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When Tim asked me if I’d be interested in being the MacReviewCast’s App Store Aficionado I jumped at the chance.

But first, I thought I’d give you a bit of feedback about my experience with last Friday’s debacle.

I know several people who are ‘getting’ an iPhone 3G but as yet they haven’t ‘gotten’ it! I have also heard some instances of customers ‘reserving’ an iPhone online for collection in-store, only to be turned away on the day as they didn’t have enough stock.

As for me, I’m currently very happy with my iPod Touch but I think it’s highly likely my wife and I will be purchasing his and hers iPhones in September.

I didn’t manage to upgrade my iPod until the Saturday morning. But since then I’ve downloading and dissecting apps on a daily basis.

O.K. down to business. So what’s been getting my fingers tapping this week.

One of the very first titles announced that makes full use of the built-in accelerometer and with graphics that I think are comparable to the DS and PSP. Any ideas?

Of course it’s Super Monkey Ball and it’s been at the No. 1 spot since the store launched. Unlikely, but if you are still pondering the purchase don’t hesitate any longer.

You take a control of a monkey, who is sealed inside a transparent sphere. You then have to roll him or her (choose between 4 monkeys) around a floating track collecting as many bananas as you can along the way.

This is pretty standard arcade fare. But by exploiting the accelerometer technology Sega have added a whole new dimension to this app. It’s simple, addictive and down right infuriating and apparently there are at least 110 levels! So at only £5.99 UK store and $9.99 US store I think that makes this game excellent value.

If you ever find yourself in the situation where you need to demonstrate the amazing capabilities of your iPod Touch/iPhone without having to fork out any cash, then this is that app (yes, this app definitely has a “wooooooo” factor)!

Introducing iPint, developed by Beattie, McGuinness and Bungay. Complete and utterly pointless some of you might argue. But all the same I still think it deserves a mention.

Your challenge is simple, to slide a pint of lager (Wild West style) down a bar to a thirsty recipient at the other end. Avoiding obstacles (olives, peanuts, bar mats etc.) along the way. There are only 3 levels and to be honest I cracked them all pretty quickly.

But here’s the cool thing. When you finish the task you are entitled to pour a refreshing pint of your own.

Yes, here comes the “wooooooo” moment. Watch in amazement as your iPhone/iPod Touch magically fills up with a pint of lager. Then simply place the digital receptacle to your lips and tip it back! “Wooooooo” and now it’s empty!

iPint is developed by Beattie, McGuinness and Bungay a London based advertising agency. This is the first of, no doubt, many viral marketing applications. Yes product placement does feature very heavily. But credit to BMB they’ve embraced the technology and used it imaginitively. Plus it’s FREE!

Finally, Tap Tap Revenge, developed by: Tapulous.

Out of all the apps I’ve downloaded the last week this is without doubt the one that I have played more than any other. When I’m not playing it, my wife is playing it.

I’m going to call it Guitar Hero for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Well kind of. You have 3 coloured streams (red, blue and green) as the track beats fly down the streams you have to hit the beats with a finger tap.

As you progress through the levels Tap Tap starts throwing in actions as well. Yes, you have to start physically flicking your device to the beat as well. Graphically it’s very nice, but there’s not a lot going on. Also I did find it a bit quiet at times and I couldn’t find any obvious volume control in the game.

There is also a 2 player mode where you can share your device and battle it out against each other. You can create a profile and post your efforts online.

I received an email informing me that new tracks are coming soon! And did I mention it also FREE?

Well that’s your lot!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my segment all about the “Tapptastic” world of the iTunes App store.

It’s hard to imagine that it is almost twenty five years since I sat down and played a game on my first personal computer. I was a child of the early 70’s and like every other boy in my class was fascinated by the personal computer phenomenon.

Fast forward to the early 80’s and I was fully into handhelds, consoles and of course my beloved ZX Spectrum 48k. Yes you did hear me correctly, 48k!

