Mac Power Users Outfitters

mpuoutfitters.jpg

We’ve had a surprising number of listeners ask about Mac Power Users clothing. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that our graphic artist, Darren Rolfe, is brilliant. Regardless, we have opened the Mac Power Users Outfitters. I will be adding some MacSparky stuff and other funny Mac shirts in the future (Am I the only one that thinks a shirt that said Cmd Z would be hilarious?). I’m not convinced anyone is really going to buy any of this stuff except perhaps me and my mom (though I’m not really sure about mom). Regardless, have at it.

Continue reading →

FotoMagico 3 Review

FotoMagico3_Icon_512x512.jpg

A few years ago, I needed to quickly put together a slide show and I needed it to look fantastic. While I knew this was possible in iMovie, it took a lot of time and, frankly, didn’t look that good.
On a whim I downloaded the trial version of FotoMagico. Within five minutes, I had my wallet out and purchased a license. Since then, I’ve used FotoMagico often for family and professional events. Indeed, my wife will volunteer me as the “slideshow guy” at weddings for friends and family at the drop of a hat. I can’t really complain that much however because using FotoMagico for this is really quite easy.

FotoMagico3_Screenshot3.jpg

The latest version, FotoMagico 3, adds several enhancements. FotoMagico produces professional quality slideshow presentations. It is very easy to operate with a similar “drag-and-drop” paradigm you see across the Mac platform. Take a folder full of pictures and drag it in FotoMagico and you have your slideshow. The application allows you to easily set transitions and animates individual slides with the Ken Burns effect. FotoMagico has sliders sliders for the before and after position of your photographs that make this very simple.
My workload has always been to drag the pictures in, sort them, adjust the Ken Burns effect for each picture, and drop in music. It really is that simple. You can similarly adjust rotation and insert text.
The newest version blurs the lines between FotoMagico as a slideshow application and a video application. You can now insert movies in your slideshows. You can set start and end points and even animate movies just as you would a photograph. Organizing and creating your slideshows is also now easier with an improved storyboard. Now that Boinx has teased me with this video support however, I’d like to see them take it further. Lower thirds would be very useful.
Another nice feature is the Aperture exporter plug in.

FotoMagico_Plug-in_for-Aperture.jpg

With the pro version you can get much more control over the audio. You can include multiple tracks and even the voiceover track. Each is independently controlled and adjusted.
While putting pictures in iMovie is much easier now, for speed, granular control of the Ken Burns effect, and overall presentation, I think FotoMagico still has iMovie beat.
Once you have created your slideshow, you can export it, burn it to a DVD, turn it into a screensaver, or put it on your iPod or Apple TV. Of course you can also just play it through the built-in player. This is normally how I do my wedding slideshows. The best compliment paid to this application is by the “official” photographers at the weddings I have participated in. They always ask me afterwards how I did it and they always want to know where they can get their own copy of FotoMagico. A single-user license is $29 and a single-user license for the pro version is $149. You can find out more at Boinx.com.
You can listen to this review on the Mac ReviewCast #215.

Continue reading →

MacSpeech Passes the Bar

MacSpeech Legal.png

On the heels of my recent review of MacSpeech 1.5, MacSpeech announced its newest version, MacSpeech Legal, which includes a dictionary of over 30,000 legal related terms and phrases. I’ve spent some time with this product and it is really nice saying terms like ex parte without grinding to a halt. I know a lot of attorneys follow this blog. If you are practicing law on a Mac, this one will pay for itself in a few days.

