Some tasks like getting a man to the moon are complicated and the systems needed to accomplish them are complicated. But some things, like keeping track of the things you need to do, are not complicated and the software you need to manage them should also be uncomplicated. ToDo from Omicron Software Systems is just that kind of software, uncomplicated.
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Econ Technologies has released an update to version 2.2.1 of Portraits & Prints. The Portraits & Prints application allows you to use your digital photos to create personal calendars and cards. Over 50 free new templates are included in the update. There are new templates for Christmas, New Year, Calendars and Wanted Posters. There are over a hundred holiday templates available. You can download and install additional templates using the Portraits & Prints Template Manager.

Portraits & Prints will run natively on PowerPC (G3, G4, G5) and Intel-Macs running Panther or Tiger.

Existing users may update to the 2.2.1 version for free.

If you’d like to try Portraits & Prints for free for the rest of the year, request a full- functioning trial version from http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/Support/support_question.html.

The Portraits & Prints Standard Edition can be purchased for USD$30. The Portraits & Prints Pro Edition is priced at USD$50. A free demo version of the application is available if you’d like to try it out. Visit the Econ Technologies website (www.econtechnologies.com) to upgrade, purchase or download a free demo of the application.

Recently my brother was in a lecture at his University, and had to get up and go to the bathroom. To feel comfortable leaving his Mac unattended, he uses iAlertU, a nice little security application from Slapping Turtle that turns your MacBook’s speakers, iSight camera, motion sensors and screen into an alarm system capable of locking up the computer. It even takes a snapshot of the would-be thief and makes a noisy racket with a car-alarm like response, even if it’s just moved, let alone used.

Once the program is open, all you have to do is hold down the Menu button on your Apple remote to activate/de-activate your alarm. Of course, you should have your MacBook (Pro) paired with your remote for this purpose, otherwise anyone could ‘disarm’ your security system easily.

And it was when he was ‘arming’ iAlertU that he discovered something, much to the chagrin of other MacBook users in the hall below him: almost no one pairs their remotes with their MacBooks. Imagine the look on those in the hall as Front Row mystically opened on their screens.
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Now that Apple has made a full switch to Intel processors, running Windows on Macs has become more common than most people ever thought it would be. Be it on Parallels or Apple’s Boot Camp there is usually a need to run Windows on your Mac or have a second machine handy. This series of articles is about making Windows a more comfortable environment for a Mac user. Of course not all of the Mac elements will carry over, but we can get pretty close using mostly freeware. These articles are written for Windows XP SP2, however the majority of these programs have versions coming out for Windows Vista in the near future.

In this article we will emulate the most basic elements of the GUI of OS X Tiger. This means ditching the default Luna visual style that is reminiscent of Fisher Price Toys. Please keep in mind that this is only the first step, so not all the features of Tiger’s GUI will carry over quite yet. Please also note that it is possible to use the built in “Visual Style” feature to make your machine look like a Mac with a dll hack. But doing so will only skin the buttons, scroll bars, and the taskbar. For that reason we will not cover that in this article, but for more information on hacking the uxtheme.dll file in Windows XP take a look at this article on Neowin.net.
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If you are in the US and were watching television last night, you might have been pleasantly surprised to see a new Apple commercial. This new one was for the iPod shuffle, which showed how amazingly small it actually is. The ad gets away from the previous iPod silhouette spots, and instead has a series of people clipping the 2G shuffle to their clothes. The transition effect between each person is neat—all you can see is the torso of each person, and a new one is introduced by removing or adding clothes (don’t worry, it’s G-rated) and then clipping on the new shuffle.

You can see the ad now on Apple’s website here.

One of the programs that I keep on my doc that is very helpful in updating my blog and my podcast with pictures is a simple and free program called ImageWell from Xtralean Software. ImageWell is a simple image editor that lets you resize, annotate, edit, resize and publish images.

