The Quest for an "Iconic" Portrait: Editorial and Raw

by Rob Taylor 

In this tutorial, I'll continue my work to shoot an iconic portrait. When I began, I wanted two distinct yet consistent styles or outcomes from each session. In the first session, I created a look that was intimate, yet polished. In this final session, I wanted to have more editorial distance, and a more raw and real feeling.

Instrument Time

You may be wondering why I decided to shoot the bassist aspect of Brad as an entire separate session.
Honestly, I have a tendency to think that musician-with-instrument pictures tend to be a little cheesy and overdone, more along the lines of local editorial than portraiture. As far as I'm aware, the commercial music industry tends to think along these lines as well.

Speaking of mediocre photography...

However, there are always exceptions. I've seen beautiful portraits of iconic musicians with their instruments, like Clarence Clemons with his sax and Carlos Santana with his guitar. In some instances, the instrument itself might be iconic, if it's unusual, custom or vintage model.
So while there may be an overall aim, don't be closed to the possibility of subverting cliché or running with random ideas. Given the possibility of these exceptions, I wanted to at least give it a try, and hence a second session.

Pre-Planning

Since I'd already attempted the iconic portrait in the first session, but wanted that same iconic feeling to permeate the entire project, I had to determine how I was going to approach this second session to create a consistent outcome.
Initially my plan was to do the same general idea as the first session, but simply include the instrument this time. However, in my head, the slick, "lit" feel of the first go round didn't necessarily jive so much with my perception of live music. I needed something more raw, but with a degree of professional polish, since my style really isn't scenester polaroids.

I never saved the original, just used it during the session, but it looked something like this.

With this in mind, I decided a more editorial style of photography would make sense. I came up with three poses that I thought I could hang the session around. I asked Brad to bring a practice amp too. I also asked if he could bring a stack-and-head rig, just on the off-chance, but he'd just sold all his big heavy gear.
With the general thematic intent more or less solidified and a rough plan outlined, I could now start to figure out how I was going to do the lighting.

Lighting

What was different this time around? Actually, very little. The lighting itself was technically almost the same, if you look at the results of each session, but because I was now shooting more of Brad than just his head and shoulders, my gear had to change accordingly. My subject now covered a much larger area, so I need a larger light source.
In the first session, I had a 22" beauty dish a couple of feet away from Brad's face. I was relatively close, maybe two or three feet away, shooting mainly at around 50mm. This session, however, to get the framing I was looking for, I had to move back to anywhere from four feet to around maybe nine feet. If I left the beauty dish in there at a couple feet from Brad, not only would it be in the middle of the shot, but it would only be lighting part of the scene.

Trignometry says the light quality of a two-foot source located two feet from the subject is the same as a five-foot source located five feet from the subject.

To get the same lighting look, I need the same size light source relative to Brad's position, but I need it at least five feet away from him so I can see around it. If I used a two-foot modifier at two feet away, then I now need five-foot light source to place it five feet away. Handily, I have a five-foot octa that did the trick.
For the rim light, I replaced the edgy spots with something a little softer to the left, a 1x4 strip that could be a seamless light, rim and fill all at once. I now had a more naturalistic setup, but still with just a hint of style.

Nice simple lighting setup with a tileboard floor to kill full-body shadows.

This was the studio setup, at least. When we ventured outside for me to get my "garage musician" shots, I primarily used natural light, sometimes with a bare speedlight mixed in at camera right for a little pop.

Collaborate!

If the person you're shooting is creative, then collaborate! Even if they aren't a visual artist, it's unlikely that they have zero sense of aesthetic. I've usually found that any form of creativity has a tendency to bleed into non-related media. Even if it's simply images they've seen and liked the look of, they may have any ideas about the overall presentation, or even particular styles of visual art that inspire them.
In other words, don't let ego waste opportunities. Harnessing your combined abilities may lead to places neither one of you might have come up with alone. The same goes for chaperones with children or makeup and hair stylists on a fashion shoot. You never know who might have a good idea.
Keeping the atmosphere positive and experimental as much as possible has made a night and day difference on the end results every time I've made a conscious effort to ensure it.

The Shoot

I decided to start with some basic editorial portraiture to form a natural bridge from the second session. This was visually simple "man and guitar" type stuff. We had some fun here, then moved on to the wider shots that I'd been planning for this session on the same set. We weren't really feeling it quite so much here, until Brad decided to jump up on the amp for this fun shot:

A subject with an outgoing personality makes your job SO easy.

Next, we headed out to the garage, which I'd already brought up at the beginning of the session that I wanted to try. After doing a fun little "traveling man" type shot using the doorway and falling snow as a huge softbox, a nod to his nationwide bookings, Brad just got to jam out while I figured out my angle and lighting, which is usually predictably beautiful in the garage.
When I felt like I'd gotten what I needed here, we headed back inside where I had a sudden visual flash into my mind that I had to try, and it came out perfectly! I can't explain the visual or where it came from, it just popped into my head after the travelling themed outdoor shots. If I had to guess, it bubbled up from my much-travelled past where a lot of time was spent sitting against walls and pillars in bus stations, train stations and airports.

First shot of the sequence. Definitely promising.

Then I went for the final image that I wanted of the session, which after lots of setup and messing about with optical slave sensors, just wasn't happening.
I think I'm happier with the shot that popped out of nowhere than the other attempts anyway, since it's less about cool-factor and more about telling some kind of story related to Brad's profession. Just like you should run with a good idea even if you didn't come up with it, you can't be afraid to kill an idea that isn't working.