So, I’m guessing that by now you’re thinking what is he wittering on about?

Well the reason I’m reminiscing so fondly of those bygone days is due to the game that I’ve chosen to review this week.

It’s Neon Tango by Freeverse software. And basically, it reminded me so much of the kind of games that I used play every evening on my ZX Spectrum. The game in question was ‘Thrust’. A wasted youth or a master plan for a career spent in front computers. Who knows?

I don’t normally like to quote verbatim from a developer’s website. But when I read the promo spiel for Neon Tango over on Freeverse.com it made me chuckle. So I’m going to make an exception.

They write…

If Chuck Norris had his action removed and hot-glued onto Jack Bauer, and then Mr. Bauer was blended into a protein shake, it would be called “The Neon Tango” and… it would be Delicious!!!

Well Thrust for the ZX Spectrum must have been released around 1983-ish! But it was in 1979 that it all started.

OK, hands up who’s old enough to remember the classic game called ‘Asteroids’ from Atari in 1979? Come on Mr. Sparks get that hand up! Who are you trying to kid? You thought you’d snuck that monumental birthday under the radar didn’t you?

Well I’m guessing some of you may or may may not remember. Put simply I think Neon Tango is a brilliant homage to the classic ‘Asteroids’ game but with extra bells and whistles, a cutting edge soundtrack and a new vibrant, tangy colour scheme and beautiful day-glo graphics. I don’t know if that was the developers intention or not? I would like to think the developer was, like me a massive fan.

The gameplay is similar to the ‘Asteroids’ format with you viewing your spacecraft and surrounding enemy from above. Your ship is equipped with the obligatory dual laser blaster plus you have a secondary power up weapon to fall back on when the going gets tough.

The graphical style is very similar you see with you, the enemy and the surrounding environment drawn in that classic 2D wireframe style. But the gigantic chunks of moon rock, aimlessly floating around in space though have gone. Instead you have swarms of alien ‘baddies’ who are really not best pleased that you have just teleported into their inter-planetray backyard.

Part of the appeal of a game like this is the simplicity of the gameplay. By that I mean anybody could pick up the gist of a game within a few minutes. You could argue it’s just a blast-fest but you do have in Neon Tango, the added complication of intricate areas and dividing walls to circumnavigate.

Now I’m going to be honest and admit that I haven’t progressed through Neon Tango at the quite the pace that I had thought I might. But from my own initial pathetic attempts it seems to follow that classic formula. Which in a nutshell is, defeat lots of minor ‘baddies’ then meet a ‘baddie’ from middle management. Defeat him/her/it then progress to the next level and so on and so on for 50 whole levels. Eventually, and I’m guessing here, at the final level you will probably bump into the head honcho, big boss, CEO ‘baddie’.

I did dabble with ‘Survival Mode’, this enables you to pick and choose your level of play. But be warned there’s a reason they ramp up the difficulty level by level. But I was feeling confident so I jumped in at level 36 - what the heck! Ironically, I didn’t survive very long in ‘Survival Mode’, it was pure carnage!

I’m not a massive gamer. I use them now purely as a means of killing the odd bit of time, commuting, long journeys and the such like. At $24.95 I think it’s a great price and represents great value for money considering the complexity and size of the task ahead. And if you are planning to take advantage of the fantastic exchange rate (which by my calculations) equates to £12.66 it is an absolute steal! But don’t take my word for it. The best thing to do is head over to www.freeverse.com and download a full demo.

System Requirements:

Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
G4 , G5, or Intel Processor
800 MHz or faster
32 MB VRAM minimum
512 MB RAM minimum
500 MB hard drive space minimum

Below is the transcript of an audio review I’ve just finished for the Mac ReviewCast podcast.

I’ve been on a podcast free diet for the last few weeks. Yes, nil by ear.

You see my very expensive ear buds had to go back to the manufacturer for replacement under warranty.

