Macworld Middle East April 2011

REVIEWS

POWERBEATS SAMSUNG AND BROTHER PRINTERS CREATIVE ZIISOUND

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COVER STORY

20

The syncing system

Keep your information in check

OPINION

07

From the Editor’s Desk

Keep your life in sync 46 Dear Apple: Thanks for the tables, but...

CONTENTS

April 2011

MAC USER

08 Steve Jobs takes medical leave of absence

09 The Mac Plus turns 25

10 MacBook Pro (Sandy Bridge) 13 Hot stuff

CLASSIC APPLE

14

Apple Airport Extreme iOS CENTRAL

16

The iPad and the centenarian

18 More than 10 billion App Store downloads served

19 News reading on iPad eating away at print

WORKING MAC

28

Reviews

29 Automator workflow of the month

PLAY LIST

30 How to move your iTunes media folder

31 Four reasons to rip CDs without iTunes 32 Reviews 33 10 essential iTunes keyboard shortcuts

DIGITAL PHOTO

34 MacBook Air: the photographer’s laptop

37 Meet the hot new cameras 37 How to update a camera’s firmware

CREATE

38

Collage construction 39 iMovie app tricks 40 Reviews

HELP DESK

43

4 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

Mac 911

We answer some tricky questions from readers

GET IN TOUCH!

How are we doing?

What do you think of the magazine, the web site, and everything else?

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6 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

© Copyright 2011 CPI. All rights reserved. While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

Publisher Dominic De Sousa

FROM THE EDITORS DESK

COO Nadeem Hood Editorial Director Dave Reeder dave@cpidubai.com +971 (0) 4 440 9100 Group Editor Magnus Nystedt magnus@cpidubai.com @mnystedt +971 (0) 55 883 2009 ADVERTISING Sales Manager Crystal Nystedt crystal@cpidubai.com @cnystedt +971 (0) 55 2020 227 CIRCULATION Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 (0) 4 440 9147 PRODUCTION AND DESIGN Production Manager James P Tharian james@cpidubai.com +971 (0) 4 440 9146 DIGITAL www.cpilive.net www.cpidubai.com Webmaster Tristan Troy Maagma troy@cpidubai.com Web Designer Erik Briones erik@cpidubai.com Jerus King jerus@cpidubai.com

Published by 1013 Centre Road, New Castle County, Wilmington, Delaware, USA Head Office PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 (0) 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 (0) 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press LLC © Copyright 2011 CPI All rights reserved While the publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

Keep your life in sync

K

eeping information in sync between computers and devices is a major headache for me. You may change computer once every year or so, perhaps you get a new smartphone about as often.

I have a new phone pretty much every week a different computer a few times per month. But then of course I’m not like the average user because I make my living from trying out technology.

The basic problem is the same though: how to keep information up to date and available on multiple platforms.

It’s almost an impossible task though, to keep files, settings, bookmarks, email etc. in sync between computers, smartphones, tablets and more, especially when you swap that often.

What I do is live as much in Google and DropBox as I can. All my working files, including this issue of Macworld as I’m finishing up, live in DropBox. That’s around 30GB worth of data that DropBox keeps up to date between any number of computers. I also access those files with the DropBox app on iPhone, iPad and other devices too.

If you live in an Appleonly world, with a Mac and iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you should look at MobileMe. Apple’s online solution is only for its own platforms but it is the easiest way to keep things in check. I also have MobileMe but don’t really use its syncing powers other than to bring some information to my iPhone. Instead I rely on Gmail for keeping email, schedule, contacts, documents, and more in check.

This is one area where an Android device has the edge compared to one based on iOS as you would expect. When setting up on Android, you just enter your Gmail credentials and the device is populated with your contacts, calendar, and more, all over the air. That’s one feat that Apple has yet to master with MobileMe. Speaking of MobileMe, I think it’s about time Apple revamps it, as it’s showing its age. Perhaps plans for MobileMe feature in the future of that huge datacentre they’ve built in North Carolina. At least I hope so as there’s so much promise in MobileMe.

Magnus Nystedt Group Editor

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 7

MACUSER

News and Analysis about Macs, OS X, and Apple

Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave of Absence COO Tim Cook runs day-to-day operation of company

A

pple CEO Steve Jobs announced in January that the company’s board of directors had granted him a medical leave of absence, though he will continue to hold the role of CEO. Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook will run day-to-day operations, as he did during Jobs’s last extended absence.

Jobs suffered from pancreatic cancer in recent years; in 2009 he took a six-month leave of absence as he battled health issues and underwent a liver transplant.

Cook Back in the Kitchen It’s a familiar role for Cook, who joined Apple 13 years ago. This is his third time filling the void left by Jobs; he acted as interim CEO in 2004, when Jobs underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer, and again for the first half of 2009, when Jobs received a liver transplant.

Wired once described Tim Cook as a “quiet, soft-spoken, low-key executive,” and “the yin to Jobs’s yang.” He’s 50 years old, holds a degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University, in Alabama, and an MBA from Duke University, in North Carolina.

and managing the carefully timed release of new ones. Prior to Compaq, he worked at IBM and Intelligent Electronics.

During Jobs’s six-month leave in 2009, Apple’s stock under Cook’s leadership rose 67 percent, according to CNN. In fact, Apple’s board of directors (in a move nominated by Steve Jobs himself) rewarded Cook with a $22 million bonus for his work in Jobs’s absence. (With those bonuses, Cook’s total compensation neared $60 million for 2010.)

“There is a lot of respect for Tim Cook inter­nally at Apple and externally, and he has proved to be able to drive the company well.”

Cook left Compaq in 1998 to join Apple as its senior vice president of operations, and steadily rose through the ranks until he was awarded his current title of chief operating officer in 2005.

He’s credited with reinventing Apple’s approach to inventory supply chains, keeping in-demand products in stock,

8 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

While Cook’s work ethic and detail-oriented mind are frequently lauded, some analysts have questioned whether he has the kind of design chops that Jobs brings to the table. “Tim Cook’s the guy who makes the trains run on time,” said Roger Key of Endpoint Technology Associates in a 2009

interview with Macworld the last time Apple turned to Cook. “He’s not the creative genius. . . .

Even though in some sense he is an excellent manager and is the backstop for Steve . . . that’s not going to do anything except make the trains run on time. That’s not going to decide what the train should look like in five years.”

The Eventual Heir?

CNN, however, quotes Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi as saying, “There is a lot of respect for Tim Cook internally at Apple and externally, and he has proved to be able to drive the company well.”

Cook’s public profile as an Apple senior executive has continued to rise in recent years—likely by some combination of coincidence and design. Few top-level executives at Apple have ever emerged from Jobs’s shadow, but Cook has done so repeatedly in the past year. It was Cook (along with Bob Mansfield, senior vice president of Mac hardware) who joined Jobs on stage during the July press conference on iPhone 4 antenna issues, Cook who kicked off October’s Back to the Mac event, and Cook who delivered the news

that the iPhone 4 would come to Verizon. Add these to Cook’s regular appearances on quarterly earnings calls with Wall Street analysts, and you get an executive who’s clearly playing an increasing role in Apple’s public relations efforts.

Cook’s drive for excellence at Apple is perhaps best illustrated in this choice tidbit from a profile of him in Fortune headlined “The genius behind Steve.” . . . [Cook] convened a meeting with his team, and the discussion turned to a particular problem in Asia.

“This is really bad,” Cook told the group. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes into that meeting Cook looked at Sabih Khan, a key operations executive, and abruptly asked, without a trace of emotion, “Why are you still here?”

Khan, who remains one of Cook’s top lieutenants to this day, immediately stood up, drove to San Francisco International Airport, and, without a change of clothes, booked a flight to China with no return date, according to people familiar with the episode. The story is vintage Cook: demanding and unemotional.

Should Steve Jobs by choice or necessity ever need a full-time replacement at Apple, it will of course be the board’s responsibility to decide who should fill his black turtleneck.

But with Tim Cook taking over now for the third time in seven years—and his consistent track record when called upon thus far—one might expect that Apple’s future is already in safe hands.

The Mac Plus Turns 25 Groundbreaking all-in-one was a very popular Mac

T

wenty-five years ago, Apple introduced the innovative Macintosh Plus. Industry analysts praised the Plus, which retailed for $2599, as the computer Apple should have released in 1984.

The original Macintosh had a mere 128KB of built-in RAM, with no authorized way of installing upgrades. The Mac Plus shipped with 1MB of memory (with a capacity for up to 4MB of RAM), which provided ample breathing room for the apps of the day.

The Mac 128K had a 400KB floppy drive, which developers found limiting.

The Mac Plus partially alleviated that problem by shipping with an 800KB floppy drive.

The Mac 128K had no high-speed, general-purpose peripheral expansion bus of any sort. With the Mac Plus, Apple began to open up the Mac to outside peripherals through the inclusion of a SCSI (pronounced scuzzy) port. SCSI was (and is) an industry-wide interface standard that allows a diverse array of peripherals to be connected to the Mac. While most of the peripherals were hard drives, enterprising companies produced Mac-tailored SCSI devices as varied as tape drives, ethernet adapters, and even SCSI-based graphics cards for a color display.

The inclusion of SCSI in the Mac Plus meant that more users would store data on external hard drives. The original Macintosh File System (MFS) had some significant limitations that suddenly became problematic with hard drives of

20MB and larger. Most significantly, MFS didn’t support volumes over 20MB total. It also didn’t support nesting folders, and it stored its file directory in an inefficient and slow-to-access manner.

Enter HFS, or Hierarchical File System, which solved these problems and more. HFS made its debut with System 2.1 in 1985, but it took up precious RAM space in the Macintosh 512K when loaded at boot time. With the Plus, Apple moved the HFS code to ROM and added several improved graphics routines to further speed up the system.

HFS in ROM was an important step in ushering in the next era of Macintosh file storage.

With all these improvements, the Mac Plus sold well, and it remained Apple’s best-selling model even after the introduction of the Mac SE in 1987. As Apple introduced newer models in the Mac line, the company continued to discount the Mac Plus, positioning it as the lowest-end Mac until the Macintosh Classic debuted in 1990. The venerable Mac Plus continued to see heavy use in the real world far beyond its astounding 4 1/2-year production lifespan. No other single Mac model has been produced for that length of time.

Many of those same Mac Plus machines were so well built that most of them still work today. If you have one of these living relics resting in your garage or attic, this may be a good time to dust it off, fire it up, and drink a 25th anniversary toast to the machine that truly made the Macintosh platform sing.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 9

MAC USER

MacBook Pro (Sandy Bridge) Intel’s latest processors now in Apple’s portables

I

t’s been nearly a year since Apple refreshed its MacBook Pro line. That’s a longer-thanusual gap between updates, but the new MacBook Pros sport several changes under the hood, including new processors, new graphics processors, and a new peripheral connector. It all translates into performance jumps that were worth the wait.

Threading, which allows the system to address four virtual cores in the 13-inch models and eight virtual cores in the 15- and 17-inch models. Another technology, Turbo Boost, allows the processors to temporarily speed up when needed. The Sandy Bridge processors are using Turbo Boost 2.0, which Apple says is more efficient than the previous version.

Welcome to Sandy Bridge Intel’s latest Core series of processors, known by the code-name Sandy Bridge, are found inside every new MacBook Pro. With the processor, cache, integrated graphics, and memory controller all residing on the same die, the Core i5 and Core i7 processors helped propel the new MacBook Pros well past their predecessors in CPU performance.

