Codewrangler

WWDC just a few short hours away

1306pijbesfgvijbefg_preHere we are, just hours away from the WWDC Keynote. Nobody really knows what to expect, but Macrumors.com has a compilation of all the rumors surrounding what might be introduced.

John Gruber, on his podcast said that his sources told him that what Apple is announcing, would be, “polarizing”. No explanation of what that means, but it does raise the interest level around this keynote.

My initial gut reaction, with the “polarizing” word being used, would be that Apple might be about to announce new hardware (MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iMacs) with the addition of a touchscreen. It’s kind of inevitable. Now that Cook is in charge and Jobs previous statement about why Macs would not have touch can be reversed without any internal Apple political ramifications. There is no more roadblock to the idea. Of course, this is only my opinion. I have no inside information either.

Well, whatever they announce, we will know in about 4 hours. I hope the announcements live up to the hype. We shall see…:-)

artbell.com is under construction

 

Screen Shot 2013-06-08 at 9.07.54 PM

If you are an Art Bell fan, here is a little bit of news for you.  Art just posted this on his FaceBook page this evening. Not sure what this means, but there it is. Art Bell is working on bringing his website back.

If you want to follow for any updates he may have, you might want to check out his FaceBook page. Alternatively, just keep checking the website under construction.

For those of you that miss the old show (Coast and Dreamland), you may want to check out this site that continuously streams his old shows. You can go right to their website at http://www.fineartstream.com or access it through TuneIn by searching for ‘Art Bell’.

Update: Since Art’s post, the page has gone from a white “?” on black background, to a white “!” on a black background and since then, the “!” has changed to yellow and now pink. also, there is favicon associated with it as well.

Screen Shot 2013-06-20 at 11.44.09 AM

That favicon looks very familiar to the favicon that ‘used to be’ on the ‘artbell.net’ site, maintained by the former ‘ArtBell.com’ webmaster, Keith Rowland.

Update 2: Not sure what it means, but the single “!”, has now changed to (3) “!”, in colors Red, White and Blue. Perhaps denoting an expected July 4 launch? Just speculating here folks, I have absolutely NO insider information on this one.

Audiobook Builder – Slick Audio Tool

icon-audiobookbuilderIf you have audio files that you want to turn into an “audio” book, for convenient listening, the process can be complicated. Luckily, there are some tools out there to accomplish this task.

For $4.99, there is “Audiobook Builder” by Splasm Software. AudioBook Builder Allows you to easily add audio files to a project and select where chapters will go (file break, time break).

So far, I have used it myself to convert multi hour podcast shows to Audiobook Bookmarkable .m4b format. Seems to work great in iTunes and the Music app on iOS. It’s available in the App Store and on their website.

Ubuntu Phone OS

ubuntu

Just a reminder to those who have an interest in Ubuntu’s upcoming   smartphone OS, based on Ubuntu Linux, they are releasing a developer preview that works on a couple of Google Nexus phones on Thursday (2-20-2013). you can read more about by going to their press release:

Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu to be published on 21 February 2013

It looks like they are taking some good ideas from some of the other mobile OS’s (iOS, Android, WP8, etc.) and adding some new ideas of their own. If managed properly, it could become a real competitor to, mostly Android.