Steam to Mac!
Mar 7th
I’m not sure what EVERYbody looks for when buying a computer, but one thing always on my list is what games can I play on it well? I fell victim to a ridiculous opportunity cost when I bought my Macbook Pro a while back full well knowing that I wouldn’t be able to play awesome games. Sure, I could play Call of Duty 4 and all of the Blizzard games, but I was a mega-fan of the Valve games like Team Fortress 2 and Portal. I spent countless hours playing TF2 with my friends on the Steam client only to realize that on the day my old PC died, so did my Steam playing days. It was like waking up without being able to walk again. I was devastated for a while and continued to find any which way I could play the games. I’d sign in to my account from a friends computer or buy the games for my Xbox 360. But Valve games have something about them that just demands to be played on a computer rather than console. Well my friends, unless you’ve been neglecting the web for the past week you’ve no doubt seen the rumors spreading around on sites like Shacknews, MACNN, and Kotaku.
[Photo grabbed from GameInformer.com]
With those images placed around the web the ridiculously awesome rumor has all but been confirmed. A lot of sources are saying that it’s a May release (which would make an awesome birthday gift to this author) or it could come with the release of Portal 2 in the fall. Regardless of those rumors, Valve will continue to anticipate their announcement later in the upcoming week, and let’s hope we get a definite release date from them.
Also wondering about this; what could this mean for gamers? What games can we expect with the launch of Steam to the Mac? (I refuse to call it iSteam. Sorry Steve Jobs, the ‘i’ doesn’t work for everything.) SavyGamer has released a list of games that COULD possibly be available for Mac users upon its release.
I can’t even fully explain how excited I am to be able to use the Steam client again. I should tell a story of my last steam experience and pray that nobody laughs at my misfortune. But anywho, here goes nothin’:
About a month after Left 4 Dead’s launch I decided to finally give it a try. At the time, the only PC games I played were TF2 and Portal. I had played the Half Life’s before, but mainly focused on the two. My friend ranted and raved about how awesome L4D is, and finally I gave in and bought it. I didn’t have a great internet connection, so I bought the game at about 10PM one night, and then let the download process overnight and throughout the day. (I don’t know exactly how long it took, not that long though.) I came home from work and walked in to my office only to find a PC gamers worst nightmare. My computer not only gave me a BSOD, but was just completely dead. Power didn’t work, I tried interchanging parts from another computer just nothing. I called in my gamer MASH unit to see if they could do anything, but nothing worked. I had to call the time of death that day without being able to play the new game.
Very sad story I know. But alas, with the expectations of a VERY GREAT month of May, I’ll keep everybody posted as much as I can. I’ve created a list on Twitter and I’ll be adding people to it who post great links or tweets about the potential Steam client appearing on our Macs! 
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To follow me on Twitter you can check out my profile here: http://twitter.com/heychrissmith
To check out and stay up to date with the Steam to Mac adventure, click here: http://twitter.com/heychrissmith/steamtomac
Review – @Adobe Photoshop.com
Feb 24th
I’m hoping that everyone is as excited to read this as I was to use this app. I’d like to dedicate this app review to everyone of us nerds who can’t go a day without using Photoshop! This app review is of the Photoshop.com application available on both the iPhone and iPod touch. Now, before we get started, I should note that this app has a partner in crime. It’s not the full fledged Photoshop CS4 that comes in handy daily. In my opinion, this app is more for those editing quick pictures. To view the browser based version (with a more aesthetically pleasing overall look) you can head on over to Photoshop.com.
Now, while this app is still capable of tremendous works, please do not expect to be creating much other than some basic photo editing, and then maybe some sprucing up (if you’re in the mood to do it). You can either take a picture that you already have on your device, or you may take a new picture (iPhone users only) and edit that. When you open your picture in the application, you’ll notice the options right on the screen in menu format:
- Photo Management: Cropping, Straightening, Rotating, & Flipping
- Photo Color Filter: Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black & White, & Contrast
- Photo Options: Sketch, Soft Focus, & Sharpen
- Photo Effects: Effects & Borders
On the bottom of the screen, you’re able to cancel the project, revert to last modication, go forward to newest mod, and then either Save/Save & Upload. Some great options there for any style (and experience) of photographer. With the mobility available these days, it doesn’t get any more mobile than this. Imagine this. You’re on a shoot somewhere, and on the shoot, your laptop by chance loses power; battery is very very low. You have to take the train back home and it’s a 30 minute ride. You could take the photos you just took, transfer them on to your iPhone or iPod right there and enjoy your ride home while editing some of the pictures. I fooled around with some of my own photos and came up with this change.
