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Sync iTunes Playlists With Your Nexus One

by Dan

For many people the similarities between the iPhone and the Mac make the iPhone the perfect mobile phone. Its ease of use, familiar operating system, and the sync capabilities between the phone and media files make a very convincing argument that if you own a Mac your phone should be an iPhone.

But, that’s not always the case. Often people want something different from their phone than from their computer. They want a different experience, cell network (Let’s face it, AT&T just isn’t all the way there), or interface than what is offered with the iPhone. Many of these types of users are turning to Android devices like the Verizon Droid or the Google Nexus One.

These new smart phones offer what is to date the most competitive alternative to the iPhone in terms of ease of use and functionality. The one area that out of the box, these phones don’t compete well with the iPhone is the ability to sync digital media with their Android devices. Thankfully, someone has helped solve that problem.

Sync iTunes With Android Devices including the Nexus One

While the software wasn’t developed by Google or Apple to help Android Devices (including the Nexus One) sync with iTunes, DoubleTwist is very powerful and easy to use. The software is available on the PC and the Mac and automatically connects to your iTunes library and playlists and makes them available in a clean interface.

To sync your iTunes Playlists with your Google Nexus One or other Android Device:

  1. Create your playlist in iTunes
  2. Download, install, and open Doubletwist
  3. Your media library and playlists should be available on the left navigation frame
    4. iTunes-Playlist-Nexus-One.jpg
  4. Connect your Google Nexus One or other Android Device to the your Mac or PC and then follow the on screen instructions. More help can be found on the DoubleTwist website for many different devices
  5. Once you’ve mounted and made available your mobile phone, select the playlists or drag and drop the media files from your iTunes library to your Nexus One, Android device, or other media players
  6. You can Sync your Nexus One with iTunes Playlists by selecting the Nexus One on the left navigation frame and checking the Sync Music button and the iTunes playlists you’d like to sync with the device
    7. SyncPlaylistsDoubleTwist-NexusOne.jpg

Now your Google Nexus One or other Android device should include your Songs and other playlist files and sync anytime you connect your phone to your computer and open DoubleTwist.

Are you an iPhone user or do you prefer a different type of mobile phone? Let us know in the comments below!

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Add Facebook Chat to iChat

by Dan

iChat, one of the most popular instant messaging platforms for the mac, just added a new message platform to its portfolio. iChat users can now connect with their Facebook friends without navigating to facebook.com

Thanks to the development team at Facebook, you can now stay up to date with all your Facebook friends through Facebook Chat in iChat. Utilizing Jabber, the same Instant Messaging technology that powers google talk, Facebook Chat is now available on iChat and other instant messaging software clients.

Facebook Chat iChat.jpg

Add Facebook Chat to iChat

If you’re interested in how to add Facebook to iChat follow the steps listed below:

  1. Open iChat and select “Preferences” from the iChat menu dropdown.
  2. Click the “Accounts” tab and then click the “+” at the bottom.
    3. Add Facebook Chat to iChat.jpg
  3. Select “Jabber” from the drop-down menu and then enter the following info:
    Screen Name: [yourfullusername]@chat.facebook.com
    Password: [your Facebook password]
  4. Click the arrow next to “Server Options” and enter the following server option information:
    Server: chat.facebook.com
    Port: 5222
    (Uncheck the box labeled “Use SSL”)
    5. Facebook Jabber.jpg

Once you’ve finished the steps above, click the done button and your Facebook Chat list should open in iChat. It should be just a matter of seconds before your “always” available for your Facebook friends to reach out to your through iChat and instant message about the latest happenings.

If you’re not big on logging in to check on your Facebook updates, but like to quickly communicate with friends, this is a great way to keep in touch with people without all the distraction of Facebook status updates.

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The iLife series, #5: iTunes Screensavers

by Suki

Have you ever wished that you could display all your album artwork in a screensaver? With iTunes and the Mac’s inbuilt “iTunes Screensaver”, you can now have that screensaver ready in less than a dozen clicks.

