Apple’s latest quarterly report indicates they sold 37 million iPhones, 15 million iPads, and 15 million iPods, compared to only 5 million Macs.  Should it be a surprise that current and future success for Apple is and will be in mobile technology? Perhaps that is why this trade show is no longer called simply Macworld — it’s Macworld |iWorld.

Friday, a lot of my focus was on photography and I was wowed by presentations, products, and apps.  Here are a few things that caught my attention:

• In a presentation by Michael Clawson, he quoted from an interview he did with the famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, about how powerful the iPhone is: “The iPhone is the snapshot camera of today.” Now that’s an endorsement. And yes, he clarified, she was dead serious about it.
• Crave a better lens for your iPhone? Olloclip is an add-on that allows you to take better photos with iPhone, including a fish-eye, wide-angle, and macro lens built-in. iPro Lens is a similar concept, but is meant for more serious photographers…or at least those with more serious money to invest in their photos. Think of them like Aerosmith (Olloclip) vs the Rolling Stones (iPro Lens) – they’re both good, but cater to slightly different audiences.

• I’ve been a long-time user of Camera+, an app that enhances the already awesome things Apple’s built-in Camera app can do. If you want to get serious about photos on an iPhone, this is a must-have.
• Every once in a while, you wish you could capture everything with a panoramic shot. I’ve used Pano, but it requires too much effort. Far easier is Autostitch — You just shoot, and the app automatically stitches your photos together. This picture, made up of 8 different shots, took me about 15 seconds to do:

• Two fun photography apps: ColorSplash lets you convert photos to black and white, then restore color to only select parts of the photo. PicFrame lets you make an orderly collage of up to four photos, in multiple arrangements. Check out what I did with a photo of a shirt, using both apps, to honor our late HMAUS friend Ryan Suenaga.

• Joan Matsukawa, Jerome Koehler and I got to see Les Posen’s presentation on unleashing Keynote. It’s often described as Apple’s take on PowerPoint, but that is truly understating the power of the application. I joked to a woman who said she had not yet used either Keynote or Powerpoint,”Good! That way you won’t have to unlearn any bad PowerPoint habits!”  And Keynote for iPad — It’s so easy to use, I’ve created and presented, straight from my iPad…and you can do the same on iPhone!

Note: We hope to have some good news to deliver in the very near future about Keynote training opportunities we’re exploring together with Les Posen. Stay tuned!

More to come…

And here are just three of the many neat things that caught the eyes of our HMAUS man in San Francisco, Capsun Poe:

One of the most interesting products I saw was an inductive rechargeable battery case for iPhone 4/4S. It won’t come out until late March, they think. www.kudos-power.com

 

I also met with Jeff Tidwell of SuperTwtr (and other visualization efforts). He’s willing to talk to HMAUS about his work and is a former resident of Kauai.

Another product that had lots of interest is a new battery pack from the HyperJuice folks. It’s not available yet, but has been announced.

 

More tomorrow!

by Dave Greenbaum

The Mac OS X Lion Project Book, despite its title, isn’t as much a book about Lion as it is a book about how to use a Mac with Lion to do certain neat projects. Most Mac users can figure out email and surfing the web, but what about taking your DVD collection and putting it on your Mac?

Before purchasing this book, read through the projects. Even if one of them interests you, the book will be a great value. If you aren’t interested in any of this, then it’s probably worth taking a pass. Projects are as follows:

1. Organizing your files
2. Mastering Spotlight searches
3. Printing to save paper
4. Installing applications purchased at the Mac App store
5. Providing Remote Technical Support
6. Remote controlling a Mac in your home
7. Accessing your files remotely from another Mac
8. Using DropBox
9. Copying DVD content to your Mac
10. Basic photo editing and touch ups
11. Creating a slideshow
12. Using Rapid Weaver for a family website
13. RSS Feeds
14. Configuring TextExpander
15. Full screen mode to avoid distractions
16. Audio Podcasting
17. Setting up Time Machine alongside a cloning solution
18. Using your signature in a PDF

Each of these projects are short—just four or five pages. The book is easy to understand and the projects are fun and relevant. They assume a basic to intermediate knowledge of Lion. No explanations of files or how to click a mouse is included.

Since I knew how to do all of this or the things I didn’t know didn’t interest me, I didn’t find the book that valuable. I learned this stuff the hard way through trial and error. However if someone asked me how to do any of these small projects, you bet I’ll suggest this book.

New Mac users who simply want to feel more comfortable with their Mac and need some ideas of projects will find this book ideal. If I did Macintosh tutoring this would be a great companion manual.

