 |
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
In January of 1997 Alien Skin Introduced Eye Candy 3.0, much to the delight of every photoshopper on the planet. Most of whom already loved Alien Skin's Black Box filters, but were thereafter delighted by Eye Candy's new interface. Unlike other cutting edge image tweaking apps or plugins of that time (see Kai's anything) Alien Skin pioneered a new interface paradigm: an interface that was not only pretty to look at, but easy to understand as well! In 1998, almost two years before the release of the amazingly revolutionary upgrade from EC3 to Eye Candy 4000, Alien Skin released another lesser-known set of filters, an intermezzo, a mezzanine, a Led Zeppelin III if you will known as Xenofex. These lesser-known "alien fx" much like Led Zeppelin III were overshadowed by their successor, but still contain gems that you just can't be without. Just as your Zep collection has a yawning gap without such important works as "Immigrant Song" (Yes I know some people say it rips off the Yardbirds, they can bite me.) and such sweet tracks as "Tangerine", your Photoshop plugins collection will never be complete without rock anthems like "Electrify" and "Lightning", and the retro grooves of "Stamper" and "Television". See below for a tiny taste of what Xenofex can do.
Bottom line: Xenofex may not have the advanced new interface of Eye Candy 4000, but even if it were released for the first time today it'd still be worthy of the label "Sixteen badass filters you gotta have". Buy it, use it, love it. Xenofex
A while back we reviewed Sophisticated Circuits' "Kick-Off!" product for USB servers running Mac OS. I think we made it clear that the Kick-Off! was not for home use, it's really for use with a stand-alone server that is meant to not be touched.
So since then it's been spinning around in our brains (which is not always like circling the drain) that there must be something of comparable utility for the home user. While we haven't found any magical application that knows when your Mac is in trouble, and take whatever appropriate steps to keep everything working the way you want given whatever disasterous situation (well, we have, but he is me, and I'm significantly more expensive), we have found the APC Back-UPS Pro USB 500 Clear.
First, a big thanks to my mother for getting me my very own Playstation 2 for Yule this year. Yay Mom!
Second, an embarrassed confirmation: Yes, I am 24 years old and my mother
still gets me toys for Christmas. The ladies are lining up as I speak.
Review: BBEdit 6.0.1 SimpleText is a joke. I learned to write HTML in SimpleText way back when Netscape 1.0 was brand new. WYSIWYG editors like Adobe Pagemill and Microsoft Front Page came along before long, but they were frankly pretty lame. Soon after, I discovered a great little shareware gem called BBEdit Lite. For me, the feature that took me away from designing in SimpleText forever was the colors. This joyous little marvel would render your tags in different colors. I immediately decided to set my anchors to red, images to green, and general tags to blue. BBEdit version 6 ruined all that for me. /read on/
 Review: Norton SystemWorks for MacintoshWhen a pair of your old friends get married, what do you give them for a wedding gift? Well, after much deliberation we decided that the most appropriate gift for this couple--who have always seen us through thick and thin, who have helped us out of more jams than we'd care to remember over the years --the most appropriate gift was five Gs. /read on/
We actually called Contour to get the UniRiser months ago, but because we were so taken by the cute little MiniPro Mouse that arrived in the same shipping box, we decided to run that review first. The good thing about that is I've had time to get used to the UniRiser and can better describe its features and shortcomings.
 by Jason VarnerThe G-Riser needs a redesign. If I simply reach my hand around to plug or unplug a cable into the back of my G4, the tiny little niblets holding the G-Riser legs onto the base "handles" of the G4 unsnap every time. /read on/
I got the new iBook SE about a week ago. I finally gave in and exchanged my tangerine beauty for a slick new graphite special edition, two shirts, and a pair of pants (connections at a leading department store are worth the odor they emit sometimes.) All in all it's not anything that special, but it does have some features I like. Previously, I had thought people were checking my iBook out, as it screamed I'M TANGERINE - YOU CAN'T HELP BUT NOTICE ME, LOOK OVER HERE, PEOPLE!!! It was nice for my self confidence while working in coffee shops, but then you have to wonder if the 90 year old man with the unibrow is checking out you or your iBook. Now people don't look at the 'Book so much, as it's a bit more subtle. It turns out I'm not that "check out-able" in the end. Nobody is more shocked than you, I know. /read on/
The other night I was gazing out over the dance floor, admiring the trippy animated eye candy afforded by the staff of San Diego's Club Montage when I thought to myself, "Wow, I am sooo lucky to have Eye Candy 4000. I can do this at home on my computer." Of course that was after drink number six, but the sentiment was genuine. I know what you're thinking: "What the hell are you doing at a dance club? Isn't your neck still hosed?" Well yes, but a little drinking and watching Mrs. G get jiggy on the dance floor with her girlfriend does it no harm. It was shortly after this that Melissa V. Iris herself showed up, giving me the idea that we should use her new bio photo as the basis of our Eye Candy 4000 review.
/Continue on to the rest of the review/
Today we have a review of a TV tuner for the masochist in all of us. Straight from the Fallen One himself comes HellTV! You'll cry! You'll scream! You'll rip your own eyes out with your dirty fingernails, gnaw your furniture to splinters and hump your toaster while it's plugged in to the 220.
Back in the days of MLD, we used a little lifesaver of a product called "Rebound!" that saved our collective asses time and time again when the overworked Performa 6200 we had colocated as a server would crash. Yes, by the way, you can use a little 75MHz Performa as a server.
I first noticed the Epson Stylus Scan 2500 while I was perusing the pages of the Apple Store, shopping for my iMac. I wanted a USB scanner, and I wanted to finally break down and actually buy a printer of my own. Hey, I've been strictly a web guy for a few years now, and the HP Deskwriter (I) has been sent out to the pasture known lovingly as "el lugar donde usted parquea los coches", only we have no coaches, and they wouldn't fit any better than the van that stands guard outside the door. but I digress...
Mason Owen Ok, I'm tired of starting this review over and over again. So far I've got one that begins with "size doesn't matter," a conversation between Gaussoin and I, and one that bluntly says what I'm thinking. Not that I'm paid by the word or anything, but "wow" alone isn't exactly the most complete review. I guess I'll begin by saying that, while I like my track pad with it's metallic shimmeriness, I still love to ruin my wrist with a little mouse action from time to time. There's just something about knowing that I'm causing myself irreparable damage in the long run as I drag my lower palm around on a desk pointing and clicking away that just makes me happy as the Easter Bunny on acid. Until a few days ago I was using a Contour UniMouse and was completely happy. While Optical technology and five buttoness, along with time, have passed it by I still love it. To be honest, someone (I'm looking right at Willis) ganked my Microsoft Intellimouse some time ago. In it's absence I started using my Uni again, and I'm perfectly happy even though it is a remnant of my lime iMac days and tends to look tacky next to my portable tangy beauty.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
 |
Initially I was really just glad to get rid of the Performa I was using as my iMac stand. I mean, it was nice to have a floppy drive right there and available should cyber-methuselah walk in or I have a wild hair to use some crusty old floppy, but beige with an iMac is so 1997. (I suppose I should really do something about my Epson 2500 and my phone then)
So I was supposed to do an update on Tuesday. So I didn't. Sorry, Kevin. I'm
a damn busy guy. I am trying to make some extra money for the holidays (Big
Pimpin' of San Diego, Inc. - the only authorized Theresa Willis dealer in
the state), work on Wienis, battle a horrible cold, 
