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.

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

Now that Adobe Lightroom is finally shipping, if you’d like a detailed rundown on it, how it compares to Apple Aperture, and whether it is for you… Ars Technica has published its typically comprehensive take on it:

Ars Technica review

Those of you writing blogs should beware the ever-rising flood of comment-spam. I used to get it on this blog - around 10-20 a day - but the last few months it’s been quiet. Then yesterday (Christmas, surely no coincidence) I got hit by over 1000 comment spams in a 24 hour period. With spam levels now running at around 80% of all email traffic, botnets of comprised computers rentable to spammers for as little as $50 per week for a few thousand machines, and a complete lack of will or ability by governments to get tough on the spammers & tackle the problem… it can only get worse next year.

For Wordpress users I highly recommend the free plug-in Spam Karma 2 which managed to stop every single one of them automatically.

Martin Shakeshaft notes on his blog that the widely used audio-and-stills multimedia slideshow software Soundslides is now undergoing beta-testing of a version for Windows XP. Previously only available for the Mac, developer Joe Weiss has posted the first public beta for windows and is seeking feedback from users in order to iron out remaining problems and turn it into a final release. The beta version seems fully useable, but watermarks the final output as per the trial versions.

Soundslides public beta for Windows XP information
Soundslides public beta for Windows XP download

UPDATE 12/07/06: Martin has posted an interesting slideshow of his black & white pictures from the 1984/85 miner’s strike in Britain, created using the Windows version of Soundslides.

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

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.

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

Pixagent have released version 2.0 of their specialised FTP server software for Windows, which adds a host of new features. The software, which comes in paid-professional and free-standard versions, is designed as a lightweight FTP server specifically for use with the wireless transmitters that are now an option for pro-DSLRs such as Nikon’s WT-1/1A, WT-2/2A and Canon’s WFT-E1/E1A - but can be used for most of the purposes an ftp server is for. The company also makes a version for PocketPC.

Rob Galbraith reports that Camera Bits are prepping their latest version 4.4 of the excellent Photo Mechanic image-browser, and that a beta will likely be available on November 1st. There seem to be some pretty substantial features added, notably in the area of captioning, all of which are well covered in the article.

UPDATE 01/12/05: Final version 4.4 now available for download

It seems everybody is releasing new photo software the last few days. LightCrafts has released a new photo-editing application called LightZone. It claims to have a somewhat innovative approach in treating images as a set of automatically-recognised tonal zones which you can then adjust, and also has RAW image support. Currently only for OSX, but a Windows version is expected in November. More information can be found on the product FAQ.

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.

Adobe has officially launched Photoshop CS2 which they say will begin shipping in May in the U.S. and Canada, and late May/early June for international versions. There are lots of new features, including much improved RAW processing ability, sharpening tools, and 32-bit High Dynamic Range (HDR) support - you can read all about it at the following sites:

Adobe Photoshop CS2 product page

Digital Photography Review article
Digital Photography Review “What’s new” PDF file [2.3mb]
Rob Galbraith article
Imaging Resource article
MacWorld article
Photoshop User article
PhotoFocus article

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.

Taking great pictures is all very well, but if you can’t file them it’s meaningless. In some ways the technology of image transmission has advanced greatly, because of advancements in communications. But in other ways organisations have not always kept up in terms of the software they use for receiving pictures.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) has become the mainstay for most image transmission these days, and so a round-up of all the different software out there seems to be in order. Even though they all use the same ftp protocol, there are big differences in the effectiveness of different applications, as well as differences in their user-interfaces… which some may see as only eye-candy, but when you are trying to file in a hurry in a difficult situation, it all makes a difference. There is a secure, encrypted version of the FTP protocol, called sftp, but I am unaware of any organisations using it, so I shall not go into that here.

FTP Clients

Fetch (Mac)
Transmit (Mac)
Interarchy (Mac)
Yummy FTP (Mac) [Newish client, looks promising]
Cyberduck (Mac) [Open-source]
Bulletproof FTP (Mac/Win)
CuteFTP (Win/Mac)
HeftyFTP (Mac)
Vicomsoft FTP client (Mac)
Captain FTP (Mac)
DropSite & DropSite Courier (Mac) [This clever application creates transportable ftp 'droplets']
FileZilla (Win) [My preferred windows client, open-source, full-featured and works extremely well]
WS_FTP (Win)
3D-FTP (Win)
SmartFTP (Win)
FolderFTP (Win)
FlashFXP (Win)
CoffeeCup Free FTP (Win)
FTP Now (Win)
FTP Commander (Win)
NcFTP (Mac/Win/Linux)
gFTP (Linux)

All-in one image browsers, editors & ftp clients

Photo Mechanic (Mac/Win)
FotoTrafiX (Mac/Win)
PhotoThumb (Win)
Pocket Phojo (PocketPC)

FTP Servers

Mac OSX & Mac OSX Server [These have built-in ftp servers that are easy to use but neither is particularly good or secure - though server version is better]
Windows XP [Can be configured to allow FTP access, but also not very good]
ProFTPD (Mac/Linux & virtually every other operating system)
FTP-Config (Mac)
CrushFTP (Mac/Mac OS9/Win/Linux)
PureFTPd Manager (Mac)
Rumpus FTP (Mac/Mac OS9)
File Zilla Server (Win)
WAR FTP Daemon (Win)
Bulletproof FTP Server (Win)
Cute FTP Server (Win)
Gene6 FTP Server (Win) [Excellent, has nice remote web-admin module]
Cerberus FTP Server (Win)
WS_FTP Server (Win)
Fastream NETFile FTP/Web Server (Win)
Titan FTP Server (Win)
Crocodile Server (Win) [Apple Rendezvous enabled]
WU-FTPd (Linux)
TwoFTPd (Linux)

Legacy transmission applications (terminal-emulators, not ftp)

Zterm (Mac OSX, OS9, OS8)
Black Knight (Mac OS9)
Hyperterminal (Win)

This list is pretty comprehensive of what I feel is worth looking at, but not exhaustive and if you are after something not here, or with some esoteric functionality, there is probably something out there that suits your needs. Try searching at one of these links:

Search VersionTracker for FTP Clients and Servers for OSX
Search VersionTracker for FTP Clients and Servers for Windows
Search VersionTracker for FTP Clients and Servers for Palm

Those of you using Photo Mechanic will know what a great image browser it is already. But there are always bugs to correct and new features to add, so if you have any of either I suggest taking a look at the long-running Photo Mechanic Wishlist thread over at Rob Galbraith’s site. The program’s authors keep an eye on it and provide useful feedback regarding problems, and also information as to what is coming up in future releases.