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Awesome Things Your Mac Can Do

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October 2018
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Comparing clouds: we pick the best p52 Podcast like Nexus 7: iPad contender the pros p40 or pretender? p12 MAC iPHONE iPAD N OV E M B E R 20 1 3 N O. 82 W W W. M AC L I F E .CO M TEXT TRICKS USE HIDDEN OPTIONS KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS awesome things your Mac can do RUN WINDOWS HOW TO: Save time and show off with fun features you might have forgotten p27 >>Destroy duplicate ﬁles >>Play PowerPoint presentations on an iPad >>Organize photos with Smart Albums AUTOMATE TASKS It’s cloud storage made simple. 100% Automated Sync Multiple Computers Access Files Anywhere 256 Bit Secure Encryption Share Files with Friends Free iPhone, iPad & Android app Tr y u s Fr e e ! www.zipcloud.com/maclife CONTENTS N OV E M B E R 2 0 1 3 VO L .7 N O.1 1 F EATURES COVER STORY 27 50 awesome things you FoRgot youR mac could do From remote control and custom icons to creating keyboard shortcuts and retrieving forgotten passwords, here are 50 cool Mac features that everyone should keep in mind. awesome things you forgot your Mac could do 2 40 Join the Podcast Revolution 52 comPaRing clouds There’s never been a better time to create your own audio podcast. Here’s everything you need to know to get started. Dropbox has competition from a range of cloud-sync services; we take a look at six of the best. NOV•13 maclife.com 79 67 24 16 72 Start 6 Digital|life We’ll always love paper, but you can get your Mac|Life ﬁx on the web, iPad, iPhone, Twitter, and Facebook, too. 8 ConSiDer A quick word from Mac|Life editor-in-chief Chris Slate. 10 Share Email us at [email protected]. 12 iPaD vS. nexuS 7: the gooD, the BaD, anD the ugly An iPad lover spends a long week with Google’s new tablet. 16 BotCheD Jobs Big-screen Steve Jobs biopic draws poor reviews, box ofﬁce receipts. 18 the PlayStation ConneCtion Sony brings its latest brands to iOS. 20 Crave The gear we’re lusting over. 22 the lifer Rik Myslewski walks us through recent (and future) changes to memory tech. 24 $50 ituneS CarD What would you buy with a $50 iTunes gift card? We give one to our editors and let them go wild. 4 NOV•13 maclife.com 74 aPP|life 56 57 58 58 58 59 60 60 60 61 62 DiSney animateD Djay 2 eDitorial agogo PaSSwarDen ultima forever: QueSt for the avatar rymDKaPSel my muPPetS Show Pivvot aSPhalt 8: airBorne the aCtive, ProDuCtive, Stay-at-home DaD reviewS 64 66 67 69 70 71 72 74 76 78 79 81 matiaS laPtoP Pro Comfort PluS earPhone tiPS withingS PulSe Karma the fray fix DeSKtoPShelveS ChromeCaSt BoSe SounDlinK mini emBer BioShoCK infinite gone home Bluelounge SaiDoKa Create 82 aSK Our Apple-loving experts answer your burning hardware and software questions. 86 DeStroy DuPliCate fileS 88 Play PowerPoint PreSentationS on an iPaD 90 get Smart with Smart alBumS 92 analyze Data with Pivot taBleS 96 liSt view A few ﬁnal thoughts before we go. 57 >>>Digital| Life MORE MAC|LIFE, LESS PAPER The Hottest Articles on MacLife.com The 25 Best Mac Games Today EDITORIAL EDITOR-In-ChIEf Chris Slate MAnAGInG EDITOR Chris Hoffman OnLInE EDITOR Mikel Reparaz COnTRIbuTInG EDITORs Ray Aguilera, Andrew Hayward COpy EDITOR Mary Ricci CMs spECIALIsT Brandon Thompson COnTRIbuTORs Chris Barylick, Adam Berenstain, David Biedny, Cory Bohon, Matthew Bolton, J.R. Bookwalter, Justin Cheng, Steve Haske, Mark Hattersley, Kenny Hemphill, Joseph Leray, Rob Mead-Green, Nathan Meunier, Richard Moss, Rik Myslewski, Steve Paris, Christopher Phin, Michael Simon, Nicole Tanner ART ART DIRECTOR Robin Dick ART DIRECTOR John Seeger Gilman AssOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Mark Rosenthal phOTOGRAphER Mark Madeo If you own a Mac and want to get your game on, we’ve assembled a list of the 25 most magniﬁcent modern games. BUSINESS VICE pREsIDEnT, COnsuMER MEDIA Kelley Corten, [email protected] VICE pREsIDEnT, sALEs & busInEss DEVELOpMEnT Nate Hunt, [email protected] http://maclife.com/ML_BestMacGames EAsTERn REGIOnAL sALEs DIRECTOR Michael Plump, [email protected] REGIOnAL sALEs MAnAGER Stacy Gaines, [email protected] REGIOnAL sALEs MAnAGER Christina Grushkin, [email protected] ADVERTIsInG COORDInATOR Heidi Hapin, [email protected] VICE pREsIDEnT, MARKETInG & sALEs DEVELOpMEnT Rhoda Bueno DIRECTOR, COnsuMER MARKETInG Lisa Radler nEWssTAnD DIRECTOR Bill Shewey Parallels Access Review There are more than 150 million iPads in use worldwide, but accessing Mac or Windows applications from them can be an exercise in frustration. Parallels is an ingenious solution—for those who can afford a per-computer subscription. http://maclife.com/ML_ParallelsAccess PRODUCTION pRODuCTIOn DIRECTOR Michael Hollister pRODuCTIOn MAnAGER Larry Briseno pRODuCTIOn COORDInATOR Jose Urrutia pROjECT MAnAGER Jennifer Lim future us, Inc. is part of future plc. future produces carefully targeted magazines, websites and events for people with a passion. We publish more than 180 magazines, websites, and events, and we export or license our publications to 90 countries across the world. future plc is a public company quoted on the London stock Exchange (symbol: fuTR). 8 iOS Apps That Teach You How to Code Whether you’re aiming for eventual App Store success or trying to learn a new skill, these will help you distinguish loops from conditionals and provide all the groundwork to become a 1337 coder—no matter your age or technical know-how. http://maclife.com/ML_8CodingApps FUTURE US, INC. 4000 shoreline Court, suite 400, south san francisco, CA 94080 Tel: 650-872-1642 www.futureus.com ChIEf OpERATInG OffICER Rachelle Considine VICE pREsIDEnT, fInAnCE & busInEss MAnAGEMEnT Lulu Kong VICE pREsIDEnT / GEnERAL MAnAGER, DIGITAL Charlie Speight GEnERAL COunsEL Anne Ortel FUTURE PLC 30 Monmouth st., bath, Avon, bA1 2bW, England Tel: +44 (0)1225 442244 (bath) • Tel: +44 (0)2070 424000 (London) www.futureplc.com nOn EXECuTIVE ChAIRMAn Peter Allen ChIEf EXECuTIVE Mark Wood GROup fInAnCE DIRECTOR Graham Harding Madden NFL 25 Review Madden NFL 25 celebrates the venerable football series’ titular anniversary, but on iPhone and iPad, the game is by and large a nightmare of free-to-play roadblocks. http://maclife.com/ML_MaddenNFL25 Volume 7, Issue 11 Get Social! Twitter Facebook facebook.com/maclife Our Apps >>> 6 NOV•13 maclife.com twitter.com/maclife Mac|Life Digital Edition for iPad MacLife for iPhone Apple Newsstand bit.ly/ML_iphone_app MAC|LIFE (ISSN 1935-4010) is published monthly by Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Periodicals postage paid at San Bruno, CA, and at additional mailing offices. Newsstand distribution is handled by Time Warner Retail. Basic print subscription rates: 12 issues U.S. $24.95, Canada: $29.95, Foreign: $39.95. U.S. prepaid funds only. Canadian price includes postage and GST #R128220688. PMA #40043631. Subscriptions do not include newsstand specials. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Mac|Life, P.O. Box 5852, Harlan, IA 515931352. Ride-Along Enclosure in the following editions: None. Standard Mail Enclosure in the following editions: None. Canadian returns should be sent to Pitney Bowes, PO Box 25542, London ON N6C 6B2. Future US, Inc. also publishes @Gamer, Crochet Today!, Maximum PC, Official Xbox Magazine, and PC Gamer. PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE: Mac|Life Customer Care, P.O. Box 5852, Harlan, IA 51593-1352. Online: www.maclife.com/customerservice. Phone: 1-888-7716222. Email: [email protected]. BACK ISSUES: www.maclife.com/shop or 1-800-865-7240. REPRINTS: Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Phone: (650) 872-1642. Fax (650) 872-2207. Website: www.futureus.com. AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR LAWYERS: Entire contents copyright 2013, 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 Mac|Life. All information provided is, as far as Future is aware, based on information correct at the time of press. Readers are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to products/services referred to in this magazine. We welcome reader submissions, but cannot promise that they will be published or returned to you. By submitting materials to us, you agree to give Future the royalty-free, perpetual, non-exclusive right to publish and reuse your submission in any form in any and all media and to use your name and other information in connection with the submission. >>>Consider STAY IN TOUCH WITH US ON TWITTER: @MACLIFE WhAt Is AppLE styLE? E ver since Tim Cook took the reins, Apple observers have kept a keen eye on each new product, presentation, and piece of advertising to determine if the company has strayed from the trail Steve Jobs blazed for it. Jobs had previously been opposed to a seven-inch tablet, so by introducing the iPad mini, was Apple losing its way? Would Jobs have approved of iOS 7? Would a cheaper iPhone diminish the brand’s upscale identity? That kind of talk has made me think about Apple style—exactly what it is, and if Apple has indeed strayed from the principles it embodied during its historic rise. Most of us can tell if something is Apple-ish when we see it, but it can be tricky to deﬁne the exact qualities that clue us in. Here’s my stab at it. First and foremost, an Apple product is about form and function equally. In fact, to Apple, those are the same thing. It’s just as important that an entire touchscreen be in comfortable range of your thumb as it is for iOS to work easily and intuitively; for a MacBook Air to be as comfortable to carry as it to conﬁgure. Some users might understandably disagree with the decision to cut optical drives from today’s iMacs in favor of a slimmer proﬁle, but the focus on form factor is quintessentially Apple. Fresh ideas are also a core part of Apple style. The company doesn’t always deliver in this area—see pretty much every “S” revision of its iPhones—but it’s introduced or popularized enough signiﬁcant innovations over the years to earn a reputation as a transformative tech leader. Love it or hate it, Apple has had a huge impact on our culture; Apple matters. Apple is also synonymous with simplicity. Again, in practice the “It just works” mantra is far from foolproof, but it’s an ideal that the company clearly believes in and strives for, which does come across in the look and functionality of its products. Finally, I associate the Apple brand with conviction; a clarity of purpose that uniﬁes everything the company does. Throughout its meteoric rise, Apple never came across as An Apple product other tech companies is about form and often do, ﬂoundering and function equally. In unsure of which way to fact, to Apple, those turn. The brand exudes are the same thing. a quiet conﬁdence with understated typography, a cool air, and ads that focus not only on products, but the passion behind them and the emotions they evoke. These are the principles that, I think, Apple should continue to be judged by. At least, if we’re holding it to the standards it has previously set. The company would have surely continued to evolve in new directions even with Jobs, so Tim Cook and his crew deserve a little wiggle room. But in the broadest sense, Apple has been—for a brief time, at least—the Chris slate, EDItOR-IN-ChIEF tWIttER: @Chrisslate most valued company in the entire world, so this axiom is also true: if it ain’t broke, don’t ﬁx it. >>>OVERHEARD AT MAC|LIFE THIS MONTH.... “Why can’t coins be this fun to catch in real life?”—Mikel, reviewing Bioshock Inﬁnite. “The only way that the Podcasts app could be any worse is if spiders shot out of my speaker when I tried to use it.”—Chris H., after encountering another glitch in Apple’s app. 8 OCT•13 maclife.com “I’m not listening! I’m not listening! La la la la la la!”—John, covering his ears while everyone around him discusses the episodes of Breaking Bad he hasn’t seen yet. “Hey, Robin, when you’re in Europe, remember: ‘When in Rome....’ ”—Mark, dispensing some of his brilliant travel advice. “Yeah, that’s great. Except I’m going to Paris, you fool.” —Robin, tiring of Mark’s lack of attention to detail. >>>Share Your opinions, r ants & r aVEs letter of the Month For years, Macs have had the reputation of being horrible gaming machines. I used to believe this, too—there’s no denying that comparatively few big games have been released for Macs. But not enough people have realized that the stereotype of the Mac having no games isn’t true anymore. Sure, Mac versions of big games are still few and far between, but think about it: with every Mac you buy nowadays, you also get a PC. Just partition off a part of your hard drive, use Boot Camp to power up your machine as a Windows PC, and pow—instant today’s Macs can play all of the big, gaming PC! new PC titles like Saints row IV. Pining for Print to PDf It is difﬁcult for me to read about all of the excitement over iOS 7 when it still lacks—and Apple refuses to let developers offer—the ability to print a document as a PDF. In the old days, being a Mac loyalist kept me from enjoying a lot of games, but now I don’t miss out on anything. My 2009 iMac is four years old but still plays today’s new games beautifully. I may not be able to use max settings on Saints Row IV, but even at medium settings the game looks better than it does on consoles. So, to all the gamers out there, set up your Mac to play PC games if you haven’t already—it’s easy! And if anyone tells you that the Mac isn’t a great gaming machine, give ’em a hurricane kick.—Gil Konkel Why haven’t I been doing this? I mean, I know all about Boot Camp, but I guess I got used to ignoring PC games back in the days when Macs couldn’t play them. I’ve always preferred playing on consoles anyway, but now there are plenty of USB console-style controllers for Macs too, so my Mac really is ready to game however I want. thanks for the reminder, Gil! A couple of years ago, Enrique Rodriguez (http://www.printtopdfapp. com) wrote a clever app that could print to PDF by having iOS detect it as a virtual AirPrint-capable printer, but in late 2011 Apple pulled his app, and the gaping hole remains today. AirPrint creates a PDF natively, so why does Apple refuse to let us save it? —Stephan Lieske Java: Good or Bad? I’ve just ﬁnished reading “Securing Your Web Browsing” in your September issue and found it quite helpful. One of the ﬁrst things I did was follow the advice You Rise to the Challenge. We ReWaRd You With Cool PRizes. WIn: CAMBrIDGe AUDIo’S MInX Go SPeAKer! >>> Don’t just settle for the built-in audio from your Apple device. Take things the small Minx Go speaker to the next level with promises big sound. the Minx Go Bluetooth speaker from Cambridge Audio (ARV: $149). Sleek and compact, this portable speaker is built to wirelessly stream music to your iPhone, iPad, laptop, or other device, so you can ﬁll the room with high-quality sound for up to 18 hours. Don’t miss your chance to win one of these speakers for free; sign up for this month’s promotion! 10 NOV•13 maclife.com Who’s a Winner? In our August issue, we gave away an iHome Smart Pack stuffed with goodies. We’re packing it up and shipping it out to lucky reader Bill McGovern. Congratulations, Bill! OUR PROMOTIONS ARE ONLINE! For more details on this month’s promotion— including rules and how to enter—visit www.maclife.com/ November_13_Win starting October 1. And don’t forget to check out our Facebook page for even more special promotions with awesome prizes (www.facebook.com/ maclife). given to disable Java in Safari. Next, I went to log on to icloud.com and found a message saying that Javascript is required. Apparently, I cannot access iCloud unless I have Java enabled…so I have to chose between security and iCloud? Any ideas on how to get around this? Or is Apple basically saying that Java is safe, since it is required for icloud.com? —Michael Goehring Javascript and Java are actually two separate things, and Javascript does not pose the same sort of security risks that Java does. Only Javascript is required Remember: check Enable Javascript, but uncheck “Allow Java.” for iCloud.com, so go ahead and turn off Java while leaving Enable Javascript checked, and you’ll be all set. More Mail Tips I have a couple of my own tips to add to the ones in your “Stop Hating Email” feature. Regarding the “Templates Needed” topic, here’s how I handled having to send the same email over and over: In the subject line state the topic. Write the email and, once sent, it will be in your Sent email box, right? Then when the same issue arises needing the same response, you go to your Sent email box and ﬁnd the email with the subject describing the topic, then click on Message: Send Again. It opens the original email, you delete the person who you previously sent it to and put in the new address, adjust any salutations and closing, and voila! Done. I used this method to send the very same email to many people and only had to personalize it. A tech guy may not even have to do that. Just send the info. Regarding the “Shortcuts, Plz” topic: Instead of using keyboard shortcuts to move messages around to various folders, wouldn’t it be just as easy to create Rules for this issue? The email will automatically go into that folder (New Mailbox) and you will get an alert that it has mail. After reading, you don’t even have to ﬁle it as it is already home!—Cindy Long WRITE TO US: [email protected] or Mac|Life, 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 FOR SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: Call toll-free 1-888-771-6222 By submitting unsolicited material to us, you grant Future a license to publish the material in whole or in part in all editions of the magazine, including licensed editions, in any and all media throughout the world. Future is not responsible for loss, damage to, or return of any unsolicited materials. >>>Start FEED YOUR MIND. FEAST YOUR EYES. iPAd VS. NexuS 7: The gOOd, The bAd, ANd The ugly An iPad lover spends a long week with Google’s new tablet BY MIchAEl SIMON The new Nexus 7 (right) is the latest challenger to the iPad mini (left). A bout 12 hours into my week-long Nexus 7 experiment, I realized just how much I missed my iPad. The ﬁrst pitch was about to be thrown in the Red Sox game, so I visited Google Play to download a copy of MLB At Bat, expecting a similar experience to the one I had enjoyed for the past three years on Apple’s tablet. Not quite. Once I paid to upgrade from the lite version—a rambling, circuitous process that took about a half-inning to complete—I unlocked what appeared to be a dual-orientation phone app. The graphics didn’t come close to matching the quality of the screen, and live pitches were slow and jerky, with none of the superb animations that pepper its iOS counterpart. By the top of the third inning, I was watching the play-by-play on my iPhone and counting down the days until I got my iPad back. It’s a shame, because I really wanted to like Asus’ Google tablet. Having never seriously used an Android device before—the Nexus 7 is the ﬁrst non-iOS touchscreen I’ve ever owned—I had high hopes. But despite an array of dazzling customization options, my experience was more frustrating than ﬁrst-rate. deSigN People are always quick to criticize the latest iPhone or iPad for not being revolutionary enough, but the truth is, most of its competitors are barely catching up. They may have bigger screens and better batteries, but few match Apple’s strict attention to detail. Like last year’s model, the new Nexus 7 is about what you’d expect from a $200 tablet. The dimensions haven’t really changed much at all, so it’s still a good deal smaller than the iPad mini; people will 12 NOV•13 maclife.com naturally compare the two, but they feel completely different in your hand, with the mini requiring a much wider grip. Asus trimmed a bit of the side bezel that ﬂanked last year’s screen, but the top and bottom ones remain, giving it a somewhat unbalanced feel. It’s about 50 grams lighter than the old model (on par with the mini) and a good deal thinner, making it very easy to operate in a If you like bulbous number of positions. bezels, you’ll love The addition of a 5MP the Nexus 7. rear-facing camera is a nice touch, but like any tablet, you’ll probably be happier taking pictures with your phone. The enclosure has none of the iPad’s sleek, industrial curves, but the rubberized back gives it a level of protection without the need for a case. I’ve been haphazardly tossing it in my bag for more than a week—something I wouldn’t dare attempt with an Apple product—and have yet to ﬁnd a scratch. The power button was a constant nuisance and it still uses the dreaded micro USB for power (though it supports the Nexus 4’s underwhelming wireless charger), but overall it’s a very nice package, especially for the price. Screen and Battery The new Nexus 7 costs $29 more than the model it replaced, but you can literally see where that extra money goes. Last year’s display was an acceptable 1280x800 resolution—a tad more respectable than the mini’s heavily criticized 1024x768 screen—but Google pulled out all the stops this year, jamming an extra 107 pixels per inch, bringing it up to speed with the best Apple has to offer. It’s a beautiful screen, with deep blacks, crisp fonts, and brilliant colors, but along with the extra dough, all that clarity will also cost you about 10 percent of your battery life. While using it as my main device, I made sure to carry a battery charger with me, even when doing light tasks like checking email and writing this article. In fact, I didn’t load a single song on the device and barely watched any videos, yet the battery only lasted about as long as my iPhone 5 under similar circumstances—a far cry from my iPad. all that clarity will also cost you about 10 percent of your battery life was getting until it downloaded, and most times I felt like I was doing something wrong. There’s no differentiation between tablet and phone apps— presumably the store is smart enough to push the best version to my device—but in a lot of cases it seemed like I was using a blown-out phone app. But it’s more than how they look. Every app I downloaded that wasn’t a game—from the aforementioned MLB At Bat to Writer and Plume for Twitter— was frustratingly inferior to its iPad doppelganger. I struggled to ﬁnd an email app that accepted my iCloud credentials. But if sacriﬁces need to be made, this isn’t a terrible one. Once I saw just how tremendous text and graphics looked on the HD display, I certainly wasn’t about to give it up just to squeeze out another 60 minutes of usage. (Though I can’t quite get used to how it turns off like a 1987 television set.) appS Such a high-quality screen deserves a library of beautifully designed apps, but if there are any in Google Play, I had a hard time ﬁnding them. Even when I was willing to pay, I never really knew what I Elegant productivity apps on Android are few and far between. Don’t be fooled—you probably won’t get anywhere near 16 hours out of the Nexus 7. Despite being a Google product, the Play store isn’t very good at ﬁnding apps. Writing apps refused to let me share my data and wouldn’t count my words. Even Google’s offerings, with the exception of the stellar Google Now, all seemed a step behind. There may very well be original, highquality tablet apps akin to Tweetbot or Wordﬂex to be found, but Google Play’s poor layout and search algorithm kept them locked away. I did manage to track down a couple of keepers (Tasks, Pattrn, and Press instantly spring to mind), but for the most part, the productivity apps I downloaded—with ﬁve-star reviews and prime search position—didn’t live up to my expectations of a tablet app, mini or otherwise. maclife.com nOV•13 13 >>>Start Android Despite its reputation, Android no longer operates like a cheap imitation of iOS. There is an inevitable bit of overlap, of course, but Android has a deﬁnite character and identity of its own. Truth be told, the only time I was reminded of my iPad was when something didn’t work the way I expected. And unfortunately, that happened a lot. But ﬁrst, the good stuff. Android has always separated itself from iOS by allowing its users to customize their screens any which way they want. Those who want to get their hands dirty can Tiny widgets gave me at-a-glance access to an array of data that remains hidden on my iPad. The Fleksy keyboard helped me type just as fast as I did on my Apple device. The clock on my lock screen went from garish to gorgeous. It’s Android’s singular advantage over iOS, and the main reason why an iPhone user would choose to switch (other than wanting a larger screen). Apple obsesses over every pixel in iOS, often taking years to get a feature just right. Android, in contrast, feels more like a blank palette than a fully realized operating system. to hit the space bar, causing whatever app I was in to disappear. Working with text was infuriating, starting with the lack of any sort of undo command. Without a pop-up magniﬁer I constantly missed my target touches, and even when I got the cursor where I wanted it, I never knew if I was going to bring up the correct menu. Folders actually look pretty cool, but it’s impossible to see past the ﬁrst app. Scrolling was very inconsistent, with some apps responding to my swipes and others stuttering and skipping. And apparently no one takes My experiences with a brand-new, unadulterated version of Android on a brand-new device left much to be desired manipulate the OS even further at the root level (which is why a Samsung phone looks different than an HTC one), but even a quick visit to Google Play can give your Android device a personal touch far beyond anything Apple allows. There are a number of things I do on my iPad repeatedly throughout my day— check email, browse my Twitter timeline, take notes, etc.