Permute, the Mac’s Best Video Converter. Review and Giveaway.

We know Fuel Collective as a company that makes great software, and their latest application, Permute, has officially become one of my must have apps on any Mac. If you need some convincing, imagine being able to convert your favorite TV shows or music videos to any format imaginable. Just tell Permute that you want the latest Lady Gaga music video formatted for your PS3 or iPhone, and it does the job for you. The end user shouldn’t have to worry about extensions or formats - all the user should be concerned about is getting their files converted to the platform they want quickly and easily.

Let’s take a look.

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Mac OS X 10.6.3 Update Now Available

Check your Software Update folks. Expect a detailed post later today.

Changelog:

The 10.6.3 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:

- improve the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X

- address compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications

- address an issue that causes background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail

- resolve an issue that prevented files with the # or & characters in their names from opening in Rosetta applications

- resolve an issue that prevented files from copying to Windows file servers

- improve performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode

- improve sleep and wake reliability when using Bonjour wake on demand

- address a color issue in iMovie with HD content

- improve printing reliability

- resolve issues with recurring events in iCal when connected to an Exchange server

- improve the reliability of 3rd party USB input devices

- fix glowing, stuck, or dark pixels when viewing video from the iMac (Late 2009) built-in iSight camera

Sell Your Old Apple Lisa, Get 43 iPads

Well, sort of.

VoucherCodes has posted an interesting post, analyzing how much it would cost today to buy each Apple product of the past, accounting for inflation. And as you can guess, the result is definitely worth checking out.

If the Apple Lisa was available today, it would cost $21.744 - the cost of 43 iPads 16GB, Wifi model. So yes - Steve was right about the magical and unbelievable price, after all.

Take a look at the infographics after the break.

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Apple Starts Shipping iPad Pre-Orders

As many people on Twitter and Short Order Tech report, it looks like Apple has started shipping the first iPads.

We previously heard that Apple charged many credit cards last week,  and now we’re receiving the first news about shipments coming from China. Early delivery? That’s very likely.

Browsing the iPad App Store: A Video

We’ve seen so many screenshots of the iPad App Store , but what about some video footage? We’ve just been sent a short video that shows the actual store being used, with all the applications we’ve seen so far: the Yahoo Entertainment app, Twitterrific, OmniGraffle and OmniGraph Sketcher, Real Racing.

Check it out after the break.

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TravelPad Winners Announced

Thanks everyone who entered the TravelPad giveaway. Also, we’d like to thank Counterwinds for the promo codes they gave to MacStories.

Here are the winners:

Gianluca

Eugene Gordin

SebaSonido

iSnake

Henry Yue

paolo savonuzzi

Jesse

aifonit

dew

racemase

You’ll receive the promo codes in your inbox in a matter of a few hours. Stay tuned for other giveaways coming this week.

In the meantime, you can follow the official MacStories Twitter account as @macstoriesnet .

And also, be sure to check out our teaser page for the MacStories:Next project. Something magical is coming soon.

Snowtape: Internet Radio Couldn’t Be Sexier. Review and Giveaway.

I’ve never had that great of a relationship with internet radios, mostly because the Italian ones suck. Plain and simple. As many other things in this country, internet isn’t really seen as an opportunity to bring innovation and better quality to old media and traditions, and so internet radios are slow, unreliable and stuck to mid 90’s standards. But like I said, I’ve never had that great of a relationship with internet radios. Not that big of a deal.

I remember last year I stumbled upon a promising new service called Spotify which, though it wasn’t officially available in Italy, looked too much interesting to not give it a proper spin. So I signed up for an account, downloaded the Mac client, enjoyed the freedom of having an immense music catalogue legally available for high quality streaming. Man that was the future of music, a mix between internet radio and iTunes. I upgraded to a Premium account to avoid ads and use the iPhone app, which has been one of the best things of summer ‘09 (yeah, together with that goat we stole and put in my car, but that’s another story). I mean, the Spotify iPhone app is the thing you want to bring with you on the Lost island. It lets you listen to music under a simple 3G connection, all the music you want. Jesus, wish I had it when I was 10 (damn new boys).

Back to our business, we’re talking about internet radios. Well, there was this application for Mac OS X I never really consider until my friend Zak Soup reviewed it here on MacStories, which looked so sexy and useful - Snowtape. From the review: “Snowtape is an internet radio player for the Mac, a one-of-a-kind app that looks good as it blasts your tunes. Sporting a slick, dark, interface, Snowtape is like an iTunes for your iRadio, helping you browse through thousands of stations and even import your own.”

Fast forward 2 months. I remember there’s this music app I have to test. I install Snowtape. I love it. I read the iPhone app announcement post. I get accepted into the beta testing group. I love Snowtape even more.

Then Apple rejects Snowtape for iPhone. I’m sad, upset, I wanna talk about the app. Damn Steve Rea, you can’t reject this.

I woke up this morning with the feeling something good was about to happen. Checking out store.apple.com didn’t help, nothing was apparently new. But wait, I’ve got an email from Vemedio telling me Snowtape for iPhone is out.

Here we are folks, talking about one of the most beautiful and useful music applications for iPhone to date. Meet Snowtape for iPhone.

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