divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/43031?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+The+road+to+ruinch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=Automotive+industry+%28Business%29%2CGeneral+Motors%2CFord%2CBusiness%2CUS+economy+%28Business%29%2CUS+news%2CWorld+newsc5=Motoring%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CUS+Economyc6=Ed+Pilkingtonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127737c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=Automotive+industryc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FAutomotive+industry" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Ford plant in Highland Park, a city within the city of Detroit, is a monument to the American automobile. It opened in 1910, and three years later pioneered the world's first car assembly line. In 1925, it spewed out 9,000 Model Ts in a single day. The revolution that turned America into a car-owning democracy had arrived. Today, there is ample evidence of that revolution. The factory looks over a six-lane highway that is heavy with traffic from dawn to dusk. Next door is a drive-thru McDonald's, where customers come to order Big Macs before rolling 50 metres to a drive-thru chemists to pick up indigestion tablets./ppThe story of the plant is told in one of those green-and-gold heritage plaques erected by the main entrance. It says: "Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th-century living." Pattern of abundance: the phrase reads like a sick joke, for the Ford factory it describes is a shell of what it once was. Its red brick and granite walls still stand proud, framed by decorative mosaics. But the windows are broken or boarded up, its ceilings have gaping holes, the floor is covered in broken lumps of fallen plaster. On the roof, the flagpole that for years flew the Stars and Stripes is rusty and bare./ppOther companies, other countries, might have turned Henry Ford's factory of dreams into a museum rather than let it decay into the pitiful wreck that it is today. But Ford, and its fellows in the Big Three - General Motors (GM) and Chrysler - have enough to do staying alive without worrying about preserving the past. GM, the giant of the three, has lost $73bn in the past three years; it is haemorrhaging $2bn a month. At that rate it will run out of cash by the middle of next year and collapse by that year's end, potentially bringing millions of workers down with it. Which is why the CEOs of the three giants took their begging bowls to Washington earlier this month, pleading for a "bridging loan" of $25bn./ppThey didn't get a warm reception. They were ridiculed by senators for having flown in three separate corporate jets, an act that must rank among the most impressive PR disasters of the decade. But what the senators and the largely hostile media coverage missed was that the miserable condition of the Detroit car industry is not merely a comment on the failed leadership of its corporate executives, though it is that. It is also a matter of personal survival for millions of Americans who depend, directly or indirectly, on the revolution Henry Ford began 100 years ago./ppNowhere is this more visible than in Detroit, the crucible of the Big Three. Half of GM's 100,000 workers live in the city, and they in turn support a spider's web of relatives, spin-off industries and services. Detroit is really nothing but a company town. Hamtramckis a city within the city that borders one of GM's main factories. When GM enjoyed good times, Hamtramck boomed. Now GM is in the doldrums, Hamtramck is too. We walk along a stretch of shops along one of its main streets. First in line is Anna's Beauty Salon: it's closed, but the sign on the door suggests Anna is managing to stay open four days a week. Next, Popular Fashion and Variety Store: shut down. Billiards and Burger Hall: abandoned. Antiques store, an oil painting portraying an autumn landscape still in its window: deserted. Law offices: vacant. Funeral home: open. Even in a recession, one aspect of life must go on - the ending of it./ppOn the other side of the road is the Family Donut shop, a local institution run by a Polish family for the past 28 years. It has a picture of Princess Diana on the wall, a gift from one of the regular clients, and another of the Three Stooges. The owner, Vojno, is unloading a bundle of cardboard boxes used to pack the donuts. A few years ago he would order up to 30 bundles a month; now it's 10. On Polish festive days, there would be a line of customers out the door and round the corner, and the stools at the counter would be loaded. Today, the line is more of a dribble and the counter is largely empty. Unless GM recovers, and money starts flowing again, he will have to close in a few months. "It's not just me. Everybody around here is going to shut down," he says. What will he do if he does have to close? "I'll stay home and sleep. I'm hungry for sleep," he says./ppOne of the few clients, dressed in a bomber jacket with Detroit written across the back, shouts over at him. "You only work one job, so why do you need to sleep?"