GilesTurnbull
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Favorite iPhone apps: Giles' take
We're all taking turns at this. My turn: SMS - the built-in SMS app has changed the way I use text messaging, and for the better. My contract with O2 includes 600 text messages per month, and in the UK where everyone texts everyone about everything all the time (and no-one gets charged for incoming messages), that's extremely useful. On old phones, even using predictive text software, I found composing messages too long-winded and dull, and consequently didn't text much. Now I can compose as fast as I can tap-type, and my friends are all wondering why I've suddenly become so flippin' chatty. Cube Runner - Andy Qua's super-simple game is the only one I keep returning to time and time again. Nothing beats it for speed, simplicity, and fun. When I say simple, I mean simple: you pilot your triangle between the cubes. Hit cube, game over. That's it. There's not much that can improve it, except perhaps handlebars. Face Melter - A cheesy bit of fun, but everyone deserves cheesy fun every now and then. Face Melter just lets you mess about with images, pulling and dragging facial features into amusing shapes. Hardly a new idea, but it's great fun to have in your pocket. Good for amusing kids while waiting in restaurants, and for amusing fellow geeks in the pub. I've also been exploring its potential for experimental photography. Weather - I'm English. Need I say more? I should stress -- and I suspect I speak for all my TUAW colleagues in this respect -- that this list of faves is merely a snapshot. These faves might change within days, even hours. The App Store is still only an infant, and holds many surprises for us in the future. I'm looking forward to discovering new faves as time goes on.
Giles Turnbull says hello
Hello. I'm Giles Turnbull, and I'm the new boy round here. You can find out everything you could possibly wish to know about me from gilest.org, but to be honest the good stuff is buried in Google's archives. All the embarrassing posts, bad photographs, journalistic howlers, self-pitying confessionals, they're all there. I gather there might be a few people reading this who enjoy using Macintosh computers. What a stroke of luck! I can waffle on about them for hours.
Good icons? You're soaking in it.
Giles Turnbull is pondering icons, more specifically what makes a good one. This is an interesting question since most of us spend a good deal of our time staring that this little masterpieces (unless you're one of those freaks who auto-hides the Dock).Giles lists a few icons that he likes (Notational Velocity,Spotlaser) but he admits that he is no designer. He turned to John Hicks (designer of FireFox's icon) and Jasper Hauser (creator of Camino's icon) to give their opinions about icons and list a few of their favorites.I have always had a soft spot for the Finder icon, though I suppose that one is fairly obvious. How about you? Fire off a comment letting us know what icons you like the best.
Tweaking iTunes at MacDevCenter
Clever Giles Turnbull is at it again with Tweaking iTunes over at MacDevCenter. After some prologue about how iTunes is a sort of software ambassador for Apple (good point really), he's got a handy list of tidbits for iTunes users new and old. There's the list of keyboard shortcuts in the visualizer, and the usual assortment of Doug's AppleScripts. I had no idea you could hold Command Option when you plug in your iPod to prevent it from automatically updating, for whatever reason you'd want to do that. This article is chock full of handy things to know when you want to impress your iTunes-impaired chums.
