Mon 05 January, 2009

Sometimes I find it hard to describe Picasa without sounding like a late-night infomercial for a multi-bladed thingamabob: "It's a photo organizer! A photo editor! A web-savvy photo sharing and management system in just one tiny package!"

We try hard to avoid hyperbole around here, but it's true that Picasa software, working together with Picasa Web Albums, can help with nearly every aspect of owning and operating a digital camera. And because many of us take pictures in order to share them, we try to make sure Picasa does a great job of getting your favorite photos online, where friends and family can enjoy them too. In Picasa 3, that means powerful new features like automatically syncing changes between the photos on your computer and what you're sharing online, useful privacy controls integrated into the software on your PC, easier notifications, and more.

And today, we're releasing Picasa for Mac. While we've previously offered both a standalone Picasa Web Albums uploader and an iPhoto plugin for Mac users, Picasa for Mac finally brings all of the advanced sharing and sync features of Picasa to the millions of Mac OS X users who use Picasa Web Albums. Not to mention the "it-slices-and-dices" feature list that covers everything from color balance to collages.


Picasa for Mac looks and works much like Picasa on other platforms, and offers trademark Picasa features — such as non-destructive editing, and the ability to keep track of photos anywhere on your hard drive, then automatically account for new images as you add them.

Right now, Picasa for Mac is still in Google Labs, but we very much wanted to get an early version out to folks attending Macworld (you can learn more about this beta release at the Google Photos blog). To run Picasa, you'll need an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 and above. We hope you'll give it a spin, and give us your feedback in person — members of the Picasa engineering team will be conducting demos at Google's Macworld booth all week (you can also check out the video tour below).



Posted by Susanna Leng, Software Engineer
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Cartoon for Today, Jan 05, 2009
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Reuters
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Police are searching in New Jersey and Pennsylvania garbage dumps for the body of a baby boy delivered at Jersey City's Christ Hospital which was apparently thrown out with the trash, authorities said today, according to a report in the...

Source : The Star-Ledger (subscribe)

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AP - Paw Paw's police chief said a heart found at a car wash in the southwestern Michigan village belonged to a deer. Investigators had been trying to determine the organ's origin since Dec. 15, when the owner of Soapy's Car Wash found it in the corner of a manual wash bay.
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The government said Monday it had supplied another $15 billion to seven banks in the latest round of payments from the $700 billion rescue fund.

Source : Examiner (subscribe)

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Independent
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More evidence that the new Mac minis are at least partly geared toward the cheap server market: SeeFile dropped their press release pimping support of the "new Apple Mac Mini hardware" just a little early.

They specifically mention a complete bundled system with a "Mac mini server with 1 terabyte of storage." A SeeFile spokesperson confirmed to Ars that storage is internal, so the rumor that the mini will have a build-to-order option for dual hard drives—good for enterprise servers, because of more storage and RAID support—looks more plausible.

Check out our Macworld rumor round up to see what else is likely to happen tomorrow. [Ars]

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The First Family is mourning the loss of their beloved pet cat, India, who died at the White House on Sunday. The 18-year-old American Shorthair female was named India by First Daughter Daughter Barbara after a former co-owner of MLB’s Texas Rangers. When Barbara and her sister Jenna went off to college, India, also called “Willie” [...]

Source : The PopCrunch Show (subscribe)

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London Times
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As the professor of security engineering at Cambridge University, Ross Anderson is one of the founders of security economics as an academic discipline. Perhaps more impressively, though, he wants your ISP to send you cash every time you get spam.

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A giant rock formation resembling a city wall has been discovered under the Taiwan Strait.The 220m stretch of basalt rock was found by biodiversity researcher Jeng Ming-hsiou.He said it was likely to have been formed by a volcanic eruption up to 1,800 years ago.

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If we've learned anything in the last year, it's that we don't get anything for nothing. If it's good, it probably won't stay good. If it's too good to be true, it's probably a trap. So what about zero financing? Now that we've bailed out both GM and GMAC, the latter is offering zero percent financing on the former's cars...
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MADISON, Ga. (AP) -- A former South Carolina policeman who fired shots from a Georgia motel while holding his infant son and two women hostage surrendered peacefully Monday after a 13-hour standoff....

