Category: Blog Posts

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Shai Yamannee on Apple Photos Alternatives

Hi Allison, Steve, and the Nosillacastaways. Shai here, on the road with the Farewell Tour of the Broadway production of Mamma Mia!

Recently a request for alternatives to Apple Photos was made on the Nosillacastaway Facebook page, and I have a few that I wanted to let you know about. I know many of you cried out in anguish when Apple decided to put Aperture out to pasture.

It seemed that the only alternative was Lightroom, and I know that many didn’t want to jump into the Adobe ecosystem.
Before we start though, I have to say that I am a Lightroom user. It works well for my professional workflow, but I am constantly on the lookout for alternatives. If it wasn’t for the fact that I know Lightroom so well, I might have been tempted to move to these other apps myself.

So the alternatives I am familiar with are:

  • Exposure X2 – by Alienskin
  • On1 Photo RAW – by OnOne Software
  • Capture One Pro – Phase One

These apps range from easy to use to pro level. So, let me give you a very brief overview of each.

Continue reading “Shai Yamannee on Apple Photos Alternatives”

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Thoughts on Macstock 2017

It killed me to not talk about Macstock right after I got back, because it was so much fun. I can’t talk about Macstock without talking about the people first. The vibe at Macstock is that everyone is there to learn and to meet people. Instant friendships are struck at break time, at lunch, at the deep dive sessions and at the parties at night.

The People

In fact, one of our new friendships started even before we arrived. I got an email from Corky Heath, who has been been corresponding with me about the podcast for about 8 years. In a weak moment, he thought he’d enjoy picking Steve and me up from the airport and driving us the hour from Chicago to our hotel in Crystal Lake. I say a weak moment, because he essentially became our chauffeur for the entire trip! One time we took the shuttle from the hotel to the conference, and I think we made him sad, so we didn’t do that again! Continue reading “Thoughts on Macstock 2017”

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Using Collaboration in iWork to Help Mom Track Medication by Terry Austin

Hi there, this is Terry Austin – long time Castaway, occasional contributor and random chit-chat visitor.

Allison put out the plea over in the Facebook group for some audio spots during a busy time as she and Steve are off enjoying themselves a MacStock. By the way hope Jeff Gamet managed to deliver that hug from me!

Let’s start with one of the world’s most serious problems to be solved…. Keeping Mom alive, healthy and happy.

Continue reading “Using Collaboration in iWork to Help Mom Track Medication by Terry Austin”

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Apple IIe Disk Transfer to MacBook Pro by Trevor Drover

Hello Allison and NosillaCastaways, Trevor from Canberra with something a little different. Usually listener contributions are about the latest software or hardware, however my experience is in part a journey back in time and addresses an archivists’ ongoing dilemma.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s Apple II computers were in widespread use in schools, homes and by professionals around Australia. The data saved to those big, old 5.25” floppy disks now languish in desk draws or storage boxes along with research papers and manuscripts.

The problem to be solved is how to transfer that historical data from those disks so that it can to be accessed now and in the future. Collections of papers and disks are sometimes donated to the National Library of Australia (NLA) and it is the responsibility of the NLA Digital Preservation Unit to try to make the data on the disks accessible to others.

Continue reading “Apple IIe Disk Transfer to MacBook Pro by Trevor Drover”

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Stump Stand for iPad and iPhone by Sandy Foster

Stump stand with ipadHi, this is Sandy with my first-ever review for the NosillaCast. Today I’m going to give a brief overview of a very versatile stand for iPhone and iPad. What’s new about a stand, you ask? Nothing, of course! But this one has many possibilities in a very simple, yet effective form.

It’s called “stump” for a reason, as it looks rather like the tilted stump of a tree. It’s made of some sort of rubberized material and is hefty enough to reassure the user that an iPhone or iPad is not going to fall over. There’s a slot in the tilted top, and that slot is wide enough for either device (iPhone/iPad) and deep enough to hold them steady — even my 9.7” iPad Pro. I don’t have the larger size iPad Pro, so I couldn’t really give a recommendation either way on that one.

Stump stand without deviceHowever, because of the slot and the tilt of the top of the Stump, there are options for using this stand. I most commonly use it with my device in portrait mode, which works fine, even with the “smart” cover on my iPad folded to the back.

