superguide! - Amazon Web Services

Transcription

superguide! - Amazon Web Services
RUN WINDOWS SOFTWARE — WITHOUT WINDOWS! 121
SEPT
2006
A
B E T T E R
M A C H I N E .
A
B E T T E R
M A ¬ A Z I N E .
MOBILE MAC
SUPERGUIDE!
59must-have
accessories,
hand-picked
by our experts!
■ STORAGE ■ SPEAKERS
■ CASES
■ BATTERIES
… AND A WHOLE LOT MORE
REVIEWED:
PLUS: ALL THE ROAD WARRIOR
TIPS & TRICKS YOU NEED TO KEEP
YOUR ’BOOK AT ITS BEST!
B Final Cut
Express HD
B QuarkXPress 7
B Motorola SLVR
iTunes phone
…and 14 more
10!
B Build a Disaster-
MACADDICT
TURNS
RELIVE 10
YEARS OF MAC
ADDICTION—
FROM FIGHTING
BACK TO
CELEBRATING
VICTORY
HOW TO:
Recovery Drive
B Maintain Your Mac
with Automator
B Make a Talking-Head Video
SEPTEMBER2006
04
NO.121•VOLUME11•ISSUE9
a better machine. a better magazine.
features
18 Freedom!
These ’Books are made for totin’, so we’ve
packed 10 pages with all the gear, tips, and
tricks you’ll need when it’s time to hit the road
with your Mac. by Niko Coucouvanis, Roman Loyola,
and Rik Myslewski
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31 It’s Party Time!
This month marks MacAddict’s 10th birthday. Join us as we take a look back at one helluva decade,
from Apple’s antics to our mag’s own brilliance—and blunders. by Rik Myslewski
36 Automating Automator
This month’s Field Guide on using Automator will get your workflows
flowing by helping you speed up repetitive tasks. by Niko Coucouvanis
how to
60 Ask Us
Know how to move your email messages from
.Mac to Gmail? Use Unix commands to kill ’em
all (processes, that is)? Turn your MacBook into
a lightsaber? No? Well, start reading!
62 Make a Talking Head
With an iSight, a $20 app called
Noodle Flix, and your Mac, you
can turn yourself into a talking
head…you know, like Max Headroom or Jerry
Harrison. by Niko Coucouvanis
66 Maintain Your Mac
with Automator
Keep your Mac happy and healthy
by using Automator in concert
with apps like Terminal and iCal
to schedule regular maintenance.
by Niko Coucouvanis
04
September 2006
68 Make a Universal
Disaster Disk
Whether your Mac is PowerPC- or Intel-based,
we’ll show you how to prepare for Armageddon
with a FireWire disaster disk.
by Niko Coucouvanis
70 Sex Up
Your Movie
Soundtracks
GarageBand 3 isn’t just
for the garage—it’s also
the perfect app for adding
new soundtracks to all your favorite flicks.
by Niko Coucouvanis
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06
CONTENTS
a better machine. a better magazine.
��
09 Editors’ Page
49
A birthday toast to us, to you, and to 10 years of headlines
with varying degrees of wackiness.
10
Get Info
39
Reviews
Two new technologies let you run Windows apps on your Mac
without all the push-ups of Boot Camp, and the education
iMac signals the end of CRT-based Apple machines. We also
show you a photo site that recognizes faces, a high-tech
toilet-paper holder, and the largest, most full-featured iPod
dock ever.
48
53 DRX-820UL/T external DVD burner
48 EOS 30D SLR camera
42 Final Cut Express HD video-editing software
52 Graphire 6x8 Bluetooth pen and tablet
46 HiFi-Link for iPod iPod dock
46 HomeDock iPod dock
46 iDuo iPod dock
45 iLuv i552 iPod boom box
46 iPod Dock with Remote iPod dock
45 iThunder iPod boom box
49 iWoofer iPod speaker
43 Liquid Ledger personal finance software
44 Photosmart R927 point-and-shoot camera
40 Quark XPress 7 page-layout software
50 SLVR mobile phone
46 Stereo Dock iPod dock
46 TuneSync for iPod iPod dock
55
50
42
44
55
Games
55 Aspyr’s New Storefront game news
55 Battlefield 1942: Clan MacAddict game news
57 Call of Duty 2 game review
56 Heroes of Might and Magic V tips and tricks
56 Sudden Motion Sensor game news
55 World of Warcraft game news
QUICK TIPS
78
Log Out
78 Letters
Our readers get creative, we solve
the mystery of the missing text, and
Google won’t help you find Hell…but
Yahoo will.
79 Contest
Here’s your chance to win a hard
drive that’s even more stylish
than Rik’s Mini Cooper—the
250GB LaCie Brick ($129.99,
www.lacie.com).
80 Shut Down
Because laughter is the medicine
that never expires (unlike Prozac),
here are four of our favorite Shut
Down pages from issues past.
FROM THIS MONTH’S ISSUE
BEYOND 100
To get around the
100-song limit
on iTunes-equipped
phones, use an audio-editing
app to place one song after
the other, creating one long
song. Export or save the
song, and then load it on your
phone. From Reviews, p50.
06
September 2006
HOT OR COLD
The weather can affect how
your digital camera operates.
Your image quality can
change if your camera is a bit
too warm or too cool. Avoid
leaving your camera in places
where the temperature can get
extreme. From Reviews, p44.
BELLY UP
Your Finder window’s Sidebar
isn’t just for breakfast
anymore; any location you
put in the lower half of
the Sidebar gets
automatically added
to the Favorites list
in Open and Save
dialogs. From Ask
Us, p60.
MIND YOUR PLIST
If your favorite application
gives you fits, it could have
a bad plist file, which stores
application settings and
preferences. Try creating a
new plist file for that app.
From Get Info, p16.
08
CONTENTS
a better machine. a better magazine.
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iClock 3.0.4 demo
Jiggler 1.3 freeware
LaunchBar 4.1.1 trial
MountWatcher 1.3.8 demo
Name Those Files 2.1 demo
On Air 1.1 trial
PopCopy 2.2 trial
Proxi 1.1 demo
RapidoWrite 2.0.1 freeware
Screen Mimic 1.5 demo
SlingShot 2.0 trial
SuperDuper 2.1.2 trial
TechRestore demo video
Telekinesis 1.0 trial
Veenix Font Tools 5.1 for OS
10.2+ demo
Veenix Font Tools 5.1 for OS
10.4 demo
SPONSORS
Edirol R-09 demo video
iFill 1.1.0 demo
iStockphoto Sampler media
OmniGraffle 4.1.1 trial
OmniOutliner 3.6 trial
OmniWeb 5.1.3 trial
Proxi 1.1 demo
Sound Studio 3.0.4 demo
TechRestore demo video
Staff Video: Jedi Showdown
With the help of MacSaber 1.0 (in the
Disc’s Fun & Games folder) and two
Sudden Motion Sensor–equipped
MacBooks, MacAddict editors Niko
Coucouvanis and Roman Loyola
battle for the right to ride shotgun
with MacAddict Managing Editor
Susie Ochs.
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
September 2006
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UPGRADE
movies.
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ChatFX 1.2.1 demo
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INTERNET & COMMUNICATION
Amendment 0.5 demo
AppZapper 1.6 shareware
HoudahSpot 1.2.1 demo
BUSINESS
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Stacey Levy, 925-964-1205
SOUTHWESTERN ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Dave Lynn, 949-360-4443
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Check out
our how-to on
EASTERN ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
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Anthony Danzi, 646-723-5453
page 62 and learn how
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EASTERN ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE
to use Noodle �����������Larry Presser, 646-723-5459
NATIONAL SALES MANAGER, ENTERTAINMENT
Flix to create
������
Isaac Ugay, 562-983-8018
your own
MARKETING DIRECTOR Cassandra Magzamen
MARKETING COORDINATOR Michael Basilio
talking-head
ADVERTISING COORDINATOR Jose Urrutia, 415-656-8313
demo
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ClearDock 1.4 demo
FruitMenu 3.6 shareware
Menu Master 1.4 demo
OmniDazzle 1.0 demo
Remote Buddy 1.0 preview
UTILITIES
Noodle Flix
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INTERFACE
AddressX 1.3 trial
Advanced Link Manager 2.3 trial
Disk Order 2.3 Panther
Edition trial
Disk Order 2.3 Universal
Edition trial
Dossier 2.2 trial
MConvert 6.2 shareware
OmniGraffle 4.1.1 trial
OmniOutliner 3.6 demo
TextExpander 1.3.1 demo
TextWrangler 2.1.3 freeware
ART
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ART DIRECTOR Mark Rosenthal
ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Peter Marshutz
GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR Dan Fitzpatrick
PHOTOGRAPHER Mark Madeo
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER Samantha Berg
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AVmixer Pro 1.1 trial
ComicBookLover 1.0 shareware
ImageBuddy 3.4.0 shareware
iStockphoto Sampler media
Lightbox 1.0.2 trial
Noodle Flix 1.2.1 demo
Noodle Flix Steve Jobs freeware
Noodle Flix Tutorial freeware
PRODUCTIVITY
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GRAPHICS & MULTIMEDIA
Edirol R-09 demo video
iStockphoto Sampler media
Staff Video: Jedi Showdown
TechRestore demo video
EDITORIAL
EDITOR IN CHIEF Rik Myslewski
MANAGING EDITOR Susie Ochs
HOW-TO EDITOR Niko Coucouvanis
REVIEWS EDITOR Roman Loyola
INTERN Elliot Smith
INTERN Brian Moore
WEB MONKEY Nick Muerdter
EPONYMEDITOR Max
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS David Biedny, Joseph O. Holmes,
Helmut Kobler, Cathy Lu, Steven Parke, Ian Sammis, Deborah
Shadovitz, Andrew Tokuda, Michelle Victoria, Buz Zoller
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Acky’s XP Breakout demo
Ashalii 1.4 trial
Burst 1.2 demo
Cars: The Video Game demo
Downfall 2.6 trial
MacSaber 1.0 freeware
Sudoku 1.0 demo
MEDIA
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FUN & GAMES
iGet 2.1 demo
Interarchy 8.1 trial
Jon’s Phone Tool shareware
MegaDialer 1.0 trial
OmniWeb 5.1.3 trial
Yummy FTP 1.5.1 shareware
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Revolution Studio
provides you with all the
tools you need to build
fantasticlooking
applications
in no time.
Revolution Studio 2.7.2 demo
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Take Lightning McQueen
for a spin in this fastpaced racing game based
on the movie
from Disney
and Pixar.
DEVELOPMENT
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Revolution Studio
demo
Audiocorder 4.8.0 trial
CoverScout 2.0 demo
CUBE 2.1 demo
Edirol R-09 demo video
iFill 1.1.0 demo
Lounge Lizard Session demo
SFX Machine Pro 1.01 demo
SFX Machine RT 1.0.6 demo
SndSampler 5.4 shareware
Sonicfire Pro 4.1.1 demo
Sound Studio 3.0.4 demo
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Cars: The Video
Game demo
AUDIO & MUSIC
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You asked for more games (Survey Says, p78)—we
heard and we obeyed. This month’s star is Cars:
The Video Game, and we’ve also included a halfdozen more time-wasters for your edification and
enjoyment. Oh, and there are 61 additional apps,
demos, and more that share Disc space with this
month’s Fun & Games selections. Enjoy them all.
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PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richard Lesovoy
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Ryan Meith
CIRCULATION
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Peter Kelly
NEWSSTAND MARKETING MANAGER Bill Shewey
BILLING AND RENEWAL MANAGER Betsy Wong
NEWSSTAND COORDINATOR Alex Guzman
FULFILLMENT MANAGER Peggy Mores
DIRECT-MAIL MANAGER Stephanie Blake
DIRECT MARKETING SPECIALIST Janet Amistoso
FUTURE US, INC.
4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080
www.futureus-inc.com
PRESIDENT Jonathan Simpson-Bint
VICE PRESIDENT/CFO Tom Valentino
VICE PRESIDENT/CIRCULATION Holly Klingel
GENERAL COUNSEL Charles Schug
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/GAMES Simon Whitcombe
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/MUSIC & TECH Steve Aaron
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR/BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Dave Barrow
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/TECHNOLOGY Jon Phillips
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/MUSIC Brad Tolinski
DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL SERVICES Nancy Durlester
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richie Lesovoy
Future US, Inc. is part of Future plc.
Future produces carefully targeted
special-interest magazines, Web sites,
and events for people who share a
passion. We aim to satisfy that passion
by creating titles offering value for
money, reliable information, smart
buying advice, and which are a pleasure
to read. Today we publish more than
150 magazines, 65 Web sites, and a growing number of events in
the US, UK, France, and Italy. Over 100 international editions of our
magazines are also published in 30 other countries across the world.
Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange
(symbol: FUTR).
FUTURE PLC
30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW, England
www.futureplc.com
Tel +44 1225 442244
NON-EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN Roger Parry
CHIEF EXECUTIVE Stevie Spring
GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR John Bowman
Tel +44 1225 442244 www.futureplc.com
REPRINTS: For reprints, contact Ryan Derfler, Reprint Operations
Specialist, 717-399-1900 ext. 167
or email: futurenetworkusa@reprintbuyer.com
SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: Please email mcdcustserv@cdsfulfillment
.com or call customer service toll-free at 888-771-6222.
EDITORS’ PAGE
Cool Stuff to Read!
Ten years is a long time for a magazine to
remain successful. Sure, some heavyweights
have been around seemingly forever—
Harper’s, 156 years; Time, 83; Sports
Illustrated, 52—but most mags burn brightly
only briefly, then quickly fade away.
This month, MacAddict turns 10. Why
such a long life? Well, the main reason, of
course, is you—our devoted readers and
paymasters. For 10 years you’ve read our
humble rag, then fired off your suggestions, critiques, and criticisms to
letters@macaddict.com. Thanks for holding our collective feet to the fire.
But I’d also like to congratulate all the MacAddict staffers who’ve
contributed their expertise, talents, and sublime snarkiness over the
years. Sure, we take the Mac seriously, but we’ve always tried not to take
ourselves too seriously. Life’s too short to be stodgy.
One measure of our carefully cultivated MacAddictude are those haikusized headlines on our covers. What other magazine, for example, would
announce an article on Jaguar with “Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill!” (Feb/03)?
How about an article about Steve Jobs’s return to Apple called “Insanely
Great or Greatly Insane?” (Oct/97). Then there was the introduction of the
iPod: “World’s Greatest MP3 Player or $400 Paperweight?” (Jan/02).
In February 2005, we gave you a sneak peek at Doom 3 and suggested
that you “Vacation in Hell!”—which was originally “Go to Hell!” but we
chickened out at the last moment. An editorial about unwanted email
was heralded with “Spam, Anger, Spam, Sex, Spam, Spam, Money &
Spam” (Jul/02).
We showed you how to make “Fake IDs: Cheap, Easy, and Illegal”
(Feb/99), to “Learn Exactly What to Do After You Say, ‘Oh, $%#&@!’”
(Jan/05), and introduced you to “The Least Impressive iPod Cases You’ll
Ever See” (Jan/03).
A few headlines might best be lumped into the “Huh?” category,
such as “100% Windows NT–Free!” (Mar/98), “Special Report: Apple’s
New Thang” (Mar/99), “Don’t Get Scrooged” (Dec/02), and “Burn, PC,
Burn!” (Oct/02).
Lastly, in February 1998 we wrapped up our cover with a line that—
although screamingly obvious—neatly summarizes our editorial mission:
“Lots of Other Cool Stuff to Read, Too!” We hope we’ve supplied you with
a lot of cool stuff to read over the years—and we’re going to keep doing so.
Enjoy,
09
STAFF RANTS
Q. What’s your top MacAddict memory?
Niko Coucouvanis
DREMEL-TOOL MASTER
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
As MacAddict’s longest-term staffer, I’ve got stories
guaranteed to shock and amaze. But after so many years
of cathode-ray abuse, I can’t remember anything prior
to today’s lunch—but what an awesome BLT that was.
Unforgettable, even.
Susie Ochs
THE POPE OF CHILI TOWN
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
I’ve only been here 32 workdays at press time, but I can
tell you that it’s even more fun than you think it’d be. My
favorite memories so far are the giggle-filled meetings
to brainstorm Shut Down and the Staff Video, and the
ceremonious nicknaming of our newest intern Brian, aka “Mini-Rik.”
Elliot Smith
HOTSHOT DIRECTOR NOUVEAU
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
Directing this month’s epic “Niko-versus-Roman-MacBookPro-lightsaber-fight-for-shotgun-next-to-Susie-which-waswon-by-me” Staff Video, shot on location with a script to die
for, acting rivaling that of the Hollywood elite, and an action
sequence that redefines the art of war. All I can say is, “I’d like to thank
the Academy...”
Roman Loyola
REVISIONIST HISTORIAN
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
MacAddict’s founding editor, Cheryl England, actually
offered me a job when she started the magazine 10 years
ago. I turned her down, because at the time I didn’t think I
was ready for such responsibility. But I’m here now!
Peter Marshutz
LAUGHING AT WORK
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
My favorite MacAddict moment has to be Niko riding down
the streets of San Francisco on a G3 tower with wheels. Or
was it when Niko put himself inside a nano? Or when he
powered his iPod with a car battery?
Mark Rosenthal
KEEPAWN ROWLIN
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
I agree with Peter: It was definitely the time Niko rode his G3
all over San Francisco for our Staff Video. Funny thing was,
people thought it was a joke. But that’s actually how Niko
gets around. Really.
Brian Moore
SHORT-TERM MEMORY
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
Although I’ve just arrived at the golden gates of MacAddict,
there will most definitely be a memory lodged in my brain
for years to come: meeting the amazing Niko Coucouvanis.
Hey, I’d like to see you forget a person who, when
introduced to you, lunged at you with a power tool!
Max
ANGER-MANAGEMENT GRADUATE
What’s your top MacAddict memory?
comingsoon:october2006
Back in August 2002, I responded to a cranky letter to the
editor with an uplifted digitus medius, aka The Bird. Maybe
not my finest hour—but thoroughly satisfying.
Here’s what our editors are preparing for the next issue of MacAddict.
