February 2012

February 2012
DoubleClick
MaUsE: Celebrating 25 Years of Goofing Off
With Apple Macintosh Computers
2012 MaUsE Executive
• President: Michael Shaw
[email protected]
• Apple Liaison: Marcel Dufresne
[email protected]
• Treasurer: Stan Wild
[email protected]
• Photographer: Irma Shaw
• DoubleClick Editor:
Michael Shaw
[email protected]
• Secretary: Jeff Hurd
• Director: Guy Lafontaine
[email protected]
• Director: Ian Winton
• Director: Marcel Dufresne
MaUsE Contact Information:
The MaUsE
c/o Stan Wild
58 Rothean Drive
Whitby, Ontario, Canada
L1P 1L5
w w w. m a u s e . c a
This Month’s Meeting
The MaUsE get together in
February will be held on the
evening of Feb. 22nd. Mark it on
your calendar and don’t forget
to bring your iPad, iPod, iBook
or MacBook if you have such a
thing. That way you can help in
the sharing session.
From The Editor
What you are looking at is the February 2012
edition of the MaUsE DoubleClick, the online
publication of the Macintosh Users East, (MaUsE),
a motley collection of mostly harmless seniors and
cranks who reside in Southern Ontario with their
motley collection of old and new Macintosh,
Hackentosh & MacClone computers.
The DoubleClick is published using a 2.8 GHz Aluminum iMac and QuarkXPress 9. An antique
Kodak DX7590 is STILL being used for all pictures. Everything not specifically attributed to
someone else can probably be blamed on the Editor. Back issues can be downloaded from the
MaUsE website: < www.mause.ca >. Submissions
from MaUsE Club members are almost always
welcome. Maybe that last bit is an exaggeration.
Send your submissions and articles to me at:
< [email protected] >, especially if there are
files or pictures attached. I have never refused a
submission yet. Because we care about the environment, the MaUsE DoubleClick is created using
only recycled electrons: matter was neither created nor destroyed in the process of creating this
issue. There are no infractions of the law of matter
conservation. There is always room for another
piece on any Mac-related topic and Iʼll make room
if there isnʼt. I would like your submissions. But I
won't beg.
This Month’s Cover
S.O.P.A., also known as H.R. 3261,
would authorize the U.S. Department
of Justice to seek court orders against
websites outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of
enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. After delivering a court
order, the U.S. Attorney General could
require US-directed Internet service
providers, ad networks, and payment
processors to suspend doing business
with sites found to infringe on federal
criminal intellectual property laws. The
Attorney General could also bar search
engines from displaying links to the
sites.
Apple, Macintosh, and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the
U.S. and other countries. The MaUsE (Macintosh
Users East) is an independent Mac user group
and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved of by Apple Computer, Inc. Its very
much like they don’t even know we exist.
Michael Shaw, Editor
MaUsE Meetings are held in Room 1 at the new Whitby Public Library on
the south-east corner of Henry and Dundas West in Whitby, Ontario on the
fourth Wednesday of each month except December, July and August. Meetings start at 7:00 PM but there is an early session from 6:30 for people who
wish to discuss hardware or software issues or problems. Macintosh virus
problem are discussion from 6:58 to 7:00 PM
7
2
Twenty-five years ago, on April 21st, 1987, Macintosh Users East held their
first formal meeting at Durham College. Among our current Honorary
Members are at least three of the pioneers known to have attended
that first meeting: John Field, Chris Greaves, and Helen Alves.
As a club, and as Mac users, we have come a long way
since those early days !
‘Evening With Mac and Siblings’
(iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch)
Wednesday, April 4th: It’s a date to remember!.
We are expanding the focus of this Spring’s ‘Evening with Mac’ to provide ‘hands on’
involvement with ‘Mac’ and his younger, but very popular siblings:
‘iPhone’ - ‘iPad’ - ‘iPod Touch.’
You are invited to make a note of Wednesday, April 4th and plan to come and enjoy a
special evening spent with ‘Mac and the ifamily’ of Apple’s marvelous devices.
We shall be sharing more information with you about the evening at each of our
February 22nd and March 28th meetings, so make time to be with us at
Whitby Library on each of those dates and join in the excitement of becoming
personally involved in all that is happening at MaUsE.
MaUsE is YOUR Durham Region ‘Mac’ & ‘iDevice’ Club.
AKVIS Plug-in for Photoshop: Refocus
In the early days of photography, when they used camera obscura (a
big box with a pin hole on one side) there was no need to focus as no
lens was involved. The image on the back wall was full scale. This
camera was so big that a man stood inside the box and painted the
image by hand.To reduce the size of the box, and to increase the
brightness of the image a lens was added, which also maintained
focus. With todays digital cameras focus is done automatically by adjusting the distance of the lens to the sensor. This is a great way to insure that all your photos are in focus. There is one problem with Auto
Focus, that is, what if the camera doesn't focus on what you want. In
a portrait for example you want to focus on the subjects eyes, and
have a blurry background. The Auto Focus is more likely going to set
the camera up so that the whole photo is in focus, including the background. Another example is when the camera focuses on something
in the background, and leaves your
foreground subject out of focus. For
this purpose, one switches to aperture mode and adjusts the settings
till the subject is in focus. This is
known as selective focus. In digital
photography the selective focus
technique is used to shoot portraits,
macro and close-up photographs.
Elements 1-4. The other plugin version is for Photoshop CS3-CS5, and Ps Elements 6-10. The minimal system requirements for Mac are Intel/G4, 1
Gb RAM, 1024 x 768 display. If you have ever
used any Akvis program you will notice that the
layout
is
the
same
in
Akvis Refocus as with there other programs. The
Fortunately Akvis Refocus Program is now available to correct the
focus problems you may run into. Akvis Refocus improves sharpness left part of the program's window is taken by the Image Window with
two tabs: Before and After. In the Before tab the original image is
of out of focus images. The program can process the entire photo or
shown, while in the After tab you can see the processed image. You
bring into focus only the selected part to make the subject stand out
can switch between the windows by clicking on a tab with the left
against the background. Even if a photo looks sharp enough, there is
always room for improvement. You may want to create a special effect mouse button. In the upper right part of the program's window you
can see the Control Panel. You can hide/show the Control Panel by
and draw attention to certain details, you can use selective focus of
clicking on the small triangle button (middle of the panel). The minithe Akvis refocus program to accomplish this. Akvis Refocus is also
mized panel will be shown when moving the cursor over it. This has
helpful with landscape photos. When shooting an object or a landscape at a distance, you may notice that the picture looks hazy. Akvis the effect of giving you a larger workspace window, which can be
helpful when you are selecting a portion of a photo for select focus.
Refocus will make the photo more distinct and thus more impressive.
In Akvis Refocus you can use two pencils to separate the subject from
the background and adjust the settings to get the selective focus effect. There are also Akvis presets which provide different degrees of
sharpness. To achieve a more realistic selective focus effect, you can
sharpen one part of the photo and blur the rest. The Defocus feature
that allows blurring the background is available only with the Home
Deluxe and Business licenses. As with all Akvis programs they come
in either standalone or plugin versions. You have a choice of four Licenses, they are Home standalone or plugin, Home Deluxe and Business licenses, which cover both the standalone and plugin. Akvis
Refocus is compatible with many of the photo editing programs. If you
use Photoshop, and Ps Elements, you have to be careful which plugin
version you download. One version is for Photoshop 6 to CS2, and Ps
For my test of the Akvis refocus program I used an out of focus portrait of Luke, a great nephew of mine. The shot on the right is the original, where you will see the right eye is out of focus, and the face is
soft, a polite way of saying out of focus. The left shot is the result after
using Akvis Refocus. You will see that the right eye is now sharper, as
is the chin, nose, and the forehead hair peek. As you can see Akvis
refocus has made the portrait sharper, so that it stands out from the
background. I found that Akvis Refocus was very easy to use. As with
all Akvis products you can try it free for ten days, and I would recommend that you go ahead and download it for yourself. Akvis Refocus
is a handy tool to have in your photo editing arsenal for the times
when you end up with out of focus photos.
