Macintosh Users East

Macintosh Users East
iPod & Quark Issue: February 2007
MaUsE President: Michael Shaw
Email: [email protected]
Vice President & Resident MacGenius: Aaron Vegh
Email [email protected]
Apple Ambassador Hm: (905) 983-9205 Orono
Bruce Cameron Email: [email protected]
Treasurer and Grammarian: Hm: 905-404-0405
John Kettle Email : [email protected]
Publicity Director and Jolly Good Fellow
Jim Danabie
Logistics and Morale Officer: Chris Greaves
Email: [email protected]
Secretary Email: Stan Wild
[email protected]
MaUsE DoubleClick Newsletter Editor
Michael Shaw: [email protected]
Drectors: Marcel Dufresne and Guy Lafontaine
Macintosh Users East [MaUsE]
208 Winona Avenue, Oshawa, Ontario, L1G 3H5
MaUsE Message Line: 905-433-0777
See DoubleClick on the web at:
www.mause.ca
Submissions from MaUsE Club members are always welcome. Send them to me at <[email protected]>
if there are files or pictures attached. I have never refused a
submission yet. 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 wonʼt beg. 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 user
group and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise
approved by Apple Computer, Inc.
The Editor, Michael Shaw
Notice
The MaUsE Meeting in February
will be held on the 28th at 7:00
P.M. in Whitby, Ontario, at the
New Whitby Public Library on
the corner of Henry Street and
Dundas Street (Highway #2).
Henry Street is four streets west
of the four corners in Whitby and
FREE parking is available
after 6:00 P.M. just south of the
nearby Scotia Bank.
The next meeting
will be held at the
new Whitby Public
Library in Whitby,
Ontario, at 7:00 on
February 28, 2007
!!!!!!!!
Henry Street
(Highway #2)
Please feel free to contact any of the following individuals if you have comments or questions relating to Macintosh Users East (MaUsE).
What you are looking at is the February 2007 edition of the
DoubleClick monthly newsletter from the Macintosh Users
East, (MaUsE), a motley collection of old and new Mac users
(harmless cranks for the most part) who reside in Southern
Ontario with a motley collection of old and new Macintosh
computers. Everything not specifically attributed to someone
else can be blamed on me. Back issues can be downloaded
from the <www.mause.ca> website for a laugh.
New Whitby
Public
Library
King Street
Free Parking
Scotia
Bank
Center Street
Dundas Street West
2007 Executive Contact List
February 28th Members’ Meeting
February 2007 MaUsE Executive Meeting Report
The February 2007 MaUsE Executive meeting got off to a really early start: we held it on
the last day of January. Jim, John, Marcel, Guy, Aaron Stan, Bruce & I made up the party of
eight. We set the agenda for this month’s Meeting and we hope you will enjoy it. We had a
lot to discuss. One of the issues we discussed was various ways to accommodate new
MaUsE Members who join up part-way through our MaUsE year, now that we are getting
larger numbers of them. Our schedule generally runs from April to the following March
with the summer months off. We talked about the response to Aaron’s email about help resources for Club Members who need more basic information. It was also noted that we have
our first international MaUsE Member. We got a biker in northern Mexico with a G4 PowerBook and iMac sign up on the website. Including him we had five new MaUsErs in January. This is a good thing. Due to the influx of new MaUsE Members it has come to our attention that our past practice and policy of printing up identically-dated MaUsE Membership
cards once per year needs to be revised. This policy will be decided and put in place in time
for the MaUsE Membership renewals in April, 2007. Yearly fees will remain at $45.00
CDN per year and entitle the Member to many wonderful MaUsE benefits and privileges.
To New MaUsE Members From the President
Hello. My name is Michael Shaw. You’ve seen me at the MaUsE meetings introducing the
MaUsE Raffle stuff and now you know me as the Editor of this fine Mac User Group newsletter,
the MaUsE DoubleClick. I’d like to welcome you all to the MaUsE Mac User Group. We provide
our members with four services: our website, < www.mause.ca >, the monthly meetings, the
DoubleClick Newsletter, and a MaUsE Help email help line . But we also function as a valuable
introduction service. There are other Mac users in the MaUsE that already use their Macs to do
the things you want to do with yours. Find them and make contacts through the MaUsE. Ask
questions. Our fifth, and most important resource, is our membership.
Michael Shaw, MaUsE President
Here is out intended schedule. The original intention
was to have a MaUsE Meeting at this point concentrating on maximising our understanding of the uses
of the iPod, and I have found some interesting iPod
stuff for this issue (and iPod utilities fro the February
MaUsE Raffle).However, we decided at the Exec
Meeting that there is so much more to the entire phenomenon of downloading data from the internet than
just music and podcasts for the iPod. The only thing
the iPod adds to the process is portability. The chain
of access to data is through the computer and people
who don’t even have an iPod will find everything
covered in this month’s MaUsE presentation just as
useful as people who have iPods.
‘Beyond Music—All the things you can get
by using iTunes
7:00 p.m. Welcome - Club Announcements - Aaron
7:10 p.m. Treasurer-Membership update - John
7:15 p.m. Apple News – Aaron
7:25 p.m. Mac Tips of the Month - Aaron
7:35 p.m. Ask the experts ≠ An informal Question
and Answer period
7:55 p.m. Introducing the concept of ‘An Evening
With Mac’ – Stan
8:00 p.m. Raffle overview - Marcel
8:05 p.m. Break and socialize - Follow up on one-onone questions. Schmooze time.
8: 25 p.m. Pod casts, books and other good stuff –
How to find, subscribe, and locate downloads, and, if
you wish, move onto your iPod – Marcel
9:00 p.m. Mini Feature – Using your iPod for short
term storage of photographs taken with digital cameras - Guy Lafontaine
9:15 p.m. Raffle - Members Only
MacFAX to Go !
A few weeks ago I sent out an enquiry and received
the reply in the form of a couple of .PDF requests
for information forms to be completed and returned
by FAX. In this age of instant email and .PDF attachments, I thought that strange, but I guess most
people still have to print out .PDF forms on paper,
fill them in by hand, and then send them by FAX or
mail. With the Adobe Acrobat version I have, I can
fill out forms right on my computer. So thats what I
did. Then I had to figure out how to get the forms
from me in Ontario to the other party, in Alabama.
I have a G4 iBook and connect to the internet via DSL
modem over an ethernet network. If its possible to send a FAX over ethernet I
don’t know what it is. Luckily for me I thought to
check Mac Help, right there in the Menu bar on the
iBook. Mac Help had a little blurb about going to
the PDF button on the Print dialog box and checking out the “FAX PDF” button.
Mac Help says: Sending a fax. You can fax files
directly from your computer to any fax machine
or computer that is set up to receive faxes. If
your computer has a modem that is connected
to a phone line, it is automatically configured
to send faxes.
Really, I had no idea that this was possible or that
my internal USB modem was automatically configured to send faxes. I know there is a modem in my
iBook but I have never used it. Just in case this
worked, I connected the modem port on the iBook
to a telephone jack on the wall using the telephone
cable that came with the iBook. Since I have never
used the internal modem the cable was still wrapped
in the original plastic in the iBook case.
I opened the first of the documents I wanted to FAX. I selected Print from the File menu. When the LaserWriter
Print dialog box opened I clicked on the PDF button and
was amazed at the variety of things I could do. Among other choices, I could compress or encrypt the document, save
the entire .PDF document as a JPEG or as a TIFF or I could
mail it or I could FAX it. Good enough. Mac Help was
right. I selected “FAX PDF...” and waited to see what would
happen.
The Print dialog box was replaced with a different Print
box with fields asking for the
information required to FAX
the document instead of send
it to the LaserWriter. I put in
the correct phone number,
put in the dialing prefix “1”
to indicate long distance,
created a simple FAX Cover
Page with the name of my
contact on it, and not much
more, and put the other information the window required. I clicked on the FAX
button. Just like it said in
Mac Help, the Internal USB
Modem window opened automatically and the computer
started making NOISES.
