March 2007 issue #5
Monthly Newsletter fromEmiratesMac User Group
MJ visits the Mother Ship! - part 3
Reviews: > Belkin TuneBase > CSSEdit > Razer Pro|Click and Pro|Pad > SketchFighter > XType
Create a DashBoard Widget with DashCode
Mac versus PC debate revisited
Contents A word from the editor SmorgasDashBord Comic corner Secure envelope in Acrobat Pro Review: Razer Pro|Click and Pro|Pad MJ Visits the Mother Ship Review: SketchFighter 4000 Alpha Emiratesmac.com tips and tricks Mac911: Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems Recipe: Apple and Cheese Casserole Mac versus PC debate revisited Find your character Experience from switching back Say XAMPP five times fast if you can Securing Mac OS X for the casual user Apple seed Review: XType Review: CSSEdit 2 AntiRSI forces you to take breaks MySQL on Mac Part 1 Review: Belkin TuneBase FM for iPod Create a DashBoard Widget with DashCode What’s new in Windows Vista? How to wipe your hard drive before selling your Mac RSS101 Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music Special Offers EmiratesMac Training Courses Join EMUG
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About the cover
The picture (the “X”) on the cover is created by Michael Wagner and used with his permission. You can find out more about Michael and see more of his work at http://www.lainsnavi.net.
Shuffle is sponsored by:
For more information go to http://www.appleme.ae
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Editorial
A word from the editor Windows Vista arrives Why write about Windows Vista in the newsletter of an Apple User Group, you ask. It’s quite simple, our world is dominated by Microsoft, currently with Windows XP, and in the future by Vista. It’s something that we have to live with. We have to use Vista-running computers at some point and our Macs have to communicate with them too. Some of us will even install and run Vista on our Macs via Parallels or BootCamp. Vista means “a view or a prospect” according to Dictionary.com, which is perhaps an appropriate name. Personally I much prefer Tiger though. So Windows Vista has been launched after five years of development and it’s going to affect all of us to some degree. We celebrate it by dedicating our Comic Corner to the arrival of Windows Vista. There is also an article about what is new in Vista, as well as a debate from EmiratesMac.com about Mac versus Windows. Don’t worry though, this will not be a common thing, that so much of shuffle is taken up by Windows. But we will of course continue to
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. Shuffle is also the official publication
write about Windows as it concerns Mac users. But I’m so glad I’m not the editor for a Windows user group newsletter. All we would have to write about was security holes, updates, and driver issues. And we can soon put Vista to the back of our minds because Leopard is right around the corner. The latest rumors are saying that it will be out as early as March. I would think a few months after that is more likely. WWDC is in June, which seems like a good occasion as any to launch Leopard. We have some exciting things coming up this spring and I hope you will all take part in them and help out when requested. EmiratesMac User Group is on the way to bigger and better things, but it can only happen with your help.
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. All articles are produced by and copyright EmiratesMac User Group unless noted otherwise. Registered Apple User Groups may use some material for their own newsletters given prior approval from EmiratesMac. Contact EmiratesMac at emiratesmac@ mac.com for further details.
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Sm rgasDashB rd by Yasir
JiWire WiFi Hotspot Finder It may not be the best hotspot finder, but it’s the only widget (until now) that has the Emirates on its map. It’s pretty easy to use and you don’t need to enter every piece of information and for the map it will open your web browser to view it. The ranking goes down a bit because of the notso OS X’ish UI and the size.
A “smorgasbord” is a Swedish term for a buffet with any variety of different dishes on it. “Smorgas” means sandwich and “bord” means table, so “sandwich table”. We felt that this article series, which will present a selection of Dashboard Widgets every month, is like a “smorgasbord”, hence the title. For more information see http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smorgasbord.
RANKING: 3 Link: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/jiwirewifihotspotfinder.html CPUTach It’s simple, plain, and good looking. Basically it shows the CPU and RAM usage on your computer. It’s small but updates every second, its pretty straight forward the red meter shows you the CPU usage and the green gauge for your memory usage. like I said small plain... it deserves a good ranking. RANKING: 4.5 Link: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/cputach.html
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Yoda A totally useless widget, but if you are a Star Wars fan you might be interested into changing your own quotes into Yoda style it might come in handy. A bit of help, if you’re bored and have nothing to do it might be. RANKING: 4 Link:http://www.apple.com/ downloads/dashboard/justforfun/ yodawidget.html
Comic Corner
Comic corner Blaugh.com has generously given their permission for EMUG to reprint their comic strip in our newsletter. Go to http://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 http://www. geekculture.com/ joyoftech/ to see a new comic strip every day. Make sure you also check out all the other features on the Geekculture.com web site.
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Secure envelope in Acrobat Pro by Zaid Al-Hilali
One of my biggest worries as a university lecturer is to send end of term assessment questions I have prepared in Microsoft Excel via e-mail to my program leader for checking. It could very well find its way out to students’ hands. We had an e-mail incident a few months back where our IT staff upgraded the system and as a part of
that process they had the sent and received e-mails of all staff in one repository waiting to be sorted for a number of days. I wouldn’t panic if Excel has got some security features, then I’d sleep well, but in my experience Office documents are rarely very secure. For some years now, I have been using Adobe Acrobat Professional for my printing and publishing activities and I know it has got some excellent security features that could save me in this situation. What’s perhaps even better
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is that the security can be implemented on any file format, including Excel. I must send my file as an open Excel so that my program manager could add and remove things to it so I have used the Secure PDF Delivery found in Acrobat Pro 7. This feature is called eEnvelope, as a matter of fact the result will look like an interdepartmental brown envelope with your file securely saved inside it. Any viewer will think it is a normal PDF, but actually it is just a skin of a highly secured PDF nothing more. Let’s follow these steps: Start Acrobat Professional and click on Document > Security > Secure PDF Delivery and the eEnvelope screen will display. Start by grabbing any type of file you want to securely send, choose an envelope style from a selection list, then add either encryption policy or merely add a password to restrict PDF file opening and/or editing. Then finally send PDF through e-mail and don’t forget to inform the recipient party of the password. For
the people you would do this with frequently it may be a good idea to agree on a good password beforehand and use that for all files. The recipient will see a PDF file in their e-mail inbox. One they try to open it in Adobe Reader or Acrobat Standard or Professional, a password request will show up. After entering the password correctly a window with a picture of an envelope will reveal your work file (Excel in my case) as attached file at the bottom of the screen. Now I can sleep with no worries and I hope you can too.
I have uploaded a sample PDF to the EmiratesMac web site at http://www.emiratesmac. com/forums/showthread. php?t=2348. Make sure you have Adobe Reader installed, then download the PDF file, open it using the password “adobe”. Double-click the attached file named Computer Application_test.xls and provided you have Excel installed on your Mac, Excel will launch and open the file. You will have to be a registered user of EmiratesMac.com in order to download the file.
Review
Review: Razer Pro|Click and Pro|Pad by Magnus
Razer is a company not well known for their Mac products. In fact I believe that the Pro|Click mouse and the Pro|Pad mouse pad are the first that are available for Mac, with drivers and everything. Pro|Click The main selling point of the Pro|Click mouse is the high resolution, 1600DPI which, according to Razer, is about twice that of the sensors used in most mice. Basically this means that it can be more responsive to your movements, and more exact as well. Some people who have tried it tell me that it’s too sensitive, and it may be at first, but you can always adjust the settings. Personally I find that it’s a great benefit in drawing and layout, as well as games. On the Pro|Click there are seven buttons that you can program individually to do various things. I find the buttons on the sides hard to click with my fingers, but that’s perhaps something just concerning me. The two main buttons and the scroll wheel are very nicely designed, with
a non-slip surface. Overall the whole shape of the mouse is different and effective. It sits nicely in my hand which makes it a pleasure to operate. One small thing, but a very nice one, is that the mouse comes with a long cord, that can easily stretch from underneath a desk. Razer provides driver software for Mac OS X and it is Universal Binary. When we first installed and tried it we had some problems, but Razer Tech Support walked us through troubleshooting the problem and they fixed it. Thumbs up for that, Razer! Pro|Pad I must admit that the Pro|Pad is the first mouse pad of this sort I’ve ever tried. We all know and use those foam-type mouse pads with some nice picture on them. But the Pro|Pad is all aluminum, with a teflon coating and rubber-type feet. Teflon, if you didn’t know it, is what’s in non-stick frying pans, for example. It works very nicely together with the Pro|Click mouse and you can see how they’re
really made for each other. That said, the pad works fine with my regular Apple mouse as well. But I think since both the Pro|Click and the Pro|Pad both use Teflon coating, they work almost frictionless. The lightest touch moves the Pro|Click when it’s on the Pro|Pad, something that takes some getting used to. But it’s great for any precision work and gaming which requires fast reactions. Summing up I don’t think the Pro|Click and Pro|Pad will be of interest to everyone. They are too much of a specialized thing for that. But for anyone requiring high precision because of graphics, design or something else, it would definitely be worth it to try them out. Also for gamers I think they may be of interest. They seem like high-quality instruments that would be of interest primarily to those of us doing highprecision and high-demanding type of things with our Macs. Razer provided the Pro|Click and Pro|Pad for this review. You can find more information about Razer’s products at http://www. razerpro.com/ and you can download their driver software from http://www.razersupport.com. The Pro|Click sells for $59.99 and the Pro|Pad for $29.99.