Overall, a fun book for intermediate Mac users with relevant and interesting projects.

Pros: Excellent digest of fun projects to get to know Lion and your Mac better
Cons: Limited scope if you already know how to do these things or if they don’t interest you.

Five out of Five Dogcows

Originally published and written for the Lawrence Apple Users’ Group 2.0 http://www.laugks.org/news and published by Dave Greenbaum at  http://www.clickheretech.com

Well, for a more tangible take on a this taxing technological topic, check out Stanford Professor Manu Prakash’s model of a computer made out of…Bubbles!

Video courtesy of www.sciencefriday.com

by Dave Greenbaum

“Apple would buy this app and include it in the OS if they were smart.”

While your Mac may not have a secret black box that records every crash, the logs that are typically accessible via the Console app come darn close to recording anything and everything that goes wrong in your Mac. The problem is being able to read it. Even advanced technicians have trouble parsing the voluminous amounts of data locked in those logs. Mere mortals rarely have a ghost of a chance understanding it. Log Leech bridges that gap and makes us look like heroes.

Log Leech won’t necessarily explain these logs but will help you at least find those nuggets of information locked in the haystack. Once installed the program will take all the log entries and sort them attractively by program (and associated icon) as well as by date. You can then use the icon to hone in on the specific information you want.

When problems develop with your Mac and you aren’t sure what could be the program, a look at Log Leech might help you find the answers. More than once opening Log Leech revealed the reason problems were occurring that I couldn’t easily find by looking at the console. Console lumps all your program information together. You can’t always see what you need when you are faced with an overwhelming screen of random code.

Log Leech takes the copious amounts of trivial information in the console and organizes it into an easy to use and read fashion. The Console App reminds me of DOS and the Unix world while Log Leech reminds me of a Mac.

Pros: Great for reading logs and deriving information
Cons: Apple would buy this app and include it in the OS if they were smart

5 out of 5 Dogcows

Originally published and written for the Lawrence Apple Users’ Group 2.0 http://www.laugks.org/news and published by Dave Greenbaum at http://www.clickheretech.com

Three authors, Art Murchison, Gene Parola and MacKinnon Simpson were given an impossible task, to explain why and how they create and publish in fifteen minute presentations.  They had much more to share and have each generated a list of their top writing tips based on their years of experience.  These tips are deceptively simple, but work. They are linked below.

Gene Parola is a successful author of place based mysteries, humor and hurricanes . His Writing Tips include examples of building content and context.  He adds a Commentary on Editing and Computers.

Art Murchison is transitioning from scientific academic writing to a historical tale about the founder of modern archeology. He offers Tips for New Writers

Mac Simpson‘s first historical pictorial book, which he co-wrote with Bob Goodman, Whalesong, actually made desktop publishing history.  His Top 6 Tips are practical and entertaining – Words • Curiosity • Skepticism • Spellcheck • Save • Learn to Type!

Mark Coker, President of Smashwords.com, shared perspectives on electronic self-publishing with services such as his.  Smashwords distributes your ebook to large number of vendors for free. If the book is sold they keep a percentage.  The risk of unsold volumes disappears. However, it raised an important challenge. How does the consumer filter the thousands of volumes to choose the right book? How does the author get his or her book to come up on top?

A special door prize was a copy of Scrivener 2.2 donated by Literature and Latte (Mac OS X $45).  This writing software helps you organize, rearrange with drag and drop, track and edit your work using outlines, note cards and layouts.  Another door prize was a copy of one of MacSimpson’s books about Hawai’i.

Everyone agreed…

• Books start with an inspiration, a need,  or perhaps a request, then evolve.
• The research process must be done cautiously, then you write, perhaps research more, rewrite and proof.
• A good work is yours alone until you get it’s successfully marketed and sold.
• Their computers, Macs to be specific, contributed increasingly to their efficiency and success.

A hug mahalo to our presenters and to everyone who came.  Keep writing!

Mactoberfest 2011 was over the top! Our special guest Christopher Breen, author, musician and Macworld.com columnist was informative, funny and encouraging.  His message was, there is no “no can”.  Not  enough knowledge, skill, time or motivation have a solution – just try it! The technology Steve Jobs and Apple have given us allow all of us to be creative, to live easier, more fun and productive lives.

Here are some of Chris’ highlights.

