• Cut and Paste – It works great, but the funny thing is I use a lot more than I thought I would. Maybe Steve was right after all, LOL.*Waves Hand*”You don’t need cut-and-paste. This is not the text you were looking for”
• Media Downloads – I had been waiting for this for some time. You can now download movies, TV shows, and audio books from iTunes on your iPhone. I’m actually downloading “Predicatably Irrational” on my iPhone while writing this Blog entry, nice! You need Wifi for this functionality, and it will take a while to download your book. Don’t try this on a low battery!
• Landscape Keyboard – Finally! You can now use landscape mode with your email, notes, and Safari.
• MMS – ready as far as the iPhone is concerned, but AT&T still hasn’t got their act together. AT&T says they are working on MMS and it will be ready sometime at the end of the summer…Grrrrrr.
• Internet Tethering – Don’t get excited, AT&T hasn’t got this feature working either. They are getting really annoying. And you better believe that if/when they allow tethering at all, they will charge a lot for the privilege.
• Spotlight Search – You will love this feature, I use it constantly. Here’s a tip, use it to launch your Applications. No more remembering what screen that app is on, just start typing the first few letters of your Applications name and away you go!
• Voice Dialing – Sorry Charlie, this feature is only on the new iPhone 3GS and isn’t a part of the 3.0 update. My personal reaction? Whaaaaaaah! *Stomps Foot* I want it, I want it.
• Voice Memos – Kinda lame, really. Works O.K. but has absolutely no features at all. Think of it as just a big, red, record button. Wait a minute, that’s exactly what it is.
• Turn By Turn and Video Recording – Fooled you. You don’t get these either. Buy the new iPhone 3GS.

I thought the first generation of the Kindle was an interesting idea but overpriced and feature poor. With the new Kindle 2, Amazon has released a product that I believe is still overpriced  but will get much wider adoption. The key feature is that the Kindle is always connected to the Internet allowing the download of fresh content 24/7. Since Amazon doesn’t charge users a monthly connection fee, they are out only the initial cost of purchase. The new Kindle is much thinner and now holds over 1,500 books. And Kindle 2 even reads to you, with a “Read to Me”, Text to Speech engine.  But the sweetest detail that Amazon isn’t really marketing (still a rumor) is that the Kindle 2 will sync with mobile devices. This Whispersync feature will allow your iPhone or other mobile device to read Kindle content.  The one showstopper for me however is that the Kindle 2 doesn’t allow users to upload their own content to the device.

New Features & Enhancements

• Slim & Lightweight: Just over 1/3 inch and 10.2 ounces
  Books in under 60 seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required
• Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for crisp images and text; even reads well in bright sunlight
• Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging
• More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books
• Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns
• Read-to-Me: Text-to-Speech feature means Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud.
• No Wireless Bills: No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle’s wireless connectivity so you won’t see a monthly wireless bill.
• Large Selection: Over 230,000 books, plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines and blogs available
• Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise

Short previews of available music can be played just as in iTunes. The music, once downloaded, contains no digital rights management. The files are in MP3 format and are encoded at 256 kbps. A typical 3-minute song takes up approximately 5MB of storage space. Album cover art is included with each song you download. Once the download is complete, your music is automatically available in iTunes.

You may not download purchased music more than one time. Music downloads are also not returnable. Once you’ve purchased something from the MP3 service (they allow one download for free) it will show up in your personal media library on Amazon.com’s website. There you can post reviews and share your library with friends.

Amazon’s Mp3 Download Service provides needed competition for iTunes. The fact that the music is DRM free will appeal to many. The pricing is variable and comparable to iTunes. The fact that neither Amazon or iTunes allows you to download your music to more than one computer shows that their is plenty of room for improvement with both services.

To create a piece you simply need a text editor. Being a programmer I chose my favorite editor TextMate. Before beginning to create my masterpiece (ahem) I did a quick check to see if there was a TextMate bundle for LilyPond. Low and behold there was. An hour-and-half later I had completed the piece and was impressed by the results. LilyPond creates a MIDI file for you as well if you tell it to. Getting it to follow the repeats took a little work, but once I found the right command, it worked fine. Below are all of the Minuet files:

Minuet in G (.ly)
Minuet in G (PDF)
Minuet in G (.mp3)
Minuet in G (MIDI)

The .mp3 file was created by importing the MIDI file into GarageBand, selecting two different MIDI instruments, and exporting. Check out the PDF link above to see the final output. Then take a look at the .ly file to see how LilyPond and Textmate make beautiful music together.

The setup wizard uses port 8888 as the default, but is changeable. After creating a password you are notified that you’ll be using https when accessing Webjimbo in order to create a secure connection. This can also be altered but is not recommended. After entering your computers IP address or vanity name (you can use localhost for testing) you are given instructions on setting up Yojimbo for access through your software firewall. You are instructed to setup the same port (8888) on your router, AirPort Base Station, or AirPort Express. An important tip is given at the end of the setup wizard. You are instructed to make sure your Mac isn’t setup to automatically go to sleep. Otherwise you won’t have access to your Yojimbo database. Once your finished setting up you can test your access to Yojimbo by opening a browser on your Mac and pointing it to http://localhost:8888.

The web version looks almost exactly like the application version:

Your computer needs to be accessible from the internet which can be done for free through services such as DynDNS or NoIP. Webjimbo comes with a free 30-day trial and costs $29.95.

And yes, an iPhone formatted version is coming soon.