25% off Launchbar at MacGasm

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MacGasm is currently selling my favorite productivity app LaunchBar for 25% off, only $26.

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LaunchBar is a powerful keyboard based launcher program from Objective Development, that speeds up every aspect of using your computer.

A description from ObDev:

LaunchBar is a smart and powerful, keyboard driven productivity utility that lets you access and control every aspect of your digital life. Whatever you want to get done on your Mac – with LaunchBar it’s only a few keystrokes away.Get instant access to applications, documents, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, media libraries, search engines and so much more – just by typing short abbreviations.It’s a file manager, a web and desktop search tool, an app launcher, a clipboard manager, a jukebox, a calculator, an information browser, … or quite simply a tremendous time saver!



Here is a review from MacLife, Part 1 of a Macworld Article, and part 2 of said article on increasing your productivity with LaunchBar, and a MacWorld on the awesome program from 2005.

This is a must have program for any power user who spends a lot of time on their computer, so a discount is a great thing! Check it out!

How Peter Jackson shot the Hobbit

  • Post category:VFX
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Filmmaker IQ links to an article at Popular Mechanics on how Peter Jackson shot the Hobbit and shot both small Hobbits and large humans at the same time. Couldn’t do the forced perspective trickery because of the 3D, so had to have a normal and a green screen set next to each other with motion control rigs connected to each other. WOW! That is pretty darn amazing!

Auotdesk has shipped Smoke 2012

Autodesk has released the full version of Smoke 2013 and you can download a free trial. It is $3495 per user license.

Damn, I wish I had played more with the earlier beta to get used to it, as I would really like to get proficient as the node based graphics tools (like the earlier Shake) are so powerful.

I still wish it was $1000, so it was more affordable to a normal user like me, but still it has dropped a great amount and looks to be a powerful editing and graphics tool.

Google has released Google Maps for iOS

  • Post category:iPhone
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OK all, time to all take a collective breath, Google has released Google Maps for the iPhone and iPad. Download it and stop complaining about Apple Maps!

Yes I don’t like Maps too well either. Sure the 3D thing on new devices is cool, though useless. And I don’t see why older devices can’t do turn by turn. And I do hate the colors, and the traffic has been totally useless, but I just moved to alternatives. And have been really enjoying VUZE for traffic, but now Google Maps is back, so…

EDIT: ArsTechnica has a great article on it, including it’s shortcomings. The biggest that it doesn’t access your contacts from anywhere, not iOS or from Google itself, so you can’t just type someone’s name to get their address (THIS SERIOUSLY NEEDS TO BE FIXED).

And they tell you how to activate privacy, though it looks like it will then also turn off your helping with traffic.

Photoshop and Illustrator CS6 have been updated for HiDPI Retina Displays

Adobe has released updates to Photoshop and Illustrator for those with HiDPI and Retina displays, such as the new MacPro Laptops. The Adobe Illustrator Blog has more on the Illustrator update.

And the Mac Performance Guide says that the new Photoshop is 13% faster than the previous version! Nice!

Great news for those with Retina displays, but I likely won’t be one of those for a long time. I still use my MacPro and am hoping for a new one and a large Retina display, say 24 inch would just be too expensive for a very very long time. Still great to see Adobe keeping up though (and this will be awesome for Premiere Pro once it is updated for those with the 15″ Retina MacBook Pro).

Red Giant Software 40% Sale Today only!

Today only Red Giant is having a 40% off sale on all there products! Just enter 2012BSF40 at checkout and you will get the discount, which applies to all products including upgrades! This is a great deal and I love their suites of FX as is. So if you don’t have them today is a great time to catch up.

EDIT: And it now goes till 10 AM Pacific this Wednesday 12-12-12, so you have a couple of more hours.