Mac OS X v10.6.3 Update

This is my first experience with major OS upgrade. I must say it went pretty smoothly on Mac. Update includes long list of security updates and many general operating system fixes and improvements.

General operating system updates (I am crossing out the ones that could not really make any different for me):
    •    performance of Logic Pro 9 and Main Stage 2 when running in 64-bit mode.
    •    printing reliability (nothing to report here, my printer got updates from Brother anyway).
    •    sleep and wake reliability when using Bonjour wake on demand (I haven't experienced any problems).
    •    a color issue in iMovie with HD content.
    •    glowing, stuck, or dark pixels when viewing video from the iMac (Late 2009) built-in iSight camera.
    •    an issue in which the Finder reports a -36 error when copying directories to a drive formatted as FAT32.
    •    reliability of photo screen savers.
    •    compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications.
    •    an issue in which shadows in PDF of Aperture book are black instead of gray.
    •    an issue in which the microphone level in iChat may not increase the volume after reducing it to prevent a feedback event.
    •    the reliability of certain third-party USB devices (the only one which actually cause problems turned to be defective and I got it replaced by manufacturer).
    •    the Accounts preference pane can now limit login to members of groups hosted by a non-Apple directory service, such as Active Directory.
    •    DNS server ordering as specified in Network Preferences and DNS reliability.
    •    the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X ( I am actually using it a lot so hopefully it got better).
    •    Data Collection: Mac OS X v10.6.3 can collect diagnostic and usage information from your Mac and send it to Apple for analysis automatically.

Timelapse video from image sequence

On my Windows machine workflow was pretty simple I shoot images in sRaw2 mode frequent enough to get at least hundred. Then I converted to JPEG with 100% quality and size slightly larger than 1080p frame, usually 2000 px for larger side. I found great free software called PhotoLapse3



I tried to find free tool for Mac that would do the same with no luck. Most of programs, Gawker for example, can create timelapse video from webcam as a source but they cannot accept folder with images as input.  This is not exactly what I need.

I was also Linux user for a while so I know that there are few command line media converters that do excellent video converting job. I decided to try if they can convert from images to video.

First, I tried mencoder.

mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=10 -o test.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=msmpeg4v2:vbitrate=800

After playing with different settings, searching for answers on the net I was not able to find combination of parameters that would give me good enough quality.  First example from mencoder documentation did not help. More detailed example of encoding with libavcodec did not help either.



I do not know which step I am doing wrong. Maybe because I am using JPEGs but as far as I know mencoder would not accept TIFFs as input. After all of this trials I gave up on ffmpeg.  I think mencoder with libavcodec option is actually using ffmpeg. Also ffmpeg cannot handle wildcards for specifying input files.  I do not like the idea of renaming files to have sequential numbers in file names.

ffmpeg -r 10 -b 1800 -i %d.jpg test.avi

Results seem to be even worse than from previous attempt.



It's just to much time consuming so maybe I need to pay and something easy to use? Again browsed thru many search pages, lloked at few apps I will not mention cause eventually all seems like a joke when compared to Apple's QuickTime Pro. For just $30 I got tool good enough to make me uninstall all free converters :-)

Let's see how it works with QuickTime Pro (I could actually use TIFFs a input).


I got professional quality video with just couple mouse clicks. I think it is worth all them money I spent.

Amazon releases Kindle Application for Mac

Amazon today announced Kindle for Mac a free application that lets readers around the world enjoy Kindle books on their Mac computers. Readers can take advantage of the following features:

•     Purchase, download, and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
•     Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free
•     Choose from 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
•     Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
•     View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone
•     Read books in full color including children’s books, cookbooks, travel books and textbooks

3 months after the switch

I must admit that I am not missing any software I need and I am really glad to have everything I need on one machine instead of having some stuff done on one and have it copied back and fort to the other one.

