“Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer …”
Or so claims the classic animation A Charlie Brown Christmas. This season High-Tech Office recommends gifts guaranteed to bring happiness and cheer to the photographers, movie-makers and musicians on your list.
Apple’s new version of its iLife software (iLife ’11: $49) collection updates the Mac’s iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand software. Among the most fun new features – the new iMovie version lets you easily make theatre-style movie trailers out of your video clips while adding much improved audio editing. iPhoto simplifies book, calendar and card creation from photo collections. GarageBand adds guitar amp simulators along with more lessons for aspiring guitar and piano players. Pre-installed on new Macs, but at $49 iLife ’11 will be welcome by any Mac owners on your list.
Most Mac and Windows users have lots of digital photos and many of us are also adding video collections to the mix. Adobe’s Elements series makes expertise from the company’s high-end (and high-priced) professional product line simple and affordable for home users who have outgrown the software built into their Windows or Mac systems.
Photoshop Elements 9 includes an almost magical content-aware spot-healing brush – use it to delete a tree, for instance, and it fills in surprisingly realistic grass and sky. Premiere Elements 9 provides a set of high-end video editing features for the non-professional. A Mac version is available for the first time. Mac and Windows versions are included on the same disc along with a licence that lets you use a single copy on both a desktop and a laptop. Each Elements program is $99; both bundled together cost $149.
I’ve written about Cisco’s Flip pocket video cameras before; built-in FlipShare software makes them easy to use and makes it easy to share your video clips. Among new models released in time for the holidays: the Flip Ultra HD 2 Hour ($199) with a rechargeable battery and a new FlipPort connector to connect to accessories from Cisco and third parties. Available accessories include a wide-angle lens, several microphones and even a pocket projector. The various Flip camcorder models are available at many retailers, but at www.theflip.com you can order one with a colourful customized design.
Know a wannabe rocker with an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch? Griffin Technology’s $30 GuitarConnect resembles a standard guitar cable, and one end does plug into a guitar. Another end plugs into the headphone jack on your iDevice, while there’s also a connector for earbuds or headphone. Add an app like the free iShred Live and your iPhone (etc.) doubles as a guitar amp complete with a set of effects pedals. Over-driven distorted sounds work especially well, though cleaner sounds are less effective. A nice way to crank up the guitar without driving neighbours or housemates crazy.
There seems to be a digital camera model for every picture-taker, from simple pocket-sized models to large, complex digital SLRs. Nikon’s Coolpix P7000 ($500) aims for somewhere in-between. It’s smaller than a digital SLR but offers similar manual controls allowing you to get creative with your shooting. Unlike a digital SLR, you won’t get interchangeable lenses, but a 7x wide angle zoom (28-200mm equivalent) is built-in and can be used to shoot 720p HD video as well. Noise reduction and image stabilization features let you capture sharp images, while the macro capabilities can be used as close as 2 cm. (Like most cameras, there’s an automatic mode when you can’t be bothered with being creative.)
The road warrior on your gift list probably hasn’t been packing a scanner. Canon would like to change that. Its P-150 and P-150m (for Macintosh) Scan-tini models ($300) are briefcase-able and surprisingly capable. They can scan up to 15 pages a minute and even scan both sides of a document at the same time. The Scan-tini models draw all the power they need over a USB cable, so there’s no added power brick to weigh down your travel bag. Embedded software for Windows users means no driver download is needed.
Alan Zisman is a Vancouver educator and computer specialist. He can be reached at www.zisman.ca. His column appears weekly.
