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iPhoto 101: Use two fingers to crop and rotate photos
Here's an interesting feature of iPhoto that I'd never heard of before, courtesy of Mac OS X Hints. While using Edit mode in the app, you can drag two fingers on your MacBook's touchpad (or your Magic Trackpad) to control the various edits with better precision than just dragging around a mouse. You can zoom the crop feature in or out, or even control it manually by dragging two fingers around. And you can rotate the photo in straighten mode just by rotating two fingers around the trackpad. There are more of these little gesture features hidden in Apple's iApps (like a three-finger swipe in iPhoto to move forward/backward through photos), and I'm sure we'll see a lot more of these pop up as we move closer to Lion and beyond. That touch interface is so intuitive and easy that it's no surprise Apple is already implementing it everywhere that it makes sense to do so.
Turning keyboard turners around
Zg thinks, quite unreasonably, that 99% of players in the game are "keyboard turners"-- people who use the keyboard to turn their characters rather than holding down the right mouse button and moving the camera to turn. It's hardly anywhere near 99%, but given that WoW is a game that attracts casual players (a.k.a. people who aren't experienced videogame players), I wouldn't be surprised if there are more people in Azeroth than in, say, Counter-Strike, who use the keyboard to do most of their navigating.Personally, I'm one of those that come from a CS background, and so I use the mouse for pretty much all movement whenever possible-- I'll often just hold down both mouse buttons if I need to run for a short distance (and anything longer gets the run lock key from me). I also think that circle strafing is pretty much the best game mechanic ever made, but I know that there are those who disagree with me-- back when I worked at Gamestop, one of our employees there just couldn't seem to wrap his head around the fact that he should turn and move at the same time, and as a result just got dominated in our Halo matches.But habits are a powerful thing, and so keyboard turning is probably around to stay. I won't go so far as to say that fast-turning with a mouse is required to be a good player, but certainly that kind of reflex is required to be a really great player. So keyboard turners, pick up that mouse and start looking around-- you'll thank me later.
Nokia N95 gets iPhone-like screen rotation via rotateMe app
This looks to be a pretty handy app, rotateMe for Symbian OS 3rd edition devices -- a version for UIQ is also available -- lets you quickly switch between portrait and landscape modes on your handset. The neat bit is that by apparently making use of the N95's camera sensor, iPhone-like switching will become possible with the upcoming v2.0 software. Word has it that we can expect the auto switch feature in November but until then you can either run it manually or just watch the vid after the break again and again.[Via All About Symbian]
Spin your Lite 'round and 'round
Actually, we don't recommend spinning your DS around on this new stand, for several reasons -- first, neither product is made to withstand heavy levels of abuse, and second, we wouldn't want you to get dizzy and fall out of your chair. But you can tilt it to your heart's content for that perfect angle, and it's probably sturdier than the (awesome) bendy stand we're so fond of. You can change the orientation as well, so you can switch from a regular game to something like Brain Age 2. It keeps going as well, just in case you feel the urge to play upside down. At only ¥1480, or less than thirteen US dollars, even with shipping costs it still seems like a deal for non-Japanese gamers.
Pantech's SKY IM-R100 rotating slider
Now here's one we'll forget ever existed before the day's out. We guess we can understand adding a rotating screen to your slider, if it does DMB -- Pantech's SKY IM-R100 doesn't, yet holds on to the impossibly complex form factor. In fact, the form factor is the most interesting thing about the handset, which packs a 2-megapixel camera, media player, microSD slot, and not much else. Sure, you might drop some vids on that memory card that benefit from a landscape display, but might we simply recommend you turn the phone sideways? As you might guess, this one doesn't stand a snowball's chance of making it outside South Korea's borders, and for once, we're just fine with that.