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MJ visits the Mother Ship > Part 3 of 3
MJ Visits the Mother Ship by Mohammed
During a recent visit to California I had the great pleasure of spending some time at Apple’s headquarters and some other tech companies in Silicon Valley. I wrote about my experience and here is the third and final part in which I wrap up the story.
Two days later I took the same bus and went back, trying to follow the same tracks that Misho took to see if I could get to the Mother Ship my self. And guess what? I made it. I was in front of the Mother Ship taking pictures of everything I see. Misho was at a meeting, but my other friend was not, he called me
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the same time I was there, and commented on the note that was stuck on his screen. He asked me how did I get inside? I told him to come down and meet me, cause I was in front of the Mother Ship. So he came down and we chatted, and took pictures with him, but then he had to leave cause of some meeting he had to
attend. The same time my friend went back to work, Misho called and told me he just finished from the meeting he had, and that he has time to see me. So we met up at the company store, which was located in building one. Misho and I did a lot of shopping at the company store. I spent over $300
MJ visits the Mother Ship Thank you Steve for your achievements in life, for being the greatest Electrical Engineer on the face of this planet.
in Apple gear alone. I got stuff like mugs, books, t-shirts, sweaters, baby cloths, ID holders, mouse pads, and so much more. Misho, cool as he is, just flashed his ID badge to the sales person and I was given discounts. You should have seen the smile on my face that day. I must have looked like a baby boy in Toys-R-us for the very first time. After buying all these fabulous toys we went back into his office, where he gave me loads of Apple stickers, which are hard to get, and he introduced me to the rest of his group that worked with him. They were all very nice iMen. Very welcoming people and all of them had sense of humor. Then he took me to see another friend, but unfortunately he was not in his office. He must be somewhere doing great job on something new. But the main reason why he wanted me to meet the guy, is because this iMan had Steve Wozniak’s metal business card. Steve Wozniak better known as iWoz is the father of Apple. Without him and Steve Jobs all this would of never been possible. iWoz is the creator of the personal computer, and he is a man that the whole world is indebted to. With out him, Computers would never be the way they are right now.
Anyway, back to my story. When Misho took me to his friend’s office, Misho showed me the iWoz business card and gave me the opportunity to take a picture of it. This card could be found on eBay selling for not less than $600 a piece. I was honored to hold it, see it and even take a picture of that card. I thank you again Misho for all that you have done for me. Misho then drove me back to the train station where I departed for the last time. I don’t know when will I ever see this great friend again, but I am hoping soon. It was painful being separated from the Mother Ship after two amazing day in it. But the only thing that kept me going after that was the
amazing product I purchased from the Apple Store in San Francisco. I have spent almost $4,000 on Apple products alone during that trip. The coolest product and most expensive one that I spent on was the new 17” Core 2 Duo Macbook Pro. This is the sexiest, most powerful Apple notebook ever made. And I am writing you this article using this one heck of a machine. This is the story of my abduction but this is not the end. This is only the beginning of a journey, a start of a new life for me. A life of being a dedicated Appleholic for the rest of my life. I hope to bring you more stories of my Apple-travels in the future. This was not the last, I can assure you. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed visiting Apple.
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Review
Review: SketchFighter 4000 Alpha by Crystal
It’s hard these days to find a game that is fast-paced, that is full of action and excitement, but at the same time does not contain inappropriate things like blood, violence, etc. But I think Ambrosia has been pretty successful in striking the right balance with SketchFighter 4000 Alpha. SketchFighter also comes with an editor with which you can make your own levels and share them with friends. The bottom line SketchFighter is not the most graphically advanced game, but the gameplay is fun and addictive, and suits many ages. The added bonus of network play and an editor makes this game even more attractive. This is fun for the whole family, and you can even play with or against one another.
Doodles SketchFigher plays out on a sheet of graph paper, or at least that’s what it looks like. Your space ship and everything else in the game looks like something that you may have doodled yourself in a boring class, when you were daydreaming of playing outside or something. The graphics are simple but still effective and the sound-effects are nice. You control a small space ship with the keyboard and steer it around in a world full of bugs, flying things, and evil bosses, all out to get you. You have to shoot all these things so you can continue your journey. The controls are not
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that tricky, but because of the hand-eye coordination and motor skills necessary I wouldn’t recommend this to smaller children. My guess would be that around 8-10 years old would probably be a good starting point. Play each other A very cool feature, and one that rarely appears in games of this price level is that you can play each other on the same Mac or using different Macs over the internet. You can even play together against the bad guys in the gam, working together, or play against each other. This is a wonderful feature for parents and their children.
SketchFighter is free to try and $19 to purchase. You can find more information and download the demo from http:// www.ambrosiasw.com/games/ sketchfighter/.
Tips and tricks
> www.emiratesmac.com
Emiratesmac.com tips and tricks by Magnus
We continue our series of tips and tricks for how to do certain things at Emiratesmac.com. The intent is to tell our users about some of the perhaps less well known features and functions on the site in order to make their experience with the site a bit better.
Membership payments Starting this year, membership in EmiratesMac Apple User Group (EMUG) is 150Dhs per year. There is also a 250Dhs level and for the extra payment you get an emiratesmac.net and emiratesmac.org email account, as well as web space when that is finalized. You can pay at meetings or events or you can pay online. We’ve signed up with 2Checkout.
com for credit card processing and it’s integrated with the software we use on to run EmiratesMac.com. So to pay online, log in with your account to the site. If you don’t have an account (which is free) register for one first. Then go to the “User CP”, click on “Paid Subscriptions”, choose the membership level you want, click on “Order” and then “Order through 2Checkout”. The processing after that is done by 2Checkout.
articles from the issue that we’ve also put on the site. Subscribe to RSSfeeds In the RSS101 article in this issue of shuffle you can learn more about RSS. EmiratesMac.com offers a number of RSS-feeds and they are all conveniently available on the home page on the left hand side of the page. Currently we offer four RSS-feeds, one for the blog, one for EMUG news and announcements, one for AppleIDX, and one for the gallery. Click on one of the links and your default RSS-reader should subscribe you to that RSS-feed.
