iPhoto ’09 recognizes faces from the beyond the grave

mumu-face

mumu-2

The new iLife ’09 suite brings a bag of surprises for the Mac user. Take for instance the tuning fork built into Garage Band ’09. Other apps have their own amazing features – iPhoto ’09 has the new face recognition technology built in allowing you to tag faces and sync them to Facebook.

Well it isn’t in the fine print, but iPhoto ’09 also detects faces that don’t appear on camera. Muumuu cam FTW!

Garage Band ’09 has world’s largest tuning fork

guitar-lesson

Hello Mac user. Have you upgraded to iLife ’09 yet?

Amidst the great reception of iPhoto ’09 and the woes for iWeb ’09 I must say that the biggest improvements to the suite are really with Garage Band ’09. If you play guitar for instance, the new version comes with a built in tuning fork! What it does: it uses your Mac’s internal mic as a tuning fork. I’m not exactly tone deaf but I have been training myself to find the perfect middle key of C to make tuning easier (actually it’s more like “E” since that’s the guitar’s 6th string). While you pluck each string, the computer detects if your key is in perfect pitch. You need to have a lot of relative quiet while doing this. In a noisy room – or depending how sensitive your mic is, you’re going to get wonk readings. But nonetheless, way cool!

The second feature I was excited to play around with was the artist tutorials. There’s nothing better than the Jonas Brothers teaching me how to play “We Got the Party.” There’s nothing better than having Sting teach me how to play Fragile for a mere six bucks.

When I launched it however, I was saddened to the nth degree:

artist-lessons-garage-band

Oh well, nothing for the Philippines yet. Nonetheless, Garage Band ’09 brings in a new dimension to creating music because it doesn’t just give you the tools to mix and create recordings, it teaches you how to do it Garage Band is moving from mere composition software to online music resource!

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Supergirl of My Dreams by Thomas Tan

And here’s a short black and white silent film directed by Thomas Tan, whom I’ve known since we were kids in PAREF Southridge.

The film was shot with zero budget, as a promotional vid for Elfsar Comics. References to Supergirl and Batman in this short thriller. On a side note, I love working with people who can cram such great content into zero budget productions. Absolutely golden!

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Mostly Everything

Geekiest Christmas gift for me! (thus far!!)

nes-nintendo-belt

To my dearest friend Knox. 9 years of friendship proves how much of my geeky side rubbed off on you. Thank you for this NES Controller belt 😀 I will wear it with pride, just like Captain N.

Unboxing Crumpler Loo Roll with Road Test: Two thumbs up!

As a niche leader in comfortable bags, Crumpler also produces some of the most bizzare schwag. Thanks to the generosity of Charlie Paw at last night’s PhilMUG party we have the chance to do an official unboxing and and first impression run of the Loo Roll, Crumpler’s tissue roll that doubles as a paint by number coloring pad.

In depth review after the break.