Tag Archives: Apple

iMac before and after

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Help Desk Eric installed my new iMac (24 inch) yesterday. Getting the iMac at work was one of Life’s Pleasant Little Surprises. Phil (our head IT guy) came me a few weeks ago to let me know I was up for a hardware refresh and gave me the option of an iMac. I almost said no.

Learfield COO Roger Gardner opted for an iMac and that –I suspect– paved the way for me. As far as I know, we’re the only two in the company with a Mac on the desktop.

This is an example of what a great IT department we have a Learfield. Instead of taking a we-only-do-Windows stance, they’re open to trying something new. In my case, it makes a lot of sense, because most of the stuff I do can be done a little easier/better on the Mac than the PC.

I still have Windows XP running (on VMware). This means I have to adapt to sliding back and forth between Windows and OSX. It’s gonna take some getting used to.

The iMac is a magnificent piece of hardware. Feels more like a piece of sculpture than a machine. But we won’t go there.

The Office-Cam is down for now. Maybe for good. I’ve got a PC in the office as well and once we get it back online, I might turn the Office-Cam back on.

I’m looking forward to doing some video chats with those of you who have the capability and interest. Email me and I’ll send my AIM name.

What else… Oh yeah, the new iMac keyboard. I love it. Didn’t think I would be it feels great and works well.

So there you have it. Two operating systems running on one sleek device. Best of both worlds. Stay tuned.

Grokking new iMovie

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My first brush with the new iMovie was bumpy. I’m looking forward to taking another run at it, after watching the first of a two-part tutorial from from ScreenCasts Online.

ScreenCastsOnline is a weekly video podcast of computer based video tutorials. The video tutorials cover many different topics from week to week but predominantly cover mac related subjects. The video tutorials are in the form of "screencasts" which are basically videos of screen captures demonstrating a particular application or service, with a spoken commentary explaining what is happening on screen.

Don McAllister’s easy-to-follow demo/tour was just what I needed. I’ll still use iMovie HD (the previous version) for a lot of stuff, but when I need to throw something together quickly…

I can’t recommend ScreenCastsOnline highly enough. It’s a free podcasts but I recommend the Extra! membership ($50 a year).

Spreadsheet fun

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Only Apple could make spreadsheets fun. I only open Excel when someone sends me a file with some data and I have to take a look. But there are some tasks that really need a spreadsheet.

I had 5 minutes between tasks earlier this week, so I fired up Numbers, the new spreadsheet app in Apple iWork. I didn’t get far because as soon as I started playing with the chart tool, I was like a monkey with a piece of tin foil.

Yes, Excel can make charts and graphs but I always struggled with them and they didn’t look all that sexy when I did figure it out. I wish I could show you how much fun it was to swivel and turn and tweak this little chart (Ooh, ooh, ooh!)

I think the Apple folks would concede that Numbers is not for power users. More for math cripples like me that need a spreadsheet from time to time. I could list some of the neat features but don’t want to listen to MS Office vets tell me how easy it is to do the same thing in Excel.

YouTube is now live on Apple TV

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"Apple today announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV.
Users can download the free software update using Apple TV’s built-in
software update feature, and then navigate through YouTube’s familiar
video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube
members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view
and save their favorite videos." [Podcasting News]

Haven’t tried this yet, but I will. Stay tuned. Related story.

Rent movies on iTunes, watch on Apple TV

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Apple is in talks with the Hollywood studios to make new movies available for rental on iTunes, with titles to rent for $2.99 for a set number of days before expiring. It is unclear which studios might participate. [WSJ.com]

I hope –and expect– this to come together. Netflix is great but there’s still some lag time. And I can’t recall the last time I bought a PPV movie from DirecTV. Selection pretty much sucks. As Barb and I have less and less time (or so it seems), the convenience and choice of on-demand becomes more and more important.