MacSwitching.com - The Mac Switcher resource

Still have to sort out all stuff that’s been announced yesterday.
In a nutshell:

Apple MacBook Pro 17″ with unibody, 8-hour battery (even though non user-replaceable) and up to 8 GB RAM (!!!)

iLife ’09 which, along with all updates, introduces an interesting Garageband feature: music school lessons with the best artist around!

iWork ’09
that introduces iWork.com, right now a public-beta online service for document sharing

iTunes pricing changes:

(check our partner site iPodPalace.com about this iTunes-related topic)

Highly recommended: check these Garageband previews with music lessons from selected artists!

An alternative to iTunes, VLC and, maybe, the new Songbird from Mozilla: Vox comes in quite handy when you need to play an album without the need for importing into iTunes.

Free, lightweight and functional: Vox sports a minimalistic look, doesn’t rely on the same Quicktime codecs and therefore allows playback of some hard-to-play formats such as FLAC, MP3, AAC, Musepack, Monkey’s Audio, OGG Vorbis, Apple Lossless, AIFF, WAV, IT, MOD, XM, Games Music and many others.

The main windows, simple yet efficient, can be enriched by equalizer, special effects and search add-on windows.

In addition to this [that’s really cool] Vox can be used a conversion tool TO common audio formats like Wav, AAC, MP3, Flac and Ogg Vorbis.

Try yourself Vox by clicking here!

Happiness is a warm Mac mini pie!

Check here for more!

Adobe Systems announced the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family, a milestone release of the industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow. Delivering radical workflow breakthroughs that bring down the walls between designers and developers and packed with hundreds of feature innovations the new Creative Suite 4 product line advances the creative process across print, Web, mobile, interactive, film and video production.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 combines virtually all of Adobe’s new design and development applications, technologies and services in a single box the most comprehensive creative environment ever delivered.

Customers can choose from six suites or full version upgrades of 13 stand-alone applications, including Photoshop CS4, Photoshop CS4 Extended, InDesign CS4, Illustrator CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Dreamweaver CS4, After Effects CS4, and Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.

A simplified workflow in Adobe Creative Suite 4 enables users to design across media more efficiently by making it easier to complete common tasks and switch between mediums without leaving a project. InDesign CS4 includes a new Live Preflight tool that allows designers to catch production errors and a newly customizable Links panel to place files more efficiently. The revolutionary new Content-Aware Scaling tool in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended automatically recomposes an image as it is resized, preserving vital areas as it adapts to new dimensions. An expanded version of Dynamic Link in CS4 Production Premium enables users to move content between After Effects CS4, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, Soundbooth CS4, and Encore CS4, so updates can be seen instantly without rendering.

Designers using the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family will be able to gain unprecedented creative control using the new expressive features and visual performance improvements in Adobe Flash Player 10 to deliver breakthrough Web experiences across multiple browsers and operating systems.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 brings 3D center-stage providing the ability to paint, composite, and animate 3D models using familiar tools. Flash CS4 Professional now offers the ability to apply tweens to objects instead of keyframes, providing greater control over animation attributes. Also in Flash, the new Bones tool helps create more realistic animations between linked objects. With a searchable library of more than 450 dynamically updated device profiles from leading manufacturers, Adobe Device Central CS4 (see separate release) enables users to easily test mobile content designed using many of the Creative Suite 4 products.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 significantly expands access to services available to creative professionals and developers who want to collaborate online.
Adobe ConnectNow, a service of Acrobat.com, can be accessed from InDesign CS4, Illustrator CS4, Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Extended CS4, Flash CS4 Professional, Dreamweaver CS4, Fireworks CS4, and Acrobat 9 Pro, allowing real-time collaboration with two colleagues or clients. Designers can also share color harmonies with Adobe Kulerâ„¢, which is now accessible from within InDesign CS4, Illustrator CS4, Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop Extended CS4, Flash CS4 and Fireworks CS4.
Other online resources include: Adobe Community Help for technical questions%3B Resource Central for accessing video and audio product-related news and tutorials, as well as Soundbooth scores, sound effects, and other stock media%3B and Adobe Bridge Home, a customizable resource for tips, tutorials, news and inspirational content.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 and its associated point products are scheduled to ship in October 2008.

