TIVGGMF May 2007 issue #7
Monthly Newsletter from EmiratesMac User Group
Reviews: >Airport Extreme 802.11n > OmniGraffle Pro > Remote Buddy
Apple & the iPod Changing the Odds by Investing to Win
Apple has sold 1 Billion Songs and 100 Million iPods
Contents A Word from the Editor Comic corner Smorgas DashBord Interview: Sweet & Sour Sweden with MacBook What is Bonjour? Hint: Safari Activity Window Experience of an Apple Fan in Dubai- Part 2 First Apple Logo Emiratesmac.com tips and tricks Curl the download manager Mac911 Hint: Expand open-save dialogs in Mac OS X Apple & the iPod Photoshop tutorial:Car Branding Recipe: Mulligatawny Soup MySQL on Mac Part 3 Truly High Definition Video Review: Airport Extreme Base Station 802.11n Review: All in one server with iTools 8 Review: OmniGraffle Review: Relo Knox iPod nano case Review: Uniea Leather U-Suit for MacBook Review: Remote Buddy is your Friend Weaving The Web Report from Special Apple TV Event Join EMUG
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Graphical design and layout of shuffle is done by Latifa Al Shamsi.
Shuffle is sponsored by:
For more information go to www.appleme.ae
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Editorial About shuffle Shuffle is the newsletter of EmiratesMac User Group (EMUG). It is an independent publication containing news, commentary, tips and tricks, reviews, tutorials, and more, covering the world of Mac, iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, and anything else Apple, with a focus on the UAE. Shuffle is also the official publication of EMUG detailing information about the user group and its activities. Editor in chief is Magnus Nystedt (emiratesmac@mac.com). You can send submissions to shuffle to emiratesmac@ mac.com. We do not promise we will publish what you send us, and we will at all times retain total editorial control over anything we publish. There is a discussion forum dedicated to shuffle at EMUG’s web site (www.emiratesmac.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=50). There you can leave comments and suggestions and discuss shuffle with other users. All articles are produced by and copyright EMUG unless noted otherwise. Registered Apple User Groups may use some material for their own newsletters given prior approval from EMUG. Contact EMUG at emiratesmac@mac.com for further details. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the content of this publication, we accept no responsibility for errors, omissions or changes to information printed. Views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of EMUG. You can contact EMUG at mailing address: PO Box 70263, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Phone +971508171164; Fax +97126664289; Email contact@ emiratesmac.com; Web www.emiratesmac.com.
A Word from the Editor Have you had an Apple moment? Have you ever had an Apple moment? I mean one of those situations when you just go “I’m so thankful for being a Apple user”. It may be because your Mac helped you accomplish something really complicated in an easy way, or because you managed to impress your boss with a nice looking document that you created. It may even be when your Windows-using friend of colleague complains over more viruses, worms and spyware. But this is not about gloating and feeling superior. It’s about feeling good about your chosen computer platform and what it can do for you. Just the other day had a real Apple-experience. I was giving a really important presentation the next day and I had a script of a couple of minutes to rehearse and memorize. I wrote my script in Pages, and polished until I was happy with it. Then I recorded myself reading it as a podcast in Garageband. From Garageband I sent it to iTunes, and finally, from iTunes I put it on an iPod shuffle as the only track on there. Then I spent an evening and most part of the night listening to my recording over and over again with the shuffle. The next day I nailed that presentation - thank you Apple!
Want to advertise in shuffle?
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his newsletter is the only publication in the United Arab Emirates that is dedicated to Apple products, such as Macs and iPods. By advertising in shuffle you reach a dedicated audience of Mac and iPod users. We strive to make shuffle a high-quality newsletter that people will want to read because it’s so good. It’s written and produced by EmiratesMac User Group Members. Wouldn’t you want to be associated with that? If you’re interested in sponsoring shuffle, or buying advertising space, contact Crystal at +971508171164 or crystal@emiratesmac.com to request our Media Kit.
Want to write for shuffle?
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f you’re reading this and you’re a member of the EmiratesMac User Group we hope you will consider contributing. We’re looking for any type of articles you would be interested in writing, from something about the history of Apple and their products, reviews of hardware or software, essays, tutorials, or hints and tips. The people who write for shuffle now are users just like yourself. If you would consider writing something for shuffle, send us an email (emiratesmac@ mac.com) or leave a message with your idea at the site (www.emiratesmac. com).
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he photograph on the back cover is Used with permission by pappalicious (www.flickr.com/photos/pappalicious)
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Comic Corner
Comic corner Blaugh.com has generously given their permission for EMUG to reprint their comic strip in our newsletter. Go to www.blaugh. com to see a new comic strip every day. Use the code “blaugh� when you shop at
www.Godaddy.com to get 10% off your purchase.
Geekculture.com has generously given their permission for EMUG to reprint their comic strip in our newsletter. Go to www.geekcul-
ture.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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Sm rgasDashB rd by Yasir
DashQuit Is your Dashboard clogging up your RAM? Don’t you find it annoying just going around closing all your widgets? Well we hope this will solve it. It’s a small widget that has one command: Quit (your Dashboard). It also has a small place where it shows you a percentage of how much your Dashboard is using from your RAM. Simple and useful. RANKING: 4.5 Download from: www.apple.com/
downloads/dashboard/status/dashquit. html
Daily Comics Finally- 236 comics in one! People can now get rid of those old single-comic-widgets. This one has a very nice interface and a smooth way in resizing its window. The smallest problem is it’s too big. It takes up a quarter of my 17-inch screen. Well we can’t really blame them for making the comics so big can we now?
Easy Currency Now I wouldn’t be putting a currency converter here unless if it had the up-to-date price of the UAE Dirham, which it does. It’s pretty clear what goes where and it has 60 different currencies including those of Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Although it lacks the style and the good looks of Mac OS X makes me close it after use rather than ruining the good view of the dashboard. RANKING: 3 Download from: www.apple.com/
downloads/dashboard/calculate_convert/easycurrency.html
RANKING: 4 Download from: www.apple.com/ I Love Lamp It’s something to brighten up a dull looking Dashboard & spruce it up with the sweet scent of the 60’s. It comes in a few colours (my favorite is retro white) and all you change is the skin and the lava changes colours every few seconds. Ah, the sweet view of a virtual lava lamp. RANKING: 3 Download from: www.apple.com/ downloads/dashboard/justforfun/ ilovelamp.html
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downloads/dashboard/justforfun/dailycomics.html
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 en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Smorgasbord.
Interview: Sweet & Sour Swede with MacBook by Magnus EmiratesMac had the opportunity to interview Henrik Friberg, a a DJ and Visual Effects Designer in Dubai, about him and the UAE, his career, and about Apple and Macs. also started up a club called Sweet & Sour which plays the latest and greatest eclectic dance music.
EM: Tell us about yourself! Like where do you come from, how did you come to live in Dubai? What do you do for a living? HF: I moved to from Sweden to Dubai three years ago to further my career as a DS Nitris Artist and Visual Effects Designer, which basically means I’m working with editing and effects for TV commercials. I wasn’t really looking for work here, and I knew very little about Dubai. Actually the only things I had briefly heard about were The Palm and Burj Al Arab, and I thought that everybody who lived here would be middle aged golf players hehe (which might not be that far from the truth). But when Filmworks called me asking me to come come over for work, I thought that it might be worth a shot, and obviously it has been good enough to stay for three years, and now I plan to stay here for a long time. Apart from my work in the advertising industry, I’ve been a “bedroom DJ” for about eight years, just doing it for fun basically. I recently started making mixes for a local online dance music radio station (lushdxb.com), and I’ve
EM: What’s the origin of the name “Sweet & Sour”? HF: When I was a poor student in Sweden many moons ago, I was making lasagna one night and realized I was out of tomatoes for the sauce. But I had a jar of Uncle Ben’s Sweet & Sour Stir Fry sauce, which I figured could work ok as a replacement. To my surprise I had discovered the tastiest lasagna in the world. Then it became “a thing” , something that I would joke about among friends, that you could have sweet and sour sauce with anything. Then a couple of years later when I was about to start freelancing in Sweden, it dawned on me that Sweet & Sour is also a brilliant idea for a company name. So I registered the domain, and started working under that name, and it has sort of stuck ever since. EM: I believe you bought a MacBook last year, what do you think of it so far? HF: Up until a month ago I thought it was the best machine ever. A small and light, blazingly fast Mac, and I could also have Windows XP on it for my mixing. But about eight months after the purchase I got the well known problem (but not yet acknowledged by Apple) of the X:ed out battery. So it currently only runs with the AC plugged in, which unfortunately doesn’t really make it a proper notebook anymore. Two weeks later the light on the AC died. And one week later I had my first random shutdown, which is also a well known problem Apple has not acknowledged, i.e. the MacBook just shuts down without any apparent reason. Having these problems on a machine that’s less than a year old is just not acceptable. I have ordered a new battery, but I have moderate expectations, because according to user stories on the internet, simply changing
the battery does not help most of the time, the problems come back shortly after. All this annoys me a lot, and I never had such problems with a Mac before in my life, and I’ve been a user since the early 90’s. EM: What do you use your MacBook for? HF: Mostly for day to day things such as e-mailing, surfing, editing photos, listening to music, watching movies, etc. I also installed Windows XP with BootCamp, but I only ever use it to run a DJ mixing software called MixMeister, which unfortunately is PC-only. I know there are pure Mac DJ mixing programs out here, and I’ve tried most of them, but MixMeister is so much better in my opinion, despite the tacky product name. EM: What do you like most about your MacBook? HF: It’s fast, stable and the OS is intuitive. In short, I like it because it’s a Mac. EM: What do you like the least about your MacBook? HF: All the hardware issues I’ve started having after less than a year. EM: When you look at a computer next time, do you think you’ll consider a Mac again? HF: It depends. I will absolutely not go out and by a Rev A Mac again. I would wait until Apple had sorted out all the problems with the model and then go and buy. EM: If you could give one piece of advice to Apple for future Mac models, what would it be? HF: If you want to keep the profile of a perhaps slightly more expensive, but also a slightly better personal computer maker, don’t ever hold back on the quality.