Steve Jobs will demo Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard, a couple of days before we’re scheduled to ship our October issue, so if our
heads don’t explode we’ll bring you a first look at the next big cat (and anything else Steve may announce—hint, hint,
hint). We’ll also dive deep into iWeb, plus explain a plethora of musical terms. Then we’ll show you how to make an iPod
case out of a book, create a font out of your own handwriting, tap Preview’s hidden powers, and use Keynote to create
the best what-I-did-this-summer presentation ever. Finally, we’ll review Apple’s Shake 4.1 video-effects software, Nova
Development’s Print Explosion Deluxe 3.0, Palm’s Treo 700p PDA and mobile phone, and a whole lot more.
September 2006
09
10
the news of the month in bite-size chunks
WINDOWS SOFTWARE ON YOUR MAC?
YES YOU CAN!
Parallels (left)
lets you run
Windows XP
within Mac
OS X, while
CrossOver Mac
lets you use
Windows apps
without having
Windows XP on
your Mac.
T
wo new technologies offer
more in-depth integration
of Windows: Parallels
Desktop for Mac ($79.99,
www.parallels.com)
and CodeWeavers’ CrossOver Mac
($59.95, www.codeweavers.com).
PARALLELS Intel’s Virtualization
Technology (aka VT) lets your run
virtual-machine software such as
Parallels, which lets you run any x86compatible operating system within
Mac OS X. For example, you can install
Windows XP Home, and it will run in
a separate window within Mac OS X
(Apple’s Boot Camp only lets you boot
into either Mac OS X or Windows XP).
10
September 2006
Parallels works only on Intel-based
Macs, and it doesn’t have to emulate a
x86 processor, which Virtual PC does.
Running Windows XP using Parallels
is dramatically faster than running
Windows XP using Virtual PC.
CROSSOVER CrossOver Mac promises
to let you run Windows applications just
like you do Mac applications, with no
need to launch Windows at all.
CrossOver Mac is based on the opensource Wine technology (www.winehq
.org), which has been used on Linux to
run Windows software. With CrossOver
Mac, a version of Wine will provide a
translation layer between the Windows
application and the system.
CodeWeavers says that the software
will be available in late July or early
August. Since Wine is open-source
software, the company is relying on
the developer community to help the
software evolve.
FUTURE BOOT CAMP Boot Camp
will be a feature of Mac OS 10.5, codenamed Leopard, and in a recent report,
an Apple rep said that Leopard will only
support dual booting, not virtualization.
The line between Mac and Windows
software is blurring, and the evolution of
virtualization could change the software
landscape. Soon you may be able to
shop for apps without needing to look for
Mac-specific offerings.—Roman Loyola
11
GET INFO
NEW STUFF
NEW STUFF
STUDENTS GET AN iBREAK
T
he $899 17-inch education iMac has a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 512MB
of memory (expandable to 2GB), a 7,200 rpm 80GB Serial ATA hard drive, built-in
AirPort Extreme, and a built-in iSight. To reach the $400 price difference between
the education iMac and the entry-level iMac of the same size, compromises had to
be made. The education iMac has a
Combo drive, so you can only burn CDs,
not DVDs. It also uses the Intel GMA 950
video chipset, which uses a 64MB chunk
of main memory rather than dedicated
video RAM. That means mediocre
performance when playing games.
Sadly, after just a week of making the
education iMac available to individual
college students and faculty, and K-12
and homeschool teachers, Apple has
restricted it to institutional
purchases only, so students
should inquire at their oncampus computing stores.
—Michelle Victoria
The eMac lost its freshman 15.
Total: $2,434.78
4PORTABLE PROJECTOR
PowerLite S4
Big screen,
will travel.
$699
www.epson.com
Available: Now
This portable projector uses three
LCDs to project color images. It
features a brightness rating of 1,800
ANSI lumens, 800-by-600-pixel
native resolution, and a weight of
5.7 pounds.
4RAZZLE DAZZLE
OmniDazzle
$14.95
www.omnigroup.com
Available: Now
ON THE
DISC
OmniDazzle 1.0 demo
OmniDazzle adds visual effects
to your screen to spice up demos
and presentations. Your cursor can
spread pixie dust, highlight text,
zoom, create a spotlight, make a trail
of footprints, and more.
$1,499.99
$429.99
Tiffen Steadicam
JR Lite (www
.steadicam.com)
Sony Handycam
HDR-HC3 HD
camera (www
.sonystyle.com)
SHAKE $HAKEUP
A
pple’s high-end video compositing
and effects software, Shake,
not only was recently upgraded to
version 4.1, but also had its price
drastically reduced—the Mac version
is now $499, down from $2,999 (the
Linux version remains a whopping
$4,999). Owners of Shake 4 can get
the 4.1 crossgrade for $49. If you’ve
been saving up for Shake, you now
find yourself with some serious extra
bucks. Here’s how you can put that
extra $2,500 toward your next film
project and still have enough left over
for a case or two of frosty beverages.
—Roman Loyola
Ready for your close-up?
4’PODDY TRAINED
$129.90
10 caps from
CafePress.com
bearing your
movie’s logo
($12.99 each)
iCarta
$250
Catering (The
crew’s gotta eat!)
Finally, a place to park your ’Pod
when you’re sitting on the throne.
This white wonder has four
speakers, and even charges
your iPod while it’s docked.
$39.95
Sunpak
Compact
Monopod
(www
.tocad.com)
$149.95
www.atechflash.com
Available: Now
$84.95
Sony HD DVC
DVM-63HD6KIT
tape (six pack)
This is not a
comment
on your
musical
taste.
September 2006
11
v
12
GET INFO
the news of the month in bite-size chunks
A
DROOLWORTHY
Sexy Stuff We Can’t Wait to Get Our Mitts On
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Intempo’s iDS-02 (£139.95, or $255 at press
time, www.intempo-digital.co.uk) has a pair
of 7.5-watt speakers and a 15-watt subwoofer.
Available in black or white, it also acts as an
iPod dock so you can sync and charge your ’Pod.
IMAGE COURTESY OF INTEMPO
IMAGE COURTESY OF CUCUMBERLAB
12
September 2006
14
GET INFO
the news of the month in bite-size chunks
SHAREWARE PICK OF THE MONTH
Lip Service 1.1.2 www.sonicamigos.com $20
L
ip Service is a virtual tape recorder that captures audio
in MOV, AIFF, WAV, or MP3 formats and includes timestamping and playlist management. Although it’s easy enough
to just launch the app and hit the spacebar to start and stop
recordings, you should first take a step back and set up Lip
Service properly.—Andrew Tokuda
When you launch Lip
Service, you start in
the Booth. If it’s your
first time, click the
Collection button; this
is where you organize
your playlists.
Click the Playlist
pop-up and choose
Edit Playlists; here
you can add, delete, or
edit playlists.
2 Let’s create a playlist
called Rants by typing
that into the Playlist
Title field and clicking
Add; close the list when
you’re done.
3 Next, go to the
Session area by
clicking the Session
button. Choose MP3
as the Recording
Format to keep the
file size small. For the
When Recording Stops
option, choose Add
To Collection. Choose
your new Rants
playlist as the place
to store the files. Keep
the File Name option
set to Automatic
(date/time) to timestamp your files.
FAMILIAR FACES
5 When you go back to the
Booth to record your audio, the
file will be properly named,
tagged, and stored. To locate
the files on your hard drive, click
one of the files and choose Show
In Finder.
iPOD CASE
OF THE MONTH
R
iya (www.riya.com) may at first seem
like yet another photo-sharing site
to compete with the likes of Flickr
(www.flickr.com), PhotoBucket
(www.photobucket.com), SmugMug
(www.smugmug.com), and others,
but what makes Riya unique is that it
has the ability to search photos using
what it calls facial recognition. Riya
automatically finds the faces in a photo,
and then you attach a tag to that face.
Riya then “learns” the face and can
match it and its tag appropriately in
other photos.
Riya’s photo-upload software
4 Next, click the Tags
button and enter the MP3
file’s ID3 tags.
Speck’s Canvas Sport ($34.95,
www.speckproducts.com) reminds
us of good ol’-fashioned Converse
Chuck Taylor All-Stars—the only thing
the missing is the trademark All-Star
ankle patch.—Michelle Victoria
For Riya, looks are everything.
requires Mac OS 10.4 or later, and the
company admits on its Web site that
Intel-based Macs will run the software
much faster than PowerPC-based
Macs.—Roman Loyola
Chuck
Taylor, eat
your heart
out.
CALLING ALL HOT MODS
M
acMod (www.macmod.com) is
looking for Mac case-mod
entries for its annual Great
MacMod Challenge contest.
What’s a case mod? It’s
when you customize a
computer case in a way that
reflects your personality.
We’re talking some serious
handiwork—on MacMod’s Web
site, you can see pics of several Mac
14
September 2006
mods, including a G4 tower with a clear
case, a Mac in an antique wooden box,
and more.
MacMod is accepting entries for
its contest through the month of
August. Your mod must be Mac
related, and you must document
how you actually performed your
magic. Find complete rules and
entry information at www.macmod
.com.—Roman Loyola
SUBMIT YOUR CASE Whether your iPod case is a
custom-made one-off or mass produced, you can 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.
16
GET INFO
the news of the month in bite-size chunks
Bug of the Month
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
WHAT TO DO WHEN PLIST FILES GO AWRY
If your favorite application keeps crashing, fails to load, or freezes your Mac, the
problem could lie within your plist files. Property list (plist) files store specific
application settings and preferences, and are usually found in either the /Library/
Preferences directory in the root directory of your hard drive, or in the Library/
Preferences directory in your user name folder. Plist files are named according
to their host application; for example, TextEdit’s plist file is named com.apple
.TextEdit.plist. (The beginning part of the name, “com.apple,” indicates the
vendor that created the application, insuring that no two plist files will have the
exact same name.) If you have a problematic application, you may have a corrupt
plist file. Here’s what you can do.
START ANEW Remove the application’s plist files. The next time you launch that
app, new plist files will be created with default application settings. Presumably,
a new file will no longer have the corrupted data of the original file, thereby
eliminating the problem.
CHECK FOR INTRUDING APPS In some instances, more than one application may
be writing to a plist file. For example, Safari’s plist file is often used by Apple’s
Mail. If you are experiencing repeated corruption of the com.apple.Safari.plist
file or another plist file, investigate the other applications that could be writing
to the file. To do this, navigate to the plist file you want to inspect, select its
icon, and press Command-I on your keyboard. Next, launch some of your routine
applications and check to see if the Get Info window closes—this tells you that the
app you just launched is using that plist file. Reinstall—or consider replacing—the
offending application.
16
September 2006
STOR AGE
ou either think bloggers are transforming journalism or you think they’re just
proof that everyone has an opinion. Our favorite blogs tend to deal less with
rumormongering (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and more with wellwritten, thoughtful, and informative articles. Here are a few.—Michelle Victoria
• CULT OF MAC http://blog wired.com/cultofmac
Wired’s Leander Kahney and Pete Mortensen cover Apple and the
Mac community.
• DARING FIREBALL
www.daringfireball.net
John Gruber’s blog focuses on
Apple technology and features
enlightening essays that tackle
hot issues.
• O’REILLY MAC DEVCENTER
BLOG www.macdevcenter.com
Run by the smart folks
who publish those helpful
tech books.
• ROUGHLYDRAFTED MAGAZINE
www.roughlydrafted.com
Daniel Eran’s blog covers
Apple, technology, motorcycles, Cult of Mac:
and San Francisco.
One of our favorite blogs.
What’sNew
Y
• Western Digital’s
My Book Pro
Edition ($219.99
to $349.99, www
.westerndigital.
com) is an external
drive built for easy
backups. The drive
includes EMC
Retrospect Express
backup software,
and FireWire
800, FireWire
400, and USB 2.0
connectors.
• FirmTek’s
SeriTek/1SM2
PC Card ($89.95,
www.firmtek
.com) is a 32-bit
Type II CardBus
host adapter that
adds a pair of
eSATA ports to
your PowerBook.
• MicroNet’s
Platinum RAID Pro
My Book Pro Edition ($1,759 to $5,049,
www.micronet
has blue LEDs
.com) is an
that indicate its
remaining capacity. external five-bay
RAID array. It
has FireWire 800, USB 2.0, and eSATA
connectors and comes bundled with
cables and a two-port SATA PCI host
adapter card.
• Newer Technology’s USB 2.0 Universal
Drive Adapter ($24.95, www.newertech
.com) can be used to connect bare hard
drive mechanisms or media drives with
ATA or SATA connectors to the USB port
on your Mac.
• Samsung’s 400GB SpinPoint T133
HD400LJ ($195, www.samsung.com) is a
7,200 rpm SATA hard drive featuring an
average seek time of 8.9 milliseconds,
Samsung’s NoiseGuard and SilentSeek
noise-reduction technologies, and an
optional 16MB cache.
• SoftRAID 3.5 ($149 CD, $129
download, www.softraid.com) is
advanced RAID software. The new
version is a Universal app that adds
support for removable SATA drives
and more.
• WiebeTech’s SATADock v4 ($229.95,
www.wiebetech.com) connects bare
SATA drive mechanisms to your Mac via
FireWire 800 or USB.—Michelle Victoria
>>>>>>>>
IT’S A BLOG, BLOG, BLOG,
BLOG WORLD
We’ve got all the accessories, tips, and tricks
you need to assemble the perfect travel pack
for your mobile Mac.
18
September 2006
by Niko Coucouvanis, Roman Loyola,
and Rik Myslewski
N
o ’Book is an island. Sure, your MacBook,
PowerBook, or iBook is a perfectly serviceable
computing partner in and of itself—but to get the most out
of it, equip it with one or more of the hundreds of add-ons
available from the hordes of product providers vying for
your accessorizing cash.
■ Equip your traveling companion with decent portable
speakers or headphones for relaxing on the road.
■ You’re not going to just tuck your ’Book into your
armpit, so a sturdy, comfortable case is a must.
■ When you simply need to transfer files to another Mac
or PC, a pocket-size portable drive is a godsend.
■ You back up regularly, right? Right? Then you need a
backup drive.
■ Trackpads are fine for on-the-go use, but hook up a
mouse for desk work.
In the next 10 pages we recommend our favorite ’Book
buddies in these and other categories, plus give you tips on
battery use, security matters, ergonomics, and more. Read
on to discover how to best doll up your portable pal and
ensure that it serves you well as you travel the highways
and byways of your business, educational, or creative life.
September 2006
19
MACADDICT RECOMMENDS
Business Traveler
$3,237.82
You’re the unsung American hero—you, that is,
and your trusty MacBook Pro.
7
8
5
2
6
4
9
3
1
1 15-inch MacBook
Pro $2,499 (2.16GHz)
Apple 408-996-1010,
www.apple.com
You could get by with just a
MacBook, but the Pro gives
you a bigger display, higher
resolution, faster graphics, an
expansion slot, and a backlit
keyboard for those late-night
flights home.
2 Mercury On-TheGo FW 800+USB
2.0 $209.99 (100GB,
5,400 rpm, 8MB cache)
Other World Computing
800-275-4576,
www.macsales.com
20
Backing up is even more
important on the road; this
fast, lightweight drive will take
care of business.
3 USB 2.0 Pocket
Hard Drive
$99.99 (5GB)
Seagate 831-438-6550,
www.seagate.com
When all you need to do is to
transfer files to a client’s PC,
pop this portable drive into
your pocket.
4 JBL On Tour Plus
$129.95
JBL 516-255-4525,
www.jbl.com
Stuck in a town with lousy
radio stations? Relax in your
hotel room to your own tunes.
September 2006
5 2-Port
FireWire800
Professional
ExpressCard/34
$89.95
NitroAV 512-467-2808,
www.nitroav.com
You’re always in a rush, so use
this card to add FireWire 800
speed to your backup chores.
6 Bluetooth Optical
Mini Mouse $69.95
Iogear 866-946-4327,
www.iogear.com
A trackpad’s OK for traytable use, but in your hotel
room an optical mouse is a
welcome relief.
7 Power Ready
Notebook Case
with Rollers
$89.99 (1,800 cubic inches)
American Power Conversion
877-272-2722,
www.apc.com
Not only does it roll like a
good case should, but it holds
APC’s backup batteries and
in-case cabling.
8 Apple USB
Modem $49
Apple 408-996-1010,
www.apple.com
Broadband access hasn’t
yet made it to the Podunk
Motel 6; pack a USB modem
just in case.
COMING SOON
9 XV620 EV-DO
ExpressCard/34
Price TBD
Novatel Wireless
858-812-3400,
www.novatelwireless.com
Your cell-phone provider
will soon offer a wireless
EV-DO broadband card for
your MacBook Pro.
Play It Safe
The data on your traveling ’Book may be worth
more than your ’Book itself. Protect both.
PHYSICAL SECURITY
Simply put, the mantra of notebook antitheft protection is “Don’t be stupid.” If you simply must
leave your ’Book in a hotel room or crack house, use a cable lock attached to its Kensington Security
Slot. If you have reason to be especially paranoid (cf. crack house, above), augment the lock with a
motion-sensitive alarm—Targus’ Defcon 1 Ultra Notebook Computer Security System ($49.99, www.
targus.com) has been our favorite for years. And if you can convince us of a situation in which it’s wise
to leave your thousand-plus-dollar baby unattended on a coffee-shop table, we’re all ears.
The Kensington
MicroSaver DS is the
toughest notebook lock
we’ve found.
VIRTUAL SECURITY
Wireless networking may be the proverbial cat’s PJs, but lurking under its surface is a black hole of security
threats. Follow these guidelines and you’ll enjoy safe surfing at your local unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot.
■ SAVE RISKY WORK FOR HOME Hackers can steal your login information as it wafts through the
ether, long before it reaches your bank’s secure server. Conduct your online bill-paying over your WAPprotected home wireless network, not while sipping a Venti Caffè Misto Breve at your favorite ’Bucks.
