Posts Tagged "mac"

Running Sparkbooth on Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

If you are running Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, you will need to temporarily turn off Gatekeeper to run Sparkbooth. Here is what you need to do:

1. Go to System Preferences
2. Select "Security and Privacy"
3. Change "Allow applications downloaded from" to "Anywhere". You can switch it back after running Sparkbooth for the first time.
4. Install Adobe AIR 3.1 or later from http://get.adobe.com/air
5. Install Sparkbooth from download page
6. And that is it!

Note: On some Macs, you will need to disable "Automatic Graphics Switching" under "Energy Saver" in System Preferences for Adobe AIR to run correctly.

The Sparkbooth 3.4.14 update provides a workaround for the distorted video issue on Macs with Adobe AIR 3.2 and 3.3. It is still recommended to use Adobe AIR 3.1 on Macs for better video.

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Minor update to check and provide workarounds for some Adobe AIR related issues:

• On Windows, a notification will be displayed if your computer has the Bluetooth/Adobe AIR bug
• On Mac, a notification will be displayed if you have Adobe AIR 3.2 or later installed. This will result in the stretched webcam video.

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With Mac computers, the Adobe AIR 3.2 update changes the proportion of the video for Sparkbooth. For this reason, I do not recommend installing Adobe AIR 3.2. If you have already installed the update and are seeing the changed video proportions, here is what you need to do:

1. Close Sparkbooth if it is open
2. Uninstall Adobe AIR 3.2. Run the Adobe AIR Uninstall in Applications > Utilities folder.
3. Install Adobe AIR 3.1.0 runtime from the Adobe AIR archive page
4. After Adobe air 3.1.0 is installed, run Sparkbooth and the video will be fixed.
5. Do not update Adobe air to 3.2 when prompted. If you want to disable these prompts, see "Disable automatic updates of the runtime"

Running Sparkbooth on Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

If you are running the developer preview of Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Loin, you may have problems getting Sparkbooth to run on that operating system. It looks like there is an issue with Adobe AIR and the "Automatic Graphics Switching" feature in Lion. Here is what you need to do:

1. Go to System Preferences
2. Select Energy Saver
3. Disable "Automatic Graphics Switching"
4. Install Adobe AIR 3.1 or later from http://get.adobe.com/air
5. Install Sparkbooth from download page
6. And that is it!

Adobe has just released an Adobe AIR update for Mac only that fixes the camera detection issue. Here is what Adobe said:

Today we posted a very minor update for the Adobe AIR 2.5.1 runtime that addresses a known issue related to interacting with a system's camera on Mac systems. This is a desktop only release for the Mac; Windows and Linux users will not be impacted by this issue and will therefore not be prompted to update.

The build number for the Mac update is AIR 2.5.1.17750. We recommend that users update to the latest version of Adobe AIR.

If you are running Sparkbooth on a Mac, do not update your Adobe AIR runtime to 2.5.1 which was released this week. Adobe AIR 2.5.1 for Mac seems to have broken the camera access.

If you do have 2.5.1 installed, you can go back to 2.5.0:

1. Go to Applications/Utilities and run the Adobe AIR Uninstaller
2. Go to http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/853/cpsid_85304.html
3. Download the Adobe AIR 2.5.0 and install it
4. Do not update to Adobe AIR 2.5.1 when prompted

Some Mac users have been asking what Sparkbooth has to offer over the Mac’s own Photo Booth app. To start, I am a Mac user, Sparkbooth is developed on a Mac, and I created Sparkbooth because the Mac Photo Booth app didn’t offer everything I was looking for in a photo booth software, including:

• Full screen kiosk experience. You do not want users to be distracted by rest of the operating system, which would encourage them to start clicking around and doing non-photo booth things on your computer.
• Simple and easy-to-use interface. This is another important feature for unattended operation. Users just walk up, press the space bar, and photo booth starts. The on-screen instructions walk guests through every step. They see how many shots are going to be taken and what the shots will look like.
• Sparkbooth has 4-strip photo layouts plus several other layouts.
• Customizable backgrounds, overlays, or logos can be added to photos to commemorate your event.
• Sparkbooth can automatically upload photos to photo sharing services so users can see all the photos.

It is also interesting to note, about half of Sparkbooth users are on the Mac.

-John

P.S. I haven’t forgotten about all you Windows users, Sparkbooth also runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

Automatic printing has been a frequently requested feature for Sparkbooth. I have been working on a solution which is waiting on the release of Adobe AIR 2.0. [Note: Please do not install Adobe AIR 2.0 beta and run Sparkbooth. I am getting reports of webcam and printer issues when running the beta. Only run Sparkbooth on the latest release, Adobe AIR 1.5.3]

In the meanwhile, wedding photographer Josh Rodriguez has come up with a solution in Mac OS X using a simple Automator script. Check out Josh's article. Great job Josh!

[Update April 2, 2010]: Someone has pointed out AutoPrint as a similar printing solution for Windows users. If you are using this, please let me know how well it works.