Mac OSX has a built in facility to zip your files on the fly and open them on double-clicking. But the only disadvantage with that is the fact that zipped files created this way add hidden files alongside, eg:
If you’re sending zipped files to someone on a windows machine these hidden files are of no use to them and worst of all these underscore prefixed files are visible to all and confuse users. In short, there are better ways to send zipped files from your mac. Two applications on mac that do this job really well are:
Continue reading ‘BetterZip your files’
UPDATE: Google chrome is now available for download. The Speed and functionality on the beta software is noteworthy. Still working out the beta browser before I write more. It looks promising.
Canon EOS 50D
2 items hot off the press — well actually one of these is no longer hot as I let this sit in my draft way too long. Canon has indeed released its EOS 50D last month. and is already making some news. This would be one fantastic upgrade… for previous Canon DSLR users. There is a huge jump in the image resolution to 15.1 megapixels and a maximum burst for 90JPGs, ISO expandable to 12800, Face detection technology! I was a bit surprise to see that the 50D didn’t come with a 1:1 CMOS conversion. Would have been nice but good still.
Continue reading ‘Google Chrome and Canon EOS 50D’
Here is a little break from all the Hobart talk…
Nearly two years ago, on vacation on the beautiful Island of Corsica, I started to write an iPhoto plugin that was able to automate all manual steps needed to attach a picture to a Gmail message. A few weeks later I gave it to my friends. From their needs and ideas grew Mailplane: A full fledged mail client for Google Mail and Mac OS X.
How about that! Born in France, inspired by a vacation in Corsica. Being struck by an idea that really works when you are on holidays is something to remember. I kinda know the feeling as i get a lot of design inspirations when travelling. Its also because the mind is set aside from the daily drivel. So, what really is MailPlane? Read on.
Continue reading ‘MailPlane 2 for Gmail users’
MacLoc is a brilliant little app that does a simple thing in style — it locks your screen. And yes there are a 101 ways of doing this without getting yet another app on your macintosh free or otherwise(e.g.: Butler, DeskShade, Keychain, Scripts…) but I like the look of the icon — clean and crisp and happy to click lock my screen with MacLoc when I walk out for a coffee or a much needed break.
Continue reading ‘MacLoc your Mac’
I have been an Adobe Lightroom fan since the early days and having dabbled in it a bit I could tell the power this piece of software had over others in the market — Capture One, iPhoto, iView MediaPro and so on. Still remember buying the first version before I headed to Perth for a holiday last year and then came version 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 and 1.4 all with progressive changes until beta 2 landed on the threshold with some very promising additions. Since using beta 2 of the program I have found it IMPOSSIBLE to go back to Lighroom version 1.x so I literally stuck with it right until yesterday when Lightroom version 2 was released! I was quick to buy the upgrade after a quick look at Matt and Scott’s review and my own experience of working through Lightroom beta 2.
Continue reading ‘Adobe Lightroom 2.0′
Have you heard of PicLens? if not, this will really make your day! Its a simple way to enjoy your digital media that is images and videos right on your desktop in such a way that you’re not tied down to viewing it within the scope of the browser window. Its clickless browsing, with interactive previews at your finger tips. And most of all its a great way to view media on a big screen… and oh so suave 
Not convinced? Watch the Demo here.
Download Piclens from Cooliris and give it a whirl. You won’t be disappointed.
Continue reading ‘Get Piclens - full screen 3D’
Its Firefox party time again. Can a browser really make the Web better? Try Firefox and see for yourself. Learn more. If you want to get a quick update on whats new in Firefox 3.
- Download your copy and install in case you haven’t.
- Once installed, follow these instructions from Mikelao Photography to set your colour management to True(in case it is Flase)
- Colour management plug in can be downloaded from Sean Hayes website
- Once you have done the above steps confirm its all good by visiting the International Color Consortium.
Firefox away!
Update: If you wish to run both Firefox 2 and 3 simultaneously from your Mac or windows. And in case you want to enable kerning here is hope. If you’re unsure what Kerning is, read up at Wikipedia.
