Review by Frank Petrie

Product: Zagat ToGo
Author: Handmark, Inc. <mobile.zagat.com/iphone.htm>
Requirements: iPhone?, iPod Touch
App Price: $9.99
Test Rig: iPhone 3Gs

Food, food, glorious food. From the finest dining experience to the most satisfying of burgers, we all crave one type or another. And when that craving hits – where to go? What type? Chinese, Italian, Mediterranean? I don’t want to spend time debating the issue – I WANT TO EAT! How about just the local pub? I don’t care – I JUST WANT TO EAT!

“The most trusted guide to restaurants comes to the iPhone and WiFi iPod Touch with over 45 Guides of Restaurant Reviews and Ratings for *less than the price of 1 guide!*

Whether a cheap bite or a posh dinner, Zagat has shown the way for 30 years! Our Nightlife, Hotel and Shopping coverage also included where available.”

A getaway weekend all planned in seconds with only your fingertips? Let’s see.

THE JUICE

Zagat is a restaurant, travel and night life review guide started in 1979  by Tim and Nina Zagat as a way to collect and correlate the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, covering New York City, the Zagats surveyed their friends. Today, Zagats covers over 70 major metropolitan areas, but also has a very good handle on burbs like my South Jersey area.

You can choose from restaurants, nightlife and hotels (plus, occasionally shopping). After your experience at any of the listed establishments, you are asked to review your experience and rate such items as service, decor, promptness, etc. These reviews are then added to others of the establishment to give them an aggregate rating. Plus you can add any additional observations to your experience.

Additional functions are:

• You can use Zagat ToGo offline after syncing via Wi-Fi
• GPS: Find nearby restaurants automatically
• Recommendations: Our digital concierge tells you where to take Dates, Clients, Friends & more
• Advanced Search: Mix and Match by any criteria
• Top Rated Lists: “Best of” in your city like Best Buys, Best Burgers, Most Romantic & more.
• Reservations: Reserve tables instantly
• Sort: Filter by Food, Décor, Service or Cost!
• Email Reviews, Add To Contacts, & Full Photos
• 100% Complete: Every Zagat-Rated restaurant
• 100% Up To Date: New restaurants added M-F

THE PULP

As I had mentioned earlier, I put Zagat ToGo through its paces in my sleepy little hamlet. And I have to say that all of the reviews were spot on! Places were I had bad experiences were brought back to mind after reading of patrons suffering the very same nightmares, or conversely, any pleasantries that I had. I found the various ratings of decor and such to also to be extremely accurate.

I did find a few restaurants that no longer exist, but when you think of the sheer number of establishments that are covered in this app, that’s more than understandable.

THE RIND

Nada.

SUMMARY

If you’re just a couple looking for a good weekend out in a major city or just trying to pick from your local haunts, Zagat ToGo is worth every single penny. Doesn’t even rate a second thought. This is the kind of app that makes the iPhone indispensable.

In fact, it is too good in one way. It is not diet friendly.

RATING : 10 of 10

©2010 Frank Petrie

Review by Frank Petrie

Product: Speedback
Author: Skyworks Interactive, Inc. <www.skyworks.com/iphone/>
Requirements: iPhone, iPod Touch
Price: $0.99 (Limited Time Sale Price)
Test Rig: iPhone 3G/16GB

The Super Bowl has come and gone. I do have baseball beginning — my favorite sport. But what if I crave a little pigskin from time to time?

“Think YOU have what it takes to make first-string? Are you Pro-material? Could you be a Hall of Fame running back? Then suit up and hit the gridiron with SPEEDBACK.”

You know from past reviews how much I like Skyworks products. Will the string stay intact?

THE JUICE

You are the running back. But you have no blockers or front line to punch a hole for you. You have to find daylight by yourself. To accomplish it, you have three tools at your disposal.

First, you can pick from five different directions to run in. Of course, you change direction whenever you choose to avoid being tackled. Second, you can stiff arm your opponent. And finally, and probably the most fun, you can spin out of a tackle.

There are two modes of play, Classic Game and 2 Minute Drill. And you can either keep your scores to yourself or challenge others around the globe.

THE PULP

I have to be honest with you and say that when I launched Speedback for review, I wasn’t all that excited or interested.

