Nokia splashed on the dough to announce the launch of their new music subscription service that is tagged to the Nokia mobile phone, called Comes with Music. Basic premise is buy a new supported Nokia mobile phone, you will get an access to millions of music you can download for free (data charges apply if songs are downloaded on the mobile) and even when your subscription expired after 12 months, you get to keep the tracks. Caveat is the DRM applies on the downloaded track, tying you down to one mobile and ONE computer. Yes, ONE computer.

That is worse than iTunes’ Fairplay DRM (no more when Apple went DRM-Free) which was limited to 5 PCs and any number of registered iPods.

And if you are a Mac user thinking of getting a new Nokia phone to tap the unlimited downloads of music, forget it. Nokia’s Music Store, which is where you get your music, will not work on a Mac.

You are better off getting an iPhone and registering yourself the US iTunes Music Store.

Granted the premise of Phoenix from local company Bak2U is one we like, there are some issues we faced when we were doing the review of the app that we felt made us hold back slightly in our recommendation for it after spending more time.

One major gripe I had is the lack of uninstaller for Phoenix. As most Mac users know by now, the beauty of most of the popular apps we love is the ease in which they are installed, and also uninstalled should the need arises. None of those Registry BS on some other Operating System where you don’t know what was installed and where they were. Most of Mac apps can be easily dragged into Trash and be done with it. That is not so true with the Phoenix.

The success of the app requires certain background running processes that will monitor and trigger the transmission of the notifications should an illegal use is detected. The files that do that are not in your usual Application folders as that will defeat its purpose. They are so well hidden that when you do a search in Spotlight, you will not find a trace of it. So, how do one go about removing those hidden files should you want to remove the application?

As there weren’t any uninstaller nor instructions given for the review, we had to contact the developers for the instructions, which was swiftly relayed to us. However, they were a set of Terminal commands that only someone with at least basic knowledge of Unix operating system will understand and at least one, required root access before it can be deleted. Unless you know your sudo from your judo, removing Phoenix from your Mac will be a herculean task.

The last thing we want is a bogged down Mac with hidden processes running in the background eating up the Mac’s resources. One app that is comparable in its purpose is Little Snitch by Objective Development which stays in the background sniffing network traffic which required it to put files in various locations. What stands out for Little Snitch is that the installer comes with an uninstaller that is activated in the same screen as the installer. One click and the app is easily uninstalled and associated files are removed.

I would like to think that part of the onus of keeping our Macs clean and safe, belongs to developers whom we trust to give us full value for their applications, be it using it or when we choose not to. Saving us from the guess work and hassle of running Terminal to remove files will be greatly welcome and I’m sure those guys behind Phoenix will improve on the app soon.

… and may you recover and kick some asses again soon! FYI, Steve Jobs’ birthday was couple of days back – 24 February, 1955 to be exact.

Instead of Marilyn Monroe singing the birthday tune, let iJustine do the honors. I absolutely loves the expression of the old man behind Justine while she sang.

Working in the ad industry for a while, one common pet peeve of creatives is the amount of working files, source files and fonts that are scattered all over their workstation. Pulling out archived files of past work will usually result in hair pulling and much frustration, trying to locate certain images.

When I saw this note in TUAW about the release of the beta version of Flow from Gridiron Software, I think those issues can be put to rest.

Flow is the world’s first Visual Workflow Manager, built from the ground up to keep creative professionals streamlined and informed. Flow gives you a total understanding of your project, visually and intuitively. In one simple interface, you’ll see all your project files, how they’re related to each other, and where they’re located–on a local drive, on a network volume, even on a DVD you burned a few months ago.

Flow works its magic via its Real-Time Asset Tracking that runs in the background and tracks your actions while you work on all major creative and Office productivity applications and then connect the various assets and their relationships to the projects you are working on, and representing them in a visual workflow map.

Besides keeping track of your assets and version control, there is also time tracking to track the time spent, packaging to help you prepare the files to send to your printer or your client and also tagging and search functions.

With its features sounding like the promise land for many disorganized creative professionals, Flow has the potential to allow creative professionals to focus on what they do best – being creative – and keeping the effort on files and assets management to a minimum.

Flow is available for US$249 for a single license with the options for discounts for those in Education or opting for Volume purchase. The beta version is also available for downloading and only requires a quick registration.

… is something not for the faint hearted, especially when your iPhone is minty fresh from the box.

