Apple news blog

Noise Industries and development partner Idustrial Revolution announces the release of an explosive new visual effects plug-in for After Effects and Final Cut. New Particle Metrix plug-in delivers outstanding image processing technology for producing high-quality, organic and supernatural particles. With Particle Metrix, visual effects artists can add or turn their objects, including text or video, into a particle effect.

Knightlite has just released our award-winning Essentials of Fire Fighting Study Helper Version 5.0 for Apple Macintosh computers. This study software is designed to help Fire Fighter I and II candidates successfully complete their written certification exams. With over 13 years experience in helping firefighters attain their certifications and promotions Knightlite is the best choice for anyone with aspirations of becoming a firefighter.

Knightlite has just released our award-winning Essentials of Fire Fighting Study Helper Version 5.0 for Apple Macintosh computers. This study software is designed to help Fire Fighter I and II candidates successfully complete their written certification exams. With over 13 years experience in helping firefighters attain their certifications and promotions Knightlite is the best choice for anyone with aspirations of becoming a firefighter.

A number of iPhone 3G S customers in the U.S. are reporting problems activating their new purchases for use. According to a message displayed during the activation process, it may take up to 48 hours for activations to go through.

Du…

Boris FX has announced that the Boris Continuum Chroma Key Unit now includes a Chroma Key Studio filter for real-time previews and rendering in Apple Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Final Cut Express. Chroma Key Studio builds on the strength of Boris Continuum Complete’s keying and compositing tools with features such as a best-of-breed chroma key process, spill suppression, matte choker, and a light wrap compositing step.

Despite the seemingly shorter lines for the iPhone 3G S, the early sales number estimates indicate that the iPhone 3G S launch numbers could even exceed those of the iPhone 3G launch. Apple managed to sell 1 million of the iPhone 3Gs during its laun…

Photo by Buckit
The iPhone 3G S went on sale this morning 7 a.m. local time in the United States. First impressions by MacRumors forum members are being recorded in this thread. Highlights include

- “…really does see…

This is slightly hard to describe, but I just randomly stumbled across a nifty little hack, for lack of a better word, involving the viewing of YouTube videos. Of course, YouTube natively supports full-screen viewing of videos, but I personally do not like this as I am completely immersed in the video and can no longer see the other activities on my screen (such as new mail, etc).

So I stumbled across this tweak that allows you to watch a YouTube video maximized in its browser window. Check out the pic in my blog post if my description doesn’t make sense.

To do this, paste this code into your browser:

http://www.youtube.com/v/xxxxxxxxxxx&hl=en&fs=1&

Now go back to the desired YouTube video in its normal view, and copy the last 11 alphanumeric string in the URL box on the right side, or in the actual URL you see in the address bar of…

I just upgraded my 3G iPhone to 3.0 yesterday, turned on Notes syncing in iTunes, restarted Mail.app and presto, my Notes are now in Mail.app. Great, but they’re displayed in Marker Felt.

I went to one of my notes in Mail.app, selected all the text, brought up the font panel (Command-T) and chose Arial. It gets displayed in Mail.app in Arial, and guess what? When sync’d back to the iPhone, that note is no longer in Marker Felt — hurray!

[robg adds: You can even edit the note on the iPhone in the newly-chosen font. For those interested, this hint still works in iPhone OS 3.0 to switch the font of a note while still on the iPhone.]

I use Skype on my MacBook all day for work, and have always wanted to use a Bluetooth headset with it, but always ran into bad quality. I finally found a headset that worked well, the Plantronics Voyager Pro. However, there was still an issue in that it wouldn’t disconnect after hanging up the call, causing the battery on both the MacBook and the earpiece to drain way too quickly.

To remedy this, I wrote this AppleScript, which I run with a keystroke (via FastScripts) to hang up a Skype call and disconnect the bluetooth headset. Here’s the script:

tell application "Skype" to activate

menu_click({"Skype", "Call", "Hang Up"})

tell application "System Events...