Showdown Time! That’s right. Today I have a video comparing the Zoom H1 Handy Portable Microphone with the Blue Snowball USB Condenser Microphone.

Zoom H1:

This a Handy Portable Microphone that can be purchased from most retail audio stores or online (Amazon) for a retail price of around $99. It is powered on a single AAA Battery and has an XY Stereo Microphone design. It recorded directly onto a MicroSD Card in either .WAV or .MP3

Blue Snowball:

This a USB Condensor Microphone, originally designed for podcasting and targeting the lower consumer at its nice retail price of $60. It has 3 different settings for audio. It has a Plug & Play design, or should I say Plug & Record. It compatible with most PC’s and Macs.

Basically I talk throughout the video, while changing between microphones. I hope you guys enjoy and if you have any questions please feel free to comment bellow, on the video or on Twitter.

There’s a video below on how to disable inverted scrolling!

There have been a ton of hype about the newly released Mac OS X Lion, but one thing Apple has tried to do with their brand new operating system is to give it more of a mobile feel. Because of everything Apple tried to do to make Mac OS X more like iOS is add in things like their mission control and inverted scrolling.

With the brand new inverted scrolling feature, lots of people weren’t too happy with this new “feature”. Basically, the inverted scrolling made it when you move down on your trackpad/mouse, it’ll go up and vice versa, just like on any mobile device. Some people may like this feature but personally, I am no one of them.

To simply disable this feature, it might be somewhat confusing as Apple does not mention anything about “inverted” scrolling, like they did in the developer previews. Instead, they renamed it it “natural” scrolling. On the contrary, I do not feel “natural” scrolling is the perfect name for this feature, as it’s only natural on a touchscreen device. Anyway, if you don’t like this feature and you’re one who wants to disable it, follow the steps below!

1. Open up System Preferences
2. Click on “Trackpad” (now the question remains, what will this be on a desktop computer with no trackpad? From my knowledge, this section should still be there, but if it’s not there for you desktop users, give us a holler in the comments below)
3. Go to the “Scroll & Zoom” tab (it’s the one in the middle)
4. At the very top of the list, you will see “Scroll direction: natural” and some more text below it. Disable it!
5. You are now back to the normal method of scrolling! No restarts or anything like that, just uncheck the check box and you’re all set!

Important:
If you have a computer that does not support all the gestures, your trackpad settings will be different. Click on the “When using gestures to scroll or navigate, move content in the direction of finger movement” instead at the very top.

If you are on a desktop computer without a trackpad, go under the mouse settings and click “Move content in the direction of finger movement when scrolling or navigating”.

 

What you’ll need

• A Mac with the latest version of Snow Leopard (10.6.8)
• 8GB of free disk space
• App Fresh – A free application that keeps all of your software to the latest version
• Omni Disk Sweeper – A free application that shows large files on your hard drive
• OnyX – A free utility program, similar to CCleaner for Windows but with more options
• Backup your hard drive with Time Machine,  Carbon Copy Cloner, or any other piece of backup software you prefer

Here’s something that you might have done already, but if you’re not sure if you have the latest version, go to the Apple Menu > About This Mac. If you have anything lower than 10.6.8 (latest version), click Software Update.

OS X Lion will finally discontinue Rosetta support, so your Power PC application will no longer work. If you still use a Rosetta application, you should update to hopefully, an Intel version. If there’s no Intel version, you’re out of luck. To find out if you’re using a Power PC app, go to your Application Folder > Utilities > Activity Monitor.

Upgrading to Lion may cause incompatibility to some of your applications. Some apps are already pushing out updates that prepares it for Lion. To update all of your apps, it’s recommended to use App Fresh.

OS X Lion recommends at least 8GB of hard drive space, and possibly more for the recovery partition that Lion will put. If you already have 8GB or more free, it’s still a good idea to de-clutter your hard drive. By using Omni Disk Sweeper, you can see which folder or component in your hard drive is the biggest. You’ll be surprised how much clutter you might have on your hard drive.

There is an alternative to Omni Disk Sweeper called DaisyDisk. It has a hefty price tag of $19.99, but it gives you a graphical representation of your hard drive and it has much more features.

Another great utility application is called OnyX. OnyX is almost like CCleaner for Windows, but with powerful tools like checking the S.M.A.R.T status and maintenance utilities. There’s a lot more that goes with OnyX that you can check out.

Possibly the most important step to this guide is backing up all of your data.

Obviously with this step, you’ll need an external hard drive, which is relatively cheap. When picking out an external drive, you should always pick one with a bigger capacity than your current hard drive. There are two pieces of software that you should use for backup: Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner. I recommend Time Machine due to the simplicity and it’s built-in to OS X. If you’re tech-savvy, you can use Carbon Copy. 

1. Go to Settings> Mail, Contacts, Calendars> Add Account…
2. Select “Microsoft Exchange”
3. Type the following only with your own credentials…

1. Email: YourFullEmail@Gmail.com
2. Domain: Leave this Blank
3. Username: YourFullEmail@Gmail.com (Don’t forget the “@gmail.com”)
4. Password: YourGmailPassword
5. Description: Anything that Helps you Describe this Account

1. Click “Next”
2. Type M.Google.Com in the “Server” Text Field
3. Check “Mail” (Contacts and Calendar are optional although recommended if you use Google Calendar and Google Contacts)
4. You’re Done!

Now you have push notifications for your iPhone! If you are confused after reading this, watch the video below for a visual tutorial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2Qa-EwnQWI

Whats Needed

This should be pretty obvious but you need a fairly advanced image editor such as GIMP (Free) or Photoshop (Paid or Free Trial), and a document that is of a decent size for this project(at least 150px wide and 70px tall).

If you would like to increase your battery life, follow this guide:

…and there you have it!

Photo courtesy of The Planet

When I switched Tech Cores to a VPS back in early August of 2010, it was a turning point for us. Before that, we were using shared hosting which in the long run, started to hurt us more than anything. We switched from InMotion Hosting to a VPS for many reasons and quite honestly, I was done with shared hosting.

I manage quite a few websites for friends and colleagues; if you add them all up, you’re talking about at least twenty websites. I’ve worked with a good chunk of the ‘best’ shared hosting companies so let’s just list them out:

• InMotion Hosting
• iPower
• iPage
• Yahoo Small Business Hosting
• DreamHost
• HostGator
• GoDaddy
• WebHostingPad
• FatCow
• JustHost
• BlueHost
• HostMonster
• And some other smaller ones…

Yup, that’s pretty much every popular host out there. Now this isn’t a post on my thoughts of these hosts, but if you want to read my thoughts on InMotion Hosting, feel free to do so. But enough of that, let’s get into the real part of this post.

Shared Hosting

The biggest problem with shared hosting would have to be that many shared hosts get away with over-selling their services, or in other terms, selling too much for their servers to handle. There are tools out there to determine this but I won’t get into that. The main thing people need to realize is that most of these popular hosts have easily 2,000+ accounts on one server! And the #1 reason why most hosts kick their customers from their servers is for over-use.

Most shared hosts offer ‘unlimited’ deals to get you to buy their services. But with all honestly, it’s nothing but a gimmick! Let’s take a look at InMotion Hosting’s ToS, shall we?

Unlimited Disk Space & Bandwidth - IMH Personal & Business Class hosting are shared hosting environments, so to ensure fast & reliable service to all of our clients, accounts that adversely affect server or network performance must correct these issues or will be asked to upgrade to a virtual or dedicated server.

Practically every shared host claiming to unlimited hosting and bandwidth will have something like this in their ToS. Basically what it means is if you’re using too much of their server’s resources, which is very easy to do, they’ll terminate your account with no notice at all beforehand.

When I was hosting with InMotion Hosting, they terminated our account once because we were using too many resources. They never informed me of what exactly was causing it, but all they did was recommend for us to turn on caching. It’s not that heavy of a load and it’s for sure not using too many resources for a good amount of time; at most, it was for five minutes.

Some shared hosts are very easy to take down when using too many resources and others you need to purposely try to get your account terminated. The main thing you need to know is if you’re going to be using a terabyte of bandwidth and having 100,000 visitors each month, you can expect for the shared host to terminate your account and tell you need to upgrade to a VPS or a dedicated server.

The second thing about shared hosting is that most shared hosts rely on the cPanel control panel. cPanel is fairly easy to use but it has too many quirks to name.

