G-Technology G-Drive mobile 500GB By John Virata G-Technology has a new mobile drive targeted at users of Apple's MacBook Pro that is built around the FireWire 800 interface and a 5400rpm Hitachi hard drive. Called the G Drive mobile, the portable FireWire drive is formatted for Apple computers and is a Time Machine Ready 500GB drive. The drive features a new piano black top while the sides and bottom are brushed aluminum, in part to match Apple's line of aluminum MacBook Pro notebook computers. ...Read More »

Colorista II By Kevin McAuliffe When it comes to a program like After Effects, competing with Color Finesse 3 (that comes with AE CS5) can be tricky, but if there is one company out there determined to do it, it's Red Giant Software and their flagship color correction application Colorista. ...Read More »

Avid's Media Composer 5 Part 3 - Matrox's MXO2 mini By Kevin McAuliffe When AVID stated that they supported the MXO2 mini to monitor external video, I was pretty surprised, as this is a big change of direction for AVID as they normally only support their own hardware for video monitoring. I wanted to give the MXO2 mini a fair shake, as for the $449 price tag I really wanted (and hoped) it to work for the user bases sake. Let's see how it fared. ...Read More »

Adobe CS5 Web Premium Part Three: Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and the Rest By Kevin Schmitt We're down to the last major pieces of Adobe CS5 Web Premium, but last doesn't always mean least. OR DOES IT??? HMMMM??? With that as a spectacular teaser, let's spend our final installment looking at two holdovers from those halcyon Macromedia days of yore: Dreamweaver, the venerable web site building tool, and Fireworks, the oft-overlooked prototyping and vector/bitmap editing powerhouse. ...Read More »

Adobe CS5 Web Premium Part Two: The Flash Platform By Kevin Schmitt Honesty time, dear readers: I don't think this is going to be an actual review. As Velveeta is to real cheese, there may be some review-like qualities to what follows, but considering the current all-out assault on Flash and everything it stands for, it may be beneficial to take a larger view of what Adobe has done in Web Premium CS5, namely the inclusion of not one, not two, but three separate tools for creating Flash content. ...Read More »

The Flip Slide pocket camcorder By John Virata The Flip Slide is Flip Video's latest high definition pocket camcorder targeted at those who like the simplicity and ease of use of a pocket camcorder combined with HD quality video capabilities. The Slide is about the same size as the Flip Ultra HD but sports a new slide feature that makes it a bit different. The screen slides at a 10 o clock angle for viewing your videos, and the screen itself is touch capable, enabling you to slide your fingers across the screen to get to the video you want to watch. ...Read More »

Adobe CS5 Web Premium Part One: Illustrator and Photoshop By Kevin Schmitt Adobe CS5 is finally shipping, so over the next few weeks we'll looking at the major programs which comprise the Web Premium package, starting off with the old stalwarts of the group. Now, it's somewhat hard to believe that 2010 marks Photoshop's 20th anniversary, with Illustrator having been around for a few years even before that, but here we are. Both products have certainly seen a lot of design trends and operating systems come and go in their time, but lest I take a long, nostalgic detour down software memory lane, let's simply get to the latest and greatest. ...Read More »

The Non-Linear Road To NAB By Charlie Wade For video editors, NAB is akin to a pilgrimage. Every year they flock to Vegas, push themselves through the crowds to the booths of the video editor purveyors, and watch, learn, debate and yearn. Here are 5 top notch solutions, plus one who should have been there but wasn't! ...Read More »

NAB 2010: What Cameras were HOT? By Charlie Wade Missed NAB 2010 this year? Lots of people did but I know you still want to know what was hot. For you who live for camcorder technology, here are six of the hottest cameras (or camera announcements in some cases) at NAB 2010. ...Read More »

Adobe CS5: Five Things to Keep in Mind By Kevin Schmitt Eighteen months, seemingly like clockwork. A mere year-and-a-half after CS4 was released (which itself was a mere year-and-a-half after the release of CS3), Adobe has unveiled the CS5 lineup. Having had a chance to see and try the new versions for myself over the past several weeks, here are some general observations about the latest versions of Adobe's software uberbundles. ...Read More »

WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe By John Virata WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe is an inexpensive video converter that enables you to take virtually any type of video file format and convert it to a variety of other video file formats. The application's interface uses a simple four step process to video conversion, and it is really quite simple. ...Read More »

Book Excerpt: My MacBook by John Ray By John Ray Editor's note: Excerpt from My MacBook by John Ray, Published by Que My MacBook provides step-by-step instructions with callouts to MacBook photos that show you exactly what to do. It offers help when you run into MacBook or Snow Leopard problems or limitations. ...Read More »

