Mashable: Latest 21 News Updates - including “Web Faceoff: Facebook Groups vs. Twitter Lists” |  |
- Web Faceoff: Facebook Groups vs. Twitter Lists
- Sparrow for Mac Simplifies Gmail for the Better
- FriendShuffle: StumbleUpon Meets Your Facebook and Twitter Friends
- Conan O’Brien Gets His Own Foursquare Badge (and a Blimp)
- The Reinvention of Print, One App at a Time
- Merton Curates Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Improv Edition
- RIP: 1-800-GOOG-411
- AT&T Raises Early Upgrade Fees
- 5 Tools for Keeping Track of Your Passwords
- News Publishers Prepare Apps for Samsung Tablet
- United Arab Emirates Drops BlackBerry Ban
- New Yahoo App for iPhone and Android to Support Mobile to PC Video Calls
- 5 Game-Changing Social Media Marketing Campaigns [Mashable Awards]
- Hulu Preparing for $2 Billion IPO Next Year [REPORT]
- Make Your iPhone Child-Safe with Six-Armed Plush Case
- Motorola Defies the Elements with New Android Device [VIDEO]
- 9 Free Resources for Learning Photoshop
- The Tangled Web of Lawsuits in Mobile [INFOGRAPHIC]
- Google Celebrates John Lennon’s 70th Birthday with Video Doodle
- Square Shows How Smooth iPhone Credit Card Swiping Can Be [VIDEO]
- 10 Captivating Time-Lapse Design Videos
- This Morning’s Top Stories in Tech, Mobile and Social Media
| Web Faceoff: Facebook Groups vs. Twitter Lists Posted: 08 Oct 2010 09:47 PM PDT      With Groups, Facebook has created a new way to organize and communicate with your social circles. Does this make Twitter Lists obsolete? A year ago, Twitter launched its Lists feature (yes, it’s been that long). Lists gave users the ability to curate and organize groups of Twitter users. Users quickly rushed to create lists based on industry, interests and friends. The reaction to Twitter Lists has been mixed; while several people make a habit of curating new lists all the time, most people ignore the feature. While there are many Twitter users with over 10,000 followers, only two lists have over 10,000 people following. The new Facebook Groups, on the other hand, rely on “social solutions” to get groups of friends and associates to form mini-communities on Facebook. Features like private walls, group chat and e-mail threads have tech circles and the blogosphere buzzing. Still though, the question remains: will people actually use Facebook Groups? Facebook Groups and Twitter Lists are the subject of this week’s Web Faceoff, our ongoing series where we pit two different tech products, tools or trends against each other for your vote. This week, we want to know which one you prefer: Facebook Groups or Twitter Lists? Do either pique your interest, or do they both disappoint? Let us know your answer in the poll. This week’s Web Faceoff closes at 12:00 PM ET on Monday, October 11. Reviews: Facebook, Twitter More About: facebook, Facebook groups, poll, twitter, Twitter Lists, web faceoff For more Social Media coverage:
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| Sparrow for Mac Simplifies Gmail for the Better Posted: 08 Oct 2010 08:21 PM PDT   This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.
Quick Pitch: Sparrow is a minimalist mail application for Mac. It was designed to keep things simple and efficient. No fancy stuff here — just your mail and nothing else. Genius Idea: E-mail has become such a large part of our lives that everyone from Google to individual developers are looking to build the best solution for faster, better e-mail management. Yet all of the bright new features sometimes make our e-mail inboxes more complex (and sometimes slower) than ever. But not Sparrow. The free Mac desktop client for Gmail approaches e-mail with Tweetie-like finesse and simplicity. If anything, Sparrow feels like a mobile e-mail client optimized for your desktop, which means it eliminates the chaff to focus on the wheat: exchanging e-mail. With Sparrow, you can send and receive e-mail, archive messages, filter to view starred items and drafts, and that’s about it. E-mails appear in a single column, and you can expand the client to view messages in a separate panel. Of course, there’s a command for everything, and Sparrow has all the basics covered, including e-mail threading. But the real magic is the speed at which messages flow in. This client is as fast as they come. Sparrow also comes with Growl notifications, an important feature that alerts Mac users to incoming messages. If you’re addicted to Priority Inbox, filters, labels and some of the other sophisticated but heavier conveniences that Gmail’s standard interface affords, then Sparrow isn’t the right e-mail client for you right now. Co-creator Dominique Leca tells us that Sparrow will evolve to include more features and support for additional e-mail providers. “Many features are planned and we’re already collecting user feedback via a GetSatisfaction widget on our site. Gmails labels will be the first new feature and we’ll keep refining the application and widening its potential customer base by adding support for new IMAP mail providers,” he says. Leca and his partner initially started Sparrow as a side project, but in matter of days their product has exploded on to the scene with 42,000 downloads in five days. “Now that we know Sparrow has potential we’re looking for investors,” Leca explains. Does the idea of a more minimalistic e-mail experience appeal to you? Share your thoughts on Sparrow in the comments.  Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
Reviews: Gmail, Google, tweetie More About: bizspark, email, gmail, sparrow For more Tech coverage:
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| FriendShuffle: StumbleUpon Meets Your Facebook and Twitter Friends Posted: 08 Oct 2010 07:08 PM PDT   With social media and the social graph becoming more prominent sources of news and information, a new service is looking to make it easy to browse through what your friends are sharing. FriendShuffle is a very simple tool that lets you surf through what your Facebook and Twitter friends are reading. Once you connect FriendShuffle to your Twitter and/or Facebook account, all you have to do is click “Shuffle” and you’ll be shown either links that your friends have “liked” on Facebook, or links that your friends on Twitter have shared. That’s really about it. Every time you click Shuffle, you’re taken to a new webpage. FriendShuffle displays which friend shared the link and how long ago they shared it. You also have the option to like a webpage as well, which automatically shares it on your Facebook wall and Twitter account. While it’d be nice for the service to be more up-front about the fact that it tweets and updates your Facebook status on your behalf, the sharing feature makes perfect sense. Essentially, FriendShuffle is a StumbleUpon powered by your social graph. It relies on the belief that your friends share content that you’ll find interesting. While that’s normally true, you will shuffle through links that you’d never visit normally. In other words, StumbleUpon is still more accurate at delivering content you’re going to like. FriendShuffle doesn’t beat StumbleUpon, but that doesn’t seem to be the point. instead, it’s more like Flipboard, which aggregates the links your friends are sharing into one simple interface. FriendShuffle’s simplicity makes it enjoyable to use, but we’re interested to see what the service does next to make it easier to discover the content shared by your social circles.  Image courtesy of Flickr, em2me. Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Twitter More About: facebook, FriendShuffle, stumbleupon, twitter For more Social Media coverage:
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| Conan O’Brien Gets His Own Foursquare Badge (and a Blimp) Posted: 08 Oct 2010 04:51 PM PDT   As Conan O’Brien prepares to make his big return to late night television on November 8, the comedian is also returning to his social media roots for a Foursquare promotion of giant proportions — blimp-sized, in fact. Team Coco, in partnership with AT&T, has launched the The Conan Blimp into the skies above Philadelphia. The orange eye sore will travel all over the east coast for the entire month of October; Conan fans who spot it can check in to the blimp to unlock a special Conan badge on Foursquare. The Conan Blimp also has its own website complete with a live cam and an always-updating map. True Conan fans that don’t want to miss their chance at the badge can also follow Team Coco on Foursquare and Twitter for updates on the blimp’s whereabouts. The campaign is as transparent as they come — those blimp checkins will get distributed to all corners of the social web and spread the message that Conan is back. Still, it’s a massive undertaking that is both strange and fascinating. The month-long east coast blimp trip is sure to be one giant spectacle, and it seems fairly safe to assume that it will attract a fair amount of stares — and possibly even Foursquare checkins. The blimp-badge partnership is also an interesting indicator of how location, checkins and entertainment marketing can go hand-in-hand. Foursquare tells us that the startup’s participation in the campaign was orchestrated by Jonathan Crowley, sibling to Co-founder Dennis Crowley and the man at the company handling media partnerships of late. What’s your take on The Conan Blimp and Foursquare badge? Marketing win or shameless ploy? Share your thoughts in the comments.  Image courtesy of Team Coco, Flickr Reviews: Flickr, Foursquare, Twitter More About: blimp, conan, conan o'brien, foursquare, MARKETING, team coco, trending For more Entertainment coverage:
