Category: Software

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Adobe Updates Lightroom to 2.3 and Camera RAW to 5.3

Both Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Camera RAW get updates with support for the latest and greatest cameras and bug fixes.

Lightroom 2.3 (Mac|Win)

New in Lightroom 2.3

Newly Supported RAW File Formats:

  • Nikon D3X
  • Olympus E-30
  • Plus unofficial RAW support for the recently announced Epson R-D1x camera

The goal of this release is to address bugs that were introduced in previous releases of Lightroom 2 and provide additional camera raw support. A comprehensive list of issues fixed in this release is included below:

Lightroom 2 Bugs – Fixed

  • In the Windows 64-bit version of Lightroom an sFTP upload process could cause Lightroom to crash.
  • Slideshows could return to the first image randomly during playback. (ouch, I got bit by this one during a family reunion presentation!)
  • A memory leak could cause Lightroom to crash while attempting to process files with local adjustments.
  • Canon EOS 5D Mk II sRAW files could process with artifacts in Lightroom 2.2.
  • Lightroom 2.2 could cause disc burning to fail for Windows customers.
  • Attempting to undo(CTRL-Z) a single step in Lightroom 2.2 on Windows could cause a series of previous actions to be undone.

Photoshop Camera Raw 5.3

Adobe applications must be updated with the Camera Raw 5.3 plug-in in order to ensure compatibility with Lightroom 2 develop module settings and Photoshop integration features. Photoshop CS4 users can update the Camera Raw plug-in automatically using the Update tool listed under the Help menu. The Camera Raw 5.3 plug-in can also be downloaded and installed manually by visiting the Adobe web site. Please follow the installation instructions carefully.

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iPhone App of the Week – FlightTrack Pro

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I’m a seasoned traveler! I travel for business all the time and last year clocked over 90,000 flight miles. So needless to say I’ve had my eye out for the ultimate travel app for the iPhone. When I travel, I want an App that can keep track of my flights, reservations, and updates if anything changes. Nothing is more frustrating than to break your neck getting to the airport only to find out that your plane has been delayed for an hour anyway. I was pretty comfortable using the mobile version of Northwest Airlines (mobile.nwa.com) and putting my schedule on my calendar. I would also put the confirmation numbers in the notes of those calendar events. My frequent flyer/stay numbers go in the notes of the Contact records. Granted this is a multiple app/entry effort, but I’ve used it now for years.

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FlightTrack Pro is it!

Actually FlightTrack Pro isn’t it all by itself, FlightTrack Pro works in conjunction with the free travel website TripIt.com. It’s the integration of these two pieces that make this a near perfect solution. FlightTrack Pro by itself is an app for the iPhone/iPod touch that keeps track of your flight information. It will stay updated on any delays and gate changes. The information about your flight becomes live 3 days before your flight takes off. FlightTrack Pro also displays the ever important GATE number. It also allows you to check the weather for both your departure location and your destination as well as any airport delays.

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This is all well and good, but it wouldn’t be enough for me to pay for. Again, I pretty much fly one airline and most of the above is available for free on a cool iPhone friendly version of their site. It’s the TripIt integration that makes FlightTrack Pro worth the price.

TripIt.com is the secret sauce

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Like I said, TripIt.com is a FREE site. You can go there right now and sign up and start using it to manage your travel. What I absolutely LOVE about TripIt.com is that I don’t have to manually enter my trip information. They make it so easy! All you have to do is email/forward your itinerary to plans@tripit.com from the email address(es) that you registered with the site. The site automatically converts that email into all the right fields on the site. It takes only a few seconds once you send the email, for the site to be updated. It’s like magic. I was blown away by how well this works. When I book travel for work our travel agent sends the itinerary as a PDF attachment in an email. I was thinking, “this will never work”. However, I decided I had nothing to lose by trying it, so I forwarded the PDF itinerary and IT WORKED! I was floored that the site was able to digest the PDF.

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Once you configure FlightTrack Pro with your TripIt login info, FlightTrack Pro will then pick up your flight information automatically and instantly! You can even email your itinerary to someone (perhaps the person meeting you) directly from FlightTrack Pro. There is also a button that you can tap to take you right to the TripIt site on your iPhone if you want to see more details about your reservation such as hotel, rental car, etc.

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Mac Users: TripIt has an added bonus! It automatically generates an iCal that you (or your loved ones, colleagues, etc.) can subscribe to that contains all your travel details! This feature is outstanding and icing on the cake.

It even tracks the current progress of the flight

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This feature isn’t really that useful for the actual traveler unless you just happen to be on a flight with Wi-Fi. The reason is, in order to show your current flight status such as location on the map, altitude, MPH, etc., you have to be able to get online, which is a no no while you’re in the air on most commercial flights. Now if you enter the flight information of a loved one or someone you’re shuttling to/from the airport, it’s pretty awesome to know EXACTLY where their plane is and when it will land.

