Multimedia

Multimedia Software

Non-Genealogy Software Updates – Feb 23, 2012 Edition

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Following in the footsteps of last week non-genealogy software updates (Feb 16, 2012 Edition), the following is a list of recent software updates that may be of interest to Mac-using genealogists.

VueScan Version 9.0.81 has been released.
VueScan is scanning software that supports a large number of scanners (and it’s what I use). Version 9.0.81 has fixes for Plustek, PIE, and Reflecta scanners, and addresses an issue with option changes and the scroll wheel.
More information: Hamrick.com (VueScan website).

ExactScan version 2.19.3
ExactScan is also scanning software, however it is focused on document scanning, including as an example, support for document scanners that handle 60 and 120 pages per minute. It supports over 200 document scanners (Avision, Kodak, Oki, Visioneer, Xerox, Canon, Fujitsu, and others, including many that do not have support for Mac OS X from the manufacturer.

There are two versions, both available through the App Store
– ExactScan – ExactCODE
– ExactScan Pro – ExactCODE

ExactScan Pro offers the ability to do Optical Character Recognition (OCR) directly to PDF (in a searchable format), “Imprinter” to print text into the scanned image, barcode recognition to file stacks by barcodes, and batch processing of existing image files.

WordPerfect Spotlight and Quick Look Plug-ins Version 3.6 (February 18, 2012)
This is a set of two plugins that do what they describe – they enabled Spotlight search and Quick Look thumbnails/previews for documents and graphics files created by any version of WordPerfect running on any operating system from WordPerfect 1.0 up through WordPerfect 11. They will even pass information such as the document format/WordPerfect version and whether a file is encrypted (password protected).

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Related Software Updates – Feb 16, 2012 Edition

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This marks the start of a weekly series, not always on the same day, where I’m going to cover software updates that maybe of interest to Mac-using genealogists.

VueScan 9.0.80 was released today. It’s scanning software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux, and has been my preferred scanning software for several years. It handles a large amount of scanners and provides more features than most factory-default software that comes with your scanner. There is also an iOS version of VueScan (VueScan Mobile – Hamrick Software) that takes advantage of WiFi-enabled scanners to scan straight to your iOS device.
More information: Hamrick.com (VueScan website).

iPhoto Library Manager 3.7.3 was released yesterday, mainly covering bug fixes. iPhoto Library Manager is aptly named – it allows you to have multiple iPhoto libraries, rather than having everything contained within one iPhoto library. It also supports copying photos from one iPhoto library to another. I use it to keep track of photos from different branches of my family (and my wife’s family) as well as separate personal/family photos (vacation, holiday, etc.) from older genealogy-related photos. It supports Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher, and iPhoto 4.0.3 or higher. Handy for those using older Macs and older versions of iPhoto.
More information: Fat Cat Software

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Video – Content Aware features of Photoshop CS6

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Photoshop has been releasing videos on YouTube of “sneak peeks” concerning Adobe PhotoShop CS6, Adobe’s upcoming Photoshop release. While it’s interesting that they all seem to be using Photoshop CS6 running on Mac OS X, this video in particular is of interesting to me and other genealogists who use software … Read more

iPhoto 9.2 Released

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Just received this notification through Software Update – iPhoto 9.2 (626) has been released. There are several issues addressed and features updated for iPhoto ’11, but for those using iCloud and iOS 5 it is highly recommended. iPhoto 9.2 supports iCloud and iOS 5. Updates/Changes in iPhoto 9.2 (626) * … Read more

Reunite 3.0 Reunion Software Released

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Reunite 3.0 has been released, and with it comes improvements to take advantage of Mac OS X Lion 10.7. Reunite is software for planning reunions – family, school, etc. Updates in 3.0 * Support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion * Excel Open Office (.xlsx) Import/Export * New parchment background … Read more

HoudahGeo 2.8

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HoudahGeo has been updated to version 2.8.

With this release, Houdah Software is dropping support for Mac OS X 10.4. Houdah Software has also improved and enhanced the error handling for errors occurring during exporting or uploading of photos.

HoudahGeo is a geocoding application that works with your photos and GPS information to help you manage location information for all of your photos. HoudahGeo can actually write latitude, longitude, and altitude information to your image file, with no alteration of the image or its quality – it uses EXIF, XMP, and IPTC tags to store this information.

If you want to do more than add the geocoding information, you can take those photos that have been geotagged by HoudahGeo and work with them within Google Earth, as well as export to Flickr, Locr, or EveryTrail.com. There is also a built-in map that can be used to display the photo locations.

If your photos were taking with an iPhone or other device that has integrated GPS hardware, it can use that information. It can also work with dedicated GPS devices, and can read GPX/NMEA files.

It does integrate/interface nicely within Apple’s iPhoto and Aperture as well as Adobe’s Lightroom, and you can browse and work with those images from within HoudahGeo. It can also update the Places database in iPhoto ’09/’11 (as of HoudahGeo 2.7.1) and Aperture 3.

Many of us work with a lot of photos and a lot of location information and this might be useful to try out.

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