We all know that Steve Jobs acquired Pixar in 1986. The studio released it’s first mega hit, Toy Story, in 1995, continuing on to win award after award with fantastic storytelling and groundbreaking computer animation techniques. A creative studio like Pixar needs a creative workplace environment, no? Andrew Gordon tells the story of one such secret place in the Pixar compound in an animated (natch) YouTube video.

Part of a series called Pixar Studio Stories, Where’s Gordon is an animated narration of a story told by a Pixar employee. When Pixar moved into their new building, animator Andrew Gordon found himself in a office with a tiny door and key. The access hatch led through some tight air conditioning vents to a large space that Gordon then decorated with Christmas lights, then pillows, then a bar (of course). As time and decorative improvements went on, his boss, Andrew Stanton (director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E found him. Instead of instantly firing Gordon for non-work activities, Stanton loved the spot, and began bringing by all the bigwigs from Pixar, including Steve Jobs. Watch the video below and listen for the sound effect when Jobs is mentioned.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMrk_wyWM1w

Hilarious, right? Just another example of a place we’d like to work. After Cupertino campus itself, of course. What would YOU do with a Lucky 7 Lounge at your place of work? Let us know in the comments below.

Source The Next Web

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Yeah it’s the set of apps we love to hate—Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. I know, it’s all be downhill since Word 6.0, but still MS Office is the standard for sending and receiving files. Myself, I’ve always liked Excel and I taught myself how to use Pivot Tables, but it wasn’t fun or easy. When I told other people “Oh, just use a Pivot Table and you can do all of that…” their response was “That’s too hard to learn, I’ll do it the way I’ve been doing it…”

Wow.

So how would you like to tap into all the features of MS Office 2011? Really learn it inside and out? Now you can with today’s deal—Microsoft Office for Mac Video Training Bundle for only $79! That’s almost a 60% discount off the usual $196!

Here’s what you get:

Microsoft Word 2011 Video Course (4.5 hours of video content)

Get a fast and effective guide to the world’s most widely used word processing tool with this video course!

What You’ll Learn:

• How to create professional quality letters, manuals and presentation-ready documents with one of the world’s leading office productivity tools.
• How to manipulate and implement text and data within complex projects and workflows, including marketing and email campaigns.
• How to create fully compatible documents and projects that can be accessed by users working with Office for Mac products as well as Windows counterparts.

Microsoft Powerpoint 2011 Video Course (4.5 hours of video content)

Utilize the powerful hands-on resource for learning the world’s most popular professional presentation tool with this video course.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to create professional quality presentations, slideshows and basic animations with one of the world’s leading office productivity tools.
• How to manipulate and implement information and multimedia a wide range of projects.
• How to create fully compatible documents and projects that can be accessed by users working with Office for Mac products as well as Windows counterparts.

Microsoft Outlook 2011 Video Course (3.5 hours of video content)

Cover a wide range of the program’s functionality, from powerful email functions to calendar features to comprehensive task management, calendar features and notes with this video course!

What You’ll Learn:

• How to create professional quality emails, professional notes and boardroom-ready events and invitations with one of the world’s leading office communications tools.
• How to manipulate and implement contact and organizational data data across a wide range of projects and accounts.
• How to create fully compatible meetings, contact cards and messages that can be accessed by users working with Office for Mac products as well as Windows counterparts.

Microsoft Excel 2011 Video Course (5.5 hours of content)

Lastly, learn how to effectively use the many dangerously power features and functions of MS Excel with this video course.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to create professional quality spreadsheets, workbooks and presentation-ready charts with one of the world’s leading office productivity tools.
• How to manipulate and implement data across a wide range of projects.
• How to create fully compatible documents and projects that can be accessed by users working with Office for Mac products as well as Windows counterparts.

You can get each of the courses on their own for $29 (which is a 40% savings on its own!) or get the bundle of all the courses for only $79 (saves you $37!). Remember the $79 gets you almost $200 worth of training…that’s a 39% savings for the entire bundle!

If you really want to set up your game with MS Office and learn how to really use these apps pick up the MS Office 2011 training bundle now.

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According to Foss Patents, Apple filed a motion for an immediate US ban of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 yesterday. This comes in the wake of Monday’s Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruling that was partially in favor of Apple.

If Apple’s motion succeeds, there will then be a US ban in place against three major Android device makers. Last December, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) banned specific HTC products based on an Apple patent and this past Friday, the ITC banned some Motorola devices based on a Microsoft patent. Seems like litigation is the new weapon of choice in this war of supremacy.

As Apple filed the new motion on Friday, settlement talks won’t likely take place until Monday or Tuesday, with Apple proposing to give Samsung until the end of May to respond. The same court will also hold a hearing on a second, separate motion filed by Apple against Samsung on June 7.

Samsung will most likely redesign it’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 to comply with any ruling in Apple’s favor, like it recently did in Germany. To be honest, this whole back and forth will likely continue for a while, as the Apple and other large companies battle it out for the lucrative tablet market, where iPad currently reigns supreme among strong challengers like the Tab.