For a limited time, validly licensed customers of eligible versions of Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Production Studio and Macromedia Studio will be able to upgrade to Creative Suite 4 for the CS3 upgrade price.

The new LaCie Network Space, designed by Neil Poulton, is a networked attached storage (NAS) and media server aimed squarely at the home user and small office use and is available in capacities of 500 gigabytes to 1 terabyte.

The LaCie Network Space is a full-featured home server utilizing Gigabit Ethernet for localized data transfers from any networked PC or Mac. With an additional USB 2.0 port located on the front of the unit, users can connect any USB drive or camera to copy additional files or photos automatically without needing the local computer turned on.

The device comes pre-built with two separate shares. One share is public for easy open access from any networked computer, while the other is password-protected for secured private use. LaCie Network Agent software is included to make access to the shares quicker and easier.

The LaCie Network Space also has the ability to stream multimedia files through DLNA-compatible UPnP media players, such as Xbox 360 and or Sony Playstation 3, or act as an iTunes music server: this feature is so welcome in small home networks where iTunes music sharing may become nightmare with hours in moving iTunes libraries back and forth from PCs and Macs.

This benefits users by allowing them to watch videos on their television elsewhere in their house rather than needing to be in front of the computer. The device is also FTP accessible, enabling remote access to upload or download files from abroad through a static IP address.

The LaCie Network Space will be available starting in early September for Europe and early October worldwide. Prices will start at $149.99.

… and you better not disagree!

“Chuck talks, you listen!”

We all know that behind Walker Texas Ranger’s beard only lies another roundhouse kick (almost a copyright on its own)…

Now you can have all best facts & trivia about Chuck Norris right on your Dashboard with this widget!

Check here the developer’s website for Chuck Norris widget.

Developer’s note: “I am not responsible for any injuries related to the usage of the Chuck Norris Facts Dashboard Widget!”

May we add: no Mac was hurt or injured during development…

All you Mac users had better grab the new Mac OS X 10.5.5 update that was released yesterday. According to AppleInsider there are hundreds of bug fixes and two dozen security fixes in this update.

Apple on Monday released Mac OS X 10.5.5, a recommended update for all users of Mac OS X 10.5.x Leopard that includes over a hundred bug fixes and more than two dozen security enhancements. As of press time, the 321MB update was only available via the Software Update mechanism located under the Apple menu of your Mac.

Every now and then I love to fool around with Flickr.com.

This is one of the crazy things you can come around with

The original page is available here.

Not a major update but something significant especially to heavy iCal users: iCal got a bunch of much-awaited fixes.

More info on this Apple article.

Update: a friend suggested it’s still available as a (huge) combo update for all previous 10.5 Leopard users (therefore useful when re-installing from 10.5.1 DVDs).
Click here for the Mac OS X 10.5.4 Combo update.

So sorry…
I’ve been quite busy on several other sides of my life/work…

Check really soon for news/reviews about:

Since I’ve downloaded the very first iPhone SDK beta, I must tell there’s much more to iPhone fun than using the Aspen Emulator…

iPhone development seems so amazing!!!

Don’t take it as a word from an anti-Microsoft geek.

This time is BusinessWeek reporting.

A recent upgrade to the Mac operating system moves Apple closer to challenging Microsoft for overall computing dominance, even in the corporate market

Not enough?

Windows users, in the very near future, will be free to switch to Apple computers and mobile devices, drawn by a widening array of Mac software, without suffering the pain of giving up critical Windows-based applications right away. The easy virtualization of two radically different operating systems on a single desktop paves a classic migration path. Business users will be tempted. Apple is positioning itself to challenge Microsoft for overall computing dominance—even in the corporate realm.

Full story here.