Lastly, you’re typically guaranteed free technical support if you have any problems. But keep in mind that not all support reps may be as helpful as you may think. One time, it took over two months to get a rather simple issue sorted out with InMotion Hosting. The main thing that caused it was that cPanel was controlling too much and the system admins weren’t entirely smart about how to fix the issue. I ended asking them to transfer my account to a new server and that fixed the issue. I’m betting some configuration file was messed up, but the system admins didn’t bother to look to greatly into it.

But don’t think that all shared hosting support is bad. People always criticize me for this, but actually, Yahoo Small Business Hosting has some great support representatives! It’s almost like every one of ‘em are system admins. Of course, if you’re not too shabby at computers this won’t matter to you, but if you want to geek out with them and ask them some higher-level questions, they will answer it. I like that much better than having those support reps who rely on the help documentation their company provides them… cough InMotion Hosting! It’s almost like every question I ask they respond with, “hold on… let me research this.” I shun those people; they need better training.

VPS Hosting

VPS hosting, unlike shared hosting, is practically open for anything you want to do… that is, legal of course. If you want to install some special server software, you can do that. If you want to to set up Apache to use 500MBs of RAM on a 2GB VPS, you can do that. The possibilities are endless.

The thing with a VPS is most of the cheaper ones are unmanaged. With an unmanaged VPS, you’re basically setting yourself up for trouble if you don’t have a knowledgeable server admin. Managing your own VPS is a big pain. You never know what can happen to your server that you’ve spent days setting up.

Recently, one unfortunate outage happened to us; some software on our server started removing itself. That was not a good thing at all but luckily, all data was retained. Took us nearly an entire day (working for at least ten hours straight) to get it fixed.

Some VPSes, are managed. This means if you need something done, even if you’re not all to knowledgeable, the hosting company will do it for you. This is a great thing for most people because some people 1) don’t have time to working in a terminal or 2) don’t even have the ability to do things with a VPS. Sure someone can use Google on how to set something up, but if you’re doing it for the first time, your chances of getting stuck somewhere are pretty high.

The only problem with a VPS is that they typically cost more than shared hosting. If you don’t set up your server correctly, you could be using more resources than you need to be and you’ll need to upgrade the VPS, which is typically very expensive. Unlike shared hosts, you don’t find unlimited resources on a VPS. You pay for what you get in other words. You’re not going to get unlimited hard drive space, memory, or even bandwidth. If you need 1TB of data, you might as well look into a CDN like the Rackspace’s Cloud Files.

So… What to Get?

This is the big question for most people trying to start up a website is whether or not to go with shared hosting or VPS hosting. If you’re just starting out small, I would stick with shared hosting. If you’re planning on getting very popular or you need more freedom on how to set up your website, get a VPS. Shared hosts are very restrictive and you can only do so much until your host starts sending you warnings. With a VPS, as long as you stay legal and following the terms of service, they won’t scream at you.

The choice is yours. What are you going to use to host your website? A stringy shared host or an open and capped VPS?

________________How to install Custom Themes to Beautiful Widgets________________

1. Download Beautiful Widgets HERE
2. Plug your phone into the computer and set it to USB Mass Storage
3. Open SD>Data>Beautiful Widgets>Skins > Drop the skin folder here
4. Unplug your phone
5. Add a new widget to your home screen (Beautiful Home Weather or Beautiful Smaller Home Weather)
6. Scroll to Clock Skins
7. Click and Select the desired skin
8. You’re done!

______________________________TechCores Custom Skins______________________________

TCdRawn

Download:

Green

Description:

Hand drawn theme with (soon to be) various different colors.

Screen Shot:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

If you know me, I’m easily one of the biggest web savvy guys out there. I’ve created some websites in less than one hour and some websites that took three months. It’s not the creating them what I love the best about web development, it has to be the tools I get to use to get my work done.

jQuery, easily one of the biggest web development JavaScript frameworks out there, has been getting more and more attention in the last four years. In 2007, I found out about jQuery and haven’t looked back ever since. jQuery has been emerging as one of the best JavaScript frameworks out there to help you get your work done and along with providing visual feedback to the user all at the same time.

jQuery has had one main goal throughout it’s entire course of its life… and that is to make your web development experience enjoyable to code and also enjoyable to the user viewing that website. Many websites taking advantage of transitions like fading, having interactive web elements on the page, and everything else in that nature are powered by jQuery, or at least some JavaScript framework. If you’re not a web developer, all this means is that you’re going to be able to view the websites you visit in a more interactive way without even refreshing the page!

Over the past month or so, I’ve been quite busy on getting my hands messy with jQuery. We’ve reviewed one Packt book so far and we’ve even wrote about their open source awards (which I clearly voted for jQuery in one of the awards). But you know what, we’re not going to stop there.

With the help of Packt, we’re having a jQuery review extravaganza! Packt has been more than generous to let me review Learning jQuery 1.3, jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery, and even the jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide! Yes, that’s right, we’re reviewing three jQuery books in one post! Call that an extravaganza; let’s get on with the review!

Note: I will be perfectly honest, this review was rather difficult for writing about three books in one post. I was aiming for a not too long of a post, but instead a post that’s short but not so long that it looks intimidating. Hopefully you guys think that too!

My Background in Web Development

I’ve been in the web development field since 2001 and you know what, I don’t regret any bit of it. I started off learning the extreme basics of HTML and slowly worked my way through learning CSS. Forward seven years later and I started learning JavaScript, PHP, Perl, Python, SQL, and many other server-side languages. In mid-2009, I started diving into other libraries and frameworks to make my web development faster but with a variety of new features. I started working with frameworks/libraries like jQuery, Django, Catalyst, and some others along with it.

As you can see, I’ve been exposed to many server-side languages along with the frameworks that run along with them.

Learning jQuery 1.3

Out of all of the technical books I have ever read, I really have to say this is one of the best that I’ve ever set my eyes upon. Written by two authors and with one of them, Karl Swedberg, being an English teacher! The grammar in the books is far beyond what I’ve seen in other technical books and it’s very well written in general. So if you thought all developers have terrible grammar skills, you’re wrong!

If you’re a web developer who understands HTML, CSS, and the basics of JavaScript, this book is for you if you want to get your hands a bit messy with jQuery!

Time for the full on review!

What the Book Covers

Once I finished Learning jQuery 1.3, I was amazed with how much content was fit into such a book. Being 444 pages, it’s not one of the skinniest books out there but don’t let that intimidate you because some pages are full with bits of HTML/CSS/JavaScript. I cannot think of one thing that Learning jQuery 1.3 doesn’t cover, and to be rather honest, I think the book covers everything it could of! They didn’t leave out anything and the chapters are very well placed.

Now let’s see what Learning jQuery 1.3 covers:

• What and why jQuery does what it’s best for
• Setting up jQuery along with injecting and executing the code
• All of the different selectors you can use including the rather famous $() function
• Performing events on the start of a page
• Learning how to set up jQuery to interact with keyboard events
• Effects like fading, hide and show, and even custom effects
• Manipulating the DOM elements or most simply, the HTML code
• Loading content dynamically with AJAX
• Styling and editing HTML tables
• Form verification and styling
• Creating a news rotator and image carousel
• Developing and using plugins along with a variety of recommended plugins to use
• Covering the use of the jQuery UI
• Lots of recommended online resources, development tools, and even a section on JavaScript closures
• And to sum it all up, a quick reference guide with a list of the jQuery methods you can use

Yeah, that’s pretty much everything you need to know about jQuery’s features.

This Book is Awesome

I cannot say how much I absolutely love this book. I’ve been using basic jQuery throughout the websites I’ve been developing, and I have to be honest, I learned quite a bit. The two authors who wrote this book are what I can call jQuery experts, and they know the best way of doing things.

There has been multiple instances in the book where there is more than one way to do something, and the authors help you and even explain why their way is the best way to do that certain function. I find this extremely useful in a variety of cases because there’s never one way of doing something in any programming language. The “best” way isn’t something you can teach yourself, instead, it’s something that someone needs to teach you. I really believe that Learning jQuery 1.3 outlines exactly that.

