April 2009 - Mac Help Desk

VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
M AC F ACTS
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Support, Sales, Training, & Service
(972) 783-9787 • (214) 336-7162 - Cellular
e-mail address - [email protected]
Web site - http://www.machelpdesk.com
a Macintosh Solutions Provider company
INDEX
Page 2
For Your Information
“Fonts 101: A Font
Primer”
Page 3
NEWSLINE
Page 4
Ask the Tech
Page 5
Opinion
Page 6
Product Review
“ Nehalem Mac Pro
”
Page 7
Hints & Tips
A MESSAGE
FROM DRU
Happy Passover to all our
Jewish client/friends and Happy
Easter to all our Christian client/
friends!
•••••
Druʼs band, LoveSong now has
music videos on You Tube,
Facebook, and MySpace! (and,
of course, our own web site) “I
guess this means we're a 'real'
band now!” See for yourself (in
HD). Feel free to Leave a
c o m m e n t , t o o ! Yo u T u b e
Facebook MySpace
•••••
Pre-Loved Mac Sale!
New LOWER Prices
Page 8
Comments
Page 9
‘One More Thing...’
G5 Tower - Dual 2.0 GHz PPC
Processors, 160 GB Hard Drive,
2.5 GB RAM,
SuperDrive,
Keyboard, Mouse, Mac OS X
10.4.11 - ONLY $839! Wow!!!
•
G4 Tower - 400 MHz, 320 MB
RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, CD ROM,
Zip 100, Keyboard, Mouse, Mac
OS X 10.4.11; Missing an ʻarmʼ but
works great! $155
•••••
Just a reminder - The May 2009 issue of MacFacts will
mark our 200th issue! If you want to include something in
this historic publication, start getting stuff to me NOW!
Are you ready for a celebratory party? Iʼll keep you
posted.
•••••
By the way - If you havenʼt already made your reservation
to see Dru & Dianne (you know, the band!) at the
Doubletree Hotelʼs Easter Sunday brunch...Your time is
just about up. Donʼt know if there are any seats to be had
at this late date. (They DID sell out Christmas and
Valentines Day, and were about 200 short of selling out
Thanksgiving.) All I can say is ʻWhy cook?ʼ Bring the
entire family. Feast like thereʼs no tomorrow. And no
dishes to clean.
•••••
Apple Corps of Dallas, the oldest Mac Users Group in the
country, will be having its regular monthly meeting on
Saturday, April 11 at the Richardson Civic Center (Central
Expry & Arapaho), starting at 9 am. Guest speaker this
month is the inimitable Bob ʻDr. Bobʼ LeVitus. Bob has
written scads of Mac books and knows more about Macs
than just about anyone. This is a FREE event and is kid
safe.
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 2 - F OR Y OUR I NF OR M ATI ON
Fonts 101: A Font Primer
by Weldon Dodd
It might sound crazy today, but fonts
were one of the first things that really
got me interested in computers.
Computer typography was a constantly
evolving industry in the ʼ80s and ʼ90s.
A certain part of my personal interest
developed because I went to high
school with a kid whose dad turned out
to be a rock star of computer
typography. You see, his dad invented
a method to describe a font using a
mathematical “language” rather than
just a set of dots. John Warnock, along
with partner Chuck Geschke, left Xerox
PARC to start Adobe Systems to
commercialize this breakthrough in
computer science. The key to Adobeʼs
Postscript technology was the ability to
describe a font as an outline rather
than a set of dots. The bezier curves
that made up the outline could be
scaled to any resolution and then filled
with the dots on the printer so that all
the edges looked smooth. Totally
tubular!
Steve Jobs got wind of Postscript and
went to Warnock and Geshke to
convince them to adapt their
technology to make a printer language
that would work with Appleʼs
forthcoming LaserWriter. The Mac was
revolutionary, in part, because you
could see fonts displayed on the
screen that looked like the fonts you
could output on a printer. What You
See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) was
a huge selling point for the Mac and
the reason for its early dominance in
desktop publishing and graphic design.