Newsletter page We recently added a page for this newsletter, where every issue is available for download. For each issue, you can see a thumbnail view of the cover. There is a link to download the PDF file, a link to the forum thread about that particular issue, and a link to the
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Mac 911
Mac911: Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems by Christopher Breen
Smarter Mail filters I get a lot of e-mail from marketers and PR firms. Because these messages come from both new senders as well as usual suspects, there’s no way to build an Apple Mail rule that’s based on senders that will automatically route the messages to a separate PR mailbox. Any suggestions for building a reliable filter?--Via the Internet I once handled this problem with a Mail rule that directed messages from known flacks to a special Marketing mailbox. Whenever I received a promotional e-mail from a new source, I added the portion of the address after the symbol (so the rule would catch all e-mail sent from that PR firm) to the rule. But this rule became unwieldy because it had way too many conditions. What I needed was a way to define a class of senders and then use that definition in my rule. And the best way to define a group of senders is to create a group in Address Book. Unfortunately, adding the name of a Mail message’s sender to an Address Book group is a pain. It requires opening the message, clicking on the name in the To field, adding the name to Address Book, opening Address Book, and then dragging the contact into the
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group. Entourage (which Check out Mesa Dynamics’ $10 Amis now my main e-mail nesty Singles, which converts widgets client) makes the whole into stand-alone apps. You just locate process much easier. First, the widget you want to convert (in the I created a new Entourage /Library/Widgets or your user folder/ Address Book category, Library/Widgets folder) and drag it Marketing Flack, and a into Amnesty Singles’ window. Then rule that tells Entourage click on the Build button and select a to move any messages from individulocation for your new widget-applicaals in the Marketing Flack category to tion, and Amnesty Singles will turn my Marketing Flack mailbox. When the widget into an application you can a previously unknown marketer flings run like any other, without invoka press release my way, I select the ing Dashboard. (Senior Editor Dan message and press Command-= (equal Frakes’s take on Amnesty Singles.) sign) to add that individual to my En- Other utilities--I’m thinking of Marcel tourage Address Book. Bresink’s free I then go to the CatTinkerTool “Is there any way to run a egories pop- up menu or Titanium widget outside of Dashand add that contact Software’s board?” to the Marketing Flack just-as-free category. When I close OnyX--can Entourage’s Address Book window, move widgets from Dashboard, but that person joins the ranks of market- they don’t truly put widgets on the ers, and any future correspondence desktop; the widgets continue to float from him or her will be automatiabove the desktop in a widget-y layer. cally shunted to the Marketing Flack If that’s fine by you, check them out, mailbox. too. The stand-alone widget Is there any way to run a widget outside of Dashboard? I have a widget that I use all the time, and I’d really rather not have to keep hitting F12 to launch Dashboard every time I need it.--R. Gordon Hershey
Terminating test drive My Power Mac G5 was running slow, so I decided to run a maintenance utility that does things like throw out cache and log files. A couple of days after doing this, I tried to open a Microsoft Excel document by double-clicking on it. When I did, the test-drive version of
Mac 911 Excel launched rather than the real one. What happened, and how can I make things go back to the way they were?--Damon Tee It’s likely the utility reset OS X’s LaunchServices database, which keeps track of your Open With preferences. When you reset it, your preferences are gone, and OS X then has to guess about what should open your documents. In this case, it guessed wrong. To set it straight, first go to /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/ Additional Tools/Remove Office, and run the Remove Office application. You should see at least two options--Remove Microsoft Office 2004 (Including Test Drive) and Remove Microsoft Office 2004. (You may see even more if you have other Office installations.) Select Remove Microsoft Office 2004 (Including Test Drive)--which will, confusingly enough, remove just the Test Drive version. Once you’ve done that, empty the Trash. Now select that Excel document and press CommandI. From the Open With pop-up menu, choose Microsoft Excel. Click on Change All, and all Excel documents will be again associated with the full version of Excel. Follow the same procedure if Word and PowerPoint documents are just as clueless about the application that should open them. AppleWorks and the Intel Mac I have an iBook filled with spreadsheets and databases I created in AppleWorks. I’d like to upgrade from my iBook to a MacBook Pro. But according to someone at a local Apple Store, AppleWorks is incompatible with the MacBook Pro. What
software can I use?--Ernest Arvanitis
Mariner Software’s Calc ($50), ThinkFree’s Office (; $50), or the opensource NeoOffice (free). Databases are tougher, as there isn’t a clean way First, let’s clear up a little confusion. to import an AppleWorks database AppleWorks works perfectly well on directly into FileMaker Pro. Here’s the Intel Macs--including the MacBook not-so-clean-way: Open the ApplePro. While no Universal version Works database and choose Organize: exists (or is likely to), AppleWorks Show All Records. Choose a layout 6.2.9 runs fine on Rosetta, Apple’s that displays every field, select all, PowerPC emulator. AppleWorks isn’t bundled with Intel Macs, but you can and copy the text to the Clipboard. In AppleWorks or Excel, open a new just copy the AppleWorks 6 folder spreadsheet document. Paste the text from your iBook to the MacBook into the spreadsheet. Pro, and you’ll In all likelihood, your be in busifield headings--Address ness. All that “Apple abandoned Applesaid, Apple Works long ago. It’s high time and Phone Number, for example--won’t be abandoned for anyone who still depends there. So be sure to AppleWorks on AppleWorks to go out and leave a couple of rows long ago. It’s finally find a replacement for free at the top of the high time for it.” spreadsheet, where anyone who you can add your still depends headings later. Save the on AppleWorks spreadsheet as ASCII text; then open to go out and finally find a replacethat file in FileMaker Pro. The data ment for it. Spreadsheets aren’t a should appear in a spreadsheet layout, problem, as AppleWorks can save its
spreadsheets in a format compatible with Microsoft Excel. You can then work with these documents in Excel,
so you’ll have to re-create the original database’s layout. Optionally, if you’re only looking for a way to search for
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Mac 911 existing data and plan to start fresh in FileMaker, feel free to leave the data in a spreadsheet, which you can easily search. Tip of the month Smarter Smart Playlists: I was trying to create an iTunes smart playlist that would contain all of the house, techno, and dance tracks in my iTunes library that had ratings of three stars or higher. But iTunes doesn’t support the Boolean operators AND and OR in defining a playlist. Then it dawned on me that I could solve the problem by using one playlist as the basis for another. I first created a smart playlist called Dance Music that contained all tracks with the House, Techno, or Dance genre tag, using the conditions Match Any, Genre Contains House, Genre Contains Techno, and Genre Contains Dance. I then created a second new smart playlist with the conditions Playlist Is Dance Music and My Rating Is Greater Than 2 Stars. With those two playlists, I got the results I was after.--Drew Long
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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Recipe: Apple and Cheese Casserole by Crystal This recipe is an excellent side dish to any meal as you have the tart apples, with a sugary crunch, and to finish it off you have this lovely, cheesy topping. The Apple and Cheese Casserole, is a simple dish that I think will be lovely with a special occasion turkey dinner, or your kids favorite chicken dish. You can use any kind of apples you like, but I used Granny Smith apples, and I used sharp cheddar but again you can use any kind of cheese you like, too. So I hope you enjoy this really nice simple side dish to your wonderful meal.
Ingredients
1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup butter Instructions
Mix flour, sugar and salt in small blow. Cut in butter until crumbly. Toss apples with water and lemon juice in bowl. Spoon into greased 8-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with flour mixture. Bake at 170 degrees for 35 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 5 minutes longer. Yield: 8 servings.
7 apples, peeled, sliced 6 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese 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.
Mac versus PC debate revisited by Magnus
Recently an EmiratesMac user with the username Mashakos posted a controversial question on the site (http://www.emiratesmac.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2279) with the title “Macs suck!”. He said “I’m new here and want to see what this Mac phenomenon is all about” and continued by saying “a lot of casual computer users really like the Mac, but it seems to be a bit limited for the professional if you’re not working at a publisher or graphic design company”. Pawan kicked off the replies by saying: “You know I was a PC person and I just recently switched to a Mac. All I can say is that it’s just much more easier to get things done on a Mac out of the box. Don’t get me wrong, I recently build a Quad Core PC, and just installing Windows, getting the drivers, optimizing it to my likes, resolving conflicts, etc. just takes so much time. Almost every Windows PC I build, I have to do an initial install, find the right drivers, test them out, and then put all the correct stuff into one folder, reformat the PC and load them to have it fully optimized. Its such a waste of time.” The discussion had a big element of security throughout. EmiratesMac had posted: “You won’t have as much problems with security with Windows if you know what you’re doing. But if you don’t want to be a security expert,
and don’t want to have to worry about all that stuff, get a Mac.” To which Mashakos replied: “I can flip that on it’s side and say: What if the Mac actually becomes popular and hackers start making viruses for it? What then, Windows 98 flashbacks?”
