Peter Borg recently released version 2.0 of Smultron, his excellent open source text editor. So what’s new? Well, among other things…

Tabs Smultron has, until now, sported a left-side Documents List showing all open files. This is still around, but now you can optionally open some tabs at the top of the edit window too. The tabs replicate some functionality from the Documents List, but some people will welcome their appearance nonetheless. They act as proxies for the Documents List, which means the controls for moving around the list also apply to moving around tabs.

Projects Smultron lets you create a multitude of Projects, each of which contains any number of text files. By default the top-level project is called “All documents” and contains all files from all your projects. Click on a single project in the Projects Drawer, and you’ll only see the files it contains; they’ll be listed in the Documents List.

Full screen mode It does exactly what you’d expect, but cannot be customised to display text differently; if you want green-on-black and font size 18 in fullscreen, you’ll have to change the main font/color settings to that first.

In my recent article How Does Open Source Software Stack Up on the Mac?, a reader and I have been having a very interesting discussion via the talkbacks at the end of the article that has drifted through various facets of OSS, economics, and ethics. I’d like to invite you to read the Why reinvent the wheel? discussion and chime in here with your thoughts. An opinionated summary of the most interesting thoughts that have come up so far follows, along with my take on each of them:

Who Wants to Be A Superhero: Episode 101
The SCI FI Channel, Bruce Nash (Nash Entertainment), and legendary comic book creator Stan Lee’s (Spider-Man, Hulk, The Fantastic Four, X-Men) POW! Entertainment, Inc., have joined forces to discover the next great American superhero. Who Wants to Be a Superhero? is an all-new reality series that challenges a lucky few to create their very own superhero alter-ego, live together under in a secret lair under the watchful eye of Stan Lee, and compete for the best reality competition prize yet: immortality. All they’ll need is an original idea, a killer costume, and some real superhero mojo. The winning superhero will be immortalized in a new comic book from Dark Horse Comics created by Stan Lee himself and will be featured in an original SCI FI Channel movie. Executive producers are Bruce Nash, Stan Lee, Scott Satin, Gill Champion and Andrew Jebb.

30 Days: Episode 101 and Making-of Special
30 Days features a diverse group of participants, each given the opportunity to experience firsthand a world antithetical to their own comfortable existence. Each installment of the show examines a very different subject and is hosted by Morgan Spurlock. In the final installment this season, Spurlock is also a participant, as he turns the cameras on himself. The series explores explosive topical issues and conducts fascinating social experiments. As the 30 Days participants learn about others, viewers will learn more about themselves. Join host Morgan Spurlock as he conducts fascinating social experiments that immerse participants in worlds vastly different from their own.

Tabloid Wars: Episode 101
Every day the staff of the New York Daily News only has 24 hours to win the story…or lose the war against its archrival, the New York Post. Follow the News’s top editors, journalists, and reporters as they hunt down the headlines, get their story straight and play beat-the-clock to get the paper out the door and into the hands of its hundreds of thousands of readers every day. These tireless and intrepid newspeople take viewers out on the “beat” — to the scene of the crime, to get the much-needed quote from the source, or to the hottest celebrity bashes for the photo op — and then back into the newsroom before deadline.

Psych: Episode 101
James Roday plays the somewhat eccentric Shawn Spencer, a police consultant who solves crimes with powers of observation so acute that the police think he’s psychic — or so he lets them think. With the reluctant assistance of his best friend Gus (Dule Hill), Shawn opens up a PI Agency named Psych, and together they begin solving cases even the most seasoned detectives cannot crack.

A plea for help: Macs in education in Australia are under threat. Can anyone help out?

Hog Bay’s Mori notebook has been bumped to 1.3; now includes a DEVONthink-ish “Find similar” command.

Windows experimenters: How to dual-boot Vista Beta 2 and OS X on a MacBook.

Used CDs versus iTunes; I agree with much of this. I rarely purchase from the iTMS, preferring to buy used CDs from sellers on Amazon, or from second-hand record stores.

