If you've been cursing the big price tag and lack of VBA support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, OpenOffice.org is coming to your rescue. Last September, the OpenOffice.org dev team announced that they would be porting the suite to run natively on the Mac. Previous versions ran under the X11 environment, which not only hogged resources, but didn't have the Aqua look and feel we all love.
OpenOffice.org 3.0 is still beta, but a quick test-drive of the application showed that it is almost ready for prime time. OOo is a full-featured office suite, complete with word processor (Writer), spreadsheet (Calc), presentation package (Impress), drawing app (Draw), as well as database tools (Base) that are sadly lacking in other office suites.
The feature set of OpenOffice.org 3 is impressive:
Imports Microsoft Office binary (.doc, .ppt, .xls) and Office 2007/Office 2008 for Mac (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) files
A solver component for solving optimization problems, something lacking in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
Spreadsheet workbook sharing
Display of multiple Writer pages while editing
MS Office-like comments in Writer
Limited VBA macro support -- which is still better than no support
Extensibility with Mozilla Thunderbird and Lightning, Sun Wiki Publisher and Report Builder
The price of OpenOffice.org 3 is, as always, free! If you're up to test-driving beta ware that may not necessarily be as stable or fast as your other office suite(s), click here to be transported to the beta site.
Hot for Hindi? Up for learning Uyghur? Wild about Welsh? LifeClever tipped us off to the fact that there are 926 free language training podcasts currently available in the iTunes Store. A quick glance at the available podcasts shows that you can learn 39 languages from Arabic to Yiddish with the help of your iPod or iPhone.
To find this treasure trove of linguistic goodness, launch iTunes, pop into the iTunes Store, click on the Browse link, and navigate to Podcasts > Education > Language Courses.
What am I going to learn on my summer vacation? I'm waffling between Sexy Spanish and Latinum. This is a great way to get your kids to learn a language and keep them occupied during that long, hot road trip to Wally World this summer.
Last week we posted about AT&T offering free WiFi access for iPhone customers at several of their hotspot locations, including a few Starbucks stores. According to MacRumors, AT&T has disabled this free service. However, since AT&T never made an official announcement of this service, it seems possible that the free service was launched early (possibly for testing). AT&T representatives have declined to comment on the issue.
If you got a glimpse of the free future and have now seen that wireless door slam shut again, let us know.
When Steve Jobs announced five new apps for the iPod Touch yesterday, people were ecstatic -- for about ten seconds. Once he mentioned the upgrade would cost current iPod touch owners $20 (they're included on all new units), most of the comments from participants following the keynote in TUAW's IRC channel were largely unprintable.
Apple's customers aren't usually the sort to take things lying down, however, so now there's an online petition calling on Apple to make the apps free to current customers. As I write this, there are close to 600 signatures and climbing.
It's worth noting that Michael Rose and John Gruber pondered the possibility of iPod touch updates and user costs back in October 2007, as Apple's quarterly earnings report indicated that the iPhone's subscription accounting model was not being used for the touch. At the time it wasn't clear what would happen when functional updates to the iPod touch were released; now we know that they come with a price tag.
Wow. I don't know who hadn't bought NetNewsWire yet, but if you haven't, consider your wait vindicated: most of Newsgator's products, including NNW, Newsgator Online, and FeedDemon (the Windows version of the popular RSS reader) have all gone free with version 3.1.
Brent Simmons, NNW's creator, is reportedly happy about the change, to say the least, and Newsgator isn't any less thrilled themselves-- they say that not only are they excited to spread the love around to everyone, but that they'll also be using "attention data" collected from the software (which hopefully sounds more ominous than it is... right?) to "deliver a better experience for everyone." Not so happy might be the folks who've paid for the products in the past-- Newsgator is offering an automatic refund to anyone who purchased them in the past 30 days, but anyone before that just has to live with the fact that they paid $30 to use the software at the time (not that it was a bad deal back then anyway). Those who subscribed to the Newsgator Online service will run out their current subscriptions, and then continue on without charge.
Version 3.1 of NetNewsWire features an updated interface with new toolbar icons, some performance and memory enhancements, and the ability to archive news items as HTML files, viewable in any browser. It is now available, for a completely free download, over on Newsgator's site.