■ KNOW THY NETWORK Bored hackers hang out in the vicinity of known open networks with a laptop
that’s running server software; by mimicking legitimate networks in the area, these creeps sit and wait
for your ’Book to automatically join their phony network. Once you’re on their bogus network, the hacker’s
machine tries to trick yours into logging on to bogus online banking services. Actually, we’ve never seen
this succeed in the wild—yet—but it’s conceivable. Oops…did we just give some asshat a good idea?
■ BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES Turn off any extraneous networking services; do you really need to
enable FTP access and file sharing while you’re drinking coffee and browsing Entertainment Weekly’s
Web site? Launch System Preferences, open the Sharing pane, make sure all the boxes are unchecked
under both the Services and Firewall tabs, and turn on the firewall under the Firewall tab. Bonus:
You’ll also save battery power.
■ GO INTO QUARANTINE MODE The safest Mac is a disconnected Mac. If you don’t need to be on the
Web, turn AirPort off—Bluetooth as well if you’re not using it. Your battery will thank you.
1 On its wheels or
on your back, this
case can carry a
heavy load.
2 A notebook
case? A traveling
desk? How about
both?
3 A case where
less is indeed
more.
4 Backpack
or messenger
bag—this case goes
both ways.
5 That’s Kevlar,
the stuff bulletproof
vests are made from.
The Targus Defcon
1 alarm redefines
“OMG that’s loud!”
A Case, Just in Case
Whatever your style, we’ve got the case for you.
The whole notion of a notebook is that you can take it with you—but you run the risk of dings,
dents, and drops. Take care of your ’Book with a good case, and your ’Book will take care of you.
Pacific Design’s Action II Rolling Backpack XL ( 1 $69.99, www.pacificdesign.com) can hold
a 17-inch ’Book, a hard drive or two, all your cables, and more. And if it’s too heavy to hoist on
your back after you’ve packed it, just pull out the telescoping arm and roll it—it has wheels.
Shaun Jackson Design’s BackOffice ( 2 $149.95 and $179.95, www.sjdesign.com) isn’t just a
case. When opened, it folds out to become an instant desk organizer. You never have to remove
your ’Book from the BackOffice—it’ll give you that cozy “at the office” feeling almost anywhere.
Use IDEE’s MagiSoft’s Skinbook ( 3 $24.99, www.ideetechnology.com) when all you need is
a cushiony cover to protect your notebook
from minor shocks. You could even use
this polyurethane sleeve to protect your
’Book while it’s in another bag.
If your AirPort signal is weak or drops out entirely,
Timbuk2’s Outtawhack (4 $100, www
try turning Interference Robustness on—or off.
Sometime on helps, sometime off does. Whatever…
.timbuk2.com) has the popular
To find out more about AirPort interference, go
messenger-bag styling, but it also has
straps so you can wear it like a backpack. to www.apple.com/support, and search for 58543
to find Apple’s helpful document “AirPort: Potential
The exterior is made of ballistic nylon,
sources of interference.”
and the interior has a corduroy-lined
section for your ’Book.
Interference Robustness
Chrome’s Shuttle (5 $115, www
can be the secret to
.chromebags.com) is made with ballistics
getting—and staying—
nylon, Kevlar, or carbon fiber. Each bag can
online.
hold a ’Book, a cable or two, your power
Go Robust—or Not
September 2006
21
MACADDICT RECOMMENDS
Student
$1,509.92
Ah, the life of the starving student:
ramen, thrift shops, and a MacBook.
2
6
4
1
3
5
1 MacBook $1,199
(1.83GHz, 1GB RAM)
Apple 408-996-1010,
www.apple.com
Save a few precious bucks and get
the 1.83GHz model—it’s more than
adequate for writing papers and doing
Web research if you upgrade to 1GB of
RAM. Use its CD-R drive for backups.
2 1GB Gizmo! Overdrive
$45.99
Crucial Technology 800-336-8915,
www.crucial.com
22
September 2006
One gigabyte is enough to haul data
from the lab, or tunes to a party—it’ll
hold about 250 songs.
It’s tiny, works great, has a wind-up
USB cord, and is cheap enough for any
student’s budget.
3 XT1 $99.95
Altec Lansing 866-570-5702,
www.alteclansing.com
5 Laptop Messenger $90
Timbuk2 800-865-2513,
www.timbuk2.com
4 PocketMouse Mini
$19.99 Kensington 800-235-6708,
www.kensington.com
6 MicroSaver DS
Notebook Lock
$54.99 Kensington
Sure, you can find a ton of speakers for
under a hundred bucks, but your ears
deserve quality.
Sure, style’s important, but so are
padding, comfort, and ruggedness—
and this bag’s got ’em all.
800-235-6708, www.kensington.com
All your dormies are as honest as the
day is long, right? Keep them that way
with a cable lock.
COMING SOON
MacSkinz for MacBook
Price TBD
MacSkinz www.macskinz.com
As soon as MacSkinz works out some
production kinks, expect colorful,
protective MacBook covers.
Ergonomics 101
Like any traveling companion, a ’Book can be, at
times, a pain in the neck.
■ ON THE GO When you’re beating the bricks, don’t be a fashion victim. An over-theshoulder laptop bag can be a classy style statement, but it can also strain your back
and fund your chiropractor’s next boat payment. Get a good backpack instead—it’s
OK; you’re already secure in your fashionability, right? You can find rugged, notebookready backpacks from RadTech (www.radtech.us), Brenthaven (www.brenthaven.com),
and others.
■ ON YOUR LAP Excessive heat and male-sterilization issues aside, using a laptop as the
name suggests—on your lap—can involve excessive hunching, slouching, and subsequent
vertebral pain. Raise your ’Book off your lap with a Lapinator ($24.95, www.lapinator
.com) or a Rain Design iLap ($49.90 to $69.90, www.raindesigninc.com) and
experience improved comfort in your thighs and neck.
■ ON YOUR DESK If you frequently work at home, use a full-size keyboard
and mouse plus an Apple Cinema Display—your MacBook Pro can handle
even a 30-incher. Just plug everything in, close your ’Book’s lid, and the
external display will fire right up. If you can’t swing a stand-alone display,
at least use a stand to get your ’Book’s display up to a safe, comfortable
level. Griffin’s inexpensive iCurve ($39.99, www.griffintechnology.com)
The LX
is nearly perfect, and Ergotron’s mongo LX Desk Mount Notebook Arm
Desk Mount
($179, www.ergotron.com) is perfect—just make sure to use an external
Notebook Arm
gets your ’Book keyboard and mouse with either.
The 11-ounce Lapinator keeps your
’Book from scorching your thighs.
The
iLap is
killer-cool but
1.7 pounds, so you may
not want to lug it around.
The iCurve: so
simple, yet so
effective.
to eye level.
Portable Audio
Whether you prefer speakers, headphones, or
earbuds, we’ve got you covered.
Internal speakers have improved every ’Book generation—at
least until the weak-sounding MacBook was released. But
nothing beats a set of external speakers. And then there are the
times when you just want to keep your Mac’s audio to yourself.
Here are a few speakers and earphones to check out:
When you whip out Think Outside’s Boomtube H2O1 ( 1 $250,
www.thinkoutside.com), ignore your friends’ smart-alecky
references to explosive devices. In reality, this speaker set can
fill a room with boomin’ sound—and it looks impressive, too.
Logitech’s mm28 ( 2 $59.99, www.logitech.com) won’t shake
a room, but its stereo flat-panel technology makes it highly
portable, and it works well for that small crowd of five or six
people huddled around your ’Book watching your latest iMovie
creation. Logitech also offers the V20 Notebook Speakers
6 These
earbuds
fit snugly
even during
exercise.
1 The Boomtube
H2O1 is definitely not all wet.
3 Play
2 Slim, sexy,
and stereo.
( 3 $79.99), which draw power from your Mac’s USB port so you
don’t need a separate power adapter.
XtremeMac’s FS1 High Definition Earphones (4 $149.95,
www.xtrememac.com) produce rich sound, and you can
customize the fit with one of six supplied earphone covers.
Sometimes you’ll need to block out ambient noise in a dorm,
on a plane, or in a crowded coffee shop, so check out Bose’s
QuietComfort 3 (5 $349, www.bose.com). They’re pricey,
but they’re some of the best noise-canceling headphones
around, featuring full-spectrum noise reduction, mobile phone
connectivity, and a rechargeable battery. If you prefer discreetlooking earbuds over headphones, Shure’s E2c Sound Isolating
Earphones (6 $109, www.shure.com) have an in-ear design that
helps block out unwanted noise, and top-notch sound quality.
and power
these
babies
over
USB.
4 Six
earphone
covers
ensure a
good fit.
5 These
’phones fold
flat for easy
transport.
September 2006
23
MACADDICT RECOMMENDS
Creative Pro $9,047.72
Take your MacBook Pro and these traveling
companions to wherever the action is.
10
4
8
2
7
1
9
3
5
11
24
September 2006
6
1 17-inch MacBook Pro
$3,099 (2GB RAM)
Apple 408-996-1010, www.apple.com
For not much more than a 15-inch MacBook
Pro, you get a 17-inch display, a FireWire 800
port, and a lot more oomph. Pop $300 for 2GB
of RAM and choose the 7,200 rpm 100GB drive.
2 Rugged All-Terrain Hard
Drive $349.99 (100GB, 7,200 rpm)
LaCie 503-844-4500, www.lacie.com
When you’re shooting and editing on
location, you need a backup drive that can
take a beating.
3 SilverSATA V 3,750GB RAID
$4,324.95
WiebeTech 866-744-8722,
www.wiebetech.com
This 3.75TB SATA RAID array is fast and
rugged, and comes equipped with a handle
for on-the-go use.
4 Skwarim $199.99 (60GB)
LaCie 503-844-4500, www.lacie.com
Sometimes you simply need to carry work to
a client’s office—this cutie will impress ’em
as well.
5 StudioPro 3 Monitors $129.95
M-Audio 866-657-6434,
www.m-audio.com
Pro studio monitors are essential for audio
editing, and these are compact enough to
be portable.
6 SeriTek/2SM2-E $119.95
FirmTek 510-675-9800, www.firmtek.com
This eSATA ExpressCard connects your
RAID to your notebook. Speed is good. So
is convenience.
7 Professional Series 3.0
Keyboard for Final Cut Pro
with NeoLite $189.95
Bella 818-563-9500, www.bella-usa.com
Editing in Final Cut Pro? This color-keyed
and jog-wheel-equipped keyboard is your
new assistant.
8 MX1000 Laser Cordless
Mouse $79.95
Logitech 800-231-7717, www.logitech.com
Precision edits require precision cursor
control, and mice don’t get more precise than
this Mickey.
9 Empire Builder with
Absolute Shoulder Strap $225
Tom Bihn 800-729-9607,
www.tombihn.com
Rugged bag: $150. Sturdy notebook sleeve:
$50. Extra-comfy strap: $25. Peace of mind:
priceless.
NuLOOQ Professional
Series $149.99
Logitech 800-231-7717, www.logitech.com
Enjoy quick two-finger control over image
navigation, creative controls, and adjustment
options.
LX Desk Mount Notebook
Arm $179
Ergotron 800-888-8458,
www.ergotron.com
Save your precious spine: Lift your display
to eye level with this industrial-strength
articulating arm.
COMING SOON
17-inch BookEndz Dock for
MacBook Pro $299.95
BookEndz 888-622-1199,
www.bookendzdocks.com
Later this year, BookEndz will ship its hasslesaving dock for the 17-inch MacBook Pro.
Get one.
Battery Preservation &
Replacement
Without a healthy battery, your ’Book is merely a
lovely piece of high-tech sculpture.
Any notebook computer, including Apple’s mighty MacBook Pro, has a crippling Achilles heel:
its battery. That said, following some common-sense rules can keep your ’Book’s battery—
and your productivity—at maximum efficiency.
■ DON’T EXPECT ETERNAL POWER Remember that batteries almost never meet their claimed
four to five hours maximum run-time—unless you put your ’Book to sleep. Keep in mind that
battery weakness is not an Apple-specific problem. Other computer makers—even some
specialized battery-replacement vendors—often overstate their batteries’ capabilities when
the batteries are used for actual work.
■ CONSULT THE ORACLE Visit www.apple.com/batteries for the party line on the proper care
and feeding of your ’Book and its battery—or just crib our notes:
• When you first bring a MacBook home, plug it in and top off the battery charge.
• As time goes on, drain and charge the battery at least once per month to keep it properly
exercised.
• If you, like Fred Savage’s Crumbs, go on hiatus for six months or more, give your battery a
50 percent charge and store it at room temperature.
■ READ ITS VITAL STATS Check the state of your battery
in System Profile. Select About This Mac from the Apple
Menu and click More Info; click Power in the System Profile’s
Hardware list, and eyeball your battery’s vital stats, including
its full-charge capacity, remaining capacity, and cycle count—
the number of times it’s been drained and charged. The more
cycles it’s been through, the shorter its per-charge life.
Our brand-new MacBook’s
■ BE PARSIMONIOUS Your ’Book’s battery life is limited—don’t
battery is in great shape.
waste it on nonessentials. If you’re not using AirPort, Bluetooth,
or keyboard backlighting, turn them off via their respective menu bar icons or system
preferences panes. Crank down your ’Book’s volume as well. And don’t be afraid to shut down
your ’Book for your transoceanic flight; extended sleep will still drain your battery, albeit slowly.
■ KEEP IT IN SHAPE Batteries are like MacAddict editors: They all would benefit from
some exercise. Unfortunately, neither batteries nor
editors get enough. To the aid of the former come
Keep your
battery chargers/conditioners such as Newer
batteries
Technology’s Intelligent Battery Charging
charged
Station ($149.95, www.newertech.com),
and in tipwhich can both charge batteries and put
top condition
them through reconditioning exercises to
with an external
help extend their lives. If only we editors
charging station,
could be regenerated by simply sitting in a
such as this
recharging cradle for a few restful hours…
one from Newer
■ THROW MONEY AT THE PROBLEM One good thing about battery
Technology.
problems is that you can always solve them the oldfashioned way: with cold, hard cash. Someday you’ll have
to replace your battery—unless you retire your ’Book to
an AC-only desktop existence. Knowing that death is
inevitable, you might as well invest in a second battery
now—you’ll also enjoy the convenience of doubling your
battery life. Apple sells them ($129, www.apple.com), as
do third-party vendors such as Other World Computing
($99.95 and up, www.macsales.com) and iFixit ($99.95
and up, www.ifixit.com).
Can you think of a reason other than frugality not to have
an extra battery, such as these from Newer Technology?
Neither can we.
September 2006
25
Mobile Mice
Trackpads are, at best, a
necessary evil.
1 Never buy
mouse
batteries
again.
Nothing beats the control you get with a mouse.
When on the road, you don’t have to lug a full-sized
desktop mouse with you—plenty of mini-mice
designed specifically for travelers are available.
Here are three of the best.
RadTech’s BT500 Rechargeable Mobile Mouse
(1 $59.95, www.radtech.us) and Iogear’s
Bluetooth Optical Mini Mouse (2 $69.95, www
.iogear.com) both can converse with your ’Book’s
built-in Bluetooth. If your ’Book is an older,
non-Bluetooth model but you still want wireless
convenience, check out Logitech’s V450 Laser
Cordless Mouse (3 $49.99, www.logitech.com),
which comes with a USB receiver that fits inside the
mouse for compact storage.
2 When Iogear
says “mini,” it
means mini.
3 Hiding
inside: a mini
USB RF receiver.
Hard Drives to Go
Even if all you use it for is backup, a portable
hard drive is a must-have add-on.
400 only, or USB 2.0 only; the FireWire 800 models include an
800-to-400 adapter cable.
LaCie’s 80GB to 120GB Rugged All-Terrain Hard Drives (4
$139.99 to $349.99, www.lacie.com) and Plextor’s Shockproof
Portable Hard Drives (5 $169 and $260, www.plextor.com)
have rubber bumpers along the edges of their cases to soften
the blow from that inevitable drop when you’re far from home.
SmartDisk’s FireLite XPress (6 $199 and $299, www
.smartdisk.com) has an LCD that lists the files on the drive, how
much capacity you have left, and other disk stats. Seagate’s
USB 2.0 Pocket Hard Drive (7 $84.99 to $99.99, www.seagate
.com) doesn’t have a fancy-schmancy LCD, and it has only a USB
2.0 port, but sometimes you just want a simple, sturdy drive
that Just Works.
Apple’s ’Books are powerful enough to handle video editing,
audio production, photo processing, and a lot more—and that
means the large files that you create will quickly eat up your
’Book’s internal hard drive space, prompting you to invest in
a portable hard drive to store your precious data. Also, even
ferocious road warriors should be cautious enough to back up
their work while on the trail.
WiebeTech’s ComboGB (1 $238.95 to $511.95, www
.wiebetech.com) and LaCie’s Little Big Disk (2 $369 to $799,
www.lacie.com) have FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0
connections, so you’re never left disconnected. Other World
Computing’s compact Mercury On-The-Go hard drives (3
$124.99 to $349.99, www.macsales.com) are available with
FireWire 800 and USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0, FireWire
Portable hard drives come in
a variety of shapes, sizes, and
styles, but they all perform
the same two critical tasks:
expanding your storage
capacity and backing up your
’Book’s priceless files.
4
2
3
1
7
5
6
26
September 2006
Small-Capacity Storage
Mobile convenience comes in small packages.
When you need to move a small number of files, burning a CD can be overkill, and you may not always be near an Internet
connection to use email or FTP. That’s when USB flash drives come in handy—most are small enough to fit in the change
pocket of your Levi’s. Crucial’s Gizmo! Overdrive (1 $30.99 to $82.99, www.crucial.com) promises
throughput of 13MB per second, so you won’t be kept waiting long while your files copy.
If you’re thinking of carrying your drive with you at all times, make it Swiss+Tech’s
Micro-Pro 9-in-1 with USB Flash Drive (2 $34.99 to $129.99,
www.swisstechtools.com), which includes a small set of pliers, two
screwdrivers, wire cutters and strippers, and more. Is a couple of
gigs too small for you? Kanguru’s Flash Drive Max (3 $749.95 to
$2,799.95, www.kanguru.com) comes in spacious capacities
ranging from 16GB to 64GB—if you
can afford them.
