Today Apple released another relatively major update to Aperture, its professional image editing and management software. Version 2.1, available through direct download or through your computer’s Software Update feature, adds a number of improvements.

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If you are user of Aperture, Final Cut, or Logic, you’ll be interested to know that Apple has released the Plugin Manager version 1.7.3 for its Pro applications. According to Apple:

This update improves reliability for Apple’s professional applications and is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Express, Aperture, Logic Studio and related SDKs.

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I reported on Friday that Adobe had released version 1.4 of Lightroom and version 4.4. of Camera Raw. They have since pulled those updates from their site. Check out this MacWorld article for more information.

Today, Adobe released version 1.4 of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and version 4.4 of the Camera Raw plug-in for Bridge/Photoshop/Elements. Among other things, it adds support for Mac OS X (Leopard) printer driver compatibility and support for additional cameras including the Canon Rebel XSi, Nikon D60, Sony A350, and more.

Click here to download version 1.4 of Lightroom.

Click here (or use the Adobe Updater) to get Camera Raw 4.4.

As predicted, Apple updated their MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops today, and there are some exciting changes…enough to make my MacBook Pro feel inferior.

Both models now feature the Intel Penryn Pro Core 2 Duo processor with faster processor speeds. As is typical of Apple, the price points for the machines stay about the same while the performance and capacity of the machines goes up.

Read on for the details…

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For anyone who may find themselves needing or wanting to make an occasional international phone call or two, I would recommend Skype. Calls from one Skype-equipped computer to another (text chat, voice, or full video chat) are always free, no matter where the computers are located. But for me, I pay the $3 per month for unlimited calls from my computer to any phone in the US or Canada (as long as I’m in the US or Canada when originating the call). Those who know me understand that I have a very valid reason to call Canada all the time so this plan saves me quite a bit…especially when you compare it to the $0.60 /minute or so that Alltel would like to charge me to call Canada. Not that it’s any harder for them to get a call up there…anyway…I digress.

The $3 per month “SkypePro” account also gives me free Skype Voicemail, a discount on a “SkypeIn” number (an actual phone number you could give out that would ring to your Skype account) if I wanted one, the ability to transfer any incoming Skype calls that I miss to my cell phone (for free…less any cell phone minutes I might use), and…very cool…”Skype To Go.” Skype To Go allows me to call internationally from any landline that I designate at very low rates. So even when I’m away from my computer, I can call Canada for $0.02 per minute (I added the Skype To Go number to my “My Circle” numbers on Alltel, so…no minutes used there). Not too shabby…talk 30X as long for the same price!

But, again, I digress. The point of this post was simply to tell you that version 2.7 of Skype has been released. At a quick glance, I can see that it has immediately added all of my Address Book contacts as possible numbers to call, and there are a few other minor interface changes. If you already have Skype, choose “Check for Update” from the menu to update, or download it from here.

Yesterday I told you about the Mac OS 10.5.2 update, but that wasn’t the only news that Apple had in store.

Shortly/immediately after releasing the OS update mentioned above, Apple released a video graphics update. To see this update, you have to first install the OS 10.5.2 update (if you’re running Leopard, obviously), restart, and run Software Update again.

This morning, Apple released an iLife ‘08 update (version 8.2) to, among other things, improve compatibility with…wait for it…Aperture 2!!!! That’s right. This morning Apple released a major upgrade to Aperture. Aperture is Apple’s professional image editing software that, quite frankly, had been rather taken for granted by Apple. Or so it seemed…

I’ve been a loyal Aperture user since, quite literally, day one. I pre-ordered Aperture (and payed highly for it) because it was, far and away, the best image management/RAW processing software on the market…plus, I love Apple. Lately I’ve been entertaining a switch to Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom for my main image management/RAW processing software. I’m very experienced with Lightroom and teach others about it daily during the summer months. Now…I don’t know what to do!?!

Well, I’ll certainly think much harder about sticking with Aperture now. Here are some details:

• If you want to try Aperture 2, there is a 30-day free trial available here. If you are a current Aperture 1.5 user be sure and read the sidebar notes on that page before you go playing with the free trial. You may end up permanently altering your library to a state where you’ll be required to purchase version 2 to access it.
• If you already own Aperture, you can upgrade to version 2 for just $99.
• The full retail price of Aperture 2 has been lowered to just $199! This sets Aperture’s price point $100 lower than that of Adobe’s Lightroom ($299). So, even if you aren’t an Aperture user, or if you are [shudder] a PC user, it’s possible that this may help to bring down the price of Lightroom in the future. Stay tuned for more information.
• Click here to see the “100+ New Features” in Aperture 2. I haven’t looked too closely, but there are few things taken from iPhoto ‘08 that were pretty awesome features!
• I didn’t see this advertised anywhere…I just stumbled across it…but if you purchased Aperture 1.5 recently (basically in the year 2008) you are eligible for an upgrade to version 2 for only $9.95. Click here for details.

I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted with my thoughts about Aperture 2. I will say that this did not come a moment too soon. I was ready to make the switch to Lightroom on a wildlife shoot that I have coming up on Monday!

Apple released its much-anticipated 10.5.2 update for OX 10.5 (Leopard) today. Run Software Update on your Mac to receive the new update. I’ll spare you the details, but information can be found from Apple here.

To all you Firefox users, be sure and run your updater (located in the Help menu) to download and install the newest release of Mozilla’s Firefox: 2.0.0.12. This latest release includes 10 patches over the previous release, including three for critical vulnerabilities. More information about these specific issues can be found on this blog entry.

If you’re not already using Firefox (why not?) you can download it here. A link is also conveniently located in the right-hand sidebar of all my pages to show my support to the quality product that Mozilla has helped to produce.

I plan on putting up some posts shortly on choosing a web browser, adding extensions to your web browser, and the importance of updating software. Stay tuned.

Microsoft has sent Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) to manufacturing today. SP1 is intended to address some of the concerns that users of Microsoft’s newest operating system have encountered including, but not limited to: slow file copy times, slow return from sleep, and device driver conflicts.

SP1 will be pre-installed on new OEM computers in the next several month, according to a blog post by Mike Nash from Microsoft’s Windows product management group.

The Service Pack should release to current users of Vista in mid-March via Windows Update. Apparently the new Service Pack can cause some driver conflicts with devices that may currently be functioning with Vista. In theory, Windows Update will identify these problem devices and not prompt users to install the service pack if they have incompatible devices installed.

I’ll post more about this as news develops and the release date gets closer. Thanks to this post for alerting me to the upcoming release.