Source : Arizona Republic (subscribe)

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Several of the nation's largest airlines have joined in a lawsuit to block stronger federal rules on crew rest during the longest international flights.

Source : Seattle Times (subscribe)

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Injectable Bone (Thanks to judi, who is too shy to post it herself)
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Champions Ferrari will be the first Formula One team to reveal their 2009 car with an unveiling scheduled for their Maranello factory on Jan. 12, the Italian team said on Monday.

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Art, wine, cars, houses and just about everything else under the sun purchased by the wealthy is declining in value. Except fish.

Source : The Wealth Report (subscribe)

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Well, it seems like there are a lot of people with analog tvs that watch programming using an antenna— because the DTV coupon program says it's nearing the program's $1.34 billion funding limit.

They claim to have sent out 41 million coupons — but of course it's likely that many of them have gone to people who don't even need them. A recent study by Consumers Union showed that 41% of consumers polled think that every TV in a house must have a new converter box, even those that are already connected to cable or satellite. (They don't. REALLY.)

The Washington Post says that if the program runs out of money, consumers will be put on a waiting list until more funds become available.

If you're wondering whether or not your TV will need a converter box, click here.
If your cable company has lied to you told you that you need to get digital cable "because of the transition", click here.

DTV Coupon Program Out of Money [WaPo]

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President-elect Barack Obama's decision to fill the nation's top intelligence jobs with two men short on direct experience in intelligence gathering surprised the spy community and signaled the Democrat's intention for a clean break from Bush administration policies.

Source : MSNBC.com (subscribe)

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Roland Burris' appointment by a sitting governor was rejected Monday on grounds that his certificate hadn't been signed by Illinois' secretary of state. In reality, he was rejected because his patron, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, appointed him to the seat in defiance of Senate Democrats. Anyone Blagojevich appoints, they argue, is tainted by charges that the governor tried to sell that very...

Source : Star Tribune (subscribe)

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A massive earth-moving project is transforming Smuggler's Gulch near San Diego from a narrow canyon used by cattle thieves, bandits and illegal immigrants into a plugged breach. For a century, the narrow canyon leading into California from Mexico provided cover for cattle thieves and opium dealers, bandits and booze runners.

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surely_you_cant_be_serious writes "A nationwide survey finds that most companies consider their systems vulnerable to attack. Historically, crime rates increase during recessions — and some believe that cybercrime may well follow suit, especially given massive layoffs and the dim prospects many laid-off employees face in finding a new job. 'One thing companies can start doing is monitoring their networks on an ongoing basis so that they understand the normal pattern of data flow and usage, Brill said. In many cases, companies may not have the internal capability to do this, but outsourcing options are available. Kroll Ontrack, for instance, will be rolling out a 24/7 monitoring service for its global clients manned from a US location by professionals in early 2009.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Kotaku's put their game of the year awards up, and it's a pretty good start to building your gaming collection if you've just gotten an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii over the holidays.

Although their categories, like best art, best sound and best innovation may not be a great template for finding a game in a genre that YOU like, it is a jumping board to checking out quality games—which all of these are. We'd definitely go with GTA4, Metal Gear Solid 4, plus Dead Space (if you like shooters). [Kotaku]

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An engineer in Hunterdon County is building up a small busi­ness that saves big money on energy costs for his customers. The one catch is, there's a big upfront investment. For one of Mike Strizki's New Jersey custom­ers, that means...

Source : The Star-Ledger (subscribe)

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It is meant to symbolize a new era but its heavy security portend otherwise. And why wasn't Maliki at the dedication?

Source : Time (subscribe)

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Prosecutors on Monday said disgraced financier Bernard Madoff violated bail conditions by mailing about $1 million worth of jewelry and other assets to relatives and should be jailed without bail.

