RE POST: The Seven Types of Employees You Meet at Best Buy

The Seven Types of Employees You Meet at Best Buy

By Adam Frucci, 3:20 PM on Thu Jul 9 2009, 169,087 views

Have you ever noticed that no matter which Best Buy you go into, you end up seeing the same people working there? That's because there are seven types of people that work at every single Best Buy, with no exceptions.

A little known fact about me is that I worked at Best Buy for a couple of years in high school before getting fired for badly, badly abusing the employee discount system. But while there I learned a lot about the types of people that work in such an establishment, and I've noticed the same people in other Best Buys that I've been to since. So here are my list of the seven types of people you'll find there, from a former employee's perspective.

Next time you go to Best Buy, be on the lookout. I promise you'll see at least a couple of these characters.

Illustrations by the illustrious Dan Meth, the artist behind such gems as the Pop Culture Charts and the animated Phone Sex Fetishes.

Want to ditch this gallery format and see everything on one page? Click here.

Car Audio Thug
You'll find this guy in the car audio department. He's got a big plug earring in each ear, some form of facial hair out of a late-90's R&B video and tattoos on his forearms. He tears into the parking lot every day, tires squealing, bass blasting, in a late-model Civic that he's dumped thousands of dollars into. You suspect that if he didn't have a job selling car stereos, he'd be stealing them.

Marginally Cute Customer Service Girl
This girl works at the customer service desk or as a cashier. She's maybe 17 years old and is kind of cute, but only when compared to the chubby piles of sadness she's surrounded with. Because of this, she's constantly hit on/sexually harassed by the guys who stock CDs and DVDs. She manages to take this in stride somehow and is almost infuriatingly perky and chipper. The chances of her having hooked up with the car audio thug are very high.

Grizzled Old Home Theater/Computer Sales Lifer
This guy has seen some shit. He's a refugee from Lechmere or Tweeter or some other now-defunct retail outlet. He knows the most about the products he sells, which is why all the part-time high school employees send customers with actual questions his way. He's got an air of resigned acceptance about his life, and while he's all-business with customers, he's got no filter with fellow employees. He tells inappropriate jokes and talks vulgarly about the managers behind their back. He has a strictly regimented cigarette break every 2.5 hours that he never, ever misses.

Pervy Geek Squad Guy
This guy searches every computer that's in for service for porn, collecting everything he finds on an external HDD that he keeps in the back. He talks in graphic terms about what he'd do to women who he sees enter the store, but when he talks to them he's totally professional. You suspect that he pleasures himself behind the plastic curtains, but you don't want to confirm this. He's got a level 80 World of Warcraft character. Somehow, he and the grizzled old sales guy are buddies and eat lunch together.

Sad Department Manager
This guy went to college then, after graduation, moved back home with his parents to save money. He ended up getting a job at Best Buy while he "figured stuff out." It's 10 years later and he still lives in the town he went to high school in, is balding, gained 15 pounds and is the manager of the digital cameras department. He's perfectly adequate at his job, but talking to him for more than 5 minutes just makes you so damned sad.

Slick Careerist Manager
This guy wants to go right to the top. He runs team meetings, irons his blue polos, and gets a hard-on when talking about accessory sales and service-plan attach rates. He's climbing the ladder with everything he's got, and he spews corporate nonsense with the passion of a true believer. You've never seen him have an actual human interaction with someone, and you wonder if he even has any furniture in his apartment. He may be a robot.

Terrifying Loss-Prevention Guy
This guy is either an ex-con, an ex-cop or a vet. He is jacked yet forced to wear a yellow polo shirt, which creates a false sense of levity when dealing with him. He may seem friendly on the outside, but if you cross him he will snap your neck. He legitimately thinks that it's unfair that Best Buy security guys aren't allowed to carry sidearms. He has so much rage bottled up inside him that you know to just say hello and smile and otherwise steer clear.

Posted July 9, 2009

RE POST: 25 Free Mac Apps That Will Boost Your Productivity

25 Free Mac Apps That Will Boost Your Productivity

By Kitty Florido, July 5th, 2009 in Developer's Toolbox | 37 Comments | Forum

There are many applications that can help you work faster and efficiently. Though, not many applications come cheap. For this post we tried to digg deep to find the best selection of free and/or open source Mac applications that will help you be a more efficient designer. We’re covering from application launchers, GTD (Getting Things Done) to design utilities that can help you focus on what’s important: create.

1. aLunch

aLunch is a very lightweight but powerful application that does what it’s supposed to do and nothing more: a handy launcher that runs from within the menu bar. The application was written back in 2007, and two years later it still proves to be a strong contender.

aLunch helps you get all your apps organized and get an uncluttered dock. You can customize a hot key combination so a launcher window shows and let’s you choose either a Launcher window or go to the Launcher Menu. You can use this application with a Mac running OSX 10.4 or higher. If you have an earlier OS X such as 10.3, you need to update to version 10.3.9 to use an earlier version of the application.

2. Adobe Kuler

Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 applications – Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Fireworks and Flash – have an Extension panel that connects directly to Kuler, the web-hosted application for generating color themes. Not many designers take advantage of a powerful tool like this one. Logging into Kuler.com with your Adobe ID, you can create color swatches themes from a color, share, rate and search the community color schemes, and upload or use a Flickr image to extract color themes so you can download them as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file that’s compatible with Adobe applications.

