About 10 days ago, we were tipped off by a reader that Dragon Naturally Speaking prices were SUPER low on Amazon.  At the time, you could get Dragon Naturally Speaking Version 10 Basic (an excellent program) for just $29.99!  Prices have gone back up (just a little bit), but that software is still only $42.99 new.  That’s less than the $89 retail price it normally sells for, and only about $13 more than it was selling at when it was the cheapest its been in years and years.

Someone asked me the other day if I thought maybe version 11 was getting ready to come out.

I do not have any inside information on this one way or another.  However, I have worked in product pricing in a past career, and I would hazard to say that it would appear that this recent price drop is either one of two things

1. Amazon is selling the product at very discounted levels with or without the permission of Nuance.

2.  Nuance is not coming out with a version 11 anytime soon. 

I think the second option is more likely.  I find it very doubtful that Nuance would sabotage the perceived value of Dragon Naturally Speaking by selling version 10 at prices one half the amount the product sold for originally.  Doing so would fill a lot of demand, demand that might not be willing to shell out more money for a version 11 upgrade.

I’m guessing that version 11 is probably at least a year away, and Nuance is simply trying to squeeze out more sales during a very tough economy for software sales.  Version 10 launched into the very start of the economic crisis last fall.  From my own experience with an extremely modest affiliate account on dragon (might get a referral per month these days) I saw sales go completely flat in October last year, only 2 months into the launch of Dragon Naturally Speaking version 10.  That didn’t pick up at all until after the beginning of the year and since then, things have been anemic at best.

Now, it would also appear that Nuance is letting their affiliate channel move forward on auto-pilot.  Pricing for Dragon Naturally Speaking through the affiliate program still sells at full retail price through the Nuance site, even with Amazon running these amazing deals.  Maybe Nuance doesn’t want to sell produt through their own site?

That may sound crazy, but if for some reason they actually packaged up a large number of units and Amazon has them sitting in a warehouse (no idea why they would have a JIT solution in place) but in that case, it might make sense for deep discounts at Amazon even at the expense of direct sales.

I’ve been covering Dragon Naturally Speaking from Nuance for a long time but have not seen the prices this low before.

UPDATE – Amazon prices have gone up slightly since this all time low on July 20, still an amazing discount!

Right now you can buy Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 for $29.99!  For your average user, that’s all you need!  If you want to have the extra ability to utilize an MP3 voice recorder (I use a Sony) you can get the Preferred version for as low as $117.99 and the ‘wireless’ version for $155 (that’s bluetooth wireless, I personally use an after market 2.6ghz wireless logitech headset that will work with any version).

You could buy the basic version for $30 and an $90 logitech clearchat wireless headset for a total price of $120 or just jump to Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 bluetooth wireless at $155.

No matter what these are great prices.  Typically the lowest prices you will se are about $80 for Basic, $150 for preferred and $250 for bluetooth wireless.  The best part about this is that at $30 for Basic, this is a great price for a first time user to get in and see just how great this software is these days.

I’ve never used the iphone nor the iphone 3G.  The reason, I don’t do business with at&t, and I don’t futz with unlocked phones.   My mobile phone karma just sucks too much for me to chance a jail broken phone on a non-standard network.  So today when I was reading this article in PC World about an in depth 2 week comparison of the iphone 3G vs the Palm Pre, I was curious.

People often ask me which is better, and I don’t have a clue because I avoid at&t like a Republican politician avoids remaining faithful with a spouse. 

This review however, seemed to encapsulate all the things I do like and some of the dislikes I have for the Palm Pre.  In charting up these pros and cons a bit, you get a little cross section flavor of where the iPhone 3g is better or in some cases worse.

