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www.macaddict.com
Five No-Fail Steps to’ } 1 V a Spe =
a Ton-Speed Mac. A g| RS = Mie
Saou sr ‘i ¢ \ i i wg >. | 4 = : oe
—_ up
YOUR MAE
REVIEWED:
Quicken 2002 Deluxe + Brother Laser Printer * Archos MP3 Jukebox
Minolta Digital Camera « Wacom Graphire2 Tablet + Timbuktu Pro 6
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MATA.£OR S's AEasWapareschies Ul
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| Proson Final Cut Pro’) #2 in aseries
cmo0as2 00.01 05.24
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(©2001 Apple Computer, ne. ll rights reserva. Pinal Gut Pro isa registred trademark of pple Computer, -800-MAPPLE,
Barrett Sanders, Editor
for Evergreen Films.
“Thanks to Final Cut Pro, Inow have
two complete high-end editing systems,
without spending a lot of money. The
program offers mea level of polish and
professionalism Pve never experienced
before.’ Barrett first saw the capabilities
of Final Cut Pro two years ago, and
his comment at the time sums it all
up nicely: “This is going to completely
change production as we know it.”
Learn more at apple.com/finalcutpro.
IG InD yeury ew
(@)
cf
It’s jam-packed with Mac tools.
The robot arm, though, that’s just for show.
Now, when you've got
mail, the whole freakin’
neighborheed will Know.
iTunes; iMovie’ email. No matter what you do with your Mac; it’s going to sound infinitely better with our 40-watt
USB-enabled SoundSticks’ speaker system. Get yours at www.harman-multimedia.com. harman/kardon
H attarman inter:
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US. and other countries,
No. 64 December 2001 Volume 6 Issue 12
highlights
22 Speed Up Your Mac
If your Mac is moving about as fast as a Yugo on a 45-degree H
grade, it’s time to give ita boost. From the craftiest hardware
Ae AI iG
Abetter machine. A better magazine.
how to
66 Build a Photomontage
Capturing the right photo to illustrate an idea can be an
incredible pain in the ass. Rather than go to great lengths to
33 AppleScript Can Do It All!
upgrades to the most effective—
and free—system tweaks, we
tell you how to get the
most out of your Mac
without having to
buy that new
Quicksilver G4.
by Dave
Hamilton
| stage a scene, you can build your own desktop scenery by
| layering multiple images to create a photomontage. We show
|
you how. by Steven Parke and Kris Fong
!think { can.
(think I can. | know I can.
I know | can.
Why do the boring
stuff when your
Mac can do it for
you? That’s our
philosophy, anyway.
if there's a repetitive,
OK, | built it—now where are they?
70 Hitch a Ride on Any
Broadband Line y
humdrum task you If your housemate’s high-speed
hate, chances are an Internet connection makes you
AppleScript can take envious, don’t just twiddle
your thumbs while waiting
for your poky dial-up
connection. Steal your
buddy's bandwidth
instead! Get the scoop
care of it for you. Now
all you have to do is
leam how to write
AppleScripts. No
problema, amigo...
by Ian Sammis on how to hook up a
router and network multiple
ie : jt ene computers to a single DSL or Skeddadlin’
my petri Sail cable line. by Leigh Webber bandwidth rustlers.
REPRINTS
For reprints, contact RMS at 717-399-1900.
Volume 6, issue 12
‘MacAdklict (ISSN 1088-548Y) is published monthly by Imagine Media, Inc., 180 North Hill Dr, Brisbane, CA 84005, USA, Periodical-class postage paid at
Brisbane, CA, and at additional mating ofices. Newsstand dstibuton is handled by Curtis Grculation Co. Basic subscription rates: one year (12 issues +
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Imagine Media, Ine. also publishes Meximum PO, PC Gamer Next Generation, and PSM. Entire contants copyright 2001, imagine Media, Ino, ll ights
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Tony Randazzo illustrated this
month's cover.
DEC/01| MacAciclt/§
|
conien
f 2
every month
8 Editor's Note
Mac OS 10.1 is here. Allis forgiven.
14 Letters
Older readers horde hardware and younger ones’ legs go numb. Go figure.
16 Get Info —__—_————
Find out what happens when the design world descends on
San Francisco, how Mac companies show their love for New
York City, which digital camera can connect to the Internet,
who pedaled around the Burning Man art festival, and how
Macs gave Whoopi Goldberg a makeover.
20 Scraphook
Meet the supermodels you see every day.
40 Reviews
40 Maya for Hac OS X Design & Graphics
42 Minolta Dimage $304 Hardware
43 MSE-U33HB USB Digital
Audio Processor Hardware
44 Quicken 2002 Deluxe Productivity
46 Brother HL-1470N Hardware
48 PDA Roundup Hardware
50 Jukebox HD-MP3 Recorder Hardware
62 Powerplay
RPGs—role-playing games—are coming back into play in a big
way. Don’t believe us? Check out the latest developments master-
minded by creative gaming companies—and it’s not who you
think. We also bug Destineer Studios’ Peter Tamte to find out what
he’s been up to lately.
Hmm... There’s a Supercuts—now,
74 Ask Us exactly how hip do | want to be?
Buz Zoller is light years ahead of us when it comes to answering
your technical questions. On his agenda this month: using a
PlayStation controller with a Mac, improving Base Station recep-
tion, the annoyances of Apple’s new download site, and more.
96 Siut Down - =
Can’t get enough of that man? Then worship his very being—his j
paper being, that is, with our exclusive, customizable Steve a Fs
Fee-fie-foe-fum,
I smell the blood of 1g
a Windows bum!
If you're happy and you
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hands...ahhhhhh!
51 FlighCheck 4.2 Productivity
52 Baldur's Gate Il: Shadows of Amn Fun & Games
56 LaCie U& CD-RW Drive Hardware
56 The Magic School Bus
Volcano Adventure Kids’ siuft
57 Graphire2 Harcware
58 CanoScan N1240U Hardware
59 Timbuktu Pro 6 Utiities
&
Jobs paper doll. Consider it our holiday gift just for you. Al »
MacAddict Statement of Ownership Fo Otee Noton Salama’ of Ome ‘and Circuation for
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‘2001. 17 Icortiy thatthe statements made by me above are corect and complete: Tina Rodich,
6) Lemma | DEC/O1
THE
TEAM
PUBUSHER Don Kimenker
EDITOR IN CHIEF Rik Myslewski
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR Jenifer Morgan
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Cathy La
SENIOR EDITORS Kes Fang,
‘Narasu Rebbapragada (news)
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Niko Coucouvanis (reviews)
THE CD PERSON Andrew Tokuda
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Raf Anzovin, Steven Anzovin,
Joseph O, Holmes, Frank O'Connor, fan Sammis, Suz Zoller
ART
ARTSHOPPE DIRECTOR Christopher Imlay, Son of William, Duke of
Haambdrgh, Slayer of Grendor te Sludge, Keeper ofthe Grand Piano
ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Lestie Brown
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richard Lesovoy
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Hans Hunt
ADVERTISING
WESTERN NORTH AMERICA AD MANAGER Michelle Paredes
EASTERN NORTH AMERICA AD MANAGER Michele Guldo
SENIOR ACCOUNTS MANAGER, DIRECT SALES Ana Epstein
AD COORDINATOR Matt Wheeland
MARKETING MANAGER Alison MeCreery
CIRCULATION
‘GROUP CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tina Rodich
NEWSSTAND MARKETING MANAGER Mimi Hall
BING AND RENEWAL MANAGER Robyn Patty
FULFILLMENT MANAGER Peggy Mores
DIRECT MARKETING SPECIALIST Mary Nicklin
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PRESIDENT Jonaban Simpson-nt
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(MARKETING MANAGER Katie Cole
means doing whatever
{ehes fo give youth formation you need Wi ay ic: we
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Imagine Media Inc. is part of
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© Copyright Connectix Corporation. Connectix and Cunnectix Virtual PC are trademarks of Connectix Corporation. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders.
earor s nore
What a difference .T makes.
Six months ago | installed Mac OSX,
version 10.0, on my Mac—and it scared
the crap out of me. Sure, it was gorgeous,
and sure, its Unix underpinnings promised
stability and power unachievable in any
previous Mac OS, but | didn't want promise.
(wanted performance.
Let’s face facts, folks: Version 10.0 was
cranky. Menus disappeared, icons moved
wherever they damn well pleased, support
for peripherals was weak—and it ran slower
than my ’78 Honda Civic.
Earlier this week| installed version 10.1,
and immediately dope-slapped myself for
ever doubting the Wizards of Cupertino.
What a difference six months makes.
Simply put, Mac OS 10.1 works.
It’s fast, it supports mass quantities of
peripherals, its Aqua user experience has
been polished to a fine sheen, it supports
virtually every important networking and
connectivity standard right out of the box,
and—if my perception based on limited
experience is correct—it’s solid as a rock.
What's more, it contains a horde of internal
improvements that'll make life easier for
third-party developers. And you know what
that means, right? More and better goodies
for Mac lovers like you and me.
Take OS 10.1's graphics enhancements,
for example. Support for the PDF 13 imaging
model? It’s in there. ColorSync 4.0? Yup.
NVidia GeForce3 support? Uh-huh. How
about improved printer support? More than
200 built-in PPD files, at your service.
Audio improvements also abound,
starting with high-resolution, 24-bit, 96kHz
audio. In fact, OS 10.1 manages all audio as
32-bit floating-point data, which not only
results in great sound today but also paves
the way for even higher-resolution sound.
tomorrow. Multichannel audio processing is
also builtin, allowing developers to craft as
many channels as they need. Home-theater-
on-a-Mac, anyone? There's also built-in MIDI
management and a new DSP (digital signal
processor) plug-in architecture called Audio
Units that'll make it easier for developers to
create standardized plug-ins for audio
effects such as distortion, reverb, and
quack-like-a-duck converters. Just kidding
about that last one. | think.
The networking and connectivity
improvements are freakin’ insane. With OS
| *m no longer worried. I'm excited.
8) MacAddict|DEC/01
OS 10.1 is as reliable as Rik’s trusty "78
Honda. Luckily, it's also quite a bit faster.
10.1 installed, your Mac can seamlessly
communicate with most every computer on
the planet—though we’re not completely
certain about the Timex/Sinclair 1000. (Now
take a deep breath, because we're about to
enter the rarefied air of acronym-land.) Built
tight inside OS 10.1 is support for AFP.
over AppleTalk, AFP over IP, SMB/CIFS
connectivity that lets your Mac be a client of
Windows and SAMBA Unix servers, and—
of course—good ol’ PPP, PPPoE, NFS, and
LDAP capabilities. If you know what I’m
talking about, you know that I’m mixing
networking and connectivity terminology
rather freely here. If you don’t know your
LDAP from your PPPoE, suffice it to say that
your 10.1-equipped Mac will.