Image Shortlist

This was Brad's idea, from somewhere he'd found something similar. I killed the colour and added the wide-angle cartooniness.

An unexpected squinch, which I'd been trying to pull out more in the previous session!

Travellin' man.

Jamming in the garage

Post-RAW-adjustment version of final image

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Post-processing

Final Image

Ok, that's it for this shoot from me. I hope this has been as interesting and enjoyable an experience for you as it has been for me. Any questions or thoughts? Hit up the comments below!

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An Introduction to UIKit Dynamics

by Josh Sephton 

 

The new look and feel of the iOS 7 user interface relies heavily on subtle animations to help give users a stronger sense of direct manipulation. In this tutorial, I'll give you an overview of the UIKit Dynamics classes and how they work together.

1. Introduction

If you tap the camera icon on the lock screen, you'll see the screen slide up slightly to reveal the camera interface before falling back into place with a gentle bump. This interaction is a subtle hint that you can slide the lock screen up to access the camera. At the same time, it reassures you that if it accidentally slides a short distance, for example, while your phone is in your pocket or bag, you won't end up with a Camera Roll full of useless photos.

Tapping the camera icon causes the lock screen to slide up, revealing that the camera is hidden behind it.

With the help of UIKit Dynamics, you can add animations to your own apps without needing to code everything from scratch. There are hundreds of versions of the Hamburger Menu on GitHub. Each one allows you to slide the screen to the side to reveal a hidden menu and many have a bounce animation on opening and closing.
However, the bounce effect has been implemented differently by each developer. Apple have made it easier for developers to add these finishing touches by providing a framework for the physical interactions of elements on the screen. With UIKit Dynamics, you only need to specify how the elements interact, not code the physics of each interaction.
There are several new classes you will need to become familiar with. Let me walk you through them in this article. In the next tutorial, I will show you how to use them in your own projects.

2. Dynamic Items

Any class you want to animate needs to conform to the UIDynamicItem protocol, which basically means that it needs to expose its bounds, center, and transform properties. UIView and UICollectionViewLayoutAttributes, and their subclasses, already conform to the protocol by default. If you just want to add animations to your existing interface, you probably won't need to interfere with the components' classes at all. If you're using something more exotic and have lots of custom classes, you need to do some extra work before you can start using UIKit Dynamics.

3. Dynamic Behavior

The way to let your application know how you want your dynamic items to interact, is to create a dynamic behavior and let it know about the dynamic items. The UIDynamicBehavior class is readily available, but it provides little functionality on it's own. You can subclass UIDynamicBehavior to tell the application how the dynamic items should interact, but you probably want to use one of the predefined subclasses which cause the dynamic items to interact in different ways.

UIAttachmentBehavior

An attachment behavior relates dynamic items to each other or to an anchor point as though they were connected by springs. When a dynamic item or the anchor point moves, the attached dynamic item also moves. The attachment behavior has several properties, which can be configured to control the behavior of the the virtual spring that connect the dynamic items.

• Damping: Defines how quickly the spring stops bouncing after one of the items moves.
• Frequency: Defines how quickly the spring bounces when one of the items moves.
• Length: Defines how long the spring is once it stops bouncing.

Notice how the messages space out and bunch up together in the Messages application in iOS? The gap at 1 increases and the gap at 2 closes as the message moves down the screen.

UICollisionBehavior

A collision behavior allows its dynamic items to collide with each other or with a bounding box that you specify. A dynamic item won't collide with a dynamic item that isn't part of the same collision behavior. The collision behavior allows you to set whether the dynamics items collide with just other items, just the bounding box, or other items and the bounding box.

UIGravityBehavior

A gravity behavior causes its dynamic items to fall in the direction in which gravity is acting. By default, gravity acts downwards, but you are able to set any angle you choose by changing the angle property. You can change the gravity behavior's magnitude property to cause items to fall faster or slower.

UIPushBehavior

A push behavior applies a force to its dynamic items causing them to move in the direction of the force. You have more control over a push behavior than you do over a gravity behavior as the force applied can be continuous or instantaneous.

Tapping the lock screen camera icon prompts UIPushBehavior at 1, before UIGravityBehavior takes over at 2 and then UICollisionBehavior causes the bounces at 3 and 4.

UISnapBehavior

A snap behavior causes its dynamic item to move to a specified point as though it were connected to it by a spring. Like the attachment behavior, a snap behavior will cause the dynamic item to overshoot the final point before springing back to it. You can set the damping property of the behavior to define how quickly the oscillations die down.

UIDynamicItemBehavior

You should use UIDynamicItemBehavior if you want to control how each dynamic item moves. You can independently add rotation or movement, and set properties to control the motion. It requires more development than the predefined behaviors, but will allow you to model much more physical scenarios if you have a specific behavior in mind.

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4. Dynamic Animator

Once you've created some dynamic behaviors, you will need a dynamic animator to provide the context and calculations for the dynamic items you want to animate. The dynamic animator will update your dynamic items' position and rotation according to the dynamic behaviors. Create UIDynamicAnimator with initWithReferenceView: if you're going to animate individual views, or with initWithCollectionViewLayout: if you plan on animating a collection view.

