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Advanced SearchUser Name Eclectitech
Member Since 2001-11-08
Total number of Feedback Posts: 20
Total number of comments: 3
Last 10 Feedback Posts by Eclectitech [ Search for All ]
Wirecast 2.6.4 (Mac OS X)
Excellent product, just a few gripes 
Over the past year we've used Wirecast to webcast a few dozen events, typically from a MacBook Pro. For each webcast, Wirecast is set up with one or two live video sources, pre-recorded QuickTime movies and mp3s, jpegs/pngs, and titles. From one to three streams are produced live (320x240, 160x120, and audio-only) with one recorded to disk for future video on demand. Early on we experienced occasional issues with devices not being recognized, but most of these problems have either been attributed to poorly-behaved firewire devices (two Canon DV cams on the same firewire bus messed with each other, for example) or have disappeared, presumably due to Wirecast updates. The features of Wirecast are very powerful and allow for quick changes during operation. Examples we've dealt with include slide changes submitted after an event has started, video source changes requiring cropping one minute before going live, and incorporation of video and audio downloaded during a live webcast. There are some quirks with shot setup that can be frustrating. Source material paths and capture devices are remembered with a project, so it is not very flexible when sources are changed or material is renamed/moved. Only a small number of characters for each shot name are displayed, making it difficult to distinguish between dozens of similar shots for pre-recorded material. Pre-recorded material requires editing of each shot to enable the audio track for each video and to set the looping for the shot and audio to the desired value (a default preference for these settings would help a lot). The developers have been very responsive and the product has improved in both features and stability with each release. We've been previewing the 3.0 version and are really looking forward to using the Desktop Presenter and other features. This is definitely a professional-level product, so the price tag is justified, but it would be nice to see a "Wirecast Express" in the $199 range that bridges the gap between Wirecast and QuickTime Broadcaster. [alert admin]
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Thursday, February 08 2007 @ 01:05 PM PST
FastTrack Schedule 9.1.0 (Mac OS X)
Attempting to install FastTrack 9.1 on a MacPro was resulting in a crash every time immediately after the installer launched. This is not a workaround that gives me a high comfort level (i.e. "proceed with caution and only if you understand what the following commands are doing"), but installing the software as root fixed it for me. I did the following: 1. Mount installer disk image 2. In Terminal, navigate to the installer folder: cd /Volumes/FastTrack\ Schedule\ 9/FTS9\ Install.app/Contents/MacOS/ 3. Launch the installer as root: sudo ./FTS9\ Install From there the installation proceeded without incident. [alert admin]
Thursday, February 08 2007 @ 11:36 AM PST
Blue Crab 4.0.9 (Mac OS X)
I tested seven different "site grabbers" as well as several browsers and Adobe GoLive CS to download three test sites. Blue Crab was the only one to capture certain graphics that were either referenced from within the style declaration of a div tag or loaded through JavaScript. It wasn't perfect, missing a couple of JavaScript-loaded jpgs on one site, but it came much closer than anything else. The downloaded sites maintained proper folder structure and urls were converted (choosable via a preference item) to local references. I've used the demo version for a total of 1 hour, so I can't give an exhaustive review yet, but so far Blue Crab has shown reasonable speed, has all of the features I need (including filtering on size, date, suffix, etc.), and gets more files than anything else I've tested so far. [alert admin]
Tuesday, January 25 2005 @ 01:33 PM PST
Logitech Control Center 1.1.1 (Mac OS X)
I'm using the Cordless Comfort duo with the LCC 1.1.1 software and it works fine for me under Panther, with no noticeable difference from Jaguar. Note that I performed a clean install of Panther, followed by the Logitech drivers, not a direct Jaguar to Panther upgrade. The software itself is pretty good - the battery indicator has been helpful in letting me know when to recharge the batteries and the programmable buttons/keys have all performed as expected and have provided all of the functionality that I need, including Expose control. I do have a few complaints: I would like more of the media keys to be programmable, I would like the keyboard and mouse setup panels to be integrated with System Preferences rather than launching separate applications, and (most of all) I agree that not having the keyboard working immediately at startup is a major drawback. I have to keep a standard wired keyboard handy for using startup keys. Finally, I rarely use OS9 anymore, but the option/command keys are reversed under OS9. [alert admin]
