iWork '09: Keynote

ByMike Moffit

Featured updates:

  • Easily create sophisticated animations with Magic Move.
  • Add dramatic object and text transitions using new visual effects.
  • Visualize your data with new styles and animations for 3D charts.
  • Dramatically reduce file size without compromising quality.
  • Create dynamic flowcharts and diagrams using connection lines.
  • Choose from eight new Apple-designed themes (44 total).
  • Open, save, and email Microsoft PowerPoint files from within Keynote.

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  • Picasa for Mac – Better Late Than Never!

    On Monday, Google finally released a public beta of Picasa for the Mac. Picasa is a free desktop app for importing, editing, organizing and sharing digital images–particularly digital photos.

    Picasa for Macs is a free download from “Picasa.google.com/mac/”:http://picasa.google.com/mac/. You need an Intel Mac running OS 10.4 or later.

    Picasa has been a popular photo app on the Windows side for years. It shares some features with iPhoto, and adds some unique killer features. These include the ability to sync your Picasa desktop and Picasa Web Albums edits, screen captures, create and edit movies within Picasa, add text/watermarks to photos, manage folders on your computer, a collage creation, screensaver creation, and Facial-recognition technology. Privacy and sharing settings can be adjusted for individual photos, collections or for your entire library.

    Preliminary tests show Picasa to be as fast or faster than iPhoto and easy and elegant to use. We’ll test further and review Picasa in detail in the future.

    Google also offers Picasa Web Albums, which is an excellent web service for sharing and organizing photos. This has been Mac-compatible for years. There is an iPhoto plugin if you want to use Picasa Web Albums without necessarily using the desktop version of Picasa. “Click here to download this.”:http://picasa.google.com/mac_tools.html

    Also, the new version of iPhoto ’09 looks amazing. News about Picasa for Mac has been swept under the rug with the announcement of iPhoto ’09.

    Picasa Web Albums integrates tightly with Google’s Blogger service, along with many other blog platforms and web services. Picasa Web Albums is very easy to use, uploading is a breeze, and photos are nicely displayed online. Picasa Web Albums offers up to 1GB (“enough space for 4,000 wallpaper-size photos”) of photo hosting for free.

    Flickr is still more popular and has deeper social network components then Picasa Web Albums. Again, we’ll do a detailed comparison in the near future.

  • iWork '09: Numbers

    Noted features:

    * Easily create formulas, using *visual placeholders with plain language text.*
    * Perform calculations using *over 250 functions.*
    * Organize your data instantly using *Table Categories.*
    * Check your calculations at a glance with *Formula List view.*
    * Create two-axis charts and combine line, column, and area series in a single mixed chart.
    * Choose from *twelve new Apple-designed templates* (30 total).
    * *Open, save, and email Microsoft Excel files* from within Numbers.

  • Grace gave me an advance 60th birthday present just before I left for Macworld. She is taking me to Tanzania to see hippos in the wild. After watching the keynote with the new version of iMovie, we have decided to bring along a digicam, too!

    Our friend Chet Newbold from Olympus is going to loan me one of their ultra zoom cameras, too, so I hope to bring back some great photos and video from this trip. I am so excited about fulfilling this dream and spending my 60th birthday in Africa!

    I think we are going to see a lot of new products coming out of Apple this year. When they are ready on schedule, I am much more optimistic than most about 2009. I think that Apple is well-suited to innovate its way through this economic downturn.

    Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

    Your Kibbles & Bytes Team
    _Don, Kali & Ed_

  • iLife '09 Up-To-Date Program

    iLife ’09 looks like an awesome upgrade. Too bad it won’t be released until the need of the month. Fortunately, Apple has an iLife ’09 up-to-date program. If you’ve purchased a qualifying computer on or after January 6, 2009 that does not include iLife ’09, you can upgrade to iLife ’09 for US $9.95 plus tax.

    *Apple will administer this program, including collecting the $9.95 and shipping the iLife ’09 DVD.*

    More information about this is forthcoming. Please check “our blog”:http://blog.smalldog.com on or after Monday, January 12 for additional details!

  • iLife '09: Changes in the iTunes Store

    Millions of cheers were heard ’round the world when Phil Schiller announced some of the changes coming to the iTunes Store. The main one: all DRM-free music, meaning that songs can be played and burned without restriction. The four major record companies (Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI) are all now on board with the change, which was crucial to feature songs without the “DRM”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management encoding.

    Beginning today, over 8 million songs in the iTunes Store feature:

    * No DRM restrictions
    * Higher-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually unchanged from the original
    * Same price for song downloads onto iPhone 3G over their 3G network

    The remaining 2 million songs in the 10 million+ iTunes library will be available without the DRM restrictions by the end of March. According to Apple, they will offer a “simple, one-click option to easily upgrade their entire library of previously purchased songs to the higher quality DRM-free iTunes Plus format” for 30 cents per song or 30 percent of the album price. Sounds intriguing, but it could get expensive… I say choose your favorites wisely!

    In April, songs will be available at three price points: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. This will be dictated by what the music labels charge Apple for the above licensing.

    “Read Apple’s entire press release here.”:http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/06itunes.html

  • New 17" MacBook Pro!

    At Macworld on Tuesday, Phil Schiller introduced a brand-new 17″ MacBook Pro. The new MacBook shares the revolutionary aluminum unibody construction offered on the MacBook and 15″ MacBook Pro. Other specs:

    * .98 inches thin
    * 6.6 pounds
    * The world’s lightest and thinnest 17-inch notebook
    * Features an LED backlit display, with 1920×1200 resolution. 700:1 contrast ratio, and 60% greater color gamut than the previous 17-inch display.
    * Apple says “This is the best display we’ve ever shipped in a notebook.”

    * 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Dual Core
    * 6MB L2 Cache
    * Up to 8GB memory at 1066 MHz DDR3.
    * Glass trackpad with four-finger gestures and multi-button support.
    * 320GB hard drive

    * Three USB ports
    * Mini DisplayPort for connecting to Apple’s new 24″ LED display
    * FireWire 800 (no 400!)
    * Digital audio in/out
    * ExpressCard slot.
    * Gigabit Ethernet
    * MagSafe power adapter (duh)

    * Built-in, non user-replaceable battery. This is an adaptive “smart battery” with built-in chips to maintain maximum charge and lifespan

    * The battery can last up to eight hours, is good for about five years, and can be charged 1000 times. It is also fully recyclable.

    * Battery life varies depending on graphics card used. With the 9600GT, battery life if seven hours. It is up to eight hours with the 9400M integrated graphics.

    * All told, this is three hours longer than the previous 17-inch MacBook Pro, equalling a 60% increase in battery life.

    * Also, for the first time with the new unibody MacBooks, Apple is offering an anti-glare option. It costs $50 more than the glossy display because the bezel has to be removed after it’s already assembled.

    * $2799.99

    “Click here to see this MacBook Pro on our website.”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/72891

    Available at the end of the month–reserve your now!