One last acronym: WebDAV. Now that
10.1 is Apple’s operating system du jour,
iDisk will be hosted using the industry-
standard WebDAV protocol. What does this
mean to you? Well, because WebDAV allows
your iDisk to connect to Apple’s servers only
when you access it, you can now leave your
iDisk mounted on the desktop at all times.
‘No more annoying time-out messages.
But wait! There’s more! AppleScript
improvements; DVD support; Finder-based
burning of data CD-R, CD-RW, and DVD-R
discs; OpenGL speed improvements;
speedier file copying; XML-RPC and SOAP
support for whizzy Intemet apps; two-line
icon names...and so on. All good stuff.
My early OSX fears were groundless.
As | tell my kids, sometimes it’s good to be
wrong.—Rik Myslewski
One final note. All of us here at MacAddict open our
hearts to any and all of you who lost friends, family,
colleagues, or coworkers in the events of September
11, We can't know how you feel, butwe can let you
know that you're part of a community that cares, and
cares deeply. loss felt by one is shared by all.
jenifer
Xing Out the X Editor
Q. What will you do with all the time you
save by using OS 10.1?
A. Lobby to ban
Roman
numerals
from
marketing
schemes
worldwide.
Q. Whatnew
feature do you
want in OS XI?
A. | would like a panot-joke
generator, with a little bird-cage icon.
riS Fon
‘The Procrastinateditor
Q. What will
you do with all
the time you
save by using
OS 10.12
A. Oh, Pll
eventually
try to figure
out how to
unleam everything
I've been used fo doing since System
7, and figure out where everything is in OS X.
Q. What new feature do you want in OS XI?
A. Anaspirin dispenser.
Q. What will
you dowith all
the time you
save by using
OS 10.1?
A. ?ilfinally step
outside to enjoy the scenery. I'll look up at
the sky and marvel at how it looks nearly as
teal as the skies in Bryce 3D.
Q. What new feature do you wantin OS XI?
A. Programs that will run on it.
Double Your Fun
with new editions of
_ G,,
poe ix, Year your favorite games!
ew) SAO = xe
Dae
e
“2 4,200 New Answers,
> New Technology and
a Sample Contestant Exam!
New Features, ——, : x
2,500 New Puzzlesand x. —
enhanced 3D graphics! IE 250,
ae, Ney
Coming This Fall!
EVERYONE "a ae”
{4 ARTECH
Mac |
tt gs
®@
MacSo
Candy Crisis: Sweet! Candy Crisis not only
looks lickable, its fast pace will lick even the most
brain-centric gamer.
EarthBrowser: Get the latest weather from
EarthBrowser so you can prepare to freeze your
butt off when you're heading to San Francisco.
Now Up-To-Date & Contact: Making a
shopping list for Christmas dinner? Now you won't
forget the Tater Tots.
Pillars of Garendall: Drat! My sword is
useless against that deceptive mullet shield!
10 | MacAddict | DEC/01
Software to Keep You Cozy
Through the Holiday Season
Candy Crisis
Sure, you can call it a Tetris clone, but Candy Crisis is
much more entertaining. Colorful, cartoonlike graphics
(complete with particle effects and dynamic shadows and
lighting), charming music, and addictive gameplay will keep
you planted on your computer chair—and craving Skittles—for
hours. What's more, this latest version has been OS X-ified.
@ EarthBrowser
Our Shareware Pick of the Month! If you want to know what havoc Mother Nature and
her forces are doling out to the Earth at any given time, the intuitive EarthBrowser
puts the whole world in your hands (well, on your desktop, anyway), providing you
with real-time weather anywhere in the world, Forget your local weather guy—this
program gives you global info whenever you need it and features weather forecasts,
cloud-formation satellite overviews, real-time earthquake information, and round-
the-world Web cams.
Now Up-to-Date & Contact Demo
Whether you’re an on-the-go executive or a parent wrangling an army of wily kids
{and let’s not forget your spouse), you need to stay on top of things. Now Up-to-Date
& Contact is a PIM (personal information manager) that includes advanced features
like networkwide scheduling for organizations, and it’s as easy as marking your
kitchen calendar with a pen! You can jot down a phone number or create an
appointment without even launching the program.
Pillars of Garendall
Pillars of Garendall may just be the pillar of all RPGs (role-playing games). Brimming
with over 100 hours of gameplay to keep you busy indoors during the long winter
break, Pillars stars you as a valiant servant of the Garendalt kingdom, where you do.
battle with all that is evil. Beenox created Pillars of Garendall using the Coldstone
Game Engine, a soon-to-be-released game-creation tool that we expect similar games
will use as a launching pad in the future.
Holiday Bonus: December Nitrozac comics; “Best of Mac Show Live,” volume 5;
Bert’s Unix tutorial, part 3; Maya demonstration movies; exclusive Steve Jobs paper
doll and wardrobe.
Radius is an internet film from K2 Films.
The company’s Web site (www.radius.com)
Covers the making of the film in a journal-
entry style, so you can follow its progress.
This month's staff video takes an exclusive,
behind-the-scenes look at some of the special
effects in the film, and shares some words of
wisdom from Helmut Kobler, director of
Radius, who gladly participated in an
impromptu interview one summet afternoon.
The trailer for Radius is also on The Disc.
IFyour copy of MacAddict didn't include The Disc, you
“need to upgrade! To subsciibe, call 888-771-6222. The
price is $29.95 for x2 issues and 12 discs—the operator
‘will take care of everything.
Rome Has Fallen.
The World is Up For Grabs,
Lead one of,the most powerful civilizations of the Middle h lan
Ages to greatness. Raise your armies. Forge alliances. Pa,
Grow a thriving market economy, Build wonders to stand (
the test of time) There are many paths to power, but uly
one civilization will reign supreme. :
Command powerful
armies in veal ties
SONATE liani
AMARC enghis
™ Kliatt and more.
Who will fight
under your flag?
Build your
civilization into a
flourishing empire.
ry
trategy game ever”
-Computer Games Online
Ty OV “The most heact-stoppi
Vie ee
ro = -Time Magazine
eee, Si .o "1. Microsoft "Fe
THE AGE OF KINGS: ape
(6200 Microsoft Corporation. Al rights reserved. Microsoft and Age of Empires are either trademarks or registered trademark
cf Microsoft Corpontion in he Unita Stats andor cher counies Bold anéDssner ae ademas of PT M Ventures, nc
e Direct: www.boldgames.com, or call Toll Free
© 866-512-9111, or visit your local retailer *
a) Ae Gee
www.buytdk.com.
eriers
Everyone’s got an opinion.
WRITE TO US: MacAadict,
160 North Hill Dr, Brisbane, CA 94005
or letters@macaddict.com.
FOR CD PROBLEMS: Go to
hitps:/secure.imaginemedia.convdisc/.
FOR SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES:
Cait (toll-free) 888-771-6222.
MAC-ROSOFT
Thanks fora great article on Microsoft and
the MacBU. It’s good that people know the
truth about Microsoft: Namely, as far-
fetched as it seems, the people writing Mac
software really care about the platform. It’s
nice to know we can still make Bill Gates
look over his shoulder once in a while.
—Dan Wiencek
BAD MEMORIES
‘Last summer | took a computer-game
programming course at a school in
Redmond, Washington. Every day for one-
half hour, | rode on a bus full of Microsoft
employees from Seattle through the
Redmond Microsoft campus on the way to
school. It tooka lot of therapy, but finally
blocked out the horrible images 'd seen
(ugly-ass portables and employees). Well,
what do | see when iwatch the October 2001
staff video: the Place of Doom! | guess it’s
back to my Microsoft-induced nightmares.
and incoherent babbling.—Stephen Frerotte
FLIRTING WITH THE ENEMY
In your article on Microsoft, you omitted one
rather important fact: They are criminals. |
expect better from you guys. No more
foolishness about how Microsoft is nicey-
nicey, please. They are nobody’s friend, and
in your hearts you know it.—Chris Johnson
SOUND OFF
In your article “150 Shareware Gems”
(Oct/o1, p26), you left out an excellent
application called SoundApp 2.7 by Norman
Franke. Without this wonderful, free
application, | would spend needless hours
at my computer manually converting tons of
MP3s to CD-quality AIFF files. SoundApp can
run in the background while | surf the
Internet, or for large files, it can batch-
convert them and beep me when it’s done. |
humbly nominate SoundApp 2.7 for the top
25 utilities no Mac user can live without.
—Terry Jackson
| Mot DEC/01
FROM ONE OLD DUDE
TO ANOTHER
It is good to see a fellow old guy in charge of
a Mac rag. I'ma freak for MacAddict. | think |
have one of the first few Discs. | remember
when the Beatles were new and when
microwave ovens were the wave of the
future, | bought my first Mac, an SE, in 1986.
Since then | have owned an LC, a Performa,
an iMac DVSE, and a Gg. Inall that time,
I’ve only taken two machines to the shop.
Lightning fried the SE, so | had to replace
the analog board, and | kicked the CD tray
‘on the Gg and had to replace the drive. You
go, dude.—Ray Meyers
GATES IN HIDING
When | received my October issue of
MacAddict, | turned to page 6 to
read about the new editor, and | thought,
“No! Bill Gates in MacAddict holding a
TiBook?” Fortunately, | didn’t throw away
the mag—I saw it was our new editor. Hey
Rik, | go back to 1984 with Apple. My first
was an Apple lle.—Woody Schlegel
SHARING OPINIONS
| read with interest your article “150
Shareware Gems” (Oct/01, p26). You left
out MacNuclide, written by Craig Stone and
available from Brookhaven National Lab
(www.nnde.bnl-gov). As a nuclear engineer
and an avid Mac user, | find itas valuable as
a chart of the nuclides.—Kermit
AN UNREAL TABLET
I'm playing Unreal Toumament and | pick up
my Wacom mouse. Lo and behold—when |
put the mouse down twice, the game
reacted to it. The second button (on the
mouse) even fired secondary fire. Try it, it’s
really fun.—Logan Swanson
Wacom’s drivers now support input
Sprockets, so some of your games will
respond to its mouse.—Ed.
JUST GOOD PLAIN FUN
The author of “Shareware Pick of the Month”
Get Info, Sep/o:, p18) was correct when she
wrote: “Sometimes the no-frills games are
the most fun to play.” | play Artillery on my
Mac SE very often. | also play Risk,
Cyberblast, and other old games without
stunning graphics, and | stilt have lots and
lots of fun.—josh Hillmann
Recently Sighted
Our newest addition to the family
(Audrey, age 16 months) found a 13-hour
-toad trip easier to handle thanks to our
‘other newest addition to the family
(Snow iBook, age 3 months).—Rod Lott
WHO’S THAT ANIMATOR?
OK, I give up. The September Disc rocks. It’s
the best ever. | want a lifetime subscription.
Mostly | want to know what apps you used
to build the animation and interface.
—Eric Howell
One of our readers, Michigan |.S., did the
animation using Newtek Lightwave 3D and
Adobe After Effects. MacAddict editor lan
Sammis built the tour using REALbasic (the
demo of which is included on The Disc just
about every month).—Ed.
