kremalicious

Apple has updated its latest operating system to version 10.5.4. As alway Apple recommends the update to all Mac OS X Leopard users. According to Apple this update adds support for more RAW formats to the whole system meaning you can use these new RAW formats in all Mac OS X applications based on Core Image (iPhoto, Aperture, Preview etc.). But at the moment it’s unclear which new RAW formats were added. Apple hasn’t updated the general RAW format compatibility list yet. According to Apple’s general RAW format compatibility list the Mac OS X 10.5.4 update incorporates the Digital Camera RAW Compatibility update 2.1 released in May. The cameras fully supported by this update and now also by the 10.5.4 update are: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/Kiss Digital x2/450D, Epson R-D1, Leaf AFi 7, Leaf AFi 6, Leaf AFi 5, Pentax K200D, Pentax K20D. Just the Epson R-D1s seem to be new to the list of supported cameras in OS X 10.5.4.

This update also addresses the issue with saving and reopening Adobe Creative Suite 3 files on a remote server which could lead to data loss in previous versions of Leopard. Performance issues when using the Final Cut Studio applications with AirPort networks were addressed too.

The other changes include fixes for X11, L2TP VPN, AirPort, iCal, Safari, Spaces and Exposé. For a complete list of changes you can have a look at the corresponding Apple support article.

The update is available via Software Update for all Leopard users. Alternatively you can grab the update package from the Apple website (88MB) or the whole Combo update (561MB). The Leopard Server update is available too as standalane package (133MB) or as Combo update (677MB).

If you’re on Tiger and don’t want to update to Leopard you can grab the Security Update 2008-004 for Intel (128MB) or PowerPC (80MB) to just take advantage of the security related fixes.

Discuss (0) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!

For quite some time I use my Ubuntu machine as a file and backup server for all Macs in my network which is perfectly accessible from the Finder in Mac OS X. There are some instructions available in the web for this task but all failed in my case so I wrote my own tutorial with all the steps needed for it to work properly.

So here’s my little Tutorial for connecting Mac OS X Leopard with Ubuntu and using your Ubuntu machine as a backup volume for Time Machine but all steps can be reproduced on every Linux box and they work with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger too. At the end of this tutorial you will have a server which shows up in the Finder sidebar and behaves just like a Mac server when accessing it from your Macs. To be perfectly integrated with Mac OS X we’re going to use Apple’s Filing Protocol (AFP) for network and file sharing.

Although this Tutorial involves using the Terminal in Ubuntu and looks a bit geeky it’s very easy even for beginners. I have tried to explain all steps and Terminal commands so you may learn a bit about the Terminal too. At the end of the article you can download my Server Displays icon pack quickly made by me with custom icons for a Mac, Ubuntu and Windows server.

Read the rest of this entry »

Discuss (186) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!

Have you ever looked for a way to quickly add text to your images without photoshopping a watermark image first?

There’s a simple editing plug-in available for this task called Borders & Titles and as the name says you can add simple borders and text to your images within Aperture 2.1. It’s a sample plug-in provided by Apple and it’s fully functional. You can download it from Apple’s Developer Connection website without registration:

Aperture Edit Plugin - Borders & Titles

The downlaod package includes the source code too so you can adjust the plug-in if you’re able to code Cocoa. After downloading put the BordersAndTitles.ApertureEdit plug-in into /Library/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-Ins and access the plug-in from Aperture.

Discuss (2) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!

Apple released a developer preview of the upcoming version of its web browser Safari to registered Developers. The Safari 4 Developer Preview is available for Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard and Windows. While the main changes are not visible to the user the most significant visible new feature is the overhauled Web Inspector.
Read the rest of this entry »

Discuss (8) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!

Beside the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update Apple has posted another update which adds RAW decoding support for seven more cameras.

The seven cameras now fully supported in Mac OS X are: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XSi/Kiss Digital x2/450D, Epson R-D1, Leaf AFi 7, Leaf AFi 6, Leaf AFi 5, Pentax K200D, Pentax K20D. The RAW decoding on MAC OS X works across the whole system, so you can use these cameras and their RAW images now with Aperture and iPhoto too.

You can get the update via Software Update or you can download the standalone installer (2.4MB) from Apple’s website.

Discuss (0) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!

Today Apple released an update to it’s newest operating system Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard which updates it to 10.5.3. As always Apple recommends all users to update to the newest version.

Among the photography and Aperture related fixes are an improved compatibility between Time Machine and Aperture 2 and the availability of additional RAW image formats for several cameras.

You can fire up Software Update to update to 10.5.3. The update is 420 MB in size and a restart is required. Alternatively you can download the combo update (536MB) from Apple’s download page which includes all fixes and improvements since the first version 10.5.

You can read about all fixes and improvements in this Apple Support article.

Update: According to another Apple Support article Mac OS X 10.5.3 adds RAW decoding support for the following cameras: Hasselblad CFV-16, Hasselblad H3D-31, Hasselblad H3D-31II, Leaf Aptus 54S, Leaf Aptus 65S, Nikon D60, Olympus E-3, Pentax *ist DL2, Pentax *ist DS2, Pentax K100D Super, Sony DSLR-A200, Sony DSLR-A350

Discuss (0) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!

There are already some lists like this available on the web and they are always very subjective so I thought I should add my subjective list too. While Aperture was released I was coding this website and had not much time for writing about it. So although a bit late here is my absolutely biased list of my favorite 15 new features included in Apple’s Aperture since version 2.0. It’s in a nice countdown order ending with the best new feature (to me) at the bottom. Just click on the little screenshots to smoothly zoom to the full version of them.
Read the rest of this entry »

Discuss (0) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!

Just right after Tiffen and Digital Film Tools announced their new image editing plugins for Aperture 2.1 Apple has released the Software Development Kit (SDK) for coding Aperture 2.1 plugins. It’s available from Apple’s Developer Connection for registered members (registering is free). You can grab the Aperture 2.1 plugin-SDK (3D9) as a 595KB download from there and start coding. If you want to know what exactly you can do with it as a programmer you should read those lines from Apple.

So it should be just a matter of time before we see another bunch of plugins popping out.

Discuss (0) | Digg This! | Save to Del.icio.us | Stumble It! | Float This!