Shuffle Newsletter August 2007 by EmiratesMac

shuffle August 2007 issue #10

middle east

monthly newsletter about all things apple

Back to school All About Steve Jobs Par t 2 Get your gear for school Your new MacBook Pro: Hints & Tricks

Contents A Word from the Editor Comic corner SmorgasDashBord The day the community took over Your new MacBook Pro: Hints & Tips EmiratesMac.com tips and tricks New store at Festival City, Dubai Profile of a Mac seller Mac911: solutions to your most vexing Mac problems All about Steve Jobs Part 2 Off to school preparations Get your gear for school Experiences of an Apple fan across the world - Part 4: Hong Kong Peel the apple Switcher interview Weaving the web Photoshop tutorial Recipe: Brown Betty A visit to AUS Join EMUG

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Shuffle is sponsored by:

www.appleme.ae

www.centimetercube.com

A Word from the Editor Back to school It’s that time of the year when thousands of kids go back to school, and thousands more go to school for the first time. Apple has traditionally had a strong position in education and continues to do so. And that arguably applies even to our region (see “A visit to AUS” in this issue of shuffle). But pricing is critical in education, and Macs are often too expensive to be considered. But is that keeping the best interest of studens in mind? Not always. Sometimes it probably doesn’t matter much if a task is done with Windows or Mac OS X, but over time, I’d say students as well as teachers would benefit from using Macs. Macs are more user friendly, more secure and stable, and don’t suffer from many of the problems plaguing the Windows world. In our region it’s important that we educate the educators and the decision makers about Apple and Macs as much as possible to the benefit of our children. Too often I have seen schools with Windows PCs and thought to myself “Macs could give these kids so much more”. Personally I think clear and advertised special offers and discounts to teachers and students would make good sense. I also think Apple IMC should be more visible in the education market, even outside the the subject areas where they are traditionally strong, like media and design. And the EmiratesMac Apple User Group is always willing to play its part. In this issue we’ve tried to collect material that may help in preparing and planning for going back to school, whether you’re a parent or a student. You will find advice for preparing for going back to school, and some suggestions for Apple equipment you can buy that will help enhancing the school experience.

About shuffle

Shuffle is published by EmiratesMac User Group (EMUG). It is an independent newsletter containing news, commentary, tips and tricks, reviews, tutorials, and more, covering the world of Mac, iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, and anything else Apple, with a focus on the Middle East. Shuffle is also the official publication of EMUG detailing information about the user group and its activities. Editor in chief is Magnus Nystedt.

Contact

There is a discussion forum dedicated to shuffle at EMUG’s web site (www.emiratesmac.com/forums/newsletter/). There you can leave comments and suggestions and discuss shuffle with other users. You can contact EMUG at mailing address: PO Box 70263, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Phone +971508171164; Fax +97126664289; Email shuffle@emiratesmac.com; Web www.emiratesmac.com.

Disclaimer

While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the content of this publication, we accept no responsibility for errors, omissions or changes to information printed. Views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of EMUG. Articles are copyright their respective author, unless noted otherwise.

Want to advertise in shuffle?

his newsletter is the only publication in the United Arab Emirates that is dedicated to Apple products, such as Macs and iPods. By advertising in shuffle you reach a dedicated audience of Mac and iPod users. We strive to make shuffle a high-quality newsletter that people will want to read because it’s so good. It’s written and produced by EmiratesMac User Group Members. Wouldn’t you want to be associated with that? If you’re interested in sponsoring shuffle, or buying advertising space, contact Crystal at +971508171164 or crystal@emiratesmac. com to request our Media Kit.

Want to write for shuffle?

f you’re reading this and you’re a member of the EmiratesMac User Group, or any other registered Apple User Group in the Middle East, we hope you will consider contributing. We’re looking for any type of articles you would be interested in writing, from something about the history of Apple and their products, reviews of hardware or software, essays, tutorials, or hints and tips. The people who write for shuffle now are users just like yourself. If you would consider writing something for shuffle, send us an email (contact@emiratesmac.com) or leave a message with your idea at the site (www.emiratesmac.com).

4 EmiratesMac shuffle | www.emiratesmac.com | shuffle@emiratesmac.com

Comic corner Blaugh.com has generously given their permission for EMUG to reprint their comic strip in our newsletter. Go to www.blaugh. com to see a new comic strip every day. Use the code â&#x20AC;&#x153;blaughâ&#x20AC;? when you shop at

www.Godaddy.com to get 10% off your purchase.

Geekculture.com has generously given their permission for EMUG to reprint their comic strip in our newsletter. Go to www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/ to see a new comic strip every day.

Make sure you also check out all the other features on the Geekculture.com web site.

shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 5

Sm rgasDashB rd by Yasir

Arabic history mostly but not all of it though. I hope to see Al Mylani continue his good work on creating more Arabic widgets. RANKING: LINK: www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/reference/index2.html Flipdo It’s supposed to say FlipFlop, useless-but cool, type in any word/phrase/sentence and hit the button. RANKING: LINK: www.apple.com/downloads/ dashboard/email_messaging/flipflop.html Arabic Day in History It’s nice to see Arabic widgets appearing on the “latest widgets” but until now not many have been actually that bright. This is one of those that have pretty useful content but lacks those good looks of a normal widget. Although it has been done by DashCode so it should’ve been a lot better, but anyway it shows you something like today in history. The content is based on

Challenge! A pretty fun widget to either feed your curiosity or pretty useful if your playing scrabble and want to proof that your word really exists, type in any word and hit enter and the widget well tell you wether the word you just gave is real or just plain phony! RANKING: LINK: www.apple.com/ downloads/dashboard/reference/challenge.html

tion is really getting annoying and taking up alot of space. RANKING: LINK: www.apple.com/downloads/ dashboard/justforfun/plasmatubemotionlightwidget.html

Population Counter This one is pretty awkward, but it actually views the current population of the whole world! Now I do not know where this information is gathered from or if it is really true, but as far as i can see it counts how many people are born and the number of deaths at the same time, looks pretty nice aswell. RANKING: LINK: www.apple. com/downloads/ dashboard/reference/ populationcounter. html PlasmaTube I do not know what they exactly mean by plasma but it somehow seems to be some mutated liquidy, fiery, slimy type of plasma which seems to react constantly over nothing. It’s a bit too oversized and that reflec-

6 EmiratesMac shuffle | www.emiratesmac.com | shuffle@emiratesmac.com

The day the community took over by Magnus

Digg.com is a communitydriven news web site. It was started in 2004 as a place where each story was submitted by a registered user on the site, and any other user could “digg” or “bury” a story, depending on whether they liked it or not. Digg has become a phenomenon in a short period of time, and for web sites it’s a blessing as well as a curse to get linked to by Digg. It’s a blessing because it gives you traffic. But that traffic can be a curse if you get too much of it and your site goes down. On May 1st 2007, an article was posted to Digg.com which contained the encryption key for the protection of HD DVD content. With the key anyone could decrypt and watch otherwise protected HD DVD content. Digg user “CJ” had posted a story (www. cjmillisock.com/2007/05/ how-i-got-banned-from-digg. html) pointing to a posting by “Rudd-O” (rudd-o.com/ archives/2007/04/30/spreadthis-number/) which gave this encryption key for HD DVD. CJ’s post got over 15000 diggs over night, then the comments about it started disappearing,

