Keynote 2 Keynote

I’ve been debating this question for a few days now. While using Windows I used winamp for a while, then ditched it. Eventually, I ended up just playing my music in Windows Media Player. I never set up play lists, I just opened up a handful of songs at a time and went from there. As you may have read before, I’m a little paranoid about handing my data over to a program without knowing what the program is going to do with this data.

I don’t remember any of the specifics of things I’ve heard in the past, but for some reason I have this suspicion that iTunes doesn’t play well with non iTunes store music. And since I’ve never used iTunes, all my music is DRM free, mostly ripped CD’s. My biggest fear is that iTunes would bring down an Iron fist and start trying to control where I can play my music. Although these feelings seem foolish, its hard for me to adopt iTunes with this fear. Tonight I decided to give iTunes a whirl and see if I could debunk my suspicions.

It wasn’t long before realized that I was wrong, which is great, because I really want to use iTunes :) When I import my music into iTunes they retain their original file format and don’t get converted to the DRM laden ACC format. This means that iTunes won’t be able to control what I do with my music!

As I import more of my music and get some time to explore more of iTunes I’ll give my full blown opinion of iTunes.

I’m not one to jump into using new applications, especially when years of data is in question. But, since I made the switch to Macs I might as well jump in head first and explore iPhoto 6.

I always like to do a bit of research before I start using a program. I like to know how its going to handle my data and where I need to go to back it up. My adventure with iPhoto was no different.

In Windows, I used to just store all my pictures in folders. Then when I wanted to view them I’d surf through the folders and ‘view them as a filmstrip’. This worked ok. I tried out a few photo organization apps, but was never pleased with them. It seemed that they always wanted to store my photos in weird hard to find places with goofy organization. So I was a little hesitant to use iPhoto. If OS X had the ‘view pictures as a filmstrip’ built into the finder I probably wouldn’t have given iPhoto a shot.

But, if that was the case, I’d be missing out on a killer photo organization app!

If you’re like me you’ll like to know how iPhoto stores your images. Most if of iPhotos data is stored in the /Users/uid/Pictures/iPhoto Library/ directory. The original unmodified versions of your photos are in the Originals directory. Within the Originals directory photos are organized just how I like them (Year/Album/Photos). If you edit a photo from within iPhoto, its saved in the Modified directory. You will never lose your originals! iPhoto’s data storage met my approval, so I started importing pictures.

By dragging folders full of images into the iPhoto window an Album with that folders name is created for you. iPhoto also figures out the dates the pictures are taken and also organizes them by year. So you have 2 ways to look at your pictures at this point. Look in the Album or in the year.

Once you are finished importing all your pictures there are many things you can do. The biggest feature that most users will use will be editing. iPhoto has some nice editing tricks up its sleve. Rotating, Croping (with aspect ratio constraints), Red Eye Reduction, and Retouching are some of the simpler features available. More advanced editing includes Effects (Black & White, Sepia, Antique, Fade Color, Boost Color, Matte, Vignette, and Edge Blur), and Adjustment of brightness, contrast, saturation, tempeture, tint, and exposure. All of these effects give you a real time preview! There are 2 interfaces for editing pictures. To edit within the iPhoto window click the Edit button in the bottom left. To edit in full screen mode click the button to the right of the key located in the bottom left.

Slideshows are also really simple to setup in iPhoto. Navigate to an Album and select which photo’s you’d like to add to the slideshow. If you’d only like a few select pictures hold down the shift key while selecting pictures. Once you are happy click the Slideshow button near the bottom of the page. This saves your slideshow in the left pane of iPhoto. When you select the slideshow you can set lots of options like Effects, Transitions, and Music. My biggest gripe is that there is no way to view a Slideshow without it being saved. I’d like to be able to click an album, watch a Slideshow of that album and move on. If anyone knows how to do this I’d love to know :)

This covers most of the basic features of iPhoto and most of what I’ll probably be doing with it. However, Apple has some other neat things you can do from within iPhoto. You can get Books, Calendars, and Cards created with your pictures and Apple will mail them to you. You can also order prints of your images as well. iPhoto additionally provides a way to make and subscribe to Photocasts (similar to a podcast except with images). You can also easily upload your photos to iWeb via the ‘Share’ menu at the top of your screen. If you use Picasa or Flickr you’ll need a 3rd party plugin to upload to their servers through iPhoto. The plugins are linked to at the end of this article. Backing up your photos seems easy enough, but I haven’t tried it yet. Under the Share menu is an option to ‘Burn’ which should burn a backup of your images.