NOW THAT'S A MAC ADDICT!
J wanted you to know what a special place
your magazine occupies in my household.
Sometimes | get so wrapped up in reading
MacAddict that | forget what I’m doing and
stay on the toilet until my legs go numb.
—Robert Westmoreland
PERLY MISTAKES
Oy vey! Do you want to make ail of the Perl
hackers reading your magazine pull out their
hair? In your story “Find and Use CGI Scripts
with Mac OS X” (Sep/o1, p66), you
repeatedly referred to Perl as PERL. It made
you guys took almost as stupid as PC users
who refer to the Macintosh as MAC (but not
quite).—Thomas Dale
Roy Fox, Founder, Fox Clocks, Hollis, Maine
One of 400,000 WS ievare users
O¢ news of the month in bite-size chunks.
See Seybold Run
New Mac Products Shine at
Semiannual Design Conference
imes are tough and the economy is slow, but that didn’t
stop Seybold Seminars from kicking off its semiannual
design conference this past September in San Francisco.
Despite lower-than-average attendance, the mood on the floor was.
upbeat: Conference attendees talked shop and a slew of Mac
companies showed off cool new products.—NR
Adobe
Adobe announced Carbon
and Classic versions of
InDesign 2.0. This
professional page-layout
software introduces a
table-creation feature with
the ability to import
Microsoft Word and Excel
Se
tables. Adobe also added
‘support for transparency,
better type tools, anew
drop-shadow palette, and support for XML. InDesign 2.0 will cost
$699 and will be available in the first quarter of 2002.
Adobe also announced Carbon and Classic versions of its vector-
drawing application, Illustrator 10.0. Version 10.0 introduces easy-to-
create line and arc segments, a new Envelope feature for fitting
editable text into objects, Photoshop-style effects, a new Mesh tool
(it’s not just for gradients anymore), and new Web tools. l\lustrator
10.0 will cost $399 and will be available in the fourth quarter of 2001.
InDesign 2.0’s Transparency palette
controls opacity and retains transparency.
Apple
Steve Jobs announced pricing and availability of Mac OS 10.1. The
upgrade is free to current Mac OS X users until October 31 at Apple-
authorized stores—or as long as supplies last.
Apple also previewed AppleScript Studio, which will integrate
AppleScript with development tools, like Mac OS X’s Project Builder
Adobe braught 54
G4s to the show
f| floor for software
workshops.
HOLIDAY
SHOP hy
Stereotype
1% | Macacscr DEC/01
Finding the right gift for the right price for the right person can be the
true nightmare betore Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other
end-of-year celebration. We're here to help. Match the stereotype to the
personality of the loved one you're trying to shop for, dig up about $100,
and buy the stuff we suggest. Check system requirements before you buy.
PHETOBRAPHY BY W. B, JONES
Designers lounge at Seybold San Francisco 2001.
and Interface Builder. Since Mac OS 10.1 supports XML (Extensible
Markup Language) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) Web
standards, AppleScript will be able to communicate with data on the
Intemet. AppleScript Studio will be available by the end of 2001.
Canto
Canto and Idée introduced a cool technology for Cumulus 5,
software for managing digital assets. The new Espion Visual Search
Option lets you search visually for an image within your collection.
That is to say, using the actual image (not a string of text), you can
search for similar images and altered versions of that image. Espion
is currently not available for the consumer-oriented Cumulus 5
Single User Edition. It will cost $75 per user, plus $295 for the
required server, for Cumulus 5 Workgroup and Enterprise editions
and will be out for Mac OS X by the end of 2001.
Corel
Corel launched two new
packages. The Corel-branded
Graphics Suite 10 for Macintosh
includes vector-drawing app
CorelDraw 10, image editor Corel
Photo-Paint 10, and animation
tool Corel RAVE. Corel Graphics
Suite 10 will cost $569 and is
available now.
Under the Procreate line for
Mac graphics professionals, Corel introduced the next batch of nine
KPT filters, called KPT Effects, for use with Photoshop and other
programs adopting Adobe’s plug-in architecture. Effects include KPT
Ink Dropper for creating the illusion of smoke or stains, and KPT
Fluid for adding liquid distortion that you can capture as animation.
KPT Effects will cost $199 and will be available in October 2001.
aes :
KPT’s Fluid Effect liquefies images
and lets you capture the process in
QuickTime or PICT animation.
Digital photographer
‘Stephen Johnson
shows his work,
including a haunting
1998 New York City
skyline (right).
For the Paranoi
Norton internet Security (Symantec, www.symantec.com, $99)
For those fearful of hackers and body snatche!
combination personal firewall, antivirus software, and Internet
Cookie remover will address at least the first problem.
Mac Companies Donate to Relief Efforts
Victims and Relief Workers Get Software, Hardware, and Monetary Help
ithin the first week of the September 11 tragedies that befell New York, Washington, D.C., and
Pennsylvania, Mac-related technology firms quietly joined the rest of America in contributing
to disaster-relief efforts. Here’s a partial list of what some companies did to help.—NR
Adobe Systems
Adobe donated $250,000 to the Red Cross disaster
fund and raised an additional $50,000 from
employee donations, which the company matched.
Aladdin Systems
Aladdin Systems donated $1 of each online sale for
30 days to the American Red Cross.
Apple Computer
Apple donated $1 million to families of rescue
workers who lost their lives and donated one iBook
to each of these families with children.
Canon
Canon donated $100,000 to the American Red
Cross, and gave hardware to the New York City
Police Department's Crime Scene Unit for evidence
Tecovery, documentation, and victim identification.
ComputerWare
ComputerWare donated $25 per September
Macintosh sale to the American Red Cross.
Eastman Kodak Company
Kodak gave $2 million to the American Red Cross.
The Mobile Mac
of Burning Man
Art Fest Serves Up Pyrotechnics
and Mac-Driven Entertainment
he annual Burning Man festival, held in
Nevada's barren Black Rock Desert, is a mecca
for art, pyromaniacs, and cutting-edge technology.
Some of this chaos runs on the Mac. This year,
James Peterson, an animator from Venice Beach,
California, constructed a beat-mixing bicycle. Using
a Powerbook 1400¢ (wrapped in a plastic bag to
keep out the dust), a pair of old speakers, a car
battery, an amplifier, and a few parts from Radio
Shack, Peterson ran Propellerhead’s drum ’n’ bass
program, ReBirth ($179, www.propellerheads.se),
and Syclone Multimedia’s techno mixer,
AudioFusion TWS ($25, www.download.com), to
mix funky music while peddling around the
festivities Leigh Webber
For the. Rock
a G3, or a G4.
new STUFF
Visor Pro and Visor Neo
Handspring, www.handspring.com, $299 (Pro)
or $199 (Neo)
Handspring announced September 2001
availability of two new handheld organizers:
Visor Pro and Visor Neo. The Visor Pro
comes with 16MB of memory and
rechargeable batteries. The Neo comes with
8MB of memory and hard, translucent-
colored cases reminiscent of Apple’s Ruby
and Indigo iMacs.
Palm m125
Palm, www.palm.com, $249
Palm’s hoping to bridge the gap between its
professional and consumer markets with the
new m125 handheld organizer. The 5.3-ounce
device has 8MB of memory, a faster
processor, support for Secure Digital (SD)
and MMC storage standards, and USB hot
syncing. Palm announced and shipped the
mas in September.
DuoConnect
Adaptec, www.adaptec.com, $129
Adaptec announced September 2001
availability of a combination USB 2.0 and
FireWire PCI card. The card has four USB
ports (one internal and three external) and
three FireWire ports (two external and one
internal). DuoConnect is bundled with a
6-foot FireWire cable.
USB AudioSport Quatro
Midiman, www.midiman.net, $349.95
In August Midiman announced availability of
the USB AudioSport Quattro. With four
channels in and four channels out, the Quattro
44akHz and 48kHz sampling
rates, plus limited (only two-channel) 24-bit,
96kHz recording and playback.
71-560 Speaker System
Logitech, www.logitech.com, $199
In September Logitech announced the
7-560, a four-speaker plus subwoofer set with
400 watts of power. This system is THX
certified for home theater—style audio. Its
Matrix 3D Surround Sound gives some audio
CDs the benefit of four-channel audio. It
should be available in mid-October 2001.
Handspring Foundation
Handspring donated 500 Visor Deluxe handheld
organizers and 500 Visor phones to the American
Red Cross, the New York City Police Department,
and the New York City Fire Department. Voice
Stream provided free phone service.
Microsoft
Microsoft donated $5 million in cash and $5 million
in software to various relief efforts.
Paim
Palm donated handheld organizers and wireless
networking services to the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), the American Red
Cross, and the U.S. Navy.
Sony
Sony donated $3 million to the American Red
Cross and $1 million to the New York City
Public/Private Initiatives.
Thursby Software Systems
Thursby donated its online sales through
September 21 to the American Red Cross.
James Pelceson (abov
Mac man at the Burning Man festival (inset).
lethod 1 eMedia, -www.emediamu: 59.95) For that special
DEC/O1 |MacAdaict |17
gefinfo ;
iroolWORTHY
Sexy Stuff We Can’t Wait to Get Our Mitts On
ZLD15Al LCD TV
Zenith | www.zenith.com | $1,299.95
here really is no reason to leave the house now. This 45.1-inch silver
sliver is both a TV and computer monitor, with a screen resolution
of 1,024 by 768. The strangely named ZLD15A\ features a built-in analog
TV tuner with 181-channel capacity, stereo TV sound, and a slew of
connectors for hooking up to computers, DVD players, and VCRs. Going
ouiside is, like, so overrated.—NR
ATV and computer monitor in one—
that’s the way, uh huh uh huh, we like it.
RDC-i700
Ricoh | www.ticohzone.com | $1,299.99,
©, it didn’t fall aver. The Ricoh RDC-i7oo digital camera lies flat and
has a 3.5-inch LCD display that pops upward for viewing and editing
images with a stylus. But the hardware isn’t the only unusual feature of
this 3X optical zoom camera. The RDC-i700 is one of the first Internet-
ready digital cameras to hit the U.S. market. It comes complete with a
minibrowser for Web surfing and memory for emailing your pix directly
Digital cameras that surf the from the camera (Ricoh sells the modems separately). Like most
Web—such an exciting concept that the multifunction gadgets, this one’s not perfect. Some of the data-
RDC-i700 is taking the news lying down. management and networking features are currently Windows only.—NR
Shareware Pick of the Month
4 Pioneer ae
F | ae your seatbelt and get ready for takeoff with Lunar Software’s
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RICOH
EarthBrowser 1.5.4. Click a 3D model of Earth that lets you explore our
planet’s diverse climates and geographies from the safety of your desk chair.
Check out real-time weather conditions and five-day forecasts for over 450
isto cities around the globe. Find hourly updates of earthquake locations and
magnitudes, and get the latest information on volcanic eruptions.