The Sandy Bridge processors feature Intel’s HD Graphics 3000 integrated graphics processor. In the previous generation of MacBook Pros, Apple used Intel’s integrated HD graphics only in the higher-end models, which also had a second, discrete GPU, the Nvidia GeForce GT 330M. The GT 330M kicked in for graphically intensive applications. With the older 13-inch MacBook Pros, Apple didn’t think the Intel HD graphics available at the time were powerful enough to be the only graphics option, so it stuck with Core 2 Duo processors and used Nvidia’s integrated GeForce 320M graphics. With the new HD Graphics 3000 processor, Apple found the performance good enough to finally invite the 13-inch models into the new Core era.

Like its predecessors, the Sandy Bridge processors support Hyper

Enter Thunderbolt The only change you’ll notice to the exterior of the MacBook Pro is the tiny lightning bolt icon near what was once the Mini DisplayPort connector. It’s now a Thunderbolt port, a new connectivity technology. The port looks identical to the Mini DisplayPort and you can connect Mini DisplayPort adapters or Apple’s LED Cinema Display.

You can daisy-chain up to six devices to the Thunderbolt port.

Thunderbolt can supply up to 10 watts of power per channel and offers speeds of up to 10Gbps, twice that of USB 3.0 and 12 times as fast as FireWire 800. Apple and Intel are hoping for widespread adoption of Thunderbolt, but only time will tell if Thunderbolt will catch on. Several Thunderboltequipped products have been announced, but they’ve yet to start shipping, so at the moment it’s impossible to fully test the Thunderbolt port. When Thunderbolt peripherals become available, Macworld Lab will revisit the speed claims with our own benchmark tests.

10 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

Out of iSight Along with the other internal changes, the MacBook Pros

feature a new integrated Webcam called FaceTime HD, which replaces the iSight Webcam found the in the older MacBook Pros.

Capable of capturing video at 720p resolution, the new Webcam takes its name from Apple’s video calling software that runs on iPhone 4, the latest iPod touch models, and most Intel Macs running Snow Leopard. The FaceTime for Mac software comes pre-installed on the new MacBook Pros, and is also available from the Mac App Store for $1.

There was a noticeable difference in image quality between the FaceTime HD Webcam and an iSight Webcam in

last year’s MacBook Pro. When I held up a document to each camera, the text was much easier to read on the high-resolution image transmitted from the new MacBook Pro. The text on the image from the iSight was garbled and barely legible. The differences in image quality from each Webcam were subtle when looking at people.

What hasn’t changed Everything you see and touch on the MacBook Pros (aside from the aforementioned Thunderbolt icon) is identical to the last generation.

The glossy LED backlit screens each measure 13.3-, 15.4-, and

MAC USER

17-inches diagonally, with 1280 by 800, 1440 by 900, and 1920 by 1200 pixel resolutions, respectively. All models have a full-sized, backlit keyboard, and glass multi-touch trackpads with gesture support.

The stereo speakers and built-in microphone remain the same, as do the number of ports on every model: one FireWire 800, one Gigabit Ethernet, a MagSafe power connector, and one audio in and one audio out port. The 13- and 15-inch models have two USB 2.0 ports and a SDXC card slot. The 17-inch model has three USB 2.0 ports and an ExpressCard/34 slot.

The next step up in the line, the 13-inch 2.7GHz dual-core Core i7 MacBook Pro, showed improvement that was less dramatic, scoring only a 13 percent gain over the model it replaces, a 13-inch 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. The 2.7GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro was 36 percent faster in our iTunes test and 28 percent faster in our Handbrake test.

We found the 13-inch 2.3GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro to be 31 percent faster overall than the 13-inch 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Air (). The Pro was much faster in processor-intensive tasks, but the Air was much faster at duplicating and unzipping files, thanks to the flash storage. The Air’s Nvidia graphics were also faster than the HD Graphics 3000 in the Pros.

Unlike the 13-inch models of the

last generation of MacBook Pros, the new 13-inch models really separate themselves from Apple’s entry-level laptop, the $999 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook ().

Where only seven Speedmark points, a FireWire 800 port, and $200 separated the old 13-inch 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro and its plastic cousin, the new 13-inch MacBook Pros were 41 and 57 percent faster overall than the MacBook.

The 15-inch 2.0GHz quad-core Core i7 MacBook Pro was 33 percent faster than the 15-inch 2.4GHz dual-core Core i5 MacBook Pro introduced last April. The 2.0GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro’s Handbrake time was 51 percent faster, while its iTunes encoding times were 24 percent faster. Duplicating and Unzipping files didn’t see much improvement, however.

The new 15-inch 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7 MacBook Pro was 38 percent faster than last year’s fastest 15-inch model, a 2.66GHz dual-core Core i7 MacBook Pro. The new 17-inch 2.2GHz quad-core Core i7 MacBook Pro was 53 percent faster than last year’s largest Mac laptop, a 17-inch 2.53GHz dual-core Core i5 MacBook Pro.

Getting graphic To see how the new graphics processors handle game performance, we ran a 1024-by-768-reso-

lution Call of Duty 4 test and a Cinebench R11.5 GPU test, which are part of Speedmark 6.5. We also ran the Call of Duty test and a Portal timedemo at 1280-by-800, the native resolution of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. The new 13-inch MacBook Pros and their Intel HD Graphics 3000 processors weren’t that impressive in our games tests, scoring lower than the older 13-inch systems with Nvidia GeForce 320M integrated graphics. In the 1024-by-768-resolution Call of Duty test, the 13-inch 2.3GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro displayed 26 fps (frames per second) on average, while the 13-inch 2.7GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro averaged 27 fps. Those results are well below the 33 fps displayed by the older 13-inch 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with Nvidia graphics.

The Call of Duty scores at 1280-by-800 showed an even wider performance gap with the 13-inch models, with the older Nvidia-powered 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro posting frame rates that were 55 percent higher than the 13-inch 2.3GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro, and 48 percent higher than the 13-inch 2.7GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro. The new 13-inch MacBook Pros fared better in the Portal tests, displaying just two fewer frames per second than the older 13-inch 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. All three of the 13-inch MacBook Pros new and old posted Cinebench R11.5 scores of April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 11

MAC USER

11. The slower game performance may be seen as a reasonable price to pay for the increased overall performance, but even casual gamers may want to consider a Mac portable with discrete graphics.

The 15-inch 2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro, with its discrete 256MB AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics, shows a big jump in performance, with 1024-by-768 Call of Duty frame rates and Cinebench GPU scores nearly double those of the new 13-inch models. The 15-inch 2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro also more than doubled the scores of the 13-inch MacBook Pros in Call of Duty at 1280-by-800. Portal was also significantly faster, displaying 86 percent more frames per second.

When comparing the 15-inch 2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro to last year’s 15-inch 2.53GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro, the Call of Duty numbers are slower on the new model, while Portal was a few frames faster. Cinebench scores were actually 31 percent faster on the 15-inch 2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro. The 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros with 2.2GHz Core i7 processors were the top graphics performers overall, thanks to the discrete Radeon HD 6750M graphics processor with 1GB of dedicated video memory. In the 1024-by-768 Call of Duty tests, the 2.2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pros were able to display 31 percent more frames per second than the older 15-inch 2.53GHz Core i5 and 17-inch 2.53GHz Core i5 MacBook Pros, both with Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphic processors. The 2.2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pros absolutely smoked through the Portal test, with frame rates that were nearly doubled that of the other machines. And the 2.2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pros more than doubled the Cinebench GPU score of the older 15-inch 2.53GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro. 12 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

Battery life Since the MacBook Pro battery is built-in, you can’t swap in a fully charged battery. So how long the built-in battery lasts on a charge becomes much more important, and Apple says the MacBook Pro battery should last up to 7 hours.

Apple changed the way it tests battery life, so it’s hard to know whether 7 hours represents an improvement over last year’s MacBook Pros. For the old models, Apple claimed up to 10 hours of battery life for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, and between 8 and 9 hours for the 15- and 17-inch models.

Macworld Lab performs a quick-drain torture test to gauge battery life in a worst-case scenario. Using QuickTime Player, we loop a movie file that has been ripped from a DVD to the hard drive. We view the movie in full screen mode with screen at full brightness, and AirPort connected.

Our battery life tests differ dramatically from Apple’s, so comparing the results to Apple’s specification isn’t comparing apples to apples.

In our tests, the new MacBook Pros all lasted between 5 hours, 39 minutes (the 17-inch 2.2GHz Core i7 model) and 5 hours, 53 minutes (the 13-inch 2.3GHz Core i5 model). Those results are better than the results for last year’s line.

Both of the 13-inch MacBook Pros lasted longer than older 13-inch 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, which lasted 5 hours, 23 minutes. The 13-inch 2.3GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro lasted 30 minutes longer, and the 13-inch 2.7GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro lasted 18 minutes longer.

More dramatic improvements were found with the 15-inch MacBook Pros. The 15-inch 2.0GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro lasted 50 minutes longer than the 4 hours, 53 minutes by the old 15-inch 2.53GHz Core i5 MacBook Pro. The 2.2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro lasted 54 minutes longer.

The 17-inch 2.2 Core i7 MacBook Pro also showed an impressive improvement, lasting 48 minutes longer than the 4 hours, 51 minutes posted by the old 17-inch 2.53GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro.

Macworld’s buying advice The new MacBook Pros offer a mix of improvements, familiarity and compromise. The CPU performance and battery life are much improved, and the graphics performance of the discrete Radeon HD 6750M in the 15- and 17-inch 2.2GHz Core i7 models was much faster than any MacBook Pro we’ve tested. There’s also the high data throughput of the new Thunderbolt port. The screen, weight, keyboard, speakers, and number of ports remain the same. As for compromises, there’s the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor, which turned in results that are either slower or similar to the integrated graphics used in last year’s MacBook Pros. The discrete Radeon HD 6490M graphics processor in the 15-inch 2.0GHz Core i7 model performed similarly to the discrete graphics found in last year’s 15-inch models. And there aren’t any Thunderbolt peripherals available yet.

If you’re deciding between a $999 MacBook and an $1199 13-inch MacBook Pro, the choice is clear: Spend the extra $200 on the MacBook Pro, which is a better performer and has more features.

The 15-inch 2.2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro is the model to look at if you’re looking for the best combination of size and performance. The 17-inch 2.2GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro can be seriously considered a replacement for a desktop computer.

MAC USER

HOT STUFF Dolly Drive

When it’s time for Time Machine to back up your data, the Dolly Drive utility allows for encrypted files to be saved to cloud storage that’s provided by its developer, Cirrus Thinking. Dolly Drive takes over the management of your Time Machine backups, and the software has a helpful Inclusion Assistant to help you decide which files to back up. Dolly Drive also can save a bootable clone of your hard drive to an external hard drive (saving the clone to the cloud would take an extremely long time). If you need to restore from a clone, you can use it as your boot disk, and then run Dolly Drive to perform a data restoration.

However, since Time Machine doesn’t allow for multiple destination drives, you can’t easily switch between cloud storage and local storage. Of course, if you were able to configure multiple drives with Time Machine, that would open up a whole can of worms: You would need to implement additional features, such as profile management and synchronization of Time Machine data between drives. Dolly Drive offers three cloud-storage plans. The 50GB plan is $5 per month. The 100GB plan is $7.50 per month. And the 250GB plan is $10 per month. (dollydrive.com).

What We’re Raving about This Month

BookArc for Air

If you just can’t stand your MacBook Air, there’s help at hand from the folks at Twelve South. The $40 BookArc for Air is constructed from heavy gauge steel, with a soft insert that keeps your Air snug without scratching it. On the base are silicone footpads that keep the stand from sliding around or gouging your desk. There’s also an integrated cable management system so you can cleanly shepherd all your unsightly cords behind the Air, as well as keep them in place when you need to take the Air out of the stand. The BookArc is compatible with the new 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs (twelvesouth.com).