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EM: As a Mac user in the Emirates, is there anything in particular you would like to see happen in the marketplace, to better support Mac users? HF: Well, I’d love to see “proper” Apple Stores, with Genius bars and so on. Right now, if you go inside and ask anything that is remotely advanced, don’t expect an answer that is better than anything you could find out after one minute of Googling. I’d also like to see the stores here having a better supply of replacement parts so one does not have to wait so long for the parts to be shipped (the battery I ordered would take 3-4 weeks to ship). And I’d like to see the prices drop. The UAE is not any longer the place to go for cheap electronics. Actually it was cheaper for me to buy my MacBook in Sweden when I went there on holiday, rather than doing the purchase here in Dubai. The rumour about Dubai having cheap electronics is still alive in Europe, but more and more people who come here on holiday are quite disappointed when they find out that the mobile they wanted to buy is actually slightly cheaper in their local store back home in Europe. EM: Any final words to other Apple users in the Emirates? HF: Regardless of my personal recent issues with my MacBook, I am convinced that the future looks bright, and if Apple just keeps on rolling out brilliant products they can’t go wrong in the long run. So keep on supporting Mac.
Henrik Friberg is a Swedish DS Nitris and Visual Effects Designer, working in Dubai’s advertising industry. Apart from that he is a local DJ, known as PreRoll, and a long-time Mac user. You can contact him on either MySpace (myspace.com/djpreroll) or email (preroll@sweetandsour. nu). He also runs a blog in Swedish about his expatriate life (sweetandsour.nu/blog).
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What is Bonjour? by Magnus
Bonjour is Apple’s name for something called Zeconf, short for Zero Configuration. It’s what’s referred to as a service discovery protocol and it’s widely used in Mac OS X and applications running in Mac OS X. Zeroconf technoloy is used by devices and software to enable them to automatically discover one another on a local network. This enables users to set up and configure networks and services without having to first set up servers. Among the most common uses is for computers and printers to find one another and for computers to establish file sharing between one another. It is also used by common applications like iTunes to shared music, iPhoto to shared photos, iChat to chat, and more. Also, Safari uses Bonjour to see if there are any web servers on the local network. If we put it in simple terms, Bonjour makes it possible for computers and other devices connected to a network, to be automatically configured for that network, “see” each other, and connect and communicate. With traditional networking technology, a knowledgeable user had to configure the connection, set up special servers, like DHCP and DNS, or set up each computer’s network settings by hand, which is a tedious task. With Bonjour that’s not necessary because it automatically create a usable IP network without configuration or special servers. This allows non-expert users to connect computers, networked printers, and other items together and they should work automatically. This is a very Apple-like technology, making something complicated totally transparent to users. And really all Bonjour does is announce to the local network what devices and services are available, it doesn’t add any new services to your Mac, for example. Whatever networking services that are already enabled are with Bonjour more easily found by other devices and users. Something Bonjour doesn’t do is announce your Mac to the internet. Bonjour’s original nameback in 2002 was “Rendezvous”. In 2003 a company sued Apple for trademark infringement which led to a settlement in 2004 and in 2005 the new name was announcement. Another thing that’s really good is that Bonjour works on other operating systems than Mac OS X. Apple made the source code of the core components of Bonjour available as open source. From that users can build the required software to “speak” Bonjour for a wide range of platforms, including Mac OS 9, Linux, BSD, and Windows. In fact, Apple provides a user-installable set of services called Bonjour for Windows. You can read more about Bonjour on Apple’s web site (www. apple.com/macosx/features/bonjour) where you can also download the Bonjour client for Windows (www.apple.com/support/downloads/ bonjourforwindows.html).
> Hint
Safari Activity Window by Magnus The Activity Window in Apple’s web browser Safari may not be that well known by most users but it has some really interesting and useful functionality. You find the Activity Windows by selecting Window > Activity or by pressing Command+Option+A. As the name gives away, by looking in the Activity Window you can see what’s going on with Safari. You see a list of the sites you’re connecting to and if you click the little triangle next to the site’s name, you see all the things that Safari is trying to download for that particular page. This includes HTML files, pictures, Flash (SWF) files, movies, stylesheets (CSS), and more. It shows the size of the files that have been downloaded, or the status which can help you figure out what the problem is if something is not working. For example, Safari may have problems downloading one particular file and that’s why you experience issues with your web browsing. What’s of most help to web developers, and others who want to really know what’s going on with a web site, is the ability to download any file that is used on a web site. If you double-click on any file in the Activity Window list, Safari will attempt to open just that file in a new browser window. If you hold down the Option-key while doubleclicking on a file, Safari will download that file. This is a terrific way to download a Flash animation, for example. If you select a number of files, or even all of them with Command+A, then copy them (Command+C), switch to the Downloads Window (Command+Option+L), and paste (Command+V), all those files will start downloading. Finally, you can bookmark a set of pages with the help of the Activity Window. Open the sites you want to bookmark each in its own tab. Then make sure you only see each site’s URL in the Activity Window, not all the files too, select all (Command+A), copy (Command+C), open the Bookmarks Manager (Command+Option+B), navigate to where you want the bookmarks, create a folder if you like, then paste (Command+V). Now you should have a bookmark for each of those sites. There you go, now you can use the Activity Window in Safari to make your browsing experience more enjoyable and productive.
Work area overview Photo correction Selections & Layers Image Composition
Alpha Channels & Masks Filters & Effects Basic Retouching
For more information visit:
www.sae.edu
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A Partner Of
KNOWLEDGE VILLAGE
Experiences of an Apple Fan in Dubai - Part 2 by Senthil The first thing a Mac fan does when arriving in a new place is to map out the local Apple world. This means finding out where are the Apple stores, dealers, are there any user groups, and what is the virtual Apple world like. I too started the same way. My first mission was to get to a Apple store in Dubai. Can you imagine the experience? First – The store is closed between 1 – 4 PM. Why in the world would you want to keep your store closed between 1 and 4PM if you are in the consumer business? Beats me. I would rather have tied up with Starbucks or other foodie joint to keep the crowd coming into the store. I finally managed to get back to the store at around 7PM, then as usual wait for a parking slot, park the car and enter the store. Finally nirvana. All the familiar stuff lying around excited me and I got tinkering around with the Macs and the other stuff there. With a somewhat indifferent staff hanging around, I could not help wonder how could these guys be so dis-passionate about Apple? I don’t know the reason but I have never found such a dispassionate group in any of the Mac stores around the world that I visited. I have been to Apple stores in Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, India, Spain and Australia and am sure every Apple fan does this, going to Apple stores in the countries they visit. Yes, I do. For me, visiting Apple stores and railway stations is a must do in all the countries I visit. On a serious note, I thought these guys are giving someone a window of opportunity to start their own venture with Apple. For sure that is one of my longterm goals. Next comes visiting Apple outlets at some of the malls and the experience was the same. People here are treating Apple products like they would treat any other IT products. I guess this could be one of the biggest reasons for Apple not picking up market share amongst the
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consumers in UAE. Finally I explored the virtual world and here was the biggest surprise. For one, I did not expect a Mac User Group in UAE and I was pleasantly surprised to see a Emirate Mac User Group. This was a Wow! experience for me. The difference between the real Mac world and the virtual Mac world is to put mildly like Chalk & Cheese. The real world though had the potential to be an exciting place turned out to be boring, whereas the virtual world of EMUG was a place with passionate and highly engaged Apple fans. I finally found a great place to hang around with real Apple fans in the virtual world. Though I would love to hang around the real world, I found solace in the fact that the virtual world of EMUG makes up for the loss of the real world. Here you come across individuals who know the Apple world and are willing to guide new comers to the real pleasures of using Macs and other Apple products. One of my best experiences here was the EMUG meeting covering the Mac World Expo. There were eight crazy Apple fans that gathered at Crown Plaza to follow Steve’s Key Note address. I must say this was one of the best Mac fans gathering I have been part of, the excitement and anticipation of what new products Steve is going to announce was something one had to experience being part of the group.
