I realize that this post is quite late, but it has been difficult to get enough time to find an Internet connection to post this week’s notes.  Here’s all the details for the MLR segment on Global Geek #60.

Our first application this week is from “Fluffalope Factory” software called Miyu.  This program allows you to quickly and easily add text to a movie file.  THis can be very useful for home movies, or in subtitling a video in another language.  The simple interface allows you to select the section of video you want the text added to, and simply type it in.  The realtime preview shows precisely where the words will line up in relation to the frame, so it’s easy to make adjustments in timing and wording on the fly.

There does seem to be some issue with file types.  I tried to run through some files using MPG videos that I had gotten from friends, one worked and the other didn’t.  When I ran through a QuickTime trailer I got off the Internet, it worked without a hitch.  Miyu is a free application.

http://www.fluffalopefactory.com/miyu/

Second on the docket this week is another desktop updating application called Desktoptopia.  This application is another automated desktop changer like DeskLickr that I covered a couple of weeks back.

Instead of taking images from Flickr, it can read from any RSS-based photostream including flickr, iPhoto “photocasts” and others

The interface offers options to change the desktop at a set intervals, and will allow you to select from one or more of the RSS feeds that you’ve entered into the system.

Desktoptopia is not a free application, and does cost about $20 USD.  But it works well, integrates directly with the System Preferences panel and is very quick and responsive.  The initial trial of Desktoptopia is a 10-day trial and will give you a good idea whether or not you want to spend the money for this nice aesthetic touch.

http://www.desktoptopia.com/

Third up this week is a Mac-specific browser based on the Mozilla “gecko” platform called Camino.  Camino started life back in 2001 as the “Chimera” project, a mozilla based browser targetted at the OS X platform.  This was the first “browser only” project to breakaway from the old Netscape suite.  just under a year later, a project to fulfill the same need for all platforms.  That project was called Firefox.

Camino is like Firefox’s little brother.  it does most of the same things, some of them more quickly, but it’s always been a step or two behind.

It does do a few things more quickly, page render times have been documented on several websites as being 10-15% faster.  This isn’t a huge difference in most cases, but it is a “feature”.

Many firefox extensions have similar counterparts for Camino, but because of the different codebase, the extensions typically aren’t interchangeable.

If you want a Mac-specific browser, and Safari just doesn’t “do it” for ya, check out Camino.  As for me, I’m sticking with Firefox.

http://www.caminobrowser.org/

This week’s edition of the GGP is up and available, and with it the latest update from the GGP Mac Lab.

First up this week is a quick review of AutoResizer from Optunis. This is a great little image utility which provides an easy method of batch-resizing or re-formatting images. Simply point the tool at a file, or folder and it will process the file(s) into the selected output format. Some of the supported file types include JPEG, PNG and Adobe PSD. It works fairly quickly too. I was able to process a folder of 96 PSD files on my MacBook in about 45 seconds. AutoResizer will resize images to a fixed size, or scale to a preset vertical or horizontal value. It also provides a faciltiy for converting the files to a new format (PSD to JPEG for example).

Download this free application from the Optunis website.

Second on the block is a new Mac take on a UNIX classic. It’s Aquamacs. Acquamacs is an OS X compliant version of the ever popular Emacs text editing program from the UNIX and Linux platforms. Aquamacs sports the regular set of text-editing features that you’d expect from any good OS X tool, including full use of the OS X keyboard shortcuts for operations like copying, pasting etc. However it also supports many of the original Emacs key combinations as well which will make seasoned Emacs veterans very happy. Aquamacs also supports syntax highlighting for 24 different language variants right out of the box. These include PHP, HTML and AppleScript as well as some more obscure formats like matlab and Lisp. One criticism that I had of Aquamacs is already making its way into regular rotation on my Macbook, pushing TextEdit further and further to the outside.

Download Aquamacs from the project website.

Finally this week a maintenance application called OnyX.  It provides a quick one-stop centre for performing some of the tuning and maintenance tasks that we often neglect, as well as a spot to set preferences for some of the more hard-to-find settings in OS X.

Among the tweakable parameters are things like:

• The image format for screen captures
• The number of items in the “recent items” list
• Enabling the “Developer Mode” of Dashboard
• Highlighting the screen corners which have actions like turn on the screen saver
• Enabling the “Debug” menu in several applications

In Maintenance Tasks, OnyX can restore many of the settings and options to their defaults, as well as perform system optimization.  OnyX also provides direct call-outs to many of the UNIX utilities present in OS X.  I really couldn’t find any negatives about OnyX, it’s a utility program that does what it says it will, and does it with a bit of style.

You can download OnyX from Titanium’s website.

That’s the end of this week’s review.  If you’d like more tech news from the past week, as well as links to other downloads, sites and services, check out the Global Geek Podcast.

Another week has come, and with it episode #58 of the Global Geek Podcast was released this morning. Here’s a recap of this week’s Mac Lab Rat segment.

First up this week is another fix for the somewhat troublesome 10.4.10 update for OS X. Users of MacBooks, MacBook Pros and Mac Minis may be experiencing some problems with their AirPort Express network adapters. The problems range from unstable connections, to in some cases, kernel panics.

I was definitely having problems with my WiFi connection which I’d unfairly attributed to my DD-WRT patched Linksys Router. Since the update has gone in, all my network issues have automagically disappeared.

This is starting to bring back memories of some past Windows Service Pack releases…

Link to the patch on Apple.com

Second on the block this week is a Flickr-based desktop changer called DeskLickr. Aaron Wallis‘ the application provides a way to “flickrize” your desktop by allowing you to select from your photos, or anyone elses and pull up images from a set, an entire photoset, or from a “tag” search.

One thing I did notice, is that it doesn’t do any scaling of the images and just chopped off the extremities of the photo. This has the unfortunate consequence of chopping off the extremities of people in the pictures as well. That said, it works very well for images of scenery or scaled backgrounds.

http://desklickr.isnot.tv/

The final download for this week is a couple of Applescripts from Apple itself which allows you to convert text to AIFF files. These scripts are quick and easy to use. One script can be used to arbitrarily convert any text string. This is good for short clips, or words. The other will convert the text in the top-most TextEdit window to audio. This is great for converting eBooks or readme files to an audio format. The next time you just need to get some text converted to an audio file, use one of these scripts and then convert it to MP3 using iTunes!

http://www.apple.com/applescript/macosx/text2audio.html

If you haven’t done so already, head over to the Global Geek Podcast website and give this week’s show a listen. Better yet use these links to subscribe to the podcast with iTunes, or your preferred PodCatcher [rss].