Software

Cyber Monday spending hits $1.25 billion

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For the holiday season-to-date, $15 billion has been spent online, marking a 15-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $1.25 billion in online spending, up 22 percent versus year ago, representing the heaviest online spending day … Continued

MacLegion bundle — 10 Mac apps for $50

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There’s something in this bundle for everyone… Whether they’ve been naughty or nice. So don’t waste your time waiting in line this Holiday season, give the gift of software! You can get all your holiday shopping done while sitting in your pajamas sippin’ eggnog in front of your computer screen.

The first 10,000 people also get MacScan free.

Turning off blog comments

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Matt Gemmell on the decision to turn off comments on his blog:

It’s been a very difficult decision (I love reading comments on my articles, and they’re almost unfailingly insightful and valuable), but I’ve finally switched comments off. Since I used the excellent Disqus service, the easiest way was simply to disable it globally, which also removes (but doesn’t delete – I still have them) comments on all previous posts too.

I must admit, I’ve considered this approach too, but decided to leave them on.

Malls cancel plans to track shoppers

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Maggie Shader: Remember how two malls annoyed more than a few people by announcing that they would be tracking shoppers’ movements via their cellphone signals? Yeah, well that’s no longer happening — at least for now. The malls have suspended … Continued

Facebook’s $100 billion IPO

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WSJ: The social networking firm is now targeting a time frame of April to June 2012 for an initial public offering, said people familiar with the matter. The company is exploring raising $10 billion in its IPO—what would be one … Continued

∞ My Living Desktop

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I’d like to thank My Living Desktop for sponsoring this week’s RSS feed on The Loop.

Time to bring your desktop to life. Since 2005 My Living Desktop has been bringing a unique cross between a Video Desktop (moving wallpaper) and a traditional screensaver to your Macintosh. My Living Desktop adds a whole new dimension to your computing experience by turning your Mac’s desktop into a beautiful, moving environment… complete with soothing sounds.

My Living Desktop provides a wide array of stunning, relaxing high definition video scenes shot from all over the world that you can use on your desktop and as a screensaver. You can even import your own movie segments to create a truly personal and unique desktop environment.

∞ The problem with Stamped

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The problem with Stamped is that it correlates popularity of your stamps to quality. It makes the assumption that because you like something – and use up one of your “limited stamps” to demonstrate this as a showing of quality – that others will be inclined to agree or incited to try out whatever you stamped. I don’t think that could be further from the truth.

I agree.

∞ Adobe responds to Creative Suite pricing criticism

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Following criticism of its pricing for future versions of Creative Suite, Adobe responded on Monday with a statement sent to The Loop. “Our aggressive subscription price for Adobe Creative Cloud – $49 per month for every Adobe Creative Suite application, … Continued

∞ Scott Kelby's open letter to Adobe

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As president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) I represent more than 70,000 Photoshop users around the world. However as I’m writing this open letter to you today, I would say that most of our 70,000 members have no idea about the upgrade policy changes you just announced, or about how these changes will affect them.

When someone with Scott’s stature in the creative industry can’t get answers, you know Adobe has some problems.

∞ Occupy Flash

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Flash Player is dead. Its time has passed. It’s buggy. It crashes a lot. It requires constant security updates. It doesn’t work on most mobile devices. It’s a fossil, left over from the era of closed standards and unilateral corporate … Continued

∞ Think you can hide, anonymous blogger?

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Andy Baio:

Nonetheless, I found his other blog in under a minute — a thoughtful site about technology and local politics, detailing his full name, employer, photo, and family information. He worked for the local government, and if exposed, his anonymous blog could have cost him his job.

Kind of amusing.

[Via Streakmachine]

∞ Upgrading tracks to iTunes Match

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Jason Snell at Macworld:

So you’ve bought iTunes Match, which gives you access to shiny new 256kbps AAC versions of your audio files. But by default your iTunes library is still packed with your old files. So how best to upgrade all of those old files, in place, to the new versions?

I tried this on a few songs last night and it worked flawlessly.

∞ Bogus

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Florian Mueller:

I’m starting to see a pattern. For any intellectual property issues facing Linux (or at least the most popular Linux derivative, Android), Linus Torvalds has a standard answer at hand: after admitting that he doesn’t know the facts, he claims that “this [whatever it may be] seems completely bogus.” Or, interchangeably, “totally bogus”.

Great article from Florian.

∞ Time lapse video of earth from space

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Time lapse sequences of photographs taken by Ron Garan, Satoshi Furukawa and the crew of expeditions 28 & 29 onboard the International Space Station from August to October, 2011, who to my knowledge shot these pictures at an altitude of around 350 km.

∞ Apple releases iTunes Match

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Apple on Monday released a new version of iTunes that includes iTunes Match. iTunes Match will set you back $24.99 per year. The software scans the content of your music library and matches it to the music available on the … Continued

∞ The photography of Joshua L. Smith

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I mentioned last night that I didn’t get why the world’s most expensive photograph sold for so much, so I thought I’d show you so photos that I do like. These are shots from self-taught photographer Joshua L. Smith.

∞ Olympus hid $1.68 billion in losses

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Reuters:

Investigations into scandal-hit Olympus Corp revealed an elaborate scheme for concealing losses on risky bets behind a facade of inflated bank deposits and securities holdings

This is going to be painful.

∞ After Effects productivity tips

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Richard Lainhart: Everyone who works with Adobe After Effects for any length of time, particularly on a deadline, eventually finds himself (or herself) wanting to improve his or her productivity. In this tutorial, I’ll share five useful tips you may … Continued

∞ The purported death of RSS

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Despite the apparent blogger-provoked death knell, RSS is not dead, dying, or doomed. The argument goes that the layperson does not know what RSS means, how to use it to their advantage, and it does not have the lasting attractiveness … Continued

∞ Dragon Express for OS X Lion

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Dragon Express is the latest member of the Dragon family of speech recognition software that lets people control a computer with their voice. It’s the fast, hands-free way to turn speech into text, whether sending email, surfing the Web or posting an update to Facebook and Twitter. Dragon provides an easy, natural way to get more done in less time. Dragon Express is priced to provide the broadest range of people with an opportunity to experience the power and performance of speech recognition.

∞ Lion's app Exposé

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Steve Lyb: If you’ve got four-finger swipe down set to App Exposé on your Magic Trackpad or MacBook’s trackpad like I do, hover over a dock icon of a running app and swipe. Cool find.