October 2009

October 2009 Mause DoubleClick
Martin Luther
2009 MaUsE Executive
• Grand Wazoo: Michael Shaw
[email protected]
• Vice President: Aaron Vegh
[email protected]
• Apple Liaison: Bruce Cameron
[email protected]
• Treasurer: Stan Wild
[email protected]
• Logistics: Chris Greaves
[email protected]
• Publicity Director: Jim Danabie
• Photographer: Irma Shaw
• DoubleClick Editor:
Michael Shaw
[email protected]
• Secretary: Jeff Hurd
• Director: Guy Lafontaine
• Director: Marcel Dufresne
MaUsE Contact Information:
The MaUsE
c/o Stan Wild
58 Rothean Drive
Whitby, Ontario, Canada
L1P 1L5
From The Editor
What you are looking at is the October 2009 edition of
the MaUsE DoubleClick, the online publication of the
Macintosh Users East, (MaUsE), a motley collection of
mostly harmless cranks who reside in Southern Ontario
with their motley collection of old and new Macintosh,
Hackentosh & MacClone computers.
The DoubleClick is published using a 2.8 GHz Aluminum
iMac and QuarkXPress 8. An antique Kodak DX7590 is
used for all pictures. Everything not specifically attributed
to someone else can probably be blamed on the Editor.
Back issues can be downloaded from the MaUsE website: < www.mause.ca >. Submissions from MaUsE Club
members are almost always welcome.
On Halloween of 1517, Martin Luther
changed the course of human history when
he nailed his 95 Theses to the church door
at Wittenberg, accusing the Roman Catholic
church of heresy upon heresy.
Many people cite this act as the primary
starting point of the Protestant Reformation,
though, to be sure, John Wycliffe, John Hus,
Thomas Linacre, John Colet, and others had
already put the life’s work and even their
lives on the line for the same cause of truth,
constructing the foundation of Reform upon
which Luther now built. Luther's action was
in great part a response to the selling of indulgences by Johann Tetzel, a Dominican
priest. Luther's charges also directly challenged the position of the clergy in regard to
individual salvation. Before long, Luther’s 95
Theses of Contention had been copied and
published all over Europe.
Send your submissions and articles to me at
< [email protected] >, especially if there are files or
pictures attached. I have never refused a submission yet.
Because we care about the environment, the MaUsE
DoubleClick is created using only recycled electrons:
matter was neither created nor destroyed in the process
of creating this issue. There are no infractions of the law
of matter conservation. There is always room for another
piece on any Mac-related topic and Iʼll make room if there
isnʼt. I would like your submissions. But I wonʼt beg.
Apple, Macintosh, and the Apple logo are trademarks of
Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other
countries. The MaUsE (Macintosh Users East) is an independent Mac user group and has not been authorized,
sponsored, or otherwise approved of by Apple Computer,
Inc. Its very much like they don’t even know we exist.
Michael Shaw, Editor
w w w. m a u s e . c a
MaUsE Meetings are held in Room 1 at the new Whitby Public Library
on the south-east corner of Henry and Dundas West in Whitby, Ontario.
Meetings start at 7:00 PM but there is an early session from 6:30 for people who wish to discuss hardware or software issues or problems. Macintosh virus problem discussion from 6:58 to 7:00 PM as and if required.
Meetings are open to the public and admission is free. Raffle tickets at
MaUsE events are free but the free raffle tickets for Macintosh hardware
or software will only be given to paid-up MaUsE Members. Please remember to bring your Membership card to every meeting.
Ma c i n to s h U se rs Ea st
2 0 0 9 An n u a l Ge n e r a l M e e ti n g
7 .0 0 p .m ., We d n e sd a y N o ve m b e r 2 5 th
M e e ti n g R o o m On e , Wh i tb y Pu b l i c L i b r a r y
In accordance with the bylaws of Macintosh Users East, the 2009 Annual Meeting of the club will commence in meeting room one at
the main branch of Whitby Public Library at 7.00 p.m. on Wednesday November 25th immediately prior to the regular meeting.
The annual meeting of the club is a relatively informal affair at which the business of the club is reviewed and the Treasurer reports on
the club’s finances and membership strength. The election of 4 directors to replace or re-elect those who have completed their two
year term of office is conducted and any new business that may affect the club is dealt with.
A word about the election of directors: The club has seven elected directors who each serve for a period of two years. In order to provide continuity in the club’s management, three directors are elected in odd number years and four directors are elected in even numbered years. Thus, this year, we shall be electing or re-electing three directors.
The directors who will be completing their current term of office on November 23th are Aaron Vegh, Jeff Hurd, and Chris Greaves.
The directors of Macintosh Users East cordially invite any club member in good standing to volunteer to have their name put forward
as a nominee for the position of a Macintosh Users East director. The rules are simple; nominees must agree, if elected, to serve for a
two year period and, during that period, attend meetings of the club’s executive committee in order to participate in the governance of
the club.
If you would like to be a nominee for a director of Macintosh Users East, please notify either the President, the Vice President, the
Secretary or the Treasurer in writing of your offer to serve; your offer may be handed to one of the four officers named above at a regular meeting of the club, or e-mailed to me, Jeff Hurd the club’s secretary at: < [email protected] >
Nominations must be submitted no later than November 18th, 2009.
Th a n k y o u fo r yo u r p a rti ci p a ti o n i n th e co n ti n u e d s u cc e ss o f yo u r cl u b .
Si g n e d ,
Je ff H u r d
Se cr e ta r y, M a c i n to sh U s e r s Ea st.
Of Interest To All Mause Members
Who Use the Internet
We need your help -- we need you to use your voice and state your opinion on a recent
CRTC decision that could allow the incumbent phone companies (such as Bell and Telus) to
discontinue offering services (Internet and phone) to wholesale providers which in
effect would completely eliminate competition in Canada.
With no competition to help fuel the market; Internet innovation could come to a stand-still and prices for broadband
access could skyrocket out of control. The incumbents would also be free to do with the lines as they please. This
would open up future privacy invading Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies and direct marketing/advertising
based on *you* and *your family’s* internet activities and habits.
