iPhoto Review and Overview

Hey everybody, as most of you know I purchased iLife 09 the day it was release, and I have been playing around with all the applications. Today I’m going to show you iPhoto 09.

Faces: Not only do you have events, but now we have “Faces”. I really like this feature. its a great way to organize your photos, because it allow you to organize them by the people that are in them. For example, if you wanted a good picture of your mom for her birthday card, faces really comes in handy.

Interface

 

The interface features a cork board with “Snap Shots” of all of your people. Also you get the skimming feature included in events. It is very nice, clean and easy to use.

Using Faces

Above is what faces looks like when adding pictures to a person. Obviously, i am not that person on the right, so i double click to let iPhoto know that is not me. However i am on the left, so i let iPhoto know that’s me. Doing this allow iPhoto to get smarter at identifying people. The Face identifier is pretty good, but you get occasional mishaps like this.

Entering Peoples Names

In the picture above, my whole family is named, except for one, my brother. It is very simple to add him.

Simply Click on the “unknown face” and start typing the name, iPhoto finds all the people in your faces library, and suggests names.

Adding A New Face

In the photo above, iPhoto did not detect my brothers face, so to add it, i simply click add new face, put a box around my brothers face, and then name the face. Its that Simple!!!

Down Sides:

This new iPhoto is amazing, but it has its downsides. The face detector does not detect pets faces, but i have heard that people have taught iPhoto to detect their dogs faces, but currently it is not a listed feature. Also, we get the occasional cloud looking like a face, or tree looking like a face, but those are minor. My biggest complaint no bulk select for a NO. When iPhoto feeds back results on who it thinks people are in photos, there is a bulk Yes but no bulk NO.

Overall Faces is an amazing new way to sort photos.

Places

Just like faces, now we have places. Places allows you to sort your photos by location.

Interface

If you know Google maps, on iPhone or computer, you know how to use places. The interface is very easy and clean, just like faces. With two view (World and List) you can Look at photos generally and specifically

Simply click a pin, and click the arrow to see the photos from the location.

Downsides

This does not apply to everyone, but people with older cameras like me have to go in and name each place. What does that mean. It means i have to get a new camera! =D

Overall the new Places Feature is GREAT!

Other features.

Facebook and Flickr:

I have not really tested these out, but they are great add ons to iPhoto if you use either service.

Themed Slide shows:

These are great to show family members. They look amazing, and are very nice. The themes are great, and i think everyone will love this feature.

That is about it. I know i did not fully cover everything, but i covered most stuff.

 

Thank You Everybody!

Alex

How to be famous on YouTube

In this day and age, many people turn to the internet as a broadcast
medium.  Many people build websites to promote products and services
and making it popular can be a hard challenge.  (to view this article,
scroll down to view rohan4apple’s post)  In this blog post, i’m going
to inform you the “in’s and out’s” of making your YouTube videos
popular and have a steady stream of viewers.

Being on YouTube for a bit of time now, I can tell you how hard it
is go get noticed and just start to get a few steady viewers.  Before I
even commence with my points, I’d like to point out that getting
established really takes time.  This does not happen overnight and do
not rush, take it slow and easy.  Now that we got this point across,
I’m going to point out some helpful tips to gain some steady viewers.

First, pick a good topic.  You need topics that will interest you and
viewers will search up on YouTube.  Include interesting tags when
uploading videos as they are crucial in YouTube search engines.

Second, make many comments.  If on different videos, you make thoughful, rich opinionated comments, this may push people to appreciate your voice and check out your channel and possibly subscribe.

Thirdly, you to step up from comments and make video responses.  Less people make these which increases your chances of being seen.  This also makes people impressed as it makes people think if one goes to that effort to make a video, they really must have something to say and check you out.

Lastly, you need to have connections.  Connections,  you need to advertise on different websites that get many views or even better, get someone to make a video about your content.  These are the things that will get you noticed and get people subscribing.

Now that you have more viewers, you need to have ways to keep
viewers engaged and stick with you.  You must remember if they get
bored of you, the unsubscribe button is only a click away!  So to keep
these valuable viewers, follow these tips.

Firstly, be consistant!
Always, if you start making videos, keep them coming.  Don’t be
discouraged and stop.  Subscribers will come in some way or another and
someone, somewhere in the cyber-world will appreciate your videos.  On
the other end of the spectrum, please, I repeat, please don’t post 10
videos a day.  Subscribers will justs stop watching because they just
become boring.  So, bottom line, find a balance.

Secondly, promote
your channel.  Find advertisements, shoutouts and anything that will
make you shine.  Everything help.