Unfortunately, an HD TiVo was too expensive for me in 2007, and none of my friends or relatives ponied up the cash to get me one as a gift this holiday season, so I'm forced to settle with the extremely inferior Comcast HD DVR box. But for you TiVo owners, here's an awesome plugin to easily and stylishly connect your TiVo with your Mac. Showcase is a dashboard widget that, given your TiVo's IP and MAK, will not only show you what your TiVo is up to, but also let you download and decode shows directly from there on to your Mac.
TiVoToGo was shipped almost exactly a year ago for Mac, but Showcase seemingly does almost everything TTG does, and is available in simple widget form for the low, low price of free. A few users say it's a little slow (not surprising, given that it's doing all of this stuff from a widget interface, not a full application), but if, unlike me, you did have people who loved you enough to get you a TiVo HD this year, it's definitely worth a download.
TuneCore is offering 34 free song downloads at the US iTunes store. No, it's not any 34 songs, it's 34 songs by artists who are TuneCore customers. TuneCore, as we've posted before, is an iTunes listing service that helps artists get their music on the iTunes Store.
To get your free tracks, visit their free album page and generate a unique iTunes code. Artists on the free album include the Dandy Warhols (famous for the Veronica Mars intro) and Maureen McCormick, of the Brady Bunch. How is the actual music? The quality, er, varies. Let us know what you liked or disliked in the comments.
First we tweaked the app indicators, and then we tweaked the color, and now we've finally come all the way back in our Time Machine (oh yes, pun very intended) to two weeks ago. Innermind Media, the folks behind WidgetWizard, are probably a little angry at Leopard, considering all that Web Clip functionality, and so they've released a free widget called DockDoctor that will subtract a dimension from your Dock with the click of a button (and bring it back with another click, which is probably just as valuable).
I know it's not for everybody. I know some of you love the new Dock, or at least have gotten so used to it that it doesn't bother you. But this is OS X we're talking about, and so you should have the right to make your Dock look the way you want it to.
For all of you who have been holding off on paying iPhone SIM Free $60-$100, good news. The iPhone Dev Team has announced AnySIM 1.1. According to the announcement by netkas, the software has been tested with both 1.0.2 and 1.1.1. AnySIM offers a free unlocking solution for iPhone users and apparently, if I'm reading this correctly, does NOT fix baseband problems from earlier releases. This is meant for "virgin" locked phones only. Download your copy here. Be aware that as AnySIM works, it switches off your WiFi until you reboot. Also, this is NOT intended for phones that will be updated. Do not unlock 1.0.2 and then update to 1.1.1. Updating a locked 1.0.2 to 1.1.1 will relock your iPhone. The team is testing a 1.1.1 restore on 1.1.1 unlocks right now. Remember guys: although the software here has been tested to make sure it avoids corruption--it does not hurt NVRAM/seczone--it is very new and has not had a lot of field testing yet. Caveat hackteur.
The team is now working on finishing the iPhone revirginizer that will safely revert your iPhone to its shipped (locked) state. You like? Buy the guys a beer or something. Nazdrovyeh!
Update: The team says if you get a "failed to unlock" on 1.0.2, you're still probably unlocked. Reboot and give it a try.
Gametap, as you may already know, is working hard on a Mac client for their game subscription service, and when they told us they were looking for a few good beta testers, we told them to look no further than you, our beloved TUAW readers. So together with GameTap, we're offering you a chance to not only help them test their beta, but check out their service and their games (from Atari to Zork) for free.
Hit the link below to see the details, sent to us by GameTap. The short version: you'll have to apply as a beta tester (not everyone who applies will get a free version of the software-- odds are that they're looking for people who will legitimately help them with feedback), and the client they're testing only works on Intel processors, so if you've got a PowerPC Mac, you're out. We'll leave this information up for a week, or until GameTap tells us they have everyone they need. Good luck!
UPDATE: Gametap has all the beta testers they need, we've removed the Read link.
If you're looking for a quick and dirty way to smudge sensitive information in photos before putting them online then give Seashore a whirl. We've written about this neat little open source Mac-only app before and think it's great for basic image editing and touch-ups.