Source : Fox News (subscribe)

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AP - Police say a woman who begged from a wheelchair was caught running from a crime scene on foot in Monterrey, Mexico. Police spokeswoman Sidlayin Robles says 30-year-old Ana Victoria Perez fled on foot after she and her husband allegedly threw a stone through the front window of a furniture store.
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Thanks to the Internet, with a single Google search and some creative guesswork you can diagnose pretty much any disease you want. Yes, this has made the world of medicine entirely unnecessary, but what about the legal profession? Surely the web can replace that too!

Note that our suggestion to ignore real medical and legal expertise illustrates the greatest pitfall of online advice, which is that it may be entirely fictitious. There's no doubt that this list can be a great resource, but you should probably still get your real legal advice from those who have been properly trained. Still, we can see this being helpful if you're trying to figure out a legal phrase or find a form you can download, or if you need help finding an expert in your neighborhood.

"100 Free DIY Legal Resources on the Web" [e-Justice Blog]
(Photo: Daquella manera)

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Oneida.com cuts up to 75% off select flatware, tableware, and more during its Sizzling Deals Sale. That's among the best sales we've seen from Oneida. Shipping starts at $6.50 and is free on orders of $99 or more. Some best bets, after above coupon:

• Merry Friends Soup Bowls 4-Pack for $11.99
• Snowmates Round Pasta Bowl for $15.99
• Royalton 20-Piece Service for Four (pictured) for $26.99
• click here to see all Sizzling Deals

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Amazon.com offers the Samsung Touch of Color 26" 1080p Widescreen HD Television Monitor, model no. T260HD, for $475.99. With free shipping, that's the lowest no-rebate price we've seen by $12. It features a native resolution of 1920x1200 (1080p), 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 300 cd/m² brightness, ATSC (HD) tuner, two HDMI inputs, and DVI, VGA, component, and other video inputs.
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Doesn't virtualization fix this?

The religion of virtualization may be all over the IT trade press, but apparently the data centers of the world haven't heard the good news yet and have been buying up PCs, servers, and storage gear like crazy to support their application and data loads. And if data from British IT consultancy Compass is any guide, IT budget growth over the past four years has been driven by capacity needs, which are outpacing price/performance improvements.…

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For in-store pickup only, Best Buy offers the Code 3 Collectibles Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith Sculpture for $5.99. That's a $4 drop from our September mention and the lowest total price we've seen by $74. Sales tax is added where applicable. Each limited-edition, serial-numbered sculpture is 10-1/2" tall and one of only 5,000 produced.
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Ever since Doc Brown added a Mr. Fusion to the Delorean, many of us have longed to fuel our car with banana peels and beer. Now you can, thanks to the magic of gasification.

Gasification is the use of heat to transform solid biomass, or other carbonaceous solids, into a synthetic "natural gas like" flammable fuel. Through gasification, we can convert nearly any solid dry organic matter into a clean burning, carbon neutral, gaseous fuel. Whether starting with wood chips or walnut shells, construction debris or agricultural waste, the end product is a flexible gaseous fuel you can burn in your internal combustion engine, cooking stove, furnace or flamethrower. Or in this case, your DeLorean. OK, how about a Honda Accord?

Gasifiers are nothing new, but this instructable teaches you how to build a small scale version powerful enough to run your car. Since we are talking about dry organic matter here, I suppose banana peels and beer are out—but fueling up on pinecones is still better than paying for gas. Hit the link for a complete set of instructions. [Instructables via DVICE]

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It's expensive to go broke! "A Chapter 13 costs $3,000. Your lawyer will probably want part of that up front, with the rest paid off as part of the plan. A Chapter 7 goes for about $1,200." Yikes. If you're considering bankruptcy and looking for a little guidance, this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is a good place to start. [Post-Dispatch]

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Read full story for latest details.

Source : SI.com (subscribe)

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dealnews' sister site stylenotes reports that Victoria's Secret takes up to 65% off select apparel during its latest Clothing Sale>. That's among the best sales we've seen from this merchant on these items in recent months. Orders over $100 receive free shipping via coupon code "SHIP09"; otherwise, shipping starts at $5.95. Sales tax is added where applicable.
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Lawmakers raise a number of regulatory reform ideas for the Securities and Exchange Commission in light of the agency's failure to identify an alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme operated by New York investor Bernard Madoff.

