If your iTunes library happens to be in disarray, with incorrect ID3 tags, missing artist names and album art, then you might be happy to know that there’s an app that can add all those in for you automatically. Pollux, whilst previously free, had to be shut down because the services it used could not endure all the queries made to their servers. However, it returns today with a nominal fee of $10/year. Not bad for keeping your music library updated with the correct song, artist, album, and other metadata names, along with the lyrics and album art. A trial to tag 20 songs is available as a download on the Pollux website; feel free to try out its accuracy for yourself.

Click here to download

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Anyone who has used Flash on a Mac can say that it’s more than just a nuisance. On top of the loading time Flash takes to play a video, for instance, it’s the leading source of application crashes on Mac OS X. In fact, Apple had to engineer a new plugin mechanism for Safari in Snow Leopard that would run plugins as a separate process, so if they crash, they wouldn’t crash Safari itself. In addition to that, while Safari runs as a 64-bit process, Flash still runs in 32-bit. It’s no wonder why Apple doesn’t want Flash on the iPhone and iPad.

Thankfully, the YouTube team has added an option to opt-in to viewing videos in HTML5 in lieu of Flash. (And here’s an interesting tidbit: The HTML5 editors are Ian Hickson of Google and David Hyatt of Apple—clearly someone’s not invited to the party.) You must have a modern browser to support these changes.

To enable HTML5, you must:

1. Visit this link: http://www.youtube.com/html5
2. Click on the link that says “Join the HTML5 Beta”

HTML5 in Vimeo is just as simple. Whenever you are viewing a video, click on the link at the bottom right hand corner of the screen that says, “Switch to HTML5 player” as seen in the image below. Enjoy your crisp, no wait-time video that doesn’t bog down your computer.

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With over 140 iPhone and Mac developers participating in Indie+Relief, exactly $143,872 dollars was raised for Haiti in just 24 hours—making it a huge success. A full list of the sold apps and participating developers are still available on their site. A special thanks to both Garrett Murray and Justin Williams, who made the whole thing possible.

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If you happen to be a Mac user that’s suffering from the organizational condition known as “cluttered desktop” then boy, is this the app for you. If you happen to be a Mac user that has an insatiable lust for eye-candy, then boy, is this the app for you.

I’ve seen this before on Windows, and on the Mac it’s just as mind-blowing. BumpTop is the desktop reinvented, so they say; in a nutshell, BumpTop transforms your desktop to make it more like an actual desktop, 3D et al. Aside from the “floor”, which would be the traditional “desktop” portion of BumpTop, there are four additional walls. Icons can be tossed around like real objects, pinned onto the walls, or even stacked on one another. Icons can be piled according to type, and you can enlarge (or shrink) icons based on their relative importance. BumpTop isn’t just eye-candy: it serves purpose in both uncluttering your desktop and increasing your productivity. Watch the screencast below to get the gist of what I’m talking about.

After testing BumpTop for the past few hours, I think it has some great potential in changing the way you do your desktop computing. As mentioned in the video, BumpTop completely eradicates the need for folders, and finding things couldn’t be easier with the desktop-wide spotlight-esque search. Quick Look is seamless and it even supports multitouch gestures. Double-clicking on any wall will focus in on it with a 90-degree view angle. Why would you need to do that, you ask? There is one more feature BumpTop has that isn’t mentioned in the screencast.

Notes are a clear winner here, truly completing the BumpTop productivity package. They are like dashboard stickies, but unintrusively integrated into the desktop. Another benefit is that the walls can give your stickies context, such as putting reminders on the sides and to-dos in the front, for example.

All in all, BumpTop is good to go as it is, though there are a few things that I believe need to be ironed out. For one, growing and shrinking icons using the trackpad gesture isn’t as smooth as zooming in Finder. It zooms in increments, just like clicking on the buttons would. Secondly, BumpTop doesn’t use an icon’s larger version when you grow it. Instead, it will scale the smaller icon and leave it slightly blurry. It isn’t very noticeable, but since Snow Leopard supports icons that go up to 512 x 512 pixels, it only seems natural to use the larger ones.

As for the future of BumpTop? The app is currently in a private beta and they are open to feedback, so here goes: First of all, finding something is as easy as typing it on the desktop, but it would be great if you had a choice of what to do with it. Like a simplified version of Quicksilver, for instance. Secondly, I think it would be just awesome if BumpTop were able to display other widgets besides sticky notes, such as a calendar. That way you’d be able to view your iCal events right on the desktop. It looks like the Windows version already has photo feed, Twitter, and Facebook widgets, so I expect that it’s only a matter of time before this is implemented in the Mac version. An API for third-party plugins might not be a hot idea, but I’d like to throw it out there as well. And lastly, I wish there was a way that would facilitate designers to easily create more themes. The default gets boring fast, and the theme repository looks like it could use more themes than the handful it has right now.

Be sure to check it out BumpTop—I for one was definitely floored. The pro version with unlimited stickies, search, and multitouch costs $29, and the free version can be downloaded here. BumpTop offers an intuitive, easy to learn interface that’s as practical as it is beautiful.

Check out a few more screenshots below.

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Apple didn’t meet its target date to bring Windows 7 support to Boot Camp by the end of 2009, but now that it’s out who really minded the delay? Quoted from macnn:

Apple has released several Boot Camp and firmware updates designed for 64-bit or 32-bit versions of Windows 7. Boot Camp 3.1 adds full support for Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. The update addresses issues involving trackpads and the red LED for digital audio, while the company’s wireless keyboard and Magic mouse are also now supported. For users planning to transition from Windows Vista to 7, a separate utility ensures that the Macintosh volume will safely unmount on Vista.

Downloads here:

• Boot Camp (64-bit) Download – 275MB
• Boot Camp (32-bit) Download – 381MB
• Vista to 7 Utility Download – 380KB
• Graphics Firmware Download – 1.2MB
• iMac Drivers Download – 104MB

[via macnn]

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