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Mac OS X Supplemental

Mac OS X Supplemental Applications – Useful Applications that aren’t necessarily Genealogy Related.

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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Apple Announces Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

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Apple has announced Mac OS X 10.8, aka Mac OS X Mountain Lion today, or rather the developer preview of Mac OS X Mountain Lion, which is the ninth major release of Mac OS X (don’t forget Mac OS X 10.0! – I know we try to forget Mac OS X 10.0, but that was a long time ago). It brings in several features from its mobile iOS platform, including Messages (covered here), Notes, Reminders, Game Center, Notification Center, Share Sheets, Twitter integration and AirPlay mirroring. Mountain Lion also introduces Gatekeeper, which controls/helps secure your Mac. Gatekeeper provides “complete control over what apps are installed on your Mac“.

It’s being built with a focus on making iCloud integration easy to use and easy for developers to integrate with Mac OS X applications, allowing for easy access to your data between applications, as well as an online backup.

There is a lot going on with Mountain Lion, and I’ll be talking more about it as I take a look at the developer preview.

For now, I’m interested to see how well the iCloud integration is, and whether Mac genealogy software developers are able to better use it to provide an easy way to sync and share genealogy information between Mac OS X genealogy applications and genealogy apps on iOS devices. Apple is already doing things that benefits genealogists – easy backups with Time Capsule and iCloud, and pushing the idea of making your data available anywhere, without a lot of effort on your part. A lot of us have probably experienced the issue of losing data due to a computer crash in the past or just not being able to have easy access to our data/information away from our “main” computer or Mac.

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Metes and Bounds 3.8.0

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Metes and Bounds 3.8.0 has been released by Sandy Knoll Software. It’s a fairly significant release – several new additions to the software. Metes and Bounds is a cross-platform application (Mac, Windows, Linux) that allows you to take raw data and turn it into deed plot maps. It can calculate … 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

Skype 5 Beta for OS X

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Skype, which is a cross-platform instant messaging (IM) and Voice-Over-IP (VOIP) application has released beta 5.0 of the Mac OS X client.

Your eyes are not deceiving you. While the previous versions of Skype for Mac were 2.8 and below, the new 5.0 number reflects a couple of major updates and is now at the same version number as the Windows client.

The first major update is that Skype for Mac now supports group video calling, a feature that is present in Apple’s iChat client, but has’t been available to Mac Skype users. In order to use this feature, everybody on the video chat needs to be using version 5.0 or newer. I’m not sure about this feature when using an iPhone.

There is another major update, but it’s overshadowed (in my opinion) by the group video calling. The user interfaace has been overhauled and is now a single, unified window. You’ll no longer have your chats, video calls, etc., in different windows. I’ve got mixed feelings about this, but there is a “call control bar” that can sit on top of other windows you have open. With the unified interface though, it makes for a larger overall window. I understand the reasoning behind it though, and I’m going to use it – I’ve been really looking forward to the group video calls. A lot of us use Skype to keep in touch with family and friends.

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iPhoto 11 Update with Calendars

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Apple has released iPhoto 9.1, which is actually iPhoto 11 9.1. iPhoto 8.0 is the version number of iPhoto ’09, so iPhoto 9.1 is iPhoto ’11 . Anyways, it’s an update for Apple’s iLife ’11 that resolves a few issues, and adds some additional letterpress holiday greeting card themes. The … Read more