Here’s My Pros on the Palm Pre

• Its not on at&t nor Verizon – That’s a big one, would have been better if on T-mobile and tmobile were 3g
• At $200 after rebate, the price was right
• It has a keyboard – that’s a big one
• Its fast
• It does email very very well
• The camera is excellent – major point its fast and takes great pictures
• It is small and fits in my pocket very comfortably – another big point
• The MP3 Player sounds good (via earbuds)
• Surfs the net both real and mobile well
• Touch screen works great
• I can type easily on the phone with one hand, and after 2 weeks almost without looking most of the time
• Love the Facebook, LinkedIn, Pandora, Tweed(twitter client) apps, and the ability to easily use them at the same time pretty much

For me these particular Pros out weigh the following Cons, you might consider the merit of some of these items for yourself. and this is also one of the reasons why I liked that PC World article, it did a good job of putting this in context

Here’s my cons on the Palm Pre

• The plug for the charging cord/ usb connection is a pain in the ass to open
• There is no micro SD card slot – used to be very important when I had a treo, so far its a non-issue
• The phone can’t record video – that’s a big point for me, but counting on a firmware upgrade or future ap upgrade
• It really likes to sync with Gmail and Gmail Contacts – Gmail Contacts is a terribly clunky technology, to put it in my heritage midwest vernacular, Gmail Contacts is piss poor  – big thing, note the Android uses the same crap
• The battery drains kind of fast – medium issue
• Still looking for a good nerd holster – little thing
• The power button is flaky – small thing, rarely turn it off
• The re-awaken button is the power button and also flakey – a medium issue
• The rebate mail in was a bit of a pain – Almost missed the deadline and lost $100
• Doesn’t support Audible yet – for this one I blame both Palm and Audible.  Palm should have had this ready out of the box, but Audible’s format (drm stuff) is a pain too.  I’m now solving this problem by removing the DRM protection from my audio books, no chains for me please
  • Solution –> Convert Audible files to normal mp3 files using SoundTaxi Platinum cost $19.95 (they do offer a –> download link for exe file -> free trial download but it only converts the first 90 seconds, still it does prove that it works before you buy.
  • Note. I paid an additional $10 for the pro version to run more files at the same time.  After the fact, I’d just recommend the $20 version. 
• Palm Tech Support pretty much sucked when my first Palm Pre died
• If you want to transfer your files through a music player, then you are stuck with itunes, which is one of Apple’s worst interfaces and products – you can however just transfer files to your Pre like its a hard drive

There is an area with the Pre out of the box where it is relatively lacking.  Its not the video recording capability, well actually it is that, but even more urgent is the abysmal lack of ringtones.  The list of ringtones that come pre-installed on the Pre are about as short and boring as the ringtones that came with my first Treo years and years ago.

I’ve had my Pre for a little over a week (actually my 2nd Pre for about 4-5 days, my 1st Pre before that was acquired over a week ago).  Anyway due to the failure of the first Pre, I was a little delayed in customizing my second Pre for fear it might die too.

So I have been putting up with quiet boring ringtones for a week now.  I no longer work in the corporate world and so I can use what ever ringtone I feel like these days without having to worry about making an embarrassing interruption during a marathon series of meetings.

So I did a quick search on how to make a Palm Ringtone and found this ever so useful video on YouTube

It is also supported by a written tutorial, which I did not need to use myself because the video was so damned good and I had some of the fundamental knowledge and experience already. 

It requires the download and installation of Audacity, which is a free audio editing program and a very good one at that.  I already have audacity and so the tutorial was very easy to follow and repeat with almost no difficulties. 

So if you can’t stand your boring standard issue Palm Ringtones and are confused by the lack of places to download Palm Pre ringtones through the Palm marketplace, save yourself some money and just convert one of your MP3 songs into a ringtone!

I vaguely recall a quote from Henry Ford saying that customers could purchase a model t Ford in any color they wanted as long as it was Black.  That is apparently the approach that Palm has taken with the Pre on many areas, especially on the music manager.  You can use any music manager you like, but the Pre will only work with itunes.

That’s just fantastic if you already use itunes, like itunes, want to keep using itunes etc.

If you manage your music in Windows Media Player, Real, Winamp or just play music from folders on your hard drive or something, well then you are kind of stuck with Model T coloring.

Personally, I use Windows Media Player.  Is it better than itunes, is it superior to Winamp?

No idea and I don’t care.  I use it, because that is what I use, have used, and what I have thousands and thousands and thousands of songs organized within.  So to have to switch to itunes, basically means that ALL of my songs are now lost and disorganized in itunes and I have to start from scratch.