Source: Foss Patents Via: Engadget

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Sega finally made a Sonic game that works well on iOS.

It’s been nearly two years since Sonic The Hedgehog: Episode I made its debut on consoles, and Sony has finally managed to deliver a sequel. Thankfully, it was worth the wait — and it leads this week’s roundup of must-have iOS games.

We’ve also got Bejeweled for the iPad, a Doodle Jump knockoff that’s even better than the original, a monkey that flies an airplane, and more.

Unlike some of Sega’s Sonic games on iOS, Episode II is an absolute pleasure to play on a touch-based device.

As you’d expect, this release follows the events that occurred in the first episode, with Metal Sonic returning to form an alliance with Sonic’s biggest foe, Dr. Eggman. Sonic calls upon Tales to help take on the duo across four brand new zones — all of which are optimized for high-resolution Retina display devices. The most enjoyable feature in this release is the ability to team up with friends over Bluetooth, allowing you to control Sonic while they take Tales.

There’s no doubt about it — this is the most stunning Sonic yet.

I have a little addiction to Bejeweled. It’s not something I’m proud of, but there’s something about this intense puzzle game that gets me hooked, and I’ll play it constantly for weeks at a time. Just after getting over my last stint, PopCap gave me another reason to pick it up again: Bejeweled HD for the iPad.

It’s just like the latest release of Bejeweled for iPhone — with the same game modes, achievements, and powers — only it’s bigger and more beautiful.

There’s no doubt about it, Jumping Knights is more or less a Doodle Jump knockoff, though it does offer a lot more. Like Doodle Jump, it’s a whole lot of fun and incredibly addictive, with added RPG elements that make it all the more enjoyable.

The aim of the game is simple: Jump as high as you can for as long as you can while collecting gems and fighting monsters in a bid to rescue the princess. Use your iPhone’s accelerometer to guide your character between platforms, fire “sword energy” using touch controls to take down your enemies, and level up to improve your chances of survival.

Join daredevil scientist Chuck Darwin’s elite team of zoological defenders and embark on a globe-trotting adventure to rescue endangered animals from extinction. Dodos, gorillas, pandas, lions and more are GOING TO DIE unless you catch them with your official Extinction Squad trampoline and bounce them to safety.

That’s right — it’s up to you to save endangered animals from extinction using only a trampoline. What?!

As each animal throws itself off cliffs and mountains (it’s no wonder they’re endangered, right?), it’s your job to stop them from hitting the ground and making a nasty mess. It’s simply, but it’s lots of fun, and the perfect pick-up-and-play game for a boring weekend.

You are a monkey… flying an airplane. What else do you need to know about this game?

After an “evil viking gorilla has strewn frightful orange balloons across the lands, simply to strike fear into the hearts of its peaceful inhabits,” it’s up to you, a monkey flying an airplane, to use your ballistic skills and destroy each and every “balloon of terror.”

It sounds crazy, and it is.

So that concludes our list of this week’s must-have iOS games. If you’ve picked up something that you think we should have included, be sure to let us know about it in the comments.

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There are currently two movies about Steve Jobs in the works. The one we’re most excited for is based off Walter Isaacson’s official biography and is being made by Sony in conjunction with Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. An indie film dubbed jOBS and starring Ashton Kutcher as Jobs is also underway. More information about the second film has been released.

We’ve already seen pictures of Kutcher in the infamous black turtleneck, and now the people behind the film have confirmed that parts of jOBS will be shot in the garage where Apple was started.

Apple began in a garage on Crist Drive in Los Altos, California.

The press release says that the filmmakers will be shooting “early scenes in the actual Los Altos home where Jobs grew up and in the historic garage where he and Steve Wozniak founded Apple.” jOBS will be directed by Joshua Michael Stern, a relatively unknown Hollywood director.

Titled jOBS, the biopic stars Ashton Kutcher as the iconic Silicon Valley visionary, and will shed new light on Steve Jobs’ most defining and personal moments, motivations, and the people that drove him. The film covers Jobs from his early years as an impressionable youth and wayward hippie, through his initial successes and infamous ousting, to his storybook return and ultimate triumphs as a man who set out to change the world and did just that.

Executive producer Mark Hulme and Five Star Feature Films launched the production immediately following Jobs’ retirement in August 2011. Screenwriter Matt Whiteley, while penning the script, utilized a team of expert researchers based on months of exhaustive research and interviews with Steve Jobs’ friends, colleagues, and mentors to develop the most truthful and gripping picture of Jobs’ life.

From director Joshua Michael Stern (Swing Vote, Neverwas), and Oscar winning cinematographer Russell Carpenter (Titanic), jOBS details the major moments and defining characters that influenced Steve Jobs on a daily basis from 1971 through 2000.

jOBS chronicles the 30 most defining years of Steve Jobs’ life, as seen through his, colleagues’, and friends’ eyes. Dark, honest, and uncompromising, jOBS plunges into the depths of his character, creating an intense dialogue-driven story that is as much a sweeping epic as it is an immensely personal portrait of Steve Jobs’ life.

A rousing narrative of this business and tech icon, jOBS pulls no punches and does not speculate, telling only the candid and captivating account of the life of Steven Paul Jobs.

