VideoLAN's popular cross-platform open source media player VLC 1.0.2 is now available with an important security update. The rest of the release notes are rather terse and nerdy:

"BEWARE: this release is not compatible with Tiger. This version introduces many fixes, notably for SSA decoding, v4l2, MacOS interface, ogg/theora, x264 modules and security issues. It also introduces the port to 64bits for Mac OS platform and 2 new languages (Kazakh and Croatian)."

I'm not sure what "Mac OS interface" fixes were included (the app looks the same to me, but perhaps it refers to minor fixes rather than major changes), but two things probably jumped out to you: the first is that the app is not compatible with Tiger, although this is not new with 1.0.2 (downloads for older versions of Mac OS X are still available).

The second is the "big" news: VLC is now 64-bit. Again, this is not a change that end-users are likely to notice, but if you have been following news about Snow Leopard you know that 64-bit has gotten a lot of emphasis, and it's great to see VLC is keeping up.

Someone recently asked why I would use VLC on the Mac when I had QuickTime Player or Apple's built-in DVD app. My answer was two-fold and simple: I use it because when I want to watch DVDs I can press command+D (to open the DVD), press enter, and VLC automatically takes me to the main menu of the DVD, skipping all the ads and previews and other nonsense that the movie companies try to force you to watch every single time you put in a DVD. The other big reason I use VLC is because is has an option (under the "Video" menu item) called "Float on Top" which, as you would expect, keeps the video window above other windows. I was disappointed to see that even QuickTime Player X does not offer a similar feature.

VLC may not be beautiful to look at, and its advanced preferences are enough to make a normal person go cross-eyed with confusion, but it is a video playback workhorse, especially when paired with the US$3 iPhone remote control app (iTunes link).

One of the largest personal iTunes libraries I've ever seen belongs to a client of mine. This client, who was a DJ in the 50's and 60's, has a huge collection of vinyl albums and singles that he painstakingly digitized, cleaned up, and catalogued in iTunes. Needless to say, opening iTunes on his Mac Pro is an exercise in patience.

Thinking about his music storage needs, and the huge amount of digital photos and video that my wife are accumulating, got me musing about other ways to do mass storage inexpensively. At this point, I'm probably OK with a DroboPro, but what if I needed petabytes (1 petabyte = 1,024 terabytes = 1,048,576 gigabytes) of storage? Most solutions at this point in time are quite expensive.

As of 6 AM PDT this morning, off-site backup vendor BackBlaze has put their solution to mass storage needs, the BackBlaze Storage Pod, out to the world as an open source project. Their solution is a relatively inexpensive box (US$7,867 for 67 TB of storage) made up of off-the-shelf components that can be reproduced and/or improved upon by others who also need huge amounts of cheap storage. See those red boxes in the picture to the right? Each one of those contains 67 TB of RAID 6 storage in a 4U box. For a petabyte of storage, you're going to need to spend about $117,000 on about fifteen of the boxes.

Yes, all true. I'm talking about Roadee [iTunes link], an iPhone nav app that depends on the open sourced openstreetmap.com. That eliminates the high fees paid to license map data, and allows a nav app for under 2 bucks.

So what do you get? Well, sadly, not too much. The maps are OK, and reasonably complete. Direction of travel is supported, but when driving any direction but North, the labels are the wrong way round. Driving South, all the street labels are upside down. Nice.

Most, but not all of the addresses I navigated to worked OK. In some cases, I was given weird, very out of the way directions, but I still got to my destination. Routing info comes from cloudmade.com. If their server is down, no routing.

The map shows your route, the speed you are going, and what should be the time to your destination, but in my tests it always read 0. The app is a bit sluggish, and a few times it told me to turn after I'd gone through the intersection, but in most cases it was fast enough.

Now, about those points of interest. Sitting next to 3 fast food joints, I asked Roadee if there was any fast food around. Nope. Zip. I tried hospitals. Nothing. Shopping? Nil. Gas stations? Negative. In fact, I could not get a single POI to appear in a city of more than a million people. You may have a different experience in your town. Your reports are encouraged. One time I got an error message that the service was down. Another server outage perhaps?

