Our faithful reader and tipster Nik Fletcher just passed a link our way to a new web seminar Apple has made available called Aperture for iPhoto Users. I haven't had a chance to watch it yet (I wanted to share it with y'all before diving in myself), but details on the site reveal exactly what you would expect: the seminar explores the advantages of stepping up to Aperture from iPhoto, as well as how to migrate your library (spoiler: it's really just a one-click process - I recently did it myself as I'm testing out the Aperture demo) and even how to use both applications for your photography workflow (something I'm particularly interested in). Apple also includes links to other Aperture resources such as the O'Reilly-dedicated Aperture site with links, blog posts and tips of their own, as well as another Apple seminar that covers the world of Aperture extensions.
If you ask me, this seminar was far too long in coming, but it looks like it could be a great start on answering all those 'why should I move to Aperture?' questions for anyone interested in stepping into the world of professional digital photography management.
People like getting free stuff. People love getting lots of free stuff. Feel the love yourself by checking out MacApper's "Switcher's Giveaway." They're looking for the best story about switching from a PC to a Mac. You're free to type up the details as text if you like, but iMovies, DVD's and slideshows will be considered as well. So what are the prizes? Check out this lineup:
That's $650US worth of goodies. You have until 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, April 30 to submit your true switcher story (Or made up one. Really, how are they going to know?) Good luck!
Here comes the community at Mac OS X Hints with yet another cool trick which, in this case, should help us waste just a little more time in iTunes 7.1.1. I specify that latest version because this hint concerns Cover Flow's new found ability to run in full-screen mode: as it turns out, you can command-tab between a full-screen video and Cover Flow. This is enabled by the apparent fact that that cmd-tab doesn't toggle Mac OS X's app switcher when in iTunes is full-screened; you have to hit Escape to get out of this environment for cmd-tab to get back to its normal duties. This is a slick, very eye candy feature that, in a way, I am surprised Apple didn't do at least a little bragging about with the latest iTunes update.
The word that there might be as many as 9000 switchers a day got us thinking: maybe all those switchers could use some tips on how to save a few bucks while hopping the fence to white, black and aluminum pastures. Sure, Apple typically doesn't offer much in the way of excitement when it comes to zany blow-out sales on their products, but who says you have to buy your Apple stuff from Apple? There are plenty of resellers who offer some great deals to lure customers away from Apple's shiny stores, and discount watching sites can help you jump on time-sensitive sales. If you take our tips to heart, we guarantee both you and your credit card will sleep better at night with your next (or first) Mac purchase.
As a lifelong Mac user, I haven't had the pleasure of "switching" (something which seems to happen quite often). Sometimes it goes poorly, I'm sure, and the would-be Mac user goes back to a Windows world. Other times, it goes well...very well.
Blogger The Northlondonhippie is celebrating his second year as a Mac user with a heartfelt post about his beloved iMac:
"Sometimes, even when it's sleeping, I just glance over at it, sitting quietly in the corner, on my desk and I can't believe how good it looks."
Umm...yeah. it's OK to love your Mac, Northlondonhippie, just don't love your Mac. You see what we mean? Thanks, Sean!
The way that applications, windows and our OS behave is a subject of much debate. Toss some life-long switchers into the mix and boy-howdy, you got yourself the nerd version of a bar fight. One of these much debated behaviors between Mac OS X and Windows is how to handle switching between applications and their windows. Mac OS X focuses on applications - when you press cmd + tab, you can switch between all of your open applications, but you have to press cmd + ` in each app to cycle between the windows specific to said app. The Windows switcher, on the other hand, doesn't see applications, only windows. Pressing the switching keystroke equivalent of alt + tab offers a selection of all open windows, including the 20 Word documents and 5 IE sessions you have running.
