Macgasm

What’s a key feature missing from iPhoto that is used in a multi-Mac house?  The ability to sync your iPhoto library with other Macs in your house.  Sure, you can share out your library, but you can’t sync it.  Or, you can take the time to copy your uploaded photos from your Mac to everyone else’s iPhoto Library.  With the release of iPhoto ’11, I was hoping that Apple would have instituted a Home Sharing feature like in iTunes.  Alas, Apple did not, and I was still left moving photos from one iPhoto library to another.

Enter Haystack Software

Haystack Software makes an application called iPhotoSync.  It does pretty much what the title implies: it syncs up your iPhoto libraries.  The developer basically had the same dilemma that I have, as well as many others.  So, he wrote iPhotoSync.  With iPhotoSync you have many ways to sync your libraries.  You can sync your entire library from one Mac to another, and this way all of your libraries are identical.  Another method is to only sync new content.  The final method is to chose the previous month, or two, three, six, and twelve months.  For my setup, I chose to sync my wife’s entire library to mine since I run a daily backup of my photos.  As for my wife’s, I chose to only backup new photos and videos from my library.

What’s Macgasmic

The way iPhotoSync works is by cataloging your existing iPhoto library, and it uses Growl which runs in the background alerting you when your library has been cataloged.  When you’re ready to sync new photos, a Growl message appears informing you that you can proceed with your import.  What is also great about iPhotoSync is that your don’t need to have the window open for all this to work.  iPhotoSync simply runs in the background along with Growl.

I would also like to take a moment and talk about Haystack Software’s tech support.  The only means of tech support is via email.  For some, this might not be their cup of tea.  Some people prefer phone support for that instant response to their issue.  Well, Haystack Software’s email support is pretty fast.  I emailed them with an issue I was having at 10:30 in the evening, and at 7:30 the next morning I had a response.  Now you might be thinking that is not as fast as calling someone, but most email tech support services take between twenty-four and forty-eight hours before you get a response back.  In any event, after a few emails back and forth, Haystack Software released an update for iPhotoSync that fixed the exact issue I was having.  I emailed them back after the update, and they said due to my email they found a bug that they were unaware of and fixed it.

Room For Improvement

After all the great things you have read, you might be wondering why iPhotoSync would need improving.  Well, I wouldn’t be giving the software a fair review if I didn’t show both sides.  To be fair in this case, I would say the software needs tweaking more than improving.  One thing I found to be an issue with iPhotoSync is that when I am syncing my new photos and videos to my wife’s iPhoto library, I would like to see some sort of order in the library list.  As it stands, there seems to be no semblance of order, be it alphabetical or by date.  I have to scroll through the entire list to find the one or two albums I want to transfer.  The other thing I would like to see improved upon is the way the albums are imported.  When I import the album, the album title doesn’t carry over.  It simply titles it with the date.  Also, if you import more than one album at a time, it imports it as one album, instead of the two or three albums that it is in the other library.  I am not sure if these are limitations of the software, or simply something that the developer never thought of implementing.

Compatibility and Pricing

iPhotoSync is compatible with iPhoto ’08, ’09, and ’11, and will work with PowerPC and Intel Macs.  I have used iPhotoSync in both iPhoto ’09 and ’11.  In both versions the application worked well.  After I upgraded from iPhoto ’09 to ’11, I didn’t have to do any configuring of iPhotoSync.  It simply continued to work and catalog my library.  iPhotoSync comes in two different licensing schemes — the first is a two license pack, and the second is a five license pack.  The pricing is as follows – iPhotoSync 2-pack is $15.00, and iPhotoSync 5-pack is $25.00.  Both licensing packs are very well priced.  Haystack Software also offers a seven day free trial.  You can download iPhotoSync by clicking here.

Overall iPhotoSync is an exceptional compliment to iPhoto.  I would highly recommend that you download the trial if you have more than one Mac, and you want to sync your iPhoto libraries.  After you try it, you will definitely want to continue to use iPhotoSync.

Photo Credit: iPhotoSync

Amongst the 300,000 applications available on the App Store, quite a large number fall within the puzzle genre. The App Store has a myriad of different puzzle games, from Cut the Rope to Angry Birds to Sudoku.  Within the puzzle genre, a classic thinking and knowledge puzzle is the crossword. Amongst all those possibilities, the crossword app that I prefer is called, simply, Crosswords. It is available on the App Store for $9.99.

I came across the light version of Crosswords a couple of years ago, while looking for a free crossword puzzle game. At that time I did not want to spend the money on the full version, so I figured I would play through the light version.

The light version comes with some starter puzzles. Currently it comes with 40 puzzles, but when I first downloaded the free version there may have only been 20 or 25 puzzles that came with. The full version has a feature which will download new puzzles EVERY single day; yes, every day. This includes the more difficult Sunday crossword puzzles.

