Here’s the latest edition of ‘the Geek’ as Dave and I cover the release of the 3rd generation iPad and balance the show off with other tech news and some cool gear.
I don’t do this kind of thing lightly, but it might be a good idea to post this on your wall:
It is important to note that Facebook has said there is no evidence that this has been exploited — yet.
The problem has now been fixed, but all the old tokens could still be usable until September 2011. You can re-secure your account by simply changing your Facebook password. This will invalidate any of the existing tokens.
Information Week has an article with more detail.
Over the past decade or so I’ve become a strong believer in paying for media that I consume — not surprisingly this coincides with my ability to afford to buy stuff. In the spirit of promoting the concept of paying back those who provide us with great software, I give you my Top 4 iPod Touch Applications that I’ve actually purchased.
1Password is a password manager for MacOS X which late last year released a version of their application which works with the iPhone and iPod touch. Both the desktop and handheld versions of the application are brilliant and provide a great credential management service for those running the appropriate devices. If you’re a slider like many of us are starting to become, it may not be the solution for you since there’s no version of 1Password available for Windows or any flavour of Linux.
Again coming from desktop-based roots Crayon Physics is a simplistic looking game for the iPod Touch. The goal is simple, draw the tools you need to get the ball to the goal. The trick is you need to be able to anticipate how those tools will react to gravity, friction and impacts with other objects. Give Crayon Physics a try if you want a game that’s challenging enough to make you think, but easy enough to actually complete.
Note: the desktop version was licensed by Kloonigames to Hudson Soft, so they’re technically not related.
iShoot is a great replication of games that were super-popular in the early 1990s like Worms and my favourite Scorched Earth. Battle it out with the computer or up to three other human players in a tank-on-tank-on-tank-on-tank battle with weird and wonderful weapons of all kinds. A recent release of the game also includes the ability to define your own rules, terrains and weapons making it a truly personalized experience.
Modelled after games with the same name on other platforms, and of course loosely based on Wing Commander: Privateer, SpaceTrader allows you to fly from planet to planet as a trader in an effort to make as much money as possible. This game is the only 3D entry on the list with a fairly rich 3D environment that you can walk around and explore. I had some memory issues with this game early on, but working with the developer and sending in some crash logs a newer release seems to have licked that problem. Give this a try as a neat alternative to the 2D side scrollers.
Which applications have you purchased? Or are you more of a JailBreak type? Party in the comments…
This is the fourth post in my series of reviews of the BlackBerry 8230. These were originally written in April, 2009 on an internal blog and are being reposted here.
Since I wasn’t overly impressed with the email functionality built-in to the Flip’s mail program, when it came to Gmail integration at least, I thought I’d come back and talk about something quite a bit more cheerful: running applications on the Flip. The newer operating system on the Flip has a new application gallery called the BlackBerry AppWorld. The AppWorld, at the time of this post, has over 260 applications ranging in price from free through about $50… at least that’s the most expensive one that I saw.
The installation and setup experience is quick and easy. I was able to find several interesting apps to help me through my final week with the Flip. I had the opportunity to play with a number of different apps and explore some functionality that I hadn’t tried on my other BlackBerry.
Having access to the BlackBerry AppWorld is a great step forward from previous methods of getting apps on the BlackBerry. They’ve made great strides in usability and ease of installation, and the new method is similar to the experience on the iPhone , with one major caveat – the number of available applications. The BlackBerry OS is not a new platform for developers, but it hasn’t gained the same following with application developers as Apple’s rival platform.
In addition to downloading from the application store, I’ve also installed the Gmail application from Google. This provides a more seamless experience than trying to use the built-in mail settings as it takes advantage of Gmail’s secure IMAP protocol to exchange messages with the server. This helps to keep the mail on the BlackBerry synchronized with the mail on the server including whether or not messages have been read. IMAP compatibility is something that I’d really like to see RIM implement in future revisions of the BlackBerry OS.