The other two books we have (jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide and jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery) are actually somewhat in this book. Learning jQuery 1.3 has a simple reference guide which is no where in-depth as jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide and it even talks about the jQuery UI but nothing as in-depth as jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery. If you want to learn everything possibly you can about jQuery but not too much of it, Learning jQuery 1.3 is the book you want to get.

On the other hand, there really isn’t anything that disappointed me while I was reading this book. Everything in Learning jQuery 1.3 is clearly stated and the content is outlined brilliantly in every chapter. I expect nothing more or nothing less from Learning jQuery 1.3. They have just the right amount of content in this rather hefty book.

jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery

jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery has a vast amount of content written in this rather small (well, compared to Learning jQuery 1.3) book. jQuery UI, which is built upon the readily available jQuery framework is really a vast amount of plugins for jQuery and has been widely known for its interface and functions.

The jQuery UI has been used on some top-notch websites because of its rather light interface and ease of use. Web developers love it because it’s so easy to get things done and users love it because for one, it looks amazing and it’s just such an easy interface to use.

The jQuery UI comes with a variety of themes and even some online software to make your own. It’s extremely extendable just like the jQuery framework is, but it’s meant for developing an user interface quicker than using jQuery itself.

You might be asking yourself why would someone use jQuery UI even though they have the jQuery framework right there. Well, jQuery UI is made by some of the world’s smartest JavaScript developers. I’m not saying typical developers like us have no idea what we’re doing, but we all know it’s so easy to not properly remove something from memory… yes, I’m talking about those glitches in Internet Explorer! With using JavaScript frameworks like jQuery, it takes those bottlenecks out so we can do what we do best! Which is of course, create high-class websites!

What the Book Covers

If you compare jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery to the actual documentation and features available on the jQuery UI website, there’s not one thing you’ll be able to find that’s not discussed in the book. I really have to say, Dan Wellman, the author of this book, really knows his stuff extremely well. He wrote the book in a way assuming you already understand the basics of jQuery, but in all seriousness, they couldn’t of developed jQuery to be any easier. John Resig, the founder of jQuery, really laid that out from the start of the entire project, which as a web-developer myself, I cannot thank him enough for creating the foundation of such an easy to use framework with out-of-this-world features that make my life so much easier.

Now here’s a simple run down of what jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery covers:

• Introducing the set up of the jQuery UI
• An introduction of ThemeRoller, or the online theming engine of the jQuery UI
• Explaining the files and classes that make up the framework
• Covering basic and advanced tab implementation and styling
• Using the accordion widget or the “collapsed” ordered list (hey, that’s what I call it!)
• Introducing the rather simple, but ever so stylish, dialog box
• Making the “UI” in jQuery UI come alive with interactive sliders
• How to create a date-picker and editing it for your needs
• Getting some application feedback with ‘em progress bars
• Covering the most important aspect with interacting with a web application, dragging, dropping, selecting, and resizing
• Making unsorted lists sorted with the rather advanced  sortable methods
• Adding in all those cool and unique animations and transitions

Amazingly, there’s no reference guide available in jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery, so you’ll need to refer to the index if you ever so wish to look something up.

Amazingly Written by an Awesome Writer

What can I say, jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery has really taught me so much more that I cannot be so thankful for. I’ll be honest, I’ve only used the jQuery UI several times but I have used jQuery before numerous times for my clients’ websites.

Things that would take me five minutes to code using straight up jQuery would take one minute to create with using the vast amount of plugins in the jQuery UI. jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery is such an amazing book for this reason. If Packt won’t punish me for saying this, but it’s not as boring as Learning jQuery 1.3. And the main reason for that is mainly that the jQuery UI helps eliminate some things that slow us down. And hey, there’s quite a bit of images too which you need in a book discussing any type of user interface.

One thing that I have to say is that because Packt offers free sample code of all of their books, it’s really easy to follow along and even edit the code to add it into your project if you wish to do so. There’s so much sample code included with jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery, with that I’m betting once you get through all of it, you’ll be a jQuery UI genius.

Overall, I have to say, jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery is an amazingly written book with nothing I can recommend for it to be any better. From the screenshots the author includes to the complete source code they offer for free, it’s really a steal for this book.

jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide

Now I have to say, the  jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide is a book every web-developer needs to pick up! If you don’t want to pick up the other two books we’ve reviews, your best bet would be to pick up this book for a complete run down of every single thing that was available in jQuery 1.4, which isn’t too much different from the latest versions.

jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide is not really a “book” per se, which in my mind, no one would actually sit down and read this. The main reason for that is this book is a reference guide; an rather in-depth one in fact.

After reading all of these jQuery books myself, having jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide on my side will be extremely helpful. Basically, what jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide does for you is list all the available features in jQuery and gives a great run-down along with some example code for each one.

You may be thinking, well for a 336 page book, how much is there? Feel free to check out their sample chapter for a closer look. It’s a clear and rather organized way of summarizing everything about jQuery and I will guarantee you, it’ll help you in your jQuery development.

What the Book Covers

From what you can already guess, the jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide covers practically everything available in jQuery. But just for your purpose, I’ll give you a run-down.

The jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide covers:

• The basics of a jQuery script
• Selector expressions
• DOM traversal methods
• DOM manipulation methods
• Even methods
• Effect methods
• AJAX methods
• Miscellaneous methods like the $.noConflict() method
• jQuery properties to return certain info
• The plug-in API
• Quick reference
• Online resources
• Development tools

Basically from what I’ve said before, practically everything on the jQuery framework and more!

What Can I Say, What a Great Reference Guide

Just like the heading says, I really cannot say anything more for a reference guide. The thing that really brings this book out is that it basically takes the examples from the jQuery documentation, gives some great descriptions on how to use that certain method and why it’s used in the first place.

I can not expect anything more. It’s has just the right amount of words for every method, it lays them out in a real-world situation, and in the end of it, it’ll teach you how to use that method if you forget a certain part of what to pass through it.

If you’re looking for a reference guide to have in your own hands or when you’re without an internet connection or even on the go, the jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide is for you. It’s so easy to look something up in the rather organized index, and see how to use it and why it is used.

Overall

I really have to say, all three of these books, Learning jQuery 1.3, jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery, and the jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide do an excelllent job of teaching you everything you need to know about jQuery.

If you’re looking for a book to teach you jQuery in the first place, Learning jQuery 1.3 is for you. If you’re looking for a book to teach you the jQuery UI, jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery is a great start. And finally, if your looking for a book to sum up it all up for you, the jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide does a fantastic job at it.

To sum all all of this up, if you’re a web-developer looking to learn any part of jQuery from its effects to the AJAX features or in need of some simple reference from time to time, looking at these three books by Packt would be a great start.

If you want to read more about the following, you may visit their websites:

Official jQuery website: http://www.jquery.com

Official jQuery UI website: http://jqueryui.com

Book on learning jQuery: Learning jQuery 1.3

Book on learning the jQuery UI: jQuery UI 1.7: The User Interface Library for jQuery

Reference guide on everything jQuery: jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide

Somethin’ a little different today… I’m going to show you a video on my iPhone.

[youtube _aOi13sOoQU]

The thing is, the number of your blog posts you have isn’t going to work in this game. Basically what I mean is, you’re not going to get suddenly popular even if you have 1,000 blog posts.

When I first created Tech Cores back in 2008, I had no idea on how to run a blog and get popular. There are tutorials on the web on how to do such a thing, but all of them are extremely scattered and not organized at all.