This was countered by EmiratesMac who claimed that Mashakos argument was somewhat dubious: “I’m not sure I completely buy it [the “security through obscurity” idea]. I’m sure that if there were more Mac users it would be targeted more. But I also think that it if was as easy to hack as Windows we would have seem some viruses, worms, trojan, spyware by now. Mac OS X has been out for I think five years now and still nothing.” Dandantheitman tackled this issue with evident authority: “There are however many people who are skeptical of Apple’s [Mac] OS X security, and it is more of a culture clash than
anything else. On my travels I have heard many statements about Apple security and it usually sounds like this: “How can a company associated with hippies, anti war movement, happiness, and a history of poor company/ client relations be good at security?” [Apple has] a great marketing team, but historically not big talkers. Only time will tell whether they are right. One security bugbear I do have with Apple is that its firewall is not enabled by default nor is its file system encrypted by default.. check out my next article in the shuffle on [Mac] OS X security for the casual user... Your entire argue behind this whole thread is as follows: “A lot of casual computer users really like the Mac, but it seems to be a bit limited for the professional if you’re not working at a publisher or graphic design company.” IMHO you are wrong.” Superglue interjected, breaking up the discussion with a brief but simple statement: “Macs are more fashionable & sexy.” Any Mac-lover can certainly agree with that, I think. Mashakos made the argument that there is so much more software available for Windows, to which EmiratesMac countered: “How much does that really matter? My experience is that whatever is available for Mac is generally of higher quality than what’s available for Windows. Even shareware for
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for [Apple] in 1984 introducing the Mac to the world you might not have your PC...” and he continued by saying that “at the end of the day, your Windows is not impressive” and Mashakos countered: “Here’s what’s impressive: 3D Max with raytracing, physics cloth and liquid simulation, Appleholic entered the discussion with integrated with Poser 6 and Flash; a lot of passion: “What’s this I see here Playing arcade games from the 70’s to - a war on our turf? I was a PC guy for the 90’s. Playing SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, PSX games perfectly. Playing 18 years, and after moving to Mac, I PS2 games like Resident Evil 4 and can safely and confidently say I have Tekken 4. All on one machine at the touch of a mouse button; Checking out a site for a utility and not having to worry if your system is supported or not; Not having to worry about whether DivX or AVI2 is supported or not; Building a machine that can be any shape or size; Doing what you like, whether you’re a programmer, designer, audio engineer, or network administrator; Buying a graphics card that can simulate water and smoke dynamics.” relieved my self from the pain, agony and frustration that Microsoft brings. It’s safe to say that the rest of the users I don’t care if PC guys don’t like Mac. taking part in the discussion were not exactly impressed by the same things It’s not my loss, it’s theirs. And we as Mashakos, and the debated raged Mac [lovers] don’t really care if PC on for a while longer. But we finish guys are being convinced that we are better because we love our community off this article with what Mashakos concluded with: “I realized the and don’t want PC guys to come in potential of the Mac’s x86 hardware and ruin it for us.” and virtualization capabilities for IT professionals. Other than that, I Zaid entered the discussion a bit late already knew it was a solid platform but came out swinging hard in favor for designers and normal users alike. of Mac:”There you go again, how is If I ever find the need to get a laptop, that PC is better on 3D design, not it’s definitely going to be from Apple just because you use it on PC then I’m serious!” it is better on PC. If you are in the design industry, I would expect you to visit other design studios and see what It was a long discussion and one of the they are using, I have witnessed a full more active threads we’ve had on the Maya training courses where they did site lately. It was also interesting, with some very good arguments made by projects on iMac G4s, the instructor was and still a Maya Certified Instruc- both sides. I’m sure we’ll come back to this question again in the future. tor...” Mac is often of an outstandingly high quality. And I’d rather have a fewer number of good apps than a gazillion number of so-so apps. I’m not saying there aren’t good apps for Windows, there are, but I think for the most part the Mac ones are better.”
Appleholic took up for Apple in terms of innovations: “Dude, if it wasn’t
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The text in this article comes from what the users themselves wrote on the site. Their comments have been edited to length and spelling but every effort has been made to keep their original intent intact.
> Hint
Find your character by Magnus
Sometimes you need to find a particular character and don’t know how to type it with the keyboard. Apple has provided a convenient help in Mac OS X. It’s called the Character Palette and it shows you all the scripts you have installed and every character within each script. You can show it from witin the the Font Book application in the Applications folder. If you have enabled the Input Menu (the International pane in Systems Preferences) you can just select the Character Palette from there. If you have to pick characters all the time, consider PopCharX (http://www.macility. com/products/popcharx/).
Review
Experience from switching back by Aditya A couple of months back, I wrote about my experiences as a switcher (see shuffle November 2006). Due to reasons, completely involuntary I might add, I had to use Windows again for a month. So how does it feel to switch back? Here are my main conclusions. * You start pointing your mouse to the corners of the screen to activate Expose, only to see nothing happens. * You search the internet for a Widget for the dictionary, then realize that you are using Windows XP and not Mac OS X 10.4. * You are so used to the old interface that you instinctively move the mouse pointer to the top left corner to close the windows. * You start complaining about reverse compatibility issues such as why AppZapper and Adium are not available for Windows. * You download a considerable number of files to make the computer at the very least usable. They include among many others: Firefox, Mac OS themes, Adobe Acrobat Reader, iTunes, some nice wallpapers, some not so nice Anti-Virus applications and what not. * Since Stickies are not available on your desktop or Dashboard, you buy some from a nearby shop and install it on your cupboard.
* You keep pressing F1 for help. Then try to search for fifteen minutes for what you want. If there were a “I am feeling lucky” button on it, then I swear I would never use it. Unless of course, Apple built it for them. You find a solution to what you were looking for by going to some internet forum. * The GUI seems so hideous, that you wonder if the leaves outside have turned black and the Zebra has stripes of purple and orange. * You count the number of days before you will get your Mac back working. (Err.. that could transform to hours and minutes also) * You tell yourself to download Ubuntu and install it in place of Windows. Final thoughts All said and done, it is not that one cannot live without Mac OS X or that you will die using Windows. Know about the cut on your lips which does not make you cry, yet makes you desperately wish that it were not present because it stings a bit? Like that incessant itching you can’t reach or stop? Yup, I think you get my point.
Say XAMPP five times fast if you can by Magnus Have you ever wanted to try out some web application programming? Perhaps writing your own blog engine, or just publish your company’s employee list to a web page? There are obviously many options for you and your Mac comes with some of them built in. Mac OS X comes ready to go with Apache, PHP, Perl, FTP server, and more. If you want to try these things, and more, but you want something that’s more up to date than the versions that come with Mac OS X and that’s easy to install, try XAMPP. XAMPP is free and it’s an all-in-one-package for development of dynamic, databasedriven web applications using open source technologies. The Mac OS X version of XAMPP contains Apache, MySQL, PHP & PEAR, SQLite, Perl, ProFTPD, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, GD, Freetype2, libjpeg, libpng, zlib, Ming, Webalizer, mod_perl, eAccelerator, and phpSQLiteAdmin. XAMPP is about 50Mb to download, it’s easy to install, and it comes with a control panel application from which you can control the individual components. For example you can start and stop the MySQL database in XAMPP by one click on a button. XAMPP offers you a simple way to try out some of the more current versions of these applications without going through too much of individual downloads and work with the command line. If you can figure out how to say XAMPP five times fast, you can figure out how to develop dynamic web applications.
You can download XAMPP for free from http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-macosx. html. A similar package is MAMP which you can get from http:// www.mamp.info/en/home/.
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Securing Mac OS X
Securing Mac OS X for the casual user
apple
core
by Dandantheitman
Bill Gates said to Steve Levy in a Newsweek interview in February 2007, shortly after the debut of Microsoft Windows Vista, that “nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.” (Bill Gates, 02/2007). This was Gates’ response when asked about the recent comments made that many of the new Vista features are already in the Apple Mac operating system. Is there any truth to Gates’ statement? Is the Apple platform as weak on security as Gates claims it to be, and if so, are you as an average every day user at risk ? Recent security data Let us quickly skim over some recent security data. The Systems Audit, Network and Security (SANS) Institute publish a document at the end of each year listing the Top 20 Internet Security Attack Targets. On this list Microsoft lays claim to
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25% of the attack targets (Internet Explorer, Windows libraries, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Services, Windows Services, and Windows configuration weaknesses). Apple’s Mac lays claim to 5% (This 5% is
inclusive of operating system and driver vulnerabilities and third party software) of the Top 20 list. SANS reports 2 zero day exploits on the Apple Mac OS X platform for 2006 and lists 21 separate vulnerabilities. In contrast, SANS reported in excess of 10 zero day exploits for the Microsoft office package alone (Sans 12/06). Vista brings some changes However lets not dwell on the past.
