking iPhone?

Future conversation heard in prison: 'Yeah, so dude, what are you in for?' 

'You did what to your iPhone?' 'Jailbreak, your gonna break out of here? Guard!'

Ok so I don't write comedy, I am a click whore, not a writer! Here is NYTimes.com take:

Under copyright law, Apple would have the right to claim statutory damages of up to $2,500 “per act of circumvention.” People who jailbreak phones, might even be subject to criminal penalties of as long as five years, if they circumvented copyright for a financial gain.

“Apple is bringing the hammer down in a way that Congress never intended and is really severe for something that is just not wrong,” Ms. Granick said. An Apple spokesman declined to comment beyond its legal filing.

The issue will be decided by the Library of Congress by this fall after several hearings in the spring. This is the exasperating part. It’s hardly clear that the Library of Congress, which does look after copyright law, is the right place for this debate. After all, the copyrighted software is really a small part of a cellphone and not really part of the fundamental issue.

This is an issue that Congress may have to take up. Ms. Granick also pointed out that Congress has from time to time limited the ability of companies to use contract law to limit what buyers of their products can do with them. For example, car companies are not allowed to void warranties for people who chose to have repairs done somewhere other than at dealers.

Michael Phelps Bong Picture Captured With An iPhone

I love my iPhone even though it's touch screen surface is partially inoperable, I am waiting for the 3rd Generation coming out in June. But this isn't about ZuD, this is about your boy, Michael Phelps and his famous evening in South Carolina. Here's a story from The State:

Phelps had spent time in Columbia before.

His coach, Bob Bowman, is from nearby Irmo. One of Phelps’ closest friends played soccer at USC, and his ex-girlfriend attends USC.

Witnesses say as many as 30 to 50 people were at the Monday-night house party on Blossom Street. But the night began a few blocks away.

A female USC student said a group of friends were with Phelps at Village Idiot Pizza & Pub. The Devine Street restaurant buzzed as onlookers tried to get photos of Phelps.

As he stood between the bar and the kitchen, two Village Idiot employees attempted to limit access to Phelps, the female student said.

Earlier that afternoon, as Phelps ate at Mellow Mushroom in the Vista, employees kept a watchful eye on anyone who inquired about him.

But at the house party, anyone who wanted to chat up Phelps had easy access.

Tyson Sellers, a USC student who was at the Blossom Street house later in the week, wanted to take a photo of Phelps.

The Olympian declined, saying he couldn’t be photographed while drinking. But Phelps did agree to speak to Sellers’ mother — a big fan of his — on the phone.

When Sellers was at the house, he said, he didn’t see any marijuana smoking, but said Phelps had “a lot of girls around him.”

One female USC student, who said she has hung out with Phelps in Columbia several times, said it was another young woman who took the photo in question.

“She took her iPhone out of her pocket” and took the picture, she said. “I just thought, that’s (messed) up.”

But she doesn’t know the identity of the photographer, one of many people at the “The Michael Phelps Party.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever find out who took it,” she said. “It could’ve been anyone.”

iMovie'09 Reviewed by Duanne Allman 'er Andy Ihnatko

Ok you all know by now I am huge Mac Fanboy and I am awaiting the delivery of iLife'09 as we blog this. I thought this YouTube video summarizes why Apple is the leader in 'must buy techno crap.' Who else can entice a whole segment of America into adulation about computer software? This is from the Chicago Tech Dude who looks like he was a member of the Allman Brothers Band back when Duanne was still playing all those nasty hypnotic guitar solos:

iSteamPhone: The Reason You Can't Change The Battery

Not sure if I understand this, there is a steam engine inside my phone, OK. If this guy gets rich it would explain why I remain poor. "You just don't have the vision kid." Be that as it may, its' color and design please me enough to put it front and center on the VoiD, at least until the next post rolls around.

The T-Shirt:

Artist Kevin Tong captures the invention of daVinci, the imagination of H.G. Wells, and the brilliance of Jonathan Ive in this Exploded Phone drawing.

The 100-percent cotton American Apparel T-shirts (style 2001) are printed with soft-hand plastisol ink.

This 2-color design is oversized (11 inches x 16.5 inches).

Maureen Dowd Puts The Smackdown On Obama

I am not sure, but I considered all at the NY Times in love with President Obama. In the snippet below and the full article here Maureen Dowd has started the smackdown already:

It took Daschle’s resignation to shake the president out of his arrogant attitude that his charmed circle doesn’t have to abide by the lofty standards he lectured the rest of us about for two years.

Before he recanted, his hand forced by a cascade of appointees who “forgot” to pay taxes, his reasoning was creeping perilously close to that of the outgoing leaders he denounced in his Inaugural Address: that elitist mentality of “we know best,” we know we’re doing the “right” thing for the country, so we can twist the rules.

Mr. Obama’s errors on the helter-skelter stimulus package were also self-induced. He should put down those Lincoln books and order “Dave” from Netflix.

When Kevin Kline becomes an accidental president, he summons his personal accountant, Murray Blum, to the White House to cut millions in silly programs out of the federal budget so he can give money to the homeless.

“Who does these books?” Blum says with disgust, red-penciling an ad campaign to boost consumers’ confidence in cars they’d already bought. “If I ran my office this way, I’d be out of business.”

Apple Market Share Rises as Windows Share Drops

You can add my little MacBook purchase to the reason why:

Apple market share continues to climb, Windows drops

by Mel Martin on Feb 2nd, 2009

They are not dramatic changes, but they are steady and heartening to the Apple universe of users and developers. The trend continues from December numbers, and for Apple, all the trends are good.

Net Applications, a company that tracks operating system and market share by looking at results from search engines, reports that Apple has a 9.93% share of OS users for January of 2009, up from 9.63% the previous month. Windows OS market share measured 88.26% in January, dropping slightly from 88.7% in December.

