Books : Computers & Internet : Digital Music

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Books : Computers & Internet : Digital Music

• iPhone: The Missing Manual: Covers the iPhone 3G (Missing Manual)

  David Pogue

  
  
   

• Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 2 (Apple Pro Training)

  Ben Long, Richard Harrington, Orlando Luna

  
  Fully updated for Aperture 2, this comprehensive book-DVD training combo starts with the basics of image management and takes you step by step all the way through Aperture's powerful photo-editing, image-retouching, proofing, publishing, and archiving features. Aperture 2's new features are completely covered, including a new RAW-image processing engine, a streamlined interface, powerful new adjustment tools, and added integration with Mac OS X and other Apple products for instant web publishing and one-click portfolio syncing. Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture 2 delivers comprehensive training - the equivalent of a two-day course - in one project-based book. You'll learn time-saving techniques for sorting, ranking, and organizing images, effective methods for correcting and enhancing images, plus efficient ways to display images for client review, apply metadata, update your online portfolio automatically, and much more. Real-world exercises feature professional photography from a variety of genres, including photo-journalism, sports, wedding, commercial, and portraiture. All the files you need to complete the exercises are included on the DVD.
  
   

• Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac: The Missing Manual

  Barbara Brundage

  
  
   

• Apple Pro Training Series: Logic Pro 8 and Logic Express 8 (Apple Pro Training)

  David Nahmani

  
  This brand-new Apple-certified guide, reconceived for Logic's new interface, uses all-new projects and media files to show you how to record, produce, and polish your musical creations with Apple's professional audio software. Veteran audio producer David Nahmani uses step-by-step, project-based instruction and straightforward explanations to teach everything from basic music creation to advanced production techniques.Using the book's DVD files and either Logic Pro 8 or Logic Express 8, you'll begin making music in the first lesson. From there, you'll learn to record audio and MIDI, edit sequences, master mixing techniques, and use Logic's software synthesizers, sampler, and digital signal processors to put the perfect aural polish on your audio creations. A special troubleshooting section helps you set up and optimize your studio and Logic system effectively. Whether you're looking to use your computer as a digital recording studio, create musical compositions and cutting-edge surround-sound mixes, or transfer that song in your head into living music, this comprehensive book/DVD combo will show you how.
  
   

• iMovie '08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

  David Pogue

  
  Whether you consider yourself a pro or a hobbyist, you have to admit that Apple's iMovie 08 and iDVD 08 are amazing right out of the box. Unfortunately, the box doesn't include much of a user's guide, so learning about these applications is another matter. iMovie 08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual gets you up to speed on all of the themes, motion graphics, titles, effects -- everything that lets you turn raw digital footage into highly creative video projects. You get crystal-clear and jargon-free explanations of all the iMovie 08 and iDVD 08 features, including the new video library, how to view transitions, titles, and sound in real time as you add them, and ways to publish your creations directly to YouTube. Renowned author David Pogue -- tech columnist for the New York Times -- uses an objective lens to scrutinize every step of process, including how to: Work on multiple iMovie projects at once and drag & drop clips among them Output your creation to a blog, its own web page, or as a video podcast with iWeb Use "Magic iMovie" to import your video and make a movie for you Integrate with other iLife programs to use songs, photos, and an original sound track And a whole lot more From choosing and using a digital camcorder to burning the finished work onto DVDs, posting it online, or creating versions for iPod and iPhone, iMovie 08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual zooms right in on the details in a concise and understandable manner. The book also provides a firm grounding in basic film technique so that the quality of your video won't rely entirely on magic.
  
   

• Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 6 (Apple Pro Training)

  Diana Weynand

  
  Cut a scene from the USA Network television series Monk, create a promo for Seaworld’s Belief documentary,  and master filters and effects as you edit a segment of  BBC Motion Gallery's Living Colour documentary. Completely revised for Final Cut Pro 6 and featuring all-new footage, this best-selling, Apple-certified guide provides a strong foundation in all aspects of video editing. Renowned author Diana Weynand starts with basic video editing techniques and takes you all the way through Final Cut Pro’s powerful advanced features. Each chapter presents a complete lesson in an aspect of video editing and finishing, using actual broadcast footage. After marking and editing clips to create a rough cut, you’ll learn how to trim and refine the cut before moving on to complex tasks such as mixing sound, adding titles, creating transitions and motion effects, applying filters, real-time color correcting, and working with multi-format and multi-camera footage.
  