/pp"Shut up, Eddie," Vojno replies./pp"I work three jobs to make my money," Eddie Fabiszak says, prompting the only other customer in the bakery to say, under his breath: "Lucky man."/ppThe other customer is Melis Lejlic, 27, a naturalised American originally from Bosnia. His father and mother, two uncles and a cousin all work in the car business. All now fear redundancy. Lejlic works in construction, but that is no better. Car workers are no longer spending on home improvements, so demand for his work has fallen by half. Of 10 builders he knows, seven are unemployed. "Everybody in a small town like this is looking to the car industry, and there's no hope there," he says. "Drive around, you'll see. Detroit is worse right now than Baghdad."/ppThe comparison sounds far-fetched, but in the streets around the GM plant you can see what he means. Several houses have no glazing in their rickety wooden walls. Front lawns have turned into littered pasture. Walls are lined with barbed wire. A mural of a Stars and Stripes has been graffitied. And though it is nothing like Baghdad, there is clearly a market in lawlessness. A poster advertising the services of a lawyer says: "Aggressive criminal defence. Drugs CCW [carrying a concealed weapon] Theft Murder All felonies misdemeanours." That is how Henry Ford's dream looks in November 2008./ppGM's headquarters in downtown Detroit dominate the city's skyline. The seven cylindrical glass towers of the Renaissance Centre were built in 1977 as a statement of the company's untouchable status as the then unquestioned king of the auto world. Inside the main tower, there is an exhibition of some of GM's most memorable models, dating back to the 1950s. It is almost shocking to see how beautiful and exhilarating those cars were. There is a 1953 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster, built largely by hand, its white, sensuous curves set off by red leather seats. Then there's a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air in black, the quintessential car of the American dream, big enough to carry a family to its suburban home but sufficiently powerful and sleek to avoid any sense of frumpiness. Pride of place goes to a 1959 Cadillac series 62 convertible, which is an outrageously attractive work of art. This was the baby of Harley Earl, GM's legendary designer. Inspired by the tail of a second world war fighter plane, he placed fins on the back of the car, with rear brake lights the shape of rockets and exhausts mimicking those of a jet. The 59 Cadillac summed up an entire generation - young, dangerous, fast, unstoppable./ppPeter DeLorenzo spent 22 years working in the car business as an advertising and marketing consultant and now runs an influential website called Autoextremist. He explains that when the explosion of creativity burst out in the 50s, Detroit had just emerged from the crucial role it had played as the manufacturing backbone of the war effort, churning out tanks and missiles at extraordinary rate, and confidence was riding high. "Coming out of the second world war, the automobile was the symbol of American might. GM was the symbol of American might, and most Americans were proud that GM was a successful corporation that turned out magnificent cars people wanted."