• Lion is the first step to melding iOS for mobile devices with Mac OS for iMacs and Macbooks.  With Airdrop open on your computer and someone else’s miles away, you can collaborate on docs by dropping them into a folder. Close Airdrop and the connection is broken.
• iCloud makes computing without walls possible. The ability to synch your computer anytime and anywhere, almost instantaneously is going to be big!  Find My friends lets you see your friends’ locations on a map.  Ok, that one’s spooky, but Apple will solve that.
• The new iPhone 4s brings Siri, the advanced voice control that learns what you want and helps you to do it almost magically.  Apps you buy at the App store download to all of your devices.
• 911 tips:  Backup, backup, backup!  For the rare occasion you have a problem Lion installs a backup hard drive partition automatically.  Restart your Mac holding down Command-R or Option key.  Select  Recover HD. It allows you to Restore from Time Machine Backup or Reinstall Lion. But what if you can’t even boot up. For that you can create a Recovery Disk Assistant file, available from http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433 and save it on a flash drive or DVD.

Then it was time to create.  As Chris said there is no no can.  One good presentation followed another. Mahalo to our photographer, Eugene Villaluz.

Chris Breen demonstrating Garageband

Chris Breen demonstrated creating a song using Garageband’s drag and drop loops (music clips) for all kinds of instruments.  Add a digital keyboard or play a virtual instrument.  The iPad has guitars, drums and other instruments you actually play.  The iMac has just the virtual keyboard. iPhone has no Garageband but it does have third party apps for drums and other instruments.  Chris and New Hope Church musician Bobby Clay helped folks to create a song and add their playing to it.  No reason not to be a musician anymore.

Doc and Jerome of NonStop Honolulu

Jerome Koehler and Doc Boyd were the energy twins. They demonstrated cool iPad and iPhone apps with a focus on making a Keynote presentation on an iPad that goes right into the computer.  Doc created a tribute to Steve Jobs that was awesome. This group was by far the biggest breakout.  The iPad is revolutionizing computer anytime anywhere. They invited folks to send questions and checkout their iniformative Nonstop Honolulu video tech blog   http://www.nonstophonolulu.com/tech/

Mike Harada

Mike Harada demonstrated Sketchbook Pro, a $1.99 – $3.99 drawing and painting app with multiple brushes and spray cans, color palettes and layers.  The results were  modest but gallery worthy as you can see below.

Mike's Students' works on exhibit - Katie Ozawa, Joey Johnson and Cynthia Oshiro. photofunia.com

Ross Rasmussen and Terry Takaki

Then Terry Takaki presented features of a camera you want to have for great pictures and Ross Rasmussen drag and dropped photos into an instant iPhoto slideshow or album.

Door prizes included Chris’s iPod and iPhone books for eight lucky winners, Apple bags, blankets and flashlights  and the grandprize, a pre-amp mixer donated by Royce Tanouye!

In all there were 85 folks in the Pagoda Hotel’s LaSalle Room, some even coming from the neighbor island. Clear Hawaii www.clear.com/hawaii provided high quality WIFI for the day.  It was comfortable, and there was plenty to eat. Many commented that they liked the venue and the day a lot.  We certainly did.

Mahalo nui loa

to all of our great presenters for their expertise and passion for not only using, but also sharing with us
to our faithful volunteers who came early and stayed till all the cleanup was done
to the Pagoda’s staff for being so supportive!
and to our sponsors ad donors – Clear Hawaii, Peachpit Press, Tapacom.net and Royce Tanouye

Steve Jobs

1955 – 2011

http://www.ted.com/talks/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html

Fun, productivity, music and art!

Spend a day with one of the most knowledgeable pundits in the world of digital technology, Christopher Breen. Mr.Breen is Senior Editor and columnist at Macworld magazine, an author of technology books, a trainer for the very popular online tutorial website, Lynda.com…and he’s a professional musician!

He’s coming to Honolulu just for Mactoberfest to share his unique, entertaining perspectives on the latest OS X Lion, the imminent iCloud and iOS 5, the best of his Mac 911 troubleshooting tips, plus show us how we can create music using an iPad and Garageband. Have a question about using your Mac or iOS device? Chances are, Christopher Breen knows the answer.

Everyone is welcome. Bring your iPad or laptop. You can Create! Learn how to make music, paint pictures, take photos, build slide shows, and have fun with your Apple hardware and software.

Free wireless internet courtesy of Clear Hawaii.

Location: Pagoda Hotel LaSalle Room 1525 Rycroft Street, Honolulu, Hawaii 96814 ( Google Map )

Time: Doors open at 8:00 a.m. for continental breakfast. Program starts at 8:45 a.m. and ends at 2:30 p.m.

Cost (Continental Breakfast, Lunch Buffet and afternoon snack included).