Maclanta
Newsletter for the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group • May 2009
Since 1984 www.amugonline.org
Your source for Atlanta area Macintosh news and information
Inside This Issue The Mysteries of Permissions Pg. 4 Why Snow Leopard Should be Free (Almost) Pg. 6 Windows 7 To Offer Virtual Windows XP Pg. 8 Mr. Peach Ponders on Beer Taps and iDVD Pg. 9 Mactracker Gets an Update Pg. 11
Join AMUG!
We’ve proudly served the Atlanta area since 1984, and we’d love for you to join us. To join, click on the “Join” button on the AMUG website (www.amugonline.org) or see Treasurer Adele Ward or Membership Director Christina Wellman at any meeting.
May Meeting Announcement You are invited to the May 19 meeting of AMUG for an exciting night of fun, learning, and door prizes. Program: Working With Photos, presented by Martha Shannon, AMUG VP and long-time member. When: May 19, 7 p.m. (6:30 p.m. social time) Description: Learn the ins and outs of photo editing.
Location: The Portfolio Center (see directions on back)
IMPORTANT NOTICE We’ve MOVED
All General Meetings now take place at the Portfolio Center, which is only a few blocks north of our old meeting place. All SIGs will remain at Macquarium. Directions are on pg. 12.
A Note To Our Guests
Founded in 1984, the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group is a not-forprofit Georgia corporation organized and operated exclusively for the purpose of providing education and assistance to its members in the use of the Apple Macintosh computer and software. Made up of many members, AMUG consists of Macintosh enthusiasts from a variety of backgrounds: artists, technicians, programmers, designers, consultants, publishers, accountants--users of a variety of Macintosh types and software! This diverse gathering provides a unique resource for Macintosh information, creativity and education. We encourage you to join our community of Apple enthusiasts. You can either join online, at the information area prior to meetings, or by seeing our treasurer Adele Ward.
About Maclanta Maclanta is published monthly by the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group, Inc.(AMUG™), Post Office Box 15130, Atlanta, Georgia, 30333-0130, a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization, as a service to the membership. Subscriptions: Portions of a member’s dues in AMUG are designated for an annual subscription to Maclanta. Annual membership dues are $40. A separate subscription to this publication is available for a fee to be determined by the Newsletter Director. © Copyright 2008 by the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Maclanta is an independent publication, not affiliated or otherwise associated with Apple Inc. or any other organization that might otherwise advertise herein. The opinions, statements, positions, and views stated herein are those of the author(s) or publisher and are not intended to be the opinions, statements, or views of Apple Computer, Inc. or any other organization that might advertise herein. Rather than place a trademark, copyright, or registered symbol at every occurrence, we hereby state that we are using the names only in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement of the owners work. Nothing herein may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the Newsletter Director or the President of the AMUG Board of Directors, with the following exceptions: all articles and/or graphics not under copyright by the author may be reprinted by a nonprofit organization provided proper credit is given to the author and Maclanta. Proper credit is defined as Title, Author, and the words ‘Reprinted with permission from [month ] [year ] of Maclanta, a monthly publication of the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group, Inc.’ Permission to reprint copyrighted articles and/or graphics may be obtained by writing to the author or artist, care of this publication. Submissions: Maclanta welcomes unsolicited articles (including feature stories, commentary, and user group news) pertaining to personal computers, hardware, software, related products, services, and end users. Submissions should be made via E-mail attachment or body in text format. Unless otherwise arranged, the deadline for all articles, letters, and illustrations is 5 p.m. the Friday after the 1st Tuesday of the month before the month of publication. The editors reserve the right to edit for brevity and clarity. Payment will be in the form of credit in Maclanta and copies of the issue(s), at the least. AMUG Trademarks: AMUG and the AMUG peach are trademarks of the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group,Inc.
