appleJAC Users Group

appleJac Digest February 2010

 

President’s Corner: New Year’s Resolutions and Promises

by Tom Piper, aJMUG President

The Consumer Electronic Show has come and gone, with lots of new and different products, many of which were interesting, some exciting, and some bewildering. But, still no news from Apple . . . EXCEPT, the January 27 Apple “event” which is showing a lot of promise. I definitely want to see a new Apple tablet by any name they want to call it (many have already dubbed it the “iTablet”). What are you hoping for???

At our last meeting, Mark, George and I showed pictures, talked about our experiences, and showed a few (very few) gadgets which had been acquired in Las Vegas. We launched our first round of favorite gadget and iPhone app presentations, a pattern to be followed at each meeting (by different people each time). We all also talked about our favorite Christmas presents, and in some cases, things that we wanted, but didn’t get. Alice Kopp, our new webmaster, also gave us review of what is on our website, and why we should go back and visit it (www.applejac.org) more often . . . there is a lot to benefit us there. George Kopp also announced that he would be teaching an iMovie class on April 8 and 15 (register early to reserve your spot). The evening’s door prize winners included:

    Apple Keychain............ Dan Walsh

  Apple Cube clip............ Ed Brandt

  Black Apple Bag............ Ron Rudroff

  Black Apple Bag............ Julie Smith

  Apple Key fob.............. Bruce Heerboth

   Apple Cap ................... Steve Archer

The next meeting will focus on Digital Camera Comparisons (we swapped this topic with Mac Dictionary, which will be done at the March 2 meeting). We will also talk about whatever is announced by Apple at its next big event. Incidentally, we just had our 78th and 79th members join appleJAC MUG last week . . . we have so much to offer to so many.

Mark your calendar NOW for the next appleJAC Macintosh Users Group meeting on the first Tuesday, February 2, 2010, at 7:00 pm. Bring family, friends and new members back  to Lewis and Clark Middle School to get the most out of your Mac and Apple products.

Agenda for February Meeting

 

 
     

Website Quiz!

How is he doing that?

Look at this!

The waiter is taking our order on a iphone! 

At the Tree House Restaurant in Costa Rica. 

submitted by Peggy Landwehr

If you know the answer, send it to the webmaster. [email protected]

 

Freshly Squeezed Reviews: The App and The Book

 

by Frank Petrie

Product: The Best Camera

Author: Chase Jarvis Worldwide 

             www.thebestcamera.com/

Requirements: iPhone˙

App Price: $2.99

Book Price: $13.59 paperback; $9.99 Kindle

Test Rig: iPhone 3Gs

The axiom: "The Best Camera Is The One That's With You." Pragmatic and true. The best shots are accomplished through your creativity, not through the bells and whistles of any device. Oh, you can clean things up in post-production but you still need to start with a photo that's evocative.

"The Best Camera Is The One That's With You˙, but it's also an inspirational 3-part "ecosystem" created by world-renowned photographer, Chase Jarvis. Introducing an iPhone app that allows you to shoot, edit and share your images; a book that celebrates photography with any camera; AND a thriving, online community made of iPhone images from around the world."

Today we are looking at an app, a book and a community. In short, an aesthetic movement, or as Mr. Jarvis puts it - "an ecosystem."

THE JUICE

APP - With Best Camera you can utilize a single filter or layer several filters to create a unique, more advanced effect for your pictures. This app makes it simple and easy. With a palette of 14 filters from which to choose. you can change your image to black and white, saturate your colors, create a cinematic look, brighten, darken, or crop your picture on the fly. "There are four "signature" filters that can be identified by the flags - they offer the slickest one-touch option for a filter. Further to the right on the dock, you'll find an assortment of 10 additional filters that can act as one-touch filters, or are great "tools" to correct images that were poorly captured originally."

COMMUNITY - With the simplicity that we've come to expect with instant messengers, Best Camera shares your photos with the same services that help you stay in touch with your friends at Facebook, Twitter, email, or www.thebestcamera.com. With the simple check of a box, you can decide where you want share your image(s). It's that simple.

BOOK - If you‚re looking for visual inspiration or just want to see what‚s possible with mobile phone photography, pickup a copy of The Best Camera Is The One That‚s With You˙. It‚s the world‚s first photo book featuring exclusively images from a mobile phone, although you wouldn't know their origins from the results.

THE PULP

Best Camera delivers as promised. I sat for over one hour trying a multitude of settings on a single portrait. And when I was finished, I had three different versions that I found hard to choose from.

The Book is worth buying on its own, even without the app. Mr. Jarvis has a tremendous eye for composition. And the pictures in his book will most definitely get you to pick up your iPhone and start looking at your surrounding environs with a different eye.

THE RIND

I would like to see a single slider with each filter to give me a smidgen more control. But it's not a deal breaker by any means.

SUMMARY

Even at such low prices, there are few apps that I consider a no-brainer, a must have. This is one of those rare exceptions. If you have an iPhone,  you HAVE to have this app in your arsenal.

Now, turn off the computer, get off your butt and surprise yourself.

RATING : 10 of 10

--------------------------------------------

©2010 Frank Petrie, Associate Editor 

Freelance Writer, Curmudgeon 

Host/Producer, Macsimum Podcast 

www.macsimumnews.com 

[email protected] 

Stellar Phoenix Macintosh Data Recovery: Super Salvage

   

a review by Tom Piper

With so much of our information in various forms of electronic data storage, our risk of loss seems to grow exponentially. In spite of all of our backup and archiving efforts, our volumes will all eventually corrupt (in spite of our valiant efforts), and something important will not have been backed up yet. This is why a strong data recovery tool is so important.

