Chris

Late Night with iLife

I’m up playing with iLife 06. Here’s my mini-review.

First, I like the fact that all the apps are following iTunes in their ‘edgeless’ appearance. Second, it’s interesting that a few of the apps are starting to look like other Apple Apps. Once example would be iWeb. It looks kinda like Pages. At first glance you could almost mistake iWeb for Pages. Weird. Third, the media viewer seems more present in this release and it’s an interesting concept to access you movies, photos, and music that you have. This cross pollination will take some time to get use to. Not that I’m complaining, I like the idea of easily sharing assets between programs.

iPhoto
I totally dig iPhoto, the Photocasts (rss feeds) look decent in NetNewsWire, and I like how they kept the “published” icon consistent across ical and iphoto. It IS much snappier and I like the full-screen editing. My only complaint is when entering and leaving full-screen editing I was expecting a nice fade in and out, perhaps with a slide of the menus. What I received was a quick snap in and out. Meh.

iMovie/iDVD
I looked at this briefly. I like the fact that there is a category of Video FX that allows you to use compositions from Quartz Composer. This opens up the possibility of someone creating some spectacular effect ‘plugins’ I also like the new iDVD themes; pretty always wins a point in my book.

Garageband
I haven’t messed with any of the podcasting stuff in Garageband. But I will soon.

iWeb
I created a quick page (http://web.mac.com/ckoerner/iWeb/) in iWeb. It renders nicely in Safari, Firefox, and yes even IE for the Mac. I can’t see anyone who already has a blog (such as WordPress) wanting to use the blogging feature, it seems kinda clunky compared to the content management systems I’ve used in the past.

iTunes
It’s been around for awhile, and I’m not sure if it’s even technically part of iLife anymore. But i like it!

UberBlogger

I’ve created a monster. My wife blogs everyday. I should have never installed WordPress. She’s addicted. I’m going to have to send her to BA. (Bloggers Anonymous) I’m sure not to many people read our blogs, but we like to keep them as on-line journals. When Kari is all grown-up we can show here these blogs and she (hopefully) get a laugh. I’ve got this great idea for a gift for my wife due to all her blogging. But she’ll have to wait awhile…

I just made $43.50 off of Barbie!

We just sold a used copy of Barbie SuperDuper Horse Riding Fun Time for the Xbox for $43.50 on ebay. I received this game as part of a bundle of stuff when I bought a used Xbox. This is a 2 year old game. A 2 year old BARBIE game. Holy Cheeze Wiz!

Freddie

Freddie

Originally uploaded by C. Koerner.

There was an accident on the way home from work today. I had to go around a few blocks to get on the highway. It took me a bit longer but I got home just fine. When I got home I took care of a few chores and then left to go visit my in-laws. As I walked out the door I saw a young dog sitting on the sidewalk. I called out to him, to see if he was friendly. He ran up to me, tail wagging, and nudged my hand. It was dark out and I couldn’t see anyone around. I followed him around outside for a few minutes, yelling out to see if anyone was around. I went inside my home to put my cats in a room. Chloe went ballistic and tore my arm up, scratching me no less than 5 times, each about 3 inches long. Ouch. I quickly went back outside and found the dog, sitting on my porch. I then took him inside my home and tried to get a better look at him. He was clean, his paws weren’t too muddy, and was very well tempered. I attached a leash and collar I had laying around and went back out to look for his owner. I came across an older gentleman, named Bill, who lives in the building next to my own. Bill said that there was a woman who had a black dog who lived a few blocks down. The dog and I walked past a few houses and knocked on the door or what we hoped to be home for this dog. A woman answered the door and I introduced myself. She was staring at the dog the whole time. I asked her if she knew who’s dog this was. She replied,”That’s Freddie! I know this dog.” I asked if she could tell me who the owner was. “Freddie is my dog!” Sure enough Freddie apparently jumped the fence and went wandering. Case closed.

However, this made me think a bit about fate. Are somethings meant to be? Was I suppose to be late getting home? Was I suppose to leave the condo right at the time i did? Had I left a few minutes earlier, or later, I most likely wouldn’t have seen the dog. Why did I spend an hour in the dark, cold, night looking for this dogs owner? I can’t believe it’s fate or destiny. But perhaps it’s something like karma. I did a good deed and that will reflect strongly against my character. Now that I can believe.

Xbox

Xbox. I got one. Used, but a great deal. I have to give props to my wife, she’s the one who found it on craigslist. So far I like Halo 2 and Farcry, looking to get a few more games down the road. I don’t see why there’s already next-gen next gen consoles. The Xbox (For that matter the Gamecube and even possibly the PS2) still has tons of life left in it. The 360 only seems to have HD and the whole live thing going for it. Meh.