AMUG Board of Directors President .............................W. Michael Henigan Vice-President .........................Martha Shannon Treasurer . ............................................ Adele Ward Secretary .......................................Wendell Dillon Education Director . ......................................open Membership Director ........ Christina Wellman Newsletter Director ........................ Todd Daniel Program Director . .........................................open Publicity Director . .........................................open Telecom Director ..................... Lawrence Sharp AMUG Hotline: General Information line 678-534-AMUG (2684) Atlanta Macintosh Users Group PO Box 15130 • Atlanta, GA 30333-0130 www.amugonline.org
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Celebrating 25 Years of Service April SIG Reports SIGS meet the fourth Tuesday of each month at Macquarium, starting at 7 p.m. OS X SIG – Jay Cann Program: Jay dazzled the audience with new applications, technology trends, and news announcements. A thanks goes to Tom Baley who has been recording the meetings and making them available to the membership. FileMaker SIG – Lee Hoong Program: The April 28, 2009 meeting of the FileMaker SIG meeting explored backup and recovery strategies. Lee discussed how to minimize file corruption and available methods to recover from database disasters. Details on the use of the Recover function and other third party tools were examined. For the grand finale, Lee actually showed samples of databases that had corrupted, and he gave a step-by-step presentation on his recovery strategies. About the Filemaker Pro SIG: Hosted by Lee Hoong. This group focuses on the Filemaker Pro (FMP) database application with discussion topics aimed at the beginner- or intermediate-level user. Discussions range from the conceptual design of databases to building standalone database applications to exploring add-on tools. More advanced topics may be covered from time to time, depending on interest. All FMP users, on Macintosh and Windows platforms, are welcome to attend. No attendance fee is required. The SIG meets on the 4th Tuesday of each month at MacQuarium from 7:00 p.m to 8:30 p.m.
Coming June 16: Multimedia.
Learn to combine sound, still images, and video into a single presentation. We’ll be covering iTunes, GarageBand, iMovie, iPhoto, and iWeb.
Maclanta • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • May 2009
Notes from the AMUG Forums OS X SIG notes, free Microsoft resources, and MacFixIt tips By Tom Baley, tbaley@mac.com Here is the recording and my notes from the OS X SIG meeting. Thanks to Jay for coming in on his vacation: http://u.nu/3x53 (a lot shorter than tinyurl, isn’t it? See www.u.nu) If you follow this link and go full screen, the notes will show up “grayed out.” As the recording proceeds, the notes will be “penned” in real time in dark green. You can also place your cursor anywhere in the notes (a big red dot will be your cursor) and click to have the recording go to that spot - both forward and backward. Livescribe is pretty slick. One warning: I am not a great note taker, which is one reason I use Livescribe and why I print instead of write script. And, on occasion, I am thinking about a previous note I took, when we have moved on to the next topic. I may go back and make an addition or correction. This addition shows up as gray notes at first, as the green moves on, and then the addition notes go green out of sequence. In other words, the physical location of the notes on the page are not always the chronological order I took them in. And I was five minutes late for the start of the meeting, so the notes appear to start in the middle of a question being asked. 15 Underappreciated Microsoft Web Services
Here are some great services: • Windows Live Skydrive (skydrive.live.com) Up to 25GB of online storage, free, no strings attached. Create folders on the site, upload to it, and share with friends. It does not appear as a drive, so you cannot use it directly from within an application; you upload to and download from it. • Windows Live Sync (sync.live.com) File sync using peer-to-peer protocol among multiple PCs. Download and run a small app on each PC, then on Windows Live Sync note which folder on which PCs should
stay in sync. They will sync automatically when connected to the Internet. • Windows Live Mesh (mesh. live.com) Keep files in the cloud and have multiple PCs sync with it. Tom Baley Then, from any computer on the tbaley@mac.com Internet, access the files. • Office Live Workspace (workspace.live.com) Establish a workspace, choosing from pre-built ones or create your own. Each workspace comes with templates for PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and other programs. Direct integration with Microsoft Office programs allows members of the group sharing the workspace to work on the same documents. • Virtual Earth 3D (www.microsoft.com/virtualearth) This downloadable application works with Windows Live Maps to give you dramatic 3D views of places around the world – better than Google Earth. Fly in and out of cities in 3D. Take guided tours others have built or build your own and save them. The entire article can be found at PC World’s site: http:// bit.ly/ph2sW. “5 Great Microsoft Web Services You Probably Don’t Use” by Preston Gralla. Weekend Tips & Tricks
MacFixIt has a “Weekend Tips and Tricks”. This weekend is http://bit.ly/13sYzn and includes: • Determine if a contact is in multiple groups in Address Book • Create text clippings • Move menu bar icons • Change the default program to open files Be sure to read the comments - it seems there were some typos in the tips.
April Treasurer’s Report
May Birthdays
Our treasurer Adele Ward reports that the treasury contained $8084.22 in assets. Costs for the month were very minimal and included the use of Skype and PayPal. Note that over the past months the AMUG board has conducted a line-by-line cost-cutting campaign, and we have now reduced expenses to an absolute minimum.
A huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY goes to the following. May each of you get lots of goodies that start with an “i”: James Morrow (5/13), Michael Frizzell (5/15), Bill Rumpp (5/19), David Whitehead (5/25), Matt Leger (5/26).
