TIVGGMF June 2007 issue #8
Monthly Newsletter from EmiratesMac User Group
Aper ture: what you need to know
Digital Scrapbooking Apple & the iPod Changing the Odds by Investing to Win: Act 2
Reviews: > Belkin TuneStage > TechTool Pro > Wraptor iPod case > Apple Remote Desktop
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Contents A Word from the Editor Comic corner SmorgasDashBord Recipe: Apple Ice Cream Aperture: what you need to know Experiences of an Apple Fan across the world - Part 2: India Mac911 Emiratesmac.com tips and tricks Weaving The Web iArchitect How I Upgraded an old Mac Apple & the iPod -Changing the Odds by Investing to Win: Act 2 Digital Scrapbooking Reviews Peel The Apple Switcher Interview The day that the community took over Photoshop tutorial: Recreating the “X” Seven Wonders of the Video World Join EMUG
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Graphical design and layout of shuffle is done by Latifa Al Shamsi.
Shuffle is sponsored by:
For more information go to www.appleme.ae
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A Word from the Editor
About shuffle Shuffle is the newsletter of EmiratesMac User Group (EMUG). It is an independent publication 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 UAE. Shuffle is also the official publication of EMUG detailing information about the user group and its activities. Editor in chief is Magnus Nystedt (emiratesmac@mac.com). You can send submissions to shuffle to emiratesmac@ mac.com. We do not promise we will publish what you send us, and we will at all times retain total editorial control over anything we publish. There is a discussion forum dedicated to shuffle at EMUG’s web site (www.emiratesmac.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=50). There you can leave comments and suggestions and discuss shuffle with other users. All articles are produced by and copyright EMUG unless noted otherwise. Registered Apple User Groups may use some material for their own newsletters given prior approval from EMUG. Contact EMUG at emiratesmac@mac.com for further details. 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. You can contact EMUG at mailing address: PO Box 70263, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Phone +971508171164; Fax +97126664289; Email contact@ emiratesmac.com; Web www.emiratesmac.com.
What is a user group? I get that question a lot - “so what do you do?” - when I tell someone that EmiratesMac is an Apple User Group. And often I’m not sure what to say because in my mind it’s so clear what we are and what we do, that it’s almost strange to me that someone wouldn’t know. But fact is that user groups, as a way of organizing a community, is not well known here. And a big obstacle that we’ve fought with at EmiratesMac from day one is just that ignorance. So what are we and what do we do? What we do, we can leave for another time, but what we are is important. Just the other day a member told me that being involved in EmiratesMac has helped their business, and that’s an amazing thing to hear, I think. I guess I see EMUG as a family of people with a common interest in Apple and Apple products, that help and support each other in various ways. And we’re also about correcting conceptions people have about the company and products we love, and educating them as well. So we’re a non-profit organization that works toward building and supporting a community, a family if you like, of Apple users. In it’s basic form, it’s that simple. Even though we’re a non-profit organization with very limited income, I believe it can make perfect business sense for a company to work with us and support us. We’re growing as a community and we’re increasingly having the community’s attention on important issues. And it’s up to us to work with businesses to figure out how we can get mutual benefit out of working together. So keep the ideas coming about how we can support each other, and how we can grow our community. The more there are of us, the more influential we can be.
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Want to advertise in shuffle?
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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?
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f you’re reading this and you’re a member of the EmiratesMac User Group 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 (emiratesmac@ mac.com) or leave a message with your idea at the site (www.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 “blaugh� 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
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Sm rgasDashB rd by Magnus
XCuts This is one of few widgets I find really useful. It lists all kinds of keyboard shortcuts from Mac OS X and categorizes them so they’re easy to find. RANKING: 5 Download from: www.apple.com/
downloads/dashboard/reference/xcuts. html
Earth Shots Photo Of The Day This widget displays one photo each day and it’s the shot of the day from EarthShots.org, a photo a day contest. I wish the photo would display a bit bigger, but you can always click on it to go to their site. RANKING: 4 Download from: www.apple.com/ downloads/dashboard/travel/earthshotsphotooftheday.html Word Of The Day It shows one word each day with an explanation of that word. Use it as a way to learn new words. I just wish it wasn’t so boring to look at. RANKING: 3 Download from: www.apple.com/
downloads/dashboard/reference/wordoftheday.html
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Mezmerize What’s the point? It show some colorful moving patterns and shapes and you’re supposed to be mesmerized and relaxed. More like annoyed and hitting the delete key in a hurry. RANKING:1
Download from: www.apple.com/ downloads/dashboard/justforfun/ mezmerize.html
Remote Desktop Widget This one is special because it only comes as a part of Apple Remote Desktop 3 (see review in this issue of shuffle). And all it does is let you see the remote desktop of a another computer in the widget. If you have Apple Remote Desktop, check this widget out RANKING: 5 Download from: Comes as a part of Apple Remote Desktop 3 (www.
appleme.ae/ara/apple/software/remotedesktop/)
Recipe: Apple Ice Cream by Crystal
With the hot weather coming, the last thing you really want to do is bake or cook in a hot kitchen. So this month’s recipe is one to keep you cool. The redcurrant jelly isn’t what I would have thought to add to this recipe, but it works. So make your Apple Ice Cream and spend the day at the beach or anywhere that you can stay cool, enjoy. This recipe serves around six people. Ingredients 500 g (18 oz) desert apples, peeled, cored and chopped 2 tbsp lemon juice 1/3 cup (75 g) 3oz sugar pinch cinnamon 2 tsp red-currant jelly 284 ml carton whipping cream fresh mint and apple slices to serve (optional). Instructions 1. Place the apples in a pan with the lemon juice and sugar and cook gently, keeping covered, for 5-6 minutes, until soft. 2. Beat in the cinnamon and redcurrant jelly and leave to cool. 3. Whip the cream until fairly thick, then fold it into the apple purée. 4. Pour into a plastic container, cover and freeze for 30 minutes. 5. Give the ice cream a stir and refreeze for a further 4-5 hours, or until completely frozen. 6. Decorate with fresh mint and sliced apple before serving.
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.
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Aperture: what you need to know by Magnus
Aperture, launched by Apple in 2005, is one of the least known and most misunderstood pieces of software ever created by Apple. People often ask me why they should pay a lot of money for Aperture when they already have iPhoto, and what benefit they would get from Aperture. So I thought I’d try to straighten out some question marks. This article is based on some posts I made on EmiratesMac.com in reply to questions about Aperture (www.emiratesmac. com/forums/software-incl-mac-os-x/786aperture-do-u-use-why-how.html).
Professional tool
the original file (the “master”) which is, in fact, never touched. Whatever changes you make to a master becomes a “version”. Aperture doesn’t save a version as a separete picture file, it only saves what adjustments/edits have been applied to it.
Adjustments The adjustment panel is similar to what you find in other programs,including iPhoto, but in Aperture you have more control over details. There are advanced adjustment-options like levels, that you would find in Photoshop. In Aperture they all work on a photo-level, and there are few adjustments you can make on a part of a photo, or individual pixels.
Light Table Another Aperture feature that helps in reviewing shots is the Light Table. Like with the Loupe it works like it’s real-life counterpart. Pros shooting slide file used to stack their slides onto a light table, move them around, check them with a loupe, etc. You do the same here but on the computer screen. You can resize pictures, put them next to one another to see which ones go together, print out the light table, and more. You can save each light table so you can quickly make some rough layouts up for a publication, for example. Especially if you shoot for print, the Light Table is a helpful feature.
