June July 04

Transcript

June / July ‘04 Edition Apple NAB’s Video Pro’s Attention Articles Apple NABS Video Pro’s Attention Cover Story by Monte A Ferguson PPLE HAS SPENT A CONSIDERABLE Final Cut Pro effort to come up with new markets The first application to be showcased at the GRAMUG Meeting to bring their special touch to. Over the show was Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro has past several years Apple has developed gained Apple some major credit in the film Highlights solutions, both in hardware and software, industry. As it has evolved it has moved up Page 2 that are top from being notch. Yet the sole Product Review: cost much province Keynote 1.x less, and are of videogPage 3 much easier raphers to use, than working Music to Your Ears: current offeron com2003 ings in that mercials or Page 7 market. A music vidcase in point eos, very Can CAN-SPAM Can is the professhort films, Spam? sional video to today Page 9 market. where it Apple has can be used Product Review: consistently in full high set its sights definition iPod the Missing Shown above is Final Cut Pro HD’s Workspace on wooing video work Manual this lucrative crowd of professional users flows. Better yet, the program runs excepPage 14 and its efforts are really beginning to pay tionally well on even a laptop. So directors off. and Producers can see live video as they MacPAD: The Future of But, like anything in the creative busishoot it. Mac Software Updates ness, you have to keep moving to keep up Page 18 with the increasing demands of this fast New Features paced environment. Apple has consistently Final Cut Pro now allows you to capSpecials & Deals brought new features, at a bargain price, to ture DV, (Digital Video), SD (Standard Back Cover the table. This year was no exception. At Definition), and HD (High Definition) the recent NAB (National Association of video formats over FireWire. Final Cut Pro Broadcasters convention) Apple showcased offers RT Extreme HD, which mean you Get Info is a publication of a whole new line up of its professional can add effects, filters, and transitions in the Grand Rapids Area video software, including a brand new real time and see them preview without Microcomputer Users application. waiting to render the Continued on Page 4 Group. GRAMUG Meeting Highlights by Monte M Ferguson any folks think that user group meetings are for computer wizards and geeks. That the conversation will be way over their heads. While others have no idea what such meetings have to offer. I have showcased several recent gatherings below. As you can tell from these excerpts, a user group has something to offer nearly everyone no matter what their skill level. March icons and other customizations. *To make your dock transparent, you need the APE Manager and the module ClearDock from UnSanity: http: //www.unsanity.com/ they are FREE downloads:) and if you feel adventurous Shape Shifter is amazing! it really can customize the look of your computer! *A great place for apple fun goodies like the SightFlex for the iSight or the iBreeze laptop stand with cooling fans can be found at MacMice: http://www.macmice.com Our March meeting was a different topic than most. It was a BYOG, Bring And for great headYour Own Gadget. phones for your iPod Ok, so you could call check out Sennheiser, it a grown up show they carry everything and tell. But it’s more from entry level to high than just that. It was a end audio! riences and answer questions. The remainder of the The majority of meeting was given over this section of the to our own Cynthia meeting was led Brant. She wanted to by our own Terry share a program that Johnston. He had doesn’t fit into the norquite a few things to mal productivity, games, share with everyone. or graphics category. First he started by It is a specialized prosharing one of his gram that is used in favorite Mac paspracticing an alternative times, customizing form of medicine called the MacOS. He shared Homeopathy. some useful sights for others to explore. “Homeopathy is a sysHe then moved onto Our March giveaway winner, Mr. Robert Koroknay-Palicz, is tem that attempts to some cool hardware shown with his prize MacOS Killer Tips (Panther Edition.) stimulate the body to gadgets. The one heal itself. I realized that all symptoms, no matter how that gained the most attention was the SightFlex, an accesuncomfortable they are, represent the body’s attempt to sory for the iSight. (Basically it’s a flexible stand that you restore itself to health. So instead of trying to dry up the can mount your iSight on. But you have to see it to apprerunny nose from a cold with antihistamines, a homeopath ciate it. ) His other hardware find was a very nice set of will use a remedy that will stimulate the body to move in headphones for his iPod, to replace Apple’s ear bud headthe direction it is already going, and, in the process, clear phones. Also mentioned, but not shown, was the iBreeze, the runny nose!” it is a platform that fits under your PowerBook, or iBook, which has built in fans. You turn it on and it keeps a constant stream of Julian Winston, editor of Homeopathy Today cool air circulating under your laptop. Terry reports that http://www.homeopathic.org/welcome.htm his laptop rarely gets hot enough to run the internal fans when he uses the iBreeze. Cynthia showcased the program called MacRepetory Pro (produced byKent Homeopathic Associates) http:// If you’re interested in learning more about the things Terry www.kenthomeopathic.com/p1b.html discussed here are the links for those items: *Iconfactory: http://www.iconfactory.com/ (the oldest site dedicated to customizing your Mac’s appearance and home to thousands of free icons.) Off their site you can also download the program CandyBar, discussed at the meeting, by Panic software. *X-ICONS: http://www.xicons.com/, another cool site for GRAMUG meets monthly, throughout the school year, at CompUSA. Meetings are held on the Thursday of the fourth full week. Meetings begin at 7pm. You can also learn more about the group by going to our web site: http://www.gramug.org/ 2 Product Review: can easily drag graphics files, movie files, and even sound files to the canvas to add them to your slideshow. You create a slideshow using a theme , which lets you work by Monte Ferguson with a family of master slides to create a handsome and cohesive look throughout HE SAYING GOES THAT A PICTURE your presentation. Different master slides is worth a thousand words. Nowhere is within each theme make it easy to add titles that more true than when giving a presenand bulleted text in effective visual layouts. tation. A presentation is usually a lecture As you work on designing your slides, you or speech that is given before an audience may want to zoom in or out to get a better for the purpose of consideration, or educaview at what you are doing. tion. Most presentations revolve around You can organize the slides in your preWhat you get: detailed information and analysis. sentation using the slide organizer at Two CD Roms, which includes both the left side of the Keynote window. The To help make sense of that data, and the program and multimedia conto keep the audience focused, good slide organizer allows you to “indent” tent. You also get a Dictionary, Word your slides so that you can group them presenters use visual aids like slides to convey key points. In the old days Processor, and a 3d Atlas. The manual as you work. You can also choose to hide is included as a PDF document. that meant an awful lot of manual slides that you don’t want to appear labor assembling and creating the in your slideshow. The slide organizer materials for the visual aids. As time System Requirements has two views: navigator view, which went by, and computers came to the is most useful for graphics-intensive PowerPC G3 fore, people turned to them for mak- Minimum 300MHz; Mac OS X; CD presentations, and outline view, best ing presentations. These days you can ROM drive for text-heavy presentations. In navigabuy dedicated presentation programs. Full Version - $59.95 tor view, the slide organizer displays a These programs make very profesthumbnail image of each slide in your Upgrade Version - $39.95 sional looking presentations and presentation, which makes it easy to see spare you much of the work. the flow of graphics-rich presentations. To help you orgaKeynote is a presentation program. It is a new comer nize your presentation as you work, you can group slides to this field, and only one of two dedicated programs for by indenting them, creating a “visual outline” of the entire the Mac. It was also one of Apple’s best kept secrets, yet slideshow. Disclosure triangles allow you to show or hide shown to millions. The secret was that no one outside groups of slides. You can also “skip” slides so that they of the company was aware that Apple was developing a will not appear when you present your slideshow. presentation program. So, when it was announced, almost The notes field is an area in which you can type or everyone in the general public view notes for each was caught off guard. But we slide. These notes are had been viewing the program not visible in the slidefor a while. You see this proshow presentation but gram had a beta tester of one, they can be viewed on Mr. Steve Jobs himself. For over an alternate display a year he had been testing it, or printed as a talking and getting up in front of audiaid to use during your ences using this software. By slideshow presentathe time it was released it had tion. already been field tested. Although it is not a separate work area in The Interface Keynote, the Toolbar is Keynote takes many of it’s cues also a handy tool and from Apple’s other software. a prominent feature It sports a slick and simplistic in the interface. The interface that belies it’s true Keynote toolbar gives power. Before we move further into the review let’s examine Shown above is the main, graphical, view of a presentation you one-click access to many of the actions Keynote’s interface. project. you’ll use when creatThe Keynote window contains ing presentations in Keynote. As you work in Keynote and three sections—the slide canvas, slide organizer, and the get to know which commands you use most often, you can notes field—that let you see detailed views of your slides add or remove buttons in the Keynote toolbar to make the and slideshow as you work. most common The slide canvas is where you design each slide. You Continued on Page 5 Keynote 1.x T 3 Cover Story Continued effect. Digital Cinema From Page 1 AppleWorks Updates Span Platforms Apple has released a trio of minor updates for AppleWorks, its integrated productivity software that includes word processor, spreadsheet, page layout, graphics, database, and presentation capabilities, as well as compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats. Three updates are available, depending on your operating system and version. AppleWorks 6.2.9 for Mac OS X adds support for mice with scroll wheels, improves printing, and enhances the reliability of the presentation environment. AppleWorks 6.2.8 for Mac OS 8.1 through 9.x and the Mac OS X update resolve issues with Web-based templates and clip art on networks using proxy servers. AppleWorks 6.2.1 for Windows, as well as both of the Macintosh updates, improve the spreadsheet module. All three updates, available for free to users of AppleWorks 6.0 or later for Macintosh or 6.1 or later for Windows, are available online. The Macintosh downloads are 16 MB, and the Windows download is 6 MB. [MHA] iCal 1.5.2 Released Apple today updated iCal, its calendar and personal organizer application, to version 1.5.2. The Info drawer is now optionally detachable, you can assign alarms or add notes to To-Do items, and alarms now include an option to display a message 15 minutes before the alarm goes off. Also new is the capability to publish and subscribe to calendars on servers located behind firewalls, as well as more keyboard shortcuts. iCal supports events in multiple time zones, and has received other stability and performance improvements. iCal 1.5.2 is available now via Software Update, or as a 6.3 MB download. [JLC] Give Me Death and Give Me Liberty Research Software Design’s bibliography and note-taking program Papyrus was Continued on Page 5 including online, batch capture, consolidation, clip merge, and timecode Desktop is management tools. Compressor batch the feature where you can use your encoding tool for output to MPEG-1, Apple monitor to view your HD, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and QuickTime. SD, or DV (over a DVI connection) XML interchange format for integravideo. You do not need to spend extra tion with other systems and producmoney on a video monitor. You can tion workflows. EDL, ALE, audio add motion graphics, from Apple’s OMF, and film-list support. AAF Motion application, seamlessly. import/export from Automatic Duck via XML interchange and efficiency. Editing and trimming controls. Editors can now perform asymmetric and dynamic trims, use master clips, gang playback between windows, and much more. Featuring an improved Shown above is the new DVD Studio Pro 3 workspace. user interface, the enhanced Timeline supports variable track Other Features heights, keyframe graphs, Auto Select Final Cut Pro HD includes over 150 tools andTime remapping. Using keyreal-time-capable filters and tranframes, editors can speed up, slow sitions, support for real-time HD down, reverse, or ramp playback effects, and up to seven simultaneous speed over time without rendering. streams of fully uncompressed SD. Frame blending is used to generate Final Cut Pro HD supports 8- and the highest-quality output possible. 