May 2009 • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • Maclanta
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The Newsletter Director Speaketh This Month: Mysterious Permissions Continue To Befuddle Me • Capture an image on the web by right-clicking. Or, capI work from a building behind my house and I thought it ture anything on your screen by Todd Daniel would be a good idea to back up my data to an external using the utility Grab and then Newsletter Director drive in my dining room, via my wireless network. So, todddan@me.com click “Copy.” I set up my Data Backup program from • Now, go to ProSoft Engineering and I let the action Photoshop (even older versions support begin. this trick) and select “New.” • This is where the magic begins. The Challenge Begins When Photoshop creates a new docu Each week when I run the backup, ment it uses whatever specs are in the everything goes okay, but there is a slight clipboard — size, resolution, color type. problem — new files have been successNow, paste your image in the space and it fully copied, but when I click to open fits perfectly. them I get an error message. How can Here is a healthy permissions setup. But wait, there’s more! Typically, your this be??? Is this file corrupt? By right captured image is 72 dpi. This is perfect clicking and choosing “Get Info” I imfor a web image, but if you print it in a mediately see something very sick in the publication the low resolution will make “Sharing & Permissions” section. The file it appear fuzzy. doesn’t have all the happy and normal So, what do you do? Find a LARGE permissions like other files; in fact the image on the web, and then go to Photofile has NO PERMISSIONS (see image at shop’s Image menu and choose “Image right). Size ...” (I’m assuming you have permis Currently, my workaround for this sion to use the image). Next, deselect problem involves several more steps: the “Resample Image” the box. Now, by • Go to the hard drive icon, right click, This file has some really sick permissions. decreasing the size the the image, the and select “Get Info.” Next, unlock the resolution will automatically go up. The little padlock at bottom right by entering the administrarule of thumb is that images in print should be 300 dpi, tor password. but I’ve gotten excellent results with far less pixels. Try to • Change the “everyone” permission to Read & Write. at least get 200 dpi, or even 150 or 130 will provide fair • Click on the settings button at the bottom (it looks results. like a little wheel) and select “Apply to Enclosed Items.” There is supposedly a free Internet site that will allow The problem is that I have about 40,000 files in my you to upload a low-res image and it will increase the backup, so correcting all the permissions takes about 15 resolution. If anyone knows the name of this site, please minutes. Once the permissions are corrected, everything let me know — I’d like to try it. works normally. As a side note to this story, when I tried to open various files I did not get the usual “permissions” error message. Rather, the error messages varied according to the file types I tried to open — PDF, Word, etc.. My first By decreasing the assumption was that all of the files were corrupted during size, you increase the the backup. But that was not the case — only the permisresolution. This is a sions got mangled. great way to use large If anyone has a solution for this challenge, please images on the Internet let me know. I’ve posted the question on forums and or screen shots of your desktop for use in printed checked in ProSoft’s support area, and so far no luck. By Todd Daniel, todddan@me.com
publications.
Favorite Photoshop Trick
Of all the computer tricks in the world, this one is my very favorite ... and it saves so much time:
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Maclanta • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • May 2009
Members Speak Out Feedback, reviews, etc...
Chaka Urges You To Attend May Meeting Hello Fellow AMUGers, You do not know me yet, but I have heard a lot about you from my stepbrother, Lucky Shanez. I have only recently been introduced to the Macintosh. My mother had a laptop computer, named D-E-LL. It was a nice size laptop; I could lie on the entire machine. I have lost weight since then and actually fit nicely on this white laptop. I recognize the Macintosh apple symbol and am quite curious about this computer. It is smaller; however, I am still able to type quite easily on it. As a converted Macintosh family pet, I need to brush up on my computing skills. I hear you have a Special Interest Group (SIG) on the current Macintosh operating system. That SIG meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month, at Macquarium, from what I have heard. My stepmother, Martha, is using version 10.4.11. Will I still be able to apply what I have learned with this old operating system? I also found out that my stepmother is going to do a presentation on “working with photos,” so I am helping her make photograph selections. I get the impression that you AMUGers think she knows something. Ha! Ha! She has you fooled! I have watched her and I can use the iBook better than she can. Do not worry! I will make sure her presentation for the May 19th General Meeting at the Portfolio Center is up to AMUG quality. I wish I could present it myself; however I am not allowed outside this apartment. Not too bad of an agreement, as I have plenty of windows to sit in and smell the fresh, pollen-filled air. I feel I have made quite a few concessions living here with my stepbrother. He has filled my head with stories of chatting with other cats online. But do not believe him, as I have had my eye on him the entire time. He just sleeps, eats, and… well, you know! I have only been living here since Friday, April 10th, but I catch on quick. I could not believe the difference in treatment of the dogs that live here. They get rewarded with a First there was a Cat and a Hat, and now there is a Cat With a Mac. treat for urinating and having bowel movements. No one else is rewarded like that here. I have caught on though. I just give a pitiful face and meow then voilà, I get a treat too! You humans are so gullible. Ta! Ta! Sincerely, Chaka Dobbs
Don’t Miss the May Meeting Featuring Our Own Martha Shannon
Program: Working With Photos Description: Martha will share techniques for editing photos. Date: May 19, 2009 Location: Portfolio AMUG Vice President Martha Shannon Center Social: is leading the May meeting. 6:30pm Q&A: 7pm Main Program: 7:30pm Raffle: 9pm
Membership Report By Christina Wellman, Membership Chair 11 expires from January 20 expires from February 9 expires from March 10 will expire in April 2 new people in January 5 in February 1 in March so far
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May 2009 • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • Maclanta
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Computer Talk
Applications, utilities, and more...
