SnapperTalk

Seems I missed this one… My preferred FTP client for Windows (and Linux) is now available for Mac OS X. FileZilla is a robust, free, and open-source ftp client (server version also available) that in my experience handles a variety of connections (including satphones) very reliably.
Longtime Mac users will probably hate the un-Mac-like interface, but shouldn’t dismiss it out of hand as it’s a very full-featured ftp client that has served me well and continues to be frequently updated and improved.
One particularly useful feature that has saved me countless hours of time is the ability to export and import both the settings and all the saved ftp sites, including passwords and individual site preferences. This makes it very quick and easy to transfer everything to a new machine without needing to re-enter everything. Give it a try…

FileZilla download page

Naked Light claims to be a new image-editing application for Mac OS X promising non-destructive editing, node-based compositing, “infinite resolution”, live tools, and pro tools that work in photographer-friendly units like “stops”.
Rather than deal with all this jargon, just download the public beta when it becomes available tomorrow and give it a try… the interface certainly looks appealing. Note they say it requires Mac OS X Leopard (10.5), and probably a decent graphics card, to run.

For the photographer who has everything…

Mac OS X keeps itself pretty tidy without much maintenance by the user but it’s not a bad idea once in a while to clean the system a bit - especially if you start to have any problems.
The UNIX core of OS X contains a number of built-in utilities for this but if you’re not a command-line geek you’ll want to use a 3rd party utility to simplify the process. They mostly do the same things - some more some less. Here’s a few to consider in my rough order of preference:

MainMenu
IceClean
OnyX
Tiger Cache Cleaner
Cocktail
Yasu

Macs seem less prevalent in the Middle East compared to Europe or the US it seems, but the level of Mac resources in the region appears to be increasing, as evidenced by the opening of a new AppleStore in Cairo, Egypt.

So for those of you who are Mac users in the region, here’s a list of some useful websites:

Apple:

Apple Middle-East
Apple Middle East - Where to Buy - Resellers
Apple Middle East - Where to Buy - Retailers
Apple Middle East - Services & Support

Arabic/English:

EmiratesMac - community website and Mac User Group
EmiratesMac IDX - prices watch in Dubai
Middle-Eastern Mac User Group
MiddleEastMac - search engine
Mac4Arabs
MacArabia.net

Farsi:

Iranian Mac User Group
PersianApple

Hebrew/English:

Apple Israel
Mac dot Plonter Community
IsraMac blog
Hebrew Mac User Group

If you know any others please leave a comment….

I had occasion to evaluate a potentially dodgy compactflash card recently, and thought I’d try a piece of free software that’s been sitting around on my computer for a while. The Card Wiper software from the company DataRescue - who also make the superb card-recovery software PhotoRescue - is a simple program designed to wipe clean a camera card.

But another function it has is to test such media for problems. It does this by writing zeros all over the disk, reading them back, followed by writing ones all over the disk, and again reading them back. This should be able to give a good idea if there are any “bad” parts to the card akin to a bad sector on a hard disk. Give it a try… but do note this program is designed to irrevocably erase a card - it is not recovery software like PhotoRescue.

Cardwiper for Windows download
Cardwiper for OSX download

Apple’s new consumer-orientated iBook successor “MacBook” looks like a nice machine indeed. It also marks the end of Apple’s “PowerBook” line of laptops with the last remaining PowerBook model - the 12″ G4 Powerbook - having now been removed from sale. Apple’s original PowerBook 100 revolutionised the computer industry and played an important role in the history of digital picture transmission - despite a price tag of $2,500 when it was first introduced in 1991. It packed a whopping 16 MHz processor, 2MB RAM and 20MB hard drive.

