Transparent iPhone and MacBook Picture Effect

While trolling through Flickr, I found this great picture. In it, the photographer created an effect that made his iPhone and MacBook screens look transparent. Pretty cool.

While trolling through Flickr, I found this great picture. In it, the photographer created an effect that made his iPhone and MacBook screens look transparent. Pretty cool.

  • Customize Your Home with Your Mac

    You already use your computer to make your own music, edit your own photos, and create your own movies--so why pay someone else to decorate your home? Your Mac is the perfect tool for giving your interior space a dash of 21st-century modernism. Follow along and we'll show you how.Photography by Mark Madeo I’m not a thrifty man by nature, but after cobbling together enough money to buy my first single-family home, I wasn’t about to take out a second mortgage just to get the place decorated. In fact, the very concept of hiring an interior designer or color consultant strikes me as frivolous on an intestinal level. Color theory and design inspiration is free online, and at the end of the day, what looks right is right--because perfection in home decor is in the eye of the beholder. That last thing I need is some woman named Astrid telling me my walls would look better in “Butter Crème.”But that isn’t to say that even I, in all my brazen hubris, couldn’t do a better job with the help of my MacBook Pro. If the Mac can help me in other creative pursuits, why not put it to use in snazzing up Casa Philippe? I did my research, put in a bunch of nights at the keyboard, and came up with an interior design that suits me just perfectly. And now I’m going to show you how you can do the same for your own home.First we’ll look at how you can use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to make informed color decisions--by painting Pantone swatches directly on your walls. Next, we’ll explore photography. I’ll explain how inkjet technology can turn your shots into art prints and how to use photos to inspire digital illustration. From there, we’ll run through my favorite iPhone apps and websites that can streamline, enhance, and inform your design process. Finally, we end our tour with a look at Mac-oriented tchotkes and accessories that are interior-design elements all on their own. So even if you don’t want to use your Mac to create a living space with all the bold, iconographic simplicity that Apple is known for, you can still buy your way into Apple’s 21st-century modern aesthetic.Painting in Pantone ColorYou don’t have to be a print designer to play with Pantone colors--and we’re not just talking about leafing through those swatch books for kicks and giggles. Pantone’s Fashion+Home library contains 1,925 vibrant colors, and every color is available in different exterior and interior paints from Fine Paints of Europe (FPE). Whether you’re color-matching your walls to Pantone-spec’d furniture or simply using the Pantone system to make informed color choices, your final results will have the designy flair that richly pigmented Pantone reproduction is known for. The paint from FPE--imported from Holland--is relatively expensive, but as my independent painting contractor said, “You get what you pay for.” Completely unprompted, he said FPE paint lasts longer, requires fewer coats, and is probably the best paint available.To choose your Pantone paint, you can finger-swipe through the myPantone app (see page 4) or peruse a printed Fashion+Home swatch collection for absolute color accuracy. You can also create a close approximation of how your colors will look in (or on) your actual home by “painting” them onto your walls using the Color Replacement Tool in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. This tool lets you reskin a surface, all while retaining the shadows and highlights of your original photo content. Here’s how to do it:>> Load the Pantone swatches from Pantone’s Fashion+Home Digital Color Library CD (it retails for $50 MSRP).>> Load a photo of your interior into Photoshop or Elements, and use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to define an area of your walls that you want to paint over. In Image A, my “before” photo, I’ve lassoed over the middle sawtooth wall panel. Creating a lassoed selection isn’t absolutely necessary, but helps in confining your paint strokes to a specific area. Image A - Notice how the glass blocks shine natural light that's reflected on the walls. These highlights will be preserved by Photoshop's Color Replacement tool. >> Now choose a Pantone color from your Swatches palette, select the Color Replacement Tool, and begin painting the wall within your selected area. Create a new lassoed selection for every portion of wall you want to cover--it’s like using digital painters tape that keeps your brush strokes off of areas that shouldn’t be painted.>> To paint on unadorned walls that aren’t covered by any objects or obscured by furniture, I choose the largest brush diameter possible with the following tool settings: Mode: Color; Sampling: Continuous; Limits: Contiguous; Tolerance: 100%. Then I tap a single time inside the selected area, and the entire area becomes Pantonified.>> To paint in areas covered by other objects (like the sawtooth wall panel behind the tripod lamp in Image B), I use these settings: Mode: Color; Sampling: Continuous; Limits: Find Edges; Tolerance: 15%. With these settings and a small-diameter brush (about the size of the one pictured over the antique scale), you can paint between objects quite effectively, rarely painting over framed photos, furniture legs, or anything else that should remain unpainted. This process allows you to retain your original shadows and highlights--note the tripod shadow on the left sawtooth wall panel and the light shining through the glass blocks at the top of the middle panel. Image B - The Color Replacement tool does a very good job in automatically replacing only the color you've identified for substitution. Still, when painting over a wall with lots of objects on it, it helps to use a small brush diameter to prevent "paint" from going in the wrong places.Be aware that unless your monitor is perfectly calibrated, it won’t display the Pantone swatches with absolute accuracy. Also, it helps to use photos shot in flat lighting in order to reduce hot spots and reflections (in Image B, you can see how the white picture frames picked up a yellow cast from the original wall paint). Regardless, my Photoshop color replacement process, used in conjunction with real-world Pantone swatches, will give you a fantastic head start in making color choices.In Image C you can see my final color decisions. From left to right, I used 13-0002 (White Sand), 16-1406 (Atmosphere), 17-1506 (Cinder), 18-1306 (Iron) and 18-1434 (Etruscan Red). The hallway is also painted White Sand. The codes of my colors actually bear strong relevance to one another, and knowing the coding system can help you make color choices.Image C - Understanding Pantone's numerical codes helped me quickly choose warm gray tones based on reddish hues. The codes helped me choose three grays--Atmosphere, Cinder, and Iron--that would create a perfect graduated grayscale-branding effect.The two numbers before the hyphen refer to a color’s relative lightness on a scale from 11 (lightest) to 19 (darkest). The second pair of numbers specify different hues on a 64-step color wheel; 01 is yellow-green, 64 is green-yellow, and all the other colors of the rainbow are represented in between. The third pair of numbers represent the color’s chroma level--the intensity and saturation of the hue itself. The chroma scale is divided into 65 steps, with 00 being neutral and 64 being maximum saturation.Using Pantone’s system, I was able to make some informed decisions on paint. Notice that Iron and Etruscan Red, the two colors separated by my hallway entrance, share nearly the same code--only the saturation levels of their chroma differ dramatically. Also notice that the hues of my four main accent colors range from 13 to 15, putting each one squarely in the red portion of the color wheel. Finally, I deliberately chose one-step lightness increments for my sawtooth wall panels, creating a very graphic-designy grayscale-banding effect.There’s a method to Pantone’s numbering madness! So learn the system, and your paint choices will develop quickly and elegantly.The Pantone SystemNext Page: Fun with Photos >>Fun with Photos: Go Big, Go Historic, Go PopNow that you have paint on your walls, it’s time to put down a third layer--in the form of dazzling art photography. Fine-art photo printing is within the reach of most consumer-grade inkjet photo printers, and it becomes absolutely spectacular when done by those printers’ professional-grade cousins. The key to art photography is, of course, your photo’s contents. Your shot of the Brooklyn Bridge in twilight is artsy; the photo of cousin Jerry holding his Budweiser up to the camera is not. In a previous Maclife.com article, we delved into the secrets to great shooting and photo editing, but here we’ll focus on print media, which can unlock a photo’s final degree of finesse. For this article, I used Epson media, but Canon offers a comparable lineup in the prosumer desktop space. Image A - Printed on canvas, this 3-foot giclée print of a Mark Madeo photograph has tricked a lot of people into thinking it's a photorealistic painting in the style of Richard Estes and Ralph Goings.First off, throw glossy paper out the door. For most images, you’ll want to be printing on softer, nonreflective matte paper and even stretchable canvas. Lately, I’ve been using the Epson R2880 printer, which supports the full range of Epson’s fine art media in sheets up to 13 by 19 inches and rolls sized 13 inches by 20 feet. On the “low” end of Epson’s lineup, I like Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte and Watercolor Paper Radiant White. The first one is bright white with a flat matte finish, providing great highlight and shadow detail without any reflections. I love it for black-and-white prints produced in the R2880’s special Advanced B&W Photo mode. The second option (despite its name) isn’t quite as radiantly white, but it has a textured surface that imbues your photo with a more artistic, painterly appearance.On the ultra high end, you can opt for Epson’s Velvet Fine Art Paper, which is 100 percent cotton rag, features a luxurious textured grain, and purports to offer the densest blacks of any cotton-based inkjet paper around. This is beautiful media, and I have found its blacks to be superior as advertised, so don’t hide it behind a piece of glass unless longevity is a big concern. Finally, you might consider Premium Canvas Matte, a polyester/cotton blend with a pronounced woven texture. Because it can be stretched on wooden frames and has exactly the same canvas grain you’d see on hand-brushed paintings, this material is ideal for not just photos but also giclée prints of digital illustrations and painting reproductions (“giclée” is just a fancy term for inkjet-based fine-art printing).Image B - These three prints represent just a fraction of the wonderful (and insanely high-res) images I've downloaded from the Library of Congress. Once you start sifting through the archives, you won't be able to stop.The R2880 supports Premium Canvas Matte, but with a maximum roll width of 13 inches, you can’t output anything of breathtaking size. You can, however, send your digital files to a production house that has one of Epson’s (or Canon’s) wide-format inkjet printers. The photo you see in Image A (a piece by Mac|Life staff photographer Mark Madeo) was printed on the Epson