Well, there’s a new company that will send you $25 just for signing up to give them a try.

The only requirement is that you need to be a US resident. I’ve verified that they have indeed transfered $25 into my bank account.

Aside from the free $25, this service is FREE to send money. This is much more convenient than PayPal’s per transaction fees. Here are some of the highlights of the free services:

• FREE to register for an account
• FREE to add money from your bank account
• FREE to send money
• FREE to receive money
• FREE to request money
• FREE to transfer money to your bank account

Simply put, this is the best Mac software deal in history. And to top it off, you can select what charity to have 25% of your order donated to.

Click Here to Learn More About The MacHeist Software Bundle

But as Apple continues it’s rise in popularity, you can feel safe in making the switch to an Apple computer now because there really is nothing it can’t do. With the addition of Apple Boot Camp software, which now comes with the Leopard version of Mac OS X, you can easily setup Windows XP or even Vista as a dual boot system.

There are a few tips that I can give you to make this process go smoothly because even though it is easy to get everything setup, there are a couple of things in the setup guide that I didn’t bother to read first that caused problems.

The first step is to run the Boot Camp Assistant application. You can find this by going to Applications -> Utilities. Run through the steps in this wizard and create the partition for your Windows installation. When you finish, it will ask you to put your Windows installation disk in.  You will need to make sure you have a full installation disk, not an upgrade disk.  Also, if you are installing Windows XP then it has to be a SP2 install disk.

Put in the installation disk and restart. This will allow it to boot to the installation disk and start the Windows installation process. Go through the installation wizard to the partition selection page. At this page, select the Windows partition you created with the Boot Camp Assistant. On the format options, make sure you select the Full format FAT32 option. You cannot use the Quick format option or it will cause problems with finishing the installation.

After the Windows installation has finished copying the installation files to the hard drive and restarts, make sure you hold down the Option button so it gives you the option to boot into the Windows partition. If you do not do this, you’ll never complete the installation because it will just keep booting to the Mac OS partition.

Once you’ve completed the Windows installation, you’ll need to run the setup.exe program from the Leopard installation disk to let it finish setting up and installing the drivers to make all of the hardware function correctly in windows.

One last optional step to improve the access to your Windows OS is to buy and install Parallel’s Desktop 3.0 for Mac. This will give you the ability to run both operating systems at the same time as well as mirror and share files between the two operating system.

5. Phone Call Management

The phone call management gives you the buttons and features you need easily accessible but only when you need them. This is the key to giving you a simple yet useful interface.

4. User Interface Experience (Touch screen)

Most advanced and easy to use User Interfaces ever on a hand-held device.

3. iPod Features

You would expect Apple to get this one right.

2. Text Messaging (SMS) Application

I never used text messaging before but this makes text messaging work like an Instant Messenger applications. And the best part is that it make so much sense to do text messaging this way.

1. Safari Browser

A full browser available to you wherever you need it. I’ve used this many times in which I would have previously had to get my laptop out, including a good example of pushing the Safari browser on the iPhone to the limit.

Now before we get too far into bashing the iPhone, lets just get one thing straight. I believe this is one of the most advanced hand-held devices, and I’m not just talking about cell phones, on the market right now because of its revolutionary touch screen user interface. For a version 1.0 phone, Apple did an amazing job.

The best part is the capability for Apple to release free updates to the operating system software to improve the user interface, fix any possible bugs, and hopefully add additional functionality.

I figured I would get the discussion started on how this great device could be improved even further through this type of update to the iPhone software. Make sure you comment and leave your feature requests for the iPhone.

My Top 5 iPhone Feature Requests:

1. Full “push” integration with Gmail (additional overall mail functionality)

Similar to what the iPhone already has with Yahoo Mail. I know there are a lot of corporate users out there wanting full Exchange ActiveSync support also but I don’t use Exchange so it would be more useful for me to have full Gmail support.

2. Additional ringtone control

Most phones out there allow you to customize a different ringtone for text messages versus phone calls or voicemails. It seems as though maybe Apple overlooked this one in the software as you can only turn the text message tone on or off, you cannot change it. The default tone is kind of quiet so it would be nice to be able to change that.

Of course, being able to use your own audio files as a ringtone would be a level of flexibility most would want to have also.

3. 3G High Speed Data Network

Now I’m not sure this one could be done without upgrades to the hardware. It would be a pleasant surprise if Apple thought ahead enough to put the hardware in the phone to support the AT&T 3G network and a software update just “unlocked” this functionality one day. Not likely but it would be nice.

