Ipod Hi-Fi Iwork ’06 2006

117 MAY REVIEWED: MacBook Pro iPod Hi-Fi iWork ’06 2006

A BETTER MACHINE. A BETTER MA¬AZINE.

■ Mind-Blowing Next year, Processing Power! 5 years, ■ All Movies Always years, and Available! 10 ■ Pay-as-You-Go beyond! Software! ■ Every Virus Annihilated!

REVIEWED: KODAK EASYSHARE-ONE C B Corel Painter Essentials 3 B The Sims 2 University ...and 17 more HOW TO: B Podcast Like a Pro B Bend iWeb to Your Will PLUS! B Prettify a Page with BACK iWork’s Pages IT UP! Expert tips on how to protect your precious ﬁ les—the easy way! ��

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49510_cdw_MacAddict_5-1.indd 1 2/27/06 10:38:33 AM CONTENTS 06 a better machine. a better magazine.

40 09 Editors’ Page We have seen the not-too-distant future, and it’s called Intel Core Microarchitecture. 10 Get Info Meet the latest Mac to get Intel-iﬁ ed: the Mac mini. Plus, the next phase in Apple’s takeover of your living room, and a snapshot of the dozens of digicams unveiled at this year’s Photo Marketing Association trade show. 35 Reviews 54 Digital FM Radio & FM Transmitter for iPod iPod FM transmitter and receiver 46 EasyShare-One camera 40 Evolt E-500 camera 52 iKey Portable USB Recorder audio recorder 53 iPod Hi-Fi iPod speaker stand 38 iWork ’06 productivity-software suite 36 MacBook Pro notebook Mac 55 Maxelerate external hard drive 55 MiniMax external hard drive 54 Officejet K550 business inkjet printer 42 Painter Essentials 3 painting software 51 Pixma MP950 multifunction printer 49 PowerLite 76c projector 50 Sorenson Squeeze 4.1 media-compression suite 36 49 44 Swift Publisher page-layout app 46 38 51 54 Thin laptop bag 48 Wave Editor audio-editing software 57 Games 57 Black and White 2 tips and tricks 59 ButtKicker Gamer audio-transducer review 59 Games Go Universal Intel-Mac update 59 The Movies coming soon 78 Log Out 79 Contest 57 The Sims 2 University expansion-pack review Wow us with your caption-writing 58 Zoo Tycoon 2 simulation-game review 78 Letters prowess, and you could win a new This month, readers chime in JBL On Time iPod clock radio. with strong opinions on the Intel switch, concern over the recent 80 Shut Down Mac virus scare, and well-wishes Forget about the Oompa-Loompa for MacAddict’s visibly ailing virus; here’s the real Mac malware QUICK TIPS mascot, Max. you need to watch out for. FROM THIS MONTH’S ISSUE

BACKUP BACKUP PLUG IT IN THE 0.01 DIFFERENCE DO FEED THE ANIMALS You don’t have to put all your The fi rst step to take when Unless you want to get crabby You can use Zoo Tycoon 2’s apps on your bootable backup troubleshooting is so easy, over bugs in Apple’s iLife ’06, fi rst-person mode to give your drive, but be sure to include you may not even think to try run Software Update before virtual payroll a break—just your disk-repair utilities—that it: Make sure the power cord you get crafty in iWeb or the assume the way, you can fi x your ailing and any necessary cables other iApps. From “Bend role of a drive without are properly connected. iWeb to Your Will,” p65. zookeeper, excessive CD From Ask Us, p60. and get swapping. down and From “Back dirty. From It Up,” p24. Games, p57.

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a better machine. a better magazine. �� 08 �� SOFTWARE � SOFTWARE � �� EDITORIAL � � � � � �� EDITOR IN CHIEF Rik Myslewski� � �� Sean Molloy� � MANAGING EDITOR � � � � � � � � FEATURES EDITOR Jake Widman� � � the disc Mega � � � � HOW-TO EDITOR Niko Coucouvanis� � � � � � Every month we review a boatload of products. � REVIEWS EDITOR Roman Loyola � � � � � � Nick Muerdter � � WEB MONKEY � � And, yeah, we’re the experts and all that, but � � � � EPONYMEDITOR Max � � � � � � Pack! � � CONTRIBUTING EDITORS David Biedny, Joseph O. Holmes, your opinion matters, too—so that’s why this �� Helmut Kobler, Cathy Lu, Steven Parke, Ian Sammis, Deborah �

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up games? Then try out painterly works of place—protect your kids� Isaac Ugay, 562-983-8018 this unique, art with this from smut MARKETING DIRECTOR Cassandra Magzamen MARKETING COORDINATOR Michael Basilio gorgeous natural- with this fun ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Jose Urrutia, 415-656-8313 mind-bender. media app. browser. PRODUCTION PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richard Lesovoy PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Ryan Meith CIRCULATION Peter Kelly AUDIO & MUSIC INTERFACE CopyRoms 0.2 freeware CIRCULATION DIRECTOR NEWSSTAND MARKETING MANAGER Bill Shewey Backstage trial ThemePark 3 demo Déjà Vu 3.2 trial BILLING AND RENEWAL MANAGER Betsy Wong Daily Guitar Jam Widget DiskTracker 2.3.3 (Classic) NEWSSTAND COORDINATOR Alex Guzman freeware INTERNET & COMMUNICATION shareware FULFILLMENT MANAGER Peggy Mores FretPet X 1.0.2 shareware Advanced Link Manager 2 trial DiskTracker 2.3.3 (OS X) DIRECT-MAIL MANAGER Stephanie Blake DIRECT MARKETING SPECIALIST Janet Amistoso iFill demo browseback 1.0.2 trial shareware iPod.iTunes 3.1.3 demo Bumper Car 2 demo Font Pilot 2.1 trial FUTURE US, INC. 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 Menuet 1.0.2 trial Camino freeware iKey 2.2 shareware www.futureus-inc.com Tera 3.1 demo Captain FTP 4.4.5 trial Impression 3 trial PRESIDENT Jonathan Simpson-Bint Wave Editor 1.1.5 trial DashCast freeware IOXperts Webcam Driver 1.1 VICE PRESIDENT/CFO Tom Valentino Google Sitemap Automator 1.1 trial VICE PRESIDENT/CIRCULATION Holly Klingel DEVELOPMENT trial KMremoteControl 1.52 trial GENERAL COUNSEL Charles Schug PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/GAMES Simon Whitcombe REALbasic 2006 Release 1 iTwist n’ Go trial Mac Pilot 2.0.3 trial PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/MUSIC & TECH Steve Aaron demo OmniWeb 5.1.3 trial MacVCD X trial PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Dave Barrow pagesender 3.5.4 trial Mini vMac 2.7.1 freeware EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/TECHNOLOGY Jon Phillips FUN & GAMES PictoGrab 1.1 trial Morse Mania 3.2 shareware EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/MUSIC Brad Tolinski 3D Bridge Deluxe demo SeaMonkey freeware Name Those Files shareware DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL SERVICES Nancy Durlester PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richie Lesovoy Alien Abduction demo Simon 2.1.1 trial NuFile 1.8 donationware Antigen freeware Snak 5.1 shareware Picture Rescue 1.1 demo Future US, Inc. is part of Blackjack Card Counter 3 SpamSweep 1.2 shareware Power Manager 3.2 demo Future PLC demo wKiosk 4.5 demo Safe Terminal 0.3 freeware Future produces carefully targeted special-interest magazines for people Downfall 2.5.7 trial Xyle scope 1.1.6 trial SuperDuper 2 trial who share a passion. We aim to satisfy Enigmo 2 demo TechRestore Demo Video that passion by creating titles offering Gem Shop demo PRODUCTIVITY TidyUp 1.0.9 shareware value for money, reliable information, Kid Mystic demo High Priority 1.11 trial Undercover 1.5 demo smart buying advice and which are pluzzle freeware iClock 3 shareware USB Overdrive 10.4.5 shareware a pleasure to read. Today we publish more than 150 magazines in Professor Fizzwizzle demo KeyCue 2.0.1 trial the US, UK, France and Italy. Over 100 international editions of our World Clock Deluxe 4.3 magazines are also published in 30 other countries across the world. ToySight Gold 1.1.2 demo Liquid Ledger 1.5.1 trial shareware Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange NoteBook 2.3.3 demo XPostFacto 4 freeware (symbol: FUTR). GRAPHICS & MULTIMEDIA OD4Contact 2.6.5 demo FUTURE PLC Corel Painter IX.5 trial OmniGraffl e 4.1.1 trial SPONSORS 30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW, England EazyDraw 1.9.0f public beta OmniOutliner 3.5 trial EazyDraw 1.9.0f public beta www.futureplc.com EazyDraw 1.9.1 demo TaskTime 4.1.2 trial EazyDraw 1.9.1 demo Tel +44 1225 442244 NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN: Roger Parry Footlights 2 freeware TextWrangler 2.1.1 freeware iFill demo CHIEF EXECUTIVE: Greg Ingham iScreensaver Designer 3.4 trial TinyBooks 3.0.5 trial NoteBook 2.3.3 demo GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR: John Bowman iView MediaPro 3.0.2 trial xTime Project 3.5 demo OmniGraffl e 4.1.1 trial Tel +44 1225 442244 www.futureplc.com KnotsBag Pro 1.5.5 shareware OmniOutliner 3.5 trial REPRINTS: For reprints, contact Ryan Derfl er, Reprint Operations MPEG Streamclip 1.5.1 freeware UTILITIES OmniWeb 5.1.3 trial Specialist, 717.399.1900 ext. 167 or email: [email protected] Sproing 2.0.1 freeware BatChmod 1.37 freeware TechRestore Demo Video SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: Please email mcdcustserv@cdsfulfi llment Swift Publisher 1.2 demo ChronoSync 3.2 demo XPostFacto 4 freeware .com or call customer service toll-free at 888-771-6222.

UPGRADE If you don’t receive the Disc with your copy of MacAddict, you might want to consider upgrading. Each monthly Disc contains cool demos, useful shareware and freeware, and an assortment of multimedia goodies. To get 12 issues of MacAddict that include this value- packed Disc with your subscription (prorated if necessary) for just $1 more per issue, call 888-771-6222—the operator will take care of everything.

08 May 2006 EDITORS’ PAGE 09

Speed Thrills STAFF RANTS Tucked away in a top-secret room Q. When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? during March’s Intel Developer Forum, I had my fi rst hands-on demo of the fi rst Roman Loyola RED-EYE REMOVER desktop microprocessor to be based on When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? When stuff happens instantaneously. No time Intel’s new Core Microarchitecture—a for fl ashy window effects or progress bars. radically speedy approach to chip Select an option and BAM! Done. design. Currently code-named Conroe, Sean Molloy TACHOPHOBE this dual-core chip will almost certainly When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? power the machines that Apple will Unfortunately, I probably won’t know until it’s too late. introduce later this year to replace the current Power Mac G5 line. Niko Coucouvanis SPUD RAZOR Although the performance data I saw compared Conroe to Intel’s When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? As soon as it can cut thousands of julienne existing top-of-the-line processor, the Pentium D, and not to the fries in seconds, I’ll eat my Ginsu—in that PowerPC G5, the new chip’s power was readily apparent. Bottom nasty seppuku fall-on-it style. Ouch! line: Expect impressive machines to emerge from the Apple/Intel Jake Widman TIME-SENSITIVE MATERIAL partnership. Also, prepare for even more-impressive machines to When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? appear in the future—for example, when Intel ships its quad-core When I don’t even know it’s there—when my fi rst response to that question is, desktop chip, code-named Kentsfi eld, in the fi rst half of next year. “What Mac?” Oh, and to clear up any confusion that might come from an unfortunate Intel naming decision: The Core Duo chip that powers Peter Marshutz STRESSED OUT When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? Apple’s current iMacs, MacBook Pros, and high-end Mac mini (the Fast enough? Macs will fi nally be fast enough low-end Mac mini has a single-core Core Solo) is not based on Intel’s when they can change a diaper and take care zippy new Core Microarchitecture—the current Duos are fi ne chips of two toddlers. in their own right, but they don’t benefi t from all the internal gee- Mark Rosenthal MR. COFFEELESS whizzery in the upcoming chips. When I asked an Intelian about this When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? When will they be fast enough? They’re too naming untidiness, he shrugged and said, “Marketing.” fast already! Gone are the days when I could In other news: If you’re one of the vast majority of our readers apply Photoshop’s Ripple fi lter to a 10MB who receive our monthly Disc, you’ll notice a couple of changes this image fi le and then run out for a cup of coffee while my Mac churned away. Now there are no excuses for month. For one, we’ve retired the Disc Tour interface. It was getting breaks—just work, work, work. a bit long in the tooth and becoming increasingly unstable in its Max VELOCIMACTOR dotage. Plus, it was simply taking up too much room—room that we When will a Mac fi nally be fast enough for you? can now fi ll with more apps, games, and utilities than ever. When I can instantaneously perform a Also, we now indicate whether each app on the Disc is Universal complex Photoshop Action while ray-tracing a complex 3D animation in real time while (able to run natively on Intel-based Macs), and we’ve added a new engaged in an 10-way iChat video conference Media folder in which you’ll fi nd a monthly collection of videos, while playing multiplayer Doom 3 at a frame rate of over tunes, podcasts, and more. (Yeah, it’s a bit sparse this inaugural 300 in a seamlessly resizable window, then I might be satisfi ed. Maybe. month, but we’ve got big plans…) Finally, you’ll notice more places for the friendly folks who keep us afl oat to announce their wares. You’ve got rent to pay, right? So do we.

Enjoy,

comingsoon:june2006 Here’s what our editors are preparing for the next issue of MacAddict.

We’ll solve all your ’Pod problems and teach it tricks you didn’t know it could do, then take you on a tour of San Francisco as we show you how to make a home video your friends will actually want to watch. Our Field Guide will spell out the problem- solving steps to take when faced with common technical glitches. We’ll then show you how to use the slick new features in Photoshop Elements 4, how to use iWeb efﬁ ciently without hosting your site on .Mac, and how to set up a NAS (network attached storage) system to access your ﬁ les from home or abroad. We’ll also put the new Intel Mac minis to the test and look at Autodesk’s Combustion 4, NEC’s slick MultiSync 20WMGX2 display, Olive’s Musica , and more.

May 2006 09 10

the news of the month in bite-size chunks

Make room on the Intel bandwagon— the Mac mini is now along for the ride. THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT! Apple sets its sights on your home entertainment center with its new Intel-based Mac mini and iPod Hi-Fi speaker stand. he invitation to Apple’s latest for notebook computers. Considering the use interface for accessing your music, new-stuff unveiling promised tight quarters inside the Mac mini, these videos, DVDs, and photos. Front Row “fun new products.” And while chips are a perfect ﬁt. now allows you to access shared media the new products—Intel-based Both Mac minis come standard from other Macs over a wireless TMac minis, the iPod Hi-Fi, and leather with 512MB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM or Wi-Fi network using Bonjour. iPod cases—aren’t exactly barrels-of- (expandable to 2GB), an Intel GMA For example, if you set iTunes to monkeys-level fun, they’re interesting graphics processor that uses 64MB of share your music over a network enough. The intro of the Mac mini leaves memory (shared with the mini’s main (iTunes > Preferences > only the Power Mac and the iBook lines memory), Gigabit Ethernet, built-in Sharing), you left to be Intel-iﬁed, and the iPod Hi-Fi Airport Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0, four USB brings the iPod one step closer to the 2.0 ports, one FireWire 400 port, one center of your home entertainment hub. optical/analog audio-in port, one Mac mini. Except for a new set of rear optical/analog audio-out port, a DVI- ports and an IR port located next to the out port for a display (VGA adapter disc slot, the physical look and feel of included) or TV (composite/S-Video the Mac mini hasn’t changed—that’s adapter sold separately for $19), good. But a lot has changed inside. and an infrared Apple Remote to use The $599 1.5GHz Mac mini features with Front Row. The 1.5GHz Mac mini an Intel Core Solo processor, which comes with a 5,400-rpm 60GB SATA IMAGES COURTESY OF APPLE OF COURTESY IMAGES has a single-processor core. The Core hard drive and a combo drive, while Duo found in the $799 1.66GHz Mac the 1.66GHz Mac mini has an 80GB mini has—you guessed it—two cores, hard drive and 8X SuperDrive with essentially the equivalent of two double-layer support. processors in a single chip. Intel touts The Mac minis also come with both the Core Solo and Core Duo as ideal Front Row, Apple’s elegant, easy-to-

10 May 2006 GET INFO 11

can access those shared songs from What’s missing: video connectors and NEW STUFF another Mac through Front Row’s Shared USB or FireWire to sync to your Mac. Music menu. You can also access shared Docking your fifth-generation iPod videos from iTunes and shared photos or iPod nano in the iPod Hi-Fi gives you from iPhoto. In the demo we saw, there access to a new Speakers menu with wasn’t any noticeable performance three settings: Treble Boost, Normal, lag when accessing shared content and Bass Boost. You can also display Wanted: wirelessly—but the demo involved full-screen album art and set the big screen for this lil’ projector. a Mac mini and a MacBook Pro that backlight to remain on while docked were about 20 feet apart, without any (the iPod charges while docked). 4PORTABLE PROJECTOR obstacles between them. When we get Apple demonstrated the iPod Hi-Fi’s XD80U our Mac mini in for an exhaustive review, sound quality at its Cupertino facility, $1,995 we’ll see how Front Row performs with but we were able to get our hands on an www.mitsubishi-presentations.com Macs in separate rooms or even on actual iPod Hi-Fi just before we went to Available: Now different floors. press—after you’re finished reading this Weighing less than three pounds, iPod Hi-Fi. Everyone else is getting article, flip to page 53 for the full review. this portable XGA (1024 by 768 in on the iPod speaker-stand market, pixels) projector is rated at 1,500 so why not Apple? The difference here ANSI lumens and has a dual color is that instead of simply providing mode to optimize color for business a means to play your iPod’s music, presentations or video. Apple is looking to “redefine the home stereo system,” according to Apple’s press release. During the iPod Hi-Fi’s introduction, Steve Jobs said that as THAT’S a self-proclaimed audiophile, he’s considering replacing his home stereo with an iPod Hi-Fi. (Hey Steve, feel free to dump your old home stereo at 4000 Shoreline Ct. in South San Francisco, Creative tools that match your ENTERTAINMENT! CA. Send it to Max’s attention.) creativity. Measuring 17 by 6.6 by 6.9 inches $99 for one of these leather iPod cases? and weighing 16.7 pounds (with With other leather cases that are just as 4PRETTY PICTURES batteries), the $349 iPod Hi-Fi has a nice for half the price, you’re paying a Studio Artist 3.5 pair of 3.1-inch midrange drivers and premium for the Apple and iPod logos. $379 a 5.12-inch woofer—no dedicated www.synthetik.com tweeters, folks. The power supply What we didn’t see. Were you Available: Now is built into the unit, so there’s expecting a touchscreen iPod video, This app combines painting and no separate power brick to hog widescreen iBooks, a Mac-based digital drawing tools with image processing, counter space or wedge behind your video recorder, or some other dream video effects, and a Paint Synthesizer entertainment center. You can also product? Then you were probably let that claims to be able to enlarge power the iPod Hi-Fi with six down by the announcements—many images without visual artifacts. D batteries. The dock analysts and members of the media connector comes with sure were. So what should you look 4TICKLING VIRTUAL IVORIES adapters so you can for next? In August, Apple is hosting ProKeys 88sx fit any dockable iPod, its annual Worldwide Developers $449.95 and iPod shuffles can Conference (WWDC), where you can—at www.m-audio.com connect through a rear minimum—expect a peek at Leopard, Available: Now audio-in port. The audio- the next version of Mac OS X. That event This light (17-pound) 88-note in port can also be used might also mark the introduction of the keyboard features semi-weighted with AirPort Express so Intel-based replacements for the current action, seven piano-sound sets, and you can play music from Power Mac G5 line. It’s almost certain a USB MIDI interface and controller your Mac in one room on that they won’t use the Intel Core Duo for recording and playback. the iPod Hi-Fi in another. processor; instead, they’ll likely harness

the power of an entirely new 64-bit dual-

The iPod Hi-Fi comes with an Apple core processor code-named Conroe—it

Remote so you can navigate through was clear at the Intel Developer Forum 88 keys your iPod’s controls. in March that progress on that chip is you can carry. coming along nicely.—Roman Loyola