Fonts and the Mac
Because Apple was involved with fonts
and typography from the very
beginning, the Mac has support for a
number of different font formats as
they have evolved over the last 25
years. Here are the major formats that at small point sizes so that the
are found on the Mac that you can proportions look correct. Bitmaps were
expect to see on your own machine.
carefully designed for each point size
to look right at different sizes. Adobe
Type 1 Fonts
came up with “hints” and in Postscript
fonts to make these small adjustments
If fonts were people, Postscript Type 1 on the fly and similar techniques have
Fonts would be the old men that sit been employed in more modern font
around on the porch and gripe about formats. Thus the need for handhow things used to be back in the day. tweaked point sizes has diminished
The original outline fonts, Type 1 fonts over the years and bitmaps arenʼt
are printer fonts (outlines) which must really needed.
be kept together with their
corresponding screen fonts (bitmaps) TrueType
in order to render the text on screen.
Even though they date back to the If Type 1 fonts are the old men on the
80ʼs, Type 1 fonts have survived to this porch, TrueType fonts are having a
day and are still present in the font mid-life crisis as they realize that they
library of many designers.
never really reached their potential and
are being pushed aside by the new
Because of the problems caused by kids coming up. Invented by Apple and
separate screen and printer font files, brought to market in 1991 along with
Adobe released Adobe Type Manager System 7 to try and break the
as a utility to render the outline fonts stranglehold that Adobe had on the
on screen. This was largely a response desktop publishing and laser printer
to TrueType and was successful in markets, TrueType fonts integrate the
making all the designers who had concept of screen and printer fonts so
invested lots of money in collections of you only have to manage one file,
Type 1 fonts very happy. If you have called a font suitcase, which contained
Postscript Type 1 fonts around today, both. The format became widely
you will want to make sure that you popular for cheap or free fonts but,
keep them with their bitmap fonts.
despite the sophisticated kerning and
ligature features of Quickdraw GX and
Type 1 Fonts have the file type LWFN. Apple Advanced Typography, never
This type ID came from “LaserWriter really took off among designers who
font.”
continued to prefer the typefaces
available in Postscript format.
Bitmap Fonts
A p p l e l i c e n s e d t h e T r u e Ty p e
Bitmap fonts are really out of use in the technology to Microsoft, so TrueType
operating system, but remain as a fonts are supported in both the Mac
legacy item. Bitmaps are basically and Windows operating systems.
fonts that are rendered at a specific U n f o r t u n a t e l y, t h e f o n t s a r e
size to be displayed on screen. They implemented differently on each
are not outline fonts, but rather a platform, so you will see Mac and
grouping of dots or pixels. You should Windows versions of the same font
only see these in conjunction with family in the TrueType format. Today,
Postscript Type 1 fonts.
new TrueType fonts would only be
released in the Windows format since
Part of the reason that Bitmap fonts the Mac also supports that format.
stuck around is that font faces are
typically adjusted by the font designer Continue on Page 9
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 3 - N E W S LI NE
Movie Fans Can Buy & Rent the latest offerings at www.itunes.com/ Amazon's been making about a special
promotion in the U.K. (0.29 pounds for
Films in High Definition on the movies/hd.
some selected track, down from the
iTunes Store
Box Office Favorites Including
“Quantum of Solace” & “Twilight”
Available in Stunning HD
A p p l e a n n o u n c e d t h a t i Tu n e s
customers can purchase and rent box
office favorites including “Quantum of
Solace” and “Twilight” in stunning HD
on the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com).
Movie fans can purchase box office
blockbusters for download in HD for
$19.99 from iTunes, and films will be
available as iTunes Movie Rentals in
HD for $4.99 within 30 days after
release. Customers can enjoy these
films in HD on their Mac or PC and on
their widescreen TV with Apple TV, as
well as in standard definition on their
iPhone or iPod with video. The iTunes
Store is the worldʼs most popular
online TV and movie store, with over
250 million TV episodes purchased
and over 33 million movies purchased
and rented.