10-bit uncompressed SD and HD Industry-leading workflow and user video formats, as well as compressed interface design allow time-remapbroadcast-quality codecs. With builtping operations to be performed in support for Panasonic’s DVCPRO graphically in the Timeline. Advanced HD and DVCPRO50 formats, Final Cut Pro has the power to deliver both render engine. The Final Cut Pro HD render engine is among the indusstandard- and high-definition 4:2:2 try’s most advanced, with support for YUV broadcast video from the field 10-bit and HDR imaging (32-bit floator edit bay over a single FireWire ing point). Composites and effects connection. Audio Mixer with fader rendered in Final Cut Pro HD are automation and real-time audio suitable for SD and HD mastering. effects. Real-time color correction Enhanced media management capawith scopes, monitors, and Frame bilities include intelligent capturing Viewer for comparing multiple shots. of video across timecode breaks and LiveType animated title generator gaps in tape; project and sequence for DV, SD, and HD. Soundtrack for consolidation and transcoding; a creating high-quality, royalty-free multi-item properties window with music that syncs to projects. Time difference highlighting; the ability to remapping for smoothly scaling and ramping speed. Cinema Tools for film create master clips and affiliate clips; match frame to master clip; match projects; now supporting change lists frame with “reveal in Browser”; the and 16mm, 35mm (3- and 4-perf), ability to edit nested sequences with and PAL (25 fps) content editing at 24 fps. Extensive media management, Continued on Page 6 4 Keynote Contʼd from Page 3 commands easily available. Features Continued reviewed four years ago in “Best Footnote Forward: Papyrus 8.0.7” in TidBITS-514_; a couple of years later, development ceased. (Coincidence? We hope not!) Now the program has new life: the developer, Dave Goldman, is giving it away free, and you can download it at RSD’s new Web site. Papyrus runs under System 7 or higher, including Mac OS X’s Classic environment. [MAN] Apple Unveils G5 Xserve, new Xserve RAID Apple lifted the cover on a significant upgrade to the Xserve, its line of 1U (one-unit high) rackmount Mac OS X-based servers. The Xserve G5 features single or dual 2 GHz G5 processors, a 1 GHz frontside bus for each processor, an 8 GB RAM ceiling, an 80 GB Serial ATA drive with support for up to 750 GB in three drive bays, and an optional slot-loading CD-ROM or DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo drive. In addition, the Xserve G5 offers two built-in Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, two FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports, and two full-length PCI-X expansion slots on independent buses. (PCI expansion options include video and SCSI support, additional Ethernet interfaces, an Apple Fibre Channel card, or third-party RAID support). Three configurations are available: a stripped-down Cluster Node version (for distributed applications such as video rendering) with dual 2 GHz processors and a 10-client Mac OS X Server license, as well as more traditional Single Processor and Dual Processor configurations with unlimited client versions of Mac OS X Server. Prices start at $3,000. Apple also revamped the $6,000 Xserve RAID, a 3U (three-unit high) rack-mount system which offers up to 3.5 TB (terabytes) of storage in 14 hot-swappable drive bays. The Xserve RAID connects to Xserves using a 2 Gb Fibre Channel interface. The new Xserve RAID sports throughputs of up to 210 MB/second, and Apple also unveiled support for using the Xserve RAID with Linux and Windows systems. [GD] Continued on Page 6 Keynote utilizes many technologies in MacOS X to make some very visually appealing presentations. Keynote gives you smooth text and crisp graphics. Keynote lets you add most standard file types to your presentation—including PDF, GIF, TIFF, JPEG, PICT, and QuickTime—with drag-and-drop ease, and displays crisp graphics, smoothed text, and different levels of transparency. Set off your points with formatted text or image bullets. Add shadows and transparency to your images. Alignment guides and position and size tags help you size and position objects precisely and consistently on the slide canvas. Animate your slides nizer, which keeps the entire presentation at your fingertips. You can rearrange slides on the fly, or arrange them into groups to help you organize your thoughts. Or you can use outline view, which provides a list of the bulleted text points in your presentation at a glance. Resize and manipulate graphics with sharp results every time. You can choose from eight different chart types, including pie charts, bar charts, and line charts. Formatting charts, tables, text, graphics, and more is a snap with the inspectors. Type or paste your data into the Chart Data Editor. Can’t design an attractive presentation to save your life? Apple thought of that. Keynote comes with predesigned themes. Keynote makes it easy to develop compel- Keynote ships with an assortment of professionally created themes. You can just select one and jump right into creating a presentation. with object builds, which draw your tables or other items onto the slide as you talk through them. You can add images with alpha channel masks, say a multilayered Photoshop file, to add a unique visual touch. You can adjust text and image opacity in one of the included inspectors. Keynote can import and save out to Microsoft Powerpoint. Organizing your presentation is also a snap with the slide orga- ling presentations with a cohesive look and feel. If you like to do-ityourself it’s easy to create your own custom themes, too. (Or you can look up one of the number of web sites out there offering Keynote themes for downloading.) Pros I’m one of the worst people to be trying out Keynote. I have never used a presentation program Continued on Page 8 5 Cover Story Contʼd automatic unnesting; from Page 4 advanced Continued Apple Releases Final Cut Express 2 Apple announced Final Cut Express 2 at Macworld Expo, an updated version of its mid-range video editing software originally introduced in January 2003. Final Cut Express 2 enhances its RT Extreme capability of playing back video layers, transitions, and effects without having to render them first, and is also optimized for the Power Mac G5 and Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Audio improvements include real-time volume and filter adjustment, automated audio keyframe recording, support for Audio Units (the Apple audio plug-in format for Mac OS X applications), and the capability to export markers for Apple’s Soundtrack application. You can now also capture footage across timecode breaks (a common issue encountered with consumer DV camcorders). Since it’s built from the code base of Final Cut Pro 4, Final Cut Express 2 features a customizable interface for creating shortcut buttons to favorite functions and tweaking the appearance of many interface elements. Final Cut Express 2 is available now for $300; upgrades from Final Cut Express 1.0 cost $100. [JLC] Microsoft Announces Office 2004 for Mac OS X Microsoft last week announced the upcoming release (sometime in the first half of this year) of Office 2004 for Macintosh. The first major revision to Office since the release of Office X in fall 2001, the new Office suite offers a new Project Center feature in Entourage to link related bits of project data and allow collaboration with shared material on a file server or an iDisk. Other Mac-first features demonstrated at Macworld Expo included section tabs and a notebook view in Word 2004, and a new page layout view in Excel 2004. Microsoft’s Technology Guarantee Program offers a free upgrade to Office 2004 when it becomes available, to anyone purchasing Office X between 06-Jan-04 and 30-Jun-04. Microsoft says this spring’s release will offer three editions of Office; Office Continued on Page 7 telecine operations; and support for Panasonic’s 24p DV and DVCPRO50 devices. updated. It has taken some cues from it’s consumer counterpart, iDVD, and added a graphical way to view your project and all of its files. DVD Studio Pro 3 includes transitions that automatically create new video to blend between menus and between slides. A radical new transition, Alpha Transitions, allow you to create custom transitions. With Alpha Transitions, users have control over graphics that display LiveType LiveType Full-featured,professionalquality animated titling LiveType introduces LiveFonts, the first 32bit, fully animated fonts. LiveFonts provide color, motion, and expressive characteristics, offering users an innovative approach to professional titling. LiveType comes with 27 LiveFonts, and with the FontMaker utility, users can create their own animated fonts with characters Shown above is the Shake 3.5 workspace. built from virtuduring the transition based on the ally any graphical object— from content in your menus and slides. 3D animations and images to video You now can use both clips. There are over 140 customizable effects, including fades, zooms, Dolby Digital and DTS audio rotations, and other complex motion tracks. Improved integration with Photoshop means that you can behaviors; users can also create control click on a graphic to edit it their own styles using the powerin Photoshop. When you save the ful keyframe animation and timing change and go back to DVD Studio controls in LiveType. The real-time Pro, the project updates automatiwireframe preview window procally. Compressor 1.2 (included with vides instant, accurate previews of project behaviors and motion, elimi- DVD Studio Pro 3) offers the following benefits: HD scaling and encodnating the need for time-consuming ing to MPEG-2 for today’s DVD rendering. And a Canvas RAM preplayers. Using specialized optical view allows users to see their work flow technology, the Compressor before rendering, saving additional format conversion feature can scale time. frame sizes and change frame rates, producing even better MPEG-2 DVD Studio Pro 3 video for DVD Studio Pro 3. With The DVD has become a major force Compressor, Final Cut Pro HD in the video industry. In fact it’s users can encode directly from HD considered a vital component of to MPEG-2. Jacket pictures are an any video workflow. DVD’s have optional part of the DVD-Video become the hot way to shop around a demo reel, or mix down a rough of specification; they allow a DVD a movie for presentations. A DVD is player to display a graphic representing a DVD when the viewer an awesome way to create sales and stops playback (as opposed to a marketing presentations, training, and wedding videos. DVD’s are also generic graphic generated by the player much like a computer shows the final end of many video projects a screen saver). Now wedding vidthemselves. Apple has updated their eographers can create a wedding own professional DVD authoring DVD that shows a picture of the solution, DVD Studio Pro. couple when the DVD is stopped. DVD Studio Pro 3 adds support for New Features The look of the program has been Continued on Page 16 6 Music to Your Ears: 2003 by Dan H Frakes EADPHONES. EVERYWHERE you look, people are using X is currently available in Standard Edition, them with portable music players Professional Edition (which includes Virtual PC), including the iPod - but they’re also and a discounted Student and Teacher Edition. extremely popular computer acces[MHA] sories, used for watching DVDs, tunes at work or play. For thepast two years I’ve been providing recTinderbox 2.1 Enhances HTML Export, ommendations for headphonegifts Text Display based on the premise that most Eastgate Systems has released a minor update to headphones stink (especiallythose their personal content manager Tinderbox (see that come with portable audio de“Light Your Fire with Tinderbox” in TidBITS-651_). vices, but even many that you buy New in Tinderbox 2.1 is a macro feature for yourself in electronics stores). The automatic text replacement, improved flexibility bad news is that this hasn’t changed; of HTML export, better support for anti-aliased most still aren’t very good. The text, and more. Tinderbox 2.1 costs $145 with good news is that there are more a year of free updates; a renewal of updates for quality options available than ever, another year costs $70. It’s a 4.4 MB download. and prices seem to be getting better [ACE] every year. If someone in your life uses headphones, give them a pair that do their music/movies/games Blue World Releases Lasso justice. Professional 7 Lasso Professional 7, the latest version of its ware for Mac OS X and Windows. Version 7 features an embedded version of the MySQL The response to the previous database (enhancing both performance and years’ articles was overwhelmingly security), improved Unicode and extended positive, so I’m revisiting my recomcharacter set support, significant data source mendations