If there's one thing you've probably learned over the years from reading TUAW, it's that backups are important. Many of the bloggers here are obsessive about backups, doing Time Machine backups, SuperDuper! bootable backups, and using services like BackBlaze for offsite backups -- and that's all for one Mac!

With the importance of viable and easy-to-create backups for your Mac, it's not surprising that Belgium development firm Dare to be Creative has just announced a new backup utility, Parachute [US$39.00]. The application is Snow Leopard-ready, and can be used to back up your Mac's data to your primary hard disk (definitely not recommended by our team), external disks, FTP or SFTP servers, USB drives, network volumes, and even your iDisk.

Parachute has many features that are found on other backup utilities. For example, you can schedule backups to run hourly, daily, weekly, or manually. The application also does incremental backups after the initial full backup, so subsequent backups take much less time. There is one feature that does appear to be unique to Parachute, and that's the ability to create multiple backup tasks for different files and folders on your Mac, and use a variety of destinations for each task.

There's a 15-day full-functioning trial available for download here. While you are in your tryptophan-induced coma after tomorrow's Thanksgiving Day feast, you can set up some Parachute backups and rest assured that your data is safe.

Remember Zen Bound? It's a gorgeous and fun-to-play little puzzle game. So when I heard that SecretExit, the makers of Zen Bound, were about to release a new app, I was excited to get a sneak preview.

Stair Dismount is a very different game to Zen Bound. Although, as you can see in the above video, the audio and graphics quality are consistently high, it's not really fair to compare the two. According to SecretExit, Stair Dismount is more focused on "humor and social elements" rather than problem solving.

The game basically involves pushing someone down the stairs and seeing how many bones they break. Playing this made me feel like the world's worst sadist. Hard to get game playing satisfaction other than tormenting the poor dude.

With Stair Dismount, you can add the face of a Facebook friend and send screen shots of their broken body lying at the bottom of the staircase. Secret Exit dev Jani Kahrama notes, "It feels better with a friendly Facebook face on the guy :)."

Your enjoyment of this will vary by your personal take but for me, I don't think Stair Dismount will be staying on my iPod or be exposed to my kids. Stair Dismount is due to hit the App Store within the week.

About the video: At this time, TUAW can only create preview videos for applications compiled for 3.1 or earlier using a development (not distribution or ad hoc) build and review videos for distribution-compiled apps that are 3.1 or earlier.

TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page.

If an angry, perspiring Steve Ballmer took over control of my iPhone and said I could only have one third-party app on it, I know which app I'd keep. EA's Monopoly Here and Now: The World Edition [US$4.99, iTunes Link] has been my favorite game on the iPhone since it first appeared. Just how much am I addicted to this game? I've played 272 games against three other AI players. At about 45 minutes per game, that's almost nine days of my life that I've spent enjoying Monopoly on my iPhone.

There was always one thing that bothered me about The World Edition: that it wasn't the game I remembered as a child. It uses cities from all over the world, from Gdynia to Montreal, transportation modes from rail to space instead of the four classic railroads, and had some other rule changes that were different.

EA just made my day, since they recently released Monopoly [US$4.99, iTunes Link], and this one is the original classic game. It uses all those streets in or around Atlantic City, N.J. like Baltic Avenue and Park Place, has the four original railroads, and seems to follow the original rules more closely.

Like The World Edition, you play against real or computerized opponents. For real opponents, Monopoly now provides Bluetooth play against up to two other players, or Wi-Fi play against up to three other players. My wife and I found the Wi-Fi play of the World Edition to be a huge battery hog; we'll be trying out the Bluetooth option soon.

The original Monopoly board game was a perennial stocking stuffer when I was a kid, and now the classic Monopoly for iPhone and iPod touch is sure to make a great gift for someone you love.

Novelty and social applications are a big hit on the iPhone. A new one from the folks of Taptivate is sure to be a big hit when it is released in the near future. Voices for iPhone is touted as an "audio recorder with a twist" and even a "social voicemail" utility.

With Voices [iTunes Link], you're given tools to manipulate your own voice in many fun and odd ways. Whether you'd like to transform into Darth Vader or a chipmunk, you're good to go with Voices. Sporting a unique and very pretty user interface, the application boasts a lot of cool extras sure to show you how hard the developers have worked on it.

The app has a home screen-like selection window where you can choose the way in which you want your voice manipulated. A stack of your recordings can also be accessed with just a tap.

After initially seeing this app when it was in early beta, it has come a long way since then. The app is being published by Tap Tap Tap and is available for only 99 cents. Also, to celebrate the release, MacHeist is offering a special "Tweetblast" deal, giving away a free copy of Voice Candy for Mac to people who help spread the word on Twitter.