Here’s what to do.

iTunes Screensaver setup

First of all, make sure that your iTunes library includes all the artwork from your albums. If, for some reason, you do not have the artwork, you can download it from the Internet. Then, cmd-click on the file and select “Get Info”. This works best if you are in Grid view, as albums are shown together and you can assign artwork for the entire album at once. You may get a prompt asking if you want to edit information for multiple files at once – click “yes”, and a “Do not prompt me again” if you wish.

Get info iTunes

You will see an “Artwork” box. Double-click on it, and it automatically takes you to your “pictures” folder in the Finder. From there, you can browse till you find the album art to install.


Artwork

Once your album art is in place, you can create your iTunes screensaver. Do not worry about albums that have no artwork attached – the screensaver simply ignores them, so you will have no unsightly blank patches when you finally play it.

From “System Preferences”, go to “Desktop and Screen Saver” under “Personal”. Alternatively, you can also go to the “Desktop and Screen saver” link directly by doing a Spotlight search for the word “Screen Saver”.
On the left-hand column of the “Screen Saver” tab, you will find several folders of preset screen savers. Under the “Apple” folder, there is a screen saver called “iTunes Artwork”. This is the one you want to use.


iTunes screen saver

In order to make some finer adjustments to your iTunes album art screen saver, click the “options” button. You will see a small window pop up, which has 2 sliders. You can choose the number of rows and columns to put in your screen saver – between 1 and 8. The amount of time for which each image is displayed can also be adjusted – possible values lie between 0 and 5 seconds.


iTunes Screensaver options

To display your screen saver, make sure that the “start screen saver” time is greater than the time that is allowed to lapse before your Mac goes to sleep. You’ll notice the yellow triangle of warning in my screenshot, and that’s because I have my “display off” time set to a value less than the “start” time on the screen saver.

To change screen savers, all you have to do is to visit the “Desktop and Screen Saver” menu and select a new screen saver from the list given. Of course, you can also download screen savers for the Mac from the Internet – some of these also have third-party applications that display your iTunes artwork, so you may give them a try too. In fact, the iTunes Screensaver is also available as a third-party download for Windows computers too – it looks exactly the same as the Mac bundled version.

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The iLife Series, #4: the Ken Burns effect

by Suki

First of all, what IS the Ken Burns effect? The first time I heard the name, it reminded me of high-school physics and chemistry. But that is not it at all, unless you confuse a presentation and archival technique with laboratory science.

Named after the documentary film maker Kenneth Lauren  “Ken” Burns, the Ken Burns effect can be used in iPhoto and iMovie to pan and zoom across stills or videos. This technique is mostly applied to still photographs, allowing the camera to move, engaging the eyes while a narrative voice engages the ears. The most common use of the Ken Burns effect is in slideshows and screen savers, followed by films which incorporate large amounts of still photographs.

Apple has offered the Ken Burns effect as a display option in iPhoto and iMovie. While the basics of the effect stay the same, the implementation differs a good deal due to the completely different natures of iPhoto and iMovie.

Ken Burns Effect in iPhoto

Here is how you apply the Ken Burns effect to an iPhoto slideshow:

  1. Create an iPhoto slideshow(stuff for a separate blog post)
  2. Go to the slideshow from the iPhoto sidebar, and press the “Themes” button on the bottom center. From the popup/dropdown menu, select “Ken Burns”.

    3. iPhoto slideshow editor

  3. At this point, you have a slideshow which uses the Ken Burns effect. However, the point of using Ken Burns is to highlight specific parts of photos, rather than to pan and zoom randomly across everything.
  4. Click on the picture you want to set Ken Burns settings for from the list on top. This list contains all the photos in your slideshow, and no more.
  5. Click the “Settings” button – the one with the gear on it. Check the “Ken Burns” checkbox.