It was just like the old dial-up days when you heard
the modem dial the phone number tones, heard the
telephone ringing on the other end, and heard the
hardware handshake of strident clicks, beeps and
whistles.
Once contact had been established it took only a
few minutes for the process to proceed to completion. The document was only 156k but that was
plenty of time for the Internal Modem window to
report its progress every step of the way: it informed
me when it was dialing the number, let me know
when it was connected, let me know when it was
sending the FAX, when it was finished sending the
FAX, and when it disconnected. As soon as the process was completed I opened the second document
and FAXed it as well. The Internal Modem window
re-opened with my Cover page information already
in place but I had to re-insert the phone numbers.
I wondered how well this works with some
of the other options offered under the “PDF”
button on the Print dialog box. I opened a
TextEdit document named TTP Instructions
that I had on my Desktop, a few paragraphs
I wrote about TechTool Pro for a previous
DoubleClick. I clicked on Print from the File
menu and under the “PDF” button I selected
“Mail PDF” just to see what would happen.
What happened was that my default Mail program opened with a blank email page with the
TextEdit document converted to a PDF and attached. All I had to do was type in the Subject
and an email address to send it to and it was ready
to go. I guess any document you can print you
can also FAX or send as an
email attachment. Right
from your Finder. Neat !
Eltima Flash Optimizer
Flash Optimizer for Mac is an advanced SWF compression utility. If
you use Macromedia Flash® to produce rich content for the Web, you
should know how important the size of SWF files is. With Flash Optimizer you can considerably reduce SWF file size and, as a result, save
loading time, traffic and money!
• Morphing optimization
• Fonts optimization
• Zero-objects optimization
• Z-buffer optimization
• Vectors optimization
• Curves optimization
• Images compression
• Sounds compression
• Embedded video compression
• Revolutionary compression methods that
allow to optimize SWF files to save up to
70% of their size
• Speed and reliability
Based on profound algorithms of shapes, morphing, vectors, fonts, Zbuffer and other optimizations, Flash Optimizer manages to optimize
the whole SWF file with curves, zero-objects, ZLib and more. With
over 50 compression options available, unique advantage of Flash Optimizer for Mac is that it does not stop at optimizing parts of the file,
but continues with compressing SWF core itself. The parameters of the
optimization process can also be customized if needed, to achieve the
results you want - from basic compression with absolutely no quality
loss to strong compression with minimum quality loss. With a few filespecific customizations you can reduce SWF size easily reaching significant compression ratio for an average SWF file (with images and
sounds being a minority of its elements).
The straightforward, configurable user interface provides a selection of
layout options that make it easy to work on a wide variety of projects,
from small buttons to full-screen interfaces. You can preview the result
side-by-side in 1 or 2 built-in players with zooming in/out options.
Flash Optimizer for Mac features the “SWF info” button, which indicates the details on the Flash movie, like percentage of all movie elements (pictures, shapes, videos, actions etc.) and both the sizes of original and reduced files. Extensive customization options, delivered in a
most user-friendly way, give you precise control over every aspect of
your Flash project and lead to optimum compression results.
• The only Flash Optimizer on the net available for free download and
trial period
• Unique SWF Compressor for Mac OS
• Simple and Professional optimization settings - customize every compression option
• Easy SWF compression preview & comparison to original file
• Easy-to-use interface with intellectual, fully customizable controls
• Shapes optimization
There will be a fully licensed raffle copy of Eltima Flash Optimiser available for the February MaUsE Raffle.
How to Burn a CD in Mac OS X
That Can Be Read by Mac OS 7.6
This guide will tell you how to burn a CD
from within OS X that can be read by OS
7.6.1. There is no guarantee that this procedure works with Mac OS 7.5 or OS7.1.
The basic principle of this tutorial is creating a disk image in OS X, then formatting it as a Mac OS Standard disk, then
dragging your files to the disk image, then
burning the disk image.
Step 1:
On your OS X computer, launch Disk Utility, which can be found in your
“Utilities” folder inside your “Applications” folder.
Step 2:
In the window that appears, click on the “New Image” button. Give it a
unique name, and make sure to save it to the Desktop. Set “Size:” to the size
of your blank CD media. Set “Encryption:” to none, and set “Format:” to
read/write disk image. Click the “Create” button when you are finished.
Step 3:
After the disk image creation process has
finished, you should see your disk image in
the list on the left hand side of the Disk Utilities window (as well as on your computer’s
desktop). If you do not see it there, you did
not save it to the desktop, and you’ll have to
find it.
Highlight the disk image you just created in
the Disk Utility list. Then, click the “Erase”
tab, and select “Mac OS Standard” from the
“Volume Format:” drop down menu that appears. Give the new disk a name such as
“Mac OS 7 Stuff” by entering it in the
“Name:” field. Note that this will be the
name of your mounted disk, not the name
of the image file. Once you have changed
these two settings, click “Erase.” The new
disk should appear mounted on your
desktop.
Step 4:
Minimize the Disk Utility window to get
it out of the way temporarily (we’ll need
it again in a moment). On the desktop,
start dragging the files that you want to
bring to your OS 7 computer into the newly created disk image. Keep in mind
that if you downloaded software from this or any other web site, it is best to
keep it in it’s original compressed image format (such as .sit, .bin, .hqx, or
.img). If you don’t your icons and icon placement will probably not transfer to
OS 7 properly, because Mac OS X does not maintain a proper classic desktop
database.
Step 5:
Once you’ve dragged all your files into your “Mac OS 7 Stuff” CD image, go
back into Disk Utility, make sure the disk image is selected from the list, and
click “Burn” in the upper left-hand corner of the Disk Utility window. You will
be prompted to insert a blank CD if you have not already done so.
Conclusion:
Congratulations, you should now be able to read this CD in any Mac OS 7.6.1
computer with a CD-ROM drive. Be mindful that some early CD-ROM drives
physically can not read burned CDs, but so far most people seem to do just fine
following these instructions.
BeLight Mail Factory
About a year ago I wrote a
little review of BeLight
Software’s Swift Publisher,
a gorgeous little program
for designing brochures and
flyers complete with libraries of images and a selection of popular templates to
use with the software. We
have been using it ever since
to design the MaUsE brochures for the brochure racks in
the local libraries.
Recently I found a BeLight Software sampler CD with
more of their software and one program that caught my
eye was Mail Factory. This program is for layout and design of all standard envelopes and sticky labels (like Avery labels). It also does custom sizes. There are other programs that do the same thing, like SOHO Labels&Envelopes
from Chronos LLC. and Imprint from Ampersandbox Inc., but BeLight Swift Publisher is
such a nice product that I thought I would try
BeLight Mail Factory just because it is from the
same company.
I must admit that I was almost overwhelmed by
the wide range of standard envelope sizes Mail
Factory provides (over 90) and the wide range
of label templates from more than a dozen popular companies, (several many hundreds) listed
in the menu windows. This program allows you
to create custom labels for a wide range of uses
using images from your own photos or any image from Mail Factory’s collection of thirty-five
clip-art libraries. Images can be dragged and
dropped into the application window and positioned and resized easily right on the envelope
or label template.
In case you mail parcels there are also several large libraries of colour shipping and caution labels so you
can create your own warning labels. There are also
templates for common removable data storage media
and VCR / DVD cases. And you can set dimensions to
create a lot more custom
labels if you need to.
Look up Mail Factory and
BeLight Software on the
internet to get a more complete list of what you can
do with Mail Factory. It really is a wonderful program. Buy it on-line for
$40.00 US or win yourself
a copy of Mail Factory
courtesy of BeLight Software at the February
MaUsE Raffle.