Like I said, not much to the picture. I just added a saturation change with a few changes to the soft focus. Overall a good picture to begin with, with the outcome of another nice picture. I might not able to super impose the picture on an ex-girlfriend on the face of an ugly dog, I can spruce up the pictures of this beautiful pug and upload them to my Photoshop.com account right from my iPhone.
It’s not a bad deal, and by no way is it not worth a trial. It’s a free app on the iTunes App Store and definitely among the best photo editing apps on the device(s).
Look & Feel: Now, as I mentioned, the actual Photoshop.com is more appealing in almost every way. However, with that in mind, this app is not entirely unpleasant. It has a quite good design… it just pales in comparison to it’s parent site. You won’t be blinded by bright colors, nor will you be confused by the branding of the app, it’s Adobe perfect in every aspect. 8.0/10!
Ease of Use: The ease of use of the application is rating very high. I almost wish this is how you can edit on the actual Photoshop software. You’d be able to do some real digital finger painting. This may is definitely going to be a tough section to deny a good score. I can’t find a bad thing about the usability for the app. 10/10!
The Good, The Bad, & The WTF: The good thing is that the software involved is very highly rated and powerful for a hand-held device. I experienced no lag whatsoever in my experience and found it incredibly easy to manipulate my photos with (and here’s the bad) the limited amount of options on on board with the app. As for the WTF, why is Adobe this incredibly awesome for releasing this app for free? I’ll add a bad to the WTF, because really there is a very limited amount of features to the app, and in the age of DLC, where is it for this app? 8.0/10!
Total Score
87/100
Review – Slacker
Feb 17th
I think everybody has had the dream of being able have their own radio station where they could play just the best songs and drain out the excess. Slacker is a sweet and FREE radio application for the iPhone (and iPod touch) that allows you to browse through the stations already on the app, and search for particular songs or artists and songs similar to them. This is a MUST-HAVE application for not just music lovers, but for those who don’t buy or can’t afford using iTunes. If you’re looking for a good FREE radio program that you can actually choose what types of songs or artists you want to listen to, I’m going to highly recommend adding it to your list right now. Why not? it’s free!
You can go from jamming out to Taylor Swift one minute to rocking with Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters the next. This is the most extensive and most organized radio service that I’ve come across in my days. With a similar functionality to last.fm but a better design and range to it’s database, Slacker brings in fans to radio stations that you can create or follow so that you can listen to day in and day out.
Now, there are two different versions of the application. One, being the free version, does have an audio ad every few songs. It’s roughly a 30 second ad that just either tells you about the next song or what’s new for Slacker itself. With the free version you also get the ability to skip songs. For example, I just ran in to a Simple Plan song that I didn’t like. I was able to skip to the next one and it brought me to “Feeling This” by Blink-182.
The paid version is paid on a monthly basis. They offer unlimited song skipping, no ads, and “more”. You can sign up for a two month plan at $9.99 or the 12 month plan for $47.99. Both are great deals for somebody looking to have total control over their radio. I’m not that person. I don’t listen to the radio that often, and so far I haven’t run across a song that I don’t have in my iTunes library.
So how does this exactly work? It’s simple. When you first get on to the app, I’ll recommend signing up for the account. You can share your favorites with your friends on the site or link it to Twitter to get more of your friends involved. 
From there you can do multiple things:
- Find Music
- Top Stations
- Slacker Spotlight
- Recently Played
Now, while you’d hope the recently played would hold your recently played “songs”… it doesn’t. It’ll host your recent stations instead. Which, is a good idea, because I liked every song except one or two on the ‘blink-182′ station.
The find music option might be a good option to those who have something specific in mind, but for me, I never know what I want, so I stick with the pre-made stations on the Top Stations tab or I’ll venture in to the music genre’s below those options.
But honestly, we all have that artist (or group of them) that you just can’t stand. The great feature on this app is that while you’ve already favorited some songs and bands on the app, you can just as equally ban them from the stations you’re listening to. For me, there’s no Miley Cyrus. Hold on, let me take in that moment of never having to listen to her again. Okay. I’m good. Relieved.