For the sake of this post, I'm not necessarily saying one is better than the other, and the subject of why this difference exists is a usability discussion best left for another day. I simply wanted to lay some context for Witch, a Windows-like application switcher from Peter Maurer (of Butler and the original Textpander/TextExpander fame) that fuses window-centric switching with some of the nice perks of Mac OS X. Not only can you switch between windows, just like on, uh, Windows, but you can also do things like bringing all minimized windows to the front or even close those minimized windows without having to bring them to the front.
Witch, like many of Peter's apps, is donationware. However, if you get attached to it and don't want it to go the way of TextExpander (or if you simply want to give a developer his much-due credit), I highly recommend you donate for Peter's fine work.
Coming to the rescue once again, digg's users have highlighted a fairly prominent Windows coder's testimony of a switch to Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux.
Pete Wright, a (former) Windows developer who made Microsoft's 'influencer' lists by working for such clients as American Express and Enron, has said goodbye to Redmond. "Today, I've resigned to leave that world behind forever, and I couldn't be happier," Pete exclaimed in a fairly lengthy blog post back in September. Pete cites Microsoft's inability to innovate and Vista's aura of 'Service Pack 3-ness', as well as "buggy, overpriced and stress inducing" software for the switch (amongst other things), but I have a sneaking suspicion his new work environment of t-shirts, sandals and nerf guns had *some* influence.
Still, chalk this up as anotherprominent switch to Mac OS X by a developer fairly high on the Windows totem pole. One can only guess as to how desirable Mac OS X Leopard will be, once Mr. J and company lay all their cards on the table at Macworld 9 days from now.
Leo Laporte, podcaster extraordinare and the web's general tech-guru-on-steroids, has blogged that the Soundbooth beta Adobe announced today just might let him jump ship to the Mac entirely. Since the first days of his podcasting adventures, Leo's been using Adobe's Audition for all his podcast recording and editing, but it's Windows only. While Soundbooth isn't entirely a Mac counterpart (Leo's initial impressions are that it's an "Audition Elements"), his "So Long Suckah" post title sounds like he's optimistic.
Still, I agree with Leo and I'm a little disappointed in the offering. Soundbooth's biggest ding right now is that it only does single track recording and editing. For Adobe's girth as a company, I'm a bit surprised this feature is missing. Here's hoping the term 'beta' is applied for every ounce it's worth right now.
Either way, it's nice to hear Leo might be able to make the jump entirely. One less workflow intrusion is a good thing.
The web has been on fire the past few days with news of a presentation given at the BlackHat computer security conference featuring the compromising a MacBook Pro by executing very low-level code on the drivers of a wireless card. Whether or not the exploit presented actually counts as hacking of a Macintosh (they used a third party wireless card) is not at issue in this post. What I think is more important is the fact that these guys chose to demonstrate the vulnerability on a Mac, instead of a Windows or Linux machine, which are also vulnerable to the exploit. The presenters cited the "Mac userbase aura of smugness on security" as their reason for choosing a Mac as their guinea pig.
Some readers might attribute this negative attitude toward Mac users as one held only by uninformed Windows users and malicious hackers, but that is far from the case. Many very intelligent and highly respected members of the tech community feel the same way. Some of them even used to love Macs.
Before pointing any fingers and making any accusations about who lost their mind when, I think we need to take a step back and examine our behavior.
Andrew
Kantor has posted a pretty darn funny piece of
satire at USA Today based on the idea that Boot Camp is actually going to cause Mac users to switch over to Windows
(ok, maybe it isn't 'satire.' Maybe it's 'saying anything he can for page views'). I have to hand it to Andrew - if this
article wasn't obviously a clever piece of humor, he would instead have what could quite possibly be an educated,
insightful and altogether accurate argument for why Mac OS X users should simply replace their cumbersome, overpriced
and useless Macs with a Windows PC from, say, Gateway.
Andrew, I gotta tip my hat - you really know how to
hit the nail on the head. Once I used Windows on my friend's MacBook Pro "long enough to be
deprogrammed," I'm already on the hunt for the nearest garbage can to dump the PowerBook I (begrudgingly) am
typing this on right now. Anyone have the sales phone number for eMachines?
