Crenk » update

Apple Mac OS X 10.6.3 Close To Release

Steven Finch — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:57:30 +0000

Apple on Friday distributed yet another beta of Mac OS X 10.6.3 to its developer community with no known issues, as the update to Snow Leopard moves closer to a public release.

Like numerous seeds before it, Friday’s update was reportedly clear of issues. People familiar with the matter said it is known as Build 10D567, and is available as a 718MB download.

The last beta of Mac OS X 10.6.3 arrived in late February, and it, like Friday’s had no changes made to the software’s enhancements checklist. The forthcoming update improves security and compatibility within QuickTime X, enhances the performance of Apple’s 64-bit Logic Pro suite, and improves compatibility with third-party printers.

Developers have reportedly been asked to focus their testing efforts on printing, Rosetta, iChat, QuickTime and graphics drivers.

The last major update to Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6.2, came last November, when Apple addressed a guest account bug that could result in a user’s account data being accidentally deleted. The update also added native support for the company’s new multi-touch Magic Mouse.

Apple is also currently working on Safari 4.0.5, which reportedly fixes an issue with the browser’s JavaScript engine. The update will also improve HTML5 video playback, offer quicker loading of the Top Sites panels, faster JavaScript performance, better performance on YouTube, and a smaller memory footprint.

Also in the works is QuickTime 7.66, a maintenance, security and performance release expected to be one of the final updates to QuickTime 7, and a significant maintenance update to the Final Cut Studio and Pro applications.

Evernote: Updates, Success and Big Ideas

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 22:16:08 +0000

Evernote has been doing very well recently. It has been praised in the professional world for being the best way to make notes and store them. The iPhone and Android apps are some of the most popular downloads from their respective app stores and it appears the Evernote team knows no limits. Recently they’ve a new version (rebuilt from the ground up) and also surpassed two million users (it’s now creeping towards two and a half million).

Here’s what Evernote had to say about their new update:

“Evernote 3.5 for Windows is completely new. We rewrote it from the ground up to make it faster, more reliable, and just plain better than Evernote for Windows has ever been. Our goal was to use everything we’ve learned since our launch to make a great Evernote experience on Windows. ”

Evernote have also been busy making lots of new friends and partners in the tech world including players as big as Sony and Nokia. Every Sony laptop sold from now on will come with Evernote pre-installed and Evernote is now usable on the N900 because of a newly released plug-in! Other partnerships include:

TimeBridge: This helps you organize better meetings. Now, you can save all your meeting notes into Evernote.
Cliqset: Evernote and Cliqset create a permanent memory for your social streams and activity.

They ended their release on a very promising note about the iPad. Their apps have have already been a hit with iPhone users so everyone was anxious to know what they had in store for the upcoming iPad. Here’s what they said:

“We know you’re wondering. Rest assured, we have big plans for Apple’s amazing new device. Read our CEO’s blog post about Evernote’s history with tablets and plans for the iPad and other devices”

Twitter Introduces Hovercards to Make Twitter More Social

Dean Sherwin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:23:16 +0000

Over the past few months Twitter has made several changes such as the introduction of Lists which means that we see tweets from people we don’t directly follow. This annoyed me for quite some time as I was never really bothered to see who the person was, but still had them congesting my Twitter page. Now, Twitter aims to solve that problem by introducing ‘Hovercards’.

This means, that when you hover your cursor over someone username or avatar, information will be displayed about them as well as other options such as Reply, DM or Retweet. All of which don’t load another page, it’s done there and then.

“On any timeline, as its namesake suggests, Hovercards are cards which appear when you hover over a username or avatar. The cards display additional information about the person and allow you to interact with them while staying within the context of your page.” say Twitter on their blog. ”

“One way we’ve found these cards to be useful is to find out more about retweeted people and follow them right there. You can also see more information with an expanded view of the card. Sending direct messages to people you follow will also be possible with Hovercards so you can interact with tweeters without having to move off the page.”

This feature is currently in the process of being rolled out so we won’t all have it right away. However, within the coming days and weeks it will be the standard for all Twitter users.

Smart Phone: Motorola Droid Update Coming This Week

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:54:11 +0000

Motorola Droid is definitely one of the most understated smart phones. Well, perhaps not understated, just over-shadowed by the likes of the iPhone and more popular Android devices from HTC. However, it would seem as though Motorola are keeping their hopes up for the OS by releasing a new update for all Droid devices. I don’t think anybody expected it to come this soon.