To start up your own blog from scratch, you need a variety of different people and services/applications:

• You need to have a smart web-guru
  • There is no excuse to this; if you do not know proper HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript (along with the popular frameworks like jQuery, Mootools, or even Prototype), and more server-side languages if you wish. Getting this part is easily one of the hardest parts. Of course you can follow tutorials on the web on how to get a blog up and running, but it won’t be unique in any way… more on that below.
• You need to have an unique site
  • So many bloggers think they can use a theme that they found off the internet. Now I have to admit, some themes are great, but the thing is, they’re far from unique! Anyone can download that theme and once you have the same theme as another popular blog out there, your blog will not look as good. In the long run, learn how to create you own theme for WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, Joomla, or whatever CMS system you may choose to use. Creating themes from scratch is not an easy task once so ever, but if you have a smart web-guru, they can do anything on the web. As for myself, Tech Cores was created all from scratch and it started on a piece of paper that lead to a Photoshop design and eventually, a final website. Every CMS system, for the most part, has amazing documentation so your smart web-guru will be able to create that custom theme. Tech Cores was my first WordPress theme that I’ve ever made and it was actually very easy creating the theme because of all that documentation and my knowledge that I had already in web-development. As a side note, when you design the website, lay out all the colors your going to use and stick with them. Like Marc Billow has said, you don’t want a website that looks like it just barfed up the rainbow (cough… Engadget).
• You need to have a person who knows SEO
  • Commonly refereed as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, it helps those major search engines like Google, Yahoo, and even Bing find your site. There are many ways to do SEO and it can relate to the server aspects of things and even to the way you code your website. SEO is one of the most important parts of a website, and if you don’t do it right, you’ll rarely be seen by those search engines. And sadly enough, SEO isn’t something you can learn easily… you need books. Fortunately, there are many books teaching you SEO. It’s shouldn’t be too hard to pick up tips by yourself, but if you hire someone to do the SEO for you, it can come a long way. SEO isn’t something you need to maintain either; you just set it up once, and it’ll do its own thing for you.
• You need the right software/hardware
  • There are many parts that run a website. You have the web server itself like Apache, LightTPD, or even NginX, PHP to do the server-side programming, MySQL to store the data, and the server itself. Getting all this is quite easy because like many shared hosts, it’s all set up for you even with a control panel installed for your ease of use! If you’re using a VPS or a dedicated server, it may be managed or unmanaged, and if it’s unmanaged, you’ll need a server-guru to set all this stuff up for you. And of course, you need the blogging software itself that was briefly in the theme section above.
• You need the writer(s), target audience, and the blog posts
  • Whether it’s a blog ran by run person or multiple people, you’ll need the writers to get all those blog posts out. Whether these posts will be personal for a personal blog or for a blog talking about a certain subject, you need to figure out who you’re target audience is. And along with that target audience, you need to figure out what you want them to read, or a certain topic of blog posts. To get those blog posts, it would be beneficial if you knew proper English, but I’ve seen some blogs with awful grammar.
• You need to expand
  • Like one of my good friends has once said, if something isn’t going well, change it! Okay, he might of not said that exact phrase, but it was very much like it. In other words, if you’re not getting at least 300 different visitors a month (which can be determined by using many of the statistical programs out there and often refereed as unique visitors), you might want to think about doing something about it. Whether that’s canceling what you’re doing now because owning a blog costs good money, or even giving your blog a complete design lift, do something to help get more visitors! Review some products, contact your friends to start writing for the blog, or even start doing some popular tutorials found on the web. What ever you may do, plan it out in the beginning. I have a list filled with 300+ ideas I can write about, and by doing that, if I ever have writers block, I can simply look at my list and have some idea what to write about.
• And lastly, have fun with it!
  • You may think blogging may such a awful thing to do, but actually, if you love what you’re writing about, it’s extremely easy to blabber on. If you show that you had fun writing it in your blog posts, your readers will have a fun time reading it. Have fun at what you may be writing and this blog of yours will turn into a hobby and quite possibly, a career.

Those are all of my thoughts of starting up your own blog. I know, there’s a lot to a blog and running the entire thing, but once you get past that, it’s just as easy logging into the admin interface of your blog and writing that post!

Hopefully this blog post helped you understand on how to start up and run your blog. It’s not the easiest of tasks, but once you get past it, it’s a lot of fun… trust me on that one.

If you’re thinking about starting up your own blog whether it’ll be  personal blog or even one dedicated to a certain topic, leave a comment and let’s hear your thoughts! And we hope, that this post has helped you out in any way!

In the very beginning when I was setting up Tech Cores, I had to choose between what CMS (Content Management System) I was going to use. This was in fact a very hard decision for me. All three of these have their best and worse features. In this post, we’ll cover which CMS is best for what types of website. Every one of these systems I’ve had a great deal of work with. And Tech Cores was running on every single one of these before also.

Reliability

I have to say that all three systems are all very reliable. I’ve been using WordPress for the longest period of time, Joomla for a while (to be more specific, for the first version of Tech Cores), and Drupal for the least amount of time.

WordPress

WordPress has always lived up to its name no matter what type of website it’s running. But when it comes to reliability with WordPress, I would have to say it would be the highest out of all three of these systems. I’ve been using WordPress for many years now ever since the very early days, and I have to say, I’ve really gotten to know the interface and how the community works with it. Because the community for WordPress is quite large, bugs, updates, or even suggestions are handled at the highest priority because it is in fact one of the largest open source blogging (even though it can be used for much more than just blogging) systems out there.

Joomla

Sadly, I have to say Joomla is one of the least reliable systems out there. When I was running Joomla for Tech Cores v1.0, I have to say it was very sluggish at times and it was also quite glitchy at certain times also. To get Joomla to do some things what the other two systems can do requires some third party plugins, which in the end of it, adds more room for error because of being third party and some of them being in very early stages of development, which many plugins are.

Drupal

Drupal has to be one of my favorite systems out there. It’s great for blogging, running an e-commerce website, or even using it for your product page of your latest application. Drupal’s reliability is very high compared to Joomla, let’s say, but I’m not sure if I would say it’s any better or worse than WordPress. Drupal is a very stable system and I’ve never had any major problems with it before.

Security

All three systems are fairly secure, but there’s one system in here that’s very prone to security issues which you’ll later find out.

WordPress

WordPress has had its security issues before, especially for the hosted one (WordPress.com), but as of right now, the security issues are very ironed out in WordPress and if there is any security issues, it’s typically caused by WordPress’s third party plugins.

Joomla

Okay, I’m not the person to ask about security issues in Joomla. I have to say, Joomla is the worst CMS program I’ve ever used when it comes to security. Right before I moved Tech Cores over to WordPress back in Q4 of 2009, when I was running Joomla, someone was able to get into the main files and amend some spam links hidden in the background so search engines can see the links and rank that linking site higher. I honestly have no idea how long it was there for, but it was there. I wasn’t running too many plugins with Joomla either. It could of been caused by the plugins or Joomla’s coding. But to sum it up, I won’t vouch for Joomla’s security for what happened to me.

Drupal

For the most part, I believe Drupal is very secure. I’ve seen some major security issues in the past some years ago but up till recently, I cannot say there’s really anything in regards to security issues. Drupal powers some pretty hefty sites and it’s why some people prefer it as the CMS as choice for some very major websites like MTV.

Extendability

Probably the most important feature of any CMS is extendability. When we say extendability, we’re talking about themes, plugins, and everything in that nature.

WordPress

Without a doubt I would have to say WordPress has the most extendability out of any CMS system. WordPress has a vast amount of themes ranging from free to paid, many plugins to extend WordPress to do anything you want, and also the basic system of managing plugins overall is very easy to use (especially in WordPress 3.0). Whether you want to add, delete, or even modify an existing plugin, it’s very easy to do in WordPress.

Joomla

For any Joomla fanatic, it comes with a good amount of plugins, or which are called extensions in Joomla, but some plugins are a bit lazily made or they just don’t work correctly all the time. In other words, there are quite a few plugins that you want to avoid in Joomla. Also, compared to the out-of-the-box extendability, Joomla doesn’t have as near the amount of features than other CMS systems. It doesn’t even have a native comment system. Granted, Joomla isn’t entirely meant for a blog, but a good portion of users use it for that reason. For theming support, Joomla comes with a good amount of themes and some websites even dedicated for Joomla themes.

Drupal

I have to say Drupal’s plugins are fairly nice and it’s very easy to write one on your own, but I see some plugins, or what Drupal calls modules, that are a bit neglected. They do have 259 pages of modules as of right now and with a good chunk of themes. Finding themes for Drupal can be a bit harder because there’s not as much as WordPress, but you can typically find a theme that’ll fit your needs/wants. And as a developer, I finding theming Drupal to be rather easy.

The Verdict

I honestly have to say that I would place all three systems in different categories based on what type of website you’re creating.

• Creating a blog
  • 1) WordPress : 2) Drupal : 3) Joomla
• Creating an e-commerce site
  • 1) Drupal : 2) WordPress : 3) Joomla
• Creating a basic and rather static website
  • 1) WordPress : 2) Drupal : 3) Joomla

Now that’s my own personal opinion based on my experiences. But as you can see, I put Joomla last for all of them. Honestly, I think Joomla has a bit of work it needs to do until it’s rather stable like Drupal and WordPress.