May 2006 11 v GET INFO 12 the news of the month in bite-size chunks What’s > > > > > > > > DROOLWORTHY • SeaMonkey (free, Sexy Stuff We Can’t Wait to Get Our Mitts On on the Disc, www .mozilla.org) is an Internet suite that includes a IMAGE COURTESY OF ART. LEBEDEV STUDIO LEBEDEV ART. OF COURTESY IMAGE Web browser, email client, WYSIWYG Web- page composer, and IRC chat NERET RNE INTE & B E W client. For Web New developers, Sea Monkey includes mozilla.org’s DOM inspector and JavaScript- debugging tools. • Shiira (free, http://hmdt-web .net/shiira/en) is a Web browser that uses the C KHTML rendering Mini Keyboard engine provided The Optimus mini (price TBD, www.artlebedev.com) is a three-key by Apple’s Web keyboard that works with your standard keyboard. Each programmable Kit—the same key features a 0.79-by-0.79-inch square OLED panel that displays the rendering engine key’s function. Each OLED supports 96-by-96-pixel resolution, fi ve- SeaMonkey: that Safari uses. frames-per-second animation, and 262,000 colors. A Mac-compatible better than • App4Mac’s wKiosk version is coming Real Soon Now. brine shrimp. ($69, on the Disc, www.app4mac .com) is a Web browser built with the Safari engine and designed for public-access terminals and kiosks. wKiosk can restrict access to Web sites, system settings, and apps. • PictoGrab 1.1 ($14.95, on the Disc, www.radicalbreeze.com) can download pictures from any Web site or photocast to a folder on your Mac. IMAGE COURTESY OF KENSINGTON OF COURTESY IMAGE • VisiStat 3 ($14.95 per month, www .visistat.com) is a Web-site traffi c- reporting service. It dynamically captures visitor activity, search- engine keyword usage, geographical location, click path, and more. • Dejal Systems’ Simon 2.1.1 ($29.95 to $195, on the Disc, www.dejal.com) is a Web-site-monitoring tool that C checks sites for changes or failures. It Sound Panel notifi es you via email, sound, speech, Kensington’s SX 2000 Speakers for iPod ($159.99, http://us.kensington.com) or HTML reports. measure 16.2 by 7.2 by 3.9 inches, are compatible with any iPod with a dock Snak 5.1 ($25, on the Disc, www connector, and feature NXT SurfaceSound to enhance the audio playing from • .snak.com) is an Internet Relay both the front and back. Chat (IRC) client that lets you join ON THE discussions in IRC DISC channels online. PictoGrab, SeaMonkey, —Michelle Victoria Simon, Snak, wKiosk

12 May 2006 v GET INFO GET INFO 12 the news of the month in bite-size chunks 13 Book >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Bug of the Month >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DELETE OLD VERSIONS OF APPS

aving remnant, unused versions of apps on your hard drive can cause a Hplethora of problems, the main one being that your documents can open

Review using the wrong version of an app. For example, if you still have the test-drive version of Microsoft Word 2004 and you’ve since purchased and installed a full copy of Office 2004, the test-drive Word may still launch when you double-click a Word document. Here’s how to get rid of defunct apps. DELETE APPS If you get rid of an old version of an app you no longer use, Mac OS Something to read while X will automatically switch to the remaining app by default. You can uninstall an you’re rockin’ to your ’Pod. app by simply dragging its icon into the Trash. For a more thorough removal that also wipes out any associated files that may be strewn across your hard drive, The Cult of iPod use a utility such as AppZapper ($12.95, http://appzapper.com) or Yank ($19.95, ike his book The Cult www.matterform.com/welcome.html). Lof Mac ($39.95, www ARCHIVE AND INSTALL REMNANTS Duplicate apps can also be left over from .nostarch.com), Leander an Archive And Install process; these can cause problems in current versions Kahney’s The Cult of iPod ($24.95, www of apps. To delete old copies of apps left over from an Archive And Install: .nostarch.com) takes a look at how a 1 Open the Previous System folder at the root level of your hard drive. single device has become the object 2 Delete the Applications folder therein. of devotion (or perhaps obsession) 3 Reapply the most-recent Mac OS X combo updater available from Apple’s for many. The book covers everything Download Web site (www.apple.com/support/downloads). from the original concept and humble RCDEFAULTAPP Still having problems? Try RCDefaultApp (free, www.rubicode beginnings to the signature silhouette .com) to specify which app should open files with a certain extension. ads and the booming iPod-accessory market. The Cult of iPod’s impressive images and compelling info do an excellent job conveying how influential iPOD CASE OF THE MONTH the iPod is. If you love your ’Pod, you’ll love this book.—RL as Blau’s The Versa D($59.99, www.dasblau APPLE NIXES FINAL .com) is a case made for a fifth- generation iPod. Its exterior CUT À LA CARTE is made of leather, and the pple’s Final Cut Pro 5, Soundtrack fabric inside features flashy APro, Motion 2, and DVD Studio Pro colors and patterns. The belt 4 are no longer available as separate loop can also be used with the apps—you can now only purchase them protective flap to prop your iPod together in the Final Cut Studio suite up on your desk. Eight different ($1,299, www.apple.com). Apple has designs are available.—MV special upgrade pricing if you already have certain pieces of the set. If you own Final Cut Pro 5, the upgrade to the full suite costs $99. If you own standalone Honorable Mention copies of goes to 11-year- Final Cut Pro old Chris Laples of 4, Final Cut Libertyville, IL for his HD, Motion 2, iPod mini case made Soundtrack out of duct tape. Pro, or DVD Awesome, Chris! Encase your ’Pod in color. Studio Pro 4, you can upgrade to the SUBMIT YOURASE C Whether your iPod case is a custom-made one-off or mass produced, you can You can’t break up this Studio suite submit it for Case-of-the-Month consideration—just send it to iPod Case of the Month, MacAddict, 4000 Shoreline Ct., Ste. 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Please note that we cannot return cases. gang of four. for $199.—RL

May 2006 13 GET INFO GET INFO 14 the news of the month in bite-size chunks PB

SHAREWARE PICK OF THE MONTH

Saft http://haoli.dnsalias.com/saft $12

aft is a Safari plug-in that adds a Snew Sidebar that can contain RSS feeds, URLs, and scripts. Saft comes

IMAGE COURTESY OF PANASONIC OF COURTESY IMAGE with several premade Sidebar items, but you can add your own RSS feed to the Sidebar using TextEdit.—Andrew Tokuda

The Saft installation disk image contains premade Sidebar items. Go into the /Sidebar/Apple folder, Control-click Apple_hotnews.plugin, and select Show Panasonic’s new digital SLR shares Package Contents. Open Info.plist in some of the same components as TextEdit (/Applications/TextEdit). Olympus’s Evolt E-330. 2 Create a new document in TextEdit and select Format > Make Plain Text. Copy the PMA FOCUS: NEW CAMERAS GALORE code from Info.plist, and paste it into the very February, photographers everywhere fl ock to the Photo Marketing blank document. Close Info.plist. Association (PMA) trade show to check out the latest cameras and other new E photography equipment. Here’s the lowdown on some of the newest releases. 3 Go to your favorite Web site’s RSS feed Canon announced 22(!) new products, including the EOS 30D Digital SLR ($1,399, (the URL should have .rss or .xml at the www.usa.canon.com), which features an 8.2-megapixel CMOS sensor. The PowerShot tail). Replace Apple Hot News in the text S3 IS ($499.99) is a 6-megapixel camera with an image-stabilized 12x optical zoom. document with the title of your new feed. The PowerShot SD700 IS Digital ELPH ($499.99) has a 4x-optical-zoom lens with Replace Apple’s URL in the text document Optical Image Stabilization. The 6-megapixel PowerShot A700 ($349.99) has 6x optical with the new feed’s URL. zoom, 6-megapixel resolution, and 22 shooting modes. The 4-megapixel PowerShot A530 ($229.99) has 4x optical zoom and a 1.8-inch LCD screen. Nikon unveiled seven new cameras. The Coolpix L4 ($149.95, www.nikonusa.com) is a 4-megapixel point-and-shoot with built-in red-eye fi x, 3x optical zoom, and more. The 6-megapixel Coolpix S6 ($449.95) has Wi-Fi for wireless fi le transfers. The CoolPix P4 ($399.95) is an 8.1-megapixel camera with 3.5x optical zoom and Vibration Reduction. The 105mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor ($1,035) is a macro lens equipped with 4 Save the fi le and name it Info.plist. Nikon’s Silent Wave Motor and Vibration Reduction systems. Create a folder and give it an appropriate Kodak’s new cameras included the EasyShare Z612 ($399, www.kodak.com), a name. Drag your newly created Info.plist 6-megapixel camera with 12x optical zoom. The compact 6.1-megapixel EasyShare fi le into the folder, and then add .plugin V603 ($299) has a 2.5-inch LCD and 3x optical zoom. The 5-megapixel EasyShare C533 to the folder’s name. This will turn it ($199) has a 3x optical zoom and 1.8-inch LCD. into a package that looks like a generic Pentax showed its new 6-megapixel Optio T10 ($349.99, www.pentaximaging document instead of a folder. .com), which has a 3-inch LCD within its tiny 3.7-by-2.3-by-0.8-inch body. Samsung has partnered with Pentax to release the GX-1L (price TBD, www.samsungcamerausa Drag the package into the /User/ .com), a digital SLR that has features similar to Pentax’s *ist DL: 6-megapixel Application Support/Saft/Sidebar folder. resolution, a Pentax K-AF lens mount, a 2.5-inch LCD, a fi ve-point wide-area Auto In Safari, choose View > Show Sidebar, Focus system, and more. and your RSS feed will appear on the left. Other notable cameras at the show included Sony’s 8-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-W100 ($350, www.sonystyle.com), Casio’s 8.1-megapixel Exilim Zoom EX-Z850 ($399.99, www.casio.com), and Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-L1 (price TBD, www .panasonic.com) digital SLR. There were a couple of noteworthy software announcements, as well. Adobe released Photoshop Elements 4 for Mac ($89, www.adobe.com), which now has Magic Selection Brush and Magic Extractor tools to quickly separate an object from its background, a new Correct Color For Skin Tones function, and more. Apple released Aperture 1.1 ($499, www.apple.com) which features improved RAW processing, a new color meter, performance enhancements, and more. The 1.1 upgrade for current Aperture owners will be free.—MV and RL

14 May 2006

Your Mac, Your Future, and... B E Y O N D

16 May 2006 What’s on tap for you and your Mac next year? In five years? Ten? Twenty? Come with us on a trip into the future.

By Jake Widman and the editors of MacAddict Illustrations by Doug Ross Read on B

May 2006 17 Your Mac, Your Future, and BEYOND

PREDICTING THE FUTURE IS A CRAPSHOOT. Sure, the near future is reasonably predictable-Intel-based replacements for the iBook and Power Mac are a virtual certainty- but projecting beyond that requires a lot of research and a fair bit of dot-connecting. So that’s what we did in order to bring you our best prognostications of what’s coming down the pike in your digital life. Be forewarned, however. Although the future is indeed bright, there’ll be some bumps along the road. Also be forewarned that our predictions are just that: predictions. Read on with saltshaker in hand.

+TRUE VOICE CONTROL Within five years, your Mac’s processor power will rise to The Mac such a level that true, real-time natural-language There are plenty of changes voice control and transcription will become a reality. Added bonus: Real-time translation and coming—and they’re all for transcription from, say, English to Chinese will also the better. be possible. Within 10 years, your Mac’s voice- command capabilities will improve even further when your Mac’s iSight camera can read your lips. +iBOOK REDUX Within the next few months, the Just don’t let it watch you and your coworkers discussing plans successor to the iBook will be released. It will be called the to shut it down. MacBook (non-Pro), will be based on either the Intel Core Duo or Core Solo chips, and will have the same widescreen display format +MASSIVE OPTICAL DRIVES In a year or of the MacBook Pro, iMac, and all of Apple’s current displays. three, your Mac will have a Blu-ray optical drive as standard equipment—and we do mean standard, not optional (Steve Jobs +POWER MAC REBORN Later this year, Apple will is a hard-core HD-video fan, and Blu-ray will make HD playback release the next generation of its pro-level Macs—and they and recording possible). Blu-ray capacities are already at 25GB won’t be called Power Macs. They’ll be based on a dual-core and will rise to 200GB in a few years; speed will triple, as well. processor now code-named Conroe, though Intel’s marketing department will change that—S’more Duo, anyone? Conroe, +SPECIALIZED CHIPS In the next five years, which has already been demoed by Intel, is powered by Intel’s microprocessors and their supporting chips will be more and next-generation processor architecture; a single-core version more often designed for specific purposes. For example, using the same architecture will also be available. Due to server CPUs that handle transaction processing won’t include Conroe’s improved power-handling capabilities, there’s a strong higher-order mathematics elements such as floating-point possibility that these pro-level Macs will be smaller and quieter units, and processors designed for compact mobile devices will than the current Power Mac G5s. Soon after the pro-level Macs have the functions of their supporting chips included on the are released, the mobile version of Conroe (code-named Merom) microprocessor itself. will appear in ’Books. +MEGAPOWERFUL PROCESSORS In 10 years, +SIMULTANEOUS OPERATING SYSTEMS microprocessors will have dozens or even hundreds of If Apple chooses to implement Intel’s Virtualization Technology, specialized cores. Applications will be coded to take advantage next year you’ll be able to boot Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux of the massively parallel capabilities of these chips, resulting simultaneously but separately and switch OSes at will. When in such now-unthinkable feats as real-time ray tracing (see Windows crashes, you won’t have to reboot Mac OS X or Linux— “Content Creation,” p21). they’ll just keep humming along on their own. Will Apple unlock this capability? Flip a coin: Heads, they will; tails, they won’t. +G’BYE, CIRCUITRY It will take a decade or more, but eventually logic boards and their intricate traces and +MULTIPLE STORAGE OPTIONS In a few years (or circuitry will disappear when chips communicate with one sooner), you’ll be able to choose between two types of storage for another using proximity communication, a technology in which your ’Book: hard drives or flash drives—or both. Though flash- on-chip transmitters send signals to receivers on other chips, drive capacities will increase and their costs will sink, they’ll still thus enabling more-complex and higher-speed communication be less capacious and more expensive than hard drives. among chips.

18 May 2006 +POCKET-SIZE MACS By 10 years out, Apple will +NUBBIN MAC In 25 years, your encrypted data, photos, leverage the hosted-app model (see “Software,” p21). With your videos, tunes, OS, and apps will all live in a tab small enough apps, docs, and email stored online, your Mac itself will need to carry on your keychain. You’ll insert it into your Mac, phone, only enough space for minimal system and .Mac-connection camera, or whatever, or wirelessly connect to a keyboard, software. Match an iPod nano–sized Mac with a roll-up display display, and sound system. The tab will also connect to the (like Samsung’s plastic-enclosed LCD prototype) and a folding Internet wirelessly so you can back it up, make purchases (it’ll keyboard, and your Mac will fit in your jacket pocket. automatically access your bank info), or share your digital stuff.

in “iPod docks” that enable Home direct full-screen playback. +SATELLITE RADIO Within two years, Griffin will Entertainment offer a Radio Shark with satellite- Yes, Virginia, there were once only three radio capability. Within 10 years, TV channels, and music came on vinyl. satellite-radio receivers will be built into every Mac.

+WIRELESS VIDEO Sometime next year, you’ll see a +BYE-BYE BLOCKBUSTER Within five years, DVD video version of AirTunes with a video-capable AirPort Express— rental stores will be on their way out. Instead, you’ll either we’re already partway there with the Front Row–equipped, take your iPods to the video store and pay to have movies Bonjour-capable Mac mini and the iPod AV Connection Kit. downloaded to them, or log onto your video-store account and download movies to your TV-connected Mac minis or their +CARS ’N’ TVS More and more cars will be sold with media-oriented offspring. Each download will include some iPod connectivity built in. In a few years, you’ll see TVs with built- form of rights protection that makes the video expire after a ▲

TOUCH Apple patent players, digital video players, number 20,060,026,536, handheld computers, personal applied for in January 2005, PATENT PENDING digital assistants, pagers, covers “gestures for touch- Reading the Numbered Tea Leaves electronic organizers, electronic sensitive input devices” We know that more Intel Macs and new variations notepads, and a whole lot more. and lists Apple design guru of the iPod are coming, but exactly what shape The patent is vague enough that Jonathan Ive as one of its they’ll take—and what else Apple may have in the it could encompass a variety of inventors. Apple says the pipeline—may be discerned from several recent new devices, including an Apple- touch-sensitive system patents Jobs & Co. have filed. Or maybe not. But branded smartphone. could apply to such UI heck, we’re going to try anyway. VIDEO AND VoIP Apple elements as virtual volume could use the iPod’s success knobs, scroll wheels, and to make VoIP (Voice over IP) keyboards. So are we talking about the much-rumored “real” telephony successful and give Apple a huge communications video iPod with a bigger screen? An Apple wireless tablet user base. Two Apple patents (7,003,590 and 7,003,260) computer? A digital book reader? We’d place our bets on an deal with, respectively, an automatic ID-allocation technique improved video iPod. for use in applications for AV/C (audio/video control) VOICE ACTIVATION Patent number 20,050,015,254, devices, and database programs for handheld devices. ﬁled in July 2003, is for a server-based media-management An AV/C device consists of a control unit and one or more system that includes voice-activated navigation. The new subunits that perform the controlled functions, such as system, coupled with the touch-sensitive screen, could camcorders and TVs. Apple is at least eyeing some sort of indicate a next generation of wireless iPods with the ability device that would interact with these devices, and a good to download updatable menus beyond those that come bet would be on the aforementioned video iPod or a true prepackaged with the unit. The voice activation could make media-center Mac. them more convenient to use while driving or jogging. The database patent involves techniques for providing MOBILE ME Last January, we found out about Apple’s new access to databases from handheld devices. If said trademark/service-mark application for “Mobile Me,” ﬁled databases included contact info, we could see an iPod under three separate numbers: 78,785,943; 78,785,950; and phone that does VoIP. Whether it looks like an iPod with a 78,785,959. This mark covers a broad range of technologies microphone and speaker, or like the iTunes-capable phones and services, including portable devices such as digital audio from Motorola—well, only time will tell.—Dennis Sellers

May 2006 19 Your Mac, Your Future, and BEYOND couple of days—although you’ll probably be able to extend the +THE APPLE CHANNEL Within five years, Apple will duration by going online. provide exclusive video content—TV shows and movies available only via the iTunes Music Store or some other download service. +THE BIG SCREEN In addition to downloading You’ll also be able to subscribe to a download-only TV network. movies, you’ll also be able to choose from an explosion of indie and public-domain films, downloadable via BitTorrent-type +FOLLOW THE MONEY That all sounds great, right? technology. iMovie HD and Macs that can handle streaming HD Well, we’ll also bet that within 10 years, crafty marketers will figure video will make widescreen moviemaking as easy as blogging and out how to make money by ruining your experience unless you pay. podcasting—with similar results (see “Content Creation,” p21). How’d you like to see pop-up ads in the middle of a movie?