—and I’ve made it as easy as possible to do so, positioning my favorite apps to launch with little effort. Android takes that one step further, and within minutes, I was able to make my Nexus 7 far more useful. There are downsides to this. Since there are only a handful of devices that run socalled pure Android, you’d think Google would be devoting all of its resources to creating a rock-solid foundation. But while it’s certainly come a long way, my experiences with a brand-new, unadulterated version of Android on a brand-new device left much to be desired. I constantly kept pressing the back button. There’s a bit of iOS muscle memory here, but having a back button pinned to the bottom of the screen makes absolutely no sense. Similarly, I repeatedly hit the virtual home button when I wanted You can easily go a little overboard with the widgets on the Nexus 7. screenshots in Android, because it may be the most unintuitive method ever created. I’m not going to say my iPad apps never crash, but iOS certainly doesn’t feel the need to notify me each time they do. Along with the “Unfortunately so-and-so app has quit” messages, strange dialog boxes would pop up intermittently. My favorite was “TWLauncher stopped unexpectedly.” Enticing AltErnAtivE Oftentimes, Android’s widgets were better designed than the apps. 14 nov•13 maclife.com Despite its ﬂaws, I’ll be keeping the Nexus. It’s a ﬁne tablet with an excellent screen and a tempting price tag, and I almost see how someone would choose to buy one over an iPad mini. Heck, I can even see myself using it from time to time. But only if my iPad is out of reach. Windows on Mac just got better. Learn more at vmware.com/fusion VMware Fusion returns with more than 50 new features, including optimization for OS X Mavericks, Windows 8.1 and the latest Macs. Download it today and see why VMware Fusion received Editors’ Choice awards from MacWorld, PCMag and MacFormat in 2012. © 2013 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. >>>Start Botched JoBS Big-screen Steve Jobs biopic draws poor reviews, box ofﬁce receipts BY Andrew HAYwArd S eemingly rushed into production after the Apple co-founder’s death and drawing a wide mix of reactions to its casting choices, Jobs hit theaters on August 16 with little of the impact expected from a ﬁlm about Steve Jobs. Director Joshua Michael Stern’s dramatic biopic opened on 2,381 screens, yet only notched $6.7 million in ticket sales in its opening weekend, landing at number 7 on the box ofﬁce charts. It slid out of the top 10 during its second weekend while eking past $12 million in total earnings. Produced by Endgame Entertainment and Five Star Feature Films, Jobs stars Ashton Kutcher in the title role with a two-hour retelling of his rise from college dropout to Apple co-founder and creative force, including his dismissal from the company in 1985 and return in 1996. Despite an uncanny resemblance at times—particularly after shaving his facial hair—Kutcher’s performance lacks nuance, and at times generates unintentionally laughable moments. All told, the ﬁlm feels like a skin- despite showing the elder Jobs on the poster, the ﬁlm focuses largely on his younger-adult rise and fall. deep glimpse into a limited portion of Jobs’ life, with complex topics—like his abandonment of (and apparent reconciliation with) his ﬁrst daughter—not Ashton Kutcher certainly looks the part, but his performance in Jobs is short on subtlety. fully explored, and the decade-plus spent away from Apple (and its impact on him) essentially glossed over. And aside from the opening scene, in which he reveals the iPod to a group of employees, Apple’s modern rise doesn’t ﬁgure into the ﬁlm at all. Surreally hokey in early LSD-fueled moments, but mostly just tepid and unmoving, Jobs has all the weight and intrigue of a made-for-TV movie. Expectedly, reviews have been middling to negative on the whole, with Rotten Tomatoes reporting 26 percent positive appraisals out of 100 in total. In her oneand-a-half-star (out of four) review, critic Christy Lemire opined, “The irony is that a man who treasured innovation and sleek, stylish design should be the subject of a ﬁlm that’s so bland and bloated.” Susan Wloszczyna also took the ﬁlm to task in her two-star critique, stating, “When a movie presents its subject as a messiah of intuitive design who insisted that corners never be cut and compromises never struck, it should at least attempt to emulate such exacting standards.” Luckily for its creators, Jobs was made with a very slim $12 million budget, and after international receipts and eventual DVD/ Blu-ray, download, and rental ﬁgures are factored in, it’s likely to make a small proﬁt. But the ﬁrst biopic released in the wake of Steve Job’s death sadly misses the mark as a layered look behind his lofty legacy. AnotHer tAKe Jobs may have been ﬁrst, but it won’t be the last major ﬂick based on Steve’s life. Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) is working on a script for Sony Pictures that will be based on Walter Isaacson’s best-selling 2011 biography, Steve Jobs, as well as the scribe’s own research. No word yet on an expected release date or casting choices for the ﬁlm. 16 NoV•13 maclife.com ACME Bread, Berkeley, CA If business is really cooking, there isn’t always time to dash back to your desktop computer to update a price list or rearrange a brochure. With PDFpen, you’re never far from a device to manage your PDFs. And with iCloud integration, the updated fle will be waiting for you when you fnally get back to your desk. How Will You Use PDFpen? smilesoftware.com Copyright © 2013 SmileOnMyMac, LLC dba Smile. PDFpen, PDFpenPro, TextExpander and the Smile Logo are registered trademarks of Smile. >>>Start The PlaySTaTion ConneCTion Sony brings its latest brands to iOS BY Chris hoffman F or more than 15 years, the PlayStation name has been synonymous with quality console gaming, but now Sony is hoping for the brand to make a bigger impact across multiple platforms— speciﬁcally onto iOS. Though this isn’t PlayStation’s ﬁrst foray onto mobile devices (there were Android apps based on PlayStation games SOCOM and Starhawk, for example), Sony promises that their current projects—Counterspy and DokiDoki Mail—will be on an entirely different level of cross-platform integration. “Our approach on these titles has been reﬁned to include the extensions as part of the development process,” remarks Alex Lee, senior producer at Sony’s Worldwide Studios. “This way we can complement the quality and experience we’re offering on the PlayStation platforms. They are no longer companion applications; they become part of the overall experience.” Counterspy, developed by Dynamighty, is a side-scrolling 2D stealth-action game that will be appearing on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita machines, and the iOS version of the game will offer similar thrills, albeit in bite-sized chunks. The iOS edition allows you to partake in “away missions” in which you’ll make your way through procedurally generated levels and attempt to get as far into the enemy base as you can; it also features touch-based controls built for iOS devices—swiping to make your character run, tapping to shoot or interact, and double-tapping to take cover. Players will also be able to enjoy cross-platform interactions, such as obtaining weapons in the iOS version that you unlocked in the console version, 18 noV•13 maclife.com stealth-action game Counterspy is coming to ios as well as Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita. and sending blueprints from the iOS version to the console version. On the other hand, the cute, cartoony world of Doki-Doki Mail couldn’t be more different from Counterspy’s run-and-gun action. The console version, known as Doki-Doki Universe, tells the story of an adorable abandoned robot who ﬁnds himself on a galaxy-spanning quest to help others and ﬁnd his place in the universe. For iOS, the in-game artwork has been repurposed for the Doki-Doki Mail app, which allows you to send colorfully decorated messages to your Facebook friends. No matter what you’re talking to your friends about, the app has some spiffy visuals to augment your note—such as food icons if you’re talking about lunch, or images of gifts, drinks, and dancers if you’re discussing a party. “Doki-Doki mail is a very different application than the main game,” Lee admits. “We love the broad appeal it can have in that it does not require you to be a hardcore game player in order to be introduced to the game’s universe. Hopefully, people will be charmed enough to see the game consists of something for everyone.” Sony believes that when Counterspy and Doki-Doki are released on iOS later this year, they’ll provide a chance for users to experience the high-bar value of Doki-Doki mail is a fun messaging app that’s tied to the upcoming Playstation game DokiDoki Universe. the PlayStation brand and will encourage fans to purchase Sony’s own hardware, be it PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, or the upcoming PlayStation 4. And all indications are that this is only the beginning of the PlayStation’s presence on iOS. “We have many ideas for expanding... franchises in the future,” reveals Lee, “and mobile devices play a role.” >>>Start Crave the gear we’re lustIng after CHRIS S. IntuOs CreatIve stylus www.wacom.com $99.95 >>>The Intuos Creative Stylus should be just the thing to help me get back in touch with my inner artist. Sure, it’s a little pricey, but this Bluetooth stylus promises 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity, so my illustrations are limited only by my imagination. It’s also designed with palm rejection in mind so I can rest my wrist naturally on my iPad while I draw. JOHN 20 NOV•13 maclife.com boltBOX www.scosche.com $24.99 >>>Messy, tangled charging cables can be a real pain, especially when I’m traveling or trying to reduce clutter on my desk. Fortunately, the boltBOX Lightning cable helps me keep things tidy by retracting neatly into its case when I’m not using it to charge and sync my iPhone 5. It’s available in six brilliant colors, too. CHRIS H. SMArtphone Spy LenS www.photojojo.com $20 >>>By attaching the Smartphone Spy Lens to your iPhone, you’re able to take all sorts of strange, interesting photographs from all kinds of unusual angles. Whether you want to shoot straight up or low to the ground, the Spy Lens makes it easy. (And, yeah, you can kinda use it to take inconspicuous “spy photos,” too.) Triceratops not included. MIKEL I-SIght duAL www.radtech.us $14.95 >>>Sometimes I need a ﬂashlight and two free hands. With two bright beams and a choice of white or green light, the I-Sight Dual is perfectly suited to those situations, whether it means helping me look at my car’s engine or ﬁnding the right cable in the tangle behind my desk. ROBIN VIXIA MInI CAMCorder www.canon.com $299 >>>Light and super-compact, Canon’s VIXIA Mini camcorder is designed for taking HD video no matter where you are or what you’re doing—and its built-in Wi-Fi capabilities are ideal for uploading videos to YouTube or Facebook. Wide-angle and close-up modes allow me to get creative, and the built-in stand and touch-screen interface are nice additions. maclife.com NOV•13 21 >>>Start THE LIFER Rik Myslewski walks us through recent (and future) changes to memory tech On today’s device doesn’t have a hard drive and it your eyes peeled for two of NAND’s menu: alphabet stores stuff, said stuff is likely stored in probable NVM successors: resistive soup. The future NAND ﬂash—perhaps in a solid-state random-access memory—better known of your Mac, disk (SSD) like the one in every MacBook as RRAM or ReRAM, take your pick— MacBook, iPhone, Air. However, NAND’s long history of and magnetoresistive random-access or iPad is tied improvements since its introduction memory, aka MRAM. to the future of in the late 1980s is pretty much over. RRAM works by changing the resistance RAM, CPU, DRAM, NAND cells NVM, NAND, SSD, can’t be shrunk V-NAND, CTF, much more RRAM, ReRAM, to make them GMR, MRAM, OST-MRAM, PCM, and WTF. faster, as can Just kidding about that last one, but CPUs, without trust me, this is all interesting stuff. For becoming much more unreliable and in a switching medium sandwiched geeks, that is. short-lived. A new form of NVM is needed. between two electrodes, and can cram an Of that laundry list, you already First up is a bit of trickery that takes inordinately large number of fast, reliable, know what RAM is: the random access a NAND chip’s normally ﬂat slab of low-power, long-lived memory cells into memory in your computer, smartphone, cells, rotates it by 90 degrees, and a small area, with the promise of ﬁtting or tablet where the central processing stacks a whole bunch of those vertical a terabyte of non-volatile storage onto a unit (CPU) stashes the single chip. RRAM’s essential information it’s working on simplicity should also make it when it receives an email, inexpensive to manufacture. runs a Photoshop ﬁlter, or MRAM, however, may slingshots an angry bird at be a potent competitor. a piggie. DRAM is dynamic It exploits the same giant RAM—essentially a bunch of magnetoresistance (GMR) capacitors that store the 1s effect that your hard drive uses and 0s that make computing to read magnetic domains on devices tick. DRAM is fast spinning disks, but does so in and efﬁcient, but it needs to individual memory cells. There be continually fed electricity are many varieties of MRAM, or it’ll lose its data—in but a recent one—orthogonal geekspeak, it’s volatile. spin-torque magnetoresistive Enter NVM: non-volatile random-access memory, aka Fast, reliable, huge capacity, and likely inexpensive: it seems that RRAM memory. It doesn’t require OST-MRAM (don’t ask, just might just have it all. continuous juice, and thus Google it)—is so insanely fast, performs the same role in an iPhone as units together into a three-dimensional low-power, and shrinkable that it has does a hard drive in an iMac: it stores structure—a NAND skyscraper. A ton the capability of deposing DRAM, even your ﬁles, apps, settings, and all the of NAND cells can thus be stuffed into though it’s non-volatile. Think of the rest. The type of NVM most used today a smaller chip footprint without each battery-life improvements. is called NAND because it’s a “negated individual cell needing to shrink. Samsung Oh, and you remaining phase-change AND” or “not AND” logic gate, since it unveiled such a chip that it calls V-NAND memory (PCM) NVM enthusiasts out returns a 0 only if both of its inputs are (guess what the V stand for) that also uses there? Fuggedaboutit. 1, while an AND gate operates in the an electron-trapping technology called >> Rik Myslewski was editor-in-chief of reverse. (No, there won’t be a quiz, so if charge trap ﬂash (CTF) that improves MacAddict from 2001 until it transformed your eyes just glazed over, relax.) reliability and speed, and lowers costs. into Mac|Life in 2007, and now writes for The NAND and the ﬂash memory in which All well and good, and likely what Register, which is “biting the hand that feeds it’s used is (relatively) cheap, (relatively) we’re going to see for the next couple IT” daily at www.theregister.co.uk. fast, and (relatively) reliable. If your of years. After that, however, keep NAND cells can’t be shrunk much more to make them faster…a new form of NVM is needed 22 NOV•13 maclife.com >>>Start $50 iTuNeS Card How would you spend 50 bucks on music, movies, books, and more? BY ANDREW HAYWARD BReaking Bad: The Final season $29.99 (HD) impossiBle Road $1.99 By the time this issue hits stands, the beloved TV series Breaking Bad will be ending its tremendous run, and if the ﬁrst couple of episodes are any indication, it’ll be a wildly intense and likely gut-wrenching ride towards Walt’s last stand. If you’ve cut the cord and don’t have AMC, you can catch all eight episodes via this season pass. And if for some reason you still haven’t seen the series, everything before this set is streaming on Netﬂix. One of my favorite games of the year on any platform, Impossible Road (iOS) delivers a tantalizing challenge, tasking you with guiding a sphere down a winding neon path that seems to go on forever—but if you can stay on the track for even a full minute, you’ll feel like a champ. It’s tough, but rewarding and hugely addictive. Each time I ﬁre it up, I can’t help but blitz through a couple dozen attempts. yeezus Kanye West The RevoluTion Was Televised Alan Sepinwall $12.99 Noted critic Alan Sepinwall has reviewed many a television episode over his career, but The Revolution Was Televised digs deeper into what he considers to be 12 of the most important serialized dramas of our time. From The Wire, Lost, and The Sopranos to newer (and ongoing) fare like Mad Men, his gripping book uses a blend of creator interviews, behind-thescenes bits, and smart analysis to assert why each show was so meaningful. $11.99 As a longtime Kanye fan, it’s been disheartening to hear his lyrical cleverness diminish over the last couple of years, and when Yeezus is at its most inconsistent, the album feels crass and sadly misogynistic. And yet streaks of genius are still found on West’s sixth solo release, particularly within the chaotic, electro-drenched production; tracks like “Guilt Trip” and “Bound 2” are particularly inescapable. Like the artist, it’s hard to like at times, but also tough to ignore. $49.96 24 NOV•13 maclife.com awesome things you forgot your Mac could do By Christopher phin and Matthew Bolton Y our Mac can do millions of things, but sometimes even the best of us forget some of the cool stuff it can do—so we’re here to help jog your memory. Some of these tips need recent versions of OS X, but not all of them do. In some cases, these are little features that Apple has sneaked into upgrades that you might have totally missed, and some might be a classic light bulb moment of “I’d totally forgotten you could do that!” This is neither a formal nor an exhaustive list; we’ve just put our heads together to gather the 50 tips we think are awesome. If you’ve got favorite tips of your own to share, we’d love to hear them! Just toss them over to us at [email protected]. maclife.com NOV•13 27 50 aWesoMe tHinGs your Mac can do Show off what your Mac can do! as if your Mac wasn’t amazing enough, here’s even more great stuff it can do to help with tasks Control a MaC reMotely there are dozens of ways of controlling a Mac across the Internet, which you might want to do to schedule a recording, start a download, and so on. you could try LogMeIn, or share a desktop using Google hangouts and Skype; you could try port forwarding the built-in Vnc client in oS X, but our favorite—and the easiest—is Back to My Mac, managed through icloud. So long as the remote Mac is on, logged into an account tied to your icloud login (through System Preferences) and connected to the Internet, it should appear under Shared in your finder sidebar. (If it doesn’t, hover over Shared and click Show; if Shared isn’t there, look in the finder’s preferences.) click Share Screen… to control the 28 NOV•13 maclife.com Mac over the Internet, as if you were sitting in front of it. (It might make more sense to go full Screen to stop yourself getting confused!) check out the options in the menus and toolbar. alternatively, click connect as… to log into the Mac to copy ﬁles from and to it. If you have a recent airPort Extreme with a hard disk attached, or a time capsule, then you can access those ﬁles similarly; make sure your router is logged into icloud using airPort utility. talk to and listen to your MaC In oS X 10.8, the Mac’s ability to listen to you as well as talk is really impressive. although these are sometimes framed as being accessibility features, they can be useful for everyone. for example, it’s a good idea to read through any important text before you send it off, but it’s easy to skip mistakes when you’re reading your own work. Instead, select the text and go to Edit > Speech > Start Speaking. you can control the speed and pick from a range of different voices (our favorite’s the Scottish “fiona”) in the dictation & Speech System Preference pane. If you ﬁnd you use the feature often, you should enable the option to trigger speaking aloud using a keyboard shortcut—the default is option + esc, which you can change in the dictation & Speech pane. If you do have restricted vision, investigate the Voiceover feature in the accessibility pane of System Preferences, too; this can read aloud buttons and other on-screen items, and more. your Mac is just as good a listener as it is a talker, though. not only Add clips fRom Websites to dAshboARd can you control your Mac using Speakable Items (check the Accessibility pane) but in OS X 10.8 you can also dictate text anywhere you would type. By default you just press the fn key twice and then start talking. Remember Dashboard? Introduced with 10.4, this overlay holds “widgets” that can perform handy little tasks—Apple still hosts a catalogue of them at www. apple.com/downloads/dashboard. One oft-forgotten trick is that you can make your own widgets by clipping from web pages. The best bit is that the web page remains live. Here’s how to do it (we’re going to clip out some cricket scores, but it will pretty much work for any part of any site). 1 Run WindoWs Navigate to the page you want to clip a section from in Safari. (It has to be Safari, not Chrome, Firefox, or whatever.) You can clip out information that’s essentially static—say, a list of keyboard shortcuts you want to refer to—or stuff that’s changing all the time. We know, we know—who wants to run Windows? But sometimes it’s handy, whether to play the latest games or run some niche piece of software that has no Mac equivalent. You can either run Windows alongside OS X with a virtualization app such as VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop, or VirtualBox, or partition your hard disk to install Windows and run it full-bore on your hardware using Boot Camp Assistant (in your Utilities folder). 2 Go to the File menu and choose Open in Dashboard…; now you can mouse over sections of the web page, and it’s usually smart about snapping to appropriate areas. If not, just click then drag the handles. Once you’re done, click Add at the top right. 3 Once the clipping has been added to your Dashboard, you can click the i at the bottom-right to ﬂip it round. Here you’ll see options for the frame; pick the one you like. The web clipping should update anyway, but if you need to force a manual refresh, click it, then tap Command + R. maclife.com NOV•13 29 50 awesome ThinGs YOUR MAC CAN DO Type exoTic characTers As well as the letters and symbols you see on your keyboard, you can type a huge array of special characters. You may already be familiar with typing accents such as for café (in that case you either type Option + E then E again or, on OS X 10.7 or later, hold down E until you get extra options) but you’ll ﬁnd there are many more. Go to the Edit menu of most apps and you’ll see Special Characters at the bottom. This panel gives you access to a huge range of symbols you can drag into your documents. Not all apps or operating systems support them, but these are mostly part of the crossplatform Unicode standard. There are probably more than you see at ﬁrst, too; click the cog to reveal more. Emoji (those fun, colorful characters available in OS X 10.7 or later) are a notable exception to this cross-platform world. They’re not Apple-only, but your recipient might not be able to see them. recorD screencasTs You can record videos of your screen; you may want to record a problem or make how-to videos about using apps. Open QuickTime Player and from the File menu choose New Screen Recording. Click the little drop-down arrow to pick the audio source and to choose whether or not to show mouse clicks in the recording. Now, pick to record either the full screen or just a selection, and once you’re done, you can trim, upload to YouTube, AirDrop to another Mac, or import it into iMovie for more precise editing. Zoom inTo The screen Want to see something up close? Hold the Control key and scroll up with your mouse or trackpad. If that does nothing, check the option is enabled in Accessibility, where you will also ﬁnd options for smoothing and whether you want the whole screen to zoom in or just show you the zoomed area in a window within your Mac’s screen. slow Down animaTions Lots of visual effects on your Mac can be slowed down either to help you better understand what’s going on, or just so you can go “oooooh, pretty!” Hold down the Up Arrow Key when, for example, minimizing windows, triggering Mission Control or Launchpad, and you’ll see the effect. Use cUsTom icons (plus, exporting icons to use elsewhere) Back in the day, we all seemed to be adding custom icons to every folder on our system, but it appears to have fallen out of fashion. But it shouldn’t have, because it’s a great way to personalize your Mac and makes it easier to identify folders, etc., at a glance. Below, we’ll show you how to do it, but here’s a bonus tip: 1 The ﬁrst step in changing a ﬁle or folder’s icon is to ﬁnd what you want to change it to. Search the web (try www.interfacelift.com). Go to /System/ Library/CoreServices and then right-click CoreTypes.bundle and choose Show Package Contents; you’ll ﬁnd great system icons including Apple hardware in Resources. 