Thursday, January 29, 2009

New iPhone details appear, faster processor expected

Macrumors.com got a hold of a big one, although the conclusions drawn don't surprise anybody.

Rumors of the next generation iPhone point to the support of Multi-Core CPUs and possibly Multi-Core GPUs from Imagination Technologies. Apple has been building a team of chip engineers over the past year to participate in their own ARM processor designs that will presumably be used in future iPhones. Schiller previously outlined Apple's natural product timelines and acknowledged that June is the usual timeframe for major iPhone revisions, although storage increases could happen at any time.
Read the whole article here.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Using Photoshop Smart Objects to simplify label designs.

Here's a tutorial which explains a way to design labels in Photoshop using free blank PDF label templates as a layer that you can then quickly modify for related products including CDs, DVDs, address labels. and more. Photoshop's Smart Objects helps you align-and-distribute options, and layer groups make it easy to repeat your label design to fit the label stock.

The detailed tutorial shows how to open a label template to use as a guide for sizing and positioning the label artwork critical for making labels.

Monday, January 12, 2009

It's Monday? Time for your first Dimitri Martin break.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Skip out of the office and take those WebEx conferences on your iPhone



From Lifehacker comes good news for us mobile junkies.

iPhone/iPod touch only: Cisco's popular meeting and collaboration tool WebEx has found a new home on the iPhone, and, frankly, it looks very impressive.

The free application lets you attend any WebEx meeting over 3G or Wi-Fi, including simultaneous conference calls, chat, and document sharing (you'll probably want to bust out your headset to use it all). We don't actually use WebEx here at Lifehacker HQ, so I wasn't able to put it through a full test, but if the video demonstration is any indication, it's a pretty impressive offering for the mobile worker. WebEx is a free download, iPhone and iPod touch only (though clearly two-way voice isn't really an option for the iPod touch).

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Want an AT&T cell tower in your home?

As if the risk of brain cancer weren't bad enough justing using a cellphone, AT&T is contacting some of its customers asking if they'd like to test an in-home extension to its cellular networks powered by a subscriber's own broadband—a femtocell. Femtocells use frequencies licensed by the carrier for data and voice, while handling backhaul through a customer-provided service.

AT&T's new product is a small, security-enabled cellular base station that easily connects to your home DSL or Cable Internet, providing a reliable wireless signal for any 3G phone in every room of your house. The device allows you to have unlimited, nationwide Anytime Minutes for incoming or outgoing calls.

Sprint Nextel has been offering femtocells since last year; the advantage to the carrier is providing fill-in service in the home without deploying more base stations in an area. AT&T has apparently been testing femtocells with its own employees since last year as well.

Femtocells differ from T-Mobile's UMA (unlicensed mobile access) approach, which also puts a specialized device in the home. With UMA, specialized handsets must have both cell and WiFi radios, and the firmware to handle seamless handoffs between the two network types. With a femtocells, the radio side is effectively identical with only the backhaul varying. T-Mobile also offers WiFi routers that feature two increasingly common VoIP-oriented protocols (one for power conservation, the other for packet prioritization).

Carriers pay enormously less to transit and account for voice and data over a customer's own broadband, and thus can offer so-called unlimited voice plans (which have some very high monthly limits). T-Mobile's HotSpot@Home service costs $10 (1 or more lines) per month adding to a minimum $40-per-month voice plan; Sprint charges $15 to $25 per month for the same thing.

Femtocells have few disadvantages for home users because the dedicated frequencies means that any WiFi network they may already have in place isn't degraded by cellular use, and vice versa.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The REAL Superhero Registry, and no, I'm not kidding.


Okay, there are super heroes like Spiderman that only fight crime on screen or in print. But then there are the real world super heroes like Fox Fire and Black Arrow who are out to fight crimes in their own cities. Think I'm joking. I'm not.

Check out the World Superhero Registry to see who's fighting crime in your area.

You can learn more about these secretive crime fighters through MySpace and their own personal websites, which are conveniently located on their profile pages.

My guess is that my wife and I could take them all in a fight. At the same time. But your mileage may vary.

I thought about becoming a superhero myself, but their online shop of "Real Life Superhero Items" was "coming soon" and listed no items. Foiled again!!!!!

Now I have to find out where Batman really does get all those incredible toys. Obviously not at the World Superhero Registry.