They could also use this same technology to turn the Internet into a pay-per-website service in the same way that TV
is a pay-per-channel service. Can you imagine a world where you have to pay to use the Google website to search for
information and then, if you find what you are looking for you may be restricted to the content because your ISP
doesn't have a "peering" agreement with said company.
Please help stop this major potential catastrophe.
All concerned consumers please visit:
http://www.competitivebroadband.com/consumer/
All concerned businesses please visit:
http://www.competitivebroadband.com
Read the information presented and decide for yourself.
Once you've decided what you think is right, you can click the "Make a Difference" link, fill
out the form with your details and send a pre-written message to Minister of Industry Tony
Clement, Prime Minister Harper, the Opposition Leader, and your local MP or choose to
write your own. Together we can make a difference.
The CRTC is supposed to protect Canadian consumers from
unscrupulous business practices...
Having Fun With WordArt
By Cyrus Roton
WordArt is a text-styling feature that is available in the Microsoft Office suite of products. It allows users to create stylized text with various "special effects" such as textures, outlines, and many other
manipulations that are not available through the standard font formatting. For example, one can create shadows, rotate, "bend" and
"stretch" the shape of the text. It is also available in Microsoft Excel,
Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Publisher. WordArt is available in
25 different types on Microsoft Word. Similar capabilities exist in other
programs. Apple's Pages.app, and NeoOffice have an equivalent feature In NeoOffice it is called FontWork.
Select the WordArt style you like best, and then click OK. Type a title
or short phrase to replace the sample bullet. Feel free to select the
font you like best, and then click OK. Your WordArt will now appear on
your document where your insertion point was placed.
To apply a picture background to the WordArt, click the WordArt to select it (selection boxes appear around the edges). Then click the Format WordArt button on the WordArt toolbar (the button looks like a
paint bucket and paintbrush). Note: If the WordArt toolbar is not visible, on the View menu, click Toolbars and then WordArt.
Click the Select Picture button, and choose the picture you would like
to use. (Note that the picture must be on a disk already in order for
you to use it.) Click the Insert button, then click OK twice to see the
picture applied to your WordArt.
Resize the WordArt by dragging from one of the resizing boxes
around the edges of the WordArt. TIP: To keep the WordArt
in the correct proportion, drag from a corner box.
Finally, if you would like to drag the WordArt anywhere on
your page, first make sure the WordArt is selected. Then
click the Text Wrapping button on the WordArt toolbar, and
select a type of wrapping. Experiment with the text-wrapping
options. For example, try Top and Bottom if you want the
WordArt to appear on a line of its own (the other text will
wrap above or below the WordArt). Try Tight if you want text
to wrap close to the WordArt, around all sides.
Edit a WordArt Object
When you select the WordArt object, the WordArt toolbar is
displayed. You can also point to Toolbars on the View menu,
and then click WordArt to open the WordArt toolbar. To edit a
WordArt object, select the WordArt object, and then use any
one of the following methods:
•
Edit Text: To edit the text, change the text font or size, or
apply bold or italic formatting, click Edit Text on the WordArt
toolbar to open the Edit WordArt Text dialog box.
•
WordArt Gallery: To select a different text style, click
WordArt Gallery on the WordArt toolbar to open the WordArt
Gallery dialog box.
• Format WordArt: To apply additional features to the WordArt object, click Format WordArt on the WordArt toolbar to open the Format WordArt dialog box.
• WordArt Shape: To select a different text pattern, click Word Art
Shape on the WordArt toolbar, and then click the shape that you
want to use.
• WordArt with Letters of the Same Height: To switch between text
with the letters of the same height and text in which the first letter of
each word is higher than the following letters, click WordArt Same
Letter Heights on the WordArt toolbar.
•
Rotate WordArt Text: Click the Free Rotate tool on the WordArt toolbar, and use the mouse to drag the corners of the Word Art
object to any desired angle.
• WordArt Alignment: To select a text alignment style, click WordArt
Alignment on the WordArt toolbar.
WordArt Character Spacing: To select a character spacing style,
click WordArt Character Spacing on the WordArt toolbar.
Article Submitted by Cyrus Roton
There are a lot of programs in your computer that can be updated
from the “Software Update...” button from the Apple menu. Other
programs can be set to automatically check for updates either
every time they launch or at a set time interval. For the rest of
them it is a good idea to check manually every once in a while.
Don’t wait to check for updates to your applications until you update your operating system. The program updates are designed to
make your programs run better or more safely on your computer.
They usually address corrections for specific problems or introduce new features or improved stability. Don’t ignore updates just
because there is no perceived problem. Always try to run the latest
version of any program you use a lot.
Script Software
iClock Pro
In the past, my search for better control of sounds
for my iMac led me to discover iClock. It has been
three years since I first installed iClock and I still use
it every day. Mac OS X limits us to about 12 built-in
sounds, none of which can be used to chime the
hour. The Date and Time program found in the Mac
OS X System Preferences allows the computer to
announce the time and we can choose the voice. I
wanted more control than that and iClock gives me
that freedom.
iClock can be downloaded from scriptsoftware.com
which is the creator of this software. There are versions that will run on System 10.3.9 and on up.
iClock Pro is for Leopard and Snow Leopard. Once
downloaded, open up the file and run the iClock installer. It will only install 2 files: 1 system control
panel and 1 library file. You will then get a request to
restart your computer. When you restart, iClock
should be running. Click the date/time that is present
in the menu bar and a drop down menu will allow
you to open up iClock to access its preference window. Doing this will automatically turn off the Apple
Menubar Clock which is no longer needed. You now
have a menu clock which is much more powerful
and also customizable. The preference window has
check boxes for Time, Date, and Applications. When
these are checked your menu bar will have all of these available with
a simple click at the top of your screen. The preference window allows
you to completely customize how iClock will best work for you. Clicking on the menu bar option allows you to show the time in the menu
bar with whatever colour, font and size you want. Time is also customizable with numerous options. The date has the same flexibility.