Not a problem, or so I thought. I’ll just dust off my regulation apple ear buds and use those for a few days. They’re about as much use a chocolate fire guard. I’d forgotten how bad those things are.

So I reluctantly put my iPod Touch on extended vacation and scratched my head. I needed to get some alternative entertainment for my daily commute and fast.

Now for Plan B. A book.

Perfect. No batteries, small, light and portable!

So I trotted to my local library in search of something vaguely technological and hopefully Macintosh flavoured.

I know what you’re thinking. What a cheapskate. But to be honest in the town where I live the local bookshops have an even worse selection of Mac tech titles than the library. Plus I was desperate!

Perhaps it was sheer luck. But now I’m convinced it was destiny. If the sunlight hadn’t struck the cover at that precise moment in time, and caught my eye I wouldn’t be recording this review now.

So there it was glistening at me. A brand new copy of iPhone Fully Loaded, “Get more out of – and into your iPhone than you ever thought possible” – open brackets Also covers iPod Touch – close brackets, by Andy Ihnatko.

What better way to pass the time on my daily commute than by reading a book all about my absent friend.

Mr. Andy Ihantko. Now that should be a name familiar to any self-respecting, fully paid up, Mac fanboy.

To quote the spiel on the book…

Andy Ihnatko is one of the best-known Mac experts and author of the critically acclaimed The Mac OS X Tiger Book as well as iPod Fully Loaded. He has written for nearly every publication with ‘Mac’ in its name and is currently technology columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times.

He’s also a regular contributor to another popular ‘Mac’ podcast.

The book is broken down into four main sections.

1. The Basics of Content
2. The Real World
3. The Internet
4. The Office

Each section is then broken into several chapters. And at 250 pages that’s quite a chunk of reading.

Overall, the book is very well layed out and there’s definitely no shortage of colour examples. Dotted amongst the text are oodles of pull-out tip, tidbits and technique boxes.

Andy starts with the very basics, configuring your iTunes and such like. This did grate with me a little. As I would like to consider myself fairly mac savvy. But then he started spurting out tips left, right and centre on stuff that I thought I’d known best about.

The book progresses and gradually he starts to move on to more adventurous subjects. He touches on jailbreaking and he also vents his anger at Apple for not opening up the iPhone to 3rd party developers. Ironically I’m putting the finishing touches to this review on the very same day the SDK has been announced! Yes, back when this book when to print the SDK was still a twinkle in SJ’s eye. Roll on June.

This book was also printed prior to the iPod Touch software update. But, if you’re able to install the software update, then I think you’re more than capable to work out which sections of this book are now applicable to you.

I hate to be party pooper, but I think it would be unfair for me to pass on Andy’s tips verbatim.

But I will give you a few teasers. He includes tips on:

• Making 8 gigs seem like 80!
• Turning your DVD’s into playable movie files
• Downlaoding FREE music and getting away with it
• Turning your emails into podcasts
• And, finally probably the best tip in the whole damn book!

But there are a shed load more tips. And one important thing to note is that most of Andy’s tips involve software or services that are FREE or are very inexpensive!

I really, really like the way Andy writes. He has a friendly, informal style and on numerous occasions is plain, laugh out loud funny.

Andy’s modus operandi is to ensure that you’re fully equipped with the tools and techniques to stuff your iPhone or iPod Touch to within an inch of it’s capacity. And, to be honest I think with this book you’ll find that very easy.

I honestly didn’t think to look at the cover price, until I was almost three quarters of the way through. But when I did, I was flabberghasted to discover that it was only $19.99.

It’s true things have moved on a lot since this book hit the presses. But even though there are some exciting prospects on the horizon this book still has some great, relevant content at it’s core.

If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch fanatic who wants to raise their game. Without having to trawl the internet looking for odd random snippets. Then I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

One small thing to note: Oh and it does cover the P.C. side of things very comprehensively! But enough about all that P.C. nonsense, after all this is the MacReview Cast!