SOHO Notes 9

U-Socket

The latest version of this $40 note-taking app from Chronos boasts a ton of new features that make it easier to store, organize, and sync your notes, images, voice notations, videos, Web pages, and PDFs. The widescreen view lets you see more on screen, and you can see a note without actually opening it. The Tag Explorer can filter notes by tags, and a browser bookmarklets feature makes it easier for you to archive Web pages. (chronosnet .com).

USB is everywhere, so it might as well be in your wall sockets, too.

FastMac’s U-Socket features a pair of USB ports for recharging your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and any other USB-equipped device.

(The U-Socket is USB 3.0–compliant.) The U-Socket’s USB ports output power only when a device is plugged in. FastMac offers two models of the U-Socket. The ACE-7169 ($23) is a standard wall socket available in white.

The ACE-7702 ($26) is a Decora-style socket (fastmac.com).

XLPRINT APPLE ADVANCED BLACK ON WHITE KEYBOARD

Do you know someone who is having problems seeing the letters, numbers, and other characters on their keyboard? If so, help is at hand. Logickeyboard’s $95 keyboard gives users who are nearsighted or who have visual impairments an easier way to type that minimizes errors and reduces eyestrain. With its large letters, numbers, and punctuation, the keyboard makes it easier to accomplish tasks regardless of the application you’re using, such as word processing, spreadsheet, or other programs. The keyboard is made from original Apple keyboards and then enhanced with durable high-contrast labels. State-of-the-art printing techniques make the keyboard’s letters and symbols bigger and more visible (logickeyboard.com).

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 13

AppleClassic One piece of Apple gear from history

Airport Extreme

14 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

A

irPort Extreme Base Station, introduced in 2003, was offered in two configurations -- a $199 “Broadband Edition” designed to support cable modems, DSL lines, and other similar connections, and a $249 Modem + Broadband Edition, which added a

56K V.90 modem if you were still using dial-up. If you were looking to get as much distance as possible between yourself and the base station, the Modem + Broadband Edition also features a “range-extending external antenna connector.”

iOScentral

The Latest on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and App Store

The iPad and the Centenarian How Apple’s newest device changed the life of a hundred-year-old

N

ot long ago, I had the opportunity to visit with my favorite 100-year-old— Lew, my mother’s husband. His birthday was just a couple of weeks away and, as you might imagine, with a century of stuff tucked away here and there, he’s a hard man to shop for.

But not this year. This year he gets his own iPad. Last summer, my sisters and I convinced my mother to get an iPad, figuring it would be an easy way for her to check her e-mail and surf the Web. She and my older sister visited the local Apple Store and returned with a 16GB Wi-Fi iPad. I configured her e-mail account, bookmarked a few favorite Websites, and left her to it.

During my recent visit I found that she has expanded her horizons. She’s now an avid Words With Friends player, and has downloaded a few e-books.

It’s this last purpose that brings us back to Lew. With the “for a 100-year-old” caveat in mind, he’s in great shape. He gets around with the aid of a walker, he goes to the gym twice a week, he reads three papers a day, and he follows every ball caught, dropped, kicked, or thrown by a UCLA team.

He’s also a great reader, but he requires large-print books and he’s read through most of the ones he cares to from the local library. He’d like to revisit some of his favorites, but they aren’t available in large print.

But thanks to the iPad, many now are.

The day before we returned home from our trip, my mother

16 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

With a century of stuff tucked away here and there, he’s a hard man to shop for. But not this year. This year he gets his own iPad. asked Lew to put down the book he was reading and take a look at the Dick Francis e-book she’d purchased from the iBookstore.

She placed the iPad in his lap, launched iBooks, adjusted the font size, and asked him to read the first page aloud to confirm that he could see the print clearly.

Then she showed him how to turn and bookmark pages and use the table of contents.

He looked at the large-print

book in his lap, then back at the iPad, and said, “This is the end of libraries for me. How marvelous!”

Reports are that the next day he called my mother into the den, requested “that machine,” asked her to show him the Dick Francis book again, and the iPad wasn’t seen for another three hours.

Reading on the iPad is now part of his daily routine. This is terrific, because Lew need never want for readable books again. On the other hand, it also means my mother has to wait to lay a little WWF zygote smackdown on my older sister until after Lew goes to bed. And that—as much as the miracle of e-books for the aged—may best explain Lew’s 101st birthday present.

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IOS CENTRAL

What’s New at

More Than 10 Billion App Store the App Store Downloads Served TiVo Unveils Official

G

ail Davis turned a free download from the App Store into $10,000. In January, Davis, who hails from Orpington, Kent, in the United Kingdom, downloaded Paper Glider, a casual paper-airplane flying game from Neon Play, and rung up the 10 billionth download at the App Store since Apple opened the doors of its mobile app emporium in 2008.

Davis’s reward for downloading Lucky Number 10 Billion was a $10,000 iTunes gift card. But the rewards of the App Store have been even more lucrative for Apple. The App Store now offers some 300,000 products, which helps set Apple’s iPhone apart from other smartphone platforms. Apple sold 16.2 million iPhones during the fiscal first quarter of 2011, an 86 percent jump from the same period

in 2010, and it’s no leap in logic to think that the abundance of apps in the App Store attracts users to the platform.

It took the App Store a little more than two years to reach the 10 billion download mark. Compare that to the iTunes Store, which tallied its 10 billionth song download in February 2010—that’s seven years after Apple opened its online music store.

“The App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams,” said Apple vice president Philip Schiller when announcing the milestone.

“The App Store has revolutionized how software is created, distributed, discovered, and sold. While others try to copy the App Store, it continues to offer developers and customers the most innovative experience on the planet.”

SPOTLIGHT ON iPHONE 4 CASES

Valet Suction Mount It may not be a case per se, but the handy Valet Suction Mount from Joy Factory is ideal for the times you’re ready to hit the road with your iPhone 4 in tow. Joy Factory’s $50 accessory uses a suction cup to attach itself and your iPhone to your car’s windshield, allowing for handsfree calling or easy navigating while you’re on the road. The mount comes with an iPhone case that doubles as a stand and quickly snaps into the mount. You can easily adjust your viewing angle or rotate your iPhone even after it’s mounted.

18 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

iPad App

After promising “the world’s most amazing remote control” last November, DVR maker TiVo has delivered one in the form of an iPad app. Simply called TiVo, the free app serves as both a remote and a program guide for TiVo Premiere and TiVo Premiere XL boxes. You can peruse your TV schedule on your iPad and view two weeks of upcoming programming, select a show to start watching on your TV, and schedule recordings, even when you’ve ventured out of your living room into the real world.

Microsoft’s OneNote Offers Mobile Cloud Access

Microsoft now offers an Office app for iOS in the form of OneNote. The app—free for a limited time, as this issue went to press— lets you create notes and save them to the cloud where you can access them from any Mac or iOS device.

There still isn’t a Mac version of OneNote in Office, but Microsoft offers a Web-app version that Mac users can access via Safari or Firefox.

Skype Adds iPhone Video Chats over 3G, Wi-Fi

Skype has introduced a steady stream of improvements over the last few years to the free mobile version of its Voice-over-IP offering.

So it stands to reason that the iPhone and iPod touch version of Skype introduces video chat over Wi-Fi and 3G. With version 3.0 of Skype, you can place video calls on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and fourth-generation iPod touch. You can also receive calls on the iPad and third-generation iPod touch.

IOS CENTRAL

News Reading on iPad Eating Away at Print

M

any thought that the iPad would save journalism, but a survey by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri found that the iPad could have a deleterious effect on print news­papers, with many iPad users likely to axe their print subscriptions in favor of consuming news on their tablets.

The survey talked to more than 1600 iPad users: 84.4 percent of them said that following current events was one of the main tasks they used the iPad for, with almost half of those surveyed saying they spent an hour or more reading news on a typical day. While the regular consumers of news tended to read

in both digital and print forms, the more they used the iPad, the less they tended to read printed newspapers: 58 percent of respondents who subscribe to print newspapers and spend more than an hour a day reading news on their iPad said that they were very likely to cancel those print subscriptions in the next six months; 10 percent said that they had already canceled.

What drives this shift? Many users rated the experience of reading on the iPad either slightly better or roughly the same as reading print media. When asked what would drive users to digital news over print, the most oftenmentioned factor was “a price lower than the price of a print

subscription.” This seems to get to the nub of the issue: One of the factors favoring digital news consumption over print media consumption is the fact that, by and large, digital news is available for cheap or free.

So, is print media’s goose cooked? Naturally, one survey does not a future reveal, but it’s clear that the industry has some challenges ahead of it.

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April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 19

FEATURE

The

How to keep personal data synchronized between Macs and iOS devices

A

s soon as your collection of Apple devices running Mac OS X or iOS expands to two or more, the issue of syncing is bound to come up. You’ll want most or all of the important personal data on your first device—e-mail, calendars, contacts, and more—to be identical on your second device, and you’ll want to be able to update the data in either place and have the changes reflected in the other.

That basic scenario isn’t difficult to achieve, but it gets more complicated as the number of variables increases. So, to keep the process as straightforward as possible, here are some ground rules for this article: > I’ll assume your Mac(s) run OS X 10.6 and mobile device(s) run iOS 4. > I talk only about syncing Apple’s applications—Mail, Address Book, iCal, Safari, and so on—not third-party applications.

> This guide covers e-mail, contacts, calendars, and browser bookmarks, but not other data types you may want to sync. > I discuss syncing data only for a single user between multiple devices. > The focus here is primarily on using Apple’s MobileMe (individuals, $99 a year; five-user Family Pack, $149 per year) or a variety of free services from Google (www.google. com)—Gmail, Gmail Contacts, and Google Calendar.

I’ll also offer one general piece of advice at the outset: Instead of turning on all types of syncing on all your devices at once, concentrate on getting just one type of data syncing between two devices, gradually add the rest of your devices, and then repeat the procedure for each data type.

FEATURE

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 21

FEATURE

WI T H

M

obileMe is best known for its highly visible services such as e-mail and iDisk, but one of its most impressive talents is keeping many kinds of data in sync among multiple Macs and iOS devices. Because Apple’s servers function as both mediator and online storage for all your synchronized data, you can also access your information in a Web browser at www.me.com.

Before you start experimenting with changes in your syncing setup, I recommend that you back up your calendar and contact data, which are especially vulnerable to accidental change or deletion. If you already use Time Machine or another backup utility, you’re all set.

Otherwise, to back up the contents of OS X’s Address Book, you’ll open Address Book (in /Applications), and choose File ▶ Export ▶Address Book Archive. To back up your iCal calendars, open iCal (in /Applications), choose File ▶ Export ▶ iCal Archive. If you’re using an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, sync it before proceeding.

Basic Setup On a Mac, open the MobileMe system preference and sign in if necessary. Next, click the Sync tab and select the Synchronize With MobileMe checkbox. The pop-up menu provides several options for synchronization frequency. The default choice,

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MobileMe Preference Pane On the Sync tab of the MobileMe system preference, you can turn on syncing for various types of data and adjust synchronization options.

Automatically, is what Apple recommends (as do I). For most data types, this setting means that when data changes on your Mac, it’s pushed to Apple’s servers immediately, and when changes are made elsewhere, they’re retrieved from Apple’s servers quickly—usually within seconds.

You’ll also need to select the checkbox for each type of data you want to sync. Remember that it never hurts to activate and test these one at a time. Finally, make sure Show Status In Menu Bar is selected; doing so displays the Sync menu (two arrows forming a circle) in your menu bar, which will come in handy later on.