Auto FX DreamSuite Series 1
DreamSuite is a visual effects application from Auto FX Software. Auto FX has been around for a long
time making software that works as plug-ins for programs like Adobe Photoshop. The 18 effects in the
Series One collection are: 35mm Frame, Chisel, Crackle, Crease, Cubism, Deckle, Dimension X, Focus, Hot Stamp, Instamatic, Liquid Metal, Metal Mixer, PhotoBorder, PhotoDepth, PhotoTone, Putty,
Ripple, and Tape. Its like a collection of neat image filters with a common interface. One difference
between this software and all of the AKVIS Photoshop plug-ins I’ve been writing about is that DreamSuite functions either as a stand-alone application or as a plug-in inside any Photoshop-compatible
host application. When you purchase DreamSuite, you get both the stand-alone and plug-in versions
of the program, over 400 presets for the 18 effects, an operations manual in electronic PDF format, and
technical support by telephone and email. It is available for Macintosh and Windows on a cross-platform CD or as an electronic download at a suggested retail price of only $199.00 US.
Most of the DreamSuite effects are resolution-independent, so you should get the same results
whether applying the effects to high resolution or
low resolution images. Each of the 18 effects has
an extensive set of tools and controls for adjusting
that effect.
Installation went fine; the DreamSuite application
was installed on my hard drive and the plug-ins
were installed correctly into the Plug-ins folder of
my Photoshop Elements 4 but there appears to be
a compatibility issue under OSX 10.4.8. Maybe
DreamSuite doesn’t like my 1 GHz G4 iBook.
Anyway, every time I tried to launch any DreamSuite filter from within Photoshop Elements 4.0
the Adobe application crashes. Deleting the
DreamSuite application and plug-ins and running
the installer again gave the same results: as a standalone application the DreamSuite works fine, but
as a plug-in, its a total washout. Several exchanges
between me and the technical assistance people at
Auto FX left me no wiser and the Dream Suite
plug-ins no better. After deleting and re-installing
several times my Dream Suite plug-ins still refused to work as advertised BUT the stand-alone
application works beautifully. Its GREAT !!!!
The application has an interesting interface reminiscent of
DAZ Bryce and a wide and wild variety of effects that are
unique to each of the 18 different filter packages that make
up the DreamSuite. There is room for a myriad of sliders
and complex effect controllers in the panel along the left
side of the application window
When you invoke DreamSuite as a stand-alone application, it takes over all available screen space. All interface
elements are self-contained in a single window. There are
no detachable palettes that would allow you to better utilize screen real estate. Besides the texture-altering filters,
DreamSuite allows you to fold, bend and rip your photos
in a very controlled and realistic manner.
There are lots of example images and manuals that you
can download from the Auto FX website to enable you to
achieve wonderful photo effects with this software. Check
it out.
Edie McRee at Auto FX Software has sent us Mosaic
and Dreamy Photo, two samples of their newer software releases, for our February 28th MaUsE Raffle.
January MaUsE Meeting
Report
The January 24th MaUsE Meeting was a big success. Even
though it was colder than we had expected it to be, the turnout was prodigious. This was also the first meeting of the
new year and the first meeting with the newly revised hours.
The message that we would be starting early obviously got
out OK because we had a full house by 6:55 P.M. We got
started early, at 7:00 P.M., exactly as planned.
Acting in my position as the new President, I opened the
Meeting and welcomed new & old MaUsE Members and
first-time visitors. When I asked about first-time visitors
there was a large response from the audience indicating that
we had more guests than usual. Then Aaron spoke about the
new developments from Apple: Apple TV, iPhone, and new
AirPort technology. John Kettle gave the Treasurer’s Report and updated the membership statistics. He also welcomed the three new members who joined MaUsE this
month. Remember, March is when we renew MaUsE Memberships. Brian Elston told us about one of his projects,
called < www.macsforkids.com > and answered questions.
Marcel Defresne spoke about some of his favourite websites, Guy Lafontaine gave the Photoshop SIG report, Janet
Barlow from MicroImage Plus offered up some discounted
merchandise and presented the Specials, and then I spoke
briefly about the January MaUsE Raffle items and did two
quick slide show presentations showing what Alsoft DiskWarrior and Micromat DiskStudio DVD could do.
After the break Aaron presented his scathingly brilliant
trouble-shooting guide designed to educate us about what
to do when we suspect hardware or software problems with
our Macs. At the end of Aaron’s presentation Our Chris held
the January MaUsE Raffle and various prizes were awarded. We had many of the utilities that have appeared in last
month’s DoubleClick, including SubRosaSoft’s FileSalvage 5.1, a couple of copies of StuffIt Deluxe 11, Gideon
Software utilities bundle, Mellel II, and about ten others. We used up the
full two and a half hours that we had specified for the meeting and in my
opinion, we needed all of it. There were more than the usual numbers of
questions from the audience. I will not be present at the February 28th
MaUsE Meeting but it will also start at the earlier time and will also have
a raffle. See the articles in this issue of the MaUsE DoubleClick, (the last
DoubleClick to be created with InDesign CS) for descriptions of some of
the software items that will appear in the February 28th MaUsE Raffle. I
have set aside a lot of neat stuff, including some iPod utility software, for
the February raffle. And don’t forget, MaUsE Raffle items are not door
prizes for anyone who attends the MaUsE Meetings: MaUsE Raffle tickets
are free, but only available to paid-up MaUsE members.
Prosoft TuneTech for iPod
There are suddenly some utilities specifically designed for those of us who have iPods and for this issue I have managed to find a few of them. And copies
of some of the applications presented in this issue
have been made available for our February MaUsE
Raffle, so make sure that you attend the February
MaUsE Meeting for your chance to win something.
Now that iPods are everywhere and so many companies are releasing new add-ons and accessories for
iPods, it was inevitable that software companies
would realise that there is a huge market for software
that simplifies iPod maintenance.
TuneTech for iPod (formerly Pod Genius) is like Drive
Genius for iPods. With this software you can recover
lost or damaged music, repair corrupted data structures, backup your iPod to an exact copy, permanently
delete unwanted files, or optimize the file layout of
your music. TuneTech comes packed with everything
you need to diagnose and repair any hard drive problems that your iPod may experience in a normal working environment. And, it presents
these tools in a cute iPod-like interface.
Here are some key features of
“TuneTech for iPod”:
• Backup: Make an exact clone
of your iPod for safe keeping.
This is the fastest way to backup
all the music, pictures and files
that are stored on your iPod. Use
your backup as protection against
data loss.
• Optimize: Increase battery life
and minimize wear-and-tear.
Your songs get optimized by
physically putting them in order on the drive in
the order that you want to hear them, minimizing hard drive access and reducing the work
your iPod has to do.
• Repair: This is the solution if songs or play
lists have become inaccessible due to software
errors. If songs are missing or play erratically,
repair immediately before running the risk of
permanent data loss.
• Undelete: Accidentally deleted music? Undelete quickly recovers them in perfect condition.
• Shred: Permanently delete your songs and files
from your iPod. Do your part to protect against
music piracy... if you sell or donate your iPod,
shred your music to prevent unauthorized use.
• Duplicate: Make an exact copy of your iPod
on another iPod - perfect when migrating all
your data in one shot from your old iPod to a
newer model.
• Scan: Analyze your iPod’s hard drive for media defects that can endanger the data on your
iPod.
• Info: Display detailed information about your
iPod’s hard drive to enable sophisticated troubleshooting.
Most of what Prosoft TuneTech for
iPod can do are functions already
present in Apple’s Disk Utility and
the iPod synchronization capabilities
of iTunes and iPhoto but TuneTech
presents them in a way that simplifies
the process of finding and using them.
If you don’t regularly use a good disk
repair utility, such as TechTool Pro or
Drive Genius, or observe a good regular maintenance routine, your iTunes
and iPhoto libraries will likely require repair at some point. Not everyone has the latest version of these
utilities but for $59.00 US there is no excuse not to
have TuneTech if you value your iPod.
If anything were to happen to the libraries on your
iPod, all that you would have to do is verify/repair
your iPod’s disk with Apple’s Disk Utility, restore
your iPod’s software from the latest iPod Software
Updater, and synchronize your iPod with your
iTunes and iPhoto libraries.