Application	Mac	Windows	Linux	Comments
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	Yes	I have been using Firefox before it got it's current name. Together with Mozilla Weave I can run same configuration on any platform it is suported
Mozilla Thunderbird	Yes	Yes	Yes	I was running email client on Linux for years. It was Evolution before I switched to Thunderbird.
Adobe Lightroom	Yes	Yes	No	My workhorse of image processing which was done mostly on my Windows laptop. Moving to Mac let me have it on the same machine I got everything else.
Adobe Photoshop	Yes	Yes	No	I got Elements which does not contain Mac version so there was no way to install in on Mac. I got mac version of CS4.
FileZilla	Yes	Yes	Yes	I was using FTP mostly on Linux sa that was best choice I could find. Likely it works on Mac.
Vuze	Yes	Yes	Yes	Maybe KTorrent was lighter bittorrent client but there is no Mac version.
VLC	Yes	Yes	Yes	Swiss army knife of media players that is not perfect but at least cross-platform. Native clients are sometimes better.
MPlayer	Yes	Yes	Yes	That was my best player on Linux. I am not very impressed with Mac version but I can convert everything to mov format with ffmpeg.
OpenOffice	Yes	Yes	Yes	Just to have something for opening Microsoft Office files before Google Docs era.
Canon Utilities	Yes	Yes	No	Whatever comes with my camera usually got Mac version.
MPEG Strimclip	Yes	Yes	No	Simple and efficient media converter
MediaCoder	No	Yes	No	Partially works with Wine
ffmpeg	Yes	Yes	Yes	Command line tool that can convert anything.
DeepMeta	Yes	Yes	No	For now there are no signs that iStockphoto would ever support FTP upload like any other microstock agency.
Garmin GPS software	Yes	Yes	No	Not that I have to use it every day but I might need update software on my GPS device
Gisteq PhotoTrackr	Yes	Yes	No	GPS logger I am using. There is Mac version of sotware
Google Earth	Yes	Yes	Yes	Nice thing that runs on 3 platform I have been using.
Picasa	Yes	Yes	No	May work with Wine
Photomatix Pro	Yes	Yes	No	Best HDR software
Noise Ninja	Yes	Yes	No	My choice for noise reduction
Genuine Fractals	Yes	Yes	No	Since I got 5Dmk2 I do not have a need to upsize images but I bought this software and it got Mac version.
Turbo Tax	Yes	Yes	No	Read my tax return file generated on Windows.
Skype	Yes	Yes	Yes	My connection with family on the other side of the globe.
aMule	Yes	Yes	Yes	So far best eMule clone I have seen.
sitecopy	Yes	Yes	Yes	Used for uploading images to multiple FTP servers
K3b	No	No	Yes	I was pretty happy with it so I never looked for free burning software on Windows. Mac Burn does not impress me either.
Kopete	No	No	Yes	Trillian works great on Windows, Kopete was my choice on Linux. On Mac I got Adium which does not support Gadu Gadu and beta version of Trillian.
Amarok	No	No	Yes	I can leave with iTunes on both Mac and Windows
huey Pro	Yes	Yes	No	Monitor color calibration tool for
.NET	Yes	Yes	Yes	Mono is now supported.
Visual Studio	No	Yes	No	MonoDevelop for C# development is OK.
MAGIX Movie Edit Pro	No	Yes	No	As far as simple movie editor is concerned I did not go with Adobe Premiere Elements and I purchased MAGIX product. Now it is not supported on Mac. I need to learn iMovie.
PtLensEdit	Yes	Yes	No	Great lens correction software.
python	Yes	Yes	Yes	Nice scripting language
VirtualBox	Yes	Yes	Yes	If needed I can run Windows or Linux in VM
Zinio Reader	Yes	Yes	No	Got some magazine subscriptions in this format. Glad they created Mac version of their reader.
Notepad++	No	Yes	No	Runs under Wine but there are good replacements on Linux and Mac
Eclipse	Yes	Yes	Yes	Best Java development IDE.