Submitted by Kevin Livesey
The CRTC has notified Rogers it has evidence the company is violating federal net neutrality rules by deliberately slowing down or
"throttling" some of its internet traffic.
Andrea Rosen, CRTC's chief compliance and enforcement officer, notified Rogers of the findings in a letter late in January. Rogers has until
noon on February 3rd to respond or face a hearing. To avoid a hearing, Rogers must present a rebuttal of the evidence or provide the
CRTC with a plan to come into compliance with the act. If Rogers fails
to do so, the regulator may order the company to partially reimburse
customers and to change its practices. The CRTC based its findings on the results of an investigation in collaboration with Cisco Systems, the hardware and software vendor that Rogers uses.
Coming Soon
Stellar has donated a raffle copy of
their Drive ToolBox, a full set of
twelve Macintosh utilities to speed
up your Mac, secure and protect
your data, manage your files, and
do drive maintenance. All of the
Stellar utilities reviewed in recent
issues of the DoubleClick are included in this package, and the
stellar Photo Recovery tool is
included. Intel / PowerPC G3 or
better.Mac OSX 10.3.9 or better.
What can you do in response to the CRTC’s findings? If you are a
Rogers customer ask Rogers for clarification in this matter. Based on
the CRTC’s findings that Rogers is allegedly in direct violation of federal net neutrality rules and has been deliberately degrading your ability to use the product they have sold you, you may have the right to
phone your internet service provider (if it is Rogers) and ask for a partial refund. Do not wait for Rogers to buy their way out of the CRTC
charges by agreeing to reduce internet access charges by a few pennies per month for a few of their customers. You may not get satisfaction the first time you call but keep on calling and stay on the line
until you speak to someone with the authority to reduce your
Rogers internet charge.
Coming Soon
Macware has donated a raffle copy
of Graphic Design Studio for this
month’s MaUsE raffle. With precise
drawing tools, filters and effects,
shape editing and full layer control,
this package (and a Mac running
Mac OSX 10.5 or better) is all you
need to unleash your imagination
and start designing professional
looking graphics for all of your
projects and illustrations.
January 25th MaUsE Meeting
Our first MaUsE Meeting of 2012 was a joyous occasion. We tried out
our new agenda, devised by the MaUsE Exec in an effort to increase
audience participation in our events. The first part of the meeting covered club business and the welcoming of a new member. Stan gave
the Treasurers Report (we are still solvent) and mentioned that the
time will soon be upon us when the yearly membership fees will be
due for the majority of our Members. Stan has already printed up the
new 25th anniversary MaUsE Membership cards and he will bring
them to the February and March MaUsE Meeting for anyone who
wants to bring money to pay then.
Marcel was the star of the show, encouraging attendees to whip out
their MacBooks, iPads and other portable devices to follow along with
him as he demonstrated Dockables on the Mac and showed how to
activate and use new keyboards on the iPad. That went extremely
well. I reported the Apple news, which was all to the good, with mention of iBooks 2 with iBooks textbooks, the release of iBooks Author,
the free eBook authoring software from Apple, Apple’s interest in ionic
wind pumps for cooling computers, Apple’s stunning financial results
from the last quarter of 2011, and a few rumours about the new
iMacs. I mentioned recent CRTC complaint against Rogers and Geoffery reported his success at requesting and receiving a big refund
from Rogers because of his unimpressive internet experiences.
We had a full half-hour break (!) instead of our usual 15 minutes, and
during that time all of the MaUsE
members took advantage of the opportunity to examine the raffle prizes
and get tickets, pursue Marcel with
questions about his presentations, socialise, and mutter politely amongst
themselves.
After the break I did a general information presentation about torrents,
explaining how “peer to peer” (a.k.a.
P2P) networks work, what a torrent
files is, and where to get torrents &
how to use them. I demonstrated how to use Vuse and VLC. We visited several different websites to see what types of files were available as torrents. I downloaded a sample of video to show the actual
procedure involved. Many questions were asked and I’m sure that
many of our members left the meeting with ideas about the types of
files that they might find available as torrents.
Although there was an “open mike” session on the agenda, (and there
was supposed to be15 minutes set aside for it at 9:00 PM), the questions about torrents ran over into it and we finished off the meeting
with a raffle of software donated by some of our sponsors and some
hardware items that were brought in by MaUsE Members and donated to the raffle. We had a copy of the latest BlowUp 3 from Alien
Skin, several iPhone cases, some utilities from Stellar, Logo Design
Studio from Macware, some training certificates from MacProvideo,
an Asante router and a USB wireless network adapter, courtesy of
Bruce, some books and cables, a copy of 3D Weather Globe & Atlas
from MacKiev, some older Macintosh games, courtesy of Marcel, a
download and registration code for a copy of Macware’s
MacKeeper, and five certificates entitling the winners to
registered copies of SpeechTrans for the iPhone, iPod
Touch iPads and Android devices. Please keep in mind
that many of our members, myself included, are still using
older Macintosh computers with older operating systems.
Your obsolete hardware and software is appreciated.
I would like to specifically thank Bruce for running sound
and technical, and all of the other members of the MaUsE
Exec for helping plan and participate in our January meeting, and all of the MaUsE Members who attended. The response to the new agenda was positive and we will make
and effort to provide more topics for presentation and discussion that will be of broader general interest to the membership. It will be the goal of the MaUsE Exec to increase
the level of audience / membership participation at our meetings.
Members with portable computers and iDevices like the new iPads
are encouraged to bring them along to participate in hands-on aspects of demonstrations. If you have specific programs or activities
you would like to see presented, or if you would like to do a presentation of some aspect of using your Apple or Macintosh hardware or
software, please feel free to contact me using the information on
Page 2.
Michael Shaw, President of MaUsE Mr. Reader by CuriousTimes:
A Great RSS News Reader for the iPad
Every morning I visit over fifty web sites searching for news
on my favourite topics. This ranges from sports, books and
magazines, TV and movies to education, and apple news, including hardware and software. I can do this quickly because
I don't actually visit each of these sites. I have subscribed to
an RSS feed for all of these and I use an application called
an aggregator to gather all the info into one spot. Again this would be
way too much to look at since many of the sites have a lot of
changes. The aggregator summarizes the data into a headline and a
few lines of text. Sometimes a picture or a video accompanies the
headline. This way I can check out the headline and see if it is a topic
of interest. In sports, I can scan the game scores. If I am curious, I
can then hit the arrow key and be taken to the actual web site to read
about the game and possibly watch a short video of the highlights.