As I first stated, my main purpose was to access the chime for my
computer clock. So I clicked on the Chimes option under the Time
menu found in the preference window and was presented with a myriad of choices. I could have the computer speak the hour (the same
as I had without iClock). I could also have the computer play a sound
for the hour as well as 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 time. What blew me away was
the choices I had for the sound. Somehow iClock had delved into my
computer and pulled out not only the built-in sounds, but any sound
that any program on my computer had installed. I had over 40
choices, including any I had made myself. There are many good
sounds that you can find for free on the Internet. Not only that, but I
could choose what volume the sound would play at and I could designate a quiet time whereupon the chime would not play. I chose 11:30
PM to 6:30 AM as my quiet time so that even if my MAC was running
all night, I would not be woken up by it.
I now had exactly what I was looking for: complete control of the clock
and chimes. But the story does not end here. I think of iClock as a
Swiss army knife because it can do so much more than just tweak the
time in the menu bar. I had access to much more than simply the
clock. iClock has a calculator built in with access through the menu
bar or a hot key. It is transparent to the programs and windows on the
screen. There is an alarm clock and a stop watch that would allow me
to time my game playing. There is a stock portfolio window that easily
allows the addition or removal of stocks and keeps you up to date
with the Stock Market. There is a "to do" list which my wife has access to. This list is linked to iCal and my Mail application so that the
three synchronize any to-do I add to any one of them. All that I have
mentioned is available either from the menu bar or through hot keys
that you can set up.
I downloaded the following list of functions from scriptsoftware to give
you an idea of what is available.
iClock does all this:
•
Gives you a bird's eye view of different time zones.
•
Customizes the Time and date display in the menubar in hundreds of ways.
•
Shows the phase of the Moon for that day in the menu bar.
•
Changes the colours separately for the Time and Date display in the menubar.
•
Gives you a time zone calculator that finds the best time to connect with the people in as
many time zones as you want
•
Gives an easily accessible, at a glance, system menu view of times/dates in as many
parts of the world as you want.
•
Adds the people/companies you work with directly from the address book.
•
Gives the dial codes for countries around the world.
•
A choice of a 12 or 24 hour time.
•
Shows your IP address.
•
Timers that can count up or down.
•
Custom alarms that are so easily accessible you will use them.
•
Use the calendar to show birthdays from Apple's Address Book and links to iCalendar.
•
The calendar can float on top or below other windows and its transparency can be set.
•
Application menu that allows switching to any running program.
•
iClock can help you track your Stock Portfolio, Option-Click on iClock menu bar to set and
view your stocks.
•
Calculator with history and auto hide.
•
To do list
iClock will replace the antiquated/limited Mac menubar clock. iClock is a centrally
located time hub that controls many time related functions. You can see the time and
date simultaneously in any format or colour. Click to see a drop down menu of the current
time/date in any city in the world or option click to see your updated portfolio of stocks.
Use the lightning quick calendar, stop watch, calculator and timers (that can be set with
one click). Never miss another appointment. Jot down notes in the new iClock To Do list.
You can download a trial version and try it out. The shareware fee is $20 for full
access (the same as it was three years ago). From what I can tell, this is the same great
program it was when I first got it but now it has been upgraded with some useful suggestions. Go to scriptsoftware.com and see what others have to write about this fabulous
program. Even if you don't want to tweak your clock, iClock will have something that you
will use.
Article Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
A Quick Look At:
Alien Skin Photo Bundle
I have fortunately just received a copy of Alien Skin’s Photo Bundle
at the last Mause club meeting. I must express my deepest appreciation and offer the biggest “thank you” imaginable in response to the
generosity of the people at Alien Skin for creating this software and
donating a copy of it to our Mause club to be used as a raffle prize.
The Photo Bundle gives you all five of the best award-winning Alien
Skin plug-ins for Photoshop & Photoshop Elements. The five programs are: Blow Up 2, Bokeh, Exposure 2, Image Doctor 2, and
Snap Art 2. Each of these products enhances a professional workflow by improving image quality, saving time, and providing creative
freedom. In combination, these products are even more effective.
With the help of the Alien Skin tutorials I have managed to get some
skill on how to use this software. So far I have used two of there products, and this is what I have discovered about using then so far: By
using Bokeh you can effect changes to the depth of field of your photograph. Depth of field is the amount of subject matter that is sharp.
With a shallow depth of field the objects in the background are blurry
so as not to distract your attention from the main subject. Photographers use to control this manually by selecting the size of the lens
opening that they used. Today's auto camera''s are programmed to
give you maximum depth of field, even if you don't necessarily want it.
If you never heard about these programs, here is a brief explanation
and some examples of what they do.
Bokeh
Finally, you can manipulate focus in your digital images just like fast
expensive lenses with Bokeh. Bokeh can draw attention to your
subject by manipulating focus and depth of field after the shot
has been taken. From changing the depth of field to placing a radial
sweet spot and adding a vignette, Bokeh provides many techniques
for realistic blurring and altering the mood of a scene. Bokeh is the
only software that accurately simulates the distinctive blurring and
creamy highlights of real lenses. Terence Tay, Bokeh’s designer, performed careful experiments with lenses famous for their bokeh highlights, such as the Canon® EF 85mm f/1.2 II and the Micro-Nikkor
105mm f/2.8. The result is a photo-realistic look, in contrast to the unnatural blur you often get when trying to create this effect using other
software.
Below a left is an example of a shot of a parrot which has a very busy
background which detracts from the bird. By using Alien Skin Bokeh I
was able to manipulate the shot to show just the parrot on his perch,
which is what I really wanted in the picture.
Image Doctor 2
Everyone loves the perfect photo, unfortunately we don't always get
the perfect shot that we want. Background distractions, and facial
blemishes can detract from what you intended to do. This is where
Image Doctor 2 comes in handy. Now let me get one thing said right
from the start, it will not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. But it
can be very helpful in fixing some common problems that you are
likely to run in to.
pensable. Here are some of the things that you can do. Image Doctor
renders seamless removals of unsightly blemishes and objects. It enables photo editors to de-clutter bad photographic compositions with
just a few clicks of a mouse. Photo hobbyists can restore and repurpose badly compressed JPEGs, including cell phone photos. Portrait
photographers can use Image Doctor as digital makeup, removing
pimples, moles, scars, and tattoos in one click. Photographers can
then soften skin areas where these blemishes were or fix oily patches
of skin. Hobbyists and professionals can use Image Doctor to restore
old photos by removing dust and scratches.
