Apple in Zoom

Being an artist is a dream of many of us. You have your iMac on the table, but you have no applications for being a graphics guru. You have two options basically. You can invest a lot of money into the full version of Adobe Creative Suite, but honestly – it is a lot of money when you have no business plan how to get them back. Just to have it for your own purposes – it is really very expensive.

Making graphics, taking digital photos is a great hobby, which is very relaxing. And it is great to see results, when you publish your result on the web or to see them to be used somewhere in the real world. Nothing can make you happier than provided feedback about the great job you do. It is a real motivation.

For a serious graphics work you need to cover the following areas:

• Importing, sorting and storing of pictures;
• Pixel Graphics;
• Effect Filters Library;
• Vector Graphics;
• Web Graphics and Publishing;
• Desktop Publishing;
• Web Publishing;
• Other useful tools.

It is a lot of stuff you need, when you plan to take your work seriously. In each of the categories you can find an application, which can be used for free. Sure, you cannot expect, the work will be so comfortable as working purely with the very complex Adobe Creative Suite, but it has a big advantage – the costs.

As a Mac OS X user you can benefit from the common Unix roots of the system. As the system is generally UNIX based, transition of open source applications from Linux is pretty easy. And Linux is a real incubator for open source applications.

The plan is to cover one area each week with applications, which can really help you. Some of them are completely provided for free and some of them are provided as a shareware and the price is pretty competitive. The final decision about the application of your desire is always to be made by you personally as the taste of individual users differs.

Each of the topics will have its own icon as follows:

    Importing, sorting and storing

    Pixel Graphics

    Effects

    Vector Graphics

    Web Graphics

    Desktop Publishing

    Web Publishing

    Tools

Some of the applications are mention on my blog, but I will try to cover them in a deeper overview to allow you to select the correct and suitable solution. The process of selection of the right application is difficult and I always to download the trial versions of the application and selecting the correct one finally. I usually take the one, which has the best user interface and I can work comfortably with. Also, the help provided by the application is very important as you can do many effects, but you need to know how.

So my final recommendation will be fully based on my personal experience and your own exceptation from the application does not have to be necessarily met. The world of graphics and approaches are really very different and necessarily, your own style and approach can be very different from mine.

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All the modern digital photo cameras offer the possibility to shoot the photos into JPEG file format or RAW format. JPEG format is very flexible and offers a direct possibility to be shown on any kind of the computer.

But, the digital camera has to process the image and JPEG is a format, which is compressed and you can loose the details of the picture. Or definitely, the details in the photo are lost. Also, for successful shooting into JPEG, you need to be sure that exposure and white balance are set correctly.

With RAW file format you get what the camera really sees. But you have to make some post-processing in the computer. As the file format is not standardized and each digital camera manufacturer use its own file format, it is not that easy task.

On Mac OS X you can use several applications for post-processing of RAW file format. You can use Adobe Photoshop with the Digital RAW extension or you can use Aperture. Aperture is a great application, but it is pretty expensive. You can really do very complex adjustments in photos and you can repair or correct almost every single aspect of the picture taken.

When you are not a professional photographer, the pressure for your money is extreme. For Mac OS X you can use application Rawker to convert the images from the RAW file format to the format, which the computer can understand better.

Rawker does just one thing – it converts RAW file format. And it does it great. You can make a set up for the processing of photos and you can convert all the photos in one step. You can choose the destination file format to be sure, you do not loose the details of the pictures. So you can choose JPEG or TIFF file format.

You have no many options to change, but for basic converting – it is more than enough. Compared to Digital RAW included in Adobe Photoshop, it is better to user Rawker.

The possibility for very easy batch processing of images is really excellent. You just make a set up on the first picture in the folder and then – you just wait for Rawker to finish its work.