There are some things that makes Crosswords worth the price of admission. The first is that Crosswords is a universal application, so it will work on both your iPhone/iPod touch as well as your iPad. This means that you can play all the puzzles you want on all of your devices.

The second is the ability to display errors as you type. This is good for those of us who are not walking encyclopedias. There are other options for finding your mistakes as well. You choose to erase all errors, although this can be rather devastating if you think you have the answers correct and half your puzzle disappears because it’s wrong.

You can play Crosswords in either landscape or portrait mode on both the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. This allows you to determine which orientation is best for you based on what feels more comfortable. The screens do re-draw based on which direction you hold the device.

The next feature is high scores. You have a couple of options for where to post your high scores. You can either use the Crosswords leaderboard or Game Center. It is entirely up to you. I believe at this point there are more people on the Crosswords leaderboards than on Game Center, but I cannot be sure. Game Center would be useful if you just want to show how bad you are at crossword puzzles. You do have the option to opt-out and not share high scores at all.

As a note, there are some puzzles which do not have answers and these are indicated with a lock, as seen below.

There are a couple of bugs with the software. The first is that sometimes a weird keyboard will appear. It looks just like the image below.

If you are lucky, you can just click on a letter in the bottom row and make the numbers disappear. However if you are not, you have to switch to another puzzle and hit a key there to hopefully make it disappear. If that fails, then you have to terminate the application. You won’t lose anything doing this, but it is an inconvenience.

The second bothersome aspect of Crosswords is that they removed the ability to zoom into a puzzle. This is not a problem on most puzzles; however, the Sunday puzzles can be rather small on the iPhone/iPod Touch and I would like to see this feature return.

At $9.99, Crosswords does cost a bit more than most games, but honestly, it is worth every penny. The price sounds a bit high, but remember you do get new puzzles every day. This is much cheaper than always purchasing puzzle books, plus you don’t have to find a location to store them. If you wish to try it out, but you don’t want to drop that much cash, check out the light version first.

According to a report floating around the web, Apple’s next iPad will include five new hardware features:

• A thinner chasis with thinner glass
• A 3-axis gyroscope
• A FaceTime camera
• A USB Port
• A Retina Display

Those first three items are pretty safe guesses. Apple is usually good about making subsequent products lighter and thinner. At 1.5 pounds, the iPad could lose a little weight. Thinner glass would go a long way.

Both the iPhone 4 and the current iPod touch sport a 3-axis gyroscope. This sensor allows the device to know if it is being spun around a central pivot. It’s a little hard to explain, but here’s a video of Steve Jobs showing the technology off.

Thirdly, the addition of a FaceTime camera really seems like a no-brainer. With FaceTime now running on the iPhone, iPod touch and the Mac, the iPad is the odd-man out. I think a rear-facing camera will make an appearance as well, but I think taking a photo with a 10-inch tablet would be more than a little awkward.

The USB port rumor is an interesting one. A USB port would allow for the possibility of connecting more devices to the iPad. Currently, the company sells a kit with two dongles — one to connect an SD card and one to connect a camera (via USB) to the iPad for importing photos. Why not simply add more capabilities to this USB dongle?

If Apple does add a USB port to the iPad, I don’t see it replacing the 3o-pin Dock Connector. Apple has been using the Dock Connector on its mobile devices since the third-generation iPod. There is an abundantly healthy third-party market based on this connector. A market Apple can influence, since manufacturers have to abide by the company’s compatibility guidelines to be a part of the “Made for iPod” program. A USB port in conjunction with the Dock Connector makes more sense, but honestly, I don’t see it happening. Why would Apple want to fragment the hardware accessory market?

Adding a mini USB port could fulfill an up-coming European Commission requirement for a “universal charger” on mobile devices.

Finally, the Retina Display. While I do think Apple will improve the display quality on the next iPad, I don’t believe Apple will be quadrupling the pixels on the iPad, as it did with the iPhone 4.

As Ryan Block at gdgt explains, this display would be pretty ridiculous:

However, using standard resolution increments, one can achieve an almost identical PPI to the iPhone 4 on the iPad at a stunning 2560 x 1920 pixels, or the same 330 PPI as in the iPhone 4.

Maybe 2560 x 1920 doesn’t sound like a lot, but it should. Let’s put that in context with the kinds of high resolutions you get on some professional-grade desktop products:

- MacBook Pro 15-inch = 1440 x 900
- Macbook Pro 15-inch high-res = 1680 x 1050
- Macbook Pro 17-inch = 1920 x 1200
- Dell 24-inch monitor = 1920 x 1200

Think about that for a moment: a 9.7-inch screen that displays more visual information than two high res 24-inch monitors stacked on top of one another.