Microsoft has a new platform and a new security formula. With regards to the new Vista platform, hackers are currently selling newly found zero day exploits at fifty thousand dollars per exploit reports Trend Micro’s Chief Technology Officer(Newsweek 02/07). Although Gates’ statement has been debunked this does not mean that we, as Mac users, can sit back and relax, safe and secure in the belief that our Apple Macs are safe and secure by default. There are many security measures that we as users can do to ensure that our operating system is more resistant to the outside world. Updates and passwords The quickest way to protect against vulnerabilities is to stay current with Apple’s security updates. This is easily achieved by turning on the Apple Software Update checker. This will check with Apple’s systems automatically and prompt you to download and install security updates. It can even download important updates in the background and only prompt you when they are ready to be installed. Passwords are the primary line of defense in preventing other users from logging into your Mac. A
Securing Mac OS X
good rule of thumb is to never use words that can be found in a dictionary. Replace letters with numbers, for example, like replacing the letter e with the number 3. Automatic login is also something you should remove if you currently have it configured. Should someone run off with your Mac then there is nothing to prevent the thief from starting your machine up and accessing all of your data. The Automatic Login can be configured in the System Preferences Accounts Panel. Password protecting sleep and screen saver is also another very wise decision. This prevents people from accessing your system whilst you are out to lunch or in a meeting. If you have trouble thinking of a password then Mac OS X provides you with Password Assistant, that can at your request automatically generate possible passwords for you to use and rank them according to how safe they are. This can also be found in the Accounts Panel of System Preferences.
Put up the firewall The next step is turn off unnecessary services and configure the personal firewall. Services provide support for activities such as printing, printer sharing or FTP access. The Services tab can be found in the Sharing Panel located in System Preferences. Apple Inc. turns off all of the services listed here by default, this is most probably a security method that Apple inherited from its FreeBSD ancestry. BSD and Linux in general by default turn every service off and let the user enable and disable services as and when needed. If you as a user have no idea what the service means, then if you click on the service and look to the right you will see an on and off button and beneath it a description of that that service does. As a general rule I turn off all of these services on my Macbook Pro when I am in a public areas and hot spots. Especially personal file sharing! The firewall is one of my security bugbears when it comes to Apple Inc’s security. Microsoft by default (at least from Windows XP SP2
onwards) automatically enables its firewall. Apple Inc. however does not. The Firewall tab is located right next to the Services tab in the Sharing panel. The difference between the firewall and services (in layman’s terms) is that services merely enables/disables certain network features the firewall prevents access to your Mac. To turn on your firewall go ahead and click the start button located on the left hand side of the firewall tab. You will notice on the screen below it are a list of services, and all of the services that you have turned on in the services tab are the ones that firewall is allowing through it and also actively monitoring. On the same firewall tab is an advanced button located at the bottom right of your screen. Go ahead and click that, in addition to blocking unwanted services there are two more options that I would you to look at. The first option is UDP Traffic. I say block it! There is no real layman’s way, or none that I can think of, to explain UDP traffic. As a casual Mac user all you really need to know is that by blocking UDP traffic your Mac is slightly more secure. (If you are interested
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Securing Mac OS X in understanding UDP traffic or anything else that I have mentioned them go ahead and post a security request in the Security and Privacy section of the Emirates Mac User group forum and I shall be happy to respond.) The second option is Enable Stealth Mode. When you enable stealth mode, all uninvited data traffic receives no response from your computer. Stealth mode virtually hides your computer behind your firewall, and other computers sending traffic to your computer receive no information about your computer. File Vault Data encryption is your friend. Now as a layman you might think that data encryption is something only needed in enterprise companies and governments, but I assure you that you are wrong. File Vault will allow you to encrypt all of the data in your home directory. To enable the File Vault you need to launch System Preferences, click the Security icon and check the text in the button next to the Master Password section. (Aside: If you have never set the Master Password then you should set one, regardless of whether you intend to use File Vault or not. The master password allows a user to change system passwords. ) On the Security icon you need to turn on the File Vault button – you will then be prompted for the master password. After this has been entered, Mac OS X logs you out. When you log back in the system will encrypt your home directory. The more data you have the longer this will take. A word of warning: after installing File Vault, it will automatically use your default login user name and password to protect your data. If you forget your user name password and your master password then you will be
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locked out of your data then you will be locked out of your data. Wrapping up I hope you guys have enjoyed reading and maybe implementing some of the security measures I have spoken about as much I have enjoyed writing about them, and trust me I can write for hours and hours on security. The article may not help you sleep better at night knowing that your system is fully protected but it might just give you a bit more confidence and peace of mind that your system is that bit more secure than when you started. If you would like more information or would like to go into a more in depth discussion regarding Apple security, from a server or a more advanced level then as I stated above please feel free to post any security questions to the Security and Privacy sub-section of the EmiratesMac web forums. Also look out for more security related articles in future shuffles.
Want to write for shuffle?
I
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 just ordinary 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 EmiratesMac.com.
Apple seed by Dandantheitman
The Catch-22 of all passwords is the fact that you use the same password for everything, yet it is a pain to remember all 16 of your various user names and passwords for different sites and Internet accounts. Apple Inc. has provided us, as end users, with a way of managing all of our usernames and passwords. It is called Key Chain Access. Key Chain Access is located in the Applications > Utilities folder. If you work in a network environment with a lot of Macs or you are security conscious you can store your key chain file on a USB device and carry that around with you. This way when you are in front of a foreign Mac and need your passwords for any particular reason you need only insert your USB stick, run the Key Chain Access app, push the plus button, navigate to your USB stick and select your key chain file. This is also a great security measure for when you take your Apple Mac in for repair. None of the repair staff, should they get nosy, have the ability to “borrow” your login info to access certain sites. Unfortunately the key chain will only work with key chain aware apps such as Safari, Mail and iChat. What you can do however is add a secure note to your keychain and list all of your usernames and passwords there.
Review
Review: XType by Zaid Al Hilali
during training sessions that tie a bond between the trainee and instructor with some jokes also. Most of the words in early exercises displays real words, in advanced exercises there are plenty of thoughtful sentences to type specially in Arabic. I must say that the software writer has some patients when he worked on the Help application for XType. Users will find great deal of assistance in the help window with plenty of graphics to make the learning curve visibly easy. XType is a very specialized application but I am unaware of any similar software for Mac. If you need to learn correct typing skills look no further than XType.
Some time ago my nine year old daughter asked me to teach her the proper way of typing fast on a computer keyboard. I showed her how to position her fingers on the keyboard and showed her some exercises. I didn’t have enough time to sit and teach all day; I needed that old typing instructor application from WinsoftFrance that I used some 20 years ago on Macintosh Classic.
We don’t have any typing instructor for Macintosh any more I thought, until my friend Salman gifted me this typing instructor for Mac OS X called XType. I can’t express how much XType can turn typing exercise into a session of fun.
For further information go to http://www.macwinsoft. com/xtype/. You can catch the developer of XType on EmiratesMac.com under the username “rsfsalman”.
XType interface is Arabic by default. It can be switched to English but instructions stays in Arabic as XType is an application for Arabic Macintosh users. Any new user should start from Lesson 1 and must pass each lesson all the way to Lesson 15 in order to get a certificate at the end. The fun about it is that plenty of personalized messages appears
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Review
Review: CSSEdit 2 by Magnus CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a way to determine how web pages look and feel, which is used by many web sites on the internet. CSS is fundamentally text files, much like HTML, so a web developer can write CSS-code themselves, or use a visual editor like CSSEdit. Highly specialized CSSEdit is a very specialized program. It does one thing (create and edit CSS) but it does better than you could even imagine. I have used CSSEdit for some time at work, so I saw a good opportunity to do a quick review for shuffle. For other developers out there I should mention that I fall into the camp of hand coders. I rarely use environments like DreamWeaver and prefer to write my code instead. A recent exception to that has been CSSEdit which has made my work with CSS so much easier and better. Interface It’s also a very Mac-ish program, and I think you know what I mean. It’s one of those applications that just feels Mac, and that’s about as high praise as a piece of software can get in my book. Concerning the interface it’s really divide into four parts. In the main window, there is the left part which shows
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a list of the styles in the currently open file. The center part shows the source for the styles. This is also where you can edit the code yourself. And over on the right is the property editor, which is the where you can just check boxes, make selection in drop-down menus, and type values into text fields to create and edit your CSS. These three parts are always synchronized so a change to one is immediately reflected in the other two. The fourth part of the CSSEdit interface is the type of floating and semi-transparent
palettes that has become so popular lately. Live Preview The Live Preview window in CSSEdit is really useful in “whydidn’t-I-think-of-that-first” sort of
Review way. For example, you can drop a the file’s different versions. With web page file on the Live Preview CSSEdit that becomes a thing of window, the past because you and can save “snapshots” “If you are doing any kind of CSSEdit web design and development, of your files and will see later go back to but especially if it involves the CSS any of the “snapCSS in any way, shape, or parts of shots”. I do wish form, you need CSSEdit.” it, let you that CSSEdit could edit them, automatically save a and any milestone at every save, change you make will be reflected or every tenth save, or something in the preview. It saves you a lot like that. of clicks since you don’t have to save the file, switch to a browser, Validation reload, etc. CSSEdit can also help you get CSS files from other web For web developers writing code sites with the Extract from site that validates against current stanfunction. Just point CSSEdit to dards is important. Web pages that a site and it will download all the validate are more likely to display CSS and display it in its main correctly in different browsers and window. One of the best ways to the validation process often catches learn CSS, I think, is to look at any typos and other mistakes that what others have done, try to unmay have been made. Validation derstand it so you can later apply in CSSEdit is a one-click effort. It that knowledge to what you are doesn’t get much easier than that. doing. CSSEdit is a great tool in that respect. Wrapping up This is a simple one to wrap up. If you are doing any kind of web design and development, but especially if it involves CSS in any way, shape, or form, you need CSSEdit. Many other applications has CSS support and CSS editing functionality, but nothing even comes close to CSSEdit. This is a no-brainer, folks, just get it.