The Bottom Line

FlightTrack Pro by itself is not that exciting. FlightTrack Pro combined with TripIt.com ROCKS! While FlightTrack Pro works as advertised, I’d like to see the 2.0 version of the app or maybe a super pro version that incorporates ALL of the itinerary instead of just the flight info. This has the potential for being the ULTIMATE travel app. While the link/button to TripIt is cool, I would much rather have the native app contain ALL of the info. Imagine how cool it would be since the app would know about your entire trip? For example, it would know about your flights like it does now. Once you land it would then display your rental car info or other ground transportation info/confirmation numbers. It could use the iPhone’s GPS to track where you are and direct you to your hotel. Once you arrive at the hotel it could automatically display your hotel confirmation number. How about suggest restaurants in the area?

This app is great, but there is so much more potential! The only thing that I was slightly disappointed in is that in its current incarnation when I landed, it would have been nice for the app to display the baggage claim carousel. Granted, this info may not even be available via the database that the app uses (FlightStats™), but it would be nice! Other than that I think the app is well worth the price for anyone who travels by air on a regular basis.

FlighTrack Pro goes for $9.99 on the App Store. Even if you don’t buy the app, you should head over to TripIt.com and setup an account TODAY!

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Adobe Updates Photoshop CS4

Adobe just released updates to Photoshop CS4 (Mac|Win) to address the following issues:

The Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 11.0.1 update addresses a number of issues discovered after Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended (11.0) software were released.

The most significant fixes in the Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 update include the following:

• A number of issues that could cause slow performance have been addressed.
• Pen barrel rotation with Wacom tablets now works correctly.
• Photoshop now correctly recognizes 3D textures edited by a plug-in.
• The quality of the results of Auto-Blend Layers (Stack Images) has been improved.
• A problem that could result in a crash when pasting formatted text has been fixed.
• A crash that could result from a corrupt font no longer occurs.

However, one of the most important things for me is that Adobe also released free a Photoshop Plug-in that allows you to disable the TrackPad Gestures in Photoshop when using one of Apple’s newer MacBooks. Scott, this should make your day and now you can put away your gun 😉

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Terry White Recommends…

I have fun reviewing technology and gadgets. Now that I’ve been running my blog for a few years, it occurs to me that new readers may not have seen some of my earlier posts. I also get asked by friends and relatives all the time to recommend my top choice in any given category. I do this formally once a year in my Holiday Gadget Gift Guide, but that doesn’t really help you much when you want recommendations throughout the rest of the year. So I’ve put together my own Terry White Recommends aStore. I will constantly update this site with any new recommendations that I have. These are products that I either have first hand knowledge of or use on a very regular basis. I have no paid sponsors, so these are products that I simply feel are great!

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iPhone App of the Week – Arcade Bowling

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If you’re looking for a little distraction without having to put much thought into it, then you should check out Arcade Bowling. Arcade Bowling is just like the bowling games in the arcade. You roll the ball down the alley and up into cups to score. Just like the real game it takes a little finesse to get the balls into the cups with the higher scores. The first time I played this game I really sucked at it. The problem was that I was flicking the ball to fast/hard. Then I slowed it way down and started getting higher scores. 

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Arcade Bowling has two modes: Classic and Progressive. The Classic game is just like the one in the arcade. You get a set number of balls and ones you’ve bowled them all, the game is over. The  Progressive game is based on achieving a set score. If you achieve the score then you get more balls to continue playing.

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  • Classic Mode (9 Balls)
  • Progressive Mode – multiple levels of game play with increasingly challenging score plateaus and bonus targets
  • Choice of two background music tracks
  • Accelerometer control of the ball in flight
  • Sound and music volume controls
  • Local high score boards
  • Global High Score boards so you can compete with other players around the globe (pending Apple approval)

Arcade Bowling is a fun game and provides a nice distraction when you need a break in your day or your standing in a line somewhere.  If you like Skeeball, you’ll love Arcade Bowling. Arcade Bowling goes for $1.99 and works on the iPhone and iPod touch. Download it from the App Store here. There is a lite version that is FREE. The lite version only has the Classic game with 9 balls. Download Arcade Bowling Lite for FREE from the App Store here.

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iPhone App of the Week – Lose It!

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This app was recently featured in one of Apple iPhone commercials. I believe the line was "if you want to count calories, there’s an app for that." I was sitting there watching LOST and when I saw the ad, I picked up my iPhone and downloaded it. I was blown away by this app from the start. It’s so much more than just counting calories. This is a complete fitness, diet, nutrition tracking app. I was using Weight Tracker (another fine app) before this one, but Lose It! does everything Weight Tracker does and a lot more.