from last year. A few caching (which can dramatically improve permodels have been discontinued, formance of others have been replaced, and some database-driven sites), dynamic manipulasome prices have changed. I’ve also tion and generation of images, performance added a few items based on feedenhancements specifically for folks serving back from readers and evaluations FileMaker Pro databases with Lasso, multi-server I’ve done over the past year. Below, sessions (so user sessions can be tracked across listed by type/style, are this year’s multiple Lasso servers), support for Apache recommendations. I’ve included 2, improved database transaction support, approximate street prices in US dolenhanced support for dealing with SOAP, XML, lars, and URLs for more information. and WSDL-based Web services, hundreds of (If an item is difficult to find, I’ve new tags, and much more. Lasso Professional 7 also included a URL for a reputable costs $1,000, although Blue World is offering a vendor.) $50 discount through Note that there are definitely 31-Dec-03; upgrade pricing is available for previ- “better” headphones available than ous versions. Lasso Professional 7 requires Mac those listed below - especially if you OS X 10.2 Jaguar with either Apache 1.3, Apache have a dedicated headphone ampli2, or WebSTAR V, and is fully optimized for Mac fier that can drive them properly. OS X 10.3 Panther and PowerPC G5 processors. However, the models listed below A fully functional 30-day trial version is available will play nice with the headphone Continued Continued on Page 8 jack of your iPod, PowerBook, iBook, iMac, or Power Mac. Also keep in mind that sound quality between different models from the same manufacturer often varies significantly. Just because a model from a manufacturer is recommended here doesn’t mean that another model from that manufacturer is just as good; there’s a good chance it isn’t. Earbuds These models sit in your outer ear, like the iPod earbuds. •Sennheiser MX 400 ($13) or MX 500 ($17): Considered by many to be the best all-around traditional earbuds, these two models are also among the least expensive. People with small ears may find them to be a bit big. The MX 500 adds an inline volume control. • Sony MDR-E888 ($65): Sony’s best earbuds; they’re not quite as balanced as the MX 500, but they’re still quite good. Unfortunately, they’re almost four times the price. Sony claims to have discontinued them, but they’re still widely available, especially online. In-Ear-Canal Headphones These “seal” in your ear canal to block out external sound, and they’re great for traveling. The main drawback to in-ear-canal headphones is that some people don’t like sticking things inside their ears... way inside. Be sure to read the included instructions on how to get the right fit. Fortunately, all of the models listed here include several different sizes of rubber and/or foam tips to help you achieve the Continued on Page 10 7 Keynote Cont’d from Page 5 Continued rom the Blue World Web site. [TJE] Security Update 2003-12-05 Protects Your Cookies Responding to a security vulnerability where an attacker could gain unauthorized access to a user’s cookies in Safari, Apple has released Security Update 2003-12-05. The update is available via Software Update, as well as separate downloads for Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar (a 1.3 MB download) and Mac OS X 10.3 Panther (a 2.6 MB download). [JLC] Business Card Composer 2 Offers Online Ordering BeLight Software has updated Business Card Composer, their elegant application for creating attractive business cards. Most notably, Business Card Composer 2 lets you order your custom business cards from an online print shop for reasonable prices; the process works much like ordering photos from within iPhoto. Also new in Business Card Composer 2 is support for custom card and paper sizes, integration with Address Book for printing cards for multiple people at once, and integration with Google Image Search for finding new graphics (although, as the software clearly warns, there are likely copyright restrictions on the use of images found on the Internet; in an ideal world, it would let you search only for images distributed under a Creative Commons license that allowed use). Business Card Composer 2 is free to registered users, although you must fill out an update form to get a new license code; it’s a 7 MB download. [TJE] QuicKeys X2 2.0.2 Now PantherCompatible CE Software has released the completed version of their macro utility QuicKeys X2 2.0.2. The most notable change is of course compatibility with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, since previous versions of QuicKeys were expressly incompatible, and CE made time-limited betas available upon Panther’s release (see “Default Folder X and QuicKeys X: Upgrade Before Panther!” in TidBITS-703_). QuicKeys X2 2.0.2 also improves typing of text shortcuts, better handles sheets and drawers during Continued on Page 9 in my life. Having said that Keynote was pretty easy to use. Getting up and running was quick and painless. The included professional themes are a godsend. They made even my initial attempts look beautiful. The built in font handling was smooth and looked great at any resolution. I loved the transitions. Once you get the hang of them it was a piece of cake to add a transition. In fact it was so easy you might be tempted to overdo the transitions. I loved the export options. disappointed with Keynote. I found myself having to refer to the documentation to find out how to perform some of those snazzy options. (Though this might be attributed to my lack of experience with presentation programs.) Several cool features are buried in Inspectors or contextual menu’s. Initial performance of the program was ok, but not spectacular. Apple released an update for Keynote which seems to have taken care of that issue. Some folks have mentioned, with the initial release, mixed results importing their PowerPoint files Shown above are some examples of slides using themes bundled with Keynote. You can even import data and create charts. It’s always hard to tell what equipment someone else might have. The ability to save to PDF or Quicktime alleviate those concerns, and allow you to repurpose your presentation for the web. The built in image library was a very pleasant surprise. They’re high quality images too. So you can print out your presentation without worrying about low quality images marring your print outs. Subtle touches, like transparency, are fun and addicting. Cons I hope you like inspectors. There are several of them and you need to consult them to tweak settings or image and text parameters. This can quickly lead to a messy, or crowded screen. If you’re someone who thinks all Mac programs should be so drop dead easy that you never need a manual, you might be slightly into Keynote, or exporting their Keynote files to PowerPoint. Conclusion You have to give it to Apple. They’ve taken a niche that everyone else had written off, presentation software, and came out with an impressive offering. Keynote follows Apple’s philosophy of simplifying the complicated and making things accessible for the rest of us. The program almost makes it fun to put a presentation together. It doesn’t have every feature of PowerPoint but it covers most of the bases. For most folks Keynote is worth a serious look. 8 Can CAN-SPAM Can Spam? by Brady Continued macro recording, adds support for the new F16 key on Apple’s latest keyboards, and provides several other minor fixes. The update is free for registered users and is an 11.1 MB download. [ACE] Netopia Releases Timbuktu 7 Bored with controlling only the computer in front of you? Netopia has released Timbuktu 7, the latest version of its software for managing remote Macs and PCs. Timbuktu 7 adds support for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther (including Fast User Switching) and includes a Profile service for getting Apple System Profiler information from the remote machine. It’s also now easier to work with computers behind NAT routers, thanks to new capabilities to configure which port Timbuktu uses for network traffic and choose which IP address is broadcast. The program requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 and higher, but Timbuktu 6.0.3 is also included for connecting to computers running earlier system versions back to Mac OS 8.6. Timbuktu pricing starts at $95 for a single copy and goes up to $1,650 for 30 licenses (however, Netopia is running an end-of-year sale that reduces those prices through 31-Dec-03). Upgrade pricing depends on the version you’re currently using; you must enter your serial number and activation code online to view the upgrade price for your version. [JLC] Apple Introduces 20-inch iMac Just in time for the holiday shopping season, Apple has released a new version of the flatpanel iMac that offers a 20-inch LCD screen with a resolution of 1680 by 1050 pixels. The screen is also brighter then the smaller models and offers a higher contrast ratio. As far as other functional specs go, the 20-inch iMac is identical to the 17inch iMac, with a 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 processor, 256 MB of RAM, 80 GB hard drive, SuperDrive, and all the usual ports. The one interesting deviation from the 17-inch iMac is with the weight - the 20-inch iMac weighs 40.1 pounds (18.2 kg), 17.3 pounds (7.8 kg) heavier than the 22.8 pound (10.4 kg) 17-inch iMac. The new 20-inch iMac is available immediately for $2,200 in the stock configuration, with all the usual build-to-order options. The 15-inch iMac remains priced at $1,300 and the 17inch iMac still costs $1,800. [ACE] Continued on Page 10 T Johnson ALK ABOUT DEJA VU. I recall having written this introduction for a TidBITS article about spam before, each time changing the unhappy statistics about spam volumes in an upward direction. I always start by looking at Brightmail and other sites that track spam to see how the efforts have fared so far. Sad to say, the news has never been good. Even Congress has acknowledged this in the opening lines of the CAN-SPAM Act, enacting this sorry comment into law: “Unsolicited commercial electronic mail is currently estimated to account for over half of all electronic mail traffic, up from an estimated 7 percent in 2001, and the volume continues to rise.” In fact, according to Brightmail, spam is rising faster than the mercury on a hot summer day. In 2002, spam accounted for 40 percent of all email, meaning that if Congress’s 7 percent number is correct, between 2001 and 2002 there was a nearly 600 percent increase. By the end of 2003 that number had soared to 58 percent. If the trend continues, 65 percent of our email will be spam by the end of 2004. To stem this tide, Congress has enacted the “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act,” or CAN-SPAM. On 16-Dec-03 President Bush signed the bill into law and it became effective on 01Jan-04. CAN-SPAM has generated much discussion and debate, with much of the wired community angrily dismissing it as a deal with the devil and the marketing community hailing it as a significant step forward in the battle to combat spam. Reading the various commentaries on CAN-SPAM, it quickly becomes clear that a key disagreement turns on the defini- tion of “spam.” To many regular Internet users, “spam” includes any unsolicited bulk email from any source. To these users, CANSPAM addresses only a small subset of spam while legitimizing the rest of it. The marketing community and others maintain that bulk email that is not misleading or deceptive is fair exercise of their commercial free speech rights and is no more objectionable than junk snail mail. Thus, they claim that it should not be included in the definition of “spam.” To these users, CAN-SPAM represents a major step forward. What Is “Spam” Anyway? I feel obligated to point out that spam is actually a pinkish processed meat product made by Hormel. Hormel has belatedly taken issue with using their product’s name for noxious email and is attempting to block trademarks that include “spam” such as SpamArrest. But to many folks, “spam” simply refers to any unwanted email from a stranger trying to sell a product, tout a position, advertise a commercial Web site, or sway the reader’s opinion in some way. As anti-spam legislation has been enacted in the various states, the definition has morphed and narrowed to “unwanted commercial email” or “UCE,” exempting noncommercial email such as political or charitable solicitations. CANSPAM narrows this definition even further. CAN-SPAM uses the term “spam” only in the title acronym and in one of the initial recitations. (Recitations in a statute have no legally binding effect and are merely statements of policy reasons to aid courts in interpreting it.) CAN-SPAM defines “commercial electronic mail” as email, “the primary purpose of which is the Continued on Page 11 9 Music to Your Ears Contʼd from Page 7 Continued Apple Releases 1.8 GHz Dual Processor G5 Apple has released a new model of the Power Mac G5, its 64-bit minitower computer aimed at professional and high-end Macintosh users. The new model offers dual 1.8 GHz PowerPC G5 processors (each with a 900 MHz frontside bus) with prices starting at $2,500. The new systems