But you can also access the Kuler site from it’s own standalone application to get more flexibility. Also there is a Dashboard widget to help you browse through your color schemes and the communities. To install Kuler Desktop you need to have Mac OS X 10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.4 and up, with Adobe Air and Flash Playerinstalled.

3. Name Changer

Name Changer is a very straightforward and simple tool that will help you rename batches of files without the hassle of Automator or Photoshop batch change – the latter can get a little too technical for some users.

This application saves you the time of naming each file manually. Name Changer gives you a wide variety of options that go from select text replacement to fully customizable text replacement. Designed for OSX 10.5, NameChanger is a Universal Binary, so it runs on both Intel and PowerPC macs. If you have a OSX 10.3 or 10.4 Mac, there’s a version that you can use too, so those Macs with earlier OS can still use the application.

4. YemuZip

YemuZip is a more powerful Zip-archive application that with a simple drag and drop interface, makes creating zip files an easy task. YemuZip lets you choose between a PC-compatible format and a Mac format that preserve all the Mac-specific metadata.

The tool lets you choose the destination of your zip file (same as source, Desktop or Documents) and can attach the file to an email message for easy sending. Runs on OS X 10.4 or later and it’s an Universal Binary.

5. Dateline

A subtle replacement for having the date shown on the Menu bar, Dateline gives you a linear calendar on your desktop within a transparent window. One very useful feature is that it has direct access to iCal when double clicking on a day.

The background and text colors are fully customizable along with transparency to make it blend seamlessly with your current desktop. This application requires Mac OS X 10.5 and higher.

6. DropBox

DropBox is by far the easiest way to share files if you are on a low budget and do not want to be bothered with server side issues when sharing files with clients. Since it’s an application that runs in the background, you can leave it running and it does the file updates on the machines seamlessly. You have a 2GB limit for the free accounts, 50GB for the Pro account at $99.00 per year or a 100GB for the Premium account at US$199 per year.

Another useful aspect of this app is that you can sign in and access your files from any browser, not necessarily from your Mac. The file sharing is done over SSL and encrypted with AES-256 before storage, so they are safe. From the visual side, a blue sync mark shows when the files are syncing and a green check mark appears when it’s done. What’s best, it’s that it’s not just for Mac, it’s compatible with Windows and Linux.

Every time you update a file, Dropbox transfers what was updated from the original uploaded file, so working with large Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign documents is a breeze. If you need to share files with users that don’t have Dropbox, you can use your Public folder and all the files in that folder will be given a unique link so you can send that for a direct download. And if you accidentally delete a file, you can “undelete it” from the web interface. Overall, it’s a time saving application when you want a fast way to share files with clients or co-workers.

7. Quicksilver

Quicksilver is a powerful application launcher, an application that will create catalogs of your frequently used apps, folders and documents. What’s interesting is that the search grows and adapts from what you do everyday. One very useful feature, If you have all your contacts in Address Book is that you can search within Quicksilver the contact name and when you hit enter on the telephone number, it shows on big type over the screen, so it’s a quick way of looking at a phone number without launching Address Book itself. An alternative: Namely.

You can enhance Quicksilver with plugins to do more powerful things, like uploading files using applications as Transmit, Queue albums on iTunes, emailing files or even moving the file’s location without doing it from the Finder. To run Quicksilver, you need a Mac with OS X 10.4 or higher.

8. iClockr

This is a small application that tracks your work time. You can set up different projects, and tasks for each project, and associate them to a client. The concept around iClockr is to have actions timed, for that you create tasks to be timed and those tasks add up to create a project. Each task is timed with a stopwatch, even the application’s dock icon changes to a stopwatch.

You can edit the task durations for better and more exact timing. iClockr also offers two modes to manage your times: Flat Rate or Range based. You can match each project with customers (within the application’s Preferences pane). iClockr is a Mac Universal application that runs on Leopard only.

9. Caffeine

When video chatting or having a voice-only-call with a client, Caffeine has proved it’s place on Macs. Caffeine prevents your mac of going to sleep, dimming the screen and avoids the screen savers to start.

To get to the application’s preferences, hold down the Command key while clicking to show the menu. Lightheads’ website doesn’t specify if Caffeine works with other OS versions different than Leopard.

10. iTool

iTool is a free application that offers a complete system maintenance and cleaning. It has a friendly user interface that guides you to complete the needed maitenance task.

Also, hidden on the Application menu (not found on the application’s main window), you can reach other options to tweak the look of the Dock (2D or 3D) or the Finder among others. This application is Leopard only.

11. The Unarchiver

For those short on budget, there’s a very light and powerfull free app called The Unarchiver. It allows you to extract many more file formats besides the .zip, such as .tar-gzip, .tar-bzip2, .rar, 7-zip, .lhA and stuffIt. Also it better handles filenames from foreign character sets, created with non-English versions of other operating systems.

The installation is very simple: copy the applications into your Applications folder and start using the application. The Unarchiver requires Mac OS X 10.3.9.

12. Paparazzi!

Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of web-pages. Paparazzi! allows you to define minimum size and capture size, so you can capture the best screenshot according to your needs. You can choose between saving the resulting picture as .jpeg, .pdf, .png or .tiff, also adding a thumbnail and thumbnail icon. It’s current version, 0.4.3 works on Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and their 0.5 beta is Leopard only.

