coverity

iTunes (for Windows|Mac) has so much going on with its music library, playlists, and store, it's easy to overlook the little ways that this brand of software can improve your life.

Take CD mixes, for example. CDs may be passe, but they're not dead yet, and mixes make great gifts for anyone with a CD player built into their car, or anyone who hasn't sprung for MP3-player docking station.

With that in mind, the always-entertaining CNET Editor Brian Tong shows you how to create CD covers for mix CDs in iTunes, using iTunes and Amazon album … Read more

As far as video game box art goes, no game cover is more touted than the EA franchise Madden NFL football. Every year EA picks a special athlete to grace the game's cover, forever etching them into video game history. In the franchise's 21-year history, no two athletes have ever shared the cover--until now.

This year, Madden 10 will feature two players from last season's Super Bowl, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. Last year saw quarterback Brett Favre as the title's leading man, only to have been signed by … Read more

I normally don't care much for product announcements. When I saw that Coverity had released its new product suite, however, I took closer notice.

Coverity has been working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for years to analyze and help secure open-source code. That's important, because it puts open source in a position to leapfrog proprietary software, in terms of transparency and security.

Upon further review, Coverity's new offering may go a long way to changing the software development equation: more investment up front in developing software right the first time could save 10 times … Read more

Last week, Google updated App Engine with support for the Java programming language, opening up another chapter in the development-stack-in-the-cloud concept.

Still the most popular programming language--if only by a margin--Java support could mean potentially more apps being built and more developers using App Engine. Does this mean developers will simply be more productive and can deploy apps that just work? Or are there hidden issues in pushing those apps into the cloud?

The latter is more likely, says Ben Chelf, CTO and co-founder of Coverity, which is set to introduce a new offering Tuesday to tackle these hidden issues. &… Read more

As those of you with older PCs may have noticed the hard way, some of the new features in Apple's Safari 4 beta for Windows require a graphics card with at least 64MB of on-board RAM that supports at least DirectX 9. This makes it the first browser I've heard of with an explicit graphics card requirement, but is this really a big deal?

DirectX 9 has been around since 2004, and you can pick up a card for your desktop that supports it for around 20 bucks. This isn't quite analogous to Windows requiring a massive … Read more

CoverItLive, which makes a free hosted live blogging platform I like a great deal (see previous coverage), is launching a new "always on" feature called CoverItLive Enterprise, that it will sell to major online news outlets.

The idea is that instead of (or in addition to) running story pages that embed individual CoverItLive live blogs, a site can maintain one blog page with a perpetual live blog window. It will come alive with content when writers are participating in a live blog. A big advantage, for writers, is that they don't have to get an embed code … Read more

This iShelf design by Li Jianye takes the iTunes Cover Flow idea and brings it to real life. Think about it too hard and you might notice its small inadequacies (it can only hold five jewel cases and doesn't rotate), but it's the cleverly ironic idea that counts, right? Plus, you can put it on your shelf and brag to your Mac friends that you don't need the PC version of iTunes to make you happy. The iShelf is currently still in the prototype stages of design and might never see the light of day.

More pics after the jump.… Read more

Liquid Mongoose, the purveyors of the do-it-yourself DVD and music CD sleeves has put out a new version of its bookmarklet that supports Picasa Web albums. Now, if you're planning to burn a compilation photo CD or DVD, you'll be able to sleeve it in paper packaging that features thumbnail previews of what's on the disc.

I just gave it a spin on one of my recently uploaded albums and it worked flawlessly. Users with the existing bookmarklet won't have to upgrade since the JavaScript has stayed the same. The only confusing part is that the … Read more

TuneUp Companion has been getting a lot of attention for their iTunes plug-in for Windows, and now they're trying to drum up interest in the Mac version.

Basically, the plug-in powers up cover art discovery while cleaning up metatags, automatically discovering contextually-related Web content, and sniffs out upcoming concert information. I haven't yet had a chance to check out the Mac version yet, but keep in mind that it's a beta and there is likely some serious debugging needed.

In fact, the bugs aren't likely--they definitely exist. In the words TuneUp's media relations guru Andrew … Read more