There will be a fully licensed raffle copy of
TechTune for iPod available for the February MaUsE Raffle.
Prosoft Jax for iPod
Jax for iPod is something completely different for Prosoft: an
application that is fun instead of a diagnostic or disk repair program.
It is nothing like Prosoft TechTune for iPods. It will enhance the
way you use your iPod.
Apple’s iPod is THE portable device of the decade. If you carry
one, why not load it with more than music and videos? Jax for iPod
is a revolutionary new product that opens your iPod up to a whole
new universe of possibilities. With its ground-breaking user
interface, Jax keeps all your important information at your finger
tips. Best of all, Jax is customizable and its features can change to
match your personality and needs. Prosoft has built in more than a
dozen features and you can add others whenever you want as we
develop more and more Jax. Just go to our website and find others
that you might like.
For some, Jax is very useful, while for others it may be whimsical
or enlightening. One thing for sure, Jax has something for everyone.
Pick up Jax and see what it means for you.
Control your music: Configurable visualizers. Manage your lyrics
and find songs in your library that contain specific phrases and
words. Manage your album art and select alternative images with
higher resolution or different and international graphics. Research
your favorite songs and bands, their band members, similar bands
and click in a brand new awe-inspiring interface.
Control your life: Point-to-point directions, current weather forecasts, your favorite
stock quotes, movie listings and local gas prices. Local news from your favorite news
readers, all your latest emails and any of your favorite documents - and oh, have you
heard? You can download them into your iPod as text, or as spoken words as tracks in
MP3 format. Not good enough? How about being to directly download YouTube, Google
Videos, and any QuickTime movies directly to your video iPod?
Control your future: This is just the beginning... Jax is upgradable with its plug and play
feature set. Each feature of Jax is a module (called a Jak). Dozens more are on the way
and most will be available as free downloads right from the Prosoft website.
iPod Recovery Utility 2.0.1.5
Lets not forget that a great deal of the importance of the iPod from a historic
point of view is that it was the thin edge of the wedge that brought many Windows users their first taste of Macintosh hardware. The iPod works with Windows. To commemorate this fact, I have included an iPod utility that works with
just about every version of Windows. This is the first and only time that you will
see any Windows software in the MaUsE DoubleClick while I am the Editor, so
enjoy it.
Non destructive iPod data restoration software ascertains recovery of damage
done due to setting reset, boot up problems and hardware malfunction. iPod
retrieval tool not only enable you to recover deleted data but also save your data
in safe location. Moreover software is read only. You can restore files even if
you have formatted the media. Restore all types of AAC file format and store it
to desired location. Various type of iPod like
iPod nano, iPod mini, apple iPod, iPod shuffle etc are supported by the software and assures restoration of data what if you have
performed reformatting in your iPod. No
need to worry about how to operate the software, its simple and quick. This version covers iPod of both the third and fourth generation. Software support Windows 2000 NT4.0
2003 XP 98 ME and Windows XP media
center 2005 edition. Software enables you to
recover iTunes mp4 aif m4p mpeg aac m4p
unprotected m4a m4b wav mpg m4v aa files
as well picture, images and photos.
Features::
• It does not provide console user interface
while it provide user friendly graphical user
interface (GUI).
• Software support Windows 98 ME NT
2000 2003 XP and Windows XP media center 2005 edition.
• Data damaged due to virus infection can be
retrieved from each type of iPod.
• You can recover data damaged due to destructed file system.
• Tool can recover data from secure digital, flash memory, xD cards, compact flash.
• Software ensures recovery of all type of media file like mp4, wav, m4a,
AAC, aif, mp3, wmv, m4p.
• Restore the data when the message DRIVE NOT FORMATTED prompted
by the system.
• All iPod like iPod apple, Samsung, Toshiba, Sony, iPod mini, iPod first
generation, iPod next generation series, iPod nano and iPod Shuffle can be
recovered by the software.
• Utility saves the recovered data in the safe location in your hard disk.
• Software maintains the quality of file after recovery.
• Support all types of latest iPod devices
PD+RESCUE for iPod
thing. Your iTunes software does. For example, if
your iPod was set to automatic update, and your
iTunes library on your computer was empty and
you plugged in your iPod... all of the tunes on your
iPod would vanish. Likewise, if your iPod was set
to automatic update and you plugged it into someone else’s computer with an empty library and then
clicked OK if you wanted to relink your iPod you
would lose all of your music.-
PD+RescueTM for iPod® by TastyBytes Software,
Inc. is the missing link between your computer and
your iPod®. Although the iPod has revolutionized
the way we listen to music it has one major drawback: once songs are put on your iPod they cannot
be taken off. PD+Rescue solves this problem by allowing you to freely transfer your songs and playlists back to your computer for use in iTunes or as
backup on an external hard drive.
With a simplified user interface PD+Rescue allows
individual songs, artists or albums to be transferred
The best feature of any iPod utility is ease of use. to different locations and will automatically file
Generally speaking, many of the features of iTunes. songs based on Artist and Album titles. PD+Rescue
iPhoto, and Apple’s Disk Utility are not instantly is compatible with all iPod file formats including
obvious because these programs have so many fea- songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store®.
tures. With a device like your iPod you don’t need PD+Rescue also has the ability to recover songs
powerful software but you do need straightforward from an iPod with a damaged database. The emsoftware. One really important thing to remember phasis of this utility is backup of your songs and
when playing with your iPod is that while data and recovery from iPod disaster.
PD+Rescue does not have the ability to delete any-
Features Include:
• Support for Windows Vista/XP/2000 and Mac OS
X
• Works with all iPod models
• Easy to use interface
• Playlist Cloning Support
• Add songs directly to iTunes®
• Play songs directly from the iPod
• File renaming during copy and backup
• Recovers songs from a damaged database.
• Support for Multiple iPods
• Support for iTunes Music Store® songs
• Audible.com support
• Single button sequential backups
• Play video files directly from the iPod (NEW)
• iTunes® Song rating support (NEW)
• Transfer ID3 tags for WAV and iFM files.
• Faster Copy & Backup Speeds (NEW)
Macintosh® Requirements
• Mac OS X v10.2.8 or later
• Mac OS X 10.4.1 or later recommended
• 400MHz G3 processor or better
• 256MB RAM Recommended
• A working connection to an iPod®
• iPod Software v1.2 or higher
• QuickTime v6.5.2 or higher
• iTunes v4.7 or higher
There will be a fully licensed raffle copy
of PD+ RESCUE available for the February MaUsE Raffle.
Tune Tools for iPod
Tune Tools is NEW, and its from SmithMicro, better known as Allume Systems, the people who gave
us StuffIt and StuffIt Deluxe, among other things.
There are suddenly a lot of software titles available
for iPods and in this issue I will introduce you to
some of them and we’ll see how many we can get
for this month’s MaUsE Raffle, too !
• Correct tag inconsistencies in your iPod
and iTunes library.
• Detect inconsistencies between your iTunes
library and your iPod.
• Check the health of your iPod hard drive to
find problems before they find you! Detect
and correct corrupt files in your iPod library
Your iPod is more than just your music with the click of a mouse.
jukebox, now with video and podcast capabilities, it’s your portable hard drive and
entertainment gadget. Up until now, your
iPod’s potential has been limited by
iTunes’® features. Now with Tune Tools
fully integrated features, it’s time to unlock
your iPod’s potential. Get songs out of your
iPod, perform backups and get the most
out of your iPod.
• Use the Full Backup feature to protect the
full content of your iPod from loss or corruption.
• Make instant backups of your iPod files using our Quick Backup technology.
• Restore your iPod quickly from a Quick or
Full Backup using Smart Restore from Tune
Tools.
• Transfer individual iPod files and playlists direct- • Get instant access to artist, album and song
ly to another iPod.
information when you transfer your iPod database.
• Move songs, videos, podcasts and other files easily from your iPod to a different computer.
• Migrate songs, videos, podcasts and playlist directly into iTunes to grow your music library without losing playcounts and other information.