You can visit the movie’s website for more information.

Source: PR Newswire

Image: Wikipedia

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The movie about Steve Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher will shoot some scenes in the actual house and garage where Apple was launched.

More on The Verge.

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The Macquarium has been around for decades, starting as a project to make use of old compact Mac cases. Subsequent iterations have seen many different variations – beige Performas, G3 iMacs, G4 Cubes, etc.. But this latest iteration is unique, and probably has the best structural integrity of them all.

Steve Shaw recently created his Macquarium from a PowerMac G5 case (mislabeled as a Mac Pro in the video), elbow grease and some powertools. He did a nice job, bright and airy. I love the Apple logo in the rear and overall industrial look. And the totem head.

Next up we need a Siamese fighting fish in a Mac Mini…

Source: Gizmodo

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VA app to give healthcare resources to caregivers of injured veterans

The iPad is already a big hit with the healthcare industry. A new pilot project being run by Veterans Affairs Department could encourage the iPad to be used as a longterm home care solution as well. As part of the agency’s Family Caregivers program, the VA will deploy 1,000 iPads to family members of veterans suffering from injuries and disorders associated with military deployments after 9/11.

The VA program was created to help disabled veterans remain at home with loved ones providing personal care. It already provides a range of important resources for caregivers including a monthly stipend, travel expenses for care-related activities, health-related training, counseling services, and respite care.

The pilot program, which Nextgov reports as being called Clinic-in-hand, will see iPads rolled out to caregivers with a range of medical apps pre-installed. Custom apps will be capable of integrating with VA medical systems and will be capable of exchanging health-related data between the department, veterans, and caregivers. Eligible participants will be be randomly selected to take part in the program over the summer.

In addition to the Clinic-in-hand program, the VA announced an enterprise app store initiative last fall. Apps being developed as part of Clinic-in-hand will also be made available through that app store.

The move is one of the first large-scale tests of the iPad by human services organizations. Many case managers and other employees in the human services and supportive care fields often need to work with clients in their homes, doctor’s offices, and other locations. The iPad is a natural fit for such uses, particularly 3G and LTE iPads, as it can provide needed reference materials and access to case management systems.

Source: Nextgov

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Symantec Mobile Management integrates with the company's other enterprise tools

May is Mobile Management Month at Cult of Mac, where we will be profiling a different mobile management company every weekday. You can find all previous entries here and read our Mobile Management manifesto here.

Symantec has long and solid track record in delivering enterprise systems. The company’s full lineup of enterprise solutions are practically a one-stop shopping list for IT departments offering everything from virus and malware tools right through every IT task (deployment, Mac/Windows workstation management, help desk operations, even inventory). As you’d expect, Symantec Mobile Management integrates quite nicely with other Symantec enterprise tools creating a streamlined single source IT infrastructure.

Even as a standalone product, however, Symantec Mobile Management is an attractive offering. It has a powerful focus security and includes secure file management features. It’s also extremely scalable and makes almost every IT/mobile management processes as hand-off and automatic as possible. Even device enrollment is simple and designed to be accomplished by end users with little or no input from IT. That makes it particularly attractive to larger enterprise organizations.

Company: Symantec
Product(s): Symantec Mobile Management
Type of solution(s): device, app, and information management

Platforms supported beyond iOS: Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, webOS, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone (also integrates with Symantec’s Altiris client management system that can be used to manage Windows PCs and Macs in enterprise environments).

Licensing Model: perpetual and recurring licensing options
Includes/Offers Maintenance Updates?: Required
Technical support options: 24/7

Deployment options: cloud service, on-premise software

Failover and load balancing options: supports server failover and load balancing

Scalability: supports multiple locations and location-specific administration

Directory system integration: Microsoft Active Directory, LDAP

Administrative tool options: web/cloud, Windows desktop app

Data export capabilities: device hardware, installed configuration profiles, location and usage tracking, installed apps

Expense management features: track carrier, alert on roaming

Device enrollment mechanism(s): iOS app
Support for secure/authenticated enrollment?: Yes
Security certificate features: Certificates for SCEP enrollment, Exchange, secure PGP email, Wi-Fi, VPN, two-factor authentication

Remote/On Demand administrative actions: remote lock, remote wipe, selective wipe of corporate data, push text message to device

App management options: push apps to device, enterprise app store with custom and public apps, Apple Volume Purchase Plan integration, app whitelist/blacklist options, admin alert on unapproved apps

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Caffeinated: a viable contendor for your new default RSS app on the Mac

Ok, I’ll admit it: I still haven’t kicked my RSS addiction. As hard as I try to just use sources like Twitter and Flipboard to get my news, there’s something about having every article from every site I follow in one place. And in my line of work, it’s very important to stay on top of the news cycle.

For the longest time I’ve used Reeder to scan RSS feeds on all of my devices. The iPhone, iPad and Mac apps are about as good as it gets for RSS, but I’ve been longing for some competitive apps to come on the scene. On the Mac, a RSS client called Caffeinated may have way it takes to dethrone the reigning champion, Reeder.

