Apple User Podcast

Many new Mac users want to take advantage of higher rendering speeds, brighter sharper displays and the more vibrant colours that are a part of the Mac Experience in their photo editing.

Well, Adobe is just beginning to release its Intel version of Photoshop that’ll run nicely on the new Macs and Macbooks, but for the past few months there’s been an unknown Image editing application that could be ideal for anybody who wants to run Photoshop but can’t wait for CS3 (the name of the upcoming release) or can’t justify spending over $500 on Photoshop and its name is GIMPshop

GIMPshop is an evolution of the open source GIMP that I and most Linux users will know well, it’s created by Scott Moschella and he gives a description of what Gimpshop is supposed to be here:

“My original purpose for GIMPshop was to make the Gimp accessible to the many Adobe Photoshop users out there. I hope I’ve done that. And maybe along the way, I can convert a Photoshop pirate into a Gimp user.”

Its free, open source and gives you powerful image editing features on your Intel Mac, why wait?

While at the iPod and iTunes Workshop provided free twice daily in the San Francisco Apple Store, an attendee asked a good question, “Can I catalog my Cd’s without importing the entire CD to iTunes?”

Delicious Library is definitely the solution to cataloging your media collection, be it CD’s, Dvd’s, Books or Computer games.

Our presenter was an expert on iTunes and I learnt some new tricks at the workshop but he didn’t know the answer for this, I pointed out Delicious Library to this software engineer.

Delicious Library is really great software, as with a lot of third party Apple applications, its a niche product. Not everybody will need Delicious Library and yet some will absolutely NEED it.

There are a multitude of ways to add items to Delicious Library’s database on your Mac, using Voice recognition, manually entering information, using a bluetooth scanner (sold by Delicious themselves, but I find the easiest way is to use the iSight camera that Apple integrates into its Macs, up until December 16th 2006, iSights were available as seperate devices through the Apple store but are not available anymore (rumour is that there’ll be new iSight cameras coming soon for Mac Mini and Mac Pro owners)

Once you’ve cataloged your CD’s, you can pack them away in the Basement and take advantage of a lot of great features that are pointed out on the website for Delicious Library http://www.delicious-monster.com
Here’s an excerpt:
“Once your whole library is cataloged, you can find and use your items like never before. Browse, sort, and search through your digital shelves. Sync your cataloged library onto your iPod or print a color catalog and take it with you. Find and purchase new items using Delicious Library’s personalized recommendations. Keep track of the items your friends are borrowing using Delicious Library’s loan management system, which integrates with Apple’s Address Book and iCal.”

The cost of the software is $40 which is incredibly good value in my opinion, I think larger companies like Roxio or Omni might charge $99 for the functionality that this software provides.

So if you’ve a large collection of CD’s or Books, and have rebought a CD because you forgot you owned it or given a Book to a friend and forgotten which friend has it, this software is definately worth trying out, the free trial restricts your collection to about 30 items but gives a great idea of how it works.

Download, Enjoy.

Quite a few defendants of the existing Windows CE based smartphones are stating that you can’t view MS Office documents on the iPhone, but, as any Gmail user knows, Gmail automagically makes ANY office format viewable as html, with our FULL safari browser running on the iPhone, we can open ANY office document and view it as html or drop it into docs.google.com , edit it, share it and send it.
So, full access and readability aswell as editing facilities for Office Documents on the iPhone! You heard it here first!

Some are balking at the $499 price tag of the iPhone, however, shopping for smartphones on Cingular’s site shows this Palm Treo costs $499.

Several Geeks have mistakenly complained that the iPhone is not 3G, I’ll refer you to wikipedia’s article on EDGE which states “EDGE can carry data speeds up to 236.8 kbit/s for 4 timeslots (theoretical maximum is 473.6 kbit/s for 8 timeslots) in packet mode and will therefore meet the International Telecommunications Union’s requirement for a 3G network”
and “Whether EDGE is 2G or 3G depends on implementation”

I’ve been a big fan of EDGE for a year or two and on researching it, see that its implemented extremely well across the globe, the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia all have good implementations of EDGE technology.
Compare this to 3G which has been hampered, read “Worldwide roll-out of 3G networks was delayed in some countries by the enormous costs of additional spectrum licensing fees. In many parts of the world 3G networks do not use the same radio frequencies as 2G, requiring mobile operators to build entirely new networks and license entirely new frequencies; a notable exception is the United States where carriers operate 3G service in the same frequencies as other services. The license fees in some European countries were particularly high, bolstered by initial excitement over 3G’s potential. Other delays were as a result of the expenses related to upgrading equipment for the new systems.”

So for this HUGE expense and logistical nightmare of upgrading bandwidth, is there a big difference in network bandwidth? from the wikipedia article on 3G “It also allows the transmission of 384kbps for mobile systems”

So EDGE is 236kbps vs 3G at 384kbps, EDGE is implemented well in a huge number of countries and 3G is only in an estimated 25 countries.

“Due to the very small incremental cost of including EDGE capability in GSM network deployment, virtually all new GSM infrastructure deployments are also EDGE capable and nearly all new mid- to high-level GSM devices also include EDGE radio technology.”

I think its a very wise decision to put EDGE in the iPhone, 3G won’t function while on your freelance trip to Nairobi, EDGE will, and thats what Apple is all about, functionality.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber referred me to this neat FREE download on the iTunes store, between Podcasts and Free items like Music and TV Shows, iTunes provides more than enough content to keep one entertained.

New York Times has a video showing the keynote and hands on use of the iPhone under their technology section at this link, look out for the guest stars!

Wow, I couldn’t believe Steve Jobs guile to announce the incredible iPhone under the name iPhone which was in the headlines weeks earlier when Cisco released a cheesy voip handset of that name. It turns out, as usual Steve knew just what he was doing, look at this post on engadget and you’ll see this great photo where a sticker with ‘iPhone’ has been hastily applied to Ciscos product.

Apparently, Cisco had failed to use the name iPhone in due time, and using a grace period due to end in December, hastily called any product they could with the iPhone brand, hardly a compelling case when or more likely IF they go to court with el jobso.

“Oh yea, to those PC users out there; I was a Microsoft user since the DOS days (for 20+ years) and I switched to a Mac and never looked back! No more spyware and virus downloads or blue screens of death! Mac OS X is so much better than Microsoft could ever hope to be and Apple’s next Leopard update will make Microsoft’s Vista users enviously wanting to switch. This may be just my opinion, but it is a solid one.” from Amazon

Amazon is now running an Electronics blog, which is nice, I thought it would be like engadget but its quite varied and not pushing new products (also nice), in their current post they’ve a really interesting tip you can try out with that new iPod Santa left you for Christmas/Channukah/Eid al-Adha.
Heres a quote but I recommend you read the a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/A9DJZRJOTUDGV”>whole post, “Manual option includes tests for USB or FireWire ports, click wheel, display, and headphone jack. It also displays hard drive stats, such as its power-on hours and number of starts and stops, and various power supply stats. The auto-test function runs through all of these tests. This trick could prove handy next time your iPod takes a major spill.” and check out the metacafe video.