13. AllBookmarks

AllBookmarks is a small menu bar item that provides you with a quick access to your browser’s bookmarks. It grabs Safari, Firefox and Flock bookmarks and also gives you access to 1Password 1Click bookmarks so you can navigate, fill a form and submit it with ease. The tool is a Universal Binary application which means that it works on Intel or PowerPC Macs, running OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

14. DockSpaces

DockSpaces is a small application that allows you to have up to 10 different docks, and swap them from the menu bar. You can also link a Dock with a Leopard’s Spaces so you can redefine your productivity. With Growl notification, you know which dock you are using. You can change the configuration for each dock for a more personalized usage. This application is a Universal Binary and Leopard only.

15. TaskMate

TaskMate is a very simple and light task management application. Create a task, check it off when completed and it disappears from your list. The completed tasks are visible on the sidebar that you can toggle on and off. TaskMate runs on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and it’s a Universal Binary Application.

16. Symbol Caddy

The Symbol Caddy Dashboard widget keeps a bunch of common special characters at your fingertips. Keyboard mode copies the special character and HTML mode copies the HTML entity code. Mac OS X 10.5.0 or higher is required. CharacterPal does the same and is also freeware.

17. iZoom

iZoom is a simple application designed to allow you to easily resize and crop your photos for optimized display on your iPod photo, on the web, or in email messages to friends. Built using Java, iZoom is available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. Currently, JPEG is the only supported image format.

18. JumpCut

Jumpcut is an application that provides “clipboard buffering” — that is, access to text that you’ve cut or copied, even if you’ve subsequently cut or copied something else. The goal of Jumpcut’s interface is to provide quick, natural, intuitive access to your clipboard’s history. The application is available as a Universal Binary that requires OS X 10.3.9 or later. Users running earlier versions of OS X should try Jumpcut 0.54, which should work with OS X 10.1 and later. Source code is also available. Jumpcut is open sourced under the MIT License.

Image source

19. Name Mangler

Name Mangler is a batch file renamer that supports all common renaming tasks: Find and Replace (including support for regular expressions); Number Sequentially; Change Case; Set Extension; Add Prefix/Suffix; Remove/Insert Characters. You can combine all of these using the Advanced renaming mode, which even comes with some extra features, such as conditional statements, nested counters etc. Name Mangler 2.0 runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.

20. CyberDuck

Cyberduck is an open source FTP, SFTP-client and also a WebDAV, Mosso Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac. It features an easy to use interface with quickly accessible bookmarks. The outline view of the browser allows to browse large folder structures efficiently and you can quickly preview files with Quick Look. To edit files, a seamless integration with several external editors makes it easy to change content quickly. An alternative: Filezilla.

21. TextWrangler

TextWrangler is the powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool. Essentially, it is a free version of BBEdit (see below). It offers a broad range of support for different programming languages, and fantastic find and replace functionality. A reliable and powerful tool, especially considering its freeware status. (via appstorm.net). Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Alternatives: eMacs,Smultron, TextEdit (native Mac-app).

Image source

22. Growl

Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications. Growl offers you complete control over which notifications are shown and how they are displayed. You will not receive any notifications that you do not want, because you can easily turn notifications (specific ones or all of them) off. Growl requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.

23. Gmail Notifr

Gmail Notifr sends you notifications about the received e-mails and other events in your Google account. It supports multiple accounts, checks mail at a specified interval, has Growl and sound notifications and has no background daemon processes installed as Google’s official notifier. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5+ (Leopard).

24. MAMP

MAMP installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer, be it PowerBook or iMac. MAMP will not compromise any existing Apache installation already running with your OS X. You can install Apache, PHP and MySQL without starting a script or having to change any configuration files.

25. And so many more!

Our friends from Appstorm.net have recently published The Ultimate Mac Setup For Web Designers: 60 Apps and 60 Open Source and Free Mac Apps which cover dozens of extremely useful and powerful applications that you can download and use for free. You can also check out the list of open source Mac applications on

Posted July 5, 2009

What's new in MobileMe?

What’s new in MobileMe

Find your lost iPhone. Access and view iDisk files on the go. New features make MobileMe even more essential for your iPhone.

MobileMe helps you find your lost iPhone.

Sometimes it’s your keys. Other times it’s your glasses. Misplacing things happens all the time. Now, if you misplace your iPhone, Find My iPhone can help you find it.

Locate your iPhone on a map.

Now, if you lose your iPhone, MobileMe can help you find it. MobileMe includes a new feature called Find My iPhone. Just enable Find My iPhone in MobileMe settings on your phone.* Then you can log in to me.com from any computer to access Find My iPhone and display your phone’s approximate location on a map.

Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe

Locate your lost iPhone with MobileMe. No chance of getting it back? Remote Wipe protects your privacy.

Watch the QuickTour

Display a message or play a sound on your lost iPhone.

Say you’ve just used the Find My iPhone feature, and it turns out your phone is at the doctor’s office. Not to worry. You can write a message that will be displayed on your iPhone — something like, “Oops! Left my iPhone behind. Blame it on the cold medicine. Be there ASAP to pick it up. Your grateful patient, John Appleseed.” Your message appears on the screen, even if your phone is locked. And if the map shows you that your iPhone is nearby, yet you still can’t find it, you can tell MobileMe to play a sound that overrides the silent setting on your phone.