What are your thoughts on these CMS systems? For me, I believe WordPress fits most people because it’s easy to use, Drupal fits the more ‘advanced’ area of CMS systems on all the things you can do and how developers can create new plugins, and that Joomla can do a bit but not that way most people want it in regards to security and such.

As many of you guys know, Apple released a new iPods on September 1st. The most notible change was the iPod nano. The iPod nano got a complete over haul and in some parts, it’s a downgrade.

What are the upgrades?

The only upgrade that I liked was the clip. Yup, a clip. That means that I can now replace my paper clip with this piece of junk (iPod nano).

What are the downgrades?

The first thing I noticed was the lack of a click wheel. Apple decided to remove the click wheel because they wanted to make it smaller. Now, I personally think that making something smaller isn’t going to make the product better. Going on, Apple decided to make the screen smaller and added touch support. Now, I think that this is a stupid idea because they’ve removed video playback and the ability to play games. Also, since the new Nano is so small, they’ve removed the speaker, camera, accelerometer, and the microphone. The other thing I don’t like is the price. For an 8GB, it’s $149 and $179 for a 16GB version. Now, this is totally outrageous! For what the iPod nano has to offer, this is totally a rip-off. I think that Apple should have priced this iPod at $79 or lower.

Overall, I think that this is the worst iPod ever. It looses some key features that made the Nano so successful and popular. I think that this is a downgrade, not an upgrade. Also, with this iPod, it makes me feel that Apple isn’t caring about a product that revolutionized the music industry anymore.

Please tell me what you think about the iPod nano. I’m curious on what you think about it.

*Note: I’ve tried out all of the phones that I’m going to talk about in this post.

#5. HTC Aria- Price: $129 w/ 2 yr contract

Pros:

1) My first favorite thing about the Aria is the design. The HTC Aria is very small and pocket friendly. It has a very nice matte finish on the back and has four screws, which gives the Aria a nice industrial look.

2) The second thing I like about the Aria is Android. Android is an open-source mobile OS that I’ve been DYING to try out. It has the best notification system, almost unlimited customizability, and Google integration.

3) The third thing I like about the Aria is it’s speed. The phone features a 600MHz processor and 384 MB of RAM. Although this is no SnapDragon, it’s still pretty darn quick. Swiping through home screens, scrolling, and overall system performance was pretty good for it’s size.

Cons:

1) The thing I really don’t like is it’s screen. It’s 3.2 inches with a resolution of 480×320. With the small screen, the typing experience was very cramped in portrait and browsing the web with the screen is lackluster.

2) The second thing I don’t like is the construction. The phone is light mainly because it’s mostly made out of plastic and it feels a little cheap.

4. Palm Pre Plus- Price: $99 w/ 2 yr contract

The Palm Pre Plus is Palm’s phone with their own webOS platform. It isn’t the most popular phone in the world, but it deserves some credit.

Pros:

1) The first thing I like about the Palm Pre is it’s portrait keyboard. I absolutely love portrait sliders. (I have a post about why I like them) The keyboard might look a little cramped, but it’s still pretty decent. It’s a lot more tactile than the original Palm Pre and it’s slightly bigger.

2) The second thing I like about the Pre is webOS. I LOVE webOS in many ways. I find it very intuitive and revolutionary. Particularly it’s multitasking system. In my opinion (could be a fact ), Palm’s execution of multitasking is probably the best out there. When you exit out of an app, the app will zoom out into a card. If you would like to close the app, simply swipe up on the card.

Cons:

1) The thing I noticed right away with the Pre is it’s performance. Performance on the Pre was pretty slow, especially when you have a bunch of applications open. Apps like the browser, mail, maps, and even the calculator opened slowly. I just hope that Palm release a Pre with a SnapDragon or a high-end CPU.

2) The second thing I don’t like is a problem that I have with the Aria. That problem is the small                                                                              screen. It’s basically the same reasoning as the Aria.

3. iPhone 4- Price: $199 w/ 2 yr contract

The iPhone 4 is Apple’s 4th gen iPhone. It’s the biggest overhaul in the iPhone family and packs a lot of features in one small device.

Pros:

1) The first thing you’ll notice with the iPhone 4 is the screen. The iPhone 4 has the “Retina Display”, which has an amazing resolution of 960×640 with a crazy 362ppi. With that kind of ppi, the screen is amazing. First, you can’t see the pixels at all on the icons, text, and graphics. It basically looks like it has been painted on to the phone. The Retina Display also uses the LED and  IPS technologies, which are found on the iPad. Overall, you have to go into an Apple Store and experience it.

2) The iPhone 4 has a new 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and it records video in 720p at 30 fps. Although the megapixel count isn’t as big as the EVO’s, but it by looking at the photos from the iPhone 4, they look awesome. What’s cool about the iPhone 4 is that it support’s Apple’s iMovie app for the iPhone. You can do full-blown editing on an iPhone app.

Cons:

1) The thing I despise about the iPhone 4 is it’s glass front and back. Although it gives the iPhone 4 a very nice and sturdy design, it’s extremely fragile. If you drop the phone on it’s back, it’s guaranteed to shatter.

2) The biggest issue with the iPhone 4 is iOS. Yes, you heard me, iOS. I know it’s very easy to use and seamless, but it’s getting old. As a power user, I demand better multitasking, better customization WITHOUT hacking, and a good notification system. I just want to talk about those demands for a second. First off, let’s talk about the multitasking. I personally don’t like Apple’s implementation because you have to make your app to work with multitasking. That basically means that not all apps in the App Store will support it, unless the developer is not lazy and goes to Xcode to add the multitasking API. I understand Apple is trying to keep system performance quick, but I’m willing to sacrifice that for true multitasking. Let’s talk customization. Customization on iOS is very minimal. You can basically change the wallpaper and that’s it. I know you can jailbreak it, but I personally don’t like hacking. The third and final thing is notifications. This is a biggie. Apple’s notification system has to be the worst implementation in the world. If your friend sends an IM, it interrupts what you are doing, which can get really irritating.

2. BlackBerry Torch- $199 w/ 2yr contract

Now, I bet you weren’t expecting this at all. In my opinion, the Torch is my 2nd favorite phone. I’ll go over why.

Pros:

1) The Torch’s screen is 3.2 inches and has a resolution of 480×360. Now, this isn’t the highest resolution, but the screen is really bright and vibrant. Also, the touchscreen responsiveness was pretty good.

2) The second thing I like about the Torch is the trackpad, touch screen, and keyboard combo. It’s a really nice combo because you don’t have one way to operate the phone. I think the trackpad will come in handy, when you are using this phone with one hand.

3) The third thing I like about the Torch is BlackBerry OS 6. To be honest, I was never a fan of the BB OS, but when I played with OS 6, I loved it. I liked it because of how the slick the UI looked, how it handles notifications, and how it integrates all of your social media in one app. I also liked the media player. It’s not the best thing in the world, but I think it’s good enough for what I do and also, it has Wireless Syncing!

Cons:

1) The web browser on the Torch is ok. The browser is web-kit based, supports full HTML, and multitouch. It sounds promising, but the experience is a little sluggish. Sites like TechCores took about 15 seconds on a Wi-Fi network. If you are trying to load New York Times, you’ll be waiting till Christmas. (Not really )

2) When I played with the phone for a while, I noticed that the phone can get a little sluggish. I’m not totally sure what the CPU is clocked at, but I think it’s around 600MHz.

1. Samsung Captivate- $199 w/ 2 yr contract

The Samsung Captivate is AT&T’s first high-end Android smartphone. This phone is my #1 phone and this will be my next phone purchase.

Pros:

1) The screen on the Captivate is stunning. It’s a 4 inch Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 800×480. The resolution isn’t as high as the iPhone 4, but the text still looked pretty good. What’s great about AMOLED is that it doesn’t use any power when it’s displaying blacks.

2) The second thing I like about this phone is the speed. This phone is just blazingly fast. It has the 1GHz Humming Bird processor, which is similar to the A4 chip and has 512MB of RAM. Swiping through home screens, scrolling, and overall system performance was pretty good.

3) The third thing I liked about the Captivate is it’s design. The Captivate is only 9.3 mm thin and has a carbon fiber like battery cover on the back. The design reminds me of a squished BlackBerry Storm for some reason.