In case you do not have Adobe Photoshop or Aperture – then Rawker is a good alternative. And provided for free.

iPhone will be released on 29th June to the market. It will be a success at least at the beginning as many people are waiting to buy this excellent piece of work from Apple technical stuff. But from a long term point of view? For Apple it will be a crucial thing to break the barrier between early adopters and mass market customers.

iPhone is believed to be a revolution on the market with mobile phones. Not because of its features /as many mobile phones can do better/, but because of its unique user interface and deep integration with the web. iPhone should be a real gadget, the only one you need when you go out or to the office. iPhone can be really a crucial component for the mutual co-operation of Apple and Google. Just watch the new ads for iPhone. Did you notice that it is presented as a gadget able to make a lot of things… and to allow you to “make a phone call”?

iPhone is a very risky product. Several producers of mobile phones tried to introduce something new and a “revolutionary concept”, but the success did not come. The production of such a solution was stopped. People are not looking for a revolutionary solution, they like when the mobile phone is working and everything looks logical to them. And with the new solution, you usually have to break the common logics.

Apple knows the success of its products comes from… deep integration. Apple TV is connected with the computers at home and you do not have to worry about it. Everything is done automatically. iPhone will be the same story. I am sure the new update of Mac OS X will bring the integration of iPhone with your computer. And iTunes will be upgraded to support iPhone the same way as your iPod. I am just a bit curious about sharing the songs from iTunes store between iPod and iPhone.

Definitely Apple will sell a lot of iPhones. But I am not sure the success will be the same as iPod. From the mobile phone I need a lot of more – speed and reliability. And that I can make a phone call very quickly. I believe, there were a lot of marketing studies done to proof the user interface, but there is always a space for a mistake.

By the way, did you know, that you can add this site to your RSS Reader, just by clicking here?

The world of entrepreneurship is changing. The giants of today are not to be the giants of tomorrow. Microsoft underestimated the power of the Internet and it lost its momentum. So, Microsoft is ready to create an alliance with Yahoo. And now, you can read about the answer from Google and Apple.

When a possible co-operation of Microsoft and Yahoo was announced – the answer of Google and Apple was something to be clearly expected. Google is the premium player on the Internet, Apple is the premium player in the consumer goods. Google is not that much interested in Apple computers, but iPhone and iPod are completely different stories.

For Google, Apple iPhone has a lot of potential for expansion of the business. Google offers the services, which are very attractive for users of mobile phones – searching for information. It is the core business of Google and take your own example – what do you do most with your mobile phone? You make phone calls, send SMS and look for information.

Integrating iPhone and customized Google services can be a great business for both sides. It can target a lot of iPhone customers (as it can be really a large community) and mainly – the customers with money to spend. As a poor student will have a trouble to buy iPhone for 499 USD.

As Apple knows how to make money and Google is the owner of the same knowledge, the alliance of these two giants is quite natural. The best way to compete with Microsoft and Yahoo is to have the customers, which are very hard to be targeted by the competitor. And iPhone users will be hardly targeted by Microsoft with their Windows Mobile capable phones for 99,95 USD.

As AppleInsider reports Apple is ready to introduce new iMacs. Not to choose from black or white collection, but to select from one single selection made by Apple – silver iMac.

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iLike is a very interesting service for people who like to listen to music and discovering new songs and connecting with friends. iLike automatically offers you the selection of friends and people you should browse their music taste to expand your musical horizons.

iLike is very similar to AudioScrobbler, but I see much more quicker development and the whole strategy and concept behind iLike is more attractive to me.

iLike is not just a web service, iLike offers a sidebar to iTunes for Mac OS X and Windows and with this sidebar, you can do a lot of things:

• you can make direct changes to your profile;
• you can see your neighbors;
• you can see more information about song and artist you are currently listening to;
• you can listen to the previews of songs you can like /through iTunes/;
• and you can easily download the stuff from young artists for free, which is marked as interesting for you based on your behavior.

The sidebar of iLike needed a lot of improvements. But, the new version of iLike sidebar window was released and … it is really cool. The information part of the window is really very useful and you can see a lot of interesting information.

Go and become a happy iLike user.

It is several weeks, when KeyNote2KeyNote was updated for the last time. Nick, what happens?

Yesterday I posted a blog post about my mum and her expectations from the new version of Mac OS X Leopard. And there was a comment that she cannot be satisfied user, when she would like to have some improvements in the operating system.

