Skype To Support Video Conferences Next Week

As of next week, Skype will begin to support video calls to up to four other users, that's five total. The public beta of "Group Video Calling" will be Windows only from the get-go, but they will be rolling out a Mac version later this year, as well. At launch, the feature will be free, but Skype says that in about three or four months (when the Mac version is supposed to be out), they plan to charge for the feature. It'll probably be aimed at the business realm, but I still think it's idiotic that they plan to charge for this. Skype is known for free Skype-to-Skype calls, and conference video chatting is a feature that's been requested for quite some time, not to mention that iChat, ooVoo, TinyChat, and many others offer the feature absolutely free. This has less of a use-case in the corporate setting, because so many offices already have a secure professional video conferencing setup implemented. It makes more sense for use in the home for long distance families to keep in touch, or for friends to get together online. Hopefully they reconsider before too long. Windows users, you should be able to download and give it a shot next week. 

Google Picks Up BumpTop; 3D Chrome OS On The Way?

Bumptop is an interestingly cool desktop replacement for Mac and PC. Or at least, it was. Now, Google owns them and they've just shut down their operation. Bumptop had a free version and a Pro version. I played with the free version of on the Mac a few months ago when it was put out. Despite how cool it was and how clever the organizational cues were, I reverted back to OSX. It was just missing some features that I needed. Now that they've been picked up by Google, they've discontinued the product. What Google is planning to do with them, they haven't said, but it's certainly a curious choice. Maybe something Chrome OS related? Who knows. Bumptop had a lot of exposure, and had a lot of promise, so here's hoping Google puts them to good use. This has been a huge year for acquisitions already, and it's only just turned to May. Maybe the economy is spiking a little bit, hm?

Mac Developer Program Now Reflect iPhone Program

The Apple Mac Developer Program got a massive overhaul this week. The developer center when down for hours, and when it resurfaced, it brought quite a few changes indeed. The developer program has now been shifted to more directly reflect the iPhone development program. The site now mimics the iPhone dev center's look, and the pricing is now much more modest coming in at $99/year compared to the old starting price of $499/year. The program gets you early access to OSX builds, tech support, and access to help video and forums. 

As great as this is for developers to have a richer, more affordable experience, I pray this isn't a herald of things to come for the Mac platform. The only other place we've seen this kind of model is with the iPhone closed ecosystem. I don't know what would happen to my brain if I were forced to buy from an app store for my computer, lest I jailbreak it. How stupid does that sound? Jailbreak my MacBook Pro. Ugh.

Are you a developer? What do you think of the changes?

Quicken Essentials (finally) Out For Mac

The new version of Quicken for Mac, Quicken Essentials for Mac, was released last week after a four year period without a refresh.  The application is geared towards users that need basic functionality out of their financial software. Aaron Patzer, Vice President/General Manager of Intuit's Personal Finance Group, said of the application,

"It's called Essentials because it's what we consider to be essential for most users - about 80% of users.  We went to people's homes and watched them use it.  The majority of them want to know: How much do I have?  How much do I owe?"

The software clearly reflects the mentality of providing users with a very simple overview of their money and where it is going.  As someone who is looking for exactly that kind of functionality, I got myself a copy and checked it out.  The layout is super simple, with one window and all of the application's tools, accounts, budgets, and reports organized in the left side navigation.  It has a very iTunes-esque feel to it.

The best feature of the application, and one that a lot of simple financial software applications have trouble with, is the categorization system for transactions.  The Quicken team have developed a learning algorithm for Quicken Online.  This system allows users to self-tag their purchases.  Quicken save the tags and then applies them to other user's data.  The more self-tagging that goes on, the smarter the system gets.  Intuit is looking to combine a second approach, of doing a simple Yellow Pages look-up, with their learning algorithm to obtain a 95% categorization accuracy.

Moving data seems to be hassle free.  Simply save a copy of your old Quicken data and open it in Quicken Essentials for Mac.  No big fuss about it.  As a first time user, I set up some web-based connections to my accounts. This is a great piece of software for anyone who is looking to simplify their financial life, not complicate it.  For users who may need a little more functionality out of their financial software, this may not be the choice for you.

Chrome For Mac Updated With Extensions And More

If you're one of the Mac users who has held off on trying out Chrome for extension support, your time has come, good friend. Chrome For Mac has been updated with Extensions, the Bookmark Manager, and Bookmark Syncing. Google's got over 2,200 extensions available right now, and that number is growing. I've been using Google Chrome with extensions for a while as Chromium, and it doesn't seem to be impacting performance. Not noticeably, anyway.

I'm very close to ditching Firefox for a while to see how I fair with Chrome, but that won't happen until 1Password puts out their extension for Chrome. I use 1Password to manage all my accounts online, so without it, I'm smoked. Head to Chrome's Page to get downloading and check out the demo video below.