Stylus Pro 9880, which supports media of widths up to 44 inches. Mark’s photo is 36x24 inches wide, and a piece this size--printed and stretched on a wooden frame--would run you about $220. This isn’t inexpensive, but the results are spectacular and elevate your photography hobby--and home decor--to a new level. For more info on pricing and how to prepare your digital files, check out www.photoworkssf.com.Image C - Unlike photographic images, vector-based art files are very, very small. The 54x36-inch print you see here was generated from a 1MB file--and could have been blown up to the size of a building if I had the printer to do that.If 13x19-inch prints suit you fine, a printer like the Epson R2880 or Canon Pro9500 Mark II is all you need to create wall-ready, museum-quality artwork at home. There are various ways to mount and display your prints, but one of the easiest (and most durable) methods is to use preassembled, UV-protected glass frames. All the photos shown in Image B were downloaded from the Library of Congress website (see page 3) and mounted in Artcare “archival protection systems” (www.nielsen-bainbridge.com). These framing kits include 4-ply, precut beveled mats and UV-protected glass and come in a wide variety of sizes supporting print areas up to 10.5 by 13.5 inches. If you can’t find prefab frames in the right sizes or don’t want frames at all, you can mount your images on acid-free foam core with 3M Photo Mount spray, which is also acid free. Finish off these projects (especially canvas prints) with a protective spray like PremierArt Print Shield to protect against UV rays and scuffs.Image D - For a thorough explanation of using Illustrator's Pen tool, go to Youtube.com/watch?v=5DzpT8POAME.If you want to take your photography into another dimension entirely, you can use it as the source material for digital illustration. The Roy Lichtenstein–style pieces shown on page 32 and in Image C were created by tracing over photos of my living room using the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. After outlining all key elements using Bézier curves (Image D), finishing the drawing is a simple matter of filling objects with solid colors, slanted lines, and Ben-Day dots, which can be found in Illustrator’s Swatch library under Patterns > Basic Graphics. I went the pop art Lichtenstein route, but remember that any digital illustration can be printed on fine-art media, and vector-based line art reproduces particularly well. And if you use Premium Canvas Matte, you can even paint directly on top of your inkjet prints with acrylics to create a mixed-media masterpiece (Image E).Image E - If you want to paint in colors yourself, make sure to use Canvas Matte, not Canvas Satin. (NOTE: That's Flo's hand--not Jon's!) Next Page: Design Online >>Design Online: Linking Your Way to a Stylish Home18 websites for incredible high-res photos, supercool interior products, and daily design inspiration.PhotographyYour tax dollars help pay for maintaining the amazing bank of photo archives at the Library of Congress (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html), so consider making a few withdrawals. Many (if not most) of the photos in our national archive can be freely downloaded and printed out for display in your home. Just look for restrictions, if any, under “Rights Information” in each photo’s bibliographic details. You’ll find B&W shots of cityscapes, rural life, historical figures, and other photographic expressions of the American experience. Many images are huge high-res TIFF files ranging from 20 to 150MB, and some date back to the very earliest days of photography--like the 1851 panoramic photo of San Francisco Bay shown here.(click to enlarge) This 10MB TIFF from the Library of Congress is one of the archive's smaller files.To get a clear idea of the archive’s best material, go to Shorpy.com, a vintage photography blog that seems to pull its finest entries from the Library of Congress. Also check out Stockvault.net and Morguefile.com, which keep searchable archives of modern high-res photography that can be used for personal, noncommercial use. Much of the material is quite wall-worthy.ProductsA storefront for some 800 antique and mid-century modern dealers, 1stdibs.com will blow your mind with its range of furniture, lighting, artwork, and curios. It’s the first place to look if you need a George Nakashima end table, a Cold War–era naval searchlight, or a circa-1920s beekeeper’s helmet. Prices on 1stdibs run quite steep, so if you’re looking for mid-century industrial chic at relatively affordable prices, go to AmericanFurnishings.com, which is where I picked up my antique red metal shop wheelbarrow (illustrated on the previous page). For much more contemporary (and Mac-y) design elements, check out the thoroughly groovy-modern Nova68.com, as well as lighting from Lumens.com and Ylighting.com.Captivating art or antique beekeeper's helmet? It's both, courtesy of Radio Guy, which sells its curios via 1stdibs.com.Daily InspirationThe web is lousy with blog-style sites that showcase slick interiors, hip new products, and one-of-a-kind curios. Here’s a list of my favorites in alphabetical order:Apartmenttherapy.com: Aesthetic is thoroughly hip with a slant toward affordable and modern. Includes a technology section.ApartmentTherapy.com brought Matthew Borgatti's cosmonaut lamp to the attention of the hipster masses.Betterlivingthroughdesign.com: Lots of blogs showcase cool decor elements, but this one organizes better than most. Love the dropdown menus.Design-milk.com: Extends its savvy design eye from architecture to art to interiors to technology. Lots of cool stuff here.Dezeen.com: A bold, simple architecture and interiors blog with a well-trained eye for cool.Inhabitat.com: Neato architecture and products geared toward environmentally friendly lifestyles.Mocoloco.com: Confusing page interface, but whoever runs this blog has an eye for incredibly unique architecture, interiors, lighting, furniture, and more.If not for Mocoloco.com, we never would have discovered the decidedly Apple-like Andrea Air Purifier.Remodelista.com: The bloggers have a sophisticated eye for classic modernism. Nothing too wild here. They find stuff that would actually work in most homes.Trendir.com: New home products galore. Focuses on stuff you can buy and leaves all the art and architecture posts for the other blogs.Yankodesign.com: With the tagline “Form Beyond Function,” the folks at Yanko showcase some of the most modern, futuristic interiors and lifestyle products you’ll ever find. A very slick and well-executed design site.Next Page: Pocket-Size Design Consultants >>Pocket-Size Design ConsultantsSix iPhone apps succeed in the world of design--but two Mac applications fail. When I began my research in Mac-assisted home design, I fully expected to review two applications that claim to help one quickly and easily create 3D models of home interiors--rooms, surface materials, furniture and all. But after three vexing hours spent with Microspot Interiors and Punch Home & Landscape Design Studio, I decided it would be a poor use of magazine pages to review either package. Both applications are extremely frustrating to use, particularly Home & Landscape Design Studio, which has an awful, non-intuitive interface (and I’m someone who jumped right into Adobe Illustrator, an application that leaves many confused).If you’re already comfortable with 3D modeling software, these interior design apps might have something to offer. But if you’re looking for a genuinely easy-to-use room layout program, consider Home Interior Layout Designer, detailed below. It’s one of six iPhone apps that has something worthwhile to offer the DIY decorator.Colorsnap This free app lets you grab an iPhone photo, extract color info from any portion of it and then find the closest Sherwin-Williams paint match, along with two complementary colors. Sadly, you can’t see the full swatch collection in one fell swoop, but if you’re committed to the paints offered by Messrs. Sherwin and Williams, this app is an invaluable tool.Ben Color CaptureBenjamin Moore’s free app includes color extraction tools that trump Sherwin-Williams’, and you can also swipe your finger across a color wheel to view the full Benjamin Moore swatch collection. Pick a swatch to see harmony groupings and graded saturations of the color you’ve chosen. It’s a must-download pocket partner for anyone investing in Benjie Moore color.myPantone Pantone’s app costs $9.99, but you get nine virtual Pantone swatch collections, nifty color-extraction tools, and the largest selection of color-harmony options we’ve seen on the iPhone. The Fashion+Home collection maps directly to Pantone wall paint colors, and I used the app to email my final palette (see page 35, Image C EDIT THIS LINK) to friends. Search Maclife.com for “myPantone” to read the full review.mySurface Message to all major paint, tile, countertop and window covering manufacturers: Distribute a free app that lets prospective customers quickly peel through your catalog. With mySurface, Dupont does just that for its Corian and Zodiaq lines of kitchen and bath countertops. Search via a color slider, tap a swatch for a larger image, then call an 800 number for a sample.Home Interior Layout Designer This $2.99 app may not let you design in 3D, but it’s easy to use, and provides most everything you’ll need for deciding “what goes where” in an empty room. Just define your room size and shape, and then begin tapping to add furniture, appliances, and architectural elements from various menus. Includes nifty measuring tools for accurate room planning. We’ll do a full review in a future issue.Art Envi Deluxe This $3.99 app turns your iPhone into a handheld art gallery, helping you decide which reprints of timeless classics might look best in your home. Browse by periods or by specific artists in alphabetical order, then create a thumbnail gallery of their pieces. Works can be viewed individually or in slideshows. Includes biographical info, and images can be saved to your Camera Roll!Geek ChicWhen it's time to accessorize your home, think different with Mac-inspired decor and high-tech, high-style iPod docks.A. These iSteam Mac and iSteam iPhone posters ($15, www.isteammac.com) by artist Kevin Tong are inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings and HG Wells–style steampunk. Also available as T-shirts! B. Graphic artist Susan Kare designed icons and interface elements for the early Macintosh, as well as these removable wall graphics from LTL Prints ($39.95 and up, www.ltlprints.com).C. The Icon Collection of pillows by Throwboy ($29 each, $149 for the set of six, www.throwboy.com) includes handcrafted, fleece pillows shaped like the icons for Photo Booth, the Finder, Dashboard, iChat, iTunes, and iPhoto (not pictured).D. These handmade fleece pillows by MySuiteStuff ($15 each, $80 for six, $130 for 10, www.mysuitestuff.com) are right out of an art director’s Creative Suite dreams.E. Roth’s Music Cocoon MC4 tube amp (£395, $629 at press time, www.rothaudio.co.uk) warms the sound from your iPod, iPhone, CD player, or other device, and looks good doing it. Just BYO speakers. F. The limited-edition Pantone Flight Stools ($549, www.pantone.com) were designed and made by London design team Barber Osgerby.G. The Multipot ($199, www.multipot.com/en/) is a multiuse charging station and lamp. You can plug up to five devices into sockets under the lid, and the cords are neatly hidden by the pot. H. Rotaliana’s Diva lamp (360 Euros, $515 at press time, www.rotaliana.it/en/) has an extendible iPod dock, a pop-up arm with LED lamp, built-in speakers, FM radio, audio inputs, and a remote.