the story itself was cut, then CJ’s Digg account was removed. According to Digg.com management this was all done because they were “acting on the advice of lawyers”. Jay Adelson, CEO of Digg wrote (blog. digg.com/?p=73): “We’ve been notified by the owners of this intellectual property that they believe the posting of the encryption key infringes their intellectual property rights. In order to respect these rights and to comply with the law, we have removed postings of the key that have been brought to our attention.” Just eight hours later, Digg founder Kevin Rose wrote (blog.digg.com/?p=74): “We’ve always given site moderation (digging/burying) power to the community. Occasionally we step in to remove stories that violate our terms of use (eg. linking to pornography, illegal downloads, racial hate sites, etc.)... after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or

comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.” So what made Digg change their position in just a number of hours? What happened was a virtual storming of the Bastille. Thousands of Digg users posted post and post containing the encryption key. In every way imaginable they included the key in what seemed like benign posts. As far as we know Digg tried to fight this for a while but they realized that it was of no use. They could either fight their users, which is a fight they couldn’t win, or take a possible fight in court later. EmiratesMac.com is obviously nowhere near Digg in terms of traffic, users, or notoriety. We’re a small, regional, web site, and we’re primarily an Apple User Group web site, not a community news web site, but there are similarities. In both cases we rely heavily on our users to supply content and make the site successful. And if users don’t like something, they’re going to tell you. That’s something to keep in mind for any person running a web site. I know I followed this story closely.

shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 7

Your new MacBook Pro: Hints & Tips by Hakeem

As you return to school, I am sure you that you are excited that you’ve eventually acquired a new MacBook Pro notebook of your own. Gone are those days when you have to depend on those security-locked Mac desktops in your school’s IT-equipped teaching spaces (labs, studios etc). You can now carry out your design, rendering and other creative tasks using your powerful notebook as tool for academic, professional and personal purposes. It is my hope that the following tips, tricks and advice will go a long way in helping you get the best from your new notebook. Please note that students (especially Architecture majors) who may use Windows-based CAD software like AutoCAD will find the hints presented in this article very useful when running Windows from their secondary hard drive partition. General Care • Pick up your notebook (each time) with care. • Do not drink or eat near your notebook. • If you do accidentally spill something into the notebook, without delay press and hold the on/off button for 10 seconds. • Do not use or expose the notebook to extreme temperatures. • Do not use the notebook near a strong magnetic field. • Do not insert the CD\DVD backwards. • Do not push the on\off switch before proper shutting down. • Do not leave your battery power fully drained for extended periods. • Don’t keep batteries fully charged for extended periods. Cables You will most likely need the following cables. Try to get on for yourself: Power, ethernet (network), USB, FireWire, video, security.

Screens • Do not place anything heavy on the notebook. The screen/display is made of liquid crystal (LCD). Glossy screens are much better. • Be careful when closing the notebook. Make sure that there is nothing between the screen and the keyboard. • Don’t touch the screen (especially when your finger is oily or moist). • Use lens cleaner for wiping off dust/ dirt.

Backup • It is recommended that you backup data from your notebook daily. You may also continue automating your backup process with free tools like Carbon Copy Cloner (www.bombich. com/software/ccc.html), etc. • Remember that backing up your data is cheap, could be fast and it ultimately saves you the grief of losing data. • You can consider burning (back up) your data to: CDs, DVDs, CDRWs.

Safe Practices • As you move around with your notebooks, try to adhere to the following safe practices and avoid any unsafe practice. • Carry the notebook closed. • Carry the notebook in a case. • Keep your notebook on your person or keep your notebook in a secure, climate controlled location.

Wireless • Your wireless configuration will depend on your location and the kind of wireless access points/types available to you • Most campuses offer direct connections. All you need is to ensure that your wireless (Airport) is turned on. Select the right network connection in your range. • Ask your IT support staff to help you with the activation process for secured wireless connections. • Try to avoid rendering multimedia files or printing huge files over the network using wireless connections. It is faster and more reliable to connect your network cable and use a wired connection.

File Management • Organize your files by project. • All files associated with projects should reside in the project folder. • Create subfolders to organize additional files. • Do not move individual files.

8 EmiratesMac shuffle | www.emiratesmac.com | shuffle@emiratesmac.com

Keyboard Shortcuts You may find yourself frustrated knowing that there is a keyboard shortcut for something in Mac OS X but for whatever reasons you can’t remember what it was. This web page (www.dailytechnobabble.com/mactips-tricks/keyboard-shortcuts-for-macbook-pro) contains information that can help you keep track of keyboard shortcuts so you don’t have to remember them! Boot Camp: MacBook Pro FAQs Boot Camp lets you install Windows operating system (e.g. Windows XP or Vista) on an Intel-based Mac like your MacBook Pro. For users opting to run Windows on their MacBook Pro notebook, you will find the latest Boot Camp (1.3) help very useful. While running Windows, note that: Volume control is now possible using the notebook keyboard (F3, F4 and F5). Using Apple Remote Control to control volume etc. will not work well as it does when you are running Mac OS X. If you would like to learn answers to frequently asked questions about using Boot Camp Beta on your MacBook Pro, check out these Apple’s FAQ (docs.info.apple. com/article.html?artnum=303575). • Q: Windows XP will not install correctly on my MacBook or MacBook

•

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Pro when an Apple Mighty Mouse is plugged in. Is there a workaround? A: Use the MacBook or MacBook Pro’s built in trackpad until after Windows XP is installed and Windows recognized the mouse. Q: Why does the battery charge seems to run down faster when using Windows XP than when using Mac OS X? A: Mac OS X includes power management optimizations that are not available in Windows XP. Q: The delete key on my MacBook or MacBook Pro acts like a Backspace key. Is there a workaround? A: In Windows XP, the Delete key on the MacBook or MacBook Pro is mapped to the Backspace key. You can either press FnDelete or use an external keyboard with a Delete key (or Windows-compatible software that can remap the Backspace key to Delete). Q: Does the MacBook or MacBook Pro trackpad work the same in Windows XP as it does in Mac OS X? A: Basic tracking works, but acceleration and scrolling are not available in Windows. Tip: To perform a right-click action, hold the right Command key while tapping the trackpad button. Q: The Show Pointer Location anima-

•

tion doesn’t work on MacBook or MacBook Pro running Windows XP. A: This is a known issue in Boot Camp Beta. It is not supported in this release. Q: I have a MacBook or MacBook Pro with a built-in JIS keyboard but the Input method keys do not work in Windows XP. A: The input method keys on a built-in JIS keyboard on a MacBook or MacBook Pro are not supported in Windows XP. Use an external, localized JIS keyboard.

Hakeem Sanni is the IT Manager at the SA+D in AUS . He holds a diploma in Data Processing, Bachelor & Master degrees in Computer Science and he is also an Internet2 Site Coordinator and an experienced Mac, Windows & Unix System Administrator

shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 9

Emiratesmac.com tips and tricks

by Magnus

We continue our series of tips and tricks for how to do certain things at Emiratesmac.com. The intent is to tell our users about some of the perhaps less well known features and functions on the site in order to make their experience with the site a bit better. Gallery We have a nice gallery on the site, with users uploading their photos and artwork. When you upload a picture to the gallery, keep in mind that you shouldn’t upload a huge file. Even if you took something with your digital camera, make sure the picture you upload is no more than around 1200 pixels high or wide. That’s plenty of pixels for anyone to look at it on a computer screen. There’s an option when you upload called “Upload as set”. If you select this option it means that the pictures you upload will belong to a set, which makes it easier for users to view these pictures on the site. So if you upload a group of pictures that are related, photos taken at the same event, for example, put them in a set. When you are