Stellar Phoenix is professional-level Mac data recovery software which provides complete Mac recovery from hard drives, iPods, flash drives and memory sticks. It is a powerful and user-friendly Mac recovery application that ensures recovery of lost, deleted or corrupted data including documents, music, videos, pictures, e-mails and PDFs. 

The read-only Data Recovery Mac software is built with an excellent graphical user-interface that makes it self-explanatory without prior technical training. Important features of Mac Data Recovery v 4.0 include:

• Supports Mac OS X 10.3.9 (Panther), 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
• Compatible with HFS, HFS+, HFSX, HFS Wrapper and FAT file system volumes.
• Recovers deleted files, entire volume, or just the files you want to recover.
• Reclaims images, videos, pictures, music from digital camera media and iPods.
• Embedded with advance options like Mac Style Find option, user-friendly GUI, fast scanning, and searching of lost, deleted, or formatted FAT volumes.

 

The main dashboard (see above) is simple and straight-forward, with a full explanation of each function described in a large box below the icons (not shown to save space). Among the various navigation buttons was also a Help function that has excellent on-line assistance like a Knowledge Base, Support Section and email support. The built-in Help function was less intuitive, and the button seem not to function correctly.

 This is an easy-to-use full-function data recovery tool that can be very useful. A visit to www.macintosh-data-recovery.com will show how many of these functions work. Pricing starts at $99 (USD) for the downloadable single-user version up through $349 (plus shipping and handling) for the Technician License. But, you can try before you buy with the free download. And, if the data is really hard to recovery (like a melted case), then Stellar also provides a mail-in recovery service at several centers around the world.

Stellar Phoenix Macintosh Data recovery v4.0 software is a product from Stellar Information Systems Ltd. The company is an ISO9001:2000 certified organization that has been developing data recovery software since 1993. The company also provides data recovery services and has over a million satisfied customers across 137 countries. They are committed to customer satisfaction and even offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on this software. In my book, this is a great combination of credentials and assurances.

I encourage you to test-drive this software to see what a valuable utility it can be. This software is now in my toolbox for when my next hard drive, flash drive or other volume fails (because I know it eventually will)!

Get Smart

From Steve Archer: 

My wife spotted this today in the Parade Magazine that comes with the Post-Dispatch:

Want to go to Princeton for free?  Audit a Harvard class without leaving your couch?
At AcademicEarth.com you can stream actual course lectures from some of the nation's
top universities.  Study Jack Kerouac with a Yale professor, tackle physics with an MIT
engineer, or hear a UCLA political science expert explain game theory.  There's no homework,
no exams, no 8 a.m. labs--just you, your curiosity, and your computer.  Watch and learn!

Kelly tried a lecture from Yale on Roman architecture and thought it was great.  There are some on computer science and a heap of other things.  Some of our membership may be interested.  It's all free, by the way.

Rise and Shine iPhone App

by Ken Zindle
(I.e. Kensington's App for iPhone "Rise and Shine")

I'm going to let you listen to the words of one of the few songs from my early childhood that I remember, and remember as one that was a favorite. We played it on the big wind up victrola that was at the top of the stairs in the house on Larch Street in Scranton, PA. It was 1950 and I was about 6 or 7. The song was sung, as it opened, a scratchy 78 rpm breakable record, to the tune of the bugler's reveille. It went something like this:

'You've gotta get up, you've gotta get up

You've gotta get up this mornin' . . ."

Yes, it was catchy, and made perhaps a little more sense that some of the music that is shouted at us these days. (Personal prejudice showing there.) But the part that sticks with me is this part of the song:

"Some day I'm going to murder the bugler,
Some day they're going to find him dead.
I'll amputate his reveille and step upon it heavily
And I'll spend the rest of my life in bed."
(I can still sing these words but won't!)

Now this part of the song had me in a quandary because I loved the bugler; the other 78 rpm record that was the second of my two favorites was "Bugle Calls of the US Army," and very scratchy it was from so much use. So, it was strange to me that anyone would want to murder the bugler.

Well, as a mature adult I have little need for the bugler, since I've grown up with the ability to wake myself, at a pre-determined time that I mention the night before. I don't use alarms clocks, thus the fate of the bugler, in my case at least.

But I do like to see the time, should I awaken during the night, and a digital read-out suits me fine. I now have the answer to the problem of motels or hotels, that I'm using on a trip, not having a convenient illuminated time piece in the room. It's my iPhone.

I'm referring to the iPhone app 'Rise and Shine' from Kensington (FREE). When it is attached to the Kensington "Nightstand Charging Dock for iPhone and iPod Touch," (Not Free)  it answers the call nicely.
The app shows you the time in large numerals, and does a display that is digital, or   has a flip style readout. You can change the color of the numerals on the read out. You can set the brightness, turn on  24 hour mode, have the colons flashing or not. (Don't blush at that; they're  only diacritical marks, after all!) You can also turn on or off  auto-lock so that, when it's off, the display will remain illuminated in that otherwise dark, strange room.  (Shadows of childhood? Certainly but we needn't go into that now.)
The clock also gives you the local weather and forecast, calibrated, so they say, to the area where you are presently located.

It's downright nifty, and when it is attached to the aforementioned "Nightstand Charging Dock etc." it is presented to you in landscape mode, as you'd want.

One caveat!  I did run across one citizen who opined that he/she didn't want the phone making noises at night each time he got e-mail or spam. I can understand that. But many of those sounds are, after all, optional. One possible answer to that problem, it seems, is putting the phone at night on 'airplane mode'. This might solve that little problem. (Others will verify or deny that, as may be.)

I don't have the record with the song about 'murdering the bugler' any more but I do have the iPhone, the Kensington app, 'Rise and Shine', and the Nightstand Charging etc." gizmo.  And that's cool.

End of January 2010 appleJac Digest