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| The Reinvention of Print, One App at a Time Posted: 08 Oct 2010 03:07 PM PDT   On the ninth floor of a nondescript building in New York City is a very unique company that is poised to change the future of publishing. This company has more than 11,000 apps in the App Store, deals with some of the biggest players in publishing and is able to build apps both quickly and inexpensively. It’s also a company that, for now, is virtually unknown. The company is ScrollMotion, and while you may have never heard of it, you’ve surely heard of some of its biggest clients. Hearst, Random House, Houghton Mifflin, Simon and Schuster, and The Jim Henson Company are just some of the big name clients that use ScrollMotion to create digital, interactive content experiences for the iPhone, iPad and beyond. Hearst just launched its new Esquire app for the iPad to rave reviews. It, like the Esquire iPhone app, was built by ScrollMotion. Textbook maker Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is working with ScrollMotion to bring textbooks to the iPad, while also making the books more useful and including additional avenues for learning and understanding. We had a chance to speak with Josh Koppel, one of the co-founders of ScrollMotion, and get a hands-on look at how one company is doing its part to change the future of publishing. Repackaging Media for the FutureThe publishing industry is undergoing a significant transformation. It’s not just the death of the printed newspaper and the push to move from newsprint to the web; the publishing industry at large is becoming digitized. Thanks to devices like the Kindle, the emergence of smartphones and next generation devices like the iPad, it’s becoming more and more common for published works to be accessed digitally. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos predicts that e-book sales will eclipse the sale of paperbacks in the next nine to 12 months. Amazon already sells 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books and this is a trend that is only going to accelerate, especially as more and more titles become available in digital formats. The transition to digital presents some obvious challenges for the print industry — namely factoring old content for digital device types, screen sizes, form factors — but it offers a unique opportunity as well. Just as the music industry historically was able to benefit from the move from LP to 8-track, to cassette tape, to CD — essentially having the ability to repackage and resell existing content to buyers all over again — the publishing industry also has a chance at benefiting from the digitization of older content. However, as we’ve seen with music and home video sales, for these repackage attempts to be successful, the experience of the new media needs to be additive, not reductive. Whereas a consumer might replace a VHS collection with DVD or Blu-ray discs, you aren’t going to see the same level of mass repurchases with digital-only content, in large part because the digital downloads offer convenience, but rarely any other additive features. Thus, it isn’t outlandish to predict that the most successful publishers will be those that create better and more enhanced experiences with the new digital product, rather than just exporting an InDesign file out as an ePub or a PDF. The experience needs to be better. That’s where ScrollMotion comes in. Josh Koppel frequently talked about how a core part of his company’s mission is to make the experience additive, not reductive. Digital publishing should not be about putting a PDF of a magazine on an iPad, it should be about creating an experience that is better, specifically because it is digital and it can do more things than a static printed book. The content is dynamic. Kids and Education: Big Market, Big OpportunitiesScrollMotion has taken this approach to all of its apps, be it a magazine, a children’s book, a textbook or a traditional tome. Many individuals (myself included) were a bit surprised by the explosion of children’s apps and children’s book apps for the iPhone and iPad. Not ScrollMotion, however. Koppel said he always saw touch devices as the natural type of device that could be used to help kids learn and play. On that end, the apps that ScrollMotion has created for children’s books, like Sesame Street and Curious George, do more than just show a digital picture of the story book. The books are interactive, can be read aloud, and often include games and other extra features. But it goes beyond that. More and more children’s books — including those made by ScrollMotion — are including features like the ability to record your own narration. This is pretty cool on lots of levels because it not only makes the book more interactive, it also creates a time capsule of sorts of a child’s voice at a certain age (or a parent’s voice at a certain time period). ScrollMotion recently partnered with Griffin Technology to create the Woogie, a huggable iPhone case with a built-in speaker that can be used for playing back videos or reading books aloud. Likewise, ScrollMotion’s partnership with educational textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin is a play at transforming the the way K-12 students learn from textbooks. We got a chance to see a demo of an Algebra I textbook that ScrollMotion developed alongside Houghton Mifflin. In some aspects, the book was the same as any standard modern math textbook. However, where the digital version becomes additive is in its abilities to offer additional help, to offer scratch sheets for students to work out problems, and the inclusion of videos and animations that break down examples, problems and formulas at every step. A Digital Vision of the Future 10 Years in the MakingTen years ago, Josh Koppel published his first book. The book — Good/Grief — is a collection of images paired with pithy, witty prose. It was described as a “children’s book for adults.” The book, which is oddly shaped, too thick, difficult to manipulate and very quick to browse through, failed to take off. In retrospect, Koppel realizes that the traditional book he published in 2000 was really a prototype for the types of digital books he would help create in the future. The failure of his book got Koppel thinking about the future of publishing and how to take media and transform it for the digital age. Koppel started out by creating interactive liner notes for digital albums sold on iTunes. This company, TuneBooks, was doing stuff for the iPod (this is all pre-iPhone and pre-App Store) that made it possible to take album art and make it interactive. So you could use the scroll wheel to create a flip-book type of effect within the liner notes, zoning in on stuff like lyrics or images or motion-clips. This was very innovative stuff for its time. Much of what TuneBooks was doing in 2006 exists on a greater scale with iTunes LP today. Before the iPhone was announced — before the App Store existed, Koppel was already plotting a way to make media interactive on hand-held devices. When the iPhone was released, Koppel knew the device that would allow him to articulate his vision of new media had arrived. As soon as the iPhone SDK launched in March of 2008, Koppel started working on building apps and building a platform for bringing media — and interactive media at that — to the iPhone and iPod touch. As the App Store grew, ScrollMotion (the name of Koppel’s new company) grew too and partnered with more and more brands and publishers, and it began doing more and more to push the boundaries of content. The publishing industry eventually embraced the iPhone — though it took work and showing off just what was possible — but it’s the iPad that has really pushed the entire industry forward. The possibilities for what you can do with interactive media are now tangible and visible. It’s why so many big names are scrambling to get their content onto the iPad. It’s also why it’s important that the companies — like ScrollMotion, that help get that content onto digital devices — are able to be efficient. What Makes ScrollMotion Different: ScaleEleven thousand applications. We keep repeating that figure because it’s important. It’s a huge number and it represents reams and reams of content. You might expect that the company responsible for