  • 6 Pro Photographers Share Their Most Guarded Digital Secrets

    Great photos are made, not taken. Creating the perfect image requires a skill set that includes a deep understanding of one’s gear, the light, and the ability to think about what story you want the photo to tell and how to communicate that story through a captured moment in time. Tremendous patience, physical flexibility (a photographer spends a lot of time pretzeled into odd positions to capture the perfect angle), and an ability to think lucidly before dawn (can’t miss that golden light) are also essential.Most photographers would now agree that proficiency with photo-editing software is also a critical skill. So we asked six photographers to tell us about their favorite image processing applications and add-ons as well as share their best tips for making and digitally refining images. Lucas Gilman travels the world in search of untouched places and wild experiences, capturing images ranging from kayaking in India to backcountry skiing in South America. His work is often seen in National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, ESPN Magazine,  ESPN.com, Men’s Journal, National Geographic Adventure, Outside Magazine, Men’s Fitness, Maxim Germany, FHM Australia, USA TODAY and the New York Times. Lucas recently won the “2008 American Photo Emerging Photographer Award” sponsored by Apple Inc.Preferred Post Processing Applications: The majority of my post processing work is done in Adobe Lightroom 2. I use Adobe Photoshop CS4 for small detail work and Nikon Capture NX for certain images.Click to embiggenFavorite plug-in filters/scripts/actions/etc:Nik Viveza: Amazing color and contrast control without the need for masks. It helps make even a day with the worst light look good with just a few sliders and a couple of clicks.Nik Silver Efex Pro: The best black and white conversions in the industry, allowing total control and creativity without layers, masks and hours of tedious Photoshop work.Nik Color Efex Pro: Amazing ability to enhance and correct colors without masks.OnOne Software Genuine Fractals: Allows me to deliver perfect images that have been resized on demand to epic proportions.Which filters do you use the most in the Nik collections? In Nik Color Efex I really like the "Brilliance and Warmth" filter. It allows me to add saturation and warmth in a natural way to produce really pleasing images. I also really like the "Tonal Contrast" filter, it allows me to accurately adjust contrast in many areas of the image without masking. In NIK Silver Efex Pro I like being able to click through all the film type options within the black and white conversion filter, being able to control grain and contrast to show every detail that I want is really cool! Click to embiggenGeneral Filter Tips: Take your time, play around and check out what each filter can do for you. You will be amazed at all the variations you have the ability to produce with some creative thinking.Favorite Photography Tips: Find your background and then wait for your action to come into the frame. Shoot early and shoot late when the light is good. And take hand sanitizer to Third World Countries -- you will make better photos if you are not sick in bed.Where do you print your work? Printroom.com Click to embiggenPreferred Gear:Photography: Nikon D3X, Nikon D3, Nikon D700, Nikon 14-24mm AFS f/2.8 G ED, Nikon  24-70/2.8G Autofocus-S, Nikon 70-200 mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Lens, NIKON 300mm AF-S VR  f/2.8G IF-ED, Nikon AF-S Teleconverter TC-17E II, Nikon 400mm AF-S VR f/2.8 IF-ED, Nikon SB900 speedlights, Honl professional Light Modifiers (grids, snoots, gobos for  Nikon SB900’s).Backup and image storage: 16GB Lexar Professional UDMA 300x CompactFlash, Lexar Professional UDMA FireWire 800 Readers, DroboPro (Studio), Western Digital MyPassport Studio Edition 500 GB DRIVES (travel)Computer: Mac Pro 8-core 3.0GHz Intel Xeon + 8GB Crucial RAM (Studio), MacBook Pro 2.4GHz  4GB Crucial RAM (travel).To see more of Lucas’ work, visit his website. David Schloss is the director of the Aperture Users Network and MacCreate.com. A photographer for more than two decades, David specializes in adventure sports, travel, lifestyle and hyper-macro photography. He is the author of two books on photography and teaches workshops internationally. Preferred Post Processing Applications: I do about 95 percent of my work in Aperture, with occasional work in Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS 4 and Painter. Favorite plug-in filters/scripts/actions/etc:NIK Silver Efex Pro: This is by far the best black and white conversion tool ever made.Imagenomic Portraiture: After spending countless hours retouching portraits for commercial use Portraiture has been a godsend. It selectively retouches images without having to create complicated masks, it can tell the difference between facial texture and things like hair and makeup.Picture Code’s Noise Ninja: The industry standard for noise reduction. Getting rid of noise from a high ISO or low light shot doesn’t get any easier--or better--than this.Which filters do you use the most in the Nik Silver Efex collection?: I tend to be drawn to the filters that provide the grainy black-and-white experience I used to get from darkroom techniques. The film simulations for things classic 1600 ISO film stock are great. While it doesn’t feel exactly the same to me (there’s just a quality of black and white high-ISO film that’s hard to duplicate) it brings back much of that quality of playfulness and artistic expression of the darkroom.Click to embiggenGeneral Filter Tips: Digital filters are best used like a spice. A little bit can transform a creation from mundane to extraordinary, but used too heavily it will overwhelm the creation. And there’s no filter that’s going to save an out of focus image so work to get the image right in the camera first.What tips can you share with us about working in Aperture: In the 90's there was almost a mandate that "artistic" photos had to be processed and highly-filtered. A lot of simulated cross processing work and bleach tones. For many photographers the image in-camera was simply a jumping-off point for a creative journey. That's fine and it produced a lot of great looking images, but it can only go so far. With the advent of Apple's Aperture, and the focus (pardon the pun) on bringing out the best of an image, I've really rededicated myself to shooting the best possible image in the camera and just bringing it back to the way I saw it in my mind when I shot it. So filters for me are largely about bringing images back to reality, or at least the reality that I had envisioned.Click to embiggenThe really powerful adjustments in Aperture allow me to do a lot of things I used to do in filters -- adjust levels, saturation, vibrancy, sharpness. I take my images and round-trip to a plug-in when I need to make that final little creative tweak to make an image mine. Take the black-and-white conversions possible with Silver Efex Pro -- Aperture is not designed to simulate a film stock, but the ability to take an image and go right into a plug-in and still manage it in Aperture allows me to make a version that replicates the techniques I used to use, with today's tools.Favorite Photography Tips: The best thing I’ve ever heard about photography came from photographer Jay Maisel. Taking the expletives out it boils down to "you can’t take a picture if you don’t have a camera." One thing I learned from my father, a commercial shooter, was to forget about the automatic settings and spend days walking around with camera in manual mode, changing the f/stop and shutter speed by feel. Meter once in the morning and see if you can tell how many stops lighter or darker your subjects move from there. As a result, I often think of things in terms of stops of light. I’ll turn on a bedside lamp and think of how many stops lighter the room got. It’s really a great way to become one with your camera. Do you still shoot with film? I have not shot a piece of film since 2002. The convenience, speed and ecological benefits of working with digital have outstripped all the reasons I shot film. Where do you print your work? At home, on my HP B9180 and a HP Z3100. I’ve also used the site ImageKind.com when I want to get output printed, framed and shipped. They do great work.Click to embiggenPreferred Gear:Photography: Canon 1Ds Mark III, 5D Mark II, Nikon D3x. A mix of lenses, favorites are the Canon 50mm 1.4, Canon 65 1x-5x macro, and the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8.Computer: My main Mac is an 8-core Mac Pro with 16GB of RAM, connected to a Drobo Pro, HP B9180 printer, dual 30-inch Cinema Displays and a Wacom Intuos drawing tablet.To see more of David’s work, visit his website.Tony Sweet decided to redirect his creative energies towards nature photography after 20 years of working as a professional jazz artist. His images are published on calendars, post cards, posters, annual reports, greeting cards and catalogs. Tony conducts Visual Artistry photography location workshops and speaks to photography organizations and "Professional Photographers of America" schools throughout the continental United States and Canada. He is a staff writer for Nikon World magazine and has authored four books on the art of photography. Tony has been honored as a "Nikon Legend Behind the Lens" and is represented by The Getty Picture Agency.Preferred Post-Processing Applications:  Aperture for processing and cataloging, also Photoshop CS4.Click to embiggen Favorite plug-in filters/scripts/actions/etc:Nik Color Efex Pro: Particularly the “Darken/Lighten Center” filter to add depth to the image.Nik Silver Efex Pro: For black and white conversions.LucisPro: I use it on every HDR image to enhance detail and add depth.AlienSkin Snap Art: To add watercolor, oil paint and other artistic effects.Topaz Adjust: to affect exposure and region on specific images.Click to embiggenWhat tips can you share with us about working with filters in general? Play often to learn the capabilities of the software. It’s impossible to pre-visualize a filter effect on an image if you are not familiar with the filter. And always place the filter effect on a separate layer and blend it with the original -- this works especially well when you are blending a black and white converted image with the color original. Work in layers, leaving the original untouched. Practice using your software. The more familiar you are with software usage, the more options you have to bring your creativity to fruition.Favorite Photography Tip: Isolate and simplify the subject.Do you still shoot with film? No more film for me. I have no need for it.Where do you print your work? I use an Epson 7900.Click to embiggen Preferred Gear:Photography: Nikon D3X, 14-24mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 105mm macro, Lensbaby.Computer: MacBook Pro, 8G RAM, 320GB HD, 4TB external storage, Epson 7900 printer.To see more of Tony’s work, visit his website. Mike Sweeney started his visual career by drawing incessantly from the time he was old enough to be trusted with a box of crayons. By the time he was his early twenties he had bought a Canon 35mm camera and was learning the finer points of photography. Now Mike blends his photography skills with his extensive knowledge of technology to produce images that are both classic and state of the art. Mike is an active member is the "Strobist" and other social groups on Flickr, as well as the PPA (Professional Photographers of America), ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) and NAPP (National Association of Photoshop Professionals). He specializes in wedding photography, portraiture and fine art photography.Preferred post-processing applications: Adobe Suite CS3 (primarily Photoshop, InDesign) for advanced editing, Lightroom 2 for the majority of workflow management and light editing, PainterX for live media effects, LumaPIX to create albums, calendars, cards etc, VMwareFusion for running Windows XP and LumaPIX, and Fundy SOS album builder which is Photoshop application for creating wedding albums.Click to embiggenFavorite plug-in filters/scripts/actions/etc:Imagenomic Portraiture: The best and fastest tool I have found  for smoothing and evening out skin surfaces and skin tones.Imagenomic Noiseware: The best noise reduction software.OnOne Pro Tools: The best overall photo editing tool box on the planet. I especially like the Photo Tools Bleach Bypass and High Pass Sharpening filters.A Neutral Density Gradient: I use a gradient more than any other processing tool aside from sharpening to dial in localized exposures of sky, water, windows etc.Click to embiggenWhat tips can you share with us about working with filters in general? Apply any filter effect at the level that you think it should be and then dial it down a notch. Educate yourself about sharpening your images. It's not as simple as you may think and it can make or break an image. Highpass sharpening is your friend. Learn about using sharpening masking in Lightroom, you will be amazed at the details it can bring out. When you’re sharpening don’t forget to zoom in to 100%. Invest 17 bucks in a monthly pass for kelbytraining.org, some of the best information I’ve seen for Lightroom comes from Matt Kloskowski on kelbytraining.Favorite Photography Tip: Read the manual for your camera even if you have been shooting for years, you will certainly learn something from it. Be an active member of a few of the many, many photography related boards, there is always something new to see and learn and you never know when you will uncover a piece of priceless information or learn the one thing that will tip a gig your way.Do you still shoot with film? Yes, Kodak Porta-160VC. I offer it as a custom option for portraits. Some clients like the look of film and will pay a premium for it. And I still shoot Polaroid sometimes because it's fun.Where do you print your work? BayPhoto and MPIXClick to embiggenPreferred Gear:Photography: Nikon D70s, D90, D300, Nikon 17-55mm F/2.8, Nikon 11-24mm F4, Nikon 50mm F1.8, Nikon 17-55mm VR, 4 Nikon SB800 flashes, Nikon SU800, 5 Cybersyncs, Mountainsmith Parallax backpack Flashpoint carbon tripod/head, Westcott collapsible umbrellas, Photoflex Transpack, Z Raygun - a Dual Xenon battery powered light by Brinkmann.Computer: MacBook Pro 6GB RAM, 250GB drive (Travel), Mac Pro dual quad 10GB RAM, 4TB disk (studio) with a Dell 24-inch Ultrasharp monitor, Canon MP950 all in one printer, Epson 4990 Scanner.To see more of Mike’s work, visit his website.Anthony Tortoriello is a Chicago commercial photographer who specializes in animal and pet photography, action/motorsports, food and people and anything else that comes his way.  His work has been used in numerous publications worldwide. Anthony is an expert in color processing and regularly works as a digital technician for top shooters across the country. He has studied color theory with the best (notably Dan Margulis) and is also a professional retoucher.Preferred Post-Processing Applications: I’ve dabbled with every photo related software at some point or another but now the vast majority of my time is spent working in Phase One’s Capture One Pro which is a RAW workflow application, Photoshop CS4 (which I live and breathe) and occasionally Lightroom.Click to embiggenFavorite plug-in filters/scripts/actions/etc:onOne’s Software Suite: Mainly for Genuine Fractals Pro and Photo Frame Pro which I find useful for certain images and jobs.Photomatix Pro: For HDR and a handful of complex sharpening and color boost actions that I created and are specific to my style.  What tips can you share with us about working with filters in general? Less is more. Filters are to be used when needed not just because you can. Sure you can play and have fun, but if your job is to get an ordinary image to look like a breathtaking postcard then use filters with caution. Also, you can use color effects software, noise reduction software, etc., but there is no substitute for knowing how to do this all yourself by having a solid understanding of Photoshop. Photoshop is our digital darkroom period and should not be taken lightly.  I would suggest people use Photoshop as if it is a video game and you are trying to win the game by getting the best possible looking images. Try every possibility like you would in a game, for example you could try running filters in different channels.Click to embiggen Favorite Photography Tips: I am a firm believer at shooting as much as possible any time I can. This means always having a camera by your side and using it with NO worries about what others may be thinking. To paraphrase something photographer Jay Maisel has said, we have to do our visual push-ups everyday to keep our skills in shape.Do you still shoot with film? I have not touched my film cameras in years.  It just does not make sense on so many levels for me to still be using film.  Any tips on getting prints that match what we see on the screen? Make sure your displays are calibrated correctly with a calibration device such as an i1 Display 2 from X-Rite, which will help ensure that the color and luminosity of what you are seeing is accurate.  Familiarize yourself with the proper settings for your software and output device -- for example, if you are printing out of Photoshop make certain you are not double color managing your files -- turn off color manage in the print dialog box. And select the correct paper profile.  Obviously there is much more to it than that, but those things are a big step in the right direction. Where do you print your work? At home I print with an Epson 4880 and an Epson 3880 for my more manageable sized prints.  And for the larger prints I work with an amazing printing boutique in Chicago; JS Graphics. Click to embiggenPreferred Gear:Photography: Nikon D3x, Nikon D3, and Canon 5D Mark II. Lenses include “fast glass” Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, 200-400mm f/4, 105mm f/2.8 micro, 16mm f/2.8 fisheye, & 50mm f/1.4G and similar for the Canon. Tony also loves his Canon G10 and G11 professional point and shoot cameras for everyday fun. Computer: (Studio) Mac Pro  8-Core Two 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" Processors  with 16GB 1066MHz DDR3 RAM with 4TB Internal Storage and 20TB external RAID Storage. 30-inch Apple Cinema Display and a 22-inch CRT for proofing. Wacom Intuos4 graphics tablet “I could not work without it.” (Travel) Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAMTo see more of Tony’s work, visit his website. Michele Wortman has been taking pictures professionally for over a decade. Her specialty is “macro photography with a deep emphasis on observing beauty.”  Her work also includes shooting studio portraits of her tattoo clients. Her photography has been featured in several publications and in a book, “Moments of Epiphany” by Proton Press. Preferred Post-Processing Applications: Adobe Photoshop CS3. And I particularly enjoy shooting my portrait work directly into my computer using Aperture and completely bypassing  the memory card in the camera by tethering the camera to the computer. You can really see your shot and be able to make adjustments a lot better than the film days.Click to embiggenFavorite plug-in filters/scripts/actions/etc: I don't use a lot of filters, and all of my favorites are included with Photoshop. I try not to alter the image too far beyond the original shot as I like to preserve the natural magic from the first impression. Typically I adjust the levels first, then I use the selective color menu to create better color balance adjustments. If the image needs some enhanced focus I select the area to sharpen with the lasso on a wide feather and sharpen as needed. I often use the path select tool to create cut outs for my portrait photography. I am a firm believer when it comes to digital manipulation that less is more.  A subtle enhancement can make an image look extra dreamy, but take it just a bit too far and the piece will probably look artificial and overworked.Favorite Photography Tips: Follow your bliss and where the light lands. Shoot what interests you and whatever your passion is. It will show in your work.Click to embiggenDo you still shoot with film? No, digital photography meets all of my needs plus I never have to deal with the hassle of scanning negatives with dust specs!Where do you print your work? For portfolio purposes I print on the Epson Stylus Photo r1800. I also sometimes print on high quality transparency film which I backlight when I’m exhibiting my work. Click to embiggenPreferred Gear: Photography: Canon EOS 5D with Canon EF 24-70MM, Canon MP-E 65MM, Canon EF 100 MM lenses. Lights: Calumet travelite 750 set, Nova 32 softbox, Canon 540 EZ SpeedliteComputer: MacBook Pro with 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo and 4GB RAM and an iMac with Intel Core Duo 2GHz and 2GB RAM. MyBook Essential edition 1TB external drive and a Burly 4 Bay Firewire Enclosure with four Seagate 7200.10 500GB drives.To see more of Michele’s work, visit her website.