I thought the best advice came from Wesley D. Radcliffe, a contestant who said, "...Let them play.
Sit your powerbook in your lap and use expose. Wait for them to ask how you're printing files, playing music,
and using the internet at the same time, with not one cable touching it..." I recently had an opportunity to
show off iMovie a bit, and after about 10 minutes I had sold a Mac to a long-time PC user. Another friend of mine
(think of the most die-hard PC user you know) actually said the words "Macs are cool" after playing
with a G5 iMac. The lesson: Never underestimate the power of the demo.
I don't know how long
this secret affair has been going on, but apparently MacOSXHints caught a calendar event from
Entourage sneaking over to iCal! Mmhm, that's right. Allegedly, it's possible to drag and drop *gasp!* a calendar event
from Entourage right onto the iCal window.
While it sounds like the event will retain all of its information,
I'm not sure if that includes an alarm, if set. The event will also default to being an hour long once dropped onto
iCal, so depending on your workflow and your typical schedule, this might or might not be handy.
I found another one of those 'switcher
blogs' and I thought it might make an interesting read for both Mac newbies and power users. I honestly can't find any
information on the author, but My Journey to Macintosh provides up some
interesting switcher experiences, such as loading up Firefox just because that's what the author used on Windows, then
discovering that other browsers like Camino offer a far more Mac OS X-like experience, in part because Camino isn't
butt-ugly and it uses the Keychain.
One thing I like about this blog is that the author seems to be a power
user, of sorts; while some posts are about discovering the wonders of working with PDFs on a Mac without the
need for Adobe's (fat, bloated, clunky, slow and horrible) Reader, another post laments some hangups in getting
PHP and MySQL working. In other words: there's something for everyone!
There isn't a virtual library of
posts yet, but I thought it might be an interesting switcher blog to watch because of both the variety of topics the
author has touched on so far, and an About section that reads: "Microsoft Windows user since Windows 3.0 moves to
a Mac and Mac OS/X Tiger. Watch the process, good and bad :)." See? Fair and balanced, too. Enjoy.
We've all tried to
fill this role at some point in our lives. Sometimes we get the job done, and other times, well...Dell is still in
business, aren't they?
BeLight Software wants to celebrate Apple's upcoming anniversary by bringing a few more sheep into the fold. Describe to them
whatever successful technique you've used in the past, and the top three suggestions will win a 12 month subscription
to either Macaddict or Macworld magazine.
Now, we all know how annoying an evangelist on a mission of
conversion can be, so don't pound those poor Windows users over the head. You get more flies with honey.
Someone. Please. Help Dvorak find his meds. He's lost them again, resulting in yet another shock-value crackpot
theory article that I chose not to link to on general principle. This time around, Dvorak has once again put inaccurate
facts on the table and drudged up baseless speculation that Apple could - and already is - dropping Mac OS X to simply
run Windows on their Macs.
No, that wasn't a typo. Dvorak thinks Apple is going to trash Mac OS X for
Windows in what could be "the most phenomenal turnabout in the history of desktop computing,"
whatever that's supposed to mean (search for the article at PC Magazine, if you
really want to read it). Most of his 'evidence' is based on claims that no one's switching over to the Mac, despite all
of Apple's buzz over the last couple years and the (disputed) "iPod halo effect." Apparently, John didn't
notice that Apple doubled its U.S. market
share last year to 6.6%. While that isn't a monumental number, the fact that it doubled in barely a year is a
significant factor I think John simply missed in what I'm sure was highly methodical research. Let's also not forget
that Dell more or less asked Apple if they could sell OS
X on their computers - what better way to cut down on customer service expenses?
