If you’re running Mac OS X Snow Leopard, and are an Adobe Production Premium CS5 user, today is a good day. The Adobe Mercury Playback Engine in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 software takes advantage of NVIDIA CUDA parallel processing technology. While this may sound like greek to many of us who are film, video, and motion graphics pros – in plain English this translates to ‘our speed when working in Adobe Premiere Pro has just increased substantially‘.

“Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, accelerated by NVIDIA Quadro GPUs, have redefined the non-linear editing workflow, delivering huge productivity gains,” said Ginna Baldassarre, senior product manager at Adobe. “Adobe looks forward to working with NVIDIA to help more Mac users reap the benefits of real-time performance and the ability to create compelling, multi-layer projects with multiple HD or higher resolution video clips, all while instantly viewing results.”

From NVIDIA:

The high-end NVIDIA Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac, with 256 NVIDIA CUDA processing cores and 2GB of fast GDDR5 memory, delivers exceptional graphics performance across a broad range of design, animation and video applications. With new NVIDIA Scalable Geometry Engine technology, the Quadro 4000 for Mac can process up to 890 million triangles per second, enabling professionals to design, iterate and deliver higher quality results in less time.

The Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac also provides additional display flexibility through a DisplayPort and a DVI-I (Dual Link) connector built into its bracket, and a 3D stereo bracket for optimal stereo connection to the system. A DisplayPort to mini-DisplayPort cable is also included to enable mini-DisplayPort only Apple displays. Additionally, users can enable up to four high resolution displays from a single Mac Pro using dual NVIDIA Quadro 4000 for Mac boards.

The NVIDIA Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac enables dramatic increases in computing performance. Minimum system requirements include Mac OS X v10.6.5 or later with MacPro3,1 (early 2008), MacPro4,1 (early 2009), or MacPro5,1 (mid-2010). The Quadro 4000 processing unit for Mac is designed, built and supported by NVIDIA to provide best in class performance, reliability, compatibility and stability with professional Mac applications. NVIDIA and its ISV partners believe it’s the right choice in providing the dependability that video production and graphics professionals require.

The Quadro 4000 GPU for Mac ($1,199 MSRP, USD) is available this month at Apple.com, select Apple resellers and system integrators, and from authorized distribution partners including PNY Technologies in the Americas and Europe, ELSA in Japan, and Leadtek in Asia Pacific.

To learn more, visit www.nvidia.com/quadro.

If you’re like me, you probably have thought about how nice it would be to send text messages through your computer, instead of your cell phone.

With Mac OS X Leopard’s iChat, it’s easy.

Here’s how:
– open iChat
– select a buddy from your list.
note: your Address Book card for your buddy must have a mobile number included
– go to the menu Buddies > Send SMS
– in the new window – text away!

Leave the window open, and you can text back and forth.

That’s it! A simple, quick way to text.

Adobe has already released a beta version of the next generation Lightroom (Lightroom 2 beta) and it is 64-bit. So what’s the big deal about making Photoshop 64-bit? Here’s the scoop. All ‘older’ Adobe applications, such as Photoshop and After Effects – are developed on the Carbon framework. Surprisingly, Apple’s own Final Cut Pro and iTunes are still built on this framework as well.

Contradictory to Apple’s initial claim that all Carbon or Cocoa applications will be 64-bit, last year Apple cancelled the 64-bit roadmap for Carbon. This means that only applications built on the newer Cocoa framework will be able to be 64-bit-enabled. This translates to a major rewrite for Adobe.

For more info, check out Adobe Product Manager John Nack’s blog.