4) The forth thing I like about this phone is Android. Android is an open-source mobile OS that I’ve been DYING to try out. It has the best notification system, almost unlimited customizability, and Google integration. But, Samsung just makes the experience even better with their TouchWhiz skin. In my opinion, this is better than HTC Sense. It’s less in-your-face and it’s a lot lighter. The UI is very iPhone like and has some cool widgets like Daily Briefing, which gathers local news, weather, and stock quotes in one widget.

Cons:

none!

What’s your favorite phone? Do you like your current phone? If so, what is it? Please put your answer in the comments.

I’ve been using Photoshop for a number of years now. In the very beginning stages of learning how to use the more advanced features of Photoshop, I remember watching videos that were not even fifteen minutes. To watch a video that long and to only learn one new feature is just ridiculous in my mind. That is why Photoshop In 5 was created. In these series of videos and blog posts, we’ll have a video attach to every one of our posts that will be under five minutes long. No more of being bored when watching tutorial videos or grabbing a coffee just to wait for that fifteen minute HD video to load.

Welcome to the very first episode of Photoshop In 5. Photoshop in 5 is a video series dedicated for anyone to learn Photoshop tips and tricks in five minutes or less. In this episode, we’ll cover color replacement.

[youtube HUTg8kiA_b8]

And of course, please leave your comments below leaving your thoughts on our new video series. If the video above was helpful, please give it a thumbs up on YouTube and be sure to leave your comments for what we should do next!

Design

iPhone 4 on it's side

When it comes to design, the iPhone 4 has the most substantial change of any other iPhone. The iPhone 4 now has a glass front and back with a stainless steel band around the phone. With those materials, the phone feels noticeably heaver and feels more premium in your hand. The major draw back with the glass back and the glass front is that the phone is way more fragile and feels delicate in your hand.

iPhone 3GS

The 3GS has the traditional curved plastic back with tapered edges and a chrome bezel, but it’s a little thicker. The drawback of the plastic back is that it scratches easily and it does feel a little cheap. Although, I personally like this design better because I can get a better grip on the phone.

Performance

The Apple A4

WIth the iPhone 4, you get the Apple A4 processor, which the iPad has and 512MB of RAM instead of the 256 from the 3GS. When I tried the iPhone 4 at the Apple Store, I didn’t really notice a difference between my 3GS. The only difference I noticed were the animations, but thats it. Overall, I find the performance to be the same.

Screen

The AMAZING Retina Display

When it comes to the screen, the iPhone 4 just owns the iPhone 3GS. The iPhone 4 has the “Retina Display”, which has an amazing resolution of 960×640 with a crazy 362ppi. With that kind of ppi, the screen is amazing. First, you can’t see the pixels at all and the icons, text, and graphics looks like it has been painted on to the phone. The Retina Display also uses the LED and  IPS technologies, which are found on the iPad. Overall, you have to go into an Apple Store and experience it.

Small Image = Low Resolution Screen

The iPhone 3GS’ screen has a 320×480 LCD screen with a ppi of 164. The screen is still crisp, but compared to the 3GS, it’s a pixelated mess. The screen does not use IPS or the LED technology. I personally like the lack of IPS because I don’t really want people to look at my screen.

Camera

The iPhone 4 has a new 5 megapixel camera with LED flash and it records video in 720p at 30 fps. Although the megapixel count isn’t as big as the EVO’s, but it by looking at the photos from the iPhone 4, they look awesome.

The iPhone 3GS has a 3 megapixel camera with VGA recording. The picture quality on the iPhone 3GS is alright, but not as good as the iPhone 4. The video recording is pretty good on the 3GS, but once again, not as good as the iPhone 4′s HD recording.

Conclusion

Overall, both the 3GS and the iPhone 4 are great phones. They both have their ups and downs. If you have the iPhone or the iPhone 3G, you should definitely upgrade. The improved performance and the dramatically improved screen is going to enhance your experience. If you have the 3GS, I would wait. For me, the screen is still good, the performance is still zippy, and I like the old design better.

Note: All images were from Apple.

iMac Updates

Let’s start off with the iMac. They still have the 21.5 and 27 inch models, but they both got some new hardware.

The base line 21.5 inch iMac has a new 3.06GHz Core i3 processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, and has one of ATI’s Radeon 4670 with 256MB vRam. Apple also updated the the higher end 21.5 inch iMac ($1,499). They still have the Core i3 processors but instead of 3.06GHz, it’s now clocked to 3.20GHz. Apple also upgraded the hard drive to 1TB and the graphics to the ATI Radeon 5670 variety.

The $1,699 27 inch iMac has the same guts as the higher end 21.5 inch iMac, but the 27 inch model is upgradeable to a 3.6GHz Core i5, 2TB hard drive, a 256GB SSD and 16GB of DDR3 RAM. The highest end 27 inch iMac now has a 2.8GHz quad-core i5, ATI Radeon HD 5750 GPU with 1GB of vRAM, 1TB hard drive and upgradeable to a Core i7, 2TB hard drive, 256 GB SSD, and up to 16GB of RAM.

Mac Pro Updates

Possibly the most substantial update has to be the Mac Pro. Apple updated the Mac Pro to have 12 processing cores! (WOW!) It’s quite impressive to have that many cores, but it doesn’t come in a cheap price. If you want the 12 core Mac Pro, you’ll have to spend a whopping $5,000! Now, if you want a cheaper solution, you can still get a quad-core model for $2,499 or an 8 core model at $3,499. Apple updated the graphics card to the Radeon HD 5770, which is upgradeable to the HD 5870.

Apple does provide some good upgrades for the Mac Pro. Apple allows you to have 32GB of RAM, 4TB of storage, and a crazy option for four 512GB SSD drives!

New accessories

With all the updates out of the way, Apple made some cool accessories. Let’s take a look at them:

Magic TrackPad

The Apple Magic Trackpad is interesting. It’s basically the same glass multi-touch trackpad, but bigger. It still has the same gestures as all the Apple laptops. This product is mainly designed for desktop users. If you want this for your Apple computer, you can go get this for $69.

27 inch LED Cinema Display

The Apple 27 inch Cinema Display is no different from the 24 inch model. The new 27 inch Cinema display has a resolution of 2560×1440 and a new price of $999 Those are basically the main differences.

Apple Battery Charger… wait, what?!

Yes, you heard me, Apple is making re-chargable AA batteries. This could be the strangest thing that I’ve seen Apple to release to date. Now, Apple is pretty serious about this. Apple claims that it’s battery charger has the lowest vampire power draw than any charger on the market. You can get this thing for $29 and it will come with six AA batteries.

When it comes to a lot of those Mac applications out there, sometimes you just don’t know what to get exactly. The time when I first got my my, I already knew of all of the popular Mac applications mainly for the fact that I read so much on the internet.

The very first application I ever install would have to be my IM client, in this case, Adium (or Pidgin on the Linux/Windows side of things). Adium is very needed for me because I have many friends who live exactly halfway across the world from where I live. Because of that exact reason, it’s hard to call them (because prices are out of their whits when it comes to international phone bills; I know I could use Skype, but sometimes that internet connect isn’t the best out there either) or even e-mail them mainly because of the time differences. So any IM client is needed for me. I always need to be in contact with all of my friends worldwide; Adium is that important.

But when you think about it, what about the paid applications? Throughout my whole computer-savvy career, I’ve bought so many applications including games, tune-up apps, management apps, and even apps that help me multitask. Granted, I get a lot of my applications from programs like MacHeist or even the MacUpdate promo. I know my way around to get deals on the web.

My main question to every Mac (please, just Mac this time) owners out there is what’s your favorite or most needed piece of shareware for the Mac? For me, because I’m very into web development, I cannot stress enough on how much I like Panic’s Coda. But I realize this might be hard for some people to fork out one application they like most, so what’s your favorite multimedia, development, internet related, utilities, and even favorite game.

For me, here’s my favorites:

Multimedia: Easily Adobe Photoshop on this one. I always have that app open because I’m always working on some design work.

Development: Without a doubt, Panic’s Coda. Granted, it doesn’t serve for iPhone development, but I do love everything about it. And of course for iPhone development, I use Xcode on that one. I actually haven’t created any app for OS X yet.

