Having some App Store problems again, Apple? Heh, that's life, it doesn't always work the way it's supposed to, but at least we're not talking about some sudden fall of App Store traffic. Unfortunately, it could be considered even worse, because programmers selling their work via App Store are in trouble, and this could lead to a drop in the number of applications being submitted to the store, at least in the near future.

No less than 8 months have been left behind by the App Store, and the increase in applications available and sales was always impressive, at least so far. Now, according to various external sources, the number of apps added to the site is slowly going down. Of course we're talking about external sources, because Apple wouldn't jump to say this the moment they notice it...

While the App Store should hit 300,000 apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch one of these days, the trend is slowing, mainly because approval of applications is very slow, but that's not all, since there are also a lot of complaints from developers.

What kind of complaints? Well, it seems they are receiving delayed payments, and that adds to the approval delays I just mentioned, making it much harder to get your application on sale via the App Store.

If these App Store problems will hit the site in the long run, or not, that's what remains to be seen, but I guess Apple will do something to make things better. After all, App Store is a gold mine for them, and who doesn't want to maximize its profits these days?

Looking for a iMac carrying case? In this case, I feel sorry for you, because I guess you're moving, and I always hated moving. I only did it two times so far, but each time I felt like the stress is eating away my last 10 years of life. Oh, well, that means I'll live only 110 years out of the 130 I had planned...but let's get busy finding some iMac carrying cases for you, shall we?

We'll start with a rugged iMac carrying case from Pelican. If we look at the specs and the price, there could be only one conclusion - as long as Apple will still be in business and making 24-inch iMacs a few decades from this moment, your kids will surely use it!

"This indestructible shipping case is designed to protect your expensive Apple iMac 24 desktop computer with the aluminum keyboard and mouse. The custom foam interior gives impact and shock protection.

Like all Pelican ® Products these cases are indestructible, watertight and airtight."

Lifetime warranty, all-around protection...and almost 30% of the price of your iMac. At $575, the iMcruzer is not a cheap iMac carrying case, but it surely gets the job done, and can do it for ages!

On the other hand, iLugger, a LTA projects division, offers carrying cases for all Macs you can think of, from the old Power Mac G3 to the latest models, but you can also get cases for your iPhone or PC from them. Even more, the prices are pretty cool!

For example, iLugger has a 17/20 inch iMac carrying case for only $130, and it even comes in blue and black, my all-time favorite colors!

While this doesn't offer the protection of the previous case, it still comes with the following features:

- Spacious design with additional storage compartments on either side of the case. Great for storing keyboard, mouse, and power cable!
- Backpack straps for easier carriage
- Hard plastic shield between foam and fabric to protect monitor
- Removable shoulder strap

At last, I found another awesome case, but there are two problems with it: it's pretty expensive, and it was specifically built for the 17-Inch iMac G5. If spending $500 for a iMac carrying case is not a problem for you, then I am sure your iMac G5 will love the Tenba RS-M17 634-715 Aircase!

Other than the above, here's a solution for these tough times - be sure to keep your box when you buy the iMac, and you'll have the cheapest iMac carrying case ever! ;)

Bid for this, bid for that - no matter how bad seems to be the crisis, I guess eBay, Amazon, and the other major players in the field won't go down anytime soon. Good, they already have a solid reputation and a huge client base, but what about a startup? Having some cheap Apple products and other good offers is enough to get started these days?

I have no idea, but if Bid4That will still be standing a year from now, I guess the answer to the last question is a positive one. On the other hand, we're not talking about some eBay-clone, and here's why...

..."Burbank, California - Bid4That is a new online bidding website that allows it's members to bid on products for very low costs. Bid4That have just launched and have added a wide range of Apple iPods, and desktops to the mix for extremely low costs to celebrate the launch. Every day Bid4That sells brand new, top-name products at incredibly low prices in auctions that start at just 15 cents with no reserve."

15 cents with no reserve? Wow! I'll take a MacBook Air for that price! Unfortunately, things are not as good as it seems at first sight, because...