Let’s get this out of the way first: Aperture is a professional’s tool and Apple developed it squarely aimed at professionals and their Keywords, Ratings, and needs. In the promotional Smart Albums “Let me also draw the distinction between Aperture and iPhoto. You can videos for Aperture you can Aperture has support for keysee a Raw image in iPhoto, but let’s say you make an adjustment to the see professionals working words of course. You can use the file, like changing contrast. In iPhoto, you now have an 8-bit JPEG. You’ve high-end cameras and doing standard keywords or enter your said goodbye to Raw. So the iPhoto choices are that you work in the world their Aperture work in front own. It’s pretty straight-forward of JPEG, or you go back to Raw and lose all the adjustments you’ve done of mostly dual 30-inch Cinfunctionality and as your photo in iPhoto. It’s a binary decision. Aperture never makes that conversion ema Displays. Few among from Raw to JPEG. You crop it, you throw away pixels, and the original Raw library grows, you’ll be glad you us can afford that sort of spent the time early on to apply image is still there. We’re just applying instructions to it. You’re never more equipment, but it’s in those keywords. You will see small butthan a click away from Raw. Every time we draw an image to screen, every settings Aperture can really tons on the screen that represent time we’re decoding the Raw file.” Aperture Product Manager Joe Schorr shine. Aperture is a profeskeywords, and clicking on them sional tool and it demands while having a picture selected approfessional hardware to run plies that keyword to the picture. like it should. In Aperture you can work with a number of Lift and stamp sets of keywords. So you can have one set of Lift and stamp is a powerful feature in AperRAW Files and non-destructive workflow keywords that you use for your family shots, ture. Say you have made some adjustments to With Aperture, Apple is focusing on photoganother set of keywords for one picture in a series of raphers shooting RAW. Aperture can handle your landscape shots, etc. shots, for example levels, pretty much any other digital picture format In Aperture, keywords can sharpening and white but it’s focus is on RAW. Why RAW? Because a be hierarchical, giving you balance. You want to apRAW file is about as close as you would get to a detailed control over ply the same changes to the traditional negative. It’s the light that the your indexing of pictures. a number of other shots. camera captures without any processing applied Combine keywords and ratYou then use the Lift and to it at all. When you shoot a picture and the ings with Smart Albums and stamp tool to “lift” those camera saves it as a JPG, the camera does all you have a way to automate adjustments from the first kinds of compressing, adjusting, color correcyour library. You can have shot, and then “stamp” tions, etc. before it saves the file to the memory a Smart Album for all your then onto the others, card. With RAW, the camera just dumps the photos with a particular keythereby applying the image data to the card without processing it. word, from a particular date, adjustments. So it’s “raw”. This means you can do processing with a particular rating, or in the computer after the fact. For example, any combination of them. Reviewing photos you can set the white balance in the computer, A very slick tool in Aperture that you would regardless of what it was set at when you took Stacks use a lot when reviewing shots is the loupe. It the shot. A JPG already has the white balance One feature that definitely sets Aperture apart works pretty much like a real loupe, you put it set and you cannot change it in the computer. from many other photo apps is stacks. What is on your shots to see the details, whether an eye That’s an example of the type of possibilities ofa stack you ask? A stack, in Aperture is a collecis really in focus or not, for example. You turn fered you by shooting RAW. Aperture keeps all tion of exposures, grouped together by the time it on and off by pressing one key and it’s always changes ever made to a shot so you can go back they were shot. So if you shoot a fast sequence available. It’s a really cool and helpful feature to any previous point since you have access to of some running, Aperture will group a number that saves a lot of time.
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Here are tools for rotating and cropping photos, as well as fixing red eyes. Also, the Lift and Stamp tool allows you to lift settings from one photo and apply them to any number of other photos.
This is the main work area where you can choose to display one photo, put a number of photos side by side to compare them, and more. This is also where you would work with a Light Table. Some features you’ve come to know from iPhoto are also in Aperture, such as creating web albums, books, calendars, and more.
With the Loupe tool you can quickly see details in your photo. This enables you to quickly judge whether a particular shot is sharp, for example.
On the left side you find all your albums, rolls, books, calendars, etc. that you have imported or created. You can move and copy photos between them, and even set up Smart Albums that can automatically keep track of photos with certan characteristics, such as a particular keyword.
Here you find various tools that you can use to quickly go through a large number of photos to see which ones you want to keep working with. You can rate photos, choose which one in each stack is the best, and more.
A Vault is a copy of your Aperture library, and you can any number of Vaults on different drives. Aperture indicated when a Vault is out of sync with your main library,
This area displays all photos in the currently selected roll, album, book, etc. If you have stacked photos, you can see the individual stacks and how many photos are in each. The photo that shows on the stack is the one you have currently selected as the best in that stack.
of those frames together in one stack. Aperture can auto-stack shots and you just tell the app the time difference between shots you want for them to be in the same stack, or you can manually sort shots into stacks. You can open and close stacks, move shots around within and between stacks. It’s a great tool for going through shots fast. The idea is that you most likely only want one shot out of each stack.
Vaults A vault in Aperture is basically a backup copy of your entire Aperture library file. You can have any number of vaults, preferrably on different drives, and Aperture will tell you when there’s a difference between a vault and your library, so you can update it. With two vaults, for
There is a wide range of adjustments you can make in Aperture, including contrast, colors, levels, and more. Most of them work on the entire photo, not on a individual pixel level, thereby setting Aperture apart from Photoshop.
example, you can have two external drives, each one with a vault on it, and one stays attached to the main computer all the time, and the other you take home with you.
Workflow Aperture is a photography workflow tool. Someone asked me the other day “what’s the workflow like in Aperture?” and I couldn’t really understand the question at first. It was like the person assumed there was s set workflow in Aperture that you have to follow. There isn’t. A nice thing about Aperture is that you can work pretty much as you want to, full screen or not, keywords or not, click with the mouse or keyboard shortcuts, stacks or not, etc.
More flexibility and options Perhaps the thing I like more than anything else about Aperture is how flexible it can be to work with. You can do things the way you feel comfortable with. Go ahead and throw some shots up on the Light Table, apply some keywords, set up a smart folder, etc. Much of that you can do in iPhoto as well, but the options are more limited which results in less control and flexibility for you as a user. To me that’s more a distinction between the pro-app (Aperture) and consumer-apps (like iPhoto) than probably most other differences.
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Experiences of an Apple Fan by Senthil I am sure by now you have had some idea about my experiences here in UAE with Apple. Let me share some of my experiences in the other parts of the world. First let me cover the Apple experience in India since I come from India and have spent most of my life there. My first experience with Apple was way back in 1994. I was working with Wipro Infotech as a Channel Manager which predominantly meant pushing boxes (PC’s, printers and other IT hardware) through the channel partners. Life was happy since the IT revolution had just begun in India and one could achieve targets without breaking a sweat. Sometime in 1993 Wipro had tied up with Apple and one fine day we found a lot of Apple Mac’s in the office. Since most of us were used to selling PC’s, Apple Macs were like a breath of fresh air. The user interface was intuitive and was so easy to handle. That’s when I fell in love with Apple Mac. Wipro had set up a dedicated team to sell Apple’s through the same channel partners we were handling. Not only were these guys selling Apple’s through our channel but also acted as if they were superior to us. They had an air about them, which came from the fact that they were 10 EmiratesMac shuffle
selling something different, unique and superior. Since the time the team was formed I tried my best to get into the Apple team but unfortunately could not make it. My passion and love for Apple had begun then and it continues on even today though I can’t say the same about the partnership between Apple and Wipro. Once the architect of the tie-up quit Wipro, the partnership broke and the guys who were part of the team did not want to move out of the Apple world. Some of them started their own outfits, some of them joined other Apple distributors and a few lucky ones joined Apple itself. I think one of the guys from the founder team is today heading Apple India. How many times I wished that I could have moved to the Apple team? I wonder how my life would have changed? That was almost 10 years ago. Since then, I moved on to a different industry but kept in touch with what’s happening in the Apple world. Every once in few months, I used to visit Apple dealerships. First in Calcutta, then in Delhi and finally in Bombay before I moved to Dubai. Since I was based in Calcutta during Wipro days, I knew most of the Apple dealers and I could
spend days at their outlets. None of them had any fancy outlets. It was mostly sales offices with a few Apples lying around. No showroom and no customer walk-ins. All demos would take place at the customer premises itself. One thing about these guys was their passion to sell Macs. They would hire a taxi (I am not sure how many of you have ever driven in a Calcutta taxi - it is a bone jarring experience) or an Auto (a three wheeler unique to India and Thailand) and take the customer desired Mac for a demo. I have had some wonderful experiences accompanying these guys (some of them had become my close friends from Wipro days) on their demo. I remember once when we had gone for a demo at one of the family members of the erst-while Nawab (ex ruler of Bengal) at his residence in Alipore. He had got his entire family to see the demo. He was almost 70 years and he wanted to check out the Mac since his son from US had recommended him to check it out. First we did not expect him to be know anything about computers let alone a Mac. To our surprise he knew a lot more about computers and what it could do then we thought. We spent almost 4 hours demonstrating the Mac and it’s usefulness. Though I can’t
across the world - Part 2: India remember what we showed but I knew he bought a Mac a month later. I think he bought it for his grand kids. In India, you can experience a Mac at your own house or place of work. All you need to do is to call the local dealer and he comes home with a MacBook or an iMac or any other stuff for a demo. You could even get an iPod for a demo till about two years back, though this has stopped now. In fact some of them leave it at your place for a few days for you to get used to it. My first Mac was with me for almost a month before I paid the dealer. I think it still works the same way. I guess that’s because of the competition. You have almost 30 dealers in a place like Delhi and close to 40 in Bombay and they belong to different distributors hence one can get a good deal and credit. Also one has different experiences dealing with Apple in different parts of the country. If you are dealing with Apple in Delhi, you can be rest assured the guy who comes for the demo or the guy whom you are dealing with has only one intention and that is to sell the product come what may. He is the typical aggressive sales guy and will push the customer to take a decision immediately. He will try everything in the book
to close the sale. He might even promise that buying a Mac could get you a new girl friend or something equally outlandish to close the sale. I guess Macs would be selling the most in Delhi because of the penchant of the Delhiites to be show offs. They can’t bear to have the same thing as their neighbor has; it has to be something better. If Mac is perceived as superior to the PC’s they would go for it even it they use it as a display item in their living room. Bombay is a lot more professional. Most of the times you would not get a demo at your place, it would have to be at the dealers office and that could be anything from a 100 sq ft cubby hole to a 3000 sq ft sales office and he expects you to come to his place and have a look at the Mac. Don’t expect any glitziness or sophistication or anything even remotely connected to what you expect of any Apple retail store. But what you can expect is a rock bottom price and professional attitude.