   

• iPhone: The Missing Manual

  David Pogue

  

  iPhone: The Missing Manual Sneak Preview: David Pogue's Favorite iPhone Tricks

  The iPhone's finger-driven interface seems natural and obvious. But when you really think about it, making it seem that way was no easy task. There are no menus in the iPhone software, for example, and no checkboxes or radio buttons. Everything on the screen has to be big enough for a fleshy fingertip.

  On the other hand, the finger makes an outstanding pointing device; heck, you've been pointing with it all your life. It's much faster to scroll diagonally with a fingertip, for example, than with fussy adjustments on two different scroll bars.

  Here, then, are some of the iPhone's unadvertised taps, double-taps, and other shortcuts, all culled from iPhone: The Missing Manual.

  Double-Tapping

  Double-tapping is actually pretty rare on the iPhone. It's not like the Mac or Windows, where double-clicking the mouse means "open." On the iPhone, you open something with one tap.

  A double tap, therefore, is reserved for three functions:

  • In Photos, Google Maps, and Safari (the Web browser), double-tapping zooms in on whatever you tap, magnifying it by a factor of two.
  • In the same programs, as well as Mail, double-tapping means, "restore to original size" after you've zoomed in. (Weirdly, in Google Maps, you use a different gesture to zoom out: tap once with two fingers. That gesture appears nowhere else on the iPhone.)
  • When you're watching a video, double-tapping eliminates or restores letterbox bars.

  See, the iPhone's screen is bright, vibrant, and stunningly sharp. It's not, however, the right shape for videos. Standard TV shows are squarish, not rectangular. So when you watch TV shows, you get black letterbox columns on either side of the picture.

  Movies have the opposite problem. They're too wide for the iPhone screen. So when you watch movies, you wind up with letterbox bars above and below the picture. Some people are fine with that. At least when letterbox bars are onscreen, you know you're seeing the complete composition of the scene the director intended. Other people can't stand letterbox bars. You're already watching on a pretty small screen; why sacrifice some of that precious area to black bars? That's why the iPhone gives you a choice. If you double-tap the video as it plays, you zoom in, magnifying the image so that it fills the entire screen. Part of the image is now off the screen; now you're not seeing the entire composition originally broadcast. You lose the top and bottom of TV scenes, or the left and right edges of movie scenes. If this effect winds up chopping off something important--some text on the screen, for example--restoring the original letterbox view is just another double-tap away.

  Secrets of the Sensors

  The iPhone has three cool sensors. First, it has an accelerometer that detects when you've rotated the iPhone into landscape orientation. In programs like Photos, Safari, and iPod, it triggers the screen image to rotate as well.

  Camouflaged behind the black glass where you can't see them except with a bright flashlight are two more sensors: a proximity sensor that shuts off the screen illumination and touch sensitivity when the phone is against your head (it works only in the Phone application), and an ambient-light sensor that brightens the display when you're in sunlight and dims it in darker places.

  Apple says that it experimented with having the light sensor active all the time, but it was weird to have the screen get brighter and darker all the time. So the sensor now samples the ambient light, and adjusts the brightness; it does this only once--each time you unlock the phone after waking it.

  You can use that tip to your advantage. By covering up the sensor (just above the earpiece) as you unlock the phone, you force it to a low-power, dim screen-brightness setting (because the phone believes that it's in a dark room). Or by holding it up to a light as you wake it, you get full brightness. In both cases, you've saved all the taps and navigation it would have taken you to find the manual brightness slider in Settings.

