I’ve been using my “new” Logitech MX1100 mouse for several weeks now, and I must say I enjoy it very much, despite a few quirks. It’s the best mouse I have owned so far.

Features

The MX1100 is one of Logitech’s higher-end mice. It features a right-handed ergonomically-shaped body, dual-mode scroll wheel with “Hyper-Fast Scrolling”, Back and Forward buttons, a DPI selector, and a hidden button in the thumb rest. The mouse is wireless, although it is not compatible with Bluetooth or the Logitech Unifying receiver, and is not rechargeable.

Ergonomics

I generally consider myself left-handed, but I’ve grown up using a computer mouse in my right hand. Thus,the “right-handed” design of the MX1100 makes me feel right at home. Although I’ve yet to appreciate all of the ergonomic features, it feels significantly more “natural” in my hand than my venerable LX8 did. The mouse has a good amount of weight to it, which makes it feel like a well-built quality product; my LX8 feels cheap by comparison even though ironically I paid more for my first LX8 than I did for the MX1100.

Hyper-Fast Scrolling

The main reason I upgraded my mouse was because of the “Hyper-Fast Scrolling” feature – which allows the mouse wheel to spin freely for up to 6 seconds, allowing me to quickly scroll all the way through a document with hundreds of pages. The wheel features two modes – the free-spinning mode and the “MicroGear” racheting mode which feels more like a traditional mouse. Modes can be switched instantly by pressing a mechanical button immediately beneath the wheel. The wheel is a high-resolution version, which allows for a silky smooth pixel-precise scrolling experience similar to that on a Mac. In all, I’d rate the wheel a solid 9 out of 10.

Realistically, the smooth scrolling (which must be enabled in the control panel) works great in Chrome and Word (the two applications I use it in most), but it reverts back to “low resolution” mode when using Windows Explorer and Notepad, among others. It also has the annoying tendency to move a few pixels’ worth of scrolling when released, simply due to its light weight, and this is quite noticeable in Chrome when I take my finger off the wheel. Hyper-Fast Scrolling has proven to be extremely useful when scrolling through long programs consisting of many lines of code, despite Visual Studio not supporting high-resolution smooth scrolling.

I also wish there would be a third “smooth scrolling” mode of the wheel – no MicroGear, but with smooth resistance – as it would allow for silky-smooth pixel-precise scrolling without the wheel being overly sensitive.

Wireless range

As with my LX8, the wireless range of the MX1100 is not particularly amazing, though it is slightly better. I can actually use the mouse from my bed 10 feet away, though this still does not even come close to the 30+ range I can achieve with a $15 USB Bluetooth dongle and a generic $16 Bluetooth mouse which I use for my laptop.

Tracking and DPI Selector

Despite touting the same 848nm “Performance Laser” as my LX8, the MX1100 is able to effortlessly track on my glossy desktop (there is a layer of acrylic over the wood veneer) unlike the LX8. This is quite convenient since I can remove the mouse from the keyboard tray and place it on top of the desk if need be. However, the mouse does not track on glass, as is expected from a standard laser design.

This mouse features 7 DPI settings, ranging from 400 to 1600 DPI; two of these can be mapped to the DPI switch on the mouse itself. I set these to the extremes and use the 1600 DPI setting on a regular basis; I switch to the 400 DPI setting to slow down the mouse cursor drastically for more precision when working with graphics. This has proven to be an extremely useful feature as well.

Buttons

The MX1100 has a total of 8 clickable buttons, all of which can be at least partially programmed via the Logitech SetPoint software. There is a “stealth” button built into the thumb rest on the left of the mouse, which was not very obvious initially, but it is in a very useful location once you realize it’s there.

Use without SetPoint

Using this mouse without SetPoint is possible, but most of the buttons cannot be used. Obviously, standard clicking and scrolling functions work, as do the browser Back/Forward buttons, but that’s it. Additionally, high-resolution “smooth” scrolling does not function. Despite my overall dislike of SetPoint, I recommend having it installed for this mouse, as it does in fact add useful features.

Quirks

Smooth scrolling has a nasty habit of turning off every few hours. All it takes to enable is to open SetPoint and click OK, but this can prove to be quite an annoyance. An even worse quirk happens when SetPoint occasionally fails to detect the mouse at all, and resolving this issue involves unplugging the USB receiver, plugging it into another port for about a minute, and then plugging it back into the original port (which happens to be mounted on my Logitech G110 keyboard).

Conclusion

For a list price of $80, the MX 1100 offers a good deal of features despite being a few years old. Would I buy one for $80? Probably not, but for $30 refurbished on eBay, it is one of the best mice money can buy.

Want to get yourself delved right into the 3D gaming world but never had the knowledge to do so? With Packt Publishing’s recent release, Unity 3.x Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide by Ryan Creighton, it is a great read if you wish to get started in the Unity world.

If you have been following our reviews for quite sometime, you might of realized this is very similar to our previous Unity review we put out not too long ago. To keep the explanation simple, Unity 3.x Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide is an updated book especially for Unity 3.x. Not everything is all the same (like the writing), but the main parts of the book are very much the same, except edited for Unity 3.x. Some new topics have been added as well, so keep a watch out for that in the review!

Before I start the full on review, I have to give my gracious apologies to Packt on this one. I have always been very adept in reviewing their books, but this review took some more time as I have been bombarded with work for the past two months. Working on school work, physical work, and even client work is extremely hard to manage and when you throw all my other work into it (like writing for Tech Cores), it’s near impossible to find the time. I should of planned this review better… so to Packt, sorry! I love you guys and never meant for this review to take so long.

Enough jibber-jabbin’, let’s just get on to the full review!

What You’ll Get

Unity 3.x Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide has the similar outline compared to the previous version of the book, in fact, it’s so similar you might as well base the outline on the previous version of the book as well. But to give you a general run down, a basic outline is below on what you’ll get:

• Learning the basics of Unity 3D
• Possibilities of Unity 3D
• Understand the essentials of 3D in Unity
• Taking the built in physics engine to good use
• Adding some sweet sound effects
• Coding in JavaScript for Unity Scripts
• Advanced topics like quaternions, mipmapping, and prefrabs

Introducing Unity 3D

For all of Packt’s books on beginner’s guides, the author always seems to introduce the topic in a very broad way. In Unity 3.x Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide written by Ryan Creighton, Ryan does an amazing job getting the reader understanding the main essentials of Unity all in the first chapter.

Just like in his previous Unity book, he introduced what has been done with Unity 3D before. As we all Unity developers know, there have been some amazing games developed using Unity, especially on the iOS platform.

Not only does Ryan introduce what can be done with Unity, he also describes what is feasible for a single developer (trust me, I’ve taken on near impossible tasks). As many of the projects he describes have over fifty developers dedicated to that one game, he states what is possible. But as reading Ryan’s previous books, I know he likes to go the extra mile; he even gives recommendations on how to take a game you like that might take a year to develop yourself, and turn it into a nice mini-game that could take a month.

Unlike some other books I have read before on Unity, Ryan does not overwhelm you with introducing all of the features of the Unity interface in the first few chapters. Instead, he takes the “slow but steady” approach and disperses it throughout the book. This method is quite ideal for beginning Unity developers as you’re not bombarded with a ton of information at the start of the book. In fact, Ryan does not even cover the 3D elements of Unity fully until the eighth chapter (there are a total of twelve chapters).

Examples are the Key

As most developers learn by example, having all kinds of examples in an Unity book is the key for success. A total of four games and three main concepts make up the main examples of Unity 3.x Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide. And as this book is updated for the latest version of Unity, Ryan also decided to add in an extra game from his previous Unity book. So in other words, you are getting a ton of examples in this book.

Ryan covers quite a bit within these examples, but I’ll just list out the main concepts of each:

Ticker Taker (game) – a varient of the keep-up games

• Learning on how to come up with a practical game idea
• Adjusting the default lighting
• Enabling the physics engine and adjusting its settings
• Using the Unity interface to adjust key settings

Robot Repair (game) – a type of matching game

• Understanding the built in GUI tools in Unity
• Adding images and buttons to the game
• Using title scenes and connecting them with the main game
• Learning on how to use arrays the Unity way

Clock/timer (element) – many simple count-down timers

• How to create a simple text clock
• Upgrading that boring text clock to a progress bar
• And taking that progress bar to a flash pie clock

The break-up (game) – very unique, more of a concept

• Using animations from 3D models
• Making flashy particle effects
• Writing prefabs to use over and over again
• Learning how to write Unity scripts to control multiple objects
• Showing things dynamically on the screen

Shoot the Moon (game) – like space invaders but in 3D

• Using all of the concepts from the previous games and taking them in one simple game
• Displaying multiple cameras
• Changing prefabs to dynamically use different models
• Applying a custom mesh collider
• Skinning a different game into an entirely different one

Yes, I know, there are a ton of things covered in a beginners book, but please don’t let that scare you. With Ryan’s funny writing style (the beginning of the book is really funny – take a read of a sample chapter!), it makes Unity 3.x Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide a smooth but informational read.

I can’t say this enough, but Ryan did one heck of a job taking all kinds of different topics and putting them in an updated book. From the structure of the book all the way to explaining how the code works, everything will be covered eventually. Sometimes, the next part of the chapter will be later discussed in the book as Ryan added in additional chapters to help you get the more advanced parts in an easy manner. The entire flow of the book just feels right and is extremely easily to follow along with.

October 4, 2011 was a day that everyone was anticipating. On that day, Apple held their “Let’s Talk iPhone” event and people were expecting the much hyped, iPhone 5. Based on numerous case leaks and mock ups of the next iPhone, it showed that it could’ve had a significantly thinner design and the bigger screen that everyone wanted. What we got instead was the iPhone 4S, an incremental upgrade from the iPhone 4.

Obviously, initial reactions weren’t that great. People all over the world were disappointed with the 4S, because they were expecting the iPhone 5. Because people were so disappointed, the iPhone’s market share and sales has went down a little bit, making Android phones #1. What’s funny about this is that the iPhone 5 was just a rumor, not something that was confirmed by higher-res graphics in iOS 5, and part leaks.

But when you put the leaks aside, the iPhone 4S is truly not a disappointment. Apple has crammed in a powerful A5 chip to power iOS 5, and the inellegent assistant, Siri. But, is the 4S worth signing your life away with a 2 year contract? Read on to find out.

Hardware / Design

As I stated earlier, this was one the disappointments of the 4S. Compared to an iPhone 4, there is virtually no difference, but to be honest, keeping the design is a positive thing.

Even if the design is a year old, it’s still a work of art. Just like the iPhone 4, you still get the squared-off design with two pieces of glass sandwiched between the aluminum antenna band. With those components, the iPhone has extraordinary build quality. In fact, the iPhone doesn’t feel like a phone, it feels like a piece of jewelry or something luxurious. Unfortunately, the 4S’ design doesn’t come with compromises. Because the iPhone 4S features an all-glass design, you’ll have a significantly higher chance of shattering your phone. Also, the squared off design does take time getting used to, but after a while, you’ll get used to it. The 4S does have one cosmetic change, however. The antenna on the 4S borrows the same exact design from the Verizon iPhone 4. We’ll talk about the antenna more in-depth later in the review.

Retina Display

As time passed by, phone displays have significantly increased in size and it is now a desire for consumers. People want bigger screens and phone companies provides them, except for one: Apple. This is Apple’s fifth iPhone and still, no bigger screen. Obviously, everyone was extremely disappointed with this considering that phone screens are constantly getting bigger. But, there is one feature of the display that makes up for it, and it’s the resolution.

This was one of the hallmark features of the iPhone 4. With a resolution of 960 x 640 packed into a 3.5-inch display, you get a staggering pixel density of 326 pixels per inch. At that resolution, you can’t see the individual pixels even when you bring the phone all the way up to your eye. With this display, Apple has to do system-wide changes to fully support the display. For example, Apple has re-done the icons with much greater detail and has changed the system font to Helvetica Neue, which is a narrower version of Helvetica.

Even to this day, the Retina Display is still one of the best displays in the market right now. One thing to note, however is that the 4S’ display is manufactured by Toshiba, making the viewing angles slightly lower.

Performance

 Something that is completely different from the iPhone 4 are the internals of the 4S. Under the hood, you have a dual-core A5 processor that is clocked at 800MHz and 512MB of RAM. The specs compared to a modern Android phone doesn’t sound overwhelming, but in reality, it’s faster than today’s Android devices.

The chart above shows that the iPhone 4S is faster than the Samsung Galaxy S 2, both in CPU and graphics benchmarks. The thing with this is that the Galaxy S 2 has a 1.2GHz dual-core processor with a full gigabyte of RAM, and yet the 4S beat it.

But, benchmarks are just numbers. What matters the most is the actual performance when using the phone itself. Everything in iOS 5 (startup, animations, loading apps) is buttery smooth thanks to the A5 processor. The performance compared to an iPhone 3GS is night and day, while compared to the iPhone 4, it isn’t that much of a difference. To fully experience the A5 processor, you’ll have to use CPU intense applications like iMovie, or playing Infinity Blade.

Camera

One of the more significant features of the 4S is it’s 8-megapixel camera sensor, which blew me away. The new camera features an updated backside illumination sensor, a fifth lens element, and has increased the aperture to f/2.4. Also, the camera is capable of recording 1080p video, which looks stunning as well. The best way of explaining the camera performance is by looking at some sample pictures and as you can see, it’s stunning. These photos are straight from the iPhone and has not been edited at all.

Antenna Performance and Battery Life

As part of the slightly changed hardware, the iPhone 4S has an enhanced antenna design, which is supposed to end the over-dramatic “antenna gate” issue that the iPhone 4 had. Apple says that the antenna will “intelligently” switch between the two antennas, providing better call quality and signal strength.

After using the phone for a good amount of time, signal strength has been dramatically improved both from the 3GS to the 4. Also, the antenna gate issue as been resolved. One thing that all iPhones lacked from was the call quality. The 4S sounded slightly better compared to the 3GS, but it could still improve.

As far as downloading data, the AT&T iPhone 4S does get one slight advantage over the Sprint and Verizon iPhone. Apple is taking advantage of AT&T’s HSDPA 14.4Mbps network, which is generally faster than normal speeds. The 4S averages around 3Mbps which is pretty quick for a phone network, but nothing can beat LTE with it’s mind-boggling 20Mbps download speeds.

When Apple posted the 4S’ battery performance on the website, something didn’t seem right. Compared the iPhone 4, talk time on the 4S increased from 7 to 8 hours,but from there on, everything get different. Internet browsing on Wi-Fi dropped from 10 to 9 hours and the most substantial difference is in the standby time: 300 to 200 hours. The reason why battery standby decreased is because of the new A5 processor, which is power-hungry. Although, Apple did make a very slight bump in the battery capacity to accommodate the new processor, but it doesn’t seem to make it any better.

Because of the new processor, a good number of 4S users are reporting terrible battery life; some said that the phone dropped 2% after 30 minutes of standby time, which is usually not good. Because there has been numerous reports, Apple took action with the iOS 5.0.1 update, which is supposed to fix all battery issues, but Apple is still investigating the issue. During my use of the iPhone 4S, battery life has been excellent. The phone will last a full day and I’ll usually have about 50% left. Obviously everyone has different usage patterns, so battery life can vary.

With 200+ new features, this has to be one of Apple’s biggest software update ever. Of out of the 200+ features, I’m just going to list my favorite features of iOS 5.

 Notification Center

 Possibly one of the biggest requests that Apple has received was an easy way of accessing your notifications and also have un-obtrusive notifications. Finally, iOS 5 now has an Android like pull down menu that shows your recent notifications, and has two widgets: stocks and weather. The pull down window is certainly a nice addition, but the more significant one are popup notifications.

Gone are the frustrating popup notifications, and now when you get a new text message or email, a small notification will slide down on the top of the screen. Best of all, it doesn’t interrupt you. As of right now, there is one slight problem with this concept. When you do get a notification, you can’t dismiss the notification right away. Instead, you’ll have to wait until the notification fades away, which can be annoying. Though, there is a catch to that. There is an un-official way to dismiss them, and the way you do it is you slide Notification Center down very slightly, and release.

Another improvement that Apple has down are lock screen notifications. When you get a notification, you can just slide the icon to the left and go straight into the application. It’s a really handy feature, especially when you have a lot of them.

         iMessage

Another big addition to iOS is iMessage, which is Apple’s very own BBM like service. Just like BlackBerry Messenger, you can text to all of your iOS 5 devices for free through a Wi-Fi network, or cellular data. Not only you can send texts, you can send pictures, contacts, and videos, though it would be nice if Apple allowed document sharing on iMessages.

     PC Free

Another big addition to iOS 5 is that you can “cut the cord”. What I mean by that is that you can now setup your device without connecting to iTunes, and sync and backup wirelessly. Also as part of the PC Free package, you can change the device name within the settings.                                  

                Photo Editing

With iOS 5, you can now edit your photos right within the camera app. Now, it doesn’t provide you Instagram like filers, but give you basic editing like auto enhance, red-eye removal, and crop. The auto enhance feature does a great job at enhancing photos, but sometimes it wouldn’t work as well. If you want serious editing to your photos, you should use Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.

 iCloud

Remember MobileMe? It was mostly a “Mobile Mess” because nobody used it. It was $99 per year and it provided services that doesn’t necessarily enhance the iOS experience and it was not integrated well within the OS. When Apple announced iOS 5, they’ve scraped MobileMe and replaced it with iCloud. 

iCloud is a complete revamp of Apple’s cloud services and I believe they’ve finally got it. Gone are the iWeb and iDisk services and have been replaced with services that are actually useful and integrates well into the OS. iCloud does retain some MobileMe services like email, contacts, and calendar sync, but now it’s more than that.

With iCloud, you can have photos, music, apps, and documents backed up and synced across your iOS 5 devices. Also, as part of the PC Free package, iCloud can automatically backup your device (app data, photos, contacts, etc.) in the cloud. Another service that Apple provides is called iTunes Match. For $24.99 a year, iTunes will scan all of your music and match your songs for high quality music directly from the iTunes store.

With all this, you get 5GB of storage for free and it won’t count your music, apps, books, etc. Instead, it stores your backups, Mail, documents, and etc. If you feel that 5GB isn’t enough, Apple will offer you more storage options for a fee. For $20 per year, you get 10GB of storage, $40 for 25GB and $100 for 55GB.

Siri

The biggest feature of the iPhone 4S isn’t the camera or the processor, it’s Siri. As you know the iPhone had some type of voice control that allowed you to control your music, call contacts, and basic stuff like that. The problem with that is it’s very limited and you have to speak commands, not by using regular sentences. Meanwhile, Android’s voice control is more cohesive like asking for map directions, and most importantly, voice dictation.

With the 4S, Apple has completely revamped voice control and made it extremely useful. With Siri, you can use natural language to send texts messages, emails, restaurant suggestions, setting alarms, and tons more. If you ask Siri a more complicated question (like whats the square root of 144), it will use Wolfram Alpha and provide your detailed information about your command. For restaurants, Apple teamed up with Yelp to provide local restaurant data and suggestions. Another added bonus with Siri is that you now have voice dictation. So whenever you bring up the keyboard, there’s a little microphone button next to the spacebar and when you touch it, you can start dictating.

While all of the commands are nice, Siri does have a humorous side. If you ask Siri a silly question, it’s most likely to give you back an answer. Here are some examples above.

Wrap-up

Overall, the iPhone 4S is an excellent phone. The combination of an excellent display, camera, processor, and operating system makes the the iPhone 4S an unbeatable phone. Sure, it doesn’t have LTE or a bigger screen, but it’s something that you can easily ignore when you actually use the device.

But here’s the burning question: should you upgrade if you have an iPhone 4? To he honest, it’s really up to you. If you really want the extra speed and the 8 megapixel camera, go ahead, but you’ll have to fork over $649 for the phone off-contract. If you own an iPhone 3GS, it’s a no brainer. You’ll be experience the features of the iPhone 4, except you get some extra features.

So, is this the “ultimate device”? You decide, but me personally, it’s a yes.

Speed and Video Quality

Digiarty boasts the fact that you can rip a full movie, with their software, in around 5 minutes. While testing it out I found that the average is just a bit over that time at around seven minutes for a hour and a half movie. Of course, these times do depend on the quality of both your processor and DVD drive. The DVD results that I am going to use for this example are from a digitally protected version of Disney’s Sky High. (i.e. The first movie I grabbed.) Not only were the protective barriers no problem for the software, overall the video only took six minutes to rip.

The Interface and Ease of Use

Though easy to navigate and understand the interface looks overly grey and bland. Though, I do have to commend Digiarty on including an option for those who are less savvy to simply press “Start” and have their video ripped without having to mess with, to them, unnecessary toggles. The rest of the program though is a plethora of advanced options allowing you to change everything from video format to audio bit-rate.

Giveaway!

Currently we have two giveaways going on in regards to this software. There is the one here on Tech Cores as well as the Digiarty Massive Thanksgiving Giveaway. First if you want to win a full free copy of WinX Blu-Ray Decrypter, leave a comment below with your twitter handle and tweet one of the following messages below.

If you want to get a free copy of the software reviewed in this post and video you can head on over to Digiarty’s Giveaway Site and grab a copy or two of some free software!

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.

Quality and Appearance

The BodyGuardz protectors are touted to be made out of the same material used to protect cars from the scratches and general wear and tear. In comparison to a more common screen protector the BodyGuardz is thicker and made of a softer plastic material. These two factors combine to form a better feeling surface and a higher level of protection. But nothing is ever perfect; the cover forms dimple like creases on the surface of the sheet giving the product an almost cheap appearance. Personally, I couldn’t get a good photo of what I am talking about so I did a little searching around and found a photo by a iPhone 3GS user who also was experiencing the same problem.

Protection and Clarity

On the positive side, the sheet is scratch resistant and, even though it is a clear protector, helps limit the number of finger prints and smudges on your screen. Fortunately enough, the dimples that were mentioned earlier don’t effect the screen clarity and really the only time that you notice the imperfections is when the screen is turned off.

Now, people buy screen protectors to protect their device from scratches but what if your device is already scratched? The BodyGuardz masks it completely. For example, I have a pretty deep scratch in the top right corner of my iPad and after application it is literally undetectable.

Installation

BodyGuardz is one of the only companies to provide an application solution to aid in the, you guessed it, application of their product. Their specific solution is made of water and baby soap to make sure that it not only makes your job easier but at the same time it doesn’t harm your iPad or other device. I have always preferred wet screen protector for the simple reason of being able to re-position the product without having to fully remove the whole sheet. This allows for less of an opportunity for dust and debris to get under your screen protector during installation.

The instructions provided by BodyGuardz, if followed closely, leave no room for error. This is always handy for the more novice users while applying their first or second screen protector as well as those who have a little bit more experience but want to minimize air and dust bubbles.

Summary

Overall, the advanced protection these sheets provide outweigh the slight lines you get after installing the product. Also, the fact that they conceal past damage (term used lightly) only adds to the list of pros. Plus, they come with stickers…

If you would like to pick a BodyGuardz screen protector up for yourself, you can head on over to their website and pick out your device. If you don’t see your device listed, you can also order a custom cut sheet.

Parallels are known for two main things: their high-end server software and their streamline consumer virtualization software. With their current release of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac announced on September 6th, 2011, we had to get in on the fun.

Our thanks goes to Parallels for making this review possible! We hope you enjoy the full blown review on Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac!

Practical Uses

Virtualization software is there for a reason, but there are tons of practical uses that you can use Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac for! Some good uses (for both high-end techie and casual users) are below:

• Gaming – if you have a fast enough machine, you can play some Call of Duty right in your Windows virtual machine! Try it; it’s not as bad as you may think!
• Productivity – probably the most common use for using virtualization. Let’s say your using Windows software that has no Mac counterparts and you need to use that software, but you need to use OS X at the same time. Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac can fix this issue!
• Development – because I am in fact a developer, this is personally my biggest use of a virtual machine. I have a Debian server installed on Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac and I use it for all kinds of server development. It’s the best way to develop in my opinion. I also have a few pieces of development software that only work on Windows that I need to use.
• For fun! – this one was kind of a given, but who doesn’t want to have Google Chrome OS running as a virtual machine? Of course you want to be that cool guy on the block with Google Chrome OS running full screen on your Mac!

Operating Systems Supported

The most common operating system used with Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac would most likely be Windows. Let’s face it, most Mac OS X users want to stay in their Mac-friendly environment. It’s the main reason why virtualization is very popular among Mac users.

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac supports all kinds of operating systems. In fact, you can basically install any operating system you can think of! Let’s list out a few below:

• Windows 7, XP
• OS X Lion
• Google Chrome OS
• Fedora
• Ubuntu

That’s only a few of the many supported  uses of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac! In fact, Parallels just released an update recently (at the time of this writing) for Windows 8 Developer Preview support; they’re really working hard on making Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac awesome.

Not only does Parallels make it so easy to install any OS you like, you can even buy Windows 7 right in the main wizard via their convenience store! This feature is just great for the ones who need Windows but do not want to go out and buy it in the stores.

Installing Operating Systems

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac makes it very easy to install some of the main operating systems like Ubuntu and Windows. During the set up process, it will do all sorts of things for you automatically:

• Download the operating system if necessary or asking you to select the install source
• Waiting for any product key if needed (Windows!)
• How you want your programs to work
• Customizing it to fit you

For Windows and other operating systems, Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac will actually do everything for you without you needing to press any buttons. So when you need to install Windows, you don’t need to select a partition to install on or enter user info. All of that can be handled with Parallels.

Parallels just makes everything seamless for you, including installing their own Parallels Tools software which makes the integration with the operating system and Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac more seamless.

Migration

The migration feature is what really makes Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac amazing. Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac comes with tools to help you take your current Windows machine, no matter what you have it installed on, and transfer that data to a virtual machine.

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac has some amazing migration features. During the process of setting up your Windows virtual machine, you can select the “Migrate Windows from a PC” in the Parallels Wizard and use their three migration features:

• Parallels USB cable: This feature is sadly not free, as you need to buy the USB cable, but essentially, it is a cable that you plug in the computer with Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac installed and into your Windows computer.
• Network: The networking migration feature is simply letting Parallels connect to your PC via your network. It is by far the slowest method, as the other two are “direct” links, but it shouldn’t be too slow on one of ‘em fancy N-based routers!
• External Storage Device: if you want to go the easy way, Parallels makes a software called the Parallels Transporter Agent that can copy the data from your Windows PC to and external medium that Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac can read.

Boot Camp

Boot Camp has been such an acclaimed feature ever since it was released back in 2006 with the very first Intel Macs. Since then, Boot Camp has came a long way and with that, so has virtualization.

Parallels has realized the some Mac owners may have a Boot Camp install of Windows on their computer. What Parallels has done is added support to make Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac read your Boot Camp partition (and fully write to it even though NTFS isn’t capable of writing on stock Mac OS X – no idea how the developers solved that issue) and convert it into a fully working virtual machine!

I never had the need to have Windows installed on my computer natively up until doing this review. As I had to test the feature, I grabbed my Windows 7 disc, popped it in, and installed Windows 7 right onto my massive 1TB hard drive.  I then immediately went back into OS X, and  Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac detected the Boot Camp partition and gave me the option to run it as a virtual machine.

I waited for the set up process to complete and was prompted with this dialog that I had to reactivate Windows. It is unfortunant that this needs to be done (as Windows really doesn’t allow for too many activations), but I know this is entirely Microsoft’s fault. So I won’t dock off any points on Parallels parts for this issue. Microsoft: you need to be more like Apple; licensing an operating system is awful!

Either way, the Boot Camp virtual machine ran exactly how I had it before. It only needed to install Parallels Tools during the process, and after that, everything was working great!

Parallels really made it easy to make Boot Camp work fully in Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac!

Free Perks

Not only do you get killer virtual machine software, Parallels even offers you three free perks with your virtual machines!

• Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac: Kaspersky offers some great anti-virus software that is extremely simple to use. Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac will give you three months free and after the complementary period, you will need to pay for it. Either way, great way to try out some virus software on the Mac, even though I wouldn’t find myself using it.
• Kaspersky Internet Security for Windows: Just like the Mac version of Kaspersky that Parallels provides, they also provide the Windows version for your virtual machines. Just to note, Kaspersky is my second favorite virus software on Windows; my first is NOD32 if you are wondering.
• Acronis Online Backup: Something that I was not expecting in Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, but they give you 25GBs for Acronis True Image Online Backup for three months like Kaspersky.

User Interface

Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac has a ton of software running in the background to have your virtual machine up and running, but with all of these features you can change, there has to be a clean and easy to use interface. Thankfully, Mac OS X has some amazing user interface tools to make sure your application will look the best.

When you fire up any virtual machine, it looks almost like a normal window, but with a toolbar at the bottom. This toolbar will be the main breading ground for changing your virtual machine as you see fit.

On the left side of the toolbar, you can do anything in terms of the power state to your virtual machine. You can suspend the virtual macine (saves the state of the virtual machine to the hard drive and closes it down, and of course, shut it down. You can even pause the virtual machine or even stop it. I wouldn’t recommend stopping it, as that’s just like holding down the power button for ten seconds (okay, not exactly, but close).

On the right hand side, you can do all all sorts of things.

• Send all sorts of keyboard commands - makes it easier on the Mac users as some keyboard shortcuts are difficult
• Connect your USB devices to the virtual machine - ever wanted to connect your flash drive to your VM? You can do it!
• Mount any CDs/DVDs you may have or even images - want to install a piece of software? Just pop it in!
• Tell the virtual machine what kind of network you have - very helpful to give your VM its own IP on your network
• Mount floppy images – I like the feature, but who would use it?
• Edit audio settings - allows you to change the input and output sources.
• See what virtual/physical hard drive is connected - I wonder if you could connect more than one physical hard drive to a VM. Can’t test this one…
• Configure sharing – makes it very easy to give your virtual machine access to Mac OS X
• And seeing if Parallels Tools is installed along with the view mode (which we’ll get to soon)

Viewing Modes

Sometimes you may not want your virtual machine in a window (like in the image above). Sometimes, you may want it to be part of Mac OS X itself. Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac offers four main viewing modes that are all useful:

• Windowed: The default view you see when you first start your virtual machine. This mode is quite simply your virtual machine in a window with the toolbar underneath.
• Modality: Simply put, it’s a mode without the toolbar but with an extra feature. The unique feature of this mode is the window will always be above all of your other windows (so you can always see it). If you had the extra screen space and would like to just keep a watch on your virtual machine at all times, you would use this mode. You would use this for if you were waiting for a long task to complete or something like that.
• Full Screen: Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac takes advantage of Mac OS X Lion’s full screen features. To simply make your virtual machine full screen, you can either enter it using a menu item or even the full screen button (the two arrows pointing outwards) in the upper right. This is now a standard of Lion to have the full screen feature like this.
• Coherence: Now this is where the fun begins! This mode will take your desktop and integrate it right into Mac OS X. If you want to open a window, it will add that window right onto your desktop and add it in your dock.

Peripherals

Connecting your external devices, or peripherals, have always been somewhat of a problem for virtual machines. In Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, it changes everything and makes it a breeze. Every time you plug in a new device to your computer (as long as you di not make Parallels remember the choice), Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac will prompt you for a very user friendly dialog asking what the device should connect to.

In the image on the left, I connected my external hard drive and Parallels detected that I connected it. I can switch between my (native) Mac and my virtual Mac VM. And if I want, I can even tell it to remember what choice I picked so it will never ask again by simply holding down the option/alt key.

This one feature in Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac just made it awesome. I use virtual machines quite a bit on a daily basis, and sometimes, I really need a storage device connected directly into the virtual machine. It’s extremely helpful for me and I am sure it will be for you if you need external devices connected into a virtual machine.

MacLook

For the ones who are just too used to Mac OS X, and really do not want to look at the Windows interface, Parallels has created MacLook that takes care of this problem. MacLook simply applies a theme to Windows XP, Vista, or 7 and makes it look somewhat like Mac OS X.

To be quite honest, I personally did not like it. The bottom edges of every window are not rounded, which makes the window looks very bad (roundness adds a ton of eye-candy), and it just didn’t fit all too well in my opinion.

Support

Just a simple bit of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac that I thought I would note, but Parallels did a great job with integrating support right into the software. They have added in this nicely styled report screen that drops right from the top of your virtual machine window that will take care of any reports you may have.

Personally, I have worked with software before where something like this was non-existent, and made it very hard to find where I was to submit bugs. I really love it when developers take the time to add this in; Apple is also notorious of adding dialogs like this.

On the flip side, if you do need to speak with support regarding a problem you may have (granted that you want feedback), Parallels has given you a nice support ticketing system built right in the software. This handles all the frustration of the support team at Parallels not seeing all your previous support tickets regarding yourself; I love it when companies build a system like this. You give them one simple number and they can see everything on your account. Saves time and makes suport an ease!

Customizability

Users love customizability. Fortunately, in any virtual machine, there are a ton of settings you can tweak for your benefit. You can tweak the settings of the software itself or even the settings used to run the virtual machine.  Parallels has done a great job providing its users with a ton of settings for the ultimate customizability.

There are plenty of things you can change in the main settings window of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, but let’s just list out some of the major ones:

• Changing the virtual machine folder location
• Altering the many keyboard shortcuts used throughout the program
• Tell the virtual machine what should happen when you plug in an USB device
• Connecting Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac with your mobile Apple device (more on this later)
• And some advanced settings that most people will rarely touch

Virtual Machine Customization

You do not only get a ton of settings to change how the application works, you can of couse change how the software interacts with your virtual machine. Some of the key settings to the performance of your virtual machine are lying right in here.

Update Maintainability

With a software that has to work with the latest and greatest operating systems, having it constantly updated is a must. Parallels has done a great job keeping Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac updated. In fact, during the reviewing process, they pushed out a very important update to Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac:

• Windows 8 Developer Preview (a new Windows 8 installation is recommended after updating Parallels Desktop 7) and other versions of Windows
• The Parallels Desktop 7 New Virtual Machine Wizard (select File, New) makes it easy to install new operating systems in just a few clicks including: Windows 7, OS X Lion as a guest, Google Chrome OS, Fedora, Ubuntu

This update also improves the general performance of Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, including optimized CPU usage when Parallels Desktop 7 is idle, improved compatibility with Quicken 2011 personal finance software, and improved support for Autodesk 3DS Max 2012 3D modeling software.

They’re not only helping to support the new operating systems like Widows 8, but they are also improving support for specific software like 3DS Max. If Parallels puts that much effort to help improve a specific application, I am sure Parallels will have any updates released if there any problems. Now that’s what I call support! A++ on your part Parallels!

Parallels Mobile

Have you ever wanted to access your virtual machine when you are on the go? I know I have! Parallels has came up with a great solution to solve this issue. No longer do you need to set up a special VNC connection to your computer or do something to make it remotely accessible. Now, all you need to do is install Parallels Mobile and connect it with your computer.

As long as your computer is power up, you can access it from anywhere as long as you have access to the internet (whether that is via 3G or WiFi; you choose). This is one huge advantage. No longer do you need to go through your ISP to access your computer (like with a VNC), instead, you can access your computer through the servers of Parallels keeping your computer safe and secure.

So go ahead and fire up that virtual machine remotely! And if you want, you can even access your entire Mac remotely which is sweet!

Hey, Nothing is Perfect

Now I have to say, Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is nearly perfect, but there are some flaws/annoyances that I have found that I think should be fixed.

• First up on my list would be scrolling in Parallels Mobile. It would be sweet if I took two fingers and dragged it up and down on a scrollable window, it would scroll with me. Just saying, that would be a nice addition.
• One very minor flaw I noticed, which is more of a Windows bug more than anything else, is when you adjust the resolution/window size of a virtual machine, the icons will move around correctly when sizing it down. But when sizing it up, they kind of stick there. I would really like some sort of anchoring system for my icons to tell to have these icons in the top left but these in the bottom left. I really wish Windows could detect the anchoring system automatically that the user creates. Come on you developers; if you give me access to the Explorer.exe code I’ll add it in for you!
• Now this may be asking a lot, but I’m wondering if it would be possible to view the status of a virtual machine (almost like the top application on UNIX) in an organized window. I’m the type of person who likes to have one screen filled with just top windows as I like to keep track of my servers. It would be great if I could have a screen for my virtual machine(s) as well. Almost like an Activity Monitor but explicitly for virtual machines.
• I would appreciate it if Parallels allowed me to set up a Linux server in one click. It would be sweet if it could install Apache/Nginx, MySQL, PHP, and maybe even Pyton on a Debian VM… maybe I can keep on dreaming. But it would help a ton for the web developers out there like myself!

Performance

I know you were asking for this, so I am sure you are wondering how fast Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac really is. The above picture is a GeekBench comparison between the popular VMWare Fusion (version 3) and of course Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac.

The results? Well, let’s just say Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac kicks VMWare Fusion right out the door. And I’ll be honest, I thought VMWare Fusion would be faster. VMWare has been out there for a long time in the virtualization world, so I would of thought they would have faster technology. But it looks like Parallels caught up really quickly! Watch out VMWare; you have one amazing competitor now!

That’s really impressie for Parallels. And yes, I know, those scores are really fast. Let’s just say I love my MacBook Pro 15″ i7 @ 2.0GHz.

Overall

I do not say this often, but Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is by far one of the best applications I have ever used. Everything is very seamlessly integrated with the entire virtual machine environment. Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac offers so many features but yet it is so fast! With all of the new features in Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, the support the Parallels team puts into it, and with all of the customizability options, I have to say that Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is by far the best virtualization software I have used.

If you are looking for a high-class virtualization software for the Mac, look no further as Parallels has your back. You can try Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac for fourteen day, and if you like it as much as I do, I am sure you would be more than willing to spend the mere $79.99 it costs, which is nothing for a high-end software like this. I wish all of my high-end software was only $80… I would even be willing to spend $120 for Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, it’s just that good!

Now if you still don’t believe me on how awesome Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac is, let’s just say it even earned the right to a permanent spot on my dock; I only put high-end and nicely crafted applications there.

Thanks again to the team over at Parallels for making this review possible!

If you want to take a look more in Parallels Desktop 7 for Mac, check out their product page below:

http://www.parallels.com/products/desktop/

The entire point of Focus is very simply; all you have is a clean interface to add all kinds of blurring to your photo, which in the long run, makes whatever you’re targeting stand out more than ever.

It’s an interesting concept that I’ve never seen a dedicated app for. With that said, let’s dive right into the full review of Focus by Coppertino!

Interface

Without a doubt, the interface of any program is always important, even if it has a ton of features. Granted that Focus is a Mac-only application, Coppertino has done a great job utilizing all of the features that Apple provides its developers.

When you start up the program, Focus will ask you to simply drag and drop one of your images onto the program. One downside is that you cannot open dialog to navigate to your image. Sometimes I personally hate to open another Finder window and would like to use the open dialog instead built into the program.

At the bottom of the window, you have your main features of the program, place, the five blur modes (portrait, nature, architecture, macro, and tilt & shit), and the share button to deliver your images out to your friends and family.

Blurring Modes

As covered briefly above, there are five blurring modes. All five modes are named somewhat generically as they can be used for other reasons as well, but for the most part, they are named in a way that will suit most uses.

Let’s list all of the five blurring modes below while describing what they do and their normal uses:

• Portrait: This mode would ideally be used the give a very smooth blur in the background while showing off an objet  that’s the closest to the camera lens. Think of a picture of yourself… hence where the name came from.
• Nature: This is quite simply blurring something off in a horizontal direction. If you have a batch of flowers in a horizontal fashion, you can focus on the flowers and not the background.
• Architecture: This mode is made for, you said it, the tall man-made creations that live in our city: skyscrapers! Of course, there are plenty of others ways to use this, but it’s just like nature, but instead, it’s blurring vertically instead of horizontally.
• Macro: We all know what macro is, but sometimes, your photos don’t always turn out the way you would like in terms of blur. If you need a little extra blur on one of your macro shots, use the macro mode for additonal blur.

Editing

For every one of the five blurring modes, the sidebar/toolbar on the right will slide in with an aperture slider along with reset buttons to reset both the focus and the aperture to the default settings.

This simple sidebar is very useful in term of editing. The default aperture values seemed a bit high (the higher the aperture, the more you will see the blur and vice versa), so I lowered the blur to around 30% and it made most of the photos look fabulous.

I would really like to see some more settings available in this sidebar though. It would be nice to add some of the main features of Aperture (the photo editing software made by Apple) like the brightness, saturation, along with other features.

I can see Focus turning into a mini photo editing suite; it only offers blurring modes right now, but I would really love to see more features added into Focus.

Support

If you’re going to have any type of photo editing software, it should support all kinds of formats. Luckily, Focus supports all of the major formats so you will not have any problems getting your photos edited.

Focus supports all the main photo image formats like JPG, PNG, and even PSD for it’s import features. So far, Focus will only export as JPG with default quality settings, but Coppertino is planning on changing that to support TIFF and PNG export.

Sharing

After spending a good amount of time creating the photo of your dreams, you of course want to share that image with your family, friends, or maybe even your Twitter followers.

Focus gives you immediate access to save the photo to your hard drive, iPhoto library, or even to e-mail the photo.

But Coppertino didn’t decide to stop there. Just like the sharing features in Wallpaper Wizard, Focus will allow you to upload your photo to Coppertino’s servers at no cost to you and share the link with the rest of your friends. So for example, take a look at this image: http://focus.to/DdoWk

I really love that there is a special domain (focus.to) made only for your shared images. Now that’s exactly what I want in a photo editing software!

Some Slight Issues

(Will update as bugs are fixed.)

Nothing can ever be perfect, and I understand that. I have noticed some slight issues with Focus that have been brought to my attention during the reviewing stage.

The first slight issue that I have noticed was Focus was a bit sluggish. I noticed at first that the CPU usage was exceptionally high and wondered if it was even taking advantage of this very powerful 2011 15″ MacBook Pro. I contacted the developer, Ivan, on this one and he was aware of the error and fixed it promptly.

Now in the new update (all of this happened during the reviewing process), I noticed that Focus locks up quite a bit and becomes very sluggish (and even using quite a bit of memory as well). I contacted Ivan about the issue and he is also aware of it and an update will be available around a week of the original posting of this review.

Overall

I really have to say I love how simple and easy to use Focus is to use. It’s extremely simply to take one of your camera phone’s pictures and turn it into something that looks to be taken with a high-end DSLR camera. Focus supports all kinds of image formats making it useful for anyone with different skill-sets of photography along with its easy to use interface.

Overall, I really enjoyed reviewing Focus by Coppertino despite some of the bugs I have encountered. The developer of Focus is very active and prompt to his work, so I’m sure Focus will be getting updates to make it perfectly stable along with more features.

If you would like to check out the Focus product site, please click on the link below:

http://coppertino.com/focus/

And if you would like direct access to get Focus on the Mac App Store, check out the link below:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/focus/id432599692?ls=1&mt=12

As that was nearly a year ago, I thought we should review another jQuery book from Packt Publishing. With the recent release of jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques: Beginners Guide, the wonderful people over at Packt were more than happy to send out a book for a review!

With that said, let’s get right into the full blown review of jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques: Beginners Guide! This was quite a hefty book (with 344 pages), so I’ll try to make this review a good wrap-up of the book.

My Experience with jQuery

I’ve been a web developer for just about nine years. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe it… I even laugh at it sometimes. I first started working on web technologies back in 2002 creating extremely simple websites. Those websites then dived into CSS shortly after, and then I started working on server applications shortly after mastering CSS and HTML. Then not too long after that, I realized I haven’t picked up JavaScript at the time, so like you may assume, I started fiddling around with JavaScript. I picked up the popular client-side scripting language faster than anything else before.

After four years and much more knowledge about web technologies, jQuery was finally released. I didn’t pick up jQuery immediately, as I didn’t even know about it at first, but it didn’t take me long until I started to dabble with jQuery.

I started messing with jQuery just learning how it works and the workings of it. I learned a ton about jQuery, but the biggest problem was, I didn’t want to use it. Computers at the time ran JavaScript not all too quickly (we’re really spoiled with the V8 JS Engine nowadays), so I rarely used any JavaScript at the time. Up until about late 2008, after Chrome was released, JavaScript performance skyrocketed. I dived right back into JavaScript and been using it ever since.

With all of that previous experience out of the way, I’ve been working with jQuery for a long time, and quite honestly, I could never go back to any other framework.

What the Book Covers

jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques really covers a ton of animation content that you could possibly ever need when creating a website. Just to get you familiar of what’s covered, here’s a create list of some of the significant topics:

• How animation can be used and when best to apply it
• Creating your very own loader (you know, those pinwheels?)
• The many types of fading provided by jQuery
• Working with animations while and after running
• Sliding animations with easing
• Creating one-of-a-kind animations
• Using jQuery UI to extend jQuery’s animations
• Page navigation/scroll with animations
• Pop-up type animations
• Using CSS3 animations to your advantage
• Using the canvas API for speedy rendering
• Graceful degradion when using animations
• Optimizations needed to achieve the best speed

Wow, This Book is Awesome!

I don’t call every book I read awesome, but jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques really deserves the title! From the very start of the book, everything is finalized extremely nicely. As the book starts of with an introduction to jQuery  animation and some tips on when and not to use it, it makes it a chapter that’s not only an easy read, but also providing a ton of useful information about when and not to use animations.

One other thing that I really liked about jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques has to all of the pop-quizzes in the chapters. It’s for sure no graded assessment, but it’s very useful just to read them through, get the questions right, and prove to yourself that you really are that jQuery master that you thought you were.

Not only does jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques provide a ton of information like animating table cells, drop downs, and tons of other elements, Dan has done an excellant job of making sure all of the code is optimized to the fastest code possible. JavaScript can kill an internet browser if not optimized, and because jQuery does rely on the programmer having an understanding of good programming ethics in order for it to run at full potential, knowing the right and wrong ways of doing something is more than enough to the begineer jQuery programmers who pick up this book. In fact, one thing Dan does mention is the PNG transparency issues in the older versions of Internet Explorer and many fixes/workarounds for getting rid of them once and for all, or at least, making it better than before. Not related to animation at all, but can affect your animation a ton if your transparent PNG isn’t looking too good in IE.

Another big plus about jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques is that all of the code within all the chapters is backed up on full commentary. Dan does one fantastic job of explaining the code being on what makes it work, and sometimes, the explanations can be two or even three pages long! To have that much detail in your explanations really make this book one to pick up if you want to learn some jQuery animation techniques.

Towards the end of the book, Dan has a single chapter on CSS3 animations and even the canvas API. Personally, I was never expecting for CSS3 animations to be covered, let alone the canvas API in HTML5; he really went the extra mile to inform the reader on how other animations can be used along with jQuery animation.

Just Some Slight Issues

There’s really not too much wrong with jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques, but I really feel I should mention what I have found. During some parts of the book, I noticed seeing some code that was “misaligned” and not “properly” formatted. Basically, some of the code was tabbed in too far or not enough, making the code look somewhat messy in some spots.

Another smaller detail I noticed were some spelling issues. I noticed that an IE (AKA, Internet Explorer) abbreviation was spelled wrong, and made the entire sentence sound funny if you did not know what was supposed to be there.

Overview

All in all, I was extremely impressed with jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques. Dan covered a ton of information in yet another jQuery book, and I have to say, I really enjoyed all of the content that was provided. Everything was very relevant to jQuery animation and all techniques were being built upon throughout the entire book.

The only thing I could possibly take off a few points would be for the editing errors throughout the book. There were numerous errors I found while reviewing and they easily could of been avoided with just a bit more proofreading.

If you would like to check out jQuery 1.4 Animation Techniques, please check out the link below to Packt’s website:

http://www.packtpub.com/jquery-14-animation-techniques-beginners-guide/book

Way back in April of 2010, we published a text review of ScreenFlow v2 as we knew we just had to review one of the best screen recording software for the Mac. Now, a little more than a year after our initial review, Telestream has done it again with their latest ScreenFlow version, version three.

Now that ScreenFlow v3 has been out the public for around a week now, we just had to get out full review published as we at Tech Cores really appreciate ScreenFlow for all that it can do.

The last review we put out just wasn’t enough because in a text review, we couldn’t target all of the amazing features of ScreenFlow. Instead, we now present you with a feature-length (no kiddin’! ) video review of ScreenFlow v3!

Anyways, we hope you’ll enjoy our in-depth review of ScreenFlow! What do you think about ScreenFlow v3? Please leave your comments in the comment section below!

Build Quality:

The Chromatics Skin that I was reviewing was a Silver Carbon Fibre Skin, this skin was very hard and didn’t scratch easily. It provided good solid protection against objects such as keys in your pocket or if you had a drill out. Tho I don’t know why you would. The front screen was protected with a screen protector, it was very rubbery and absorbed scratches. Personally I found this to be annoying when compared to the Zagg Invisible Shields nano repair technology. There was also an aerial cover included but however it was designed for the verizon version of the iPhone 4.

Pro/Cons:

Overall I would have to say this case is worth the price of $29.95 there is a great choice of colours and different types of styles to choose from. The one con I have to point out is that this case will not provide any protection if your device is dropped from a great height. The skin is designed to provide protection to scratches and low danger objects.

I would give this skin an overall 7 out of 10, its sleek, stylish and sexy. Yet lacks that essential protection.

If you feel like I haven’t explained in enough detail or have any questions please feel free to comment bellow or contact me on Twitter

The Bamboo Paper iPad App

So, with that said I introduce to you the Wacom Bamboo Stylus. Now, if you didn’t already know Wacom manufactures design tablets used by people ranging from Photoshop novices to professional Graphic Designers. Recently Wacom released a free app to the Apple App Store which turned the iPad’s capacitive touch screen into nothing short of a “old fashioned” notebook, a very nice one at that. When you first launch the app you have one notebook which you can change the color of as well as change the type of paper contained inside of the notebook. The app also allows you to, for a one time in app purchase of 1.99 USD, to have up to twenty different notebooks at one time both. Now notebooks, as far as I have seen can been as long as you want them to be so their is no more wondering if you are going to have enough paper to get you through the year. Now, of course the lack of worries isn’t the only advantage of using any digital paper application, you are saving resources as well. So the rain forest thanks you for not, by proxy, kill it.

