Chad

Original Apple Macintosh launched on this day in 1984

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Today, January 24, 2011 marks a birthday of sorts, and we genealogists are fond of birthdays. It’s the birthday of the original Apple Macintosh, the Mactinosh 128K. It launched on January 24, 1984. As Wikipedia points out, this marked the first successful launch of a personal computer with a graphical … Read more

Family Tree Maker 2010 for Mac Version 19.2.1.241

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Family Tree Maker 2010 for Mac has been updated to version 19.2.1.241. I was checking some stuff over tonight and on a whim checked for updates, and low and behold, there it was. I was currently running 19.2.0.202. Yes, the version numbers are interesting (long). Changes/Updates: * “This update will … Read more

MacFamilyTree 6.0.11

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The Mac OS X genealogy application, MacFamilyTree 6, has received a few minor updates, bringing it to MacFamilyTree version 6.0.11. It is recommended if you are working with MacFamilyTree.com uploads, or exporting your genealogy information to the web/HTML. Version 6.0.11 Updates * Problems uploading to MacFamilyTree.com fixed * General Web … Read more

Gramps Genealogy Software on Mac OS X

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It’s been brought to my attention that somebody has been packaging the open source/GPL Gramps genealogy software for Mac OS X, in Apple Disk Image (DMG) format, for easy installation. Gramps stands for “Genealogical Research and Analysis Management Programming System”

In the past, it was not always easy to install on Macs, as you can see from this Gramps Project blog post from 2005.

One interesting feature of Gramps is that there are quite a few third-party addons that extend the functionality of Gramps above and beyond the default install. These addons are called “Gramplets” and some of the more interesting ones include finding deep/extended relationships between people, various statistics, image manipulation, UI manipulation, the ability to have a single form to work with the census events/data for a person, and other “Gramplets” including timeline and chart sheets.

The latest, Gramp 3.2.5, was released around two months ago, with these updates:

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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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Bee Docs Close to Releasing Timeline 3D v3

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Bee Docs Timeline 3D v3 is nearing completion! Bee Docs Timeline 3D is what it sounds like – timeline software for Mac OS X that allows you to create charts. These can be interactive as well as 3D. Full motion 3D versions of these timelines can be downloaded to your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or AppleTV, as well as imported into Apple’s Keynote or exported into HD video. It’s useful for genealogists – it goes above and beyond the timelines that can create with genealogy software.

In the meantime, Easy Timeline is available in the Mac Apps Store (Update – Timeline 3D – BEEDOCS).

Timeline 3D v3 is a major upgrade over previous version, and it will be a paid upgrade for owners of previous version. There is a new blog post up on Blog.BeeDocs.com detailing some of the changes to 3D presentations:

Our interactive 3D presentation feature was designed for storytelling to a live audience. Most timeline charts designed for web sites, touch screens, or printing are not simple enough to see across a classroom or a courtroom. Giving a three dimensional perspective to your timeline is the best way to show both the context and detail of your events during a presentation.

With that in mind, we’ve made some improvements to the 3D presentation interface that will make it an even better tool for storytelling with a live audience.

Among the presentation changes:

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