MacAddict 094 200406

iL *| VANHELSING: MADEON YOURMAC P.38 94 NIAL and show you what's inside. [Yi§ 4 How digital artists used everyday Macs to create the blockbuster film. MacAddict A BETTER MACHINE. A BETTER ere oy Ah | . le wdc ee s, (IPS = Potentialo ~Every App in INSIDER SECRETS g . Your _ of the REVIEWED! - > Mercury Extreme 1.5GHz G4 upgrade m >8-megapixel Nikon Coolpix 8700 f Sims Makin’ Magic, HOW TO: 2 fd Build a Supercomputer be > Create GarageBand Loops » Automate eBay Transactions nnn Explore your buttoned-up alter ego. While you may not look forward to expenses, presentations, and memos, the other you eats ‘em, for breakfast. Microsoft® Office 2004 for Mac has clever new time-: ‘saving features that let you — strike that, the other Micresoft Your potential. Our passion.” BP rover AB enourae UB wor Office: 2004 hite/www.guifstrearn.com/ sb emai ter Soe : er eee Se ea E Bees ha agen aera Soto: ee wear ose oss Revere: f eee eee eae eae gaee oo os ge Bee esata : : : Ge Se amen Se ree ae rant Horne care rs meas segs tote eas entra ei greg one been : eae ee ae eines ii Sc SDN ere alee mak each sare Wade ew anc comer aoeem hg repeat comer ‘ Fag eka manent: necice B pase conch pie Ae ge ACEO Ape io ec voce Nanas spn gavin ne tae te eECC Ta: teal Me) mateo comin Gaara ea een uefa rage ate rae elisa Soe tae at Sy er ACCC ee te a ere Rees ragpis ee oe Beene oe / wares Sigg See east maou a Pat PS hese Soe ni rea a cen ttt eh dona nats ae oan eS CEM ANY Sh i NS ee Kea aa: cscs od Sours SEAN protest foals sv noe ras, 4 5 eer comets saan ur ana aa cymanas re Seer . om as sat We ee anes Geese s noone ee 2 deaoe eae doris hee! 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Copiright© 2004 Macromedia, nc anditsicensors. reserved, Macrorneda, he Macromedalogo. and Dreemweaver ae tedemarks or regstred traders of Macromeca, nc. nthe U.S. end other counties, ‘Other marks are the properties of thet respective owners. ae aa eecae : es : Se emenion. ead pce “he po ie os Soe ¢ Se ce Pisce a Mics oleae a et as are freee meena Pe tan an au hal cat gare al re ent he at Are ae pat See ee ee ete aie Sie mca cen ceen aes ee See oc he pe ea ah pl ee Uh Ea, ete Vek? ern a ene ¥ ie Ee pee, ees rs limestone gree thes aero) So ge 33 er 0 Cee toa ia a ea wo fear Cees Parana is 3 vie ae etre ca ta aie SR Migr vee a oe ee ee me See Poe ey Pear ke enn OBE iy mah tare Lee ae Bae Lie teers re Ae Eee icoereag a nar ee Rae Soe eaten ia ie eae oe ssaave nn irntias c Speirs sie aoe ae areceun ae memento sent or shorn teat oe ee ere aay perth ret eg poe ee aes = Cea ag ee narea ens e es Ea a Sa cenme es cee pan oe Bena te Rea age ve Sate ter ers Feak ete bageaibe essa be eae ene Se hepato ee Ss nee Pe peels mig con etenire Semele ee ie fen su carga ease CR Sc oe ae peace Py 2 *f reir ra eae aoe ——— a 4 | IN STORES NOW Order at www.aspyr.com jf LIVE THE MOVIE. BE THE IVE THE EPIC ADVENTURE Play as 9 ‘characters including Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Sam, and Frodo. FORM YOUR FELLOWSHIP Destroy the Ring of Power and restore peace to Middle-earth™, www.aspyr.com : mt NEW LINE CINEMA ASPYR ‘ANADL Tine Warner Company Authorized Electronic Arts™ Distributor © MNIV New Line Productions, inc. Alt Rights Reserved. “The Lord ofthe Rings; The Return ofthe King” and the names ofthe characters, items, events and places therein ae trademarks of The Saul Zaontz Company d/b/a Tolkien Enterprises under license to New Line Productio ns, Inc. Game Code and certain audio visus! clements © 2004 Electronic Arts Inc Al rights reserved, EA GAMES™ is an Electronic Arts™ brand. The ratings icon is ‘registered trademark of the Entertainment Software Association, The Aspyr logo is a trad lomark of Aspyr Media, Inc. Nac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. registered inthe U.S. and other countries. ‘Ni other trademarks are the property oftheir respective owners. Made in the U.S.A. JUNE2004 NO.94*VOLUME9*ISSUE6 a better machine. a better magazine. 18 79 Power Tips Become the Mac superstar you’re destined to be—equip yourself with our tips on everything from Mac QS X to upgrades, iLife to Google. by Todd Stauffer 32 iPod mini Autopsy Step inside the MacAddict operating room and discover the gory details of what lies beneath the mini’s anodized aluminum exterior. by Niko Coucouvanis 38 van Helsing: Monsters, Magic, and Macs ILM’s digital wizards are at it again, this time using mainstream Mac software to create monster effects in this summer's blockbuster, Van Helsing. by Kris Fong how to 64 Ask Us 68 Make Your Own Apple Loops Use your iMac’s speakers with your G5. It’s hard to create a unique sound when you're Hook up your guitar to GarageBand. using the same loops as thousands of other Stabilize iPhoto sharing, duplicate a GarageBanders. Wanna be one of a kind? DVD, and learn the exact color of your Make your own loops! by Kris Fong desktop pattern. 70 Automate eBay Transactions MacAddi 66 Build Your Own with AppleScript Supercomputer Clusier Ifyou are an eBay seil-aholic or find yourself You don’t need to be a IT guru at Virginia constantly buried in email exchanges with Tech to build a supercomputer. Anyone customers, it’s time to put an end to the days can create a mega-computing monster of typing and sending routine messages. from two or more Macs running Jaguar We show you how. by Johnathon Williams. or Panther. by Niko Coucouvanis June 2004 MacAddict 05 CONTENTS a better machine. a better magazine. every month 10 Editors’ Page Prepare to display your musical chops and win a boatload of killer gear. 12 Get Info Apple is embroiled in the darndest \awsuits. We reveal a little more of Office 2004. Check out the coolest 32-inch LCD from Denmark, a stylish music-streaming device, and fashionable laptop bags. 45 Reviews §0 AutoScrubher security utility 54 Carrara 3D Basics entry-level 3D software 52 Coolpix 8700 &-megapixel camera 51 Gmini 220 photo-storing MP3 player 60 HomePod wireless MP3 music sireamer 46 iGuitar2.13 iDI-capable guitar 50 [-Trigue 13450 powered speakers and subwoofer 58 Learn to Play Keyboard Bundle MIDI keyboard with instructional CD 55 Mercury Extreme processor upgrade G4/1.467-1.5GHz 60 Mini SportSuit Safari iPod mini case 50 MX5021 powered speakers and subwoofer 53 NoteBook 1.2 digital dlary 53 NoteTaker 1.8 digital diary 47 Perfection 4870 Photo transparency and opaque-media canoe 54 pxl SmartScale 1.02 image-scaling plug-in 56 Reaktor 4 audio synthesizer 50 SoundSticks I! powered speakers and subweofer ‘51 The Sims Makin’ Magic expansion pack 58 TransPod FM iPod auto kit 48 Unreal Tournament 2064 first-person shooter 59 You Synchronize 2.01 file-syncing utility 62 The Hot List We'd spend our own hard-earned money on these products. QUICK TIPS FROM THIS MONTH’S ISSUE > FIGURE OUT RAM USAGE > EAT Panther’s Activity Monitor utility shows WHEATIES you a Page Ins/Outs virtual-memory Unreal Tournament 2004 is bigger and better—and about a dozen times more addictive—than before. This is just a friendly reminder to get some sleep and eat occasionally. From Reviews, p18. statistic that provides a good gauge of whether you need more RAM. From “79 Power Tips,” p18. > GET OUT THE HAIR DRYER The first step to breaking open the iPod mini is to aim a stream of hot air from a hair dryer at the top and bottom ofthe > ENCODING DVD REGIONS case. You need Apple’s 1 From DVD Studio Pro, “iPod not iDVD, to create oe mini a DVD for play in o. Autopsy,” a specific region. t p32. From Ask Us, p65. 