Not cool, but as an early adopter of a new device, I realize that the customer is not always right.  Don’t get me wrong, I’d be just as un-right if I were trying to use an iphone, but that’s kind of expected from Apple, because they are the screwy fools that made itunes!  Palm’s been working with other music players for years and years and doing it pretty damn well from my past experiences with treos, handsprings, palms etc.

I guess, I’m currently hoping that some non-Apple fan boy at Palm stands up and says, “hey some of our customers don’t love Apple just because, maybe we should give them some music player options on the Pre, after all we are trying to save our company with this phone, no point in alienating Windows Media Player users.”

Oh, and while you’re at it, don’t forget to fast track that Audible project.

I still really like the Palm Pre, but after my first Palm Pre died the yesterday, and Palm sent me on a 150 minute wild goose chase through technical support, I guess you could say the honeymoon period is over.  Oh, and if you are wondering what all those crazy stupid ‘itunes’ hyperlinks are for, you can find the same links by doing a google search with the keywords ‘itunes sucks’. 

Note. I’m a blogger, not a journalist.  I’m purposefully subjective, and prefer to look at the applied uses of gadgets and software in specific unique circumstances, and at extreme tolerances.  If you are looking for a generic ‘review’ of something, you have mistakenly come to the wrong place.  We don’t sell black model t cars here, we offer chartreuse model t’s with glitter pain jobs, flames on the hood, and well, that analogy is a little tired, but we don’t do generic reviews here.  If you want generic and objective, go over to Cnet and read a paragraph with a lot of verbage that you probably could have found in a Palm press release.

After I have had some more hands on with the actual player on the Pre, I’ll cover that again soon.  At first glance, the sound (and the headphones that come with the Pre) are excellent.  I would like to see software improvements in the following:

• the ability to adjust volume on the touch screen
• the ability to delete a song from the device (haven’t found this yet, if it exists, then it needs to be added as an option in more spots
• the ability to convert part of a song into a ring tone.  The G1 (android) from T-Mobile has this capability and it was excellent, a little music editor that you could select part or all of a song and set it as a ringtone or notification.  The ringtones that come standard with the Pre are about as diverse as a gaggle of Canadian Geese
• the ability to drag and drop songs up and down within the play list as the songs are playing (mixing on the fly)
• The ability to rate songs with stars on a 1 to 5 rating level and then later play songs by rating level, and better yet, have it update my computer files
• push button notification to update my facebook letting people know what song I’m listening to & maybe it includes a YouTube link if it can find one, or an Amazon MP3 sales link on my Amazon Associates account so I can make a fortune of my friends. 

But like I said, haven’t had a chance to think about this much yet . . .

After getting my Palm Pre running again today, I had to get caught up on lots of stuff.  One of them was an oustanding to do to download and install Evernote on my PC to run in conjunction with the mobile ap on my Palm Pre.

Haven’t heard of Evernote?

Basically its a tool that indexes text in images captured by camera or camera phone and sent into the service.  (it does some other cool things too, but that seems to be the main reason why I picked it up.)

You can get a general idea of some of the other functionality from this video.

From a Palm Pre perspective, I found this test to be very similar to my own results.  However, I think the lady using the Pre might have pushed a couple buttons wrong on the browser test, which might have slowed her down even more.

I am still stunned every time I use the camera.  The Palm Pre is actually faster than my crappy Kodak 10 mp camera with HD.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE

It is now 7:50 PM about 7 hours after my first Palm Pre died.  After much hassle (see below) my original Sprint store was able to replace my first dead Palm Pre with a brand new Palm Pre, which I’m calling, Palm Pre #2.

I must say that once I turned on Palm Pre #2, my new Palm profile setup for Palm Pre #1, immediately kicked in & started updating Palm Pre #2 with all my email address configurations (cool!) & my Google GMAIL contact info (Gmail contacts suck, but this did pull them in).  My Facebook settings did not work quite so well, but after entering my password all was well with Facebook too.

My Palm Pre #2 came with firmware version Palm webOS 1.0.2.  I’m not going to update to 1.0.3 nor 1.0.4 anytime soon, because I have no idea what killed PP#1 and can’t afford to waste more time if PP#2 dies on me.