Caffeinated has been out for several months, but the app has gone basically unnoticed by the press. Developed by Curtis Hard and Kevin Anderson, the first thing you’ll notice about Caffeinated is that it’s beautifully designed. Reeder set the bar, and Caffeinated attempts to raise to even higher.

You can tell that a beautiful design was one of the main goals behind Caffeinated; the app is constructed with pixel perfection. Like Reeder, the look is very clean and minimal. Once you sign in with your Google Reader account, subscriptions are displayed on the far left. You can manage your subscriptions, add folders and feeds, delete subscriptions, etc. Articles are displayed in the middle column, and what you’re currently reading fills the larger space to the right. If you’ve used Reeder for Mac or something like NetNewsWire, Caffeinated will immediately feel very familiar.

Unread, All and Starred items can be aggregated from the top left. An immediate improvement over Reeder is the ability to search your entire subscription database (you can change how long Caffeinated holds on to read articles in settings).

Borrowing from Reeder again, the list of options in the top right of the app offer a lot of functionality. The share button can send an article to just about anywhere, and you have the ability to quickly turn on Readability’s minimal viewing mode while reading. You can also mark an article as read or star it for later. OS X Lion’s Fullscreen mode can be initiated from the very top right.

Caffeinated’s Preferences panel is full of great options for customizing your experience. Growl notifications can be used to notify the user of new articles. There’s plenty of sync options, and even the ability to enable “click for flash,” a handy plugin that disables Adobe Flash on the web until you click on it. The app’s interface can be tweaked more closely than Reeder allows, and there’s even a themeing engine for switching out looks. Another great thing about Caffeinated are all the keyboard shortcuts you can set for navigating around the app. Hotkeys for sharing on platforms like Facebook and Twitter or saving to Instapaper can be customized in the “Plugins” Preferences pane.

So, in summation, Caffeinated’s flagship attributes:

• Simple, elegant interface with nice animations
• Ability to search
• Robust customization and sharing options

Caffeinated is available in the Mac App Store for $9. There’s also a 15-day free trial that can be downloaded from the app’s website. Download it yourself and see if it’s worthy of dethroning Reeder on the Mac.

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While newer iOS devices come in sizes up to 64 Gb, it takes up a lot of space to store a ton of videos there. Likewise, synchronizing the videos you think you might want to watch later can be an exercise in futility, trying to second-guess yourself and your future video-watching tastes. And let’s not forget the time consuming task of converting videos from a non-Mac or iTunes friendly format to ones that work a little better with our chosen OS platform. Today, however, we have an app that will help with these problems.

Air Video, by InMethod s.r.o., is a $3 app that allows you to stream your videos from your Mac to your iPad (or iPhone, or iPod touch) without any need for conversion. Air Video will convert even non-iTunes friendly files like AVI and DIVX video files via a server app that runs on your Mac. If the video file is too big or your WiFi is too slow to manage this, the Air Video server can also process the files ahead of time for use on your iOS device.

First up, head over to the Air Video website to download a small app to run on your Mac or Windows machine. Download the server and, on the Mac at least, open the disk image file (DMG) and drag the Air Video Server app inside of it to your Applications folder. Double click on that to start the server, and add a folder or iTunes playlist of non protected videos to the server.

Then hop onto your iPhone (or iPad) and download the Air Video iOS app from the App Store. This will download it to your device. Launch the app with a tap on the app icon, and you’ll see the Servers page. Tap the plus symbol in the upper left corner, and then tap on the name of the computer you just started the server on.

Once connected, tap on the name of the server computer again, and you’ll see the folders and playlists you’ve added to the server. Tap on a folder or playlist and you’ll see a list of the movies within. Tap on the name of a movie and you’ll see the play and conversion options. You can choose to Play, Play with Live Conversion, or Convert the movie at this point. There’s also a spot to change the conversion settings. Tap the play option of your choice, and you’re streaming video to your iPad (or iPhone)!

This solution should let you keep those big video files off of your smaller capacity iOS device, while still allowing you to watch them there.

Source: PC World

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Waterfield's Indy bag next to an invaluable ebony statue of an ancient monkey god.

“Nice murse,” the supercilious toad said, burrowing his chin into his neck pouch.

By ‘murse’, the toad meant “man purse,” a condescending diminutive used by a certain sort of person to refer to any sort of fashionable bag a man might choose to wear on a strap. Hypocritically, some bags are off-limits from accusations of mursing — for example, the ugly, bulky laptop bags you see businessmen inexplicably carrying at airports, or gym bags — but if you are a man and have ever worn a nice messenger bag or a satchel, the word ‘murse’ has probably been greasily blown in your direction from smug, speckled lips.

As you can tell, the term annoys me, mostly because of the sorts of people who use it: guys who drive everywhere and who don’t carry anything with them anywhere besides a lumbago-inducing wallet and a cell phone crammed into their jeans pockets. To these guys, a satchel just doesn’t make any sense. A bag is something a man only brings with him when he travels, needs to tote around his laptop or hits the gym. They don’t understand a guy like me, who lives in a city, doesn’t have a car and walks or bikes almost everywhere: a guy for whom carrying around a bag with a book, some headphones, and his iPad as just a matter of course, the same way they throw their shit into the back of their car in the morning. And they articulate this lack of understanding by calling such a bag a murse, a word designed to hit below the belt and imply a profound and contemptible lack of masculinity.