have decided to go for it, then you could pay up 1530 days later. I am not sure if Apple is planning to set up an Apple retail outlet in India. Even if does, would it work? Would consumers there be willing to forgo their personal demo in their own house to go to a retail outlet and buy stuff on cash when one can get it on credit? Some might argue that the guys in the Apple retail outlets are experts hence the experience would be better than a demo at the house. This may not hold true since the guys who come for the demo have almost 7-8 years experience selling Mac’s and they are quite knowledgeable about the local requirements than maybe the retail store guy. In my next article, I will cover my experience with Apple in Thailand.
Other than Bombay most of the other cities and towns in India, you could get complete personal attention if you want to buy a Mac. It would come to your house, you could use it for a few days and then once you EmiratesMac shuffle 11
Mac911: Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems by Christopher Breen and Ted Landau Q: I’ve noticed the calendar iconthat appears in iPhoto 6’s lower left corner, but I’m not sure how to put it to good use. Any recommendations? --Dale Carson A: You’ve discovered the much-overlooked calendar feature in Apple’s iPhoto 6. Click on this icon, and a list of months appears in the lower left corner of your iPhoto window. Select a month and then click on the small arrow to the left of the year to see a calendar view of that month. The calendar provides some helpful ways to locate pictures in a crowded iPhoto library. For example, you can use it to find out in which months you shot pictures. In year view, if the name of a month appears in black type, you shot pictures that month. If the name is in gray type, you didn’t. The same idea applies to month view--days on which you took photos appear in black type; days on which you didn’t appear in gray. Click on a date or month to reveal all the photos associated with that time period in the main iPhoto window. You can also use the calendar to tally the number of pictures you took in a certain month or on a certain day. Hover your cursor over a month’s name to reveal a tool tip indicating the number of pictures tagged for that month and year. For example, when I hover the cursor over April 2006, I see that I shot 217 photos that month. When you’re in month view, hover over a date, and a tool tip reveals how many pictures you took that day. Here’s a handy way to gather all the pictures you’ve taken for a recurring event-say, the winter holidays. Click on the triangle to the left of the year to reveal the month view. Then use the up arrow (next to the word Calendar) to move to December 2006. Click on the dot to the left of the week that includes your holiday event. This highlights that week. Move back to December 2005 and 1-click on the same special week. The past two years’ worth of holiday pictures will now appear in iPhoto’s main window. Choose File: New Album From Selection and you’ve collected all your holiday photos in one place. If you want to be even more precise, choose specific days each month with this 1-click technique.
Group think Q: In the January 2007 Geek Factor, “3 Amazing AppleScripts,” I noticed that the author had seven iCal calendars subordinated under the category
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School. How do you make one or more calendars do this?--Tom Ballen A: What you’ve witnessed is iCal’s Group Calendar feature (found in the Mac OS X 10.4 version of Apple’s iCal). To employ it, open iCal (in your /Applications folder) and choose File: New Calendar Group. A new group entry appears in iCal’s Calendars list. You can organize your calendars by dragging them into this group. For example, put all your kids’ calendars or collections of sports teams’ schedules here. The group calendar feature offers a couple of advantages. The first is that you can easily reveal or hide all the calendars within a group by selecting or deselecting the box next to the group’s name. The second is that you can publish a group as a single calendar to your .Mac account or a WebDAV server (by choosing Calendar: Publish); this solves the age-old iCal problem of how to generate a Web-based calendar that includes only the events from a single calendar.
A bit on bit rates Q: The AAC version of Macworld’s podcast is larger than the MP3 version. I thought AAC was based on MPEG-4, which is supposed to provide the same quality as MP3 but better compression. What gives?--Gino Vogt A: You’ve got it partly right. Apple claims that AAC files sound better than MP3 files encoded at the same bit rate, which is the number of bits per second used to encode audio, represented in kilobits per second (Kbps). But the files are no smaller--in fact, AAC and MP3 files encoded at the same bit rate are usually about the same size. AAC just provides better sound at this bit rate than its MP3 counterpart. In the case of the Macworld podcast, we’re using the same bit rate for both the AAC and the MP3 versions-- 32 Kbps with mono sound. I wouldn’t dream of encoding music at such a low bit rate, but for speech,
it’s a perfectly fine compromise--particularly when you consider how long it would take to download 45 minutes of audio encoded at music quality (and what it would cost to host such large files). The AAC version is a touch larger because it’s an enhanced podcast--one that includes pictures, links, and chapters. (If you haven’t yet listened to our podcast, you can give it a try.)
Moving GarageBand loops Q: I am a huge fan of GarageBand. I have been using it for a few years now, and have only one major gripe. I’ve installed four GarageBand Jam Packs. These sound libraries take up a large chunk of my hard-drive space--nearly 17GB. I work on an iBook G4 that has only 25GB of available space. Is there any way to move these Jam Packs to an external drive?--Zach Paull A: There is. Apple’s GarageBand stores loops in two locations--/Library/ Audio/Apple Loops and /Library/Application Support/GarageBand/ Apple Loops. Dig into these folders until you find the folders that hold specific Jam Packs: for example, Jam Pack 2 - Remix Tools and Jam Pack 4 - Symphony Orchestra. Copy these folders to your external drive by dragging them there. Then drag the original folders to the desktop. GarageBand will give no indication that it can’t find its loops until you try to use one of them. Then it will display a dialog box indicating that it hasn’t a clue where they are and asking if you’d like to reindex your loops. Click on Cancel. Now locate the Jam Pack folders that you copied to your external drive and drag them into GarageBand’s Loop Browser. GarageBand will acknowledge that you’re attempting to add loops to the browser and ask if you’d like to keep the loops in their current location or copy them to the Loops folder. The correct answer is Current Location. Test your configuration by selecting one of the Jam Packs from the browser loops pop-up menu (the one that
Mac 911 passwords is to deselect the password option. To get rid of passwords you’ve already saved, click on the Show Passwords button and then click on Remove All. Some users (including myself ) have found that Safari reveals the same weakness. Use this test page to assess your browser’s vulnerability.
normally reads My Loops), choosing a sound, and previewing it. If GarageBand won’t play it and instead shows you that reindexing dialog box, let GarageBand reindex the loops this time. Once you’re sure everything is working as it should, you can toss out the original loops folders that you moved to the desktop.