Pocket hard drives such
as Western Digital’s 6GB
Passport Pocket Drive (4
5
$99.99, www.westerndigital
2
.com), Iomega’s 4GB or 6GB
Micro Mini (5$109.95 and
$149.95, www.iomega.com),
6
3
and PNY’s 8GB MaxFile Attaché
(6 $149.99, www.pny.com)
offer more capacity and a cheaper
price per megabyte.
4
1
ExpressCard Tricks
The ExpressCard/34 expansion slot on the MacBook Pro
isn’t merely a replacement for the PC Card slot on earlier
PowerBooks; it’s one seriously speedy upgrade to that old
receptacle. While PC Card technology was limited to 132MB-persecond throughput, an ExpressCard communicates with your
MacBook Pro’s internal PCI Express bus at 250MB per second.
ExpressCards come in two flavors: ExpressCard/34, a 34mmwide version that fits in your MacBook Pro’s expansion slot, and
ExpressCard/54 (we’ll let you guess how wide that one is). As
we went to press, ExpressCard/34 offerings for the MacBook
Pro were limited, but expect more to appear soon.
■ FIREWIRE 800 We were disappointed when the 15-inch
MacBook pro lacked a FireWire 800 port. The folks at NitroAV
must have felt our pain, seeing as how they’re now offering
the 2-Port FireWire800 Professional ExpressCard/34 ($89.95,
www.nitroav.com).
■ EXTERNAL SATA Drives that connect to your Mac over
external SATA (eSATA) are the wave of the future. In fact,
speedy setups from WiebeTech (www.wiebetech.com),
LaCie (www.lacie.com), Other World Computing (www
.macsales.com), and others already take advantage of eSATA’s
performance. Unfortunately, they require a PCI-Express host
card to be installed in a Power Mac G5, since current Power
Macs don’t have eSATA ports. Neither do MacBook Pros—that
is, unless you equip yours with FirmTek’s two-port SeriTek/
2SM2-E eSATA ExpressCard ($119.95, www.firmtek.com),
which can achieve transfer rates of up to 3 gigabits per second
per port.
■ EV-DO A convoluted acronym for Evolution-Data Only, EV-DO
technology is a third-generation CDMA cell phone technology
that allows for downlink speeds of up to 3.1 megabits per
second—theoretically, that is; the average rate you’ll experience
in the real world will most likely be between 300 and 600
kilobits per second. Still, for a wireless modem, that ain’t too
shabby. EV-DO ExpressCards should appear on your cellphone service provider’s shelves by the time you read this; one
contender is the Novatel Wireless XV620 (price TBD, www
.novatelwireless.com).
Add FireWire 800 to your
15-inch MacBook Pro
with this card from
NitroAV.
Coming soon
to a MacBook
Pro near you: a
broadband wireless
ExpressCard modem
from Novatel Wireless.
September 2006
27
MacAddict editors Niko Coucouvanis, Roman Loyola, and Rik Myslewski would
dearly love to be mobile, but they’re tethered to their %$#@ing desks.
Stuff your MacBook Pro’s speedy expansion
slot with productivity enhancers.
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MacAddict
IT’S PARTY TIME!
This month marks
MacAddict’s 10th
birthday. Join us for
a breeze through
birthdays past—and
marvel at how times
have changed.
by Rik Myslewski
I
t was 1996. The Republicans
nominated Bob Dole. The Bulls
won the NBA finals. Janet Jackson
became the highest-paid musician
ever. Dolly became the first cloned
mammal. Mel Gibson’s Braveheart won
the Academy Award. Apple was on the
ropes. MacAddict was born.
It’s now 2006. Bob Dole became a
Viagra shill. The Bulls play .500 ball.
Janet Jackson’s wardrobe derailed her
career. Dolly morphed into mutton.
Mel’s career hit the skids. Apple is
booming. So is MacAddict.
Here’s how we did—are doing—it.
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September 2006
31
IT’S PARTY TIME!
1996 Aggressive Optimism
The first issue of MacAddict proudly declared that the Mac’s
future was bright. However, right below that confident
proclamation on the premiere issue’s cover was an admission
that, perhaps, not everyone agreed. It said, “Your faith in the
world’s best computer is about to be restored.”
That restoration was MacAddict’s first charter, supported by
articles such as “Stand by Your Mac: 25 Reasons Why the Mac is
Better Than a PC.” Reason number 20 was “Wintel machines are
easy prey to infection,” which stated, “More than 8,000 viruses
exist for the PC, with 100 to 200 bugs introduced each month.”
That warning was far more correct than we could have imagined
at the time—as of June 2006, virus-utility publisher McAfee
claimed that “More than 180,000 threats exist today.”
We also beat the pro-Apple drum with “Just What the Doctor
Ordered,” which detailed “35 good deeds for which we can
thank Dr. Gilbert Amelio,” who was then Apple’s new CEO.
Among them were
aggressively licensing
the Mac OS (Steve Jobs
canceled that effort
the next year) and his
Sep/97
Sep/96
Sep/98
commitment to the OpenDoc
software-component framework and Cyberdog, Apple’s
OpenDoc-based Web browser (most of the OpenDoc team was
laid off in March of 1997). On the plus side, we did laud Gil for
increasing the Mac’s minimum RAM to a massive 12MB.
Gil wasn’t the only OpenDoc fan. In an article entitled
“OpenDoc Rocks” we gushed, “OpenDoc may indeed be the
beginning of a revolution.” We were a bit more on the mark,
however, about Apple’s soon-to-be-forgotten gaming hardware,
Pippin, declaring that “our BS detector is beeping.”
Products reviewed included the Power Computing
PowerTower 180, which ran at “a whopping” 180MHz. Our
verdict: “This is screaming-fast, kick-ass raw PowerPC power at
its best.” Its price tag when equipped with 16MB of RAM and a
2GB hard drive was an ass-kicking $4,195. Other prices in that
issue: $929 for a 4.3GB Quantum Atlas drive from LaCie and
$559 for a 64MB RAM DIMM from Other World Computing.
1997 On the Defensive
At the age of 1, MacAddict was celebrating its
Best Overall Magazine award from the erstwhile
Computer Press Organization (which represented
“the media that cover computer technology”),
beating out Business Week, among others. But if
times were good at MacAddict, they were doubleplus-ungood at Apple—so bad, in fact, that we
devoted the bulk of our first-anniversary issue to
Both you and
providing our readers with ammunition, as our cover Woz looked
shouted, to “Fight Back!” Six articles carried the
younger in 1997.
jolly overall title of “Fight or Perish!” and began
with the following lighthearted badinage: “We’ve
had enough. We’re tired of Apple being carelessly labeled as
lagging, failing, or dying. We’re tired of people maligning our
Sep/99
Macintoshes. We’re sick of the slams, digs, and taunts directed
at us by know-nothing PC hacks. It will stop. Now. We will not
surrender to the ‘inevitable’ or passively pray for the health of
our platform. No, it’s time for revolution.”
This defensiveness was understandable. In “The Gilbert
Amelio Saga,” we listed 10 things the recently resigned Dr.
Amelio would be remembered for, including “a long, rambling
speech at Mac Expo [that] left the press angry, consumers
frustrated, and developers confused.” We also reminded
readers that “Apple’s stock was at an all-time low when he
resigned.”
One bit of good news: That $559 64MB DIMM in our premiere
issue had sunk to $259. One odd piece of neither good nor bad
news: We asked readers, “If you were stranded on a desert
island with an Apple cofounder, which Steve would you want?”
Woz beat Jobs 58 to 41 percent.
1998 Hanging In There
Gone the way of the Pippin.
32
September 2006
Gone the way of Dr. Gil.
Sep/00
On May 7, 1998, the iMac was unveiled and Apple’s skid began
to slow. However, that Bondi Blue babe didn’t ship until August
15—which might account for some of the defensiveness in our
second-birthday issue.
Sep/0
IT’S PARTY TIME!
In mid-1998 there was serious
discussion among otherwise intelligent
people that the Mac was losing its
grip on the graphic-design industry.
MacAddict editors weren’t buying it. In
a 10-page report, we asked the thenburning question, “Does [Windows] NT
really have what it takes to kill the Mac
once and for all?” After interviewing
over a dozen publishing pros, we came
up with the answer: nope. As we now
It was only a 15-incher
know, we were right.
and cost two grand, but
Stuffed into an overview of the then- you wanted an Apple
upcoming Mac OS 8.5 (aka Allegro)
Studio Display. You
was a sneak peak at Mac OS X; earlier
wanted it bad.
in the mag there was an explanation
of why the Mac OS would skip directly from Mac OS 8 to Mac
OS X, which stated, “Even if Apple wanted to go with 9 instead
of X as its operating-system name, it can’t. Developed by
Microware System Corporation…OS-9 runs on the 68000 family
of microprocessors…on Intel386-and-higher and PowerPC
processors…[and on] certain Amigas, Ataris, Macs, and other
modems in the dust—cable modems and DSL are finally here.”
Finally, in our review of Final Cut Pro 1.0 we said, “You may need
to think hard before choosing Final Cut Pro over time-tested
[Adobe] Premiere.” Ah, well—two out of three ain’t bad.
That 64MB DIMM, by the way, had crept back up to $99—
remember those infuriating RAM-chip price fluctuations?
2000 Turning the Corner
Our fourth birthday brought a new MacAddictude. Our cover
story, “The New Face of Mac Advocacy,” began, “It’s not just
about survival anymore,” and
declared that “Steve Jobs and
his crew of turnaround wizards
came to power and changed
everything.” Whew.
We hadn’t abandoned
boosterism, however. We
continued to explain how
to further the Mac’s cause,
Y’see, the hicks are
including tips on how to “promote supposed to be Windows
your ideas about which platform
users. The guy in the tight
is best and why.” We also had
pants is you. Oh, never mind.
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Sep/01
Sep/02
Sep/03
computer platforms.” We were wrong; Mac OS 9 was fine.
Oh, and that 64MB DIMM from Other World Computing? It
was down to $65.
1999 Confident, Not Cocky
MacAddict’s third birthday was celebrated quietly in our pages,
with only a small timeline detailing our history up to that point.
On the same page that timeline began, however, was a telling
indicator of how much had changed. An article entitled “Think…
Uh, Dissimilar” discussed how PC makers were trying to ride the
iMac’s coattails; it began by saying, “The iMac has smacked PC
industrial design like the comet that killed the dinosaurs,” and
ended with a comfortable, “Apple is the leader in this market.”
Armed with this newfound confidence, we continued to
predict the future. In “I Want My MP3” we wrote, “The music
industry loathes it. Music artists embrace it. Music fans want
it. Love it or hate it, MP3 is here to stay as digital
music takes a huge
step into mainstream
No, this isn’t an early
entertainment.” In “Net iMac; it’s an E-Power
Speed” we advised,
Wintel clone. Sad,
“Leave your 56-Kbps
isn’t it?
Sep/04
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Sep/05
some advice for Apple, including “Release Multiprocessing
G4s,” which it did; “Build a Killer Server,” which was served up
by the Xserve; and “Include an iMac Upgrade Slot,” for which
we’re still waiting. We were also confident enough to publish
“Hold Your Nose: Integrate Your Macs and PCs and Deal with the
Windows World”—and to illustrate it with possibly the leastattractive art in the history of computer journalism.
Just as hubris was starting to get the best of us, we published
one of our top goof-ups ever: an almost entirely empty chart
that was intended to tell you how to maintain your Mac but
instead reminded you that even your favorite magazine can
make mongo misteaks.
2001 Halftime Show
In honor of our fifth birthday we revealed our choices for “The
Best and Worst of Everything Mac,” described on our cover as
ranging “from the insanely great to the simply insane.” The
Best Expo Moment went to the introduction of the multicolored
iMacs, although that moment has since been superseded by the
brouhaha at the introduction of the Hostess Snowball–esque
iMac G4. Best Commercial honors went to “1984”—a nobrainer, but you gotta admit that the more-recent-though-neverSeptember 2006
33
IT’S PARTY TIME!
Quiz: “Which three execution units are part of the Vector
Arithmetic Logic Unit in the [G5’s] Pentium 4–spanking AltiVec
implementation? a) VPU, VCIU, VFPU; b) VSIU, VCIU, VFPU; c)
VPU, VSIU, VFPU; d) VPU, VFPU, VACLU; e) VENI, VIDI, VICI.”
Perhaps we should have added “f) Who cares?” (The answer,
by the way, is b—but you knew that.)
broadcast Ellen Feiss “switcher” ad was an aesthetic triumph.
We also awarded our own selves some bests and worsts,
including Worst Cover for our Feb/98 issue. That, however, is an
honor that now must be shared—nay, owned exclusively—by a
dynamic duo of dreck: Dec/01 and Jan/02.
2002 Relaxing into Maturity
When we turned 6, MacAddict was
confident because Apple was confident. In
“It’s Alive!” we detailed the announcement
of Mac OS 10.2, Jaguar, by writing, “At this
summer’s Mac Expo, Apple made it crystal
clear that no recession, stock-market
downturn, computer-industry implosion, or
mind-scorching New York weather from hell
was going to cramp its style.”
We also introduced the MacAddict Quiz,
which was to have a four-year run. One
unintentionally prescient question: “What
does the i in iMac stand for: a) Interactive,
b) Internet, c) Injured, d) Intelligent,
e) Intel.”
2003 Riding the Wave
In the MacAddict
Quiz, everyone
aspired to the
lofty title of
Terminal Geek.
The confidence we were all feeling when the Power Mac G5 was
introduced was exemplified by the quote from Steve Jobs that
we featured on the cover of our seventh-birthday issue: “We’ve
caught up with the PC—and passed them.” Never mind his
shaky pronoun/antecedent agreement; he was right.
We weren’t alone in that confidence. When we interviewed
an IT manager for our top news story, “Developers Speak Out:
Apple’s WWDC Keynote Sparks Passionate Reactions,” about
whether he considered the new Power Mac G5 to be expensive,
he said, “No, s**t no, not for that kind of power.” Perhaps we
did get a bit carried away when discussing the recently released
iChat AV videoconferencing feature—we
wrote “If the Baby Bells were merely
nervous before, they should be running
around in circles screaming right about
now.” It’s been three years, and we’ve yet
to hear any screaming.
Also, maybe we let
confidence mar our
The case that
inspired no end better judgment when we
of cheese grater included the following
jokes—including question in the second
annual MacAddict
our own.
34
September 2006
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Ah, what a comfortable year. We brought you
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news of Tiger and predicted that it would
“revolutionize the way you use your Mac”—not
a prediction that took one heck of a lot of
perspicacity. Apple was cruising, and so was
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MacAddict. We introduced two new elements
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that stuck—Bug of the Month and What’s
New—and one that didn’t: Expert User. Apple
introduced the most droolworthy of its recent
No, that’s not a
products, the $3,299 30-inch Apple Cinema HD runway pretty boy,
Display (you can now pick one up for a bargain- that’s Kyle LeBoeuf,
basement $2,499).
our IT department’s
Our eighth-birthday issue also saw a review
Mac guru.
of a digital camera with what may be the
dumbest product name of all time: the *ist D. And finally, our
Geek Life parody of a GQ magazine cover indulged in one of the
worst puns we’ve inflicted upon you in years: “So Sexy It Hertz!”
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Our sublimely suckreligious Dec/01 and Jan/02 covers (right)
easily out-sucked our fifth-anniversary winner for most-suckian
suckfest, the seriously suckalicious Feb/98 cover (left).
2004 Enjoying Prosperity
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2005 Preparing for Change
While Apple was busily preparing for the
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switch to Intel processors, we were trying
to calm Mac addicts who worried that
their beloved Mac would lose its soul
when it lost its PowerPC heart. An editorial
reminded readers that they should “expect
Apple to continue producing cutting-edge
machines for both consumers and pros.”
We also provided a “Field Guide to Intel
Buzzwords” to introduce you to terms you
never needed to know before.
Perhaps most important, however,
And you thought
was the fact that by putting an image of
the switch to Intel
Scarlett Johansson in The Island on our
was providing all
cover, we completed our movie-curse hatthat unprecedented
trick by condemning that movie to failure,
power.
as we had also done to The Hulk (Jul/03)
and Van Helsing (Jun/04) previously. Do not—we repeat,
not—allow us to contact the publicist of Snakes on a Plane.
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2006 And Here We Are
And now we are 10. The issue that you’re holding in your hands
continues the MacAddict tradition—well, the latest version of it,
anyway. We’ve changed a lot since issue number one, and we’ll
change a lot more between now and issue 1,000. We hope you’ll
remain aboard. Sometimes the ride’s bumpy and sometimes it’s
smooth—but, knowing Apple, it’ll remain interesting.
Rik Myslewski has been MacAddict’s editor-in-chief for half of
its life and 9 percent of his. He’s been a Mac journalist for nearly
a third of his life and 3.4 times as long as he’s been editor-in-chief of
MacAddict. He likes numbers.
Field Guide to HOME ENTERTAINMENT TERMS
Automating Automator
by Niko Coucouvanis
A
utomator, Mac OS X’s LEGO block–style programming/scripting environment, specializes in automating
repetitive tasks such as resizing and renaming photos, archiving files to disc, sending email messages to
specific individuals in your Address Book on their respective birthdays, and much more.
Workflow Area
Run/Stop
Drag Actions here to
build a Workflow.
Test a Workflow during
development.
Settings
Result
Some Actions you get
to configure, some
you don’t.
What type of file this
Action will spit out.
Input
Options
Some Actions
provide Options,
which typically
require input from
you at run-time.
Run/Stop Status
Library
Check out
Actions here (pun
intended—you
grab them from the
neighboring list,
and they’re yours
to keep).
Although Automator is a powerful tool, it does have its
limitations—but there are workarounds. Sometimes.
The Good: You can create an Automator Workflow that
performs all of the examples we mentioned above with little or
no input from you.
The Bad: You build Workflows from specific Automator
Actions (Open iCal, for example), but creating new Actions
requires actual programming—AppleScript at least, or C++ if
you’re so inclined.