Here's some shots of Voices in action:

There's a lot of buzz about iPhone IM clients.Other applications have gotten a lot of coverage for allowing iPhones to chat from their AOL, Google, ICQ, Jabber or a host of other screen names.

WhatsApp [iTunes Link] is different, calling itself an "iPhone-to-iPhone chat application" that provides direct messaging between iPhones. The application features push notifications and provides functionality similar to SMS.

So why bother trying it? The app makes it easy to chat with other iPhones with no need for screen names, logging in and out or the added cost of text messaging and cellular charges. It's a lot like an iPhone version of Blackberry's popular messaging service. You'll also quickly and easily be able to point out which of your contacts have WhatsApp installed. Even if you're offline, your messages will be saved until you're back online.

Other cool features include the ability to "Broadcast" or send a message to multiple users, emailing of your chat history and sound and visual badges to show your unread message count. Users can also see when their friends are typing as well as the last time they checked their messages.

WhatsApp is free "for a limited time" so head on over to the App Store and grab it.

Here's a few shots of the app in action:

With the introduction of the iPhone 3GS back in June of this year, iPhone lovers finally got what a lot of other smartphones already had -- video recording capabilities. A little over a week later, I wrote a post titled "How to make iPhone videos sparkle with iMovie." At the time I remember thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if I could do editing on the iPhone instead of having to do it on my Mac?"

Somebody at Nexvio was obviously thinking the same thing, and the company has introduced ReelDirector [US$7.99, iTunes Link], a video editing app for iPhone. One reviewer noted that "it's not Final Cut Pro," but make no mistake -- ReelDirector is a powerful, easy-to-use, and fun iPhone app for creating videos with titles and effects. It's perfect for putting together on-the-spot vacation videos to send to friends and relatives, making quick video podcasts, and teaching kids (or yourself) the basics of video editing.

Here in the UK, it's getting pretty chilly on the willy compared to a month ago, or so. The warm memories of the summer are slowly dwindling to the reality of earlier, darker evenings (the clocks have just gone forward) as well as tentative first visits from our old friend Jack Frost. Generally speaking, the cold grasp of winter is steadily fastening on us (or not).

But we are blessed with a few heart warming occasions over the winter season (Christmas, New Years Eve etc) that make the cold, well, a little less nippy on the bone. One of these such occasions is, of course, Guy Fawkes night (Remember remember the 5th of November...) And, to me, that means one thing, HOUSE PARTY! And what does a great house party need? An authentic DJ.

So when I heard my main man Dan the DJ couldn't make the party (or at the least lend me his decks) I turned to the next best thing, Sonorasaurus - the first complete deejay setup for the iPhone / iPod Touch.

At this point you may be wondering what a DJ app has to do with 'Count The Beats', or, in fact making music on an Apple platform, but it quite literally has everything to do with it. Come on, we all know that deejays are real musicians too, right?

TUAW may have had the date wrong (we guessed October 9, 2009), but the new iMacs we were looking for finally showed up today. The 20" and 24" models are gone, replaced by 21.5" and 27" iMacs with a true 16 x 9 HD aspect ratio. It's also obvious that Apple intends for the new iMacs to end up on the desktops of a lot of designers, since the line now includes the first quad-core iMac ever.

The pricing for the iMac line starts at the same US$1199, but that's where the similarities stop. The displays are now backlit by LEDs, providing better energy efficiency. The 21.5" model has a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, which is the equivalent of a 1080p HDTV. That screen size is actually 90% of the resolution of the old 24" iMac. Resolution on the 27" model is 2560 x 1440 pixels. Both of the new iMacs use the IPS display technology for excellent color fidelity and a very wide (178°) viewing angle.

For the first time, iMacs now have an SD card slot located below the optical drive slot on the right side of the computer. The systems will ship with Apple's new wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse, or you can get wired models as a configure-to-order option at no extra cost.

All of the new iMacs can be loaded with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 2 TB of storage. The new low-end model, at US$1199, is running a blazing-fast 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and comes with 4 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce 9400M video card. The US$1499 model of the 21.5" iMac bumps storage up to 1TB and upgrades video to a Radeon HD 4670 card. The US$1699 27" model has the same features as the US$1499 21.5", but of course has the 27" display.

At the high end of the line will be an iMac that won't be released until next month -- a $1999 27" that is powered by a 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 quad-core processor. That model also has a Radeon HD 4850 video card built in. If you wish, you can swap out the Core i5 chip for the even more powerful Core i7 processor.

The Core i5 is based on the Linfield processor, which is part of the same Nehalem family found in the existing Mac Pro line. The Core i5 features a turbo mode, which means that the chip can shift from a slower clock speed with four cores to a faster mode with two cores active. The turbo mode speed of the Core i5 processor is 3.2 GHz, while the turbo mode speed of the i7 is a whopping 3.46 GHz.