Internet Related: Tweetie! Seriously, this is one of the best designed Twitter apps of all time. I would pay Twitter to make this their web interface!

Utilities: I was actually just talking about this on Twitter. My favorite Mac utility would have to be MacPaw’s CleanMyMac. Now I haven’t bought this one just yet, but I am very close to buying it.

So those are all of my favorite Mac apps! How about you share yours and maybe, just maybe, add in a few more categories than I did? I’m probably not going to buy any Mac application for quite a while now because I just forked out quite a bit of money for Coda, but I’m always willing to try new apps.

And please remember, these are for paid Mac applications. I can name so many free ones, it’s not even funny. But hopefully, with your help, we’ll get a nice list going here so people know what to buy if they want to switch over to a Mac.

Objective C (the main.m file of an iPhone app)

I’ve been developing for a number of years now. My very first programming language I tried to learn was Visual Basic .NET. As like learning anything on your own, comes hard challenges. This was the very first programming language I tried to set my hands upon.

After learning the basics of Visual Basic .NET, I basically gave up. And at that point, I started learning (X)HTML. That was easily five years ago. I learned the basics of (X)HTML, but at that point, things like CSS weren’t ever so popular.

When I was working with some other friends, I was given the oppurtunity to basically to become the “web-master”. As of today, that term means something totally different. Back then, it simply meant updating the content. Today, it means doing database work, scripting work, and even (X)HTML/CSS/JavaScript.

So when I was working with my friends with managing their websites, which at the time I completely had no prior experience to developing in any language, I really opened my eyes to a new world.

Last year, I ended up taking a computer science course that taught Visual Basic. And you know what, I aced it with flying stars. Earlier this year I took the web design course (that really only discussed the basics of (X)HTML/CSS)), aced that one too. So I can tell you right now, I have lots of experience…

But what’s probably the most important thing when developing, is how you do it. If you’re starting off at the very beginning, I can honestly say don’t expect that much because learning how to develop in any language will be tough for the first time. Once you get past that first language, it’s all quite easy because you understand how it’s supposed to work.

When I develop, I take the matter in what font I use, what syntax colors are used, the background color, and even how large the font is.

• Anytime you’re developing on a large project, it’s going to take a lot of time. Programming != writing a paper (and yes, I can throw in some programming terms to spice it up – for you new ones out there, the != is a global term that basically means “not equal to”). When you write a paper, it’s almost always on a white background with black text. But when coding, some people, like myself, prefer a black background with inverted syntax colors. When you’re looking at code for hours on end (which a typical programmer does quite often), it can just be stressful on the eyes. Many people think black is easier when coding than white. It’s a matter of preference, but just try it out.
• As from what I’ve said before, font is a huge thing when programming. On the Mac side of things, Monaco is used a lot. On the Windows side, Courier New is used quite a bit. When it comes to fonts, it’s really a matter of preference. If you want to get some idea of what font is perfect for you, go to  the Top 10 Programming Fonts to find your favorite font. Personally, my favorite font is Inconsolata at 13pt. So what’s yours?
• The last thing I really want to cover is the syntax colors. If you’re like me, you care about the colors of what’s being used for certain syntaxes. For example, when I’m coding in PHP, I like my variables to be in yellow and my <?php ?> text  to be in red. It’s a matter of preference and you can set these in almost every editor out there.

Hopefully that helps for anyone developing in any language. If you see in the image above all of this, that’s the way I personally like to develop, at least in Objective C that is.

If you have any more programming tips for us to write about, be sure to drop it in the comments below! We’ll be more than happy to hear on how you develop.

1. Simply leave it off for a day or two then try turning it back on.

2. Unplug every cord from your Playstation. Get an ordinary hand towel and damp it with hot water. Place it over your PS3 unit and leave it there for 24 hours. After the day goes by, take it off and turn it on.

3. Check for any loose cables.

4. Take out the hard drive, then put it back in. You might want to do this a couple of times for best results.

5. Reinstall the System software. This can be helpful because the YLOD also occurs when your software is corrupted.

6. Lastly, send it back to Sony. If it is still under warranty, then you might want to exchange your old system for a new one.

If all else fails, tip #6 is your last resort. I hope this helped!

-Scotty

Ok, so this has been discussed a lot! I know I’m a little late, but I just had to stress this topic. In the 15th Tech Cores podcast, Ryan and Taylor talked about the iPad killing netbooks. I am going to give my reasons how the iPad might kill the NetBook below:

Internet Browsing

The iPad web browsing experience is phenomenal. The reason why it’s so phenomenal is because you can “touch the web.” It is very smooth and fast. I experienced it myself over at Bestbuy, and I will tell you that being able to touch the web is better than clicking the web.

Writing documents

I’d have to say they are about equal on this one. A netbook has a standard keyboard that hopefully all of us have experienced before. However on the iPad, it is a touch screen keyboard. You can buy an Apple Bluetooth keyboard for $70 or the iPad keyboard with dock for $70 as well. I think the touch screen keyboard is good enough for quick documents or editing. The keyboard might take a day or two to get used to, but since the iPad has auto-correct, it will help you get used to the keyboard.

Media

Media on the iPad is going to be excellent. Watching movies on the iPad is excellent because of the it’s 9.7 inch IPS display and the built-in speakers for music playback is excellent.  Since the iPad uses iTunes, syncing your Apps, Songs, Movies, Podcasts will be simple and seamless. On a netbook, you have your iTunes and Windows Media player. Media playback on a netbook varies. It varies because the netbook lacks in powerful hardware. On some netbooks, watching  720p videos could get a little choppy. Also, since most netbooks runs Windows 7 Starter, you won’t be able to use Windows Media Center, which is the Front Row equivalent.

Games

Playing games on the iPad is great. The built-in accelerometer makes racing games more realistic, and it allows developers to make games more immerse. Also, getting games on the iPad is super simple. It’s simple because the iPad comes with a user-friendly store, which has all the available games in one native app. On a netbook, gaming performance won’t be the best because of their Atom processors and their graphics cards. Due to the lack of powerful hardware, all you can really play is memory intensive flash games or some basic solitaire. Also, installing some games requires a DVD drive, which the netbook doesn’t have. I’d say that the iPad is a better choice for gaming.

Ports

As you know, an average netbook comes with 3 USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet, headphone and mic jack, VGA, and of course, the AC input. On the iPad, it has a 30 pin connector and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Yeah it seems pretty bare bones, but Apple sells an external VGA connector for TV output, an SD card reader, and a USB adapter, but you can only connect cameras to import photos.

OS/Overall Performance

As many of you guys know, the iPad runs the iPhone OS and typical netbooks runs Windows 7 Starter. I would like to start with the iPhone OS first. The iPhone OS is a smartphone OS that’s elegant, smooth, and easy to use. I think the iPhone OS is perfect mainly because how simple it is to operates. For example, my mom doesn’t know anything about computers and she recently got an iPad. How long do you think it will take that my mom to learn it? Hmm, well, my mom learned the iPhone OS than a week. Right now, she already knows how to browse the web with one touch of an icon, view her photos, using multi-touch, and even downloading songs from the iTunes store. That’s just an example of how easy it is to operate the iPad. On to netbooks. Netbooks runs on Windows 7 Starter. Windows 7 Starter is a striped down version of Windows 7, mainly designed for netbooks. For me, the UI is easy for me, but it’s not easy for everyone. It’s not like someone can pick it up instantly or in weeks. Performance on the netbook really depends on the hardware. For some netbooks, performance is sluggish because of the Atom processor. Overall, I think the iPad wins just because of how easy the Ui is and how fast it is.

Overall Impressions

If I was in the situation where I had to choose between the iPad or a netbook, I would choose the iPad. I would never replace an iPad for a notebook, so I’m not going to go there. Anyways, the iPad has everything that I would need if I was ever a traveling person. You can get your work done, read your favorite articles online, then in the meantime you can play some games or listen to music.

Let’s start off with the Magic Mouse. The Magic Mouse is the world’s first multitouch mouse and it’s made by Apple. The Magic Mouse has a sleek and low-profile design. The Magic Mouse has a number of gestures such as the two finger swipe for going back or forward on a webpage. If you are a person that’s picky on ergonomics or a gamer, this mouse is defiantly not for you. This mouse costs $69 and it’s Mac only.