Milestone Manager One really nice addition to CSSEdit is the Milestone Manager. Have you ever by accident saved over a file only to much later find out that you made a mistake. But now you can’t go back because you didn’t save
A copy of CSSEdit was provided by Jan at MacRabbit for this review. You can get more information about CSSEdit and download a trial copy at http:// macrabbit.com/cssedit/. You can purchase CSSEdit for $29.95. If you own a copy of an earlier version of CSSEdit, you can upgrade for $14.95.
AntiRSI forces you to take breaks by Magnus
RSI, or Repetitive Strain Injury, is something that is a danger to all of us spending so much time working with computers. RSI can set in when you work with the same motions for a long time, like typing on a keyboard, or using a mouse. One way of minimizing the risk of having RSI problems is to take regular breaks. AntiRSI is a simple little free application that does just that. All it does is that it shows a timer in your Dock, and it counts how long you have worked. It then forces you to take a 13 second tiny break every 4 minutes and a longer 8 minute break every 50 minutes. It does this by displaying a notice on the screen and while the notice is up you cannot use the keyboard or the mouse. You can download AntiRSI from http://tech.inhelsinki. nl/antirsi/ and read more about RSI at http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury.
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MySQL on Mac Part 1 by Magnus
In the November 2006 issue of shuffle we published an article about how to install MySQL in Mac OS X. MySQL is a free, open source, database server product that you can install on pretty much any operating system including Mac OS X. MySQL may be free but it’s also highly reliable and scalable and [Code example 1]
part we will log in to MySQL, and see what you can do with databases. I assume you have MySQL installed on your Mac and that it’s working.
[Code example 3] mysql> use test; Database changed mysql>
iMac:~ emiratesmac$ mysql -u root -p Enter password: Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 8 to server version: 5.0.27-max Type ‘help;’ or ‘\h’ for help. Type ‘\c’ to clear the buffer. mysql>
it’s use by many of the busiest web sites on the internet, and many corporate systems as well. This article series In this series of articles we will look at how to do some of the basic things with MySQL, like create tables, enter information, and get information back out of the database. We will do all of this with the command line so get ready to do some typing. In this the first
[Code example 2]
mysql> show databases; +--------------------+ | Database | +--------------------+ | information_schema | | mysql | | test | +--------------------+ 3 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql>
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the database would need to know name, email address, phone number, etc. One of those fields is a primary key, the thing that makes one record
Apple has an interesting article about MySQL on Mac OS X at http://developer.apple.com/ business/macmarket/mysql. html. There’s also a good article about MySQL on Mac OS X at http://www.macdevcenter.com/ pub/a/mac/2005/12/13/mysql. html.
Quick introduction to databases unique from all other records. Each We’re going to work with a relaEMUG member has a unique tional database. If you have no membership number, as an examexperience with building databases ple. Since we’re working with rethere will be much here that is new. lational databases, each record can You will at least need to know and be related to another record in a underdifferent table. stand what For example, tables, [Code example 4] a student in mysql> create database emiratesmac; fields, rea college is Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec) cords, and mysql> related to all keys are. A the different database is courses he or a collecshe is taking. tion of tables. Each table holds In a similar way, each player in a information about something in football team is related to the team, particular, like a student, a vehicle, and the team is related to at least or an EMUG member. Every time one coach. you store some information in a table, you create a record. So to Login add an EMUG member to a table, If you haven’t already, open a you would create a record. Each Terminal window (Applications>U record has a number of fields in tilities>Terminal). First you have to it that describe that record. For log in to MySQL. You do this with example, for one EMUG member
Review by typing “mysql -u yourusername [Code example 5] -p” at the prompt. mysql> create database emiratesmac; This means you ERROR 1007 (HY000): Can’t create database ‘emiratesmac’; database exists want to connect to mysql> the MySQL server using username “yourusername” and your password. If a database with that name Replace “yourusername” with your already existed you would get an actual MySQL username of course error message. See code example 5. (which you would probably have set when installing MySQL). In To avoid getting that error mesthe example I connect using the sage, add “if not exists” to the comusername “root”. When MySQL mand. See code example 6. asks you for the password, enter your MySQL password. See code Then MySQL will create the dataexample 1. base is it does not already exist. If there is a database with the same List databases name already, no new database will To see what databases that are be created. available to you (which depends on the level of access of the account Wrapping up you’re using), you use the comThis was the first part of our series mand “show databases;”. Note that about MySQL and Mac OS X. We you end each command in MySQL covered some brief database fundawith a semi-colon (“;”). See code mentals, how to log in to MySQL, example 2. how to see what databases you have access to, and [Code example 6] how to create mysql> create database if not exists emiratesmac; a new table. Query OK, 0 rows affected, 1 warning (0.00 In the next issec) sue of shuffle mysql> we will look at how to create tables within databases, and So on this MySQL server there how to put fields within tables. are three databases, “information_ schema”, “mysql”, and “test”. Use a database To use a particular database you type the commando “use” followed by the name of the database. See code example 3. Create a database To create a new database you type the command “create database” followed by the name of the new database. See code example 4.
The database world is full of theories and concepts that you will have to be able to grasp in order for you to create and work with databases. You will have to know what table, field, relationship, primary key, etc. are. A good place to get started is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Relational_database.
Review: Belkin TuneBase FM for iPod by Magnus If you want to use your iPod in your car to play music through your car stereo but you don’t have anywhere to plug in your iPod or a cassette player, this is the thing for you. The Belkin TuneBase FM for iPod is an iPod FM transmitter, iPod charger, and iPod holder all rolled into one. It plugs into your cigarette lighter and hold your iPod up on a flexible neck so you can position it so it’s conveniently accessible to you. The TuneBase supports 88.1MHz-107.9MHz and it’s very easy to set frequency. Turn your radio to the frequency you want, then push up and down buttons on the TuneBase until you have set the same frequency. You can then set that frequency to one out of four programmable memory slots. The TuneBase comes with adapters to fit iPod video, 4G, photo, mini, and nano. Personally I was worried that the holder’s neck wouldn’t be stable enough to hold the iPod without moving it around too much, but that turned out to be unwarranted. The TuneBase holds your iPod very securely. We found the audio quality to be okay for the most part. There’s definitely static once in a while, and it obviously depends on the area you’re in and what radio stations are broadcasting. Most of the time, just tweaking the frequency setting made the audio quality improve. Belkin’s TuneBase is not going to get you the best possible audio quality when playing music from your iPod in your car, but it’s a convenient and cost-effective solution.
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Tutorial
Create a DashBoard Widget with DashCode
by Magnus About a year ago a new application from Apple was leaked onto the internet. It was called DashCode and with it anyone could create DashBoard Widgets very easily. Recently Apple officially made a beta version of DashCode available to members of the ADC (Apple Developer Connection). Online membership is free and once you’re a member you can download the DashCode beta from http://developer.apple.com/tools/dashcode/. In this brief tutorial we will use DashCode to develop a simple DashBoard widget that counts down to a specific date and time. Download DashCode, install it, and start it before starting on the items steps below. 3. Click “Blink Separators” and “Do Action”.
4. Enter the target date and time. I’ll set it to March 29, 2007, at 18:00. 5. Click “Mark as Done”. 6. Click “Set attributes”. 1. Choose “Countdown” as your project template.
7. Click “Attributes”. 8. Replace “Untitled” with the name of your widget in “Widget Identifier”. 9. Leave “Version” as “1.0”.
10. Double-click “Untitled” in the “Widget name” and enter the name of the widget. I’ll enter “EmiratesMac Countdown”. 11. Double-click “Event label” in the “Value column” and enter the name of the event you’re counting down to. I’ll enter “EmiratesMac Special Event”. 2. Click “Countdown properties” on the left hand side.