This applies to any subscription that the aggregator pulls in. I get over
300 hits in a typical morning of which less than 10% are worth a follow up. The aggregator allows me to skim through a great deal of info
to extract only that which I really care about. I did a presentation of
RSS feeds a few years ago at one of our members meetings and you
can read more about this in the July 2010 DoubleClick. The article is
on page 23. (http://mause.ca/about/dclick_issues/dc1007_s.pdf)
The key to a good aggregator is the ability to customize how the info is displayed. As I have written in
the past, I much prefer to have a separate aggregator
application to do the accumulating. All of you have aggregators on your machines. All browsers have the
ability to act as aggregators, as does the Apple Mail
application. The problem is that the Mail app is great
at handling emails and weak as an aggregator. The
same can be said of the browser, whose main purpose is to surf the Internet. This limits the ability to customize the
feeds. An application that does one task and only one task is the best
one to get. There are some free aggregators on the market and of
course some that you have to pay for. I have been using NetNewsWire as my aggregator of choice for over five years. (It was an
aggregator when I first started using it, but now it is really only an app
that displays the feeds. The real aggregator is Google Reader which
NetNewsWire syncs up with.) It more than meets my needs. I am
using the free version of this app which includes some advertising in
the bottom left of the window. This has been my aggregator for so
long because of its flexibility. It allowed me to add, delete and search
for new feeds. I could quickly customize the look of the info displayed.
It let me flag certain feeds and saved these for me. Some are over
three years old and the only limit to the length of time is whether the
parent web site gets rid of the data or not.
You are probably wondering about the title
of this review. Am I reviewing NetNewsWire
or Mr. Reader? I spent a bit of time explaining about feeds to set the stage for Mr.
Reader. My aggregator of choice for my
desktop (and laptop) remains NetNewsWire. The problem is what to use on my
iPad. There are many idevice apps out
there that can be used as aggregators. You
can in fact revert to your browser or Apple
Mail to accumulate the feeds. I wanted the
same customizability for my iPad as I have
for my desktop. The problem with most iPad
apps is that you often have to buy them
sight unseen, unless the developer offers a
free lite version of the software. I have
searched and read about a lot of RSS aggregators for the iPad. I downloaded a few
free ones, but they did not offer the flexibility I was looking for. They were really no
better in functionality than the browser or
Apple Mail. NetNewsWire had an iPad version of their software and I wrote to them to
do a review of their product. I did not hear
back from them. I was not about to fork
over any money for an app I could not see
in action. Mr. Reader was recommended in one of my RSS feeds and
Oliver Fuerniss, the developer, was kind enough to send me a review
copy.
I found the recommendation to be dead on and I would add my praise
for this app. Mr. Reader is just what I was hoping for. It is an RSS
news reader for the iPad only. The way the data is displayed would
not work with the small screen of the iPhones. It performs all the functions that I have come to rely on with NetNewsWire, but now I can
enjoy these on my iPad. When you first start Mr. Reader you will be
asked to create an account with Google Reader or sync a previous
account. Google Reader is really the aggregator and Mr. Reader is
the app that displays the feeds. Since I already had a Google Reader
account with feeds set up, I was quickly able to have all of these show
up in Mr. Reader. There is a column (about a quarter of the display)
with the list of my feeds and the number of unread articles in them.
The right hand has the headlines, thumbnails and enough of the text
to give me a good idea of what it is about. The free readers I looked
at did not offer any thumbnails to accompany the text and often cut off
the text displayed so I could not really tell what the article was about. I
have found that the thumbnail is what frequently caught my interest
and caused me to follow up. The lack of a thumbnail would have me
missing some stuff I do care about.
The versatility and flexibility of Mr.
Reader is exactly what I want in
an RSS aggregator. There are
four colour themes to choose
from. You have complete control over the maximum unread items
kept, as well as how long they are stored. The thumbnail picture that
accompanies the headline can be large or small or removed completely. Sounds can be set indicating various actions taken by Mr.
Reader. Sorting the headlines can be handled in a number of fashions. Adding a new feed could not be more straightforward. The top
left corner has a + sign. By choosing this you get a dialogue window
in which you can write a search term or the URL of the feed you are
looking for. The search term will give you a list of feeds that fit your
quest. Choose what you want coming in. Removing a feed is just as
simple. Press on the name of the feed until a dialogue box pops up.
You get the options of: rename, move, delete, and reorder. My list of
feeds is over 50 items. I have set up folders to group the feeds into
smaller sets so that the list fits onto one screen. When I synched Mr.
Reader, my folders came along for the ride. I was able to add and remove any feed. Lightly touching the arrow beside the folder name
brought up all the items inside that folder. I usually choose to look at
all the unread items as a group. Mr. Reader shows these in a sorted
list in the order in which they appear in the left hand column. They are
shown with the name of the feed followed by all the messages found
in it. You can also email the article, as well as store it in Evernote or
Instapaper.
Beside the headline and thumbnail I get some extra data and choices.
The age of the info is shown, whether it be a few minutes old or as in
the case of flagged items, years. There is a blue/grey dot showing the
unread/read status of the article. I mentioned that I will flag an item to
save it with NetNewsWire. Mr. Reader also has this capability although it is called a star. I was happy to note that flagged items from
my NetNewsWire feeds showed up as starred items in Mr. Reader.
No data was lost in the synching up with Google Reader. NetNewsWire was not as kind. Items I starred in Mr. Reader did not show
up as flagged when I synched with NetNewsWire. Mr. Reader also allows you to tag an article with whatever name you wish to make it
easy to find later. You would star an item when you skim through your
articles and you have found an interesting one but you don't have
time to read it immediately. You mark it starred to read it later. Tagging
is meant for those few great article you wan't to archive.
It is amazing how fast one can skim through over 300 messages and
pull out only the relevant ones. Once I find an interesting article, the
switch to the full text is practically instantaneous. Tapping the article
brings up the full RSS feed with some options that NetNewsWire is
lacking. Besides the RSS feed and the browser web site view, I also
get a mobilizer view (Instapaper) and a readability view, which leaves
mainly the text and removes a lot of the extras. That way you can
concentrate on the article itself and not be distracted by all that other
stuff flashing from the web site. If the Internet isn't handy, you can still
look through your previous messages. It provides image caching that
helps you to read offline. Since both NetNewsWire and Mr. Reader
are the displayer of the data and Google Reader is the actual aggregator, I thought that any data that I marked as read on one would also
be noted the same on the other. This is not so. The feeds will come
into both sites. Fortunately, Mr. Reader has a "mark all items as read"
button which greys out all the messages at once, marking them as
read.
Finding a suitable aggregator for my iPad has been a long search but
with Mr. Reader I have exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a customizable app that allowed for me to easily search for new feeds and
flag important items. Mr. Reader does that and more. It has been in
the iTunes store since April 2011, which makes it a fairly new app. It
has gone through a number of versions and the developer is always
looking for ways to improve his product. Any email I have sent his way
has been answered within an hour. Go to his web site, http://www.curioustimes.de/mrreader/index.html, and read more about this app.
You can buy it from the iTunes Store,
http://search.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZContentLink.woa/wa/li
nk?path=apps%2fmrreader, for $3.99. I strongly suggest you subscribe to an RSS feed for all those websites you regularly visit and get
yourself a good aggregator, like Mr. Reader, to make following all that
news as smooth as possible.
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
The Big Story:
SOPA and PIPA
The big story for January 2012 was
that the American government is
working on a bill that would favour the
least productive segment of American
society, the enfranchised Hollywood
entertainment business, at the expense of all other forms of artistic expression and eCommerce.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is
described as a U.S. House bill to fight
online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit
goods. Proposals in SOPA include
barring advertising networks and payment facilities from conducting business with allegedly infringing
websites, barring search engines from
linking to the sites, and requiring Internet service providers (ISP) to block
access to the sites. The bill would
also criminalize the streaming of such content, with a maximum
penalty of five years in prison. As one internet citizen said:
Stream a Michal Jackson song, get five years in prison. Kill
Michael Jackson, get four years in prison.
