It's not what it does, it's how you use it that counts. We all know about the app store and the new iPhone 3G, so I'll skip past what everyone else has already said about the device and describe how I'm using the original iPhone with the 2.0 software update.

Killer App? The App store. The applications available for the device from day 1 have been amazing. Sure, you can put an image of a cow on your phone that moos every once in awhile and fill your phone up with iBeer, but there are a few standout apps I feel are worth mentioning.

Use Time Machine to move your data from one computer to another. You'll be happy you did.

Yesterday I had to move all my information from one machine to another to send the old one in for repair (you know, the classic G5 whining noise thing). In the past this has been a nightmare, in the last few years Apple at least provided a Migration Assistant Application, but it didn't do a complete job. I wanted to change computers entirely and have it be transparent.

I've been struggling with this dilemma for a while now: I have backed up my entire hard drive about three times and on each backup I have my iPhoto library. Most times I backed up because I was traveling or was in a hurry and didn't think about how to get some of the info off of the hard drive. The last time I did a clean install I decided that the 60 gig hard drive in my laptop was just not enough, so now I keep all my music and photos on an external 350 gig drive which works great, except that my photo library reaches only as far back as a few months ago.

I just found this awesome OS X service called LipService X, by Rosborough Technology Co. It will generate Lorem Ipsum filler text at sentence or paragraph increments in any OS X application that supports services (almost any app). Just press Command+' or Command+Shift+' in any text area.

Great for designers or developers who use this filler text daily.

Photo by SaltyGrease

Appletosh announced iTunes movie rentals last week, to some mixed reactions. You can rent them directly from the Apple TV if you have one, sweet. You can rent HD movies for $5, sweet... for $5 though? I guess that is the going rate at blockbuster. But for that much I can rent from netflix. And for $20 I can pretty much get as much as I want from netflix...

I was asked to explain this to someone recently, and decided to post it here.

In my opinion when people think of PCs, they think of frustrating experiences, viruses, blue screens of death, etc. When people think of Macs they either think of glossy shiny things that work well, or if they love PCs, they roll their eyes.

Okay, now that I've had the magical iPhone for a few weeks and the love affair with the device is over, I have two major complaints:

1. Videos do not play in playlists
2. Smart playlists do not sync properlly

Well, I got the infamous iPhone after both my 3rd gen iPod and 4 year old cell phone went to a better place. I don't really have anything new to add to the conversation but have to say if you love your mac, the iPhone is essentially your pocket sized extension of it. You can carry a pocket sized portion of your music library on it, do a pocket sized amount of work on it, and stay connected with email and maps.

Favorite feature? The seamless syncing and integration. Snapping a photo and emailing it right off to mom is pretty neat. So is blogging from my phone :)

iChax, the one stop shop add on to iChat has been updated to now work correctly alongside the Safari 3 Beta. iChax, made by Kent Sutherland, adds a lot of features to iChat such as tabbed chats, notifications and more.

Another quick tip for you Appletosh users: Change Your Default OS X Sounds

It's easy:

1. Go to your Home folder (usually your name)
2. Go to the Library folder, then find the folder labeled Sounds.
3. Drop in .AIF files.
4. Next time you're asked by a program like Mail or iCal to select a sound for something, the list should be longer with your new sounds included in it.

Enjoy