“Movie fans are going to love being
able to buy and rent films including
ʻQuantum of Solaceʼ and ʻTwilightʼ in
stunning HD from the iTunes Store,”
said Eddy Cue, Appleʼs vice president
of Internet Services. “Customers have
made HD content on iTunes a hit, with
over 50 percent of TV programming
being purchased in HD when
available.”
iTunes customers can pre-order
“Quantum of Solace” which will be
downloaded to their computer, as well
as the smash hit thriller “Twilight”.
iTunes customers can purchase
“Transporter 3,” “Punisher: War Zone”
and other select titles in HD, and the
action/comedy “The Spirit” will be
available on April 14. The iTunes
Movie Store will be adding more HD
movies soon and customers can view
The iTunes Store is the worldʼs most
popular online music, TV and movie
store with a catalog of over 10 million
songs, over 40,000 TV episodes, and
over 5,000 movies including over 1,200
in stunning high definition video for
rent. With Appleʼs legendary ease of
use, pioneering features such as
iTunes Movie Rentals, integrated
podcasting support, the ability to turn
previously purchased tracks into
complete albums at a reduced price,
and seamless integration with iPod and
iPhone, the iTunes Store is the best
way for Mac and PC users to legally
discover, purchase and download
music and video online.
Pricing & Availability
iTunes 8.1 for Mac and Windows
includes the iTunes Store and is
available as a free download from
(www.itunes.com). Purchase and
download of songs and videos from the
iTunes Store requires a valid credit
card from a financial institution in the
country of purchase. Video availability
varies by country. iTunes Movie
Rentals are $2.99 (US) for library titles
and $3.99 (US) for new releases, and
high definition versions are priced just
one dollar more with library titles at
$3.99 (US) and new releases at $4.99
(US).
•••••
usual minimum of 0.59). I can't imagine
Amazon's excited about raising prices
in a recession--they're probably
responding to price increases by the
record labels, which were made
possible by Apple's capitulation. Good
luck with that!
And it's not just Amazon. I heard from
a contact at another large online music
company that the impetus behind the
new pricing models is indeed coming
from the labels. Apparently, they
approached all the major stores and
asked them to begin selling certain
songs for $1.29 on Tuesday.
Check out Rhapsody and Wal-Mart
(which is selling tracks for $1.24, in
keeping with its "5 cents cheaper"
pricing strategy).
•••••
Need/Want a new MacBook?
Micro Center (Central Expry. & Spring
Valley, Dallas) has them ON SALE for
$799! Thatʼs right, $200 off MSRP.
Run, donʼt walk. Hurry, hurry!
•••••
☝
Amazon follows Apple to
$1.29
As expected, Apple introduced variable
pricing on iTunes, meaning that some
popular tracks now cost $1.29 instead
of $0.99. Less expected: Amazon.com
has followed Apple into the fray. Scroll
down today's list of top downloads, and
you'll see a few tracks at $1.29.
Lookie - Lookie!
It was only a matter of time, but I didn't
expect the price hike to come on the
s a m e d a y, g i v e n a l l t h e n o i s e
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 4 - A S K T H E TE CH
the drive and install Windows XP. Is it Q: If got this application that starts
necessary to install virus protection on every stinkinʼ time I log in. How do I
the Windows partition?
turn it off?
A: Appleʼs Boot Camp software
simplifies the process of partitioning off
part of the Macʼs hard drive so you can
install a copy of the Windows operating
system. When you start up the Mac
from the Windows partition, though, it
is essentially a Windows computer —
with pretty much all the Windows
vulnerabilities to viruses, spyware and
Q: Just recently installed Leopard on a other malicious code floating around
bigger HD, and migrated all my the Internet.
information over. When I try to add an
application to the dock or move apps in If you plan to use the Windows side of
the dock it won't let me. IS it possible the machine online, adding a layer
that the dock is locked?
extra security helps makes it less
vulnerable to lurking malware. And
A: These problems are usually thereʼs no shortage of security suites
because the Dock's preferences file for Windows; you can find reviews of
has been corrupted, which can happen this yearʼs products at sites like
during system upgrades, account pcantivirusreviews.com and anti-virusmigration, or even from using some software-review.toptenreviews.com.
poorly written programs. In some
cases, people have found Dock C o m p a r a t i v e l y t i n y a m o u n t s o f
problems to be hardware-related, malware aimed at the Mac itself have
where certain input devices seem to been reported, but if it worries you
invoke the single-click contextual menu anyway, a few companies like Intego
faster than usual. This makes it very and Symantec that sell security
hard to move items before the menu software have “combo” bundles aimed
prevents it. However, these instances, at Boot Campers with both Mac and
which likely are from driver issues, Windows antivirus programs.
have not been common, and most
Dock problems are related to the Free utilities for both Windows and
preferences files.
