iLife '09 Update: iWeb, iDVD

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.

At Macworld, Phil Schiller introduced a new version of GarageBand. The biggest new feature is called “Learn to Play.” It is designed to teach people to play instruments such as guitar and keyboards. You see the a representation of the instrument on the screen with a video of the instructor facing you.

Celebrity instructors include Sting, Sarah McLachlan, John Fogerty, and more. Apple says “learn to play a hit song from the artist who made it famous,” which I think sounds pretty cool. Additional video lessons can be purchased from the new GarageBand store for $4.99.

Some big changes were announced to the iWork suite of productivity applications at Macworld on Tuesday. Like iWork ’08, iWork ’09 includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers. Integration and sharing have been vastly improved across the suite, and it still offers excellent Microsoft Office compatibility.

The addition of iWork.com is huge. Much like Google Docs, you will be able to collaborate on projects by accessing your files online. Apple has not launched this yet in its full form, but it is available as a public beta once you have purchased iWork ’09.

In the following articles, you’ll find an overview of the highlighted new features. The Single User edition is available for $79.99 and Family Pack is available for $99.99. *Note that iWork ’09 includes all three applications which are not available for purchase separately.*

iWork ’09 will ship in the next week or so; reserve your copy below:

Single User Edition:
http://www.smalldog.com/product/72887

Family Pack:
http://www.smalldog.com/product/72888

“Read our full coverage of Macworld 2009 on our blog.”:http://blog.smalldog.com

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.

For several weeks we’ve known that AT&T would finally be introducing the iPhone in Vermont mid-January. The time is almost here. We’ve heard from various AT&T affiliates that the iPhone will be launched in Vermont next week. To commemorate this long overdue occasion, we’ve put all “iPhone 3G”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/iPhone_Accessories|Cases
cases on sale. Every single one. They’re $5 – $10 off, or with a free FM transmitter.

“You can see all iPhone cases by clicking here.”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/iPhone_Accessories|Cases

We offer dozens of iPhone-compatible speakers, clocks, chargers, and FM transmitters as well. Most of these are listed “in the iPod Accessories category.”:http://www.smalldog.com/category/x/x/x/iPod_Accessories

Regarding iPhone 3G cases, I like the “Contour HardSkin in black.”:http://www.smalldog.com/wag18611/ It makes the phone easier to grip, gives a shock protection, and is relatively low-profile.

“Click Here to take our post-Macworld keynote survey!”:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ruYoNEgHQtJlmUhGxQtbtA_3d_3d