Conclusion

There are new mechanisms in iOS 7 to help you implement subtle animations without requiring lots of extra work. The views you want to animate must be dynamic items, that is, they need to conform to the UIDyamicItem protocol.
You can then create one or more dynamic behaviors, instances of UIDynamicBehavior or any of its subclasses, to represent the interactions you wish to simulate. Finally, you pass the behaviors to a dynamic animator, which is responsible for updating the position and rotation of your dynamic items according to the behaviors you specified. In the next tutorial, I'll show you a concrete example of these UIKit Dynamics in action.

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How to Control PowerPoint Animation with the Animation Pane

by Bob Flisser 

 

You already know how to add animations to objects in PowerPoint, but what if you want more control over the individual animation timing and arrangement? That's where the Animation Pane and Advanced Timeline in PowerPoint come in. These are especially useful tools when you have a lot of objects moving around and you want to sync their timing.
The Animation Pane lists of the objects on a slide that have animation applied. You can use it to reorder the animation sequence and choose options for the animations. When objects have different durations and get triggered automatically, their bars on the timeline indicate it with different lengths. The timeline vaguely resembles what you might see in a multimedia program like Adobe Flash, though it isn’t as extensive—but then, it doesn't need to be for what PowerPoint does.
In this tutorial, I'll show you how you can use the Animation Pane in PowerPoint to apply entrance, emphasis and exit effects to text, tables, shapes, images, video clips and any other objects on a slide that you can select.

Screencast

 

You can follow along with this tutorial using your own PowerPoint presentation if you'd like. Or if you prefer, download the zip file included for this tutorial, which contains a sample presentation called timeline.pptx.
The presentation has 4 slides and no animations or transitions applied. Play the presentation just to see how it looks. Either click the Slide Show button on the bottom of the screen (right side in Windows, left side on the Mac) or use the shortcut: F5 (Windows) or Ctrl-F5 (Mac). Then just click through or press Enter to go through the slides.

Three Stages of Animation

After you finish the slide show, go to slide 1. There are three items to animate: company name, text in the yellow box, and subtitle below the yellow box.
There are 3 available times of an object’s animation.

1. Entrance: how the object first appears
2. Emphasis: what the object does once it’s on the slide
3. Exit: how the object leaves the slide

These timings can be exclusive, if you want. For example, you can have an object that has an animated exit, but not an animated entrance.

Applying Entrance Animation

Let’s apply entrance effects to all three objects. Click inside the company name (Acme Antimatter) and click the Animations tab on the ribbon. Apply animation in one of three ways, as you can see in the screen capture, below:

1. Select an effect in the Animation section or click the More button and select an effect
2. Click the Add Animation drop-down and select an animation
3. Click the Add Animation drop-down, then click More Entrance Effects, then choose one from the dialog box

Three ways of applying animation to an object

Notice the small “1” in the box next to it. Now apply entrance effects to the other two objects the same way. The slide should now show a “2” and a “3”, so it looks like this:

Numbers attached to objects indicate the order of animation

Re-Ordering Animation in Windows

Since the yellow box text now comes in second, let’s change it so it comes in first (the company name will then come in second).
In Windows, click the Animation Pane button on the ribbon. That will display the pane on the right side, with the three objects listed.

Object animation is listed in the Animation Pane

Either drag the #2 item to the top, until you see a thin horizontal bar at the top of the stack, OR select the #2 item and click the Up Arrow on top of the stack.

Re-order animation either by dragging list items in the Animation Pane or by using the Up and Down Arrows

On the slide, the company name will now show a “2” box and the yellow box text will show a “1” box. Run the slide again, and that will be the order they appear.

Re-Ordering Animation on the Mac

The steps are similar on the Mac. Click the Reorder button, and that will display the floating Custom Animation box, also with the three objects listed.

On the Mac, use the Reorder button to change the order of animation

Either drag the #2 item to the top (there won’t be any thin bar to guide you), OR select the #2 item and click the Up Arrow below the stack of objects.
Now it’s the same as in Windows: on the slide, the company name will now show a “2” box, and the yellow box text will show a “1” box. Run the slide again, and that will be the order they appear.

Applying Emphasis and Exit Animation

When you apply additional animation to the same object, the timeline will display the object more than once. An object will be listed once for each stage of animation.
Let’s add an emphasis to the yellow box text. Click anywhere inside it, but if you’re using Windows, don’t just choose an animation from the main part of the ribbon, or you’ll remove the box’s original animation. We want to add an effect to the existing one, so click the Add Animation drop-down and select an emphasis animation from the list, or choose More Emphasis Effects and choose one from the drop-down.

To add additional animations, click the Add Animation button and choose from the list

If you’re using a Mac, you do select an emphasis effect from the list. Unlike the Windows version, this will add an animation, and not override the previous one.
Now use the same method to apply an exit effect.
The result is that the yellow box text has indicators on the slide and in the timeline showing that it’s #1, 4 and 5 in the sequence.

