I'm not an impluse buyer very often. In mid-June I walked into a local electronics store and browsed through the laptop section. As I walked by the Apple section I noticed they had a number of the new iPads set out for people to play with. I had, of course, seen many ads and videos about it online, but this was my first hands-on encounter. I walked over and picked one up and was immediately taken by the clarity of the screen. My first thought was "Wow, that is sharp". I turned the iPad over in my hands and looked at it from all sides. Again, "Wow, it was really well made". I turned it face-forward again and then started tapping on the icons. I opened up the calendar application and thought, "Wow, this is really nicely done". I opened the browser and browsed a few sites. Wow, this really works well. Scrolling, gestures, speed. What a neat experience. Read more...

"Looking for a decent-but-free Mac OS or Windows application that converts videos for iPhone 4? Head over to developer iSkysoft’s site now, because the guys over there are giving away product keys for their iPhone Video Converter application but, only for a limited time!"

I own a copy of iSkysoft's iPad Video Converter, and it works well. You just load the video in, hit convert, and you have a version formatted for your device. And now for a limited time(less than 2 weeks) you can get a copy of their iPhone Video Converter for free at their website. They make a version for Mac and PC.

Product Category: Media Conversion Utility

Manufacturer: Daniusoft

Where to Buy: Daniusoft

Price: $59.95

System Requirements: Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (32- or 64-bit)

Specifications: Takes about 73MB of disk space

Pros:

• Does many different media chores;
• Easy to use;
• Supports many media types.

Cons:

• Sometimes options and choices aren't clear;
• Technical support is prompt and courteous, but ineffective;
• Documentation is incomplete for some functions.

Summary: So, you have a pile of great home video clips from that new digital camera. Wouldn't it be great to put some scenes of cute little junior on your cell phone to show off to friends, or on a DVD to send to Grandma? Or maybe The Kid has some favorite DVDs to watch in the car on a nice little netbook without a optical drive. Search the Internet and you find 100's of choices for "free" video conversion tools; a few hours or days later you've tried 10 or 12 kinds cripple-ware, ad-ware, and nag-ware , rebooted 18 times to install and un-install them, and had 3 crash your computer. And, none of them are really free OR do what you need. Time to get serious.

The Daniusoft Media Converter Ultimate claims to be a "multimedia processing Titan" that can " . . . remove DRM copy protection . . . , Rip DVD to most popular video files, Convert Video Music between different files, burn movie to DVD disc, directly transfer songs & video to your portable players like iPod, iPhone, PSP, Cell Phone, etc . . ." Is this Titan worth $59.95?

Read more...

"Sheila browses through a few more notebooks before settling on an HP HDX 16t. The specific details of the system were not disclosed, but HP offers configurations starting at $1200. The recommended system costs $1700, directly from the manufacturer, and features a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320GB hard drive and 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT GPU."

At least she got a good machine that might actually be suitable for the task and her requirements (unlike Giampaolo whose choice still baffles me every time I see his commercial). The only puzzling part of the ad is her requirement that the new machine be able to "cut video." Okay, I can understand that. My question comes from her strange platform hunting. After all, how many hardcore video editors aren't already married to one particular piece of software?

For example, most of my editing is done on iMovie '09 and for bigger projects that require more oomph, I use Final Cut Express, neither of which would allow me to buy a Windows PC. Ever. Wouldn't someone as hardcore as Sheila have a similar preference? And if so, why even bother looking at other platforms?

Just struck me as odd, but like I said, at least she got a good machine.

"Maybe it seems a bit nitpicky, but it's bothersome that such a basic thing should be impossible. What is a guy to do if he doesn't want his wedding footage to be shrunk, cropped, or needlessly re-encoded? I'll tell you: get a PC. Because that's where I'm doing all my editing from now on after this debacle. iMovie and its picky formatting, its weirdo interface, and its crappy transitions can go straight back to Cupertino."

I don't know. Seems to work just fine for me (see my unretouched screengrab above). Had he complained about the broken deinterlacer built into iMovie '09, he might have had a point, but for someone who calls something "literally impossible" it must be embarrassing to be shown up by commenters who call him ignorant for turning on the scaling options in QuickTime when exporting something that's already in the proper proportions.

And finally, Mr. Coldewey says iMovie '09 "kicks 720p to the curb." Well, no, it doesn't. Actually the Share Movie function never had 720p. You may wonder why. Well, originally, the AppleTV didn't support 720p. Yes, Apple hasn't updated that export function since it was introduced in iMovie '08 (maybe he should downgrade and see for himself) and they probably should, but at least they give you other ways to export your movies directly. Frankly, if something like this matters that much to you, you'd probably want the extra control QuickTime offers over a generic format for YouTube, MobileMe, and the iPod.

This article is a perfect example of a tech writer starting with a premise and then pulling together everything possible to back it up, but instead proving only that they know very little about what they're writing about.

"In the latest Snow Leopard builds, however, all features are reported to be fully enabled. In addition, the "Buy QuickTime Pro" and "Registration" links have been completely eliminated as menu options and the registration control panel also removed from the System Preferences. These changes suggest that Apple may finally be incorporating all the Pro features into the standard QuickTime installation."

It's amazing the way rumors get reported. Wouldn't it stand to reason that Apple enabled the Pro features of QuickTime in test builds of Snow Leopard so that they could be tested, rather than because they were planning on making Pro free? Does anyone in the blogosphere look at this stuff critically rather than assumptively?

It would not be possible to do a full review of iLife '09 after having had it for as short a period of time as I have, but I still wanted to give you the skinny on what I've noticed. As you all know, I was very excited to see a new version of iLife at MacWorld, and I think that Apple has done nothing to shake my confidence in iLife in general. It's still a solid package, a great value, and a must-own for any Mac user. Read more...

"Apple today announced that iLife '09 will be available tomorrow, January 27, and features major upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand, with breakthrough new ways to organize and manage photos, create movies and learn to play music. iLife '09 is included with every new Mac and is available as a $79 upgrade for existing users through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers."

I don't know about you folks, but I'll be out there with serious determination to get my hands on this one tomorrow. I just hope they have the family packs right away; I'd hate to have to wait! Anyone else gonna rush out tomorrow and grab it, or am I just a shameful fanboy?