I've been a HUGE fan of Ilium Software for almost 10 years now.  Their application, Keep Track, helped me get a handle on my checking account, and I used it for YEARS. Its an awesome application.

One of my most favorite applications is Dockware Pro.  With it, you get a screen saver for your device. I have this on most, if not all, of my Pocket PC's (now WM Professional devices).  What I don't have it on is my Blackjack (or WM Standard devices).

I went poking around their site and found that they make a version of Dockware Free and Dockware Pro for Smartphones.  This is truly awesome, as I can now have all of my family pics cycle while the device is charging.

Dockware Pro for Pocket PC and Smartphones is $9.95 and available from Ilium Software, here.

OSX 10.5 shipped Friday; but if you looked hard enough, you found it early...

Sorry this is a bit late, everyone. I've had a lot to do with the new edition to the family. Our son, Josh will be 6 weeks old on Thursday, and he isn't even close to sleeping through the night yet.  Ah well... that's what little boys are made of I guess... I'll have a regular column out this Wednesday as planned.

Leopard hit the streets Friday 26-Oct-07 at 6pm. Interestingly enough, a final copy of the OS made its way around the internet before then. While Vista leaked before its final release, the biggest and most notable difference between the two operating systems is that Leopard doesn't require activation or have other anti-piracy impediments.  Some Mac enthusiast sites are using the leak to prep early reviews of the new OS.

An interesting item of note for those sticking with Tiger... If you haven't pulled down the latest version of Boot Camp, you won't be able to find it on Apple's site any more. As Boot Camp is part of the new OS, its beta status is officially over. New users will have to buy a copy of Leopard in order to run Windows on their Intel based Macs.  If you had Boot Camp on your PC before the Leopard release, you should still be able to boot into windows and use it without any issues.

If and when you upgrade to Leopard, exiting Boot Camp users need to keep an important point in mind: It is not completely known what Upgrading will do to your Boot Camp partition.  You should just be able to create a new drivers CD, boot into Windows and upgrade the Windows Boot Camp Assistant.  However, other WUGNET members are indicating that they are having trouble doing that. It seems strange to me that Apple would make current Mac-Windows users blow their Windows partitions and reinstall everything from scratch.  If that is the case, I know I won't be happy. However, they may be trying to get existing BC users to cough up the $129 on the upgrade to Leopard, which ships with Boot Camp built in.

Straight from the WTF Department, comes the latest from the music industry: Personal radios may infringe on copyright...

I saw this at Geek.com while I was at the office the other day, and came close to really saying it: WTF!  This one really takes the cake. Listening to the radio at work may be a violation of copyright law. 

Its seems that employees of a car repair firm based in Scotland found themselves the subject of a  copyright infringement lawsuit. The Performance Right Society (PRS) is charged with collecting royalties for "songwriters and performers;" and has  filed suit against Kwik-Fit.

PRS claims that the employee radios can be heard by “the public,” including customers, so the firm is must pay royalties on the music. The PRS is seeking US$407,000 in damages and has been successful in preventing the lawsuit from being thrown out so far. Kwik-Fit claims that it doesn't allow employees to use personal radios.  However, the PRS claims it can site 250 occasions since 2005 that prove that the policy is ineffective.

The article goes on to say that, regardless of country and location, this case will cause employers to take a tougher hand with employees and their radios.  I'm not buying it... Radio waves are publicly available. Anyone with a receiver can pick them up and listen to the content played over them. Just because you overhear the music playing over my radio doesn't mean that the copyright owner is entitled to additional revenue.  In The States, royalty fees are not paid to the RIAA or anyone else once a radio (or other receiver/player) is purchased; and radio stations don't charge listeners to, well, listen.  Advertisers pay fees to support them (because radio stations sell audio advertising.

This issue is getting so blown out of proportion that if pressed, I'll very likely refuse to watch or listen to any kind of media.  Music and movies are too expensive as it stands.  I'm not in support of any program or law that allows publishers to charge for something that for more than 50 years has been free.

Radio play leads to album sales; but I guess the RIAA and other like org's have forgotten that consumers are the ones that pay for this stuff in the first place. If they want to make it more difficult for us to purchase legitimate content simply to make an additional buck, I think I can do without...

Many, MANY moons ago, having TVGuide listings on your device was all the rage. Then TVGuide got their undies in a bunch, and finally locked everyone out of their listings. That sparked the creation of Zap2It Labs.

Zap2It was great; but the problem there was that the wrong sorts of apps and people were using the data and not paying for it. Recently, they closed down. 

I have been using PocketTV Listings for about 5 years or so.  With it, I get my cable TV listings on my device, and have the ability to set reminders/appointments in my Outlook calendar so I can remember to watch a show. While this may not seem like a huge deal to some, to me, especially during football season, I find it invaluable. I schedule EVERY televised game and, PTVL even includes who is playing whom in the appointment note, and the TV channel in the meeting location. Its made by ThumbsUp Soft, and its awesome.

With the recent demise of Zap2it Labs, PTVL stopped working. I was really upset that this great freeware app that I have been using seemingly forever, would no longer work.  So, I gave the buys over at ThumbsUp Soft a shout and asked about it.

Long story short. Even though PTVL is freeware and hasn't been modified or revved in years, ThumbsUp Soft was kind enough to tweak the code so that it used the new data source.  Schedule Direct can be found here.

The data has a $20 for a 9 month subscription fee; but if you use it often enough, its not bad. For the amount of times I use it, it was a good buy.  Since it works with PTVL, and PTVL works on WM2003SE, WM5 and (I think) WM6 devices, I'm pretty much set for a while.

You can download the older versioin of PTVL here. After it installs, open the desktop data downloading app, called WebLink, and choose Help--Check for Upgrade.  That will install the new Schedule Direct version. 

After it installs and you sign up for a free 7 day trial account on Schedule Direct, you can give it a shot.  I found it to be awesome, and even after 5 or so years, its still provides value.

Thanks, Michael for giving us such a great app!!