The newest version of EarthBrowser contains over 300 worldwide Web-cam
images, which update daily, sometimes even by the minute. Additional features
include hourly updates of cloud-cover satellite images, a grid showing latitude and
longitude, and day-to-night shadows. EarthBrowser 1.5.4 is available for Mac OS.
8.1 and later, including Mac OS X.
There is a free version of EarthBrowser, but paying the shareware fee gives you
high-resolution maps and zooming capabilities 25 times the resolution of the Looks like sunny skies ahead in San Francisco. Clicking the
demo. We think it’s worth the price.—Whitney Hess country flag brings you to The World Factbook from the CIA.
18 MacAddict DEC/O1
INtheSTUDIO with wie Brain
Star-Studded Animation for the Movie Rat Race
hen San Francisco-based animation studio Wild Brain
(www.wildbrain.com) created the opening credits for Paramount
Pictures’ Rat Race, it faced two constraints: a $200,000 budget (modest
by Hollywood standards) and a dearth of photo resources to showcase
the movie's all-star cast, which included Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese,
and Cuba Gooding Jr. So Wild Brain’s team of seven Mac artists turned to ten
Gqs to create a 3.5-minute animation that reflected the offbeat comedy
(about high-rolling gamblers betting on a six-person race to recover $2 million)
while retaining a Holiywood feel. We talked to Wild Brain director Julia Tortolani
and technical director Eric Schweickert to find out how they did it—NR
2 iy
‘PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WILD BRAIN
(From left to right) Wild Brain director Julia Tortolani,
technical director Eric Schweickert, and Photoshop
Wild Brain created this basic Wayne Knight puppet artist Kevin Bell can tell you that animating comedy is
in Photoshop for animation in After Effects. serious business.
Celebrity Puppets Schweickert, who put on a delivery uniform The Transition
At the heart of the Rat Race opener are 13 and stood in as Wayne Knight’s body. Wild The hardest part of the project was building
digital puppets of the movie’s celebrity cast. Brain took hundreds of photographs of what you can’t see: the seamless transition
The puppets are photo-collage caricatures, hands, feet, torsos, and legs and literally built between Wild Brain’s animation and the
which hinge at the joints to give them a the characters one piece ata time, creating actual live-action shots of the Paramount
playful yet smooth movement as they run, complex Photoshop files, which sometimes. movie. Wild Brain needed to match the color
drop, and swing along the title credits. required up to 45 layers. and blend the movement of their digital
The animated puppets display a wide animation footage with the live-action fiim
array of poses and gestures, which artists The Animation footage of the actors running around a movie
painstakingly created in Photoshop. Wild Once Wild Brain completed the puppets, the set. For this, Wild Brain used After Effects 5.0’s
Brain artists took just four photographs artists put the animation together in After new 16-bit color support. To match color, Wild
of Whoopi Goldberg and, by tweaking Effects 5.0, which rendered out the 4,000- Brain had the film frames of the actual movie
her eyebrows, eyebails, and mouth pixel plus frames to 100GB of Cineon files, aformat scanned as 10-bit Cineon files, which the
by pixel, gave her about 12 different required to output to film. During the project, artists imported into After Effects. Once in
facial expressions. Wild Brain chose to upgrade from After After Effect’s 16-bit color space, artists
Effects 4.1 to After Effects 5.0 for two main matched character and background colors
Celebrity Bodies reasons: First, Version 5.0 offers better layer to the film’s color and then rendered the
Surprisingly, the puppets” bodies were not parenting, which defines a parent-child
always those of the actual celebs but hierarchy between layers and nested
occasionally the clothing and body parts of composites to save a great deal of time when
the Wild Brain staff. It’s not that the stars animating the hundreds of layers in a
weren't attractive; it was that Wild Brain character's library of body parts. Second,
didn’t have enough photography to animate Wild Brain liked version 5’s 3D cameras, * Dual-processor Power Mac G4/450, Mac OS
the stars properly with their own bodies. which permitted creation of true z-space (3D) 9.0, 1GB RAM, 20GB Internal hard disk space
For example, Tortolani photographed depth and lighting. + Nikon Cootpix 980
(Nikon, www.nikon.com, $799)
+ 60GB LaCie External FireWire drive
(LaCie, wwwilacie.com, $299)
To the left of + Apple Cinema Display
John Cibsee le (Apple, www.apple.com, $2,499)
Paramount's live- Software
action shot. To the Photoshop 6 (Adobe, www.adobe.com, $609)
right is Wild Brain’s + After Effects 5 Production Bundle
digitally constructed (Adobe, www.adobe.com, $1,499)
scene. Can you tell illustrator 8 (Adobe, www.adobe.com,
the difference? $399 for version 10)
Who Wa a Millioné
ition (Disney tnt
DEC/01 |MacAdaict| 19
|
SsCIapp
i'ma model. Do you know
CO
by Narasu Rebbapragada
Uwhites are not the same. The same goes for blacks, blues,
greens, and purples. The colors in your digital photography,
Web graphics, and printed designs are composed differently
20 | aie a pai
because they use varying color models, the strangely named
systems of color classification and creation. Let us introduce you to
a few color models, what they are, and when you should use them.
RGB
The RGB (Red, Green, Biue) color model lights up video images and graphics
displayed on monitors. Every image is composed of a value (1 to 255) of the
three colors. This color model is additive—this means red, blue, and green
mixed at their maximum values (255) emit their greatest light, which is white.
Who uses it? Web designers. The gamut (range of colors) of colors in RGB is
greater than in CMYK, so you should create Web images in RGB to take
advantage of the full range of colors. When you convert RGB images to CMYK,
you will lose extra RGB data, and some colors will appear duller.
Grayscale
This model contains 256 shades of gray. Shade 0 is black, and shade
255 Is white.
Who it? People who want to create black-and-white images. Duh...
Duotone
Traditionally, a duotone is a black-and-white photograph printed using black plus
one additional ink color. In desktop publishing, it's a grayscale image enhanced
with an additional color.
Who uses it? Designers and photographers looking for a richer tone than
grayscale can provide. Many printer inks can't accurately represent all 256
shades of gray. Adding the second color gives you a richer tone.
eMyK
This is the color model you use to create a printed page. With CMYK (Cyan
Magenta Yellow and black), every image is composed of varying percentages
(0 to 100) of the four colors. This color model is subtractive, which means that
when you mix cyan, magenta, yellow, and black together on paper at 100
percent, they absorb light and appear black.
Who uses it? Print designers. When printing to inkjet or professional-level
printers, you—or your printer's driver software—must be able to separate your
graphics into these four colors.
Pantone
The Pantone Matching System is a system for choosing and precisely
< controlling ink colors. Designers pick numerically designated colors from a
fan-shaped book of swatches, which show exactly how the colors will print on
coated and uncoated paper stocks.
Who uses it? Designers who create corporate logos and other graphics that
must look exactly the same when printed on different media.
Web-Safe Colors
Web-safe colors are a set of 216 RGB colors that look the same when displayed
on different platforms and different browsers.
‘Who uses it? Web designers who want to ensure that their graphics won't look
dithered, a fuzzy look created when a monitor tries to approximate a color by
mixing dots of two other colors.
‘Note: We simuated al color models in CMOK, required by MacAtits printing process.
PHOTOGRAPH BY W. B. JONES
STAN KNEW
SHE WAS
TROUBLE,
BUT HE
WASN'T
WORRIED.
We live in a world of data. Take yours with you.
Missa was a real bombshell. Without warning, she wreaked havoc re)
on systems across the country. To make matters worse, other viruses
followed. Still, | saw no reason to panic because | had my entire iomega’
computer backed up on my Peerless”20GB drive. | knew! could count on
lomega QuikSync" software to automatically back up my work. Peerless
saved me a lot of heartache. | was safe from the likes of Melissa. 99
To download free software,
purchase products or find
a dealer, visit iomega.com
Save up to ona Peerless” storage solution!
SPEED UP
YOUR MAC
Speed, spees, ant more spee.
It's what we all want from our Macs.
Here’s how to get it.
got some Mac on your desk, but unless you have unlimited
funds, chances are you can't afford to replace it every time Steve
Jobs decides to revamp the entire product line. No matter how much
you want one—and how many hints you drop to your rich Uncle Bill—
an 800MHz Dual-processor G4 just isn’t in your future.
But that doesn’t mean faster performance isn’t in your future. Your
Mac should blast off at lightning-fast speeds every time you click that
mouse. You shouldn't have to wait for your Mac—it should wait for
you. And with the right enhancements, it will. From the smartest
S$ 0 you've got your favorite Mac on your desk. More likely, you've
hardware upgrades to the sneakiest software tweaks, we tell you how H
to get the best performance possible from your Mac. Anyway, you ly Dave Hamilton
didn’t really want that Dual 800, did you? iMustration ly Tony Rantazo
22 MacAddaict DEC/01
Find Grape
Converter 4.0.9
PPG, TinkerTool
1.5.2, an Adobe
Photoshop 6.8
tryout, a Launch
Bar 3.0 demo,
and Xoptimize
0.42 on The Disc,
i
DEC/O1 | el 23
HARDWARE
You can optimize the software that runs on your machine all you want, but the
crux of the matter is that your hardware ultimately sets a limit on what you can
do with your Mac (assuming you aren't typing with your nose, that is).
Upgrades, upgrades, upgrades—or iry a little bit of hacking.
Upgraie the Processor
You can swap in faster processors on most Macs, with
the exception of the newest laptops and Gas. Apple
itself doesn’t offer processor upgrades, but companies
tike Sonnet Technologies (www.sonnettech.com),
PowerLogix (www.powerlogix.com), and XLR8&
(www.xir8.com) do.
Bear in mind, though, that the type of motherboard
you have limits your Mac’s bus speed. Therefore, if you
upgrade your G3 to a 500MHz G4 processor, it won’t run
as fast as, say, a 500MHz G4 tower that came straight
from the factory. The difference lies in the computer's
bus. Data goes from system memory to the processor
and back to memory again via the bus. If your machine
has a maximum bus speed of 66MHz, Itcan’t perform
this function as fast as Apple’s latest machines—those
models’ busses run at 133MHz.
i
|
=
3
5
°
Hetetteeeteeteectegeagne
Upgrade cards like this one from Sonnet
can make your Mac run a little more like
‘hat 867MHz G4 you're coveting.
Pump Up the RAM
The introduction of Mac OS X with its Unix-based roots makes RAM
more important than ever. As a general rule, the more RAM you have,
the faster a Unix-based machine will tun. That's because the more
RAM you have, the more data your Mac can cache, RAM makes an
even bigger difference in a server-type environment, where you’re
running one application that serves many simultaneous requests.
The minimum requirements for Mac OS X are 128MB of RAM,
though you’ll want at least 256MB to realize the full potential of this
system, especially if you’re running applications in Classic (Mac 0S
X’s environment for running OS 9 programs under OS X). Online RAM
vendors are the best place to buy memory because they can keep up
with the almost daily changes in today’s RAM market. There are many
great online RAM sellers, including Memory To Go (www.memorytogo
.com), Ramjet (www.ramjet.com), and MemoryX (www.memoryx.net),
24 | MacAadict |DEC/01
Time to Dual?