When an object has multiple animations, they're listed in the Animation Pane

Play the presentation, and you see it comes in second, does its emphasis, then exits before the company name and Customer Support text, since they don’t have any exit effects. So two adjustments to make:

1. Make the emphasis last longer
2. Make all three items exit together

In the Animation Pane in the Windows version, put the mouse pointer on the end of the #4 bar so that the mouse pointer becomes a 2-headed arrow. Drag to the right, so the bar indicates that it’s now 2 or 3 seconds:

Extend the duration of an animation by extending its bar on the timeline

If you’re using a Mac, the Animation Order box doesn’t have timing bars. To increase the time of this effect, use the Duration box on the right side of the ribbon. (See screen capture, below.)
Now click inside the Acme Antimatter text, then Shift-click inside the Customer Support Overview text, so both text boxes become selected. The same way you did before, add the same exit effect that you chose for the yellow box text.
If you run the presentation now, you’ll see that the yellow box text still exits first. We want both #6 effects in the timeline to happen concurrently with the #5 item. In Windows, either right-click it or click the drop-down arrow and select Start With Previous. You can also choose With Previous from the Start drop down on the ribbon.

Making an animation start when the previous event starts

If you’re using a Mac, select both #6 items in the Animation Order box, click the Start drop-down, then select With Previous.

On the Mac, you can choose With Previous from the Start drop-down on the ribbon

Now when you run the presentation, all 3 items will exit simultaneously.

Controlling the Animation of Text

When you have a placeholder of bulleted text, you can control how much of it comes in at once. Go to slide 2, which has a headline and bullets on the first and second levels.
As before, select the headline and apply an entrance effect, then do the same for the box of bulleted text. When you play the slide, you’ll see that when there are second-level bullets, they enter all at once with the first-level bullet above them. The numbering shows that will happen:

By default, sub-bullets do their animation together with the bullets above them

Let’s change that so each line comes in separately. In Windows, click anywhere in the bullet text, then in the Animation Pane, either right-click the second item or roll the mouse pointer over it and click the drop-down. From the drop-down, choose either Effect Options or Timing.

Choose Effect Options or Timing from an object in the Animation Pane to change the sequencing of bulleted text

A dialog box appears, and it has three tabs: Effect Options, Timing, and Text Animation. Click the Text Animation tab. Click the Group Text drop-down list and select By 2^nd Level Paragraphs (or a higher number).

The Text Animation tab has a drop-down for "Group With" that determines how sub-bullets will be animated

Click OK, and you’ll get a preview of the animation running, with each line of text coming in separately. Run the slide show to get a better look.
This feature works mostly the same on the Mac. Instead of right-clicking the item in the Animation Order box, you twirl open the Text Animations section. The choices are the same as in Windows.

On the Mac, you control text animation timings using the Text Animation twirl-down section of the Custom Animation dialog

Controlling the Animation of a Chart

Chart animation is similar to text animation. Go to slide 3 of the presentation, which has a simple column chart. Select the chart, then in the Animations tab of the ribbon, choose an entrance effect. You’ll see a preview of the animation, which shows the whole chart entering at once. The chart will be listed as one item in the Animation Pane.

Charts get animated just like text

You can make the bars enter in various orders: each group (year) entering at once, each series (set of 4 columns) entering at once, the columns of each series entering one at a time, or each column entering one at a time, from left to right.
In Windows, right-click the Chart 4 item in the Animation Pane, then select either Effect Options or Timing. In the dialog box that appears, click the Chart Animation tab. That tab has only one thing in it: a drop-down list. Click it and make a choice, then click OK. Try a few of them to see which one you like.
The Mac version also works like animating text. After applying the animation, make the adjustments in the Chart Animations twirl-down section of the Custom Animation box or with the Effect Options button on the ribbon.

On the Mac, use the Chart Animations twirl-down section to control the timings of chart pieces

Synchronize Automatic Timings

The Animation Pane is especially helpful when object animations run automatically, rather than with a mouse click. The main difference between the Windows and Mac versions is that the Mac doesn’t display an actual timeline, with horizontal bars. Otherwise, the capabilities of the Custom Animation dialog box are the same.
Go to slide 4 of the timeline presentation. The horizontal arrow is one object, and if you click one of the thumbnail images, you’ll see it’s grouped with the description, arrow and month. We’ll apply animation to the horizontal arrow, then to each of these groups.

In the included sample file, the month name, description, arrow and thumbnail of each month's objects are grouped, so they will all get animated together

Animating the Horizontal Arrow

Select the horizontal arrow, and from the Animations tab, apply a Wipe transition. Click Effect Options and choose From Left. On the Mac, it’s the same thing, and you’ll find the Effect Options section as a twirl-down in the Custom Animation toolbox and also on the ribbon.

After applying the Wipe effect to the main arrow, make it wipe from left to right

On the right side of the ribbon, note the Timing group, which has settings for Start, Duration and Delay options. For the horizontal bar, leave the default settings, which should be:

• Start: On click
• Duration: half second
• Delay: none

On the Mac, these options are in the Timing twirl-down section of the Custom Animation toolbox.
Preview the slide, if you want.

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Animating the Groups of Objects

Select the first group (“Acme Purchases Tablets”). It’s easiest to select the group by clicking the image thumbnail. On the ribbon, choose the Wipe effect, and make it wipe upwards, which should be the default direction. Use these timings:

• Start after previous
• Duration: half second
• Delay: 1 second

This means that 1 second after the horizontal bar finishes, this group of objects will spend half a second wiping upwards.
A quick way of applying the same settings to the other two groups of objects that are above the bar is to use the Animation Painter. Leave the first group selected, then on the ribbon bar, double-click the Animation Painter. Now click the other two thumbnails above the horizontal bar.
Since you’re done with the Animation Painter for a moment, you need to exit it. Either press the Esc key or click the Animation Painter. The mouse pointer will become normal, again.
If you’re using the Mac, there is no Animation Painter. You have to apply the animation to the other groups manually, as you just did with the first group.
Now animate the two groups below the horizontal arrow. Select the first group, apply the Wipe effect, and have it wipe downwards from the top. Make sure it uses the same timings as the others:

• Start after previous
• Duration: half second
• Delay: 1 second

In the Windows version, click the Animation Painter (only a single-click, this time), then click the Stock Fluctuations group. In the Mac version, manually apply the animation to the other groups.
The slide should now look like the screen capture below, with the timeline showing the progression of the animations. Note there is only 1 mouse icon in the Animation Pane: it shows that we have to click (or press Enter) just once. That will make the horizontal arrow come in, and everything else will follow automatically.