iPhone launch was what quite a few of us were expecting and when it was launched all those who had predicted the launch had that smug look of “I told you so”. The event was covered live at EmiratesMac.com and if I am not mistaken that day was the day when the Emirates Mac site had the maximum number of visitors. What as Apple fan can one do to improve the situation here? I think the leaders at EmiratesMac are doing a wonderful job by ensuring that there is some event or other for the Apple fans here to look forward to. I have been following the meetings on the site through the postings and photos. In the past three months there have been monthly meetings, special events and MacNights. I’d like to round out this article with some key action items if we as a group have to convert more users from the “evil” Wintel world and ensure the market share increases for Apple to come here directly 1. Apple IMC ME has to create an environment where people would like to walk in the store and explore. Create excitement during weekends at the stores. For example, they could get some experts (they don’t even have to spend for this, they can use the EMUG members to help them) to show off the creative potential of iLife,
Create a movie of a family outing at the mall or even at the store and show off the movie before they proceed for their malling. There are enough and more creative software for the family to be “Wow-ed” into thinking of buying the Mac. Show off the power of iLife. 2. Get the kids to create their own music album using Garageband. 3. Free iPod shuffle – create a contest to attract traffic to the store. 4. The magic of Apple display – Dazzle the walk-in traffic with stunning Apple displays showing off the latest things. 5. Create a web page for the family in an instant. Some day when I get into my own Apple distribution business, I guess this is what I would like to do. Also engaging the EMUG is key to ensure the creative juices of this group is used to better the Apple world in UAE. In the next part of this article series, I would like cover my experiences of Apple world in different parts of the world I have been to.
First Apple Logo by Magnus You know Apple’s apple-logo very well. It’s changed some over the years, from having all kinds of colors in stripes across it, to today’s mono-colored apple. But did you know that the Apple’s first logo was something completely different? According to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Apple_Inc) Ronald Wayne drew the first Apple logo that shows Isaac Newton sitting under a tree.
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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.
Searching the site If you have a question or a problem, chances are it’s been discussed or even answered before. That’s when the search comes in. And you have several options for how to search the site. The easiest thing to do is click on Search and type in what you’re searching for. If you want more options go to the Search page. There you can decide to search only certain sections of the site, posts between certain dates, posts by a certain user, etc. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what is actually already available on the site, if you do a little search. Something else to remember is you can always use Google to search EmiratesMac.com. Just type in what you want to search for at Google’s site, followed by “site:emiratesmac.com”. That way you search through Google’s index of the site. If you frequently do the same type of searches you can save your settings by clicking “Go” next to “Save Search Preferences” at the bottom of the search page.
Low-bandwidth version If you access the site with a PDA or mobile
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phone, or some other type of device with a slow connection and perhaps a small screen, the main version of the site is going to be slow and the format unsuitable. The solution is to try the archive version of the site (www.emiratesmac.com/forums/ archive). The archive is really a text-only version of the site and you can browse the forums and read the posts without any graphics, which speeds it up considerably.
Order of posts When you view a thread, the default is to show the first post first. Makes sense, right? Most of the time you really want to see the most recent post first. Go to your User CP and click Edit Options. Find the section that says Thread Display Mode and change it to Linear - Newest First.
Curl the download manager by Magnus Mac OS X comes with a very useful little utility called Curl. If you want the latest version you can get that online (curl.haxx.se). I think it’s fair to say that some Mac users have issues with downloading large files even with broadband connections. Sometimes a download goes half way and then dies, for whatever reason, and it’s highly annoying to say the least. There are download managers with nice graphical interfaces but Curl is already on your Mac and it’s pretty powerful. The curl.haxx.se web site says about curl: “curl is a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax, supporting FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SCP, SFTP, TFTP, TELNET, DICT, FILE and LDAP. curl supports SSL certificates, HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, FTP uploading, HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, user+password authentication (Basic, Digest, NTLM, Negotiate, kerberos...), file transfer resume, proxy tunneling and a busload of other useful tricks.” Curl is a command-line program and has a multitude of options and I’m not going to go through them here. It’s probably safe to say that you’re never going to have to use them all. Let’s say you want to download NeoOffice, which weighs in at around 140MB. You may have tried different browser but the download never finishes. What you do is open a Terminal (Applications > Utilities) window, type curl -O and drag or paste the URL into the Terminal window. The file should download and Curl will show you the progress. The neat thing now is if it happens that the transfer is interrupted, you can later resume the download and you don’t have to start completely over. That’s nice if you’ve managed to get 120MB of the 140MB in NeoOffice, for example. Combine Curl with a little shell scripting and you have a powerful download tool that is hard to beat in terms of versatility and power.
Mac 911
Mac911: Solutions to your most vexing Mac problems by Christopher Breen Sync Address Book without .Mac I use a Power Mac G5 at home and an iBook on the road. Both run OS X 10.4.7. Because I enter data in both machines, depending on where I am, I’d like to be able to synchronize my copies of Address Book. What do you recommend?--Via the Internet The obvious answer is a .Mac account, with which you can synchronize Address Book contacts, as well as iCal calendars and Safari bookmarks. Because that data is synced over the Web, you can update it from anyplace with an Internet connection. But .Mac isn’t free, and I like free. If you do, too, I suggest you take a look at Stephan Kleinert and Markus Brand’s free address-o-sync. This handy little utility--which must be installed on each Mac you want to synchronize contacts with--uses Apple’s zero-configuration networking technology Bonjour to establish a sharing relationship between Macs on a local network. Fire up address-o-sync on each Mac, tell it what you’d like to sync (all contacts or just selected groups of contacts), and click on the button with the familiar swirly sync icon; then the utility will get to work (see “Staying in Sync”). If duplicate contacts in your copies of Address Book contain different information (perhaps you’ve updated a phone number or an e-mail address on one of your Macs but not on the other), you’ll have the opportunity to choose which data to keep. A Macworld.com forum member suggests another option: Plaxo, a free Web- based service that lets you synchronize your contacts (via an Address Book plug-in) between multiple computers. Unlike address-o-sync, the free version of Plaxo won’t merge and remove duplicate contacts; however, the $50-a-year Plaxo Premium will.
Find missing iPhoto pictures Whenever I load new photos into iPhoto, I immediately put them into a new album for later viewing in iPhoto and for easier access from the Media Browser in iWeb and iMovie. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t do the same, so some of our photos seem to go missing. Is there an easy way to see which pictures have not been included in an album? If there is, I could use it to quickly sort my wife’s pictures into albums.--Barrett Clark Smart albums to the rescue! Just choose File: New Smart Album, create the condition Album Is Not Any, and click on OK. All pictures that don’t belong to any album will appear in the resulting smart album (see “Only the Lonely”). But be warned: Because smart albums update themselves, pictures in this Not Any album will disappear if they’re sorted into another album.
Fix fonts in TextEdit When I type something in TextEdit and print it (no matter what font size I choose) the text prints in extremely small type. The same problem sometimes happens when I print from Safari. What’s going on and how do I fix it?--Shane Saylor In TextEdit, this is intentional. By default, TextEdit bases text wrapping on how wide the document window is on screen. To see this in action, type a couple of long sentences and then drag the bottom right corner of the TextEdit window to make it narrower. The text should rewrap itself to fit in the window. If you print this document, that printout will match what’s on screen, down to where the words wrap. If you put a mess of text on a single line, TextEdit will automatically decrease the font size on the printout so all the text fits on that one line. This is useful if you’re entering lines of code and need those lines to print without breaking. But it’s not so hot if you’re using TextEdit as a word processor rather than a text editor. Fortunately, you can change TextEdit’s line-wrapping behavior by
choosing Format: Wrap To Page. When you do, the text will wrap to the size of the page specified in Page Setup (File: Page Setup), and fonts will print at the chosen size. (If you’d like TextEdit to always behave this way, choose TextEdit: Preferences and enable the Wrap To Page option in the New Document pane.) As for Safari, you can increase the size of printed text by increasing the size of the browser’s text on your Mac’s screen. Just press Commandequal sign (=) to increase text size or Command-hyphen (-) to decrease it. Your printouts will mimic what you see on screen.