Simply drag an image onto the ImageWell icon and it will open up the program’s small main window. This window let’s you rename, resize and publish an image. Images can be published to a folder or a web site. To publish to a web site the web site needs to support FTP or WebDav (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) formats. ImageWell can also publish the image to your .Mac account. When you send the image to your web site the HTML to display that image is added to the clipboard:

<img src="http://chris2x.com/wp-content/test.jpg" width="320" height="240"/>
You can go and paste that code into your blog or other HTML document. If you are adding this picture to a discussion board instead, you can also configure the program to send the bbcode style syntax used by many discussion boards (such as the MacCast forum):

[img]http://chris2x.com/wp-content/test.jpg[/img]

ImageWell will also allow you to edit the image before publishing. You can crop, add text, add comic strip style caption balloons, add arrows or annotations.

ImageWell can also rotate, add shape masks like a heart (not quite as useful for your blog unless you are a 14 year old girl) and/or add a watermark.

ImageWell is not PhotoShop and will not replace it for general purpose photo editing but when you want to quickly publish a photo to your web site and reference it from an HTML document or a discussion board few programs will compete with the ease of use of ImageWell.

Are you the type of person who likes any of the following:

• Tupperware orange peelers,
• the “OpenX” tool for defeating incendiary blister wrap
• a dedicated rice cooker, or maybe
• both a blender and a juicer?

If so, you have the kind of appreciation for specialized tools that will make you like Rogue Amoeba‘s interesting and attractive new Fission utility.

Fission does one set of audio management tasks very, very well: cutting and splitting audio files–including MP3 and AAC files–and then saving the fragments as individual files. One of the big deals about the tool is that when it saves your file fragments, it does so in a lossless save operation, even on such a notoriously “lossy compression” scheme as MP3. It will also easily do fades — to fade audio in or out, blend two clips together in a crossfade, and easily crop sections of an audio file, for example to remove a long silence from a file. It supports AIFF and Apple Lossless files as well as MP3 and AAC, handles stereo or mono files, and supports Intel Macs in a Universal Binary.
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If you haven’t seen it on any of the mac rumors websites, Forbes is reporting:

Taiwan’s Hon Hai wins Apple orders for mobile handsets, notebook PCs

The report also claims that Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd will also be called on to produce a 15 MacBook (Pro?).

The article gives no details on the phone specifically, except to say that the contract was for 12 million units and that Apple is expected to introduce the mobile phone in the first half of the year.

Apple announced great news for tired air travelers and harried flight attendants today:

Apple® today announced it is teaming up with Air France, Continental, Delta, Emirates, KLM and United to deliver the first seamless integration between iPod® and in-flight entertainment systems. These six airlines will begin offering their passengers iPod seat connections which power to charge their iPods during flight and allow the video content on their iPods to be viewed on the their seat back displays.

This kind of news makes you want to go out and jump on an airplane but we won’t start seeing planes with this feature until mid 2007.

Read Apple PR

On November 13th Apple released a handful of updates, most having to do with Boot Camp, sleep and wake-from-sleep issues with its Intel-based Macs.

According to Apple, the EFI Firmware updates “fix several Boot Camp, start up, and wake-from-sleep issues” for the Mac Mini, MacBook, MacBook Pro, and iMac.

The EFI Firmware update for the Mac Pro “This EFI Firmware Update fixes several Boot Camp and start up issues.”

Please read Apple’s instructions carefully for the EFI update that corresponds to your computer, and also prepare yourself with a Firmware Restoration CD in case you have issues while updating your firmware.

Apple also released Digital Camera RAW support & fixes for both PPC and Intel-based Macintosh computers running Mac OS X Tiger Client or Server, and an update to it’s X11 package, X11 Update 2006 1.1.3, which “addresses several issues in the X11 for Mac OS X package, enabling it to better handle GLX stereo visuals and offscreen rendering to GLX Pbuffers and Pixmaps.”

As with any update for your computer, backup all important data prior to the update, and remove any third-party devices connected to your computer. Make sure your Mac is connected to a power source, and do not interrupt, restart, or shut down your computer while the update is being applied.