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Apple iPod Shuffle (fourth-gen), a return to form

The iPod Shuffle is back to the design that made it famous, only better and cheaper than ever.

With five colors (silver, green, pink, orange, and blue), one capacity (2GB), all the features of last year's VoiceOver model, and one low price ($49), the fourth-generation iPod Shuffle seems to be the best model yet.

There's very little new to report on the latest Shuffle. The navigation controls, clip, and power switch are taken right from the second-gen design, while the internal features, such as VoiceOver navigation of your playlists, music collection, audiobooks, podcasts, and so on, are all … Read more

Apple iPod Nano (sixth-gen), first impressions

Today, I played around with Apple's latest sixth-gen iPod Nano. Maybe I need some time to let it grow on me, but at first blush, I don't think I'm in love.

True to its name the sixth-generation Nano is Apple's smallest yet, measuring an inch and a half square, and 0.35 inch thick. There's a clip on the back (borrowed from the iPod Shuffle), a variety of seven colors (silver, gray, blue, orange, pink, green, and red), and two capacities, 8GB ($149) and 16GB ($179). Battery life is rated at 24 hours of music … Read more

How to use YouTube's video editor

Back in June, YouTube released an experimental tool that had been long asked for by its users: a browser-based video editor. The tool, which requires no additional software, or browser plug-ins (besides Adobe's Flash), lets users make minor edits to videos they've uploaded, as well as stitch several clips together into one.

While it lacks many basic features of modern day consumer video editing software (such as captioning, transitions, and image stabilization), it makes up for it in convenience. All your video files, and the rendering, is taken care of by YouTube's server farm, meaning you can … Read more

Get rid of typos

TypeIt4Me is a text-expansion and autocorrection utility, an app that can save you tons of time (and wrist strain) by automatically expanding frequently used words, phrases, and even images with just a few quick keystrokes.

Users have several good apps to choose from in this category, and TypeIt4Me is one of the best and longest-lived (with a successful track record that stretches past two decades). As with similar apps, you just type in a few letters to access your "clippings"--or you can even choose an abbreviation from TypeIt4Me in the menubar. You can set abbreviations to work … Read more

Save YouTube videos to your Mac

YouTube Downloader+ (not to be confused with YouTube Downloader, from a different developer) is a free, Java-based utility that lets you easily download and save videos from YouTube.

Since YouTube Downloader+ uses Java, you can actually also use it in Linux and Windows--which should provide fair warning that you won't get a slick (or even typical) Mac interface or experience here. That said, YouTube Downloader+ is fast and easy to use, with a straightforward interface window. You just paste in the URLs of the videos you want to download, then hit Return, and they will be saved as .flv … Read more

Springpad bookmarks the world

Springpad is a cool little utility to bookmark things you find on the Web and in the real world as well.

When you're on the Web site, it's very easy to create a new free-form note or to-do item. If you're typing in a name of a product or business (like a movie, the model name of a camera, or a restaurant), Springpad will probably identify it as you're typing and create a note with specific items info for the category it fits in. There's also a bookmarklet that makes it fast to save an … Read more

Disappointing downloader

We've seen a lot of programs that, in one way or another, help users save and view Flash videos from Web sites like YouTube. Some of these programs simply save the Flash files, while others convert existing Flash files into other, more accessible formats. Rarely do we see a program that does both tasks and does them well. Ashampoo ClipFisher comes frustratingly close to being the consummate Flash video downloader, but in the end, it, too, disappoints.

At first glance, Ashampoo ClipFisher seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. We dragged and dropped the URL of a … Read more