Mac OS X are also available. Avast
and AVG are two options for the PC, as
Like most other OS X applications, the is ClamXav for the Mac. Spybot
Dock has its own preferences file for Search & Destroy and Lavasoft Adstoring account-specific settings. Aware Free are two free Windows
Corruption in this file can prevent it antispyware programs. Windows XP
from being edited with information has its own firewall in the Control
about newly added applications, Panel area, but Check Pointʼs free
leading to the problematic behaviors version of the Zone Alarm firewall is
displayed by affected Docks. When another option.
problems with the Dock occur,
removing the preferences file should Mac OS X also comes with a built-in
help.
firewall — click on the System
Preferences icon on the Dock and
Q: I recently purchased a Mac Mini and open the Security icon to get to the
I used the Boot Camp utility to partition Firewall tab.
A: Your Mac lets you decide which, if
any, applications open automatically
each time you log into your account in
Mac OS X. For example, you might
want iChat and Mail to open every time
you sign on. These automatically
opening programs are called Login
items, and hereʼs how to manage
them.
From the Apple menu, choose System
Preferences and click on the Accounts
button. Click on your account name (if
itʼs not already highlighted), then click
the Login Items tab. A list of all Login
items appears.
You can remove programs by selecting
them and clicking the minus sign, or
add new ones by clicking the Add (+)
button and navigating to the desired
application. If you check the Hide box
next to the program name, the
application will open automatically, but
wonʼt be displayed onscreen until you
select it in the Dock or via the
Command-Tab key command (which
cycles you between all open
applications).
Login Items donʼt have to be
applications. You can also choose to
automatically open individual
documents, folders, or disks.
As you might expect, adding Login
Items increases your startup time.
Also, note that only a user designated
as the computerʼs Admin can modify
Login Items.
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 5 - OP IN ION
Microsoft Doesn't Get It
Fortune Stands Alone
by Dan Knight
Only one of these articles bothers to
It's amazing how short our memory show a growth chart that includes both
February 2008 and February 2009.
can be.
Kudos to Fortune for sharing a graph
According to many headlines, Mac (right) covering Mac sales from
January 2008 through projected March
sales were down 16% in February.
•
Mac sales bottomed out in 2009 sales!
February, says analyst
•
Down 16% in February 2009: Looking at this data, it's obvious that
Apple had an incredible year in 2008
Apple Mac Sales
•
NPD: Mac sales fell 16 percent with year-over-year sales up 60% in
February, over 70% in March, roughly
in February
•
Windows Slaughters The Mac 50% in April and May, and still over
40% in June and July. In fact, there
In February Sales
was only a single month in 2008 during
What they fail to remember are the which sales did not increase over 2007
headlines about the February 2008 - November.
Mac sales that they are comparing this
"16% drop" to. In case you've In January 2009, Mac sales were down
forgotten, here are some of last year's by about 8%, while sales had been up
about 12% a year earlier, so there was
headlines:
•
Report: Mac sales up 60% in still a net gain over 2007 sales figures.
But that doesn't make for attention
February
•
Mac Sales Jump 60 Percent in getting headlines - January 2009 Mac
Sales Ahead of January 2007 Figures.
February, Analyst Says
•
Apple sales soar to capture
Raising the Bar
14% of US PC retail sales
•
Do rising Mac sales spell the
Apple raised the bar with phenomenal
end for the PC?
year-over-year sales growth figures
Those basic math skills you learned in higher than 40% from February
grade school can be applied here. If through July 2008. That kind of growth
February 2008 Mac sales were up 60% would be difficult to duplicate under the
over February 2007 while February best of circumstances, and in light of
2009 sales were 16% lower than the current economic recession (when
February 2008, we find that February will we call it a depression?), it's
2009 sales were up 34-35% over remarkable that Apple, which doesn't
sell low-cost computers, is still selling
February 2007.
Macs at a brisk pace and still turning a
profit.
2007 sales x 1.6 x .84 = 1.344
Yet all the headlines about February
2009 sales trumpet doom and gloom
for Apple, and several also point to a
Windows resurgence. You can bet that
HP and Dell haven't seen 33% sales
growth over the past two years. Apple
has, yet the sensationalist headlines
would have you think Apple is
beleaguered yet again.
convinced that a $999 13.3" MacBook
could never meet her needs.