Fast-forward 15 years and you have the new MacBook, sporting Intel’s Core Duo processor at speeds from 1.83 GHz to 2.0 GHz, glossy 13.3-inch widescreen 1280×800 display and full-size keyboard. The Core Duo is an impressive processor, and should of course enable dual-booting of OSX and Windows using Apple’s Boot Camp utility as with other Intel Macs. Other nice features are built-in iSight webcam, Front Row & Apple Remote capability, MagSafe Power Adapter, magnetic screen latch, user-replaceable hard-drives, gigabit ethernet, AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, two USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire 400 port, optical digital and analog audio in/out, and a mini-DVI connector for connecting to external displays. The 5.2 pound machine is available in both white and black versions - which marks Apple’s first black notebook since the venerable Pismo. Unfortunately the top-end black model costs $200 more than a similarly-specced white version, with only a 20GB larger hard-drive in compensation.

But is it a good machine for digital photographers? Well yes and no, depending on what type of other equipment you use. In terms of speed and capabilities I’m pretty sure it would fulfil the needs of most photo-related tasks, and to those of us who have to use certain windows-only software, the dual-boot capability is fantastic. So what’s missing? No FireWire 800 or internal modem - neither of these will pose too much of a problem and are to be expected.

However… just like the iBook it is replacing, Apple has unfortunately decided to omit any sort of expansion slot - either pcmcia/pccard like the old PowerBooks, or the new ExpressCard slot as featured on the MacBook Pro. Whilst this is clearly a consumer-orientated machine, and much of the functionality one might need from pcmcia/ExpressCard expansion (digital camera card adapters, isdn modems, GSM/EDGE/3G cards etc can be replicated by other devices connected via USB, Firewire or Bluetooth… it remains an almost-deal-breaking omission in my mind. I’m sure this machine will sell like hotcakes and satisfy the needs of most users, but I think there’s a fair few people out there who were hoping for a smaller-than-15″-laptop without sacrificing full connectivity.

In other news, Apple has boosted the processor speeds on the MacBook Pro - with the base model going from 1.83GHz to 2GHz, the 2GHz model going to 2.16GHz, and all the Pro series available with an optional glossy display like the MacBook.

Apple MacBook
Apple MacBook full specifications
Apple MacBook photo gallery
Apple MacBook QTVR (White)
Apple MacBook QTVR (Black)
Apple MacBook & MacBook Pro comparison page
Engadget’s hands-on with the MacBook
MacWorld MacBook first-look
Ars Technica MacBook review

If you’d have told me a few years ago I’d be seeing the above image when I booted up the latest Macintosh, I’d have thought you were crazy.

Well, It seems everyone can forget about the previous attempted hacks to boot Windows on an Intel-Mac, as Apple has come out and announced Boot Camp - software that will allow one to pretty seamlessly do just this, just by holding down the option/alt key at startup. At the moment it is a freely downloadable public beta, but will eventually be part of the next iteration of the Mac OS - 10.5 “Leopard” - and is really it marks quite a milestone in Apple’s history.

The main system requirements are:
* Mac OS X Tiger v10.4.6
* The latest Firmware update (check Support Downloads)
* 10GB free hard disk space
* An Intel-based Mac
* A bona fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2, Home or Professional (No multi-disc, upgrade or Media Center versions.)

MacRumors point out that it is really the firmware upgrade that provides the dual-boot functionality (by providing EFI with BIOS support) - the Boot Camp CD software just provides the necessary mac-specific drivers to support the Mac hardware under Windows XP. What this means is that you should also be able to boot your favourite flavour of Linux, and also Windows Vista when (if?) it ever comes out.

One suggestion I’d make is if you want to be able to read all the files on the OSX partition from Windows, try the incredibly useful “MacDrive” software that enables any Windows user to natively read HFS/HFS+ formatted disks.

Sadly I don’t have an Intel-Mac to test it, and of course this won’t be of any use to owners of G3/G4/G5 PowerPC Macs.

Further coverage here:
Ars Technica Boot Camp notes

MacWorld
MacNN
The Register
Engadget 1
Engadget 2
Engadget 3
MacRumors 1
MacRumors 2
OSX86 Project

The story so far… When Apple released its new Intel-based machines - the Macbook Pro, iMac, and now Mac-Mini - it said it would not actively prevent users from running Windows on the machines. But that’s not the same as actually enabling people to do so - see previous post or here for details on some of the technical problems involved.