After applying animation to all the groups, the timeline shows the sequence

Preview the slide. It’s almost right, except the group below July should wipe down simultaneously with the group above July wiping up.
Click the top July item, and notice that it’s Group 6, which is 4^th on the list. The bottom July item is Group 7, which is 6^th (last) on the list.

When you select a group, you'll see its position in the Animation Pane

Bump Group 7 up in the Animation Pane one spot, so it’s just below Group 6. Set the timings as follows:

• Start: with previous
• Duration: half second
• Delay: 1 second

In the Windows version, that makes the green bars for Groups 6 and 7 run concurrently in the timeline. But now the last group needs to be delayed for 1 second, so you can either drag its green bar to the right, or select the group and set the delay to 1 second.
Also notice that below the timeline, there is a scale of seconds. You can drag the box on this scale left or right to see all the timings.

To change animation timings, either use the Timing controls on the ribbon, or drag and resize the horizontal bars in the timeline

Preview the slide when you’re done.

Conclusion

PowerPoint’s Animation Pane and timeline are great features that give you detailed control over object animations. Remember that to use it, you apply an animation first, then choose an option in the Animation Pane or toolbox on the Mac. And don’t forget that some of the most important features are in the third tab of a pop-up dialog box from a right-click menu.

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Exploring the Advanced Features of QuickTime X

by Matt Reich 

This tutorial will examine some of the advanced features in QuickTime X. We'll go over sharing, audio and video recording, screen recording and more.

QuickTime

QuickTime has been the standard media player of the Mac operating system for many years. It has gone through various iterations over the past two decades, beginning with the release of Version 1 in 1991.
QuickTime X originally shipped with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Apple used to have two versions of the media player, a free, very basic version and a paid, more robust version. I'll be honest - I've never used the Pro version of QuickTime, so my usage up until this release was just basic media playback.

The Pro version is gone, and some great new features have been added to the standard version that are available for everyone.

Many of us have been standard (free) users forever. But we couldn’t justify the cost to purchase the "Pro" version, offering functionality that was done better by other applications. Things have changed with QuickTime X. The Pro version is gone, and some great new features have been added to the standard version that are available for everyone. Let’s take a look at some of them!

Share to YouTube

Sharing your movies to YouTube directly from the QuickTime interface is now possible, and QuickTime X makes this process dead simple.

This probably goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, you will need a YouTube account for this to actually work.

With the video you wish to upload to YouTube loaded, select the Share option from the menu bar and pick the YouTube option (you’ll also see an iTunes and MobileMe Gallery as well). The first time you use this feature, you'll be asked to enter in your YouTube credentials. Check the option to store in the system keychain and you won't have to do that again.

YouTube Share Dialog

Fill in the necessary information in the dialog box and click next to start the process to upload the movie to YouTube. You'll see a message box displaying the progress of the upload. That's it. You're done. There’s no need to do any converting or anything like that. QuickTime takes care of the whole process for you.
This integration is very helpful for those (like me) that have great intentions of sharing a video to YouTube and end up not feeling like taking the time to go through the extra few steps. I know it's not difficult, but with this built directly into QuickTime, it's much more likely that I'll upload a video to YouTube right after I save it to my Mac.

Video and Audio Recording

QuickTime X has the ability to record audio and video. This was previously only a Pro capability, but is now included as a basic feature in Version X. It is very easy to complete a surprisingly professional audio or video recording.

Audio

From the File menu, select New Audio Recording and off you go. The audio recording controls will load. To kick off your audio recording just click the record button. Whatever mic you have set as your default system mic will be used to record the audio. You’ll know you’re recording when you see the time start ticking away along with jumping audio level indicators.
I actually used this recently to record a Google Voice call and it worked beautifully. The simplicity of the audio recording is where this really becomes useful. From loading QuickTime to starting an audio recording takes all of 10 seconds, and about three clicks.
Some very minor editing is possible with QuickTime as well. From the Edit menu you'll see a Trim option. This will allow you to trim from the beginning or end of your recording. It's not much, but if you're just doing a basic recording (which you more than likely are) it may be all you're looking to be able to do. Again, the simplicity of this process makes this a really nice little feature.

Audio Trim

Sharing an audio recording is, unfortunately, not possible through the QuickTime interface. I could see it handy to be able to at least share to iTunes or MobleMe, but that option isn't available with an audio only recording. If you're a podcaster, more than likely you'll be using some other more audio specific software to edit and produce your audio so it probably isn't a big deal.
Like I mentioned, I think the audio recording will see it’s best use for those instances when you need a quick, simple recording.