+TRUSTED COMPUTING Neither of the previous two predictions might matter, however, since Intel-based Security Macs will soon be able to support trusted computing, a technology that can—among other things—allow a The balancing act between security computer to refuse to run software it doesn’t authorize, and privacy will continue. such as a virus. Unfortunately, this also opens the door to the (unlikely, we hope) possibility that your Mac could also refuse to run any software it doesn’t like—such as non- +THE END OF VIRUSES Within five years, viruses Apple software, or at least software not vetted and licensed will be few and far between. Microsoft and Apple, possibly with by Apple. Such software would be sold with a “Runs for Sure!” help from the government, will come up with a combination of sticker on the box. antiviral utilities and security patches that’ll keep Macs and PCs reasonably safe, and most virus writers will get bored and go +EVERYTHING ENCRYPTED In a year or three, you’ll back to trying to take over computers at banks and the Pentagon. have the build-to-order option to equip your Mac with a hard drive that automatically encrypts all your data in real time, +DATA TAPPING Within 10 years, someone will come greatly improving the security of all your personal stuff—a boon up with a way to release code-based “antibodies” over the especially to MacBook owners who might lose their precious Internet that will identify and destroy the few viruses that make ’Books or (gasp!) have them stolen. After this development, it through the aforementioned antiviral measures before they further security will be provided by your laptop’s built-in iSight ever reach your Mac. Of course, that means they’ll have to tap camera, which will scan either the blood-vessel patterns on into and inspect data packets—which means the government your retinas or flecks on your irises to find out whether you are, will likely control the technology. indeed, your ’Book’s owner.

APPLE “I feel Apple will continue could be that we access software to grow in the mainstream- in a very different way—maybe computer market. I seriously doubt A PSYCHIC’S like we’ll log onto an account it will pass 25 to 30 percent. But and use it that way. In any investing in Apple stock feels INTUITION case, it’ll make the difference pretty solid. I’m also curious about We geeks at MacAddict may be experts in technology, between operating systems far upcoming acquisitions. I don’t see but not necessarily in divining the future—that’s less relevant than it is now—it’s anyone acquiring Apple, but I see why we contacted Barbara Courtney, not even clear how they’d the possibility that Apple’s growth a professional psychic (aka “intuitive differentiate themselves.” could come by acquiring others. consultant”) who happens to live a few STEVE JOBS “I anticipated The result could be more functions miles up the freeway from Apple’s digs a couple of years ago that Steve built into the Mac, and that will in Cupertino, CA. Courtney offered Jobs was looking to resign, and make it even more attractive.” her insights into the fortunes of I don’t see him staying as CEO iPODS “My feeling is that iPods Apple, the Mac, and Steve Jobs. beyond next year. The question will continue to dominate the is: Who will replace him? I digital-music-player market for at feel there’s definitely some least the next three years. I do see a potential problem if Apple scouting going on, but a solid tries to cram too many functions into the device. I feel Apple candidate hasn’t emerged yet. My feeling is that someone else would be wise to keep simple, less-complex versions in the from the early days—from outside Apple, but not outside the product lineup as well.” computer industry—might surface in a stronger role. I also think MACS “I feel there is a huge shift coming within the next five that [Oracle CEO] Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs will get involved in years or so that will reconfigure how we use our computers. It some kind of collaboration, but not one involving Apple directly.”

20 May 2006 +REAL-TIME RAY Content TRACING Ten years from now, your Mac will be able to render ray-traced animations in real time. Ray tracing is Creation a way of creating 3D scenes that look Andy Warhol was right—in the future, realistic, with objects that reflect and we’ll all get our 15 minutes of fame. cast shadows on one another. It’s also a tremendously processor-intensive process: Today, a single ray-traced +VIRTUAL CONCERTS Within five years, far-flung frame of a movie such as The Incredibles takes hours to render. musicians will be jamming together in real time over the The ability to produce fully realized 3D scenes without waiting Interweb, with video capabilities so they can see each other. for rendering will take gaming and other forms of digital Using iSight cameras, iChat, and real-time iMovie, they’ll be entertainment to new heights of realism. able to composite themselves together into the image of a band; audience members will be able to log on and watch and listen to +ONLY THE STRONG WILL SURVIVE Fortunately, the performance. with all this new content, we look forward to a quality shakeout over the next five or 10 years. When punk came along in the +HOME HIGH-DEF Within five to 10 years, you’ll late seventies, everybody with a garage started a band, but be able to broadcast high-definition video from your own a decade later, only a handful of those bands had “made consumer-level Mac, which will have enough processing power it.” Same thing: Blogs and podcasts won’t go away, but the to host high-quality video streaming—especially since by that offerings will be whittled down to a top tier with broad appeal time we should be up to video codec H.274 (or should we say (which doesn’t necessarily equate with “quality”)—and you’ll MPEG-4 Part 15?). almost certainly have to pay for them somehow.

anywhere just by logging on. When you get to your account, you’ll be presented with something like the Software media browser in Pages or iMovie HD: You’ll choose Software will continue to a project to work on rather than an app to work in, and the required app will load automatically. improve—but it may not be Once that’s up and running, you’ll be able to do on your Mac. “doc-casting” to let other people subscribe to your documents—.Mac will become a space not just for storage and broadcasting, but also for collaboration. +UP AGAINST EXCEL iWork will get a spreadsheet module, but maybe not as early as next year. Microsoft has +OPENDOC REVIVED OpenDoc was Apple’s 1992- promised to keep developing Office for the Mac for five more to-1997 effort to make it possible to work on compound years, so Apple has that much time to make sure that iCalc (a name documents by loading sets of tools appropriate to their different Apple trademarked in May 2005) is thoroughly Excel compatible— components—for example, by using a spreadsheet utility as a which it had better be, or it’ll have no chance of surviving. component inside a word-processing document. A .Mac-hosted iLife could use the same sort of approach, which could make it +DRAWING AND DATA Other new iApps will include possible for Apple to implement a micropayment-based, pay-by- iDraw, a basic vector-based drawing program, and iData, a the-operation system. Need Gaussian Blur on that photo in your basic database app. iDraw will resemble the drawing module in Pages document? That’ll be 99 cents, please. AppleWorks, with the added ability to automatically regularize sketched shapes—turn a quickly hand-drawn oval into a perfect circle, for example—as well as perform basic 2D animation. iData will be stuffed with templates for tasks such as organizing recipes and managing household finances. It’ll be based on the GAMES Alas, the future doesn’t metaphor of a stack of index cards, but will have some relational look bright for Mac gaming. Games on capabilities—you’ll be able to, for example, search for all your debit- computers—both Macs and PCs—are losing card payments at Costco. A possible alternate name: iPerCard. ground to consoles, with the exception of massively multiplayer online RPGs such as +FAREWELL, SOFTWARE Within five years, it’ll be Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and other niche genres. possible to work without actually owning any software. iLife and We hope we’re wrong, but there’s no reason to think iWork will be available as hosted applications on .Mac, so you’ll that the Mac’s slice of this shrinking pie will increase. be able to work on your iDisk-stored documents from any Mac

May 2006 21 Your Mac, Your Future, and BEYOND

+GAMING ’PODS Personal Within five years, the iTunes Music Store will offer video games. Some Entertainment you’ll be able to download The iPod revolution has just begun— and play directly through prepare for the always-on explosion. your iPod (with an optional controller or via the iPod’s potential +VOICE ’PODS Within five years, you’ll be able to touchscreen technology, à la the Nintendo DS); others you’ll control your iPod with verbal input. “Playlist: Newly Added. be able to stream to your video-game consoles. (Hey, you can Shuffle. Play.” already play music from your ’Pod through your Xbox 360—all three of you that have managed to find one.) You’ll also be able +WIRELESS ’PODS The iPod will soon be wireless, to rent games on your iPod the same way you’ll rent movies allowing you to download songs directly from the iTunes Music (see “Home Entertainment,” p19). Store or stream them over Wi-Fi. It also means we’ll all be able to share all our music, all the time. The RIAA will lobby Congress to +VORACIOUS ’PODS It took the iTunes Music Store institute a tax on iPods to pay for what it will call “lost revenue,” three years to sell its first billion songs. You can expect it to even though music sales will be at an all-time high. move the next billion by the end of next year.

ax wakes up two hours employment was automatically past the time he’s terminated. scheduled to be at MAX IN On his way to the M work, grumbling before unemployment office, he stops he’s even out of bed. The iMac DYSTOPIAVILLE by a coffee shop to check the that controls his apartment was balance of his investment supposed to arouse him—what account. After paying the $20 happened? A quick check of the fee for an hour of Wi-Fi access wall screen reveals the problem: (free public hotspots were The company that publishes the banned in 2010—homeland alarm app allowed its Apple- security, y’know), he’s licensing certificate to expire. dismayed to discover that the The iMac’s trusted-computing Web site for his bank won’t circuitry discovered this fact last load. The bank, you see, It’s Tuesday, 2031, and technology has brought some night during its regular check-in failed to pay the local ISP for changes that are less than welcome. with Apple and automatically permission to transmit over disabled the wake-up app. its network. MallWartCo’s site Cursing fluidly and imaginatively, Max tries to call his boss loads fine, though—not that Max can afford to buy anything. from his company cell phone, but everyone’s in a meeting, and Finally, seeking relaxation, Max goes to the park. A few hours their voice-synthesized autobounceback messages tell him he of listening to his iPod while embraced by Mother Nature never can’t reach them until after lunch. He then tries to email his boss’s fails to cheer him up—too bad his iPod’s location-tracking RFID BlackBerry, but his e-stamp account is empty. (Email was changed (radio-frequency identification) chip denies it permission to to a pay-per-message system in late 2008. The change was touted play. Even though he’s listening through his wireless earbuds, as a spam-fighting measure, but the enormous revenue quickly the iPod requires that Max purchase a temporary public license corrupted the two remaining telcos that control broadband Internet before it will play in any location other than his apartment—the access. Unfortunately, spammers can afford all the e-stamps they location-licensing scheme was introduced by the RIAA as a way need—the telcos provide great bulk-mailing rate plans—so Max’s to discourage podjacking. inbox fills with daily offers for genetically modified organic Viagra; When Max overrides the restriction with a hack downloaded condo loans at the low, low APR of 23.5 percent; and—yes, it still from the Internet—a Venezuelan site, since Google ensures that exists—Nigerian advance-fee spam. But we digress…) Max pulls on U.S. sites are tightly policed—the iPod automatically notifies the his coat, jumps into his syn-fuel, self-guided Hyundai, and tells its police of his Digital Millennium Copyright Act violation. Max is guidance computer to take him to the office. arrested moments later. As the police lead him away, Max thinks Arriving at work, he finds a security guard with a pink back to his first computer—an Apple IIe for which he wrote his slip waiting by the blast-hardened gate. Max forgot that his own software—and weeps. What he doesn’t know, however, company tracks his cell phone via location-monitoring software is that an alert underground blogger has reported his plight to at the corporate headquarters; when the computer registered millions of MacAddict readers, who are already preparing for the that he was still at home two hours after his shift started, his obligatory (and illegal) protest march.—Johnathon Williams

22 May 2006 +NO SUBSCRIPTIONS The iTMS will not go to the +OKAY, SOME SUBSCRIPTIONS On second subscription model—not in the next five years, anyway. Current thought: The iTMS may offer subscription channels that serve as popular releases are just too reliable a cash cow. But within five samplers for certain musical genres. We could see subscribing years, iTMS will have multi-tier pricing, with the latest hits costing to a local-band channel to find out which bands were worth more than 99 cents. Unfortunately, that doesn’t necessarily mean checking out, or a classical music channel to listen—just once— that the old stuff will cost less than 99 cents. to every possible interpretation of Mahler’s Kindertotenleider.

as WiMAX and EVDO will enable providers to blanket even rural areas The with wireless coverage, so as long as you’ve got a properly-equipped Mac, cell phone, or other device, you’ll Internet always be on the info grid. T h in k m o b ili ty. T h in k u b i q u i ty. T h in k intru s i ve market in g s c h e m es. +UNFAIR ADVANTAGE Within five years, ISPs will merge into only a handful of major +iWEB GROWS UP Next year’s release of iWeb will players, and they’ll begin to offer “tiered access” service. allow forums and comments on blogs. Under this scheme, big corporate customers such as Wal-Mart, for example, could pay your ISP to make sure that Wal-Mart +MAKE YOUR OWN ONLINE STORE Apple will Online packets speed to your Mac without any of the delays that continue to raise .Mac’s bandwidth and storage-space limits will afflict access to small fish such as Rik’s eSausage eShack. while tying its capabilities more and more tightly to the iLife Solution? Independent ISPs. Problem? What independent ISPs? apps. Within five years, you’ll be able to get an ecommerce version of iWeb that’ll let you host your own stores on .Mac; +MOBILE TELEMARKETING Within 10 years, Google whether Apple will take a cut from each .Mac-based sale is will tie together Google Earth with its telephone-number-lookup anybody’s guess. system and newly acquired access to cell-phone data and location information to let you find anyone, anywhere, anytime— +WIRELESS ACCESS EVERYWHERE Five years as long as they have a cell phone. Businesses will leverage this from now, you’ll be able to find an Interweb connection of some technology to call your phone when you’re near their locations sort anywhere you go. Wireless Internet-access technologies such and play an audio or video ad.

Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile, by subleasing frequencies to resell to customers interested in an Apple Apple-quality cell-phone experience. The fabled Cupertino +MACS ARE HERE TO STAY Apple Fruit Company will continue won’t stop making Macs, at least not within the to thrive and expand. next dozen years or more; the company is more likely to start making something entirely new than to abandon computing hardware. Also, pro-level +WINDOWS? HA! Apple won’t adopt the Windows Apple-produced computers—no matter what they’re called—will operating system. Ever. (Don’t laugh; some pontificatory pundit continue to dominate high-end content creation. types are suggesting that it should.) +IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST Next year, +CAN YOU HEAR MAC NOW? Within five years, Apple will come out with an ad that doesn’t look like someone you’ll be able to buy an Apple-branded cell phone—with else’s ad or music video. iTunes built in, natch—and use it on an Apple-branded phone network. Apple won’t build its own network, but rather act as +NO COMMENT When asked about the future, Apple an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator), along the lines of spokesfolks will continue to decline to comment.

Jake Widman and the MacAddict staff have seen the future, and it works—that is, when it’s not just a spinning multicolored beach ball. Dennis Sellers is the founder of Macsimum News (www.macsimumnews.com), an online newspaper about all things Mac. After researching “Max in Dystopiaville,” Johnathon Williams fears the future.

May 2006 23 BACK ■ You know you should. ■ You know you’ll feel better when you do. ■ Here’s how to protect your precious ﬁ les from IT the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. UP! By John Rizzo acking up is like going to the gym to lose weight: Unless you have a strategy for doing it regularly, it just won’t be effective. Over the next few pages, we’re going to Bgive you that strategy—three strategies, in fact. First we’ll show you a bare-bones, easy backup that ensures you copy all the data that you can’t live without. After that, we have a disaster-recovery strategy designed to get you up and running immediately after a major problem. Finally, we detail a plan for archiving material that isn’t going to change, such as photos, old work projects, and music. No more excuses. Take these steps, and start living a healthier Mac lifestyle.

24 May 2006 BACK ■ You know you should. ■ You know you’ll feel better when you do. ■ Here’s how to protect your precious ﬁ les from IT the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. UP! Strategy 1: THE BARE MINIMUM If you’re just too busy to back up the “right” way, at least make time to back up what’s important. onventional wisdom has it that you should back up everything, every day, onto three sets of media—two onsite and a third offsite, preferably in a safety deposit C box at the bottom of an unused mine shaft. While this strategy makes sense for some, it’s overkill for most—and similar to what happens when you’re told to work out for an hour every day, you’ll just end up doing no backup at all. Here, we defy orthodoxy and offer an alternative that doesn’t require a lot of storage space or time. You can use just about any media you have at hand, including online storage, external drives, and optical discs. The idea of the Bare Minimum backup is to back up only ﬁ les that you’re using and changing on a regular basis. First, here’s what you don’t need to back up, and why:

■ MAC OS X You can reinstall this from your Mac OS X Install disc if you need to recover from disaster. ■ APPS THAT CAME WITH THE MAC You can also use the Install disc that came with your Mac to reinstall all of these apps at once. ■ APPS THAT CAME ON A CD OR DVD You’ll reinstall these one at a time if you need to. ■ APPS FOR WHICH YOU STILL HAVE THE INSTALLER Ditto. (See “Archive Your Static Data,” p27.)

In addition to these items, there are some ﬁ les and folders that you don’t need to back ON THE up every day because they don’t change that often. An occasional archiving of these will DISC ▲ Déjà Vu, iPod.iTunes, work ﬁ ne, as explained in the “Archive Your Static Data” section (p27). SuperDuper

May 2006 25 You’ve probably noticed that all of these folders are in the Library folder inside your home (user name) folder. To make things simple, you could back up your entire /user name/Library folder, though it contains files that you don’t really need to back up, which drastically increases the space needed. To copy these folders and files, you could simply drag them to your backup medium—but that’s something you won’t want to do every day. You’re better off using software that will back up these folders automatically. One of the best utilities for the Bare Minimum backup is Apple’s own Backup, which you can get when you subscribe to Apple’s .Mac service—even if you just sign up for the free 60-day trial (download it from your /iDisk/ Software/Apple Software folder). The appeal is that you don’t actually need to know the locations of the email, calendar, and other key folders—all you need to do is select these and other items from Backup’s list of preconfigured backup scenarios. (For Apple’s Backup provides you with a set of predefined backup more on using Backup, see “Back That Mac Up,” Mar/06, p63.) options, but it also lets you create your own. Other backup utilities will also work but take more effort to set up and reconfigure. (See “A Backup-Software Sampler,” p28.) What you do need to back up is trickier. Of course you want to back up your data files, usually located in your Documents Strategy 2: folder—but a lot of what you want to back up is secreted away in places you’d never think to look. Here are the key folders that THE BOOTABLE- change regularly and should be included in the minimum backup: BACKUP SAFETY NET When everything goes wrong, use this ■ EMAIL MESSAGES / user name/Library/Mail for Apple Mail; /user name/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office method to get back on your feet in an instant. 2004 Identities/Main Identity for Entourage ow that we’ve just shown you how not to back up ■ iCAL CALENDAR / user name/Library/Application your entire hard disk, we’re going to tell you why you Support/iCal in Tiger; /user name/Library/Calendars in N might want to. Two words: disaster recovery. When Mac OS 10.3.9 and earlier your hard drive goes south and refuses to return, nothing beats ■ ADDRESS BOOK CONTACTS /user name/Library/ having a bootable external hard drive to start your Mac back up. Application Support/AddressBook Having one lets you immediately get back to business, checking ■ SAFARI BOOKMARKS / user name/Library/Safari/ your email and using your files. A bootable backup drive also Bookmarks.plist makes it easier to try fixing your sick drive, because you can ■ KEYCHAIN PASSWORDS / user name/Library/ use multiple disk-repair utilities such as Alsoft’s DiskWarrior Keychains ($79.95, www.alsoft.com) or file-recovery utilities such as

RAID = BACKUP?

RAID array—acronymified puts them on all the drives, making in its protection against hardware from either “redundant the read/write process faster; drive failures. A array of inexpensive disks” concatenated tells the Mac to treat So what’s the problem? Most or “redundant array of independent all the drives as though they were a hard-drive errors aren’t caused by drives”—is often portrayed as an single volume. Mirror RAID is the type hardware failure, but by corruption alternative to backup. In some ways it considered an alternative to backup: of data in the drive directory. When is, but in some important ways it isn’t. As you save files, they’re placed onto this happens, the RAID software can Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) supports two drives simultaneously, leaving copy the bad data to both drives, three ways to use multiple disks in you with an always-up-to-date extra spreading the problem to your a RAID array, configurable through bootable drive. If one hard drive fails, “backup.” Now you have a dead Mac Disk Utility: striped, concatenated, you can keep running the Mac with and a nonworking backup. and mirror. (Obviously, you need to the other. When you replace the dead The lesson here is that running have multiple drives connected to drive, the mirror RAID is regenerated a RAID is good insurance against your Mac to do this.) Striped breaks automatically. In this way, mirror downtime for certain problems, but files into multiple segments and RAID is superior to a daily backup it’s no guarantee against data loss.

