iLife |
MacMove reader **Isaac** asks: >My mother just inherited my brother's old iBook, with a new hard drive. How do we go about moving all of her music from her desktop PC to the iBook? That's a good question - one that lots of people ask. So, we're going to tackle it right here on the site! ##Basic Outline## Let's deal with the actual transfer first. A music library is nothing more than a folder containing sub-folders which hold music. Now, there are probably a lot of songs in your Mom's music library, so we're talking about *a lot* of data; probably gigabytes. So, we're not going to just email these files or put them on a CD. But, not to worry: there are two different methods to move this much data between computers, and both are pretty simple. ##Options## The first solution takes some doing. It's not hard, but it is complex. Luckily, Apple has a walk-through available [here](http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107083). So, that's that. The other option, an external hard drive (which Isaac ended up using) is much simpler. Just place all of the music onto the drive from the PC then copy it onto the Mac (remembering to then remove it from the external drive once you verify it's all working on the iBook). You see, Macs can use the same external hard drives that Windows PCs do, so that's a piece of cake. ##Get Organized## ##The Move## NOTE: if there is more than one folder with the name "iTunes Music" in that magic spot, your computer will balk. Like the Highlander, there can be only one... iTunes Music folder. So, before you blindly copy your music onto the second machine, make sure you have moved or renamed the folder that you're replacing. If you don't, it will be erased to make room for the new one. Everything should be fine, as long as you haven't launched iTunes on the second machine anytime during the transfer. Once the files are in place, go ahead an launch the program; it should see the new iTunes Music folder at startup and –presto!– you've got your old music library on your new machine. As always, if anything here is unclear or you run into problems, let us know, via email or in a comment. Good luck! |
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A piece ran recently in the NJ Star-Ledger about .Mac. Allan Hoffman, that paper's Tech columnist, [writes](http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/hoffman/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/114637133850760.xml&coll=1) that: > Technology gurus have hyped the idea of seamless integration between personal computers and the online world for years, but we still remain far from a simple, one-stop collection of services. >Unless, that is, you use a service from Apple Computer called .Mac. Hoffman's thesis is simply that, while computers are supposed to make it easy to manage information, many of the info-storage and syncing sites online, like Yahoo!, Gmail, Snapfish and others, are difficult to learn and almost impossible to use together. He likes the all-in-one simplicity and usability of .Mac. Now, I'm a .Mac user and love it, but I'd like to know how many of you use .Mac and what features *you* use. For review, here is the feature list, according to Apple's [website](http://www.apple.com/dotmac/features.html): * Publishing with iWeb - The ability to publish a website straight out of iWeb Now, I use most (if not all) of those features, but I am, as they say, a little bit of a geek. What about the rest of you? Do you .Mac? |
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...Apple isn't any more pro-DRM than anyone else. I really don't get the anti-DRM rhetoric. Every song that Apple sells is protected from illegal distribution by [FairPlay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay). But, you can burn those songs to CD, straight out of iTunes, as many times as you want, forever. And, once they are burned to CD, they can be re-imported, totally stripped of all DRM. Now, I know that's a hassle, but here's the point: Apple has made the finest online music store ever, with the easiest-to-use interface and largest library. They offer DRM to protect their clients' interests and to make it "a hassle" to steal the music. Not impossible (like Microsoft and Sony try to do), because that makes the user experience a real pain in the rear. So, they provide a great service, don't get in host users' way and, with a little sweat, you can still steal the music (if that's really what you're after). What's the problem? |
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Apple keeps sneaking new features into every new version of iTunes and, while that's exciting, there are some tradeoffs. For example, Podcasts are cool, but they take up a lot of space. And, since when we first search for Podcasts, we all find and subscribe to, like, a dozen of them, this can become a problem pretty quickly. Go ahead and check: launch iTunes and select all of your Podcasts then look down at the bottom of the screen. Chances are, you've got a lot of drive space dedicated to old podcasts. Good news is that, thanks to a [little tip](http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/05/itunes-6-0-2-do-not-auto-delete-podcasts/) from The Unofficial Apple Weblog and a new feature in iTunes, you can reclaim that wasted space. >The most recent update to iTunes (6.0.2) brought a minor addition that podcast fans have been drooling over for quite some time now: the ability to customize the auto deletion of podcasts. Head over and check it out; your hard drive will thank you. |