06 MacAddict June 2004 94 Log Out 94 Letters Those candy dots are alive and well. Itustrator q and FreeHand » \ continue to duke % it out, iPods may not be ideal for the Dj booth, but they work just fine near the North Pole. 95 Contest Win WiebeTech’s 120GB Fire800 Drive. 96 Shut Down It's official: Mac addiction is a registered mental disorder. Connect to 3D It’s Time to add Strata*3D CX to your Adobe’ Workflow iHustrator® CS fmport Polyspline SDS Modeling Photoshop® CS import & Linking ler Spline Modeling Wings 3D SDS Support Extrude 2D Graphics SS z 5 e Based Lighting Image Based Modeling a: i z Strata 3D Vector FREE HDR ki New, Powerful, Easy to Use Strata3D CX CONNECT = EXTEND Strata 3D CX fits into your workflow with new, easy to use features like polyspline modeling, STRATA 3D cx live linking to Adobe files, high dynamic range lighting and more. Push your 2D files into a virtual environment, set up lighting, apply textures and take a perfect, photo-reai picture. wr, ne Illustration, design —and even animation — will never be the same. VW STR ATA Call 800-Strata-3D or visit Strata.com. We can show you how to get connected. The Creative Dimension is a trademark of Corasiar inc, Other trademarks are the property of their holders, Copyright 2004 Corastar inc. CONTENTS a beiter machine. a better magazine. athe Oisc Unreal Tournament 2004 and Adobe After Effects 6 add up to 400MB of gladiatorial mayhem and pro-quality video effects. Sure, you could spend all afternoon downloading them from MacSoft and Adobe, but we think you'd rather start shooting and creating right now. So pop in the Disc, and go to it. <> on a 9 rat all PIOSTAMS will wor, 70 shooter. Ever. Unreal Adobe After Tournament Effects 6 demo tryout Sorry, Halo fans, but New to video? Try the Unreal Tournament effects processor ail 2004 is the best the pros swear by. 200+ MEGABYTES OF GLADIA EXGLUSIVI HOW MACS CREATED VAN HELSING NEVER-BEFORE- SEEN FILM FOOTAGE! Reaktor X 4 demo After you read our teview on page 56, give this awesome synth a spin. oniheDisc || pemunwy NoteBook 1.2 demo AUDIO & MUSIC NoteTaker 2003 1.6 demo Reaktor X 4 demo ¢——_—_ UTILITIES: FUN & GAMES: DiskTracker (Classic) 2.3 EarthBrowser 2.0.1 DiskTracker (OS X) 2.3 Nanosaur 2 demo. ‘—-@ Unreal Tournament 2004 demo GRAPHICS & MULTIMEDIA After Effects 6.0 tryout @——~ iView MediaPro 2.0.3 trial Knoll Light Factory 2. demo pxl SmartScale 1.0.2 trial REFlex AE 2.32 demo - “ eccilgatae Find out how Tapen aa Secor everyday Macs ae d everyday ‘Application Enh: ne oftware created FruitMenu 3.2.1 the monster: ao and magic in Te the blockbuster fantasy film, Van INTERNET & COMMUNICATION 77s iCal FTP 1.4 Lives Interarchy 7.0.4 UPGRADE Doublet Scan 10.1.4 iPhoto Diet 2.1.6 MacJanitor 1.2.1 NoteTaker Viewer 1.8.4 Pacifist 1.6.3 ‘Snapz Pro X 2 Xnet 1.4.8 Ifyou don't receive the Dise with your copy of MacAddict, you might want to consider upgrading. Each monthly dise contalns coo! demos, useful shareware and freeware, and the inimitable MacAddict Staff Video. To get 12 Issues of MacAddict that include this value-packed disc with your subscription (prorated if necessary) for just $1 more per Issue, call 888-771-6222—the operator will take care of everything. 08 NacAddict June 2004 MacAddict PUBLISHER Chris Coelho EDITORIN CHIEF Rllk Myslewski EDITORIAL MANAGING EDITOR Jenifer Morgan EXECUTIVE EDITOR Cathy Lu SENIOR EDITORS Narasu Rebbaprageda (news), Kris Fong ASSOCIATE EDITOR Nike Coucouvanis (reviews) INTERN Noah Tsutsui EPONYMEDTOR Max CONTRIBUTING EDITORS David Bledny, Joseph O. Holmes, Holmut Kobler, ian Sammis, Deborah Shadovitz, Andrew Tokuda, Buz Zoller ART ART DIRECTOR Mark Rosenthal ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR Peter Marshutz PHOTOGRAPHER Mark Madeo CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER Samantha Berg PRODUCTION PRODUCTION DIPECTOR Richard Lesovoy PRODUCTION COCRDINATOR Larry Briseno ADVERTISING. EASTERN ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Bemie Lanigan, 212-768-2966 x4001 EASTERN ADVERTISING MANAGER ‘Anthony Danzi, 646-723-5453 WESTERN ADVERTISING DIRECTOR Dave Lynn, 949-260-4443 WESTERN ADVERTISING MANAGER, Stacey Levy, 925-964-1205 NATIONAL ACCOUNT MANAGER Nate Hunt, 415-656-8536 SENIOR ACCOUNTS MANAGER, DIRECT SALES Ana Epstein, 415-656-8416 AD COORDINATOR Jose Urrutia, 415-656-8313 MARKETING MANAGER Kathleen Rellly CIRCULATION GROUP CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Amy Leder NEWSSTAND MARKETING MANAGER Mimi Hall BILLING AND RENEWAL MANAGER Mike Hill FULFILLMENT MANAGER Peggy Mores: DIRECT MARKETING SPECIALIST Robin Connell FUTURE NETWORK USA 180 North Hill Drive, Brisbane, CA 94005 ewes wWtulurenetworkusa.com PRESIDENT Jonathan Simpson-Bint VICE PRESIDENT/CFO Tom Valentino VICE PRESIDENT/GENERAL COUNSEL Charles Schug VICE PRESIDENT/CIRCULATION Holly KiInge! PUBLISHING DIRECTOR (GAMES) Simon Whitcombe PUBLISHING DIRECTOR (TECHNOLOGY) Chris Coolho EDITORIAL DIRECTOR (TECHNOLOGY) Jon Philips EDITORIAL DIRECTOR (MUSIC) Brad Tollnsk DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL SERVICES Nancy Durlester PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richie Lesovoy Future Network USA is part of The Future Network PLC. ‘THE FUTURE NETWORK PLC ‘30 Monmouth St, Bath, Avon, BAI 2BW, ENGLAND. \wiew.thefuturenetwork.plc.uk NON-EXECUTIVE CHARMAN Roger Parry CHIEF EXECUTIVE Greg Ingham GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR John Bowman REPRINTS: For reprints, contact Reprint Management Sorvices, Maggie French, 717-399-1900 x176 or imirench@reprintbuyer.com. SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: Please email modcustserv@cdstuffllment.com or call customer service tol-tree at 888-771-6222, Volume 9, Issue 6 ‘MacAddiet (ISSN 1088-548X) is published manthly by Future Network USA, 150 North Hil Dr, Brisbane, CA 94005, USA. Periodical-sass postage paid at Brisbane, CA, andatadestional maling ofices. Newsstand ‘istrbution is hardled by Curtis Crulation Co. Basic subscription rates ‘one year (12 Issues + 12 CD-ROMS) U.S, $39.90, Canada 43.95, US. prepaid funds only, Canactan price includes postage and GST 126220688, IPM 0962992. Outside the U.S. and Canada, price is $53.98, US. prepaid funds only. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Macéddct, P.O. Box 5126, Harlan, IA 51523-0626, Future Notwork USA also publishes Maximum®C, PC Gamer, Oficial Xbox Magazine, anc! PSM. Eniracontents| ‘copyright 2002, Future Network USA, Al rights reserved. Reproduation whole oF in part ie prohibited. Future Network USA Is not affiliated with the companias or products covered in MacAdklct. Ride-Along enoloeure in the folowing ediion(s): A2, B, Bt, 82, B3, BS. Standard enclosure in the following eaition(s): 84, PRODUCED IN THE UNTED STATES. OF ANERICA, Publications Mal Agreement #40043631, Retums: 4960-2 ‘Waker Read, Windsor ON NQA 613, ail Customer testands that CDWis not the menufactser ofthe products purchased by customer hereunder and the only waranties offered ore those ofthe manufacturer not CDN: Al pricing is subject to change. COW reserves the right to make adustments to prin, oducts and serve oftsings for reason nding, but not ited to, changing marke conditions, product continuation, product unavlbity, manufacturer price changes and emo n advertsements Al orders subject to product avai Therefore, OW aot pasha wl be abl oat corer res The tesa cots ose a ted o hosted een ad on COWS Se at COWcon Nor cecton to and eeton of ay atonal ret ems nay om deleted by cstome is aeby given. © 2004 COW Corporation MAM EDITORS’ PAGE anote from the kernel Stardom, Anyone? When presented to creative people, good ideas have a habit of becoming better ones. Case in point: Last month, Narasu and | came up with the idea of turning the monthly contesi that she conducts (see page 95) into a competition to see which of you could come up with the best GarageBand tune. When we floated that idea at a staff meeting, some editors objected to limiting the contest to GarageBand, since so many of you are creating music in so many other ways—using Digidesign’s Pro Tools, Native Instruments’ Absynth, Steinberg’s Cubase, or one of the many other musical tools available for the Mac, as well as. using your Macs as recording and mixing tools for your keyboard, guitar, and vocal performances. That seemed fair—but since we wanted all of you to have a chance at exhibiting your creative greatness, we decided to split the contest into two leveis: GarageBand compositions and music created using any other means—hey, if you want to write a MIDI string quartet in Sibelius 3, who are we to stand in your way? But who would judge the entries? First, we thought about doing it ourselves—after all, MacAddict is stocked with musical talent: Kris is an award-winning pro guitarist and keyboardist, | used to pay my rent with my trusty vintage Fender P-Bass, and Showcase your contributing editors Andrew Tokuda and talent and win a David Biedny have displayed their talents boatload of gear. and expertise many times in these pages and on our monthly Disc. However, since our original idea was quickly growing into Something Big, we contacted our fellow editors at Guitar World magazine (recently acquired by our parent company, Future Network USA), and asked their opinions. And that’s when the idea really took off. Guitar World decided to cosponsor the contest; its editor in chief, Brad Tolinski, got guitar god Joe Satriani to be the judge; and our marketing folks jumped on board, started beefing up the prize list and looking into throwing a big ol’ party to showcase the winners. Our little idea had grown into a national event. But it also caused us to miss our deadline—we had planned to announce the contest, outline the rules, and detail the aforementioned fabulous prizes this month, but we won’t be ready until next. So start honing your GarageBand skills and perfecting your musical chops, ’cause next month we'll give you a chance to showcase your talent—and to win a boatload of killer gear. Enjoy, Q. What c Kris Fong wiss UNDERSTOOD What contest would you have a chance of winning? 'awin the title for Worst Desk Posture if the Carpal Tunrel Institute of America ever gave out an award. {slouch so badly thatour IT guys have thought | was sleeping. Narasu Rebbapragada ALEXEY PAJITNOV WANNABE What contest would you have a chance of winning? Ano-holds-barred, steel-cage-deathmatch Tetris "showdown. Any takers? Mark Rosenthal on. sus-Rosa-THAL What contest would you have a chance of winning? A fruit-eating contest. | can really eat a lot ot fruit. Say, upward of 25 oranges or 80. The ni a fruit-eating contest is that i's disgu: too disgusting. But those people who eat 12 pounds of pork? They're disgusting. 7x4 Jenifer Morgan acto MASTER ‘What contest would you have a chance of winning? I would win a Greatest Number of Consecutive Sneezes ‘contest during allergy season, hands down. Peter Marshutz ty apvict What contest would you have a chance of winning? 'm a contender for the U.S, Channel Surfing with Satellite Remote Olympic Team. | currently surf at 45 channels per minute (cpm), but my personal goat is to reach 88 cpm and smash the world record, Noah Tsutsui Acapenic BUTTERFLY What contest would you have a chance of winning? Having attended the most colleges as an undergrad: University of San Francisco, California College of the Arts, City Collage of San Francisco, San Joaquin Delta College, and San Francisco State University. Next on the list: Yale! (Uh, yeah, rliight...) Niko Coucouvanis AMATEUR OTOLARYNGOLOGIST What contest would you have a chance of winning? 'm pretty sure | could stuff more M&Ms up my nose than any of these patsies | work with. Do people still have. contests for that? Cathy Lu spaces TRADER What contest would you have a chance of winning? I could definitely win a marathon-watching competition for home decorating shows. I'm sure | could last for at least a montn—if only Rik would give me the time off. Max sOBRIQUETOLOGIST ‘What contest would you have a chance of winning? I've got a lock on the who-can-remember-the-most- ~k ay Mac-code-names contest. Remember Mr. T? Green Jade? Slice? Stingray? Blackbird? TNT? Gold Fusion? ‘Spartacus? Trinity? Laguna? Hammerhead? Well, Ido. comingsoon:july2004 Here's what our editors are preparing for the next issue of MacAddict. We're corralling a passel of top-quality equipment to assemble the most droolworthy Dream Machines you could ever imagine. We'll also demonstrate how you can take advantage of all the new tricks in Microsoft Office 2004. {n our how-to section, we'll show you how to edit like the pros in Apple's Final Cut Express, add DVD footage to iMovie projects, and turn your Mac into a karaoke machine. Finally, our intrepid product reviewers are getting relational with FileMaker Pro 7, fighting Mordor ores in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and lounging in the most elaborate ergonomic contraption we've ever seen. 10 MacAddict June 2004 You listen to your iPod every day, Now your iPod can listen to you. The creators of iTrip now introduce Play back your voice memos or music the Griffin iTalk iPod Voice Recorder. _ through iTalk's built-in speaker. You Plug iTalk into your iPod and record thoughts, ideas or meetings with its can even connect a separate mic or your headphones into iTalk. So talk high quality built-in microphone. all you want, iPod will listen. iTalk ‘39% Voice Recorder for iPod Turns iPod into a full function voice recorder Internal microphone and laptop quality speaker Connect external microphone or headphones Automatic Level Control for perfect recordings t FM Transmitter for iPod + Play your iPod's music wirelessly in your car or through your stereo at home + Uses any empty FM station from 87,7 to 107.9 - switchable from the iPod itself + iPod powered & earth friendly - no batteries needed or wasted ever + Fits beautifully to top of iPod - no messy cables to get in the way oe 5S $ 99 iCurve Gis PowerBook & iBook Stand + Raises notebook screen to eye level - no more sore neck from looking down + Creates room on the desktop for your favorite USB keyboard and mouse - wireless versions work great + Keeps your notebook running cool (and loud fans off) with 360° airflow 9 $3999 USB External Sound Card + Adds superior quality audio recording & playback to any Mac via USB + Includes everything needed to record albums and tapes to make MP3s & CDs ee great with GarageBand & iMovie Another great idea from (GRIFFIN ) learn more at www.griffintechnology.com I2 oly litigation, Batman! Apple’s most recent quarterly SEC filing (called a 10-Q) revealed that everyone’s favorite company is involved in 16 legal battles ranging from the obscure to the 4 downright juicy. Check Who's Suing i out the highlights. (Apple declined to comment.)