Tag Archives: iLife

Mac20Q Podcast 42 The Mac Mommy

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Melissa is totally in mommy mode and in the process of producing another baby too. Still has time for the using and loving of the Mac. During the interview she tells me a story about a mouse eating one of her peripherals. Melissa uses a MacBookPro and passes her old machines on to her husband, hang on that’s not right ! Oh it’s OK she is the geek of the family. She can be found at Moms Gone geek and The Mac Mommy

A favourite gadget is called a Huckleberry that she keeps in a Tupperware container (Such a Mommy thing to do). She showed it to Alison Sheridan @Podfeet of the Nosillacast when they met up. This gadget is a periscope so that she can video things on the other side of the computer, she is not limited to filming herself sitting in front of her MacBookPro.

The Mac Mommy is a fan of iWork and likes using Numbers, recently using it for collating all the figures for the tax man. Used to be a designer when she left school and used the pro applications for that, but now that she teaches the ‘Snow Birds’ how to use computers. Due to teaching people with bog standard computers, as in not tricked with the likes of QuickSilver for example, she keeps to the applications that you can find on all Macs mostly.

I recommend Bean and Melissa has used it too. We both can’t stand Microsoft Word and the inconsistencies of the formats within it. When will people realise that you DO NOT need to get Word just because other people are using it. Bean makes doc files and so does Pages in iWork. I just bought Scrivener the other day too. Pretty pleased with it. Melissa says that if the person receiving a document from you and they don’t need to edit it then just send them a PDF. That makes sense.

The Mac Mommy does not have an iPhone yet but would like one, despite being unwilling to change to AT & T. I didn’t want to change to Telefonica but had to, mind you it has been OK so far, so I will stop complaining.

In Safari the tabs at the top are good for The Mac Mommy as it is good for using with the senior citizens that are snow birding it in Arizona, and learning about computers while there. Used to love FireFox though. For Twitter Melissa likes Nambu. I was using Nambu but found that it needs more development, wasn’t behaving itself somtimes. I think she will be trying Tweetie soon although likes Twirl a lot.

Melissa made up to the family for eloping with her husband by having a big wedding for the one year anniversary. She made the wedding music with iTunes, did all the printing end of things with iWork and iLife. Sounds like it was a mammoth task but totally enjoyable. Probably did the photos in iPhoto also. Could have used PhotoBooth to take the pictures of all the guests one by one.

The back up strategy is an ABC method Archive, BackUp and Clone. You have to listen to how that works, it is a lesson to all those out there that don’t back up. What!?? you don’t back up?? Listen to Melissa for her great strategy. Get SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner and get 2GB of Free back up with Mozy

In the process of saving cash Melissa has turned to Boxee to not have to pay for cable TV. I don’t think we can get Boxee here in Spain. U.S. only.

For the rest of the information in the show go and listen. I recommend that you subscribe in iTunes though so that you don’t miss any episodes.

Mac20Q podcast 41 Evan Montgomery

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Wizardgold Ramblings. I was listening to the Nosillacast and she was reviewing Mercury Mover and it sounds like a useful bit of kit that I would like to get at some time or other.

Scrivener and Bento are apps I have bought this week. Bento has a video competition

Talking to Evan Montgomery, he is into photography and learning how to do more with his images. Evan has Sun Virtual Box on the computer  but hardly uses it.

He has opened up his Mac to be able to upgrade ram, so he is a bit of tech head and not afraid to dive in there.

Has use various browser applications including Stainless. Oovoo is an app he uses with Mark Sheppard , Robyn Saunders and Michael King to chat and get the sound better by putting that through Skype instead.

Evan has made videos and put them on to DVD using the iLife applications. His grand parents have been impressed with the finished product. That is normal though because iLfe is such a great suite of applications.

For back up it is Carbon Copy Cloner and also Time machine. For the utilities Evan like Caffeine and iStat menu. Caffeine keeps the machine from going to sleep. iStat tracks many of the things within the computer like temperature of the machine internals.

Evan prefers to go to the video store to buy movies because it is cheaper than buying the movie on iTunes. he does buy ‘The Office ‘ the TV series in HD. I mention SplatEric and his ‘Out of Office’ web drama.

On the iPod touch he has Tweetie for twitter , Flight control, Enigmo, Air mouse, Skype.

In school there are a few nerds he might talk to but can’t understand the PC based geeks. Hands in work at school in a printed format but sometimes will hand in via email instead.

Evan listens to a pile of podcasts too numerous to mention so you can listen to this podcast to find out for yourself.

Sponsor for the show is ScreenFlow

Don’t forget to enter the competition for the Amadeus Pro Audio editing application.

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Mac20Q Podcast 39 Mike Smith

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Mike has a MacBookPro as his main computer and has a Mac Mini connected to the TV. Mike is a writer and had taken the brave step of giving up a job in order to make his way in the world into being a writer. Has been using the mac for about 3 years before the writing he was a coder.
Connected to the computer he goes for wired mighty mouse the nipple scroll button is mentioned regards getting it cleaned. He rubbed the nipple on paper where I have blown into the gap around the edge of the button the get the gunk out,  and has a brother HL5240 printer.

I guessed at Mike using Scrivener and was 100% right. Well he is a writer and it seems that it was coded by a writer that could get what he needed from the word processor route. Mike says it is a cracking bit of software. likes the chaptering and versioning – templates for various things – make it easy to collate it and output the final work, and the price was good too. For script writing you might look at Celtx a free app and free is always good.

Sponsor for the Show is Go To Meeting

Mike has an extensive collection of iPods and it may have had a slight effect on the buying of an Apple computer. Mike is a Firefox person and once in a while will use Safari, he likes the plug ins with Firefox, like the debug tools and sage plugin

Adium is mentioned by Mike because it connects to so many social networks, lately getting more integration added to it. Mike has recently changed to Tweetie for his twittering.

Mike as had a play with iLife ’09 apps but is not a big user because of doing movies in Final Cut Pro 3.0. Found that the faces feature in iPhoto just takes time from him and his writing.

One of his writing projects is ‘Out of Office’ a web drama and has other things in the pipeline. We talk about how level the playing field is for aspiring writers to be able to get work out in front of an audience online. There is content coming out from the top down, as in the BBC’s and other institutions and also from the grass roots level of people like the young woman in the North east of England who has put out videos on YouTube showing people how to put on make up. Good content will always find an audience.

Mike acknowledges the steepness of the learning curve with Final Cut Pro 3.0 and says he learns something new each time he has some editing to do.

Mike like features in Quicksilver and come in there as a favourite application especially when operating with iTunes. Fav for the iPhone is iExpenseit as a way to control what he spends, seeing as he needs to build an income with the writing.

The film Minority Reportwhere Tom Cruise is moving stuff around on a huge screen is something that would be in a wish list of computing equipment. Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)
Sceptics Guide to the Universe podcast. gets a mentions and I tell him about JC Hutchins podcasted novel called 7th Son.

Go now to watch the web drama that is ‘Out of Office’ and have a look at Mike’s personal web site.
Screenwipe a TV program about writers

ScreenFlow an application that I love using to make screencasts. Edits video as well