My mum is an older lady and she uses her computer as a communication center to stay connected with her friends. Her main applications are:

• Pages – for writing her stories and recipes /as she is really an excellent cooker and she knows how to make the people happier with her food/
• iPhoto – to store all the photos she takes /hundreds of photos of her two dogs and a cat/
• iChat and AdiumX – as all the people in the street use these instant messengers to stay in touch
• Skype – as she loves to speak with friends from other towns
• Mail – to write emails to her two sons to distribute orders which must be done.

Additionally, she connects her mobile phone to the computer to synchronize her contacts and appointments in the mobile phone with the computer. As she likes everything to be in the right order, she must organize her day well.

She loves her iMac. She like Dock for applications. With Microsoft Windows, she had to search for the applications, but with Mac OS X, all the most important applications are always visible. And adding new ones to Dock is very easy.

She also likes the dependencies among different applications. She loves, when she can send easily a photo of her dog directly from iPhoto. Or adding a contact to the Address Books, which is directly visible in AdiumX and her mobile phone.

But as she is satisfied user of Mac OS X, she sees opportunities for improvements. It is nothing special. I am satisfied user of iPod, but I can imagine getting it better.

My mum is a real Mac OS X user. She has Apple iMac for about two years and she is a completely satisfied user. As she is a common user, she is not that much interested in Mac OS X Leopard, she is just looking for several improvements in the operating system. And I am interested what Apple will do for her and her needs.

She would like to have the possibility to adjust the style of the operating system. Right now, she can adjust just the color of highlighting in the operating system and background picture. That is not that much even compared with Microsoft Windows. She would love to have more freedom in customizing her “Aqua” interface.

My mum was always interested in .Mac services offered by Apple. But they are too expensive for the value it offers. She would like to have some kind of the service as the automatic back up utility offered by Apple. That she needs just to check the button and everything gets backed up somewhere – all her documents without any worries about security and setting in the system and she does not want to be worried about the quota offered by the service.

My mum synchronize her mobile phone with iCal and Address Book. Sometimes, she sends new songs and photos to the mobile phone and from the mobile phone to the operating system. She treats her mobile the same way as  a USB Flash Disk. She does not understand why her mobile phone is not attached in Finder window as USB Flash Disk is. Would it be so hard to implement the same behavior for mobile phone? She is not interested in different philosophies behind the two devices; she takes them they are the same.

iChat is a big pain for my mother. She loves to chat with her friends. But she does not understand, why iChat is just for her “Apple based” friends and for the rest of the world, she must turn on AdiumX. The result is that AdiumX is her primary chatting application and iChat is turned off almost constantly. iChat should learn other instant messenger formats as well – at least ICQ, MSN and Yahoo. She would love to stay connected with her friend and to enjoy fully integrated application to the Mac OS X.

So, will my mother be happier with Mac OS X Leopard? She does not want that much.

Mac OS X knows very things and task to solve easily and quickly. When you need to burn a CD quickly, nothing can be quicker than burning the disk directly in Finder using the feature of the operating system. But the abilities of Finder and Mac OS X are limited and burning Audio CD or something more complex can be a pain in Finder.

The issue comes in the moment, when you need something more difficult. You can burn music CDs in iTunes, but it is not comfortable in many situations. And the biggest issue is, when you need the disc, where the data and music are stored at once. Multisession CDs and DVDs are not that easy as well.

But there are several external applications, which will help you to make burning of CDs and DVDs easy.My favorite burning applications for Mac OS X are:

• Burn
• LiquidCD

Both are provided for free and their features are very the same. But sometimes, I like to work with Burn and other day I like LiquidCD.

Generally, Burn offers more features, including burning DVDs, but you need ffmpeg library to be installed on your computer. And it is not that easy to get ffmpeg working, mainly for the beginner.

With Burn, you select of several different target disc formats and with Data format you choose from 5 different versions to make sure, that users of Mac OS X and Windows will be able to play with the data stored on it. Automatically, Burn selects the format, which is compatible with both of them; just for Mac OS X more information is stored to make sure, the features of Mac OS X are fully utilized.

With LiquidCD you can do music CDs with a glance and you will enjoy the full comfort of Mac OS X applications. It is completely just drag´n´drop approach and you have nothing to take worries about.

Just try them and you will see. Do you have any other favorite application for burning?