Ethernet and AirPort. Is it possible to hook up an Ethernet switch to an Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station in order to connect more than one computer with an Ethernet cable? Will the router in the base station assign an IP address to each of the wired computers?--Stuart Landay Sure--that’s one reason Apple included the Ethernet LAN port on the back of the base station. To get the full lowdown on how to set this up, I strongly suggest that you download Apple’s very helpful Designing AirPort Extreme Networks PDF document.
For those of you who are averse to reading documentation, the basic idea is this: String an Ethernet cable between your DSL or cable modem and the base station’s Ethernet (WAN) port. Run another Ethernet cable between the base station’s Ethernet (LAN) port and one of the ports on the switch. String yet more cable between the switch and the computers you want to connect. Run the AirPort Setup Assistant (in /Applications/Utilities). If the answers you provide work, great. If not, launch
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Mac 911 the AirPort Admin Utility (also located in the Utilities folder), select the base station, and click on Continue. In the Internet tab, choose Connect Using Ethernet, and then, from the Configure pop-up menu, choose either Using DHCP or Manually, depending on your circumstances. If you have a dynamic IP address, you’ll pick Using DHCP. If you have a fixed address, you need to configure things manually, entering that IP address as well as the sub-net mask, router address, and DNS servers in the appropriate fields. As for assigning IP addresses to your com-puters, that magic happens in the Network tab. Enable the Distribute IP Addresses option and choose either Share A Single IP Address (Using DHCP And NAT) or Share A Range Of IP Addresses (Using Only DHCP). If you choose the first option, the base station will dynamically serve, by default, IP addresses within the range 10.0.1.2 to 10.0.1.200. The second option lets you define the specific range of IP addresses if that’s what you want. Now you need to configure the computers you’re connecting to that switch. If you’ve decided to share a single IP address, open the Network preference pane on each computer, choose Built-in Ethernet, click on the TCP/IP tab, and choose Using DHCP from the Configure IPv4 pop-up menu. The computers will then grab dynamic IP addresses as needed from the base station via the switch. If you’re sharing a range of addresses, choose Manually from the Configure IPv4 menu and assign a specific address within the range you specified in the AirPort Admin Utility. You’ll also want to enter 255.255.255.0 in the Subnet Mask field, 10.0.1.1 in the Router field, and the address(es) of your DNS server(s).
Run Windows safely My wife just purchased a new iMac. She uses OS X about 90 percent of the time but also uses Parallels Desktop to boot into Windows for a few work tasks that require it. My wife never uses a browser on the Windows side, but the computer is connected to the Internet 24-7. Is Windows still vulnerable to viruses and spyware in this situation? What protection do you recommend?--Christopher Hosford Yes, Windows is still vulnerable. To prove it, try this: Without running your browser or your e-mail application, perform some normal tasks on your Mac and keep an eye on your DSL or cable modem’s activity light. That blinking indicates that your computer is conversing with the Net, even if you aren’t browsing the Web or exchanging e-mail. Furthermore, while your
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wife may swear she’ll never launch a browser while running Windows, there’ll likely come a time when she’ll need to check something online and won’t switch back to OS X to do it. Finally, your mention of your wife’s work tasks should set off alarms. Where do these files come from, and how are they shared? A burned CD can carry a virus just as easily as an e-mail attachment. The point is that Windows on a Mac is still Windows, which means that it’s still vulnerable to all the same cooties that can plague PCs. With that in mind, if you’re using Parallels Desktop, you need to behave like a regular Windows user and take precautions. Fortunately, doing so need not cost you a nickel. I have a living, breathing Windows PC sitting next to my Mac, and I’ve protected it for next to nothing. Although you can buy firewall software with more bells and whistles, the free version of Zone Labs’ ZoneAlarm is an easy way to block incoming threats. I rarely use a Web browser on my PC, but ZoneAlarm has logged more than 105,000 attempts to access my computer (granted, the majority of them were innocent). It also alerts you when applications or utilities try to make Internet connections and asks you for permission before it’ll let them do so. As for viruses, I used to run the Windows version of Symantec’s Norton SystemWorks on my PC, but I let the subscription lapse because there are enough free alternatives. The one I chose was Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus. If you choose a free program, you won’t get virus updates as fast as you would with a product you paid for, and you won’t be able to tweak settings as much. But for my limited Windows use, it’s plenty good enough. For dealing with spyware, I take yet another cheapskate route: Lavasoft’s free Ad-Aware SE Personal. It works only after the fact--that is, after the spyware or adware has infected your system and you want to get rid of it. The for-pay options--Webroot’s $30 Spy Sweeper, for example --can block spyware and adware before they have a chance to touch your computer.
Migrating to a new Mac Now that Apple has completed its transition to Intel processors, a lot of Mac users are thinking about replacing their old PowerPC machines. Here are tools and tips that will make the job easier. FireWire Cable When you first fire up a new Mac,
Apple’s Migration Assistant (found in /Applications/Utilities) will help you move your data, but it’ll demand a FireWire cable to do so. External FireWire Enclosure You have multiple IDE hard drives in your old Power Mac, yet your new Mac Pro works only with SATA drives. What to do with those old drives? Consider sticking them into FireWire hard-drive enclosures. Just slip an old drive into the enclosure, and you’ve got an external hard drive. Enclosures with Oxford 911 and 912 chip sets (which let your Mac boot from those drives) run from $50 to $80 and are available from vendors such as FirewireDirect. com and Other World Computing (eshop.macsales.com). Note that if you put your old Mac’s boot drive into an enclosure, it won’t boot your new Mac until you install an Intel-compatible version of OS X. Drive Adapter FireWire enclosure too rich for your blood? Or maybe you need to connect your old drives to your new Mac only for a short time? Newer Technology makes a $25 USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter--a couple of cables that let you connect an IDE or SATA device directly to your new Mac via the Mac’s USB 2.0 port. Serial Numbers As efficient as Apple’s Migration Assistant is about moving your applications from Mac A to Mac B, sometimes it misses some of the files that authorize you to use those apps. So just in case, make a note of all your applications’ serial numbers. Copy documents with an iSight “To get the $100 rebate, you must include the product’s UPC label or a photocopy.” “We’ll need a copy of your insurance card before we can process that claim.” “Do you have a copy of your receipt?” What do you do when you need to provide some sort of documentation but don’t have access to a photocopier or a fax machine? The built-in iSight camera on the Intel iMac, MacBook Pro, and MacBook, along with Apple’s Photo Booth software, could be the solution. Because the iSight has a
very short focal length, you can stick a document or any other official object a couple of inches in front of it and get a nice, sharp picture of it. To do so, open Photo Booth. Don’t select any effects. Hold your object-- box, document, business card, or whatever--up to the camera. Move it as close or as far away as you need; the iSight will quickly put it in focus. (Don’t worry if you’re trying to capture text and it reads backward on screen; you can take care of that later.) Hold your object steady by resting your elbow(s) on the table, and click on the Camera button to begin the threesecond countdown. Once the picture is taken, drag it to your desktop from Photo Booth’s tray. You’ll see that it’s a JPEG file. If you aren’t trying to capture text, you can use that JPEG as is. If you are trying to capture text, double-click on the image to open Preview, select Tools: Flip Horizontal, crop as needed, and save the file.--Jay Lindell
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.
> Hint
Expand open-save dialogs in Mac OS X by Magnus You know when you save or open a file in Mac OS X you see a standard dialog box. It’s like a small window and it looks the same in (almost) all applications. The standard behavior in Mac OS X is to show a minimized version (see the “Before” screenshot) of the full version (see the “After” screenshot). At least for myself, if I see that window, I almost always click on the down-arrow to expand it the full version. If you also do that a lot you can set the standard behavior to be that it always shows the full version. For that you have to open the Terminal (Applications>Utilities) and type in the following command: defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool TRUE Then press enter, and from then on the full version should always be shown, saving you a mouse click from time to time. If you would want to go back to the standard setting, just enter the same command in the Terminal, but change “TRUE” to “FALSE”.
Before
After
One Billion Songs and One Hundred Million iPods sold by Magnus
On February 23 2007 Apple announced (www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/feb/23itms.html) that one billion songs had been downloaded from the iTunes Store. The one billionth song was “Speed of sound” by ColdPlay and the lucky guy who made the purchase won all kinds of prizes. Steve Jobs said “Over one billion songs have now been legally purchased and downloaded around the globe, representing a major force against music piracy and the future of music distribution as we move from CDs to the Internet.” What would seem like a very closely related piece of news was revealed by Apple on April 9 2007 (www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/09ipod.html), when they said that they had sold 100 million iPods since their introduction in 2001.
