We're letting you guys know about the release of wiki2touch, an application which enables you to read Wikipedia from your iPhone or iPod Touch offline. Wondering how this homebrew does it? Visit the full article to find out!


Download: wiki2touch v0.60
Download: wiki2touch v0.60 transfer tool (Mac OS X)
Download: wiki2touch v0.60 transfer tool (Windows)

This year, we've seen a lot of crazy things. But what's been popular though (Vanessa Ann Hudgens photos aside)? Yahoo! can probably answer that with their annual "Top Trends in Search" list for 2007.

While there are a lot of keywords being searched this year, what concerns us is the list of top 10 searches in technology. Who're the movers and shakers? You can probably guess already, but read more to see the full list!

If you've ever had to wait in line for something - maybe a ride at some famous amusement park, or for a copy of that just-released game, perhaps a console that's been selling out for quite some time - you know it's an annoying affair you probably wouldn't want to go through ever again.

If that's the case, then you should probably meet Greg Packer - a highway maintenance worker and hardcore linesitter from Huntington, New York, and coincidentally the very first guy in line for the highly-anticipated iPhone launch.

While we can certainly understand the overwhelming need to be the first to get an iPhone, what we don't get is the guy's obsession at being first in line for ANY newsworthy event. Yes, he's not actually in the line for the iPhone, but rather for the privilege - and the bragging rights - of being first.

From the unveiling of the viewing platform of Ground Zero to being able to meet singer Brandy in person - if you can be first in line for it, Greg's already camped out there, with his shirtless self draped on his portable lawn chair.

And not only does he get the media coverage for being the first in line, he's also regularly quoted at newsworthy events and his lines oftentimes appearing in major publications. The guy, if you really want to know, also has his own Wikipedia entry to boot.

How's that for getting your fifteen minutes of fame? Greg Packer, your core is indeed the hardest of them all - especially when it comes to linesitting.

A lot have been said on Apple's Mac OS X Leopard, especially when the consumers finally got to see it running during the recently concluded WWDC. The new operating software wouldn't be arriving officially until October but those in the know are already saying that a number of useful small updates will come with the commercial version.

Apple is quite known for doing this to its products - never really telling the consumers everything that has changed. Just think of it as a finders-keepers game from Steve Jobs and the rest of the crew. And when you really think about it, it's not really harmful. If anything, it encourages users to play around with the software, learning it fully in the process.

Anyway, until the official release date comes, we're still tagging these under Rumors. But it would really be appreciated if these turn out to be true:

• A new version of Quicktime included with Leopard will reportedly allow full-screen mode without a QuickTime Pro key, echoing the feature added months before to iTunes.
• DVD Player will also see a major update with an HD options pane for Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs as well as the opportunity to add DVD cover art and change movie region support on the fly.
• Sun's unique file system will appear as a non-default, read-only format out of the box with write support possibly arriving as a separate update in the future.
• ZFS in Leopard will support some of the trademark features, such as instant and low-storage "snapshots" of a disk volume, and cloned copies that can be modified with only a small penalty in terms of disk space.
• iChat may also have received a substantial upgrade: Those contacts with mobile phone numbers can be sent an SMS text message.
• Google's influence is also allegedly present in the instant messaging app and will let Google Talk accounts mix with today's AIM, Jabber, and .Mac users.
• Users choose the default IM program, similar to the way Safari is used to choose the default browser, and will also be able to explicitly share more than the Public folder on a network.
• Even Dictionary will have the choice of switching from the Oxford dictionary to Wikipedia.

PC World, a global computer magazine, has recently named some of the most influential people on the internet. Net heads, here's the top five of a list of those persons who move and shake the internet; we've arranged them from the fifth to the first for emphasis.

5. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia - Admit it:  whatever piece of information that you get/cite, trivial or otherwise, often  comes from Wikipedia. It's even been cited in more than 100 US court decisions since
2004.

 4. Mike Morhaime, President of Blizzard Entertainment - Some say that there are only two MMO's: WoW, and everything else. Eight million people (and still counting) plus a chance to obtain the Blade of Eternal Justice put this guy at number 4.