/ppThe design-led strategy not only generated exquisite cars, it worked handsomely for GM. In 1955, four out of every five cars around the world were US-produced and half of those came from GM. The Big Three monopolised around 95% of the domestic market, and between them they transformed the US. They provided the stimulus for the biggest construction project in world history - the laying of the US interstate highways - and gave birth to the suburbs and to urban sprawl. Think Los Angeles. Think Phoenix rising out of the desert of Arizona./ppHow you get from the invincibility of those days to the verge of bankruptcy is a cautionary tale for the whole of America as its dominance wanes in an increasingly globalised economy. DeLorenzo, who has written a book called The United States of Toyota, dates the start of the rot to 1979 - just after GM had moved into its monolithic new headquarters in the Renaissance Centre. By then Japanese car companies were already snapping at the heels of the Big Three, but Detroit ignored the threat, steeped in complacency that the good times would last for ever. Leadership within the business also crucially changed hands, from the designers to what DeLorenzo calls the "bean counters". /ppBy the 1990s, the Big Three's reputation for innovation and beauty had withered, replaced by a reputation for faulty products. "People started to associate Detroit with cars coming off the assembly line and their doors falling off," says Micheline Maynard, a New York Times business reporter and author of The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip. She recounts how in 2002 GM's vice-chairman, Bob Lutz, declared that their vehicles were every bit as reliable as Honda's and Toyota's; that same afternoon GM recalled 1.5m minivans./ppFrom the sleek elegance of the 1959 Cadillac to the lumpen brutality of the Hummer: what was in the mind of the GM executive who conceived putting a machine modelled on armoured vehicles on to the civilian streets of US cities, at barely 13 miles per gallon? But then Lutz has argued that that hybrids like the Toyota Prius "make no economic sense" and once called global warming "a total crock of shit"./ppThe other key element in the demise of Detroit concerns the staple of the American auto industry - the car worker. Ron Nidiffer is drinking beer in the New Dodge Lounge in Hamtramck, temporarily off work as the GM plant has suspended production for want of sales. He has worked in car factories for 36 years, 10 of them on the assembly line. He is one of a dying breed of car workers who had their pay and conditions set back in the heyday. His union, the United Auto Workers, negotiated a series of deals in the 1970s and 80s that have become the albatross around the industry's neck. He makes $29 an hour - substantially more than American workers in Japanese plants that have been transplanted to the non-unionised south, from Alabama to Texas. /ppBut the trouble really starts when you include the so-called "legacy costs", the generous terms agreed for pensions and health care that allowed workers to retire as young as 48. GM now carries about 470,000 retirees and spouses on benefits - more than four times its productive workforce - adding a total of about $2,000 for every car it makes, a terrible burden in the face of fierce foreign competition./ppThe symbol of excess that the UAW's critics like to point to is the "jobs banks", by which workers are paid 95% of their salaries for doing nothing. The scheme was introduced as a way of ensuring minimum employment levels, but billowed uncontrollably until it included about 40,000 workers. Nidiffer concedes that looking back, the jobs bank was indefensible. "Yes, it was a bad idea. And I understand why some people are jealous of what we've had. We had good conditions, even to excess."/ppBut what annoys him is the assumption that the largesse and complacency that epitomised the attitude of both unions and management is still prevalent today. The job banks have been whittled down to 3,500 workers, and wages have been cut in half for all new employees. He is one of the last at the GM plant in Hamtramck to enjoy the old $29 an hour rate, the others having taken redundancy. A deal has also been struck to lift the burden of legacy costs from GM's shoulders by transferring health insurance into an independent fund administered by the union. After all that, to hear Congress turn away the plea for $25bn from the Big Three CEOs makes Nidiffer see red. "I'm extremely mad. We've made all these concessions, taken the hit, and yet we're still accused of being lazy and greedy."/ppIt has not made him any happier that while Congress rebuffed Detroit, it has bailed out the banks with apparent alacrity, including Citibank which was last week handed the exact amount requested by the Big Three. "We're looking for a pittance compared with what they've given the banks," Nidiffer says. His anger is echoed in the front-page headline in the Detroit Free Press: "$85 billion for AIG. $700 billion for financial firms. $25 billion for Citigroup. Why is the bar so high for $25 billion to Detroit?"