But somehow, as with all their other games, Skyworks somehow managed to sink its hooks into me. I also found myself saying, “You can do much better than that!” with each play. And so the addiction began.

THE RIND

Nada.

SUMMARY

In the future, it would be neat if they could set up the game so that you could play against a friend who operates the defensive player. I’ve come to believe the secret in Skyworks’ games is that they lock you into playing against your own scores. You become your own opponent.

And even though this isn’t my favorite game of theirs (still can’t beat Arcade Hoops), I find myself going back to it. At this special price there is no reason that Speedback shouldn’t be in your gaming arsenal.

If I only could combine the spin with a stiff arm, I know that I could be a contender!

RATING : 7 of 10

©2010 Frank Petrie

Review by Frank Petrie

Product: Sorenson Squeeze 6
Author:  Sorenson Media <www.sorensonmedia.com/>
Requirements: Intel-based processor; Mac OS 10.4 or later; 512 MB RAM; 120 MB available hard drive space; QuickTime 7.2 or later
Price:  $799.00US; Squeeze 6 for Flash $499US
Test Rig: MacBook Pro 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 5GB RAM

For all of you videographers, I think you will agree that the most tedious part of the whole process is encoding your project. Sorenson has long been the high watermark, but this time they have outdone themselves with Squeeze 6.

“Free yourself from mundane tasks and your desk. We feel your pain, we’re here to help. With Squeeze 6, your workflow just got easy: Set it and forget it! Leave your desk and get back to what matters most — your videos, your business, your life.”

Let’s take a look around.

THE JUICE

The first thing that you will notice is a streamlining of the interface. Everything is pretty much as it was but in a more compact package.

New features in Squeeze 6 include foremost, its speed gain. Sorenson claims that version 6 is five times faster than version 5. Squeeze is now integrated with such apps as AVID, Final Cut Pro, iMovie and QuickTime Pro. They have added a whole bunch of pre-processing filters and presets to choose from.

They’ve enhanced the quality of H.264 and Flash, producing astoundingly crisp and detailed pictures. In fact, they have a decent choice of video and audio encoders. Squeeze 6 automatically publishes to Sorenson 360, YouTube, Twitter, Akamai, Limelight and many more

You have multiple encoding, which you can than publish directly from within the application. “Squeeze 6 automatically publishes to Sorenson 360, YouTube, Twitter, Akamai, Limelight and many more.”

THE PULP

Now, I didn’t run any numbers, but the speed has most definitely improved greatly. One of my midcoasts that used to take roughly 12-14 hours to encode, now takes approximately 4-5 hours. and if you’re rendering a batch of recordings, that’s a lot of time that you have gotten back.

To be honest, I haven’t had a chance yet to try Sorenson’s 360º publishing service. It is fee based but you get to use it for one year free of charge, so I’m in no rush.

With all of the great features that come with SS6, the one that I appreciated the most was Notification. Now, in my case I only have myself to notify when encoding is done. But that feature allows me to get up and get away from my computer, yet still allows me to keep up-to-date as to the progress of my encoding. When it’s completed, I can set it up to notify me by either e-mall or text message.

But if you’re working with a group, then the feature becomes invaluable. You can begin the encoding process but upload it to a shared folder and then have every one involved notified when it’s completed. They’ll be able to access the file without you even being near your machine! They can review your work and send you any necessary feedback, all while you’re away from your desk!

The piece of mind and amount of time that I now save is priceless.

THE RIND

Nada.

SUMMARY

Sorenson Squeeze is a high-end application. And it delivers on every promise. And then some.

It has streamlined publishing and coding automation to the point that it is no longer a chore! Now, encoding has become one of the less stressful and least time consuming processes in my video production workflow.

Now if I only could afford that three-chip CMOS camera

RATING : 10 out of 10

©2009 Frank Petrie

Review by Frank Petrie

Product: RingtoneStudio 2
Author: PocketMac
Requirements: working copy of iTunes, 90 day money back guarantee
Price: $19.95
Test Rig: 13″ MacBook Pro, iPhone 3Gs

Ringtones. You either pay for them or you use another piece of software, then go through about a dozen or so steps to create exactly what you wanted. But suppose that you could create a ringtone out of a music or video file in just four steps?