• Clone your iPod contents to another iPod.
• Restore files that occasionally disappear from the
iPod database with the click of a mouse.
• Clean Up & Sync Your iPod Library
Micromat Inc. iPod
PodLock Utility
Micromat supplied us with TechTool Pro (featured
at our November 2006 MaUsE Meeting and raffle)
and DiskStudio DVD ( featured in next month’s
MaUsE DoubleClick). I asked Micromat if we
could have a copy for our raffle and they said that
PodLock is not available right now because it is
between revisions, but it will be released again later
in 2007 when updated by Micromat, (probably, I
suspect, as soon as a universal binary version is
available that will be usable on the new Intel Macs).
You can find PodLock on SWAP lists or eBay.
PodLock helps you and your iPod in many
ways:
• Backup and restore:
PodLock allows you to seamlessly backup and restore your primary iPod volume to your Macintosh
drive (excluding your music files). This is especially useful if you store files for transport on your
iPod.
• Optimize the data on your iPod:
By using PodLock’s defragment tool, your iPod’s
drive will run faster. This means songs will load
more quickly and data can be retrieved much faster.
• Hide your important files:
PodLock allows you to create an “invisible” partition. It’s like having a secret drive for your data
files that only you can see by entering your personal password. If you use your iPod as an external
drive to transport data, you’ll want this protection
in case you should ever lose your iPod.
• Manage pictures and voice recordings:
PodLock gives you an easy and convenient way to
access other types of data on your iPod. Learn
Technical Details about your iPod, find out when
and where your iPod was manufactured, the current
version of the iPod system software, as well as other important technical information.
QuarkXPress 7
Here’s a program that many of our MaUsE members do not now use, do not now
own, and will likely never use or own, but you have all seen and handled examples of documents created in QuarkXPress every day for years and probably
not known it. In terms of Apple history and the evolution of desktop publishing
it is one of the most important and influential applications ever written. If you
go into any big magazine store where they have multiple racks of colorful magazines on display, fashion mags, computer, automotive, Newsweek, and special
interest magazines, stuff like Playboy, Elle, Vogue, and Macleans, you can safely assume that about three-quarters of the professional periodicals you are looking at were created using some version of QuarkXPress.
Xpress 7, the latest version of the company’s flagship desktop publishing software, was awarded “Best of Show” by the Macwelt editors at the MacExpo
trade show and conference in Cologne, Germany in June, 2006. At the MacWorld UK Expo in August, Quark cleaned up again with two awards for QuarkXPress 7: the “Editor’s Choice” award and the “Best Creative Software” award.
Winners came from an extensive and varied list that Macworld UK editors compiled during a year of fast-paced change in the Macintosh computer industry.
The Macworld UK editors wrote: “In terms of practical design production,
QuarkXPress 7 is second to none.” 2006 wrapped up with the German Printing
Industry Innovation Awards. Various experts in the field of publishing decided
which software product they considered the most innovative solution or development for the production of printed products, and Quark came out on top.
QuarkXPress is a drag-and-drop “WYSIWYG” page layout application for Mac
OS X and Windows, produced by Quark, Inc.. (“What you see is what you get”
means that the document that comes out of your printing process will look identical to how it appeared on your monitor). Quark, Inc. can be seen as one of the
founders of Desktop Publishing (beside Adobe Systems and Apple Computer).
QuarkXPress early on incorporated an innovative application programming interface called XTensions which allows third-party developers to create custom
add-on features to their desktop application. Introduced in 1989, Xtensions, was
one of the first examples of a developer allowing others to create software addons for their application. The XTensions work similar to the way Filters in Adobe Photoshop: you get some XTensions with the XPress application and then, if
you find that you have special needs not covered by the XPress application as it
is, you buy more XTensions as required to do special tricks and for achieving
expanded abilities.
The first Mac-only version of QuarkXPress was released in 1987 and for
many people in the advertising and publishing industries, XPress has been
their application of choice ever since. In the 1990s, QuarkXPress quickly
became the worldwide preferred tool for most professional page designers,
and the typesetting industry and printers. Just about everything done in the
magazine and pre-press industry was done in QuarkXPress. Having gained
a market share of approximately 90% in the 1990s, Quark was criticized as
being monopolist with overly long innovation cycles and too high prices.
The release of QuarkXPress version 5 in 2002 led to a row with Apple, as
Quark 5 did not support Mac OS X and Adobe’s InDesign 2.0, launched in
the same week, did. This was a Very Bad Thing from the point of view of
many Quark users who were ready to upgrade and a Very Good Thing from
Adobe’s perspective. Evolution of new features in QuarkXPress since version 5 can be seen as improvements designed to prevent or slow the migration of the desktop publishing industry en masse away from Quark and into
the Adobe camp. Mac users who switched to OSX had to leave Quark behind and this gave InDesign a real advantage over XPress for a while.
I have used both of these applications, XPress and InDesign. I recall
the day that I switched to InDesign
CS and why. Jim and Susan went to
MacWorld in the States early in this
century, and they both attended the
major presentations, including
Steve’s keynote speech and the
Adobe debut of InDesign CS. Under each chair was a coupon redeemable for a copy of InDesign
CS for OSX. Jim brought them
back, kept one, and gave the other
to me. For free. I recall that my initial reaction upon leaving Quark 5
for InDesign was that I had
dropped a dime and picked up a
nickel. It was advertised that InDesign could theoretically translate
Quark documents but the process
was not yet perfected.
QuarkXPress handles text and
graphics as different objects (text
boxes and image boxes). Both types
of boxes can be reshaped and layered in quite complex ways, and in
varying levels of transparency and
runaround. Version 6.5, released at
the end of 2004, added enhanced
support for the Photoshop format
(PSD). The PSD integration and
picture manipulation features led to QuarkXPress and PDF/X-export. QuarkXPress 7 also allows
receiving a number of awards.
unique features, such as native transparency at the
color level. QuarkXPress 7’s composition zones
The current version, QuarkXPress 7, greatly re- feature makes it the only layout application with
sembles the earlier versions and anyone already fa- multi-user capabilities by allowing multiple users
miliar with Quark 3, 4, 5, 6 or 6.5 will feel right at to edit different zones on the same page. And when
home using it. But there are lots of new features, I write that the new XPress greatly resembles the
too, including support for OpenType, Unicode, JDF incarnations of the program from ten years ago, this
is not a complaint; opening a QuarkXPress document for a user like me, who has not used QuarkXPress since version 4, was a delightful return to familiar territory.
There is a great deal of conflicting opinion on the
internet about which application, QuarkXPress or
Adobe InDesign, is “better” right now. I suppose it
just comes down to personal taste. They both do the same
thing and they both do it well. Price should not be a consideration as they both sell for about $700 US. Integration with
other Adobe products is a real plus for InDesign, but QuarkXPress 7 is used by more than three million people worldwide.
The Apple site still says, “QuarkXPress is the tool of choice
for magazines, newspapers, advertising and design agencies, marketers, printers, corporate publishers, catalog publishers and book publishers”.
But then the Apple website has nothing bad to say about InDesign either. What I did find revealing was that the public
are encouraged to post reviews on the Apple site of the software advertised there. There was only one review comment
posted on the page where information and pricing for InDesign CS was located, but there were twenty-six postings on
the page where QuarkXPress 7 was described, some of them
obviously simply anti-Quark rants from strident InDesign
users that said nothing sensible about the QuarkXPress 7
program and arguments that sounded more like prejudice
and nonsense poorly posing as informed opinion, comments
and criticisms. Its obvious that many people have strong
feelings about using and preferring one application over the
other.
The competition between QuarkXPress and InDesign is forcing both Quark
and Adobe to improve their products as they compete for dominance in the
market Quark used to control exclusively. It’ll be interesting to see what new
features are built into InDesign when InDesign CS3 is released in 2007. It will
also be interesting to see what price they charge for the new InDesign, especially since InDesign used to be several hundreds of dollars cheaper than
QuarkXPress, a situation remedied by the release of XPress 7.