looking at a picture in the Gallery, please take some time to rate it and perhaps even leave a comment. You can rate each picture from one to five stars, and you can leave a comment for each picture. I’d encourage you to upload as many photos as you can, and also leave comments and rate other photos. It’s the community aspect of the site that makes it a joy to visit, which is also true for the Gallery. Search the site with Google Did you know you can use Google to search through EmiratesMac.com? You can of course go to the Search page on the site. You can also type in whatever you want to search for, followed by “site:emiratesmac.com” in a Google search box. The results you get

will then be restricted to our site. On a daily basis our site submits the content on the site to Google so that the search engine will cover the pages as comprehensively as possible. New hosting This isn’t exactly a tip or a trick but I thought it fits in here anyway. Since the last issue of shuffle, we’ve moved our site, EmiratesMac.com to a new host. We made the move for different reasons, but the main one is that we were starting to have different problems, some at least related to the hosting plan we were at. So we moved the site to a new hosting provider, with more resources available for the site and the systems we run. The actual move took only a few hours, and although we experienced some problems, overall it was a smooth move. Since the move it seems the site works better, without any problems. It should be added that some of the problems we experienced before the move, regular users of the site didn’t see them, only administrators. But they were, taken together, enough of a reason to make the move, even though we pay a lot more for the new hosting. If you experience any problems with the site, send us an email (contact@emiratesmac.com).

New store at Festival City, Dubai by Magnus On July 10, 2007, Apple IMC ME opened their latest iStyle store in Festival City, Dubai. It’s the third iStyle store in the UAE, following the stores in Abu Dhabi Mall, Abu Dhabi, and Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai. As an Apple User Group, EmiratesMac welcomes more Appleselling stores and wish the store all the best for the future.

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Profile of a Mac seller by Magnus

Name: Title: Store:

Ghassan Debs Store Manager iStyle Abu Dhabi Mall, Abu Dhabi

Q: When did you start working for iStyle? A: May 2006. Q: What did you do before working at iStyle? A: Working in Lebanon with US Aid under SUNY for five years. I worked mainly at an IT Help Desk. Q: When was the first time you used a Mac and what was your first impression? A: When I arrived in the UAE I used a PowerBook. It was much better than Windows. It was more simple to use, more fun, more professional. Everything was better. Q: What’s the best part of your job? A: Dealing with customers and trying to make them happy. I want to give them good

customer service by making sure my staff know everything about the products we sell. I always try to listen to customers to understand what they want so we can match products with needs. Q: What is your favorite Apple product and why? A: That would be video iPod, because I can carry with me all my photos, video, music, and even use it for files. But I think when the iPhone is out that will be my new favorite. Q: What is the most challenging part of your job? A: To try to figure out what customers want sometimes. Matching what they want with expectations is often very hard. But the

good security in Mac OS X, the high specs of our notebooks, iLife, and the nice design, makes it easier. Q: Do you have a funny story about something that has happened in your job? A: It’s not a particular story, we always have Mac users coming in to the store, and it’s fun to see them talk to new customers, trying to get them to buy a Mac. Q: Is there any particular product you wish Apple would release? A: Touch-screen notebooks like tablets. That would be cool. And perhaps a MacBook Pro 12-inch.

shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 11

Mac 911

Mac911: Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems by Christopher Breen Taking out iPhoto’s trash Q: Recently, I went through more than 2,000 photos in my iPhoto library and deleted the not-so-good ones in order to free up a little space on my hard drive. Alas, when I went to the Trash to empty it, none of the deleted photos were there. It seems that while I deleted them from the library, they are still buried somewhere on the hard drive. Where?--Gary Patterson A: As you’ve discovered, your deleted iPhoto images don’t appear in the Finder’s Trash. Instead, you’ll find them in iPhoto’s own Trash. To truly remove iPhoto images from your hard drive, select the images that you want to delete from your iPhoto library and press the delete key on your Mac’s keyboard. This transfers the pictures to iPhoto’s Trash, which you’ll find at the bottom of the Source list. To really get rid of the images, control-click on iPhoto’s Trash icon and choose Empty Trash. This gets rid of the images for good. Notice that I said to select each image in your iPhoto library. If you select an image in an album or a slide show and press delete, you remove the image from the album or slide show but not from your iPhoto library. There’s a trick for this as well. Select an image and press 1-option- delete; the image will disappear from all albums and slide shows, as well as from the iPhoto library, and will then appear in iPhoto’s Trash. Again, empty this Trash to delete the image from your computer. Make Word multilingual Q: I am living in France, which means that I write in both French and English in Microsoft Word. It’s a bit time-consuming to go to the Tools: Language menu and se-

lect a different language for a document. Is there any way to develop a shortcut that will let me toggle between the two languages as I go from task to task?--Nick Brown A: When you switch languages in Microsoft Word, you not only change the symbols that your Mac’s keyboard types (as happens when you choose a different language in the International preference pane), but also instruct Word to use a different dictionary and grammar checker. One of the quickest ways to switch languages is with a Word macro--a single command that executes a series of tasks. In Word, choose Tools: Macro: Record New Macro, enter a name for your macro--say, French --and click on the Keyboard button. In the Customize Keyboard window that appears, assign a keyboard shortcut for your macro-- controloption-F, for instance--and click on Assign. Click on OK to begin recording your macro. While the macro is recording, choose Tools: Language, select French in the Language window that appears, and click on OK. Stop recording the macro. Now create another macro that switches the language to English. This time, name the macro English, assign it a shortcut such as controloption-E, and choose English in the Language window while recording. Once these macros are in place, just press the corresponding keyboard shortcut to change languages. You can also assign macros to toolbar buttons. To do so, click on the Toolbars button in the Record Macro window. Another option is to create a style based on French or English. Choose Format: Style. In the Style window that appears, name the style, select Styles In Use from the List pop-up menu, and then select Normal from the Styles list at the top

of the window. Click on the New button. Choose Language from the pop-up menu at the bottom of the resulting New Style window. Then choose the language you’d like to use (French or English), and click on OK. The New Style window will now tell you that you’re using a Normal style and which language you chose. Modify the style as you like from there, and click on OK to add the style. When you want to switch languages,just impose the new style. Switch off Spotlight Q: How can I remove Spotlight from my Mac’s menu bar? I use Xcode for application development. On my 17-inch screen, I need the space.--Curt Douglass A: If that little corner of the menu bar occupied by the Spotlight icon is your only concern, you can remove the icon this way: Navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices and drag the Search.bundle file to your desktop. You don’t have the correct permissions to move the file (root owns Search. bundle), so this will make a copy of the file. Put this copy in a safe place in case you want to enable the Spotlight menu item again. Select the original file in the CoreServices folder and press 1-delete to move it to the Trash. You’ll have to enter your administrator name and password in order to move it. When you restart your Mac, the Spotlight menu will be gone. To put things back the way they were, drag the Search.bundle file back into the CoreServices folder. Select it, press 1-I to bring up the Info window, and change its permissions so that Owner is System and Group is Wheel. If you want to get rid of Spotlight more completely, follow the steps just outlined, and then launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) and type the following: sudo pico /etc/hostconfig. If Terminal terrifies you, try Fixamac Software’s $13 Spotless (), a utility that allows you to control Spotlight’s behavior. It includes features for disabling content indexing on particular volumes, deleting indexes, and switching Spotlight off altogether.