When traveling down the road sometimes the map would blank out every few seconds while more data was being ingested. Sometimes the map downloaded but there were large blank spots where the map should have been. The maps are streamed over your data connection, not sitting on your iPhone. Unfortunately, each time the screen refreshed, the computerized voice felt obliged to announce my next turn. With the turn about 3 miles away, the constant refreshing of the screen gave me the announcement 25 times. Not good. You can turn the voice off, but then you are forced to look at the map, which isn't so safe.

You can navigate to addresses in your contact list, but that sometimes fails and the little spinning gear goes on for ever. The only way out is exit the app.

Well, the app is only US$1.99, and it will generally give you directions to most addresses. Don't count on it for POI searches, direct routing, or navigating to your contact list. The computerized voice is OK, but not on a par with the higher priced nav apps. On the other hand, none of the other apps have text to speech, although that feature is coming.

I think this open source effort should be applauded and encouraged. If you just don't want to pony up 80 or a hundred dollars for some of the better nav solutions, this is for you, but keep in mind that despite having niceties like text to speech, it just doesn't work very well. This latest release of Roadee is said to be much better than the original release, so there is hope. Keep an eye on user comments and hopefully an update will improve things. Roadee maintains an FAQ and it is honest about the limitations the app has.

Here are some screen grabs to give you an idea what Roadee looks like.

Update: SweetFM has now been moved to a project on GitHub

SweetFM, a totally awesome Mac client for the Last.fm streaming music & recommendations service, is now an open source project. This means that anyone can download it for free and you no longer have to pay $29.00 for a license key to use the application. Our own Christina Warren reviewed SweetFM last month, and she was pleased with its slick design and many great features, including Apple Remote and Apple Keyboard media key compatibility, extensive integration with iTunes, and deep support for your Last.fm stations.

Since her review, SweetFM has also been updated, adding an equalizer for Last.fm streams and bug fixes.

If you're interested in SweetFM, check out the Chocomoko website, visit the project page on Google Code, or read Christina's earlier review. SweetFM is a Universal Binary (compatible with Intel and PowerPC Macs) and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

For a while now I've been using MediaLink ($20) from Nullsoft to stream video from my Mac to my PS3, but last evening I discovered that I had some MKV (Matroska container) files that I wanted to stream but which the PS3 doesn't natively support. Naturally I assumed I'd have to convert the files and Googling around did turn up a method for doing so using QuickTime Pro. Even beyond the need for QuickTime Pro, however, it is also a somewhat time-consuming process. That's when I ran across a brilliant piece of open-source software called PS3 Media Server.

PS3 Media Server is a cross-platform Java application (and, unfortunately, it looks like it), which not only streams video from your Mac to your PS3, but also utilizes the open source Mplayer/FFmpeg backend packages to transcode / remux media in real time. What this means is nothing short of remarkable: you no longer have to convert supported media (MKV/FLV/OGM/AVI) ahead of time for playback on the PS3. I was able to stream a 720p MKV file without a hiccup (though I do have both my Mac and PS3 connected to the router via ethernet cable). Being impressed at the performance I decided to try it with a 1080p movie trailer I had downloaded from Apple and after a brief blip about 10 seconds in it streamed beautifully as well. (Note that both of these files were already H.264, which the PS3 does natively support, so I believe the PS3 Media server was only remuxing and not actually transcoding.)

PS3 Media Server is a free download over at Google Code (donations requested). There's also a Mac-specific beta (pictured above) that offers more features (including iTunes and iPhoto library support). Overall I'm shocked by how well it has worked with what I've thrown its way (which is admittedly limited). Highly recommended.

Are you an App Store developer? Are you looking to keep track of how your applications are doing from the convenience of your iPhone? The open source AppSales Mobile application has made a place for itself in the developer community, offering up-to date statistics with daily and weekly reports from the iTunes app store. You'll need a developer license to run it, however, as it's not available in the App Store. You must download the source, compile it in Xcode, and install it onto your iPhone.