Protect your privacy with Remote Wipe.

Addresses, phone numbers, email, photos. Your iPhone contains important and personal information — information you probably don’t want in the hands of a stranger. So if you lose your iPhone and displaying a message on it hasn’t resulted in its safe return, you can initiate a remote wipe to restore it to the factory settings.* If you eventually find your iPhone, you can restore your email, contacts, and calendars by enabling your MobileMe account on your iPhone. Or connect your iPhone to your computer and use iTunes to restore the data from your most recent iPhone backup.

Your iDisk goes wherever you go.

A new iDisk app for iPhone and iPod touch makes the files on your iDisk available for viewing and sharing anytime, anywhere.

View iDisk files on your iPhone.

The free iDisk app, available from the App Store in iTunes, lets you view your iDisk files right on your iPhone. Popular file types, such as Microsoft Office and iWork ’09 documents and presentations, PDFs, and more, are viewable in landscape or portrait. Just tap the file to access it and use pinch gestures to zoom in and out. And any file you’ve viewed recently doesn’t need to be reloaded. So if you start reading a document in the cab to the airport, you can quickly resume reading it on the plane.

Share files with just a tap.

One of the great features of iDisk is file sharing. Files that are too big to email can be shared easily by accessing your iDisk online at me.com. Now you can enjoy that same convenience using your iPhone and the iDisk app. Just tap the Share button, choose your recipients, and iDisk sends them an email with a link to download your file. You can limit the number of days a shared file is available and set a password to protect it. And you don’t even need to download a file first to share it.

Access Public folders.

Your MobileMe Public folder is ideal for sharing files with colleagues, classmates, or anyone you’re collaborating with on a project. Not only can visitors download files from your Public folder but, with your permission, they can upload files of their own. You can also password-protect your Public folder. The new iDisk app for iPhone lets you access another MobileMe member’s Public folder no matter where you are. You can save Public folders you access often, so they’re easier to find. Need to get to a Public folder but can’t recall the person’s MobileMe member name? The iDisk app finds people in your contacts with me.com email addresses.

Search all your mail messages.

iPhone OS 3.0 brings search capability to Mail on your iPhone. Now you don’t have to flick through your inbox, tapping messages to find the email you’re looking for. You can search messages by sender, recipient, subject, or all headers. And if the message isn’t on your iPhone, Mail searches for it in the MobileMe cloud. When the message is located, you can display it on your iPhone with no problem.

* Find My iPhone requires iPhone OS 3.0. Find My iPhone and Remote Wipe not available in all countries.

(download)

Posted June 8, 2009

RePost: Apple Nearly Created Retro-Future “Apple Cafes” in 1990s

Apple Nearly Created Retro-Future “Apple Cafes” in 1990s

from Cult of Mac

by Pete Mortensen

For anyone whose history with Apple dates to their first iPod, it can be really hard to fathom just how different a company it was before Steve Jobs came back in December 1996 and fundamentally turned it around.

I haven’t found a better example recently than these renderings of a project that Apple actually announced in November 1996: a series of cybercafes worldwide offering video conferencing, web surfing, and delicious Appley food and beverage. All from the comfort of an environment that looks like something you might envision if you start snorting ‘57 Chevys.

I repeat. Apple actually announced that they were doing this and held a press conference to unveil it, as thisCNET article proves:

“The time is right,” said Satjiv Chahil, senior vice president of marketing for Apple, in a telephone interview. “Cybercafes are in. The technology finally is reaching out to ‘the rest of us.’ This will be a place to showcase our products in the real world.”

Can you imagine if this were Apple’s retail vision today? Of course not. They would be out of business if Steve hadn’t come back.

Via GUIFX

This article is copyright Cultomedia Corp.

Posted June 4, 2009

RE POST: The Evolution of Cell Phone Design Between 1983-2009

May 22, 2009 (2 days ago)
The Evolution of Cell Phone Design Between 1983-2009
from Webdesigner Depot
by
Walter

Cell phones have evolved immensely since 1983, both in design and function.
From the Motorola DynaTAC, that power symbol that Michael Douglas wielded so forcefully in the movie “Wall Street”, to the iPhone 3G, which can take a picture, play a video, or run one of the thousands applications available from the Apple Store.
There are thousands of models of cell phones that have hit the streets between 1983 and now.
We’ve picked a few of the more popular and unusual ones to take you through the history of this device that most of us consider a part of our everyday lives.
We have tried, wherever possible, to include the most popular phones and the phones that were “firsts” for a particular feature, but may have missed out on your favorite phones due to the sheer number of models that are out there.
We invite you to post your faves in the comments section if they are not listed here.
Mobile phones are just now beginning to be as vital to North Americans as they have been to Asians. You can always see what is coming to store shelves in the next six months to a year by looking at the models that are currently available in Japan.
North America also had a spotty 3G network that has only really been revamped recently in order to deal with increasing demands for faster loading speeds from mobile customers, whereas Asia and most of Europe have had proper 3G networks in place for some time.
This has led to a revolution in 3G phones from 2007 until now, with more due to come out in 2009.
The list does not include any phones that were not portable handhelds. Car phones and some handhelds that were the size of a small briefcase were in use in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but since this is more about design than function we chose not to include them here.

