Apple released a major upgrade to its Aperture professional photo editing software. Some of the new features are; highlight recovery, color vibrancy, local contrast definition, soft-edged retouching, vignetting and RAW fine-tuning as well as smooth publishing workflow to a .Mac Web Gallery for viewing on the web, iPhone, iPod touch and Apple TV.
Another new feature is “tethered” shooting, which is the ability to shoot images directly to a Mac from a camera via USB or FireWire and save the photos directly in an Aperture project.
Aperture 2.0 is available now for $199 at the online Apple store.
The price is a hundred dollars less than Adobe’s Lightroom photo editing software and trumps many of the older Adobe product’s features.
Aperture can also handle Adobe’s .DNG format files for smooth integration with Photoshop, but Lightroom still has the advantage of being a cross-platform application.
Both programs have free trial downloads, so you can compare the programs side by side.
Aperture 1.0 users can upgrade to Aperture 2.0 for $99 and recent purchasers of Aperture 1.5 (Jan 1-Mar 14, 2008) can upgrade for $9.95.
With Leopard 10.5.2, the Stacks feature of the dock now has a more sensible, “List” view. Rather than the fancy “Fan” view that is nothing more than a list with icons on a curve, or the “Grid” view, which is just a grid of icons, the “List” view is a nice space-optimize list. But even better, it includes multiple levels.
Starting now, you can use Software Update to get version 10.5.2 of Leopard. There are some bug fixes for iCal, Mail and iChat. In addition, we’ve also got some improvements.
One is a new list view you can use with Stacks. This looks like the way folders in the dock used to work. You can also make menus non-semi-transparent. Time machine is also now present in the menu at the top of the screen. iPhoto will now handle the RAW format of more cameras.
You can find a complete list of changes at Apple’s site.
The Mac blog site Macenstien reported last week that Apple would not be purchasing a booth at this year’s National Association of Broadcasters convention. Apple has traditionally had a huge presence at the annual event which is held the first week of April in Las Vegas. The NAB is the largest convention for broadcasters, video professionals and filmmakers in the US. Apple has used the convention to launch it’s professional video and film applications like Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Studio.
We’ve just added two new games to our iPhone Games collection. The first is a Pyramid Solitaire game. This is a pretty easy and fun card game. The second is a version of a game at the free online games that is also affiliated with MacMost. It is Add It Up, a number puzzle game. That makes a total of 18 games. We’ve got plans for two more by next week. Of course these also work on the iPod Touch.
I just posted some photos of Eve and I at the MacWorld Expo. You can find them at our MacMost Facebook Page. While you’re there, sign up to be a “fan” of MacMost on FaceBook. Thanks!
8:25: We’ll be updating this post live while the keynote progresses. We’ll stick to the important information, like new products and services, as well as details like prices and launch dates.
9:20: Announce Time Capsule, an Airport Extreme base station with a hard drive that works with Time Machine. $300 for 500GB version, $500 for 1TB.
9:30: iPhone software update including maps that know your location, customizable home screen, the ability to add Web pages to the home screen, and the ability to SMS multiple people at the same time. Karaoke mode!
9:35: iPod Touch update adds many iPhone applications to the iPod touch. Mail, Stocks, Notes, Weather and Maps. Cost $20 for existing iPod Touch owners.
9:38: iTunes movie rentals from every major studio. Movies available 30 days after DVD release. You have 30 days to start watching, and then 24 hours to finish. $2.99 for older movies, $3.99 for new releases.
9:45: Apple TV 2. No computer needed to get podcasts, movie rentals, HD quality, photos from Flickr. HD rentals will cost $5 and 100 titles are available today. New price on Apple TV: $229. Software update for free for current owners in 2 weeks.
11:10: MacBook Air. World’s thinnest laptop. .76 inches thick, 13.3 widescreen LED-backlight. Multi-touch trackpad. 80GB standard drive, 64GB flash drive option. 1.6ghz-1.8ghz Core 2 Duo processor. 2GB memory standard. External optical drive for $99. 5 hours of battery life. $1799.
Just a crazy theory that I thought I’d post on. There has always been speculation about Apple buying Adobe. With the new banners above the Moscone Center reading “There’s Something in the Air,” and AIR being the desktop development environment that Adobe is currently pushing, could this be the surprise announcement at MacWorld?
Since upgrading to Leopard I’ve been systematically shuffling through the new features of my favorite applications, including my favorite application of family-fun, Photo Booth.
During last season’s family Christmas the hodgepodge of family members at Grandma’s house, having stirred themselves from lounging in front the brazier’s crackling fire, gathered round the yule laptop. Thereafter Photo Booth reduced the generations, from old to young, into enthusiastically giggling idiots. It was a howling good time which I’ve been looking forward to repeating at this year’s get together.
