News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
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Here’s a simple tip for those of you who like to use Photo Booth's distortion effects (those on the second page of the four pages of effects) on your photos. When you choose one of these effects, say Twirl, you’ll see a slider appear over your photo, which lets you change the size of the effect. But did you know you can also move the origin of the effect?
This capability isn’t covered in Photo Booth’s Help, nor is it in the menus, but it’s amazingly simple — just click and drag the mouse on the effects window, and you’ll move the origin of the effect to the mouse’s current location. When you’ve got the effect set to your desired size and position, click the red camera button to snap your distorted image.
I told you it was a simple tip — still, when I asked a number of friends about this, only a couple were aware that you could move the origin of the distortion in this manner. I know this works in OS X 10.5, and I would assume in 10.4 as well. However, I don’t have a machine running 10.4 that also included Photo Booth, so I can’t test that assumption.
The Dictionary application received a number of improvements with the release of OS X 10.5. First of all, there’s a new technical jargon dictionary from Apple, and direct access to Wikipedia entries as well. There’s also a huge resource known as “front and back matter,” which you can reach by selecting Go > Front/Back Matter > New Oxford American Dictionary from Dictionary’s menu. In the front/back matter, you’ll find things such as a list of all US presidents, a chemical elements chart, standard weights and measures, countries of the world, and much more. If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s quite impressive in its breadth (but disappointingly non-Australian in its content -- why aren't the Macquarie people onto this?).
Rob Griffiths | Jan 25, 2008
Newbies to digital cameras first notice that the moment you press the button is not necessarily the precise moment that the camera takes the picture. “But my old film camera took the picture straight away!” you cry. True. But with a film camera, in the millisecond that you pressed the shutter button the direct mechanical linkage to the shutter fired it — and the picture before your lens was captured. And, oddly, the cheaper the film camera, the more immediate the capture.
Barrie Smith | Feb 18, 2008
Apple has released an 876KB firmware update for the keyboards of its MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops. MacBook, MacBook Pro Keyboard Firmware Update 1.0 fixes a bug where the laptop may ignore your first key press if the machine has been sitting idle. Release notes for the firmware update say it addresses other, unspecified issues and list the MacBook and MacBook Pro models supported by the update.
Phillip Michaels | Feb 20, 2008
The first thing a Mac user is presented with each time they start up their Mac is the Finder, Apple's venerable file browser and application launcher which has seen several revamps since its earliest days. A Finder window basically shows you the files and folders within -- for example, folders, disks, search results, servers, or anything else which can contain files and folders. We're going to have a look at some features of Finder windows which can make them more productive, and one or two which make them more fun.
Sean McNamara | Feb 27, 2008