Alternatively, if I want to charge the device at the same time as I’m looking at something on it, I can put it into landscape mode in the slot. Finally, because of the rubberized surface, I can even use the Stump as a sort of brace for angled viewing.

I’ve had my Stump for several years now, and it shows no signs of wear, despite daily use. It comes in a variety of colors for around $25 each, or — on the stumpstore.com web site — you can buy three for the price of two.

Allison’s Amazon Affiliate Link to the Stump Stand: amzn.to/…

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4 Tiny Tips – Affinity Photo for iPad

Affinity Photo for iPad is a glorious app. I’ve done my two part series on it, I’ve created a 45 minute screencast for ScreenCasts Online (not out yet) and I’ve started doing the user group circuit to demonstrate its awesomeness. Last weekend I presented at SMOG (Southern California Macintosh Owners | Users Group). While I was teaching it, I realized I’d figured out a few tricks to how to effectively use the tool. Continue reading “4 Tiny Tips – Affinity Photo for iPad”

Conversation of Things Podcast – Episode 1 with Allison Sheridan

This week I had the great honor of being on the very first episode of a new podcast called the Conversations of Things. Joe Dugandzic of Smarter Home Life is the host, and it’s going to be an interview show with tech people about the Internet of Things and Home Automation. Joe is such a cool guy – I feel like I’ve known him for years but we only met six months ago. We had a great time chatting. You can listen to the audio at smarterhomelife.com/…, but he also let me embed the video into podfeet.com. He hasn’t submitted the podcast to iTunes yet but he’ll get on that shortly.

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Subscription Models for Software – More Profit and Better Software?

Software rent vs buyOne of my favorite podcasts is Bart Busschots’s Let’s Talk Photography show. He often has a panel of guests on to talk about photography techniques, but he also has shows that are just Bart teaching on a subject or simply musing. I like the panel episodes and I love the Bart-only shows.

In Episode 45 entitled “Thoughts on Software” he walks through some thoughts on choosing photo image editing software. He doesn’t compare features so his advice could really apply to any software you use, not just photography software. I want you to go listen to his show (at lets-talk.ie/…) but I also want to talk about what he said and perhaps provide another viewpoint. Ideally you’ll stop listening/reading me now and go listen to Bart and come back. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

====== Sings Jeopardy theme song ======= Continue reading “Subscription Models for Software – More Profit and Better Software?”

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So Many Great Tools in Parallels Toolbox

Parallels toolbox all optionsListener Kenneth Taylor wrote in asking if I had found a replacement for a little menu bar app I’d recommended called Mountain. Mountain is a perfect example of Tim Verpoorten’s “does one thing and does it well” menubar app. It sits in your menu bar and gives you instant access to mount or unmount physical and network volumes. Kenneth was asking about replacing it because the app hasn’t been updated since 2012 and had gotten a little bit glitchy for him.

That said, Mountain still works, and it’s in the Mac App Store for $5.99. It’s a 64-bit app, so it’s potentially good through High Sierra and the OS beyond that. Not saying it’s guaranteed but at least that won’t be a limiter.

But I get Kenneth’s concern. The good news is that Dave Hamilton mentioned in the Mac Geek Gab Cool Stuff Found segment a tool that might be able to replace Mountain and do a whole lot more. It’s called Parallels Toolbox and it’s made by the fine folks who make the Parallels virtual machine software. You can find Parallels Toolbox at parallels.com/… Continue reading “So Many Great Tools in Parallels Toolbox”

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Make Apple Photo Albums People Actually Want to See

Apple Photos is a lot more capable than many people realize. I’m sure I still don’t use a great deal of the functionality myself, because I keep discovering new things it can do and new ways to use the capabilities that I already knew about. I just discovered a couple of cool uses of keywords in Apple Photos that I’d like to tell you about.

Before I dig into this, it is important to realize that Apple Photos does not by any stretch of the imagination, have the kind of keywording depth that you’ll find in something like Adobe Lightroom or the old Aperture program from Apple. The Allister Jenks type of people, who love to have embedded folders of keywords to a level that might require a clinical diagnosis, will not be even vaguely interested in what I’m going to teach you. For the rest of you, I think I’ve got some tips that might come in handy.

Continue reading “Make Apple Photo Albums People Actually Want to See”

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