Publisher Plus for Mac Time-limited Giveaway

Bonus time! With Mother’s Day being around the corner, PearlMountain is giving away its award-winning software for worldwide users, offering Publisher Plus – powerful desktop publishing software on Mac – as a free gift from May 9 to May 11. Still don’t find your Mother’s Day gift? Enjoy the free giveaway for desktop publishing software to make a special gift card for your mom.

Mother’s Day is one of the top holidays of the year. If you’re a daughter or a son, you must be looking for the best gift to express your love to dear Mom. Mother’s Day is also the perfect time to start a new promotion for some businesses. The three-day giveaway of Publisher Plus is coming at the right time for both the children and business owners since it’s the easiest and quickest way to design unique greeting cards with personal touch as well as professional marketing materials especially for restaurants and florists during Mother’s Day.

No matter you want to prepare a one-of-kind Mother’s Day card for great mom or to design outstanding menus, flyers, etc. for promoting business during this holiday, Publisher Plus for Mac will meet all kinds of needs and deliver endless possibilities. With this 100% OFF page layout software, everyone can create deluxe and professional prints in minutes without any cost. As one of the most versatile software developed by PearlMountain, it has some highlighted features:

* 170+ deluxe templates, abundant decorations, and many extra templates for free.
* Support adding and customizing images, texts, shapes, custom shapes, calendars, etc.
* WYSIWYG – powerful editing features includes Undo/Redo, Lock/Unlock, Group/Ungroup, Duplicate, etc.
* Export, print and share conveniently.

This three-day giveaway from May 9 to May 11 will benefit anyone who is looking to DIY beautiful Mother’s Day card or make professional marketing prints at home. Just grab this free gift to get your cards, menus or flyers ready now!

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Pricing and Availability

Publisher Plus for Mac requires Mac OS X 10.7 or later and it is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.10 (Yosemite). Despite the original price of $39.90, it will be totally free during May 9 to May 11 here: http://www.pearlmountainsoft.com/promotion/giveaway.html

About the Company

PearlMountain Technology Co., Ltd is a dedicated graphics and software development company founded in 2006. Over these years, it has released products with great popularity among worldwide users like Picture Collage Maker, CollageIt and Watermark Plus.

Its products have already been well received all through North America, Europe and Asia software markets for their ease of use, reliability and superior performance.

Media Contact

David Lin

PearlMountain Technology Co., Ltd

CEO

Email: info@pearlmountainsoft.com

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Despite the price, the new Mac Pro is actually a bargain. Here’s why. The base model is $3,000, and the 6-Core and Dual GPU configuration starts at $4,000. With options added, these machines cost as much as $10,000-$12,000.

Back in 1990, Apple released the most powerful Mac available at the time. It was called the Macintosh IIfx and it started at $9,000 and configurations went up to $12,000. In today’s money, that’s about $16,000 – $21,400. Today, even an iPhone has tons more power, memory and capacity than you could have ever dreamed of getting from a IIfx.

What Apple has done with the new Mac Pro isn’t to be underestimated – the machine contains high-end workstation graphics that were never available in earlier models, in addition to high-speed PCIe SSD storage which was also not available as standard in earlier Mac Pros, and is not even available as an option on many PC workstations. But Apple offers both of these as standard features, for as little as $3,000.

Then consider this. The RAM, SSD, GPU and CPU are actually all upgradeable on the Mac Pro, despite its bespoke design and proprietary parts. There’s no doubt that OWC (Other World Computing) will be offering SSD upgrades in the future, and they are already offering cheaper RAM than you can get from Apple. It has also recently been revealed that the CPUs are socketed, and the GPU is also replaceable.

For the types of customers who will buy the new Mac Pro, rendering time is money. Video production is a costly business – and rendering real-time 4K is something the new Mac Pro is very capable of with the latest version of Final Cut Pro. Adobe has yet to update Premiere to take advantage of the new hardware, but an update will surely arrive in the future. What this means is, the Mac Pro actually saves its customers money by allowing them to do increasingly demanding tasks in less time than ever before. It’s the only Mac that allows you to do this effectively with 4K and incredible Thunderbolt expansion – making it rather special and unique.