As I mentioned iPod Fully Loaded has an R.R.P of $19.99 but I’ve just checked this title on Amazon.com and they are currently selling it for $13.59!

Hey I’ve got a great idea. Why not head over to www.macreviewcast.com and click on the Surf-Shop link in the top left. That will you take to the MacReview Cast’s very own Amazon affiliate store. Then the MacReview Cast gets a small percentage of the purchase.

Product Details

* Paperback: 246 pages
* Publisher: Wiley (December 10, 2007)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 0470173688
* ISBN-13: 978-0470173688
* Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches

Once a month, the Typical Mac User podcast does a Mac Maintenance Sunday edition. Well, the last one was a couple of weeks ago and it dealt with all things ‘network’ related.

Anything to do with changing network settings gives me the heebie-jeebies. That old adage “If it aint broke, don’t fix it!” does make a lot of sense. But after listening to the Mac Maintenance Sunday TMUP podcast, and the so-called inadequate protection offered by WEP wifi encryption I was all ears! You see, the hosts of that particular podcast Victor Cajaio, Steve Stanger and George Starcher know what they’re talking about it.

To be honest when I got the router, it worked out of the box so I was happy. I hadn’t have a clue or care about what encryption I was using.

They didn’t go into specifics of how to upgrade the encryption though. So I did a bit of digging and was surprised to find that my BT Voyager 2110 was compatible with the WPA standard. To be honest I couldn’t believe it, as it was just a FREE router from my ISP.

This post is not going to be a screen by screen walkthrough of how it was done. More of a ‘shout out’ for the people who were instrumental in convincing me to change my mind about my wifi encryption. I will also post links to some of the web sites that I found to be really helpful in the process.

Victor’s Typical Mac User Podcast

Steve Stanger’s Mac Attack Podcast

George Starcher is a contributor to both the Typical Mac User and several other Friends in Tech podcasts.

To be honest I did pester George with more than a few emails and he was extremely helpful and very patient with my requests.

He recommended I visit www.grc.com you can use this excellent website to create yourself a unique, whopping 63 character WPA password.

I have used iStumbler before and found it to be very useful in determining what channel I and my surrounding neighbours are broadcasting on. iStumbler is donationware.

Coconut Wifi was also quite handy as it publishes the encryption level of any visible networks. Coconut Wifi is also donationware.

Basically the whole process was fairly straightforward. I had some difficulty getting my mac to auto connect when it spotted my wireless router. But a after quick Google search (Yes, Google is your friend) and a visit to the Apple Support Forums I was back in business.

Oh, and if like me you are an iPod Touch owner you will have to enter that whopping 63 character WPA password on the Touch’s keyboard. No mean feat. After about seven attempts I managed to crack it.

But that was 18 months ago. I’m now older, wiser and securer. Even though I’ve been in an around macs for nye on twenty years I’m still learning stuff and that’s all thanks to the great mac community!

This week I’m taking a look at Pulp Motion from Freeverse Software and Aquafadas.

Aquafadas are the developers of Pulp Motion based in the south of France and Freeverse are the distributors for North America based in New York.

Basically, Pulp Motion takes your digital media and creates these weird and wonderful animated photo albums. The first thing I considered when I started reviewing Pulp Motion was how could I achieve a similar results without using a product a like this.

I’m a creative guy whose a dab hand with a pencil and I would like to think I’m also a competent Illustrator user. Yes, I could probably create the backgrounds but how to get all the the whizzy animation stuff to work is beyond me.

I’m guessing here, but I think you would possibly need something like After Effects and or Final Cut to try and re-create anything close. And they don’t come cheap!

Adobe After Effects retails $999 and Final Cut Studio 2 $1299.

So you’ll be pleased to hear that Pulp Motion costs a fraction of the price. And it will also take a you fraction of the time.

When I’m reviewing an application I deliberately try to ignore the manual.