Source : Market Watch (subscribe)

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Movement in the standings, however slight, can even be detected in January. It was more like a ripple than a wave, but the Lakers found themselves with the league's top record Sunday night after beating the Portland Trail Blazers, 100-86, at Staples Center.

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From the fact that Wolverine was a sickly child to his war experience, this is a very interesting list to gear up for 'Origins'

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An anonymous reader writes "Wired has the inside story of Max Butler, a former white hat hacker who joined the underground following a jail stint for hacking the Pentagon. His most ambitious hack was a hostile takeover of the major underground carding boards where stolen credit card and identity data are bought and sold. The attack made his own site, CardersMarket, the largest crime forum in the world, with 6,000 users. But it also made the feds determined to catch him, since one of the sites he hacked, DarkMarket.ws, was secretly a sting operation run by the FBI."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A European convert to Islam allegedly caught on camera beside Osama bin Laden denied Monday any role in a 2002 suicide attack on a Tunisian synagogue allegedly ordered by the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S.

Source : Miami Herald (subscribe)

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Boston Globe
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Google
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Today only, Second Act offers the Philips 32" 720p Widescreen LCD HD Television, model no. 32PFL3403D, for $479.99 with $80 for front-door delivery ($60 for pickup from a local shipping center). That's $79 under the lowest total price we could find for a factory-sealed model. Features include 1366x768 (720p) native resolution, 1,200:1 contrast ratio, 500 cd/m² brightness, 8ms response time, built-in ATSC (HD) and NTSC tuners, three HDMI inputs, and VGA, component, and other video inputs.
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Hundreds of thousands of years ago, giant versions of Australia's unique wildlife stalked the continent. There were kangaroos up to 3m tall and enormous wallabies, wombats and echidnas. There were also koalas: larger and weightier than the creatures sometimes seen today in eucalyptus trees.

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Other automakers see steep declines, too: Toyota down 37%, Honda 35%, Ford 32% and GM 31%.

Source : Indy Star (subscribe)

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Comcast's bandwidth throttling system that slows you down for using too much bandwidth is now fully armed and operational in all markets. Here's how it works, and how to not get stuck on the short bus.

The golden rule—which we covered a bit here—to keep in mind is this: If you use more than 70 percent of your downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes, you'll be slowed down for at least 15 minutes, or until you're brought back down to using 50 percent of your bandwidth. The other, more esoteric way to bring on the sludge is actually a pair of conditions: If a certain CMTS port—cable modem termination system, the hub your cable modem, along with those of up to 15,000 (but probably fewer) runs to—is congested and if you've been targeted as the asshole why.

By slowed down, it means all of your packets are assigned "Best Effort" quality of service, a lower tier than Priority Best Effort. Which means this, according to Comcast:

If there is no congestion, packets from a user in a BE state should have little trouble getting on the bus when they arrive at the bus stop. If, on the other hand, there is congestion in a particular instance, the bus may become filled by packets in a PBE state before any BE packets can get on. In that situation, the BE packets would have to wait for the next bus that is not filled by PBE packets.

This all happens in a compressed time frame though—missing 50 buses would mean being delayed by about a tenth of a second, but it is possible to have your packets dropped in "extreme cases." (See? The bus metaphor was theirs.)

Don't forget your bandwidth counter either, guys. You wouldn't wanna zoom past your 250GB cap and get slowed down, would you? Enjoy your internets, and don't hog it all! [DSL Reports]

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P.C. Richard & Son offers the Sony Clip-On Headphones, model no. MDR-AS20J, for $19.99. With free shipping, that's the lowest total price we could find by $7, outside of the price below. These over-the-ear headphones feature a 4-foot cord, 13mm dome drivers, 18Hz to 22kHz frequency response, and more.