—NR E CAN’T 1K IT OUT Apple Corps v. Apple Computer n this longstanding the Beatles’ music company, Apple Corps, charges Apple Computer with breaking a 1991 agreement. The agreement, which reportedly cost Apple some $24 million, states that Apple Corps would use the Apple brand solely for music and that Apple Computer would use the brand solely for computing. Enter the digital music revolution and the iTunes Music Store. Apple Corps now says Apple Computer is crossing onto its turf, using the Apple brand to sell online music. 4E STATUS: The British High Court rejected a request from Apple to move the trial from London to California, where Apple is headquartered. (What a shock.) To further complicate the issue, the judge presiding in London admits to being an iPod fan. Apple Computer had better hope the judge’s iPod battery doesn’t conk out during the trial. “Try to see it my way...” 12 MacAddict June 2004 eet hh i dalla ai HOW "BOUT THEM APPLES? Apple v. Apples THE CHARGE: Apple is the grieved party in this trademark dispute with China’s Guangdong Apples Industrial (www.apples.com.cn), which produces leather accessories and apparel bearing a logo similar but not identical to Apple Computer's. According to the Christian Science Monitor, China’s trademark appraisal committee denied Apple Computer the right to use its own logo on Apple Computer-branded clothing because of the similarity (see below). THE STATUS: Apple restated its case in front of a Beijing court in March—no. word as to whether its lawyer had a cute little Apples clutch purse. g Apple can't use its logo (left) on apparel in China because it’s too close to the logo used by a Chinese manufacturer (right). WHY UPGRADE WHEN YOU CAN SUE? Bancroft v. Apple Computer THE CHARGE: This class-action suit, filed in January 2002, claims that Mac OS X doesn’t work adequately on certain Power Mac G3s—particularly where Quartz Extreme, QuickTime, and DVD movie playback are concerned—and charges that this violates California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act. THE STATUS: Apple settled the case earlier this year for an undisclosed amount—a truckload of brand- spankin’-new G5s?—and is currently administering the settlement. STILL GOING... Craft v., Chin v., Hughes v., Westley v., Keegan v. Apple Computer THE CHARGE: There are currently five separate lawsuits surrounding the iPod’s battery life. According to Apple's 10-Q report, the charges include “false advertising, fraudulent concealment and breach of warranty.” THE STATUS: Apple says it’s “beginning its investigation of these claims.” (Beginning? Last year, Apple began offering $59 extended warranties and $99 replacement fees on iPod batteries.) Is 8 MILE HIGH? Eminem v. Apple Computer THE CHARGE: How cute was that iPod TV ad in which a ten-year-old bay sang Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” while rocking out on his iPod? Not very cute, it turns out. Apparently Marshall Bruce Mathers (aka Eminem) never signed off on it. CNN reports that Eminem’s music publisher 8 Mile Style filed a copyright infringement suit in February stating that Eminem has never endorsed any commercial products and would probably need upward of $10 million to do so. THE STATUS: The suit says that Steve Jobs himself called up 8 Mile Style and asked the company to reconsider, but Eminem wouldn’t talk. RETAILER VERSUS RESELLER MacTech v., Macadam v., Computer international v., Elite Computers and Software v., The Neighborhood Computer Store v. Apple Computer THE CHARGE: Five current and former authorized Apple resellers filed suits claiming “breach of contract, fraud, negligent and intentional interference with economic relationship, negligent misrepresentation, trade libel, unfair competition and false advertising” by Apple retail stores—and no, they didn’t include “lousy advice at the Genius bar.” Third-party Apple-authorized resellers are supposed to be offered Apple hardware at the same wholesale price as Apple retail stores, thus keeping profit margins fair and competitive. According to Think Secret (www.thinksecret.com), however, hijacked invoices show that Apple retail stares are getting deep discounts, which also contribute to inflated reported profits. THE STATUS: Third-party Apple resellers have been feeling some resentment ever since Apple debuted its first official retail store two years ago, so it will be interesting to see how this suit—still in the discovery phase—plays out. NEW STUFF Pi > DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER Olympus DM-20 st $289.99, www gs olympusamerica.com Available: Now The DM-20 claims to pack over 45 hours ofvoice ortwohours. of music (MP3 or Record a week’s WMA) onto 128MB of worth of voice internal memory. The on Olympus’s DM-20 charges via a DM-20. USB dock connected to your Mac and offers up to 12 hours of recording time on rechargeable NiMH batteries. ‘PHOTOGRAPH GOURTESY OLYMPUS > iPOD FM TRANSMITTER Sonnet PodFreq $99.95, www.sonnettech.com Available: May 2004 Your dock-connected iPod snaps tight into this FM transmitter, which finds an FM frequency for transmitting audio. The PodFreq transmits audio through the iPod’s line-out port (within the Dock connector) rather than the headphone port; Sonnet says this improves sound quality. The FireWire and mini USB ports * onthe PodFreqletyou Connect charge the iPod without your iPod to Temovingitfromthe Sonnet’s FM PodFreq. transmitter. ‘PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY SONNET > ALL-IN-ONE RELATIONAL DATABASE FileMaker 7 Pro $299, www.filemaker.com Available: Now This upgraded database-creation software lets you import any document type into Container fields, and then open multiple windows within one database. A FileMaker database can now hold up to 81TB (terabytes) of data with up to 26B in a text field; plus, new relational database-style architecture lets you store multiple database tables in one file. June 2004 MacAddict 13 4 | GET INFO the f the month in bite-si DROOLWORTHY Sexy Stuff We Can’t Wait to Get Our Mitts On Dansk LCD TV> Straight outta Denmark, the Eyegonomic W32 (€4,166 or about $5,150 at press time, www .eyegonomic.com) is a 32-inch LCD display with a built-in TV tuner that mounts on your wall or stands on your desk. The stark, stylish W32 has dream specs for an LCD geek: 450 cd/m2 brightness, 500:1 contrast ratio, and a 170-degree viewing angle, as well as DVI, VGA, S-Video, and composite-video ports. Right now the TV tuner supports only European PAL formats, but it should support NTSC (North American) TV as well when released in the U.S. later this year.