A new mabile Gmail Experience for iPhone and Android
Today we're introducing a major revision to Gmail for mobile that takes advantage of the latest browser technology available on iPhone and Android devices. We've updated the user interface, made it faster to open messages, allowed for batch actions (like archiving multiple messages at once), and added some basic offline support
Despite the advent of 3G networks and wifi, smartphones still lack a high-speed, always-on broadband connection and can have connections far less reliable than their desktop brethren. So, just like when we redesigned the Gmail for mobile client app last October, we've gone back to the drawing board and redesigned Gmail for the mobile browser to overcome some of these limitations. We made performance more consistent, regardless of connection type, and laid the foundation for future improvements.
Now, when you go to gmail.com from your iPhone or Android browser, archiving email is quicker because it doesn't require a response from a remote server. Instead, we cache mail on the device itself (using database storage on the iPhone and a device-local mobile Gears database on Android-powered phones). Actions like archiving or starring messages are first applied to this cache and then sent to Gmail servers in the background whenever a network connection is available. You only have to wait for a response from the server when you're requesting an uncached message or list of messages. As a result, you can start-up Gmail even if you're on a slow connection. You can even compose mail and open recently read messages while offline.
We made extensive use of other browser functions too: for example, the floaty bar that lets you archive, delete or apply more actions is animated via CSS transformations and controlled in part with touch events (when you scroll the screen, it follows you).
The HTML5 canvas tag is used to render the progress spinner without the overhead of downloading animated GIFs to the device. Now that we've developed a framework for the new Gmail for mobile, we're planning a whole lot more: faster performance, improved offline operation, new functionality, and interface enhancements that take advantage of the unique properties of smartphones.
To try this new version of Gmail for mobile, just go to gmail.com from your mobile browser. It's currently available on any Android-powered devices or iPhone OS 2.2.1 or higher. For now, the new version is available in English only. We'll be rolling this version out to everyone over the course of the day, so if you don't see the updated user interface yet (you'll know you have it when you see that floaty bar), check back soon. For easy access, we recommend creating a homescreen link.
Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone is here
It’s finally arrived – the all new Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone application.
Now you can take the best of Yahoo! Messenger with you and stay in touch with friends through your iPhone or iPod Touch, no matter where you are.
A short demo video is included below. Here are the top features of the new app:
Instant message: Send text messages back and forth with your friends, including emoticons and web links.
Photo sharing: Take a photo on your iPhone and send that, or grab one from your photo gallery to share.
Stealth settings: Sign in as invisible, or change your status to invisible once you’re in the app.
Custom status message: Enter a custom status message for your friends to see. You can even include a web link with it.
Recent conversations archive: Under Messages, tap a contact and you’ll see your most recent conversation. You can type in a message from there to start chatting again.
Special idle state: If you have to leave the app for whatever reason, like a call comes in or you click a link in an IM that takes you to Safari, the Yahoo! Messenger for iPhone app will keep you signed in but change your status to idle. That way you can continue to receive messages and provided you return to the app within ten minutes, pick up where you left off.
Additional settings: Tap the Settings icon to change the sort order of your contact list, or to show or hide offline contacts in your list.
Check out the short video below to see the app in action (click here for a high quality version of the video). Background music in the demo was created by one of our own team members, Felix and his Slimcat Productions (thanks!).
The Yahoo! Messenger for the iPhone application is free and can be downloaded through the iTunes App Store or through the App Store on your iPhone or iPod Touch (search for Yahoo! Messenger).
Even if you don’t have an iPhone, Yahoo! Messenger is available for other types of mobile phones including the Blackberry. Visit our mobile site to find out what works with your phone.
These are instructions on how to transfer files to your iPhone using Fugu. To follow this tutorial you need to have a jailbroken iPhone with SSH installed. You can find instructions on how to jailbreak your iPhone here.
Step One First we must obtain the IP Address of the iPhone. To do this press the Settings button on your Springboard.