Companies ike Sonnet and XLR8 offer dual-processor upgrades—but whether you
should buy one of these lovelies comes down to what you do with your computer. Mac
OS 9 supports just one processor, so the only time your Mac will utilize the second
processor is when you are running an application specifically designed to support
Multiprocessors, such as certain Adobe Photoshop filters and Apple Final Cut Pro.
With Mac OS X, the rules are different. Carbon or Cocoa apps written to support Mac.
OS X automatically take advantage of dual processors. Still, if all you're doing is
sending emails, surfing the Web, and playing a few games (not that
there’s anything wrong with that), you may not notice a
huge speed bump with a dual-
processor upgrade under OS X.
A dual-processor
upgrade card
like this XLR8 one
tan make a big
difference if you're
running Mae OS X.
To GS of G4? That Is the Question
For most G3 machines, you can choose either a faster G3 or a G4 upgrade. A G3 is
fine for a lot of folks, but there are good reasons to consider a G4. For instance, the G4
has an on-chip Altivec coprocessor (also called the Velocity Engine). This extra power
allows the machine to execute as many as four floating-point calculations in a single
cycle, whereas most processors can only perform one at atime. These calculations
are especially important for voice, graphics, and video applications. More and more
apps take advantage of the Altivec processor these days—Photoshop, Final Cut Pro,
and DVD Studio Pro, to name a few. Also, Apple is touting Mac OS X as optimized for
the G4 processor.
to name just a few. Bottom line: Unless you’ve
got an insane amount of RAM already, buy
more, especially if you’re running Mac
OSX. It’s almost as good an
investment as a Roth IRA.
More RAM equals
more speed. Got it?
Get a Good Hard Drive
Most Macs come with respectably fast drives, so there’s no reason to
replace or add a drive unless you simply need more storage space. If
you do add a drive to your Mac, though, you might as well get a
speedy one.
First, choose between adding a drive inside your Mac, or connecting
one to your FireWire port externally (that is, if you have FireWire). For
internal drives, your options are wide open, since Macs now use the
same IDE drives that Wintel machines do. Look for drives from reputable
manufacturers like Wester Digital (www.westerndigital.com), IBM.
(www.storage.ibm.com/hdd), and Seagate (www.seagate.com).
An external FireWire drive is worth considering. You can move it
from Mac to Mac, and it doesn’t take a
screwdriver to install. Look for
drives that use the Oxford 911
chip set. This is a second-
generation chip set that
removes the
ih, performance
~ bottlenecks
found in
Asecond
internal hard Anew FireWire hard drive
drive does a provides more storage
Mac good. space and can offer
‘speedy performance.
Overclock Your
Overclocking is the somewhat illicit process of making your Mac run
faster than Apple designed it to. This usually involves changing
settings on the motherboard, and sometimes even means soldering
on or removing components. While some Macs are easier to overclock
than others, you can overclock most of them (depending on how
willing you are to try untested, risky techniques!). Below we point out
several Web resources that tell you how to overclock different models.
Bear in mind that neither we nor the authors of these Web sites
guarantee that these techniques will work. Overclocking will certainly
void your warranties with Apple and all the related hardware vendors,
including CPU upgrade card and RAM manufacturers. Now that we’ve
covered our butts, read on.
G3 Check out “10 Things You Don’t Know How to Do (and Probably
Shouldn't)” on p26 of our April 2001 issue.
867MHz G4 Some enterprising soul has found a way to speed a
867MHz Gg to over 1GHz. Check out www.bekkoame.ne.jp/~t-
imai/gqde1.html for more information.
2001 iBook The folks at Accelerate Your Mac (www.xlr8yourmac.com)
recently published an article on overclocking the latest iBook. Read
about it at www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/ibook_2001_overclock
Jibook_2001_overclock.html.
iMac This all-in-one Mac has always been a tough machine to
overclock, but there are ways. If you’re game to give it a try, check out
most other FireWire drives, resulting in faster access to your data. You
can find out if a drive uses the Oxford 911 chip set by looking at the
technical specifications listed on the manufacturer’s Web site or by
asking the company directly. For external hard drives, vendors such as
Firewire Direct (www. firewiredirect.com) and VST Technologies
(www.vsttech.com) are good places to check.
Believe it or not, hard drives vary greatly in speed. The general rule
to follow is that the newer the drive, the faster it is. Be aware that
although manufacturers often measure hard drive performance in
rotational speed (5,400 RPM, 7,200 RPM), a faster RPM doesn’t
necessarily mean faster speeds in day-to-day usage. Rotational speeds
are more important with video- and audio-editing apps, where you’re
moving large chunks of data on and off the drive. Generally, a drive
with a faster RPM can sustain a faster data-transfer rate over a long
period of time. But unless you are
moving huge chunks of data around,
focus on the access time
(measured in milliseconds)—
that is, the time it takes the
drive to locate a specific
piece of data. Look for
drives with access
times of gms
orless.
We overclocked this 400MHz G3 to run at 450MHz by changing around the
jumper settings. Impressive, eh?
www.thelittlemacshop.com/imac/imacmod1.html. You should also
check out the Clock Chipping page at http://socrates.berkeley.edu
/~schrier/mhz.html for general advice on overclocking. It offers
links to information about nearly every type of Mac and shows
you what it takes (aside from nerves of steel) to make the
required modifications.
DEC/O1 Ns cir ag
MAC 05 9
Even though Apple is trying to convert the masses to Mat OS X, for now many of us are sticking
with the trusty Mac OS 9, thanks very much. Since the original Mac OS has been around since
1984, there’s no shortage of ways to optimize your system for speed. If you're a Mac veteran,
you probably know most of these tricks, but you still might learn a thing or two.
A few nips and tucks can make Mac 0S 9 a speedy little devil.
Manage Your Extensions
The dreaded Extensions folder—it’s the one place on the Mac where no
sane soul ever wants to venture. Yet one of the most effective ways of
speeding up your Mac is to trim down your extensions. The Mac OS ships
with quite a few extra ones that support features of Mac OS 9 most of us
don’t use regularly. Hello? Does anyone actually use Speech Manager?
Some good control panels and extensions to target for disabling are:
Find By Content, Find By Content Indexing Scheduler, Speech, Speech
Manager, Speech Recognition, lomega Extension (unless you're running a
Zip, Jaz, or other omega drive), Web Sharing, and Web Sharing Extension.
To tum off extensions, use either the Extensions Manager control panel or
Casady & Greene’s Conflict Catcher ($79.95, www.casadyg.com).
In many ways, the Finder is like the man behind the curtain in The
Wizard of Oz—it’s always running, no matter what you're doing, but you
never notice its presence. Despite its invisibility, the Finder's
performance can definitely affect your Mac’s speed.
Disable Folder Size Calculations One feature that can tie up the
Finder is its ability to calculate folder sizes. That’s why it’s best to tum
on this feature only when you need to. From the Finder, go to Edit and
choose Preferences. Go to the Views tab and choose List from the pull-
down menu; you'll see a check box for Calculate Folder Sizes. Uncheck
that box to tell the Finder not to calculate folder sizes by default. If you
need to check the size of a specific folder, select the folder, and press
Command-| for info.
Then read the size ues =|
info that appearsin || /Generat\/ Views \/Labets\,
the dialog box. _standard View Options for: [list 13)
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| Ceate Date Modified
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Calculate Folder Sizes || 4 gy & pia
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eliminating the | a See oa
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crunching data.
Upgrade to the Latest
Apple recently released Mac OS 9.2.1, and if your Mac can run it (it only
runs on Macs certified to run Mac OS X), it is in your best interest to
upgrade. Not only is it more stable than previous releases of Mac OS 9, but
it also boots a lot faster (our 400MHz PowerBook G3 Pismo booted twice
as fast as in Mac OS 9.1!). You can download the update from Apple’s Web
site (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120030). The
software is free, but Apple wants your soul (aka your personal info) before
it will allow you to grab the download.
26 | MacAdaict|DEC/01
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With Conflict Catcher, you can manage multiple sets of extensions easily.
‘Turn Off Desktop Pictures As much as we all like staring at pictures
of fuzzy bunnies, cascading waterfalls, or Madonna’s midriff on our
desktop, custom pictures do slow down your machine, making it less
snappy when drawing windows. Just for kicks, try disabling your
desktop picture and see if it makes a worthwhile difference in speed. If
it does, but your desktop entertainment makes you happier than
popping Prozac, at least make sure it fits your screen resolution so the
Mac doesn’t have to stretch or shrink the image every time it loads.
Apps like Lemke Software’s Graphic Converter ($30, www.lemkesoft
.com) or Photoshop ($609, www.adobe.com) make resizing images
simple. Also, in the Appearance control panel select Center On Screen
(instead of Place Automatically). This option keeps the image at its
normal size, whereas Place Automatically often forces the system
to stretch
the picture.
Setting the
Appearance
control panel
to Center On
Screen keeps
the processor
from having to
redraw the
background
image.
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in Memory: 192 MB.
Virtual Memory: Off
Upgrading to Mac OS 9.2.1 should result in increased speed
and stability.
Don't Forget Memory
Let’s face it: Mac OS 9 has a strange (some might say stupid) way of
managing memory. Still, you can use this stupidity to your advantage
by playing with memory settings.
Set Application Memory One of the strangest parts of Mac OS 9
is the fact that users can control how much memory a specific
application gets at any one time. Mac OS 9 then sets aside that chunk
of memory as users launch each application. If an application only
needs 2MB of RAM, but you’ve set it to use 100MB, it will reserve that
100MB of RAM when it runs and will keep other applications from
using the other 98MB—kinda like a two-year-old who won't let anyone
else touch his toy truck even when he’s not playing with it.
Although you can’t fix the idiocy of Mac OS 9, you can allocate
memory more accurately. First, open the application in question. From
the Finder, go to the Apple menu, and choose About This Computer.
That will bring up a list of all the applications running on your Mac. Go
to the Help menu and choose Show Balloons. Now float the mouse
cursor over the bar graphs to the right of each application to see how
much of its allocated RAM the application is actually using.
Now it’s time to fix your memory allocation. Quit the application,
find its icon (not its alias), highlight it, and navigate to the File menu,
then Get Info and Memory. In the resulting screen, you should see
three memory sizes listed. The first is Suggested Size. This is what the
author of the software suggests as its optimal preferred RAM setting.
The second item listed is Minimum Size. if the app doesn’t find at least
Yerston: Mac03.9,2.1
Built-in Memory: 384MB
Yirtual Memory: Off
Largest Unused Block: 200.7MB
This bar represents the amount of
memory reserved for the program
listed to the left. The filed-in part of |
‘the bar shows how much memory the
program is using.
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‘This program is currently using 11.6
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Get detailed information about the memory your apps are hogging. We knew
there was some useful reason for Balloon Help’s existence.
