chatting posts

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Desktops, Hardware, Multimedia, Podcasting, TUAW Business

Talkcast live tonight at 10pm ET

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on Nov 30th, 2008

Our fearless co-lead Dave Caolo will be aboard the USS Talkcast this evening with me, and we'll be talking turkey -- cooking them, chasing them down, plucking them, and how to get the most stuffing in there. Oh wait, wait? Thanksgiving is over? Oh well then I guess we'll just be talking Mac and iPhone news as usual.

On the menu: Black Friday and the deals we may or may not have been suckered into, new releases from Boxee (read the interview yet?) and uTorrent for the Mac, and since we've got to get our requisite iPhone talk in there, we'll hit on the Linux install, and the tough subject of App Store pricing. Join us, won't you?

Do so on TalkShoe by using the shiny browser-only client; or you can also use the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client that we all know and love. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. You can also listen in on the Talkshoe page or call in on regular phone or VOIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!

Recording support for the TUAW Talkcast provided by Ecamm Network's CallRecorder for Skype.

Tags: black-friday, chatting, conversation, dave-caolo, mike-schramm, talkcast, talkshoe, uss-talkcast, utorrent

Filed under: Audio, OS, Software, TUAW Tips

TUAW Tip: Use ambient noise reduction for chats and sound recording

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Feb 28th, 2007

I do a decent amount of audio recording and chatting, but I don't ever remember seeing this option in System Preferences until last night. Turning on the "Use ambient noise reduction" feature under the Input tab of the Sound pane can help cut out the TV or dogs barking in the background, though it obviously isn't an end-all solution. A quiet, sound proofed setup is still ideal, but this setting should help for those times when 'ideal' just isn't possible. The setting should work with your Mac's built-in microphone, as well as any external mics you plug in.

[Update: From the comments, it sounds like this might only be an option on Apple's Intel-based notebooks. Readers are reporting that PowerBooks, iBooks, G5 iMacs and even Core Duo Mac minis (an Intel non-portable) don't have the feature. This is very interesting, and suggests that it could be due to an actual update to the microphone hardware in the MacBook/Pros since, as far as I know, noise cancellation typically involves a dedicated chip for this kind of functionality. Only certain mobile phones, for example, actually have noise cancellation, and I believe that is also due to the presence of a specific chip.]

Tags: ambient noise reduction, AmbientNoiseReduction, audio, chat, chats, chatting, input, podcasting, recording, sound, system preferences, SystemPreferences, vidcasting

Filed under: Retail, Internet Tools

Apple Store has a new "chat now" feature

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Nov 21st, 2006

That experiment with chat and the education store must have gone well, as the public Apple Store has recently become a little chattier with the seemingly quiet introduction of a new "chat now" feature to its product pages. Interestingly, it appears (at least for me) only on Mac product pages, and only a second or two after the rest of the page loads (as if there's an intentional delay), though I don't see it on any software pages or even in the iPod sections. I had a quick chat with the 'Apple Expert' Rache, but I was quickly dumped once I was found out to be a mere blogger (helping to spread the word...) instead of a cash-in-hand shopper. Oh well, this still seems like a great idea. I hope it sticks around.

[Update: it seems only some users can see this feature. It might simply be a page caching problem (as in: try emptying your browser cache), but for now it might be the case that only certain users, regions or countries can see the chat feature.]

Thanks Andrew

Tags: apple, apple expert, apple store, AppleExpert, AppleStore, chat, chat now, ChatNow, chatting, feature, online, store

Filed under: Productivity, Internet Tools, Open Source, Mods

New Chax beta with tear-off tabs, will be open sourced soon

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Sep 12th, 2006

Chax, the handy iChat plugin that offers tabbed chats and much more, has a new beta available that offers tear-off tabs for those times when you don't want to put all your ~~eggs~~ chats in one basket. Announced on the author's blog, this new version also allows exporting activity log data as HTML. Of course, various bug fixes are also included in what is technically 1.4.6 beta 2.

The author is also going to release the complete Chax source code once 1.4.6 goes official, offering iChat hackers and other Cocoa-hopefuls a little more help in their quest for creating the next killer __________.

You can download your copy of the beta from this latest blog entry.

Tags: chatting, chax, ichat, plugin, plugins

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity, Internet Tools

Chax 1.4 - iChat now has tabs

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Mar 26th, 2006

No, that headline is not a typo: at long last, after hoards of OS X users have cried out to Apple in vain for a feature to be added to iChat that other clients have had for what seems like a millennia (I'm Irish. I exaggerate. Sue me) - iChat now has tabs, thanks to the latest Chax update to v1.4. You have the option of placing tabs at the top or bottom of a chat window (or not using them at all, of course), and you can also chose colors for the text in the tab based on whether there is a new message, the user is typing or they've gone offline. I know I speak for many, many iChat users when I say: thank you, Kent Sutherland.

Another handy new feature in the update is a set of (optional) Chax menu badges to designate which iChat menu features belong to Chax. Of course, there are various bug fixes and tweaks, but what are you waiting for? Go grab the latest Chax update for tabbed iChatting goodness, and while you're at it: leave a donation for Kent's hard work.

Tags: addon, chatting, Chax, features, iChat, plugin, tabbed, tabs

Tip of the Day

Holding the Command key (aka the Apple key) and pressing Tab will cycle through your open applications. It's easier to Cmd-Tab if you are Copy (Cmd-C) and Pasting (Cmd-V) to and from various applications.

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