30 NOV•13 maclife.com 2 if you want to copy icons for other uses, it’s really easy with Preview. Select the item with the icon you want in Finder and then tap Command + C. Switch to Preview and tap Control + N and you’ll see the icon in all the different sizes. Pick the one you want and then export it to whatever format you need. Once you’ve found the item whose icon you want to copy—whether it’s a ﬁle, folder, app, or whatever you like— you need to get further information on it; either go to the File menu and choose Get Info or just hit keys Command + I. Now, click on the icon and tap Command + C. 3 The next step is to paste the icon onto the folder or whatever it is you’re personalizing in a similar way. Opt to “Get Info” on it, select the icon, and then tap Command + V. If you later want to clear the changed icon, then you can select it in this Get Info window then tap the Forward Delete Key. Discover the Power of Preview Crop and tweak images, annotate PDFs, and a whole lot more… Quickly import with image capture If people sometimes overlook Preview’s power features, they almost always ignore Image Capture completely. Before you clog up your system with bloatware apps and drivers for digital cameras and scanners, though, try Image Capture—it’s in your Utilities folder. With this you can control most modern scanners (or the scanners in multi-function printers) both wired and wirelessly, and import from digital cameras, including iOS devices. Pop up the panel at the bottom-left for extra options; it’s here, for example, that you tell your Mac what app should launch when you connect each of your devices (including “none”), so you could launch Aperture when you connect your SLR, for example, but launch nothing when you dock your iPhone. Sign your DocumentS In OS X 10.7, Preview gained the ability to add your signature to documents. To get started, go to the Signatures tab in Preview’s preferences and then click the +. Now, sign your name in black ink on a small piece of white paper and hold it up to your Mac’s webcam. Line it up and click Accept (making sure the “Save this signature” option is checked if you want to use it in the future). Now, open a document you want to sign, pop up the Edit Toolbar, and click the signature icon—it looks like an S on a line next to a tiny x. Draw a box to add your signature on the form. You can scale and reposition it afterwards, too. annotate pDFS anD imageS Preview has some fantastic tools built into it for annotating images and PDFs. And what’s best of all is that the annotations it adds to a PDF are based on a standard that’s compatible with Adobe’s PDF app, Acrobat, which is used by Windows users and companies—so it’s easy to share annotated documents with colleagues. Make sure the Edit Toolbar is visible (from the View menu) and you’ll see you’ve got options for drawing shapes, arrows, speech and thought bubbles, and more. There’s also the option to highlight text in different colors, strikethrough text, add notes, and type text into boxes. maclife.com NOV•13 31 50 awesome Things YOUR MAC CAN DO Crop, resize, and Tweak images Preview is one of the most under-appreciated apps on a Mac; especially in later versions of OS X, it became hugely powerful, and even for us at Mac|Life, it does much of what we’d traditionally use a more elaborate and expensive application such as Photoshop to do. Do yourself a favor: open an image in Preview and poke around the app’s menus and interface to see what it can do. For example, you can crop your image. Draw a selection with the regular Rectangular Selection tool then either hit Command + K or choose Crop from the Tools menu. Alternatively, show the Edit Toolbar and make a more complex selection either with the Instant Alpha tool (like in iWork) or use the Smart Lasso. With this tool, you draw as carefully as you can around the outline of the object and then Preview works out as closely as it can where the edges are. In either case, cropping will, if the image isn’t already a PNG, convert it so that you can have the thing you’re cutting out on a transparent background. (You might need the Invert Selection command, too!) You can also resize images, and even do some tweaks to the colors with the Adjust Color pop-up. Select Adjust Color… from the Tools menu, and you get some handy sliders and a histogram to help you tweak things. Plus, hit the backtick symbol (to the left of 1 on the keyboard) to bring up a loupe so you can see what’s happening at 100% as you make changes. Quick Timesavers Cut to the chase and avoid stress on project deadlines ediT Videos in QuiCkTime player If you’ve recorded a fun little video and it needs just a small amount of tidying at the start and end before it goes online, there’s an easier way than delving into iMovie. QuickTime X can trim the start and ends of videos. Go to Edit > Trim… in the menu, then drag the handles at the start and end of the timeline to set a new beginning and end of the clip. Click Trim when you’re happy with it. If you want to take a section out of the middle of a clip, you can use the Split Clip menu option. You can split your video more than once and remove sections you don’t want, and you can even insert other videos where the splits are. 32 NOV•13 maclife.com make a keyboard shorTCuT for anyThing Keyboard shortcuts are great for saving time, but you’re not limited to just the shortcuts put in by developers; if there’s a particular menu option you use all the time that doesn’t have a shortcut, you can create it yourself. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts. Click the + button to add a new shortcut. You can choose which app you want to apply it to from the drop-down list, but you must know the exact name of the menu command to type into the next box, including the correct case and any special characters such as ellipses. Lastly, choose a unique key combination to invoke the command, then click Add. use the app switcher to Do more Most Mac users will be used to using Command + Tab to switch applications, but this little interface is more ﬂexible than it seems at ﬁrst. For a start, if you bring it up, then keep holding Command and hover your cursor over the icons (or press the Left and Right Arrow Keys), whichever app is highlighted when you release Command is the one you’ll switch to. Also, when you’ve got an app highlighted, you can do a few other things: press Q to quit an app instantly; press H to hide an app from view; or press the up or down arrows to see the highlighted app’s open windows in Mission Control. Finally, if an app has windows that have been minimized, switch to it, but hold Option when you release Command—the minimized windows will all reappear back from the Dock. Do quick sums with spotlight speeD up the bookmarks bar If there’s a very quick calculation you need to do while working, but you don’t want to break your ﬂow by opening the calculator or bringing up the dashboard, you can use Spotlight instead. Just hit Command + Space Bar to open Spotlight, and then type your sum—you can even use brackets for more complex math. The answer will appear where Spotlight’s results usually come up, and you can copy the results with Command + C. Safari’s Bookmarks bar is a great way to make your favorite sites easy to access, but you can speed things up even more! When you place a site in the bar, it’s assigned a keyboard shortcut based on its position—just press Command + 1 to access the ﬁrst site in the bar, Command + 2 to access the second, and so on. uploaD movies to Youtube with quicktime There’s an easier way to get your movies online than going through YouTube’s web interface. Double-click your movie on your Mac to open it in QuickTime Player, then click on the Share icon in the player and select YouTube (though you can choose other services). The ﬁrst time, you’ll have to log in, but after that you’ll be taken straight to options for giving your video tags, a description, and categorizing it. You can also make a movie personal, so that it’s not immediately visible to the wider world. close manY winDows quicklY Sometimes, working at your Mac for a while can leave you with a lot of open windows. You can close all of an application’s windows at once by pressing Option + Command + W. It only closes windows from the currently active app. use automator anD services for speeD Automator is built-in OS X tool that enables you to build your own workﬂows of commands, making complex tasks much easier. Use it to build your own little apps that perform a speciﬁc task, or to create new Services, which are functions you can access from a right-click. 1 To create something in Automator, open it, then choose what type of thing you want to create: each is useful in different circumstances, so click on them to see descriptions. Select the one you want and click Choose (or open an old Automator ﬁle). 2 Start creating the steps of your workﬂow by dragging Actions from the left-hand side of the screen to the empty space on the right-hand side. Actions are categorized by application and ﬁle type, or you can search for something at the top. Just click an Action’s name to see what it does. hiDe apps quicklY If you want to hide all open applications except for the one that’s currently active, press Option + Command + H and they’ll disappear—you can show them again by selecting them in the Dock. Conversely, to hide only the active application, just press Command + H. If you click the desktop while holding Command + Option, you’ll hide all application windows except for Finder. 3 Once you’ve built up your workﬂow, you can click Run in the top-right corner to test it (though you won’t be able to fully test everything this way). If there are any problems, the part where it failed will have a red cross next to it, and the log underneath will explain any warnings. maclife.com NOV•13 33 50 awesOme things YOUR MAC CAN DO Open a File’s lOcatiOn in Finder FrOm spOtlight When you don’t know where a ﬁle is, Spotlight is the easiest way to ﬁnd it, but you won’t always want to open the ﬁle; you might just want to see it in Finder. To do this, highlight the result you want in Spotlight, but hold Command when you click on it. This will open the ﬁle’s location in Finder. You can also use this trick with ﬁles displayed in Stacks on the Dock to open them in Finder. see hidden OptiOns Holding Option actually lets you get to more options in the menu bar, as well as in the menus themselves. For example, the Restart…, Shut Down…, and other options in the Apple menu are followed by an ellipses to indicate that they’ll bring up a dialog when selected, but if you hold Option when clicking them, you can skip this dialog and immediately perform the action. Hold Option while looking through other menus and you’ll see more options change, such as “Add Link” becoming “Remove Link” in Mail. Similarly, try holding Option while clicking the Bluetooth or Wi-Fi icons in the menu bar to see more details and options for your connections. switch audiO sOurce/Output FrOm the menu Bar If you have headphones or speakers set up with your Mac, and if you have a headset or microphone connected, you might ﬁnd yourself wanting to switch between different inputs or outputs, but this doesn’t have to mean a slog to System Preferences every time: hold Option and click the volume adjuster in the menu bar, and it’ll bring up a list of audio inputs and outputs. You can then select the ones you want (though it can’t display too many, so might be limiting for complex set-ups). rename, duplicate, and reVert Files easily revert back to older documents by clicking on “Browse all Versions.” 34 NOV•13 maclife.com In OS X Lion, Apple introduced some new features for working with ﬁles, and a new hidden menu to access them. When you’ve opened a document, move your cursor over its name to bring up a small black arrow just to the right. Click this arrow and you bring up a menu with some of these new options. The most useful are the ability to rename and duplicate ﬁles, but you can also lock a ﬁle to prevent further editing, change it so that the ﬁle is stored in iCloud instead of only on your hard drive (though only in compatible apps), or move the ﬁle. The ﬂashiest feature is the ability to revert to a previous version of a ﬁle, though: you can choose an older version from what’s listed in this menu, or click “Browse All Versions…” to enter a Time Machine-like interface, where you can scroll through older versions of that ﬁle and compare them to the current one. Working with Text These tips work in most apps on the Mac, although big, legacy apps such as Word or InDesign often do things differently Quickly type out the phrases you regularly use If you ﬁnd yourself regularly typing the same things—whether that’s a single Unicode character that doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut, or an entire chunk of text such as an email signature or even just an email address—the built-in Text Replacement feature in OS X is a boon. Go to the Text tab of the Language & Text pane of System Preferences and click the +. Put the shortcut you want into the left column and the text you want it to expand to in the right. (One idea our friend Craig Grannell had is to preface all these shortcuts with “[[“ so that you don’t accidentally mistype something to trigger a macro.) You then have to make sure Edit > Substitutions > Text Replacement is checked in each of the apps you want this to work in. Quickly and perfectly select chunks of text Sure, you can use the mouse to clickand-drag a section of text, but you have to be quite precise to position the cursor perfectly—which slows you down—and you can often capture rogue spaces and punctuation that you then have to edit out if you’re copying and pasting. But there is a quicker way! 1. To select a word, position the mouse cursor anywhere along its length and then double-click. To select an entire paragraph, position the mouse cursor anywhere inside the paragraph and then click three times. But wait, there’s more! 2. Let’s say you want to select three words in a row. Position the cursor somewhere on the ﬁrst word then double-click, keeping your ﬁnger pressed down on the second click. Now drag left or right to the last word—you’ll see you’re now selecting a word at a time. 3. Not quite selected everything you wanted? Hold Shift and then click beyond your selection to add the text in between to the selection. Alternatively, to make a selection, position the cursor where you want the selection to start, scroll to the end, then click while holding Shift. select text in nonstandard layouts If, though, the text you’re selecting isn’t in a neat paragraph, you might think you can’t select it. But actually, that’s not so! Holding down Option brings up crosshairs to let you select a rectangle of text, which is ideal for copying columns of numbers, for example. Alternatively, holding down Command will let you select non-contiguous bits of text. “Non-contiguous” might be a phrase you’ve never come across before, but in this context it just means bits of text that aren’t next to each other in a sentence or paragraph. Let’s say we wanted to select the ﬁrst sentence of this tip and this paragraph at once; we can easily do that by selecting the opening sentence then select this paragraph while holding down Command. Best of all, you can combine the previous tip with this one, so you could click and drag to select the ﬁrst sentence and then triple click the paragraph while holding Command. Zap your cursor around the text for easy editing You waste a lot of time switching from the keyboard to the mouse to move your cursor around text. Force yourself to learn these text navigation shortcuts, though, and you’ll be zipping around your words in no time! Option + Left Arrow: Move one word to the left Command + Left Arrow: Move to the start of the line Replace the Left Arrow Key with the other arrow keys and see what happens! Add Shift to these commands to select text as you move Control + T: Transpose (swap) the two letters either side of the cursor get in-line synonyms, definitions, and more Sometimes when you’re writing, you might not always be able to reach for that perfect word. Or maybe you’re not even sure if you’ve used the right word and need to check, just in case. Or maybe you just want to do a bit of research for an essay, for instance. Happily, the built-in Dictionary in OS X puts synonyms, deﬁnitions and even Wikipedia within easy reach. Select a word or phrase with your mouse or using keyboard shortcuts and then either right-click the selection and click Look Up or tap Control + Command + D. In the pop-up window that appears, simply click the headings to open the standalone Dictionary app in that mode, and you can click the ellipsis to see more entries. Best of all, you can change the order that the dictionary, thesaurus, and so on appear in the Dictionary app’s preferences, so if you’re always reaching for synonyms but never use Wikipedia, say, you can move the thesaurus to the top and even disable Wikipedia entirely. maclife.com NOV•13 35 50 Awesome thIngs YOUR MAC CAN DO Working with Other Devices Get connected with your other gadgets to work better and smarter shAre A DvD DrIve wIth remote DIsC Remote Disc enables you to effectively share a DVD drive between multiple Macs, letting you, for example, use an older iMac’s SuperDrive with a MacBook Air to install software. To activate this on the Mac that has the disc drive, go to System Preferences > Sharing and check “DVD or CD Sharing,” then insert the disc you want to share. Make sure the other Mac is connected to the same network as the disc-laden one, then open a Finder window and look in the sidebar for Remote Disc in the Devices section. Click it, then double-click the computer you want to connect to. ConneCt to the Internet through Your iPhone The iPhone comes with a feature that enables it to share its 3G or 4G mobile broadband connection with other devices (though this must be allowed by your network operator), making it perfect for getting your Mac online wherever you are. There are three ways to connect your Mac to your iPhone to share its signal: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and USB. To begin, go to the Personal Hotspot option in the iPhone’s Settings menu, and turn it on. If you want to connect over Wi-Fi, ﬁnd the Wi-Fi network created by the iPhone in your Mac’s Wi-Fi options, select it, and enter the password shown in the iPhone. To connect using USB, plug your iPhone into your Mac and you should get a dialog that takes you to the Network section in System Preferences, from which you can select the iPhone. For Bluetooth, activate Bluetooth on both devices and pair them, and the connection option should again appear in System Preferences > Network. PrInt to the next AvAIlAble PrInter It can be annoying having to wait for someone else to print out large documents when you’re in a hurry, so use this tip to minimize the wait if you have access to more than one printer. In System Preferences > Print & Fax, you can select multiple printers and create a Printer Pool. You can then select this Pool from the print dialog in apps instead of your individual printers, and if one printer is in use, your Mac will automatically send the document to one that’s free instead—no waiting! use home shArIng to shAre Your itunes lIbrArY It’s pretty common for members of a family or a shared house to want to share their music or movies with each other, and you can do this easily with iTunes. Go to iTunes > Preferences > Sharing, and then check the box labelled “Share my library on my local network.” If you want to limit who can access your library, set a password in the box near the bottom, otherwise everyone will be able to access it. You can also limit sharing to particular areas or playlists in your iTunes library. Once Home Sharing is turned on, other iTunes users can see your library by clicking the Library drop-down menu in the top-left of iTunes. iOS device users can also access libraries through Home Sharing by going to the More tab in the Music or Videos apps. 36 NOV•13 maclife.com Get wireleSS auDiO anD ViDeO with airPlay AirPlay is Apple’s technology for streaming audio and video around your house, and it’s available on both iOS devices and Macs. Most Macs can stream audio to AirPlay speakers, while newer Macs can also mirror their displays to an Apple TV, letting you show something on the big screen. For basic AirPlay output from iTunes, you just need to click its symbol—the rectangle with the triangle cutting into it—next to the volume bar and choose where you want to send the music. If you want all of your system audio to come from the speakers instead of just music, though, hold Option and press a volume control key to open the Sound preferences, where you can choose an output (or use the Menu bar tip we already mentioned). If an Apple TV is on the same network as your Mac, an AirPlay icon will appear automatically in the menu bar. To start mirroring your screen, select it, then click on the name of your Apple TV. Share a Printer with Other MacS Network printers are incredibly useful, letting anyone on your network print wirelessly, but if you’ve got a great printer already connected to one Mac and don’t want to replace it, you can still get the same convenience. Go to System Preferences > Sharing and check the Printer Sharing service. This will bring up a screen where you can select the printer to share, and specify who can use it, if necessary. Once this is set up, any Mac on the network can access that printer from the print dialog, though the Mac the printer is connected to must be turned on. airPlay beams your tunes from room to room. Keep your Mac secure Make sure your machine is safe from prying eyes and sticky fingers aDD a GueSt uSer accOunt tO yOur Mac As you probably know, you can add multiple users to your Mac, so that every person in your home or ofﬁce, say, can have their own space to work and to set things up how they like them. But there’s another kind of account you can turn on: a Guest account. Turn it on in System Preferences > Users & Groups, and now you’ll be presented with Guest as an option at the login screen. Anyone can use it—no password needed—but once they’re ﬁnished, everything they do will be wiped. This is great not just for Macs in foyers or spare rooms, but also if a friend or colleague says, “Can I just borrow your Mac for a minute to do something?” You probably should turn off Automatic login and set your Security & Privacy settings to require a password after ﬁve seconds of sleep or screensaver time. That way you can be sure nobody will be able to access your stuff, but when they try to use your Mac they’ll be offered the option of switching user and can then pick Guest. reStrict what SOMeOne can DO—anD when! The Parental Controls in OS X are simple, but there are plenty of options in there—some of which are useful for other things than preventing underage access. You can limit computer use to a certain length of time every day, set a “bedtime” after which users won’t be able to use the computer, limit the functions of the Finder, limit which apps that user can use, and more. You could, for example, disallow a nervous computer user from modifying the Dock or changing their password. Set a bedtime for your Mac and its more junior users. use Guest accounts to set restrictions for each user of your Mac. maclife.com NOV•13 37 50 aWesoMe tHings YOUR MAC CAN DO Prevent Malicious aPPs Apple’s blessing), or from anywhere. That middle option is usually the best one—malicious apps should be prevented from running. If you have an “unsigned app” (one not from one of Apple’s trusted developers) that you’re sure is safe, you don’t have to switch to the least secure option in System Preferences. Right-click it, choose Open and then click Open in the dialog. If you’re running OS X 10.7 or later, you have a feature called Gatekeeper. Conﬁgured through the General tab of the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences, this tells your Mac whether it can run only apps from the App Store, apps from the App Store plus trusted developers (those who have been given avoid Keyloggers One method of attack is to capture what you type—with the intention to harvest passwords. To mitigate the risk of this, you can click letters using an on-screen keyboard. Go to Language & Text (or International on older systems) then Input Sources and check Keyboard & Character Viewer. Now launch the on-screen keyboard from the menu bar. Fixing Annoyances Fix quirks in a jiffy, from connectivity issues to resizing windows find Menu Bar oPtions QuicKly using HelP Some apps have more menu bar options than you can hope to keep track of, but instead of searching through each drop-down list manually, you can use the last Help menu to speed things up. It contains a search box, where you can type in the name of the option you’re looking for. Results come up underneath it, and hovering over a result will show you which menu it’s in, or you can just click the result to select it. 38 set Preferred Wi-fi netWorKs retrieve your forgotten PassWords taKe control of your WindoWs If there are a few different Wi-Fi networks that you connect to, you can set an order of preference for your Mac, so that it will always connect to the one you want if it’s available. Go to System Preferences > Network, click Wi-Fi if it’s not selected, and then click Advanced…. Here, you can drag networks up and down in the list to prioritize them, or select one and then click the minus button to remove it from the list altogether. If you can’t remember one of your login passwords for a website, you might be able to recover it from Keychain Access. Run Keychain Access from Utilities, then look in the list for the website you’re after. Right-click on it and select “Copy Password to Clipboard.” You’ll then be asked for your user login password to prove that you’re really you. Enter that and the missing password will be copied, so you can just paste it into the log-in ﬁeld. You can be quite ﬂexible when it comes to windows in OS X—not only can you drag from any side to resize them these days, but you can also hold Option to resize them from two sides at once (the one you’re dragging and the opposite one), or hold Shift to resize it while keeping it locked to the same proportions. And while we’re talking about windows, if you want to move any that are in the background without bringing them to the fore, hold Command and then drag them around. NOV•13 maclife.com have things ready at log-in Paste text without KeePing its Formatting When you copy text from some applications, and especially from the Internet, you tend to also copy its formatting, such as the text size, font choice, and so on. When you then paste this into some text ﬁelds, such as in an email, it looks out of place, and can make things hard to read. To paste the text without its original formatting (so it just formats in the same way as the rest of what you’re pasting into), instead of pressing Command + V, press Option + Shift + Command + V. Microsoft Word actually has a “Paste Special…” menu option to do the same thing. If there are certain apps that you’ll always want to have open when you start up your Mac, you can set this up in System Preferences. Go to Users, make sure your user account is highlighted, then click Login Items. Click the + and you can choose an application, ﬁle server, or pretty much anything else that should open when you log in. Once you’ve added something, you can use the checkboxes to opt to hide it, though it will still be running in the background. Having lots of these set up can make your Mac slower to start up, though, so if you need to speed things up and temporarily don’t need them running, hold Shift while OS X is logging you in to suppress them. Change whiCh aPP a File is oPened with see what your maC’s uP to with aCtivity monitor If you want a ﬁle to open in an app other than its default, select the ﬁle and press Command + I, to show its information. In the “Open with:” section, use the dropdown menu to choose a new app. If you just close the window here, that change will only be applied to that one ﬁle; if you want other ﬁles of that type to use that same app, click “Change All…” beneath the drop-down menu to roll it out system-wide. If you ﬁnd your Mac is running slowly, or the fans are kicking in when you don’t appear to be doing anything too intensive, you can see if you can identify what’s causing it. Activity Monitor in OS X shows you how your Mac’s resources are being used. Launch Activity Monitor from the Utilities folder to see current processes, and the resources they take up. The columns show you things such as the CPU usage of a process or the RAM it’s using. If there’s a process that’s hogging resources and you’re conﬁdent it’s not needed, you can end it by selecting it, then clicking Quit Process. If you’re just curious about how system resources are being used, click the tabs (CPU, System Memory, and so on) to see graphs of your usage over time. BaCK uP your maC Okay, so we know that people haven’t actually forgotten they can back up with their Mac, but we also know that many people don’t bother. Please do! Ever since OS X 10.5, Apple has made it easy to back up using Time Machine. Ideally, you should be doing other things to back up as well, but at least do Time Machine; you can pick up a 2TB drive for around $100. Go on. Do it today! maclife.com NOV•13 39 Join THE PodcasT REVoLUTion There’s never been a better time to create your own audio podcast—here’s everything you need to know to get started 40 NOV•13 maclife.com by Justin Cheng, Chris baryliCk, andrew hayward, Chris hoffman, and Chris slate O n July 23rd of this year, Apple announced that it had reached one billion podcast subscriptions via iTunes. One billion. This number is spread among 250,000 shows available in more than 100 languages with more than 8 million episodes published, and it’s safe to say that audiences’ appetites for quality podcast content will only be getting bigger. Since rocketing into the spotlight in the mid-2000s, podcasts have become an amazing medium with which anyone can share their thoughts and opinions on any topic imaginable. Relatively cheap to produce (you can start with your Mac’s built-in microphone or a single external USB mic and build from there) and easy to set up for a free subscription via the iTunes Store and an RSS feed, audio podcasting is as affordable and effective a way to build and maintain an audience as anything available, no matter what you happen to be discussing. If you’re an Apple-device owner, chances are you already have one or more of those billion podcast subscriptions. But what if just listening isn’t enough? What if you’re ready to take the next step and start podcasting yourself? Luckily, we have you covered. Over the next several pages, we’ll show you how to plan, buy for, set up, record, edit, and publish your own podcast (as well as provide some insight and advice from podcasting pros). maclife.com NOV•13 41 JOIN THE PODcAST REVOLUTION GETTING STARTED O bviously, the ﬁrst step toward making your own podcast is deciding what the show is all about. Do you have a hobby that you’re passionate about? Do you want to educate people on a particular subject? Do you know some interesting people who you want to interview? Whatever topic you choose, you should make sure it’s something that you care about enough to talk about with some regularity. Also, you’re better off not emulating existing podcasts; it’s ﬁne to cover the same topics as other programs, but you should try to have something original to bring to the table. Once your content is locked down, you can decide whether or not you need a co-host (or co-hosts). 