Recently in Software Category

And they've shared their sightings with everyone!

I am not the best person to say if the idea is good or not, but is looks amazing to me. I want one, and I want it now!!!!!

I really don't think that English is too hard, but maybe it's only me!

Some time ago, Apple released the Beta iPhone SDK, and with it a Developer Program that anyone could enroll, and that would be necessary to have one's apps eventually available at the App Store. After a couple of days, Apple started sending messages to the people that applied, and all of the messages had the same wording:

I've been thinking about the possibility of writing an app for the iPhone ever since it appeared on the news.

Two problems, though:

• I don't really know how to program anything other than some basic php stuff, and some SQL statements;
• There was no official way to develop for the iPhone, and the non-official way was way too difficult for someone like me.

That's when Apple released its SDK for the iPhone!

Whenever we get proficiency in any system, the user interface is crucial on the process. After all, it's through the user interface that the system can be used.

This is why it's important to have the software adapted to use the interface of the system in use. This is what FireFox is aiming with its next iteratition, where the interface for the Windows version will have the interface for both XP and Vista, and the version for Mac OS X will have the interface made specially for 10.5 Leopard.

It may be read on a article published in The Firefox 3 Visual Refresh: System Integration

A phrase on that article puts it in a way I could not say better:

a unified cross platform UI results in applications that at best feel foreign everywhere, and at worst don’t even feel like real applications

I think that's why people dislike RealPlayer so much!

Among other sites, one I like a lot is Mac Dev Center, from O'Reilly Network, which focus on the development of Macintosh apps. One of the columnists at Mac Dev Center is François Joseph de Kermadec, whose home page I couldn't get to display anything else but the first page -- maybe I'm missing something here!

At Mac Dev Center François writes about several things Mac that, most of the times are interesting. Not that I think that he is always right, but he writes well, and has good insights about lots of things, like this article about the color to be used on the desktop .

Most people I know never thinks much about it! Maybe because most people I know use Windows computers, and, as such, usually the front most app is maximized when in use. That means that the desktop picture (or desktop color for that matter) of choice is almost never apparent. Having said that, it's funny to think what people use as desktop backdrops.

I, for one, love the Mac OS X feature that allows the user to choose automatically, on every login, whick picture to use from a folder full of pictures. I have even managed to find a little program that makes the same thing on my Windows XP machine at work (John's Background Switcher.

To me there is very little problem to use a picture desktop, with lots of color and very busy. As I said above, I'm no different from most Windows users, and my aps are generally used in a maximized window. When I am at my Mac, at home I don't like to have my windows covering all my desktop, but, at the same time, I almost never use programs that would be hurt by a cluttered desktop (something like a image analysis and creation program).

I think I'll start using the bland desktop color that François suggests as a test, to see if the strain on my eyes is less than wht I am used to with the desktops I have been using for a long time.

I have just found an interesting site, where the author (Garr Reynold) writes about the art of creating and giving presentations. The site is called Presentation Zen, and the first article I read on it regards the differences on presentations addressed by Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

I read the article with great interest. Mr Reynold explain a lot of mistakes that people do when addressing presentations. Bill Gates makes most of the mistakes listed, like putting too much information in a single slide, but, as Mt Reynold says, he may do that and no one will ever notice.

But, for me and you, these errors are a matter of giving a good presentation or a sleepy one.

Fraser Speirs, a programmer/photographer from Glasgow, Scotland, has written an interesting article comparing Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom.

While I don't use any of those software (not that I don't want to, but that I can't due to lack of a computer at home), it was enlightening to read the article. I have thought that Aperture had a better approach to workflow than the one embraced by Lightroom.

Anyway, the article above gets to the point that I've been saying about software in general:

The best software is the one you know how to use better!

Microsoft has got a setback on their goals: ISO has rejected Microsoft's plea to put OOXML on the Fast Track Procedure to become an international standard.

This doesn't mean that OOXML will not be a standard, but else that Microsoft will have to answer all the questions raised by ISO members regarding the proposed standard.

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) has released an iMovie '08 review, where they make the point that this software is not as bad as some reviews are saying, and that to end users it may even be better than iMovie '06.

How come?

What's in an application that so many people have rants with it?

Apple launched a new version of its movie editing software, iMovie, some time ago, and everywhere on the net is possible to find reviews of it. Most of these reviews have complaints about the changes that were made to the app, while few develop on the things that, supposedly, make the app more adequate to novice users.