The interesting thing is that Microsoft's
attacks on the Mac and on Linux have
only legitimized these alternatives to
Windows.
If we're insignificant, why bother
trumpeting to the world that you
consider us a viable alternative?
Microsoft Doesn't Get It
Microsoft just doesn't get it, because
Microsoft has never sold personal
computers. From its perspective,
computer hardware is interchangeable
and just a platform for moving copies
of Windows. Microsoft sees every Mac
sold and every Linux computer sold as
a slap in the face. Hardware is
hardware, and a billion Windows users
can't be wrong.
Microsoft, as always, is shortsighted.
Mac users have historically been at
least as likely to buy Microsoft Office
as Windows users, and Microsoft has
never even attempted to sell Office to
Linux users. For years, Microsoft
Internet Explorer was the default
browser on the Mac, and it only
disappeared from the Mac platform
because Microsoft chose to let IE 5.2
atrophy and die in the face of Apple's
Safari browser - which is now taking on
Internet Explorer on its home field of
Windows. (Linux users have never had
IE as an option.)
If anything, Mac users are now more
likely than ever to run Windows on
their computers because of Apple's
2006 switch to Intel CPUs. And they're
not getting Windows at bulk prices like
HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, and the rest of the
PC world - they have to buy the retail
version or find a way to obtain an OEM
version that will still cost more than PC
Microsoft has chosen this as the right
time to attack Apple. First, Steve
Ballmer cries out that we're paying a
$500 premium to get the Apple logo on
our hardware. Then we have the
$1,000 laptop ad with Lauren, who isn't
"cool enough for a Mac" and buys a
c h e a p , l o w - s p e c i fi c a t i o n $ 6 9 9
Windows notebook because she's Continue on Page 8
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 6 - P R O D UC T R E VI E W S
Nehalem Mac Pro:
The Mac reborn
By Tom Yager
This isn't merely the ultimate Mac, but
an impossibly idealistic concept for a
fast, green, silent, rugged, expandable,
and affordable top-end workstation,
made real.
You can't
tell from
the outside
t h a t
Apple's
new twosocket,
eight-core
Mac Pro,
based on
Intel's new
Nehalem
X e o n
CPU, is much changed from the twosocket, quad-core Mac Pro that
preceded it. The only giveaway? One
front panel FireWire port has been
upped from 400Mbps to 800Mbps.
If Apple hewed to PC tradition, that
port, and the swapped-in Nehalem
guts, would be the headline changes to
the platform. Nehalem Mac Pro could
get my attention, and the attention of
the top echelon of Mac users, with that
alone. What completely blows me
away is that Nehalem Mac Pro is a
reengineering of the entire Mac Pro
platform, the 2006 edition of which set
a bar for build quality that nothing in its
price class can touch.
Apple used Nehalem as an occasion to
build the ideally fast and modern Mac,
but it didn't stop there. In the new Mac
Pro, Apple also created a computing
platform that satisfies a combination of
criteria that buyers only dream of
demanding: Toxin-free, recyclable,
quiet, low power, rugged,
t r a n s p o r t a b l e , fi e l d - r e p a i r a b l e ,
upgradable without tools, broadly
configurable, internally and externally In addition to the SATA hard drive
expandable, and the kicker, affordable. bays, there is a front-facing bay for a
second 5.25-inch, half-height optical
Nehalem certainly deserves its due. It d r i v e . I h a v e n o t t e s t e d t h i s
is thoroughly modernized with on-chip assumption, but I suppose you could
memory controllers, three-level cache, mount another SATA hard drive in
and a point-to-point bus design. The there using a standard mounting
1066MHz DDR3 RAM is the fastest bracket. That, by the way, is the only
memory yet made. Based on Apple's expansion operation that might require
numbers, it looks like Nehalem packs you to look at a cable, much less
50 to 90 percent more firepower into handle one. Connections between
the Mac Pro chassis compared to prior system logic boards are made via short
and current top configurations. The headers, none of which you need to
a r r i v a l o f I n t e l ' s w o r l d - c l a s s mess with. Getting rid of all that cable
architecture couldn't be more timely. helped Apple get the toxins out of Mac
Nehalem Mac Pro is a hand-in-glove fit Pro's recipe.