To smudge parts of a photo, simply open the Seashore toolbar, then open the photo you want to edit. Select the "finger" icon from the left side of the toolbar and right-click on the mouse while dragging the cursor across the area you want to blur. Save the photo and you're done. Be advised, however, your blurring efforts can be undone just as easily so if you need to hide extremely sensitive information, you'll need to use another method.
Alan dropped a quick note about a chance for our UK readers to get a free iTunes song. Those of you overseas may have been complaining that Apple treats you like second class citizens, but Britons, worry not, because they're bribing you with a song. Send an SMS with the words "ROCK," "POP," "LIVE," or "ITUNES" to 85100, and Apple will send you back a code for a free song on the iTunes UK store.
The promotion ends on September 30th, so you've got to get it done quick, and this is definitely a YMMV situation. It won't work outside of the UK, and I even tried to send the code using iChat, but no dice -- apparently it has to come from a phone number there. It's not exactly free, either -- as you may have figured out, it's actually the cost of sending and receiving an SMS. If that's more than £0.99, it's not worth it.
But if you're in the UK and have an itchy SMS finger, send it along and see what happens.
Well that's it. Engadget revealed that iPhoneSIMfree's unlocking solution is up and running today, and they're now on sale (in fact, our Weblogs, Inc. brethren are giving them away as we speak). Hype, prices, and sketchy profiteering aside, what's done seems to be done. If you want your iPhone unlocked, have at it.
Why aren't the Mac faithful more excited? Europeans are definitely interested-- we've already heard from a few of them, including reader Callum, who really want to use their iPhones. But from my general sense of the population, iPhone owners, especially Cult of Mac folks, aren't jumping at the chance. Gadgetheads like Engadget love it, but you TUAWers, despite the AT&T hate (which I share, and I'm not even an AT&T customer yet), aren't that into an unlock. As Engadget says, the iPhone hackers aren't going to bother to reverse engineer iPhoneSIMfree's solution. The whole community seems to be saying, "meh."
Part of the problem is the warranty, I'd expect-- that's why I'm not going to unlock my iPhone when I eventually pick it up. And the other part is the fact that I'm sticking with Apple, even if they price drop in another few months and require me to be with AT&T. I want my iPhone to do everything it can, and if this unlock breaks anything, or won't vibe with the Visual Voicemail, or who knows what else, then iPhoneSIMfree can keep their $100 offer.
But enough about what I want-- let's ask you, TUAWers. What do you think of the unlock?
The folks behind Adium, the fantastic free and open source instant messaging client for Mac, have released a recommended upgrade that fixes 26 bugs and a bunch of other issues. Update 1.1.2 resolves a memory leak while viewing tooltips and AIM mobile contacts now display correctly. Several issues when using Safari 3.0 Beta have also been fixed, and libpurple has been upgraded to 2.1.1 to add limited MSN support.
If you're disappointed that the upgrade doesn't offer any cosmetic changes, you could always dress up the dock duck on your own.
Bruno Fernandes of Twisted Melon software has an offer for you: get educated about the problems facing our world today, and get free software for it. He recently saw The 11th Hour, a film produced and narrated by Leonardo Dicaprio about global issues in 2007, and was so affected by it that, like the New York Times, he considers it "essential viewing."
And he wants to give his program, Mira, to the first 50 people who go see the movie and send him a scan of their tickets. Mira usually runs $15.95, so depending on the theater you go to, you'll probably be saving a few bucks on a pretty good Apple Remote application.
If you've been cursing the big price tag and lack of VBA support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, OpenOffice.org is coming to your rescue. Last September, the OpenOffice.org dev team announced that they would be porting the suite to run natively on the Mac. Previous versions ran under the X11 environment, which not only hogged resources, but didn't have the Aqua look and feel we all love. 
Hot for Hindi? Up for learning Uyghur? Wild about Welsh? 
Last week we posted about 
Wow. I don't know who hadn't bought NetNewsWire yet, but if you haven't, consider your wait vindicated: 
Gametap
Alan dropped a quick note about a chance for our UK readers to get a free 
Well that's it. Engadget revealed that iPhoneSIMfree's unlocking solution is 
Bruno Fernandes of Twisted Melon software has 