Video

A video recording takes the exact same process as does an audio recording with the obvious exception of selecting the New Movie Recording option from the File menu. Your iSight/FaceTime camera will turn on, and you’ll see live video with controls on the screen. Again, whatever camera is set to your system default will be shown right away.
There’s a small drop-down arrow that will allow you to select any other installed cameras to use as the video source along with option change to other available microphones, change quality settings for the video (medium, high or max) and also an option to choose save to location.

Audio Trim

As with the audio recording, simply click the record button to begin the recording. You’ll see the time begin to tick and the audio indicators will begin bouncing as well. Click the stop button when you’re finished. Save it and/or share it.
It is also easy to trim a video. It’s basically the same process as trimming an audio recording. Select Trim from the Edit menu. You’ll see a timeline at the bottom of the video and you’ll be able to trim from either the beginning or end. As with the audio trimming, if you’re looking to do some more in depth editing, you’ll be looking to other software (something like iMovie), but it is certainly a handy tool for a quick trim.

Movie Trim

Screen Recording

This is probably the most interesting and I think least-known use for QuickTime X. This will essentially allow you to do a video recording of what you’re doing on your screen. Whatever windows you open. Wherever you click. Whatever you do will be recorded.
To start a screen recording select New Screen Recording from the File menu. The screen recording control will appear. You’ll see a small drop down arrow once again that will allow you to change some settings. You’ll be able to change the quality of the recording, the save to location and you’re also able to pick a microphone if you’d like to add audio into your screen recording. Click the record button to begin recording.

Screen Recording Stop

The recording controls disappear and you’ll then just see a small stop control on the menu bar. That does just what it says, stops the recording and your recording will open up for your review (Command-Control-Esc will stop the recording as well). Trim, save, or share as you’d like.

Conclusion

The common theme of this post is really that the new features of QuickTime X are an excellent way to accomplish a few simple media tasks very well. For former Pro users, these features don’t seem like that big of a deal, but for those of us basic users, these are fantastic.
QuickTime has been around for a long time, and I think it has been easy to cruise by the updates and just take for granted that it is going to be another update to a standard media player (for the non-Pros).
This update changed a lot, and made QuickTime a tool that can be useful to just about everyone. The functionality is so simple and quick to use while still producing fantastic results it’s really a difficult application to overlook.

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Going Vintage: How and Why to Start Using Mac OS 9 Software

by Adam Williams 

 

Instrumental in Apple's well-documented comeback from the brink of disaster was the launch of OS X, an operating system which seemed to herald a new age for Apple and since then, the Cupertino alumni have never looked back, increasing sales each year and ultimately dominating the home computer market.
But what about OS 9? Well, despite the public funeral Jobs gave the venerable Mac OS 9 on a 2002 Keynote, it is still being used and even developed for, with users attracted to its speed, unique UI and, most importantly, the untold wealth of applications which have never made the leap over to OS X.
If you've only become familiar with Apple computers since OS X like myself, you may be forgiven for having no idea about this rich software history which is just waiting to be explored, read on below to see how you can get started!

Getting Bitten By The OS 9 Bug

I recently wrote a guide to setting up a beater Mac with a G4 and OS X Tiger. While I still stand behind the article (and indeed am using that same Mac to write this very piece), it was something of a learning experience and I've since realized I was a little too hasty to dismiss anything pre-Tiger as too old to be useful for users today. I have come to realize that even the oldest of Macs can be useful and attract talented enthusiasts hell-bent on keeping the machines capable of productivity in a post-internet world. So why go so low as OS 9?
Well, beyond the fact that it's simply good geeky fun to have a play with older systems and software, there's actually a lot of compelling software available for OS 9. Aside from the myriad of Word Processing applications, Graphics and Music software, Task Management and Number Crunching tools, there is one particular area in which OS 9 excels which may surprise you: retro-gaming, with countless titles to have fun with, such as X-Plane 6, Caesar I, II & III, Another World, Descent and more.

Tip: OS 9 is often referred to as Classic, though I've kept away from this term to save confusion when I discuss Apple's own emulation software which goes by the same name.

Then there's abandonware:
The legality of abandonware is arguably dubious, but unlike popular 1980's console games, we're talking about niche software which cannot really be bought in any quantity, is no longer supported and cannot be run on any modern machine without significant knowledge and time spent. This is software which the developers have, quite literally, abandoned and so is generally considered fair game. I'm not going to talk you through finding your own abandonware here, but suffice to say it's a very simple matter to discover titles to download - just make sure that the game or application is not still for sale anywhere, as on occasion (such as Text Edit Plus), the developer will be actively selling it.
Before getting started, here's a disclaimer:
This guide is not aimed toward the complete novice. Rather, I hope to appeal to the kind of people who like to tinker, who like to reminisce and who enjoy doing cool things with their machines. If you want everything to work in the flawless fashion we've come to expect from the modern Apple experience, then turn away now!

Planning Your Route To OS 9: Vintage

The simplest and most direct way to run OS 9 applications is by booting into the OS natively on an older Mac such as an iBook G3 Clamshell, which can be picked up very cheaply - as in the cost of a night at the movies cheap. Be aware that if OS 9 is not already installed, you will either need to install it yourself and pick up a copy of OS 9, or stay in OS X and run OS 9 applications in Classic, which I'll cover in more detail below.

Tip: This Wikipedia page highlights Mac OS 9 compatibility, though I found this guide on Every Mac a little easier to follow.