Why Snow Leopard Should Be (Almost) Free By Adam C. Engst Apple’s update to Mac OS X Snow Leopard is approaching, but will the company charge the usual $129 for it, even though it isn’t slated to offer any new user-focused features? My belief is that making Snow Leopard nearly free would benefit everyone, including Apple. At some point in the next two to six months, Apple will unleash their latest big cat: Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It’s no secret - Apple has been talking about Snow Leopard for ages, with particular emphasis on how Snow Leopard will focus on performance, efficiency, and “core innovation” rather than user-focused features. Specific improvements promised for Snow Leopard include support for up to 16 TB of RAM; improved multicore support for applications; a next-generation version of QuickTime; out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange in Mail, iCal, and Address Book; and support for OpenCL, which is designed to expose the computing power of modern graphics processing units. Other Snow Leopard promises have included a smaller memory and disk footprint, a faster installation time, and a tweak to Stacks to allow subfolders. Sound exciting? From a developer standpoint, absolutely. From a user standpoint, not so much. Based on everything Apple has said so far, Snow Leopard won’t, on its own, bring any of the marquee features that could change the way you use your Mac, much as past releases of Mac OS X brought us Time Machine, Screen Sharing, Spotlight, Dashboard, Expose, Automator, Front Row, Spaces, Stacks, and more. So how much are you willing to pay for an operating system upgrade that does exactly what your current one does, but uses a little less RAM in the process? Don’t get me wrong. I applaud Apple for taking a break from the feature-based rat race to concentrate on the underpinnings of Mac OS X - along with all those slick features has come bloat. Mac OS X has grown portly, a change largely swept under the rug by increases in CPU performance and decreases in hard drive and RAM costs. I suspect that some of the changes Apple promises in terms of reduced memory and hard disk footprint are re-
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Maclanta • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • May 2009
lated to the work done at the core of OS X for the iPhone. The world is moving to ever-more-mobile devices, and as a result, toward RAM-based storage that won’t compete with rotating disk storage on a price-per-gigabyte basis for some time. If Apple is to be able to innovate in the hardware world - perhaps with much-rumored devices that fit between the iPhone and the Mac in size and capability - a leaner, more efficient operating system can only help. It’s all internal
All this leads to my main point: Assuming that Snow Leopard will indeed feature only the under-the-hood improvements promised so far, Apple should release it for free, instead of the $129 price of most releases. Although I say “free,” I could easily be talked into the $29.95 charged for the Mac OS X Public Beta (which could be deducted from the cost of Mac OS X 10.0); Apple’s standard $9.95 media cost for those who want to receive it in the mail on DVD also doesn’t bother me at all. But it should become a nobrainer to upgrade to Snow Leopard, whether you’re running Leopard or Tiger now. I have no inside information here, and I am not arguing from an “information wants to be free” point of view. But based on what we currently know about Snow Leopard, I think Apple and the Macintosh industry as a whole - stands to benefit more from making Snow Leopard free for anyone whose Mac meets the hardware requirements than from charging for it. The reasons break down into two basic categories: the benefit of a coherent Macintosh platform and the difficulty of marketing purely under-the-hood changes. One OS to Rule Them All -- This is the crux of the matter. From a business standpoint, older versions of Mac OS X do nothing but create costs for Apple and for developers, but it’s difficult to encourage users to upgrade without an incentive. With the bold move of making Snow Leopard free or very cheap, Apple would attract not just all Leopard users, but every user of Tiger (with compatible hardware) who had put off upgrading to Leopard because the new features weren’t worth $129. Apple wouldn’t earn any money from getting laggard users to upgrade, of course, but with Snow Leopard as the
