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User Name Martin Turner
Member Since 2001-01-05
Total number of Feedback Posts: 101
Total number of comments: 35
Last 10 Feedback Posts by Martin Turner [ Search for All ]
Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection 2.0b3 (Mac OS X)
This version of the beta is much, much better than the previous one. As well as offering more useful preferences, it runs significantly faster on my G4 Powerbook Leopard connecting via 100baseT to a Dell Pentium something or other running XP. Outlook particularly was ridiculously sluggish under the previous beta, and now responds like it does directly on the PC. [alert admin]
Friday, April 11 2008 @ 08:27 AM PDT
MindNode 1.0 (Mac OS X)
This is a very promising application which starts off doing what some of the big bucks apps seem to refuse to do -- attempting to implement true Tony Buzan mind maps properly. Right now it only does text -- but it does it properly, on the stems, not in little boxes, and it allows curved stems (though, in common with the big bucks apps, it doesn't allow curved text on curved stems). To complete it, it only needs the ability to place graphics and the ability to write on curved stems. That's it. Well done to the author for starting off by doing the simple things right. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 1 of 1 users found this helpful
Wednesday, March 19 2008 @ 10:28 AM PDT
Apple Mac OS X 10.5.2 (Mac OS X)
Fixes Quark and Inspiration bugs 
Quark 6.5 now runs as intended, for the first time on Leopard. An earlier update fixed the PDF problems, but Quark still always crashed on quit (annoying more than dangerous). Inspiration now prints properly without crashing, although there is still an issue with PDF output. Using a G4 Powerbook, this is a smooth and beneficial update. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 2 users found this helpful
Tuesday, February 12 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Hydra 1.0.2 (Mac OS X)
Good upgrade - 16 bit would be excellent
The addition of Tiff as an output format is a good upgrade to this application. It's still only 8 bit, and would benefit from 16 bit tiff, though. [alert admin]
Monday, February 04 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
PhotoKit Sharpener 1.2.6 (Mac OS 9, Mac OS X)
Forgotten how expensive it was - still worth every penny
I'd forgotten that this product was so expensive - $99. On reflection, after two years of use, I'd say that it was easily worth far more than that. On the surface of it, this script offers a set of sharpening routines which use Photoshop's built in Unsharp Masking and other tools. The interface is plain, if not ugly, and there are no fun dials to play with. In reality, what this offers is perfection, time and again. Unlike most things to do with photographs, there are hard and fast rules with mathematical formulae for how to apply unsharp masking, and they are based not on the kind of image, but on the input type and resolution and on the output technology and resolution. I have a copy of those formulae on my desktop, but they are a pain to calculate, and easy to get wrong. They're also almost impossible to explain to a non-technical person. Photokit Sharpener offers powerfully perfect capture sharpening and output sharpening. For 80% of pictures that's all you need. For the other 20%, it also offers creative sharpening and softening, where you can play to your heart's content. It's all done non-destructively, so if it's not right, there's no problem, and you can easily switch layers on and off to see what's going on. As a production tool, it's invaluable. Until I found Photokit Sharpener, I couldn't understand why the shots from my £3,000 Nikon with a £1,000 lens were so unsharp when reproduced as comercial offest litho print. Now I have people (journalists, photographers, designers, printers) looking at adverts, annual reports, etc, and saying "how did you get them that sharp"? As a final end to this story, Photokit Sharpener is as good as much more expensive sharpeners, such as the one produced by Nik software. But there is one more tool which I would recommend anyone to get, which is FocusMagic. FocusMagic is a refocuser rather than sharpener — a deconvolution tool which actually calculates the original focus. Combining FocusMagic with Photokit Sharpener produces results which (in someone else's words) "literally jump off the page". [alert admin]
Monday, January 28 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Hydra 1.0.1 (Mac OS X)
Image combination for the rest of us
I tried it, I bought it. Basically, this is lightning fast image combination. The results are nice, though they are only 8-bit JPEG, so it does not create true HDR images. Nonetheless, the results are impressive, and the matching algorithm is significantly better than competitors. There is nowhere near the level of sophistication of the photomatix software, but, on the other hand, it runs about 60x faster (no, seriously). If you're a serious photographer, and you only intend to own one kind of image combination software for HDR, then don't buy this one. Buy Photomatix instead. On the other hand, if you're happy to own more than one tool for more than one kind of job, then this is superb for what it does. And, if you're the kind of person that still uses iPhoto, you'll find this an absolute joy to use. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 2 users found this helpful
Tuesday, January 22 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Apple iPhone 1.1.3 (Mac OS X)
Good update, but on O2 need to reset network
This is a good update with some nice features. I can't really comment on the people who say "the iPhone should include the following x features": I knew what I was buying when I bought the iPhone, it performs as promised, and now it performs better than promised. The pseudo GPS is nice (though of limited usefulness, unless you're hopelessly lost in a town with good mobile phone coverage but no street signs), whereas the add-web-apps to the home is a very nice feature. There's just one issue I would like others to be aware of. On O2 (UK provider), when I completed the upload, all my phone and Edge connectivity was gone. The solution was to reset the network settings — which unfortunately loses all the WiFi settings, but that's ok — and, within a few scary moments (emergency calls only, info that 'iPhone was activated'), everything was working again, with (I think) actually a stronger signal. Hopefully this saves at least one other person from scared calls to O2. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 2 users found this helpful
Tuesday, January 15 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
Repeating Motif Generator 3.0.4 (Mac OS X)