Step Two Press to select Wi-Fi from the Settings Menu
Step Three Make sure you are connected to a wireless network then press the circular blue arrow button
Step Four Take note of your IP address from the Wi-Fi details screen
Step Five Make sure you are on the same wireless network as your iPhone and launch Fugu by clicking its icon in the dock or in your Applications folder. If you do not have Fugu installed you can download it from here
Step Six Once Fugu opens enter your iPhone's IP Address into the Connect to: field. Then enter root as your iPhone username and click the Connect button.
Step Seven You will be asked to input a password. Enter alpine as the password and click the Authenticate button.
Step Eight Fugu will then log you into your iPhone. You will be placed in the /private/var/root directory.
Step Nine To get to the root folder of the iPhone you can select / from the dropdown on the right side of the window. From here you can access all the folders on your iPhone for example the Applications folder.
Step Ten To transfer a file to the iPhone simply locate your local (on your computer) file using the left pane. Then navigate to the desired location in the right pane. Drag the file from the left pane to the right pane to copy the file to your iPhone.
These are instructions on how to transfer files to your iPhone using WinSCP. To follow this tutorial you need to have a jailbroken iPhone with SSH installed. You can find instructions on how to jailbreak your iPhonehere (3G) or here(2G)
Step One Press the Cydia icon on your Springboard
Step Two Press to select the Sections tab at the bottom of the screen.
Step Three Press to select Networking from the list of Sections.
Step Four Press to select OpenSSH from the list of Packages.
Step Five Press the Install button at the top right of the screen.
Step Six Press the Confirm button at the top right of the screen.
Step Seven Once installation has completed successfully press the large Return to Cydia button.
Step Eight Hit the home button on your iPhone to return to the Springboard.
Step Nine We must now obtain the IP Address of the iPhone. To do this press the Settings button on your Springboard.
Step Ten Press to select Wi-Fi from the Settings Menu
Step Eleven Make sure you are connected to a wireless network then press the circular blue arrow button.
Step Twelve Take note of your IP address from the Wi-Fi details screen
Step Thirteen Make sure you are on the same wireless network as your iPhone and launch WinSCP by clicking it on your desktop, or in the start menu. You can download WinSCP fromhere.
Step Fourteen Once WinSCP opens, enter your iPhone's IP Address into the Host Name Field. Then enter root as your iPhone username and and alpine as the password. Then click Login.
Step Fifteen You will now see WinSCP connecting to your iPhone. The first time you login using SSH, it may take 30-45 seconds.
Step Sixteen If a Warning dialogue pops up, click Update or Add
Step Seventeen After about 30-45 seconds, WinSCP should successfully log you into your iPhone. You will be placed in the /private/var/root directory.
Step Eighteen To get to the root folder of the iPhone you can select / from the dropdown on the right side of the window. From here you can access all the folders on your iPhone for example the Applications folder
Step Nineteen To transfer a file to the iPhone simply locate your local (on your computer) file using the left pane. Then navigate to the desired location in the right pane. Drag the file from the left pane to the right pane to copy the file to your iPhone.
**Note** As user dlr stated, it is a good idea to set auto-lock to never. You can do this by going to Settings>>>General>>>Auto-Lock and set to never.
Many of us do not have a data plan, which cost about $30/month. Map application on the iPhone will not let you download and store the maps from the Google Map. Since GPS uses Google Maps in iPhone 3G, this make imposable to use GPS feature of the iPhone 3G, without data plan, on the road. There is a easy way to get around this problem, if you have jailbroken your iPhone. xGPS is a free app one can download from the Cydia. xGPS lets you download the maps and lets you store it on the iPhone. Therefore, you can access the map from GPS without 3G/wifi connection. xGPS can search places, such as local Pizza Hut, and establishes driving directions. In order to search places and establish routes, you have to have Internet connection via wifi/3G. But once you have search the place or established the route, xGPS stored that into 'Routes Manager', and you can access that offline (on the road). Over all, xGPS manage and store your maps and routes, so you can access it even if you are not connected to Internet. From Cidya, one can download "xGPS" by following:
Go to Cydiya:
Tap on 'sections':
Select 'Navigation' in section :
Select 'xGPS': Tap on Install: After Install finished Press Home Button:
First thing first! Applications are heart of the computer. There are many reliable applications available for mac. I have installed many applications on my mac. Most of them are open source applications, which are free. Here are the top 100 Mac applications that are essential to any user. Link on the name of the application to get it.