I found Pulp Motion to be intuitive and very simple to use. I’ll be honest though it might have had something to do with the four virtual sticky notes that some kindly developer had slapped across the interface, blatantly telling me where to start and the order in which to do things.

To construct an animation is a very simple four step process.

1. Pick your theme. The theme being the backdrop for your animation. It could be a view across the Parisian rooftops, a floral wedding theme etc. etc. all the usual suspects are present and correct. I think I counted 23 different themes in total.

2. Add your content. As you would expect photos, video and audio and the mysterious ‘capture live’ feature (more about that feature a bit later). Simply drag and drop your content into the timeline and you’re done. Yes, Pulp Motion plays nice with the iLife suite so importing your content is very straightforward.

3. Arrange your media. Once you’ve dragged and dropped your media why not go in and shuffle things around? It’s very easy to do and your media displays on a first come, first served basis.

4. That’s it. Your done! Now it’s time to take a look at your masterpiece. You can preview your mini animated masterpiece straight away. Plus, if you need to tweak it, you can and then have your project auto-update. All very clever stuff.

The more and more I played with Pulp Motion the greater I began to appreciate the simplicity of the project construction process. I was a natural, yes it’s idiot proof.

Within Pulp Motion you have umpteen settings that can be fine tuned. But, the settings vary somewhat depending on the chosen theme. Things like, speed, volume, titles, image numbers as you would expect are present. Along with the more obscure things like – more flowers, less flowers, faster spinning flowers all very intriguing.

So what’s next?

Exporting your creation
You can share your creation with others using the extensive Export options available.

They are as follows:

• Quicktime movie
• iPod
• iWeb
• iDVD
• GarageBand
• Mail
• Screensaver

You can also select the standalone player option to send your masterpiece as a postcard to friends and family including a personal message.

Final thoughts…
What’s a review without a few minor niggles. First off all I’ll start with the themes. There are some truly amazing, intricate and beautifully illustrated themes.

I particularly liked the Paris, San Francisco, Western, LadyBug and Silly News themes. The Silly News Theme is great fun and uses your iSight camera to drop you into the action LIVE!!! Combined with some nifty key commands and you can be transformed into a news reader, introducing your own, photos and videos.

There are also some that are not so great. This is just my own personal taste. But, and I did raise this with the developer and there are plans for new themes in the future. Some FREE and some paid for. Interestingly, they are also developing an SDK which which will enable third parties to produce themes.

Another niggle. I picked several themes and they all seemed to have maximum image limits that varied considerably. Quite annoying, but even more annoying was the fact that they are all quite low. The developer did mention to me that I could disable the warnings in the preferences or simply choose to ignore them! But, I had visions of my MacBook Intel Core Duo bursting into flames as I dragged my enormous (but I think fairly average) 183 image Disneyland Paris Vacation into Pulp Motion. I must be missing something, so what’s the point of having image limits it in the first place??

Overall I was very impressed with Pulp Motion. It is extremely simple to use, very intuitive and also a very creative way to display your digital media.

Pulp Motion costs $44.95

For more information and to download a demo visit www.freeverse.com

System requirements

• Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later
• 1-GHz G4, G5, or Intel-based Mac
• 512 MB of RAM (1 GB recommended)
• Quartz Extreme compatible card (all recent Macs do)
• An iSight™ camera or DV camera (optional)
• Internet connection required for registration.

So I guess I need to explain myself. You may or may not have seen my posts earlier in the month all about my broadband usage going through the roof.

Funnily enough, shortly after my iPod Touch arrived.

As with anything these days having broadband costs money. And everything you download to watch chips away at your usage. Likewise everything you upload also makes a dent in the usage. So there is an associated cost of sorts.

Until the email arrived informing me that I was quickly approaching my limit I had never stop to consider usage. So if like me you download lots of podcasts and video podcasts it can quickly take a toll.

Yes, in the UK there are some FREE broadband services but with very limited usage amounts. If you’re serious about watching video podcasts and plan to download a selection regularly, you might want to think about upgrading.