26 May 2006 Prosoft’s Data Rescue II ($99, www.prosofteng.com) without restarting your Mac—otherwise, you’ll have to restart with each utility’s CD or DVD each time you try a different repair utility. BUSINESS BACKUP Finally, if you do need to recreate your hard drive, your backup software will reinstall all of your software, settings, and files in acking up in a business environment can be one step—there’ll be no need to run multiple installers. crucial to preserving the bottom line—it’s not To create a bootable backup drive, you’ll need software Ban option. But businesses often need to back that copies the thousands of invisible files the Mac requires to up multiple Macs at the same time. The easiest way to start up—you won’t get these files by dragging and dropping. do this is to simply back up files from each Mac on the Some utilities that do a good job are Déjà Vu, BounceBack, network to an ordinary file-server volume mounted on and SuperDuper (see “A Backup-Software Sampler,” p28). every Mac. Many of the backup utilities that you’d use on Alternately, some external drives, such as those in the Maxtor an individual Mac, including Déjà Vu, BounceBack, and OneTouch line ($149.95 to $899.95, www.maxtor.com), come Retrospect, can also back up to a mounted file server. with backup software that can create a bootable drive. Larger businesses, on the other hand, may choose to back up to a dedicated backup server. Each one of the users’ Macs runs a backup client to transfer files to the server, and then the server itself gets backed up. The advantage to a dedicated backup server is that it gives better performance than using a file server, and users don’t have to mount a drive on their Macs. Backup servers also usually include administration software that enables an IT staff to configure all of the Macs from one place. Backup servers often allow both Mac and Windows PCs to back up to the same server, Déjà Vu can back up a whole disk or selected folders according to and they generally work with various types of media, the schedule you choose. including tape. Industrial-strength backup services such as BakBone Your first full-disk backup can take up your lunch hour—or (www.bakbone.com) and ADIC (www.adic.com) can even your entire afternoon—but subsequent backups will be run on multiple backup servers, and they can service much shorter. That’s because most backup utilities back up hundreds of users’ computers and file servers. They incrementally, copying only files that are new or have changed provide features such as backing up several different since the last backup. types of files at different times, backing up to remote If you’re using an older external drive as your backup, it may sites, and backing up to tape libraries. These big-boy have a smaller capacity than your modern Mac’s internal drive. backup systems mean business—and save businesses. To make sure you don’t run into trouble, choose software that lets you exclude specific folders from being backed up to your bootable drive. Some space-hogging items you might want to leave out include your music, photos, and movies (assuming you’ve archived them as described in the next section), the Caches folder (/user name/Library/Caches), and applications for which you still have the CDs. Do not, however, exclude your hard-drive repair utilities; you’ll want to have these on your backup drive in case of an emergency. Strategy 3: ARCHIVE YOUR STATIC DATA Some data only needs to be backed up CMS’s schedulable BounceBack provides detailed info of once. Make sure you do it right the first time. its progress while backing up. rchiving to optical discs (recordable DVDs and CDs) is a great strategy for data that doesn’t change and that A you might want to keep for awhile. Movies, music, and Until new storage technologies become widely available (such photos are good candidates for archiving. Optical media not as Blu-ray, introduced this year, which can store up to 25GB only lasts longer than hard-drive storage, but it’s hella cheaper, on single-layer media—but currently costs $1,000 for a drive too. The downside is the relatively small size of each disc: and 20 bucks for a disc), use backup software that can spread An iMovie file can easily be too big to fit on a single DVD, and files across multiple discs. Roxio’s Toast 7 Titanium ( even a nano-sized iTunes library would occupy multiple CDs. Jan/06, p44), for example, has this ability.

May 2006 27 A BACKUP- APPLICATION PROS CONS IDEAL USES SOFTWARE Backup Backs up to .Mac, hard You must subscribe to Backing up settings, iCal, ■ Apple drives, and optical disks. Apple’s .Mac service Address Book, and songs SAMPLER ■ www.mac.com You don’t need to know or sign up for a 60-day purchased from the iTunes There’s a lot of ■ $99 per year locations of key files free trial. Cannot create Music Store. (as part of .Mac and folders. bootable drive. backup software out subscription) there, and most of it BounceBack Creates bootable backup The backup and Scheduled backup of entire is very good at doing ■ CMS Products drive. Automatically restore functions are in or partial bootable hard disks some things while ■ www.cmsproducts launches when you plug separate applications. to one or more destinations. .com in backup drive. Easy Scheduling both backup and not so super at doing ■ $79 exclusion of folders. Can archiving. other tasks. This schedule different folders for different media. list should give you Carbon Creates bootable drive. Cannot back up to Scheduled backup of entire a good idea of the Copy Cloner Dirt cheap. CDs or DVDs. No way hard drive to a bootable range of utilities ■ Mike Bombich to exclude folders. external drive. ■ www.bombich.com Complex user interface. you can find. ■ $5 or more No tech support. (donationware) Déjà Vu Creates bootable drive. You can select Scheduled backup of selected ■ Propaganda Simple to use. Free if you individual folders, folders or an entire hard drive Productions have Roxio’s Toast. but you can’t exclude to a bootable external drive. ■ www.propagandaprod folders if entire drive .com, on the Disc is selected. ■ $25, or free with Roxio Toast Retrospect Lets you customize Complex interface. Backing up multiple Macs over ■ EMC Insignia and configure every a network. ■ www.emcinsignia.com conceivable aspect of ■ $129 a backup. SuperDuper More advanced options No way to exclude Scheduled backup of an ■ Shirt Pocket Software than Carbon Copy Cloner. folders. entire hard drive to a bootable ■ www.shirt-pocket.com, external drive. on the Disc ■ $28

As with the other strategies we’ve detailed, you need to know The purchased-music-only archive approach leaves you what to archive. Here’s a short list: with all of your music CDs to reimport if you need to restore your hard drive. It would be easier to archive all of your iTunes ■ SOFTWARE PURCHASED BY DOWNLOAD music (/user name/Music/iTunes), though that may require Back up the installer (disk image or compressed archive) if multiple DVDs. Another storage option is your iPod, of course, you still have it; otherwise, back up the software itself. if it’s big enough to hold all of your music. The problem is that ■ COMPLETED PROJECTS You can figure this one out. Apple gives you no way to restore the music and playlists ■ MOVIES /user name/Movies from your iPod to your Mac. You’ll need to turn to one of the ■ PHOTOS /user name/Pictures/iPhoto Library many shareware utilities that can do that, such as PodWorks ■ MUSIC That’s a more complicated task. Read on. ($8, www.scifihifi.com/podworks), iPod.iTunes ($35, on the Disc, www.crispsofties.com), or iPod Access ($14.99, www When it comes to music, the very least you should archive is .findleydesigns.com). what you’ve purchased from the iTunes Music Store or otherwise downloaded from the Internet. Apple’s Backup allows you to back up purchased music to discs or your .Mac account. You can THE MULTIPRONGED also use iTunes to burn your Purchased Music playlist to disc. APPROACH However you back up your music, be sure to include the ou’ve probably guessed by now that the best strategy is /Users/Shared folder in your archive. This folder contains to use a bit of each of the techniques we’ve described. invisible information that holds your iTunes Music Store Y Create an archive of your space-hogging static data on authorization data—without it, you might not be able to play your optical discs. Back up regularly to a bootable backup drive. If purchased songs. Also consider including your playlists, located you subscribe to .Mac, use it to upload automatic daily backups in files called iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library, from of your application settings, iCal calendar, and Address Book your /user name/Music/iTunes folder (unless you’ve moved your contacts. This gives you two copies of some of your most whole iTunes folder somewhere else—to an external drive, for valuable data. instance—in which case they’re in the new folder location). Storage in the unused mineshaft is optional.

John Rizzo backed up his Mac 217 times while writing Mac mini 28 May 2006 Mods and Hacks for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons, 2006). Left Right ��

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Left Right Field Guide to VIDEO-EDITING TERMS Vital Video Verbiage By Shelly Brisbin he moment you venture into the world of digital video editing, you’ll be bombarded by swarms of terms that come from ﬁlm, Ttape-based video editing, and even still-image work. Here’s a quick look at some of the language you should know as you get started with iMovie HD or embark on any other video-crafting voyage.

Shooting Lingo COVERAGE “Extra” footage shot to ensure that at least some video is available for all possible scenes. Coverage shots may feature scenery, long shots of events, or other material that can be used during editing to “cover” scene changes, audio-only sequences, or other elements that lack speciﬁc content. DEPTH A measure of how much of your scene, from foreground to background, will be in focus. A shallow depth of OF FIELD ﬁeld is good for highlighting particular subjects by keeping them in sharp focus while the background blurs. FRAMES Individual video images that comprise a clip (see below). NTSC video—the U.S. standard—is composed of 29.97 frames per second (fps). HEADROOM The area above a subject’s head in a shot. To take an effective shot of a person, leave plenty of headroom. PAN/TILT Rotation of a camera along an axis. A pan shot, usually done with the camera mounted on a tripod, moves smoothly from side to side to capture a landscape or to follow motion. A tilt shot moves up and down. SHOT LIST The written description of the shots needed for a video project, usually prepared in advance of shooting. Shot lists ensure that you have all of the footage you need when you begin editing. TIMECODE Notation indicating the position of video footage in time (hours, minutes, and seconds) and number of frames. Camcorders create timecode, and you can use it to identify your position within a recording once you import it into a video-editing app such as iMovie HD.

Editing Lingo ASPECT RATIO The shape of a video frame, expressed by the ratio of its width to its height. Standard television uses a 4:3 aspect ratio, while widescreen and HDTV uses a 16:9 ratio. CLIP A portion (often a complete scene) of a video project. Clips can be combined, edited, or split to create larger or smaller segments of video. You can insert transitions and video effects between clips. CODEC An algorithm that compresses and decompresses video. To play digital video, apps such as QuickTime Player or RealPlayer must have access to a codec that is compatible with the video’s compression format. DROPOUT Missing audio or video. Dropouts occur during playback, either because the original video is ﬂawed, or because the playback device (your old, low-RAM Mac, for example) can’t process video information fast Component enough to display it in real time. Component EDL Edit Decision List. Notes and descriptions of scenes to be edited or cut. A proper EDL should specify the time at which important scenes and potential edits occur. Editors use the EDL to place scenes in their ﬁnal running order.

Component Video vs. Composite Video CompositeComponent Component video is split into three separate signals: one for Component luminance (roughly equivalent to brightness) and two for chrominance video (left) (color information). Component signals travel directly to a monitor sends video via or TV via three separate cables and connectors. Composite video, on three cables, the other hand, has been compressed so that only one cable (and one while compositeComposite jack) is required—the yellow one in the red/white/yellow setup that (right) uses only Component most TVs, VCRs, and DVD players use. Component video provides a single, usually higher quality than composite video. yellow, cable. Interlaced + = Composite 32 May 2006 Composite

Rule of thirds Interlaced + = Interlaced + =

Interlaced + =

Rule of thirds

Rule of thirds Interlaced Video vs. Progressive Video Interlaced video creates complete video frames by overlapping two video fi elds. The camera shoots two exposures per frame, the fi rst including all odd scan lines (one fi eld), the second containing the even-numbered lines (the second fi eld). When + = played back, all of the odd lines are drawn fi rst, then all of the even lines. Standard (NTSC and PAL) TVs use interlaced video. Progressive video draws all the lines in order, making Interlaced video (above) draws an image in alternate scan lines. one complete frame in a single pass. Digital TVs and computer Progressive video draws a whole image in one pass, which can monitors use progressive video. reduce the appearance of fl icker.

IN POINT/ The point at which a segment begins (in) or ends (out). You can use iMovie bookmarks to create in and out OUT POINT points that remind you where edits should occur, or you can use timecode to note an in/out point’s position. INSERT Editing feature that adds new footage between existing clips. iMovie uses insert editing: Dragging a new clip EDITING into the timeline moves the following clip to the right. JOG To step slowly through video footage. The term comes from the mechanical jog dial used by pro videotape- editing equipment. In iMovie, you can jog one or 10 frames at a time. LOSSY Refers to a video-compression format that sacrifi ces some of the information in the footage in order to generate smaller fi les. Most video formats you’ll run into, such as MPEG-4 and QuickTime, are lossy. NATURAL Audio recorded by your DV camera as you shoot. Use the audio as is, enhance it with iMovie’s audio effects, or SOUND replace it with a music or voiceover track. NONLINEAR The ability to cut and paste clips at will to any location within a video project, as opposed to linear editing, EDITING in which video editors copy footage in sequence from one tape to another. Old-school fi lm editing is also nonlinear, because it involves physically cutting and splicing fi lm. REAL-TIME Live, full-quality preview of a video clip, including effects or transitions that have been added and rendered. PREVIEW RENDER To apply video and audio effects, transitions, titles, and other such items to a video project. Once rendered, effects will be seen (or heard) when you play the movie in iMovie. ROUGH CUT A quick edit or arrangement of clips intended to roughly approximate the fi nal project. Organizing your clips on the iMovie HD timeline will give you an idea of the fi nal movie’s length and can help you choose effects and transitions. SCRUB To move through video footage in Rule of Thirds iMovie or another video-editing If you’re looking for a good app by dragging the playhead. way to position a subject for Manually scrubbing through a pleasing composition, try video lets you skim its contents. this: Mentally divide your STORYBOARD A series of drawings that shows fi eld of view into a three- the intended sequence of a video by-three grid, and place project. In digital-video-editing your subject at one of the software, the timeline (see below) imaginary intersections is often called the storyboard. inside—a third of the way down and a third of the way TIMELINE An area in the iMovie HD or in from the right side, for other video-editing-software example. interface containing video clips, transitions, effects, titles, still Place your main images, and audio—all the subject at one elements that will be part of the of the third-offi nished project. the-way dots Shelly Brisbin has been known to holler “That’s a wrap!” as for a pleasing she exits family gatherings with bags full of DV tapes. composition.

May 2006 33 RATIN¬S 35

You’ll be You’ll be You’ll be You’ll be You’ll be blown away. impressed. satisfied. disappointed. pissed off. REVIEWSbetter living through smarter shopping

Not only does Epson’s PowerLite 76c (pictured) look cool, it’s also light and portable. Other cool-looking products this month include a pair of Mac mini–styled hard drives, a stylish business printer, and Apple’s own MacBook Pro. Next month, look for reviews of Olive’s Musica, GroupSmarts’ MemoryMiner, WiebeTech’s SilverSATA II, and more.

54 Digital FM Radio & FM Transmitter for iPod iPod FM transmitter and receiver 46 EasyShare-One camera 40 Evolt E-500 camera 52 iKey Portable USB Recorder audio recorder 53 iPod Hi-Fi iPod speaker stand 38 iWork ’06 productivity-software suite 36 MacBook Pro notebook Mac 55 Maxelerate external hard drive 55 MiniMax external hard drive 54 Officejet K550 business inkjet printer 42 Painter Essentials 3 painting software 51 Pixma MP950 multifunction printer 49 PowerLite 76c projector 50 Sorenson Squeeze 4.1 media-compression suite 44 Swift Publisher page-layout app 54 Thin laptop bag 48 Wave Editor audio-editing software

Games 57 Black and White 2 tips and tricks 59 ButtKicker Gamer audio-transducer review 59 Games Go Universal Intel-Mac update 59 The Movies coming soon 57 The Sims 2 University expansion-pack review 58 Zoo Tycoon 2 simulation-game review

We’d spend our Universal application own hard-earned that runs natively on money on this both PowerPC and product. Intel Macs. PHOTOGRAPHBY SAMANTHA BERG

May 2006 35 REVIEWS 36 better living through smarter shopping

2GHz and 2.16GHz MacBook Pros FAST (IN MOST CASES) NOTEBOOK MACS

owerBook owners have been aching Pfor a signifi cant speed upgrade for quite some time now. With the new 2GHz and 2.16GHz MacBook Pros, that big leap in speed is fi nally here—for the most part. The details. Apple offers the 2.16GHz processor as an optional $300 upgrade to the standard 2GHz MacBook Pro. Both ’Books come standard with a 100GB 5,400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive; the 2.16GHz MacBook Pro we tested had a 7,200-rpm 100GB drive—a $100 option. Aside from these options, both ’Books that we tested had the same standard specs: 2MB shared L2 cache; 667MHz frontside bus; 1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (upgradable to 2GB); Gigabit Ethernet; and built-in AirPort Extreme, Bluetooth 2.0, and iSight. Measuring 14.1 by 1 by 9.6 inches and weighing 5.6 pounds, both MacBook Pros have a 15.4-inch LCD with a native resolution of The future of the 1,440 by 900 pixels and a zippy 256MB PowerBook is here, and ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card it’s called the MacBook Pro. with dual-link support. Other than the iSight camera atop the LCD, the ports when someone balancing six lattes with the MacBook Pro’s single-layer (which we’ll get to in a minute), and the accidentally trips over your power cable. burning.) Things you might miss: MacBook Pro logo, the MacBook Pro If your MacBook Pro does happen to There’s no FireWire 800 port, modem, looks like a PowerBook G4. drop, however, its Sudden Motion or S-Video-out connector as there was On the MacBook Pro’s left side, Sensor quickly parks the hard drive’s on the PowerBook—think of these as you’ll fi nd a Kensington cable-lock head to prevent damage. Unfortunately, “third-party opportunities” for the slot, USB 2.0 port, FireWire 400 port, the adapter disconnects rather easily—it ExpressCard/34 slot or USB port. Things Gigabit Ethernet connector, and DVI often fell off as we simply nudged the you’ll welcome: Front Row, Apple’s media connector for an external display. On its MacBook Pro around our desk. It’s a interface that you use with the included right side, there’s an ExpressCard/34 rather minor fl aw, unless you happen Apple Remote control, and Photo Booth, slot, combined optical digital-output/ to be using the MacBook Pro without a Apple’s slap-happy photo-effects app headphone jack, combined optical battery (and when do you ever do that?). that works with the iSight. digital audio-input jack, another USB Unfortunately, the adapter’s power brick Testing. To gauge the MacBook Pro’s 2.0 port, and the MagSafe power- is about 1.5 times wider and 0.25 inches speed, we ran a battery of tests using adapter port. taller than the PowerBook G4’s. both Intel-native software and apps that Speaking of the power adapter, it’s a Many key features that we loved in the require Rosetta, Apple’s PowerPC-to- newly redesigned one that takes its cue PowerBook are still here in the MacBook Intel code translator. For reference, we from, of all things, the power ports on Pro, including the scrolling trackpad ran the same tests on a 17-inch 1.67GHz fondue pots. It connects magnetically (which lets you drag two fi ngers on PowerBook G4 ( Jan/06, p26), to the MacBook Pro, and all it takes is a the pad to perform screen scrolls), which has the same processor and video slight tug to disconnect it. This scheme illuminated keyboard, and slot-loading subsystem as the 15-inch PowerBook helps prevent the MacBook Pro from SuperDrive. (Though double-layer G4. All of the ’Books had 1GB of RAM, fl ying off your table at a coffee shop DVD burning would be nice, we’re fi ne and—except for our battery test—we

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iWork ’06 EVOLVING PRODUCTIVITY-SOFTWARE SUITE Both Keynote and Pages share a new translucent window that allows you to adjust the color, contrast, and other attributes of imported images, often with just a few clicks.

