iLife and iWork ‘08 Preview
August 9th, 2007
I’m not going to say a lot about the new iLife and iWork yet, but it looks really awesome! It’s just another reason for anyone to switch from a PC to a Mac.
They seem to be pusing the new version of iPhoto quite a bit, from what I’ve seen and read, but I wont be using it since I’ll be getting aperture in the next few days. The new GarageBand looks great though, especially multi-take recording. When I can afford a good audio interface for my mac, I’ll have everything I’ll need to start recording demos for the band at church and iMovie adding support for AVCHD is great for a couple of friends who haven’t been able to edit video from their recently purchased camera until now.
Glenn Wolsey (a great blogger from New Zealand) talked about the new versions of iLife and iWork here. I’m sure he’ll write up something before I do about the new products as he’s already got them on order.
I’ve got a 3 hour product breifing/training session with Apple hopefully in the next few weeks, so I’ll rave on about the products after I learn the inside outs of the new versions of the software.
Until then, check out the video tour guide for iWork. It’s a great way of finding out what’s new and if it’s worth upgrading for you!
- james
Merlin Mann: Inbox Zero
July 26th, 2007Productivity hero Merlin Mann from 43 Folders recently gave a talk at Google on managing email. While I’ve heard a similar talk before, this guy really knows his stuff and I’m going to try and implement his suggestions.
If you’re getting more email than I am (which I have trouble coping with sometimes), it’s worth checking out. I’d love feedback on how you manage your email, especially from those who use Mail.app on a mac.
- james
The benefits of good hardware
July 23rd, 2007I recently, after much saving, purchased a 320GB LaCie D2 external drive for my desktop setup at home. Previous to this I had a 250GB drive (Seagate I think) inside a reasonably generic case. The disadvantage to the latter was that it had poor MacOS compatability, where if the Mac went to sleep, I’d have to pull the cable from the drive before it would eject under the operating system. Thankfuly, I don’t have the same issues with my new D2, which even goes into a sudo power saving mode when it hasn’t been used for a few minutes.
I’m not quite sure if using the Firewire 800 port on the D2 has helped any, but I’ve also seen an increase in performance in Final Cut Pro after moving my capture scratch to the new drive. Everything seems to render a little quicker and playback seems a little snappier. However, I still really do need to swap out my 512MB of RAM in my G4 Powerbook for a 1GB stick just to bump up the performance that little bit more. Suprisingly, FCP seems to handle well under the RAM I’ve currently got, but I’m sure it would happily use all the RAM I’ll throw at it.
My advice for this situation? Don’t buy no-name external cases/drives off Ebay like I did. While I’ve put the old drive into use now as a backup drive, I would have been better off buying a good quality drive in the first place. Incidentally, LaCie have released a Quatro interface drive (as opposed to my Triple interface drive) which adds E-Sata - definetly worth checking out.
I’m looking forward to getting a spanking new Black MacBook and 5th gen iPod from Apple in a few weeks after securing a part-time job with them as a Campus Rep around UTS (and Uni of Sydney as well). I’ll be sure to post photos of my new setup when I turn my PowerBook into a sudo desktop setup for video editing, and begin to use my MacBook as my primary machine.
- james
God’s gift to Facebook: 3rd Party Apps
July 17th, 2007With the recent addition of 3rd party apps, Facebook has become the superior site to MySpace among many of my tech-savy friends at Uni and at Apple. While some of them I find a bit of a waste of time, many of them are very useful and are very exciting for me as a user of many Web2.0 applications.
Two of my favourite apps are those that link my Facebook account to my flickr photostream and my account on Last.fm. Both of these services have allowed my friends to find out about my passion for photography and my taste in music - which couldn’t have been done nearly as well on MySpace - or even most other Social Networking sites.
I also like the Digg app, which pulls in the stories I digg throughout the day and the Texas HoldEm Poker application, which is proving as another great tool for procrastination as I go through my mid-year Uni holidays. Unfortunately the Poker app has a few bugs, or perhaps it’s just super popular and it’s causing server problems.
I’ve also heard, on the grapevine with nothing confirmed, that Apple might be doing some integration with Facebook, or another social networking site of similar nature. I’m not sure where they’d intergrate their current products (most probably the iLife suite or the iPod) into a social networking environment, but it would be interesting to see what they come up with.
What’s your favourite 3rd party Facebook app, do you like my favourites or do you have more suggestions?
- james
Live Earth and the iPhone
July 16th, 2007While looking a little over exposed, here’s me with an iPhone (with its all encompassing glow) while I was at Apple’s Australian HQ last week for some training as I take on the role as UTS Campus Rep. Naturally, the first thing I did was go to my very own website and checked out how it looked on Safari! If you look closely you can see a couple of the images I posted in my blog on Hillsong Conference 2007.
Meanwhile, I also attended Live Earth in Sydney for free (thanks again to 2Threads). You can check out my photos as usual on my flickr account or in my gallery. It was awesome seeing Crowded House for the first time live, and John Butler Trio were pretty amazing too.
-james
Hillsong Conference 2007 Photos
July 9th, 2007The photos I took at this years Hillsong Conference are now available in my gallery or my Flickr account. Here’s a couple of my favourite shots from the week. I didn’t take nearly as many shots as last year, but was able to get some really great positions to get some snaps.
- james
Gregorian Chant Rock songs
July 9th, 2007Being a musician and a former chorister my self, I’ve fallen in love with these renditions of popular songs from big bands by a bunch of guys dressed in robes who can sing damn well! (that probably makes me sound a bit weird, but I’m going to live with it).
Anyway, Check this video out - there’s a whole bunch of them on YouTube that you can watch and listen too. The watching part isn’t nearly as exciting as the listening part, though.
It’s good to see they keep to tradtional Gregorian style too - no syncopation or dotted crotchets/quavers.
- james
The lamest promotional video I’ve ever seen
June 30th, 2007Check this lame video for Norton’s 360 security suite:
It’s part of some promotion they’re running at the following web address http://www.shouldwetellhim.com, where you can win a copy of the software or a PlayStation Portable. I’d know which one I’d rather have - and it’s not the software.
- james
Another tool for Procrastination
June 29th, 2007Thanks to my mate and fellow ProgSoc member D.Com for sending me this link:
http://www.addictinggames.com/theimpossiblequiz.html.
If you’ve got a bunch of time to waste (like I have today), or just want to find something to amuse your self with, I recommend this game. Neither D.Com or I can work out the answer to question 41, so if you work it out let us know!
Unfortunately, my productivity for the past 3 days has been minimal.
Have fun!
- james
Pasha Bulker
June 20th, 2007As the Pasha Bulker continues to get a battering from rough seas on Nobby’s (check out the Coastal Watch live webcam), people are still finding humour in the situation, with these two videos posted to YouTube in the past few weeks.
There’s some really great photos of the beached ship on Flickr.
Back home, in Maitland, someones posted a great summary of the damage caused by the severe storms and flooding of the Hunter River.
- james