All in all, I’m impressed with iPhoto. Due to experiences with other photo organizing programs my expectations weren’t very high. However, iPhoto meets my needs and I’ll continue to use it. With more time I’m sure I’ll find more things that will impress me and I’ll be even more happy that I started using iPhoto :)

Here are a few pages that you might find interesting if you have time for some extra reading.

• About the iPhoto Library Folder
• Upload Your Photos to Flickr
• Upload Your Photos to Picasa
• Apple Official iPhoto Tutorial

I’ve had about 24 hours with my MacBook Pro now. And as I said yesterday, its amazing. I’ve been around quite a few laptops in the past and this blows them all out of the water. My sister has had 1 Dell laptop, and now currently owns a Sony. My father has had 3+ dell laptops, anywhere from desktop replacements to midrange. He is now using a Fujitsu Lifebook. I’ll tell you what, I wouldn’t give up my MBP for any other machine I’ve ever seen.

Out of the box the machine is beautiful, and it doesn’t end there. After going through the short setup process upon the initial boot, I was left to tinker. The MBP connected immediately to my Linksys wrt54g router with no hitches, which allowed me to make my first post on a Mac last night!

With one day under my belt, here are some features that keep blowing my mind. I have by no means explored everything, and I’m sure there will be new discoveries every day! Here’s my list of my favorite things thus far.

Magsafe Power Connector - This was one of the first things I ran across. Instead of a male/female type plug the Magsafe connector uses uses a magnet to keep the power cord plugged in. The beauty of this design is that if you over extend or trip over your power cord your MBP won’t suffer any damage! You gotta love that.

Built in iSight camera - I knew the computer had this, but with Photo Booth preinstalled the camera is a bunch of fun. I’ve read about people taking a picture of themselves everyday for X years and making a video out of it. I might have to give that a try, lol.

Frontrow + IR Remote - With Frontrow you can easily watch your dvd’s and videos, view your pictures, and jam out to music. Think Windows Media Center except a whole lot more elegant. The MacBook Pro is accompanied with a small infrared remote to control Frontrow. Everyone knows its not fun for 3-4 people to crowd around the screen to look at a few pictures. With this combo, just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Dashboard - I had never heard of the dashboard before, but wow is it cool. Being able to see current weather, a calendar, and a calculator at the touch of a button (F12) is really handy. The functionality doesn’t end there. Check out Apple’s download page for more widgets.

Illuminated Keyboard - The MBP has a built in ambient light sensor. This sensor is used to automatically activate a light that allows you to see the keys on your keyboard in the dark! Great for those hunt and peck typers, or for handling those strange keys like: @#$%&.

Expose’ - This feature of OS X is very useful. When you come from Windows XP, land of the ‘fully maximized windows’ you might find OS X to be a bit untidy at first. But as soon as you discover Expose’ its like having a butler working behind the scenes. Expose’ puts the window/application you need at your fingertips. So make a mess and let Expose’ handle the rest.
Expose’ Shortcuts:
F9 Display all open windows in every program.
F10 Display all open windows in the active program.
F11 Shows the desktop. Similar to Windows ‘Show Desktop’ feature.

Two finger right clicking - As a switcher you’ll not only notice that there is not taskbar, but also that there no right mouse button! How do you access context menus? Well, you don’t really need to since most actions can be achieved using key strokes. But, if you must use the menus just put two fingers on the track pad and click. If this is wierd for you, then using the ‘Apple Key’ + click is the same as the two fingered clicking.

Spotlight - I don’t know what to say about this search tool, other than I’ll never use the search feature in Windows again. Seriously, Spotlight is so fast and accurate, its not even funny.

So there it is. These features and applications have made my experience above and beyond what I had expected. I don’t know what the next 24 hours have in store for me, but I know I’m looking forward to it!