Omni: humans who make software. I noticed the following paragraph at the top of the OmniPlan license agreement prior to installing, and it caught my eye because I’ve not seen such direct, easy-to-understand, written-for-real-people wording in a license agreement before. Here it is:

“The document that follows this paragraph is a license agreement. Why do we need such a thing? Well, to be perfectly honest, our lawyers have told us that we need to protect ourselves. We at The Omni Group pride ourselves on our low-key style, but the global nature of the software business means that one lawsuit from one user in a far-flung jurisdiction could put us out of business. It also means that, without this agreement, we might not have protection from people who misuse our software. We do not want to bet our entire company on such possibilities, however unlikely, because we like doing what we do and want to continue to be able to do it. And, so, we require you to read and agree to this license. We think you will find it quite reasonable. Obviously, if you disagree, click “Disagree.” But, don’t just stop there. Let us know. Send some email to info@omnigroup.com telling us what you find unacceptable about our license agreement. We can’t promise to change anything, but we will do our best to get back to you.”

I especially like the last few lines. Most companies offer the license agreement as a fait accompli; you like it, or lump it. Omni goes one step further than most, here; it cares if people find the license terms unreasonable. omni++, I say.

The winners and runners-up of Phill Ryu’s Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest have been announced, and what a wonderful collection of ideas and eyecandy they are.

Tabbed Finder? Pretty much an essential part of every mentioned entry. Merging Mail and Address Book? Another common idea, but with very different approaches. Completely abandoning the Desktop, Menu Bar and every semblance of a toolbar in Mail? Well, only one entrant thought of that. But hey, full marks for originality.

Winner Eric Patterson’s entry boasts plenty of smart ideas for the next OS X. His re-invented Column View for Finder windows - in fact, his complete rethink of the Finder interface - is praise-worthy indeed. I particularly like his Finder Peek idea; a file previewer in the Finder that displays/plays/gives you a peek at pretty much any file on your disk.

I doubt very much that we’ll see any of the ideas on show in this contest (except perhaps the tabbed Finder, but even that is by no means a given) when Leopard does emerge; but that won’t stop me looking forward to the moment anyway.

A developer’s lot is not always an easy one. Take, for example, making a choice between putting an application’s data information and controls in palettes (like BBEdit does) or in a sidebar (like Mail does).

After all, some people prefer palettes. Some prefer sidebars, or drawers. You can’t please all of the people all of the time, so which ones do you choose?

Gus Mueller faced this tricky decision with the recent release of VoodooPad 3. It was comment worthy for many reasons, most of them the impressive collection of features that Gus had taken the trouble to add to an already feature-packed application.

Thursday night I get on a plane for Reykjavik as part of the Adobe Lightroom Adventure and will be depending on my Canon 5D, MacBook Pro, and Adobe Lightroom to handle all of my photography needs. The days are 22 hours long, and I plan on working most of that time. (Although, I hear that the Runtur - pub crawl - in Reykjavik is must-do. And since I’m a people shooter, I think I can justify immersing myself in the experience.)

When I return, I’ll have a very good idea of how well this version of Lightroom performs in the field under real shooting conditions. We’ll be posting our shots, comments, and hopefully some video on the official Lightroom Adventure site. I’ll also post more personal anecdotes, along with audio, on The Digital Story.

We return from the Adventure the week WWDC begins. I’m speaking at the San Francisco Apple Store on Wednesday, August 9 at 5pm. If you want to see some of what I shot, you might want to drop by.

Oh, and one other thing, if you’re curious about some of the San Francisco participants on the Adventure, I published a few shots from our recent get-together at Zuni Cafe, including a podcast about the Iceland Adventure. The podcast also features interviews with other participants (about the 18 minute mark). You can see and listen here.

I keep several free drag-and-drop audio applications on my desktop for quick tasks. From left to right, here are the ones that have stuck around, albeit usually with truncated names:

• Deep Niner Xtract2Wave44 converts any QuickTime-compatible audio file to a 44.1kHz WAV. The developer offers a 48kHz version as well.
  