What's really incredible is a new feature for the iMacs 27" models that allows them to act as external monitors or HDTVs. You'll be able to attach DVD players, Blu-Ray players, gaming consoles, or even other computers, and display them on the bright, clear, iMac display. Update: The 27" will handle DisplayPort-based input, with adapters to be announced. The 21.5" model will not support video input, based on the spec page.

The last iMacs were released in March of 2009, with a 20" model powered by a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo available at US$1199, and 24" models with 2.66, 2.93, and 3.06 GHz processors at US$1499, US$1799, and US$2199.

Zensify announced its latest app, ZenNews [iTunes link], this morning. It's basically an intelligent news aggregator, using algorithms to find "what's hot" from a variety of sources including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, the Guardian and more. It parses Twitter and other social mediums to figure out who's talking about what, and then creates a tag cloud of hot topics. There's an aggregated view combining all sources, or you can view a tag cloud for each source. You can toggle sources and/or categories on and off in the preferences.

If a keyword in the tag cloud reveals more than 5 articles, tapping it will drill down into another tag cloud, repeated until the keyword returns a list of 5 or fewer articles. View articles within ZenNews using the built-in webkit browser, or open them in Safari. You can always switch from the tag cloud to a list view for any page, and there's a default view titled "All News" which lists all the aggregated news (in list format) at once. You can drill down to specific topics in the Categories view, and see what's new/hot from all enabled sources for a single category. As you read, you can mark any article as a favorite, and view a list of your marked articles in the Favorites view. You can quickly share articles via Twitter or email, as well.

It's all quite slick, and pretty solid for a first release. I did run into a bug which would bring up blank tag cloud pages if a specific combination of being on a certain view and losing a network connection at the right time occurred. I spoke with the developers yesterday, and I'm confident they'll smooth out any wrinkles quickly.

Zensify is offering ZenNews for free. Their plan is to demonstrate the buzz-detecting algorithms, and then offer white-label versions -- using a subscription model -- to companies with a need for up-to-the-minute buzz tracking. For the rest of us, this is a good-looking and, as far as I've been able to tell, accurate way to see what's happening in the world at any given moment. Check out the gallery below for a preview, and grab a copy on the App Store.

Any musician worth his/her credit knows that accurate tuning is a given. It's a crucial starting point to playing any instrument at home, on the job, in the studio, or on the road, and an embarrassment when it isn't.

Some time ago I was doing an unplugged acoustic gig when my regular stomp box tuner broke down mid-rehearsal. I was in desperate need of a reliable tuner, without a music store in sight. Roll on Agile Partners Guitar Toolkit [iTunes link] for the iPhone/iPod Touch at £5.99

I had heard about various tuner apps on the App Store, but I was reluctant to try any of them. I could not believe that a tuner on my phone would provide the same accurate and reliable tuning that my current (expensive) tuners could. However, I was desperate, so I took the plunge.

Utilizing the iPhone's built in microphone (or the iPod Touch with a microphone headset), Guitar Toolkit's chromatic tuner performed just like using any other quality tuner. It was simple, effective and to my delight, it got the job done.

After the gig, upon further inspection, I soon realized that there was much more than just a common guitar tuner in this app.

Guitar Toolkit comprises a chromatic tuner, a metronome, a chord section, and a scale section too (practice your scales!!).

The chromatic tuner can be used to tune a variety of stringed instruments. By changing the 'mode' selector on the tuner, from standard 6-string EADGBE guitar tuning to 'all notes' tuning, you'll be able to tune almost any musical instrument. Or, you can preselect a particular stringed instrument, from a custom list, for that instruments specific tuning arrangement (guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, etcetera).

If you're feeling creative, why not come up with your own custom tuning arrangement and input it into the tuner for later reference, or choose one from the alternate guitar tuning selection. DADGAD anyone?

For advanced tuning, you can alter the standard reference pitch from 440.0 Hz to whatever you'd like (some orchestras play at varying reference pitches). I've used it to tune a violin perfectly, and for all you bass players Guitar Toolkit, using the iPhone's microphone, picks up those low notes as well.

There are a few noticeable nice touches here and there. On the tuner, there is the option to alter the display to a 'high contrast mode' for tuning in low ambient light conditions. Also, when the app is open, the power saving/auto-lock features of the iPhone are disabled so the tuner remains usable until you're finished.

Short of being able to plug an instrument line directly in, I can't find a fault with the the Guitar Toolkit tuner.

The company's teaser page still says "coming soon," but eagle-eyed reader Jason spotted the free Zipcar app [iTunes link] in the store today. We've been waiting for this app for quite a while, and it's exciting to see it in action.

