Mel Martin

Now doing consulting and recently wrote a book on film producer Samuel Bronston who made El Cid and Fall of the Roman Empire. I also did the commentary on Fall of the Roman Empire with Bill Bronston, the son of the late producer. I'm an amateur astronomer, and take lots of high resolution photos of galaxies and nebula from my backyard observatory in Arizona.

Mel Martin's Latest Posts

WeatherBug for iPhone gets new GUI and adds features

by Mel Martin (Feb 10th 2012 6:00PM)

There are many weather apps for the iPhone, but I'm a frequent user of the free WeatherBug app. The free version was recently updated to version 2.0 with a completely new GUI and added features such as automatic updating of weather data at your current location, along with pollen and UV data for ...

Apple stock soars, company worth more than Google, Microsoft combined

by Mel Martin (Feb 9th 2012 12:30PM)

Whoa! As of this writing (noon EST) Apple stock has reached a new high of US$493.85, which is a record share price. It also gives the company a market capitalization of $465 billion, which exceeds the combined totals of Google and Microsoft. Apple passed Microsoft in Market Cap back in May of 2010. ...

Australian pilot sues because he doesn't have an iPad

by Mel Martin (Feb 8th 2012 2:00PM)

Virgin Australia Airlines First Officer David Kloster is suing his employer for almost one million dollars, claiming he hurt his back while lugging around almost 40 pounds of charts and manuals. Documents filed with the Queensland Supreme Court on Kloster's behalf state that the airline "...failed ...

A second look (and listen) to Evi voice recognition for iPhone

by Mel Martin (Feb 7th 2012 5:00PM)

Evi is the sort-of Siri clone. The $0.99 iPhone app is aimed mainly at people who don't have an iPhone 4S and want a Siri-like voice control experience. When I tried Evi some weeks ago it was a complete disaster. In a week of testing I could not connect once because of server issues. The developers ...

Where To? for iPhone updated with more reviews, pictures, and now videos

by Mel Martin (Feb 7th 2012 10:00AM)

One of my favorite navigation apps for the iPhone, Where To?, has been updated to include more pictures, more reviews, and some videos of selected destinations. Reviews and media are sourced from users and Google. The app features 700 categories of destinations, and more than 2,400 brands (e.g. ...

Daily Mac app: Droplr

by Mel Martin (Feb 6th 2012 9:00AM)

Do you want to share files easily and quickly? Then take a look at Droplr, which has been around for some time and recently hit the Mac App Store in an improved version 2. Droplr is free and easy way to share images, documents and other files. You can run it from a web browser or the Mac app which ...

Users report Rosetta problems after Security Update 2012-001

by Mel Martin (Feb 3rd 2012 1:45PM)

Several OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard users are reporting that Power PC-coded apps no longer work after applying Security Update 2012-001. The Apple support boards are full of stories about Rosetta apps crashing when any command is selected from the menu bar. Complaints seem heaviest from those running ...

Avid Studio takes iPad video editing to the next level (Updated)

by Mel Martin (Feb 2nd 2012 1:00PM)

Updated to clarify that Avid Media Composer is cross-platform. Avid Studio on the desktop is a Windows-only product. Take that, Apple! Avid has just released an iPad iMovie competitor called Avid Studio. The US$4.99 app is a scaled-down version of Avid's pro video editing tools. Avid Studio ...

Daily Mac App: Saturn

by Mel Martin (Jan 31st 2012 2:00PM)

I've just spent a pleasant hour exploring Saturn, which is free for a short time in the Mac App Store. The GUI is based on LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) featured on some of the Star Trek shows and films. The app has a massive amount of data, and it's more than 1 GB to download. ...

Koss adds iPhone remote to Porta Pro headphones

by Mel Martin (Jan 30th 2012 5:30PM)

Koss headphones have been around a long time. I remember doing some pro recording with them in the 70s, and I know they go back at least to the early 60s. The company isn't stuck in the past, though, so it has announced a new version of the popular Porta Pro headset. It's called the Porta Pro KTC, ...