Saturday, December 27 2003 @ 03:33 PM PST
Apple Mac OS X 10.3 (Mac OS X)
Keep finding new things to like
I did a clean install of Panther on a new hard drive (after being a good boy and backing everything up, of course). Installation was painless, as usual, even though I customized it. Note that the installer selects all language options and printer drivers by default - you can save a lot of disk space by deselecting the ones you won't use. GIMP print was a nice addition to the printer drivers, since my old printer never received native OS X drivers. All of the pre-announced features work as described and generally live up to the hype. Exposé, for example, is excellent - fast, cool, useful, and with even more features than I expected. The whole system seems snappier and some specific applications are much faster than in Jaguar - Preview, Help Viewer, System Profiler, and TextEdit, for example. For reference, I'm running a G4/800 with 1 GB RAM and a Radeon 8500. In addition to the speed increase, Preview also includes the ability to copy selections and to create new documents with the clipboard contents. The "find-as-you-type" instant search in Finder is excellent. Several System Preferences were improved, either in functionality or in organization. Keyboard and Mouse now has an option for changing, adding, or disabling keyboard shortcuts in menus either for specific applications or system-wide. Network received some nice organizational improvements as well as Advanced settings (Ethernet speed and duplex mode, etc.). An interesting addition, which I didn't see at first (it seemed to show up after a restart) is the Hardware pane, which listed my processor type and had options for disabling the L2 and L3 cache. Note that my original CPU was replaced with a Giga CPU upgrade. The sidebar in Finder windows takes a little getting used to, but I'm really starting to like it. The contents of the sidebar automatically compress when a window is shrunk. Apple seems to have lost interest in the Favorites folder - it still exists, but is no longer an option for the toolbar - a help file recommends just using the sidebar for your favorites. There are several new graphical effects, from icons zooming towards you when an application is opened to accent marks being highlighted on the first keypress to indicate that a second key must be pressed (like when typing the final e in Exposé). All of the effects are quick and nicely done. There are lots of other small changes, and I keep discovering new ones, all of them positive. I've had no problems with any of my software. Before installing Panther, I thought it had enough improvements to justify it for a power user like me, but that it wasn't an essential upgrade for everyone since Jaguar was no slouch. Now that I've used it, though, I see it as a much more significant upgrade than the initial list of features indicated. I think most people would benefit from the upgrade, if not for the new features, then for the overall speed and efficiency improvements. [alert admin]
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Sunday, October 26 2003 @ 07:41 AM PST
Apple iTunes 4.1 (Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2000)
Caution on certain Win2K installs
Before installing on Windows 2000, check out this thread on Apple's Support forums: <http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?14@65.cIlIa9wbipb.2032021@.599aca53> There is a serious problem that affects some (hopefully not too many) Windows 2000 configurations with CD-RW drives and Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4. Basically, after installing, the system always freezes when booting, even in Safe Mode. You have to disconnect the CD-RW drive cable in order to boot and then uninstall iTunes. This affected me and at least a few dozen others that have posted - Apple is soliciting feedback and will hopefully have a fix soon. [alert admin]
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Saturday, October 18 2003 @ 08:12 AM PDT
DiskTracker X 2.3 (Mac OS X)
I'm using DiskTracker to keep track of my personal and business regular backups and permanent archives (CD-R, DVD-R, and external hard drives) as well as purchased CD-ROMs. The discs include a variety of Mac and Windows formats. I've created multiple catalogs (which can be opened at the same time in separate windows) for different categories (home, client A, client B, archive vs. backup, etc.). Disc scans are very quick and the batch scanning mode makes it easy to import several in a row. Searching for files within a catalog is nearly instantaneous and there are many options available for specifying search criteria. A duplicates search helps to find files that are present on multiple discs. I'm very satisfied with the program in general, and paid for it after just a few days of testing, but there are a few issues:
- For some reason, discs created with Apple's .Mac Backup utility all show a creation date of 1/1/1904, which causes Disk Tracker to repeatedly ask if this new disc is really one of the other ones in the catalog.