for the full 64-bit Snow Leopard (Mac
OS X 10.6) that will put Mac Pro on par The bit that took my breath away, not
w i t h t w o - p r o c e s s o r R I S C U n i x only for its elegance but for its
implications, is the processor tray. One
workstations.
lightweight tray holding the CPUs and
Like the Mac Pro before it, Nehalem RAM is the most easily removed
Mac Pro is loaded with I/O (In/Out module in this fully modular system.
p o r t s ) . T h i s f r o n t p a n e l h a s a With this arrangement, it takes Apple
headphone jack, along with two USB no time at all to custom-build a Mac
2.0 ports and two 800Mbps FireWire Pro to your specifications. It takes you
ports. There are three more USB 2.0 no time at all to reprovision (i.e., swap
ports, two more FireWire 800 ports, trays among machines according to
stereo line in and out, TOSLINK optical need) or effect repairs on-site without
digital audio in and out, and two gigabit moving machines or pulling cables.
Ethernet ports around back. One day,
these 800Mbps FireWire ports will be As I see it, the tray also allows Apple to
killer conduits to external storage, but track Intel's tick-tock architecture
cables and adapters for 400Mbps updates without subjecting the entire
system to another redesign, or
peripherals are available.
subjecting Mac Pro buyers to
Mac Pro has four internal, side-facing requirements for unique spare parts.
3.5-inch SATA drive bays. Empty bays Anything that Intel changes, even the
are filled with aluminum drive trays in size of the socket or the speed of the
which you can mount raw SATA drives. RAM, should be limited to the
Hard drives and PCI Express 2 processor tray.
expansion cards plug into Mac Pro the
same way, by being inserted into This is the sort of forward-looking,
backplane sockets. There are no loose longevity-focused engineering invested
hard drive cables in the system or in in very high end systems. If my take is
the drive trays, just SATA plug headers right, then the 2009 Nehalem Mac Pro
stuck right onto the logic board that hardware platform, once purchased, is
mate directly with the drives. Inserting one that should stay stable and
and removing drive trays requires no upgradable until, say, PCI Express 3
tools, and is so easy that you may, as I becomes an imperative.
do, treat these as removable storage.
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 7 - H IN T S & TI PS
7 handy Address Book tips
number, or send an SMS to the
number, right from the pop-up menu:
The Address Book is easy to use and, You can get a similar menu of options
at first glance, appears pretty basic. by clicking the field label to the left of
However, scratch the surface and it the field.
has all sorts of neat features to
improve your productivity. Here are just Finding a contact in Google Maps
7 ways to be more productive with
Address Book.
Do the same trick with an address
Smart Groups
You probably know that you can
organize your contacts into groups by
clicking the + button at the bottom of
the Group list to create a new group,
then dragging contacts into that group.
However, Address Book also lets you
create Smart Groups. These work
pretty much like Smart Playlists in
iTunes. Choose File > New Smart
Group, then specify your search
criteria in the dialog that appears:
The Smart Group automatically
updates its list of contacts whenever
you add, remove, or edit contacts in
Address Book. Select the Highlight the
group when updated checkbox, and
whenever a contact is automatically
added to or removed from the group,
Address Book highlights both group
and contact in purple.
(By the way, if you hold down Option
while a contact is selected in the
contacts list, Address Book highlights
the group(s) theyʼre in - including
regular groups as well as Smart
Groups - in yellow.)
Smart Groups are great for grouping all
the people who work at a certain
company, or who live in a certain town,
for example.
Dialling a contact
rummages through your contacts,
identifying cards with the same name.
You can choose to merge any identical
cards, and also whether to merge
cards with the same name but different
contact details (the contact details from
one card are added to the second and
the first card is deleted).
field, and youʼll get a ʻMap Ofʼ option. You can manually merge cards too.
Click to display the address in Google Shift/Command-click the cards to
Maps.
merge, then choose Card > Merge
Selected Cards. This is a safer
Displaying a phone number in large approach as no contact details are
type
overwritten (Look for Duplicates tends
to overwrite one cardʼs field with the
Again, right/Control-click a phone same field from the second card, which
number, or click the field name next to is a bit of a bug methinks - this is in
the phone number. Now choose Large Mac OS 10.5.6).
Type from the menu to display the
number in huge letters on the screen. Adding extra fields to a contact
Perfect if your phone happens to be on
the other side of the room!