Look & Feel: Alright, so as I mentioned this app has a nice design to it. I like it a lot. It’s not simple at all, there is obviously a well thought out plan to this. Nothing is obscure or out of place. An instant hit. I don’t think you can really improve much from here. 9.5/10
Ease of Use: The ease of use may have been over played in the review above, however it is by no means very difficult. It’s one of those apps that, for newcomers to the iPhone, you may need some time playing around with. Once you get the feel to it, you’ll love it that much more. 8.5/10
The Good, The Bad, & the WTF: The good… well beside no more Miley Cyrus? And all of the blink-182, Jimmy Buffett, and Foo Fighters I can ever imagine? Man that’s great! The bad part is you don’t have 100% control over the songs. You can get damn close to that point with your favorites and bans list, but when I want to hear a certain playlist of songs, I may have to wait and skip through some songs to get to that point. It’s still not bad. The WTF moment in this app is really the amount of options and accessibility you have in this FREE app. With the ability to get this on your iPhone, you can plug it in to your car and have instant free radio where normally you’d have to pay for ad-free radio. 9.0/10
Total Score
90/100
Review – Chomp! (OM NOM NOM!)
Feb 16th
This review is one that I would hope to have been the best kept secret of 2010, but it’s becoming too popular to even try to think it was possible. Thanks to the combined efforts of @iJustine and Erin Blaskie recommending this app to me, I’ve decided to use it. After about a month in use, I’ve been successfully using the Chomp app and it’s been the first useful (to the site) app that I’ve come across. The app is beautiful, first off. Secondly, the main concept of the app is one that fuels the site. Haven’t figured out what Chomp is? It’s simple. Chomp is an social media type application that helps recommend new apps based on your ratings of other applications.
Chomp is really quite simple, when you load up the app you’ll notice four tabs.
- Live App Reviews
- Recommendations
- Add People
- Bookmarked Apps
For a starting user you’ll want to get yourself situated with your Chomp account. You can then either get right in to the app reviews, or add some of your friends. I’ve got a few on there, and I enjoy seeing some of the apps that they’ve reviewed. Aside from just your friends, you can see the app reviews of the ENTIRE Chomp community. While seeing the apps they review is a good way to find new apps, the best way to take advantage of the application is to review some yourself!
The more apps you review the better recommendations you’ll get. It’s almost like the saying, “you’ll get what you put in to it…” It’s so easy to review apps. You don’t HAVE to be a pro and write a page long review for the apps. You can simple put: “I really like this app!” or “Try finding the easter egg in this one!” Small one liners will do magic for not only your app recommendations and popularity in the community.
So what exactly do you do once you’ve reviewed some of the apps on board? Once you get in your reviews you’ll want to switch over to the recommendations tab. From there you’ll see a bunch of new apps to try out. Some you may have already, and others you may have though were bad; some may even be new apps you’ve never heard of! From the combined efforts of those three categories, you’ll browse through the list of apps to try and review them as you go, thus building your review library and recommendations at the same time! Great, isn’t it?!
But honestly, is there more to the app or is this just it? But, what could you mean by JUST IT?! This IS it. It’s an epic app for all iPhone users. From beginner to advanced users, this app will provide you with great apps every day that you use it!
Look & Feel: The app actually isn’t THAT bad, and it’s very easy on the eyes. They seem to have gone for simplicity and they accomplished it. Chomp brings you clever uses of gradients and good icon design and mashes it all together in one little iPhone screen! Not bad for a free app, is it? 8.0/10
Ease of Use: I don’t know how many times I mentioned or hinted towards this in the review, but I’ll say it again. It’s incredibly easy to use Chomp. It’s literally a point and tap app. Most apps require moving your finger on the screen, but with 3-4 taps you’re in and reviewing like a storm! 8.0/10
The Good, The Bad, & the WTF: The good thing about this app is that it’s every changing, the population is growing, and there are more apps being brought in to the app store to review. The bad part is that I’m noticing that even though they are being brought in, it’s still not enough. I’m running in to repeats in the app review process. However, I’d like to see a feature that allows you to add independent apps. I’d say that if you create an independent app, host it on your site, post it on a Chomp’s site, and that way you can help your app gain exposure as you’re first getting in to the app market! Sounds good, huh? Complicated, but I’m sure most app developers would agree. 8.0/10
Total Score
80/100
Review- Follow Up to Urban Daddy
Feb 12th
So one of the things that I rarely see with an app I come across is e-mail interaction. Urban Daddy is one of the exceptions. You can check out my original review here. For those who haven’t read about the application yet. Urban Daddy is a sweet and innovative new app for the iPhone (and iPod touch) that allows you to select some of the selections they have on the screen in means to give you suggestions of where you may want to eat for that particular part of the day. This is a GREAT app for those looking to find new places, explore a new city, or just trying to find a good app that does this.
One of the features to U.D. that I didn’t mention in my app (specifically because I hadn’t experienced it yet) is their newsletter sign-up. Towards the time of the publication of the review, I was compelled to sign up for the newsletter for a few of my favorite cities. I signed up for NYC, Boston, Miami, & Los Angeles.
