Fresh Apple: The Apple Blog (5 сообщений)

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The Apple Blog
The Apple Blog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
http://theappleblog.com
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Apple's New Look
Apple certainly did "Think Different" when they began using the white body iMacs. Soon it transcended across all Apple products and accessories. Is a new trend coming? One away from the white light?

From the launch of the iPhone it became clear that Apple was reinventing their look. All previous artist renderings referred to Apple's classic white approach. But with metal, glass and black accents, it was clear Apple was entering into a new phase and a new look. The new iMac redesign became another indicator for Apple's changing taste. Now rumors are abound concerning metallic MacBooks. Looking back on the most recent changes I think the pattern is becoming more 'clear'. With iPods no longer offered in the classy white casing, soon nothing will be left. Even the rumored Cinema Displays will probably become twins to the new iMac casing.

Can we expect accessories to follow suite? New metallic keyboards may not fully translate the new style, but I think we're beginning to see the picture…the new Apple. Perhaps businesses will find them more suitable? Or consumers will appreciate the finer materials? Either way, soon enough the Mighty Mouse will be the last of its kind. A plastic white figure, in an aluminum world.

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Community Activity: December 17, 2007
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Quick Look Plugins List
Apple’s Quick Look has quickly become a feature I use on a daily basis. It’s integration with Finder (and other apps) is done so well that it’s become second nature to use it.

One thing that’s becoming clear is that Apple’s developers had the end user in mind more than we thought by making Quick Look extremely easy to extend.

Jon MacDonald realized this and has started compiling a solid list of Quick Look plugins.

My favorite plugin by far is qlcolorcode, which gives Quick Look some syntax-highlighting magic.

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Living a Microsoft Office Free Lifestyle
As part of my Leopard switch, I set one goal for myself: run nothing but Intel native applications. That meant finding a clear alternative for Microsoft Office.

Pages

Sticking with the iWork '08 trial, I began my migration quickly and easily. All my Word documents changed peacefully to Pages by default and all opened just fine. The only minor issue I ran into was not having Microsoft’s font book, and therefor several obscure fonts were reset to Times New Roman. If anyone has a quick fix for this, I'd be interested to hear. I imagine I could take the font book from a Mac with Office installed and simply replace my font book with it?

Opening new documents was simple. Using the Blank template I was able to manage around Page's Inspector. However I quickly ran into problems re-saving edited documents. Pages by default saves in the Pages format. So even editing a .Doc requires you save it as Pages. That's a bit frustrating. You can export a file into Word for convenience, especially if you're planning on sharing those documents with others. But it would be much more convenient to be able to choose your format directly from the Save screen. So I began saving my documents in the Pages format and getting rid of the normal Word documents when done editing them. Fortunately for me, I didn't need to export documents as much as I thought I would. But again, it is frustrating after awhile. At least offer a keyboard command to quickly access the export feature so I don't have to rely on my mouse as frequently.

The one real benefit I found with Pages and iWork was how quickly it opened. I imagine since Office is currently not Intel native, it requires more time to open. We'll see how that remedies when Office '08 goes on sale. But it's nice not having to wait for a document to open. So far I've been happy with Pages, until it comes to creating a new flyer, not based on any of their templates. When creating a new layout or design, I can get more done and faster through Photoshop.

Keynote & Numbers

I'm lumping Keynote and Numbers together because as a writer my main focus lies solely on document editing. So for a more precise comparison, I recommend trying them out yourselves.

I think watching Steve Jobs' Keynotes has created a bias for me. Or if you're more familiar with An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore relies on Keynote for his presentation. Feature wise, Keynote offers very similar features as PowerPoint, just in a more clean, streamlined fashion. Since it meshes directly with iPhoto and iTunes, it's a lot simpler to import music, photos, or even videos. One feature I truly love about Keynote is my ability to export it directly to iPod. When giving presentations I find it easier to carry around my iPod and A/V chord instead of a laptop and chords. Much less fuss, and much more streamlined. You may not retain as many features, but for someone that needs something portable, it's a great idea. Over all I feel more satisfied with my Keynote presentations than I have with PowerPoint, so I'm going to stick with it.

Numbers was an interesting one for me. I could open my previous Excel files fine, but if they contained drop down menus, or set fields I began running into issues. Not a spreadsheet fiend, I think I'd prefer Excel only because of its familiarity and the fact it seems a business staple.

Recommendation

One thing I appreciate overall with iWork and Mac is the attention to detail. For example iWork allows you to move a document currently being editing to another folder without any errors. The document will kindly ask whether too start saving there, or save in two locations. Between Pages and Keynote I feel satisfied for most of my current office needs.

For students, something to keep in mind, is universality. Obviously Office is the preferred choice for schools and teachers, so it might be best for you to stick with it. Especially for note taking, I remember enjoying Word's Notebook feature. Not only could I simultaneously record lecture from within Word, I could write clear outlined notes using its Notebook format. It was simple, efficient, and helped a lot.

If price is a factor for you, be sure and check out NeoOffice. It provides a classical approach and is completely free. iWork can be purchased for $79, and it looks like Office '08 will run you up $150 for the Student/Teacher edition or $399 for Office Basic. If you're running low on hard drive space, try testing out Google Docs and Spreadsheets, ZoHo, or Adobe's new Buzzword. There are a variety of ways around office applications, so find what works most efficiently for you. If you have any recommendations or ideas, feel free to comment.

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veni, Vidi, vici
Here’s a simple little app which works a treat if you need to view and/or import video from a firewire DV device onto your Mac without firing-up a fully fledged FinalCut style application…it’s called Vidi.

Vidi has a number of extra facilities, all relating to owners of the Formac Studio range of DV devices, which I have never accessed and can’t comment on, but for sheer ease of use and accessibility it can’t be beat for DV import over firewire.

Connect your video camera or other firewire input and open Vidi, this takes but a second. If all is well, Vidi will recognise your input device and show a preview screen which can be windowed or full screen. This is useful for, of course, previewing your input before or during recording, but I have also used this as a standalone viewer for larger workshop groups when sharing clips straight off a video camera which can be handy.

When ready to record, select a place to save the file to and click Record. You’re off. When you’ve finished click the big red button to stop recording.

That really is all there is to Vidi, but if you need to capture dv footage simply and quickly this is enough.

Vidi is a Universal application, but for me it works well on both an iBook G4 and MacBook Pro, both still on Tiger.

Vidi puts a Vidi Server resource in your Log-In items, for those of you who like to keep an eye on such things, but the documentation assures this takes up almost no system resources when not running. I have no reason to doubt this. You will need to quit or remove this before Trashing Vidi if you ever need to. Vidi comes with a little AppleScript to Quit Vidi Server, should you need to, as well as excellent documentation for any application let alone a free one.

Oh yes, Vidi is freeware. Happy Christmas.

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