17 inch Macbook Pro January 2009

The new January 2009 17 inch MacBook Pro, 6.6 pounds, under an inch thick, features a lightweight aluminum unibody, and up to 8 amazing hours of battery life. The curved illuminated keys are fitted to your fingers, and the trackpad is also the button—entirely clickable, with pinch, scroll and swipe, and configurable by you! 

320GB hard drive standard, optional solid state drive, up to 8 gigs of memory, processor up to 2.93 GHz. Glossy screen, matte optional, USB2, firewire, built-in camera, DVD read-writer, ethernet, wireless, all the standard things.  

HD-video-ready, sensationally improved color gamut—60% better, hotter contrast, game and video-production level Nvidia processor, glass display, More software than you will ever use, including the updated iLIfe 09, also has the extremely cool magnetic powercord standard, and greener than ever.

The fun way to learn more about Garageband

Whether you are just starting or have already made music in Garageband, this book, GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual, by the irrepressible David Pogue, will be fun and funny and useful. Even though it is several years old, all the basics are still pertinent even if you have the very latest version of the Garageband software.

GarageBand 2: The Missing Manual

This experienced writer and musician not only teaches you the basics as well as tips and trick about Apple’s Garageband, he also talks about music theory, and making computer music in general.

Read it, and you’ll see why he’s now showing up in major print media and on TV.

Amazing Computer Music Magazine

Computer Music: the Complete Guide for Mac and PC, is a great monthly magazine published in the UK, with clear tutorials, reviews of music equipment and software, and articles about the many aspects of making, sharing, and selling music, even a page on music theory. It also features interviews with band members and producers, focusing on how they work and the gear they use.

Computer Music : the Complete Guide for Mac and PC

But maybe the greatest thing about this magazine is the digital material that comes on the included DVD. Each month it contains samples, tutorials, reader-submitted music, videos, and free and demo software. Eagerly awaited each month, enjoy as much as you can use.

Samson G-Track, the talented USB microphone

Some of us are suckers for do-everything devices. Here’s an interesting one. The Samson G-Track USB large diaphragm studio condenser microphone.

Samson G-Track USB Condenser Microphone and Audio Interface with Cakewalk Sonar LE

But it’s not just a microphone. It’s also an audio interface and mixer, so you can input a live vocal, plus a line-in from another instrument which has standard 1/4″ or RCA output, such as guitar, or bass, or keyboard. Or instead, two instruments. That’s two-two-two channels at once!

Not only that, you can adjust the gain for both instruments with the smallish knobs on the side of the mic.

And not only that, it has a built-in headphone jack, for no-latency monitoring. It comes with a desktop mic stand, swivel stand mount, USB cable and all the cables needed to connect any musical instrument with 1/4″ or RCA plug. It includes Cakewalk’s Sonar LE for Windows, and it just works with GarageBand. The ultra-cool shockmount is worth adding, for looks alone.

Some people complain about the sound quality of USB mics. While not equivalent to highpriced studio mics, they can actually sound better than some old fashioned mic/preamp/audio-into-the-computer setups. For songwriters, podcasters, everyday use, and sheer convenience they are terrific. And while the G-Track is somewhat heavy and unwieldy with all the cables and controls, probably not a stage mic, for laptop work on the road or for the studio, what a great idea. As long as (given all those features) it doesn’t also turn into an ironingboard or card table on stormy nights.

Aquatic screen saver

One of the unexpected virtues of computers is that they’ve brought about screen savers.

In the day there were flying toasters. Now you can have bright and realistic 3-D fish swimming across your screen while your computer sleeps. Marine Aquarium is one such elegant screensaver.

It has options such as an integrated date and clock, sound on or off, and choice of fishes.

The website name serenescreen.com is not far off, since it provides a surprisingly relaxing change of scene.

iPhoto Buddy, multiple library manager for iPhoto

This donation-ware allows you flexibility in where you store and how you subdivide your iPhoto library, as well as iMovie and iDVD.

With it you can break up your iPhoto library into smaller sections that will run faster, an important consideration on older machines, especially if you have thousands of images. You can store these photo libraries wherever you want, such as on external drives. Rock solid and great for archiving, and it works seamlessly with iPhoto.

Needs Mac OS X 10.2 and up, Photo 2.0 or higher
and integrates with iMovie 3.0 or higher, iDVD 3.0 or higher, iWeb 1.0 or higher

http://www.iphotobuddy.com/

Galerie, web gallery creation software

Galerie is a web gallery creation freeware for web designers from the renowned French Guillion brothers, authors of the amazing music composition programs Harmony Assistant and Melody Assistant.

It allows you to use a variety of customizable templates to create web galleries from a folder of pictures or Quicktime files, or from iPhoto, GraphicConverter, iView and Extensis portfolio. It is fast, reliable, and runs on Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.4. Enjoy this software from designers who have been generous and steadfast for years.

http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/galerie.htm

Writing software— Tex-Edit Plus, richly basic

Sure, you can get Microsoft Word, the ultimate text program, which can drive you to the store, buy breakfast, cook it for you, eat it for you, then drop you off back home.

And when you are writing a book or other elaborate project, there’s nothing like it.

But for everyday notes and pounding out fictions and essays, the handy little shareware Tex-Edit Plus fits the bill perfectly.

It is lightweight, very fast, and awesomely stable. Back when Apple’s built-in SimpleText/TextEdit was too simple and cranky, Tex-Edit came along to carry the load, and those who started using it then have never stopped.

It’s fine for the most basic use: pop it open, type, save. Then do some basic formatting, change fonts, save as RTF or ASCII or Word, and leave it running quietly in the background, ever ready.

If you feel adventurous, do some exploring, because it has lots of capabilities— record sound, choose from a variety of Applescripts, write html code, and clean up or sort text.

It is also the most polite of sharewares— does not nag, expire, or turn purple (unless you want it to.) This surely has cost developer Tom Bender some revenues over the years, but has also made him legendary. Tex-Edit Plus is like a good pencil— it does exactly what you want, yet supports finesse. And, bonus, it never needs sharpening.

http://www.tex-edit.com $15.00

WordPress software at wordpress.org

If your web host allows it, you can install WordPress software directly on your website.

Now admittedly, while that has benefits, such as being more customizable, it does lack the charm of wordpress.com.

Those who started at wordpress.com will always value it.

MacSpeech Dictate

For everyone who has enjoyed and tussled with MacSpeech iListen, there’s a new kid on the block and it looks amazing.

It’s called MacSpeech Dictate, and according to the manufacturer, it learns your speech exceptionally fast, with “up to” 99% accuracy. And is based on the venerable Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition system.

It will be great to have voice recognition that reliably recognizes voices–a task that Bill Gates said several years ago was one of the most difficult in computing.

But we may miss the sheer poetry that erupted when iListen attempted to interpret mumbles or unusual phrasing.

There’s a discount when you upgrade from iListen.