—NR PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF EYEGONOMIC € Li'l Video Player Handheld Entertainment’s ZVue Media Player ($149, www.zvue.com) lets you view JPEG stills, MP3 audio, and a few video formats on its 2.5-inch LCD display. Transfer files onto an inserted SD card via USB 1.1, and navigate content using the onboard buttons, The ZVue supports only FAT-formatted SD cards, and not the more-recent FAT-16 and FAT-32 formats, and although it’ll play MPEG-encoded AVI and DivX video, it won’t play QuickTime-encoded formats—yet. Handheld Entertainment is hammering out a'final Mac-friendly player that should be available by the time you read this.—NR ‘PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF HANOMELD ENTERTAINMENT 14 MacAddict June 2004 PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK MADEO BAGIT! MO’ Stylish, Sturdy Bags for Your Laptop MICROSOFT The perfect tote for your iBook or PowerBook should OFFICE 2004 . . le showcased Microsoft Office look good, withstand everyday stress, and survive the 2004 ($349 street, www occasional typhoon. Here are a few laptop bags that ~ -microsoft.com/mac) in our story, Ato _NR “Office Goes to 11,” (Mar/04, p22), caug! ur eye. but Microsoft has since revealed some additional features.—WR > MARWARE'S MILANO BRIEF ($139.95, 149.95, or 159.95; www.marware.com) is designed in 12-inch, 15-inch, and 17-inch sizes for PowerBooks, and also accommodates {Books in its padded, plush laptop compartment. WORD Don’t you get sick of having to run to that Edit > Paste Special command? in Office 2004, a Smart Button pops up when you paste, asking you how to format the pasted text. Choose your preferred format without running to the Edit menu. Words > AXIO'S URBAN HARDPACK Mies orenaeesett Wend oa rte oe ($149.95, www.axio-usa.com) has a molded jie ie - fren polyethylene protective shell and fits up to a 17-inch Earels ‘ee Sure Formating | fe PowerBook with room to spare. Petite people might soriane Oates Bi eee eas | find the frame too big for comfort. cycle your chart throug no EXCEL Formatting charts is easy in Office 2004, thanks to Excel’s new chart formatting features. Color Schemes let you quickly cycle your chart through various pleasing color combinations, and you can also choose colors from the full-range of RGB and CMYK color models. Graphic designers will enjoy > BRENTHAVEN’S PROFILE the ability to save ($99 or $119, www.brenthaven.com) is a three- charts as GIF, JPEG, compartment way to carry your 12- to 15-inch Books, and PNG files. > CRUMPLER’S CRIPPY DUCK ($80, www.crumplerbags.com) holds 12- or 15-inch *Baoks in a superpadded pocket, and has extra pockets for files, cables, and media. The Velcro is a great barrier against spills, but getting inside can be a struggle. plus cables and folders. Made of ballistic nylon, this bag is adequate for a day’s worth of long meetings. POWERPOINT Office 2004’s PowerPoint includes new animated transitions, and the Presenter Tools view shows presenters their notes > CHROME’S BLACKBOX plus thumbnail views of the entire ($90, www.chromebags.com) fits Books up to 15 slideshow, while the audience sees inches and looks like a bomb-detection kit. It comes only a chosen slide. with a removable padded laptop sleeve and an extra = pocket to carry cables, media, and a few folders. oe “Bree ENTOURAGE You can now view a mailbox’s Preview Pane on the right side of a window, so it doesn’t disappear at the bottom of your display. Plus, an improved Junk Email filter helps keep spammers at bay. > TIMBUK2’S COMMUTE BAG ($100, www.timbuk2.com) fits 15-inch or smaller *Books and looks like a grown-up bike-messenger bag. It has a padded laptop compartment and an immeasurable number of pockets. o> oO1 — G& BP — June 2004 MacAddict 15 GET INFO the news of the month in bite-size chunks. FIVE TIPS SCAN OLD PHOTOS FLAWLESSLY hen you’re scanning old pictures into your digital photo library, color fidelity is key to keeping the integrity of the original image. After all, you don’t want Old Blue Eyes to go green, do you? We asked scanning master Randy Zaucha, creator of the ZBetterscan Method ($39.95, www.zbetterscan.com) color calibrator for Photoshop, for a few tips on tweaking the settings within your scanner’s software interface.—NR Turn off Automatic Settings in your scanner’s software interface, locate its automatic mode, and turn it to manual mode if possible. If Crop to just your scanner has no manual settings, be sure to crop your scan inside inside the the image you are scanning. Cropping outside the image scans the image fora scanner’s lamp as it shines through the scanner-bed glass, confusing better auto the auto mode. scan. Calibrate with Black and White To calibrate your scanner, first scan a black-and-white print and adjust your software interface controls— such as highlight controls (for light tones), shadow controls (for dark tones), contrast, and gamma controls—so the scan that appears on your display looks as close to the original as possible without using retouching tools in apps like iPhoto or Photoshop. Calibrate your scanner using a black-and- white image. Control Your RGB Values Never let the brightest portion of your scanned image have red, blue, or green values greater than 250 or less than 210, and never let the darkest tones of your image have These red, blue, and green values ted, blue, or green values greater than 60 or less than 5. Tweakthe suggest this highlight or shadow controls in the scanner interface to get values scanned image between these levels. is too bright. Try the Gamma Ifyou use the ‘Tweak the Scan High Always scan at guidelines in step 3, and your gamma if the highest bit-depth setting overall image still appears too adjusting allowed by your scanner. Many light or dark, use the gamma highlights scanners scan at 16 bits of data control (which adjusts mid-tones) | and shadows per channel (48 bits overall) for to lighten or darken the image. fails. maximum image detail. SHAREWARE PICK OF THE MONTH ERI wwwtunarsott.com $29.95 ind out just how dynamic the world’s climates really are with EarthBrowser. This spinning 3D rendition of the Earth gives you locations of earthquakes, volcanoes, and tectonic plates, plus animated cloud detail, seven-day forecasts, and weather info for over 17,000 locations, and snapshots from hundreds of Webcams around the globe. You can zoom in on a detailed map as Le , Disc close as 2 kilometers (about 1.2 miles) per pixel, dl DI including color-coded ocean-depth variations. ie —Andrew Tokuda It’s partly cloudy this evening in Angra Dos Reis, Brazil. EarthBrowser 2.0.1 16 MacAddict June 2004 THE WILD WORLD OF SPACE COLONY op into the gravity boots of the sassy Venus and her dysfunctional chums as they colonize the final frontier: space. Appease colonists (building hot tubs works well), placate ruthless alien neighbors, manage resources, farm space chickens, and keep your crewmembers from getting depressed. This single-player campaign is a Series of skirmish missions that lets you draw upon economic power and military muscle. Mix Space Quest with StarCraft and The Sims, add some Space Balls—style humor, and you’ve got Space Colony.