new Comments feature, which allows reviewers to post yellow sticky notes on your slides or pages. Of course, comments don’t appear during presentations, and you can choose to show or hide them when printing from Pages. If you export a Pages document to Word, comments are preserved— a big plus. Keynote improvements. Apple has added seven attractive new presentation themes, including some in sizes appropriate for HD projection (but who does Work ’06, the latest version of Apple’s Working with graphics has been that besides Steve Jobs?). You’ll also iproductivity suite, may deceive you. improved. A new iPhoto-style fi nd a handful of new slide transitions, A quick look could make you think that adjustment palette lets you improve including a nice Refl ection effect that not much has changed. But a deeper the brightness, contrast, sharpness, pulls back to reveal the slide against examination reveals many new features and other attributes of your images. a refl ecting black fl oor, then pans and that long-term users have wanted and A handy Auto Levels button allows zooms to the next slide. several longstanding—and annoying— you to fi x digital-camera images with Some long-standing feature requests bugs that have fi nally been squashed. one click (most of the time). There have been addressed, such as the ability Overall, it’s a good buy if you’re just are also now more built-in shapes, to have multiple text boxes containing getting on board with iWork, but if including stars and polygons (with bulleted text on a single slide; you can you already own iWork ’05, read on to variable numbers of points and sides), even use bulleted text in table cells see if this year’s version has enough and Bezier curves have been added and other objects. You can also scale improvements for you. as drawing objects. You won’t be able grouped objects—that is, you can create Shared improvements. iWork includes to completely eliminate other graphic a set of objects, group them, and then Keynote 3, Apple’s answer to Microsoft’s apps when preparing images for slides resize the whole set. PowerPoint presentation app, and Pages or pages, but many touch-up tasks can Finally catching up to PowerPoint, 2, the amalgamated word processor now be accomplished right in iWork. Keynote has a new slide-sorting feature and page-layout app. Being parts of a The ability to use any graphic shape as called Light Table, which allows you suite, Keynote and Pages have similar a nondestructive image mask is a great to drag thumbnails of your slides to interfaces, and some new features improvement—it’s now much easier to rearrange their order. Unfortunately, appear in both. For example, while iWork show just the parts of images you need. the thumbnail size is fi xed, so if you still lacks a full spreadsheet app, both iWork ’06 also includes several new have many slides, you may need to Keynote and Pages add the ability to do 3D charts, which (as you would expect) squint to tell which slide is which. Light simple calculations within tables—you are fl ashy and gorgeous, but of dubious Table really needs an iPhoto-esque can apply six common functions (Sum, real-world value compared to 2D charts. magnifi cation slider. Average, Min, Max, Count, and Product) There’s also a new scatter chart type. Keynote handles QuickTime movies to table contents. You can also (at last!) If you’ve ever needed to submit your better thanks to the addition of onscreen sort items in your tables. documents for approval, you’ll like the (or keyboard) controls during playback,

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lag (the time from when you press the release to the actual exposure) is virtually nil. Shutter-speed choices range from 1/4000 of a second to 8 minutes, and ISOs range from 100 to 1,600. The E-500 can shoot at several megapixel resolutions, and formats include JPEG, TIFF, RAW, and RAW+JPEG. The automatic sensor cleaner uses ultrasonic vibration to remove loose dust particles from the CCD each time you power up, so black specks won’t appear on your image. There are fi ve scene settings on the mode dial: Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, and Night Scene And Portrait. If you turn the dial to Scene, you can Feature-fi lled—and scroll through these choices plus ten takes nice pics, too. more, each with descriptions and image examples displayed on the LCD monitor. You can also set the E-500 to Auto or Program and let it do most of the thinking for you. When you’re ready to Evolt E-500 perform manual adjustments, Aperture IMPRESSIVE DIGITAL SLR CAMERA priority, Shutter priority, and Manual exposure are at your command. he eight-megapixel Olympus Views. Be prepared for a slight tunnel At low ISO settings, the E-500’s TEvolt E-500 is a comfortable and effect when previewing pictures in the picture quality is extraordinary, but reasonably light digital SLR camera with viewfi nder—you’ll feel a bit as if you’re when we pushed the ISO over 400, high-quality lenses that produce equally looking through a tube—but even four- images tended to become noisy. At ISO high-quality images, making it a top eyed photographers 400, we were able to roll contender in its class. can view the full image out 12-by-15-inch images The E-500’s rubberized, slip-proof without the edges on our Epson 2200 grip is perfectly sized—your nose has disappearing. For a bigger printer that showed great a nice resting place when you hold the viewfi nder image, just detail in both shadows camera to your eye. The camera remains slip off the eyecup and and highlights, perfect rock-steady when rotated to shoot replace it with an optional color, and no noticeable vertical images, and the tack-sharp magnifying one ($49). noise. The camera’s Zuiko 14mm-to-45mm (28mm-to-90mm Sequential shooting TV mode also yielded equivalent on a 35mm camera) f/3.5- could be improved; great output on a video to-f/5.6 digital lens has smooth-as-silk you can only take four projector that threw a zooming. pictures at a time at a rate four-by-fi ve-foot image The E-500’s nice 2.5-inch LCD viewing of 2.5 frames per second. on a screen. screen makes it easy to view images and You can still continue The bottom line. If compare them side by side. The LCD also shooting normally while The Evolt E-500’s standard lens you haven’t accumulated doubles as a status monitor, and the the buffer clears and then yields razor-sharp detail. Meow! a bunch of lenses that interface icons are easy for older eyes to shoot another high-speed dictate buying another read. You can pack plenty of ammo when sequence, but four frames isn’t enough, brand, the E-500 has all the features you shoot, since there are two memory- especially when shooting action scenes. you’ll ever need, plus some that its card slots: a CompactFlash slot and an Shot-to-shot time is as fast as you can competitors don’t have. The E-500 is Olympus xD-Picture Card slot. press the shutter release, and shutter a quality camera.—Arthur Bleich

COMPANY: Olympus PRICE: $799.99 (with 14mm-to-45mm GOOD NEWS: Comfortable. Fast shot-to-shot times. CONTACT: 888-553-4448, lens), $899.99 (with 14mm-to-45mm Excellent lens quality. Accurate flesh tones. www.olympus.com and 40mm-to-150mm lenses) BAD NEWS: Slightly small viewfinder. Memory card REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2 or later not included. Sequential shooting speed could be faster.

40 May 2006 REVIEWS 42 better living through smarter shopping

The new Photo Painting palettes help convert your photos into painterly works of art.

functions, you use the Restoration palette to bring back some of the detail from your original image. It’s almost as simple as paint by numbers—you don’t even have to don a smock—but be prepared for a bit of experimenting to get your desired results. Once you’re fi nished, you can use your images for printed cards, a wall display, a Web gallery, or simply as your screen saver. You can also add borders using the included Pattern Pens Painter Essentials 3 or Image Hose. For the artistically impaired, PICTURESQUE PAINTING SOFTWARE Essentials’ online tutorials are helpful, and the installation disc includes ainter IX ( Feb/05, p38) is since Essentials essentially does it well-done videos from lynda.com that Pthe best painting app we’ve seen, for you. Creating a photo painting show you how to use Essentials’ tools. but it may be intimidating for the casual takes three steps: First, you use the There’s also a Quick Guide palette that graphic artist or dabbling amateur. For Underpainting palette to prep your gives further instruction on Essentials’ the rest of us, Corel offers the affordable image. Then, you select a Cloner brush advanced abilities, and the installation Painter Essentials 3, an approachable type (there are 12 to choose from) and disc contains GeeGuides—animated painting app that’s easy to use, yet training shorts aimed at kids. potent enough for when you’re ready to Other new features: a Quick Clone get serious. tool, an Eraser tool, a Rubber Stamp Corel injects Painter Essentials with tool, the ability to hide or display layers many of the higher-end customizing with a click and drag, and more. features found in Painter IX, just in Our one major problem with smaller numbers and variations. The app Essentials: There are only fi ve levels of includes a total of 18 different brush undo. Sure, fi ve may be enough for most types (Artists’ Oils, Crayons, Digital of us, but many modern apps let you Watercolors, Pattern Pens, Tinting, and undo an unlimited number of steps. It more) and multiple ways to modify brush would’ve been nice if this one did, too, behavior and surface textures. And while especially when you get particularly most pro Painter IX users work with a carried away with your creations. pen-and-tablet input device, Corel made Create fancy borders with Essentials’ The bottom line. Whether you’re sure that Essentials works well with a Pattern Pens or Image Hose. looking for an easy way to achieve the mouse—though if you do decide to get appearance of a painting or just looking serious, you’ll fi nd that a pen and tablet use the Autopainting palette to select to play around, Painter Essentials 3 is give you far greater control. the Brush Stroke, Pressure, Brush Size, a great place to start. It’s a serious app Essentials’ new Photo Painting Randomness (how the strokes are that harnesses a small part of Painter IX’s palettes let you convert a photo into applied), and other painting attributes. power. It can grow with your abilities. a painting without breaking a sweat, After you’ve applied the Autopainting —Steven Parke and Roman Loyola

COMPANY: Corel REQUIREMENTS: G3, Mac OS GOOD NEWS: Easy to use. Cool Photo Painting CONTACT: 800-772-6735, 10.2.8 or later, 256MB RAM, 150MB features make painting fun. www.corel.com disk space, 1,024-by-768-pixel or BAD NEWS: Limited undo. PRICE: $99 higher display resolution

42 May 2006 REVIEWS 44 better living through smarter shopping

Apple could take a page from Swift Publisher for its own document- creation app, Pages.

clip-art library or the Internet. You can also import graphic fi les, including native Photoshop (PSD) and Illustrator (AI) fi les. While Swift Publisher’s feature set isn’t nearly as broad as its high-end cousins, it matches up quite well in many key areas. For example, typographic features include line spacing (leading), space before paragraphs, standard alignments (left, centered, right, and justifi ed), hyphenation, kerning, baseline shift, drop shadows, OpenType support, and text and paragraph styles. You can also crop, scale, fl ip, tile, and colorize any graphic. Before you start thinking that Swift Publisher is a high-end contender, consider a few of its limitations: It has Swift Publisher no support for color separations, color trapping, or Pantone colors. While LIKABLE CONSUMER-LEVEL PAGE-LAYOUT APP you can add, delete, and move pages, ven if you’ve spent lots of time with several template categories—including there aren’t any master pages, per se EInDesign or QuarkXPress, you’ll Cards, Catalogs, Certifi cates, Flyers, (each document page has its own be impressed with Swift Publisher, a Letterheads & Fax, Menus, Newsletters, background). There’s also no automatic consumer-level word-processing and and Posters—and you can create your page numbering, no table-of-contents page-layout app. It combines an intuitive own custom templates. Each category generation, and no indexing feature. interface, a limited but versatile feature includes several predesigned layouts The minimal documentation reads like set, and gobs of templates and clip art. with placeholder text, placeholder a poor translation. A typical example: Swift Publisher has much in common graphics, and text and paragraph “The ‘Object causes wrap’ chechbox with Apple’s Pages, which comes with styles; there are also blank layouts [sic] enables/disables the selected the Keynote presentation app in iWork with standard dimensions. object wrapping by text. When wrap ’06 ( , p38). Pages is defi nitely Page maker. A Swift Publisher is enables [sic], you can select type of stronger than Swift Publisher in some publication consists of text rectangles, wrapping.” Fortunately, the interface is areas; for example, Pages includes graphics, and lines, so building a page quite intuitive. chart-making capabilities, tables, tables is much like building a page with any The bottom line. Swift Publisher of contents, footnotes, bookmarks, page-layout app—you add objects to doesn’t have nearly as many word- hyperlinks, and character styles, and a page, and then you modify them. processing features as Microsoft it lets you export Word, HTML, RTF, Swift Publisher includes a staggeringly Word (thankfully), nor does it have and Plain Text fi les. Then again, iWork large library of clip art—over 23,000 as many typographic, page-layout, costs more than twice as much as Swift images—though the quality varies. long-document, or printing features as Publisher, and it doesn’t include any clip Some graphics are quite good, but high-end page-layout apps. Then again, art or nearly as many templates. many are bitmaps that are ill-suited for Swift Publisher isn’t aimed at high- To create a publication, you can use high-resolution output (though perfectly end publishers. It’s more for schools, any of several dozen templates that adequate for your inkjet or laser printer). students, nonprofi ts, churches, and are included with You can also display your iPhoto library small businesses that want to produce ON THE the app, or you can in the clip-art panel, or you can choose a nice-looking color publications in small DISC start with a blank folder of graphics to display. A keyword quantities, but don’t need an expensive, Swift Publisher document. There are search lets you hunt through the built-in industrial-strength app.—John Cruise

COMPANY: BeLight Software REQUIREMENTS: GOOD NEWS: Versatile feature set. Easy to use. Lots of templates CONTACT: +380 48 738-08-49, Mac OS 10.3 or later and clip art. Reasonably priced. www.belightsoft.com BAD NEWS: Doesn’t compare favorably to Pages in some areas. PRICE: $39.95 (retail), $34.95 (download) Few features for long documents. Documentation needs work.

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The EasyShare- One’s Wi-Fi lets you keep the cables where they belong—in the box.

and image quality; it’s one of the best LCDs we’ve seen on a camera. The EasyShare- One’s photos showed good sharpness and shadow detail, and the built-in electronic fl ash does a great job indoors. Several pictures taken in poorly lit rooms showed all the detail we could hope for. One caution: The fl ash can burn out detail if you’re too close, as it did with our close- ups of fl owers. EasyShare-One One thing gave us pause: The EasyShare-One offers none of the WI-FI CAMERA usual Fine, Normal, Best, or other JPEG f your Mac can go wireless, why not select Share, and then select Transfer compression options. Instead, the Iyour camera? Kodak’s EasyShare-One on the camera. Simple, and no cable EasyShare-One increases or decreases uses Wi-Fi to transfer your images to your to fuss with. the image’s pixel count. The camera is Mac or an online photo-sharing service— Stylus screen. The EasyShare-One equipped with a four-megapixel imager; you’re no longer tethered to your Mac. has a three-inch touchscreen LCD for use the built-in 256MB of memory, for To transfer photos to an online photo- framing shots and navigating options example, with the camera set at four sharing service such as Flickr (www using a stylus (housed on the right megapixels, and you can store 150 .fl ickr.com) or Kodak’s EasyShare edge of the camera body), though we images. Want more images? You have to Gallery (www.kodakgallery.com), you found the stylus to be uncomfortable in reduce the pixel count (your options are simply need access to a Wi-Fi hotspot. big hands. The LCD has an articulated 3.5, 2.1, and 1.1 megapixels) or swap We took the EasyShare-One to a coffee mount like the kind found on a video in a new SD card. Which setting should shop and, using the shop’s free Wi-Fi camera—very helpful when shooting you choose? For posting to the Web, you hotspot, transmitted images to our from different levels. The EasyShare- can use lower settings. Read “Maximum online photo-sharing service (the One doesn’t have an optical viewfi nder, Output” (left) for more advice on camera sends the images via email). but the LCD has excellent color fi delity choosing the right setting for printing. Over the course of several visits (we One minor niggle: The center of your love nonfat, double-shot, half-caf, MAXIMUM OUTPUT framed image in the LCD doesn’t match no-foam lattes), we weren’t surprised According to the EasyShare-One’s manual, with the center of the shot photo—you to fi nd that transmission times varied you can create a 20-by-30-inch print out of have to compensate as you frame your

depending on the size of the ﬁ le sent TIP a four-megapixel image; the manual also shots. On the other hand, the Autofocus and the amount of network trafﬁ c. states you can go as large as 5 by 7 inches framing brackets move, collapse, or If you’re concerned about security, from a 1.1-megapixel image. But in our increase in size within the display based the camera offers different levels of experience, the largest print you should on what the camera perceives as your encryption. make from a four-megapixel image is 8 by focus point—very helpful. While you can’t make Wi-Fi transfers 10 inches, with the brave of heart daring The bottom line. The EasyShare-One 11 by 14 inches—you lose image quality if using iPhoto, you can send pictures to makes it easy to shoot nice photos, you go any bigger. With the EasyShare-One your Mac using the bundled EasyShare set to 1.1 megapixels, a 4-by-5-inch print easy to transfer them to your Mac, and software: Just connect the camera to is more realistic. easy to share them. It’s easy to like the your network, select your pictures, EasyShare-One.—Rick Oldano

COMPANY: Kodak REQUIREMENTS: G3, Mac OS GOOD NEWS: Wi-Fi transmissions work well. Excellent LCD. CONTACT: 800-235-6325, 10.3 or later, 128MB RAM, 200MB Good image quality and color fidelity. www.kodak.com disk space, Wi-Fi (to receive wireless BAD NEWS: Lack of JPEG options. Can’t use iPhoto with Wi-Fi PRICE: $599.95 transmissions) transfers. Stylus may be too small for big hands.

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Wave Editor INNOVATIVE AND INTRICATE AUDIO-EDITING SOFTWARE

what you can do in Wave Editor’s Layers can be done more logically in a GarageBand-esque app. Like Photoshop’s composite modes, layers can affect each other through one of four modes: Add, Subtract, Duck, and Ring. It’s questionable how useful these modes are, however—on the whole, the Layers feature ends up being a less elegant means of accomplishing what multitrack apps can do more easily. Hide and seek. In its attempt to provide Wave Editor offers unique and useful features—but they’re not that apparent without some digging around. the cleanest possible interface, Wave Editor n audio editor should provide an Wave Editor fi le, it’s easier to go back hides some of its key features behind Aintuitive interface for manipulating and make changes to a sound. Without Contextual Menus and relies too and processing waveforms. Audiofi le those edits, you’d have to start all much on modifi er keys for performing Engineering’s Wave Editor takes an over again from the original sound fi le tasks—and it’s not always clear where innovative approach to working with (assuming you didn’t save over it) to to Control-click to bring up Contextual audio fi les, but its context-dependent make a nonlinear change. Menus. The ability to view Edit Blocks— interface takes some getting used to. You can also create fades between one of the app’s most unique features— Wave Editor uses Edit Blocks— Edit Blocks, handy for mastering isn’t an option in the menu bar, nor is movable audio regions that can be cut, CD playlists. The easiest and most there a button to turn them on and off. copied, pasted, truncated, expanded, interactive way to create fades is to hold You must either use the Splice command shifted forward and backward, turned down a modifi er key and drag the corner or Control-click an empty area just on and off, and even processed without of an Edit Block. For example, by holding above the waveform, which brings up affecting the original fi le. In a traditional down Shift and dragging the upper-right a Contextual Menu containing the Edits audio editor, waveform editing is a corner, you create a fade-out. By holding option. There’s a fi ne line between clean permanent deal, but with Edit Blocks, down Shift-Command and dragging the and hidden. you can delete all but a sliver of the same corner, you create a cross-fade. The bottom line. Audiofi le original audio and restore the entire You can also make fades numerically in Engineering’s Wave Editor offers a waveform by simply expanding the Edit the Edit List if you’re looking for precise useful and unique method for editing Block in which the audio resides. Plus, control (or if you haven’t memorized the audio fi les. However, while the the audio can be saved as Wave Editor modifi er keys). developer’s intention was to create fi les with edits intact, unlike other audio Wave Editor also has a Layers feature a clean and context-based interface, apps that only save generic sound fi les. that works like Photoshop’s layers—you the end result requires a good deal of For sound designers, can stack sounds nondestructively to hunting and pecking. If you’re looking ON THE this is a welcome create a composite sound. It’s unique for new ways to edit audio fi les, Wave DISC feature; with all your and pretty darn neat, but it treads into Editor is worth a look—just be ready to Wave Editor edits intact inside a multitrack waters; for the most part, put in some prep time.—Andrew Tokuda

COMPANY: Audiofile Engineering REQUIREMENTS: GOOD NEWS: Edit Blocks and Layers are new paradigms for CONTACT: www.audiofile-engineering.com Mac OS 10.4 or later audio editing. Creative method for implementing audio fades. PRICE: $250 BAD NEWS: Relies heavily on modifier keys and Contextual Menus. Simple tasks aren’t in the menu.