As here. Luckily, this time, I had a comeback ready.

“Murse, huh? You know who also carried a murse? Indiana Jones. And it looked just like this one!”

You just can’t argue with Indy. His satchel — stuffed with ancient idols, sacks of dust, scarab-chewn maps, glowing prayer stones and whatever other ephemera might find its way into the bag of a hard-hitting, Nazi-fighting archeologist — is an iconic aspect of the character’s pulp-inspired wardrobe. Indiana Jones is the ultimate man. And he’d bullwhip you into an airplane propellor if you dared to call his satchel anything like a ‘murse.’

Named after Harrison Ford’s best alter ego, the Indy by Waterfield Designs seems almost like a calculated move to reclaim satchels and once again make them an accepted accessory of manliness. The distressed leather exterior implies a man of travel and action, even if the inside holds an iPad and an iPhone instead of a crystal skull. It’s a beautiful, exquisitely well-made bag, with just one flaw.

The Good

The Indy's not big enough to fit a MacBook Air into, but it's the perfect size for an iPad.

Made of supple brown leather (the Indy also comes in black) and then distressed, the Indy feels as great bouncing against your hip as it looks strapped across your torso. And even better, because it comes distressed, the Indy comes out of the bag looking like a satchel you’ve been wearing for years… and gets even better looking as natural wear, tear and oils make their way into it. Indy’s actual satchel may have been canvas, but this looks the part, even if it’s not identical.

On the outside, there are two main compartments: an open diagonal pouch with an accent trim that comes in green, orange, brown, pine, white and black, and a zipper pocket.

The larger trimmed compartment is easy to access, meant for items you’re likely to pull constantly out of the bag while it’s being worn. This compartment’s just a winner, and makes for a great place to put your keys or anything else you have jangling in your pockets that you might quickly need. Even better? This compartment contains a smaller pocket perfectly sized to slip an iPhone in and out of, and because both of these nested pocket is lined entirely with ultrasuede, it not only feels great to sink your hand into… it’ll even wipe your iPhone’s display clean as you put it in or pull it out. As for the zippered pocket, it’s similarly deep and perfect for surreptitiously storing a wallet or any other item that you might want to have easily accessible, but don’t want pickpockets to get at.

The Indy's outer compartment not only stores your iPhone in its own separate pocket, it cleans the screen with ultrasuede!

The main compartment is similarly slick. Measuring about ten inches deep, it’s the perfect size for an iPad and a book, and is lined with a beautiful textured yellow fabric that feels great, keeps your iPad or iPhone from getting soaked through if you happen to get caught in the rain, and makes it easy to see what’s at the bottom of the bag — a deft touch. Additionally, this compartment contains two smaller pockets that are great for organizing. For example, I put my headphones in one, and since it’s right at the top of the compartment, it makes it easy to just quickly access the earbuds if I want to listen to some tunes.

Honestly, it’s a great bag. There’s just one problem.

The Bad

The strap. Yeesh.

Don’t get me wrong, the strap itself is of fine construction, easily adjustable and smart. The problem is that if you’re wearing the Indy without a shirt or jacket that has lapels, the strap is going to cut into your neck like a guillotine.

It’s incredibly uncomfortable. Maybe it was good enough for Dr. Jones, that strap, but he’s also a guy who wore a thickly lapeled leather jacket protecting his neck from being ripped in half. If you don’t wear collared shirts all the time, the Indy’s strap is going to be an issue.

It’s a big problem with an otherwise superlative product, frankly. In fact, it made the Indy so uncomfortable for me to wear a lot of times that I had to invest in a shoulder strap pad off of Amazon, which of course doesn’t match. Waterfield should have caught this in testing.

The Verdict

No time for love, Dr. Jones.

Indiana Jones’s satchel was a straight canvas affair, but if he had explored urban jungles instead of literal ones, and wielded an iPad and iPhone instead of a bullwhip and .38, it’s easy enough to imagine him rocking the Indy. It’s a great bag, and with the addition of a $10 pad for the painfully sawing strap, it’s a bag that is not only fashionable, comfortable, convenient and manly, but should wipe the m-word off the lips of just about anyone.

Product: The Waterfield Indy Bag

Price: $179

Pro: Beautifully made satchel, just the right size for the iPad. Smart compartment and pocket design. Looks like a satchel the raider of the lost ark would be proud to wear.

Con: The strap is painful; needs a shoulder pad, which isn’t included.

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Apple's HDTV could be a huge windfall for the company

There’s no shortage to information out there about Apple’s HDTV plans, but most of it focuses on specs, designs, and user interface (including coverage from our source who has seen one). With the device being a near certainly, other questions are being raised. Will it be an instant hit? How different will the experience be compared to the existing Apple TV set-top box? How much revenue could it net for Apple?