Computer Files
This section is all about programs that can be used to work with files and applications
1) AppFresh Software updater is great for Apple applications, but appfresh has the ability to check thrid party apps for updates. A great little tool for keeping upto date.
2) AppZapper Although applications are easy to uninstall on a mac there are usually small preference files hanging about. Appzapper cleans up an uninstall all of those files.
3) Disk Inventory X A simple program that scans your disk and visually shows what files takes up how much space, good to visualize if you are running out of space and you have some size hogs.
4) Grand Perspective Very similar to Disk Inventory X, shows you what files take up how much space on your website.
A very cool little tool if you need to end up editing Plist files.
6) Quicksilver One of the best applications ever made for the mac. Its a quick launch tool that enables you to open and do practically anything. Very fun and really increases your productivity.
7) Stuffit An application design to unstuff or unpack nearly any file. Create if you use archives a lot.
8) TextWrangler A very cool text editor that lets you edit text files quickly. Sometimes more powerful than text edit.
9) TidyUp An application that enables you to search through a list of files finds duplicates. Great if you have many files and you need to organise them.
10) Todos Leaves no application behind. A very visual way to view all of the applications on your computer. Kind of surpassed by the stacks in the dock.
11) UnRarX UnrarX gives you the abilty to easily uncompress .rar files. Very good, although stuffit can now handle .rar files.
12) Xslimmer Give your mac a diet. It goes through and removes the powerpc or intel parts of your program. It can really reduce the size of applications. Can also break them if you are not careful.
Internet
This section is all about applications that use the internet or this type of connectivity in some way.
13) Adium A simple all in one AIM, chat client. Supports, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo and many other through the use of plugins and basic support. It does lack some functionality in some chat protocols.
14) ApGrapher A great little program that offers the ability to find information about the wireless networks whizzing around your head.
15) Azureus One of the best bittorrent clients out there. Has lots of user extensions through the use of plugins.
16) Colloquy A really powerful application that can be used for the IRC networks. Special care has been taken in this application to make it blend in with the rest of the Mac OS theming.
17) CSSedit A must for any web developer. CSSedit offers the best tools around to help you edit and modify CSS code for you webpages.
18) Cyberduck A small lightweight application for ftp. Has some small niggles, but it is free. Transmit is better if you use ftp a lot.
19) Firefox One of the best web browsers around in my opinion. Has a massive add-on library which you can customize to your needs. A viable alternative to safari.
20) iStumber I found this a great small application that enabled you to view wireless and bluetooth networks quick and hassle free.
21) LittleSnitch The application that snitches on any application that is trying to access the net to phone home. Great for protecting you privacy.
22) Netnewswire A very popular RSS client for the mac, nuff said.
23) Skype Offering superior calls over the internet, it is the application if you do a lot of talking and want a good quality transmission.
24) Transmission A light weight bittorrent application that is gaining popularity. Its personal choice at this point of transmission verse Azureus.
25) Transmit A great application from Panic that will feature a couple of time in this list. It is a powerful application for ftp uploads and downloads.
26) Undercover A piece of software that dials to the undercover servers if you computer has been stolen. Great if you use a laptop, less useful on a desktop.
27) Unison Another piece of panic software that enables you to use the usenet newsreader networks. A really good piece of software if you use usenet a lot.
28) Vidalia A GUI controller for the Tor anonymity network. One click on, one click off, simple and easy to use. Best of all its free.
Multimedia
This section is all about video, images and sound. Anything of this nature is included here.
29) VLC The all in one application for watching videos. Supports nearly every codec imaginable.
30) Aperture One of Apples Pro programs for organizing and altering photos. A very powerfull application although comes with a bit of a price tag.
