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Luminar Flex (Luminar as a plug-in) by Skylum Software

A review by Donny Yankellow (@rtteachr)

If you enjoy editing photos on your Mac, but Photos is not enough power for you, and you don’t like having to use an external editor to edit photos in, Luminar Flex might be what you are looking for. It has the power of Skylum’s Luminar in an extension that can be used in Photos. If you prefer Photoshop, Lightroom, or still use Aperture Luminar Flex installs a plugin for those apps too (yes, it even supports Aperture!).

Flex is very easy to set up and use for the most part. I would be remiss not to talk about an installation issue I had. The installer could not connect to the Skylum server (something with my router blocking it) and I ended up hotspotting to my phone to get the installation to work. Your mileage may vary, but I think this is worth bringing up. Through the installation plugins and extensions are installed for the apps you have installed on your computer in addition to the standalone app in your applications folder. For me, I only use Photos so I had to go into system preferences and enable the extension through the Extensions preference. After that I could easily use the software like any other extension in Photos.

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iPhone XR, the first few months

A review by James Ormiston (@MacJim)

Back in January, I walked into the Glasgow Apple Store to buy the iPhone Xr. I wanted to trade in my old iPhone 7 Plus, a Black 128Gb model that I had finished paying for through Apple’s finance deal, but the purchase boiled down to what they were willing to offer me to trade it in especially as the online valuation was not looking good. Initially, the ‘offer’ to have an iPhone Xr for £499 with a trade in was for a limited time (at the time of writing it is still available) hence the slight rush to buy before that ended. I was pleasantly surprised when the lady said “it’s worth £260 Sir”. My reaction was “that’ll do nicely, thank you”.

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19 Cool things you can do with your Watch

An infographic by Ellie Summers

from her original at
thewatchstrap.co/apple-watch-infographic 

by kind permission of www.thewebsitegroup.co.uk

Creators of Pay monthly websites with no setup costs. As a leading UK provider of affordable web design, The Website Group offer more than just pay monthly websites.
From web development to expert SEO, with prices starting from just £39.00 per month. They’ve got you covered!

See the full infographic below the fold!

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Essential Apple Podcast 131: It was a quiet week… & then it wasn’t!

This week was a bit slim on Apple news, or at least until the last minute… Then all of a sudden there were quite a few stories including MagSafe, an ML/AI hire, iTunes rumours and Apple ads on YouTube. Anyway to discuss all of these and whatever else we turn up along the way I am joined by Nick “Spligosh” Riley and original EAP host Mark Chappell.

Also I have to give a big shout out to all the slackers who put in stories – I don’t always thank them but every week members post possiible stories into the slack, and without them I would never find some of the great things they turn up. Thanks to all of them.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!
  • Get Photolemur 2 free by helping this YouTube video to 100,000 views.

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!

We can now also be found RadioPublic, PlayerFM and TuneIn as well as all the other places previously available.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 131: It was a quiet week… & then it wasn’t!

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Essential Apple Podcast 130: So that Showtime event… Hot or Not?

This week, in the wake of the Apple “It’s Showtime” keynote, and with the luxury of a few days to mull it all over, I am joined by very special guest Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies and Tech.pinions to examine what was hot and what was not… and consider why so much of it felt like it wasn’t fully baked yet. Plus, as always, a few other stories from the tech sphere.

A special thank you shout out to Allister Jenks (@zkarj) for his special donation to support the show… Very much appreciated.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!
  • Get Photolemur 2 free by helping this YouTube video to 100,000 views.

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 130: So that Showtime event… Hot or Not?

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Essential Apple Podcast 129: Maybe Jules Verne was right?

This week I am joined by fellow Slacker resident Ivor (the Airship) Pope to see what we thought of this week’s hardware releases, Apple’s interesting way of breaking the news and Uncle Tim’s trip to China. Also Google previewed their coming cloud gaming platform “Stadia” (which appears to work everywhere but iOS), while Microsoft talked up their xCloud gaming push. Of course the news feeds were full of everyone trying to tell us/guess what Apple will unveil on the 25th – but we would rather wait and see what Apple actually have to say (and hope it isn’t US only).