42 Podcasting by yourself is certainly a viable option, but should you decide you want co-hosts, you might want to take a couple of things into consideration. Your co-hosts should not only be knowledgeable about the subject of your show, but they must also be entertaining. Most importantly, you should all share a rapport and have fun conversing with each other. After all, if you don’t enjoy creating a podcast, people won’t enjoy listening to it. If you’re not sure how you want to format the show, look to your favorite podcasts for inspiration. Shows such as This American Life and Radiolab adopt a more journalistic style. Comedian Dana Gould produces a hybrid podcast wherein prerecorded sketches and If you’re not sure about your podcast’s content or format, there’s plenty of inspiration to be found on iTunes. Before you record, you’ll want to come up with a rough outline to help keep things on track. A dedicated Twitter account is a great but simple way to stay in touch with your listeners. Not every podcast website can be as robust as Nerdist’s, but it’s something to strive for. NOV•13 maclife.com Alternative Apps Apple’s own Podcasts (free, universal) is an adequate iOS app for managing feeds, but for many, it’s too limited and cumbersome to get the job done. Here are four other recommended options for staying atop your listening habits. INSTACAST ($4.99, universal) Heavy listeners who want their podcasts in sync on all devices can look to Instacast for such convenience. The iOS and Mac versions share the same account and let you manage your feeds and ﬁles everywhere with ease. DOWNCAST ($1.99, universal) Packed with numerous options for power users, Downcast includes handy gesture controls for playback, support for AirPlay plus Bluetooth remotes, and the ability to schedule downloads based on date or even location. MILITARY STRENGTH. CIVILIAN PROTECTION. PELICAN PROGEAR™ VAULT SERIES FOR IPHONE® 5 AGOGO (Free, iPhone) This dazzling new kid on the block (reviewed on page 61) is more discovery-minded, serving up curated channels that let you browse a wide array of content. You can save favorites to your “GO Channel” for easy access. POCKET CASTS ($1.99, iPhone) Both attractive and functional, Pocket Casts offers an easy-to-use interface but also deeper features for die-hards, like playlists, automated dumping of older episodes, and the ability to share speciﬁc positions within podcasts. monologues are folded into panel discussions. The Giant Bombcast is a free-form discussion of video games and other topics. Consider what would work best and is most realistically achievable for you, and don’t forget that you can always shift formats down the line. While a podcast can be nothing more than random ramblings, it’s generally a good idea to have some sort of structure. Creating an outline will help remind you of which points you want to hit. Of course, you should also give yourself the freedom to veer off topic if that’s where the conversation takes you. Just be careful not to stray too far from the topics that brought your listeners to your show in the ﬁrst place. And ﬁnally, remember that social media is a podcast’s best friend and will go a long way toward helping you both promote the show and grow your audience. By setting up dedicated accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, et al, you’ll be able to keep your audience informed and up to date. If you want, you can even consider creating a dedicated website for your podcast. Protect your iPhone® 5 with genuine Pelican built toughness. Made with the highest quality polymers and aircraft grade aluminum along with design innovations that cradle your phone. Tested to military speciﬁcations and guaranteed for life. Tested to protect against dust and dirt. Full seal stops wind-driven rain. Military Standard drop tested to 6 ft. Elastomeric lining protects electronics. Superior audio performance. FROM THE VETERANS OF PROTECTION SEE THE FULL LINE AT PELICANPROGEAR.COM © 2013 Pelican Products, Inc. All trademarks are registered and/ or unregistered trademarks of Pelican Products, Inc., its afﬁliates or subsidiaries. iPhone® is a registered trademarks of Apple, Inc. JOin thE pOdcaSt REVOlutiOn EquipmEnt and REcORding SOlO OR REmOtEly O nce you’re ready to take the podcasting plunge, you’ll have to decide how and where to record your show. Will you opt for the affordability and convenience of recording at your desktop, or will you try to use a studio-style setting that’s more conducive to capturing the natural ﬂow that comes from in-person conversations? For ﬂedgling podcasters (and those creating their podcasts without co-hosts), recording remotely from your personal computer presents a ﬁne option. There are some beneﬁts to this. First and foremost, you can record with pretty much anyone, regardless of location. For instance, Chris Johnston started the video-game-focused Player One Podcast in part because “it’s become a good way to catch up with friends that are now hundreds or thousands of miles away.” Second, recording over the Internet can be a cheaper alternative, as the initial investment for equipment is generally lower than setting up a studio space. “When we started, we were using USB headsets that came with the PlayStation 2 game SOCOM,” Johnston says. “As long as you have a mic and means to upload an MP3, that’s good enough to start!” Of course, better equipment means better audio quality, and there are a wide array of options for those willing to pony up a bit more cash. Blue Microphone’s Snowball ($69.95), used by everyone in the Player One Podcast crew, is actually one of the better bang-for-yourbuck USB microphones. The Snowball is a condenser mic, so it’s more sensitive to audio than a dynamic one, thus making it an ideal choice for the spoken word. Blue’s Yeti ($149.95) is on the higher end, but it is the goto USB mic for podcasters for a reason. This condenser mic’s audio quality is great, and the Yeti has a wide array of options for adjusting the audio—most crucially, unlike the Snowball, the Yeti has a knob that allows you to control the gain on the ﬂy. For those who want truly professional-sounding recordings, the Shure PG42USB ($249) is the mic for you. While the price tag is higher than either of Blue’s offerings, the microphone has its own carrying case (fancy!) that includes a shock mount. In addition to microphones, you can invest in microphone stands, pop guards, and shock mounts—all of which serve to reduce all the random environmental noises that can take away from the spoken audio. But the only truly essential pieces of equipment are a computer, a mic, an Internet connection, and a pair of headphones. This last one is so that you can hear what your co-hosts are saying without having your mic pick up their audio. One affordable option is to use the EarPods that come with an iPod or iPhone. In addition to the equipment, some applications are tOOlS Of thE tRadE The Snowball offers quality but won’t break the bank. 44 NOV•13 maclife.com Blue’s Yeti sets the standard for USB microphones. The Shure PG42USB is pricey but professional-sounding. pals, everyone needs a way to record their own individual audio tracks, as this method produces the best-sounding audio quality for the end product. On the Player One Podcast, the hosts use Audio Hijack Pro (http://bit.ly/ ML_AHPro; $32 for a license) to record their own tracks. Another option is to have you and your co-hosts use the robust audio-recording and -editing application Audacity (http:// audacity.sourceforge.net; free) or GarageBand. To make things easier for the editor, it helps to have some sort of guideline to ensure all the disparate audio tracks can Audacity is a good way to record your side of the conversation during an over-the-Internet discussion. It’s nice for editing, too! be lined up correctly. Some folks will do something as simple as have everyone start recording on the count of three. Johnston uses the aforementioned Audio Hijack Pro to record a master track (which, despite having less ﬁdelity, can serve as a backup in case someone’s individually recorded track is unusable for some reason). Another option in a similar vein is Call Recorder (http://bit.ly/ML_ CallRec; $29.95) for Skype. This program does exactly what it says: it records your Skype calls (both audio and video). The recording quality is determined by your call quality, so it’s still best Audio Hijack Pro allows you to record any audio source, which means to have everyone record his own audio just in you can save both an individual and a master track. case Skype gets wonky. required. (Those looking to record a solo podcast can When the show has wrapped up, each person needs skip to the next paragraph.) First, you need a way to to export the recorded audio ﬁles into a manageable get in touch with your co-hosts. Skype (www.skype. audio format. MP3 is one of the easiest formats to com; free) is the most commonly used program for work with, as you’ve still got good quality with a this, but Johnston uses Google Hangouts (www.google. relatively small ﬁle size. These MP3 ﬁles can then be com/hangouts), which he prefers for the video options sent to the editor via Dropbox (www.dropbox.com), and ease of posting to YouTube. SendSpace (www.sendspace.com), or similar solutions, After you have a way to get in contact with your and the editing process can begin. Our Favorite Podcasts Looking for a new podcast to listen to? Here’s what the Mac|Life crew enjoys during the morning commute WTF WITH MArc MAron Comedians, movie stars, musicians, and more join comic Marc Maron in his garage for interviews that can be funny, enlightening, and very often, surprisingly personal. HoW dId THIs geT MAde? Comedians Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas pick apart terrible movies. Whether the ﬁlms are so awful that they’re good, or they’re just plain awful, each episode is a goofy good time. BreAkIng BAd InsIder Even if you’ve seen every episode of Breaking Bad, the ofﬁcial podcast—hosted by editor Kelley Dixon and series creator Vince Gilligan— offers a fascinating look into one of TV’s greatest shows. THe nerdIsT Chris Hardwick (host of Taking Dead, Talking Bad, and numerous top-tier Comic-Con panels) sits down with celebs such as Joss Whedon and Tom Hanks for long, funny, all-over-the-place interviews. maclife.com NOV•13 45 JoIn The podcasT reVoluTIon equIpmenT and recordIng In a sTudIo I t might not always be feasible, but recording faceto-face in a studio setting is, in many ways, the best way to record a podcast. “You’re actually able to see the reactions of the people you’re talking with, which might not seem like a big deal, but it actually makes a huge difference in the back-and-forth of the podcast,” explains Randy Nelson, producer of the horror-movie-focused Zombie Grrlz podcast. “It’s also much easier to control the sound quality, as you’re all in the same environment, with the same microphones, and adjustments can be made in real time.” The ideal setup is a studio wherein every person has his own mic. Fortunately, you don’t need to spend an arm and leg to create your studio space. You can set up a desk, a laptop, a few microphones, and you’ve got your podcast studio well underway. “Probably the most important piece of equipment is a good mic setup. A lot of new shows I hear tend to use the onboard mic from a laptop or desktop computer. This is good in a pinch, but the audio quality tends to be a little rough and can be a major turnoff to listeners,” says Will Scovill, creator of the Roof Pizza Chronicles, a Breaking Bad–centric podcast, as well as the Escapist Comics podcast, which focuses on comic books and pop culture. Scovill, along with Jacob Rubin, began with a relatively low-key setup composed of an early 2012 MacBook Pro and a few Behringer XM8500 mics ($24.99 each), which are good, affordable, dependable microphones. If you want to spend a few more bucks, Shure’s SM58 ($99.99) includes a built-in spherical ﬁlter that helps minimize background noise and pick up the main sound source, plus it includes a shock-mount system and steel grill that allows it to take its fair share of bumps. On the very high end is the Shure SM7B ($349.99), which delivers a rich, clean, studio-quality sound. Whichever mics you choose, you’ll want to have some high-quality, comfortable headphones, such as the Koss Pro 4AA ($99.99), as well as a good mixer. As Nelson explains, a mixer allows you to “really ﬁne-tune the volume levels for each person who’s speaking, as well as the tone of their voice—bass, treble, and so on—before it even gets to your computer.” The M-Audio Fast Track Pro ($199.99) delivers clean, crisp, 24-bit sound, and has a convenient USB interface and XLR ports for direct microphone and instrument connections. A more expensive option is the Zoom R16 ($399.99). Although it lacks XLR ports, the R16 features eight microphone inputs that are recorded independently. Additionally, this mixer can be powered by AA batteries in a pinch and can also save your audio ﬁles to an SD card. Tools of The Trade The Koss Pro 4AA headphones provide distraction-free recording. The Zoom H2n is great for recording on location. 46 NOV•13 maclife.com For studio-style recording, you’ll need a good mixer, such as the Zoom R16. For affordability, the Behringer ZM8500 is hard to beat. The Shure SM7B is a fantastic but expensive studio mic. The great thing about the current state of technology, however, is that you don’t have to re-create a radio station in your living room to sound like a professional. You can use devices such as the Zoom H2n or Zoom H4n, two audio recorders that can also function as USB mics. The H2n ($179.99) is a good all-around recorder that Johnston uses when gathering his local friends to record his movie-focused podcast, the Stream On Show. “I’d previously used very cheap voice memo recorders, but when you’re out in the ﬁeld, those pick up a lot of outside noise,” Johnston tells us. “The H2n is affordable and produces a clean sound even in noisy areas.” If you want a few more bells and whistles, go with the H4n ($269.99). “Aside from being a roving and internally recording condenser mic, its ability to take two inputs of any kind—even phantom-powered XLR—and function as a contained soundboard won me over,” explains Chris Ho, host of Transformers-themed podcast WTF@TFW. “The Zoom’s internal mic was good enough to make an interview audible that was recorded in the 90,000-plusperson show ﬂoor of New York Comic-Con 2011.” With your equipment in order, the recording process can begin in earnest. It’s important for you, your co-hosts, and your guests to be comfortable. (Offering free coffee and snacks helps, according to Brandon Fisher, creator of the Washington, D.C.–based Comedic Intent podcast.) On the technical side, you need to monitor the audio levels of each person (as mentioned before, adjusting levels on the ﬂy is a snap with a mixer), and you need something to record the audio to. Nelson records a single audio track on his 2011 MacBook Pro using Audacity—the track is then exported as an AIFF so it can be imported into GarageBand for editing. Naturally, this uncompressed, lossless format translates to a large ﬁle size, so exporting as a compressed MP3 also works if hard drive space is a concern for you. With a few pieces of good equipment, you can turn your living room into a makeshift recording studio. JoIN ThE poDcasT REVoLUTIoN EDITING R GarageBand is our preferred editing software because it’s a powerful yet easy-to-use application. egardless of whether you recorded your show in a studio or via the Internet, you’re likely going to need to do some editing before you can upload it to your listeners. Perhaps you want to add music, delete some unwanted background noise, or excise the dead air of an intermission; you’ll also likely need to combine multiple audio tracks. Whatever the case may be, you’ll need to utilize a piece of editing software. Audacity is powerful editing tool and is certainly a good (and free!) option, but we prefer GarageBand because it offers a lot of features with a user-friendly interface. During the editing process, it’s tempting to overdo it and start making lots of cuts in order to produce a clean-sounding show. However, this takes away from the natural ﬂow of the conversations. Ho advises that podcasting neophytes learn to “let the room breathe.” He continues, “It is enticing and alluring to remove every single fault like pauses and false starts, but this will turn editing into a grind that will likely burn you out, sometimes hard enough to outright end a podcast.” This was something Johnston encountered during the early days of the Player One Podcast. “For a 90-minute show, it used to take me several hours, maybe even a full afternoon, to get everything done,” Johnston says. TIps fRom ThE pRos “Make your ﬁrst 10 episodes (at least) in utter secrecy. Seriously. Tell no one. Toil in the shadows until you’re in love with your format, your rapport, everything. Then and only then should you tell everyone you know. You usually get one shot to win over a listener. Make sure you’re ready for it.” —Justin McElroy, co-host of My Brother, My Brother and Me and Sawbones “Let your audience ﬁnd you. There are a lot of podcasts out there and it can be daunting to start a new one, but of you keep at it and share it with your friends, your bigger audience will eventually ﬁnd you. Podcasting is 99 percent of the time entirely unproﬁtable, so do it for the passion of a hobby or conversation, and eventually you’ll foster a core listenership who themselves become an integral piece of the machine.” — Chris Ho, host of WTF@TFW 48 NOV•13 maclife.com “After a while, I started to not mind the pauses and it got to a point where I just could not spend four to ﬁve hours editing anymore. Now, it probably takes about an hour from start to ﬁnish and most of that time is selecting interstitial music and exporting the MP3.” Speaking of music, jingles can help make your podcast stand out, but make sure the songs are “podsafe” (i.e., royalty-free). Creating your own jingle is an option, but not everyone is conﬁdent in that arena. Fortunately, GarageBand has a wide array of prefab loops in its arsenal, and there are several repositories of podsafe music on the Internet. After assembling all the various components, you’re ready to export the ﬁnal ﬁle. Johnston recommends “64kbps mono MP3, constant bit rate. Those are the settings I’ve found most spoken-word podcasts use, and it outputs a smaller ﬁle that can be downloaded over cellular networks if people listen that way.” Ho prefers making an enhanced podcast in GarageBand, exporting the podcast in M4A ﬁle format. “The ﬁrst big plus for M4A is that it’s generally a higher quality output at the same ﬁle size,” notes Ho. For example, he says, a 48kps M4A “is technically closer to a 96kps MP3 as a higher-quality option at no additional bandwidth.” Furthermore, an M4A allows for “chapters and chapter pictures, which both enhance the presentation and production quality and allow listeners to easily hop around the podcast.” Because M4A isn’t always the friendliest with non-Apple devices, though, he also releases a 48kps MP3 in order to reach the widest possible audience. You don’t have to be a professional to make a podcast, but here’s the advice we received from some experienced podcasters “Watch your scale. Your goal should be to do something that’s consistently great. If that means it’s consistently great and really small, that’s ﬁne. Hugely ambitious failures are what you’re trying to avoid.” —Jesse Thorn, host and producer of Bullseye and Jordan, Jesse, Go! “Talk about what you love, not what you think others love. If you try to record a podcast with the idea of “I will talk about x-y-z because everyone likes it” you wont succeed. When you talk about what you love you speak honestly and passionately. And remember that thing you love? Yeah, your listeners love it, too. After all, isn’t that why they download your show? Respect their love and don’t ever be fake. That’s what radio is for.” —James Bricknell, co-host of Techfoolery publishing O K, so now you’ve got this ﬁle that’s ready for publishing. How do you get it out into the world? You have several options, all of which require varying amounts of work and/or money. Aside from creating your own server and hosting the ﬁles yourself (which, among other issues, can make downloading slow for your listeners due to the typically slow upload speeds of most ISPs), a free way to get started is to use the Internet Archive (www.archive.org). It’s a non-proﬁt library of all kinds of Internet stuff—your podcast ﬁles included, should you choose to upload them there. It’s not a fast solution, though, so a ﬁle-hosting service such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (http://aws.amazon. com/s3) is probably a better, albeit more expensive, bet. (Amazon S3 charges only for the space you’re using, though.) Once you’ve got someplace to put your podcast ﬁles, you can create a blog (www.blogger.com or http://wordpress.com, for instance) that directs to said ﬁles. With the blog complete, you can use Feedburner (https://feedburner.google.com) to create a podcast RSS feed—check the box next to “I am a podcaster!” to get the process started, and follow the step-by-step instructions on Feedburner to get up and running. Podcast-speciﬁc services such as Blubrry (www. blubrry.com), Podbean (www.podbean.com), and Libsyn (www.libsyn.com) are one-stop shops that are convenient ways to get your podcast up and running— you just upload the ﬁles and create an RSS feed through Libsyn makes it easy to get your show up and running, but you have to pay a bit more for the convenience. them. Unfortunately, they are also less ﬂexible and can be more expensive than ﬁnding some other storage solution. (Blubrry starts at $12 per month for 100MB of monthly storage, for example, and Libsyn starts at $5 per month for 50MB of monthly storage.) But the pros outweigh the cons for Libsyn-user Chris Johnston: “The reason I went with them is that it’s a ﬂat monthly price no matter how many downloads you have, and the amount of storage you get rolls so all our old ﬁles are still hosted and don’t count against our new ones. It gives us a lot of freedom without having to worry about bandwidth costs. If the show were expensive to host, we’d have stopped a long time ago.” No matter which path you choose, the end goal is the same: create an RSS feed. With this, listeners can start downloading your show with ease. Plus, you can submit your RSS feed to Apple via iTunes in order to hopefully get your show on the iTunes Store, as that’s the best way for people to discover your podcast. Of course, you have to wait for Apple to review and then approve or reject your show, ﬁrst. But if you follow Apple’s guidelines, you should be good to go and ready to present your podcast to the world. Once everything’s set up, you can try to get your show listed on the iTunes Store. Creating an