  
• Doug Adams’s Drop a Few My Way uses iTunes to convert dropped files to various formats, which you can choose on the fly without burrowing into iTunes’ preference menu. It’s also smart enough to keep the files from infiltrating the iTunes library.
  
  
• Add “.aif” is an AppleScript droplet I wrote that simply adds an “aif” extension to the file’s name. It saved me a lot of time when I transferred several hundred extensionless AIFF files from my OS 9 Mac to my OS X one.
  
  
• Add 2 iTunes Library may also have come from Doug Adams or MacOS Hints.com. (There’s a similar droplet here.) Does what it says.

  Which droplets have stuck on your desktop?

Reader Guillaume C writes: “Could help me finding an app that mixes Finder and Preview. Before asking, I have crawled the web, asked in forums, nothing. I keep a lot of PDF files (really a lot, >10 000) and I would like to have a software that allows to browse directories by column, select a PDF, view the page snapshot, and navigate inside the PDF. I have made a photoshopped screenshot of it. Any idea if this app exists? I know about Pathfinder and MacGizmo, but they are not exactly what I need. Perhaps such an app would interest a lot of other people.”

I’m at a loss. Hey you reader folk, any suggestions for Guillaume? Thanks in advance for any pointers.

Depending on how you’ve set your iTunes preferences, it can take hours or days for podcasts to update themselves. For all those people who wrote me last Wednesday about the Project Runway podcast, let me offer some basic hints.

• Bravo generally has the Tim’s Take podcast go “live” shortly after the East Coast premiere of each new episode. Sometimes Tim’s Take has even gone live before the first showing has ended.
• To bypass your iTunes preferences and immediately update your podcasts, select and control-click (right-click) the podcast name. Choose Update Podcast from the contextual pop-up and (if needed) click the GET button for the new episode.

Just for the record: Go Laura, Robert, Kayne, and Michael. Down with Vincent, Angela, Keith and the-guy-with-no-neck.

US: Pretty Little Thing by Fink
Fink’s history is deep in electronic music, but he’s delved further into his own musicianship than ever before to produce a folky, acoustic and intimate sound. Our single of the week is the UK singer-songwriter’s sexy, simple heartbeat of a song, describing one man’s complimentary notice of a woman, “Pretty Little Thing.”

US: We Share Our Mothers' Health by The Knife
With Deep Cuts, the Knife showed that they could do near-perfect electro-pop (need we remind you of the tune “Heartbeats”?). Now as our Discovery Download track proves, the Swedish subversives can do corrosive, icy-white electro-freakiness just as well. Want to turn the dance floor upside down? Then throw on this twisted, theatrical gem.

US: Tabloid Wars Episode 101
Every day the staff of the New York Daily News only has 24 hours to win the story…or lose the war against its archrival, the New York Post. Follow the News’s top editors, journalists, and reporters as they hunt down the headlines, get their story straight and play beat-the-clock to get the paper out the door and into the hands of its hundreds of thousands of readers every day. These tireless and intrepid newspeople take viewers out on the “beat” — to the scene of the crime, to get the much-needed quote from the source, or to the hottest celebrity bashes for the photo op — and then back into the newsroom before deadline.

US: Psych Episode 1
James Roday plays the somewhat eccentric Shawn Spencer, a police consultant who solves crimes with powers of observation so acute that the police think he’s psychic — or so he lets them think. With the reluctant assistance of his best friend Gus (Dule Hill), Shawn opens up a PI Agency named Psych, and together they begin solving cases even the most seasoned detectives cannot crack.

US: Workout Episode 1
Jackie Warner, the star of Work Out and elite trainer and owner of the exclusive Sky Sports and Spa in Beverly Hills, California, believes in two things: working hard and playing harder. We’ll go “between the machines” of this fitness mecca for an inside look at the actors, models, and celebrities — and the people who just want to look like them and are willing to pay a hefty price to do so — on their quest for the best body in Hollywood. This six-episode, one-hour docu-series uncovers the drama, conflicts, pressure, and emotional turmoil — in and out of the gym — as Jackie makes her team of sexy, hard-bodied trainers and upscale clients sweat the big stuff all while keeping her business growing and her own personal life afloat.