The announced the impending update, which will ‘start to roll out this week’ on their official Facebook page. Besides from announcing the new update, they go on to tease us anxious fan-boys by saying that they “will have more information to share on other device upgrades later”. So maybe some of Moto’s other devices are due for a service check.

Let’s hope that the new update fixes the known Droid bugs and maybe even gives the OS a slight facelift.

Facebook Introduces New User Interface Navigation

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:24:33 +0000

Facebook have told us that over the past few months they have been looking for ways to improve the user interface, and mores specifically the navigation. Obviously, given that it’s a social network, Facebook have developed a new method of seeing what’s new in your circle of friends.

“In the top menu, you will find your newest notifications, requests and messages. For example, when you receive a Facebook notification about someone writing on your Wall or tagging you in a photo, you’ll see a red bubble appear in the left-hand corner near the search bar. When you click on the icon, you’ll see a drop-down menu with your most recent notifications.” Said Jing Chen

The menu to the left of your profile has also been changed around to make it “Easier for you to communicate with and discover content from your friends”. By clicking on News Feed, Messages, Events or Photos you can instantly view the most recent content from your friends as seen in the screenshot above. You can also use the new ‘Friends’ feature to look for new friends who are connected to you via others.

Also, they have made the Game and Application section much, much better. They’re making it easier for you to organise your apps and also find new ones via the “Games” and “Applications” buttons on the home screen.

“You will also start to see counters next to the applications you have bookmarked on your home page. Counters will notify you when you have a specific action to take, so that you never miss your turn in a game or an update from a friend in an application.” she said.

You can bookmark your favourite applications using the “Add Bookmark” button in an application, and then you’ll have one-click access to them from the left-hand menu beneath the Applications and Games dashboards. Click the “More” link to see all of your newest bookmarks.”

It’s good to see that Facebook are continually updating their UI and making it more user friendly.

XBOX 360 Elegant Edition

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 08:59:32 +0000

The Red Ring of Death and the curved shape – both features of the XBOX 360, which I hate. No matter which way you put it, it always looks out of place amongst my other players and cable boxe. It has always baffled me as to why games companies simply can make minimalistic games consoles – although I suppose the Wii was a step in the right direction.

The XBOX Elegant edition which will be out shortly features a new layout and a new (regularly shaped!) exterior made from aluminium. It’s bulkier than the previous incarnation but at least it looks better than it.

The reason why it’s bulkier is because it has extra cooling features which can help prevent the Red Ring of Death.

Bad News: I did some serious digging around and every major tech blog is stumped when it comes to finding out how. Also, nobody is 100% sure where the original picture came from. But it does appear to be real and the second when we have details – I’ll post an update.

Facebook Definitely Coming to the PS3

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:05:31 +0000

Some of you may remember that last week we posted a screenshot which was supposedly from the PS3 website but had been leaked unintentionally. It depicted a Facebook logo on the PS3 Home screen indicating that Facebook was coming to the popular gaming console. Now, we can confirm that story.

In an update for the PS3 is out and ready for download. Along with outer features, Facebook is included. Here is what Sony said in an official press release:

Showcase Trophies: Instantly share trophies you earn in PS3 games in your Facebook stream. Simply sync your PS3 system and easily show off your accomplishments to friends and family.

PlayStation Store Purchase Log Publishing: Let friends and family on Facebook instantly know which PlayStation 3 games you’ve purchased. The PlayStation Store, available to PS3 and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system owners through PlayStation Network, features over 200 downloadable games, many of which are exclusive to PS3 or PSP system owners, in addition to over 4,000 pieces of add-on game content.

Game Event: With a few quick clicks of the controller sharing select game events, progress and statistics is now easier than ever with the Facebook integration.

So what are you waiting for? Go get the update!

Facebook Coming to the PS3

Dean Sherwin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:50:26 +0000

The PS3 is an all round entertainment machine which in many regards it can act as a fully functioning PC for internet, movie and music usage. When it first came out all you could hear was how “it’s not just a console. It’s and entertainment centre” and all that lark. So now we’ve got our hands on an apparent screenshot of a Facebook client running on a PlayStation 3. interesting.

I mean all it is is a logo and a bit of detail which I guess could have been done by a skilled Photoshop user but here’s the interesting part:

TechCrunch claim that the image can be traced back to the official Sony website.

