Posted Friday, August 05, 2005

Some Observations, Links, New Flickr Features, and More

If you're a frequent visitor to this space, you know that updates have been a bit lean of late. Apologies: a busy schedule and life's unexpected adventures have had me hopping lately.

Here to take you into your weekend are a few miscellaneous odds and ends.

The Mighty Mouse and the Macintel angle. Macworld's review of Apple's Mighty Mouse is online. It looks like a swell little rodent, though I agree with reviewer Jennifer Berger's assertion that squeezing the mouse could lead to repetitive-stress injury problems.

But here's the greater question: Why has Apple finally come out with a multibutton mouse? One reason might be that many users have been screaming for one for years. But I suspect next year's Macintel (that is, Intel-based) Macs represent another reason. Think about it: We'll have Macs that will be able to run Windows natively. People who do run Windows on Macintel machines are going to want to right-click. The Mighty Mouse will let them. I'll bet you a graphics tablet—an input device superior to any mouse, in my overworked wrist's opinion—that Macintel Macs will ship with Mighty Mice. Or Mighty Mouses. Or whatever the correct plural is.

And it's good to see Viacom International getting a few bucks out of the "Mighty Mouse" moniker, isn't it?

Dealing with multiple iTunes libraries. No one makes iTunes sing like Playlist's Chris Breen, and he recently wrote about a thorny problem: merging a couple of iTunes music libraries. Great stuff.

Photography: digital really is sharper than film. On his always-splendid site, photographer and master imager Michael Reichmann writes about the sharpness of digital imaging versus film.

Now on Flickr: Interestingness and clusters. The photo fiends at Flickr have introduced a couple of new features for exploring the deepening ocean of images on my favorite photo sharing site. You can also get a list of your most interesting photos; here's mine.

Read about the new features on Flickr's blog, and marvel at the talent of these kids.

Another rave review for my book/DVD. Writing for the MLMUG newsletter, Linda McNeil writes "the book and the DVD do a tremendous job of providing an in-depth understanding of the iLife suite... This book is a must read." She also makes some observations about the way the book and its DVD work together. Gratifying stuff, and, in my heavily biased opinion, right on the mark. (And don't forget, you can buy the $34.95 book and its DVD for just $23.09 on Amazon.com.)

Department of circular reasoning. Finally, check out this message from the Adobe Updater, part of Adobe's Creative Suite 2.



To have a good weekend, be sure to have a good weekend!