  • The Ultimate MacBook Pro Protection Suite by Moshi

    I'm a huge fan of Moshi's Apple-centric line of products and accessories. In fact, my entire collection of Apple products has now been complimented by Moshi. For example, I use the iLynx USB/Firewire hub and Celesta keyboard with my iMac; my iPhone is protected by the iGlaze 3G; and recently, my Macbook Pro experienced a thorough makeover. Over the years I have owned a variety of Apple laptops, and each one inevitably ends up with scratches on the screen, discoloration on the wrist area, disgusting keys, and other forms of wear and tear. I decided to not endure this experience with my new aluminum MacBook Pro. My goal is to maintain a pristine look for as long as possible, and I intend to achieve this goal by combining Moshi's products into the ultimate protection solution. Clearguard MB: $25 The Clearguard MB is a thin cover for your MacBook or MacBook Pro keyboard. Installation is simple: lay it across the keyboard. After a few minutes of typing, it's barely noticeable. It's virtually transparent so your backlit keys are still visible in dark rooms. I have been using it for a couple of months, and you can clearly see how my keyboard still looks like I just slid the computer out of the box. Cleaning the Clearguard is a simple process involving dish soap and water. The best part about the Clearguard MB is I no longer see key indentations on the screen (a problem MacBooks and PowerBooks have experienced for a long time). Below is a picture of the Clearguard after a couple months. See the keys on the right side? I'm impressed. Palmguard: $20-$28 The Palmguard is used to protect the area where your wrists sit on the computer. For me, that's the part that receives the most damage over time. I'm always amazed at how powerful skin oil is. Again, installation is simple: Line up the Palmguard carefully in the corners and then firmly slide your hand across. If you aren't satisfied, it's easy to take the Palmguard off and try again without leaving any residue. In the past, I used a competitor's product to protect the wrist area. One thing missing was something to place onto the trackpad area. The Palmguard comes with a separate piece just for that. The accuracy and clickability (I just made up that word) of the trackpad are not affected. Moshi sells a variety of Palmguard products to match the color and size of your Apple laptop. Below is a picture of the Palmguard after a couple months. Again, I'm impressed. iVisor AG: $35-38 iVisor AG is the flagship laptop protection product by Moshi. Not only does it protect the screen from scratches, dust and fingerprints, but it also eliminates glare. Remember when we had a choice between matte and glossy screens for our MacBook Pros? Well, this is as close as you can get to owning an aluminum MBP with a matte finish without swapping the screen. Installation is shockingly easy. You just line up the corners, press down, and firmly slide your hand across the screen. The air bubbles you see while applying a protective layer on your iPhone are not a problem. I was nervous about this, but fortunately Moshi delivered on its promise. There's a hole at the top for your iSight, and a transparent part in the black border so the “Macbook Pro” text on the bottom is still visible. Below is the iVisor after a few weeks. No reflection, no scratches. Conclusion A MacBook Pro is an investment. It deserves to remain in perfect condition. What I love about Moshi's products is that they can be installed in minutes and they perform to my standards: no air bubbles, no scratches, and no damage. I purposefully did not include outer cases because I dislike adding bulk to the laptop. Also, a simple and artistic way to protect the top from scratches is to add a Gelaskin. Moshi products are available for purchase at Dr. Bott and nuCourse. Market research you can use: Keep informed about Cloud Computing and IT Infrastructure. Learn more

