Written on 8th June 2009
30 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Channel 4 is set to become the first major UK broadcaster to offer their entire archive of television programs online completely for free.
Channel4.com relaunched on 1st April 2009 with their 4oD TV Catch-up service as its primary selling point. From July however, all this will change and PC, Mac and Linux users will be able to watch Channel 4’s complete programming history on Channel4.com.
Frankly, I’m not only impressed Channel4 has decided to make the move but I’m genuinely excited. Shows like Queer as Folk, Trigger Happy TV, Drop the Dead Donkey and more will be a couple of mouse clicks away – a danger to productivity levels but a convenience all the same.
Jon Gisby, who was made Channel 4’s Director of Future Media & Technology in 2007, said:
“We were the first broadcaster to launch a comprehensive video-on-demand service in 2006 and since that time 4oD has become one of the UK’s most popular VOD brands. The addition of archived content to 4oD on channel4.com means we will be the only UK broadcaster to have all of our content available online. We are extremely proud of the new and improved service and think the combination of fantastic content that’s easy to find and view will prove a compelling service for all users.”
Similar to Joost, Channel 4 has taken the decision to close its 4oD desktop application once all the archived content is available via Channel4.com.
For you non-Brits out there, unfortunately there aren’t any plans to offer the service internationally just yet.
A few days ago Opera released the first beta of Opera 10. Today, Google pretty silently published very early Google Chrome builds for Mac OS X and Linux. According to Google’s Chrome team blog, this very early build is not intended for download – which obviously, I could not resist – because it lacks essential stuff: The ability to watch YouTube videos, privacy settings and changing your search provider to bing.
Google’s browser is based on the open source Chromium initiative and ships with Google’s V8 JavaScript engine (also open sourced). My personal browsing experience with this dev channel release is quite fine, fast and clean rendering and speedy JavaScript execution. The absence of support for Adobe Flash and some occasional crashes are okay for such an early release.
We should expect Google to release updates on a bi-weekly schedule. Download your copy:
Google Chrome build for Mac OS X.
Google Chrome build for Linux.
Written on 23rd May 2009
2 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Zack Shackleton is one creative fella. Combining a Spiderman strip with various tools for the Mac, he’s managed to create one of the most creative desktop wallpapers we’ve even seen.
Each speech bubble is filled with useful information, from calendar and RAM to your todo list and internet speed. (details of how to create your own after the jump)
Written on 18th May 2009
2 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
The HyperMac is an external MacBook battery pack that works with all Apple Macbooks including Pro and Air. The pack is available in 4 different capacities, 60Wh, 100Wh, 150Wh and 222Wh, and capable of powering your mac for up to 32 hours.
There are two stand out features:
1. The HyperMac’s also supports the original Apple MagSafe connectors, ensuring that your actual Mac’s internal battery is recharged too.
2. Whats more, the HyperMac features a USB port making it a piece of cake to charge devices that support USB recharging as well as your Mac.
The battery varies in price between $199.95 for the 60Wh and $499.95 for the 222Wh. There’s also a car charger for powering up your Mac on the go for $150. Fortunately, it appears you can order from abroad as long as you’re willing to pay for shipment.
The devices can be pre-ordered now and are expected to ship by the end of the month.
Written on 15th May 2009
6 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
YouTube user LeopardOctober has posted a number of videos giving an overview of the soon to be released Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
Although we have embedded a couple of the videos for your below, LeopardOctober has unfortunately disabled embedding on a number of the best videos so I highly recommend you visit his YouTube channel to view them.
The new OS is expected to be released at WWDC on June the 8th.
Finder Preferences: When performing a search you can, search this Mac, search the current folder or use the previous search scope.
Dock and Substitutions:Assign an application to a space or all spaces, quickly from within the Dock. “Substitutions,” an OS-wide feature.
Written on 4th May 2009
10 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Posted on YouTube by “Hauram” the video shows someone (possibly him) take a knife to his MacBook Air because of tearing on the hinges.
According to HotHardware, the biggest problem is that Apple isn’t calling it a problem covered by warranty. This, at least for this guy, lead to him taking a knife the gorgeous and expensive piece of hardware.
Written on 4th May 2009
9 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
A little background.Quicksilver at its core is an application launcher, a quick way to get access to any application or file on your computer, and fast. What is important to note however is that thanks to passionate developers and their plugins, you very quickly forget that, and it soon becomes clear that Quicksilver is the actually the ultimate Mac Swiss Army Knife.
When I first begun using a Mac full time, a little over two years ago, Quicksilver was all the rage. On browsing the hundreds of ‘top Mac apps to install’, Quicksilver was frequently placed number one, and to this day, after testing virtually every new Mac app release, I couldn’t agree more. More recently however, the app is slowly being forgotten amongst newly formed Mac users – this needs to change.
The application, created by Blacktree, is (believe it or not) still under (open source) development. More importantly however, developers are still putting time into developing plugins for it. Quicksilver see, runs on plugins, in fact it’s nothing more than an application launcher without them – although a fine one at that.
Why is it so useful? And show me the Goodies!
The beauty of Quicksilver lies in its elegance. It sits there waiting, like a genie in a lamp, for your command, often ready willing and able to perform whatever you request – no matter how significant or otherwise.
I’m a great believer in at least attempting, for productivity’s sake, to use one app for as much as possible. Not only does it keep my memory usage to a minimum but I simply need to think less by knowing that via Quicksilver, I can usually get 95% of menial tasks done.
Written on 29th April 2009
2 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
I’d like to first come clean and establish one important fact, I am not a Flickr fan. Fret not however, I’m not going to launch into a rant about the popular photo sharing site just yet, I’ll save that for another post.
Irrespective of my Flickr qualms, I do have a pro account and I accept (for now) it’s here to stay, and the more tools available to make the most out of it, the better. Today, a jewel of an app fell into my lap (via Smoking Apples), a desktop Flickr app called flickery. The application makes browsing, navigating, sharing and utilizing Flickr, a far less troublesome process.
Browsing
With a familiar two pane window, you can browse your photo stream, favorites, contacts recent photos and groups as if the photos were stored locally. Photos can be viewed larger by pressing the space bar, or in gorgeous full screen by pressing cmd-enter. You can download images to your desktop or add them directly to iPhoto via a click of a button. Sharing photos is just as easy, select the photos you’d like to share and you can share them via email, iChat or Twitter.
Searching photos is also straight forward, but limited to 30 and can’t be ordered by ‘interestingness’. You can search your own photos with ease, as well as other selected users.
Written on 8th June 2009
30 COMMENTS 
Channel 4 is set to become the first major UK broadcaster to offer their entire archive of television programs online completely for free.
Written on 5th June 2009
I’d like to first come clean and establish one important fact, I am not a Flickr fan. Fret not however, I’m not going to launch into a rant about the popular photo sharing site just yet, I’ll save that for another post.
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
