Ever had your MacBook die on you? I know Apple has been so gracious to give us 20 minute warnings but I tend to respond with, “20 minutes? I’ve got time”. Low Battery Saver aims to help us out by giving us better notifications on the time our battery has left. It’s a pretty neat little app.

I’ve got a few copies of Low Battery Saver to give away. If you are interested, just Join My Mailing List and you’ll be set. (don’t worry, I don’t spam people. This list is just for giveaways)

The drawing will be held on Wednesday, Feb 8th, 2012

*Update: The drawing is over and the licenses have been given away. Join my mailing list for future giveaways

I was poking around the internet today and added a few interesting things to my wish list. I thought you might find them interesting too. Here’s what I found:

GRID-IT! Organizer Case

MiLi Pico Projector

Wacom Inkling

Perpetual Calendar

The Magic Charger

Resonant Decor

Solar Window Charger

That’s just a few

Last night I noticed that my MacBook Pro was acting a little strange so I decided to take it in to the Apple store for a check up. I started to go about the traditional method of booking a genius bar appointment.

> Go to Apple.com… <wait> <wait> <wait>

> Go to APPLE.COM!!

At that point I realized that my Internet was completely down, how convenient! Then I remembered that there was an Apple Store app for the iPhone. After a few seconds, I downloaded the app and was browsing for my store. In a few more seconds, I had booked my appointment and was packing up the MBP for it’s ride in the car. As I was pulling in to the parking lot of the Apple store, I got a notification asking me if I wanted to check in for my appointment. Cool! I checked in and was notified that there was 1 person in front of me (all before I even walked in the door). Once inside, I walked up to the genius bar and was promptly greeted by one of the geniuses asking “Are you Brent?” again… COOL!

We worked through several things on the MBP which turned out to be small minor issues and I was off with a much healthier Mac. Needless to say, I was incredibly impressed by the Apple Store App. It does a lot more than just what I used it for but that was just a great user experience. Here’s what Apple is saying about it:

It’s the easiest way to get an iPhone 4S – right from your current iPhone.* Wherever you are, you can research and buy products, read reviews, make Genius Bar and One to One appointments, view in-store events, and more. And when you’re in an Apple Retail Store, you can request help, meet up with a Specialist, and more.??Here’s what you can do with the Apple Store app:

• Research and buy the latest Apple products, accessories, and software and get them shipped to your door.
• When at an Apple Retail Store, request help, check in for reservations, meet up with a Specialist or Trainer.
• Make Genius Bar and One to One reservations and sign up for workshops and events.
• Get free iPad and iPod engraving and signature gift wrapping for select Apple products.
• Custom-configure a new Mac with the options you want, including larger drives and more memory.
• Reserve iPhone and other select products for pickup at an Apple Retail Store.

*Rate plans for AT&T and Verizon Wireless are available through the Apple Store app. To purchase iPhone with a Sprint plan, visit the Apple Online Store or an Apple Retail Store.

• Live filters
• Four new filters
• Instant tilt-shift
• High-resolution photos
• Borders now optional
• One-click rotation
• New logo

So far I love just about everything. Did they remove the blur depth control for tilt-shift? I’m not seeing it. I really do miss that as I would adjust the depth quite a bit in the previous version. Small price to pay for instant previews, I guess?

Here’s my first pic with 2.0 and the new screens:

See your Facebook Newsfeed in Skype

Newsfeed features

• See your Facebook wall directly in Skype
• Update your Facebook status
• Easily Like or comment on a Friend’s status

Instant message – direct from Skype to Facebook

Skype to Facebook IM features

• See Facebook friends in your Skype contact list
• See when your Facebook friends are online
• Instant message with your Facebook friends direct from Skype

There aren’t too many apps in the “Save My Life” category but Wunderlist comes pretty dang close. Once again, here’s an app that is just plain simple and yet superbly awesome at the same time. Wunderlist is a simple to-do application that allows me to sort, assign and manage my to-do items extremely easily. However, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. It’s collaboration features are stellar. I can create a list, name it accordingly (i.e. “Client Name”) and share the list with a fellow Wunderlist user. Now we both (or more than 2 of us) have the ability to create tasks, assign due dates, write notes and check tasks off when completed.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Not only is Wunderlist completely free, in addition to it’s wicked cool web app interface, it’s also available as a free app for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows & Mac.

WHAT?!?!?! 

I know right? ok… Anyway, it’s awesome and I use it all day every day on every device I can install it or run it on.

Recently, I started using HotGloo for my UX/Wireframing projects. Being a HUGE OmniGraffle fanboy, this was a tough switch but I was looking for something that allowed me to wireframe and ideate with my business partner Sunny at the same time. We both work together on nearly everything and it’s hard waiting on each other to make tweaks to a wireframe when only one of us can have the file open at a time. So we went searching for something to fit the collab bill and we found HotGloo!

It may not have all the nifty features as some of the other favorite wireframing solutions out there but it’s pretty dang awesome in it’s own right. Just being able to open up a browser and join Sunny in a wireframe session makes it worthwhile, but there are a lot of other features worth mentioning. One in particular is the interactions you can build in to your wireframes. You can simulate pretty closely the functions of a page or site by activating clickable areas in review mode. Then you invite your client and let them play around.

The interface is pretty sweet as well. I found it extremely intuitive and caught on to using it pretty quick. I’m still looking for some form of way to create my own symbols (that I can edit once placed on a sheet) and the way to rotate something (I’m sure I’m missing that somewhere). All in all though, this tool is serving us nicely and I look forward to getting better and better at using it.

Thanks guys for a great app! Keep it up! Follow Hotglue on twitter or facebook (and tell them I said “hi”)

This has to be the coolest case innovation for the iPad yet IMHO. ClamCase, I want one!

I was just recently informed of the SymLinks function in assosiation with DropBox. I know, I should have probably known this already, but I didn’t. This is seriously cool. You can back up any folder on your computer to dropbox. Sweet!

And yes… I said “BOOM!”

I just downloaded OmmWriter for Mac and I am so impressed! What an awesome app. It’s a free download (while in Beta I assume). If you are any form of a writer in any way, you should try this app too. So… Check out the video above and give it a try. After that, let us know what YOU think.