Australia: It Lasts by Karl Broadie & Kevin Bennett
Karl Broadie’s evocative lyrics and beautiful melodies have seen him steadily winning fans since he first appeared on the scene in 2003. Our Single of the Week, “It Lasts,” is an almighty unleashing of heart and soul that proves the critics’ plaudits were deserved. We’ve also reduced Broadie’s album Black Crow Calling in price to celebrate this week’s featured track.

Canada: The Looks by Mstrkrft
MSTRKRFT (pronounced Master Craft) is one half of explosive punk rock duo Death From Above 1979. Jesse F. Keeler put this track together with help from studio regular Al-P. Part of DFA1979’s appeal is their relentless, pummeling beat - something worked to frazzled (im)perfection on “The Looks” - our free Single of the Week.

UK: Torches by Webb Sisters
Indeed there are two sisters here (Charley and Hattie, oddly not related to the Webb Brothers) whose voices intertwine in an easygoing, palatable folk-pop way. “Torches” is an acoustic-led, jaunty jump into the pop world, with a more sombre, inward-seeking manner that calls to mind either Fleetwood Mac or Heart in their glory days.

France: Remember Me by Daija
Le premier album de Dajla est déjà annoncé comme l’un des disques très attendus de l’année. Découverte lors des Transmusicales 2005, cette jeune Nantaise écume dès le début de cette année la playlist de Radio Nova. Se distançant du R’n'B galvaudé et ultra-formaté des ondes FM, Dajla est l’une des rares chanteuses françaises à pouvoir soutenir une comparaison avec les interprètes nu soul d’outre-Atlantique. À vous d’en juger en téléchargeant gratuitement notre Single de la semaine, « Remember Me ».

Other items of note:

US: LP by Landon Pigg
Not a freebie, but the iTMS is offering a special price for the album for a limited time: With notable mentions in Glamour and Teen Vogue, and upcoming appearances on Last Call with Carson Daly and Late Night with Conan O’Brian, 22-year-old Landon Pigg is on his way to inevitable stardom. His first full-length album, LP, includes “Sailed On,” which was featured recently on Grey’s Anatomy, plus eleven more tracks penned with Pigg’s melodic vibe. iTunes Special Offer We recently featured Pigg’s single “Sailed On” as a free Single of the Week, and now, for a limited time, you can purchase his new album, LP, at the discounted price of $7.99.

US: Aquaman
This is not free and it does not appear to be a joke (i.e. Entourage) and I have no idea where this turned up from but I thought I’d put in my list today and hope that someone would explain this one to me. Just another things that make you go “huh?” I suppose. UPDATE: It’s not Entourage. It’s apparently from the creators of Smallville. Maybe they’re trying an iTMS rehash of the Nobody’s Watching viral marketing success?

Sleuth Network
Newly available TV shows include Miami Vice, the A-Team, Knight Rider (Hoff! Hoff! Hoff!) and Dragnet 1967.

Warner Bros. Television
New TV Shows include Friends, Aquaman (!), Babylon 5, the Flintstones, the Jetsons and MadTV (season 8, 9, 10).

“Life on Mars” starts tonight on BBC. Recommended.

The OmniGroup announcing a new application should be a national Mac holiday, frankly. And the rampant…nay, *rabid* speculation spawned by the tantalizing “reveal” on their blog has been amusing to watch. Also informative for any developers interested in what Mac users are looking for (hint: a decent email client is a big one).

That said, another big deal lately has been productivity-related activities, including Getting Things Done with systems like Kinkless, which combines OmniOutliner, AppleScript, and GTD techniques. This has not gone unnoticed by the OmniFolk, who have finally announced the new app: OmniPlan, which should be in beta this week.

The Ars.Technica “Infinite Loop” blog posted a trio of screenshots purporting to be of the new app. Verrrry interesting indeed.

We look at them every day, our eyes are drawn to them almost every time we interact with the computer - icons for apps and files are a very important part of the interface. But what attributes make a good icon?