“RingtoneStudio 2 for iPhone is the most complete option for creating ringtones on your Mac. We’ve designed it from the ground up to be incredibly simple to use. And it works with all models of the iPhone, including iPhone 3.0 and iPhone 3GS.”

Is it worth it? Let’s try it and find out.

THE JUICE

Installation is just the double click of a .dmg. The GUI should be somewhat familiar.

RS2 works with many different formats such as AAC, MP3, M4A. In fact, RS2 supports all of the audio and video formats supported by QuickTime/QuickTime Pro with the exception of DRM/protected media and some older formats like MPEG-1.

It can all be accomplished in just four steps after you launch the application. First, drag your chosen file onto the RS2 and choose the section you want to make into a ringtone. Second, use the selection tools to choose the section that you want to make into a ringtone (forty seconds maximum.) Third, tweak your ringtone using the volume tool and the cursors You can zoom in or out on the waveform in order to make precise trims. And finally, press the Create button and let RS2 produce your ringtone and deposit it in your Ringtone Folder.

When the creation is completed, you can then sync them up on your iPhone.

THE PULP

I made a quick ringtone from one of my favorite songs. And it was just as easy to do with a .mov file. Both files retained their audio quality. Quite impressive.

THE RIND

I don’t have many friends. Gotta work on that.

SUMMARY

You could accomplish the same using various programs. But RingtimeStudio lets you perform everything in four simple steps, all in one application. If you’re a fiend for constructing ringtones, then this one’s for you.

But, please — no Jonas Brothers.

RATING : 8 of 10

©2009 Frank Petrie

Review by Frank Petrie

Product: ProTouch
Author: iSkin <http://www.iskin.com/protouch_apple_keyboard/>
Requirements: MacBook/Pro/Air, Aluminum wired/Wireless keyboard, Aluminum wired (with numerical keypad)
Price: $24.99, $34.99
Test Rig: 13″ MacBook Pro

Keyboards. Dirty fingers covered with lunch grease, skin oils and heat-seeking cats can really turn them into a real mess over time. Enter ProTouch by iSkin.

“The all-new line of ProTouch® Keyboard Protectors for Apple Wired and Wireless Keyboards deliver the most advanced combination of style and protection ever. Form-fitting silicone works full-time to keep your keyboard safe from everyday hazards that could lead to permanent damage, while built-in Microban®* protection provides continuous cleaning action, inhibiting the growth of damaging microbes, such as bacteria, that can cause stains, odors and product deterioration.”

Is it worth it? Let’s see.

THE JUICE

The various skins come in several stylish colors and patterns. Basically, from a visual prospective, you now have some options to skin your laptop’s interior, as you would your laptop’s exterior. All skins are form fitted and lay on the keyboards quite nicely.

ProTouch skins can also help you from ending up with grungy keys. Take that Kentucky Fried Chicken!

THE PULP

It takes a little while to get used to the new feel of the keys, but that took me maybe a couple of hours to get past. You have to make sure that the skin lays flat on the keyboard or some of your typing strokes might not register. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the pattern of the skin that I chose did not in any way make it harder to hunt and peck. Despite the one problem that I did find bothersome (see below).

THE RIND

If you have an illuminated keyboard, you wouldn’t know it with aTouchPro on it. It’s entirely obscured.

A small thing, but I also would like to be able to download a matching desktop (if one’s on the site, I couldn’t find it) so I’d have a theme.

SUMMARY

If you’re looking to prevent the “PepsiSyndrome,” this should do the trick. As far as disease prevention, I have never caught anything off of a keyboard but I suppose that it couldn’t hurt.

So, now that the world has seen your statement on the outside of your laptop, you can now make one on the inside of your laptop’s on your iMac’s keyboard.

“I am best avoided.”

RATING : 8 of 10

©2009 Frank Petrie

Review by Frank Petrie

Product: Xslimmer 1.7
Author: LateNiteSoft <www.xslimmer.com>
Requirements: OS X 10.3.9 minimum
Price: $14.95
Test Rig: 13″ MacBook Pro; 5GB RAM; Mac OS X 10.6

Ahh, fall is here and Snow Leopard is in the air. But before you install/upgrade, you should really do a few things first. Naturally, perform a back up – RIGHT!? But then root around your virtual attic. Are there pieces of bric-a-brac just floating around in there? No longer used applications? Stray .plists? Toss ‘em.