1983
Motorola DynaTAC 8000X
Analog Motorola DynaTAC 8000X Advanced Mobile Phone System mobile phone as of 1983.

1989
Motorola MicroTAC 9800X
The first truly portable phone. Up until its release, most cellular phones were installed as car phones due to the inability to fit them into a jacket pocket.

1992
Motorola International 3200
The first digital hand-size mobile telephone.

Nokia 1011
This was the first mass-produced GSM phone. It was produced until 1994.

1993
BellSouth/IBM Simon Personal Communicator
The IBM Simon was the first PDA/Phone combo.

1996
Motorola StarTAC
The first clamshell cellular phone. Also one of the first display screens featured on a cell.

Nokia 9000 Communicator
The first smartphone series, driven by an Intel 386 CPU.

1998
Nokia 9110i
This iteration of Nokia’s Communicator series significantly reduced the weight of this precursor to the smartphone.

Nokia 5110
This cell phone was the most popular consumer model at the time of its release and for some time afterwards.

1999
Nokia 8210
This phone was loved for its customizable design, but hated for its screen fade.

Nokia 7110
The first mobile phone with a WAP browser.

Benefon Esc!
This was the first instance of a GPS being integrated into a mobile phone, and was sold mostly in Europe.

Samsung SPH-M100 Uproar
The Uproar was the first cell phone to have MP3 music capabilities.

Nokia 3210
The internal antenna and predictive T9 text messaging sold approximately 160 million of these phones.

2000
Ericsson R380
The R380 featured a black and white touchscreen, partially covered by a flip.

Nokia 3310
This popular phone sold 126 million models, and was particularly in Europe.

Ericsson R320
One of the first phones with a WAP browser. A version of this phone was released in China that allowed Chinese character SMS.

2001
Nokia 5510
This phone featured a full QWERTY keyboard. It could also store up to 64mb of music.

Nokia 8310
This phone contained premium features not normally found on handsets of the time, such as Infrared, a fully functional calendar and a FM Radio.

Ericsson T39
This tiny handset was the first Bluetooth-capable phone.

Ericsson T66
This diminutive entry from Ericsson was the height of a cigarette.

Siemens S45
Siemens’s first ever GPRS mobile phone with 360kb of internal memory - high at the time.

2002
Nokia 3510(i)
The first Nokia phone to bring GPRS internet services to the mass market. The 3510i, pictured here, was a more advanced version with a colour screen.

Sony Ericsson P800
This smartphone featured a touchscreen and up to 128mb of memory.

Nokia 6100
This model sold from 2002-2005. It featured an LCD screen and internet connectivity through GPRS.

Nokia 6310i
The 6310i quickly gained popularity in the corporate world for its simplicity and long battery life.

Sanyo SCP-5300
The first camera phone. Despite the low quality images it produced, it was the first.

2003
Nokia 1100
This extremely popular design has sold over 200 million since its introduction in 2003. This phone is rumoured to have sold for up to $32,000 in online criminal communities due to its ability to intercept one-time banking passwords.

PalmOne Treo 600
One of the “it” gadgets from 2003-2004 until BlackBerries overtook them in popularity. Three or four days between charges and a successful merger of phone, PDA, and camera made this the business tool of choice.

Nokia 2100
This design was available in a wide range of colours and featured a monochromatic screen.

Nokia 6600
Considered very advanced at the time of its introduction due to its Symbian OS-based Nokia Series 60 platform. Released in the US market as the Nokia 6620.

BlackBerry Quark 6210
Research In Motion’s first integrated phone/PDA.

BlackBerry 7210
BlackBerry’s first colour screen.

Nokia 7600
One of the first 3G smartphones by Nokia, still one of the lightest and smallest.

2004
Motorola Razor V3
When this was introduced it set the standard for sleek design in the industry.

Sony Ericsson P910
An attractive flip smartphone with full internet connectivity.

Nokia 7610
Nokia’s first smartphone with a 1 megapixel camera.

Nokia 3220
The first entry-level Nokia phone that offered full internet access.

Nokia 6630
The first cell phone to allow for global roaming.

Nokia 7280
Listed by Fortune Magazine as one of the best products of 2004. Also referred to as the “lipstick” phone.

2005
Nokia 1110
Released as a low-end GSM phone, and widely used in developing countries.

Motorola RAZR V3 Magenta
This hot pink phone gave the fashion set something to talk about - and on.

2006
HTC TyTN 100
This model was sold as the Orange SPV M3100 in the UK, keeping with HTC’s tradition of private labelling for individual carriers.

Nokia N73
This immensely popular smartphone has sold millions of models worldwide, and is still in wide use as of 2009.

Motorola Q
The “BlackBerry Killer” from Motorola.

BlackBerry Pearl
The first design-conscious entry from RIM, the Pearl is still being offered on the market today.

KDDI Penck
A fabulous design available only in Japan.

O2 XDA Flame
The XDA Flame is the first dual processor PDA-phone in the 02 line.

LG Chocolate KG800
One of the first well-designed phones made for mass market use.

Samsung i607 BlackJack
Research in Motion sued Samsung over the name of this phone. The lawsuit was settled out of court.