The abilities to make objects translucent (opacity control) and to apply soft
drop shadows to text and objects are among the most appealing InDesign features that previous versions of QuarkXPress lacked. QuarkXPress 7 has not
only implemented both of these features, but has embellished them with options that aren’t available in InDesign. For example, in XPress you can control
the opacity of anything that has color applied to it—box backgrounds, pictures, frames, and even individual characters
Quark did a nice job updating the user interface. Most obvious and significant
is the retooled Measurements palette, which eliminates the need to open dialog
boxes to modify objects. All of the new features found in the Measurements
palette are available elsewhere in the menus that users of earlier versions of
Quark will find just where they used to be but if the features are accessed from
the menu bar they are applied only after the Apply or OK button is pressed: if
accessed from the Measurement palette they update immediately. When you
select an item and move the pointer over the Measurements palette, a row of
icons pops up along the top of the palette, a different row of icons for each type
of item or group of items selected. Clicking an icon changes the controls displayed in the palette. For example, when you’re working on text, you can not
only apply character and paragraph formatting, but also modify tab settings as
well as text-box settings such as frame, text runaround, and drop shadow.
When a picture box is active, you can use the Measurements palette to make
almost all of the modifications available in the Modify command.
Amazingly, QuarkXPress still uses a single row of icons through which all the
main functions are accessed. The toolbar
features primarily frame, text box and
shape tools which, when it boils down to
it, are all you really need in page design.
At the bottom of the screen is a contextsensitive palette which shows various parameters and settings, such as font name
and size, or the co-ordinates of the mouse
cursor at any given time. In contrast, InDesign uses twice as many control icons
and up to 22 tabbed windows and they
don’t always respond to commands.
There are floating toolbars available in
XPress if you want them - just click on the
View menu - and the standard complement for most
layout artists is the Colours toolbar (which includes
Pantone support), the Document Layout toolbar
(which enables you to jump around the pages in the
document at ease), and the Styles toolbar (which
lets you globally apply typeface attributes). However, digging deeper reveals
some extraordinary features. You
can draw text boxes or frames in
freehand using your mouse, for
example, while an entire range of useful predefined
text boxes and frames are also available. Elsewhere
you’ll find that this version of QuarkXPress shares
In Design’s ability to automatically generate cutout clipping paths around photographs, saving the
bother of manually generating them in Photoshop.
The Xtensions manager lets you add-in third party
programs to XPress’s arsenal, boosting its feature
base even more. QuarkXPress has always prided
itself on productivity, and with XPress 7 you can
now group and dock palettes, as well as save and
restore palette setups. You can also split your window view and open multiple windows onto a single
layout or onto multiple layouts from the same project.
A few words about the QuarkXPress package itself: complete, delightful, and relatively cheap.
QuarkXPress 7 ships in a large cardboard box with
a price tag that will please. Somewhere between
QuarkXPress 6 and XPress 7 the price dropped by
more than several hundred dollars, so you can now
see some ads on the internet offering the older ver-
sion of XPress for more money than the newest
version. Like InDesign, it still comes with a printed-on-paper hard-copy manual, for those of us who
like to read. The XPress manual is 435 pages. (The
InDesign manual is 375 pages). The XPress package contains four CDs, including the XPress application and updaters on two CDs, a Quark Alliance
CD with an incredible amount of advice, information and catalogs from companies that supply addon XTensions and other stuff. The alliance CD also
has six issues of X-Ray Magazine for Quark users,
the 2006 XTensions Catalog and Xtensions Directory, and brochures and offers from output providers and XPress training material providers. Also
included with the package is a <www.lynda.com>
Quark training CD with twenty QuickTime videos
with voice-over narration that describes and demonstrates getting started with QuarkXPress 7.0.
(There is also a wealth of free training materials
and tutorials in the Support section on the Quark
website).
RAM, which may be more a cause of the problem
than the Quark application). The XPress program
created an extensive crash report and sent it off to
Quark to make them aware of the problem and a
Quark employee got in touch via email with questions about my concerns with the program and a
request for more information about what I was doIn my opinion, this latest version of QuarkXPress 7 ing or trying to do with QuarkXPress 7 when the
is the best of a long line of XPress incarnations and program went down.
goes a long way towards justifying the faith that
loyal Quark users have had in the product. QuarkX- Some users may think that Quark has generally
Press always was a very classy product and its waited too long between upgrades and that the
dominance in the field of desktop publishing is due march of Adobe has gained more momentum than
to the stability and versatility of the XPress pro- it should have, but the past cannot be re-written.
gram itself coupled with the ingenious third-party The whole software scene changes too rapidly for
XTensions that extend its usefulness. In response to any company to think that it can rest on its laurels,
competition from Adobe, Quark has re-created a Adobe included, but it appears that Quark is back
product that re-establishes Quark firmly as a com- in the game with a product upgrade that is signifipany capable of building on the best features of cantly better than Quark 6.5 as well as significantly
previous XPress versions, capable of including and better than Adobe InDesign CS. From my own eximproving on the new features that made InDesign perience I can say that Quark is more responsive to
a contender, and capable of providing it all in an their customers’ needs than their reputation would
improved interface that is welcoming and intuitive. indicate, and this is just as welcome and imporBy lowering the price of QuarkXPress so that it is tant.
now competitive with InDesign, introducing the
new features that make it possible for more than There are no losers in competition like this. The big
one designer to work simultaneously on the same winners will be the professional consumers who do
document, and building in their new Job Jackets layout and design for a living and people like us,
features to ensure that preferences and color man- amateurs who publish for our own amusement. We
agement settings can be controlled and consistent can all expect to benefit from more product imacross all features of large projects, Quark has made provements and more aggressive pricing as Adobe
XPress 7 a whole new player in the field of layout and Quark compete for our business. The last version of QuarkXPress, v6.5, sold for US $999.00
and design.
and this new version sells on the Quark website
I had only one problem with my QuarkXPress and for US $749.00.
it was more a source of assurance than otherwise:
while attempting to rotate a translucent pink text
box with text and drop shadows over a complex
graphic, QuarkXPress quit on me. (I have it installed on an old G4 iBook with only 640 megs of
This is the February 2007 MaUsE
DoubleClick, made with InDesign CS.
Next month you will see the March
2007 DoubleClick, made using the new
QuarkXPress 7.1.
This is the February 2007 MaUsE DoubleClick,
made with InDesign CS. Next month you will see
the March 2007 DoubleClick, made using QuarkXPress 7.1. There will probably be little difference in
the actual appearance of the DoubleClick as a result of the change. Both of these programs do more
or less the same job and they both do it well.
QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign: its a matter of
personal preference. Both of these very similar
products can create beautiful layouts and they each
have their individual strengths, and they each have
a loyal following of users. I am fortunate enough to
have both installed on my computer (so I don’t
have to use AppleWorks or any Microsoft programs), but if I had only one of them it would be
QuarkXPress. It has lots of room to grow into and
web document creation tools I have not explored
yet. I’ll describe a couple of really impressive
XTensions (QuarkXPress lug-ins) in next month’s
DoubleClick.
You can visit the Quark website and store for more
information about XPress and if you want to see
the tutorials and watch training videos they are
there for the viewing. There are lots of new productivity enhancement features I have not touched on.
If you want to try out QuarkXPress on your own
Mac you can download a 250-megabyte demo copy
of the program that will perform without limitations for a month before expiring. QuarkXPress 7
is available for Mac OS X 10.4 and Windows XP.
The Mac version is a Universal binary which runs
natively on PPC- and Intel-based Macs. I must
warn you, however, that the program can bog down
anything slower than a really fast G4 processor and
if you do download the demo to try out make sure
that you get the very latest version, QuarkXPress
7.1. I have read on the internet that some QuarkXPress 7 users are not thrilled by the performance
(speed) of this new release. My own experience is
that right out of the box QuarkXPress 7 does
have some performance (speed) issues but
XPress 7 users can either download the Updater
to v7.1, which improves performance significantly, or order the update for free on CD from
Quark. On my 1 GHz G4 2004 iBook I found
performance perfectly acceptable, but I know
that this consumer-level iBook has limitations.
