Great site!

P.S. This is a great website. You are doing a super job with it.

No software was needed, they just plugged it in, and fiddled some of the GarageBand preferences and were set. Keyboards are going to use midi to talk to GarageBand, which is a very old and safe instruction set.

As you get more advanced, you may want to look into specialty midi boxes that will give you flexibility with more instruments. A keyboard is perhaps one of the simplest musical devices to hook to a mac.

Every Apple store I have been in has a demo set up with just this going on. The trouble is the keyboards are probably not what you want, certainly not with weighted keys.

As a side note, we have a set of tutorials on GarageBand in the works. My friend is a recording artist and has been using it for simple projects and just to have fun. These will not post until sometime much later down the road, but they are indeed in the works.

I have researched several brands, but cannot find much on mac-compatibility. Any information and/or advice would be appreciated.

Deborah

I am seeing this change, I assume as CUPS, the underlying printing and faxing engine in OS X is something that is simple for developers to hook into.

I do want to clarify, not all printers, scanners, etc are bad, just proceed with caution. OS X comes with a good amount of drivers, and most of the time, a basic printer will work just fine out of the box. This is not to say you are going to break anything by installing 3rd party software, but it is always safest to make sure you use current software, and proceed with caution.

ROFL! So true. I have to use a pc at work and I HATE IT! But, at least I know how to use it. ;D

Anyway, I have sent your site to my sister (just bought an iMac last month - very first home computer, even though she works on pcs at work - I was shocked she listened to me to buy a mac *G*), a somewhat beginner who has had an iMac for 3.5 years and was a technotard at the beginning but has LOVED her mac since day 1 - her old pc drove her nuts!), a computer wiz friend who had never used a mac but finally bought one and LOVES it for movies (her little girls are making movies and burning their own movie DVDs) and can still run her Windows programs, so she is really happy, and another sister who’s a technotard but has an eMac. And I’ll keep sending your site along - it’s great for beginners and intermediates and oldsters who can still learn stuff. I find new stuff because I just don’t have TIME to PLAY with my computer and learn new stuff. So this is fabulous!

Thank you!

Judie

I am a hobby photographer for the past 15 years or so, maybe a little longer, and while a Nikon guy for pro gear, I love the Canon stuff on the point and shoot end. The finally have strong battery life and good displays.

While I can not comment on the Olympus from experience, I can say the Canon series are strong cameras.

Just a quick one. I’m looking at buying point and click camera. I’m down to two brands, Canon and Olympus. From a plugging into Mac POV is either one better?

Keyboards are pretty sane these days, then again, a lot do come with software, which just makes me wonder. Monitors, again, pretty safe as well.

That mouse you are running is a great example of what I was talking about. I did not want to name names in the article, but now that it has been brought up, I might as well.

There is a third party app called APE, when used correct, it can be useful, it can also cause nightmares for developers to trace bugs in software. APE is NOT made by Logitech, but they piggybacked on it to make their mouse software work.

Not only did they violate the TOS of APE by shipping their software with someone else’s software built into Logitech Control Center, they also caused the 10.5 Leopard release to have problems.

This is one of the better articles on the issue, and a perfect example of why I feel it is best to try your peripherals naked, see if Apple has included clean software that just works, and if not, then go for the manufacturer install disc.

3rd party cameras will be difficult to get to work, as there are less resources for solid drivers to make the webcam work. We will try to cover this issue in some detail in a later post.

Some applications, before there was an Intel platform, were made to work on PowerPC machines. Now that there are two architectures, there are what are called Universal Applications.

Universal applications contain code in them to make them work in both Intel and PowerPC machines. PowerPC apps can generally run on Intel machines, although they run in “emulation”, which is somewhat slower.

Thanks

I was wondering about hardware with the apple-logo. (as far as I can see there are two, one for the powerpc and one universal). What does it mean? That no additional software is required? Or that 3rd party software is needed but it has been thoroughly tested and actually works? Or is it just that if you plug a mouse in the computer it recognizes it as a mouse, but not all the other extra functions?

And, but maybe they don’t count as a real peripheral, how about wireless networks? At home, all the windows-computers of my roommates are working fine, but the two Apples in the flat both have problems.

Keep up the good work!

Robbert