Dazzle Video Creator Plus HD By John Virata The Dazzle Video Creator Plus HD bridges the digital divide, enabling you to capture video from your digital camcorders via the analog composite or RCA outputs on your camera, as well as serve as an effective bridge that can digitize those VHS and 8mm video tapes captured during the last 25 years. And when it captures that footage, it sends it back into the computer as a digital file for editing via Pinnacle Studio HD v. 14. ...Read More »

Alien Skin Eye Candy 6 By John Virata Alien Skin Eye Candy 6 is the company's latest collection of filters and textures for Adobe Photoshop CS4 and other image editors. The cool thing about Eye Candy 6 is the fact that each filter and texture can be tweaked to your heart's content, with more than 1500 presets in specific filters and textures. There are myriad sliders to work with to get just the right look that you are trying to achieve with a particular effect or texture. ...Read More »

Corel VideoStudio Pro X3 By John Virata It has been more than five years since I looked at any version of VideoStudio. In fact, what was my go to application for a long time was supplanted by the other applications on the market that compete with it. So, I consider it new to me again. What has Corel done to enhance the capabilities of VideoStudio? ...Read More »

Rapid iPhone Game Development using GameSalad By Matthew David Did you hear that game development for the iPhone is a big thing? Developing games with native Objective C is not easy. GameSalad, however, is a tool you can use to rapidly and easily create games for the iPhone. In this article I will show you how you can create games for the iPhone without writing a single line of code. ...Read More »

iFunia Video Converter Pro for Macintosh By John Virata iFunia's Video Converter Pro is an application that converts your video into a wide variety of formats, including AVI, WMV, AVCHD, MKV, FLV, H.264/AVC, MP4, MOV, 3GP and DV. It is straightforward to use and the results are very good to excellent. The application works in three simple steps; Source Setup/Add, Destination Setup, and Start Conversion/Start. ...Read More »

Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 By John Virata PaintShop Photo Pro X3 is Corel Corp.'s latest update to its photo image editor. The application has been around in various iterations for more than 15 years and has a fairly large following. It is an image editor targeted at digital camera enthusiasts, and especially those with Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras who want a more robust image editing tool than what ships with the camera. ...Read More »

Apple Intros iPad By John Virata After years of hype, Apple, Inc. today introduced the iPad, a portable computing device that looks like a big iPhone. Introduced today by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, the iPad features a touchscreen keypad, wireless capability, the capability to run all iPhone applications, all in a form factor that fits in between an iPhone and a MacBook. With the iPad, you can play movies, load maps, view photos, update your calendar, basically do the same things as on an iPhone, and more. ...Read More »

Dell Precision M6500 mobile workstation By John Virata The big horsepower CPUs and graphics chips form the core of a workstation class notebook computer. A large screen, built in color calibration profiles, RAID capabilities, and a bevy of connectivity options also contribute. The Dell Precision M6500 in here for review combines the latest in mobile workstation graphics, the 1GB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M, with a Quad Core Intel Core i7 x920 2GHz CPU with 8 processor cores, 4GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM (16GB maximum), 17" Wide Screen WUXGA RGB LED LCD Panel with integrated camera and mic, and a Hitachi 250GB hard disk drive. ...Read More »

Adobe Premiere Elements 8 By John Virata Adobe Premiere Elements version 8 has some added new features to an already full featured consumer level video editing application. It competes with other similar NLE's on the market, but remains, like most of its competition, a Windows only application. ...Read More »

AJA Ki Pro By Kevin McAuliffe Every once in a while (sometimes a long while), a product comes along that makes you say "WOW!". I haven't had one of those moments in a long time, until I got my hands on the Ki Pro from AJA. I remember sending my AJA PR rep an email when it first came out, and there was, of course, a backlog of reviewers who wanted to get their hands on one, so I went into the queue, and forgot about it. ...Read More »

Tamron 60mm f2.0 Macro lens By Robert Jensen Introduced at the end of March of 2009, Tamron's new 60mm is finally hitting the shelves at the camera stores. What makes this lens stand out more than anything else is its fast f2.0 lens. That's not a typo ? its a full stop faster than the competition's f2.8 lenses. Two other standout features are internal focus and the use of two low dispersion elements in the design for improved image quality. ...Read More »

Lenovo D20 media workstation By John Virata Lenovo's D20 is the company's top of the line ThinkStation workstation. This particular model shipped with dual Intel E5540 2.53GHz Xeon processors (four processor cores), 12GB RAM, and Windows 7 Professional. Graphics was powered by an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 graphics card. This is your classic media workstation, configured to run the latest creative applications from Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Sony Creative Software, as well as CAD tools such as AutoCAD, Pro Engineer, and others. ...Read More »