sole target platform, users with Macs that were too old for Snow Leopard would have even more reason to buy a new Mac. Let’s not forget that new Mac sales are still the core of Apple’s business. Why would this be worthwhile? Developers must continually decide how far back in the evolution of Mac OS X to aim their code. If Snow Leopard became nearly ubiquitous, developers could concentrate their efforts on it, rather than spending resources on Tiger and Leopard as well. That might result in faster development times, better applications, and more total applications, all of which benefit Mac users and Apple too. As more applications begin to require Snow Leopard, the pressure to upgrade would increase on those who had stuck with much older Macs. The single coherent platform could have other benefits for Apple too. I’m going out on a speculative limb here, but if I were in charge of Snow Leopard, I’d put a lot of effort into improving Mac OS X’s security architecture. Were that to happen, Apple might want Snow Leopard to be as widespread as possible to reduce the chance of a high-profile security exploit hurting Mac OS X’s reputation for being relatively free of malware. The final reason I think it makes sense for Apple to move the Macintosh to a single coherent operating system platform is that it has already worked once. Just look at the iPhone and iPod touch, which have sold a combined 37 million units so far. With them, Apple has made major operating system upgrades either free or inexpensive (iPod touch users have had to pay small fees for upgrades). As a result, there’s a single target for developers, and a better experience for users. As far as I’m aware, almost no one has passed on the iPhone software updates. What this could mean
The alternative - charging the full $129 price for Snow Leopard - could have deleterious effects. Were Apple to charge a significant amount for Snow Leopard, a high proportion of users wouldn’t upgrade, further fragmenting the installed base, and making it harder for developers to justify new Mac products that take advantage of Apple’s latest technologies. This could also hurt the overall reputation of the Macintosh platform, much as the security problems plaguing Windows XP still count as a strike against Microsoft’s reputation for security, even though Windows Vista offers much better security.
It’s hard to know exactly how the Macintosh user base breaks down right now. The Omni Group tracks the version of Mac OS X reported by their Omni Software Update technology, and their stats show that only in February 2009 did Leopard’s installed base overtake Tiger’s. (These stats are specific to The Omni Group’s customers, of course, but other numbers, such as the 87.5 to 12.5 ratio of Intel to PowerPC processors, seem reasonable. Plus, since The Omni Group’s applications are likely to be used by early adopters and power users, the stats would seem especially relevant to this discussion.) If Leopard, with all its user-focused features, managed to capture only half the installed base in 18 months, a full-price Snow Leopard would have even more trouble. Selling ice to Eskimos
On a more practical matter, I think marketing a Mac OS X release that doesn’t offer significant user-focused features would be tricky at best. It’s not that Apple couldn’t describe the advantages of Snow Leopard - larger RAM ceilings, better multiprocessing support, QuickTime X, faster installation time, and so on - but that those improvements largely address problems most users don’t have. When was the last time your average Mac user thought, “If only Mac OS X installed faster!” or “I sure wish I could put a terabyte of
RAM in this Mac”? The entire point of Snow Leopard is to focus on improvements that will make future innovation possible, but it’s hard, especially in this economy, to sell something based entirely on deferred benefits. Worse, if done poorly, pushing the under-the-hood features of Snow Leopard could conceivably undermine any benefit-based marketing Apple might want to use to promote the next version of Mac OS X. In particular, Apple could risk being seen as nickel-and-diming users, which could in turn hurt Snow Leopard’s adoption rate. Finally, although a strong case could be made for making Snow Leopard free for Leopard users and charging Tiger users the full $129 price that they would have paid for Leopard, I’d argue that if someone running Tiger hasn’t upgraded to Leopard yet, they’re not going to, unless Apple makes the upgrade compellingly cheap. Plus, many Tiger users are probably running on PowerPC-based Macs, and the scuttlebutt is that Snow Leopard will run only on Intel-based Macs (so the only possible way to get Snow Leopard would be to purchase a new Mac anyway). While splitting the upgrade
May 2009 • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • Maclanta
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path would avoid sour grapes on the part of those who purchased the Leopard upgrade, anyone who purchased Leopard receives the benefit of using it until Snow Leopard ships, so it’s not like it was wasted money. Arguments Against Free
There are a number of reasons why Apple might still choose to charge for Snow Leopard despite the arguments I’ve laid out above. And, to be clear, I wouldn’t be upset if Apple charged just enough - somewhere between $10 and $30 - to cover the materials and distribution costs of a boxed product to the retail channel. Some sort of a charge might be necessary if Snow Leopard proves too large to download. Also, for non-Apple retail stores, a high-enough price would be necessary for them to carry the box at all. A fee may even be necessary to meet accounting rules surrounding products like the Mac that are not accounted for on a subscription basis, like the iPhone and Apple TV. Is it really a major upgrade?
