TuneCenter: Making the iPod accessible

TuneCenter - Griffin Technology does for your iPod what Front Row does for iTunes and iMovie. It displays playlists and tune info on a the TV screeen. Works with a remote. Getting the Playlist to the screen seems magical to me; I assume the TuneCenter has an embedded operating system but a quick search didn't turn up any leads.

This could be very helpful for visually impaired persons. A cheap compact LCD TV would be much more readable for many persons than the iPod's built-in display. The remote sounds a bit complex however.

iCal : create links to web or files

TUAW summarizes an OS X Hints tip:

Create clickable URL/file events in iCal - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

All you need to do for a URL is either drag it (or its icon) from a browser's address bar onto a time slot in iCal, or add a URL to an event's title and surround it with carrots like this, sans-quotes: "." To create a click-able link to a file, you'll need to use a web browser (such as Firefox) to surf your file system, then simply drag a file or folder from the browser into iCal in the same way as a URL. Don't try it with Safari, as it apparently doesn't do local file/folder surfing.

iPhoto keyboard shortcuts

Handy keyboard shortcuts for iPhoto:

Macsupport Your Source for Macintosh Computer Classifieds, Product Reviews, Mac Help and Forums. � Blog Archive � iPhoto Keyboard Shortcuts:

Go to next photo: Press the Right Arrow key

Go to previous photo: Press the Left Arrow key

Disable constrain setting when selecting an area: Press the Command key while dragging

Switch between portrait and landscape constrain setting when selecting an area: Press the Option key while dragging

There's at least one missing. When you apply an effect in edit mode, if you hold down the control key (don't save image and don't click) you see how the original looks.

I thought the Option key switch between portrait and landscape was broken in iPhoto 4 or 5, but it works fine in 5.02. Too bad I'd not been using it!

Data Visualization

Karl Hartig: Data Visualization

I got here by Kawasaki's blog. Great resource for a class I co-teach.

FrameMaker vs. Pages

How does Pages compare to traditional desktop publishing solutions? FrameMaker Feature Comparison compares Pages, Word, FrameMaker and InDesign. The PDF is a long and comprehensive report.

I hope the author will update the document for Pages 2.0. I'm still on the fence about committing to Pages. For now OmniOutliner and AppleWorks and Text suffice. Since Pages will install for all users, and Nisus will only work for a single user per machine, Nisus is rather more expensive.

I'd feel better about buying Pages if Apple were more serious about building iWorks -- or if they switched to an OpenDoc file format.

iLife '06 is $71 on Amazon

Amazon (follow the Macintouch link to get them some money) really does have exceptional prices and rebates on Apple products. I wonder what kind of deal they've done with Apple. Amazon.com: Apple iLife '06 (Mac DVD): Software is $71! That's only $11 more than the educational price.

I have my iLife on order, but I expect it to be well worth the money. Apple makes transaction revenue on iPhoto use and through the tie ins between iLife and .Mac -- so they can afford to sell this cheaply.

iWeb review - MacWorld

MacWorld is publishing their through their iLife reviews, the iWeb First Look is the best introduction to the software I've come across.

They have reviews on iDVD and iPhoto. The iPhoto review is probably the best documentation we'll see for a while. Overall, great work by MacWorld.

The educational price for iLife is $60, so I broke down and went for it. It will hold me while I wait for Aperture to improve.