slip into the middle of Apple’s G5 lineup, replacing a $2,400 configuration with a single 1.8 GHz processor; otherwise, the specifications for the Power Mac G5s remain unchanged, save that they all now ship with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. (For details on the changes in the Power Mac G5 architecture compared to previous systems, see “Apple Announces 64-Bit Power Mac G5s” in TidBITS-685_.) However, Apple has reduced the starting price of the 1.6 GHz single processor system by $200 to $1,800. The new dual-processor model serves to highlight benefits of Mac OS X’s multiprocessor capabilities, particularly in computationally intensive areas like video and media production. [GD] Security Update 2003-11-19 Helps Panther, Jaguar Apple released a pair of security updates last week via Software Update, bringing both Mac OS X 10.2.8 Jaguar and Mac OS X 10.3.1 Panther up to the same security level. Security Update 2003-11-19 improves OpenSSL security and fixes a potential problem with third-party applications using a print library. On Macs running Jaguar, the security update also fixes issues with Mail, QuickTime for Java, Personal File Sharing, and a few other vulnerabilities that were implemented in the first release of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther (see “Security Update 2003- Continued on Page 11 most comfortable fit. •Etymotic ER-4P ($260): The best earbud/canal headphones on the planet, in my opinion, and one of the best headphones, period. The ER-4P actually provide far more isolation (roughly -28 dB), and better sound, than any noisecanceling headphone on the market, making them the ultimate travel headphones. •Shure E5 ($450-$500): Shure’s top-ofthe-line, the E5 use two drivers in each earpiece instead of one. I personally prefer the sound (and comfort) of the Etymotics, but the E5 have become quite popular in audio circles, and some people prefer the way the E5 fit. •Etymotic ER-6 ($130): The “budget” version of the ER-4P. These don’t sound quite as good (most notably in the bass), and don’t provide as much isolation (-20 dB), but they’re still excellent, and are half the price. •Shure E2c ($100): The “budget” version of the Shure E5 (with only a single driver per earpiece), the E2c headphones are in the same class as the Etymotic ER-6, but provide a different tonal balance - more bass, but less detail. They also fit slightly differently; I find them a bit less comfortable than the ER-6, but I’ve heard from more than a few people who prefer the fit of the E2c. •Sony MDR-EX71SL Fontopia ($45): The successor to the EX70 mentioned last year, these headphones don’t impress me any more than the EX70, especially their emphasis on bass and lack of detail, but that’s mainly in comparison to the excellent Etymotic and Shure models. They’re still a good value if you don’t want to splurge on the Etymotics or Shures, and some people find them to be more comfortable. Earclips Instead of using a headband like traditional headphones, the drivers on these models clip/hang on each ear. They tend to be quite comfortable, and won’t mess up your hair. This style has grown immensely in popularity over the past few years, but the only ones I’ve heard that I can recommend from an audio perspective are the two Koss models below. •Koss KSC-35 ($30): The KSC-35 were officially discontinued last year, but they were so popular among headphone fans that Koss reintroduced them “for a limited time.” (I put that in quotes because it seems like more of a PR tactic than a reflection of their availability - Koss has been selling them on their Web site for months.) Small, lightweight, and comfortable, they offer some of the best sound under $100. They’re one of the best headphones available for exercise and active use, and one of the best bargains of any type. •Koss KSC-50 ($20): The “successor” to the KSC-35, they’re available everywhere, but spend the extra $10 and get the originals, which sound a tad better and are more comfortable. I recommend the KSC-50 only if you can’t get the KSC-35, or if you like the looks of the newer model better. They’re hard to beat for $20, though, regardless of the type. (Koss does not let you link directly to headphone models at its Web site, below. Go to Products and click the Portable link to see the Koss models included here.) Continued on Page 12 10 Can Spam Contʼd from Page 9 Continued 10-28 Released” in TidBITS-704_). The update for Jaguar is a 4.6 MB download; the update for Panther is a 1.3 MB download. [JLC] Creo Eases File Sharing with Tokens Have you found sharing files via email frustrating? Email, as we’ve been predicting, is becoming increasingly unreliable, thanks to spam-overloaded servers and inaccurate filters, and, when we’re talking about file sharing, encoding format troubles and attachment size limitations. Creo, makers of the Six Degrees program for managing email-based workgroups, has come up with an alternative called Tokens, which works with both the Mac and Windows. Rather than attach your huge Keynote presentation to an email message to multiple people, you use the $50 Tokens Creator to create a several-kilobyte “token” that points back to a compressed and encrypted version of the Keynote file on your hard disk. When your recipients receive the token you sent, they double-click it to open it in the free Token Redeemer, which retrieves the presentation from your computer. Your computer must be left on and connected to the Internet to serve the file; if there are other network obstructions (such as firewalls) between the recipient and your computer, Token Redeemer automatically retrieves the file via Creo’s Tokens relay service (which allows up to 5 GB per month of transfer). After a basic installation on both sides, no setup is necessary, and no one has to worry about user accounts or passwords. Creo also offers a $600 Tokens Server, which comes with 10 licenses for Token Creator and handles the file serving duties for all of them. Tokens is definitely a 1.0 product, but it’s interesting, and could serve an important role in simplifying file transfer. [ACE] Continued on Page 16 commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service.” Political and charitable solicitations are still excluded from this definition, as are “transactional or relationship messages,” which are email messages from a party with whom you have an existing connection of some kind. CAN-SPAM gives the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) the authority to change the definition of “transactional or relationship messages... to the extent that such modification is necessary to accommodate changes in electronic mail technology or practices and accomplish the purposes of this Act.” However, the FTC does not have authority to alter the definition of “commercial electronic mail.” Key CAN-SPAM Provisions CAN-SPAM’s most severe prohibitions focus on certain types of deceptive and fraudulent email. These can subject the spammer to substantial criminal penalties of three years in prison for a first offense and five years for a subsequent offense, or for deceptive commercial email that is sent in furtherance of another felony. This would include, for example, the many messages claiming to be from exiled political leaders seeking help to launder and share their hoards of untold wealth if only the recipient would provide a valid bank account number to them first. Those messages - already the subject of prosecutions under existing criminal statutes - are subject to further criminalization under CAN-SPAM. Other criminal acts include using a computer, server, or domain to send or relay commercial email without the lawful owner’s permission, and using false headers or misleading subject lines. These activities are also subject to civil actions and penalties in addition to criminal prosecution. CAN-SPAM uses an opt-out model, requiring that all commercial email include a method of opting out of future mailings from the sender and must include the sender’s real email address and snail mail contact information. The statute specifies that spam must contain a mailto, Web link, or other online mechanism that the recipient can use to opt out. All commercial email subject to CAN-SPAM is required to identify itself as an advertisement. The statute does not specify how spammers should identify their email, leaving that to the FTC, which has until April Fools Day (01-Apr04) to publish the identifying marks that spammers must use. Like other provisions of CAN-SPAM, this identification requirement does not apply to mail sent to anyone who has affirmatively consented to receiving the messages. CAN-SPAM considers certain actions to be “aggravated violations” potentially subject to more severe penalties. These include the common practice of harvesting email addresses from various Internet sources and of using “dictionary attacks.” Hijacking someone else’s server is also an aggravated violation. One heavily criticized component of the Act is the provision preempting all state laws addressing spam with certain very limited exceptions. The only state laws that survive this evisceration are those that prohibit falsity or deception in commercial email such as the Washington state statute and large parts of the California statute, and those that only incidentally affect email. Examples of statutes with incidental effects on email would include general computer trespass laws, consumer protection statutes, and other laws that apply generally to conduct that may sometimes include email. That means that much existing state law has fallen by the wayside and that the California opt-in statute which was to take effect this year has been essentially nullified in most material respects. As far as enforcement goes, CANSPAM allows no private right of action, meaning that individual victims of spammers cannot go to court and sue for violation of the statute. Authorized enforcers are the FTC and other federal government agencies, state Attorneys General, and Internet service providers. It’s worth noting that Internet service providers often have their own acceptable use policies relating to email and spam. The new federal statute does not disturb these private rules, meaning that an ISP retains authority under those policies to cancel or suspend a user and often to claim damages, etc. for violation. Leaving ISP authority in place provides an independent, if seldom-used, basis of liability against spammers. Will CAN-SPAM Work? I don’t think so. CAN-SPAM is Cont’d on Page 12 11 Music to Your Ears Contʼd from Page 10 Lightweight, Over the Head These are traditional over- the-head headphones using a metal or plastic headband. Koss has long been the king of sound quality in this area, as they have an entire line of portable headphones that use a driver that is much better than almost anything else on the market. However, Sennheiser released a new line of lightweight/portable headphones last year that are excellent and give the Koss models some competition. •Koss PortaPro ($40): Variants of the PortaPro have been around for decades, and for good reason: it’s hard to beat their sound for the money, and they fold up into a small bundle for travel. The headband provides adjustable temple grips for comfort. •Koss SportaPro ($20): These are similar to the PortaPro (the same drivers) but with less expensive construction Can Spam Cont’dfrom Page 11 a decent enough starting point, but in my opinion it has too many flaws to make it effective to stop or even slow spam. CAN-SPAM’s good points are that it is a federal statute and thus applies uniformly throughout the United States. This eliminates the sometimes confusing patchwork of different laws in the states that have enacted antispam statutes. It also goes a long way toward resolving jurisdictional issues involving whether a state has authority to control a business operating outside its boundaries. These jurisdictional disputes were quite common under state spam enforcement. It’s also good to see the various “aggravated violations” called out and codified, since having them more clearly made illegal will simplify the job of prosecutors. Also, anything that increases the potential liability for spammers may sway the economic balance of spam. If sending spam could result in prison, spammers will have to determine if the rewards are worth the potential risk. While added liability may not impact the scofflaws who will ignore any legal mandate or prohibition and a headband you can wear over your head or behind your neck. They also include an inline mute button. •Koss KTXPRO1 ($20): Similar to the PortaPro but, like the SportaPro, these headphones don’t have the same build quality. They don’t fold up, but they come in various colors and provide an inline volume control. •Radio Shack Pro35A ($20-$40): These are actually rebranded Koss KTXPRO1 headphones, but in black/ silver instead of color. They vary widely in price - if you find them during one of Radio Shack’s frequent sales, they’re the same price as their Koss counterparts. •Sennheiser PX 100 ($40): The new kid on the block, the PX 100 model is an impressive alternative to the Koss unless they are arrested, increasing the risk of prison or significant monetary penalties will probably scare off businesses that might been considering skirting