3. Bram Cohen, Co founder of BitTorrent - This math and programming whiz kid put up BitTorrent, a way to download large files (like movies) by sharing the burden across hardware and bandwidth.

2. Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple -  DRM-free music and internet browsing through iPhone puts him on top - again.

1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, Executives of Google - The most trafficked site on the internet is bound to influence internet users the most.

Matt Swann has written a Perl script that loads Wikipedia into your iPod (if you know how, you can modify this script to grab-and-save other sites too). That's really useful, and his script is very easy to use!

Wikipedia in your iPod">Wikipod v1.5 starts with a page in Wikipedia and saves that to your iPod. Then it goes to every link in the page and saves those pages. Then it goes to every link in those pages and saves those other pages. Then it goes to every link in those other pages and... you get the idea.

It will stop downloading when it can no longer find any new links or when it has reached a specific size (you set the size).

How do you use it?

Click on where it says "Full Article" below to read the full details.

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Update: Matt Swann has made several changes:

• slashes in the URL no longer break the script
• users can remove the trailing slash in the directory path
• 50MB limit on how much can be downloaded at one time
• support for UTF-8 characters (Greek, for example)
• Apple limits the iPod to 1000 notes, so Wikipod stops after that
• sleeps for four seconds between each page request to comply with Wikipedia

Download: [Wikipod v1.5]

How soon? It's scheduled for release next year. I know you'll probably say that's too long a wait for the improvements, but I'm telling you, it's going to be worth the wait.

Apple's Pages software will contain significant improvements come version 3. These "improvements" include the introduction of two new modes - Layout and Word Processing. The current Pages software handles these two types of documents with only one common set of tools and templates, but in version 3, the new modes will be utilized and optimized for their respective tasks.

Document creation is expected to become easier with the new Word Processing mode. Features of this mode include a thesaurus that will be integrated with Wikipedia, Spotlight and Google, and a "robust grammar checking engine" for Pages.

Another improvement which will be in Pages 3 is the Inspector's "Mini-Inspectors" which will allow users to get to frequently accessed settings with just one click.

Mail Merge's functionality will also be dramatically improved as it will support mail merging to e-mail.

Pages 3 will be included in iWork '07 which is expected to be released January next year. Other softwares contained in iWork '07 are Keynote 4 and a new spreadsheet application.

FileMaker Inc. may announce the release of FileMaker Pro 8.5 and Pro 8.5 Advanced - its first release as a Universal Binary for Intel processors - on Monday. According to its maker, FileMaker Pro 8.5 runs up to 91% faster on Intel-based Macs than on PowerPC systems.

FileMaker v8.5 also features a Web Viewer where information on Web pages can be downloaded directly into FileMaker databases. The upcoming v8.5 already includes MapQuest/Google Maps, Google Search, Google Finance, FedEx, and Wikipedia in its address book. Web integration has also been expanded to Web-enabled applications.

Other additions will include an online Learning Center with over 30 QuickTime-based video tutorials, sample databases, documentation, a searchable Knowledge Base, and other resources. Upgrade to FileMaker v8.5 will cost $99.

We have featured a lot of MacBook problems that are reported by consumers in various forums and other places. Problems such as the discoloration issue, the thermal grease problem, the battery glitch, yada, yada, yada. Some consumers are saying that they've experienced one or two of these problems, some are so unfortunate that nothing seems to go right for them, and some are just plain lucky because their MacBooks have not been doing a number on them.

Apparently, the MacBook Pro problems have been widely experienced by consumers that it has its own Wikipedia section. The section, entitled simply as MacBook Pro, is under the AppleDefects, and is divided into two parts - one part houses all the reported defects of the Apple creation, the other as always gives room for other sites that have been covering these problems.

This is actually a good idea, but personally, I would like to see similar Wiki pages for every hiccup or problems of a Dell, Toshiba, or an Alienware laptop. Recently, QJ had a problem with the non-delivery of an Alienware laptop. Nothing against Apple, but consumers should call their attention when something is just going wrong. Read the full list of MacBook Pro=related problems by clicking the link below.