  Earbud Cord Switch

  Without close inspection, you'd have a hard time telling the iPhone's white stereo earbuds apart from a regular iPod's--but don't get them mixed up. The iPhone's earbuds have a tiny, embedded clicker/microphone partway down the right earbud cord.

  That's right, "clicker/microphone." The tiny bulge is the microphone for phone calls. But if you pinch the bulge, you'll find that it clicks.

  • Pinch once to answer an incoming phone call. Pinch for a couple seconds to dump the call to voicemail. (You can also double-tap the Sleep/Wake switch on top of the iPhone to send the call to voicemail.)
  • During music or video playback, pinch once to pause the music; pinch again to resume playback.
  • During music playback, double-pinch to skip to the next song.

  Customizing the iPod Buttons

  The iPod module on the iPhone starts out with buttons along the bottom for summoning four lists: Playlists, Artists, Songs, and Videos.

  But what about Albums? Genres? Composers? They're there, all right, but hidden; you have to tap More to see them.

  But what if you use those lists more often than Artists or Songs? No problem: you can replace one of those starter buttons with a list of your own.

  Tap More, and then tap the Edit button (upper-left corner). You arrive at the Configure screen. Here's the complete list of music-and-video sorting lists: Albums, Podcasts, Audiobooks, Genres, Composers, Compilations, Playlists, Artists, Songs, and Videos.

  To replace one of the four starter icons, use a finger to drag an icon from the top half of the screen downward, directly onto the existing icon you want to replace. It lights up to show the success of your drag.

  When you release your finger, you'll see that the new icon has replaced the old one. Tap Done in the upper-right corner.

  Keyboard Speedups

  Don't bother using the Shift key to capitalize a new sentence. The iPhone does that capitalizing automatically. Don't put apostrophes in contractions, either; the iPhone will put those in for you, too.

  Force Quit, Reset

  The iPhone is pretty darned simple and stable, but it's still a computer. In times of troubleshooting, these tips may come in handy:

  • Force quit a program. Press and hold the Home button for six seconds to force-quit a program that seems to be stuck.
  • Reset. If the entire iPhone locks up--it can happen--press and hold both the Home button and the Sleep/Wake switch for eight seconds. You'll see the screen go black, and then the Apple logo appears as the iPhone reboots.

  
  

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  McCallum's Awesome iPhone Period-Typing Shortcut

  I have in my possession a nugget, a secret bit of iPhone information that's so valuable, such a headache- and time-saver, that I don't know what to do with it.

  One voice in my head says, "Hoard it! Keep it a secret until your book is published! If you reveal it, it'll be all over the Net in hours, and all your competitors' books will have it, too."

  But another voice says, "But this information is too good to keep quiet. Plus, you didn't discover it yourself. And besides, you're not gonna starve, either way."

  Eventually, the second little voice prevailed. I'm going to share with you the solution to one of the most annoying things, if not THE most annoying thing, about typing on the iPhone:

  The punctuation keys and alphabet keys appear in two different keyboard layouts.

  So every time you want to type a period or a comma, it's a three-step, awkward dance: (1) Tap the ".?123" key in the lower left to summon the punctuation layout. (2) Type the period. (3) Type the ABC key in the lower left to return to the alphabet layout.

  Imagine how excruciating it is to type, for example, "a P.O. Box in the U.S.A.!" That's 34 finger taps and 10 mode changes!

  And therefore imagine how thrilled I was to receive an email from reader Andrew McCallum, containing a method of typing a period or a comma with only a SINGLE finger gesture.

  The iPhone doesn't register most key presses until you *release* your finger. But Andrew discovered that the Shift and Punctuation keys register their taps on the *press-down* instead.

  So here's what you can do, all in one motion:

  1. Touch the ".?123" key, but don't lift your finger as the punctuation layout appears.

  2. Slide your finger a half inch onto the period or comma key, and release.

  Incredibly, the ABC layout returns automatically. You've typed a period or a comma with one finger touch instead of three. In fact, you can type ANY of the punctuation symbols the same way.

  This makes a HUGE difference in the usability of the keyboard.

  Type on, bro.

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