Konica Minolta had a nicely presented stand, showing a selection of their printer range. From the desktop ‘magicolor 2530DL’ through to their A3+ ‘magicolor 7450’. There were plenty of representatives from the company to ask questions. Their approach was really friendly, which was attracting visitors to the stand.
The 2500 series are the desktop babies of the family. This does not mean that they skimp on features, far from it. With 5ppm in color and 20ppm in monochrome (black & white), you can print on paper up to 200gsm in weight. This is very good by desktop standards. Print quality looked top notch, with the 600dpi engine giving nice detail to the printouts.
Elgato were showing their eyetv for DTT and eyetv hybrid units to the Mac public. Visitors were paying a LOT of attention to Elgato’s offerings, with stand employees reporting massive interest.
The eyetv hybrid unit is a small USB stick device, which has both digital and analogue tuner. The software looks great, with some bug improvements of late. Scheduling for recording to your Mac is really easy. The years free subscription to tvtv (an online program guide) means that you can schedule recordings from anywhere you have internet access. I was impressed with the picture quality that I saw. Continue Reading »
Google made their first UK exhibition this year, with what could only be described as the ‘most colourful stand’ at the show. Throughout the three days their theatre, complete with Google colour, comfy cushions, showcased their complete product line-up. Google Maps got a brilliant reception from the crowd.
My favourite Google application was SketchUp, which offers some superb 3D drawing features, with great integration with the Google online community. You can upload you creations to share with millions. The standard version of SketchUp is free, whilst SketchUp Pro 5 costs £315 (USD$499). It is available for Mac or PC. The Mac version is PPC, but runs pretty good under Rosetta. A universal version will be released early next year.
This was a really ‘good feel’ stand and certainly was creating a lot of buzz.
I know Adam isn’t the biggest fan of the concept the rumored Apple iPhone. So, instead of talking about rumors, let us leave them aside for a moment and practically consider a scenario where Apple were to sell a mobile phone.
The “I wish Apple would make a” Syndrome
The consumer expectations bar is always high for Apple. The general public looks to it as a problem solver. Apple is a leader in thinking through technical tasks and making them easy for everyone. That’s why we’re always hearing: “I wish Apple would make a …”. And when I say Apple, I think much of the credit goes to Steve Jobs, who is nothing if not a perfectionist, and we’re all beneficiaries of it. Continue Reading »
ProfCast 2.0, a Macintosh application that allows users to record and publish their presentations as podcasts, is now available.
ProfCast allows users to integrate their lectures with their PowerPoint or Keynote presentations. Once the user saves it as a podcast, people who missed a lecture can download the podcast to a Macintosh or Windows computer or a video iPod and view the presentation. The lectures can be listened to on devices without video as long as they support the m4b format. Many educators in both the US and abroad are using ProfCast to create podcasts of their lectures so that students can have access to information covered in classes.
If you would like to try out ProfCast, a 15 day trial version is available. ProfCast can be purchased for the new affordable price of USD$29.95. For more information about ProfCast or to download the trial version visit the ProfCast website (http://www.profcast.com).
The Mac Expo London starts tomorrow, running from Thursday 26th through Saturday 28th October. Head on down to the National Hall, Olympia, London. It promises some great product announcements, workshops & competitions. Great fun for everyone. Mixed with vendors selling from the show floor, there are bound to be some bargains to be had.
Amongst the news, Quark has been sending out invitations for a worldwide new product launch. I will be attending the seminar and letting you know the news as it happens.
For those of you who can’t make it to London, check back throughout the next three days, for regular updates and photos of the event.
The final round of judging for My Dream App has begun. Guest judges for this round are Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple; Guy Kawasaki, the Apple evangelist; J. Allard creator of Xbox and Zune; Bruce Horn creator of “Finder”; and Amber MacArthur, G4TechTV personality.
The contest has been underway for the past month, with elimination rounds each week. Voting ends on Tuesday, October 24th at 8 PM EDT when three winners will be announced. The winners will see their ideas turned into Mac shareware applications.
Users who vote this round will receive a copy of Overflow 2 (USD $14.95) and PhotoPresenter (USD $7.95).
My Dream App was created by Phill Ryu. If you want more information about the contest visit My Dream App (http://mydreamapp.com).
On Friday, October 20th, Econ Technologies released an updated version of ChronoSync. ChronoSync is an automated synchronization and backup application for Mac OS X. ChronoSync runs natively on PowerPC and Intel Macs running Panther or Tiger.
The ChronoSync application allows you to back up your computer, synchronize two computers, archive files, filter files and folders, and analyze your data. A useful feature of the product is the scheduler, where you can create synchronizer documents that will handle your updates automatically.
The 3.3.3 version of ChronoSync fixes the following:
– permission errors on locked files under Mac OS X 10.4.8
– a file copy failure bug that occurred when there was no opposing file, the filename was greater than 30 characters or the filename began with a “0”
– a bug where rollback predetermination could not be specified for mirrored sync modes.
The update is free for existing users. You can download a demo of ChronoSync 3.3.3 or buy it for only USD $30 from Econ Technologies (http://www.econtechnologies.com).
I love the Internet as an amazing tool for learning. Dale told us about students podcasting down-under. The Internet community encyclopedia, Wikipedia shows the value of collaborative education. And yes, even YouTube has worked to inform us with viral videos and user comments.
Well, I never ever thought that I would move away from bookmarking hundreds of web pages to keep track of interesting items. But things in my everyday Mac life are about to change and it will be interesting to see if the changes are permanent. For a long time now, if I found something of interest on the Internet, I would bookmark it and try to put it into a meaningful category. More often than not into a bookmark folder called something like ‘interesting software’ or ‘to look at later’. I came to realize just this week that I hardly ever went back to these bookmarks, so I was probably wasting a lot of my time, which I could spend more creatively.
Enter Yojimbo, by Bare Bones Software, which I would like to describe myself as an ‘Electronic Scrapbook on Steroids’. Many people are pushing around a category of software called ‘GTD’ which stands for ‘Getting Things Done’, at this early stage Yojimbo does fit into this category, but seems to offer a whole lot more besides. Continue Reading »
Konica Minolta had a nicely presented stand, showing a selection of their printer range. From the desktop ‘magicolor 2530DL’ through to their A3+ ‘magicolor 7450’. There were plenty of representatives from the company to ask questions. Their approach was really friendly, which was attracting visitors to the stand.
Elgato were showing their eyetv for DTT and eyetv hybrid units to the Mac public. Visitors were paying a LOT of attention to Elgato’s offerings, with stand employees reporting massive interest.
Google made their first UK exhibition this year, with what could only be described as the ‘most colourful stand’ at the show. Throughout the three days their theatre, complete with Google colour, comfy cushions, showcased their complete product line-up. Google Maps got a brilliant reception from the crowd.
ProfCast 2.0, a Macintosh application that allows users to record and publish their presentations as podcasts, is now available.
The Mac Expo London starts tomorrow, running from Thursday 26th through Saturday 28th October. Head on down to the National Hall, Olympia, London. It promises some great product announcements, workshops & competitions. Great fun for everyone. Mixed with vendors selling from the show floor, there are bound to be some bargains to be had.