In the example above I used a photo of the Grandmother, who's age I
am not allowed to mention. I noticed a slight blemish on her face. This
was when I turned to Image Doctor 2 for help to create the picture at
right. You may also notice that compared to the first photo, one of the
first things I did was use Bokeh to remove the bright window behind
her head into a non-distracting background. Then, by using Image
Doctor 2, I softened the facial distractions that do not flatter this subject.
Article Submitted by Kevin Livesey
This can be extremely useful when dealing with any shot that isn't
perfect. Here is a brief synopsis of what Image Doctor 2 can do for
you:
Image Doctor’s unique software algorithms can save what would be
the perfect photo from the trash bin while saving you hour upon hour
of Photoshopping work trying to fix it. Anyone who needs to remove or
replace unwanted photographic details will find Image Doctor indis-
VideoMonkey
With the discontinuation of VisualHub,
one of the most popular video conversion
apps for OS X, someone had to release
an app to fill the void. That app might be
VideoMonkey, which builds on VisualHub's source code
and concept to convert videos to and from a number of
popular formats. VideoMonkey actually improves on VisualHub in some ways, especially because it's a native Cocoa
app, where VisualHub was built around AppleScript.
VideoMonkey uses the FFMpeg encoder for most of its
work, but it also has the ability to combine with other tools
and automatically figure out how to convert even some
weird filetypes. For example, if you edit a WMV with Quicktime Pro and save it, VideoMonkey understands how to
separate the audio and video and recombine them in a new
format of your choice. This all goes on behind the scenes:
for the user, it's a 1-click process. If you loved VisualHub,
and you're looking for a replacement, VideoMonkey is all
that and more.
Alien Skin Blow Up 2 Updated
This just in from Alien Skin: Blow Up
2, the photo resizing plug-in for
Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Elements has been updated ! The update is a free download for all users
of Blow Up v2.0 or later. Simply installing the latest demo of Blow Up
from the Alien Skin Software Web
site will upgrade an existing installation of Blow Up 2 to version 2.0.3, regardless of whether the original
installation is in retail or demo mode.
Blow Up 2.0.3 comes with two Photoshop CS4 panels that are accessed in the Window->Extensions
menu. These panels can be moved
and docked just like Photoshop’s
built-in panels, such as the Layers palette. • The first of these is the Startup Panel which makes common output
sizes and paper types available with a single click. The Startup Panel
can also start Blow Up’s full interface with a single click rather than navigating into Photoshop’s menus.
• The other new Photoshop CS4 panel installed with Blow Up 2.0.3 is the
Gallery Wrap Panel. This panel prepares images for printing on canvas
that is stretched around the outside of a wood frame. This popular
mounting technique requires extending an image to cover the sides of the
frame, which can be a confusing and tedious process. The Gallery Wrap
Panel provides full control over this process while taking care of all the
technical details.
Alien Skin Software makes Photoshop plug-ins for photographers and
graphic designers. For
more information, visit the
Alien Skin website at:
www.alienskin.com.
Find And Replace Formatting Characters
By Cyrus Roton
The use of the Find And Replace feature of most word processors is
simple enough when you are replacing normal text characters. But,
there are invisible characters hidden in the document to specify some
of the formatting. The ones most often appearing
are carrage return, line feed, space and tab. The
easy way to replace one of those is by delete
and re-type. But, that can be time consuming if
there are many instances of such characters you
want to replace. To make bulk changes, you
could use Find And Replace. But, first, it would
really help you decide just what to find and to replace if you could see those invisible characters.
In the Formatting Bar of MS Word, there is an icon, [ ], which you can
click to view or to hide invisible characters. There is an equivalent
icon in the Button Bar of AppleWorks. Probably, other word processors offer the same feature. So, now you can see those formatting
characters. The following is an example of some text I wanted to edit:
First, I "found" all instances of (double returns followed by two
spaces) and "replaced" each one with (double returns only). That removed the two spaces at the first line of each paragraph. Then, I
"found" all instances of (a single return followed by two spaces) and
replaced each one with (a single space). The results of those operations follows:
There are frequent ocassions when I use such tricks to reformat
pages. If the example had not contained the double spaces at the beginning of each line, I would have first replaced [double returns] with
[double percent symbols]. I picked percent character because I knew
it was unlikely that there would be an instance of double percent in
the original text.
That would eliminate all double returns. Next I would replace all [single returns] with [single space]. That would turn
all paragraphs into real paragraphs instead of individual
lines. Then, I would replace all [double percent characters]
with [double returns]. That would restore the breaks between paragraphs. Works like a charm. Sometimes you
have to do a bit of planning to tailor the sequence to accomplish just what you want.
Notice the carriage returns at the end of each line. For some reason
the author wanted short lines and wanted to force the right margines
to be nearly even. But, I want a Return at the end of each paragraph,
not at the end of each line. Also notice the two spaces at the beginning of each line in the body of the text. Spaces are shown as dots in
the text, and I exagerated the sise and darkness of the dots. They
were smaller and faint on the original document. By the way, a tab
would look like this [-> ].
So, how can you specify an invisible character in the Find And
Replace dialog boxes? You can
not just type a return in the box
for Find. So, you have to use
some special character to represent the invisible characters.
From the Help files for AppleWorks and MS Word, I found
the following two tables (AppleWorks and Word) showing the
entries representing some of
the invisible characters.
Markzware Updates FlightCheck Pro
Flightcheck Professional v6.5
If you have ever had to take anything you have created on your computer to a professional printer to have it turned into a poster or other
public document, you already know how expensive professional printing can be and how nerve-wracking it is waiting for what you have
created to come back from the printers so you can see what lunacy
the idiots there have perpetrated upon it. Professional printers, like
machinists, are notorious for following instructions and the expensive
mistakes that ensue are almost never their fault. You can see how this
principle can cause incredibly expensive problems where there is a
staff of twenty or more people working on producing all of the articles
and advertisements for a full-colour publication like Vogue or Sports
Illustrated with dozens of pieces of artwork submitted from dozens of
different agencies, groups and concerns. In a complex layout that
has hundreds of images and dozens of fonts the chance of
something going wrong is phenomenally high unless some controlling force takes it upon itself to set down strict content creation rules and verify that all parts of the work conform to the
rules of the project as they are created.
