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The Dragon Sword deluge continues: screenshots
If you can't seem to get enough of Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword, then you're in luck -- because the good folks from Team Ninja are all about giving up the goods. May they never, ever stop. While we've seen a few of these in with the scans, it's nice to look at them all by their lonesome ... and envision how we'll be spending all our free time in the future. Check 'em out after the jump.
Skitch private beta updates with major UI changes, more integration
Skitch became an instant hit around the TUAW offices when we first heard about it at Macworld, and a couple of recent updates to this well-integrated screenshot app have only made it better. As you can see, watermarking has made an appearance for eBay sellers and paranoid bloggers alike, and the overall UI has received quite an overhaul. Taking snapshots of app windows (the Mac OS X equivalent is cmd-shift-4) also now has the ability to place a white or transparent background behind the window, or simply your desktop wallpaper - no matter what you actually have running behind said window when you snap it. The History feature has also received a new coat of polish: not only can you drag and drop images straight out of the History, but you can search any text you have written on top of any picture in your History.Plenty of other innovative new features have made their way into the latest builds, but plasq said something about 'sleeping with the fishes' if we published them, so they'll have to remain under wraps for now. As Skitch's teaser page says, a public beta is on its way, and a price is still forthcoming.Until Skitch goes public, you can see it in action at blip.tv with a video of plasq's own Rachael demoing it at Macworld.
Desky: drag and drop to change desktop wallpaper
A while ago we found an Automator action that lets you drag and drop images to set them as your desktop background. No fuss, and no clunky System Preferences pane. I didn't notice it at the time, but TUAW reader Tice commented with a link to his little app, named Desky, that can do the same thing without any of the Automator setup work involved (sorry Tice!). Fortunately, Desky is finally getting its time in the TUAW spotlight, as I caught an update in my RSS feeds that adds the ability to set Desky as a button in the Finder toolbar, as well as Universal Binary goodness. Desky is freeware and available from Tice's site.
View an Alien Syndrome
IGN has up screens and a trailer for SEGA's upcoming Alien Syndrome. The action-RPG is a continuation of the long dormant Alien Syndrome franchise. It's great to have SEGA bring back some of their old franchises, but the graphics and voice acting seemed below average. Of course the game is early in development and the graphics could improve and the voice actors changed. Even if they stay the same, if the game is fun, that alone will trump the audio and visual short comings. What I want to know is what Alien Syndrome fans think of this new iteration? Are you excited or horrified?
Flood of Sonic screens
There's a vast ocean of new Sonic and the Secret Rings images over at Jeux France, and we've put a few behind the jump. Looking at them all at once can be a little overwhelming. Unsurprisingly? Lots of blue in these screens. Take a peek!
Treasure trove of Revenant Wings images
a href="http://www.gfdata.de/archiv12-2006-gamefront/2621.html"> German site GameFront has apparently been pillaging all the Revenant Wings images they could get their hands on, for they've collected a veritable trove of shots, from gameplay screens to mind-blowing concept art.
Lifehacker script to automate Project 365 with iSight-enabled Macs
Photojojo is a community focused on photography tips, tricks, DIY projects and other kinds of picture-taking goodness. Recently, they introduced Project 365, essentially coining a(nother?) term and offering tips for those take-a-picture-a-day-for-a-year-or-three projects that broke out on the interwebs over the last year or so.Inspired both by this Photojojo post and the recent 'snap a pic of users who commit invalid login attempts' hack, Adam Pash at Lifehacker penned a Photo projects for the New Year post in which he put together a script that can automate this process on iSight-enabled Macs, more or less taking the effort out of your own Project 365. The script can be set to run each time you login (properly, of course) or at a specific time of each day, and Adam includes instructions for tweaking them to your needs. By default, they're set up to snap the pic and save it in ~/project365/pics/, adding a timestamp to the name of each file to help you keep track of everything when you're ready to make your YouTube debut.I think this is a fantastic idea, and now that I have an iSight in both my MacBook and iMac, I think I might actually take a crack at this myself. A big thanks to Adam for putting together such a cool script, and be sure to check out Photojojo's original Project 365 post for tips, motivation and ideas on what to do with 365 pictures of you and/or your stuff.
Picross by the numbers
Talk about the obvious -- Picross DS! Of course, there are so many things for which the stylus is well-suited, but this is one that was certain to make it to the Nintendo handheld sooner or later. Not that we'd ever admit to any weakness at all, because Nintendo fans are the ultimate in human beings ... but that cat is awfully cute. Check out the rest of the screens after the jump!
Elebits invade the toilet
Those pesky little critters will get into anything, according to new screens from Jeux France. We're not sure just what electrical bits might be in there, but -- on second thought, we really don't want to know. Where did we leave that gun this time? They may be trying to escape. A few more shots of those wily Elebits after the jump.
