Blurb Imagewrap photo book review

I previous mentioned the Blurb photo book I had ordered with the intention of updating that post with my thoughts when it arrived. Now that it’s here there’s quite a bit to say so those thoughts are now presented as this new post. There are also plenty of photo’s of the book, shared for anyone trying to decide whether to go ahead and place an order.

Delivery took seven days from placing the order, and I received an email the day before notifying me of dispatch with UPS. The book came from the Netherlands to the UK so to me this was very good since Blurb claim 5-6 business days to make the book and 1-15 to deliver dependant on your shipping choice. I had specified priority 2-4 day shipping at £10.37, in effect I got the 1-2 day £21.37 express option. To save more money in future I intend to order multiple books in one order as the shipping cost for ten books was still £10.37.

The Perfect Photo Book….

….is something I have been seeking for the past week. Having used the iPhoto service previously with mixed results I’m now looking for something a bit more flexible. And if I’m honest, a bit cheaper. My quest started with an 80 page album of a holiday to San Francisco and Las Vegas earlier this year. Through the iPhoto service this book, with hard cover and custom dust jacket, will cost around £65. I’m also buying a second copy for friends who came with myself and Mrs Basshead, so that’s a lot of money for holiday albums.

Just about every service that prints photo’s is now offering photo books, and the software some provide has become genuinely impressive. Snapfish has a pretty slick web based book creating system, but prices are still around the same as through iPhoto. Bobbooks looked a lot more promising, with a similar 82 page book priced at £43. Unfortunately the software they use wouldn’t run under Snow Leopard on my hackintosh.

iPhoto/iPod import problem

I’ve been working my way through the iPod V3 firmware looking for new features, and got to the point where I wanted to copy the screenshots across into iPhoto. The problem was iPhoto gave an unrecognised file format error every time I tried copying the PNG files, and would show the iPod as docked even when it was disconnected.

A quick web search led to a page at the Apple support forums, and some advice to unmount the device in Image Capture. It’s not immediately obvious how to do this, so for anyone with the same problem here’s a few simple steps to the fix.

iLife 09 due late January

Apple has today announced the next update to its iLife suite of apps. The 09 version is due late January and offers big updates to the iPhoto, iMovie and garageband components. Here’s a quick summary

• iPhoto gains face recognition and geotagging support. Photo’s can be searched from a corkboard of faces and shown on a map of shooting location. Geotagging info can be added to photo’s that don’t have the data in them. Slideshows with themes are also new.
• iMovie appears to have a lot of iMovie HD’s functionality restored. Themes are back, and new features include video stabilisation and effect direct in the timeline with no pre-rendering. Early reports suggest more in depth editing features as well.
• Garageband gains instructional content to teach guitar and keyboard. Video of famous performers is coupled with a guitar fretboard or keyboard to show how to play each song. Artist lessons are priced at $4.99 each from the garageband store.

Sounds like some solid updates that will help Apple stand out from the competition. iLife 09 will continue to be free on new Macs, and $79 to buy. Further details at Apple.com/iLife

Pwnage 2.0 released, screenshots

The iPhone Dev Team has released Pwnage 2.0 for jailbreaking and unlocking 1st gen iPhones, jailbreaking the V2 iTouch and iPhone 3G. Only firmware 2.0 is supported in this version.

I’ve tried unlocking my iTouch this morning with mixed results. The creation of the modified firmware completed with no problems but the process failed when PwnageTool tried getting the iTouch into DFU mode to enable iTunes to restore the new firmware. iTunes wouldn’t install the firmware when I manually put the iTouch into DFU mode. I eventually got around that by starting with the iTouch in DFU mode, coming out of it and going back in when the PwnageTool prompted. Following the PwnageTool instructions got the iTouch into a state where iTunes could restore the new firmware. Other users have reported success starting the process with the iDevice disconnected, and connecting when prompted to enter DFU mode.