GrandCentral, a phone service from Google that lets you “ring” multiple phones anytime you receive a call, has recently released their own iPhone application GrandDialer. We’ve discussed GrandCentral previously and how combining it with Gizmo allows you to turn any Mac computer into a free phone.

Now some of those same capabilities are available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

With GrandDialer, you can dial numbers from your iPod Touch or iPhone and have your number appear on the person’s you’re calling Caller-ID appear as your GrandCentral phone number. It does not use VOIP but instead will ring your iPhone or another phone of your choice and then call the individual you dialed.

To setup and make a call with GrandDialer.

1. Download and install the app to your iPhone or iPod Touch.
2. Open the application and click Settings

3. Enter your GrandCentral username and password

4. Select edit phone numbers, and enter the phone number you’d like to “ring” before any calls are made. This can be your iPhone or any other phone you’d like to call from.

5. After you’ve entered a ring number, you can return to the main screen, enter in a number you’d like to call and start using the GrandDialer.

With each call GrandDialer will ring either your iPhone or any land line number you entered previously and then ring the the number you entered to call once you pick up the line you wished to call. The individual you’re calling will see your GrandCentral phone number in their caller-id.

This feature may be especially beneficial to individuals that have setup a business line with their GrandCentral number and still want to keep their mobile phone number private from people they’re calling.

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.

Apple’s recently released iPhone 3g has been received by consumers across the globe with open arms. And although the hardware updates and price cuts have helped make the device extremely popular, the software updates and new 3rd party applications is what makes the new iPhone something special.

When Apple announced that they would be allowing 3rd party developers to create applications for the iPhone they quickly showed a few games and the capabilities of their mobile communication devices. It seems that the iPhone would finally be able to bring decent games to a mobile phone.

After downloading the iPhone software updates I quickly spent $9.99 on the iPhone version of Super Monkey Ball. While the price point is a bit high compared to other phone based games, Super Monkey Ball is filled with over 100 levels and a diverse game play option. I felt comfortable spending the money and now know that it was money well spent.

Gameplay

For any game to be successful on a phone it has to have outstanding controls. This is often an issue for games on other mobile phones, but the iPhones touch screen and accelerometer make the gameplay quick and easy.

Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone is like the previous versions of the game. it takes the gamer through a large number of courses as the guide for a monkey in a ball. On the iPhone you tilt the device left and right, forward and backwards, with the intent of guiding the monkey ball to the goal destination. This makes for outstanding game play as it delivers a level of difficulty but still makes it easy to pick up and just know how to play the first time you try it out.

Story

Super Monkey Ball for any gaming system hasn’t had much more of a story than being a puzzle game with different approaches and ways to solve a puzzle. In that sense, this version of SMB is just as entertaining as the others. Pick your Monkey, play the courses, rack up extra lives by collecting bananas, and avoid those fall out drop offs.

The way that Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone works in a linear structure of game play is by forcing the user to finish all the courses on a map before being able to play the next. This offers a challenge to the gamer but ensures that they don’t miss anything the game has to offer.

Overall Feel

In many ways Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone completely blasts away any other game on any other gaming platform. It has a unique phone gaming experience, unique controls, is challenging, and was easy to learn.

The only thing I wish the game had was some sort of multiplayer aspect that would allow you to sync up with your iPhone using friends. Compete for higher scores and faster times on course completion. This capability could be limited to WiFi networks but would add a new gaming experience to SMB iPhone.

Conclusion

For one of the first of the next generation of Phone games, Super Monkey Ball is great. I find myself playing this all the time.

The game seems to be great for replayability. A must for any mobile platform. I’m slowly working through the easy and hard difficulty levels for all maps and still work back to the initial levels with as much enjoyment as I do those I have not yet finished.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, spend the $9.99 on Super Monkey Ball. You won’t regret it.

I’ll be honest, I was once a huge fan of America Online. In 1992 and with my 14.4kbs modem it was one of the most efficient ways to connect to the internet. AOL was one of the first dial up services to offer world wide web support and while it was nothing compared to Google, AOL’s web Spider search engine was great.

Unfortunately for AOL time hasn’t been kind to them. They desperately were late to offering home users broadband internet connection and failed to optimize on their exclusive content.

Additionally, the software they provided to connect to their network and internet was labeled as malware and spyware. It often took over your entire computer and caused more problems than solutions it provided. In fact, it was the number 1 piece of software I instructed people never to install. But, it looks like AOL may have learned from all their mistakes.

Catching Up With The Times

Recently AOL released a new desktop application for the Mac. And unlike their previous software versions it appears that AOL has finally caught on. AOL Desktop For Mac version 1.0 is a small and simple application. Installed it is only 32mb and the application itself is very lightweight.

The application launches quickly uses webkit as the base for its own web browser. Additionally, most of all of AOL’s exclusive content has been moved to the web, so the icons and keyword links launch web content instead of custom AOL content.

So, despite the previous AOL track record and being considerably late in offering a modern solution to internet content, the new AOL Desktop For Mac is worth trying out… for those of you that still have your AOL accounts and miss out on all the Favorites they saved to their account back in the 90s.

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.