Upon testing the new Photo Booth I have to say that it seemed to have had a poor leap forward. More of a tumble backwards actually. Here was this newly upgraded Photo Booth and it wasn’t upgraded at all. It didn’t have any of the promised new features, and to disappoint further it froze when I snapped a picture. Hoover could have sued Apple for patent infringement because of how much Leopard’s Photo Booth seemingly sucked.
Have you had this problem with Leopard Photo Booth? Well. Before you start tearing out preference files and reinstalling systems it will behoove you to look and determine whether there are two Photo Booth applications on your hard drive; The one that was there before you upgraded to Leopard, and the one that was installed after you upgraded. The two versions are easy to tell apart by the fact that the newer not only has backdrop effects, it also works.
As it turns out this can also happen with other iLife applications. I discovered that Leopard updating left the earlier version of Address Book in one of my application folders. However, in that case a warning was flung onto the screen letting me know that it wasn’t a version that I should be using.
My computer has afforded me the convenience of shopping and banking from the comfort of my own bathroom. As such it’s loaded with all sorts of important personal information which, according to experts, should be kept from others.
Nine out ten experts agree that your credit card and bank account numbers are things that identity burglars could use to mess up your personal life. The tenth expert has avoided this important issue by slipping out to shop at the mall because he prefers engaging in commerce face-to-face. He’s really more of a people person than the other experts. Normally I’d be out there with the tenth expert, but I finished this years shopping at Amazon after a large high-fiber meal and now have no reason to hit the stores and my computer has even more of my personal information stored inside.
Anyway.
The nine experts advised me that I’d darn well better start using a password to protect my information.
I came up with a simple, easy to remember five letter password which I used for everything. Then I quickly forgot the password as well as the clever basis which I was using to remember my easy to remember password. Fortunately I had written it on a post-it-note which was affixed to the edge of my monitor. It turned out to be a combination of my wife’s name and my favorite monitor cleaning liquid.
I know what you’re thinking, writing my password on a post-it-note is dangerous. Well. It’s not as dangerous as you might think. According to members of the safety community, pasting a post-it-note with all your passwords written on it to your monitor is four times as safe as driving, and twice as safe as flying. And yet despite these encouraging statistics other nervous-nellie experts point out that driving and flying statistics have nothing to do with the safety of your data.
They also insisted that my password was weaker than a packet of Kool-Aid mixed in a cow tank. Five non-random letters was a poor shield against the more clever. My password needed to be longer, more random, and perhaps include numbers or punctuation. Otherwise I might a well simply write out my credit card number on a post-it-note and affix it to the forehead of the nearest stranger. Okay. Fine. But I’m terrible at coming up with memorable passwords that are longer, more random and perhaps include numbers or punctuation?
And so we come to the useful section of this post. How your Mac can help with secure and memorable password picking to protect your data with the Password Assistant.
Inside System Preferences is an icon titled, “Accounts”. If you click on it the Accounts Manager will appear.
Click on the Change Password Button. Type in your current password.
To the right of the New Password line you’ll see an icon of a key. Click on the key, this is the Password Assistant.
Whether you want a password that totally random, something memorable, or all numbers, it will create a password that’s right for you. The longer your password is the more secure it will be.
If you’re not quite happy with what is offered, you can tweak it. A colored bar will let you know how secure your password is, and you’ll be given tips on what’s wrong with your password if it’s a weak one.
Being an Apple fan boy means a life living in Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field where we live on rumors of new Apple Products, For a true-to-life Parody of this cycle of despair visit Misterbg’s post about the Apple product cycle.
Color me a zealot.
If you tire of the standard Leopard dock and would like to customize it into something new and you, read on. You’re on your way customizing heaven.
First thing – find or create some dock graphics. Anything you like. There’s no limit to the amount of style or weirdness that you can install as your dock. It’s your dock. As long as it’s in the form of a .png that’s properly labeled and is the right size, you’re on your way.
Here’s the four sizes you’ll need, and how to label them:
900×128 – scurve-sm.png
1280×128 – scurve-m.png
1280×98 – scurve-l.png
1280×86 – scurve-xl.png
Finished your graphics? Okay!
There’s an easy way and a hard way to swap out the graphics for your dock. I’m going to skip the hard way and save you from slow, incremental, behind-the-scenes system juggling.
Instead I’m going to recommend a that you use a five upthrusted thumb customizing program to do all the hard work. Scurry over to www.panic.com/candybar/ and download Candy Bar. Don’t worry. Your credit card isn’t necessary – you can play with this program free for a couple of weeks.
And now to get your dock onto your desktop.
