Unlockable Themes in Clear
So, there’s a new iOS Task app in town. Clear has stunning visuals, animations and sounds. I had a blast moving the vast majority of my non-dev tasks into it tonight. More detail at TechCrunch and Shawn’s blog.
One fun feature is unlockable themes.
Update: 7 more unlockable themes (for a total of 15) shipped for Clear on April 23rd. TouchArcade lists the game related themes and CNet has a rundown of the others. I’ve unlocked 5 of the new themes so far. Details follow.
Install The Heist to get a corresponding theme:
This theme is unlocked by installing Bumpy road:
Installing Path gets you:
In Clear’s Settings pane, gift a copy of Clear to another iTunes user to unlock the Gifted theme:
Mark some tasks complete in Clear late at night to get the Night Owl theme:
If you have Tweetbot installed, you get the Tweetbot theme:
If you follow the @UseClear twitter handle from within the Clear app, you get the Scorched theme:
If you enter a ton of tasks and mark them complete, you get the opportunity to tweet about Clear. Do that and you get the Socialite theme:
And here’s a look at the default themes:
Found
Some interesting reading this morning.
Shirt Pocket software is working on fixes for SuperDuper!, the state-of-the-art backup software for OS X. The biggest issue right now seems to be the unconventional system that Apple is using for hiding file compression from applications (which seems to be necessary for backwards compatibility). The great news is that even without these fixes, SuperDuper! is not experiencing any data loss. Dave Nanian’s article is here.
If you want to learn more about Snow Leopard’s file compression or ANYTHING ELSE, check out John Siracusa’s massive 23 page review at Ars Technica. While I understand that some users are finding Snow Leopard more of a Service Pack than a new OS, I have to say that I’m loving some of the features. The new changes to Expose alone are worth the $30 bucks to me. You can read up on the Expose features and other cool bits over on the TidBits blog. Try hitting the Expose key and then tabbing through your applications. FUN!
It sounds like the new hero Massively Multiplayer game, Champions Online is off to a rough start. They ratcheted down the effectiveness of players who participated in the beta. This is called a ‘nerf’ in the MMO world. Matt Franklin contrasts this with the rate at which the lead MMO (World of Warcraft) is making game play (especially beginner game play) easier and easier.
This Commodore 64 Visual Debugger is incredible. You start out with a window that shows EVERY address in memory and then zoom in to look at specific locations. The waves of memory changes during file loading are neat! I can’t wait to run this thing while playing Paradroid!
Backblaze has a how-to article up about the homebrew storage solution they’ve created. 7 terabyte 4U servers for $7,867.
JKK checked out the Nokia N900. It merges the best work they’ve done on phones and the work they’ve done on Internet Tablets (Nokia 770, N800, N810). It looks great and has a lot of power in the OS (Linux/Maemo) and the hardware. The Internet Tablet community must be really excited!
PAX, Penny-Arcade’s SOLD-OUT Video Game and Geekery convention (which started yesterday) just added 1,000 tickets.
Alex King spent some time these past few weeks trying to figure out which Network and BlackBerry Phone to use. He wanted to use a BlackBerry Bold, but ended up with a Tour on Verizon. His story is full of the idiosyncrasies of various carriers and devices. Part one. Part two.
Jack Shedd has some things to say about HTML 5. If you are watching the HTML 5 changes closely, Jack’s sentiments will likely resonate with you, including the frustration AND the respect for the team.
Lifehacker has an article on creating a Snow Leopard Hackintosh for $900 (plus the price of Snow Leopard standalone which is $169). I’d be interested in seeing a $500 model.
I Love Ambient Information
iPulse (12.95):
iStat Menus (Free):
iStock (Free with MacHeist 3):
Firefox: Cognitive Shield (Free):
Stattoo (12.95):
A Happy Accident
While working on a new Ajax Indicator, my code accidentally generated this. Pretty cool!
John Tokash 