  • iTunes Power Tips Every Mac Owner Should Know

    Your quick-and-dirty guide to the world's most popular digital media app.It’s been more than eight years since Apple released the first version of iTunes. And although it’s expanded to incorporate many smart features since its January 2001 debut, it still looks remarkably similar to the way it did when it first appeared, running on OS 9. Back then it was just a jukebox, but over the years came enhancements like CD burning, the iPod, smart playlists, the iTunes Store, video support, and, most recently, the iPhone.Apple has gradually turned iTunes into a hub for managing and playing all the music and movies on your Mac and mobile devices, while continually adding support for new devices and services like the Apple TV, movie rentals, and much more. In 2003, Apple made the smart move of developing a Windows version of iTunes, opening up the iPod market and the iTunes Store to a much wider audience. iTunes remains one of Apple’s most important applications, and it’s capable of far more than just playing music.Whether it’s converting movies to watch on your iPod, building party playlists, getting album art online, buying music, renting movies, or backing up your iPhone, there’s an awful lot under the surface--and even more than ever with the release of iTunes 9 in September. Many of the tips and tricks we show you throughout this feature will save you time and even reveal a few things you didn’t know you could do.Master Your MusicTake control of your music collection with these time-saving tips and tricks.Use smart playlists to manage music on the fly.Apple introduced smart playlists in iTunes 3, and it’s one of those features that, once you make using it a habit, you’ll never go back to plain-vanilla “dumb” playlists again.To create a smart playlist, go to File > Smart Playlists (or press Option-Command-N). You’re presented with a dialog in which you’ll set the “rules” for your smart playlist. When you’re first starting out, it’s best to keep it relatively simple. But once you have the hang of it, you can go bigger, creating much fancier smart playlists to capture only specific types of content, weed out other content types, and so on.Smart playlists take the manual drudgery out of creating dynamic playlists out of iTunes media libraries of any size--and they're not limited to music.If you specify that the playlist should show all songs with the Artist tag “Rolling Stones,” for example, all tracks in your library by the Stones will appear in the playlist. You can go a step farther and add all Rolling Stones tracks that have certain star ratings. By using the Match Any Rule option plus other options, you can have playlists that display different sets of tracks--a playlist, for example, where the genre is both blues and rock, as well as a bit rate greater than 128kbps. Be sure to check Live Updating, so iTunes will watch the library and automatically add any new files that meet the criteria you’ve specified.Use Genius to find new music--or rediscover music in your library.With more music than ever available in the iTunes Store, it can be time-consuming to find new artists and albums you might like. The Genius feature in iTunes sends information about your musical tastes to the iTunes Store and recommends new music based on similar artists and other people’s listening habits (if you haven’t already, you need to turn Genius on by choosing Store > Turn on Genius). If you select a track from your library and click the Genius button in the lower-right corner, iTunes will create a list of recommended albums and tracks that you can buy from the iTunes Store to complement your chosen track. Then you can preview and buy these songs directly from the sidebar. Since it knows what music is already in your library, Genius won’t recommend anything you already have.By activating the Genius feature you can have iTunes recommend new music based on your listening habits.With iTunes 9, Apple expanded Genius to include mixes using songs already in your iTunes library. To get the Genius Mixes feature to appear in iTunes 9, turn on Genius if you haven’t already, then update Genius by selecting Store > Update Genius. Now, to see what Genius Mixes iTunes recommends for you, click Genius Mixes in the left-hand pane (under Genius) in the iTunes window. You’ll see a grid view of album cover-style graphics. When you mouse over one, you’ll see a name for the mix and a brief explanation of what it’s based on--for example, “Rock/Pop Mix 6: based on: The White Stripes, Weezer, Red Hot Chili Peppers & others.” Mouse over each mix and click the Play button to hear the mix. We just wish that once the Genius Mixes are created you could do more with them than just sit and listen--once a mix starts playing, there’s no way to tell what song is coming next. And, most frustrating of all, there’s no way to capture the mix as a regular or smart playlist.Genius Mixes in iTunes 9 auto-create mixes using songs in your own library on the fly.Share iTunes libraries.You can duplicate an entire consolidated iTunes library by simply copying the Music folder on your Mac. But with libraries frequently running into many gigabytes in size, this is a slow, inefficient method. iTunes can share your library over a local network, so it can be accessed by anyone on your Ethernet or wireless network. Go to Preferences > Sharing and turn on sharing of the whole library or specific playlists. You can password-protect access and also tell iTunes to look for other shared libraries. Since the music is streamed--not copied--it takes up no disk space on the machines of those who tap into your library.iTunes can share selected playlists or your whole library, including videos, over a local network, with optional password protection.Automatically rip and import music CDs.Go to Preferences > General and select “When you Insert a CD, Import CD and Eject.” As long as this setting is active, whenever you insert an audio CD, it will capture track names, encode tracks based on your import settings, and your Mac will then eject the disc. Next click the Import Settings button and choose the quality setting you want iTunes to use to convert the CD tracks as it imports them (192kbps AAC or MP3 files will offer good sound quality at reasonable file sizes). When you insert an audio CD, iTunes will now retrieve all track names and artwork from the Internet and import the tracks using the quality settings you chose.To set the bit rate for the AAC encoder, in the Import Settings dialog, choose 192kbps, leave the other options on Auto, and click OK.Next Page: Video Tips: What You See is What You Get... Video Tips: What You See is What You GetiTunes is just as good with video as it is with music.Manage playback settings for the best viewing experience.iTunes can display videos from your library in many ways. If you go to Preferences > Playback, you can tell it to play back videos in the small artwork viewer, in iTunes’ main window, in a separate window, or in full-screen mode. You can have anything from a small, unobtrusive window to a full theater presentation, blanking out additional displays. When it’s in a floating window, video can be resized during playback, and if you right-click, you can select any preset size. If you have more than one screen, move the floating window onto the display you want to use as the main screen. This is handy if you have a digital TV connected as a second screen.Use the Playback settings to control how video screens are arranged on your main monitors or multiple displays.Convert video for playback in iTunes & on your iPod.iTunes is picky about what video file formats it can read and play back. It doesn’t like AVIs, WMVs, or other non-Apple formats, for example. If you have a movie that’s already been digitized into one of these incompatible formats, the best course of action is to convert it with QuickTime Pro ($29.99, www.apple.com/quicktime) into an MP4 or M4V file using the File > Export > MP4 or Apple TV options. You will also need to install Perian (free, www.perian.org) to enable QuickTime to open the videos in the first place. You should be able to drag the converted movies into your iTunes library, holding down the O key if necessary to override automatic copying of the file. Then choose Advanced > Create iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV version, and iTunes will convert the video using the optimum quality and screen-size settings for the device that you plan to view the video on.Combining QuickTime Pro and Perian, you can convert video formats that iTunes doesn't favor (such as .AVI) to .M4V files, so you can watch them on your Mac, iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV.Export your home movies to your iPod or iPhone.If you use iMovie ’08 or ’09, you can export a project directly into iTunes using the Share menu. Or, choose Media Browser and check the iPhone and iPod options. For each option you check, a different version will be compressed and exported.However, if you’re still using iMovie HD 6 or your movie has come from another source, such as straight from a camera, you can use a third-party compression tool like ffmpeg (homepage.mac.com/major4/) to convert most kinds of video files.If you have QuickTime Pro and Perian installed, you can opt to export directly for iPhone, iPod, or Apple TV within QuickTime Pro.Next Page: How to Digitize Your DVDs... How to Digitize Your DVDsThere are, of course, legal issues with ripping a commercial DVD. To keep the feds off your back, only use this how-to for digitizing a commercial DVD movie or other content that you have purchased. This, according to the MPAA, is legal. Making 100 copies of I Love You, Man and selling them for $5 each at your cousin’s garage sale--not so much.Before you start, download and install Handbrake (free, handbrake.fr) and VLC (free, www.videolan.org/vlc).1. Get to the source.Load the DVD into your Mac and launch HandBrake. The software needs you to select your video source. Navigate to your DVD and select it. Now it should appear under Source.2. Get inside the source.HandBrake doesn’t make it easy to figure out which file on the DVD is the movie. In the Title section in the main interface, you get a pull-down menu showing the available files on the DVD. The files are identified by time length, so if you’re ripping a movie, you’ll probably want to select the file with the longest running time. (It can get tricky if you’re ripping a DVD with a commentary track or extra features that run the same length as the featured video.) If you’re selecting a TV show, look for running lengths of about 24 to 45 minutes. Under Destination, pick a place where you want to save the converted file.We identified our Lawrence of Arabia movie file by its length of 2 hours, 19 minutes, 16 seconds.3. Output settings.If you want to convert a video for iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV, you can use one of HandBrake’s presets. Click the Toggle Presets button at the upper-right to open the Presets window (if it’s not already open). To create a video to play on your Mac, select QuickTime.We're taking a cross-country plane trip and plan to watch Lawrence on our iPhone to while away the hours in flight.4. Tweak video and audio settings.The bottom half of HandBrake’s main window lets you make adjustments to the video settings. For example, lowering the frame rate can help reduce the file size. The Quality settings also influence file size. If you select a target size, HandBrake will rip the video based on your setting; the smaller the setting, the lower the video quality. If you go with an average bit-rate setting, enter a setting between 400 and 600 (though you can go much higher or lower if you want). Constant quality reduces the quality based on a percentage. Click on the Picture Settings button to adjust the pixel size of the video.Selecting 2-pass encoding will improve video quality, but it takes longer to create the file.Click on Audio & Subtitles to tweak the audio settings. Make sure the language you want is selected in Track 1. You can also adjust the sample rate, bit rate, and activate subtitles.5. Hurry up and wait.When you have your settings settled, click on Start, and go do something else. It can take a while to rip a DVD. Fortunately, HandBrake is a Universal application, so Intel Mac folks will get much faster results. Lawrence of Arabia took 1 hour, 12 minutes to rip on a 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM.6. Drop into iTunesWhen HandBrake is done, navigate to where you saved the file. Drag and drop the file into iTunes, then connect your iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV, and sync. iTunes will transfer the file to your device. Or, if the movie was converted for your Mac, just double-click the file to watch it.Next Page: Sync and Swim... Sync and SwimBetter ways to manage music, video, and apps between your Mac and your iPod or iPhone.Manage apps on your iPhone or iPod touch.Hallelujah--iTunes 9 brought the option to more effectively manage which Home screen’s apps appear on your iPhone or iPod touch. Now when your device is connected and you select it in the sidebar, click the Applications tab to see a visual representation of where app icons will appear on the 10 possible Home screens. Although we’d love to see the option to name each screen rather than having them be numbered, the new management option is miles ahead of the old way of doing things.We created a screen just for the news apps we use most.Automatic syncing saves time and space.iPods and iTunes have always had the ability to automatically sync with each other--sharing exactly the same music files. For some this is great, as it maintains an exact copy of your music, photos, and contacts on your iPod or iPhone and on your Mac. Others, though, prefer more flexibility. With your iPod selected, go to its Summary tab and click Manually Manage Music and Videos. Then you can add or delete tracks from the iPod’s music library by hand. Just drag and drop tracks from your iTunes library to add them.In each subsequent tab you can choose to manually sync contacts, calendars, ringtones, videos, applications, and more. This is a great way of syncing some data without performing a full sync, which can be slow and puts you at risk of accidentally overwriting data. Use Senuti to get music from an iPod to your Mac.Being able to copy songs from an iPod to a Mac is incredibly useful, and no, we’re not talking about pirating. If you keep distinct iTunes libraries on more than one Mac, your iPod can carry them back and forth. If your hard drive crashes, or you get a new Mac, restoring iTunes tracks via an iPod is a great trick to have at hand.FadingRed’s Senuti ($18, www.fadingred.com) lets you do exactly this--a simple operation you’d think iTunes would allow but doesn’t.You can drag not only songs and videos, but whole playlists, right to your iTunes library.Senuti supports the iPod touch and iPhone, as well as all the iPods. When you connect your device, its library and playlists appear at the top of the sidebar, while your iTunes library and playlists are listed on the bottom. Blue dots next to the tracks show you which songs on your iPod already exist in iTunes. Drag songs from your iPod’s library and drop them onto your iTunes library, or select songs and click the big green Transfer button. Senuti can copy the songs anywhere on your hard drive for you to back up, or it can even add the songs directly to iTunes--just choose iTunes Music Folder as the default download location in Senuti > Preferences.Senuti can also rebuild playlists from your iPod in iTunes. Smart playlists on your iPod become regular playlists in iTunes, however, preserving the list as it was on your iPod, without adding in more qualifying songs from your iTunes library, as a smart playlist would. To copy a playlist to iTunes, you drag the whole playlist name from the iPod area of the sidebar and drop it on top of the word iTunes in the bottom half of the sidebar.Pump up iTunes with AppleScriptsWe have long been fans of Doug’sAppleScripts for iTunes, a huge--and we do mean huge--catalog of AppleScripts created by Doug Adams and available to the iTunes-loving masses for free at dougscripts.com/itunes.You can laugh, but we would never have taken the time to manually compare the similarities of these playlists. Thanks, Doug's Scripts!One particularly useful script--though it’s very hard to pick just one--is the Compare Two Playlists script, which compares the contents of two playlists and creates a text file on your Desktop listing the tracks they have in common and the ones that are exclusive to each. This comes in handy if you make a lot of playlists for parties and want to easily tell them apart. Download the script, unzip it, and copy the scripts to the your usernameLibraryiTunesScripts folder, creating the Scripts folder if necessary, as directed in the instructions.

  • First Look: iPhoto ‘09

    I've spent several hours tinkering with Apple's new iPhoto '09 — part of the newly updated iLife '09 suite of media applications — and I like what I've seen so far. The entire application is a strong step forward, and the exciting new features (facial recognition and geotagging) don't disappoint. The following is a focused walkthrough of iPhoto '09 and the interesting new features it boasts. Faces The most interesting (to me at least) of iPhoto's new tricks is facial recognition. Immediately after firing-up the application, your library will be updated, and then analysis of all captured faces begins. The nearly two thousand photos in my library took around 30+ minutes to process. Once it was done, I named the members of my family and began training it for accuracy. After confirming about 20 photos for each person, the results were pretty accurate. I'd get an awful lot of utility from this feature in Aperture — fingers crossed that it comes sooner than later. An unexpected side effect of Faces was an answer to the question my wife and I ask each other often — which one of us do our kids look like? It was interesting to see my oldest showing up, mingled amongst images of me, and our middle mixed in with photos of my wife — we always considered it the other way around. I'm no expert on how the face-matching algorithm works, but its accuracy is enough that I trust its take on the question. From the high level corkboard view of all the Faces you've identified, you can add extra information about each individual. Specifically, their full name and email address. A peek at Help, and I discovered that the email address comes in handy when using the Facebook upload feature, but details on this below. A small niggle comes when updating the keyphoto (or identifying photo for a grouping of photos) for an individual. When reviewing the info for a person, you can scrub through their pictures and click on one to change the keyphoto. The keyphoto doesn't change until you exit the info screen. Lack of instant gratification led me to believe it hadn't worked. I would suspect this behavior to change in a later update. iPhoto Faces Corkboard View iPhoto '09 Picture Info Bezel Places Thanks to my GPS location tagging on my iPhone, Places immediately had some points of interest for me to review. The rest of my photos lack geographical EXIF data, so it was on me to mark them accordingly. Thankfully, the Events grouping makes it relatively easy to grab all images from a specific place and mark them at the map in one fell swoop. My preference is to geotag the trips we've taken — places that aren't home, because home is the obvious place for the majority of our family photos. The map displays pins, in typical Google Maps style, where your photos were shot, and hovering over the pin displays the name of the location and an arrow to view the related images. It's simple and effective. The Smart Album button below the map makes it easy to create an album of all the photos from the location of the selected pin — nice if you want to group all of your ski photos for instance. If you decide to email off some of your photos, you can choose to include location information. When I tested this however, I couldn't find the location in EXIF, or captioned beneath the photo in the email. It's quite likely I didn't look in the right place, but from my experience, it didn't seem to work. (Feel free to point me in the right direction in comments, if you've found it to work properly!) The Places feature is nice, though for my family who doesn't travel too terribly much, it's not all that interesting. Though it does have me thinking much more about grabbing one of those slick Eye-Fi Explore memory cards which will handle the geotagging for me. iPhoto '09 Places Map iPhoto '09 Places Assignment The combination of these different grouping options (Events, Faces, Places) is ridiculously powerful, with little user input. Suddenly we can find any photo or group of photos in a variety of different ways, cross-checking them by parameters in what might be described as different dimensions. This is very cool and I'm excited to see how my photo management evolves because of it. Facebook & Flickr Upload Prior to iPhoto '09 you could upload your photos to these two popular services, but through third party plugins. Now however, it's baked right in (along with Mobile Me, if you like that sort of thing). The process is simple and streamlined, and when the upload is complete, iPhoto displays a clickable URL to go directly to the photos in your favorite browser. Very handy! The Facebook integration has a couple of extra features that are nifty in an understated sort of way. At upload time, you can choose (directly within the iPhoto interface) the security level of your photos — who can actually view them. The other comes from the Faces feature, when you add the email address to an identified face in your library. That email address, when an associated picture is uploaded to Facebook, is matched to your Facebook friends and alerts them that a photo of them has been uploaded. This is quite nifty indeed! iPhoto '09 Facebook Upload Link Slideshows If you've ever used the Flash gallery plugin SlideShowPro, it feels like much of iPhoto '09's slideshow layout and functionality came from there. This isn't a bad thing mind you, it just has a very familiar feel to it, and it works. The slideshow setup options are a bit more intuitive than they were in earlier versions of iPhoto, and get out of your way for full screen play as soon as you've selected your desired settings. Of the settings, there are 6 themes to choose from for presenting the photos. These themes give a fresh feel to the slideshows that were once 'wowing,' and as of late, getting a bit stale. iPhoto '09 Slideshow Launch Export While you can use the Share menu in iPhoto to export your photos to iWeb, there's a simpler option hidden under Export in the File menu. Webpage gives you some simple options for generating a barebones web gallery page with navigation. It's nothing elaborate like iWeb, just a quick and dirty HTML generated gallery for when you need to throw some pictures up quickly (temporarily?). There's no doubt that iPhoto '09 is a wonderful update. The highlight features seem to work very well, and haven't disappointed. I haven't had time to play with the other iLife apps yet, as I've been working on this article. But if the rest of the updates are on par with iPhoto, the suite as a whole is certainly (as always seems to be the case) a steal at only $79. Concentric Hosted IT Solutions and Web Hosting Click here to save cost on your IT demands