12 EmiratesMac shuffle | www.emiratesmac.com | shuffle@emiratesmac.com

Mac 911

Change Office’s registration Q: I just recently noticed that I made a typo when I registered my copy of Microsoft Office 2004. When I select Word: About Word (or the equivalent in any other Office application), my name appears misspelled after “This product is licensed to.” Is it possible to fix this?-Meng Thao A: Launch Office’s Remove Office utility (/Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/ Additional Tools/Remove Office). In the Welcome To Remove Office window that appears, you’ll see a Continue button in the lower right corner. Hold down the option key, and the button name changes to Remove Licensing Information Only. Click on that button to acknowledge that this is what you really want to do, and Remove Office will delete the files containing the registration information. When you next launch an Office application, the Office Setup Assistant will appear and prompt you for your name and product key. Remove quotes in Mail Q: From time to time, I want to excerpt something from an Apple Mail message, but if the message has been circulating for a while, it’s cluttered with vertical lines in the left margin (from forwarding it and responding to it). Is there a way to remove them?--John Christopher A: For people who don’t know, those vertical lines represent quote levels in Mail. The more lines you see, the more times an e-mail exchange has included that bit of text. While Mail doesn’t offer a command to eliminate them in one fell swoop, you can remove them one level at a time. Just

select the quoted text you’ve excerpted, hold down 1-option, and press the apostrophe (‘) key. With each press, one level disappears. (This is also available via a menu command-Format: Quote Level: Decrease-- but having to invoke a menu command multiple times is less than convenient.) Another option is to use Devon Technologies’ free WordService 2.6.1. Download this service and drag it to your Services folder (your user folder/Library/ Services). If you don’t find a Services folder in this location, create one. Log out of your account and log back in again. Now select the quoted text and select Mail: Services: Format: Remove Quotes. To apply even broader formatting changes (for example, to wrap text and remove quotes), select the text and choose Reformat (1-shift-7) from the same submenu. Finally, if you want to remove the quote levels by hand, select the quoted text, drag it to the desktop to create a text clipping, and drag that clipping into a new e-mail message or text document. This process strips the text of quote-level formatting.

Quickly switch audio input and output Q: Do you know of an Automator workflow or an AppleScript that lets you easily switch the input and output of the Mac’s sound system? Going to the Sound preference pane while a Skype call is coming in is inconvenient.--Ralston Barnard A: Such AppleScripts exist, but why bother when Rogue Amoeba gives you SoundSource, a free menu-bar menu that lets you

easily change audio inputs and outputs (see “Choose New Audio Settings”)? Our Mac Gems meister, Dan Frakes, covered SoundSource in 2004 (). The current version (1.1) is compatible with Intel Macs. Back up on the cheap You know you need it. You know you should want it. But the second the phrase “backup strategy” enters the course of general conversation, you experience a strong desire to lie down in a dark room. Don’t feel overwhelmed. One of the most common reasons people don’t back up is because they don’t know where to put their data. Here are two ways to solve that problem without breaking the bank. 1. Use What You Have Back up data to your internal hard drive, and you’ll lose everything if that drive goes kaput. So where to store your backups? External hard drives are fast and convenient, but they can be pricey. Don’t let the lack of one stand in your way. Nearly all new Macs ship with a double-layer (DL) SuperDrive, capable of burning as much as 8.5GB of data to DL media. Single-layer DVDs are inexpensive and can hold up to 4.7GB. And even cheap-as-dirt 700MB CD-R discs can store hundreds of small files. For rewritable storage on-the-go, a USB key drive that holds a couple of GB of data is both inexpensive and easy to transport. 2. Put It Online When you’re away from home, even if you have an external drive, you may not have access to it. You could use Apple’s .Mac service, since it includes a gigabyte of storage and the convenient Backup software, but that costs $100 a year. Instead, create a free Google Gmail account and use the more than 2.5GB of online e-mail storage you get to back up important files while you’re on the road. The free Gspace plug-in for Firefox makes it easy.

Senior Editor Christopher Breen is the author of Secrets of the iPod and iTunes, fifth edition, and The iPod and iTunes Pocket Guide (both Peachpit Press, 2005). Find Chris’ books at www.amazon.com and www.peachpit.com.

shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 13

A biography of the co-founder and CEO of Apple

All about Steve Jobs Part 2 Photograph by Graham Parker appears courtesy of Apple, Inc.

by Romain Moisescot

Early success Apple’s presence at the West Coast Computer Faire was a great success. The company received 300 orders for Apple IIs on the show, twice as much as the total number of Apple Is sold. This was only the beginning. By January of 1978, Apple was valued $3,000,000. The Board of Directors had been extended to new investors: in addition to Markkula (who had originally invested $250,000), there were the renowned venture capitalists arthur Rock ($57,600), Don Valentine ($150,000), and the Venrock firm (the venture capitalism agency of the Rockefeller family), which had put in $288,000. When the first disk drive for the Apple II became available in early 1978, allowing wanna-be programmers and amateur hackers to write software for the computer that would work at a reasonable speed and could be transferred easily from machine to machine, the number of programs available quickly increased. This, combined to the many advantageous features of the Apple II’s revolutionary design, quickly made the computer the gold standard of personal computers. Although there were some tensions between Steve Jobs and Apple’s president Mike Scott, the overall atmosphere at the

company was euphoric. Work on the Apple III started to begin in late 1978. Sales of the Apple II went through the roof: 2,500 were sold in 1977, 8,000 in 1978 and up to 35,000 in 1979, producing $47 million in revenue for the 2-year old company. Apple became the company of personal computers. In fact, there were no personal computers on the market other than the Apple II. One of the key factors to its success was, surprisingly for Steve and Apple, the education market, because it allowed the teaching of the BASIC language. Steve had not foreseen this but he would remember it later. Another thing which destroyed the competition was the introduction of VisiCalc in the fall of 1979, the first spreadsheet for personal computers ever. It remained available exclusively on the Apple II for another year, and made Apple the king of personal computing until IBM entered the market in 1981. It is around that period that Steve started to change. His personality changed as he metamorphosed into a businessman. He was no longer a frequent visitor at the Los Altos Zen Center and he started to polish his appearance and occasionally wear suits. It must be mentioned that at the age 24, he had become a millionaire, thanks to

Apple’s sales of $7 million in private stocks, including $1,050,000 from the Xerox Corporation. Lisa In early 1979, Steve decided he would launch his own distinctive project, a computer whose success, unlike the Apple II, could not be attributed to Woz’s great talent. He decided to call it the LISA. The name that Steve chose was not innocent: it was the name he and his former girlfriend Chris-Ann Brennan had picked one year earlier for the daughter he would not recognize as his own before a few more years. In December of that same year, Apple was allowed to make a visit that changed Steve’s life and the future of computing as well. In return of the investment agreement with Xerox, a little team from Apple including Steve and a few programmers like Bill Atkinson and Rich Page, as well as the head of the Lisa Project John Couch, would be given a tour of the Xerox’s PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). The PARC was at the time the Land of Oz of computer development. The researchers working there had invented what would change the experience of computing forever: the Graphical User