User-content websites such as YouTube would be greatly affected, and concern has been expressed that they may be shut
down if the bill becomes law. Opponents state the legislation
would enable law enforcement to remove an entire internet
domain due to something posted on a single blog, arguing
that an entire online community could be punished for the
actions of a tiny minority.
On January 18, the English Wikipedia, Reddit, and several other
websites coordinated a service blackout to protest SOPA and its
sister bill, the Protect IP Act, or PIPA. Other companies, including
Google, posted links and images in an effort to raise awareness.
An estimated 7,000 smaller websites either blacked out their
sites or posted a protest message.
Opponents to SOPA and PIPA include Google, Yahoo!, YouTube,
Facebook, Twitter, AOL, LinkedIn, eBay, Mozilla Corporation,
Roblox, Reddit, Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, in addition to human rights organizations such as Reporters Without
Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the ACLU,
and Human Rights Watch.
New Protection Products from G-Form
All G-Form products are built utilizing RPT™ – Reactive Protection Technology, a
composite blend of PORON® XRD™ material and proprietary G-Form materials and
technology, and are designed specifically for users on the go. The G-Form Extreme
Sleeve for Laptops (US $80) offers consistent, repeated impact absorption for dependable performance throughout the life of the product. The 13″ and 15″ Extreme
Sleeve models are available in yellow and black, are easily cleanable, durable, abrasion-resistant and covered by a limited warranty. The soft, flexible, lightweight, waterresistant Extreme Sleeve™ can easily be placed into another bag, backpack, or
suitcase and protect your laptop from impact. With the G-Form Extreme Sleeve you
can be confident that your laptop is protected everywhere you go.
http://g-form.com/product/extreme-sleeve-for-laptops/
The G-Form Extreme Portfolio (US $90) for your iPad or iPad2, will protect your tablet from impact and provide extra features to make it easier to access. The G-Form Extreme Portfolio is a
lightweight and water-resistant portfolio case that also has an internal layer of polycarbonate on
one side in addition to an inside pocket for carrying documents. The G-Form Extreme Portfolio
can be opened and used in several configurations: The front cover can be reverse-zipped behind
your tablet device which offers two levels of RPT™ protection. In this position, the front screen is
still protected by RPT™ corners that also serve to hold it securely in place. The Extreme Portfolio can also be used in an easel or A-frame configuration in either landscape or portrait mode.
http://g-form.com/product/extreme-portfolio/
The soft, flexible, lightweight, water-resistant G-Form Extreme Sleeve
(US $60) and G-Form Extreme Sleeve 2 (US $70) in black or yellow, offer
extreme protection for your iPad. They both have all the qualities of the
original iPad Extreme Sleeve, but the G-Form Extreme Sleeve 2 has additional RPT™ edge and zipper protection. It also has a slightly larger interior
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offers consistent, repeated impact absorption for dependable performance
throughout the life of the product. Available in both yellow and black, it is
easily cleanable, durable, abrasion resistant and covered by a limited warranty.
Use the links on this page to find out more information about G-Form extreme protection for your important electronic friends.
http://g-form.com/product/ipad-extreme-sleeve/
Hesham Abdel Aal
--------------------------------------------------------------
MCSE Microsoft Certified System Engineer
ACMT Apple Certified Mac Mechanic
A+ Certified Technician
119 Mildenhall Place, Brooklin, ON L1M 0E4
Cell # 905-260-1723
Home # 905-655-6553
email : [email protected]
Unclassified Ads
If you are a paid-up member of MaUsE and would like to
place an advertisement for a service you offer or something you wish to buy or sell into the DoubleClick, send it
to the Editor. There is no charge for this.
For Sale:
2006 17” MacBook Pro
2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo
2 GB RAM, 120 GB HD
Mac OS 10.6
Webcam, Power Supply
$820 or Best Offer
[email protected]
BubCap Home Button Cover:
Protection for iDevices
The iPad is becoming more and more popular
with the very young. You may find it useful to
limit some of the control they have with it. My
grand son, who is only one and a half, discovered the home button very quickly. He saw that
it was what I pushed in order to change apps.
Now, he often pushes this button when we are
in the middle of some educational app or in
the middle of a story I am reading to him. I
don't think this is an indication that he wants to
change the app that is running. It is more like
something to do while listening to the story. As
he gets older, I would like to be able to leave
him with the iPad and not have to worry about
him visiting any of my other apps and possibly
making changes to them. The possibility of inadvertent changes and unwanted surcharges
would be even worse if the device were an
iPhone. While surfing on the Internet I came
across an item that would limit the use of the
home button for a child but not hinder an
adult's control. It is called the BubCap.
The BubCap is a piece of plastic that covers the home button. It is
rigid enough that a child can't easily push it, but flexible enough that
an adult can. The BubCap Explorer package contains duplicates of
three thickness: the regular for the iPhone/iPod, the ultra for the iPad
and older kids with an iPhone/iPod, and the max for older kids with an
iPad. I have two iDevices, the iPad and an iPod Touch, so this package is just right for me. The BubCap is oblong in shape and sticks
to the screen, covering the home button. Pictures of it are
shown in this review. I found that I had to press with
my thumb and hold the back of the iPad with the
other fingers in order to depress the button where
before I could use almost any finger. My stylus,
which has a soft rubberized end, is also hampered by
the cover. This just shows how much force is needed
to depress the home key. That being said, I had no
trouble automatically using my thumb to close an app.
I was a bit concerned about removing the plastic. The instructions on the package are simple enough but I was still
worried that some of the adhesive would mar the screen, sort
of like what masking tape does when it is left on for a while
and then removed. This does not seem to be a problem with the
BubCap. I do not know what adhesive it uses, but it did not leave
any trace of itself behind when removed. I applied and removed it
a few times.
I don't know how often this process can
be repeated but the stickiness of the plastic will decrease each time it is removed,
so you should try to limit the procedure.
You do have duplicates of each of the
three thicknesses in the package. With
this in mind, I would recommend keeping
your home button cover on permanently. It may take
a little getting accustomed to, but if you regularly
share your devices with a youngster, the benefit of
having it on is well worth it. You may decide you prefer to remove the BubCap when you know your child
won't be using your device for a while, particularly
for those of you who find it difficult to activate the
home button with the BubCap attached. But remember, the less often you remove and reapply a BubCap, the longer it will last.
BubCaps are thin but they may not fit all the skins
and cases that are available to protect your iDevices. They may also require the skin or case to be
removed in order to install and remove. Have a
look at the photos shown here and you should get
a good idea of whether it will work with your case
or not. I also would not recommend using a screen
protector with the BubCap. It may still work, but you
will have to push that much harder.
As an added bonus, I find that I am not accidentally pushing the home
button in the middle of an exciting game on the iPad. Not that this
happened a lot, but the few times that it did caused some anguish. No
one likes to be torn out of a game in the middle of a move. Also my
iPod is more secure when I am carrying it. Sometimes I forgot to lock
the screen and the iPod activated itself within my pocket.
Go to http://papercliprobot.com/ and read more about this gadget
and actually watch some videos of the BubCap in action. There
are a variety of packages sold, depending on the iDevice(s)
you own. The Explorer package, which is good for any
model, sells for $7.00 plus another $2 for shipping. It comes
through the mail in a simple envelope so there is little fear
of extra duty on it. There are smaller packages available
with fewer covers for $5. This item might just be the
thing you are looking for to protect your iDevice from
roving little fingers.