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Apple & the iPod - Changing the Odds by Investing to Win complied by Rockin Babe
Growing business depends on new projects - creating new products, entering new markets, finding new customers, and acquiring new operations. Likewise, improving business depends on major new projects, such as upgrading IT system, simplifying manufacturing processes, and streamlining supply chain. At the moment of launching any project, there’s a problem that most of us don’t come to grips with: the inherent, all-too-human tendency to be over-optimistic about the odds of success. Steve Jobs is technological visionary. But a visionary perspective, even supported by immense charm and salesmanship, isn’t enough for commercially successful innovation. You also need subtle system for translating visionary ideas into products people want, concrete applications they will buy and business designs they will support. It is Jobs’ unique ability to put all these elements together that has made him today’s most interesting high-tech project manager. It’s also made him, almost as an afterthought, the savior of the music industry, with the success of the iPod. And may yet make him the savior of the movie business with launch of Apple TV. Ironically, the creation of the iPod from a missing feature in Apple’s successful iMac computer- the lack of a CD burner. During 2000, Jobs had been so focused on the iMac’s new operating system that (as he has since admitted) he didn’t see, or didn’t stop long enough to concentrate on, the meaning of a digitally based trend that was exploding all around him, namely, the CD-ripping, file-downloading, and peer-to-peer-sharing transformation of the music business into a user-controlled, digitally based activity. It’s ironic given the fact that Jobs, like most plugged-in kids who came of age in the 60s and the 70s, was a pop music nut. But by 2000 the pop music scene had drifted off Job’s radar. So much so that he didn’t think to include a CD burner when designing the iMac, an omission that looked worse and worse as the months
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went by and the digital music revolution gathered force. Eventually, something clicked. Jobs ordered the iMac hardware designers to incorporate CD burners as standard equipment in all future iMacs. But he also started asking an intriguing set of questions. Apple’s specialty had always been taking activities that other computers make possible making them dramatically easier, more intuitive, more creative, more fun. How could Apple do that with music? Most important, how could it be done in a way to create the big new business that Apple needed as a follow-up to the success of iMac? If this was to work, the product would have to be brilliant, embodying all of the stylistic flair and ease of use for which Jobs-inspired designs had long been noted. But the business design would be equally brilliant, finding ways to capture value that some of the biggest and smarted companies in the world had somehow overlooked. And it would all have to be done fast, since Jobs, creative as he is, knew that the high-tech world boasts many other creative thinkers whose footsteps he could hear close behind. (Jobs was competing in advance against the likes of Sony, Samsung and Panasonic.) If Apple were to create a profitable system for making digital online music easy and fun, the first step would be to create jukebox software for storing, managing, sorting and editing music files. Apple’s programmers were more than up to the challenge. But Jobs was in a hurry. With every passing week, the odds of success were getting a little worse. Could he buy the expertise Apple needed rather than creating it from scratch? As it happened, he could. Jeff Robin, a recently departed employee of Apple, was working on a jukebox product named SoundJam. It wasn’t ready for market, but Robbin had left behind a good reputation at Apple. So Jobs bought Robbin’s company and asked him to transform SoundJam into a program with Apple-level stylishness and ease of use. Within four months, Robin had prototype of something the company decided to call iTunes. It was a building block. Jobs, try-
ing to think two steps ahead, was already planning the other blocks he’d need to make his vision work. Like every teenager of the 70’s, Steve Jobs remembered the Walkman. It had made high-quality audio stylish, comfortably portable, instantly rendering the old transistor radio obsolete and selling over 300 million units for Sony. Why not create a Walkman for the new century? A portable music player that could hold and transport all your digital music? And do it as only Apple could, with sophisticated style and ease of use. The iPod effort began in April, 2001. Out of the starting gate, the odds for the iPod were no better than, say, 10%. Too low? If we travel back in time to 2001. Apple wasn’t really the right company; Sony was, or Panasonic, or Samsung. The cost of creating the device was going to be high. As for the network software to sell and manage the music (the iTunes project that had started this whole thing rolling), the music industry was developing competing alternatives including PressPlay and MusicNet. And the market for paid music downloads didn’t necessarily exist and might never exist; after all, the consumer had an alternative called Napster that offered a fairly attractive price- free. The project had just one obvious thing going for it. Apple was cool company and iPod was potentially a very cool product. So Jobs set about changing the odds. The first step was setting an outrageous schedule, much as Toyota had done with the Prius. Normal, reasonable development time for this kind of consumer-electronic project might be a year and a half. Maybe a little more. Jobs decided that the project would have to be done in nine months. Why drive your people to extremes by setting a ridiculous deadline? There were two factors, one external and one internal. The external factor: iPod was not exactly an obscure concept (everybody else remembered the Walkman and the Discman
too.) You could probably name at least four great global companies, starting with Sony, that could make and market one. If just one of them showed up in the market ahead of you, they could spoil your party. If two or there of them showed up, there’d be no party. But the bigger reason for Job’s ultra-rapid scheduled was internal. One of the most precious commodities in the world is undivided attention. Set a reasonable 18-month timetable, and it’s hard to get people’s undivided attention. Set a nine-month timetable, and everybody get very focused. It had worked at Toyota and now it worked at Apple. People talked to each other all the time. They tested different angles, different ideas. The rejects-pile grew larger. It was the same excess options strategy that Toyota had used: Overinvest in the right projects and let others die. As the rejects pile grows larger, so did the chances of finding the right solution, and the project chance of success increased. Undivided attention also got a partner, which is midnight oil. People who work at Apple cancel a lot of dinner reservations. Reluctantly, perhaps, but they do it. Winners attract energy. People vote with their attention and participation. So with the crazy schedule focusing everybody’s minds, iPod grew from a handful of people (Jobs and a couple of others) to a dozen, to a couple of dozen, to 50, which is a lot of people at a company the size of Apple. What followed was a pretty big conversation. Jobs doesn’t believe in serial development (Step A, handoff to Step B, handoff to Step C, etc.). Jobs prefers parallelism, or rather, synchrony. We have to talk to each other all the time, from hardware people to software people to design people to marketing people to manufacturing people. Over in Nagoya, Toyota had done the same thing a few years earlier, when they created Obeya, the big room where all the players- engine people, transmission people, battery people, styling people, electronic people, etc.- could talk to each other, as well as their e-mail network to promote equal access to information. In Palo Alto, it looked a little different (“endless meetings everywhere”), but it worked in the same way: “playing together, every step of the way.” Now, playing together is not paradise. Independently thinking people have been known to disagree, often with intensity. There has to be a referee (Steve volunteered), a timekeeper (Steve as
well), and a lead debater (Steve again). This psychic cost of running such a conversation far exceeds the dollars poured into the project. And it is far more powerful in raising the odds. In fact, the big dollars without the big psychic cost of the conversation will fail, guaranteed. But when you combine the financial investment with the emotional investment, you improve the odds of project success enormously. Most project managers in the world do spend the dollars. But they don’t drive the conversation with the enemy, intensity, and intelligence of Steve Jobs. The high rate of project failure should be no surprise. Apple kept looking for ways to improve the odds. The team cast a wide net in searching for the right software and components, they refused to cut financial corners, they focused intensively on the user design, and they made deal with partners to secure a time advantage over potential rivals. Apple soon learned that Toshiba was working on a tiny, 1.8-inch disk drive that could hold thousands of songs. Exactly what the iPod needed, but it was so expensive that other companies had balked. Jobs said, “Go for it,” and Apple cut an exclusive deal for the drives. And added a couple of points to the still-daunting odds of success, maybe to 16%. (Again, we can watch the scoreboard change as Apple makes its moves.) Next, Apple discovered that a little company called PortalPlayer had created technology that could serve as the guts of the iPod. Apple licensed the technology, and shaved a couple more months off the schedule. 18% Meanwhile, Apple’s engineers spent their time on the things they knew best- how to design an intuitive user interface and a beautiful package that would delight customers. Their motto: Think big, but simplify. Apple understood the technical challenges and the likely consumer demand well enough to know what the iPod needed to do and how to make it not just
attractive but irresistible. Jeff Robin recalls: “I remember sitting with Steve and some other people night after night from nine until one, working out the user interface for the first iPod. It evolved by trial and error into something a little simpler every day. We knew we had reached the end when we looked at each other and said, Well, of course. Why would we not to do it any other way?” The sleek design and simple-to-use interface of iPod further increased the odds. 25% The outpouring of favorable publicity that resulted when the iPod was launched in October, 2001 also helped. It provided unpaid advertising worth more than all the 30-second TV spots in the world. 30% Even with software and hardware that worked and beautiful product design, iPod was still far from a guaranteed success. The market was still untested, the gadget was expensive, and rival companies squabbling with one another over control of their music libraries. There was still plenty of reason to believe that iPod could end up alongside the Apple Newton in the annals of project risk. If the starting-gate odds in 2000 were 10%, how high were they at the end of 2001? For Steve Jobs ad his team, it was all just beginning. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the story of the iPod so far. What moves did Apple make to change the odds? Here are a few to consider: • Work fast to pre-empt the competition. • Capture your people’s undivided attention. • Have everybody talking to everybody. • Buy or license technology rather than making it from scratch. • Focus on the one thing you do best (interface design). • Design and redesign until perfection feels inevitable. • Make the first release so cool that the world has to notice. How many of these types of moves can a company use in their new-product launch? To be continued in next issue. Source: Mercer Management Consulting
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This Thispage page is is sponsored sponsored by Royal Step Computers
Peel The Apple
Get questions. Get answers answers to your Apple tech support questions. Email Email tech.support.@royalstepcomputers.com tech.support.@royalstepcomputers.com
This page is sponsored by RoyalStepComputers in Dubai. You can find out more about what they do including contact information at their site www. royalstepcomputers.com. They will in future issues of shuffle answer tech support questions emailed to them at tech.support@royalstepcomputers.com or that they have encountered with real customers.