/ppNidiffer's frustration is heightened by his belief that if Detroit can see it through another 18 months it will have turned the corner. His GM plant is poised to produce the Volt, a new plug-in electric hybrid that will run for 40 miles on one full battery before a tiny petrol motor recharges it. The cutting-edge model, which goes into production in 2010, has been spearheaded by Bob Lutz, the global warming sceptic - a sign of how dramatically the outlook has changed at GM./ppBut none of the new ideas being scrambled out by the Big Three will matter if they fail to make it to 2010. Will the Volt go down in history as a great idea that GM carried with it to its grave? "There used to be a saying, so goes GM, so goes the country," Nidiffer says. "That was in happy days. But the same is true now. If GM goes under, the ripple effect will be felt throughout America."/ppA car worker desperate to hold on to his job would say that, wouldn't he? But economists agree. Susan Helper, a professor at Case Western university, says if GM went into bankruptcy next year, it could set in train a knock-on effect that would hit not just the 240,000 employees of the Big Three, but also 730,000 suppliers and about 1 million people working in dealerships across the country. Harder to quantify, but potentially even more devastating, would be the loss of social capital - the knowledge that is imbedded in a generation. "The idea that you can just liquidate Detroit and start again is crazy. Knowledge is not held by any one person, but comes from how people in a company interact."/ppCrunch time is coming. The tragedy of the American car is approaching its climax. You can feel it, palpably, on the lot of Galeana's Dodge dealership, a short drive away from Nidiffer's watering hole. Balloons in red, white and blue festoon the long line of cars, but who are they fooling? A more accurate reflection of the mood are the signs propped up under a succession of bonnets that spell the word S-A-L-E. Inside, a query about how things are going is met with the reply: "Look at the board." The board in question has just one car handwritten on it - the extent of today's business. Two years ago, the daily average was 15 cars./ppChrysler, which owns the Dodge brand, used to offer huge discounts on the price of the cars disguised as leasing agreements. But in July it announced it was suspending all leasing, and business went through the floor. The Big Three can no longer afford to lower their prices, so instead the cars sit on the lot, looking cheerful beneath the balloons. There is one small cause for hope for Galeana's dealers. A local Chrysler plant has just announced 5,000 job losses, and each worker made redundant will be given a voucher to buy a new Dodge car. It's come to this: the only chink of light for the dealers are the redundancy packages of the workers who make the cars they sell./ppThis week, the CEOs of the Big Three have one last shot at saving Detroit. They are travelling back to Washington to plead their case again. And this time, they won't be going by private jet - Ford's Alan Mulally will drive a Ford hybrid, and GM chief executive Rick Wagoner and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli will fly on commercial planes. Tomorrow and on Friday, they will present Congress committees with a new business plan that is expected to include a cap on top bosses' pay, concessions from the UAW and the death of the most loss-making brands. Less certain is the outcome. Will they get their $25bn and, if they do, will it be anywhere like enough? Or will this once great institution, this embodiment of American might and ingenuity - and with it the livelihood of millions - go the way of Henry Ford's factory of dreams./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/automotive"Automotive industry/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/generalmotors"General Motors/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/ford"Ford/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/useconomy"US economy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Quote: Apple has finally started allowing developers to issue free promotional copies of their iPhone applications. Once an application has been accepted to the App Store by Apple, developers can issue up to 50 promotional codes. The codes allow the recipient to download a full copy of the application for free. Presently, these codes can only be used in the U.S. iTunes Stores by using the "Redeem" link in the App Store.