So all in all…when you consider everything the Mac Pro has to offer, and compare the price tag with what we used to pay for high-end Macs, it really is a bargain.

In 2014 we’ll be finding the best Mac Pro hardware and upgrade deals as they become available and we’ll be posting them on this site. Stay tuned!

The post Why the Mac Pro is actually a bargain appeared first on ResExcellence.

The drive sports a design similar to the outgoing Mac Pro’s design, with a holed grill front and metal frame. It uses a single fan at the rear and even sports a Mac-style power button at the rear as well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come supplied with a Thunderbolt cable, but thankfully you can buy them from Amazon for only $25.

As time goes on, Thunderbolt storage will become more popular, especially once the new Mac Pro starts shipping. It relies on Thunderbolt storage for adding expansion, so that’s where solutions such as the G-Tech G-Raid come into play.

Main Features

• Hot Swap Function
• Ultra-fast,high-performance Thunderbolt interface technology
• Double the data transfer rates of USB 3.0 and over 12 times faster than Firewire 800
• RAID 0 designed specifically for professional content creation applications
• Supports multi-stream HDV,DVCPro HD,XDCAM HD,ProRes 422 and uncompressed SD workflows
• Dual Thunderbolt ports for easy access and daisy-chaining up to 6 Thunderbolt compatible peripherals

Warranty

G-RAID is backed by a 3 year factory warranty and unlimited free technical support.

Where to Buy

You can buy the 4TB version for as little as $574 from Amazon.

You can buy the 8TB version for $760 from Amazon.

The post Hitachi G-Tech G-Raid Thunderbolt Array Hard Drive Storage for Mac appeared first on ResExcellence.

The new Mac Pro is a radical design, much different from the outgoing model. Because of Apple’s glossy-looking composition shots of its new product, many thought it was manufactured using plastic – it’s not, rather it uses metal like all other Apple products. The lack of internal expandability has become a cause for concern for many potential buyers – but I don’t see it as a problem for the Mac Pro’s future. A lot of existing Mac Pros are already hooked up to external RAID storage, devices such as the Drobo and Promise Pegasus. They are also hooked up to external sound cards and other expensive systems. As such, many Mac Pros that are being used in production environments are already being used with a combination of other hardware. So the next logical step is to take advantage of the Thunderbolt technology by moving this area forward. Currently, it’s early days – there are not many good Thunderbolt devices available, and they are costly. Many TB-based RAID enclosures have noisy fans and ugly designs that would never match with the Mac Pro. However, with time, this should improve – we should see companies start to embrace Thunderbolt as the market demand for it increases (because of the new Mac Pro’s dependance on it).

It takes us time to adapt and get used to new products, and the new Mac Pro is no exception. We’re not used to a system that depends so heavily on Thunderbolt to expand its abilities. We’re not used to this type of Mac, and we’re not used to the uncertainty that goes along with it – especially when it will be such a large investment for buyers. Those who buy it will be the early adopters – the beta testers of this new design, essentially. As the market around this new product grows, it’ll become a much more viable option for a greater number of people. The upcoming model that we’ve seen so far, with the 12 core processor and dual GPUs, is likely a candidate best for video content producers/editors rather than photographers or digital designers. But I expect that once things get moving, that will quickly change.

This will ultimately be a much more flexible and adaptable Mac than any before it – I’m excited about Apple’s professional offerings over the next couple years.

The post How Apple’s New Mac Pro Aims to Spark Third Party Thunderbolt Market appeared first on ResExcellence.

However, we believe that the judgment of the Mac Pro is temporary, Apple informs us that new Mac Pro will be released in spring 2013.

Apple will halt sales for the existing 2012 Mac Pro on March 1st, 2013 due to new EU regulatory requirements that the existing model doesn’t meet.