    6. iPhoto kenburns1

  6. Make sure that the knob on the slider is in the “start” position. Now, you can adjust the level of zoom and the point to focus on when the slide first appears in view. Adjust the zoom from the slider on the bottom right corner. Next, click on the slide; your pointer will change to a hand icon. Click and drag until the image is centered exactly as you want it.
  7. Move the knob on the “settings > ken burns” slider to the “end” position. Then repeat the last step to adjust the zoom and pan for the “end” point. When the slideshow is being played, the photos will gradually move from the “start” position to the “end” position in one flow. [TIP: To include movement in more than one direction, use the same slide multiple times, with the “end” of one slide becoming the “start” of the next.]
  8. Repeat steps 4 to 7 for all the slides you want to adjust.

Ken Burns Effect in iMovie

For iMovie, applying Ken burns is slightly different. Here’s what you do:

  1. Hover your pointer over the frame you want to apply the Ken Burns effect to. Click on the blue gear that appears.

    2. iMovie Ken1

  2. From the popup menu, click “Cropping, Rotation and Ken Burns”. The frame will open up for editing, and you will be able to set “start” and “end” points(highlighted by blue rectangles) by moving around the green and red rectangles respectively. The iMovie editor also shows the path taken, which is an advantage compared to iPhoto.

Screen shot 2010-01-24 at 11.55.31 AM

That’s it! You’re done.
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The iLife series, #3: What you can do with iPhoto

by Suki

The iLife set of programs is designed to manage the entire collection of photos, music, movies and multimedia projects on any Mac. In the beginning, this can be quite confusing for people who are used to the simple file-and-folder type organization. But once you get used to having your media categorized and tagged in every manner you need, there’s no going back.

The application that performs this function for photos on the Mac is iPhoto.  This iPhoto Tutorial will help you understand the best ways to utilize iPhoto to help manage your photo collection.   As a photo manager, it will help you:

  • Store photos in a library
  • Group photos according to “events”, for example “X’s wedding”
  • Group photos by date – this is done automatically, by reading the photo’s metadata. When the metadata is not present, it works by import date.
  • Create custom albums, books, calendars and slideshows for print and virtual publication. These can be printed out using Apple’s own service, which delivers the hard copies by post.
  • Rate photos on a scale of 1 to 5 stars
  • Create “smart albums” that group photos according to any parameter – date, ISO, rating, faces, names, location and many more

Elementary photo editing can also be done on iPhoto. You can see your available options on the bottom of your screen, as well as in the menu that appears on clicking the “adjust” button.

Name edit rotate etc

Adjust menu

These options include:

  • remove red-eye
  • retouch
  • apply preset effects – sepia, matt etc
  • enhance color with one click
  • adjust brightness, contrast, RGB balance, sharpness, temperature, tint and more

Photo edit menu

One thing needs to be clear, however. iPhoto is meant for consumers, not passionate or professional photographers. It is no substitute for the big guns like Adobe Photoshop, but it works just fine for people who want to polish up their photos before saving them.

The next area of this iPhoto tutorial will help you understand how to quickly share your photos from iPhoto.  For people who share photos frequently from their computers, iPhoto’s flawless integration with Flickr, FaceBook and Apple’s own Mail and MobileMe can be a lifesaver.
When you click on any events or folders in your iPhoto Library, you will see buttons for these 4 applications on the bottom right of your screen. Simply click on the one you need, enter your login details(for Facebook or Flickr), et voila!

iPhoto

Any events or slideshows that you create on iPhoto can be shared across all your Apple-iances (pardon the wordplay!) by clicking on the “Export” button on the bottom right. This exports the project into a format recognized by iTunes, so that it works on your iPhone or iPod touch as well as the iMacs and MacBooks.

To create a new slideshow, book, calendar or card, all you need to do is to click the photos you would like to use, and click the button on the bottom of your screen. Holding down the Cmd(Apple) key while clicking lets you select multiple photos.
Apple has provided a commendable collection of backgrounds and themes for slideshows, cards, calendars and books, just as it has done with the iDVD themes. The themes can also be customized to a great extent – the background color, page layout, border type and image order can all be changed at will.

Whether you just want to keep your precious memories nicely organized, want a homemade project to gift a loved one, or want practice for your life as a professional photographer, iPhoto is a great program to help you do it.

Have additional helpful knowledge on how to get more from iPhoto?  Be sure to let us know in the comments!

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