Some few publishing programs (like QuarkXPress and InDesign)
have built-in pre-flight abilities to alert the creator if some aspect of a
project violates the presets for the project but it is still very possible
for errors to creep into a document that will prevent it from printing
correctly. If this happens the entire cost of reprinting and the time lost
can be ruinous. Missed deadlines are incredibly costly. In order to prevent these costly errors and delays all printable documents must go
through some kind of external “preflight” check to make sure that are
ready to “fly” correctly when they get to the printers.
There are two big news stories from Markzware this
month. The first story is that FlightCheck Professional for Macintosh has been updated to include
full support for the Adobe CS4 Creative Suite and
QuarkXPress 8. This powerful upgrade gives printers,
graphic designers and publishers the ability to preflight
more efficiently, avoiding costly production errors. And,
in light of today's economic challenges, Markzware has
reduced the price of this latest version of FlightCheck
Professional 6.5, by $100.00. (The second big story is
Markzware PageZephyr BETA, but we’ll talk about that
elsewhere in this issue).
Markzware is the company that specialises in creating state of the art
preflight software and FlightCheck Professional for Macintosh is
their chiefest tool for helping creative artists of all sorts verify that their
creations will not crash and burn during the printing process. Of
course there is more to publishing than just Quark and InDesign.
FlightCheck Pro is a all-purpose application that has powers and abilities that make it indispensable to every major creative artist. If you
use any of these programs listed below to create printable projects
then you can use Markzware FlightCheck Pro to improve your
chances of creating a better printing document every time:
• QuarkXPress
• Adobe PageMaker
• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe Illustrator
• Adobe FrameMaker
• Adobe InDesign
• Adobe Acrobat
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Publisher
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• FreeHand
• CorelDRAW
• PostScript Files
FlightCheck Pro is a stand-alone application which allows you to
quickly and easily establish your preferences (or Ground Controls)
which identify the deal breakers in your workflow. If anything in the
document appears to breaks the rules, FlightCheck Pro flags the
problem with a warning or an alert. It ensures that you are releasing
only problem-free print-ready files in the same way that Statistical
Process Control ensures quality products in manufacturing.
FlightCheck Pro is the ultimate whistle blower. It can open and
verify documents created by all of the programs listed above, whether
you have the applications on your computer or not. On the next few
pages I will show how just one of the eight categories of verification
can be set up. Since Images are present in all of my own Quark projects I will look at this area to show how FlightCheck Pro can be configured to check my pictures for me. For now I will ignore File,
Colours, Pages, Trapping, Page Setup, Fonts, and Print.
In order to make the program work, FlightCheck Pro must be configured so it knows what to recognise
as a problem. This is done in the
Ground Controls panels, (of which
there are 8, one for each of the 8 categories mentioned above). There are
a lot of potential problems that can
be caused by images so the Ground
Controls panel for Images is huge
and detailed - the other 7 panels not
so much. I have clicked on certain
features but they all work the same
way so we only need to look at one
feature to use it as an example. The
document I have used to demonstrate FlightCheck Pro is last month’s
DoubleClick. As you can see I have
turned on “Box Rotation” as something the program should flag as a
possible problem. Makes sense: for a
lot of publications you definitely want
to be told if one of your images is
tilted or positioned partially off the page. The severity of the problem
can be set at several levels of alert. With the choices I have turned on
for Images, FlightCheck Pro found that 93 of the images in last
month’s DoubleClick are flagged as potentially suspect for various
reasons. Yikes! The names and locations in the document of each
suspect image and what caused it to be picked out are indicated.
A few of the flagged rotated images appear in the
article about the laptop computer desks. I had to
spin a few images to make them fit in better with
the flowing text. This is not a problem but thanks
for mentioning it. In other circumstances it might be
a problem. When I checked the rest of the alarms I
found that all of those other red alert notices for
Pages 24 and 25 about pictures being rotated turned
out to be deliberate rotations as well. Remember the article about 15 Years of Macintosh Operating Systems in
last month’s issue ? I took some old System disks out of
my CD library and scanned them in order to get pictures for
that article. Then I created round picture boxes for the images and spun the pictures to place the System disks the way
I wanted them. Not a problem in this case but in other circumstances it might have been. When I run FlightCheck on this issue it
will alert me to the facts that the picture at right is both rotated and partially off the page. (This can add to processing time and alter the quality of the image !)
With the information that FlightCheck Pro has uncovered you might think that there is a
lot wrong with my document but actually I do have it under control. Most of the items
that have been flagged are Warnings and very few of them are Errors (I have set the
FlightCheck program to catch both). This issue will never be printed so it is OK.
Although I have only showed you one FlightCheck Ground Controls and only one
FlightCheck Results window, (the one for Images), please keep in mind that there
are potentially seven more of each type that could have been shown. The seven
green checks and one red X indicate that the document has passed without triggering alerts in seven out of eight categories that FlightCheck is set to report on.
Also keep in mind that list of the other applications I named that
FlightCheck Pro works with. In thius article I am only showing how I
can use FlightCheck to check one feature (the images) in one type of
document (QuarkXPress) but FlightCheck Pro can also be configured
to check your Adobe Photoshop images or your creative artwork. It
can even verify the printability of your .PDFs. Markzwareʼs
FlightCheck Professional is the recipient of many coveted industry
awards and accolades from GrafixWorld, Digital Imaging Association,
Electronic Publishing, Publish, Mac-User and MacWorld for having
made a major impact on industry production and profitability.
There are so many things to be aware of when you are creating a
printable project that has multiple elements in it. And with so many different types of fonts, formats for images, encodings, compressions,
different types of colour designations, various profiles, chanels and
paths, it is so very easy to lose track of what type of submitted files
you may be getting from other people and which ones will complicate
the processing of your own files when they are printed, or will prevent
them from being printed at all. Besides just plain ordinary mistakes,
like having two images with the same name or having Picts mixed in
with your JPEGs, you might find that there are complex issues that
have simple solutions that FlightCheck can suggest.
The FlightCheck Results window can be used to find out what is
wrong with your document and it will often suggest the best remedies.