I trotted into the new Apple Store in Sherway Gardens and found that
they had installed Save-disabled DEMO versions of XPress 7 on
some of their professional machines. QuarkXPress 7 is accelerated
for the new Intel models ( something like the programs that were labeled “Accelerated for PowerPC” that we ran into back when we
were still using 680X0 Macintoshes) and I found that compared to
performance on my G4 iBook, QuarkXPress ran with incredible speed
on a new Mac with Intel Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors. For me,
the true test of how this program works will be how it performs on my
next Macintosh computer, the one I am getting to
replace the iBook.
The January
QuarkXPress is available at the Apple Store and
from online resellers like Amazon.ca but the logical
place to shop for programs like QuarkXPress is
probably still eBay online auctions. As with most
big-ticket items, do your research before you bid:
check for auctions for QuarkXPress 7 that have already ended and you will find that what appears to
be identical QuarkXPress items have sold for anywhere from $204.00 to $585.00 on eBay! There are
academic and other language versions of the program available from Quark so read the item description carefully and cross-reference product numbers
to the Quark store on the internet to make sure you
know what you are getting.
I offer my sincerest thanks to the people at
Quark who made this upgrade possible. I hope
2007 sees continued success for everyone at
Quark.
MaUsE Raffle
The January 2007 MaUsE Raffle was another success with 16 prizes awarded. All of
the prizes were copies of programs previously donated to the DoubleClick for review purposes. If you would like to receive a free copy of a new software program
in exchange for writing a review of it for the MaUsE DoubleClick, get in touch with
the Editor. Contact info for the DoubleClick is on Page 2. Sometimes software companies will supply review copies for free...
The February MaUsE Raffle
I will not be attending the February MaUsE Meeting but I did make sure that I set
aside a few nice things for a rainy day. Some of the software in this issue will be
available, including several very desirable items. For February we have another copy
of StuffIt Deluxe 11, at least two of the iPod utilities from Prosoft and TastyBytes,
some AUTO FX Photoshop plugins, Virtual Villagers, Comic Life Deluxe, Arctic
Quest, BeLight MailFactory, ZIPIT, and Eltima Flash Optimiser.
MaUsE Meetings are open to the public but MaUsE Raffle tickets can only be issued to MaUsE
Members in good standing who actually attend the raffle. Another reason to attend...
Going Directly From Your Video
Camera Into QuickTime (.mov)
Submitted by Chris Greaves
There’s a very cool feature that sneaked into QuickTime Pro 7 that has kind of
flown below the radar so far. It’s the ability to record directly from your digital
video camera, iSight or built-in camera (or a microphone) right into a QuickTime
file, without going through iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or a third-party application.
It works the same way for recording audio using your Mac’s built-in microphone (provided of course that your Mac actually does have a built-in mic),
but instead of choosing New Movie Recording, you’ll choose New Audio
Recording.
Further refinements can be
made in QuickTime Preferences. Video Quality can be
saved small for email or left
Device Native to edit in
iMovie. Microphone sources
can also be changed.
Note: you have to upgrade
from the standard QuickTime to QuickTime Pro to
have access to this feature.
Just connect your home digital video camera (or iSight camera or built-in portables camera), launch the QuickTime Pro 7 Player, then from the File menu
choose New Movie Recording. A QuickTime window will open showing you a preview of what your camera is seeing. Now
just click the round red record button at the
bottom of the QuickTime window and it
starts recording. Click the stop button when If you can see a QuickTime
you’re done and you’ve got an instant Quick- video window at the bottom
Time movie.
of this page click on it to see a video created specially for the web version
of MaUsE DoubleClick. This will not work with the printed-on-paper version of the publication.
Arctic Quest
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
Arctic Quest from exclusivegames.com is an IBM
game that has been adapted to run on the MAC platform. It is a puzzle solving game with a time limit. In
Arctic Quest, you set out to solve the puzzles, each of
which takes the shape of an animal or other tropical
wonder. The animal is set up as a grid work which can
be filled with various shaped puzzle pieces. As pieces
of ice fall from the sky, you grab them with your
mouse, rotate them using the space bar and place them
on a grid within the puzzle. You have completed the
level once all the grid has been filled in.
The shapes fall faster than you can actually use them. Also, many are of the wrong
shape and so must be ignored. If the waters that surround the island fill up with
unused ice, your quest will fail. A small
fire that burns on the land allows you to
melt surplus ice and keep that level alive
for awhile longer. Fish are sometimes
caught in the ice and can be freed if used
in the grid. The freed fish earn bonuses
that grant you various powers, such as the
ability to smash excess ice or paint in portions of the grid. You can also click on
any flying birds to get bonus points. Every fifth level is actually a special level
There will be a fully licensed raffle copy of Arctic
where the puzzle pieces are already in the
Quest available for the February MaUsE Raffle.
water and you must simply pick them up
and place them in the grid. There is how- The full game has 60 levels, an online high scoreboard and
ever a very short time allotment for this. free technical support and updates. The regular game price
is $19.95 (US) but an exclusive user group offer is $11.97
Installation is simply a matter of dragging (US), a 40 percent discount. Purchase using the direct link:
the game to your applications folder. Once www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=11295you double click the icon you are taken to 5&ss_coupon=MUG-I080-AQ. This offer is valid until
the home page and allowed to start a new April 27, 2007.
game, switch player or continue from
where you left off. The graphics are full
screen and pleasing to look at, although
they are very much cartoonish. The game
may be played by any age group. The one
complaint I have is that the instructions in
the help menu assume we have a double
click mouse (IBM) and I had to learn on
my own that rotating the puzzle pieces
can be done with the space bar.
The game can be played with a limited
number of levels for free. It is available
from: www.exclusivegames.com/download/arctic-quest-mac.dmg.
Here is what your Fonts
list looks like under your
Text Menu if you don’t
have FontCard installed.
Every time you want to
change fonts you have to
crawl through this bewildering list of dozens of
fonts you don’t use and
will probably never use.
Australian Sunrise indeed
! As if you’re ever going
to need that !
Here is what your simplified
Fonts list looks like under
your Text Menu if you have
organized your fonts with
FontCard. No more wading
through a list as long as your
arm. Fonts you never use but
don’t want to discard can be
set aside out of the way of the
fonts you actually use.
Unsanity FontCard
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
I have way too many fonts. In the old System 8.6
days I was able to place my fonts into groupings that
I could control. I had dingbats, favourites, capitals,
etc. This allowed me to choose quickly what I wanted
to use. I have been searching for an easy way to do
this in System 10. FontCard has this capability.
FontCard from Unsanity Software is a haxie that
modifies the Font menu in applications. It can add an
icon that displays the format of a font next to the font
menu item. It displays the font name in the font face
(WYSIWYG) and will group the fonts into submenus, favourites and most recently used being in
this submenus. You can also add font collections to
the font menu. All of this is controlled from the FontCard in the Preference Folder. I created a folder called
“school” into which I have added the fonts I most
often want to use.
FontCard has been tested with InDesign, BBedit,
TextEdit, Word, PowerPoint, QuarkXPress, iChat, Illustrator, Photoshop, Eudora, SimpleText and more.
FontCard 1.4 runs on Mac OS X 10.3 or later and
Intel Macs. I have included a before and after pict of
what happens with AppleWorks. You can download a
copy and try it out for a limited time as it is shareware. The trial allows full use for a short time. It is
worth downloading just to see what it can do. It is
priced at US $17. For this price, you can save yourself a lot of time searching for the correct font you
want.
Unsanity is devoted to developing high, commercial
quality software at affordable prices. Software developed by Unsanity is distributed mainly through the
Internet, although it is possible to purchase our products on a CD or in retail stores.
Comic Life
Deluxe
At right you can see the entire monitor screen as it appears while Comic Life Deluxe is running.
