Feature: Stitch Photos Into Panoramas with Free Software: “Stitch Photos Into Panoramas with Free Software”

(Via lifehacker.)

Mozilla Weave Synchronizes Your Browsing Experience [Screenshot Tour]: “

The newest version of Mozilla’s experimental browser-syncing tool, Weave, just hit the net, and it’s seen a few marked improvements since it was first available. Going beyond bookmarks, Weave can match up your Firefox 3 settings, cookies, browsing history, and even tabs between browsers, with experimental supports for passwords and form data—in other words, just about everything except extensions, themes, and plug-ins. There’s a lot more to come, and it’s still a pretty rough around the edges—this is, after all, just version 0.2—but follow along after the jump to see some of what Weave can do, or at least one day will do, to keep your Firefox browsing consistent and convenient.

The first step is heading to Weave’s home page and installing the add-on. Firefox in Windows detected a security certificate problem and made me confirm Mozilla’s worthiness three or four times before I could get in. After installing the add-on and restarting Firefox, you’re prompted with a welcome screen (with a requisite warning about Weave’s experimental nature), and then your first choice:

If you’re setting up the first of your Firefox browsers that you’ll grab and sync settings from, choose the left button. If you’re trying to pull your settings from Mozilla’s cloud for another browser or system, choose the right. If you’re signing up new, you’ll be asked for a username, email address, password, and then a separate ‘passphrase’ that unlocks the encryption on your server-stored data.

Next, you’ll be asked what you want to back up and sync on the computer you’re installing Weave on:

You’ll see again that passwords and form data are ‘experimental’ features. I tried to enable both, and while syncing to a new Firefox profile in Vista, Weave failed with a ‘failed to acquire lock’ error—your mileage may vary, of course, but I found success by choosing the non-experimental defaults.

I’ll note here that your initial sync is going to take a loooooooooong time—about 6 minutes for an XP machine to pick up the data from a previous sync, and my Vista system went for 10 minutes before I’d decided to move on—though it apparently worked, given that XP grabbed my bookmarks, cookies, and ‘awesome bar’ shortcuts. If everything did go well, you’ll see the screen at right, and you can resume your normal browsing.

To keep your browser synced up, Weave puts an icon in your status bar that lets you sign in or out, sync on command, and see your last sync and activity log. You’ll also see a little spinning sync wheel in a pop-up window when you close down the browser—which can stick around for a minute or more, depending on the connection and what changes you’ve made. You’ll also get a Weave menu added to your Firefox preferences, with some troubleshooting logs and syncing options, most of which you can access from the status bar.

I tried out Wave on two different profiles each in Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Linux. If you’re willing to try out Weave, here’s a few problems I encountered that you might also find:

• Linux = no go: At least on my system. Weave just refuses to accept my encryption passphrase, and it looks like it’s a disconnect between a locally-stored file and Mozilla’s servers. Let us know in the comments if you find a fix or work-around.
• Re-installation prompts: On my XP installation, Weave seemed to continually ask me to install an add-on called ‘Latest Weave’ upon starting up Firefox. I agreed three times, until I realized it was misinformed.
• Occasional syncing hang-ups: Even on systems where Weave managed to successfully install, sync attempts at start-up or shutdown would lag or sometimes outright fail.
• Where’s the bookmark trading?: Weave was said to let users trade read-only bookmarks with other registered users, but I didn’t see any send or receive options in any dialogs or settings. Can you find the gateway?

What’s your impressions of Weave? Got any tips or fixes for your tester or fellow commenters? Let’s hear about it in the comments.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Canadians protest iPhone plans: “Thousands of Canadians are protesting the available wireless service plans for the iPhone, due to high prices and bandwidth caps on data.

(Via MacCentral.)

Warp 1.1: “Warp 1.1 is a free system utility for Leopard. It adds more functionality to Spaces.

(Via MacCentral.)

Turn your BlackBerry into a Mac: “Software alters BlackBerry into mini-Mac

BlackBerry users can now transform their devices into little miniature Macs, using newly-released software, PocketMac Mac Themes for BlackBerry.

(Via pocketmac.)

Smilebox – About Us: “Introducing Smilebox!
Smilebox® makes it easy to connect with friends and family in a more creative and compelling way.
Unlike other solutions that focus on organizing, editing, and sharing photos or sending pre-packaged ecards, the Smilebox service enables users to create something truly powerful by:
Choosing from hundreds of unique multimedia designs
Easily personalizing them with photos, video, music, words, and style
Sharing them via email, blog, or print
Smilebox creates a new category of service called ‘creative messaging,’ which draws elements from photo services, scrapbooking, and ecards to deliver a new medium for communication unparalleled in its ability to convey mood, thought, and emotion.”

(Via smilebox.)

iPhone 2.0 Firmware Due Friday?: “Gizmodo claims that the iPhone 2.0 Firmware could hit Golden Master this Friday. The Golden Master version is the final shipping version of a product, which means we could also see the 2.0 Firmware released as soon as this Friday. Gizmodo warns tha…”

(Via MacRumors.)