UPDATE

I started this article to chronicle a couple important issues with my Palm Pre.  The second was apparently a terminal condition for my phone, and as I write this update, I’m trying to find the fastest way to replace my 3 day old phone.  Palm phone support kept me on the phone for about 146 minutes through 4 dropped calls, and ultimately told me they would call me back, maybe by tomorrow morning. 

Below is the original article and below that is the stream of twitter comments I made while on the phone with Palm for far too long.

In general I am extremely unhappy happy with my new Palm Pre.  I upgraded from the G1 to the Palm Pre last week, and this is a much much better phone on more levels that I’ll tick off here.  In the last 2 days, day 2 & 3 of my ownership I have noticed 2 problems that are somewhat troubling.  They have not yet repeated themselves, but I wanted to mention them as I document my initial experiences with the Palm Pre.

The first happened when I attempted to go into camera mode.  I tapped the camera application and instead of the rapid fire transition to camera, a function that has been amazingly fast thus far, the application seemed to hang as it started up.  I was unable to take a picture as the viewer never showed up on the screen.  It took some effort to close the application as well, which kept going from full screen to a tab / page view.  Finally it ended and no more issues since (that happened yesterday).

The second was a death sentence apparentlymore problematic.  I missed a call that went to voice mail.  I tapped the notification at the bottom of the screen indicating the voice mail existed, it dialed my voice mail and then my screen went black.  Nothing I could do could awaken the screen.  The voice mail played, but I could not tap any buttons or work the voice menu.  The speaker worked but the screen and the qwerty keyboard were both dead.  I attempted to power down the phone, but that button was dead also, so was the volume button.

So mid stuck-call, I had to figure out how to remove the battery cover, something not mentioned in the users guide that I could see. 

It involves pushing a button at the bottom of the phone then plying the back cover off despite the fact that it bent in an odd way that made me fear the cover would break.  Fortunately it did not break and the slight bend did not alter the shape of the cover permanently.

Then I pulled on the plastic tab to remove the battery.  That also was an unintuitive experience with no guide. 

Tip pull away from phone, not down nor up, the plastic tab is NOT attached to the battery, just used to lever the battery out.

Super Troubling Palm Pre Failure

After I reset the device, I attempted to dial my voice mail again.  All the fuss with the phone made it impossible to get my message.  When I went to the keypad and hit the voice mail button again, my screen and keypad went dead AGAIN!

This time the voice mail system hung up on me after it timed out.  Even after it hung up, my phone was still dead, so I removed the battery again to reset the phone.

Question – Is there a reset button on the Palm Pre?  Haven’t found it yet, but I hope so! Partial Answer – apparently there is, but it deletes lots of information from the device, still do not know where it is.

In the comments section of this Engadget article you’ll find some other complaints from other users

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2009/06/07/palm-pre-trouble-roundup/

Now, keep in mind the restarting of the Pre takes about 1 minute and 45 seconds.  This is normally not a big issue, because I usually only restart it once a day, if that, but having to restart it twice in a 10 minute period, well. it gave me the time to write this silly 550+ word article.

Here’s  a reverse order run down of my twitter accounting of what happened when my Palm Pre died a partial Death

• ended 147 minutes w @Palm support-my 3 day old dead Palm Pre, still does not work-Tier III may call me back by tomorrow @Sprint15 minutes ago from web

• @Palm Tier II guy came back told me Tier III might call me back by tomorrow (trying to stay calm) my dead Palm Pre fm @sprint25 minutes ago from web

• been on hold now 37 min to get to @Palm Tier III support after working with Tier I & II for 98 minutes for my dead Palm Pre31 minutes ago from web

• The static filled, broken nasty hold music that @Palm plays for Tier I, II, & III support is grating on me while staring @ my dead Palm Pre38 minutes ago from web

• on hold 10 minutes awaiting Tier II trsfr to Tier III fm @Palm after waiting 13 minutes for tier I to Tier II trsft for my dead Palm Pre42 minutes ago from web

• @gtowna not getting any work done here, fooling with a dead Palm Pre and @Palm support about time to get a beer or 4about 1 hour ago from web in reply to gtowna

• If this were SnowCrash Pizza delivery instead of Palm Pre smart phones, I’d own Uncle Enzo’s Ass by now @Palm @Sprint #idiocracyabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm tier II is now putting me on hold to connect me to @Palm Tier III at 17:13 of 4th call- on phone w @Palm 114 minutes so far todayabout 1 hour ago from web