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
Fun with Digital
Phography
Stripping the
Colour Out
What do newspapers and
zebras have in common?
Right - they are both black
and white. Today I hope to
show you how to change a
colour photo into a black and
white photo using Photoshop Elements. There are
many reasons to do this,
such as you want to make a
new photo look like an old
photo, or you may want to
make a collage where you
have both black and white
and colour photos together.
You may even want to semitone a photo, in which case
you will need to begin by removing the colour. What
ever your reason, I am going
to show you three ways to
turn a colour picture into a
black and white photo. First,
pick out the colour photo you
want to convert. Make a
copy of it so you are not working on your original.
Method #1 is to go to the Enhanced selection in the menu bar, and
scroll down to the Convert to Black and White to remove the colour,
(Option Command B) on the keyboard. This will pull up a conversion
page, with six preset selections on it. These presets cover general
categories such as portraits, landscapes,
newspaper, etc. You can select one of
these and it will show you a preview of
what the image will look like. If you don't
like the effect you can adjust the intensity
using one of the four sliders on the right
hand side. These sliders are a bit coarse,
sort of like making an adjustment with a
sledge hammer. A very small movement
has a big effect. Again not the best method.
This is the photo in the centre, in my
screen shot labeled dsc8027copy.
Method #2 using Photoshop Elements, you go to the Enhanced selection in the menu bar, and scroll down to the Adjust Colour to remove the colour, (shift command U for you keyboard junkies). This is
the quick and dirty method. Not very good, as it doesn't give you good
contrast. This is the photo at the right, below, in my screen shot labeled dsc8027. It was my original.
Method #3 is a bit more involved, but the results are so worth the effort. Start by selecting the adjustment layer selection, it looks like a
circle with half white and half black. It is located at either the top or
bottom of your layers pallet, depending which version you are using.
This will open up a menu for you, where you select Gradient Map.
Once you select Gradient Map a default selection window will open
up. The third box on the top row reading left to right is the Black,
White gradient. This is the one you want to select. If you did nothing
else but add the gradient map to the photo, you would see such an
improvement over Method #1 & #2. This method gives you what you
really want, good contrast and solid blacks, and whites. To finish off
the photo, like having ice cream with your pie, you can now add a
second adjustment layer. This layer is a Levels adjustment layer. Use
the same half circle to reopen the menu selection, then select Levels.
This will open an adjustment window. At the top of this window you
will see the letters RGB. That stands for Red, Green, Blue. These are
the three colour channels that your camera used to take the photo. To
the right of the box is a triangle, select this to get a drop down menu
showing each individual channel. Select each one, one at a time.
When you select the Red you get a histogram showing the peaks and
valleys for this channel. You can now move your white triangle to the
left till you get to where the histogram ends. This will adjust your red
channel whites, then nudge the black triangle to nudge your blacks.
Do this same thing for the Green and Blue channels. This will give
you the best black and white conversion. This is the photo on the left,
in my screen shot labeled dsc8027copy 2. As you can see it gives you
the nicest looking black and white photo. The contrast is great, the
skin tones don't look gray, the highlights are bright, the mid tones are
distinguishable . A vast improvement from the other two photos.
If you find that there are areas where the highlights are not what you
like, you can then do what is known as a dodge, or burn, to add or
subtract from that area. I didn't have to do that for this photo, even
though I was dealing with silver white hair.
Now you have three methods for creating a black and white photo.
Take a photo and try these methods. I think you will find that you will
be happiest when you follow method #3, even if it does have more
steps. The choice is yours, do you want the Lada, or the Lexis. Why I
say that is because once you have your gradient map, and Level adjustment layer for one photo, you don't have to do them again. You
can just drag and drop these two layers to any other photo you wish
to convert. The method for dragging is select one adjustment layer,
press the shift key, then select the second adjustment layer. Open
your second photo, then drag both these adjustment layers to it. The
second photo will also be adjusted and converted to Black and White.
Submitted by Kevin Livesey
Take Control eBooks
Mail on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch
The book featured this month is Take Control of Mail on the iPad,
iPhone, and iPod touch by Joe Kissell. In this ebook, you will find recommendations about the best ways to use the Mail app on your iPad,
iPhone, or iPod touch, helping you to develop a successful mobile
email strategy for iOS 5. You'll get advice and directions for how to set
up your accounts, receive email, read and send email, and file messages. You'll also learn to solve connection problems and work
around feature limitations.
Questions that you'll find answers to in this 108 page eBook include:
 What's new in iOS 5 Mail?
 Why is an IMAP account especially useful on a mobile device?
 How do I set up my email accounts?
 How do I move around in the Mail app?
 How do I set up mailboxes for effective navigation and filing?
 How do I handle attachments?
 How does Mail integrate with other apps, like Calendar and Contacts?
 What are the best ways to find messages in the Mail app?
 What's different about Exchange ActiveSync accounts?
 Should I push or fetch my messages?
 In what ways can I be notified when new messages arrive?
 How do I integrate Gmail with Mail?
 Help! I can't send my email... what should I do?
DoubleClick features an ebook from Take Control Books every month.
These ebooks have been published in PDF format and cover issues
related to Mac OS. Because they are in PDF format, these ebooks
have a lot of advantages over the traditional paper books. Electronic
books are a new experience for many people, but they provide you
with a good deal of flexibility that isn't available with printed books.
With your purchase of the ebook you get expert advice on various
topics but with an Apple perspective. These are the same expert authors of some best-selling print books. The download is immediate
and you don't have to leave your house to get it. Because it is paperless it can be purchased for much less than a paper edition. Also, if a
new edition of the book comes out, your original purchase of the book
allows you to easily update your current copy for free. There are clickable links right in the text so that your book immediately leads to other
sources on the same topic. It is readable onscreen which means you
can control the size of the print. If you use Preview you can even
highlight sections without messing up the book (use a copy of the
original if you are worried). You can even print up a paper copy of the
book if you feel the need. The catalog is very extensive and can be
accessed from http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/catalog. They offer
free sample sections of all their ebooks and a money-back guarantee,
so try one out anytime. As readers of the DoubleClick, you also now
have access to this coupon (CPN90219MUG) which entitles you to a
30% discount on the purchase of a book.
Devise an effective mobile strategy for iOS 5, configure your accounts, and read your email with ease!! This ebook costs $10.00 normally but using the coupon will make a difference. Check this ebook
out and a lot others at www.takecontrolbooks.com.
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
Attn: Photogs: Alien Skin Exposure 4
Alien Skin’s Exposure has just received an update to version 4, and is
being heralded as the “must-have” plug-in for Photoshop / Ps Elements and
LightRoom users. Exposure simulates efffects such as discontinued films,
dark room tricks, and lo-fi camera quirks. Popular classic films are accurately simulated, like Kodachrome, Polaroid, and Panatomic-X, claims Alien
Skin, as is the ethereal glow of black & white infrared film, and now colour
infrared.
