Feature: All

There’s not much of an incentive to using single-network chat clients these days. Why restrict yourself to one service or run multiple clients in a cavalcade of memory-hogging when you can use a multi-network client like Pidgin or Trillian? Questions like these, while not necessarily the bane of a given service’s existence (the number people who will use AIM 6 on purpose is a staggering number to us geeks,) are questions that, if answered, could result in a considerable boost in use of that client. Of course, one of the most cost-effective methods of attracting new users is to add eye candy. This is precisely what Yahoo! has chosen to do in a version of Yahoo! Messenger exclusively for Windows Vista. Using Windows Presentation Foundation, they’ve loaded it up with all the fancy effects, from drop shadows to transparency. Though this is only a preview, it serves as a good preview of the interface and that’s what’s important (to me, Mr. Superficial.)

The buddy list is actually somewhat barren; most of the features of the current client haven’t been replicated in the new one. The three buttons on beneath the avatar are, from left to right: add contact, contact detail slider, color changer, and buddy list search. The arrow next to the window controls opens the main menu, which contains every command not in another area of the UI. The status menu is below the user’s name and allows custom statuses to be typed in. Custom statuses will be added to… (Continue...)

Here’s a quickie…

For whatever reason, since upgrading to Leopard, Safari refused to display PDFs. Instead, they would automatically download, cluttering up my Downloads folder with PDF files I only wanted to look at once. I looked everywhere, but couldn’t find a checkbox or control anywhere that dictated whether PDFs should open in Safari or whether they should download to my hard drive. Some people might prefer PDFs to download directly. I didn’t.

Eventually, I got sick enough of PDFs downloading themselves against my will, so I decided to do a little searching.  Not long after, I found the answer. Since I’m a nice guy, I’ll go ahead and share it with you here.

There is a Terminal command that allows you to turn inline PDF displaying on or off. To force all PDFs to download instead of displaying in Safari, type the following into the Terminal and press return:

To enable PDF viewing in Safari, type this instead:

It’s quick and easy to change, but not particularly accessible. A checkbox in Safari Preferences would be a welcome addition. At any rate, my PDF-viewing sanity has been restored.

At this latest Macworld Expo, iPhone firmware 1.1.3 was announced, with features such as “customizable home screen,” “Webclips,” and a new interface for Maps. It was then announced that these enhancements, along with five applications previously only on the iPhone, would be coming to the iPod Touch in $20 “January Software Upgrade.”

Fast-forwarding past all the “it’s sooooooo unfair why Apple why?” aspects of the move, we must direct our attention to the applications themselves. In addition to the applications, the new features of iPhone firmware 1.1.3 (Webclips and Icon Layout on Springboard chiefly among them) were also included in the software upgrade. For iPhone users, the following rundown/review will say only what you already know. I’m providing this information for those of us who don’t have $60 to spend on phone service each month, no matter how functional and sexy and fingerprint covered the phone happens to be.

Mail and Maps

Mail is a light and decent email client, especially for a mobile device. With support for both POP3 and IMAP, Mail has preset configurations for several popular mail services, such as Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, as well as Apple’s own .Mac mail. Mail works with any other service supporting either of the two protocols mentioned above, of course, but settings will have to be obtained and entered manually.

Mail maintains the same folders you’d expect from an email client, like Inbox, Sent, Drafts, etc. Messages can be moved between folders, but new folders cannot be created directly in the… (Continue...)

HDR imaging, the proverbial crown jewel of photography tricks, has been limited to those using Adobe Photoshop for too long. For about three months now I have been researching the best freeware way to create HDR images. For those who do not know what HDR means, it stands for High Dynamic Range, which is a method of photography that attempts to capture more of the light spectrum than a traditional image. Using samples from the high and low end of the light spectrum, HDR is a digital composite of many different images at different exposures. Creating an HDR image is a complicated process, one that usually takes no less than half an hour to churn out one photo, and on top of this, your images can never be appreciated in their 64-bit native color depth because of the computer industry’s failing to upgrade monitor standards. If you are willing to put the time and effort into achieving a beautifully detailed image that HDR spits out, then pay close attention.

