In this Issue Monthly Meeting

Transcription

Monthly Meeting
January 28, 2004
The Apple Store
Westfarms Mall
Panther demo, hands-on
G5 trials, great deals, etc.
NEWSLETTER OF CONNECTICUT MACINTOSH CONNECTION, INC.
Danger! iPod Could
Be Hazardous To
Your Health!
Mouse Tales
By Don Dickey, president
W h e n eve r a g o o d d e a l
appears, I often call Joe Arcuri
and ask him to “talk me out of
it” if he can. He sometimes
does the same with me.
Simultaneous failures
led us to both purchase Umax
clones and scanners, Wallstreet
PowerBook G3s, Toshiba M4 digital
cameras, PowerBook G4s, PowerBoy
drive enclosures, and most recently
Canon LiDE30 scanners. We are each
other’s most expensive friend! A couple of months ago, similar
simultaneous failures caused us both
to purchase 10gb iPods from
Apple.com for $169 each complete
with remote and carry case. “Such a
deal”...or so I thought.
The iPod was going to be a Christmas
present for my wife Joyce. (She works
with Joe’s wife at Bristol-Myers
Squibb Company in Wallingford. In
fact, that’s how Joe and I met...
through our wives.) With the long
commute from West Hartford to
Wallingford, Joyce often uses the
travel time to listen to audio books.
She recently acquired a lengthy book
that came on 25 CDs, but fortunately
a friend “ripped” them to MP3 which
then fit on a single CD. Unfortunately,
Joyce had no way to listen to MP3s in
the car.
I made the decision to give her the
iPod at her birthday in early October
JANUARY, 2004
instead of making her
wait to Christmas for it.
After all, if I didn’t, I
would have to burn 25
CDs so she could listen to the new book!
There was a single
condition to my gift,
however.
The iPod I ordered
arrived a couple of
days before Joe’s, so
one morning I met him and his daughter Savannah for breakfast and
brought along the iPod to show him.
On the way over to Avon I realized
just how distracting the iPod could be
and the inclination to play with it
while driving. So, I gave the iPod to
Joyce under the condition that she
never look at it while driving. She had
to start her book (or music) while
parked and turn it off while parked...
and use only the remote control to
adjust the volume or control play. I’ll
bet you can tell where I’m heading...
right?
Well, this past Thursday evening
Joyce had an Adult Ed class at the
local high school. Just when I expected to hear her coming into the house,
the phone rang. It was her...reporting
that she needed some help as she had
two flat tires on her PT Cruiser. I
grabbed my portable floodlight, a pair
of extra jacks, and headed over to
mount a rescue.
I expected to see a pile of glass or
nails in the road that might have
caused her malady, but the road
1
surface was clear. Inspection of the
car revealed the side walls on both
passenger tires were torn, and one rim
was badly chewed up. She had
obviously tangled both right wheels
with the curb, but why? Answer: iPod
distraction.
Before shelling out $640 for a new
chrome plated alloy rim and half that
for a pair of new tires, I realized just
how lucky we were. This was a lesson
she walked away from. Had it
happened on Interstate 91 at 65 miles
per hour, things could have been
much more tragic, to say the least.
Needless to say, the cassette adapter
for the iPod no longer lives in the PT
Cruiser, and I may be burning some
MP3s to audio CD. I thought I owed
it to the membership to point
out just how captivating an
iPod can be. The motto of
this story is, “Leave home
without it!”
In this Issue
Mouse Tales......................................... 1
911 by Chris Breen.............................. 2
OSX System Enhancers .......................3
Dye Sublimation Printers..................... 4
Panther Makes PDFs ............................5
Heartwarming Technology ...................6
Download of the Month .......................6
Panther Book Reviews .........................7
Meeting Photos.....................................7
Web Picks of the Month ...................... 8
User Group Specials.............................9
Meetings & Club News ......................11
Mac 911:
Help Desk
by Christopher Breen
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content Contributors
Don Dickey
Contributing Authors
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Photographers
John Scott
Jack Bass
Publisher
Connecticut Macintosh
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
West Hartford, CT 06117
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
We welcome submissions
from members!
Please submit articles by first
of the month for inclusion in
our newsletter. There is much
talent in our group; it would be
great to have several member
articles in each issue.
If you’re vexed by
menu-bar items that
won’t go away and
the hard-drive
space annexed by
unnecessary language files, this month’s
Mac 911 is for you. Join me as I detail
handy methods for removing extraneous
items. I also address syncing e-mail with
Palms and converting audio files for Final
Cut Pro.
Ejecting Eject
Rob Griffiths describes how to add an Eject
icon to the Mac’s menu bar in “Mac OS X
Hints” (Secrets, August 2003). But he didn’t
provide instructions for removing it. Please
advise.
— Matt Palomares, Asheville, NC
To remove almost any item from the
Finder’s menu bar (except commands such
as File, Edit, and View, which you can’t
remove by this method), just 1-click on the
item you’d like to eliminate and drag it to
the Desktop. The resulting puff of smoke
and “whoosh” sound effect indicate that the
menu item has hit the road. Note that this
procedure doesn’t trash the original
MenuExtra plug-in, it merely removes its
icon from the menu bar.
You can also use this shortcut to drag items
to a new position on the menu bar.
Lost Languages
The tip for freeing up disk space by deleting
language files was helpful (“Mac OS X
Hints,” Secrets, August 2003). Can I do the
same kind of thing by using Find to locate
the offending language files (searching for
da.lproj, for example) and deleting them all
at once?
— Mei Chau Hayes, Bedford, NH
Although you can find such .lproj files with
the Finder’s Find command, you can’t
throw them away because you don’t have
the proper permissions to do so. Many of
these files are owned by the root user and
are forbidden to you.
Thankfully, a host of free utilities can strip
extraneous language files from OS X
volumes. Among them are Mike Bombich’s
DeLocalizer (http://software.bombich
.com), Joshua Schrier’s Monolingual
2
(http://homepage.mac.com/jschrier/index
.html), and Philippe Hupe’s Youpi
Optimizer (http://perso.club-internet.fr/
phupe/english/YOIndex.html).
Portable Post Office
I sync Microsoft Entourage with my Palm
Tungsten T and my Mac. This is great for
my contacts but not for e-mail. How can I
sync my e-mail with the Palm so that I can
work with it while I’m offline?
— Eli Zakay, Macworld.com forums
For this kind of thing, I use Ligature
Technologies’ Mail Courier ($25; www.ligaturetech.com). Mail Courier is made up of
a conduit, the Ligature Mail application that
you install on your Palm, and an
AppleScript that copies mail between the
devices. Within Palm’s HotSync Manager
(in the Conduit Settings window) you configure the program to synchronize
Entourage’s e-mail database on the Mac and
the Palm, overwrite the messages on the
Palm with those on the Mac, or overwrite
the messages on the Mac with those on the
Palm. In Ligature Mail you browse your
Entourage e-mail, reply to it, and create new
messages. The next time you run HotSync,
any messages you create on the Palm are
copied to your Mac, ready for sending from
Entourage. Ligature Mail displays only text
and doesn’t synchronize attachments, and
each message has a size limit of 32K (anything larger will be truncated).
Mail Courier is a viable solution to your
problem only if you regularly toss out your
old e-mail. The program doesn’t let you
choose which e-mail messages it synchronizes — it’s either all the mail in your
Inbox, Outbox, Deleted Items, Filed Mail,
Drafts, and Sent Items mailboxes, or nothing. That’s perfectly ducky with me when
I’m on the road with my PowerBook —
which holds just the e-mail I need for my
travels — but I’d never use it at home,
where my Entourage Inbox contains thousands of messages.
iPod Is as iPod Does
Before I sold my iMac G4, I installed Jaguar
on my 30GB iPod and moved most of the
contents of my iMac’s hard drive to it.
When I need a Mac, I borrow my roommate’s PowerBook and boot from the iPod.
However, I would still like to use the iPod as
an iPod — sync my contacts, calendars, and
music. Is this possible when you’re booting
a computer from the iPod?
— Greg Lindus, Fort Collins, Colorado
Continued on page 3
Continued from page 2
Sure, a booted iPod is more than
happy to perform its primary functions. Bear in mind, though, that if the
iPod’s music library is linked to your
old iMac, you’ll lose your songs if you
allow the PowerBook to automatically
update the iPod. For this reason, you
should configure the iPod for manual
updating.
the file to CD and then import it into
iTunes as an AIFF file, but why bother when iMovie can convert the file
for you?
To choose this option, open iTunes,
click on the iPod’s icon in the Source
list, click on the iPod Preferences icon
that appears at the bottom right of the
iTunes window, and, in the resulting
iPod Preferences window, enable the
Manually Manage Songs And
Playlists option. To add songs to your
iPod, drag them from the iTunes
library to the iPod (or to a playlist on
the iPod).
Open a new iMovie project and click
on the Audio button. Drag the song
you want from the iTunes Library
window into the timeline. Save the
project and then choose Export from
the File menu. Choose To QuickTime
from the Export pop-up menu and
Expert Settings from the Formats popup menu. Click on the Export button
and, in the resulting Save Exported
File As dialog box, choose Sound To
AIFF from the Export pop-up menu.
Click on Save to convert the movie to
an AIFF sound file. When the conversion is complete, quit iMovie and
import the converted sound file into
Final Cut Pro.
— Eric Dietrich, Kettering, Ohio
Camera Capers
Unsolicited Advice
When I connect my digital camera to
my Mac via USB, Apple’s iPhoto
automatically opens. I use Adobe
Photoshop to manipulate my photos
and would like it to open when I connect the camera. I’ve explored both
iPhoto’s preferences and System
Preferences to find a way to achieve
this, but I’ve been unsuccessful. Can
you help?
— Robert Steven Connett, Mount
Washington, CA
You’re right to look to a preference to
direct Photoshop to open when you
connect your camera, but you’ve
missed the appropriate application.
That application is Image Capture
(found inside OS X’s Applications
folder). Launch Image Capture,
choose Preferences from the Image
Capture menu, and in the resulting
window select Other from the Camera
Preferences pop-up menu. In the sheet
that appears, navigate to your copy of
Photoshop, select it, and click on
Open. When you connect your camera
in the future, Photoshop should
launch.
Tip of the Month
You want to include that great tune
you purchased from the iTunes Music
Store in a video you’re editing in Final
Cut Pro 4. But Final Cut Pro won’t
import the file, and QuickTime Pro
can’t convert a protected file into the
required AIFF format. You could burn
If, like me, you tend to visit the same
collection of Web sites each morning,
the following technique will save you
multiple trips to Safari’s Bookmarks
menu. Launch Safari and make sure
the Enable Tabbed Browsing option is
selected in the Tabs section of Safari’s
preferences. Click on the Bookmarks
button and create a new folder (1shift-N). Give the folder a descriptive
name (mine is called Morning Mix),
and copy the bookmarks of your
favorite Web sites into it. Click on the
Bookmarks Bar entry in the
Collections column of the Bookmarks
window, and drag your new folder
into Safari’s main window. Enable the
Auto-Tab option next to the folder in
this window. When you next sit down
at your Mac, click on this folder
(which now appears in the Bookmarks
Bar) and howl exultantly as each site
within the folder opens in a separate tab.
Macworld contributing editor Chris
Breen is the author of Macworld’s tips
and troubleshooting column, “Mac
911,” as well as Secrets of the iPod:
Second Edition and Mac 911
(Peachpit Press). Find Chris’ books at
w w w. a m a z o n . c o m a n d w w w.
peachpit. com.
User Group Special: Get 12 issues of
Macworld for $12! Subscribe today at
www.macworld.com/dollarperissue
3
System Enhancers for OS X
by Don Dickey, president
As nice as OS X is, I’ve found a
few cool little applications that
make it even better I’d like to
share with you.
First off, if you attended a recent CMC
meeting, you no doubt saw a calendar right on
my OS X desktop. It’s there all the time and
automatically updates itself. Desktop Calendar
also puts the Month/Date in the OSX Dock. If
you’re like me and have your Dock set to “autohide,” you’ll be pleased to find that your
download also included DesktopCalendar_ SB.
This version puts the Month/Date in the menu
bar instead, just like you had in OS 9. You’ll be
able to see the date without having to click the
time in the menu bar! Find it using
VersionTracker.com by searching for
“DesktopCalendar.”
Sometimes I hit the power button to startup my
Mac and go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. To
let me know my Mac is booted up and ready for
me, I use a program called Classic Startup
Sound. All this does is play a sound as soon as
bootup and login have completed. It comes with
a built-in sound, but you can easily change it to
one of your own as long as you name your
sound file “defaultsound” (one word, no quotes,
remove its extension if it has one) and stick it in
the folder with the application. Another application called Quick Startup Sound does essentially
the same thing. Since OS X is multi-threaded,
you can even get to work while your sound plays
if you choose a long song! Find either on
VersionTracker.com
The last little program I’ll
mention today is Sharing
Menu. This program puts a
widget in your menu bar to
turn sharing ON or OFF.
This is great if you like to
leave sharing OFF most of the time (to save system resources or for security purposes). It makes
it easy to toggle it back and forth without making the trip to System Preferences.
These three applications are now fully
compatible with both Panther and Jaguar. I
added all three to my Login Items so they run on
bootup and login automatically. Enjoy!
Digital Photography
Are You Ready for a
Dye Sublimation Printer?
By Rich Lenoce
Three years ago, I purchased a $199
photo-quality ink jet printer – it was
quickly relegated to the basement. I
was never happy with the quality.
Many photos showed bands of lines
(banding), inks would smear when
touched, black and white prints
always had a bluish cast, photos
would fade in a matter of months
when hung on the refrigerator, and the
printer needed to be calibrated and
aligned for proper color reproduction.
The effort to get a good print was trying my patience. Two months later a
“new line” of improved printers would
be released claiming to fix some of the
problems but spending another $200
for what I consider to be bug fixes was
out of the question. I switched to
iPhoto’s on-line print ordering but as
someone who once had his own darkroom, the urge to print at home was
still there. I’ve since been waiting for
a technology that resolved ink jet
issues, not with improvements and
patches, but a technology that is
photo-ready, providing ease of use
and the highest quality, at prices comparable to ink jets. That technology is
here, and it’s called dye sublimation.
For years, graphics professionals have
used expensive dye sublimation printers to print high quality archival
photographs from digital images but
the printers started at $10,000 and
prints were $20 or more each.
Dramatic advances in technology
have lowered prices to consumer levels. Dye sublimation brings the
absolutely stunning quality of a highend photo lab–at ink jet prices.
How does dye sublimation work? Ink
jet printers release colored inks from
cartridges in dot patterns on to a
paper’s surface. Dye sublimation is a
continuous tone thermal transfer
process that uses no dots or ink cartridges but instead uses a heated print
head to transfer cyan, magenta, yellow
and black ink from a ribbon into the
paper. During the final stage of printing, a clear laminate coating is applied
to protect the paper and inks from
ultra violet light, humidity and physical damage.
The dye sublimation process has several advantages. First, the continuous
tone is more akin in appearance to true
photographs, providing photo-quality
resolution and color that perfectly
matches the original. Black and white
images remain true without the colorcast problem that has plagued most
ink jets. The edges of objects in a dye
sublimation print remain sharp and
don’t exhibit the softening or dithering that ink jet prints display caused
by the ink dots blending together. The
problem of color banding is also eliminated.
Dye sublimation is a simpler process
than ink-jet printing, requiring no
alignment or calibration by a computer, so no computer is required! Most
printers can be unplugged from the
computer and can be used standalone
by importing images directly from a
compact flash, multimedia card or
memory stick or directly from the
camera. The printers can be powered
from a battery, car cigarette lighter, a
laptop’s USB connection or a portable
AC adapter. Canon’s $150 CP200 is
completely portable and is barely larger then the 4" X 6" prints it produces.
4
It even fits in a camera bag with the
camera and produces outstanding
photos quickly—about 65 seconds—
with the touch of a button. Since there
are no multiple ink cartridges, only a
printer ribbon housed in a single cartridge, installation is uncomplicated.
Also, because dye sublimation printers don’t need all of the bells and
whistles to align, size and color calibrate their prints, their print drivers
are very basic making each and every
printer Mac OS compatible!
Finally, dye sublimation prints have
the potential to last longer. Since the
paper receives a clear laminate coating during the final stage of printing,
the dyes are protected from air,
humidity and ultraviolet light that
cause color ink jet prints to fade. This
also provides a layer of protection
from physical damage. Though manufacturers of ink jets have made
tremendous improvements in producing archival quality images, the inks
still reside on the surface of the paper
where they can be damaged by the
environment, poor handling or storage. Holding a dye sublimation print,
it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between it and a high quality
professionally processed photo.
Dye sublimation printers have been
more expensive because of the heated
print head. Recently, prices have
dropped to be competitive with the
high-end ink jet printers and in some
cases cost less. Prices start at around
$150 for a small 4" X 6" photo printer
and go up in price based on the maximum size of the prints. An 8" X 10"
dye sublimation printer costs around
$269, less than the price of a top of the
line ink jet. These are certainly higher
than the inexpensive photo-quality ink
jet printers we’re used to, but are more
comparable in price and exceed the
performance of many high-end ink jet
printers. Prices are dropping rapidly
Continued on page 5
as more manufacturers are offering
more models.
Once the printer is purchased, dye
sublimation prints cost about 50 cents
per print, comparable to a professional photo print and it would be hard for
anyone to tell the difference. And the
accuracy of dye sublimation printing
means less wasted paper and ink, so if
you are put off by the higher cost of
the printer, it should pay for itself in
cost savings.
Manufacturers of consumer dye sublimation printers include Canon, Sony
and Olympus.
One drawback is that dye sublimation
printers are photo-only, and are not
recommended for doing text. You’ll
Panther
Makes
PDFs
Press
Worthy!
By Rich Lenoce
Since the introduction of OS X,
Apple has touted its ability to
save files from any application as
a PDF from its print dialog window, adding full cross platform
compatibility for viewing documents and a superior method of
WYSWYG printing. But is this
“Save as PDF...” feature in OS X
truly “press-worthy” ? Can these
PDFS meet commercial
standards?
At first glance, the answer may
seem to be “no.” The standard
out-of-the-box “Save as PDF...”
feature is generated by OS X’s
still need an ink jet ($40+) or laser
($199) to print text. I have had no
trouble finding and ordering the paper
and ribbon cartridges on the Internet,
but I have had trouble locating them at
local stores. That should change as
they grow in popularity.
When shopping for a dye
sublimation printer, you
will notice the specifications are different than
their ink jet counterparts. Printer manufacInkjet or
turers for both ink jets
Dye-Sub
and dye sublimation
printers specify resoluPrinter?
tion in dots per inch, but
due to the nature of the continuous
tone process, the dpi is far less for dye
sublimation then it is for an ink jet yet
the quality is as good or better. A 300-
Quartz graphic engine and
creates what is essentially a
screen snapshot of the document
to be saved. This method is not
compliant with the full PDF/X-3
print standard that will RIP
correctly on commercial
PostScript devices, nor will it
meet the proper preflight criteria.
Even if this PDF is run through
Adobe’s PDF Distiller, it would
not be “press worthy,” since its
origin is still a screen snapshot.
However, a hidden feature in
Panther adds a very sophisticated
processing feature that can make
a document as press worthy as
any from Adobe InDesign,
Illustrator or Acrobat, but this
feature needs to be turned on
using the ColorSync Utility
found in the Applications:
Utilities folder.
To make a PDF/X-3 a press worthy document, you need to first
5
dpi dye sublimation specification
equates to the best photo-quality ink
jets. To truly compare the two technologies, you’ll need to see both
printers in action and compare the
same prints side by side.
I have found my $150
Canon gives me photostore quality with ink jet
convenience.
Though it
only produces
4 x 6 prints, I
use iPhoto’s
ordering feature
for the occasional
large print. Best
of all, the printer takes up little space
and can be stored away in small
carrying case when I’m not printing
photos. 
create a folder called PDF
Services in your OS X System
Library folder (not in the user
folder). Launch ColorSync
Utility and select the Filters button in the ToolBar. Select PDF
in the Filter details bar. Add (+) a
profile and from the pull-down
menu select PDF/X-3. Next,
select the button called Domains
in the Filter defaults bar and
check “PDF Workflow.” Now the
“Save as PDF...”will no longer
merely record screen data as a
PDF, but will be the equivalent of
saving or exporting a PDF
through one of Adobe’s own
products such as InDesign,
Acrobat or Illustrator.
Now you have the capability of
producing a press-worthy document from any application–even
Microsoft Word–with the exact
same features found in Adobe’s
own PDF authoring applications!
Heartwarming
Technology
From the Desk of David Pogue:
I took last Thursday off from writing
this column, and you took last
Thursday off from reading it. But I
have a Thanksgiving thought to share,
even though it’s about something that
happened two weeks ago.
I was in London at a computer conference. I was jet lagged, on the verge of
a cold and — after nearly a week
away — missing my wife and two
young children.
Following a talk, I asked some stragglers in the auditorium if there was
anywhere I could get online to check
my e-mail.
A young man named Tim Haigh
offered to show me to a coffee shop a
few blocks away that had wireless
Internet access. Tim and I paid our $8
for the hour, bought fizzy lemon
sodas, popped open our PowerBooks
and began to surf. As we chatted, he
mentioned that he often sat in this
very coffee shop and conducted video
chats with a buddy in the States, using
an Apple iSight.
The iSight is a compact, tubular, highquality video camera, about the size of
a Hostess Ho-Ho. It has a built-in
microphone and lens cover. It has no
power cord of its own; it connects to
a Macintosh with a single FireWire
cable. As long as
you both have
broadband Internet
connections, you
and another iSight
(or
camcorder)
owner can conduct
a videoconference.
like and very little delay. It’s absolutely nothing like the crude, jerky,
stuttering, massively delayed video
you may have tried with cheap Web
cams. In any case, I perked right up
when Tim mentioned his video chats,
because I had an iSight, too, perched
on my screen back home. I had no
idea you could use it across the
Atlantic.
Indeed you can, Tim said — in fact, he
carries his iSight around with him.
“You mean you have it with you right
now?” I exclaimed. “Can I borrow it?”
It was about 5:30 p.m., meaning that it
was 12:30 p.m. at home. On the
chance that my wife was at her computer, I fired off an e-mail to her,
suggesting that we try out an intercontinental video call.
It took a few minutes for me to explain
to her, by furious back-and-forth email messages, how to open iChat and
start up the video link. (Most of the
time was spent with me, a color-blind
husband, imploring her to click the
“orange camcorder icon,” which turns
out to be green.)
technological miracle before them,
which I found tremendously reassuring; I could see for myself that none of
the traveling dad’s worst nightmares
had come true.
We caught up for awhile; I told a silly
bedtime story to the kids; we showed
each other how it was dark out in
England, but still bright at home.
Finally, after about 20 minutes, we
“hung up.”
There’s a lot of junk in technology, a
lot of hassle and frustration, a lot of
disappointment. But this moment was
like a TV commercial. It was an emotional, powerful, simple, perfect
example of how technology can
change a moment, solve a problem
and despite the gulf of time and distance, bring you face to face with the
people you love.
Visit David Pogue on the Web at:
http://www.davidpogue.com
© Copyright 2003
The New York Times Company
Download of the Month
submitted by Debi Foss
And then, suddenly, there it was: My
wife Jennifer’s live image and her
voice, transmitted in real time 3,500
miles across the globe — instantly,
crystal clear and, by the way, free. I
paraded around the coffee shop with
my laptop and the iSight, showing her
the local ambiance. (Jennifer, grinning: “Hey, buy me one of those
chocolate croissants!”)
Maybe I was just
overtired
and
sentimental, but
it was an almost
overwhelming
experience.
She rounded up
the kids. They
didn’t seem to
grasp the full
scope of the
The quality is
excellent: smooth
motion, full
screen if you
6
http://www.stupendoussoftware.com/
Tutorials.html
Eight free iMovie tutorials from
Stupendous Software.
With the growth of the use
of both digital and analog
movie cameras, and the
h o l i d a y s h av i n g j u s t
passed, I offer you tutorials on how to
use iMovie, that software most of you
should have gotten free with your
Macs.
This company makes packages of
plug-ins for iMovie 2 that work on
both OS 9 and OS X. They have
developed these tutorials that run
either from their web site or can be
downloaded to your own hard drive.
And it is free; I like free! Did I
mention it is free?
Review:
Take Control Electronic Books:
by Elsa Travisano
Take Control of
Upgrading to
Panther
by Joe Kissell.
65 pp. PDF format. $5
Take Control of
Customizing Panther
by Matt Neuburg.
55 pp. PDF format. $5
http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/
default.html
Want to take control of upgrading to
OS 10.3 Panther? Check out the innovative and affordable new Take
Control electronic book series from
Adam and Tonya Engst of TidBITs.
Take Control ebooks are professionally produced mini-books by Mac
experts on timely Mac topics. The
titles are published directly to PDF
format, which speeds them to your
Mac without the delays of print publishing. Because they’re published
electronically, titles can swiftly updated. The Take Control series leverages
the capabilities of the Internet in ways
that could well change the face of tech
publishing.
The first two titles in the series are
Take Control of Upgrading to Panther
by Joe Kissell (65 pages) and Take
Control of Customizing Panther by
Matt Neuburg (55 pages). Kissell’s
book gives invaluable step-by-step
instructions for upgrading to Panther
as well as troubleshooting help and
tips for avoiding trouble in the first
place. Neuburg’s book offers undocumented Panther details and helps you
create shortcuts and customize your
installation, Finder windows, Exposé,
Font menus and more. Each is well
worth the modest $5 cost.
Take Control titles are purchased
through the TidBITs website via
eSellerate online ordering service.
Both books I purchased were ready
for downloading within a few minutes
of placing my order. Books arrive in
the form of trim PDF files that can be
read on your Mac using the free
Acrobat Reader software—no specialized software required. The books
print out nicely if you prefer a hard
copy. However, reading on an internet-connected Mac allows you to take
full advantage the books’ internal and
web hyperlinks: selections of internet-style clickable text that jump you
to related topics within the book and
on the internet. Bill Atkinson, the creator of HyperCard, would be proud.
Just three weeks after the first two
Take Control titles were published,
updates were issued for both books
(free to current owners) covering latebreaking developments. That’s
impressive customer service under
any circumstance, and for a $5 investment, it’s simply amazing.
Copyright ©2003 by Elsa Travisano.
(This review appeared in the November
2003 issue of Newsbreak, the newsletter
of MUG ONE - Macintosh User Group of
Oneonta, NY).
CMC
Web Site Access
www.ctmac.org
Members-only area of our web site
The User ID:
xxxxx (all uppercase)
Password:
xxxxx (all lowercase)
Apple User
Group Store
Monthly CMC Meeting/
Holiday Pizza Party
Carolyn Dickey, president Don Dickey,
and CMC board member Jack Bass
(right and
below)
Caricaturist,
guitarist and
fellow CMC
member–
Bill Dougal
entertained us
thru the night
(below) CMC board
member Deena
Quilty and guest
Mark Maglio network
And the Winner is...
Don Dickey announced the winner of
the Canon Digital Camera Raffle –
Patricia Heldmann. Congratulations!
www.applemugstore.com
From 1/1/2004 - 3/31/2004
The User ID:
Password:
Photographs by John Scott and Jack Bass
7
Web Picks of the Month
Compiled by Neal Dembicer, CMC
Please report any broken links to:
[email protected]
From Neal Dembicer:
http://www.cybercollege.com/
It has everything on audio – video you
want to know, even what lenses to use
on your camera. Use the Search utility. Take a course on how to take
photographs and how light works, at
h t t p : / / w w w. c y b e r c o l l e g e . c o m
/tvp034.htm. Use the module button
on the bottom to go to Module 32-38.
Take a College course in Film, Radio
and Television Production, so when
you use that new digital camera or
camcorder, your pictures will come
out looking professional.
http://www.denounce.com/
Recognized around the world as the
best source for completely fictional
news and information. When you’re
not looking for a reliable, accurate
website for computer industry news,
there’s only one place to go: denounce
From Don Dickey:
http://store.apple.com/
My web pick this month is the
“Special deals” page at store.apple
.com It’s not obvious... you have to
scroll down on the main store page
and look for the red tag that says
“Save.” Right now it’s on the left side,
but it’s been on the right in the past.
This is where Apple sells refurbished
gear including computers, iPods, and
accessories.
From Peter Kidwell:
http://ask.yahoo.com
Ask Yahoo! takes questions submitted
via email and sends them to Yahoo’s
“research team”. While it’s mainly a
way for Yahoo to show off their search
engine and website directory, you still
get answers to a new trivia question
each day. At the website, you can see
the answer of the day, or sign up for
the daily email.
From Deena Quilty:
http://www.allbookstores.com/index
“At AllBookstores.com, we help you
find the lowest book prices on new
and used books by comparing prices
at more than 2 dozen online bookstores. Our price comparisons include:
Shipping Cost, Shipping Time, Sales
Tax (when required), Availability and
Condition (New or Used). AllBook
stores.com does not sell books, we
only compare the price and then
provide a convenient link for you to
make your purchase from the
merchant of your choice.”
From Jack Bass:
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/index1.html
The Web Gallery of Art contains over
11,600 digital reproductions of
European paintings and sculptures
created between the years 1150 and
1800. A considerable number of the
pictures are commented and biographies of the significant artists are
given. A versatile search engine
allows you to find pictures in the collection using various search criteria.
Yes, I want to join CMC
Benefits:
From Joe Arcuri:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/
The museum of hoaxes does an entertaining job of cataloging all things
hoax-related. He keeps the site updated almost daily so you can go there
every day for your fix of the stupid
things people will believe.
Monthly meetings, monthly newsletter,
discounted book purchases, computer
problem assistance, network with other
Mac users, User Group Store, etc.
http://terraserverusa.com/address.aspx
Get an aerial photo of your home! It
looks like they have the majority of
the US covered.
Address ___________________________
From George Maciel:
http://www.sitelink.net/
Established back in 1996, when the
Mac web was in its infancy, SiteLink
prides itself on offering an exclusive
up-to-date list of the very best Mac
web sites, supplemented with the
latest Mac news, software and deals
listings from the most popular Mac
sites. SiteLink is the perfect start page
for Mac users wanting to keep up to
date on the latest and greatest Mac
sites and information.
Phone (Home) ______________________
From Deborah Foss:
http://channels.netscape.com/ns/tv/
default.jsp
For those of you too lazy (like me) to
find your TV Guide. Free TV listings,
courtesy of Netscape. Just go to this
page, click on the TV listings button,
put in your zip code, and voila, TV
Guide on your Computer.
__________________________________
8
Date ______________________________
Name _____________________________
City ______________________________
State________ Zip __________________
Phone (Office) ______________________
Phone (Fax) ________________________
Business___________________________
Occupation_________________________
Email:_____________________________
Areas of special interest to you:
__________________________________
Annual Family
Membership - $25.00
Mail to: CMC
41 Crossroads Plaza – PMB 1984
or...Register Online
with PayPal at www.ctmac.org
Special MUG Offers from
the Apple User Group
These special offers are brought to you by
the Apple User Group Advisory Board.
You must be a current user group member
to qualify for these savings. Not a
member? Join today and take advantage
of all the benefits of membership.
Panergy Software
Do you need to view, print or convert
Microsoft Office documents so you
can use them with AppleWorks?
There’s no need to buy MS Office.
You can do it easily with Panergy’s
suite. icWord, icExcel and OneClick
Convert quickly display or convert an
entire folder of documents in one
quick operation. User group members
who buy the icWord and icExcel
bundle for $29.95 will receive
OneClick Convert, regularly $29.95,
for free.
For product details, go to:
http://www.panergy-software.com
To order, go to:
http://store.eSellerate.net/s.asp?s=
STR3678959586
Offer expires March 31, 2004.
dvGarage
dvGarage is a company dedicated to
training the next generation of media
developers. We build cutting edge
training for 3D, compositing and
visual effects designed to augment
TV, broadband, DVD production and
film. Offerings include the 3D
Toolkit, dvMatte Pro for Final Cut Pro
and After Effects, the Composite
Toolkit, the Maya Lab and many other
training and surfacing tools.
dvGarage is offering user group
members an exclusive discount of 30
percent off any single order. This offer
covers any combination of products.
Use the coupon code MacUG30 on
the order page during checkout.
http://www.dvgarage.com
Sybex Books
Sybex, an independent computer book
publisher with over 27 years of experience and commitment, is offering
Macintosh user group members 40
percent off list price for online purchase of the following books:
Mastering Mac OS X, Third Edition,
Mac OSX Power Tools, Presenting
Keynote and iMovie 3 Solutions.
Other titles are available at 20 to 30
percent off. To receive the user group
discount, place your order at
http://www.sybex.com and enter
promo code MUGS1 at checkout.
Orders will be placed in U.S. dollars.
Offer expires expires March 31, 2004.
Aspyr Media
User group members can save $10.00
(US) each on selected Aspyr games,
including the newly released Indiana
Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb, when
you place your order at the Aspyr
website.
• Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s
Tomb $29.99 - reg. $39.99
• Kelly Slater’s Pro Surfer $19.99
- reg. $29.99
• Law & Order: Dead On The
Money $29.99 - reg. $39.99
• Star Trek: Voyager Elite Force II
$29.99 - reg. $39.99
• X2 Wolverine’s Revenge $29.99
- reg. $39.99
• Zoo Tycoon $39.99 - reg. $49.99
To get your discount, enter the code
MUGSPO in the special code field for
each item ordered. http://www.aspyr.
com/games.php/mac/complete/
TechTool Pro 4
Micromat has released TechTool Pro
4 for Mac OS X 10.2 and OS X 10.3,
Panther. TechTool Pro 4 introduces
eDrive for creating an emergency partition without reformatting. Other
features include S.M.A.R.T. testing,
optimization, email notification of
9
problems and hardware tests to help
pinpoint problems. TechTool is the
only utility that simultaneously
repairs or optimizes multiple volumes. User group members can
purchase TechTool Pro 4 for $79.95
(US) or upgrade for $39.95 (US). To
receive these special prices, contact
Micromat directly at 800-829-6227.
Offer expires March 31, 2004 and is
available to members of user groups.
The MUG Store
For a limited time the MUG Store is
offering tons of extras and discounts
on the latest and greatest Power Mac
G5s. In addition to free freight on
every order, you can receive instant
rebates of $50 (US) on the G5 and up
to $100 (US) when purchased with an
Apple display. Every G5 ordered
comes with a free speaker set, MYOB
First Edge software and an Epson allin-one printer (printer free after
rebates). Throw in the extra one percent your user group receives on every
purchase and you can see why the
MUG Store is THE place for user
group members to shop.
December’s best factory refurbished
specials were:
• eMac G4/700 128/40/CD: $649
• 12" PowerBook G4/867
256/40/Combo: $1,149
• 12" PowerBook G4/867
256/40/SuperDrive: $1,349
• Power Mac Dual G4/876
256/60/Combo: $1,349
• Power Mac Dual G4/1 GHz
256/80/SuperDrive: $1,488
• Power Mac Dual G4/1.25 GHz
512/120/SuperDrive: $1,739
And much more! Place your orders.
http://www.applemugstore.com
This offer is available to members of
U.S. user groups (see CMC passwords on page 7 of this newsletter).
Complete list of all current deals:
h t t p : / / w w w. m u g c e n t e r. c o m /
vendornews/vendornews.html
2003-2004 CMC OFFICERS AND BOARD MEMBERS
President Don Dickey
[email protected] 860-232-2841
Vice President Rich Lenoce
Treasurer George Maciel
Secretary Chris Hart
Download of the Month Debbie Foss
Public Relations Neal Dembicer
Editor Deena Quilty
Webmaster Brian Desmond
[email protected] (860) 668-8728
Raffles Robert Sawyer
Past President Joseph Arcuri
Special Events Jack Bass
[email protected]
Ambassador Connie Scott
Caricatures by Bill Dougal of Lebanon, (860) 456-9041. Available for illustration assignments and event caricature.
10
Upcoming Meetings
Monthly CMC Meetings are held
on last Wednesday of the month,
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Discounted
Books
Board meetings are the first Thursday
of the month. If you wish to attend a Board
meeting, contact an officer for location.
CMC continues to offer current
members the opportunity to purchase
any published book for either Mac or
Windows at a 20% discount. All major
publishers are carried by our source.
January 28, 2004
Special Meeting & Location!
Call Neal Dembicer at 673-7711 or
send email to [email protected].
CMC at the Apple Store
WestFarms Mall
Provide the book title, the publisher
and the ISBN number, if possible, and
he will check on its availability. Books
will be back-ordered if not in stock.
Normally, the wait is not too long.
Join the many people who have
satisfactorily used this service!
(except Nov. and Dec. when the meetings
are one week earlier due to the holidays)
Panther demo, hands-on G5 trials,
MacWorld-SF, great deals, etc.
February 25, 2004
MS Office Alternatives
Programs include Think Free Office,
AppleWorks, TextEdit and Open Office
UConn Health Center
Future topics include:
Wacom Tablet Demo
Lego MindStorm Demo
If you have a program you are
interested in, email Rich Lenoce
at: [email protected]
Treasurer’s
Report
Ending Checking
Account Balance ................$2013.96
Savings Account Balance...$3942.35
Balances as of December 31, 2003
New Members
Spread the word. We need new members!
Have your friends and co-workers
join us for fun and learning about
OS X, the Mac and iMac.
Total Membership: 118
Classified Ad
Linksys BEFSR41 4-port “Etherfast
Cable/DSL Router” allows you to hook up
multiple computers (Mac or PC)
to share one broadband Internet
connection. Asking $30.
Email [email protected] for details!
11
FREE
Raffle!
Every member who attends our meetings gets a raffle ticket for a chance at
a free prize every month! You could
win . . . t-shirts, toys, CDs, mugs,
software . . . there’s always something
we’re giving away!
CMC Classified Ads
Members can Advertise For Sale,
Swap, Trade, Giveaway or Want to
Buy Items. This space can be used by
members to advertise non-business
items which they are no longer using
or upgrading. This is a free service
provided to our members.
Any business items or services can be
advertised at the rates shown below:
Monthly Ad Rates
Business Card ..........................$10.00
Quarter Page.............................$20.00
Half Page..................................$30.00
Full Page (or insert) .................$50.00
Submit all ad copy to the Editor on a disk
with nothing else on it or e-mail it for
insertion in the following issue. Display
ads must be submitted camera-ready in
.eps or .pdf format with all fonts &
graphics embedded.
ng
Monthly Meeti04
January 28, 20
The Apple Store
all
in Westfarms M
CMC Meeting Location – a PDF document containing a visual
direction guide to UConn Health Center on our website: http://www.ctmac.org.
Print and take it with you to find us easily!
Monthly meetings will be held at UConn Health Center in Farmington. When hands-on
programs require computers for meeting attendees we will be using MxCC in Middletown.
Directions to UCHC, Farmington
Directions to MxCC, Middletown
From I-84: Take Exit 39 (if coming from I-84 West,
Exit 39 is after 39A). Turn right at first traffic light onto
Route 4 East (Farmington Avenue). At third traffic light, turn
right to enter the Health Center campus. Go around the main
building to the right (at a Y in road), then take a left when
you get to the Academic Entrance. The road becomes twoway there so you should be able to tell where to turn. (Do
not go on straight to the two-way part). Then take the second
right into parking lot A&B. this is close to the building. Go
past the police station entrance on your left (small sign). You
will see a continuation of the building with its own entrance
area. This is the new research building. Enter on the ground
floor, turn right and enter room EG-013 on your right. This
is the first room on your right. The rest rooms are on your
left as you enter.
From the Hartford area, take Route 9 South. A few
miles south of downtown Middletown on Route 9, take
Exit 11 (Rt. 155, Randolph Road). At the end of the
ramp (for both N. & S. bound), turn right onto
Randolph Road. Continue to the traffic light at the top
of the hill and turn left onto Saybrook Road. Go a quarter of a mile and turn right onto Reservoir Road. Travel
past the stop sign, then take the first right onto Training
Hill Road. Your first left will lead into the MxCC
Campus parking area. When you arrive on campus, take
a right onto Training Hill Road. Go to the second parking lot entrance and take a left into the upper lot.
Directly in front of you will be Snow Hall. Enter Snow
Hall and go up the stairs to the 2nd floor and go to the
last room on the right, Room 509.
12
Monthly Meeting
February 25, 2004
UConn Health Center
Programs include RagTime Solo,
Think Free Office, AppleWorks
LightWay Text, Mariner Write/Calc,
iText Pro, Nisus Writer Express and more.
Living the iLife
Some folks came away from
Macworld in San Francisco
last month saying that
Apple introduced little
new stuff, and they felt
let down. There was a
new, smaller iPod
(called the iPod mini), there was a
preview of the new Office 2004 from
Microsoft, and there was an upgrade of
the software package Apple calls iLife...
nothing significant to many, but very
significant in my point of view. Read on
to find out why!
OK, the iPod mini doesn’t really turn me
on. After I got a 40 gb iPod last year that
now contains our entire music collection
and then some, I just can’t get too excited about something less. But for those
looking for a more pocketable/wearable
juke box, it may be just the ticket.
And while I didn’t get too excited about
Office 2004, I realize that the Mac needs
new versions of Office applications to
remain current with the Windows world.
If Microsoft left Office to wither on the
vine, it would lead to a sad day for us
Mac fans. In that light, I was pleased to
see this preview come out of Macworld.
The other stuff from Apple was mostly
“just software.” There’s something really cool about software, though. It has the
power to make your Mac do something
new, different, better, faster, or easier.
iLife 04 is all of that and more.
It does something new and different
with Garage Band, Apple’s brand new
program that lets you compose music
using recordings of your own and/or
“loops” that come with it (or are added
on) and/or music you play with a key-
FEBRUARY, 2004
board connected to your
Mac or any combination
thereof. It’s sort of like
the program “Band in a
Box–on steroids. Why is
this software significant?
Because Apple has determined that the majority
of households with
Macs have at least one
musician in the family!
The cool thing about Garage Band is
that you don’t have to be a musician to
have a blast with it, but if you are a musician you’ll have an even bigger blast
with it. I know this from talking with
several musicians who ran out and
bought iLife as soon as it was
announced.
The iMovie 4 software does something
better by letting you more easily edit
your digital video footage than before
with “nondestructive” tools that work
right on the timeline. They added “snap
to” precision that really helps you sync
your audio and video. Then, iDVD 4
does something better by letting you fit
two full hours of high quality video on a
DVD. They added more “themes” and
transitions, and you can now have up to
99 chapters in a movie. For anyone with
a digital camcorder, these are tremendous benefits when you get involved in
editing your movies onto DVDs.
Finally, iPhoto 4 software lets you work
(or play) significantly faster with your
digital photos. What used to take minutes now takes seconds. I haven’t got a
clue how they made it so fast, but it is a
remarkable improvement. My G4 feels
like a G5 running this package! It also
removed the 5,000 photo limit of the
previous versions. Who ever thought
we’d have more than 5,000 photos on
our hard drive?
1
I won’t dwell on iTunes 4 since it is the
one component of the package that’s
still free for the asking. In fact, many of
you have been using it for almost 9
months now. What’s cool about iTunes,
though, is that it is the one iLife component available for Windows. Your
friends with a PC can finally see for
themselves just how good Apple software is.
What do you need to get in on the fun?
Any G3 with 0S X (Jaguar or Panther)
will run iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie.
You’ll need a 600 MHz or faster G3 to
enjoy GarageBand, and iDVD wants a
733 MHz G4.
In my humble opinion, any one of the
programs in the new iLife package is
worth the $49 Apple charges for it ($29
to students and educators). To say that
the iLife 04 bundle is a bargain is an
understatement.
If you’re into digital photography, digital video, or music, perhaps the new
iLife ‘04 is the best reason to buy a Mac
if you don’t have one... or a new Mac if
you need one to run it. Either way,
you’re sure to have a ton of fun playing
and working with this new software.
Don’t I keep reminding you that my
focus is on having fun with your Mac?
iLife ‘04 just makes that easier!
In this Issue
Living the iLife.................................... 1
911 by Chris Breen.............................. 2
Buying A Scanner.................................4
Review: iLife ....................................... 6
Web Picks of the Month .......................7
PDFs in Panther....................................8
User Group Specials.............................9
assigning letters to media drives and
hard drives. If you use Windows’ regular file shortcuts, they may point to the
pictures on the PC’s hard drive rather
than to the files you’ve burned to the
disc.
Mac 911:
Converting
Bookmarks
and
Slideshows
Editor
Deena Quilty
Don Dickey
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Photographers
John Scott
Jack Bass
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
Although this month’s Mac 911 fails to
turn straw into gold, water into wine, or
frogs into princes, it does offer slightly
less-miraculous methods for converting
your old Netscape bookmarks into
bookmarks for the current Netscape,
turning slide shows into Web pages, and
dividing drawn-out discourses.
Change of Address
I’ve collected several hundred URLs in
Netscape 4.7 by dragging and dropping
the small icons at the left end of the
Location field onto the desktop (where
they turn into bookmark files). Then I
upgraded to Netscape 7. Now when I
double-click on one of the old icons, it
opens as a file in Netscape, rather than
directing my browser to the site. Is there
a way to convert my older bookmarks to
work with Netscape 7? — A. E.
Siegman, Stanford, California
There is. Download, install, and launch
a copy of Alco Blom’s $25 URL
Manager Pro (www.url-manager .com).
Create a new folder by selecting New
Folder from the Bookmarks menu, and
give it an intuitive name such as
Convert. Drag your URLs into this folder and, once they appear, drag them
right out again. This converts them into
Web Internet Location files. Doubleclick on one of these files, and your
default Web browser will launch and
whisk you to the Web site associated
with that URL.
Picture Disc
I read an article in a recent issue of PC
Magazine that described how to create
an HTML file with relative links to photos on a CD-ROM. It contained a lot of
HTML code. Is there an easier way to
do this on the Mac? — John Peterson,
Manhattan Beach, California
This can be more difficult on a PC
because of Windows’ insistence on
2
And that, dear John, is Why Windows
Stinks: Reason 9,862. There’s no need
to write a single smidgen of HTML
code to accomplish this task on a Mac.
Just launch iPhoto 2, select the photos
you’d like to add to your disc, and select
the Export command from iPhoto’s File
menu. In the resulting Export Photos
window, click on the Web Page tab and
enter a title for your photo album in the
Title field (MyCoolPix, for example). If
you care to, change the settings for the
number of columns and rows of pictures, as well as for the size of the
thumbnails and images, on the HTML
pages iPhoto generates. Click on the
Export button; in the sheet that appears,
create a new folder to store the HTML
files in. Select this new folder and click
on OK. Your collection of photos will
be saved as a series of HTML index
files that display thumbnails of your
pictures, as well as folders that contain
those thumbnails and the full image
files.
Insert a blank CD, copy the folder you
created to the CD, and burn the CD. To
browse the finished CD, simply shove it
into a Mac or a PC and double-click on
the index page (which, using the earlier
called MyCoolPix.html). The computer’s default browser will open, revealing
the first page of the index, replete with
thumbnails of your pictures. Click on a
thumbnail to view the full image.
Short Clips
When I make an iMovie film, I like to
archive it to DV tape. I occasionally
need to edit an archived movie, but
when I capture it into iMovie, the program automatically divides it into clips.
Is there any way to make iMovie capture the movie into a single video clip?
— Jeffrey Johnston, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada
It depends on the length of your video.
iMovie creates new clips when it detects
Continued on page 3
a scene change — a convenient feature
when you capture raw footage, but not
desirable in your situation. Thankfully,
you can easily put an end to this automatic clip creation. Just select
Preferences from the iMovie 3 menu
and deselect the Automatically Start
New Clip At Scene Break option.
This may not completely free you from
multiple clips. iMovie limits clips to
2GB (which works out to 9 minutes, 28
seconds, and 2 frames). If your video
exceeds this length, iMovie automatically creates a new clip when it reaches
the 2GB limit.
Broken Recording
We record the ministers in our church
and then transfer the resulting audio
files to a Mac, so we can make CD
copies for members. We’d like to insert
a break in the audio every 10 minutes,
so members can choose a point at which
to start listening. Is there a program that
inserts such breaks automatically? —
Stan Bemel, Portland, Oregon
I’d tackle such a project by dividing the
sermons into separate, 10- minute audio
files and then burning those files — in
order — to CD. Creating such audio
files is a cinch with HairerSoft’s $25
Amadeus II (www.hairersoft.com/
amadeus.html).
Just open the sound file in Amadeus (it
can read AIFF, WAV, and MP3 files)
and select Generate Marks from the
Selection menu. In the resulting
Generate Marks window, enter
10’00”000 in the Time Interval field to
create markers that appear every 10
minutes in the track. Enter something in
the Text field that hints at the contents of
the files — Sermon1, for example.
Click on OK to dismiss the window.