..."To get started, you need to buy bids from the Bid4That website. Bids cost 50 cents each and are sold in packs of 50, 100, or 150. Bidders have the choice of placing single bids, or can use an electronic bid assistant called the "BidButler". Each bid placed increases the price of the product by 1 cent and the auction countdown by up to 10 seconds. To help keep track of the money spent on bidding, each auction displays the amount spent on bids and how much has been saved overall, if they were to win the auction at that moment."

Nothing new here. Just a little math - a bid is worth 50 cents, and increases the price of the product by 1 cent, right? If we have an iPhone starting at 15 cents and selling for, let's say, 30 bucks, that means we have roughly 3,000 50 cents bids, so the real price of the product is $1,500, only that you don't pay it all...;)

These being said, you know what happens, so if you're into really cheap Apple products and you're feelin' lucky, you should give Bid4That a try! Just...be sure not to become addicted!

If I had to choose between just a game, and a game able to teach me something, I always picked the second. I guess that's why I never enjoyed Counter Strike, but we're not going to talk about shooters today. Since treasure hunting can always help you learn something, why not start a little treasure hunt on your Mac? ;)

"Fast Rabbit Software, LLC has released the newest title in the Little Hopper series of educational software for Macintosh and Windows is now available for download directly to your computer. Little Hoppers Treasure Hunt is a tool for introducing students in grades 2 through 5 to two dimensional graphing and the Cartesian coordinate system."

Damn, this gives me so many pleasant memories from my early school days! Unfortunately, I never had a computer at my disposal back then, at least not a serious one...

...but here's what John Jobe, founding member of Fast Rabbit Software, LLC has to say about this app: "We've seen kids really pick up skills and concepts quickly with short term drill and practice software. Just practicing with a title like Master the Facts Multiplication for ten minutes a day can make a huge difference in student's apparent ability. Little Hoppers Treasure Hunt really gets kids into graphing and they rapidly get a true solid understanding of the Cartesian coordinate system."

Little Hopper's Treasure Hunt is available for $9.95 - a single license, but if you're going to get it for an entire school, $199.95 site licenses are also available for purchase via the official homepage.

For a pretty long time, YouTube was the only online videos website I visited. Then, a lot of competitors started to become popular, and so I started to slowly betray YouTube. Now, I have at least a dozen of such sites I check from time to time, but the main problem remains the same - how to download Flash videos and convert them to more popular formats?

Obviously, the problem I mentioned above doesn't have any limit, since it doesn't really matter if you're using Windows, Linux, or a Mac. Anyway, today I'll leave the first two aside, because we're in the Mac realm here, so let's find a solution for those trying to convert flash to video on their Apple computers now!

Just as a side note, it doesn't really matter where you got your FLV or SWF file, so this program can also prove to be a useful tool for some webmasters. The program I have in mind is called FlashVideo Converter, "a powerful and versatile program for converting any flash video file to one of many popular video formats including iPhone/iPod mp4, Mobile .3gp and MPEG2" coming from MacVide.

A handy compliment to iLife Suite, FlashVideo Converter supports a wide range of video formats for saving your flash movies, including MP4 (iPod Video), MOV, 3GP, MPEG.

While the feature list looks pretty well, I think that $99.95 is a bit too much for a video converter. Anyway, here's the list of essential features:

* Encode Flash to Video to MOV format
* Encode Flash to Video to MP4 iPod format
* Encode Flash to Video to 3GP (3GPP, 3G2) format
* mp4 iPod support for converter SWF and FLV files
* Support Flash 6, Flash 7, Flash MX, Flash 8, Flash 9 compressed movie
* Convert Movie Clips and ActionScript and ActionScript2
* Movie Width and Height determination
* Customizable dimensions for exported video
* Auto Determination of Movie length
* User can control Movie over Capturing

If you think you really need this program, and you have at least Mac OS X 10.4 and 20MB of free hard drive space, you can go ahead and grab it right off its official page.