The new iWork ’08 release sure is a step forward compared to iWork ’06. While Keynote was perfect, Pages was lacking any true wordprocessor capabilities and the lack of any spreadsheet application made it feel unbalanced compared to Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.
Luckily iWork ’08 brings us more functionality, and best of all, Apple released an iWork ’08 free trial download which allows you to try out the new features for 30 days.
Yesterday at the Apple Special Event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled some great new Mac products like the new iMac and new versions of iLife ’08, iWork ’08 and .Mac. Although the event was for invitees (mostly press) only Apple put up a video stream of the presentation. It’s very entertaining and interesting so I recommend you watch it.
Click here to watch the Apple Special Event August 2007 (Quicktime MPEG-4 required)
The Wii received a small firmware update adding some new functionality to the Wii-menu and shopping channel.
Some notable Wii-menu changes :
Some notable shopping channel changes :
Apparently to this source, Nintendo also added basic USB keyboard support to the Wii with this update. Right now the keyboard can only be used in the shopping channel, settings menu and message board, but not (yet) in the internet channel. I haven’t been able to confirm this yet.
Be careful though if you are using Freeloader because after the update it won’t work anymore.
The new iMac has arrived and it sure is beautiful. Like the previous iMac it’s an all-in-one design, but it’s thinner and more powerful. The frame is made out of anodized aluminium covered by a glass cover. It’s available in four configurations; two 20 inch (2.0Ghz and 2.4Ghz) and two 24 inch models (2.4Ghz and 2.8Ghz).
This code snippet which can be added to Textmate as a command will convert PHP object variable instances to associative array variables (and vice versa).
For example it will convert :
$thevar->somevar->anothervar
to :
$thevar['somevar']['anothervar'];
This comes in handy while developing in PHP environments where both variable forms are used and if you mistakenly used the wrong form.
Here’s the code :
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | #!/usr/bin/env ruby str = STDIN.read case str when /\$.+(\[["'].+["']\])+?/ print str.gsub(/\[('|")/, '->').gsub(/("|')\]/, '') when /\$.+(->.+)+?/ parts = str.split("->") print parts.shift + "['" + parts.join("']['") + "']" else print str end |
You can add it to Textmate by choosing the menu item Bundles -> Bundle Editor -> Show Bundle Editor. Click on the screenshot below for more details :
Wednesday, Apple released an update to the QuickTime player and iTunes. One of the nicest thing about this update is the fact that the ability to play videos full-screen is now also available for the free QuickTime version. Besides the full-screen option there were some updates to the H.264 codec and some bugfixes.
The iTunes update addressed an issue with iTunes 7.3 accessing the iTunes library.
Below are the download links to the updates :
According to an article on Digitimes, the Taiwan-based panel maker Wintek will be the supplier of capacitive touch screen panels for the next-generation iPod video. Sources claim that the new iPod video could be launched as early as August this year, but other sources say it could be October/November or early next year.
This news is rather interesting because speculation about a new iPod having a touch screen interface has been going on for years, but now with the iPhone, having such an interface, this time the possibility is very real. I myself do think the next iPod video will have a touch screen.
Today, Apple released a public beta of Safari 3, the default MacOS X webbrowser. The final version will be included in the upcoming MacOS X 10.5 “Leopard” which is scheduled for October, but for the first time it will also be released for Windows XP and Vista.
Although I really like the fact that it’s released for the Windows platform, I wonder if Safari will manage to gain popularity under Windows users.
If you’re interested in getting the latitude and longitude values for the location from Google Maps, check out the following handy tip from tech-recipes :
http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2403/google_maps_get_latitude_longitude_values
One particular use for this is when you are working with the Google Maps API.
On June 11th, at the Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference, Steve Jobs will give use some more information on the new features which will (probably) make it into MacOS X 10.5, more commonly known as “Leopard”.
If you are interested in what features will probably be included in this highly anticipated successor to “Tiger”, check out this Wired article.