Ed-Shiro: “SuperDocker allows to customize parts of your Mac OS X Leopard.

Display a 2D/3D Dock
Use transparency on hidden applications' icons
Add separation in the Dock
Modify the display of the Docks
About Stacks
Add stacks in recent elements
Display a border cadre around applications
About Finder
Modify the effect of window minimisation
Modify the switching time between 2 spaces under Space
Modify the drawing time of dialog boxes
Display the complete path in the title bar
Display the hidden files
About Safari
Force new windows to open in tabs
Display the Debug menu
Display WebInspector
About Time Machine
Choose to display or not a message after each new disk detection
Others
Display the iCal debug menu
Activate the Data Detectors mod for iChat
Activate the Dashboard's Developper mode
Modify the display of the menubar
Modify the capture format
Modify the print dialog boxes' format
Modify the Mac OS X bootsplash

(Via ed-shiro.)

ShoveBox | Wonder Warp Software: “ShoveBox catches all those little scraps of information that you can’t act on now but would rather not forget. It sits up in your menubar, waiting for you to drag in text, images, URLs, and more.

It also provides a sensible interface to sort everything you shoved. It’s all about spending less time processing and more time actually doing things.”

(Via ShoveBox.)

FoxTrot Professional Search goes beyond Spotlight: “FoxTrot Professional Search goes beyond Spotlight with multiple categorizations of search results, server-based searches and more.

Full Details

Read the attached press release.

OpenSUSE 11.0 Integrates Compiz into Linux Desktop [Featured Download]: “

OpenSuse 11.0, the latest release of the Novell/AMD-sponsored Linux distribution, has hit the download servers. This version incorporates all the latest upgrades to its established packages—including a move up to Firefox 3, upgrading to Banshee 1.0, and all the latest GNOME and KDE 4 improvements—as well as improvements to the installer, package manager, and other SUSE-specific tweaks. The most noticeable change is the baked-in Compiz Fusion support, providing eye-catching animations and subtler desktop flash out of the box. Grab a live CD or installation DVD at the link below.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Seven open-source Mac apps you need right now: “CIO.com looks at seven enterprise-ready open-source solutions that are must-haves for Mac users in the workplace.

(Via MacCentral.)

Google Gears Updates for Firefox 3 [Offline Access]: “

Windows/Mac/Linux: Google’s offline-enabling browser plug-in, now simply called ‘Gears,’ has been updated to 0.3 with full support for Firefox 3. In addition to the general convenience of having one less extension to pull out Firefox 2 for, Gears adds a dialog to create a nice-looking desktop icon for most sites that support it, and it’s been released for all three platforms running Firefox at once. The Webware news site notes that Google is working on Gears versions for Safari and Opera (IE is already supported), so stay tuned.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Power Tweak Your Mac’s Stacks [Mac OS X Leopard Tip]: “

Before Mac OS X Leopard got released, if you’d told me Stacks—a convenient way to access Finder locations on the Dock—would be one of my favorite, most-used features, I would’ve said you were trapped in the reality distortion field. Turns out Stacks is super-useful, and highly configurable to boot. Let’s take a look at some power tweaks and uses for Stacks.

Add drawer overlay icons. True Apple product devotees know that looks are everything. With a few good-looking icons cleverly dated, you can add drawer icons to your Stacks that make it easy to visually identify them. Here’s how to add drawer overlays to your Stacks.

Add Recent Items With a little Terminal-fu, you can add a custom Stack of the most recent documents and applications you used. Here’s the command you need to set it up original post):

Show all the hard drives connected to your Mac. Add a stack of ‘Volumes’—that is, all the hard drives connected to your Mac, from FireWire drives to USB sticks to digital camera cards—by dragging and dropping the hidden /Volumes/ folder to your Dock. Tech tip site Cybernet describes how.

Open multiple folders with the Option key. If your extended Stack contains more than one folder, you can open them without retracting the Stack—just hold down the Option key to open each one in Finder. [via UsingMac]

Slow it down. Go all Steve Jobs and show off your Stacks action in slo-mo. Just hold down the Shift key and click on your Stack to see it open and close slowed down.

Customize your Stacks even further—just click and hold. The 10.5.2 Software Update brought with it an expanded menu of Stacks options. Click and hold your Stack to set whether to display it as a stack or a folder, and in what style.

For more fun with Leopard, see also our top 10 things you forgot your Mac can do, and more Leopard power tweaks.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Remove a stuck CD or DVD from a slot loading drive: “If a CD or DVD is physically stuck inside your MacBook’s or MacBook Pro’s slot-in drive (e.g. when you’ve inserted a CD with a paper label) this tip might be useful:

When pressing the eject button the disc is moved a tiny bit and pulled back inside immediately afterwards. You can probably see only a very tiny bit if it, but that part can’t be caught by regular tweezers or other tools available in a typical household. I also unsuccessfully tried some tips for removing a stuck DVD floating around the web.

(Via MacOSXHints.com.)