Posted Tuesday, March 29, 2005

It's Done! The Definitive iLife '05 Reference Ships in Less than Two Weeks

Last week, I signed off on the final proofs of The Macintosh iLife '05.

And then I immediately got the flu.

Three months of 18-hour days -- writing by day, editing the book's companion DVD by night -- finally caught up with me. I wonder why I didn't succumb earlier in the process. Adrenaline, maybe. The timing was amazing. 1:15 am: sign-off on proofs. 7:00 am: awaken with a mushroom cloud in my throat.

I've been flat on my back since then, and my cozy bed beckons even now. But I had to drag my wheezing frame in front of the Cinema Display to cough out the good news.

Here's the best part: my book and its companion instructional DVD will be off-press and shipping in less than two weeks. Peachpit Press pulled out all the stops to cut the book's press time to an absolute minimum.

A few vital statistics on the new edition: 345 pages, up from 271 in the iLife '04 edition. (And these are packed pages: because of the book's 8.5-inch wide page size and our use of the extremely space-efficient Helvetica Condensed font, there's far more text on each page than in most other books. This book's pages work for a living.) The book is being printed on a silky smooth, 70-pound coated paper stock. And of course, the entire book is in color.

The DVD? It's the biggest yet. Two hours and 43 minutes of iLife '05 instruction -- nearly an hour on iPhoto 5 alone -- plus AppleScripts, utilities, GarageBand loops, and more. The DVD's content is divided into 136 chapters, and a series of menus puts you no more than three button presses away from any segment. (I'll have more to say about what it's like to edit and author a DVD like this one in future posts. Check out a couple of the Final Cut Pro HD screen shots that I've posted on Flickr.)

You'll soon be seeing The Macintosh iLife '05 in a special display at Barnes & Noble stores across the United States. Can't wait? Pre-order the book from Amazon.com. The cover price has gone up $5 from last year's edition -- it's now $34.95 -- but Amazon is still offering a hefty 34-percent discount. That makes the latest edition of the top-selling iLife book $23.09.

Enough of the me-commerce. I'll be updating the rest of this site in the next couple of weeks to include some excerpts from the book and the new DVD. Now, though, my Robitussin is calling me.

Stay healthy!