The rest of his argument
cites Apple dropping FireWire in the iPod, Apple's switch to Intel and the fact that large vendors like Adobe weren't
ready when the new Intel machines landed. It seems that through his impeccable research, Dvorak also missed previous
discussion about FireWire and its high-bandwidth, largely pro purpose, as well as the iPod's mass-market target. Let's
also not forget that Adobe can't simply flip a switch and make
CS hop over to the Intel side of the Mac CPU fence.
Poking holes in Dvorak's ideas aside, I'm starting to
wonder if his articles are becoming not much more than thickly-veiled calls for help. Clearly, he's beginning to lose
it, and I wonder if he's just having a hard time asking for the help he so clearly needs. Who's up for a "save
John C. Dvorak" fund-raiser?
[thanks David Anasco. Image courtesy of John C. Dvorak's Wikipedia entry]
People like getting free stuff. People love getting lots of free stuff. Feel the love yourself by checking out MacApper's "Switcher's Giveaway." They're looking for the best story about switching from a PC to a Mac. You're free to type up the details as text if you like, but iMovies, DVD's and slideshows will be considered as well. So what are the prizes? Check out this lineup:
The word that there might be as many as 9000 switchers a day got us thinking: maybe all those switchers could use some tips on how to save a few bucks while hopping the fence to white, black and aluminum pastures. Sure, Apple typically doesn't offer much in the way of excitement when it comes to zany blow-out sales on their products, but who says you have to buy your Apple stuff from Apple? There are plenty of resellers who offer some great deals to lure customers away from Apple's shiny stores, and discount watching sites can help you jump on time-sensitive sales. If you take our tips to heart, we guarantee both you and your credit card will sleep better at night with your next (or first) Mac purchase.
As a lifelong Mac user, I haven't had the pleasure of "switching" (something which seems to happen quite often). Sometimes it goes poorly, I'm sure, and the would-be Mac user goes back to a Windows world. Other times, it goes well...very well.
Coming to the rescue once again, digg's users have highlighted a fairly prominent Windows coder's testimony of a switch to Mac OS X and Ubuntu Linux.
Leo Laporte, podcaster extraordinare and the web's general tech-guru-on-steroids, has blogged that the Soundbooth beta Adobe announced today just might let him jump ship to the Mac entirely. Since the first days of his podcasting adventures, Leo's been using Adobe's Audition for all his podcast recording and editing, but it's Windows only. While Soundbooth isn't entirely a Mac counterpart (Leo's initial impressions are that it's an "Audition Elements"), his "So Long Suckah" post title sounds like he's optimistic.
Andrew
Kantor has posted a pretty darn funny piece of
satire at USA Today based on the idea that Boot Camp is actually going to cause Mac users to switch over to Windows
(ok, maybe it isn't 'satire.' Maybe it's 'saying anything he can for page views'). I have to hand it to Andrew - if this
article wasn't obviously a clever piece of humor, he would instead have what could quite possibly be an educated,
insightful and altogether accurate argument for why Mac OS X users should simply replace their cumbersome, overpriced
and useless Macs with a Windows PC from, say, Gateway.
As you may
remember, BeLight software recently posed the question
to the Mac faithful: How would you
convince a PC user to switch? They held a contest to find the best answer, and today they've revealed the winners.
I don't know how long
this secret affair has been going on, but apparently MacOSXHints caught a calendar event from
Entourage sneaking over to iCal! Mmhm, that's right. Allegedly, it's possible to drag and drop *gasp!* a calendar event
from Entourage right onto the iCal window.
We've all tried to
fill this role at some point in our lives. Sometimes we get the job done, and other times, well...Dell is still in
business, aren't they? 
Someone. Please. Help Dvorak find his meds. He's lost them again, resulting in yet another shock-value crackpot
theory article that I chose not to link to on general principle. This time around, Dvorak has once again put inaccurate
facts on the table and drudged up baseless speculation that Apple could - and already is - dropping Mac OS X to simply
run Windows on their Macs.