  • Microsoft's Mojave Attempts to Wet Vista's Desert

    Daniel Eran Dilger Nearly two years after Windows Vista was finally released, Microsoft has remained unable to shake off its reputation as being slow, incompatible with existing hardware and software, and generally a poor and overpriced product that nobody wants. Microsoft is now trying to reverse Vista's bad reputation by insisting that the software's problems are not technical but rather just the fault of ignorant customers duped in part by Apple's “Get a Mac” campaign. What's Vista's real problems, and will Microsoft's “Mojave Experiment” help solve them? Blame Apple! Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has joined Windows Enthusiast pundits in theorizing that Vista's image problems are primarily the result of Apple's advertisements that regularly poke fun at the problems in Vista. The company has now taken aim at shooting at the messenger with a $300 million ad campaign. In July, Brad Brooks, Microsoft's VP of Windows Vista consumer marketing, addressed the company's business partners at its Worldwide Partner Conference, saying, “We've got a pretty noisy competitor out there. You know it. I know it. It's caused some impact. We're going to start countering it. They tell us it's the iWay or the highway. We think that's a sad message.” Another sad message Brooks had to deliver was that Vista's problems aren't really the fault of Apple. “We broke a lot of things,” Brooks admitted. “We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain. It got customers thinking, hey, is Windows Vista a generation we want to get invested in?” Vista: Pay it Forward! Brooks also noted that “Windows Vista is an investment in the long term. When you make the investment into Windows Vista, it's going to pay it forward into the operating system we call Windows 7.” Pay it forward? Is Windows 7 going to be a free upgrade to Windows Vista users, in the same way Apple is expected to offer the next Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard release to existing users of 10.5 Leopard? That's highly unlikely, as Microsoft can't sustain its egregious profits collected through the Windows monopoly by giving away updates for free. Windows Vista raised the price of Windows, putting a new definition on the phrase “pay it forward.” Myths of Snow Leopard 7: Free?! Microsoft Admits Windows Vista Mistakes, Criticizes Apple Ads - InformationWeek Reality Impairment at Microsoft Talking out one's ass appears to be a job requirement for all Microsoft executives, starting at the top. A serious case of reality impairment has resulted in the paradox of the company both admitting that Vista is flawed and “broke a lot of things,” while at the same time maintaining that Vista's reputation is entirely the fault of stupid customers and a comically unflattering portrayal by its competitor. In the “Mojave Experiment,” Microsoft plans to dispel the notion that Windows Vista is problematic and incompatible by publishing a series of videotaped interviews with users who arrived with negative impressions of Vista and left excited about the new operating system. This was achieved by presenting the users with a demonstration of “Mojave,” a new operating system that Microsoft later revealed to be Vista, much to the surprise of the interviewed users who'd heard so many bad things about it. However, the Mojave Experiment is so full of false information and saccharine gloss that it couldn't possibly appeal to anyone smart enough to turn on a PC. Even setting aside the fact that the ad experiment basically seeks to blame users for being dumb, the attempt by Microsoft to paint over Vista's problems is transparent and flawed, for a number of reasons. What's wrong with Mojave. Microsoft can't seem to decide whether it wants to admit that Vista has problems or not, and its waffling back and forth just makes the company look increasingly disingenuous. Is Vista a poorly launched, flawed product that the company is working to fix as quickly as possible, or is it awesome and wildly successful and just the victim of bad press? Microsoft tries to tell both stories at once, which is purely dishonest. In contrast, Apple said from the start last year that its Apple TV product was a “hobby” attempting to break into a difficult market. Critics lambasted it for not immediately taking over the market like the iPod had or iPhone later did. Apple's more recent problems in launching MobileMe were quickly noted by the company along with the intent to address complaints about it rapidly. Microsoft isn't alone in being able to stumble, but its complete lack of candor makes it hard to understand if the company realizes that it even has problems to solve. With Vista, Microsoft has issued a flurry of giddy press releases claiming widespread adoption based on the number of licenses sold and naming it “the fastest selling operating system in Microsoft history,” ignoring the fact that Windows sales are increasing simply because they are tied to PC sales. Microsoft has no competition in the PC operating system market due to its monopoly position, so it could release Windows Wet Toast and still sell it faster than XP and ME and 98 Special Edition and every other version of Windows in the past that was tied to an increasingly younger and smaller hardware market. Vista Sales to Non-Users. Many of Vista's “sales” were free vouchers distributed with PCs sold in the holiday season prior to its launch. Even more than a year and a half later, PC makers continue to put Windows XP on their systems, even those sold with a Vista license, while corporate users almost always remove the default Vista to install an earlier version of Windows. There's also a busy third party industry developing around removing Vista for consumers. In late July APCMag cited Jane Bradburn, a manager for commercial notebook sales at HP, as saying, “From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP license. However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs with a Vista Business licence but with XP pre-loaded. That is still the majority of business computers we are selling today.” The arrangement is supposed to end by January 2009, but HP is trying to extend the deadline because customers simply don't want Vista installed. EWeek also noted that between April 2007 and May 2008, its survey of business users indicated that Vista climbed from 2% to 5%, but that Windows XP jumped from 74% to 83%, three times the adoption of Vista. That growth came from migration from older versions of Windows. Even in its wildest projections, EWeek says Vista will only reach 28% adoption in businesses by the end of 2010. CNET reported that a Jully 2008 survey by systems management appliance company KASE found that 60% of companies surveyed have no plans to deploy Windows Vista, a ten percent increase in disinterest from late 2007. A full 42% were actively exploring Vista alternatives, and 11% had already made the switch to Mac OS X or Linux. Microsoft is simply lying about the level of Vista excitement, and it's gotten too obvious for the company to continue to do so. XP still killing Vista in sales volume: HP 60 percent skipping Vista, so Ballmer looks to Apple | The Open Road The Truth Is… oh Look a Distraction! At the same time, Microsoft notes on its Vista website “we know a few of you were disappointed by your early encounter. Printers didn't work. Games felt sluggish. You told us—loudly at times—that the latest Windows wasn't always living up to your high expectations for a Microsoft product.” That's some brutal honesty for a company with a knack for spinning wild fantasies about fictitious product enthusiasm for a product never actually put to use in many cases. At the same time however, in trying to refute away Vista's real problems, Microsoft uses a variety of tactics that just return to blind fantasyland. Microsoft is a Marketing Company, not a Tech Company. The company plays its Mojave Experiment hand on a new website, incidentally designed using Adobe Flash rather than the company's own Silverlight. Despite the site's oddly designed, usability-impared interface, it's still possible to pull out lots of details from the experiment that say as much about Microsoft's crafty, misleading marketing as they do about its technical problems, underling the simple fact that Microsoft is first and foremost a marketing company that flogs third rate technology products. Mojave took 140 people and asked them to score Windows Vista. The average response was 4.4. After demonstrating Vista SP2 under the name “Mojave,” respondents ranked Vista at 8.5, a stunning improvement. But what were they ranking? Microsoft notes that “many said they would have rated it higher, but wanted more time to use it themselves.” That sounds good at first blush, but it really indicates that the responses were biased by hyped up enthusiasm rather than facts, and that participants realized it, reserving their final judgement until they could actually see more. The “Mojave Experiment” What does Mojave Prove? Mojave tries to represent that Vista's bad reputation is the fault of ignorant consumers who have heard bad things that aren't true about Vista, and have made up their mind without getting the facts. At the same time however, Microsoft also publicly admits that Vista “broke a lot of things” and that specifically, “Printers didn't work. Games felt sluggish.” Did Mojave clear up mistaken notions for participants, or did it just erect smoke and mirrors in a carefully controlled demonstration that skirted around Vista's real problems, including those Microsoft admits? That's a question that answers itself. Mojave didn't send uses home with Vista in a Mojave package and then ask them how well it worked with their existing peripherals and games, or how fast it was in comparison to their existing PC software. This is Not the Droid You're Running Vista On. Instead, Microsoft sat them down in front of a HP Pavillion DV 2000 with 2GB of RAM. That's what HP called its “entertainment powerhouse” laptop, although HP only shipped it with 1GB RAM. Microsoft maxed out the RAM for the purposes of the test, making the laptop a bit more expensive than its usual street price of around $1050. According to Windows enthusiast Joe Wilcox, PC laptops actually cost $700, “half as much” as Apple's laptops. At least that's the Average Selling Price for consumer retail PC laptops according to NPD's Stephen Baker, compared to Apple's $1500 ASP. Wilcox insisted that his spin on NPD's figures couldn't possibly be biased because he wrote his article on a MacBook Air running Leopard. However, his $2,700 laptop did help drive up Apple's stellar ASP for its laptops well above the entry price for Mac Books, discounting his theory that revolved around the assumption that every Mac buyer pays the average price of all the laptops Apple sells. Wilcox and Microsoft are both disingenuously dancing on both ends of the truth. Many consumers are actually buying cheap laptops at Target that can't run Vista ideally, while Microsoft demonstrates its Vista on a considerably better equipped system in the Mojave Experiment to suggest that Vista doesn't have the performance problems that users have heard about from the majority of their peers who bought cheap PCs and are seeing Vista run particularly sluggishly on them. Should You Pay Twice as Much for a Mac? I Did! You Get What You Pay For. The fact that Apple sells more high end laptops to pro users at retail, and that it does not sell anything in the range of the cheap junk being hawked at big box retailers like Wilcox' Target both result in Mac laptops fetching a higher ASP. That fact also means that Mac buyers will be happier with their purchase and have a more favorable impression of Mac OS X because they're running it on a better system. That's all obvious stuff. However, selling people cheap laptops that don't work well, and then demonstrating a fake “new operating system” that appears to work well when running on a faster machine full of RAM is simply a dishonest bait and switch scam. Wilcox does nearly admit that PC makers are already stretching their credibility as they attempt to sell cheap boxes based on price alone, citing Baker as saying, “We aren't seeing any particularly substantive moves down in price on the Windows side, either in desktops or notebooks.” PCs can't get cheaper because they're already unprofitable and consumers are already disgusted with their performance when running the increased overhead of Vista. Wilcox also sets up a tilted comparison between a Dell PC desktop with integrated graphics and an iMac with dedicated graphics and claims a price advantage for Dell, although noting that, while “Dell offers more for less than the iMac,” “that 'more' also means Windows Vista, which won't satisfy some shoppers.” Why Aren't Shoppers Satisfied with Vista? Like Microsoft, Wilcox and his Windows Enthusiast pundit friends can't seem to decide if Vista has any real problems or if it's all just an unfair taint suggested by Apple's Get a Mac ads. However, while Apple has taken shots at Vista's incompatibility with printers and other hardware and its scarce updates that have been few and far between over the last year and a half of its being on the market, Apple also notes in its Get a Mac ads that Macs can run Vista, and can run it faster than PCs. So Apple isn't inventing and publishing false reports on Vista, it's merely advertising its Mac hardware as superior to PCs. The Vista flaws Apple's ads have referenced are flaws Microsoft itself has admitted to its partners, so the Get a Mac umbrage frequently voiced by Windows Enthusiasts is both hypocritical and ridiculous. However, in the Mojave Experiment, Microsoft downplayed those well-known faults by only carefully demonstrating certain features on a high end machine, and without actually exposing Mojave/Vista users to 'a lot of things Vista broke,' 'printers that didn't work', or 'games that felt sluggish.' It Can't Even Print. In response to complaints that Vista doesn't work well with existing PC hardware, Microsoft's Mojave website says that “the Windows Vista Compatibility Center lists compatibility status for over 9,000 products (5,500 devices and 3,500 software programs).” It even notes 2,000 printers, 200 scanners, and 500 cameras specifically. That sounds good until you realize that Apple ships support for over 3,100 printers in Mac OS X Leopard, a product that is targeted primarily toward education and consumers and which is not expected by users to run on any old hardware that might be in use by PC users. Vista is supposed to run on 95% of the world's PCs, and yet it doesn't even match the printer drivers that ship with Leopard, a number which does not include all of the third party drivers available for the Mac. Oh, but there's more. Not only did Microsoft dance around the truth to feed its Mojave Experiment participants a carefully controlled stream of garbage, but it also inadvertently revealed more serious problems related to Vista, which I'll consider in the following article. Did you like this article? Let me know. Comment here, in the Forum, or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? 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  • Review - Mac OSX 10.5 - Leopard