The Ugly: If there’s no prefab Action to perform the specific
task that you really, really want to automate, you’ll spend
days trying to make it work anyway because Automator is so
Actions Ahoy
Some Actions work at the system level, performing tasks
such as taking screenshots and speaking text, but most
are application-specific and hardwired to accept a specific
Input (such as a folder full of files, an iCal event, or an iPhoto
album) and pass on a specific Result (usually it’s the same
36
What type of file you
need to feed into
this Action. If they
don’t match, the work
won’t flow.
September 2006
Check the status
down here.
Log
When your Workflow
goes awry, select
View > Show Log to see
what went wrong.
damn seductive.
The Secret Weapon: AppleScript. Not only is AppleScript
easier to learn than programming Actions from scratch, but you
can find loads of AppleScripts out there to grab and modify
for your needs. The corollary secret weapon is the Run Script
Action; if you’re not up to AppleScripting a new Action from
scratch, you can add your own AppleScripts (shell scripts, too)
to a prefab Action. Given the mountains of free AppleScripts
available and the fact that many apps are AppleScriptrecordable, you might be able to cobble something together
with little or no practical AppleScript knowledge.
type as the Input, but not always) to the next Action in the
Workflow. You can even get some prefab Actions that control
Automator itself—try wrapping your head around that Zen
riddle, then proceed to page 66, where we show you how to use
Automator-controlling Actions.
Workflow 101
Three rights may make a left, but it only takes two Actions to
make a Workflow—but not just any two Actions. If an Action’s
Output doesn’t match the next Action’s Input, the work stops
flowing. Workflows take many forms—well, three, anyway:
WORKFLOW This is for Workflows in
development, or ones that you want to alter
slightly before running them. Double-click a
Workflow to open it in Automator, where you
can tweak the Actions if you like, or simply
press Run to initiate the Workflow.
APPLICATION Select Application for
a stand-alone Workflow. Double-click the
icon, or drop the files you want to process
onto it, and the rest, like magic, just
happens.
PLUG-IN You can turn some Workflows into plug-ins for
the Finder, Folder Actions, iCal, Image Capture, and other
Automator Tip
You can reorder the Actions
in your Workflow, but
dragging them is difficult;
click the step number in the
Action’s upper-left corner to
access a pop-up menu that’ll
let you reorder them.
Dragging Actions can be a
drag—telling them where to
go is easier.
apps. Plug-ins are extra
slick because the host app
triggers the Workflow based
on the app’s own automating
features. For example, Folder
Actions lets you initiate
the Workflow whenever a
specified folder changes in any way; Finder plug-ins appear in
the contextual menu for quick right-click or Control-click access.
I Want More!
The Actions and sample Workflows provided with Mac OS
10.4 are a good start, but here’s where to find waaay more:
Apple > Mac OS X > Automator
www.apple.com/macosx/features/automator
Apple’s main Automator site is a great place to start,
providing an overview of the technology, a thorough tutorial,
practical examples, and links to Web sites and books that
can help you learn more.
Apple > Mac OS X Downloads >
Automator Actions
www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator
Apple hosts more than 150 downloadable Actions—and the
list keeps growing.
Apple > Tiger Developer Overview Series >
Working with Automator
http://developer.apple.com/macosx/automator.html
If you’re brave, go here to download juicy prefab Actions
such as Build Xcode Project and Convert CVS To SQL. If
you’re savvy—or want to become so—this page also contains
an Automator-programming primer and sample code to get
you started.
Apple > Automator Programming Guide
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/
AppleApplications/Conceptual/AutomatorConcepts/
index.html
Otto the Automator bot makes MacAddict How-To
Editor Niko Coucouvanis feel inadequate.
Now that we’ve got you interested, download the PDF version
of the Automator Programming Guide—116 pages of geeky
goodness.
Automator.us
www.automator.us
Between the end-user-oriented information on Apple.com
and the supergenius stuff on Apple’s Developer Connection,
Automator.us provides a thorough overview of the
technology, example Workflows, downloadable Actions, and
a developer page with links to tutorials, resources, Action
templates, and more.
Automator World
www.automatorworld.com
This excellent site provides a community clearinghouse for
user-submitted Actions and Workflows, plus a killer Hints &
Tips section and Automator-related news.
MacScripter
www.automatoractions.com
MacScripter.net’s Automator site provides a categorical
collection of yet more free Actions. Well, maybe not more—
we found many, if not most, of the same Actions at each of
the above sites.
September 2006
37
RATIN¬S
You’ll be
blown away.
You’ll be
impressed.
You’ll be
satisfied.
You’ll be
disappointed.
You’ll be
pissed off.
REVIEWS
39
better living through smarter shopping
Rain Design’s iWoofer (pictured)
isn’t just an iPod speaker stand;
it’s also a FM radio. Read our review
to find out if it’s worthy of your ’Pod.
Next month, we’ll have reviews of
Apple’s Shake 4.1, Logitech’s NuLOOQ
navigator input device, Mariner Software’s
MacJournal 4 journaling software, Palm’s Treo
700p PDA and mobile phone, and a lot more.
53 DRX-820UL/T external DVD burner
48 EOS 30D SLR camera
42 Final Cut Express HD video-editing software
52 Graphire 6x8 Bluetooth pen and tablet
46 HiFi-Link for iPod iPod dock
46 HomeDock iPod dock
46 iDuo iPod dock
45 iLuv i552 iPod boom box
46 iPod Dock with Remote iPod dock
45 iThunder iPod boom box
49 iWoofer iPod speaker
43 Liquid Ledger personal finance software
44 Photosmart R927 point-and-shoot camera
40 Quark XPress 7 page-layout software
50 SLVR mobile phone
46 Stereo Dock iPod dock
46 TuneSync for iPod iPod dock
Games
55 Aspyr’s New Storefront game news
55 Battlefield 1942: Clan MacAddict
game news
57 Call of Duty 2 game review
56 Heroes of Might and Magic V
tips and tricks
56 Sudden Motion Sensor
game news
55 World of Warcraft
PHOTOGRAPH BY SAMANTHA BERG
game news
We’d spend our
own hard-earned
money on this
product.
Universal application
that runs natively on
both PowerPC and
Intel Macs.
September 2006
39
40
REVIEWS
better living through smarter shopping
QuarkXPress 7
BAR-RAISING PAGE-LAYOUT SOFTWARE
A
dobe’s InDesign has been pummeling
QuarkXPress with a superior feature
set and aggressive pricing. But with
QuarkXPress 7, Quark has landed a
solid counterpunch directly on the chin
of its adversary. Quark has released an
update to its flagship page-layout app
that has several useful new features and
many improvements to old features, and
raises the bar in the battle for pagelayout supremacy. QuarkXPress 7 closes
the features gap with InDesign and, in
some cases, includes options unique to
QuarkXPress.
The abilities to make objects
translucent (opacity control) and to
apply soft drop shadows to text and
objects are among the most appealing
InDesign features that previous versions
of QuarkXPress lacked. QuarkXPress 7
has not only implemented both of these
features, but has embellished them with
options that aren’t available in InDesign.
For example, you can control the opacity
of anything that has color applied to
it—box backgrounds, pictures, frames,
and even individual characters. When
creating drop shadows, you can opt to
synchronize the angle of all drop shadows
in a spread, to specify a scale and a skew
(slant) value, and to wrap text around
a shadow. While we’re on the topic of
transparency features, it’s worth noting
that unlike InDesign, QuarkXPress 7 does
not let you apply blending modes to items.
Although QuarkXPress 7 doesn’t
include much in the way of new
typographic features, it now has full
support for OpenType fonts (previously,
you could access only 256 characters
within an OpenType font). Also new is the
Glyphs palette, which lets you choose a
font and displays all of its character forms
or subsets of characters; you can also
save favorites. Typographic improvements
include the option to apply ligatures as
character attributes, plus cross-platform
ligature support.
The ability to share specified areas,
called Composition Zones, within a layout
among multiple users is one of the most
touted new features in QuarkXPress 7.
Think of a Composition Zone as a picture
box whose picture is a QuarkXPress
layout. Composition Zones open up
interesting workflow possibilities; for
example, an art director could use them
The Measurements palette offers significant improvements.
40
September 2006
to assign different sections of a magazine
to several layout artists. While the art
director works on the master layout,
the layout artists can simultaneously
work on their sections. Whenever a
layout artist saves a Composition Zone,
it is immediately updated in the master
layout. Unfortunately, when you create
a Composition Zone, the resulting
QuarkXPress file doesn’t include a page
picture, which means that the layout artist
who works on it can’t see
QuarkXPress the surrounding page.
7 finally
While it’s a relatively
supports
simple concept,
soft drop
the implications of
shadows.
Composition Zones are
huge, and implementing
Composition Zones into a
workflow is not trivial. For
example, a Composition
Zone could contain a
layout that, in turn, includes a Composition
Zone that contains another layout with
an EPS graphic created elsewhere, which
uses several fonts and spot colors, and
so on and so on. In such a scenario, file
management could become a nightmare.
For workgroups, Composition Zones offer
tantalizing possibilities, but we’re not
convinced this feature will have the impact
that some are predicting.
Job Jackets are QuarkXPress 7’s answer
to the Preflight feature in InDesign. A
Job Jacket is an XML file that contains
detailed information about a project’s
anatomy, including such data as colors,
style sheets, color management settings,
print settings, page size, page count,
contact information, and so on. A Job
Jacket surrounds a QuarkXPress file
with information used by the various
people who interact with the file, from
art directors and layout artists on the
front end to prepress personnel on the
back end. Unlike preflighting, which
usually occurs at the end of the design
process, a Job Jacket can be implemented
when a project begins, helping ensure
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42
REVIEWS
better living through smarter shopping
Final Cut Express HD 3.5
POWERFUL, AFFORDABLE VIDEO EDITOR
but not so much if you stick to
cuts-only editing.
Express HD’s two sidekick
apps are improved, too.
LiveType 2 now includes a
set of vector-based fonts that
you can cleanly scale to any
resolution, along with some
70 new animated objects,
15 new textures, and 60
text effects. Soundtrack
1.5 can automatically apply
crossfades between clips,
and easily record multitake
sessions like voice-over
or automated dialogue
replacement work. There’s
also a new interface that lets
you rearrange tabs and resize
your movie window.
When working with Final Cut Express HD’s motion effects or filters, you can go way beyond cuts-only editing.
The one thing that Express
HD still lacks is a projectarchive feature. When you need to free
rotation, position, crop values, and
inal Cut Express HD now joins the
up some hard drive space, there’s no
opacity of clips as they play. If you’ve
legion of other Apple apps that
way to consolidate and archive your
always wanted to create projects with
have made the transition to Universal
project to keep only the video that your
lots of MTV-style flash, there’s nothing
app-hood, so it can run natively on
edit uses. If you ever want to go back
stopping you now.
Intel-based Macs and take advantage
and reedit a finished project, you need
Express HD also improves on its
of all the speed gains those Macs offer.
to keep all of its raw footage on your
real-time previews of effects, which
But beyond going Universal, Express HD
main drive or a backup drive (a waste of
now let you composite multiple clips
3.5 has some other fine upgrades under
drive space) or dump the footage and
together and also apply effects filters
its hood.
then recapture it from your original DV
and motion effects without having to
Express HD’s effects and compositing
or HDV tapes (a hassle). We’ve cited
render them first. Express HD has had
capabilities have taken a big step
this clumsy approach each time we’ve
real-time capabilities since version
forward thanks to the arrival of true
reviewed Final Cut Express over the
2.0, but you had to manually set your
editable keyframes. As always, Express
years, and it seemed OK given the app’s
real-time image quality (high and
HD gives you tons of video- and
low price. But now that other consumerlow) and framerate (full, half, quarter)
audio-effects filters to work with, but
oriented editors are offering a projectdepending on the number of effects
previous versions only let you apply
archive feature, Express could use one
and layers you were trying to preview in
one effect value to a media clip and
as well.
real time. Now you can simply choose
didn’t let you change that value over
The bottom line. Media management
the Dynamic RT option, and Express
time. For example, you couldn’t apply
aside, Express HD is an amazing app. It
will automatically throttle those imagea stylish blur to a clip and then change
can handle pretty much everything that
quality and framerate settings back
the amount of blur as the clip played.
most DV or HDV moviemakers need, and
and forth depending on the complexity
Express HD’s new keyframes now let
since it uses the same interface as Final
of the video playing at that moment.
you precisely control when and how
Cut Pro, it’s a great stepping-stone to
Basically, Dynamic RT makes each
to change filter settings over time. The
Apple’s Final Cut Pro 5. For $299 ($99
shot look as good as possible as you
new keyframe system also makes it
to upgrade), Express continues to be a
review your project—you’ll appreciate
much easier to create motion effects,
phenomenal deal.—Helmut Kobler
it if you’re doing effects-heavy work,
where you might change the scale,
F
COMPANY: Apple
CONTACT: 800-692-7753,
www.apple.com
PRICE: $299, $99 (upgrade)
42
REQUIREMENTS: 500MHz (1GHz for HDV)
G4 or faster, Mac OS 10.4.6, 512MB RAM (1GB
for HDV), Quartz Extreme–compatible graphics
subsystem or Intel integrated graphics processor
September 2006
GOOD NEWS: Editable keyframes allow advanced
effects and compositing. Smoother real-time previews of
effects. Same great pro tools, same low price.
BAD NEWS: No way to consolidate and archive projects.
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44
REVIEWS
better living through smarter shopping
This little camera
boasts a lot of features.
Photosmart R927
AFFORDABLE, IMPRESSIVE CAMERA
H
COMPANY: HP
CONTACT: 800-752-0900,
www.hp.com
PRICE: $399.99
good stuff, although the paltry amount
of built-in memory won’t get you very far,
especially if you’re going to take lots of
high-resolution shots. Buy the roomiest
SD or MMC card you can afford so you can
house plenty of pics and video.
We have mixed feelings about the
included dock, although it does make
simple work of downloading images and
charging your camera. Connect it to your
Mac via USB, drop the R927 in, and there
you go. Unfortunately, you can’t connect
the R927 to your Mac without the dock,
so that means you’ll have one extra thing
to tote around on those extended trips.
Also, the dock has no video-out port to
allow you to view slide shows and video
HOT PICS
TIP
P’s Photosmart R927 8.2-megapixel
point-and-shoot camera takes
great-looking photos and has helpful
built-in imaging tools. You may not even
need your Mac—the R927 is like having
a camera and a photo lab in a single funto-use, pocket-sized package.
The handsome R927 has a sleek,
chic, brushed metallic body. Weighing 8
ounces and measuring 2.44 by 3.78 by
1 inches, it’s lightweight and a nice and
comfy size. The buttons are intuitively
placed for easy reach on the camera’s
top and back—you’ll get familiar with
their functions in a snap. The camera’s
biggest draw may be its huge 3-inch
LCD that’s brilliantly colored and easily
viewable from just about any angle (HP
boasts up to 170 degrees). We found
the display to be a total pleasure for the
eyes, even in bright daylight (thanks
mostly to its antireflective coating), and
didn’t miss having an optical viewfinder.
The R927 has a 3x optical zoom lens,
32MB of internal memory, a SD/MMC card
slot, a rechargeable lithium-ion battery,
and PictBridge printer support. It’s all
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2.8
or later, USB
1
44
September 2006
Unusually hot or cold outside? Temperature
can affect a camera’s sensor, degrading image
quality if your camera is too warm or too cool.
Avoid leaving your camera in places where
temps can get extreme, such as on the dash of
your AMC Gremlin1 on a sunny day, out in the
open during your trek through Antarctica2, or
near the mouth of Mount Nyiragongo3.
2
3
on a TV, meaning you’ll have to drop more
cash for the optional Premium Camera
Dock ($79.99) if you want that feature.
Stellar software. The R927’s best
asset is its software. Its Image Advice
feature can tell you exactly what is wrong
with a pic and gives you helpful tips to
minimize funky stuff from happening in
your next shot. For example, we used
it to analyze a noisy picture, and Image
Advice came up with the diagnosis that
the camera was too hot when the picture
was taken. That was spot-on for us,
as our photo was indeed taken on an
extremely hot day (HP says the R927’s
operating range is 32 to 122 degrees
Fahrenheit).
For touching up photos or just adding
some flair, you can use the R927’s
Design Gallery. Here, you can instantly
remove red-eye, create fancy borders,
modify color, and apply artistic filters—
there’s even a slimming filter that will
make people look a bit thinner, which
can be handy around the holidays. Many
of these functions can also be performed
on your Mac using HP’s Photosmart Edit
software, but we wouldn’t rely on it or
the camera as a total replacement for a
more robust editing app such as Adobe
Photoshop Elements.
Image quality is quite good for a
camera of this class. Colors are vibrant
and accurate, and details are sharp.
Barrel distortion at the wide end of
zoom isn’t overwhelming, and noise
was kept to a minimum in well-lit
compositions but was more noticeable
in low light—the R927 did much better
with noise than Canon’s PowerShot S80
(
Aug/06, p46). HP includes
its Adaptive Lighting technology to
help brighten things up in low-light
situations. It’s not a perfect solution—
pics can become very noisy if it’s turned
up high—but you can always set the
camera to automatically take shots with
the feature both off and on so you can
see what works best for your situation.
The bottom line. The HP R927 ranks
high with us as a good all-around camera
that’s easy to use, has convenient editing
features, and produces great-quality
images.—Gil Loyola
GOOD NEWS: Good image quality. Helpful Image
Advice feature.
BAD NEWS: Needs the dock to connect to your Mac.
Built in 1970, AMC’s Gremlin was America’s first subcompact car.
Antarctica hosted the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth (-129 degrees Fahrenheit).
Nyiragongo is a volcano located near Lake Kivu, which is on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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46
REVIEWS
better living through smarter shopping
iPod Docks
PRACTICAL ’POD DOCKS
O
ne of the inevitable issues with connecting an iPod to
your Mac or home audio system is the oh-so-inelegant
look of it lying next to your components with its tentacles
of cables splayed out. Fortunately, the iPod economy has
spawned iPod docks that give you a place to put your ’Pod,
keeping its cables neat.
The six docks we reviewed share some basic functions. They
all allow you to stand your iPod straight up, they can all charge
your ’Pod, and last but not least, each has the ability to play
music out of the dock and into an external powered speaker
or a stereo. However, the similarities stop there; prices vary
widely, and each dock has unique twists in its features and
appearance.