Speed Your Startup
There are a few ways to give your Mac a nice adrenaline shot when booting up.
Try Startup Doubler Marc Moini’s Startup Doubler shareware ($20, www.marcmoini
.com/StartupDoubler.html) builds a large cache of all the data required to load your
extensions at startup. When your computer starts up again, it reads this data from the
this much RAM available, it will refuse to launch. The last setting is
Preferred Size—this is the maximum amount the system will allocate,
assuming the RAM is available. This is the number you'll want to
adjust. As a general rule, email programs and Web browsers should
benefit from increased RAM (especially if you have lots of messages
and bookmarks to manage). Design applications like Photoshop and
PageMaker will use just about as much RAM as you can give them.
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Avoid Using Virtual Memory Virtual memory allows your computer
to tap available space on your hard drive in lieu of using RAM to store
data. In theory, the computer intelligently manages the contents of
RAM, swapping out unused or unneeded bits to the hard drive and
freeing up RAM for more immediate concerns. In more modern
operating systems (like Mac OS X and even later versions of Windows),
virtual memory is a core component that can dramatically improve
performance, allowing the computer to manage memory at peak
efficiency. However, with Mac OS 9, virtual memory is not part of the
core OS and is best avoided unless you simply don’t have enough RAM
to handle necessary tasks. In this case, turn on virtual memory wns the
cache instead of from each individual extension. If you have lots of extensions and/or a
slower Mac, this software can greatly reduce your startup time. However, if you constantly
change your extension sets, Startup Doubler has to reconfigure itself each time you alter
them and may not help much.
Disable Memory Checks Each time your Mac starts up, it checks your RAM to make sure
everything’s kosher. To save time, turn off these tests by holding down Command and
Option as you open the Memory control panel. At the bottom, select the Off button under
Startup Memory Tests. (Be aware that if you do this, your Mac won't recognize bad memory.)
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DEC/01 | MacAddict|27
If you're ready to Install Mac OS X (or maybe you already have), your computing life is going
to change in many ways. OS X still looks like a Mac, kinda. It still acts like a Mac, kinda, But
underneath is Unix, kinda. One thing is for certain—Mac OS X (at least for now) doesn't feel
as fast as Mac OS 9. Still, you can keep OS X percolating at respectable speeds.
MAC 05 X
Give OS X the speed nudge it wants and deserves,
Update to Mac OS 10.1
The first thing you should do if you want to speed up Mac OS Xis
upgrade to OS 10.1. We installed Mac OS 10.1 and indeed this upgrade
does yield perkier system performance, including faster application
launches, a speedier Finder, and more impressive startup times (not to
Sneaky Shareware
Mac OSX, though less than a year old, already has a vast library of
shareware available—and much of it is designed with your need for
speed in mind. Besides reading our shareware recommendations
below, we suggest that you keep an eye on sites like VersionTracker
(www.versiontracker.com/macosx) to see what new stuff comes out
every day.
TurboMMem Mac OS X manages memory much differently (and much
better) than Mac OS 9 ever did. One notable difference is OS X’s ability
to manage memory dynamically by moving applications around and
freeing up space as needed. But some still feel Mac OS X doesn’t take
full advantage of this capability, and thankfully at least one of those
folks is a talented programmer. Mac Unicorn Software’s TurboeMem
(free, www.macunicorn.com/turbomem) constantly monitors and
reorganizes the contents of RAM as you work. It can also accelerate
specific applications by reading all related data into RAM so the app
doesn’t have to access the hard disk so often. Our tests showed that
TurboMem mostly helped out when running Classic.
Xs)
TurboMem
SWLOWNEIN
List of launched applications:
Toginwindow
Finder
AsServer
Dock
SystembtServer
‘System Preferences
CassicAuxinput
Microsoft Word
FireSCSI Disk Mounter
Norton Scheduler a
Turbo-charge...)
to have mere info about; double-
front.
Name of application: ‘Tunes
‘Type/Creator of application: APPL/hook
Memory used by application: S7X
Memory reclaimed by TurboMem: 43%
Launched On: 9/20/01, at 5:04:47 PM
Launched By: Dock
CPU use time: 0 seconds
2.
seg Memory med by spteaton
vd eee
mention that OS 10.1 is just much cooler). Visit www.apple.com
/macosx/uptodate for instructions on how and where you can obtain
Mac OS 10.1. Then run, don’t walk, to the nearest store to get this
update. Now go!
LaunchBar Objective Development’s very useful LaunchBar ($19.95,
www.obdev.at/products/launchbar) takes inventory of all of the
programs on your hard disk and then allows you to launch them by
typing just the first few letters of the program’s name. Not exactly Mac-
like, but boy, can it speed up your search for an application you need
to run! LaunchBar always runs in the background—all you have to do is
press Command and Space (or another key sequence you choose),
then begin typing the name of a program. It then displays a list of
applications that match the characters you typed. Very cool.
bs C_@ 4 i100 Wed 1:52:09 PM Zz]
LaunchBar pops out
from underneath your
menu bar and allows
you to launch an
app by typing a few
characters of its name.
3 Image Capture:
TinkerTool This is most definitely a nerd tool, which enhances our
appreciation of it. TinkerTool, from Marcel Bresink Software-Systéme
(free, www.bresink.de/osc/TinkerTool-html), allows you to change a
multitude of otherwise unavailable options that speed up Mac OS X.
The biggest speed gain TinkerTool offers is the ability to alter which
fonts the system smooths out. By default, Mac OS X smooths all fonts
by antialiasing them. By setting TinkerTool to smooth only fonts larger
than a certain size (12 points, for example), you limit the amount of
time Mac OS X spends antialiasing fonts too small to benefit from the
effect. TinkerTool also lets you change the default fonts of the system,
make the Terminal application transparent, and access a third
minimize effect called Suck In, a combination of Genie and Scale.
Shaw All Displays Sound Network Startup Disk
Disable Font Smoothing in CoreGraphics
{Manipulate Font Smoothing for Cocoa Applications:
Smooth fonts equal or greater than a size of | _13)¢) pt
but for fixed-width fonts only after reaching | _i3}s} pt
{J Manipulate Font Smoothing for Applications using QuickDraw:
Disable Font Smoothing
‘Smooth fonts equal or greater than a size of |
a3 pe
TurboMem will monitor your system and optimize memory usage by reclaiming
RAM from applications that aren’t using it at that moment.
28 | oa | DEC/O1
TinkerTool can speed up OS X by telling it not to bother smoothing fonts below
a certain size.
Tweak the Finder and Dock
There are many ways to increase the performance of the Finder and
Dock—some involve actual speed adjustments, and others are
shortcuts that make you more productive while working in OS X.
‘¢ Every time you open a Finder or hard drive window, you probably need
to resize the window or adjust the view to suit your preferences. How
abouta quick way to make those changes stick? Just click the Finder
icon in the Dock or double-click your hard disk icon, make the view and
size changes you want, and then immediately close the window. The
system should now remember these settings for the future!
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To tell OS X how you want your Finder windows to look, click the Finder icon in
‘the Dock, set the window the way you like it, and close it,
* Mac OS 10.1 gives you the ability to alter the way the system
minimizes windows when sending them to the Dock. The default effect
is called Genie, and impressive though it is the first 500 times, it does
slow you down while you wait for windows to finish slipping into the
Dock. The Scale effect, while not as visually appealing, is much faster.
To switch to Scale, Control-click the line
that splits the Dock in two and choose
Minimize Using Scale Effect.
“Turn Magnification Off
Change the way windows minimize
for snappier performance
Tap the Terminal
With its Unix roots, OS X has inherited a command line that has more
than 30 years of history, resulting in literally thousands of different
tools you can use to monitor and adjust your system’s performance.
Mac OS X includes an application called Terminal (in the Utilities folder
located inside the Applications folder), which allows you to access the
command line.
Prebinding Mac 0S X applications consist of a series of components,
including libraries. When you run an application, OS X has to gather all
of the proper libraries, pull them together, and then launch the
program. This process takes time since the operating system stores
libraries in many different places. Prebinding finds the libraries each
application requires and stores them with that app to shorten its
launching time. Most installers and Mac OS X updates will perform this
process for you, but sometimes applications slip through the cracks.
That’s why performing prebinding every few weeks is a wise idea. In
the command line, type sudo update_prebinding -root /.
You will then need to enter your password. You must log in as an
administrator (or root) to run prebinding. But rather than log out and
relog in as root, you can use the sudo command to accomplish the
TERE
[daverb:~] daveN sudo update_prebinding —root /
Password:
2emL-B9-19 14139351 .786 update_prebinding|s82] Start of update_prebinding
2081-89-19 14:39:51.789 update _prebinding[Se2] Search systea for executables/Iib
‘ ft changing
Prebinding can speed an application's launch by grouping all the necessary
‘components together.
IF you have lots of
applications and
windows open, you can
hide them all and just
bring one application to
the front with a single
click. Just hold down
Command and Option;
in the Dock, click the
icon of the application
you want to view.
Hf you've got a cluttered
desktop (top), hold down |
Command and Option, click
the Finder in the Dock, and
you'll achieve desktop
nirvana (right).
© To bring a new application to the front while hiding the last
application you were working in, hold down Option and click the Dock
icon for the application you want to view. Since Mac OS X allows
windows from multiple applications to interleave (so you can have a
TextEdit document sitting between two Internet Explorer windows even
when IE is active), this is a handy way of bringing all the windows for
one application to the front. This trick only works in Mac OS 10.1.
Xoptimize (free, http://third.codefab.com/unsupported) can
perform prebinding for you. This Aqua-based application (thatis, it
doesn’t use the command line) by CodeFab isn’t pretty, but some folks
may find it a more comfortable alternative.
Top One of the most popular command-tine tools, Top, allows you to
see which of your running applications are hogging valuable processor
time. Open Terminal and type top . You'll get a regularly updated list
of applications. If you want to tell Top to list processor-hungry
applications first, quit it by typing q, then type top —uand press
Return. While Top won’t speed up your system on its own, it does give
you some insight into how your system runs and which applications
drain the processor most. You can use this data to decide which
programs you can safely run all the time and which you should quit
when you're done to free up the processor.
e906 _fusr/bin/login (typ)
4r81:96,
ATL, 1.58, 1.55 CPU usage: 68.9X User, 22.0% sys, 16.9N idl
186, resident = 24.8 code, 1.92 data, 6.92 LinkEdit
MeaRegions: num = 4984, resident = 417 + 9.39 private, 99.1N shared
Prystien: 39.5M wired, 225% active, 180M inactive, 360 used, 16.24 free
Mis 2.566 + 48.51 13105(0) pageins, 1617(8) pageouts
PID COmMND =—-ACPU TIME TH SPRTS REDS RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE SIZE
Processes: 45 total, 2 ruming, 43 sleeping... 147 threads
Load avg:
414 Terminal «23.4% O:11.42 6 118 148
478 top 1 14 14 22K SOK ASK tam
462 iTunes 10.2% 26206.76 9 132 462 5.14 8.82 856M 67.20
Top allows you to see what programs are using the most processor power.