According to calculations by Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, an Apple HDTV would be a huge windfall for Apple. She sees it as likely to double the money that U.S. households spend annually on Apple products within three years.

In a note to investors, Huberty pointed out that Apple’s iPhone nearly doubled the amount that the average U.S. home spends on Apple products from $150 around the time of the iPhone’s 2007 launch to $295 in 2010. She expects a similar doubling as a result of the iPad. That would mean that the average household would be spending around $635 on Apple products. That seems on target – the average spending for 2011 was $444.

If the Apple HDTV is as a popular as the iPhone and iPad, Huberty expects that by 2015, U.S. households will be spending $888 per year on Apple devices.

Given a 97% TV household penetration and a 61% broadband household penetration in the US along with an expected high price (and value) point, an Apple TV is likely to generate a similar increase in average household spend, with some help from iPad and iPhone growth

As we reported earlier this week, half of all iPhone owners surveyed said that they were likely to buy an Apple HDTV within its first year on the market. If Apple can deliver it at or below $1,000, more than a third of American consumers would consider buying one.

Apple won’t need to dominate the U.S. or global HDTV market to make significant profits from its television. Just 10% of global spending on TVs and related items (hardware, subscription services, and advertising) would represent annual revenues of $60 billion.

Source: AppleInsider

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You know Keynote was made especially for Steve Jobs because all other presentation tools, well, sucked? Right. So wouldn’t you like to know all the secrets of Keynote so you can make Jobs-worthy Keynote presentations (actually I would too)? This is where Keynote for Startups comes in. Think of it more like “learn how to make amazing Keynote presentations and demos that will blow peoples’ minds”. Learn the art (and science) of clickable prototypes, mockups, video demos for only $19!

This video lesson package has 11 videos and over an hour of content taught by a guy who got $25 million from Facebook for his startup (I’m guessing he used Keynote, so you know…). Keynote is one of those apps that I think only a few people really tap into all the coolness of. I’ve known a few folks who really make Keynote rock and I’ve always been envious of their ability to make my hum-drum slides just—pop.

I’m betting that they used these tips and tricks you’ll learn in this deal package.

For $19 I don’t think you can lose. Really. Learn Keynote. Wow people. Blow minds.

Done.

Get Keynote for Startups now.

The best five iPad text editors, according to me.

I write a ton on my iPad these days, which lets me work wherever I like (usually in bed) and concentrate way better than I can working on my giant-screened iMac. Thanks to our complex blogging back end here at Cult of Mac, it’s still easier to add pictures and other bits and pieces with the Mac, but the writing part is so much better on the iPad that I try to do it as often as I can.

I figured I’d show you a few of the apps I used. Below you’ll find my favorite writing apps for the iPad.

This is a list of the five writing apps I still use. Many have passed across the home screen of my iPad, but these remain. There may be new or fuller-featured apps out there, but all of these are worth taking a look at.

First up is Writing Kit, the app I use every day. It works as a Markdown-enabled text editor, but adds in a whole bunch of research tools that make it perfect for a writer of any kind.

It has a built-in browser for research (and you can send links and photos straight to the editor),  a “Quick Research” popover window which lets you look things up, perform conversions and a whole lot more, and support for various bookmarking sites.

This last part is great. I can start work in the Mr. Reader RSS reader (in bed) and save any articles that I want to write about in Instapaper. Then, when I start writing, the list is right there. You can also access Pinboard and Zootool bookmarks, or queue the pages from within the app to use later.

Then, when you come to export your words, you can send them just about anywhere (Pastebot, email, Evernote, Twitter, Omnifocus), open them in other apps and choose whether they are sent as a file (HTML or Markdown) or as text (ditto). Or you can just let Dropbox take care of things: Writing Kit saves your file every ten keystrokes.

I remember that I had to come to the app a few times before it clicked, but now I find the app amazingly fast (and absolutely rock-solid) in use. And did I mention the extra Markdown-specific row of keys that even persists when using an external keyboard? Or the TextExpander support?

That’s not to say it’s perfect. Often I can’t copy words in the browser without switching to text view (powered by Instapaper), and I can almost never share a photo from the browser or even save it to my photo roll. And the bookmarks/reading queue interfaces stil confuse me sometimes.

But for a professional writer who wants to get things done fast and cleanly without popping off into other apps and browsers to check on stuff, Writing Kit cannot be beaten. If I could only have one writing app on my iPad, this would be it. Easily.

Byword is unique amongst these editors in that it has an OS X counterpart which syncs with it via iCloud. This makes it incredibly easy to swap back and forth between iPad and iMac for the same article, without really having to think about it.

The file list is over at the left in its own column, and this slides out of view when you start writing. The editing screen is a model of minimalism, and offers nothing but your text, the status bar and a row of buttons on the bottom edge. This has three swipe-able sections: character count, extra keys, and Markdown/navigation.

Yes, Byword is a powerful Markdown editor. Dedicated buttons add links and pictures, header tags or lists, and their behavior is slick indeed. For instance, if you highlight a word and tap the “link” button, the word is then surrounded with square brackets, followed by empty parentheses with the cursor already sitting there, ready for you to past a URL.