the law before. But despite those good points, CAN-SPAM’s flaws abound. Let’s examine them. International Problems Unfortunately, CAN-SPAM applies only in the United States. True, U.S. law and international treatie do confer jurisdiction on U.S. courts to address issues arising internationally if they impact the U.S. But while that may sound nice on paper, it suffers from two major problems. First, there is the problem of actual enforcement. Spammers operating outside the U.S. are often not subject to U.S. courts, and even where they are, any judgment or court order is worthless unless it can be enforced. This fact means that the only way an enforcement agency can compel a foreign spammer to comply with the law is via diplomatic pressure from the U.S. Show of hands: how many people think that enforcing U.S. spam headphones listed above. They’re extremely comfortable, and feature a clever design that allows them to fold up like a pair of glasses. (They even include a hard, eyeglass-size carrying case.) If you like bass, you’ll also like their slight emphasis on the low end. •Sennheiser PX 200 ($50): These are the “closed” version of the PX 100, meaning they seal over each ear to block out some degree of external noise. The PX 200 headphones are more balanced sounding than the PX 100, but are more sensitive to placement - if you don’t get a good seal on your ears, they can sound a bit thin. Continued on Page 13 law is likely to become a high priority for U.S. diplomatic efforts any time soon? Now, if we could show that spammers were actually fronts for terrorist organizations... Second, CAN-SPAM’s opt-out approach is directly at odds with the approach taken by much - perhaps most of the rest of - the first world. The European Union has adopted a Directive (a policy document) that establishes an opt-in approach. Each individual member nation must then enact specific laws implementing the Directive. (The first URL below goes to the English language version of the Directive; the second URL leads to versions in other languages.) Australia has also adopted an optin law broadly prohibiting commercial email being sent to Australians. Continued on Page 13 12 Music to Your Ears Continued from Page 12 Street Style, Behind the Head Like earclips, this style has become quite popular - Sony’s emphasis on their Street Style line has ended up naming the entire genre. They clip over each ear, but include a headband that goes behind the head/neck for stability. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many choices if sound quality is important to you. •Koss KSC-55 ($15-$20): These are basically the Koss KSC-50, mentioned above under Earclips, but with the behind-the-headband. Unfortunately, if you have a large head, they have a viselike grip. •Sony Street Style MDR-G72LP ($30): Although I’m personally not a big fan of the sound of the G72, they’re some of the most popular street style headphones on the market, mainly because they’re very comfortable and they fold up for easy storage. (Search for “G72LP” at Sony’s Web site below.) Vertical In-Ear These models have a thin headband combined with earbud-sized earpieces that sit vertically (facing forward) in each ear. They tend to be very comfortable, and are good choices for exercise. Unfortunately, there aren’t many good options in terms of sound; I’ve found only one I can recommend. •Sony MDR-A44L ($20): These headphones sound quite good, and have a much wider headband than most models in this category, making them even more comfortable than most. (Search for “A44L” at Sony’s Web site below.) Full-Size Sealed/Closed These headphones fit over or around the ears and block out some degree of external noise; they’re good for travel or use in noisier environments (the isolation also saves others from having to listen to your music). On the other hand, they tend to be quite a bit bulkier than most of the headphones mentioned so far. •Beyerdynamic DT 250-80 ($150): These are possibly the best traditional sealed headphone that can be adequately driven by a portable device or computer; they’re very comfortable Continued on Page 15 Can Spam Contʼd from Page 12 In short, while it seems likely that most spam comes from the U.S. or is touting products and services of U.S.based companies, opt-in appears to be the model of choice in most of the technologically developed world, with the U.S. falling out of step with the rest of the global community. These conflicting approaches are likely to cause problems similar to, and perhaps worse than, those that existed within the U.S. before the federal law was passed, and when there were various state statutes with differing mandates and standards. In the U.S., at least all of those states were subject to the same federal government and general rules of legal analysis and interpretation. On the international scene, the problems caused by such wildly conflicting antispam models are likely to be worse. Since the U.S. law is less restrictive, it appears to me that the E.U. nations and Australia may continue to be flooded with spam that is legal in the U.S., but illegal in their countries. Opt-Out Problems The unfortunate choice of an opt-out model requires that recipients contact the sender to opt out of future messages. While this may work for legitimate marketers who actually include a working unsubscribe mailto or Web link in the message, most spam is not legitimate, and use such links merely as unscrupulous means of confirming or harvesting email addresses. By encouraging people to use these optout links, CAN-SPAM may actually increase the amount of illegal spam. It also potentially increases the risk of identity theft and other crimes targeting the unsophisticated Internet user. Enforcement Problems CAN-SPAM puts the entire burden of enforcement on the shoulders of already overworked federal and state enforcement agencies, which show no signs of rushing to prioritize spam enforcement. It seems likely that ISPs will take action, but most ISPs lack the resources to mount intensive investigations to track down spammers in other countries, or to support the sort of litigation that may be required to bring them down. To be fair, prior to CAN-SPAM, most enforcement had to take place at the individual level, much of it in states without strong anti-spam statutes. Most individuals can’t afford the expense of a full-fledged spam investigation any more than many ISPs can. But CAN-SPAM does not permit individual victims to file private suits for violating its terms. It seems counterproductive not to allow individual enforcement since it would both aid in the overall effort to combat spam, and would result in remedies to the actual spam victims - the end users - in cases where the spammer could be found and held accountable. Lastly, even once spammers are dragged into court, CAN-SPAM may suffer from loopholes. For instance, the “primary purpose” prong of the spam definition means that spammers can include personal notes in their messages that incidentally offer something for sale, then argue that the solicitation was not the “primary purpose” of the email. I suspect that most people reading this have received spam along the lines of: “Hi there! How are you doing? I am having a great time. By the way, I ran across this item and thought you might be interested.” While this ambiguity may not pass the laugh test in court, it is the sort of thing that will almost certainly have to be tested in court before it has any appreciable impact, thus further delaying any potential benefit until one of the authorized enforcers chooses to put the question to a judge. This is another reason that individual enforcement would have been a good thing - it seems more likely that an individual or consumer group would take up this issue sooner than I expect one of the authorized enforcers to do Continued on Page 21 13 Product Review: info will be welcome.) The iTunes portion, as well as the Music Match portion, give you a complete overview of the software and how to use it. This section wraps up by discussing the iTunes Music Store and gives you a full run down, from setting up an account to downloading and burning your by Monte Ferguson purchased music. The third section moves beyond the HE IPOD: THE MISSING MANUAL music capabilities of the iPod. Many people carries on the mission of this series are unaware that the iPod can do much of books, to be the manual that should more than store and play music. The iPod have been in the box. Oh sure Apple does can store the contents of your address book, include a utilitarian manual with it’s iPod’s your calendars, text and voice notes (newer but beyond the basics you’re pretty much models), ebooks can be stored and read on on your own. The Missing Manual series the iPod, audio books can be downloaded fills in the gaps by providing a thorough and played back, there are even examination of all of the features and What you get: games you can play built into your capabilities of the iPod. But don’t think Author: J.D. Biersdorfer iPod. The iPod can also be used as of this as just a boring read. Although Publisher: O’Reilly & Associates an external FireWire hard drive. it’s billed as a manual the writing style July 2003 (You can even use it as a bootable is less dry details and more discussion. Series: The Missing Manuals hard drive, Mac only, useful if you The author spends as much time sharing ever need to start off another drive Length: 344 pages tips as explaining features. The book can to fix your computer’s internal hard Price: $24.95 be used by both Mac and Windows iPod drive.) users. The fourth, and final, section moves The book is laid out in an easy to beyond the standard uses of the iPod. The author calls this navigate manner. As any good manual should, it doesn’t extreme iPodding. If you’re familiar with the iPod this will assume that you know anything. It guides you from the be the most interesting part of the book. Have you ever basics and builds from there. But this is not one of those thought about hooking up your iPod to a home or car steDummies books. The tone throughout is like having reo? This section covers how to do that. It also talks about a friend, who has owned an iPod for a bit, giving you hacking the iPod. It discusses Applescript and shareware advice, tips, and tricks that they picked up along the way. iPod hacks. Linux users will be happy to know that they’re The book itself is laid out in several major sections. You not forgotten. This section also covers how to hook up an don’t have to read the book front to back to get the most iPod to a Linux machine. out of it. However, I’d recommend scanning the parts The very end of the book covers several topics that do you’re already familiar with. The author sprinkles some very helpful tips and suggestions throughout each section. not relate to the operation of the iPod, but will enhance your iPod experience. One portion discusses the wide I personally found a gem or two, such as a suggestion for array of add-ons and accessories for the iPod. If you’re some iPod shareware, that were particularly helpful. looking to trick out your iPod experience this will give The first section is devoted to the iPod hardware itself. you a place to start your search. Another portion points This section discusses all of the parts of the iPod, and it’s to web sites devoted to the iPod and iPod owners. Lastly, controls. You’ll learn how to get the most out of the built there is a troublehsooting section. in controls. This section also discusses how to sync music iPod the Missing Manual T collections, as well as files, between your computer and your iPod. The second section dives into the whole issue of audio formats. Yes, this might seem a bit dry, but I highly recommend reading it anyway. Why? Because it gives you the basis to understand the whole digital music file format, and compression rates. Once you’ve mastered those ideas you can figure out which format, and what compression rate, works best for you when you want to convert your music to digital files. The author does a very thorough job explaining these points. Once you’ve mastered the details of music formats the author then moves onto the software you need to actually convert your music into digital audio files; iTunes, and MusicMatch Jukebox. (Yes, the book came out before iTunes for Windows was released. However, for those who prefer Music Match Jukebox the Conclusion If you’ve had this feeling that you’re not using the full potential of your iPod. This book is for you. Considering the wide appeal of the iPod, this book will make a great gift for any Mac or Windows user. The book has a friendly, inviting tone throughout but it doesn’t skimp on the details. This book offers a wealth of information. There is something in there for readers of any skill level, or familiarity with the iPod. I highly recommend this book. 14 Music to Your Ears Cont’d (with nice from Page 13 velour earcups) and have great sound. •Sony MDR-V6 ($70). Quite comfortable, foldable for travel, and built like a tank, the V6 are studio monitors, which means you get a more analytical sound (lots of detail, but some people find the sound fatiguing after a while). The MDR-V6 are identical to the “pro” line MDR-7506 that sell for $40-$50 more, but are very different from the MDR-V600, which are nowhere near as good. •Sennheiser HD 280 Pro ($100): Like the Sony MDR-V6, these are studio monitors that fold up for travel. They don’t have the impressive bass response of the V6, but the 280 Pro offer the most isolation of any headphones save the Etymotic and Shure models mentioned above. •Sennheiser HD 212 Pro ($50): From Sennheiser’s more affordable 200series line, the HD 212 headphones aren’t as balanced as the HD 280, above, but they have more impressive bass response and are a bit more comfortable for some people. * Beyerdynamic DT 231 ($90): These are good, closed headphones that probably fall between the two Sennheiser models mentioned above, both in cost and performance.