Sharp announces 12-megapixel sensor for compact digital cameras
We should really know by now, but you just can't convince everyone that more isn't always better. While we've already seen less-than-stellar results from the bevy of compact cameras touting unnecessarily large 10-megapixel sensors, Sharp is apparently preying on any remaining clueless consumers by unveiling a sure-to-be-disappointing 12-megapixel 1/1.7-inch sensor for wee cameras. The prodigiously small photosite (just 1.88 microns) generally means "less sensitivity, higher noise, and an even higher requirement on the lens optics" than current 2 micron models. Nevertheless, Sharp is hoping to ship these sensors en masse starting January 2007 at a cost of ¥7,500 ($64) each.[Via PhotographyBLOG]
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom + Flickr Uploadr
Fraser Speirs already released a Flickr plugin for Aperture, but what about the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom users in the crowd (John Gruber has a nice piece on the ridiculousness of adding the 'Photoshop' prefix to Lightroom's name)? As it turns out, through a little trickery, Lightroom can be tweaked for uploading your images to Flickr.This Mac OS X Hints post describes the simple setup, as well as a couple of drawbacks, to using Lightroom and the official Flickr Uploadr tool in conjunction; one simply needs to change the external editor preference to the Flickr Uploadr, then chose the Uploadr as the option from the Post-processing page during an export. Check out Mac OS X Hints though for more details and possible inspiration for asking Mr. Speirs (nicely) for a true-blue Lightroom Flickr plugin.
Switched On: An image to protect
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: In January, I wrote about my experience with PC Mover from Laplink Software, an effective solution for migrating your applications from one Windows PC to another, even (with some caveats) when those computers are running different versions of Windows. But there is another kind of migration that PC users often face, upgrading their hard drive. Unfortunately, backup applications that rely exclusively on file-based backup can't restore a working Windows installation because they don't capture what is known as the master boot record. (Apple, incidentally, notes that Time Machine, which creates browsable, file-based backups, can be used to restore or migrate to another Mac, but that Time Machine archives themselves are not bootable.) So, in recently upgrading a PC hard disk, I tried Acronis True Image 9, a utility that can create an "image" or exact copy of one's hard drive as well as file-level backup. TrueImage automates much of the hard disk migration process, even expanding the partition on the target drive to its maximum so that your new drive is ready to go after reinstalling.
Safari AppleScript to enable Private Browsing, mount temporary download disk image
Now that we know how to enable the AppleScript menubar item, it's time to give Safari some AppleScript-enabled privacy features.For all those times when you need to enable Private Browsing and 'private downloading' in Safari, a macosxhints reader has posted an AppleScript with setup instructions that can enable Private Browsing and mount a disk image and temporarily changing Safari's download folder to said disk image for the ultimate in browsing privacy (macosxhints uses 'online banking' as a usage scenario; I guess that works).The script requires a little bit of setup and customization however, so check out the post for instructions. When you're finished you'll have a simple, handy AppleScript that prompts you to enable or disable Private Browsing in Safari, and then it will mount your encrypted (password-prompted) disk image for safe, secure and private downloading as well. Enjoy.
A Mail.app rule for catching image spam
It seems that I'm not the only one being inflicted with a new wave of image spam, as Bill Benson, a MacInTouch reader, has posted his rule solution for this junk that seems to so easily elude Mail.app's filters. Tim Gaden at Hawk Wings, also a victim, elaborates on how to set up this rule, as a trick is involved. To summarize: for the first condition, select 'Edit Header List...' in its accompanying option, chose 'Content-Type' (or create it if you have to) The Content-Type option will then take first place in the rule (or you might have to select it from the criteria list), allowing you to finish building the rule as pictured The rule is based off of Bill's observation that these spam emails always come from a different address, and the content type header (as you might now assume) begins with multipart/related'.Since I have been receiving around a dozen of these messages on a daily basis, I think I can say that, so far, this rule has been a success. Three cheers for the power of community -based spam filtering. If you aren't using Mail.app, however, I would imagine this trick can be adapted for other email apps. Anyone else try it outside of Mail.app?