In Candy Bar, click on “dock view” and drag your .png files into their proper places. Then click “apply dock”.
See Candy Bar in action; watch MacMost Now 7: Customizing the Dock
File this post under things you can discover when playing around with a program’s preferences.
This might interest the typographically alert regarding apostrophes in TextEdit: You’re not limited to rigid typewriter quotes when separating out extracted groups of words. Believe it or not you also have the option to use curvy and professional looking Smart Quotes (also known as Typographers Quotes) to help you exhibit blocks of someone else’s iterations.
What difference does it make which kind of quotes one uses?
Well. Each kind of quote has their use; The stiff and inflexible typewriter quotes look strongest when indicating inches and feet, but they are flimsy and unprofessional looking when used to contain repeated passages. The Smart Quote, on the other hand, shines it’s curvy brightest when embracing citations. They’re the hugs of the printed page.
To activate Smart Quotes: Go to the TextEdit Preferences menu and check the box for “Smart Quotes”.
Breakfast at the Magic Castle is pretty nice, and as I’m feeling like
the only one on the west coast awake, I’ll fill you in on Winnies stuff
I forgot to mention.
In case you didn’t know, the Winnies is the awards ceremony for internet
video producers, where everybody wins! Actually, it’s like secret
santa, and everyone is assinged another member of the community to give
an award to, which is great because it gives an opportunity for people
to familiarize themselves with members of the community they might not
otherwise get a chance to know. To learn more, go to
youarethewinner.org
It was organized by Irina Slutsky, and she remarkably raised enough
money for an open bar all night. Unfortunately for picture taking, it
was a night club atmosphere, so I didn’t walk away with many digital
souveniers. I did however meet a lot of cool people: Veronica Belmont
who I’m sharing a room with, husband.tv who presented me with a huge
trophy, Vinvin of Seesmic, Sarah Atwood, Average Betty, Hayden, Tim
Street who I’ve meet in three different citites and who has bought me
lunch but apparently still has no idea who I am and too many more to be
named.
I hear there is a brunch today where I can get a chance to talk more
with people, but not until 1? I guess in LA they don’t know that brunch
comes between 2nd breakfast and elevensies. Either that or they just
don’t eat like hobbits.
–evepark
I’m hanging out with seesmic’s vinvin!!! The ninja just played a
pre-recorded video. Irina is rapping her arse off at this very moment.
–evepark
I just cheched into ‘the Magic Castle Hotel’ right in the heart of
Hollywood. I had a very senic drive here, via shuttle. I suspect the
driver got a little lost, but since it wasn’t a taxi and I have the
time, I found it quite enjoyable!
I’m quite nearby Hollywood Blvd, and would love to walk around and be
touristy, but unfortunately it is raining cats and dogs! Of all the
days. Oh well. Now I’m on the hunt for my fellow podcasters and some
lunch!
More later, excelsior!
–evepark
The Using Mac Blog has a nicely-compiled list of keyboard shortcuts for different parts of Leopard.
Just read an interesting blog post from Bill Clementson’s Blog. His 2-year-old PowerBook had a bad line in it and Apple didn’t have a replacement ready to go. So they just gave him a new MacBook Pro.
As cool as Macs are, eventually they become obsolete or give up the the ghost. They also tend to acquire peripherals and accessories that also cease to function and/or become obsolete. This is an environmental concern because a landfill is no place for consumer electronics of any kind. Unless you prefer your drinking water with heavy metals.
Apple is very responsible in that if you buy a new computer you can check a box on the order form and they will send you a shipping label, and they will pay for shipping back and recycling your old Mac. Just one of those things that makes Mac ownership special.
Over the years, my garage has become filled with old Macs, monitors and accessories. And I do mean filled. So over the last couple weeks I’ve been deaccessioning. First I brought some old Macs (some still functioning) in to be used as props on the MacMost podcast set. Next, I cleaned off my G4 Tower, installed OS 10.3.4 and iLife on it and gave it to my niece and nephew to make music on. Cross them off my Christmas list.
Still I had five monitors, two boxes of old SCSI accessories,ADB tablets, mice, and keyboards, a couple old PC CPUs. I called a local electronics recycling center and found that they wanted over a hundred dollars to take my stuff away. So what to do? Freecycle.org to the rescue! Freecycle is an online service set up in many cities where you can go to a Yahoo group and post stuff you need to get rid of for free, and If somebody can use your stuff they email you, claim it, and pick it up. Woo-hoo!
So I posted a list of what I had left and found someone, who likes hacking together old computers and reselling them for cheap. My stuff is gone, I can see parts of my garage floor, and hopefully most of that stuff wont get thrown away, because there is no away.
