Here's a fun tip from Mac | Life that describes how to use the Rock Band drum controller with GarageBand.

In fact, they describe two set-ups; one cheap and one less so. The cheap setup requires GarageBand, the Rock Band USB drum kit and either the GamePad Companion, JunXion (trial) or the Xbox 360 Controller Driver if you've got the Xbox kit.

The pricier rig requires a paid version of JunXion ($95). After some simple configuration, you'll have a fully functional electronic drum kit with virtually no lag. Very cool indeed.

If you set this up, let us know how it goes.

Tonight, Apple released iPhoto update 7.1.5. According to Apple, this update "Improves the printing quality of books, cards and calendars ordered via the iPhoto printing service." A welcome change for many iPhoto users who use Apple's print services. This update is reminiscent of the Aperture update that showed up last week.

You can update iPhoto by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update), or by downloading the installer package from the Apple website.

Thanks for the Tips, Tony and others!

While most people are probably satisfied to send their photos from iPhoto through their Gmail accounts using Mail, some people would rather have a more direct option. For example, sending large files through Mail seems to be no problem for me, yet from the same network with exactly the same settings, my wife's Mail chokes and spits and frequently fails when she tries to send a bunch (or even a few) pictures from iPhoto.

Tired of playing with her SMTP settings and getting everything working for one message, just to have it fail on the next one, I finally went in search of a more direct approach. My wife and I are both "switchers," and back in Windows we were used to Picasa, which has the ability to send photos via a Gmail account built-in. Makes sense, since Google owns Picasa, but that's exactly what I was looking hoping to get iPhoto to do.

In my searches I came across an iPhoto plugin called iPhoto2Gmail. When I tried it last week, it hung my iPhoto instance every time I tried it and I had to force quit iPhoto. I gave up on iPhoto2Gmail, but couldn't find anything else. In desperation, I went back to have another look at iPhoto2Gmail and discovered that it had been updated to version 1.0. Crossing my fingers, I gave it a try, and... it works great!

Though I don't need it on my machine, I really like the direct simplicity of sending my photos from right inside iPhoto, and I think I'll continue to use iPhoto2Gmail. If you've been struggling with sending photos through a Gmail account, this might be a useful option for you.

A TUAW tipster pointed us to a unsubstantiated, but intriguing post on Mac Soda noting that iLife and iWork '09 could be announced at the October 14th notebook event.

The current versions of iLife and iWork were announced on August 7, 2007 at the same event where the aluminum iMacs debuted, and previous iLife/iWork introductions have also been touted as "one more thing" at hardware-oriented product announcements.

The post doesn't provide any details of enhancements for the applications. In terms of speculating about what could change, iMovie could use some major enhancements to usability after last year's complete rewrite, and iWeb could benefit from better capabilities for publishing to non-MobileMe servers and iPhone-specific templates. The Numbers spreadsheet package could use a lot of new functionality, including macros, while Pages needs new templates.

TUAW readers -- what would you like to see in an iLife or iWork update? Leave a comment.

Thanks to Johannes for the link

Love them or not, you've got to admit that Radiohead are challenging the record business. After initially releasing their current album In Rainbows with a "pay-what-you-will" pricing policy, their entire catalog was finally added to the iTunes Store.

Shortly thereafter, they released all five tracks (or "stems" as they call them) of their song "Nude" in iTunes, encouraging fans to create their own remixes. This week, they've done the same thing with the song "Reckoner" [iTunes link]. The six-track, DRM-free album costs $0.99US. Tracks cannot be purchased individually.

If you purchase the stems within the first two weeks of availability, you'll receive an access code to a full GarageBand version of the song. When you're done, you can upload your masterpiece here.

This isn't the first we've seen an artist do this. Trent Reznor has released GarageBand versions of Nine Inch Nails songs, as has Burger King. Yes, Burger King.

It's easy to fill your iPhoto library with pictures. However, the task of finding the ones you're after isn't. The Events feature of iPhoto '08 is helpful, and you can improve it with Keywords.

Think of keywords as tags. You can assign any keyword(s) to any photo, like "Suzie," "Summer" or "Beach." Then, simply search "Suzie" to find relevant photos, sorted by event. Here's how to do it.

From the "View" menu, select "Keywords" (or hit Shift-Apple-K). Next, click beneath your photos to reveal the keyword text field. Enter as many comma-separated keywords as you like; previously used keywords will auto-complete.

Here's an added bonus. You can also search by keyword via the Image Browser in Pages (see above).

It's easy to get spoiled using Apple's Media Browser, that little tool that pops up in many of the iLife and iWork applications and provides access to photos, music, graphics, and movies. But what about those cases where you want to use Media Browser and the application you're in doesn't support it?