A contest seeking donations was started by Colin Nederkoorn that resulted in a $13,000 prize being offered to the person who could come up with a solution that fulfilled the following criteria:

1. It must boot Windows XP (at least), not Vista or any other version of Windows.
2. Windows must be able to coexist with Mac OS X and each system must not interfere with the operation of the other (basically a traditional dual boot system where one OS is running at a time).
3. The method, upon starting the computer, must offer the user to boot either OS X or Windows XP

Well now it appears that the contest has been won, and the solution will soon be posted on the contest website and will be turned into an open-source project. Good news for Intel-Mac owners, and an impressively-quick community response to a difficult problem.

Update 17/03/06: The bootloader software is now available for free download with detailed installation instructions and a FAQ page.

I’ve just had two internal hard-drives fail on me which will be the fourth set of drives to fail in as many years, and I’m talking mechanically-dead failures, not formatting problems. Fortunately I have backups, but with every digital photo I’ve ever shot stored on hard-disk - now approaching the 100,000 mark - it’s made me think a lot more seriously about proper archiving of images, as that is a LOT to lose if things go wrong. Ideally one should have backups both on multiple hard-drives and on multiple DVDs, but for the moment I’ve been looking at hard-drive based RAID solutions. That’s not to discount the definite value of DVD backups, especially when stored well and offsite, just that they are pretty self-explanatory.

After encountering a lot of useful information on the subject I thought I’d write an in-depth look at the risks of data-loss for photographers and how to counter them using hard-disk-based RAID systems, examining the following areas:

1. The risks of data-loss for photographers
2. RAID - What it is, what it does do, what it doesn’t do, and why it is useful
3. Backup strategies and software
4. Hard-drive interfaces
5. Network Attached Storage (NAS)
6. Roll-your-own NAS/File-server
7. What hardware to choose

Click here for the full article

Keep in mind an old adage…
THERE ARE ONLY TWO TYPES OF HARD DRIVES:
THOSE THAT HAVE FAILED, AND THOSE THAT WILL FAIL

Rob Galbraith has posted his impressions of the MacBook Pro - specifically as a machine for photographer’s use. It’s a good article highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of the new machine’s hardware and processor architecture from a photographer’s perspective. He notes that “Dennis Walker from Camera Bits says that most of the work has been done to make the application [Photo Mechanic] a Universal Binary, though the company has not committed to a release date.” So hopefully there will soon be an Intel version of Photo Mechanic… which leaves the biggest question of all - When will Adobe release an Intel-native version of Photoshop?

With Apple finally releasing the first Intel-based macs - the new iMac and MacBook Pro - those hoping to at last be able to have a machine capable of natively booting both OSX & Windows should have been pretty happy. There have been ways before - OSX for Intel Developer Preview on a standar Intel machine, Windows running emulated under VirtualPC - but this was hoped to be the first “proper” way.

But if dual-booting OSX/XP is crucial for your needs, you might want to hold off on throwing down your hard cash for the new machines - at least until a few issues are clarified. Some recent discussion on messageboards suggests that because the new machines use the newer & better EFI instead of BIOS as the low-level firmware interface and Windows XP (32-bit) doesn’t support EFI at this time, natively booting Windows might not be possible yet - at least until Microsoft Vista comes out. It seems likely this issue will get quickly resolved one way or another (i.e. officially or un-officially) but if such an ability is critical it might be wise to hold off - at least until matters are clearer.

Photographers in particular should also note the switch from PCMCIA slot to new-style ExpressCard/34 slot, and the magnetic MagSafe power connector designed to avoid damage when tripping over power leads. O’Grady’s Powerpage has a brief hardware-change summary.

Further discussion of the Windows-on-Macbook subject in this MacRumors thread, this Digg thread, this BetaNews thread and others such as the MacNN forums.