If you add in iPhone users (0.48%) to the Mac OS X data, the Apple market share is 10.41%, which again, is higher that last month.

Browser shares are also an interesting data point. Net Applications says Microsoft's Internet Explorer has the lowest market share since they began tracking browsers in 2005. IE users now comprise 67.6% of the browsers online. In the last 12 months, IE has dropped about 8%.

For the third month in a row, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Google Chrome all gained market share at the expense of Microsoft. Safari's share of 8.3% is a record for Apple.

These numbers continue to be good news for Apple, a company trying to buck a nasty recession along with the rest of the industry.

SOURCE

MacTablet Seen at MacWorld 2009

Hundreds of Microsoft Zunes Mysteriously Shut Down, Priceless

I have been a Mac Snob for awhile but after buying my Tablet PC a little less so. So this is just too good to pass up:

"I was obviously distraught," says Sirois, whose Zune contains his music collection, wedding photos and home-made videos.

"I'm just miserable without it," says Katy Bertoldi, a 35-year-old accountant in Baltimore who has stored 3,500 songs and a couple hundred personal photos on her Zune. "It's personal. I'm upset right now."

"If this isn't fixed soon, Microsoft should compensate its customers in some manner," she says.

By late afternoon, Microsoft spokeswoman Katy Asher said the company had isolated the issue to a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year.

The company said the issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to Jan. 1, 2009. The internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset Thursday at 7 a.m. ET.

Owners of 30GB Zunes should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully. Ensure that the device is recharged, then turn it back on, Microsoft said.

Zune Pass subscribers may need to sync the device to a PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content.

The software giant offered customers further updates on the website.

The puzzling problem generated hundreds of complaints on the Zune-related websites and Microsoft's support forum. Some Zune users, citing the timing of the malfunction on New Year's Eve, are calling it the Y2K9 bug.

"What's really surprising is that this came out of nowhere," says Harvey Chute,. author of Zune for Dummies, says none of the other versions of the Zune — the 4, 8, 16, 80 and 120GB models — were affected.

Though the Zune commands just a smidgen of the portable digital player market, Microsoft shipped more than 1 million of the 30GB models between its November 2006 debut and when it was discontinued a year later.

Many Zune 30 users call them "little bricks" because of their shape and weight, with equal parts affection and derision.

Source

Mac Netbook Near?

Found this nice article with links to everything Mac Netbook, enjoy:

The Mac-netbook rumor is not a rumor anymore--it has morphed into a Mac-enthusiast campaign to get Apple to build and release a mini-notebook. The device, according to proponents, should be a cross between the iPhone and the MacBook Air.

With netbooks selling like crazy this year, the idea of an Apple mini-notebook with either a multitouch display or a smaller shape seemed inevitable. Analysts say that, due to the weak economy, netbooks might just be the right market for Apple to penetrate.

Regardless of whether you ask Apple nicely or you write an essay about it, this remains only a rumor for a mythical product. Steve Jobs has denied any forthcoming Apple mini-notebook, end of story. (Or is it?)

I hope Apple has a surprise for Mac-netbook fans at Macworld in January. But if Apple does deliver on the Mac netbook, I'm quite sure that it won't come as cheap as we would like it to.

Lets hope a touch screen netbook from Apple is near!

Apple Tablet or Mac Tablet Near?

As you ZuDDies already know I bought a HP Tablet running Vista last month and I am delighted. I would be ecstatic if a Mac version came out! Read what the rumor mill is saying:

Apple branching out in 2009?

Axiotron has a Mac tablet already, could Apple be planning to join them?

(Credit: Axiotron)

Familiar Apple rumors are making the rounds again this week as Macworld looms in the distance, one month away.

Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research put out a research note Monday morning spotted by D: All Things Digital saying that Apple plans to release something from "a completely new device category" next year. He fails to explain exactly what such a product might encompass, but speculates that it will be based around a processor designed by the former P.A. Semi engineering team.

As a result, the usual rumors (Mac tablet, iPhone Nano, iKindle) are under discussion within the Mac universe. Chowdhry believes that Apple patent filings will be released early in 2009 that will make everything clear, and also notes that P.A. Semi should have an iPhone chip out around that time that improves performance and battery life.

Earlier this year CEO Steve Jobs implied Apple was watching small-device categories like tablets and Netbooks to see if they actually take off as a mega-trend, but in the meantime the company had other priorities. Mac tablet rumors stretch back for years, and in the past Jobs has quickly shot down talk of an Apple-produced competitor to Amazon's Kindle, which has been interpreted as a sign Apple was doing just that.

Source

iPhone To Be Sold at Wal-Mart

The iPhone is coming to WalMart stores, though when and for how much is still unclear.

(Credit: Apple)

Four electronics department managers at Wal-Mart stores in Delaware, New Jersey and New York said Monday that they were already training employees to sell Apple iPhones. Two department managers, who didn't want their names used in this story, said the phones are expected to go on sale on December 28th. Bloomberg News reported Sunday that a Wal-Mart employee in Stockton, Calif. expects to start selling iPhones on December 15th.

Department managers on the East coast also said they expect to be selling both the 8 gigabyte and 16 GB versions of the phone. But they said they hadn't been informed of pricing yet.

The phones are currently available at Apple retail stores, AT&T stores and in Best Buy retailers, where the 8 GB phone is sold for $199 with a two-year AT&T service contract, and 16 GB phones are sold for $299 with a two-year contract.

Rumors have been flying around the blogosphere that Apple will sell a special 4 GB version of the iPhone at Wal-Mart stores for $99. A Wal-Mart employee at a store in Milpitas, Calif. told the San Jose Mercury News for a story published Saturday that she expects to sell a 4 GB version of the phone.

Source