As an example, Smudge Apps sent us a promotional copy of Jam: Vol 1 [App Store]. Codes can be issued for existing applications and the 50 code limit is reset for each new version of an application.

In the past, it has been difficult for developers to provide review or promotional copies, instead having to reply on Ad-hoc distributions or the issuing of gift certificates. via MacRumors

Who can frown at these round, bouncy, smiley, critters? Apparently, some people can. Crispy Gamer puts span style="font-style: italic;"LocoRoco/span game designer a href="http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/tsutomu-kouno/11806" id="tag" title="LocoRoco director"Tsutomu Kouno/a in the spotlight and got some info about his cute creations, and critics that call them racist, even going as far as claiming they look like penises.brbrSo what exactly are they? Called a "yellow garbage bag" by a Crispy Gamer interviewer in jest, Kouno clarifies that his funny creation isn't a waste receptacle. "No. He's not a garbage bag. He's nothing," he says, adding that it's alright if span style="font-style: italic;"LocoRoco/span is seen that way.brbrApparently, a yellow garbage bag is not the only thing that these guys look like. Critics have gone as far as claiming that the innocent little blobs are "racist" and they look like penises. "Honestly? I haven't thought about that at all. In fact, the characters that some people have said are racist are among my favorites," he said. "If the characters make people uncomfortable, I feel sorry for them. Me, I just think they're really cool."brbrAs far as the market goes, Kouno doesn't mind that a href="http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/sony/880" id="tag" title="Father of PlayStation"Sony/a'sspan style="font-style: italic;" LocoRoco/span has cute competition out there, saying, "I think that there should be more simple games like this out there. We should have a lot more of them." It's also possible that span style="font-style: italic;"LocoRoco/span can come to the PS3, but that hasn't been decided yet.brbrp style="text-align: center;"a href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126939/locorocobanenr_qjpreviewth.png?775095" rel="lightbox[article126939]" title="LocoRoco 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp 3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126939/locorocobanenr.png 3F775095 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open 20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img style="margin-top: 3px; margin-bottom: 3px;" alt="LocoRoco - Image 1" title="LocoRoco - Image 1" src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126939/locorocobanenr_qjpreviewth.png?775095" align="" border="0"/abr/pbrInspiration-wise, Kouno recalls that there was really no basis from his life experiences that led to the creation of a href="http://pspupdates.qj.net/category/Loco-Roco/cid/1196"span title="Read more on LocoRoco" style="font-style: italic;"LocoRoco/span/a. When asked if there was anything at all that might've contributed, this was his reply:brbrp style="padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px;"You know, honestly, I don't think so. I've just loved games since I was very small. I started writing little programs when I was very young. I think maybe the only constant outside influence for me has been music. And my love of music came from my mother, so maybe that would qualify. Ever since I was a child, I've loved to create things. So every time I create a game, I get that same sense of satisfaction. My two goals are to feel that sense of satisfaction, and to surprise people. Whenever I make something, my goal is always to surprise people with something new. /pbrThere you have it - span style="font-style: italic;"LocoRoco/span is a fun game born out of fun, and a gamers love for video games. To me, they look like blobby smileys with ears. As far as penis-resemblances go, well, don't blame the game if your member is yellow and swollen. brbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"More on LocoRoco:br/spanullia href="http://www.qj.net/Video-LocoRoco-2-Japanese-Spills-trailer/pg/49/aid/126740"span title="LocoRoco Japanese spills trailer" style="font-style: italic;"Video: LocoRoco 2 Japanese Spills trailer/span/a/lilispan title="LocoRoco Japanese spills trailer" style="font-style: italic;"a title="LocoRoco 2 squeezes into Europe today" href="http://www.qj.net/LocoRoco-2-squeezes-into-Europe-today-four-new-gameplay-vids-to-roll-into/pg/49/aid/126530"LocoRoco 2 squeezes into Europe today, four new gameplay vids to roll into/abr/span/li/ulbrbrdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?a=vJLc1qeI"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?a=D7pPMCGD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?d=50" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?a=LEA49FB0"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/QJ/PSP?d=43" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/QJ/PSP/~4/KAtd3zlsPdY" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/spanish_img.jpg" width="270" height="357" /Amigos de Gizmodo, here's a must-have gadget for any tourists wanting to cause a lasting sensation in Spanish-speaking countries: a keychain that emits useful expressions that will open doors everywhere you go./p pWith the Palabra Graciosa (Gracious Word) keyring, you will not need to learn Spanish. Capable of saying "Hijo de Puta", "Comemierda", "Cabrón" and "Maricón" at the push of a button, this will work to start conversations, call friends, order a beer, express your love, and even defend yourself in any civil debate. I know, because I'm from Spain and three out of every four words I say are in that list./p pAs a bonus, for a way to learn the multiple uses of the expression "Hijo de Puta", check this video, which is also a homage to a href="http://gizmodo.com/374630/john-mayer-gets-apple-reply-after-bug-report-jibba+jabba"our beloved Mr. T/a./p pobject width="425" height="344"param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MXolkYmTzsQhl=enfs=1"/paramparam name="allowFullScreen" value="true"/paramparam name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/paramembed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MXolkYmTzsQhl=enfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"/embed/object/p pYes, I know, I need a vacation. [a href="http://www.prankplace.com/ps_spanish.htm"Prankplace/a via a href="http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/02/a-keychain-to-insult.html"BBGadgets/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=e8dc6d49d3fb7e32fc93a7af939dda1ep=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=e8dc6d49d3fb7e32fc93a7af939dda1ep=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=e8dc6d49d3fb7e32fc93a7af939dda1e" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=FSRD6JmG"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=T6zL5JuK"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=7xYmU7gY"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=7xYmU7gY" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=jKnzoUgA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=jKnzoUgA" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/G-ZG_CxXebQ" height="1" width="1"/