We’ve also become accustomed to paying for major updates, and Apple may not want to break that habit, even if the price is somewhat lower than normal. Though of course, selling something for which people don’t see the value could also break that habit and hurt Snow Leopard’s adoption rate. Lastly, although Apple has never released retail sales numbers for Mac OS X that I’m aware of, the company undoubtedly makes tens or even hundreds of millions of dol-
lars on upgrade fees. Despite posting record profits in recent quarters, Apple may be unwilling to leave that money on the table, even if there’s a chance such a strategy might not be in the long-term interests of the platform. It’s also possible that Apple’s internal accounting requires upgrade revenue to pay off Snow Leopard’s development costs. Free the Snow Leopard
In the end, I believe that making Snow Leopard available for as little as is feasible - perhaps a free automaticupdate download and a low-cost mailed media or retail box option - would help create a single coherent Macintosh platform that Apple and independent developers could build upon without worrying about supporting the past. Some short term profit would be missed, of course, but it would offer numerous long-term advantages and put the Mac on a firmer competitive footing with the upcoming Windows 7, especially given Microsoft’s recent cost-based advertising and recent announcement of an optional virtualized Windows XP for Windows 7 users (see “Windows 7 To Offer Virtual Windows XP below). Besides the simple benefit of a Mac that works better (in theory, of course), users would also gain from software that would take advantage of Snow Leopard’s features and would be easier and faster to develop without support for legacy versions of Mac OS X. And anything that makes users and developers happy benefits Apple in the end, through the sales of ever more Macs. Article courtesy of TidBITS.
Windows 7 To Offer Virtual Windows XP By Glenn Fleishman Microsoft has revealed that Windows 7 will offer an optional, downloadable Windows XP virtual machine to provide full backwards compatibility. Microsoft’s Windows Team blog later confirmed the feature. The Windows XP Mode won’t ship with Windows 7, but will be available as a free download for Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate system owners. The XP mode will comprise a Virtual PC 7 virtual machine and a fully licensed copy of Windows XP Service Pack 3. While this might weigh in at a couple of gigabytes, that’s no longer an onerous one-time download even for many home users. Windows XP Mode will be a separate environment, but will allow running programs to appear alongside Windows 7 programs, rather than locking them inside a window - this sounds just like the Coherence mode that Parallels initially introduced for Windows applications running under Parallels Desktop in Mac OS X; VMware later matched Coherence with VMware Fusion’s Unity mode. The strategy is clear. Including XP in a virtual machine
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enables XP users to make an immediate leap to Windows 7, buying new hardware that will run XP far faster, while preserving a functionally identical operating environment (one that’s likely to be more stable and portable, too). Microsoft can break all the compatibility it wants with Windows XP (and perhaps Vista, too) in Windows 7, jettisoning old code, obsolete programming hooks, and other detritus. Last year, I wondered why Microsoft hadn’t simply coupled its Virtual PC division with XP for the release of Vista in “Microsoft Needs to Empty Windows Trash, Reboot” (2008-06-29) when I recounted how many times Apple repackaged compatibility layers and virtual machines as it cast off successive older operating systems or architectures. Apparently, I wasn’t alone in asking that question. This is a brilliant move for Microsoft, and one that’s somewhat out of keeping with a company that has made backwards compatibility one of the hallmarks of how it moves forward. The move may provide a compelling carrot to firms and individuals who are concerned about upgrading applications but might want to take advantage of some of the advances in Windows 7. Article courtesy of TidBITS.
Ask Mr. Peach We’re not sure how Mr. Peach came to be. Some people think he is an artificial intelligence algorithm that was created one night when Chris Waldrip spilled coffee on his keyboard. However, what we know for sure is that Mr. Peach is smart and will be glad to answer your computer questions.