—Matt Osborn a Space Colony Price | $29.99 Available | May 2004 Aspyr www.asnyr.com Crusader Kings Price $29.99 Available | Fall 2004 Virtual Programming www.vpltd.com ALL HAIL THE CRUSADER KINGS | ased on the engine of its predecessor, Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings blends role-playing and adventure into this historical strategy game set in feudal—and feuding— medieval Europe. Your goal, first and foremost, is to cultivate prestige and piety to boister your family’s dynasty. Next up, expand your fiefdom using strategy, warfare, and diplomacy. Play the campaigns of the Hundred Years War, the five Crusades, and the Mongol Wars. Then go online orona LAN and battle it out with up to eight players —MO CHOOSE YOUR OWN iPOD ADVENTURE dragon has eaten your iPod. To fight back, choose one of the options it the bottom of your iPod’s screen in XO Play’s text-based adventure, Rise of the Lost. Play Sir Jacob Zavior who is fighting the Grand Wizard to save the Kingdom of Valance. fyou'd rather be The wise of the Lest sleazy than noble, try Herbert’s Big Adventure, in Herbert's Big Adventure which you play a lady killer looking to get lucky. Price | $9.99, $14.99 Install the games in your iPod’s Notes folder and qe nis access them in the Extras » Notes menu. These SaEGyea games play only on third-generation iPods——MO | w#wxoplay.com/herhert ee gc SNARE pnoomrnresoecre oe RUN OR RIDE OUT OF FUEL H ave you ever wished you could switch vehicles halfway through a racing game? Welcome to Fuel, where you Fuel start out racing on foot and charge through all Price | $29.99 (est.) Sorts of natural and man-made terrain, aiternating | Available TBA between mad-dash running and hopping into Virtual Programming vehicles such asa helicopter or speedboat.—mo “™wapl.com TIPS: STAR WARS JEDI KNIGHT: JEDI ACADEMY “The Force is my greatest ally, and a powerful ally it is."—Master Yoda $49.99, www.aspyr.com Use Force Speed If you're trying to move faster by jumping repeatedly (pounding the spacebar), use Force Speed (F3) instead— it’s a more effective way to increase your speed. Roll Quickly Rolling is overrated. A quick roll, while effective for dodging sabers, slows you down. Be sure to regain speed quickly by using your Force Speed (F3) power at the beginning of the roll. Side Flip Side-flipping off walls is underrated. It’s a good way to dodge opponents and, if done correctly, land on top of them to knock them down, Exploit the Force Learn to use all the powers of the Force: Lightning, Push, Mind Tricks, Jump, Heal, Speed, and Choke. June 2004 MacAddict 17 18 Mac, dune 2004 = Tips Shortcuts, secrets, and sanity-savers that we guarantee will improve your Mac life. No two ways about it. Today’s Mac is a complex beast. Your Mac, its operating system, and its apps are more powerful than ever, which means there are tons of hidden tips and tricks that you might not discover for years. Plus, there are usually two, three, or four ways to do just about anything when working with your beloved computing appliance—and those alternatives may be faster, simpler, and more convenient than the way you currently do things. From copy and paste to swapping windows, switching apps to troubleshooting your Mac, we show you how to work both faster and smarter on your Mac. Here are 79 different ways to get started doing exactly that. June 2004 Mac 19 Today’s Finder makes it possible for different people to work in different ways. For example, some may shun the Dock, but others may use it exclusively for launching and managing applications. Here are some hints to help you squeeze the most out of the Finder. GB Drop Orag-and-Drop What do you do when you get sick of good ol’ drag-and-drop every time you want to move files? Fall back on good ol’ copy-and-paste! To move a file without dragging it, select a file icon (or icons) and use the familiar Edit > Copy command (or Command-C) to move those files into the clipboard, then switch to another folder and select Edit > Paste (Command-V) to place those files there. 3 Move instead of Copy When you drag a file from one volume to another, your Mac copies that file to the new volume. However, if you press the Command key while dragging the file to another volume, your Mac moves the file rather than copies it. 3 Change Windows Fast Say you're working in Word, and you've got three windows open. To switch to one of the other open windows without lifting your hands from the keyboard, press Command-accent grave (>). Repeat until you sigh with satisfaction. Command-Shift—accent grave goes the other direction—if you can twist your fingers into that key combination. 20 MacAddict June 2004 8 Get Dizzy with the Dock As you probably know, Command-Tab cycles you through all open applications in the Dock. But try this: Press Command-Tab once—this takes you to the last active application (the one you were using before you switched to the current active app). Pause a moment, then press Command-Tab again—this takes you back to the original app you were using. For example: You’re using Word and you want to look something up in Safari. Press Command-Tab till you reach Safari in the Dock, Look up what you need to. Now, Command-Tab once—back to Word. Need to look up something else? Command- Tab—zammo!—back to Safari. Panther's app switcher helps you toggle between apps. 3 Let Your Fingers Do the Talking Serious speed demons use keyboard commands. To join the speedy elite, you need to learn their tricks—including using just your keyboard in dialogs. in a native Mac OS X application’s Open or Save dialog, press Tab until you select the navigation pane, then use the up and down arrows to select items in the first row or column (or type the first few characters of the file or folder you want). Highlight a folder and press the right arrow to open that folder; press the left arrow to move back a folder. Press Command-Shift-N to create a new folder. The Esc key closes the dialog. The Return key opens or saves the Item. 3 Switch Views Fast Ifyou want to switch between Finder views without having to use your mouse, press Command-1 to change to Icon view, Command-2 for List view, and Command-3 for Column view. De-metallize Finder Windows Do you prefer the days when life—and Finder windows—were simpler? Even though you’ve moved on to Panther, you can still recapture times past. Double-click your hard disk icon on the desktop and click the widget in the top-right corner of the Finder window. Panther will lose the whole shiny brushed-metal thang, and you'll get something more like the old Aqua-looking Finder windows. Doing this also gets rid of the Panther Sidebar and other toolbar icons. The toolbar widget changes Panther's superhuman Finder windows into regular Clark Kent windows. 