Nokia E62
Originally released to target business users in the European market.

2007
iPhone
The original iPhone was released in June 2007 with an auto-rotate sensor, a multi-touch sensor that allowed multiple inputs while ignoring minor touches, a touch interface that replaced the traditional QWERTY keyboards, and many other features that helped to give Apple an almost instant healthy market share on its release.

LG Prada KE850
Touchscreen phone that took home a Red Dot Design Award for “Best of the Best” in 2007.

LG Voyager
This design was touted as LG’s take on the iPhone.

HTC Touch
HTC’s answer to the iPhone with its own multi-touch interface and a high screen resolution.

Motorola RAZR2 V9
The solid steel hinge and the metal case make this sleek design feel luxurious and durable.

Motorola Q9H
This fine-tuning of the Motorola Q was released in Italy and the US in 2007.

Nokia E90 Communicator
This update of the first smartphone launched the fifth generation of the series.

LG Shine
This phone won another Red Dot for LG in 2007. Also released in Gold and Titanium Black.

Motorola RAZR²
This phone features the Opera internet browser and CrystalTalk technology.

Palm Treo 755p
The Treo 755p is a smartphone developed by Palm, Inc. It was released on May 14, 2007 as the first CDMA Treo without an aerial antenna.

LG Viewty
A phone firmly focused on visuals. DivX Certified playback and 5 megapixel digital camera with Schneider Kreuznach optics are just a couple of the features of this simply designed phone.

2008
iPhone 3G
The iPhone 3G was made even more desirable by all the apps that could be purchased for it in the AppStore when it was released in July of 2008.

LG Vu
The LG Vu was one in a series of phones that included the LG Prada phone.

T-Mobile G1 Phone
The G1 phone was the first phone to be released with the Android operating system designed by Google. Also known as the HTC Dream. One million devices have sold as of April 2009.

Nokia N96
This GPS-enabled entry in Nokia’s smartphone line features a sleek, compact design.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
This phone was featured in The Dark Knight.

LG Secret
The outside of the LG Secret, a 3G slider phone, is constructed from carbon fiber. Also features the world’s slimmest 5.0 megapixel camera on a smartphone.

Samsung Instinct
The Instinct was introduced as the “iPhone killer” from Samsung at a low price of $129.00.

BlackBerry Storm
Designed to be a direct competitor to the iPhone 3G and other 3G smartphones; RIM’s first device to do away with the QWERTY keyboard and incorporate a touchscreen.

BlackBerry Bold
Blackberry’s “middle ground” solution for those who wanted a 3G phone, a touchscreen, and a QWERTY keyboard.

Samsung Behold
Cell Fanatic found this entry by Samsung offered superior image quality over the Apple iPhone 3G and the BlackBerry Storm.

Samsung Gravity
The Samsung Gravity is their first to feature a slide-out keyboard that has proved popular in other brands.

Motorola Krave
The Krave design features a transparent flip that acts as a secondary touch surface to access additional features.

Samsung Omnia
The Samsung Omnia features a simple touchscreen interface and a speaker on the back.

Nokia E63
Billed as the budget business smartphone.

LG Dare
The handwriting recognition and simple touchscreen styling of the Dare is enhanced by the easy-grip back.

Sony Ericsson W760i
Includes the “Sensme” music feature, as well as all of the other features from the Walkman phone brand.

Nokia N79
The Nokia N79 has a Naviwheel, GPS, a 5 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss Optics Tessar lens and more.

HTC Touch Diamond
This attractive smartphone featured a resistive touch screen which is better for Asian character recognition.

LG KC910 Renoir
The LG Renoir has an 8-megapixel camera with xenon flash and Schneider-Kreuznach optics.

Nokia E71
The steel frame of this sleek smartphone from Nokia fits into your palm.

2009
Prada II or LG KF900
The second iteration of the Prada phone designed by LG. The sliding QWERTY keyboard is new, as is its 3G capability.

LG Arena
The first phone with LG’s 3D S-Class user interface. This UI reorients with the rotation of the phone and allows you to scroll film-reel style through available apps.

BlackBerry Curve 8900
Released in February 2009, the Curve features an improved trackball and a higher resolution screen. Still a 2G.

LG Versa
Comes with an attachable QWERTY keyboard and a virtual keyboard on the touch screen.

Sidekick LX 2009
This 3G incarnation of the Sidekick includes improved support for social networking applications.

Samsung Magnet
The Samsung Magnet is a cheap alternative for pricier smartphones with much of the same functionality and a cool design.

LG Xenon
Another slide-out QWERTY keyboard and compact design. Comes with AT&T’s Navigator, AT&T’s turn-by-turn GPS service.

HTC Magic
The next HTC entry to sport Google’s Android operating system. No US carriers have yet been confirmed for this model, but T-Mobile has been rumoured to be the carrier of record. Vodafone has exclusive rights to the phone in all markets that they service.

Samsung Propel Pro
The sliding QWERTY keyboard and slick design make this an attractive entry by Samsung.

LG Rumor2
Built for e-mail, the Rumor2 supports Lotus Notes where its predecessor didn’t.

Motorola Renew
This eco-friendly phone is the world’s first carbon-neutral cell phone. Made with recycled water bottles, cheap, and an abundance of features for the low price.