- The search functions only work within a single catalog. I would like to be able to search across all catalogs at once.
- DiskTracker is mainly for data CDs - I would like to see some basic Audio CD features added to a future version or possibly a "Disk Tracker Pro" that includes a full-featured Audio database.
I highly recommend DiskTracker as part of a regular backup program and for organizing large CD collections. [alert admin]
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Wednesday, September 17 2003 @ 10:48 AM PDT
DeLocalizer 1.1 (Mac OS X)
Works well, but updated list would make it better
DeLocalizer was easy to run and correctly deleted all of the files requested, while leaving English, German, and Italian alone, as I had specified. I saved over 340 MB under OS X 10.2.6. I have not tried any other similar applications for comparison. A couple of suggestions to make it even better: 1. Completion and better grouping of the language choices (list "it" with "Italian", for example). The author has stated that he prefers to keep the abbreviation and full name as separate choices, which is fine, but by grouping them together it will make it more clear that there are two choices for each language. 2. Produce a log file listing the lproj items that were deleted. [alert admin]
Sunday, August 17 2003 @ 06:23 PM PDT
OrangeUSB 2.0 host controller 3.1 (Mac OS X)
Same driver/problems for IOGear
I just installed an IOGear 5-port USB 2.0 card which uses the same Orange Micro drivers (version 2.0 from IOGear site if you're looking for older drivers to fix the 3.1 problems). With the 2.0 drivers, I had a problem with devices not being recognized. I looked in the Apple System Profiler and saw that the two built-in USB ports along with some of the card's ports were being mapped to USB bus 0 while sometimes card ports were mapped to USB bus 3, with bus 1 and 2 always empty. The system also refused to wake from sleep. I tried the 3.1 drivers in an effort to fix those problems and ended up with the black box over the Apple logo at startup. Deleting the two kext files mentioned by others here got me back to square 1 (wish I had read these reviews first). A troubleshooting note for others stuck with the black box - on my G4/400 it was occurring too early to use single-user mode or safe mode. I held down the option key at startup to select an OS9 boot volume so that I could delete the files. Firewire target disk mode to another Mac would also work, unless your OS X startup volume is not on the ATA master drive (which, unfortunately, mine was not). [alert admin]
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Tuesday, May 20 2003 @ 06:19 PM PDT
US Constitution & Government Quizzer X 4.0.7 (Mac OS X)
program took about ten seconds to get to splash screen, then crashed immediately afterwards. Second launch program ran fine. It's a basic multiple choice quiz program with some reference material included - appropriate as freeware or as a module for a more generalized quiz program. The speech-to-text and speech recognition are a novelty that don't add much to the functionality, but they work as expected. [alert admin]
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Friday, January 31 2003 @ 05:56 AM PST
Last 10 Comments by Eclectitech [ Search for All ]
Oops ... sorry about the "019"s in my review - I dictated into Word (so I'd have more room), then copied the text over here - guess IE screwed up the "smart quotes" and apostrophes. The sentence in brackets used to read [Note that saying "megabytes of ram", the program correctly entered as "MB of RAM"]
Original feedback item : Read More
Wednesday, September 17 2003 @ 10:52 AM PDT
Have I missed something - back to Beta Software.
> I am now paying to be a beta tester for apple. > Back to the early release of OS X 10.0 Wrong - with OS X 10.0, you paid for a product that was billed as a release version. This is clearly labeled as a beta (just as with betas of Safari, iSync, iChat AV, etc.) and it is provided for free for .Mac users. The existing release version (1.2.3) is still available for…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Thursday, September 04 2003 @ 04:45 AM PDT
I ran delocalizer version 1.1, asking it to retain German and Italian files. When it finished, I searched my disk for "lproj" and found a full set of English, German, and Italian lproj files. Note, however, that some languages are listed twice, unfortunately - as a two letter abbreviation and as a full word ("it" and "Italian" + "de" and "German" for example). I made sure both items were unchecked for each language - maybe…
Original feedback item : Read More(1 words)
Sunday, August 17 2003 @ 06:00 PM PDT
