Anina, the fashion model that blogs about her “digital life” has been given an ultimatum by her agency: either quit doing the technology stuff, or leave the agency. They said that fashion and technology did not go together.
I think that’s pretty stupid — it’s like telling you to stop talking to people on the phone or stop being interested in music. Read her article at Anina.net and leave her a comment.

I've just installed the new Apple iLife ’06!
I ordered it right after Steve Jobs had announced it at the MacWorld Expo – I just had to have it! And it’s arrived even earlier than expected!
I’ve just rushed through the iApps and checked out the new features – I really love it! Here are just a few things that I like:

iPhoto 6 now has a full screen mode just like Aperture (dark background – no menu bar) and some nice new image effects which improve your photos. Don’t get me wrong – you can’t compare it with the adjustments you have in Adobe Photoshop, but, hey, I don’t want to import all my snapshots in Photoshop and then re-import them in iPhoto… And in full screen mode Apple has added the “compare” feature of Aperture, which is very nice. With the image adjustment panel and the new features I don’t need Aperture anymore.

iDVD 6 has some really nice new themes – I love “Road Trip” and ”Reflections” which has the look of the Apple TV ads. I’m trying to put some samples here very soon. Do you know the “Magic Movie” button in iMovie? They now have integrated a “Magic DVD“ button in iDVD which fills all drop zones automatically.

GarageBand 3: integrated Podcasting and iSight recording – all you need to create your own Podcasts and export them!
iMovie HD: widescreen HD support and themes from iDVD 6.
iWeb: well, that’ll be an extra post on this blog, soon.

Today, I started a new Photoshop refresh workshop at L4 – Institute for Digital Communication. The students will refresh their knowledge about image composing, color correction and layouting and many more in this 6-day-course.

Steffen – a friend of mine – has found a way to configure the Apple iSync software in such a way as to sync your Address Book and iCal with phones that are not yet supported by Apple, e.g. the Nokia N70, N90 or the Sony Ericsson W550(i). You‘ll need some basic understanding of scripting but all the rest is pretty easy and the instructions are explained step-by-step on his website: www.isync-hilfe.de (only German so far).

I have created an Apple Dashboard Widget for Stevens Pass. It shows the current web cam image of the ski resort. You can adjust the time interval from 5 to 30 minutes on the back side of the widget if you flip it. Mac users can download the widget here.
Sorry, Windows users – you can only watch how it works in this movie here (QuickTime 7 required).

Happy New Year everybody! I spent christmas with my parents and after that I travelled to the hotel of Sybille’s parents – the Berghof in the Saxon Swiss, which is not in Switzerland but in East Germany. This snap shot by Sybille gives an impression of the winter idyll (and no it’s not Caspar David Friedrich, it’s just me…). I wish everybody a wonderful 2006 and all the best!