Apple Mac HQ

I was recently on a business trip and one of my coworkers decided to buy an iPod Classic while we were at the Birmingham Apple Store. The next day he was looking to put some content on his iPod. In addition to a few songs on his laptop, he also had some videos he converted to avi files some time ago. He didn’t know how to get those videos on his iPod though. That’s when I thought of iSquint.

iSquint is a simple tool for converting videos to an iPod compatible format. As the screenshot below shows, it’s very easy to start converting video. Just drag a file into the application window, choose your optimization format and quality, and click start. If you selected the “Add to iTunes” checkbox, your video will be added to iTunes when it’s done converting. Sync your iPod and it will be transferred to it. It really is that simple. If you’re looking to put video on your iPod, iSquint is a great tool.

iSquint is available free of charge from Techspansion. iSquint is the little brother of VisualHub, the fantastic video conversion tool that I frequently use to add content to my Apple TV.

Popularity: 36% [?]

One of the funny yet annoying ads during the Super Bowl was the Tide “Talking Stain” ad. The gist of the ad was that a guy on an interview had a stain on his shirt and the interviewer couldn’t concentrate on what the interviewee was saying because the stain was “talking” to him. The commercial was fairly original, but the stain had this annoyingly high voice while it spouted gibberish.

Tide has announced a contest where you film a spoof of this ad and you are entered to win some prizes. Among the prizes are a specially designed custom iPod. The contest is open to US residents only and ends on March 9th, 2088. For official rules, visit the contest website. In addition to getting all the rules and such, you can also see the ad that aired during the Super Bowl.

The website also allows you to download the stain voice as a ringtone, a stain desktop wallpaper, a stain buddy icon, and the stain mp3. I’m completely baffled why anyone would want to download these however.

[Via TUAW]

Popularity: 31% [?]

Six years ago today, Apple released a device that changed the way we consume music. Initially only available on the Mac, the iPod really took off after the second generation iPod was released. With that release, the iPod could be used with both OS X and Windows. The iPod is one of the most iconic pieces of technology of the last half century. You can’t walk down a public street for more than five minutes and not pass someone with an iPod. Apple has sold over 120 million iPods in the six years since it was launched.

Embedded below is a great video from the Discovery Channel on Apple, the return of Steve Jobs, and the iPod. I highly suggest watching the video if you are interested in the corporate history of Apple and the iPod. Wikipedia also has some good information on the iPod here. So happy birthday to the iPod! Judging by the market share of the iPod, you’ll definitely have plenty more birthdays to celebrate.

Popularity: 23% [?]