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!
  • Get Photolemur 2 free by helping this YouTube video to 100,000 views.

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 129: Maybe Jules Verne was right?

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Essential Apple Podcast 128: Mindblowing stuff is coming!

This week I am joined by fellow Suffolk MUG member and Slackroom resident Suffolk Pete to ponder the likely shenanigans to come on the 25th, and WWDC in June, pour scorn on scientists claims that AirPods give you cancer, scratch our heads over the Apple headmounted display patents and of course a few other things that caught our attention this week.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!
  • Get Photolemur 2 free by helping this YouTube video to 100,000 views.

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 128: Mindblowing stuff is coming!

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Essential Apple Podcast 127: Hey Tim! Is that you?

This week Uncle Tim made a joke out of Donald Trump’s name slipup, US Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to break up tech companies, German teen hacker relents and gives Apple the secret to his hack, Google Zero Day group find a vulnerability dubbed Buggy Cow, and Zuck claims Facebook wants to change… and takes a dig at Apple to boot. To discuss these stories, and more, this week I am joined by Mac to the Future, Go! livecast co-host and “buy all the things” Warren Sklar!

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!
  • Get Photolemur 2 free by helping this YouTube video to 100,000 views.

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 127: Hey Tim! Is that you?

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Essential Apple Podcast 126: The Tucson MUG Takeover

The Tucson Mac User Group rounded up a posse of MyMac contributors and sent them to take over the show… I am joined by Bob Wood, Curt Blanchard, David Acklam and Roger Harmon to take a ramble around the stories that caught our attention over the last week or so, including the Apple Shareholder Meeting, Tim Cook making his position on privacy pretty clear to all, hacking tools available for $100 and a daft smartphone/cuff/watch thing…
With 5 of us on the line I think we pulled the string a bit tight and in places the bandwidth was struggling so apologies for the occasional distorted audio.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!
  • Get Photolemur 2 free by helping this YouTube video to 100,000 views.

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 126: The Tucson MUG Takeover

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Essential Apple Podcast 125: Should I just get a megaphone?

This week I am joined by “the eccentric iOS developer” Weyhan Ng and Nick Riley (@spligosh) and we get stuck into a variety of topics including eye-wateringly expensive folding phones, the Marzipan thing and Mark Gurman’s prognostications, Google and that “forgotten” microphone, apps tattling on you to Facebook, and how to stop those annoying “can we send you push notifications” pop ups on web sites!

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 125: Should I just get a megaphone?

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Essential Apple Podcast 124: Cyber Security Special with Andy J

This week I am joined by our resident digital forensics specialist and the Slackroom security guru @dougee (Andy J) for a Cyber Security Special to talk about passwords, password managers, browsers, tracking, fingerprinting, AV/Malware protection and lots more. We even find time to fit in a few short news stories too!

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 124: Cyber Security Special with Andy J

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Essential Apple Podcast 123: Feeling slightly SMUG with Mark Elliss of Suffolk Macs

This week things went bonkers, Jeff Bezos refused to be blackmailed, Apple fixed one bug and then got accused of another… Some apps have been recording your screens and Apple tells them stop that or else, Angela Arhendts is leaving Apple, Apple are working on making their own modems and rumours surface of revised iPhone 7s and 8s because of the German sales ban won by Qualcomm. To talk to me about that and of course “anything else that comes to mind” is my friend and SMUG colleague Mark Elliss, the owner of Suffolk Macs, a local Mac and PC service and support business covering East Anglia and a deeply knowledgeable computer user.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Ghostery has gifted us 10x Ghostery “swag bags” to give away!
    • The winners are: Andy Joyce, Bob Wood, Guy Serle, John Nemerovski, James Ormiston, Ivor Pope, Elisa Pacelli, Mackyasse, Cutie Melon, Curt Blanchard
  • One lucky listener wins a free entry to Dr Mac’s Working Smarter for Mac Users Video course and one his book.
    • Winner – Dan Murphy,
    • Book – Bob Wood
  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 123: Feeling slightly SMUG with Mark Elliss of Suffolk Macs

