typing

Jaguar announced Friday that it will be offering a diesel engine with automatic transmission option for the 2008 Jaguar X-Type.

The 2.2-liter diesel engine will come with a six-speed automatic transmission, as well as the Jaguar Sequential Shift.

The car, which is available in both left and right hand drive, will be available in the U.K. in March 2008 and in Europe in April 2008. No word yet on a U.S. release.

See pictures of the new 2008 Jaguar X-Type.

Audi's cutaway restoration of the 1925 Audi Type M is complete, Audi announced Thursday.

The unusual restoration of Audi's first six-cylinder car, which Audi commissioned the German company Fahrzeugrestaurierung Rosenow to turn into a cutaway model, took about 4,500 hours to complete over an almost four-year period.

"Half the car is double the work," Peter Spillner, the owner of Fahrzeugrestaurierung Rosenow, said in a statement.

The car's transformation is significant because it's highly unusual for a car as rare as this one--with only four known surviving models left in the world--to be offered … Read more

While the iPhone may not be ready for business, it doesn't mean you can't take advantage of its big screen and keyboard to get some blogging done. The folks at Movable Type have a new plug-in that makes the blogging tool's interface very finger-friendly, with tabs, and a touch-to-edit function that's a little bit like Facebook's iPhone app. You can create new blog entries and edit old ones, although keep in mind you're still short on copy and paste, so if you're trying to add links from one browser window to the other (… Read more

Movable Type, Six Apart's publishing system is releasing its fourth version today. Six Apart began its public beta of version four in early June, and has since moved through a handful of release candidates. The biggest change Movable Type users are going to notice is a new interface, which includes a WYSIWYG editor, and 30 new themes to skin and style your blog without having to know any CSS. There's also a new setup wizard that will help the technically bewildered install it without having to print out a how-to guide.

With MT4, Six Apart is merging the consumer and enterprise versions of Movable Type, and are now offering those features as "solution packs." On the enterprise end, this equates to support for and integration with corporate servers and sales teams. For consumers who are running their own blogs, the community pack lets them add features like user profiles and story recommendation. Six Apart has also added support for OpenID, so if visitors already have an OpenID, they'll be able to register with your site using those credentials.

Perhaps the biggest change is the option to administrate multiple blogs. Previously, MT users were relegated to just one at a time. The new system brings it up to spec with similar admin functionality of the likes of WordPress and Blogger. Speaking of which, MT4 has a new importer for WordPress users who want to migrate, as well as a backup and restore tool to let you save and restore your blog in case of catastrophe.

MT4 integrates over a dozen third party plug-ins. Some might sound familiar, like Box.net's file storage, Vizu Polls, and NewsGator RSS (who handles that nifty news bar on Webware). There's also a new plug-in directory to keep them sorted and accessible.

Open source nuts will be getting their hands on an open version of Movable Type in about two months. Chris Alden, EVP and GM of the Professional Division at Six Apart told me that MT is already about 90% open source, and the new one will be "the best open sourced solution out there."

Below are some screenshots of MT4. To see more, click the "read more" link below.… Read more

Apple's iWeb, one part of the iLife consumer apps suite, has received an interesting update this morning. iWeb is Apple's consumer-level Web site creation tool, and it gives users a simple way to drag and drop various Web site elements as well as fill in the included templates. The latest version is getting integration with two of Google's services: AdSense and Google Maps. iWeb users can now sign up for AdSense right inside the application, and pick how they want it to show up on their site. From the looks of the screenshots, it's much easier … Read more

Inspiration for a blog can come from anywhere--at any time--so you'd best be prepared. Lighter than your Wi-Fi-enabled laptop and more immediate than jotting journal notes is TypePad Mobile (for Symbian, Palm, and Windows Mobile,) a blog-updating app offered by TypePad for its paid subscribers.

I evaluated TypePad Mobile on a gleaming HTC Vox S710 (watch Bonnie Cha's video review) running Windows Mobile 6. The smart phone's nice slider QWERTY keyboard and motion-sensitive vertical-to-horizontal display made for favorable testing conditions.… Read more

It's rough getting accustomed to a touch screen phone like the iPhone, especially with the virtual keyboard. That's why someone has come up with an iPhone typing test that you use with your iPhone to get the hang of your new way of communicating. You'll soon learn to "trust the keyboard."

iPhone link: http://www.iphonetypingtest.com/

Category: Publishing

TypePad is a Web-publishing tool for bloggers. Users can create a basic blog for a small monthly fee or purchase one of several subscription plans that offer file hosting, extra bandwidth, and support for multiple authors. Like similar Web-based blogging tools, TypePad offers a bevy of customizable themes that can be edited without any coding experience. It also features movable-content modules called widgets that can display interactive information from third-party services. Users can make and host photo galleries and make blog posts from mobile devices.

TypePad is a sister product to Movable Type, a blogging platform that TypePad … Read more

Are you interested in what you'll be driving in the future? Do you need a phone that can get down and dirty? Are the colors on your monitor a tad bit off? If the answers are yes, then we have some photos for you. We look at concept cars, a phone that can withstand the elements, and a tour of a monitor calibration software application.

Photos: Designing the future--Concept car retrospective

Every year at car shows around the world, car makers show off new design ideas. Concept cars represent a transition between current and future models, with only certain … Read more