 

Getting Started

You start out by simply inputting your current weight and then your goal weight. Lose It! then prompts you with number pounds you would like to lose each week to meet your goal. In my case I could have either chosen 1 or 2 pounds a week. Then it tells you the date by which you should meet your goal. Next it figures out a per day Calorie Budget. Whatever this number is, if you stay under it, you should reach your goal. It even takes into account exercises that you do and adds those calories burned back in to your budget for that day. 

 

Figuring out how much you can eat

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I was also blown away by the extensive database of foods that are already in its database. You simply tell it what you have/had for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and it will subtract those calories from your budget. Of course it can’t possibly know the calories for everything. So you can easily add your own custom foods or foods that aren’t in its database. Many restaurants now have their nutrition information on their websites. This has been very helpful for me. I was surprised to see how many calories there were in some of my favorite foods at like P.F. Chang’s vs. some of the other foods I eat at the same restaurant! It was really eye opening. 

 

Tracking your progress

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You enter in your weight each day (or as often as you like) and Lose It! will track your progress with a nice graph. It will also tell you how much you are under or over your calorie budget each day and for the week.

 

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It even has one of my favorite activities/exercises…… er, um Scuba Diving! 😉 

 

The Bottom Line

We are all trying to live a little healthier these days and having this app has really made a difference for me! I much more conscious of calories than I ever would have been without. I’ve already lost 7+ pounds since I’ve been using it. The most amazing thing to me is that this app is FREE! That’s right, there’s no charge. I’m stunned by how well this app is designed and that it doesn’t cost a dime. It works on both the iPhone and iPod touch. Download it today from the App Store.

 

 

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iPhone App of the Week – Air Mouse Pro

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I use a lot of different iPhone apps and some come and go from my phone. It’s not that often that I find an iPhone app that does EVERYTHING I’d want it to and works exactly the way I’d want it to. However, Air Mouse Pro is just such an app! I had a need for an app that would allow me to control my Mac mini. I would have been happy with a simple trackpad and keyboard. However, Air Mouse Pro does things I wouldn’t have even thought of. For one, you get access to more than one keyboard. There’s the basic keyboard that allows you type the alphabet.

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They were also smart enough to include a keyboard with all the function and special keys that we take for granted.

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The also included a media keyboard with play, rewind, forward, volume, etc. keys. This is great for control Front Row on the Mac or a Media Center PC.

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Lastly they included a web browser friendly keyboard that has nice big browser navigation buttons. 

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The trackpad is full featured too, completely configurable and tappable. Even when the keyboard is up you can still use the entire screen as the trackpad. There are onscreen left and right buttons for clicking and even a scroll wheel in the middle. These guys really thought of everything. 

The app works via Wi-Fi. So you have to install the desktop version of Air Mouse on your Mac or PC. You also use this app the set up the special media keys. For example, I set up a key to launch SlingPlayer, Front Row, iTunes and Safari.

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Air Mouse Pro also takes advantage of the built-in accelerometer. so when you rotate the iPhone on the side the trackpad/keyboard goes wide. Also if you shake the iPhone up the keyboard goes away or down to bring it back. 

Air Mouse Pro is $5.99, works on the iPhone or iPod touch and available from the App Store here.

 

Check out this GREAT video on how the app works:

[flv:http://www.mobileairmouse.com/newsite/Demo.flv 470 320]

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iPhone App of the Week – iShoot

ishoot

I’ve been playing with more and more cool apps lately. However, this week’s choice is iShoot because I’m addicted to it. iShoot is a tank battle game. It’s certainly not my first tank battle game. Before this I was playing CannonGame. What I really like about iShoot is that there is more strategy that has to go into the game play. You start off with a budget of $15,000. With this money, you buy the ammunition for your tank for the battle. You can either buy expensive weapons that do more damage, but run out quickly or less expensive weapons that don’t do as much damage, but cost less so you’ll have more of them. Nothing feels worse than blowing your entire budget on the Vulcan Cannon only to miss the target completely. The more games you win, the more money you will have to buy weapons. Also if you don’t use a weapon during a round, you get to keep it for the next round.

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You can play against the computer with one or more computer opponents or against other users (passing the iPhone back and forth). The game play takes place against photo realistic backgrounds. While you do have the ability to move your tank back and forwards, it gets difficult or impossible if you’re on a hill. One of my favorite tactics is the use the Dirt Ball or Dirt Wall to completely bury an opponent. This way they have to continue to use up their own ammunition to blast their way out sometimes doing themselves in in the process.