A true “Retina Display” on the iPad would be really, really dense. Probably too dense.

One wildcard is the Multi-Touch technology itself. Some have said Apple will improve this on the next model. Since the launch of the original Multi-Touch device — the original iPhone — Apple hasn’t mentioned any improvements it’s brought to Multi-Touch. Adding new gestures or new technology here would certainly only put Apple’s products further ahead of its competition’s products.

Rumors aside, it sure seems like Apple will unveil the next generation iPad early in 2011. We can all simply wonder until then.

Article Via The Next Web

If you’re thinking about buying a new iPod touch, iPod classic, or iPod nano sometime over the holidays, and you just so happen to live in Canada, Best Buy is letting you trade in your iPod for savings.

Just like the Toys R Us trade in program, your milage may vary when it comes to getting a discount. A “Best Buy Product Specialist” will determine the trade-in value of your iPod.

You can save up to $50.00 on an iPod touch, and $25.00 on an iPod classic or nano.

The best part about the program, should a “specialist” determine that your iPod is worth nothing, Best Buy will plant a tree on your behalf.

Make sure you know what you’re getting into before you commit to trading in your device, and double check online classifieds and eBay to determine the value of your iPod before you start taking the word of a “specialist.”

Best Buy has a pretty checkered past when it comes to their customer service.

iBooks kind of sucks. I want to like it, but it’s a giant mess. It can be such a pain in the rear trying to find your books. Add in the fact that there’s a ton of app-books on the App Store and not in the iBookstore and you start to see exactly what the problem is for the iBooks app.

The first solution: no books in the App Store. I don’t care if they’re digital, animated, audio-filled books. If there’re words on pages at any point, it should be in the iBookstore.

Second, collections are rumoured to be on the horizon.  This is a fancy new way to describe folders, but the idea is great. You should, hopefully in the near future, be able to group books by genre, or however you see fit. For instance, if you have the entire Vonnegut collection, you could put them all into a collection. Or, you could create a collection of all of your favourite books. The choice would be yours.

Sadly, most of these changes won’t help the service all that much if they don’t start landing more deals with publishers. I still can’t get any of the Stieg Larsson books in the iBookstore. That’s the biggest hurdle Apple has right now with the iBookstore. They can refine their book app all they want, but if I can’t find the book I’m looking for, I’ll be heading straight to Amazon.

Is your iBookshelf as empty as mine?

Article Via Cult of Mac

1 Million. 1 Meeelyun. Just think about that for a moment. Every month, on average, 1 million MacBooks are finding a good home, all around the world. That’s a big number. DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is on target to reach a monthly average of 1 million MacBooks shipped for the fourth quarter of 2010. That includes the entire notebook product line, including the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air.

The newly released Air accounts for 20-25% of that sales number, and rightly so. Combining ultra portability with great performance, the MacBook Air has been a pleasant surprise for most people who have used one. It’s no wonder that market share has increased sharply this year.

Sources for DigiTimes cited IDC’s figures and pointed out that Apple’s global notebook market share rose from 3.7% in the first quarter to 5.2% in the third, while its market share in the US market surged from 6.7% to 12.6%. MacBook shipments for the first three quarters of 2010 reached about 6.88 million units.

This news comes amidst sluggish notebook sales in general, with many companies blaming Apple’s iPad for taking a bite out of notebook sales. The general slowdown doesn’t seem to be affecting Apple too badly. It’s probably because they continue to innovate through difficult times and that innovation is paying off. There is no competition for the MacBook Air right now, so Apple has a big opportunity here going into the holiday season.

Black Friday, indeed.

Article Via 9to5Mac

We’re going to save you the deluge of “sale” posts today, and only post the stuff that have huge discounts on them. The Mac mini is on sale at Amazon, and it’s far and away a better deal than buying it from Apple directly.

The Mac mini normally comes in at $699.00, but today on Amazon it’s $599.00. If you’re already in the market for a new mini, like I am, this extra hundred dollars off is great news.

What can you use the mini for? Pretty much anything. I have mine hooked up to my TV and it acts as a DVR/PVR with an EyeTV dongle and cable. It makes a nice companion to my Apple TV. It also makes a great entry-level computer for Mom and Pops. So, if you’re feeling super generous this holiday season, one of these might look nice under that Charlie Brown tree you’ve got in your living room.

If you like your cases hand-crafted, sexy, and wooden, the Blackbox Case is just the case you’ll want for your 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Pros. They don’t come cheap ($129.00), but they are handcrafted in Golden Colorado with love.

No, really, their website says that.

The cases come in natural and brown, they’re made from solid Oak, they’re lined with felt, and they weigh about as much as a pint of beer.  I’m not too sure how well this would fit into a laptop bag, or backpack, but it would certainly look good around the house.

You can order the cases from the Blackbox website.