31) Audacity A free audio editor which has a few advance features that make it create for editing audio for your videos or other applications.
32) Blender A free 3D modeler which has the same power of many of the most advance applications on the market. Comes with quite a steep learning curve.
33) Delicious Library A very cool application used to organise your books, movies, games and CD’s. You can use your built in iSight to save time by scanning your books. Very cool and fun to use.
34) DeskLickr A simple application that uses the vast photo resource of flickr to change your wallpaper every so often. Makes a cool change.
35) Desktastic Anoter Panic app. This time it can be used to write directly on your desktop. Very cool if you use a tablet for your daily work.
36) Gimp The free image editing program. Used by many open source and linux users. A create start since Leopard doesn’t include any image editing software.
37) Google Earth One of the best applications from Google. Use it to zoom in on planet earth and explore the world around you. A great time waster, as well as a very useful tool if you are going anywhere and want to check out the surroundings.
38) HandBreak An open source application that can quickly convert DVD’s to Mpeg-4.
39) iLife The all in one package made by Apple. I don’t think this needs any explaining.
40) iShowU This application takes a direct recording of your screen. Great if you want to make recordings of specific applications. You need a good CPU, a bit of a power hog.
41) Joost A very hot application that lets you watch free TV. Beautiful application even though the amount of TV stations are a bit small.
42) Photoshop The high priced application for real pros who want to edit and manipulate images and photos. Not for people with tight wallets.
43) Pixelmator The medium priced application that has a lot of great image editing potential. Not as expenisive as Photoshop.
44) Shapeshifter Bored of your interface? Let shape shifter change it for you. Not Leopard compatitble although this is likely to change.
45) Theme Park A great little app which lets you delve into the resource files for applications and lets you change them. Not as powerful as Shapeshifter but lets you tweak little bits of your operating systems interface.
46) TVShows A little app that downloads all of the torrent files for your favourite TV shows. You need a bittorrent client to finish the process off.
47) Wallsaver Puts your screensaver as your wallpaper. Add a bit of life to your desktop.
Little Apps
Little Applications are small applications in size that add a bit of functionality or are just plain cool.
48) Autorate A simple piece of software that rates your musis in your iTunes libary based on the number of plays and track skips.
49) Fish A simple little program that shows you little fishes swimming around.
50) iAlertU A little program that can arm your computer. Moving your laptop will set of the alarm and alert you to intruders.
51) Liquidmac Once again using the motion sensor in a laptop. This program fills the screen with water which you can play around with by moving your computer.
52) MacSaber Let your Mac become a jedi. Once again using the motion sensor makes cool lightsaber noises. Don’t let the mac fly out of your hands as it has with a couple of people.
53) Quinn Tetris on the extreme side of life. A cool little app with amazing graphics on the old arcade favourite Tetris.
54) Resize ‘Em All A little program which can be used to resize images.
55) Rulers Put a ruler on your screen. This application lets you measure nearly anything on your screen, great if you are in the design world.
56) smcFanControl A small application that runs in your menu bar to control your fan speeds. A must if you think your computer runs a bit hot.
57) TimeOut One for the work-a-holic. A little application that tells you to take a break and stop what you are doing.
58) Wallsaver Sets your screen saver as your wallpaper. A great little program to add a bit of movement to your desktop.
Tools
This section of essential applications is all about tools. These are tools to do specific task or just to give you information.
59) Apple Remote Desktop One of Apples many programs that lets you work effectively on your network. This app lets you look in on a remote desktop and work with it remotely.
60) Battery Health One of many tools used to help you find out how much juice is left in your Mac battery. A tool for any laptop.
61) BootCamp Installing Windows on a Mac is never easier with BootCamp. A simple program that create a partition on you disk for installing windows.
62) BwanaDik A menu bar monitoring tool for you network. Lets you find tons of info about you LAN and WAN in one easy to reach place.
63) Carbon Copy Cloner For serious back ups you need somthing like Carbon Copy Cloner that can clone your entire drive quickly and easily.
64) Chmox Chmox is a program that enables you to open .chm help files on your Mac. Chm files are not supported in preview.