Between those three cities, I get on average 3-4 emails per day from Urban Daddy. Which, isn’t quite that bad (for me anyways). I actually don’t mind getting what some might call “spam” emails. This is a great way to interact with the creators and contributors. While most social media guru’s will say that the way to interact is all on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and so-on… I still enjoy getting e-mails from people and reading up on events from my community and everywhere else.
As you can see the e-mails will pile up. I keep a lot of emails on board and like to refer back to them occasionally. But if you look closely,
you’ll see that the letters aren’t just about where to get the best tiramisu! (Although I wish it was!) Urban Daddy will sent you updates on some good events in the cities selected. For example, I just received one from the NYC area about Shaq hosting an art exhibit called “Size DOES Matter” at a Chelsea Art Gallery. That’s a pretty sweet deal, being notified about Shaq curating the event. Who wouldn’t want to go see that? It’s Shaq, Superman, the Big Aristotle. Just remember, don’t touch the Shaqtus.
So while browsing through your e-mails or visiting their site, I highly recommend signing up for a newsletter for the city closest to you. I don’t even live in NYC, but I liked signing up for it just in case I wanted to venture on in to the city for some of their famous tiramisu on a Friday night. With the app and combined e-mail/website efforts, this app is one powerful force to be reckoned with. Once it goes national, watch out Foursquare & Gowalla!
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Favorites
Feb 12th
I’m calling to enlist the help of every Call of Duty player, be it for PS3, 360, or PC! I’m looking to hear what your favorite map in the new game is, and what class you use most often!
For me, it’s the Sub Base. I tend to stick with the UMP or TAR21 (A gun I wish I can change to TARDIS)
Closely following the Sub Base is Favela.
So right now, I’m looking to here from you! What’s your favorite?
As an added bonus, what type of maps do you hope to see in the map packs?
Review- WordPress
Feb 11th
I find it funny when I’m reviewing something that WordPress has made, WHILE using WordPress. Recently, WordPress users may have seen the post made by Raanan Bar-Cohen telling you about the mobile apps for WordPress. Well, today we’re going to look more at the app for the iPhone (and iPod touch) aptly called ‘WordPress’.
You get everything out of this app that you can ever imagine. You want to upload some pictures? DONE! Blog about Google Buzz? DONE! Anything you want to do, it’s easy to do right on your iPhone.
So lets take a stroll down memory lane! How many of you remember having to log on to your dashboard to make a post? With the ability to use your iPhone to make posts you might be sitting at home, somewhere with Wi-Fi or maybe you’re somewhere without internet and just NEED to make a post… now you can!
The application allows you to make small posts, long posts, photo posts, or posts that just don’t make any sense at all!
With the ability to save, edit, and publish posts from your phone you can do wonders for the blogosphere!
You can take a look at some of my sample posts here: http://ttgiphoneblog.wordpress.com/
There you can see the ease and simplicity to my posts. Granted, I may have ignored any sort of grammar and punctuation, it was still easy. And it’s quite easy to type on the iPhone despite what others may say. It’s one of those things that take some practice to make perfect.
Making a post? You’re given the option to add your adds and categories as well as saving a draft locally (on your iPhone/iPod) or saving it for the web publishing.
With the new update to Version 2.2 you’re now able to view, approve, deny, & delete your blog comments right from the phone as well! This will come in handy when you’re on the go!
Once you’re in to the swing of things and you’re blogging regularly from your iPhone, you’ll start getting the sense of obsession because this app is really that easy to use. Normally, I’d recommend using the web to make your posts. But for short posts, or even just personal ones that you use for a more personal, rather than professional, blog; this is perfect!
Look & Feel: If you had to picture how a WordPress app would look like, this is it. They put more in to the functionality of the app before the look of it. While it may be pretty simple, everything just works for the app! 8.5/10
Ease of Use: This whole app was almost dedicated to the ease of use. While the ease of the app and the ease of the iPhone are different, we have to combine them today. As you’re really using the iPhone to type a blog like you would on a computer. The keys are small, but they’re in QWERTY format and you’re able to tilt your iPhone to the side to make the keys more spread out and bigger. With that in mind, we’ll be sending out this score as an 8.0/10
The Good, the Bad, & the WTF: Okay, the good thing about this app is that it’s seamless. You can post directly to your set up WordPress blog. (Or you can just set a new one up.) The bad is really the time it’ll take you to make one post unless you’re an Olympic iPhone typer and can do 60wpm like that. If you can, you’re crazy and you need to teach me how to type that fast on the phone. The WTF brings in something new from their update. I just updated it, and it was a whole new app as opposed to updating the old one. What gives? 8.0/10
Total Score
82/100
Personal Aircraft?
