Picasa for Mac!

Google finally released the long awaited Picasa for Mac (in beta of course). Before I switched to Mac, I love Picasa on Windows. It’s pretty much iPhoto, if not better, on Windows. Although iPhoto 08 is pretty good, I still miss Picasa.

Features I like in Picasa:
-Ability to watch folder(s). You can set Picasa to watch certian folders, and it will automatically import any new pictures it find in those folders. This is something that you would think Apple would’ve thought, but no such features in iPhoto.
-I’m feeling lucky. I’m feeling lucky is a one click quick fix button. From what I see, it does a much better job every single time when compared to iPhoto’s auto enhance.
-Folder structure. Although I really like iPhoto 08’s way of organizing pictures with events, Picasa’s folder structure is more flexible and easier to manage.
-Collages. Again, something that you would think Apple would’ve thought. This is a pretty fun feature, especially when you want to create a cover for a photo album or wallpaper. Example below:

The only downside is since Picasa is google’s product, upload integration is only for Picasa web album or Youtube. Still, Picasa is an excellent software, and the Mac version is long overdue. Let’s see what Apple would do with iPhoto 09.

 

MobileMe push with iPod Touch

The idea of push technology is to have almost instant sync. For example, if you add a contact in your address book on a portable device, with push technology, the information is automatically pushed so the address book in your computer is automatically updated. This idea makes sense on the iPhone, where there is a constant data access via the cellular wireless. However, how about the iPod Touch? The iPod Touch only have wifi for internet connection. Well, MobileMe push works, with caveats. Basically if you do any changes on the calendar/address book on the Touch WHILE it’s connected to the internet, push works. I tried it, and it worked just fine with my iMac. However, stuff that you do when the Touch is NOT connected to the internet will NOT be pushed until the next successful push (when you do something WHILE connected to the internet). The contents that you changed while the Touch is offline don’t seem to be pushed EVEN when you’re connected to the internet later on, IF you don’t change anything else. So, you can change a lot of things on the Touch offline, and not having the contents being pushed at all. Bummer!

 

Remote Desktop

I never realized how useful Remote Desktop is before! I regularly use my iMac now, but I still have a Windows PC on its side. It has its own keyboard, mouse, taking up space. Thankfully Microsoft makes a Remote Desktop software for Mac. Make sure you get the version 2 beta. The official one 1.03 is way old.

All I did was enable remote desktop on my Windows machine, log-off, and then I can log-in to that machine using my iMac via the Remote Desktop software. This is probably not new for many people, but I just realize how useful it is now. LOL. I can even log-in to my HP Windows Home Server unit, which is headless (you cannot connect any monitor nor keyboard directly on the machine). Sweet.

 

Max, CD ripper for Mac

Max is a CD ripper program for MacOS X. Couple nice things:
– cdparanoia gives you more accurate rip. Probably not as extensive as EAC though.
– ability to rip from CUE sheet + .wav image file.
– uses Lame MP3

The ugly:
– MP3 ripped tracks have a 1 to 2 seconds silence in the beginning. I compared them with tracks ripped with CDex on Windows, and no such silence. 😦
– Minimal control over drive configuration compared to EAC
– Minimal control over MP3 encoder setting. Cannot specify the various presets, although the Transparent setting is presumably equal to -preset fast standard.
– One ripped track had the last second of the previous track in the beginning. WTF??

Not perfect. I’ll stick with xld for my CUE+wav into MP3 solution, or use my windows PC and enjoy the magnificent EAC and CDex.