On an iOS 4 device, if you don’t already have a MobileMe account set up, tap Settings ▶ Mail,

Contacts, Calendars ▶ Add Account ▶ MobileMe, enter your credentials, and tap Next. After iOS verifies your information, it displays a series of services you can turn on or off, but you can leave everything set at their defaults for now, and simply tap Done.

E-mail MobileMe addresses the problem of syncing e-mail in two different ways. First, your MobileMe e-mail account uses IMAP, so the mail server always contains a master copy of all your messages and mailboxes—including sent and filed e-mail (not to mention status flags). So you can set up multiple clients that use the same credentials, and after they’ve had time to sync, they’ll show exactly the same mailboxes and messages.

Second, MobileMe lets you sync

FEATURE

the settings for all your accounts (not just MobileMe) between devices, although it doesn’t sync the messages themselves. If each of your accounts is of the IMAP or Microsoft Exchange variety, syncing is simple because MobileMe handles syncing account settings, while Mail syncs the messages themselves with the servers.

On the Sync tab of the MobileMe system preference are two checkboxes having to do with Mail.

When you select Mail Accounts on

MobileMe on iOS When you configure a MobileMe account on your iOS device, you can selectively turn on or off syncing for several types of data.

two or more Macs, OS X synchronizes the basic settings (such as server addresses and e-mail addresses) for all your e-mail accounts between them. This setting does not sync your passwords, though; if you store your Mail passwords in your Keychain, you can select Keychains, separately, to sync those too. The result is that for IMAP and Exchange accounts, both Macs will download and display identical copies of the messages from the respective servers. (Messages stored locally in On My Mac mailboxes don’t sync via MobileMe.) When you select Mail Rules, Signatures, And Smart Mailboxes, those portions of Mail’s preferences sync between the Macs.

This is usually helpful, but if two Macs have different sets of active accounts or local mailboxes, some of your items may not work correctly.

Although MobileMe syncs Mail settings between Macs, it doesn’t sync Mail settings to your iOS devices; instead, iTunes does that job. Connect your iOS device, select it in the Devices section of iTunes’ Source list, and then click the Info tab. Select Sync Mail Accounts, along with each e-mail account on your Mac for which you’d like to transfer settings to your iOS device. Then click Sync.

Once you’ve done this, go to Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars on your iOS device, tap your MobileMe account, and make sure that the Mail switch is set to On. Repeat this procedure for each server-based account you want to sync.

In addition, make sure Fetch New Data is set to Push if you want data such as e-mail, calendars, and contacts to update immediately on your iPhone when they change on another device. (However, the Push setting decreases battery life more rapidly.)

Note that on iOS devices, Mail doesn’t automatically download all the messages in all your mailboxes; it downloads the contents of your Inboxes (up to the limit specified in Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars ▶ Show), and then it downloads the limited contents of any individual mailbox when you select it.

Contacts To sync your contacts via MobileMe, make sure the Contacts checkbox is selected in the Sync tab of the MobileMe system preference. OS X then syncs all the local (On My Mac) contacts between your Mac(s) and Apple’s servers. Contacts on LDAP servers, or in CardDAV or Exchange 2007 accounts, don’t sync via MobileMe; you must set up these accounts separately on each device.

To enable over-the-air contact syncing on an iOS device, tap Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and then tap your MobileMe account and make sure Contacts is set to On. To sync with Exchange accounts as well, tap their names and likewise ensure that Contacts is turned on.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 23

FEATURE

Calendars MobileMe can sync the calendars you created on your Mac(s) in iCal with Apple’s servers, to other Macs, and to your iOS devices. Apple recently revised MobileMe to use the industry-standard CalDAV protocol for syncing calendar data, but you’ll have to activate it first. Sign in to the MobileMe Website, go to the Calendar application, click Upgrade Now, and follow the directions.

On each Mac, make sure that Calendars is selected on the Sync tab of the MobileMe system preference. Note that MobileMe syncs only local (On My Mac) calendars and read-only calendars to which you’ve subscribed. (Subscribed calendars appear only on other Macs and iOS devices, not on the MobileMe Website.) If you’ve set up any server-based calendar accounts, such as CalDAV or Exchange 2007, these won’t sync via MobileMe; you’ll have to configure such accounts individually on each device.

To sync calendars on an iOS 4 device, go to Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars ▶ yourMobileMeaccount and make sure Calendars is turned on. You may see a prompt asking how to treat

MobileMe’s Advanced Settings In the Advanced sheet, you can configure the data-change alert and reset sync data, among other activities.

device, tap Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars ▶ yourMobileMeaccount and make sure the Bookmarks switch is set to On. Troubleshooting Because syncing is inherently complex, unexpected behavior can occur. Here are some quick tips: > In OS X, MobileMe can notify you if a pending sync would change more than a small amount of data.

Open the MobileMe system preference, click the Sync tab, and click Advanced. At the bottom of the sheet that appears, select Show Alert When X Of The Data On This Computer Will Be Changed, and choose an amount from the pop-up menu. (I suggest the More Than 25% option.)

Google’s services offer features that closely parallel what MobileMe has—and they won’t cost you a cent. existing calendar data. If so, Merge With MobileMe is the correct choice.

Bookmarks If you select the Bookmarks checkbox on the Sync tab of the MobileMe system preference on each of your Macs, OS X syncs Safari’s bookmarks between them; no further configuration is needed. On an iOS

24 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

> In certain situations—such as when one of your devices is offline for a while—you could end up changing a particular item on two different devices in between syncs.

When this happens, OS X doesn’t know what to do and presents a Conflict Resolver dialog box. Click Review Now to see which items are in conflict, click the one you want

to use, and then (if there’s more than one) click Continue and repeat the process as needed. > If you know or suspect that your data has gotten badly out of sync, you can reset it—that is, replace the synced data on your Mac with the copy that’s on the MobileMe servers or vice-versa. To do this, open the MobileMe system preference, click the Sync tab, and click Advanced. At the bottom of the dialog box that appears, click Reset Sync Data. Choose the type of data to replace (or choose All Sync Info, to replace everything) from the pop-up menu at the top, and then choose the direction in which the replacement should occur by clicking one of the arrows. > The Sync menu that you enabled earlier lets you force a sync to occur immediately (Sync Now) or stop a sync in progress (Cancel Sync). Starting in Snow Leopard, this menu also has some hidden features. Hold down the Option key while clicking the menu, and you’ll see additional commands. Choose Open Sync Diagnostics to collect data about a problematic sync and send it to Apple for analysis; or, for problems not solved by resetting sync data, choose Reset Sync Services. This command leaves your data intact but erases your sync history, which can solve certain tricky syncing problems.

FEATURE

with

F

or e-mail, contacts, and calendars, Google’s services offer features that closely parallel what MobileMe has—and they won’t cost you a cent. You can sync your data between multiple computers and Google’s cloud of servers; you can access your data in any Web browser; and you can choose over-the-air push synchronization for mobile devices. For other types of data (to-do items, notes, and bookmarks), the syncing story is much different, but with some effort, you can achieve much of what MobileMe offers, at a fraction of the price.

Be aware, though, that because of differences between the way Google stores data and the ways Apple’s Address Book and iCal do, some

iCal and Google Calendar To sync iCal with Google Calendar, enter your Gmail credentials and then follow the prompts.

items (including Address Book groups and the “floating” time zone in iCal) don’t sync at all, and others are subject to occasional mutilation as they try to fit into Google’s categories, and vice-versa.

Basic Setup Before you begin, if you haven’t already done so, back up all the contact and calendar data on your Mac, as discussed earlier. If you’re using Google Apps (for a custom domain name), also make sure you’ve enabled Google Sync for your domain by following Google’s instructions. And, if you use an iOS device, be sure to use its existing settings to sync it with your Mac. E-mail If you’re content to use a browser for e-mail, then syncing is a nonissue. However, if you prefer to use a conventional e-mail client such as Mail in OS X or iOS, you can set it up to access your Gmail account. Gmail lets you connect by using POP, IMAP, or Exchange ActiveSync, but only the latter two automatically keep all your e-mail in sync across devices. (And, although you can use either protocol under iOS, Google doesn’t currently support connecting from OS X via Exchange ActiveSync. But it’s no problem to use Exchange ActiveSync in iOS, and IMAP in OS X, to connect to the same account.)

Before you can access your Gmail account from Mail, you must

turn on IMAP support. To do this, go to www.gmail.com (or, if you use Google Apps for a custom Gmail domain name, go to the URL you normally use) and log in. Click on the Settings link, click Forwarding And POP/IMAP, and then, in the IMAP Access section, select the Enable IMAP checkbox. Click on Save Changes.

Next, in OS X’s Mail, choose Mail ▶ Preferences, click Accounts, and click the plus-sign (+) button. Enter your full name, your Gmail address (for Google Apps users, include the @ sign and the domain name), and your password, and then click Create. Mail automatically configures the account to use IMAP. On an iOS 4 device, the easiest way to configure Gmail to use IMAP is to tap Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars ▶ Add Account ▶ Gmail, enter your credentials, tap Next, and then (after your credentials are verified) tap Done.

However, you can also use Exchange ActiveSync to access your Gmail account on your iOS device. This gives you the option of push e-mail and automatically syncs your Google calendars and contacts without any further hassles. The instructions for setting up your iOS device to access Gmail using Exchange ActiveSync are somewhat lengthy, but Google spells out all the details on its Website.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 25

FEATURE

Contacts in OS X To sync Address Book with Gmail Contacts’ My Contacts list, open Address Book, choose Address Book ▶ Preferences, click Accounts, select On My Mac in the Accounts list on the left, and then click the Account Information tab.

Select the Synchronize With Google checkbox, and then click Configure. If you’re setting up Google syncing for the first time, an alert appears explaining about the synchro-nization process; read this and click Agree. Then, in the dialog box that appears, enter your Gmail address in

CHOOSING BETWEEN MOBIL EM E AND GOOGL E MobileMe and Google offer similar capabilities, but which is best for you?

Price

MobileMe subscriptions start at $99 per year (although you can often find better prices online), whereas Google’s services are free. However, note that Google’s services are free only to a point; if you want more storage space or other extra features from Google, you’ll need to pay $50 per year per user for Google Apps for Business (macworld.com/6810). In addition, third-party software to help simplify your interactions with Google may cost you.

Support

Google offers no direct or personalized support for its free products, forcing users to rely on Google’s Help Center and public help forums to solve problems. Apple, on the other hand,

26 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

the Google Account field and your password in the Password field, and click OK. You may see a warning that Address Book can’t verify the identity of the server; if so, click Continue.

Next, make sure the Sync menu appears in your Mac’s menu bar, as discussed earlier. Choose Sync Now from the Sync menu. During the initial sync, if the Conflict Resolver window appears, click Review Now, decide which version of each contact to use, and then click Sync Now. After the first sync, OS X should sync changes once per hour, although you can use the Sync Now

command at any time to sync manually.

Calendars in OS X To sync iCal with Google Calendar, open iCal, choose iCal ▶ Preferences, click on Accounts, and click the plus-sign (+) button. Choose Google from the Account Type pop-up menu, and enter your full e-mail address (whether ending in @gmail.com or your custom domain) in the Email Address field and your password in the Password field, and click on Create. You may see a warning that iCal can’t verify the identity of the server; if so, click Continue. Your primary Google calendar then

offers not only online support for MobileMe (including chat with a support representative at any time of the day or night), but also the option to speak to an expert on the phone for free.

Compatibility

Ease of Use

Apple has made it relatively simple to sync your data with all your OS X and iOS devices, whereas Google’s services require much more manual effort.

