Pretending to Work – Viral video from Microsoft for Office for Macs

March 13, 2009 — Leave a comment

This viral video shot for Microsoft Office for Mac is done by Dennis Liu, who did this “video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kxDxLAjkO8 on his Mac which became quite a hit on the Web.

bq. Liu says he got interest pretty high up the Apple corporate ladder from that video, but “Microsoft actually took my music video video very seriously, and we decided to collaborate on a viral video for Microsoft Office for Mac.” (via “Cult of Mac”:http://cultofmac.com/new-viral-ad-seeks-to-make-office-for-mac-fun/9524)

The video shows you various “techniques” you can do while in office to pretend to work, all the time using various apps from the Microsoft Office suit.

Just for the fun of it, here’s the video “Again & Again” by the Bird & the Bee done by Dennis Liu.

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iPhone 3.0 preview 17 March

March 13, 2009 — Leave a comment

iphone3software

Apple has sent out invitations to selected media outlets informing them about a special event on 17 March 2009 at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters to showcase the upcoming iPhone 3.0 operating software, together with an update to the iPhone SDK.

The event will start at 10am PST on 17 March, which will be -2- 1am SG Time (corrected) on 18 March. Live coverage will probably be provided by most tech sites.

What will you want to see in iPhone OS 3.0, besides copy and paste, MMS, forwarding of SMS etc? Let us know.

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iPhone in-App ads grows big time

March 13, 2009 — Leave a comment

Some app developers support their development by having small ads spanning a small area of the app (usually at the bottom area of the screen above the app’s buttons) which is non-intrusive and yet helps the developer.

But recently, American apparel maker Dockers paired up with some iPhone app developers to allow the company to place in their apps, full screen interactive ads that make use of iPhone’s accelerometer feature to animate the motion-sensitive ad, according to this report in “Advertising Age”:http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135197.

iphone-dockers

bq. The ad, which stars Dufon (aka Orb/Orbit/Orbitron), an urban street dancer from the Seattle dance group “Circle of Fire,” will appear in the iPhone games “iBasketball,” “iGolf” and “iBowl” and the lifestyle application iTV. Between the various levels of game play, users will be prompted to shake the iPhone to spur the Dockers-donning Dufon to perform his moves.

I feel that although it is an innovative method to bring the brand to its target audience, having it popped up full-screen in between game levels, is highly intrusive for consumers. On our computers, we have been arming ourselves with ad-busting plugins just so we don’t see them filling up our screen in our browsers. But with no such options on the iPhone platform, consumers might be turn-off by it and stopped getting those games with such ads.

Would you like such ads appearing in the midst of your games or other apps?

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iTunes 8.1 is out

March 13, 2009 — Leave a comment

Apple has released “iTunes 8.1″:http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/ for all earlier today, with a bunch of enhancements and new features right after releasing the iPod shuffle previously.

The list includes:

  • Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation).
  • Allows friends to request songs for iTunes DJ.
  • Adds Genius sidebar for your Movies and TV Shows.
  • Improves performance when downloading iTunes Plus songs.
  • Provides AutoFill for manually managed iPods.
  • Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus.
  • Includes many accessibility improvements.
  • Allows iTunes U and the iTunes Store to be disabled separately using Parental Controls.

To support the new song requests feature for iTunes DJ, you will also need to update the Remote app (“iTunes link”:http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=284417350&mt=8) on your iPhone/iPod Touch. You will also need to configure your iTunes to allow your friends to link to your iTunes via WIFI network.

itunes-dj-settings

On your iPhone, when you start the updated Remote App, you will see the Welcome message from the iTunes owner plus an option to link to that library, from which you can request songs to be added to the iTunes DJ playlist.

Another improvements with iTunes 8.1 is in its performance. Starting up, updating of songs meta data are much faster, especially if you have a big collection of music. A look at the iTunes Library Database file in my iTunes folder, showed that the file has lost much weight – from 9.4Mb to a slim 1.7Mb, which probably improved iTunes’ performance.

There’s much to like about this latest version of Apple’s iTunes, the heart of Apple’s mobile business. Let us know if there are other good improvements or something irky that bugs you.

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Doing the shuffle – earphones remote control instructions

March 12, 2009 — Leave a comment

remote-shuffle

Apple has put up a page in its “Support section”:http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3458 describing the various combinations of button pressing to work the new “iPod shuffle”:/2009/03/ipod-shuffle-slimmer-smaller-smoother/.

Getting the various combinations of double or triple clicks and/or hold the center buttons will probably be a frustrating experience in the beginning. Remembering them will probably another story.

Do bookmark that page if you are going to be a new iPod shuffle owner.

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