    Apple's latest OS update is here. It's name is Leopard - but you probably already know that. The latest version of OSX features a number of upgrades and enhancements - the question is, are those updates and enhancements worth your $129. Hmm…let's take a look and see. Installation First things first, you have to install this puppy - so, how complicated is it? It really couldn't be simpler. You insert the install disk, click on the icon, and it goes to town. It restarts the computer, asks you what language you speak, finds your hard drive, and the update begins. On my Macbook Pro the upgrade took about 40 minutes (I skipped the disk check). On my 1st generation Mac Mini the upgrade took between and hour and an hour and a half (I skipped the disk check on this one too). There wasn't much pain involved in either upgrade process. Score: 5 out of 5 Installation of software doesn't get any easier than this. How does it run on a 2.16 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro with 2 Gigs of Ram? Pretty darn good. Everything feels snappy and opens quickly. It doesn't feel significantly faster, but thankfully it doesn't feel any slower. Score: 4 out of 5 How does it run on a 1.25 Ghz Power PC G4 with 512 Mbs of Ram? Now, these stats - while not QUITE the bottom of the barrel for Leopard minimum system requirements - are pretty close to the slowest system you can run it on…and I have to say, it runs pretty well here too. Obviously everything isn't what you would call “snappy”, but Cover Flow works well in the finder, even playing video previews, and applications open just as well as they did in Tiger on the machine. Although, I would still suggest to people that are on machines this old that it might be time to upgrade the hardware before spending the cash on Leopard. Score: 3 out of 5 Key Features The Desktop I have read lots of grumbles about the new Dock…but I don't agree with those grumbles. I like the new Dock. I love the 3D effect, and I even like the little cross walk looking separator. What I don't like, however, is the transparent menu bar, and I really, REALLY, wish I could turn that off and make it solid. The transparency ads nothing to it for me, and is actually a little distracting. I'm sure I'll get used to it - but I don't like it. Score: 3 out of 5 Finder The new Finder isn't perfect, but it's close. I love the iTunes like interface, and I have found Cover Flow to be extremely useful when searching for images. Also networking has been really simplified for Leopard, and I love the fact that my other Macs are just sitting right there in the Finder. The searches are nice, and immediate access to spotlight and Time Machine are great for finding things that you've lost, but there is one thing that REALLY wanted in the Finder that I didn't get…TABS. I hate having multiple Finder windows open, and while I feel this will be minimized by the new look and feel of Finder, I really wish their were tabs that would allow me multiple windows in one space. Score: 4 out of 5 Quick Look Quick Look is a fantastic time saver. It does exactly what it says it does. It allows you a quick look at just about anything you want to see. Being able to play video without having to launch an application is great. So is looking through PDF files. If I need a small piece of information from a document, I don't have to waste time opening it up. This is one of those “little” things that, after you have it, you can't live without it. I expect it to be in every operating system from now on. Scrore: 5 out of 5 Time Machine How the heck did backing up files become fun? I'll be one of the first to admit that Apple isn't being “revolutionary” by adding a back up utility to Leopard. It's been done before and there are dozens of third party applications that will do this as well. What Apple has done, however, is make it fun and super easy. If you have an external drive - even if half of it is full of all your “legal” video content you've been downloading off the web, you can simply select it, and Time Machine will go to work backing up your stuff. You can tell it to skip certain things, so your wife won't find that stuff you're hiding from her, and still never have to worry about losing an important file ever again. The interface is completely over the top, but in a good way. Score: 5 out of 5 iChat/Photobooth I mention Photobooth in the title as well because you can do all of the effects and background trickery that's in iChat 4.0 in Photobooth as well. In fact, I might even start messing around with this and video podcasting. It's fun. Screen sharing, iChat Theater and the new background effects all work really well. I'm not surprised that screen sharing and iChat Theater work as well as they do - but I am surprised that the background effects work. Now, you really do need to be sitting in front of a blank wall or screen, but it's a very cool live effect. Tabbed chat is now here, but I can't find a way to customize the color of the bubbles of people I'm chatting with - and that could be a problem. I don't want to get confused as to who I'm talking to. (If anyone knows a way to do this, leave it in the comments below, and I'll update this). iChat is filled with fun features - but most of it, has been available from other means for a long time. It is nice to see Apple catch up with some of the other 3rd party IM clients out there. Score: 3 out of 5 Spaces I don't like Spaces. They're just not for me. I've tried to get used to them, and use them for organizing my workflow (having all the podcasting related apps in one Space, and internet apps in another Space for example)…but I find them to be more trouble than their worth. I think the concept was executed well, but I just don't have a use for it. Score: 3 out of 5 Stacks As much as I don't care for Spaces, i DO care for Stacks. I find Stacks to be very helpful, and a feature that I'm going to be using constantly. Its another minor enhancement, that is really going to be a time saver. I'm a much bigger fan of the grid layout than the fanning, but both are very helpful. Score: 4 out of 5 I have had some minor problems with Leopard. For example, I cut out several web widgets to make Dashboard useful for me, and they worked great, until I left Dashboard, then returned to it. Now they're just big white squares, and I can't seem to get them to work. No operating system is going to be perfect right out of the gate, but I think Apple has done a great job with Leopard. We'll continue to talk about it here at Apple Gazette extensively over the next several weeks (and really, until 10.6 comes out). So if you're new here, you might want to grab the RSS Feed and stick around. All in all, I'm very happy with Leopard. It's not a revolutionary update. Most of the new features are excellent, though, and I truly think it's worth your $129. Final Leopard Score: 4 out of 5

  • GDC 2010: The secret to App Store success

    Filed under: Gaming, Software, Freeware, Developer, App Store For the last panel of GDC 2010 day two, David Whatley of Critical Thought took the stage to talk about the App Store success he found with his games geoDefense and geoDefense Swarm, and almost dared other iPhone developers to follow his "guaranteed plan" to go from "zero to Time Magazine." He's got quite a background in the trenches of coding and game development, having designed and run online mulitplayer games for over a decade with his "day job" at a company called Simutronics, but he decided to take to the iPhone in his spare time both to learn the platform and see what he could do with it. First things first, he said, to make an iPhone game, you've got to figure out your goals as a business. He talked about the potential on the iPhone in terms of millions of dollars, but of course, since "99.9% of businesses on the App Store make no money," it's much more likely that if something goes wrong during development or something doesn't click right, the money will drop down to just "a few bucks." It's a balance of costs (which he relabeled as "risks") vs. revenue -- it's very easy, he said, to make money on the App Store, but the issue most developers have is that they let costs get away from them by having too big a team or by investing too much development time, and that comes straight out of their bottom line. To save money on his bottom line, Whatley made a big deal out of hiring a PR firm. He hired Triple Point PR to handle his publicity (and namedropped them multiple times; like many similar firms, they send us PR notices here at TUAW), and he says that as a developer, that helped him remove a part of the business he didn't like (press and user interaction) completely from his equation, for what turned out to be only 6% of the revenue (he made a deal with them to get a percentage of the backend based on a few goals he gave). He said to the audience that a PR firm is extremely important in app sales, because of the press cycle. A PR company sent word of his app (especially his second app, since he'd already created somewhat of a reputation with his first app) out to niche outlets like TUAW and Touch Arcade [Excuse us? Niche? -Ed.], and those outlets gained the attention of Apple, which placed his app in the iTunes promotional channels. That led to major sales, of course, and then the mainstream media (his app was featured in Maxim magazine) wrote about apps featured by Apple, which led to even more sales. In short, he said to developers at the conference, PR hands information off to "gamer press," which attracts Apple, which attracts mainstream media, which all goes back to sales numbers. And he wasn't shy about numbers either: he's made $251,000 with geoDefense. That's only part of the revenue -- a certain part went to Apple, $15,000 went to the PR firm, and then he had $2,000 in overhead, which he said was literally a Mac on his Mastercard. Given that he already had the coding skills and business experience necessary to publish a successful app, that's quite a return. So how can developers replicate that? He said that the X-factor is probably the most important part -- while you can follow the rest of his instructions to a T, and "do everything right," your app still needs to have that "X-factor" of being something people want to play and share. He also recommended that developers establish their goals early on and stick to them -- "if you're getting into this to be a millionaire," he said, "you haven't thought it through. If you get into it to learn to be a millionaire, you probably have." Likewise, he joked that he had a foolproof solution to defeating piracy once and for all, and it was... "make a game no one wants." Finally, he showed a picture of himself working on a MacBook from a beach in Bali, and said that he'd been extremely happy with the success he'd found in the App Store -- like a few other developers at the conference, he made it clear that Apple is offering up quite an opportunity to smalltime developers, and that with the right mindset and discipline, there is money to be made.TUAWGDC 2010: The secret to App Store success originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments AppStore - iPhone - Apple - Unofficial Apple Weblog - Game Developers Conference

