iTunes Offering Print Magazines

Update: Four years after first posting about the prospect of magazines in iTunes, Condé Naste has announced its magazine lineup for the forthcoming iPad. Check out a video of the future of Wired Magazine.

Originally Posted 08 June 2006

As reported on TUAW, iTunes is now offering downloadable PDFs of magazines. First up is The Fader. It's good to see traditional print media find a new outlet. Links and discussion at TUAW.

Birthday Celebrations

Separated by 380 years, this week marks the birthdays of the original bad boy artist, Caravaggio, who among other things is credited with using an early form of photography in his groundbreaking work into Chiaroscuro, and the venerable Adobe® Photoshop® application, also capable of a little chiaroscuro, turns 20 years young. Lifehacker is celebrating with a list of favorite Photoshop tricks and tips.

Hide Those Files!

Here's a New Year's resolution that could save your identity, political career, or marriage. Recently, I was at an artist's house, fixing her Mac. Like many artists, her computer was a mess of files everywhere. I sat down to make a backup before the repairs, and I noticed she was hovering over me with a nervous look on her face.

"Don't worry," I assured her. "I'll find everything and make sure it's all backed up."

"I know you will," she replied, "But.... Don't look in the folder labeled, "Images from Peru".

This was a good point to stop the operation, and start a little Computing 101: Securing Files from Prying Eyes. The process is dead simple, and this website outlines the process on a Mac quite clearly. Basically, you use Disk Utility to create a Disk Image (you're already familiar with disk images - every time you download an application or update, you're downloading a disk image). Choose a size based on the amount of files you have to hide, and select AES Encryption from the drop down menu. Create a password, save the disk image, and you're ready to go. The new disk will appear in your sidebar - just like a flash drive or DVD. Copy the files over to your new disk, and hit the eject button. Now test to make sure you can open your archive before deleting the originals. Double click the Disk Image. It should ask for your password, and then mount again on your sidebar. I use this method to secure scanned copies of passports, credit cards, and a text file full of passwords. You can even use it to secure those images from Peru.

Pro Photography use of iPhone

UPDATE June 20, 2009:

CreativePro.com put together a great list of iPhone Apps for Photographers. Includes tools for geotagging, exposure settings, and more.



Like you're just starving for another excuse to get a new iPhone, right? So here's an article listing 10 Ways Professional Photographers Can Use the iPhone. Gotta say it would make a good pocket portfolio.

Kodak Rolling out New Products

Kodak's been busy with a few new product rollouts. Shown above, is the 100 Year ink cartridge for their new line of printers.

And check out this new mini printer with a built in camera - The Zink. Is this the return of the instant Polaroid?

Geotagging Images

AKA Geocoding, AKA GPS Photo Tagging, AKA I'm not sure what we're officially calling this yet, is the method of using GPS (global positioning) to Tag images with location specific meta-information. Software for iPhoto and linking to Google Earth here, and more options including Flickr and Aperture here. via TUAW.

UPDATE: Review of GiSTEQ, a device that syncs to your camera's clock and records you location for three weeks. via engadget.

CGI and the Undead

I was watching TV the other night, and I was a little surprised to see Orville Redenbacher back as a pitchman for his brand of popcorn. Surprised of course, because Redenbacher died in 1995. But through the magic of CGI, and stand-in actors, Mr. Redenbacher is making a comeback, and rockin' a new MP3 Player. Watch the commercial here.

Update: USA Today article. CP+B is the Agency.

Photoshop CS3 Beta Available

The Unofficial Apple Weblog is reporting on the availability of Photoshop CS3 Beta. Think Secret says that it could be available as early as this week. via TUAW:

UPDATE: It's here! Download Photoshop CS3 Beta

Aperture vs Lightroom

Article comparing Lightroom and Aperture. Pros, cons, and current feature set. Via TUAW:

UPDATE: A 30 Day Test Trial of Aperture is now available from Apple.

Review of Quark vs. In Design

Interesting article on ars technica entitled, An InDesign user's review of QuarkXpress 7 which puts the two packages to the test, and reviews the pros and cons of each application.

UPDATE: There's an article on PowerPage about Quark's new Interactive Designer.

New Beta of Adobe Lightroom Available

There is a new beta available of Adobe Lightroom. It looks like the Mac version is available for download now, and there's a sign-up page for a Win version.

Mac Mini Media Center Project

Want to replace all your traditional home entertainment gear with a Mac Mini? Check out the Mac Mini Media Center Project which combines software and hardware to create a pretty slick TV experience. Having a big plasma TV helps.

Update: And now the battle brews between AppleTV and the Mini. via digg.

Intel Macs Run Windows Officially

Goodness gracious. Your new Intel based Mac now runs Windows. Officially. With Apple support.
Download the Beta from Apple .
Read all the comments at Engadget, and TUAW has an extensive list of posts on Boot Camp

UPDATE 1: It looks like Parallels, the software used to run Windows on a Mac virtually, might also be use to run OS X on an XP machine, with the help of VMware. TUAW has the story.

UPDATE 2: Apple to start charging for Boot Camp?

Google Earth Available for Mac

Google Earth for the Mac is now available for download.

UPDATE: Version 4 has just been released

The MacBookPro and new iMacs, too

Apple Computer has released new PowerBooks (and renamed them). They are impressive, Heaven help our credit cards. TUAW has the specs, and says they run Windows, too. There's a lot more mac news over at Engadget. And what's this? NHL Hockey on the iPod?

Adobe's New Photography Software: Lightroom

Adobe has released a new beta software package for the mac called Lightroom. From the Adobe site:
"Adobe® Lightroom™ Beta is the efficient new way for professional photographers to import, select, develop, and showcase large volumes of digital images. So you can spend less time sorting and refining photographs, and more time actually shooting them. Its clean, elegant interface literally steps out of the way and lets you quickly view and work with the images you shot today, as well as the thousands of images that you will shoot over the course of your career."
Sign up for the beta.

UPDATE: New version available.

Tips and Tricks with Image Capture

It seems like there's a lot of functionality in Apple's Image Capture Utility located in the applications folder. Read the thread comments over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog to learn a new trick or two.

Must-Have Macintosh Apps

ImageWell is a very cool (and free) Mac program that resizes images to your specifications and posts them to the .mac/ftp site of your choice. Several sites have been listing the "must have" apps for the Mac platform. The programs you have been looking for all your life might be listed here or here. Be sure to read the comments for links to even more goodies.