Google releases Mac photo uploader for Picasa Web Albums
No, Google hasn't brought Picasa to Mac OS X, but they did release two tools to let Mac users upload photos to their Picasa Web Albums service (think: 'Google does Flickr'). The first app (honesty a bit of a surprise) is a full-on plugin for iPhoto to let users upload their images right from within Apple's popular photo-management app. The second tool is a good ol' fashioned stand-alone uploader for those who want to fly solo.I've never used the service before myself, though I signed up when Google first opened it up (I like to make myself available, when possible). I just took the iPhoto plugin for a spin and it works well, though I don't think Picasa Web Albums is aimed at your typical Flickr user (its largest and most obvious potential competitor). Most of the social aspects of Flickr, such as tagging, groups, etc., don't exist in Picasa Web Albums - it seems much more geared to those who mainly want a place to upload their photos online, with a simple gallery that is easy to link family and friends to (it's also obviously geared towards Picasa users on Windows too). Users can chose whether to make uploaded albums public or private, which is where one of Picasa Web Albums' social features comes into play: users do have the ability to set other users as favorites in order to more easily view images and albums they upload (though, strangely, I can't seem to find any kind of public area where I can go hunting for other users). On the downside, however, Picasa Web Albums only offers a measly 250MB of storage space for free, with a $25 upgrade option for an extra 6GB of space.All in all this is a handy service and the new tools are a great gesture on Google's part towards the Mac community. However, due to Flickr's overwhelming popularity (especially among Mac users) and a seeming lack of integration with other Google tools (where are my GmailThis! and BlogThis! buttons?), I think Picasa Web Albums has a little ways to go before it gains any significant interest among Mac users.
Change desktop wallpaper with an Automator action
Sometimes randomly rotating your desktop wallpaper through the Desktop System Preferences pane is just a little overkill. Wouldn't it be nice if you had a simple drag-and-drop Automator action for setting your own wallpaper whenever your heart desired a change of pace? Then why not use this macosxhints post to make one. A few simple steps creates an action that you save as an app somewhere (I named my action 'Wallpaper') and simply link to in your Dock. For added convenience I saved it as a Finder plugin so I can right-click any picture I find to quickly chose Automator > Wallpaper from the context menu. Handy.As an extra tip: make sure you turn off automatic wallpaper rotation in the Desktop Preferences pane if it's on. Otherwise, at least from my testing, this action won't work.
Fraser Speirs: "who wants me to make an ApertureExport?"
Fraser Speirs, creator of the highly useful FlickrExport and other apps, is asking for feedback on his blog as to whether users would be interested in a similar ApertureExport app. He warns that ApertureExport wouldn't be quite as well tied into Aperture as FlickrExport is to iPhoto, and this is due to the current version of Aperture (apparently) lacking a plugin API.Still, if the idea of being able to point at a feature in your own copy of ApertureExport some day and telling your friends "that was my idea!" sounds appealing, head over to Mr. Speirs' post and toss in your $0.02.
Flickr Uploader for Nokia N72 (and N70, N90)
With everything from 30 second sound clips to SMS messages stacking cost onto your bill, Nokia has gone against the grain by releasing software for their N72 (which supposedly also works for the N70 and N90) that allows users to immediately upload photos they take to Flickr. Sparse options include the ability to send downsized copies and choose images from the Gallery or Camera itself. The idea of uploading images from phone-to-web isn't exactly new, but official Flickr support has been all but impossible to come by, ZoneTag notwithstanding. Of course third party apps such as ShoZu have been accomplishing this for awhile and have more features, but regardless of which app serves the purpose more effectively, its a good sign when major phone manufacturers are taking strides in developing apps to increase the functionality of their phones without charging the users ridiculous pay-per-use fees. So if for no other reason than that, Nokia's Flickr Uploader, although seemingly a bit stifled by limitations, is certainly a step in the right direction. [Via All About Symbian]
'Smart' photo-sharing site releases Mac OS X upload client
Riya is a unique photo-sharing site I remember hearing on Inside the Net (iTMS link) a while ago: it can look at your photos and learn to recognize things like faces and text, essentially bringing that whole Star Trek thing (or 'Minority Report thing', for those wearing tin foil hats) one step closer to the image sharing and tagging experience. It sounds like a great concept, though I haven't played with it much since they haven't offered an upload client for Mac OS X - until now. Macworld is reporting that Riya has indeed released a Mac-friendly client (you need an account for that link to work), removing my only excuse for not signing up yet.If you've been using the service and/or play with this client, feel free to post your thoughts on the experience, then go let Flickr know they need to make an acquisition so their users don't have to spend so much time tagging photos anymore.
Adobe releases Lightroom beta 3
This one slipped past us: Adobe has released a third beta of Lightroom, their Aperture-competitor for professional photographers. The release notes are in PDF (I guess HTML is old news for the company who owns both Flash and Acrobat), but overall, improvements include: enhancements to import/export options, live comparisons of image adjustments in Before and After previews, a new straightening tool and a new heavily-requested Web export module with HTML and Flash options.The new beta can be had here by Mac users, while a beta for Windows (oddly) is yet to be seen. If, for some odd reason, you'd like to be notified when a beta is available for Windows, a sign-up notification form is here.[thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