Since ResExcellence relaunched in January, we have been running a poll, asking our readers if they are still waiting for a new Mac Pro. Out of more than 40 respondents, 80% are still waiting for a new Mac Pro.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said last year that Apple is releasing a new Mac Pro in 2013.

What we expect from the 2013 Mac Pro

Apple will most likely provide us with a complete redesign of the Mac Pro, as well as adding new features. Some of the expected features include:

• Thunderbolt ports
• USB 3.0
• SATA III
• Fusion Drive
• Faster RAM – and higher maximum RAM
• Room for more hard drives (>6)
• Better Graphics Cards
• No Optical Drives?
• A Slimmer Formfactor
• Possible Rackmount Design

Some Mac fans are expecting Apple to make the design thinner, remove the ability to upgrade parts, and reduce the packaging size/carbon footprint of the machine. In itself, making the Mac Pro like the iMac, and removing the ability to open it and upgrade parts, would make the machine itself pointless. So we’ll just have to wait and see!

Thunderbolt Display + Pro Software Upgrades at WWDC 2013

Since the Thunderbolt Display has also not been updated in some time, it is possible that Apple will also upgrade it as well, alongside the Mac Pro, at this year’s WWDC. The new Thunderbolt Display might have a matte option, or at least significantly reduced glare similar to the Late 2012 iMac and MBP Retina. It also possible that Apple will upgrade its pro software such as Final Cut Pro, Aperture and Logic Pro at WWDC 2013.

What do you want to see in the 2013 Mac Pro? Leave your comments below.

The post New 2013 Mac Pro Looming, Buyers Still Waiting appeared first on ResExcellence.

5big NAS Pro

The 5big NAS Pro with a high-performance 5-bay network-attached storage solution powered by Intel. Using hybrid cloud technology, the LaCie 5big NAS Pro lets employees collaborate easily using a single interface for both network/cloud storage and remote access. Plus, data stays secure thanks to novice-friendly SimplyRAID and client-side cloud encryption. In addition to industry-standard RAID modes (5, 5+spare, 1**, or 0), the LaCie 5big NAS Pro ships with SimplyRAID, which makes RAID management easy. The LaCie 5big NAS Pro, design by Neil Poulton, is available this quarter in 0TB, 10TB and 20TB capacities. The 5big NAS Pro comes with a three year warranty. 0TB costs $529, 10TB costs $1,199 (only $948 via Amazon), 20TB costs $2,199.

Editor’s Note: Some users have reported that this particular unit is unreliable and provides slow performance. Do you own a 5big NAS Pro? Post your experiences below in the comments.

5big Thunderbolt RAID

Packed into the same shell as the NAS Pro version, the 5big Thunderbolt Series is a massive and lightning-fast five-bay RAID solution. The LaCie 5big features capacity up to 20TB and speeds up to 785MB/s* thanks to five 7200rpm/64MB cache hard disks preconfigured in RAID 0. With this excellent combination of capacity and performance, video professionals have all they need for post-production work including the ability to edit multiple 2K uncompressed 10-bit streams. The LaCie 5big can also be used as a JBOD array. With five working days a week, an IT manager can assign each disk to a daily backup. It is an ideal backup companion to a Mac Mini Server for businesses that need a professional IT setup. The unit uses a Noctua cooling fan and jumbo heat exhausts to provide quiet yet effective cooling for the five hard drives its capable of holding. This drive is available in 10TB and 20TB capacities.

LaCie Blade Runner (Philippe Starck Limited Edition)

The LaCie Blade Runner is more than just a beautifully designed hard drive – it’s a creation by world famous designer Philippe Starck that represents the combination of human and machine. The LaCie Blade Runner’s sharp, cage-like enclosure surrounds an almost anthropomorphic, liquid metal interior. This metaphor was inspired by a cyber future illustrated in the 1982 movie “Blade Runner”. The design is indeed rather unique – I’ve never seen an external hard drive that looks quite like it. It comes in 4TB size with a USB 3.0 interface (USB 2.0 compatible) for up to 5 Gb/s speed. The radiator-like design rapidly dissipates heat to help boost performance and ensure long-term reliability.