This month’s Peel The Apple tech support question comes from EmiratesMac.com. A frequent tech support question on the site is how to get Apple’s iChat working in the UAE, especially with audio and video. User “DXB Law” presented a list of things to try, which seem to have been successful with many users (www.emiratesmac.com/forums/internetnetworking-communication/893-how-useichat-av-united-arab-emirates.html).
2) Do you have enough bandwidth to take advantage of iChat AV? It requires a lot of bandwidth, and just because you are paying for a 256 line from Etisalat does not mean you are getting the bandwidth you need. Try a DSL speed test (e.g. www.auditmypc.com/internet-speed-test.asp).
“1) Change the default log-in port for iChat. While you are not logged in, go to iChat>Pr eferences>Accounts>Server Settings. Verify that the server name is login.oscar.aol.com and then in the box beneath that, change the number 5190 to 443. Close the window.
4) Does your network or router use port forwarding?
2) Go to System Preferences>Sharing>Fire wall to see if your Mac’s built-in firewall is turned on. If yes, you need to open certain ports to allow iChat to connect through the firewall. Click the button marked “New” and you should get a dialog box with a pull-down menu for port name marked “CVS”. Click on that and choose the option “other” all the way at the bottom. Then you will get three white boxes. Enter the following information:
6) Are you able to connect at some times, but not others (suggests a problem with low bandwidth caused by other users on your shared network).
In the first box (marked TCP Port Numbers) enter the number 5190. In the second box (marked UDP Port Numbers) enter (you can copy and paste) the following information: 554, 5060, 5190, 5297, 5298, 5678, 1638416403. In the third box (marked Description) type iChat AV and then click OK. Look at the list of services in the big white box and make sure that the new service you created (iChat AV) has a check-mark in the box. These two steps should fix most iChat AV problems. If you still have difficulty connecting, you should consider whether any of the following possible problems exist:
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1) Do you connect via a network in your office or your home? Is there a firewall at the network level? If so, the corresponding ports need to be open.
3) Are you using the latest version of iChat (there was an upgrade in the 10.4.7 update)?
5) Are you able to connect to some iChat users but not others (maybe the problem is on their end, not yours)?
7) Do you have other software applications open? (Some applications conflict with iChat -- such as Lotus Notes -- while others compete for system resources with iChat and may cause a connection to fail). Start by quitting all other apps and trying your connection again. 8) Can you do an audio-only chat? (sometimes bandwidth is not good enough for video but will be okay with audio). 9) Try rebooting your Mac (and asking the person on the other end of your chat to do the same). Oftentimes this works. 10) If none of these steps help, go to the Apple Discussions forums. Start by reading the posts from Ralph Johns (especially his excellent web page about iChat (www.ralphjohnsuk.dsl.pipex.com/page1.html)” Of course we should also add step 11, go to EmiratesMac.com, search for “iChat” and see what other fixes users have suggested, and if nothing works, post a question and see if someone has an idea of how to fix it.
Tutorial
Photoshop tutorial: Car Branding by Zaid If you’d like to groom your car in any photo from your image collection, you should create a visual on the computer first before spending heaps on printed sticky vinyl. Actually it is rather nice to try wrap any photos on your airplane picture, car, Burj Al-Arab perhaps just for the sake of experimenting.We shall use a Photoshop filter called Displace that needs some preparations such as a source grey and blurred image before applyingitonourdestinationimage.Also the filter need an exaggerated highlight and shadowy areas for distortion while neutral grey will not distort. Zaid Al-Hilali is an Adobe Certified Instructor operating from Dubai. You can reach him on +971 50 736 2306. You can also find him hanging out at www.emiratesmac.com and www.digitalmediame.com
STEP 1 Open beetle.psd document (www.emiratesmac. com/newsletter/resources/may2007/beetle. psd). From Image menu, choose Duplicate to duplicate current image. Convert new copied image into Grey color mode, Image > Mode > Grayscale then click on Discard button when prompted.
STEP 2 From Image menu choose Adjustments > Levels, drag Highlight, Shadow, and midtone slider inward to exaggerate details or enter amount numbers as shown in the figure.
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STEP 3 Apply some blur, under Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, apply 2 pixels blur. then save the image under the name “Source Beetle” and make sure the Format is Photoshop, then close this blurry image.
STEP 5 Highlight the Flowers layer by clicking on it once, then from Filter menu, choose Distort > Displace. Change Horizontal and Vertical Scaling to 5, select Wrap Around under Undefined Areas within Displace filter dialogue window then click OK to prompt the Open window, locate the blurry image we named “Source Beetle” and hit Open button. You should see the flowers image has distortions already.
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STEP 4 Display back our original document Grey_Beetle, then open flowers.psd (www.emiratesmac. com/newsletter/resources/may2007/flowers. psd), use the move tool to drag flowers layer into the Beetle document while holding the Shift key as this will insure the flowers image is centered over the car, if it didn’t work, just visually move the flowers layer to cover the car completely.
STEP 6 Make sure the Flowers layer is targeted, choose Overlay from the Blending drop down list in the Layers Palette, and reduce opacity to 60%. You are able to see now how the flowers are following the contour lines of the Beetle.
STEP 7 Duplicate Flowers layer by dragging it to the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Palette or from the Layer Menu select Duplicate Layer. Apply Hard Light from the blending modes list, and adjust opacity of this copied Flowers layer to be 85%.
STEP 9 Once you see moving dots that looks like marching ants hit the backspace/delete button on your keyboard. Don’t forget to repeat this step for both Flowers layers. If you didn’t like the result because of too much distortion, you could always repeat Apply the Displace filter and play with the amount in each Horizontal and Vertical boxes.
STEP 8 In order to clean up unwanted parts of the picture, I have saved a selection for you to use. Target each of the Flowers layers individually, and from the menu Select > Load Selection, and choose Channel: Beetle, then click OK.
FINISHED Now you should see the finished result, a flower-power Beetle. This technique you can use for many other purposes as well, so go ahead and experiement. Look out for another Adobe tutorial in the next issue of shuffle.
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Recipe: Mulligatawny Soup by Crystal This is a warm hearty soup, with a spicy and a sweet side, with the apples. Mulligatawny Soup is much more than a soup, it is a meal, that you can make to your taste, as in just how spicy you want it to be. So, enjoy this Indian-inspired dish.
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.
Ingredients 11/2 cup chopped onion 2 stalks celery, chopped 1 carrot, diced 1/4 cup butter 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder 4 cups chicken broth 1/2 apple, cored and chopped 1/4 cup white rice 1 skinless, boneless chicken breast half - cut into cubes salt to taste ground black pepper to taste 1 pinch dried thyme 1/2 cup heavy cream, heated
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Instructions 1. Saute onions, celery, carrot, and butter in a large soup pot. Add flour and curry, and cook 5 more minutes. Add chicken stock, mix well, and bring to a boil. Simmer about 1/2 hour.
2. Add apple, rice, chicken, salt, pepper, and thyme. Simmer 1520 minutes, or until rice is done. When serving, add hot cream.
MySQL on Mac Part 3 by Magnus
We’re continuing the MySQL series on how to operate a MySQL installation on your Mac. In the first part (see the March issue of shuffle), we looked at logging into a MySQL database server running on a Mac, as well as how to see what databases are available, and how to create a database. In the second part (see the April issue of shuffle) we covered how to create tables and fields. Now, in the third and final part we will look at how to get data out of a database. To get data out of database we use the Select-statement. It’s called putting a together a query which is an appropriate name because you’re essentially asking a question of the database and seeing what the answer will be. With a Select-statement you basically ask for some information from one or more tables in a database and you give some criteria for what information should be returned. For example, if we have a table called customer and we want all records from it, we type: SELECT * FROM customer;
The star (“*”) means we want all fields (columns) returned. If the table has ten fields, we get all ten fields returned. Instead if we want just one field returned, let’s say the name-field, we type: SELECT name FROM customer; And we can also ask for a specific number of fields, like name and email, like this: SELECT name, email FROM customer; That’s how we choose which fields to return. Next, let’s look at how to select which records to return. Let’s say we want to find the customer with the id 5. Then we type: SELECT * FROM customer WHERE id=5; Or if we want to find any customer in Dubai that is of type hotel, then the query is:
Select-statements. There’s certainly much more to learn but all we wanted to accomplish is to give you a start. From here, if you want to learn more, there are plenty of good books, and many helpful web sites. You can of course also post on www.emiratesmac.com and ask for help. Wrapping Up That concludes our brief series on how to use MySQL on your Mac. We hope you can now go on and work with MySQL or some other SQL-variant on your Mac, and perhaps create databases for your own personal use. It may even be that with this as a basis you can create some dynamic web sites. Look out for a new series on PHP in future issues of shuffle. PHP paired with MySQL is arguably the most popular technology for developing dynamic web sites used on the internet today.
