Apple Reviews

After reading so many reviews now I am disappointed I bought a Mircrotek scanner. The software has a simple mode then a mode with more controlable features. The scanner never responded properly with the more complex mode so I just used the basic. It worked ok until the short warranty ran out. One day I turned it on, scanned one page and poof smoke started pouring out. After inspecting the inside for the cause, I found a transistor had 2 bad solder joints made by the factory that finally oxidized to point of failure and burned out several components. Contacted Microtek by email for parts. They would not sell me any parts but wanted me to spend much money to send them the scanner for repair. They were even too cheap to furnish me with a schematic. A quality company supplies them with the literature when purchased new. Steer clear of a company who cannot stand behind what they peddle.

It took me four days to finally get it up and running, when I first installed the scanner everything seemed to be workong fine. But as I soon learned, the ribbon wire connecting the scanner head had a kink in it which would jam the machine. after repeated calls to Microtek, I was informed that I would have to send it to the company for repairs at my own expense. Customer service stinks. with the help of a screwdriver and some masking tape, (to hold the wire in it's correct position), I was able to get this thing working right. As for scanning film negatives with the optional adapter, save you money, it does a losey job. The software imaging software included disabled all of my pre-installed editing software and reset itself as the default viewer. If I'd known of the trouble that I would have with this product I'd have never bought it. This is the first and last time I will ever buy a Microtek product, customer service is a joke and non-existant.

The scanner is actaully good. It is very user friendly, at least what was my expereince. However, it is kind of slow with anything from pictures to files. However, for it's price it is a great scanner and you can do many cool tricks once you find out how to do them. Overall it is worth the money!

Reviewing a program like Media Edit Pro is a tough slog. Not because of any shortcomings of the program but because it was completely different from what I expected. Perhaps a brief description of the review process is in order. What I review is stuff that interests me, and I'm interested in Movies. So when I saw a press release for Media Edit Pro I thought "Hey, Here's a movie editor more robust than iMovie but cheaper than Final Cut Express, that's something I'd like to try." A couple of e-mails later and I had a copy. I installed Media Edit Pro (which is growing tiresome to type so I'll truncate the title to MEP in future references) with no problems. then I downloaded and installed the update. Still a problem free experience. Found some footage to play with and fired up the program to give MEP it's first test run. Big Problem.

The problem wasn't with the program, it just wasn't what I was expecting. I expected a simple but more robust movie editing program, I was wrong. The program is called Media Edit Pro for a reason and the reason is that MEP is not just a movie editing program (one assumes the author put more thought in the title than I did when I read it) but a full fledged media editing program (hence the text). That means pretty much any media you care to mess with. I only care to mess with video stuff so I'm sticking to the video side, but from the little I know about audio and stills it seems that MEP would be quite capable in that department. Let's hit the easy stufff right now, MEP includes plenty of effects and transitions and you do have complete titling control. But there's more to MEP than being just a beefier copy of iMovie, much more.

Say you want to pull off the effect from the beginning of Saving Private Ryan/ Gladiator. You remember that extra violent fog-o-war feeling. You can't do it with iMovie, it's just not possible out of the box. It's no big trick with MEP. To be honest there's not a lot you can't do to video footage with MEP. You can do titles any way you wish, move the audio around, add a single frame or a thousand, paint. Paint? Did I say paint, let's look back... It appears I did say paint. Well that's okay because you can paint directly on your video using the painting tools. It's a more useful feature than you might think.This might have you wondering "If I can paint, does this mean I can apply other image editing techniques to my movie?" Wonder no longer, the answer is yes. You want to mask the video? No problem. You want to apply an effect to just a region of the movie (you know a specific selected area)? Again no problem. Think of it, you can add cool effects to just, say, half the visible video. People familiar with imaging editing programs will be able to go nutso crazy with the included tools and mere mortals like I can still have a pants load of fun.

How powerful is MEP? I don't know. I know it can handle anything I can throw at it but I only have limited video editing experience. Could a super slick director take MEP to it's limits? I would bet the answer is yes. At least I think they could, you see MEP also includes brush editor to make your own brushes. These aren't just static brushes, these are special cool movie brushes. Even more intriguingly MEP includes something called RBscript. This is well beyond my ability to use but I suspect that in the right hands it could be a very powerful tool. With the ability to script stuff I conclude that MEP is limited more by the user than the program.

The last question to ponder: what do I give up if I ditch iMove and start using MEP? Well, MEP does everything iMovie does as well as plenty of other neat stuff I haven't mentioned (for example: you can set the dimensions of the movie). MEP offers a great deal of creative control and for those of you who don't want to shell for Final Cut Express but need more than iMovie this is the best alternative I've run across. MEP is very powerful, very original and very very cool. In addition to all the aforementioned goodness MEP includes a printed manual (becoming a rarity, but helpful with a program as original as MEP) and a very cool sticker.