So was this an image uploaded too soon? A test gone wrong? Well we don’t really know for sure but I do have a gut feeling this is straight up. After all, the PS3 is essentially a computer in its own right so if anything, social networking is overdue.

Here is a screenshot of what it might be similar too. This is a screenshot of the Facebook client currently in testing for the XBOX 360 (we’re also waiting on Twitter for that console). It doesn’t look to bad indeed although a bit of cleaning up wouldn’t go amiss.

All new Flickr Search

Dean Sherwin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 18:22:35 +0000

Flickr, owned and run by Yahoo is the YouTube of photography. If I ever fancied a change in wallpaper I’d go to Flickr and enter in phrases such as ’forest’ or ’ocean’. I would get back loads of professional photographs taken all over the world that looked stunning on my desktop. However, in getting those results I would always be annoyed at the amount of page surfing through the results I would have to do in order to find the right one. Scrolling down through the lot got on my nerves too.

Now, Flicker must have read one of my five million angry e-mails and changed how your search results are displayed. Instead of having a long list of images with all the information about it to the side such as name, photographer, tags and a description, everything has been streamlined.

The updated search results show a load of small images right the way across and down the screen with just the users name under it in small writing. This is a much better way of searching for images and way less stressful given the sheer amount of images on Flicker.

I am also very impressed with the quality of the thumb nails shown. With other services such as ‘Image Search’ on Yahoo! or Google the images are fuzzy and have tons of useless information surrounding them.

Google Chrome – Heading for Success

Dean — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:46:40 +0000

Does anyone remember during the .com boom when everyone was rushing onto the net and the ‘browser wars’ started. This was when loads of companies began making browsers for a share of the growing market. Many perished with IE having much of the spoils given its advantage of being pre-installed on every Windows PC and Mozilla being the browser of choice for the more ‘power user-ish’ people. Well when Google introduced Chrome late last year fuel was pored over the smouldering remains of the browser war and now its back again in all it raging fury.

Chrome now controls 2% of the market which is pretty good for a new comer. However, they’re looking for more as the Chrome team target a more specific section of people – the entertainment junkies. They are creating a new accelerator add-on for the browser that will enhance graphics for things like watching movies, playing games and using applications. I think this is actually a good tactic as browser games, web applications and streaming videos are becoming very popular. Just look at Quake Live.

“The O3D team is working on getting O3D integrated into the Chromium build, and we’re close to being able to complete our first step towards integration,” said programmer Greg Spencer. “I’ll be making the Windows build of Chromium be dependent upon building O3D as part of the build process.”

The upcoming Chrome OS will indeed be much of Linux under the skin however it will also have much of its workload centred on online applications. An improvement in graphics and the power of the Google Chrome Browser can only mean a bright future for the daring Chrome team.

Firefox – the final security update?

Dean — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:16:33 +0000

It’s all about security this week in the tech world. Google are under the spotlight concerning security in their upcoming Google Chrome OS and Norton 2010 is turning heads. Now, Mozilla Firefox is to receive an update (3.0.12) which will close several major security loop holes in their popular browser.

“We strongly recommend that all Firefox 3.0.x users upgrade to this latest release,” Mozilla said on its developer blog. “If you already have Firefox 3, you will receive an automated update notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied manually by selecting ‘Check for Updates…’ from the Help menu.”

It is recommended that users download the update so that they remain secure online. Using credit cards and even just keeping your browsing habits safe is a difficult task these days so the last thing you want is a browser that lets unsavoury programs or people peer into your bank account.

However, this will be one of the last, if not the last update for the browser. As of January 2010, no more updates will be made available to users of the 3.0.’X’ series as Mozilla try to pedal their newest browser, Firefox 3.5 to users.

FileHippo: How to Maintain All Your Freeware up to Date

Guest — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:05:41 +0000

FileHippo.com is a great web site from where you can download a lot of freeware and some shareware. The page is organized in the following categories of software:

- Browsers and Plugins

- Anti-Spyware

- Audio and Video

- File Sharing

- Firewalls ans Security

- CD and DVD Tools

- Messaging and Chat

- Anti-Virus

- Cleaning and Tweaking

- Desktop

- File Transfer

- Compression and Backup

- Imaging

- Office and News

- Benchmarking

- Drivers

- Developer Tools

- Networking and Admin

And also two interesting categories, one is Latest updates and the other is Most popular downloads, very useful.