SELECT * FROM customer WHERE city=”Dubai” AND type=”hotel”; That’s a very quick introduction to
With stores in Abu Dhabi, Al Ain, and Dubai, Salam Studio & Stores is your preferred partner in any of your Professional DigitalEmiratesMac needs. shuffle
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Truly High Definition Video by Giorgio Ungania
As an Emirates Diving Association (EDA) member, I was asked by long-time friend Ibrahim al Zu’bi , EDA’s Director of Environment & Research, to go on a trip to Malaysia with 19 other EDA members and produce a documentary about the mission. The biggest challenge was time. According to the schedule, the documentary had to be ready a week after our return to Dubai. As the documentary would have to be
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transferred to 35mm at a later stage, the temptation to go to High Definition Video (HDV) was irresistible. And as the deadline was so close, we had to come up with solutions to minimize the post-production time. Here is how we did it.
Unconventional crew Having to plan and produce the documentary in such a short amount of time, I could not direct it myself so I called in Natascia Radice, a London-based director, who I knew from previous projects. We started designing our production strategy via email 10 days before the actual departure to Malaysia. Apart from Natascia and I, there was nobody else involved directly in the production. And as it was a non-profit project, there was no budget to hire cameramen or other crew members so we had to rely completely on ourselves and on the other divers. Fortunately, we
had experienced underwater videographers on board. This meant that we could focus on out-of-water shooting while leaving underwater footage to them. Living in a truly digital age, we also knew that pretty much everybody nowadays owns a DV camcorder or a digital camera. So we asked all the participating divers to bring their own technology to Malaysia. We thought that if two eyes are better than one, then 15 cameras are definitely better than two.
Lots and lots of pre-production Pre-production planning was the key to the success of the documentary. We had no other choice but to carry with us a mobile editing station so that we could physically edit each day’s material overnight. As Natascia and I are two truly devoted Apple fans, and as the documentary was to be shot in HDV, the choice of editing software was natural: Final Cut Studio.
Apart from being HDV, native Final Cut Studio comes with very handy applications such as LiveType and Motion, which we used intensely for the opening and end sequences and for the subtitling. Also, as we both edit with this application, if one of us falls asleep in front of the monitor, the other can keep on editing. The main editing station was a PowerBook 17-inch equipped with 2GB of RAM and an external 300GB FireWire hard drive. The whole mini-studio was really light to carry and it took us literally two minutes to set it up in all the various hotel rooms and locations we travelled to during the 10 days of the trip. To optimize the timings, I had the opening sequence already created in Motion. The only thing we had to do was replace the dummy stills and clips with the ones recorded on site. Regarding the soundtrack, we researched and chose the songs and music beds we wanted to use prior to departure as we wanted to use our iPods in a new and experimental way. Music editing and sound design are stages typical of the post-production process. Wanting to minimize time spent in postproduction, we decided to equip whoever was shooting with an iPod playing the track that would be used on that particular scene; it was kind of like shooting a live event somehow. Natascia and I knew in advance what kind of feeling we wanted to add to the footage so having the music playing in our headphones helped us synergise our camera movements. Of course, until Apple comes out with a waterproof version of the iPod, we will have to limit its usage to dry land.
played host to our Smart Resort headquarters. Here, we stayed in very comfortable, basic wooden huts that were well-equipped with electrical sockets. To Natascia and I, that was even more important than having hot running water. One hut was reserved for the mobile editing station and immediately was labeled “the digital hut“. Here, we had all the computers and an incredible amount of chargers for all the batteries and adaptors and so on. At the end of each day, we digitized all the tapes to hard disk and transferred the hundreds of digital photographs to the iBook for photo retouching. To gain time, we decided not to log and capture each tape but to download the whole content and do the logging at a later stage. The Sony HDR camera works perfectly in tune with Final Cut, as each time you paused the recording on the camera, an individual clip appears in your bin in Final Cut. After the downloading, we made time for dinner before immediately getting started on logging and editing the footage. We used headphones, of course, so as not to disturb the well-deserved rest of our fellow divers.
The digital hut
Post-production
Shooting
The majority of the scenes were shot in Mabul and Sipadan, two deep-water oceanic islands known worldwide for their underwater wonders. Other scenes took place in Kuala Lumpur during a Christmas Open House event hosted by The King and Queen of Malaysia together with the deputy Prime Minister. Mabul island
Once back in Dubai, we had a few days to finalize the documentary as it had to be shown to the public in a week’s time. We recorded some links with Ibrahim in his EDA office in order to enhance the continuity of the documentary and to better explain the connections between the scenes of the various locations. Most of the editing was already done on site. What was
left was some color correction, which was performed using a Dual G5 with Final Cut Pro; we could have used the G4 PowerBook also for color correction but we needed extra processing power to cut down the rendering time. As we wanted to integrate some very interesting clips shot in DV, we used the same G5 to convert the foot-age into HDV format, which we imported into the timeline of our main Final Cut Studio project. The very last stage was the recording of the voice over, performed by Siobhan Leyden, and the final mix and sound design on a Pro tools HD station. An HD DVD was burnt using DVD studio Pro. As the projection was due to shown on an amazing Sony KDE50 plasma screen, I personally tested some samples of the final renders on the monitor to check the colour matches. The result was really impressive.
Conclusions Final Cut Pro has been the perfect platform because it never crashes the host computer, even when it is a G4 processor handling a huge amount of HD material. In addition, its HDV native feature saved us a lot of time as we could play the clips in real time immediately after importing them on our timeline. On the next project, I would like to install Pro Tools LE on the traveling laptop so that I will literally be able to finalize the product before catching the flight back home to Dubai. Truly amazing.
Emirates Diving Association teams up with Tourism Malaysia on an environmental mission on the paradise island of Sipadan. Georgio Ungania and Natascia Radice discover Malaysia through High-Definition Video (HDV) and Final Cut Studio editing software.
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Review
Airport Extreme Base Station 802.11n by Magnus Price 899Dhs From Apple Inc. Distributor Apple IMC ME Web www.appleme.ae
Arguably the most important news about the updated Airport Extreme Base Station is that it now supports 802.11n, making its top speed a lot faster than on the previous model. According to Apple, it boasts about five times the speed and double the range of the previous model. To get the better speed you obviously have to have an all-802.11n network. Even though it is 802.11n, it’s backward compatible with earlier Airport (802.11b) and Airport Extreme (802.11g). The look of the Airport Extreme has changed, and it’s now reminiscent of the Mac mini and Apple TV but with an all white plastic case. On the back we find the connection for the networking connection, and three 10/100MBPS Ethernet ports to which you can attach additional computers. There’s also a USB port which can be used to share an external hard drive or a printer, over a local network. The hard drive sharing is the easiest way yet from any manufacturer to share storage over a network, but it’s an all-or-nothing sharing. You cannot control the access to and sharing of individual folders. When it comes to security the new Airport Extreme supports WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and WPA2 encryption methods, as well as older WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy). We recommend you stay away from WEP when at all possible. The 802.11n upgrade of the Airport Extreme Base Station is a very solid upgrade to what was already one of the best wifi access points on the market. With faster networking, disk sharing, and more, this is a highly recommended product. Yes, there are cheaper 802.11 base stations from other manufacturers, but Apple has the most stylish one, and arguably the easiest to set up and administer.
All in one server with iTools 8 by Magnus Price $349 From Tenon Intersystems Distributor Tenon Intersystems Web www.tenon.com/products/
itools-osx
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iTools from Tenon Intersystems is an all in one server package for Mac OS X or Mac OS X Server. Tenon says it’s “web hosting control panel software”. In iTools you find everything from Apache web server, PHP, Perl, MySQL 5, PHP5, Tomcat, WordPress, and more, all accessible through a control panel like interface. There is so much I can’t list it all, but rest assured, that pretty much anything you would need for a web server is in iTools. We installed iTools 8 on a G4 Mac mini with 1GB RAM and it installed without problems. Since there is so much software and options, we focused on setting up some basic MySQL and PHP functionality. Getting that up and running was really easy, and configuration is a breeze too with everything available in a nice web-based interface. You can download iTools and try it for free for 14 days which should be enough to find out if it’s a solution that fits you. The different system and applications in iTools are open source and freely available. Then you may ask “why should I pay money to Tenon?” I think the simple answer is to save you time and effort, and thereby money. What Tenon has done is put this selection of various applications together, made an interface for it all, and made it accessible. I could download all these applications individually and configure them individually. Undoubtedly that would give me more control but it would also take more time. I think there’s a definite niche for iTools, but for some potential customers, the price is going to be too high. Tenon provided a temporary license for iTools for this review.
