If you have been in school in the last couple of years, there is most likely a huge chance you have used the popular e-learning CMS program called Moodle. With the help of Packt Publishing, who is notorious from writing about open source projects like Moodle, they have taken it to the next level.

With their brand new release of Moodle 2 Administration not too long ago, Packt has now decided to offer a series of discounts towards their Moodle book collection.

• Buy any Moodle print book and get 20% off
• Buy any Moodle eBook and get 30% off

Overview of Unity 3.x Game Development by Example Beginner’s Guide

• Build fun games using the free Unity game engine even if you’ve never coded before

• Learn how to “skin” projects to make totally different games from the same file – more games, less effort!

• Packed with ideas, inspiration, and advice for your own game design and development

Read more about this book and download free Sample Chapter.

Overview of Unity 3 Game Development Hotshot

• Cool, fun, advanced aspects of Unity Game Development, from creating a rocket launcher to building your own destructible game world

• Full of coding samples, diagrams, tips and tricks to keep your code organized, and completed art assets with clear step-by-step examples and instruction

• Elite Unity programming for those looking to take their skills to the next level

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.

After the massive failures from the JooJoo tablet and now the Grid 10, Fusion Garage might have disappeared in thin air. The first sign of the disappearance was that their website went down, reporting the 503 database error. As of right now, the website is barely up: certain images won’t load on the site, and when you go to their online store, the button for purchasing a Grid 10 said: “We are currently running out of stock. Thank you.” Also, Fusion Garage hasn’t posted any new content on their Twitter and Facebook feeds, due to the fact that their PR team ditched the company. Here’s a statement from one of FG’s employees:

Unfortunately, none of our efforts have resulted in any communication from the company to the customers. Given all of this, we don’t have any other choice but to cease working with FG effective tomorrow. (Source: Engadget)

While it’s sad to see a small company disappear, it’s hard to be sympathetic when Fusion Garage delivers so little to the market. A great example of this was the JooJoo tablet. It offered some features that the iPad doesn’t have, but ultimately failed because of it’s performance and the web-only UI. Best of all (not really on Fusion Garage’s part), they discontinued the JooJoo after only having 90 pre-orders for the device. Wow.

Back in March, AT&T announced that they were going to acquire T-Mobile USA, so they can expand their spectrum and enhance their network. While this sounded like a good idea, it would ultimately lower competition in the US mobile market and this didn’t cut it for many people, especially the FCC. The FCC has declined the merger, making AT&T to pull the application from the FCC and scrap the deal.

Today, AT&T has publicly made an announcement that they’ve scrapped the T-Mobile deal and will now cough up $4 billion to Deutsche Telekom as a breakup fee and an additional $3 billion. Interestingly, AT&T and T-Mobile agreed a roaming deal which will allow phones to work on both of their networks.

Here’s AT&T’s comment about today’s announcement:

The actions by the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to block this transaction do not change the realities of the U.S. wireless industry. It is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in the world, with a mounting need for more spectrum that has not diminished and must be addressed immediately. The AT&T and T-Mobile USA combination would have offered an interim solution to this spectrum shortage. In the absence of such steps, customers will be harmed and needed investment will be stifled.

It’s been less than a year since the Mac App Store was launched by Apple, back in January. Already, the technology giant is celebrating a relatively significant milestone, being 100 million downloads. In comparison to the iOS app store, the number is completely diminished, but considering that Macs have a much smaller market share than their iPhone and iPad counter-parts, it’s a pretty impressive landmark.

The Mac App Store is “home to thousands of apps”, Apple claims – I certainly love using it, what about you?

Here’s the official press release:

 Apple’s Mac App Store Downloads Top 100 Million

CUPERTINO, California-December 12, 2011-Apple® today announced that over 100 million apps have been downloaded from the Mac® App Store™ in less than one year. With thousands of free and paid apps, the Mac App Store brings the App Store experience to the Mac so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes® account, and download and install them in just one step. Apple revolutionized the app industry with the App Store, which now has more than 500,000 apps and where customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps and continue to download more than 1 billion apps per month.

“In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world.”

“With Autodesk products in both the App Store and Mac App Store, we can reach hundreds of millions of Apple users around the world,” said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president of Platform Solutions and Emerging Business at Autodesk. “With our free AutoCAD WS and the more powerful professional drafting tools of AutoCAD LT, we’re using the Mac App Store to deliver new products and reach a growing base of new Mac customers.”

“The Mac App Store has unparalleled reach and has completely transformed our distribution and development cycle,” said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. “Offering Pixelmator 2.0 exclusively on the Mac App Store allows us to streamline updates to our image editing software and stay ahead of the competition.”

“In less than one year we’ve shifted the distribution of djay for Mac exclusively to the Mac App Store,” said Karim Morsy, CEO of algoriddim. “With just a few clicks, djay for Mac is available to customers in 123 countries worldwide. We could never have that reach through traditional channels.”

The Mac App Store offers thousands of apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews. The Mac App Store is included with Mac OS® X Lion and is available as a software update for any Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard®. For more information visit, www.apple.com/mac/app-store.

Mac developers set the prices for their apps, keep 70 percent of the sales revenue, are not charged for free apps and do not have to pay hosting, marketing or credit card fees. To find out more about developing for the Mac App Store visit, developer.apple.com/programs/mac.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

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!

Written Upon the Steam forums, Gabe Newell, Valve’s CEO/President, has notified users of the recent attacks.

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

Gabe.

Newell strongly recommends that you reset your password for both the forums and the Steam service as well as check credit card statements for possible fraudulent activities. Steam/Valve have not yet released an official statement on the attacks.

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.

Today, Motorola officially unveiled the Xoom 2 and Xoom 2 Media Edition tablets. They’re destined for the UK and Ireland, and will come out with Android Honeycomb 3.2.

The Xoom 2 is nothing particularly special when compared to the tonne load of other Android tablets on the market. It features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage. It’s also rocking a 5 mega-pixel camera on the back, with a 1.3 mega-pixel shooter on the front. On board, it has Motorola’s new Splash-guard protection, which claims to offer spillage safety.

The Xoom 2 Media Edition, is almost identical to the Xoom 2, but has a smaller 8.2-inch display, rather than the full 10.1-inch. I honestly don’t see why companies do this. In my mind, a tablet should be around the 10-inch mark. Any smaller, and you’re starting to loose the initial point of a tablet, but maybe that’s just me.

It’s also worth noting that Motorola are including stylus technology. Similar to what HTC and Samsung have pushed out this year, it should provide ‘pin-point’ accuracy for accurate note-taking.

Motorola are claiming that the two new tablets have 20% better graphics performance than the original Xoom as well. You can expect to get your hands on it, if you’re in the UK or Ireland, sometime ‘mid-November’.

Extract from the press release:

London - Building on the success of Motorola XOOM™, Motorola Mobility is rocking the tablet world yet again with two additions that bring enhanced experiences to the European market. Wi-Fi variants of the Motorola XOOM 2™ and Motorola XOOM 2 Media Edition™ — boasting powerful productivity, rich entertainment and customizable experiences — are now available: the answer to consumers looking for a tablet that can keep up with their lifestyle. Both tablets will be available at Carphone Warehouse in the UK and Ireland, as well as Best Buy, Dixons, PC World and Currys in the UK.

This morning, HTC announced their earnings for Q3. They have beaten their records from previous quarters by a large margin, and shown incredible growth, with shipments up a huge 93% compared to last quarter.

Revenue for the period was NT$136 billion (up 79%, approx: $4.54 billion), leading the net income for the quarter to NT$18.68 billion (approx: $625 million).

The largest area of growth was, interestingly, in China. Sales there increased by over nine times the period last year.

Altogether, the company shipped 13.2 million units. Those numbers are set to grow, with Q4 predictions leading the way with further records for the ever-growing company.

Thoughts? Did you buy an HTC product in the last few months?

After a long period of wait, the heavily leaked Nokia phones running Windows Phone 7 are finally beginning to see the light of day. The company promised to deliver such handsets earlier this year, and since then, numerous sources have leaked photos and videos. But a short time ago, two Nokia devices were announced, powered by Windows Phone 7.5.

The Nokia Lumia 800 is the flagship device for Nokia heading into the Holiday season. It’s been dubbed as “the first real Windows Phone”, and features a 3.7-inch ClearBlack AMOLED curved display (480×800). Inside, you’ll find a decent punch – 1.4GHz Qualcomm CPU and 16GB of storage (which is backed up by 25GB of free SkyDrive space in the cloud).

The Lumia 800 also has an eight mega-pixel camera, which is packing a f/2.2 aperture. Nokia cameras always deliver, so I’m looking forward to see how this one performs.

Finally, the Lumia 800 has quad-band GSM, so you’ll be getting HSDPA data speeds up to 10.2MBPS. It’s available for pre-order now, and is set to roll out in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, UK and Spain some time in November. Hong Kong, India, Russia and Taiwan will get it before the end of the year, and will hit “further markets” sometime next year. The price is 420 euros/approx. £400 ($585).

The Nokia Lumia 710 is the less exposed of the two, but still sports some of the fantastic features of the 800. It’s got the same 1.4GHz CPU, and features a 3.7-inch ClearBlack display. It comes in black or white varieties, with removable back covers.  It should hit the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain in November for 270 euros ($375) in November, and additional markets by the end of the year and through to 2012.

Past Poll Results

Question: What do you want in the next iPhone?

So the winner is, for the first and only time, Android. Thank you guys for your participation and feedback!

The New Poll Question?

Which What virtualization software do you prefer?

Also, if your choice isn’t int he options feel free to comment down below and we will add some to the current list!

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/

http://www.kingston.com/ukroot/ssd/vplus100.asp

I hope you enjoy the video and please, if you have anymore questions please leave a comment below or contact me on Twitter

UPDATE (10/15/11): The port in the video above was rough to say the least but, a video (below) was uploaded showing a much smoother experience. The problem of server side system verification is the next hurdle to jump over.

Today, the day after the company he co-founded back in 1976, released the next generation of their mobile devices Steve Jobs has died. It is a rare and unfortunate time where we are able to look back at all the world has gained due to such a person’s contributions. Jobs recently laid the future of Apple in the hands of Tim Cook, after his second extended medical leave from Apple. His death, is assumed to be related to complication with his fight against pancreatic cancer. As a team, we wish only the best to Steve’s wife and family, friends as well as his co-workers. He will be missed.

If you would like to voice your condolences Apple has set up an email just for that: rememberingsteve@apple.com

Steve Jobs’ family has released a statement:

Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family.

In his public life, Steve was known as a visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last year of Steve’s illness; a website will be provided for those who wish to offer tributes and memories.

We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief.

Today, Apple announced the continuation to the iPhone line. The iPhone 4S was unveiled, after tons of rumors and speculations.

The iPhone 4S is just like the iPhone 4 in design, being just that it’s a slight difference in weight. It’s also featuring the fabulous A5 processor, and an 8 megapixel camera. The 8 megapixel camera shoots in 1080p, producing great video’s!

It also has some great battery improvements, 8 hours talk time on 3G, 14 hours talk time on 2G, 6 hours of data on 3G, 9 hours data on WiFi, 40 hours audio, 10 hours video.

So what do you think of the new iPhone? Did you think it was going to be the iPhone 5 and not the 4S?

You can get the Xperia Ray for $450 without a contract and on Newegg for $350.

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

Apple finally announced the iPhone 5 event date and honestly I can not wait for it! Apple has the date scheduled for October 4th at 10AM at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. campus. It’s very clear that the event is all about the iPhone as you can see in the invite that they sent out.

So what do you think will be new in the iPhone 5 when it comes out? Other than iOS 5.