Some of these docks come with remote controls, but these
remotes don’t offer expanded capabilities. All the remotes
tested use infrared (IR) instead of radio frequency (RF)
transmissions, which means that you need to have line-of-sight
access in order to operate them.—Alan Graham
Kensington Stereo Dock $79.99
Atech Flash Technology iDuo $59.95
The nice thing about the Stereo Dock
is that not only does its construction
feel solid, but its form factor is
relatively small also. You can use
the accompanying
IR remote to control
basic iPod functions,
including play, pause,
volume up and down,
and track skipping. The
remote is a nice size
and is backlit. While the
Stereo Dock has all the basics,
it doesn’t support video out—it has
only audio out. It also doesn’t support USB.
The Stereo Dock is for anyone who wants a clean and simple
dock for their home stereo but doesn’t need sync support or
video playback.
The iDuo is a hybrid iPod dock and mediacard reader—it supports CompactFlash
Types I and 2, MagicGate Memory Stick,
MD, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro,
MMC, SD, SM, and xD. It can save a bit
of desk space, but it uses two of your
Mac’s USB ports, one for the iPod
and one for the media reader. You’ll
end up needing to buy a USB
hub to replace the lost ports,
which means you’re not saving
as much desk space as you
originally thought.
The iDuo does have photo
support through an S-Video port
and also has an audio jack in the back, but you
have to buy the S-Video and audio cables separately; a USB
cable is included.
SOLID
Xitel HiFi-Link for iPod $79.95
The HiFi-Link has a remote and supports
video and photos, but in a
smaller form factor than
DLO’s HomeDock. The sound
quality is excellent, and on
the back of the unit you’ll
find a TruBass knob that
adds additional bass depth
to the music. If you like your
bass, you should know that
TruBass works well, especially with
self-powered speakers.
The remote supports basic iPod functionality,
but it fails to add support for shuffle, repeat, and most
importantly, basic volume control—if the dock is connected to
a stereo, you can use the stereo’s remote to control the volume.
The HiFi-Link lacks USB support.
GREAT
46
September 2006
SO-SO
Marware iPod Dock with
Remote $49.95
If you’re just looking for a cheap
way to get music
and video out of
your iPod dock,
perhaps the best
overall value is
Marware’s iPod
Dock with Remote.
For a nickel under
$50, you get an
IR remote, a USB
cable, an AV cable, the dock, and
an AC adapter. Unfortunately, while the dock
supports S-Video, it doesn’t come with an S-Video cable. Every
time you dock your iPod, a little blue light glows lovingly from
the front of the dock.
GREAT
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48
REVIEWS
better living through smarter shopping
Well worth the pain it may
cause to your credit card.
EOS 30D
SUPERIOR DIGITAL SLR CAMERA
Y
ou’ve heard the old adage before
and have undoubtedly seen it in the
pages of MacAddict: You get what you
pay for. The EOS 30D is priced toward
the high end for a prosumer digital SLR
camera, but it lives up to all the artistic
demands you have as a photographer.
While there aren’t many differences
between the EOS 30D and its
predecessor, the EOS 20D (
Mar/05, p35), the most notable change
is the LCD on the back of the camera:
The EOS 20D has a 1.8-inch LCD with
118,000 pixels; the EOS 30D has a 2.5inch LCD with 230,000 pixels. The larger
LCD is a vast improvement for reviewing
your photos, because when you enlarge
a photo in the LCD to check for proper
COMPANY: Canon
CONTACT: 800-652-2666, www.canon.com
PRICE: $1,399 (body only), $1,499 (with lens)
48
September 2006
focus, you can see more of the image.
The EOS 30D has 8.2 million pixels
on a CMOS imager measuring 22.5 by
15 millimeters—when you use any of
Canon’s EF series of lenses, you will
gain a 1.6x multiplier on that lens’s
focal length. You can also use Canon’s
EF-S series of lenses with no multiplier
effect. The camera’s body has separate
mounting indicators on the lens mount
for each series of lenses.
While the EOS 30D has a hot shoe to
mount an external electronic flash, the
camera also comes with a flash built in
to the top of the camera’s viewfinder;
when you pop it open, it stands high
above the camera. We found the built-in
flash to be more than adequate for any
REQUIREMENTS: Mac
OS 10.2 or later, USB
number of typical situations,
but you can still use a different
flash if the situation calls for
it. During a series of events we
photographed, we found that the
camera did not require a battery
recharge, even after it had captured
500 images.
The EOS 30D has a basic ISO
range of 100 to 1,600, expandable
to 3,200, in 1/3-stop increments.
To test the ISO, we took shots of
a middle-school stage play; the
lighting was what you might expect
for a school play—good for viewing
the young thespians but challenging
for shooting photos. We increased
the ISO from the nominal 100 to 800,
a three-stop increase, and we were
impressed with the images. If you
think you’ll need to capture images
in low light, the EOS 30D should be
more than up to the task.
Overall, the EOS 30D gave us the
image quality we expect from a high-end
prosumer digital SLR camera—all the
images we shot exhibited good color
fidelity, and they sharpened up nicely
in our favorite image manipulation
apps. And when we set the camera to
save using the best-quality JPEG level
(there are six different save formats,
including RAW, and files are saved to
CompactFlash cards), we saw little to no
evidence of JPEG artifacts. Since the EOS
30D is PictBridge-compatible, it can also
print images directly to a printer via USB;
you control the print settings through
the camera’s LCD. There’s also a videoout port (cable included) for connecting
the EOS 30D to a TV and viewing the
images on a big screen.
The bottom line. If you can afford the
EOS 30D, buy it. If you need to save for
it, then be patient—eating ramen for a
month to save up the extra cash is worth
it. You won’t be disappointed with the
EOS 30D.—Rick Oldano
GOOD NEWS: Great image quality and color fidelity.
BAD NEWS: A little pricey.
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50
REVIEWS
better living through smarter shopping
SLVR
iTUNES-CAPABLE MOBILE PHONE
M
COMPANY: Motorola/Cingular
CONTACT: 866-246-4852,
www.motorola.com,
www.cingularsleek.com
50
a VGA camera that takes pictures at
640-by-480-pixel resolution—which
is on the low end of today’s camera
phones but still adequate for quick
snapshots. There’s also a Bluetooth
1.2 connection, so you can use iSync
to wirelessly transfer iCal events and
Address Book contacts from your Mac
to the phone (though street addresses
won’t carry over, and neither will all-day
events). Battery life is about six hours
for talk time and four hours for music
playing, and you can recharge the SLVR
by plugging it into your Mac.
At $199, the SLVR isn’t cheap,
especially when you also have to sign
a two-year contract with Cingular (the
only vendor currently offering it). Here’s
a perspective: Many mobile phone
companies now give away Motorola’s
popular RAZR (a sleek phone, though
not as sleek as the SLVR), and that $199
can buy you a 2GB iPod nano.
The bottom line. If you like the idea of
combining a phone and an iPod into one
easy-to-carry gadget, the SLVR is a solid
choice.—Helmut Kobler
You have to hold the SLVR to fully
appreciate its svelte size—just make sure
you can deal with its small, membranestyle keypad.
swap one batch of music for another,
then this isn’t the phone for you. But if
you’re a more casual listener, you can
probably live with the SLVR’s slow transfer
speeds and will still enjoy over six hours
of music within the 100-song cap.
The SLVR has the sexiest form factor
we’ve ever seen in a phone. It’s the size
of a small candy bar—only .45 inches
thick and 3.5 ounces—so you can stick it
in your pants or shirt pocket and forget
it’s there. And despite its size, the SLVR
includes some handy extras, such as
PRICE: $199 with two-year Cingular
contract or extension
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.3.6 or
later, iTunes 4.9 or later, USB
September 2006
TIP
otorola’s new SLVR is one of two
phones on the planet that can play
copy-protected tracks bought from the
iTunes Music Store. The other phone that
can do so is Motorola’s ROKR, and let’s
just say that the ROKR didn’t exactly rock
our world (
Dec/05, p40). The
SLVR is an improvement—its tiny form
factor and lower price make it a better
deal. But it still has some of the ROKR’s
annoying limitations.
As a music player, the SLVR works
very much like the ROKR—which is both
a blessing and a curse. On the bright
side, the SLVR integrates with your Mac
and its iTunes software as easily as any
iPod. To get started, connect the phone
to your Mac with the supplied USB cable,
and it will automatically show up in
iTunes’ Source list. Then drag individual
tracks or playlists over to the phone
manually, or use iTunes’ Autofill feature
to fill it up with a click.
You can listen to your tunes by
pressing the SLVR’s iTunes button,
which is always available from the
phone’s main menu; the SLVR responds
by loading up its Apple-licensed iTunes
player, which features easy, iPod-esque
menus that you can navigate using the
phone’s directional arrow keys (having
the iPod’s clickwheel would be nice,
but we didn’t miss it too much). Your
tunes play through the included stereo
headphones, which roughly equal iPod
earbuds in quality. You can also play
music through a small mono speaker,
and Motorola includes an adapter for
attaching standard headphones, car
stereo adapters, or external speakers.
Limits. The SLVR only stores 100
songs on its 512MB memory card—even
if there’s room for more, 100 songs is
all you get. Your Mac can only transfer
songs to the SLVR via a slow USB 1.1
connection, so filling the phone with
fresh music can take a full hour or more.
Clearly, if you like having a big music
collection at the ready, or if you regularly
PUSH THE LIMIT
You can get around the SLVR’s 100song limit, but your music has to be in
an unprotected format, such as MP3.
Using an audio-editing app (you can use
iMovie HD), place your songs one after the
other—you’re essentially creating one very
long song. In iMovie HD, you line up one
song after the other in the timeline, then
export the song using File > Export > Expert
Settings > Share > Sound to AIFF or Sound
to Wave. Then import the song into iTunes,
convert it to MP3 (iTunes is set to encode
in AAC by default; change the encoder to
MP3 using iTunes > Preferences > Advanced
> Importing > Import Using), and load it to
your phone. The drawback is that the Next
Song and Previous Song functions are
rendered useless because those controls
switch between song files.
GOOD NEWS: Easy, iPod-like integration with iTunes. Plays
tracks from the iTunes Music Store. Supersleek form factor.
Syncs with Address Book and iCal.
BAD NEWS: 100-song limit. Slow music transfers. Pricey.
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Call today or buy online for a 10% discount.
RosettaStone.com/mas096
1-800-399-6162
Use promotional code mas096 when ordering.
52
REVIEWS
better living through smarter shopping
Graphire 6x8 Bluetooth
WIRELESS PEN, TABLET, AND MOUSE
I
f you’ve only been using a mouse with
your Mac, it may take a while to get
used to a pen and tablet such as the
Graphire 6x8 Bluetooth. Fortunately,
the Graphire eventually becomes an
extension of your own hand; not only
is it handy for use with your graphics
applications, but it’s versatile enough to
use as a general input device.
Because this Graphire tablet is
wireless (it uses a rechargeable battery),
you have more flexibility when it comes
to moving it to a comfortable position for
more precise control over the pen—
there’s no cable to tether you down.
When you use the pen in an application
such as Photoshop, you can use the
pressure sensitivity of the Wacom tablet
to apply lighter and stronger effects
COMPANY: Wacom
CONTACT: 800-922-9348,
www.wacom.com
PRICE: $249.95
simply by changing
the pressure applied
by the tip of the pen
onto the surface of the
tablet. In certain paint
applications the Wacom tablet
can even sense and interpret
the tilt of your pen for special
effects. It takes practice to achieve the
proper amount of touch, but it’s not hard
to learn.
The Graphire tablet includes two
programmable ExpressKeys for
convenient mouse clicks and keyboard
shortcuts. You also get a two-button
mouse that’s fully programmable
and includes a scroll wheel for easy
document and Web page navigation.
Wacom even includes a nice software
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.2.8
or later, Bluetooth
Photoshop’s
best friend.
bundle; you get Adobe
Photoshop Elements 3, Corel
Painter Essentials 2, (not the latest
versions of Photoshop Elements and
Painter Essentials, but still good stuff)
and Nik Color Efex Pro 2 GE, a set of
image-effects filters you can use with
Photoshop Elements (or, if you have it,
with Photoshop 5.5 or later).
The bottom line. This tetherless tablet
is a must-have tool for image editors and
graphic artists.—George Mann
GOOD NEWS: Completely wireless. Good software bundle.
BAD NEWS: Pricey.
iPod Showcase
Banshee Listening Station
The only 5.0 surround system in
a single listening station.
Shatter the perceived limitations of
audio for your iPod with a massive
50 watts of peak output power. The
Banshee’s patented technology
produces ultracrisp midranges with
deep and powerful bass. Available
at RadioShack, select Circuit City
stores, Discovery Channel Stores,
and Chicago-area Abt Electronics
locations.
www.BansheeAudio.com
312-474-6108
iPod Repair
Everyone drops their iPod now
and again, but if it breaks,
what do you do?
iPodCopy is a Mac/PC
The
professionals
iPodMods
application
that at
lets
you
.com
havemusic
a solution
you.iPod.
We
retrieve
fromfor
your
offer
free diagnostic
testing
and
Use iPodCopy
to extract
your
music
havevideos
what itfrom
takesyour
to fiiPod
x every
iPod
and
straight
problem.
Get your
iPoduseful
juicedif up
back to iTunes.
Really
and
tuned all
upyour
with media
the realoniPod
you loose
your
experts.
computer following a reformat.
www.iPodMods.com
www.wideanglesoftware.com/
888-763-6637
ipodcopy/
Advertisement
iPod Mounting Solutions
Taking your music with you
is even easier with ProClip!
ProClip mounting solutions are
the best way to mount your iPod in
your vehicle. The mount clips on in
seconds without interior damage.
For details on ProClip mounting
solutions for your iPod as well
as your other devices, visit:
www.proclipusa.com
800-296-3212
REVIEWS
DRX-820UL/T
SPEEDY EXTERNAL DVD BURNER
S
tuck with the single-layer DVD
burner that came with your Mac and
you want to put more than 4.7GB of data
on a DVD? Stuck with a Combo drive and
you can’t even burn a DVD? Sony’s DRX820UL/T is an ideal upgrade—it not only
burns dual-layer DVDs, but also offers
a speed increase over your old internal
SuperDrive or Combo drive.
The DRX-820UL/T supports a wide
range of disc formats: CD-R, CD-RW,
DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, DVD±R,
double-layer DVD+R, and dual-layer
DVD-R. It comes with USB 2.0 and
FireWire 400 connectors, and it even
bundles FireWire 400 and USB cables
(yay!). The drive also comes with
Roxio Toast 6 Lite—a nice application,
although it’s a version behind the latest
COMPANY: Sony
CONTACT: 800-352-7669,
www.sonystyle.com
PRICE: $159.99
one available.
To test the speed
of the DRX-820UL/T,
we timed how long
it took to burn data
to certain discs, using
FireWire 400 on a dual 2GHz
PowerMac G4 with a SuperDrive
capable of burning single-layer DVDs.
Across the board (when applicable),
the DRX-820UL/T was faster than the
SuperDrive. When burning a 2GB digital
video file to DVD-R, DVD+R, and
DVD-RW, the DRX-820UL/T was 10
percent, 36 percent, and 15 percent
faster, respectively. When burning
340MB worth of photos to a CD-R, the
DRX-820UL/T was 30 percent faster than
the SuperDrive. It took 45 minutes to
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 9.2 or
later for FireWire 400, Mac OS 10.2 or
later for USB 2.0
Upgrade your Combo
drive now.
burn 6GB worth
of digital video files
onto a double-layer
DVD+R disc.
If there’s one
reason to knock
this speedy drive,
it’s the noise. When
you insert a disc, you’ll endure a
considerable amount of fan noise. The
drive eventually quiets down, though, to
unnoticeable levels.
The bottom line. At this price, there’s
no reason why you need to stick with
your old SuperDrive or Combo drive.
—Roman Loyola
GOOD NEWS: Excellent burning speeds.
BAD NEWS: Noisy at times.
iPod Showcase
Elite Audio Gear
iPod Music Liberator
Icuiti iWear
Liberate your music.
6i Isolator Earphones deliver
detail, balance, comfort,
and value.
The in-ear secure fit reduces
background noise so you can listen
at safe levels. Hear crisp, clear
music inside your head. Great for
travel and working out. Available
online or at Apple Stores and other
retail locations worldwide.
The iPod Music Liberator allows
you to copy music, videos, playlists,
and ratings from your iPod to your
computer, a key feature missing
from iTunes. With the iPod Music
Liberator you can recover music
from your iPod if your computer
crashes, make a backup of your
music, and move music to another
authorized computer. If you have an
iPod, you need the Music Liberator.
zeleksoftware.com/liberator.htm
See the big picture with
Icuiti’s iWear.
iWear is a personal big-screen
display that will transform your
small 2-inch screen into a large,
private 35-inch home theater.
It attaches to and draws power
from the iPod’s bottom dock
connector and is worn like a pair of
sunglasses.
www.icuiti.com
www.etymotic.com
Advertisement
August
May2006
2006
53
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ma_0906_1pger.indd 1
7/6/06 1:26:11 PM
GAMES
55
because you play as hard as you work
GAME NEWS
Meet You
on the
Battlefield
So you play Battlefield 1942 online and you’re looking for a
real challenge? Clan MacAddict (our unofficial gaming clan)
has set up their own dedicated BF1942 server with no mods
or maps to preload. Everybody meets on Sunday at 9 p.m.
EST. Check out bf.clanmacaddict.com for rules, widgets, and
details.—Matt Osborn
“That’ll teach ya! Never
bump me from a flight!”
G A M E N E WS
G A M E N E WS
WOW Server Switch
Tired of waiting to access your World of Warcraft server?
Want to join a friend on another server, but don’t want to
spend hours leveling up a new character? Blizzard now
lets you transfer your World of Warcraft character to a
new server for $25. Some restrictions: The realms you
want to transfer between must be eligible, guild leaders
cannot transfer without relinquishing their role, there’s
a limit to the amount of gold you can bring, and more.
