About a week ago we gave away an special signup key which allowed 1000 new users sign up for Merlin (ML), a private torrent tracker focusing on movies, TV shows,  documentaries, games and books all relating to science fiction and fantasy genres . We have now been informed by ML administration that all 1000 slots allocated to the previous key were used up a couple of days ago. Not only that, they’ve been kind enough to give us another key which will support a further 1000 new members. In...

Great news for music fans – TorrentTech is having a rare open sign up. TT is now 4 years old and they are finishing off birthday celebrations by opening doors to new members. Being one of the largest music torrent communities currently online, this is a must have site for music lovers looking to expand their digital collection. TorrentTech tracks a ton of torrents relating to multiple music genres including House, Techno, Trance, Pop, Hardcore and many more. Just like many other private...

We've been covering the story of D7 Consulting for a while here on TUAW -- that's the company that originally won 20 iPads from Box.net through our comments section, and then became a showcase project for how the iPad can be used in real-life business. I called up CEO Joe Daniels for one final interview this week to see how things have progressed and what he and his company have learned from using their iPads while out and about.

He told me that even though the dust has settled on the initial program, the iPad implementation at D7 "is going to be ongoing forever." It's "an evolutionary thing," Daniels said. But it has gotten to the point where the company no longer uses paperwork to share files. "Everything I do when I go out to a job site is done through the iPad and Box. I don't even take a file with me any more."

Continue reading How D7 Consulting uses the iPad at work

How D7 Consulting uses the iPad at work originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zen Bound 2, the second in the series of terrific iPhone and iPad games, is now out on the Mac platform as well, courtesy of Valve's great Steam platform. If you've ever played this one (and you definitely should), you'll know how it works -- wrap a virtual rope around a series of weird shapes trying to cover a certain percentage of the surface with paint. The gameplay's super intuitive and the whole experience is very zen, with solid colors and graphics backing up a great soundtrack and some intriguing realistic physics.

The iOS version is universal at $2.99, and the Mac version comes in at just a little bit higher than that at $4.99. But the visuals have been upgraded a bit, and the desktop version will even make use of trackpad controls on the MacBooks and the Magic Trackpad if you want to play that way. Plus, the title has been released under the SteamPlay banner, which means that buying it once will get you access to both the Mac and Windows versions if you want to install and run it on a few different computers.

Great game, and of course, it's always nice to support Steam's choice to step on over with us on the Mac, too.

Zen Bound 2 arrives on the Mac via Steam originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AirPrint may not be officially implemented in Mac OS X yet, but the feature remains present in the latest iOS 4.2 GM available to developers. For those who do have iOS 4.2 GM installed on their iDevices and are hoping to enable AirPrint, we've got a handy guide for you. Or you can also can use the AirPrint Hacktivator to get the job done.

That all covers printing to paper from iOS, but I've decided to take it a step further for those who want to "print" but remain paperless: Print to a PDF. And not only print to a PDF, but then immediately have that PDF accessible to the same device.

Here are some rather simple steps to get your PDF on.

Continue reading How-To: Create PDFs from your iOS device

How-To: Create PDFs from your iOS device originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For those of you who joined us for last night's TUAW Talkcast know that one of the Mac OS X 10.6.5 issues that we discussed dealt with PGP WDE (Whole Disk Encryption), a Symantec product that is used to encrypt an entire hard drive. PGP WDE is very useful to those who carry sensitive information on their MacBooks, as they can be assured that nobody can access the info or even boot the machine without knowing the encryption password.

Mac OS X 10.6.5 "broke" PGP WDE, with users of the product unable to boot their Macs at all. Rich Mogull at TidBITS looked into the issue and provided a wonderful explanation of how disk encryption works, as well as why the OS update caused the problem.

As Mogull explains, PGP WDE integrates with the Mac firmware so that powering up the computer forces it to enter a special unencrypted state that displays nothing but a password prompt. Entering the correct password then decrypts the normal operating system, which is in an encrypted partition on the disk. To display the special password prompt at bootup, PGP makes changes to the boot.efi file that is used by your Mac to begin loading Mac OS X.

What happened? The shipping version of 10.6.5 overwrote those changes to the boot.efi file, so the pre-boot password prompt was never loaded. Symantec had tested PGP WDE with the beta versions of 10.6.5 with no problems, but apparently something was changed by Apple at the last minute before distribution of the update.

Symantec has posted a recommended upgrade process, and has also created a PGP Recovery CD image that can be downloaded and used if you're already upgraded to 10.6.5 and are stuck in "an unbootable state." As we mentioned on the TUAW Talkcast last night, problems like these are a good reason to keep a bootable clone of your hard drive on hand.

Why 10.6.5 and Symantec's PGP Whole Disk Encryption didn't get along originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you aren’t a total newbie to the BitTorrent scene, chances are that you have heard about the likes of Zamunda, ArenaBG (Open) and RARBG (Open). Although not run by the same admin team, all of these sites share some common characteristics with each other - they are all huge torrent sites with massive torrent indexes and all have user bases exceeding over 100000 members. Todays post is about another BitTorrent tracker that is similar to Zamunda and Co; P2PBG. P2PBG is another huge private...

iPad users may have to wait a little longer than they'd like for features like multitasking and folder support, but at least one new feature is available right now: the iPad now supports Ping, Apple's stab at a social media component to the iTunes Store. Via an update to the iTunes Store's servers, Ping functionality is now available in the iTunes app on the iPad.

You'll find all the usual Ping features in a tab on the iPad's iTunes app: who you're following, who follows you, and so forth. Just like when Ping came to the iPhone in early September, there's nothing you need to do or download in order to get Ping working on the iPad other than open the iTunes app.

For some of us, Ping is a somewhat more enjoyable experience on the iPhone than on the Mac, and the same may be true of the iPad. Let us know in the comments how it works for you, and if this makes you more likely to actually use Ping.

Ping now available on iPad originally appeared on TUAW on Sat, 13 Nov 2010 23:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As if you needed yet another example of how there's no limitation to the uses people will find for the iPad, here's another one for you: an iPad as a protest sign.

In a recent Lithuanian protest, observers noted and recorded a video of one industrious person who made his own app -- or, possibly, just a video or web page -- to display his own protests in animated form upon an iPad. There's just never enough room on those giant poster boards to get your message across, so why not get their attention with flashing messages on an iPad taped to a piece of wood, right? Given, it's an expensive sign to make, but at least it gets the word out.

Check out the full video after the break.

Continue reading Found Footage: iPad used as protest sign

Found Footage: iPad used as protest sign originally appeared on TUAW on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iLounge reports that Apple has started to sell iBooks-branded iTunes Store gift cards in Apple Stores. I also saw the same gift cards for sale in my local Target store this morning. The gift cards come in US$25 and US$50 denominations and, like other iTunes gift cards, aren't limited to purchasing iBooks but can be used to purchase any content in the iTunes Store.

The idea behind the iBooks gift card branding is twofold: to appeal to customers buying iPads for book lovers this holiday season and also to remove any doubt in the minds of purchasers that gift cards could not be used in the iBookstore. That was a common misconception, because the iBookstore is only found on iOS devices and not in the iTunes desktop application. But that should be put to rest with these cards right alongside the usual iTunes gift cards this holiday season.

iBooks gift cards appear in Apple Stores and Target stores originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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