putting out 11,000 apps would be huge — with a squadron of developers and coders working round the clock. You’d be wrong. The ScrollMotion team is growing, but the operation isn’t even the size you would expect of a company with 100 apps to its name, let alone 100 times that. So how do they do it? Scale. Koppel’s co-founder, John Lema, has a background in designing automation systems for large banks and big agencies. ScrollMotion has developed a platform that allows their publishing partners to easily take content and format it, add extra features and then publish to iTunes. The system is fast and it’s also inexpensive. Koppel told me he feels confident that ScrollMotion can create content faster and for far less money than his competitors because of the process and platform practices that the company has in place. For bigger projects, like Esquire’s iPad app, more development time is obviously needed. Still, even with the case of the Esquire app, ScrollMotion takes an approach that differs from some of the major iPad magazine apps that have been released in the past six months. Visually, the design of Esquire for iPad is very similar to Conde Nast’s Wired app. Both apps feature unique ways of scrolling through and accessing content; both apps have built-in video, animation and audio clips; and both apps are beautiful. One of the biggest differences though is in the size of the apps. The Wired app is huge. Every month, Conde Nast manages to reduce the footprint a little more, but it still takes a very long time to download (via in-app purchase) and can wreak havoc on iPad backups if you have, let’s say, six issues stored. Esquire’s app is less than 100 megabytes in size, despite being just as interactive. This is in part because ScrollMotion decided to use HTML5 for the app. The advantage of HTML5 is multifaceted. First, it means that the number of images needed in the app are greatly reduced because text can be displayed and styled as markup, and not static image files. This also gives the added benefit of making text selectable, which means portions can be copied, pasted and shared via e-mail or other social services. The final advantage is that because the app is built on an HTML5 base, the process of taking the app from the iPad to another platform is going to be less complicated. Portability and platform agnosticism is going to become increasingly important to publishers as more and more devices enter the market that are capable of displaying interactive media. The tough part of the digital transition for the magazine industry is that until digital supplants printed text, publications that want to do digital publishing — in a way that is most attractive and most enticing to readers and subscribers — need to devote the time and resources to art directing the layout of both the print and digital versions. HTML5 and other platform agnostic technologies have to be part of the bigger long-term picture because the iPad might be the only touch tablet of its kind today, but in the next six months, the landscape could be very different. Beyond the bells and whistles — the fact that ScrollMotion is actively scaling and working to make sure its platform can be ready to go other places is what we find truly revolutionary. It’s not just about making content that looks great and that offers a great experience. It’s about making it possible to replicate that experience and to do it many times over. The Revolution Will Be DigitizedWithout a doubt, the World Wide Web has revolutionized publishing to a degree that is impossible to overstate. However, as the web evolves and connectivity becomes ubiquitous — devices become smaller, more powerful and more common — the future of publishing goes beyond just the web browser. Slowly but surely, the novelty of reading a book or magazine on an electronic screen is going away. The world of auto-refreshing screens and digital newspapers that Steven Spielberg portrayed in Minority Report isn’t really that unimaginable. While consumers needs and habits are making the shift from analog to digital a priority, it’s innovation and software that is ultimately powering what we can do. This is just the first of many phases in the digital media revolution. Right now, we’re taking older content and making it better and more accessible on a digital device. In the future, content is going to be built specifically for these devices. That’s when the script will really be flipped. ScrollMotion, a company that isn’t a household name, is helping usher in this next wave. We can’t wait to see what comes next. More Tech Resources from Mashable:
Reviews: App Store, Blu, iPhone More About: e-books, esquire, griffin technology, hearst, Houghton Mifflin, ipad, iphone, Josh Koppel, magazines, print, publishing, random house, scrollmotion, Simon and Schuster, Wired, woogie For more Tech coverage:
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| Merton Curates Our Favorite YouTube Videos This Week: The Improv Edition Posted: 08 Oct 2010 02:47 PM PDT   For this week’s YouTube Roundup, we’ve let viral star Merton the Chatroulette Piano Guy call the shots when it comes to theme selection. This week’s through-line of choice? Improvisation, of course. While I’m sure you’ve all enjoyed these weekly YouTube Roundups as they are — whose themes I have left to my own tyrannical whims — it’s time for a little bit of a change. Time to mix things up. Time to improvise. Every week from now on, a different YouTube star will help us out with the theme. By now, you all probably know the background of the viral virtuoso known simply as “Merton”: He entered the cultural zeitgeist a few months back after he started composing off-the-cuff jams during Chatroulette sessions, and then rose to new heights when those vids went viral and people started thinking he was musician Ben Folds (who created “Odes to Merton” for his part). And while we now know they’re not one and the same, the duo’s work has truly been a digital delight. Check out Merton’s pick — as well as those of the Mash staff — below. And, while you’re at it, get in the spirit and do something crazy this weekend. That microwavable pizza and Ballykissangel box set will hold… Reggie Watts, "Sugar Got It Going On"Merton: Reggie Watts is a comedian, singer, beatboxer, impressionist and actor. He improvises all of his material. This piece is a good example of his more musical side. He creates an elaborate background texture with several layers of electronically-looped vocal sounds, then improvises a story and lyrics. I think this song has a lot of heart, and is a great example of spontaneous music-making. John Scatman, "I'm the Scatman"Blake Robinson: I just remembered this from Beavis & Butthead -- and scat is improvisational at its core. Extras, "David Bowie"Lauren Rubin: "Little fat man who sold his soul...." Classic scene from Ricky Gervais's Extras. Adventures in Babysitting - "Babysitting Blues"Amy-Mae Elliott: "Nobody gets outta dis place without singin' da blues." Trigger Happy TV - "Giant Phone + Train"Matt Silverman: This is what my commute is like every day. Black Tie BeachErica Swallow: Real-life people making a scene (over and over again) around NYC... you gotta love Improv Everywhere. The latest "Black Tie Beach" stunt looks especially fun. Merton Video #5 : Street Piano (8.10.10)Brenna Ehrlich: Because he's the curator. And because I'm having horrible flashbacks to improv class in college... Reviews: YouTube More About: chatroulette, favorite-youtube-videos, humor, merton, pop culture, video, viral video For more Web Video coverage:
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| Posted: 08 Oct 2010 02:04 PM PDT   If you’re a fan of Google’s voice-powered directory, 1-800-GOOG-411, you have a little more than a month to enjoy its many splendors; the service is going dark on November 12. Back in 2007, Google launched GOOG-411 to help users easily call businesses around the U.S. and Canada via voice recognition. According to the Google Blog, this was the first such service Google offered and has laid the groundwork for a ton of its more sophisticated, smartphone-oriented fare — such as voice search, voice input and voice actions. So you shouldn’t mourn too much for the loss of GOOG-411; its death was not in vain — it served its purpose (contributing to present innovations), and according to Google, resources will now be focused on even more steps forward: “Our success encouraged us to aim for more innovation. Thus, we're putting all of our resources into speech-enabling the next generation of Google products and services across a multitude of languages.” And for those of you out there who don’t have smartphones (only 17% of Americans own one) you can still text the name and location of a business to “GOOGLE” (466453) to score the number you require. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jayfish Reviews: Google, iStockphoto More About: goog-411, Google, Google Voice, Mobile 2.0 For more Tech coverage:
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| AT&T Raises Early Upgrade Fees Posted: 08 Oct 2010 01:55 PM PDT   If you’re an AT&T customer looking to upgrade your smartphone mid-contract, beware, your upgrade pricing options just got a lot more expensive. As first noted by Boy Genius Report, AT&T has raised its smartphone early upgrade fee to $200 on top of the new two-year contract price. Before October 3, when the new policy went into effect, it was $75 to upgrade your smartphone before the 18-month mark in a two-year contract. Frankly, I’m impressed the early upgrade fee was ever as low as $75 for smartphones. As it stands, the $200 early upgrade fee will still end up costing you less than buying a phone without extending your contract, at least in most circumstances. AT&T used the BlackBerry Torch as an example; the phone, which is $199.99 with a two-year contract, is now $399.99 for customers who agree to early upgrades. The no-commitment price is $499.99, so a customer saves $100 so long as they don’t mind adding more time onto their contract. Realistically, most consumers are probably fine keeping a phone — especially a smartphone — for 18 months, especially if that means they can upgrade to a new phone for less money. The policy really affects customers who lose a phone or for phones that break after the one-year manufacturer warranty period but before the 18-month mark. AT&T is sure to be criticized for the new policy, but at least in the U.S., the company isn’t alone with its early upgrade practices. Early upgrade pricing has increased across the board with major carriers. Beyond that, early termination fees are on the rise too. AT&T raised its early-termination fee from $175 to $325 earlier this year. Verizon still “wins” (or loses, depending on how you look at it) that contest; the nation’s largest carrier charges $350 to terminate a contract for an “advanced device.” While it’s easy to point to European tariff models that combine phone service and device fees into the monthly bill or that sell phones at unsubsidized pricing as a better model, the failure of the Nexus One shows that prospect isn’t necessarily compelling for U.S. consumers. Frankly, we’re not really sure of anyone in the world who is happy with the cost associated with buying or upgrading his or her cellphone. It’s an expensive process that has only become more expensive now that smartphones are essentially pocket computers. Mashable readers, how often do you upgrade your smartphone? Would a $200 early upgrade fee prevent you from getting a new device, or is it worth it to have the latest and greatest thing? Reviews: Mashable, iPhone More About: att, early upgrade fees, smartphones, trending, Wireless For more Mobile coverage:
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| 5 Tools for Keeping Track of Your Passwords Posted: 08 Oct 2010 01:34 PM PDT   This post originally appeared on My Life Scoop, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about using social media and technology for a more connected life. Time and time again, we’re warned of the importance of having strong, secure online passwords. Phishing scams — where legitimate looking e-mails and websites try to trick you into entering in your sensitive login information to a bank site, e-mail host or social network — are bad enough when a scammer is able to compromise your account, but the result can be many times worse if you use that same password for a number of online accounts. Likewise, when crackers breach servers for various web services and expose the user information to other ne’er-do-wells, your accounts could be at the fate of many shady characters. That’s why it’s more important than ever to use strong, secure and unique passwords for each of your online accounts. Of course, that sounds great in theory, but the main reason we often reuse the same password or passphrase is because trying to remember 50 different logins, each with various alphanumeric strings, is just not realistic. Fortunately, there are some great tools and services available to users to not only keep your passwords secure, but to also make them accessible and usable from multiple computers or web browsers. Here are five of my favorites. 1. 1Password 1Password from Agile Web Solutions is my favorite way to manage, create and securely access my passwords from a Mac, iPhone, iPad or Android device. The program is $39.95 (a family license for 5 users is available for $59.95) but you can install it on as many of your own computers as you want. It’s a great way to create and fill-in passwords across the web. The application has plugins for all the major web browsers — Safari, Firefox and Chrome, and you can also pull up your passwords from the application itself. The app works like this: When you’re on a website and you create a new account, 1Password will prompt you to save that account to its database. In the future, rather than having to type it in manually or rely on your browser’s built-in manager, you can just use 1Password to automatically fill in your username and password data. Even better, 1Password includes a truly fantastic password generator that lets you create robust passwords of a length that you choose. You can generate a password for an account and then automatically save it. 1Password saves all of your passwords and login information into its own secure database that is stored on your computer, but where 1Password really shines is with its ability to sync with Dropbox. Dropbox is a free service that lets you keep a cloud copy of anything within the Dropbox folder on your desktop. That folder is then accessible across computers and devices. Any change to that folder is synced across every connected computer. 1Password can use Dropbox to store its secure database, which means that if you use multiple Macs or want to have constant syncing on the iPhone, iPad or Android, you can. 1Password has a beta version of its app available for Windows. Like the Mac app, the Windows version can connect to a Dropbox account and sync its database with other platforms. 1Password can even store other form information like credit cards, address information, server logins for your website and software serial numbers. 2. LastPass LastPass is a very popular cross-platform password manager that stores all of its data in the cloud. It works on Windows and Mac and in every major web browser. Like 1Password, LastPass can automatically save your logins, help you generate safe and secure passwords and automatically fill in your passwords when you visit a site. The difference is that instead of storing its database on your computer or in Dropbox, it’s all stored on LastPass’s servers. LastPass actually has a really robust set of security around your data and if its center is compromised, your data still can’t be accessed. LastPass is free to use but for $12 a year, you can gain access to LastPass’s many mobile apps (including iPhone, BlackBerry and Android) and gain access to priority support. It also means you get to skip any advertisements. 3. KeePass and KeePassX KeePass and KeePassX (which is KeePass but for Mac or Linux) is a free, open-source password manager. It works very much like 1Password, in that the database is stored on your local computer. Like 1Password, you can use Dropbox to keep KeePass synced across machines and profiles. KeePass can run off a USB drive, which makes it a great choice for users who frequently work on different machines but don’t want to leave any of their personal data on those machines. KeePass isn’t as user-friendly as LastPass or 1Password, but its dedicated userbase loves it because it can be extended and used in a variety of ways. Plus, it’s free. 4. RoboForm RoboForm is very similar to 1Password, but it’s just for Windows users. It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and with Safari and Opera via a bookmarklet. RoboForm also has mobile apps for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and Symbian. Like KeePass, you can even run it off of a USB drive, which is great for users who want a way to keep their passwords with them and use RoboForm on various computers they use, but don’t want to have to install a program on each of those computers. You can also use RoboForm with Dropbox, which makes using it across machines that much easier. RoboForm is $29.95 for a single-user/computer license and you can get RoboForm with two computer licenses for $39.95. 