The Bamboo Stylus

The stylus itself is very well built. It is made out of aluminium just like the rear side of both the first and second iterations of the iPad. With that said, the stylus blends in flawlessly with the design of the iPad; to the point where it looks like it came with the device. Now, Apple is know for their product’s quality and design so when I say the stylus looks like it came with the iPad I am not just talking about visuals. It has a very sturdy feel as well as a decent weight unlike lower end styli. The stylus has a pen clip which allows you to attach it to your pants, a case, or basically anything tin enough but if you find it getting in your way you can just remove it some. The little things like that really show the quality and amount of though put into something as minute as a stylus. Now with that said, the cap can loosen over time but it is as simple as tightening the cap back up to fix it. The tip is made of a soft capacitive rubber tip which allows for a greatly increased amount of accuracy in comparison to just using your fingers to not only write but, in general when using the device. Lastly, after awhile of using the stylus I noticed something was missing, something I am not the least bit troubled by the loss of, fingerprints.

If you would like to watch the video review where I show you some of the features like the removable clip and show the functionality of both the stylus and the app it is embedded below,  if you would like to purchase a Wacom bamboo Stylus for your iPad, or any other iDevice, you can visit the Wacom site by clicking the link in the sources at the top of the article. Lastly I would like to thank Wacom and Douglas Little for providing not only the review unit but for providing very courteous support.

I have always been a big fan of the look, and only the look, of the Apple in-ear headphones; the sound on the other hand left something to desire and that something is coincidentally the sound. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not framing the headphones in this review as heaven’s answer to this problem but for a replacement that is close thirty bucks cheaper and have better audio I would say they are already a leap ahead.

With that said, let me introduce the Macally TunePal Pro In-Ear Headphones. The headphones come with two sets of memory foam tips meant to be “one-size fits all”. Personally, I have moderately small ears and can say that I have to use extra force to get them in my ears and even then there is an uncomfortable pressure during prolonged use. Now with one side of the spectrum covered, what if you have larger ears? Well, the tips are fairly large but without the offering of larger tips it defeats the purpose of in ear headphones by allowing external noises to sneak in.

The description of these headphones, published on the Macally site, mentions a “rich and deep bass output” which in retrospect to their entry level market couldn’t be more true. The bass in these headphones is noticeable without being overpowering. The built in microphone is also on the same level as the bass. The mic records close to crystal clear audio, which is amazing in the case of it’s surrounding or plastic and your current clothing.

Here is the video review if you prefer video to written reviews!

This is the product that Apple’s been peer pressuring it’s customers when they buy their iPad 2. This isn’t your ordinary case, it’s a cover. It only protects the front, not the back. This is a very unique approach to the case industry because third party case companies (and even first party’s) goal is to create a protective case for that expensive product. What’s interesting that Apple has designed the Smart Cover along with the iPad 2. Because of that, Apple is making the Smart Cover a big deal. Starting at $39 for the polyurethane and $69 for leather, is it a good buy? Read on to find out.

Unboxing

Design

Most of Apple’s cases blends in well with their products; the Smart Cover is no different. On the front side of the Smart Cover, there are these separators and on the back is a nice microfiber lining, which Apple claims will clean your screen when you have it on (more on that later). With the Smart Cover, you have two choices of materials: polyurethane or leather. With the polyurethane model, you have a choice of gray, baby blue, green, orange, or pink. With the leather Smart Cover, you have a choice of tan, navy blue, black, cream, or the PRODUCT (RED) Smart Cover, which will donate some of money to the Africa AIDS Foundation.

I have the black leather Smart Cover and I’ve been using this cover for about a week now. I can tell you right now that I do like the cover, but there are some big concerns with the exterior. On the back of the packaging, it warns you that the dye on the leather Smart Cover may rub off during use. I never thought that would be a big deal, but when some of the color rubs off, it gives the Smart Cover a shiny effect. Another way of the color coming off is when you wipe the cover with a damp cloth. One of the minor issues is the microfiber lining. Apple claims that it cleans your screen, but it turns out that it makes it worse. The microfiber lining will attract lots of dust and grease; when you put the cover down your screen, it leaves crease marks on the glass and lots of dust.

As I said before, Apple designed the Smart Cover along side with the iPad 2. Because of that, Apple was able to make the Smart Cover interact with the iPad’s sleep/wake function. For example, when you lift the Smart Cover, the iPad wakes up and when you put the cover down, it sleeps the iPad. Apple was able to do this by using magnets. Apple also uses magnets to perfectly align the Smart Cover, when installing it. Obviously, this sleep/wake function isn’t unique to the Apple Smart Cover. Other companies are building in magnets to their folio cases to take advantage of that feature. If you’re worried about it falling off, you shouldn’t be because the magnets are fairly strong. It’s so strong, it can lift the iPad up when you’re holding the cover in the air.

Functionality

The iPad Smart Cover does work well as a video or typing stand, using a folding mechanism seen in Speck’s and Incase’s earlier designs. The Smart Cover provides two angles for typing, a reclined angle for video viewing in landscape orientation, and a straight up angle for portrait orientation FaceTime calling. Both of the typing angles felt sturdy and comfortable; the landscape angle was also sturdy.

Conclusion

With no doubt, the Smart Cover is a very interesting approach to the case industry. The magnets that interact with the iPad is something that no company have really thought about. But with such a hefty price tag and the lack of back protection, it’s probably not the case for you. If you really do want to protect the back while using the Smart Cover, you’ll have to fork over another $29 for a hard shell or a film.

Outward appearance

The Iconia is a sleek glass and aluminum device, although it does feel a bit on the cheaper side. Additionally, something about the material and the way it’s curved makes it hard to get a solid grip on the device with one hand – it’s fairly slippery.

Connections are plentiful. There is a proprietary dock connector on the bottom. The right edge contains a reset hole, USB host port (for connecting a flash drive or camera), USB guest port (for connecting the Tab to a computer), standard
barrel jack for charging, micro SD slot, orientation lock switch, volume buttons, illuminated power button, headphone jack, and micro HDMI port. In other words: far more options than the iPad.

Specs

The Iconia features a 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen with 1280×800 resolution, dual cameras, microSDHC slot, 1 GB of RAM, and a dual-core 1 GHz Tegra 250 SoC CPU. This hardware is mated with Android 3.0 Honeycomb and runs it quite well.

There are no hardware-based buttons, but Honeycomb’s navigation bar on the bottom does a good job of getting around this limitation. With a tablet like this which will never end up in a pocket, there isn’t much of a need for hardware buttons in my book.

Camera

The tablet comes with two cameras, as seems pretty standard nowadays – one front-facing for video chat via Skype, and a rear-facing one for taking standard pictures. Quality is pretty standard, and the rear camera does not have a flash. If anything else, the large screen brings out the imperfections in the images.

Comparisons with the iPad

One thing that struck me about the Iconia is its less “smooth” experience. From the jerky animations to the inconsistent applications, the overall experience isn’t as smooth as one might expect from an iPad. However, the Iconia more than makes up with its bigger screen, Flash support (which makes a world of difference when watching videos and playing games on that spacious screen), and more open development. Hardware-wise, the iPad wins with its build quality, but the Iconia Tab wins with its connectivity options and bigger screen.

Verdict

I did not buy this tablet, but after using for a bit, it’s starting to grow on me. The $450 price tag competes very well with the iPad, giving you more features and power in exchange for the iPad’s smoother experience. Either way, it’s a nice device for first-time tablet users.

Record offers a very visual and flexible display and interface for recording, making this the ideal program for recording professionals.

A look into Reason's synth module, Thor.

Propellerheads  Record Reason Duo is a new software bundle from Propellerheads;  the music-creation software of Reason 5 with the recording and mixing capabilities of Record 1.5 into one affordable bundle.

Installation

While having the task to install 2 products may seem like a daunting task to some, Propellerhead does a great job of making the installation process a breeze. After the program has been installed, the first run will ask for your serial and/or registration number to install the sound library banks for each program .While Reason’s banks install a major portion of the sounds, Record also has a sound bank, including additional brass, strings, synths, and other useful instruments in your recording projects.

Authorization & Anti-Piracy Done Right

I am very impressed by Propellerhead’s approach towards piracy and authorization steps for their programs. While Reason does not feature a dongle authorization, Record requires the use of one of 2 methods for authorizing: using the Propellerhead Dongle or through Internet Verification. Through the Internet verifying process, the user has the ability to use their Propellerheads User Account (If already created) to obtain licence information  from the server. This is especially useful if you are not comfortable with carrying your dongle around every place you go. Additionally, if no Internet service is available and you don’t have a dongle, you can still run the program in Demo Mode, which allows you to create and save your Record project, but cannot open any other record session files. The dongle, can be replaced at a “nominal” fee as well.

Reason vs Record

A common question asked is the difference between the two programs. Reason is a music creation tool that allows you to make songs from Reason Refills or sound banks. However, Reason cannot record or import audio. Record is a music creation tool mixing as well as a to allow recording sessions. Depending on your individual needs and jobs, each of these programs may be of use to you.

What’s in the box?

The box includes:

●     Reason 5.0 Disc & Registration Card

●     Reason 1.5 Disc & Registration Card

●     Propellerheads Dongle

●     Reason Getting Started Booklet/Manual

●     A few fun stickers

Interface & Workflow

Propellerhead’s products are well-known across the music industry for their stunning visual modeling and interaction within the interface. In addition to the sequencer window, Reason and Record offer a “Rack” view to patch and edit effects and instrument parameters both on the front and back patching of the component, just as you would do in a physical situation. This feature is highly useful for musicians and producers that want the ability to make complex combinations  effect chains or instruments for current and later use sessions to create their personal virtual mixing setup.

Block mode is an additional feature included in Reason, to maximize efficiency during sequencing composition. If your song has section that re-occurs numerous times throughout the song, no longer will you need to copy and paste. Block mode will allow you select the pattern and “paint”  the section as often as you need to. This can also be incredibly useful for saving ideas for later use in the song.

REWIRE Compatibility

Another powerful capability in Reason and Record is ReWire, which allows you to connect Reason and ReWire instruments and effects into another computer application, such as Cubase, Nuendo, Pro Tools, Logic, and many more applications. ReWire is very easy to setup, and allows musicians to use Reason as a sound or rack module to create a flexible, organized and visually-appealing workflow.