Dear Mr. Peach: Help! My Uncle
Dear Mr. Peach: I’ve heard that Win-
Mr. Peach: First, insert Disk War-
Mr. Peach: Windows 7 will clean
Herb likes to party a lot and he turned my computer into a beer keg. What should I do?
dows 7 will be out in August, and that it will be very good. Is this all a rumor?
rior and reboot your drive to its original state. Next, run software update and type in the names of your second cousins. Then, insert glass under spigot and pour. As you sip on the beer, ask Uncle Herb to count backwards in hexadecimal.
up the mess of Vista, and Windows 8 will clean up the mess of Windows 7. In the mean time, Apple engineers will freak out when they see all the goodies planned for Windows 7, so they will give us many new surprises in Snow Leopard. The OS X operating system will always be two steps ahead of them Microsoft kids. Of course, I’m a biased peach.
Dear Mr. Peach: What is so great
about getting a static IP address?
Mr. Peach: This comes in handy if you want to make your
computer a little web server or, in some cases, if you want to access your home computer remotely. Most providers offer these for a few extra bucks per month. Dear Mr. Peach: I just got my copy of iLife ‘09 and I noticed
that iDVD isn’t even listed on the box. But it’s still included, although it hasn’t changed hardly at all. What’s going on? Mr. Peach: The Peach thinks that iDVD has had its day.
Nowadays, if someone wants to share a video they normally just upload it to YouTube or a similar service. Just think how much more convenient that is — you don’t have to buy and fiddle with a DVD. And for the recipient, it’s much more convenient to just view it from a browser.
Dear Mr. Peach: I’d like to create a website with iWeb, but the
pros say that it’s no good. What do you think?
Mr. Peach: iWeb has come a long way since it was first
released, but it is still SLOWWWW to load. But never fear, there’s a new online book out that provides tips on how to make your site snappy and happy. It’s called “Take Control of iWeb” and it’s only 10 bucks. (www.takecontrolbooks.com). This lengthy publication will teach you how to integrate YouTube and Twitter, how to bring in work from GarageBand and iMovie, and even how to set up an online store. Dear Mr. Peach: I tried to jailbreak my iPhone and I bricked it
instead. What do I do?
Oh my, doesn’t the iPhone make a great paper weight? And just think, you now instantly have an iPod Touch. As for fixing it ... try to reset, restore, clean the battery terminals, and throw anything you can into a volcano. Or, you can go into the Apple store and fess up. Just say some alien being entered your body and forced you to do the hack on your phone. Just tell them you were watching your hands move, but could not stop them. Mr. Peach:
Dear Mr. Peach: I’ve been watching that Steve Wozniak guy
dancing on TV. What’s going on with that?
Mr. Peach: The Peach is not sure, but I’m sure glad that he
can design computers better than he can dance. But, it’s still been fun watching the guy give it his best on the ballroom floor. It’s always good to see Apple engineers have a second life.
May 2009 • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • Maclanta
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Club Business
Announcements, Minutes, Bylaws, Elections ....
March Board Meeting Minutes AMUG Board Meeting March 4, 2009 Michael Henigan, President, called the meeting to order at 7:27 p.m. Board members present: Michael Henigan, President; Wendell Dillon, Secretary; Adele Ward, Treasurer; Christina Wellman, Membership and Lawrence Sharp, Telecom Director; and Todd Daniel, newsletter Director. Kelly Hilliard was a guest. Reports: Officers: 1 Treasurer: Current balance a. MMI $1,070.86 Fixed CD $5,592.47 Checking $1,251.31 Cash $50.85 Total $7,965.49 b. Fixed expenses are much better. We need 4 renewals/new members per month to stay even. 2 Secretary: The Jan and Feb minutes were posted for review. I will miss the May and July board meetings. Directors: 1 Membership Christina): 58 members, sent 423 letters and will send out 21 more. 2 Newsletter (Todd) The February Newsletter was not written. The February/ March newsletter was posted on March 1. 3 Telecom Director (Lawrence): The Filemaker is on a server at my home. It is virtually useless with the small number of members. Unfinished Business 1. Board openings. Program Director and Education Director. 2. Board selected 3 logos for AMUG to present to the members. 3. The Board minutes for January and February
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Maclanta • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • May 2009
were approved. 4. Upcoming programs. a. Feb Photoshop CS4 b. Mar Utilities (Tom Bailey) c. Apr Databases Filemaker & Bento (Wendell & Lawrence) d. May Working with photos e. Jun Multimedia (Todd) f. Jul Open Office.org (Christina) g. Aug Barbeque 20th anniversary h. Sep i. Oct j. Nov Annual meeting k. Dec Party with Windows l. Consider James Lee (Tropical Software) for future program Top 10. m. Synchronization (Todd) n. Virtualization o. Joint topics 5. Sigs: FM, OS 10 were held in February 6. David Seeman has delivered a check for new memberships in 2009. New Business 7. Mike led a discussion on his position paper on the future of AMUG. Todd will print the position paper at the membership meeting and discuss it during the Q&A. 8. The meeting adjourned at 9:16 p.m. Respectfully submitted, Wendell Dillon Secretary
Need meeting directions, more details about the club, etc??? Visit: www.amugonline.org
Computer Talk
Applications, utilities, and more...