Icon, begone! Q: How do I remove or hide the harddrive icon in the upper right corner of my desktop?--Gene Dybinski A: Choose Finder: Preferences and, in the resulting window, click on the General tab if it’s not selected already. Here you’ll see the option to show specific items on the desktop. Simply deselect the Hard Disks option and your harddrive icon will disappear from the desktop. If you want to, you can also remove hard-drive icons from the Finder window’s sidebar. Just click on the Sidebar tab in the Finder preferences pane and disable the Hard Disk option here as well. Here’s a little bonus tip: Just as it’s easy to make icons disappear from places where you don’t want them, you can also make an item (a volume, a folder, an application, or a file) appear in more places than usual. To add an item to the toolbar at the top of every Finder window, for instance, drag it to an open Finder window’s toolbar. Hold it there for a couple of seconds until you see a green plus sign (+). Then let go of the mouse button and the item’s icon will appear in the toolbar. Should you later wish to remove it, hold down the 1 key and drag it out of the toolbar. DVD conversion
You paid good money for your commercial DVDs, and it takes little more than a five-year-old armed with a jar of jam to destroy them. Use these tools to back them up. (Also see “Seven wonders of the video world” in this issue of shuffle). HandBrake (free): I’ve tried just about every Mac DVD-ripping utility on earth. Many of them do a decent job, but they can’t touch the complete capabilities that Eric Petit and Laurent Aima’s tool offers for free. If you don’t need HandBrake’s many configuration options, choose its less full-featured sibling, Instant HandBrake (also free). Like HandBrake, Instant HandBrake can convert commercial DVDs to a format that’s playable on your Mac, iPod, or Sony PSP. VisualHub ($23): My love for Techspansion’s universal video converter for the Mac is nearly boundless. VisualHub can convert almost any video format you throw at it to iPod, PSP, DV, DVD,
Fix: QX-Tools Pro and Quark conflict If you’re using onOne Software’s $100 QX-Tools Pro 7.0, QuarkXPress 7 may crash when you save certain--primarily older--files. Fix this minor bug by updating to QX-Tools Pro 7.0.1 or later.
TiVo, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG, and Flash formats. It can even fit up to 18 hours of video on one DVD--though that video won’t look pristine. What does this have to do with your DVDs? Although Techspansion claims that VisualHub won’t convert video from commercial DVDs, it has in many cases (though not always) done so successfully for me. For example, it ripped Master and Commander with no complaints but produced garbage when ripping my DVD collection of the first season of Arrested Development. (HandBrake had no problems with Arrested Development.) Another bonus: VisualHub can help you put your converted content on a DVD (compressing it to fit on a single disc) and then burn it--no need to purchase additional tools such as Roxio’s $100 Toast or $50 Popcorn 2 or Erwin van den Berg’s $40 DVD2oneX2. Both of these utilities, however, do provide more flexible DVDburning options than VisualHub. Bug: Firefox security breach Like most Web browsers, Mozilla’s free Firefox lets you save passwords for sites that require you to log in. (Go to Firefox: Preferences, click on Security, and select the Remember Passwords For Sites option.) Firefox should enter your name and password only when you’re at the appropriate login page. However, a security weakness allows a phony login page, located on the same server as the legitimate one (possible on sites such as MySpace.com), to obtain and send your password information to another site without your knowledge. It’s a low-risk threat, but for now the only way to make sure no one can steal your
Bug: iPhoto import problem Apple’s iPhoto may quit unexpectedly when importing movie files from a still camera. The likely cause is a problematic third-party QuickTime plug-in. Check the your user folder/Library/ QuickTime/ and /Library/QuickTime/ folders for plug-ins not installed by Mac OS X. Remove any that you find. Log out and log back in. If the problem disappears, a plug-in was the culprit. If not, use another program, such as Image Capture (/Applications), to import the movie instead. Bug: Sync problems If you use the Sync pane in .Mac’s preferences pane, you may get a message that says: “There was a problem with the sync operation. .Mac legacy client exited abnormally.” There may be an easy fix--open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities) and click on Repair Disk Permissions. If that doesn’t work, you can try reinstalling Mac OS X completely, using the Archive And Install option.
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.
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Tips and tricks
> www.emiratesmac.com
Emiratesmac.com tips and tricks
Weaving The Web
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. Since the previous issue of shuffle we have installed some new software on the site. It should help us get better exposure in search engines, among other things. It also means some changes for users of the site. Most noticeable probably is three little icons that now appear in each post. Since I’ve received some questions about these icons I thought I’d spend some time trying to explain what they’re for. Basically by clicking on each icon you can share that particular post with other users via one or more web sites. It can help you remember links to posts for the future, and it can also help the site get more visitors from around the world.
http://viewfromthemountain.typepad.com/applepeels/
ApplePeels Some very good insights from a guy who used to work for Apple.
From left to right the icons are: Digg.com (www.digg.com) Digg.com is a community-driven news site, whereby registered users can submit stories that others can “digg” or not. Also see “The day that the community took over” in this issue of shuffle). Click on the icon and you can submit a new story to Digg.com that others can “digg” and comment on. Del.icio.us (del.icio.us) If you set up an account with Del.icio.us you can bookmark sites in much the same way you do now in your web browser. The difference is those bookmarks are store online and you can access them from anywhere. You can also attach “tags” to each bookmark, classifying it so you can remember it later. And you can also see how many others have boomarked a page and what tags they attached.
Technorati.com (www.technorati.com) Technorati is a blog search engine. It indexes blogs from all over the world, and new posts made in those blogs are continuously listed on the site. You can set up your own searches and get automatic notifications of new posts from other blogs. By clicking on the Technorati icon you can add that post to your favorites in Technorati. Furl.net (www.furl.net) Furl is a kind of a combination of the other sites. You can save URLs for later retrieval, you can tag them with keywords, and you can organize them in different ways. One unique functionality Furl has is that you can archive copies of web sites so you can visit them later even the actual site is not working.
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/
The secret diary of Steve Jobs No it’s not really Stevie, but it’s very funny.
http://www.macosxhints.com/
MacOSXHints.com The mother of all Mac hints sites.
http://xlr8yourmac.com/
Accelerate your Mac One of the best places to go to for information about Mac parts, how to upgrade, and what is compatible with what.
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iArchitect?
Combining current technologies iPhone + iGoogle = iArchitect. by Omran Alowais - iDubai Some months ago Apple revealed the mighty iPhone. I am a huge Apple fan, so I started to jump up and down for no good reason. June is the release-date in US, and I don’t think it will be any where near Middle East for quite some time. So, my excitement had gone with the wind. As a mobile phone, forget about it. But as a device. Hmmm! It’s very interesting. Many know the close relation between Apple and Google. Apple is creating amazing machines; and I am saying machines not devices. Why? Because I think the amount of power and intelligence it carry per inch is more than the US Space Shuttle. Those are super machines, just because the hardware is so compact. Lately, we have witnessed how Apple TV is so compact, it boost so much from that 19x19cm. Similar to iPhone, it could have GPS by the time it get released - I hope - and it already has horizontal/vertical motion sensor, which I have only seen in high-end DSLR’s. Its multi touch screen is another thing that we don’t see in anything in the market except military. That’s some intelligent stuff! With Google, they got two applications that amaze me, Google Earth & Sketchup. com. Google Earth have covered some sensitive areas around the world, and we now have access to see those areas in few clicks. Same thing with Sketchup, you don’t have to have a university degree to use the software. Unlike other 3D/CAD programs, you will not see this course covered in a University curriculum, nor in a special training school. It’s so, so simple! If iPhone had GPS, then Google Earth can be synced, and it will show you a live 3D map of your current location. So no more 2D plans, it will actually guide you through a large shopping mall, to the desired floor. With simple OpenGL engine, I think iPhone can handle it. So, Sketchup, can compute 3D Objects. It should be able to
handle simple geometry objects like cubes, spheres, cones, etc. If that part is developed, then we can use the multi-touch screen to interact and enjoy the process of creating 3D digital spaces on your Phone. I will add one more step to this, while you can do all that on your Mac, your iPhone will have a special feature, which is that it can view the building in 3D virtual world. I’m actually trying to see what I can do with the motion sensor in iPhone, and to put it to a good use. Like a gyro, if I point my iphone like you would hold a camera, you would actually see your building in the virtual space. As you move left or right, your perspective
thru the iPhone changes. If you get closer, your GPS will help you with the coordinates, and the virtual space will be changed depending on the location. So, in a market of booming real-estate, and upcoming architect, shouldn’t we develop things for us and our clients? Shouldn’t we as city visionaries use our current tech to help us build the better future? As an architect, I think this technology will be the best marketing tool for architects and developers, as they will enjoy and progress to have the better visual future.