Instruments

The duo package comes with plenty of instrument patches and manipulation to keep you busy for quite some time. However, a few instruments that you may see in the program might not be especially useful if you’re looking for realistic sounds. Propellerheads offers expandable Refills for instruments such as pianos, drums, and basses.

Expandable Instruments/Effects

Being a film composer, I understand how expensive and difficult it becomes to have the best equipment and sound libraries possible. However, even the best sounds and instruments can become to sound dull due to multiple usage. Propellerheads offers “Refills,” expandable package files that contain new sounds and effects for use in your Reason and Record sessions. The pricing is also reasonably fair (some in which are free), and can also come with free updates to the bank library purchased. Some commercial refills include:

●     Reason Pianos Refill

●     Soul School Refill

The Bottom Line

Propellerheads is one the top companies in music technology, and there’s very good reason for it. Their one-of-a-kind audio interface puts control and creativity back into the hands of the producers and artists, while creating music in a clutter-free environment. Having both programs on your computer can present a clear workflow for your studio sessions or home recordings. While this program lacks VST support, the powerful ReWire features gives the program an even greater edge in other DAW products.

A few years ago in a previous version I worked with this problem, and was surprised from all the features; there was no way I wanted to work the software again. However with the provided Micro-Tutorials and help manual, the transition from a traditional workstation works seamlessly, as still I am learning new features and techniques.

Propellerheads Record Reason Duo costs $390; educational and student discounts are available as well.

Tech Cores Card Rating: 10/10

The DS-90U is one of the main iconic products that made DoubleSight Displays the brand it is today. DoubleSight is known for manufacturing monitors, but when they released their USB Monitor, the market slowly started to take advantage of the new idea.

Design

The DS-90U’s Black matte finish looks very nice and blends in most computer enviroments. Though in coffee shops’ it may seem a little strange. The screen itself is not high-def but has a high pixel density of 1024×600. Now for most screens, this is relatively low, but this is just a 9″ screen.

Usability

The DS-90U has a two stands that are included. The first of which is a stylus stand that acts like the Archos tablets as in it consits of a piece of plastic with some rubber at the bottom to make it not fall down. The second is a stand that you may see on some full size monitors. It pivots at 2 points so you can fold it up and put it away or store it. The second stand is attached to the screen by way of a knob that also can adjust the height of the screen. The monitor can be turned 90 degrees to make things like Chat, IRC, or a stream of news fit better. The actual positioning though is done though their built in software. Currently it only works with 2000, XP, Vista, and even though it dosn’t say it in their installer, 7. To install it on Windows 7 all that is needed is for you to plug it in and it will automatically download the driver.

What’s To Improve?

There are a few things that should be improved in the product before it gets a refresh (in my opinion). First, most netbooks only have 2-3 USB ports. For the few of them that have 2, the monitor does not leave room for other devices such as a camera, thumb drive, or printer. Yes you could use a USB Hub but that is just another thing to buy on top of this. My idea for fixing this would be to either allow the user to put batteries into the device (since it only uses 5-10 volts) or to have an add-on port for an AC adapter. Second, the monitor does not have Linux support. As this is not a huge gripe at the moment, it may become one because of the increasing market of Linux based OS’ (especially the new Chromebooks). Lastly, the monitor is as thick as normal desktop monitors. This makes it so you would need to purchase a new laptop bag for those who wouldn’t have the space in their current one.

The Issues I Had

When I was installing the software on my current PC (Vista Home Pre. 32bit) it wouldn’t work for awhile. I fixed this by restarting a few times. I think the reason behind this was because of how I already had a second monitor on that PC. I did try it on a Windows XP machine (said it would work in the installer). The monitor was recognized but it would not install.

Final Remarks

The DS-90U is a fair price of $129. For the current way it is and what should be improved I will give it a 7. I would like to thank Dario DellaMaggiore of Doublesight Displays for sending the DS-90U over to me for this review.

WordPress’s extendability features, called plugins, have always been loved by WordPress’s users as they provide an elegant system to expand WordPress to do practically anything.

In this post, however, we’ll be speaking about how plugin development in WordPress 3 works. With Packt Publishing’s latest WordPress book, WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials, it provides a nice and fairly detailed (281 pages) description on how WordPress 3 handles plugins.

My Experiences with WordPress

The first time I worked with WordPress was around five years ago when I started to become more evolved in web technologies. Now I should mention that I was not by any means an expert at WordPress at this time; I was, in fact, just a “normal” WordPress user back then.

Forward some years later when I was about to release Tech Cores v1.0, I already had the new pre-made theme I was going to use on top of Joomla, another content management system, but I turned my back on Joomla and switched to WordPress. The thing is, at this time, I had absolutely no experience working with WordPress theme development. What I did have, in fact, was knowledge of the PHP programming language, which WordPress relies on.

I picked up the “WordPress way” within days and started creating the first custom-made WordPress theme for Tech Cores; from the Photoshop design all the way to the final product… now, years later, I can literally code a normal website and convert it into a WordPress-compatible site in a heart beat.

All and all, I can call myself a WordPress “genius”; I’ve been working with it for years and I can never switch back for many reasons. Enough jibber-jabber, let’s get on with the full review.

Thoughts on the Book

What I really love about WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is that it starts off the first few chapters very simply. When just reading the first chapter, it explains on how setting up your WordPress development system, best coding practices (which can be used for no matter what you’re programming), and how handle testing, code versioning, security, along with other things. For anyone reading this book, they most likely already have programming experience, and because the authors decided to start this book out in a way that’s not too in a rush, it really means quite a bit. It’s a great way to start off a book entirely on development…

The Beginning

Just like the first chapter, the second chapter doesn’t rush you at all; in fact, it’s more of giving you baby steps to start building powerful WordPress plugins. Any kind of developing book can be boring with all that computer code. But the best part I love about WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is that you’re not going to be seeing pages and pages of code; the authors give you some code, and describing what it’s accomplishing. I’ve seen books that have two or three pages, back to back, that’s filled with code only. No reader is going to give that code a good glance, it’ll just confuse them. So with WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials, it takes a completely different approach; it takes the main functions of a plugin, the anatomy of a plugin, and breaks it down in an easy to comprehend way.

In the second chapter, there’s one thing that rather surprised me in a WordPress plugin development book. In just the second chapter, the author has you making a plugin, that is, an “evil functionless plugin”.  The author includes some errors in the plugin, where to put the header() function, whether or not to close the PHP tags (this was my favorite part of the chapter. Some WordPress users may edit a plugin, put some whitespace at the bottom, and find that everything is not working right. I’m glad this was added.), and a brief explanation to hooks.

With WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials brief introduction to hooks, the authors did one amazing job describing how they work in a simple manner. Hooks are extremely important in WordPress plugin development, if you didn’t have it, your plugin wouldn’t be as effective.

We’re Making Plugins!

The next section of WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials is where everything starts coming together. The book guides you though implementing a Digg social media button next to each post. An easy concept, but ideal for learning how WordPress handles its plugins. The steps taken in this chapter to implement this feature is so nicely laid out, that you can practically use it as a guide when writing your own plugin. The authors don’t rush into things, they make sure what you’re going to implement will work, layout the general plan, create the main system, test it, add some more, and test it again. This approach was something that I really appreciated. As a programmer myself knowing many languages (really, don’t get me started), I can truly say you want to take programming step by step.

The next two chapters are very similar to the previous one. You learn how to create a content rotator in the widget (typically a sidebar) section, which is very popular among WordPress blogs, and using the power of custom fields to expand the attached content to a post. With the content rotator, they could have integrated some neat jQuery content rotator, but I’m sure the reader can figure that out after reading the chapter. This is actually a very crucial chapter though, you learn how to integrate a widget with custom settings into WordPress! After that, you’r going right to the custom fields. Custom fields in WordPress is simply a way to put more content into your posts and do something with it. Personally, I use custom fields quite a bit on Tech Cores to get many of the things done that WordPress can’t do out of the box.

What’s fairly ironic is the how WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials described on how to implement custom fields is nearly identical to the way on how I accomplished it. Anyways, when getting back to the topic, I was very thrilled to read over this section. If there’s one thing you should pick up from this book, it would have to be custom fields. With this small little feature, you can expand WordPress to do practically anything you want it to do. And yes, by the way, the way the authors described this is one of the best ways that I’ve ever heard. I have to give them an A+ on this entire chapter.

The next section is all about shortcodes. These are simply just like BBCode, but act as powerful extension to the text editor in WordPress. This was a fairly simple chapter, but using the function, register_post_ type(), the authors were left with very little documentation about it; they ended up writing a chapter that I think, should be available on the WordPress Codex. I’m glad that WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials decided to make it so it was easy to understand in a practical use. Also, there’s one thing that really let me down in this chapter. Like with many plugins, I see the plugins shortcode integrate with the TinyMCE text editor in WordPress to provide a GUI to shortcodes. I really think the authors should have added something like this as an example.

Additional Topics

WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials explains how to version your code using Subversion. Even though I prefer to use Cornerstone, the book explains how to do it the command line way, which will work on any operating system. This is a great chapter, it even discusses Google Code, but it seems a little out of place. I’m glad they added it, but I personally don’t think they needed a full chapter on it.

The next chapter, is a very crucial part of WordPress plugin development: getting your plugin ready for the world! The authors review some common mistakes that make the plugins glitchy on other systems, like conflicting names. This entire chapter is all based upon testing, discussing WordPress limitations, and more. This chapter really tells you the things you need to make sure of when turning a development plugin into a released one.

You guessed it, the next chapter is releasing your plugin for real! This discusses some more best practices and things like localization, getting your plugin noticed, along with some minor things. Great chapter with lots of information!

The last good amount of pages include the appendix which just provides extra reference material (the WordPress Codex is amazing!). Just many of Packt’s books, you can easily use this book as a reference guide when you need to. It only covers the essentials of WordPress plugin development, but enough for you to get practically anything done.