3 Create Toolbar Aliases In older versions of Mac OS X, creating Finder window toolbar aliases was easy—just drag folders, applications, or files to the toolbar, In Panther, the Sidebar is your most likely target for folder aliases—but if you still want to put an app or folder icon on your toolbar, simply drag it from a Finder window to the toolbar and wait a second. You'll see either a blank box scoot out of the way ora plus sign ina green circle appear on your cursor—when you do, release the mouse to add the item. If that blank space is getting in your way, choose View > Customize Toolbar and remove the space—which will appear as an outlined box—by dragging it out of the toolbar, in fact, to remove any item from the toolbar, you need to go to View > Customize Toolbar, then drag the item out of the toolbar. LQ os Items can enter the toolbar, but they can't get out—unless you access View > Customize Toolbar. - Expose Ex pose Learn even more cool Exposé tricks. | GE) Move Files Easily Click and drag a file from the Finder or a selection from an open app window, press the Exposé All Windows key (F9), then hover over the window of an app into which you want to place the file or selection. In a few seconds, that window will blink, then expand to normal size—drop your file or selection where you want it. Pay Homage to OS 94mm Bring back your favorite parts of the Classic OS. Mac users customize Mac OS X for two reasons: to make it more like Mac OS 9 orto impress a date. Admitit, though, guys—customizing Mac OS X will almost never impress a date. Even so, check out the following shareware from Unsanity (www.unsanity.com). G5) Windowshade X Bring back the ability to double-click the title bar of any window and collapse that window down to just that bar. Windowshade X also lets you minimize in place—instead of turning a window into an icon in the Dock, it turns that window into an icon on the desktop. ($10) GO ShapeShifter This enables you to switch themes to change the look and feel of your Mac, No way, you say. Way, we say. From icons to windows, menus to buttons, ShapeShifter can give your Mac an extreme makeover. ShapeShifter includes some slick themes, and you can also download third-party ones. Goto www.unsanity.com /haxies/shapeshifter for a list of download sites. ($20) Check out this bit of cubtle interface elegance. Yowzal FruitMenu Now you can add hierarchical menus to your Apple menu so that you can quickly access things like your Applications folder. ($10) 2 See Ya, Sidebar Hate the Panther Sidebar? Then double- click the right border of the Sidebar, and it disappears like cash on a Three Card Monty milk crate. (Double-click the left edge of the Finder window to restore the Sidebar.) Double-click the border to hide the Sidebar. Spell Exposé Sure, you know how to use Exposé—but do you know how to type it correctly? To type the é character, first type Option-E, then type the letter E. Option-E also works for other letters that need an acute accent mark. To see other special characters, go to Edit > Special Characters in most native Mac OS X apps. Su June 2004 MacAddict 21 Mac OS X is ripe with features, shortcuts, and apps that many users never take a second look at. But don’t discount them yet—they’re worth another look. View File Extensions Ifyou ever have to trade files with Windows or Unix/Linux users, you need to tell their computer what kind of document you're sending. Soto make sure you never forget, in Panther, Choose Finder > Preferences, click the Advanced button, and turn on the option Show All File Extensions. In Jaguar, go to Finder > Preferences and choose Always Show File Extensions. RIGA Turn on Show All File Extensions and got used to them—they're a way of life. GS Tinker with TextEdit TextEdit may look simple on the surface, butit has hidden powers. For example, you can view HTML documents in two ways, When you first open most HTML documents in TextEdit, you see them rendered as HTML by default. To change that, open TextEdit > Preferences and under the Rich Text Processing pane, turn on the Ignore Rich Text Commands In HTML Files option. Now you can use TextEdit to edit raw HTML documents. 22 MacAddict June 2004 Don't Ask Me No Questions Are you getting sick of your Mac confirming that you want itto restart, log out, or empty the Trash? Hold down the Option key while selecting those commands (and others that provide a warning) to skip the confirmation process. if only you could do that when they check your credit report at the Porsche dealership. Use Services The under-utilized Services menu that you find under the application menu of native Mac OS X apps sometimes gets a bad rap. But with each new Mac OS version, the Services feature improves a bit. One of our favorite Services is Summarize. If you’ve got a long block of text in a document and you want just the high points, select that text and choose Services > Summarize fromthe current program’s application menu. That brings up a window that gives you the main points in that document. It’s hit-or-miss sometimes, but often it hits well. (Note that some Mac OSX apps—notably Word, Excel, Hide Textédit xH and Photoshop—don’t Hide Others OHH | far "AS support Services.) eral Make New Sticky Note ‘Open URL The Services menu offers Search Wt some interesting shortcuts. 2) Long Live Activity Monitor To true power users, Panther’s Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor) is too cool for words. It’s similar to the Process Viewer from older Mac OS X versiens—launch it to see what applications and background processes are running, how much CPU and memory they’re using, and so on. Even cooler are the tabs at the bottom of the window that let you monitor disk usage, system memory, and network activity. if you are experiencing a slowdown, check these to see where the problem is. remyslewaki 0.00 inpvilewaki” 0.00 rmyslewski 0.00 rrayslewshi 0,00 rmyslewski 0.00 yale 14.26 M8 seme 7.59M8 693 Ma ae2me —— | Se | seeretint: sacs aaataats ee | actin 3609 SR Teaseasat oe eae If some Windoze geek tries to impress i with his hard-disk pie chart, show him Activity Monitor's Disk Usage tab. 2) Dig Into Disk Utility The modern-day super-dooper-fix-it-all equivalent to the old Rebuild Desktop command is Repair Disk Permissions. Just go to Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility), choose a drive, and click the First Aid tab. Run it once a month; more if you notice odd slowdowns when you're trying to launch applications or after you've installed a new app or update. is only a few ae old and it already needs repairs. Key Combo! What It Does Control-F1 Turns on Full Keyboard Access Control-F2 “Moves you to the menubar so you can _| Shoose items with the keyboard Moves you tothe Dock . between al open wi \dows: Moves you bar in the current window Moves you to any open palette-style window Control-F3 Control-F4 Control-F5 Control-F6 €) Hop over Permissions Issues One major Mac OS X irritation is the issue of permissions—files you can’t delete because you don’t have permission to, even though they’re in public folders you can access. The trick is to launch Terminal and go after such files via the command line using the sudo (see “Get to Know sudo,” p24) and rm (remove) commands. For example, you cauld type the following command to delete the file document.txt in the Shared folder: sudo rm /Users/Shared/document.txt. Press Return, and a prompt to enter a password appears; as long as you’re an administrator, you can delete the file. €) Run Maintenance Scripts Manually Do you shut down your Mac at night? If so, it may not be running some scheduled