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Tutorial 12. Click “Mark as Done”.
21. Click “Run” at the top left of the window.
13. Click “Preview default image”.
22. Try out your widget, click “Stop” when you’re done. 23. Choose “Deploy Widget to Dashboard” in the “File” menu.
15. Click “Mark as Done”. 16. Click “Design widget icon”.
24. Give your widget’s file a name. I’ll enter “EmiratesMac Countdown”.
17. Click “Widget icon composer”. You can import a different icon if you want to.
25. Click “Deploy”. 26. Click “Keep” when the widget opens in DashBoard. 27. Back in DashCode, choose “Save” in the “File” menu. 28. Enter a name for your widget. I’ll enter “EmiratesMac Countdown”.
29. Click “Save”. This saves your widget as a project. You can always open up this project again in the future to change it and deploy as a new widget. 18. Click “Fill & Stroke inspector”. Choose fill and stroke for the icon. 19. Click “Mark as Done”. 20. Click “Test & share”.
30. Finished! You should now have your own, custom-made, countdown widget running in DashBoard.
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Review
What’s new in Windows Vista? Microsoft has with lots of fanfare launched Windows Vista and we thought we’d take a quick look at it. After five years of development and presumably billions of dollars spent it’s finally here and we just want to tell you what is new, and what we think you should know about the new Windows. This is not a review, we’ve not used Vista extensively ourselves. by Magnus
Five different Vistas Something that has been debated a lot is the five different versions, or “editions”, that Microsoft offers for Vista. The versions are Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate. There’s also an Enterprise version which rounds off the five. The Home Basic version is just that, basic. You don’t even get one of the main selling points of Vista, the Aero interface. Most users will at least want Home Premium, which in addition to Aero adds laptop support, Media Center, some games, and a DVD maker application. In the Business edition you get enhanced networking support, including Remote Desktop, as well as some Backup and Restore features. The Ultimate edition has all of these features. Something to keep in mind if you are considering running Vista in Parallels on your Mac is that to be legal you need to get at least the Business Edition. Microsoft’s license says that the Home versions of Vista are not allowed to be run in virtualization. That there’s nothing stop-
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ping you from doing so is a different matter. And you could still install and run the Home versions of Vista with Apple’s BootCamp. Apple, of course, offers just one version of Mac OS X, not counting Mac OS X Server. Aero interface The most obvious new thing with Vista is the interface. It’s called Aero and it requires a pretty fast graphics cards and processor to run at all, and certainly to run at any acceptable performance level. At a quick glance Aero looks in parts much like Mac OS X with gradients, transparent elements, rounded corners, and more. Personally I like Mac OS X’s look better and think Aero is a bit too much “eyecandy” and too little functionality. But it’s an improvement over Windows XP, that I can say at least. Security One of the common complaints about Windows XP was and is that it has more security holes than a piece of swiss cheese. Perhaps the main news
in terms of security is User Account Control which asks the user for permission whenever certain things happen, like downloading and launching applications. I suppose it’s like on a Mac, whereby any actions requiring administrative rights prompts the user for a password. It seems they may have overdone this a bit though in Vista since in my brief time with the OS, these popups kept appearing all the time, which was more than a little annoying. Sidebar Think Dashboard stuck to a side of the screen and you get what the sidebar is. And Microsoft calls the things that go in the sidebar Gadgets (Widgets in DashBoard). It seems you can find much the same Gadgets as there are typical Widgets, including calendar, clock, weather information, and more. Mobile computing It seems Microsoft has realized that a lot of people use notebooks, and
have finally added support for sleep in Vista. Or I should say it now works. From what I can tell, sleep wasn’t really working in XP but now in Vista it is. Of course, on Mac we’ve enjoyed instant sleep and wake-up for many generations of portable Macs. Applications Vista comes with a set of upgraded applications. Outlook has been given an overhaul and is now called Windows Mail. There’s a basic photo application called Windows Photo Gallery. Windows Media Player 11 is included, as is of course Internet Explorer 7. The Media Center applications that come with some editions of Vista has also been upgraded. The last word So there you have it, a quick look at Vista. You may ask if you should upgrade if you run XP in Parallels or BootCamp. I think that depends on what you do with Windows. Personally I am in no rush to put Vista on Parallels on my MacBook. XP is just fine for now. But sooner or later the day comes when applications require Vista, and then I will upgrade. You make up your own mind whether it’s worth upgrading.
You can read more about Windows Vista at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/ windowsvista/default.mspx. You can compare the five editions at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/ editions/choose.mspx. For a fun comparison between Vista and Mac watch David Pogue’s video on YouTube: http://youtube. com/watch?v=TaIUkwPybtM.
How to wipe your hard drive before selling your Mac by Magnus
Recently a friend of mine bought a used Mac and it contained all kinds of personal information on the hard drive. This got me thinking that most people and businesses that sell their used Macs probably don’t even think about making sure their information is wiped from the Macs’ hard drives. So before you sell your used Mac, boot it up from a Mac OS X installation CD or DVD and launch the Disk Utility (it’s in the Tools menu once the installer software has loaded). Then select the hard drive in the list over on the left hand and click on the Erase tab. On the Erase tab, click Security Options. A range of options opens up, where you should select how you wan to erase the drive. Simply put, to be really sure that your personal information is not going to be retrievable by someone else, choose “7-pass Erase” or even “35-pass Erase”. Either option is going to take a long time to finish, we’re talking all night long, and with a large drive, be prepared to wait a while if you pick the “35-pass Erase”. What these options will do is write data over and over again to the drive, thereby making it hard if not impossible for someone else to retrieve it later. If you just format (erase) the drive without the Secure Erase options, others could still get to your data if they really wanted to.
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RSS 101
RSS 101 by Magnus
The explosion in new services on the internet we’ve seen over the last few years, including blogs, podcasts, and more, often owe their existence to varying degrees to something called RSS. RSS, or Real Simple Syndication, is a technology which allows users to subscribe to digital content, and receive notice and updates whenever something new has been published. I’m sure you’ve seen the orange RSS icons all over the web, and perhaps wondered “what is that?” Old technology finds new use The idea of something doing what RSS is doing isn’t really that new. Apparently Apple was at the forefront of this with something called MCF (Meta Content Framework). MCF and other technologies existed before RSS but they never became widespread because most of them were tied to a single platform or system. One of the beauties of RSS is that it’s a technology that can be supported on
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virtually any operating system, any application, and service, really, anywhere that users would want RSS support. For example, a RSS-feed can be created with a Mac, published to a Linux server, and subscribed to using a Windows application, and it all works seamlessly.
user checks if there’s anything new, the new post is downloaded to the user’s computer. For a podcast it works very much the same way, with the addition that the text file also points to an audio file for each episode and that audio file can be automatically downloaded to the “RSS, or Real Simple Syndicauser’s computer. These text files can RSS feeds tion, is a technology which At the very heart be written and allows users to subscribe to of a RSS-feed is a updated manually digital content, and receive text file that exists notice and updates whenever by someone, but on a web server. most of the time something new has been This text file, they’re managed published.” technically a XML automatically by document but some type of softwe’ll leave that for ware. For Emiratesanother article, describes the content Mac.com, for example, the software of the RSS-feed. For a blog, for exthat manages the forums, also manage ample, it describes the general inforthe RSS-feeds we offer. mation about the blog, as well as the details of each individual post. When- RSS and your Mac ever there is another blog post made, Fortunately for you, your Mac is this text file is updated automatically already well-prepared for RSS technolby the blog software, and when the ogy. You can subscribe to blogs and
Feature podcasts without downloading or purchasing any new software. Whenever you browse to a site that has a RSS-feed, Safari will show a small blue RSS icon on the location bar. By clicking on the icon you can read the RSS-feed as well as subscribe to it. If you want to subscribe to audio or video podcasts, iTunes is all you need. For more advanced RSS-reading needs, there is software like NetNewsWire and Google Reader. Both make it easier to subscribe to and follow a large number of RSS feeds and offer various functions to make your life easier. Final thoughts RSS is a wonderful technology that can help you keep up with a large quantity of information without it taking too much time. I currently subscribe to over 300 RSS feeds using Google Reader which means hundreds of new posts per day. Sometimes it’s a bit overwhelming but with RSS and a good RSSreader it wouldn’t be possible.