Flunky Carter filmed his iPhone through night vision, probably hoping to recreate a bit of Blair Witch Project and probably gave himself a fright with all the unsighted cracks and stress fractures on his iPhone.

This is what my iPhone looks like underneath the Night Vision. I was surprised to see all the stress and cracks around the edges, especially around the lens, since none of those are visible under regular light. You can see right through the case to the skeleton of the iPhone… kreepiez

Kreepiez indeed – see for yourself below.

iPhone under Night Vision from Flunky Carter on Vimeo.

I have a friend whose laptop was stolen when he was traveling in France. The perpetrator broke into his hotel room, ripped open his luggage and took his Macbook. The hotel’s security camera tapes were handed to the police for investigation and now almost a year later, he never saw his laptop or heard from the police.

We all love our macs because it’s not just a piece of hardware, it’s a collection of all your personal data, photos you’ve taken, music that you like and for those who work off their Macs, their livelihood. Replacing the machine is one thing, but if you haven’t been backing up your data regularly then even a new mac without any pictures, tunes or even emails will never feel like you’ve really replaced it.

Truth be told, the chances of recovering a stolen laptop is close to zero but you can increase your chances by installing anti-theft software. There’s a few in the market, but today we’re going to look specifically at Phoenix, developed by a Singaporean company, BAK2u.

Phoenix installs as preference pane, which is good thing because it’s meant to remain hidden. When the thief turns on the Mac and an internet connection is established, he will be prompted to enter a password, failing which, the software will assume that the Mac is stolen and begin tracing the laptop.

Phoenix notifies you in a few ways but at it’s core, it uses Skyhook Wireless technology to ascertain your Mac’s position using a combination of GPS, Cellular Tower triangulation and Wi-Fi access points. With the location found, Phoenix is able to discreetly send you an email with the GPS location with a link to Google Maps and also an external IP address of the ISP your Mac is connected to. The software will also use the built-in iSight camera to take a short movie of the perpetrator’s face as he’s using your Mac. It could also be configured to send out updates to Twitter with the GPS location. The tweet formatting is a little off, but it’s nothing major. Furthermore, if you’ve set up your twitter account to notify you of tweets via your mobile, then it extends this functionality even more.

What I like about this software is that it should theoretically keep you constantly in the loop about your Mac’s location and these information will be very useful to the police to help recover your laptop. Also, I think Phoenix did one thing exceptionally well.

There exists a fine balance between how effective a tracking software is and how much personal information is being collated on a regular basis. The best tracking software would probably need a central server that can keep tabs of your Mac at any given point in time. However, this could so easily be exploited because of the 99.99% of the time you’re Mac is not stolen, someone somewhere knows exactly where you are. On the other end of the spectrum, if the software doesn’t know where to send the data to, then it’s nothing but a dud. The developers have clearly thought this out and Phoenix probably sits near the golden mean between privacy and utility.

No software is completely fool-proof and there’s some areas which can definitely be improved. I thought of a few ways to circumvent the software but I won’t post it here for security reasons. For all it’s worth, this software is effective enough if your Mac is taken by an average thief. If the burglar is moderately Mac-savvy and has done enough homework, it won’t be too difficult to deactivate this tracking software, assuming he/she knows it’s installed in the first place.

Phoenix retails at US$39.90 and it’s available here. I would definitely recommend that you consider this if you take your Mac when you’re on-the-go. There are some other software on the web but I like this for the fact that it respects a user’s need for privacy, yet is robust to contain enough alert mechanisms to make it useful in times of need.

Let’s just be clear that they offer no guarantee you’ll get your lost Mac back, in fact no software maker will ever do that. But if you’re unfortunate enough to lose your Mac, this will give you a fighting chance in recovering it. Look at it this way, any chance is better than zero.

Example of the email sent out from stolen laptop:

From: bak2utesting@gmail.com
Date: February 12, 2009 9:45:00 PM SST
To: predefined-email@gmail.com
Subject: Phoenix Alert message

Date & Time: 2009-02-12 21:44:32 +0800

Location
————
Map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1.299381,103.852814
Latitude: 1.299381
Longitude: 103.852814

External IP Addresses
——————————
IP: 220.255.24.47

Proxy Information
—————————–
IP: 220.255.24.47
HOST: bb220-255-24-47.singnet.com.sg
PROXY: 220.255.7.144

MacBook Pro Information
—————————–
Serial Number: System Serial#
MAC Address: 00:1b:63:97:1d:75
Host Name: John-lim-macbook-pro.local