Then you’re ready to use Xslimmer to finish up the job and get everything ready for Snowy.

“Xslimmer not only frees space wasted by unused code, it can even increase your Mac’s performance. Some of our users have reported applications loading in almost half the time, because OS X does not need to analyze Xslimmer applications in search for the most suitable version of the code.”

Doesn’t Snowy deserve a nice clean bed?

THE JUICE

Xslimmer is great for separating Intel from PowerPC apps, giving you a heads up as to which applications will work with your new system. Also, it gives you a chance to see if any of your favorite PowerPC apps have been updated to Intel apps. You could do this manually through “About This Mac,” but it would take much longer and besides, isn’t your computer supposed to work for you?

Xslimmer also uses a downloadable blacklist, which tracks apps that do not allow themselves to be modified – to prevent piracy, usually. “Blacklisted apps will be ignored, and the list will be automatically updated as new troublesome apps are discovered.”

And you could use Xslimmer like a stealth version of Time Machine. “Xslimmer saves a copy of your originals for you, and lets it delete old backups periodically so that you don’t have to remember about them. Restore your app quickly if you suspect it does not work correctly after being slimmed down.”

And that’s just a few of the bonus features.

THE PULP

Xslimmer has a very clean GUI. Read the Help file to familiarize yourself with the Toolbar Buttons and you’ll be at it in no time. I cleaned out the flotsam on my machine in about half an hour. And my machine is littered with apps and extra code from the software reviews that I do.

Next step, will be to eventually go through my apps and weed out the 32-bit from the 64-bit. (64-bit FCE? Hint, hint.)

THE RIND

Nada.

SUMMARY

This is an absolute toolbox necessity that should be used once a month if you’re always adding apps. Even using it otherwise,  couldn’t hurt. I know that I’ll run it when I do my monthly run of Disk Warrior. And don’t forget that you can also use it for backing up your files.

For $14.95, you’d have to be one dumb cat to pass this up.

RATING : 10 of 10

©2009 Frank Petrie

A review by Frank Petrie

Product: Goaaal!
Author: Skyworks Interactive, Inc. <www.skyworks.com>
Requirements: iPhone, iPod Touch
Price: $1.99
Test Rig: iPhone 3G/16GB

Once again I’m writing a review of a Skyworks game. But this time it’s not an arcade game. It’s a soccer shoot out.

“In Goaaal!, you’ll use all your flicking kicking skills to score as many shots as you can. In Progressive Mode, every bonus target you hit will earn you a free kick – do well enough and earn badges. In Arcade Mode, shoot five goals in a row and you’ll be ‘on fire’ and every goal will reward you with another kick. Beware: the goalie gets progressively better as you improve!”

I’m addicted to their arcade games. But will I be as drawn in by Goaaal! ??

THE JUICE

As in all of Skyworks’ games, you can put spin on the ball. If you’re good enough (which I am not) I imagine that you can mix up enough shots to keep the goalie on his virtual toes (a band that I played in during the 70s). There’s nothing to do to set up other than entering your name, decide whether or not you want to submit your scores to the global pool and practice.

THE PULP

Yes, the goalie does learn your moves, but very slowly. But there are other ways to score points (bulls-eyes in the back of the net, balls ‘on fire’, etc.) to make up for the goalies slow learning curve.

As always, you can customize the music by selecting from three different tracks.

THE RIND

Nada.

SUMMARY

Skyworks has set the benchmark for arcade games. I’m addicted to them. But for whatever reason, even though this game is every bit as well built and full featured as the other games that I’ve played, I didn’t develop the same addiction.

But then again, that’s just me. Give it a go.

RATING : 8 of 10

©2009 Frank Petrie

Review by Frank Petrie

Product: MacSpeech Dictate
Author:  MacSpeech  <www.macspeech.com>
Requirements:  Intel-based Mac; Mac OS X 10.5.2 or greater, Mac OS X 10.4.11; Internet connection required for product registration; MacSpeech-certified noise-cancelling microphone (included).
Price:  $199.00
Test Rig: MacBook 1.83Mhz; 4GB RAM

Probably the last world of technology to be perfected will be speech technology. And we’re getting much closer than we have been thus far.

