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News & Opinion
It Would Be Great If iCloud Was More Like
Dropbox
AppleBitch comments that there was a problem the other day -
Dropbox connectivity was sporadic
and, even when connected, incredibly and painfully slow. At one point
some users couldn't even connect to the Dropbox, so in order to share
some data between a MacBook Air and an iMac, a quick shifted over to
Google Drive (previously
terra incognita) did the trick, with the file transfer quick and
easy, as it had been when Dropbox was working.
What was an irritation was the fact that one couldn't go straight to
iCloud, since the files were in
PDF and PowerPoint format, and document sharing in iCloud is limited to
applications that have been granted iCloud functionality, instead of
universal file access.
Editor's note: This pretty much captures concisely why I've never
bothered with iCloud and have no near-term intention of doing so. I
have no patience with what seems like arbitrarily proprietary
gatekeeping. The beauty of Dropbox (which usually works flawlessly
notwithstanding the other day's troubles) is in large measure due to
its platform and format agnosticism. (Google Drive sounds like it's
worth a look however.) cm
Publisher's note: Curiously, browser access to iCloud isn't
supported in Safari 4.1.3, the last version for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, but by running
TenFourFox,
you can access iCloud on even ancient G3, G4, and G5 hardware. Safari
5.0.6, the last version for OS X
10.5 Leopard, can access your iCloud data, so G4 and G5 users have
that option. Using iCloud natively requires OS X 10.7 Lion or later. Dropbox
supports all versions of Mac OS X back to 10.4.11 Tiger, while
Google Drive requires OS X
10.6 Snow Leopard or newer. For those of us using PowerPC Macs or
OS X 10.5 and earlier on Intel Macs, Dropbox is the only real choice
among the three. No wonder almost every Low End Mac staffer uses it!
dk
Link: To Be Honest, It
Would Be Great If iCloud Was More Like Dropbox
Why Use Dropbox as Your Documents Folder?
MacGroup's Terry White, like many of us an avowed Dropbox fan, says
he uses Dropbox daily to sync files and to share files with others.
White says that after initially signing up for Dropbox's free service,
he liked how it worked so much he decided it was worth paying for, so
he went with a 100 GB plan.
White, who has a MacBook Pro for work and a MacBook Air for personal
use and non-work travel, says he's had always hesitated against having
two computers, because he knew the day would come when he'd be
frustrated that a document he wanted to work on was on the Mac left
behind. However, with his 100 GB Dropbox account, he has enough space
to use his Dropbox folder as his "Documents" folder, so that whenever
he was working on a project and saved it to the Documents folder inside
his Dropbox folder, it would automatically be synched to the Dropbox
cloud - and more importantly to any of his other Macs signed in to the
same Dropbox account.
White has now upgraded from 100 GB to 200 GB (plus all the free
space he's accumulated for referring people) and says he couldn't be
happier with this solution, which not only gives him access to his
documents on all of his Macs, but also can access from his iPhone or
iPad as well as a web browser on any connected device.
White also explains that with Dropbox he doesn't migrate any more.
For years whenever he'd get a new Mac he'd migrate from the old Mac to
the new one, a great feature of Mac OS, but with the downside being
that you accumulate a lot of old junk on your drive. With Dropbox, he's
switched to doing "clean" installs, keeping his data files on Dropbox
in the cloud - and regaining tons of disc space and enhancing system
stability.
Editor's note: I pretty much use Dropbox the same way, with my
Dropbox folder displacing my Documents Folder and other folders as
default repository for work-in-progress and files I might want to
reference. I'm still getting along fine with the free service, which is
up to 8 GB or so thanks to Dropbox's referral dividend. That's
ample for synching work on three Macs and my iPad, but as the Cloud
matures, I can see the advantages of having all of one's data stored
and accessible with Dropbox, although I can't imagine ever not keeping
regularly updated and redundant backups on local media. cm
Link: Why I Use
Dropbox as My Documents Folder
Gartner: US Mac Sales Up 5.4% While Windows Market
Declines
PR: Gartner Inc.
preliminary results for fourth quarter of 2012 show Apple in third
place in US PC sales and logging 5.4% year-over-year Mac system sales
growth bucking a 2.1% general PC sales decline from the fourth quarter
of 2011.