RSS feed for your podcast is a snap with Google’s Feedburner. maclife.com NOV•13 49 START NOW ON ANY MOBILE DEVICE RENT OVER 8,000 NEW RELEASES AND CLASSICS BUY NEW OR USED & PRE-ORDER UPCOMING GAMES DOWNLOAD PC TITLES WITH THE GAMEFLY CLIENT CONNECT ANYWHERE USING THE GAMEFLY APP COMING SOON PS4 & XBOX ONE GAMES © 2013 GameFly, Inc. GAMEFLY and the GF Logo are trademarks of GameFly, Inc. All other marks used under license by their respective owners. Unless you cancel your account, your credit card will be charged for the price of your game plan at the end of your free trial. You must be 18 years of age or older and reside inside the 50 United States to use the GameFly service. Dropbox google Drive 2GB Free dropbox.com 15GB Free drive.google.com SugarSync 5GB Free sugarsync.com CompAring Clouds A good cloud sync service is an essential tool for any OS X user. We all use a plethora of devices these days: work computer, home computer, iPad, and iPhone. Setting up a decent cloud sync service makes all the difference to your day. Maybe you use USB sticks to transfer ﬁles. You can still do this, but it’s unnecessary in the modern age. A good cloud sync service is much easier to use, and with so much competition, they all offer a free service that’s often good enough. Typically, these services provide a folder in OS X Finder where you can drop ﬁles. These are then uploaded to the cloud server and appear in the same folder on any other Macs (or PCs) you have connected to the service. As a bonus, you can usually access the ﬁles via a website, or from a compatible iOS app where they can be sent to your apps. This is usually easier than using iTunes Sharing. Dropbox is the 800-pound gorilla here. With over 100 million 52 NOV•13 maclife.com Dropbox has competition from a range of cloud sync services; we take a look at six of the best BY mArk HAttersleY users and near universal software integration, it’s a familiar name. Dropbox has become so entrenched now that even Apple is ﬁnding it difﬁcult to dislodge. Apple’s own iCloud has a Documents In The Cloud feature. This performs a somewhat similar function to the other services here, although it saves ﬁles inside applications rather than using a folder in the Finder. Because it works differently, we decided to put it to one side and look at the other services rivaling Dropbox. Microsoft and Google are the real contenders here. Each is a big company with even bigger bankrolls, and both are willing to pay for this market. Both have deals that outstrip Dropbox, but do the services match what Dropbox offers? Also, there are lesser-known services like Box, SugarSync, and Wuala: these all offer unique features that could steal you away. With so many choices available, we decided to put them to the test. SkyDrive 7GB Free skydrive.live.com Box Wuala 5GB Free box.com 5GB Free wuala.com clouD Sync ServiceS | at a glance Dropbox SugarSync google Drive box SkyDrive Wuala 2GB 5GB 15GB 5GB 7GB 5GB MiniMuM paiD capacity 100GB 60GB 100GB 25GB 27GB 20GB MaxiMuM paiD capacity 500GB 500GB 16TB 1TB 1TB 2TB MiniMuM price (Monthly) $9.99 $7.49 $4.99 $5 N/A $3.99 MiniMuM price (yearly) $99 $74.99 N/A N/A $10 $39 File Size liMit None None 10GB 250GB (free) 250GB (free) 40GB verSion reStore Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes lan Sync Yes No No No No No Free capacity w maclife.com NOV•13 53 cOmParing clOuDs google Drive is half the price of Dropbox with a whopping 15gB free space. sharing ﬁles and folders in Dropbox is a cinch. TesT One TesT TWO File syncing File sharing Performance between multiple Macs We copied a 4.65GB folder containing various ﬁle types to each sync space. Syncing was painless with Dropbox, but we exceeded the miserly 2GB limit so the movies didn’t make it. Google Drive is virtually identical to Dropbox. However, Google offers a whopping 15GB of free space, so no problems with our test ﬁles. At $4.99 per month, it’s also half the price of Dropbox. Microsoft offers 7GB free with SkyDrive, but 20GB extra costs just $10 per year; it’s by far the cheapest option. However, the free service had a pitiful 250MB limit and there’s even a 2GB ﬁle limit on the paid-for edition. Our HD movie wouldn’t sync at all. SugarSync now features a single folder system, although you can still manage Finder folders. It’s good for micro-managers, but a bit much compared to other services here. Box had the most complex setup and Wuala was a bit of an oddball. It has a separate app window that you copy ﬁles to instead of using the Finder. Only Dropbox uses LAN, so it copies ﬁles much faster on a local network. TesT ResulTs DroPbox AWesOMe SugarSync sOlID google DrIve AWesOMe box WeAK SkyDrIve GReAT Wuala WeAK Is the interface any better than iTunes? Dropbox and Google Cloud win the simplicity award. They’re not secure but it’s quick and easy to share links to ﬁles. You can also set up and invite people to shared folders. SugarSync opens a Share window with link copy, email, Facebook, and Twitter; more complexity but more detail. The paid-for version of Box holds all the aces here. It features powerful group-based sharing and access, complete with access notiﬁcations, version history, and statistics and tracking. Between this and the price, Box is really an enterprise solution. Wuala turned out to be powerful, and easy to use thanks to its single-window system. It also has great group sharing, allowing multiple users to work on folders. Sharing in SkyDrive is performed completely through the website, which is a hassle, but you can get HTML embed code, which is a nice touch. Box (if you pay for it) and Wuala seemed to have the upper edge here, although both Dropbox and Google Drive serve up nononsense links with ease. TesT ResulTs DroPbox GReAT SugarSync sOlID google DrIve GReAT box AWesOMe SkyDrIve WeAK Wuala GReAT hOW We TesTeD on the surface, most cloud services seem to offer the same thing, so discovering the quirks and nuances of each system involved plenty of detailed testing. We installed each service one at a time with its default basic setup and a clean free account to a Mac Pro, Macbook air, and Macbook Pro, and copied a 4.46gb folder containing music, movies, photos, Word Testing involved documents, and PDFs. The installing iPad apps for compatible ﬁles were dropped into services. the sync folder and then 54 NOV•13 maclife.com synchronization tested on the notebooks. because sync speed is dependent upon your local connection, we tested for stability and service, checking for incomplete syncing and errors in ﬁles. With all the ﬁles copied, we then tested sharing ﬁles to a second person using an email service, a link ﬁle shared through social media, and setting up groups with multiple accounts on the same service. Finally, we installed the iPad version of the compatible apps, and tested previewing ﬁles inside the app, editing ﬁles, sharing ﬁles to other ioS apps, and sharing ﬁles from the app. We also looked at ﬁve non-apple productivity apps to see which services they natively supported. sugarsync has the most best-looking interface and caters well to media. Huge capacity options and google docs integration are in google drive’s favor. TesT THRee TesT FOUR iOs InTegRaTIOn addITIOnal FeaTURes How good is the native iOS app? Dropbox is the pacesetter here, with an app that’s functional and clutter-free. You can preview, share and send ﬁles to other iOS apps. Photos can be auto-uploaded from iOS to the Dropbox folder. Google Drive is an extremely similar app with one key difference. It enables users to create and edit Google documents. The free word processor and spreadsheet are compelling extras. SugarSync is visually the most pleasing app and it’s great for accessing photos, music, and movies. Both SkyDrive and Box are minimalist, and the less said about Wuala the better. It’s just a basic list view of ﬁles. Where Dropbox dominates is third-party apps. We tested ﬁve: Byword, Documents To Go, Notability, iThoughts, and Penultimate. All ﬁve apps supported Dropbox; three apps supported Box, two supported Google Drive and only one— Documents To Go—supported SugarSync. Not a single thirdparty app on our list supported SkyDrive or Wuala. TesT ResulTs DrOpbOx AWesOMe SugarSync sOlID gOOgle Drive AWesOMe bOx sOlID SkyDrive WeAK Wuala AWFul What features does each service have? There’s a lot of innovation and interesting ideas here. Dropbox has the best implementation of recovering deleted ﬁles. Most services here enable version control, but Dropbox nails it. Google Drive goes all the way up to a whopping 16TB if you can afford it. So if you have a massive project, Google can support it. And it has the aforementioned Google Docs integration as well, which is incredibly welcome given the right team environment. SkyDrive lets you to edit and create Microsoft Ofﬁce documents using Microsoft’s online web browser (although not, tellingly, in the iPad or iPhone app). If security and privacy are important, Wuala is the one to get. Encryption uses a 256-bit algorithm and THe WInneR | gOOgle dRIVe RSA-2048 for key exchange and signatures, and it happens at the client side, not at Wuala, so they couldn’t access your ﬁles even if they wanted to. Wuala also has a great backup feature implemented; you can choose folders and locations for periodical backup alongside regular syncing. TesT ResulTs DrOpbOx AWesOMe SugarSync WeAK gOOgle Drive GReAT bOx WeAK SkyDrive WeAK Wuala AWesOMe TesT ResulTs DrOpbOx Dropbox remains the most universal service on test here, and it’s still extremely good at what it does. Most people who pay for Dropbox are GReAT more than happy with it. Just as long as they don’t look at google Drive. What’s clear is both google and Microsoft are serious about owning this market. For its part, google has created a service that’s almost identical to Dropbox, but with ﬁve times as much free space and half the price for premium space. Throw in native google Docs compatibility and google makes it worth your while to switch. The only snag is that Dropbox still has much wider third-party app integration, so take a look at your commonly used apps carefully. but switch to google Drive if you can. sOlID SugarSync gOOgle Drive AWesOMe bOx WeAK SkyDrive sOlID Wuala WeAK maclife.com NOV•13 55 >>>App|Life DISCOVER THIS MONTH’S MOST INTERESTING iPHONE & iPAD APPS! Disney AnimAteD An enchAnting look behind the Mouse house’s efforts By AnDReW HAyWARD J ust as Disney has long made drawings come to life with its many classic animated ﬁlms, the Disney Animated app takes what could have been a solid, static book and makes it feel exuberant and entertaining as an interactive experience, full of behind-thescenes footage and touch-based activities. The iPad app explores the long history of Disney’s in-house animation efforts, detailing the process step by step while explaining its many aspects using more than just words. Equal parts history lesson and breezy breakdown of making an animated motion picture, Disney Animated winds through chapters pertaining to story development, visual effects, and much more, with each blurb of text supported by pertinent examples. In some cases, these are simply still animation cels or sketches that you can tap to see larger on the screen with a caption, or expand out into a full-screen view. And in a playful touch, you can drag visual items around the screen and watch the text and other images react by shifting and jiggling about. But in addition to still images, the hefty app (a 1.78GB download) is also ﬁlled with video clips. You’ll be able to see how rough animatics are transformed into vibrant, ﬁnished clips on the big screen, as well as watch classic making-of segments, including one in which Walt Disney himself voices Mickey Mouse in the character’s earliest cartoon exploits. There’s some really fascinating stuff along the way. Interactive activities are sure to spark the imagination of younger users, as you can add and remove layers from animation cels at points, animate a 3D model of Vanellope from Wreck-It Ralph, and even create snow effects via the same animation algorithm used in the upcoming CG ﬂick Frozen. While most are very simple diversions, there are a couple of true standouts in the pack. The most amazing of the bunch is an interactive color map that includes each tiny frame from every Disney animated ﬁlm over the years, letting you see how animators use color to tell each story. Not only does Disney Animated make learning about animation a fun process, but it’s also a stellar historical document, as it includes info on all 53 you can see how a character evolved during its creation, and of the company’s animated click each example for a caption or closer look. 56 NOV•13 maclife.com features (excluding Pixar’s efforts, sadly) plus classic trailers for many of them. Touch Press has established itself as a leader in interactive iOS book apps thanks to titles like The Elements and Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomy, and Disney Animated may be its most impressive work to date, putting its deep access to the Disney archives to fantastic use. the bottom line. Opening up the Disney vault proves a tremendous experience in Disney Animated. the Workshop activity lets you reposition and animate Vanellope von schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph. Disney AnimAteD 1.0.0 Walt Disney www.disney.com Platform: iPad Price: $13.99 Requirements: iPad running iOS 6.0 or later Rich, interactive slides let you learn about animation through sight, sound, and touch rather than just words on a screen. Great historical look at Disney’s rise, pioneering techniques, and creations. Incredible array of content held within. Doesn’t include Disney/Pixar ﬁlms (only in-house projects). AWesOme djay 2 Back for another go-round Whether or not you’ve ever scratched a record—or used the prior version, for that matter—your ﬁngers will immediately know what to do with djay 2’s exquisite interface. And it’s even more fun this time around. The updated dual-turntable design turns up the volume on the realism, polishing the rougher edges and adding grooves to the digital vinyl that corresponds with the rhythm of each song. Your stack of wax is even easier to browse with a fresh music library that keeps track of your history and lets you quickly queue songs as you spin. But the killer new feature is the color-coded waveform layer, Algoriddim’s answer to Traktor DJ’s touchable grooves. It’s here where djay 2 breaks convention and takes advantage of the iPad’s inﬁnite interface possibilities. With a tap, the turntables slide out of view and a pair of sound waves appears, scrolling up to the music. Swipes and pinches manipulate the music as if you were still scratching, but the rainbows that ﬂy by aren’t a trippy visualizer—each color DJAy 2 2.0.1 corresponds to a different Algoriddim instrument so you can see www.algoriddim.com Platform: iPad where each verse begins. Price: $9.99 Djay’s interface of sliders, eXCellenT faders, and buttons has OUR FAVORITE APPS ChrIS S. Countdown+ Countdown+ (free, universal) offers a quick overview of important upcoming events, organized chronologically by the days, hours, and minutes left until they happen. I like to list upcoming movies, games, and TV shows I’m looking forward to, so each check-in reminds me of the next cool thing coming up. always been about multitasking, but a new built-in sampler adds even more personalization to your mix. An array of beats and blasts are spread out over 12 mini-drum pads that respond to every touch, but if you don’t ﬁnd the sound you’re looking for, you can create your own. The custom sampler lets you quickly capture a portion of what’s playing and save it to one of the banks for later. The bottom line. Serious scratchers and dabbling DJs alike will ﬁnd even more to love in djay 2.—Michael Simon Visual tweaks make the digital disc-spinning interface even better. Each month, the Mac|Life staff gives you a peek inside our iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches to show you the latest gems, oddities, and WTFs that we’ve uncovered in the App Store MIkel ChrIS h. Audiobooks from Audible G.I. Joe: Battleground audiobooks make my lengthy commute a lot more interesting, but they can cost $20–$50 a pop. audible’s one-book-for-$15-amonth subscription model is pretty handy, and audiobooks from audible (free, universal) conveniently keeps them all within reach. G.I. joe: Battleground (free, universal) isn’t the deepest collectiblecard game around, but my grade-schoolage self loves it. Pick-up-and-play simplicity and nicely drawn art make it easy to dive in, and you aren’t clubbed over the head with in-app purchases. AnDrew roBIn Smash Bandits Studio Design Capturing the tense thrills of a high-speed chase, Smash Bandits (free, universal) is a great little action affair that unfolds like an endless runner. you’ll evade cops via slick four-wheeled moves and handy gadgets, and the single-thumb controls make it a fun quick-hit diversion. Sure, Studio design (free, iPhone) lets you create stylish images by pairing your photos with its library of shapes, fonts, tools, and ﬁlters. But it’s also a community wherein you can share your own work and reuse designs generated by other users, which is a cool addition. maclife.com NOV•13 57 EdiTorial It’s got the write stuff With rich formatting and powerful automation features, Editorial isn’t a stripped-down tablet app with a pretty face—it’s one of the best text editors we’ve ever used, on our iPads or anywhere else. There’s a lot to learn in Editorial, so expect to refer to its exhaustive help document quite often. An expanded Markdownstyle keyboard adds a thin row of commands and punctuation marks that Apple loves to hide on its own interface, and tracing your ﬁnger along it doubles as a cursor for easy text selection. It’s not cluttered or unwieldy, and we actually found ourselves using the shortcuts it supplied, unlike those in some of the other apps we’ve tried. A swipe to the right reveals the accessory panels, which includes a live Markdown preview window and a built-in web browser. Everything from line spacing to text width is customizable, but Editorial’s real power is in its workﬂows. Anything you need to do—from counting words within a selection to searching Wikipedia—can be conﬁgured through a series of actions that may be as simple EdiTORiAl 1.0 or complex as you want. A OMZ Software few are bundled to get you www.omz-software.com Platform: iPad started, but if you’re into Price: $4.99 tinkering to create the best EXCEllENT possible personal experience, 58 a swipe to the right reveals a whole new level of functionality via the Markdown preview window. then you’ll likely have as much fun experimenting as we did. The bottom line. Editorial may be as important to iPad word processing as Microsoft Word was to the PC.—Michael Simon aGoGo PasswardEn Radio has evolved to be something that you listen to on your own terms, and AGOGO gets this, bringing you personalized audio programming in a slick interface and with a number of curated channels. It pulls in the latest radio and news wire archives, podcasts, your local and online music collections, and other audio selections across many different areas. AGOGO’s stylish visuals Bold, minimalist styling makes come at a small cost to aGoGo stand out. usability, with a few unintuitive quirks in how navigation affects playback. However, you’ll soon learn the internal logic for what constitutes browsing episode titles and channels, and what is akin to turning the dial. The inability to import non-Spotify or Rdio-integrated feeds is a drag, though. The bottom line. AGOGO’s AGOGO 1.0 personalized feeds and AGOGO Amalgamated bold design make it a slick www.agogo.com Platform: iPhone replacement for your radio Price: Free and MP3 players of choice. GREAT —Richard Moss Like genre leader 1Password, Passwarden stores login, credit card, and other data with 256-bit AES encryption, with the option to sync it between OS X and iOS. Although the core functionality is largely the same, Passwarden’s “freemium” business model is a real kick in the teeth. You’ll pay for “DataRecords” for each entry, as well as a it will protect your data, but monthly (or yearly) syncing potentially at an extreme cost. fee, and it really adds up. Moreover, Passwarden doesn’t stand out enough to justify that continued investment. It’s painted in a gaudy shade of blue with uninspired typefaces, and uses a proprietary server for syncing— unlike 1Password, which uses Dropbox and iCloud—which made us a little uneasy about storing our sensitive information. The bottom line. Dubious nickel-and-dime business model aside, Passwarden still PAsswARdEN 2.0.1 pales in comparison to Darsoft Inc. the password-storing www.passwarden.com Platform: Universal competition. Price: Free —J.R. Bookwalter NOV•13 maclife.com wEAK ULTIMA FOREVER: QUEST FOR THE AVATAR The classic’s comeback proves compelling I t’s been an awfully long time since there was a new entry in the Ultima series, and its reappearance on iOS—as a freeto-play game, no less—might seem like a low-key comeback for a property that once helped pioneer computer role-playing games. But underneath its casual-looking exterior lurks a fun, if simple, dungeon-crawling MMO. Ultima Forever takes a lot of gameplay cues from Diablo, and with minimal detail to character creation, there’s just combat, Partnering up with other players isn’t necessary, but it does make Ultima Forever feel just a little bit more rewarding. story, and a big, semi-open map ﬁlled with towns and dungeons that you can visit and revisit as desired. Amassing loot drives the action, but there’s no way to sell off unwanted items to generate some cash—thus the free-to-play approach comes into play, as you might be tempted to spend real money on gold and silver keys to gain access to special goods, as well as healing potions and weapon repairs. Still, spending money isn’t a necessity, and partying up with groups of other players can save wear and tear on your equipment. And while we had a pretty easy time going solo, joining up with other adventurers can make jaunts through monster territory faster and more fun. The always-online approach leads to some stuttering and dropped-audio issues, though. The bottom line. Ultima Forever’s stripped-down approach might alienate hardcore fans, but the satisfyingly simple battles and ample content make it worth a trip to Britannia. —Mikel Reparaz ULTIMA FOREVER: QUEST FOR THE AVATAR 1.4.29 Electronic Arts www.ea.com Platform: Universal Price: Free GOOD Rymdkapsel Minimal design with a strategic punch Rymdkapsel is what we imagine playing an isometric, real-time strategy space game on the Atari might have been like back in the day—if the genre had existed then—and it’s fabulous. The complexities that come from gathering resources, expanding your space station, generating new minions, and defending your galactic turf from waves of invading aliens contrast wildly against the simple 8-bit-style aesthetic and tightly focused scope. There’s a certain charm to its simplicity, but enough depth to back it up and keep you immersed in the fascinating task of building out your tiny space-station empire. Minimalism keeps the intense building and battling pretty casual, making it easy to dive into Rymdkapsel’s absorbing ﬂow. Your spacefarers are tiny rectangles that can be assigned to assorted tasks, like constructing new rooms you’ve plotted out, gathering resources, preparing food, and even picking up lasers to defend your turf. minions are the blocky backbone of your operation, and can be Handling their many actions is done with a quick-drag menu at controlled easily with the quick-drag menu. the bottom of the screen, RyMdKApsel 2.0.0 letting you change tactics on a dime. Increasingly dangerous enemy waves add a sense of Grapefrukt Games urgency to your task, and the need to balance resource gathering with expansion and defense www.rymdkapsel.com Platform: Universal keeps you constantly adjusting as you lay out each Tetris-like piece of your station. Price: $3.99 The bottom line. Accessible and engaging, Rymdkapsel puts a fun retro-minimalist spin on a eXCelleNt familiar genre—perfect for gobbling up your free time.—Nathan Meunier my muppeTs show pivvoT My Muppets Show gives you the chance to put on your own titular performance, inspired by the classic Tapping on a muppet lets you feed, mute, or TV series, by collect coins from it. tacking myriad tasks around the stage. While the Muppets are true to form, the freemium building gameplay is of an ilk we’ve seen many times before with no real improvement on the basic design. Completing menial tasks—like cleaning up the stage and constructing concession stands—drives the action, with the goal of accumulating numerous Muppets to form your band. Much as the Muppets themselves entertain, the monetization is more forceful than in most such games, and the repetitive audio gets annoying fast when you don’t have a full band in play. That takes the shine off of a music-centric affair. The bottom My Muppets show 1.0.1 line. Unless you’re Disney a huge fan, ﬁnd a www.disney.com Platform: Universal better, subtler sim. Price: Free —Nicole Tanner Ever tried to rush your way through a busy street or a crowded room? That’s basically how Pivvot works. Like threading, turning, and shifting your obstacles introduced further along the path body to weave require on-the-ﬂy rotations to survive. through a throng of people, you need to rotate the centered on-screen marker in either direction to avoid incoming obstacles. Since Pivvot moves on rails—even if its path and objects are randomized—you can see what’s coming up just ahead of you, theoretically giving you a second to plan your next move. Obstacle types are introduced gradually, using a mixture of previously unlocked shapes as well as new ones that appear after hitting the requisite number of checkpoints. The shifting camera only amps up the difﬁculty, adding a dyslexic touch to the controls while pivvot 1.0 upping the challenge. Fixpoint Productions The bottom line. Avoidance www.wtrebella.com Platform: Universal is intriguing in the taxing Price: $2.99 Pivvot.