At first I was surprised to find that there
was no “URL” field type in the cards,
Printing
and no obvious way to add one. In fact
there are lots more fields you can add
Ever tried printing from Address Book? to a card, including URL, birthday,
Not only can you print a list of names anniversary (or other date), maiden
and addresses, but you can print name, and so on. You just have to
address labels, envelopes, and even a know how to add them!
handy tabbed pocket address book
thatʼs great for those times when you To add a field type, choose Card > Add
donʼt want to, or canʼt, take your Field, then choose a field to add from
iPhone or PDA with you. Just select the submenu. Some fields (such as
the contact(s) you want to print, then Middle Name and Birthday) are unique
choose File > Print and pick an option - you can only have one field per card.
from the Style menu inside the Print Others - like URL or Dates - let you
dialog.
add multiple fields of that type, so you
can have two URLs (homepage and
Removing duplicate contacts
work, for example).
If youʼre as disorganized as me then
you might often end up with more than
one card for the same person (often
with different phone numbers and
email addresses in each card). If you
have hundreds of contacts then finding
and merging these duplicates manually
can be a pain.
On a related note: You can customise
the default fields that appear in a
newly-created card by choosing Card >
Add Field > Edit Template.
Right- or Control-click a phone number
in Address Book and, if you have IP-to- An easier way is to choose Card >
phone software installed such as Look for Duplicates. This automatically
Skype or Gizmo, you can dial the
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 8 - C OM M E NTS
Operating systems
donʼt matter!
by Michael Gartenberg
Yep, itʼs true. Despite all the calls I get
about Windows Mobile, Android, S60,
Vista, Leopard, Linux etc… , the truth
is, operating systems donʼt matter.
Well, thatʼs not true. They matter to
me, they matter a lot to the folks who
sell them and they matter to
developers but as far as consumers
go, operating systems donʼt matter to
them at all (even though they think
they do).
So what does matter? Applications, of
course (and thatʼs why developers care
about the OS). Iʼve bought a lot of PCs
in my day. I didnʼt buy a PC because of
DOS, I bought it to play Starflight,
SkyFox, Zork and run WordPerfect and
DBase. I didnʼt get Macintosh to use
Mac OS, I cared about MacWrite and
MacPaint. Thereʼs a reason we call
operating systems platforms, thatʼs
because they allow developers to build
cool stuff that we can all use. No cool
stuff… no market share. Period.
its software is worth anything in the enter those markets any time it
face of free competition.
chooses to, and if it ever does, it will do
so in its own way - excellent hardware,
Apple Gets It
excellent software, and excellent
profits.
I won't debate the simple fact that you
can always find a Windows computer Apple knows that Macs are worth more
that's cheaper than a Mac. Nor will I than Windows PCs. So do those of us
debate that these low-end Windows w h o u s e M a c s . We h a v e l o n g
PCs often have less RAM, less memories, and we'll never forget how
powerful CPUs, and less adequate good the Mac experience is.
graphics processors than the least
•••••
expensive Macs. PC makers are
hardware vendors, and they make
money by offering build-to-order
options such as more RAM, a faster
and/or better CPU, and a more
powerful graphics engine.
I won't debate that Apple notebooks
tend to have much better battery life
and higher resolution screens (at the
same size in inches) than do cheaper
Windows notebooks. Nor will I debate
that Macs tend to look better and be
better built, or that spec-for-spec
Windows machines will almost always
cost less.
I won't debate the value of Apple's
hardware, operating system, free
The head of Black and Decker once software, bundled apps, and the Macsaid, folks donʼt buy our products only software that we Mac users have
because they want one inch drills, they access to.
buy our stuff because they want one
inch holes. Itʼs all about the apps and What I will state for the record is that
thatʼs why the mobile OS platform is Apple understands the value of its
s h a p i n g u p t o b e c o m e a r e a l product. While the PC world dukes it
out for the lowest price or the best
battleground.
gaming performance among a host of
•••••
hardware vendors, Apple is
Microsoft, cont.
consistently making a money selling
makers pay Microsoft for a copy of
Macs at a profit.
Windows.
Macs are a profit center for Microsoft,
yet the company treats us as the
enemy. Linux could be a profit center
for Microsoft, yet it wants nothing to do
with that open source operating system
and its wealth of open source software.