There’s also a six-month restriction on that character
changing servers again.—MO
Aspyr’s New Storefront
This October, Aspyr (www.aspyr.com) will release a Mac gaming
service along the lines of the iTunes Music Store or Valve’s
Steam application for Windows. This app—still unnamed at
press time—will work like Aspyr’s free utility, GameAgent,
which checks your Mac for system requirements while allowing
digital downloads of game purchases. The new service will let
you buy major titles and casual, solitaire-type games from one
central location.—MO
“We’ve had it with
this server! We’re
outta here!”
“I can’t wait for
Aspyr’s new
service. No
more smarmy
salespeople!”
September 2006
55
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57
GAMES
Call of Duty 2
FIRST-PERSON-SHOOTER TOUR
DE FORCE
T
he original Call of Duty (
Sep/04, p52) blasted its way out of
the trenches of other WWII first-person
shooters and Medal of Honor clones.
Call of Duty 2 follows the same triedand-true formula as its predecessor
but pushes the envelope further with
sharper graphics (though slowdowns do
occur), new gameplay concepts
and mission structures,
more historical background,
a progressive single-player
campaign, and an addicting
multiplayer mode. To veteran
COD players, COD2 won’t be
revolutionary, but it will feel like
putting on a freshly pressed
version of your old fatigues.
Just as in the original game,
COD2’s single-player mode
lets you play out three main
campaigns against the Nazis.
You strap on the boots of Russian soldiers
defending home, British commandos
holding down forces in Africa, and
Americans kicking butt through Europe
(including D-Day). With 27 missions,
there’s plenty of content to keep you
sweating, from run-and-gun and sniper
missions to tank combat. In an attempt
to break out of linear gameplay, the game
doesn’t force you to play each scripted
mission in a prescribed order.
As you charge into battle for the
first time, you’ll notice that there isn’t
a health indicator. COD2 tosses out
the old, save-up-health-packs style of
gameplay for a Halo-like regenerative
healing style. If you get hurt severely
enough, you’ll hear your heart beat and
The bad guys will never know what hit ’em.
see the edges of the screen turn red. All
you have to do is find cover, and as long
as you don’t get hit again you’ll feel fine
in about five seconds. With this new
health system, you won’t spend time
hoarding health packs, and the new
enemy artificial intelligence will still be a
challenge. Also, the new ability to jump
and climb over structures such as walls
and rubble improves
the realism factor.
COD2 shines
even brighter in
multiplayer mode.
Classic multiplayer
game modes such as
death match, team
death match, and
capture the flag are
here, along with the
new Headquarters
and Search and
Destroy modes. In
Headquarters, you
establish a base while
also trying to overtake
your opponent’s base.
If you die, you can’t
respawn until your
team destroys the
enemy’s base. Search
and Destroy requires
“Anyone here
a team to destroy an
know a Private
objective while the
Ryan?”
other defends it, but
this usually turns into
last man standing. Unfortunately, you
can’t use tanks in multiplayer games.
Multiplayer features 13 well-balanced
maps, voice-over-IP chat for smack
talking, support for 32 players per server,
and, best of all, an in-game online
server client and automatic server moddownload feature—that is, if the game
you’re playing online requires a game
modification and you don’t have it, the
mod is automatically downloaded to your
Mac and added to your game, without
the need for restarting. You’ll be turning
those PC players’ fatigue pants brown in
no time.
The bottom line. Whether or not you
played the original Call of Duty, COD2 is
a must-have for any first-person-shooter
enthusiast.—Matt Osborn
COMPANY: Aspyr
CONTACT: 512-708-8100, www.aspyr.com
PRICE: $49.99
REQUIREMENTS: 1.8GHz G5 or Intel processor, Mac
OS 10.3.9 or later, 512MB RAM, 64MB ATI Radeon
9600 or nVidia GeForce FX 5200 or later, 4GB disk
space, broadband Internet or LAN for multiplayer
GOOD NEWS: Better graphics and bigger explosions.
Smarter AI. Improved multiplayer features.
BAD NEWS: No vehicles in multiplayer. Generative
healing might turn off hardcore fans.
RATED
AWESOME
September 2006
57
Left
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60
because inquiring minds have the right to be inspired
MIDI MADNESS
Last month you suggested downgrading
to an older version of iTunes to regain
MIDI-import support—but you didn’t say
where to get it. How rude.
No, we sure didn’t—sorreeeee. But in the
interim, we discovered OldApps.com
and its Old Versions Of iTunes page
(www.oldapps.com/download_iTunes_
mac.php). But the plot thickens!
OldApps seems to provide every version
of iTunes back to 1.0 except for the
coveted 6.0.1. Plan C: Open your MIDI
files in GarageBand and select Share >
Send To iTunes for an AIFF file, or select
Share > Export Song To Disk to create an
M4A MPEG-4 file.
WHICH DISK UTILITY?
I use Disk Utility’s Repair Permissions
feature a lot. But when repairing my
startup drive, is it better to do that from
the Mac OS X install disc or after having
started up from my main hard drive?
Repairing permissions uses specific
package-receipt files that Disk Utility
finds on the drive from which you started
up, so it’s best to repair permissions
This is why you shouldn’t delete the
packages in /Library/Receipts.
after you’ve started up from your main
hard drive. If you can’t start up from the
main hard drive, start up from the install
disc, select Utilities > Disk Utility, and
click Repair Permissions. Now start up
from your regular hard drive and repair
permissions again. In case you forgot,
Disk Utility is in /Applications/Utilities—
select your hard drive from the list on
the left, click First Aid, and then click
Repair Disk Permissions.
mount the drive before
sending iPhoto off looking for
it. Duh.
Moving your iTunes Music
folder is nearly as easy.
Launch iTunes (/Applications/
iTunes) and select iTunes
> Preferences > Advanced >
General; check the box labeled
Keep iTunes Music Folder
Organized and then click the
Change button. In the Change Music
Folder Location dialog, navigate to the
new music folder (click New Folder if
you haven’t already created one) and
click Choose. Click OK to exit iTunes’
Preferences and select Advanced >
Consolidate Library to copy everything
into the new folder. Finally, delete the
old iTunes Music Folder (in user name/
Music), but don’t delete the enclosing
iTunes folder or the iTunes Library file.
iLIFE TO GO
Can I offload my iPhoto and iTunes
collections onto an external hard drive
to free up space on my iBook?
You sure can, and it requires no heavy
lifting. To transplant your photos,
quit iPhoto and then drag your iPhoto
Library (user name/Pictures/iPhoto
Library) to an external drive or
wherever you’d like. The next time you
launch it, iPhoto will display a warning
that it can’t find a library in the usual
spot; click Choose Library and navigate
to your library’s new home—obviously,
if that home is on an external drive,
Betcha didn’t know you can store your
iTunes Library on an iPod.
DITCHING .MAC
I want to switch from my $100/year .Mac
account to my free Gmail account—how
do I move the messages that are stored
on the server?
.net/blog/2006/05/26/macsaber-10released). This gem rocks our world
by creating realistic lightsaber sound
effects in response to the motion
sensor inside the MacBook, MacBook
Pro, and many modern PowerBooks.
ONE MORE THING
SNAP BACK, JACK
I’ve read all the specs, but I still need
one more reason to upgrade to a
MacBook—wha’cha got?
One word, my
ON THE friend: MacSaber
DISC (free, on the Disc or
MacSaber 1.0
http://isnoop
What’s up with the little curvy arrow
on the right side of the iTunes status
window thingy?
That’s actually a snapback icon—
recognize it from Safari’s URL bar? Click
it to bring the currently playing song to
the top of your browser window. Bonus:
52
60
August 20052006
September
Get back, Loretta!
Apple calls that status window thingy
the iTunes Display Area.
DIFFICULTY
RATINGS
No whining—
anyone
can do this!
It’ll take some
effort, but you
can do it.
This stuff’s
for the pros.
61
HOW TO
UNIX UNIVERSITY
SUSPENDED ANIMATION
Ack! I just started a massive render project that’s hogging all of my CPU power, but I
need a quick Quake 4 fix. Isn’t there some stupid Unix trick that can suspend the render
and then pick up where it left off later?
hog is choking your Mac, launch the
Heck yeah, there is a Unix trick for
Terminal (/Applications/Utilities), and
that—it’s actually a variant of our favorite
at the prompt type killall -STOP
command, kill, the Slayer of Processes.
GarageBand and press Return (if your
If you use kill unmodified, the process
target process has a space in its name,
you’re killing dies an immediate,
type a forward slash before it, thuswise:
unceremonious death. Another downside
killall -STOP iMovie\ HD). The flag
to kill is that you have to provide the
process ID number (PID) for the
process you want rubbed out. PIDs
are easy enough to find by opening
Activity Monitor (/Applications/
Utilities), finding the target app under
Process Name, and jotting down the
corresponding PID number from the
next column—or, for you Terminal
lovers, by using the top command.
But that’s way too much legwork. The
killall command is similar to kill but
lets you do the killing by name rather
than by PID. So while GarageBand,
Final Cut Pro, or another processor
Killall can also bring processes back to life.
Mac OS X’s Mail app makes this
migration easy, but it requires a bit of
busywork. First set up POP accounts
in Mail for both your .Mac account and
your Gmail account (Mail > Preferences >
Accounts, then follow the prompts; click
Help > Mail Help for, um, help). Then log
in to your Gmail account (www.gmail
.com) and click the Settings link at
the top of the page. On the resulting
page, click Forwarding and POP, and
then, under POP Download,
click either of the Enable POP
choices (to get all of your mail,
new and old, or just messages
that come in from this point
forward). Now click the Help link
at the upper-right corner of the screen;
on the resulting page click POP Access,
and then, on the next resulting page,
click Configuring Your Email Client:
Apple Mail. Follow the directions to add
iDVD
to the Save As text field is for; click it
to morph the truncated Save dialog
into fully navigable Finder-esque
window. Bonus: The short list shows
any directory that you add to Finder
windows’ Sidebar, so you can easily
add some of your favorite dumping
grounds to the short list.
iDVD 6’s Media Browser is cool, but I want to
use pictures that aren’t in my iPhoto Library.
Can I get them into the Media Browser
without importing them into iPhoto?
You sure can. Assemble the photos you
want in a folder and drag the folder into
iDVD’s Media Browser—just make sure
you click the Photos tab first.
SAVE
When I save a document, some apps let me
save anywhere on the Mac, but some only
offer a list of places to save it. What gives?
That’s what the spiffy little blue arrow next
It’s probably
best not to save
directly to the
Trash—but you
could.
(-STOP) tells killall how to kill the process
(kill uses many of the same flags as
killall); you’ve got a choice of stop, abrt
(abort), term (terminate), and others. To
kill an app outright, leave out the flag
(killall GarageBand, for example) to
use the default, term, killing GarageBand
and your partially rendered project.
But you smartly used the -STOP flag,
so when you’re ready to put the Mac
back into hard labor, use the continue
flag, thusly: enter killall -CONT
GarageBand and press Return. As
usual, you’ll find more info in the
manual pages; in the Terminal, type
man killall or man kill and press
Return. If your Terminal hackery tends
to fall flat, check Terminal > Preferences
to make sure you haven’t changed your
default shell; killall works as expected
in the default bash shell, but some
prankster may have changed your
default to the tsch shell, which doesn’t
support killall.
Even when it’s still on a server, mail is
easy to migrate.
Gmail to your Mail app (especially the
bits about server ports). Now you can
drag selected messages from the .Mac
mailbox into the Gmail mailbox, or go
big and create a rule (Mail > Preferences
> Rules) to resend messages addressed
to you@mac.com to you@gmail.com.
Click OK, and then select Message >
Apply Rules to make the move. Simple?
Quite. Tedious? Sorta.
MacAddict’s how-to editor, Niko Coucouvanis,
heartily thanks Buz Zoller for so ably wielding
the Ask Us Sword of Knowledge ™ for the past
five years.
Submit
technical questions
or helpful tips directly
via email (askus@macaddict.com) or c/o
MacAddict, 4000 Shoreline Ct., Ste. 400,
South San Francisco, CA 94080.
September 2006
61
62
HOW TO
create a talking head
Create a Talking Head
by Niko Coucouvanis
WHAT YOU NEED
Mac OS 10.3 or later ($129, www.apple.com)
Noodle Flix ($20, www.sonicamigos.com)
Photoshop Elements 4 ($80, www.adobe.com)
Mac with a built-in iSight
(or a stand-alone iSight or digital camera)
F
or a mere $20, Noodle Flix combines your Mac’s
speakable voices with graphical actors and any text you
feed it to make awesome talking-head movies for use
in podcasts or other video projects.
ON THE
Since Noodle Flix itself is trés simple to figure
DISC
Noodle Flix 1.2.1, Noodle
out and use, we’ll teach you how to make
Flix Tutorial, Steve Jobs
and Tracy actors
your own actor out of photos of yourself.
1
Need talent for your podcast, iMovie video, or other hijinks? We
hear Steve Jobs works cheap!
Get the Goods
You need a lot of stuff for this project, so get it together
first: the Noodle Flix software ($20, on the Disc or
www.sonicamigos.com); the tutorial and special-edition Steve
Jobs actor (created specially for this project by independent
3D-character builder Gregg Seastone—thanks, Gregg!), which
are both on the Disc; and a graphics app capable of saving PNG
files with alpha transparency—we used Photoshop Elements 4.0
($80, www.adobe.com). If you don’t have a Mac with a built-in
iSight and Photo Booth, you’ll also need a stand-alone iSight, or
a camera, a tripod, and maybe a friend if you’ve got one handy.
This is what a Noodle Flix actor looks like on the inside.
2
Practice Makes Perfect
An actor is simply a series of 10 nearly identical still
images, each with a differently shaped mouth. Study the
frames from one of the sample actors to help you figure out how to
shape your mouth for each different frame. If you’re big on realism
or method acting, use the chart to the right (culled from the
Noodle Flix tutorial on this month’s Disc) to see which phoneme
shape you need to make for each frame. Practice for a while—trust
us, you’ll need all of your mental mojo to get 10 otherwise
identical portrait shots. If you don’t have Photo Booth, see “Plight
of the Photo Booth–less,” p64, and meet us back at step 4.
FAKE IT IF YOU CAN’T MAKE IT
If you’re more of a twitchy pixel pusher than a steady-headed
photo model, you can easily hack your features from the
different photos onto copies of one photo. Just pick your
favorite shot and make a gang of copies (Command-D in
the Finder); open one copy and one of the originals side by
62
September 2006
FILE NAME
PHONEME
7999.png
M, B, or P
8000.png
C, D, G, K, S, TH, Y, or Z
8001.png
E (as in “feet”)
8002.png
AH (as in “Ahhh!”)
8003.png
O (as in “flow”)
8004.png
OO (as in “food”)
8005.png
L
8006.png
F or V
9000.png
Default face (saying nothing)
90002.png
Default face with blink (saying nothing)
side in Photoshop Elements and use the Lasso tool to draw
a selection around the mouth in one photo and then Copy
(Command-C) and Paste (Command-V) it onto a new layer
in the other photo. Now select the Move tool and drag the
pasted mouth into position, using the Eraser tool to trim the
edges. Phew—now repeat the process for all eight photos.
64
HOW TO
create a talking head
3
Say Cheese
Sit in front of a smooth, solid-color background that
clashes well with you and your shirt—you’ll want to clip
yourself out later. Launch Photo Booth (/Applications) and smile
for the camera. Check your preview and get yourself right; just
remember to look at the lens when you click the shutter button.
We cheated by keeping the sample actor’s portraits open on our
Mac’s Desktop for reference. Lather, rinse, and repeat for each
phoneme, and do them in the order listed for smoother filerenaming later. Note that if you delete photos from Photo Booth’s
photo shelf, the remaining photos’ numbers update to keep
order—but the files themselves (in user name/Pictures/Photo
Booth) don’t, so if you need to reshoot one, it may be easier to
reshoot the whole series. Your call.
4
Knock Yourself Out
Open one of your headshots in Photoshop Elements
and use the Magic Wand to select and delete the
background—adjust the Tolerance setting in the Tool Options bar
if you need to tweak the tool’s aggressiveness. With the Magic
Wand still active, Select All (Command-A) and Option-click in
the blank background area to select only your portrait; select
Layer > New > Layer Via Cut to move yourself to a new, transparent
layer. Now click on the Background layer in the Layers Palette
and click the little trash can icon to delete it. Perform any color
correction or filter freak-out you desire and select File > Save
As. Choose PNG from the Format pull-down menu and name the
file according to the file names listed in step 2; save the file in a
folder called Faces inside another folder called Me.actor. Open
the remaining photos and repeat the process.
5
See how the numbers don’t match up? That’ll complicate
things later.
The blue highlight indicates which layer is active.
Get Your Skit Together
Finally, your actor is complete; you’ve saved the 80-by80-pixel PNG for your character’s icon inside the Me.actor
file and dropped the folder into /Library/Application Support/
Noodle Flix/Actors/ as instructed in the tutorial. Launch Noodle
Flix, select System Installed from the Actors pull-down menu,
and select your actor. Use the respective tabs to pick a voice and
a background, and proceed to the Script area. Type in what you
want to say, keeping in mind that crafty punctuation and spelling
can help your Mac’s built-in voices speak better. If you plan
to recite War and Peace or to animate a full-length Steve Jobs
keynote speech, do it in shorter segments and then string them
together in iMovie or QuickTime Pro.
You might
need a Xanax
after hearing
Zarvox do a
full keynote
address.
PLIGHT OF THE PHOTO BOOTH–LESS
If your Mac lacks a built-in iSight and Photo Booth, you can
make do by perching your digital camera on a tripod and using
its flip-around LCD screen and remote control. Park yourself
in front of a smooth, solid-color background, set the camera
to capture at 640-by-480-pixel resolution, and frame yourself
to fill about one-third of the screen to mimic Photo Booth’s
output. Or you can always just have a friend shoot you.