Many of the problems it finds are background issues that only show
up during printing and are not possible to see with the naked eye. Pictures will look the same to you on your monitor if they are in thousands of colours or 26 million colours and pictures will look the same
to you on your monitor if they are at 72 dpi or 300 dpi but these details may be incredibly important when it comes to setting up your
document for printing.
With large printed projects, like catalogs, magazines, posters or highresolution photography there are so many little details that can rise up
and bite you on the ass (to coin a phrase) and you have three choices
to pick from when you send something big off to the printers:
• You can personally maintain rigid control of every aspect of the creative process and assiduously check and verify the attributes of every
single image, picture box, text box and font to ensure they will print.
• You can trust to luck and pray to whatever gods or goddesses you
have embraced.
• You can trust the people at Markzware who know more about preflighting digital documents than anyone else in the world, and let
FlightCheck Professional simplify your existance and save you hours
of work and expensive teeth marks on your ass.
The creators of the various documents that make up most monthly
publications do not have the option of undoing their costly mistakes
for free when they impact the printing process. Even one little picture
sideways or out of context can ruin the look of an entire page and
make an otherwise professional effort look like it was done by amateurs. Even one image or font missing, misnamed or corrupted and
your document may not print at all.
This software upgrade of FlightCheck Professional 6.5 for Macintosh
is available immediately. If you have FlightCheck 6, the upgrade is a
free download. You can upgrade to FlightCheck Professional from
v5.0 and higher for $99. FlightCheck Designer has been discontinued
but users may upgrade to FlightCheck Professional 6.5 for only $129.
The full version is available for $399.
Article Submitted by Michael Shaw
SteelSeries
I-2 Mouse Game Pad
It used to be that you didn't dare use a mouse without a mouse
pad. All the mice available were "ball mice" and they had a mind of
their own. They didn't roll well on some surfaces, they skipped, and
they picked up dust
and dirt and had to
be cleaned periodically. With the
new optical mice,
you can easily
use any solid
area without having the old
mouse ball refuse to turn because the
surface was too
slippery. Tracking is handled by an optical sensor, rather than an actual
rolling ball. Not only was this more precise,
but now surfaces you once decided you could never
mouse on were suddenly available. Some of the time, I don't even
use a mouse pad at all. Most of us have started taking the mouse pad
for granted and you might even say it will become obsolete. However,
the larger monitors do require the cursor to track across a larger and
larger surface. My newest machine is the 24 inch iMac. It is a pain in
the neck to have to pick up the mouse and reposition so that you can
go from one side of the screen to the other. There are some solutions
to this, such as increasing the speed of the mouse in the preference
panel.
Fortunately, I stumbled upon another solution. SteelSeries produces
state of the art mouse pads not made of the typical cloth and plastic
variety. They have a superior frosted glass surface that is perfect for
the new mice and the bigger computer screens.
The first thing that people do when they see the I-2 Mouse Pad is ooh
and ah over its look and size. This is not the usual response to a
mouse pad. The second thing they do is run their hands over its surface and ooh and ah some more. The I-2 has a stylish look that fits
right in with any Apple computer. Its size, 10 x 12 x 0.2 inches, lends
itself perfectly to the larger screens that Apple is putting out. You need
not pick up the mouse as often for repositioning. Then there is the
surface. It is hard to understand how such a smooth surface can still
have so much control over the mouse. But it does. Running your
hands over it explains the main purpose of this mouse pad. It is a superior surface built to improve gaming. I can't guarantee a higher
score on your next game, but your lack of performance won't be due
to the mouse speed. That lies entirely in your own hands.
The underside of the mat has six feet that hold it in place. The feet
grip my desk and it takes quite an effort to move it. My other mouse
pads, on the other hand, are always sliding around. They come in four
colours: white, black, blue and pink. I am quite happy with the white. It
also ships with five plastic pads that can be placed under your mouse
where the current pads are located. I was able to do this with my logitech mouse. The pads greatly increased the ease of sliding. There
is no place to put these pads on
the newer Apple mouse as the
whole bottom oval surface is in
contact. I have not found the
need to transfer the pads to
this other mouse. It slides
along the surface just fine.
The I-2 Mouse Game Pad can be purchased for about $40.00 USD.
Do an online search for it and you might find a better price. This cost
might seem a bit expensive for a peripheral like a mouse pad but I
would recommend it for any Apple computer because of its look and
feel and also because of the size of the surface. It is a good looking
addition to your computer system.
Pros:
•
•
•
•
•
Glass construction makes it sturdy and durable
Combined with Padsurfers, friction is nearly non-existent
Looks great
Large mousing surface (10 x 12 inches)
Amazing accuracy
Cons:
•
It is glass, and hence probably not safe for angry gamers
•
It is noisier than normal mouse pads
•
Pricey for a "mouse pad" ($40 at the time of this writing)
Article Submitted by Marcel Dufresne
September 23rd Mause Meeting
Big event: It was good to see everybody back again after the long
wet Summer. Special points of interest were Aaron attending via
video to tell us about Snow Leopard, iTunes 9 and the new iPods,
Guy running the meeting with much help and good cheer, Stan taking care of special circumstances, Mike showing the LapWorks solution to the issue of laptop desks and computers overheating, Chris,
with Stan & Althea demonstrating Green Screen techniques in
iMovie, and special Guest Speaker Floyd Coggins speaking about
Acclivity’s AccountEdge. Stan ran the Loyalty Draw and Mike ran the
Raffle. Irma took pictures. Our sincere thanks to Prosoft Engineering, Acclivity, Markzware, Alien Skin, and LapWorks, for donating the
swell Mause Raffle prizes.
NEW From Markzware !!
Markzware PageZephyr beta
There are two articles about Markzware software in this issue and I know that for many
of you neither of these articles will be very
exciting. But I assure you that for the desktop publishing industry that creates printable
documents for the world using Macintosh
computers, the events outlined in both of
these articles are of extreme
interest and importance. The
big news from last month’s
Print exposition in Chicago
is that Markzware has released a powerful content search engine
named PageZephyr beta.