Adding punctuation is smart, too. Tap the open-bracket key and it changes to a close-bracket key. Tap the same key when a word is highlighted and that word is wrapped in brackets and the cursor moved outside the closing bracket.

This is all incredibly seamless and makes writing in Markdown a breeze. And even if you’re not writing for the web, the various export options include rich text and plain text, so it’s good even for long-form writing.

If I didn’t need to constantly pop open a browser for research, Byword would be the app I use every day to work.

While Denvog’s Index Card can be used for full-on writing, it works best as a way to plan articles, movies, TV shows or the next Great American Novel. It uses — as you’d expect — an index card metaphor for the interface, and you can write on and shuffle these cards around until you’re happy.

The app is also deeply integrated with the amazing Mac writing application Scrivener, and can sync not only the contents of your notes but also various labels and other metadata.

Open a new project and you can quickly add index cards (natch) to the cork board (which can be changed to a plain color backdrop, or lovely linen). These have fields for a title and for a summary. Pick the “Long Text Field” in options and you get an extra, bigger field useful for fleshing out scenes. All three of these fields sync with Scrivener, making Index Card on of the best ways to edit Scrivener projects on the go. There’s even a basic extra row of keys for easier navigation, and note-specific keys for bullet points and so on.

But Index Card’s strength is in its planning. You can drag cards to reorder them and pile them into stacks, you can rearrange them into a column view, with scrollable columns of cards, and you can even view your cards as an outline (where the stacks show up as children of that stack).

There really is a lot in here, but you never feel overwhelmed. No wonder that Index Card is a favorite of screenwriters and authors. It might be specialized, but if you need this feature set, you’re going to love Index Card.

Writings used to be my go-to fiction editor before Daedalus came along, mostly because it manages to be both gorgeous to look at and low on distraction. It also offers a lot of great features for the writer.

The app mimics a wooden desktop with your documents strewn (neatly) across it, and in later versions you have been able to keep multiple desktops (or “workspaces”), all linked to different Dropbox folders.

Once you have opened a document, the on-screen distractions are few. Using a physical keyboard leaves a row of extra keys at the bottom of the screen, you can display a small and optional word count at top right, and the settings buttons fade out after a few seconds. There are a ton of different fonts to pick from, and paper and ink colors can be changed through a selection of grays.

Text size can be changed just by pinching to zoom, and you can even alter the size of the side margins. And tapping in these margins will move the cursor one character left or right.

Finally, TextExpander is supported, and export options are legion.

Writings certainly isn’t the most full-featured of text-editing apps, but it has what is needed, and what is there is done right. If you’re looking for a reliable place to hole up and get some writing done, this might be it.

This is my second most-used text editor, and my favorite in terms of interfaece design. Daedalus Touch comes from The Soulmen, who also developed the Mac word processor Ulysses.

Daedalus also works with Dropbox, but it can be used with multiple folders, syncing with each. This is great for keeping work and homework separate, for example.

The app uses a stacks metaphor. A folder full of documents is shown as a stack of paper, which you expand by double tapping. The documents just keep getting longer as you type, like an infinitely stretchable piece of paper, but if you do want to make a new document or a new page then you just swipe the current page off to the left. If you give the new sheet a title, it becomes a document. If you don’t, it becomes a new section of the current one.

Another great feature is search, which digs into all documents in all folders (sorry — stacks), and depending on the current view will highlight the stacks that contain the search term, or highlight the terms in the currently visible document. It is incredibly handy, and means you can find anything fast.

Daedalus also has an extra customizable keyboard row, which can be used for writing in Markdown, and a pop-up browser for quick lookups. The browser resets every time you open it though, so it isn’t really that useful.

Export can be done in pretty much any format you like, including PDF and ePub, and Daedalus also supports TextExpander — essential for any writer.

What I really like, though, is the way you can forget about documents and just write. I never really use Daedalus for work, as Writing Kit does so much more. But for penning fiction that nobody will ever read, I love it.

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How do you take a life that was lived so fully, with so much drama, triumph and failure, and condense it into a 2.5 hour movie that will effectively express Steve Jobs as a person? It’s a monumental task that will be nearly impossible for any screenwriter to accomplish.

No matter how great a job Aaron Sorkin does adapting Steve Jobs’s biography into a screenplay, some people are going to hate it and say parts were left out while other were embellished. Sorkin’s not aiming for Sony’s movie to be historically accurate though, so what do you think he should focus on?

Our friend Ken Segall, who worked closely with Steve for over a decade, has some great ideas on what the focus of Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay should be.

Act One. Steve builds Apple with Woz. Following his moment of glory with Macintosh, he suffers a crushing defeat when Sculley outmaneuvers him in a chess game involving moves and counter-moves, conspiracies and alliances. Steve is thrown out of his own company and it hurts him deeply.

Act Two. Steve picks up the pieces. He starts NeXT. He buys Pixar. He matures as a leader, as Apple begins failing without him. He also meets the love of his life. But something is still missing. He needs Apple, and Apple needs him. He hatches an almost unbelievable plan to get back to Apple and become its leader once again.