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All about Steve Jobs Interface (GUI), and the mouse (as well as Ethernet, the laser printer and a few more amazing achievements). The GUI basically is the metaphor of the desktop applied to computing. It is at PARC that the concepts of point-&-click, nested folders filled with files, windows with elevators, copy-&-paste were invented, and actually implemented in a fully working computer environment, SmallTalk, which ran on a prototype Xerox Alto computer. The biggest problem at the PARC was not developing new technology, it was to convince Xerox’s heads on the East Coast that what they were doing was a revolution in the making. The problem is, they never believed in that vision, and the researchers remained frustrated that their talent was not recognized. There was also a big problem of pricing: the price tag of the Alto was around $10,000! What was going on at the PARC was not entirely secret, as there were many professors form the Stanford campus -on which the building was located- who had been given a similar tour, and articles about the GUI had been written in the specialized press, but the tour given to Apple that day was of major importance for at least 2 reasons: 1) it proved Apple’s engineers, Bill Atkinson in particular, that their dreams about “more graphical way to do things” could be materialized; it inspired them in letting them think that making a GUI work was actually possible. 2) it attracted Steve’s attention to the GUI. It was like a bolt of lightning to him, and what made the difference with Xerox’s stubborn executives. He would later say about it: “Within 10 minutes, it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this someday.” (from “Triumph of the Nerds”) He decided that this was the way to go for Apple, or more precisely, for the Lisa project. 100 engineers were hired for the project alone, but everything didn’t go as smoothly as planned. To begin with, there were big tensions between Apple’s three divisions: the Apple II group, which was considered an uncreative group, the Apple III group, which was still working on a project that had been launched in late ‘78, and finally the superior Lisa group. Plus, the list of features that were to be added to the Lisa was growing so fast that the original goal of a $2,000 office computer was

completely forgotten. Lisa’s price tag was nearing $10,000, as expensive as the Alto! Decisions were taken at the top (by Markkula and Mike Scott); Apple was completely re-organized into three new divisions: the Accessories division, the Professional Office Systems (POS) division -which of course would include the Lisa project- and the Personal Computer Systems division. Steve was aiming at the title of VP R&D of the POS, which would have given him total control of Lisa. Instead, this became the responsibility of John Couch, who was head of the Lisa project. Steve was given the title of Chairman of the Board. This title was justified by Steve’s incredible charisma and the fact that the media loved him (he had also started to be known by the general public because of a series of ads that had been published the same year in the Wall Street Journal). This public image would be useful for the upcoming public stock offering of the company. And indeed, on December 12, 1980, Apple went public with a success no company had experienced since Ford’s own IPO in the 50s. Steve, who owned $7.5 million of Apple stocks, was worth $217.5 million by the end of the day. He became one of the richest self-made men in America.

Macintosh However Steve refused to spend the rest of his life playing the role of the successful young entrepreneur. He wanted to be involved in the development of Apple’s future products. And he was worried that the Lisa, with all the bureaucracy that came with it, would not be as great a computer as he had envisioned. Apple, whose workforce by then was over 1,000, had shown its limits with the introduction of the Apple III that took place with great fanfare in the summer of 1980 at Disneyland - but the computer turned out to have major design flaws and the first 14,000 models had to be returned to the company. So Steve decided he wanted to run the Macintosh project. The Macintosh project was born out of the imagination of Jef Raskin. One of Apple’s earliest employees (#31), Raskin had written the manuals for the Apple II. He wanted the Macintosh to be a personal computer “as easy to use as a toaster”. He had picked the name Macintosh because it was the name of his favorite apple (which in fact is spelled McIntosh). Steve had major disagreements with Raskin on how Macintosh should evolve. The latter wanted Macintosh to be very inexpensive, at a building cost of $300, whereas Steve wanted it to be like a cheaper Lisa, keeping all its great features like the GUI. In orderfor these features to be implemented, the Macintosh would have to be based around the 32-bit Motorola 68000 chip. Raskin disagreed - and therefore, by early 1981, Steve took over the project. He extended the team which was composed of hardware genius Burell Smith and programmer Bud Tribble (and a couple more engineers) with new brains like Rod Holt, Randy Wiggington, Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld. Other members like programmer Steve Capps, marketing adviser Mike Murray and icon artist Susan Kare would jump in the boat later on. The idea was that this small, nonconformist group was going to save Apple with the Mac. This feeling of holy mission was reinforced when, in Summer ‘81, a major com-

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All about Steve Jobs petitor to Apple entered the personal computer market: IBM. “It is coming down to Apple and IBM. If, for some reason, we make some big mistake and IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years. Once IBM gains control of a market sector, they always stop innovation -they prevent innovation from happening.” (Playboy Interview with David Sheff, February 1985) In late 1981, Steve convinced the Apple Board to give him full control of what would now be considered as one of the most important project for the future of Apple Computer: Macintosh. After all, Apple’s revenues at the time came only from the Apple II and its licensed software, and despite its evident superiority to the IBM PC, the name of IBM was so trusted in business that it quickly became a standard. “You can’t be fired for buying an IBM” was the motto in most companies’ IT departments. The Mac team quickly became isolated from the rest of the company. They saw themselves as “Pirates” whereas the rest of the company was dubbed “the Navy”. They even decorated their offices on Bandley Drive 3 with a pirate flag. This spirit of independence was Steve’s will: he wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the early days at the garage, to protect the Mac team from being corrupted by the ambient bureaucratic atmosphere. It was not easy joining the Mac team: one had to pass a series of tests like whether you could compete with Andy Hertzfeld or Burrell Smith on video games, whether you could eat pineapple pizza and answering tough questions from Steve. Mac team members could easily be identified with their characteristic T-shirts sporting slogans like “Working 90 hours a week and loving it” or “Let’s be pirates!”. There was also a major event in Steve’s career that year, that would propel him even further into the public eye: he made the cover of Time magazine in February 1982. Actually, there would be a controversy with the same magazine by the end of the year. The magazine originally contemplated giving

Steve the title of “Man of the Year 1982”, but they changed their mind after they read the piece their local correspondent (Michael Moritz) had written about him. Instead, it was the Personal Computer which was named “Machine of the year”. Called “The Updated Book of Jobs”, the journalist’s article about the current development of Mac featured criticism about Steve’s tough managerial style and personality, as well as condemnatory quotes from his long-time friend Bill Fernandez and even Woz. Steve felt betrayed: he had given Michael Moritz

carte blanche at Apple for his story. From this day on, he remained suspicious of journalists. The rumor mill got pretty active in 1982, as Steve kept calling in developers for building programs for the Mac so that would be plenty of software available when it would be introduced. That’s about the time when they made a deal with Bill Gate’s Microsoft - who also started the work on Windows, an IBM-compatible sort of GUI which Steve considered an out-and-out theft from the Mac. His paranoia would prove justified - however, Windows in those days was 10 years behind Mac technology. In January 1983, Steve headed for the East Coast for the official launch of Lisa. Although the critical response was quite

encouraging - after all, the Lisa was the first commercially available computer with a GUI - there were two major problems with this introduction. First, Steve couldn’t help himself talking about his baby in the making, Macintosh, which was going to get all the great features and software of the Lisa, but with a much lower price ($2,000 instead of $10,000). Secondly, he had to confess Lisa and Mac would not be compatible. Each ran a different operating system! Basically, the result was that Macintosh cannibalized Lisa sales even before it was introduced! This fragmented product strategy was a disaster for Apple. Steve Jobs promoting Lisa in 1983 While he was promoting the Lisa in Manhattan, Steve Jobs met Pepsi CEO John Sculley. Steve was so compelling that a few months later, he convinced Sculley to join Apple and become the new company’s president. Indeed, the company had gotten rid of Mike Scott a few months earlier because of his mass firings on February 25, 1981 -known as Black Wednesday. The phrase Steve used to convince Sculley to join his 6 year-old company is now legend: “Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?” (quoted from “Triumph of the Nerds”) There were changes in the Mac team as well. After the failure of both the Apple III and Lisa, all the company’s eyes were turned to Steve’s project. The team had lost its innocence of the first days and grown to a much larger division. The new members learned to deal with Steve’s mercurial management style and all that came with it - including the so-called Reality Distortion Field -an expression still used today to describe his legendary charisma and his ability to make you buy into whatever he’s talking about (for more, please read Mac stories from Andy Hertzfeld’s Folklore.org here and here). There were also increasing tensions between the Mac group and the rest of the company (Steve called the Apple II group the “dull and boring product division”). Then came the time of the Macin-