What you need

Creating an HDR image does not require highly-sophisticated equipment as one would think. Basically any camera with an adjustable exposure value (EV) setting can be used and will churn out a beautiful image. This is what makes HDR imaging so great; even those of us who can not afford a $600 USD Nikon camera can still create some stunning pictures. Heres the short list of what you need to make an HDR image:

• A tripod
• Any digital camera with… (Continue...)

It’s been almost a month since Leopard made its debut and I’m just now writing up the conclusion to my review. What gives, you ask? I wrote it as several parts over about three weeks. I actually planned a couple more sections, but stuff happens, time marches on, and things have to be prioritized. So it goes.

Mac users waited over two and a half years for Leopard to emerge. I wrote two articles based on the WWDC previews of Leopard (one, two), and in both, my initial response was “meh.” In 2006, Apple showed off a handful of new features, but it was pretty clear that Leopard was incomplete. Some of the new features were pretty cool, like the new iChat and Time Machine, but Apple didn’t really mention a whole lot in reality. Steve Jobs promised “top secret” features would be revealed closer to Leopard’s release.

Macworld Expo came and went back in December, and Apple said nothing about Leopard.

Spring rolled around, and in place of a release, we got a delay, with the promise of a near-final beta unveiled at WWDC 2007.

WWDC 2007 rolled around and rumors abounded. There were talks of ZFS replacing HFS+, a new user interface, built-in virtualization, among others. And then there was Jobs’ mention of “top secret” new features. The rumor mill was turned up to 11 heading into Jobs’ WWDC 2007 keynote.

What we got was a retooled desktop look and a new Finder. So much for mind-blowingly awesome new… (Continue...)

Windows Live never really was considered the best idea Microsoft has ever had. Couple a deluge of similarly named services with the fact that MSN was making money while Windows Live wasn’t, and you’ve got a great recipe for people to say, “wtf lol?” or, alternatively, “f u M$.” As the months have passed, one thing has become clear: Windows Live is a serious effort to compete with Google. Most of the web services went final earlier this year, including Hotmail, Spaces, Search, Maps, and Home. Now, a second wave of products has left beta, this time targeting Microsoft’s biggest asset: desktop software.

It’s Called Windows Live, not Windows Live. Duh!

I’ve been at somewhat of a loss to figure out just what exactly what to call the thing. Apparently, it’s called Windows Live, as though it’s a separate entity from the other Windows Live (the big one, remember? The one that was here first.) The download button at www.windowslive.com even says “Get Windows Live.” So, I’ll be calling this Windows Live. Sometimes I may say Windows Live, and in those few cases, I mean the project as a whole. Clear as mud? Excellent.

Unified Installer

Microsoft wants you to use all of the Live suite apps. They want you to use them so much that they’ve created one installer for all of them. The “unified installer” as it’s been called, is actually a downloader that goes out and gets the actual applications once you’ve picked which ones you want to… (Continue...)

Welcome to Part 7 of Deep Thought’s review of Mac OS X Leopard, the latest kitty to pounce on the world. It has been taking a while, but the Leopard review series should be completed this week. Woot!

In this particular sections, I get to discuss one of the more fun new features in Leopard: iChat 4.0. This is no minor improvement, mind you. So pull up a chair, relax, and get ready learn a little bit about iChat in Leopard.

Of course, no review segment would be complete without the following note on the score. That score you see way down at the bottom of the page only reflects whatever is discussed in this article. When all is said and done, we will assign Leopard a final score. Without further ado, let’s get into the heart of the matter.

(And pardon me for any typos--it’s 1:30 AM as I post this on the site and I’m really tired.)