Of note, Circuit City has the same for $15.99 plus $3.99 for shipping, although sales tax is added in more areas.
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The BBB is warning consumers about scams attached to the popular, yummy acai berry. Online ads claiming endorsements by Oprah and Rachel Ray are pitching acai-berry-themed weight loss products — and are generating thousands of complaints from angry consumers who say they've been scammed.

It starts out, as so many things do, as a free trial offer — but when you try to cancel — you may find yourself locked in to the automatic delivery of more acai than you ever wanted.

“BBB can’t speak to the restorative or weight loss properties of acai-based products, but we are taking companies to task for their misleading sales and marketing practices,” said Steve Cox, BBB spokesperson. “Many businesses across the country are using the same selling model for their acai products: they lure customers in with celebrity endorsements and free trial offers, and then lock them in by making it extremely difficult to cancel the automatic delivery of more acai products every month.”

The BBB lists two companies that sell acai products on this business model:

FX Supplements: " The company offers a risk-free trial of their products for the cost of shipping and handling. However, if consumers do not cancel within the trial period they are sent additional bottles every month and are billed $85.90. Complaints show that the trial period fluctuates between 10 and 14 days from when the consumer requested the free trial—not from when they received the product."

Central Coast Nutraceuticals: "In the last 12 months, the BBB serving Central, Northern and Western Arizona has received more than 1,400 complaints for a company called Central Coast Nutraceuticals which operates several Web sites selling acai, hoodia and male enhancement products. The company uses Oprah-endorsements of the acai berry in ads touting its weight-loss benefits and offers a free trial of acai-related products including supplements and tea. Due to the company’s negative option, if, after the free-trial, the consumer no longer wishes to receive a monthly supply they must cancel their subscription or they will be billed $40 monthly.

The complaints against the company all tell a similar tale of how difficult it was to contact the company and cancel the subscription — including enduring 75 minutes on hold. Additionally, consumers complain of unauthorized charges on their credit card or bank accounts for products they did not order. Central Cost Nutraceuticals has earned an F grade from BBB for a large volume of unanswered and unresolved complaints."

If you're looking for fruit with lots of antioxidants, why not just go to the grocery store? There are plenty of fruit juice drinks with acai in them — and let's face it. Apples may not be some exotic miracle fruit — but they have plenty of antioxidants and are cheap!

Weight-loss Berry Claiming Oprah Endorsement Makes Wallets Slim and Consumers Angry Warns BBB [BBB]
(Photo: Marc Boudreu )

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JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — A man who police said was shot by his stepfather ended up in the same jail with him after officers discovered outstanding arrest warrants against the victim. Police told The Daily News of Jacksonville that 37-year-old Richard Hayes shot his stepson Thursday night. Authorities say 21-year-old Michael Bass was holding a bloody towel to his abdomen when paramedics arrived,...

Source : The Huffington Post (subscribe)

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The dollar rose against the euro and yen, but fell against the pound Monday as investors focused on President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, while a government report showed that construction spending fell less than forecast.

Source : Boston Globe (subscribe)

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AP - A man who allegedly squatted in the attic of a Pennsylvania family's home over Christmas and helped himself to their belongings is "sorry and upset" it happened, his lawyer said Monday.
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As I was getting coffee in the faculty lounge, I started talking to a senior colleague who is nearing retirement. He said that he avoided a lot of the market pain of the last year because he had only about 25 percent of his savings in stock. (Now with the market drop, he has an [...]

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Mirror.co.uk
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submitted by spastichabits to pics [link] [58 comments]

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A Look Back At Some Of The President's Misunderestimated Remarks.

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Jalopnik
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(Some Guy)
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Beejive's already quite usable Beejive IM iPhone app just got an update to 2.0, adding file transfer and voice messages to its multitude of IM connectivity.

Currently, you can connect to "AIM, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN/Live, Myspace IM, and Yahoo messenger" with Beejive. With 2.0, you can send in-line photos, audio and video files, PDFs and Office docs to anyone you're chatting with, provided the recipient has an IM client from the last 10 years.

The best part is the voice message feature, which you can activate with the microphone icon. The worst part is the price: $16. You do get what you pay for, and Beejive seems to be a pretty fancy IM app. [