Features

MobileMe adds several unique features, including Find My iPhone (or iPad or iPod touch); Back to My Mac; Gallery, and online storage (iDisk) that you can use for hosting Websites and sharing media (whereas Google’s support for online file storage is less convenient to access). Meanwhile, Google offers Google Docs, Google Sites, and more-extensive options for filtering e-mail on the server.

MobileMe, as an Apple product, is designed for optimal compatibility with other Apple products. Some Google services rely on different standards, and as a result may yield unexpected results with Apple software. On the other hand, if you use non-Apple products, you may find Google’s services to be more broadly compatible with them.

Privacy

Some people have expressed concerns about Google’s privacy policies, and have balked at the idea that the contents of their personal e-mail messages may be indexed in order to display relevant ads on the Gmail Website. Although I think most of these concerns are overblown, consider each company’s privacy policies carefully before committing your personal data to one service or the other.

FEATURE

appears in iCal. To sync additional Google calendars, click the Delegation tab in the Preferences window and select the Show checkbox for one or more calendars.

This procedure syncs existing Google calendars with iCal, but not the other way around. To move your existing iCal data into Google Calendar, find one of your calendars in Google on the left side of the screen, click the Settings button beneath it, click Import Calendar next to the Create New Calendar button, and then, in the dialog box that appears, click Browse.

Navigate to the iCal backup file you created earlier, and select it. In the Import Calendar dialog box, select the calendar to which you’d like to add the events (if you have more than one) from the Calendar pop-up menu and then click the Import button to bring your calendar info in.

By default, iCal syncs with Google Calendar every 15 minutes (or when you add, delete, or change an event on your Mac), but you can change the interval, if you like, by clicking on the Account Information tab in the Preferences window and choosing a new value from the Refresh

Calendars pop-up menu.

Calendars and Contacts in iOS To sync contacts and calendars on your iOS device, go to Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap Add Account at the bottom of the Accounts list.

Tap Microsoft Exchange, enter the full e-mail address associated with your Google account in the Username field and your password in the Password field; leave the Domain field blank. Tap Next. If an Unable To Verify Certificate message appears, tap Accept. In the Server field, enter m.google. com, and tap Next again. Make

sure Contacts and Calendars are turned on (plus Mail, if you want to sync your Gmail e-mail using Exchange ActiveSync) and tap Done. When prompted to choose a way to handle existing data, tap Delete. Synchronization begins momentarily, and everything happens wirelessly.

Bookmarks Google can sync bookmarks from its Chrome browser between computers, and can also provide an editable list of bookmarks (at bookmarks .google.com) that you can access within any browser window.

However, unlike MobileMe, Google doesn’t offer an option for syncing Safari’s built-in bookmark list (either the desktop or iOS version).

Instead, you can use a service such as LastPass’s Xmarks (www. xmarks.com), which lets you synchronize bookmarks across browsers, devices, and platforms. It supports Safari 4 and 5 on Leopard and Snow Leopard, as well as Firefox 3 and the beta of Firefox 4. Basic service is free, and the $12-per-year Premium version adds iOS support and more.

Mail App and Gmail When you’re finished configuring a Gmail account on your iOS device to use Exchange ActiveSync, the screen should look something like this.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 27

WORKINGMAC

Tips, Tricks, and Tools to Make You and Your Mac More Productive

REVIEWS

Hardware and Software for All Your Business Needs

Brother MFC-J615W

HARDWARE

Epson Artisan 725 Arctic Edition

The Epson Artisan 725 Arctic Edition color inkjet multifunction printer costs $200 less than the company’s flagship Artisan 835 while delivering the same highquality output and cheap inks. Set the Artisan 725 up to connect wirelessly, via USB, or via ethernet.

A bottom-mounted, 120-sheet paper tray with a dedicated, 20-sheet photo paper tray is nested inside. Automatic duplexing is standard. You can insert printable optical media (CDs, DVDs) via a separate, single-disc tray that extends and retracts with the press of a button. Text pages printed at an above-average rate of 7.4 pages per minute. The actual output was gray and a little fuzzy, improving only when we switched to the slower, ink-guzzling Fine mode.

Photo speed topped the charts, with snapshot-size photos printing at 5.4 ppm on letter-size plain paper; unfortunately, they looked faded. Output to glossy photo paper was only 2.1 ppm, but the results looked much smoother and more natural. Printing in black costs 3.3 cents per page; printing in color runs just over 2 cents per color per page. The Epson Artisan 725 provides speed and features galore. $200; Epson, www.epson.com.

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SAMSUNG CLX-3185FW

This is a compact color laser MFP that prints, copies, scans and faxes at a high quality. Although we experienced a few problems, it’s easy to connect to a wireless network and supports Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS). Print quality is excellent for businessoriented documents, both in black and white and color. Photos printed on photo paper look good but there are much better printer choices if photos is what you care about.

Samsung rates the speed at 17 ppm for mono and 4 ppm for color, which seems about right. Resolution is 2400 x 600 dpi. $365; Samsung; www.samsung.com.

In feature terms, the MFC-J615W offers what we’ve come to expect from Brother: reliable printing without fuss. It’s designed for home and small offices, with printing, fax, copy and scan functionality. Simple controls on front make sure the printer is easy to use. The 100-sheet paper cassette, however, is a bit of a pain to handle. You can connect using USB, wired or wirelss networking. Setup is easy and Brother has drivers for Windows and Linux in addition to Mac OS X. $129; Brother, www.brother.com

Speck SeeThru Satin

The SeeThru hard-shell case for MacBook Air is a thin plastic cover for Apple’s lightest notebook. It’s thin enough that you don’t have to always be bothered about it being there but thick enough to offer good protection from bumps and scratches. It won’t do much if you drop your Mac though. There’s one piece for the display and one for the body, and both snap in place. In fact, they’re much easier to put on than they are to take off, which is a good thing. Wide rubber feet on the bottom make the Mac sit firmly on most surfaces. One concern is ventilation and our MacBook Air ran a bit hot with the SeeThru attached.$50; SpeckProducts, www.speckproducts.com

oland-based Etsy shop Rib & Hull (www.ribandhull.com) offers a variety of felt, leather, and canvas sleeves for laptops and media devices. The company’s newest offering, the 11-inch MacBook Air sleeve, gives Apple’s tiny laptop moderate, sleek-looking protection from outside dangers and bag bumps.

Rib & Hull sent us both portrait ($56) and landscape-with-pocket ($61) versions. Each is made

primarily of double-layered, 1/8-inch wool felt with leather accents, along with two rivet snaps for closures. Note that the felt does have a tendency to attract hair, lint, and random dust bunnies, and it isn’t particularly waterproof. Once encased in either sleeve, however, the 11-inch Air feels sturdy and protected— and the added protection comes with little additional bulk.

Two videos every day!

www.pcworldme.net/nokia

Rib & Hull 11-Inch MacBook Air Sleeve P

Automator Workflow of the Month: More Flexible iPhoto E-mail

A

pple’s iPhoto ’11 includes a new feature that allows you to e-mail images to others without ever leaving the iPhoto application. When you select a group of images and choose Share ▶ Email, iPhoto produces a pane that includes a collage of the selected images. In the bottom right corner of the iPhoto window, you can choose to send your images in optimized form or at full size. (The optimized option compresses the entire batch of photos so that it totals no more than 5MB.) Regardless of which of these two options you choose, you can include only up to ten images in a message. As helpful as this feature is, some iPhoto ’11 users long for the good old days when they had greater flexibility in determining how to handle images in e-mail. In particular, they would like to once again have the abilities to choose a different image size and to send as many photos as they want in an e-mail. Snow Leopard’s Automator, when used in league with iPhoto ’11, can provide that flexibility.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 29

PLAYLIST

Everything You Need to Know about iPods, iTunes, and Mac-based Entertainment

How to Move Your iTunes Media Folder Easily move your iTunes content to another drive

window that appears, navigate to the hard drive you’ve added for your media.

Click the New Folder button. In the New Folder window that appears, enter a name for your new media folder (‘My Media,’ for example) and click Create.

Then click the Choose button in the Change iTunes Media Folder Location window. Click OK to dismiss the Advanced window.

Step 3: Consolidate Your Content

I

f you love music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts, there’s a good chance that your iTunes Media folder has swollen to the point where it’s pushing up against the bounds of your hard drive’s capacity. In such cases you need to move your media to a more expansive drive. iTunes makes it fairly easy to do so, and here are the steps to follow.

Step 1: Add a Hard Drive to Your Mac

The whole point of this exercise is to make more room for your iTunes media, and you can add either an internal or external hard drive, depending on the type of Mac you have.

When choosing the capacity of that hard drive, consider both the current size of your iTunes Media folder and how big it’s likely to get in the next few years. (The iTunes Media folder was formerly called the iTunes Music folder, but yours might still be called that if

30 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

Choose File ▶ Library ▶ Organize Library. In the resulting Organize Library window, enable the Consolidate Files option and click OK. iTunes will now set about copying the content from your original iTunes Media folder to the folder you’ve created on the new drive, as well as start using it for all new content. you’ve been using iTunes for a long time.)

If you purchase music from the iTunes Store, bear in mind that Apple has increased the bit rate of music sold at the store—from 128-kbps AAC to 256-kbps AAC. When the bit rate doubles, so, too, does the size of the files. And if you rip your own CDs and want the best quality, Apple Lossless files are even larger. Also, the TV shows and movies from the iTunes Store can be huge—especially if you purchase the HD versions.

Step 2: Configure iTunes’ Preferences

Launch iTunes and choose Preferences (Cmd-Comma [,]). Click the Advanced button, and in the resulting window enable the Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized option.

In that same Advanced window, click the Change button next to the iTunes Media Folder Location entry. In the

Step 4: Test It

Quit iTunes. In the Finder navigate to the location of your original iTunes Media folder—typically found at youruserfolder/Music/iTunes—and move the iTunes Media folder to the desktop.

Launch iTunes, select an item, and click the Play button. If the track plays as it should, your library has been moved successfully. (To double-check, you can select a track or video, press Cmd-I to produce the Info window, and, in the Summary tab, find the location of the file listed next to the Where entry. The path should point to the new drive.)

If everything is working as it should, you can now trash your old iTunes Media folder. (If you prefer to move your entire iTunes folder, you can also copy it to a new location, hold down Option while you launch iTunes, and select the new location.)

Four reasons to rip CDs without iTunes Apple’s jukebox is a great application but it may not always be the best choice

F

or many people, iTunes is their main music management tool, and using this program to rip CDs fits perfectly with the way they work with their music. But, in some cases, you may not want to rip CDs with iTunes: you may want to rip to formats that iTunes doesn’t support; you may want to make an “accurate” rip; or you may want to rip audiobooks.

Here are some reasons why you might want to rip differently.

1. Get more accurate rips

Many people like to get the best possible rips of their CDs. iTunes does a pretty good job, and its Use Error Correction When Reading Audio CDs option (in the Import Settings areas) lets iTunes perform basic error correction, but to do the best job, you’ll need another application.

If you make an “accurate rip”—verifying ripped tracks against an Internet database—you can be sure that the resulting files are bit-perfect copies of the music on your CDs. The free XLD, or X Lossless Decoder, offers this type of ripping, and compares the resulting files with the AccurateRip

database. This slows down ripping, but you’ll have perfect files at the end.

2. Use a different music database

iTunes uses the Gracenote database to provide information about your music: this is where the tag information—the names of songs, albums, and artists—comes from. But other databases, such as FreeDB or MusicBrainz, may have better tags for more obscure music.

