Christopher Mackay's Blog

The folks at PictureCode have released a 64-bit version of their outstanding Noise Ninja plug-in for Aperture 3. They didn’t waste any time getting this into users’ hands.

Even better, when I hadn’t seen any mention of a forth-coming upgrade on PictureCode’s web site after Aperture 3 let me know it would have to run Noise Ninja under 32-bit mode, I emailed them to ask about their plans.

Not only did Bill Smith, their senior programmer, get right back to me, letting me know a release was imminent — he attached a beta version of the plug-in.

How cool is that?

Awesome animated ad for Google Chrome:

(Via Official Google Mac Blog.)

Since you can’t find things on the Avid web site, here’s a link to the codecs for Mac:

AvidCodecsLE.pkg, AvidCodecsLE.zip

This happens to me all the time, using the shipping non-pirated version of Adobe Photoshop CS4:

What you’re seeing is a Finder window (full of yellow-labelled files) which has split a Photoshop window in two: the Photoshop window’s titlebar is behind the Finder window, while the Photoshop document’s contents are in front of the Finder window.

This persists if you move either window, creating the illusion that the Finder window is slicing the Photoshop document apart.

Weird.

Does it do this under Windows XP or Vista, or is this a Mac OS X-only “feature”?

In February, 2008, I wrote about leaving Basecamp, 37signals’ web-based project-management software.

At the time, I was frustrated by features that were — and, I believe, remain — missing:

1. There’s no way to see an overview of all Milestones across projects
2. There’s no way for a project manager to see all to-dos assigned to everyone across projects

While these limitations were frustrating, other solutions seemed to offer a way around them, imperfect though they seemed even at the beginning…

Read the rest of this entry »

Updated to include screencast of glitch.

Today, I haven’t been working much in Adobe products, so the list is short. Today’s entry should have been added to yesterday’s list, but there were many, and it slipped my mind:

• Cannot rename layers in the Adobe Flash CS4 timeline by double-clicking the name. First time this has happened. It highlights the text field for an instant, then reverts to being a label. I can only change the names by choosing Modify > Timeline > Layer Properties... or by right-clicking on the layer name and choosing Properties...

What kills me is that I used to like Adobe software even more than Apple’s software. Microsoft makes better Mac software these days.