Feb 2nd
I don’t know about you, but I always dreamed of having my own personal aircraft to fly around. Today I learned that my dream is in production as we speak. NASA is teaming up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the National Institute of Aerospace and M-DOT Aerospace to bring you this personal aircraft costing roughly $500,000.
The aircraft is set to take off and land much like the modern helicopter and is 10X quieter. With a top speed of 150 miles per hour, one can’t help but be excited to beat the morning traffic in style, right?!
While the “Puffin” has not been flown in public, Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Langley Research Center, says that its first flight had lasted about five minutes.
To learn more about NASA’s “Puffin” check out Discovery’s post about it.
To geek out out about this with me, Tweet me @heychrissmith!
Review – Urban Daddy
Jan 30th
There are times that I often find myself in a bind when trying to decide what I should eat for dinner. Often times I just want some dessert if I’m alone, or with a date. I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know the big city as well as some do, but the app I have here certainly helps getting used to things. Aside from a bunch of great ideas, I’m really digging the name… * drumroll * this installment is featuring Urban Daddy! 
Urban Daddy is an app that literally fell in to my lap. I was browsing the app store when I dropped my iPod in to my lap. When I picked it back up, Urban Daddy was highlighted. I downloaded it; it was free. Upon first exploration I was a little let down that much like Foursquare, it didn’t find my geographical location. However, I did immediately realize it’s potential.
Urban Daddy is an application that helps you find your way in a bind. So let’s take a good look at it. What’s on your mind? Dessert? I’m game for that. Let’s you and I look for some tiramisu late at night. What Urban Daddy does, is take various situations, times, and friends and helps you find the best location to fit your needs. So right now, it’s a little after midnight, it’s Saturday, and I’m looking for a place in NYC.
With a couple of quick flips and taps of the finger I’m able to have a list of great places generated for me. The best part about this is they give me not only the address, but also the phone number and a Google Maps location!
From here I can use the map to navigate from wherever I’m at to find my way through the city in order to get to my much desired tiramisu dessert. Which is good, because I’m game for tiramisu and would definitely stop at every location on my way home.
Alas, there is a major flaw to the app much like there was with Foursquare. They’ve yet to add new cities. I’ve read that they did add to the list of the few that are available, but I’m still not seeing my city, which is approximately 2 hours from NYC & Philadelphia. But I’ll raise my glass in hopes of an update soon!
Look and Feel: This is app is really clean and fun. The overall design is perfect. It’s classy, regal, and very prestigious. I don’t think there is much of this app that can use an update on the design end. It’s not perfect, but it’s darn close! 9.8/10!
Ease of Use: The ease of use is almost comparable to the amazing design. It’s very clean and fun to use. There aren’t any tabs or features that confuse you because it’s straight to the point. As I mentioned to my friend earlier, its almost like Mad Libs… just fill in the blanks and you’ll get a prize! 9.5/10!
The Good, The Bad, and the WTF: The good thing about this app is the AMAZING potential that I (and hopefully everyone else) can see in this app. It’s beautiful and it’s a ridiculously good idea. The bad part is that there is not many cities up to use so a person in my situation, this app is barely used. I’m not in one of the cities often, but I guess it’ll be good to go for when I am. Let’s talk about the WTF moment. It’s taken this long for an app to fall in to my lap, and it’s only a matter of time before the app is national craze. So tell me why Urban Daddy is not being updated more frequently. I’d maybe charge $.99 for the app just to make some dough. But amazingly, it IS a free app. And yes, Urban Daddy is amazing. 9.5/10!
Total Score
96/100
WordPress Personas
Jan 26th
I hope you all caught Paul Kim’s latest post to the WordPress blog about personas for Firefox. While it was a very short entry, it posted links to two great themes for the Firefox browser that I really enjoyed.
I was never one to have a them set up for anything on my desktop, but I decided to check these out to just… try them. I installed the “Inkwell” persona and was amazed as how easy it was to do so. After the quick browser reset to refresh, I saw the persona in action and I just fell in love with it. It may be a bit distracting, but it’s still a great visual to have and it’s a good change to my computer screen.
The persona I’m using [Inkwell] is very easy on the eyes. All of the text on the menus, tabs, & folders are super clear and aren’t blocked or distracted by the design. This persona has a lot going on and I like it. It’s definitely worth checking out.
If you head over to the link on Paul’s post you can hover over many of the themes on Firefox’s page and see the preview over your current browser without installing them. Go ahead and waste a few minutes by trying some out.