AppSales Mobile offers an easy-to-use settings page. Just enter your iTunes Connect user ID and password and choose the currency you want to work with (this defaults to the euro, so US devs will probably want to change it to dollars). Return to the main menu and click the refresh button. If you've got a solid network connection, your reports will download in a matter of minutes.

iPhone developer Emanuele Vulcano pinged us with a note today telling us about a free file transfer app for the iPhone. Since most file transfer apps are a real yawner, I was dubious...until I watched the video.

What makes Mover (click opens iTunes) so cool is the way that it does the transfer. When you want to transfer an image or a contact card to another iPhone, you just launch the app on both devices, grab the image or card, point an arrow on one screen to match up with an arrow on another iPhone screen, then flick an icon representing the data you're sending. It moves off of your screen, and onto the other iPhone's screen, and the data is saved automatically. Very cool, and very iPhone-like!

Both iPhones need to be on the same WiFi network; there's no current way to do this over Bluetooth or a cellular network connection. Emanuele has made his code open source under the BSD license, so other developers are welcome to take a look at how he did this.

Check out Mover here (now with the correct embedding info):

We had a lot of mail from users eager to let us know that the NeoOffice 3.0 is now available. NeoOffice is a Mac OS X native open-source office suite originally crafted from the code used for OpenOffice, and its developers are boasting about the following features not found in the current release of OpenOffice for Mac:

• OS X Services support
• Media Browser support
• Native floating tool windows
• Magnify and swipe trackpad gestures
• Menus available when no documents are open
• Import images from scanners and cameras
• Command-clicking on window titlebar
• Mac OS X Leopard grammar checking support

A more in-depth look at these features can be found here. The suite is a fantastic alternative to paying full price for Microsoft Office and has come a long way in the past few years.

NeoOffice 3.0 is a universal binary offers separate Intel and PPC packages, and it requires OS X 10.4 or higher, 512 MB of RAM and 400 MB of free disk space. Please note that Universal Access support from OpenOffice is not available on NeoOffice at this time, so using OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, or iWork is suggested to access that feature. A token donation is requested of all downloaders to help support the project.

XMind -- a powerful, Java-based mind mapping and charting application -- has been open-sourced (it's free!) with version 3.0. While it's not my absolute top pick for mind mapping, it ranks up there. I did have a license for the paid version, and I can tell you that it packs plenty of punch. It has all of the extra features I like: boundaries, relationships, summaries, notes, markers, outline view, floating topics and more, as well as intuitive keyboard navigation for rapid-fire brainstorming.

One of my favorite features was the drilldown; pressing F6 focuses in on the current topic, displaying only it and its descendants. Shift-F6 takes you back up. It's similar to MindManager's "Focus" feature, but faster (and more limited in scope). And for those who want (or need) to, just set all of the shapes to underline, turn on multiple branch colors and tapered lines and presto, you've got an honest-to-goodness Tony Buzan-style mind map ... or as close as you'll get without buying Buzan's software (which, despite it being relatively expensive and lacking in system integration, I am regularly tempted to do) or breaking out the colored pencils.

You can also create Org and Fishbone Charts with XMind. It imports FreeMind and MindManager maps as well as Marker Packages, and can export to HTML, image, Marker Package or Text. The HTML export is ... okay. FreeMind actually creates more useful HTML pages, but it works. Overall, it's great stuff, and it's exciting to see it open sourced.

So, how did software that once cost $299 end up being free? It appears to be a change in the business plan, with a subscription model for "XMind Pro" replacing retail sales. I'm a little sketchy on the details, but the Pro version seems to include online collaboration for XMind users, Gantt charts and a Presentation mode (among other features), with a range of subscription prices: $6USD for 1 user/1 month, $400USD for 10 users/1 year, and everything in the middle. It's not necessary to have a subscription, however, to use XMind. Just download a copy (or even the source code) and let the brainstorming begin. Oh, and tell your PC friends, too; like many Java apps, XMind also comes in Windows and Linux flavors.