“MacSpeech Dictate provides a whole new way to interact with your Mac. Instead of typing, use your voice to input text; rather than clicking your mouse, just speak commands. With MacSpeech Dictate, it’s easy … MacSpeech Dictate provides astounding accuracy and productivity. With just minutes of training, you’ll be using MacSpeech Dictate’s superior capabilities.”

Now I’m going to be looking with a slightly different eye than most of you. I am handicapped. Now I hav become a pretty mean single finger typist but I know that I could get so much more done if I could only increase my output. Let’s see how MacSpeech has fared.

THE JUICE

Set up couldn’t be any simpler.  Pull out the headphones, insert the headphone and microphone jack and install the two software disks. (You can purchase Dictate without a set of headphones. The headphones cost extra.) Now, what you have to do is to learn all the various commands. And that’s it.

A note about the headphones. Both the headphone and microphone jacks plug-in to a Plantronics USB dongle. This way, your audio  input and output are left free to use for other devices.

To train Dictate to the sound of your voice, all you have it do is read about five minutes of text to it. After that, it should recognize your voice and you’ll be good to go.

THE PULP

Dictate is very addictive.  Yes, you have to speak like you’re speaking to a small child, but it’s nowhere near as tedious as dictation software once was. I can see how once I have mastered Dictate, this could save me a lot of time by replacing my inept typing skills. The reason for the vast improvement in its accuracy is its use of Dragon’s Naturally Speaking engine.

Dictate will be  very, very useful for the handicapped. Once you have learned all its commands, you should rarely have to touch the keyboard at all. Not only can you dictate, but you can also edit documents, open and close applications, plus navigate your Mac. That levels the playing field enormously.

THE RIND

First, the hardest thing is memorizing all the different commands. But then again, that goes with the territory.

The biggest problem that I had, was with the USB dongle. Inside it was slightly malformed, so I had to do a bit of work to get both jacks plugged in.  But once it was in, and I had the headphone and microphone highlighted in the system preferences sound pane, I was able to proceed with this review.

SUMMARY

Dictation software is leaps and bounds beyond what it once was. Now, instead of talking like an android, you can speak to it as if you’re talking to a small child. I know that once I can make this a habit, that my writing will greatly improve.

Unfortunately, I’ll still be a bonehead.

RATING : 8 out of 10

©2009  Frank Petrie

Review by Frank Petrie

Product: AstoundStereo
Author: Speck <www.astoundstereo.com>
Requirements:  Leopard (10.5.1) or higher; 1 GHz Intel or PPC (G5)  processor; 1 GB RAM; Stereo audio output; Internet access
Price:  $24.95
Test Rig: MacBook 1.83Mhz

Sound processing is usually met with about the same success rate as 3D visuals. Sometimes worse. Cold and sterile. The only company that has been fairly successful at it is Bose. But no more. Welcome AstoundSound.

“The AstoundStereo? Expander is a software application that runs on your Macintosh. The AstoundStereo Expander is always running in the background processing audio from all applications. It takes any stereo audio as input and produces a significantly wider stereo image, while preserving center information (e.g. vocals or center staged instruments), in real time. The result is a wider, fuller and richer listening experience which can be heard while playing music, a DVD, a video game or any application that produces audio.”

More rhetoric or did they really nail it?

The Juice

AstoundSound is an extremely simple System Preference. Installation takes the better part of 10 seconds. It has three settings to choose from. And the preference is easily accessible from your Menu Bar.

That’s it.

The Pulp

The success, in my opinion, of AstoundSound is that it sounds like it was tuned with musician’s ears instead of engineer’s ears. I’d also swear that that AstoundSound enhanced the clarity and definition of the instruments.

I tested AstoundSound with The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Bears (Adrian Belew), Donald Fagen and Eugene Ormandy conducting Fanfare for The Common Man. Incredible. You can hear the plectrum on McCartney’s bass strings. You can sense the timbre of the hall during Fanfare. And maybe it’s me but I swear there was a bit of bass boost tossed in for good measure.

The Rind

Nada. Nada. Nada.

Summary

The only thing that could make this any better is an iPod/iPhone version. And the authors told me there should be one in several months.

Experiencing your music with AstoundSound is like when you listened to your newly remastered music on CD for the first time. It’s that good.

RATING : 10 out of 10

©2009 Frank Petrie