\ •Koss UR29 ($30): Although not as impressive sounding as the other closed models above, the UR29 headphones still sound good, which is quite an achievement given their low price! They have a bit of emphasis on the bass, which may be good or bad depending on your preferences. The UR29 fold up when not in use and include an inline volume control. Full-Size Open Like the closed models above, these are bulkier than most portable headphones. However, unlike the closed models, they don’t seal out any external noise (or seal in your music), so they’re best suited for home use. •Grado SR-60 ($70) or SR-80 ($90): Some people think these Grado models look “old fashioned,” but that’s part of their charm. That and the great sound you get for the money - the SR80 are a major bargain in high-end headphones, and the SR-60 aren’t far behind. •Sennheiser HD 497 ($60): An excellent pair of home headphones that are also extremely comfortable, the HD 497 sound great directly out of an iPod or computer. Style over Substance I prefer good sound in a headphone to a fault - I’ll wear the ugliest headphones around if they sound good. But I’m open-minded enough to realize that not everyone has the same preferences. Some people see their headphones as an extension of their appearance, and legitimately care what they look like. Here are some of the “chic-est” of headphone chic. When compared to the sound of the other headphones I recommend, they come up a bit short, but they’re still an upgrade over the stock headphones that come with most portable players. •Bang & Olufsen A8 ($150): B&O has traditionally offered impressively designed products with better-thanaverage-but-not-as-good-as-the-good- stuff sound quality, and the A8 are no exception. They offer an innovative design that’s a bit of a cross between earbuds and earclips. Whatever you call the design, they’re certainly stylish. •Audio-Technica ATH-EM7 ($75): If you think the Koss earclips recommended above are simply too ugly for your ears, give these a look - you can’t get much more high-tech-looking. With brushed aluminum earpieces and clips that adjust to fit different ear sizes, these are both very comfortable and very cool. •Audio-Technica ATH-EW9 Sovereign ($200): For the iPod owner who has everything, I give you AudioTechnica’s flagship earclip: a version of the ATH-EM7, above, with earpiece enclosures made of Hokkaido cherry wood. Noise-Cancelling These gadgets feature a processor that “cancels” out external noise in a limited frequency range. Until last year I couldn’t recommend any headphones in this category because noise-canceling technology is still no match for good old isolation (see the Etymotic and Shure models above), and because almost every model on the market sacrificed audio quality for noise-canceling circuitry, leaving you with fairly poor sound. But there’s finally a pair of noise-canceling headphones worth mentioning. •Sennheiser PXC 250 ($130): Virtually the same headphones as the PX 200 recommended above, but with noisecanceling circuitry. Lightweight, comfortable, and offering excellent sound in a fold- up design, these are a good travel solution if you don’t like in-earcanal models. They’re also great computer headphones - the noise-canceling feature is perfect for neutralizing the droning noise of computer fans. Continued on Page 17 15 Cover Story Continued from Page 6 DVDRW, final product is natural and seamless. Shake has played a part in the last seven motion pictures that have won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects— going back to Titanic. Shake was the primary compositor for both last year’s winner, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and this year’s The Lord of the Rings: DVD+R, and DVD+RW. DVD Studio Pro 3 can import projects from iDVD 4. Menu editor-Copy and paste buttons, drop zones, and text objects within a menu BBEdit 7.1 Adds Live HTML Preview and and from one menu to another. Subtitle editor-Copy and paste SFTP formatBare Bones Software has released BBEdit 7.1, a free ted text update to the company’s powerful text and HTML (font and editing program that adds a handful of welcome features. Most notable is the Preview in BBEdit command, size) from one subwhich displays the HTML page you’re working on in title clip to a BBEdit window using the WebKit rendering engine another, that’s also at the heart of Safari. The truly cool part is or from that it’s a live preview, with an outside updates appearing automatically seconds after you text edimake a change to the HTML code. Though the page tor to a may not look perfect due to missing graphics or serv- subtitle clip. You er-side processing, BBEdit’s Preview makes tweaking Web pages far faster and easier than before can also copy and (though you’ll really want a second monitor to hold Shown above is Apple’s new pro motion graphic paste butthe extra windows). Also new in BBEdit 7.1 is support tons from application called, appropriately, Motion. for SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol), which provides one subThe Return of the King. encrypted FTP sessions when there’s a compatible title clip to another. Script ediversion of sshd running on port 22, as is true of Mac tor-Copy and paste command New Features OS X machines when Remote Login is selected in lines, within a script and from Shake 3.5 provides shapethe Sharing preference pane. Lastly, if you’re working one script to another, directly in based morphing and warpthe Script editor. This makes it with FTP servers on ing for fantastic shape shifting your local network, BBEdit’s FTP dialogs now support easy to duplicate common script or seamless corrective effects. steps. Slideshow editor-Copy Rendezvous for discovering FTP and SFTP servers. Morphing and warping shapes and paste slides within a slideBBEdit 7.1 is a 15.2 MB download; it’s free for regisuse the standard spline tools, tered users of BBEdit 7.0. New copies cost $180, with show, and from one slideshow to making it more intuitive to creanother. a variety of upgrade and cross-upgrade discounts Most of these changes may not ate and modify an effect than with mesh-based warping tools. available. [ACE] seem sexy to the average person. Morphing and warping further However, they are welcome, and enhance the visual effects tools in downright handy, for the profesShake, including layering, trackApple Updates Panther to 10.3.1 sional videographer. Apple has ing, rotoscoping, painting, and Late today, Apple released an update to Mac OS X given video pro’s more options color correction. Shake 3.5 also for output, storage, and formats 10.3 Panther, saying version 10.3.1 offers “enhanced includes built-in keying capabiliof assets that may be included functionality and improved reliability” with Panther’s ties: Photron Primatte and CFC with the project. The addition of FileVault document encryption feature, printing techKeylight, two industry-leadnology, WebDAV networking, and FireWire 800 drives. a graphical view of a project adds ing professional keyers. Shake to the ease of use of the program. Some people have reported that FileVault’s Reclaim Qmaster manages rendering of Disk Space feature wipes out personal data and pref- Shake Shake and Maya scripts across networked G4- and G5-based erences; hopefully this update addresses that problem, Of all of Apple’s pro video offersystems, freeing up local combut it’s not clear exactly what has been fixed. Our ings, Shake is the least likely to advice is still to avoid FileVault until it has seen more be known or understood by most puters for other work. Projects can be rendered at any resolureal- world use without problems. people. However, we’ve seen tion and bit depth in a variety The FireWire 800 fixes supposedly address widely the results of using this impresof image file formats, including sive compositing program. Many reported user problems with external FireWire 800 TIFF, Cineon, and IFF. major motion pictures use this drives becoming corrupted when product to help produce some of computers are restarted after a Panther installation. Features the biggest movies. Compositing Apple says they’ve “identified an issue with external The intuitive, tree-based composmeans taking several visual eleFireWire hard drives using the Oxford 922 bridge iting interface of Shake simplifies ments, say a background and building and modifying comchip-set with firmware version 1.02 that can result in separate foreground shot with plex visual effects. Any image in the loss of data stored on the disk drive,” and they live actors, and layering them together in such a way that the Continued Continued on Page 17 Continued on Page 20 16 Music to Your Ears Cont’d (My office from Page 15 Continued still recommend upgrading the firmware of such hard drives, even though this software update apparently addresses some of the problem. In an omission we find concerning, Apple says nothing about FireWire 400 drives, though reports of problems running Panther with those drives continue to appear. Again, we caution restraint with all external FireWire drives until user reports appear, and if you must use one under Panther, make frequent backups and avoid restarting with the drive plugged into the Mac. The Mac OS X 10.3.1 Update is available via Software Update, and is a 1.3 MB download. [MHA] WPA Weakness Discovered, but Easily Solved Following last week’s article about the implementation of WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) in AirPort Extreme cards and base stations (see “AirPort 3.2 Update Adds New Security Options” in TidBITS-704_), a security expert alerted me to a weakness in choosing keys for the WPA system. The weakness applies to the AirPort 3.2 update as well as to all other consumer WPA-enabled Wi-Fi systems. Basically, choosing a key comprised entirely of real words that are 20 characters or fewer leaves you open to that key being broken rather easily. The solution? Choose a longer key or invent 20 characters of gibberish. If you’re particularly securityconscious, use the option Apple provides to enter 256 bits of encryption, which is 32 hexadecimal bytes or 64 hexadecimal digits! That’s overkill, however. In last week’s article, it wasn’t clear why Apple even offers the hexadecimal option when other devices from Buffalo and Linksys don’t; now it appears that Apple provides all of the options for entering WPA keys, where the other manufacturers don’t. I’ve written more about this issue and posted my colleague’s paper on the subject at Wi-Fi Networking News. [GF] Cont’d on Page 19 has two Power Macs, a G4 and G5, and the PXC 250 headphones “silence” them impressively, making the Sennheisers my favorite headphones for listening to music during work, or even for just “listening” to silence when I’m trying to concentrate.) Even more impressive, the PXC 250 are less than half the price of the (overpriced) Bose offerings that seems to be advertised in every magazine in America. Wireless For use at home, wireless systems let you move around without being tethered to your audio source by cables. Like noise-canceling headphones, it used to be difficult to recommend a wireless headphone system because they sounded lousy, even compared to cheap wired headphones. However, a couple of impressive systems have surfaced over the past few years that make wireless a viable, if not perfect, option for those who value good sound. •Amphony H1000 ($130). One of the least expensive wireless systems on the market, but also one of the better sounding options. The Amphony system uses a technology that combines digital and radio frequency technology to provide clearer sound with less interference. They’re also quite comfortable. One caveat for wireless network users: the Amphony system uses a set of frequencies very close to those of the 2.4 GHz 802.11b (AirPort) wireless protocol, and the two do not co-exist well. •Freespan xdream ($200). Another great sounding, and comfortable, wireless system, the xdream uses infrared technology rather than radio waves. The downside is that you need to have line of sight between yourself and the transmitter; the upside is that there is no radio frequency interference (a major problem in most homes nowadays). Headphone Amps? If you’re serious about sound quality, you might also consider a dedicated headphone amplifier. Many people make the mistake of thinking that a headphone amplifier is for increased volume. Although that might be a benefit (and a danger to your hearing, if you aren’t careful), the main reasons for using a headphone amplifier are (1) the ability to drive harder- to-drive headphones; and (2) sound quality. Headphone amplifiers generally