Due to the tight inventory control and preparation for the Windows 8
launch, most PC vendors were able to ship Windows 8 PCs to the
retail space. However, PC sell-through was rather weak, which leaves
some level of inventory concerns for vendors in the consumer
market.
Note that Gartner data includes desk-based PCs and mobile PCs,
including mini-notebooks - but not tablets, such as the iPad.
Why One Mac Vet Won't be Buying a New iMac
The Mac Observer's John Martellaro notes that he's been buying and
using Apple products for a long time, and shopping for a new Mac has
always been a fun process, but he won't be buying one of Apple's new
iMacs.
He'd intended to buy a new 2012
27" iMac and pass his current iMac down to his wife, so he eagerly
loaded up Apple's online store and checked his storage options, which
he says were bleak, leaving him stunned and annoyed that he couldn't
pick a reasonable SSD at a reasonable price (compared to 2010), noting
that Apple wants to soak him for $1,300 for a 768 GB SSD - a price he
deems "outrageous," "larceny," and "obscene."
Publisher's note: A lot of veteran Mac users are sticking with Macs
than can run OS X 10.6 so they don't have to replace pre-2006 apps such
as AppleWorks 6, Office 2004, older but still adequate versions of
Photoshop, etc. dk
Link: Why I Won't be
Buying Apple's New iMac
What Version of OS X Can You Include When Selling a
Mac?
TidBITS' Adam C. Engst explains what OS X version you can legally
leave installed on a Mac that you sell or give away, and why you can't
just install a fresh copy of the latest version of OS X it can run
- the latter being explicitly forbidden it in the OS X Software
License Agreement.
In brief, you can sell or give away a Mac with the version of Mac OS
X that came preinstalled on it. If you bought a more recent version,
you can sell that in a one-time permanent transfer of all of your
license rights to the Apple Software (in its original form as provided
by Apple) to another party, provided that: (a) the transfer must
include all of the Apple Software, including all its component parts
(excluding Apple Boot ROM code and firmware), original media, printed
materials and this License; (b) you do not retain any copies of the
Apple Software, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer
or other storage device; and (c) the party receiving the Apple Software
reads and agrees to accept the terms and conditions of this
License.
However, if you purchased a license to Lion or Mountain Lion through
the Mac App Store, it is not transferable and must be removed before
you sell or give the Mac away.
Link: Selling a Mac: What Version of Mac
OS X Can You Include?
Spinning Disks: Good-bye and Good Riddance?
InfoWorld's Paul Venezia thinks life will be much improved by
casting off the alleged shackles of ancient storage technology. Your
editor disagrees, retaining affection for the experienced (no critical
data loss from hardware failure over 21 years use) reliability and
economy of hard drive storage, but Venezia makes an interesting case
hypothesis, arguing that within a decade, we may find ourselves in a
post-storage world devoid of what in his estimation is the painfully
outdated yet ubiquitous spinning disk.
He notes that there are already terabyte SSDs on the market for
under $600 - solid state capacity and price point that were unthinkable
even a few years ago - and maintains that performance and reliability
of SSDs continue to increase, eventually yielding extremely affordable,
blazingly fast, and ultra-reliable SSD storage arrays that all but
eliminate many of the classic problems presented by spinning disk.
But this is still now, and SSDs capacities are much smaller and more
expensive than with spinning disks' almost 60 year old technology,
which offers amazingly large storage capacities at relative bargain
prices.
Venezia acknowledges that Cloud storage operations may continue to
leverage spinning disk technology for archival storage, but will
necessarily have massive amounts of solid-state storage on the front
line in order to deliver data at expected speeds, envisioning an era
when cheap, persistent, and indefatigable storage will be largely
ignored and taken for granted, with losing data a thing of the past
with no crashed disks, no lost pictures or projects or reports, no
hours of effort suddenly gone. Storage will be so available.
I, for one, am very much looking forward to that reality.
That of course assumes that solid state storage will turn out to be
as reliable as Venezia and other SSD advocates imply.
