You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January 2009.
talking about mac this year…
starting with iphoto ‘09…
this year they’ve introduced ‘faces’, which uses face detection to help with tagging. iphoto finds a face and you tell it who the person is, then it will find other photos that it thinks contains the same person. they say face detection isn’t perfect but it’s incredibly good.
another way to organize is ‘places’. it uses gps geotagging. more and more cameras including the iphone have built in gps, so it will automatically add a location to a map in iphoto. if photos aren’t geotagged, you can enter the location yourself.
they’ve also added support for facebook and flickr to iphoto ‘09. facebook users can add names to people in your photos, then that information gets transmitted back to iphoto.
imovie ‘09…
there’s context sensitive menus for clips, you can make new movies with dynamic themes: titles, transitions, effects. animated travel maps (you can create 2d and 3d maps to show where you’ve traveled), and now they have auto stabilization for shaky video. also they’ve added some new video effects, cartoon, x-ray etc…
moving onto garageband ‘09
in this new version, there’s a feature called ‘learn to play’. it’s a new interface and it teaches you how to play an instrument. there’s nice basic lessons for guitar and piano thats bundled in. what’s pretty cool is that when you want to learn a song they’ve enlisted artists to help you play…including patrick stump from fall out boy, and sting! there will be a built in ’store’ where you can download lessons.
that’s just a small preview of ilife ‘09 shipping in late january. it’ll be £69 for the upgrade, family pack will be £85 plus it ships with all new macs.
the new 17 inch macbook pro…
according to apple, it’s the world’s lightest and thinnest 17 inch notebook.
inside they have a new generation of c2d cpus, upto 8gb of ram, new nvidia graphics options, and the battery. they’ve designed the battery to last upto 8 hours on a charge.
pricing, it comes out at £1,949 (2.66ghz, 4gb ram, 320gb hard drive), and it starts shipping at the end of this month.
one more thing…
itunes.
they’re boasting that they’ve sold 6 billion songs and have 75 million accounts with credit cards. so what’s new in 2009?
first up, price. over the last 6 years songs have been $0.99, music companies want more flexibility. so they’re two new prices. one at $0.69 and the other is $1.29.
next, itunes plus. it’s drm free, and much higher quality. starting today, 8 million songs will be drm free.
the third new thing happening with itunes is to do with the iphone. the music store is not just on wifi, it’s now over 3g aswell, and that’s starting today.
that’s all from the macworld keynote ‘09, and that’s the last ever keynote too.
thanks for reading x
just a quick one! someone should invent an automatic bath filler-upper! filling the tub up just to the right height, plus the perfect temperature! how ace would that be? anyone who’s a bath expert please get in contact! even more advanced baths could have computers in them so you can choose different heat/height settings if you prefer it!
moving on…
i went for a run this week, but instead of going around the usual route i decided to go for a more ‘scenic‘ jog down a country/farm lane. you’ll notice the ’scenic’ in italics, because it was the exact opposite! of the numerous piles of junk, here are some of them that stuck in my head:
- burnt out car engine
- wheels
- left over picnics
- a whole family’s christmas
- clothes/shoes
apart from the rubbish i saw, there was a few positives to make it a pleasant run. i saw two peregrine falcons for the first time ever, probably about to devour a poor defenseless mammal but that’s natures problem. i also saw a few herons perching on the edge of the canal waiting for it’s next meal.
that reminds me, i need to eat…
ta ta for now!
finally, i’ve figured out how to blog post from my mobile! this will make it a whole lot easier now because i can update whenever i need to!
work today…yey…
but i suppose we need to be thankful for our jobs in the current financial situation, so i can’t complain too much.
hello and welcome! long time no speak yada yada lol! i thought it was about time i updated this thing, blow the dust off the keyboard etc.
lets start with the exciting news first!
ali can officially walk unaided! it looks so weird when he’s walking. it’s just like having our own little mini me! so cute. he’s just getting more and more confident everyday. please see for yourself at this link to a video i created.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hjZ4UEzjuBs
i hope you liked it! his next rank will be talking! god help us! he’s already picked a few words he can perfect.
(by the way, if for some reason you can’t be bothered to read these posts, they will soon be broadcast in audio form as podcasts, so you can listen to your heart’s desire! like i do with stephen fry..in the bath…ha!)
i am driving,
yes, you thought you’d never hear those few words in the same line ever, but yep i’m officially learning to be on the road! and to be honest, i think it’s going spiffingly well! in the last lesson i successfully managed to do the emergency stop procedure, that was fun!
- i have to pause for a second because nikki has just locked me in the room where i’m typing this post, which is rather inconvenient. what if i need to go to the toilet!!!!
i’m going to wrap this incredibly short present of a post up now for another day, where i can spill out my guts with all the ins and outs of my life to you all!
peace to you all, hope you have a great 2009!
that video link again: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hjZ4UEzjuBs