5. Firefox Sync Formerly known as Mozilla Weave, Firefox Sync is a plugin for Firefox 3.5/3.6 that will also be an integrated feature in the upcoming Firefox 4. Firefox Sync is a pretty cool concept and it takes a slightly different approach to password management and syncing from the other tools in this list. Firefox Sync securely syncs and protects your passwords, bookmarks and browser tabs (you can choose to sync all or none of these items). When you login to another computer with Firefox on it, you can just login to Sync and have access to your existing data and even pull up tabs that are open on your other computer. When you log out, all of that information disappears. Sync also has iPhone and Android apps so you can bring your tabs over to those mobile devices. The upcoming Firefox Mobile for MeeGo and Android will let you access your passwords securely and remotely as well. By being built into the browser, Sync is a great way for Firefox users to keep track of their passwords. Because it is part of Firefox, Firefox Sync is really designed for people who use Firefox as their primary web browser. If you use Google Chrome, Internet Explorer or Safari, you’ll want to look at the other options listed above. Do you use a password manager or syncing tool? Let us know in the comments and also share any of your best password tips. Update: Several readers in the comments mentioned Passpack, a tool that’s really great for sharing and keeping track of passwords for teams and groups. More Tech Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of Flickr, Erica Swallow Reviews: 1Password, Android, Chrome, Dropbox, Firefox, Flickr, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, KeePassX, LastPass, Linux, Opera, Safari, Windows More About: 1password, Browsers, Dropbox, Firefox, Firefox Sync, KeePass, KeePassX, LastPass, password, password management, password manager, password managers, passwords, RoboForm, secure passwords, security, tech, web apps For more Tech coverage:
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| News Publishers Prepare Apps for Samsung Tablet Posted: 08 Oct 2010 01:19 PM PDT   Although many news publishers were slow to release apps for Apple’s iPad, it appears several are eager to appear on Samsung’s forthcoming tablet device, the Galaxy Tab, as quickly as possible. According to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Company, News Corp and the Gannett Company (publisher of USA Today) are developing apps for the Android-based tablet, which is scheduled to become available to consumers in the UK on November 1 and in the U.S. later this year. The New York Times will be preloaded on certain versions of the device and available for free until it begins charging for access to all of its online content, according to one source. The tablet sports a 7-inch TFT-LCD display with 1024×600-pixel resolution, Android 2.2 support, a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 512 of RAM, 16/32 GB of internal memory with upgrade options, and Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. It comes with not one, but two cameras: a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash in the back, plus a second 1.3-megapixel camera for video chats in the front. The battery, Samsung claims, can last up to seven hours of movie playback. Unlike the iPad, it offers support for popular multimedia formats such as Flash. Publishers plan to adapt the apps they build for the Galaxy Tab for additional Android devices in the future, the WSJ claims. In addition to the Galaxy Tab, News Corp and Pearson PLC, which publishes The Financial Times, are also reportedly working on apps for Research in Motion’s forthcoming tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, set for release in early 2011. We’ve reached out to various magazine publishers, but none have yet confirmed that they are developing apps for either the Galaxy Tab or the BlackBerry PlayBook. In recent conversations, publishers have told Mashable they are eager to embrace new platforms and devices, partly because they offer some negotiating power with Apple, which currently dominates the tablet market with its top-selling iPad. Newspapers and magazines have not been given prominent placement in the App Store, compared to e-books, they complain; media outlets are shuffled in with various kinds of reading apps in the News section, and magazines are relegated to the broad and overwhelming Lifestyle category. More significantly, newspapers and magazines have been unable to offer subscriptions through the service, a staple of their business models. As one executive put it, “We just hope it’s not iPadville for the rest of our lives.” Disclosure: USA Today is a Mashable content partner. Reviews: Android, App Store, Mashable, news More About: apple, blackberry playbook, galaxy tab, ipad, magazines, media, new york times, News Corp, newspapers, playbook, RIM, samsung, Samsung Galaxy Tab, tablets, usa today, wall street journal For more Tech coverage:
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| United Arab Emirates Drops BlackBerry Ban Posted: 08 Oct 2010 12:51 PM PDT   The United Arab Emirates has reached an agreement with BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, putting an end to plans to ban the device in the U.A.E. The ban, which was to go into effect on Monday, has been scrapped now that BlackBerry services are reportedly compliant with the U.A.E.’s telecommunications regulatory framework. Whether RIM made any policy changes to avoid the ban isn’t clear. (We’ve reached out to RIM for comment.) The U.A.E. telecommunications authority told The New York Times that the Canadian smartphone maker showed “positive engagement” in reaching a compromise. So what has changed? The New York Times spoke with analysts that posited two scenarios. The first scenario is that RIM agreed to provide the U.A.E. with an encryption key that could be used in extreme circumstances to have limited access to BlackBerry data transferred across BIS or BES systems. The second scenario is that the U.A.E. backed off amid fears of a public backlash, while acknowledging that the potential for national security threats via BlackBerry services are extremely limited. The backlash from businesses that use BlackBerry services in the U.A.E. — which includes those in Dubai — would have been substantial, according to analysts. The U.A.E. isn’t the only country that has taken issue with the way RIM handles BlackBerry data. Saudi Arabia also threatened a ban (the threat has since been dropped and RIM and the Saudi government reached an agreement) and India has also expressed its concerns. In August, Indian authorities agreed to a two-month study of a proposal submitted by RIM as a way to work with Indian law enforcement agencies. Regardless, the good news is that U.A.E. residents’ BlackBerry usage can continue undeterred. Reviews: Mashable More About: blackberry, blackberry ban, RIM, UAE, united arab emirates For more Mobile coverage:
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| New Yahoo App for iPhone and Android to Support Mobile to PC Video Calls Posted: 08 Oct 2010 10:22 AM PDT   Yahoo is said to be prepping a new mobile app release for iPhone and Android that would bring video calls over Wi-Fi and carrier networks to Yahoo Messenger users. Yahoo VP of Mobile David Katz revealed the company’s plans to Reuters yesterday, explaining that the yet-to-be-approved app would be free, work over Wi-Fi and carrier networks, and support video calls via Yahoo Messenger from mobile to mobile or mobile to PC. If Katz’s statements prove to be true, Yahoo’s mobile video calling technology will be more feature-rich and have a much larger reach than Apple’s. FaceTime works between iPhone 4 users only and limits support to calls over Wi-Fi to maintain video call quality. Of course, Apple has complete control over whether Yahoo’s iPhone version of the video calling application sees the light of day. The Cupertino, California-based company has already let two challengers offering similar functionality into the store — Fring and Tango — so we don’t anticipate there being too much red tape. What’s more interesting is that Yahoo seems to be positioning its 81-million-member-strong Messenger client as a VoIP video challenger to Skype. If Yahoo can introduce an application that supports high-quality video calls (which won’t be an easy feat) between mobile devices and PCs, it will certainly have a distinct advantage over Skype for now. Image courtesy of clevercupcakes, Flickr Reviews: Flickr, Fring, Skype More About: apple, fring, Mobile 2.0, mobile video calling, Skype, Yahoo, Yahoo Messenger For more Mobile coverage:
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| 5 Game-Changing Social Media Marketing Campaigns [Mashable Awards] Posted: 08 Oct 2010 09:54 AM PDT