—Steve Haske oKAy 60 NOV•13 maclife.com Good ASPHALT 8: AIRBORNE Vaults into the arcade racing pantheon Compared to the generally so-so nature of previous entries, Asphalt 8: Airborne feels like a fresh start for the racing franchise, and is actually a rather amazing feat, especially for a mere dollar. As hinted by the title, it embraces a lively, raucous tone, littering the larger and more diverse locales with a bevy of ramps, including curved ones to send you spiraling through the air. But it’s more than a bit of four-wheeled ﬂight that makes Airborne a much, much better and more enticing mobile racing experience. Fluid controls are paired with Hard hits result in more realistic interactions with other vehicles, Knockdowns, which take a making for more-satisfying takedowns of rival car out of commission for a few moments. rivals and crashes that don’t just look like Matchbox cars slamming into each other. The resulting sprints feel energetic and exciting, and unlike Real Racing 3—the year’s other glossy, genre-leading affair— Asphalt 8 actually includes real-time online action for up to eight players, making it the top iOS racer around for live, on-the-spot competition. Even playing solo is an entertaining and long-lasting venture, and all told it’s an impressive time sink. Airborne also features a sizable presentational upgrade, with much more detailed tracks, plus a bevy of on-screen and Crashes are much lighting effects to punch up the action. It ably blurs the line more realistic and between mobile impactful than in ASPHALT 8: AIRBORNE 1.0.1 previous entries. and console Gameloft games, with an www.gameloft.com Platform: Universal amazing asking racer of its kind on the App Store today. Price: $0.99 price to boot, and The bottom line. Fast, slick, and startlingly affordable, Asphalt AWESOME it’s easily the best 8: Airborne redeﬁnes iOS arcade racing.—Andrew Hayward The AcTive, ProducTive, STAy-AT-home dAd Stay atop the chaos—be it work, life, or baby—thanks to apps By ANdreW hAyWArd Thanks to the birth of my son, my life has changed just a bit over the last six months. I’ve worked from my apartment as a freelance writer and editor for several years now, but home is no longer the quiet, predictable locale that’s allowed for very long, productive days in the past. Now I’m juggling the happiness and well being of my infant with the need to maintain both my career and day-today sanity. And while it’s tough going at times, I’m ﬁnally getting a hang of it—and several apps have been a huge help in keeping my baby-driven days on track. Much as my wife would love to be at home snuggling with our tyke, she’s at her ofﬁce job ﬁve days a week. When she asks me about his eating and sleeping habits during the day, I use the amazingly helpful Baby • Sprout (free, universal; $4.99 inapp purchase for some features), which lets me input his various activities and have it sync up on her iPhone. And when any questions pop up during the day about his care, I quickly load up ready, Set, Baby! ($9.99, universal), a well-designed interactive book app that includes video tutorials, easy-to- Baby • Sprout lets my wife and me share data on his daily habits with incredible ease. 62 NOV•13 maclife.com And tempting as it is to stay home all day with him and eat away the stress, I have been making a point to get out for a long walk every single day with him, and make sure that I’m also beneﬁtting from Several apps have been a huge help in keeping my baby-driven days on track Bite-sized instagram clips of the kid’s day help keep my wife connected when afar. digest writing, and plenty of guidance. It’s incredibly comprehensive, covering everything from bathing to illness and developmental milestones, but is built to make its info available in a snap. My son isn’t quite old enough to chat on the phone, and still photos don’t always convey his mood or current actions, so I’m often shooting quick video clips to share with my wife, friends, and family. Thanks to its recent video upgrade, instagram (free, iPhone) is my app of choice for such moments, as I can quickly capture a 15-second clip, lightly tweak it, and have it on my friends’ Facebook timelines in a matter of moments. Time is tighter than ever, but I still have work responsibilities to ﬁt into the spare moments of my days. I’ve nearly mastered working in ﬁve-minute spurts—and doing the bulk of my writing at night—and Fantastical ($4.99, iPhone) has been essential in helping me manage my various deadlines. It syncs up with Google Calendar, but the natural language engine also makes it super easy to input new events on the ﬂy—like when a baby-related surprise suddenly shakes up my schedule. that time. I use a Fitbit One pedometer that syncs up to the Fitbit (free, iPhone) app via Bluetooth, and then that exercise data transfers over to calorie counter & diet Tracker by myFitnessPal (free, iPhone), which helps me watch what I eat even when surrounded by snacks. I’m down more than 10 pounds already, and both apps have really facilitated that change. I’m certainly not the ﬁrst dad to try to balance work, life, and baby within the same span of time, but these apps help ensure that I’m doing so at about as high a level as I can hope for. i use the Fitbit app with a Fitbit ultra to track my daily steps, including long walks spent pushing the stroller. VISIT MACLIFE.COM FOR ONLINE-EXCLUSIVE REVIEWS, UPDATED DAILY >>>Reviews For detailed deﬁnitions of every score on Mac|Life’s ratings scale, go to maclife.com/ratings. 64 NOV•13 maclife.com PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO TOUGH TESTING, TRUSTED RATINGS Matias LaptOp prO Mechanical switches combine with Bluetooth in this sturdy, luggable keyboard I n a world of Siri and Dragon voice recognition, the longtime fantasy of completely ditching the keyboard is still pretty much that for folks who spend considerable time transferring words from their brains into their devices. Most are happy with the slim little Apple offerings that offer slick designs, but are less than optimal for touch typists. If you’re interested in moving up into something that is pure pleasure for your ﬁngers, the Matias Laptop Pro is a Bluetooth version of their thirdgeneration, mechanical keyboards that are popular with writers, data entry workers, and anyone who earns a living putting words to screen. The Laptop Pro is based on a different switch technology than Matias’ Tactile Pro keyboards, resulting in a signiﬁcantly quieter sound when slamming away on the keys. But keep in mind, “quieter” and “quiet” are not the same thing. The Laptop Pro is still a mechanical switch keyboard—the noise and tactile feedback is either a plus or a minus depending on which side of the fence (or cubicle wall) you’re on. The keys themselves feel really nice, with sculpted faces and a satisfying sensation as the keys hit bottom. It’s the kind of thing you’ll never feel on a modern Apple keyboard, but which was indeed part of the rather popular Apple Extended keyboards of yesteryear. If you like the action and feel of mechanical keyboards, the Laptop Pro may leave you ﬁnding your stock Apple keys lacking— this reviewer can certainly attest to that fact. The build quality of the keyboard is really good, but the one thing that gives us pause is the power switch, which juts out from the case ever so slightly. It’s possible to accidentally switch the Laptop Pro on if something bumps against it—especially in a tightly packed laptop case. Unfortunately, the keyboard doesn’t include any type of carrying case or pouch, which would have been useful. Even though it’s touted as a portable keyboard, the weight and dimensions are a bit on the healthier side; at a little over two pounds, it’s almost two iPads in weight—something to keep in mind. A rechargeable battery is built into the unit. You can’t replace it yourself, but Matias claims that a single charging through the included USB cable will get you anywhere from six months to a year of normal usage. There are three USB ports on the keyboard, but, sadly, they can only be used to charge connected USB peripherals; you can’t plug a ﬂash drive into them to send data up to your computer, even when the keyboard is connected with the included USB cable. Keys are laser-etched with characters and modiﬁer key mappings, which is a really nice touch—they’ll never wear off. The bottom line. If you want a great wireless keyboard with mechanical switch keys, the Laptop Pro is a great choice. The price is high, but serious typists will end up appreciating this keyboard like few others.—David Biedny LApTop pRo Matias www.matias.ca price: $169.95 requirements: Mac or iOS device with Bluetooth Excellent, quiet tactile feel to keys. Mac and iOS-speciﬁc function keys. Solid build quality. Expensive. Power switch potentially problematic. Bulkier and heavier than other portable keyboards. No carrying case. USB ports of limited use. GREAT maclife.com NOV•13 65 >>> reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings Comfort Plus EarPhonE tiPs Better sound for your favorite ’buds Along with your iPhone, your earbuds are probably the thing you always have on your person. The trouble is, most earbuds don’t really sound that great. But as we found out, even mediocre earbuds can sound a lot better with a better seal in your ear. Comply offers a full range of replacement earbud tips designed to ﬁt earbuds from more than 100 different makers. We tested the Comfort Plus model, which features a rounded ear tip, and a Wax-Guard screen, which keeps your ear funk from accumulating inside your earbud. Installing the ear tips was easy enough. After pulling off the stock rubber tips from our favorite earbuds, we slid the Comfort Plus tips in place. Comply tips are made from a soft, squishy foam designed to expand in your ear canal and offer a superior seal from outside noise. To place them in your ears, you have to compress the tip, and then insert the earbud into your ear. It helps to hold the earbud in place for a few seconds while the foam expands to seal it in place. It takes a little bit longer than just jamming in your earbuds with the regular tips, but the end result is well worth the minimal effort. If your earbuds often fall out, the Comply tips may be a good alternative. They’re available in three sizes, and the expanding foam offers just the right amount of grip to keep them ﬁrmly in place. Comply sells tips in 3-packs of small, medium, and large, or three pairs of a single size if you already know what size you need. In our experience, if your earbuds came with multiple sizes, choose the same (relative) size that you’re already using. So how do they sound? Thanks to the tighter seal in your ear canal, and better isolation from ambient noise, we found that the Comfort Plus tips improved the sound quality of a wide range of earbuds, including both low-end models from Monoprice.com and high-end earbuds from FutureSonics and Bowers & Wilkins. Bass response was improved, while mids and highs were clearer thanks to less interference from outside noise. Aside from the improved sound, the soft foam of Comply’s tips is extremely comfortable. We were able to wear earbuds equipped with a set of Comfort Plus tips for almost an entire workday, without any discomfort. Even better, the earbuds stayed in place, so we weren’t constantly shoving them back in our ears, as is usually the case with stock rubber tips. The only real drawback is the slightly tacky surface, which attracts dust, pocket lint, and, yes, earwax. The bottom line. For a modest investment, Comply’s foam ear tips will improve the sound and ﬁt of your existing earbuds. That’s music to our ears.—Ray Aguilera ComforT PLus EarPhoNE TiPs Comply www.complyfoam.com Price: $21.95 requirements: Compatible headphones Improved sound. Better isolation. Comfortable ﬁt. Wax-Guard screen keeps your earbuds clean. Lightly tacky foam can collect lint and pocket debris. EXCELLENT 66 noV•13 maclife.com Note: Objects in magazine are smaller than they appear. WithiNgs Pulse Brains before beauty In case you haven’t noticed, there’s something of a health craze going on in technology. Ever since Nike married ﬁtness and fashion in its stylish, LEDstudded FuelBand, geeks everywhere want to be seen wearing gadgets that blink, ﬂash, and measure their activity. They look great on our wrists, but clunky interfaces and faulty synching often spoil the experience, leaving us with little more than an expensive piece of high-tech jewelry. But if we really want to transform from couch potatoes into health nuts, we need to develop intimate, long-term relationships with our wearable ﬁtness pals. We can deﬁnitely see that happening with the Pulse. It may be a latecomer to a crowded market, but much like their other health-oriented products, Withings took the time to get Pulse right. Pulse might not have the slick industrial design of the Smart Body Analyzer or Smart Baby Monitor, but it’s every bit as stunning. Measuring just a bit over an inch and a half, the minuscule rectangle is encased in a rubberized material that feels rugged without adding a bit of bulk. At eight grams, it’s impossibly light and small enough to keep in your pocket all day, but Withings also includes a silicone clip and neoprene wristband if you insist in wearing it. But the Pulse isn’t meant to be a fashion accessory. There’s no ﬂashy screen to speak of, and at ﬁrst glance it appears to be limited to transmitting like the Jawbone UP or Fitbit Flex bands. But pressing the sole button springs its touchscreen to life, where you can see all of the activities that are being monitored, including steps, sleep, elevation, distance, and calories burned. No matter how we carried the Pulse, it followed our movements with impeccable accuracy, even differentiating between walking, running, and climbing stairs. Pulse stores the last 10 days of activity inside its tiny case, and you can swipe through your history right on the device. But once you sync with the Health Mate app, all those monochromatic numbers get a visual makeover with rich, detailed charts that help target any areas that need improvement. There are motivational tips throughout, and the interface is centered around a cute winged character that sets goals for weight, activity, sleep, and heart rate, turning our daily exercise into something of a game. And since Pulse pulls data from all of our Withings devices, we got a far more complete picture of health than with its competitors. It’s light but surprisingly rugged. Pulse’s unique feature is its ability to check your heart rate using a dedicated sensor on the back. It’s a nice touch, but Pulse didn’t need any bells or whistles to win us over; the whole package is impeccably designed and incredibly well-executed. We happily incorporated it into our admittedly less-than-active lifestyles. The rechargeable battery lasted a tad less than the two-week claim, and with virtually all-day tracking, we inevitably had to sacriﬁce some monitoring to charge it. Also, we had a bit of trouble with automatic Bluetooth syncing, but a long-press of the button quickly resolved it each time. The bottom line. Pulse won’t be setting any fashion trends, but the longer you use it, the better you’ll look.—Michael Simon PulsE Withings www.withings.com Price: $99.95 Requirements: iOS device with iOS 5 or higher. Light, unobtrusive design. Data accessible through built-in touchscreen. Great companion app. Some syncing issues. Battery life doesn’t quite live up to claims. Charging leaves gaps in tracking. GREAT maclife.com NOV•13 67 KARMA Pay-as-you-go hotspot tries to spread goodwill (and Wi-Fi) W ith many iPhone plans featuring limits on data, as well as expensive overage fees, users often scramble for free (or at least affordable) Wi-Fi wherever they can ﬁnd it. With Karma on your side, you can ﬁnd Wi-Fi anywhere there’s a 4G signal via a compact hotspot designed for sharing. Karma is small, and in this case, that’s a good thing. The squarish puck is only 2.6 inches width and depth, and a mere half-inch thick. It’s easy to slide into a pocket or laptop bag, and at barely over two ounces, you won’t even notice it added to a bag. Karma connects to the Clearwire 4G network and rebroadcasts a Wi-Fi signal to up to eight devices. Speeds are typical of 4G connections, but can vary widely depending on where you are and the signal strength. Karma lets you buy bandwidth on an as-needed basis—without contracts—for $14/ GB. The best part is that the bandwidth in your Karma account doesn’t expire. It’s a perfect solution for users who need hotspot data only intermittently, or have inconsistent patterns of high and low usage. Karma is also made for sharing. The hotspot creates an open Wi-Fi network that anyone can join via Facebook or by creating a Karma account. When someone joins your Karma network, you’re both rewarded with 100MB of free bandwidth. The problem is that no one knows what Karma is, and we’ve been trained to avoid unknown networks—getting prompted ﬁrst thing for Facebook credentials only makes the process seem that much more suspicious. We spent time in geek-heavy neighborhoods in San Francisco and New York City (Karma Mobility’s home turf) and no one ever signed into our hotspot. We never found another Karma network to sign into, either. We’d love to see Karma networks everywhere for easy pay-as-you-go Wi-Fi access. Unfortunately, the company faces an uphill battle in getting people to use its networks. The bottom line. Karma offers convenient contract-free hotspot access at a fair price for occasional users. The sharing features are a nice extra, but don’t expect to earn much free bandwidth (yet)—or to ﬁnd many Karma networks to sign on to with your bandwidth account.—Ray Aguilera Karma PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO Karma Mobility www.yourkarma.com Price: $99, 1GB; $149, 7GB; $279, 20GB Requirements: Wi-Fienabled devices No contract or monthly fee. Purchased data does not expire. Share your connection and earn free data. Slow network. Most Internet users are wary of unknown free networks. Non-customizable SSIDs. GOOD maclife.com NOV•13 69 >>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings The FRay Fix Protect your MacBook Pro’s power adapter with a little silicone and a lot of elbow grease Like Star Trek’s Mr. Scott, Apple’s engineers have well-deserved reputations for being high-tech miracle workers, but even they can only do so much about the laws of physics. Any moving part can become worn or damaged over time, and MacBook owners know few parts move more than their power adapter’s precious MagSafe cord. The Fray Fix adds a layer of protection to your faithful power brick’s most vulnerable spot, but in a way that’s anything but futuristic. The Fray Fix is a soft, sturdy band of ﬂexible silicone that lets you thread your cord through it to ﬁt around your power adapter, reducing the range of motion—and the chance for undue stress—at the cord’s base. It comes in any color you like, as long as that color is a muted orange that contrasts nicely with stark white. In another nice touch, the Fray Fix’s notched, narrow shape won’t interfere with your power adapter’s folding clips or removable AC plug. While the Fray Fix’s design couldn’t be simpler, applying it to your power brick is another matter, and the included tools are a bit… unusual. Toothpicks, two wide strips of tape, cotton swabs, and—no kidding—a small vial of water-based lubricant are all supplied so you can wrap your MagSafe connector into a slim, pointed cone and Orange you glad your MacBook Pro’s power cord is protected? The Fray FIx Kirk abrigo www.thefrayﬁx.com Price: $9.99 Requirements: 85W MagSafe or MagSafe 2 power adapter Soft, sturdy silicone band supports power cord’s base without much added bulk. Tricky installation process and impossible to remove intact. Currently supports only 85W power adapters. SOLID 70 NOV•13 maclife.com safely pull it through the Fray Fix’s narrow opening. It takes a lot of force to do the job, but performed correctly (printed instructions and a video on the manufacturer’s site make it easy) there’s no stress on the power cord, and the stretched silicone snaps back into shape immediately. In fact, the ﬁt is so snug that the only way to remove the Fray Fix without potentially damaging your MagSafe connector is to carefully cut it off. Even if you don’t mind the work, the Fray Fix isn’t for everyone—yet. The currently available model is sized to ﬁt snugly only around the plastic shells of 85W MagSafe or MagSafe 2 power adapters compatible with 15-inch MacBook Pros. That means MacBook Air and 13inch MacBook Pro users will have to wait for a Fray Fix that ﬁts their smaller 45W and 60W adapters. The manufacturer promises they’re coming soon—maybe by the time you read this. The bottom line. MacBook power adapters are covered by both standard and AppleCare warranties, so if your cord is already showing signs of damage, contact Apple immediately instead of trying to ﬁx the issue yourself. But if you have a 15-inch MacBook Pro and plenty of DIY spirit, the Fray Fix offers some extra peace of mind for a low price.—Adam Berenstain DesktOpshelVes Organize your most important stuff without a trip to Ikea Accessing ﬁles on the Mac has been a work in While shelves lack some key Finder features, progress since the beginning of OS X. For proof, they’re not just eye candy. You can sort items by just look at the evolution of Finder windows and the name, size, and creation or modiﬁcation dates. Dock. Falling somewhere between those familiar Shelves can be made longer or shorter, hiding ﬁxtures, DesktopShelves offers a new way to help or revealing items as needed. Hidden items are keep digital clutter at bay. noted by a handy range indicator that lets you Shelves are Finder folders opened through the know you’re seeing only a few items of a larger DesktopShelves menu bar item or its contextual group, and a special button lets you access items menu command. They share the folder’s name and contents (even any Finder labels you’ve applied) but look just like shelves from the real world, holding Cover Flow–like icons instead of your dusty action ﬁgures. Mousing over items in a shelf displays their names and enlarged icon previews, and from there you can open DesktopShelves offers fun designs and some smart touches to keep scads of ﬁles accessible in a small space. ﬁles or launch apps, reveal an item in the Finder, activate Quick outside the currently visible range with a click. Look, and more. Shelf size and item spacing can Contextual menu and keyboard commands let be changed globally to let you cram in as much as you cycle through open shelves and drill through possible or keep things roomy. nested folders they contain, but since there’s no To add or remove items, just drag and drop—with immediate visual indication of where you are on some limitations. You can’t Option-drag Finder items your Mac beyond a shelf’s name and its icons, deep to copy them to or from a shelf, and you can’t drag navigation can get confusing. items into folders on a shelf the way you can with The bottom line. DesktopShelves is more folders in the Dock. But you can drag snippets from ﬂexible than the Dock and takes up less room DeSktOpSheLveS 2.1.3 open documents or web pages into shelves, creating than Finder windows, making it a convenient way kitestack software new .txt or .rtf ﬁles in the process. These and other to access frequently used items. That said, you’ll www.kitestack.com shelved ﬁles can be dragged into document windows return to the Finder to do much beyond moving or price: $14.99 Requirements: Mac OS to share their content with your applications. Like opening items, and this simplicity might be limiting 10.6.6 or higher Finder windows, shelves can be dragged anywhere for some users.—Adam Berenstain Simple, stylish way to on the Desktop and appear across all Spaces, but keep folder contents handy. Useful sorting features. they aren’t affected by Exposé or Mission Control. Can’t copy to or from However, shelves can be hidden or brought to the shelves. Folder navigation features are lacking. foreground—even over full-screen apps—with SOLID customizable keyboard shortcuts. maclife.com NOV•13 71 >>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings ChROmeCast Google delivers cross-platform streaming, but where are the content providers? After stumbling with the Nexus Q media streamer last year, Google surprised even jaded tech fans this summer with an inexpensive HDMI dongle offering cross-platform playback to HDTVs. But can the search giant rally enough support from While Netﬂix is streaming, the native app displays gorgeous full-screen artwork and controls on the Chrome browser (shown here) or iOS and Android. Don’t be deceived—you’ll need to plug the Google Chromecast into some kind of power source, be it AC or USB. ChrOmeCaSt Google, Inc. www.google.com Price: $35 Requirements: iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 6.0 or higher; Android 2.3 or higher smartphone or tablet; Chrome for Mac or Windows (OS X Lion 10.7 or Windows 7 and higher); 802.11b/g/n wireless network (2.4GHz) Dirt cheap. Trouble-free setup. Elegant presentation for supported services. Limited launch support from streaming services. Requires AC power for HDTVs without USB port. Requires hacks or workarounds for QuickTime, iTunes, and other content. SOLID 72 NOV•13 maclife.com developers and streaming services to make Chromecast viable in the long term? This small plastic widget plugs directly into an HDMI-equipped HDTV and uses an available wireless internet connection to stream content summoned by supported mobile devices or desktop web browsers—all for a crazy-cheap $35. At ﬁrst blush, the gadget sounds like little more than a clone of AirPlay, the Apple TV feature that allows iOS devices or OS X computers to beam content to the television over Wi-Fi. With a free extension, Chromecast does a similar trick from any Chrome desktop or mobile browser, with a unique twist: supported content sources can be streamed directly to the dongle in up to 1080p, making the smartphone, tablet, or computer little more than a sophisticated remote control. It’s a rather ingenious solution—Chromecast works beautifully on the iPhone or iPad using the latest versions of the native Netﬂix and YouTube apps, as well as Google Play Movies on Android devices. Whenever one or more Chromecasts are detected, these apps display a small “Play on” icon similar to Airplay—tap it, choose a destination, and the dongle begins buffering playback. While it’s doing this, the device or computer offers a stylish, beautiful remote control interface from which users can pause, stop, adjust volume, or switch to another Chromecast. It’s a perfect scenario for modern living rooms: There’s no traditional hardware remote control, and because content streams direct to the Chromecast itself, the device controlling it is free to multitask (or sit idle) at the same time without severely impacting battery life. Unfortunately, right now Chromecast is of limited value to those who don’t lurk frequently on YouTube or subscribe to Netﬂix. A Chrome browser extension can “cast” any window tab to an HDTV, but after being spoiled by native apps with built-in support, this approach is a bit of a letdown. There’s a lag of several seconds, and even on the highest-quality 720p HD setting, on-screen text can be difﬁcult to read on any size screen. Speaking of disappointments, none of Google’s marketing images disclose that the otherwise pocketable widget has to be tethered to the included AC adapter, although those who own recent HDTVs can juice up via USB instead. Otherwise, setup is remarkably easy—we did it entirely from an iPhone, connecting to the Chromecast via an ad-hoc network, and then switching over to local Wi-Fi without a hitch. Google also provides a Mac app that streamlines the process even further. Hopefully, content providers will embrace Chromecast, but in their absence, the developer community is stepping up to the plate. Because the dongle is powered by a hybrid of Android and Chrome OS, hacks have already been created such as Fling, which allows movie ﬁles dragged and dropped from Mac or PC to be cast directly to the device; others are working to do the same with QuickTime or iTunes Store videos, which are unlikely to ever see ofﬁcial support for Chromecast from Apple. The bottom line. It’s perfect for quickly and cheaply adding Netﬂix or YouTube to additional televisions or adding streaming options while on the go. It’s now up to Google to broaden its content possibilities or risk watching Chromecast go the way of Google TV.