Aint that special

I was browsing through my local Apple store carrying around a copy (the LAST copy) of Aperture and “Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture (Apple Pro Training Series)” like I was ready to make the purchase. Now I’m no professional photographer. In fact I take pretty average pictures which is why I want some software to make them look better. If I was a good photographer I wouldn’t need touch-ups. A eventually stumbled upon LightZone. Now this seems much more useful to some one like me than Aperture. While I have a couple thousand photos in iPhoto, I don’t usually need to compare rolls of photos from a photo-shoot. There is also an apparent user base out there too. The negative info I could find was a review on VersionTracker that claimed the software was too slow because it was written in Java. I don’t know about that, but it did win Best of Show at Macworld Expo 2006. I still have not decided, but LightZone is looking pretty good right now. If I finally decide on a new Camera that supports RAW format, it might push me over the edge to plunk even more money down on some better editing software.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Software

I think every long time Mac user is friends with Quicksilver. In fact I list it as one of my favorite Freeware apps. I find it difficult to use a Mac that doesn’t have it installed. The calculator plugin for Quicksilver is extremely useful. To install it, go to the preferences for QS and check the box next to “Calculator Module”

Once it is installed, invoke QS (mine is activated by ctrl-space) and hit the period on your keyboard. This brings up the text editing box. Type an equation in and tab over to the next window. No start typing “Calculator” until the Calculator actions is selected.

After you hit return, the result will be placed back in the text field. There are also calculator actions to place the result on the clipboard or just display it on the screen.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Software

I’m still working through “Programming in Objective-C” (Stephen Kochan). Since I commute on the train, I have plenty of time during the day to read. I’m about a third done. I hope to finish in a couple of weeks. So keep in mind this is all still really new to me. I’m not trying to create a tutorial, but rather share my experience learning the language.
This one is very closely related to the previous post. This is about methods that accept arguments. If you break down this line:

- (void) setNumber: (int) n

We already know that the beginning declares that the method will not be returning any values (i.e. void). But the colon says that this method will be accepting an argument. The next bracket indicates that the method setNumber will read in an integer. The integer is named “n.” Just as a side note, the minus sign in front of (void) indicates that this is an instance method. The other option is the plus sign to indicate a class method.
Here’s a more complex one:

- (void) bounceBack: (Height *) b;

This one is a method that accepts something that is of the type class Height which had been previously declared. The asterisk is what tells us that Height is already a class. The learning curve is getting steeper now.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Objective C, Programming

I tried to perform my regular backup to my Apple iDisk account. Unfortunately, Backup 3 informed me that I didn’t have sufficient space. I tried to delete some files but I found no love. It turns out that you can’t just delete the backup files on the iDisk by dragging them to the trash. This actually a pretty nice feature to make sure you don’t screw yourself accidently. So it turns out that if you just check the menu under “Backup” you’ll find another item called “Remove iDisk Backups.” You are then presented with two options. YOu can remove all archives or just the ones created with older versions of Backup. Now my user data is safe and secure once again.