Continue reading →

MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 Review

Macspeech dictate icon.png

It wasn’t too long ago that I reviewed MacSpeech Dictate version 1. At the time I concluded it was the best dictation application on the Mac but is still wanting against the DragonDictate on the PC.
Because MacSpeech Dictate uses the Dragon speech recognition engine, I’ve always felt it is only a question of time before MacSpeech catches up with the feature list on the more mature PC application. Recently, MacSpeech Dictate came out with version 1.5 that takes several important steps on that path.
Since the original release of MacSpeech Dictate, the Dragon engine has been updated to version 10 on the PC. MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 brings that Dragon version 10 engine over to the Mac. It is both faster and more accurate than the Dragon 9 engine in the prior version. The developer states the accuracy improved “up to 20%.” Even using the prior version, my accuracy was very good. Having used speech recognition software (off and on) for over 10 years, I simply cannot understate the accuracy of the Dragon engine if you spend a little time and are careful with your dictdion. Frankly, my biggest accuracy problems are not the software but my occasional sloppy dictation habits. While difficult to quantify, the improved accuracy and speed with the new version is noticeable. Indeed, the engine upgrade is, in my opinion, the most important reason to move to version 1.5.
Another reason to upgrade is the addition of the vocabulary editor which allows you to train individual words and add them to your dictionary. It can be anything: technical jargon, latin phrases, even “MacSparky.” This is one of the PC features that I missed on the Mac. Thankfully, you can also save your profile so the additional words and nuances of your voice can be captured by the system.
The application now also recognizes 13 distinct English dialectic variations. The new “cache document” command allows you to navigate a document and perform edits. In practice, I still found it easier to use the mouse and keyboard for proofing and editing following dictation.
The interface has not changed significantly. It still provides you with a list of available commands and an easy to use control window. Once you get used to MacSpeech Dictate, I recommend you turn some of these additional windows off. These days I use this application exclusively through its menubar icon.
As I get older, I find myself using speech recognition software more and more often. This results from the fact that I’m getting older and my fingers get sore after long typing sessions. Also, I’m really busy and using MacSpeech Dictate allows me to write much faster. Most of then content at MacSparky.com and, for that matter, this very review started out with MacSpeech Dictate.
MacSpeech Dictate remains the only option on the Macintosh for speech recognition. Thankfully, the developer is aggressively moving forward with the addition of new features and support. If you are buying it new, the price is $199 and includes a microphone. For the upgrade to version 1.5 it is $55. You can learn more at macspeech.com.
You can listen to this review on the MacReviewCast Episode 214.

Continue reading →

Presentation Mojo

Recently Ars Technica posted about a study commissioned by the International Journal of Innovation and Learning about the futility of PowerPoint presentations. In summary, it explains how excessive animation and poorly structured presentations put audiences to sleep.
This follows the growing backlash I’ve seen recently against presentation software in general. I find this curious because I was using presentation software before it became popular. I remember the days of walking into a presentation with a projector and everyone looking at me inquisitively wondering exactly what the heck all that gear was for. (I also remember the bad old days before presentation software where I’d spend lots of money on big unwieldy blow ups.)
In the ensuing years, PowerPoint became a staple of business, sales, education, and just about every other scenario where one person needs to communicate information to another. I appreciate that a lot people are sick and tired of “death by PowerPoint.” I disagree that presentation software as a tool is a bad thing. To refine matters, I believe people are sick of bad presentations, not presentations as a whole.
The problem is, that most presentations are bad. While everyone is busy adding animations, transitions, and jingles (yes, jingles) to their presentations, nobody is bothering to figure out how to do one correctly. Using Apple’s Keynote is a good start. It looks so different from the usual PowerPoint templates that it gives you an immediate head start. That is only the beginning though. Keynote is just as easily abused as PowerPoint.
Software developers are not making it any easier with the arms race of tricky animations and visual effects. While these are a lot of fun (when used sparingly), for a lot of misguided presenters, they become a crutch upon which to give a cheesy, sleep inducing presentation. Don’t even get me started on the subject of bullet points and full screen paragraphs.
When done right, a Keynote presentation can complement an oral presentation beautifully. Maybe the problem is people think the presentation software can do the work for them. It doesn’t replace the presenter’s job of conveying information, it only enhances it. The answer is not to abandon presentation software. The answer is to make better presentations.

Continue reading →