You start building your comic
by laying out panels to hold
photos (or by simply picking
from the 322 templates found
in the section I have marked
with the red rectangle). Comic template designs copy traditional layouts from various
decades and various types of
comic books.
Once you set the framework,
it’s time to import your photos. Just drag and drop pics
from Comic Life’s file browser, the area I have marked in
blue. The browser has three
buttons at its bottom to allow
access to iPhoto libraries, or
to pictures in folders that can
be found on your computer,
or to a digital camera if one is
connected. There is a “Freeze”
button in the file browser
window that allows you to take snaps of the image
in your video camera and the picture quality is very
high with the iSight camera. Everything is dragged
and positioned in the yellow box and as pages are
completed they appear off to the left in a vertical
stack which I have indicated with a purple box.
After you place a photo in the appropriate panel,
you can move the pic around or zoom. You can
even add some visual punch by applying one of 17
image filters. Want an authentic comic look?
Choose Comicify. Feel like going psychedelic? Select Pop Art ’05. It’s fun to experiment, but filters
only work in Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger).
The panel marked in green has a selection of balloons that can be dragged and dropped anywhere
on the page and then nudged into position. As soon
as you select and place a balloon you can type in it
and the balloon with automatically adjust its size to
accommodate the text. You can also add text boxes
and titles or sound effect words in a large variety of
special colours and text shapes just like the ones you find in Batman and other super-hero comics. Its surprisingly easy to do and a lot of fun.
When your comic is ready, the only thing left to do is publish it—you can print it
out, save it as an image, create a QuickTime movie (just a video slide show of all
your comic pages), export it to HTML so you can put it on the Web, or send it
straight to your .Mac account.
Comic Life from FREEVERSE is a remarkable application, one of the Apple Design Award winners for 2006. If you are tempted to get a copy make sure you get
the Deluxe version instead of the Standard program. It has many more features,
more fonts, more templates and more text styles. Look it up on the internet for more
information and to see what other Mac users have done with this software.
Our thanks go out to Colin Smith and Timothy Beck at FREEVERSE who have graciously provided the copy of Raina’s Revenge
that appeared reviewed in last month’s
DoubleClick and a copy of Comic Life Deluxe for our February MaUsE Raffle.
Virtual Villagers
Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
Virtual Villagers from BigFishGames is
a new sim type game. There is a twist. It
is real-time simulation gameplay. This
means that the game will keep playing
even when you quit it, even when your
computer is shut off. And unlike other
sim games, it is extremely easy to learn.
There are no vast menus from which to
choose what to do next. It is simply drag
and drop.
The story is that a group of villagers has
washed up on the shores of an island,
Isola, after surviving a volcanic eruption.
You have to guide them in learning how to survive.
They learn by doing. When you drag and drop them
onto a certain area, like a berry bush, they learn to
gather food. If you drag them onto a building, they
might repair it. You may have to drag them there
more than once until they learn that skill. They need
to become farmers, builders, scientists, doctors and
of course parents. As the game runs, they build
huts, farm fields, have children. You will also have
to make many decisions as problems arise. Do you
open up a crate that has washed up on shore or not?
That choice will move your village in one direction
or another, sometimes good, sometimes bad.
body decomposing into a skeleton. It did not take
long before the original six players died. They had
reproduced enough to keep my colony going. I
have been checking on my little group at least twice
daily to see how they are doing. I have solved only
7 or the 16 puzzles up to now.
Because the game plays even when the computer is
off, you must check into the island daily in order to
keep problems from getting out of hand. However,
if you are to be away for awhile the spacebar will
toggle the pause on or off. Pause it before you go
away for awhile. You can also change the game
speed as you play from the option menu. You can
also change the level of difficulty and whether to
play full screen or not.
ries in which you need to upgrade, each of which There are hundreds of unique villagers. I have seen
require more tech points. For instance, a school can 38 so far. It is a 18.2 MB download an it runs on
be built with an upgrade in the construction area.
Mac OSX 10.2 or later. It sells for US $19.99 but it
is on sale now for $14.99. Try out the game. You
There are 16 puzzles that the villagers must solve. will be pleasantly surprised. If you like Sims, you
These are dependent upon some combination of will fall for Virtual Villagers!
Village Tech, villager skills, and other puzzles. The
puzzles do not have to be completed
in the order given. I studied plants
on the island and was able to solve
puzzle 8 after I had completed the
first three puzzles. The curiosity of
the villagers helps to identify what
they should be in fact studying. You
As the village grows, the villagers become curious are able to get a ranking on how you
about their mysterious island home and the secrets are doing compared to other players
it holds. You must help them explore and restore via the internet.
the island. The more they work at a task, the more
expert they become. The scientists will research At first glance it appears to be a
and earn Tech Points. With Tech Points you are able children’s game. However it talks
to purchase upgrades in six areas: farming, con- about fertility and the need for pristructing, medicine, spirituality, science and fertil- vacy in order to breed. Also, when
ity. There are three levels of each of these catego- villagers die, the game shows the
Notice to
Double Click Readers
Who Are NOT
MaUsE Members
If you are living in or near the Durham Region of Southern Ontario and using a Macintosh computer and are not yet a member
of MaUsE you can use the information found on the second page
of this newsletter to get meeting info and to get in touch with a
member of our executive to find out how to join. There is enough
information on our website (www.mause.ca) to get you started.
If you just want to attend a few of our monthly meetings before
committing, please feel free to join us at the new central Whitby
Library at 7:00 P.M. on the fourth Wednesday of the month. Meetings are open to the public and admission is free but eligibility
for winning valuable MaUsE Raffle prizes at our monthly MaUsE
Meeting Raffles and receiving technical assistance are available
only to paid-up MaUsE club members.
Other privileges of membership are listed on our www.mause.ca
website and include the right to borrow from the extensive MaUsE
Club Library and to submit articles for publication in this excellent newsletter. We also provide MaUsE Members with access to
an email List where MaUsE Club members can post questions
and ask for technical support. And we get offers of discounts from
software companies because we are registered MUG (Macintosh
User Group) members.
Michael Shaw
MaUsE President
Editor, MaUsE DoubleClick
Get FREE* Software:
For MaUsE Members Only
Have you noticed that the software reviewed in the DoubleClick invariably shows
up as raffle prizes at our monthly MaUsE meetings? Software programs are expensive. Where do they come from? Well, most of them come from my replies to press
releases sent to me by software companies or from requests that I make directly to
the software companies on behalf of the MaUsE DoubleClick that they send me two
free copies of whatever tickles my fancy: one copy for me to review and one for the
MaUsE Raffle held in the same month that the review appears. I’m doing it and I’m
writing about it, so of course I ask for stuff that interests me. I know what tickles my
fancy but not what tickles yours.
If you would like to have me ask for something for you to review in the DoubleClick,
let me know. The catch is that you MUST review the program in order to get a free
copy for yourself. See the software reviews in this and other recent issues. If you
think you could produce software review composed of a page or two of text and
pictures in exchange for a free copy of the program you review then you are ready to
contribute to the DoubleClick. Of course there is no guarantee that you will get what
you ask for. Some companies are very obliging but others either don’t answer my
request at all or they answer to say that they don’t send out review materials. But, if
they do send it, and you do write about it, its yours to keep. Like the other privileges
of membership, the access to software titles to review is only available to paid-up
MaUsE members, but you only have to win one MaUsE Raffle item or get one program to review to re-coup your year’s $45.00 membership fee.
The MaUsE is your local MUG and the MaUsE DoubleClick is your MUG Newsletter. You can write letters to the DoubleClick Editor, submit articles to the DoubleClick
for publication, attend MaUsE Meetings, join the MaUsE Executive, suggest topics
for presentations, and even do presentations if you want to. You can get advice and
help with hardware and software problems, receive discounts from many software
vendors, and get free tickets to win raffle items at out monthly meetings.
Email: < [email protected] > for details.
*Some conditions apply.