Wordpress iPhone app

Ξ July 22nd, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, News, Web design |

Announced today, the Wordpress application for the iPhone.
Make web additions from anywhere

Mac OX 10.5 Leopard

Ξ October 17th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, News, Software |

Apple has announced the release of Leopard and will be made available through Big Trousers from around 26 October at $158.
From time to time I will be picking out new features that may be of interest.
The first installment is of interest to us at Big Trousers and may well be useful to you.

Font Auto-Activation

Automatically activate fonts as you need them. When an application requests an installed font that’s currently disabled, Leopard activates that font and keeps it active until the requesting application quits.
Now that will save some time in the design office.

Pixelmator 1.0 released

Ξ September 27th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Digital imaging, Software |

The great Photoshop killer Pixelmator was released on Tuesday this week and it packs a punch.
As a 20mb download for $59 US, you can experience how Photoshop should have been made or how it may look in the future. As the worlds first GPU image processor it applies filters almost instantaneously in an interface that looks like something from the future. It is almost identical in layout to Photoshop with a few interesting surprises.
Listen to us discuss pixelmator at PhotoGeek and download the trial now. Available only for Mac OS X.

Apple notebooks

Ξ September 25th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware |

Amid the almost non-existance of current 15 inch MacBook Pro laptops, a new line of Apple notebooks believed to be nearing release have been spotted in both black and traditional aluminum enclosures, according to a new report.

In order to get a current 15 inch laptop some clients have resorted to travelling to the US. Tam picked up a new MacBook Pro in San Fransisco this week and with the US dollar on the skids saved around $1000.

New iPods… AMAZING

Ξ September 6th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware |

Well I did not see this coming, an all new iPod range with the big surprise, an iPod Touch with iPhone like big touch screen and Wi-Fi for web browsing and iTunes for direct download.
I have ordered a few and I have no idea when they will land.

UPDATE: Looks like it could be a month or two…

MacPro for Phil

Ξ August 31st, 2007 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware, News |

Well I finally took delivery of a shiny new MacPro quad core Xeon.
I have to say it was a decision made for me by the continuing requirements of current software.
When the new iMovie failed to load that was the straw that broke the camels back.
I put if off for long enough but the wait was worth it.
I can stop bugging Petrina for Aperture and Joost and the Mac Pro runs HD video a lot better.

Briagolong iMac

Ξ August 10th, 2007 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware |

Pat B. from the Briagolong school of Fine art just received her new iMac and writes:

We are delighted with the new set up. I was nervous about tackling a new computer being correctly described as a technophobe, but I am able immediatly to do all the things I need to do, no pain at all.

Pat is on Mac OSX for the first time and it is great to hear that all is going well, I expect a Skype call at some point in the future from Briagolong…

New iMacs at last.

Ξ August 8th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware, News |

Well we along with everyone else tipped this but the new brushed aluminium iMac is here. What is cool is just how thin it is, up to 4.0 GIG RAM, Up to 1 TB HD, up to 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme processor, ATI Radeon HD graphics card, and a brand new keyboard.

This photo from Engadget

iPhone Web application

Ξ July 9th, 2007 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Apple, Web design |

We write an experimental web page for the Apple iPhone Safari browser.

Based on some very smart CSS and a javascrift file, this page is designed to make the PhotoGeek podcast look like an iPhone list of menu options. This allows an iPhone to play the complete set of podcasts using the touch screen interface in the same layout as the iPhone applications.
We have had no response yet as we are waiting for someone we know who has an iPhone to use it.
Here it is, but remember the iPhone is Safari only, so the design will render poorly in any non Safari browser.

EOL MacBooks

Ξ July 6th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware |

So the last remaining end of life MacBooks are going out cheap.
Just a few dozen left, be quick.

Still no word on new stocks of the new model MacBook Pro’s.

Safari, at last a proper browser for Windows.

Ξ June 12th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Software, Web design |

Apple today released Safari 3 for both Mac and Windows.
The first thing that struck me was Safaris’ ability to render text properly, at least a hell of a lot better than IE or Firefox.
The big difference however is speed.
Safari is twice as fast as IE and certainly faster than Firefox.
Get Safari 3 now and see what the web is supposed to look like… on a PC.

Al Gore’s Triple head

Ξ May 24th, 2007 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware |

Engadget has posted a short piece on this photo of Al Gore’s triple 30 inch Apple cinema display.
Do we all want a set up like this? Not so messy perhaps?
Last line was a good one. ( thanks for the link-Ajay )

“P.S. -Yeah, fine, we’re creepy gadget stalkers, what of it?”

Elgato Turbo.264 hardware encoder

Ξ May 18th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Hardware, Video |

Just released the Elgato H.264 hardware encoder.

Make Apple TV ready content from Elgato recorded HD Free to Air TV in a flash. No more waiting for video to re-encode as 720p for iTunes playback.

This makes the AppleTV a much more useful device for managing Free To Air TV on your widescreen TV.

Read the article from PhotoGeek.tv

It comes at a time users are coming to terms with the process of automating playback from various sources including HD TV onto TV screens through hardware such as the AppleTV unit.
What this means is that Free to air TV can be recorded, re encoded, then added to iTunes at break-neck speed so that the content will show up on your TV screen as content available for immediate playback.

Good design a must

Ξ May 11th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple |

From an article by Daniel Turner from Technology Review about Apple and the pursuit of great industrial design. The process employed and the reasoning for this as a productive investment for those who use their products. I have to say I have never thought of Apple products in this way but it is interesting to hear from the designers perspective and understand how such a large company uses “one mind” approach to good design. How many of us have to design for a committee structure?

Apple’s designs are now the stuff of legend–and the object of fascination and envy. But is the focus on design worth it? Why spend time and money making a computer look good? Why do we care what it looks like?

“Attractive things work better,” says Don Norman, who was vice president of advanced technology at Apple from 1993 to 1998. “When you wash and wax a car, it drives better, doesn’t it? Or at least feels like it does.”

Norman cites research in cognitive science suggesting that people’s emotions affect the way their minds process information. In his 2004 book Emotional Design, he writes, “Positive emotions are critical to learning, curiosity, and creative thought. … The psychologist Alice Isen and her colleagues have shown that being happy broadens the thought processes and facilitates creative thinking.”

In multiple studies, Isen, a professor of psychology and S. C. Johnson Professor of Marketing at Cornell University, made subjects feel happy through a number of means, including gifts of candy and words or pictures with pleasant associations. The subjects were then asked to perform tasks that measure creativity; over the course of 20 years, Isen and her colleagues regularly found that subjects exhibited much more creativity when they were in a good mood.

RED digital camera and Final Cut Studio 2

Ξ April 16th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Apple, Digital imaging, Software |

Having read about the details regarding Apple Final Cut Studio 2 and looking at some of the video online I have to say it was a surprise that this suite has moved so quickly to embrace new controls and new formats.

The impressive videos including the Cohen brothers talk about “Color” shows the new color matching tools that looks to me to combine well with FCP and Motion to give total freedom in a color sense to any filmmaker.

Most surprising was the format for 4K, REDCODE by new camera manufacturer Red. Described in a piece online, Red provides a digital format for film makers that is definitely not video, much higher res than HD and much more flexible than high end film. The future is in this format and has been adopted as the standard for the future. Even though I have yet to see a “Red” camera working, the tools to edit are now in Final Cut Pro.