Personally, I tend to prefer icons that stand out visually. I’m fond of the icon for Notational Velocity, not because it’s attractive but because it looks completely different to every other icon (very few icons use lettering, and none of them in quite the same jarring manner as NV does).

One problem people have commented on in the past is the prevalence of ‘blue circles’ - it’s hard to pick out apps in a crowded Dock when all the icons are round-ish and blue-ish. For this reason, I’m also keen on icons that deliberately adopt brighter, more visible colors and unusual shapes. One I spotted (and liked) recently was the icon for Spotlaser, very distinctive.

But I’m not a designer. So I thought I’d ask a few professionals - people who know a thing or two about icons - for their thoughts.

Jon Hicks, creator of the Firefox icon (among others), said:

“That’s a really hard one to answer, but I guess it all comes down to simplicity that can work at small sizes, and still have scope for detail at large sizes.”

He went on: “My favourite application icon has to be Transmit by Panic. While it’s a very detailed icon, with subtle shading and form, its still an instantly recognisable Yellow Truck, no matter what size, 128px or 16px.”

How about Jasper Hauser, creator of the Camino icon? He summed things up like this:

“Basically there are two aspects that are the base of a good icon: 1) shape, and 2) use of color. If you look at the Appzapper icon you will see that it 1) has a original shape, and 2) uses irregular colors and an irregular color combination. Doing a blue circle will not stand out.”

Via Ethan Zuckerman, I came across a post by Maciej Ceglowski on Idle Words, From: Pushkin.

Many months ago I found myself exploring a website with the collected works of Alexander Pushkin, and taking inspiration from the Samuel Pepys blog, I thought it might be fun to import Pushkin’s letters into an email client. Apart from the novelty value, the mail client provides all kinds of very useful search and sort features you don’t usually get with literary texts.

I love this tidbit, however:

I had to bump the date up by 200 years because Mail.app refuses to properly sort nineteenth century email. I consider this a bug.

Maciej has some fun ideas about setting up “historical correspondence,” annotating the letters of famous people via email.

Workout: Episode 1
Jackie Warner, the star of Work Out and elite trainer and owner of the exclusive Sky Sports and Spa in Beverly Hills, California, believes in two things: working hard and playing harder. We’ll go “between the machines” of this fitness mecca for an inside look at the actors, models, and celebrities — and the people who just want to look like them and are willing to pay a hefty price to do so — on their quest for the best body in Hollywood. This six-episode, one-hour docu-series uncovers the drama, conflicts, pressure, and emotional turmoil — in and out of the gym — as Jackie makes her team of sexy, hard-bodied trainers and upscale clients sweat the big stuff all while keeping her business growing and her own personal life afloat.

Project Runway 3: Road to the Runway
Emmy®-nominated Project Runway returns for a third seam-busting season. Supermodel and host Heidi Klum, her fellow judges — fashion designer Michael Kors and Elle Fashion Director Nina Garcia — and everyone’s favorite fashion mentor, Tim Gunn, are back to decide which of the new crop of 15 aspiring fashion designers will be in…or out. This season promises more surprise guest judges, more unexpected challenges, and of course even more drama on and off the runway.

Psych: Episode 1
James Roday plays the somewhat eccentric Shawn Spencer, a police consultant who solves crimes with powers of observation so acute that the police think he’s psychic — or so he lets them think. With the reluctant assistance of his best friend Gus (Dule Hill), Shawn opens up a PI Agency named Psych, and together they begin solving cases even the most seasoned detectives cannot crack.

I’ve always enjoyed reading Amit Singh’s articles dealing with the nitty gritty technical aspects of OS X on his website kernelthread.com. Recently, however, I ran across something a bit different — his Hanoimania! page. I thought that it was so cool that I needed to share it with you.

Basically, it’s a page containing over 100 implementations to the Towers of Hanoi problem. Maybe you’ve worked up a solution in Python or C before — but what about PostScript, Sendmail, Make, or Autoconf? (Yea, me neither.) This page is an amazing display of “thinking outside the box” and creativity.

If you enjoy reasoning about these sorts of things, you may also enjoy reading about Turing Completeness or esoteric programming languages. Or, if you really want to enlighten yourself, check out Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid from your local library.