You might wonder what you might need another “search engine” for,
and if PageZephyr were remotely like Google, Ask.com, Bing, Duck
Duck Go, or Yahoo Search that would be a valid question. Actually,
PageZephyr is nothing like any of them. What PageZephyr can do
that sets it apart from other search engines lies is its ability to search,
find, edit, and reuse, previously inaccessible content. That's because
the Markzware Common Reader Architecture built into PageZephyr
reads data from so-called proprietary file types. Internet search engines can only be used to search the web, butPageZephyr technology
takes searching a step further and allows you to examine and extract text from the most popular publishing native file formats,
such as QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign and soon Microsoft Publisher, PageMaker and other document types. Because of this,
PageZephyr will be especially valuable to businesses such as advertising, publishing and printing, manufacturing, finance, legal (e-discovery / e-forensics), information and governmental agencies.
In the past 25 years digital content has been created with traditional
desktop publishing applications and word processors, mostly destined
for print. Over time, older versions of the Desktop Publishing applications this content was created with fell out of favour or became incompatible with the newer versions or the latest Operating System. For
instance, all of the documents created with versions of software designed to run on Mac OS 7, Mac OS 8 and Mac OS9 are impossible
to access from the versions of the software that run on Windows Vista
and Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. Because of this, proprietary content contained within these files is underused or, as a worse case scenario,
not accessible at all - and therefore remains an undervalued asset. An
enormous amount of older digital content is at risk of being lost to the
present and future. The expense of transcribing, updating and reformatting all of this data to make it accessible on the internet has kept
much of this content permanently archived in progressively obscure
formats that will be even harder to break into as more time passes.
PageZephyr was created to reduce the time and expense required to
access this content.
As I indicated, there are two big news stories from
Markzware this month. This is the second one. At the
Print show in Chicago Markzware released PageZephyr
beta. It marks a radical departure from FlightCheck and
ID2Q, Q2ID, PUB2ID and the MarkzTools utilities that
Markzware is noted for. While FlightCheck searches for
style and formatting elements of a document,
PageZephyr is a content search engine. Both
PageZephyr and FlightCheck (the quality control product
widely used in the printing and publishing industries) use
Markzware's Common Reader Architecture (CRA), an
evolving high-performance architecture at the heart of
Markzware's current and future products.
PageZephyr can extract the data from these obsoleted "locked"
digital files. PageZephyr captures, indexes, and outputs content
created from proprietary or locked formats without the need for
the original authoring application. The release version of
PageZephyr beta is compatible with .indd (Adobe InDesign CS
through CS4), and .qxd (QuarkXPress versions 6 through 8). In
addition, PageZephyr's index extension capabilities can extend
indexing to both attached volumes and networked volumes, to
include "the enterprise." Output formats include: TEXT, HTML
and RTF. PageZephyr increases productivity while lowering costs by completely
eliminating expensive and time consuming labor intensive processes,
including rewriting the original content, creating searchable PDF files,
retyping paper documents by hand, scanning paper documents with
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and owning the original application that created the proprietary file. This last point is very important.
With PageZephyr it is possible to extract all of the text from any InDesign CS document, created with any version of the InDesign CS program, without paying the outrageously high price that Adobe charges
for InDesign. (Likewise PageZephyr will give
total access to the text portions of QuarkXPress documents without requiring that
QuarkXPress be installed). It is estimated
that there are more than five billion QuarkXPress documents created before 2006. One
would think there are at Ieast that many InDesign documents. PageZephyr can "recycle content" from InDesigI, Quark and other
proprietary document types, lowering costs. PageZephyr allows searching of content
through user-selected keywords and key
phrases and can search through many
types of documents such as books, tutorials,
white papers, technical publications, catalogs, brochures, magazines, advertisements, annual reports. Furthermore, content
searching may be performed in any language. PageZephyr Preferences allow the
user to select the type of documents to
search for (and index) and to predetermine
specific drives and folder locations to look
for them.
After selecting the story, its text will be displayed in a "story board," for
editing and output to an RTF or any other copy-paste TEXT file. Moreover, because of the "open" output formats, PageZephyr is able to
distribute content to multiple
channels of the media mix. The
content channels may include:
search engines, online content
authoring applications, social
media sites, web portals, data
sharing and collaboration tools
such as Microsoft Sharepoint
and GoogleDocs, mobile devices
like the iPhone or eBook readers
such as the Amazon Kindle, content management systems
(CMS), enterprise content management (ECM) systems, and
more. Built right into the PageZepyr application window there is a
PageZephyr button that gives instant access to the easiest way
to share content over the internet: the PageZephyr.com website. Registering on the website
and setting up a weblog takes
just a few minutes. Registered
users will be able to create an
"instant website," or "microblog"
by uploading content from their
own QuarkXPress and InDesign files. The portal is secure with administration capabilities, SEO (search engine optimization) enabled, as
well as RSS ready and Sociable ready for Twitter and Facebook. URL
Redirect is also include in case the name of the URL changes. For now PageZephyr only runs on Macintosh computers: versions for
Windows platforms to follow.
PageZephyr beta and the PageZephyr website differ greatly from
everything Markzware has done in the past and representIa radical
departure for Markzware. Over the past few years we have featured
various Markzware file conversion utilities and Markzware
FlightCheck software at our Mause meetings, in our Mause raffles,
and, in various articles like this one, in the Mause DoubleClick.
Article Submitted by Michael Shaw
Markzware, a privately-held company based in Santa Ana, California,
is the leading developer of quality assurance, data conversion and
workflow solutions for the international graphic arts, printing and digital multimedia industries.
PageZephyr BETA is very much a work in progress. Many of the
features (and even the export and Save control buttons) do not
work yet. This free PageZephyr BETA version has been released
to get user feedback and to better determine how best to support
the users. Markzware plans to release an enhanced commercial
version of PageZephyr in the near future. The commercial version
will include a word processor, allowing the user to edit text, kerning, leading, font selection, colors and to upload documents with
no limitations. Distribution to GoogleDocs, Wordpress, Scribd, and
other online document editing and collaboration sites will be supported. Request to MaUsE Members
As November approaches and we prepare for the 2009 MaUsE Executive elections, I must ask that those of you who have suggested
topics for presentations and joined in during our meeting discussions and shown an interest in helping organize our meetings
should consider officially joining the MaUsE Executive. We have an
opening for a nebulous Executive with undefined duties and vague
responsibilities. Please contact the President by email (contact info
on Page 2) or approach any other member of the MaUsE Exec at
the Evening With Mac or the October MaUsE Meeting to indicate
your willingness to participate.