65) Coconut Battery A personal favourite of mine, this is another battery tool to monitor the health of your battery. I wish my laptop was run off coconuts.
66) DasBoot DasBoot is a tool to create a diagnostic and repair kit for your computer to put on an iPod or flash drive.
67) Flip4Mac The tool endorsed by Microsoft to help with those pesky .wmv files.
68) FreeDMG This software creates drag and drop .dmg archives on the fly. Easy to use if you make a lot of disk images.
69) GeekTool GeekTool is a preference pane module to show system logs, unix commands output, or images (i.e. from the internet) on your desktop.
70) Growl A very useful tool that is used by many applications to show a clean way of displaying messages to you. Like the bubbles in Windows except a hell of a lot better.
71) Hardware Monitor Hardware Monitor is designed to check the various pieces of hardware on you computer for faults and problems as well as give messages back to you.
Editing hex files cannot be easier with Hex Fiend.
73) HoudahGeo HoudahGeo allows you to add Geo data to any image within the EXIF data. Helps you find your way around the world in your images.
74) iStat Menus iStat Menus off a wide range of statistical analysis of your computer including various hardware bits. Their widget is one of my favouites.
75) Mac Pilot This piece of software allows you to modify various parts of your computer that you would normally have to do through Terminal.
76) MacJanitor This little app cleans up various system files and other bits and bobs to keep your computer running smoothly.
77) MainMenu MainMenu is another piece of software to help you keep your computer running smoothly. This one has more advance options such as rebuilding the spotlight database.
78) MenuMeters Another monitor piece of software but this one is designed to run within the menu bar.
79) Monolingual Who needs to know French. Monolingual removes the languages from the computer that you do not need.
80) Operation A project management tool that lets you organise your projects quickly and easily.
81) Parallels Highly recommended virtualization software for virtualizing other OS’s.
82) Service Scrubber Helps you organise and remove services from your menus (Name of App > Services)
83) SquidDan Once a very popular proxy tool for sorting out your own proxy for handling your internet connection. Has become disused over time.
84) Stomp Stomp those big files down to size. Helps reduce video files into more compressed formats.
85) SuperDuper Another great backing up utility although its not fully Leopard compatible at the time of writing.
86) Synergy2 A very cool little application that lets you share a mouse and keyboard between one or more computers.
87) TinkerTool A tool that lets you access more preferences the Apple has built into the OS.
88) VMWare Another very good piece virtualization software to enable to to virtualize other OS’s.
Work
This final section ,and to round up, is going to be all about top programs for use at work.
89) Cha-Ching A simple money program that helps you organise your accounts, budgets and finances.
90) Concept Draw More of a group of programs that offer a wide range of applications such as flow charts to mind maps.
91) Filemaker A cross platform database application, that has amazing power and potential.
92) iWork Apples work application package to complement iLife, a good package if you want the Apple integration although lacks on some features.
93) Microsoft Office Office is one of the most prominent packages on the Windows machines for work programs. Very good on Mac, although some small annoying bugs.
94) Money2 Another application for managing your accounts. The interface on this program is amazing.
95) Neooffice An Open Office port to Mac, like Microsoft Office, except its free.
96) Nvu A very powerful webpage editor for designing and creating websites. Just as good as Dreamweaver.
97) Omnigraffle A brill program that offers a really cool way of creating presentation diagrams. Check out the Omni Groups offerings for all of the cool programs they have to offer.
98) Process Another program by Jumsoft on this list that lets you plan and organise your projects.
99) Quicken Another personal finance program, but this one feels more corporate and official.
100) Yojimbo A cool little program that helps you organise all your bits of information, great if you end up filling up dashboard with millions of stickies.
Well folks, there you have it, Top 100 Essential Mac Applications. I hope you agree that there are some awesome applications out there. It has taken me over a week to put this togther and if you think I have missed any please leave a comment with the program you would like to include and a reason why.
Refer to: http://www.mactricksandtips.com/2008/01/top-100-essential-mac-applications.html