Superb - didn't do what I wanted, but brilliant anyway
I downloaded this app thinking it would turn photographic textures into tessellated textures. That's not what it does. What it does do is create complex repeatable patterns based on mathematics which you control graphically (so you don't need to know any maths) but which you can also edit algorithmically (either because you understand the maths, or it's just fun to experiment. It's simple to use, produces gorgeous results, and has a tiny footprint. And it's free. It doesn't really get much better than this. [alert admin]
Sunday, January 13 2008 @ 03:13 PM PST
Curio 4.2 (Mac OS X)
Not the premiere Mind-mapping application
This is a response to the developer's claims, rather than to the product. Curio may be very good, but the claim that it is the 'premiere mind mapping…' application is simply wrong. Mind Mapping is a well-defined concept developed by Tony Buzan. There are a number of applications out there which implement it properly, but Curio, which only features straight lines (not curved) and forces you to write on the symbols rather than on the lines themselves, is not one of them. NovaMind and Inspiration are both better implementations of Mind Mapping. It's also not the premiere project management tool. Project Management is also a well-defined concept. Download Merlin if you want to see what a real project management tool looks like. Essential features of project management include Gantt charts and PERT diagrams. This may well be amazing software for what it does -- but, at least based on the features and specifications on the developer's site, it doesn't do full-blown mind-mapping or project management. Sorry. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 1 of 2 users found this helpful
Wednesday, January 09 2008 @ 02:37 PM PST
Point of View 1.0.1 (Mac OS X)
This is the best logic puzzle game I've ever played. No - absolutely seriously. It is beautifully designed, simple in concept, but challenging to play. My only regret is that this game only plays pre-programmed puzzles -- this is probably integral to the concept, as random puzzles would not have the startling elegance of both the problems and their solutions. However, it does mean that, in this version at least, once you have played the thirty built in games, you've finished. That's not to say you will finish in an hour. I'm in the middle of the medium level as I write this, and my guess is there is 3-5 hours game play. Interestingly, I found the 'easy' level harder than the medium -- once you have played through the easy, you've learned enough about the techniques to make the technically more challenging medium less of a challenge, if that makes sense. I suspect I may be stuck a long time on the hard level though. As a piece of freeware, this is a highly refined an innovative game. [alert admin]
Post a comment | More Info | 2 of 2 users found this helpful
Saturday, December 29 2007 @ 12:25 PM PST
Last 10 Comments by Martin Turner [ Search for All ]
You need to read the book "Mind Mapping" by Tony Buzan. Mind Mapping is a well established, well researched technique for note taking, visual learning and assisting the creative process. There are fairly strict rules about how to do it. Unfortunately, this particular programme does not really offer Mind Mapping in the sense that Buzan defines it – which is bizarre given the name. There are other programmes which do it much better, including Inspiration and…
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Sunday, February 10 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
No document password protection
Excel's password protection is a chimera — something which has fooled many users into believing they have secured their document. Essentially, all that Excel password protection does is prevent you from opening he document in Excel - it does not encrypt the file, meaning that you can very easily view it in some other application. Numbers is (imho) quite right not to include this 'feature'. MacUsers can encrypt files using zip or put them onto the FileVault,…
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Wednesday, January 30 2008 @ 12:00 AM PST
For the price of a couple of cans of Spray-Mount, or a half-hour of graphic designer time, this is a useful application which does not claim more than it actually does. For hobbyists, I agree, this is a lot of money. For graphic professionals — which the name of the product makes it clear are the primary purchasers — it's a robust, proven product for a very limited cost.
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Monday, January 14 2008 @ 04:30 PM PST
Nice going Adam
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Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 03:27 PM PST
I agree — the original comment was legitimate comment, and a worthwhile comparison with Photoshop.
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Tuesday, January 08 2008 @ 02:08 PM PST
I haven't tried this, so I can't comment on how good it is, but it's priced competitively for professional graphic design software. If you are paying a designer, plus on-costs, something that vectorises stuff quickly and effectively is a holy grail for converting maps, etc. If it works, this is a bargain. If it doesn't, then no price could be low enough.
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Friday, September 28 2007 @ 02:45 PM PDT
This software is priced for professional designers, not hobbyists. I haven't tried it, and so don't know how good it is. However, at the cost of about 5 hours designer time, if it could prove it would save 5 hours over six months, it would get my money.
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Friday, September 28 2007 @ 02:38 PM PDT
There are plenty of commercial applications which make use of open source code, and no-one complains about that. And also lots of good shareware applications like Panotools and GraphicConverter which make use of them. As the author points out, he wrote all the code himself. But, even if he hadn't, why would this be a shame? I probably won't buy this app because i don't have a particular use for it, but it looks like an…
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Wednesday, August 22 2007 @ 11:01 AM PDT
Actually, they have quite a helpful section, linking to this useful explanation: http://www.infodesign.com.au/usabilityresources/design/cardsorting.asp
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Monday, August 06 2007 @ 03:51 PM PDT
You couldn't come up with a logo with this package that would save you 100s of dollars, let alone thousands. Giving $50 to a design student will get you a better result.
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Saturday, May 26 2007 @ 04:31 AM PDT