Watch for a review of Exposure 4 in a near future issue of the Doubleclick,
and for a copy of Exposure 4 to be featured in a future MaUsE Raffle
Jacks are Female, Plugs are Male
Sometimes, you don’t need to spend a lot of money or buy an
exotic accessory in order to get what you want and accessorise your electronic devices. For instance, during a recent
vacation I found it necessary to watch video files on my computer in the middle of the night while other people were sleeping. Because I was watching movies I also needed to hear the
soundtrack. You all know how tinny the sound can be from the speakers on laptop computers especially the older ones, and my laptop computer, the one I use for traveling, is
an antique 1 GHz G4 iBook with exceptionally poor sound quality. There’s nothing wrong
with the quality of the sound as it comes off the motherboard but the speakers in the laptop are about nine inches apart and the size of a dime so they do not transmit stereo
sound very well. Luckily for me I had a set of 3.5mm earphones with me - you know the
type - the cheap ones that are handed out for free by the airlines. These fit perfectly into
the little 3.5mm jack on the side of the iBook. With the Air Canada earphones in place
the stereo separation was excellent and I had no trouble listening to the movies I was
watching. It occurred to me that at some point it may be necessary to share a movie at a
time when other people are asleep. I did not know where I could find a device to make
this possible, or if they even made them. What I had in mind was a compact adapter
with a 3.5mm plug that I could plug into the iBook and then plug two sets of 3.5mm earphones into. On the Internet I found various splitter / adapters but of course they were
either located at electronics warehouse stores in United States or else in China - and the
Chinese websites required that I purchased the adapters in lots of a thousand.
Once I knew that what I wanted existed I decided to go shopping on www.ebay.ca. EBay
is great for finding small items in small quantities that you might otherwise have
to phone or run all over town looking for and then have to spend 10 or 15 dollars
for. I was delighted to find that several eBay sellers had different solutions for splitting
up the audio signal from the computer, and that the same splitter also works with iPods.
As you can see from the pictures at right it really pays to shop around. I found that what
I needed was an audio signal splitter / adapter with a single 3.5mm stereo plug and a
pair of 3.5mm stereo jacks. The terminology is very important but thankfully eBay allows
people to put pictures of what they want to sell on their listings so all I had to do was
scan the audio cable adapters page looking for something that looked like what I wanted
and then read the details carefully to make sure that what I ordered was the right type
and correct 3.5mm size. All of the eBay items shown at right do the same thing. And of
course I had to check carefully to make sure that I was not going to get ripped off by
someone charging me an outrageous amount of money for shipping, a very common
ploy on eBay. It’s not unusual to find lots of good quality items selling for a ridiculously
low “Buy it Now” price coupled with a ridiculously high shipping cost in the small print. Always shop at eBay.ca, not eBay.com, and check the shipping charge before you bid.
I have shown several examples of the types of the good and not-so-good and downright
terrible bargains that can be found on the www.ebay.ca website. Considering that I could
spend for $5 in gasoline and waste an hour of my time in Best Byte, FutureShop, and
The Source running around looking for a video adapter for my iBook the alternative of
finding one on eBay for only $1.22 plus free shipping online is a real bargain. That beats
the snot out of paying $90.99 with free shipping or $1.85 plus $9.99 shipping.
Submitted by Michael Shaw
$90.99 ! !
Free Shipping !
$1.85
$9.99 ! !
$1.22
Free Shipping !
SubsMarine, the Best Subtitle Downloader
From cocoawithchurros
I like watching foreign films. I enjoy seeing the scenery, often places
off the beaten path that we would not be privy to as tourists if we visited that country. I can appreciate the variety of customs and habits of
these lands that the films offer. The greatest problem with them is
that, unless you actually speak the foreign language very well, you
will need subtitles. Even when I listen to a French film or a TV show
from Quebec, I find that I can easily understand some of the characters, but the accent of others throws me off. In English it may be like
listening to a Scotsman or a Newfoundlander speaking. I could use
subtitles for any of those cases.
Most often a foreign movie does have a subtitle file with it. Sometimes
it is out of sync and it is very annoying when the sound and the subtitle do not coincide. There are apps out there, some of which are free,
that allow you to create or edit subtitles. You can add or subtract small
time increments to the complete subtitle file and hopefully get it in
sync. The worse case is a continued escalation of the poor syncing. I
have watched a movie that started out with the two closely matched
but was off by more than two minutes by the end of the movie. It is
very hard to keep track of what is going on. I tend to view movies with
VLC which has syncing capabilities. Pushing the J or H button while
the film is playing will alter the timing of the subtitle file to help bring it
closer to the actual voices. But if the subtitles keep going off, that
means I have to get up often and tweak the syncing. This takes away
from the enjoyment of the film.
Many times I have started to watch a
movie only to find that it needed subtitles. I had to stop the movie at that
point. If the film or TV show that you
have does not contain an English subtitle file with it, you will need to search
the Internet to get the correct version.
There are numerous sites, such as
www.opensubtitles.org, that will do this
for you. I have had limited success
with this because often there are quite
a few choices as to subtitle files that
one can download for a particular
movie. Finding the one that best
matches your movie copy takes some
trial and error. SubsMarine is a small
application that will quickly and reliably
find subtitles for your favourite movies
and TV shows. It does all the tedious
work of finding the best match of subtitles for the movie you are about to
watch.
To use SubsMarine, just drop the movie file or folder containing the
movie onto the application. It will scan the folder for any available
video files and show a list of found items. Pushing "Find Subtitles"
causes it to search the Internet and gives you a list of suitable subtitle
files with the best match already chosen for you to download. It has a
check mark beside it. Clicking "Download" will load that file into the
movie's folder (the subtitle file and the movie file must be in the same
folder for VLC to properly use it) and will make sure that the subtitle's
name matches the movie title (also a must for VLC). For your information, subtitle files are most often found with .srt attached to the file
name. For VLC to use it, the movie name has to be exactly the same,
other than the file designation of .srt, and be in the same folder as the
movie. I am now ready to watch the movie with the least amount of
fuss. What sometimes took half an hour to set up is now a matter of a
couple of minutes and all I had to do was drop a file and agree with
SubsMarine's choice. Want to do another search? Choose "Clear List"
and away you go.
SubsMarine will work on multiple files. You can drop more than one
folder in at a time and it will do a quick search of all of these for you.
SubsMarine will search each folder and find video files in each. It will
download the multiple subtitles to their correct folder. If you always
keep your videos in the same folder, you can configure SubsMarine to
automatically search that folder. SubsMarine can download several
subtitles for the same video, in case you're not sure which one is the
best. It can download subtitles in multiple languages. You can configure it to search for subtitles in different languages at the same time.
In case you were wondering, SubsMarine uses podnapisi.net, betaseries.com and opensubtitles.org as the Internet sources. It would
be nice to be able to add other servers to this list but there doesn't
seem to be a way of adding additional ones. If English is not your preferred subtitle language, then you can easily change the search profile to what you need. You can search for subtitles in up to three
languages. I know that watching foreign movies is a good way to
practice learning another language. You could also watch an English
movie and have Spanish subtitles to practice your written skills.
There is little else to say about this application. It requires Mac OSX 10.6+ Snow Leopard to run. It has
one and only one function and it does it extremely
well. Depending on how much non-English TV or
movies you watch, the $6.99 is money well spent. Go
to their website, http://cocoawithchurros.com/subsmarine.php, and download a 15 day free trial of the
application. See for yourself how much time it saves
and all the hassle it takes out of trying to get the right synced subtitle
file for your movie. With this app I am much more likely to get more
foreign films. And don't belittle the use of foreign films to learn a new
language. When I visited Iceland, very few people did not speak English. When I asked why they were so well versed in English, they said
it was from watching English television, with subtitles in Icelandic.
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
Exclusively in the
March 2012 DoubleClick
Don’t miss next month’s exciting MaUsE
DoubleClick issue with Marcel’s review of
The Typescreen, voted at the 2012 CES
the best new hardware accessory for iPad
users.
