Simplify Media has been around for a while now. Recently, Simplify Media released their very own iPhone app on the App Store free to the first 100,000 downloads. The idea behind Simplify Media is that it expands on the built-in iTunes sharing by allowing you to share your library over the net, including your iPhone. Here’s how it works.

First, download the Simplify Media software that resides on the computer that contains your iTunes library. The software is available for OS X, Windows, and even Linux. Once you have installed the applicaiton, the software will walk you through the process of setting up a screen name and password.

Next, you can choose what you want to share. You can share nothing at all, your iTunes Library, your music folder. Also, you can customize the folders you want to share.

If you have Simplify Media installed on more than one computer (between work and home, my iTunes library is spread accross 3 macs), then Simplify Media automatically connects to those shared libraries.

 Any shared libraries show up in the ‘Shared’ menu on your iTunes sidebar. You can now have one iTunes library but listen to your tunes from anywhere.

Simplify Media for your iPhone

As luck would have it, we here at Maciverse were part of the first 100,000 to download Simplify Media’s iPhone application and we wanted to see if it was as easy and fun as its computer counterpart. For the most part, we weren’t disappointed.

Launching the iPhone app takes you to a screen where you enter your screen name and password.

Just like iTunes, Simplify Media then connects to all of your shared iTunes libraries.

 From there, you can listen to your music or podcasts just like your iPod. But what about when you’re on the go? To test this, we took our little family on a trip to the local Target store for some back to school shopping. While there, I was able to connect to my shared library over the iPhone 3G connection without any problems. The only problem I did have was that my iPhone’s battery was low and the streaming quickly drained it. Other than that, the music came in without a pause or choppiness.

An additional surprise was that you also have the option of viewing the lyrics from the iPhone app.

Drawbacks

You can’t watch your iTunes movies/TV shows, just your music and podcasts. Also, the app depends on being able to connect to Simplify Media’s servers in order to establish a connection. The next day, while trying to test out the application again, I got the following error:

I got the error when I was connected via WiFi instead of 3G. However, after a minute or two, things connected just fine and I was up and listening again. One last issue, isn’t really a drawback, but the application was working well enough that I clicked the iPhone earbuds button thinking it would pause the music. Unfortunately, my iPhone’s iPod library started playing instead. 

Conclusion

Simplify Media lives up to the hype with respect to centralizing your iTunes library and the iPhone application works like a charm at least over WiFI or a strong 3G connection. The iPhone application is priced at $3.99 after the first 100,000 downloads. So if you can snag this app for free, all the better.

Wordpress has released an app for the iPhone/iPod touch that allows you to post blog entries while on the go.

If you use Wordpress, head on over to the Appstore and pick It up and blog away.

This is follow up to the previous post about iPhones internet power and SMS text messaging (the power). With the launch of the app store AOL has led the way with its AIM iPhone application. Twitter and Pounce also followed with their own apps. But AIM has had the capability to send SMS text messages and so does the iPhone AIM application as this lifehacker.com article and others have already described. Of course, the really cool feature is it doesn’t cost you any extra to send SMS text messages through AIM. Then again, you could just use AIM to chat, or twitter, or pounce, or Google Talk, email, or even call them. While SMS is the only one of these at the moment that can interrupt your workflow, not being interrupted may even be a better side-effect of not using SMS.

According to demographics, I am too old to “get” SMS txting. That’s OK. I actually don’t want to get it. In fact, not having an SMS option is a compelling reason for me to want an iPhone. Why? There are few reasons.

First, text messaging is a lot like email. Actually, text messaging essentially is email with restrictions and extra cost. If I’m already paying for the bandwidth, I shouldn’t have to pay more for small text challenged emails to my BFF. In fact,  you can easily go to most cellular websites and send your BFF a txt:

• T-mobile
• Sprint
• Verizon
• att/cingular - Send an email to number@txt.att.net

Secondly, one of the taglines for the iPhone is that you have “the power of the internet in your pocket.” Having the power of the internet in your pocket automatically makes SMS Text messages obsolete. I mean, you can watch youtube videos with no additional bandwidth cost, but txting costs extra? At least the data plan is unlimited. But with the new iPhone 3G plans, I’m not sure if AT&T gets it because they continue to charge extra for SMS text messages (like it’s worth extra). Yet maybe they do get it because SMS is optional. Either way, I am still perplexed with an article from AppleInsider recommending you play it safe and get the 200 sms text messages for $5 more per month. Let’s consider some alternatives:

• You can use Safari on the iPhone to go to each of the above sites and send an SMS text to whomever you want. Additional cost to you: $0.
• Send an email. It’s not all that different.
• You can use instant messaging instead. There’s the new Gtalk web-app which is nicely suited for the iPhone, or you can use meebo.com and get all your instant messaging clients included in a one stop web-app.

• You can use twitter and tweet from your iPhone instead of txt.

Consider for a moment that these web-apps (and sites) are available right now (no new iPhone required). Come July 11th, when the app-store is also goes live, all of these applications (or similar ones) might be found on the app-store as native iPhone applications. The added bonus is with an iPhone 2.0 app, information can now be pushed to the phone. This means you can be interrupted with any number of application messages, just like text messages except without the additional monthly costs. Of course, iPod Touch owners are not left out with these web-apps either. All you need is some Wi-fi.

As the iPhone makes good on its promise to bring the power of the internet in your pocket and as competitors follow, text messages will become increasingly irrelevant. Kind of like that thing you did when you were young because it was cool and everyone else was doing it and then one day you were like “this is so immature”. It’s all part of growing up.

Now that you’ve spent all your money on a nice new Mac, iPhone, Apple TV etc., your budget is starting to get very tight. But you still want to run Windows without Bootcamp, or check out that ubuntu thing that your geek friends talk about without spending any more cash. Well, fortunately you’re still in luck with VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a free virtual machine from sun microsystems. While it may not have all the bells and whistles that Parallels or VMWare Fusion offer, its price tag makes VirtualBox an attractive alternative. In fact, VirtualBox can install certain operating systems that Parallels currently does not support (such as the latest version of Ubuntu Linux). If you want to check out VirtualBox keep in mind the following:

• Memory - You’re going to need at least 512MB of ram for the guest OS. That means you will need at least 1GB of ram for your Mac, preferably more, in order to run comfortably. Otherwise, running a virtual machine will be an exercise in slowwwww.
• Intel Mac - You’re gonna need one to run VirtualBox
• Drive Space - If you have a MacBook Air with a 60Gb or 80Gb drive, keep in mind that a guest OS will take up Gigabytes of space. Running out can be painful.
• Patience - VirtualBox runs on many platforms but it is still in Beta for the Mac. Things may not work out the first or second time. Most virtual machines will add additional modules to the Operating System (called kernel modules). Kernel modules can bring the whole system down. But with a little patience you can still have an enjoyable experience.

So if you want try a virtual machine on the cheap, VirtualBox is for you.