What’s the most off the wall programming language you’ve ever used to solve a problem?

After much investigation, I settled on the SE W810i handset because of its impressive array of features, OS X compatibility, and similar form factor to my SE T637. Here’s what I’ve learned in daily use.

As you may recall, I asked Mac DevCenter readers their thoughts in my post, Time for a New Phone. The ensuing discussion was wildly helpful and led to me choosing the SE W810i. After a few days of use with Cingular’s GSM/EDGE network, I’m happy with my choice… for the most part. Here’s how it shakes out.

I thought I’d throw together a collection of my favorite half-dozen overlooked iTunes UI features. These range from the fairly unobvious to the very unobvious, so your mileage may vary from mine. Feel free to add your own personal suggestions to the comments.

[Ok, for the humor impaired, the blog item has no technical merit. So, keep moving along.] On a whim, after getting through a bunch of email this evening, I decided to check in on the Apple Store and ran into the good ol’ We’ll be back soon yellow note. The last time this happened, the Intel-based MacBooks appeared without a lot of fanfare (though several rumor sites had correctly predicted its Tuesday arrival). This time, though, none of the rumor sites were predicting any new products until WWDC in August. In fact, even then, the rumor sites were cautious in predicting what may be announced (although some kind of hot rod tower MacPro is a slam dunk prediction).

We’ve been hearing a lot about AJAX and Web 2.0 — especially around here on the O’Reilly blogs. And while I agree the technology is flexible and fun (what’s a Widget other than a mini AJAX app, after all?), I really haven’t grokked what all the hullabaloo is about. I mean, I understand the code that makes my movies look like they’re talking is pretty cutting-edge stuff. But if it’s as pointless and/or annoying as what most Web 2.0 sites have offered up by way of features, the whole thing might as well be another blink tag.

Nike/iPod Sensor Photos [Tewks]
Someone cracked open their Nike sensor sneakers and Tewks.net has the pictures.

iMovie Rentals? [ThinkSecret]
And now for something completely different: movie rentals through the iTunes Music Store? ThinkSecret reports this “represents a coup for the movie industry, which will have succeeded in standing its ground against Apple’s pressures to offer consumers the option of owning movie downloads.”

Safari Enhancers [5ThirtyOne]
Still using Safari? Be proud. It’s not just a Firefox world. Derek Punsalan offers a great case for Safari on his 5ThirtyOne blog, noting its terrific load time, page rendering and extensibility. Pop over to read an excellent round-up of free or nearly-free Safari enhancers. They range from David Watanabe’s Inquisitor, a Safari extension that adds live search and keyword suggestions, to Hao Li’s Saft, which adds ad-blocking, keyboard shortcuts and a session saver, to the OmniWeb-like sidebar of SafariStand. Punsalan may not convince you to switch back permanently to Safari, but he may entice you to discover some great new features that you weren’t aware of.

Yet another “I I Dropped It and Now It Works” iPod Story [SpillingCoffee]
Today’s “I thumped my iPod” story comes courtesy of the Spilling Coffee blog. Author “Tom Coffee” relates his encounter with a sad-face iPod, a lot of googling and the standard “thump-it” advice: “I couldn’t quite bring myself to dropping my $300 iPod to the hard tile floor on the off chance that it would spin or wobble on the way down so I did the next best thing: I held it and slammed it onto a pad of paper on my desk (providing some cushion so I didn’t crack the case), charging port down. And like mana falling from heaven, the tunes started playing.” This weblog does not officially endorse dropping, slamming, pounding, thumping or any other percussion-based iPod repairs.