I have been downloading audio podcasts regularly for 18 months and have never hit my limit. So I’m pointing the finger at you the video podcasters.

I don’t like to name names, but what the heck I’m going to. Victor over at Typical Mac User does an excellent audio podcast, but he has also been putting out more and more video content recently. In particular I’ve enjoyed his Macworld 2008 interviews on my morning commute.

Next up are Veronica and Cali. I’m grouping these two together because they both do great tech video podcasts, they are also of the fairer sex and are both brilliant at what they do. They are also both extremely easy on the eye to watch. No offence Victor!

Last up is Pixel Perfect with Bert Monroy. You might think this is an obscure choice. As it’s not a mainstream tech, news and reviews type podcast. However, I think it’s still a great watch. For Photoshop and Illustrator users of all levels it’s very informative and even me (a long time creative suite user) is learning new stuff. I also enjoy Bert’s laid back manner which I think is hilarious.

I tried a few others but they have fallen by the wayside. I’m sure this list of video podcasters will grow it may even shrink but as long the great content is up there I’m a dedicated convert to the video podcast.

Enough of the finger pointing. Back to the numbers.

I have up until now had a 5 gigabyte usage with Madasafish.com which costs me £17.99 a month. They have been tempting me with deals for a few months in various combinations.

I decided to treat the month of January as an experiment, to monitor how much I could download and consume. This month it was just short of 10 gigabytes and to be honest I held back towards the end of the month due to the amount of unwatched content backing up.

It’s looking highly likely that I will be going for what Madasfish.com refer to as MAX Plus 20 gigabytes of usage for the same price that I was paying for 5 gigabytes, which I think is a great deal. This should hopefully quench my thirst for podcasts, video podcasts and other data intensive services.

Finally, I urge check your usage limits and you may be surprised how little of it you are using. You pay good money for this facility so why not get as much as you can. One good way to do that and quickly is to watch video podcasts. There is a massive selection out there and some with surprisingly high production values.

A review of the Exspect Filofax cover for the iPod Classic/iPhone/iPod Touch.

So which is it? Nude or prude? Are you the kind of person who likes to feel the wind wh istling through their click wheel or are you the kind of person who immediately wraps up their iPod in a cocoon of cozyness.

Me, I was a nude kind of guy. But that changed a couple of years ago when I made a mental note to myself.

“To NOT put off buying a cover for my next iPod!”

Well, this year Santa Jobs delivered me an iPod Touch.

So immediately I was in a quandry! Should I play with it? Or wait to get a cover? Play with it, or wait to get a cover? Aaaaarrrggghhh!

I’ve always hesitated to purchase a cover in the past, but always regretted it later as I’ve then managed to scratch it within a matter of days.

Luckily S.J. must have pinged out some emails to my extended family. Because, surprise, surprise later that day a cover for my new iPod Touch was handed over.

I received the Exspect Filofax cover and I installed it immediately. I guess the best way to describe it, is that when closed it looks just like a Filofax. Hands up who’s old enough to remember them?

But I was a little concerned. Because this was boxed up as a cover for the iPod Video/Classic. With no mention of an iPod Touch. Eventually I did find a small sticker informing me that it was also iPod Touch/iPhone compatible.

I still wasn’t convinced. I normally try and avoid these kind of products like the plague. One size fits all just wouldn’t do for the new addition to my expanding family of iPods. I had intended to get it a custom fitted cover.

Not one to be ungrateful, of course I accepted this generous gift graciously, albeit sceptically.

It’s just that if you look at those three models together there is a massive difference in thickness.

Call me paranoid, but I had visions of my new, skinny, iPod Touch shooting out of the end of a cover designed to hold an iPod Classic Fatboy!

Size wise, the cover is just that little bit bigger than the iPod Touch. The cover is black leather and it has four holes punched out in the top left corner (more about these later). All of the stitching is finished off in a grey thread.