Act Three. Another chess game, only this time the stakes are way higher. Steve needs to seduce Apple into buying NeXT for over $400 million, gain a foothold in the company, win the confidence of the board and push out the current CEO. There are dark turns and moments when it looks like it might all fall apart. But Steve wins. He’s reunited with the company he created, in the one place he feels truly happy and empowered — with a world of possibilities before him. The end.

Focusing on just a few key moments in Steve’s career is great idea for a movie. You can’t cover all the bases in 2 hours, but focusing on Steve’s passion for Apple and trying to get back in, might make for some great drama that can show the range of Steve’s emotions. What do you think about Ken’s idea for the movie? Do you have something better in mind? Tell us in the comments.

Source: Ken Segall

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That's my kitchen that is

Looking for a “pro” camera app for your iPhone? There’s no shortage of options on the App Store. This week, we’re taking a look at one that has the most descriptive name: ProCamera.

ProCamera’s closest rival has got to be the much-lauded (not least by us here at Cult of Mac) Camera+. So how do the two stack up against each other? Pretty well. Feature-for-feature, it’s a pretty close race. Camera+ has more style, there’s no doubt about that. It’s a better-looking app all round. But looks aren’t everything. Camera+ is cheaper by a couple of dollars, but ProCamera is – at least on my iPhone 4 – noticeably faster.

One thing ProCamera does well is separating the camera mode from the edit mode and the settings mode. Yes, “settings mode”. That’s what I call it, anyway. There are so many different settings and prefs (it is a Pro camera after all), that they are sensibly tucked out of sight. Switching to them requires you to wait a couple of seconds, which can be frustrating if you’re trying to vary your photos frequently and rapidly.

What ProCamera offers is a decent degree of manual control – about as much as you’re going to get from an iPhone camera. You have command of the focus, exposure and, to some degree, white balance. All of these are done with simple on-screen buttons that don’t get in the way when composing a shot.

When you’re not in shooting mode, a camera icon always sits at the top-right corner, so you can jump back into it any time. The edit functions are nicely done, although tucked away. From shooting mode, you have to tap the “PRO” button, then “Album & Studios”, then another icon with a paintbrush on it, then one of the options it calls up. That’s a lot of taps before you start editing.

Having started editing, though, the controls are responsive and neatly laid out. There’s a nicely detailed view of the EXIF data for every image, oddly split into two tabs labelled “Pro” and “Expert”. I thought they were roughly the same thing. Anyway.

Finally, there are some built-in special FX, split into four categories. The thumbnails you see are thumbnails of the image you’re working on, which is particularly helpful. Few of the preset FX really appealed to me that much, but that’s just personal taste. There’s a decent choice on offer.

Pro: Does the job simply, quickly and without fuss

Con: More expensive than some just-as-well-equipped alternatives

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Photo by Scott Beale.

If you thought a little hurdle like mortality would stop His Steveness from selling you a new iPhone you are wrong my friend. Scott Beale was wondering around Mid-Town yesterday and came across a tiny version of Steve in the Cellular Express store ready to sell him some insanely great products.

Source: Laughing Squid
Image: Laughing Squid

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Nice and simple, just like plain text files

Are you a fan of plain-text files? Are you nerdy enough to stuff your todo lists into a todo.txt file? What if I told you that you could bring a lick of modernity to the your old-fashioned, candlelit ways? It’s called TaskBadges, and it adds a numbered badge to any plain-text list telling you how many uncompleted tasks are left inside.

TaskBadges works with three kinds of plain text lists: those using square brackets, anything in a todo.txt file, and lists made in TaskPaper (which stores its lists in plain text). If you don;t use any of these list styles, you’re out of luck.

Any remaining tasks label the icon (even in the Finder’s list view) with a red badge and a number. And that’s it. I can see this as being super useful if you keep your todo list in the Dock.

What’s more, TaskBadges is free, so there’s no reason not to give it a try. Available now in the Mac App Store.

Source: [App Store][http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/taskbadges/id454948164?mt=12]
Via: [Lifehacker][http://lifehacker.com/5910836/taskbadges-adds-the-number-of-uncompleted-tasks-to-the-icon-of-any-text+based-to+do-list-for-easy-reference]

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Forget nano-coatings that render the individual components oin your iPhone waterproof. And forget bulky underwater cases that make your svelte phone look like something Nokia put out ten years ago. What you need for total iPhone protection is this amazing Japanese condom.

It’s called the Case Marine, and is a skintight drysuit for the iPhone 4/S. The stretchy skin is made from coated polyurethane, and the screen cover is acrylic. And as our friend Andrew Liszewski over at Gizmodo points out, it’s thin enough to be used with another case on top: 0.25mm — or 0.0008 feet — thick.

Even though it just stretches over the phone, it apparently stays truly waterproof down to ten meters, or 394 inches. That’s easily enough to protect it from the rigors of the beach, or a quick (hopefully accidental) dunk in the toilet.

And soon, an iPad case will follow.

The Gooma Case will cost ¥3,000 ($37).

Source: Diginfo
Via: The Giz

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