Watch the idle time percentage in the upper-right corner—i it creeps below
10 percent, your system will feel sluggish and unresponsive.
DEC/01 MacAdaict 29
|
FAVORITE APPS
Your machine is humming along just fine, but Microsoft
Word is moving about as slowly as that banana slug in
your walkway. Well, you can give your favorite apps the
kick in the pants they deserve.
Raindrops on roses, faster-runniny Pholoshop—these are a few of our favorite things.
Make Photoshop Fly
Adobe Photoshop is one of the most important programs for many
Mac users, but that doesn’t give it the right to take its sweet time
running a Gaussian Blur. Fortunately, you can help Photoshop along.
* Disable virtual memory. Photoshop does much better managing
swap Space on its own.
Allocate as much physical RAM as you can spare to Photoshop
(see “Don’t Forget Memory,” p27). That will get Photoshop running
fairly efficiently.
* Ifyou have a second hard drive in your machine, Photoshop will take
advantage of it. In Photoshop 6, go to the Edit menu and select
Ignite Internet Explorer
Intemet Explorer 5 is a fairly solid browser, but it has some quirks.
Luckily, you can speed up its performance with littie effort.
© Quit and relaunch the browser every jew hours. Overtime, Explorer
holds more information in RAM than it should, and it begins to slow
down, making browsing a painful experience. Quitting and relaunching
Explorer clears out all of the images and URLs stored in RAM and gives
the app a fresh start.
© Try not to leave more than one browser window open for long periods
of time. Explorer spends a lot of time managing the data in open
windows (even once they're finished drawing), so closing unneeded
windows will give you back some juice.
* Ifyou are one of the lucky ducks who’s got a broadband connection,
you don’t need to use Explorer's disk cache anymore (this is true of
Bolster Microsoft Word
No question about it: Microsoft has spent a great deal of time and
effort ensuring that the Mac flavor of Microsoft Office runs as efficiently
as possibly. Nevertheless, Word still needs some help. Sure, maybe
these are no-brainers, but can’t we all use a reminder once in a while?
* Use the Normal view whenever possible. Word offers many ways of
viewing your documents while editing them. Page Layout view allows
you to see words and images in your document exactly as they will
appear on the page, but it can slow you down, especially if you’re
scrolling through a document. Go to Word’s View menu and choose
Normal. Your document won’t look as pretty, but you will notice a
boost in speed.
By setting Word to the Normal :
view, you save some processor | /Ae=|___3_ Page Layout I]! 8)
cycles and increase your scrolling |C) Simcsts
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speed throughout your document Wisi.
Preferences, then Plug-Ins & Scratch Disks. In the First pop-up menu,
set the scratch disk to a hard disk other than the startup volume. Now
just sit back and watch = Petrone ma
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tasks such as filters Prug-ns Folder — ee =
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and color alterations. Ce ae
Changing the scratch-
disk setting to use more
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Photoshop to operate
more efficiently. at etastaasser te vue eae
Netscape as well). The computer spends more time saving and
retrieving images from your disk cache than it does if it just downloads
images each time you visit a site. To head off the problem, go to the
Edit menu and select Preferences. In the Advanced section, set your
cache size to 0.
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Hf you have an ISDN or faster connection, set the browser cache size to 0.
This will tell the browser to retrieve documents from the Web with each
page view, reducing traffic to and from the disk.
* Disable Fast Saves. Don’t let the name fool you: Fast Saves isn’t as
fast as it sounds. Word has two ways of saving a document. Normal
replaces the entire contents of the existing document every time you
save. Fast Save merely appends the changes you've made to the
document, but leaves all of your old (and deleted) text in the file. If
you've been working on a file for some time, Fast Saves can make
saving and opening files take longer, since Word has to parse through
the entire file to find out what should stay and what should go. In Word
2001, go to the Edit menu, choose Preferences, and go to the Save tab.
Uncheck the Allow Fast
Saves box.
Disabling Fast Saves in
Word will decrease file
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Dave Hamilton is a self-professed speed freak. He spent the last few months trying to ‘weak his Mac Plus to beat his G4 in Mac OS X speed trials. He failed.
30 | MacAddict | DEC/01
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eRe
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and print ‘Macs a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. registered in the U.S.
Bik Mac 08, Sand other countries, The *Bullt for Mac OS X" graphic is @
mM
The File, ohare Folld eDiets Later
© 2001, Thursby Software Systems, Inc.
At REAL Software, we like it simple. Take our award-winning product, REALbasic, for example. People
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And new features in REALbasic 3.5 make creating applications even easier. Add 3D graphics with Rb3D. Create
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It slices! It dices!
facilitates Filemaker...
performing repetitive tasks all the time? Tasks like
renaming files, styling text in Microsoft Word, and
copying and pasting data into FileMaker. You wonder
why your Mac can’t do the damn work itself, but you
figure you're destined to a life of repetitive stress
injuries. Don’t worry—you’re not.
Enter AppleScript. Apple’s versatile scripting
language can automate a humber of
| fyour Mac’s so smart, why do you get stuck
lan Sammis
graphics by Leslie Brown.
by
Itt AUtTOMAtES the Finder,
works WONndEFS with Word,
helps lilustrator illustrate,
leScript
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mundane tasks and let you restore the
proper order of things—your computer
does the work while you sip coffee and
eat doughnuts.
AppleScript is like the guitar—simple
to lean but difficult to master. The problem
is that the language used to unleash
AppleScript’s power differs for every
application that supports it: Learning to
script the Finder doesn’t mean you can
immediately start writing scripts for
QuarkxPress, AppleWorks, or any other
application. Still, if you're willing, the same
native intelligence that makes you a Mac
user can help you learn AppleScript and
its oddities—and make your system jump
through hoops you never dreamed possible.
———
—\S
An natomy
of AppleScript
efore we show you how to automate tasks in apps like Word,
FileMaker, and Illustrator it’s important for you to understand
exactly what AppleScript is and how it works.
What Is AppleScript?
Seven years ago, Apple transformed the mechanism that allows
programs to respond to mouse clicks and keyboard commands—
extending its powers so that it could respond to instructions sent from
other apps. For example, using this mechanism, an installer could tell
other applications to quit to keep them from interfering during an
installation. Apple also created AppleScript, a programming language
that users can employ to send instructions to applications. (AppleScript
isn’t the only such language, but it’s the most commonly used because
it comes free with your Mac’s operating system.)
Say, for example, you want to create a complicated geometric figure
in lllustrator—a figure that’s easier to describe mathematically than to
draw. If you write a script that contains the description of the figure you
wantto create, Illustrator can receive those instructions and create the
The Script Editor
figure (we'll show you how this is done in “Seeing Stars in Illustrator,”
p39). However, AppleScript instructions are frequently application
specific, so you couldn't apply the same script in Photoshop.
This aspect of AppleScript is its biggest weakness—you can only
use AppleScript to do as much as a particular application’s developers
tet you. Adobe Photoshop, for example, doesn’t have much built-in
support for AppleScript, so you can’t write very many scripts without a
third-party tool like PhotoScripter. By contrast, you can do a lot of
scripting in QuarkXPress—if you can perform some Command in XPress
with your mouse, it's a fair bet that you can do itwit AppleScript. In
fact, one perk that QuarkXPress 5 (in beta as of press time) will offer is
inclusion of 35 prewritten AppleScripis and an easy|way to run them
from within the progtam.
The key application for writing AppleScripts is the Script Editor, which ‘omnes with your Mac's
operating system (in the AppleScript folder within the Apple Extras folder): - When you run the
Script Editor, you'll see a window like the one below (this is one of the scripts included with Mac \
OS 10.1). OS 10.1 comes with even more scripts than Mac OS 9 did, from Finder to nator to
a
Mail scripts. Here’s what each of the windows and buttons does.
34 | Moca! DEC/O1
ID sara Adobe Mstrotore aN Dictionary i}
Poa [Core Suite: Suite that applies to all a; ious 5)
Spee
= eel foes = reer sora esa a
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= ‘ise toracs = sonnet
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Se peti fear) eer ene
Sine MS evaninand asec
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Sonam
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Taner co tne gayi
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zi 00
Start Scripting!
hen it’s time to begin writing your own
ipts, here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Borrow an Existing Script Even the most
experienced programmers (in fact, particularly the
most experienced programmers!) aren’t averse to
borrowing a bit of code to make their jobs easier.
Check the archives full of AppleScripts (www
.macscripter.net and www.apple.com/applescript are
oth good starting points) to see if you can find a
script already written to do what you wa
Modify an Existing Script |fyou can’t find
a script that does exactly what you want, you might
| find one that performs a task that’s at least similar to
what you want to do, then modify it, Modifying an
existing scriptis usually much simpler than starting
from scratch and is a good way to get into scripting.
Check the Dictionary Before You
Start Before you try to write a script, take a close
look at the dictionary of the application in question.
Sometimes it’s impossible to create certain types of
scripts in particular apps.
Read the Books [/f you wantto take full
advantage of AppleScript, you need a good reference
book—or, since good manuals are quickly becoming
as rare as the spotted owl, a good tutorial. Take a look
at the Web sites mentioned above for links to some
outstanding tutorials. Among the few good general
books on AppleScript are Bruce Perry’s AppleScript in
a Nutshell (O’Reilly, 2001) and Danny Goodman’s
| AppleScript Handbook (ToExcel, 2000).
AppleScript 2 2
Finder tricks
he first application most neophyte scripters attack is the Finder. One of the best
things about the Finder is also its greatest weakness: Its user interface makes it
very difficult to do boring, repetitive tasks like renaming files in a way thatisn’t
boring and repetitive. AppleScript can help. Note: Scripting the Finder in Mac OS 10.1 is
similar to scripting the Mac OS 9.1 Finder.
The Script
The following script written for the Mac OS 9 Finder moves all the files in a specific
folder that end in .moveme into a new folder called Moved—useful if you generate a
lot of files you don’t need, Say you have a number of .hqx files on your desktop that
you want to move to the Trash, you can tweak this scriptto do just that.
Stop Run
tell application "Finder"
set thefolder to (choose folder with prompt "Select the folder to search")
set movedfolder to (make new folder at thefolder with properties {name:"Moved"})
move (every item of thefolder whose name ends with ".moveme") to movedfolder
Open
Move To Trash
Get Info
Label
Duplicate
Make Alias
Add To Favorites
Find Similar Fites
Index selection...
Attach a Folder Action...