You can apply the following filters to the software shown: No Beta versions(very useful if you need stability) and Freeware Only(useful in my case, I don’t buy software).

And the best of the site(but still in beta) is that you can download a Client Agent program(called Update Checker) to maintain all the software that you install from this page to the latest version. You can download the Update Checker in two versions, Installer and Standalone.

I found this web page very useful to maintain all my freeware tools up to date. I’m actually using it at work, and found no issues.

The GOOD:

- Has a RSS, e-Mail and Twitter notification system.

- Almost all the useful freeware is listed.

- Has few advertisement.

The BAD:

- Only software for Microsoft Windows systems.

- The Update Checker still’s in beta.

Google Reader Changes Design But Not Sure For The Better

Steven Finch — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:35:12 +0000

Google Reader has for a long time been my RSS reader of choice. The design has been simple, easy to use, lots of customisation options, ability to group and more.

Last week Google released a new version of Google Reader and I thought I would take a little time and review it for everyone.

(old)

(new)

Key changes include collapsible navigation, updated look and feel, friends get promoted and more bundle feeds.

Friends get promoted

Shared items have grown up and gotten their own section in the navigation pane. You can collapse this entire section and use the title to see everything your friends have shared, or leave it open to track friends with shared items. (Don’t forget that you can add new friends in “Sharing settings“.)

More bundled feeds!

Previously Google has some default bundles that you could subscribe too, in a variety of areas. Previously this was very limited and there were only about 10 areas. Now they have added huge amounts of bundle feeds for pretty much every major niche. If you go to “Browse for stuff” then you can see bundles.

Collapsible Navigation

Each section of the navigation pane now has its own options menu and minimize/maximize controls. You can collapse each major section of navigation down to one line and focus on only the things you choose to use.

Updated look and feel

The look and feel has changed a lot in this new version of Google Reader. I personally would have liked it if there was an option to return to the old version or at least have a variety of versions. The new version is very neutral, with white and a very light blue being the main colours. However, I find post a lot harder to read in this new version. Recently Gmail received a variety of themes in which users could choose from, I really hope this isn’t too long in coming to Google Reader.
Overall

Overall the changes to Google Reader were needed, except in the case of changing the colour scheme. I think the colour scheme changes are definitely a step backwards, but this can be changed when hopefully they release a themes range to choose from.

How to Update iPod Touch to Firmware 2.0 for Free

Steven Finch — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:43:27 +0000

Apple has pushed the new iPod Touch Firmware 2.0 to iTunes. All iPod Touch users can upgrade to this latest firmware by paying a one-time fee of $9.25.

iPhone users, however, get to upgrade to firmware 2.0 absolutely free of cost. As I find this kind of unfair on part of Apple to charge only iPod Touch users, so I am going to help you upgrade iPod Touch to firmware 2.0 absolutely for free.

If you want to have an updated iPod Touch 2.0 for free, then just follow the steps below:

Download iTunes 7.7 from Here.
Hold Shift and click Restore.
Select iPod1,1_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw
Enjoy!

The iPod1,1_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw firmware can be downloaded from any of the mirrors below. It is the complete stable and final iPod Touch Firmware 2.0 (5A347) and has been checked and tested.

Rapidshare mirror (Join parts using this software)

http://tinyurl.com/ipodtouch-firmware-2-part1


http://tinyurl.com/ipodtouch-firmware-2-part2

http://tinyurl.com/ipodtouch-firmware-2-part3

Uploaded.to mirror

http://uploaded.to/file/ih0z65/iPod1,1_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw

Freakshare mirror

http://freakshare.net/files/30208/iPod11_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw

Once you download the firmware locally on your PC, follow the steps above to update iPod Touch to Firmware 2.0.

Google Page Rank Has Been Updated: We Are Now PR5

Steven Finch — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:50:24 +0000

Here at Crenk as you all know we have been having some issues with the migration of our site, however this seems to not have affected our PageRank.

After reading numerous articles across the web, I noticed that everyone was talking about the Pagerank update, so I thought I would check out Crenk to see if anything changed. Instantly I noticed that we have now improved again according to Google and have become more of an authority in our field.

These days im not too sure how much affect on anything Pagerank has. I think it still does affect your positioning within Google search results, but really I think thats about it. So really apart from this fact, it always brings upt the question, does Pagerank actually mean anything these days?