Quark Adds ePub and iPad Upgrades
With QuarkXPress 9.2 Update
Faced with the dominance of of Adobe's InDesign as the tool
of choice for creating publication-driven iPad apps, in September of 2011 Quark released its own approach to iPad app
creation. Version 9.1 of QuarkXPress included App Studio,
which lets users create apps and distribute them through the
Apple App Store. That's handy enough but more significantly
it also made it possible for users to design and publish content, such
as ongoing issues of a magazine, that can be purchased and downloaded from within the apps. The publishing solution is said to be suitable for everything from newspapers and magazines, to ebooks,
reports, sales tools, product information, and so on.
Without writing a line of code, designers can generate apps by first
creating content using dedicated vertical and horizontal orientations,
and interactive elements in QuarkXPress. They then generate the
branded app using App Studio Factory and test it using App
Studio Issue Previewer on an iPad. Up to this point, everything
in the process is free. Costs arrive when the user actually publishes the app via the App Studio Publishing Portal. The Portal
makes it possible to manage their app and issue files, as well as
track sales. Prices vary depending on your needs, so it's best to
check them out on the Quark site. In a nutshell, you'll need to
first purchase an app template and then an Issue License Pack,
which determines the number of issues of the publication you can
publish. At a bare minimum, this would require a $149 template
and a one-issue license pack, which costs $349.
In January of 2012 Quark released QuarkXPress 9.2. a free upgrade to Quark 9 users. In addition to converting a print layout to
ePUB, version 9.2 allows users to create a new project specifically for
ePUB export. The new version now supports ePUB 3, with users able
to add audio, videos and hyperlinks to an ePUB ebook. It's now also
possible to create new articles, visually crop pictures and split text
components in a reflow article; re-order components by dragging-anddropping within the Reflow Tagging Palette; create hierarchical tables
of content; control the format and resolution of pictures on a global or
picture-by-picture basis; and specify the default story direction for
East Asian ePUB e-books.
App Studio has also been enhanced, with App Studio templates now
supporting iOS 5 Newsstand and meeting new Apple guidelines for
iCloud storage. Related enhancements include new Play / Pause /
Stop / Toggle play actions that allow designers to build buttons that
control other media elements such as sound and video; a Hide Controls option for sound and video that allows designers to make the
control bar for a media player invisible; a Loop option that designers
can use to specify that a sound or video element should loop its playback; and three different pop-up styles.
What does it all mean? Just that Quark seems determined to be
a serious contender with Adobe for the hearts and
minds of designers creating document-driven apps. It's worth mentioning that
Quark is currently offering an upgrade option that allows all QuarkXPress customers to upgrade to
QuarkXPress 9 from any previous
version for $299. This is in contrast to
Adobe's stated intent to not let users
of older Creative Suite applications upgrade to the upcoming CS6. In fact,
online rumours of Adobe’s new pricing
policies indicate that there there may soon be
a $49 per month ($600 per year) fee to access all Adobe programs
through software user rental agreements.
For more about QuarkXPress 9.2, see:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4370787/047_MacUser_on_Quark.pdf
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4370787/071_MacUser_on_Quark.pdf
Big News From Apple
iBook 2 and iBook Author
As mentioned at the January MaUsE Meeting, the big news at Apple
for 2012 are iBook 2 and iBook Author.
Apple took a big jump into the digital textbooks market in January with
the launch of its iBooks 2 software, aiming to revitalize the U.S. education market and quicken the adoption of its market-leading iPad in
that sector. Apple has been working on digital textbooks with publishers Pearson PLC, McGraw-Hill Cos Inc and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a trio responsible for 90 percent of textbooks sold in the United
States. The move pits the maker of the iPod and iPhone against Amazon.com Inc and other content and device makers that have made inroads into the estimated $8 billion market with their electronic
textbook offerings. It could also see Apple shake up the traditional
textbook market significantly, changing the emphasis from content to
hardware; but publishers said working with Apple would be a great
opportunity to revive and expand the market.
Author tools include the ability to preview your e-book creations live
on your iPad over a Wi-Fi network, which is amazing in terms of being
able to get instant feedback about whether or not something works
the way you’d expect it to. Apple is really taking the sting out of ebook creation.
Amazingly, Apple’s iBooks Author is free, and is available today on
the Mac App Store (for Macs with OS 10.7 or later installed). This will
definitely help attract content creators to the iBooks platform, and
could also seriously impact the ability of competitors to sell publishing
suites aimed at doing similar things.
Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/apple-launchesibooks-2-and-ibooks/#ixzz1kEG5UGQu
The Textbooks available through iBooks 2 will allow students to highlight text and areas within the text right on the iPad, similar to how a
bookmark works when reading an epub. Dictionary lookup, multitouch gestures, note taking, note cards for studying and annotation
are also included in the features. iBooks 2 is a free download in the
iTunes App Store.
The early plan is to enable students to buy their books directly
through Apple rather than through their school districts. The books in
the pilot launch are priced at $14.99 each on the iPad, with a range of
interactive features. McGraw confirmed that Apple would take a cut of
each sale, believed to be its standard amount of some 30 percent. He
said he was "very relaxed" about having to share his profits with
Apple, as printing and distributing textbooks accounts for about 25
percent of their cover prices.
iBooks Author is a Mac app that provides tools to help anyone publish interactive digital books, complete with rich media features.
iBooks Author comes with a template choose to help you get started
quickly, and then you can click and drag your own media to add images, video, audio and other content to your book. You can even add
things like 3-D models, which we saw demoed in the iBooks 2 unveiling earlier, as well as interactive elements like image galleries.
Keynote presentations can be embedded directly, so you can include
slide shows right within the book. This should really appeal to profs
and teachers who want to create their own courseware and customize
content. You can also create and link your own glossary definitions for
terms, which can include interactive elements, and even add
JavaScript and HTML5 code if you have knowledge of that technology.
Coming Soon
AthenaSoft
AutoCorrectXT v3.5
Adobe Photoshop CS is the veritable feline’s fundament
when it comes to working with digital photographs. There is nothing better. Not everyone needs the features built into Photoshop, but for professional photographers, nothing tops Adobe Photoshop. One of the features that makes Photoshop so powerful
and flexible is that it can be expanded through the additions of special third-party
plug-ins written especially to enhance the program beyond the original Adobe specs.
What Photoshop CS is to digital photos, QuarkXPress is to digital desktop publishing.
And one of the reasons that QXP is the sine qua non for desktop publishing is that it
shares this ability to be expanded through the use of third-party plug-ins. Plug-in enhancements written for QuarkXPress are called XTensions and one of my favourite
XTensions is AthenaSoft’s AutocorrectXT. I use it almost every day.
QuarkXPress comes with an excellent “after-the-fact” built-in spell-checker, but it does
not work the way that many Microsoft Word users are comfortable and familiar with.
With AthenaSoft’s AutocorrectXT properly installed, the words you type into a Quark
document are underlined in red as soon as you misspell them - similar to the way that
Microsoft Word mark your misspelled words with a wavy underline as you type. This also works for cut-and-paste operations: as soon as text is imported or pasted into a Quark
document, any suspicious words in the pasted text are also
underlined in red if they are not correct in the language you
are working in. (AutoCorrectXT is multi-lingual and the appropriate language dictionary gets activated as soon as you
change the text language. AutoCorrectXT comes with ten
dictionaries, including British, American and Canadian English. A version of the XTension with Arabic is available from
AthenaSoft as a special download).