48 May 2006 ��

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�� REVIEWS 50 better living through smarter shopping Sorenson Squeeze 4.1 BUDDING MEDIA-COMPRESSION SUITE orenson Squeeze 4.1 is the latest and more. Although primarily oriented Processing pickles. Squeeze Svideo cruncher du jour, and while it toward video compression, Squeeze also performed decently on a dual 2GHz generally does a nice job compressing does a decent job with MP3 fi les and Power Mac G5, and it even did its mojo output, there are a few things it could does wonders with Macromedia Flash as a background task without a major handle a tad better. animation fi les. performance hit (as long as whatever Squeeze’s clean, uncluttered You can open fi les in Sorenson we were doing in the foreground wasn’t interface presents most of the app’s Squeeze or have the app watch a a processor hog, such as 3D or video core capabilities. The app supports an designated folder on the desktop. rendering). One major processing gripe: incredibly robust variety of video formats You can also capture video directly There’s no meaningful status indicator for output, with all the digital-video into Squeeze, a welcome addition for outside of a simple progress bar. We’re spoiled by the rather Sorenson Squeeze features a clean, extensive status display uncluttered interface for making found in Autodesk movies of just about any fl avor you Cleaner ($549, http:// can imagine. usa.autodesk.com). The online help is browser based (there’s no printed manual), and shockingly, there’s no way to search the online help by keywords— simply unforgivable. Another quirk is a holdover from the app’s Windows origins. When we tried to import movies without a .mov suffi x, Squeeze simply refused to recognize them. We’re used to this kind of silliness in Windows, but it’s inexcusable on a Mac. biggies represented: QuickTime, MPEG video production. Squeeze’s decent Another nuisance is that you can’t of all fl avors, Real Media, and Windows processing fi lter can help you tweak specify a separate target folder for Media Video, though the latter requires the contrast, brightness, and gamma of primary output fi les—processed video a third-party plug-in called Flip4Mac your video, and it also offers white and automatically saves in the same folder ($99 for standard-def video, $179 for black restore, video-noise reduction, as the source video, and while there’s HD video, www.fl ip4mac.com). The main and deinterlacing. Unfortunately, there a command to allow output fi les to are no sharpening or color-enhancement be sent to another folder, you’ll end Although Squeeze is primarily fi lters, both of which are crucial for up with twice as many fi les as you a video compressor, it does a video sweetening. You can, however, actually want. As if to make up for decent job with MP3 fi les and preview fi lter effects in a split-screen this annoyance, there’s an option to does wonders for Flash fi les. mode in the main preview area, a automatically put copies of processed welcome goodie. The only option fi les on a remote FTP server—a great interface lists these video formats in the for audio is a Normalize command feature. left column, and clicking the disclosure (which fi xes stray levels), but Squeeze The bottom line. Sorenson Squeeze triangle next to each reveals a list of offers nothing by way of equalization, has the potential to be a successor to format templates for different target dithering, or noise reduction— Media Cleaner Pro—if Sorenson cleans bandwidths, sizes, compression ratios, noticeable omissions. up its quirks.—David Biedny

COMPANY: Sorenson Media REQUIREMENTS: G4, Mac OS GOOD NEWS: Excellent video-format support. CONTACT: 801-313-8150, 10.2 or later, 128MB RAM, 90MB disk Background processing. Advanced FTP capabilities. www.sorensonmedia.com space, QuickTime 6.5.1 or later BAD NEWS: File-extension wackiness. Incomplete PRICE: $449 progress-status indicator. Weak documentation.

50 May 2006 REVIEWS 51

Handles photos like a champ.

MP950 comes packed with a 5- by-7-inch album binder and 10 sheets of double-sided media. Scan. The Pixma MP950 includes a ﬁ lm guide mount for capturing slides and negatives with optical resolutions of up to 3,200 by 6,400 dpi. In our tests, scans of negatives produced images far better than the original 4-by-6-inch lab prints made from the same negatives. And while the Pixma MP950 isn’t what you’d call “speedy,” there’s something inherently pleasing about going straight from scanning an image to producing a full-color 4- by-6-inch print without bothering with your Mac. We produced (scanned and printed at the same time) consistently Pixma MP950 impressive copies of 4-by-6-inch snapshots at a rate of just under 50 PHOTO-CENTRIC MULTIFUNCTION PRINTER seconds per copy. hile most multifunction printers The Pixma MP950 uses seven ink Print. When it comes to printing via Whave business users in mind, cartridges: photo cyan, photo magenta, PictBridge or directly from memory Canon’s Pixma MP950 focuses on pigment black, black, cyan, magenta, cards, the Pixma MP950 is even better the needs of photo enthusiasts—hey, and yellow. Replacement ink cartridges than Canon’s standalone Pixma iP4200 photographers need desk space, too. cost $14.25 ($16.25 for pigment black) photo printer ( Dec/05, p56). The MP950 packs the power of a digital through Canon’s Web site. The MP950 Its 3.6-inch LCD display lets you take photo studio, with all the features you can handle media sizes ranging from a good look at your shots, eliminate expect for capturing, viewing, editing, 2.13 by 3.39 inches (the size of a credit red-eye, adjust lighting, and tweak the and printing stunning images. card) to 8.5 by 14 (legal). Like its Pixma sharpness in your shots before you The Pixma MP950 rides Canon’s wave siblings, the MP950 can print double- commit them to paper. of sleek industrial design. At 18.5 by sided photos in 4-by-6-inch, 5-by-7-inch, Enamored as we were with the 16.5 by 10 inches, the Pixma MP950 is and 8.5-by-11-inch sizes, so you can MP950’s photo mojo, it’s the printer’s sizable, but it still takes up less space create picture-packed photo albums clean, friendly menu interface that really than a printer and scanner sitting side with nothing more than a binder cover knocked us out. From the moment we by side on your desk. The Pixma MP950 and your prints. To get you started, the tapped the power button and snapped connects to your Mac via USB (cable in the ink cartridges, the Pixma MP950 not included—cheapskates), or you never left us wondering what we should FLIP THE SWITCH can print directly from your PictBridge- do next. Press Copy, Scan, or Photo/ Don’t turn off your inkjet printer compatible digital camera. There are Film, and the Pixma MP950 walks you by simply ﬂ ipping the switch on

also card slots for your CompactFlash TIP through the task. It wouldn’t be any your power strip—use the printer’s card, Microdrive, SmartMedia card, power switch instead. Most inkjet easier if the printer grew hands and Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, SD printers run a routine to protect changed its own paper. (Though we’d card, and MultiMediaCard (MMC). The their print heads before they still love to see that—get to work on it, built-in IrDA (Infrared Data Association) turn themselves off. Cutting the will ya, Canon?) port can be used to print from IrDA power at the power strip prevents The bottom line. The MP950 makes devices, but only when printing JPEGs the printer from performing this other do-it-all printers look like crude smaller than 3MB. A Bluetooth adapter important task. stone tools. We’ll clear off a place on our is available for $79.99. desk for it.—Robert Strohmeyer

COMPANY: Canon REQUIREMENTS: GOOD NEWS: Beautiful one-step photocopying with CONTACT: 800-828-4040, Mac OS 10.2.4 or later scanning and printing thrown in. www.canon.com BAD NEWS: Large. Doesn’t include USB cable. PRICE: $399.99

May 2006 51 REVIEWS 52 better living through smarter shopping

iKey Portable USB Recorder LIMITED PORTABLE AUDIO RECORDER he iKey is a portable consumer- you’ll need to dig up a special utility or Tlevel audio interface designed for tricky workaround. recording audio to any USB-based One glaring omission is the ability storage device, including your iPod. to hear what you’re recording, as the The idea of capturing compressed iKey has no audio output—not even a MP3 or uncompressed WAV to a tiny, headphone jack. Your only feedback is inexpensive USB fl ash drive is great, a single LED that remains unlit when the but the iKey falls short in a couple of audio level is optimal. key areas. Given the iKey’s portability (and To use the iKey, you connect it to a A good idea that deserves better execution. the recent boom in podcasting), a USB storage device via the iKey’s single microphone input would have bolstered USB port. The iKey’s stereo RCA inputs When you use an iPod with a USB the iKey’s usefulness immensely. As it accept a line-level audio signal that you connector as the storage device, the stands, you’ll need to buy additional can adjust using the iKey’s input-volume recordings are immediately available for equipment if the audio source isn’t wheel. Using the Sel button, you choose listening. Snazzy as that might be, the coming from or going through some a fi le format (MP3 at 128, 192, or 256 downside is that you can’t easily transfer line-level output device. Kbps, or 16-bit 44.1KHz uncompressed the audio fi les from the iPod to your Mac. The bottom line. The iKey is a good WAV); the Rec button starts and stops The manual suggests a method involving idea, but it misses the mark in terms of recording. Mac OS X’s Terminal, but it’s a hassle— practicality.—Andrew Tokuda

COMPANY: iKey-Audio REQUIREMENTS: USB storage GOOD NEWS: Great concept. CONTACT: 732-738-9003, device or iPod with USB connectivity BAD NEWS: No audio output. Poor monitoring capabilities. www.ikey-audio.com No microphone input. iPod recording is more a novelty than PRICE: $229.99 practical.

iPod Showcase Orbino Luxury Cases Case-mate Leather Case iPod Mounting Solutions

The World’s Finest iPod Case. By Orbino: a collection of very special cases crafted entirely by hand in Italy for perfect form and functionality. Features: Protect Your Music with a • Patented spring-loaded polished Premium Form-Fit Leather Case Taking your music with you by Case-mate. metal belt clip and desk stand is even easier with ProClip! Buttery-soft Napa leather • Premium Italian leathers ProClip mounting solutions are surrounds our impact-resistant the best way to mount your iPod in • Hand-stitched in Italy plastic shell. An ultra-soft felt your vehicle. The mount clips on in • Durashield screen and clickwheel interior secures your iPod. Each seconds without interior damage. protector Case-mate case comes with a For details on ProClip mounting • Connector access full-face screen protector and fully solutions for your iPod as well • Available models: video-capable removable belt clip. as your other devices, visit: iPod, iPod nano, and iPod shufﬂ e www.case-mate.net www.proclipusa.com www.orbino.com 866-689-3432 800-296-3212

Advertisement REVIEWS 53 iPod Hi-Fi NICE-ENOUGH iPOD SPEAKER STAND f you want a good-sounding iPod juuust enough boom Ispeaker system, you can spend as little to our rap selections as $149.99 for the Logitech mm50 (www that we thought about .logitech.com) or as much as $399.99 for wiring the Hi-Fi into the Klipsch iFi (www.klipsch.com). The the trunk of our car. The Hi-Fi looks cool without its black-mesh covering. iPod Hi-Fi (see “That’s Entertainment!”, Performance was p10), nestles into the upper end of that nice enough, if less impressive, when We’re disappointed with the Hi-Fi’s range at $349. Its sound quality goes a it came to other musical styles. The iPod integration. The Hi-Fi comes with long way toward justifying its price tag, staccato horns and pizzicato strings an Apple Remote, but it only controls but we can’t help wishing for more from in orchestral works, for example, were playback and volume—you can’t use it the company that invented the iPod itself. more crisply reproduced by the Klipsch to navigate the iPod’s menus. There’s In our testing, the Hi-Fi sounded iGroove ($279.99) we had set up next to also no video-out port and no way to PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF APPLE OF COURTESY PHOTOGRAPH best on pop music with a vocal bent; it the Hi-Fi. And despite Apple’s marketing connect the Hi-Fi to your Mac for sync. delivered a warmth and presence that hype to the contrary, there’s no way The bottom line. The Hi-Fi’s sound suited the intimacy of the vocals. The the Hi-Fi can replace a decent home quality is good enough to earn it our same held true for classical guitar and stereo—size and separation do matter, Great rating, but we can’t help thinking string quartets. On the latter, the Hi-Fi’s and both Frank Zappa and Franz Liszt about how Awesome it could be with impressive bass—for its size—provided suffer when crammed into a 6.6-by-17- either a lower price or some innovative a satisfying bottom end. The bass gave by-6.9-inch box. iPod-oriented features.—Jake Widman

COMPANY: Apple REQUIREMENTS: iPod GOOD NEWS: Sounds good for its size. No power brick. CONTACT: 800-692-7753 or BAD NEWS: Pricey. No extra features or functions. 408-996-1010, www.apple.com PRICE: $349 iPod Showcase Elite Audio Gear DecalGirl iPod Gear PodsPlus Aluminum Case

Protect and Personalize 6i Isolator Earphones deliver Your iPod. detail, balance, comfort, DecalGirl’s adhesive-backed vinyl and value. skins allow you to both protect and Protect your iPod from The in-ear secure ﬁ t reduces personalize your iPod with hundreds scratches and bumps. background noise so you can listen of hot designs, and they remove Made of aircraft-grade aluminum at safe levels. Hear crisp, clear without leaving any nasty goo. with interior neoprene lining, this music inside your head. Great for Now offering crystal-clear screen high-quality case is strong and travel and working out. Available protectors for even more protection! lightweight. The iPod screen is fully online or at Apple Stores and other Save 10% using the code MACADD. protected. A removable swivel belt retail locations worldwide. www.decalgirl.com/ma clip is included. www.etymotic.com 866-841-0922 www.podsplus.com

Advertisement REVIEWS 54 better living through smarter shopping

Offi cejet Pro K550 SPEEDY BUSINESS INKJET PRINTER ne thing you can say about the (ppm)—not as fast as the 16- OOffi cejet Pro K550: It’s fast. And this ppm rating, but acceptable. is a business inkjet printer we’re talking An Excel chart and spreadsheet about; the K550 is a viable alternative to printed at close to 4 ppm, and a color laser if speed is a priority in your a 15-page full-color PowerPoint small-business workspace. presentation printed at just under 5 The K550 connects to your Mac via ppm—good speed for an inkjet printer. USB and has a 250-sheet media tray. Charts, graphs, and text look great, Just like a muscle car—fast and noisy. Ink comes in separate cyan, magenta, even on plain paper. Don’t rely on the yellow ($17.16 each), and black ($22.86) K550 for top-notch photos, however—its (For reference, the black ink was at cartridges; you also need to install a color fi delity doesn’t match that of a 51 percent after printing 250 pages in pair of print heads. The helpful bundled photo inkjet that uses more ink colors. Word; yellow and magenta were both at HP Printer Utility software can tell you One important note: After printing our 76 percent after our PowerPoint test). ink levels, run diagnostics, clean and 15-page PowerPoint presentation once The bottom line. If you want the calibrate print heads, and more. in Normal mode, we ran out of cyan ink. speed of a color laser printer at a more Speed is the K550’s strong suit. A 50- Our test presentation is a bit heavy on affordable up-front cost, the K550 page Word document printed (in Normal cyan-based colors, but to run out of can fi t the bill—just have plenty of ink mode) at a rate of 11 pages per minute cyan after a single print run is a concern. cartridges on hand.—Roman Loyola

COMPANY: Hewlett-Packard REQUIREMENTS: GOOD NEWS: Fast. Good business-graphics image quality. CONTACT: 800-752-0900, Mac OS 10.2 or later BAD NEWS: Noisy. Consumes ink quickly. Unimpressive www.hp.com photo quality. PRICE: $199

Thin Digital FM Give and BASIC NOTEBOOK BAG Radio & FM receive. he name of Pinder’s notebook bag says it all: Thin. There’s Tnot a whole lot to it, but that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes you don’t want to have to hunt through a complex gathering of Transmitter for iPod packets, straps, latches, and zippers— STATIC-PRONE iP OD FM sometimes you just want a bag. TRANSMITTER AND RECEIVER The Thin is made of water- repellent nylon (there are seven ensington’s latest iPod gadget beams your iPod’s tunes to your different colors to choose from), KFM radio—and it can tune in to your daily Terry Gross ﬁ x, too. and it has one side pocket for your Push-button tuning and four presets let you transmit your iPod’s ’Book’s cables and stuff. The bag music to the whole FM band (88.1MHz to 107.9MHz), so it’s easy has a quarter-inch of padding, to ﬁ nd an available frequency. However, moving the unit usually enough to keep your ’Book safe results in static—ditto for FM-radio reception. We tuned in to our without adding too much bulk. In local NPR station, took a walk, and were intermittently distracted The perfect bag for going fact, the lack of bulk makes the Thin by static. Also, the device doesn’t feel secure in the iPod’s dock incognito in the jungle. an ideal ’Book cover if you pack it connector. into a bigger case during long trips. The bottom line. Apple’s iPod Radio Remote ( Apr/06, The bottom line. We like Pinder’s simple, svelte Thin for p52) gets cleaner FM reception—but it can’t transmit your tunes to storing or toting our ’Books.—Michelle Victoria a radio.—Niko Coucouvanis

COMPANY: Pinder Bags PRICE: $49 COMPANY: Kensington PRICE: $79.99 CONTACT: 818-773-8259, REQUIREMENTS: PowerBook, iBook, or MacBook Pro CONTACT: 650-572-2700, REQUIREMENTS: iPod with dock connector www.pinderbags.com www.kensington.com

GOOD NEWS: Simple, no-frills bag. Available in GOOD NEWS: Two devices in one. seven different colors. BAD NEWS: Prone to static. Doesn’t BAD NEWS: You might find it too simple. connect tightly enough with iPod.

54 May 2006 ��

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GAMES because you play as hard as you work

“Give me the Man in the Yellow Hat! Now!”

TIPS & TRICKS Black and White 2 Feral Interactive (www.feralinteractive.com) plans to bring Black ■ Use the hand-force skill to stop an enemy’s earthquake miracle. and White 2 to the Mac this spring—but we’ve got tips today! ■ If your enemy attacks with catapults, catch the rocks and In this god-game sequel, common sense is your best weapon, keep them for yourself, or toss them back. no matter whom you align with. Taking the good path? Care for ■ Near the town where you began in the fourth land, look for a your pet and your people. On the highway to hell? Have your pet path that leads down the hill. Find the hermit in the cave, and unload its bowels on the populace. Whatever road you choose, throw him as far as you can. The further you throw him, the these tips will help. more tribute you’ll receive.—Matt Osborn

but as with most versions of The Sims, The Sims 2 University performance in these public areas is LACKLUSTER EXPANSION PACK slouchy. In fact, load times felt very long in general, even on our dual 2GHz he Sims 2 University expansion As with The Sims 2, you need to keep Power Mac G5. Also, there are some T lets you take your Sim through your Aspiration meter high by doing time-sync mismatches between your four Sims-years of college, attending certain tasks, such as meeting someone Sims and the environment—they don’t classes, doing assignments, and taking new or buying a tree (yes, buying a tree). affect gameplay, but they do make you exams, all while making new friends, You build up your class-performance go, “Huh?” adjusting to dorm life, and (if you wish) meter—which determines your grade—by The bottom line. University adds an rushing a Greek house—but by the time doing assignments, writing term papers, entertaining new dimension to The Sims graduation day rolls around, this school and keeping up your skill levels. Do well, 2, and it’s super-fun when you ﬁ rst start has become a bit of a grind. and you’ll earn money in the form of playing. After four “years,” however, the grants. Blow off homework, and you’ll game starts to feel repetitive.—Cathy Lu have to repeat the semester. When you graduate, you move back to the normal COMPANY: Aspyr, 512-708-8100, www.aspyr.com PRICE: $34.99 Sims neighborhood and start your career. REQUIREMENTS: 1.25GHz G4, Mac OS 10.3.9 or While University still has Aspiration later, 256MB RAM, 2GB disk space, 32MB Radeon 9000 or GeForce FX5200 or better, full version of points, which let you buy cool stuff The Sims 2 such as a counterfeit-money machine, the expansion introduces fun Inﬂ uence GOOD NEWS: Lots of new college-themed items. Fun new Influence system. points, which give you power over other BAD NEWS: Performance can still be poky. Game Sims, persuading them to do things like feels repetitive by the end. pull pranks or clean up the house. RATED We’re geeks, so writing our semester term Campus life includes hanging out in SOLID paper is top priority. the student lounge or going shopping—

May 2006 57 GAMES GAMES 58 because you play as hard as you work 59

Don’t feed the animals— but blowing bubbles at them is OK.

