One of the main new feature in iPhone 3GS is VGA video recording. It is crazy to think that Apple is capable of generating so much excitement with a feature that was available 2 years ago in its competitor’s smartphones. So far video recording in iPhone 3GS has received nothing but overwhelming positive reviews. If you follow TechCrunch and its sibling CrunchGear and MobileCrunch blogs, there are no less than six posts touting the video feature of iPhone 3GS (links at end of this post).

Tech product and gadget should always be technological advanced. Not so according to Apple. If Apple were to follow the tech trend, we would get a 8MP camera with 720 HD video recording in iPhone 3GS. If iPhone 3GS has 720 HD video recording, battery life will certainly be impacted. There will be a need for more storage space. iPhone will need higher graphics capability for HD video editing. More bandwidth is required for video upload to YouTube.

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If you want to create a community driven blog, Tumblr has make it easy with its Submissions feature.

Visit your Tumblr blog’s Customize page under Advanced menu to enable this feature.

Once you enabled Submissions, your readers are able to submit their posts via web or email. Let say your Tumblr URL is at http://mysite.tumblr.com, the web address then for your readers to submit their post is at http://mysite.tumblr.com/submit. And the email address for their submission is mysite@tumblr.com.

Each submission is queued for approval. You visit your blog’s submission page to approve the post for it to go live. The url to submission page is displayed at the right-hand menu on Tumblr’s main page. Or you can use the URL http://mysite.tumblr.com/submissions.

Some examples of community-driven blogs:

• Eat Sleep Draw

• This is why you’re fat

• Cute overload

iPhone keyboard’s Auto-Correction feature is time-saver and great help for people who are not used to touch typing. iPhone suggests word as you type when the word is not in the keyboard dictionary. You tap the “X” next to a suggested word to reject the correction, and iPhone will add your word into the keyboard dictionary. Your word will then not show up for correction again.

In due course, you have high probability of messing up the keyboard dictionary. For example if you spell “dont” without an apostrophe and reject the suggested correction for a few times, iPhone keyboard will add “dont” into the keyboard dictionary and will not suggest correction for you subsequently.

To erase all the words you added to the keyboard dictionary:

Settings > General > Reset > Reset Keyboard Dictionary

Select “Reset Dictionary” to clear your words and reset the keyboard dictionary to factory default.

Intuit posted in its The Quicken Blog an announcement of Quicken for Mac coming in February 2010, and apologized for its delay.

This squashed all rumors lately by media and bloggers that Intuit might not release a desktop version of Quicken for the Mac. All because Microsoft announced on 10 June 2009 that it would discontinue sales of Microsoft Money Plus from 30 June 2009. Microsoft Money has been Quicken’s biggest competitor for personal finance software on Windows.

Feedback from Mac customers led us to rethink our approach to developing Quicken for Mac. We went back to the drawing board and are making changes to everything from what the program does to how it looks. We spent extra time building a reconcile mode for the new register, a robust Windows-to-Mac transfer function for new Mac users (and existing customers running Quicken on a Windows virtual machine), and redesigned the experience to make it look and feel like a native Mac application should.

In early 2008, Intuit said Quicken Financial Life for Mac will release later that year. At MacWorld 2009 in January, Intuit said Quicken Financial Life for Mac will release later in 2009. This is the third release schedule and we hope it will stick.

To reinforce their commitment, Intuit also announced that you can pre-order Quicken for Mac from October 12, 2009.

One thing not so clear in the blog post is the final product name as it seems Intuit is using “Quicken for Mac” and “Quicken Financial Life for Mac” interchangeably.

If you can not wait, here are the alternatives to Quicken on the Mac:

• Run Quicken Windows on VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop.
• iBank
• MoneyDance

AppleScript is the scripting language Apple designed for end-users and is build into Mac operating system. AppleScript has been around for a long time, since System 7 in 1993. AppleScript looks a lot like natural language, and you can use it to control applications, script user interface elements, access and modify application documents, pass data between different applications and access operating systems resources.

For example, you can use AppleScript to create a workflow that automate the export of photos in iPhoto, reduce its size, rename the photos and FTP upload to web gallery. With the latest version of AppleScript in Mac OS X 10.5, you can create a complete Cocoa GUI application using AppleScript.

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This is big news and will have lasting impact for sure. Google has announced its plan for a Google operating system in its blog post, branding it Chrome OS.

Here’s the summaries of the announcement:

• Google Chrome OS is open source.
• It will initially target the netbooks market.
• Designed to be fast and lightweight, start up in few seconds.
• Build for simplicity with minimal user interface for the desktop.
• Complete redesigned security architecture to do away with viruses, malware and security updates.
• Netbooks with Chrome OS will appear second half 2010.
• Runs on both x86 and ARM chips.
• Chrome OS is basically Chrome browser running in a new windowing system on top of Linux kernel.
• The standard web is the application platform for Chrome OS developer.
• Chrome OS is separate from Android OS.

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

VLC Media Player, the best open source cross-platform media player has reached the milestone version 1. This release was slated for Feb this year, and its better late than never with tons of new features:

• Live recording
• Instant pausing and Frame-by-Frame support
• New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-Ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, …)
• New formats (Raw Dirac, M2TS, …) and majors improvements in many formats…
• New Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
• Video scaling in full-screen
• RTSP Trickplay support
• Zipped file playback
• Customizable toolbars
• Easier encoding GUI in Qt interface
• Better integration in GTK environments
• MTP devices on Linux
• Air Tunes streaming
• Increased stability and reduced memory usage

Download VLC Media Player

Change log for version 1.0.0

If you are using Apple keyboard without the numeric keypad or the keyboard on your MacBook/MacBook Pro, there is no Page Up and Page Down keys.

Instead you use Fn-Up Arrow (Fn key together with Up Arrow) for Page Up, and Fn-Down Arrow for Page Down.

For some app such as Safari and the message view screen in Apple Mail, pressing the Spacebar achieve the equivalent of Page Down and Shift-Spacebar is the Page Up.

After being in beta for several months, Wikipedia mobile site is [officially launched] by Wikimedia last week.

At the moment, the Mobile site supports iPhone, Kindle, Android, and Palm Pre. And we fully support both English and German. There are other working languages, but they haven’t been fully translated yet. Our goal is to grow slowly and do it really well. We are starting out simple with limited support in order to test the usability and the platform’s stability. So far, things are looking good.

To access it from Safari browser on your iPhone: Wikepedia Mobile Site.

If you are looking for native iPhone app to view Wikipedia, the following are two free apps for your consideration. Both URL links are iTunes store link:

• Wikiamo

• Wikipanion

Printer technology does not change as often compare to computer. Printer purchase today could easily stay with you for three, five or more years. It is wise to choose the printer that best suits your need.

Choosing a printer can be a daunting task due to the many features and different printer manufacturers and models. Below are 11 factors which we hope could be a starter guide for your next printer purchase.

1. Why do you need a printer

Understanding the major usage of your printer will get the most value out of your purchase, as manufacturer builds printer with features targeting different market segment.

For example, if you use the printer mostly for photo prints and occasional letters, choose photo printer that deliver lab quality photo prints. If you print mostly office documents with moderate volume, then look for printer meant for business usage with speed and volume to match your need.

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