Coming Soon
Palm Pre
This phone launches June 6 in the US through Sprint. It will feature the ability to keep multiple apps open at once.

Only Available in Japan
Here’s hoping that some of these sleek designs make it across the pond eventually to North America. For more Japanese tech goodness, check KDDI’s English page.
Hitachi WOOO Ketai H001 Phone
This phone promises a 3D display. Ubergizmo predicts that it will be a Japan-only handset.

Panasonic P001
3.1″ increased resolution screen, impressive design, global roaming capabilities and one-push open make this an object of desire.

Walkman Phone Premier³
This phone opens up to reveal a 3″ screen and a stylish keypad.

Casio 001
This sports model features a touch panel for interactive gaming and music.

S001 Sony Ericsson Cyber-Shot
This phone screams elegance. Oh, and it has the world’s first 3.3″ full OLED WVGA display and an 8.1 megapixel camera. Not that we’d want all that fancy stuff in North America.

Toshiba T001
Princesses and fashionistas everywhere will go gaga over this design. Advanced video functions and a 5.1 megapixel camera put a little spike in this phone’s heel.

Kyocera K001 Junior Phone
Those of you with children will know how hard it is to put parental restrictions on anything electronic. This phone gives you the ability to track your child with a GPS locator, lock out questionable website addresses, and more.

Resources
If you have half an hour to kill and really want to get into the evolution of the cell phone and its cultural impact, check this full-length documentary from CBC.
For a more detailed history of the cell phone, we recommend Cell Fanatic’s history page.

Please leave us your memories of your cell phones of days gone by and your critiques of what is currently available in our comments section.

If you find an exclusive RSS freebie on this feed or on the live WDD website, please use the following code to download it: Q5wh4Z

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Posted May 24, 2009

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Posted May 8, 2009

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REPOST: 10 little known Mac utilities

10 little known Mac utilities
When I blog about applications that I've found I generally wrap up my posts with an open invitation to readers: Got any you like?
Many folks have been generous and shared links and applications that I've used to expand my virtual toolbox and make my Mac experience more fun and productive.
This time I turned that process around a bit and used Twitter up front. I put out this question: Looking for cool little Mac utilities that nobody knows about... I promptly received replies from a number of people with some cool applications that I had never heard of or tried using. After culling through the list I've pulled out 10 that I felt looked pretty cool. I've included the Twitter name for the person that made the suggestion in case you want to start following them.
EasyEnvelopes

Need to quickly print out an envelope for someone in your address book? EasyEnvelopes from Ambrosia Software has a free Dashboard widget that does just that. When you want to print out an envelope you activate the Dashboard, start typing the name of someone in your address book, select them and then click on the stamp and you're printing your envelope. Simple, easy and free. Suggested by Jonathan Bernstein.

SoundSource

Do you have multiple input and output devices for sound? Need to quickly alternate between a plug-in microphone like the Blue Snowball (my favorite) and a MacBook's internal microphone? If that's a common task for you then Rogue Amoeba has a free menu utility called SoundSource that lets you switch inputs and control input volume without having to load System Preferences. Suggested by JT and Marieboyer.

Jumpcut

I'm a copy and paste fiend, grabbing text from various sources and blasting them into my documents and blog posts. Having a clipboard buffer means I can selectively go back through my "copies" and paste in what I want and that's just what Jumpcut does. Small, very efficient and available as open source (MIT license), this was also suggested by Marieboyer.

Pacifist

If you want to inspect the contents of Package files, disk images or ZIP files you have downloaded to see the contents then Pacifist is a slick way to quickly see what's going on under the hood. Pacifist can also inspect a damaged application—especially one installed by OS X—so that it can be repaired without reinstalling everything. It's available for $20 in shareware form from CharlesSoft. Suggested by Ast A. Moore.

TimeMachineEditor

I'm a huge fan of Time Machine, even though the dorky Time Machine Errors still haunt me. That said, sometimes you don't want Time Machine to wake up and back up your machine every single hour. Maybe you're doing some massive file moves and you want Time Machine to take the afternoons off. TimeMachineEditor, a free utility, is a simple application that merely updates configuration settings. Open it, set it, quit it. Suggested by Doug Smart.

OmniDiskSweeper

I like Disk Inventory X, an application I wrote about last year, and several people suggested that again. While I like that tool and the visual display is helpful, sometimes you just want to see a list of files and folders by how much space they take up. Enter OmniDiskSweeper, now a free utility from The Omni Group. It provides a drill down view that's similar to the Finder's column view. The key difference is that it's sorted by the size of the files and folders. Great for quickly finding and pruning out large files that you don't need any longer. Suggested by Marieboyer (yes, she had several excellent suggestions).

MacLoc

If you work in a corporate environment (or have kids that like to play with your keyboard at home) and want to quickly walk away from your Mac without logging out and shutting down your applications, MacLoc can help. It's a free utility that leverages the fast user switching feature of OS X so that you can secure your Mac by activating it and walking away. When you come back you will be presented with the system login screen. Once logged in everything will appear like it did when you left. Suggested by Nicholas Leask.