Surveys Reveal Podcast Special Interests
According to CNet’s News.com, MacWorld.com and StarTrek.com dominate the podcasting world, according to the number of visitors to their respective podcast sites. Nielsen/NetRatings have been tracking podcast popularity recently with surprising results. Did you know that more podcast listeners download their content using Safari than any other browser? This demonstrates yet again a strong Apple-centric tinge to the overall podcasting world.

iPod firmware reveals iPhone/iMessenger clues [AppleInsider]
Quoting: ‘While Apple has been relatively mum on any plans for iPod-branded cell phone, the latest iPod software includes references to an “t_feature_app_PHONE_APP” application and variables such as “kPhoneSignalStrength,” “clPhoneCallHistoryModel,” prPhoneSettingsMenu,” “prPhoneSettingsMenuView,” prPhoneEnableSetting” and “prPhoneMenuItem.”‘ Want to search for yourself? Grab a copy of the latest update and issue the strings command from the Unix command line interface: cd /Library/Packages/iPod2006-06-28.pkg/Contents and then strings Archive.pax | grep -i phone or strings Archive.pax | grep -i movie, etc.

Sorry about the delay. Apple finally got around to updating the iTMS quite late today.

US: Lonely Train by Black Stone Cherry
This isn’t your grandmother’s grunge. Black Stone Cherry have all the creeping dread of Alice in Chains, but the powerhouse band turns the music into a pummeling mixture of speed metal and classic rock. “Lonely Train” is our free Single of the Week.

US: You're My Kind by Elektrochemie
With Thomas Schumacher and Stephan Bodzin churning out an infallible tech-house background groove and Australian vocalist Caitlin Devlin on the microphone, Elektrochemie carve out their own icy, robotic synth pop on our free Discovery Download. Cold, crisp, and precise, “You’re My Kind” is a cry for emotion from deep within the dark recesses of the machine. Following on the heels of last year’s “Pleasure Seeker” single, this track is yet another winner for the Get Physical label.

Australia:Yesterday by 78 from Home
When a band has three guitarists, you know it doesn’t do things by halves. 78 from Home embrace the whole rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle: the attitude, the chicks, the rider, and the pants that would be inappropriate in any other occupation. The Melbourne group brings back the adrenalin of hard rock with a tunefulness that keeps the music completely relevant. Make plenty of room in your collection for our free Single of the Week.

Canada: Who Taught You to Live Like That? by Sloan
A very special Single of the Week comes courtesy from the veritable Canadian institution of power pop known as Sloan. “Who Taught You to Live Like That?” is available exclusively on iTunes this week. Next week, the rest of Canada will discover what you will already know - Sloan’s newest track has a glam-rock stomp and huge chorus that you will not be able to get out of your head. Sloooooooooan!

UK: Not One Bit Ashamed by King Creosote
Honing his songwriting over a series of self-released CD-Rs, King Creosote drops us a sublime Single of the Week in the form of “Not One Bit Ashamed”. If you’re looking for pretension or glamour, then the surreal folk troubadour’s maudlin pop might leave you befuddled at best. But for those interested in finding the lucid beauty within the everyday, Creosote delivers the goods by the barrelful.

France: My Delusions by Ampop
Reykjavik a désormais son groupe pop au romantisme façon Coldplay, aux vapeurs type Sigur Ros et aux mélodies tendances Keane… qui après avoir passé la moitié de l’année dans l’obscurité la plus totale s’apprête enfin à sortir au grand jour. Ampop, trio venu du froid, rafraîchit la scène pop avec son nouvel album, My delusions, déjà disque d’or en Islande, faisant suite à Made For Market, considéré par la critique comme le meilleur album islandais de 2003. Leurs nouveaux singles « My Delusions » et « Don’t Let Me Down » sont à leur tour devenus des incontournables des ondes au pays de Björk.

Ok, sorry for the lack of a true Mac item, but people interested in virtualization might find this interesting anyway. I installed the newly free-ed Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 on an unsupport Windows version (at least it is not listed as supported in the Microsoft downloads area): Windows Media Center Edition. I decided to try to install Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition (also free) on Windows 2000. So, I found a copy of Windows 2000 Professional Edition and the Service Pack 4 disc for it and installed it under Virtual PC 2004.

I recently bought a USB headset to make Skype calls, and wanted a quick way to switch the Mac’s audio output between the built-in line output (which feeds my speakers) and the headset. Rogue Amoeba’s free SoundSource provides a handy system-wide menu bar for doing that, but every time I switched to the headphones, they blasted my ears. So I cobbled together this AppleScript to switch between sound sources and adjust the volume with one click.