Planning Your Route To OS 9: Classic

If you already own a PowerPC Mac running any version of OS X up to and including Tiger, you can employ Apple's own built-in emulation software 'Classic' to run OS 9 applications and games. As with any emulator, there is some software out there which may not run perfectly, though everything I've been able to test has run flawlessly and so this is my own favored method of using OS 9 software.
There's a lot of confusion on the internet when looking up how Classic actually works, so I'm going to break it down below using a method which I've tested on a G3 and G4 running both Tiger and Panther with no issues - I understand that each earlier iteration of OS X should work too.

First step, System Folder

Copying OS 9's System folder to OS X Tiger

This is probably the single biggest challenge of running Classic. If you decide that Classic is for you, then you're going to need a working System folder, which can come from the hard drive of an OS 9 running Mac, or an install disc. It's a shame that Apple doesn't sell copies of OS 9 or at least offer a download of the System folder because it drives people to pirate copies for lack of availability. While I can't condone breaking any copyright laws, if you are able to grab an OS 9 System folder off an old Mac then you'll be in good shape, otherwise there's always garage sales and online auctions.
In order to copy an OS 9 System folder, simply boot into the older Mac in question, then make sure it's fully updated. If this is the case, copy and paste into an external drive (I used an iPod) and put it somewhere safe on your other, newer Mac. It doesn't need to be in the root of your newer Mac's hard drive, so a suitable choice could be in your User folder.
OS 9.2.2 isn't technically mandatory for Classic, though it is very much recommended you use this updated version since it will likely save installation headaches (I haven't managed to run Classic successfully on earlier updates of OS 9, such as 9.0.4).

Second Step, Run Classic

Tiger's System Preferences should now contain the 'Classic' pane

Upon copying OS 9's System folder over to your newer Mac, navigate to OS X's System Preferences. Within System Preferences, the 'Classic' preference pane should appear (as shown in the screenshot above), from which you can tweak options such as whether to automatically start Classic on boot or not. Classic is relatively light on resources and robust, in addition to providing a seamless experience, somewhat comparable to using Windows on your Mac with the aid of VMWare - you can even keep your OS 9 apps right in your dock as you would normally!

Tip: to use OS 9 software, you can simply drag and drop into your usual Applications folder

Why Not Intel?

There are two popular applications for running OS 9 on PPC Macs running Leopard and Intel Macs running any version of OSX, these are called Sheepshaver and Basilisk II - so why aren't I recommending you make use of them?
Well, after five days intensive testing of Sheepshaver and Basilisk II on two Intel Macs running Snow Leopard and Lion, plus some time spent using it on a PPC Mac running Leopard, I felt that it was not up to the task of running OS 9 satisfactorily enough for me to potentially encourage you to spend your time and money trying them out - that's not to say it can't be done and indeed, many people use the applications and love them, but I'm not going to recommend embarking upon something so complex if it doesn't pay off with enough of a user experience.
In addition to this complexity and somewhat disappointing user experience, setting these programs up often means breaking Apple's copyright policies or taking a long route around to avoid doing so.

Ploughing Ahead

Having said all that, if you're really determined to give OS 9 a try on an Intel Mac and feel savvy enough to delve right in, I'll briefly list some tips to point you in the right direction:
The official installation guidelines for Sheepshaver are laid out here and you can download the latest version from here.
Sheepshaver has the best support for OS 9 but there is also a popular method of installing old versions of Mac OS using Basilisk II (download here) detailed in a blog not affiliated with the Basilisk II developers - I'm not going to link to this blog as it also contains ancient but copyrighted Apple software, however a quick search for “redundant robot sheepshaver” (without quotes) will get you there.

OS 9.0.4

Frustratingly, Sheepshaver needs a slightly earlier version of OS 9 (9.0.4) than is recommended for Classic and so adds yet another level of complexity to those wishing to test both methods. Though specific system installation discs can apparently be modified to work, it's best to aim for a retail version of OS 9 if at all possible.

OS X Lion

OS X Lion does currently work with Sheepshaver but it has issues entering fullscreen and seems overall a little more unstable. There does appear to be an updated version in the works, however.

Using OS 9 Applications

So now all the hard work is done, what kind of OS 9 Applications should you use? Well, there's really so many that they are worthy of a whole article for themselves and a quick look around the internet should point you in the direction of a thriving scene of OS 9 enthusiasts. That said, here's a few quick picks which caught my attention:

Classilla Internet Browser

OS 9 web browser Classilla running within OS X Tiger via Classic

OS 9 can be used with an old version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer but using it is not really much fun. Luckily for us, web browser Classilla is available for free download and is still being developed.
When one considers the age of the operating system it is running within, Classilla loads websites very quickly and renders most with ease. Obviously Classilla is not as standards compliant as huge modern projects like Google Chrome or Safari, but it is no hardship to use by any means - give it a try and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised! Click here to download Classilla.

AppleWorks 6

AppleWorks' wordprocessor is more than a little reminiscent of Pages

In use, AppleWorks feels like a precursor to iWork and though it may not be as slick and modern as iWork, it is still an impressively productive suite of tools in its own right, more capable of being used for real work.
AppleWorks contains several applications, such as; a word processor, painting program, drawing program, spreadsheet, database and a presentation application.