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How I Upgraded an old Mac by Magnus
This is actually a story from some years ago. I was living in the US at the time, and I had decided to see if I could get a workable Mac that ran Mac OS X but for very little money. In the end I purchased an old PowerMac 8600, upgraded it with a PowerPC G3 processor, added some hard drives, and it all ended up costing less than $500. So even if the story isn’t brand new, I think you may find it interesting.
that much cheaper but more on that later. The situation As I said I had a G4 PowerBook but that was my main production machine. I did all my work on it and I could not afford it being down at all really. Basically it needed to always be available to me. So I
Background At the time my main Mac was a Powerbook G4 12-inch which I was very happy with but I wanted a desktop at home to play around with, try different things on, etc. Early on I had decided that I wanted a tower desktop so that I could put different stuff in it. Buying a new PowerMac G4 was out of the question because it would have been too expensive so I set out to find the cheapest way to get a decent performance desktop Mac. So my inspiration was a limited budget but I also got the idea from an article in the August 2003 edition of MacWorld where they put together a G4 computer out of old parts. Their total came to $734, and I didn’t have that much money so I decided to make it cheaper. As it turned out I didn’t make it
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didn’t really want to set it up a server, play around with UNIX on it and such things. The solution then was to get a desktop at home, on which I could install and set up Apache, FTP, MySQL and other goodies. The machine did not have to have any stellar performance but it should be acceptable to use for these things.
The system Before we go through my system I should
say that I used eBay for pretty much all of the things and the prices I give below are all including shipping and handling. I do that to be up front about the total cost involved. The basis for my new system was a PowerMac 8600 that I got for $97.99. I was basically choosing between a 9600 and a 8600 and was just taking the first one that came along at a good price. I figured the three PCI slots in the 8600 would be enough for me. Some would say that upgrading a 8600 is a total waste of time and money, but I found this to be a viable option for those who have little money to spend or those who just plain don’t want to pay too much, or if you just want to go through the joys of upgrading an old machine. And although this was some years ago it would still today be a viable option.
Upgrades and additions First thing was naturally to get a CPU upgrade and I really wanted a G4 but I also wanted to keep things tight financially so when a Sonnet G3 400MHz PCI upgrade card came along I snatched it for $84.50. I figured this would give the machine a
pretty good boost and should run Mac OS X at ok speed at least. It should perhaps be said that if all you want to do is run OS 9, then the 8600 without a CPU upgrade is actually a viable option. Then came the matter of getting memory for the machine. Since I knew Mac OS X loves RAM I decided to put in four 128Mb RAM chips. I got those chips for $21 each making a total of 512MB RAM in the 8600. That was enough to get started on, and it would be easy enough to add more later. Since I didn’t really need FireWire on the computer I settled for a 5-port USB PCI card that I found for $21.99. As it turned out I didn’t really need this for the first version of my new Mac, but I figured I would need it sooner or later. I was going to get a PCI IDE/ATA card and an IDE harddrive, but after deciding to stay cheap I got a Seagate SCSI 18.2GB drive for $23.50. And while I was at it I got another one for $17. Since I already had a decent 17-inch CRT monitor not being used for anything I decided to use that for the PowerMac. I am not sure why but I still had an old PowerComputing (remember them?) ADB mouse laying around but I still needed an ADB keyboard and got an Apple Extended II for $13.96. I decided to max out the VRAM in the 8600 to the very impressive 4MB (it already had 2Mb installed). I got the two additional megs for $14.99. Finally, I bought a disk set of original Mac OS X Jaguar 10.2 for $51.24 and to install XPostFacto I had to run Mac OS 9 and I got Mac OS 9.1 for $35. Grand total: $444.17. If you have Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 already, and take off the VRAM and USB card which were not really crucial, then your looking at about $150 less.
Putting it all together I was excited when the 8600 arrived and couldn’t wait to get it out of the box, even though I couldn’t do much with it because the only other thing I had at that time was the USB card. However I opened the 8600 up and it was pretty dusty inside, so carefully I cleaned it out. One thing that I had totally overlooked in my joy over getting almost 40Gb SCSI harddrive for what I thought was a really good price, was that both drives had 80-pin SCSI connectors which obviously don’t plug into the 50-pin connectors in the 8600. Also, the 80-pin connector includes the power, so you need a converter that breaks out the power to the standard power connectors you find in most computer cases today. So I had to get two converters for $13.50. Another
little thing I had totally overlooked was that the 8600 had a Mac-standard DB-15 video port, which doesn’t just attach to the VGA-standard HD-15 port. So I had to get an adapter for $8.71. A nice
battery for $10.35. Mac OS 9.1 installed without any problems on the 2Gb disk. With XPostFacto, Jaguar also installed without any problems on one of the 18Gb disks and I managed to get everything going. I had to fiddle around with the SCSI ids but finally I got it right. The 8600 was connected to our broadband router and it worked like a charm both in versions of the OS. Over time I set the 8600 up as a web server, FTP server, and MySQL server, and it all just worked. As expected the performance was not exactly something to brag about, but most of the time it was perfectly acceptable. The main use was as a testing server at home and that role it fulfilled without any problems.
Conclusion
surprise about the 8600 was that it came with a keyboard and mouse. Another nice surprise was that the Mac actually had an IXMicro TwinTurbo 128 video card. It was certainly not a match for present day video cards, but it was better than the built-in one. New Grand total: $472.38.
So did it work? Oh yes! During the time I had it running, I didn’t find anything that didn’t work. I had some problems getting the 8600 to boot with the G3 card in it at first, but once I followed the installation instructions very closely it worked just fine. Most likely the problem was actually a dead PRAM battery. I got a new TL-5151
Well I probably didn’t save any money over buying a G3 PowerMac in the first place, but the journey is what is fun and rewarding, isn’t it? I learned a lot about old PowerMacs, adapters, Mac OS X, and a bunch of other stuff. And although I’ve not done anything similar since then it’s certainly not the end. I’m sure I’ll do similar things in the future. This particular PowerMac is now gone. I dismantled it into pieces and before moving to the UAE I sold off parts of it, and just scrapped others that were worth nothing. Sometimes I wish I still had it around, but now I have other Macs that fill the same function, so I wouldn’t need it other than for sentimental reasons. But there are still times when I think of that 8600 and how fun it was to upgrade.
PowerMac 8600 $97.99 Sonnet G3 400MHz PCI upgrade card $84.50 Four 128MB RAM chips 4x$21 5-port USB PCI card $21.99 Seagate SCSI 18.2GB drives $23.50 and $17 2 SCSI Connectors $13.50 Monitor $0 DB-15 converter $8.71 Mouse $0 Apple Extended Keyboard $13.96 2MB VRAM $14.99 Mac OS X Jaguar 10.2 $51.24 Mac OS 9.1 $35 Battery $10.35 Grand total: $476.73
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Apple & the iPod -Changing the Odds by Investing to Win: Act 2 complied by Rockin Babe
Innovations follow quickly. (It’s the same stepping-stone concept Toyota used, swiftly replacing a good first-generation Prius with a very good second-general Prius) In March, 2002, Apple announces a 10 GB iPod priced at $499. In July, the second-generation iPod appeared with up to 20 GB of memory, a fancy “touch wheel” rather than the original mechanical wheel, and most important, the ability to work with either Mac or Windows-based software. Suddenly Apple is reaching out to the PC world, the vast bulk of computer users. Steve knows that he is playing in a new arena now - the world of consumer electronic, where gold and platinum records and blockbuster movies have a universal, not just niche appeal. Everyone wants an iPod, and Apple wants everyone to won one. Sales surge. It’s the end of 2001. The iPod has been launched to rave reviews for its beautiful all-white design, easy-to-use interface, relatively big (5GB) memory capacity, and unique wheel control. It has also drawn skeptical derision for its high price at $399. “iPod?” the jokesters said. “That stands for idiots Price Our Devices.” At the same time, Apple releases its iTunes software – but it’s simply a library application for storing music, useful but not terribly innovative or exciting. With his healthy ego, messianic zeal, and history of success, Steve Jobs makes a delightful target for critics and nay-sayer, and they settle back in hopes of watching his latest crazy gamble go up in flames. But it sells. Within weeks, the iPod overtakes the few competing music players (such as a now-forgotten machine called the Nomad Jukebox) to become the leading device of its kind. Still, Jobs and Apple recognized that they’re only one-third of the way to success. They don’t allow version 1.0 of the iPod device or the broader Apple music business to stand on its own for long.