For those that Firefox on a daily basis you already know that Firefox 3 beta has been out for a while. And if you haven’t you can always download it from here. But very specially for those that use Gmail a lot and are sick and tired of the look and feel Gmail offers, there is a nifty little extension that re-skins the horrid gmail interface. You can download it here. Its called Better Gmail 2 by Gina Trapani. It has useful extra features and skins to Gmail, hierarchical labels, macros, signatures, file attachment icons. If you are a regular Gmail user, this is for you.
Continue reading ‘Beautify your Gmail interface’
If you shoot, catalogue and process photos and wish to jump on Adobe’s Lightroom 2.0 bandwagon and need an invite — all you have to do is leave a comment here for me and I’ll send you one. Do check out the Adobe Lightroom 2.0 Forum here. I have been using Lightroom since its beta stages and Lightroom 2.0 beta over a month now. Obviously no software is perfect and does all you need in one go but Lightroom comes pretty close to what most professional and amateur photographers need and that is from my own everyday experience. Try it!
Continue reading ‘Invite to Lightroom 2.0 Beta’
I do have a copy of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks on my mac which gets used every now and then but I’d still like to use a lightweight vector app that does quick easy draws on demand. To that end 2 worthy vector apps stand out: Lineform from Freeverse or DrawIT by Pieter Omvlee.
Continue reading ‘DrawIT or Lineform’
I like to deal with my mail as it arrives and depending on priority and response deal with the reply or stow away for later or just simple trash it.
In other words I’m more or less diligent with keeping my Inbox clean and tidy and therefore one would hope simple and lightweight. It give me sense of achievement and quite literally peace of mind when my Inbox has less than 5 mails. But overtime every mailbox grows and therefore gets sluggish. Well, if you’re on Mac (Tiger or Leopard) there is a free nifty little program that does an amazing little trick of optimising your mail. Its called SpeedMail. It compresses the Mail SQL database and restores Apple Mail to new life and did I say its free!
Download Speedmail here and give it a try.
Over the last few months I’ve come across articles claming Camino (a browser on the mac) to be the bees knees of speedy browsing on the mac. Sure enough its brisk baby as Om Malik puts it Not many come close to the speed performance of Mozilla’s Gecko 1.8.1 rendering engine, but I still wouldn’t use Camino as my default browser for my everyday use. One major annoyance being rendering colour profiles.
Most sites have some form of graphic image, design, pattern or even a gradient. In fact its hard to find a site doesn’t use a photo or colour of any form. What was your last visited site that had no photos or colour? Hard to spot one isn’t it? When browsers donot render colour appropriately it means that the photos you see or the colours you view are less life-like. They are in most cases a flatter, less charming less punchy version of the real thing. Technically they are less saturated, less contrasty and the blacks do not converge at #000. They appear washed out. See the image below. The same picture viewed in 2 browsers (left is Camino, on the right is safari)
Continue reading ‘Camino colour space’
I was sent a Mircosoft Word document with 12 pages of information to go out on a website. Normally I don’t print unless I really really need to but I did this time.
The file printed almost successfully, in 13 pages all up and at the bottom of the 13th page, the page counter in the footer of the document read:
Page 13 of 12
Gotta love Microsoft! Life on Earth would perish otherwise.
The mind boggles…
I have had a registered version of Disco app for a while now almost since Disco app beta was available for download. A brilliant little app indeed and with just US $14.95 you just cant go wrong. Give it a whirl and if you head on over to Glenn Wolsey’s quick enough you might even get a discount coupon!! Or head on over to read about the interview with Austin Sarner, Developer Of Disco.
Continue reading ‘Disco version1 released’
Very shamelessly, yet again… I gave in to my minty lusty last night. Yes, yet again. Mint version 2 works a charm and is a lot faster than its predecessor. Smooth ola-la rounded corners, row hovers, diagonal hatch separators, and overall a lot more readable interface than before. Here is a quick run down of whats new in Mint 2. Well done Shaun.
Continue reading ‘Gave in to my minty update again!’
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