If you have an iSight that’s not built in but is set up to work
with iChat AV, choose iChat > Video > Video Preview and frame
yourself correctly in the preview window. Press Command-
64
September 2006
Shift-4, then the spacebar; place the camera icon over the
window and click to capture that window. Double-click the
resulting Picture number file to open it in Preview, then select
File > Grab > Selection. Drag the crosshair over just the image
that you want to capture; when you release your mouse,
Preview will save the selection in a file named Snapshot
followed by a date and time stamp. Select that file, choose
File > Save As, choose PNG in the Format pull-down menu, and
uncheck the Alpha checkbox. Name it as indicated in step 2
and click Save. Repeat for the rest of your required images.
Writing this article convinced Niko Coucouvanis to get a shave and
a haircut—but it was closer to a double sawbuck than two bits.
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66
HOW TO
maintain your Mac with Automator
Maintain Your Mac
with Automator
by Niko Coucouvanis
WHAT YOU NEED
ILLUSTRATION BY SUSAN SYNARSKI
Mac OS X 10.4.2 ($129, www.apple.com)
R
ather than dwelling on Automator’s limited ability to control other
applications, we’ll explore its inner beauty: Actions that control
Automator itself and let you feed custom AppleScript and Unix
commands directly into a Workflow. (If you’re already lost, go back to
page 36 and read “Automating Automator.”)
2
Power, I Need More Power!
There’s no Terminal entry in Automator’s Library of
app-specific Actions, but you can use the Terminal’s
language to greatly extend Automator’s power. Select
Automator in the Library and drag the Run Shell Script Action
into the Workflow area. Now you can add virtually any Unix
command to the Action—just type or paste it in place of the
default cat command. Separate multiple commands with a
line break (press Return), and if you’ve got a favorite scripting
environment (Perl, Python, bash, tcsh, and so on), pick it
from the pull-down menu. We used a simple rsync command
to backup our user name/Documents folder to a new folder
on the desktop called LatestBackup by typing rsync -a -y
~/Documents ~/Desktop/LastestBackup.
The problem with Unix commands is that the extrapowerful ones only work if you’re running naked as the
root user (a Very Bad Idea) or if you follow the command up with
an admin password—which Automator can’t do directly. Say
we want to automate Mac OS X’s Unix-based periodic weekly
system maintenance routines, which rotate logs, flush caches,
and do other dirty-sounding things; by default, the routines
automatically run in the wee hours, so if you shut down your
Mac every evening they might never run. So we’ll wrap the Unix
command and our admin password into a snippet of AppleScript.
Drag the Run AppleScript Action into a new Workflow and type
or paste your script in place of the placeholder text. We used: do
shell script “sudo periodic weekly” password “admin
password” with administrator privileges.
Automator keeps its most useful Actions close to home.
Powerful as it is, the Run Shell Script Action hits the wall when you
need authentication.
3
What Just Happened?
Automator doesn’t always tell you why your Workflow
failed, but you do have a few places to look for help. The
Run AppleScript Action has its own script debugger—click the
hammer to run it; an alert will pop up telling you what’s wrong.
To check on your Run Shell Script Action, use Automator’s Run
button to activate the Workflow and then select View > Show Log
for basic info such as whether it’s still running, has completed
successfully, or choked on an error. If that’s not enough, open
/Applications/Utilities/Console to check the system logs to find
out if your Workflow was stymied by incorrect file permissions,
bad syntax, or
whatever. When
testing Workflows,
keep an eye on
Automator’s
status wedge—
some Workflows
Drop the hammer to debug AppleScripts; if
that doesn’t help, it’s time to dig into log files. take a long time to
complete.
66
September 2006
4
Think Outside the Automator
By tapping the power of other applications, we can
pry some good use out of Automator. iCal’s events
are the best place to set up time- or date-based Workflows.
Just click the New Event plus sign on an iCal calendar, and in
the Event Info window set any repeating frequency options
you desire: every Monday at noon, at 3:00 p.m. on the fifth of
each month, or every day at 4:20—or all three if you’re making
separate Workflows for all three
periodic maintenance commands
(Weekly, Monthly, and Daily);
then click the pop-up labeled
Alarm, select Open File, and
navigate to a saved Workflow.
With help from other apps such
as iCal, Automator can get more
automatic.
MacAddict How-To Editor Niko Coucouvanis wishes
Automator was a bit more idiot friendly.
1
Ring the Shell’s Bells
68
HOW TO
make a universal disaster disk
Make a Universal Disaster Disk
by Niko Coucouvanis
WHAT YOU NEED
Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later ($129,
www.apple.com)
An external FireWire hard drive
Both Intel- and PowerPC-powered Macs
A
s Apple transitions the Mac from PowerPC to Intel processors,
your bootable FireWire disaster disk is becoming obsolete. Out
of the box, Intel-based Macs can only boot from external drives
connected via USB 2.0, not FireWire. Future releases of the Mac
OS might cure this FireWire foible, but why wait? Here’s how to set up a
FireWire disaster disk that goes both ways.
A good disaster disk contains a
bootable OS, your favorite disk
utilities, and enough free space to back
up important files that might otherwise
die along with your Mac’s failing hard
drive. If you plan on installing both IntelMac and PowerPC-Mac versions of OS
X, use a drive of at least 10GB—though
bigger is always better—and know that
this bootability tango is going to erase
all the data on it. Whatever size hard
drive you get, make sure it can connect
to your Mac via FireWire.
3
2
Intel Macs claim
that they can’t
start from FireWire
disks—but we know
better.
Map It Out
Open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities) and highlight
the external disk in the left-side list—make sure you
highlight the drive itself rather than one of its volumes. Click
the Partition tab and select Two Partitions (or more) from the
Volume Scheme pull-down menu; then click Options, select
Apple Partition Map, and click OK. Finally, click Partition to
erase and reformat the drive into at least two volumes—one for
your PowerPC-based system and one for the Intel version.
Whose Disk Is It, Anyway?
Attach your FireWire disk to your Mac, select it on the
Desktop, and press Command-I (or select File > Get Info).
At the bottom of the Get Info window, under Ownership and
Permissions, click the Details triangle. If
the little gold lock icon is closed, click it
and enter your administrator password.
Select System from the Owner pulldown menu and Admin from the Group
menu, and make sure the box labeled
Ignore Ownership On This Volume is
not checked.
Do this Get Info tango before you repartition the disk.
4
Installation Station
Install Mac OS X via FireWire to the PowerPC partition,
then attach the disk via FireWire (or USB) to an Intelpowered Mac. As we write this, the Mac OS X (for Intel) Installer
balks at external drives, so you need to copy the system from
a running Intel-powered Mac. Launch Disk Utility and click the
Restore tab. Drag the Intel-powered Mac’s hard drive icon from
the left-side list to the Source field, drag the FireWire disk’s
Intel-partition icon to the Destination field, and click Restore.
Now attach your disaster disk to either type of Mac and start up
while holding the Option key to access the boot-drive selector.
This entire operation relies on setting the right type of
partition map.
Tip: Copy your system over before filling it up with apps and files.
68
September 2006
Niko Coucouvanis panicked his kernel nine
times while writing this article.
1
Determine Your Needs
In transitionary times, a versatile
disaster disk is A Good Thing.
70
HOW TO
sex up your movie soundtracks
Sex Up Your Movie Soundtracks
by Niko Coucouvanis
WHAT YOU NEED
Mac OS X 10.4 ($129, www.apple.com)
GarageBand 3 ($79 with iLife ’06, www.apple.com)
A movie that needs some sound improvement
W
1
Strange but true: Dark Side of the Moon perfectly matches The Wizard of Oz.
Set the Stage
Launch GarageBand and select New Movie Score from
the New Project dialog; GarageBand sets you up with
a blank project with an empty Video Track and the onboard
Media Browser stocked with clips from your Movies folder and
your iTunes collection. Drag the movie you want to score from
the Media Browser (or the Finder) into the empty Video Track. If
the movie file includes an audio track, GarageBand will extract
the audio to its own track, where you can edit its volume, add
effects, or mute it
entirely.
Remember, you can
use commercial
content all you
want for personal
edification
projects.
3
Master Thy Markers
Double-click the Video Track to load it in the Track Editor,
drag the playhead to where you want a marker, and click
Add Marker—we added a chapter marker to the flying monkeys
sequence, ’cause everybody wants to relive their childhood
nightmares. Click on the new marker’s title and type in a more
fitting name. Now, to navigate through a long project, load the
video track in the Track Editor and double-click any chapter’s
Still Frame to jump to its position on the timeline.
Use markers to find your place in a long piece—or to prep the
project for iDVD.
70
September 2006
2
Work with What You Have
The first order of scoring business is dealing with the
clip’s original soundtrack, be it residual background
noise, spoken voices from an interview, or what have you. In
our example, we want to hear all the dialogue, but we can do
without the Lullaby League and the Lollypop Guild. Click the
extracted-audio track’s speaker icon to mute the whole track, or
click the downward-pointing triangle and select Track Volume.
Now drag GarageBand’s playhead to the spot on the timeline
where you want to adjust the volume; click on the signal line to
create handles and then drag the handle up or down to set the
volume higher or lower, respectively.
Use the Volume Editor to tweak the original soundtrack.
4
Trick Out Your Tracks
Click the plus icon to add a new track for sound effects
and follow the tips below to spice things up a bit.
• Add a voice-over track: Plug in a microphone and use the red
Record button to start and stop GarageBand’s recording as you
speak—perfect for spicing up Glinda’s sappy dialogue.
• BYO sound bites: Double-click a track to load it into the Track
Editor, hover your mouse over the waveform until the cursor
looks like selection crosshairs, and then click and drag to
highlight a section and click inside it to turn the selection into a
reusable audio loop. Now click the Details triangle in the Track
Info pane and pile on the effects! Try adding a satanic reverb to
Margaret Hamilton’s signature “I’ll get you, my pretty!”
Don’t skimp
on the
gratuitous
effects!
Niko Coucouvanis was surprised and delighted to discover
www.syncmovies.com while researching this how-to.
e’ve all heard the old hippie lore that Pink
Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album makes a
perfect soundtrack for the classic movie The
Wizard of Oz. Ever skeptical of hippie lore,
we mashed up the two classics in GarageBand 3 to see
for ourselves—and to show you how easy it is to mash any
music into your home movies.
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SEPT/06 Mac Shop
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Interested in advertising in the
iPod Showcase?
In
iP
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(6
lp
Contact Larry Presser
(646) 723 5459
lpresser@macaddict.com
76
SEPT/06 Mac Shop
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Contact Larry Presser
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Mac Shop SEPT/06
77
t
78
tell us how you really feel
LETTERS
caught that. Niko’s still trying
to get up to speed on this
Windows thing.—Max
BLU APPLE
JOHNNY MNEMONIC
In the Aug/06 issue article
“Entertaining Intelligence”
(p35), Logan Kugler
mentions that Blu-ray
is backed by Sony, but
doesn’t mention that, more
importantly, it’s backed by
Apple, which sits on the Bluray Disc Association’s board
of directors.—Joel Bernosky
Good call, Joel. To read
about Blu-ray until you have
Blu-face, check out www
.blu-ray.com and www
.blu-raydisc.com.—Max
In the early ’70s, Omni
magazine had a mnemonics
contest. I recall two
entries: the mnemonic for
remembering the manned
space missions (Mercury,
Gemini, Apollo, Skylab),
“Many Gentlemen Ascend
Skyward,” and the one for
remembering how to spell
mnemonics, “Mnemonics
Neatly Eliminates Man’s
Only Nemesis: Insufficient
Cerebral Storage.” Seems
like “the parade of big-catnamed Mac OS X releases”
(Jul/06, p58) begs for a
similar contest, so here’s
one to get it started:
“Computer Perfect Just Prior
To Lightning” (for Cheetah,
Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger,
and Leopard).—Dave Aton
How ’bout it, readers? Cease
Pussyfooting, Just Push The
Limit.—Max
SAVING PRIVATE
BENJAMIN
In “Infect Your Mac with
Windows XP” (Jul/06, p60)
Niko wrote, “XP Professional
supports multiple-core
processors—XP Home
doesn’t.” Wrong. XP Home
does support multiple-core
processors; what it doesn’t
support is multiple discrete
processors. This is an
important distinction, as it
could save Boot Campers
$100.—TM
Big thanks to you and the
other vigilant readers who
CLARIFICATION
Thanks for the excellent
review of our product, the
invisibleSHIELD (“iPod:
Beyond the Basics,” Jun/06,
p18). We just wanted to
Survey Says
Here are the results
of our June 2006
survey. Check out
www.macaddict.com
each month for a new
online poll.
The format is obviously AAC—an adorable card.
My son Ben, always creative and always thinking iPod,
gave me this iPod-inspired Father’s Day card this year.
—James Steele
make one clarification for
your readers, and that is
the fact that our film is
NOT a 3M film. We use a
different film altogether
that is much higher quality.
It has a higher abrasive
resistance and is generally a
lot tougher—just two of the
reasons we offer a lifetime
guarantee on all of our
invisibleSHIELD products.
We’re glad you like the
invisibleSHIELD for the iPod
Universal toothbrush required.
25% Just
17% How about some video
kill it and
make the mag
cheaper.
how-tos?
14% It needs more games!
30% It hips me
to cool software
that I wouldn’t
have found
otherwise.
8% It spares me
long downloads.
6% It makes the perfect coaster
��
����
���
September 2006
�����
78
to keep my coffee table stain-free.
������
239 respondents
so much, and we hope your
readers do, too!—Phillip
J. Chipping, president
and founder, ShieldZone
Corporation
WHAT DO YOU LIKE OR DISLIKE ABOUT
MACADDICT’S MONTHLY CD, AKA THE
DISC?
�������
vv
DUAL MINTY FRESH
CORE
I’ve been reading MacAddict
since issue 1, but this is the
first time I’ve felt compelled
to write a letter. It’s amazing
how pervasive dual-core
processing has become; I
noticed this on the bathroom
shelf (it’s my roommate’s).
—Floyd Fisher
Don’t let Intel’s lawyers see
this!—Max
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code search for just 48169
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kids say, hella close.—Max
iMAGNET
Deerfield School’s iMac
doubles as a Lost and Found.
Anybody recognize that
watch?—Liz Bagish, Millburn
Township Public Schools
WIN!
Win a LaCie Brick!
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the distinctive LaCie Brick Desktop Hard Drive. This 250GB,
USB 2.0–equipped unit ($129.99, www.lacie.com) can be
yours; just write the funniest, most imaginative caption for the
image below.
Only one entry per contestant.
Entry Form
AC adapter cozy sold
separately.
QUILTBOOK
Attached, please find
photos of my MacBook
sleeve. There is not another
one like it in the world.
My mother quilted the
sleeve from my design. It’s
lightweight, protective,
and washable. Jealous?
—James Cockroft
GOOGLE HELL
(MICHIGAN,
THAT IS)
There is one, and only one,
Hell city in the USA: Hell,
Michigan. When I heard they
were having a 6/6/06 party,
I hopped on Google Maps
to see how far it would be
from me. What did I find?
“We could not understand
the location Hell, Michigan
48169.” Then I tried Yahoo!
Maps, which delivered
directions in 19 easy steps,
concluding, “Arrive in the
center of Hell, MI.” I know
Google censors stuff, but
how can it get away with
censoring a whole effing
town?!—Mike Dereniewski
That’s a hell of a story,
Mike. My guess is that you
couldn’t find the name
listed because Hell is an
unincorporated community
in Livingston County’s
Putnam Township. A ZIP
79
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Write a caption
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CONTESTANT INFORMATION
Full Name:
There’s the earring Susie’s
been looking for…
Address:
HOLD THAT
THOUGHT
Email or telephone:
Reading the Jul/06 edition
of your mag, I noticed you
didn’t finish a sentence in
the “Insider Lingo” article on
p20: “It sure drove us crazy
until”...and then nothing. I
spent a couple of seconds
trying to figure out if you
put it on the next page, or
if one of the other articles
on the page continued the
thought, but nothing. It got
me thinking—did you do it on
purpose to drive us crazy? To
reinforce the point maybe?
Was it intentional, or just
a bad edit? Or maybe you
were...—Paul Barker
Well, Paul, that’s an excellent
question. You’re not crazy.
The sentence you’re referring
to was, indeed, woefully
incomplete. We’d like to
blame that on a printing
error*, but between you
and me, the real, honest,
undeniable truth is that
City:
State:
Zip:
Send email entries to: contest@macaddict.com with the subject: Brick Contest
(Don’t forget to include your address information!)
Send snail-mail entries to: Brick Contest, MacAddict magazine,
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Deadline for entry: September 30, 2006.
Contest results will appear in our Jan/07 issue.
Contest Rules The judges will be MacAddict editors and will base their decision on 33 percent humor, 33 percent
originality, and 33 percent creativity. All entries must be received no later than September 30, 2006, with the
winner announced around January 2007. 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 number of entries is required. If two or more people enter identical winning captions, the entry received
first will be awarded the contest prize. Prizes won by minors will be awarded to their parents or legal guardians.
Future US, Inc. is not responsible for damages or expenses the winners might incur as a result of this contest or
the receipt of a prize, 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 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.
Winner!
Congratulations to Joseph T.
Manning, who has definitely seen
his fair share of spam over the
years, and who is now the proud
owner of a JBL On Time iPod
speaker and clock radio system
($249.95, www.jbl.com).
“Dear Mr. Myslewski, I
represent wealthy Nigerian
banker, Mr.…”
Volume 11, Issue 9
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
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
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
World, Guitar One, Guitar World Acoustic, Bass Guitar, Guitar Legends, Future Music, Future Snowboarding, Snowboard Journal,
Snowboard Trade News, Revolver, and Scrapbook Answers. Entire contents copyright 2006, Future US, Inc. All 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): B, C, C1, C2. PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Publications Mail Agreement #40043631. Returns: 4960-2 Walker Road, Windsor ON N9A 6J3
*Actually, the missing words are “…we figured it out.” And the error was editorial, not printerorial.
September 2006
79
80
SHUT DOWN
don’t let the back page hit you on the way out
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Whether it makes you laugh or groan, whether it’s a
display of brilliance or proof that humor ain’t easy,
Shut Down always fills one highly important role: It
keeps the last page of MacAddict from being totally
blank. In the nostalgic spirit of our 10th birthday
party, here are four of our favorites.
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