3. Rip to multiple formats

iTunes supports ripping to a number of different audio formats, but it can’t handle everything. C7 Software’s $8 Phile Audio offers a number of interesting features. It can convert CDs to the usual suspects—AAC, MP3, Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV—but it can also rip to FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and Ogg Vorbis (which XLD can do as well). Like XLD, it can access the FreeDB database, but it can also get track information from iTunes. And it can search for and add album art to your files. But where it stands out

is in its ability to rip to multiple formats simultaneously, and even use multiple CD drives, if you have more than one.

4. Rip audiobooks better

If you rip audiobooks from CDs, you use different techniques than for ripping music. But if you rip audiobooks often, one tool that could be very helpful is Roxio’s $100 Toast 10 Titanium. While the cost might be a bit steep just for ripping audiobooks, if you pick up the app to burn and copy CDs and DVDs (or already have it installed), you might find its audiobook ripping feature interesting.

Launch Toast, click the Convert tab (the last of the five tabs in the sidebar), and click Audiobook.

There you can choose from three different qualities—Good (32 kbps), Better (64 kbps), or Best (128 kbps)—alter the playback speed if the narration is too slow or too fast, and choose to can convert stereo to mono to save space.

Insert a CD, then click the big red button to start ripping. (iTunes can rip audiobooks CDs, but can’t alter the speed or rip multiple CDs to a single file.)

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April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 31

PLAY LIST

REVIEWS

Home Entertainment Hardware, Software, and Accessories

iHome iP39

HARDWARE

Cambridge SoundWorks i525

The $150 Cambridge SoundWorks i525 AM/FM Table Radio with iPod Dock helps smooth your entry into the daily grind. In a world where many iPod alarm clocks top out at $100, the i525 is on the pricey side, but between the excellent sound quality and the broad assortment of features, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better bedside unit. $150; Cambridge SoundWorks, store.cambridgesoundworks.com.

iHome’s iP39 Kitchen Timer and FM Alarm Clock Radio Speaker System for the iPhone or iPod is designed for use on the kitchen counter. As such, its construction is sturdy, with solid, brushed-metal sides and a plasticized control panel on top that’s easy to clean—greasy finger-smears should wipe right off.

It’s missing a few too many features to make it a must-have, but it gets the job done without taking up a lot of space and without requiring delicate handling $100; iHome, www.ihomeaudio.com.

Monster PowerBeats

Monster’s Powerbeats by Dr. Dre Sports Headphones offers an in and around-ear design for sports and other activities. The hook is adjustable to fit the user’s particular ears and the whole headphones are water and moisture resistance, meaning they stay securely attached even during exercise. Monster has included the ControlTalk on-cable mic for hands-free operation with iPhones and other smartphones. $!80; Monster Cable; www.monstercable.com.

Thinksound ts02+mic Creative ZiiSound D5 Wireless Bluetooth Speakers

At $300, the ZiiSound D5 isn’t inexpensive, but it has a great physical design and delivers outstanding audio quality. And although the D5 works well as a traditional Bluetooth speaker system, the included dongle affords iPhone and iPod owners exceptional versatility: You can dock your device to juice up its battery, or remove your player (without stopping the music) to use it as a remote control—all the while streaming audio at higher quality than standard Bluetooth; $300; Creative Technology, www.creative.com.

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Pure Evoke Flow

The Evoke Flow radio has access to plenty of content—Internet radio, terrestrial FM radio, and audio streamed from your computer or server—but some people will want even more, in the form of Pandora and Last.fm and, possibly, AM radio. And when your world is filled with Apple’s elegant interfaces, it’s easy to be put off by devices, such as the Evoke, that require you to occasionally fiddle with them to get them to operate properly. $230; Pure, www.pure. com.

The ts02 is a great headset with a beautiful design, a warm and relaxed sound, a great microphone, and a unique emphasis on environmentalism. There are a number of very good headsets in the $80 to $100 price range— including Etymotic’s mc3, Maximo’s iP-595, and V-moda’s Remix Remote—that compete well with the ts02; but for some people, the ts02’s environmentally friendly design and packaging, both standout features, will trump relatively minor differences in sound and style. $90; thinksound, www.thinksound.com.

PLAY LIST

10 Essential iTunes Keyboard Shortcuts

K

eyboard shortcuts can be the fastest way to perform actions. Here are ten great keyboard shortcuts that can save you time as you work with iTunes.

1. The Spacebar If you have an item selected (song, video, audiobook, podcast, or other media file), press the spacebar to start playing it; press the spacebar again to pause.

2. Cmd-L If you’re like me, you may sometimes be listening to music but then want to look around in your iTunes library or browse the iTunes Store. To get back to where you were, press Cmd-L. iTunes will take you to the item in the location where you started playing it: your library, a playlist, iTunes DJ, or a shared library.

3. Cmd-B This shows or hides the Column Browser , a great way to view the contents of your libraries or playlists.

4. Cmd-I When you need to edit tags, Cmd-I brings up the Info window for either single or multiple tracks, depending on what you have selected.

5. Cmd-1 through 1-7 Once you have the Info window open, Cmd-number shortcuts select which tab you want to access: 1 for the first tab (Summary), 2 for Info, and so on.

6. Cmd-P and Cmd-N As you tag files, you may need to change, say, titles for a number of tracks. At the bottom of the Info window are Previous and Next buttons, but we keyboard mavens know that there’s no need to reach for the mouse

when we want to move through tracks; just press Cmd-P to go to the previous track, and Cmd-N for the next track.

7. Cmd-Shift-N If you’ve selected a bunch of tracks and want to make a new playlist with those tracks, just press this shortcut combo. The playlist gets added to your sidebar, and the name is highlighted so that you can change it. You can do this with tracks that are contiguous (sequential) or noncontiguous.

8. Cmd-Shift-M The iTunes Mini Player is a small, unobtrusive window that you can keep visible at all times if you wish, giving you access to basic iTunes controls. To display it, press Cmd-Shift-M. To go back to the full-size window, press the same shortcut.

9. Cmd-Option-3, CmdOption-4, Cmd-Option-5 and Cmd-Option-6 These are the four shortcuts that let you switch among the different views in the iTunes window: List, Album List, Grid, and Cover Flow.

10. Cmd-T This shortcut brings up the iTunes visualizer, which gives you trippy visuals while you listen to your music. You may not want to use this all the time, but it can be fun for parties.

Finally, one bonus keyboard shortcut: Cmd-Q, which quits iTunes (and most other apps out there).

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April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 33

DIGITALPHOTO

Techniques and Gear for Shooting, Editing, and Managing Great Photos

MacBook Air: The Photographer’s Laptop

The petite and powerful MacBook Air is the perfect companion for photographers on the go

O

n paper, the MacBook Air appears to be the answer to many roving photographers’ dreams. It’s small enough to travel in a camera bag yet fast enough to run major photography software.

The MacBook Air’s maximum thickness is a mere 0.68 inch.

You can comfortably hold it in one hand, and the wedge-shaped design makes the laptop easy to slip into the pocket of a camera backpack. Despite the MacBook Air’s portability, specs for it indicate that it’s no lightweight on performance. With the MacBook Air you can run iPhoto ’11, Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 3, or Aperture 3 anywhere.

But how does it hold up in the field? Over the course of six weeks I traveled by plane, cab, bus, and on foot with a 13-inch 2.13GHz MacBook Air in my camera backpack. I used it to edit photos, write articles, upload video, and manage my sites. The Air endured the same rigors of the road as my DSLR and backpack. And when the dust settled, I liked the Air more than ever.

carry-on luggage to a minimum.

Inside that slim package is a robust battery that stays charged for a long time, letting you work on long flights; flash memory, which eliminates the worry of hard-drive failure; and enough power to run all major Mac photo apps, including Apple’s Aperture and Adobe Lightroom.

The field tests I did were on a build-to-order model: a 13-inch 2.13GHz MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM. The price for this

The MacBook Air holds its own against larger, more powerful laptops.

Key Features for Photographers Photography equipment is bulky enough to begin with. The allure of the Air is that it lets you pack a computer and still travel light— both sizes can fit in your lap if you’re flying economy class. It’s small enough that you can transport it in a camera bag, keeping your 34 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

configuration is currently $1799.

The faster, build-to-order model does increase the price of the Air, but the system performs better in benchmark tests.

If space is at a premium, the 11-inch Air also works well for photographers on the road, showing minimal speed differences. I have reports from

shooters running Aperture on the $1199 11-inch model who were very satisfied.

There are a few key areas where the two models differ that photographers should take into consideration: The screen resolution for the 11-inch Air is smaller—only 1366 by 768. With the 13-inch Air’s larger 1440 by 900 screen, you have extra space for working on photos. And only the 13-inch model includes an SD Card slot, so if your camera uses SD Cards, you won’t need to pack a card reader or USB cable.

Testing for Speed Your laptop is your office on the road, so it needs to handle all the types of work you do, including e-mail, Web browsing, and writing.

The Air manages those tasks handily while also meeting the special software demands of a photographer.

The 2.13GHz MacBook Air isn’t quite as fast as the 15-inch 2.4GHz MacBook Pro, according to the

DIGITAL PHOTO

FUN PHOTO CHALLENGES Improve your photography skills by trying new things and breaking old habits.

Turn off Auto: Be brave and experiment with your camera’s manual settings.

Speedmark 6.5 scores (119 versus 132, respectively). But in my real-world tests as a photographer, the Air performed quite well.

I had good results while image editing in Aperture. Even after I enabled five or six adjustments, edits went smoothly, with little or no delay. Despite its smaller size and lighter weight, the MacBook Air can hold its own against larger, more powerful laptops.

Recommended Workflows Even with a MacBook Air, most photographers will continue to use their home computer as a primary workstation. The MacBook Air works best as a satellite laptop—one that occasionally offloads cargo, namely photographs and video, to the mothership.

You’ll need a workflow that allows you to integrate your photos from the road into a master library at home. Two applications in particular, Aperture and Lightroom, are well suited for this task.

Basic Aperture Workflow Create a new Aperture library on the MacBook Air (File ▶ Switch To Library ▶ Other/New). While you’re on the road, import all of your masters into the new library, edit the images, add metadata, and do whatever else you need to do. When you’re back home, copy the travel library container to an external hard drive.

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Basic Lightroom Workflow Create a new catalog in

Lightroom on the MacBook Air (File ▶ New Catalog). Give it a unique name to help distinguish it from other catalogs on your drive.

When you import photos into the new Lightroom catalog, use the same file-structure system for the masters that you do on your home computer; you set this up in the Destination panel in the Import dialog box. A typical approach might be to organize by date in your Pictures folder.

When you return from shooting, copy the Lightroom catalog and the masters to an external hard drive.

Backing Up As part of the merging process with either Aperture or Lightroom, you will have copied all of your travel work onto an external hard drive. This is an excellent time to move that content onto your home backup drive.

While on the road, you have a few simple backup options that don’t require toting a lot of extra equipment. You can carry a small USB drive, bring enough memory cards so that you don’t have to erase them after uploading photos, or use an online backup tool like MobileMe.

Fill the entire frame with your subject.

Look at camera position and focal length. They change the sense of space and proportions.

Bend your knees—don’t shoot every image from eye level.

Study the work of other photographers.

Learn to use your camera’s flash exposure compensation for better flash results.

Embark on a long-term photo project.

Don’t use a regular flash outside at night. Instead, use your camera’s slow-sync flash feature.

Load your camera with the most limited memory card you can find and make every shot count.

Shoot (literally) from the hip.

The Final Word Photographers who want to travel light and who have the budget for a premium laptop should consider the MacBook Air.

Post images on a sharing site or join a photography group.

DIGITAL PHOTO

Meet the Hot New Cameras Casio Tryx

Fujifilm FinePix F550EXR

Fujifilm’s FinePix F550EXR ($350; macworld.com/6945) is a pocket megazoom loaded with features. The 16-megapixel camera has a 15X optical zoom lens, an 11-frames-persecond burst mode, a 320fps high-speed mode for full-resolution 1080p video, a Raw mode, geotagging, and a onetouch panorama mode. It can switch among high-res, HDR, and low-light modes.