—J.R. Bookwalter SUBSCRIBE NOW GET THE MAGAZINE PASSIONATE ABOUT GRAPHIC DESIGN 2.99 $ per month AND YOUR FIRST ISSUE FREE WWW.BOLDLINE.COM/SUBSCRIBE >>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings BOse sOuNdLiNk MiNi PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO Bose goes Mini with the great-sounding SoundLink 74 NOV•13 maclife.com P ortable speakers are known for being portable ﬁrst, and sounding great...well, almost never. Bose is aiming to change that perception with the SoundLink Mini, a diminutive 1.5-pound speaker that connects to any device via Bluetooth. With seven hours of playback on a single charge, and surprisingly good bass, the SoundLink Mini is an itty-bitty powerhouse, whether it’s on your desk or hanging out in the backyard. With its clean lines and aluminum enclosure, at ﬁrst glance, you might mistake the SoundLink Mini for something designed by Apple. The matte-silver ﬁnish is similar to Apple’s brushed aluminum, and buttons are kept to a minimum, with a single row of six atop the device to control volume and other functions. For charging, the SoundLink Mini includes a charging dock designed to be a stationary stand for the device. But the 7.1x2x2.3-inch device begs to be picked up and carried with you, whether that’s to another part of the house or on a trip to another city. The AC adapter can also plug into the device itself for charging—a rather curious choice that makes the charging stand somewhat unnecessary. It would make more sense to allow charging via the micro-USB port on the back, since your travel bag probably already includes a mini USB charger, but that port is reserved exclusively for future ﬁrmware updates. Thanks to a pair of passive radiators, SoundLink Mini pumps out a surprising amount of bass for its small size. Though the bass falls off a bit at higher volumes, the SoundLink Mini avoids distorting, even when pushed to maximum volume. We listened to everything from classic Weezer tracks, full of drums and guitars, to the synthetic electronic beats of Disclosure’s “When a Fire Starts to Burn,” and SoundLink Mini kept up admirably. It’s best suited for a nightstand or desk, but can easily provide mood music in a small living room. You can use the SoundLink Mini with any device that supports Bluetooth A2DP. It remembers up to six devices simultaneously, so you can go from Mac to iPhone to iPad and back without re-pairing devices. Reception is rated for about 30 feet, which is normal for a Bluetooth device, but Bose really got it right. Where numerous other Bluetooth devices have stuttered and failed at distances of less than half of that in our apartment, the SoundLink Mini’s reception was strong and dropout-free at even the higher end of that range. Unfortunately, the Soundlink Mini doesn’t support speakerphone use, as some other similar devices do, but there is a stereo input jack to connect devices without Bluetooth. The bottom line. Two hundred bucks is a lot of cash to spend on a portable speaker, but the SoundLink Mini delivers sound quality and a level of ﬁnish to match its price. It’s sturdy, small, and makes for a great listening experience, despite a few small drawbacks.—Ray Aguilera SouNdLiNk MiNi Bose www.bose.com Price: $199.95 Requirements: Bluetoothcompatible device Sturdy build quality. Rechargeable battery. Extremely portable. Pairs with up to six devices at the same time. No speakerphone support. Doesn’t charge via USB. EXCELLENT maclife.com NOV•13 75 >>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings EmbER Making screenshots a snap Ember is the successor to the ﬁve-year-old LittleSnapper, and in classic Realmac style it offers powerful tools in a ﬁnely crafted interface. At its core, Ember helps you collect and organize images, whether they are screenshots destined for documentation, or inspiration you’re collecting for your next website design. Built around a clean, smart ﬁle browser and an excellent set Ember’s interface looks simple, but powerful sorting tools help you quickly organize your screenshots. EmbER Realmac Software www.realmacsoftware.com Price: $49.99 Requirements: OS 10.8.3 or later, 64-bit processor Nice interface. Excellent method for ﬁnding and organizing images. Powerful markup tools. No iOS support. Browser extensions somewhat limited. Expensive. GREAT 76 NOV•13 maclife.com of organizational tools, Ember is a bit of a niche product, but if you need its feature-set, the $50 price tag shouldn’t be a deterrent. Users of LittleSnapper will be familiar with Ember’s neat, Finder-like library, but ﬁrst-timers will have no trouble learning the ropes. Pictures already stored on your Mac can be imported the old-fashioned way, but Ember excels at ﬁnding new discoveries, starting with handy extensions for Chrome and Safari that let you quickly capture and save sites you stumble across while browsing. But Ember is smarter than it looks. Instead of just taking a snapshot of what you see in your browser window, it saves every bit of information on the page. And this isn’t an Instapaper- or Evernote-style stripped-down view of the Web; Ember records every pixel as it appears and presents it as a single, scrollable image, making it easy to crop and edit later. Realmac has also built its own browser into Ember—with smart element detection and emulation modes for iPhone and iPad screens—but users will likely spend most of their hunting time outside the app. Snaps can be organized into their own folders (called Collections), and Ember’s smart tags will automatically detect where a screenshot originated and sort it into its appropriate container (phone, tablet, etc.). Anything in your library can be edited and annotated, and the app really shines here, offering a robust set of tools to mark up your images. We initially wondered where the marquee and line tools were, but a mid-review update solved this problem by beeﬁng up the pencil; now, our sloppy arrows and circles are magically transformed into the clean shapes we were trying to draw. Like LittleSnapper, Ember is loaded with great details and ﬂuid animations that make it a joy to use, but our favorite new feature has to be subscriptions. Much like an RSS feed gathers headlines until you’re ready to read them, Ember will constantly monitor sites for new image uploads and collect them for future reference. If you work with a lot of screenshots on your Mac, Ember will easily be worth the price of admission. However, we found the lack of iOS support to be a glaring oversight that makes it somewhat difﬁcult to recommend to casual users, despite all we liked about it. We wish the extensions shared the same clipping features as the in-app browser, and if Ember could automatically scan our Mac for screenshots like Bugshot does on our iPhones, it would be that much more useful. The bottom line. Ember’s premium pricing may scare casual users away, but if you can live without iOS support, you won’t ﬁnd a better app for organizing screenshots and other images. —Michael Simon >>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings BiOShOck iNfiNite Intrigue amidst the clouds BioShock Inﬁnite is at once a beautiful achievement in world-building, a moving sci-ﬁ story populated by memorable characters, a thinking man’s ultraviolent shoot-’em-up, and an unﬂinchingly brutal critique of the myth and reality of America at the dawn of the 20th century. The ﬁrst-person adventure sends private investigator Booker DeWitt on a trip to Columbia—a sprawling The Motorized Patriots are occasionally your allies, but that doesn’t make them any less creepy. BioShoCk iNfiNiTE Aspyr www.aspyr.com Price: $39.99 eSRB Rating: Mature Requirements: Mac OS X 10.8.4 or newer, 2.2Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB RAM, 512MB VRAM Captivating world, story, and characters. Plenty of fun, bloody combat balanced by exploration, conversation, and obsessive scrounging. Runs well on lower-end Macs. Elizabeth is one of the most endearing computer-controlled sidekicks ever. Combat isn’t as satisfying or as versatile as in previous BioShock entries. No native support for non-console gamepads. EXCELLENT 78 NOV•13 maclife.com steampunk metropolis ﬂoating in the clouds—in 1912 to ﬁnd and rescue young Elizabeth, who’s been kept isolated Your ﬁrst in a tower for glimpse her entire life. of Columbia is shiny, Elizabeth, it happy, and turns out, has entirely deceptive. the power to manipulate reality by opening quantum tears in the fabric of space and time, and while her abilities mean the plot takes some bizarre turns later on, she and Booker are only one part of the story. The real centerpiece here is Columbia itself—a seemingly gleaming, retro-futuristic utopia that’s quickly unmasked as a rotten, racist dictatorship built on little more than jingoistic zealotry and the labor of a working class kept in slave-like conditions. Inﬁnite’s action is no slouch either, offering plenty of opportunities to trade shots with Columbia’s cops and soldiers. Like previous entries, Inﬁnite lets you wreak havoc with a variety of guns and bizarre superpowers, which can unleash angry crows, explosive ﬁreballs, and more. Inﬁnite also introduces a few innovations of its own, most notably Sky-Lines—roller coaster–like tracks that loom over the landscape and can be ridden using an arm-mounted device called a Sky-Hook—and ghostly extra-dimensional objects like weapons, robot allies, and bits of strategic terrain, which Elizabeth can eventually summon into reality. And then there’s Elizabeth herself, a constant, charming presence throughout most of the game who never gets in the way, and who continually ﬁnds cash, health packs, and other useful items. As fun as it is on its own, however, Inﬁnite’s combat feels like a step back from previous BioShock affairs. Rather than being able to build an arsenal of weird, unique weapons, you’re limited to two fairly standard guns at a time, and upgrading them just beefs up their existing capabilities rather than adding new ones. And experimenting with Vigors is fun, but upgrading them is prohibitively expensive and the effects are ultimately pretty similar. Even so, Inﬁnite’s action is hugely compelling, as is its mixture of insane violence with peaceful strolls through Columbia’s streets. The bottom line. While it has its share of nagging problems, BioShock Inﬁnite still stands as one of the best games of this year—on Mac or any other platform.—Mikel Reparaz GONE HOmE Home is where the heartbreak is There’s no wrong way to play Gone Home, the quiet, thoughtful, and deeply introspective ﬁrst Mac game from the newly minted Fullbright Company, but there is an ideal way: at night, lights Sam is easily the best character in Gone Home, and her room is a wealth of mid-90s pop culture. We want to believe too, Sam. off, with headphones wrapped around an open mind. Set in a sprawling mansion in rural Oregon in 1995, Gone Home tells the story of the Greenbriar family. Players control Kaitlin, who has just returned from a year abroad to discover that her mother, father, and younger sister Sam are nowhere to be found. By searching the empty house, peeking into diaries, and riﬂing through the mail, Kaitlin pieces together her family’s recent history—and more pressingly, their whereabouts. Gone Home is primarily about exploration and investigation, with a delicate, restrained story told deftly and effectively. Creaky ﬂoorboards, spotty electrical wiring, and a thunderous lightning storm give the air of a horror game, but Gone Home touches on a range of emotions, from uncertainty to fear and poignant sadness. The ﬁnely detailed realism is fun to interact with, but it also serves and ampliﬁes the emotional gut punch waiting for players at the end of the game, complimented by excellent voice acting. The tiny, constrained world of Gone Home feels realistic and consistent throughout, and it characterizes the people who live there, even though they never appear onscreen. There are no puzzles, strictly speaking, but Gone Home asks that its players pay attention and appreciate its archaeological treasures. Making connections between, say, Sam’s Ouija board and the mysterious Uncle Oscar will give you insight into Terry and Jan’s more recent marital troubles, for example, which leads into a better understanding of Sam’s own issues. The realism of Gone Home’s setting is matched by an incisive understanding of difﬁcult family relationships. Welcome to Arbor Hill. The Greenbriar home is pretty big, and it’s packed full of secrets. Fullbright’s attention to detail is the hook that pulls players into Gone Home—its world, and its story—and each X-Files VHS recording or empty whiskey bottle is perfectly placed to allow the Greenbriars’ emotional turmoil to play out naturally and organically. Bolstered by smart, honest writing, Gone Home proves that games don’t need grotesque aliens or campy scares to be gripping, fascinating, and worthwhile. The bottom line. Members of the Fullbright Company cut their teeth working on the BioShock series, and it shows. These are masters of setting, tone, and interactive storytelling, and Gone Home is excellent.—Joseph Leray GOnE HOME The Fullbright Company www.thefullbrightcompany.com Price: $19.99 ERSB Rating: N/A Requirements: Mac OS X 10.7 or newer, 1.8GHz processor, 2GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000 or better Poignant, evocative story that takes advantage of smart writing and pacing. Does more with its characters in a couple of hours than most games do in 20. Non-traditional and brief approach may catch players off-guard. AWESOME maclife.com NOV•13 79 >>> Reviews Tough testing, trusted ratings BluelOuNge SaidOka A sleek, spendy, permanent home for your iPhone W PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO hen your iPhone is brand-new, it can run all day. But after a few months, it can seem like your battery is shrinking by the minute. Most people deal with that situation by keeping an extra charging cord handy next to their Mac, and charging the iPhone while they work. It’s a bit clunky— and it takes two hands to unplug—but it works. Bluelounge’s Saidoka is a small rectangular puck of glossy white or black plastic designed to be a permanent home for charging and syncing your device. An angled cutout supports your iPhone, and aims it toward the connector built into the base. On a hard surface, the Saidoka sturdily stays in place, allowing you to dock and remove your iPhone one-handed. Saidoka comes in either a 30-pin or Lightning version. At nearly 30 bucks, the 30-pin edition seems a bit expensive, but possibly worth it—unfortunately, the $50 price tag on the Lightningequipped Saidoka makes you question if a charging dock is worth 25 percent of the price of a new iPhone in the ﬁrst place. Apple’s wholesale pricing of Lightning connectors is no doubt at least partly responsible for the higher price, but given that Appleblessed third-party Lightning cables themselves sell for about $15, the $50 Lightning version of Saidoka feels vastly overpriced. Since it holds your device at an angle, the Saidoka makes your phone easier to use while sitting at a desk. The only catch is that for the best access and viewing angle, it needs to be placed next to your keyboard. If you work entirely on a computer screen, that works well, but if you often have books, papers, cold beverages, or other stuff hanging around on your desk as you work, the Saidoka ends up taking up some prime desk real estate. Functionally, the Saidoka does its job. Thanks to a pair of “microsuction” strips on the bottom, the dock stays in place on a hard desktop when you plug in or remove your device. A removable insert customizes the ﬁt for bare iPhones. If you use a shell-style case, it may work with the Saidoka by removing the insert. We tested with four different cases; the thinner ones had no problem ﬁtting into the Saidoka, but a slightly bulkier case threw the iPhone’s port out of alignment with the ﬁxed Lightning connector. The bottom line. It looks great, but limited case compatibility and the need to place Saidoka in prime workspace might not work for everyone.—Ray Aguilera SaiDOka Bluelounge www.bluelounge.com Price: $49.95, Lightning; $29.95, 30-pin Requirements: iPod touch or iPhone with Lightning or 30-pin connector Stays in place. Makes your iPhone easier to use on a desk. Removing insert allows use of (some) shell-style cases. Available in black or white. Lightning version is 50 bucks. Takes up prime desk real estate. GOOD maclife.com NOV•13 81 >>>Ask Tech Supp orT & TechSpl anaTionS >>>Not ENough StoragE I am trying to install an app on my iPhone 4 8GB model. Every time I press “Install app,” a dialog appears saying, “There is not enough storage, cannot download app.” I have 1.5GB of storage available, and the app is only 870MB. Is there a setting that I need to change, or is something else going wrong? This is a common problem that many iOS users face when installing updates and new applications on their devices. Though you may think that you only need the amount of space that the app you’re downloading requires, that is far from the case. What Apple doesn’t tell you is that your device will actually need twice the amount of storage (or more). This storage is freed up after the installation of the application has been completed, but it’s needed for storing the downloaded ﬁles before installation. Fortunately, freeing information yourself so that you can install these applications is relatively In Settings, you are able to easy. Head to Settings > remove apps that are unused, General > Usage to ﬁnd or taking up too much space. a listing of the applications installed on your device, along with the amount of storage that the application and its data is currently taking up. Delete the application by tapping the application name in the listing, and then tapping the red “Delete App” button. You can always re-download your previous purchases for free again from the iTunes App Store. the usage view in Settings gives you an overview of all the apps installed on your device, and how much storage they’re utilizing. out of the Darkness Most photos and videos I take with my iPhone turn out well, but in the extreme lighting of nighttime, ﬁreworks photos and videos just don’t turn out well. are there any iPhone apps or settings that I can use for taking good photos in these conditions? Nighttime videos and photos are particularly difﬁcult when dealing with mobile devices that have inherently small sensors for taking your shots. Fortunately, there are a few apps that can 82 NOV•13 maclife.com help you out by providing a longer exposure for your photograph. The end result is that your photos won’t only be clearer and sharper, but you’ll be able to take them during the night. There is a downside to a longer exposure time: blurriness. If you don’t hold the camera perfectly still, you can end up with a brighter but very blurry photo. In order to combat this, you can use an iPhone-compatible tripod-and-case combination, or ﬁnd a steady surface to prop your phone against while taking the photo. One app that we experimented with was NightCap, and we were pleasantly surprised by the end result. It ended up boosting the brightness in the photo without causing any real blurriness issues. You can download this app from the iTunes App Store for $0.99 at bit.ly/ml_nightcap. An iMac as a Second Screen I use an HP Elitebook for work, but my wife and I would like to purchase a 27-inch iMac for our home. Can I use the iMac as a large-screen monitor for my HP laptop when I work from home? Unfortunately, many users have reported mixed results using a PC laptop connected to an iMac as a second monitor setup. While some computers can actually do this (usually only if the PC has a mini DisplayPort out and a compatible graphics card), the overall view is to not bank on using an iMac as an external monitor for a non-Mac computer. However, this is only on the hardware side of things. You can still use software to replicate the second-screen experience with a PC laptop. To do this, you can utilize a piece of relatively inexpensive software called AirDisplay (available at bit.ly/ml_ displayair). AirDisplay will stream your PC screen to your Mac, allowing you to work on a larger display. The only downside to this setup is that gaming will not perform optimally. NightCap takes a longer exposure to capture more light and make the photo appear brighter than using the standard iOS camera app. Closed but Awake My wife loves Netﬂix and since our TV is not networkcapable, she connects my MacBook Pro to the TV to stream. The problem is that I have not been able to ﬁgure out how to close the lid on my Mac and still have it function with the top down. Do you know a way? OS X can handle this automatically, but not without ﬁrst connecting an external mouse and keyboard in a process known as closed clamshell (or display closed) mode. You can ﬁnd directions on Apple’s support site at bit.ly/ml_clamshell. Alternatively, you can turn to a freely available open source kernel extension called macosx-nosleep-extension. Once installed, this extension will allow you to close the lid on your MacBook and still have it run. Download the extension from Google Code (bit.ly/ml_nosleep) and install it just like any other OS X System Preference Pane (by double-clicking the icon). Once installed, visit System Preferences > NoSleep-Preferences, and check the box labeled “Never sleep on AC adapter.” You can also not sleep while using the battery, as well. When this option is checked, your Mac will no longer sleep when the lid is closed. The Mac OS X NoSleep extension will cause your Mac to remain an insomniac even with the lid closed. Using AirDisplay, you can stream your screen to the iMac so you can use it as a virtual second screen. Changing Subjects I used Eudora before switching to OS X Mail. I used to be able to change the subject line of emails that I received (this was especially beneﬁcial on messages that had meaningless subject lines), but OS X Mail doesn’t seem to have this option. Is there a work-around or a well-kept secret to doing this? While OS X Mail does not have this feature built into the app like Eudora did, there is a workaround that, despite being a little hacky, will get the job done. The great thing about this workaround is that you never need to leave the Mail application. To do it, open Mail and locate the message you wish to change the subject line for in the Inbox. Drag and drop the message to the Drafts sidebar folder. This will make the message a draft that is editable. Next, double-click on the message in the Drafts folder, edit the subject line to your liking, then press Command + S to save the message in the Drafts folder. Finally, drag the message back into the Inbox. The message will be copied into the Inbox, complete with the new subject line. There are downsides, however. The ﬁrst is that you are actually duplicating the message. This means that after you’re satisﬁed with the changes, you can delete the original message from the Inbox, keeping the new message that you copied over from the maclife.com NOV•13 83 Drafts folder. Second, because this is a new message, it means that the original sent date will be off, and will show the date that you edited the email instead of the date it was originally sent. Drag and drop the email from the Inbox into the Drafts sidebar in Mail to edit the subject line. After editing the subject line, save, and then drag the message from the Drafts folder back into the Inbox. Auto-Save Annoyance While editing a document in Pages, I keep getting the message “The document could not be autosaved. The ﬁle has been changed by another application.” What could be causing this issue and how do I ﬁx it? Auto Save is a new feature that was introduced in Mac OS X Lion. The feature allows applications that implement the feature to automatically save a document at regular intervals so that if the application crashes, you won’t lose the majority of your changes to the document. Many users, however, receive this message due to a little-known feature of Auto-Save: two weeks after the last edits, the ﬁle will automatically be locked, making it unable to save changes until the ﬁle is either unlocked or duplicated. The error message that you’re receiving is either related to this locking feature, or the fact that the ﬁle could be open more than once on your Mac. Investigate the possibility of a locked ﬁle. In the title bar of the application that you’re using, mouse over the document title. A small triangular button will appear. Click it, and then select “Unlock.” If that is not the issue, chances are the ﬁle is open twice. Check all running applications to ensure that the ﬁle is open only once. If you’ve opened the ﬁle in an application, then opened it again, saving the ﬁle in the second application and returning to the ﬁrst will produce this error message. Tales from the Encrypt After reading page 78 of the August Issue of Mac|Life (“Time Machine Trouble”), I thought that I would love being able to back up my Mac to an encrypted drive attached to my AirPort Extreme router. Unfortunately, the drive cannot be found on my network after encrypting it. Is there a way to make the drive visible to my Mac while connected to the router? Unfortunately, if the entire drive is encrypted, then it will not be able to be read by the AirPort Extreme. This is because AirPort doesn’t understand how to handle the encryption/decryption process. When you are encrypting a drive through the Time Machine utility, however, it’s only creating an encrypted disk image (a single, encrypted ﬁle) that is used to store the ﬁles in. Time Machine handles the mounting process and also the encryption and decryption of the ﬁles. This is most likely why the drive is not automatically appearing on your network when connecting it to your AirPort Extreme router. The steps to set up Time Machine (once you’ve mounted the unencrypted drive in the sidebar of the Finder) is as follows: 1. Open System Preferences > Time Machine > Select Disk. 2. In the Select Disk dialog, ensure that the drive mounted via your AirPort Extreme is selected, and then select the option to “Encrypt Backup.” 