Receipts and warranty information have a tendency to get lost, usually when you need them most. You throw them all into a folder on your hard drive (or if your older than sin, a physical box), and have to search through countless PDFs and e-mails to find what you need. It might be a simple model number, purchase date, or even purchase price.
Minder Softworks has a fantastic piece of software that keeps track of all of your stuff, that is predictably titled MyStuff. MyStuff is a centralized location to keep all of the information relating to pretty much everything you have in your house. Okay maybe not everything, but close to it. → Read More
A few weeks ago, Jay-Z released the song “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” much to the delight of some corners of the Internet. It’s basically a song that rails against the proliferation of Auto-Tune, software that can alter/correct the pitch of someone’s voice. Its most notorious use is to make the singer sound like a robot, thus hiding their inability to sing at all. It’s huge in hip-hop, for whatever reason. → Read More
So it looks like the hot, new trend is to buy the name of old peer-to-peer applications, then “resurrect” said application. Such is the case with Kazaa, which was the biggest P2P application in the post-Napster extravaganza of the early 2000s. Anyhow, someone out there plans to bring Kazaa back—legally, of course. → Read More
Here’s a quick tip for you Mac users who are going to be downloading Firefox 3.5 today. Give this optimized version, named Shiretoko, a try. It’s only for Intel Macs, but it’s supposed to speed up boot time and whatnot. I don’t know, I use it (along with this icon pack) and, all things being equal, I think it works just swell. So give it a shot! → Read More
Well this ought to be of some use to our Chinese readers. And by that I mean people who are actually in China who visit, for whatever reason, crunch gear dot com. There’s some sort of software called Green Dam that will be required on all Chinese PCs soon that blocks all sorts of fun content from being downloaded and/or viewed. Salty political talk? Banned. Pornography? Banned. (Well that’s 90 percent of the Internet right there, silly political arguments (NOBAMA, REVERSE RACISM, etc.) and porn.) Tips on how to grow marijuana? Banned. Violent video games? Banned. Fun all around! → Read More
“Oh, FFS!” That’s what the likes of Norton and Symantec can be heard saying today with the news that Microsoft plans to release free anti-virus software, code-named Morro. (That’s the name of a beach in São Paulo, and is pronounced “MO hoo. Tell your friends.) A beta is expected “soon,” but Microsoft hasn’t said when the final version will be available → Read More
Panic, the maker of shockingly good Mac software, is having itself a nice little sale that you may want to take advantage of. From now until 11:59 PM PDT on May 29 (so, a little over a day) you can buy Transmist, Coda, Candy Bar and Unison for 50 percent off. → Read More
Here’s a random software recommendation for your Friday afternoon enjoyment. It’s Vox, it’s for Mac OS X, and it’s a lightweight music player. No, it’s not going to replace iTunes on your system—there’s no library feature, for one thing—but it’ll play some of the more obscure formats out there. → Read More
If you’ve never worked in an office where an unsuspecting co-worker gets an e-mail sent out on his or her behalf announcing that happy hour drinks are on the house, you haven’t LIVED! It’s the perfect way to teach someone that they should always, always, lock their computer whenever they head over to the break room to find that someone drank all the coffee and didn’t bother to make another pot. Those days may be about to end, though, thanks to Phoenix Freeze. → Read More
Battery from Native Instruments is a great piece of software. It’s a software sampler for drums and percussion with more than 12 GB of samples. Now you can get it for $99 and that’s like 57% off the original price. What are you waiting for? Get it from audioMIDI today. No need to hurry though: the offer is valid until the end of May. → Read More
A bunch of granola chewing hippies freedom loving technologists sent a letter to President Obama, encouraging him to consider open source software. Signed by representatives from Novell, Red Hat, Unisys, and a bunch of other open source solutions companies, the letter is well-written piece of advocacy. Of course, not everyone supports the initiative. → Read More
When we heard about iLife ’09 last month, Apple touted the Faces and Places features of the iPhone and image stabilization and precise editing in iMovie. How much does all of this pleasure cost? $79 or nothing if you get it with a new Mac. But is it worth the upgrade?
The most prominent additions are Faces and Places. Places uses embedded GPS data to place your photos on a map and you can use this information to make map-based video travelogues. Although this is great for iPhone shots – the iPhone embeds GPS coordinates in every photo it takes – it’s not so great for owners of non-GPS enabled cameras. While there are plenty of folks out there who use and need GPS information in their photos, those folks probably aren’t using iPhoto. It’s a nice to have but not a real draw. → Read More
Psst, buddy! Wanna make a quick $3,200? All you need to do is rat out someone you know who’s illegally using commercial software. Is $3,200 enough to compensate your lack of sleep and soul? → Read More
Whoever predicted that Apple would introduce iWork ’09 today gets a gold star. Keynote, Pages and Numbers all received what I would consider minor updates; no need to run around all willy nilly for these, methinks. → Read More
I’ve been looking for something like this my whole life — and of course now that I’ve found it, I can’t have it. MusicBox is the Masters thesis project of MIT Media Lab student Anita. I’ve never been impressed with things like Coverflow and Genius because they seem so shallow; there’s so much metadata in and around our music libraries that something more robust should certainly be possible, I always thought. And look, someone like-minded but far more capable than myself has created a powerful, intuitive, and attractive tool for visualizing, sorting, and playing your music. → Read More