Casio’s 12-megapixel Tryx ($250; macworld .com/6946) has a unique body that can be twisted into a number of positions. Its 3-inch touchscreen LCD swivels and rotates, and the edges of the camera turn into a 360-degree rotating frame. The Tryx can shoot super-high-speed 240fps video, and has an impressive-looking HDR mode.

Olympus XZ-1

The pocketable XZ-1 ($500; macworld .com/6947) is a high-performance point-and-shoot that goes toe-to-toe with Canon’s PowerShot S95. The 10-megapixel XZ-1 has a bright f1.8 aperture at the wide-angle end of its 4X optical zoom, and an f2.5 aperture at full telephoto. It also has full manual controls, raw shooting, Olympus’s art filters, and 720p HD video.

How to Update a Camera’s Firmware Make sure you’re getting the most out of your digital camera by running the latest firmware.

M

uch of your digital camera, including its sensor, LCD screen, lens, and autofocus, is controlled by microprocessors running firmware. Firmware is essentially the operating system of a digital camera, whether it’s a point-andshoot or a DSLR. After releasing a camera, the camera manufacturer continues to polish the user experience with firmware updates.

It’s good practice to check for updates right after buying a new camera, and then check again three or four times a year.

Firmware updates are located on the camera manufacturer’s support and downloads page. To start your search, find your

manufacturer’s download page at macworld.com/6948.

It is extremely important to read the exact directions for your camera’s update carefully, because the process varies from model to model. And the update is usually permanent, so if something goes wrong, you can’t easily fix it.

The exact method varies depending on your camera brand and model, but the typical update process goes something like this: A compressed file or installation application that contains the firmware update specific to your camera is downloaded to your computer. You drop the firmware onto a formatted memory card, and then insert the card into the

camera. After that, you follow the directions for initiating the update from the camera’s menu.

With some brands, the camera updates over a USB connection; some companies that use this method provide an updater application. If you are not comfortable updating your firmware, take the camera to an authorized dealer.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 37

CREATE

Using the Web for Video, Graphics, Web Publishing, and Other Creative Pursuits

Collage Construction

Gathering your photos into a collage gives your images new exposure

A

photo collage, printed and framed, might be the perfect solution for your bare wall or a unique gift for family or friends. Here’s how to use Shape Collage (www .shapecollage.com) to take a collection of your favorite photos and turn them into artwork. You can use the app for free, but unless you pay $25 for the pro version, a watermark appears on all collages.

The pro version also offers the ability to save your collage in Photoshop PSD format, edit your collage in either Photoshop or GIMP, and save your workspace and settings. A $45 commercial version is targeted to businesses.

Collect Your Pictures A photo collage requires many photos so your first step is to collect the photos you want to use and drop them into a folder. First, open iPhoto, and press Cmd-ShiftN on your keyboard to enter a name for your album. Now fill the album with your favorite pictures.

Once you’re satisfied with your selections, click the album name (in the left sidebar) once to highlight it and then choose File ▶

One-Click Action Once you’ve tailored all of Shape Collage’s settings to your liking, click Create to generate your custom collage.

and click Create. This adds a new folder to the desktop, so that you’ll be able to easily find the exported photos. Finally, click OK to export the entire album to the new folder.

Create the Collage Shape Collage makes it easy to create and customize a collage.

When you open the application, note that the main window is divided into three sections: Photos, Status, and tabbed options.

1. Add Your Photos You can add

of the photo area or choose either File ▶ Add Photos or File ▶ Add Folder. You can even pull photos directly from a Web page by choosing File ▶ Add Photos From Web. (This option will pull all the graphics from a Web page, however.)

2. Get a Preview Move to the Status section, and click Preview.

This shows you a mock-up of the current layout, which you’ll see is also selected with a radio button in the Shape And Size tab. Let’s change that mock-up now. Hop over to the options section, and click the Shape And Size tab (if it’s not already selected).

Printed content should be at least 300 pixels per inch to avoid obvious pixelation. Shape Collage outputs all files at 300 ppi.

Export. Set the Kind pop-up menu to JPEG, the Quality to Maximum, and the Size to Medium. Click Export, and then in the left sidebar click Desktop. Now click New Folder, enter a name, 38 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

photos in a number of ways, the most direct of which is to drag the folder of your favorite photos onto the application’s photo area.

Alternatively, you can click the plus-sign (+) button at the bottom

3. Pick Your Shape The Shape

subsection allows you to set the shape for the collage. You can choose from three basic options: rectangle, heart, and circle. You can also choose a letter or a word; clicking the ellipsis (. . .) next to the text option lets you select the font, set text spacing, or

even choose a symbol (which is helpful if you’re looking for a specific dingbat). The More option allows you to choose a custom shape. You can paint one yourself by using the included brush tool, choose a preset such as a paw print or puzzle piece, or load any black-and-white graphic image in PNG format. Just be sure that any art you create is simple and bold. Now pop back over to Status, and click Preview to get an updated mock-up of your collage.

4. Size Your Images The Size subsection allows you to determine the size of the collage and of the pictures within it. The most important consideration is the collage’s overall size, because you intend to print and frame the completed artwork. Printed content should be at least 300 pixels per inch (ppi) in order to avoid obvious pixelation, and Shape Collage outputs all files at 300 ppi. So think about the size of the frame you want to use for the collage and multiply each dimension by 300. For example, a frame with a viewable area of 7 by 5 inches means that you need the collage size to be at least 2100 by 1500 pixels. So click Auto and enter those numbers. Other sizing options allow you to determine the pixel size of each photo (which can increase the overall collage size), the number of photos in the collage (if you have too many), and how far apart the pictures are from each other. Once you’ve made your selections, click Preview (under Status) for an updated mock-up.

5. Fine-Tune the Coloring Click the Appearance tab, and note the options for both Background and Border. You can choose any color you like for the background, although white is probably best; alternatively, you may want to choose a transparent background so

iMovie App Tricks: Splitting Clips and More Original Shape It’s easy to add your own custom shape—just create black-andwhite artwork in PNG format and load it into Shape Collage.

that you can overlay the collage onto other artwork. You can also choose a picture as a background, but that’s probably not a good idea; after all, you want the collage to stand out, not be drowned out by the picture it’s placed on. You can also change the color and size of the border (or turn the border off), but changes here are discouraged; without a clear border, pictures will look indistinct from one another.

6. Add Finishing Touches Clicking Advanced gives you one last chance to fine-tune things, including the angle and the randomness of the rotation, the photo shadow (which you can turn off), and the boundaries (an option for jagged boundaries will make the photos adhere less stringently to the shape border).

Go back to Status and click Preview to see one last mock-up.

Now that you’ve tweaked every detail of the collage, it’s time for the app to get to work. Click Create (in the Status section), and you’ll be asked to choose a place to save the file. You also want to set the file format: If you chose a white background, stick with the basic JPEG format; if you opted for a transparent background, choose PNG. In moments, the full collage file is composed and saved to your hard drive. Print the file (or take it to a printer), pop it in a frame, and then either hang it or wrap it as a gift.

B

efore the iMovie 1.1 app update for iOS, it was impossible to split one clip into two parts. The update added the feature, but there’s still no obvious control for splitting a clip. So do this: In the timeline, select the clip you want to split and scroll so that the playhead is at the split point. Next, swipe vertically with one finger from the top of the clip to the bottom along the playhead, similar to the way you’d slice a strip of film with a blade.

You get two clips separated by an empty transition icon; a transition effect will appear when you play the movie, unless you specify a transition style for that icon.

Swipe Editing When you navigate through the clips in your movie, you swipe the timeline left or right. But you needn’t place your finger exactly over the timeline area. Swiping across the preview area scrolls the timeline.

Fit More Content To fit more of a clip on the screen, pinch inward with two fingers; timeline items compress horizontally. Pinch outward to expand the clips and view more thumbnails.

Clip Split Swipe vertically from the top to the bottom to split the clip.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 39

CREATE

REVIEWS

HARDWARE

Blue Microphones Mikey (2010)

If you occasionally need a pocketable recorder for an iPod you’re carrying, today’s updated Mikey is a reasonable choice. It includes a line-in port that allows you to easily record audio from an external source, and a USB port for charging the iPod while the Mikey is connected. Although the three gain settings are the same as they were on the previous model, they have been tweaked so that they’re less sensitive—making it very difficult to overdrive the gain on any of the Mikey’s settings. $80; Blue Microphones, www.bluemic.com.

Canon Vixia HF M32

The Canon Vixia HF M32 is a very good camcorder and a pleasure to use. The camera’s sharp 15X optical zoom lens and small ¼-inch CMOS imaging sensor gather imagery that gets recorded as 1080-line,

40 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

Hardware, Software, and Accessories for Your Creative Endeavors

60-frames-per-second interlaced HD video. The HF M32 lacks true progressive recording, but it provides a pull-down mode to record progressive-like 24-fps or 30-fps video onto its 60i stream. The result is video that looks really nice. Images exhibit good color accuracy, though they show a bit of noise. Even shots with lots of motion look smooth and sharp. The built-in microphone does a very good job of recording dialogue and sounds. $1000; Canon, www.canon.com

JVC Everio GZHM650

This camcorder gives you 1920 x 1080 HD recording, 8GB built-in flash memory, and SD/SDHC/SDXC storage, along with multiple shooting modes, controls and options. Among the features we find Advanced Image Stabilizer, 40x optical zoom, 2.7-inch touch panel LCD, and Konica Minolta HD Lens.

Manual controls are possible or rely on the camera’s modes like Intelligent AUTO, Smile Meter, and Face Sub-Window.$490; JVC, www.jvc.com.

SOFTWARE

Djay for iPad

Sanyo Xacti VPC-SH1

The Sanyo Xacti VPC-SH1 is not a great camcorder, but considering its price, that’s OK. Its blend of features—decent video and still-image quality, compact but uncramped size, functional core features, and support for Apple’s easy-to-edit iFrame format—make it a good purchase. The VPC-SH1’s more conventional design and size (1.7 by 4.6 by 2.3 inches) allows for sensible button placement and several handholding positions. And the iFrame support is a real win. $399; Sanyo, www.sanyo.com

Djay for iPad is one of the best iPad apps around. It lets you use your iTunes music library to create professional-sounding audio recordings while facilitating smooth transitions between songs. The app lives up to its name: You really can be a DJ using a digital interface that features two matching turntables.

While the price is high for casual users, pros who know their turntables will appreciate it. $20; Algoriddim, www.algoriddim.com

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 41

HELP DESK

Answering Your Questions and Sharing Your Tips about Getting the Most From Your Mac

Mac 911 Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems

BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN

Transfer Angry Birds Saved Game Data

Q:

I lost all my Angry Birds (www .rovio.com) saved game data on my iPad. My girlfriend’s iPad has just about the same number of three-star levels and eggs. Is there any way I can copy her achievements from her iPad to mine?

Will Colvin

A:

Yes. What you want to do is move a copy of the highscores.lua file from her iPad to your Mac and then replace the copy of this same file on your iPad with her copy. If both iPads are jailbroken, you can find this file by going to private/var/mobile/ Applications/theAngryBirdsfolder/ Documents. (This bit about theAngryBirdsfolder is placeholder text for a folder that’s actually named something along the lines of ‘0CEE22AC-1234-4C54-21E366AB51F25F68.’)