Microsoft doesn't seem to believe that
Happy
Holidays
to
one
and all!
Apple has nothing to fear from
Windows, from netbooks, from Tablet
PCs, or from traditional desktop PCs.
As much as many of us would love to
see Apple produce a netbook, a tablet,
and an affordable, expandable desktop
Mac, Apple does not need to do so to
survive, profit, and thrive. Apple can
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service
VOLUME 19, NUMBER 4
April 2009
PAGE 9 - ON E MOR E THI NG. . .
Fonts, cont.
Although Tiger showed considerable
support for OpenType fonts, Leopard
Because TrueType was envisioned as goes much further and also includes
an alternative to Postscript, a number support for Arabic script OpenType
of TrueType fonts were created in fonts.
character-width compatible sets for
popular Type 1 fonts like Helvetica, OpenType fonts are .otf files in OS X.
Times Roman, and Courier. The
familiar TrueType fonts that correspond Suitcase Files
to the venerable Postscript fonts are
Arial, Times New Roman and Courier In the old days of System 7, suitcase
New. One particularly frustrating files held both screen and printer
aspect of font management is figuring variants for TrueType fonts. The name
o u t w h i c h f o n t s a r e s i m p l y still survives in OS X as a file type, but
replacements for the same typeface in the implementation of font files in OS X
a different format so that you can has completely changed.
standardize your designers on the
same font.
System Fonts
The Mac TrueType fonts have the type
FFIL while Windows TrueType fonts
appear as .ttf files. Leopard is moving
towards the Windows format .ttf files as
the standard (as is everyone else).
Dfont files are a special case of
TrueType where the font data has
been moved in the data fork to support
some of OS Xʼs unix underpinnings.
These are only used for system fonts
and you should never need to mess
around with them. (Emphasis added)
OpenType
OpenType was announced in 1996,
but became available around
2000-2001. This technology was jointly
developed by Microsoft and Adobe to
add additional capabilities to fonts and
resolve the lingering conflicts of
managing both screen and printer
fonts. In particular, OpenType supports
unicode character sets and nonRoman scripts like Arabic, though word
processing or page layout software has
to be written to expose those features
to the user. At this time, Adobeʼs entire
library of fonts have been converted to
OpenType and every other major font
foundry releases their work in
OpenType as well.
Mac OS X requires several fonts in
order to display the menu bar and
other UI elements. Because of this, OS
X will often not boot at all if fonts are
missing. Because fonts are loaded at a
low-level in the operating system,
problems with fonts can cause system
crashes or performance problems.
Leopard introduced the new concept of
protected system fonts that will be
replaced automatically if they are
removed from the system font library to
prevent such problems. If you remove
some fonts and see them magically
reappear, OS X may be helping you
out by replacing the system fonts it
needs.
because they were better than the
system fonts, but now the Leopard
system fonts have surpassed the
Microsoft fonts. Office 2004 and Office
2008 install fonts into different
locations, so be aware of that as you
try to clean up your fonts on your
system.
Adobe Creative Suite Fonts
Adobe Creative Suite installs a large
number of fonts in Mac OS X. CS3 and
later put these fonts in the system
library, but CS2 and the original CS
placed them in an Adobe directory. If
you are using Creative Suite, then you
certainly want a large font collection,
but you will end up with duplicates
between Apple-provided system fonts
and Adobe fonts. One of the most
common font problems I see is a
designer that has multiple versions of
Helvetica installed that eventually
conflict with each or simply cause
confusion when choosing the right font
for a project.
•••••
Thanks for taking the time to read this
month's newsletter.
Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any
comments or suggestions for stories
(or would even like to write a story ~
hint, hint, hint), please send them to
me at: [email protected]
Microsoft Word Fonts
Feel free to share this newsletter with a
friend. The newsletter archives are
Microsoft Office for Mac, partly located at: http://
because of Microsoftʼs history of www.machelpdesk.com/page6a.html
developing font technologies for
Y'all come back now, y'hear.
Windows and partly to make Office
documents more portable between
Windows and Mac versions, includes a
number of fonts in a standard install on
the Mac. Some of these fonts are
duplicates of fonts included with OS X
and some are required by Office to
render the toolbars and other interface
elements of Office applications. These
fonts were originally welcomed
Mac Help Desk, Inc • Support, Sales, Training, & Service