3. Select “Use Disk.” This will cause Time Machine to encrypt the backup ﬁles on the drive in a sparsebundle format (essentially a disk image). This disk image is therefore encrypted by Time Machine on the remotely mounted drive in your AirPort Extreme. When encrypting a drive with Time Machine, only the disk image that is used for backups will be encrypted. The entire drive will remain unencrypted as AirPort disk sharing does not understand and cannot handle the encryption/decryption process. Permission Required Auto Save will automatically lock ﬁles after a while, preventing edits. Sometimes the application may interpret this as an error. 84 NOV•13 maclife.com For hours I have been trying to restore a very important book from Aperture. I found the backup ﬁle in an older folder in the Aperture Library (the “Pictures” folder), but when I click on this folder, I get the message “Folder can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.” Could you please tell me how on earth I can get permission to open the folder? Usually, when you access the insides of an iPhoto or Aperture library, the permissions are different and typically owned by the application. This is because the application doesn’t promote direct user access to these ﬁles. Fortunately, you can change the permissions so that you can access the contents of the ﬁles and get direct access to the missing photos. To do this, open Finder and navigate to the folder containing the Aperture ﬁle. Select the Aperture ﬁle, and then press Command + I on your keyboard. This will open the “Get Info” dialog for the ﬁle, allowing you to set the permissions. In the lower portion of the dialog, locate the section labeled “Sharing & Permissions,” and then select the lock at the bottom of the view. (You’ll be required to enter your password for your account to make changes to this section, similar to the way you have to authenticate to make changes in System Preferences.) Once unlocked, ensure that beside your user account, the words “Read & Write” appear. If they don’t, select them from the drop-down menu. You can also click on the small gear icon and select “Make (me) the owner.” Once you’re the owner, you will be able to select and open the ﬁles in your Aperture library. You can also repeat this process for any other ﬁles that continue to say you don’t have permission to access them. The Get Info Sharing & Permission check will be your friend in changing permissions so the ﬁles are viewable by your account. ClarisWorks Conversion My iMac is running Snow Leopard, and I failed to convert many of my ClarisWork documents to Pages. Now, I have some important documents that I am unable to access. Is there a low-cost way to convert my precious ClarisWorks word processing documents to Pages since I am about to explore upgrading to Mountain Lion? Unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more difﬁcult to convert these older ﬁle formats to newer, more-accessible formats like RTF, or even Pages or Word formats. Luckily, there is an option available that can convert these documents to more-available ﬁle formats. Two separate applications, in particular, icWord and icXL, allow you to convert ClarisWorks Documents and ClarisWorks Spreadsheets. These applications are available from the developer’s website at www.panergy-software.com. Sleep Paralysis I normally put my iMac in sleep mode, and when I need to use it, I just touch the mouse to awaken it. However, I’ve noticed lately that when I touch the mouse to awaken the machine, the screen is black and I cannot see the cursor. Then it remains that way for a while. I can touch the power button on the back twice to get to it to turn on instantly. Is there a way to troubleshoot this problem? This is a problem that has plagued many Mac owners with past models, be it desktop or notebook. There are theories surrounding the issue being related to everything from Adobe Flash Player all the way to corrupted OS X installs. We’ll take you through the list of troubleshooting steps, however, to see what might be up with your Mac. First, try unplugging any USB hard drives connected to your Mac. Try sleeping and waking your machine again. Many hard drives can make boot times and wake-up times longer, as they need to spin up ﬁrst. If that doesn’t work, try resetting the SMC (system management controller) and the PRAM. To reset the SMC, shut down your Mac and unplug the power cable from the back of the machine. Hold down the power button (with the Mac unplugged) for at least 15 seconds. This will drain all power out of the system, resetting the SMC. To reset the PRAM, plug your computer back in, and with the Mac shut down, boot it while holding down the Command + Option + P + R keys on the keyboard simultaneously. Once you hear the Mac startup chime for the second time, you can release the keys. If these steps still don’t help the matter, you may want to try backing up your data and reinstalling OS X. Command + Option + P + R is the four-ﬁngered salute that can sometimes ﬁx sleep/wake issues. Ask is written by Cory Bohon, a freelance technology writer, indie Mac and iOS developer, and amateur photographer. GOT A TECH QUESTION OR A HELPFUL TIP TO SHARE? The Panergy converters icWord and icXL allow conversion of ClarisWorks ﬁles to a myriad of other ﬁle types. Email [email protected] or write to Mac|Life, 4000 Shoreline Ct, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080 maclife.com NOV•13 85 >>>Create HOW TO DO ANYTHING ON YOUR MAC, iPhone & iPad Destroy Duplicate Files Free your Mac from duplicate ﬁles with the easy-to-use utility, Gemini Unless you’re meticulous about managing the contents of your Mac, you can easily end up with all kinds of duplicate ﬁles and folders that can quickly gobble up gigabytes of precious storage, and make your computer run slower than a tortoise going uphill in a headwind. Accumulating all this stuff is easy to do, especially if you regularly import photos, download tracks from iTunes, or shuttle ﬁles between Macs on your network. One way to make headway with all this stuff— and make your Mac run leaner and meaner—is to ﬁnd the offending ﬁles and simply remove them. But that can be a monumentally tedious and time-consuming task, which is where Gemini comes in. Gemini is a beautifully designed and easy-to-use utility that scours your Mac for duplicate ﬁles and folders, and then gives you the option of removing them manually or automatically. It can save you gigabytes of storage space—something that’s especially important on notebooks like the MacBook Air or Retina MacBook Pro. It goes without saying that you should always back up your Mac before you use any kind of “destructive” utility like this, although the way Gemini works is very safe. It always keeps at least one copy of any duplicate ﬁles it ﬁnds, and uses a range of criteria to ensure its results are as accurate as possible, so let’s dive right in. BY RoB MeaD-GReen 1 Choose Your Folders The ﬁrst thing to do after backing up your Mac is open Gemini and drag-and-drop the items you want to search for duplicates. These can be individual folders, your Home folder, external drives, or any combination of these. When you’re ready, simply click Scan to get Gemini to do its thing. 86 NOV•13 maclife.com Gemini’s uniquely user-friendly interface makes searching for duplicate ﬁles and folders extremely easy. >>>WHAT YOU NEED LEVEL: easy >> OS X 10.7 or later >> Gemini ($9.99, Mac App Store) 2 Work in Progress The amount of time Gemini takes to search through your stuff depends on what you’ve asked it to do. Searching a single folder should give results almost instantly; more involved searches probably mean you should go make a cup of coffee. Gemini’s progress indicator glows blue when in progress. 3 Search is Complete 5 Selecting and Deleting 7 Auto Select Once Gemini has done its job, the progress indicator either glows green to indicate that duplicates have been found, or orange to show it has found none. You see a summary of the results. If positive, it tells you how many dupes it has found and how much space they’re taking up. Next to each ﬁle in the center pane is a number telling you the number of duplicates Gemini has found. Selecting the ﬁle reveals more details, which appear in a pane on the right, including Quick Look–like visuals. You can examine each ﬁle and decide which to keep or delete completely. If you don’t have the time or patience to riﬂe through and delete duplicates, get Gemini to do it for you. Click Auto Select in the top-left of the browser window. Clicking the Remove Selected button on the top-right does exactly what it says—but there’s a ﬁnal check to go through ﬁrst. 4 Show Results 6 Searching and Deleting—Part 2 8 Shredding Duplicates Click on Show Results and Gemini displays what it’s found in a Finder-like window. Results displayed on the left are categorized by All Files, Pictures, Folders, and Documents, with a pie chart appearing at the bottom. Clicking on a folder displays the relevant list of duplicate ﬁles in the center pane. Nestling below the Quick Look view in the right-hand pane is the Select button bar. This lets you choose which version of a duplicate ﬁle to mark for deletion; options include Auto, Newest, Oldest, or Any. If you change your mind after selection, click the Deselect All button. Once you click Remove Selected, Gemini switches to Shredder mode. This lists all the ﬁles you’re about to delete. Clicking the Remove button “shreds” the ﬁles, straight away or by moving them to the Trash. See the Setting Prefs pop-up for the options available in Gemini > Preferences. maclife.com NOV•13 87 >>> Create How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad play powerpoint presentations on an ipad Discover three methods for exporting a PowerPoint presentation There are times when you’ll want to give a presentation but it’s not possible to have your MacBook with you. In these situations, an iPad is ideal; it’s small enough to carry around and whip out for an impromptu presentation. Obviously, in order to do that, you’ll need to get your presentation onto the iPad. But, with no standard Ofﬁce for iOS available (although Ofﬁce Mobile lets you access PowerPoint presentations through the subscription-only Ofﬁce 365), you’ll have to try other routes. Which one suits you will depend on which iPad apps you have and whether you want to control the presentation or let it run automatically. If it’s the latter, then the simplest solution is to export the presentation from PowerPoint on your Mac as a movie and transfer it to your iPad using iTunes. If you want more control over the presentation, you could 88 NOV•13 maclife.com import it to Apple’s Keynote app on the iPad and run it from there. Finally, if you haven’t got Keynote but do have QuickOfﬁce Pro on your iPad, you can do the same thing and run the presentation from QuickOfﬁce. We’ll show you how to do each of these and make your presentation as iPad-friendly as you need it to be. By Kenny HempHill >>>WHAT YOU NEED >> OS X 10.5.8 or later >> Ofﬁce for Mac 2014 >> Keynote for iPad (optional) >> QuickOfﬁce Pro (optional) LEVEL: medium 1 Export as Movie 4 Transfer File to Keynote In PowerPoint, go to File > Save as Movie. Name your presentation and choose where to save it. Click on Movie Options and set the resolution to match your iPad—either 1024x768 or 2048x1536, depending on your iPad. Leave the other settings at their default. Connect the iPad to your Mac, if you don’t sync wirelessly. Open iTunes on the Mac and, under Devices, click iPad. Click Apps and scroll to File Sharing. Click on Keynote, then navigate in the Finder to your PPT ﬁle; drag it to the window under Keynote Documents. 7 2 Convert to MPEG-4 5 Open in Keynote Your exported movie is a MOV QuickTime ﬁle; you’ll need to convert it for iPad. Download Handbrake from http:// handbrake.fr. Launch it, select your movie, and click Toggle presets in the menu bar, then click iPad in the device list. Leave everything else at default and click Start. Launch Keynote on the iPad and click on the plus sign at the top left. This enables presentations to be imported to Keynote. Tap Copy from iTunes in the drop-down menu. Now, tap the presentation to import and open it in Keynote. It’ll take a few seconds. Copy to QuickOfﬁce Pro Connect the iPad to the Mac, if you don’t sync wirelessly. Open iTunes on your Mac and, under Devices, click iPad. Click Apps and scroll to File Sharing. Click QuickOfﬁce Pro, then navigate in Finder to the PPT ﬁle and drag it to the window under QuickOfﬁce Pro Documents. 8 3 Transfer to iPad 6 QuickOfﬁce Pro Drag the ﬁle output by Handbrake onto the iTunes icon to add it to your iTunes Library. Now, sync your iPad with your Mac (via USB or Wi-Fi). If iTunes is set to manage Movies manually, tick the box next to your presentation to copy it to your iPad. Play it using the iPad’s Videos app. QuickOfﬁce Pro allows you to edit Ofﬁce ﬁles as well as view them, but not Ofﬁce 2011 format ﬁles, so you’ll need to save a copy of the presentation in PowerPoint 1997–2004 format. In PowerPoint go to File > Save As… and choose PowerPoint 1997–2004. Open Presentation Launch QuickOfﬁce Pro on your iPad and tap your presentation. The player is basic and doesn’t support video output, but you can still mirror it to an Apple TV. You need to tap a slide to move to the next and you’ll lose transitions, but you can make basic changes to slides. maclife.com NOV•13 89 >>> Create How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad Get Smart with Smart Albums Added keywords to your photos? Time to put them to good use In a past tutorial, we had a look at how to add keywords to your photos. The idea behind that was to make it easier to ﬁnd the shots you wanted, whenever you accessed the Search feature. But you can make use of keywords in other ways. You could, for instance, create a Smart Album with keywords as search criteria. Smart Albums are dynamic folders that gather photos based on certain parameters. Like any other album, they just link to the originals, stored in your main library. What makes them different is that you don’t have to manually populate them with stills; just set up a few conditions, and iPhoto will do it all for you. You can organize smart albums based on a photo’s rating, date, and even location, but keywords can be used to create highly speciﬁc albums, based on factors that you yourself create, not those solely embedded in your photo’s default metadata. In this tutorial, we’ll quickly show you how to create smart albums and set some basic conditions, then populate it with speciﬁc keywords. You’ll also see how you can create complex searches by making sure some of the photos on display don’t contain certain keywords as opposed to merely looking for shots with speciﬁc keywords. BY STEVE PARIS 1 Get Smart Creating a Smart Album is done from the menu bar. Go to File > New Smart Album, or use the Option + Command + N keyboard shortcut. A dropdown sheet appears at the top of the interface, with your new album’s default name already highlighted, ready for you to rename. 90 NOV•13 maclife.com >>>WHAT YOU NEED LEVEL: easy >> iPhoto 9.4.3 >> Keyworded photos 2 The First Criteria The point of a smart album is to only display photos that match speciﬁc criteria. Click on the ﬁrst dropdown menu to see all options available to you. You can search inside any metadata, like the ﬁle’s name, description, date it was taken, rating, but also by camera type, shutter speed, and so on. 3 Pulldown List 5 Filter by Keyword 7 Omitting a Keyword If you choose “Album,” you won’t have to type its name, as the third dropdown menu then lists all the albums you’ve created. Select one and hit the Return key to set it. All photos present in that album will now appear in your new Smart Album. Now, let’s make some modiﬁcations. Click the ﬁrst pulldown menu and this time, choose “Keyword.” The third ﬁeld becomes editable. Start typing and any photo’s keyword that contains the word you’ve typed in will be included (for instance, if you type “pigeon,” “pigeon” and “pigeons” will be viewed as valid keywords). It’s also possible to look for photos that don’t contain a speciﬁc keyword. Create a new row, set it to “Keyword,” and change the second dropdown menu from “contains” to “is not.” Any photo that has the ﬁrst keyword but not the second will appear in your album. Click on Done to see the results. 4 Smart Edit 6 By Exact Keyword 8 Immediate Change To alter a Smart Album, Control-click it in the sidebar and choose Edit Smart Album from the contextual menu. This brings you back to the dropdown sheet. To the right of your criteria are two buttons: “-“ (greyed out), and “+.” Click the latter to reveal a second row; add as many as you need. If you can’t remember the exact keyword you wish to search for, click the middle dropdown menu and change the value from “contains” to “is.” The third dropdown menu then lists all the keywords you’ve created. Choose the one you need to set the new criteria. Smart Albums update automatically. Go to the album your Smart Album is linked to, then change a photo’s keywords so that it will appear in or disappear from your Smart Album. You’ll see the changes to the collection take place immediately when you go back to it. maclife.com NOV•13 91 >>> Create How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad Analyze Data with pivot Tables A pivot table is great for comparing and summarizing data—ﬁnd out how Pivot tables summarize and compare data in spreadsheets and databases. They can be used to sort, count, average, or total data, using criteria you specify. So, if, for example, you had a spreadsheet that showed sales of different versions of a product in different regions, organized by date, you might want to know how many of one type were sold in a speciﬁc region in the period covered by the data. Or, you might want to know how many products in total were sold in a speciﬁc region on a speciﬁc date. But how to do this? You’ll need to create a second table, called a pivot table. In the ﬁrst example, the pivot table would display product types and regions as the row and column headings in the table. In the second, it would display dates and regions as row and column headings. In each case, this enables you to ﬁnd the answer to a speciﬁc query by cross-referencing row and column to identify the cell holding the answer you need. The fact that data can be manipulated in this fashion, by “rotating” the structure of the original table, is what originally gave pivot tables their name. They’re a powerful tool and can help you analyze very complex data sets. By Kenny HempHill >>>WHAT YOU NEED >> OS X 10.5.8 >> Microsoft Excel 2011 92 NOV•13 maclife.com LEVEL: medium 1 Prepare Data First, make sure the table that houses your data is complete, has no empty cells, and includes a header row. Next, decide what you want to ﬁnd out. In this case, we want to know how many of each widget were sold in each region during the week covered by the data. 4 Add Data 7 Filter Data Click OK and you’ll see the outline of an empty table where your pivot table will be displayed, along with the pivot table builder. Select the ﬁeld that contains the data you want to summarize. In our case, it’s Product, so we drag that into the Row Label section. 2 Create a Pivot Table With one of the cells in the table selected, go to the Data tab beneath the toolbar and click it. In the toolbar that opens, click the down arrow next to PivotTable, then select Create Manual Pivot Table. Excel will guess the data range you want to include. 5 Sort the Data Next, choose how you want to sort the data. In this example, we want to split it by region, so we drag Region into the Column Label section. Finally, the data we want to quantify in this case is Quantity, so we drag that into the Values section of the Pivot Table Builder. Now, click the arrow next to Row Labels. We can now ﬁlter, in this case, the Products included in the table. So, if, for example, we want to exclude Widget C from our analysis, we can untick the box next to its name to remove it. You can ﬁlter columns in the same way. 8 3 Display the Pivot Table If it’s correct, great. If not, click on the top-left cell of the table and drag the cursor to the bottom-left cell—include the header row. Now, choose whether to display the pivot table in a new worksheet or on the current sheet. If the latter, specify the top-left cell you want. 6 Name the Table We can now see how much of each product was sold in every one of our sales regions during the period under review, in addition to the totals. That’s very useful, but we can do more. First, edit the top-left cell to give the pivot table a meaningful name. Change Data Source You can now re-style the pivot table by picking a style from the PivotTable menu bar. You can also move the table by clicking Move under Data in the PivotTable menu bar, or change data source by clicking Change Source (followed by Refresh to update the table). maclife.com NOV•13 93 LIST VIEW DRAMATIC LICENSE Oh, the drama! We take a look at JobsÕ most over-the-top moments ure, the general consensus on the Jobs ﬁlm starring Ashton Kutcher is that it’s decidedly “meh” (see p16 for more details), but we have to admit that the creators and talent involved at least tried to make Steve Jobs’ life seem very moving and dramatic. In fact, they might have been trying too hard in some instances. With all due respect to Mr. Jobs, here are the movie’s top 10 most ridiculously dramatic instances. S 5. Surprise Pregnancy Hearing that your girlfriend is unexpectedly pregnant is surely a shock, but when Jobs hears about his unborn daughter in the movie, he completely loses it. He basically has a total breakdown and stands quivering in front of a mirror, looking like he’s gonna smash it into pieces at any second. 6. Close Shave How do you gauge how serious Steve Jobs is? Not by his words. Not by his demeanor. By his facial hair. When he shaves his beard, which he does in Jobs to demonstrate his maturity on the eve of Apple going public, you know that things are about to get real. 7. Screaming at Bill 1. Revealing the iPod The movie opens with incredibly dramatic music as Steve Jobs walks through the halls before standing in front of his employees to unveil the iPod. Sure, the iPod changed everything, but the movie made it seem like the world had never heard of MP3 players before. 2. Acid Tripping Jobs was evidently a very experimental fellow during his college years. This is conveyed in the movie when we see Jobs wander into an open ﬁeld and start spinning around while classical music ﬁlls the air. We have no doubt that Steve Jobs blew a fuse when he saw how closely Windows resembled Apple’s GUI, but his one-sided telephone tirade against the Microsoft chief—in which he threatened him and called him a “psychopathic, unimaginative criminal”—just came across as sorta goofy in the movie. 8. Good-bye, Woz When Steve Wozniak left Apple, did he really do it in the middle of the night, with a tear in his eye, while giving a speech about how so small and sad Jobs’ life had become? This event was followed by a bizarre scene of Jobs screaming in his car for no apparent reason. 9. At Apple No More 3. The Great Revelation You couldn’t actually see the wheels turning in Jobs’ head when he witnessed the ﬁrst prototype of a personal computer, but you could see lines of alphanumeric characters reﬂecting off his eyeball in a dramatic moment of revelation. Easily the single most overly dramatic scene in the movie comes after Jobs is ousted from Apple. We have a hard time believing that he actually went back to his parents’ home, returned to his garage workshop (which was remarkably clean and still intact), and built a carburetor while his father silently comforted him. 4. Computer-Building Montage You might think that cheesy montages ended with the ’80s, but they’re alive and well in Jobs, too. Only instead of hardcore training, this montage features slow-motion computer construction as Steve’s crew plugs and solders the Apple I into existence. 96 NOV•13 maclife.com 10. HeÕs Back Jobs’ return to Apple was a big moment, but some aspects of the way the event was portrayed in the movie were hilariously hamﬁsted, such as his passionate discussion with Jony Ive, and the scene in which he tosses his Discman into the trash. Coming soon for maC Blood and Gore Intense Violence Strong Language www.feralinteractive.com Tomb Raider © SQUARE ENIX LTD. 2013. SQUARE ENIX and the SQUARE ENIX logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. LARA CROFT, TOMB RAIDER, CRYSTAL DYNAMICS, the CRYSTAL DYNAMICS logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Square Enix Ltd. Developed for and published on the Mac by Feral Interactive Ltd. Feral and the Feral logo are trademarks of Feral Interactive Ltd. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The ratings icon is a registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners. 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Awesome Things Your Mac Can Do

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