Mac Friendly Genealogy Magazine: Your Family Tree

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I came across an imported genealogy magazine (from the UK) that caught my eye (and my wallet). Depending on location, it is either called “Your Family History” or “Your Family Tree” – in the US it’s available through Amazon.com (link to Your Family Tree) however it’s a bit pricey – $93 for 13 issues (keep in mind it is an imported magazine with genealogy software and records), but in some of the chain book stores in the US it runs for $15 an issue, so $93 is not necessarily a high price (and like I said, it comes with software).
Your Family Tree Magazine

The thing that caught my eye (besides it being large with a bold cover) was that they made a very good attempt at being Mac-friendly, something that most genealogy magazines don’t try to do, at least those that come with genealogy software CDs/DVDs. This issue included Mac genealogy software and utilities, as well as records that could be searched on a Mac (of course the software and records vary from issue to issue – not every issue will have software or records you can use, and it benefits Windows genealogists more than Mac genealogists just because the majority of included software is Windows-based).

In the December issue, the Mac-compatible software/shareware (not all is free) and information included:
* Readiris Pro for Mac, a nice Optical Character Recognition (OCR) application
* Oxfordshire Parish Magazines and Trade Directory Sample Data
* Date Calculator
* Gene 4.3.4
* Heredis X
* MacFamilyTree 4.1.3
* SeeGEDCOMX
* Tree Tracker

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MacFamilyTree 4.2.6

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MacFamilyTree 4.2.6 is now available for download. This update to the Mac OS X genealogy application adds minor fixes and improvements. It is also a full Universal Binary – it will run on both Intel and PowerPC computers running Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher (Mac OS X 10.4.4 for Intel-based computers).

It can be downloaded from here.

Google Earth for Mac

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FINALLY! 😀

Google Earth for Mac OS X

Google Earth: Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in — Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips. Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in. Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions. Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings. Save and share your searches and favorites. Even add your own annotations.

It is free for personal use. Of great use to genealogists, either just researching where their ancestors lived, or mapping our directions to a cemetery. Not all parts of the earth are shown in high resolution, but enough are that it can be a neat tool to use. There are online websites with mapping (including Google Maps and Yahoo Maps), but Google Earth is different – I can’t really explain it – you’ll just have to try it out if you get the chance.

Requires:

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iLife ’06, .Mac Updates

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Last, but not least, iLife ’06 has been released – with some updates that maybe of interests to some Mac genealogists. Along with it, an update to .Mac to allow for improved integration between the two. Among the highlights – in addition to creating nice photo books through iPhoto, you can now create calendars and greeting cards, and order them online, as well as enhanced performance for iPhoto (which can now handle 250,000 photos).

iWork ’06

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iWork ’06 was released with some major enhancements to Pages and Keynote. Although a spreadsheet application was not added, spreadsheet functionality was increased. Among the changes:
* Ability to create more sophisticated/compex documents and presentations, including spreadsheet-like tables
* 3D Charts
* Image editing (similar to iPhoto)
* Masking tools added
* New ways to view the documents as you create them, as well as the ability to control the viewing angle for presentations
* Improved Mac OS X Address Book compatability
* Dozens of new themes

iWork ’06 is available now for $79 through the Apple Store.

Universal Binaries, Rosetta, Intel CPUs

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Apple has updated their pages concerning Universal Binaries, Rosetta, and Intel CPUs:

Apple’s Rosetta page
Apple’s Intel CPU page
Apple’s Universal Binary page

We also have a small page concerning Universal Binaries here. As of yet, few Mac genealogy applications are compiled as Universal Binaries (MacFamilyTree being one), as far as I know, most Mac genealogy developers are going to work on Intel-compatible/Universal Binary versions of their software, although with Rosetta, they have plenty of time. After all, even if a PowerPC-based application under OS X on Intel runs 25% slower than on a PowerPC-based Mac, considering the new iMac is twice as fast as the old, and the MacBook Pro is upto 4 times as fast…well I don’t think we need to worry about performance problems 🙂