Karelia Software, makers of the popular website creation tool Sandvox, has just shipped an update to iMedia Browser. iMedia Browser 1.1.1 works with Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). It provides all of the functionality of Media Browser, but for just about any application on your Mac. This update adds international support and new media sources.

iMedia Browser now supports the following media (information from Karelia's website):

• Browse Photos: iPhoto / Aperture / Lightroom library, Pictures folder, and other predefined folders.
• Browse Music: iTunes library, GarageBand songs, Music folder, etc.
• Browse Movies: iTunes and iPhoto libraries, Movies folder, etc.
• Browse Links: Bookmarks from Safari, Camino, OmniWeb, etc.
• Drag and drop any folder into the source list to add to your library.

As the really old song says, "the best things in life are free", and iMedia Browser is no exception. Download it and start enjoying your media in almost every application you use.

Although I've written a book about iWeb, I often tell my clients to avoid using it for their websites if they're planning on hosting anywhere but on MobileMe. Why? When you post to MobileMe from iWeb, you "Publish" and your site is uploaded. Minor changes to a site only take a few seconds to upload, since iWeb uploads only the changed files to your web server. That doesn't happen when publishing to other servers. Instead, you publish to a local folder, and then usually upload the entire folder to your web server. That can take a long time with a large site.

Plyxim's Easy iWeb Publisher 3.0.3 fixes that problem. The shareware ($7 donation requested) application makes it simple to publish to any web host. It's an ftp client that takes the local folder you've published your iWeb site to, compares it to the folder on your web server, and then uploads just the files that have changed.

I've found that Easy iWeb Publisher works much faster than most dedicated ftp clients when syncing iWeb files that have been changed, added, or deleted. Until Apple fixes iWeb '08 to make publishing easier for people who don't use MobileMe, this is a great way to work with your own hosting.

Italian developers DataMind Srl have announced the release of Jade 1.2, the latest in a series of image processing apps from the company. DataMind also has a version of Jade for iPhone and iPod touch (link to iTunes App Store) for enhancing photos on the run.

Jade provides one-click enhancement of digital images (see example at top of post) using a set of algorithms invented by the company founders. These algorithms enhance colors, contrast, and dynamics, and you can fine-tune intensity, contrast, and color correction to acheive perfection. I tried Jade on a few iPhoto pictures and found that the enhancements were less harsh than those provided by iPhoto.

The application is available in both Home (€19.99) and Pro (€49.99) versions for Mac and Windows. There's also an Aperture plugin, and the app works well with iPhoto. The 1.2 upgrade doesn't appear to add any major new functionality other than the ability to upload to Flickr directly from the application. It does, however, have a number of ease-of-use and preferences changes that streamline the image enhancement process.

Not sure if Jade is what you need? There's a 30-day free trial download available for the desktop version.

As Scott already posted, iLife '08 just released a slew of updates. Although Software Update says that over performance and general compatibility issues were addressed in most products, the biggest change is MobileMe support for all iLife '08 applications.

iPhoto, iWeb and iMovie are now properly linked with the MobileMe service. This should be welcome news to iWeb customers who have been unable to maintain or update elements of their MobileMe (nee .Mac) pages since the transition earlier this month.

Likewise, galleries and movie can now be published directly to the newly branded mobile offering. You know, assuming you can get the service to work.

Lots of folks are writing in to let us know about the iLife '08 update waiting in Software Update. The iLife Support 8.3 update, 'provides system software components shared by all iLife '08 applications. This update improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. It is recommended for all users for iLife '08.'

At the moment this update is only available via Software Update, but we'll update this post when Apple posts the update on their site.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Update: You can grab the installer here.

An earlier post about PocketMac Ringtone Studio for iPhone reminded me of how I put together ringtones for my iPhone. I just fire up GarageBand and iTunes, do a little quick magic, and out come the ringtones I want.

This doesn't work with protected files such as those you've purchased from the iTunes Store -- hell, Apple wants you to spend $0.99 for the tune and another $0.99 to turn it into a ringtone. The method described here works very well turning those CD snippets that you've ripped into iTunes into ringtones. Follow along after the break for the step-by-step.

Just as Firefox users were upgrading to version 3 last week, many people started to miss their iWeb-created galleries as they just disappeared. Well, one iWeb user has been doing extra work to fix Apple's? (erm... Mozilla's?) problem. Joshua Ochs has posted an in-depth article on his site describing exactly what is going on -- he also provides a fix in the form of a script to patch iWeb.

Joshua says that the problem is neither with Apple nor Mozilla, but with a JavaScript library called "Prototype" which is used by iWeb. Right now there are two ways to fix the problem (neither of which are supported by Apple): you can use the information on Apple's Discussion Board, or you can download Joshua's script -- both seem to work and are free.

[via ArsTechnica]

Apple just released updates for iMovie and iDVD. According to Software Update, the iMovie update "addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues."

The iDVD update "supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues."

You can download both of these updates via Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or download the installer packages by visiting Apple's Support Downloads website.