and they swoon over fountains, statues, and other eye candy. You can hire a staff to keep your zoo running smoothly. Zookeepers feed, clean up after, and tend to your animals if they happen to fall ill. Maintenance workers keep your grounds clean, much to the pleasure of your guests. Educators teach your guests about the animals in your park. All these roles are vital to the success of your zoo, but make sure you don’t overdo it—a large staff means a large payroll, which can quickly Zoo Tycoon 2 eat up huge chunks of revenue. Up close. Zoo Tycoon 2 adds a new EXPANSIVE SIMULATION GAME fi rst-person perspective, which offers a he latest version of Zoo Tycoon animals and nurse them back to health. nice change of pace from the omniscient Thas new play modes, enhanced In Challenge mode, you start from view. In this mode, you can go on photo- environment-editing tools, more park scratch with a limited amount of money safari challenges to take photos of objects, and more animals to choose and resources, and are rewarded with animals in action. You can also assume from—all great additions that boost additional resources as your zoo’s the role of a zookeeper or guest to get replay value and challenge you to build popularity grows. Lastly, in Freeform down and dirty with the animals and bigger and better zoos. mode, you’re granted unlimited funds to grounds yourself (and give your payroll As in the original, your goal in Zoo run your zoo as you like—your only goals a break at the same time) or just mingle Tycoon 2 is to build the ultimate zoo, are those you set for yourself. with the guests and enjoy the exhibits stocking a diverse collection of animals Animal urges. Tend to the basic fi rsthand. while managing buildings, fi nances, and needs of your animals and guests While the 3D graphics in Zoo Tycoon maintenance. You also need to fi nd ways (they’ll clue you into their pressing 2 are simplistic by today’s standards, to keep your guests happy, because needs with emoticons that pop up we still enjoyed the sights. We didn’t happy guests fi ll your pockets with cash. over their heads), and you’ll do just run into any technical glitches, but Thanks to its three game modes, fi ne. Mistreat your animals and guests we do strongly recommend a system you’ll fi nd multiple ways to enjoy Zoo (animals will die if they don’t get food that’s beefi er than the stated minimum Tycoon 2. Campaign mode offers and drink), and you’ll hurt your zoo’s requirements to avoid sluggishness. different scenarios: Revive a neglected rating. Animals need large, roomy areas The bottom line. Zoo Tycoon 2 offers zoo, for example, or take in abused that look and feel like their natural a great way learn the ins and outs of habitats. You create these habitats—or running a zoo—while having lots of fun biomes in Zoo Tycoon parlance—with at the same time.—Gil Loyola the biome brush and habitat-editor tool, which let you generate arctic, desert, COMPANY: MacSoft, 763-231-8000, forest, and tundra terrains with just a www.macsoftgames.com few strokes. You then add animals by PRICE: $39.99 REQUIREMENTS: 800MHz G4, Mac OS 10.2.8 or clicking creatures at the bottom of the later, 256MB RAM, 32MB VRAM animal panel and then clicking where GOOD NEWS: Simple-to-use editing tools. Fun first- you want them placed. Guests enjoy person mode. tidy surroundings, spacious walkways, BAD NEWS: Simplistic graphics. and quick access to exhibits, food, and RATED Create new animal homes with a few clicks restrooms. Guests also like observing a GREAT of the biome brush and habitat-editor tool. wide variety of well-kept, happy animals,

58 May 2006 GAMES 59

INTEL MAC UPDATE Games Go Universal Got a glittering new Intel-based Mac? Want to squeeze all the performance possible out of it? If you run your old games through Rosetta, you’re only getting a trickle of what your framerate could be. Many games are getting the Universal Application Made to treatment, including Unreal Tournament 2004, Postal 2, Doom 3, and Zoo Tycoon 2 shake your rump. (because grazing Zebras via Rosetta just makes them irritable), while new games such as The Movies and Quake 4 will be Universal right out of the gate. The gaming community is even getting into the Universal act—the guys at Sqonk Online (www ButtKicker .sqonk.com.au) have created a Universal version of Quake III.—MO Gamer RUMBLIN’ AUDIO TRANSDUCER he ButtKicker Gamer clamps onto Tany chair with a center post and uses low-frequency sound to shake your seat. The setup requires you to string a cable from your chair to the included Gamer Amplifi er, a hefty 13-by-3.6- by-9.3-inch control box that connects between your Mac’s audio port and the ButtKicker Gamer. If you like to roll around in your chair, consider yourself warned: The cable can get in the way. We played a few games, including “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Doom 3 and Unreal Tournament 2004, Willis? Postal 2 is Universal!” and listened to a few songs, including the Beastie Boys’ “Shake Your Rump” and Peaches and Herb’s “Shake Your Groove Thing.” Have you ever been at COMING SOON the movies and had the person behind you kick the back of your seat? That’s The Mac Picture Show what a song’s ButtKicker-enhanced bass In The Movies, you shepherd a blossoming movie studio from the twenties to the line feels like, except against your bootie modern day, building the studio piece by piece; hiring actors, staff members, and instead of your spine. Low, rumbling fi lm crews; and researching technology for special effects—but The Movies takes a game noises result in a consistent step beyond the usual “tycoon” games by allowing you to produce and direct your vibration—and we found that a 100Hz own movies. There’s a main campaign, a sandbox mode for just playing around, tone creates a sensation that could and a separate app called Movie Maker that gives you even more creative control serve as an effective enema alternative. over your fi lms. Unfortunately, the ButtKicker made our Will you make the cheapo offi ce chair rattle annoyingly. next blockbuster The bottom line. The ButtKicker Gamer or the next Ishtar? adds a new dimension to your gaming or Only pleasing the music experience, but it’s a novelty you populous (Peter can live without.—Roman Loyola Molyneux pun intended) turns COMPANY: The Guitammer Company, a profi t.—MO 888-676-2828, www.thebuttkicker.com PRICE: $169.95 REQUIREMENTS: Available audio-out port, chair with center post, good bowel control GOOD NEWS: Shakes your seat like there’s no tomorrow. I’m ready for my BAD NEWS: Cable tethers your chair. close-up, Mr. DeMille! RATED THE COMPANY: Feral Interactive, www.feralinteractive.com SO-SO MOVIES AVAILABLE: Summer 2006 ■ PRICE: TBD

May 2006 59 60

because inquiring minds have the right to be inspired

You sure do. IOXperts Webcam Driver New Mac, ($19.95, on the Disc, www.ioxperts.com/ old app. products/webcamx.html) supports your Orbit, as well many other “unsupported” Webcams. This software lets you use your Webcam with iChat, QuickTime, and most apps that can access a Webcam. To make sure your ON THE camera works with Challenge at the awesome Macintosh DISC it, download the free Garden site (http://mac.the-underdogs IOXperts Webcam demo, or fi nd it on this .org), but the game is so old it won’t even Driver month’s Disc. run in Mac OS X’s Classic environment. Emulation to the rescue! All you need is BLUE MOUSE PRINTING the Mac Plus emulator Mini vMac (free, on My Apple Wireless Mouse got all Back in the good old days, I could gang- the Disc, http://minivmac.sourceforge squirrelly when I upgraded to Mac print a number of documents at once from .net), a bootable system-disk image, OS 10.4.4. What gives? the Finder. Can’t I do that in Mac OS X? and a ROM fi le from an actual Macintosh There are two possible reasons for this, It’s still possible if you create a Desktop Plus. Apple provides the system-disk both involving Bluetooth fi rmware. If you Printer and drag your fi les onto its icon. image for free at its Older Software use the D-Link DBT-120 USB Bluetooth Open Printer Downloads page (www.info.apple.com/ Adapter that Apple sells ($39.95, www Setup Utility support/oldersoftwarelist.html), but .apple.com), you might need Bluetooth (/Applications you’ll have to extract the Mac Plus’s Firmware Updater 1.2—go to www.apple /Utilities) and ROM fi le yourself with CopyRoms (free, on .com/support/downloads and search highlight your the Disc, http://minivmac.sourceforge for bluetooth fi rmware 1.2. If you use a printer in the .net/extras/copyroms.html). String these different adapter or your Mac’s built-in printer list. pieces together (instructions are included Bluetooth, you probably need to update Vive la Desktop Then select with CopyRoms), and the mouse’s fi rmware—which you can’t Printer! Printers > ON THE you can run all of your do from Mac OS 10.4. To update your Create Desktop DISC old favorites from the mouse, you’ll have to pair it with a Mac Printer, and save it to your desktop. Now Mini vMac, CopyRoms System 6 days. running Mac OS 10.3.x and apply the you can print many documents at once update from that Mac. Get the details by just dragging them onto the Desktop FUN WITH FONTS at http://docs.info.apple.com/article Printer’s icon on—where else?—your How do I disable Font Book and install .html?artnum=301282. desktop. Extensis Suitcase as my font manager instead? CAM QUICKENER MAC PLUS REVIVAL Mac OS X’s Font Book is a decent font- My Logitech QuickCam Orbit worked Remember that Mac Plus–era game NFL management tool, but it’s not a full-blown fi ne until I upgraded to Mac OS 10.3. Challenge? I still have a copy—can I font manager—Suitcase (or the new Now it doesn’t work. Logitech claims play it on my new Mac with Mac OS X? Suitcase Fusion) is. All Font Book does that it won’t work with Mac OS 10.3 or Ah, abandonware. Gone, but for the is help install and uninstall fonts, create later—do I have any options? memories—or is it? We found NFL collections and libraries of fonts, and

SANITY SAVER When FireWire gets ﬂ aky, you can Where can I get more screen savers for indeed reset it. Shut down your Mac, Mac OS X? and unplug its power cord and any As you may know, screen savers aren’t attached FireWire devices. After about as important as they used to be, but eye 10 minutes, reconnect the power cord candy never goes out of style. The mighty and restart your Mac. Once it’s running, ResExcellence (www.resexcellence.com/ cross your ﬁ ngers and plug in one of CORNY CORNER screensavers.shtml) still has the coolest your FireWire devices. I have a window that I can’t resize in selection, as well as a thorough tutorial the Finder because the resizer corner on creating your own screen savers. SAY MAC, GOT THE TIME? extends way down off my screen. Help! Can I set my Mac to tell me the time? This is a job for the oft-overlooked FIREWIRE REKINDLING Launch System Preferences > Date & window-zooming green widget at the My Mac’s FireWire ports are acting Time, click the Clock tab, and check top left of the window. This resets your awfully weird. Is there a reset button or the box labeled Announce The Time. window to its original size and position. something? You can then choose the frequency of

5260 AugustMay 2006 2005 HOW TO DIFFICULTY No whining— It’ll take some This stuff’s 61 anyone effort, but you for the pros. RATINGS can do this! can do it.

troubleshoot duplicate or corrupt fonts— all the font fi nagling most of us ever UNIX UNIVERSITY need. Font Book leaves your fonts in their regular installed locations; a true font FUNIX! manager such as Suitcase actually stores You guys are always “maintenance this” and “utility that” when you talk them and activates the fonts you need about Unix. Isn’t there any fun to be had via the command line (other than when you need them. We could go on for playing those god-awful “games”)? days about the proper care and feeding of Power Unix users live by the command install Apple’s Developer Tools and X11 fonts, but suffi ce it to say that Font Book line, typically doing geeky, utilitarian from your Mac OS 10.3 or 10.4 install and Suitcase work fi ne together. Don’t tasks such as monitoring, maintaining, discs. Then, download and install Fink worry about uninstalling Font Book. and administrating a system and its users. (free, http://fi nk.sourceforge.net). Once All of that administration is undeniably you’re all Finked up, open the Terminal important, but sometimes you just gotta (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal). Type dance! To that end, you can play MP3 fi nk install madplay and press Return fi les and get your groove on right from to download and install the player. (If it the Unix command line; all you need is doesn’t work, you may need to update Fink a command-line MP3 player, such as by typing fi nk selfupdate and pressing Font Book is handy, but it doesn’t do much madplay. But before you can run madplay, Return.) The Terminal will prompt you that you can’t do manually. you need to do a bit of legwork fi rst: First, when it’s done. When you’re ready to rock, type madplay and then the path to your WHAT’S WITH THE “?”? MP3 fi le (or just drag a folder full of MP3s My old iMac displays a fl ashing question into the Terminal window), and press mark for a few seconds every time I turn Return. Who’s geeky now? it on—then it goes away and the iMac boots up fi ne. Wassup? If you squint your eyes real hard, Sounds like you’ve got some startup- this blob of text looks just like disk confusion. Open the Startup Disk iTunes’ eye candy. control panel (Mac OS 9) or System Preferences > Startup Disk (OS X), and check to see if your main drive is (http://docs.info.apple.com/article our favorite being Name Those Files selected as the startup drive. If it is, and .html?artnum=86181). ($12.50, on the Disc, http://homepage your Mac still throws you the question .mac.com/jonn8/ntf), which—like every mark, you probably have a dead PRAM SAY MY NAME, B(I)ATCH other bulk renamer we’ve found—eats battery. This internal battery remembers I have a zillion digicam picture fi les any Spotlight comments you’ve added to what disk to start up from as well as that I want to rename. Is there a way the fi les. Unlike most of other stuff such as the date and time. to change their names all at once? ON THE the others, however, it Any Apple service technician can replace Your Mac should be able to do this on DISC leaves your image fi les’ this battery for you for a nominal fee, its own by now—it’s been, what, 22 Name Those Files EXIF metadata intact. but if you’re daring, you can change it years?—but it still can’t. Shareware to yourself. Apple lists all battery numbers the rescue! There are several utilities on its Batteries and Part Numbers page that can help you rename lots of fi les, announcements, the voice that reads the MMM, PIE time, and even the rate of speech. I’ve got no time for math. Is there a way to see how full my hard drive is? Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities) And you shall know us by the trail of Ralph after six provides a lovely graphical view of your renamed fi les. cups of coffee. hard drive’s fullness. Launch Activity Monitor and then click the Disk Usage Buz Zoller is a graphic designer living in Florida. He has been a devoted Mac THE ARTIST’S CONUNDRUM tab at the bottom of the window. user for over 10 years and has worked for Now that I use a Mac, I’m supposed to both Apple and Power Computing. be all artsy—but how am I supposed to draw with a freakin’ mouse? technical questions We recommend you buy a drawing Submit or helpful tips directly tablet. Wacom sells them for as little as via email ([email protected]) or c/o $99.95—though you could also get their Is the hard drive two-fi fths empty or MacAddict, 4000 Shoreline Ct., Ste. 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. top LCD-based one for $3,000. three-fi fths full?

May 2006 61 HOW TO HOW TO 62 podcast like a pro 63

Podcast Like a Pro

by Niko Coucouvanis

DUCKING CONTROLS Twiddle the arrows to set MEDIA BROWSER All of your which tracks cause others to duck in volume. other iLife stuff is right here.

PODCAST TRACK Manage an enhanced podcast’s artwork and Web links here.

LOOP LIBRARY Click the eye icon to load your loops.

TRACK EDITOR Flips into Chapter Manager mode when the Podcast Track is present.

ART-ANNOTATED CHAPTER MARKERS MUSICAL TYPING Play your WHAT YOU NEED Spice up your audio podcast. Mac’s keyboard like a piano. Mac OS 10.3.9 or later GarageBand 3 ($79, part of iLife ’06, www.apple.com) Microphone (optional)

arageBand 3’s Podcasting Studio makes it easier than ever to crank out a righteously professional-sounding podcast, complete with sound effects, atmospheric background music, snappy intro and outro jingles—even chapters, artwork, and Web links. With this awesome power at your disposal, it’d be a crime to make a boring, Gplain-Blaine podcast—here’s how to avoid that. Enter the Podcasting Studio Launching GarageBand presents you with some options 1 for making a new project. Select New Podcast Episode, and give your project a name in the dialog that follows. The new podcasting project comes preloaded with a Podcast Track, Male Voice and Female Voice tracks, and tracks for Jingles and Radio Sounds. If you’re creating a one-person show and you’re in a hurry, just click either of the voice tracks, click the red Record button, and have at it. When you’re done speaking, click Record again to stop.

Start with a New Podcast Episode— starting a regular project and adding a Podcast Track later isn’t the same.

62 May 2006 HOW TO HOW TO 62 podcast like a pro 63

Record It in iChat If you’re making a one-person podcast, proceed press GarageBand’s Record button; GarageBand will alert you 2 to the next step. In this step, you’ll record an iChat that it’s detected an audio chat and confi rm that you’d like to conversation to spice up your podcast with a compelling guest record. When you’re done, click the Record button again; if the interview. Or you can use it for some private blackmail fodder— playhead keeps moving, press Play to stop it. whatever suits your fancy. To record the chat, simply set up GarageBand as in the previous step, but before pressing Record, fi re up iChat and initiate a chat with your victim—er, guest—by double-clicking the phone or camera icon by his or her name in your Buddy List. Alternately, you can highlight the person’s name on your Buddy List and select Buddies > Invite To Audio Chat. And FYI, you can’t record a chat initiated by someone else—this trick only works if you initiate the chat. Once your chatee accepts the chat (and you disclose that you’re recording the conversation), This is GarageBand’s way of saying “Quiet on the set!” Add Effects on the Fly If you’re quick on your feet, you can play GarageBand’s or Radio Sounds to load podcast- 3 sound effects while recording your monologue or iChat appropriate sounds. When you’re interview. A piano-style USB keyboard makes this easier, but ready to really dig in, click the you can use GarageBand’s onscreen keyboard and tickle the Details triangle and use its check ivories with your mouse. Select Window > Keyboard and click boxes and pull-down menus to the Radio Sounds track to highlight it, which also activates the create some truly bizarre sounds keyboard. Plink around until you fi nd the sounds you want. To via the onscreen keyboard. load a different sound-effect kit, double-click the track title in the Track List to open the Track Info window (or choose Track > You could spend Show Track Info). Keeping Sound Effects highlighted in the days tweaking your left-side list, switch to Applause And Laughter, Comedy Noises, sound effects here. Master Musical Typing You can play Sound Effects by poking around on a couple of times. Drag the segment directly from the timeline to 4 GarageBand’s onscreen keyboard, but tickling the ivories any key in the Musical Typing window. with your mouse is annoying—so use your Mac’s keyboard instead. Select Window > Musical Typing, and highlight the Radio Sounds track or another Software Instrument track. Click the eye icon, navigate to a sound effect or loop you want to use, and drag it from the loop drawer onto the key you want to assign it in the Musical Typing window—sweet! You can assign your own sounds to every key on the board—and cooler yet, if your interview is rife with choice sound-bite fodder, you can isolate a segment by loading its clip into the Track Editor (double-click Not only can you type via the QWERTY keyboard, you can assign it the clip) or simply highlighting the clip and selecting Edit > Split your own sounds. Proper Post-Production At least half the fun of podcasting comes from adding all 5 the rockin’ radio-style jingles, zany zingers, and stupid sound effects. Of course, you’ll want way more of them than you can cram in while recording the live vocal track(s)—and that’s where post-production comes in. To pepper your podcast with wackiness, highlight the Jingles track, and if your loops aren’t loaded, click the eye icon to open the Loop Browser; then press the podcast icon to load the Jingles, Stingers, and Sound You can have all kinds of fun with podcast sound effects. Effects. For the standard talk-radio format, drop matching Jingles at the beginning and end of the show, before and after RAISE THE BAR any commercial breaks (hey, it could happen), and anywhere TIP else you need a little pause in the action. The real fun is in If your podcast has a perfect fade-out ending, GarageBand might cut off the tail end. To prevent fadeus interruptus, click the Stingers and Sound Effects; insert sound effects at will the Cycle Region button to activate the orange Cycle bar in the by dragging them into position on the Jingles track or another timeline, and then click and drag the end of the Cycle bar out a Software Instrument track (click the plus-sign icon to add few measures past the end of the project. another).

May 2006 63 HOW TO 64 podcast like a pro

Don’t Forget to Duck Mixing spoken content with sound effects requires 6 ducking—dropping the volume of the background to ensure the important stuff gets heard. How low you duck your background music is up to you, but we can tell you how to set it: If you started GarageBand with a new podcast or movie-score project, you’ll see the ducking controls on each audio track— otherwise, select Control > Ducking. Click the up arrow on lead Defi ne your tracks and the down arrow on tracks you want to duck out of the duck: You way. The track-volume slider only controls the track’s regular specify how volume; to fi ne-tune your ducking, open the Track Info pane low the (press Command-I or select Track > Show Track Info) and select background Master Track. Find the Ducking Amount slider near the bottom of sounds the window, and slide it up toward 100 to increase the amount duck to of ducking—remember, the higher you set the ducking, the avoid the quieter the sound effects get when you talk. vocals. Enhance Your ’Cast Now that you’ve got the audio portion of your or click the Add Marker button and drag in your artwork later. 7 podcast squared away, click the Podcast Track to Click the placeholder text fi elds (Add Title Here, URL Title, URL) add enhancements such as chapter markers, Web links, to add chapter titles and Web links. You can later rearrange and episode artwork. Remember, if you recorded an iChat the order of the Chapter Markers by dragging the regions (each AV interview, all of the participants’ chat icons (or iSight Chapter Marker designates the beginning of a new region) snapshots) get automatically added to the Podcast Track around in the timeline, or by altering the numerical value in the each time the participants speak. Time column. Don’t try dragging Chapter Markers around in In Podcast mode, GarageBand’s Track Editor magically the Track Editor—that only moves the art, not the marker itself. sprouts a Chapter Marker manager; click the Media Browser And don’t forget to drag an image into the Episode Artwork icon to load your iPhoto library. Drag a photo from the Media pane—this is the equivalent of album-cover art, so make sure Browser directly into the timeline or Chapter Marker manager, it looks good.

