chatting
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TUAW Tip: Use ambient noise reduction for chats and sound recording
I do a decent amount of audio recording and chatting, but I don't ever remember seeing this option in System Preferences until last night. Turning on the "Use ambient noise reduction" feature under the Input tab of the Sound pane can help cut out the TV or dogs barking in the background, though it obviously isn't an end-all solution. A quiet, sound proofed setup is still ideal, but this setting should help for those times when 'ideal' just isn't possible. The setting should work with your Mac's built-in microphone, as well as any external mics you plug in.[Update: From the comments, it sounds like this might only be an option on Apple's Intel-based notebooks. Readers are reporting that PowerBooks, iBooks, G5 iMacs and even Core Duo Mac minis (an Intel non-portable) don't have the feature. This is very interesting, and suggests that it could be due to an actual update to the microphone hardware in the MacBook/Pros since, as far as I know, noise cancellation typically involves a dedicated chip for this kind of functionality. Only certain mobile phones, for example, actually have noise cancellation, and I believe that is also due to the presence of a specific chip.]
Apple Store has a new "chat now" feature
That experiment with chat and the education store must have gone well, as the public Apple Store has recently become a little chattier with the seemingly quiet introduction of a new "chat now" feature to its product pages. Interestingly, it appears (at least for me) only on Mac product pages, and only a second or two after the rest of the page loads (as if there's an intentional delay), though I don't see it on any software pages or even in the iPod sections. I had a quick chat with the 'Apple Expert' Rache, but I was quickly dumped once I was found out to be a mere blogger (helping to spread the word...) instead of a cash-in-hand shopper. Oh well, this still seems like a great idea. I hope it sticks around.[Update: it seems only some users can see this feature. It might simply be a page caching problem (as in: try emptying your browser cache), but for now it might be the case that only certain users, regions or countries can see the chat feature.]Thanks Andrew
New Chax beta with tear-off tabs, will be open sourced soon
Chax, the handy iChat plugin that offers tabbed chats and much more, has a new beta available that offers tear-off tabs for those times when you don't want to put all your eggs chats in one basket. Announced on the author's blog, this new version also allows exporting activity log data as HTML. Of course, various bug fixes are also included in what is technically 1.4.6 beta 2.The author is also going to release the complete Chax source code once 1.4.6 goes official, offering iChat hackers and other Cocoa-hopefuls a little more help in their quest for creating the next killer __________.You can download your copy of the beta from this latest blog entry.
Chax 1.4 - iChat now has tabs
No, that headline is not a typo: at long last, after hoards of OS X users have cried out to Apple in vain for a feature to be added to iChat that other clients have had for what seems like a millennia (I'm Irish. I exaggerate. Sue me) - iChat now has tabs, thanks to the latest Chax update to v1.4. You have the option of placing tabs at the top or bottom of a chat window (or not using them at all, of course), and you can also chose colors for the text in the tab based on whether there is a new message, the user is typing or they've gone offline. I know I speak for many, many iChat users when I say: thank you, Kent Sutherland.Another handy new feature in the update is a set of (optional) Chax menu badges to designate which iChat menu features belong to Chax. Of course, there are various bug fixes and tweaks, but what are you waiting for? Go grab the latest Chax update for tabbed iChatting goodness, and while you're at it: leave a donation for Kent's hard work.