Noteworthy Software Updates for April By Doug McLean The following is a summary of updates that came out in the last month. Have you done your updates?
Mactracker 5.0.7 from Ian Page is the latest version of the freeware utility that provides detailed technical information on Apple hardware. The update includes information for all early 2009 hardware, country of manufacture information for My Models items, Liquid Sensor details for notebooks, the capability to determine the number of recent years in the Timeline, and improved support for obsolete and vintage Apple products. Finally, a new Mactracker app for the iPhone and iPod touch with much the same information is now available from the App Store. (Free, 21.6 MB)
Firefox 3.0.9 from Mozilla is a security and stability update to the popular Web browser. The update addresses a number of security issues, including one critical vulnerability that caused crashes possibly leading to memory corruption. Also fixed is an issue wherein a corrupt local database caused Firefox to lose stored cookies, a bug preventing inline image attachments from appearing on webmail services, an issue causing sluggish uploads for large online forms, and some unnamed stability issues. (Free update, 17.2 MB)
PopChar X 4.2 from Ergonis Software is a maintenance update to the long-standing tool for finding and inserting special characters. A new feature, Reverse Font Search, enables users to locate all fonts that contain a specific character. The update also brings a handful MercuryMover 2.0.5 from Helium Mactracker puts the world of Apple hardware at your of bug fixes for issues including one that Foot Software is a minor maintenance fingertips. caused a system freeze when opening update to the keyboard shortcut utilPopChar X in combination with certain ity for moving and resizing windows. Issues that have been third party utilities, one that caused PopChar X to forget fixed include an occasional system freeze when connecting license information when syncing preferences with Moor disconnecting a second display, and a bug that could bileMe, and one that caused crashes when PopChar X was prevent windows from being centered or maximized on a used with certain keyboard layouts. (29.99 euros new, free second display below a primary display. Also, the buttons update for purchases made in the last 2 years, 1.8 MB) in the heads-up display have been refreshed with a new look and feel. ($20, free update, 1.9 MB)
General Meetings
Special Interest Group (SIG) Night
Jun. 16
Multimedia - Sounds, Images & Video
Jun. 23
OS X, FileMaker
Jul. 21
OpenOffice.org for Mac OS X
Jul. 28
OS X, FileMaker
General Meetings take place at the Portfolio Cen- We are always looking for new SIGs ter. SIGs remain at MacQuarium. General meetings - share your ideas! begin at 7 p.m. (6:30 p.m. social time). SIGs start at 7 p.m. May 2009 • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • Maclanta
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We’ve Moved .... We now meet at The Portfolio Center Directions to The Portfolio Center 125 Bennett St., Atlanta, GA 404.351.5055 www.portfoliocenter.com HEADING NORTH ON I-75/85 Take the 10th Street/14th Street exit. Turn right on 10th Street. Go two blocks and turn left on West Peachtree Street. Stay in the far right lane to merge with Peachtree Street. Travel north on Peachtree Street until you pass Piedmont Hospital on the left. Stay in the left lane. At the bottom of the hill, you will see a traffic light and Mick’s Restaurant on the left. Make a left at this light, onto Bennett Street. Portfolio Center is the last building on the right. HEADING SOUTH ON I-75 Take the Howell Mill/Northside Drive exit, then take the Northside Drive ramp. Make a left at the top of the ramp. Go approximately three blocks and turn right on Collier Road. At the intersection of Collier Road and Peachtree Road, make a left onto Peachtree. Stay in the left lane. You will pass Piedmont Hospital on the left. At the bottom of the hill, you will see a traffic light and Mick’s Restaurant on the left. Make a left at this light, onto Bennett Street. Portfolio Center is the last building on the right.
Buy AMUG Gear online at our CaféPress store
AMUG has an online store available to all our members through CaféPress.com. The store sells AMUG T-shirts, golf shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and other AMUG related items. Right now, all sales are done at cost and they’re quite affordable. You can order what you want, when you want right, on the Web. Check out the online store at: http://www.cafepress.com/amug This is a great way to publicize our club, PLUS when you wear an AMUG shirt to a meeting you receive an extra door prize ticket.
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Maclanta • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • May 2009