• back on the line with the latest tier II service specialist, only a 13 minute wait to get to him from tier I @Palm in re: my Dead Palm Preabout 1 hour ago from web

• @learningSEO before my Palm Pre died, I would have DEFINITELY recommended it, having some doubts now that @Palm can’t seem to fix it . . . .3 minutes ago from web in reply to learningSEO

• @Palm Tier I is putting me on hold for Tier II so Tier II can put me on hold & refer me to Tier III for my Dead Palm Pre @sprint5 minutes ago from web

• @sprintcare thx for the offer, just sent you an email, calling @Palm tier II back now after firmware 1.0.4 install completed – Pre dead10 minutes ago from web in reply to sprintcare

• Installing firmware upgrade 1.0.4 for my dead Palm Pre fm @Palm @Sprint – 2 chk 4 updates type U P then click Updates on your Palm Pre19 minutes ago from web

• figures 30 sec after @Palm hangs up 1.0.4 dwnld finishes, hope this fixes my dead Palm Pre got calls to make, business to salvage @sprint21 minutes ago from web

• 3rd call to re-re-escalation rep, tier II, ended after 43 minutes-no resolution 4 @Palm Pre death-don’t call us we’ll call you ahmm @Sprint23 minutes ago from web

• @Palm escalated representative is now telling me to just wait an hour and see if it works later dead Palm Pre 28 minutes ago from web

• @JGoldsborough thx 4 quest, Yes, called them 1st, told me to return Palm Pre to store, but store has few/no replacements, trying to fix 1st33 minutes ago from web in reply to JGoldsborough

• Put my Pre into airplane mode to turn off @Sprint forcing wifi which is on, but download still seems to be stuck coming fm @Palm35 minutes ago from web

• @WarrenWhitlock Yes I have a Pre @Sprint is telling me to return it, on phone with @Palm escalated service rep -was great phone till it died38 minutes ago from web in reply to WarrenWhitlock

• download of Palm Pre firmware 1.0.4 fm @Palm failed while on phone with re-re-escalated tech support40 minutes ago from web

• after over an hour on phone w @Palm they now have me checking for firmware updates, per my mention I’m on old version @Sprint42 minutes ago from web

• while on hold for the last 20 minutes (3rd call w @Palm) Learned there is Palm Pre firmware upgrade 1.0.4-wonder if it can be pushed to me?about 1 hour ago from web

• Got to the re-re-escalated rep-kate, she didn’t read the case notes, wanted me to start fm begining -nonstarter- she’s now reading the notesabout 1 hour ago from web

• Apparently @Palm ’s Alex was also disconnected when talking to re-escalation team & so I’m getting re-re-escalated now-time for Idiocracyabout 1 hour ago from web

• apparently rebooting a Palm Pre really drains the battery, having to recharge while on hold for @Palm re-escalation of call – 15 Pre crashesabout 1 hour ago from web

• apparently tier 1 @Palm person-alex after putting me on hold has to re-escalate my call I can’t just call back & be escalated post drop callabout 1 hour ago from web

• just confirmed that my Palm Pre crashes when making calls whether wifi is turned off or on (crashes either way) @Palm @Sprintabout 1 hour ago from web

• back on hold with @Palm as they track down my last service repabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm Like yourself, I am recording these calls as well for quality improvement purposesabout 1 hour ago from web

• OK, refill of coke zero, choc chip cookie, time to call @Palm back after dropped call to get my Palm Pre fixed – maybe I s/become a Luditeabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm dropped my call on the other line while trying to call my
  mobile to see if it would kill my Palm Pre again- Deep Breath Aaaahhhhmm Ahmabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm is calling me now to figure out why my Palm Pre crashes (screen keyboard become unresponsive during calls) @Sprintabout 1 hour ago from web

• @Palm has me back on hold while Palm Pre boots up after crash – Speed tests show Palm Pre takes 1:45+ to turn on http://bit.ly/WnLlzabout 1 hour ago from web

my Palm Pre dies when i dial phone numbers from the qwerty keyboard too @Palm @Sprint Palm Support going 2 try calling me nextabout 1 hour ago from web