From the same Selection menu, choose
Split According To Marks. Click on OK
in the Split window that appears. In the
resulting Save As sheet, designate a
location for your split files, select AIFF
from the Format pop-up menu, and
click on Save. Amadeus will split your
file into 10- minute increments and
sequentially number the segments —
Sermon1 01, Sermon1 02, and Sermon1
03, for example.
Load these segments into iTunes and
then into a playlist, ensure that they’re in
the proper order, and burn them to disc.
Missing Link
Is there any way to connect a number of
tunes in iTunes, for background music
behind a long slide show? — Bill
Semplice, Wethersfield, Connecticut
I haven’t found a slide-show application
that can do this. However, there’s no
reason you couldn’t stitch together the
tunes you’d like to play during your
slide show. The free way to do this is to
import into iMovie 3 the songs you
want to join.
Click on the Audio button in iMovie and
drag the songs you want to string
together into iMovie’s timeline (these
songs can be in any audio format iTunes
supports, including the protected AAC
files you purchase from the iTunes
Music Store). Select Export from
iMovie’s File menu, and in the iMovie:
Export window that appears, select To
QuickTime from the Export pop-up
menu. Choose Expert Settings from the
Formats pop-up menu and click on the
Export button. In the resulting Save
Exported File As window, choose
Sound To AIFF from the Export pop-up
menu; then name and save the file. Your
tunes are now contained in a single
audio file you can use to accompany
your slide show.
If you’re willing to convert your slide
show into a QuickTime movie, you can
create the entire slide show in iMovie.
Add nothing except still clips to your
movie, drag the song files you want to
use into iMovie’s soundtrack, adjust the
length of the still pictures so they fit the
length of your soundtrack, and then
export your creation as a QuickTime
movie.
Tip of the Month
Having your Mac read text documents
to you is a great way to proofread your
writing — you’re more likely to notice
mistakes when you hear them. The
3
Services command in OS X’s Finder
menu offers a Speech command from
which you can choose Start Speaking
Text, but this service works only in
applications such as Apple’s TextEdit,
Safari, and Mail. If you’re using
Microsoft Word, the service is unavailable. Although you could copy and
paste your Word document into
TextEdit, there’s a simple way to hear
your text within its original application.
Open the Speech preference pane, click
on the Spoken User Interface tab, and
enable the Selected Text When The Key
Is Pressed option. Click on Change Key,
and enter a keyboard command for activating text-to-speech (choose a key
combination your applications don’t
use). Once you’ve set this up, you can
select the text in any application and
press your keyboard command to hear
the text read aloud. Press the keyboard
command again to stop it. — Garrick
Chow, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Unsolicited Advice
When you select multiple picture files
numbered in a series — Picture 01,
Picture 02, and Picture 03, for example
— and double-click on them, Preview
doesn’t display them in order. There are
two ways to make the pictures appear in
sequence: You can open a folder full of
pictures in column view, select them all,
and double click on them. You can also
launch Preview, press 1-O to produce
the Open dialog box, navigate to your
pictures, 1-click on the pictures you
want to view, and click on Open. With
either method, the thumbnails will
appear in the proper order.
Second Edition and Mac 911 (Peachpit
Press). Find Chris’books at www.amazon.com and www. peachpit. com.
Buying a Scanner
By Rich Lenoce
Like digital still and video cameras,
scanner prices have dropped and quality has improved, especially at the low
($80 -200) and mid ($150-$500) pricing levels. Wading through the
technical information can be confusing, but I hope this article can help
with your purchase. There are three
types of scanners: flatbed, film (for
slides, negatives and other transparencies) and drum scanners.
The
popular
Flatbed scanner
offers a variety of features and quality
including built-in film scanning, copying and faxing. They work by
reflecting light off of an image placed
on a glass bed. A scanning head that
contains a line of either inexpensive
CIS or better quality CCD image sensors mechanically glides down the
scanning area, scanning one line at a
time. The scanned data is sent to the
scanning software via USB, FireWire,
serial, parallel or SCSI interface and
the rows of lines are pieced together
as a single image. Flatbed scanning is
a slow process so purchasing a scanner with a fast interface such as
FireWire won’t necessarily mean a
faster scan. Scanning areas range from
8.5 x 11 (letter), 8.4 x 14 (legal) to 11
x 17 (large photo).
Film scanners offer
the highest quality reproduction of
scanned transparent images including
slides, negatives, and 4 x 6 or larger
transparencies. Film has far more
detail than photographic prints and
therefore requires image sensors with
higher resolutions than a flatbed scanner. A 35 mm slide or negative can
have the equivalent of 3000 dpi resolution, while a print from the same
negative scanned with a flatbed scanner might equate to only 300 dpi.
High resolution scanning equates to
large file sizes with a 35 mm slide
having minimum resolution of 2400
dpi or 22 mb in size.
Drum scanners
are used in professional print houses for high quality
color separations of scanned images.
They use photo multiplier tubes
(PMT) to provide higher resolution,
color accuracy and dynamic range
than flatbed or film scanners. Artwork
is wrapped around a cylinder that
rotates the image at a high speed in
front of the PMT to split the image
into its components. Drum scanners
usually have 6,000-12,000 dpi optical
resolution, 48-bit color, direct CMYK
conversion and a large scanning area
for art prints. All of this quality and
sophistication cost thousands of dollars.
What Should You Look for
when Buying a Scanner?
Optical Resolution
Optical resolution is the number of
scanning elements (dots) per
inch–dpi–on the scan head. The first
and smaller number in the specification is the scanner’s actual optical
resolution; the second number is less
important and usually only refers to
the number of stops the scan head
makes in a given area. A printer with
600 x 1200 resolution has an optical
resolution of 600 dpi.
Beware of interpolated or enhanced
resolution–it is often listed after the
optical resolution. Interpolated resolution is when software is used to mimic
a higher optical resolution. This figure
should be ignored when purchasing a
scanner and never used in actual scanning.
How much resolution you need is
dependent on your use. Most documents and photos for printing on laser
and inkjet printers as well as commercial printers should be scanned at
150-300 dpi. Since the web can only
display images at 72 dpi, scanning
more than 72 dpi ifor that use s unnecessary. High resolution is most needed
with film (slides, negatives and transparencies), with a minimum scanner
resolution of 2400 dpi. 3000+ dpi is
preferred. Printed line illustrations
and drawings also should be scanned
at a high resolution, usually 1200 dpi
or more to maintain the smoothness of
the lines. Documents can usually be
scanned at about 150 dpi unless you
are using optical character recognition
(OCR) software; adding resolution
may improve the accuracy of the software.
Bit Depth
Each pixel in a scanner’s imager generates data; how much data or the
number of bits to describe a pixel in a
scan is called the bit depth. More data
equates to more detail (usually color
detail) in each pixel in an image. Most
scanners have a bit depth of at least 24
bits, capturing 8 bits of information
for each primary color: red, green and
blue. Many scanners have a bit depth
of 30, 36 and even 48 bits. Most of
today’s graphics programs do not support images with more than 24 bits,
but the software will retain that extra
detail. The more bits the better.
Dynamic Range
Dynamic range is perhaps the most
important specification as it defines
the range of grayscale tones a scanner
can record measured on a scale of 0
(white) to 4.0 (perfect black). This
very important specification expresses
how much detail a scanner can yield
in the dark and light areas of an
image. The higher the number, the
better. Most inexpensive consumer
flatbed scanners yield high resolution
and bit depth but fail to provide
smooth and accurate tonal quality differentiating them from their
professional counterparts. A typical
consumer scanner may have a dynamic range of only 2.4 while a top quality
flatbed scanner will range between 3
to 3.6. Film scanners usually equal or
exceed this figure while drum scanners can go to 4.2 and beyond.
Continued on page 5
4
Comparing Scanners
Prior to purchasing a scanner you
should have a clear vision of how the
scanned images will be used to determine the quality and features needed.
It is also always wise to do some
research beforehand.
Let’s compare two scanners with the
same specifications at opposing ends
of the price spectrum: a $99 Canon
Scan LIDE 30 and a $1,500 Microtek
ScanMaker each with specifications
of 1200 x 2400 dpi and bit depths of
48 bits.
For typical scan jobs such as email,
web page creation and basic duplication of photos, the $99 Canon is a
winner. It’s light, thin and convenient
and does a good job of general scanning. However, its advantages can be
drawbacks if used in professional
work. For example, the Canon’s lightness and thinness mean that the motor
that moves the imager generates
vibrations close to the imager causing
illustration lines and document text to
vibrate during the scan and not be as
sharp and clear as they could be. The
Microtek is a thick beast so the motor
is mounted away from the imager and
its 30 lb. weight absorbs any extraneous vibration. The Microtek uses a
CCD imager with a dynamic range of
3.5 while the Canon uses the less
expensive CIS imager with a far lower
dynamic range. In fact, Canon doesn’t
even publish dynamic range specifications on its low-end scanners. This
low dynamic range can be seen in its
inability to extrude detail from dark or
overly bright areas of a scanned
image. Also, documents scanned with
inexpensive scanners may not appear
straight because the tolerance of the
scan heads alignment is usually not as
strict as more expensive professional
scanners. They may even miss a scan
line or two in a document or illustration. OCR software may not be as
accurate on an inexpensive scanner
because of the problems mentioned
requiring the user to spend more time
editing the OCR document.
More importantly, notice that most of
the problems on an inexpensive scanner like the Canon are not indicated in
the specifications since with the
exception of the dynamic range,
which Canon doesn’t publish, the
scanners have the same specifications.
The telling detail is in the type of
imager; the Canon uses the lower
cost/quality CIS imager compared to
the Microtek’s CCD. Scanners in the
$200-$500 range offer a good compromise between the professional and
consumer imaging devices.
Benefits:
Date ______________________________
Name _____________________________
Address ___________________________
City ______________________________
State________ Zip __________________
Phone (Home) ______________________
In comparing scanners, higher priced
scanners come with more sophisticated scanning software that effectively
color matches the scan to the original
image and allows for minute manipulation of dozens of image parameters.
Inexpensive scanners may have only
limited settings.
Recommending a scanner is akin to
most other products: identify how you
will use the product, do your research
and realize you get what you pay for.
The more you know, the better you
will be able to spot a good deal.
We’re Sorry!
ntured out to
Many of you ve
all last month
WestFarms M
an exciting
anticipating
Apple Store.
meeting at the
due to cirUnfortunately,
beyond our
cumstances
sentation did
control, the pre
planned. We
not occur as
ur members in
apologize to o
nd steps are
attendance a
y the board to
being taken b
om happening
prevent this fr
– CMC Board
again.
5
Phone (Office) ______________________
Phone (Fax) ________________________
Business___________________________
Occupation_________________________
Email:_____________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
Annual Family
Membership - $25.00
Mail to: CMC
Make checks payable to CMC
or...Register Online with PayPal
at www.ctmac.org
Review: iLife ‘04
by Rich Lenoce, vice president
Great software
like iLife ‘04
is the reason
many of us are
Mac
users
because there
is no equivalent on the PC
for
twenty
times
the
price. Free with every new Mac and
only $49 retail ($29 education),
iLife’s ‘04’s five applications—
iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and the
new Garage Band, demonstrate that
complicated media creation can be
easy and made by anyone. Best of all,
these applications are thoroughly integrated with each other, sharing media
through their respective libraries.
Installation
Installation was easy but odd. The five
iLife apps come on one DVD. A CD
containing only iTunes, iPhoto and
iMovie is included for those without a
DVD drive–Garage Band is noticeably absent. Given the G3/G4
requirements of Garage Band, Macs
without DVD drives can run it but
there is no way to get to the 1 gig
installer. Odd. Why not put Garage
Band on two CDs? Also odd is the 733
MHz G4 requirement for iDVD. I
have a 400mhz G4 and it installed and
ran fine. Odd again.
iPhoto
iTunes has not been updated from the
latest 4.2 release, but iPhoto shows
significant speed improvements and a
few handy features. No longer does
iPhoto slow down as the photo library
gets larger; it can now hold 25,000
pictures without a performance hit.
New Smart Photo Albums can automatically sort this myriad of photos
based on criteria the user presets. For
example, a Smart Album named
Christmas might be created to recognize photos taken on December 25th.
All imported photos taken on
Christmas would be dumped into that
Smart Album. Sepia tone and addi-
tional crop presets have been added
and options for exporting photos and
web pages have been greatly
improved. Slide shows now can be
made into beautiful QuickTime
movies with 3D effects and music.
Brightness/contrast adjustments can
now be fine tuned. Though library
speed is improved greatly, editing
speed can still be sluggish if photos
are large.
iMovie
iMovie 4 moves to the “prosumer”
level with enhancements to Time Line
Editing. Editing a clip no longer permanently alters it (called “destructive”
editing). Clips now have handles to
lengthen and shorten the clip that
don’t affect the original footage.
Changes can also be applied across
multiple clips, transitions and effects.
Alignment guides have been added to
better sync audio and video. Graphical
waveforms have been added to audio
tracks to further improve audio editing. There are new transitions, titles
and digital effects including better
Ken Burns Effect integration. Finally,
iMovie can now generate 99 iDVD
chapters though I don’t know why
you’d want 99 DVD chapters! iMovie
still lacks the ability to create longform video projects or the ability to
add additional tracks so it’s not truly
professional—but your projects will
look like they are!
iDVD
iDVD also moves up a notch by support for the creation of two-hour
DVDs, improved DVD compression,
and a map view for creating sophisticated DVDs. IDVD 4 is more akin to
DVD Studio Pro 2’s “basic” setting,
allowing for a more complex navigational structure that in typical iLife
fashion, is easy to create. For example: DVDs can open with a video clip
or slide show, then the menu can
appear and then you can offer multiple
versions of programs, add DVD-ROM
content and musical selections. New
themes look more professional adding
more depth and flair to buttons, text,
backgrounds and navigation and
greater customization including the
addition of drop shadow text. iDVD
6
now provides easy access to all photo
and music libraries as well as all video
projects. Also, the status view is greatly enhanced and DVDs can now be
archived for future use without reencoding the project. DVDs look
better too, with improved compression in dark areas of the screen and
during transitions. An already killer
application just got better!
Garage Band
Not convinced you should spend $49?
The deal breaker is Garage Band,
which makes creating, composing and
remixing music incredibly easy, intuitive and fun. Garage Band’s 64 tracks
can handle any type of sound-synthesized (MIDI) and real “sampled”
instruments including vintage guitar
amps, beats, rhythms, loops, music
from your iTunes library and recorded
audio. Thousands of professionallymade sounds, beats and loops are
included which can be mixed and
matched on up to 64 tracks. iLife integration allows your musical creations
to be added to videos, slide shows,
DVDs and iPod. Features are too
many to name and would be best left
to a full review and a few weeks of
experimenting, but it’s worth a spin
for anyone interested in audio recording and music. PC users would need
to spend $800 to get a similar application with all its features. For only $99,
the Garage Band Jam Pack adds thousands more sounds and could keep
someone busy for years. Apple also
sells a MIDI keyboard for $99 to
unleash the full power of Garage
Band.
What’s Missing
Life isn’t perfect and neither is iLife.
Product requirements are steep so not
everyone can run all products.
Minimum requirements are OS X.2.6,
a 600 mHz G3 for Garage Band, and a
G4 to play the synthesized sounds.
My aging G4 400 worked great with
all apps, however it struggled with
more than eight tracks of Garage Band
audio. Apple can’t be faulted for wanting to sell more hardware and better
engrain OS X and should be comContinued on page 7
mended for pushing the consumer
software envelope, but it’s shameful
that Mac owners without DVD drives
can’t install Garage Band. Also,
Garage Band’s export options are limited to just iTunes as an AIFF. iTunes
easily handled conversion (controlclick and convert) but it should have
the ability to export to MP3, AAC,
.mac, direct to CD or to a specific
location. IPhoto could have used more
editing enhancements such as a muchneeded white balance adjustment.
[email protected]
I find that as I become more iLifecentered, media content management
becomes more difficult. Just because I
can have 40,000 songs and 25,000
pictures in a single music or photo
library doesn’t mean I should! There
needs to be ways of sub-organizing
libraries, playlists and albums. Smart
Albums/Playlists help, but a true digital hub needs to be created to manage
and organize media regardless of type.
There is also no equivalent of
libraries, playlist and albums for
video content. All this disorganization
comes from iLife’s biggest problem—
it’s fun and addictive! And, that’s not
a bad thing. At less than $10 per application, iLife 2004 is a winner!
Free iLife Manual in
PDF Format
O’Reilly has posted a free iLife
‘04 Mini Manual–from David
Pogue–for download as a pdf at
http://www.macdevcenter.com/mac
/excerpt/iLife04_MiniManual.pdf
The book is a tremendous
resource
since iLife
doesn’t
come with
a manual or
documentation.
From Neal Dembicer:
http://www.placesonline.org/
Places On Line provides access to the
world’s very best place-based Web
sites. These are sites that make you
feel you are there.
From Don Dickey:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/whatson/
This is a site at Apple where you can
test out your new broadband net connection! See if you’re getting your
money’s worth by downloading a
movie “trailer” or a music video from
your favorite pop star!
From Peter Kidwell:
http://vitaminq.blogspot.com
A great web log (“blog”) for lovers of
useless information. In the words of
its creator, “... this sort-of-blog
belongs to Roddy Lumsden, a puzzle
writer and poet from Scotland now
living in Bristol in England. I post
lists, curiosities and fragments which
please me as a lover of trivia and reference. They tend to reflect my
interests which include pop, nature,
words, Scotland, TV, food, folklore
and literature. I post a few items most
weeks, so do bookmark and return.”
From Deena Quilty:
http://www.autopedia.com/html/Rebate.html
Buying a new car? Check here to find
out what manufacturers are offering
for rebates and other promotions first.
And Autopedia has other great carbuying info, too. Click the
autopedia.com link at the bottom to
get to the homepage.
From Joe Arcuri:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?art
num=75459
Apple has released a knowledgebase
article documenting many keyboard
shortcuts available in OS X. Worth
bookmarking.
7
From Jack Bass:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/
A great basic resource for everything
to see how it works.
From Robert F. Sawyer:
http://www.kk.org/cooltools/
Quote from the author: “Here are my
recommendations for cool tools. I
include books, gadgets, software,
videos, maps, hardware, materials,
websites or gear that are extraordinary, little-known, or reliably handy
for an individual or small group. I
depend on friends and readers to suggest things they actually use.
Particularly welcomed are old items
that you still dote on after years of
use. I only post things I like and I
ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools
much better than what is recommended here are always wanted. I have
purchase recommendations off this
site and all have been very good.
From George Maciel:
http://www.AdFlip.com/
This archive of magazine ads is “the
world’s largest searchable database of
classic print ads.” Browsing is free,
while paid members can search by
brand or model name, category,
decade, or by year.
Thank You!!
Our recent annual CMC auction raised
hundreds of dollars for our group. We
wish to thank the many companies and
individuals who donated:
• Adobe • Alsoft, Inc.
• eZedia • iKlear
• Logitech
• Wacom • Corel
• Auto FX Software
• Design Tools Monthly
• E-Book Systems Inc
• Lumiquest • IOGEAR
• Microsoft • Rocstore
• O’Reilly & Associates
• PeachPit Press • RadTech
• SmileOnMyMac
• George Maciel • Bill Dougal
• Jack Bass • Deb Foss
• Karla Lee Cucka
Please accept our apologies if we have
inadvertently left out anyone from this
list! – Deena Quilty, Auction Chair
Three Ways to
Make PDFs in
Panther
by Rich Lenoce
There are three ways to make PDFs in
OS X Panther that may interest
designers or people who have a passing interest in creating PDFs.
Why PDF? For the average user,
Adobe’s Portable Document Format
creates a cross platform document that
can be opened, viewed, mailed, stored
and printed regardless of platform or
operating system. A PDF document
will look the same on any machine,
creating an exact snapshot of what you
see, separate from the application that
created it. For example, saving an
HTML file from within a browser
won’t save the complete page and
looks different on different platforms
and browsers. Saving an HTML page
as a PDF means that it will look as it
looked in the browser. PDFs are also
useful when a recipient of the file
doesn’t have the application that created the file—Appleworks for example.
For professional designers, PDFs are
used to insure what the designer creates on the screen is exactly what will
print. Panther provides users with
three methods to create PDFS from
within applications for various levels
of usage.
Save as PDF
The easiest way to create a PDF document in OS X is to select Print from an
application’s File Menu and then
select the Save as PDF… button in the
lower left corner of the Print Dialog
Box. Your document will now be ready
for mailing and viewing on any platform. To further automate this feature
such as having the ability to save and
mail a PDF in one step, download a
terrific freeware program called
PDF_U available from VersionTracker
which will create a PDF Services folder in your System>Library and fills it
with pre-made scripts. You can create
additional PDF services by adding
program aliases to that folder.
Save as Postscript
Save as PDF… is fine for most purposes but is not recommended for
sending files to commercial printers
since the file isn’t truly Postscript
compliant. This is because the file created using Save As PDF… is really
only a screen snapshot from OS X’s
Quartz graphic engine and lacks much
of the Postscript information necessary for commercial printers. A
Postscript document isn’t just an
image of a page but contains all the
details about the page—fonts, layout
information, images, etc. Graphic professionals would normally use a
Postscript application such as Quark,
InDesign, Illustrator or Adobe
Acrobat Distiller to create such PDFs
but for occasional use OS X can create
Postscript PDFs from within any
application.
To create a Postscript PDF, select
Print from the File Menu just as if you
were going to print the page. The Print
Dialog Box will appear and using the
pull-down menu located in the center
of the box that defaults to Copies and
Pages, select Output Options. The dialog box will change and you will see a
checkbox, Save As File. Check the box
and another pull-down menu will
become available that has two options:
PDF and Postscript. Be sure to select
Postscript and then click Save. The
Save Dialog Box will appear with the
name of the file followed by a .ps file
extension (turn off Hide Extension if it
is selected). Save the file. Next, open
the file using OS X’s Preview application and when opened Preview will
convert the file to a printable
Postscript PDF. After the file opens in
Preview, notice the file extension has
changed to .pdf in the Title Bar. Save
this file in Preview and you will have a
print-ready Postscript PDF document
similar to those produced by Acrobat
Distiller or any of Adobe’s own products.
Color Sync Utility/PDF X-3 Filter
For advanced users who need more
control, specifically those who need
advanced Preflight control and
PDF/X-3 compliance, the ColorSync
utility located in the Applications>
Utility folder can be used to set up a
PDF Service that will generate a
PDF/X-3 compliant file. This is a difficult task and it would be far easier to
do this in any number of professional
applications but in a pinch Panther is
capable of doing it.
To make a PDF/X-3 document, you
need to first create a folder called PDF
Services in your OS X System Library
folders (not in the user folder). Launch
ColorSyncUtility and select the FILTERS button in the ToolBar. Select
PDF in the Filter Details bar. Add (+)
a profile and from the Pull-Down
Menu select PDF/X-3. Next, select the
button called DOMAINS in the Filter
Defaults bar and check “PDF
Workflow.” You’ll need to select a
slew of parameters in ColorSync but
now the Save as PDF... will no longer
merely record screen data as a PDF
but will be the equivalent of saving or
exporting a PDF through one of
Adobe’s own products such as
InDesign, Acrobat or Illustrator where
all
color
and
typographical
PreFlighting has been performed.
Thumbnailer
http://homepage.mac.com/mdewalt/d
ownloads.html Thumnailer is a freeware application that creates and
displays picture thumbnails, is a quick
picture viewer, and let’s you make
slide shows of your pictures...and set
them to music in either MP3 or the
new Apple Music Store AAC formats.
It will also convert any image that
QuickTime can read into a PICT,
BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG, JPEG 2000,
Photoshop, TGA, or MacPaint format
image. Version
2.3 is for Mac
OS 9. Version
2.2 is for OS X
10.2 or higher
and version 1.3
— is for OS X This is a view of the folder browser
10.0 and 10.1. for Thumbnailer. It’s is similar to
Apple’s column view in the finder.
8
to qualify for these savings.
SnapMail
SnapMail is the complete messaging
and communication application for
your Mac office. Using peer-to-peer
technology over TCP/IP networks,
SnapMail keeps all of your messages
and documents safely in-house. It doesn’t require a mail server, Internet
connection, or any administration. Send
messages, files, folders, reminders and
alerts instantly. Combining an intuitive
user interface with trouble-free installation and maintenance, SnapMail offers
a dynamic and friendly messaging system for Macintosh networks.
SnapMail costs around $25 per user,
even less for education and non-profit
clients. For our Macintosh user group
exclusive offer, go to http:// www.glass
bead.com/buy/so.html and enter special
offer code “so2793” to receive prices
discounted by 15 percent. Offer expires
April 30, 2004.
Mac Gold Book
Mac Gold Book subscribers receive
heavy discounts on a fast-growing
range of hardware and software products including CINEMA 3D, Asante
routers, Spire bags and much more.
Normally $34.80 (US) for a one year
subscription, user group members pay
just $21.00. http://www.macgoldbook
.com/mugoffer/
Vendors, an entry in the Mac Gold
Book is free. Sign up here: http://
www.macgoldbook.com/vendors/
Offer expires May 31, 2004.
WebPrint Plus
WebPrint Plus lets you instantly print or
save selected text, pictures and
graphics from virtually any application
— even programs that can’t print or
save their own content. WebPrint Plus
also lets you add on-the-fly time-date
stamps and notes to anything (even
images and graphics) that you print and
save. WebPrint Plus can also instantly
print and save the contents of the
Clipboard.
WebPrint Plus includes a powerful editor for editing and adding new content
to your saved data and images, and
many additional features. WebPrint
Plus works with Mac OS X and Mac
OS 7.5.3 or later. Normal price: $39.95
MUG price: $29.95.
Find out more about WebPrint Plus.
http://www.macease.com/webprint_plus
_x_main_page.html. User Group
Special Order Page: http://order.kagi
.com/?L8TV. Offer expires 5/31/04.
Hemera
Hemera is pleased to offer a 25 percent
discount to all Macintosh user groups*.
BizArt - Over 56,000 images for business! Reg. $49.99, MUG price: $37.49
Photo Clip Art by Hemera - Real photos you can use like clip art. Regular
price $29.99, MUG price: $22.49
Hemera Photo-Objects - 150,000
Photo-Objects images in 3 volumes.
Reg. $69.99, MUG price: $52.49
The Big Box of Art - 800,000 images
for all your projects. Regular price
$129.99, MUG price: $97.49
* Subscriptions to Hemera Image Express and
AbleStock.com are not included in this offer.
Order your products from http://
www.hemera.com and enter promo
code: hem10104 in the shopping cart.
Offer expires 5/30/04.
CMC Web Site Access
Apple User Group Store
www.ctmac.org
The User ID: XXX (all uppercase)
Password: xxxxx(all lowercase)
The User ID: xxxxx(all lowercase)
Password: xxxxx (all lowercase)
9
Office Applications
for Mac OS X
Office Applications for Mac OS X is a
complete office productivity suite
based on the OpenOffice.org package.
It includes document processing,
spreadsheets, presentations, graphics
and more. It can read and write the vast
majority of Microsoft Office documents, and has multi-language support
and a one-click installer.
This package provides professional
office software with many enhancements not available through download.
We offer a large discount to Macintosh
user group members. Follow this link
and use coupon code “ADC35P” for 30
percent off the $39.95 list price.
http://BSDmall.com/cgi-bin/clink
?bsdmall+8B85sZ+officeapps2.html
+adc35p. Offer expires 4/30/04.
The MUG Store
Here is just a sampling of the great
deals user group members can get at
The MUG Store this month, in addition
to free freight and one percent back to
your user group:
• New G5s - $50 instant rebate, free
speakers and up to $100 (US) additional
instant rebate when purchased with an
Apple display.
• Factory Refurbished G5s starting at
$1,399
• New G4/1.25 with Combo Drive - $1249
• Factory Refurbished G4/1.25 with
SuperDrive - $1,649
• New iMacs - Instant rebates - free RAM
• Factory Refurbished LCD iMac G4/700
with CD-RW - $799
• New iBooks starting at $699
• New PowerBooks starting at $1,249
• Factory Refurbished iBooks and
PowerBooks - starting at $649
Place your orders. http://www.apple
mugstore.com. This offer is available to
members of U.S. user groups only. See
User ID’s and Passwords in the box at
the left.
Editor Deena Quilty
[email protected]
10
Discounted
Books
Upcoming Meetings
Board meetings are the first Thursday
of the month. If you wish to attend a Board
meeting, contact an officer for location.
February 25, 2004
Programs include RagTime Solo, iText
Pro, Think Free Office, AppleWorks,
LightWay Text, Mariner Write/Calc,
Nisus Writer Express and more.
UConn Health Center
Lego MindStorm Demo
Wacom Tablet Demo
Digital Photography
Hands-On Workshops
Making Music on the Mac
and Much More!
CMC Classified Ads
Monthly Ad Rates
Business Card ..........................$10.00
Quarter Page.............................$20.00
Half Page..................................$30.00
graphics embedded.
CMC continues to offer current
Every member who attends our meetings gets a raffle ticket for a chance at
a free prize every month! You could
win . . . t-shirts, toys, CDs, mugs,
software . . . there’s always something
FOR SALE!
FOR SALE Plextor external SCSI
12/4/32 CD burner–$50. ViewSonic
G810 21” CRT monitor – $200. Both in
excellent condition. Contact Jack Bass
860-233-9954 or [email protected] .
Treasurer’s
Report
New Members
Ending Checking
Account Balance ................$1902.16
Balances as of January 31, 2004
Forums, mac t-shirts, beanies and
the home of The Joy of Tech!
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
(except Nov. and Dec. when the
meetings are one week earlier
due to the holidays)
FREE
Raffle!
11
direction guide to UConn Health Center on our website: http://www.ctmac.org.
Print and take it with you to find us easily!
Monthly meetings will be held at UConn Health Center in Farmington. When hands-on
programs require computers for meeting attendees we will be using MxCC in Middletown.
Directions to MxCC, Middletown
left as you enter.
Hill Road. Your first left will lead into the MxCC
Campus parking area. When you arrive on campus, take
a right onto Training Hill Road. Go to the second parking lot entrance and take a left into the upper lot.
Directly in front of you will be Snow Hall. Enter Snow
Hall and go up the stairs to the 2nd floor and go to the
last room on the right, Room 509.
12
Monthly Meeting
March 31 – 7 PM
featuring
Lego MindStorm
Bring the
Kids!
See pg.11
for info.
Keeping Up... to
Upgrade or Not?
Smart Shopping
Every once in a while, Apple throws a
monkey wrench into the works. It now
seems like a long time ago, but I
remember well the introduction of the
PowerMac. Heralded as being light
years ahead of the then aging 68040,
the PowerPC processor came out during what many refer to as one of
Apple’s dark years. It required a leap of
faith to look forward to a day when
there would be PPC-native software
that might take advantage of the new
chip’s architecture. If I recall, Adobe
led the pack with a PPC-enhanced
Photoshop. Apple was smart, and they
built compatibility into the new chip so
it would run most older software. It did
so with a speed penalty, however. It
took a little time, but soon there were
PPC-native versions of most major
applications, and not long after that
there was a switch to software requiring
the new chip. I think Microsoft Office
was a leader in that category being one
of the first major application packages
that left the 68K architecture in the dust
with Office 98.
MARCH, 2004
a G3/400 upgrade for my SuperMac
S900 clone which easily doubled the
speed of the machine. Today, that
upgrade even makes it possible to run
OS X on that very old, tired computer.
Does it make sense? If you have an
older Mac or Mac clone, should you
upgrade?
The answer to this question depends on
a few things. First, do you plan on staying with OS 9 (or older OS) for a while,
and are you only interested in getting a
speed bump? Or, are you truly interested in making the transition to OS X?
My feeling is that while OS X is a nice,
stable platform, it’s the cool, new OS
X-only software that pushed me in the
X direction. You just can’t run the current versions of iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie,
iDVD, iChat, or Word, Excel, or
PowerPoint on OS 9.
You had three choices: keep running
the old software on your old Mac, buy
a new Mac to run the new software, or
consider an upgrade package that
would extend the life of your aging
hardware. Even Apple sold upgrades
for some machines back then! I specifically remember the PPC upgrade that
brought new life to my old PowerBook
520c.
In any case, you should evaluate your
budget. If you are limited to spending
$200-$300 to make your computing
experience a trifle faster, perhaps an
upgrade is worth considering. If, however, your budget is more like
$600-$750, you would probably be better served by investigating an Apple
refurbished computer at the Apple
Store online. As I write this, Apple has
refurbished Mac G4s selling for as low
as $649 (including shipping and a full
year warranty). I would not recommend that you spend half that amount
to upgrade your old PowerMac or clone
and not get full OS X compatibility in
the process. Besides, even after you’ve
upgraded the CPU, you’re still left with
a dated system bus, hard drive and controller (SCSI?), and graphics card.
Later, upgrades from PPCs to G3s and
then to G4s became available. I bought
If you have an older G4, however, the
upgrade question takes a different
1
direction. Here, you already have a
machine that can run OS X. In this
case, a modest $200 investment might
double your computer’s speed, make it
more usable and enjoyable running OS
X, enable processor-intensive software
such as Garage Band to work, and buy
you some time before needing a completely new Mac. Another $100 could
buy you big, new, and faster hard drive.
In this situation, the $300 to spruce up
an aging G4 might be just the ticket.
That seems like the magic number to
me. Somehow, spending $450 or more
on an older system goes against my
grain. I’d rather salt that much away
towards a newer Mac down the road.
For the budget-challenged Mac fan,
here are a couple of tips: If you’re interested in seeing how much an upgrade
for your Mac costs, visit MacSales
.com and SmallDog.com. If you’re
in the market for a newer Mac, check
the Apple online store. Scroll down to
the red “Save” tag to get to a page of
refurbished gear. You can also find
refurbished gear at SmallDog. Also,
you can often find recently discontinued gear online at the Apple Store. I
saved a bundle getting a QuickSilver
G4 right after the Mirrored Door G4s
came out. Finally, if you or your spouse
teaches or if you have a student in your
family, you probably qualify for an
educational discount. This can save
you up to $300 on a new Mac. With
proper ID, they’ll even honor the educational prices at the Apple Store in
Westfarms!
The transition to OS X is somewhat
inevitable for most of us. Just remember that your user group is here to help.
Take advantage of our monthly presentations, and bring your questions to the
meetings!
Mac 911:
Help Desk
Editor
Deena Quilty
Don Dickey
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
Mac OS X 10.3
(Panther) is a
mighty fine feline,
but it isn’t sleek
enough to make this column obsolete. If
you’re confounded by Panther’s ability
to create a bootable disc, confused
about installing missing language
resources, seeking a replacement for
Copy Agent, or distressed by ungainly
games, read on.
Boot Camp
I’d like to create bootable copies of my
OS X 10.3 installation discs for backup.
How do I do this in Panther?
–Terry Byers, Aptos, CA
In earlier versions of OS X, you did this
with Disk Copy, but in Panther, Disk
Utility does the job. To copy your discs,
follow these steps:
1. Launch Disk Utility (in the
Applications: Utilities folder).
2. Insert the first Panther CD, and
when its icon appears in the left
side of the Disk Utility, select Mac
OS X Install Disc 1.
3. Click on the New Image button at
the top of the Disk Utility window
and, in the resulting sheet, name the
file (Panther 1, for example); then
select DVD/CD Master from the
Image Format pop-up menu. Don’t
change the None setting in the
Encryption pop-up menu.
4. Click on Save and eat half a snack
while Disk Utility creates an image
of the disc.
5. Select the image and click on the
Burn button.
6. Insert a blank CD-R and enjoy the
other half of your snack while Disk
Utility burns and verifies your disc.
7. Repeat for all the other Panther
discs that you want to back up.
Relocalizer
I used Mike Bombich’s free Delocalizer
(http://software.bombich.com) to
remove extraneous language files from
my hard drive. It turns out that one of
my Microsoft Word files includes a let-
2
terhead that contains foreign characters
– characters that no longer appear.
How can I restore language files?
–Larry Grossberg, Hillsborough, NC
Both Jaguar and Panther include language files you can install with a simple
double-click. If you have the multidisc
Jaguar installation set, you’ll find these
files in the Optional Installs folder on
the first disc. If you received Jaguar on
a single DVD, the Optional Installs
folder is inside the Welcome To Mac
OS X folder, which may be invisible. If
you don’t see it, download a copy of
Marcel Bresink’s free TinkerTool
(www.bresink.com/en/index.html),
launch it, select the Finder button,
enable the Show Hidden And System
Files option, and click on Relaunch
Finder. The Welcome To Mac OS X
folder will now be visible. (Because
invisible files are invisible so you won’t
accidentally delete them, be sure to use
TinkerTool to make your files invisible
again when you’re done.)
Restoring language files is much easier
in Panther. Insert the second Panther
CD, open the Packages folder, and double-click on the Languages.mpkg item.
The Install Language Translations
installer will open. After selecting a destination for the installed files, click on
Continue to move to the Easy Install
screen. Click on that screen’s
Customize button to view a list of all the
language files you can install or
upgrade. Deselect the languages you
don’t want to install, and click on
Install. When you’re asked for it, enter
your administrator’s password
and click on OK.
Replacing Smart Replace
In the law office where I work, I use a
set of 10,000 Word master documents,
which is duplicated on each user’s computer. I make changes to the master set
of documents and then regularly update
the other users’ set of copies.
Connectix’s Copy Agent’s Smart
Replace feature allowed us to change
only the documents that had been
updated, but it doesn’t run on OS X. Is
there another tool that can do the same
thing? –Scott Darling, Riverside, CA
Continued on page 3
I can recommend three – Econ Techs’
$20 ChronoSync (www.econtechnologies.com), Jason Weber’s $20
ExecutiveSync (www.executivesync
.com), and Qdea’s $30 Synchronize X
Plus (www.qdea.com). Although classified as synchronization utilities, they
work well for backing up files, and
because they’re designed to synchronize
folders and volumes, they replace only
changed files.
I wrote about the synchronization abilities of each program in my May 2003
column (www.macworld.com/2003/05
/secrets/mac9110305), so I won’t repeat
myself here, other than to say that you
might
prefer
ChronoSync
or
Synchronize X Plus because they offer
scheduling features. You could put the
schedule to good use by placing the
master folder of your Word documents
on the office’s server, providing each
user with a copy of one of these utilities,
and configuring each user’s utility to
synchronize with that master folder as
often as you deem necessary.
Blame Game
What is it about games that, when they
crash, OS X locks up completely? If my
other applications go belly up, I can
force-quit that application and the OS
keeps on truckin’. –Todd Harding,
Duluth, GA
Games that perform slowly stink. To
produce games that don’t stink, programmers employ various forms of
trickery to pull as many resources from
the Mac and its video card as possible.
Because a game demands so much from
your computer, if something goes
wrong, your Mac may not be able to
back out from it gracefully.
Glenda Adams–Aspyr Media’s director
of PC and Mac development–confirmed
that games often push settings higher
than a video card can handle, thus not
leaving enough for the OS to politely exit
if the game crashes. All is not lost, however. Ms. Adams passed along this hint:
Sometimes the Force Quit command
works even if you can’t see the dialog
box. Try pressing 1-option-escape and
then press the return key twice. This
may safely force-quit the game even if
you can’t see anything happen. In
Panther, you can also try pressing 1shift-option-escape. This force-quits the
active application without asking for
confirmation.
from multiple songs: In the Burning tab
of iTunes’ Preferences window, select
Audio CD as the disc format and set the
desired gap between songs. Now create
a playlist with the tunes that you’d like
to accompany the slide show. Burn the
playlist to a CD.
Time for Resets
From iTunes’ Source list, select the CD
you just burned and select all the songs
on it. From the Advanced menu, choose
Join CD Tracks and then click on the
Import button. All the joined tracks
–which must be consecutive tracks on
the CD–will be imported as a single
track that you can use as the audio background for your slide show.
There was a power failure in my neighborhood while my Power Mac G4 was
plugged in. I unplugged it until the
power returned but when I plugged it
back in, it wouldn’t start–the button
glowed when I pushed it, but I heard no
activity from the computer. Is it dead?
Kerin Tyrrell, Macworld.com forums
Probably not. This has happened to my
Power Mac G4 when the lights have
gone out, and I’ve put things right by
pressing the PMU reset button, which is
located on the Mac’s motherboard (see
“One-Touch Repair”)–its exact location
varies depending on which Power Mac
you own. Pushing this button resets the
Power Management Unit and usually
allows the Mac to start up.
The Apple-recommended method for
performing this operation is to unplug
the power cord and press the PMU reset
button only one time (pressing it more
than once could keep the PMU chip
from responding and reduce the internal
battery’s life from five years to two
days). Wait ten seconds, plug the Mac
back in, and then press the power button.
After resetting the PMU, it’s also a good
idea to reset the Mac’s nonvolatile
RAM (NVRAM). To do so, shut down
the Mac and restart while holding down
1-option-P-R. Continue to hold these
keys until you hear the startup sound
twice. Let go, and the Mac will continue to start up. After resetting the PMU
and NVRAM, use System Preferences
to verify your time zone, startup volume, and volume settings.
Tip of the Month
In the January 2004 Mac 911 column
(“Missing Link”), I suggested using
iMovie to string together iTunes songs
into a single track that could be played
behind an iPhoto 2 slide show. Here’s
another way to create a single track
3
Unsolicited Advice
At the risk of injuring the feelings of
Apple’s Panther user-interface team, I
have to admit that I find Panther’s
metallic Finder windows overbearing
and unattractive. Because I do, I’ve
scrounged the Web for tools that banish
any trace of metal from my otherwise
attractive OS.
One such tool is the free Whiteout,
available from www.versiontracker.
com. Whiteout replaces the system
resource that brushes on the metal
appearance in the Finder, iChat, iCal,
and Safari (sorry, iTunes is still metallic)
with a modified version of the resource
that creates off-white, dimly pinstriped
windows. If you’d like your Mac to
sport a wildly different appearance,
check out Unsanity’s $20 ShapeShifter
(www.unsanity.com/haxies/shapeshifter),
which allows you to apply themes to
Panther’s interface. Changing more than
Finder windows, these themes alter the
appearance of windows, menus, buttons, scroll bars, and sliders.
Second Edition and Mac 911 (Peachpit
Press). Find Chris’ books at www.amazon.com and www. peachpit. com.
Archiving Your iLife
By Rich Lenoce,
Vice President
100 years after
my great
grandparent’s
wedding, the
photos of that
event are still
in beautiful
condition. But a
CD that I burned
of digital photos in
1995 is unreadable
today. As media storage
becomes more “digital,” how
do we preserve our iLife memories of
photos, music and videos—and even
our work—for the long term?
Storage and Compatibility
Selecting the proper storage media
and format for compatibility is the
best way to guarantee playback in the
distant future. A 78 rpm record isn’t
much good without a 78 rpm phonograph–but today 78/45/33 rpm record
players are still manufactured and
available from places like Sharper
Image because they were the standard
of their time. CDs and DVDs are standard today and there is no reason to
believe, even if replaced by better formats, that CDs and DVDs would
necessarily disappear since hundreds
of millions of recordings are in circulation. Also, if you use standard digital
formats such as JPEG and MPEG to
store your memories, future players
should not only play the CD or DVD
but read the files. Archiving, the science of storing and preserving
information or items for 50 or more
years, requires knowledge of the proper media and methods of storing
pictures, sounds and videos for future
generations to enjoy.
Archiving Digital Photos
If you are worried about your digital
photos file formats being incompatible or destroyed, have the photos
printed by a reputable photo lab, put
them in albums and store them away.
Don’t trust your ink jet printer to be
“archival” no matter what the manu-
facturer said. Keeping these photos
out of direct sunlight is the best
method to preserve them. If
you are going to display
the photos, have a
professional framing
service use acid free
materials and special
UV glass.
Since original digital
photos, audio and
videos need to be
stored electronically,
let’s examine each digital
media storage technology
and how to approach archiving.
Forget Hard Disks
With a gigabyte worth of storage
falling below $1 a gig, it would seem
this could be an economic method of
long-term storage. Just get a FireWire
drive and put it in the closet. Wrong!
Hard disks are precision electronic
devices with motors, heads and media
that must all work in perfect synchrony and therefore many things can
go wrong with them. Hard drives will
fail and, because of their fragility, they
are useless for long-term archival storage, which is why you should
constantly back up your data to a more
stable storage media like CDs or
DVDs.
CDs and DVDs
Commercial CDs and DVDs are the
most permanent examples of
CD/DVD storage because they use a
permanent printed metallic layer that
holds the data; that layer is then
placed within a plastic disc. As consumers, we are left with the CD and
DVD recordable formats, which use a
layer of organic dye sandwiched
between a reflective layer on top and a
clear plastic polymer underneath.
When a disk is “burned,” the laser literally burns the dye, which becomes
darker where the laser has hit the disk.
The alternating bright and dark spots
are read as the bit pattern that has been
recorded.
Both the dye material and reflective
layer play an important role in the
4
longevity of a CD-R and DVD-R.
Like the dyes in color photos, these
dyes will break down over time. The
longest lasting and most stable dye is
Phthalocyanine. When Phthalocyanine
is coupled with a real gold reflective
layer and kept in cold, dark storage,
tests indicate a disc can last 200+
years. Mitsui has a patent on this technology and makes the Mitsui Gold
CD-R. Some Phthalocyanine disks use
plain silver, a silver and gold blend, or
other metallic material for their reflective layers and these disks can last 200
years. These include Mitsui Silver,
Ricoh Platinum - Phthalocyanine dye
+ Silver.
If you are looking for
stable but not quite
Smithsonian-like
archival quality, Azo dye
with a metal reflective layer has been
tested to last 100 years using proper
storage. Azo CD-Rs are only made by
Mitsubishi/Verbatim and are labeled
Mitsubishi/Verbatim-Azo + Silver or
under the Verbatim DataLife label.
Verbatim DataLife CD-R and DVD-R
disks are very common and offer
longevity at a terrific price.
The shortest-lived type of dye used is
cyanine dye, a chemically unstable
dye that must be stabilized with other
materials. These are the least expensive disks intended for short-term use.
The aluminum used for the reflective
layer in these cheaper disks oxidizes
quickly, contaminating the disc and
making it unreadable sometimes within a matter of months. The first CD-Rs
and all current CD-RW discs use this
combination of materials and is the
reason many haven’t lasted. Never use
CD-RW and DVD-RW disks for longterm storage.
Storage and Handling
As with color photographs, CD-R and
DVD-R dyes fade when exposed to
Continued on page 5
light, particularly sunlight and break
down in extreme hot and cold. Direct
sun or excessive heat can destroy the
longest lasting disk in about two
hours! Store recordable media that
you wish to archive in places where
light, heat and humidity are controlled. Cool, dry places are best.
Handling also affects a disk’s longevity. On a recordable CD/DVD, the
reflective layer is on the top of the
disk making it the most vulnerable to
scratches. Bending a disc can cause
microscopic breaks and cracks in the
dye or reflective layer. Always store
an archived disk in a hard jewel case
with a center spindle that supports the
disk and always handle a disk from
the edges. Never mail an archived
disc, but if you must, pack it in a full
size jewel case, thick bubble wrap and
a tear proof envelope.
Finally, marking or labeling a disk can
reduce longevity. Stick-on label materials can cause disc failure as the glue
may eventually seep into the disk and
on to the reflective layer causing contamination. The ink from a Sharpie
marker has been shown to penetrate
the plastic. Use CD safe markers like
those from Maxell. If archiving a disk,
never use labels, glue or inks on a CD.
Make Copies
Finally, the type of archival media discussed cost less than a dollar each for
the highest quality archival CDs and
less than $5.00 for high quality DVDRs. At this price, there’s no reason
why you shouldn’t make more than
one copy if the data is truly important
to you. Make several copies and designate at least one as the original
archive disk. This disk should never
be touched or handled and should be
placed in a safe place such as a locked
fire safe, a safe deposit box or storage
chest. It doesn’t hurt to keep two
archive originals in the same or different locations in case one fails over
time. You should designate at least
one disk as the copy master to be
stored vertically on a shelf, in a drawer or other dark location. The copy
master will be used to make future
copies should any day-to-day copies
become damaged. There should be
copies for every day use and access.
All copies except for the original
archive disk should be checked annually for data integrity by placing the
disk in a computer and making sure
the disk mounts and files can be
accessed. The archive original should
never be accessed unless time has
taken its toll on all other copies and
even then it should only be used to
make another copy-master.
For compatibility purposes, a list of
files and their formats should be put
on the jewel case cover along with the
disk format type. Every 5-10 years the
content should be reviewed against
current file formats and disk standards
to make sure the formats used haven’t
become obsolete. If either the disk or
file formats have become obsolete
there should be readily accessible
tools to convert the old disks and files
to the latest formats.
Benefits:
Date ______________________________
Name _____________________________
Address ___________________________
City ______________________________
State________ Zip __________________
Phone (Home) ______________________
Phone (Office) ______________________
Phone (Fax) ________________________
Business___________________________
Tip of the
Month
Occupation_________________________
Did you attend our
holiday meeting in
December?
If you did, then you
probably came away with a great caricature from artist and member Bill
Dougal. Here’s a tip from President
Don Dickey for those of you running
OS X and iChat.
Scan your caricature, make the lines
bolder (bring into Photoshop as a gray
scale doc, apply a Gaussian blur, then
crank up the contrast to unblur), and
reduce the size to something like 64
pixels square.
You can then drop this icon of you
into the well under System
Preferences for your logon picture
and also into the well in iChat so people see it in their buddy list or when
you send an instant message or invite
an audio/video chat.
5
Email:_____________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
Annual Family
Membership - $25.00
Mail to: CMC
or...
Register Online with PayPal
at www.ctmac.org
Microsoft Office
Alternatives
by Rich Lenoce, Vice President
$400 for MS Office?
$200 just for Word?
For typing basic letters and calculating
checkbooks, that’s a
lot of money! Most
of us don’t need
Entourage because
OS X comes with Address Book,
Calendar, iSync and OS X Mail. But,
in a PC-centric world dominated by
MS Office in the workplace, can Mac
users function without Microsoft
Office? Can a lower cost Mac product
offer most of MS Office’s features and
seamless compatibility? The CMC
Board tested six programs over 30
days: iTextPro/Lightway, AppleWorks,
Mariner Write and Calc, Think Free
Office, Nisus Writer Express and
Ragtime Solo. Here’s what they found.
AppleWorks 6
($79 or free
with new Macs)
CMC President
Don Dickey uses
Appleworks 6
exclusively. “I
don’t even own a
copy of Microsoft Office and writing
is my business!” Don finds AW6
offers all the features of MS Office
with its word processing, spreadsheet
and presentation modules, but it also
includes drawing, painting, and database programs not included in
Office’s Macintosh version. AW6
opens and saves MS Office file formats (.doc, xls, etc.), thanks to the
included and well-integrated DataViz
MacLink Plus program. Don says,
“Best of all, it’s fast, small and will
run on almost any Mac, new or old.” A
Windows version is also available.
Hundreds of templates and 25,000
clip art images are available to customers with an Internet connection.
AW6 could use some updating. Data
isn’t interchangeable between AW6
And OS X’s Address Book and
Calendar formats. To save files to an
MS Office format, you must choose
Save As and then select the Office format manually; the default preferences
are the native Apple formats and that
can’t be changed. Also, integration
with .Mac for publishing data to the
web is practically non-existent. That
being said, this is a program ripe for a
major upgrade, but as it stands now,
it’s still a great buy.
Think Free Office ($49.95)
Chris Hart, CMC Secretary,
found the $49
ThinkFree office
an adequate alternative to MS
Office. It has the
ability to open
and save native
Office documents
and it worked well,
albeit slowly. Its interface was
very similar to Office…but the PC
version of Office! Chris found that the
dialog boxes and other navigation elements used PC icons. ThinkFree
Office is a Java program meant to run
on both platforms. “Switchers” might
be comfortable with this approach but
Mac aficionados might need to learn
the equivalent PC icons if they haven’t
used MS Office in a PC environment.
The program is slow in opening and
translating native Office documents
and has some bugs, but overall Chris
thought it did the job. Available from
http://www.thinkfree.com/
Ragtime Solo (Free)
Can a great program really be free?
CMC Webmaster
Brian Desmond
thinks
so.
Ragtime Solo, if
used non-commercially, is free
(commercially it’s
called Ragtime 5
and is $600) and proved to be a real
surprise to Brian. The basic office
applications–word processor, spreadsheet and presentation are full
featured–but the program also came
with sophisticated page layout, drawing, painting and database programs!
6
The page layout part of the package
convinced Brian this was more than a
Microsoft knock-off exclaiming,
“PageMaker is back!” because the
interface and operations are very similar. Unlike ThinkFree, Ragtime uses a
non-Microsoft approach to the interface, which takes some getting used
to. Text and objects are placed in containers that can then can be placed
anywhere on a page and layered. This
unique approach provides flexibility
far beyond Word-style word processing but also a learning curve, which
Brian found worth the effort.
Ragtime is not without its faults,
although they are few. Ragtime Solo
had no problem opening Office documents, but could not save in Office
native formats, instead using industry
standard RTF and PDF, which are fine
for most functions. No English dictionary is included but can be
purchased for $15 (euro). Available
from http://www.ragtime-online.com/
Mariner Write/Calc ($69.95 each)
Surprisingly, both applications look
more like AppleWorks than Microsoft
Office,
but
offer most of
Office’s functions.
Mail
merge
was
missing from
M a r i n e r
Write, as was
the ability to
save in .doc and .xls formats, but
could save to RTF and other standard
formats. I found Mariner Write and
Calc had trouble displaying complex
Word and Excel documents. For most
users this may not be a problem, but
for professionals this could prove
troublesome. I found the interface to
be nearly identical to the Appleworks
with one exception: the style/font
toolbar was right at the top of the document making the most common
features always accessible. Mariner’s
biggest problem is the price–nearly
twice as much as Appleworks for two
only programs. http://www.marinersoftware.com
Continued on page 7
Nisus Writer Express
($60 download / $40 upgrade)
CMC Ambassador Connie Scott
found Nisus
Express to be a
welcome surprise.
Though she pines
for the days of
Microsoft Word
5.1, Nisus’s unique
interface made her
take notice. Express
uses a side pane to put common tools
such as styles, sizes, colors and
objects. This unique approach plants
common tools firmly to the app
instead of floating around the desktop.
Text sizes are changed using a slider
providing immediate visual feedback.
It is a true OS X application, built
from the
ground
up so it’s
taking a
while to
gain all
of its
classic
counterpart features. Connie felt it was a fun
application once you got the hang of
it, and has great potential.
http://www.nisus.com
IText/iText Pro/Lightway
(Free / $20 / $25)
These are
different
implementations of
the same
program
with each
level going
up a notch
from basic text editor to word processor. Treasurer George Maciel said
though documentation was good, the
applications are somewhat limited.
Interfaces don’t follow normal conventions and though they work fine
and are inexpensive, they really aren’t
good Word alternatives considering
all of the other programs that do a better job. http://members.aol.com/iText/
Apple Seminars Online
Below you will find a listing of current seminars online. These online
events are available 24 hours a day, 7
days a week from any computer with
internet access. They are designed to
be no more than 30 minutes in length
and offer a wide variety of resources
and information for your review.
Topics cover solutions using Apple
and partner products and technologies. For training on these and other
solutions visit http://seminars.apple.
com/training/index.html
To find out more about these and
other Apple events, please visit:
http://www.apple.com/seminars
Keynote –
Improve Your Presentation Skills
Watch this free online seminar and
find out how to improve your presentation skills. For more information
visit http://seminars.apple.com/
seminarsonline/presenting/apple/
index.html?s=203
Information Lifecycle Management
Steve Kenniston, an Enterprise
Storage Group analyst will offer
insights as to how to manage vast
amounts of data while keeping your
overhead low. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminars
online/ilm/apple/index.html?s=203
Biotech is in our DNA
Michael Athanas, Ph.D., of The
BioTeam will show how to install a
fully provisioned informatics cluster
on one or more Xserve servers using
iNquiry. For more information visit
online/biotech/apple/index.html?s=203
Keynote: Presentations that
Meet Your Creative Standards
Take this free online seminar and find
out how Keynote allows you to create
superior presentations you would
expect from a professional creative
tool. For more information visit
online/keynote/apple/index.html?s=203
Break Through the Barriers to
Digital Photography Success
Digital photography provides exciting
ways to deliver new content and gain
greater control over the finished product, while saving time and money.
For more information visit http://
seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/
prophoto/apple/index.html?s=203
Perfectly Focused - Digital
Photography on Mac OS X
This seminar will show you why you
should take the plunge to digital—and
how to get started with your own digital photography workflow on Mac
OS X. For more information visit
online/perfectfocusinosx/apple/
Color Management
for Your Digital Workflow
This free online seminar helps demystify color management and gives you
the knowledge you need to incorporate it into your workflow. For more
information visit http://seminars.apple.
com/seminarsonline/colormgmt/apple/ind
ex.html?s=203
Unwire Your Business
out how Apple’s wireless and mobile
solutions let you take your computing
environment with you wherever you
go. For more information visit
online/wireless/apple/index.html?s=203
Guitarists and the Mac
A Conversation with Pat Metheny
Join Pat Metheny in this free online
seminar and learn how the Mac can
help you take your music to the next
level. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/guitarists/apple/index.html?s=203
Why Hire a Member
of the Apple Consultants Network
Learn about the services provided by
and advantages of hiring members of
the Apple Consultants Network. For
more information visit http://www.
seminars.apple.com/seminars
online/hireacn/apple/index.html
7
[email protected]
From Neal Dembicer:
http://www.gohook.com
Going,
Going,
Sold! If
you’ve ever visited an online auction
site, you may well have wondered
how much that used computer or that
piece of jewelry was really worth.
GoHook is a new auction database
that is meant to answer that question.
Its goal is to allow buyers and sellers
to research the fair market value of an
item by checking the final sale prices
in completed auctions. So far the site
lists only about 150,000 auctions–all
from eBay–but it is adding more than
2,000 auctions a day and hopes to
offer a million auctions by the end of
the year. It’s free until next year.
From Don Dickey:
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/
carefordisc/index.html or
http://www.itl.nist.gov/div895/
carefordisc/disccare.html
A US Government web site where you
can learn how to safely store data on
CD and DVD media. It seems that
adhesive labels and certain types of
markers can damage data on such
media.
http://www.badapple.kustomrides.com/
From author Bill Butler: “Welcome to
my homage to Panther, the operating
system that Apple deigned to replace
Jaguar, an honest, stable platform. In
its place is a surprisingly unstable OS
10.3.x. Herein lies the various
“screens of death” I’ve encountered,
mostly system crashes rivaling any
DOS blue screen.” This site is funny
with great comments on the various
screens of death. Unfortunately I have
seen too many of these screens
myself!
From Jack Bass:
http://www.presidentmatch.com/Main
.jsp2?cp=main
This is a very interesting site that
matches all of your voting preferences
with the candidates stated positions,
and then tells you who you should
vote for president. At the end, click
on the compare button, to compare all
the positions of your desired candidate with the one that is chosen for
you, if it is different.
www.govliquidation.com
This is a site for buying government
surplus at auction. Practically anything you might want, at very
reasonable prices . . . if you know
what you want or are willing to
research the item to know what you
are bidding on.
From Deena Quilty:
http://www.zinio.com/category?cat=1005
Free sample electronic versions of
several good magazines are available.
You’ll need the free Zinio Reader –
it’s available for Mac OS X.
Limewire features:
• Ease of use - just
install, run, and search
• Search by artist,
title, genre, or other
meta information
• Elegant multiple
search tabbed interface
• Integrated chat
• iTunes integration
for Mac users
• “Swarm” downloads from multiple hosts
• Unique “ultrapeer” technology reduces bandwidth
requirements for most users
• Browse host feature—even works through firewalls
• Added Bitzi metadata lookup
• International versions-available in many languages.
• Connects to the network using GWebCache, a
distributed connection system
• Automatic local network searches for lightning-fast
downloads.
• If you’re on a corporate or university network, down
load files from other users on the same network almost
instantaneously!
• Support for MAGNET links that allow you to click on
web page links that access Gnutella.
Limewire
File-sharing the
quick and easy way
www.limewire.com/english/content/download.shtml
Limewire is free, Limewire Pro is not. There is a version
for OS X and a Version for Mac OS 8.5 and above. I am
not using it to share music files, just regular files! If you
share music files, you do so at your own risk. (OK, you
have had your public service announcement. And if I
catch you downloading Clay Aiken without paying, I
will personally come over and paddle your ***. Sorry,
just love the guy!)
This latest 3.8.6 release features numerous enhancements to improve search and download performance and
refine the user experience. A new connection scheme
with a connection quality meter helps users gain connectivity faster on startup. Search progress bars show a
user how far along a search is progressing. Finally, files
of any language can now be shared and searched for
through LimeWire.
8
documents, making it available for use
by the most popular software titles.
Regular price: $129, User Group price:
$89. Order PDF2Office at: http://www.
digitalriver.com/promo=38013. This
offer expires May 31, 2004 and is available to members of U.S. user groups.
Take Control Electronic Books
Adam and Tonya Engst of TidBITS are
continuing their fourteen years of support for user groups with a special 10
percent discount for all orders in their
new Take Control electronic book
series. Take Control ebooks provide
highly practical, tightly focused, inexpensive help from leading Macintosh
authors. Titles are delivered in PDF layout with active links, and are optimized
for on-screen viewing.
XtremeMac
Current titles include: Take Control of
Upgrading to Panther, by Joe Kissell,
Take Control of Customizing Panther,
by Matt Neuburg, Take Control of
Users & Accounts in Panther, by Kirk
McElhearn, Take Control of Sharing
Files in Panther, by Glenn Fleishman
To take advantage of this offer, enter
code “muggle” during Step 2 of the
checkout process (Shipping and
Payment Method). Your discount will be
calculated automatically. XtremeMac
http://www.xtrememac.com This offer
expires May 31, 2004 and is available to
members of U.S. user groups.
To get your discount, enter coupon
code CPN31208MUG when ordering.
Ta k e C o n t r o l E b o o k C a t a l o g
http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol.
This ongoing offer is available to user
group members worldwide.
Recosoft PDF2Office
PDF2Office is the revolutionary PDF
document conversion and data extraction tool. PDF2Office converts PDF
documents into editable Microsoft
Word, RTF, AppleWorks, HTML and
other file formats. PDF2Office recreates the original layout of the
document, forming paragraphs, applying styles, re-grouping independent
graphics elements, extracting images,
creating tables, and processing headers/footers, endnotes/footnotes and
columns/sections.
PDF2Office provides options for converting a range of pages in a PDF
document into word processing formats
and popular image types such as JPEG,
Photoshop and more. PDF2Office lets
you unlock the content stored in PDF
XtremeMac is proud to offer Mac user
group members 20 percent discount on
all iPod accessories, as well as 20 percent off our new RecipeManager
software, awarded Best of Show at
MacWorld Expo. Choose from iPod
cases, car chargers, and more, including
the new SportWrap for the active iPod
user. Keep watching for exciting new
products for the entire iPod line.
Element K Journals
View a free issue and save $50 off a
new subscription. Do you want to
advance your skills to a higher level and
rapidly increase your productivity with
Photoshop? Then you’ll love our
monthly “how-to” journals “Photoshop
Fundamentals” & “Inside Photoshop.”
Beginner or expert, you’ll jump-start
your productivity with Adobe
Photoshop when you subscribe to
either of these 16-page, four-color journals that give you specific, real world
design examples you can easily apply
to your day-to-day work. You’ll learn
quick shortcuts, find hidden features,
and avoid common mistakes so you can
work smarter, faster, and more creatively. Regular price: $139 per year, Mac
user group members: first year for just
$89. Price is $99 outside the U.S. &
Canada.
Element K Journals http://go.elementkjournals.com/mug. This offer
expires June 31, 2004.
9
Design Tools Monthly
Free issue and 50% off a new subscription You know that stack of magazines
in your office that you wish you had
time to read? What about all those websites you need to scour for updates? If
you prefer to spend your time being
creative, get Design Tools Monthly
instead. For the past twelve years,
Design Tools Monthly has provided
“the Executive Summary of Graphic
Design News” to subscribers in more
than 40 countries.
Regular price: $229, Mac user group
members: first year for just $99, $125
outside U.S. and Canada. For a free
sample issue or to subscribe:http://
www.design-tools.com/mug or call
(303) 543-8400. This worldwide offer
expires July 31, 2004.
The MUG Store
The MUG store always has great deals
for user group members! If you haven’t
looked lately, be sure to surf to
www.applemugstore.com and seek out
great deals on all sorts of Mac products.
This month’s highlights include:
Refurbished eMacs starting at $599
Refurbished iBooks starting at $729
Refurbished 17” iMacs from $1549
Don’t forget - your group gets a one
percent return toward anything the
MUG Store sells when your members
buy from the Store. Place your orders.
http://www.applemugstore.com This
offer is available to members of U.S.
user groups. Get a complete list of all
current deals. http://www.mugcenter
.com/vendornews/vendornews.html
CMC Web Site Access
www.ctmac.org
User ID: xxx (all uppercase)
January 1, 2004 - March 31, 2004
User ID: xxxx / Password: xxxx
April 1, 2004 - July 31, 2004
Editor Deena Quilty
[email protected]
10
Upcoming Meetings
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Board meetings are the
first Thursday of the month.
If you wish to attend a Board meeting,
contact an officer for the location.
March 31 • 7 pm
Bring the kids! Mindstorm allows
your Mac to control Legos into
walking, rolling, moving, reaching
robots. For adults, Mindstorms are
just plain fun but for children it
teaches them a variety of topics
including math, science, robotics,
computer and design technology.
This presentation should be fun for
the whole family.
April 28 • 7 pm
Wacom Tablet Demo
From the basic tablet to the
incredible Cintiq tablet.
May 26 • 7 pm
Digital Photography Basics
Selecting and using your
digital camera.
June 29 • 7 pm
Hands-On Photoshop, iPhoto
and iDVD Workshops
at Middlesex Community College.
GarageBand
Quark/InDesign
Celebrity Guest Night
Annual Auction
Migration to OSX
and Much More!
Discounted
Books
CMC continues to offer
current members the
opportunity to purchase any published
book for either Mac or Windows at a
20% discount. All major publishers
are carried by our source.
Treasurer’s
Report
FREE
Raffle!
Every member who attends our
monthly meetings gets a raffle ticket.
This will give you a chance for one of
our free prizes every month! You
could win . . . t-shirts, toys, CDs,
mugs, software . . . there’s always
something we’re giving away!
New Members
Ending Checking
Account Balance ................$1921.29
Balances as of February 29, 2004
“Back To Basics”
CMC Classified Ads
A monthly “mini” group meeting,
designed to help you to better understand your Mac, will take place each
month immediately prior to the main
presentation. It will provide you with a
forum to learn those details that you’ve
always wondered about. Details,
including start time and date of the first
meeting, will be announced soon by
Chris Hart (email: [email protected])
CMC Elections
are coming up!
Monthly Ad Rates
Elections for President, Vice
President, Secretary, and Treasurer
will be held at the May meeting. Any
member is eligible to run for any
position. Any one willing to give
back to CMC for what they have
received, please contact Connie
Scott, Nominating Committee Chair
at [email protected]. Any
questions about the election, please
e-mail to the same address.
11
Business Card ..........................$10.00
Quarter Page.............................$20.00
Half Page..................................$30.00
graphics embedded.
direction guide to UConn Health Center is available on our website:
http://www.ctmac.org. Print and take it with you to find us easily!
Monthly meetings will be held at UConn Health Center in Farmington. When hands-on programs
require computers for attendees, we will be using Middlesex Community College in Middletown.
Directions to Middlesex C.C.
left as you enter.
Hill Road. Your first left will lead into the Middlesex
Community College Campus parking area. When you
arrive on campus, take a right onto Training Hill Road.
Go to the second parking lot entrance and take a left
into the upper lot. Directly in front of you will be Snow
Hall. Enter Snow Hall and go up the stairs to the 2nd
floor and go to the last room on the right, Room 509.
12
Monthly Meeting
April 28 – 7 p.m.
Wacom Tablet Demo
Green Apples – 6 p.m.
(See Page 5 for details)
Instant
Messaging ‘04
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
As you know, my focus
as your president has
always been to help you have fun with
your Mac. In keeping with this theme,
I’d like to share my experiences with
Instant Messaging. While it’s been
around for a while, recent software
upgrades have made it a lot more fun
than it used to be.
If you have a teenager in your household, you already know that Instant
Messaging is “in” these days. The
good news is that if you have a broadband connection to the internet, at
least your teen isn’t tying up the
phone line for hours on end as was
common in years past.
What you should know is that Instant
Messaging isn’t just for teens! I’ve
been using it for quite a while now to
communicate with several friends
who would otherwise require a long
distance phone call. I don’t mean text
chats either, but
real voice communication!
What do you need
to get started?
First of all, you
n e e d a n AO L
“screen name”
which is your IM
identity or “handle.” Fortunately,
MAY, 2004
you don’t need to be an AOL subscriber to get one, and it’s completely
free! The place to get started is at
www.aim.com or my.screenname.aol.
com. You’ll need to convince them
that you’re over 18 years old and you
will also need to provide an email
address where they can send you a
message that you must reply to for
account activation to be completed.
Next, you need to get some Instant
Messaging software. If you’re running Panther (OS X v10.3) or later,
you’ve already got Apple’s great
iChat AV. If you’re running Jaguar
(OS X v10.2.x), you can purchase
iChat AV from Apple. If you’re running OS 9 you’re not out of luck. You
can download the “Classic” version of
AOL’s own instant messenger which
includes “Talk” in the full install.
Note that you should not download
the “Carbon” version (now at 4.7) as
Talk is not included.
To use VOIP (voice over internet
protocol), you also need some equipment: a microphone and speakers.
Fortunately, many Macs include builtin microphones and nearly all (except
the new G5s) have built-in speakers.
Those with iMacs, iBooks, eMacs,
and PowerBooks are ready to IM right
out-of-the-box!
Otherwise, you may need
to purchase a microphone
and speakers. Older
PowerMacs use what’s
called a PlainTalk microphone. Newer Macs use
USB microphones. I have
1
a USB desk microphone and also a
USB headset for Instant Messaging.
If you’re using AOL’s software (under
OS 9), you’ll find that headphones are
a virtual necessity. Otherwise, the
person you are talking with will hear
themselves coming back in a sort of
reverb.
OS X’s iChat eliminates this problem
by electronically subtracting you
speaker audio from what the microphone hears, so a headset is not
usually required (unless you want to
keep others in the room from listening in on your conversation).
Finally, all that’s left is to set the software up. You need to enter your
username and password to “sign on”
to the AOL Instant Messaging server.
You also should add the screen names
of your “buddies” into your “Buddy
List” so you can see when they’re on
and initiate a chat or conversation.
If you’re using iChat AV, you can start
it from your Dock. When setting it up,
you should tell it that you’re using an
AOL server and not a .Mac server,
and what your screen name and passContinued on page 2
In this Issue
Instant Messaging................................ 1
Scanning with Digital Camera............. 3
Super Driving - DVD ...........................4
Green Apples ....................................... 5
Tactile Pro Keybord Article...................6
Apple Seminars ....................................9
Upcoming Meetings ...........................10
word are. In Preferences, set it up to
show your online status in the menu
bar. You’ll see a new symbol at the top
right of your screen where you can
easily toggle your status from
Available to Off-line and also bring
up your Buddy List. In your iChat AV
“Buddy List” click the “+” button at
the bottom. Then, click New Person.
Set the Account Type to AIM, type in
a buddy’s name and click Add. In
AOL’s software, just use the Setup tab
in your buddy list to add buddies. You
can separate them into categories,
such as Buddies, Family, or CoWorkers, if you wish.
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content
Contributor
Don Dickey
Contributing
Author
Rich Lenoce
Deeena Quilty
CMC Editor
Designer
George Maciel
Photographers
John Scott
Jack Bass
Chris Hart
Caricatures
Bill Dougal, CMC member
(860) 456-9041
Available for illustration
assignments & event caricatures
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
If you’re running iChat AV, the “V”
stands for Video. This, or course,
requires a video camera. Apple supports only FireWire video cameras
such as their excellent iSight or most
any digital camcorder (with a
FireWire cable). There is shareware
available which enables inexpensive
USB cameras to work, however. I
recently purchased iChatUSBCam
from the folks at www.ecamm.com
for $10, and it works just fine. That
was a lot cheaper than any FireWire
camera, and sufficient to get my feet
wet with video conferencing. You can
download a demo that runs for a week
so you can see if your hardware and
software are up to the task before
plunking down real $$$.
There are several hidden features in
iChat AV (and also in AOL/IM... just
in different places). One cool thing
you can do is set up “Actions” that
happen when a buddy logs on. To do
this in iChat, click on the person in
your buddy list (they don’t have to be
online at the time) and Get Info
(Command-I). Toggle Show at the top
to Actions. Here you can toggle Event
to Buddy Becomes Available to cause
a sound to play, the Dock icon to
bounce, and/or to have your Mac
announce them with speech. For
instance, when my buddy John signs
2
on, my Mac says,
“ J o h n i s o n .”
This way, I can
set the defaults in
iChat to be silent,
so Buddies coming and going
don’t make any
sounds, but certain Buddies
announce themselves as I’m likely to
want to chat with them right away.
(Note that you can do this in AOL’s
software, but you do it in Preferences
instead of in the Buddy List.)
Another thing you can do is set a special ring tone for audio and/or video
chat invitations from this Buddy. This
is handy if you’re in a different room
and want to be able to hear a loud
ringer; useful for when your kid calls
from college (and you’d rather chat on
your Mac than on a long distance
phone call). The default ringer in
iChat AV is particularly quiet, but you
can choose another louder sound if
you wish.
To add new a new sound, OS X
requires it to be in AIFF format. You
can use iTunes to convert sounds from
MP3 to AIFF. Place the AIFF file(s) in
your “Sounds” folder in your
“Library” folder. If you don’t have a
“Sounds” folder, simply create one in
your Library. You may have to log out
and back in for the Mac to see the new
sounds you’ve added. If you want
these sounds to be available for multiple users, add them instead to the
Sounds folder in the Library folder at
the root of your hard drive and restart.
These are the basics. Instant
Messaging is a great way to have fun
(and save money) with your Mac. The
best part is that AV chatting is completely free if you already have an
Internet connection and the required
hardware. Remember, I always say
having fun is what it’s all about! 
Scanning With
Your Digital
Camera
by Jack Bass
A few members
have asked me for
further details on how
I scanned over 5000 slides and film
negatives (some of my extensive collection), after I showed my system at a
meeting awhile back.
I owned a Polaroid 4000 scanner
($750 on sale) that took 15 minutes to
scan four slides and realized it would
take me years to copy my immense
collection gathered over fifty years.
Thus, I looked around for an alternative. A friend–he has a large
collection of film negatives and slides,
too–thought we could do it with an old
copying adapter that fit a film camera,
as his Kodak digital camera (3
megapixel) had threads on the lens
front ring and focused within a few
inches of the lens.
I experimented with him until we
found the correct distance to see a full
photo on the LCD. We had to take the
close focusing lens out of the filmcopying adapter as it was redundant.
Then he had a machine shop trim the
end of the film adapter off and weld an
adapter ring with the correct thread
size on the other end to fit the camera.
He bought one of those white light
fluorescent floor lamps for his light
source. The lamps are advertised in
many magazines for $149.95 plus S &
H. They have 55 watts (250 watt
equivalent) full-spectrum fluorescent
bulbs. It worked just fine for him. He
has placed most of his slides on zip
drives and displays them on his 55inch TV where they show off
impressively. He has thrown his slides
away as he says they take up too much
room and he will never project them
on a screen again. (He has more nerve
than I have and probably more sense!)
I have a 5 megapixel Nikon Coolpix
5000. Something told me to go to the
Nikon web site and there was a film
copying adapter (ES-E28) and auxiliary adapter (UR-E6) for less than
$100. I have never seen it advertised.
The adapter is good for most of the
Nikon digital cameras with the correct
auxiliary adapter that fits the camera
to the copying adapter. It also comes
with a negative film strip holder and a
two place slide holder (see photos).
There may be a copying adapter out
there for your camera. Try your camera maker’s web site and search for
“copying adapter” or something similar.
My camera has four setting options. I
have one of the options set to default
to closeup, color slide copying and
another sett to copying black and
white negatives and a third set to
copying color negatives.
The slide holder is the easier to use as
it can be placed in the copying adapter
end and slid back and forth without
removing it. The slides are put in and
removed from the top. Thus, I
can put a slide in one end of the
adapter, slide it over, hold a second until the camera focuses
and then press the shutter.
Placing another slide in the free
end and sliding it in place
exposes the slide already copied
that is removed and another
slide placed in, etc. It takes
about 15 seconds for each
slide. That is 4 per
minute. And the
results are very good.
Of course, I have a box
of slides ready to scan on
my right and they end up in
another box to my left. For now, they
end up on CD or DVD discs after processing through my computer using
iPhoto. My daughter and son love to
view them on their own TV set at
home any time they want. No setup
required using a DVD player.
3
The film holder has to be loaded, slid
into the copying adapter end and
moved as each negative is copied.
Then it is removed, negative holder
opened and film removed and another
strip placed in. It takes about two minutes to do a strip of six depending on
how adept you are in opening and
placing the strip of film appropriately
in the slide holder.
My light is a desk lamp with a $15
Philips Daylight 50 15-watt fluorescent bulb bought at Home Depot. It
works just fine for me with my camera
on a small tripod placed on my desk
facing the bulb about four inches
away. 
Super Driving
What is a DVD
By Rich Lenoce,
Vice President
This may sound
like a silly question, but in reality
there is a lot of confusion
about DVDs particularly since Macs for
the last five years have shipped with
DVD recorders called Superdrives and
iDVD software.
The acronym DVD stands for (drum
roll please) . . . nothing! Originally, the
DVD Forum, the DVD standards organization made up of the Hollywood
Studios, Pioneer Electronics and Apple,
named the format Digital Video Disk
but when it became apparent that the
format was going to go beyond playing
movies and would be used for DVDROM (storing files), DVD Audio, etc.
the acronym no longer worked, so it’s
just called a DVD.
When using the term DVD we need to
qualify that DVDs have a physical format such as DVD-ROM (any pressed
DVD with files on it), or DVD-R
(recordable DVDs), and an application
format such as DVD video for distributing movies, DVD-Audio, etc. This is no
different then Compact Disks, which
are available as CD-ROMs, CD-R, CDRW and can contain a standardized
application such as CD Audio.
Unlike the 700 mb CD, DVDs hold 4.7
gigabytes of on a single layer. Each side
of a DVD can have two layers giving a
potential of 9 gigabytes per side and 18
gigabytes per disk for a double-sided,
double-layered DVD. A DVD player
plays the second layer by moving the
laser to a slightly different angle. When
a DVD switches layers, there is a minor
pause or stutter in DVD video.
Currently, dual layer DVDs are limited
to commercially pressed DVDs; recordable DVDs are limited to one layer and
hold 4.7 gigabytes per side.
The DVD video disks we rent and purchase use a standardized hierarchical
file structure providing random access
to all features on a disk from a menu or
series of menus or can play automatically depending on how they are
authored or programmed. By standardizing DVD video, the DVD Forum
insured that disks could be manufactured to provide universal playback on
players from different manufacturers.
Though DVD video is a standard, its
hierarchical or branching file structure
offers tremendous flexibility allowing
for multiple menus, different types of
audio (stereo, surround, Dolby, DTS),
languages, subtitles, extras (graphics,
animation, DVD-ROM content), multiple titles and programs as well as
multiple camera angles of individual
scenes.
All of the files on an authored DVD
video are referred to as a title set.
Minimally, there are two basic types of
files that can make up a set: files that
provide information and navigation on
the disk are called Information Set Files
(.IFO) and the video files themselves
called Video Object files (.VOB). Other
files for graphics, commentary, surround audio, etc can also be included.
The video on a DVD video is not one
single file but several VOB files–a
movie, for example is broken up into
several individual files that can play
sequentially or accessed individually as
chapters. The reason for multiple VOB
files is that when the DVD standard was
set, operating systems were limited to
files sizes that could not exceed 2gigabytes. Most DVD movies are 6-8
gigabytes in length so they must be broken up into several smaller VOB files;
the IFO files provide the information
about the sequence these files are to be
played.
VOB files are encoded using the
MPEG2 video compression standard.
Compressed video must be used
because uncompressed video is enormous. An uncompressed 2-hour movie
would be 200 gigabytes in size, but
4
MPEG2 compression reduces this to
about 8 gigabytes for two hours of very
high quality video. The person doing
the compression sets the rate of compression based on the quality required
or the amount of data needed to be
stored on the disk. The more compression applied, the lower the picture
quality and more data can fit on a disk.
Up to 8 hours of high quality video and
30 hours of low quality video can be
encoded onto a single disk. The optimum quality can be derived using a
compression data rate of 9.8 mbps but
most movies are encoded at between 5
and 6 mbps providing good quality yet
keeping a movie to one side on two layers. At this rate, a single two and a half
hour movie can fit on one side of a
DVD with very high picture quality.
Obviously, the compression rate used
affects the price of the DVD: the more
layers and disks used, the more expensive to duplicate and the higher the cost
to the consumer. Once compressed, a
chip in a DVD player or software on a
computer such as Apple’s DVD Player
decompresses the video turning it back
into a picture.
Commercial DVDs are also copy-protected using methods to thwart theft,
mass duplication and illegal importation. The first method, called CSS, puts
an encryption key on each frame. A
legitimate DVD player has the decryption key that unlocks the CSS on each
frame so that files can be played back
for viewing. Operating systems on
computers don’t have the key so therefore a digital copy can’t be made
because the file can’t be unlocked.
DVD video disks and players are also
Continued on page 5
regionalized by continent or country.
The United States is considered Region
1 and all players and disks sold here
will work together. Taking a disk to
another region (Europe, Asia, Australia,
etc) and attempting to play a Region 1
disk on Region 4 player won’t work.
For travelers, laptop software can reset
the region to the country being traveled
to limiting that change to 7 or 8 times.
However, DVD players don’t have this
feature. This protects illegal US copies
of DVDs being sold beyond the region
they were intended theoretically reducing the black market of pirated disks.
Finally, DVD video uses the same
Macrovision analog copy protection
used on commercial VHS tapes that
causes distortion when an analog copy
is made from a commercial DVD. Like
VHS and audiotapes, if you own a copy
of a DVD you are entitled to make a
copy for your own use but the DVD
Forum in adding these protections to
the DVD standard isn’t making it easy.
In addition, the Digital Copyright
Protection Act makes it illegal for a
manufacturer to sell software to break
the copy protection on a DVD. That is
currently being challenged in court.
There are other commercial DVD
application standards such as DVDAudio, etc. There are also recordable
DVD formats such as those used in
Apple’s Super Drive. The DVD Forum
approved a recordable standard called
DVD-R (a.k.a. DVD minus R) and
DVD-RW, the re-writable version.
DVD-R/RW is similar to CD-R/RW
but can hold 4.7 gigabytes per side;
dual layers are not supported. Most new
DVD players sold today can play
DVD-R. Not to be outdone, a second
group of companies, which included
Microsoft and Sony, created another
standard called DVD+R/RW. This was
created primarily as a backup medium
and as a way not to pay the DVD
Forum for the technology. On the PC
side it is being used by consumers to
create video DVDs but DVD+R is supported in only about 40% of DVD
players. Apple currently doesn’t support this standard but it is supported in
third-party applications such as Toast.
DVD technology is a “standard definition” video technology, meaning it is
limited to the 525 line TV standard that
has been in use for the last 60 years, not
the 720 and 1080 line standards called
High Definition (HDTV) that go into
effect in 2006. DVDs are not high definition, so a new optical disk or DVD
application standard will need to be
developed. Don’t worry!!! DVD is here
to stay and any new technology will be
able to play today’s DVDs. However,
there is a fight brewing in the wings
between the DVD Forum and its proposal for a high definition encoding
being placed on a standard DVD, and a
new blue laser video disk technology
that offers 25 gigabytes on a
disk–enough to fit hours of extremely
high quality HDTV. The fight is a big
one as it’s expected that the next generation of optical disk standards will be
the last–whatever technology is adopted will stay for many years to come. It
is expected to be the last, since some
other yet-to-be-determined memory
device with no moving parts (similar to
Flash memory used in digital cameras)
will provide the next wave of data storage. Or, movies may also fly across a
new broadband Internet for rent or purchase like today’s web pages, and never
actually reside on a portable disk. At
the moment, we sit at the edge between
science fiction and tomorrow’s realities.
Seeing how a DVD works places a
whole new perspective on the power of
a new Mac; a machine where DVD
authoring comes standard and free. The
Mac Superdrive and iDVD 1.0 were
released when there were less than 10
million DVD players in the hands of
consumers. Today, there are an estimated 75 million players, and growing with
the technology has meant Apple-made
DVDs work on 90% of today’s players.
Whatever the next standards are for
home video, you can be sure Apple will
again be leading the revolution. 
5
Green Apples
by Chris Hart,
CMC Secretary
Do You Feel Like
A Green Apple?
CMC is ready to ripen your computer
knowledge with CMC Back To Basics,
a monthly pre-meeting session focusing on the essentials of Macintosh
computing. Open to all CMC members, this session offer an abbreviated
program that answers the most popular
questions among Mac users.
Join us on April 28th for our session
on web browser basics. You’ll learn
about the numerous web browsers
available and the benefits of each.
Discussions will include preferences
settings, security issues, pop-ups,
cookies and bookmarks.
Our May 26th session will be all
about sharing files between computers. Whether you want to do a
one-time transfer to a brand new Mac,
or share files on a regular basis, we’ll
demonstrate how it’s done.
Back To Basics will take a break during the month of June, when the
CMC meeting will will be at
Middlesex Community College in
Middletown.
On July 28th, CMC will return to
UConn Medical Center, and Back To
Basics will provide a complete exploration of the System Preferences in
Mac OS X. After attending this session, you’ll be able to customize your
computer’s behavior to your liking.
Please join us each month (except
June) at 6:00 P.M. for CMC Back To
Basics. These sessions take place just
across the hall from our primary
meeting space inside the UConn
Medical Center. We encourage you
to bring a notepad, so that you can
take notes on the demonstrations and
explanations provided. Afterwards,
we’ll leave you plenty of time to
move across the hall and get a seat for
the main CMC meeting.
I look forward to seeing you! 
The Majestic Alps and
the King of Keyboards
by Adam C. Engst
[email protected]
Back in the days
when ADB ruled
the land, Apple
made one of the best
keyboards in the known
universe - the Apple Extended
Keyboard. It was a large, solid keyboard with a great tactile feel provided
by mechanical switches under each
key. But good keyboards cost money,
and over time Apple traded the desire to
provide the best keyboard with the Mac
for the desire to spend less money per
Mac by skimping on the keyboard.
Thanks to moving away from Alps
mechanical keyswitches, Apple’s keyboards became mushy, and those of us
who appreciate a good keyboard muttered darkly and clung to our old
keyboards.
But if things were looking bad then,
they were to get worse (and I promise
not to dwell on the abomination that is
the location of the Fn key on
PowerBook and iBook keyboards).
When Apple introduced the iMac, it
included a cute little keyboard with a
non-standard layout and a truly awful
tactile feel, accompanied by a round
mouse that was even worse. Almost
everyone hated this keyboard (I’m
being kind here, since in fact, I don’t
know anyone who liked it, but it’s a big
world out there and Apple sold a lot of
iMacs, so I’m sure someone must have
liked it). Worse, since the iMac dropped
ADB in favor of USB, it became difficult to use an old ADB keyboard, since
USB-to-ADB adapters tended to be a
bit flaky with keyboards, which need to
work in unusual situations such as
when the Mac is powered down, sleeping, or crashed.
Having fallen to previously unexplored
depths, Apple pulled itself out of the
fetid mire with the Apple Pro
Keyboard, a full-size keyboard with a
standard layout and a decent tactile
feel. The Apple Pro Keyboard was so
much better than the original iMac keyboard that everyone
breathed a
sigh of
relief and
with a few
exceptions,
forgot that even the
Apple Pro Keyboard
couldn’t hold a candle to the
Apple Extended Keyboard.
On a Mission — I, and the other members of the TidBITS staff, do a lot of
typing. Our keyboards are in constant
use all day long, as we write and edit
articles, create and reply to email, and
who knows what else. In fact, the main
serious use for keyboards that we don’t
have is gaming, where fast and accurate
response are essential.
Over the last few years, we’ve tried a
number of keyboards. Note that we
don’t want anything fancy, like split
keyboards, or keyboards with lots of
extra specialty keys. All we want is a
real Macintosh keyboard (with
Command and Option keys, rather than
Windows and Alt keys) that’s basically
the same as the Apple Extended
Keyboard.
None of the keyboards we’ve tried,
including some from Macally,
Kensington, and MicroConnectors,
have garnered entirely positive comments, and more problematic, a number
of them have failed in some important
way (who needs an N key anyway!).
Enter the Tactile Pro — We’re inundated by press releases every day, and
it’s uncommon for one to generate
comment on our internal staff mailing
list. However, when we received the
initial press release for Matias’s Tactile
Pro keyboard, which led with “Matias
recreates ‘the best keyboard Apple ever
made’” and went on to promise that the
Tactile Pro Keyboard used the same
mechanical switch technology as the
original Apple Extended Keyboard,
there was very nearly an online battle
over who would get to try a review unit
first. Ever the voice of calm and reason,
I settled the question by announcing
6
that I would take first crack at it. To
quote Tom Petty, it’s good to be king.
<http://tactilepro.com/>
On the face of it, the Tactile Pro
Keyboard looks very much like the
Apple Pro Keyboard (at least the one
that came with my Power Mac G4),
with a clear plastic shell backed by
white plastic and solid white keys. It’s
slightly less wide (from Caps Lock to
the edge of the numeric keypad) than
the Apple Pro Keyboard, but deeper
(from the spacebar to the top of the keyboard above the function keys). Like
the Apple Pro Keyboard, it sports a
hard-wired cable and a pair of USB
ports on either side of the top. A pair of
feet flip out from the bottom if you prefer your keyboard angled up (so your
fingers are higher than your wrists, a
position I usually recommend against
because of the unnatural hand position
it enforces).
The keyboard layout is standard (no Fn
or other boutique keys anywhere in
sight!) and for the most part very similar to the Apple Pro Keyboard. There
are a few differences, though. The top
row of keys (Escape, the function keys,
and the volume and Eject keys) are
somewhat more separated from the rest
of the keyboard than on the Apple Pro
Keyboard, which is fine, since you
don’t want to press them accidentally.
The Tactile Pro Keyboard also has a
power key above the function keys, a
welcome addition if you can’t easily
reach one of the power keys on your
Mac or if you don’t have Apple monitors (which can power the machine on).
Through no fault of Matias’s, the power
key can only power on older Macs with
the necessary hardware support;
Apple’s current Macs no longer support
power on signals via USB (but the
power key still brings up the
Restart/Sleep/Shut Down dialog when
the Mac is turned on).
At a quick glance, the keycaps on the
Tactile Pro Keyboard look slightly
unusual. When you look more closely,
you realize that Matias has done something that would seem obvious except
Continued on page 7
for the fact that no one has done it
before: they printed the Option- and
Shift-Option-characters on every keycap. It’s a brilliant move; no longer do
you need a software utility to look up
the degree character when you can just
glance at the keyboard and see that it’s
Shift-Option-8. And before this I could
never keep the keystrokes straight for
single and double curly quotes (hold
Option- or Shift-Option and press the
bracket keys).
http://tactilepro.com/viewer/tp_mainpic.html
On the downside,
the Tactile Pro
Keyboard’s Option
keys are slightly
smaller than on the
A p p l e P r o
Keyboard, making
them harder to hit accurately. The
Apple Pro Keyboard’s Caps Lock key
has an unusual keycap that separates it
slightly from the A key; the Tactile Pro
Keyboard lacks that special keycap, so
I find myself accidentally turning Caps
Lock on more frequently than before.
Speaking of special keys, the volume
and Eject keys require a special driver
that Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar users must
install; a CD-ROM contains the necessary installer.
Where the Tactile Pro Keyboard really
shines, though, is in its feel. The keys
are decidedly “clickier” and more
mechanical, and
they have a slightly
longer key travel
when you push
them. The end result
is a much less mushy feel than on the
Apple Pro Keyboard, but accompanied
by much louder typing noises. When
I’m typing fast, the Tactile Pro
Keyboard almost clatters, and I can say
with assurance that I don’t mind one
bit. The new feel took a little getting
used to, but within a day, it felt quite
wonderful.
It’s entirely possible that some people
may not appreciate the extra noise;
there’s no question that the Tactile Pro
Keyboard is much louder than the
Apple Pro Keyboard and other keyboards that use rubber membrane
switches. I could imagine situations
where a quiet keyboard would be
important, but for most people, the
important aspect of a keyboard is how it
feels when you type. I had to switch
back to the Apple Pro Keyboard briefly
because the first Tactile Pro Keyboard
Matias sent me developed a spotty A
key after a few weeks of use; Edgar
Matias told me that although the Alps
keyswitches generally last for many
years, if one is going to fail, it will fail
almost immediately (which is why
Matias offers a 5-year “few questions
asked” warranty).
The return to the Apple Pro Keyboard
was revealing. My typing accuracy
dropped immediately, and my hands
ached after a long day. Although I probably would have re-acclimated to it
after another week or two, switching
back to the replacement Tactile Pro
Keyboard when it arrived was a huge
relief.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but if you
consider yourself a keyboard aficionado, or if you’ve been bothered by the
slide in quality for Apple’s keyboards,
you owe it to yourself to give the Tactile
Pro Keyboard a try. It costs $100 plus
$20 shipping if you buy direct from
Matias; it probably makes more sense
to buy from a reseller like TidBITS
sponsor Small Dog Electronics, where
the price is $80 before shipping.
Protecting the Alps — There’s an
interesting little side story that played
itself out while I was reviewing the keyboard and communicating back and
forth with Edgar Matias. The Tactile
Pro Keyboard had been out for only a
short while when Alps, the makers of
the mechanical keyswitches,
announced that they were going to stop
making these particular keyswitches
altogether.
Most vendors have moved to a lowercost clone of the keyswitch, but when
Edgar tried a sample keyboard they sent
him, he thought it felt awful, with a
7
touch so light it was tricky to avoid typing a character if he so much as touched
a keycap. Although a light touch might
seem like a good thing, it’s common to
rest your fingers gently on the keycaps
when you’re not typing, and if the
switch doesn’t provide a certain
amount of resistance, you end up entering characters accidentally. Most users
respond to a too-light keyboard by
holding their fingers just above the keyboard, but that subconscious action can
make you even more tired by the end of
the day. Despite this light touch, the
sample keyboard was even louder than
the Tactile Pro Keyboard. Needless to
say, he was shocked that this could happen, both because he feared for the
Tactile Pro Keyboard’s future and
because he didn’t want see the famed
Alps keyswitch disappear for good.
Since Alps would have mothballed the
tooling used to build this particular
keyswitch, it might never have been
produced again, particularly if the tooling deteriorated in the warehouse from
lack of use and maintenance.
Luckily, Edgar was able to convince the
Alps factory in Taiwan to keep the tooling active for him by committing to buy
a million keyswitches. There are 110
keys (and thus presumably keyswitches) on a Tactile Pro Keyboard, so
Matias needs to sell just over 9,000
keyboards to use up the promised million keyswitches. That’s confidence,
but after trying the Tactile Pro
Keyboard, I think it’s justified. It costs
only a bit more than an Apple Pro
Keyboard; it includes all the Optionand Shift-Option characters on the keycaps; and at least to my mind, it feels so
much better that I type faster, more
accurately, and more comfortably.
Everyone’s hands are different, but if
you live and die by your keyboard as I
do, Matias’s Tactile Pro Keyboard is
absolutely worth a try. 
Copyright 2004 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
<http://www.tidbits.com/terms/>
Contact: <[email protected]>
Web Picks
of the Month
Compiled by
Neal Dembicer, CMC
Please report broken
links to:
[email protected]
From Neal Dembicer:
http://www.allowe.com/More/
download.htm and
http://oldgames.org
For people who want to find games they
played when they were growing up.
From Deena Quilty:
http://www.llewellyn.com/free/tarot.php
This site sells Tarot cards and other “mystical” items. But you can get a free online
reading. Just choose a deck (I had no clue
what the differences are), think of a question, and then one click deals the cards for
a past, present and future reading.
http://www.efuse.com/
Building a web site? Or just want
some good tips to spruce up a basic
one you already have? This site has
really useful tips and guidelines from
some well-known experts in the business. It includes basics on planning,
designing, writing, and everything else
that makes a good site. Geared towards
the beginner but everyone should be
able to get something out of this site.
http://www.worldofquotes.com
Need the perfect quote for your speech
or web site.?This is the place to go.
Browse the database of 32767 quotes
organized in over 1398 topics. New
topics and quotes added frequently.
Looking for a specific author or
famous person? You now have 10177
authors and historical figures to quote.
http://www.thistothat.com/
This to That —Which glue to use?
Several people have reminded me of a
cool tool that I use all the time, and
should mention again. It is the website
“This to That” which functions as a
glue calculator. You tell it what you
want to glue — this to that — and it
will recommend the type of glue to use.
It’s pretty reliable. And does a great job
of educating you about glueing possibilities. From www.kk.org/cooltools/
From Ken Sawyer:
http://www.urbanlegends.com/ulz/
plastic.html
This site is pretty good at debunking
email myths. They keep pretty current on
all the stuff being passed off as demanding immediate action to prevent dire
consequences. Only problem with their
site is that their search engine appears a
little flaky. So when you get an email that
tells you that you’re getting poisoned by
plastics in microwave ovens, look up it
up so you know you aren’t!
From Joe Arcuri:
http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/k
iddofspeed/chapter1.html
Here’s an interesting photo journal of a
Russian girl who rides her motorcycle
through Chernobyl. It really brings home
the devastation of a nuclear powerplant
meltdown
Download of
the Month
submitted by
Debi Foss
ohNotes 2.1
by Swimpsoft
http://www.macdesktop.com/
swimpsoft/productsohnotes.html
ohNotes is an extremely handy
application that lets you handle
your notes with ease! Just click
New, type in a main title and add
more detailed text to it. It fits on
the side of your screen perfectly.
Like Stickies, but way
smarter–quick and easy does it!
And now new features like
Extended Topic view and the
Viewer window, you’ll find your-
8
Free Admission Pass
to the 2004 Boston
Macworld Expo
The User Group Advisory Board
would like to remind you that
Macworld Conference & Expo is coming to Boston from July 12-15.
For a limited time, user group members
are eligible for free or
discounted attendance.
• Register before May 7 for a
free Exhibit Hall Pass
• Register before June 18 for
15% off all conference pkgs.
To receive your discount, enter the
user group discount code H0101
(zeros & ones) on the the website:
http://www.macworldexpo.com
Macworld Conference & Expo
Boston Convention &
Exhibition Center
July 12 - 15, 2004
(Expo: July 13 - 15, 2004)
CMC is planning to charter a bus
to Boston on Thursday, July 15th.
Info will be announced soon.
self more productive than ever!
ohNotes remembers the last set
position of the main window so it
will be in your favorite spot on the
screen each time you start it. It
also remembers the height of the
window. The ohNotes preferences
allow you to specify things like
fonts, styles and sizes for your
notes, and the new internet tools
will help you look up words,
search Google, find software
online and more!
It’s free and it comes in versions
for OS 9 and OS X.
Apple Seminars
Online
Below you will find a
listing of current seminars
online. These online
events are available 24
hours a day, 7 days a Connie Scott, CMC
week from any computer Apple Ambassador
with internet access. They are designed
to be no more than 30 minutes in length
and offer a wide variety of resources
and information for your review. Topics
cover solutions using Apple and partner
products and technologies. For training
on these and other solutions visit
seminars.apple.com/training/index.html
To find out more about these and other
Apple related events, please visit:
www.apple.com/seminars
Biotech is in our DNA.
Michael Athanas, Ph.D., of The
BioTeam will show how to install a
fully provisioned informatics cluster on
one or more Xserve servers using
iNquiry. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/biotech/apple/index.html?s=203
Break Through the Barriers to
Digital Photography Success.
Digital photography provides exciting
ways to deliver new content and gain
greater control over the finished product, while saving time and money. For
more information visit http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/propho
to/apple/index.html?s=203
Color Management for
Your Digital Workflow.
This free online seminar helps demystify color management and gives you the
knowledge you need to incorporate it
into your workflow. For more information visit seminars.apple.com/seminars
online/colormgmt/apple/index.html?s=203
Guitarists and the Mac:
A Conversation with Pat Metheny
Join Pat Metheny in this free online
seminar and learn how the Mac can
help you take your music to the next
level. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/guitarists/apple/index.html?s=203
Keynote: Improve
Your Presentation Skills.
Watch this free online seminar and find
out how to improve your presentation
skills. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/presenting/apple/index.html?s=203
Information
Lifecycle Management.
Steve Kenniston, an Enterprise Storage
Group analyst will offer insights as to
how to manage vast amounts of data
while keeping your overhead low. For
information visit seminars.apple.com/
seminarsonline/ilm/apple/index.html?s
=203
Elizabeth Kerr, Ph.D., Director of
Science and Technology Markets at
Apple, moderates this informative webcast discussion of the Apple Workgroup
Cluster. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/biocluster/apple/index.html?s=203
Learn about the services provided by
and advantages of hiring members of
the Apple Consultants Network. For
more information visit http://www.
seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/hir
eacn/apple/index.html
Benefits:
Date ______________________________
Name _____________________________
Address ___________________________
City ______________________________
State________ Zip __________________
Keynote: Presentations that
Meet your Creative Standards
out how Keynote allows you to create
superior presentations you would
expect from a professional creative
tool. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/keynote/apple/index.html?s=203
Phone (Home) ______________________
Phone (Office) ______________________
Phone (Fax) ________________________
Business___________________________
Occupation_________________________
Perfectly Focused - Digital
Photography on Mac OS X
This seminar will show you why you
should take the plunge to digital—and
how to get started with your own digital photography workflow on Mac OS
X. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/perfectfocusinosx/apple/
Unwire Your Business
Computational Clusters
for Bioinformatics.
Why Hire a Member of the
Apple Consultants Network
out how Apple’s wireless and mobile
solutions let you take your computing
environment with you wherever you
go. For more information visit
http://seminars.apple.com/seminarsonline/wireless/apple/index.html?s=203
9
Email:_____________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
Annual CMC Family
Membership - $25.00
Mail form to: CMC
or...
Register Online with
PayPal at www.ctmac.org
March 31st
Monthly
Meeting
featured
Lego
MindStorm
presented by
Brian
Desmond
2004 Upcoming
CMC Meetings
By Rich Lenoce, Vice President
As Vice President of CMC, I have
taken on the task of assigning the programs for our CMC meetings based on
input from our members. The hardest
part of this task was meeting the needs
of all CMC members with such a wide
range of skills–from newbies to pros
and with an equal range of
interests–from technical to digital media to games to using a
Mac for work, or just having fun.
I assure you, there will be something at
each meeting for everyone, and not just
the raffle! Before each monthly meeting, Chris Hart will be coordinating the
Back to Basics mini group meeting
designed to help all users better understand their Mac. CMC President, Don
Dickey will open each meeting with the
latest news and developments in the
Apple world. Next on the agenda is our
always -popular Q & A session where
Mac experts answer your questions and
attempt to solve your problems. Finally,
presentations throughout the year have
been structured to cover a range of topics.
On April 28, you’ll
learn why tablets aren’t
just for artists. Steven
Gottlieb of Wacom will
demonstrate the Wacom and Cintiq line
of tablets. Tablets offer a more natural
method of input than a mouse–with less
repetitive physical stress. They can be
very powerful tools especially when
OS X’s handwriting recognition technology is enabled.
Photos by
John Scott and
Chris Hart
On May 26 and June 30, we start a
two-month series on digital photography
–by far our most requested presentation
topic. May’s meeting will be an introduction to digital photography and
digital camera basics. June’s meeting
will be held at Middlesex Community
College where hands-on sessions in
digital photo editing will
be held. CMC members
can bring their digital
images and photo
experts will show you
how to organize your
10
photos, correct problems and prepare
photos for printing. Both Photoshop an
iPhoto will be covered. Other hands-on
sessions are in the works; if there is a
session you’d like to see offered, let me
know ASAP.
July 28 will cover Garage
Band, Apple’s new fun-touse music creation and
audio mixing program. This
presentation will be geared
towards the non-musician
demonstrating how easy Garage Band
can make music.
On August 25, graphic designer Pat
Rasch will give a presentation on the
graphics program that is taking the field
by storm: Adobe’s InDesign. Pat will
discuss the benefits of InDesign and
how to move to InDesign for users of
other graphic programs such as Quark
Xpress and Adobe Pagemaker.
September 29 is
Celebrity Night.
Apple engineer,
author and presenter
Dave Marra will give
an entertaining and
informative presentation
about the Mac world. Check out his
web site at http://www.marrathon.com.
October 27 is our annual auction
month. In November–due to the
Thanksgiving holiday, we meet a week
early so on November 17–CMC secretary and Mac consultant Chris Hart will
give a presentation on the Whys and
how-tos of migrating to OS X. This is
particularly important since 50% of our
membership hasn’t made the jump yet.
Chris will review the benefits of OS X,
talk about the differences, and explain
how to move your applications and data
to the new OS when you decide to
make the move. Bring your questions!
December’s meeting ends the year with
our popular Holiday party featuring
Stump the Geeks.
Topics are subject to change depending
on the needs of the membership and
new products that may be released by
Apple. If you have any suggestions or
comments, please don’t hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. 
Upcoming Meetings
FREE
Raffle!
(See Article on Page 10)
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
April 28 • 7 pm
Wacom Tablet Demo
May 26 • 7 pm
Selecting and using your
digital camera.
June 29 • 7 pm
and iDVD Workshops
GarageBand
Quark/InDesign
Annual Auction
Migration to OSX
and Much More!
Discounted Books
CMC continues to offer current members the opportunity to purchase any
published book for either Mac or
he will check on its availability.
Treasurer’s
Report
George Maciel, CMC Treasurer
Ending Checking
Account Balance ................$1475.67
Balances as of March 31, 2004
CMC Web Site Access
www.ctmac.org
User ID: XXX (all uppercase)
April 1, 2004 - July 31, 2004
Every CMC member Robert Sawyer
who attends our monthly CMC Raffles
meetings gets a raffle ticket. This will
give you a chance for one of our free
prizes every month! You could win…
t-shirts, toys, CDs, mugs, software
…there’s always something we’re
giving away!
New Members
CMC Classified Ads
Monthly Ad Rates
CMC Elections are coming up in May!
Elections for President, Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer
will be held at the May meeting. Any member is eligible to run for any
position. Any one willing to give back to CMC for what they have
received, please contact Connie Scott, Nominating Committee Chair
at [email protected]. Any questions about the election, please
e-mail to the same address.
11
Business Card ..........................$10.00
Quarter Page.............................$20.00
Half Page..................................$30.00
graphics embedded.
left as you enter.
12
Monthly Meeting
May 26 – 7 p.m.
UConn Health Center
Introduction to Digital Cameras
and Digital Photography
Green Apples – 6 p.m.
(See Page 2 for details)
Some cameras
have a video output jack. If yours
does, you can easily show your
slides using your
camera as a
Slideshow Fun
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
There was a time when
the family would gather
around for a slideshow.
Dad would set up a pullout screen that stood on
it’s own self-contained
tripod. Kodachrome or
Ektachrome slides cased in cardboard
squares would then be projected onto
the screen with a bright lamp. This lamp
would always burn out at the least
opportune time, like when the projector
was taken to school for a presentation!
That was then, but now many kids have
never seen a slide or slide projector!
This doesn’t mean that the family tradition has to die, however. It just needs to
move into the 21st century with a little
help from technology. That’s where
your Mac comes in!
MAY, 2004
projector. This has the advantage of
costing nothing extra, and it’s extremely portable. Make sure to have the
camera fully charged (or have extra batteries on hand), or your show might end
prematurely! My experience has been,
however, that cameras don’t make the
best projectors. It also subjects an
expensive device to possible harm.
First of all, your “slides” are now digital
files. If you have old Kodachrome or
Ektachrome slides to show, previous
articles by noted photographer (and
CMC member) Jack Bass taught you
how to digitize them. Refer back to your
old newsletters for help with this, or
catch Jack after the next CMC meeting
for a refresher.
If you have a PowerBook with a video
output jack, you can use that as your
“projector.” Even if you have a laptop, I
recommend a separate “box” to use as
your projector: an inexpensive DVD
player! These can be had for as little as
$35 locally. That’s a lot cheaper than
even an old used PowerBook! It has the
distinct advantage of being easy to control with a handheld remote without
fancy extra hardware. Another advantage is that it’s easily operated by most
any member of your family.
Your other “slides” are the digital files
from a digital camera. If you don’t have
a digital camera, be sure to come to our
upcoming meetings which will focus on
digital photography, including choosing
a camera. Fortunately, for slideshows
you don’t need a very high resolution
camera as you might for hardcopy
prints. Even a 1 megapixel camera
available for under $100 will suffice.
In choosing a DVD player, be sure to
select a model that can display .JPGs
and VCDs on CD-R media. Most new
ones can, but check the outside of the
box before opening it up. These features
are usually listed prominently. These
features let you display your slides on
inexpensive media,absolutely required
if you don’t have a SuperDrive or DVD
burner but you do have a CD-R drive.
1
You have several options for making
your slideshow. The simplest is to burn
your slides as .JPG files onto a CD-R
that the DVD player can show all by
itself. You should name your slides so
they come up in the order you want
them shown. A simple way to do this is
to drag them into iPhoto as a new
album, drag to arrange them in the
order you want to show them, and then
export them using “Album name” to
rename them in the proper order.
To “kick it up a notch,” you can add
musical accompaniment to your slide
show. Again, you have a few options.
One would be to choose your music in
iPhoto from your iTunes library, and
then export a QuickTime movie of your
slideshow. This can be burnt onto either
a DVD or cheaper VideoCD using
Toast.
Unfortunately, doing this ruins the transitions between slides that played so
nicely in iPhoto. To keep nice transitions, if your slideshow is under 100
slides, you can use iDVD to create your
slideshow. Here you can specify transitions, slide timing, etc. before burning.
Options are somewhat limited, but it
does work nicely for smaller shows. If
you have more slides, create multiple
Continued on page 2
Inside this Issue
Green Apples ....................................... 2
Review: DVD Copy ............................. 3
The Worm Hole in the Apple ...............4
Mac 911................................................5
Macworld Bus Trip Info........................6
MUG Offers........................................10
slideshows on your DVD, with 100 or
less in each one. A DVD blank can hold
thousands of slides!
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content Contributor
Don Dickey
Contributing Author
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Photographer
John Scott
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
For the most options, I recommend creating your slideshow in iMovie. Here
you have almost unlimited control of
slide duration, transition type and
length, and you can also add titles if
desired. The drawback with this
approach is that you have to manually
drag a transition between all the slides
in your show. I recently did a 10-minute
show with about 300 slides, and this
process took quite a while. The results
were worth it, however.
To start, create a new album in iPhoto
for your slideshow. Drag all the photos
you want to show into this album.
Arrange them in the proper order.
Then, in iMovie, click the Photos button. Choose your Photo Library, select
all the photos, and drag them onto the
clip viewer at the bottom of the page.
Once on the timeline, you can change
the duration (and size if necessary) and
click Apply. Add your musical soundtrack to the timeline and adjust its
length if necessary.

At this point, you can export a
QuickTime movie for burning as a
VideoCD (VCD) onto CD-R media, or
you can use the iDVD button to export
the show into iDVD for burning as a
high resolution DVD. While the VCD
approach is inexpensive, your slides
won’t look as good as they will on a
DVD due to the encoding that’s used. If
you don’t have a DVD burner, try making a VCD show. If you do have a DVD
burner, however, I recommend spending
the extra cents to “do it right.” If you are
burning via iDVD, you can also add
“chapters” so you can easily jump forward or backward to sections of your
show. These are great if you watch part
of a show and then want to restart it later
near where you left off.
Once you’ve created your show as a
VCD or DVD, now all you need to do is
pop the disc into your player, turn on the
TV, and make a batch of popcorn before
assembling the family for the evening’s
entertainment! Give it a try. After
you’ve done it a couple of times, you’ll
find out what works best for you. In the
meantime, be sure to have fun making
your slideshows. After all, isn’t that
what using your Mac is all about? 
Green Apples Back to Basics!
by Chris Hart, CMC Secretary
CMC is ready to ripen
your computer knowledge
with CMC Back To Basics, a monthly
pre-meeting session focusing on the
essentials of Macintosh computing.
Open to all CMC members, this session
offer an abbreviated program that
answers the most popular questions
among Mac users.
Our May 26th session will be all
about sharing files between computers.
Whether you want to do a one-time
transfer to a brand new Mac, or share
files on a regular basis, we’ll demonstrate how it’s done.
Back To Basics will take a break during
the month of June, when the CMC
2
meeting will will be at Middlesex
Community College in Middletown.
On July 28th, CMC will return to
UConn Medical Center, and Back To
Basics will provide a complete exploration of the System Preferences in Mac
OS X. After attending this session,
you’ll be able to customize your computer’s behavior to your liking.
Please join us each month (except June)
at 6:00 P.M. for CMC Back To Basics.
These sessions take place just across the
hall from our primary meeting space
inside the UConn Medical Center. We
encourage you to bring a notepad, so
that you can take notes on the demonstrations and explanations provided. 
original file structure. This process
took several hours
and one misstep
such as improperly naming a folder
would cause the
disk to not work in
a DVD player.
Review: Fast
DVD Copy
by Rich Lenoce,
Vice President
February saw the
release of one-step
DVD copying software for the Mac:
Velan’s Fast DVD Copy. Fast DVD Copy
allows owners of commercial DVDs to
make a single copy of their disks.
Despite what you may have heard, it is
legal to copy a DVD that you own for
personal use under copyright Fair Use
guidelines. However, the only way to
make such a copy is to circumvent the
disk’s built-in anti-piracy technology,
and that is illegal. Right now, a final
decision sits with the Court of Appeals.
Here’s some background. In February,
Judge Judith Illston ruled on a case
where the Motion Picture Association of
America filed a lawsuit against 321
Studio,s makers of the PC-only software
DVD X Copy and DVD Copy Plus.
Illston said though copying DVDs may
be considered Fair Use, using software
that circumvents a DVD’s anti-piracy
copy protection or uses technology to
decrypt DVD piracy keys was illegal as
she claimed was outlined in the Digital
Millenium Copyright Act. 321 Studios is
appealing the decision, leaving their
products on store shelves as of the time
this article was written.
Prior to the release of Fast DVD Copy,
Mac users had to use a time consuming
process using three separate applications
to copy DVDs. First, programs such as
DVD Backup or Mac The Ripper were
used to crack the anti-piracy technology
and then copy the decrypted DVD to the
hard drive. A typical 2 hour movie on a
commercial DVD is about 8 gigabytes in
size, twice as much as the 4.3 gigabytes
that a recordable DVD-R disk could
hold. Therefore, additional software
such as DVD2One ($49) was needed to
re-encode the MPEG2 at a lower bit rate
so that a movie could fit on one disk.
Finally, DVD burning software such as
Toast ($79) was required to burn the reencoded movie while maintaining the
Fast DVD Copy dispenses with complexity. Put a commercial DVD movie
into your Mac’s internal Superdrive or
external DVD burner, and press START.
That’s it! The software decrypts and reencodes the movie and once that step is
completed DVD Fast Copy will prompt
the user to eject the DVD and insert a
blank recordable disc. It couldn’t be simpler! Despite some slight loss in video
quality from the re-encoding process, the
DVD operates identically to the original
with all features, menus, etc included.
Besides being simple, the picture quality
is very good. However the downside is
that the system resources are pretty
hefty. First, the software does not work
in Classic, only OS 10.2 or 10.3 or higher and requires 17 gigabytes of free hard
drive space. Yes, you heard me right, 17
gigabytes of free space! The reason is
that it needs to copy the decrypted
movie, which may be up to 9 gigabytes
in size, then re-encode the movie to 4.3
gigabytes and then create a 4.3 gigabyte
disk image of the final copy for burning
to recordable DVD media.
DVD Fast Copy’s biggest drawback is
that it isn’t “fast” unless you have a very
powerful Mac. DVD Fast Copy is
extremely processor and RAM intensive. Decrypting and re-encoding video
may be the most processor and RAM
intensive functions your Mac will ever
perform, so expect it to take a long time
to copy a DVD. My dual 2 ghz G5 takes
about 90-100 minutes to copy and
burn a two-hour movie with 4x
DVD-R media. A G4 533 may
take three or four times that long.
A fast G3 might take overnight.
Unless you have a dual G5 system,
I suggest you turn all other
software off and allow
your Mac to give DVD Fast
Copy its full attention.
3
I have heard many Mac users balk at the
price, but $99 is the same price PC users
pay for similar software. Mac users need
to realize this is sophisticated software
that would cost more than $99 if you
used the separate tools of Roxio’s Toast
and DVD2OneX.
Finally, the biggest drawback for some
people is that an Internet connection is
required to run the software. Each time
the software starts, it calls back to Velan,
makers of DVD Fast Copy, and matches
the software activation code against the
machine’s own internal number that was
recorded and registered when the software was purchased. This measure stops
people from giving their friends the activation number or posting their activation
numbers to Internet “krack” sites. If the
activation number and transmitted internal machine number don’t match, the
software won’t work. Sadly, once purchased the software will only run on the
machine it was purchased on. The reality is that this is becoming the new way to
stop software pirating. Microsoft, Adobe
and even the shareware registration company, Kagi, are said to be moving to this
method.
As someone who teaches film, I use this
software to make copies of classic films
on DVD. I keep the originals pristine,
locked away in a cabinet, and only bring
the copies into the classroom to keep the
originals from being damaged. Parents
will find this software useful in a similar
way, as expensive children’s DVDs can
be copied and the original kept away
from hands that could scratch or even
chew the originals.
DVD Fast Copy does not allow users to
make copies of copies should you ever
loose the original, but Toast’s Disk Copy
feature and Apple’s own Disk Copy or
Disk Utility software can copy the disks.
Overall, if you don’t mind
the price, this is a simple
solution to a sophisticated
problem and I highly recommend the DVD Fast
Copy for its high quality
and ease of use. 
The Worm Hole
in the Apple
An Opinion
by Rich Lenoce,
Vice President
Apple is selling
lots of iPods:
807,000 last quarter alone.
Apple’s stock price is up and earnings
have increased dramatically: $46 million dollar profit on nearly $2 billion
in earnings. Looks pretty rosy at the
moment, huh? Yes, at this point in
time it appears the iPod has taken
Apple not just out of its slump, but
back onto the race track. The sad news
is that its computer business hasn’t
kept up with the overall industry’s
growth. Computers are still the bulk of
Apple’s business—more profit is
earned on a $1,000-$3,000 Mac than a
little iPod. Apple’s computer growth
last quarter was 5%, which sounds
like reason for celebration, except that
the typical PC maker’s growth was
over 13%. This number has to come
up for Apple to sustain success and
right now, it’s not looking favorable.
Though we Mac users are zealous
about our machines, we realize that
they are of such good quality that we
replace them less than PC users. But
recent studies from Gartner Group
and other research companies are
showing PC users are hanging on to
their machines longer too—to the
point where the difference is now negligible. The higher initial cost of Macs
is no longer cause to proclaim it’s a
longer lasting machine with lower
cost of ownership. Finally, processor
enhancements are stuck. With all the
fanfare of
the G5,
consumers
realize
that the
G4 is at
the end of
its life
with the
eMac, PowerBook, iBook and iMac
1.25ghz to 1.5 ghz G4s that were just
released. Why buy a $1,000+ iMac or
PowerBook ,when you can buy a
cheap and loaded under $1,000 eMac
or $1,100 iBook with nearly the same
specs —and even better specs if you
consider the eMacs 8X Superdrive!
Mac users figure that G5s have to be”
just around the corner” in these models. At the very least, Steve promised
3ghz G5 processors by summer, but
there has been no change in G5 models since last summer. Mac users are
clearly holding off their purchases to
see what Apple has to offer. But after
nearly a year, it seems the wait is getting pretty long.
As for PC and Linux switchers who
may once have been interested in a
G5, there have been no grand additions or improvements to the G5
models in nearly a year, yet Intel
processor are approaching 4 ghz on
the cheap. For all the G5 talk, that 2
ghz compared to Intel’s 3 ghz processors, Intel has surpassed that, and 3
ghz processors are now well under
$1,000, while 2 ghz G5s remain at
$3,000.
Improvements to eMacs, iBooks and
PowerBooks just widen Apple’s own
gap. iMac models remain the same in
price and performance, while eMacs
improve in performance at a cost running 50% less! iBooks nearly match
the specifications of PowerBook G4s
at a significantly lower price.
PowerBooks, except for the 17” wide
screen model, no longer justify their
higher costs.
What’s going on at Apple? Well, it’s
not Apple, its IBM. IBM hasn’t been
able to meet its G5 processor promises in performance, heat reduction and
yield–nearly halting improvements to
Apple’s whole product line. The lowest eMac—the one with the lowest
price and lowest profit margin—is
proving to be Apple’s winner right
now. It offers tremendous value—the
4
fastest G4 processor, a beautiful
screen, a faster video card than previous models, more standard RAM, the
fastest Superdrive than any other Mac,
and all for a mere $1,000…but it
offers little profit.
Apple needs a two-fisted approach.
The iPod on one side seems to continually improve in performance, but
Apple needs to begin moving the G5
processor across its entire product line
as quickly as possible. “Switchers”
and Mac users won’t buy a Mac unless
they realize they are getting this year’s
technology, not four-year old technology. There are still some people
calling for Apple to release a Cube or
cheap tower type (non all-in-one) Mac
at the very bottom end (an eMac without a monitor) to compete with low
end PCs. I think this is a good move to
attract the people who buy cheap
Linux and PC boxes to the Mac (who
already have monitors or who don’t
mind buying cheap PC monitors).
These people are either first time consumers, consumers who can’t afford
high-end machines or Linux/Unix
geeks who’d rather fidget with boxes
then buy expensive or all-in-one
machines. Only higher yields of G5s
and faster G5s will allow products to
move though all levels.
Of course, this is only my opinion, but
I think Apple could win the music and
portable music player war, but lose
overall in profitability unless it
resolves these issues. 
Help Desk
Mac 911
By Christopher Breen
Becoming a Convert
I imported my CDs into iTunes as AIFF files.
Now that I have an iPod, I'd like to convert
those songs to the AAC format. Is this possible or must I rerip all my CDs? Steve Hawley,
Jacksonville, NC
You don't need to feed the CDs to your Mac
again, as you can use iTunes to convert files
from AIFF to AAC. To do so, launch iTunes
and select Preferences from the iTunes menu.
Click on the Importing tab in the resulting
window, select AAC Encoder from the
Import Using pop-up menu, and click on OK
to close the Preferences window. In the
iTunes window, select all the songs you want
to convert, and choose Advanced: Convert
Selection To AAC. All the selected songs will
be duplicated, leaving you with two copies of
each song -- the original AIFF file and the
new AAC version. To easily locate and delete
the AIFF files, choose View Options from the
Edit menu, and in the View Options window
that appears, enable the Date Added option
and click on OK. Click on the new Date
Added heading in the iTunes window to sort
your songs by the date they were added to
your iTunes library. The new AAC files will
appear at the top of the list; the older AIFF
tunes, at the bottom. Select the AIFF files and
press the delete key to remove them from the
library.
Office Annoyance
I'm on a closed Ethernet network within my
company and use Microsoft Office v. X.
Everyone in the office has his or her own
copy of the software, yet my copy of
Entourage quits at least twice an hour due to
a license-conflict message. I have installed a
brand-new copy of Office, and the same
problem still occurs. Any thoughts on this?
Paul Rosenblit, Freeport, New York
What you're seeing is the license-checking
"feature" that was built into early versions of
Microsoft Office v. X. It was created so that
you couldn't run the same copy of Office on
multiple Macs. Fortunately, this feature disappears after you install the Microsoft Office
v. X 10.1.2 Update (http://www.microsoft.
com/mac/DOWNLOAD/OFFICEX/
OfficeX_1012.asp).
Console Capers
While glancing through the console.log file
on my computer, I found an entry that reads
"I got a control baby!" Am I being hacked?
Fausto E. Castillo, Buffalo, NY
No, what you see is an example of programmerspeak. That message is generated by
Microsoft Office v. X's WordPDE.plugin and
is completely harmless. Rummaging through
page after page of a log file is more likely to
confuse -- rather than inform -- the average
user. But you can put Console and log files to
good use. If, for example, an application
crashes every time you perform a particular
action, launch Console (found in the Utilities
folder within the Applications folder), click
on the Clear button to remove other entries
from the log, and then perform that action.
After The Bad Thing happens, return to
Console and see what it has to say. Granted,
a message that reads "Assertion failure in [NSMenu item AtIndex:], Menus.subproj
/NSMenu.m:638" won't enlighten most of us,
but the person or company responsible for the
well-being of your ailing application may
appreciate such an informative bug report.
Losing the Light
Since installing Panther on my 17-inch
PowerBook G4, my keyboard doesn't always
light up in dark conditions. Do you have any
suggestions? Mitch Santell, Oceanside, CA
Judging by messages posted in Apple's
Discussions forum, robust keyboard backlighting on the latest PowerBooks remains a
work in progress. Although some people
found relief only by returning the PowerBook
to Apple for repair, others fixed the problem
by performing some of the following actions:
1. Cover the speaker grilles with your hands. The
ambient light sensor is under the grilles, and covering them briefly may force the keys to shine.
2. Reset the Power Manager and zap the
PRAM. To reset the Power Manager, turn off
the PowerBook, simultaneously press and
release control-shift-option and the power
button, wait five seconds, and then press the
power button to restart the PowerBook. To
zap the PRAM, restart the Mac while holding
down the 1-option-P-R keys and wait for the
Mac to chime three times. Let go of the keys
and the PowerBook will start up.
3. Repair permissions with Disk Utility
(Applications: Utilities). If none of these procedures work, it's time for your PowerBook
to take a trip to Apple.
5
TIP OF THE MONTH
Occasionally I'll download a disk image
that doesn't mount due to a "no mountable
filesystems" error. I've recently learned that
I needn't discard these seemingly broken
images. Instead, I launch Disk Utility, drag
the disk image into the list of volumes in
the Disk Utility window, select the image,
and click on Repair Disk. If the image can
be repaired, Disk Utility will fix it, and
afterward the disk image mounts.
Nathan Wilairat, Berkeley, California
UNSOLICITED ADVICE
With the introduction of iTunes 4.2, Apple
allows not only those with Apple IDs to shop
at the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) but also
AOL members who've created credit card
accounts through the AOL Wallets feature. If
you have both an Apple ID and an AOL
account, you're welcome to create an iTMS
account for each. Why bother? This is a useful option if you'd like to purchase and play
music from a host of computers. When you
purchase music from the iTMS, you're
allowed to play that music on as many as
three computers per account. If you've
already authorized your two Macs and PC at
home and later attempt to purchase and play
music on your computer at work via your
Apple account, you'll find that you can't,
because you've exhausted your authorizations. With the additional authorizations that
come with your new AOL account, you can
purchase and play music at the office as well.
Note, however, that purchased music is identified by the account that purchased it. If you
buy music via your AOL identity at the office
and want to play it at home on a Mac authorized with your Apple ID, you must authorize
that Mac for the AOL account. To do so, simply attempt to play the file. You'll be
prompted for your AOL ID and password.
Breen is the author of Macworld's tips
and troubleshooting column, "Mac 911,"
as well as Secrets of the iPod: Fourth
Edition and Mac 911 (Peachpit Press).
Find Chris' books at www.amazon.com
and www.peachpit.com.
Get special user group pricing on
Macworld Magazine! Subscribe today at
http://www.macworld.com/useroffer.
Bus Trip - July 14 • Register Now!
Boston Convention &
Exhibition Center
July 12 - 15, 2004
Expo: July 13 - 15
CMC has chartered a bus to Boston
on Wednesday, July 14th.
See article at right for discount Bus Trip
Registration - Deadline May 31st
Software Tip: SideTrack
by Raging Menace
by Joe Arcuri,
Past President, CMC
Many of you who use Powerbooks and
iBooks may have looked over at PC
laptops enviously as they've rightclicked and also used the edge of their
trackpad to scroll pages. Our streamlined single buttoned trackpad is a work
of art, but every once in a while it'd be
nice to have those added features.
Join CMC as it goes to Macworld Expo in Boston
on Wednesday, July 14th! For early bird registrations, we are holding the price at $15 per member if
payment is received by May 31st. If
payment is made after May 31st, please
include $20 per member. Non-members
rates are $25 per person. Payments can be
made at the meetings on May 26th at
UConn or the June 30th meeting at
MxCC. Additionally, checks can be mailed to:
Connecticut Macintosh Connection
41 Crossroads Plaza — PMB 1984
PayPal payments are also accepted on our website at
www.ctmac.org. All seats will be on a first come, first
served basis, so make sure to register early if you’re
planning on attending. Don’t forget that you will also
need to register for the Expo itself; for this you can go
to www.macworldexpo.com.
B O S T O N • J U LY 2 0 0 4
April 28 CMC Meeting
featuring Wacom Tablets
Interestingly, Apple uses the same
Synaptics trackpad hardware that the
PC manufacturers use; it's just that
Apple has not written drivers for the
additional features available. Along
comes Raging Menace to write
SideTrack, a replacement driver
which allows you to release the
scrolling and clicking capabilities of
your trackpad. I have mine currently
configured to scroll vertically on the
righthand side of the trackpad, rightclick when I tap the upper left corner
and show my Exposé windows when
clicking in the lower left corner.
(More details on page 9 - Web Picks)
Steven Gottlieb (pictured left & above) of Wacom
demonstrated the Intuos and Cintiq (below) tablets.
CMC member Bill Dougal created Steven Gottlieb’s
caricature (below-left) on the Cintiq.
SideTrack is beta software and free.
The current version, .8, expires on
6/30/04 and can be found at:
http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/index.html
6
Benefits:
Date ______________________________
Company __________________________
Name _____________________________
Address ___________________________
City ______________________________
State________ Zip __________________
Phone (Home) ______________________
Phone (Office) ______________________
Phone (Fax) ________________________
Business___________________________
Occupation_________________________
Email:_____________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
Annual CMC Family
Membership - $25.00
Mail form to: CMC
or...
Register Online with
PayPal at www.ctmac.org
7
Web Picks
of the Month
Please report broken links to:
[email protected]
From Neal Dembicer:
http://gasbuddy.com/
It’s a portal site to more than 170 web
sites that help consumers find cheap gas
prices. All web sites are operated by the
non-profit organization known as
GasBuddy Organization Inc. Why?
Since gasoline prices change frequently
and may vary by as much as 20 percent
within only a few blocks it is important
to be able locate the service station with
the lowest priced fuel. GasBuddy
Organization web sites allow consumers to both share information about
low priced fuel with others as well as
target the lowest priced stations to save
at the pumps!
Also, www.GasPriceWatch.com
per Janet Hall
From Kyle DeMilo:
http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/p1/src/sing/
default.asp
Some people have too much time on
their hands...Put in your words and it
will sing it for you.
From Janet Hall:
http://www.itasoftware.com/demos/
I read a review of this site in Conde
Nast Traveler Magazine and it was
rated very high. This is a search engine
for airlines which goes out and queries
airlines and travel sites like Orbitz,
Travelocity etc for the best fares. It is
NOT like Orbitz, Travelocity and
Expedia which limit you to seats sold to
them by the airlines. It actually queries
low cost airlines like Frontier and
Southwest (which Expedia, Travelocity
and Orbitz do not). It also has a feature
where it warns you if the layover is over
2 hours and shows the total travel time
of the flights. So you can see if the ticket that is a mere $20.00 less actually has
4 additional hours of travel time. Nice
feature. Sidestep is similar but this site
gives me lower fares and more info. It
was developed by MIT. I tried the demo
and logged in as a guest. You don’t buy
your tickets through them but it links
you to the site where it found the fare.
From Joe Arcuri:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you are an information buff then this
is the site for you. The wikipedia is an
online encyclopedia that is constantly
growing and refining due to the nature
of a wiki. What is a wiki you ask? A
Wiki is a collection of interlinked web
pages, any of which can be visited and
edited by anyone at any time (collaborative software). This means that if you
are reading an entry in the Wikipedia
that you have a correction for you can
go ahead and edit it.Go ahead, try it out.
You’ll be hooked.
From Deena Quilty:
http://www.llewellyn.com/free/tarot.php
This site sells Tarot cards and other
“mystical” items. But you can get a free
online reading. Just choose a deck (I
had no clue what the differences are),
think of a question, and then one click
deals the cards for a past, present and
future reading.
From Jack Bass:
www.bradshawfoundation.com
Art of Ancients - world’s finest rock art
www.sumanasinc.com/science
infocus/scienceinfocus.html
Science in focus - biology, the easy
way through instructive animations.
www.eternalegypt.org
A tour of ancient Egyptian empire
Here is alot of good stuff. All of these
are from the MacAttorney Users Goup
newsletter - www.MacAttorney.com
S.M.A.R.T. Hard Drive Reporting
http://www.belarc.com/Drive/
smart.html#attributes
Most disk drives sold these days
include S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring
Analysis and Reporting Technology)
hardware developed by IBM that
allows hard disks to test themselves for
potential problems.
Some repair and maintenance utilities,
such as the latest version of Disk
Warrior, allow you to check a disk’s
S.M.A.R.T status, but now under OS
X10.3, you can check the health of your
hard disk right in the included program
Disk Utility. To check the status of a
disk: Open Disk Utility, located in
Applications/Utilities, and select the
disk in the left column. Look at the bottom of the window to see the
S.M.A.R.T. status. If your disk is “verified,” it’s a valid disk with nothing
wrong at this time. If you see “About to
Fail” in red letters, back up your disk
immediately and have the disk
replaced. It ‘will’ fail. See: Mac OS X
10.3: Replacing a Disk Before it Fails
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?
artnum=135048
Since the point of S.M.A.R.T is to predict disk failure before it happens,
checking regularly is very important.
Here is a free AppleScript that will
automatically give you a daily hard
drive status message window, so you
don’t have to run Disk Utility everyday
to monitor your hard drive’s health.
http://homepage.mac.com/cyberbrent/
filechute/SMART_Disk_Check.zip
To use this script you will need to also
also download the free utility CronniX
so that you can schedule when the
script will be run.
http://www.koch-schmidt.de/cronnix/
This topic is discussed at:
www.macosxhints.com/article.php?
story=20031122041138373&query=
Turn Off Your Dock
http://sideburn.com/dockblock/
A number of folks have expressed the
desire to be able to turn off the Dock in
OS X. (Not just simply hide it.)
DockBlock will disable the Dock via a
universal menubar menu, and it also
includes an Application menu for
quickly jumping between your running
Applications even when the dock is disabled. Price: $5
continued on page 9
8
continued from page 8
Tutorial for Word 2001
www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Word
Mac/Bend/BendWord.htm
This article is a good intro to using
Microsoft Word 2001: “Bend Word to
Your Will”. You can download the article as a Word file directly from:
www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/WordMac/
Bend/BendWordToYourWill.sit or
http://tinyurl.com/23bze
Restore Internet Preferences To OS X
www.clauss-net.de/misfox/misfox.html
Under Mac OS X several internet settings which were available under
MacOS 8 (in Internet Config) and 9 (in
Internet Preferences) are still present
and are still used by most internet
applications, but they are no longer
accessible by the user. So if these settings become corrupted for some
reason, there is no longer any way to
repair these settings. The FREE application MisFox makes some of the most
important internet settings accessible
again. MisFox will show all of the file
mapping settings, and the protocol
helpers. With it you can inspect, edit,
delete and create new items for these
functions.
Panther Hidden Feature: The “Orb”
www.ifthensoft.com/index2.html
Hackposé is small program that puts a
little “blob” on your screen under OS X
10.3 Panther that serves as a hotpoint
that allows you to use the Mac’s hot
new Exposé features without having to
remember any of the hot keys that activate them.
More Internet Preferences
www.monkeyfood.com/software/
moreInternet/
In OS X 10.3 Panther the Internet preference panel, used for setting your
default Internet applications (e.g. your
preferred browser, e-mail client, etc.) is
gone. You now have to set your preferred Internet programs in the
preferences of the programs themselves. More Internet is a FREE utility
brings back the functionality of the
Internet preferences pane, and more:
AppleScript for Absolute Beginners
http://www.applescriptsource
book.com/tips/AS4AS.html
Here’s a useful resource for those wanting to try scripting to speed repetitive
tasks: AppleScript for Absolute
Beginners by Bert Altenburg is a free,
65-page AppleScript tutorial (pdf) that
teaches beginners the basics of
AppleScript scripting.
BurnX Free is FREE
www.hernansoft.com/products.html
BurnX Free has several useful features
that Apple’s built-in CD-burning software does not offer, or that aren’t
implemented well. BurnX can burn
CDs in a hybrid format for cross-platform compatibility, and it can also erase
CD-RW media. It supports multiple session burning and drag-and-drop of files
and folders for burning. BurnX Free is
FREE for Mac OS X 10.2.3 and up.
Group Scheduling Software
www.teamsoft.com/
TeamAgenda Pro is a corporate group
scheduler and resource manager that
provides workgroups with advanced
tools for time management and team
coordination. TeamAgenda Pro is
cross-platform compatible with PC or
Macintosh.
Open System Preference Panes Fast!
http://homepage.mac.com/asagoo/
prefling/index.html
Longtime Mac users remember when
they could open a Control Panel quickly and easily from the Apple menu.
Under OS X, to change a System
Preference, you have to launch System
Preferences, and then find the preference pane you are looking for, and that
takes time. Prefling, a FREE utility, lets
you open system preference panes
FAST! Prefling sits in your Dock and
offers a menu with all the preference
panes installed and active. It’s the ideal
replacement for the “System Preferences”
item that’s in your Dock by default.
Do you have a great Web Pick?
Email it to Neal Dembicer at:
[email protected]
9
Drawing Programs
http://www.touchcad.com
Contributed by: Leif C. Bäckström,
European Patent Attorney, Sweden. In
my work as patent attorney, I frequently need to draw patent drawings, design
drawings and trademarks besides different kinds of sketches. In said work, I
have found the following programs to
be very useful. My number one favorite
for modeling is TouchCad3.0; for rendering, ArtLantis 4.5; and for general
drawing work, VectorWorks 8.5.2. The
last two programs are well known but
not the first one, which ought to be,
according to my opinion. Further information about TouchCad3.0 can be
found at: http://www.touchcad.com or
directly from [email protected]
TouchCad3.0 is primarily designed for
the Macintosh but can also be used on a
PC. It is simply and intuitive to use and
has not a steep learning curve like all
other CAD programs I have been in
contact with.
Make Your PowerBook’s
Trackpad More Useful!
http://www.ragingmenace.com/
software/sidetrack/index.html
SideTrack is a FREE replacement driver for the trackpad (touchpad) found on
Apple PowerBooks and iBooks. It
brings many of the trackpad scrolling
features found on Windows laptops to
MacOS X. Most Windows laptops
implement trackpad scrolling using
drivers made by Synaptics. Although
Apple PowerBooks also use Synaptics
trackpads, the standard Apple driver
uses none of the extended features.
SideTrack supports these features:
• Vertical scrolling at left or right edge
of pad.
• Horizontal scrolling at top or bottom
edge of pad.
• Map hardware button to left or right
click.
• Map trackpad taps to no action, left
click, left click drag (with or without
drag lock), or right click.
• Compatible with uControl, including
uControl’s scroll emulation. Side
Track (free)
Que Publications
Dreaming of touring the world, seeing
your name in lights and partying like a
rock star? Who knows? It could happen. Let Que's "MacAddict Guide to
Making Music with GarageBand" free
your inner rock star and show you how
to create, perform and record your own
music.
Get 40 percent off the $24.99 book
(free shipping for U.S. customers).
http://www.quepublishing.com/title/07
89732262
Coupon code MACGBAND
This worldwide offer is valid until
October 31, 2004.
Digital Element
Digital Element is offering Apple user
group Mac Photoshop users a download bundle of all of their Photoshop
plugins (Aurora 2.1, Verdant and
Modelshop) for only $199 (US), a $300
savings. (Offer only for the Mac version and for Apple user group
members.)
http://www.digi-element.com
Coupon code MUGSDEAL04
Go to www.digi-element.com, select
Store, Order Online, Bundles and
choose one of the two Mac bundles,
each regularly $439. This worldwide
offer is valid until August 31, 2004.
Boinx iStopMotion and iVeZeen
Looking for exciting ways to use your
webcam?
Create amazing stop motion animations
or time lapse recordings with Boinx
iStopMotion. Use Boinx iVeZeen to
record video with your webcam. (The
iSight is particularly well supported.)
Apple user group members can get an
exclusive 20 percent discount on Boinx
iStopMotion and/or Boinx iVeZeen.
iStopMotion is regularly $39.95 and
iVeZeen is regularly $14.95. This
worldwide offer is valid until August
31, 2004.
Get free demos, more info and the free
MiracleSight Screensaver
http://www.boinx.com/aug
macXware
macXware welcomes Apple user
groups with a 15 percent discount on
any macXware website order.
Current Titles
• MacFonts - 1000 TrueType Fonts
& FontManager
• MoreMacFonts - 750 New
TrueType Fonts & FontManager
• LogoCreator - Create Your Own
Identity
• MacBurn - CD & DVD Burning
Software
• MediaEdit Pro - Video, Audio &
Image Editor
• ScreenRecord - Capture OnScreen Actions
• PhotoEdit - Photo Editor & Paint
Tool
• MacPac - Boost Your Mac Power
Visit http://www.macXware.com
CouponCode MUG2004
December 31, 2004.
PodShop
Like peanut butter and jelly, some
things just go together.
PodShop has designed the perfect companion for iPod, an acrylic
stand/display that complements the
look and feel. PodHolder is a beautiful
and functional accessory built at the
perfect angle, allowing one-thumb
access to iPod while preventing
scratches.
Regularly $9.95, PodHolder is available to Apple user group members for
$7.95, a 20 percent discount.
http://podshop.com/mug.htm
December 31, 2004.
10
The MUG Store
The MUG Store always
has great deals for you
This Month's Highlights
• Refurbished eMacs starting
at $599
• Refurbished iBooks with Combo
drive starting at $899
• Refurbished iMacs starting at $999
• Refurbished PowerBooks starting
at $1,099
But the Mug Store isn't just about refurbished Macs: We offer free freight,
great deals on new Macs and other
products, plus one percent back to your
group when you buy from the store.
To get into this exclusive User Group
site order today
See user id and password on page 11.
Get a complete list of all current deals.
http://www.mugcenter.com/vendornews/vendornews.html
Download
of the Month
submitted by
Debi Foss
Trash Locked Files
http://www.landsbert.freeserve.
co.uk/trashlockedfiles
Trash Locked Files will unlock all
the files in the trash and then send
an AppleEvent to the Finder to
empty the trash. You can also use
Trash Locked Files to unlock all
files within a folder you select.
Minimum System Requirements
• Macintosh PowerPC.
• System 8.5 (including OS X).
• Carbon Library (pre-OS X only).
• 10Mb RAM free.
• 1Mb Hard disk space.
I have had this mysterious, invincible file in my trash for about 2
weeks, and this got rid of it. Whee!
Upcoming Meetings
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
May 26 • 7 pm
Introduction to Digital Cameras
and Digital Photography
June 29 • 7 pm
and iDVD Workshops
Discounted
Books
CMC continues to
offer our current members
the opportunity to purchase any
Free . . . to a good home!
Complete Mac system — hey, it’s old, but
the price is right! Quadra 605, 14” display,
StyleWriter printer, mouse, keyboard.
Contact Deena at [email protected].
August 25 • 7 pm
Quark/InDesign
Graphic designer Pat Rasch will
give a presentation on InDesign. Pat
will discuss the benefits of InDesign
and how to move to InDesign for
users of Quark and Pagemaker.
September 29 • 7 pm
Apple engineer, author and
presenter Dave Marra will give
an entertaining and informative
presentation about the Mac world.
Future Meeings include:
• Annual Auction
• Migration to OSX
• Holiday Party
Every CMC
member who attends our monthly
giving away!
WELCOME!
New Members
Spread the word. We need new
members! Have your friends and
co-workers join us for fun and
learning about OS X and the Mac.
Treasurer’s Report
July 28 • 7 pm
GarageBand
This presentation will be geared
towards the non-musician demonstrating how easy Garage Band can
make music.
FREE
Raffle!
Ending Checking
Account Balance ................$1336.36
CMC Web Site Access
www.ctmac.org
User ID: XXX (uppercase)
Password: xxxxx (lowercase)
Balances as of April 30, 2004
CMC Classified Ads
April 1, 2004 - July 31, 2004
User ID: xxxx (lowercase)
Password: xxxx (lowercase)
provided to our members. Any
business items or services can be
CMC ELECTIONS
Monthly Ad Rates
At the May meeting we will vote in
the officers for the next year. We will
accept nominations from the floor
prior to the elections. The ballot at
this time has the following names:
Business Card ..........................$10.00
Quarter Page.............................$20.00
Half Page..................................$30.00
• President............Don Dickey
• Vice President....Rich Lenoce
• Secretary............Chris Hart
• Treasurer............David Gerstein
graphics embedded.
Apple User
Group Store
11
left as you enter.
12
Monthly Meeting
June 30 – 7 p.m.
Middlesex
Community College
Hands-on Photoshop, iPhoto
and iDVD Workshops
Shopping Wisely
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
Many of us hate to spend money. That
said, getting a good buy or having a
pleasant buying experience can ease the
pain of parting with our hard-earned
cash. This month I’ll share a few of my
favorite online shopping haunts.
Computer Geeks (geeks.com) is a supplier of computer stuff. Most of it is
PeeSee stuff, but I’ve bought stuff here
like hard drives, external enclosures,
and a Labtek USB microphone that
works great with iChat AV. The microphone cost me $9. It was selling at the
Apple Store in Westfarms for three
times that!
NewEgg.com is a similar company
with a very large selection. They have
reasonable shipping on most items,
and some items even ship free. I’ve
purchased drives and external enclosures from NewEgg. Both Geeks and
NewEgg are in California, so your
stuff will take a week to get here.
Small Dog Electronics (smalldog.com)
is a Mac-centric shop up in Waitsfield,
Vermont. Being in New England, you
should get your stuff in a day or two.
They’re an Apple Authorized Reseller
and sell both new and refurbished gear.
Selling similar stuff from Woodstock,
IL is Other World Computing (macsales.com). They have very good tech
support gurus, and they’re a good place
to shop for a processor upgrade to help
speed up an aging Mac.
Another good Mac-centric shop is
MacResQ.com. They have some used
JUNE, 2004
Macs, and you can use their site as a
guide to what your old Mac might be
worth should you decide to sell it. They
also stock many hard-to-find parts for
older gear.
Mac Connection (MacConnection .com)
is an Apple Authorized Reseller with a
very large inventory of new Apple systems, software, and peripherals. Their
sister company, PcConnection.com,
“Be sure to carefully read
the fine print before you buy
from any vendor. Check their
return policy, and make sure the
shipping charges aren’t out of line.
If you have to return a defective item,
ask the vendor to either issue a
“pull tag” or send you a freight-paid
return shipping label”
focuses on the Windoze world. They’re
located in New Hampshire, but that
doesn’t mean your stuff will necessarily ship from there since they have
several warehouses. At last report, they
offered free ground shipping if you tell
them your a CMC user group member!
That could save you a bundle on heavy
purchases.
I remember when Outpost.com of
Kent, CT. was featured in Connecticut
Magazine. Our own Deena Quilty did
their PR for a while! They’re now part
of the Fry’s Electronics chain and the
1
deals may be fewer and less frequent,
but they’re still a good place to shop.
Their selection seems to have grown
with their Fry’s affiliation.
While Belkin.com normally sells their
stuff at list prices, shopping here during
a Macworld show sometimes yields a
50%-off sale! I bought a nice, powered
FireWire hub online here during the
January Macworld show at half-off.
If you’re a member, SamsClub.com is
a great place to buy stuff at warehouse prices without leaving your
home. I got my 19” flat panel display
here, and they even shipped it for
free. The best part about this site is
that if you aren’t completely happy
with your purchase, you can return it
to any Sam's Club warehouse store.
If you’re willing to try a refurbished
Mac, try the “Special Deals” page at
the Apple Store online. I’ve seen
eMacs with G4 processors and
built-in 17” flat screen monitors for
$549 with free shipping! I got a
refurbished 10 gb iPod for $169 when
they were selling for almost twice that
if new.
For good deals on software, check out
Software-Blowouts.com. I recently
Continued on page 2
Inside this Issue
Saving The ‘Unsavable’....................... 2
Office 2004 .......................................... 4
Mac 911................................................6
Macworld Bus Trip Info........................7
Download of the Month........................7
Be S.M.A.R.T.......................................8
bought a 4-CD Encyclopedia
Britannica Ultimate Reference Set for
$6.95 (plus shipping)! Most of their
software is discontinued or overstocks.
Be careful to check the supported OS
versions before you whip out your
credit card.
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content Contributor
Don Dickey
Contributing Author
Rich Lenoce
Chris hart
Designer
George Maciel
Photographer
John Scott
Chris Hart
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
If you like Epson printers, I’ve found
great deals at their site (epson.com) on
refurbished or recently discontinued
gear. They shipped my printer for free,
and they even threw in a free USB
cable!
InkDaddy.com (formerly 4ink.com)
and Ink4Art.com are a couple of good
places to buy 3rd party ink jet ink and
laser printer toner. You’ll save a bundle
over real Epson, Canon, and HP products. Some people say your printer is
more likely to get gummed up, but I’ve
had good luck with 3rd party ink. Your
milage may vary. Don’t complain to me
if you buy this stuff and it wrecks your
print head!
Perhaps my best deal was at Buy.com
Several years ago they offered an
incredible deal on a large NEC monitor.
I ordered one as soon as I saw it. Later,
however, they realized the price had
been posted in error. They canceled my
order, along with all the other orders
they caught in time. That irritated
somebody enough that he filed a class
action lawsuit against them! The net
result, however, was that a couple years
later I got a settlement check in the mail
for something like $50 without even
having to buy anything.
Be sure to carefully read the fine print
before you buy from any vendor. Check
their return policy, and make sure the
shipping charges aren’t out of line. If
you have to return a defective item, ask
the vendor to either issue a “pull tag”
or send you a freight-paid return shipping label.
It’s great to have fun with your Mac.
It’s even better to do it at a discount!
Happy shopping. 
2
Saving The ‘Unsavable’
by Chris Hart, Secretary
Have you visited a web site which contains audio or video clips, and wished
you could save them for later listening
or viewing? Were you stopped in your
tracks by the lack of an option to
accomplish this kind of file saving?
You’re not alone.
Thanks to Corporate America’s obsession with copyright protection, much
of the audio and video content online
cannot be saved to your computer.
However, I have a trick to share with
you, which may be the solution you’ve
been looking for.
This trick will work for most audio and
video files that are being played back by
the QuickTime plug-in built into your
Macintosh. Of course some multimedia
files use other media players to make
their way to your screen. So, how can
you tell if QuickTime is being used?
Well, if the playback control bar that
you see is similar to the one below, then
you are likely using the QuickTime
plug-in, and this trick will work.
I must mention that the only types of
files that will work with this process
are audio and video files which are in
QuickTime or MPG/MPEG format.
That’s because these two types of files
are played by the QuickTime software
built into your Mac. If, instead, the
audio or video content you wish to save
is in RealPlayer or Windows Media
Player format (meaning it has an extension on the end such as .RM, .RAM,
.AVI, .ASF, .WMF), then you’ll have to
explore other methods of saving it to
your Mac. I have provided information,
at the end of this article, on tools which
will make this possible.
Please remember that it is your responsibility to use the copyrighted material
you download with some degree of
respect for the originators of that material. If you appreciate their work, you
should consider rewarding them by
continued on page 3
(a.k.a. extension), which tells the
computer what kind of file this is.
If you’re confident that the file is
a QuickTime file, then put .MOV
on the end (such as “movie traile r. m o v ” ) . I f y o u b e l i e v e
t h e content might be an
MPG/MPEG file, then use those
letters for the suffix (example
“ m o v i e t r a i l e r. m p g ” ) . A n
MP3 file should have that same
extension (example “song.mp3”).
purchasing the stuff they produce.
With that small lecture out of the
way, I now present the trick I’ve
been promising...How to save
‘unsavable’ QuickTime files in
Mac OS X:
Step 1:
Open System Preferences (in the
Apple Menu). Click on the
QuickTime icon in the System
Preferences window. Click on
the tab that is labeled “Plug-In.” Make
sure that there is a checkbox in place for
the option “Save movies in disk cache.”
Quit System Preferences.
Step 2:
Visit the web page, QuickTime player
page, or iTunes Music Store page that
has the audio/video content you wish to
save. You’ll notice that as playback of
the clip begins to play, the progress bar
below it is filled from left to right. This
horizontal line begins as all white, and
darkens as the file your hearing/watching is being obtained from the internet.
If you like, you may pause the playback
and not hamper this process.
Step 3:
You must wait until the progress bar is
completely filled from left to right. For
example, the progress bar I showed you
above indicates that the video clip is
only partially loaded. Only once this
bar is completely filled can you proceed
with the rest of the steps.
Step 4:
Hide the application that is playing the
clip. Switch to the Finder. In the Go
menu, select the option “Go to Folder...”
A dialog box will now ask you to enter
the path to the folder you want. Type in
/tmp/501/TemporaryItems/ and click on
the GO button.
Step 5:
You will now have a window on your
screen for the folder “Temporary
Items” which contains just that — lots
of files that your computer has stored
temporarily on your hard drive. I must
tell you up front that it is very important
that you do not modify any of the files
in this folder (such as changing their
names or trashing them). Doing so
could cause your computer or software
to become unstable.
Look through the contents of the
“Temporary Items” folder for any files
that begin with the name
“QTPluginTemp.” These files will have
random numbers on the end, such as
“QTPluginTemp8675309” If there is
more than one file of this type, try to
determine which is the one you are
looking for by comparing the file sizes
and modification dates. (Most likely,
you are looking for the file with the
largest size and/or most recent modification date that is the one you seek.) If
you are unsure which file is the right
one, you may repeat the steps below for
any of the files you suspect are what
you’re looking for.
Once you have identified the correct
“QTPluginTemp” file:
• Hold down the OPTION key on
your keyboard.
• Drag that file to your desktop.
• Let go of the OPTION key.
A duplicate has now been created on
your desktop. As I mentioned earlier, do
not modify the original file. Simply
close the folder window named
“Temporary Items.”
Step 6:
Find the “QTPluginTemp” file on your
desktop. Click once on the name, and
rename the file to something appropriate, such as “movie trailer” You must
follow that name with a file suffix
3
Your Macintosh may ask you if
you are sure that you want to change the
file name.Reassure it that you do. You
will notice that the file’s icon immediately changes from one that is generic
to one that is colorful. That indicates
that the file is now associated with a
media player on your computer.
Step 7:
Enjoy the file. You should be able to
simply double click on the file and have
it start to playback in the appropriate
media player (usually QuickTime
Player). If that doesn’t work, then
you’ll have to manually launch
QuickTime Player and use the OPEN
function in the FILE menu, to navigate
your way to the file.
If at first you don’t succeed:
Below are a variety of software products that allow you to record audio and
video on your Mac, in one way or
another. You may need to try several, in
order to find one that works satisfactorily, or suits your particular needs.
Audion www.panic.com
Audio Hijack www.rogueamoeba.com
WireTap www.ambrosiasw.com
Snapz Pro X www.ambrosiasw.com
Screen Tool www.citrussoftware.com
Screen Record (available at two URLs)
www.macxware.com and
www.miennetwork.com
ASF Recorder (for Windows Media
Player content) www.misawa. net/
archives/000030.html
Radio Recorder
http://u1.netgate.net/~snowcat/
RadioRecorder.html 
Office 2004
v11 for Mac:
Should you bother?
on the laptop to display only what is
on the slide while the presenter sees
the slide in a small window and presentation notes in another on their
laptop. This can become a crutch for
presenters, but for the novice or those
nervous about presenting, it can be an
excellent aid. Just remember that you
have an audience and to look up from
the computer screen often!
by Rich Lenoce, Vice President
I received a copy of Microsoft
Office 2004-Standard Edition,
and as I do every couple of years,
I had to ask the question, is this
package of Word, Excel,
PowerPoint and Entourage
worth the $249 upgrade price,
$400 for a new copy or $149 for the
Teacher/Student Edition?
Let me expose my prejudices first. I
have always found any Microsoft
product, especially Office, to be bloatware. Office has historically occupied
huge amounts of disk space, eats up
an undeserving amount of memory
and processor cycles, is buggy, and in
the past, upgrades offered little in the
way of real productivity enhancements. On the plus side, Office does
offer tremendous compatibility with
the PC world and when mastered,
offers many necessary features and
productivity tools not found anywhere
else. The reason these tools aren’t
found anywhere else is that Microsoft
has beaten all other competitors into
submission by selling their product
(on the PC-side) at the point of sale
where people buy a computer or it is
distributed as part of an overall
Microsoft OS and software site
license for businesses and schools.
Because of this entrenchment in the
PC and business world, few users,
except for those with a Mac, actually
purchase individual copies of Office.
In the PC world, it’s a defacto standard. As we covered earlier, there are
many alternatives, but few with the
features, power and entrenchment in
the business world.
For Mac users we may feel we need
Office to work with our PC brethren,
and for the corporate environment it’s
a must. Once Microsoft had come out
with the third update to Office X for
Macintosh, the program had reached a
nice balance of stability and speed on
most G3/G4/G5 systems, so I was
leery of stepping up to a new edition.
There are some notable features and
improvements in Office 2004, particul a r l y w i t h M i c r o s o f t Wo r d ,
PowerPoint and Entourage. Word now
has note-taking features that allow
you take quick notes and organize
these notes for later use within a Word
document. This may be useful for students and people who take meeting
notes, as it’s a speedy and slick way to
get ideas onto “paper,” or into the
computer fast. You can dispense with
notes all together and use Word as a
dictation machine as it can now record
audio from a microphone. Both are
handy features and well integrated,
but there are many free and shareware
note-taking and simple audio recording applications available that will do
the same thing at little or no cost. Just
do a search on Versiontracker.com.
A p p l e ’s K e y n o t e h a s g i v e n
PowerPoint a run for its money and
Microsoft has shot back with an
enhanced product. One new feature
and what I consider a Keynote-breaker is the ability for the laptop and
video projector to show two distinct
images. You can set the video output
4
Entourage is the most enhanced
produ c t i n t h e s u i t e . I t s p o r t s a
well-organized new three-column
view and a more responsive feel.
Entourage’s biggest enhancement is a
project management feature where all
emails, notes and Office documents,
spreadsheets and presentations relating to the same project can reside
within a single folder. For those with
poor organizational skills, this is a
godsend. For those of us meticulous
about our desktop and file organization, this new feature may be wholly
unnecessary. Entourage certainly
seems more stable and now has recovery and backup tools for the database.
I refused to try Entourage again after
my database was destroyed in the last
version but this new item makes me
feel more secure. Entourage is a powerful PIM application for those who
need that kind of power and organization in one package. I am a teacher
with hundreds of student and professional contacts, an extensive and
detailed calendar, and I have been able
to live without Entourage by using
Apple’s own Mail, Address Book and
iCal applications. I like the way those
let me sync to my .mac account, keeping all my information synchronized
across multiple computers and handheld devices as well as my Safari
bookmarks. I also don’t like the way
Entourage wants to hog my entire
screen and prefer my Mac application’s ability to be shrunk and stuck
into a corner for when I need them.
continued on page 5
But, Entourage is a powerful, all-inone tool aimed at businesses,
educators and others with busy
lives.
And, where’s Excel you ask? It
appears Excel did not get much in
the way of improvements.
Sadly, speed and stability were not
improved with Office 2004. There
was a noticeable performance hit
and system slow down with Word,
PowerPoint and Entourage compared to the Office X versions.
Word quit on me 20 minutes into a
document for no reason, which to
me has become a staple when
Microsoft releases a new version of
Office. But, those clever folks at
MS are ahead of the game because
the document reappeared as
“Recovered” when I launched the
application again. Phewwww! As
with earlier versions of Office,
expect stability enhancement
releases and bug fixes in the coming
months.
So is Office worth the hefty price? I
think you’ll find that if you need
these new features for school or
work, you’ll need to upgrade. The
Student/Teacher edition is full featured and nicely priced at $149, and
allows Office to be installed on up
to three machines; certainly it’s the
best deal. If purchasing Office for
the first time, you might want to
save some money and find a clearance copy of the older Office X for
Mac. If you have no need for the
new features and Office X works for
you, by all means stick with it and
save yourself from this bloatware.
For $400 you can get airfare and a
hotel for a weekend in Orlando. Do
that and you’ll be happier — and
tell Mickey I said hello! 
Samples Reprinted by permission
The Executive Summary of Graphic Design News - June 04
Force Startup from Hard Drive
Sometimes, after starting up from a CD
and then restarting, your Mac won’t
eject the CD and still wants to start up
from the CD. To force your Mac to start
up from the internal hard drive, hold
down the D key just after hearing the
startup chime. (Hold down the C key to
start up using the CD.)
Digital Camera Info Sites
Here are two good review sites for digital cameras:
• Steve’s Digicams This terrific review
site includes a discussion forum area.
His reviews have lots of close-up pictures of the features of the cameras. The
reviews are quite easy to understand
(not too much techno babble), and they
are quite thorough. www.steves-digicams.com
• Imaging Resource Another great site
that includes lots of sample pictures,
making it easy to visually compare the
image quality of different cameras.
www.imaging-resource.com
Time/Life Images
www.TimePix.com licenses the images
from Time and Life magazines from
1923 through today. You can search by
subject, or have their staff search for you.
Retro Images
www.Retrofile.com specializes in
images from many U.S. vintage photo
libraries, including black and white
imagery through the 1960s, and color
imagery from the 1950s through the
1970s. The images capture “American
optimism in the early and middle parts
of the century…and Mod, Flower
Power and Disco generations.”
Lynda Movies
www.Lynda.com has hundreds of hours
of streaming QuickTime movies that
teach you just about everything about
graphics, animation, Web applications
such as Macromedia Dreamweaver,
5
Flash, UltraDev, and Fireworks, and
Adobe
Acrobat,
Photoshop,
ImageReady, and Illustrator. Access
costs $25 per month. We tried it, and it’s
remarkably effective, even on a 56k
modem.
More Memory for Classic
If you run several memory-hungry
applications in Panther’s Classic environment, and Classic complains that
you don’t have enough memory, you
can adjust the memory that Mac OS X
gives to classic: in System Preferences>
Classic, hold down the Option key
when clicking the Memory/Versions
button. An Adjust Memory button
appears at the bottom of the window.
Click it, and a sheet drops down containing a slider: “Application
Temporary”. Move the slider toward
Temporary. Ted Landau
Copy Mac OS X Startup Volumes
Carbon Copy Cloner is a free utility that
lets you copy your Mac OS X startup
volume to a different hard drive, including all the necessary invisible files. Just
click a button and it copies. At
www.bombich.com.
Find Downloads More Quickly
To quickly find the items you’ve downloaded from websites, rather than let
them accumulate on your desktop, create a folder on the desktop (perhaps
named Downloads). Then, in your Web
browser’s preferences set the location
for downloaded files to that folder. Lesa
Snider Mac Design May/June 04, pg.36
Design Tools Monthly is published by
The Nelson Group, Inc. Its purpose is:
1) to summarize all the news in
graphic design technologies; and
2) to be a designer’s index to trade
publications and websites.
Information is collected from graphic
design and prepress trade publications, websites, tech notes, press
releases, and user reports.
To download a free sample of a DTM
newsletter, go to http://www.designtools.com/sample/index.htm
Help Desk
Mac 911
Do you wonder whether
sending AppleWorks documents to PC users is strictly for the birds?
Do you seek the means for sending a Mail
message to one user's many e-mail
accounts? If so, then this month's Mac 911,
in which we examine Apple's bundled applications, is for you.
Will AppleWorks Work?
Marti Hokans, Santa Ana, California
Probably. I waffle because a successful
translation from AppleWorks to Excel
depends on the elements you include in the
spreadsheet. With a straightforward table -one including headings, colored text and
cell backgrounds, a book title, an author
name, and an ISBN number, for example -you should have no problem. Excel for both
the Mac and Windows can read spreadsheets that include lists and standard
formulas. To save the file in a format acceptable to Excel, just select Save As from
AppleWorks' File menu; then, in the Save:
AppleWorks 6 dialog box, choose the
appropriate Excel format (Excel Win 97,
2000, XP, or 2002, for example), and click
on Save. You'll run into trouble, though, if
you place charts in the AppleWorks spreadsheet or slap an image of a black-crowned
night heron into the file. The data should be
readable, but any charts and graphics you've
inserted won't appear in Excel.
One Recipient, Many Addresses
I have some people in my address book who
have multiple e-mail addresses. How can I
pick a person's name once when typing it in
the To section of Mail and have my e-mail
sent to all of his or her available addresses?
Mike Drinks, Baltimore, Maryland
You can't do it by default, but I know a
workaround. Create a group that includes
multiple e-mail addresses for one individual.
Let's say I wanted to generate a group that
sends a message to your home, school, and
work addresses. I'd create one contact that I
might call Mike Drinks Home (with your
home e-mail address), another called Mike
Drinks School (with your school e-mail
address), and another labeled Mike Drinks
Work (with your work e-mail address). I
would then create a new Drinks Contacts
group and drag the three Mike Drinks contacts I'd made into this group. When I
wanted to send a message to all those
addresses, I would use that Drinks Contacts
group.
Secret Schedule
A friend would like to publish her vacation
itinerary as an iCal calendar, but she wants
to restrict access to only her family members. How can she do this? Amy R. Miller,
Austin, Texas
Your friend can do this with her .Mac
account, but I recommend that she do so
only if she has a nearly pathological trust in
her family. To password-protect her calendar under .Mac, she must provide family
members with her .Mac user name and password -- the same user name and password
she uses to purchase Mac goodies from the
Apple Store and music at the iTunes Music
Store. With that user name and password,
others can log in to her .Mac account.
If this gaping security flaw doesn't bother
your friend, she need only select an iCal calendar, choose Publish from the Calendar
menu, select On A WebDAV Server from
the Publish Calendar pop-up menu, and
enter http://idisk.mac.com/username/
Documents (where username is her user
name). Then she must enter her .Mac user
name and password and click on Publish for
the calendar to be published to the
Documents folder of her iDisk.
To share the calendar, she can pass along its
address (which will take the form of webcal://
idisk.mac.com/username/Documents/calendar.ics) and her user name and password.
Family members can access her calendar by
choosing Subscribe from iCal's Calendar
menu, entering the URL for the calendar,
and placing her user name and password in
the Authentication dialog box that appears.
I strongly advise your friend not to allow
this kind of access to her .Mac account. She
can use a far safer service such as iCal
Exchange (www.icalx.com) or iCal World
(www.icalworld.com/hosting.html), both of
which allow you to publish password-pro-
6
tected iCal calendars for a small fee ($12 a
year for iCal Exchange and $25 a year for
iCal World).
'Ware, oh, Where?
My ISP says that there are invisible files
placed on my system by sites I visit, and that
these files regularly send information about
me back to those sites. The ISP used terms
such as adware and spyware. What's really
going on? Walt Hammonds, Monte Vista, CO
If your ISP were more in tune with the Mac
world, it would have prefaced its message
with "For Windows Users Only." Currently
adware and spyware -- which, respectively,
are bits of code that display pop-up ads and
send information from your computer to a
third party without your permission -- are all
but unknown on the Mac. There are applications that can log keystrokes and capture
snapshots of what someone is doing on a
Mac. Unlike much of the adware and spyware made for Windows, these applications
aren't installed by a malevolent software
download. Rather, they're placed on your
Mac by someone who has access to your
computer -- a parent concerned about a
child's Internet activities, a prying boss, or a
jealous mate, for example.
Such tools are designed to be difficult to
detect, so if you suspect that your activities
are being monitored, you might take a look
at Aladdin Software's $30 Internet Cleanup
(831/761-6200, www.aladdinsys.com).
Among its components is SpyAlert, a utility
that searches your hard drive for traces of
applications known to track your activities.
When it finds such traces, it alerts you to
them and — with your permission —
attempts to remove the offending software.
When Aladdin learns of new spyware applications, it updates Internet Cleanup to deal
with new threats.
Tip of the Month
Although you can assign images to contacts
in Address Book or iChat applications,
wouldn't it be nice if your i-apps recognized
all your friends and loved ones? Here's a tip
for doing just that.
Find a TIFF image that represents the person in question (around 64 by 64 pixels
continued on page 7
works best). Name it with the e-mail
address of your contact, and make sure to
include the .tiff file extension. For example:
[email protected].
Create a folder called Images. Within that
folder, create another folder called People.
Drag the Images folder into the Library
folder at the root level of your OS X volume
to make the picture available for all users on
your Mac. (To make it available for a single
account, use the Library folder in that user's
Home directory.) Now whenever you look
up "Person 64" in Address Book, and
whenever he sends you an e-mail or joins
you in an iChat session, you'll see the image
you assigned to him. Chuck La Tournous,
Port Reading, NJ
Unsolicited Advice
iPhoto 4's slide shows are far more flexible
than those created in previous versions of
the program. You can not only elect to play
an entire iTunes playlist behind a slide
show, but also rate and rotate pictures as
you view a slide show.
What's a little less obvious is that you can
perform all these actions from the Mac's
keyboard. For example, to rate pictures as
they slide by, press 0 (zero) through 5 (0 for
no stars, 5 for five stars). To rotate pictures
clockwise, press 1-R. To rotate pictures
counter-clockwise, press 1-option-R. Press
delete to remove a picture from the selected
album. To change the speed of the slide
show, use the up-arrow key to display pictures for a shorter amount of time and the
down-arrow key to slow things down. To
pause the slide show (but not the background music), press the spacebar.
Breen is the author of Macworld's tips
and troubleshooting column, "Mac 911,"
as well as Secrets of the iPod: Fourth
Edition and Mac 911 (Peachpit Press).
Find Chris' books at www.amazon.com
and www.peachpit.com.
Macworld Magazine! Subscribe today at
http://www.macworld.com/useroffer.
Bus Trip - July 14
The bus will leave 7:30 A.M. sharp on Wednesday
BOSTON • JULY
July 14. In an emergency, we might delay the
departure a few minutes. Please call Jack Bass cell phone number 324-4224 - that morning if you do have an emergency.
14
We have been approved to park in the G7 area that is located in front of the main
entrance to the JC Penney store at the WestFarms Mall, New Britain Ave in West
Hartford. It is the same area that we used last year.
Join CMC as it goes to Macworld Expo in Boston on Wednesday, July 14th! The
price is $20 per member. Non-members rates are $25 per person. Payments can
be made at the meeting on June 30th at MxCC. Additionally, checks can be
mailed to:
Connecticut Macintosh Connection
41 Crossroads Plaza — PMB 1984
PayPal payments are also accepted on our website at www.ctmac.org. All seats
will be on a first come, first served basis. Don’t forget that you will also need to
register for the Expo itself; for this you can go to www.macworldexpo.com.
My Photo Album 4.2.1
http://www.x-industries.com
/mpa/download.html
Classic or Mac OS X, Freeware!
My Photo Album is an application
for the Mac OS that allows you to
organize your digital photographs
into photo albums that are personalized and attractive. Regardless of
how you file your photos on your
hard drive, you can mix and match,
arrange, caption, and group your
photos into albums and store them all
in an easily accessible pop-up menu.
Albums are created with ease in a
simple step-by-step process. Your
albums are saved as small data files,
so your original photos are left
untouched. You can even modify the
album's appearance by downloading
themes from this web page. Treat
your friends across the globe to photos of your new baby girl or your
drunken frat parties by exporting
them with the click of your mouse to
a fancy HTML page.
7
A comprehensive online help manual, balloon help, and top-notch
customer support are included in
case you get stuck at any point. It's
free for a limited time only! With
current foreign and economic policies crumbling, we feel it's right
about time to spread some love. So
here's a real tax cut: My Photo
Album 4.2 for free. If you find yourself enjoying it, please make a
contribution to your community and
vote in 2004.
Features:
• Friendly Interface–Photo Album
Wizard & Point 'n' Click Interface
Multiple Viewing Options – Electronic Albums, Slide Shows &
Web Pages
• Multiple Photo Albums–Each with
their own look and feel
• Web Exporting–Upload your
albums to the internet as either
Flash (NEW!) or
HTML!
Be S.M.A.R.T.
About Your Data
by Chris Hart, CMC Secretary
We all put a great deal of faith
in our computers. They
contain our business information, our personal
information, and provide
an increasingly important
means of communicating
with the world. So, when your computer fails to work as you expect it to,
it's understandable that you get frustrated. And the most dreaded way in
which your computer could fail is the
loss of your data — your documents,
photos, web site favorites, and emails.
The fact is, at any given time you
could be just days, hours, or minutes
away from losing it all.
As people who work in the computer
industry are often known to say "It's
not a matter of if a hard disk will fail,
but when it will fail.” You see the hard
disk is a primary component inside
every computer, and its job is to
store all your files. It’s a tough
job, because nearly every function of your computer’s operation
requires interaction with the hard
disk. This is because, in addition
to storing your own files, the hard
disk is also the place of residence
for hundreds of thousands of files
that are necessary for your computer to operate.
Storing all that information
already sounds tough, but now lets
compound the task by having to keep
track of it all on a 2.5 to 3.5 inch disk
that is constantly in motion — rotating 5000 or more times a minute.
Plus, the pin-sized “head” that has the
job of interpreting the information on
this rotating disk has to move above it
in minute steps, while avoiding any
physical contact with the disk.
Hopefully this gives you an understanding as to why it’s just a matter of
time before one or more of these components breaks down, and no longer
works reliably.
My goal is not to
alarm you, but to
give you an understanding of the
factors involved in
storing your files.
There are certainly
alternative methods
for data storage, but
the hard disk is the
most cost-efficient
means of storing
files that is currently practical for personal computer manufacturers. The
majority of the time, hard drives work
reliably and provide rapid access to a
massive amount of data — currently
up to approximately 400 gigabytes for
an individual disk.
Now that you have an understanding
of the hard disk, let’s increase
your understanding for
how to protect against its
eventual failure. Your
number one protection
should be backups of
“Also available
are three, relatively
expensive
commercial
software utilities:
Disk Guardian
Disk Warrior
TechTool Pro 4”
your data. And if there is one thing I
hope you have come away from CMC
with, I wish it would be the necessity
for regular backups of your data
through whatever means is available
to you. But I realize that wishing
doesn’t always make it so, and that
most of you rarely stick to a backup
regimen. So, the best we can do is to
avert disaster, and in that effort,
S.M.A.R.T. Is your friend.
S . M . A . R . T. s t a n d s f o r “ S e l f Monitoring Analysis Reporting
Technology” and provides a means for
the hard disk inside your computer to
warn you when failure is pending.
Nearly all hard drives manufactured in
recent years feature S.M.A.R.T. capability, but that’s all it is — a capability.
It’s the computer user’s responsibility
to tap into this capability, by using
S.M.A.R.T. monitoring software.
Apple includes this feature in the
“Disk Utility” software that is included with the “Jaguar” version (10.3) of
the Mac OS X operating system. (For
those of you running OS 9, I regret
that there is no way to take advantage
of S.M.A.R.T.) You can find Disk
Utility inside the “Utilities” folder,
which is inside the “Applications”
folder. When you launch Disk Utility,
after a brief system scan, you will see
a list of all the hard disks in your computer in the left hand column. You
must now click once on the icon for
the hard disk you want to check.
Instead of clicking on the name of the
disk that you regularly see on the
desktop, click on the manufacturer’s
name above that. At the bottom
of the Disk Utility window, you
will now a listing for S.M.A.R.T.
status. If this indicator reads as
"verified," then it’s likely that
nothing is wrong. If, however,
the status indicators reads
"About to Fail", you need to back
up your files immediately and
have the hard disk replaced as
soon as possible.
A caveat that I must mention is
that, at this point in time, Mac OS X
can only read S.M.A.R.T. status from
internal hard disks. That means any
external hard disks you have, whether
connected via USB or FireWire, cannot be monitored.
As you may have surmised, using
Apple’s Disk Utility to monitor
S.M.A.R.T. status requires that you
manually launch the utility and verify
your hard disk’s condition. There are
some automated alternatives, howevcontinued on page 9
8
er, which will monitor the hard disk
whenever the computer is on. The
least expensive is a shareware creation
called SMARTReporter, which is
available at: http://homepage.mac.
com/julianmayer/. Also available are
three relatively expensive commercial software utilities:
Disk Guardian
http://www.subrosasoft.com
Disk Warrior
http://www.alsoft.com
TechTool Pro 4
http://www.micromat.com
No matter which of these software tools
you choose to use, when you are notified that S.M.A.R.T. indicates a pending
failure, you must act immediately. It is
not unusual for a hard disk to become
inaccessible in a short time frame, so
every minute is vital. You should make
every effort to backup all the files that
you can before the computer stops
responding.
Following a backup of your files, you
need to take the computer to someone
skilled in servicing Macintosh computers, and have them replace the hard disk.
If this happens while your computer is
under warranty, you should bring it to
an Apple service center. If it’s out of
warranty, you can call upon a
Macintosh computer technician or consultant. Neither Apple nor your typical
computer service center, is likely to do
anything to help you transfer your old
files to the new hard disk. A consultant,
however, will make this process as painless as possible, and take care of all the
system setup that will be necessary following a hard disk replacement.
I must point out that a lack of any
S.M.A.R.T. alerts from the above software utilities should not give you a false
sense of security. There are hard disk
failures that can elude S.M.A.R.T. and
your safest bet is always to make regular backups of your data. Using these
methods will make you SMARTer than
the other computer users on your block,
and spare you from data loss! 
Yes...I want to join CMC
Benefits: Monthly meetings, monthly newsletter, discounted book purchases, computer problem assistance,
network with other Mac users, User Group Store, etc.
Date ___________________
Referred by: ________________________
Name ________________________________________________________
Company Name ________________________________________________
Occupation ____________________________________________________
Address_______________________________________________________
City/State/Zip __________________________________________________
Phone (Home) ____________________Phone (Office)_________________
Email ________________________________________________________
Areas of Special Interest _________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
Annual CMC Family Membership - $25.00
Make check payable to CMC and mail to:
41 Crossroads Plaza – PMB 1984, West Hartford, CT 06117
...or register online with PayPal at www.ctmac.org
May 26th CMC
Meeting on Digital
Photography Basics
Guest presenter
Dave Farrington,
Sales Manager at
Zacher's Photo of
West Hartford,
discussed selecting
and using digital
cameras.
9
Treasurer David Gerstein
[email protected]
Editor Deena Quilty
[email protected]
10
Upcoming Meetings
7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
June 30 • 7 pm
and iDVD Workshops
July 28 • 7 pm
GarageBand
at UConn Medical Center
towards the non-musician demonstrating how easy Garage Band can
make music.
August 25 • 7 pm
Quark/InDesign
Discounted
Books
CMC continues to
offer our current members
the opportunity to purchase any
Special MUG Offers
Get a complete list of all current
deals: www.mugcenter.com/
FREE
Raffle!
Every CMC
member who attends our monthly
giving away!
WELCOME!
New Members
Spread the word. We need new
members! Have your friends and
co-workers join us for fun and
learning about OS X and the Mac.
Ending Checking
Account Balance ................$1486.36
CMC Web Site Access
www.ctmac.org
Password: xxxxx (lowercase)
Apple User
Group Store
April 1, 2004 - July 31, 2004
Balances as of May 31, 2004
CMC Classified Ads
or upgrading. This is a free service provided to our members. Any
Monthly Ad Rates
If you have a
program you would
like to present or
a subject that
interests you,
then please email
Rich Lenoce
vicepres@
ctmac.org
Business Card ..........................$10.00
Quarter Page.............................$20.00
Half Page..................................$30.00
graphics embedded.
11
Meeting
y
l
h
t
n
o
M
p.m.
7
June 30 –
sex
at Middle ollege
ty C
Communiotoshop, iPhoto
n Ph
ps
Hands-o
Worksho
D
V
iD
d
n
a
left as you enter.
12
Monthly Meeting
July 28 – 7 pm
GarageBand
Geared towards the non-musician
demonstrating how easy
GarageBand can make music.
JULY, 2004
After careful investigation, I found
that in the case of the eBay contact,
the fraudulent site was outside the
U.S. Since the email sent as HTML,
the URL you see is just a cover!
When you click the link, you really
end up going to http://211.174.62.133/
verify/index.php
Identity Theft
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
As you know, my
theme as your president has been how to
have fun with your
Mac. Unfortunately,
recent events force me
to deal with a topic I
am truly sorry to have
to write about, but I
feel compelled to raise a big red flag
this month.
By pasting the above URL into a
browser, and backspacing over
the address after the IP, I was
redirected to http://www.goldmat.
co.kr/ with all the text in kangi
(Asian) fonts. Surprise! You're on
a web site in Korea!
You may have seen advertisements on
TV where a woman speaks with a man’s
voice about the cool stuff she bought
with his identity. The reality of this scenario is that it can happen to you!
During the past couple of weeks I
received several emails which cause me
concern. They have come from what
look like legitimate businesses such as
eBay, Citibank, and U.S. Bank. What
makes them look legitimate is that I
believe I have done business with these
firms. In each case, the sender directed
me to a web site where I was supposed
to “verify my user data” or risk suspension of my account in a specified
number of days.
Example: (actual screenshots above)
Dear eBay member,
During our regular and verification of
the accounts we couldn't verify your
current information, either your information. Has changed or it is
incomplete? If the account is not updat-
“Back To Basics” - 6 pm
ed to current information within 5 days
then, your access to Buy or Sell on
eBay will be restricted. Go to the link
below to Update your account
information: http://signin.ebay.com/
aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?SignIn&ssPage
Name=h:h:sin:US
Please dont reply to this email as you
will not receive a response. Thank You
for using eBay! http://www.eBay.com
As outlined in our user agreement,
eBay will periodically send you information about site changes and
enhancements, vist our Privacy Policy
and User Agreement if you have any
questions. Copyright © 1995-2004
eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved.
1
Had I entered my user name and
password, I would have given the
thief enough information to log
onto eBay and get my complete
profile data. Worse yet, had I
entered my credit card information, you could probably hear
those cash registers ringing sales
all the way from the Orient!
Here is my warning, plain and simple:
(1) Do not reply to any email requesting user data verification, even if it is
Continued on page 2
Inside this Issue
Identity Theft ....................................... 1
Apple User Group Offers .................... 3
Monthly Tips ........................................4
MAC 911 Help Desk.............................6
GarageBand Review .............................8
Identity Theft...continued from pg.1
from an institution with which you
have done business. Call them on the
phone using a number posted on a
recent statement. Do not call any
phone number listed in an email or
linked web site as it may be fraudulent as well.
(2) Do not click on or visit any web
site linked to such emails.
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content Contributor
Don Dickey
(3) Warn other members of your family about this activity before it
happens to them.
(4) Identify such email as “junk” to
your spam filter so maybe next time it
will get caught automatically.
(5) Visit the FBI’s Internet Fraud
Complaint Center at www.ifccfbi.gov
to learn more about Internet fraud and
possibly file a complaint with law
enforcement agencies if you believe
you have been a target or a victim.
I will hopefully return to my regularly
scheduled program of having fun next
month. In the meantime, be careful! 
Contributing Author
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Photographer
John Scott
Chris Hart
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
Apple has recently upgraded the
services and web site for their
.Mac (“Dot Mac”) service. If you
are subscribed to this service, a
key improvement you should
explore is the Learning Center,
located at: http://www.mac.com/
learningcenter/
The .Mac Learning Center contains detailed tutorials and guides
for .Mac services, Mac OS X
“Panther” and the applications
that come with it (such as
“Mail”), iLife’04 (iPhoto, iMovie,
iDVD, iTunes, GarageBand), as
well as Keynote (Apple’s presentation creation
program).
Additionally,
a new .Mac
Support site
has been
integrated
into Apple's
main support
site, including
2
FAQs, community discussion
boards, and email-based support.
Until September, subscribers can
download a free chapter of O'Reilly &
Associates' new book "Inside .Mac."
When you’re done exploring the
.Mac Learning Center, share your
feedback with Apple at this
address: http://user.training.apple.
com/feedback/dm/
(Thanks to Chris Hart
for bringing this to our
attention – Newsletter staff)
Get a complete list of all current deals.
http://www.mugcenter.com/
Print Shop for Mac OS X
and World Book for Jaguar
The Print Shop for Mac OS X Edition
1.0 by Software MacKiev. Create
professional-looking CD labels
and cases from iTunes playlists.
Import photos from iPhoto to create
greeting cards. Make a wall-postersize sports calendar for your favorite
team and import all the team's games
from iCal with a single click. Print
Shop has everything you need to create great-looking projects. Regular
price: $49.95. MUG price: $39.95.
In addition, MacKiev discounts their
World Book Jaguar Edition. User Group
price: $49.95, upgrade price: $19.95.
http://www.mackiev.com/mugs/
This US Only offer is valid until
September 30 2004.
Graphic Authority Discount
“Quick solutions and
outstanding results.”
Create layered or photo collages,
apply edges to photos or learn dynamic warping and more. Kits, including
Extreme Edges, Euro-Collage Kit,
Photo Collage Kit and more, offer a
compliment of PDF and Quick Time
tutorials and royalty-free images.
$39.95 each or download all for one
outstanding price of $69.95. Domestic
and International customers save the
shipping and taxes with their
MemberZone download subscription.
User Group members receive 20
percent off the entire product line.
http://www.graphicauthority.com
Coupon Code ugroup20. Offer is valid
until November 30, 2004.
QuicKeys and Trans Lucy
QuicKeys creates shortcuts that
automate repetitive tasks with custom
hot keys, toolbars and timers. From
typing text, launching programs and
remapping keys, to selecting menus,
recording and playing back actions, and
everything in between, QuicKeys is the
premier macro automation tool. CE
Software is offering user group
members QuicKeys for only $59.95 –
40 percent off SRP. They are also
offering discounted pricing on Trans
Lucy – a new DVD player that lets you
watch a movie while you work.
Normally priced at $14.95, Trans Lucy
is available for only $9.95.
http://www.cesoft.com/usergroup/pricing.html Valid until October 31, 2004.
Total Training
Have you ever wanted to take an Adobe
expert to work or home with you? With
Total Training videos, now you can.
Plus, as an Apple user group member
you can save 25 percent off any Total
Training video for Adobe software.
This discount is only available on
phone orders and cannot be combined
with other offers. Call 1-888-368-6825
or 1-760-517-9015. (see ad on page 5)
Coupon Code MUG103104
http://www.totaltraining.com
Valid until October 31, 2004.
Business Card Composer
Since calling cards first appeared in the
1600s in France, one thing has
remained the same: you must have
business cards to win new business.
With Business Card Composer from
BeLight Software, you can quickly
create and modify professional-looking
cards, and easily print them on standard
business card stock with office or home
printers. Regular price $39.95 – MUG
Special $33.95
http://www.belightsoft.com/
products/special.php
Valid until November 30, 2004.
Speed Download 2
Speed Download 2 is the fastest, most
complete download manager for Mac
OS X, no matter what browser you use.
3
Optimized for dial-up and broadband
connections, Speed Download 2 offers
resumable downloading, scheduling,
bandwidth throttling and much more.
Yaz software offers two licenses for
$30 (US), a savings of 25 percent.
Updates are free to all registered SD2
owners.
Learn more: http://www.yazsoft.com
Purchase: http://order.kagi.com/?7NT
Valid until October 31, 2004.
BounceBack Professional
The software component of CMS'
award-winning ABSplus complete
backup solution is now available as
BounceBack Professional, software
that can turn any modern FireWire
drive into a backup that boots with a
single keystroke (a Mac-only feature),
or restores an entire system with one
click. Better still, choose from any
ABSplus portable or desktop solution
and BounceBack Professional to protect your iTunes library investment or
irreplaceable photos and movies. Apple
user group members receive 20 percent
off any CMS product.
Coupon Code macmug
http://www.cmsproducts.com
Valid until December 31, 2004.
The MUG Store
The MUG store always has great deals
for your members. Remember the
MUG store for the following benefits to
all User Groups:
• Free freight on all orders
• Knowledgeable consultants
available for every customer
• Great deals on new, refurbished
and used Macs
• Blowout deals on a large
assortment of goodies and
accessories
• One percent goes back to your
group in merchandise
To get into this exclusive User Group
site order today at: www.applemugstore.com See User ID and Password
on Page 11 of this newsletter
From The Tuscarawas County Macintosh
Users Group (TCMUG) New Philadelphia, OH
OS X TIP OF THE MONTH:
Safari Tips
1) You can have virtually instant access
to ALL your Safari Bookmarks from the
Bookmarks bar (via hierarchical menus)
if you spend a few minutes sorting them.
Create 6 or 7 (max) main folders (e.g.
Personal, Work, Family, Education, ...)
and put those in the Bookmarks Bar.
Then sort your bookmarks into subfolders, and put all sub-folders into the
appropriate main folders.
Also, for grabbing bookmarks quickly
while surfing and putting them where
they can be easily found/sorted later,
use an INBOX in the Bookmarks bar.
Create a new folder in the Bookmarks
window, call it INBOX, and make it the
first item in the Bookmarks bar. Then
while surfing, you can just grab the icon
to the left of the URL, and drag it to the
INBOX on the Bookmarks bar. After
following these steps, the only time you
ever need to open your Bookmarks
window is when you want to sort any
new bookmarks you have collected.
This bookmark organization hint will
apply to any browser that supports folders on the bookmarks bar along with
sub-folders.
2) I was having a problem with the
spinning beach ball and slow page
loads in Safari, and after searching a
bunch of forums, found two things that
seemed to help:
a. Delete all your autofill entries from
time to time. Do this by going to
Safari preferences, Autofill button,
and then click the "Edit..." button for
the "Other forms" box. In the next
window that appears, just click
Remove All.
b. Turn off all the languages you don't
need. In the Finder, select the Safari
application and do a Get Info
(Command-I), click "Languages,"
and uncheck all the languages you
don't need. It appears you can maximize Safari's speed by also disabling
JavaScript and removing cached
FavIcons.
WEB SITE:
Links of Interest
PDF AND PANTHER: The Hidden
Role of PDF in Mac OS X 10.3
Get ready for using Garageband with
these helpful books from Amazon.com:
GarageBand : The Missing Manual,
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/
ASIN/0596006950/theworlofkapn
Apple Training Series : GarageBand
GarageBand Visual QuickStart Guide
Apple iLife '04
ASIN/B0001ACK2K/theworlofkapn
Apple's Mac OS X makes broad use of
Adobe's PDF technology. It is the first
example to date of an operating system
that contains an actual Adobe
Normalizer embedded as a system component. A careful analysis shows that
Apple hasn't yet delivered on the exciting promise of an operating system built
around PDF.
http://www.creativepro.com/story
/feature/21266.html?cprose=daily
Trojan Horse Hubbub
Read the following news stories for a
full run-down on all the hubbub brewing around the announcement this past
month of the first Trojan horse to target
Mac OS X. It's merely a marketing
scheme by the "security" company
Intego (VirusBarrier) to exploit a "proof
of concept" Trojan built to demonstrate
that an OS X executable app could be
embedded into an MP3 file.
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/
TidBITS-726.html#lnk2
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/
avcenter/venc/data/mp3concept.html
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/
0,2125,63000,00.html
http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/
2004/04/08/trojan/
Macsimum Perspective
Welcome to Macsimum Perspective.
First, the obvious question: why
Macsimum Perspective? Second: a
better question: why not? There's never
been a more exciting time to be a Mac
user and Apple fan. After years of
covering our favorite computing
platform as a reporter, Dennis Sellers
decided it's time to ramrod a new site
filled with critiques, editorials, reviews
and more – including Macsimum
Migration Kits.
http://www.macsimumperspective.com
/index2.php?id=P17
4
TIP OF THE MONTH:
Online Shopping Tips
Here are some high-level tips to consider
when conducting transactions online.
1. Shop at secure websites. Check for
"https://" in the URL and the closed
padlock at the bottom of your screen.
These indicators or an unbroken key all
mean that the website is secure.
2. Read the website's privacy and security policies. All reputable companies
clearly state how they intend to use your
information and what measures they
take to ensure that your data stays
secure.
3. Use credit cards instead of debit
cards. In the event that something goes
wrong, you can dispute charges on a
credit card; debit cards can leave you
vulnerable to bank fraud.
4. Keep your password private. Most ecommerce sites require that you login to
conduct business with a combination of
a user ID and password. When choosing
a password, don't use commonly known
information – your mother's maiden
name, your birthday, etc. The best passwords are at least 8 characters long and
are alpha-numeric.
5. Check the website address. Always
check the URL to ensure that you are
shopping at your intended destination
and not a fraudulent site that looks
similar to the real one.
6. Use your intuition. If something
seems to good to be true, it probably is.
Likewise, if there are spelling and
grammar mistakes or if the company's
phone goes unanswered, you might
want to investigate further before you
conduct business with the merchant. 
Hot Summertime Deals
Web Pick of the Month
by Neal Dembicer, CMC
For everyone who would like save
money on gas: http://gasbuddy.com/
It's a portal site to more than 170 web
sites that help consumers find cheap
gas prices. All web sites are operated
by the non-profit organization known
as GasBuddy Organization Inc.
The local Hartford area web site is:
http://www.hartfordgasprices.com/
“Since gasoline prices change
frequently and may vary by as much
as 20 percent within only a few blocks
it is important to be able locate the
service station with the lowest priced
fuel. GasBuddy Organization web
sites allow consumers to both share
information about low priced fuel
with others as well as target the lowest
priced stations to save at the pumps!”
TOTAL
TRAINING
June 30th
Monthly
Meeting
Hosted by Rich Lenoce and
Middlesex Community College
Hands-On Photoshop
& Digital Photography
presented by Rick Eriksen
iPhoto Workshop
presented by Jack Bass
iMovie/iDVD Workshops
presented by Don Dickey
Rick Eriksen (above & right) presents his workshop to CMC members
Mac Training Programs
Photos by
John Scott
and
Chris Hart
proudly partners with
CT MAC CONNECTION
USER GROUP
to offer its members
25% OFF
When you call in to
1-888-368-6825
and reference offer code:
MUG103104
Visit our web site
Jack Bass (above) oversees a member’s
progress during an iPhoto workshop
www.totaltraining.com
for information on
all of our training products
Offer valid through
October 31, 2004;
cannot be combined
with any other offer;
is valid ON ALL
Total Training
Products
FREE VIDEO INTRODUCTION DISCS
AT JULY 28 CMC MEETING
Don Dickey (above-right and above)
demonstrates iDVD
Don Dickey, Rich Lenoce and Neal Dembicer
hand out CMC t-shirts to members who attended
the workshops at Middlesex Community College
5
Mac 911
Help Desk
Few would accuse me of
following Ned Ludd,
but there are times when
technology drives me to
distraction. In the spirit of
the Luddites, this month's
Mac 911 offers ways to
defeat the technological turmoil of corrupted AOL attachments, DVD-less Macs,
cockeyed movies, and folders that refuse to
move away from Home.
A-O-Heck
I’ve been trying to send some Microsoft
Word documents to my mom, who uses
America Online, but AOL turns the files into
MIME format, which corrupts the documents. What should I do?
– Jack Lee
I have the same problem when I send
pictures to my mother. AOL has a nasty
habit of mangling attachments sent from
outside the service. There are a couple of
ways around this.
The easiest is to compress any files you send
to people who use AOL. Although AOL can
corrupt many kinds of files, it seems to
respect compressed documents. In Panther,
create a .zip archive by selecting your document (or a folder full of documents) in the
Finder and choosing Create Archive from
the File menu. Or, if you prefer, use Aladdin
Systems’ DropStuff, which you can find in
the $50 StuffIt Standard Edition and the $80
StuffIt Deluxe 8.0 (www.aladdinsys.com),
to compress files in the .sit format.
Alternatively, you can upload your files to a
Web site – your .Mac account, for example.
Send your mother the link to that site, and
she can download the files from there.
Disc Despair
I’ve noticed that some software, such as
Apple’s iLife '04 ($49; www.apple.com),
ships on DVD. My Power Mac G4 doesn't
have a DVD drive, and I’m concerned that
I'm going to be left out in the cold when
more software is delivered in this form.
Short of buying a DVD drive, what
can I do if I receive a DVD that I’d
like to use on my Mac?
– Ed Borman
You don’t need to purchase a DVD
drive in order to use discs such as the
iLife ‘04 installer (which contains
both GarageBand and iDVD). You
do, however, need access to a Mac
that carries such a drive. With such
access, there are two ways to take
advantage of that DVD.
The first is to use Disk Utility to create an
image of the disc and then copy that image
to your Mac or, if your Mac isn't close at
hand, to a removable drive. (I use my iPod
for such jobs.) To do so, insert the disc,
launch Disk Utility (in Applications:
Utilities), select the disc from the list of volumes on the left side of the Disk Utility
window, and click on the New Image button. In the resulting sheet, select DVD/CD
Master in the Image Format pop-up menu
and leave the Encryption pop-up menu set
to None. Name the image and click on Save.
When the image has been created, move it
to the other Mac, double-click on it to
mount it, and treat it as an installer disc.
If you can borrow a Mac with a SuperDrive
and you'd like to skip the disc-image step,
just insert the disc in the borrowed Mac and
connect the two computers via FireWire
Target Disk Mode (with the borrowed Mac
as the target), and the disc will appear on
your Mac as a mounted image. Run the
installer on the image, and you're good to go.
To connect those Macs via FireWire Target
Disk Mode, shut down both computers,
string a FireWire cable between them, boot
the target Mac while holding down the T
key, and then boot the host Mac. The target
Mac’s screen will display a FireWire icon.
Its volumes will appear on the host Mac as
FireWire drives.
Home Sweet Home
Is there a way to move my Home folder? I
tried copying the files in my Home folder to
my external hard drive, but it didn’t work.
– Guillermo Alvelais
I'm afraid that it takes more than a simple
Copy command to do this, but it's certainly
an achievable goal.
Launch NetInfo Manager (Applications:
Utilities). In the local @ localhost~/window
that appears, click on the Lock icon. Enter
your password when prompted. Now click
on the Users entry in the second column
and, in the third column, click on the name
of the account you want to move– yours
might be named Guillermo, for example.
In the lower portion of the window, look for
the Home entry in the Property list. To the
right of this entry, you'll see something like
/Users/guillermo. Double-click on this entry
and enter /Volumes/othervolume, where
othervolume is the name of the volume or
hard drive you want to move the Home
folder to.
Press the return key or the enter key, and
then choose Save Changes from the File
menu. Log out and then log back in again,
and you'll discover that your Home folder is
now located on the volume or drive you designated in NetInfo Manager. If you place the
Home folder on an external drive, make sure
you give it enough time to spin up and
mount before you log in.
To put things back the way they were, follow
this same procedure but when you edit the
entry, change it back to /Users/guillermo.
Hubbub
When I plug two iPods into my FireWire
hub, I receive error messages about unrecognized devices. Why can't more than one
iPod be plugged into a computer at a time?
– Shirley Kehr
You can plug more than one iPod into your
Mac, but to do so, you must either use a
powered hub that provides enough juice for
both your iPods or connect each iPod to separate FireWire ports on your Mac. My guess
is that you're attempting to use an unpowered hub or a hub that, even when plugged
in, just doesn't have the oomph necessary to
drive two iPods.
Apple suggests that an iPod be the only
device on a FireWire bus because an iPod
continued on page 7
6
Unsolicited Advice
requires most of the power that bus can provide. I’ve heard of instances where people
have been able to successfully use an iPod
chained to a low-powered FireWire device (or
one that has its own power supply), but, in
general, I’ve found Apple’s advice to be solid.
Microsoft Entourage X ($399 as part of
Microsoft Office v. X; www.microsoft.com)
has an option for automatically compressing attachments with StuffIt (this option is
in the Compose tab of the Mail & News
Preferences window). When you upgrade to
Panther, this option doesn’t work, because
Entourage requires version 6.5 of StuffIt
Engine, and Panther replaces that version
with a more recent iteration. But you can get
this option to work again.
Wrong Angle
I just bought a Canon A80 camcorder. When
I rotate the camera into portrait mode to
shoot, the movie appears sideways when I
download it to my Mac. How do I rotate the
movie so it displays properly?
– Tim Waag
This is easily fixed with QuickTime Pro
($30; www.apple.com). Open the movie in
QuickTime Pro and press Command-J.
Select Video Track from the Movie pop-up
window, and then select Size from the
Annotations pop-up menu. You’ll see controls for flipping the video horizontally and
vertically, as well as controls for rotating the
movie in 90-degree increments (both clockwise and counterclockwise). Rotate the
movie to your satisfaction and save it.
Tip of the Month
I like to fall asleep to the music playing on
my Mac, but I wanted that music to switch
off once I’d fallen asleep. Enter
AppleScript. I make a lullaby-inducing script by launching Script Editor
(Applications: AppleScript) and typing
the following:
Tell application “iTunes”
Delay 5400
Quit
End tell
Then I select the Save As command from the
File menu and save the script as an application with the Startup Screen and Stay Open
options deselected. You can put the application anywhere that’s convenient for you.
The next time you want to fall asleep to
your iTunes playlists, just launch iTunes,
start playing, and then launch your
AppleScript. Exactly 90 minutes (5,400
seconds) later, iTunes will quit.
– Christian Brescia
To do so, you must install the older version
of StuffIt Engine. Fortunately, Aladdin
Systems (maker of StuffIt) has made this
possible. Simply download and install
StuffIt Engine 6.5.2, and Entourage’s
automatic-compression feature is back in
business. You can download version 6.5.2 at
http://tinyurl.com/2ep3l.
Fourth Edition and Mac 911 (Peachpit
Press). Find Chris’ books at www.amazon.com and www.peachpit.com.
Macworld Magazine! Subscribe today
at http://www.macworld.com/useroffer.
MacDict 2.9.1
by Bains Software
http://www.bainsware.com/
downloads/macdict.sit
MacDICT gives easy access to
many databases including
Webster's Dictionary. MacDICT
lets you access a growing number
of databases, including Webster's
Dictionary, for free! Other databases include the US Gazetter, Free
Online Dictionary of Computing,
WordNet, Jargon File, and the CIA
World Factbook. MacDICT is a
client for the DICT
protocol. It connects
to dict.org to provide
access to a number of
databases, including
Webster's Dictionary
a n d t h e Wo r l d
FactBook. MacDICT
also accesses translation services on the
web to translate to and
from a wide variety of
languages.
7
New in v2.5, MacDICT now also
provides access to Wikipedia, the
Internet's free encyclopedia!
Features:
• Easy-to-use interface
• Looks up definitions in
11 databases
• Translates words,
sentences, and full passages
• Completely Free!
Requirements: MacDICT supports
any Mac running Mac OS 8 or
later, including Mac OS 9 and Mac
OS 10.2.
GarageBand:
For Musicians
and Non-Musicians
by Rich Lenoce, CMC VP
The CMC July meeting will be
about Garage Band, Apple’s
new addition to its iLife media
creation suite. No, this isn’t a
review nor is it a how-to article
on using Garage Band. As an
introduction to the CMC presentation, I’d like to go over
what GarageBand is and isn’t.
GarageBand is an application that
allows anyone–musician or non-musician-–to compose and produce music.
Musicians can plug in their instruments
and instantly record music, while the
non-musician has hundreds of instruments and loops already available to
them. An instrument can be a synthesized MIDI instrument or a “real”
instrument that uses “sampled” sounds.
In either case, both can be triggered or
played using an on-screen keyboard or
a USB MIDI controller, such as a keyboard or guitar. You can even see visual
representations of the notes on a staff.
Loops are pre-recorded sounds that
serve as the rhythm section that can be
repeated over and over; for example, a
blues riff or a techno-dance beat.
GarageBand generates all these sounds
via QuickTime MIDI synthesis or prerecorded samples (recordings of real
sounds). In addition, any recorded
sounds or song can be imported into
GarageBand.
Finally, microphones or other audio
devices can be connected and recorded
into GarageBand for adding vocals,
analog instruments, sound effects, etc.,
and a waveform can be displayed for
editing purposes. There are many other
features to aid composers, but I suggest
you check out Apple’s web site, tutorials and numerous GarageBand user
sites to learn more.
Instruction
Manuals, Tutorials and Extras
At the time this article is being written,
David Pogue’s iLife ‘04 Mini Missing
M a n u a l wa s s t i l l ava i l a b l e a t
http://www.missingmanuals.com/.
It is a great introduction to GarageBand.
Apple has tutorials and other support
material available at http://www.apple.
com/support/garageband/.
There are several other sites that offer
tutorials including:
MacJam
http://www.macjams.com/),
Synthtopia
http://www.synthtopia.com/news/
FreeGarageBandTutorialsPo.html
Music on the Mac
http://www.musiconthemac.com
iCompositions
http:///www.icompositions.com
Also, a simple Google search such as
G a rage B a n d i n s t r u m e n t s , f re e
GarageBand instruments or
GarageBand loops will yield hundreds
of sites where people post their own
instruments and loops, usually at no
charge. And there are numerous commercial expansion packs available,
including Apple’s own GarageBand
Jam Expansion Pack.
Other Uses for GarageBand
Many people may not have an interest
in music composition, but thanks to
GarageBand’s sophistication and iLife
integration, it’s a powerful tool for a
8
variety of uses. For example, I have
been looking for a simple audio program to edit lectures that replaces one
of my favorite Classic applications not
available in OSX: Macromedia’s
Sound Edit 16. Garage Band fits the
bill, allowing me to easily edit and mix
basic audio. For those who feel hindered by iMovie’s three audio tracks,
GarageBand can import iMovie audio
and then music and sound effects can
be added, layered and mixed. Once
completed, the soundtrack can be reimported into iMovie. GarageBand can
mix audio for iPhoto slide shows or
create a fanfare for the opening of your
next iDVD project. It can record concerts or edit dialog. You can even build
a radio broadcast or create commercials. I enjoy taking several songs from
iTunes and creating mega-mixes for
parties. One of my students records my
lectures to his iPod as a study aid and
edits my lectures using GarageBand
removing all my bad jokes. The uses
for GarageBand are endless.
GarageBand Limitations
GarageBand isn’t perfect. First, it
requires a great deal of overhead if you
wish to use synthesized instruments
and record more than four tracks. Lots
of RAM is needed and a G4 is a must.
Installation requires a DVD drive,
which is odd considering a DVD drive
isn’t required for GarageBand to function. Clearly the installer should have
been offered on multiple CDs. There is
a simple work around: find someone
with a DVD drive and copy the file to
an iPod or external Firewire/USB
drive.
One problem I encountered is that
GarageBand lacks the ability to import
traditional MIDI files. A freeware
application called Dent du Midi, available on versiontracker.com, not only
imports the MIDI file, but breaks the
MIDI tracks into separate GarageBand
continued on page 9
tracks. Likewise, GarageBand
can’t output MIDI instrument
tracks to external MIDI devices
or software synths, however
another freeware product called
MidiO provides this functionality. I find GaragBand’s biggest
weakness is that it only exports
files as AIFFs and only to the
iTunes’ Music Library. This is
handy if you want to use the program in other iLife applications
but cumbersome if you want to use the
file anywhere else–even on an iPod. To
convert the file to MP3 or AAC, the
exported file needs to be selected in
iTunes and using the Advanced menu
select Convert Selection to AAC or
MP3 (depending on how your preferences are set). Once converted, the file
can be copied to any location by simply dragging it out of the iTunes
Library Window. GarageBand should
act like iMovie or iPhoto and not only
export directly to iTunes, but allow
files to be exported to any location
using any QuickTime CODEC.
GarageBand is geared
towards the consumer, hobbyist and musician who wish
to create music from a range
of sources for a variety of
purposes. Its tools are more
general and less specific or
professional. As powerful as
GarageBand is, it lacks many
of the tools and filters needed
by audio professionals.
Apple’s Final Cut. Like Soundtrack,
GarageBand is also music creation
tool and MIDI sequencer but supports
the connection of MIDI controllers and
analog devices such as microphones,
etc. which Soundtrack does not.
Date ___________________
Apple’s Soundtrack vs. GarageBand
The question often arises as to what are
the similarities and difference between
Apple’s $299 Soundtrack and the
almost free GarageBand. First, there
are many similarities. Both appear to
be built around the same core components as they operate in very similar
ways and both are used to create
music. The differences have more to do
with their user and intended purpose.
Soundtrack is strictly a MIDI
sequencer used to create soundtracks
for videos and films so that producers
can dispense with purchasing music
and, instead, create their own from prerecorded loops and sounds. This is
only a piece of what GarageBand
offers. Soundtrack offers professional
tools that can maintain synchronization
throughout a video project and is
meant to work in conjunction with
Considering that GarageBand
is only at version 1.1, it’s an
impressive application with
many advanced features, an intuitive
interface and is very stable. It will be
interesting to see where Apple takes
this product and what possible new
features can be added. Stay tuned! 
Referred by: ________________________
Name ________________________________________________________
Company Name ________________________________________________
Occupation ____________________________________________________
Address_______________________________________________________
City/State/Zip __________________________________________________
Email ________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
9
[email protected]
860-232-2841
[email protected]
860-347-1789
[email protected]
860-291-9393
[email protected]
Newsletter George M. Maciel
Editor Deena Quilty
[email protected]
Caricatures by Bill Dougal of Lebanon, (860) 456-9041. Available for illustration assignments and event caricatures.
10
Upcoming
Meetings!
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
(except November and December
when the meetings are one week
earlier due to the holidays)
Board meetings are held on the
July 28 • 7 pm
GarageBand
towards the non-musician,
demonstrating how easy Garage
Band can make music.
Back To Basics will provide a complete exploration of the System
Preferences in Mac OS X. After
attending this session, you'll have an
understanding for the various settings available to you in Mac OS X.
August 25 • 7 pm
InDesign
Oct. 27 Auction
Nov. 17* Migration to OSX
Dec. 15* Holiday Pizza Party
& Stump the Geeks
*(Early date due to holidays)
Discounted
Books!
FREE
Raffle!
CMC continues to offer our current
Every CMC member who attends our
could win…t-shirts, toys, CDs, mugs,
software …there’s always something
WELCOME!
New Members
For Members Only!
User ID’s and Passwords
We need new members! Have your
friends and co-workers join us for fun
and learning about OSX and the Mac.
CMC Web Site
www.ctmac.org
Password: xxxxxxx (lowercase)
Apple User
Group Store
April 1, 2004 - July 31, 2004
Aug. 1, 2004 - Nov. 30, 2004
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Balances as of May 31, 2004
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or upgrading. This is a free service provided to our members. Any
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Monthly Ad Rates
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our CMC emails?
We always send out advance notice
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big news or special events (like our
bus trip to Macworld). If you're not
getting them, please email us at
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11
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graphics embedded.
Meeting
y
l
h
t
n
o
M
7 pm
July 28 – d
n
GarageBa nter
ical Ce
ed
UConn M
m
cs” - 6 p
i
s
a
B
o
T
“Back
left as you enter.
12
Monthly Meeting
August 25 - 7 pm
Adobe InDesign
Graphic designer Pat Rasch will discuss
Adobe's latest entry into the page editing and layout world, Adobe Indesign.
AUGUST, 2004
of hearing your voice in his time of
need. Solution: automatically forward
your business calls to your cell phone
when you’re not in the office. The key
to this is the word “automatically.”
Most phone companies offer call forwarding, but you have to turn it “on”
when you leave and “off”
when you return. SBC offers
“no answer forwarding” after a
number of rings which you
specify.
To Work or Play
or Both
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
My family recently was on
vacation at the shore,
and my usual prep
included loading up my
PowerBook G4 with
lots of client data and
charging up a couple of
batteries for the laptop and cell
phone. Oh yes, I also charged up my
iPod! None the less, mentioning all the
hardware led to a few comments from
friends like, “I go on vacation to get
away from my computer and cell
phone,” and “Why go on vacation if
you’re bringing your office with you?”
Contrary to what you’re already thinking, this month’s article IS about how to
have fun with your Mac! Read on to
find out how.
(see info on page 11)
an idea came to me!
It was computer-based, and the pieces
of the puzzle involved my Mac, a broadband internet connection, and some
very special software that tied everything together. “Instafax” was born.
I kept my “real job” until I got things
rolling. The hardware and software were
debugged, the cable modem technology
went from the beta test phase to working
every day, and I signed on a couple of
clients. Things were looking up!
Not long ago, I had a “real job.” I got up
at the same time every day, put on nice
clothes (including a tie), and drove
almost an hour (each way)… to somebody else's business. The pay was OK,
and I thought I had some job security,
but I worked all year to be able to take
a couple of weeks off when my
employer said it was all right to do so.
So it was from college for about twenty years.
As things progressed, my clients grew
to expect a level of service they would
be hard pressed to find elsewhere.
That’s what can distinguish the little
guy from big gun competition.
Unfortunately, this scenario can also
lead to that same “jail cell” feeling you
have in a cubicle of a “real job.”
Fortunately, technology can provide
some very liberating solutions!
I thought long and hard about starting
my own business. There were lots of
books out there with ideas, but they
were all other people’s businesses, not
mine. Then, one day almost out of the
blue (literally–in our blue-tiled shower),
First, you need to liberate yourself from
being glued to your office just to
answer the phone. Obviously you could
use an answering service or carry a
beeper, but neither gives your client
that cherished warm and fuzzy feeling
1
If you have trouble remembering all
your pertinent business information,
contacts, appointments, etc., the next
logical thing to carry is a Palm-based
organizer. They’re reliable, easy to synchronize with your Mac, and are
automatically backed up with each
sync. Again, the key here is “automatic.”
Next, if your business is computer
and/or internet based, you need to be
able to work remotely. This normally
requires a laptop. PowerBook G4s, and
now even iBook G4s, carry enough
horsepower to run all current business
applications...anywhere...anytime.
If you take the final step and merge the
cell phone and Palm into a unit like the
Continued on page 2
Inside this Issue
Work or Play........................................ 1
Web Watch........................................... 3
EyeHome ..............................................4
MAC 911 Help Desk.............................6
G5 Review ............................................8
Kyocera SmartPhones, you’ll have a
well-integrated device that can not only
answer calls, but also check and reply
to emails. Then, cable the phone to the
laptop and you’ve got wireless internet
access. Depending on your business,
these few tools can let you work anywhere you choose.
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content Contributor
Don Dickey
Contributing Author
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Photographer
John Scott
Chris Hart
Sure, the last time I went striper fishing on Martha’s Vineyard Sound for a
week with an old high school buddy,
we had to kill the boat engine a few
times to talk to clients. But those few
minutes of business enabled many
hours of great fishing! Without these
technologies, we both would have
been glued to our offices, or risk
alienating a client (who could always
call somebody else next time).
Tomorrow as you head to your “real
job,” or even if you’re already selfemployed, think about how you could
use technology to free yourself from
being at your desk. Even the luxury of
working in the local coffee shop or
town library for a morning is a change
that refreshes! The key is to use technology to let you work on your terms as
much as possible. Shy of being retired,
a commute to my downstairs home
office or sometimes even a favorite
fishing spot sure beats the usual business rat race. Business gets done, and
I’m having fun (with my Mac)! 
Photos from our
July 28th Meeting
GarageBand presented by Rich Lenoce
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
Photos by
John Scott and
Chris Hart
2
Web Watch
From Chuck Joiner
<[email protected]>
compiled by The MUG Center
<http://www.mugcenter.com>
Macworld Secrets: Mobile Mac
Highway Fidelity – Whether you're
commuting to work or heading across
country, nothing beats music for passing the time. Until a few years ago,
audio CDs were the only way to get
digital sound in your car. But now,
thanks to portable audio players, satellite radios, and MP3-compatible CD
gear, it's easier than ever to listen to
clean, digital music on the road. For a
fee, satellite radio receivers let you tap
into 24-7 digital programming. If you'd
rather listen to your own tunes and
playlists – and many more songs than a
CD can hold — an iPod is the way to
go. Mobile installations range from
basic dashboard mounts to stealthy
setups that conceal the iPod and let you
control it remotely. There's a system for
just about any car…
http://www.macworld.com/2004/05/
secrets/junemobilemac/?lsrc=mcrss-0604
Inside Wire: Repairing Permissions
–Sometimes the privileges of permissions of certain items in the file system
become modified in such a way that an
application may crash or not function
properly. Disk Utility provides a mechanism to repair the permissions of
operating system
f i l e s . . . h t t p : / / w w w. m a c s i m u m
perspective.com/index2.php?id=P218
An alternative method of saving
QuickTime streams –Dammit, I love
Pink Floyd. I was overjoyed to see that
the official Floyd site posted the entire
Final Cut short film (which is very rare)
on their site. The only problem is, it is a
Quicktime stream embedded in the
HTML…
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.
php?story=20040713092506660
‘Fix a Troubled Mac’ v1.4.0 –a Mac
troubleshooting PDF book has been
updated and is available to evaluate for
FREE or purchase…
h t t p : / / w w w. m a c m e g a s i t e . c o m /
modules.php?name=News&file=
article&sid=1490
A workaround for audio input problems in 10.3 –Some users–mostly those
with G5s–are reporting distorted or
altogether lost audio capabilities after
the Mac OS X 10.3.4 update.
php?story=20040622205450834
12 Steps to Improving Your Mac's
Performance –Keeping your Mac
happy and performing as it did the day
you brought it home takes a bit of
degunking. Joli Ballew offers 12 steps to
improving your Mac's performance that
will have it humming along in no time.
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/
mac/2004/07/16/DegunkYourMac.html
Edit MP3s for mobile phones via
QuickTime and iTunes –I have recently received a mobile phone that will
play MP3s, and can use them as ring
tones. However, I didn't want to put the
whole file on my phone, so I wanted a
way to edit the track down to the most
important part…
php?story=20040701184343408
Combine multiple disc albums in
iTunes –When selecting albums to play,
especially on the iPod, where you can
only select one thing to play, listening to
albums with multiple discs becomes a
nuisance - if not an impossibility…
php?story=20040629211444912
Copy text from protected PDFs to
other apps –For those of you who
come across PDF documents in which
the document's creator has restricted the
ability to copy text to the clipboard,
here's a simple workaround…
php?story=20040622214927503
3
Organize a huge number of photos
into a hierarchy –I often face the
problem of sorting through thousands
of pictures and wanting to create some
sensible hierarchy before importing
them into another program or burning
them to a DVD…
php?story=20040324071531479
Create multiple tracks from single
MP3 files –So you have Pink Floyd's
The Wall and you want to play it without any pauses between songs. What do
you do? You have iTunes copy the
album as a single track…
php?story=20040624044711131
REGISTE
R to WIN
!
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INTRODUCTION
DISCS available
at August 25
CMC meeting.
EyeHome:
So Close, Yet So Far
by Andrew Laurence
<[email protected]>
I have a dream.
It's a simple dream, really.
I dream of a device that
will bring my digital media
- music, movies, photos - to
my home theater system with its comfy
couch, audiolicious speakers, and largescreen television. TiVo has freed me
from the confines of the network schedules (see "TiVo: Freedom Through
Time-Shifting" in TidBITS-594); I
want a device to free me from the confines of physical media. I want my
music collection available in an unending stream. I want to show my mother
digital pictures of her grandson without
huddling around a computer monitor. I
want to torture guests with unending
hours of baby video footage. Last, but
perhaps most important, I dream of a
remote control that won't piss me off.
Connect
your
EyeHome
to your
Mac.
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=
products_eyehome
http://www.linksys.com/products/
product.asp?grid=33&scid=36&prid=602
http://www.netgear.com/products/
details/ME101.php
Eye for Details
— In practice, the EyeHome does just
about everything it claims. Setup and
installation are a breeze. Just install the
software, hook up the device and turn it
on. It finds your Mac (or multiple
Macs) via Rendezvous and Shazam!
Your pictures, movies, and music are
all available for playing on the television and hi-fi stereo.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1204
EyeHome from Elgato Systems comes
tantalizingly close to realizing this
dream. By the spec sheet, it does nearly
everything: it plays MP3, AIFF, and
unprotected AAC files on the stereo,
with support for iTunes playlists and
the capability to browse by
album/artist/song; it displays JPEG,
GIF, PNG, and BMP graphic image
files on the television, according to
iPhoto's albums and slide shows; and it
plays MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4,
and DiVX movie files on the television.
A simple preference pane activates its
Java-based server software on your
Mac and advertises its presence via
Rendezvous. The EyeHome itself, a
small, silver set-top box, connects to
your Mac via Ethernet and to your television or receiver via RCA, S-Video, or
optical S/PDIF jacks. (Those with wireless networks can use an 802.11b/g
bridge such as the Linksys WET11 or
NetGear ME101.)
iPhoto's photo albums are displayed in
the same order as they appear within
iPhoto; you can view a single photo or
play an album as a slide show. During a
party I played a random slide show of
baby pictures on the television, a handy
conversation piece (and a way for the
guests to catch up on the baby's life,
while the real article was long since
asleep).
Songs, albums and playlists all play
from the iTunes Library. However,
EyeHome's Music section doesn't
descend through the library as I expect.
I'd expect it to descend from Artist to
Aretha Franklin to a list of her albums,
but instead you get a list of songs.
Similarly, going from Genre to Jazz,
one expects a list of artists, but again
you find a list of songs.
EyeHome is restricted to playlists in
iTunes and cannot create ad hoc
playlists. Having tasted the rich freedom of Slim Devices' SlimServer
4
software, however, I find the marriage
to iTunes limiting; ad hoc playlists are
addictive, and the EyeHome’s Java software feels slow by comparison (see
“ G o o d Vi b r a t i o n s f r o m t h e
Squeezebox” in TidBITS-726). The
documentation claims that EyeHome
can play Internet radio stations (via a
.pls file in your Music folder), but I
could not get this feature to work.
http://www.slimdevices.com/
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?
tbart=07637
I don't yet have DV footage converted
to a compatible format, but from my
test with some downloaded material,
video playback works quite well.
Quality on the screen is a direct function of the file's video format; the more
information in the file, the better the
image. MPEG-1 looks grainy, while
MPEG-4 and DiVX can look quite
spectacular. As always with digital
video, there can be a wide quality variance depending on the codec used; I
had problems with a few DiVX files,
but all the MPEG files I tried worked
fine.
http://www.archive.org/movies/
details-db.php? id=5269
(The EyeHome can also browse the
Web, but I don't find that feature at all
compelling; viewing the Web on a TV
didn't work well with WebTV, doesn't
work in a hotel room, and doesn't interest me in my home with broadband and
laptop computers.)
Eye on Interface
— However, while the EyeHome
appears to realize my dream, it falls
short due to a horrible interface and a
remote control with tiny buttons and
inscrutable icons.
When a computer outputs its display to
an NTSC television, it offers an image
of only 640 by 480 pixels - tiny by
modern computing standards. When
faced with this constraint in a consumer
continued on page 5
device, TiVo chose a
simple vertical list of
selectable items; selecting an item takes you to
a new screen and a new
list of options. TiVo's
interface is quickly
comprehensible,
uncluttered, and
focused on the task at
hand. Elgato, however,
shoehorns a three-pane
interface into this limited space. Large text
buttons occupy the lefthand portion of the
screen, one for each
major function: EyeTV,
Movies, Music, Photos,
Internet, Services. (I find
the topmost EyeTV button to be exasperating, as
it is useless without an
EyeTV device and
cannot be moved or
removed.) The right-hand
portion of the screen is
used for browsing content in the selected area,
and small soft buttons for
media playback sit along
the top.
It sounds simple
enough, if a bit cluttered. However, the
execution is maddening. To navigate through
the interface, you use a
set of small directional
buttons on the included
remote control. When an on-screen button is highlighted, it is surrounded by a
blue rectangle. However, when one of
the large media buttons is active, it is
shown as an Aqua-ish blue blob. If you
click to highlight that button, the rectangle vanishes! Suddenly, there is no
indication of which item is currently
selected.
It gets worse as you delve deeper: press
Select on the remote, and the cursor
moves into the selected
area (say, Music), where
each listed item is delimited by a similar roundish
blue blob. Moving the
cursor to an item once
again highlights its text
with a blue rectangle, but
that is the only indication
of where your eye should
focus. The list pane
doesn't have a visual
highlight, and the Music
button is still surrounded
by a big honkin’ blue blob
that draws the eye away
from the content pane.
If the content in the list
pane is longer than one
screen, buttons for the
next set are at the top of
the list, not the bottom. If
you are prone to pressing
Down as you move
through a list (or, say, just
finished with one selection and want to move to
a different screen), you
must press Up several
times in order to move to
the next set. A scrollable
list of “pages,” TiVostyle, would make a great
deal more sense.
At various points, soft
buttons for playback
options (Search, Back,
Play All, Random)
appear at the top of the
screen. These buttons are
denoted with white-onblack icons, in a different font than any
other button text. (It might just be a
smaller point size; after all, this is
NTSC video we're looking at, which
isn't the best way to view typefaces.)
The appearance of these icons is another inconsistency, and while the Search
button is handy, again the implementation is horrid. Pressing the Search
button brings up a simple text field, but
the field isn’t highlighted for input - that
infernal EyeTV button is! So, hit the
5
Right button and input text with the
multi-tap numeric buttons, just like a
cell phone and just as annoying.
(Again, TiVo gets it right with an onscreen alphabet and arrow-to-select.)
In that hard-to-define quality of “feel,”
the EyeHome interface feels clunky.
Navigation feels like tabbing through
fields on a Web browser; this should
come as no surprise, because it is, in
fact, a Web browser. The browser
accesses your Mac over TCP port 8000.
The EyeHome software on the Mac is
the Apache Web server with the Tomcat
Java application server. It appears that
the EyeHome is a licensee of technology from OEM digital media supplier
Syabas. The device’s Web browser
identifies itself as “Syabas,” and the
server’s .jar filenames begin with
“syabas.” Other Syabas licensee products appear to include the D-Link
Wireless Media Player and the Neuston
MC500.
http://www.syabas.com/solutions
_myihome.html
http://www.syabas.com/solutions
_myibox.html
http://www.dlink.com/products/
?pid=318
http://www.neuston.com/
en/mc500.asp
In summary, the convenience of having
one's digital pictures on the TV is a
blessing, as is dialing up a digital movie
on a moment's notice. Music playback
works, but it pales in comparison to the
SlimServer software on the
Squeezebox from Slim Devices. If you
can get past the interface, the EyeHome
functions quite well. It costs $250 and
is available from Elgato Systems and
various online dealers. 
Reprinted from TidBITS #741/09-Aug-04
[Andrew Laurence continues his quest
for the ideal home theater digital hub.
Frankly, the category is beginning to
look like MP3 players did before the
iPod came out. Hmm...]
Help Desk
Mac 911
As the parent of a three
year old, I've recently
been devoting a lot of
thought to the concept of
sharing. And many Mac
users can benefit from
paying more attention to
sharing – whether it’s
Address Book birthdays
with iCal, contact information with Word
documents, or digital music between
devices such as an old iPod and a new Mac.
Birthday Wishes
Can I configure Apple’s Address Book and
iCal to give me advance notification of
birthdays for friends, family members, and
business associates? – Lenn Hann
There’s no “Since Lenn went to the trouble
of adding a Birthday field to this contact’s
card, I’ll bet he’d like that birthday to also
automatically appear in iCal” relationship
between Address Book and iCal. But there
are a few free utilities that do the job.
The first is Ulli Kortenkamp’s ABtoiCal
<http://homepage.mac.com/kortenkamp>
This AppleScript creates a new Birthdays
calendar in iCal; it includes all the birthdays
you’ve entered in Address Book. Scotland
Software’s iCal Birthday Shifter application
<http://iratescotsman.com/products/
icalshifter/index.html> also copies birthdays into a calendar of your choosing.
And Martin Pittenauer’s ABBirthday
<www.codingmonkeys.de/goodies/ABBirt
hday.dmg> is an Address Book plug-in that
lets you create individual birthday events in
iCal. Just click on a contact’s Birthday heading and select Add To iCal from the
resulting menu, and a sheet appears asking
you to select the calendar you’d like to add
the birthday to. Better yet, it can create an
alarm for the birthdays you add to iCal.
Office Merger
In Microsoft Office v.X Standard Edition
$399; www.microsoft.com), is there an easy
way to insert a name and an address into a
Word document? –David Christian
There is – more than one, as a
matter of fact. The first employs
Word’s AutoComplete feature.
Begin typing the name of an
Entourage contact (you must
keep your contacts in
Entourage’s Address Book for
this to work). After you type a
few letters, the entire name
appears in a small yellow box.
Press the return key, and that
name appears in the document
with a dotted red line beneath it.
Control-click on the name, and you can
insert that person’s e-mail address, street
address, or phone number.
For greater control, select View: Toolbars:
Contact. You can use the resulting Contact
toolbar to select a contact’s name from a
pop-up menu, add a new contact, and substitute one contact for another. With a
contact’s name in your document, you can
then use other pop-up menus to insert that
person’s street address, phone number, or email address.
MiniDisc to Mac
I’ve made some recordings on my MiniDisc
player. Now I want to record the music digitally on my Mac and convert it to AAC
format. How do I do it? –Ralf Ginter
To keep your recording digital, you need
digital-audio ports on your music player and
your Mac. Some MiniDisc players include
digital-audio ports, but in the Mac lineup,
only the Power Mac G5 includes digitalaudio-ins and -outs. These are optical ports
rather than S/PDIF (Sony/ Philips Digital
Interface) ports.
If your MiniDisc doesn’t have a digitalaudio output and you’re extremely handy,
you may be able to add one. MiniDisc.org
offers tutorials at www.minidisc.org/part_
hacking.html#Construction_Projects.
Thankfully, you needn’t hack your Mac to
add digital inputs. Just purchase a USB digital- audio interface such as Edirol’s $80
UA-1D <www.edirol.com/products/info/
ua1d.html>, an adapter with both S/PDIF
and optical digital-audio ports.
Once you’ve made a digital connection
between the devices, you’ll need an application that records audio as AIFF files. iMovie
can do the job for free via its Audio tab, but
that’s a clumsy way to go. Instead, consider
my current favorite inexpensive two-track
audio editor, HairerSoft’s $30 Amadeus II
<www.hairersoft.com/Amadeus.html>
Then you can drag the AIFF files into
iTunes and convert them. To do so, select
Preferences from the iTunes menu, click on
the Importing tab, select AAC Encoder from
the Import Using pop-up menu, click on OK
to dismiss the Preferences window, select
the files, and choose Convert Selections To
AAC from the Advanced menu.
Old iPod, New OS
I have an older iPod that I’ve used with a
Mac running OS 9. My wife bought one of
the new iPods that works only with OS X,
so I had to upgrade my OS. After installing
Panther, I plugged in my old iPod, and my
music library was nowhere to be found. Are
older iPods incompatible with OS X?
–George A. Renville
Absolutely not. The problem is that iTunes
doesn’t know where to find your music. In
OS 9, iTunes keeps its songs at the root level
of your hard drive, in Documents: iTunes:
iTunes Music.
To bring those songs into iTunes in OS X,
select Preferences from the iTunes menu,
click on the Advanced tab, disable the Copy
Files To iTunes Music Folder When Adding
To Library option, and click on OK. Now
choose Add To Library from the File menu,
navigate to your old iTunes Music Folder,
and click on Choose in the Add To Library
dialog box.
Tip of the Month
In the April 2004 issue, you suggested using
OpenShiiva to convert VOB files to a format
readable by iMovie. If you own a copy of
Roxio’s Toast Titanium (866/280-7694,
www.roxio.com), you can convert files easily. Open Toast and click on the Video tab.
Drag and drop your VOB files into the Toast
window, as though you were creating a disc.
Within Toast, select the video file to convert,
continued on page 7
6
and then select Export Video from the Disc
menu. You’ll be prompted to save the converted file as a .dv file, which can be read by
iMovie. There are some limitations depending on the audio format (for instance, Dolby
Digital AC-3 requires Toast with Jam), but
they shouldn’t apply to your DVD source
discs. When you’re done converting, you
can quit Toast without saving the project.
–Martin Dellwo
UNSOLICITED ADVICE
The ability to create QuickTime slide shows
with iPhoto’s Export command is a boon,
but iPhoto still won’t cut a slide show to fit
the length of an accompanying soundtrack.
Sure, you could get close by doing the math
and dividing the length of the soundtrack by
the number of slides you intend to display.
But unless you’re lucky, you’ll only get
close. iPhoto doesn’t let you display slides
for fractions of seconds (8 seconds is
acceptable, for example, but 8.13 isn’t).
If you have a copy of Roxio’s Toast
Titanium 6, you can solve this problem by
opening a copy of the bundled Motion
Pictures application. Motion Pictures can
perform the “pan and scan” Ken Burns
effect and, unlike iPhoto, create a
QuickTime slide show that matches the
length of a soundtrack. It will also send that
slide show directly to Toast, where you can
burn it to a DVD or a Video CD.
Fourth Edition and Mac 911 (Peachpit
Press). Find Chris’ books at www.amazon.com and www.peachpit.com.
Macworld Magazine! Subscribe today
at http://www.macworld.com/useroffer.
Chris Breen
met with CMC
members in
the Mac User
Group Lounge
at Macworld Boston
Download
of the Month
Default Folder
Tired of wasting time opening and
saving files? By enhancing the Open
and Save dialog boxes on your
Macintosh, Default Folder makes
managing your files almost automatic. Simply install Default Folder, set
your preferences, and start saving
time and aggravation!
■ It shows you where you are. The
top menu in a file dialog lists the
active folder and its enclosing folders, just as it did in Mac OS 9. Apple
dropped this feature in OS X in
order to overload the menu with
recently used items, favorites, and
other navigational tools. Default
Folder puts those tools where they
should be, and gives you back your
bearings.
■ It gives you access to windows you
have open in the Finder. A popup
menu gives you a list of all of the
windows open in the Finder.
Selecting one from the menu, or simply clicking on the window you want,
switches the file dialog to that folder.
■ It quickly takes you to recently
used and favorite folders. Default
Folder's popup menus track folders
you've used recently and give you
fast access to your favorite folders.
You can even assign command keys
to your favorites to save more time.
■ It lets you click on a filename to
copy it. In Save As dialogs, you can
option-click on the name of an existing file to copy it to the edit box. No
more retyping the same or similar
filenames.
7
■ It lets you rename, delete, and get
information on files and folders without leaving the file dialog. Default
Folder provides a host of useful commands so you don't have to go
rummaging around just to do something simple like renaming a file.
■ It “rebounds” back to the last item
that you selected in a folder. You no
longer have to hunt through the file
listing for a particular document you
were working on before lunch - this
gets you to work much faster.
■ It opens folders for you in the
Finder. When you really need to do
more with a file or folder, use
Default Folder X to open the folder
shown in an Open or Save dialog in
the Finder. Or use Default Folder X's
convenient menu in the Dock to
access recent, favorite, and other
useful folders at any time.
How do you use it? Default Folder X
attaches a toolbar to the right side of
the Open and Save dialogs in any
Mac OS X application (see the picture below). The toolbar gives you
fast access to various folders and
commands. You just click on the buttons to go to your favorite and
recently used folders, manage the
folders and files shown in the list,
and make changes to your settings.
You can manage multiple groups of
favorites and default folders through
the OS X System Preferences:
http://www2.stclairsoft.com/download/DefaultFolderX-1.9.4.hqx
convenient. I was able to install
extra memory and a hard drive
myself in only a few minutes.
Six Months
with a G5
by Rich Lenoce, CMC VP
There have been a great many
claims about the performance of
the G5. Though I use G4s at work
– a loaded G4 533mhz tower used
for Final Cut editing, an eMac
1ghz used for DVD authoring, and
a 400mhz iMac G3 office computer – my home office machine that I
use for professional video and
multimedia work needs to be a performer.
In selecting a new Mac, I narrowed
down my choices between the 1.2
ghz 20" LCD iMac and the
PowerMac G5 dual 2ghz machine.
I could have gone with a G4 tower
or an eMac but I have found that
spending the extra money on the
latest technology means I get more
years out of the machine saving me
money over time. I liked the 20"
iMacs style but when loaded with
RAM and a big HD, it cost as
much as the top of the line G5. The
LCD was beautiful but I already
had a high-end Apple Studio
Display. I simply couldn’t justify
the cost of the LCD when tied to
old G4 technology, when I could
have the next generation Mac. So I
purchased the dual 2ghz G5.
I was replacing a graphite 400mhz
G4 tower–tops when I bought it 5
years ago. Though loaded with 1
gig of RAM, four large hard drives
and still running great, it began
showing its age when the specifications weren’t high enough to run
Apple’s DVD Studio Pro and
would choke on Soundtrack.
G5 specifications can be found on
Apple’s web site, so I won’t cover
them here. For options, I loaded
the G5 with 1 gigabyte of RAM,
two 250 gigabyte serial drives plus
a 128gig FireWire 400 drive used
exclusively for backup storage.
Convenience
The G5 has two things going for it:
convenience and speed. From a
convenience standpoint it has nearly every port you could ask for:
analog audio, digital audio,
Firewire 400/800, USB 2.0, etc.
The front FireWire and USB ports
makes it easy to hook up digital
lifestyle devices (like iPods,
iSights, cameras, video camcorders). I had wondered for years
why Apple hadn’t done this earlier,
since towers have always been
annoying to move. Who said aluminum was light? At 45 pounds,
simply connecting
temporary devices
to the G5 without
these front hookups would be a
back straining
experience so these
ports are greatly
appreciated.
Upgrading memory and hard
drives and access to the PCI expansion slots could not be more
Speed
All that has been written about the
G5’s supercomputer speed is true.
Applications run at lightning
speed. Photoshop, Final Cut, DVD
Studio run several times faster then
on the fastest G4. iLife apps with
high system demands, such as
iDVD and Garage Band, are downright zippy.
On a G5, finally, the Mac OS X
lives up to its claims.
Take multitasking. I have Final Cut
Pro, DVD Studio Pro and
Photoshop as well as my mail and
Internet browser apps running in the
background when I’m working.
Using all of these applications at the
same time would choke a G4, but
on a G5 you can work, render and
bounce between applications with
no apparent hit in performance.
Ditto for memory allocation; the G5
seems to know which application
gets memory priority and instantly
relinquishes the memory and reallocates it without missing a beat.
Remember how responsive the
Classic Mac OS felt? I’ve always
found with OS X on my G4 400,
there is a slight delay in everything
I do. Click an icon, start a copy,
whatever it happens to be, there’d
always be a second’s delay that’s
just enough to be annoying. If you
work in OS X, and then use OS 9
natively you’ll know what I’m
talking about. The G5 makes the
Mac OS snappy again. As soon as
you click, things happen instantly.
continued on page 9
8
Issues and Limitations
There are only a few negatives I’ve
found to this Macintosh.
First, noise from my G5 is a rare
occurrence, but does pop up occasionally. Under normal operations,
the G5 is certainly much quieter
than a Quicksilver G4, eliciting a
low-level fan whisper. Most
noticeably, fans come on when
burning DVDs and CDs–the noise
is noticeable but not unbearable.
Intense processing will cause all
nine fans to turn on which can be
very loud but this only occurs
when the Mac is doing intensive
processing and burning a CD/DVD
at the same time. What’s intense?
Rendering a Final Cut Pro file,
encoding a DVD and running
Photoshop at the same time–all
while burning a CD. But how
many of us will do that type of processing all at once? Audio and
video professionals who need
silence may want to put their G5 in
a well-ventilated cabinet–most
would do that anyway. For the rest
of us, this machine is plenty quiet.
There are some limitations.
Having only one CD/DVD drive
slot on such a high-end professional machine is nothing short of
ridiculous. Equally ridiculous is
the lack of space to put extra hard
drives. In a G4, you could stack as
many hard drives as would fit. On
a G5 there is a narrow area that fits
only two drives. There are thirdparty drive space expansion kits
available and the multiple Firewire
400 and 800 ports make this a
problem easily (but not inexpensively) solved.
Conclusion
Overall, this is the best Mac I’ve
ever owned. It’s well constructed
and simply the fastest Mac ever.
It’s so fast, the only thing holding
it back seems to be the speed of the
hard drives as they ramp up–it’s
that fast
This first generation G5 reminds
me of my PowerMac 8500; though
not as expandable, it’s a powerful
and versatile machine. Best of all,
it’s a glimpse of what Apple has
coming when it moves the G5 to its
consumer computers and laptops. 
Photo of the Month
by Shirl Bloethe, CMC member
Shirl took this photo in Southington, CT.
I think that the sign says it all.
Have a photo for the newsletter?
Email it to us at [email protected].
Date ___________________
Referred by: ________________________
Name ________________________________________________________
Company Name ________________________________________________
Occupation ____________________________________________________
Address_______________________________________________________
City/State/Zip __________________________________________________
Email ________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
9
[email protected]
Newsletter Design George Maciel
Editor Deena Quilty
[email protected]
10
Upcoming
Meetings!
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
(except November and December
when the meetings are held
earlier due to the holidays)
Board meetings are held on the
Discounted
Books!
FREE
Raffle!
we’re giving away! And don’t forget
the Free table at the back of the room
where everything is...FREE!
Contact a Board Member or send an
email to [email protected].
August 25 - UConn Medical Center
6 pm – Back to Basics
This month’s session focuses on
digital photography. If you missed
our previous CMC program on digital cameras, or still have more
questions, this session is for you.
We’ll explore topics such as
megapixels, memory cards, file formats, and batteries. Bring your
questions, and we’ll be happy to
answer them!
7 pm – Adobe InDesign
Watch out Quark, there’s a new
application in town. Pat Rasch,
graphic designer and CMC member,
will be the presenter at CMC’s
August meeting covering Adobe’s
latest entry into the page editing and
layout world, Adobe Indesign.
Indesign competes with Quark and
replaces Adobe’s other page layout
application, PageMaker. Indesign
integrates with all of Adobe’s other
applications (Photoshop, Illustrator,
etc.) and is receiving raves from
graphic designers for its features and
improved workflow that it offers
anyone designing print media.
Coming Events....
Sept. 29 Celebrity Guest Nite
with Dave Marra
Oct. 27 CMC Auction
& Stump the Geeks
New Members!
For CMC
Members Only!
User ID’s and Passwords
Account Balances
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Meeting
y
l
h
t
n
o
M
7 pm
5–
August 2
Design
Adobe In Center
edical
UConn M
m
cs” - 6 p
i
s
a
B
o
T
pg11)
“Back
phy (see
hotogra
Digital P
left as you enter.
12
Monthly Meeting
September 29 - 7 pm
Celebrity Guest Nite
Apple’s Senior Systems Engineer
Dave Marra will give an entertaining
and informative presentation.
Just Hanging Around
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
Remember the movie
Fahrenheit 451? This
circa 1966 classic was
about a society
when books were
forbidden. In the movie,
the television screens hung on the wall
and were only a couple of inches thick.
A year or two ago, television manufacturers finally gave us sets we can hang
on the wall. We just can’t afford them
yet! (Well, at least I can’t.)
Yesterday, Apple unveiled the new
iMac G5 to rapturous applause at Apple
Expo 2004 in Paris. The new iMac is
something akin to an iBook split in
half: a screen half and a keyboard (and
mouse) half. The tech specs note an
optional VESA mount allows you to
hang the new computers on the wall!
Add the optional wireless keyboard and
mouse setup and the only cord you’ll
need is for AC power. Maybe a 3rd
party company will figure a way to
beam power to it wirelessly, but I won’t
hold my breath. Standing on its slim
pedestal or hanging on the wall, the
iMac G5 is a thing of beauty.
What’s important to appreciate here is
that many engineers can develop something with great form or great function.
It takes people thinking on a much
higher plain to create something with
simultaneously great form and great
function. This appears to be Apple’s
forte. In recent history, they did it with
the original iMac, then the new flat
panel iMac, later the iPod, and now
with this 3rd generation iMac...each
SEPTEMBER, 2004
time taking advantage of the latest technology to improve the form as well.
There’s something to be learned here.
It’s this very design philosophy that lets
a manufacturer charge almost twice as
much for a product with the same function but lacking in a quality form. There
are usually people willing to pay for
products with these qualities. If there
weren’t, the likes of Mercedes and
BMW would have gone out of business
long ago. The media announced this
past week that Apple’s market share is
only between 2 and 3 percent. While
that sounds puny, understand that
BMW would be very happy to have the
same share of the car market!
Where am I going with this article? As
you know, my focus has always been
on having fun with your Mac. I include
appreciating beautiful design in my
loose definition of having fun. Perhaps
being a mechanical engineer gives me a
different perspective, but I think it goes
without saying that those among us
who have iPods or iMacs may feel the
same way, or we’d probably have a Rio
connected to a Dell instead (along with
a few hundred bucks of extra cash in
our wallets). There’s a price to be paid
for being a Mac user, but you can know
that our machines are the envy of many
a PC/Windoze user with the brains to
see the difference.
Not to downplay the technical benefits
of being a Mac user as these constitute
part of the computer’s “function,” it’s
the “form” that sets us apart from other
computer users. Sort of like taking time
to smell the roses, my point here is that
we should occasionally remember to
appreciate our Mac’s beautiful form as
we enjoy it’s great function. 
1
Quark should be very worried.
Graphic professionals like Pat Rasch
have jumped the Quark ship over to
Adobe’s InDesign. From Pat’s
excellent presentation at the August,
it’s easy now for all of us to see why.
CMC would like to thank Pat Rasch
for her informative and enlightening
presentation on Adobe InDesign.
Pat’s knowledge of graphic design
and expertise with page layout applications demonstrated to the group
why InDesign is taking the publishing world by storm. Pat’s
presentation drew a large number of
participants and was well received
by all. She showed all of us that
Quark has a lot to be worried about.
We’d like to extend our appreciation
to Pat for sharing her knowledge and
the time she took to teach us why
InDesign is a superior product. 
Inside this Issue
Just Hanging Around ........................... 1
Review: iWork v2.1.5 .......................... 3
Power of iLife.......................................4
Review: iVideo & FootTrack................6
Review: Wireless Intellimouse .............8
Meetings and Club News ...................11
Take Control from Tidbits
Tidbits has announced a new series of
electronic books, called the “Take Control
Series.” Not just a quick summary, these books
can run to 60 pages! We will be publishing
reviews of some of these in upcoming issues of
our newsletter. In the meantime, you may want
to visit http:/www.tidbits.com and click on
electronic books for more details.
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content Contributor
Don Dickey
Contributing Author
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Photographer
John Scott
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Current titles include:
Take Control of Buying a Mac 1.0
Take Control of Email with Apple Mail 1.1
Take Control of Your AirPort Network 1.1.1
Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail 1.1.2
Take Control of Sharing Files in Panther 1.1.2
Take Control of Customizing Panther 1.2
Take Control of Upgrading to Panther 1.2.2
Take Control of Users & Accounts in Panther 1.1
Take Control of What’s New in Entourage 2004 1.0
Take Control of Making Music w/GarageBand 1.0
Be sure to take advantage of the
discount code if you wish to order.
Advertising ... see page 11 for info on how to advertise in our newsletter.
FOR SALE:
Your Macintosh Support
Connection…
Tripod, extendable to
full height. Perfect for
that digital camera!
Never used. $25.00
Contact Deena at
(860) 678-8622.
CMC AUCTION:
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
Please submit articles
by first of the month for
inclusion in our newsletter.
There is much talent in our
group; it would be great to
have several member articles
in each issue.
While we are busy
soliciting donations
from nationwide
merchants and
manufacturers and
developers, we would
also gratefully accept
donations from
individuals or local
companies. A donation
receipt for tax purposes
can be provided in
exchange. If you have
something you'd like to
donate, please contact
Joe Arcuri at:
[email protected].
And be sure to attend
the auction at our
October meeting!
Chris Hart
(860) 291-9393
[email protected]
Specializing in support for small
business and the self-employed
• Friendly, personalized attention
and reasonable rates
• Honest opinions and answers —
no sales pitch!
• On-site service by appointment
or 24/7 for emergencies
• 10 years experience
2
Review: iWork v2.1.5
IGG Software by Frank Petrie,
MaMUGs/Mid-Atlantic MUG Team
http://www.iggsoftware.com/iwork/
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2 or higher, 10.3 recommended Price: $29.99,
Thanks to the rapid advancement of
technology, the distinction between
home and office are blurring more daily.
If you are freelancing, you need a simple and fast way to keep track of your
hours and billing. And doesn‘t the
thought of keeping track of all of that
depress you instantly?
“iWork is an easy to use time-billing and
invoicing application. It integrates with
iCal and Address Book, offers tax support and easily generates custom
invoices. This is the most intuitive timebilling application out there. Essential
for anyone self employed. Try it, you
won‘t be disappointed. And yeah, it has
seamless networking features.”
Hey, anything that can reduce my time
crunching numbers! Let‘s see if it does.
THE GOOD “Drag this icon ... yadda,
yadda, yadda.” The UI is the familiar, if
somewhat infamous, brushed aluminum
and is laid out very intuitively. All of
your shortcuts are listed along the top
and you can sort your event tracking by
roughly a dozen different criteria. On
your left, there is a pane for your Client
list. On the right side is all the relevant
information for that client‘s past, current
and future assignments. You will
also find that iWorks is tightly
integrated into iCal. That‘s one
less step - can‘t be bad. (It is also
seamlessly integrated with OS
X‘s Rendevous and Address
Book,)
Cabinet. There‘s also a separate invoice
preferences, so you can choose between
self-designed templates to send to your
customers (very handy if you‘re running
several different businesses). And iWork
will hold your hand through a billing
process, any report or graph that you
may need to generate. Also on their
website is a collection of custom templates created by iWork users to
download for free! Users giving back
and sharing is always a good sign.
You need more information or help?
Their Help Viewer and their forums
should answer any questions that you
could possibly have (that‘s even should
you have any?)
THE BAD Unfortunately, I don‘t have
a steady job to use it for.
THE UGLY Nada.
NUTSHELL iWork v2.1.5 is a very
well thought out program. It‘s very intuitive and will get your nose out of the
books and put your brain back to working on the project at hand.
The only question that I have is “Where
was this program when I was gainfully
employed?”
RATING: 10 out of 10
©2004 Frank Petrie, Technologies & Products
Specialist The Mid-Atlantic Macintosh User
Groups Team http://www.mamugs.org
Email: [email protected]
iChat: phranky Providing camaraderie,
cooperative programs, events, training and
knowledge sharing for Apple/Macintosh User
Groups free of charge. 
Recall Notice:
15-inch PowerBook G4
Battery Exchange Program
https://depot.info.apple.com/
batteryexchange/index.html
In cooperation with the U.S.
CPSC (Consumer Product Safety
Commission) and other international
safety authorities, Apple is voluntarily recalling certain lithium ion
rechargeable batteries that were sold
worldwide from January 2004
through August 2004 for use with
15-inch PowerBook G4 (Aluminum)
notebook computers. These batteries
were manufactured by LG Chem,
Ltd. of South Korea.
The affected batteries could overheat, posing a fire hazard. Apple
received four reports of these batteries overheating. No injuries have
been reported. Apple urges you to
stop using your battery and to order
a replacement battery immediately.
If you continue to use your battery,
do not leave it unattended and check
for signs of overheating.
Apple has initiated an exchange
program and will provide eligible
customers with a new replacement
battery, free of charge. No other
PowerBook or iBook batteries are
part of this recall.
The recalled batteries have the Model
Number: A1045 and serial numbers that
begin with: HQ404, HQ405, HQ406,
HQ407, or HQ408.
The Info Drawer is also tied into
iCal and is broken down into
two functions - Info and File
3
The
Power
of iLife
By Rich
Lenoce
CMC vice
president
As Mac users, we hate to admit it, but,
like Microsoft, many of Apple’s
innovations came from other companies. Final Cut Pro came from
Macromedia,
LogicPro and
Soundtrack from eMagic
(now
Apple Logic Pro), and DVD Studio
Pro from Astarte (once called
DVDirector). Apple improved these
acquisitions by giving them a Mac
interface and selling them to professionals. To the benefit of consumers,
Apple has taken the fat out of the pro
software, and reworked the interfaces
to make them even more intuitive to
the non-media professional and
renamed them iMovie, Garage Band
and iDVD.
With iLife, you have all the power the
pros have without the complexity or
bells and whistles most users will
never use. All it takes is your vision.
As proof, iLife has made it into the
hands of professionals, as seen in
many professional journals. With all
that power under the hood,
GarageBand is fully capable of creating
music
and
soundtracks
indistinguishable from those made
with LogicPro or Digidesign’s
ProTools, as noted by the number of
websites devoted to GarageBand
music and the high quality music they
offer. At this year’s Sundance film festival Tarnation, became the first
feature-length film edited entirely
using iMovie. And, nearly every video
professional working on a Mac has at
one time or another used iDVD to
quickly create DVDs for clients.
How can this be? Folks, it’s not the
technology or the software, it’s the
vision and knowledge, and storytelling the person brings to a project.
The software is merely a tool–and
iLife is a darn good tool. Much like
Alfred Hitchcock didn’t need digital
non-linear editing to make his many
masterpieces, you don’t need expensive software like Final Cut Pro/HD to
make yours.
GarageBand
GarageBand records CD-quality
sound, uses professional loops and
high quality instrument synthesis as
well as real instruments to create
music. Combine this with the same
multi-track recording pros use and the
consumer has an incredibly powerful
professional toolset in their hands.
Prior to the release of GarageBand,
these tools were only found in professional software such as LogicPro, at a
cost of $1,000.
Apple is a company built on bringing
complex computing to the masses.
Why should music creation or filmmaking be any different? They are
applying the same philosophy to
music and audio production that they
did to the computer . . . to sell more
computers.
iMovie
iMovie offers many of the same features as its big brothers: Final Cut
Express and Final Cut Pro HD. The
major differences between FCP/HD
and its slightly smaller sibling, FCE
are pretty minor. FCE doesn’t have the
capability of editing high definition
TV (only DV), it can’t batch digitize
footage and it can’t do complex
motion effects over time. iMovie further removes some features such as
the ability to composite and superimpose video layers on multiple tracks.
You are also limited to three tracks of
audio, and titling is not very customizable. Effects are limited to transitions
and some basic special effects, and
there is no inherent way to sort large
number of clips or work in numerous
sequences.
It sounds like much is missing, but a
great deal is included. Looking at how
movies and TV shows are made. Few,
4
if any, use anything besides cuts and
dissolves between shots and scenes.
When was the last time you saw a
wipe in a feature film?
What iMovie does do, and does well,
is allow you to tell a story using the
techniques of a filmmaker. What
makes a movie a movie is it’s narrative structure–how the story is told.
Much like a musician puts notes
together in a series to create a melody,
filmmakers place, or “edit,” individual
shots in a series to create a simple
story–called a scene. Individual
scenes are then edited together in
order to create a movie or TV show.
Like notes in music, the shots within a
scene can be re-ordered and held on
the screen for various lengths of time
to manipulate the viewer. For example, suspense is created by restraining
the time between shots. A scene can
be lyrically romantic by having the
shots flow together unrestrained.
Action scenes bombard the viewer
with successive images from varying
angles.
There are many other techniques used
to get a range of results, but what all
these techniques have in common is
the ability to edit Shot A next to Shot
B. Often times the master shot, called
Shot A or the A roll, has a supporting
shot called Shot B or B-roll, inserted
over it. For example, a man is walking
through the woods and we hear him
reminiscing about his childhood, we
see him scanning the distant mountains accompanied by a voiceover of
the first time he saw this view as a
child. That’s the A-Roll. We then see
shots of him as a child, camping in
those same woods, leaving his family
for the outing, etc. That’s the B-Roll,
sometimes called a “cut-away”,
because we “cut away” from the A
shot. It’s still there as the foundation
of the scene and possibly providing
the audio voice-over, but we don’t see
it. Later in the scene, we then cut back
to the A shot of the mountains.
continued on page 5
Here’s what we have done: through
editing, time and space are manipulated to the point where we are in several
times and places at once. The story is
therefore compelling and interesting
because in real life we can only be in
one place at a time. This technique of
being in two or more places within
one scene is called Classic Cutting
and is the power of movie making.
Prior to iMovie,
consumer editing
software only
allowed the user
to assemble A roll
together, much
like you would if
you put two
VCRs together
and taped
chunks of
picture and
sound from
one to the
other. You
couldn’t
insert shots and sounds on top of the
A-roll so you couldn’t tell a story like
a filmmaker. Everyone who owns
iMovie can now put a story together
exactly as Alfred Hitchcock did, or
Steven Spielberg does today. In
iMovie, this technique is performed
using a feature called “Paste Over at
Playhead.” A good manual such as
David Pogue’s iMovie: The Missing
Manual or iMovie’s Help Center will
explain how to do this.
You can’t do Lord of the Rings type
effects with iMovie, but you also can’t
do them with Final Cut Pro. However,
if some team of animators created the
effect shots for you, you could certainly edit them together using
iMovie.
iMovie is still evolving. Features like
the Ken Burns Effect give videos a
professional touch. Add on packs
from companies like eZedia add many
of the things back that Apple took out
of Final Cut to make iMovie: custom
titles, compositing layers of video,
batch digitizing, chroma-keying,
motion graphics, etc. What iMovie
lacks is the ability to distribute a
movie on DVD like a commercial
film, that’s where iDVD comes in.
iDVD
iDVD not only burns a DVD from
an iMovie project in pristine digital
quality, but also adds interfaces,
themes, buttons, and special features
(slide shows,
supplemental
material, etc.)
that we come
to expect from
a feature film
DVD. Again,
under the hood
is a tool p r o s
u s e t o make
commerc i a l
D V D ’ s :
DVD Studio
Pro. iDVD
has dozens
of pre-made
themes created by designers to give your DVD
that professional look. Or, you can try
your hand at authoring a customized
DVD using custom graphics, opening
video clips, music made in GarageBand
and supplemental materials.
iDVD is a complex program that looks
simple. What you don’t see is iDVD
converting your project into the complex format that commercial DVD
players understand and re-encoding
the material into the DVD video
streaming standard, MPEG2. iDVD
analyzes each and every frame of the
video material not once, but twice to
maintain its quality before burning the
DVD. Even with the most powerful
computers, this complex process can
take many hours–patience is a must!
The results are truly astounding.
Distribution The question that has
eluded musicians and filmmakers has
always been, “But how do I get people
to hear my music or see my video?”
5
With iTunes and GarageBand, music can
be burned to a CD or encoded to MP3 or
AAC for making demo CDs to go to
record labels or for web distribution.
For filmmakers, from within iMovie,
you can select to output your video to
an email, a web site or by clicking a
button you can send the movie to
iDVD. Now the world can see your
work. You can enter the movie in film
festivals, send it to a producer, post it
on the web using your .Mac account
or submit it to any number of amateur
filmmaker web sites. Or just snail mail
a DVD to family and friends.
The power is in your hands. 
Download
of the Month
PixelNhance
from Caffeine Software, Inc.
http://www.caffeinesoft.com/
PixelNhance is a fast and easy to
use real-time image processing
application that greatly speeds
the process of determining the
perfect settings for common
image processing tasks such as
color adjustment and sharpening.
Caffeine Software has released all
their software for free since the
dissolution of their business. Other
programs available are: TIFFany,
Curator, and Cycles.
(Note: the programs are only available as one download of 56 mb.)
For OS X only. Please note that
Caffeine Software has suspended its
operations so you should not expect
any support for this product. But it
IS free!
Review:
iVideo and FootTrack
Video Cataloguing and
Organization Software
By Rich Lenoce
CMC Vice President
In my review of iLife ‘04 last
winter, I criticized Apple for
not including a video cataloging application with iLife.
IPhoto organizes digital photos, and iTunes organizes
digital music, but where is
the application to organize
video? Shouldn’t iLife users be able to
organize the myriad of video clips,
tapes, projects and movies that reside
on our hard drives, thanks to iMovie
and iDVD?
Apple’s thinking may come from the
fact that DV and other video file formats are big. With one hour of DV
video occupying 13 gigabytes of hard
drive space, having more than one
project on a drive wasn’t possible just
a couple of years ago ago. With
today’s hard drives reaching 300 gigabytes and the ability to connect
multiple FireWire drives to even the
lowest of Macs, we can now can store
hundreds of hours of video and dozens
of iMovie and Final Cut projects.
Two inexpensive and easy to use
applications can organize your “video
iLife”: Waterfall Software’s iVideo
($17) and T-Squared Software’s
FootTrack ($40). Trial demos are
available at versiontracker.com.
Ultimately, video-cataloging software
should offer the same power and flexibility for importing, organizing,
sorting, viewing and exporting video
as iPhoto does for photos and iTunes
does for music. IVideo and FootTrack
have these features but implement
them in distinctly different ways.
iVideo
iVideo should look familiar to anyone
who uses iPhoto or iTunes and it’s just
as easy and intuitive to use. Just drag
a QuickTime Movie, MPEG, MP4,
AVI, QTVRs, or DV Stream (from
say, an iMovie clip or QuicktTime reference file) to the clip window and
voila, it’s imported into iVideo.
Playlists can be added and the video
sorted and organized in numerous
ways. Like iTunes, IVideo also offers
Smart Playlists where user defined or
preset “rules” automatically place
imported footage that meets the rule
criteria into the appropriate playlist.
For example, a Smart Playlist named
“Christmas,” may be set to recognize
all video footage recorded in
December.
Information on each video file, called
“metadata,” (date, time, etc) can be
edited in iVideo and like iPhoto files,
can be deleted from within the application. iVideo doesn’t have a separate
movie or content folder, but instead
keeps the video files in their original
location. The software merely points
to the existing file saving valuable
disk space.
iVideo’s export feature is identical to
the ones found in Quicktime Pro and
iMovie with one notable exception.
Files can be recompressed and exported
into any Quicktime compatibible format including .MOV,
MPEG1, MPEG4, AVI or DV.
However, one of iVideo’s
biggest advantages is that a
single playlist can be selected
and all of the video files in
the playlist will be recompressed and exported at once.
In professional video circles,
this is called batch processing, and up until now this
feature was left to expensive
professional video products
such as Apple’s Compressor,
available only with Final Cut
HD ($999), or Discreet’s
Cleaner ($599). This is impressive for
a $17 package!
Where iVideo shines is not only in its
intuitive interface and advanced
organizing features, but also in video
playback. Movies can be played right
from within iVideo at any size including full screen–unlike the free
Quicktime Player. Even multiple
movies can be selected and played at
the same time.
iVideo has a handy feature where it
will search all hard drives for video
files importing all video files it finds. If
you pre-set your Smart Playlist rules,
the video will be organized on-the-fly
potentially saving hours of sorting.
iVideo’s weaknesses are few. First,
iVideo only supports Quicktime compatible formats, which is not unusual
for a Quicktime based product. NonQuicktime files such as Windows
Media (WMV) and DIVX can’t be
imported or viewed using iVideo.
Also, iVideo only imports files
already on your hard drive, having no
FireWire camcorder control of its
own. If it did, then it might be the perfect video cataloging and organizing
software. That’s where FootTrack
comes in.
continued on page 7
6
FootTrack
FootTrack looks similar to iVideo and
iPhoto, but dispenses with the playlist
metaphor, instead calling the video
library a Tape Library made up of
Tapes. The equivalent of iTunes and
iVideo playlists are Groups, where
footage can be dragged and organized.
The Tape metaphor makes sense since
FootTrack can import DV footage
directly from a DV camcorder or
through an analog to DV
FireWire converter for
importing VHS tapes.
When a DV tape is
imported, clips are created
based on the Start/Stop
markers embedded in the
videotape, which correspond to where the
camcorder play/pause button were pressed during
shooting. These clips are
listed in subgroups under
each Tape in the Tape
Library in the order they
were imported. These
clips can be further sorted into Groups
that work identically like Playlists or
Albums. When importing from an
Analog to DV FireWire converter,
there are no Stop/Start markers so the
lengthy footage, rather than coming in
as one long single 60 minute clip, can
be manually split into tape subgroups,
just like DV tapes, and then organized
in Groups. This gives people wishing
to edit VHS tapes all the advantages
of batch capturing DV clips. Like
iVideo, files already on the hard drive
can be imported and split if necessary.
Foottrack can also edit video clip
metadata, which is then maintained
when exporting for use in Final Cut
Pro/HD/Express
and
iMovie.
FootTrack gives Final Cut Express
users a method to essentially “batch
capture” footage, and iMovie users a
way to presort imported footage prior
to starting a project.
If this all sounds sophisticated, it’s
because this application doesn’t just
organize clips like iVideo, but goes a
step farther. For example, you can use
this application as a tape archiver. In
fact, tape can be imported in either
full quality or compressed to save disk
space. The tape can later be re-imported at the higher quality for editing.
FootTrack is a powerful tool not only
for the video professional, but also for
the home enthusiast. For example, I
had 10 unlabeled DV tapes sitting on
the shelf that capsulated my son’s first
two years. Being unlabeled, I had no
idea what each tape contained.
FootTrack imported the tapes, broke
them into clips, complete with the
camera metadata (e.g. date and time
shot). After viewing the clips, I was
able to come up with several thematic
projects (birthdays, Christmas, etc.)
and then organized the clips into
Groups based on the project. To start
editing a project, I exported the Group
of clips to a folder for importation into
either iMovie or Final Cut. Allowing
for tape footage to be “logged” is
FootTrack’s real strength and
enormous time saver1
7
FootTrack is not without faults.
Unlike iVideo, all clips are stored in a
single FootTrack Capture Folder. This
is a problem only if you already have
video files on your drive, because
when they are brought into FootTrack,
a copy is made and placed in the
Capture folder which wastes unnecessary space. Also, like iVideo,
FootTrack, does not allow for the
exporting of video clips in nonQuicktime formats. It also doesn’t
support non-Quicktime
media such as Windows
Media (WMV) and DiVX.
Finally, FootTrack’s viewing options are limited up
to a size of 640 X 480 pixels, not to full screen
display.
Which is Better? Both are
five star applications, with
each being unique in some
ways and similar in others.
I like FootTrack’s tape
importing feature, but I
also like the way I can
recompress and batch
export videos in iVideo. These are different enough that many people may
wish to have both on their machines.
The easiest way to do this is to move
all existing video files into the
FootTrack capture folder and then
import them into iVideo so there is no
additional disk space needed. Just
don’t run both applications at the
same time or you will likely corrupt
library files.
Each application forces me to think
about organizing video like I organize
my photos, and music and that alone,
given the size of video files, is a space
saver. I can see and get rid of files,
clips and projects I don’t need and be
more creative with the footage I have,
knowing at a glance what is available.
Most people will want one or the
other. Download the trial copies and
take them for a spin. 
Review:
Microsoft Wireless
IntelliMouse Explorer
by Sven Anderson of MUG ONE
Macintosh User Group of Oneonta, NY
The Microsoft Wireless
IntelliMouse Explorer is
an attractive and well
built mouse. It is mostly
black with the look and
feel of leather. In an age
where hardware designers
seem to think that everything
must be designed to fit in on
the deck of a star-cruiser, the
IntelliMouse is an elegant
exception. It is a little larger
than most mice these days and
considerably heavier, due in large
part to the two AA batteries tucked
away in its belly. At first I thought that
the extra weight would be a real problem but I have come to find it an added
feature that I like. The extra weight
gives me more control when making
very tight selections in a program like
Photoshop. The IntelliMouse is
designed for right-handed mouseketeers, and I can’t find any reference to a
left-handed version. I must say that the
ergonomic form fit for a right hand is a
welcome asset.
The design was well thought out. It
includes two main buttons plus a clickable wheel that functions as a third
button and has two smaller buttons on
the left side. One of the great design
elements of this mouse is the fact that
these two buttons are convenient yet
tucked out of the way enough that they
do not interfere with normal mouse
functionality at all. I find most four or
more button mice to be a real pain to
operate because the extra buttons are
constantly being pressed inadvertently
when trying to move or especially, pick
up and move the mouse when you have
run out of mouse-pad real estate. For
the graphic artist who uses a large monitor and is constantly picking up the
mouse while trying to keep a button
depressed, this is really big. The left
side is even undercut slightly so it is
easy to grip and lift.
As far as wireless functionality is concerned, you have all the benefits of
wireless and very few drawbacks. The
benefits include not having to
untangle that mouse cord that
always seems to find a way of
getting tangled or hung up on
the corner of the keyboard. I
have been using this mouse
constantly now for several
months and have only found
two occasions where it
seemed to lose contact with
the computer. These two
instances were only for a
second and the mouse found
the connection again on its
own. This was far less of a hindrance than a corded mouse encounters
on a daily basis. If there is a flaw in the
design it is that it uses an antennae unit,
about the size of a mouse, to connect to
the USB terminal on your computer.
My only wish is that it would be
Bluetooth enabled so I would not need
to either use the USB port or have yet
another thing hanging off of the back of
my monitor.
The Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer has
excellent optical tracking technology
and therefore has all the usual optical
benefits such as smooth operation over
most any surface and nothing to clean.
It is extremely sensitive and works like
a dream for those of us doing things that
need very precise mouse control.
As for cool features, this mouse
includes programmable buttons which
can be very handy for taking care of
repetitive tasks such as refreshing a web
page or going back to the previous page
or for undoing the last command. The biggest
“New” feature for me
was the tilt wheel for
side to side scrolling.
You can tilt the
wheel to navigate
side to side in documents or in a web
8
browser. The combination of scroll
wheel with a tilt mechanism means you
can practically say good-bye to window
scroll bars. That is a feature making this
mouse worthwhile all on its own.
Even without the added features of 5
buttons and a tilt-wheel, or even the
wireless aspects, I love this mouse. It
works and feels great. Microsoft hit this
one out of the park.
(Sven Anderson is an Apple Distinguished
Educator and professor of Computer Art at
State University of New York, College at
Oneonta)
Microsoft Wireless IntelliMouse Explorer
System Requirements: Mac OS X version
10.1 to 10.2.x (excluding 10.0), 15 MB of
available hard-disk space, Universal Serial
Bus (USB) port, CD-ROM drive.
Copyright 2004 Sven Anderson. This article originally appeared in “Newsbreak,”
the newsletter of MUG ONE - Macintosh
User Group of Oneonta, NY
The MUG Store
The MUG store always has
great deals for members.
This month's highlights include:
• Factory Refurbished iBooks
starting at $699
• Factory Refurbished Power
Mac G4s starting at $1,099
• Factory Refurb 12" Power
Books starting at $1,249
• Factory Refurbished iPods
starting at $188
• Plus an exclusive $100 rebate
on any installed RAM in
selected new Macs!
Plus...
- Free freight on all orders
- Knowledgeable consultants
- Blowout deals
- One percent goes back to your
(Password & User ID on pg 11)
This offer and more are available
to members of U.S. user groups.
Mac OS X Tips
from Web Watch - compiled by The
MUG Center <www.mugcenter.com>
Create
interactive
slideshows
for Windows
users
If you need to make an
interactive slideshow
for use on Windows,
you need to use something in addition to
iPhoto. For whatever reason, iPhoto‘s
QuickTime export feature does not
include an option for interactivity. The
slideshow shareware apps I‘ve seen
use proprietary formats, which are
unplayable on Windows. The solution
is to drag your selected images straight
from iPhoto into the navigator pane in
a new Keynote document. Keynote
will automatically create a new slide
for each photo. You can then easily
rearrange them, and export the
slideshow to QuickTime, with the
‘interactive slideshow’ option selected. You can also drag from the Finder,
but who views their images there?
Use
wildcards to
build iPhoto
smart
albums
tried it with the two Airport Expresses
(AXs) I have and it worked pretty
well, although I got occasional but
infrequent dropouts, mainly because I
was doing everything wirelessly. It
will probably work better on wired
networks.
streaming to the AX in my family
room. I opened iTunes, selected my
family room speakers, selected
“Advanced>Open Stream...”, and
typed in “http://localhost:8000”. The
music started playing on my family
room stereo.
I used Panther‘s Fast User Switching
feature and three user accounts:
3. The third account handled streaming to the AX in my study. I followed
the same steps as the second account
except that I selected the speakers in
my study. The music started playing
there too! The music wasn‘t completely in sync between AXs -- probably
due to buffering -- but it played
nonetheless. 
1. The first account was the playback
account, where the music originated. I
set up Nicecast to stream iTunes’ output to port 8000 (the default). I then
started a playlist playing.
2. The second account handled
This is an interesting
little iPhoto feature I
just found. When
making a smart
album, ? and * are
wildcards. A ? will match “any single
character,” so that K??e will match
“Kate” and “Kyle.” A * will match
“any number of characters,” including
none, so K*e will match “Kate” and
“Kill me” and “Ke.” I couldn‘t, however, discover how to search for the
actual ? and * characters. Backslashes
-- the usual escape character -- don‘t
seem to work; K?ate is treated the
same as Kate, but K\ate will find only
“Kate.” Adding an ‘escape’ character
(Control-Q, Esc) also failed.
Date ___________________
Stream
iTunes to
multiple
Airport
Express
units
_____________________________________________________________
I came up with a
novel way to get
around the singlestream limitation of
AirTunes, with a little
help from Nicecast. I
Referred by: ________________________
Name ________________________________________________________
Company Name ________________________________________________
Occupation ____________________________________________________
Address_______________________________________________________
City/State/Zip __________________________________________________
Email ________________________________________________________
9
[email protected]
Editor Deena Quilty
[email protected]
10
Upcoming
Meetings!
September 29, 2004
This month’s Back To Basics
session is all about wireless
networking
technology
and
Apple’s
Airport
products.
Discussions will include parts
needed, cost involved, ease of use,
and security concerns. We’ll have
demonstrations and will answer all
of your questions. This session
begins at 6:00, and will take place
in the same conference room as our
monthly meeting. Please note that
there will not be a Back To Basics
session in October.
Discounted
Books!
FREE
Raffle!
For CMC
Members Only!
User IDs and Passwords
7 pm – Celebrity Guest Night
September’s meeting will feature
Apple Senior Systems Engineer
Dave Marra. Dave’s knowledge of
the Macintosh platform and expertise in solving computer problems
with the Macintosh make Dave an
exciting and entertaining speaker.
Dave Marra has conducted over
500 technology presentations,
keynote addresses and workshops
for businesses, schools, computer
user groups and other professional
organizations across the United
States and Canada. His specialty
areas include digital multimedia,
internet technologies and crossplatform integration. In addition to
his presentations and workshops,
Dave has served as a technology
consultant to numerous schools,
businesses and technology advisory boards. If you’d like to learn
more about Dave, visit his web site
at www.marrathon.com.
Coming Events....
Oct. 27 CMC Auction
& Ask the Geeks
New Members!
Account Balances
Ending Checking
Account Balance ..................$533.24
CMC Web Site
www.ctmac.org
User ID: XXXX (uppercase)
Apple User
Group Store
Aug. 1, 2004 - Nov. 30, 2004
Are You Receiving
our CMC emails?
please email us at
[email protected]
11
Balances as of September 13, 2004
CMC Classified Ads
CMC Display Ad Rates
be advertised at the monthly rates below.
Business Card ..........................$10.00
Quarter Page.............................$20.00
Half Page..................................$30.00
graphics embedded. Make your check
payable to CMC.
Meeting
y
l
h
t
n
o
M
– 7 pm
r 29
Septembe est Night
Gu
Celebrity edical Center
UConn M
m
cs” - 6 p
i
s
a
B
o
T
s)
“Back
for detail
11
(see page
left as you enter.
12
Monthly Meeting
October 27 - 7 pm
OS X Migration
October's CMC meeting will equip
you with the knowledge you need to
tackle a changeover to OS X.
Matrix Reloaded
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
You’re probably thinking this article is
about the movie, right? Sorry... it’s about
how to prepare for reloading your Mac.
With OS X Panther as stable and resilient
as it is, you could suggest that an article
on reloading is somewhat moot. Well,
there are actually several instances that
call for a reload. Buying that new iMac
G5, for instance, might present just such
a predicament. Upgrading your hard
drive might be another.
There are a few programs that can
make a “carbon copy” of an existing
drive for either a backup or to transfer
data to a new drive. You may, however,
wish to reinstall your software from
scratch. Software that’s packaged with
multiple serial numbers (such as
Microsoft Office Teacher & Student
Edition) can necessitate a fresh installation on each computer.
OCTOBER, 2004
Begin by hunting down all your original software packages. Round them up,
and also locate the required installation
data such as serial numbers and activation codes. You might want to build a
text file with all this information so it’s
all in one consolidated place. I use OS
X’s TextEdit for this purpose.
Next, you need to replicate the installer
for each program in a folder or collection of folders you can backup to your
DVD or external drive. Be aware that
some programs are fussy about where
they’re installed from. In such cases,
you can use either OS X’s Disk Utility
or Roxio’s Toast Titanium to create a
“disk image” of the original install
CD(s). When you mount such an image
later, the computer thinks you have the
CD mounted and thereby fools the
installer. While Disk Utility comes with
O SX and is free, and usually works
fine, I’ve found that Toast can handle a
few situations that otherwise would fail
using Disk Utility.
The concept is simple: consolidate your
software installers in one place for ease
of use. Since many programs now consume the better part of an entire CD,
you should not plan on using CD-R
media for this project unless it’s all you
have available.
Finally, copy your folder of installers
and serial number data to a DVD-R or
backup drive. A word of caution: don’t
throw out all your original discs! You
may need them to vouch for being a
licensed owner of the software, and you
may have to use them should your new
installer copy fail.
There are two better alternatives. The
first is to simply bump up to DVD-R
media. This is a very practical solution
if you have a Superdrive or other DVD
burner. The other option is to use an
external FireWire hard drive. If you
have a newer Mac, you could opt for a
USB 2.0 drive instead. For this purpose,
you don’t need a huge drive. Even a
modest 20 or 40 gb would do fine.
You might not have a need for this tool
right away, but when you do, particularly if you’re panicked by a hard drive
crash, you’ll be glad you’re prepared.
I’ve used my “master install DVD” several times and it was very convenient to
have everything I needed in one place.
Best of all, I was back to having fun
with my Mac in a jiffy! 
1
A Note of Thanks
The President and Board of
Directors wish to express our sincere gratitude to Dave Marra,
Apple Senior Systems Engineer,
for his wonderful presentation at
our recent September meeting on
all things new from the mothership!
Dave covered a wide range of
products including the new iMac
G5, Airport Express, and Apple’s
pro video editing software. We
all learned something from this
meeting, including a few power
user secret tips for iPhoto!
Inside this Issue
Matrix Reloaded .................................. 1
Getting ProCare ................................... 3
Tidbits – Take Control..........................4
Bigger iDisk Brings Big Headaches ....5
Review: Back-Up 2 ..............................6
iMac G5-Initial Impressions.................6
CMC Auction! Nov. 17
This year's auction will be held on
November 17. The current list of items
for the auction can be found
http://www.ctmac.org/auction04.php.
Please remember auction items are paid
for by cash or check only. Any nonmembers will be charged a
20% premium, so make sure
that your membership is current. Also, there will be no
checkouts permitted before 8
PM. Have fun, and may the
highest bidder win.
While we are busy soliciting donations
from nationwide merchants and manufacturers and developers, we would also
gratefully accept donations from individuals or local companies. A donation
receipt for tax purposes can be
provided in exchange. If you
have something you'd like to
donate, please contact Joe
Arcuri at: [email protected].
And be sure to attend the auction at our November 17th
meeting!
Content Contributor
Don Dickey
Alsoft – Special Offer for CMC
Contributing Author
Rich Lenoce
Alsoft, Inc., maker of popular software
for the Macintosh, offers us these two
special deals:
Call 800-257-6381 to order. You must
mention the special code to get this special
pricing. This discount is not available on
purchases made from the Alsoft web site.
Discount Code: CTMAC11302004.
Editor
Deena Quilty
Designer
George Maciel
Photographer
Chris Hart
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
in each issue.
IDiskWarrior3 $64.95 (reg. $79.95)
MasterJuggler3 $69.95 (reg. $89.95)
Shipping and handling is $9.95
Advertising
Any business items
or services can be
advertised at the low
monthly rates listed.
Business Card............$10
Quarter Page ..............$20
Half Page....................$30
Full Page or insert......$50
Submit all ad copy to
the Editor on a disk
with nothing else on it
or e-mail it for insertion in the following
issue. Display ads
must be submitted
camera-ready in .eps
or .pdf format with
all fonts and
graphics embedded.
See Page 11
for info on FREE
CMC member
Classified
advertising that
is available.
2
This special offer expires Tuesday,
November 30, 2004.
Getting ProCare
By Chris Hart
CMC secretary
When your Macintosh
is giving you grief, it’s
frustrating to get more
grief from people on tech support
lines, from a support web site that is
slow as molasses, or from the employees at the very same place you bought
your computer. If you frequently work
under deadlines, this grief can affect
your entire business.
Apple recently unveiled a service which
addresses this issue to some degree.
They’re calling it ProCare <http://
www.apple.com/retail/procare/>, and it
commits the Apple Store to treating you
with priority, and turning around the
repair of your computer as fast as is possible. That explains the name of course,
which denotes the fact that this service
is aimed primarily at those whose work
depends on their Mac.
Don’t confuse this new plan with the
long-standing AppleCare coverage,
which is different. AppleCare has two
primary functions: (1) Extending the
period of free Apple phone support from
3 months to 3 years. (2) Extending your
hardware’s warranty from 1 year to 3.
This coverage is applicable no matter
where you bought your computer, and
no matter which Apple authorized repair
center you take your computer to.
ProCare, on the other hand, covers the
priority you receive at the local Apple
Store. You’ll get faster attention at the
Genius Bar, and if your computer has to
be admitted to the Apple hospital for
some TLC, it will be put at the top of the
repair list.
Note that you can only buy the ProCare
plan at an Apple retail store, because
you can only reap its benefits at the
store. If you really want to make Apple’s
day, you can certainly buy ProCare in
addition to AppleCare. You’ll still have
to pay $100 a year for ProCare, no matter what other plans you have in place.
And you’ll always have to
go down to the Apple
Store in order to get the
attention you’ve paid for.
(By the way: Have fun trying to find the cost of
ProCare on Apple’s web site. Just
because they don’t sell this service
through their web site, they have decided not to lists its cost on their site–an
annoying oversight.)
I see the ProCare service as only being
of value to a small group of Mac users.
For many, the speedy hardware service
coverage is a primary feature of this
service. But hardware failures just aren’t
that common with most of Apple’s computers. For instance, I don’t see this plan
as necessary for the typical owner of a
PowerMac G5. However, if you’re
someone who is constantly on the move
with a PowerBook for example, this
plan may the best way to get mobile
again as quickly as possible when something breaks.
But, there is something about the terms
of Apple’s ProCare <www.apple.
com/retail/procare/terms.html> that
troubles me. Specifically, the sentence
that says: ”…Apple is not responsible
for Covered Products that are lost or
stolen while in Apple’s possession…”
Excuse me? Not liable? I give you my
computer worth thousands of dollars,
and you feel no obligation to safeguard its security? I was flabbergasted
when I read this lack of accountability. Obviously this is the kind of
corporate legalese used by companies
so that they can cover their butt. But
it’s still disappointing. You’ll have to
decide for yourself if this issue is a
“deal breaker.” Apple has certainly
always been trustworthy with customer property, and I can’t envision
that ever changing.
As I mentioned before, ProCare
requires that you be willing to carry
your computer into the Apple Store
whenever you have a problem with it.
3
Also keep in mind that the only things
they’ll fix are the hardware and software created by Apple. If your system
freezes every time you run your
Canon scanner, or if you constantly
get error messages when running
Microsoft Word, then Apple will say
“Sorry, but we can’t help you.”
For most people, it’s these third-party
products and how they interact with
your particular computer setup that usually causes the most snafus. For those
problems, you’ll still find yourself waiting on hold with Canon or Microsoft in
order to sort these things out.
Some software makers offer priority
tech support plans. For example,
Quark has a priority support plan for
XPress, as does Adobe for their entire
line of software products. But as soon
as they sense that your problems are
not specifically related to their software product, they’ll tell you “I’m
sorry, but that’s not a problem I can
help you with.”
Your best alternative may be to hire
your local Apple authorized service
center (of the non-Apple Store variety) or a consultant who will come to
you and troubleshoot your Mac’s
problems. Many times these technicians already have the solutions to
these problems in their brain or in
their bag of tricks, and the gremlins
can be dispatched quickly.
Regardless of who you choose to call
on, you’ll benefit from the fact that
there are more choices than ever for
computer support. Apple deserves
recognition for continuing to offer
more services to attend to the needs of
their customers. Whether you’ve only
recently switched to the Mac, or you
were using them before anyone knew
the word “iMac,” you don’t have to
live with computer grief! 
Take Control from Tidbits
submitted by Robert Sawyer
TidBITS has released two new ebooks
for Word users http:/www.tidbits.com
Make the most of your investment in
Microsoft Office by learning Word 2004's
new features!
Microsoft Office 2004 is expensive, so
turn to Word expert Matt Neuburg and the
73-page "Take Control of What's New in
Word 2004" for the best strategy for
upgrading to Word 2004 and handling the
80 fonts that Word installs, complete with
info about four fonts you should not
delete and those you can delete to avoid
conflicts, shorten your Font menu, and
make Word launch faster. Save time and
increase accuracy when typing and pasting text with smart buttons. Discover the
new Navigation Pane and three
workarounds to an annoying bug that may
bite you. Learn how to use Notebook view
effectively. Read an overview of important changes to Unicode support, styles,
and using markup, plus find out what's
new with AppleScript and what Microsoft
put in the Toolbox. Bonus! Summaries of
ten changes to preference panes, six subtle changes to menus, and three important
changes to commonly used dialogs.
Next is the 78-page "Take Control of
What's New in Word 2004: Advanced
Editing & Formatting," which picks up
where the first book leaves off. Under
Matt's expert guidance, you'll get help
with the complex changes in Word's editing and formatting features. You'll learn
the hidden rules that govern smart buttons
and animated blue underlines and find out
how to take advantage of new style features, including table and list styles. Matt
also explains how to type special characters and teaches you three techniques for
entering frequently used characters.
Anyone relying on Unicode or unusual
fonts needs Matt's real-world help and
explanation of why fonts may not work as
expected, including four solutions to common problems with old fonts. Finally,
Matt explains in detail how you can use
the new comment and revision tracking
features most effectively.
You can buy either volume by itself for $5
(be sure to use the 10-percent user group
discount with code CPN31208MUG) or
buy both together and get a 50-percent
discount on the second volume (sorry, the
user group discount can't be combined
with the bundle discount).
Book Details:
“Take Control of What's New
in Word 2004”
http://www.tidbits.com/
takecontrol/word-1.html
PDF format, 73 pages;
free 27-page sample available
Publication date: October 7, 2004
Price: $5.00
“Take Control of What's New in Word
2004: Advanced Editing & Formatting”
http://www.tidbits.com/
takecontrol/word-2.html
PDF format, 78 pages;
free 21-page sample available
Publication date: October 7, 2004
Price: $5.00 
Be sure to take advantage of the
discount code if you wish to order.
Other titles include:
• Take Control of Buying a Mac 1.0
• Take Control of Email
with Apple Mail 1.1
• Take Control of Your AirPort
Network 1.1.1
• Take Control of Spam
with Apple Mail 1.1.2
• Take Control of Sharing Files
in Panther 1.1.2
• Take Control of Customizing
Panther 1.2
• Take Control of Upgrading
to Panther 1.2.2
• Take Control of Users & Accounts
in Panther 1.1
• Take Control of What’s New
in Entourage 2004 1.0
• Take Control of Making Music
w/GarageBand 1.0
Photos from the
September 29th CMC Meeting
Celebrity Guest Night featuring Dave Marra
Photos by Chris Hart
4
Bigger iDisk
Brings Big
Headaches –
Here’s how to fix it
By Rich Lenoce
CMC Vice President
In late September, Apple increased the
size of .Mac members’ iDisk to 250 mb.
But few people were able to take advantage of the increased size. Many people
got –14 errors or more likely they were
told their local iDisk and online iDisk
had different sizes. Here’s what’s going
on and how to resolve it.
When you first set up
your iDisk in Panther,
you were asked if you
wanted to keep a local
copy on your hard
drive. This speeded up
the iDisk service,
enabling you to drop or
save items to the local
iDisk, while the computer performs the
slower synchronizing
process to the on-line iDisk in the background. Also, during this set-up
procedure, you had an option to automatically perform this synchronization,
or to do so manually. The local iDisk
was created and matched the online
iDisk exactly in both size and contents.
When Apple decided to increase the size
of the iDisk to 250 mb they also
increased the potential size of .Mac
mailboxes—but you still only have 250
mb total as that number is shared by
both services. You will need to go into
your .Mac account and decide on the
size you wish to allocate to iDisk and
.Mac mail. That needs to be done prior
to synchronizing the sizes between your
online and local iDisks.
To adjust your iDisk and Mail allocations, go to http://www.mac.com and
log in to the .Mac service. Scroll down
to the menu on the left of the screen and
select Account. You will now see the
default setting Apple has given to your
iDisk and mail accounts. From the right
column select Storage Settings. A new
screen will come up that will give you a
graphical breakdown of your mail and
iDisk allocations, as well as a pull-down
menu to Manage Your Storage. Select
the pull down menu and adjust the settings to meet your needs. Click Save.
You have now set the online iDisk size,
but now we have to enable that change
locally. Return to the Finder and open
your System Preferences located in the
Dock or by going to the Apple Menu
and selecting System Preferences.
Select the network preference labeled
.Mac. The preference will open; then
select iDisk. You will see by the graphic
bar on the top of
the preference
pane that your
online iDisk size
has increased,
but if you were
to check your
local iDisk in the
Finder, you’d
find it would still
be only 100 mb
in size. To resize
the local disk,
uncheck the selection Create a Local
Copy of Your iDisk. Close the preference using the red close button in the
upper left corner of the preference pane.
You will be prompted with a message,
Are you sure you want to turn off iDisk?
Be sure to select Turn off local iDisk,
then close the preference pane again
with the red close button.
Reopen the .Mac system preference and
reselect the iDisk pane. Now check the
box that says Create a Local Copy of
Your iDisk and set the iDisk to synchronize Automatically. Close the
preference pane and your computer will
recreate the local iDisk at the proper size
with the proper contents. You won’t be
able to access your local iDisk while
this process is being performed so be
patient—and I do mean patient. It can
take several minutes or even an entire
day for the computer to perform this
task, depending on how busy the .Mac
servers are and how your computer’s
hard drive and iDisk are configured. 
5
Download
of the Month
GraphicConverter 5.23
If you don't have this on your
machine, get with the program–it
opens anything! It is shareware,
but makes you wait just a few
moments if you don't use it often
enough to bother paying for it.
Don't wait until you need it;
download it now. Not “one of the
best” shareware products for the
Mac; it is THE best!
Product Description:
• Imports about 170 graphic
file formats
• Exports about 45 graphic
file formats
• Browser
• Batch conversion with
additional actions
• Slide show
• Easy creation of optimized
images for the Internet
• Basic images manipulation
• Enhanced images
manipulation
• AppleScript support
• Support for the special
features of Mac OS 8, 9
and Mac OS X
• Support of new technologies
like LuraWave LWF format
http://www.lemkesoft.de/en/
graphdownload.htm
Product Requirements:
Mac OS 8.6 or higher
Review: Backup 2.02
Archiving and Backing
Up Large Projects
By Rich Lenoce
CMC Vice President
Tape drives such as DLT
have been the traditional
backup media for professionals who
deal with large projects that won’t fit
on standard 4.3 gigabyte DVD-R
discs. Such projects require the project’s file structure be maintained on
the backup media so that the so that
the application that created the project can find all associated files when
it’s restored. This is particularly
important to video professionals or
enthusiasts, since one 30-minute DV
file can alone run 6 gigabytes in size,
which would spread over two DVDRs. All the assets of an iMovie, Final
Cut or DVD Studio Pro project can
run to 20, 30 or even 100 gigabytes.
Given those large file and project
sizes, software can be used to break
up large project folders and files
among
consecutive
DVD-Rs.
Apple’s Backup software is the perfect tool for backing up large
projects to multiple CDs or DVDs.
.Mac membership. Backup does all
that’s needed–easily and efficiently.
Initial Impressions
of the iMac G5
When starting any media project, all
files should be organized in a single
project folder, which can include
other folders (video, audio, graphics,
etc.), as well as the project file. This
allows speedy file access, and keeps
files organized and ready for backup.
by Chris Hart,
CMC Secretary
To perform a backup, make sure no
boxes are checked in Backup’s Main
Window. Just drag the project folder
to Backup’s main window, making
sure the check box is checked. Select
Backup to CD/DVD from the pull
down menu, insert a DVD and click
Backup Now. Backup will start copying the information, burning and
verifying each disc and prompting you
when to insert a new disk. It will tell
you how to name and number your
backup discs. The last disc burned is
referred to as the Master Disc.
Restoring a project is easy. In Backup,
select Restore from CD/DVD from the
pull down menu and you will be
prompted to insert the Master Disc.
Select where to restore the project and
press Restore Project.
Apple’s Backup is free, too. Mac
The only software you don’t have to
members. If you include the cost of
use Backup for is Apple’s own iDVD.
.Mac membership,
iDVD has an
it is less expensive
archive feature
then similar highthat takes all
end backup utilities
the original
that can perform
video footage
the same function.
(before MPEG
I tried using StuffIt
2 encoding),
Deluxe–it wouldn’t
graphics,
segment the commusic and
pressed files into
project files
4.3 gigabyte segand archives
ments, but instead
them to sepainto smaller segrate DVDs. 
ments that would
use many disks.
Retrospect will backup to
1 Select Your Destination
DVD in segments, but at a
2 Fetch Your Files
price equivalent to my
3 Schedule Your Backup
6
On the last day of August, Apple introduced the
redesigned iMac G5. This fourth generation of the
computer that first changed Apple’s fate in 1998,
has been highly anticipated. In very uncharacteristic fashion, Apple fed that anticipation by
announcing the forthcoming model revision several months prior. They had no choice, as supplies
of the iMac G4 were dwindling, and retailers and
customers wanted to know what was going on.
At a recent CMC meeting, a member took advantage of our Q&A session to ask whether or not he
should await this forthcoming iMac. Rich Lenoce
and I were in agreement and advised this gentleman to wait and take advantage of the more up to
date technology.
You’ll be happy to know that we won’t need to
retract our advice. Only moments into my first
encounter with the handsome iMac G5, I was
tempted to whip out my credit card and get one
for myself. This computer is so clean in its design,
yet so capable, that it‘s going to be very tempting
for buyers of all sorts; even professionals.
You’ll understand that temptation when you hear
the price points. You can have one of these new
iMacs for $1300. If you want a faster processor,
bigger screen or DVD burner, you can choose
between the $1500 and $1900 models. Why
should a computer over $1000 be considered a
good value? Because the iMac G5 is a complete
package of a fast computer, LCD screen, and
bundled software, that comes in a dramatically
slim unit that is suspended over your desktop by
a sleek aluminum pedestal. You simply can not
find a comparable package with the same combination of features, simplicity, compactness, and
cool factor for less money.
While LCD screen prices are constantly dropping
in price, Apple continues to take the high road with
widescreen LCD displays that provide the highest
quality picture possible. Whether you’re looking at
the version of the iMac G5 with a 17" or 20"
screen, you’ll see a very bright LCD screen that can
be viewed from a wide variety of angles. Of note for
those who have limited eyesight, is the ability to
magnify the screen’s image (by lowering the pixel
resolution), without text becoming a fuzzy blob.
continued on page 7
Some people have criticized the positioning
of the iMac’s ports as being conspicuous.
My feeling is that their location on the back
is not bad at all. Especially since most
users will back the computer up against a
wall. Anyone concerned with the appearance of cables simply has to put some
attention towards securing them. The
iMac’s aluminum pedestal provides
the perfect means for routing and
securing cables where they will call
less attention to themselves.
In all my years of computer consulting, I have encountered a
handful of people who are as
obsessed as Apple’s CEO with the minimalist appearance of the
computer on their desk. For
such perfectionists, buying peripheral cables that
are silver or white in color is an option.
Apple listened to their customers when they put
USB and FireWire ports on the front panel of the
PowerMac G5 series of tower computers. It’s
unfortunate that they didn’t remember this lesson
when it came time to design this iMac. They
could have easily stowed these ports behind a flip
down door, which would provide convenience,
yet maintain the flawless facade. One solution to
this situation would be to employ extension
cables – permanently connect one end to the
appropriate port on the back of the iMac and keep
the other end in a convenient location, for easy
connection to the device or your choosing.
Also important to note when discussing the issue
of neatness is the new iMac’s lack of an external
power supply. The PowerMac G4 Cube is one of
Apple‘s most notorious “computer-as-design”
statements, and it was unsuccessful for a variety
of reasons, including an inflated price tag. A
prominent flaw that weighed down the Cube’s
appeal was a massive external power supply, that
one had to find a place for. The new iMac’s builtin power supply avoids that hindrance.
In fact, if you were to employ all the optional
wireless capabilities possible with the iMac G5,
you could get away with having the power cord as
the only cable hanging off of it. Such freedom is
made possible by Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies. The iMac G5’s internal Airport Extreme
(Wi-Fi) card slot provides you with the ability to
use a wireless network (be it an Apple
Airport base station or other brand of
802.11b/g wireless broadband router).
Bluetooth is a recent wireless technology
development, that is beginning to see widespread implementation in consumer
electronics. It provides a short distance connection (within approximately 30') to devices
equipped with Bluetooth capability. That list
of devices currently includes keyboards,
mice, printers, PDAs, and cell phones. It’s
important to note that the internal
Bluetooth option on the iMac G5 can
only be acquired as part of a “build to
order” configuration at the Apple
Store. The Bluetooth component is
built into the system in a way which
can not be duplicated after purchase.
So, if you value freedom from
cables, definitely take this into consideration before placing your order.
Another detail to consider is the cost of a potential RAM upgrade. Apple installs 256 megabytes
of this memory at the factory, which is fine for
usage limited to email, web browsing, word processing and some iPhoto work. However, if you
use the iMovie, iDVD, or GarageBand components of the included iLife package on a regular
basis, then you will definitely want to consider a
RAM upgrade. If you’re a professional, running
such programs as Quark, Photoshop, Illustrator,
then such an upgrade is essential and will pay off
in productivity.
The iMac G5’s dual RAM slots provide both
upgrade versatility, and the potential for speed
improvement. When the iMac’s intelligent circuitry sees that you have installed a matching pair
of RAM modules, it adapts accordingly with its
ability to treat this pair of modules as one, large
block of RAM. The overall speed improvement is
noticeable and of significant benefit when using
the iLife suite of programs, for example.
Apple’s latest lineup of flat panel LCD Cinema
Displays is free of ventilation holes, providing for
a flawless aluminum shell. Since the G5 processor inside the new iMac produces too much heat
for such a design to be possible, Apple had to
incorporate some method of ventilation. We all
know how kids love to stick things into vents and
grilles. So, it was likely an important priority
within Apple to design a vent that doesn‘t scream
“come play with me, kids.” Apple achieved this
7
through the use of a narrow, recessed slot on the
top rear. In comparison to a perforated grille
approach, this design simultaneously provides an
inconspicuous appearance, and discourages the
little people of the world from poking and prodding.
Speaking of the children, I suspect the iMac’s
CD/DVD disc slot will be a reach for them, as it’s
located at the highest point on the right side of the
computer. Adults may prefer this position, as it
prevents discs from bumping into objects standing on their desk. But small kids may need to get
on their tippy toes to reach up there.
It’s interesting to note that the back of this new
computer is imprinted with the word “iMac”
instead of an eaten fruit logo. This breaks Apple’s
common design methodology, which traditionally eschews prominent model labels. As the Mac
platform has always attracted its share of diehard
computer enthusiasts, many of them choose to
customize their macs with unique paint schemes
or decals/skins. I envision the iMac G5 as being
very popular with customizers, and imagine it
won’t be long before Mac enthusiast web sites
start posting photos of unique creations.
Not that the iMac G5 needs customization. It will
keep most buyers happy just as it is out of the box:
powerful, elegant, versatile, and easy to use. I’m
very impressed that Apple put this system together for a starting price of $1300, and consider it to
be the best buy in Apple‘s computer product line.
At the time of writing, several journalists have
praised the iMac G5. Highly regarded columnists
such as The Wall Street Journal’s Walter
Mossberg, and The New York Times’ David
Pogue have already written detailed reviews.
Mike Wendland of The Detroit Free Press went so
far as to say “The new G5 iMac is the finest personal computer I’ve ever used, hands down.
Nothing comes close. If you have ever thought of
switching from a Windows-based PC to a Mac,
this is the deal-clincher. It is simply a stunning
machine both to look at and to use.”
The full text of these reviews are available online:
David Pogue, NY Times http://www.nytimes.com
/2004/09/16/technology/circuits/16stat.html
Walter Mossberg, Wall Street Journal http://
ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20040923.html
Mike Wendland, Detroit Free Press: http://
www.freep.com/money/tech/mwendland5e_2004
1005.htm 
Nicholas Pyers ([email protected])
Puzzle: Apple Software
Apple Computer not only produces cool hardware like the iMac G5, 30-inch cinema display and iPod, they also produce some
great software packages. Some of these are bundled free of charge with their computer systems, while others are commercial
applications aimed for the high end user. Here is a crossword based on some of Apple’s software packages.
Across
Down
2
3
6
7
11
12
14
15
16
18
1
2
4
5
8
9
10
13
17
19
21
24
20
22
23
25
The power to synchronize your digital life.
Digital music, photography, movies and DVD creation.
Manage your calendars and share them online.
Composition, notation and audio production.
Turn your Mac into a recording studio.
Get, save, organize, share and enjoy digital photos.
Produce music with thousands of loops.
A new generation of presentation software.
Create powerful Java server applications.
Sol Robots’ application that allows you to easily make
classroom style crossword and word search puzzles.
Get all you need to create pro documents.
The leading database application for workgroups.
Affordable audio composition and production.
The world’s most advanced OS.
The fastest and easiest to use web browser.
Shop for music, burn CDs, sync iPod. For Mac and PC.
Making digital movies is as fun as using your iMac.
The beauty of HD. The simplicity of DV.
Now you can edit video like a professional.
High-performance data sharing.
Essential for film and video production
Advanced effects compositing with network rendering.
Put your Desktop Movies and digital photos in motion.
Introducing real-time motion graphics design.
The SAN file system for Mac OS X.
The common windowing environment for UNIX systems.
SOLUTION on PAGE 9
8
Solution: Apple Software
(Puzzle on page 8)
Credits
Thanks to Sol Robots for providing a fully licensed version of the
Mac OS X version of Crossword Forge to generate this puzzle.
A copy of this puzzle, along with the solution, is also available
from my website, www.nicholaspyers.com.
<www.nicholaspyers.com/puzzles/20040913-applesoftware/>
Interested in reprinting this puzzle? Any non-profit Apple
Macintosh User Group (MUG) may re-print, free of charge, any of
the puzzles created by Nicholas Pyers found in the /puzzles directory of the nicholaspyers.com websites.
There are just a couple of conditions, which basically boil
down to letting us know - for the full details please visit
http://www.nicholaspyers.com/reprints.
Discussions about this puzzle may also occur on the appropriate
Australian Computer News Network (ACNN) mailing list(s)- please
visit http://www.zonian.net.au/lists for more details.
Copyright October 2004, Nicholas Pyers.
The MUG Store
The MUG store always has
great deals for members.
This month's highlights include:
• Brand new 15" PowerBooks
with Combo for only $1499
• Factory Refurbished iPods
starting at $179
• Brand new custom-configured
iBooks with Combo $1188
• An exclusive $100 rebate on
any installed RAM in selected
new Macs!
Don't forget our huge blowout
and specials section, including
great deals on Bose speakers,
Apple software and more!
Plus...
- Free freight on all orders
- Knowledgeable consultants
- Blowout deals
- One percent goes back to your
User ID and Password
for CMC members:
Aug. 1, 2004 - Nov. 30, 2004
Date ___________________
Referred by: ________________________
Name ________________________________________________________
Company Name ________________________________________________
Occupation ____________________________________________________
Address_______________________________________________________
City/State/Zip __________________________________________________
Email ________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
These offers and more are available
to members of U.S. user groups.
9
2004-2005 CMC Officers and Board Members
[email protected]
Editor Deena Quilty
[email protected]
10
CMC Monthly Meeting
October 27, 2004
Browser Basics–understand how to
use and configure your Internet
browser. We'll be exploring a number
of browsers under OSX and how to
best configure them to your web surfing needs. Pros and cons of different
browsers will be discussed.
7 pm – OS X Migration
October's CMC meeting will equip
you with the knowledge you need to
tackle a changeover to OS X. If you're
still using OS 9, your computer is
probably feeling long in the tooth.
Moving to OS X will make you feel
like a reborn Mac User!
CMC Secretary, Chris Hart, will present a thorough demonstration and
exploration of Mac OS X. What do you
need to know before making the leap?
This is the place to find out. Topics will
include
hardware
requirements,
expenses involved, planning and
preparing, and learning to love OS X!
Discounted Books!
FREE Raffle!
New Members!
friends and co-workers join us for fun and
learning about OSX and the Mac.
SPECIAL
NOTICE!
Changes regarding access
to the CMC website:
www.ctmac.org
• Member expiration date
• Membership number
Account Balances
Checking Balance ................$470.69
Savings Balance ................$3958.61
Balances as of October 6, 2004
FREE Classified Ads
Please make a note of it now!
CMC Members can Advertise For
Sale, Swap, Trade, Giveaway or Want
to Buy Items. This space can be used
by members to advertise non-business
Send submissions via email to
[email protected]
Upcoming Events
Got Mail?
Display Ad Rates
Oct. 27 OS X Migration
Nov. 17* CMC Auction (see pg.2)
Are You Receiving
our CMC emails?
be advertised at the low monthly rates
listed below.
Business Card ...................$10.00
Quarter Page.....................$20.00
Half Page .........................$30.00
Full Page (or insert) ............$50.00
Whether you intend to upgrade your
current computer to OS X, or buy a new
one that's ready to roll, this presentation
will provide you with the information
you need. Bring your list of questions,
and leave some room on that notepad
for the answers! Even if you've already
transitioned to OS X, it's a safe bet
you'll learn something new.
& Ask the Geeks
*(Early dates due to holidays)
Jan. 26 iDVD
Feb. 23 Maintaining Your Mac
(for free shipping at MacConnection)
• Web site username & password
...are now located on your
newsletter mailing label.
please email us at
[email protected]
11
(with nothing else on it) or e-mail it to
[email protected] for insertion in the
following issue. Display ads must be
submitted camera-ready in eps or pdf format with all fonts and graphics embedded.
Make check payable to CMC.
Meeting
y
l
h
t
n
o
M
– 7 pm
7
October 2 ation
r
OS X Mig al Center
edic
UConn M
m
cs” - 6 p
i
s
a
B
o
T
“Back
tails)
11 for de
(see page
left as you enter.
12
Monthly Meeting
December 15 - 7 pm
Holiday Pizza Party
& Ask The Geeks
Best Free Software
By Don Dickey,
CMC president
Most of us enjoy
using some of the
great free software
available for our
Macs. These usually amount to
small “utilities”
that either make
our computing just a little bit easier or
solve a small problem. They rarely fall
into the “killer app” category – software
that we’d be hard pressed to live without
once accustomed to. While some might
say Apple’s free iTunes music software
could be their killer app, for me (and
many of my friends), Palm Desktop has
got me by my mouse tail.
Palm Desktop actually began life as an
Apple product, specifically as Claris
Organizer. I remember trying it back then,
and while it was nice, I didn’t have a need
for what it did. Maybe life was less complicated then, or maybe my lifestyle was
less computer-centric. In any case, Palm
acquired the program from Apple’s Claris
division, improved it somewhat, and
added “hooks” so it could easily exchange
data with their handheld computers.
A few years ago, several friends had started using Palm handhelds. They swore by
these gadgets, and had them clipped to
their belts everywhere they went. I didn’t
think I wasn’t ready for one yet, but after
some prodding I decided to download and
try their software. I had a few basic needs.
One was to more easily manage my contact database. This started in a DOS
program called Nutshell which later grew
DECEMBER 2004
up into what we now know as FileMaker.
As good as FileMaker was, I wanted a
better way to see and sort contacts, and an
easier way to print address labels and
envelopes.
I also wanted a way to clear my wallet of
the dozen or two Post-It notes stuck
inside. Palm’s memos fit that bill nicely.
Finally, I wanted a simple calendar where
I could note appointments and meetings.
Palm Desktop was a natural here. Better
yet, it even offers to cross link appointments to the contacts automatically.
The Palm Desktop has a great ToDo manager. I’m afraid to get too wrapped up
with this feature, lest my wife get a hold
of it and start entering honey-doos!
Nuff said.
Soon the software was helping run my
business, and I was hooked. I can even say
it helped me be more productive. It wasn’t
long before I wanted to take all this data
with me, and be able to edit or add to it out
of the office. Enter my first Palm organizer,
a Palm IIIc.
The point I’m trying to make here is not to
sell you on the need for a Palm handheld.
It’s that you can reap many of the benefits
by simply using their great software on
your Mac. While a handheld will set you
back $100 or more, the software is
completely free!
Sure, you could use Apple’s Address
Book for your contacts, iCal for your calendar, and TextEdit for your memos.
They’re all free too, but they’re not at all
integrated with each other. The nice thing
about Palm Desktop is that the whole is
Continued on page 2
1
A Note of Thanks
The President and Board of
Directors wish to express our
sincere gratitude to Chris Hart
for his wonderful presentation at
our recent October meeting on
migrating to OS X!
Chris covered a wide range of
issues including the reasons you
should consider upgrading if
you’re still running an older OS.
With OS X shipping on all new
Macs, you'll be forced to switch
if you upgrade to a new
machine. The rest
of us have a choice.
Fortunately, it’s a
good one, and Chris
explained why.
Inside this Issue
Best Free Software............................... 1
Review: Delicious Library................... 3
Book Review Mac OSX Helpline.........4
Powerbook 1400 - Old is New .............5
Complete List of Web Browsers ..........6
Auction Photos .....................................9
MUG Special Offers.............................8
actually worth more than the sum of its parts.
The only downside is that it might lead you
to want a Palm handheld down the road. My
advice is to cross that bridge when you get
there.
Editor
Deena Quilty
Content Contributor
Don Dickey
Contributing Author
Rich Lenoce
Designer
George Maciel
Photographer
John Scott
Chris Hart
Publisher
Connection, Inc.
41 Crossroads Plaza
PMB 1984
Printer
Budget Printers
1718 Park Street
Hartford, CT 06106
from members!
in each issue.
Another nice feature about Palm Desktop is
its ability to share its data. I routinely export
contacts as vCards which are easily dropped
into the OS X AddressBook. This makes
email addresses immediately available in the
OS X Mail program. I also export a vCal file
to drop on my iPod along with the vCards. If
you already have an iPod, you might not
even crave a Palm if you carry your contacts
and appointments on your pod.
One very nice feature is automatic
birthdays. If you enter a contact’s birthday in
the address form, it’s automatically
transferred onto the calendar along with a
reminder 5 days in advance...just enough
time to get a card in the mail!
Advertising
Any business items
or services can be
advertised at the low
monthly rates listed.
Business Card............$10
Quarter Page ..............$20
Half Page....................$30
Full Page or insert......$50
Submit all ad copy to
the Editor on a disk
with nothing else on it
or e-mail it for insertion in the following
issue. Display ads
must be submitted
camera-ready in .eps
or .pdf format with
all fonts and
graphics embedded.
See Page 11
for info on FREE
CMC member
Classified
advertising that
is available.
2
Another useful feature is Categories. You
can assign just about anything (contact,
ToDo, appointment, memo, etc.) to a category, such as Personal or Business. It’s useful
to be able to sort names or notes by category,
for instance.
The software supports multiple users, each
with their own set of data. It does not, however, support showing multiple calendars
simultaneously each in their own color as
iCal now does. Synchronizing data between
users can be tricky but is possible. Moving
your data between computers is easy, however. Just copy the Palm folder from the
Documents folder on your main Mac to the
same folder on any other Mac.
I’ll wrap this up by encouraging you to give
Palm Desktop a try if you’re not already
using it. Palm Desktop runs in either OS 9
or OS X. Visit www.palmOne.com for a
download link. We all love to have fun with
our Macs, but it’s especially nice when it’s
free! 
Delicious Library
that lets you import about 750 items
an hour (assuming you can move your
arms that fast). At that rate the staff of
the new downtown Seattle Central
Library could work together to import
all of their 1.4 million books into
Delicious Library in just over 5 hours.
Catalogues Your Media Files
By Bill Davies
Let me start this review by saying that
I finally found a good use for my
iSight videocam. I don’t mean to be a
complete Luddite, but I just never
really saw the need to videoconference on the computer. But then I
started hearing people talk about this
application called Delicious Library
so I decided to take a look. Delicious
Library 3.0 is a program for cataloging and managing your “library” of
books, movies, music, DVDs, and
video games. Quite frankly, that‘s not
a task that I‘m interested in, and in our
house we have far too many books to
even tempt me to start such a project.
And you can imagine how boring a
cataloging program can be. That’s
why you need to look at Delicious
Library–to see what happens when the
developers get just a teensy bit creative. Sure, you can type in all your
listings by hand. But Delicious
Library offers support for barcode
scanning using an iSight or Bluetooth
barcode scanner, automatic downloading of information about the scanned
media from Amazon (including similar items, user reviews, etc.), the
ability to track items lent to people,
the ability to send recommendations
about a book to friends, and much
more.
To see how well it worked, I pulled
out my son’s “Superman Diamond
Anniversary Edition” DVD, launched
Delicious Library on our G4 iMac,
and all of a sudden a little window on
the screen popped open and I was
looking at myself. So the iSight turned
itself on automatically and was ready
for input! I then held up the back of
the DVD so that the iSight could read
the bar code. This took a bit of experimentation because (having not read
the documentation) I was unclear how
close or how far to hold the DVD case
from the camera. Nothing seemed to
happen, so I created a new “card” in
the library and held the bar code a bit
closer to the
camera, letting
the image fill
approximately
10% of the
viewable area. Then presto, without
me typing anything, Delicious Library
read the bar code, queried
Amazon.com for details on the publication (author, release date, current
value, description, and even a highresolution picture of the cover), and
filled in all the information for me. If
you think this is clever, you‘re not the
only one, as this product was awarded
O’Reilly’s Mac OS X Innovators
Award for 2004. And now you know
why I think I finally found a good use
for my iSight camera!
I suspect that the faster your Mac, the
faster the iSight processes every single frame of digital video, but I have
to say it was not too bad on our G4
iMac.
And I have to wonder about books
we’ve inherited from both our parents
or friends; I mean, did they even have
bar codes in the 1960’s? I’ll have to
pull out some of those old books and
see.
Quoting from Delicious
Software, “using the same
technology found in $800
industrial-strength CCD barcode scanners, Delicious
Library reads every single
frame of digital video; seeki n g o u t , t a rg e t i n g , a n d
instantly decoding any visible
barcodes.” This results in a
seamless process of scanning
3
Once you get the information in, how
do you get it out? Delicious Library
offers iPod sync so you can take your
catalog with you, and lets you issue
voice commands to initiate a search,
and if you can’t remember who wrote
that book you liked but you remember
the cover, Delicious Library lets you
browse the cover art. (You can also
just type part of an author or book
name and get back the results that
match.) And not surprisingly, you can
find related items by the same author
or subject on Amazon, list parts of
your collection for sale, etc. While I
can’t prove it, I’ll speculate that
Delicious Monster Software receives
a small commission from every
Amazon sale they generate. Sound
great? Ready to start cataloging? You
can download the software and enter
up to 25 items without paying a cent,
by visiting http://www.delicious-monster.com.
Delicious Library is the first release
from Delicious Monster Software, a
new company formed by two former
employees of the Omni Group, makers of OmniWeb and OmniGraffle.
The cost is $40 and it works only on
OS X.
(c) Bill Davies, MacNexus 2004. May
be reprinted by any Mac user group
with attribution to MacNexus. 
Book Review:
Mac OS X Help Line,
Panther Edition
by Elsa Travisano
Ted Landau’s Mac OS X Help Line,
Panther Edition is the Manhattan
Yellow Pages of Macintosh troubleshooting books. Weighing in at
a massive 1144 pages,
this invaluable compendium covers just
about any technical
problem you’re likely to
encounter in Mac OS X
10.3.
As Mary Poppins once
said, “well begun is half
done.” Landau is the
founder of MacFixit
<www.macfixit.com>,
the premier Mac troubleshooting website. He starts out by
giving readers a thorough grounding
in Mac OS X, with an emphasis on
topics that are particularly pertinent to
troubleshooting like fonts, directories
and permissions. The various methods
of installing, restoring, backing up
and uninstalling OS X are then
detailed, along with what to do when
things go wrong.
The bulk of the book delves into the
methods and tools for solving specific
problems. Chapters deal with crash
prevention and recovery, troubleshooting printing and networking,
working with files, the Classic environment and troubleshooting the
iApps and iPod. There’s also a chapter
on Unix, to help readers harness the
powerful tools of the command line
for troubleshooting.
Detailed contents and a
thorough index make
short work of finding
what you need to know
to extract yourself from
whatever technological
quagmire you may
find yourself in.
In spite of its heft, Mac
OS X Help Line is the
book I’m most likely to
take along on Mac consulting calls. Time after
time, it delivers the goods. Very highly recommended.
Mac OS X Help Line, Panther Edition
by Ted Landau. 1144 pp. Peachpit
Press, 2004. $39.99
©2004 Elsa Travisano. This article
originally appeared in Newsbreak, the
newsletter of MUG ONE – Macintosh
User Group of Oneonta, NY. 
Hot Tips:
Did you know that you can CONTROL click on words in most OS X
applications to bring up a contextual menu which includes access to the
built-in spelling checker? You can check the spelling of words, find the
correct spelling of and replace misspelled words, and turn the check-asyou-type feature on or off.
– from Don Dickey
Photos are removed from iPhoto’s master library when you remove them
from a photo album. Prior versions of iPhoto didn't allow this. But,
version 4 allows you to do COMMAND-OPTION-DELETE which
removes the photo from both the album and the library simultaneously.
This also works in iTunes with playlists and the master music library.
– from Chris Hart
4
Download
of the Month
Carbon Copy Cloner
Having just
bought a larger
second hard
drive, (those
dratted Clay
Aiken photos,
you know!), I had to
figure out how to install it and
how to format it and get an
operating system on it, etc....
Don, our esteemed President,
recommended Carbon Copy
Cloner 2.3!
As more club members migrate
to OS X, I figure you may have
a use for this program also.
So here it is. Two versions available, for OS X pre and post
version 10.2.
From the website: Have you
ever wanted a simple, complete,
bootable backup of your hard
drive? Have you ever wanted to
upgrade to a larger hard drive
with minimal hassle and without
reinstalling your OS and all of
your applications? Have you
ever wanted to move your entire
Mac OS X installation to a new
computer? Then CCC is the tool
for you! CCC makes these tasks
simple by harnessing the Unix
power built into Mac OS X. In
addition to the features that
CCC has provided in the past,
version 2 offers synchronization
of the source and target as well
as scheduled backup tasks. Now
you can setup a regular backup
regimen that occurs in the background, even if you are not
logged in!
http://www.bombich.com/
software/files/cccloner.dmg
PowerBook 1400:
Everything Old is New Again
good episode of The Apprentice.
My goal–spend almost no money.
What could be done with OS
7.5.3? As I found out, quite a bit!!!
By Rich Lenoce
CMC Vice President
First, I upgraded to the free 7.6.1.
This would allow me to run the
latest Classic versions of Netscape
Communicator. The 56k Internet
connection was annoying so I put
out a call to the CMC Board asking them for suggestions about
getting this PowerBook on broadband. Joe Arcuri recommended
wireless. Wireless? This thing was
built in 1996! That's five years
before Airport 802.11b or any other wireless standard with
an alphabetical designation.
Back in 1996, I paid over three thousand
dollars for a new PowerBook 1400. I
probably spent another thousand on
accessories including a Zip drive,
expensive RAM, a PC-card modem, two
extra batteries, a multi-battery charger,
and a VGA-out card–yes, this was a laptop without video output.
This laptop was always a bit of an odd duck. To install the
VGA card I had to remove the expensive RAM and then
would never have enough RAM to run applications.
Though it had two standard PC slots, the rest of the thing
was built on Apple proprietary interfaces – ADB, Local
Talk, etc. The stock battery was good for only an hour
requiring me to carry two other heavy batteries to get any
work done on an airplane. It did have four things going for
it: it was small, had a great LCD screen and keyboard and,
for its day, seemed fairly quick.
I got on-line and found websites devoted to upgrading
PowerBook 1400s to wireless. The only “standard” this
portable Mac accepted was the PC card and it seemed every
wireless company made a Windows/Mac WiFi PC card to
work with the 1400. I ordered a Lucent/Proxim/Orinoco
Gold card; cost was $24 with drivers for OS 7.5 and above!
Two days later, I got the card, installed the drivers, restarted the computer and ran the set-up wizard. It immediately
spotted my Airport Express! I connected to the network and
I was surfing, emailing and doing everything I intended too.
I recently found the crate with the PowerBook and wondered: what was I going to do with it? My first reaction was
to stick $3,000 worth of PowerBook 1400 stuff on the free
table at the next CMC meeting. Instead, I plugged it in, and
low and behold it came to life and that beautiful screen
caught my eye. I wiped the drive and reinstalled the original system software – OS 7.5.3. I then installed the
enclosed applications which included the usual Claris package of Organizer, eMailer and Works. I slapped the modem
in and launched Cyberdog (remember that spiffy little
browser)? All my apps were open and this little devil was
running on less than 10 megs of RAM. Today, I can barely
get Apple's Motion software to run on my new Dual 2ghz
G5 with a gigabyte of RAM.
I decided to do some exploring of Classic freeware utilities
and software. Though the Classic pages on VersionTracker
and MacUpdate look nearly abandoned compared to their
OS X counterparts, there are still plenty of developers creating Classic Mac software, allowing you to do anything
your heart desires – even in OS 7.6. I was able to find software to connect to my iDisk, play, record and convert
MP3s, share files easily with my other OS X machines. I
even found software that made the PowerBook look and
work like the OS X Finder. And there were programs that
mimicked iPhoto and iTunes. I dug through boxes and
found old copies of Photoshop, Illustrator, Director,
Hypercard. All had no problem running on the PowerBook
and though they were old, they're functionality was still
pretty useful.
Playing with the PowerBook, I was really struck by how
fast and efficient the operating system and apps were.
Menus appear immediately when requested and resources
aren't sucked up by eye candy and unnecessary workflow
enhancements I seem to never have the time to learn, never
mind use. Claris software gives you what you need and
nothing more or less. I got the modem going and Cyberdog
brought up pages in a flash – except, of course, for Flash
pages or any other web page technology created after 1996!
There are upgrade cards for the 1400 to turn it into a G3, but
it takes away the much needed RAM slot, making it not
worth the cost or effort to upgrade. System 7, a system out
years before Windows 95, and far faster and more efficient
than anything Microsoft or even Apple has put out since, is
really a simple but effective OS that deserves the title of
“Classic” and allows old machines to become new again. 
Looking at its diminutive size, I decided I could use it as a
second computer in the family room for checking email so
I don't have to walk upstairs to my office, interrupting a
5
A Complete List of
Macintosh Web Browsers
By Rich Lenoce
CMC Vice President
Did you know Apple
once had its own ISP?
And that they created
two excellent web
browsers– before Safari? Even today,
there are many web browsers available
for the Mac, not just Safari and MS
Internet Explorer. In fact, there are
dozens of older browsers that support
Mac operating systems going back to
the very beginning of the World Wide
Web. Here is an almost complete list of
browsers from Darrel Knutson’s web
site at <http://darrel.knutson.com/mac/
www/browsers.html>. Given the many
versions available, there are well over
100 Mac web browsers. Visit Darrel's
site for more info on any of these
browsers and info on how to get them.
Almost all are free.
NetNewsWire (OS X)
from Ranchero Software
NetNewsWire is an RSS newsfeed
reader that includes a built-in Safaribased web browser.
webXkiosk
from NC State University (OS X)
ebXkiosk is a full screen, web kiosk
application with security, web screen
saver, video embed and some “universal
access” features.
OmniWeb
from The Omni Group (PPC/OS X)
Some consider this to be the best web
browser available for the Mac.
DEVONagent
from DEVON Technologies (OS X)
DEVONagent is primarily an Internet
information agent and includes an
embedded web browser based on Safari.
Webstractor from SoftChaos
Webstractor is a different kind of browser that saves each page visited, which
can then be searched, viewed or edited
offline
ICE Browser from Mac Beta9
Written completely in Java. Small
(128k), fast and discontinued.
Mozilla from Mozilla.org (OS X/OS9)
Mozilla code is the basis for many
browsers on PC and Mac systems
including Chimera/Camino and
FireFox. Version's prior to 1.4 will run
on OS9 and earlier OSs.
Mozilla Firefox (Firebird) (OS X)
Mozilla’s popular browser-only software. It’s high security has made this
popular on the PC side and many consider this a winner in the Mac world too.
WaMCom Mozilla
from WaMCom.org (OS9/OS X)
A modern Mozilla browser meant for
OS9 but will run under OS X as well.
Wazilla (OS X) and Eharunga (OS9)
Two Japanese Mozilla-based browsers.
Mozilla Firebird (formerly Phoenix)
http://www.kmgerich.com/misc.html
A Macintosh port from the PC version
of Mozilla/Netscape.
RealPlayer from RealNetworks (OS X)
Real networks has a very basic built-in
web browser that displasy sites with
Real content such as CNN.
AppMac wKiosk (OS X)
A commercial full-screen browser for
kiosk systems, originally based on the
Gecko engine.
Shiira from the HMDT Shiira Project
(OS X 10.3) The goal of the Shiira
Project is to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari. In some
respects, its features are more advanced.
Based on publicly available source code.
Camino (formerly Chimera)
from the Camino Project (OS X)
http://mozilla.org/products/camino/
A Cocoa port of Mozilla. This is a
favorite among many Mac users.
iBrowser from ArtiszZ (OS X 10.3)
A small browser that works in full
screen mode on the desktop.
Netscape Navigator and Netscape
Communicator (64k/PPC/OS9/OS X)
N av i g a t o r i s t h e b r ow s e r a n d
Communicator is all-in-one browser,
email, newsreader and web composer
application. Mac 68k versions through
the latest OS X version are available.
Once the king of browsers, it has now
been rolled into the Mozilla project and
uses the Gecko engine.
NoteTaker from AquaMinds (OS X)
NoteTaker is not primarily a browser, but
it includes one as a sort of side feature.
Opera from Opera Software
(OS 8/9/OS X)
Many people feel this is one of the best
browsers available with a host of features. Available for free if you don’t
mind the ad window, or $39 for the
commercial browser. Pre-OS X versions
are still available.
w3m from w3m.org (OS X)
http://www.w3m.org/
A new, terminal-based browser being
developed in Japan.
Echo from DropLit Software (OS X)
A minimalist Safari based browser
BumperCar from Freeverse (OS X)
A commercial browser for kids based
on Opera. 30 day free trial.
iCab from iCab Company
(68k/PPC/OS X)
Fast, lean and in perpetual beta. Simple,
but has many nice features. Will run on
nearly any Mac or Mac OS!
The Web Stalker from I/O/D4
(68K/PPC)
http://www.backspace.org/
iod/iod4Macupdates.html
A very strange browser apparently created in Director. You’ll know what I
mean when you start it and are faced
with a black screen and hidden menu.
KioskBrowser and DesktopBrowser
from Kiosk Software (OS X)
http://www.kiosksw.com
Two browsers: one a full screen browser and another that is a desktop browser.
continued on page 7
6
WebDesktop from Steven Frank
(OS X)
http://www.stevenf.com/webdesktop
Not exactly a browser, but if you’d like
a web page as a desktop background,
and want it updated at specified intervals, this application will do the trick.
Hazice by Yoav Weiss & Oren Kazi
(OS X) http://wazi.cjb.net/
A Safari-based small, fast browser.
Lynx (OS X)
A text-based web browser that runs in
the Terminal.
Links by Mikulas Patocka (OS X)
Another terminal-based text only
browser that is surprisingly intuitive and
extremely fast.
PT Browser by Mike Coffey
(Bahamas) Ltd. (OS X)
Mike Coffey created the website that
tracks the worlds worst Mac software,
perversiontracker.com. Coffey decided
to create the worst browser–one that
only points to his website. Type in any
other URL and you are redirected back
to PT. I guess it’s supposed to be a joke!
Amaya Editor/Browser
from the folks who bring you the Web,
W3C (OS X+X11+X11SDK)
A graphical browser that runs in Apple’s
X11 environment.
Dillo from the Dillo Project
(OS X+X11)
http://www.OSXgnu.org/software/
Xwin/Applications/dillo/
Another graphical browser that runs in
Apple’s X11
wDesk from AppMac (OS X)
A discontinued Gecko based browser
that has been replaced by wKiosk.
wKids from AppMac (OS X)
A discontinued Gecko-Based full screen
browser for kids. Replaced by
KidsBrowser.
WannaBe by David T. Pierson
(68k, PPC)
An extremely fast, text-only browser for
Mac Classic Operating Systems.
WebTV Viewer from MSN TV (PPC)
http://developer.msntv.com/Tools/Web
TVVwr.asp
A viewer application used by developers to see how web sites would appear
on WebTV.
eWorld Browser from Apple
From 1993-96, Apple had their own ISP
called eWorld. This browser worked
only in conjunction with the eWorld
service and client software. Built for
Apple by Intercon.
MacLynx by Oliver Gutknecht
(68k/PPC) A fast text-only browser
based on Lynx 2.7.1.
MacWWW by CERN
A.K.A. Samba, this is the first web
browser for the Mac. Very primitive.
Chameleon WebSurfer from
Netmanage (PPC) Though NetManage
is still around, the browser has been
discontinued
AOLpress from AOL (64k/PPC)
Web creation and publishing tool with a
web editor from 1997.
MacWeb (64k/PPC) from EINet
This product is no longer being
developed, but is still available.
AOL Browser (PPC)
An awful attempt at creating a web
browser from back when AOL wasn’t
interested in supporting the web.
MacWeb from TradeWave
This product has been discontinued
and is no longer available.
Internet Safari from Heartsoft (PPC)
A browser meant for children that
attempts to limit access to only those
sites “appropriate for children”.
Hot Java from Sun Microsystems
(Macintosh Run Time for Java)
HotJava web browser from Sun requires
Macintosh Runtime for Java.
MiniWeb from PygmySoftwyr
A text-only browser written in RealBasic.
InstantSpace from Xeosoft Corp
(64k/PPC)
An customized “Open-Doc” version of
Internet Explorer 2.
Blake from Kantara (PPC)
Blake was a replacement web browser
for Cyberdog that hasn’t been updated
since at least 1998.
Mosaic NCSA (68k)
Mosaic NCSA is no longer under
development, but is still available.
Mosaic Spyglass version (68k)
No longer available.
Mosaic from SPRY (PPC)
No longer available.
Sprynet is a CompuServe company.
NetShark
Intercon has been sold to Ascend and
Netshark is a dead project. Intercon also
offered a package with integrated
browser called tcpCONNECT4, but this
has also been discontinued.
Tiber VOL
Teknama Internet Browser. This was the
browser used in the discontinued “world
wide” Video On Line provider program.
Prone to crashes and very limited.
Cyberdog from Apple (PPC).
Apple’s own home-grown web browser
that used the now discontinued “Open
Doc.” Fast, efficient, and still has many
fans.
Note: Does anyone have information on pre-1998 browsers including the following two browsers:
DaniBrowser/1.0 (Macintosh PPC) or Enhanced_Mosaic/ 2.01 Mac_PowerPC PSI/1?
If so contact Darrel Knuton, [email protected], so he can make this list truly complete.
7
Benefits:
Monthly meetings, monthly newsletter, special
events, discounted books, assistance with computer problem, network with other Mac users,
User Group Store discounts, and more.
These User Group discounts are
brought to you by the Apple User
Group Advisory Board. You must be a
current Apple user group member to
qualify for these savings. Get a complete list of all current deals at...
www.mugcenter.com/vendornews/
vendornews.html
iPod911.com Group Exclusive:
City ______________________________
We are a small company who only
knows batteries, ink and the Mac. As
an Apple user group exclusive,
iPod911.com offers 1G, 2G and 3G
iPod Batteries for $22 with free shipping. Check it out on the website.
www.ipod911.com/macusergroup.asp
Valid until January 31, 2005.
State________ Zip __________________
Mediafour UG Offer:
Date ______________________________
Name _____________________________
Address ___________________________
Phone (Home) ______________________
Phone (Office) ______________________
Phone (Fax) ________________________
Business___________________________
Occupation_________________________
Email:_____________________________
Referred by:________________________
Areas of special interest: ______________
__________________________________
__________________________________
__________________________________
Annual CMC Family
Membership - $25.00
Make check payable to CMC and
mail to:
41 Crossroads Plaza, PMB 1984
...or
pay online with PayPal at
www.ctmac.org
Special pricing for MacDrive 6, an
application for Windows that lets PC
users open, edit and save files on Mac
disks. You can even burn Mac CDs
and DVDs. With MacDrive there is
nothing new to learn or launch; just
pop in any Mac disk and access files
as if it were a PC disk. MacDrive is
normally $49.95 but Mediafour is
offering it for $35.95 to user groups in
the U.S. (download purchase only)
Email [email protected] for
URL and discount code. Valid until
January 31, 2005. www.mediafour.com
PhoneValet Message Center
More than an answering machine,
PhoneValet Message Center turns
Mac computers into telephone communications hubs. PhoneValet includes
hardware and software to do the work
of a skilled staffer: greeting callers professionally, announcing calls and
recording calls when desired.
Featuring caller-activated Apple
Scripting, a searchable call history,
talking caller ID, fax controller and
voice dialing, PhoneValet intuitively
and elegantly merges the telephone
with Apple's digital hub in the spirit of
the Macintosh. Reg. $199.95, members receive a $20 discount. Coupon
Code: AUG-847285. www.parliant.com
Offer valid until May 31, 2005.
8
FirSoft User Group Offer:
Do you need to synchronize your iCal
calendars between multiple Mac computers, between multiple users on the
same Mac or with your iPod? Run
iSynCal and sync them using the standard Apple File Sharing shipped with
Mac OS X. You don’t need a .Mac
account, nor to publish your calendars
on an external ftp or WebDav server.
Regularly $20 (US), iSynCal is available to MUG members for $16 (US),
a 20 percent discount, Find out more.
http://ww2.unime.it/flr/isyncal/en/
Order. http://orders.kagi.com/?4WH1
This offer is valid until Jan. 31, 2005.
Nisus UG Offer:
You have something to say and you
need a writing tool that will help you
say it. Express Yourself with the
affordable, easy to use Word alternative: Nisus Writer Express 2.0. With
so many new features, our legendary
user interface, Microsoft Word compatibility and a very low price, this
new release is something you can’t
afford to miss. Regularly $59.95,
Nisus Writer Express is available to
User Group members for only $49.95.
www.nisus.com/Express/mug.php
Valid until January 31, 2005.
The MUG Store
Great deals for CMC members.
Aggressive new prices on all the latest
Macs. Add to that Free freight, an
exclusive $100 rebate on any installed
RAM in selected new Macs, 1% merchandise credit back to CMC, huge
blowout and specials section–including great deals on Bose speakers,
Apple software, and more...and you
have a deal that can’t be beat.
User ID and Password
12/1/2004 - 3/30/2005
User ID: xxx (lowercase)
Password: xxx (lowercase)
SOLD!
Photos from the
November 17 Auction
Thanks! Auction Donors
Our recent annual CMC auction raised
hundreds of dollars for our group. We
wish to thank the many companies and
individuals who donated:
Apple
Adobe
Alsoft
Avondale Media
AXIO
Bare Bones Software
Circus Ponies
Dantz
Digital Light & Color
Econ Technologies, Inc.
Fellowes
Focal Press
IDG/Macworld Expo
Marware
MAX Programming LLC
Micromat
Microsoft
New Riders
OReilly Press
PeachPit Press
Prosoft Engineering
Rocstor
Quark
RadTech LLC
Red Giant Software
Sailalong Software
Sybex
STM
TechTV
Total Training
Wacom
Wiley Press
Woodwing Software
You Software
Photos by
John Scott
and
Chris Hart
CMC members who donated items:
Jack Bass
Neal Dembicer
Don Dickey
Tricia Heldmann
George Maciel
Deena Quilty
John Scott
Please accept our apologies if we have
inadvertently left out anyone from this list!
9
2004-2005 CMC Officers and Board of Directors
[email protected]
Past President/Ambassador Joseph Arcuri
The CMC Officers and Directors would like to welcome Jerry Esposito to the Board – Serving as our PR Director
Editor/Auction Deena Quilty
[email protected]
Parlimentarian/Historian Connie Scott
10
CMC Monthly Meeting
December 15
UConn Health Center
6 pm – Back To Basics
This month’s session is all about
Apple’s email application “Mail” that
comes with Mac OS X. CMC president Don Dickey will show you how
to be smart about your “Mail!” He’ll
explain and demonstrate its features
and functions. As with all Back To
Basics sessions, we'll devote plenty of
time to answering your questions!
Discounted Books!
FREE Raffle!
New Members!
7 pm – Holiday Pizza Party
& Ask the Geeks
The Annual CMC Holiday Pizza Party
starts at 7 pm. Bring your appetite and
computer questions!
Upcoming Meetings!
• Jan. 26 iDVD
• Feb. 23 Caring Your Mac
New 2005 Feature
Coming in the January to
the CMC Chronicle
A new feature:
Meet the Member of the Month.
An interview with one of our own
– watch for it!
friends and co-workers join us for fun and
learning about OSX and the Mac.
SPECIAL
NOTICE!
Changes regarding access
to the CMC website:
www.ctmac.org
• Member expiration date
• Membership number
(for free shipping at MacConnection)
• Web site username & password
...are now located on your
newsletter mailing label.
Please make a note of it now!
We always want to hear what you need
and want from the group. Right now
we're making that even easier by giving
you a way to share your opinions.
During December and January, CMC is
conducting a survey of all its members.
You can tell us – anonymously – what
you really think of the group.
Account Balances
Checking Balance ..............$2568.65
Savings Balance ................$3960.39
Balances as of November 30, 2004
FREE Classified Ads
CMC Members can Advertise For
Sale, Swap, Trade, Giveaway or Want
to Buy Items. This space can be used
by members to advertise non-business
Send submissions via email to
[email protected]
Display Ad Rates
Take Note of This!
You can get your own Apple logo
notepad and pen, as our thank you,
when you complete a CMC survey!
Plus, you'll get a chance at free
music from the iTunes Music Store.
Your participation is
essential to the future of
CMC. In addition to
receiving a thank you
gift when you complete
the survey, you'll also
be entered into our raffle for a $75 gift
certificate to the iTunes Music Store!
What better gift for yourself, or the
iPod-lover in your family?
Watch your email and check our web
site for details on how to participate.
11
be advertised at the low monthly rates
listed below.
Business Card ...................$10.00
Quarter Page.....................$20.00
Half Page .........................$30.00
Full Page (or insert) ............$50.00
(with nothing else on it) or e-mail it to
[email protected] for insertion in the
following issue. Display ads must be
submitted camera-ready in eps or pdf format with all fonts and graphics embedded.
Make check payable to CMC.
Meeting
Monthly
m
r 15 - 7 p
e
b
m
e
c
e
D
zza Party
i
P
y
a
d
i
l
Ho
e Geeks
h
T
k
s
A
&
r
ical Cente
ed
UConn M
s – 6 pm
c
i
s
a
B
o
t
Back
CMC Meeting Location
a PDF document containing a visual direction guide to UConn Health Center is
available on our website: www.ctmac.org. Print and take it with you to find us easily!
left as you enter.
12

In this Issue Monthly Meeting

Transcription

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