The odds of ultimate success move up to 50%. As iPod gets upgraded, so does iTunes. By mid-2002, play list management capabilities have been added to the iTunes software, making it easy for users to assemble their own music collections according to artist, genre, theme, mood, whatever. Behind the scenes, Apple has begun working on a prototype version of iTunes that will facilitate legal music downloading (potentially replacing the legally shaky piracy services like Napster). By April, 2003, Apple has introduced the ultra-thin, third-generation iPod, which will include memory options up to 40 GB. Raves from early users, celebrity endorsements, fabulous free publicity, and a few hip television commercials combine to help make iPod a must-have style accessory as well as a gadget for technogeeks and music mavens. In the same month comes the biggest breakthrough of all: the launch of the iTunes Music Store, an online music downloading website run by Apple, built
into iTunes software, and offering songs by all four of the major record labels – EIM, Sony, BMG, Universal, and Warner Brothers. The interface is easy to use, the content is broad, and the pricing is user-friendly - a flat and affordable 99 cents per track. Apple hopes that iTunes will sell a million songs in the first year. It sells a million songs in the first week. What does it all mean for Apple? After several years of having been relegated to a niche computing space, Apple has re-entered the public consciousness as an innovator and a powerful force in business and technology. Since the introduction of the iPod and iTunes Music Store as a suite of products in April, 2003, Apple’s stock has risen steadily, with the iPod as the primary driver of Apple’s revenue growth. iPod has gone from generating just 2.5% of Apple’s revenue in 2002 to 33% in 2005. As a result the compound annual growth rate for Apple’s total revenue was 34% between 2002 and 2005. It shows what can happen when you bet the company on a great project, and then keep changing the odds until you win the best. Apple’s Further Moves to Raise the Odds (II): • Follow version 1.0 with improved versions – fast (stepping-stones technique). • Reach out to broader markets (Windows). • Capitalize on brilliant design with celebrity-driven publicity. • Build a customer-serving infrastructure (iTunes) to support and enhance the great product (iPod). •Keep adding capabilities to fuel growing customer demand. Source: Mercer Management Consulting
Digital Scrapbooking by Crystal
their pages on the inside. The things that you learn in scrapbooking are also true for cards and even posters.
Scrapbooking has been around as long as there has been printed material, and it is a way of story telling. People used it to keep record of things that happen in their personal life, in their family’s life, or maybe a way of keeping memories of some special events. Today people use creative ways to showcase their displays of photos, text, journaling and their memorabilia. People also use it more of a way to tell their family stories in a creative way, to pass down to their children. Another reason people scrapbook is as a baby book, they keep all of their child’s memories in one special book. This creative way of scrapbooking took on a life of its own, many years ago. Wikipedia says the first store that opened for just scrapbooking, was opened in 1981 in Spanish Fork, Utah, USA. So scrapbooking as we know it today is over 25 years old. This way of scrapbooking was to use different items to make the page have different textures and almost makes the pages 3-D to the touch and the look. The embellishments can include stickers, stamps, eyelets, brads, washers, chipboard elements in different shapes, letters, ribbon, and that doesn’t include the different textured paper that they can use. People even made special book covers to match the design of the
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Today scrapbooking has taken a different direction in that some people are making all of their books online in a digital format. If they are not finding different die cuts, they are finding different fonts to tell their stories, and with that the resources online have grown. If you do not use the die cuts online, you sure can use all the wonderful ideas that you find online. With digital scrapbooking you can design and print your scrapbook page from your computer. There is no need to go and find all the supplies and then the sometime have to deal with the messy glues, you just do it from your computer. With the new digital way of scrapbooking there are a lot of software choices that you can use to build your page. I just received software called iRemember 2.0 Digital Scrapbooking, which works on your Mac. This form of digital scrapbooking allows people to have very professional-looking layouts, that they can then get published into a book or print them to add to their album. Some people just keep them in completely digital format that they can use on their website or to just keep in their “digital scrapbook” on the computer. After playing around with it for a couple of hours, it does seem to be a simple scrapbooking piece of software to use and it is a good start, if you want to do digital scrapbooking. I like the drag and drop feature that we are use to
when using a Mac, and it makes for easy use here as well. This was my first attempt at digital scrapbooking, and I have to say that I miss the hands-on feel and touch of creating my page. So I have to say that I am not totally sold on only doing digital scrapbooking, but I do like using it for the clip art, templates, the drag and drop affect in creating some of my pages, and with all the different ideas, I can stay busy for a long time. iRemember 2.0 is a tool in my scrapbooking kit now, and even better for my card and poster making. Making my own cards and posters, make them that much more personal, and this software helps me do this. What is also nice about iRemember 2.0 is that I can save my digital page as jpeg, so that it is easy for sharing, or I can save the page in iPhoto. The cost of iRemember is $39.95 and you can find it at their website www.macscrapbook.com, www.amazon.com, and www. apple.com. Their website www.macscrapbook.com has a wealth of information to help you and to give you even more ideas for your digital scrapbooking.
Review
EmiratesMac Reviews In this issue of shuffle we take a closer at TechTool Pro, software that can help you diagnose and fix an ailing Mac; Belkin TuneStage 2, a gadget that lets you play music from your iPod wirelessly through your home stereo; Uniea Keyboard Cover, to protect your Mac notebook’s keyboard; a cute 2G shuffle case from Mophie; and, Apple Remote Desktop 3.
FIND MORE ONLINE. You can find more information online and share your views about the items we tested in this issue or anything else on our web site at www.emiratesmac.com.
TechTool Pro Price $98 From MicroMat Distributor MicroMat Web www.appleme.ae/ara/apple/ software/remotedesktop/
Micromat, the makers of TechTool Pro (TTP), says it is “the complete Macintosh problem solving utility”, and that may very well be true. The basic functions of TTP are diagnostics and repair, optimization, data recovery, safety, and the eDrive. If we start at the end, the eDrive is simply a small Mac OS X partition that is created on one of your hard drives, which you can boot from in an emergency or to do some maintenance. It takes up around 4GB of space. You can also boot from the TTP DVD itself and run the tests and optimizations it comes with. In the safety area, TTP saves certain information about your drive and if something goes wrong it can restore it, thereby potentially saving you from a total crash. Data recovery is what it says, different ways that TTP can help you recover data from a disk that doesn’t appear as very healthy. Optimization is arguably the least useful part of TechTool Pro. It defragments your drives but it seems to me Mac OS X does a pretty good job on its own, so I’m not sure TTP adds much value in this area. In Diagnostics and repair, TTP offers a range of tests that checks various parts of your system such as memory, ports, processor, network interfaces, and much more. If you are going to run tests and optimizations with TTP, be prepared for it to take a long time. That’s about the most negative thing I can say about this software. It’s full of useful utilities and it may just save your valuable data one day. TechTool Pro 4, $98, saving your family photos, priceless.
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Belkin TuneStage 2 Price 799AED From Belkin Distributor Ashley LLC Web www.ashleyllc.com/belkin/ ipod.htm
Do you have an iPod? And do you also have a pretty good sound system? Then perhaps you want to take a look at the Belkin TuneStage 2 for iPod. Simply put it lets you play music from your iPod wirelessly through your sound system. You plug a small transmitter into the dock port of your iPod. Then you connect the base station to your sound system, and you’re ready to go. The base connects via a stereo minijack output or left/right RCA outputs, so you should be able to connect it to pretty much anything. Belkin are also nice enough to throw in the necessary cables, unlike Apple who ships the Apple TV, for example, without cables. The wireless transmission works over Bluetooth, so you won’t get interference with wireless phones, microwave, and similar devices. It limits the range to around 10m but we moved around in most of our apartment and it kept the signal. It was only in the areas furthest away from the base where it would cut out. The transmitter doesn’t have any power supply of its own so it takes power from the iPod. This seems to reduce the battery life of the iPod significantly. The audio quality was surprisingly good. Through our test system the music from the iPod sounded a bit hollow compared to what was played from CD or radio, but that’s to be expected I guess. I doubt the quality is good enough to satisfy real audiophiles, but for most customers it’s more than good enough. Belkin’s TuneStage is not a cheap accessory, but it does extend the use of your iPod and it does it really well.