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All about Steve Jobs tosh introduction. After many delays, the date of January 24, 1984, Apple’s annual shareholders meeting, had finally been chosen. Sculley approved a $15 million campaign for the launch, including a TV ad that aired during the Super Bowl game, that is often considered one of the best commercials of the 20th century. Directed by Academy-award winner Ridley Scott, it pictured Macintosh as the savior from an 1984 Orwellian society where the figure of Big Brother represented, of course, Big Blue itself (see the Media Gallery for that video). The show was a huge success. And a personal triumph for Steve, who was called a father-figure by Mac itself while it pronounced his first words in public (again, you are invited to download a video of this presentation in the Media section). As he came off stage, Steve called it “the proudest, happiest moment of my life”. During the presentation, Steve talked about the $20 million high-tech factory that would build Macintosh - it was set up in Fremont, CA (overlooking Ford and GM) - and unveiled the Apple University Consortium plan. It was a plan Apple had made up in order to sell as many Macs as possible to one of its most significant markets, higher education. Apple salesmen, one of the most successful ones being Dan’l Lewin, had convinced the most prestigious universities in America (most from the Ivy League) to become Apple dealers themselves, i.e. to sell Macs directly to students via their own computer stores. Every university that had joined the Consortium was committed to buy $2 million of Macs for resale to students over a 3-year period. One year later, higher education would turn out to be the only market where Mac would be successful: “I could ship every Macintosh we make this year just to those 24 colleges” (Playboy Interview with David Sheff, February 1985) Although this is an overstatement, it is true that in 1985, the Mac-IBM PC ration on US campuses went from 15-to-1 to 40-to-1! The Macintosh had become a cult object

forstudents. There was an enormous media hype around the Mac introduction. Throughout the months of January and February 1984, Steve gave more than 200 interviews and posed for countless photos. The Mac itself made the cover of 20 magazines. The world kept hearing about the “insanely great computer” and the dynamic Sculley-Jobs duo which was seen as a model for future corporate America. Unlike Lisa, there was also a great emphasis on selected members of the Mac team who

were considered key players. These were Burell Smith and George Crow (hardware), Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson (software), Mike Murray (marketing), and Susan Kare (computer artist). There was controversy about the choice of some of these people, especially Kare who had been on the team only for six months. But Steve had made his decision. Credits This biography of Steve Jobs is published with the permission of Romain Moisescot. You can find the original online at www. romain-moisescot.com/steve/biography/ html/biographyFR.html. You will find the next part of the biography in the next issue of shuffle.

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Off to school preparations by Crystal

The start of school can be stressful for both children and parents, no matter how old they are. Making a check list can help in making sure you have everything covered for the first day of school. Here are a few things you may want to think about when making your checklist for the first day of school. The checklist is for age 3-12. One month before One month before school it is very important to set a routine for bedtime and for getting ready for school in the morning. By doing this ahead of time, you will save a lot of heartache before the first day of school. You can achieve this by setting a time that your child goes to bed and wakes up each morning. Another thing to think about is that this is the time to talk to your child about school, and how they are going to make new friends and have new activities. You may want to read books with themes about school and making new friends. If your child is older, then it is a good idea to talk to them about the school year, the extra activities they will be responsible for, homework, practice time, and also their down time. Next, try to cover safety information like your child’s full name, address, telephone number, and their parent’s names after that. Now is also a good time to clear the clutter by the two of you going through your child’s clothes, toys, books, etc. Make sure your child tries on his or hers clothes from last year, to see if they still fit. You can talk to your child about

giving the items to donation, and how that my help others. Two weeks before Two weeks before school is the time to plan how your child will get to school and how they will get home. If some one else other than your self will take them and/ or pick them up, set a meeting place. Also make sure that your child is aware of how they will go to school and how they will come home. If for some reason there are any changes to the plans for how your child will get to school or home, let them know ahead of time. Also make sure you know the

route to school, also talk to your child about how they will get to school. You should also take the time to buy school gear, before the rush. Call the school and get an updated list from your child’s teacher or school office and mark the supplies with your child’s name. This includes any school uniform. Visit the school with your child, this way he can see his classroom and meet his teacher. This will give a chance to explore their new space. If your child will have lunch at school, it is a good idea to practice lunch. Let your child know what is expected of them and what they may have for lunch.

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Plan for homework Buy extra supplies just for the home, this will help with homework. Also let your child help pick a homework area, where they will feel comfortable for their studies. This area should be well lit, quiet, comfortable, and isn’t near distractions, like the TV. The last but one of the most important things to do is make sure your child’s medical records are updated and that the school has a copy of them. Also let the school know of any special medical needs. Days before One or two days before school decide on a first-day outfit, with your child, for the big day. This is a big day for them, and they want everything to be perfect as well. Plan your child’s breakfast as it is important for them to have a healthy start for school. One way to show how important school is and how proud your are for your child’s first day of school is to make sure they have a energy packed breakfast on the first day. Also make their favorite dinner the night before. Make sure your child’s items are pack up and arranged for school in one place. Also make sure that your child’s backpack is supplied

and ready for school. Your child should know where this area is and where the items go. This will help with making your morning run smoother, by not having to look for things. First day of school It is very important to plan your goodbye; if this is their first day of school as a child, then you need to make sure you are also ready for the first day. This can be an emotional day for both of you. Even if you cannot take your child to school every day, try to make a plan where you can at least be there for the first day, as this is an important day. Setting a bedtime routine can be a daunting thought for most parents, here are some tips for setting a bedtime routine. If your child is too young to tell time, then it may be easier than you think to get them to go to bed at an earlier time. If you already have a bedtime routine, then just move it to the correct time for school, but if your child is older, than you will need to have a talk with them about bedtime. Also you will probably have to go slowly with changing the bedtime. If there is not a routine, then this

is a good time to make one. You can set up your routine by having a time for dinner, bath, brushing teeth, reading, and the good night time. The evening with the family should be a routine, and it should be kept simple, so that you can repeat it every night. After just a couple of nights, you and your child should know the clues to night-night time. If after a few weeks, your child is having problems with the new bedtime. It is time to troubleshoot. If your child is falling asleep at the new time, but is having trouble waking up, then you may need to try a earlier bed time. If this does not work, cut our any caffeine (watch out for hidden caffeine) and some evening TV watching. If your child is still having problems, you may want to check with your child’s doctor. Final words I hope these tips help you and your child to have a easy, wonderful time going back to school. This is an exciting time for the both of you, and with a little hard work, you can have a great start. Just remember that your child is probably excited about school, and that’s the way it should be.

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Get your gear for school

by Crystal and Magnus

Email, online file storage, and more. A .Mac account keeps your online life organized and synchronized. AED438.

A MacBook is the perfect companion for a student on the go. Powerful yet small and light, it’s everything you need. AED6099 (2.16GHz, 1GB RAM, 120GB hd, SuperDrive).

For the student who stays on the go Keep an Airport Express in your bag and you can get wireless access (almost) wherever you go. AED499.

No cables that get in the way with a wireless Mighty Mouse. AED359. Stay compatible with the school’s and your friend’s files with Microsoft Office. AED595.

Of course you need a bag to keep all your stuff in. The LEvertigo Kakee is stylish and offers good protection. AED245.

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Get your gear for school The 20-inch iMac (2.16GHZ, 1GB RAM, 250GB hd, SuperDrive) has plenty of power and display space for all your school work and more. AED7599. Add a wireless keyboard (AED314) and wireless Mighty Mouse (see opposite side).