Update 13/03/06: Ars Technica has posted a very extensive review of the machine here

As mentioned pretty much everywhere by now, Adobe has released a new product intended as a contender for Apple’s Aperture. Initially available as a public beta for Mac OSX only - they say Windows versions will follow later - it’s good to see the big companies tackling the arena of professional digital photography workflow and asking the important question of HOW you do things, not just WHAT you can do.

Lightroom product page.
Download Lightroom Installer [DMG, 8MB]
Download Lightroom Installer + sample content [DMG, 140MB]

Adobe Lightroom video tutorial [streaming flash]
Luminous Landscape - Lightroom review
PhotoshopNews - announcement & screenshots
PhotoshopNews - Lightroom FAQ

If you liked the sound-and-still-images presentations on the Magnum in Motion website, you might be interested in Soundslides - an impressive application for Mac OSX that enables users to easily create this type of multimedia presentation. Combining your still images with an audio track, titling and automatic caption info extraction, it exports it all as a Macromedia Flash piece ready for upload to any webserver. There are some sample slideshows to look at on their FAQ page

The software is created by Joe Weiss - interactive producer at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina - and there is a short review of Soundslides here. Joe also keeps track of some of some the best multimedia work that’s being produced on the net in his blog

Apple has created Aperture - a new application for pro digital photography. Although not yet released, it appears to be the Final Cut Pro of stills photography and is a very exciting development in an arena pretty much exclusively dominated by Photoshop and a few other applications.

It looks from the technical specifications that it is not intended to be a Photoshop replacement, but rather an all-in-one workflow application that they claim integrates seamlessly with Photoshop. And for minimal-manipulation photojournalism photography, it may even be the only application needed for a large proportion of such work. It has extensive RAW image support and EXIF/IPTC support, although I’d like to know if the captioning is fully compatible with the multitude of imaging systems out there. Let’s hope so.

At the moment it is only available for pre-order but the Aperture page on the Apple website has a lot of information on it.

UPDATE 31/10/05: Rob Galbraith now has an extensive page of additional information about Aperture.

This new device as originally reported in this Engadget article - the MacPower DMG7 - is intended as an add-on for the Mac-Mini to give high quality audio/video playback and offers the following features:

· Embedded Linux operating system
· Supports a 3.5″ Hard Drive
· Onboard Wired LAN connection
· Wi-Fi / Bluetooth support
· High Definition 1080i/720p Large Video Playback
· SPDIF Dolby 5.1 Audio support
· All major Video & Audio formats including WMV9 & DivX support

As a recent Mac-Mini and NewerTech MiniStack owner, this device seems a pretty interesting solution for turning it into a multimedia hub.

UPDATE 11/10/05: For some reason they seem to have changed the name of this from DMG8 to DMG7… no idea why.

UPDATE 01/11/05:They say a retail version will be available towards the end of December, and that the UK retailer will be MAG (UK) Ltd

Users wanting to know more about the oh-so-revolutionary news that Apple has finally launched a mouse with more than one button, albeit with some clever touch-sensitive technology, might want to check out the in-depth Ars Technica review of the new device, or the Apple “Mighty Mouse” product page.

PhotoRescue, by the Belgian company DataRescue, is hands-down one of the must-have tools for any digital photographer. I can’t remember how many times it has saved the day when I or someone working with me has accidentally deleted images, formatted a card containing vital images, or suffered card failure. And with militaries becoming increasingly unhesitant about demanding that pictures be deleted in-camera when they disapprove of what has been shot, it can be invaluable in recovering those images later on.
New versions for both Mac OSX (v2.1.675) and Windows (v2.1.674) have just been released and demo versions are available here.
They also make a free utility called CardWiper that can wipe a card clean, beyond the reach of data-recovery programs, which can be useful in deep-erasing bad formatting information that can occur when cards get corrupted.

Panic’s ftp client Transmit has been one of the Mac apps that’s been around for as long as I can remember, and I know a lot of photographers use it, so if you do you’ll want to check out the latest version 3.

Adobe has released an update to its Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop CS, now up to version 2.4, which includes updates to support Raw files from the Canon EOS 20D, PowerShot S70, PowerShot G6, and EOS-1Ds Mark II.