Uniea Keyboard Cover Price $349 From Uniea Distributor 4th Dimension Web www.uniea.com/u-cover.htm
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If you really want to protect your Apple notebook, getting a cover for your keyboard may be a good idea. And if you’re the kind of user who likes to eat and drink in front of the computer then you probably know how much dust and particles gather under the keys. I’m sure you only spill coffee on your keyboard once before starting to protect it, especially on a notebook. Uniea offers the kind of silicon cover that has become popular lately, with offerings from several companies coming out. This particular cover fits both MacBook and MacBook Pro (15- and 17-inch) and it comes in pink, blue and transparent. It has a smooth top surface, and your fingers glide easily to find the keys. On the bottom side it’s a bit stickier. Fitting it onto the keyboard took a little while because you have to place it just right. But it’s no major task and once it’s in place you don’t have to move it again. Our cover had a mismatch for the enter key, which Uniea seem to think is split into two keys. Otherwise the match is near perfect and the cover fits very tightly over the keyboard. Perhaps our cover was an early production one and we hope that problem has now been solved. Typing with the cover on is actually pretty nice, but that has a lot to do with personal preference, I think. It makes the keys a bit softer and the typing a bit quieter. I’ve tried these types of covers from other manufacturers and Uniea’s seem to be right in line with them in terms of quality and feel.
Mophie Wraptor for 2G shuffle Price $10 From Mophie Distributor Mophie Web mophie.com/products/ wraptor/?pod=shuffle
The tiny 2nd generation shuffle is hard to design a case for, I’m sure. It’s so small, so what would you do to it to improve it? Mophie has tried with the Wraptor and generally succeeded but also fallen short in a few areas. The Wraptor is a clear plastic shell that covers the front and sides of the shuffle. It leaves the back open as well as spaces for all the controls and connections. Wraptors come in different colors. The best idea with the Wraptor is to do something about the earphone cord that always seem to get in the way and tangled up somehow. The Wraptor has grooves on two sides and you just wrap the cord around the shuffle a few times, and there you go. It’s that easy. The main gripes I have about this case is have to do with the things that make it great. It’s a great idea to be able to wind your earphone cord around the shuffle, but if you have earphones with a longer cable, or a thicker cable, compared to the standard iPhone earphones, you may be in trouble. There simply won’t be enough room to wrap the cable around the Wraptor. But then Mophie couldn’t make the grooves on the sides to wide or deep either. That would defeat the purpose of the small shuffle. The other complaint, is that the shuffle cannot be put into its dock while in the Wraptor case. And since it’s not dead easy to take it out of the case, you won’t want to do that too much. But it’s a similar thing with that, what could Mophie do with the small shuffle.
Apple Remote Desktop 3 Price 2094AED From Apple Inc. Distributor Apple IMC ME Web www.appleme.ae/ara/apple/ software/remotedesktop/
Do you have several Macs at home, or do you manage Macs at work? If you are in any environment where there are more than one Mac, chances are you would want to manage them remotely. Instead of walking over to another Mac, you just connect to it via the network and see what’s on the other screen, and even control it just as if you were physically sitting in front of it. There are many solutions for this, including VCN and Timbuktu, but none that shines quite as much as Apple’s own Remote Desktop 3. A new feature in version 3 is remote Spotlight searches. This means you can use Spotlight to search through all the Macs on your network, not just your own. With Automator actions you make repetitive tasks available by one click of the mouse or even triggered by certain events or on a schedule. You can drag and drop files between the remote Macs and your local Mac, making it easy to transfer files. One of the more attractive features of Remote Desktop 3 is that you can manage software updates remotely, making sure your Macs are up to date, and update them if necessary. If you’re in the fortunate position of managing a lot of Macs, you can set one up as the Task Server, to which all other Macs connect. Then you can control software updates and most anything in Remote Desktop from the Task Server. In conclusion, if you manage more than one Mac in a network, take a serious look at Apple Remote Desktop 3. It will more than likely make your job a lot easier.
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Peel The Apple Get answers to your Apple tech support questions. Email techsupport@emiratesmac.com This is an article about SSH and your Mac. I thought we’d take a closer look at how you can use SSH with your home Mac to do various things and do it encrypted, meaning it’s much more secure. We will primarily use the Terminal but don’t be scared, it’s really not that hard.
SSH on your Mac 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 emiratesmac@mac.com or find him at EmiratesMac. com
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Enable SSH on your Mac is really easy. Go to System Preferences > Sharing > Services, and click on Remote Login. That’s it. To begin with,we will assume you are using SSH inside your network, meaning not behind a router. Later, we’ll deal with connecting to your home Mac while you are away from your home. To login to the other machine using the Terminal, type ssh, your username, and the IP-address of the remote Mac, for example: ssh emiratesmac@192.168.1.100 If you’re connecting for the first time, Terminal will tell you that it doesn’t know about the remote machine and asks you if you want to continue: The authenticity of host ‘192.168.1.100 (192.168.1.100)’ can’t be established. RSA key fingerprint is 3f:d3:54 :bf:a3:df:1c:3b:e6:cd:a7:8b:34 :05:75:0c. Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? You type in “yes” and you should get a message saying the remote machine has been added to a list of known hosts: Warning: Permanently added ‘192.168.1.100’ (RSA) to the list of known hosts. Finally, you’re asked for your password, so you type your password and press enter. When you’ve entered your password, Terminal will print a welcome message: Last login: Sun Jul 30 20:00:54 2006 Welcome to Darwin!
So what can you do via a SSH connection? You can basically do anything you can do with a Terminal sitting at your Mac. Here are a few examples. See what applications and process that are running: top An alternative is the ps command: ps -aux If you only want to see applications running, not all processes, you add a bit to the ps command: ps -aux | grep ‘.app’ If you want to see what’s actually on the screen on the remote computer, you can use the screencapture command: screencapture -x screen.png Quit an application or process (you find out the processid by running ps as shown above): kill processid You can edit text files on your home-Mac. There are many text editors you can choose from. I tend to use pico the most because it’s pretty user-friendly. To edit the file “mytextfile.txt” you would type: pico mytextfile.txt Copy a file: cp filename Get help with any command: man nameofcommand There are also a lot of other things you can do once you have a working SSH connection, like copy files between computers using SFTP (secure alternative to FTP), and do backups with RSYNC. Next we’ll take a look at connecting to your home-Mac while away from home. and what you need to change in your router, and what you can do on your home Mac to make sure it’s all as secure as possible.