Do you use any LaCie products? What are your experiences of LaCie?

Post your comments below!

The post LaCie’s Latest USB, NAS and Thunderbolt Hard Drives Impress With Unique Designs appeared first on ResExcellence.

The latest 2012 iMacs from Apple provide great improvements over the previous generation. Benefits include better cooling, better speakers, Fusion drive, USB 3.0, and great CPU/GPU options.

The results are not unexpected; Photoshop CS6 does not use even two CPU cores well so the latest generation Intel Core i7 running at 3.4 GHz easily outpaces a 3-year-old Xeon running at a slower clock speed.

Some of the speed difference might be Photoshop itself: the slow 12-core performance is not so much a criticism of the 12-core Mac Pro as of theperformance bugs with Photoshop CS6, which suffers from internal implementation inefficiencies (performance bugs) on systems with more than 6 CPU cores.

When Photoshop runs with only 4 cores (8 virtual cores) instead of 6 (12) or 12 (24) cores, it is simply more efficient (less overhead, fewer bottlenecks).

Until Adobe changes how Photoshop uses CPU cores, this probably won’t change any time soon – even if Apple does update the Mac Pros to use the latest processors. However, this is to not to say that Apple shouldn’t update its Mac Pro line. The iMac still has limitations that prevent its adoption in certain applications. For tasks where an application uses six or more CPU cores efficiently and/or use more than ~24GB of memory, the 6-core and 12-core Mac Pro will be stronger performers.

 

The post Late 2012 iMacs Faster than Mac Pro appeared first on ResExcellence.

There are utilities available like KeyBoard Maestro or QuicKeys that allow you to do this, but starting with Mac OS X ‘Lion’ 10.7 Apple seriously beefed up the ability of the OS to create custom command key equivalents for menu items.

As an audio post production engineer, one application I use all day is AVID’s Pro Tools. As in most quality programs, it has commands keys for just about anything… but not exactly everything!

For example, when editing audio regions, I want as much screen real-estate as possible dedicated to showing the waveform. If you look at Figure 1, you’ll see two bins on the left and right of the edit window called “Track List” and “Clip List” respectively. Hiding these provides a larger waveform editing window, but as you can see there is no command key toggle.

Figure 1

Let’s create our own!

Under the Apple menu in the upper left corner of the screen, select “System Preferences”. From the second row of icons select ‘Keyboard”. From there you’ll see two buttons, “Keyboard” or “Keyboard Shortcuts”. Select “Keyboard Shortcuts”.

In the left panel you’ll see a list of services and applications from Apple and on the right a list of systemwide command keys for those services.

In the left column, select “Application Shortcuts”. By default, the only listing on the right will be “Show Help Command”. To add commands for Pro Tools, click the Plus Button (+). This will cause a dialog to drop down with more options.

Click the popup menu next to “Applications”. Pro Tools won’t be in the list, but if you scroll to the bottom there is an option for “Other”. From there you can navigate and select the Pro Tools application.

The box for “Menu Title” wants to see input in the following format: Main Menu->Submenu1->Submenu2… etc. For our example (hiding the “Track List”), the menu path is View->Other Displays->Track List, so type that into “Menu Title”.

The last thing to enter is your new command key. Personally, all my custom command keys begin with “Shift-Control”. I have found few (if any) Mac Applications that use this key combination, but feel free to use whichever combination you want as long as it doesn’t conflict with some other application command.

When you’re finished, the window should look similar to Figure 2.

Figure 2

Hit “Add” to close the dialog box. You should now see the new entry for your command key (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Open Pro Tools and confirm the new menu command key! Now you can add commands for a wide variety of menu options that by default don’t have shortcuts! Some of my favorites are toggling the View on I/O, Plugins and reverb sends.

Adding command keys to your often used apps will not only make working on your Mac more enjoyable, but will allow you to work faster, which is critical when a client is paying for your services!

Figure 4

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