Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, E-mail, Google

Signing up for Google Apps for your domain is a pretty sweet deal, but there's still the matter of your current email account, and all the messages that come with it. Fortunately, Google has anticipated the demise of your old email account, and taken the liberty of planning for its future. Email packrats who run Windows have had access to a Google Email Uploader tool for some time, and now there's a Mac version that lets you easily dump your old email into your new Google Apps account.

The biggest caveat here is that we're not talking about uploading to a Gmail account. Google Email Uploader only works with Google Apps email (i.e. POP3 and IMAP). Other than that, it couldn't be easier to upload messages from your Mac - assuming you're running a popular mail client like Apple Mail, Eudora or Thunderbird. A warning, though: due to server rate limits, you might want to upload 500 messages or fewer at a time, because performance will lag significantly on large batches.

Google Email Uploader: upload email from your Mac to Google Apps originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Apps - Google - Macintosh - Mail - Eudora

Filed under: OS Updates, Photo, Apple, VoIP, iPhone, Mobile

iPhone owners might not have access to iPhone OS 3.2 yet, but it's already running on the new iPad. Our sister site, Engadget, was able to score some of the details of the new features in 3.2, and it sounds like it's going to be great for both the iPhone and the iPad. The biggest surprise might be the inclusion of some video calling code that even includes multitasking while on a video call. This suggests a couple of things, either one of which would be awesome:

1) The next version of the iPad is getting a camera. This is the least immediately helpful possibility, but it also sounds completely likely. A lot of tech pundits assumed the first-gen iPad would include a camera, so I'd bet on seeing it next time around.

2) Multitasking is coming to the iPhone sooner rather than later. Although a video call and another task at once might be a lot to ask on the small screen - and not that useful, either - we can at least hope that the next software update brings the ability to run third-party apps in the background. The iPad already has wicked multitasking potential, with the introduction of new popover windows that don't take up the entire screen.

Another useful new feature rumored for 3.2 is the ability to download and locally store files using Safari, and open them in other apps. The lack of access to the iPhone's filesystem is one of the biggest reasons that fans of more open mobile operating systems scoff at Apple, and, although this wouldn't totally shut down that line of criticism, it would be a step in the right direction. File uploading is also reportedly included in the update.

Check out the Engadget post for more info, including possible SMS support on the iPad and some slightly more far-fetched rumors about a stylus and a handwriting keyboard.

iPhone OS 3.2 rumors: an iPad camera, video calling and more originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple - IPhone - Operating system - Safari - Engadget

Filed under: Text, Blogging, Mozilla, Browsers

After the Deadline has been mentioned before here on Download Squad. In September of 2009, Automattic (the company behind WordPress) acquired ATD and promptly integrated it into their wildly popular blogging platform.

If you do any writing anywhere on the web and you're using Firefox, you'll be glad to know that the After the Deadline add-on has hit version 1.0 and should be shedding Mozilla's experimental tag very soon.

In case you're not familiar with it, ATD is a brilliant proofreading tool. It can handle everything from common typos to misused punctuation, redundancies, double negatives, and other grammatical gaffs.

Install the Firefox add-on and you can tap its proofreading powers virtually anywhere you can type. It's well worth adding to your writer's toolbox even if you are a master of the written word -- it never hurts to have backup, after all!

Curious what goes on behind the scenes? Check out this recent blogpost which describes in gloriously geeky detail how ATD comes up with spelling suggestions.

Want to see the ATD add-on in action? Take the jump, and check out the video from the WordPress crew!

After the Deadline grammar, spell check addon for Firefox is a writer's best friend originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Firefox - Mozilla Foundation - Add-on - Automattic - Mozilla Firefox

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Social Software, web 2.0, Mobile

The Foursquare phenomenon just keeps growing! Amidst rumors that Facebook might enter the location-based check-in arena, Foursquare continues to pick up users and expand to new platforms. Thanks to the service's APIs, an intrepid developer has put together a client for Windows Mobile: WinMoSquare. It joins the roster of other mobile clients for Foursquare, which was already available in some form for iPhone, Android, Palm, Maemo and Blackberry.

To run WinMoSquare, you'll need a touchscreen Windows Mobile phone running version 6.1 or 6.5 of the OS. WinMoSquare allows you to check in, add locations, and see where your friends are. Because not every feature is exposed via Foursquare's APIs, the client does have some weaknesses: you can't see the leaderboard or find and add new friends with it, for example. This will change if and when the features become available to developers. WinMoSquare may also pop up in the Windows Mobile Marketplace soon.

WinMoSquare: a FourSquare client for Windows Mobile, now in beta originally appeared on Download Squad on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Mobile - iPhone - Blackberry - Facebook - Mobile phone

Filed under: Macintosh, Social Software

Okay, it's time to fall back on that classic reviewer trope, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

The Good: Trillian's message style and list style aren't customizable (yet?), but the default style is attractive and easy to read. This might be a matter of taste, but I prefer Trillian's chat bubbles to iChat's. It also includes a couple of neat little preferences that I'd like to see in every chat client. AIM users will understand when I say that the option to hide AOLSystemMsg is a relief, and I also like the ability to automatically accept file transfers from contacts.

The Bad: Lack of customization and Growl alert support means that Trillian still has some work to do before it can knock over the reigning king of Mac chat clients, Adium. I'm taking the bare-bones features with a grain of salt because - and I can't emphasize this enough - we're talking about an alpha version here.

The Ugly: Alert sounds. They're not the worst alert sounds I've ever heard, but I couldn't find a preference to change them or turn them off. It's not just new message alerts, either, it's buddy on/off, message sent, and pretty much anything else. This doesn't make Trillian very café or library friendly, and it might make the people you live with want to kill you. I'm sure this will change before version 1.0 officially comes out.