provide the necessary power for your headphones to keep up with the music, even during complex transients. In addition, some, like amps from HeadRoom Corporation, offer a “crossfeed” processor that makes the extreme left/right imaging common in headphones sound a bit more natural (i.e., closer to the sound of speakers or even a live performance). Headphone amplifiers connect to a line-level output (preferred) or headphone jack (if necessary) on your audio source. For portable use, HeadRoom offers their AirHead ($150) and Total AirHead ($200). These portable amps are perfect for using with an iPod or PowerBook (or even with a desktop Mac). They run off of AAA batteries and provide two headphone jacks for music sharing. The newest models, just released, also have a slim profile case that is approximately the same width and height as the iPod. (In fact, HeadRoom sells a bag that holds the iPod and amp as a package.) Other portable options include numerous DIY or DBSE (“done by someone else”) amps, with lots of information available on the Web. For non-portable amps, the selection is surprisingly varied. HeadRoom probably has the largest variety, both of their own amps and Cont’d on Page 18 17 those from other manufacturers, but much more info is available online at some of the URLs listed below. (Disclaimer: I’ve done a bit of editing for HeadRoom. However, I was a satisfied customer long before that.) Music to Your Ears Cont’d from Page 17 Where to Buy? I’ve listed links to retailers for those products that aren’t widely available. Most of the other models can be found in the United States at a good headphone-only retailer like HeadRoom or GoodCans. A few of the Koss, Sony, and Sennheiser models can be found at electronics chain stores. Web retailers like Amazon and Buy.com also carry a number of the products mentioned here. If sound quality isn’t your primary goal, and you’re instead looking for the latest in headphone chic, Audio Cubes and MiniDisco both carry a wide variety of styleover-sound models. They both also carry a number of better sounding headphones, including models I’ve recommended here. Finally, if you’re interested in learning more about, or just talking about, good headphone audio, check out Head-Fi and HeadWize. This article was oiginally published in TidBits Magazine #710, 12/15/03 and is reprinted with permission of the Author. MacPAD: The Future of Mac Software Updates by Adam C. Engst E VERY NOW AND THEN I RUN across a developer doing something so obvious and cool that I think, “Well, it’s about time!” Through a total coincidence, that happened just last week, when Julian Miller of Script Software called to chat about his latest products. After we’d talked about Easy Card Creator and iKey (a macro utility that used to be called Youpi Key) and iClock (SuperClock on steroids), Julian asked if I’d heard about the MacPAD project. I hadn’t, and he started telling me about MacShareware.net, a software update site along the lines of VersionTracker and MacUpdate. I commented that I mostly relied on developer sites to find updates for products I use, though I have forever remained disappointed that Apple never opened Software Update up to outside Mac developers. As Julian continued describing MacPAD, I realized it could at long last provide the underpinnings of a Software Update for Everyone Else. Introducing MacPAD MacPAD is the brainchild of Ricardo Batista, a Macintosh developer best known for writing Extensions Manager, Apple’s utility for managing extensions and control panels in the classic Mac OS. As a developer, Ricardo had become frustrated with the existing software update sites for a variety of reasons, and being a developer, he didn’t simply get mad, he got even by creating his own software update site -MacShareware.net - with an eye toward addressing those aspects of the other sites that he didn’t like. I haven’t particularly used MacShareware.net, so I can’t say how successful it is, though I do appreciate the site’s policy of having a person review all submissions and comments before posting them. Hopefully that addresses the complaints I’ve heard from developers about ill-informed and misleading comments about their products on other software update sites. One of the areas Ricardo hoped to improve was the submission process. Right now, if you’re a developer with a new product, you must manually submit your product to multiple sites, each with their own different system and requirements. That’s a pain, and it’s not only unnecessary, it’s a problem that’s been solved in the Windows world via a technology called PAD (Portable Application Descriptions) and developed by the Association of Shareware Professionals. PAD is essentially an XML file containing a full and rigidly formatted description of a product, and most of the Windows software update sites prefer to receive submissions in the form of PAD files, since that makes life easier for both developers and webmasters. Ideally, the developer merely puts a PAD file on her Web site and gives the software update sites the appropriate URL for them to check on a regular basis for new versions. If you’re into reading your news via RSS feeds, you can think of a PAD file as an RSS feed for software updates. As much as the PAD format was clearly the right direction, Ricardo felt it was overly complex and not appropriate to the Macintosh world, so he created - with input from other developers - a simplified version called MacPAD. Along with the XML file format and tools that run on MacShareware.net to query developer sites for updated MacPAD files, Ricardo and others have created an open source software development kit (SDK) with which developers can add support for MacPAD to their applications, and that’s what interests me. Cont’d on Page 21 18 News Contʼd from Page 17 AquaMinds’ NoteTaker share a common lineage; Matt Neuburg reviewed NoteTaker in “Take Note of NoteTaker” in TidBITSNew Snapz Pro X 1.0.9 Works 677_ and I’ve been using NoteBook for Better with Panther a while now.) New in NoteBook 1.2 is a Ambrosia Software has released Snapz 1-Step HTML Export feature that enables Pro X 1.0.9, improving compatibility with users to export a single page or an entire Panther (version 1.0.8 wasn’t working notebook to HTML, with a range of cusfor me at all), and fixing a couple of bugs. tomization options. For those keeping Ambrosia also removed the Internet versensitive data in NoteBook, a new security sion checking feature for unspecified reaframework lets you password-protect your entire notebook and optionally encrypt sons. Snapz Pro X 1.0.9 is a free update for registered users; it’s a 4.4 MB download. specific pages. Other new features include enhanced sorting, more powerful searchNote that if you received Snapz Pro X for free with your Macintosh, the update is not ing, color choices for action items, fully illustrated online help, numerous bug fixes, free, presumably since Apple didn’t license Panther compatibility (though I’m working future versions of Snapz Pro X. However, with Circus Ponies to track down a bug Ambrosia offers a discounted price of $20 that causes NoteBook to crash on only the (normally $50) for such people; first launch on my Mac after a restart in use the second link below. [ACE] Panther), and more. NoteBook 1.2 is free trial version is available. [ACE] Integration Parliant today released PhoneValet 1.1, a Security Update 2003-10-28 software upgrade to the company’s Mac Released OS X-based hardware/software telephone Although Mac OS X 10.3 Panther fixes management package (see “PhoneValet, a number of security-related flaws that Can You Get That?” in TidBITS-699_ for existed in previous versions of Mac OS a full review). PhoneValet 1.1 provides X, Apple has wasted no time in releasing tighter integration with Apple’s Address Security Update 2003-10-28 via Software Book, enabling you to dial phone numbers Update last week. Security Update 2003from within Address Book, and automatically setting your status in iChat to “on the 10-28 fixes a problem that could allow phone” when you’re using the telephone. unauthorized access to a system through Unfortunately, the iChat integration a vulnerability in QuickTime for Java. The (which you turn on in the Call Actions update is only for computers running dialog accessible from the PhoneValet Mac OS X 10.3 Panther, and is a 782K menu) works only if your status was set download. to available before placing or receiving a compatibility, Apple event support, better support for AppleScript, and plug-ins and In another security development, Apple examples of how to automate dialing acknowledged last week that Panther fixes from FileMaker Pro and Microsoft Entourage. Parliant has made available a three recently discovered security issues. free PhoneValetRescue application that The company is also working on providing restores all your data after performing an an update for computers running Mac OS Archive and Install option to upgrade to X 10.2.8 and earlier. [JLC] Panther. The PhoneValet 1.1 updater is a customers; a PhoneValet package costs $130. [ACE] Eudora 6.01 Released sion 6.0.1, fixing a number of minor bugs and updating the company’s email client NoteBook 1.2 Adds HTML for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther compatibility. Export and More Eudora 6.0.1 is available as a free update Circus Ponies Software has released NoteBook 1.2, a significant update to their under Mac OS X (a 5.5 MB download) or note-taking, outlining, and snippet-keeping Mac OS 9 (a 5.7 MB download). [JLC] application for Mac OS X. (NoteBook and Apple Unveils G4 iBooks Apple Computer announced major revisions to the iBook line last week, upgrading all models to G4 processors and adding USB 2.0, Combo CD-R/DVD-ROM drives, and a minimum of 256 MB of RAM. The new iBook G4s also offer optional support for AirPort Extreme 802.11g wireless networking and ship with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther pre-installed. Three iBook G4 configurations are available: at the low end, the $1,100 model offers a 12.1-inch screen (1,024 by 768 resolution), an 800 MHz G4 processor, a 30 GB hard drive, and a scant weight of 4.9 pounds (2.2 kg). The $1,400 model sports a 14.1-inch screen (still 1,024 by 768 pixels), a 933 MHz G4 processor, a 40 GB drive, and a weight of 5.9 pounds (2.7 kg). Finally, the high-end $1,600 configuration offers the same 14.1-inch screen, a 1 GHz G4 processor, and 60 GB drive at the same 5.9 pound weight. All models offer two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 400 port, VGA video output, support for Svideo and composite video out, a 56 Kbps V.92 modem, 10/100Base-T Ethernet, and up to six hours of battery life. Optional capabilities include AirPort Extreme 802.11g wireless networking support; an internal Bluetooth module for peripherals such as some cell phones, PDAs, and Apple’s new wireless keyboard and mouse; and support for up to 640 MB of RAM. All three models should be available now. [GD] Apple Reduces eMac Prices Apple also reduced the price of the all-inone eMac last week. The entry-level configuration, which includes 128 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and a Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW), now costs $200 less, at $800. The higher-end model, which includes a SuperDrive, 256 MB of RAM, and an 80 GB drive, has also been reduced $200, to $1,100. Both models come with a 1 GHz PowerPC processor, an ATI Radeon 7500 graphics card with 32 MB of video memory, and a 17-inch CRT monitor, and are capable of including a separate AirPort Extreme Card. The eMacs also come with Mac OS X 10.3 preinstalled, and will not boot into Mac OS 9. [JLC] 19 Cover Story Cont’d from Page 16 the tree can be modified in context while viewing the final composite. The superior quality maintained by Shake during every operation is the result of a render engine that allows composites to contain various resolutions and color bit depths simultaneously without compromising image quality. Artists can selectively choose which operations to process at 8-, 16-, or 32-bit (float) color bit depth, allowing High Dynamic Range (HDR) images to be composited with greater fidelity while still maintaining high performance. Audio tracks can be interactively and intuitively synchronized with visual effects. The audio waveform is displayed in the animation curve editor for an interactive and intuitive workflow. Because the audio playback engine is based on Apple’s Core Audio technology, the playback and scrubbing portion of this feature is available only on Mac OS X. The film grain filter in Shake accurately simulates a variety of Kodak film stock grain to achieve composites with a blended, realistic look. Artists can either select from a list of film stock or have the filter analyze the background to match the grain. Shake 3.5 also allows importing of Photoshop PSD files, either as precomposited layers or with each Photoshop layer as its own node in Shake. These layers are automatically fed into a MultiLayer node, with the proper blend mode specified. Motion Apple managed to really pull a rabbit out if its hat with this program. This one completely went under the rumor radar. Talk about a pleasant surprise, unless you’re from Adobe. Motion is a real time motion graphics program. Which