The app provides Zipcar members with a location-based search for nearby Zipcar locations, allowing them to drill down to the individual garages via a map view. Reserving a car is as easy as clicking one big green button, and the app allows you to sort available cars by time, type and model to make it easier to find the one you want. You can see your upcoming reservations and cancel a car if you don't need it after all.

Once you get to your car, you can use the virtual keyfob to help find it in the garage by honking the horn (nice touch); while you still need to use your RFID-equipped Zipcard to activate the car's remote unlock and ignition system, once you do that at the beginning of your reservation you can put it back in your wallet and use the iPhone to lock and unlock the car. You can also extend your reservation from the iPhone app, as long as there's open time after your slot ends.

One somewhat quirky thing about the app is that there's no way to adjust your reservation time window except at the 'top' of the car search process; often as not, with the Zipcar website, you may find yourself tweaking the hours of your booking to improve your chances of finding the car you need. The lack of flexibility is noted on the app's iTunes page under "Coming Soon," so a future release will probably improve matters here. The Zipcar app requires iPhone OS 3.0 and works on the iPod touch as well, although most features will require a network connection.

Zipcar members are almost as enthusiastic about the service as iPhone owners are about their devices, so this combination is sure to strike sparks. Once you've got the Zipcar app downloaded, let us know your road trip experiences via the comments below.

The Microsoft of the coffee biz, Starbucks, announced this morning that they've introduced two new iPhone / iPod touch apps to help customers make the most of their coffee addiction. myStarbucks and the Starbucks Card Mobile App [iTunes links] are free apps available in the iTunes App Store today.

These apps were the subject of much speculation, particularly in the Mac Rumors forums, after Phil Schiller showed the myStarbucks app on the screen at the September 9th, 2009 "It's Only Rock and Roll" music event.

While the company could have combined the two apps into one monster app, it's apparent that they're for two very different purposes. myStarbucks is primarily targeted at finding stores (as if there isn't one on every street corner in America...) and educating consumers about the drinks and food items available in those stores. The Starbucks Card Mobile App, on the other hand, is pointed towards the professional coffee slurper who already has a Starbucks Card in his or her quivering hand. Let's look at the two apps in a bit more detail.

myStarbucks starts with a geolocation feature to find the nearest dozen or so Starbucks stores within a few miles of your present location, shown on a map or in a list. If you haven't had your morning coffee fix and need directions, the app will fire up Google Maps and provide you with driving, transit, or walking instructions. For each "official" Starbucks franchise, there are icons indicating whether or not the store is open, as well as whether or not they have Wi-Fi or oven-warmed food.

Aera is a new flight game [iTunes store] from iChromo with beautifully rendered graphics and some challenging game-play. I wouldn't exactly call it a flight simulator, as your control of the aircraft is limited. You can't bank left or right, but you do control your up and down pitch. The game is priced at US$2.99 for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Think of Aera as a 2D shooter with exceptionally good graphics and addictive missions that can draw you deeply into the game.

There are several different mission types. In some, you collect points by flying the plane into floating objects, and in others you need to avoid those floating objects. There are also missions where you have to do both, as well as dogfights and aerobatic flights.

Because the controls do not work in the way other flight games work, it's helpful to go through the quick in-game tutorial so you know how the game works. If you try to exit the tutorial and just start playing, you'll be brought back to the tutorial until you have finished it. It really is necessary, because you'll never be able to fly successfully without going through it.

The game also features multiplayer options for other owners of the sim who are on the same wireless network. Aera also features video replay, allowing you to watch yourself crash and burn.

Mauritius is a minimalist island nation in the Indian Ocean, and from that tiny set of spots on the map comes a new Mac time-tracking application for anyone who needs to keep track of how much time they spend on tasks. Minco, now in public beta from Celmaro, is a minuscule Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard app that works with any application that supports iCal.

When Minco is launched, all you'll see is a tiny clock icon in the menu bar. Clicking the icon opens a glossy transparent black display that shows either the time you've spent on a project or the revenue you've gained from doing billable work on that project. Clicking on the time or revenue counter starts the counter, which then disappears from view. When you stop the timer, a new calendar item is placed into iCal so that you can keep track of how your day was spent.

The iCal integration works the other way as well. Creating a To-Do item in iCal adds it to your Minco timer so that you can start tracking time. When you start up the timer, the iCal item shows up in your calendar with the phrase "...working" attached. Publishing that calendar could be used to show co-workers or clients what you're currently working on.

If you want to keep a log of what you do during your work days, Minco also writes your time log to a standard .csv file that you can import into Numbers or Excel for analysis. The company is considering writing other export adapters, although the existing adapter is amazingly flexible.

Celmaro provides a 14-day free trial download, and the software is available for US$9.95. I found it very unusual for a company to be charging for beta software, but then again, Minco is much more stable and usable than a lot of beta software I've used.