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This is a new subject for me here. Last semester, I taught a course called Digital Art which was an in-depth look at Photoshop CS. The class went well and the students produced some amazing work. Both they and I enjoyed it, too. I can't wait until I teach it again. ###Introduction### My reasons for converting the photo are varied and not really worth going into here. Suffice it to say that, for many reasons, portraits are far more evocative in black and white than in color. I think that this photo, for example, is more interesting in black and white and I'd love to hear your thoughts in comments at the end of this post. My research has identified several methods of converting color images to black and white and this experiment is my attempt to compare them. I don't expect that I will come out of this by indentifying one "best" method, but I hope to learn something about the differences between the methods that will help me understand when to use each one. ###The pictures### I think that even this simple edit changes the image considerably. The contrast between the shadows on the subject's hair and the light on her face, for example, as well as the contrast between the subject and the background, is far more striking on the right than it is on the left. That said, this is the most elementary way to convert to black and white. Other methods exist that can be used to far more dramatic effect. For example, in a [recent article](http://creativebits.org/photoshop/turn_color_photo_into_black_and_white ) at [creativebits](http://creativebits.org/), [dimitrije](http://creativebits.org/user/dimitrije) outlined a technique that I will call "White Hue Sharpening." In a nutshell, the WHS technique uses Photoshop's Layer Blending to merge a solid white layer into a color photo then sharpen the result using an Unsharp Mask. Here is the result, side by side with the "Simple B&W" image I posted above (WHS is on the right):
Notice the increased contrast between the whites and blacks? Notice also how the sharpening has affected the long hair? Also, in the WHS image, the background is cleaner and less distracting. All in all, of the two, I prefer the WHS technique for this particular photo.
The result is, I think, a far more focused and compelling image. The conversion is much harsher than the previous versions, but I'll admit that that is what I was going for. By blowing so many of the image's highlights out into pure white, I've increased the photo's contrast to unnatural proportions, giving the image an almost-hand-drawn flavor. See how far away the background has moved? There is no longer any question about what the photo's primary focus is. There is just one last version. I created in in Photoshop using a technique I learned from Scott Kelby's book, [Photoshop CS Down and Dirty Tricks](), which I recommend highly for Photoshop beginners. On Page 198, there's a technique called "Creating Gallery Prints" which, in a nutshell, utilizes the Channel Mixer to convert RGB color to B&W without giving up the control of each color channel neccesary to achieve the "Ansel Adams look." Here is the result:
The image might stand a little more sharpening, but I think that might come at the cost of realism. I like this version the most because it achieves my goals without looking too edited: I've got the contrast between lights and darks, I've moved the background back out of the way and I've managed to maintain the realism as well. ###Conclusion### I hope that you've enjoyed this post - it's helped me to clarify some ideas about the B&W conversion process for myself and I expect I'll come back to it in the future, both for reference and to question my assumptions. Digital photo editing is a process that allows those of us without natural artistic skills, like drawing or painting, get our hands wet and express ourselves in another medium. I've never been able to draw or sculpt, so I enjoy the opportunities that this sort of work presents. The tools available to use today, versus just three years ago, make it possible to achieve really remarkable results without a ton of specialized knowledge. While Photoshop is probably too complex for beginners to leap right into, applications like iPhoto and Photoshop Elements make it possible for "the rest of us" to apply some of the same principles the professionals use. And, with the extraordinary amount of information available in books and online (or, if you're lucky enough to attend my class ;) ), virtually anyone can begin to use more powerful tools to achieve spectacular results. Just to review, here are the different versions of this image. In order, they are: the full color original, the desaturated version from Photoshop, the iPhoto levels/exposure version, the WHS technique from [creativebits](http://www.creativebits.org), and my favorite, the channel mixer technique in Photoshop:
I'd love to hear your comments. |
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