Caffeine

You fire up Hulu or YouTube and settle in to watching something interesting when after 10 minutes your machine's screen saver kicks in. Frustrating. What you need is something that will keep your Mac awake for a predetermined amount of time. Caffeine, a free utility from Lighthead Software, does exactly that. I'll admit, I had heard about Caffeine before but never bothered to check it out until now.
Add it to your menu bar and activate it when you need to keep your machine from falling asleep for 5m, 10m, 15m, 30m, 1H, 2H, 5H or until your turn it off. All the benefits of a strong cup of coffee without the shaking. Suggested by Paul Thompson.

Paparazzi!

If you have ever needed to capture a screen shot of a web page you know how difficult it can be if the page is taller than your screen. Paparazzi! is a handy little utility for grabbing the entire contents of a web page. Want to capture that forum thread or blog comments into a single image? Paparazzi! can take the shot for you. While it doesn't work with Flash based graphics it can handle most other types of page elements. Suggested by Alo Lopez.

TubeTV

Even though my iPhone supports YouTube, there are lots of times that a video I want to watch is on another service (blip.tv, among many others, is becoming popular). What I would like is the ability to download a really long keynote address from a conference, plant it on my iPhone and watch it while I'm flying or in poor 3G areas. TubeTV is a free application—donations requested—from Chimoosoft that can open a web page and convert Flash based video to a local copy, then further convert it into a rendering option that can be dropped on an iPhone. The conversion can be slow for long videos but if you want to take that video with you this is a nice option. Suggested by Rahil Dowlath.

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Posted May 7, 2009

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REPOST: The Ultimate Mac Setup for Web Designers (60 Apps)

Client & Project Management

Billings - An excellent tool for managing the details of clients, billing, and tracking payments and receipts.
iCal - Bundled with OS X, iCal can offer a simple and inexpensive method to track projects and deadlines. Email reminders are handy too!
OmniPlan - More advanced planning software with Gantt charting, robust task management, and a great interface
iTaskX - Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Project to be another fairly advanced planning and project management tool.
Daylite - From the makers of Billings, Daylite is a more professional app capable of organizing an entire design team!
Merlin - Yet another advanced project management tool, with a great looking interface.
Creating an Asset Library

LittleSnapper - An awesome tool for capturing and organizing screenshots, ensuring you’re never stuck for inspiration.
TextExpander - Allows you to build up a library of code or text snippets, and quickly drop them into a document.
Yojimbo - An “information organizer”, which can be used for building up a library of code snippets, images, icons, or client material.
DevonThink - Similar to Yojimbo, but with a few advanced features such as OCR and scanner integration.
FontExplorer - The de facto font management tool for OS X, with automatic activation.
Fontcase - A great looking interface and robust comparison tools makes Fontcase a worthy competitor to FontExplorer.
Designing: All-in-one

Coda - The original (and, some would say, best) integrated web design environment for OS X with robust CSS tools, live previewing, and one-click publishing.
Espresso - Bringing several features across from CSSEdit, Espresso is a worthy Coda competitor with a built-in code snippet manager.
iWeb - Bundled with iLife, iWeb is Apple’s take on a WYSIWYG editor. Simple, easy-to-use, and capable of creating wonderfully designed sites. More of a consumer tool, with fewer advanced features than Coda/Espresso.
RapidWeaver - The undisputed king of visual web design apps on OS X, RapidWeaver has an extensive community creating hundreds of excellent themes.
Designing: Images

Adobe CS4 - The daddy of design suites, CS4 includes Photoshop and Illustrator - two essential apps for designing graphics for the web.
Pixelmator - Billed as a Photoshop competitor for “the rest of us”, Pixelmator is inexpensive and remarkably fast for editing photos and graphics.
GIMP - A completely free image editing tool. It lacks the same polish as Photoshop or Pixelmator, but packs a decent punch.
Keynote - Often overlooked, Keynote can create stunning diagrams and charts which are only a screenshot away from looking brilliant on your website.
Photoshop Elements - Photoshop’s little brother, Elements offers an inexpensive way to organize and edit a photo library for the web.
Acorn - The “image editor for humans”, Acorn has a bunch of excellent export-for-web options.
Picturesque - It’s easy to add reflections, borders, shadows, curves and change the perspective of photographs with Picturesque. Great for adding life to a dull image.
Designing: CSS & HTML

BBEdit - Undoubtedly the leading OS X text editor, BBEdit is incredibly powerful whilst retaining a simple interface. Particularly useful is the auto-complete feature.
TextWrangler - The free alternative to BBEdit, retaining much of the functionality at a price that’s too good to resist.
SubEthaEdit - Another great text editing tool, with powerful features for allowing multiple designers to collaborate on a document at the same time.

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Posted May 7, 2009

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REPOST: All You Need to Know to Twitter

All You Need to Know to Twitter:
• Advanced Search
• Twitter via S.M.S.
• Twitter/Facebook Integration
• Favorites
• Sharing Photos
• Desktop Twitter Apps
- Digsby (Windows-only)
- Twitteriffic (Mac-only)
- TweetDeck (Mac and Windows)
• Phone Apps
- Tweetie for iPhone
- TwitterBerry for BlackBerry
- Twidroid for G1 Android
• TweetCall (voice-recognition system)
• Sneaking Office Tweets
- Spreadtweet
- OutTwit
• TweetBeep.com

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Posted May 6, 2009

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iPhone Wallpaper

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HotDog

Pink-iPod

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Earth

Shuffle-Earth

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Posted May 5, 2009

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