Notice to MaUsE Members
Snow Leopard 10.6.1 (the update)
Less than two weeks after it rolled out Snow Leopard, Apple released the first update to its new OS. Included in the OS X 10.6.1
update are as well as patches for security issues, among them including the more recent version of the Flash plug-in for Safari. The
Flash issue is notable as the Snow Leopard installer was criticized
for installing , even if the user already had a more recent version
installed. The 10.6.1 update deploys the most recent version of
the Flash plug-in, 10.0.32.18.
In addition, 10.6.1 makes some updates to device compatibility,
specifically involving some models of Sierra Wireless 3G modems
as well a situation in which Snow Leopard might not correctly display display printer drivers in the Add Printer browser. It also fixes
an an issue that could cause DVD playback to stop unexpectedly
and one that could make it difficult to remove something from the
Dock. It also irons out a problem where Motion 4 might become
unresponsive.
A couple of bugs in Mail were fixed as well, including an instance
in which the program’s auto account setup might not work, a problem experienced when sending mail with some SMTP servers,
and an issue where the Command-Option-T shortcut unexpectedly brought up the special characters menu in both Mail and
TextEdit.
The 75.1MB update is recommended for all users running Mac
OS X Snow Leopard and is presently available via Software Update.
In the past we have run unclassified advertisements in the Doubleclick for MaUsE members who wanted to sell their MacHardware or MacSoftware or anything else. If you have updated or
upgraded something or have something you are tired of you can
put an advertisement here in the DoubleClick where it will reach all
MaUsE members. There will be no chage for this.
Another Notice to MaUsE Members
We have been publishing more submissions from MaUsE members
because we are receiving more submissions. The DoubleClick is
infinitely expandable and I would rather edit your articles than write
my own. I seriously doubt that any of you are interested in the
same stuff as I am interested in, anyway. Send submissions to The
Editor (contact info on Page 2) about ANYTHING related to what
you use your computer for and I will publish it. If you read about a
program you would like to write about let me know and I will try to
contact Responsible People to see if we can get you a review copy
donated for the purpose.
“Time Gentlemen,
Please...”
plus other tracked activities may together lead to a worrisome pattern
and action by the credit company.
And the trend of keeping everything
said on the internet in the ‘cloud’.
Meaning that 100 years from now
someone may read your e-mail and
can watch your videos and see your
pictures and your bank account and
your family tree and...
Isn't the fall a wonderful time of year. As I type
this on my modified AppleTV in big letters on
our Living-room 32" LCD TV set I can see the
squirrels hiding nuts, geese practising for that
south flying trip, colourful maple and oaks
leaves floating in bunches on Cameron Lake.
Each fall Apple Inc. and the computer industry brings us more goodies. This fall I've seen
an end to my joy for the box called a computer. Don't get me wrong, there will be lots of
quad-core and larger, faster Intel or Apple
CPUs in our future. But they are so generic. A
merge of computers is taking place so fast it
makes your head spin. By 2010 Microsoft, Apple, Google and many
others will have new internet NetBooks. New names for each computer's OS will be touted but all will simply be, generic Open Doors
computers to the Internet.
This consolidation trend has happened over and over. Single user devices with single use applications migrate to multi-use user devices.
Single applications. (When in 1979 my first Apple II Plus computer arrived it had no text editor.) Applications have merged into suites, offices, works, etc. to encompass total work flow for personal and
business needs. The internet is where my interest lies. Making use of
the internet is the next horizon of my creative energy. I look forward to
happy times making movie stories, working on www.visitgrandpachris.com and learning/watching trends.
During Septembers meeting we were spellbound by our Aaron’s description of the new fall Apple products. We can re-listen to his clear
concise review on www.vimeo.com/6740075 which is on the internet
or with links found at www.mause.ca
One trend of current interest is how children in many homes can use
the internet by age three and by age seven the average child can
spend up to 5 hours a day on the internet. They have a skill level and
knowledge levels way beyond my early years. I pity the teachers trying to interest and follow along behind their new students. And it may
be a loss for many students who do not have access to the internet at
an early age. A trend that rates high is the fact that parents place cell
phones with cameras in young children's hands for security and just
for knowing when they are now. Yet children put all kinds of pictures
on the internet of themselves and friends without parents knowledge
using that security cell picture-phone. Or this trend of putting detailed
Family Trees on the internet and then worrying about identity theft. Or
the trend for credit cards issuers to track your daily purchases. Tracking for changes in your habits such as shopping in lower class stores,
now stopping for a beer after work, or taking taxis rather than your car
The computer is dead! Long live the
netbook (iTouch2) or internet Door
Book.
For me the time has come to say
adieu. As of 2010 my position on
the club’s executive board will be filled by another. I will not stand for
re-election. It's the end of an era for me. Your club's Exec meets
monthly at the home of Michael and Irma Shaw in Oshawa to plan the
MaUsE regular meetings and some specials held at the Whitby Library. (My first meeting was held at this library in the early 1980's
where a sixteen year old lad brought a "floppy disk" on which was the
worlds first true Apple word-processor application called "Magic Window". The adults were dumbfounded but soon all had copies of
"Magic Window" for their Apple computers. Few had printers but that
didn't matter!)
As many may know I do not physically attend the exec meeting, arriving instead via internet using Apples application, iChat from our home
in Fenelon Falls and last winter from
Panama City FL. Anyone of you can
be part of the exec meeting from
afar.
Your membership participation on the
Exec Board has the opportunity to
enhance the MaUsE brand. Your new
creative ideas are welcome in the
exec meetings. I know that should
you volunteer to guide MaUsE in
2010 the members of the current
exec will support you and give you
time to express yourself and listen to
you. Volunteering isn’t a bad thing.
See you Oct. 7th at 7 PM for “An Evening with Mac”.
As the Pub manager said just as the mouse ran down the clock striking the hour;"Gentle please, It's time...”
Cheers !
Chris Greaves