means it will compete with Adobe’s venerable After Effects program. There was a lot of buzz about this program at the show. It is one of those programs that Apple does very well, powerful yet easier to use than other offerings on the market. And it comes in at a darn nice price point, under $300. Of course it also plays well with the other pro video applications that Apple puts out. Motion uses a procedural animation approach called behaviors to create animation. You simply drag a behavior (such as Spin or Throw) to your object and let go. Behaviors automatically create animation without the need for keyframes. No need to wait to render effects in this pro- gram. Motion has been designed from the ground up to take advantage of the Power Mac G5 and Mac OS X, including access to large amounts of RAM and a fast graphics subsystem. Along with keyframe-based animation, Motion features a cutting-edge, intuitive approach called behaviors. You can easily apply natural simulations like gravity, wind, and edge collision, or sophisticated behaviors like attract and repel that produce interactions between multiple objects—without the slowdown and complexity involved in creating keyframes. Features Design using real-time, interactive filters and effects. Animate with behaviors, a procedural alternative to keyframes. Simulate natural phenomena such as wind and gravity. Interactively customize sparkles, smoke and fire. Import Photoshop layers with blend modes and transparency. Animate precisely with Bezier-style keyframe tools. Animate text rapidly and change the path interactively. Customize professional templates to speed your projects along. Use your favorite third party plug-ins for After Effects. Apply and tweak 90 Accelerated filters in real-time, including PrimatteRT keying. (PrimatteRT extracts a single color background from an image and creates a transparency matte that allows you to put the extracted foreground onto a different background.) Filters include familiar types such as Gaussian blurs, distortion effects and glows, as well as more exotic filters, such as kaleidoscope and tunnel. Motion uses system fonts to create high-quality, vector-based stretch, skew, rotate and resize effects. Take advantage of preset type styles that come with Motion, or use the Dashboard to quickly set font, opacity, color and blend modes. Use the Inspector to add advanced effects such as outline, glow, shadow or to change layout options. Designed by professional animators, LiveFonts are new kinds of animated font. You type them just as you would using a system font, but they offer builtin animated effects such as fire and shiny metal. They’re created in 32-bit alpha channel so they key right over video. Motion comes with 10 readyto-use LiveFonts. Motion simplifies drawing simple or complex shapes by offering efficient, easy-to-use Bezier and B-Spline tools. You can fill shapes with a color or gradient and add an independent outline and feathering. For compositing shapes over other shapes or video, you can use standard blend modes in tandem with opacity controls. Using a pen and tablet, you can control Motion with one hand tied behind your back. For example, a rightward swipe moves Motion ahead 10 frames; a greater-than arrow plays the timeline. Forty unique gestures will help your sessions sail along. Motion imports any QuickTime-compatible file format, including movie files, still image formats such as TIFF files, layered Adobe Photoshop files and Acrobat (PDF) files, and Adobe Illustrator files saved with PDF compatibility. Cuts, layers, blend modes and motion paths created in Final Cut Pro HD are editable right in Motion’s timeline. Likewise, Motion titles, animation and effects automatically update in the Final Cut Pro HD timeline. When you’re ready to author your title on DVD, simply drag and drop your Motion projects into DVD Studio Pro 3. DVD Studio Pro 3 automatically detects and encodes your source media to the DVD standard MPEG-2 format in the background. There is one thing to keep in mind about Motion; It NEEDS a fast machine. This is the most processor intensive program, at least going by system requirement specifications, that Apple makes. You HAVE to have a 867mhz G4 just to run it. Those who have upgraded to a Dual 2Ghz G5 will find that they own the Recommended system. Of course that assumes you have 4GB of RAM, or more. Oh, and you’ll need a pretty darn powerful graphics card. It was only a matter of time before someone made a program that required all of the horse power that a G5 can put out. Conclusion Apple made a big splash at N.A.B. this year. They pulled out some really impressive updates with software. Which, Apple was quick to point out, really blazes on a fast G5. They picked a great crowd to show off to. Videographers are the folks who drop $10-50k on a video editing system. In that kind of environment Apple is a bargain, and I’m including the hardware when I say that. It’s a great market to move into with some definitely positive growth potential. Apple’s core strengths; quality, tight hardware/software integration, and innovative software products really play well with this crowd. Five years ago no one would have seriously looked to Apple to provide their video/film making needs. Now Apple is practically synonymous with Hollywood. 20 MacPad Cont’d from Page 18 Updates Done Right How do you learn about updates to your software? If you’re like me, you receive an email announcement from the developer, read about it in a news source like TidBITS or a software update site, or if you’re lucky, are alerted by the application itself. In most of these cases, you must still download and install the update manually. Only a few programs come with sufficiently clever update code that they can alert you, download the update if you agree, and install it for you, much as Apple’s Software Update utility does. The problem is that rolling a custom update utility is too much work for most developers, and those that have done so haven’t been able to create a generalized solution. That’s where MacPAD could swing the tide, by providing the standardized XML foundation on which others can build tools. Developer Mark Fleming has already provided the first piece in the puzzle, a simple application called MacPAD that creates MacPAD files, and the code snippets that ship with the SDK should get other developers started on adding basic update checking code to their applications. My hope is that someone will contribute code to the MacPAD SDK for the more advanced aspects of updating, such as automatic downloading and automatic application updating. And, while I’m filling out my development wish list in time for the holiday season, it would be extremely useful to have a preference pane that would list all your MacPAD-supported applications, the currently installed version of each, and the latest versions with a description of what’s new. This update utility would acquire its data by extracting the URL to each MacPAD file from the associated application and then querying MacPAD files on the Internet at a user-specified schedule. A checkbox next to each item would allow you to select applications to update, and clicking an Update button would download and install all the necessary updates. Creating such a utility shouldn’t be too hard, given that it’s essentially the equivalent of an RSS reader (like NetNewsWire, for instance) for MacPAD files. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the RSS readers add support for MacPAD files as well, for users who want to see what’s new with their software while they’re reading the latest news. Why provide such a utility on top of automatic updating inside individual applications? It provides a centralized location to see what needs to be updated, lets the user schedule updating for a convenient time, and simplifies the process of updating multiple applications at once. It might also allow the user to add the URLs to MacPAD files to check manually, to facilitate watching changes to a specific pro- gram that wasn’t installed on that particular Mac. I could see network administrators wanting to keep track of programs that weren’t necessarily installed on their personal machines, but which were in common use among their users. First Steps My grand plans can wait for a bit. For the moment, the most important thing is that developers start using MacPAD to submit their software to the software update sites; on 05-Dec-03, TildeSoft’s Rendezvous Browser was the first utility to be updated automatically on MacShareware.net via MacPAD. Next we need software update sites other than MacShareware.net to support MacPAD and developers to add the update checking code to their applications. Once all that’s in place, there will be an audience for this alternative to Software Update. But first, Ricardo Batista, Mark Fleming, Julian Miller, Kevin Ballard, and all the other developers who have worked thus far on MacPAD deserve a big round of applause for kick-starting a system that could help the entire Macintosh community. This article orginally appeared in Tidbits Magazine issue #708, published 12/08/03. It is reprinted with the permission of the Author. Can Spam Cont’d from Page 21 it. Summing Up In previous articles, I have concluded that if spam is outlawed, only outlaws will spam. An increasing amount of spam is already in violation of our current state laws and has not been eliminated or even reduced as the result of having been outlawed. Legitimate companies have attempted to comply, but the less-than-legitimate scum will freely violate the new law unless and until they are physically caught. In the final analysis, CAN-SPAM is a good start, but is far too flawed to be an effective tool against spam. Like the state laws, it will successfully prevent legitimate companies from resorting to spam (not that most legitimate companies were spamming before), but it will have no impact on spammers outside of U.S. jurisdiction and thus not subject to the U.S. law, or on unscrupulous spammers who will ignore the law unless they are arrested. The inconsis tency with anti-spam laws used in other parts of the world may harm those nations’ efforts to control spam by allowing spam from the U.S. to circumvent their laws. Put bluntly, CAN-SPAM tells spammers that they can spam, so long as they are careful to drive their truckloads of spam through the truck-sized loopholes in the statute. What’s perhaps most disappointing is that we’ve waited for years for a federal anti-spam law, and the one we ended up with isn’t nearly as good as it could have been, or even as good as some of the now-preempted existing state laws are. That’s a shame, and it’s one we’ll undoubtedly have to live with for some time. [Brady Johnson is a grouchy attorney in Seattle who really, really hates spam.] This article orginally appeared in Tidbits Magazine issue #714, published 1/26/04. It is reprinted with the permission of the Author. 21 Grand Rapids Area Microcomputer Users Group Our meetings are held monthly. We meet on the fourth full week’s Thursday of each month. We gather at Shawnee Math Science Tech Academy, in the second floor computer lab. Meetings start at 7pm and are concluded at 9pm. Meetings are open to the public, and are free. Membership is only $25 for one year. Membership entitles you to user group discounts, entry in drawings (must be present to win), our periodic email list, and our newsletter. Our web page can be found at: http: //www.gramug.org For further information you can contact our president at: [email protected] $pecial$ & Deal$ We would like to give special thanks to the following organizations who contributed to this publication The following deals or specials are provided as a courtesy to our readers. The specials outlined below may no longer be available by the time you read this. For more timely information stop by a GRAMUG meeting. You Software User group members can save over 40 percent on the award-winning You Control from You Software. The original founders of Now Software and Extensis are at it again with You Control, which has already received several awards including Best of Show at Macworld Expo and a MacAddict Editors’ Choice. You Control is a collection of 15 menu-based utilities that extends the functionality of Mac OS X, and from now until July 31, 2004, you can purchase it for only $39.95 (US), $30 (US) off the suggested retail price of $69.95 (US) Visit You Software to download your copy. This worldwide offer expires July 31, 2004. User www.applemugstore.com www.iserv.net 4th Dimension Tired of having your important information scattered around in Excel spreadsheets and text files? Organize it all in one place with 4th Dimension, the award-winning database program. 4th Dimension lets you easily store and track all types of data, print labels, create reports, build charts and more. If you enjoy programming, use 4D’s programming language to build any kind of application you want. 4th Dimension Regular Price: $349 (US) User Group Price: $99 (US) plus free books: Jumpstart 4D and Training Guide 4D v6.8: Getting Started. Get more information and receive your discount. This offer is available to user group members in U.S. and Canada, excluding Quebec, and expires July 31, 2004. *Further information provided to GRAMUG members. Stop by and join today.