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Caesar II

Caesar II is one of many classic games which never made it to OS X

I'm a hopeless ancient history nerd so love games like Rome:Total War and Caesar II is a classic of the genre which deserves to be ranked among the best. With somewhat similar gameplay to Sid Meir's Civilization, Caesar II tasks the user with creating a city and province, then steering them to greatness, dealing with the usual disasters which one would expect.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, it would be impossible to cover every aspect of OS 9 in one article, it's simply too vast! Nevertheless, I do hope that this guide will serve to whet your appetite and highlight the incredible potential buried in this comparatively ancient operating system.
If you've got any recommendations of OS 9 software which I haven't covered here, please let us know about them in the comments.

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Get To Know Your Utilities Folder: 7 Great Apps You Should Be Using

by Scott Danielson 

 

We've all done it. We bring home our shiny new Mac and we fire up all of the standard apps. We get our iChat account set up, link Mail.app with our mail accounts, and start putting dates into iCal. We import our music into iTunes and sync it up with our iPhones so that everything stays in order. Once we're all set up, we launch Safari and we're off.
But tucked away in the Applications folder of every Mac is a collection of gems that many users may never even notice are there: the Utilities folder. There are several applications in the Utilities folder, many of which likely won't appeal to you. Today, however, I've selected a few of the most useful utilities with which to get acquainted. So let's get started.

Airport Utility

After much deliberation, I've opted to discuss Airport Utility first. After all, if you're like me, your computer turns into a shiny aluminum brick if the Internet goes out.

Airport Utility got a iOS-esque interface redesign somewhat recently

Airport Utility, for most people, will run once you get the Internet set up and will rarely (or never) get launched again. However, it's important be aware of some of the power packed into Airport Utility in case you ever need it. You'll want to visit this app any time you want to set or change the password for your wireless network, change the name of your wireless network, or add a device (such as an Airport Express or a Time Capsule) to your network.
And of course, as with most apps on this list, Airport Utility packs a whole host of features for the more network-inclined users.

System Information

Another utility that I deemed worthy of a spot near the top of the list, System Information catalogues all the specifications for the machine you're using. You'll want to be intimately familiar with this information if you ever need to get over-the-phone technical support.

System Information catalogs the more technical information about your machine's hardware and software

Not only does System Information give you excruciatingly detailed data on the hardware inside your machine, but if you scroll down in the sidebar a bit further, you might be surprised at how much information you can learn about your network or the software installed on your computer as well. Do some exploring and see what you can find out about your Mac!

Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor is one of my favorite apps in the Utilities folder, as it can be extremely useful when trying to pinpoint a problem on your Mac. If things are running sluggishly, or if your computer is exhibiting some annoying behavior that is out of the ordinary, there is likely a rogue process to blame. And Activity Monitor will help you find it.

Activity Monitor

In addition to listing all of the processes being executed (and being able to sort them in various ways), Activity Monitor is also capable of giving you detailed in formation on CPU usage, disk usage, memory usage, and network behavior.

Keychain

Keychain is one of those apps that might only be useful to you once in a very long while, but I promise you, if you think to use it, you will be very relieved.

A repository for all of your secure data keys

Keychain is where your operating system stores of all of those passwords and keys that you need to have, but don't necessarily need to use every single time you use something. For example, your iChat login credentials will be here, as will the password for your secure wifi network.
The relief to which I'm referring above came to me like this: I had a friend visit from out of town for the weekend and he brought his laptop. After getting settled, he opened up his computer and asked me "What's your network password?" I panicked. I knew that my password was a complex alphanumeric key, but I hadn't the slightest idea of what it was. My computer remembers it, so I rarely have to know it off the top of my head. And of course, like a fool, I hadn't written it down anywhere. I took to Keychain to find the password for my wifi network, and the day was saved.

Grab

This little guy deserves a mention on this list, despite it's downfalls, which I'll cover in a moment. First, the short version: Grab is a screenshot utility.

Grab

Now, even the most un-savvy user is likely to be aware of our shift-cmd-3. As Mac users, it's our Print Screen key. And we've even got shift-cmd-4 for capturing a section of the screen as an image. Grab, however, gives you some (but not much) more functionality when taking screenshots (such as the ability to include a cursor).
I work with screenshots on a daily basis, so I've gone ahead and invested in a decent set of tools for managing them. However, not all users would find that a cost effective option, on the rare occasion that they might need a bit of extra "oomph" in their screenshots. For those users, knowing that Grab is there can definitely be very handy.

Terminal

Ah yes, Terminal. I'm no command-line ninja, so I won't be giving you the ins and outs right here, but it's definitely worth noting that Terminal will give you access to your system in ways that your graphical interface can not.

Terminal is a powerful tool for those who know how to use it

We recently kicked off a series of posts detailing how to use Terminal, so check it out here if you're interested in learning more.

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Migration Assistant

As the final entry on our list of Utilities you should know about, I offer up Migration Assistant. Our PC-using friends will find this utility especially helpful, as Migration Assistant will make it a breeze to transfer data from their Windows machine to a Mac (or from Mac to Mac!).

Of course, you can also transfer data from your old Mac to a new Mac

Basically, if you buy a new Mac and need to copy over any data from your old machine, this should be your first stop.

There You Have It

As I said before, these are only a handful of the apps in your Utilities folder that I thought you might find useful. There are several others that you might find right up your alley, so poke around* and see what you find!
*Please exercise caution, as certain apps (like Terminal and Console) have the capacity to make potentially dangerous changes to your machine if you don't know what you're doing.

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