You can then access the iPad via SSH and copy the file via the usual methods (by using, say, an FTP client or by dragging files on your desktop if you’ve installed something like Netatalk after enabling SSH). You can also manage this file transfer without jailbreaking either iPad, by using Ecamm Network’s $20 PhoneView (www.ecamm.com).

To transfer the file, connect your Mac to the iPad that has the saved

Locate Saved Game File With PhoneView, you can copy Angry Birds saved game data to other devices.

game data you want. Launch PhoneView (if it doesn’t launch automatically) and select Apps in PhoneView’s Data pane. Enable the Show All Apps option, select Angry Birds in the list of apps, and then select its Documents entry (see “Locate Saved Game File”). Drag highscores.lua to your Mac’s desktop to make a copy of it. Then, unplug the first iPad and jack in the second.

Using PhoneView, navigate to this same location on the other— your—iPad, select the highscores. lua file that you copied to the desktop, and drag it to the Angry Birds/ Documents directory in PhoneView.

Select the option to replace the highscores.lua file that currently

resides on the iPad. When you next launch Angry Birds on your iPad, you’ll find that you have the same stars and eggs that your girlfriend’s iPad does.

This works with all iOS devices.

If you’d like your iPhone or iPod touch to also be in sync with your Angry Birds progress on your iPad, follow this same procedure and replace the highscores.lua file on those devices. You can also do this with the version of Angry Birds at the Mac App Store. Once you’ve moved the highscores.lua file from your iOS device, move it to this location on your Mac: youruserfolder/Library/Application Support/ Rovio/Angry Birds (first remove the existing highscores.lua file).

When you next start Angry Birds April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 43

HELP DESK

MAC 911

on your Mac, all your completed levels, star ratings, and golden eggs will be in place.

Install Software on a Mac that has a Dead DVD Drive

Q:

I recently passed along an old Mac mini to my son.

When setting it up, I inserted a CD to install some software and discovered that the media drive is broken—the CD just spins and spins and never mounts. I have a MacBook with a working media drive. Is there some way I can connect the Mac mini to the MacBook to install software?

Karen Evans

A:

Yes, you can use the media drive on your MacBook to install software on the Mac mini.

You can do this via FireWire Target Disk Mode or through disc sharing. There’s also a third way to install the software. Here they are: FireWire Target Disk Mode Method

String a FireWire cable between the two Macs. Restart the MacBook while holding down the T key.

Then boot the Mac mini; you should find that the MacBook’s hard drive appears on the mini’s desktop. Now insert an installation CD or DVD in the MacBook’s media drive. It too will appear on the mini’s desktop as a removable volume. Open that volume and double-click on the installer. The installer will go about its business.

Disc-Sharing Method Disc sharing was designed by Apple to allow a MacBook Air to use a disc inserted in another Mac on the same local network. With a slight bit of trickery you can make it work with your MacBook and Mac mini, too.

44 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

To do so, launch System Preferences on the MacBook, select Sharing, and enable DVD or CD Sharing. Launch Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities) on the Mac mini, and enter the two commands shown in the “Enable Disc Sharing” code box, pressing Return after each.

Restart the Mac mini. With the two Macs on the same network, insert the installation CD or DVD into the MacBook’s media drive. A Remote Disc entry will appear in a Finder window’s sidebar on the Mac mini. Select it and you’ll see the name of the MacBook.

Double-click on the MacBook entry, and you’ll find the disc that’s inserted in the MacBook’s drive. Double-click it to install.

Because it’s operating over a network, the installation will take longer than it would if you were using the disc in the mini’s media drive.

Disk-Image Method Finally, you could create a disk image on the MacBook, copy it to the Mac mini, and then run the disk image as if it were the original disc. To do that, insert the disc in the MacBook’s media drive and launch Disk Utility (in /Applications/ Utilities). In Disk Utility’s Sources list, select the disc.

Choose File ▶ New ▶ Disk Image From nameofdisk. In the sheet that appears, choose DVD/CD Master from the Image Format pop-up menu, select None from the Encryption pop-up menu, and click Save. Disk Utility will create the disk image (this will take some time). Once the image has been created, copy it to the Mac mini over the network, doubleclick on it to mount it, and run it as if it were the original disc.

Sync Multiple Google Calendars to the iPhone

Q:

My wife, daughter, and I have busy lives, and it’s sometimes hard to know where everyone is or needs to be. I am hoping there is some way to create Google calendars for all of us and then sync those calendars to my iPhone. Is that possible?

Drew Lincoln

A:

You do this with Google Sync. First, if this hasn’t been done already, create Gmail accounts for each family member.

Then, each family member should create a personal calendar and share it with the other family members.

On each iOS device you wish to sync the calendars with, go to Settings ▶ Mail, Contacts, Calendars and tap Add Account.

Choose Microsoft Exchange as the type of account to set up.

Enter your Gmail address and password in the appropriate fields.

Tap the Next button, and a dialog box will appear telling you that a certificate can’t be verified. Tap Cancel. In the resulting screen, enter m.google.com in the Server field and tap the Next button at the top of the screen.

In the next screen, you have the option to sync Mail, Contacts,

MAC 911 HELP DESK

and Calendars. To sync only calendars, flick the switch next to the Calendars entry on and flick the Mail switch off. To keep your existing events on your iPhone, tap the Keep On My iPhone button that appears. Verify that you want to do this when the Keep On My iPhone button reappears. Tap Done at the top of the Exchange screen.

To choose the calendars to sync, launch Safari on the iOS device and travel to m.google.com/sync.

Enter your Gmail username and password when prompted. Tap the name of your iOS device in the Manage Devices screen that appears. In the resulting Settings screen, tap on the shared calendars that you want to sync with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Now, when you launch the Calendar app, tap the Calendars entry at the top of the screen. In the Calendars screen that appears, you’ll see an entry for your Gmail Exchange account that lists all the shared calendars you’ve chosen.

When a family member updates their Google calendar, those events will sync to your iPhone.

Scale and Crop Images Cheaply

Q:

I’m working on a Website and I need to use images— both screenshots and photos—of specific sizes. I’m on a budget, so I can’t afford a high-priced program such as Adobe Photoshop to do this. Can you recommend a cheap or free way?

Curtis Wagner

A:

You could try to create images of the correct size when you capture them, or you could crop and/or scale your images after you’ve captured them.

For screen captures, press Cmd-Shift-4. A target cursor appears. Click and drag over the area you want to capture. You’ll see a readout of the horizontal and vertical pixel area you’re capturing.

Let go of the mouse button, and the capture is triggered. This isn’t helpful if the object you want to capture is larger than the size you desire. In such cases, crop and/or scale your image.

You can do this for free with Apple’s Preview application. Open your image in Preview and choose Tools ▶ Adjust Size. In the resulting sheet, you can select a specific width and height in pixels,

percent, inches, centimeters, millimeters, or points (see “Working with Scale”). By default, images will scale proportionally so that they appear in the same aspect ratio as the original did, but you can switch this option off if you’re not concerned about the images becoming distorted (when you want to lop off just a couple of pixels, for example).

If the original isn’t close to the aspect ratio you need, you should first crop it. With the Rectangular Selection tool chosen from the Select menu at the top of the image’s window, drag over the area you want to select. You’ll see a pixel selection readout similar to the one for the Cmd-Shift-4 screen-capture tool.

When you’ve made your selection, choose Tools ▶ Crop (Cmd-K).

Have you got a problem?

HELP DESK

Email your question to mac911@ macworldme.net or connect with us on Twitter at twitter.com/macworldme.

You can also check out the forums at www.emiratesmac.com. EmiratesMac is an Apple Users Group based in Dubai.

April 2011 | www.macworldme.net | 45

MAC COMPATIBLE

Dear Apple: Thanks For the Tables, But...

Tokyo Apple Store

Perhaps you caught some of the hubbub over the alleged “First Apple Store in the UAE” recently. (No, it had absolutely nothing to do with any REAL official Apple Store opening.)

Another publisher- who shall not be named- asserted that they had been told

by Virgin Megastore that Virgin would be opening the first Apple Store in the region inside the Virgin Megastore location at the Mall of the Emirates. It was, of course, obvious that there was something inaccurate about this report.

An Apple Store is opened and run by Apple, not by Virgin.

The story was soon corrected, complete with a statement from Apple Europe that what was being installed at Virgin Megastore was certainly not an Apple Store, but was something called an “Apple shop” and would be staffed by “Mac Solutions Consultants”, and not official “Geniuses”.

This really cleared up nothing. The Virgin Megastores in the region already had attractive, well stocked sections of

their stores which were dedicated to Apple products, and the employees in these sections were generally considered quite helpful and knowledgeable by most. How exactly would this not-anApple-Store be an improvement over Virgin’s existing offering?

Well, except for the denials and the hazy clarification, nobody was really talking. Even a trip to the Virgin Megastore at the Mall of the Emirates was fruitless. The staff offered their obviously uninformed guesses, but when a manager finally appeared he was mum, saying, “Wait and see; it will be a surprise.”

When the day came, the surprise was interesting, if rather underwhelming.

An area of the Apple section of the store had been redecorated and newly furnished in a way that did very much resemble an official Apple Store. The Macs were now displayed on simple, attractive wooden tables, which was accented by cushioned black flooring and, yes, a wooden bar at the back with a black wall behind it bearing glowing Apple logos and a screen playing various Apple promotional videos. It was as if Steve Job’s own elves had transformed the place overnight, at least cosmetically.

And in a way they did; reportedly it was Apple itself that had helped to provide the oh-so-recognizable fixtures that had been installed. It has been said that with Apple finally setting up its first office in the region in Abu Dhabi, it has taken an interest in the presentation of its products and worked with the regional distributor, Arab Business Machine, and the local retailers to bring about these transformations, which have been appearing in many other outlets as well, including Jumbo and Plug-ins.

Hopefully this is a sign of continued and growing direct involvement by Apple in the way its products are sold and serviced in this region. Very hopefully, in fact. Because in the hype and confusion surrounding the bungled revelation of the ‘first Apple shop in the Middle East’, there were quite a few hopes and expectations expressed by local Apple fans. However, to the best of my remembrance, not one said, “I hope this means there will be wooden tables,” or “What we really need here is a bit of remodelling.”

No, the greatest hopes expressed were the ones that anybody could guess: lower prices and better warranty service. Neither of which were a part of this recent transformation, aside from a temporary 10% discount offered by Virgin Megastore on the occasion of of the opening of their “Apple shop”.

It is argued by some that lower prices are not really possible here, since officially sanctioned Apple products in the region currently have to come through Apple Europe to get here, and that involves additional costs. But reality tells a different tale. Prices are so high here that for most Apple products it is cheaper to purchase them in the US and pay the extra expense of having them shipped here individually than to buy one locally. And there are several grey market retailers here that buy their stock from the US and manage to resell it here at prices that are only slightly higher than in the States. If they or any one of us can manage to beat the official pricing in this way, then surely the mighty commercial machine that is Apple, along with its partners, could do so as well.

If they wanted to.

Paul Castle is Community Evangelist for the Emirates Macintosh User Group (www.emiratesmac.com). As @DaddyBird on Twitter, he tweets entirely too much about tea, cats, Macs and Bollywood, as well as being a serial compulsive tweetup organiser.

46 | www.macworldme.net | April 2011

COMPUTING / ELECTRONICS / IMAGING / GAMING / MOBILITY

17th - 19th MAY 2011 Fujairah, UAE

14

Countries

63

165

Vendors

Retail Executives

Top retailers attending in 2010 included:

One-on-One Meetings

Vendors at the ‘sold out’ 2010 exhibition included:

...165 Retailers in total

Learn more about DCC MEA at www.dcc-mea.com

1,000+

...63 Vendors in total

T: + 971 4 391 35 26 E: sales@distree.com