Link: Good-bye and Good
Riddance to Spinning Disk
Seagate's Magical Traveling Box and Hybrid Laptop
Drives Coming
Barrons' Tiernan Ray reports that Seagate has developed a yet-to-be
named gizmo that is both a MiFi-style cellular router at 4G speed and a
half-terabyte drive in a single highly portable package - sort of a
"MiFi"-plus. The device, which uses 2.5" 5400 RPM hard drive technology
can serve as both a mobile personal drive and a wireless access point,
and additionally, through a partnership with startup firm Poltek, will
also will let people you invite connect to your drive over the
Internet.
Ray says he recently spoke with Seagate's chief marketing officer,
Scott Horn, who thinks many in the industry and on Wall Street have
overestimated how NAND flash memory technology, in the form of
solid-state drives (SSDs), will devastate conventional hard drives,
which have been Seagate's the bread and butter. However, by buying
Samsung's storage drive business Seagate has gained a much deeper
partnership with Samsung for flash that it's leveraging to sell more
and more hybrid drives with a few gigabytes of flash memory cache
piggybacking massive amounts of main storage on spinning disks (a
la Apple's new iMac and Mac mini "Fusion" drive option), allowing
both speed and capacity at a competitive price. Ergo, Ray says Horn
thinks hybrid drives will turn out to be popular in Ultrabook laptop
PCs, with Seagate planning 2.5" hybrid drives for users who don't want
to be limited to the solid-state drive's maximum affordable capacities
of around 128 GB or 256 GB.
Link: CES: Seagate's
Magical Traveling Box
Tech Trends
Wintel PC Market Share Set to Fall to 65% in
2013
PR: Canalys' latest
forecasts paint a bleak picture of the state of the industry for the
majority of PC hardware vendors. Combined shipments of desktops,
netbooks, and notebooks showed a year-on-year decline of around 10% in
the fourth quarter of 2012, as consumers favored Android and iOS pads
over Wintel-based PCs.
Microsoft and Intel will suffer further, with the Wintel PC market
share expected to decline from 72% in 2012 to 65% in 2013. This will
represent a 5% decline in unit shipments, largely due to the poor
outlook for notebook sales.
"'Pads and, increasingly, smart phones can perform many of the
day-to-day computing tasks that most people require," says Canalys
Research Analyst Pin-Chen Tang. "Wintel PCs are becoming less likely as
an individual's first choice of computing device for everyday tasks,
such as sending e-mail or web browsing."
"The launch of Windows 8 did not reinvigorate the market in 2012,
and is expected to have a negative effect as we move into 2013. Windows
8 is so different to previous versions that most consumers will be put
off by the thought of having to learn a new OS," says Canalys Research
Analyst Tom Evans. "An additional barrier is the potential increase in
cost that Windows 8 brings, as it is perceived that a PC with a
touchscreen is needed to get the best user experience. In the current
economic climate, this will be enough to make people delay purchases as
they wait for prices to fall."
"The combination of Windows 8 and Ultrabooks has been the catalyst
for notebook form-factor innovation, but what was becoming a routine
purchase is now more complex," comments Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling.
"Now buyers must decide between an Ultrabook and a standard notebook, a
touchscreen and a non-touch-screen, as well as an increasing array of
form-factors, such as clamshell, convertible, and hybrid. This added
complexity will make purchases more considered and lengthen the sales
process."
Canalys predicts that from 2014 to 2016, the PC industry will see a
shift in form-factor mix, as consumers in both mature and high-growth
markets become interested in new PC designs based on touchscreens.
Canalys expects the pad market will grow by 37% on average each year
between 2012 and 2016, with volumes reaching 389 million units,
accounting for 59% of total PC shipments. This growth will be driven by
the iPad and iPad mini, low-cost, content-subsidized Android products,
and Windows-based hybrid PCs (e.g., Microsoft's Surface Pro). The
hybrid form-factor adds value to pads, enabling a greater level of
productivity. This, combined with the expected improvements in Android
and iOS, will further encourage the shift from notebooks to pads.