ppI'm sorry?/p pThe grey faux-granite of the kitchen counter has a sheen of dried soap. I watch the flicker as the politically-correct compact fluorescent bulb alters the texture of the matte. The kitchen, no matter how orderly, is never clean. /p pI said, are you OK? Jessica has had furled concern in the corners of her eyes since we left my Mom's./p pYeah, I guess, I reply. Whatever. With this cold slap of passive-aggressive, I shut down the one meaningful, loving conversation I might have had today./p pI defocus. My eyes no longer converge on the Corian surface, lining up instead in parallel tracks through the center of the earth, never converging./p pI'm in the Monet fire of span style=font-style:italicBraid/span. What would Tim do?/p /ppa href=http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/42468read more/a/p

centerimg border=0 title="Emoze For Facebook On Your Phone" alt="Emoze For Facebook On Your Phone" src="http://www.uberphones.com/photos/2008/12/facebook-logo.jpg" style="margin: 0 0 0 0;" //center br/pEverybody’s a Facebook junkie nowadays, and Emoze has noted that and has expanded its offering to support your standard java-enabled devices. If you’re not using a BlackBerry, Phone or Windows Mobile device, you’ll probably be groaning at the lack of a native client for Facebook. The latest update from Emoze gives Symbian, Windows Mobile, or almost any handset that supports java applications, Facebook messaging support. Users will be able to instantly read, reply and of course, send messages, and it even auto-populates your friends lists. Pop over to a href="http://www.emoze.com" target="_blank"www.emoze.com/a from your phone and check it out. /p pPermalink: a href="http://www.uberphones.com/2008/12/others/emoze_for_facebook_on_your_phone/"Emoze For Facebook On Your Phone/a from a href="http://www.uberphones.com"Uberphones/a | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"BlackBerry Storm/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/wLMBgvIgytOjkaPFRsvLQKVWNAY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/wLMBgvIgytOjkaPFRsvLQKVWNAY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

pa href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofileamp;friendID=332818771"strongGlam Chops/strong/a' "Countdown to Christmas" comes down the internet's chimney (a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes"strongseries of tubes/strong/a, boys and girls) with just about everything a glam-rock novelty Christmas single sung by a href="http://www.artbrut.org.uk/"strongArt Brut/strong/a's Eddie Argos should have: big rock'n'roll guitars, Gary Glitter beat, wry humor, and a smattering of Christmas sound effects en route to an overly long singalong coda. Argos speak-sings about frankincense, Santa's elves, "Silent Night" and the joy in being around family during the holiday season (there's something about wine). "What do we want a piece of?" Argos asks. The jolly reply: "Peace on Earth!"/p pGlam Chops' members include Argos, Mike Georgeson (aka a href="http://www.myspace.com/daviddevantandhisspiritwife"strongDavid Devant/strong/a), and Stephen Gilchrist (drummer for ex-Blur guitarist Graham Coxon), among others, and according to their a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofileamp;friendID=332818771"strongMySpace/strong/a they perform in glittery suits with platform shoes and makeup. Also a href="http://www.purr.org.uk/glamchops/"strongavailable/strong/a is "Baby Jesus Was the First Glam Rocker", which hands the shepherds some Flying V guitars. In the true spirit of the season, both tracks are free, so you can take Glam Chops' advice: "Don't worry about the economy until the middle of January." Or at least until that a href="/article/news/147803-frank-black-producing-art-bruts-new-album"strongnew Art Brut album produced by Frank Black/strong/a comes out./p pstrongMP3:gt;/strong a href="http://www.purr.org.uk/glamchops/"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Glam Chops: "Countdown to Christmas"/span/abr /[from the Glam Chops a href="http://www.purr.org.uk/glamchops/"strongfree online Christmas single/strong/a]/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/eGD4YJ2Lwhx-lPNWsrRv5Hnr7I4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/eGD4YJ2Lwhx-lPNWsrRv5Hnr7I4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/lAB7USWJ0JM" height="1" width="1"/

