It has been a wee while since I updated this blog and the fact it has been a wee while has made it even longer - you know how hard it is to do something when it has been a wee while?

One of the reasons it has been a wee while is that I got a new bit of kit - or two. I got a 24inch 2.8 iMac to replace my Powerbook which went a little pyscho on me. It went so psycho I had to claim on the insurance for it. I reserve the right to get another laptop in the future - but to be honest it isn't likely now - I am having far too much fun with the big screen now.

I have to say - in the past while I have taken a couple of big chances and this one has definitely worked well for me. The iMac has transformed my working life. So much so that I can't remember how I worked without it before and can't believe I worked with a laptop screen, predominately, until recently.

Let me put it in to perspective. I do a thing for my clients which doesn't directly make me money - it used to take me around 5 hours after a shoot to do this thing and really I didn't NEED to do it but I LIKED to do it but was getting to the stage where the 5 hour malarkey was holding me back from being more productive and prevented me taking an important step towards taking on more work.

With the new machine this whole job now takes less than an hour and a half.

Impressed?

No?

Ok - try this one - it is simpler.

One thing that used to take me 23 minutes (and froze the rest of the machine out) now takes 3 minutes (and allows me to continue to use the rest of the machine). That's worth it for me.

I paid the extra few pounds and got the wireless mouse and keyboard in the deal. For some reason the wireless keyboard boosts productivity too. I know that sounds silly but it is so damned tiny that I can twist it at Photoshop-keyboard-shortcut angles much easier than a clumpy wired one (or one attached to the screen!).

It was a kind of Buy One Get One Free deal - buy the iMac and get an iPod free. . . . I bumped my purchase up a little and got the 8gb Nano rather than the free Shuffle. Oh my - how gorgeous is the Nano? I didn't NEED it but as it had almost £100 off the normal price it was hard not to get something a little more than the free offering. (That £100 is a bit like the theory that "28 is nearly 30 and 30 is almost 40 and 40 is almost half a century" in that it was actually a lot less than £100 discount but I told my husband it was almost £100 and that is what he believes OK???)

I have to say I love the Nano. More so than the 60gb Photo iPod I had previously. It is now quite common for me to be sitting processing in work with the Nano playing away in my pocket. I even bought new ear phones for it as a kind of Welcome present. Even the ear phones are sexy - so much easier to wear than the ones I had before which always hurt.

How can I love the 8gb Nano more than the 60gb Photo? Well, it has to be admitted (despite me loving my 24 inches of iMac!) that size isn't everything. CoverFlow is to die for and the sound quality is definitely better methinks. I have shown the Nano (sorry - forgot to introduce it - it is called RED - for obvious reasons. .. ) to loads of people now - some who wouldn't necessarily be Apple people and everyone has "Oohed" over it.

As this machine had already been born before Leopard came out it was shipped with both Tiger AND Leopard install discs but it wasn't until I thought I had over-written Leopard with my FireWire Transfer from the laptop that I realised Leopard had never been installed! IT DID take a while to do the transfer from the laptop and then the Leopard update but it was worth it. It was fantastic to have every single thing I had on the laptop already sitting waiting for me on the iMac.

Yes, there have been a couple of teething problems. Skitch and Adium refused to work on the iMac when it was at home but both worked fine at the studio. . . After a while I went looking for an answer and found DNS settings that sorted the problem for me. Aren't forums great?

What else? Umm. . ..

I should be on commission - every one of my brain-washed PC lovin' photographer friends have fallen in love with the quality of the screen! Jealousy is all around :P

Good stuff? All of my procedures are so much faster. I love the whole CoverFlow thing - love Front Row and PhotoBooth for the craic. I know these were on previous Macs - but I haven't had them before. I have just found out that RapidWeaver saves faster on here too with the latest update. I love being able to open 32 big jpgs in less that 30 seconds which would have taken about 8 minutes on the Powerbook (had I been silly enough to try it) and love adding the studio 22 inch screen to it to spread the photos all over the place for faster wedding album manipulation. . . .

My only disappointment so far? Why does the Apple not glow / light up / change colour / do something? I keep rubbing it in case something happens.

I also require Numbers to do one thing that Excel can do. If I can get it to do that one thing I will happily remove Excel from the machine. Does anyone know how to paste file titles of photos in to a Numbers spreadsheet? Every time I do it, it tries to paste in the actual photos themselves.

It took me a while to blog about this as I wasn't quite sure which machine should keep the files for the blog safe and sound. Have decided on the iMac - I know I can update the Powerbook when I want to . .. this may change but in the meantime it is the iMac. I would very much like to be able to synch files easily between the two, especially the likes of iCal and NetNewsWire. If there are tutorials out there to do this I would be happy to receive them.

One great thing about having the iMac is that my work hours are far more productive than they ever were previously so when I leave work - I leave work behind and go home for some decent Down Time. Usually. Sometimes I take the iMac home for some Fun Time.

All I need now is a 20in iMac for the house. . . . hmmmmm . . .. . grin. . . . can you see the whole family gathered round one making it an integral part of our life? NO! Me neither - let them get their own - the iMacs are mine - all mine I say muahahahahahahahahahahaha

Tags: Apple, iMac, 24inch, Productivity

Those lovely people over at PixelNovel.com have brought out FlickrShop.

FlickrShop is a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop that allows you to upload images to Flickr photo sharing website directly from Adobe Photoshop. No need to save your image to a temporary file, no more switching between applications - just open your image, tweak it in Photoshop and share it with the world via Flickr!

I am not sure how long it has been out - probably a couple of months. I may be the last person on earth to have found it but I HAVE found it and it seems to work very nicely.

They have missed out on a little bit of advertising by not having it automatically insert "Uploaded by PixelNovel's FlickrShop" in the description of uploaded photos and "FlickrShop" in the Tags like Skitch does. But - that wont bother me much really! So long as it does what it says on the tin!

They have a Flickr account with only 3 photos uploaded. I have to say though that their Flickr badge looks remarkably like it has a tampon in the middle of it.

Maybe it is only me.

You can let me know about that one.

I am just happy that there is a new way to upload from Photoshop to Flickr and it is FREE! YAY!

Tags: Geek, Apple, Mac, Photoshop, Flickr, Upload, Photos

Apple have a wonderful new widget featured on their Dashboard Downloads page. It is for breast-feeding mothers to record which *side* they should use next.

This has tickled me greatly. How enterprising of the author to have thought this widget up. All that was ever available to me, when I was breast-feeding 7 years ago, was to leave the zip of the nursing bra a little down on the side I had just *used* . . . or was it the side that was *next-to-be-used*?

Is it any wonder Jessica gave up on breast-milk at 6 months - she probably was fed-up sucking on air!

The only problem is - my bra theory worked better because it went everywhere with me - it is a little harder to take your Mac with you to the In-Laws and you don't have to power up a bra zip for the 4am feed. .. . . hmmmm.

If you use this widget: a. Congratulations and b. Let me know how you get with it!

Tags: Apple, Fun, Quirky, Bra, Breastfeeding