"It is clear that Microsoft is now pushing touch as the primary
input method for Windows, but keyboard and mouse are still needed for
legacy applications," says Coulling. "Following the launch of the
iPhone, the shift from keypad/keyboard to touch input on smart phones
was rapid. The popularity of pads and the inevitable decline in
touch-panel prices will cause the same trend to emerge in the PC
market."
Software
darktable Powerful Open Source Virtual Light Table
and Darkroom for Photographers
PR: darktable is an open source photography workflow
application and RAW developer. A virtual light table and darkroom for
photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets
you view them through a zoomable light table and enables you to develop
raw images and enhance them.
Some of darktable's current features:
General
- darktable runs on GNU/Linux / GNOME, Mac OS X / macports and
Solaris 11 / GNOME.
- Fully nondestructive editing.
- All darktable core functions operate on 4x32-bit floating point
pixel buffers, enabling SSE instructions for speedups. It offers GPU
acceleration via OpenCL (runtime detection and enabling) and has
built-in ICC profile support: sRGB, Adobe RGB, XYZ and linear RGB.
- A collect module allows you to execute flexible database queries,
search your images by tags, image rating (stars), color labels and many
more. Filtering and sorting your collections within the base query or
simple tagging by related tags are useful tools in your everyday photo
workflow.
- Import a variety of standard, raw and high dynamic range image
formats (e.g. jpg, cr2, hdr, pfm, .. ).
- darktable has a zero-latency fullscreen, zoomable user interface
through multilevel software caches.
- Tethered shooting.
- darktable currently comes with 17 translations: Albanian, Catalan,
simplified Chinese, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, Galician, German,
Italian, Japanese, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and
Thai.
- The powerful export system supports Picasa web album, flickr
upload, disk storage, 1:1 copy, email attachments and can generate a
simple html-based web gallery. darktable allows you to export to low
dynamic range (JPEG, PNG, TIFF), 16-bit (PPM, TIFF), or linear high
dynamic range (PFM, EXR) images.
- darktable uses both XMP sidecar files as well as its fast database
for saving metadata and processing settings. All Exif data is read and
written using libexiv2.
Modules
Currently darktable serves 47 image operation modules in L*a*b* and
profiled RGB. Some of them can be used as blending operators offering
blend functionality that works on the incoming image information and
the output of the current module.
Basic image operations:
- crop and rotate: This module is used to crop, rotate and correct
perspective of your image. It also includes many helpful guidelines
that assist you using the tools (e.g. rule of thirds or golden
ratio).
- base curve: darktable comes with general enhanced basecurve presets
for several models that is per automatically applied to raw images for
better colors and contrast.
- exposure controls: Tweak the image exposure either by using the
sliders in the module or dragging the histogram around.
- highlight reconstruction: This module tries to reconstruct color
information that is usually clipped due to information not being
complete in all channels.
- demosaic
- white balance: A module offering three ways to set the white
balance. You can set tint, temperature in and temperature out or you
define the value of each channel. The module offers predefined white
balance settings as well.
- invert: A module working on JPEGs inverting colors based on the
color of film material.
Tone image operations:
- fill light: This module allows the local modification of the
exposure based on pixel lightness.
- levels: This module offers the well-know levels adjustment tools to
set black, grey and white points.
- tone curve: This module is a classical tool in digital photography.
You can change the lightness by dragging the line up or down. darktable
let you separately control the L, a and b channel. Read in Ulrich's
blog post how to make use of this feature.
- zone system: This module changes the lightness of your image. It is
based on the Ansel Adams system. It allows to modify the lightness of a
zone taking into account the effect on the adjacent zones. It divides
the lightness in a user-defined number of zones.
- tone mapping: This module allows to recreate some contrast for HDR
images.
Color image operations:
- overexposed: This module is a useful feature that displays pixels
outside dynamic range.
- velvia: The velvia module enhances the saturation in the image; it
increases saturation on lower saturated pixels more than on high
saturated pixels.
- channel mixer: This module is a powerful tool to manage channels.
As entry, it manipulates red, green and blue channels. As output, it
uses red, green, blue or grey or hue, saturation, lightness.