Category: Utilities
Released: Dec 02, 2008
Price: $0.99

Description:
*** $0.99 is the promotional price only for just a few days, we will raise the price soon! *** Many users including those with long nails or large fingers on the i-phone were having difficulty writing SMS and email messages since the regular applications do not provide a landscape keyboard, those times are over. Now you can use our application to send SMS/Email messages! You can select the recipient from your address book or you can manually type the number, very easy to use. Also, the recipient will be able to reply to your message from their phone as a regular text message. The current SMS application that comes with the iphone does not let you send messages using a large/landscape keyboard. This application will let you write and send SMS messages using a big landscape keyboard. Furthermore, the message that you send from our application will not be billed as an SMS message, making it FREE! (please read further for details about the cost). Short Message Service (SMS) is a communications protocol allowing the interchange of short text messages between mobile telephone devices. Most carriers have "SMS gateways" which take actual email messages and send them to their customers' cell phones as SMS text messages. The only thing that you need to know is what carrier the recipient's phone belongs to -- it's not enough to know their phone number, since the carrier determines what the email address of the receiving phone is going to be. Example: If you recipient's phone number is (305) 111 1111 and his carrier is AT&T in the USA, our application will send an email to 3051111111@txt.att.net We have compiled a LARGE list of providers/carriers from where you can choose the recipients one, making it easier for you to send SMS messages. Most carriers permit the recipient of the sms message to answer it in the usual way. For the recipient it works as a regular SMS message (billed according to his/her plan). Most carriers limit this kind of message to 180/200 characters. Sending this message is absolutely FREE; you will not be charged for sending it as a text message on your phone bill, since its being sent as an email from your phone. This application will let you add/edit/delete carriers as you find the need. We've compiled a large list of providers and included them into this application. IMPORTANT: Keep in mind some of the contacts in our list can change from time to time so its important to keep your database updated. We will update the carriers available database at least every 30 days and we will be adding at least 200 carriers more soon. Our updates will not erase your previous additions to the list. If by any chance you don't see the carrier of your recipient you can call their customer service number and they will provide this information to you or the recipient. This application can have many different uses as well. For instance, you can also use it to send regular emails to your favorite recipients with less hassle using our landscape keyboard. Language (keyboard) support: The application works with the following languages, consult specific providers for further information. Language support for English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish International keyboard and dictionary support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), French (Canada), German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean (no dictionary), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish Yes! Ipod touch users can also use this application.

Website: http://www.gp-imports.com/sms/
Support Website: http://www.gp-imports.com/sms/

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: SMS Email Landscape Big Keyboard (iSMS)

Hi, here's my second theme. I'm planning to do a new theme for the twenty five day of Christmas. All of them will be Christmas related. If you have any suggestions on what I can do, feel free to reply or send me a PM.



[DOWNLOAD HERE]

Enjoy!

Data loss is brutal to deal with. Regular Digital Home Thoughts readers know that I bring up the issue of data backup regularly, because sadly most people don't take data backups seriously until they've lost something they cared about (I know I was the same way). The folks at Seagate, in conjunction with Notebooks.com and nine other Web sites, would like to give one lucky winner a head start on changing their backup habits by giving them a Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB portable drive, and a monstrous 1TB FreeAgent Desk drive. For those of you not so good at the mathematics, that's 1500 GB of storage space, all at blazing USB 2.0 speeds. What's not to love?

Want to win this hard drive prize package? All you have to do is answer the following question: What do you have on your notebook or desktop computer that you'd be devastated if you lost? Have you ever lost important data - what happened? Post your reply in this discussion thread, one comment per person. The winner will be chosen randomly from all the posted comments. Your deadline for submitting your comment is 11:59 PM Pacific Time on December the 6th. The winner will be announced on Monday the 8th.

