Aperture 2 for the Mac

I am thinking of buying a copy of Aperture 2 for my Mac as a alternate option to photo-shop.  Not sure how they compare but am hoping that it’s close. I do a lot  of photo editing. I’m a photography hobbyist and need something to do some halfway decent photo editing.  I really don’t have the money for Photo-shop and Aperture seems a lot more reasonable.  If anyone who has used it would like to comment, it would be helpful.  I’ve really only use Photoshop and The Gimp photo editors and they really have only  been on a PC. So any good ideas for good photo editing software for the Mac would also be appreciate.

New Apple Computer 2nd Week.

Well it’s the second week of  using a Mac, and I miss some of the programs on my PC that allowed me to do things like update my blog, my MS Money program  and MS Office suite. Not to mention the photo editing software I now need to go out and buy again. I like the Mac, it’s all people say it is. But Switching from a PC to a Mac is becoming an expensive switch. Not Just in the cost of the  hardware, but also in the software that I now need to go out and replace. I’ve also noticed that even though there are duplicate programs for a PC and Mac. The Mac version is sometimes  don’t have the same options as the Windows side. Take MS Messenger…The Mac version doesn’t come with Video Chatting capabilities.  And the Software for my my Sprint Instinct doesn’t come in a Mac version.  It looks like it’s not gonna be a smooth transition after all.

Apple Computer

I made the switch to Apple for PC. I didn’t think I would ever move over to it, but as of the pas few months I’ve had given it much thought. And now that I’m really getting into photography the thought of getting an Apple is becoming a no brainer. So when my PC started going wonky on me I decided to get an Apple with my tax return. So I’ve have had my new Apple for about a week and am still getting used to it. I’ll keep you posted on my transition.

Trip to The White Mountain National Park

On Saturday I took a trip north to the White Mountain National Park. I took some pictures while I was there. I stopped off to the site where the Old Man in the Mountain used to be. There is know indication on the mountain of the old man any more. But the viewing area is still there and I shot some photos there. I also travel down the Kangamangus highway and stopped a few viewing areas to shoot some more photos. I posted some of my pictures on my flickr page….http://www.flickr.com/photos/tcw115/ Take a look, I hope you enjoy them.

Election Time

Well it’s almost that time, time to choose the next President of the United States. I don’t know about most of you all, but around where I live it all any one can talk about. I hear it from both sides Obama Supporters and McCain Supporters. And to tell you the truth but my brains about to blow a gasket.  Both sides stretch the truth, take things out of context and just make things up. One side saying the others this or that and the other side responds in kind. They spend more time saying what is wrong with the other guy than how they are going to fix things when they get in office. And when they do talk about it, it really doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in either candidate. I know both of them are equal when it comes to how well they’ll run the country if they are elected. It’s just the way in which they do it that is the difference. But like an Alzheimer’s patient will go to the polls and elect one of them thinking they’ll change things for the better. Slowly the people in our government get more and more corrupt and out of touch with the people of this country. Being a Democracy is great and having all the rights we have but when you factor money into the whole thing then that’s where things go wrong. How good is a democracy that is bought and sold daily?  Now some may say that it’s a bit extreme to say this but ask yourself “is it so hard to believe”. We have come so far from what are forefathers wanted this country to be that I don’t think they would recognize it today.   They created this country for the people by the people, and I don’t think they meant just the rich ones. How will things change in the next few years is a guess at best. All I know is that if we don’t start to change not only how our government does things but how we do things ourselves  we are screwed big time….With the economy in the toilet and our planet not to far behind we are looking at some dark times ahead… I hope I’m just sounding like an alarmist here, But I’m not sure I am any more…..We need to change and for the better. I don’t think we as a nation can stand idly by and let our government and big business cause even more problems that soon can’t be fixed. And the problems are coming on many fronts…Economic, Environmental, Worldly Political Issues, The war on Terror, Hunger and Famine. So who are you going to trust to fix these issues…Someone more interested in lining their pockets or big businesses? We need to get more involved in not only electing the right kind of people to office but holding them accountable for their actions. It’s to important now to just let it slide any more…..

Photography as a Hobby

For the past few month I’ve been learning quite a bit about photography. I’ve been out taking pictures and learning how to use my camera. I’m using a digital camera from Sony. My camera is the Sony DSC-H9 digital camera. I usually edit them with The Gimp photo editor. And I’ve been really enjoying photography, I don’t know how people can do it as a living  though. I wish I could but I don’t think my pictures are quite there yet, still need a little work yet.  So if you see me out and about shooting pictures come and say hi….

Day out Taking Photographs

I spent all morning and part of the afternoon around a few of the towns near my house taking photographs. I was able to get some good shots of an old water driven saw mill and some trail pictures as well. I’ve been actually having a good time with photography, and I’ve been getting some good responses from people. I do it for fun mostly and to get out of the house, but it’s still a good feeling to know people appreciate the photo’s I take. I post most all my photos on Flickr which is a site that you can post them on. I put them on there because it would be a lot easier to do that then to e-mail them to everyone individually. The address to my page is  http://www.flickr.com/photos/tcw115/ if anyone wants to take a look.

Picture

This is one of my favorite Picture I took last weekend. I was out with my sister, brother in-law, and nephew.  We were checking out some of the old forts in Kittery Maine. This particular picture was taken looking out from one of these forts into Maine harbor. You can check out the rest of the pictures I took at my flickr page.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Apple Computers

I’ve been thinking of switching camps for a while now and trying an Apple computer. I’ve been a die hard windows\PC user since I started using computers in High school which is going on 20 years.  For the most part I was never interested in Apples because of the price and the lack of software choices. I didn’t use my computer for a lot of photo editing or any other function that normally would be up an Apple computers alley. I use a lot of Microsoft products for productivity, such as MS Office, Internet Explorer, MS Money and such. Now that Apple has it’s own version of Office and I use Firefox more now than IE its not as much of an Issue. I’ve had a chance to use some Apple products like an I-Pod and I-Touch. I’ve also clung to Windows because I know my way around it as was comfortable with that operating system. I was kind of weary of having to learn a new operating system.  But after trying Ubuntu Linux I think I could handle the change. I would have stuck with Ubuntu but it’s not quite where it should be for me to switch yet. When Linux is more widely adopted I may take another look at it.  But I think I’m ready for an Apple computer as a secondary computer or even as my primary computer as long as I have my trusty Windows machine to fall back on. Who knows maybe some time down the road I may become one of the converted.