4. Support for Media Files in Safari

There isn’t much missing from the Safari browser. Especially for a cell phone, this feature alone gives the iPhone so much functionality. But there is one little thing that would be very nice to improve the experience. Add support for the browser to play flash and media files on pages. There are some fairly common websites like espn.com that have media features that won’t play on the iPhone but would be very nice to have, especially when you are on Wi-fi.

5. Additional “widget” like applications

It would be nice to see Apple continue to improve the iPhone by adding more applications to the main menu (home) screen. There is a blank row capable of holding 4 more applications that is just begging to be utilized. Perhaps an instant messaging application that supports all of the major networks, like Adium for Mac.

Share your ideas for new features for the iPhone now!

I just purchased the iPhone this weekend while on a business trip and on the way home, I found a deal on an item on eBay that I really wanted to bid on. My first thought was to call my brother and have him login and place the bid for me. This is what I would have normally done in the past.

Then I realized, I have everything I need to buy something on eBay with my iPhone.

Right before the auction ended, I jumped on my iPhone, opened up Safari and went to eBay.com. Placed my bid for the item and a few minutes later received an email, on my iPhone, that said I had won the item.

This is only one great example of how useful and powerful the iPhone device is. Try doing the same thing I did with this on a traditional cell phone. I know it can be done on some smart phones but not nearly as easy and as quickly as I was able to do with the iPhone.

The Safari web browser on the iPhone opens up a huge world of opportunities for iPhone specific web applications. But it is not limited to only web applications designed for it, you can use the iPhone Safari web browser with pretty much any existing web site.

Think about how much functionality is available to you right there in that one feature of the iPhone.

If you have a story about something you’ve been able to do with the new capabilities available through the iPhone, be sure to tell me about it by commenting below.

To figure out the MAC address of your iPhone, start at the home menu. Select Settings -> General -> About. Scroll down that screen and you’ll see a setting called “Wi-Fi Address”, that is your iPhone MAC address.

Now enter that exact address as an allowed MAC address on your wireless network. The directions on this will vary because every router’s menu and interface is different so consult your router manual if you need help with this.

Once you have done this, go back to your iPhone and go to the Settings menu again. Select Wi-Fi and it should display your network in the list of available networks to connect to. Click the network name to connect.

There is also an iPhone Countdown dashboard widget for Mac OS X!

Add this iPhone Countdown to your blog!

I found myself facing an interesting question today regarding DVD duplication on Mac OSX (I’m using Tiger). I have created many DVD’s using iDVD but I had yet to need to do this.
Is there an easy way to duplicate an existing DVD on Mac OSX?

The short answer is yes. The best part of this is that everything you need to be able to do this is built right into Mac OSX.

The first thing you need to do is put the DVD you wish to duplicate into your drive. It will probably try to open and play the DVD so make sure you exit out of the DVD Player application.

Create A Local Image Of The DVD

Open up the Disk Utility application. This can be found in your Applications/Utilties folder.

When this first opens, you’ll see the DVD drive list on the left side. Select the appropriate DVD drive for the source list and click the “New Image” button.

Enter the file name for the image and select the location you want to save it to. For the settings, select the follow:

• Image Format: DVD/CD master
• Encryption: none

Click the Save button and it will create an image of the DVD on your local hard drive.

Burn The DVD Image

Now that you have an image of the DVD on your hard drive, you can create as many copies of this disc as you need.

You should see the disc image file (.cdr) listed on the left side of the Disk Utility application. Select the image you would like to burn and click the “Burn” button.

Insert a blank DVD disk into the drive and click the “Burn” button.

When I read the initial news about the Apple iPhone, I was excited to see what Apple had come up with.

I had no idea that I would be as impressed as I was after watching all of the iPhone demo videos.

Once again Apple has made all other related devices look like a complicated mess with their simple approach to user interfaces.

Apple has set a new bar for cell phone technology that all other companies are going to have to match. Even the most elegant of cell phones like the LG Chocolate series of phones looks obsolete next to the iPhone.

One thing I was tired of hearing about new cell phones on the market is how nice the built in cameras are and that being a key selling point for the phone. You will not see one mention of the built in camera in Apples demo because even though it is there, it is not the reason you should want the iPhone.

Apple has done what all other cell phone manufacturers should do and built a personal communications device instead of adding all sorts of useless features to the already over complicated devices that are out there. And especially recently with the approach of a “new” model being the same old phone in multiple colors.

The hardest part now is waiting until July when they are expected to be released. I am glad that I already am a Cingular customer. If this phone really lives up the expectations, it would be reason enough for anyone to switch to Cingular if necessary for the iPhone.