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iShoot goes for $2.99 and is compatible with the iPhone or iPod touch. There is also a FREE iShoot Lite version. The free version of iShoot has fewer weapons (6 out of 25), no photorealistic landscapes, and no tank driving. It is otherwise fully featured. You can download iShoot or iShoot Lite from the App Store. Here’s to another app to suck up some of your valuable time 🙂

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iPhone App of the Week – WootWatch

wootwatch

Woot.com is a long standing source for some really good deals. The way it works is that they post one deal a day. That’s it! When that item is sold out, it’s over for that day. The next day there will be another deal. Although I love to check and see what’s the “Woot of the day”, I don’t always remember to check. While I can go to a Woot.com bookmark in Safari, it’s even cooler to go to a native Woot app. 

 

WootWatch works great!

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This app is very well designed and does exactly what you would expect it to do (for the most part). When you launch the app, it checks Woot.com for the latest deal. It displays the deal and detailed information about it. You can also see the deals from sellout.woot, shirt.woot, and wine.woot.

There is one thing I would have expected though. I actually tried to buy something via the WootWatch app and it took me to Safari (web browser) to make the purchase. While there’s nothing actually wrong with that, the Woot.com site asks for your user name and password which I could not remember. By the time I got home, I completely forgot about the deal. So I missed out on this HD camcorder. One thing I like about 3rd party iPhone apps vs websites and web apps is that they CAN save your login info and password. It would have been great if this info could have been stored in the WootWatch app. Other than that, I really like this app and it helps me to not miss out on some good deals.

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The WootWatch app is FREE and works on the iPhone and iPod touch. You can get it here from the App Store.

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iPhone App of the Week – Keynote Remote

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I give presentations all the time and while I’m not a big fan of slides, when I do have to give a slide presentation Apple’s Keynote is my app of choice. Prior to my iPhone I used to use Salling Clicker on my Palm Treo 650 to remote control my slides via Bluetooth. I do miss that one aspect of my old phone. As you know, I’m a big fan of Apple’s “Remote” app that allows you to control your iTunes app or Apple TV via your iPhone or iPod touch. The app is very well done and feature complete. So needless to say, I just figured that when Apple announced that they were releasing another Remote app that allowed you to remote control your Keynote ’09 presentations, it would be just as good.

 

Basic Functionality

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The Keynote Remote app pairs with your iPhone/iPod touch and your Mac running Keynote ’09 via Wi-Fi. So both your iPhone and Mac need to be on the same Wi-Fi network. That in and of itself could be an issue depending upon your presentation venue (more on this later). Once you have the two paired you can open a Keynote presentation on your Mac and then start playing it on your iPhone. Once Keynote is in “Play” mode you can see the current slide right on the iPhone’s screen including your speaker notes. To advance to the next slide you swipe your finger across the screen. You can also go back to the previous slide. There is a few second delay from the time the slide appears on the big screen until it appears on your iPhone’s screen. That’s about it!

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My slides displaying on the iPhone complete with the speaker notes that were keyed into Keynote.

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What’s missing?

Although this app does what it advertises, there is so much more that it could do. The first thing that I missed was a configurable slide/presentation timer. In other words, I’d like to see how much time I have left while doing my presentation. I’d like to configure a 10 minute and 5 minute warning beep or vibrate. While I appreciate the coolness of a finger swipe to advance slides, it would be more practical to have a large forward/back onscreen overlay button. If your thumb is at the top of the screen it would advance the slides forward, if it’s at the bottom, it would go back a slide. These are simple fixes that Apple can add. However, the big thing is that this App works over Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth. Bluetooth is such a natural fit for this kind of app. Granted the range wouldn’t be as good, but there’s no reason why the app couldn’t work over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Since it only works over Wi-Fi this means that you would either need to have a Wi-Fi connection in your presentation venue OR you would need to setup an ad-hoc network between your Mac and iPhone. Another concern that presenters shouldn’t have to worry about. Although the app allows for controlling your presentation in portrait or landscape orientation of your iPhone, you have to set it in the preferences. I would have expected Apple to take advantage of the accelerometer and simply allow you to tilt your iPhone to change the orientation.

 

The Bottom Line

The Remote app for iTunes/Apple TV sets the bar for remote apps on the iPhone! Unfortunately, the Keynote Remote app doesn’t live up to this standard. I was also stunned that Apple charged 99¢ for this app. Considering that Remote is a FREE app and the Keynote Remote app requires Keynote ’09, you would think it would just be included in iWork ’09 or FREE. With these limits, you might be wondering WHY would I name this app, App of the Week? I chose this app because it does work, but more importantly it does have potential! The things that it needs (with the exception of Bluetooth control) are easily added! If Apple quickly follows up with a 1.1 update that adds the things I listed above, then this app would kick butt. Luckily this isn’t the only app that allows you to remote control a Keynote presentation. The favorite seems to be “Stage Hand.” $7.99

Apple’s Keynote Remote app is compatible with iPhone and iPod touch and of course requires a Mac running Keynote ’09. You can check out Keynote Remote here on the App Store for 99¢.