36) MacAddict| DEC/01
AppleScript 7 £
This is paragraph 1
<TITLE>Thisis paragraph 2
‘This is paragraph 3
‘Thisis paragraph 1
<TITLE>This is paragraph 2
‘This is paragraph 3
Without a tell statement like
this one, your script won't
know a thing about Word
documents, text styles, or
| Description
f ss anything el ific to Word!
i Dd
Record Stop Run
| tell application "Microsoft Word"
|
copy every paragraph of the front document to paras
The count command
counts the number of
set noparas to count paras
items in the lis. ——————————
repeat with thepara from 1 to noparas
if item thepara of paras contains "<TITLE>" then
© untitied
This line instructs the script to copy
entire text of your document into a list
named paras. Each item on the iist contains
the text of one paragraph. This lets the script ]
COC —— |
Check Syntax
The repeat statement lets the script repeat a
group of commands in a loop. In this form,
repeat first sets thepara (a variable we're
using to count paragraphs) to 1. Every time the
script reaches the line end repeat, the script
will add one to thepara, then see if that
number is equal to noparas, the total number
tell paragraph thepara of the front document
of paragraphs. If it is, the loop ends the next
time the script reaches end repeat.
The if staternent lets you issue
commands when some given condition
is true. In this case, the commands
and end if will execute
set bold to true
set size to 18
betwee
f the paragraph currently under
ration contains <TITLE>
end tell
end if
end repeat
end tell
The tell command doesn't just let AppleScript know
which application should receive instructions—you can [il
also tell objects within an app to do things. In this case
we're telling the paragraph that contains <TITLE> to
change its font size and style.
‘an
a
‘@ Foe Epm View Insrxr Formar Reconps Scripts Wixpow Hein
Os|6yi im elope alee os 2|Q)
3) Stuff for import
rail Ti [Last Saved: 08/09/01 08:44:08 AM
(AU(EI(E BSI) 2 rac eaten ttc Sua npr
12345670001 734567690 | 234567800 12345676001 2345676001 2945578001 2945670001
343213143212008ai ling Ship
32312318230084Seal ing Hox
SerialNumber 1236432452
Price O032
Desoription Cabbage
427987234107335ea (be! Ling hot)
$2412251200100F 1g (w/o vings)
31512382450150P ig (winged)
to import files like these into FileMaker can drive you cr \nd here it is—our FileMaker database of inventory iten
‘Much like the first line of the Finder
Script, this statement lets the user
choose a file to import via a dialog box.
The of type {"TEXT'} part forces
you to choose a text file.
Record Stop Run
set fffile to (choose file with prompt "Select the fixed-field file" of type {"TEXT'})
set fff to (open for access fifile)
This statement, open for access, is a Standard Addition that lets you read text files directly
from AppleScript. Here, we're setting the! variable'fff to a number that will represent the open
file. (The number has no meaning; it simply keeps track of the file so we can write to it later.)
tell application "FileMaker Pro”
The script needs to read
data until the file ends.
The statement get eof
fff counts the number of
characters until End Of
File (eof) in the file.
set fileend to (get eof fff)
set dataread to 0
The script has to keep track of the total amount of data it reads, Since the script knows how
much data the file contains, it can check to see if it's done after reading each line.
repeat until dataread = fileend
=o
‘set therec to (create new record at front document)
Here the script creates a new record to store the line of
data it's about to read, with the assumption that the
front document (that is, the database in the frontmost
window in FileMaker) contains our data file.
tell application "Finder"
This is a different form of the repeat
loop. Instead of looping a fixed number
of times, the script will keep looping
until it reads every character in the file.
set recstr to (read fif for 72)
—e,
end tell
Now the script reads the record itself. The read fff for
72 command tells AppleScript to read 72 characters (the
number of characters in one line) from the text file. A tell
application "Finder" block encloses the line because
otherwise FileMaker would interfere with the command.
set dataread to dataread + (count recstr)
iset serno to characters 1 thru 10 of recstr
AppleScript itself can pull apart
a string of characters; in these
four lines, the script first keeps a
running count of how many
characters it reads, then pulls
the fixed-field file into pieces,
iset prce to characters 11 thru 14 of recstr
iset descr to characters 15 thru 71 of recstr
Here the script sets the actual values
in the database, For some strange
reason, the folks who implemented
FileMaker’s AppleScript dictionary
decided to call the representation
of a field in any particular record a
ell and the value stored in each
cella cellValue.
set (cellValue of (cell "serial number") of therec) to serno as string]
set cellValue of cell "price" of therec to pree as string
set cellValue of cell "description" of therec to descr as string
end repeat
We're m:
13 points, so the script
needs to
£5 untitled Be
Description
number of poin
each point to the tw
away from that original point. in this
case, if you connect each point to
tell application "Adobe Illustrator® 9.0.2" uy 2 another point 6 points away (6 points is
Math Commands performs ae iat gee
S Q
make new document trigonometr ulations assuming scan
with 13 points) you'll eventually draw
that angles are measured in radians,
make new path item of front document the entire star! Since the points of
af) Since there are exactly 2m (that i fia : nea
Record Stop gun
set pito31415927 ~ mami 2 times x) radians in a circle, the
repeat with | een _seriptne the value of x,
—————————
set newx toi* 6 E d by + and *)
set newy toi* 6 / nslate the star so that it lies inside a
° ( Circle of radius 100, centered at the
aking a star with set newx to 200 + 100 * (cosine of (newx * 2 * pi / 13)) 200, 200 coordinates.
set newy to 200 + 100 * (sine of (newy * 2* pi / 13))
draw 14 lin
make new path point of path item 1 of front document =
with properties {anchor:{newx, newy}, left direction:{newx, newy}, +
right direction:{newx, newy}}
end repeat
end tell
Now that the script knows where the next point of the it adds the point to the path the
| AppleSerot—]
reviews
Maya Maya, pants on fyah!
Sa
FREAKIN’
AWESOME!
Maya for Mac 0$ X
design & graphics
Company: Alias | Wavetront
Contact: 800-447-2542, wawaliaswavetront.com
Price: $7,500 (SAP)
Requirements: G4, Mac 0S 10.0.4,* 512MB RAM, ATL
Rage 128 or Radeon graphios card,* three-button mouse
M undoubtedly one of the greatest
events for the Mac 3D user, and
likewise for the whole Mac community.
aya coming to the Mac is
The mostvauble It’s proof that an industry leader sees the
products, the
coolest giaros,
‘SPIFFY
‘soi ofexing
‘Overfa good
investi.
either
reoommended nor
‘ejected. Some
‘ight ike is,
but we were
impressed.
Give us back the
time we spent
testing ths,
By
Fora demo
video of Maya,
see The Dise,
40
Macintosh as a viable 3D platform. Maya
~ (on other platforms) created a lot of the 3D.
effects you see in motion pictures, such as
Star Wars—Episode | and Final Fantasy: The
Spirits Within. Now that Maya has come to
Mac OS X, how good is it really, and how
can you justify the $7,500 price tag? Maya is
damn good—in the right hands, it can pay
for itself overnight.
Maya is based on (according to the
manual) “nodes with attributes that are
connected.” Huh? Nodes are representations
of different aspects of 3D, such as the 3D
object, its shape and surface, and the lights
that illuminate a 3D scene. Each node has
specific attributes, which you tweak to define
an object’s appearance. Color and texture,
for example, are two different attributes
ofa surface node. The interconnection of
these attributes and nodes constitutes the
framework of Maya. The program’s
documentation emphasizes the importance
of understanding this holistic concept—once
we got it, Maya made a lot more sense.
*Support, shmupport
s of this writing, Mac OS 10.1
hasn't been released, so.
Alias|Wavefront has only qualified Maya
to work with Mac OS 10.0.4. There are
also some video driver issues with
nVidia GeForce cards; both of these
issues should be resolved by the time
you read this. For the record, Maya
worked fine on our prerelease version of
Mac 0S 10.2, GeForce card included.
MacAdaict| DEC/01
You can master minute details and achieve Incredible realism with Maya’s
customizable tools and rendering engine.
Maya is based on MEL (Maya Embedded
Language), a scripting language that lets
you create tools and execute often-used
commands. MEL works much like
AppleScript; it automates complex tasks by
assigning a sequence of functions to a
single button. The MEL Script Editor logs
every step you perform. You can select any
of these actions or sets of actions from the
editor and simply drag your selection to the
Shelf (see “Ultimate Customizability,” p41),
where it becomes a push-button tool. Now
thatis freakin’ awesome.
Maya uses the same basic modeling
conventions (such as lofting, lathing, and
spline curves) found in other 3D tools like
LightWave 3D and Cinema 4D, as well as the
two basic types of modeling methods:
polygonal and NURBS. Polygonal modeling
is based on shapes with distinct faces
(facets), while NURBS (Non-Uniform
Rational B-Splines) is based on the
calculation of curves—either way, Maya
affords an incredible amount of control.
As you work—creating, scaling, bending,
positioning, stretching, and otherwise
tweaking objects—Maya records a history of
those little tweaks in the Attribute Editor. You
can go back to any one of those attributes
and change it without affecting the node’s
other attributes. This backlog of data history
is crucial to efficient production, and you
won't find it in any other program—at least
not to the degree that Maya offers. You also
have an unlimited number of undos for
linear, step-based corrections.
Maya has a built-in physics engine,
which means objects can carry weight,
collide, and deform. A good example of
physics in action is a handkerchief object
landing on a ball. Without simulated
physics, the handkerchief object would
simply pass right through the ball because
no concept of mass exists in the scenario. In
Maya, you can give mass to the objects, tun
the handkerchief into a soft object, then add
gravity and friction, so the handkerchief can
not only land on a ball and conform itself to
Maya's magic—
in this case,
proper use of color
and lighting
transforms basic
NURBS models.
into stunning 3D
scenes.
(©2001 Cutaway & Kirk
book by Davi Kir, tle iss
‘Spr, copyright (c) 1988 by
Callaway & Kick Company LC,
scaler 2.441747 2.441747 2.441747 ;
elect cl ;
‘The MEL Script Editor records your every move—
here we've created a sphere which we then moved,
rotated (on two axes), and resized.
the ball’s shape, but also slide off as it would in
real life. All this is calculated on the fly, so you can
view the effects from different angles without
having to stop the animation or render the scene.
Maya’s built-in particle engine creates realistic
atmospheric effects (including smoke, fire, sparks,
and liquid), and you can apply particle dynamics
to objects—for example, shattering glass into bits.
You can also integrate particle dynamics into
more-complex projects, such as creating a
windblown field of grass and flowers, or building
a crowd of walking people.
Paint Effects is unique to Maya, and it’s an
amazing, interactive method of painting 2D and
3D elements into your scene. Imagine assigning a
sunflower, complete with stem and leaves, toa
paintbrush, and simply stroking across an empty
plane to plant a row of flora. You can create an
entire field of flowers this way. Thanks to the
particle engine, these flowers react to natural
dynamics, like wind, just as real flowers would.
\f Maya has an Achilles heel, it’s the rendering
engine. The quality of rendered output is very
good—sufficient for most production needs—but
it renders on the slower side, even on dual-
processor Macs, because Maya isn’t optimized
for multiple processors.
Early adopters, buy your copy now. Maya is
very stable for a first-time release (we
experienced no crashes, just occasional slow-
downs), so you can get right to work. Yes, Maya is
expensive, but it’s an incr
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