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Essential Apple Podcast 122: Sometimes bad news is all there is

This week Simon had trouble with iCloud, Facebook and Google had trouble with Apple, and Apple had trouble with FaceTime. Serious criminals are tapping into the phone system backbone to attack banks, governments continue to try and get into everyones chats, and the Internet of Things may be an even worse security threat than you ever imagined. Meanwhile guest Guy Serle of the MyMac podcast has problems of his own with some shelves, Apple’s “awful terrible no good very bad quarter” might be down on estimates but is still the second biggest quarter they ever had… but over all bad news is all there is.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Ghostery has gifted us 10x Ghostery “swag bags” to give away! First 10 out of the hat! Email me on essentialapple@sudomail.com with your postal address and preferred T Shirt size to be in with a chance…
  • One lucky listener can win a free entry to Dr Mac’s Working Smarter for Mac Users Video course (worth $500), and also we have one copy of the Working Smarter book to give away. As usual email essentialapple@sudomail.com with the subject Dr Mac and you will be entered into the draw.
  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 122: Sometimes bad news is all there is

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Essential Apple Podcast 121: Happy Birthday Macintosh & SE/30 – TheMacMommy

This week it was 35 years since Steve pulled the Macintosh out of the bag to say hello, also it is 30 years since the launch of the SE/30. The latest iOS Beta holds clues about new iPads and even a possible new iPod Touch! Apple reassigned 200+ staff from the Titan project elsewhere (notice I said “reassigned” not laid off…). Apple got some flack about a photo competition and promptly did the right thing about it, while Zuckerberg continues to be a lying two-faced hypocrite (in Simon’s opinion). To discuss all of that, and whatever else comes to mind during the conversation, I am joined by Nick Riley (@spligosh) and Melissa Davis (@TheMacMommy / TheMacMommy.com)

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Ghostery has gifted us 10x Ghostery “swag bags” to give away! First 10 out of the hat! Email me on essentialapple@sudomail.com with your postal address and preferred T Shirt size to be in with a chance…
  • One lucky listener can win a free entry to Dr Mac’s Working Smarter for Mac Users Video course (worth $500), and also we have one copy of the Working Smarter book to give away. As usual email essentialapple@sudomail.com with the subject Dr Mac and you will be entered into the draw.
  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019 use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 121: Happy Birthday Macintosh & SE/30 – TheMacMommy

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Essential Apple Podcast 120: The Bob is back in town

This week Slackers everywhere lost their collective cool over a new Slack logo, Apple put some iPhone SE’s on clearance for $249 and they sold out almost instantly, a huge cache of email addresses and passwords got put online and Duck Duck Go moved over to Apple Maps. Here to talk with me about all of that, plus woodworking, a great computer cutting machine he discovered and much more is the always effervescent Bob “Dr Mac” LeVitus.

GIVEAWAYS & OFFERS

  • Ghostery has gifted us 10x Ghostery “swag bags” to give away! First 10 out of the hat! Email me on essentialapple@sudomail.com with your postal address and preferred T Shirt size to be in with a chance…
  • One lucky listener can win a free entry to Dr Mac’s Working Smarter for Mac Users Video course (worth $500), and also we have one copy of the Working Smarter book to give away. As usual email essentialapple@sudomail.com with the subject Dr Mac and you will be entered into the draw.
  • Listeners of this show can claim $10 off purchases of Luminar and/or Aurora HD 2019* use the coupon code EssentialApple at checkout for your extra discount!

Why not come and join the Slack community? You can now just click on this Slackroom Link to sign up and join in the chatter!
We can now also be found on Spotify, Soundcloud and even YouTube.

Continue reading → Essential Apple Podcast 120: The Bob is back in town