You can even embed Web links into your podcast—so where’s that wireless Web-browsing iPod? Stop, Drop, and Crop Shrinking photos you want to use as podcast art down 8 to iPod-friendly postage-stamp size doesn’t require NO iLIFE? launching iPhoto. Just double-click any piece of artwork in the Track Editor (including the Episode Artwork and Podcast Preview NO PROBLEM! images) to load that image into GarageBand’s Artwork Editor; GarageBand is the easiest way to crank out a killer podcast, use the slider to scale the image, and then drag the image to but 79 bucks is 79 bucks. These Web sites offer tools, tips, adjust what appears in the visible center of the crop frame. and even online hosting for your podcasting pursuits—and the basic services are free with registration. GARAGEBAND.COM’S Podcast Studio (www.garageband .com/podcast) seems like it’s wearing a target for Apple’s lawyers. PODOMATIC (www.podomatic.com) provides a selection of canned George W. Bush answers for your fake-interview pleasure. ODEO.COM (www.odeo.com) can pipe your podcast directly to the iTunes Music Store’s Podcast directory. CLICKCASTER (www.clickcaster.com), currently a free beta, promotes your own on-demand radio show.

Who says that size Niko Coucouvanis isn’t a regular podcaster, but he’s having a gas doesn’t matter? with GarageBand’s new noisemakers.

64 May 2006 HOW TO 65

Bend iWeb to Your Will by Niko Coucouvanis

WHAT YOU NEED SITE BLOG ENTRIES Create and Mac OS 10.3.9 or later ORGANIZER Lists all of manage blog iWeb 1.0.1 ($79, part of entries here. iLife ’06, www.apple.com) your sites and pages. TextWrangler (free, on the INSPECTOR Disc, www.barebones.com) MEDIA WINDOW BROWSER Lets you Web isn’t a tool for snooty Keeps the tweak almost Web pros who can recite the rest of iLife anything. XHTML 2.0 spec backward— within reach. iit’s for the proverbial “rest of us.” But even the most Click the edge of a mask to activate Use the outer squares ON THE unwashed of the Web masses DISC the inner squares to resize, drag, or of a mask to resize or deserve better; here are some rotate the mask. drag the image. tricks to make iWeb more fun. TextWrangler

Say “No” to the Nav Bar Squat on Your HomePage Page A good navigation scheme is To automatically redirect folks from your .Mac account’s 1 crucial on a busy Web site— 2 HomePage to your new iWeb page, fi rst mount your but sometimes you want to put up iDisk (in the Finder, choose Go > iDisk > My iDisk). Fire up secret, unlinked, under-development TextWrangler (free, on the Disc, www.barebones.com) and pages without links to other parts of open index.html in your /iDisk/Sites folder. Find the redirect your site. Select the page you want tag: Inspector’s Page icon, and remove the and change the URL checkmark in the box labeled Include to http://web Page In Navigation Menu. .mac.com/your member name/ iWeb adds a nav bar to every iWeb/. Save and .Mac’s HomePage is tricky—but it’s no page, but you can make it stop. close the document. match for your human smarts. i Niko Coucouvanis remembers when WYSIWYG meant “what you steal s what you get” (at least regarding HTML code). Mask Like a Superhero Take Back the Templates Click a placeholder image on your page to select it (or To modify iWeb’s stubborn template elements directly, 3 drag in an image from the Media Browser), and press the 4 quit iWeb, Control-click the iWeb icon (/Applications Mask button in the lower toolbar (or press Command-Shift-M) /iWeb), select Show Package Contents, and navigate to to enable the mask-editing mode. A translucent rectangle will /Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Templates/About Me. appear, framing the central part of the image while masking the Control-click the Baby About Me.webtemplate fi le, and select edges. Click anywhere on the image and drag to reposition the Show Package Contents. Open any of the JPEGs inside to inspect image behind the mask. Now hover the cursor over the edge of their pixel dimensions, the masked area until the and replace them with cursor changes from a hand your own JPEGs of the to an arrow, and click once same dimensions. Use this to select the mask. Click and method to change any of the drag the resizing handles templates’ main images and (the little squares) to resize buttons—even some page- the mask, or click and drag trim elements. If you want to anywhere else on the mask tweak the templates further, You can’t make a custom-shaped to reposition it. If you want to you’ll need to hack the index image mask, but you can set any edit the mask later, double- .xml.gz fi le—just be sure to Modifying iWeb templates isn’t shape’s background to an image. click the image. make a backup of it fi rst. impossible if you’re sneaky.

May 2005 65 HOW TO 66 prettify a page with Pages

Prettify a Page with Pages

by Niko Coucouvanis

TOOLBAR Control- PAGES BUTTON Save page STYLE BUTTON OBJECTS BUTTON STYLES DRAWER click and select layouts (Format > Advanced Quickly access Insert Text, Shape, Highlight text, and click Customize Toolbar > Capture Pages), and then your Paragraph Table, or Chart to apply Paragraph, to put any of Pages’ insert them with this. Styles. objects. Character, or List Styles. commands in the toolbar.

VIEW MENU Quickly toggle This translucent, visual aids such exploded 3D pie as the Styles and chart is a master- Pages Drawers, page object. rulers, comments, and more.

COLLABORATION Craft your own Leave comments for math-defying table. other users reading your document.

Option-click an Inspector icon to spawn that Inspector in a new window.

INSPECTOR Summon the contextual This shape contains multiple shadow Inspector to tweak settings for any and reflection effects. You can decide item, object, or the whole document. whether and how text wraps around it. WHAT YOU NEED Pages 2 ($79, part of iWork ’06, www.apple.com)

ow that computers rule the world, word processing— Pages 2. Follow along as we dig into Pages’ niftier (and what the senior set might remember as “typing”—is mildly advanced) tricks to prove that you can live a Wordless an essential part of modern life. Corollary: Microsoft existence—and a downright enjoyable (not to mention NWord is inevitable. Refutation: Apple has released attractive) one at that. Pretty as a Picture First, jazz up your page a bit by adding an image inside 1 a starburst shape and fl owing the surrounding text Pages’ cache gracefully around it. Click the Objects icon in Pages’ toolbar, of graphical and scroll down to the shape you desire—use the blue handles tricks and to resize the shape. Click the Media icon in Pages’ toolbar to good-looking load the Media browser; select iPhoto from the pull-down menu, templates and drag an image into the shape—again, use the blue corner helps you handles to resize the image. look your Now click the Inspector icon in Pages’ toolbar. Click the very best. Inspector’s Text icon to manipulate the text formatting; click the Wrap icon to determine how text fl ows around the shape; and the shape and image remain editable, so mind which object is click the Graphic icon to meddle with the Fill, Stroke (border), selected—and yes, you can Shift-click to select and edit both Shadow, Refl ection, and Opacity of the shape and image. Both simultaneously.

66 May 2006 HOW TO 67

Charts Gone Wild! Select Insert > Chart (or click the Objects icon in Pages’ 2 toolbar and select Chart). Now click the chart-looking icon in the Inspector to bring up the Chart controls. Now add your own data; click the Edit Data button to open the Chart Data Editor. Once you get all of your data in place, the real fun begins. Click the Chart Type button on the Chart Inspector, and pick a different type—we dig the 3D pie chart. Each chart type has its own stylistic controls, such as lighting and depth This chart doesn’t for the 3D charts; formatting of labels, axes, numbers, data actually convey any points; and more. You can even explode the pie charts—whee, information, but damn, exploding pie! it looks good. Master Thy Pages To make your chart appear on every page, drag the object 3 to where you’d like it to appear, and select Format > Advanced > Move Object To Section Master. If that option is grayed out, put a paragraph break (press the Return key) immediately before the object on the page. Select Format > Advanced > Make Master Objects Selectable, and click the chart to select it. Now You can still select click the Inspector’s Graphic icon and use the Opacity slider at the and tweak objects bottom to fade the chart. You can apply the same technique to after adding them text, images, shape objects—anything that you can put on a page. to the master page. Do the Math If charts are Pages’ eye candy, then Tables are its 4 braininess. Insert a Table by selecting Insert > Table (duh) or by clicking the toolbar’s Objects icon and selecting Table. Next, click the Inspector’s Table icon. Use the Table section to set the number of rows and columns and their sizes, and then click the Numbers tab for the real fun. Click any table cell and type some data. Once you’ve got some data entered, you can assign mathematical formulae to cells (typically to the last cell in a column or row) to process the data from other cells: Just click a cell to highlight it, and pick a formula from the pull-down menu. Too limiting? Select Formula Editor and string together your own formula: Click the function button to insert an operator, and then click on other cells in the Color-coding makes the Table and Formula Editor tools table to add them to the equation. surprisingly easy to work with. Spam Your Whole Address Book To create your own personalized-form-letter factory, start 5 by prepping your Address Book (/Applications/Address Book). Make sure all of the contacts you want to spam have the First Name field (or whatever field you want to merge data from) filled in. In Pages, type the first line of your form letter: Nothing Dear Butthead. Highlight Butthead and click the Inspector’s Link screams icon to access the Link Inspector, and then click the Merge tab. indifference Click the box labeled Enable As An Address Book Field, click like a carefully the Recipient Field radio button, and pick your poison from the personalized Type and Field pull-down menus. To add recipients’ first names, form letter. select Name and First. Repeat the process for other fields you’d like to merge in. To pipe in the data, open Address Book and drag in a contact’s card. When you’re ready for some big-league spamming, create a Group in Address Book, and drag in the whole enchilada—Pages will ask if you’d like to send the merged letters directly to your printer or create a new Pages document Where shall with each recipient’s personalized letter in its own section of I send your the document. Your call. merge, sir?

Niko Coucouvanis takes back all the bad things he said about Pages when version 1.0 came out. Well, most of the bad things he said. May 2006 67 Left Right

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Mac Shop MAY/06 77 vv t 78

tell us how you really feel

female athlete is being chased LETTERS as she hurls a sledgehammer BIRD BRAIN into a giant screen—only this My sister’s bird Jedi always feels the force when she is OFF COLOR time, the hammer is sucked using her iMac. She is, however, a hunt-and-peck typist. I noticed in your “Microsoft into the image. The dictator —Paula Paradis Offi ce Tricks” story (Mar/06, starts to laugh sardonically p28) that Max was green! as the Thought Police arrest Poor guy. I just wanted to the athlete and take her away. make sure that he’s better Steve Jobs has gone over to now and let him know how the Dark Side.—Doug Robb much of a trooper he is for Take a deep breath, Doug, going to the photo shoot and repeat after me. “It’s so sick—that’s dedication. just a chip. It’s just a chip. I know there’s no one It’s just a chip.” There, feel like that in the Windows better? —Max world.—sinclair_tm via the MacAddict.com forums THE END OF THE M-A-E T-H-A F-O-R-S B-E-E W-I-T-H Y-O-O. AFFAIR, PART II I was a little disappointed in your last survey (see “Survey .com/hotlist, the new home shipping and handling). All Says,” below). You didn’t of our Hot List product kidding aside, when we said offer the option for never. recommendifi er.—Max iSale was the only eBay app — M. J. Pete for the Mac, we erred, which Smiling on the outside; iSALE FOR SALE? is apparently human—but we dying on the inside. AW, SHUCKS Your review of iSale still like iSale.—Max I read your commentary ( Mar/06, p50) A word of advice: If you buy online at www.macaddict. says it’s the only eBay a chicken-salad sandwich com every day. I think you’re app for the Mac. Well, not at the Microsoft cafeteria pithy and smart, and your only is it not the only eBay and find yourself thinking take on the day’s events app for the Mac, it’s not it looks a bit bluish, it’s and news is top-notch in its even the best eBay app probably not because of subtlety and style. Thanks for the Mac. GarageSale the funky lighting.—Max for making my day, and for (www.iwascoding.com) is giving me something to look far better and only costs THE END OF forward to at lunch time. $24.99. How much did iSale THE AFFAIR —Michael Garner pay you for the review? I have had a love affair with Aw, thanks Michael—though —Dave Wilson Looking to offl oad your editorial �� the Mac since 1986—but I do hope you really meant iSale was outbid in the fi nal integrity? Try GarageSale. now, an Intel chip is going “pithy,” and you don’t merely minute by one Josephine in a Mac. How can this be? have a lisp. By the way, the Mungespittle of Chagrin BUILD-IN ERROR I can see the new Apple next time you’re on our site, Falls, Ohio, who purchased Plug your server into a KVM commercial now: A young check out www.macaddict our review for $17.50 (plus switch, and your G5 will give you an interesting error. I’m not quite sure where your WHEN DO YOU PLAN TO BUY AN INTEL-BASED MAC? “build-in” keyboard actually Survey �� is, but Apple may want to 20% I’m pulling out 12% I’m waiting check its grammar and my checkbook as soon until my favorite hardware defi nitions. Says as my budget allows. apps run natively —Chris Buckle Here are the results on Intel chips. Oh, Apple—you could learn a of our January 2006 20% I plan to thing or two from MacAddict, survey. Check out where we never accidentally buy one sometime 7% I’m waiting www.macaddict.com misspell words!—Max this year. until the Intel-based each month for a �� Power Macs come new online poll. 41% I’m in no out later this year. rush—my current Mac is just fi ne. Hey, wait, isn’t that my tux?

78 May 2006

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�� vv t WRITE TO US! FOR CD PROBLEMS: go to www.futureus-inc.com Mac Addict, 4000 Shoreline Court, Ste. 400, 79 South San Francisco, CA 94080 FOR SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: or letters@macaddict .com call (toll-free) 888-771-6222

MOOT, MEET FOUTH upgrade, and I discovered On page 78 of the Mar/06 that Apple doesn’t offer an issue, there’s a pie chart upgrade price like most other labeled “What’s your software companies do. My biggest worry about Apple’s advice: If Apple wants PC WIN! switch to Intel processors?” types to keep migrating to One of the worries reads, Macs, consider offering a “21%: Current apps will run reduced upgrade price. PC Harman Multimedia’s new JBL On Time ($299.95, www.jbl.com) dog-slow in Rossetta.” On folks are accustomed to this not only looks great; its JBL Phoenix and Ridge transducers the next page is a reference courtesy.—Len Fedullo assure that it sounds great, too. Use its clock radio to wake up, to Roseanne Rosannadanna. or plug in your ’Pod for more music choices—you can even hook I submit it should read MIGHT AS it up to your Mac to sync your tunes through the JBL On Time’s Rosseanne Rossannadanna. WELL FACE IT charging dock. Want it? Just write the best caption to the photo Consistency. Smile. I was reading your Mar/06 below, and it’s yours. —Curt Scott issue and enjoying the iDate Only one entry per contestant. Ass I jusst ssaid, review (Shut Down, p80). I Misster Sscott, we never noticed on the “Sensation Entry Form accidentally misssspell Intense” package the text wordss. We alwayss do it “L337 H4XORS H4V3 S4L3 on purposse.—Max S3X!” That’s Leet for “ELITE Write a caption HACKERS HAVE SALE SEX!” for this picture. UPGRADE UPROAR Is this intentional? Or are you I switched to a Mac three L337 M4C H4X0RS over there years ago and never looked playing a joke on us? CONTESTANT INFORMATION back, but Apple’s software- — Adam McClellan Full Name: upgrade policy stinks. In No joke, Adam. These days, January 2006, I purchased everyone’s preaching about Address: iLife ’05. Two weeks later, safe sex—that’s why we here City: State: iLife ’06 came out, so I at MacAddict have decided Zip: called Apple to ﬁ nd out how to focus on how freakin’ Email or telephone:

much it would cost me to expensive is it.—Max Send email entries to: [email protected] with the subject: JBL Contest (Don’t forget to include your address information!) Send snail-mail entries to: JBL Contest, MacAddict magazine, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Deadline for entry: May 31, 2006. QUARANTINE Contest results will appear in our Sep/06 issue. IMAGE (“WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY,” JACK ALBERTSON, 1971, PARAMOUNT I.V.) COURTESY OF MPTV OF COURTESY I.V.) PARAMOUNT 1971, ALBERTSON, JACK FACTORY,” CHOCOLATE THE AND WONKA (“WILLY IMAGE

Contest Rules The judges will be MacAddict editors and will base their decision on 33 percent humor, 33 percent Is what I’m hearing true? Has the fi rst OS X virus really been originality, and 33 percent creativity. All entries must be received no later than May 31, 2006, with the winner discovered?—L. Murphy announced around September 2006. By entering this contest, you agree that Future US, Inc. may use your name, likeness, and Web site for promotional purposes without further payment. All prizes will be awarded, and no minimum Well, that depends on how you defi ne virus, but two pieces of number of entries is required. If two or more people enter identical winning captions, the entry received fi rst will be awarded the contest prize. Prizes won by minors will be awarded to their parents or legal guardians. Future US, Inc. is malware—malicious software—showed up in mid-February. not responsible for damages or expenses the winners might incur as a result of this contest or the receipt of a prize, The fi rst was Leap-A (or Oompa-Loompa, which we fi nd far and winners are responsible for income taxes based on the value of the prize received. A list of winners may also be obtained by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Future US, Inc. c/o MacAddict Contest, 4000 Shoreline cuter), which was actually a trojan horse; trojans pretend Court - Suite 400, South San Francisco CA 94080. This contest is limited to residents of the United States. No purchase necessary, void in Arizona, Maryland, Vermont, Puerto Rico, and where prohibited by law. to be something they’re not (an image fi le, in this case) and require you to actively unleash them yourself. The second was OSX.Inqtana.A, a worm; unlike trojans, worms can replicate Congratulations themselves—in this Winner! to Mathew case through your Kaufman, whose cleverness won him Mac’s Bluetooth a Fujitsu ScanSnap ($495, http:// connection. But scansnap.fujitsu.com), and a special Apple closed that honorable historical mention to the Bluetooth loophole dozens of you who riffed on “Four in a June 2005 cores and seven years (or, in a few “I think I’m going to spring for software update, cases, beers) ago…” the Granny Smith upgrade.” so if you’ve stayed Volume 11, Issue 5 on top of Software MacAddict (ISSN 1088-548X) is published 12 times a year by Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Periodicals Postage Paid at South San Francisco, CA, and at additional mailing offices. Newsstand Update’s security- distribution is handled by Curtis Circulation Co. Basic subscription rates: one year (12 issues + 12 CD-ROMs) U.S. $39.90, Canada $43.95, U.S. prepaid funds only. Canadian price includes postage and GST 128220688. IPM 0962392. Outside the related releases, U.S. and Canada, price is $53.95, U.S. prepaid funds only. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to MacAddict, P.O. Box 5126, Harlan, IA 51593-0626. Future US, Inc. also publishes Maximum PC, PC Gamer, Official Xbox Magazine, PSM, Guitar you should be just World, Guitar One, Guitar World Acoustic, Bass Guitar, Guitar Legends, Future Music, Future Snowboarding, Snowboard Journal, Snowboard Trade News, Skateboard Trade News, and Scrapbook Answers. Entire contents copyright 2006, Future US, Inc.. All They’re coming to get you. fi ne.—Max rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited. Future US, Inc. is not affiliated with the companies or products covered in MacAddict. Ride-Along enclosure in the following edition(s): A3, B, B1, B2, B3. PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Publications Mail Agreement #40043631. Returns: 4960-2 Walker Road, Windsor ON N9A 6J3

May 2006 79 SHUT DOWN 80 don’t let the back page hit you on the way out

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