This software is the greatest. I can edit frame by frame or edit entire movies. I love the paint on movie feature--great for rotoscoping! Like I said before, it is nothing I've seen before.

There is a program called "C_DILLA" that Mathsoft has seen fit to install in a hidden file on some of its products. Just do a web search under the keywords

"C_DILLA", "Mathcad", and "spyware" (or any combination with C_DILLA in there. You will get a lot of information.)

Call MathSoft and MAKE SURE that this earlier Mathcad version does not install C_DILLA on your system.

If C_DILLA is installed, then I suggest you do web search on the effects that C_DILLA has on your CD burner.

You have been warned.

If C_DILLA is not part of this program, then buy it. Mathcad is the best of its genre.

We are an international company and in working with an agency in Spain, I ran across a problem translating Quark Passport file to QuarkXPress. Tech support at Markzware had sent my file to confirm that their product would work for me before I even purchased it. MarkzTools easily translated the file into a usable version of QuarkXPress at a nominal cost.

Was pretty excited when I saw the fonts package. The box said "Over 1000 TrueType fonts" I figured that it meant just subtle variations of the same. While this was true for the majority of the fonts, the "BN" set of fonts had the most variety.

The little quick reference guide book was very helpful with letting you get a peek at what the fonts look like to see if you
even want to load it on your system. The book however was at times a little confusing, the names of the fonts would be on top of the fonts for some and then under the fonts for others. You had to kind of double check that the one that you wanted was the one that you installed.

Played with some of the fonts in LiveType and I had a blast. Since I kind of wanted to see the fonts in action I would look through the book then choose a font to load. For it to take effect I had to keep restarting LiveType for the font to show up. So after a while just loaded a bunch of them and then made some scrolling text. Had lots of fun with the "Xmas Lights BRK" & "New Year Dingbats". Being able to take just the dingbats and alter them on screen give rise to lots of new and creative ways for me to make my designs a bit more fun and have very different appeal. There were also some more down to earth fonts like
"Boron" & "Teen Bold" that gives a bit more punch than "Times New Roman" but still not be to off putting. Also previewed the fonts in TextEdit to get a feel for the differences quickly.

All in all really liked what the package had to offer even with the limited font manager and having to load each individual font. The variety of new fonts is worth it.

It's about time someone gave Mac users a reasonably priced font collection!

MacFonts has over 1000 TrueType fonts in three categories: classic, refined and designer fonts. You can even use the included font manager to activate your font selections temporarily or permanently; very cool!

My old battery is broken and I need a new one.
can you send me a picture of yours?

I have been a .Mac member since its inception. To fully appreciate the benefits, you really need a high-speed internet connection (DSL or Cable.)
Benefit: An email account with a 15 MB storage limit. (with a mac.com domain name.) You can access mail by using either a web browser (at any location with Internet access) or through any POP-3 mail application (such as Apple's own mail application, Eudora or Entourage.) You can purchase additional email storage space and additional email accounts for other members of your family.
Benefit: Your own private iDisk. iDisk is an online disk drive. Initially, you start with 100 MB of iDisk storage. (If 100 MB is not enough, you can purchase additional space.) iDisk will allow you to backup your important data or share photos or other legally obtained data. You decide what data is public and what remains private. You can build web pages and publish them, because .Mac also acts as a web hosting service.
Benefit: Software downloads; some full applications, some demos - all conveniently accessed from your iDisk (or conventional download, if you prefer.)
Benefit: .Mac also offers a number of discounts.
Other bebefits include an online calendar, data synchronization among multiple computers, online technical support, online tutorials, in the Learning Center and Virex antivirus software and its frequently updated virus definitions.
.Mac is definitely worthwhile. The only thing you really need to decide for yourself, "is it worth the price of admission?" My answer is a hearty "YES!"

As an early adopter to Apple's new .Mac service, I was mildly impressed. Certainly, the e-mail service had some issues in 2003, but overall, things were good.

Today, however, in 2004, .Mac has become much more useful, stable, and fast. The new design of www.mac.com is both speedy and efficient; my e-mail works flawlessly. There are also more tools to use, such as Homepage and iCard additions. More importantly, being a .Mac subscriber now pays dividends in the form of free software, discounts, and more. I've received at least 2 programs free from .Mac that I use daily.

All around, a great choice!

Wonderful service and software. I think I costs around $ 120~130 in Japan and that should be made cheaper as well.