First Look: AV Bros. Puzzle Pro 3.0 By John Virata AV Bros. Puzzle Pro 3.0 is a Photoshop plugin filter that enables you to create cool puzzle looks with your Photoshop images. When you launch AV Broz Puzzle Pro 3.0, the plug-ins interface opens which enables you to further tweak the puzzle look of an image. ...Read More »

Screentime mProjector 4 for Mac and Windows By Kevin Schmitt Flash wrappers, as I tend to call the genre of software Screentime's mProjector belongs to, have been around almost as long as Flash itself. Whatever the reason for their rise (the decline of Director, needing offline access to online content, etc.), there are still several options out there for turning your Flash content into desktop applications. And while Adobe's own AIR technology seems to get all the press, there is no reason why mProjector shouldn't be considered one of the top dogs in cross-platform Flash desktop app creation. ...Read More »

Ci Design's iStorage Pro iT8MIS 8 bay Mini SAS JBOD System By Kevin McAuliffe As a tech writer, I am lucky to have companies approach me to look at their products, and after looking at a competitor's product, I was approached by Ci Design to look at their iStorage Pro Mini SAS JBOD hard drive array. Since I'm always on the lookout for the best product for what I need to get done, I jumped at the chance. Here's how it turned out. ...Read More »

X-Rite Colorchecker Passport By Robert Jensen I've got bad news for you. Shoo the kids away from the computer first. Ready? Guys and gals, there is no Santa Claus and the sensors in digital cameras are not all created equal. I hate to break it to you but all sensors vary to some degree in their capturing of data, not only from manufacturer to manufacturer but even from model to model from the same company. Worse yet, sensor characteristics can vary even from batch to batch of the same model sensor! ...Read More »

New Wacom Bamboo Fun (Pen and Touch) By Robert Jensen First off I should tell you I've haven't seen a graphics tablet I've liked in more than 20 years, and I've tried quite a few in that period. When the new Wacom Bamboo Fun came in I was ready to make another mark in my 'Hate it' column. I did struggle with it at first but that was more to do with problems with Snow Leopard than anything wrong with the Bamboo. ...Read More »

3.06 GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro By Heath McKnight I recently had a chance to review the latest, top-of-the-line unibody MacBook Pro from Apple; with a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and many other great features, this is the fastest Apple laptop I've ever used. ...Read More »

HP Z400 workstation By John Virata The Hewlett-Packard HP Z400 is the company's entry level workstation. While it doesn't have the whiz bang design features of the HP Z800 reviewed in March, it still does not disappoint as the benchmark numbers will surprise you. ...Read More »

iTech SolarVoice 908 By Joshua Virata Bluetooth headsets have become more and more popular throughout the years and now more and more cell phones have been able to take advantage of this technology. In this review we'll be looking at a brand new Bluetooth headset from iTech, the SolarVoice 908, one of the first solar charging headsets on the market. ...Read More »

An afternoon of fun, NFL football, and the Canon 7D DSLR By John Virata This past weekend we were able to spend an afternoon with the Canon folks at the San Diego Chargers/Philadelphia Eagles NFL football game in beautiful San Diego California to attain some first impressions on the new Canon 7D DSLR. Canon invited several journalists to shoot with the Canon 7D and Digital Rebel T1i. ...Read More »

Reaper DAW By Mike Jones Much like video editing systems, the tools for crafting, mixing, and multi-tracking digital audio projects - be they music, audio or sound for video endeavours - have reached a very mature stage in their development and evolution as technologies. The Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) market has grounded itself in all-digital workflows and common production practices whilst, at the same time, diversified into an array of major players. ...Read More »

Telestream's ScreenFlow 2 By Kevin McAuliffe As an instructor and online trainer, I need a screen capture program that will not only be very easy to use, but also produce excellent looking end results. Windows users have a ton of options, but for us Mac users, the outlook was pretty barren. More than a year ago when I started doing video tutorials I came across ScreenFlow, and liked it a lot. Well, Telestream is back with version two of this great program. Let's see if it's worth the upgrade. ...Read More »

Epson PowerLite 1716 LCD projector By John Virata The Epson PowerLite 1716 is a portable, wireless-capable LCD projector with a 4:3 aspect ratio targeted at mobile presenters and those on the go who need to present content in an effective manner. The PowerLite 1716 features a three chip Epson 3LCD optical engine that has a native hardware resolution of 1024x768, and features USB, component, and SVGA connectivity. ...Read More »