Our buddies over at sister blog Download Squad gave us a heads-up this morning about a new release of Audacity, the open source, cross-platform audio recording / editing application.

Audacity 1.3.6 (Beta) for Mac has new features added by students during the Google Summer of Code 2008:

• Support of WMA, M4A, and AC3 file formats
• Import of audio from video files
• On-demand loading of uncompressed files, eliminating the wait before files can be edited
• Linked audio and label tracks, so labels move with their corresponding audio when cutting, pasting, or changing speed or tempo
• A hierarchical plug-in grouping for built-in plugins

Experimental features include:

• Sound activated recording
• MIDI file import, edit, and export

As always, Audacity is free. Click here to head over to the download page, and remember that this is betaware.

OpenOffice has released version 3 of its eponymous open-source alternative to Microsoft Office, which includes a native version for Mac OS X.

According to Insanely Great Mac, the software includes:

• ODF 1.2 Support
• Microsoft Office 2007 Import Filters
• Solver component which allows solving optimization problems
• Support for displaying custom error bars and regression equations
• Improved Crop Feature in Draw and Impress

The software is only available for Macs with Intel processors. There are projects for converting OpenOffice for PowerPC, but an official version was not included in this 3.0.0 release.

OpenOffice's site was running very slowly this morning due to overwhelming demand for the new software, but the official download link is here. There are mirrors available, and this one seemed to work for me. For Mac users, the file to download includes MacOSXIntel_AQUA_install in the name.

The download is 163MB.

Departing TUAW blogger Giles Turnbull caught my attention in his recent list of favorite Mac apps. At the top of his list was an application called Bean, which had the unfortunate effect of causing me to think about Rowan Atkinson's comedy character (at right). As soon as the nausea wore off, I took a look at the app and found a lot to like.

It's a rich text editor from developer James Hoover that is surprisingly powerful, very lean, and open source. It's the perfect in-between text editor, nestled somewhere east of Microsoft Word and west of TextEdit. It's small, fast, and easy to use.

Features of Bean (the app, not the Mr.) include live word count, in-depth statistics, autosaves and dated backups, page layout mode, dictionary, word completion, and in-line graphics. If you feel a need to add some functionality to Bean, the Objective-C source code is readily available.

Bean reads and writes .rtf, .rtfd, .txt, .html, and .webarchive formats, and can transparently import and export to and from .doc, .docx, .odt, and .xml formats. It can also export to .html, .pdf, .doc, and .rtf formats (the latter two with images intact).

All I can say is that I can see why Giles likes Bean. It rocks!

Sun xVM VirtualBox 2.0 has arrived! We did a detailed review of VirtualBox 1.6 back in July, and now a shiny new version is available. If you want to set up a virtualization environment on your Intel Mac, but don't want to spend money on Parallels or VMWare Fusion, xVM VirtualBox 2.0 is a free and full-featured package that may fit your needs very well.

What's new in version 2.0? Mac users will see the following changes:

• 64-bit OS guest support (only on 64-bit hosts, as one might expect)
• New native Leopard user interface on Mac OS X hosts
• New-version notifier
• Guest property information interface
• Host Interface Networking on Mac OS X hosts
• Framework for collecting performance and resource usage data (metrics)
• Added SATA asynchronous IO (NCQ: Native Command Queuing) when accessing raw disks/partitions (major performance gain)

A list of bug fixes can be viewed after the break. xVM VirtualBox 2.0 can be downloaded here.

Running other operating systems on a Mac is nothing new, and with the advent of Intel-based Macs we've seen a flood of virtual machine software: Parallels Desktop for Mac, VMWare Fusion, and Codeweavers CrossOver Mac. These products enable you to run Mac OS X and another operating system simultaneously.

For many of my consulting clients who are switching from PCs and who already have a licensed copy of Microsoft Windows, I've been using Sun's Open Source xVM VirtualBox product. Why? xVM VirtualBox works very well and it's free.

If you're new to virtual machines and want to know how to do this, follow along as I set up a Windows Vista virtual machine on an "old" 2GHz Intel Core Duo 20" iMac.

This post is continued after the break.

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.