You can read more about RSS at http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/RSS. Apple has a long list of RSS feeds at http://www. apple.com/rss/. You can find out more information about NetNewsWire, and download a demo at http://www. newsgator.com/NGOLProduct. aspx?ProdID=NetNewsWire. NetNewsWire is $29.95 to purchase. Google Reader is free and you can find it at http://www. google.com/reader.
Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Music by Magnus It doesn’t happen very often that ers only to play what they buy on we hear directly from Steve Jobs, Apple’s players meaning iTunes and in fact I can’t remember it ever iPods. This led to Apple develophappening like this, but on Febru- ing their DRM technology called ary 6 2007 he has posted an open FairPlay. He acknowledges that any letter entitled “Thoughts on music” DRM is “a cat-and-mouse game” (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ where the maker and the breaker thoughtsonmutries to constantly sic/). It’s writoutsmart each “Imagine a world where ten following other. That’s also every online store sells DRMthe increasbeen the case free music encoded in open ingly heated with FairPlay licensable formats. In such debate over where it’s been a world, any player can play DRM’s “to be cracked several music purchased from any or not to be”. times, and Apstore, and any store can sell Countries ple has patched music which is playable on all and improved it like Norway have very players. This is clearly the best each time. publicly said alternative for consumers, that the iPod Three alternaand Apple would embrace it and iTunes tives in a heartbeat.” - Steve Jobs is a closed Jobs then system that presents three is anti-competialternatives for tive and they’ve even taken Apple the future. The first alternative is to court over it. Something has to to stay the course and continue be done, that’s pretty clear, and I with DRM as it is today, with each suspect that’s what made Jobs come manufacturer, like Apple, developout and write this public stateing and implementing their own ment. The whole problem, accord- DRM technology in “silos” that are ing to Jobs, is that the four major more or less interoperable (usually music companies, from where not at all). This is what the music Apple gets the music it sells in companies want but it doesn’t seem their iTunes Store, require Apple to to be what consumers want. The protect their music. Apple license second alternative is to let other the rights to sell and distribute the companies implement FairPlay by music from these companies who licensing the technology to them. together control over 70% of the Jobs says he’s worried about leaks music available in the world. Jobs in such setups: leaks to competitors says that when approaching these as well as to hackers. The DRM music companies about selling would be less effective and over through the iTunes Store, they time, presumably, loose signifirequired that Apple implements cance. The third alternative is to a solution that would let customabolish DRMs entirely. And here
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Feature Jobs gives perhaps his most surprising view throughout the whole letter. Jobs says that “this is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat” and states that if the big music companies would allow Apple to sell their music DRMfree, Apple would sell only music free of DRM in the iTunes store. He also says that all iPods would be capable of playing this DRMfree music. Blaming the music companies It will probably seem to some that Jobs is just blaming the music companies and are trying to clear any blame from Apple. And in a way that’s his job, to protect Apple. I don’t doubt that he’s correct in his description of the major music companies, they have a huge vested interest to protect in investments and revenues. And Apple is certainly interested in selling their music. But now Apple is so big in music sales that Jobs can perhaps demand more from the music industry. Is this a sign that something is changing? I think the very fact that Jobs made this public statement means that they are aware of the issue and that they will work to change things. When any changes are coming is of course still an open issue.
Special Offers As a recognized Apple User Group, EMUG receives various kinds of offers for our members. Here are some of the current offers that you can take advantage of. All offers are as far as we’re aware available to the UAE. If you have any problems with an offer or any questions, get in touch with us and we’ll try to sort it out.
Other World Computing: 5% off miniStack hard drive storage systems; 10% off NuPower PowerBook and iBook batteries; Complete information: http:// www.mugcenter.com/vendoroffers/ otherworldcomputing.html; Discount available globally; Expires 3/31/07.
MYOB: $25 off First Edge & $100 off Account Edge; Available globally; No expiration.
ProSoft Engineering: 25% off Drive Genius, Picture Rescue, Data Rescue, Data Backup & Data Recycler; Available globally; Ongoing; Complete information http://www.mugcenter.com/ vendoroffers/prosoft.html; Order through the ProSoft Engineering web site and use discount code “PRO247”.
Rogue Amoeba: 22% discount off Audio Hijack Pro; Available globally; Expires 2/28/07.
ScreenCastsOnline: 20% discount on Premium Membership, plus complimentary DVDs of back catalog; Complete information http://www.mugcenter. com/vendoroffers/screencastsonline.html; Discount available globally; Expires 2/12/07.
O’Reilly: 30% off all titles; Available globally; No expiration. Peachpit Press: 25% off all titles by joining the Peachpit Club; Available globally; No expiration.
TidBITS: 10% discount on Take Control eBooks; Available globally; No expiration. Globalsat Technology Corporation: 25% discount on Mac products; Available globally; Expires 2/28/07.
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his newsletter is the only publication in the United Arab Emirates that is dedicated completely to Apple products, such as Macs and iPods. By advertising AppleWorks Users Group: Disin shuffle you reach a dedicated audience count on Macintosh batteries; Available globally; No expiration. of Mac and iPod users. We strive to make shuffle a high-quality magazine-style newsletter that people will want to read Actoris: 25% off Xpress Schedule because it’s so good. Wouldn’t you want or Food Cost Manger; No expira- to be associated with that? If you’re intion; Available globally. terested in sponsoring shuffle, or buying advertising space, contact us at emiratesmac@mac.com.
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EmiratesMac.com
EmiratesMac Training Courses
Starting in April, EmiratesMac User Group will offer short training courses in cooperation with SAE Institute in Dubai. As a User Group we feel we’re in a unique position to offer some introductory training for Mac.
course at 11-14 and the Introduction to iLife course at 15-18. You will find the most up to date training schedule at http:// www.emiratesmac.com/index. php?page=training.
How do I sign up? You sign up our site at http:// www.emiratesmac.com/index. php?page=training. You have to be a registered user of EmiratesMac. com to be able to sign up for a course. Registering for an account on the site is free.
What does it cost? We charge 250Dhs for each threeWhat? hour course, which includes a Our course offerings start off with one-year membership Introduction to Mac in EmiratesMac User OS X and iLife. Group. If you are alIn the Mac OS X ready a member you pay course you will learn 100Dhs per course. You the basics of how to can pay online with a log in and get going with your Mac, find http://www.sae-dubai.com/ credit card. Instructions will be given to you your way around the once you have regisinterface, open and tered. If you cannot pay online get save files, do some simple maintenance, get online, and more. In the in touch with us and we will make iLife course we cover how to man- alternative arrangements (mobile age and edit photos, create movies, 050-8171164 or email crystal@ burn DVDs, create web pages, and emiratesmac.com). put together a music masterpiece, all with the various iLife apDate Time Course plications. When? The first two days of courses will be April 14 and April 28. Each time we offer the Mac OS X Introduction
14/4 14/4 28/4 28/4
1100-1400 1500-1800 1100-1400 1500-1800
To sign up: http://www.emiratesmac.com/index. php?page=training
Introduction to Mac OS X Introduction to iLife Introduction to Mac OS X Introduction to iLife
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Membership 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 http:// www.emiratesmac. com/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 for a membership, you can pick up your membership card at an EMUG meeting or other event.
Join EMUG
• Want to meet other Apple users? • Want to learn more about your Mac or iPod? • Want to help others with their problems? • Want to have some fun? • Want to save some money on your Apple purchases?
To become a member • • •
Go to http://www.emiratesmac.com/usergroup and sign up, or; Fill in the form below and fax it to +971-2-6664289, or; Fill in the form below and mail it to EmiratesMac. PO Box 70263, Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Member benefits • • • • •
5% discount on any product in a MacStore in UAE. This offer is not valid in conjunction with any other offer or promotion, and limited to one item of the same type per invoice. At participating Salam Studio & Stores in UAE, members can get special offers and sign up for a customer loyalty program. 5% discount on any finished goods product, e.g. Macintosh computers, at Computer Direct Access (CDA) in the UAE. This offer does not apply to accessories, iPods, or software. The right to participate in members-only events, and discounts at select EmiratesMac-organized events. Access to a dedicated discussion board on www.EmiratesMac.com where you can interact with other members, ask questions, and put in suggestions for activities and anything else about what we do.
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Note: Your membership will be processed as soon as possible and you can pick up your membership card at a future EMUG event. Membership details and benefits are subject to change at any time. If you have any questions or concerns, go to http://www.emiratesmac.com. Membership in EMUG is currently free but a membership fee may be introduced in the future at which point you can decide whether to continue to be a member or not.
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