For the next two weeks or so, Deep Thought will be celebrating the launch of Apple’s Mac OS X Leopard by featuring daily (or near-daily) articles on Leopard. We’re calling it Days of Leopard. To kick things off, I decided to write something fun: pimping out your Tiger install in the Leopard style. It’s partially just for fun, and partially to help you grow accustomed to some of the cosmetic changes present in Leopard. Some of this information is already available on the Internets, but I hope that I bring something new to the table that hasn’t already been mentioned elsewhere. Anyway, let’s jump into it…

Mimic the semi-transparent menubar

Leopard’s menubar is probably the second most controversial change to Leopard, with people wondering whether or not the change was practical or to the detriment of usability. If you want to mimic this effect in Tiger, download and install MenuShade by Nullriver. Technically, MenuShade fakes the transparency effect, but does a good job at getting you used to the Leopard look. MenuShade has a couple of advantages over Leopard; you can manually set the transparency settings and you can also have the menubar go opaque when you mouse over it. This is a good option if you want your Mac to resemble Leopard but don’t want to resort to haxies or skinning.

Deepen that front window shadow

Unsanity’s WindowShadeX is a haxie whose primary function is returning the WindowShade feature to Mac OS X. It also sports a number of other…
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The announcement this morning was as low-key as it was stunning. An innocuous posting on Apple’s Hot News page, signed by “Steve” read:

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users.

And just like that, one of the biggest criticisms against the iPhone disappeared. Just like that, the iPhone (and to a lesser extent, the iPod touch) has gone from being a pretty but ultimately limited gadget to an extremely exciting handheld computing device. Already blogs are brimming with wishlists for applications on the iPhone, and Mac developers everywhere are salivating over the prospect of finally being able to reach a mass-market audience with their apps.

But (and you knew it was coming...) My main worry lies in this paragraph of Steve’s announcement:

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from…
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I published my initial iMovie review yesterday. It was an article I had been working on for a while, and finally got posted. I had based the article off of iMovie 7.0, the version that shipped with the iLife ‘08 retail box. I had held off installing iMovie 7.1 because my home internet connection, well, blows. However, after reading a comment about a couple things I missed/overlooked in my initial review, I realized that I needed to revisit iMovie, this time using version 7.1.

In this article, I look at what has changed between version 7.0 and version 7.1. I listed some of my complaints with iMovie 7.0 and then discuss how iMovie 7.1 rectifies the situation.

iMovie’s limited audio editing tools

In my previous article I complained how iMovie did away with all advanced audio editing, and some not-so-advanced editing. My biggest complaint was that editing the volume of an audio or video track was not nearly flexible enough. I’m glad to say that iMovie 7.1 makes some improvements in this area. iMovie 7.1 now allows you to fade the audio of a clip in and out to whatever extend you please. Also, iMovie 7.1 now includes a much-needed ducking feature. Thank you very much, Apple.

I would still like to see the same level of volume editing capability as iMovie 6 where you can manually tweak the volume at any point, but the new additions are very much welcome.

You can’t select multiple clips

Another issue I had with…
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Seriously.

Today Apple posted one of Steve Jobs’ now-famous open letters (his fourth this year). This one addresses third-party development for the iPhone, and I think this is an answer that most of us wanted to hear:

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have…
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Let’s get this out of the way. iMovie 6 was a classic. It was a mature, full-featured application that allowed typical users to put together polished, well-produced home movies easily. iMovie 6 had its faults, no doubt. For example, it isn’t the fastest application out there. iMovie 6 takes time to render visual effects, titles, and transitions. But by and large, it is a very solid and capable video editing application.

Then along came iLife ‘08.

With iLife ‘08, Apple decided that it was time to put the old iMovie out to pasture. The move caught many people off guard--why would Apple throw away eight years of development and go in a completely different direction? iMovie ‘08 is a completely different beast than iMovie ‘06. The question is, however, does iMovie ‘08 live up to iMovie’s legacy of allowing any consumer to create a slick home movie quickly and easily? Let’s find out.

I finally decided to work on a video project I’ve wanted to do for about a month now: take the video my brother and nephew shot from a trip to New Mexico and make a short iMovie out of it. My experiences with this project are what I am basing this review on.

And yes, I know this review is not the most timely. My apologies.

UPDATE: A quick note: I originally based this review off of iMovie 7.0 and not version 7.1. I held off with the upgrade since my internet connection, well, sucks. It turns out…
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