Tag: iLife

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Average Joe's Tips

How To: Use GarageBand’s “Learn to Play”

Apple has made it easier then ever to learn how to play an instrument at home. Through GarageBand you are able to learn the fundamentals of how to play a basic, rock or even a blues guitar. Did I mention that those lessons are free. You can even learn along side one of your favorite artists, but this one will end up costing you about $5 for every lesson (lessons go from Beginner to Advanced). All of this should be located in GarageBand’s Lesson Store.

“Intro to Guitar” should already be pre-installed into GarageBand. To start the video just click on it and a full screen demo should appear. On the timeline (located under the video) you are able to control which sections you would like to go over. On the top right of the full screen demo are a Glossary (for music terms), a Tuner (if you have your guitar plugged into your computer), a Mixer (for volumes of teacher’s voice, guitar, ect…), and Setup (for music notations or how you would like to view your music notes while in Play mode). When you feel ready to take a take on the song that you have been practicing in the video, hover over the video screen and click Play. In Play mode you are also able to pause, repeat, and slow down parts of the song to make it easier to learn. After a little practice you can record yourself and listen to what you sound like by hitting the circular Record button on the bottom middle. In no time you will be a rock legend!

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News

Lion details of enterprise and educational distribution

Apple has finally given a detailed lion upgrade process for business and education. Apple has handled the question of how the MAC OS X Lion’s download-only version would translate into large scale licenses for business and education. On Friday, Apple discussed the strategy. Apple will give business users bulk licenses the same $30 price with at least 20 users. Schools on the other hand will have to pay for a $39 Apple Software Collection bundle in batches of 25, but they will get both iLife and iWork in the package. These licenses will really come in handy for universities and degrees offering business administration degree programs. There was a suspicion that Lion Server is an upgrade option and Apple has confirmed this. Corporate buyers will have an optional $50 per person maintenance contract to get extra support. All of this can be bought through the Mac App Store.

Apple has come to help certain industries in the search for a better way to get the Mac OS X Lion. Apple has given these industries different ways to help them in their search for bundled packages. Schools and businesses don’t mind paying a little extra as long as they know their getting more. The volume licensing will work he same as it did with the disc-based versions, just with a download-only file, Apple said. Only one redemption code will be handed out to business and educational customers. On the other hand, they will get a Lion installer file they can then copy to other systems. Anyone who bought a Mac on or after June 6 WWDC keynote, including individuals, qualifies for a Lion Up-to-Date program. The buyer has to claim the upgrade within 30 days of buying their Mac.

 

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News

What can you make with your photos?

What is iPhoto? iPhoto is part of Apple’s  iLife ’11. iLife ’11 is a program for Mac that consists of iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand, but I am going to focus on iPhoto. With the new iPhoto ’11, you can do more with your pictures. iPhoto can be very convenient for organizing and managing your photos. iPhoto has three great features called the Faces, Places, and Events feature. The Faces feature sorts your library of pictures by detecting identical faces and sorts them by matching the pictures with the same person. The Places feature takes advantage of photos that are taken by a GPS-enabled camera and helps you figure out the location of the picture by using reverse geocoding to convert the location data. The Events feature also organizes your photos by the date they were taken, so you can easily distinguish between a photo taken from a year ago to a photo that was taken recently. iPhoto also gives you the opportunity to add special effects to the photos, such as making the photo black and white, antique looking, or make the photo brighter. iPhoto also helps you email your photos to your family and friends by automatically making it a special template design and you don’t even need to open Mail. You can also post photos directly to your Facebook Wall or photo album. If there are names on the photo from iPhoto, they will be converted to Facebook name tags automatically. Comments left on those photos will also show up on iPhoto. You can also share those photos on Flickr by clicking the Flickr button. If you have a MobileMe subscription, you can make an online gallery for your photos. The photos you have on iPhoto can also be synced onto your iPod, iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV to view them. You can also make amazing slide shows with iPhoto to entertain and dazzle friends and family with.

iPhoto comes with many different features, but what is really cool is that you can make print products through iPhoto. Have you ever wanted to make something really cool with your photos? Well now you can by using iPhoto! You can make beautiful books for everyone to look through. iPhoto books are very unique. When making an iPhoto book, a dynamic Theme browser helps you create the book. You select images and the Theme browser automatically organizes your photos into a book and the key photo becomes the cover. iPhoto books come in a variety of sizes. You can choose softcover, wire-bound, or hardcover.

With iPhoto you can also make pretty letterpress cards. There are many different occasions where you can give a letterpress card. You can make a letterpress cards customized by your photos and text. iPhoto letterpress cards are made from premium paper, come with matching envelopes, and have a special, unique look. You can also create 12 to 24 month calendars that are custom made to have photos and captions for certain days and you can even import your iCal events into your calendar. How awesome is that?

Last but not least, you can also print your photos. Those photos can be put in frames, put in photo albums, given to friends, and much more. The best part about iPhoto is that it gives you many different ways to view your photos and store your memories. iPhoto conveniently helps you make many different print products so you can look at your photos all the time and so can your friends and family. Do you like iPhoto? Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

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