@Palm transferred me to a higher level specialist, who has me on hold while reading case notes from previous specialist #PalmPreDeadScreenabout 1 hour ago from web

@cartermason had great experiences w Treo on tmobile but Treo on Verizon was awful-> Verizon loaded too much crapware & killed the phoneabout 2 hours ago from web in reply to cartermason

Back on hold with @Palm re my Palm Pre that dies whenever it makes a call on @Sprint awaiting transfer to higher level of supportabout 2 hours ago from web

Palm just dropped my call while transferring me to higher level of support for my Palm Pre Crash, hope I don’t have to go through this againabout 2 hours ago from web

@ldbaldwin My Palm Pre was awesome up until today. I hope they can fix it, I do want to keep it.about 2 hours ago from web in reply to ldbaldwin

getting escalated to higher level of Palm support for my failing Palm Preabout 2 hours ago from web

Deleted all my downloaded aps on my Palm Pre per Palm but the phone still crashes when I call my voice mailabout 2 hours ago from web

My new Palm Pre crashed again while on phone w Palm support-recalling smug Palm Developer @CES He smirked at reset button question about 2 hours ago from web

on the phone with Palm about my dying Palm Pre, Sprint told me to returnabout 2 hours ago from web

@thepete lol I AM THE IPHONE KILLER!!!! Suspect if I bought an iPhone 3Gs it would go up like white phosphorousabout 2 hours ago from web in reply to thepete

Sprint doesn’t know how to fix my Palm Pre, suggested I return the phone to the store. Odds of store having replacement Pre VERY LOW.about 2 hours ago from web

I truly have the worst phone karma in the world 5 Treos on Verizon -> all dead, 1 G1 on tmobile -> won’t sync/slow, Palm Pre dying next?about 2 hours ago from web

calling sprint, I think my 3 day old Palm Pre might be half dead (screen and keyboard die when I make calls)

Does the Palm Pre support Audible.com?

So far I don’t know but think it should work.  I was told that the Pre supported Audible at CES in January. 

When I look on Audible, it doesn’t list Palm as a brand, but if you go to PDA, you will find PalmOS listed.  But the PalmOS is not the same as the Palm WebOS I believe, and I just don’t know yet, but after I get this slow itunes thing figured out, I’ll be testing Audible next.

I did some checking on PreCentral and the long and the short of the story from the long forum thread is that

1. the Palm Pre and Audible do not currently support each other.  
2. There is an emulator that allows you to run the old Palm OS on your Pre, but that does not work with Audible either for many users
   1. I saw a couple users that were able to get this to work, but its the activation required by Audible Manager that causes this to fail for most users, plus the emulator known as ‘Classic’ costs $29.95.  If you have palm apps already, you may want to plunk down $30, if you are just looking for an Audible solution skip to step 4, which will save you $10 and make all of your audible books functional on any device that plays mp3 files.
3. The theory that linking Audible to your itunes might make it work, does NOT work
4. The only workaround that I found in the forums that DOES currently work is converting your Audible files to normal mp3 files using SoundTaxi Platinum cost $19.95 (they do offer a –> download link for exe file -> free trial download but it only converts the first 90 seconds, still it does prove that it works before you buy.  I’ve tried a few programs like this in the past that did not work/convert at all, so I was happy to see that this program DOES work.  )

SoundTaxi Platinum CAN convert an Audible .aa format to mp3 so that it can then be played on any of your devices.

It also converts the following formats

Convert your audio and video at one click with an easy to use software created with you in mind. The SoundTaxi simple and intuitive design will let you concetrate on your music and movies, instead of technical details.
Easily convert DRM protected music and movie files and various audio/video files to unprotected MP3, MPEG4, CD,
iPod and other MP3 player file formats at high speed and CD quality – legally.
SoundTaxi unprotects and converts music and movie files from:

* iTunes
* Napster
* Zune
* Yahoo Music
* MusicMatch
* MSNMusic
* MusicLoad
* MTV / urge
* MusicNow
* BuyMusic
* AOL Music
* Virgin Digital
* Sony Connect
* Beon Music
* Peer Impact
* iMusica
* Rhapsody
* Wal-Mart
* AOL MusicNow
* Audible
* connect-europe
* akuma
* Listen JP
* ongen
* hmv
* Bigpond Music
* Soundbuzz
* digirama
* imusica
* cdigix
* cingular mMode
* puretracks
* metro tunes
* fnac

