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The wait is finally over! For probably two years now I have been regularly checking back to the Cyan Worlds web-page in hopes that MYST URU Live would be re-released. You see, this game was the only massive multi-player online game I have ever considered paying for. It is just my taste: Typical MYST style puzzles, beautiful scenery, and the focus lies on relaxing - not battling.

But it seems I was nearly alone with my enthusiasm for this game, as soon after I had started playing it, the game went offline due to poor sales. What followed were months and months of attempts by the developers to get the game back up and running by other server providers that were willing to take the risk. In the end Cyan gave up, and declared the game dead. I was devastated, but soon news about releasing Uru's sources to the open gave a glimmer of hope. Years of waiting followed. Until today. Hit "Read More" to find out how you can start playing now!

Today I'd like to introduce you to a young Dutch jazz musician, Wouter Hamel. The 33 year old won the Dutch Jazz Vocal Competition in 2005 and received significant attention from the Dutch media. Since then, he has performed on several television shows and on the internationally-known North Sea Jazz Festival. I'd like to share with you one of his songs, which made it into the Top-100 charts in Japan (reaching #36). As I share a certain taste for cheezy-mellow jazz melodies with my Japanese friends, it is an instant-like for me. To match the funky tune you get a great music video that, if the music doesn't already, will definitely put a smile on your face. So to put some happiness into this Monday, hit the break:

Some of you (few readers out there) may have noticed that the site was down for a few hours. This was due to an update to the newest version of Drupal. Unfortunately our theme is starting to decay and we will soon have to create a new, more compatible one, which we will probably do once Drupal 7 is out. For now, everything should be mostly back to normal. A few modules have been updated, and I hope to better be able to keep bots from spamming the comments with updated CAPTCHAS. Enjoy! Admin out.

It's one thing to reject an app because it duplicates browser functionality. Quite another to reject it because it "ridicules public figures" as with Mark Fiore's political cartoons in his NewsToons app, pictured on the left. In the meantime Apple has had a change of heart. Maybe that is due to Mark actually winning the Pulitzer Prize for his comic. So there it is folks, a "loophole" in Apple's review policy: Simply win a Pulitzer's, and you're good to go. (A Nobel Prize may work as well).

And on another note, many are becoming worried of Apple's new iAd framework on the iPhone. While Apple says it will be an opportunity for free apps to make a bit of money, people like Dave Johnson believe greed will take over, and so will the ads. And to make matters worse, there are hints that Apple will actually no longer approve apps that use other ad agencies.

There is a glimmer of hope though that Apple may at one point realize that people do actually like a bit of openness: Opera Mini is the number one app in every App-Store in the world, as the screenshot below shows:

You probably know this problem: Since the Internet got big with all the interactive websites that require registration you have been using more or less the same tiny set of passwords over and over again. Maybe you already had some sort of strategy like using the strong passwords for more confidential websites and weaker passwords for websites you didn't care that much.

Maybe once in a while you chose to invent and remember a new password, because you were already becoming to feel that this overall approach wasn't right. News about web servers being attacked by hackers and stolen user/password information may have made you feel worse until you finally decided that you'd have to use an individual password for each website!

But how to remember that many passwords???

The obvious solution is a list where you write them down. A single sheet of paper locked anywhere in your home would be secure, but not very convenient. Just imagine you have mobile device you want to use outside of your home. Taking the password sheet with you and loosing it could result in a disaster! Read more about a different approach which turned out to be the ultimate solution for myself after the break.

Hi everbody and welcome to Music Mondays! In this series I will be presenting a usually lesser known song every Monday for you to enjoy. Why am I doing this? Well, for one, there are so many musical gems out there just waiting to be discovered. Even if you don't share the same taste, I will try to be diverse enough to at least give some inspiration or starting points. Secondy though, I want to begin blogging some regular series like these, so that the blog does not constantly go stale. To see the song of this week, hit "Read More"!

I'll admit it: I love developing for the Mac and for the iPhone. I think Cocoa is the best application development kit out there, and I have used quite a few. But lately it seems Apple is almost trying to piss its developers and consumers off. It's a well-known fact that developers basically have to sell their soul to Apple if they want to develop for the iPhone. To be honest, I am somewhat okay with that - It is not much different than developing for a console such as the Nintendo DS. (And on that note, it is much cheaper to do so for the iPhone). But a point of conflict has always been the infamous clause 3.3.1, which stated (Note: Clauses taken from ArsTechnica):

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.

That is, until now. The new developer license published last week changed this clause to:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

This was changed just days before Adobe released their new Flash to iPhone conversion software, and they are, understandably, very pissed. Hit "Read More" for the full story.

I was thinking about putting up some shocking headline to fool you all, but then figured since we don't blog enough that headline would be stuck on front page well after April had passed. So instead of me doing the fooling, here are some of my favorite April Fool's Day jokes around the net!

All this, and much more, after the break!

I am usually not the one to be too excited about desktop publishing, but what Adobe has been showing off lately is nothing short of magical. I'd call myself somewhat knowledgeable on image processing and pattern recognition, and while I can at least comprehend of how something like their content-aware scaling, which is included in CS4, is done (though it does not make it any less magical), the video you will see after hitting the "Read More" will make your eyes fall out, and accuse the Adobe developers of witchcraft.

Getting away from the clash of the titans that are Google vs. China and health-care vs. Republican ideals, a David vs. Goliath battle is taking place between Opera Software and Apple. As many of you may know, in the strictly controlled iPhone environment there can only be one browser, that is Safari. Other attempts have been turned down by the clause that apps are not allowed to interpret any thrid party code.

Now Opera enters the ring and dares to challenge Apple by submitting Opera-Mini to the App-Store. And there are two things that make this attempt interesting: For one, Opera is not interpreting code themselves apparently, but letting remote servers do the work and sending the compressed result to the iPhone. This not only circumvents Apple's clause, but also allows much faster web page rendering than Safari. Secondly, Omni is doing everything it can to make this approval process as public as possible, in order to shame Apple should they turn it down. There is even a contest to pick the number of hours it will take for Apple to approve the browser. The candidate with the closest estimate to the actual number of hours will receive - drum roll - a free iPhone!

Now the ball is in Apple's park, and the company could still turn down the App due to the "duplication of functionality" clause. The pressure is on, especially with Safari looking so bad compared to Opera. Whatever the decision, it will give developers and users a clear signal of where Apple is heading, and should give an indication of just how tightly controlled the iPad will be. So what will it be, Apple? Stick to being the dictator, or open up to the world? Video after the break.