Interested in increasing your chances of winning? Stop by each of these other nine great sites and enter their contests as well:

• CrunchGear
• Bleeping Computer
• Gotta Be Mobile
• Notebooks.com
• GeeksToGo
• PlanetAMD64.com
• Gadgetell
• Paulstamatiou.com
• Macenstein.com
• Bleeping Computer
  

I have owned both 1G and 2G iPod Touch's, and have found that the 2G does not pull in wifi signals nearly as well as my 1G. Places where I got full reception on my 1G are very spotty on my 2G. In addition, my old rubber case seems to hurt my 2G wifi performance, while it had no effect on my old 1G.

The last 2.2 update made connections more consistent, but this poor range is killing me. I love all other aspects of the 2G.

Please reply to the poll only if you've owned or had significant experience with both units. I'm trying to get a handle on whether this is a unit to unit thing, or something inherent in the 2G design. Thanks!

I'm new with an iPod touch, so I have some questions:

1) Is there a way to jailbreak the 2nd gen yet?
2) Is there any way to load flash?
3) How do you download things without jail breaking?

Please reply, thanks.

Is there anyway to keep Pandora playing music when i exit the app to reply to a text or browse the internet? That would be awesome.

Oh and its jailbroken with Cydia

Thank you for rating/commenting/faving/subscribing!! Comment Questions of the Day! 1. What did you think of Miley on X-Factor? Why does she always dance like that with her neck!?? 2. Who do you want to win X-Factor? Keep sending me dirt! 3. Why did Rosie Live Fail? Could anyone pull off Variety Show these days? Who? 4. Why is Oprah so selfish? LOL If you could have one totally NOT PRACTICAL GIFT this holiday- WHAT WOULD IT BE?! Bonus- Make a video reply with your cover girl commercial! HA! WATCH MY ANSWERS! http://www.buckhollywood.com/answerin... LINK ME BABY ONE MORE TIME! LINK ME BABY ONE MORE TIME My site: http://buckhollywood.com My Personal Channel! Please Subscribe! http://youtube.com/peron75 Be my friend! http://myspace.com/buckthehustler Follow me! Loves it!! Update all day! http://twitter.com/buckhollywood LIVE SHOWS! SUN AND WED 10pm EST! Please subscribe for email updates! Come early! Stay late! It's so much fun! http://www.buckhollywoodlive.com In this video, I talk about Miley on the Factor her her neck dancing! Also why Rosie Live did not work! Oprah being a SCROOGE and I do my Cover Girl Commerical! BAM! Here is link to MILEYMANDY NEW VIDEO! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjPzd1D9Cbc

Author: WHATTHEBUCKSHOW Keywords: Miley Cyrus Things X-Factor Rosie Live Oprah No Favorite Cover Girl Top Model What the Buck entertainment news web series Added: December 1, 2008

hello all, first post at MacRumors and hope I can get some help!

i have 2 mail accounts setup, one is gmail(my mail account) and i have it forwarded to the other exchange push mail account(cannot manually set SMTP outgoing server). When I reply or send email, I would like to do it through my Gmail account. Now I know that i can just choose it from the "Cc/Bcc, From:" field to select the account i want to send it through, but sometimes I forget and it is quite troublesome to do it for every email I send.

So is there anyway i can just permanently set the send account to gmail? I've looked into the com.apple.mobilemail.plist file but I have no idea where to edit or if this is even possible, although theoretically it should be...


please share any helpful info you may have on this. thanks! :)

Download: buspirate.v0c.zip

A few weeks ago we wrote about our Bus Pirate universal serial interface tool. We used the recent holiday to add some new features, like a JTAG programmer, macros, frequency measurement, and more. A major code reorganization makes everything easier to read and update.

Check out the a demonstration of the new features below. We’re compiling a roadmap and wish list, so share your ideas in the comments. You can also see how we used the Bus Pirate to read a smart card and