News for Monday, 12 December 2005

Yesterday there was an Aperture seminar in Paris. Two of our readers sent us this quick summary:
Alexis:

I was at the Aperture seminary: friendly atmosphere, the crowd was "keynote-like" and I couldn't even get inside! I took the opportunity to have a leisurely look at the demo made on a Quad G5 geared up with a Quadro 4500FX GPU and TWO 30" LCDs (your average config...). Here are some pics of all this. Apple clearly recommends at least the X800XT, even if I saw Aperture running on a Powerbook (256MB VRAM) hooked to a 30" monitor. They will even admit under torture that the software will run on a Dual MDD G5: in this case, I guess you'd better plug the fastest possible GPU on the 4x AGP slot, like an ATI 9700.
Apart from that, the software is amazing. It's the same level of tools and pro-user features as Final Cut. The use of two screens is great, with the option to automatically display the selected picture on the second screen. And compared to Nikon Capture, there's a real bonus: you can create many versions of the same image, without multiplying the files, thus keeping your image library fit. Regarding the picture library, it's one giant file, which you can explore by opening the bundle, but it's not a directory structure like iPhoto.
Only drawback: using Aperture means you can't use iView Media Pro anymore, since the images are not visible in the Finder anymore.

1uv:

600 to 700 people attended the Aperture seminar... After a lengthy intro on Tiger, we're shown a couple of videos already available on Apple.com... the crowd has obviously seen all this and wants some more. :-)
After about an hour (!) we get to the topic at hand and it was worth the wait. Aperture is at last unveiled: the two demo-guys insist that Aperture is a great meta-data tool* and that it does non-destructive image editing.
Then it's the Light Table to be showcased, with its advanced options for sorting and selecting, its previously unheard of contact sheet features etc. etc.
The fundamental difference with apps like Photoshop is that all the image editing is non-destructive and stored as Quartz filters, which means you keep only ONE untouched copy of your file and have a complete undoable history of your changes. That said, the Photoshop integration is present and works flawlessly. Some other features touted include easy Web galleries generation, with advanced meta-data output.
The 100-800% magnifying glass tool triggers some OOOOOHs and HAAAAs in the audience, but the €499 price tags leaves everyone silent ;-)
This app is going to be big with people managing huge amounts of images, who will enjoy the advanced automation and processing tools, as well as meta-data handling.

Thanks to both for the pictures.
[* moose: well, except that it DOES NOT export EXIF meta-data with RAW files, which means you lose everything if you export to, say, iView Media Pro. But, wait, say iView Media Pro now has a nifty meta-data companion called Annoture: http://hardmac.com/news/2005-12-12/#4855]

As promised, here is an article on how to silence an nVidia 7800GT by changing its ventirad.

That's our 200th article, by the way

Elie, proud owner of an Audi A6 and a PowerBook decided to use Front Row as an interface for his car radio. Thanks to a nice Audi technician, he managed to plug the video output of his PowerBook on the Audi navigation display.

I managed to interface my Powerbook on the car display system and I use Front Row with my Bluetooth cell for music, pictures and all that goes with it.
Actually the car has two AV inputs yet no-one by Audi knew how to plug it. The Audi system was a bit complicated (not as simple as with Peugeot that will bring a cinch in the glove compartment), it first took unmounting all the audio and navigation devices, located in the trunk, and find the position (as Audi provides no mounting indication)

For now, the PowerBook is put in the Net located in the trunk to protect it from road vibrations. Afterwards, just use the K750i as a bluetooth remote.

I showed that to the Audi techs and they were astonished to see the Apple interface! If Audi and Apple were to get a bit closer (now that they officially supportthe iPod), they could create a hell of a system!

Next step will be plugging a Mac Mini, for instance using a 12v->220v adapter.

The PowerBook is only a temporary solution, and I plan on installing a Mac Mini... as everything is in the trunk, where there's room enough to store a mac mini in the Audi rack

You can find the Annoture software at the following address.
http://www.tow.com/annoture/
It makes it possible to share metadata between Aperture and iView MediaPro, in both directions.

The latest version of ATIccelerator II now allows the overclocking of the Radeon X600 from the latest iMac G5 iSight. Let us know what results you get in your tests, but don't forget that if your video card breaks, it will require the change of the motherboard.

Samsung has produced a RAM module featuring not less than 8GB capacity!

Thanks to chips engraved at 80nm, and the use of the new FB-DIMM format, Samsung has been able to reach this new record.
The FB-DIMM format accelerates the data exchange rate between RAM modules, and can manage up to 8 modules per channel.
Knowing that Intel is pushing manufacturers to adopt this new memory module format for the future server architecture, one could see those modules in the future Xserve.