I have noticed that more and more people are posting videos on their social media accounts... Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This is great for everyone following you because it gives them a chance to keep up on your family and business activities. In some cases, these videos include audio alongside the video in the form of voice-over, edited music tracks or even sound effects. In most cases, these were likely added to the video using a video-editing application like iMovie or Final Cut Pro.
GarageBand is a fantastic audio-editing application that can help to easily add these audio artifacts to your video projects. In this post, we will explore how to sample various audio effects, apply those affect to an audio track, then add that audio track to a video for posting to your social media account.
Every once in a while, I run across a Mac or iOS app that knocks my socks off. Today, I'm going to share one of those apps with you.
Sitting on my desk in my home office is my 15" MacBook Pro with a secondary display next to it (Apple Thunderbolt Display). It's a great setup. I find myself using both displays constantly, moving apps back and forth to match my workflow. When I am working on the go without my secondary display, it tends to slow me down a bit (the lack of screen real estate is surprisingly noticeable). With this app recommendation, you can turn your iPad or iPhone (yes, iPhone!) into a portable secondary display for your Mac. Fasten your seatbelt!
hen you ask most Mac users what the application Preview is used for, the typical response would sound something like this: “It’s an app that allows you to quickly preview files... JPEGs, PDFs, etc”. Oh, it does that, but it does sooooo much more! I will just touch on one really cool feature in this post (and could spend the next month writing a new post every day showing you other cool features). In short, Preview is a powerful tool.
Have you ever needed to sign and return a document (PDF) that someone has sent you via email? This is a frequent occurrence for me. To accomplish this, one would probably print the file to a printer, sign it, scan it, then finally email it back to the other party. With Preview’s built-in Signature tool, that laborious process is a thing of the past!
It's Friday, and we're all (hopefully) beginning to wind up the week in preparation for the weekend. One of the great features of the new 4th generation Apple TV is the App Store. Games, utilities, news, music, sports... you name it and it's probably there (if not, then it will be shortly).
So the question I was asked yesterday... "Kevin, what is your favorite game to play on the Apple TV?" Truth be known, I'm not much of a gamer (certainly not hard-core), but I do like to play a few minutes here and there to take my mind off of a challenging project or just to relax.
Rumors started years ago that Firefox would soon be available for iOS. Those rumors seemed to die down for a bit until it really wasn't talked much about anymore. Many people assumed that it wouldn't happen. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Firefox is now available for iOS!
My browser of choice is Safari. I prefer Safari over Firefox or Chrome for a few reasons (speed and syncing between devices are two of the reasons). Having said that, I also really like Firefox... it's a very close second choice for me. I know many who prefer Firefox over Safari or Chrome, so the release of Firefox for iOS is a welcome addition to the App Store for many, many people.
Turning your computer off each night while you sleep can save you a little money (in power savings) as well as a little unnecessary wear and tear on certain components, like cooling fans. My problem is that I always forget to turn it off before going to bed.
Here's a little tip that will help you take advantage of these savings while not requiring you to change your habits.
I made a new friend over the weekend. Her name is Maureen. Maureen asked me a great question… one that only a few have asked me before. Instead of giving her the answer right then, I asked if she could sit tight until Monday. That way, my answer would not only benefit Maureen, but all my readers who visit this site.
Maureen’s question is this: “I have an old Mac that I want to sell so that I can upgrade to a new computer. How do I ensure that all the data on my old Mac is gone? Like, really really gone?” Fantastic question, and I love that you are concerned about protecting your data. I know too many people who have become victims of identify theft, and in some cases, it could have been prevented by asking this very same question.
Apple released their 4th-generation Apple TV one week ago today. Although the roll-out was a little shaky (the original Apple TV I pre-ordered didn't arrive until 5 days after they were available in stores), the product itself is pretty solid. There are a lot of new feature that I love, and a few disappointments.
