iTunes Introduces Complete My Album

It’s about time. This is such a great feature for those of us who purchased a track or two and later decide for the entire album. Hey, every dollar counts! -TG

iTunes Introduces Complete My Album: “Apple today announced Complete My Album, a groundbreaking new iTunes service that allows customers to turn their individual tracks into a complete album at a reduced price by giving them a full 99 cent credit for every track they have previously purchased from that album.”

(Via Apple Hot News.)

iTunes credits for albums

iTunes credits for albums: “Blog: A new feature in iTunes will stop the madness of having to pay twice for the same song when you purchase an album containing tracks…”

(Via CNET News.com.)

State of the Art: The Sermon on the Tapes

Excellent article from our friend, David Pogue. For all you entrepreneurs out there, one can make a small business from doing these conversions. -TG

State of the Art: The Sermon on the Tapes: “When old media formats die, there are ways to bring your Super 8 films, VHS tapes and 8-tracks into the DVD world.”

(Via NYT > Business.)

Photoshop cast shadow tutorial in Photoshop

Excellent little tutorial. -TG

Photoshop cast shadow tutorial in Photoshop: “[link] [more]“

(Via diggdot.us.)

Getting started (or reacquainted) with Quicksilver

How many times have you heard Quicksilver mentioned in GreerMUG meetings? Here’s an excellent post from Merlin Mann with additional resources and links. -TG

Getting started (or reacquainted) with Quicksilver: ”

Hack Attack: A beginner’s guide to Quicksilver – Lifehacker

Adam Pash has written a terrific introduction to Quicksilver that I recommend for folks who are still scratching their heads about what all the fuss is about.

Part of the challenge is the ‘layers of the onion’ problem. There’s no explanation of what Quicksilver does that’s at once brief, accurate, exhaustive, and easy for new users to immediately grok; it really does reveal its delights over time, through repeated usage, and in proportion to your willingness to learn and experiment. Adam does a good job of acquainting new folks with the basic idea and the setup, then he walks through a few of the many bits of fu that have made this app the phenomenon that it is.

Quicksilver can be used to launch files and applications, manipulate data, and seamlessly plug into almost any application on your Mac so that you can perform actions as soon as you think of them in a few short keystrokes.

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Also from our own archives, here are a few popular Quicksilver items from the extended 43 Folders family (including 4 video tutorials). And seriously: if you really still don’t see why QS is different, do watch the videos; writing about Quicksilver is like singing about a magic trick.

Popular 43 Folders posts on Quicksilver

Some of these could use a good tech edit, given their age and the evolving nature of QS, but they contain plenty of information to point you in the right direction.

• Quicksilver: Grab a copy and play along at home – ‘[At] the heart of it, all launchers do at least one similar thing: they provide a single, intelligent interface for intuitively accessing nested information and functionality.’
• Quicksilver: Setup & Troubleshooting – ‘Since there’s new folks moving to Quicksilver all the time, I thought I’d post some more starter tips if you’re following along here.’
• Quicksilver’s Append: An updated appreciation + Robert’s troubleshooter – ‘To review, for you new kids, Quicksilver, when properly configured (more on that in a minute), will let you add a line of text to any text file on your Mac.’
• 5 handy Quicksilver triggers – ‘Simply put, triggers let you associate a custom key combination or mouse gesture with any command you’d otherwise access via conventional methods…’
• Six cool Quicksilver plugins you might not know – ‘Just a quickie to bubble up some novel Quicksilver plugins that are new-ish or even a bit esoteric.’

Merlin’s Quicksilver Video Tutorials

‘…writing about Quicksilver is like singing about a magic trick.’

• MacBreak 12: Quicksilver – ‘Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann show you how to turbocharge your interactions with your data and applications using Quicksilver.’
• MacBreak 17: Quicksilver Tips – ‘Merlin Mann’s back sharing more productivity tips with Leo using Quicksilver.’ This segment focuses on how to control iTunes via Quicksilver.
• 006: HOWTO: Quicksilver: The Comma Trick – ‘Learn how to create a temporary stack in Quicksilver, so you can do stuff to (or with) a big pile of objects all at one time.’
• 008: HOWTO: Quicksilver: Application Menus – ‘Learn how to access drop-down menus in every application via Quicksilver.’

Our favorite Quicksilver resources from elsewhere

• quicksilver:tutorials [docs] – This is the mother lode. The best Quicksilver meta-resource anywhere.
• A Better OS X In Just 10 Minutes – Dan’s post is what got me to try Quicksilver
• Howard Melman’s ‘Quicksilver User’s Guide’ – A wonderful piece of PDF documentation. As far as I know, this is the closest thing there is to an end-user Quicksilver manual, all in one place.
• Howard Melman’s ‘Quicksilver Quick Reference’ – An unbelievably useful PDF cheat sheet of most all the Quicksilver commands in one place. Print. Post. Refer. Learn.
• Quicksilver Changes Everything at The Apple Blog – Another good entry point

adam pash, apple macs os x, applications, lifehacker, links, quicksilver, recaps, tutorials

(Via 43 Folders.)

Apple Boot Camp 1.2 beta adds Vista support

I wondered how long this would take. To date I haven’t noticed an update to allow iTunes to run on Vista-based machines. Have you? And if you haven’t actually read the instructions on Apple’s site for installing Bootcamp you should. It’s quite entertaining. Note especially the “Word to the Wise” in the lower right! -TG

Apple Boot Camp 1.2 beta adds Vista support: “Apple has released Boot Camp 1.2 beta, the latest release of the company’s software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP and Vista…”

(Via MacMinute.)

Apple added to Bluetooth patent suit

Apple added to Bluetooth patent suit: “A report on Bloomberg today notes that Apple, Dell, and Sony have been added to a Bluetooth patent lawsuit…”

(Via MacMinute.)

WeatherPop 2.6.1 promises more efficiency

I love Weather Pop. According to the article this new version promises much greater efficiency that Apple’s Weather widget and much greater functionality. Check it out. -TG

WeatherPop 2.6.1 promises more efficiency: “Glucose today announced the release of WeatherPop Advance 2.6.1, a menu-based Weather viewer that is always visible and up to three times more efficient than Apple’s Dashboard weather widget, notes the company…”

(Via MacMinute.)

Total Training announces Adobe Creative Suite 3 training

As I’ve posted before, Total Training make excellent tutorial DVDs. Highly recommended. -TG

Total Training announces Adobe Creative Suite 3 training: “Total Training today announced five new DVD-ROM based training series: Total Training for Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended: Essentials, Total Training for Adobe Illustrator CS3: Essentials, Total Training for Adobe Flash CS3 Professional: Essentials, Total Training for Adobe InDesign CS3: Essentials, and Total Training for Adobe Dreamweaver CS3: Essentials…”

(Via MacMinute.)

Prosoft announces Data Backup 3

Prosoft announces Data Backup 3: “Prosoft Engineering today announced the availability of Data Backup 3, the latest iteration of its award-winning backup software…”

(Via MacMinute.)