UPDATE

Forgot to include the final source from Precentral that helped get me in the right direction, it came from user quest1772, who stated

I called audible and they assured me they were working on it and expected the app should come out in about two months. for the short term I bought ‘soundtaxi‘ and converted a few books to mp3’s (it takes as long as the track is to convert). This creates a 6 hour mp3 with no bookmarks but the fast forward goes really fast when you hold it down so I can get to where I was in less than a minute, the only problem is now I have to remember where I was or leave the music app open.
edit: also tried the classic+audible air route and crashed my phone. i wouldn’t say that is a viable option unless i did it wrong

Since November of 2008, PC User’s have benefited from the WordPress Theme Generator called Artisteer and now that WordPress Generator desktop application is available for Apple / Mac users.  The initial Mac beta was just released and people that purchase/have purchased a PC license will also have the ability to use the license on a Mac or vice versa on a PC.

I have been giving demonstrations of WordPress as a Content Management System for several months which includes a demo of Artisteer and the first question that is always asked is, “Does Artisteer work on a Mac?”

Now the answer is YES!  Artisteer does work on Macs.

Better yet, existing Artisteer users already know that when you purchase a license, that license will receive free upgrades for a year.  I have personally created almost 100 WordPress themes since purchasing Artisteer last fall, and I have significantly benefited from many many upgrades to the software.  This latest upgrade ads more Avatar support for WordPress, ads support for Dot Net Nuke and past upgrades provided support for Joomla & Drupal templates and much much more.

here’s the latest news release from Artisteer about the Mex Mac Capability

Artisteer for Mac (Beta) has arrived!
Artisteer 2.2 for Mac (Beta) is now available by clicking here. Couple interesting facts:

• Artisteer for Mac joins the family of products based on cross-platform .NET framework known as Mono.
• Artisteer might be the first product for Mac OS utilizing the ribbon interface first introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows.

Technical notes and known issues for beta testers:

• Artisteer for Mac runs on Intel based hardware with OS X version 10.5 (Leopard).
• Artisteer for Mac requires X11 which is usually installed by default on OS X 10.5.
• Artisteer may require approx 1 minute to start the first time after installation.
• The "Open" and "Save" dialogs display Windows style folder structure and may require additional navigation to desired Mac folders.
• The top Mac menu bar does not offer an option to quit Artisteer. Use the Artisteer menu, keyboard shortcut ‘Command’+'Q’, or the red window close button to quit.
• Keyboard shortcuts stop working after clicking anywhere within the web design preview area.
• Certain amount of instability and limitations (as above) are expected due to limitations of the current Mono framework 2.4.
• There is a slight chance that your Mac computer may freeze when using Artisteer (this happened once in our tests). Please save all your work often in case you need to reboot your computer.

Customers who purchased an Artisteer license can use it on both PC and Mac computers (one each) during the beta period. An official release date of the Mac version will be planned after receiving detailed  issue reports from our beta testers and determining how much work is needed to resolve those issues.
Please send feedback and report reproducible issues to our support via the Contact Us page.

Artisteer version 2.2 update
We are releasing a new update to Artisteer 2.2 to resolve a few recent issues reported in the previous version 2.2 Beta.

• Artisteer: Added "Options" button in the export dialog.
• Artisteer: Added DotNetNuke Skin export announced below.
• Artisteer: Fixed a bug with the font size being altered by changing Articles -> Line Height.
• WordPress: Improved compatibility with Avatar List plugin.
• Joomla: Resolved custom footer not showing up.
• Joomla: Resolved centered menus not shown correctly.
• Joomla: Resolved a problem with the text "’30′, ‘height’ => ‘30′ near h2" showing on some pages.
• Joomla: Fixed incorrect path to spacer.gif in script.js file in Joomla templates.
• Drupal: Fixed an issue with broken image appearing instead of a logo uploaded in Drupal.

The new version 2.2.0.17297 can be obtained by clicking here and may become the officially released version 2.2 after additional testing.

Note: Cross posted from The LiveWriterz.

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