Switcher Interview by istara
Q: Why did you switch? A: I started as a Mac user at my first job at one of the Mirror Group’s newspapers. I had never really used Name Kirstie Hepburn a PC before that, and Job PR & Events used a Mac solidly for 6 years. I only started Mac MacBook Pro Core Duo using a PC when I left journalism in 2002. Switch date Spring 2006 When I started, Macs were causing something of a revolution in the newspaper industry by replacSwitcher ing the old forms of 233-45-9798 printing, where letters were literally cut out works very well for me. I am lookpositive as we conduct much more and pasted on to the ing at upgrading the RAM though: rigorous testing in advance on both page. In those days, Macs were the I always have a number of different PC and Mac. indisputed tool of choice for design programmes on the go, and I am work, while people who didn’t need finding that the Mac is struggling a Q: Do you still use Windows at all? the publishing tools were encouraged to stick to PCs as you got more little. I was warned before I bought it A: Not on the Mac though it has the that I should upgrade the RAM, but dual boot ability. I still keep my old for your money and they were easier I didn’t listen! laptop (Sony VAIO) at home, but it to fix. I made the decision to switch is only used for surfing the internet. back less than a year ago. The addiQ: What were the best things tion of Powerpoint and Excel was a Q: Would you ever switch back? huge plus for me, while I had always about it? A: The operating system and general A: No, I don’t think so. been a fan of the designs. I bought stability, while its extreme good looks a 15-inch MacBook Pro in June last are a given! Q: What would your advice be for year. I have always maintained that other Windows users considering you are born a Mac or a PC person; Q: What did you find difficult? switching? my experiences haven’t altered that A: There are still occasions where A: Make a list of what it is you need thought at all. marketing material we have prepared your computer to do. Chances are, a does not translate or open into OSX. Mac will fulfil everything on that list. Q: How did you find the Mac to When we were doing pre-launch Also bear in mind the major saving start with? testing for a new website, there were in downtime because Macs are so less A: It was like riding a bike - the a number of glitches that only apsusceptible to viruses. operating system is much more intuipeared on the Mac. However, in the tive for me. It is perfect for my work, long run, it has been turned into a and the software and tools package
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Kristie Hepburn
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EmiratesMac.com
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EmiratesMac Training Courses in partnership with SAE
tarting in April, Emir- create web pages, and put includes a one-year memberatesMac User Group together a music masterpiece, ship in EmiratesMac User will offer short trainall with the various iLife ap- Group. If you are already a ing courses in cooperation member you pay 100Dhs per plications. with SAE Institute in Dubai. course. You can pay online As a User Group we feel with a credit card. InstrucTo sign up: we’re in a unique positions will be given to you tion to offer some introhttp://www.emiratesmac.com/ once you have registered. ductory training for Mac. If you cannot pay online index.php?page=training get in touch with us and What? we will make alternative Our course offerings start arrangements (contact off with Introduction to Mac When? Crystal on mobile 050OS X and iLife. In the Mac We do each course twice per 8171164 or email crystal@ OS X course you will learn emiratesmac.com). month. Each time we offer the basics of how to log in the Mac OS X Introduction How do I sign up? course at 11-14 and the InYou sign up through Emirtroduction to iLife course atesMac.com at http://www. at 15-18. You will find the emiratesmac.com/index. most up to date training php?page=training. You have schedule at http://www. to be a registered user of emiratesmac.com/index. EmiratesMac.com to be able php?page=training. to sign up for a course. Reghttp://www.sae-dubai.com/ istering for an account on the What does it cost? site is free. We charge 250Dhs for each three-hour course, which and get going with your Mac, Date Time Course find your way around the 9 June 1100-1400 Introduction to Mac OS X interface, open and save files, do some simple maintenance, 9 June 1500-1800 Introduction to iLife get online, and more. In the 23 June 1100-1400 Introduction to Mac OS X iLife course we cover how 23 June 1500-1800 Introduction to iLife to manage and edit photos, create movies, burn DVDs, 26 EmiratesMac shuffle
Tutorial
Photoshop tutorial: Recreating the “X” by Zaid Since I saw the “X” for our beloved OS on shuffle’s cover back in March 2007, I wanted to recreate it. I checked Michael Wagner’s site to see if a tutorial is available but I got lost after few url clicks. Well It wasn’t hard at all to redo the logo with black background and light drop, here you can do it just as well. Zaid Al-Hilali is an Adobe Certified Instructor operating from Dubai. You can reach him on +971 50 736 2306. You can also find him hanging out at www.emiratesmac.com and www.digitalmediame. com
STEP 1 Create a new document with a size of 500 x 500 pixels. Let it be a 72 pixel/inch, RGB and white background.
STEP 2 Type letter X in the centre of your canvas, it needs a crisp sans serif font to do this effect. I used Myriad Pro, Semibold, size 400pt, and black.
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STEP 3 From the menu Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow, enter shown figures for distance, spread and size. Don’t press OK button yet.
STEP 5 Click on Stroke at the bottom of left pane (the stroke word not its check box) change stroke size to 1pixel, Position it on the centre, and click on the colour swatch box to open a new window choose white colour for stroke, click OK and click the main OK button to close Style window.
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STEP 4 Then click on the Gradient Overlay (click on text itself not the check box), from Style drop menu choose Radial, since we want white colour in centre and black on the edges, tick the reverse check box (make sure you have white on the left and black on right). Scale up the gradient effect by dragging the slider up to 134%. Don’t press OK button yet.
STEP 6 Fill background layer with Black by clicking once on the background layer, from the menu Edit > Fill, from the “Use” drop list choose Black, then click OK.
STEP 7 Create new layer in between background and the X layer. Select Elliptical Marquee tool to draw a circular selection in the centre of your canvas. The selection should match the amount of white on the X layer. Fill this selection with white colour, and name this layer “drop light”.
STEP 9 Duplicate the layer X by selecting it first then from the menu Layer > Duplicate Layer, and accept default settings. Now we need to convert the X type into drawing in order to apply brushed metal effect. Choose X copy layer and from menu Layer > Rasterize > Type
STEP 8 Keep drop light layer selected, visit the menu Filter > Gaussian Blur then drag the Radius slider up to 8 pixels, press OK. Reduce drop light layer’s opacity to 75% from the top of your Layers Palette.
STEP 10 Stay on the X copy layer, right-click/Ctrl-click on the right side of this layer, and select “Clear Layer Style” from the drop list to remove any copied style. This time we shall lock the layer’s transparent areas to apply visual effects only on the filled area. On the upper left side of Layers Palette, click on the first square that shows a checkered board symbol.
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STEP 11
STEP 12
While still on the X copy layer, from menu Filter > Noise > Add Noise enter 100% from Amount, then choose Distribution: Gaussian, then click on the Monochromatic check box.
On the X copy layer, enter menu Filter > Blur > Motion Blur and change values to Angle: 0, Distance 10 pixels, press OK. Reduce X copy layer opacity to 13%.
Seven Wonders of the Video World by istara
Mac OS X’s built in multimedia capabilities aren’t bad - QuickTime basic, iTunes, DVD player - but there is a wealth of third party applications out there that can really enhance your video experience. And the best news is that most of these vital video apps are free. Here is my selection for the top seven video applications for Mac OS X. 1. VLC media player (www.videolan. org) - Free What’s not to love about VLC? It’s a free player that opens nearly every single video format known, including obscure mobile phone video and so on. It also enables Mac users to watch certain video streams that normally only Windows users can open, and it has cool features such as playlists. 2. Flip4Mac WMV plug in (www.flip4mac. com) - Free Flip4Mac WMV is absolutely vital for all Mac users. It;s a free plug-in that enables QuickTime and Safari to open and play Windows Media (.WMV) and .AVI files. 3. MPEG Streamclip (www.squared5. com) - Free MPEG Streamclip is a miracle product. Completely free, it opens nearly every video format. It can rip, encode, com-
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press, convert between all main formats, and can even download from YouTube and video streams. It even has features that QuickTime Pro lacks - for example the ability to save custom export settings. And you can buy plug-ins to allow it to export to Flash and Windows Media. 4. iSquint (www.isquint.org) - Free iSquint is the iPod user’s dream. It rapidly converts most popular video formats to MPEG-4 (with optional H.264 encoding) making them suitable for iPod viewing or TV viewing. There’s a simple Quality slider, and if you want to make advanced settings tweaks you can do. It exports to H.264 quicker than QuickTime (at least on my dual G5). iSquint’s biggest strength is its interface: even the most tech-clueless person could figure it out instantly without help. 5. HandBrake (handbrake.m0k.org/) Free HandBrake will rip any DVD-like source and convert it to MPEG-4, .AVI or OGM. It also does H.264 encoding. I have used it to rip media from a damaged/ wrongly burnt DVD that wouldn’t even play with any other software or hardware
DVD player. It’s a favourite application among Apple TV users who want to transfer their DVD library to play on Apple TV. 6. Snapz Pro X (www.ambrosiasw.com) - $69 Snapz Pro X is payware, but one of the few applications that is really worth it. It’s a screen capture utility that will record anything happening on your desktop as a movie, still image or audio file. It will capture all or part of the screen. For example you may want to create a demonstration of how to use certain software, and you can even do a microphone voice over while Snapz records your actions. Or you may have a video that simply will not convert to any other format. With Snapz Pro X you just re-record it. 7. Vidi (www.mitzpettel.com/software/ vidi.php) - Free Vidi lets you capture video on your Mac from any FireWire DV device. What I have found is that Vidi will also capture video with timecode errors that Final Cut refuses to ignore. So for video editors it can a be a lifesaver.
To Join: www.emiratesmac.com/index.php?page=usergroup
Join EMUG
• 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). Directions to Meetings
For the latest meeting information, check the site: www.emiratesmac.com/forums/about-emug/2125-meeting-location-directions.html
Drive to Wafi City Mall, Dubai, park near where the double-decker tour buses leave from. You should see an entrance with a sign saying “Salam Studio & Stores”, go in there. Go up the stairs on the left (you may have to sign in and show your membership card to the guards). When you come up the stairs, take a left (only way you can go), walk ahead a bit and you’ll see the conference room on your left hand side. There should also be an EmiratesMac banner outside the entrance and one outside the conference room.
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