Next is the Microsoft Arc Mouse. This mouse has a stylish design and an ergonomic curve. The reason why it’s called Arc is because it has an arch style of design. If you fold the mouse, it will be significantly more portable and smaller. Overall, I think this is a great mouse if you’re always traveling and want an executive item. This retails for $49 and it comes in many other colors than matte black.

Next, I’ll be talking about the Logitech Performance MX. The Performance MX has a really ergonomic design and has a couple programable buttons. This mouse has Logitech’s hyper scroll wheel. This scroll wheel allows you to scroll long documents rapidly and if you don’t like hyper scrolling, you can just press on the wheel and you’re back to regular scrolling. The nice thing about this mouse is that it has a rechargeable battery. Also, if your mouse runs out of battery, Logitech supplies a mini USB cable for recharging. This mouse costs $99 and it’s both Mac and PC compatible.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) ships with 10.0.23.1. This version of Flash Player is very unsecured in many ways.

Along with that, the latest version of Flash Player is 10.0.45.2. As you can easily notice, the version that is shipped with Mac OS X Snow Leopard is out-of-date big time.

Because of this, security issues, stability issues, along with many other things can cause Flash Player to lock up in many forms.

I would suggest that you would check that you would have the latest version of Flash Player by checking it here:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/155/tn_15507.html

And also to update Flash Player on your Mac:

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

As you can see, this is a huge flaw in Mac OS X. But at least that it comes with a version of Flash Player, unlike a lot of the operating systems out there. If you’re used to this little guy, it might be time to update your version of Flash Player.

Hopefully this might help some of you Mac OS X users out there. If this helps resolve your problems, please feel free to post your experience in the comments below!

Image borrowed from Apple's campaign "AppStore turns 1"

DISCLAIMER: Before I begin, I’d like to point out that I haven’t had a bestselling app (on iTunes) yet and like many of the developers out there, I’m still working on my first hit (that’s the spirit!). I only have two iPhone/iPod games to date (please check ‘em out at Kuyi Mobile!) and I’m hoping to release my third before my first fiscal year on this new venture ends.

Given the number of apps on iTunes AppStore right now, the greatest hurdle for any developer is getting to the top 100 and even harder is sustaining a sweet spot for an app. Developers have probably tried everything to get their apps noticed–from “peggling” to giving it away for FREE for a day but only a handful have become successful. To be honest, its awfully hard to find the trend on the AppStore nowadays. As someone who have been closely observing the AppStore for the past year, I now believe that almost any kind of app can be a bestseller regardless if Apple features you or not (although it helps if they do). If you look at the top 100 bestselling apps, you’ll find a combination of short 3-5 minute apps and high profile titles which range from $0.99 to $9.99. What I’ve noticed however, is that apps can “possibly” be categorized into 2 major types: (1) those that amuse and entertain for a short period of time, hilarious and something that one can show off to friends and can easily be spread by word of mouth (whew! what a run-on sentence!); AND (2) apps that will stay on the user’s device for a long time like productivity enhancements, utilities, and games with high replayability. The first type can go up and down the charts rapidly and has less chance of sustaining a spot within the bestselling list while the latter slowly goes up the charts and eventually stabilizes at a given spot within the top 100. Question now is, how do you achieve this? I’ve narrowed down a couple of common denominators which I will definitely follow on my upcoming release and I hope will also aid you on your next app project.

1. Unique twist or idea. This one should always be at the top of your priority list. Instead of copying an app and creating another version, expand on it and find ways to make a better variant. Incorporate your own ideas and plan well.

2. Well polished app. No matter if its a parody, a quick game or a hilarious gimmick, always ensure quality. Quality on presentation, implementation and execution. This also gives you a huge chance of getting featured by Apple.

3. Lasting impression. Whether its an app or a game, include features that will stick and appeal to your end-users. Wow your customers the first time your app is run. Design your app in such a way that users will remember the “experience”.

4. Catchy app icons. Notice how you can easily identify how any of the bestselling apps work just by looking at its icon?

5. User-friendliness. Users hate complicated apps. Just like websites, the first few minutes (or even seconds) of running your app is critical and will determine if its worth the purchase or not.

6. Staying power. Staying power on the user’s device and staying power on the charts. Be prepared with a plan prior to release. Updating the app regularly seemed to work for most developers while others choose to work on their apps for months and focus on a feature-packed and solid release.

7. Talk to your end-users. Be appreciative of feedbacks whether positive or negative. Be on the look-out for great suggestions and continuously improve your product. Build a community around your app or your business.

8. Check out these apps and use them as reference. Doodle Jump, Zombieville, Fieldrunners, iBeer (yes!), Koi Pond, Solitaire, Skee-ball, The Moron Test, Paper Toss, Tweetie 2, Bejeweled 2 and Canabalt. I’m pretty sure there are more but these are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Download a couple of these apps and see why each one is on the top of their game.

There you go! I’d be glad to hear any suggestions or ideas you can add! And if any of the points above aid you in a way, please don’t forget to give me a copy of your bestseller.

Image above borrowed from Apple.

Let’s face it folks, releasing an app on Apple’s AppStore is like dropping a needle in a haystack. There are well over 100,000 apps available and our chances of getting noticed gets smaller by the day. I was lucky enough to have my first game (Card Drop) featured by Apple under iTunes’ New and Noteworthy section. Sales soared for a week but gradually slowed down weeks after the feature. My second game (SOW), although much more unique than the first wasn’t that lucky. It went down the new releases list with the rest of the pack and didn’t get the attention I was rooting for. So what now? I’m here to tell (and convince) you that there’s light at the end of the tunnel…if you’re willing to work on it (stay positive guys!). Well, my sales aren’t what you can call successful yet but at least I don’t get a day with ZERO sales anymore (I used to!). Below are some tips and tricks I learned the hard way and wanted to share it with you.

Work on your website and product pages. Your app or company website will be your first chance to make a sales pitch (and a huge impression) so be sure that its interesting, concise, userfriendly, and catchy. Don’t let your readers think, serve them what they need to know, get to the point, give them access to BUY and TRY buttons, screenshots, videos, etc.

Start with the small review sites. Dropped Toucharcade a note and you were ignored? Work your way up by starting with the small fishes. Game review sites like Toucharcade, Appgamer.net and Pocketgamer.co.uk only feature groundbreaking titles that set the bar high or push the device to its limits. If you don’t have such a game, your chances are low so its best to go to several small review sites instead.

Know your app’s crowd. Know your niche market. And go there. For example, my second game (SOW) involved planting and business simulation so I joined several forums about simulation, planting, green revolution and let them know about my app and how it “may” benefit them. iPhone and iPod users are everywhere!

Let them experience your app. Capture a video of your game and showcase the best features. Post it on YouTube and send it along with your press release. Another way to allow users to experience your app is to create a “Lite” or “Free” version for players to download and try. The “Free” version may not have the same features as the full version but it can be enough to entice the player to purchase a copy.

Join communities on the web. Toucharcade’s forums is one of the busiest so why not mention your new app there? It wouldn’t hurt to post a small blurb about your app, a few screenshots and allow other people to post comments and feedback about it. Forums are a great way to start building a community around your app or company or any product in general.

Create a small promotion. Does your app earn you a little more than $10 per week? If so, start a small gimmick–say, give a $10 iTunes Gift Card every week to your fans and subscribers. That’s what I did for Kuyi Mobile and from a twitter following of 50+, my followers went up to around 600+ after a few weeks and still growing. It allowed me to spread the word about my games, the company and it also gave me a chance to give back to the iPhone gaming community and talk to people who have enjoyed and played my games.

Harness the power of social networking. Embrace Twitter. Embrace Facebook. These may sound odd but don’t underestimate the power of inbound marketing. Handle your support via Twitter and let others listen to what you have to say! Start discussions on Facebook and get enough fans who can help you spread the word about your apps!

Get professional help. If you can generate enough funds to afford someone who can market your game and create your press release or allow you to post ads on popular websites, don’t be afraid to go that route. After all, you gotta spend money in order to make money, right? But, always remember to back it up by having enough reviews or testimonials about your app.

There you go. The tips above are based on my personal experiences and of course, assumes that you have a quality app that’s ready for the big league. The AppStore is not a goldmine(as I learned the hard way) but it could work for you given the right cards. Don’t waste your cards, use them wisely and you’ll be on your way to achieving your goals. Good luck!