The inside cover is also finished in black leather and it has two pockets that are big enough to hold a handful of credit cards.

So if you can imagine the cover lying flat and open, your iPod is attached to what I would refer to as the inside back cover. There are two generous stretch bands which slip over the top and bottom of your iPod Touch. The entire inside back cover is lined with black suede, so the shiny, silver reverse of your iPod is in constant contact with something soft and fluffy.

“Now hold on a minute”, I hear you cry!

It’s OK, I know what you’re thinking? Surely, when you close the cover my iPod will be getting up close and personal with my Tesco clubcard.

Well it doesn’t. Because those clever people at Exspect have inserted a simple, dividing leaf that sits between them. This is also covered with very thick suede on both sides. The whole thing is held together with a stretchy, elasticated spine and it closes with a single popper stud on the front.

Overall thoughts…
I’ve been using this cover for several weeks and so far and I’ve had no instances of my iPod Touch escaping. The straps feel pretty snug and wrap around the Touch’s bevelled corners perfectly. Even with a gentle shake the iPod Touch didn’t want to seem to budge.

If you dropped the iPod Touch from trouser pocket height whilst in the cover, I think it would come out of it quite well. Obviously you are less likely to cause any serious internal damage because the Touch has flash based memory. But please don’t try it at home.

Now that my new iPod Touch is heavily disguised as a Filofax, it is actually, on reflection quite a good security measure. Given the chance, I’m sure a thief would rather snatch something blatantly on show instead of what looks like a ‘1980’s old school’ personal organiser. I don’t know if this was the intention of Exspect or not.

Personally, I don’t see the point of adding the pockets. For me there isn’t enough room to hold all my credit cards. But I suppose it could be quite handy to store your iTunes gift cards. The buttons and ports are easily accessible, but the home button is obscured by the lower stretchy, securing strap. It won’t be long before you find it though, and it still functions. Even though you have to press through the stretchy strap.

I mentioned earlier that the front cover had 4 holes punched out. Well, included in the box are a selection of coloured strips that you can slip down behind these, to give the illusion of coloured spots. Not my cup of tea. Personally I think it’s a bit naff and besides it doesn’t look out of place without these.

Overall I think this is a pretty good cover for the iPod Touch and definitely worth considering.

It costs a very reasonable £10 and you can buy it at Amazon and several other online stores.

www.exspect.co.uk

This is just an update for those of you who are interested to hear how the monitoring of my broadband usage is going.

If you’re reading this you or may not have read the previous article.

In a nutshell, this month my broadband hit the MAX by mid Jan. Coincidentally my iPod Touch arrived Christmas Day. I put 2 & 2 together and got 5. It truly hadn’t crossed my mind that all these iPod ready video podcasts I was pushing down the pipe were chipping away at my broadband usage limit. No, they were hacking away at it with a machete!

Well I checked today and I’ve blown my limit by 2 gigabytes (now 7.11 gigabytes) so I’m going to incur extra charges this month. And it’s still only the 21st Jan. Yikes! To be honest I’ve kind of cut back a bit, but I am still downloading video podcasts.

• Busy glitterating! Great fun! #

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Tim over at the MacReviewCast asked me to write a short review of the newly announced update to the iPod Touch. So naturally I jumped at the chance. In fact you could say I was ‘touched’ that he asked me to do it!

…perhaps I’d just better get on with it!

Installing the upgrade is a bit tricky. Well fiddly! I thought I’d installed it, but seemingly I hadn’t. But, then after a second attempt all was well and my iPod Touch’s welcome page was suddenly starting to look very crowded. Apple do you give some basic instructions. But the most important thing you need to remember, and you must do this before you purchase the upgrade, is to update your iTunes and iPod Touch with the latest software updates. They are iTunes 7.6 and iPod Touch 1.1.3 – make sure you do both!

Then go into the iTunes Store and buy your January Software Update.

Image: courtesy of Apple Inc.

Stocks
I don’t have any stocks. So this application is kind of wasted on me.