Social media affords brands limitless potential in the realm of creativity. The most creative of the bunch find a way to make something magical or unthinkable happen. Remember when the Old Spice guy’s viral videos were the only thing anyone could talk about? Or what about the controversial Foursquare badge crafted by MTV that encourages young adults to check in at STD clinics? These are not your garden variety social media campaigns. What follows is a list of the top five creative social media campaigns we’ve seen in the past year. This list is by no means objective or definitive — it’s your job to decide the real winners. In fact, you can voice your opinions on the most creative social media campaigns of the year by casting votes for your favorites in our fourth annual Mashable Awards. 1. Live Off Groupon Josh Stevens is spending an entire year living off Groupons — no home, no cash, no belongings (other than what he can barter for), nothing but unlimited Groupons, a laptop and a mobile phone. Stevens was selected, after a grueling social media audition process, in May 2009 to live on Groupons alone in the very unusual Live Off Groupon challenge. Now nearing the half-way point of his journey, Stevens has spent upward of 150 days traveling 19 states, using the Groupons at his disposal for remarkable adventures such as test driving a Nascar stock car or trading them for flights, clothing, toiletries and other necessities. Part of the deal is that Stevens must update the world with tweets, Facebook posts and blog entries about the strange goings-on of his now nomadic lifestyle. In the process, he’s managed to create a highly engaged audience — he has nearly 10,000 fans on Facebook — anxious to help in anyway they can. In fact, Stevens credits his social media champions for the relative ease of the journey thus far. For example, a single Facebook status update was able to get him a few dozen airfare offers. Point proved. When Stevens completes the mission — and there’s no doubt in my mind he will — he will walk away from this unusual campaign with $100,000 in cash. As for Groupon, they’re already reaping the benefits of a massive social media footprint created by Stevens’ Groupon exchanges and a number of media appearances. This campaign’s a real winner because it’s crazy, human and social media-driven. But, we highly doubt that anyone, let alone Groupon and its latest harebrained Groupspawn campaign, can replicate the magic of this one. 2. DEWmocracy 2 Take a trip to the nearest convenience store and you’ll find a new fan-created flavor of Mountain Dew on shelves — Mountain Dew White Out. The White Out flavor represents the completion of a more than year-long social media endeavor for the soda maker. In July 2009, Mountain Dew began its social media quest to find extreme fans to help craft an all-new flavor under the campaign moniker DEWmocracy 2. Fifty applicants were selected to sample and record their reactions to seven experimental flavors. The top three flavors were chosen and testers were organized into product teams called Flavor Nations — one for each flavor. Each team was tasked with the responsibility of naming its flavor, designing a label, selecting an agency and supervising the marketing and advertising plans for flavor launch. On April 19 2010, the three new flavors — Distortion, Typhoon and White Out — hit retail shelves, at which point the teams were tasked with using their social capital to solicit votes for their flavor. More than 2 million votes later, White Out is now a permanent part of the Mountain Dew product line. Mountain Dew wins social media gold in our eyes because the campaign is as genuine as they come — no gimmicks here, just real fans and tangible results. The fan-vetted flavor was no cheap win for the company, and it set the bar extremely high for brands looking to follow in its footsteps. 3. Old Spice GuyThis year may be forever remembered as the year one man with great abs made people talk about men’s body wash. Actor Isaiah Mustafa reprised his role as the Old Spice guy in a made-for-web social media blitz that involved more than 180 hilarious YouTube videos — each with a homemade feel — directed at Twitterers, bloggers, celebrities and your everyday Joe Schmoes. Skeptics could have easily written off the campaign as nothing but an agency-produced, brand-removed campaign, but history tells a different story. Wieden + Kennedy were able to craft an Emmy award-winning campaign that was almost universally loved. The videos attracted millions upon millions of views, thousands of comments, celebrity responses and a smattering of press coverage. Visible Measures even named it one of the fastest-growing online video campaigns of all time. The Old Spice guy became such a cultural phenomenon that men everywhere (we’re looking at you Ben Parr) still try and fail at assuming Mustafa’s characteristic Old Spice guy tone and accent. Nice try guys. 4. Ford Facebook Reveal New cars are always revealed at auto shows; it’s just the way the industry works. American automaker Ford might have made a significant enough impact with its 2011 Ford Explorer Facebook Reveal to forever change the status quo. Earlier this year, Ford bucked with tradition and turned to Facebook for an exclusive reveal that included massive build up, along with launch day videos, wall question-and-answer sessions and chats with executives. Essentially, Ford brought the auto show to Facebook and with it they found immense success. By the numbers, Ford garnered 50,000 “Likes” on the Explorer’s Page, saw 11,000 YouTube video views and found that 25,000 individuals priced new Explorers on Ford.com all in a single day. Stats aside, the true testament to a successful campaign is whether there are copycats. Sure enough, the luxury automaker Bentley shortly followed suit with its own online reveal. Of course, Bentley’s campaign didn’t match the fanfare of the original, but we’re confident Ford has paved the way for plenty more Facebook auto reveals. 5. GYT Foursquare Badge Can a Foursquare badge change the way young adults approach uncomfortable subjects like getting tested for STDs? MTV teamed up with Foursquare to find out. The two created the Get Yourself Tested badge to encourage checkins at STD clinics, and preliminary results show that the campaign is working — thousands of badges were doled out in just the first few weeks alone. The subject matter may be as controversial as handing out condoms at schools, but that doesn’t make it any less creative. Foursquare checkins are social in nature. You checkin at a venue, and if you want points and the chance to earn badges, you’ll need to share that checkin with friends. With thousands of GYT badges being earned and shared by young adults and their legions of friends through Twitter and Facebook updates, this campaign has a huge reach. For better or worse, MTV actually has the power to change a longstanding stigma around STD testing, simply because the company employed the Foursquare GYT badge as a reward. There’s not a single social media campaign that matches this one in terms of gumption, and that’s exactly why it deserves recognition. Which of the above campaigns was your favorite? Do you have a top five of your own? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to nominate! The Mashable Awards Gala at Cirque du Soleil Zumanity (Vegas) In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, The Mashable Awards Gala event will bring together the winners and nominees, the Mashable community, partners, media, the marketing community, consumer electronics and technology brands and attendees from the 2011 International CES Convention to Las Vegas on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Together, we will celebrate the winners and the community of the Mashable Awards at the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity stage in the beautiful New York New York Hotel. The event will include acts and performances from our partner Cirque du Soleil Zumanity. In addition, there will be special guest presenters and appearances. Date: Thursday, January 6th, 2011 (during International CES Convention week) Thanks to our sponsors: Mashable Awards Gala VIP Lounge sponsor:
Influxis specializes in the deployment of creative streaming solutions. Services include large scale deployment, mobile streaming, turn-key applications, and enterprise support with custom network options. With the unique combination of a worldwide network, knowledgeable developer support and nearly a decade of streaming media experience, Influxis is an essential partner to businesses, advertisers, developers, educators, and others who seek expertise in innovative streaming. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Lobsterclaws Reviews: Facebook, Foursquare, Mashable, Twitter, YouTube, iStockphoto More About: dewmocracy 2, ford, ford explorer, groupon, Isaiah Mustafa, MARKETING, mashable awards, mashable awards 2010, most creative campigns, mountain dew, old spice, social media, social media campaign, trending For more Social Media coverage:
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| Hulu Preparing for $2 Billion IPO Next Year [REPORT] Posted: 08 Oct 2010 09:32 AM PDT   Hulu is reportedly preparing to go public with a $2 billion initial public offering (IPO) that could raise as much as $300 million for the world’s second-largest video website. Hulu hasn’t fully committed to an IPO, though it seems like a strong possibility amidst growing competitors such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Google, which owns YouTube. According to Reuters, The IPO will likely be led by Morgan Stanley. It seems as if Hulu has decided that it has to act before its better-financed competitors go all-out in the war for the premium online video market, a sector that Hulu dominates thanks to its large library of TV shows like House, Family Guy, Saturday Night Live and Glee. The video service benefits from the fact that it is owned by NBC Universal, Fox Entertainment Group and ABC, which gives it unique access to their content (Providence Equity Partners, which helped fund the project, owns 10% as well). Other options reportedly being considered include raising money from its existing partners or getting another media company to contribute content. CBS, owned by Viacom and National Amusements, is the glaring missing pillar in Hulu’s vast array of media partners. We can see why Hulu would be strongly considering an IPO: It just needs more resources to fight off some very strong competition. It’s unclear how much revenue Hulu Plus, the company’s new premium subscription service, is generating, but it’s likely not enough for it to invest in new distribution channels and purchase the additional content it needs to stick around for the long haul. Still, Hulu’s biggest challenge may not be Netflix or Google, but traditional TV itself; a recent (unscientific) poll of Mashable readers indicates that traditional TV and cable are how most people still watch their favorite shows. Reviews: Amazon.com, Google, Hulu, Mashable, YouTube More About: abc, business, disney, Fox, hulu, ipo, nbc, netflix, News Corp, universal, youtube For more Business coverage:
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| Make Your iPhone Child-Safe with Six-Armed Plush Case Posted: 08 Oct 2010 08:57 AM PDT   The other day I saw a child on the subway, intently tapping away at his mother’s iPhone 4. My first thought? “That kid is SO going to drop that. Heck, I would SO drop that.” Too bad his mother hadn’t invested in a Woogie, Griffin Technology and app developer ScrollMotion’s “huggable” case and media player. Launched just last month — and tested/played with/approved by Mashable’s Christina Warren last week — the Woogie is a six-armed, plush case that protects your iPhone or iPod touch from that tiny whirlwind of destruction that is your child. It sports a touch-through screen protector — so your kids can play Angry Birds to their hearts’ content — and a built-in speaker with a headphone jack. The toy even has its own free app [iTunes link], which features a Sesame Street eBook sampler that reads each story sample aloud and lets kids and parents record their own voices, among other features. Kids are getting more and more comfortable with tech and social media these days — remember the 2-year-old and the iPad, and the fact that 92% of toddlers have an online presence? Toys like the Woogie only serve to indicate that the next generation of early adopters are adopting, well, even earlier. And to think — the most sophisticated toy I had as a kid was the ever-terrifying Teddy Ruxpin. How times have changed. Check out the video below to witness a child frisking about with her Woogie, which retails for about $19.99. Reviews: Mashable, iPhone More About: Children, griffin, Hardware, iphone, scrollmotion, tech, toy, woogie For more Tech coverage:
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| Motorola Defies the Elements with New Android Device [VIDEO] Posted: 08 Oct 2010 08:47 AM PDT   The Motorola Defy is one of the first rugged mobile devices that doesn’t sacrifice performance. Its durable shell is capable of deflecting drops, scratches and water. It also packs a decent hardware set, complete with a 3.7-inch touchscreen, an 800Mhz processor and a 5-megapixel camera, along with standards like GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Many devices that claim to resist the elements simply don’t. I know this because there are people in my life who are capable of destroying mobile devices like nobody’s business (Direct quote: “I’ve spilled water on my phone dozens of times, I don’t understand how it could break after dropping it in the toilet once.”) Most of the devices able to withstand this abuse, however, are bulky, offer little beyond basic phone functionality and sell for prohibitively expensive rates. I was skeptical when we first reported on the Motorola Defy, but the video below validates its claims of durability. Although Defy doesn’t run the latest version of Android (it runs Android 2.1), it promises to be better than virtually any other rugged mobile device that’s currently on the market. The price for the phone, which is scheduled to launch in Europe by the end of the year, has not yet been disclosed. Reviews: Android More About: android, gear, Moto, Motorola, Motorola Defy, rugged For more Tech coverage:
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| 9 Free Resources for Learning Photoshop Posted: 08 Oct 2010 08:19 AM PDT   This post originally appeared on My Life Scoop, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about using social media and technology for a more connected life. If, like most people, you haven't "layered" since last winter and only "merge" at speeds of 60 mph and over, getting accustomed to the lingo and layout of Photoshop can be daunting. These nine free resources are good places to learn how to lasso, dodge, burn, paint, filter or do whatever else you need to in order to accomplish your desired photo editing task. If we didn’t mention your favorite Photoshop tutorial, add it in the comments below and let us know how it helped you in your design endeavors. 1. Adobe Tutorials For a thorough introduction to the basics of Photoshop, starting at the source might be your best bet. Adobe provides tutorial videos that include everything from basic tool tours to step-by-step instructions on how to create a panorama. The commentary is a little vanilla, but it gets the job done. 2. You Suck at PhotoshopMix together a healthy amount of sarcasm, a handful of cuss words, a narrator apparently bitter about a recent divorce, and Adobe's tutorials, and you get the more entertaining and appropriately named Photoshop guide: You Suck at Photoshop. Using creative examples (like how to Photoshop a "treacherous commitment band" wedding ring out of a photo), Donnie Hoyle gives step-by-step instructions for practical Photoshop tricks. 3. YouTubeIf there's a Photoshop feat you're hoping to conquer, chances are there is a YouTube video that can help you. These ten videos will get you started. 4. Toolkit Tutorial Photoshop icons can be mystifying to the uninitiated, but it's much easier to figure out how to work in Photoshop if you start with an awareness of its basic tools. This tutorial teaches you what all those little Photoshop graphics mean and when to use each tool. 5. Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet Learning the keyboard shortcuts for the most frequent operations will save your time and your wrists. Print out a cheat sheet to keep by your computer for easy reference as you memorize. 6. Photoshop Forums Sometimes it's best to ask. If you have a question about Photoshop, find it in an existing thread or create your own on this forum. 7. Special Effect Tutorials Bored with cropping and color correction? Jump into dramatic layouts and artistic effects — like "How to create a space girl photo manipulation” — on this site. 8. Free Brush Roundup Like painters, Photoshop geeks choose different brushes to create different effects on photos. Brushes determine the shape of the line that the paint brush tool and eraser create. Experiment with the free brushes that are rounded up on this site. This tutorial will teach you how to install them, and this tutorial will help you "brush up" on potential designs using brushes. 9. Troubleshooting Photoshop for Dummies Like most large programs, Photoshop occasionally freezes, freaks out or otherwise ignores what you want it to do. Follow the steps in this free troubleshooting guide to fix the problem or to bail by shutting the program down. These nine resources should have you on your way to being a Photoshop pro. Let us know which Photoshop tutorials and resources you recommend in the comments below. More Web Design Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of Flickr, Shermeee Reviews: Adobe Photoshop, Flickr, YouTube More About: adobe photoshop, design, Photoshop, tutorial, tutorials, video tutorial, web design, web design tools For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| The Tangled Web of Lawsuits in Mobile [INFOGRAPHIC] Posted: 08 Oct 2010 08:07 AM PDT   Who’s suing whom in the mobile industry? It can be a tough question to answer, even if you’re closely following all the lawsuits that have been thrown around in the last couple of years. Nokia sued Apple and vice versa, with both companies claiming the other was infringing on its patents. Both companies have also slapped other companies with lawsuits, again mostly over patent infringement or price fixing. Add other IT giants, such as Kodak, RIM, HTC, Google, Sony Ericcson and LG into the mix, and soon it’ll feel like everyone is suing everyone else. This handy infographic, created by data journalist and designer, David McCandless, tries to make a little more sense out of this mess. It differentiates between ongoing and finished lawsuits with different arrows, while the size of the cubes representing the various companies approximates their revenue. Finally, if a company’s cube is red, it means its revenue is decreasing, while gray cubes represent companies with increasing revenues.  Image courtesy of Flickr, Thomas Roche Reviews: Flickr, Google More About: apple, htc, infographic, lawsuits, mobile industry, Nokia, patent For more Business coverage:
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| Google Celebrates John Lennon’s 70th Birthday with Video Doodle Posted: 08 Oct 2010 07:23 AM PDT John Lennon’s would-be birthday may be tomorrow, but Google UK is celebrating a day early with a simple yet lovely video Doodle set to Lennon’s simple yet lovely, “Imagine.” In the past, we’ve seen Google get creative with its Doodles, offering up playable games of Pac-man, bouncing balls and elaborate murder scenes. Today’s video marks another clever addition to a growing oeuvre of electronic art. Again, the video isn’t in the U.S. yet, but if you click over to Google UK, you can check it out for yourself right now. Happy Birthday, John — wherever you are. Reviews: Google More About: Beatles, Google, google doodle, john lennon, music, trending, video For more Entertainment coverage:
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| Square Shows How Smooth iPhone Credit Card Swiping Can Be [VIDEO] Posted: 08 Oct 2010 07:13 AM PDT   Besides processing your payments using only an iPhone and a special card reader, Square can make you look cool and increase your appeal to the opposite sex. Don’t believe us? Well, just check the new promotional video by Square, embedded below. If you aren’t familiar with Square, it’s a mobile payment processing service founded by Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey. Well-funded and ambitious, Square aims to become the standard for mobile payment processing, especially for small businesses. Check out a video of Jack Dorsey’s presentation of Square at this year’s DEMO conference, in which he explains what Square is about and why he prefers Square’s growth to be slow, but without glitches. Reviews: Twitter More About: credit-card, iphone, Mobile 2.0, payment, Square, swipe For more Tech coverage:
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| 10 Captivating Time-Lapse Design Videos Posted: 08 Oct 2010 07:03 AM PDT   The design process is fascinating, but almost always takes more time than the casual viewer can afford to invest. But time-lapse techniques can condense hours of work into a more manageable few minutes for your viewing pleasure. From logos and websites to magazines, and from pen and paper to advanced design software packages, we’ve hand-picked 10 intriguing time-lapse videos that follow a design process. Watch to gain some insight, and see how something goes from drawing board to finished product. If you’re a pro creative type, then let us know in the comments how the processes differ from, or resemble, your own. And if you’re an interested observer, then let us know which you found the most enlightening. 1. Tim PotterHere you can see how an HTML5 website is created by building upon the wireframe in Photoshop - from "concept to comp," as the designer states. 2. Leighton HubbellThe logo design itself may not blow us away, but as a video that shows how a sketch is converted to a finished design using Adobe Illustrator, (with around four hours of work converted to a four-minute clip) it's a great way to understand the design process. 3. Dennis HwangIf you're a fan of Google Doodles, then this video that shows Chief Doodler Dennis Hwang actually creating one will be a rare treat. 4. Lizzling"For anyone who has wondered how logos are made." This is like peeking through the key-hole of a graphic designer's home office. The clip is made up of photos taken every 30 seconds for around five hours, as Australian graphic designer Lizzling works on logo designs. 5. Matt WilleyCrafting a visually appealing magazine page layout is an art form, and here you can see a designer at work creating a page for The Royal Academy magazine. 6. Mason RobertsMason Roberts offers an in-depth look at logo design from his brainstorming sketches, through a huge amount of tweaks, to the finished product in this comprehensive video that shows more Adobe Illustrator action. 7. Gail CarrigerHere, it's a book cover that gets the time-lapse treatment. Watch and you'll see the whole process in around two minutes. Look out for a nice touch of humor toward the end. 8. Shaun TollertonHere, 14,924 screenshots were captured at 15-second intervals over a year period, giving an amazing overview into how varied and various projects came together. 9. Virtua StudiosThis fairly simple and quick video demos how Photoshop can be used to design the visual side of a webpage and how the page layout process evolves. 10. Peter BelangerThis is a great video that shows how a Macworld magazine cover is created from the studio photography, all the way through to the final printed mag. Anyone else amazed by how much photo editing went on? Have your say in the comments below. More Design Resources from Mashable:
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Andresr Reviews: iStockphoto More About: adobe illustrator, design, gallery, Photoshop, stop motion, time-lapse, video, videos, web video, youtube For more Dev & Design coverage:
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| This Morning’s Top Stories in Tech, Mobile and Social Media Posted: 08 Oct 2010 06:51 AM PDT   Welcome to this morning's edition of "First To Know," a series in which we keep you in the know on what's happening in the digital world. We're keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today. Meeting Between Microsoft and Adobe CEOs Leads to Speculation The rumor mill began churning Thursday after a “secret” meeting between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen was leaked to The New York Times, leading many to suspect that a possible acquisition of Adobe may be in the works at Microsoft. According to the NYT, Ballmer arrived with a small entourage at Adobe's offices to discuss Apple and its dominance of the mobile market. One source told the NYT that the two companies discussed a potential mobile partnership. Apple has denied support for Adobe’s Flash software on its mobile devices, including the iPhone and iPad, thus providing an opportunity for Microsoft and Adobe to collaborate against Apple. While we think an acquisition seems unlikely, investors seemed to think otherwise; by the time the markets closed on Thursday, Adobe’s stock price had risen 11.5%. Publishers Prepare Apps for Samsung Tablet Several major news organizations are developing apps for Samsung’s forthcoming tablet device, the Galaxy Tab, according to The Wall Street Journal. The New York Times Company, News Corp’s The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today are among the publishers developing apps for the Android-based tablet, which is scheduled to become available to consumers internationally later this year. They are hoping to adapt the apps they build for the Galaxy Tab for additional Android devices in the future, the WSJ claims. Apple Pushing Ahead with Subscription-Based Music Service Apple is pushing ahead with its plans to launch a subscription-based music service, anonymous insiders have told The New York Post. The service could have a tiered pricing structure ranging from $10 to $15 per month, one source claimed, although details about how much music would be available and for how long have not yet been finalized. Although rumors that Apple would start a streaming music service have existed for years, the company is reportedly driving to finalize the product ahead of the anticipated release of Microsoft’s Phone 7, which will include support for free music streaming service Spotify, on October 11. Further News
Disclosure: Samsung and Microsoft are Mashable sponsors; USA Today is a Mashable content partner. Reviews: Android, App Store, Firefox, Mashable, Spotify, Twitter, adobe AIR, iPhone More About: adobe, apple, galaxy tab, microsoft, new york times, News Corp, samsung, Samsung Galaxy Tab, usa today, wall street journal, windows phone 7 For more Tech coverage:
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Here at Mashable, we chronicle significant social media campaigns on a daily basis. Some are notable simply because of a brand name, others get recognized for the technology or platform they employ, but the best always rise above the rest in how they resonate with readers and online audiences.
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