- color contrast
- color correction: This module can be used to modify the global
saturation or to give a tint. Read Johannes' blog post.
- color zones: This module allows to selectively modify the colors in
your image. It is highly versatile and allows every transformation
possible in the LCh colorspace.
- color transfer: Transfer colors from one image to another.
- vibrance: For a detailed description read Henrik's blog post.
- input/output/display color profile management
Correction modules:
- sharpen: This is a standard UnSharp Mask tool for sharpen the
details of an image.
- equalizer: This versatile module can be used to achieve a variety
of effects, such as bloom, denoising, and local contrast enhancement.
It works in the wavelet domain, and parameters can be tuned for each
frequency band separately.
- denoise (non-local means): Denoising with separated color /
brightness smoothing.
- denoise (bilateral filter)
- lens correction: lens defect correction using lensfun.
- spot removal: Spot removal allows you to correct a zone in your
image by using another zone as model.
- chromatic aberrations: This module automatically detects and
corrects chromatic aberrations.
- raw denoise: Raw denoise allows you to perform denoising on
pre-demosaic data. It is ported from dcraw.
- hot pixels: This module allows you to visualize and correct stuck
and hot pixels.
Effects/artistic image postprocessing:
- watermark: The watermark module provides a way to render a
vector-based overlay onto your image. Watermarks are standard SVG
documents and can be designed using Inkscape. The SVG processor of
darktable also substitutes strings within the SVG document which gives
the opportunity to include image-dependent information in the watermark
such as aperture, exposure time and other metadata.
- framing: This module allows you to add an artistic frame around an
image.
- split toning: Original split toning method creates a two color
linear toning effect where the shadows and highlights are represented
by two different colors. darktable split toning module is more complex
and offers more parameters to tweak the result.
- vignetting: This module is an artistic feature which creates
vignetting (modification of the brightness/saturation at the
borders).
- soften: This module is an artistic feature that creates the Orton
effect also commonly known as softening the image. Michael Orton
achieved such result on slide film by using 2 exposures of the same
scene: one well exposed and one overexposed; then he used a technique
to blend those into a final image where the overexposed image was
blurred.
- grain: This module is an artistic feature which simulates the grain
of a film.
- highpass: This module acts as highpass filter.
- lowpass: This module acts as lowpass filter. One use case is
described in Ulrich's blog post.
- monochrome: This module is a quick way to convert an image to black
and white. You can simulate a color filter in order to modify your
conversion. The filter can be changed in size and color center.
- lowlight vision: Low light module allows to simulate human lowlight
vision, thus providing the ability to make lowlight pictures look
closer to reality. It can also be used to perform a day to night
conversion.
- shadows and highlights: Improve images by lightening shadows and
darkening highlights. Read Ulrich's blog post on this.
- bloom: This module boost highlights and softly blooms them over the
image.
- colorize
- graduated density: This module aims at simulating a neutral density
filter, in order to correct exposure and color in a progressive
manner.
New in darktable 1.1.2
A point release (so nothing too fancy) with a couple of bugfixes and
better camera support. Additionally it comes with an updated user manual. The tarball can be found
here: http://goo.gl/CNNtJ
A new disk image for Mac users is provided as well: http://goo.gl/D98zp
Support for the following cameras with either preliminarily added or
updated:
- Canon EOS 6D
- Canon PowerShot s110
- Canon PowerShot g15
- Canon PowerShot sx50 hs
- Nikon 1 v2
- Nikon D600
- Nikon Coolpix P7700
- Olympus E Pl5
- Olympus E PM2
- Olympus XZ 2
- Panasonic DMC GH3
- Panasonic DMC LX7
- Pentax K5ii
- Samsung EX2f
- Sony RX1
- Sony NEX 6
- Sony SLT A99
- Sony NEX c3 blackpoint/greenshift fix
- White balance preset updates:
- Canon EOS 550D
- Canon EOS 5D Mark III
- Olympus XZ 1
- Sony NEX C3
- Sony SLT A57
- Sony nex 5N
- Panasonic DMC GH3
Open Source (freeware)
Link: darktable
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