When you launch the application you are immediately faced with:

• Apple
• Google
• Yahoo!

preloaded displaying their current prices on the stock market. Adding and deleting stock prices is a breeze. There is also a feature to illustrate stock performance over a period of time in a cute, dinky little graph.

Weather
If I want to know what the weather’s doing I tend to look out of the window. So having to ability to do weather forecasts on my iPod Touch I could really take it or leave it. But Apple have done a beautiful job with the interface and I suppose it’s quite a good demo application, to show off to your friends. It does look very impressive! Simply set-up your home location and when you next launch it, you will be presented with a six day forecast (you can refresh this manually). I checked mine this morning and it was rain, rain and more rain, funnily enough it’s said that for the last six days! Almost forgot, before you ask, yes you can set-up multiple locations!

Notes
I was torn with this application. Will I, won’t I find it useful? So far I’ve found it really useful. For tapping in small pieces of text, to do’s, blog ideas, shopping lists it’s perfect. But I don’t think you will be typing your next novel in it! Once you’ve composed your mini masterpiece you can choose to leave it in Notes. Or, and this is really cool you can email it! One thing I would of liked to have seen in this application, is a numerical reminder on the Notes icon on the home page. Similar to the Mail application, but we’ll come to that shortly!

Maps
This is scary stuff! Apparently Google Maps is able to work out your location from just your wifi access point. And then quite literally pinpoint you on a World map. I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t been able to get this feature to work yet. But, thankfully you are able to input your location manually.

You can choose to display maps as a graphical image, satellite image or as a hybrid – a combination of the two. But there’s more! You can also let Google Maps give you directions to and from a specified point. The Map application is very, very impressive and the satellite images look a lot sharper than the last time I looked at my house on Google Earth. Don’t forget with a quick flick of the fingers you can zoom in pretty darn close. In fact, until now I hadn’t realised I was going bald on top. OK not quite that close!

I’m going to trawl the forums to see if I can find a solution to me not being discoverable!

And finally Mail…
This for me was the deal-breaker. The ability to check multiple email accounts (yes I did say multiple) on my iPod Touch was a no brainer! I was hoping something like this might come out of the SDK release next month. So I was pleasantly surprised when Steve announced it on Tuesday. What can I say it works a treat! Setting it up was easy. Adding multiple accounts was easy. I have both my .mac and GMail accounts set-up. You can do pretty much anything you can do in the full size desktop application. Forwarding, moving to folders, deleting the whole deal. The interface is very intuitive and I’m sure it won’t be long before you’ll be ripping through your email without even starting up your mac. This is what I do every morning now.

I’m embarrassed to admit it but we are a one mac family. Yes I know, the shame of it. And I have the cheek to call myself an Apple fan-boy!

With these applications added the iPod Touch has become an even bigger hit in our house. You see it’s like having another little mini mac around. Now if my wife wants to surf I can still stay in touch with my email, twitter etc. so everyone’s happy.

Ooops – almost forgot, the wiggly home page icons feature!
Not an application but still worth a mention. You now have the ability to shuffle and re-order your icons on your iPod’s home page. To do this simply touch an icon and hold, you will see that they start to wiggle, now shuffle them around and then hit the home button. You can also now add web clips. Web clips are short cuts to web pages, so with one tap you can be at your favourite web page. So far I’ve only added PocketTweets but I use it all the time.

Overall
I’m very happy with the upgrade. There have been some rumblings of discontent about having to pay for it. And I suppose I could of held off and moaned and whinged a bit longer about the $20 price tag. But I wanted the Mail functionality and I wanted it NOW! No doubt it would of been better received if it was FREE, one idea I did have was if they had sold the applications individually for around $5 each, giving people the choice to pick and choose.

Anyway this is a very exciting development for the iPod Touch and I am sure there will be more to come once the SDK gets released.

You can find an audio version of this review, along many other great reviews over at The MacReviewCast #143!