Joost is a new application for Mac and PC that allows you to watch the TV programs you want, the way you want it, on your computer. With a super cool interface and instant playback, the Joost beta shows amazing potential for taking it’s place as my TV solution. Listen in to the review here.

Read more about Joost and how to get an invite here.

View some screenshots here.

Be sure to participate in the discussion in the Message Boards as well.

 

 Enhanced Podcast [21:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1459)

I was asked a little while back if I wanted to take on a small project and I jumped at the chance. I was given some mockups for the pages in the site and asked to turn all that into a website, in 3 weeks.

1 week early I gave the guy the files and the site went live. Overall it was an awesome experience. Was my first time working with a client and working under a time restraint. I was given a featureset and I had to implement all that. In the end I was able to throw in a trick or two and get it done early, all of which pleased the guy to no end.

If you’re interested in taking a look at the work, you can check the site out over here. The site is for a new podcast with multiple shows, called MacLive. There is a teaser episode right now which you can listen to from the homepage. Be sure to read up a little on each episode and browse around.

NOTE: At the time of writing this, the site owner still hasn’t edited some text on a few pages or got the online store working yet. He wanted the site as it was to at least have something up and will edit the other pages as the information comes available. Just saving myself a little embarassment there.

For those who haven’t saw elsewhere on the net today, RapidWeaver 3.6 was released. RapidWeaver is the best website creation and management application for Mac available, with tons of plugins, great themes, and a general ease of use and elegance that lets you get up and running quickly.

The 3.6 release adds features such as a much improved Flash slideshow for displaying your pictures online, support for multiple categories for a post, and more.

Oh, and the RealMac website has seen an awesome update with a completely new look. Reminds me a lot of the Delicious Library site in many ways.

Read more about RapidWeaver here.

Listen in to my review of RapidWeaver 3.5 here.

I just wanted to add that this release is not a free upgrade as the last couple releases have been. 3.6 brings several new features and weighs in at $40USD

So I’m addicted to web browsers. I switch between browsers at whim when I see a feature that I really like. I’ve flirted with tons of decent browsers for Mac and have happily lived with Camino for the past 6 months or so. However, other browsers are seeing new features and plugins, and those just aren’t available for Camino. So I have layed it to rest for the time being to flirt between two other browsers: Safari and Shiira.

Safari is pretty standard stuff. The only thing I’d like to add is that you should certainly check out the plugins available at Pimp My Safari. I also recommend Inquisitor. Inquisitor is what makes Safari so cool right now!

Now, the feature that I have to share about Shiira: View Source. For all the web developers out there, this should amaze you. We are used to the same take on this feature. It’s something cross-platform and built-in to every browser. Some show an unformatted, non-syntax colored (IE!!) view, while others try and clean it up a good bit and do a decent job. Shiira is 10 years ahead of all that.

When you use View Source in Shiira, this is what you’re presented with. Please view the full versions. It’s worth it.

(DOM View)

(Links)

(CSS)

(Javascript)

(Images)

I hope those are enticing. I mean, that is awesome. You can view all the Javascript and CSS files easily from right within this view. View all the images, look at link attributes, view the DOM structure. This is just freaking amazing. Now if you could just easily save a javascript file for later viewing.

Download Shiira here.

Ever wondered why your Party Shuffle won’t sync with your iPod? This reader sent in an email some time ago to correct the problem involving a few smart playlists in iTunes.

He recommends using an Automator action to set the comments field of some songs to something useful. In this example, we’ll use “Mac Fanatic”. Now you create a smart playlist using “Comment contains Mac Fanatic” and “Rating is greater than 3″ just to weed out the bad songs and save that as “Mac Fanatic Source” for our example. That is the base of all our songs. However, the reader suggested creating one more smart playlist so that we don’t hear the same songs repeatedly. If we create a new smart playlist using “Playlist is Mac Fanatic Source” and check the box that says “Limit to 25 items” and choose the “Least recently played” option from the pop-up menu.

Now when you sync your iPod, the playlist will update with your iTunes and it will be just like a party shuffle. You could opt out of using comments as the criteria for the source playlist if you wished to have it more general, or just take everything from one genre that is least played, that sort of thing. Leave some comments if you need more info or run into problems!

I’ve been asked to compare some features found in the three popular solutions for running Windows on a Mac, so here is that episode.

Boot Camp is Apple’s own implementation allowing you to either use your computer as a Mac, or turn it off and restart and use it as a Windows PC. Disadvantages include security threats as well as lack of ease of use. Advantage would be playing games at full speed on Windows.

Parallels is a Mac application that allows you to run Windows and any Windows applications on your Mac. It is feature rich including drag-n-drop from Windows and Mac apps, full mouse and keyboard support, iSight support, and the super cool cohernce mode. You can even configure Parallels so that the Windows applications show up in your dock and in Spotlight results. Makes it super easy for me to launch Internet Explorer!

CrossOver is from CodeWeavers and is the smaller utiltiy out of the bunch. While the previous two require a full version of Windows, CrossOver fakes Windows applications into believing that they are running on Windows. Because of this approach, some applications have limited functionaly or refuse to work at all. An example would be Internet Explorer. I was asked which approach would be better for web development. Parallels is best in my opinion because IE6 and IE7 both work, can be just a window, and you can continue to work on the website on your Mac. Boot Camp would require you to restart to preview your work and CrossOver has a few minor issues with IE6 and doesn’t support IE7 at all.

Be sure to check out the discussion about this episode in the Mac Fanatic Message Boards here.

I also mentioned a previous post about using DVD Shrink on a Mac, using CrossOver. You can read there here.

Read more about Boot Camp here.

Read more about Parallels here.

Read more about CrossOver here.

 

 Enhanced Podcast [33:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1476)

For those who haven’t heard of the most amazing web statistical software ever created, Mint, I encourage you to stop reading this post and download it now. Your life will never be the same.

I just had to throw this out there because I find myself doing it all the time. I check my mint stats just about anytime I’m on the computer. It’s just part of my routine. Facebook, Mint, some message boards, my current debt….

When I find a site that I haven’t seen before show up in my referrers list, I check it out. I want to see who has sent me traffic! So occasionally the referring site is someone else’s mint installation. The instance that triggered this post was the good guys over at the Icon Factory for Frenzic. Looks like I had a few people leave the site and show up in their mint list and they checked the site out in return.

Just funny how everything is interconnected like that.

I wanted to point everyone over to the MacReview Cast this past week. I was asked to present a 5 minute review for the show, so I talked about Schoolhouse 2.

In case you’ve never listened in, it’s a great Mac podcast that crams several application reviews into one episode. You’ll come away with so much Mac knowledge, ready to impress your friends.

Listen in to the MacReview Cast here.

I wanted to let everyone know that I spent most of this Saturday setting up a message board system here on the site. You can access that at http://www.macfanatic.net/board/.

Please go forth and register on the boards. Pick out an avatar from the gallery or upload one of your own. Then start some discussions and let me know what you think about past/upcoming episodes and more. I hope this is a way for everyone to get involved in a little way and make the site more than just my ramblings and build up a community atmosophere.

Oh, and the message boards look damn good thanks to Tim Kimberl from Aqua-Soft.org.

In this episode I take a look at Coda, the new integrated web development application created by Panic Software. Coda was created as an application to help web developers streamline their workflow by letting you edit and preview CSS and text files, search documenation, and manage file revisions with a built-in FTP tool.

Screenshots (Click to view full-size)

Download Coda here.

 

 Enhanced Podcast [27:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2283)