During the typing of this article I accidentally mis-spelled
“photographers” as “photograpers” in the first paragraph. As soon as I completed the
word it was underlined in red and a little gray box appeared
on it when I moused over the marked word. I clicked on the
gray box and several spelling suggestions appeared in a little floating window. With the suggested corrections I was
also given the options of ignoring the mistake, of ignoring
all future occurrences of it in this document, or of adding it
permanently to the Dictionary. When words are added to
the user dictionary these words are ignored while spell
checking. In this wayregional spellings as well as product
and company names and new common words (like iPod,
iPod, iPhone, and iOS) can be added and recognised. The
words are added as belonging to the currently used language. These words are stored
permanently in your local preferences so that they can be used across sessions. The
words in the custom dictionary can be added or removed from the "Edit custom Dictionaries" dialog.
AutoCorrectXT creates two preferences files in the
QuarkXPress preferences folder, namely, AutoSpell.prf and AutoCorrect.prf. These files contain
user preferences for AutoSpell and AutoCorrect features of the XTension respectively. If these files are
deleted by the user then a new set of files with the
same names is created which have the shipping
defaults. With the Auto Correct enabled, whenever I
type a commonly mis-spelled word it is instantly replaced with the corrected version as soon as I finish
the word and continue typing. If I have words of my
own that I commonly forget how to spell I can include them in the AutoCorrect preference file.
Requirements:
Mac OS 10.5.x, Mac OS 10.6.2 – 10.6.x or later
QuarkXPress 9.0, 9.1 or 9.2
A Macintosh computer with an Intel processor
Submitted by Michael Shaw
IPEVO TYPI Folio Case and
Wireless Keyboard for the iPad 2
The number one accessory for an iPad has to be a protective case. I
want something that will keep my expensive gadget safe from bumps,
dents and scratches. Apple does sell its own cover, the SmartCover,
but I have gone to other sources
to find similar products. I reviewed the Yoobao case in July
2011 and the Adonit Writer 2 in
Sept 2011. The Writer 2 had the
advantage of including a bluetooth keyboard as part of the
case. I am presently using the
Typi from IPEVO and I would
definitely recommend it over the
others.
Why do I think so highly of this product? What are its advantages?
First is the appearance. It is made of leather and felt and comes in
two colours (tan or black). I am using the tan case and it has the look
and feel of a very expensive item. I have had little trouble keeping it
clean. A brush seems to work fine getting rid of any marks. The Typi is
not only a folio case but it also contains a bluetooth keyboard. Having
a case immediately increases the weight of your iPad. The more the
protection you have, the greater the weight. The Typi, being made of
leather, has the dual advantage of not increasing the weight drastically while offering a great material for absorbing any shocks or
bumps. The case itself won't crack if dropped. The housing of the
iPad in the Typi allows some give so that if the iPad were to be
dropped, the force of the collision would be minimized. All the iPad 2's
ports and buttons are accessible through the case, including the camera, so there is no need to remove the Typi from its case. There's
even a special magnet that puts the iPad 2 into sleep mode to conserve battery power whenever you close the case.
Having a bluetooth keyboard also increases the weight of the iPad.
This weight gain goes completely opposite to why you have an iPad.
You want the most lightweight, portable device you can get. I did
some experimenting with the weights involved here. The iPad starts
off at 550g on my scale. Adding the Typi folio case and the bluetooth
keyboard tips the scale at 1000g, almost double. This doubling of
weight is typical for the additional keyboard.
However, the Typi's keyboard is detachable. It simply sits on the
cover, magnetically attached to the surface, and can be easily removed. Now the weight of the folio case and the iPad drops to to
850g which is in the realm of most cases used for iPad protection.
The streamlined, thin 200g bluetooth keyboard can be stored with or
without the iPad and used whenever you want. This is the great advantage it has over the other iPad bluetooth keyboards out there. I
typically leave the keyboard at home as I do not do too much typing
away from home. I really like this option. In case you were wondering,
the keyboard is good for up to 10 metres away. I can't think of being
that far away from the iPad (too hard to see the screen) unless the
iPad is being used with a projector or being displayed on a larger
monitor.
The Typi sounds pretty good so far but there is more. The top row of
buttons offers tremendous control over many iPad functions. Most
iPad bluetooth keyboards offer the ability to quickly hop from the
screen you are on to the home screen or the search screen and also
access your photo gallery. They allow for control of your sound tracks
with play/pause, rewind, and fast-forward buttons. Sound
up/down/mute can be controlled from the keyboard. I really like this
because I find the volume control on the iPad itself hard to locate at
times. These buttons are the big reason for getting this accessory for
the iPad, as well as being able to type information from an actual keyboard rather than a touch screen. The top row of the Typi also has
buttons for copy and paste and one for switching input modes if you
have more than one language available for your keyboard. There are,
in all, fifteen buttons at the top of the Typi. My favourite, that I have
not seen anywhere else, is the ability to take a screenshot of your
screen. Having this allows me to easily capture any picture and email
it to myself. I have used this function numerous times. Without the
Typi, I would not have been able to save some great photos from the
Internet.
Still on the plus side is the lack of batteries. There are no
batteries to play around with. It comes with a built-in
500mAh Li-Ion rechargeable battery. It is chargeable
using the MicroUSB cable that comes with the Typi.
Bluetooth devices are notorious for going through
batteries quickly, although this is getting better with
each newer model. With the Typi I don't have to
fiddle with an opening to remove and insert batteries. I can simply plug the cable into any USB
slot.
I have
had to
recharge the
Typi only once
in the time I have
had it. It seems to
work like the Energizer bunny. The manufacturer claims 3 hours are
needed for a full charge and
working times are up to 12 hours (30 days in standby mode). I would
say that their claims are right on.
Setting up the Typi could not be simpler. Turn on the switch at the
side to wake it up from standby mode. Next, press the sync button
and the iPad asks if you would like to pair with a bluetooth keyboard.
If you have already activated the iPad's settings for bluetooth, then
you will get a message to type in a set of numbers. And that's it. You
can visit the IPEVO web site and view video
(http://www.ipevo.com/prods/IPEVO_Typi_Folio_Case_Wireless_Keyboard_for_iPad2_-_Black) showing the pairing up of the keyboard to
your iPad as well as how easy it is to put the iPad into the case and
take out, and how to change the viewing angle of the iPad. The Typi
has a strap that folds around the folio case and magnetically holds it
closed. This strap also has a snap on it that allows you to snap the
strap into three viewing positions.
The Typi is not perfect. As with most folio cases, it works best in the
landscape mode (wide side across). The snapped in
strap gets in the way when you have to use portrait mode, which is typical of iPhone
apps. In this case, I unsnap the
strap and just fold up the
case, lying it flat. The second
limitation of the case is that it allows for only three viewing angles. I
personally have no problem with the
preset angles afforded by the snaps, but I
do know that a lot of cases offer much greater
freedom.
With all these pluses you might imagine that the Typi would be a more
expensive case but in fact that is my last advantage statement. It is
one of the least expensive. The Typi will set you back only $89 at the
Canadian IPEVO distributor, Merconnet (http://merconnet.com). Have
a look at the product at http://www.ipevo.com/typi and read up on it.
My recommendation is to get the Typi and at the same time, to keep
shipping to a minimum, get the ChopStakes (stylus) at the same time.
This way you get a lightweight detachable bluetooth keyboard, an excellent protective case, and a pair of styli to help manipulate the iPad.
With these three accessories, you would have the three most common and useful additions to the iPad, all from the one order. Ask me
at any meeting and I will show you how well they work.
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne