Continued

Transcription

Continued

April/May/June ‘05 Edition
Articles
Adobe Takes Wraps Off
of New Creative Suite
•Adobe Takes Wraps by Monte Ferguson
Off of New Creative
DOBE ANSuite
nounced a
Cover Page
•GRAMUG Meeting
Highlights
Page 2
•Sticky Brain 2.0.2
Page 3
•Sense & Sensors in
Digital Photography
Page 7
•Choosing Backup
Software
Page 9
•Tips and Tricks
for Recording with
GarageBand
Page 20
Specials and Deals
Back Cover
Get Info is a publication of
the Grand Rapids Area
Microcomputer Users
Group.
A
whole new slate of
creative programs,
again. In late March
a press release dated
April 4, 2005 accidentally made it’s way to
Adobe’s web site. It
confirmed the details
of the new suite. Sure
it was pulled down
but not before news
was all over the web.
About a week and a
half later Adobe officially announced the
updated suite called
the Adobe Creative
Suite 2.
the Standard
Edition. (We
will have
further coverage, including
elements that
make up the
Premium edition in our
upcoming
newsletter, Get
Info.)
Photoshop
CS2
Besides it’s
updated name,
Adobe says that
Photoshop CS2
“brings a new
level of power,
The
precision
Shown
above
are
the
box
covers
to
the
major
applications
updated
and conthat make up the Creative Suite 2.
suite is
trol to the
comprised
digital photography experience and to the
of Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, InDesign overall creative process.” Photoshop will
CS2, GoLive CS2, and Acrobat Professional
now incorporate nondestructive editing,
7.0.
meaning you can fiddle with your images
This marks the second sweeping update to your hearts content without losing any
for Adobe programs in less than fifteen
data. A new tool called Vanishing Point
months. Understandably people are weigh- will allow you to clone, brush, and paste
ing the cost vs the benefits of upgrading.
elements that automatically match the perTo make things even more interesting there spective of the underlying image. A new
are two different versions of the Creative
Image Warping tool makes it easy to take
Suite. Below you will find more informayour 2-D image and
tion about the programs included with
Continued on Page 4
GRAMUG Meeting Highlights
by Monte
Ferguson
Many folks think that user group meetings are for
computer wizards and geeks. That the conversation will
be way over their heads. While others have no idea what
such meetings have to offer. I have showcased several
recent gatherings below. As you can tell from these excerpts, a user group has something to offer nearly everyone no matter what their skill level.
December
We had a great turn out for the December meeting. Had
to bring in some extra chairs. We started out the meeting by hilighting a selection from Breens Bungalow. We
played one of the video clips on the current collection
from Christopher Breen. At the break folks who had a laptop were encouraged to come up and we transferred the
entire CD disk image to their laptops. Next, Duane gave
a Treasurer’s report. The good news is the group has a
healthy bank account. We’ve had several renewals so far
this season and a couple of new memebers.
After the break we got down to our main topic Things
That Make the Mac Fun. There were a lot of great programs that were shared. In fact so many good programs
were shared that I really can’t cover what each program
did. In order of their appearance:
a) Autumn Leaves
b) OSX Planet
c) Ocean Waves d) Quick Voice
e) Delicious Library
f) Merlin
g) Celestia
h) Newsfire
i) Unsanity
j) CandyBar
i)Xicons
k)MoonDock
l) WeatherPop
m)SmartWrap
n) TNEF’s
Enough
We had
lots of good
feedback on
the programs
presented. We
took time out
for the discussions that
some of these
programs generated.
We concluded the
meetOne of our December giveaway winners,
ing by
Ms. Katie Weller, is shown with her prize,
having
a Christmas
Giveaway. We
had several good
prizes this month.
Our winners
included: Mr.
Jesus Solis who
won FileMaker
Pro 7; Ms. Katie
Weller who won
Allume’s Ten for
X; Lyle Kauffman
who won Total
Training’s
Learning MacOS
X; and Bill
N. who won
Allume’s Creative
Essentials.
January
We certainly had
a lot to talk about
at this month’s
meeting. First
One of December giveaway winners,
and foremost
Mr. Jesus Solis, is shown with his
was the grand
introduction of
prize, FileMaker Pro 7
our GRAMUG
Forums. At the meeting I gave a quick round trip presentation on the forums and its features. The forums are open
to ANYONE. There is even a feature to send an email invitation to friends. We’ve had a lot of good interaction going
on up there. Check it out.
Next up was more of a show and tell type of thing. You
see a couple of our members had made the ultimate sacrifice for all of us. Yes, they had thrown their credit cards in
harms way. But it was worth it. They had brought back for
us a couple of the most talked about pieces of hardware
at the show. Of course you couldn’t miss our own Terry
Johnston modeling his new iPod Shuffle, the 1GB model.
He was a standout in his light canary yellow sweater and
iPod shuffle hanging round his neck. Next we heard the
tale of how our own Duane Weller had been mesmerized
by the diminutive appearance of the Mac Mini. He now
owns one and loves it. In both cases it’s amazing how
small these things are in real life.
We rounded out the meeting talking about all of the
announcements from MacWorld. Most of the attention
went to the iLife ‘05 suite and iWork suite.
GRAMUG meets monthly, throughout the school year,
at CompUSA. Meetings are held on the Thursday of the
fourth full week. Meetings begin at 7pm.
You can also learn more about the group by going to our
web site: http://www.gramug.org/
2
Product Review:
Features
Sticky Brain can store all kinds of information like text,
web and email addresses, file links, calendars and alias’
to pictures or sounds. It has built in hot key or contextual
by Monte Ferguson
menus that allow you to save stuff to Sticky Brain without
running the program. New with this release is the Sticky
N MY DAY TO DAY LIFE IT SEEMS LIKE THERE IS
Browser. It works much like an internet search engine.
always a bunch of things that I need
You can type in a few search words
What you get:
to remember or follow up on. Or
and it will immediately come up with
I’ll get this great idea and need a quick The application, via cd or download, a list of matching stickies. You can also
way of jotting it down for future refer- comprehensive bult in help section.
preview and edit your stickies in the
ence. When I run into that situation my Also several handy notes to start
Sticky Browser. You can assign alarms
natural inclination is to jot it down on a with, such as Zip Codes.
to your notes. You can create To Do
sticky note. It’s quick, convenient, and
lists and calendars. It even comes with
Price is $39
I can take the note and place it someword processing features like a built in
where easy to find. Rather than buried
spell checker, that works as you type.
System Requirements
under a pile of papers.
You can perform text clean up chores
MacOS 9.0 or higher (Classic ver- on the text you’ve imported into a
My computing life is just as hectic,
if not more so at times. I’ve often relied sion).
sticky note. Helpful if you often grab
upon a number of different ways of
MacOS 10.0 or higher (OS X ver- text from web pages or emails. You can
storing and organizing the quick bits
apply a default text style, rewrap parasion).
of information and ideas that I want to
graphs. StickyBrain supports multiple
deal with later. But I’ve always run into 5 MB memory.
undos and redos. Each sticky keeps
10 MB hard disk space.
problems and it has to do with how I
its own record of changes, meaning
deal with things. If I can’t find what
that you can undo and redo changes
I’m looking for quickly, I’ll either redo
multiple times in more than one sticky.
something I’ve done or have to spend time trying to rack
StickyBrain also makes automatic regular backups of your
my brains for that one idea I thought of last week. Either
StickyBrain File, great for reverting to a previous version.
way some major time can be lost.
You can also make stickies private. Which will mean you
At first I thought the MacOS X Stickies program
have to type in a password to view their contents.
would come to my rescue. But I had to remember to use
it. Meaning I had to
launch it whenever I
Pros
needed to jot something
Sticky Brain is drop down easy
down. I also got quickly
to use. We’ve all used Stickie
over run with sticky
before. So you’ll be right at
notes all over the place.
home in this program in no
With no way to orgatime. But once you really sit
nize them I just threw
down with it you begin to see
up my hands. I needed
some of the features, like text
a lightweight program
formatting. The electronic help
that was as easy to use
is well written. It does a very
as Stickie Notes yet
good job of explaining the finer
things could be found
points of the program without
in a heart beat.
being over wordy. Being able
Then I found Sticky
to import text or web pages
Brain from Chronos
into a sticky note without havSoftware. Chronos
ing ot open the program is just
describes Sticky Brain
awesome. Quite a time saver.
as a tool to “Store anySticky Brain can also import
thing. Find anything.
Classic stickies, ie stickies from
Pictured above is Sticky Brain’s Browser. You
One click.”
MacOS
9 and earlier.
can also see the notes and text palettes.
Sticky Brain has been
steadily maturing. It started out
Cons
looking pretty much like the classic Stickies program that
One of my big gripes is that picture files aren’t really
Apple ships, with added features. This version, 2.x adds
stored in the sticky, at least under os x. A pointer to the
whole new capabilities that definitely make it much more
file, like an alias, is stored in the sticky. Which means that
useful than Apple’s Stickies.
if you delete the
Continued on Page 5
file then your
Sticky Brain 2.0.2
I
3
Cover Story Continued
From Page 1
Happy 21, Macintosh!
24-Jan-05 marked the 21st birthday of
our favorite smiling friend, Macintosh. If
you have a BitTorrent client (I’m currently using Azureus), go to the last URL
below and download the video (21 MB
QuickTime) of the Mac’s introduction.
Steve Jobs’s bow tie alone is worth the
download. [JLC]
<http://www.bittorrent.com/> <http:
//azureus.sourceforge.net/> <http:
//www.industrial-technology-andwitchcraft.de/1984.html>
Microsoft Updates Entourage
Spam Filter
Microsoft has released Junk E-mail Filter
Update 1 for Microsoft Entourage 2004
via the package’s Microsoft AutoUpdate
utility (if you’ve set it not to check
automatically, choose Help > Check for
Updates from any Office 2004 application to launch AutoUpdate). The 2.9 MB
update includes more current definitions
of which email messages should be
considered junk; since Entourage 2004
relies on spam definitions developed and
constantly adjusted by Microsoft, updates
are essential to keep the spam filter
working. For more information on using
Entourage 2004’s junk mail filter, see Tom
Negrino’s “Take Control of What’s New
in Entourage 2004” ebook; it includes a
coupon for $5 off Michael Tsai’s excellent
SpamSieve utility if you would prefer to
use a Bayesian-based approach to filtering spam that learns from the mail you
actually receive. [ACE]
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/
entourage2004/entourage2004.aspx>
Apple Posts Highest Ever First
Quarter Profit
Fresh on the heels of its Macworld Expo
product announcements, Apple released
its first quarter results for fiscal year 2005,
with CEO Steve Jobs boasting the “highest quarterly revenue and net income
in Apple’s history.” The quarter ending
25-Dec-04 gave the company a net
profit of $295 million, compared to a net
Continued on Page 5
fold, stretch, pull, twist and
wrap an image around any
shape. Great for creating packaging mockups. Improved
RAW image processing allows
you to work on multiple RAW
images at the same time.
Photoshop CS2 can automatiShown above is the enhanced RAW support
cally adjust exposure, shadows, brightness and contrast in Photoshop CS2
for you. Other features include
the ability to create 32bit High Dynamic Range images, geared towards video
and 3D professionals, and a new direct export feature that allows users to view
FireWire Previews on a television monitor.
Illustrator CS2
Illustrator gains some new and improved features with this release. The Live
Trace feature converts photos, scans and other bitmap images into editable
(and scalable) vector paths automatically. A new Live Paint feature allows you
to apply color to any region or edge. You can use overlapping paths to create new shapes. Live Paint is also touted as finding and correcting gaps in an
image. Adobe is touting a Control palette feature. It’s goal is to eliminate the
need for multiple palettes. You can fine tune, or find new features about the
current tool from the context-sensitive palette. Illustrator CS2 incorporates a
feature from Photoshop CS, Custom Workspaces. Custom Workspaces allow
you to setup palettes and tools in a configuration that you can save, and share
with other Illustrator CS2 users. It allows you to customize your work area,
and your work flow. Another nod to Photoshop is the support of Photoshop
Layer Comp. You can now control the visibility of layer comps in linked,
embedded, or opened Photoshop files from within Illustrator.
InDesign CS2
InDesign gains some improved features, and a few new ones with this release.
I’m not sure if you can call Object Styles a new feature but Adobe is promoting
it like it’s a new feature. To me it sounds like an improved version of templates.
Object styles allow you to save a wide range of graphic, text, and frame-level
attributes as object styles to create more consistent designs and speed up production tasks. InDesign now supports a feature called Snippets. Snippets allow
you to export InDesign objects as self contained mini documents, for lack of a
better explanation. You can share your snippets with other InDesign CS2 users.
When they place or import a snippet InDesign re-creates the original objects,
their formatting, and their relative positioning on the page. InDesign gains
a story editor, a built in word processing tool, with this release. If you and
your organization also have InCopy CS2 you can take advantage of InCopy
CS2 assignments. Assignments allow you to assign parts of a document to
a colleague, who uses InCopy, to work on while you work on the rest of the
document. Other features include improved Microsoft Word and RTF support, Adobe Photoshop & Adobe PDF layer support, and export to InDesign
Interchange format (for sharing your work with folks using InDesign CS).
Version Cue CS2
Version Cue CS2 is a WebDAV-based server that retains multiple versions
of files in an archive, to allow browsing across all kinds of media, including
looking at older revisions, storing multiple live versions of a single file. It also
allows multiple people to have access to a shared set of files, and manages
who can make changes to a file through a
Continued on Page 6
4
Sticky Brain Contʼd from Page 3
Continued
profit of $63 million in the first quarter a year
ago. Revenue was $3.49 billion, up 74 percent,
and gross margin was 28.5 percent, up from 26.7
percent, from the year-ago quarter.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jan/
12results.html>
In the first quarter, Apple shipped 1,046,000
Macintosh computers and 4,580,000 iPods,
representing an impressive 26 percent increase
in CPUs and a stunning 525 percent increase
in iPods over the same quarter a year ago, which
includes the traditional holiday shopping period
running from late November until Christmas.
The company has now sold over 10 million iPods.
[MHA]
Nisus Writer Express 2.1.1 Released
Nisus Software recently released version 2.1.1
of Nisus Writer Express, their increasingly powerful word processor for Mac OS X. Whereas
version 2.1 focused on improving the speed of
scrolling, searching, typing, and opening documents, 2.1.1 is aimed at squashing bugs. A number of crashing bugs were fixed, Paste As Text
Only has been improved, the spelling checker
is more accurate around superscript text, and
styles imported from Word documents no
longer appear with gibberish names. Overall,
version 2.1.1 of the program feels significantly
tighter and more solid than previous versions,
and I’m using it more and more for drafting longer TidBITS articles. Nisus Writer Express 2.1.1
is a free update for all owners of Nisus Writer
Express; new copies cost $60, and upgrades
from Nisus Writer Classic 6.0.x are priced at
$45 (add $5 to all these prices for a CD). The
update is a 21.3 MB download. [ACE]
<http://www.nisus.com/Express/>
sticky “containing” the picture
is worthless. Another thing that
threw me at first was that some
of the more advanced text features are only available when the
sticky is open. This may sound
pretty obvious but I always view
my stickies by using the Browser
so that was irritating. If you’ve
used MacOS X stickies and want
to import them into Sticky Brain
you will be disappointed. Chronos
says that the MacOS X stickies use
a different file format than the classic version. Which prevents Sticky
Brain from importing them. (To
their credit they do offer a work
around.)
Conclusion
If you’re one of those folks who is
bombarded by information you’ve
probably tried various ways to
get a handle on it. I’d encourage
you to give Sticky Brain a try. It’s
easy to use. You can even invoke
it when the program isn’t running,
via contextual menus. Searching
for an item is fast and efficient. The
more you use it the more you find
to like about the program. I find it
indispensable when trying to keep
up with all of the items of interest
that come my way. This program
has become a permanent resident
on my Dock.
“Apple Computer, has been making giant strides
in ease of use. The Macintosh, with its OS X operating system, is rock solid. It is elegant, and -- when
you do a feature-by-feature price comparison with
Windows competitors -- it’s surprisingly affordable.
The Mac is also packed with extras that Windows
lacks. It has a suite of easy, free, multimedia programs that can’t be matched on Windows at any
price. It has a better free browser and e-mail program than Windows. It can read and create PDF files
without requiring the purchase of any extra software.
”
WALTER S. MOSSBERG
Wall Street Journal
AirPort Firmware Updates Fix Major
Bugs
by Glenn Fleishman <[email protected]>
Apple late today pushed out two incremental
firmware releases to its wireless base stations,
AirPort Express 6.1.1 and AirPort Extreme 5.5.1,
on the heels of a major release a few weeks
ago (see “AirPort 4.1 Fixes Encryption Irritation,
Enables Remote Control” in TidBITS-756_).
These incremental fixes should finally address a
perplexing and persistent problem with making reliable FTP Continued on Page 6
5
Cover Story Contʼd
from Page 4
Continued
connections across either AirPort Express or
Extreme networks.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
airportextremefirmware551formacosx.html>
The release notes for both firmware
updates have four items in common.
•FTP: This maddening problem meant that
many users could not reliably perform FTP
transactions across an Apple base station.
Maddening is the most publishable word. The
bug has been fixed, apparently; I was unable
to test it before this article went
to press.
•Hard Reset: The base stations now tell you
when you’ve held down the reset button
long enough to trigger a hard reset, which
wipes all resident settings. (The behavior
varies slightly between the AirPort Extreme
and Express base stations for soft, hard, and
factory resets.) After five seconds of holding
down the reset button, both base station
models flash their LEDs rapidly to indicate
that the command was received.
• WDS with WPA: It sounds like gibberish, but
this is a method of using the latest security
for encrypting a Wi-Fi network
(WPA, or Wi-Fi Protected Access) with wireless connections between base stations. The
previous major firmware upgrade allowed
WPA to work with wireless distribution
system (WDS); this micro- release fixes a
bug that would cause a base station to crash
eventually when a WDS node was removed.
• Printers: Some printers wouldn’t work with
the base station printing sharing after the
previous major firmware release was installed.
This micro-release reportedly fixes that problem.
• PPPoE: Finally, some PPPoE setups were
garbled on AirPort Extreme Base Stations
after the previous major release was installed.
This release also supposedly resolves that
problem.
Mac OS 10.3.7 Fixes Specific Bugs
Apple has released Mac OS X 10.3.7, a less-
Continued on Page 7
check-in, check-out type of
system. You can save files
with any name you want.
Version Cue handles the
version tracking without
needing to use any awkward naming conventions
to keep track of different
versions of a file.
Adobe Bridge
The Image Browser
Shown above is the new Adobe Bridge. A
from previous versions
beefed up version of the Image Browser that
of Photoshop has been
came with the last two releases.
updated and integrated
throughout the CS2 suite.
Which leads to inconsistent web
It is now called Adobe Bridge. The
page displays. Adobe has chosen
Adobe Bridge allows you to orgato incorporate a new rendering
nize, browse, find and preview
engine based on the Opera browser.
Photoshop images, Illustrator
Apparently the choice partially
graphics, InDesign layouts, Adobe
based on the Opera engine supportPDF files, GoLive Web pages, and
ing Small Screen Rendering.
a variety of standard graphics files.
From where I sit this is an odd
You can search for a file on your
choice. Although the makers of
hard drive, or across a network,
Opera tout it’s standard’s compliusing metadata such as all files that
ance it has a tendency to render
use a certain spot color. It now inte- pages slightly oddly compared to
grates with Version Cue allowing
any other browser out there.
you to actively track the status of
Many of the other features are
project files and enable this informore of an under the hood type of
mation to be easily shared across
thing. Good for developers but hard
workgroups. You can also access
to demo. Adobe has beefed up the
multiple versions or alternate rendi- Cascading Style Sheet features in
tions of your files via Version Cue
this release, adding simple visual
through the Adobe Bridge. Also
tools to build CSS based pages.
accessible via Adobe Bridge is the
GoLive sports updates to its site
Adobe Stock Photos. You can use the management features. You can manAdobe Bridge to Browse and search
age your total site using Secure FTP
royalty-free images from multiple
and WebDAV via SSH or SSL.
stock photo agencies. You can even
Mobile devices seem to be where
Purchase images from several agenmost of the new features are geared.
cies in a single shopping cart right
Adobe has included tools for creatfrom within any of the Adobe apps.
ing CSS based web pages that render
well on mobile devices. They have
also added tools to create motion
GoLive CS2
graphics that play on mobile devicAdobe is talking up changes to the
es.
built in preview rendering engine,
which gives you a sense of what
your pages will look like as you
Acrobat 7 Professional
build them. But, as anyone who has
Acrobat Professional rounds out the
developed a web page more comPremium package. It is on it’s own
plex than simple text paragraphs can development schedule, which is why
tell you, built in rendering engines
it doesn’t sport the CS2 moniker.
do not hold up in the real world.
The professional version of Acrobat
Not all browsers adhere to specienables authors to create PDF forms,
fications as closely as they should.
Continued on Page 16
6
Sense & Sensors in Digital
Photography
Continued
sweeping update than most of the previous Mac
OS X 10.3 updates. Unlike those updates, this
one focuses on specific bugs, fixing a problem
that could cause intermittent DNS lookup failures, enabling TextEdit to open certain previously
problematic RTF documents, solving a few problems for the World of Warcraft game, improving compatibility for 3D surfaces in Graphing
Calculator, fixing the problem introduced in
10.3.6 that prevented some FireWire drives
from mounting, addressing an issue that caused
filenames saved to an AppleShare file server to
be shortened to 31 character, improving compatibility with FireWire-based audio devices, and
enabling E*Trade PDF account statements to be
viewed in Preview, among others.
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=
300385>
by Charles
I
Maurer
N ANOTHER INCARNATION I was a commercial photographer. At the
end of that life I sold all of my studio equipment and all of my cameras
save one, a Horseman 985, a contraption with a black bellows that resembles the Speed Graphic press cameras you see in pre-war movies. It uses
roll film and allows the front and back of the camera to be twisted in every
direction when it’s parked on a tripod. You can also hold it in your hands
and pretend you’re acting in “Front Page.” Never have I found a camera so
useful. Nowadays, however, digital sensors are pushing the optical limits of
lenses and software has become more pliable than leather bellows, not just
for adjusting colour but for optical manipulations as well. This year a modestly priced (as such things go) digital SLR supplanted my Horseman. I can
no longer see owning a camera that uses film.
In this article I am going to examine the technology of digital cameras,
but in an unconventional way. I am going approach it from basic principles.
This approach may seem abstract and theoretical at first, but it won’t for
long. You will see that if you understand the scientific principles, you can
ignore a lot of marketing hype and save significant sums of money.
Photocells
Imagine a small windowpane with bits of a special metal embedded in the
glass and a wire touching those bits. Photons of light bang against the glass.
The impact unsettles electrons in the metal. They bang into electrons within
the wire, which bump into electrons further down the wire, which bump
into still more electrons, so that a wave of moving electrons passes along the
wire - an electrical current. The more photons that bang into the pane, the
more electricity flows.
This is a photocell, a sensor that is sensitive to the intensity of light. Now
imagine millions of cells like this assembled into a checkerboard and shrunk
to the size of a postage stamp. Put this stamp-sized collection of photocells
inside a camera where the film usually goes. The lens projects an image onto
it. Each cell receives a tiny portion of the image and converts that portion
into an electrical charge proportionate to the amount of light forming that
portion of the picture. Now we have a photosensor.
The complete matrix of charges on this photosensor forms an electrical
equivalent of the complete image - but only of the intensity of the image.
<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
Since the eye interprets the intensity of light as brightness, brightness devoid
macosxupdate_10_3_7.html>
of colour, this photosensor provides the information of a colourless photograph, of a black-and-white photograph. If we feed the output of the photoiTunes Music Store Takes PayPal
sensor to the input of a printer, and if we let the printer spray ink on paper
Money is money, and PayPal is big money. So it’s
in inverse proportion to the voltage (lower voltage, more ink), then we will
no wonder that Apple has finally partnered with
see a black-and-white photograph appear. The output of the photosensor can
PayPal to accept payments for the U.S. iTunes
be connected directly to the printer through an amplifier, or it can be conMusic Store. As of 10-Dec-04, you can purchase
verted into digital numbers and the digital numbers can be sent to the printmusic, audiobooks, and gift certificates using a
er. The first approach is analog, the second is digital. The greater the range of
PayPal account. Apple is also offering a sign-up
digital numbers, the finer the steps from black to white. If there are enough
incentive: the first 50,000 customers to open
steps, the printout will look like a continuous-tone photograph.
a new account using PayPal as the form of payTo make a photosensor record colour, we need to make it sensitive to
ment will receive five free songs (through 31-Marwavelengths of light as the eye is sensitive to them. We see long wavelengths
05).
weakly as reds, short wavelengths very weakly as blues, and medium wave<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/dec/
lengths strongly as greens. The easiest way to make a black-and-white pho10paypal.html>
tosensor record colour is to put filters over the cells so that alternate cells
respond to short wavelengths, medium ones and long ones. Since the
eye is most sensitive to medium wave
Note that Apple specifically recommends
you disconnect FireWire drives (including
iPods!) before installing the update, and there
have been reports at various Mac Web sites of
network-related performance problems after
updating. Although we haven’t seen problems,
you may wish to delay installing 10.3.7 until
more is known, unless you’re experiencing
problems with something the update explicitly
fixes. Mac OS X 10.3.7 is a 26 MB update available via Software Update or as a standalone
installer; a combo update that includes all the
changes since 10.3 is available as a 97 MB
download. [ACE]
Continued on Page 8
Continued on Page 8
7
Sense & Sensors Contʼd
from Page 7
lengths, it is practical to use twice
as many of these as the others:
one blue, one red, two greens.
Such a set of filtered cells - red,
PayPal started as a cash interchange: a way to avoid
green, blue, green - forms the
messing about with credit card transactions of sufBayer photosensor (named after
ficiently small amounts that the transactions weren’t
its inventor) that is used in nearly
worth the accompanying processing fees associated
every digital camera.
(see “Worthy Web Sites: PayPal” in TidBITS-562_).
Now consider what happens
It quickly morphed into a tool for individuals and
when a spot of light is smaller
businesses to pay for transactions, mostly auctions,
than a group of four cells, when
and is now an eBay-owned behemoth with bankit is small enough to strike only a
like services grafted on. Although it seems from my
single cell. Assume the spot to be
initial tests that the iTunes Music Store works only
white light, which includes every
with PayPal accounts linked to a credit card (rather
wavelength. If the white spot falls
than funded from a bank account), it’s possible that
on a blue-filtered cell, then the
part of Apple’s desire to work with PayPal is to
picture will show the spot to be
experiment with reducing the transaction fees that
blue. If the white spot falls on a
can eat a significant chunk of a small credit card
red-filtered cell, the picture will
purchase. [GF]
show the spot to be red. If it falls
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06862>
on a green-filtered cell, the spot
will look green. This can cause
Security Update 2004-12-02 Released
so many errors in the image that
Apple continues to release security updates, with
manufacturers try to prevent it
Security Update 2004-12-02 rolling in fixes for
from happening by blurring the
numerous potential exploits. The improvements
image, by putting a diffusing filupdate the Apache Web server, the Cyrus IMAP
ter in front of the sensor to smear
server, Kerberos, the Postfix mail server, QuickTime
small spots of light over more
Streaming Server, Safari, and Terminal, along with
than one cell.
several low-level frameworks. Although none of the
Note that in a sensor like this,
vulnerabilities seem particularly serious, it’s always
four cells form the smallest unit
worth staying up-to-date on security patches to
that can capture full informahelp prevent problems. Security Update 2004-12tion about some part of a picture.
02 is available via Software Update (sizes range
That is, four cells form the basic
between 12 MB and 24 MB depending on operatelement of a picture, the basic
ing system version), and it’s available as separate
“picture element” or “pixel”.
downloads as well for the client and server verUnfortunately, to make their
sions of Mac OS 10.2.8 and Mac OS X 10.3.6.
products sound more impres<http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/>
sive, manufacturers count cells as
pixels. That’s like saying a piano
It’s worth noting in passing that Apple also
has 234 notes, not 88, because it
recently released a minor update to iCal to plug
is built with 234 strings. Since the
a security hole surrounding alarms that open prosensors function differently at the
grams or send email. iCal 1.5.4 is also available via
level of the cell and the level of
Software Update and as a standalone download; it’s
the pixel, it is important to ignore
8.2 MB. [ACE]
the advertising and to discriminate appropriately between pixel
Squeezebox Adds New Display, Features,
and cell. I shall do that in this
Colors
article.
Slim Devices has spiced up the Squeezebox (see
A simpler approach would be
“Good Vibrations from the Squeezebox” in TidBITSto design a sensor in which every
726_). In August they upgraded the display to a
cell is sensitive to every wave“graphical” unit that displays 280 x 16 pixels and uses
length. Such a sensor was patentproportional fonts. More recently, the SlimServer
ed by Foveon, Inc., in 2002, and is
software was upgraded to version 5.4. This update
currently in its second commercial
adds an Internet Radio directory, with listings from
generation. Foveon’s sensor uses
Live365, Radioio, ShoutCAST, AudioFeast, and
no coloured filters but instead
Continued
Continued on Page 9
embeds photo-sensitive materials
within the silicon at three depths.
The longer the wavelength of the
light, the farther it penetrates the
semi-transparent silicon and the
deeper the photo-sensitive material it stimulates. With a Foveon
sensor, every cell records a complete pixel with all wavelengths.
(Note, however, that Foveon have
taken to multiplying the number
of pixels by three, to sound competitive in their ads.)
How many pixels do you
need? The smallest detail usable
in a print is defined by the finest
lines that a person can see. At a
close reading distance (about 10
inches, or 25 cm), somebody with
perfect vision can resolve lines
slightly finer than those on the
20/20 (6/6) line of the eye chart,
lines of about 8 line-pairs per millimetre (l-p/mm), which is the
unit of optical resolution.
However, those are black-andwhite lines. No ordinary photograph contains black-and-white
lines so thin because no camera
can produce them on photographic (as distinct from lithographic)
film. No lens can create such fine
lines without beginning to blur
the blacks and whites into grey.
Dark-grey-and-light-grey lines
need to be thicker than blackand-white lines to be seen. In the
perception of fine lines, a halving or a doubling of thickness is
usually the smallest difference
of any practical significance, so
this pronouncement of SchneiderKreuznach sounds perfectly reasonable to me: “A picture can be
regarded as impeccably sharp if,
when viewed from a distance of
25 cm, it has a resolution of about
4 l-p/mm.” On an 8” x 12” photo,
this is 1,600 by 2,400 pixels, or 3.8
megapixels. (8” x 12” is about the
size of A4 paper. It isn’t quite a
standard size of a photo but will
prove more convenient for discussion than 8” x 10”.)
In short, 4 million pixels
carry all of the useful infor-
8
Choosing Backup Software
by
Continued
their own aggregation, Slim Devices Picks. An RSS
news reader is included, along with support for
Ogg Vorbis radio streams, and (when running on
Windows) support for WMA radio
streams. Also bundled is SoftSqueeze, a software
player that emulates the Squeezebox’s interface.
Slim Server 5.4 is a free update and a 6.3 MB
download.
<http://www.slimdevices.com/>
The Squeezebox player is also now available in
four metallic colors: Rhapsody in Blue, Tangerine
Dream, Purple Haze, and Triple Platinum. Slim
Devices has also launched a CD ripping service,
wherein you ship your music CDs to them and
they return them along with digital versions in the
format of your choice. A color Squeezebox is a
$10 premium over the matte black version; CD
ripping costs $130 for 100 CDs, with quantity
pricing available for up to 1,000 CDs. [Andrew
Laurence]
EyeHome 1.5.1 Improves Interface,
Media Support
Elgato Systems’ EyeHome media server has
received a major update in the recently released
1.5.1 version (see “EyeHome: So Close, Yet So Far”
in TidBITS-741_). This update includes both the
server software on the Mac as well as the device’s
firmware. Changes include a new user interface,
better support for DivX and 3ivx video, new support for the Ogg Vorbis audio format, a pop-up
window that displays information about a video
file’s format, and the capability to display iPhoto
pictures on the television while music plays from
iTunes’s Library. I’m pleased to report that the new
interface is much more agreeable, and corrects
most of the navigation issues I highlighted in my
review. The update is free for all EyeHome customers, available via download. [Andrew Laurence]
<http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=support_
updates_eyehome>
USPS Click-N-Ship Now MacCompatible
Thanks to Rob Faludi for passing on the information that the U.S. Postal Service Click-N-Ship program now works on the Mac. Click-N-Ship is useful
because it lets you avoid trips to your local post
office to mail packages, at least if you’re
Joe Kissell
W
HEN IS A BACKUP
program not a backup program? A lot of software that calls
itself “backup software” does not
actually perform backups in the
two key senses I discuss in my
new ebook, “Take Control of
Mac OS X Backups.” That is to
say, some backup programs do
not create additive incremental
archives of your files, some do
not create bootable duplicates,
and some do neither! The latter
category includes, interestingly
enough, Apple’s own Backup
application.
<http://www.tidbits.com/
takecontrol/backupmacosx.html>
* Conversely, can it create a
restorable duplicate onto optical media or a disk image?
Sometimes this capability is useful, other times not.
Unfortunately, because software developers use terms such
as “incremental,” “archive,”
and “backup” differently, you
may think you’re getting certain
capabilities when you buy a product that later turn out to be missing. Thus it is extremely important that you read the fine print,
and understand exactly what it is
you’re looking for.
That said, the duplication programs I’ve tried are more alike
than different, so if you’re looking for an application to accomplish only this one task, just
about any of the duplication programs I list in the ebook should
do the trick.
Duplication Features
Many different applications can
create a bootable duplicate.
This entails copying all the files
(including hidden files) on your
hard disk to another volume
while preserving Unix ownership,
permissions, and symbolic links.
In most cases, such applications can also update a duplicate
incrementally (rather than recopy
every single file each time).
However, you should consider
a few other things when looking
at a duplication program:
* Can it create a bootable duplicate directly onto a hard drive
(as opposed to an intermediate
disk image or optical media)? If
you have an extra hard drive
available, you’ll want this capability.
* Can it automatically update the
duplicates on a schedule?
* When updating a duplicate
incrementally, can it also delete
files that were deleted on the
source volume? If not, your
duplicate may include extraneous
files that you don’t want.
* Does it have any other features
you might use, such as file and
folder synchronization?
Archiving Features
Among applications that provide archiving features, there’s
a huge range of variation in how
they work - and how easy they
make it to restore your work
later. The fact that an application stores multiple revisions of
each backed-up file does not, by
itself, make it good for creating
archives.
Archive Varieties
First, there’s an important distinction to make: true archives
versus rotating backups. In a true
archive - that is, an additive incremental archive - every version of
every file you designate is saved,
but identical files are never
duplicated. In a rotating backup,
the program creates a complete,
separate copy of all your files
every day - basically a
9
mation that
you can put
into an 8” x
12” photograph. Finer detail than this
will matter to technical aficionados
making magnified comparisons, and
it may matter for scientific or forensic
tasks, but it will not matter for ordinary
purposes. The same holds for larger
prints because we don’t normally view
larger photographs from only 10 inches
away. It holds even for the gigantic
images in first-run movie theatres. The
digital processing used routinely for
editing and special effects generates
movies with no more than 2,048 pixels
of information from left to right, no
matter how wide the screen. The vertical dimension differs among cinematic
formats but is typically around 1,500
pixels.
This, of course, presents quite a paradox: a frame of a Cinemascope print
obviously contains a lot more than 4
million pixels. Even an 8” x 12” print
from a 300-dpi printer contains 2,400
pixels by 3,600 pixels, or 8.6 million pixels. Large prints need those additional
pixels to prevent our seeing jagged
edges on diagonal lines, because the
eye will see discontinuities in lines that
are finer than the lines themselves.
Since no photograph of any size can
contain more than 3 to 4 million elements of information, even when made
from film, any substantial enlargement
needs to be composed primarily of
pixels that do not exist in the original.
These pixels need to be interpolated:
interpolated through continuous optical integration (film), interpolated
mechanically (high-resolution scanner),
or interpolated logically by software
(digital photography). This need for
interpolation in enlargements makes
interpolating algorithms fundamentally
important to digital photography. For
most enlargements, the quality of the
interpolating algorithm matters more
than the resolution of the sensor or the
quality of the lens. We shall come back
to this.
For the moment - indeed, forevermore - it is essential to keep straight the
distinction between (1) the information
that is contained within an image and
(2) the presentation of this information.
Both are often measured by pixels but
they are orthogonal dimensions. The
from Page 9
Continued
using Priority Mail or Express Mail
(including Global Express Guaranteed
and Global Express Mail). In brief, you
weigh your package, enter the weight,
destination, and insurance amount
(if any) in a Web form, and then pay
for the postage via a standard Web
shopping cart. A Java-based Web
application helps you print the necessary shipping label on a normal sheet
of paper (you can also buy special
label stock). Your postal carrier then
picks up the package the next day
just as though it were an outgoing letter. We’ve only had the chance to use
Click-N-Ship a few times so far, but it
worked fine in Safari and OmniWeb,
and should help us eliminate all those
extra errands to the post office. The
USPS doesn’t claim Macintosh compatibility yet, but it’s entirely possible
that improvements in the Java VM
for Mac OS X brought the necessary
changes to make it all work. We still
need to buy a good digital scale to
take over from our analog kitchen
scale, but once that’s done, mailing
packages will become less annoying
than it has been. [ACE]
<https://sss-web.usps.com/ds/jsps/
ds_landing.jsp>
SubEthaEdit 2.1.1 Released
Our favorite collaborative writing
and programming tool, SubEthaEdit,
just hit its 2.1.1 release. The newest
version overcomes a frustrating difficulty in establishing color coding for
particular editors and making that
consistent over time. This revision also
allows the creation of sets that can
be imported and exported, supports
editing in an Administrator mode, and
enhances printing capabilities. It also
includes a new Unix command line
tool for interaction with SubEthaEdit
via Terminal and an AppleScript
interface for automating basic editing.
Lastly, you can now also include what
the developers call “collaboration
metadata” when you print or export
documents to HTML. Note that version 2.1 was released on 16-Nov-04;
information within a picture can be
described by a certain number of pixels.
That information may be interpolated
into any number of additional pixels
but doing so adds nothing to the information, it merely presents the information in smaller pieces.
To illustrate this, here are some
examples:
• A good 8” x 12” photograph and the
same photo run full-page in a tabloid
newspaper both contain about 1 megapixel of information.
• A slightly better photograph and the
same photo run full-page in a glossy
magazine and a broadsheet newspaper all contain about 1.9 megapixels of
information.
• A slightly better photograph still the best possible - and the same photo
spread over two pages in a glossy magazine both contain about 3.8 megapixels
of information.
If you have an 8” x 10” photo
printer, you can compare those levels of
information by printing out a set of pictures (linked below, about 30 MB) that I
took at approximately those resolutions,
keeping everything else the same. (The
test pictures were shot at 3.4, 1.5 and
0.86 megapixels: I used a Foveon sensor
and, to generate the lower resolutions,
used its built-in facility to average cells
electronically in pairs or in groups of
four.) I enlarged the pictures using the
best interpolator I could find to 3,140
by 2,093 pixels.
<http://www.tidbits.com/ resources/
751/ HighMedLowResolution.zip>
The photos are JPEG 2000 files,
saved in GraphicConverter at 100
percent quality using QuickTime lossless compression. To prepare them I
adjusted the levels, cleaned up some
dirt in the sky, then enlarged them in
PhotoZoom Pro using the default settings for “Photo - Regular.” Those settings include a modest and appropriate
amount of sharpening.
What you will see, if you print them,
is surprisingly small differences from
one level of resolution to the next. Each
of these photos looks sharp on its own,
10
Contʼd from Page 9
Continued
the 2.1.1 release followed a couple days
later, which patched a security vulnerability and fixed minor glitches. SubEthaEdit
2.1.1 costs $35, and is available as a 2.9
MB download. [GF]
<http://www.codingmonkeys.de/
subethaedit/>
Firefox 1.0 Released
The Mozilla Organization has released
version 1.0 of Firefox, an open-source
Web browser. The news is a little more
exciting for Windows users looking
for better security than is provided by
Internet Explorer, but Mac users will
find that the Mac OS X version is as
snappy as Safari with a few extra features thrown in. For example, new Live
Bookmarks read RSS feeds and provide
a list of current articles (such as weblog
entries or news updates); the Search field
includes other search engines besides
Google; and Firefox offers the capability
to install third-party toolbars (such as
Amazon’s A9 search toolbar). Firefox 1.0
is a free 8.6 MB download, and requires
Mac OS X 10.1 or later. [JLC]
<http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
>
<http://toolbar.a9.com/>
Audion Earns Its Gold Watch
In a bittersweet move sure to bring a
tear to the eye of skin-switching music
lovers everywhere, Panic Inc. have
decided to retire their long-standing digital audio jukebox program Audion. But
rather than simply yanking the product
off their servers, Panic has decided to
make Audion available for _free_, and
even sent a discount coupon to customers to thank them for their support.
<http://panic.com/audion/>
In the early days of MP3 players on
the Macintosh, Audion was locked in a
neck-and-neck battle with SoundJam
(then published by Casady & Greene,
and which eventually became Apple’s
iTunes). Audion distinguished itself by
adopting “skins” - essentially, modules
non-incremental archive. Then, after
a certain number of days (specified by the user), the program erases
the oldest backup and adds a new
one. Rotating backups, because they
copy every single file each day, take
longer to perform and require much
more storage space. If you have
room and time to spare, there’s nothing wrong with that approach, and it
removes the need for a snapshot list,
since all the files themselves are there
(see “Snapshots and File Lists,” just
ahead). However, because you’re erasing files older than a certain date,
you’re restricting your restoration
capability. If you keep, say, five days
worth of rotating backups and find
you need a file you deleted a week
ago, you’re out of luck.
A few applications offer the best of
both worlds: rotating archives. Like
a conventional archive, new files are
added to the backup incrementally
(without overwriting older versions).
However, in order to conserve space,
you can opt to erase the oldest versions of selected files at the same time
- for example, all versions older than
30 days, or versions copied more than
30 sessions ago.
File Format, Compression,
and Encryption
To oversimplify somewhat, most
software employs one of two basic
methods to copy files when performing a backup. One way is to copy each
file in a stand-alone Finder-readable
format, so that the backed-up files
look exactly like the originals. Another
way is to copy all the files into a
single, larger file (sometimes called
an archive file or a backup set). Each
approach has advantages and disadvantages.
Finder-format copies can be
restored without the use of a backup
program - just drag and drop. Some
people also feel more secure knowing they can get at their files easily
even if their backup software goes
south. Of course, the backed-up files
will always take up exactly as much
space as the originals.
Archive files can be compressed
efficiently as they’re stored, potentially saving a large amount of hard
disk space. They can also be encrypted, so if your backup media is lost
or stolen, no one can read your files
without knowing your passphrase.
And unlike Finder copies, which
always take as their owner the user
name of the person currently logged
in, archive files can preserve original
Unix ownership and permissions. Of
course, you will need the backup
software to restore files, and in some
cases you have a slightly higher risk
of data loss due to file corruption
(since all the data is stored in a single
file) - but most backup software has
verification mechanisms to compensate for this.
(Note: Not all programs that offer
compression or encryption copy
data into a single archive file. A
few can compress or encrypt individual files, such that they can be
moved or copied (but not opened)
in the Finder. You must still use
the backup software to restore
them to their original state.)
However, you should also be
aware of a third option: disk images.
Some backup software, at least when
backing up to a hard disk, stores
files in a disk image. Like an archive
file, a disk image is a single file
that contains all your other files and can optionally be compressed,
encrypted, or both. The difference
is that you can double-click a disk
image, and after supplying the passphrase (if necessary) it will mount
on the Desktop as a regular volume
- after which you can read and copy
files using the Finder. Sounds great,
doesn’t it? It can be, but keep in
mind that in most cases, each incremental archive backup is stored on
a separate disk image, so without a
snapshot or file list provided by the
backup software (see “Snapshots and
File Lists,” just ahead), restoration
can be quite involved.
When making a bootable duplicate onto another hard disk, Finder
copies are obviously mandatory. For
11
from Page 10
and at arm’s length they all look the
same. You can see a difference only if
you compare them up close. That, of
course, is because the only information that’s missing from the lowerresolution pictures is information that
is close to the limit of the eye’s acuity
and thus is difficult to see.
Bayer vs. Foveon in Theory
Cameras today fall into two categories, those with a Bayer sensor and
those with a Foveon sensor, which at
this writing include only two, a theoretical Polaroid 530 and a very real
Sigma SD-10.
<http://www.pdcameras.com/
usa/ catalog.php? itemname= x530>
<http://www.foveon.com/ SD10_
info.html>
In a Bayer sensor, a single cell
records a single colour, but a pixel in
the print can be any colour. Carl Zeiss
explain this: “Each pixel of the CCD
has exactly one filter color patch in
front of it. It can sense the intensity
for this color only. But how can the
two remaining color intensities be
sensed at the very location of this
pixel? They cannot. They have to be
generated instead through interpolation (averaging) by monitoring the
signals from the surrounding pixels
which have filters of these other two
colors in front of them.”
Since the cells provide a lot of partial information, the interpolation can
be accurate, but it can be inaccurate
as well. Patterns of coloured light can
interact with the checkerboard pattern of filters over the cells to generate
grotesque moire patterns. To avoid
these, Bayer sensors are covered with
a filter that blurs every spot of light
over more that one cell. The net result
proves to be interpolated resolution
that varies with colour and peaks
with black-and-white at about 50 percent more line-pairs/millimetre than
the intrinsic resolution of the sensor.
This sounds like a lot but cannot be
seen unless you look closely.
More problematic is the fact that
this filter does not merely prevent
moire patterns, it also blurs edges.
With a Bayer sensor, every edge of
every line is blurred. You can see
the interpolated resolution and the
blurring in the magnified tests in the
picture linked below. There I have
compared cameras with a Foveon and
a Bayer sensor containing the same
number of pixels - pixels, not cells.
Both have 3.4 million pixels (although
the Bayer has 13.8 million cells).
751/ Resolution.jpg>
People make a big deal about resolution because it sounds important
and is easy to test, but aside from
special cases like astronomical observation, fine resolution actually matters little. By definition, at the limits
of resolution, we can only just make
out detail. Anything that is barely visible will not obtrude itself upon our
attention or be badly missed if it is
not there. What we see easily is what
matters to us, what determines our
impression of sharpness. Our impression of sharpness is determined by
the abruptness and contrast at the
edges of lines that are broad enough
to be easily made out. You can see this
with the two tortoises in this picture
linked below. The sharper tortoise has
less resolution but its edges are more
clearly defined.
751/ Sharpness.jpg>
The Bayer sensor resolves finer
black-and-white lines but a Bayer
sensor will not reproduce any line so
sharply as the Foveon. As a result,
when comparing two top-quality
images, I would expect the Bayer’s
image to look slightly more impressive when large blow-ups are examined up close, but I would expect the
Foveon’s to look slightly clearer when
held a little farther away. Moreover,
when detail is too fine for the sensor to resolve, the Bayer looks ugly
or blank but the Foveon interpolates
pseudo-detail. This means that in
some areas, large enlargements examined closely might actually look better with the Foveon. In sum, I would
expect the 3.4 megapixel Foveon and
what is marketed as a 13.8-megapixel
Bayer to be in the same league. I
would expect photographs from them
to be different but comparable overall,
if they are enlarged with an appropriate algorithm.
Bayer vs. Foveon in
Practice
“If they are enlarged with an appropriate algorithm...” - that statement
is critical to a sensible comparison.
Usually, if you magnify an object
a little, it won’t change its appearance much. If you simply interpolate
according to some kind of running
average, you can increase its size to
a certain extent and it will still look
reasonable. This is how most enlargements are made. It is the basis of the
bicubic algorithm used in most photo
editors, including Photoshop and,
apparently, Sigma’s PhotoPro. It is
also the basis of most comparisons
between Bayer and Foveon. However,
a running average will widen transitions at the edges of lines, and it will
destroy the Foveon’s sharp edges,
softening them into the edges of a
Bayer. A better class of algorithm
will stop averaging at lines. Any
form of averaging, though, tends to
distort small regularities (wavelets)
that occur in similar forms at different scales. Best of all are algorithms
that look for wavelets, too. The
only Macintosh application I know
of in that class is PhotoZoom Pro.
PhotoZoom Pro has a limited set of
features and some annoying bugs
- version 1.095 for the Mac feels like
a beta release - but it creates superb
enlargements.
<http://www.trulyphotomagic.com/
>
An appropriate comparison of the
Bayer and Foveon sensors would see
how much information these sensors
capture overall. (How much spatial
information, that is: comparing colour
would be comparing amoebas, as I
explained in “Colour & Computers”
in TidBITS-749.) To do this, I tested
an SD-10 against an SLR that was
based on a larger Bayer sensor, a sensor 70 percent larger than the Foveon
that contained 13.8 million cells.
Kodak were most helpful in supplying this camera once they heard
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins
sans Frontiers) was to benefit (see the
12
Sense & Sensors Contʼd from
Page 12
PayBITS block at the bottom of this
article to make a donation if you’ve
found this article helpful). Also, Sigma
sent me a matched pair of 50-mm
macro lenses to use with the cameras.
<http://db.tidbits.com/ getbits.acgi?
tbart= 07840>
I copied an oil painting with a
wide variety of colours and a lot of
fine textural detail. With each camera
I photographed a large chunk of the
painting, cropped out a small section
from the centre, blew up that section to the same size as the original
using PhotoZoom Pro (the defaults
for “Photo - Regular”), and compared
that blow-up to a gold standard,
a close-up that had not seen any
enlargement, interpolation, or blurring filter in front of the sensor. Before
blowing them up I balanced all three
photos to be as similar as I could,
then, to prevent unavoidable differences in colour from confounding
the spatial information, I converted
all three images to black-and-white.
I did this in ImageJ. First I split each
image into its three channels, then I
equalized the contrast of each channel
across the histogram, then I combined
the channels back into a colour picture, converted the new colour picture
to 8-bit, and equalized the contrast
of the 8-bit file. (See the second link
below for an explanation of contrastequalization.) I chose a painting in
which most of the coloured brush
strokes were outlined with black
brush strokes, so that adjacent colours
would not merge after conversion into
a similar shades of grey. With my 314dpi printer, the two enlargements are
the equivalent of chunks from a 14” x
21”.
<http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ ij/> <http:
//homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/ rbf/
HIPR2/ histeq.htm#1>
The difference between the photos
from the Bayer and Foveon is very
slight. The two pictures are indistinguishable unless you compare them
closely. Fine, contrasty lines on the
standard are finer on the Bayer, more
contrasty on the Foveon. The one that
looks more like the standard depends
upon the distance from the eye and
the lighting but the differences are
trivial. The two images do contain
slightly different information, but they
contain comparable amounts overall.
On the other hand, for efficiency of
storage and speed of processing, the
Foveon wins hands down. This is how
two identical pictures compared:
Foveon Bayer
RAW 7.8 MB 14.7 MB
8-bit TIFF 9.8 MB 38.7 MB
If you would like to print out my test
pictures, you can download them.
However, for the comparison to be
meaningful, you must specify a number of dots per inch for the pictures
that your printer can resolve in both
directions. I know that an Olympus
P-440 can resolve 314 dpi, with no
more than occasional one-pixel errors
in one colour’s registration. I have not
found any resolution that an Epson
9600 can handle cleanly in both directions, although I have not been able
to test it exhaustively. Other printers
I know nothing about. You will have
to experiment with the test patterns in
the Printer Sharpness Test file linked
below. For this purpose, only the
black-and-white stripes matter.
748/ PrinterSharpnessTest.zip>
Each picture in the 5.8 MB file
below is 1512 pixels by approximately
2270. If a picture has been printed correctly, the width in inches will be 1512
divided by the number of dots per
inch. Print them from Photoshop or
GraphicConverter; Preview will scale
them to fit the paper.
751/ Bayer_ vs_ Foveon.zip>
Remember that the question to ask
is not which picture looks better or
which picture shows more detail but
which picture looks more like the gold
standard overall. I suggest that you
compare the pictures upside down.
Remember, too, that these are small
sections from big enlargements that
you would normally view framed
and hanging on a wall. Also, although
the contrast is equalized overall, the
original colours were not quite identical and the equalization of contrast
amplified some tonal differences. If
you perceive the Bayer or Foveon to
be better in one or another area, make
sure that in this area the tonality is
similar. If the tonality is different, the
difference there is probably an artifact. An example of this is the shadow
beneath the tape on the left side.
I have not been able to test this
but I suspect that the most important
optical difference between Bayer and
Foveon sensors may be how clearly
they reveal deficiencies in lenses.
Since the Foveon sensor is sharper, I
would expect blur and colour fringing
to show up more clearly on a Foveon
sensor than a Bayer.
Megapixels, Meganonsense
Megapixels sell cameras as horsepower sells cars and just as foolishly. To fit
more cells in a sensor, the cells need to
be smaller. It is possible to make cells
smaller than a lens can resolve. Even
if the lens can resolve the detail more
finely, doubling the number of cells
makes a difference that is only just
noticeable in a direct comparison.
On the other hand, small pixels
create problems. Electronic sensors
pick up random fluctuations in light
that we cannot see. These show up on
enlargements like grain in film. Larger
cells smooth out the fluctuations better than smaller cells. Also, larger cells
can handle more light before they top
out at their maximum voltage, so they
can operate farther above the residual noise. For both reasons, images
taken with larger cells are cleaner.
Enlargements from my pocket-sized
Minolta Xt begin to fall apart from too
much noise, not from too few pixels.
In contrast, enlargements from my
Sigma SD-10 have so little noise that
they can be enormous. A 30” x 44”
test print looked as though it came
from my 2-1/4” x 3-1/4” Horseman.
The Sigma has less resolution than the
Horseman - it’s probably less than can
be extracted from scanning the finest
35-mm film - but its noise level can
be reduced to something approaching
4” x 5” sheet film. Such a low level of
noise leaves the detail that it contains,
which is substantial, very clean. In
13
Contʼd from Page 11
archives, though, I strongly prefer a
format that offers both compression
and encryption - and in this respect,
archive files are generally more
elegant and convenient than disk
images.
Snapshots and File Lists
When it comes time to restore files
from an archive, you must be able to
locate the versions you want quickly
and easily. Some backup programs
facilitate such restorations by offering snapshots - lists of all the files
on your computer as they existed at
the time of each backup, even if they
were already present in the archive
and therefore not copied during
that particular session. Suppose you
want to restore all the files on your
machine as they existed last Tuesday.
Having a list of all the files as they
appeared on Tuesday - and an automated way to restore them - can be
extremely valuable.
On the other hand, imagine that
you want to look back at every version of just one particular file as it
existed over the past month. In this
case, you don’t want to wade through
snapshots - you simply want a list
(sorted by file name or date - or better
yet, searchable) of each version of the
file in the archive, from which you
can choose just the ones you want.
Without either a snapshot or a file
list, you’ll need to locate each version
of the file manually in dated folders.
This makes for a long and tedious
restoration process.
Sources and Destinations
The volume from which you are
backing up files is known as the
source; the volume to which you are
backing them up is known as the destination (or target). Be sure the software you select can accommodate the
sources and destinations you wish to
use.
All backup programs can copy data
from your startup disk. Most can also
copy data from other attached hard
disks, network volumes (including
AppleShare volumes, FTP servers, and
iDisks mounted in the Finder). And
usually you can select arbitrary folders
or files anywhere on those volumes
to be backed up. However, there are
exceptions. Qdea’s Backup Simplicity,
for example, supports only your
startup volume.
<http://www.qdea.com/pages/
pages-bs/bs1.html>
In most cases, your range of destination options also includes any
Finder-mountable volume. (So, theoretically, you could even back up one
network volume to a different network
volume if you wanted to.) But not
always: Babel Company’s Impression,
for example, cannot copy files
directly to a hard disk - though it can
create a disk image that resides on a
hard disk. On the other hand, at least
Impression creates the disk images for
you. Most programs require that you
manually create the disk image yourself using Disk Utility and mount it
in the Finder before you can use it as
a backup destination.
<http://babelcompany.com/
impression/>
A similar issue comes into play
with optical media. A backup program can support recordable CDs and
DVDs as a destination in either of
two senses:
* You pop a blank disc into your drive,
give it a name, and allow it to mount
in the Finder. The backup software
sees the disc as a possible destination
like any other volume. After running
the backup program, you then return
to the Finder to manually burn and
eject the disc.
* The backup program itself asks for
blank media when needed, writing to
it directly without the intervention of
the Finder.
The first way of supporting optical media is trivially easy for software developers to implement, so
that is how many backup programs
work. But this approach does have
some problems. First, it requires
much more human intervention - performing manual steps despite the
fact that the backup itself runs automatically on a schedule. Second, it
eliminates the possibility of multisession recording (the ability to record
additional chunks of information on
a partially used disc after the initial
write session), since the Finder does
not include this feature. This is a
problem because without multisession capability, you will use a much
larger number of discs - increasing not
only media cost, but inconvenience.
(Note, however, that some applications, including Retrospect, use a
packet-writing technique to add data
to partially used optical discs. This is
even more efficient than multisession
support, but it means that only the
application used to record the discs
can read them later.) Therefore, if you
need to record backups onto optical
media, I strongly recommend using
an application with multisession (or
packet-writing) support.
<http://www.dantz.com/>
A related issue is what I’m going
to call media spanning. Suppose you
have more data than will fit on a
single CD or DVD - or even that you
have a single file that’s too large to fit
on a single disc. Some backup programs intelligently manage backups
that span multiple discs, prompting
you for new media when required
during a backup (splitting files if
necessary), and asking for the proper
discs when restoring files (rejoining
split files). Although the need for
media spanning could affect those
backing up onto hard drives as well,
it’s most crucial for those using optical
media. Only a few backup programs
offer media spanning, and even fewer
include both media spanning and
multisession or packet-writing support.
Selectors and Exclusions
Selective archive backups (as
opposed to full archive backups) do
not include every file on your hard
disk. But archiving even your entire
home folder may be overkill, since it
includes things like cache files, which
serve no useful purpose in the context of a backup, and digital media
files (such as MP3s ripped from your
CD collection), which, because they
change infrequently, are adequately
backed up already if you maintain
bootable duplicates of your entire hard
Cont’d on Page 15
14
Continued from Page 14
disk. So instead of simply selecting
one or more folders to archive, you
may wish to explicitly include or
exclude certain types of files.
Some backup programs include
user-definable criteria specifying
which files should be included (selectors) or excluded (exclusions) from
a particular folder or volume - and a
few programs offer both. Depending
on the program, these criteria may
include file names, sizes, Finder
labels, extensions, modification
dates, and any number of other factors.
In general, I find exclusions more
useful than selectors, though I would
not generally consider either an absolute must in a backup program. Your
mileage, of course, may vary.
Ease of Restoration
No matter how easy it is to back
up your hard disk, if your software
makes it difficult to restore files,
you’re going to be unhappy with it.
After all, a backup that you can’t
restore is worthless. Backup programs
typically offer one of three main
approaches to restoration:
* Finder restoration: The backup program has no Restore command; to
restore files, you drag them manually
from the backup volume onto your
hard disk. This is fine if you’re restoring an entire folder, but if you’ve
done an additive incremental archive,
you may have to sort through dozens or hundreds of folders to locate
the right versions of each of your files.
* Reverse backup: In this scheme, the
backup program once again does
not offer a Restore command, instead
expecting that you’ll simply swap
the source and destination locations
and perform your backup again - in
reverse. While this may reduce manual effort somewhat, it’s still going to
be a hassle when restoring versioned
files from an archive. And even in the
best cases, a reverse backup can be
confusing and stressful, because it’s
easy to get the source and destination mixed up when their contents
are so similar.
* A Restore command: The backup
program (usually) keeps track of all
the files you backed up during each
session, allowing you to copy them
back to their proper locations - or
another destination of your choice with a few clicks. In most cases, before
starting the restoration, you can
choose a subset of the files, or even
pick out one version of a single file
if that’s all you need. Restore commands and snapshots tend to appear
together.
It probably goes without saying that I prefer applications with a
Restore command - they make the restoration quicker and easier. Of course,
the presence of a Restore feature does
not, by itself, mean the process will
be easy, but it’s a hopeful sign.
Restoring a Full Archive as
a Bootable Volume
If you choose to perform a full
(rather than selective) archive, bear in
mind that not all backup software
can restore your archive from an
arbitrary point to a blank disk in such
a way that the resulting volume will
be bootable. In order for a restored
full archive to be bootable, several
things must be true:
* All files needed for your computer
to start up - including a great many
hidden files - must be included in the
backup and restored afterward.
* The backup software must preserve
Unix ownership, permissions, and
symbolic links during both the backup
process and the restoration process;
doing so requires that you enter an
administrator’s password.
* When restoring the files, the destination disk must not contain any
extraneous files that could interfere
with booting; normally, this implies
erasing the disk before restoring the
archive.
Most backup software that provides
both duplication and archiving features also enables you to restore a
full archive as a bootable volume,
assuming that you set it up properly.
Some programs, however (notably
Synchronize Pro X) can restore a
bootable volume only from a duplicate, not from an archive. A few applications permit full archives to be
restored as bootable volumes, but lack
a snapshot feature - meaning you
must manually locate and copy a
large number of documents to return
your disk to the state you wish to
recreate.
<http://www.qdea.com/pages/
pages-sprox/sprox1.html>
Unfortunately, most backup software
does not explicitly state whether or
not it can restore a full archive as a
bootable volume, and of the programs that do, some are more reliable
in this regard than others. This may
be a good reason to consider performing selective backups instead; on
the other hand, if full archives are
important to you, I recommend using
Retrospect.
Ease of Use
In addition to ease of restoration, an
application’s overall ease of use is also
important. The interface should be
self-explanatory - ideally, clear enough
that you can figure out how to perform a basic backup and restoration
without ever looking at a manual.
If your backup software is difficult
to learn or set up, you’re less likely
to use it. So you want an application you can configure in an hour or
so - not something that takes you an
entire day to figure out. You also want
your backup software to perform
its duties on a schedule with as little
interruption to your routine as possible. The best backup software would
be completely invisible, working
silently behind the scenes until you
needed it.
Even so, don’t underestimate the
importance of good documentation.
An extensive, well-written manual
can be a godsend when trying to
comprehend the minutiae of rotating
archives or client-server configuration.
Support and Reputation
Some backup software is published by
individuals who like to program in
their spare time. At the other end of
the
Cont’d on Page 18
15
allow comments to be added for document
or design reviews, and pre-flight and prepare
PDF files for professional printing.
Using Acrobat Professional you can go back into a PDF file and
Correct common problems such as converting colors, previewing
separations, remapping spot colors, flattening transparency, and fixing
hairline rules — without having to re-create the file. Acrobat professional can also help to minimize printing errors with new warnings
for total ink coverage, rich black detection, and overprints. Acrobat 7
Professional also supports the
creation of Adobe PDF files that are compliant with the PDF/X-1a:
2003 and PDF/X-3:2003 print production standards, used for prepress
document exchanges, and that include JDF product definitions with
details about the jobs you’re submitting for print production.
Cover Story
Continued from Page 6
Continued
which changed the application’s look and interface
- as well as offering power-user features like hierarchical playlists, user ratings, play counts, and even an
audio editor. However, over time, Audion couldn’t
carve out a niche amidst Apple’s ever-growing digital
music offerings, and, although Audion can still manage
tracks on an iPod, it can’t support the iTunes Music
Store’s DRM protection, or offer support for Apple
products like the AirPort Express. Still, Audion is a
mature, capable music jukebox with features which
will probably never be available in iTunes, and - for
free! - it’s a heck of a deal. Kudos to Panic for standing by their customers and freeing the product; Panic
also offers the Usenet and FTP clients Unison and
Transmit, as well as a selection of Mac utilities. Audion
3.0.2 is available for Mac OS 8.6 or higher, or any
version of Mac OS X. Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser
has published a humorous and revealing account of
Audion’s evolution - worth reading if you’re curious
what it might be like to receive email from Steve Jobs
on Christmas Eve. [GD]
<http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/>
Retrospect 6.0.204 Released
Dantz Development, now owned by storage
gorilla EMC, has released Retrospect 6.0.204 (that’s
build 204 of Retrospect 6.0), to fix a number of
subtle issues (see “Dantz Ships Panther-Compatible
Retrospect 6.0” in TidBITS-714_). The bugs fixed
include one that could cause Retrospect to delete
more files than it should under highly specific conditions when performing Duplicate or Archive functions,
and another that could sometimes render a Mac
unbootable after a restore of a system that had multiple Mac OS X updates applied. Other improvements
include faster matching speed (and no more -108
errors) when restoring from a pre-Retrospect 6.0
backup set, more accurate matching of files on Linux
clients, compatibility with Linux clients running under
Red Hat 6.2, the capability to back up files and folders
with high ASCII characters in their names from preMac OS 9.0 and Linux clients, and proper handling of
volume creation dates
when duplicating. Retrospect 6.0.204 is a free update
for all users of Retrospect 6.0; it’s a 24.7 MB download. [ACE]
<http://kb.dantz.com/article.asp?article=1126&p=2>
Adobe Stock
Photos
Everyone in the
software world has
been trying to find
new ways to leverage their products
to provide more
income. Perhaps this
just reflects a tough
economy or a maturity of many software Shown above is the live vector auto trace
products. Adobe
feature in Illustrator CS2
has taken such a
step with it’s new
Adobe Stock Photos. The service itself is not new. Adobe has sold royalty free images for years. You paid for a cd collection of images. Or,
you had to navigate a web site to find the image you wanted. What is
new is that you can buy this content directly from within any Adobe
application. Through the Adobe Bridge you can search for, purchase
and download individual images, without leaving the program you’re
working in. It’s a slick idea. With so many people having high speed
connections, especially at work, it should be a hit as long as the prices
are reasonable. Apple has shown that if you build a store front into
your software and make the experience worthwhile you will reap
rewards.
Conclusion
With this upgrade coming so close on the heels of the last update
many professionals are going to be weighing the benefits of upgrading. It is a tough call. Adobe continues to refine the interoperability of
it’s various applications. This update really shines when it comes to
integration and collaboration. For those who collaborate in small to
medium size workgroups this version may very well offer an excellent reason to upgrade.
You can buy an upgrade to just Photoshop CS2 for $149 (full retail
version will cost $599). If you buy the Premium Edition of the suite
it will run $1,200 from scratch, or $550 as an upgrade from either CS
1.1 or earlier edition, or $450 from CS 1.3. Photoshop CS or 7.0 users
can pay $750 for an upgrade to the entire suite. The Standard edition
is $900 from scratch, $350 from a previous CS version, or $500 from
Photoshop CS or 7.0.
16
Sense & Sensors Cont’d
from Page 13
Continued
Security Update Patches Apple
Remote Desktop
Apple has released Security Update 200410-27, a patch to Apple Remote Desktop
Client 1.2.4 that prevents a remote user
from starting an application behind the
login window, which would allow the
application to run as root. The vulnerability exists on Mac OS X 10.3 systems
with Apple Remote Desktop Client 1.2.4
installed and Fast User Switching enabled.
On an unpatched system that has a user
logged in, but the login window visible
via Fast User Switching, an Apple Remote
Desktop user with privileges to do so can
start an application, which would run as
root.(The vulnerability requires that the
Remote Desktop user have a valid username and password to access the system;
it does not expose the machine to unauthorized use.)
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artn
um=61798>
The 832K download, available through
Software Update or the Apple Downloads
page, only applies to Mac OS X 10.3 and
later operating systems, and isn’t needed if
Apple Remote Desktop has already been
upgraded to version 2.1. [MHA]
<http://www.apple.com/support/
downloads//securityupdate20041027ard.h
tml>
Office X Updated Slightly
Lost temporarily in the news of the recent
update to Microsoft Office 2004 (see
“Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Service
Pack 1 Squishes Bugs” in TidBITS-751_)
was the fact that Microsoft also updated
the older Office X on 13-Oct-04. The
improvements in the Microsoft Office
v.X for Mac Security Update (10.1.6)
include proper functioning of Word X’s
AutoRecover when FileVault is enabled
(not that we recommend FileVault in most
situations), and a fix to a bug that caused
Entourage X to stop responding when
certain corrupted email messages were
received with the Junk Mail Filter enabled.
Word X, Excel X, and PowerPoint X all
receive an added level of security that
Cont’d on Page 19
perception, above a low threshold,
the proportion of noise to signal matters far more to the brain than the
absolute amount of signal. Indeed,
if I look through a box of my old 11”
x 14” enlargements, the only way I
can distinguish the 35-mm photos
from the 2-1/4 x 3-1/4” is to examine
smooth tones for noise. I cannot tell
them apart by looking at areas with
detail.
In sum, with the range of sensors
used in cameras today, there is no
point to worrying about a few megapixels more or less. Shrinking cells
to fit more of them in the sensor can
lose more information than it gains.
The size of the cells is likely to be
more important than their number.
For the same money, I would rather
buy a larger sensor with fewer pixels
than a smaller sensor with more pixels. If nothing else, the larger sensor
is likely to be sharper because it will
be less sensitive to movement of the
camera. For a realistic comparison of
sensors as they are marketed see this
chart:
<http://www.tidbits.com/ resources/ 751/ SensorChart.png>
Tripod vs. Lens
Most people believe that the quality
of the lens is of primary importance
in digital photography. If you have
stayed with me so far, you may not
be surprised to hear me calculate
otherwise. With 35mm cameras, an
old rule of thumb holds that the
slowest shutter speed that a competent, sober photographer can use
without a tripod and still stand a
good chance of having the picture
look sharp is 1 divided by the focal
length of the lens: 1/50” for a 50-mm
lens, 1/100” for a 100-mm lens, etc.
At these settings there will always be
some slight blur but it will usually be
too little to be noticed. This blur will
mask any difference in sharpness
between lenses. To see differences
in sharpness requires speeds several
times faster.
With digital cameras that use
35-mm-sized sensors, the same rule
of thumb holds, but most digital
cameras use smaller sensors. With
smaller sensors, the same amount of
movement will blur more of the pic-
ture. If you work out the trigonometry, you’ll find that you need shutter
speeds roughly twice as fast for 4/3”
sensors and four times faster for 2/3”
and 1/1.8” sensors. (Digital sensors
come in sizes like 4/3”, 2/3” and 1/
1.8”. Those numbers are meaningless
relics from the days of vacuum tubes;
they are now just arbitrary numbers equivalent to dress sizes.) That
means minimal speeds of 1/100” and
1/200” for a normal lens. Differences
in sharpness among lenses would not
be apparent until shutter speeds are
several times higher again. Because
of this, it strikes me that the weight
of lenses matters more to image quality than the optics. The heavier a
camera bag becomes, the more likely
the tripod will be left at home.
(Note that this does not mean that
35-mm-sized sensors are best. Other
optical problems increase with the
size of the sensor. As an overall compromise, the industry is beginning to
adopt a new standard, the 4/3”, or fourthirds, which is approximately one-half
the diameter of 35-mm. This is not
unreasonable.)
Frankly, I should be astonished
to find any lens manufactured today
that does not have sufficient contrast and resolution to produce an
impressive image in the hands of a
competent photographer. I know that
close comparisons of photos shot on
a tripod will show differences from
one lens to another, and I know that
some lenses have weaknesses, but
very few people will decorate a living room with test pictures. In the
real world, nobody is likely to notice
any optical deficiency unless the
problem is movement of the camera,
bad focus, distortion or colour fringing. It is certainly true that distortion
and colour fringing can be objectionable but, although enough money
and experimentation might find
some lenses that evince less of these
problems than others, as a practical matter, especially with zoom
lenses, they seem to be inescapable.
Fortunately, these can usually be corrected or hidden by software.
Indeed, even a certain amount of
blur can be removed with software.
Let’s say that half of the light that
ought to fall on one pixel is spread
over surrounding pixels. Knowing
this, it is possible to move that much
Cont’d on Page 18
17
Choosing Back up Software
Contʼd from Page 15
spectrum, some backup software is
published by large corporations with
a small army of programmers and a
full-time paid technical support staff.
Ironically, I’ve often received better
and quicker technical support from
individual authors - even those who
give away their applications for free
- than big companies. On the other
hand, if you’re entrusting all the data
on the computers in your home or
small office to a backup application,
you may feel more comfortable
knowing that a professional staff
stands behind the product.
Of special note in this regard is
Dantz (now owned by EMC), developers of Retrospect. They charge $70
to speak to a technical support representative on the phone - a seemingly
outrageous fee. However, I’ve used
Dantz technical support more than
once, and I believe you get what
you pay for. The technicians answer
promptly, are highly trained, and continue working with you - even over
multiple phone calls - until the problem is solved (without charging you
for each call). When I’m terrified that
I might have just lost all my data and
my software doesn’t seem to be func-
Apple Reduces MS Dependency Contʼd from Page 18
light
back to the central pixel from the
surrounding ones. That seems to be
what Focus Magic does (see the discussion of Focus Magic in “Editing
Photographs for the Perfectionist” in
TidBITS-748).
<http://www.focusmagic.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/ getbits.acgi?
tbart= 07832>
One More Myth
Finally, I would like to end this article
by debunking a common myth.
I have often read that Bayer sensors work well because half of their
cells are green and the wavelengths
that induce green provide most of
the information used by the eye for
visual acuity. This made no sense to
me but I am not an expert on the eye
so I asked an expert - three experts
in fact, scientists known internationally for their work in visual perception. I happened to be having dinner
with them. It made no sense to them,
tioning correctly, I’m only too happy
to pay $70 for the reassuring voice
and advice of an expert who can help
me get things working again.
Price
The backup software I discuss in the
ebook ranges in price from free to
$130. The price does not necessarily
correlate to capabilities, but I urge
you not to skimp when it comes to
backup software just to save a few
dollars. After all, time is money. If
you lose a day of income because
your backup program makes you
jump through too many hoops when
restoring files, that’s likely to be a
bigger financial hit than the cost of
better software.
Take Control of Mac OS X
Backups
In “Take Control of Mac OS X
Backups,” I take this information a
step further and provide detailed
recommendations about which software is best for particular uses,
including network backups. I also
include an appendix with feature
comparisons, pricing, and contact
information for about two dozen
backup applications. In addition to
software recommendations, I discuss
either, although I took care to ask
them before they had much wine.
Later I pestered one of them about it
so much that eventually she got out of
bed (this was my wife Daphne) and
threw an old textbook at me, Human
Color Vision by Robert Boynton. In it I
found this explanation:
“To investigate ‘color,’” an experimenter puts a filter in front of a projector that is projecting an eye chart.
“An observer, who formerly could
read the 20/20 line, now finds that
he or she can recognize only those
letters corresponding to 20/60 acuity
or worse. What can be legitimately
concluded from this experiment? The
answer is, nothing at all,” because the
filter reduced the amount of light. “A
control experiment is needed, where
the same reduction in luminance is
achieved using a neutral filter.... When
such controls are used, it is typically
found that varying spectral distribution has remarkably little effect upon
hardware options, backup strategies, restoration techniques, and more
- everything you need to know to set
up a reliable and easy-to-use Mac OS
X backup system. “Take Control of
Mac OS X Backups,” a 96-page ebook,
costs $10; as always, purchasers are
entitled to receive all minor updates
free of charge.
takecontrol/backup-macosx.html>
[Joe Kissell is a San Franciscobased writer, consultant, and Mac
developer who kicked off the Take
Control series with the best-selling “Take Control of Upgrading
to Panther,” and has also written two ebooks about Apple Mail.
His secret identity is Curator
of Interesting Things for the
Interesting Thing of the Day Web
site.]
This article orginally appeared in
Tidbits Magazine issue #757, published 12/6/04. It is reprinted with
the permission of the Author.
visual acuity.”
In short, each cell in a Bayer sensor
provides similar information about
resolution. It is true that green light
will provide a Bayer sensor with more
information than red and blue light
but that is only because the sensor has
more green cells.
If you want to shop for a digital
camera, this article will help you
make the most important decision,
what kind and size of sensor to buy,
with how many pixels. Once you
have decided that, a host of smaller
decisions await you. My next article
will walk you through these. It is also
going to incorporate a review of the
Sigma SD-10 and will appear shortly
after one more lens arrives from
Japan.
This article orginally appeared
in Tidbits Magazine issue #751,
published 10/18/04. It is reprinted
with the permission of the
18
Author.
News Contʼd from Page 17
affects macros that open other macro-containing Office documents. It’s a 38.4 MB
download. [ACE]
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?
kbid=883952>
Apple Reports $106 Million
Fourth Quarter Profit
Apple Computer surprised both analysts
and markets last week by announcing its
strongest fourth quarter in nine years, with
a $106 million profit on a whopping $2.35
billion in revenue for the company’s final
fiscal quarter of 2004. Moreover, Apple
shipped more than 2 million iPod music
players during the quarter, and the quarter
represents a startling 37 percent revenue
increase compared to the same quarter
last year. The results include a $4 million
restructuring charge. Gross margins for
the quarter stayed high at 27 percent, and
international sales represented 37 percent
of revenue. Significantly, Apple’s retail store
revenue was up 95 percent from the same
quarter last year.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/
13results.html>
Despite a delay caused by shortages
of G5 processors, Apple says the new
iMac G5 is off to a strong start; Apple
shipped 836,000 Macs during the quarter,
more than half of which were iBooks and
PowerBooks. The 2.02 million iPods Apple
shipped represents a 500 percent increase
over the same quarter a year ago; some 6
percent of those iPods were manufactured
by Hewlett-Packard as part of the companies’ production alliance. What’s stunning
is that Apple moved over a third of _all_
iPods (5.7 million) ever sold in just the last
three months. Looking forward, the company expects its next fiscal quarter (which
includes the holiday buying season) to be
strong, with revenues between $2.8 and
$2.9 billion. [GD]
Apple Sells Its One Hundred and
Fifty Millionth Song
Apple continued to remind everyone it’s
the 400-pound gorilla of the online music
industry by announcing it has now sold
over 15 million songs on its iTunes Music
Service. What’s more, just in time for the
holiday shopping season, iTunes gift cards
will now be available in Best Buy stores in
addition to Target and Apple’s own retail
stores. The announcement follows yester-
day’s financial results where Apple noted it
shipped more than 2 million
iPods during its fourth fiscal quarter. Apple
says it’s selling more than 4 million songs a
week, which puts it at a pace to sell over
200 million songs per year.
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/oct/
14itunes.html>
This announcement’s timing on the
heels of fourth quarter results permits
me to note Apple’s “other music products”
(anything but iPods) brought in $98 million
last quarter, which is roughly a one-third
increase over the same quarter a year ago.
Combined with revenue from iPods, that
means right now roughly one quarter of
Apple’s revenue has to do with music, not
computers. [GD]
Apple Opens Mini Retail Stores
Further refining the retail experience of
buying a Mac or iPod, Apple opened six
new retail stores that feature a “mini” layout compared to existing stores. The smaller design puts products and information
along the side walls (which are made up of
aluminum panels, like a real-world Finder!),
with the main floor space open. A single
retail counter doubles as a Genius Bar.
Most intriguing is a new self-checkout
kiosk built into one wall, where customers
can scan and purchase products without
employee assistance. The stores appear to
be geared toward more general users: the
iPod is heavily represented,
as are portables and the iMac, but the
eMac and Power Mac G5 don’t appear at
all. Apple now operates 93 Apple Stores in
the United States and Japan. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/retail/>
MB download is used to update FileMaker
Pro and FileMaker Developer. Windows
users must download separate files for
each application, and the download for the
Pro updater for Windows is a whopping
107 MB. The 7.0v3 update is strongly recommended for all users of FileMaker Pro
and FileMaker Developer. [WP]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07
587>
Security Update 2004-09-30
Released
Apple has released Security Update 200409-30, which fixes vulnerabilities in the
AFP Server, the CUPS printing architecture,
NetInfo Manager, postfix, and QuickTime,
as well as ServerAdmin for Mac OS X
Server. The update is available via Software
Update, or as stand-alone downloads for
Mac OS X 10.3.5 (1.5 MB) and Mac OS
X 10.2.8 (652K). Apple also notes that the
date on the update differs from the release
date (of 2004-10-04) due to power outages the previous week at its Cupertino
headquarters. [JLC]
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artn
um=61798>
“The new year has
me looking back on decisions I made in 2004, and
one of the most important
was my choice to dump
PCs with Windows and
Linux and move entirely
to the Mac and OS X. I had
a lot of Windows to wash
out of my brain and a lot
to relearn from my Unix
FileMaker 7.0v3 Update Offers
Numerous Fixes On 05-Oct-04
days, but everything’s getFileMaker, Inc., posted free updaters that
ting done -- and done with
bring previous versions of FileMaker 7
Macs. Every day I learn to
(both Pro and Developer; see “FileMaker
do things better (meaning
Pro 7: Can You Say Paradigm Shift?” in
simpler), and I like hanging
TidBITS-721_) up to 7.0v3. The
with a platform that makes
list of problems addressed by this update
is quite long and includes improvements in constant progress. Moving
text editing, layout editing, scripting, calcula- to the Mac is one of my alltions, portals, value lists, import/export, find, time smartest calls.
spell checking, security, display of related
data, and Japanese language functionality.
The Developer update includes all the fixes
just mentioned, plus fixes to Developeronly features such as the script debugger,
Database Design Report, and Developer
Utilities. For Mac OS X users, the same 26
”
Tom Yager
InfoWorld
19
Tips and Tricks for Recording
with GarageBand
by Jeff
I
Tolbert
T’S NO SECRET THAT
GarageBand is entry-level music
software. For the non-musician getting started, a peek at the
controls and settings in high-end
audio software like Pro Tools or Logic
Pro can fry synapses faster than a
late 1960s road trip on the Rolling
Stones’ tour bus. But at the same time,
GarageBand can perform feats that
aren’t immediately obvious.
I’ve spent a lot of time learning
just what GarageBand can do over
the last few months while writing
my latest ebook, “Take Control
of Recording with GarageBand.”
Whereas my first ebook, “Take
Control of Making Music with
GarageBand,” helped people combine and edit loops in GarageBand,
this latest volume focuses on using
GarageBand to create musical compositions with vocals, drums, guitars,
MIDI keyboards, and even the kitchen
sink. Below are a few of my favorite
tips and tricks from the book; I hope
you find them useful, and if you’re
left wanting more, the $10 ebook has
106 pages of real-world recording studio techniques and practical advice.
takecontrol/garagebandrecording.html>
Record Two Tracks at Once
A lot of people take issue with the
fact that GarageBand allows you
to record only one track at a time.
This is a drag for several reasons.
Not only are you unable to record
your whole band at once and keep
each element on its own track, but
you also can’t even record a guitar
and vocals at the same time. Or can
you? GarageBand does enable you to
record a stereo track, which is just two
mono tracks panned hard left and
right. The trick is that you need to
export this stereo track and separate
the two elements in another program.
This task isn’t so much difficult as it is
time consuming.
Use the following method to
record any two elements at once - bass
and guitar, bongos and vocals, two
accordions, or any other combination
of sounds:
1. Check if you have a copy of Felt
Tip’s Sound Studio on your Mac.
Many recent models ship with it preinstalled. If not, download either
Audacity or Sound Studio and install
it.
<http://www.felttip.com/
products/soundstudio/> <http://
audacity.sourceforge.net/>
2. Create a new stereo track in
GarageBand.
3. Plug one mic or guitar into
Channel 1 of your preamp, and the
other into Channel 2.
4. Record your track normally.
5. Export just this one track to iTunes
by choosing Export to iTunes from
the File menu. If other tracks in your
song are active, mute them before
you export.
6. Open the exported track in
Audacity or Sound Studio. In
Audacity, choose Split Stereo Track
from the drop down menu to the left
of the waveform. Then choose Export
Multiple from the Edit menu to create two mono files. If you’re using
Sound Studio, choose Export Dual
Mono from the File menu.
7. Drag the resulting mono files from
the Finder into GarageBand, which
automatically creates new tracks for
them. Now, do with them what you
will!
Beware of Bleed
Anytime you record two or more
tracks with microphones, there’s
a danger that one track could bleed
into the other. This happens when a
microphone, say the vocal mic, picks
up the acoustic guitar as well, and
vice versa. This limits your flexibility come mix time: if you decide to
scrap the vocal altogether but keep
the guitar track, the old vocal bleed is
still on the guitar mic recording.
You can prevent bleed in a couple
of ways:
* Isolation involves placing the microphones in different rooms, or at least
far enough apart that bleed is minimized. This obviously won’t work if
you’re recording one person playing
an acoustic guitar and singing.
* You can place baffles (pieces of
sound-absorbing material) between
the two mics to reduce leakage. This
approach is also problematic for a
singer/guitarist.
Obviously, plugging the guitar
directly into the preamp will eliminate one microphone, and with it any
leakage problems. You can also make
sure you’re using a more directional
mic, and point the mics away from
each other somewhat.
Double-Track Vocals and
Guitars
Double-tracking is an old technique
for thickening vocals and other types
of tracks. The idea is that you record
two takes of the same part and lay
them on top of each other. The resulting product has a thicker sound and
a unique quality. Double-tracking
can also hide minor tuning flaws in
vocal tracks. The two versions blend
together and mask the out-of-tune
bits.
The trick to double-tracking is that
the two versions have to be as identical as possible, at least if you want
the
20
Garage Band Contʼd
from Page 20
effect to be invisible. There’s certainly nothing wrong with playing the
second part differently and panning
the two parts away from each other.
This will add thickness as well as a
not-so-subtle stereo effect. Feel free
to try adding reverb or other effects to
the second track for variety.
Make Your Own Loops
The wonderful thing about
GarageBand’s loops is that you can
play them in any tempo and key that
you want. But if you’ve tried to do
this with Real Instrument tracks you
recorded yourself, it doesn’t work
- you end up with a strange-sounding mix of tempos and keys. But
it is possible to turn your recordings into loops that you can use just
like Apple’s own loops. To do this,
you need a copy of the Soundtrack
Loop Utility, part of the Apple Loops
Software Developer Kit. Follow
these steps to make loops out of your
recordings.
<http://developer.apple.com/sdk/
#AppleLoops>
1. In GarageBand, solo the track you
want to make into a loop. Use a cycle
region to isolate only a specific chunk
of the song, and then export it to
iTunes by choosing Export to iTunes
from the File menu. Make a note of
how many beats your loop is.
2. Open the resulting file in the
Soundtrack Loop Utility.
3. Change the Number of Beats
to the number you noted in Step 1.
Make sure File Type is set to Loop and
save the file.
4. Drag the loop into GarageBand.
It’s now a normal GarageBand loop.
You can change the tempo and key
and the loop changes with the song.
Turn Your Guitar into a
Bass
So you have an electric guitar, but
you don’t have a bass. You could play
bass lines on a MIDI keyboard, but
maybe you lack one of those as well,
or you want a more natural-sounding
bass part. What can you do? Here’s
a little trick to turn your guitar into
a bass (virtually - don’t worry, no
power tools are required and your
vintage axe won’t be damaged):
1. Record your guitar playing the
bass line an octave higher than you
want it to sound when you’re finished.
2. Solo this track and export it by
choosing Export to iTunes from the
File menu.
3. Follow the steps in Make Your
Own Loops, above, to turn this guitar track into a loop.
4. Drag the guitar loop back into
GarageBand.
5. Open the Track Editor and move
the Transpose slider down to -12.
This transposes the guitar loop down
one octave. Your guitar should
sound a lot like a bass.
6. To make it even more realistic,
double click the track header to open
the Track Info window. Play with the
following effects settings until you
like what you get:
textures that pop into my head. If
you own iLife ‘04 and haven’t yet
launched GarageBand, give it a try,
even if you think you’re not musical.
(Tonya Engst wrote about her experiences with GarageBand when my
first ebook - “Take Control of Making
Music with GarageBand” - was
released: see “How GarageBand Made
Me Feel Young and Hip” in TidBITS735_).
[Jeff Tolbert is a musician, painter, and graphic designer living in
Seattle. He plays bass and guitar
and is becoming passable at keyboards. He has played in numerous
bands over the years, including What Fell?, the Goat-Footed
Senators, the diary of Anne Frank
String Quartet, 80 Bones, and the
Fireproof Beauties.]
<http://www.jefftolbert.com/>
This article orginally appeared
in Tidbits Magazine issue #759,
published 12/13/04. It is reprinted
with the permission of the Author.
* Turn on the Compressor and move
the slider to about 30.
* Activate the Equalizer. Boost the
bass a little and cut the midrange.
* Add some Amp Simulation. Try
American Clean with a touch of gain.
Turn the bass up, the midrange down,
and set treble and presence to taste.
Take Control of
GarageBand
When GarageBand came out, I got so
excited about making music on my
iBook that I went out and spent close
to $1,000 on music equipment and
additional software. Although I’ve
been a musician in many capacities
over the years, I rely on GarageBand
at home to record songs and sound
“So, bottom line,
are PCs cheaper than
Macs? No, despite
what you read in the
PC press, it’s the
other way around.
Compare Apples to
apples, and Macs are
cheaper than PCs.
”
By Paul Murphy
LinuxInsider
21
Grand Rapids Area Microcomputer Users Group
Our meetings are held monthly. We meet on the fourth full week’s
Thursday of each month. We gather at the Grand Rapids CompUSA.
Meetings start at 7pm and are concluded at 9pm. Meetings are open
to the public, and are free. Membership is only $25 for one year.
Membership entitles you to user group discounts, entry in drawings
(must be present to win), our periodic email list, and our newsletter. Our
web page can be found at: http://www.gramug.org
For further information you can contact our president at:
[email protected]
$pecial$ & Deal$
We would like to give
special thanks to the following organizations who
contributed to this publication
The following deals or specials are provided as a courtesy to our readers. The specials outlined
below may no longer be available by the time you read this. For more timely information stop by
a GRAMUG meeting.
Rayming Corp: GPS Receivers
Rayming Corp is proud to support User Groups with a Promotional Discount for the
Mac OS X supported TN-200 USB GPS Receiver at price of $84.74 (US) and the TN-206
Bluetooth GPS Receiver at a price of $189.74 (US). Regularly $112.99 (US) and $252.99
(US), you can receive 25% off MSRP on their website orders.
www.iserv.net
Rayming Corporation encourages Apple User Group members to take advatage
of this special offer and then offer feedback about these GPS products at
[email protected].
http://www.rayming.com
This U.S. only offer is valid until June 30, 2005.*
XtraLean Software: Shutterbug
*Further information provided
to GRAMUG
members. Stop
by and join
today.
Introducing ShutterBug,the content creation tool that helps you easily and quickly create digital photo albums and journals, and publish them to your .mac account or other
web server. ShutterBug is fully WYSIWYG and can update websites on the fly. Users
can choose from more than 50 free customizable templates and easily create sites that
render properly across all browsers on multiple platforms -- even if they know nothing
about HTML.
Regularly $29 (US), ShutterBug is available to Apple user group members for only $20
(US).
This worldwide offer is valid until July 31, 2005.*
TechWorks: Quality Memory
Founded in 1986, TechWorks has emerged as the leader for Macintosh computer memory (RAM). TechWorks success can be attributed to quality, a money back guarantee,
toll-free technical support, lifetime warranty and a commitment to 100 percent customer
satisfaction. User group members can receive 30 percent off retail prices on the latest
memory products.
This U.S. and Canada only offer is valid until June 30, 2005.*
*Further information provided to GRAMUG members. Stop by
and join today.

Continued

Transcription

Similar documents

(C) Engine - Automotriz En Video

friday • november 14 • 1:00pm - 6:00pm opportunities

Best Practices - iTunes Link Maker

The Art of Traveling with your Mac

Exclusive savings from Apple.

Big Apple Circus. The Healing Power of Humor

Please wait

THE APPLEWORKS

Barry Pritchett Ellijay, GA