Thirdly, make a twitter account.
Many people follow on twitter and allows them to stay connected to
you.  When you have live streams, they will know on the instant!

Lastly, give them professional contact info.  Consider making a “.com”
domain with a name relating to your topic to make it professional and
avoid using “childish names” in your email for your contact email (i.e.
hannahmontanafan@hotmail.com).  It looks unprofessional and very
childish.

I hope that helps you and your YouTube channel and if you follow these tips, you will see results, someway or another.

If you have any questions or concerns,  contact be with the following information.

Email: contact@techguysnetwork.com

Twitter:  twitter.com/winstonsih

YouTube: youtube.com/sihwinston (SUBSCRIBE!)

-Thank You!

WINSTON S.

Executive Editor, Tech Guys Network

President Obama, has a nice ring to it…

Well its official. No longer President “elect” Obama, but now he will be addressed as President Obama. Today around noon time, Obama was sworn in as our 44th president., and our first African American president. With a couple hick-ups in his actual swearing in, both on his part and on the Oath reader. In the end, Obama was sworn in, and gave his “not so exciting” Speech. More drama to follow through out the day with Sen. Ted Kennedy suffering a seizure during the lunch at capital hill (He is expected to be Fine)

My Thoughts: Well i do not really support him, but now i can say i was apart of history, seeing (yes i watched it) the first African American president be sworn him. Personally i am against his policy’s, and i don’t like how he wants everybody to be equal *cough*cough* SOCIALISM*cough*cough* but i think we all must support him for the sake of America. Though I (key word I) think that a lot of people will be regretting this choice in a couple months, when people who bought house they knew they could afford are paying for people who bought a house and now cant afford it and…. well i wont get into that. I still think that some people may have voted for Obama because he was young, black and engraved the word CHANGE in peoples heads because of the 8 years of bush. (Hey you got to hand it to bush, ha had to make A LOT  of tough decisions.)

Well that’s my rant, feel free to respond with a comment

KEEP IN MIND THESE ARE MY OPINONS AND I AM ENTITLED TO ONE (well for a little longer)

Alex

Obamination Starts Tomorrow

Yes Tomorrow will be a day of history. Not only a huge day in American history, but also in world history, as the first ever African American will be sworn in as president tomorrow. Even though i do not support him or his policies, i will be watching the inauguration. Even if you didn’t support  him, i think we must all pull together to help save our country. Here are some questions:

1. Did you support Barak Obama? Why or why not

2. Will you be watching the inauguration

3. Even if you did not support him, will you support him for the sake of America?

 

Thanks

Alex

Switchers’ POV: PC to Mac: File Compatibility.

Are you a PC user itching to buy a Macintosh computer? I have been a PC user pretty much all my life, since the death of my first Apple PowerBook100. I recently switched to the OS X platform on December 23, 2008 and I am about to explain briefly what things to expect to cross platform your files, and what may go wrong.

First of all, it’s obvious to make a back up of you PC HDD, every single file. This can be the stupidest thing you can do to NOT do this. When you back up your files, you most likely had Office on your Vista or XP computer. When you get the Mac, no program can open these unless you purchase Apple iWork or Office for Mac (I have Office), or download the free NeoOffice of OpenOffice. Ok. You have your office files. CHECK.

Some people, like me used Outlook to keep a hold of email. See, every Mac comes with Mail, which is great. If you purchase Office for Mac, you get an Outlook style program called Entourage. Anyway, you probably backed up you email and you contacts. Well, in a sense, Apple is not Outlook-friendly. I ran into problem including Mail cant open my older emails, and will not Import my contacts. Darn, spent a day adding them manually. CHECK.

Other than getting used to keyboard commands including Copy and Paste (I had no idea how to do it at first). Switching to Mac is truly amazing. I would give Apple the thumbs up on build quality (Even on a 4yr old G5), OS eye candy, and more. I mean these were just some of the things you have to keep in mind. Leave a comment if you can think of anything else!

-Brandon

http://www.youtube.com/italktech

BTW, keep in mind, sharing a network with a PC works, but when using a networked printer on a PC is a pain to get to!

Start of imactherforeiam Social Blog

Hello Everyone! This is my new social blog, where you (the community) gets to write and talk about whatever you want. Its very simple to become a writer. Email me imactherforeiam@gmail.com Your name and a sample blog post. After i have reviewed your post, i will send you back an email saying that i would like you to join. Then setup an account here at wordpress, and i will make you an admin.

Keep in mind, the topic doesn’t only have to be about tech, it can be anything here, because this is what you guys want to talk about.

Thanks

Alex