With an AirPort Extreme you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to worry where the Ethernet connection is, and you can also connect your Mac with an Apple TV. AED899.

For the dormitory Stay safe and secure by backup your Mac up to a LaCie external hard drive. AED599.

Synchronize your Mac with an Apple TV and enjoy all your iTunes movies, podcasts, music, and photos on your TV. AED1399.

Take a break from your studies with Sims 2. Create your own virtual family and guide them through life. AED299.

Chances are you may have to run some Windows software. Do it with Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s BootCamp (free from Apple.com) or Parallels Desktop for Mac. AED305.

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Get your gear for school The 80GB iPod can hold all your music, podcasts, photos, and even work as a backup for your files. AED1499.

Protect your iPod with the Belkin Brushed Metal case. AED85.

For the music lover Obviously you want the best possible quality sound from your iPod. You get that with the Shure E500PTH hearphones. AED2199.

Record lectures, take notes on the go, and perhaps record interviews for that tough term paper research project with the Belkin TuneTalk microphone for iPod. AED199.

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Connect your iPod to your TV and watch movies,podcasts, photos, play music, and more. The iPod AV Connection Kit Comes with a dock and Apple remote. AED499.

All the items in this article can be found in the iStyle stores in Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi Mall), and Dubai (Ibn Battuta Mall, and Festival City). We would like to thank the iStyle staff who helped us pick out these items.

Experiences of an Apple Fan across the world Part 4: Hong Kong by Senthil Another of my Mac travelogue and this time it is my experiences in Hong Kong. I have just three more - Sydney, Brisbane – Australia, Barcelona – Spain and Singapore to recount, the rest is all covered. Now that I have written four of my experiences, I realized that I am just penning what I went through and did not cover these experiences from your perspective. Hopefully I am going to rectify that mistake this time – there should be a purpose in narrating my experiences and some benefits for you since you have taken the trouble to read this. Hong Kong – what a city! I have been there three times in the last one year and every trip has been an experience in itself. Shopping, eating, and just wandering aimlessly amongst the shopping districts of Hong Kong is something I look forward to every time I visit there. Since I am an Apple fan and as I mentioned that visiting Apple stores in any of the new cities I visit is sacrosanct, I did not miss an opportunity to explore the Apple stores in Hong Kong. My favorite haunting place is Wanchai Computer mall. Take the MTR to Wanchai station and exit through A4 exit and take the left turn and you come across this huge mal. Wow!! Abode for Hong Kong geeks and IT enthusiasts. You can spend the whole day exploring the latest stuff here. You can get the originals as well as the Chinese made, since the “mass” production houses are just a few hours away. You want a Hewlett Packard (HP) or Jewlett Hackard (JH – of course you can’t differentiate between the HP logo and the JH logo). Every brand has it’s clone just that they might have a different alphabet replaced somewhere in the spelling but the beauty is that the name would sound very similar if you pronounce it. The same

goes for most of the branded stuff – I came across so many Kalvin Cliens, Pommy Tillifiger, In fact, a road side cart guy was selling Tommy pull my Finger T-Shirts. Unlike in other parts of the world, where you hardly find any presence of Apple in the computer malls, here you come across stores which sell Apple products. I found quite a few of them selling Apple software but no hardware and some of them selling old Mac books and Macs. Though I spent quite some time in the mall, I could not find an Apple store here, maybe I missed it. I am sure there has to be an Apple store in this mall. Luckily for me, the Apple store was close to the place where I was staying (Marco Polo) in Kowloon. I found this accidentally. One of the days, I just finished my work quickly and came back to explore the area where I was staying and to my surprise, the Apple store was just a few minutes away from Marco Polo. Once I found this, the next few hours, rather till the store closed, ie., till 10PM I was in the store exploring what they had to offer. For once, this store was crowded unlike most of the Apple stores and the guys manning the store were fast, courteous and thoroughly professional. Also the range of products from the Apple stable and Apple world were amazing. They had three floors displaying all kinds of Apple stuff: iPods, Macbooks, Macbook pro, imacs, software, books – name it and you could get it here. What was nice was the way the products were displayed, it was easy to feel them, work on them and browse endlessly without anyone hovering over you to sell some thing. The best demo of a MacBook that I have seen was here. The guy was too good. He showed the power of what a MacBook could

do. Most of the sales guys end up showing the feature without highlighting the use of the feature, whereas this guy was at his best. For every feature he could reel out two benefits. The way he showed off iPhoto, PhotoBooth, and iMovie was amazing. I think he knew what was my soft spot and went for the kill. Unfortunately for him, I was as undecided about buying a MacBook then as I am now though I regret not picking up the MacBook in Hong Kong as the price differential between Dubai and Hong Kong is almost 20-25%. Almost all the Apple products in Hong Kong were far cheaper than in most of the places I visited and definitely cheaper than in UAE. I guess, one can come close to experiencing the Apple halo here. I guess the price differential must be because of the size of the market. From what I hear, Hong Kong and Singapore are supposed to be the biggest markets for Apple in Asia outside Japan. Inspite of the size of the market they don’t have iTunes yet. Could it be because Apple wants to have one iTunes store for entire Asia or would they have different stores for different countries in Asia, if that is the case then I guess we poor souls have to wait for another decade before UAE can have it’s store. There are one another computer mall which is worth visiting – Windsor House, three floors dedicated to IT and yes, you come across Apple products other than iPod. Hope you enjoyed reading this experience and you could get some sense of what you can expect if you go to the Apple store in Hong Kong.

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Peel The Apple Get answers to your Apple tech support questions. Email techsupport@emiratesmac.com

Send your Apple tech support questions to techsupport@emiratesmac.com. Your questions are answered by Magnus Nystedt, a Certified Apple Help Desk Specialist, with experience of Macs going back to the Mac Plus. Also with over ten years of teaching IT at college and university, he’s in a perfect position to help you sort out your problems. You can reach Magnus at magnus@ nystedt.org or at www. nystedt.org.

Q: I’ve just got a new MacBook and with the Intel processor I thought it would run a lot faster than my iBook, but it doesn’t seem to be that much faster. What can I do to check to see if something’s wrong? A: More than likely you’re running some PowerPC program. On an Intel Mac old PowerPC code runs in Rosetta which translates the PowerPC instructions to Intel ones, something that takes time and requires a lot of RAM. If you click on an application’s icon in the Finder and select Get Info from the File menu, you can see whether that application is PowerPC or Universal. You can also check Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities) in the column named Kind. If you don’t see the Kind column go to View > Columns > Kind. For everything running it will say whether the code is PowerPC or Intel. You want to eliminate as much PowerPC code as possible so look at what the Process Name is. If you run PowerPC code, go to the manufacturer’s web site on the Internet and see if the software is available in a Universal Binary version. Q: At work we share computers between many users. Like my iMac is used by at least three people every day. I don’t really want the others to be able to see what pages I go to online. What can I do to protect my privacy? A: You have at least two options. You could create an account for each user and they have to log in to their account to browse. Then other users cannot see what they’ve done, at least as long as they always log out when they’re done. Another alternative if you’re using Safari is to select Private Browsing in the Safari menu. Safari then does not add anything to the browsing history, download

history is automatically cleared, and no AutoFill information from forms is saved. You could also manually clear out the history and cookies when you’re finished. Q: How to make a second Airport Extreme base station as a network extender? Should I still have two base stations recognized or having two basestation as one network??? A: First set up your Airport network with the first base station. Make sure you check the box which says Allow this network to be extended, on the Wireless tab of the Airport Utility software. Then on the second base station you select Extend a wireless network for Wireless mode in the Wireless tab. Enter the details of the network you want the base station to join and you should be set. Q: Can we install Windows via BootCamp in multiple hard drives that are in RAID? A: I’ve not tried it myself, but my best guess is that the answer is no, and after researching the issue, it seems that others agree. With RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Devices), multiple hard drives can be used to create what appears as one large hard drive to the computer, or to mirror information betweens several drives. It can increase the speed and reliability of your storage, but it requires several hard drives. The problem with installing BootCamp on a RAID set in Mac OS X is that it’s a software RAID meaning the RAID is managed by Mac OS X. Hardware RAID solutions typically have a dedicated card that controls the RAID. If someone knows of a way to install BootCamp and Windows on Mac OS X RAID volumes, please write to us.