Chat it up!

iChat made its debut way back in August 2002 as part of Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2). At the time it was a pretty bare-bones IM client. Despite its lacking feature set, however, iChat always had one thing going for it: its user interface. Accentuated by text bubbles in chats, a soundset that didn’t suck, and subtle animations, iChat made instant messaging fun. In time, audio and video chat support was added, along with support for Jabber and a number of other smaller features. This brings us to today… (Continue...)

Come one, come all, to Part 6 of Deep Thought’s Leopard review! There is still a lot to cover in Leopard, but we hope to have our review completed within about a week, if all goes well. In case you’re just joining us, here’s what you’ve missed so far:

• Part 1: The Leopard UI
• Leopard screenshots
• Part 2: Spotlight and the Finder
• Part 3: Stacks
• Part 4: Spaces
• Part 5: iCal

In this section, we will discuss one of Leopard’s marquee features: Time Machine.

Before we start, a quick note about the score: the score at the bottom of the page only reflects the features discussed in this article. When all is said and done, we will give Leopard an overall score.

Insert “Back to the Future” reference here

Time Machine’s entire existence can be owed to one fact: very few people back up their files on a regular basis. Those who do, however, use an assortment of tools. Some use commercial software such as Retrospect. Some use the free basic backup software that came with their external hard drive. Some manually drag files onto a disk. Still others use software like Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!, which create exact copies of your hard drive on an external disk called clones (clones are nice because if anything goes wrong, you can start your computer off a clone of your internal hard drive).

Some of these backup procedures are easy, some are more tedious, but the bottom line is that millions of… (Continue...)

Here we are, two weeks after Leopard Day, and here’s Part 5 of our Leopard review. Today I get to talk about a calendar application. Isn’t that exciting?

You’re snoring.

Okay, so it’s not the sexiest topic out there. An important, useful one, maybe, but it’s not exciting.

iCal is Apple’s calendaring application bundled with Mac OS X. One of my friends switched from Mac OS X to Windows (yes, seriously), but the one thing he misses from the Mac is iCal. Since its release in 2002, iCal has seen little in the way of major changes. Is this still the case with iCal 3.0? Let’s take a quick look at what’s new with iCal in Leopard.

First, here’s the customary note about the score. The score you see at the bottom of this page only reflects what I cover in this article. When we’re done with the Leopard review, we will give Leopard an all-around score. Anyway, let’s do this.

iCal’s user interface has undergone a major update in Leopard (screenshot). Some of the changes are merely cosmetic, others are usability improvements. First of all, iCal now looks prettier! The new Leopard look really suits iCal well. It’s an attractive, streamlined piece of software.

iCal’s sidebar has been reworked, and it now sorts your calendars by category (Calendars, .Mac account calendars, subscribed calendars). Also, you can create your own calendar groups. For example, if you have one calendar for article deadlines and one for event coverage(ahem), you can stick them… (Continue...)

I’m in a good mood today. I have a job interview later this week, the California Golden Bears football team won over the weekend, and I get to write another section of our Leopard review! This is certainly going to end up being the longest article series we’ve written; we’re currently planning for nine or ten sections, so there’s a lot more to cover.

This part covers a feature brand new to Leopard: Spaces.

Here’s the traditional note regarding the score: the score you see at the bottom of this page is for the features discussed in this section only. When all is said and done, we will give Leopard an all-around score.

Anyway, let’s get this party started!

Through space and time

The idea behind Spaces is not new. Spaces is a direct descendant of virtual desktops, which has been a mainstay of UNIX and Linux GUIs (KDE, etc…) for years. If you’re reading this review, I would assume that you at least have an idea of what virtual desktops are, so I won’t describe the concept behind them.

There have been implementations of virtual desktops for Mac OS X before Spaces; in fact, both Pilky and Jay have written about one in particular called Desktop Manager.

I have toyed with Desktop Manager in the past, but I never really got into the idea of virtual desktops. I never saw any way to integrate them into my workflow.

With Spaces, though, I finally decided to give virtual desktops a try.… (Continue...)