If you’re like me, you found the organization, editing and interface of Aperture to beg the question what did I do before Aperture? Here’s some Aperture news and goodies that will help you get even more out of Apple’s outstanding pro photo application.

• How about an Aperture-specific keyboard, keys marked with the shortcuts they activate?

• Flickr member? Thinking about it? The new Flickr Aperture plugin will make that decision easy, because it allows you to export from Aperture straight into Flickr. Nice.
• Aperture Users Professional Network is a very helpful site for us Aperture users. Check it out.
• Do you use Gallery 1 or 2? This Aperture plugin will blow your mind [if you can get it — site is down as this goes to press].

Apple, Inc.’s legal department reached in February an agreement with the Beatles’ record label Apple Corps Ltd. It frees Apple Inc. to load music onto its products. It could have an interesting effect on how iPods are sold (or possibly even Macs or AppleTV).

The old agreement (at Sections 1.3 and 4.3) seemingly prevented Apple from selling music on physical media, such as CDs, even though it could sell music through the iTunes Store. On paper, this seemed like a simple limitation: Apple could sell music-playing hardware like iPods, but it couldn’t sell you the discs full of music to play on the iPod.

Apple’s iTunes Store - the subject of the 2003 lawsuit - successfully stepped around this limitation by using the Internet to distribute music, but it left Apple with two major limitations: Apple couldn’t pre-install music on iPods, or otherwise sell it on any physical medium, such as discs. This was one of the reasons that the prior U2 Special Edition iPods didn’t actually include U2’s music - Apple’s contract with The Beatles forced you to buy it separately online.

This would be a big boost to very specific, niche iPod sales outlets like airport iPod vending machines. Can you imagine being able to get an iPod at airport terminal loaded with Celine Dion, saving you the trouble of ripping your vast Dion collection while trying to pack?

I needed to test a site in Internet Explorer 7, on Windows XP. Since I use the remarkable tool Parallels Desktop for Mac, and it gives me for all intents and purposes an actual Windows PC, I reviewed my options before installing IE7 on my XP/Parallels install. Rumors had been swirling in my head that installing 7 would deactivate IE6 forever.

I still need IE6, no way was I going to let that happen.

The Journey Begins

There is a way to install IE7 without removing IE6 — this workaround — but it only works with beta versions of IE7. I don’t want to track down and install a beta of IE7. More Googling turned up a solution fulfilled by installing Virtual PC 2004, but running a PC inside a PC on my Mac? That’s getting a little complex for my taste. I haven’t had any LSD flashbacks in months, and I don’t want to start triggering them again now. I do want to note that VPC is free, to Microsoft’s credit.

Then, after a massive bong hit, I remembered I can install more than one OS on Parallels. Voila. Better than that, Parallels allows you to clone a virtual machine. PERFECT.

Continue reading »

Is Apple hiding or disabling features in the latest OS X 10.5 “Leopard” developer builds?

This interesting Digg story commentary by user panique not only answers “Yes,” to that, but explains why.

If you actually viewed the MWSF Keynote, you saw Steve Jobs tell us there were some other amazing features in Leopard that they are playing very close to the vest. He said he didn’t want to “give anyone a head start on copying them”. Of course this is an implied reference that Microsoft wishes to copy these features.

All it takes to get a copy of the Leopard Developer release is $500 and a mailing address. Not to mention that we already know that Microsoft is an Apple Authorized Apple developer (Office Mac, etc.). Given that Apple has already stated that it does not want to give any advance opportunity for Microsoft to preview any “top secret” features, the idea that they have a secret internal-only build clearly is not a theory, it is an operational imperative. And I’d hazard a guess that a healthy portion of the bugs present in the latest preview have to do with the “top secret” features being ripped out of the build.

Nicely done, panique.