Overall, I really enjoyed WordPress 3 Plugin Development Essentials. It was a great short read and I learned a few extra tricks along the way. If you are a causal WordPress developer or you want to be, I highly recommend for you to pick up a copy. You may visit the book’s website at the below link:

http://link.packtpub.com/FKjtYN

If you have ever needed to collaborate with a college on a task you know that if you use email it can get cumbersome and quite annoying to have to sort through all the email. So when you are able to collaborate on this tasks in a more organized and accessible manner the whole project becomes a lot easier. This is what Flow has done. For $9.99 USD a month (with discounts for a larger group of accounts) you can keep track of not only the things you need to get done for yourself but you can also collaborate with people on work tasks or even personal events like parties.

All of this is extremely helpful but there are some flaws in the execution of Flow, things that could be easily fixed. One major problem with the service is that every time somebody comments, flags, completes, or reopens a task you receive an email. Of course you are able to disable them but the mobile app for iOS doesn’t use push notification, which would take a large stress off from your inbox. The fact that when you aren’t checking your email, to receive any sort of notification from the app is simply impossible which really kills the functionality of the service.

The team at MetaLab has created a sample video (below) showing a group of people using Flow to organize a party on very short notice.

I would like to thank Luke Seeley from MetaLab for providing Flow for review.

[Enter WRAPSOL]

If you have ever watched one of my video reviews of any case I mention no matter what case you have it is essential to have a screen protector on your device. But what WRAPSOL has done is taken the concept and protection of a screen protector and applied it (literally) to the back and sides of the device. In this review I used the front and back, “ultra”, kit for the iPod touch 4th generation. So, let’s get on with it.

Application

The first thing I would like to mention is when it comes to screen  protectors I am nothing short of a perfectionist. The WRAPSOL kit provided some very handy tips in their instruction manual, like wetting your finger tips to prevent leaving fingerprints on the screen of the product itself. Overall, the front piece went on without a hitch and like mentioned in the instructions any small bubble will disappear within twenty-four hours of use. The back as far as application goes is a little bit more tricky to apply. You have to make sure that is it not only centered both vertically and horizontally but that the tabs aren’t obstructing any of the ports, connectors, or buttons on all of the sides. It may sound a little daunting but it is actually pretty easy to do. The only problem I ran into while installing the back is that when you first stick the tabs to the sides that are, for a lack of a better word, defiant. Yet, after a little coaxing they haven’t moved in a week.

Usage

Both the front and the back of the case are made of thin sheets of TPU, a common material used in the manufacturing of cases. TPU is not only scratch and dent resistant (as far as the material goes) it is extremely transparent so even when the screen is off it is hard to tell that the protectors are on. Now this “invisibility” has gone as far as to raise questions from my peers as to why I do not have a case on my iPod. The holes, both front and back, are cut very precisely and so are the edges of the protectors. With that said the edges of the back sheet are wrapped up on the edged leaving a sharp edge pointed towards your hand, which though it isn’t in any way painful it does sometimes lead to a slight bit of discomfort. For most of the day my iPod is moved around in my pocket and absorbs any of the bumps that hit my right thigh area. Without a case, even that would case scratches and minor dents to the back of the iPod but the WRAPSOL sheet has protected the device from any scratches or visibly ware.

WRAP-Up

(pun intended) Other than the small trouble I had with applying the back sheet of the WRAPSOL set this product has served it purpose to the fullest extent and I am very happy with it and will be using it for as long as possible. Now understand, when I do these case and accessory reviews I have to either stick with the current product of move to the new one, obviously I can’t have to cases on the same device. I have every intention of leaving this product on my device. If you would like to read the review of my current favorite case you can click here.

If you are interested in picking up any of the WRAPSOL products from your device you can browse there website http://www.wrapsol.com or you can visit your local Wal-Mart and pick up one. Also, I would like to thank the WRAPSOL Sample Team for providing not only the product but great support throughout the review. If you would like to keep informed about all of the WRAPSOL products you can follow them on Twitter or Facebook. Lastly, they have some really good tutorials on their YouTube channel. Feel free to click on some of the gallery images below to get a better look at how the product fits and protects your device.

What’s in the box?

When you first get your Mirage case, you’ll find the case itself and a paper insert. Unfortunately, there are no screen protectors included in the box. If you want screen protectors, you’ll have to buy a three pack for five dollars at the AT&T store, or an Invisible Shield for $29. Having screen protectors included in the box would add value, but with cheap AT&T, you won’t get any.

Design and Protection

- What it’s made out of

The Body Glove Mirage is thankfully not made out of silicone, instead it’s made out of a material called TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane). TPU provides the same amount of shock protection that a silicone case provides and lint doesn’t stick on the case (more on that later). Because this is a hybrid case, they would usually be thick and bulky. With this case, it’s actually not that bad. It still keeps your Focus thin and protected, but it adds a little bit of weight.

- The actual design

When you flip the case around, you’ll see the case’s distinctive design. The back has a glossy and matte finish with little line patterns. The design that Body Glove put on is very stylish and unlike any other hybrid cases, it doesn’t attract a lot of grease, even after you ate that KFC meal. One thing to note is that the matte part will get that shiny, greasy look if you don’t clean it often.

Rather than covering the buttons, Body Glove made the buttons exposed. The good thing about this is that the buttons feel more natural and tactile. The cutouts are precise and they are big enough so you can press them. The bad things about exposed buttons are that they can get scratched easily and dust could get into your case. As of right now, that’s my biggest issue with this case. Here’s a picture to show you that issue.

Conclusion

Overall, I do like this case. It has a stylish design, it doesn’t add too much bulk, it’s affordable, and most importantly, it’s protective. Though there are some big negatives such as dust getting into the case, exposed buttons, and Body Glove not supplying a screen protector. This case gets a 7/10.

Today RockMelt introduced a mobile version of their well known desktop browser. Undoubtedly there are heaps of 3rd party browsers, Twitter and Facebook clients, as well as RSS readers on the iOS App Store. What RockMelt has done is taken the best from all of those applications and molded it into one “all-in-one” application.

As far as using the application as a web browser goes, I personally don’t feel the way the browser was integrated into the application, that is is featured enough. Beyond that though the social power of this applications is nothing short of amazing. When you open the app you are brought to a menu were you can check your Facebook and Twitter feed as well as look at your RSS feeds.

The Facebook and Twitter sections allow for easy access to any and all controls you would need to use either of the services to their full extent. Through the settings menu you can add any RSS feed that you find interesting so you can keep up to date will all of the news but worldwide and socially.

Rockmelt is now available though the iOS App Store. You can download a copy for your self by clicking here.

I’ve recommended people to HP in the past, I’ve repaired HP computers myself, and I’ve even given support out to people in need of it. I’ll say this right from the get-go, I’m very knowledgeable on how HP works. Everything that’ll be listed are not only my experiences, but also ones coming from my peers.

Like any computer company, support is the biggest area of need. My experiences with HP customer support has been extremely negative.

First Experience

After around for months after buying my Presario laptop, it started having issues with its fan. The fan started to make clicking noises, which were fairly loud, and the processor started to overheat because of it. They ended up replacing the heat sink fan and reimaging the hard drive.

Second Experience

Three months after that my laptop started to have odd issues with its system motherboard. The ended up replacing the system board and replacing the hard drive with a louder one.

Third Experience

HP’s technicians ended up putting scratches on my laptop’s palm rest. With that, there was some nice fine and short hairs all over the keyboard and palm rest when I opened it out of the box. Thanks HP for making my laptop messy and having scratches! That left to another repair.

Wrap-Up

Now that might not sound too bad, but now let me get somewhat into the details. When talking with HP on one of the repairs (I believe it was the second one), HP customer support was denying my claim for repair. They would not seem to fix it… at all. After speaking with many support representatives and some managers, I was able to convince them into a repair. After many days, I was finally able to get that warranty-covered repair. Essentially, I told them I knew there was a problem and with their support policy, they were liable to fix it in the support period. They started warning me if they didn’t find an issue, they would change me quite a bit of money.

Not only did I have problems getting repairs, talking with the support representatives was extremely difficult. While many having thick Indian or Asian accents when speaking English, it was fairly difficult to understand them. I’ve spoken with enough people from different countries to understand them, but it’s still annoying that HP does not want to hire people who can speak English in a decent way.

Now the next part is something that really ticked me off quite a bit. One night, HP called my home phone very late at night. Not only was it annoying to my family, it was a very large disturbance to my father. HP’s support needs to adept to the customer’s local time zone. Every single time I call support, I give them my time zone and best times to call. HP neglected this information and asked for me very late in the day (actually, it was the next day so you could say very early too).

My Friend’s/Family Experiences

One of my friends owned two HP laptops. One of them being a low-end series and the other being an older NC8230. With his low-end laptop, which was also a budget computer, he had way too many issues to name. The main thing with that computer was in fact the graphics card. He had it repaired multiple times and still had problems. With his NC8230, let’s just say he had so many problems he ended up sending that machine in way more than it needed to be. It was easily over ten repairs… and yes, we both lost count on how many repairs it had.

On the flip side, when we were buying a laptop for my sister, I found a very good deal on the internet for a nice HP consumer laptop. The laptop is fairly large and heavy, but it handles a very large display with two hard drives. The thing is a beast… anyways, after nearly two years of my sister owning it, it is now having issues powering on and with its battery. The battery lasts not long at all and getting it to power on is next to nothing. As a computer geek myself, the laptop overheats very quickly. With this overheating, the fans get very loud (they’re running at maximum RPM a good chunk of the time) and the laptop BSODs, shuts itself down, and it’s nearly impossible to start back up. This has happened to my Presario, but not as often.

Summary

With all of these support issues above, you would think I would know of at least one good thing from HP support. Sadly, I cannot say I’ve ever heard of anything good coming out of it. HP laptops tend to break extremely easily. In fact, my Presario sometimes has difficulties turning on right now! After three years of owning it, you would think the computer would still be working.

HP’s quality of support is near minimum and quite honestly, it’s hard for me to say that being an HP fan. Their low-end consumer-oriented laptops are some of that worst I’ve seen and do not last long at all. Their modern business laptops are decent (as having worked with them before), but I’m questioning why they can’t put the same quality of a product from their business laptops in their low-end laptops.

With my HP laptop on its last leg, with my sister’s laptop started to break, and with my friend constantly sending in his NC8230 and myself needing to send my Presario in three times is just absurd.

With my warranty up for my Presario, I believe it’ll be dying very soon. I’m sorry HP, but your quality of laptops is not of the best and I’d really love to give you guys a second chance.