OmniGraffle by Magnus Price $79.95/$149.95 From OmniGroup Distributor OmniGroup Web www.omnigroup.com/ap-
plications/omnigraffle/
OmniGraffle is one of those apps that I just can’t see myself being without. I use it for all kinds of things, from drawing wireframes and mockups of web site designs, presentations, seating arrangements for events, to posters and banners. It’s a swiss army-knife type of application that can do almost anything you would want it to do. So what’s so great about OmniGraffle? Without showing you at the same time, it’s hard to explain. It just makes it so easy to create amazing looking documents. You will find the most common drawing tools, layers, master canvases, and libraries of stencils. OmniGraffle has the same type of floating palettes for tools and settings that you’ve come accustomed to from other applications. This means pretty much everything you need is quickly and easily available. You will also find the sort of live guides you’ve seen in KeyNote, showing you how an object aligns and compares to others. The live guides in OmniGraffle are more helpful though, Apple could really learn something here. One thing I use a lot is the features with layers and master canvases. Each page you create can be based on a master canvas. So by changing a master canvas page you can quickly change all pages that are based on it. You can also organize pages into layers, and hide and lock layers as you work on your creation. OmniGraffle doesn’t have the bells and whistles of KeyNote and PowerPoint when it comes to presentations but in some ways it beats those applications. You can get OmniGraffle in a standard and a professional version. Whether the extra money is worth it depends on your particular circumstances. To me, just the Visio import and export makes it well worth it. If you need an all-purpose drawing application, I don’t think you will be disappointed with OmniGraffle. OmniGroup provided a license of OmniGraffle for this review.
Relo Knox iPod nano case by Magnus Price $45 From Mophie Distributor Mophie Web mophie.com/products/
relo-knox/?pod=nano2
Without trying to be funny, the Relo Knox is like the Fort Knox of iPod nano cases. Made for the 2G iPod nano, it’s a brushed aluminum hard cover, with some rubber details, which totally encloses the iPod and protects it. And it’s really two cases in one plus a wallet. With the Knows comes a clear plastic case that you put the nano in, then that case slides in to one side of the aluminum enclosure. It’s really rather clever. Then on the other side of the enclosure you have a clip which can hold your money, credit cards, or important papers. On the bottom of the enclosure is a cut out where the ear phones attach. One interesting design feature is that the case keeps shut by magnets, like Apple’s latest notebooks. I was a bit worried about this at first but after carrying my nano around in the Knox for about a week I can say there’s no need to worry. I’ve carried the Knox in my hand, thrown it in my bag, even dropped it on the floor, and it never opened up. The downside of the Knox is that if course it adds a lot to the size of a nano and it’s not a case that you choose for its sleekness. But consider it may be able to also replace your wallet, the size may not be so much of an issue. Some will be disappointed that it’s not waterproof, but that’s not what it was meant to be. Basically, if you want the ultimate in protection, the Knox will keep your nano as safe as it can be.
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Review
Uniea Leather U-Suit for MacBook by Magnus Price 255Dhs From Uniea Corp. Distributor 4th Dimension Web www.uniea.com
If you’ve been looking for a hard cover for your MacBook or MacBook Pro, Uniea has introduced an interesting alternative for you in the Leather U-Suit series. The U-Suit covers have a hard ABS plastic core which offers real protection for your notebook from bumps, sharp corners and objects. Around that plastic core is a leather outside with some padding, and a smooth, soft protective inside which promises to not scratch your precious Mac. A few “hooks” around the edges snaps around your Mac and keeps both covers (one for the display and one for the computer part) tightly secured to your Mac. I was pleasantly surprised when I snapped the cover on the first time and it really fit tightly to my MacBook. Around all the necessary optical drives, ports, IR-detector, and the fan outlets, the case is open so to give you easy access. However, the one thing I don’t like about this cover, and for me this is a deal-breaker, is that I cannot fit a Kensington-type lock on the MacBook because the cover is in the way. The U-Suit covers come in Red, White, Blue, Grey for MacBook and White, Grey, Black for MacBook Pro. If you want a hard cover for your Mac notebook but you also always want easy access to ports and drives, the U-Suit may be a good choice. That is if you don’t want to secure it with a lock.
Remote Buddy is your Friend by Magnus Price $13 From IOSpirit Gmbh. Distributor IOSpirit Gmbh. Web www.iospirit.com
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Do you have a Mac with an Apple Remote? If so, what do you use that remote for? Chances are all you do is control Front Row with it. But it can do so much more, which is where Remote Buddy comes in. Recently I had to give some presentations, using KeyNote of course, and I wanted to be able to walk around a bit, without having to go back to the MacBook to change slides. I downloaded Remote Buddy, installed it, and bada-bing, bada-boom, I was controlling KeyNote with the Apple Remote. One really cool feature of Remote Buddy is the Behavior Construction Kit. A Behavior is really what should happen in a certain application when you press something on the remote. Most common applications already have behaviors set up but you can always make your own. And Remote Buddy is smart enough to pick the appropriate behavior for whatever application is running so you won’t have to manually switch. Remote Buddy actually supports a number of remote controls besides the Apple Remote, including a line of KeySpan remotes, some mobile phones, and even the Nintendo Wii remote. If you want to control your Mac remotely with an Apple Remote or other remote control, an investment in Remote Buddy is a must. It’s easy and straight forward to set up, and you can make it work with pretty much any application.
Weaving The Web Extending your browsing experience
www.daringfireball.net Insightful and enjoyable commentary on all things Apple.
www.macdailynews.com Arguably the biggest and best in Apple news and rumors.
www.macfixit Troubleshooting to the max.
www.mac4arabs.com All-Arabic site about Apple and Macs.
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Report from Special Apple TV Event by Magnus
EmiratesMacUserGrouparrangedourfirstmajoreventonMarch292007.ASeniorEngineeratAppleInc.talkedaboutand demonstrated the AppleTV. User Group members got a chance to try out the AppleTV and ask questions of the Engineer.
Thank You to our Sponsors: The event took place in the Auditorium at Knowledge Village Dubai.
A Senior Engineer at Apple Inc. demonstrated the Apple TV.
The attendees were treated to a live demo of the Apple TV from one of the engineers at Apple who designed it.
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The presentation took the audience through what it’s like working at Apple, what the culture is like, and some of the things that the employees do at Apple to have fun.
Magnus Nystedt, President and Ambassador of EmiratesMac User Group gave a brief introduction to the user group and its activities. About the photographer Mickeymouse is a creative brewery of sorts. Armed with an arsenal of color swatches and a penchant for harmonizing fonts and images, he has built an extensive portfolio of works in broadcast and print design. He also seeks to collaborate with creative individuals, groups
and clients on various communication and design projects. He contributes photos to the Emirates Mac Users Group, and will soon contribute design, illustration and other strange creations as well. Mickeymouse is pretending he didn’t write this. You can reach him at kamil@ fluxnewmedia.com.
Join EMUG • Want to meet other Apple users? • Want to learn more about your Mac, iPod, Apple TV or iPhone? • Want to help others with their problems? • Want to have some fun? • Want to save some money on your Apple purchases?
To Join: www.emiratesmac.com/index.php?page=usergroup
EmiratesMac User Group is a non-profit, community organization which aims to spread knowledge about Apple products in the United Arab Emirates, and increase the knowledge and skills of its members. Presently, membership in EmiratesMac User Group is 150 Dirhams per year. Membership benefits and special offers are subject to change at any time and will be reviewed annually by EmiratesMac and participating businesses. To see the latest details, go to www. emiratesmac.com/index. phppage=usergroup. Memberships are renewed on an annual basis and the membership period is January to Decemeber. New membership cards will be issued each January for members who wish to remain in EMUG. After applying and paying for a membership, you can pick up your membership card at an EMUG meeting or other event.
Membership Benefits • The right to come to EMUG meetings. • The right to participate in members-only events, and discounts at select EmiratesMac-organized events. • Access to a dedicated discussion forum on www. EmiratesMac.com where you can interact with other members, ask questions, and put in suggestions for activities and anything else about what we do. • The right to submit articles for publication in this newsletter. • At MacStores in the UAE, EMUG-members get the following discount: Mac Pro/MacBook Pro 6%, iMac/ MacBook/MacMini 4%, iPods 2%, and Accessories 7%. Limit to one purchase per month. • 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.
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