In order to help those who are still trying to decide whether to invest in a new Apple TV or not, I wanted to share my thoughts on their new set top box. The best way to convey my thoughts is by way of a list of "likes" and "dislikes".
If you have a new (4th generation) Apple TV, you've probably already noticed the stunning new Aerial screensavers that are available. These beautifully shot scenes show off our beautiful planet, at least a few locations (Hawaii, New York City, San Francisco, London, China and more).
Wouldn't it be great if these same high-quality screensavers were available on your Mac? Well, they are, and you can get them for free!
I have a good friend who contacted me over the weekend with horrible news... his car was broken in to, and even worse, his MacBook Pro (along with his wallet and bag) was stolen! It's bad enough that his expensive laptop was now gone, but the worst part is knowing that his data has now been compromised. To be honest, it makes me feel sick knowing that he is vulnerable now.
There's not a lot I can do to help my friend in this situation, but there's a lot I can do to help you protect yourself in a similar situation. Today's post will walk you through a few very simple things that you can (and should) do to protect yourself in the event that your laptop ends up in the wrong hands.
OK, you caught me. Not everything I post here has a practical application or real productivity value. Sometimes, it's just plain fun. That is the case for today's post.
One of the great things about OS X is that it has text-to-speach capabilities built-in... system wide. That also includes the Terminal app. You can literally force your Mac to say anything you tell it to by typing a very simple command.
The human body is designed to go through a repeating cycle of sleep and wake every 24 hours. The sun helps us to do that by changing the temperature of the light we see and experience. During the day, the light is bright and includes a lot of blue, which helps to keep us awake. In the early morning and evening, as the sun is rising and setting, there is much less blue. This helps us to wake up, and prepare to sleep, at the proper rate.
Computer screens also emit quite a bit of blue, just like daylight. Unlike the sun, however, computer screens don't adjust to help the body prepare for, or return from, sleep. Studies have shown that using your computer for an extended period of time at night before going to bed makes it much more difficult for you to get to sleep because your mind has been tricked into thinking that it's still daylight at 10:00p. Once you do finally get to sleep, your sleep quality is diminished for obvious reasons... one minute, your mind was told it was 2:00p in the afternoon, and the next, it's 11:00p at night. Talk about confusing! Well, there's an app for that. No, seriously!
When Apple launched Find My Friends (an app that allows you to see where your friends and family are), I thought it was the coolest feature! It's especially useful in a family like mine with 6 iPhones floating around. I can see where my kids are, and they can see where I am, at any given time. Some consider that a privacy issue, but I consider it a safety and convenience feature.
Being able to see where my family and friends are on my iPhone is great, but it sure would be nice to access it via the web on my laptop. Historically, that has not been possible, but today... everything changes!
It's not very often that I post a tip for advanced troubleshooting in Windows, but I ran across this issues recently that I was able to resolve. Had I not been able to resolve it, it would have cost me a LOT of time and very likely data loss. I try to avoid both of those, when possible. In the spirit of sharing knowledge, I wanted to post this for you to have in your back pocket, in the unlikely event that you run into the same situation I did.
A little background info: the other day, I was asked to help restore functionality to a Windows 7 Pro computer where the user had changed their username from "Johnny" to "appleseed" (I am protecting the names of the innocent). On the surface, doing this is easy through the Control Panel > Users > Advanced User Tools. In this case, it caused a problem where the user couldn't log into their account anymore (old or new). To make matters worse, their account was the only account on the computer, so there was no way to log into another Admin account to reset their password. Not good.
There are lots of great linear video-editing apps on the market today. Final Cut Pro is one of those apps, and it's a great one to use! The problem is two-fold for most who are looking for a simply editing app... 1) it can be expensive (it's all relative, I know) and 2) it can be complex (again, it's relative).
OS X has a simple video-editing app built-right into the system. In fact, it's probably an app that you use all the time, and likely didn't know that it can be used for simple editing.