This past Tuesday was Patch Tuesday for Windows XP users like me. There were also a bunch of anti-spyware, anti-virus, and a bunch of other stuff that had me rebooting my Windows PCs a bunch of times over the past few days. So, with my Mac user hat on, I read the following Symantec web-article with great interest: Mac OS X: Viruses and Security that says (in part) Let’s start with the hot-button issue of Mac OS X viruses. Simply put, at the time of writing this article, there are no file-infecting viruses that can infect Mac OS X.

Psych: Pilot
James Roday plays the somewhat eccentric Shawn Spencer, a police consultant who solves crimes with powers of observation so acute that the police think he’s psychic — or so he lets them think. With the reluctant assistance of his best friend Gus (Dule Hill), Shawn opens up a PI Agency named Psych, and together they begin solving cases even the most seasoned detectives cannot crack.

Project Runway: Road to the Runway Season 3
Emmy®-nominated Project Runway returns for a third seam-busting season. Supermodel and host Heidi Klum, her fellow judges — fashion designer Michael Kors and Elle Fashion Director Nina Garcia — and everyone’s favorite fashion mentor, Tim Gunn, are back to decide which of the new crop of 15 aspiring fashion designers will be in…or out. This season promises more surprise guest judges, more unexpected challenges, and of course even more drama on and off the runway. Aspiring designers vie for the chance of a lifetime as they tackle tough challenges and attempt to wow the fashion-industry judges.

More after the jump…

Microsoft changed its Virtual PC 2004 product for Windows XP desktops and notebooks from fee to free on July 12. This follows making its Virtual Server 2005 R2 product free earlier in the year.VMware also made its Virtual Server 1.0 product free (its predecessor GSX Server was for-fee) this week. Its VMware Workstation product is still a for fee product, however. So, all of a sudden Microsoft Windows users (I use pretty much everything) have all kinds of free virtualization products to create safe testing environments on the desktop. On the Mac, we’ve got the wonderful for-fee Parallels Desktop for Mac, of course. And, it seems like Apple is giving it official attention on their website. VMware says they have their product running on a Mac in their labs. But, where’s Apple in this mix? Boot Camp (not for me)? Hmm. I wouldn’t mind if Apple put Parallels Desktop for Mac on every Mac like they did with ComicLife recently :-)

How to get Mail to export messages in mbox format. A nice tip.

Why I love Camino; not much to argue with here.

Office 2004 owners; make sure you grab the latest 11.2.5 update which contains some security and bug fixes.

How to create a quick slide show in Lightroom Beta 3.

Real world experiences with Win XP in Parallels Desktop: “I am delighted that I can get rid of two major heat generators and a lot of wiring and the electronic KVM box that I needed with the two machines (the G4 Mac and the HP PC). Now, I just have one computer running in my office, the 20-inch iMac Intel CoreDuo, and it doesn’t generate all that much heat.”

Automator Virtual Input gives Automator complete control over keyboard and mouse, so you can simulate clicks and key presses. Shareware, $25.

An astute observation in What is this Windows of which you speak: “Apple only needs to compete with its own prior best.”

The following is a section that we left out of this week’s Mac DevCenter article What Is Vim (It’s Easier than You Think) because of length constraints. I hope you find it useful as one more point on your radar screen as you ponder the productivity that Vim may be able to add to your daily workflow.

Save Time With Vim Macros

Do you find yourself frequently whipping out the python interpreter or cooking up regular expressions in Perl just to munge some text? Even if you’re already really good, I bet Vim macros can still make you even better. A Vim macro is simply a set of keystrokes that you can record and use over again to perform repetitious tasks.

But wait a tick. “What’s wrong with regexes,” you ask? We’ll, consider this conventional wisdom:

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use regular expressions.” Now they have two problems. –Jamie Zawinski, in comp.lang.emacs

Although I do commonly use regular expressions in production level code that I write, day-to-day events involving a quick transform of a text file hardly require the effort of cooking up a regex. Read on to see why.