Category — Software

I finally downloaded the free Quicksilver for Mac OS X and spent a little time learning it this weekend. I’d heard a lot of buzz about Quicksilver over the past year or more, but I just didn’t “get it”.

Quicksilver is:

a computer utility software program for Mac OS X, made by Blacktree Software and distributed freely. It allows users to use the keyboard to rapidly perform tasks such as launching applications, manipulating files and data, running scripts or sending e-mail.
(from the Quicksilver Wikipedia entry)

I watched three YouTube videos by Steve and now I “get it”.

Soooo….

1. Download Quicksilver here
2. Watch the three videos below (and follow along!)
3. You’ll be a much more productive mofo on your Mac!

Apple

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Thoughts/Words/Reviews:
newtonsfruit.com says: What the video editing pros use!

Final Cut Studio 2 delivers an integrated post-production solution that lets you move effortlessly from editing to color grading to creating motion graphics to sculpting audio to multiformat encoding and DVD authoring. This powerful new version features Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4, and Color, the newest member of the suite.

View More about Apple Final Cut Studio 2 (Mac)

Adobe

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newton’s fruit says: The one, the only, the real thing.
You’ve gotta have it!

Adobe Photoshop CS3 software accelerates your path from imagination to imagery. Ideal for photographers, graphic designers, and web designers, the professional standard delivers new features such as automatic layer alignment and blending that enable advanced compositing. Live filters boost the comprehensive, nondestructive editing toolset for increased flexibility. And a streamlined interface and new timesaving tools make your work flow faster.

View More about Adobe Photoshop CS3 [Mac]

Microsoft

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newton’s fruit says: the new Office is almost finally here! At last we’ll get to run Office at full Intel-powered speed!

Homework and Home Work will be easier than ever with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition. Get better results faster and create high-quality documents you can be proud of, with less frustration and more enjoyment.

Simplify Your Work
Your presentation will make an impact. Your documents will be professional. Your analysis will be insightful. And Office 2008 will be there.
The latest version of the industry standard for productivity software on the Macintosh platform, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is more powerful and easier to use. Office 2008 combines Microsoft Word for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac, Microsoft Excel for Mac, Microsoft Entourage for Mac, and Microsoft Messenger for Mac and lets you easily create high-impact documents and seamlessly share your ideas with others, whether they are on the Mac or Windows platform.

View More about Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition

Sometimes, you HAVE to run Windows. You know, sometimes someone will send you a Visio file to work with. What are you to do? Our preferred solution is to use Parallels.

Nova Development

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The first solution that gives Apple users the ability to run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their critical applications at the same time as Mac OS X–without rebooting–on any Intel-powered iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook or MacBook Pro.

The killer app for Mac is now even better than ever!
Parallels Desktop for Mac enables you to run Windows, Linux, and more side-by-side with Mac OS X on any Intel-powered Mac, without rebooting. With Parallels’ award-winning virtualization technology, you can run Mac OS X and your favorite Windows applications at the same time. You can even drag-and-drop files between desktops!

The latest release of Parallels Desktop for Mac comes packed with 50+ new features and enhancements, including SmartSelect, Snapshots, and 3D graphics. Learn more about the new capabilities in the latest release of our award-winning product.

View More about Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (Intel Mac)

Here’s the afore-mentioned Visio

Not a bad product coming from Microsoft (of course they didn’t originally write it )

Microsoft

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Office Visio Professional 2007 will make it easy for IT and business professionals to visualize, analyze and communicate complex information, systems and processes with clear, compelling diagrams. Make an impact on your audiences with professional-looking diagrams. Visualize your custom solutions with Office Visio 2007 diagrams, such as Unified Modeling Language (UML), data flow and Windows user interface diagrams

View More about Microsoft Visio Standard 2007

And if you don’t already have a copy of Windows, you’ll need that too.

We’d recommend you still stay away from Vista. XP Home will do for most situations:

Microsoft

Our Rating:

Thoughts/Words/Reviews:
Newton’s Fruit says: We give it three stars … but that’s kind of unfair, we’re used to working in Mac OS X

Amazon.com says:
Windows XP Home makes it easy to use your Computer for those Personal projects you enjoy. Service Packs round up the bug fixes and product updates you need for operating more smoothly. This Service Pack bridges the gaps between the original software and user requests more fully, responding to customer wishes — and making XP even better.
Share your home computing resources with simple-to-use Networking tools Service Pack features - Security Center offers a central control system for your Windows XP security — work with the firewalls, auto updates and antivirus tools Great news for people sick of pop-up ads - The built-in pop-up blocker controls them, with a new submenu and status bar icons New Add-Ons manager gives you instant access to all the Browser Helper Objects and extensions, enabling and disabling them easily Firewall now has its own control panel Enhancements to the Windows Update service make installing new updates easy Wireless Networking - Multiple wireless connections to choose from

View More about Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition FULL VERSION with SP2

Now you can “get in and get out” of Windows, all from within your Mac!

Adobe

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New Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software is the professional photographer’s essential toolbox, providing one easy application for managing, adjusting, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs so you can spend less time in front of the computer and more time behind the lens.
Quickly download images from your camera to your computer. Automatically rename files, organize folders, and even add metadata to photos as you import them.
Work in the Library module to organize photos into collections, to browse, evaluate, and compare images, and to add keywords so that you can easily find your images.
Jump to the Develop module to make global adjustments to photographs, including correcting white balance, exposure, tone curves, and color casts. Assemble and output high-quality printed contact sheets and generate sophisticated online web galleries and slide shows for client presentation.

To develop Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe worked directly with professional photographers.

Why Lightroom?

Perform nondestructive editing
Enjoy robust support for more than 150 camera raw formats, and experiment with confidence. Adjustments you make to images in Lightroom won’t alter the original data, whether you’re working on a JPEG, TIFF, DNG, or camera raw file.

View More about Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 Win/Mac

Apple

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Newton’s Fruit Says: If you’ve got a Mac with an older version of iLife, iLife ‘08 is totally worth the money for the great updates to iPhoto alone (events rule!) iPhoto, GarageBand, iWeb, iDVD, and iWeb make a great team!

Never has it been so simple to get so much out of your photos, video, and music–and to share your memories with friends and family. The powerful new Events feature works the same way your memory does, automatically organizing your photos and video by the events where they were taken. The completely reinvented iMovie collects all your video clips in one library where you can make movies in seconds with drag-and-drop ease. GarageBand makes it simple to produce great music, whether you’re an accomplished musician or you’ve never played a note. You can showcase photos and movies online with a few clicks in a .Mac Web Gallery, create stunning websites, photo books, calendars, DVDs, and much more. All with the new iLife ‘08.

View More about Apple iLife ‘08