iMovie & iDVD Visual QuickStart Guide

Keep Up with My Articles at uFollow

I've had great intentions in the past for posting new articles that I write here on my blog, but often when something appears, I'm busy working on something else, and I forget. Today I received an email from a free service called uFollow that tracks articles and blog posts from authors. Go to the page about me to see what I've published recently. It doesn't appear that you can follow an RSS feed of the page, which would be nice, but I'm guessing the point of their business is for people to set up tracking lists on their service. I don't have any relationship with the company other than suggesting a rewrite of my bio, but I wish them well and hope the service is useful for readers.

My book, Meet the iPad 2, now at the iBookstore!

I'm ecstatic to announce that the first ebook about the iPad 2 on Apple's iBookstore is my book, "Meet the iPad 2"! It contains 48 pages of essential iPad 2 information, and costs just $1.99. Follow this link to view more information, or, go to iBooks on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, tap the Store button, and do a search for "iPad 2" or "Meet the iPad 2". (You can also download a free sample to check out before you decide to purchase the book.)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/meet-the-ipad-2/id425671338?mt=11

(Note that this link takes you to a Web page about the book; you need to find it in the iBookstore via iBooks on your iOS device. However, as of March 18, Apple was promoting the book on the front page of the iBookstore; scroll down and click the button.)

Honestly, I'm amazed it was available on the launch day of the iPad 2. I expected it would take longer to work through the iBookstore process of submission and approval. (The iBookstore isn't exactly known for being responsive sometimes.)

However, in this case I give a huge amount of credit to my publisher, Peachpit Press. They have a great working relationship with Apple and the iBookstore team. Apple was eager to have an iPad 2 title available quickly, and my editors at Peachpit and I were able to make it happen.

As a result, I submitted the final book to Peachpit Thursday afternoon as Adobe InDesign CS5 files; their in-house team did the EPUB conversion quickly and submitted it to Apple; and the iBookstore folks made the book available.

The ebook is based on material from my iPad 2 Pocket Guide, which I'm working night and day to finish to get into bookstores and e-bookstores as soon as possible. The larger book contains a lot more information about using the iPad 2, from using Mail and Safari to playing media, streaming via AirPlay, being productive with the iWork suite, and much, much more.

(Update: The book is now available for preorder through Amazon; I'll add a link to it at Barnes & Noble when it appears.)

If you're waiting for your iPad 2 to ship, or if you're waiting in line at an Apple Store today to buy one in person, tap over to the iBookstore and buy the book for just $1.99. Thanks!

Talking iMovie ’11 on MacVoices

On Tuesday I chatted with Chuck Joiner about what's new in iMovie ’11 and my TidBITS article, "15 Secrets of iMovie ’11" for the MacVoices podcast. Chuck is always great to talk to, and indulged me when I found myself having to back up and explain things like rolling shutter, CMOS camera sensors, and interlaced video footage.

Jeff Carlson has been spending lots of time with the new iMovie ‘11, and has discovered a number of useful, cool and largely undocumented features. Jeff discusses the under-publicized return of the timeline (even if it isn’t called a timeline), the usefulness of Movie Trailer and other effects, and then dives into things you didn’t know, including rolling shutter fix, morse code in a theme, and several other minor but tasteful additions. iMovie ‘11 still isn’t good with interlaced video; Jeff explains what that means to you and how to work around it, and why iMovie ‘11 is finally almost like the long-dead iMovie HD.

Catch the podcast here: MacVoices #10125: Jeff Carlson Looks At The Known and Unknown Features of iMovie ‘11

Martin Scorcese Attends Free iMovie Demonstration

Funny article at the Onion: Martin Scorcese Attends Free iMovie Demonstration at Apple Store

Latest Seattle Times column tackles video streaming

My column this week looks at Air Video, StreamToMe, and Netflix as ways to watch video on an iPad, iPhone, or iPad touch without storing the massive files on the devices themselves: "Streaming options for music, video need not be space hogs".



It's a Book! First Copy of My "iPad Pocket Guide"!

My prolific friend David Blatner started a tradition in the office we once shared. Whenever he published a new book (which is still pretty often) and received his first author copy, he'd bring it around to someone else's desk and say, "It's a book!"

Now that I've published dozens of books myself, I still do the same thing when that first copy arrives—like today's delivery of my iPad Pocket Guide! It's really quite satisfying to have the fruit of a lot of hard work arrive as a tangible thing.

(I'm not contrasting that with digital books, by the way. Receiving the first final PDF of my Take Control of Your iPhone Apps book made me giddy, too.)

Getting the first author copy means the book is probably a week away from being available onAmazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and on store shelves.

 

My review of the 15-inch MacBook Pro (2010)

I've been pretty singularly focused on the iPad since its release, having finished my iPad Pocket Guide (due in stores likely in the next week or so!) and now working on a Take Control ebook about the iPad.

But while I was writing the Pocket Guide, Apple sent me a new 15-inch MacBook Pro review unit, which I used for several weeks while finishing the book. The switch from my 2006 MacBook Pro was painless: I used Migration Assistant on the new laptop to set up my working environment, copied from an external hard drive that had a backup of my hard disk. The fact that I was able to do this easily in the midst of a tight deadline says a lot.

The improved speed and increased memory was much appreciated: I package my print books, which means I do all the writing and layout, so I write directly within InDesign and use Photoshop for processing screen shots. Although the new setup didn't make me write faster (I'm still looking for that particular magic button), it did eliminate some of the little pauses and annoyances I was seeing on my old machine.

I'm happy to report that the new MacBook Pro is nice and speedy: I ended up buying one to replace my 2006 model. I figured I would be buying a new main Mac this year anyway, so the timing worked out nicely. My thoughts on its performance, and particularly how the new graphics-switching technology works, is now online in my latest Seattle Times column: "MacBook Pro makes another jump into the future".

My book "iPad Pocket Guide" Is Now Available for Pre-Order

I'm hard at work on my next book, The iPad Pocket Guide, which is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com for only $10.19 and at Barnes & Noble for $10.11!

Amazon lists the release date as June 11, but I'm sure that's just a placeholder. I want to have most of the book written by the time the iPad arrives on April 3 so we can get it printed and distributed as soon as possible after the iPad launch.

Does this mean I have an iPad at my disposal? Sadly, no. I'll be getting my iPad when it ships just like everybody else. I did attend Apple's media event, where I was able to use an iPad for about 45 minutes. (You can read about my hands-on impressions at TidBITS, as well as view a photo tour of what it's like to attend a high-profile Apple event like that.)

I'm writing the book based on that experience as well as my knowledge of the iPhone and iPod touch as an owner and author of Take Control of Your iPhone Apps. When I have an iPad in hand, I'll then go back through and fill in gaps and details I didn't have initially.

Pogue on Why We Make Home Videos

In his weekly email newsletter, New York Times columnist David Pogue writes about how he's copying his 140 DV tapes to a hard disk (using iMovie), and why all that video footage isn't just something to be forgotten on a shelf.

Why We Make Home Videos

Frugal Mac Buyer Suggestions

My latest column for the Seattle Times is online, which looks at several areas to save money when buying Mac-related items: Plenty of ways for frugal Mac users to save on products (15 January 2010).