  • iPad in the family: What it'll take

    Filed under: Hardware When Steve Jobs announced the iPad, I thought it was neat, but I didn't see how it would really fit into my life. What could it do for me that my iPhone or MacBook Pro couldn't? It seemed like that gap Steve Jobs said the iPad filled was targeted at a group of people I didn't belong to. So I asked the TUAW readers if you'd be getting one. Then I began talking to my family about the iPad and discovered some surprising things: the very people I thought would never buy one plan to, and the people I thought would jump at it are holding off. So here's a rundown of four very different people in my family and if/why they will be getting an iPad: Person: My mother. 62. Queen of the Luddites. Computer proficiency: Absolutely none. Will she be getting the iPad? Yep. The 16GB 3G model. Why? My mom has never owned a computer. She doesn't have an internet connection. She couldn't explain to you what Facebook is. And she refers to my iPhone as "that information device." Given all this, I was quite surprised when she said she'll be getting one right away. But then it made perfect sense. My mom hates computers because the icons are so small and the various program UI's are relatively confusing (remember, she's a 62 year old woman who still clings to her VHS tapes). My mom never saw the value in getting a computer and subscribing to a $30 monthly internet service when computers were always hard for her to use (she never really understood the mouse moves the cursor on the screen thing) and the only thing she would really use the computer for would be email. For her the iPad is perfect. It's not small like the iPhone, so she can see everything on the screen without squinting. Because my mom is a light internet user (think email and Skype), the $15 pay-as-you-go 250MB 3G price plan is perfect for her - especially since she can cancel at any time. She doesn't have to sign a $30 a month contract and has no modem to worry about dying on her. But, the real appeal about the iPad is there is no mouse for her to fuddle with or cursor to follow. With the iPad, when she wants to check on her email, she simply touches the screen. My mom has poor sight but the iPad is both large enough and features a simple enough UI that she can touch to email with ease. Best of all, when she isn't checking her email, the iPad will double as a digital picture frame. My mom loves her photos and has recently gotten a digital camera. But with no computer, she's had to take the camera card to Walgreen's to get the pictures printed. Now with the iPad and the camera connection kit she can bypass a computer entirely and view her photos as never before. Person: My brother. 34. Public school teacher. Computer proficiency: Intermediate. Will he be getting the iPad? Not yet. Why? My brother won't be getting an iPad until it offers him something he doesn't already have in his iMac. What would that something be? An iComicbook store. My brother has collected comics since he was a kid - back when they were 75 cents an issue. Today they run about $3.99 each - a price many think is just too high. He's had to cut back on the amount of comics he reads because of their high cover price. But what if he could buy a digital issue for 99 cents each? That would be enough for him to get the iPad. And it just might happen. Jon Fortt over at Fortune wrote an article that made a lot of sense about why he believes comics will come to the iPad. His thesis? Steve Jobs is the largest Disney shareholder. In August Disney bought Marvel Comics. Disney is extremely concerned about turning a young, tech savvy, male audience back to their brands. The marriage of Disney and Marvel might just produce a subsection of the iBookstore in the very near future called the iComicstore. If Marvel signs on, you can bet DC Comics will follow suit. Once this happens, my brother will buy an iPad, as I'm sure legions of comics fans would. Person: Me. 32. Tech blogger and writer. Computer proficiency: Expert. Will I be getting the iPad? Not yet. Why? No, not because they didn't put a front facing camera on it as planned. Really people, do you really want the person you're vid chatting with to be staring up at your nose hair? I think the iPad's pretty cool, but I see it more as a content/leisure device - and right now the content is lacking. Sure, the iBooks app is nice, but I'll have to see if reading a book on an iPad is an enjoyable as reading a paperback or as easy on the eyes as reading on an E-ink reader. There is one thing that would make me buy an iPad right away. It's another subsection of the iBookstore that I envision: the iMagazine store. I've written about this before, but I'll repeat my talking points here: I like magazines, but like my brother, I find the newsstand cover prices are a bit too high when I only want to read one interesting article that's caught my eye. If I could buy that single issue on an iPad for 99 cents, it would be a done deal. Add bookmarking, highlighting, and a built-in dictionary panel like the one in Mac OS X and I would be in heaven. As with comics, the expensive cover price is a result of the costs of printing, shipping, and distribution. If magazine and comic publishers switched to the digital iPad distribution format, they could easily cut the cover prices while still maintaining profits (due to no printing or shipping costs, and cheaper distribution costs through Apple). Magazine publishers may actually be able to make a healthier profit if they introduce pay-per-click dynamic ads in the issues. This would especially benefit digital comic books because many fans go back and read their favorite issues again and again (thus they would be seeing new ads each time). Person: My sister. 30. Occupational Therapist. Computer proficiency: Intermediate. Will she be getting the iPad? What's that? Why? Please, I'm still trying to get her on a Mac or even just an iPod. IMHO, Apple will implement an iMagazine and iComicbook store sooner rather than later and that's when my brother and I will jump on the iPad bandwagon. In the meantime, I'll have to live with the fact that my mom will have the latest and greatest tech gadget on the planet while I curl up with a good book and a copy of Men's Health.TUAWiPad in the family: What it'll take originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments Apple - Steve Jobs - iPhone - IMac - Mac OS X

  • Who Will Buy an iPad?

    The debate is raging. Man, that's a wide bezel! How could they possibly leave out support for Flash? Where's the front-facing video camera? AT&T? Are you serious? Now that the dust has begun to settle on Apple's announcement of the iPad, though, there's another nagging question that only time can answer. Who, exactly, will buy an iPad? Lets face it: Macs fill what is a fairly obvious need. General purpose computing for personal or work reasons–whether web browsing, email, word processing, managing media, buying online–is pervasive, and is a common daily activity for millions and millions of people. The iPhone, first and foremost, is a phone with text messaging, but it is also a portable Internet computer and a gaming device. With the app store, you can make the iPhone and iPod touch what you want them to be. But ultimately, computers and phones have an obvious place in the market. A tablet style computer, not so much, despite Steve Jobs' attempt to paint a picture to the contrary. Apple's 125 Million Customers The likely market for the iPad consists of several distinct groups of consumers. The first and most obvious is Apple's existing customers. Apple consistently ranks at the top of industry customer satisfaction surveys, its customers are passionate and loyal, and its ranks for Macs, iPhones and iPods have been growing. In announcing the iPad, Jobs made it very clear that this is a key market for the device. Apple has 125 million customers who have stored their credit cards with Apple, presumably for iTunes purchases. They know, understand, and are comfortable with one-click publishing via the iTunes Store no matter which device they buy from. Still, if you have a MacBook and an iPhone, do you really need another device, and if yes, does the iPad fit those needs? It is important to remember that despite becoming far more price-competitive in recent years, Apple still plays in the high-end of the markets it addresses. It has no interest in low-cost, low-margin, high-volume products. It prefers higher cost, higher margin products that, while perhaps not scaling like some other companies, are significant businesses nonetheless. That means its 125 million customers either have higher amounts of discretionary income than ordinary consumers, or they simply choose to spend outside their limits for Apple products. The iPad isn't necessarily as much about fulfilling an existing need as it is creating desire. Even in a challenging economy, people want Apple's products, as this week's financial results clearly demonstrate. The iPhone is far from essential. I can get a cheaper smartphone or traditional mobile for far less and fulfill the need. The iPhone resonates so soundly with customers that they buy it even though it also means higher monthly costs for a data plan. If Apple only got 10 percent of existing customers, or 12.5 million people, to buy an iPad in its first year or two, it'd have a success on its hands. Retail Store Visitors Who Aren't Yet Customers Don't underestimate the power of Apple's retail presence to have a major impact on iPad sales. Apple has 283 stores in 10 countries, and welcomed over 50 million visitors to those stores in the last fiscal quarter. Extrapolating a bit, Apple routinely pegs the number of customers in its retail store who are new to Mac at 50 percent. Granted, this includes many iPhone and iPod touch customers who are Windows users, so there is some overlap with the existing customer base identified above. But if you subtract another half, you still have another 12.5 million customers, for a total of 25 million. Because the iPad is less about filling a need and more about creating desire, the retail stores play a key role in customer adoption. Reports from the people who used it in the demo area (alas, I was not one) are very positive. The emotional appeal of the product when people can actually pick it up and use it for 5 or 10 minutes will be huge. Primary Purpose Users One of the smartest things about the iPhone design that has been carried over to the iPad is this: despite each device having a primary function, users can make the device whatever they want it to be. Apple is clearly targeting two key user groups with the iPad. Gamers: The iPhone and iPod touch are very popular game devices, perhaps surprisingly so. The iPad offers similar experiences, but even broader capabilities, primarily due to the screen size. Games were not a big part of Apple's marketing strategy for the iPhone and iPod touch early on, but they know its being used as a game device. How? Simply by looking at the numbers of game downloads from the iTunes Store. In more recent months, Apple has run several game-specific ads for the two devices. Look for this to increase, and to include the iPad. Imagine the ability to use the iPod touch while you are on road, but the iPad when you get home. Among gamers, who doesn't want a more immersive gaming experience? Don't overlook the fact that games played a large part in the demo portion of iPad capabilities. Readers: Apple has dusted off the iBook brand for its e-book reader embedded in the iPad. The Kindle is the clear market leader in this space, and has the weight of Amazon behind it. But ask yourself, which would you rather have: a single-purpose e-book reader with a (admittedly very good) monochrome screen, or a similar sized, full-color device that does the same thing–perhaps with a more elegant user interface–plus a whole lot more: color, video, photos, and other media in the books themselves, as well as browser, email, calendar, games, and the 140,000 other things from the iTunes App Store? And if you could do that for just $10 more (Kindle DX currently listed at $489, lowest-priced iPad at $499)? No brainer. The video game market is huge, with likely many non-Mac customers. The e-reader market is not as big, but is likely growing, and the iPad is likely to really juice the market for e-books. Combined, these two markets represent millions and millions of potential customers. Families The iPad is light and thin, and supports both Wi-Fi and 3G wireless Internet. As Jobs said, its a mobile device. And though he didn't come right out and say it, I expect the iPad to become primarily a room-to-room mobile device. I think most iPad buyers will be existing Apple customers. The parents will carry iPhones, the kids iPod touches, and the family will have a laptop or desktop Mac that tends to stay chained to the home office desk and connected to peripherals. So the iPad becomes the device that everyone in the household can use at home when they want a more immersive media experience than the smaller devices allow. The calendar, contacts and notes apps appear to be designed specifically for families. And though the rumored multi-user and sharing features didn't make it into yesterday's announcement, my bet is that they appear before the devices ship. Newbies Its often hard for us to remember that there is still a huge percentage of the population that doesn't make computing a part of their daily lives. Many of them have cheap desktop PCs that they occasionally use for email and shopping, but that's about it. They don't have game machines, media center PCs, laptops or smartphones. But one of the reasons they don't have these things is how they fit their lifestyles. Yet all these people read books, watch TV and movies, listen to music, and more and more, browse the web. I conduct software usability testing for a living, and I come across people like this every single day. The iPad will likely meet most or all of their computing needs, and become their primary computer. Who Will Buy the iPad? Who Won't? The brilliance of the design of the iPhone and iPod Touch–and a key contributor to their success–is the combination of incredibly simple, well-made hardware that doesn't look like anything but a small rectangular thingamabob. Turn it on, however, and it can do some pretty amazing things. With the SDK and resulting app store, you can turn these devices into anything you want them to be. I know some people who use them almost exclusively as iPods, others as game consoles, others still as business communications tools. The big screen is a great new feature that comes with the iPad. But the hardware is a small part of what the iPad represents, and the software will drive its adoption.

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