Trillian for Mac was at the top of my wish list 10 years ago, but competitors like Adium and iChat filled the gap, and they've spent years refining their products. I'm not saying Trillian can't catch up; it's off to a good start, and a popular brand name will help. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be a while before it's ready for prime time.

Trillian chat client gets a Mac version, now in alpha originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 16:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adium - Macintosh - Instant messaging - IChat - AOL Instant Messenger

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft

However, it would appear that Microsoft may be speeding up its product development cycle. After doing so well with 7, and not too badly with Office 2010 (I have to say, I'm a huge fan -- Office 2010 rocks, pretty ribbon and all), it seems as though the folks at Redmond are not letting up. There's a PDF that purports to be a leaked roadmap from an ex-Microsoft employee, and shows Windows 8 going RTM (released to manufacturing) on July 1, 2011.

Ex-Microsoft employee -- that has a bit of a shady ring to it, I think. Hey, this roadmap here fell off the back of a truck ... Says Windows 8 is coming real soon now.

[Via: Elecronista]
[Photo: EvinDC]

Microsoft roadmap leak -- Windows 8 in 2011? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 7 - Microsoft - Windows XP - Windows Vista - Operating system

Filed under: Internet, Adobe, Apple, iPhone

Adobe has always been pretty miffed over the lack of Flash on the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can understand Apple's point of view though: Flash would remove their control over the user experience. It would also make the App Store irrelevant and the flow of software onto the Apple devices almost impossible to govern.

Couple the lack of iPhone support with the keynote presentation of the iPad, where Steve Jobs proudly displays the lack of Flash, and you can see why Adobe has just launched an anti-iPad smear campaign.

Not ones to tread lightly, or even scale up their assault, they've waded right in and played the porn card. As you can see, they've already removed the offensive part of the screenshot, but not before generating a lot of angry comments and even some commentary from Wired.

Adobe's poster ends with the slogan "Millions of websites use Flash. Get used to the blue legos." Maybe, as Jay said yesterday, Apple's customers don't want Flash. It performs poorly, it steals vital CPU cycles, it flattens your battery faster than an American stocking up at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Hopefully this is the kick in the butt Adobe needs to make Flash a little more efficient and less impotence-inducing. Watching --and feeling! -- my 2.2GHz laptop sit at 100% CPU usage while viewing Flash videos is truly a sad sight to behold.

Adobe plays the porn card against Apple and the iPad originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple - IPhone - iPod Touch - Steve Jobs - appstore

Filed under: News, P2P

BitTorrent is an extraordinarily useful technology that allows for more efficient sharing of perfectly legal things like Linux distributions. Nobody's denying, though, that it's most often used to download things like Modern Warfare 2 or the latest season of Heroes. The BitTorrent census, conducted by a Princeton University senior, confirms these suspicions. It turns out that the most heavily DRM-protected content is also the most-torrented. Also, get a load of this finding: 99% of the torrents in the census were copyrighted material.

The breakdown of file types reveals an interesting trend: people aren't torrenting music, which is available cheaply, reliably and DRM-free from sources including Amazon and iTunes. They're torrenting stuff like TV shows and DVDs, which are almost never made available DRM-free by legal sources. Funnily enough, most of the non-infringing content the study found was ... porn. Take the study with a grain of salt, though: it only included about 1,000 torrents, drawn from Mainline DHT.

[via Ars Technica]

Torrents: now made from 99% copyrighted material! originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BitTorrent - Princeton University - filesharing - Digital rights management - Linux distribution

Filed under: Developer, Utilities

If you ever find yourself doing repetitive task on your computer, pay attention. Sikuli is an important step toward removing the barrier between the average computer user and programming.

Normally, to make a computer do a repetitive task, you'd need to understand a programming language like Java, Objective C or C#. To perform some remedial task like starting iTunes and kicking off a play list you'd need to write a whole mess of code and understand the API's for that application.

Sikuli gets around this by using picture based computing. Instead of needing intimate knowledge of a particular API or language you simply use Sikuli script to take an action on an area of the screen it finds by you giving it a picture.


Ok, let's take our iTunes example, say I want to open the app, find a particular play list, then click the play button. To do that simple task by traditional means would take a decent amount of code. With Sikuli, it's three lines and looks like this.

Amazing stuff. See the video below for a more thorough explanation. The Sikuli script and IDE are a free download and work on any platform that can run Java. I highly recommend you check this one out and be sure to post the cool scripts you've made in the comments.

Sikuli uses screen shots to run scripts, is amazing originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Java - Programming language - Sikuli - Application programming interface - Computer programming

Filed under: Google, Browsers

Plenty of noise has been made in the past about Google Chrome and version jumping, but a little grumbling isn't going to slow Google down. Today, Chrome's dev channel reached a new milestone, hitting version 5.0.

For those of you counting, it's been a little over 16 months since version 1 first appeared.

The list of changes so far is fairly small. Mac users will notice a bit more of a difference, with fixes addressing plugin stability and crashing while dragging tabs, a slightly improved cookies manager, and minor tweaks to Chrome's task manager.

On Windows, there are two key updates. First, Chrome will now use your default downloads folder (i.e. Username\Downloads on Vista and Windows 7) instead of creating a new Documents\Downloads folder.


Work has also begun on the new Content Settings window. User settings for cookies, pop-ups, plugins, scripts, and images are being moved to their own panel. It was decided that the Under the Hood page was getting a bit lengthy and required too much scrolling.

If you're already running the dev channel, just head to the wrench menu -> about and check for updates. If not, you can download the dev channel build manually from this page.

Google Chrome dev channel hits v5 in less than two years originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 30 Jan 2010 08:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Chrome - Windows 7 - Microsoft Windows - Google - Searching