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Switcher Interview by Magnus

Weaving The Web

>> Name

Sumudu Gunaratne

Job

Airline Manager

Mac

iMac 17-inch Intel

Switch date

March 8, 2006

http://dwww.248am.com

248am The B Sides

Sumudu Gunaratne Switcher

233-45-6544

Q: Why did you switch? A: A friend at work had talked to me briefly about Mac Mini and so I fancied the idea of trying some thing new and different. So one evening I went over to Apple Store in Ibn Battuta Mall and bought my self a iMac. Q: How did you find the Mac to start with? A: Setting up was a piece of cake ! Just taking my iMac out of the box and connected the keyboard & Mouse. Once powered it up and turned on the’ fashionable & sexy thing’ for the first time, I was taken through the Mac OS X set up process to set up my user account painlessly. Plugging up my ADSL router, automatically detected router’s settings and configured itself to hook on to internet. Q: What were the best things about it? A: Simply, it’s a sleek, lovely and beautiful looking machine with an innovative OS. It has always been a pleasure and fun to work on my iMac. You got everything (software) you’d need coming with it for your family computing and home entertainment & stuff.

Q: What did you find difficult? A: Well, in the beginning, it was mainly to get used to keyboard short cuts and that was it!

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/

iFixIt Guides

Q: Do you still use WIndows at all? A: I have been using Mac for all my computing needs at home, including my nine year old daughter Stephanie. I don’t have PCs at home. However, at work; yes I use windows. Q: Would you ever switch back? A: I’ve been a home PC user since mid 90’s and discovered the Mac only last year and I wish it had been a much earlier; so I don’t think I’d go back. Q: What would your advice be for other Windows users considering switching? A: Just go for it ! I’ve had my lovely iMac since March last year and in the beginning I purchased and installed antivirus software, because of my unpleasant experiences with Windows previously. With Mac, I can’t believe no viruses, no trojans, no adware and no spyware. I think, this alone should be reason enough to switch from Windows to Mac!

http://www.macobserver.com/

MacObserver

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/

Accelerate Your Mac

shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 25

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Recipe: Apple Betty by Crystal

This easy to use apple recipe will be a party pleaser, and it could not be easier. Serve this delicious apple dessert warm with a big scoop of vanilla or butter pecan ice cream, or top with whipped cream. Adding the orange, is really a nice touch, in that it gives it a different favor than using just lemon. From southernfood.about.com/od/ apples/r/r70511a.htm?p=1.

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION

2 cups coarse soft bread crumbs 2/3 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon or orange zest 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 4 large apples, thinly sliced 3 tablespoons melted butter 1/4 cup orange juice

Heat oven to 350째. Butter a 1 1/2-quart baking dish or spray with a baking spray. Combine bread crumbs, sugar, lemon zest, and cinnamon. Arrange half of the apple slices in the prepared baking dish. Top with half of the bread crumb mixture. Repeat layers, ending with the remaining bread crumb

Crystal is the founder and editor of EmiratesBaby.com. She writes about various kinds of issues of interest to parents in the UAE. Crystal will be bringing us a new recipie based on apples in each edition of the newsletter. She promises it will be an exciting and mouth-watering mix of dessert, main courses, snacks, and more.

mixture. Combine the melted butter with orange juice; drizzle evenly over the Apple Betty mixture. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until nicely browned and apples are tender. Serve with cream or whipped topping, or with a big scoop of vanilla or butter pecan ice cream. Serves 6.

shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 29

A visit to AUS by Magnus

If there’s a place in the UAE made for Mac lovers, it has to be the School of Architecture and Design at American University in Sharjah (AUS). It is only natural that the computers predominantly serves the school’s computer needs. We spent a few hours touring the school with Abdul-Hakeem Sanni, IT Manager for the school. He told us they have some 500 Macs in all, distributed among students and faculty, and ranging from old G4 iMacs (the ones with monitor on a swinging arm) to the latest Intel iMacs, MacBook Pros and Mac Pros. The school’s main working area is very cleverly laid out. It encompasses three levels, with a large opening in the middle so you can see all the levels. At the bottom are all the new students. They don’t work with computers, instead they work manually, the old fashioned way, exploring their creativity with freehand styles and designs. Then in the second year they move up one level and they get to work with computers. The computers are a mix of PowerMac G5 and iMacs, and it’s all laid out in an open plan solution, with teacher’s offices around the edges of the open area. This should encourage participation and dialogue between faculty and students, which is essential in education. In the third year, the students

30 EmiratesMac shuffle | www.emiratesmac.com | shuffle@emiratesmac.com

again advance one level up, and into different surroundings too. Then they have their own MacBook Pro, and they share a pretty big room with six or seven other students, where they all can work on their projects. The school also have more traditional computer labs with various types of equipment, including special sound-proof video editing suites. All in all, the school has about 120 Macs in labs, another 300 or so portable Macs that students have, and around another 80 Macs for faculty and staff. In total, the IT support staff serve around 500 Macs, which should mean that the School of Architecture and Design at AUS is one of the largest, if not the largest, user of Macs in the UAE. In total the school has around 7TB of storage on servers, distributed among G4 PowerMacs, xServes with xRaid, Mac Pro, and other types. The School of Architecture and Design is accepting around 100 students back for their third year in August, and they all have to buy a MacBook Pro. EmiratesMac will try to be present to distribute shuffle and help the students out with any questions they may have about their new Macs. You can find more information about AUS at www.aus.edu and the School of Architecture and Design at www.aus.edu/arcdes/.

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Join EMUG

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EmiratesMac User Group is a non-profit, community organization which aims to spread knowledge about Apple products in the United Arab Emirates, and increase the knowledge and skills of its members. Presently, membership in EmiratesMac User Group is 150 Dirhams per year. Membership benefits and special offers are subject to change at any time and will be reviewed annually by EmiratesMac and participating businesses. To see the latest details, go to www.emiratesmac.com/index. php?page=usergroup. Memberships are renewed on an annual basis and the membership period is January to Decemeber. New membership cards will be issued each January for members who wish to remain in EMUG. After applying and paying for a membership, you can pick up your membership card at an EMUG meeting or other event.

t Want to meet other Apple users? t Want to learn more about your Mac, iPod, Apple TV or iPhone? t Want to help others with their problems? t Want to have some fun? t Want to save some money on your Apple purchases? Membership Benefits • The right to come to EMUG meetings. • The right to participate in members-only events, and discounts at select EmiratesMac-organized events. • Access to a dedicated discussion forum on www.EmiratesMac.com. • The right to submit articles for publication in this newsletter. • Discounts at select businesses in the UAE. See our site for the most up to date information (www.emiratesmac.com/index.php?page=usergroup).

For the latest meeting information, check the site: www.emiratesmac.com/forums/about-emug/2125-meeting-location-directions.html shuffle@emiratesmac.com | www.emiratesmac.com | EmiratesMac shuffle 31