Unix-level scripts that are necessary for occasional file system maintenance. You can run those scripts manually, though, using one of two methods. The easy way is to use MacJanitor (free, http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill /macjanitor-html), but the tinkerer’s way is to use the command line and type sudo /etc/Daily. Press Return and a prompt for your Admin password appears; enter it and press Return again. That sets the script in motion. You would type, predictably, sudo /etc/Weekly and sudo /etc/Monthly forthe otherscripts. &3 Back Up, Jack The command line has a special ditto command that’s handy for backing up files as well as copying Mac OS X applications correctly. (The standard Unix copy commana, cp, doesn’t correctly copy Mac resource forks and files, which means it can sometimes screw stuff up.) To quickly back up items in your Documents folder, type ditto -rsrc ~/Documents ~/Desktop/DocBackup. This command creates a folder on your desktop called DocBackup and places within it any files and folders that are in your Documents folder, including ones with Mac-specific resource information. June 2004 MacAddict 23 5) Say Bye-Bye Finder! The defaults write command is a powerful, dangerous tool. tt enables you to change preferences by writing directly to preference files, including important system-level stuff. Forexample, would you like to start up your Mac in Terminal, instead of the Finder? It can be done by typing in defaults write com.apple.loginwindow Finder (Space) /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app. You can even sub in a Finder replacement app such as Path Finder ($34, www.cocoatech.com). Too extreme for you? You can restore the original Finder by typing defaults write com.apple.loginwindow Finder (space) /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app. Tecminal Fle Fait scrolback Form Window Fp 000 urinal — cah yp) We ditched the Finder in favor of the Terminal at startup. 5) Launch Apps For some reason, Unix-heads get a kick out of opening applications from a Terminal window; the same is possible using Mac OS X’s Terminal, although the command is slightly different, To launch iPhoto, type open ~a iPhoto.app. For applications with a space in their name, use double quotes around the name. For example, you would type apen -a “System Preferences.app”. This command also works on remote Macs that you've logged into using ssh, which can be handy if you need to run an app on a remote computer and you can’t get to its keyboard. Get to Know sudo The sudo command stands for substitute user do and it’s a way to perform administrator-level (root) tasks from the command line, Use sudo to begin a variety of commands—everything from deleting stubborn files to rewriting system-level files. One thing to know about sudo, though, is that it has a time limit. Say you run all three scripts in the *Run Maintenance Scripts Manually” tip (p23). As long as you type them one right after another, you probably only need to enter the sudo command the first time since the shell—Unix’s interactive command interpreter—remembers that you're in sudo mode for five minutes after each successful command. 5 Print Folder Contents The Classic Mac OS has the ability to print folder contents from the Finder; Mac OS X does not—but there is a workaround. When typing a command in the Terminal, you can use the greater-than sign @) to force the output from that command to be stored ina text file instead of displayed onscreen. It’s kinda cool when you think about it. Well, itis if you're a nerd. The command for a detailed listing of a folder is Is -l. To create a text document that lists the contents of your Documents folder (which you can then print!), type the following: 24 MacAddict June 2004 | staff 482 Jun 19 2883 Sookmarks staff 844614 Sep 2 2083 Cothy's Grassy staff 434571 Sep 2 2683 Cathy's Zoo Tycoon unknown 272 un 17 2083 Cathy.protcont unknown 6442682 Apr 4 2082 Clone of sung ke ls not elegant, but this is a list of our Documents folder content. Is -| ~/Documents > ~/Desktap/filelist.txt. This creates a document called filelist.txt on your desktop, and that file lists everything in your Documents folder. If you want to list the contents of any subfolders—and the subfolder’s subfolders—type Is -IR ~/Documents > ~/Desktop/ (no space) filelist.txt. Use Apple Keywords The Apple Support KnowledgeBase offers special keywords (also called kwords) that can help you get to important information faster. Keyword |__ What It Means Mac OS 9 kitunes, ki kfaq Frequently asked questions, EE) Get Help from Mac Sites Where do you go when the Apple KnowledgeBase fails you? Here are some good places to get help online. APPLE DISCUSSIONS http://discussions.info.apple.com Users discuss Apple products, as well as problems Apple has yet to address (or hasn’t yet owned up to) in its KnowledgeBase. MACFIXIT FORUMS www.macfixitforums.com Experts provide troubleshooting advice on all sorts of Mac hardware and software. MACINTOUCH www.macintouch.com Some of the best and the brightest in the Mac community frequent this site—ask for help, and ye shall receive, MACNN FORUMS http:/orums.macnn.com In addition to news, you'll find troubleshooting help for hardware and software, plus discussions and Info archives, ACCELERATE YOUR MAC www.xir8yourmac.com Looking for information, advice, and databases full of info about upgrade products, procedures, and troubleshooting? Here 'tis. We love hardware, as do any self-respecting Mac addicts. But how do you know when you need more RAM? What’s the best way to speed up — your Mac? And how do you preserve your iPod’s battery , El Calculate RAM Usage Don’t believe you need more RAM? Here’s a way to check. After your Mac has been running for a day or two, launch the Activity Monitor utility (sorry, Panther only), Click the System Memory tab at the bottom of the window. Check the Free Space and Page Ins/Outs statistic, which tells you how often the OS needs to move items from RAM to your hard drive. If those numbers are excessive (say, if they each reach six digits in a day or two), take that as a sign that you'd benefit from a RAM upgrade. ‘Disk Activity |: DisicUsage | Network Ce ae cl aie: 32260 [El] : @ ee Sate Used: 405.53 aa 512.008 Looking at Page Ins/Outs might give you a clue as to whether you need RAM. Power Your iPod You may have heard about the complaints and repair-program brouhaha over iPods plagued with dead batteries. Well, before your ’Pod ever gets to that stage, there are a few things you can do to keep its battery in good shape. For one, it’s a good idea to keep the iPod in a warm place at all times. Ideally you shouldn’t turn it on when it’s been sitting in the cold— like if it’s been in the car overnight during a freeze. Remember: There's a cold-averse hard drive with moving parts inside the iPod. Also, keep it plugged into FireWire on your Mac whenever possible. The less often the battery fully discharges, the longer it will last. For more advice, see www. ipodbatteryfaq ~com, Keep your baby phased info FireWire whenever possible, EE) Span Your Screen As far back as the PowerBook G3 (Bronze keyboard), Apple’s PowerBooks have supported the ability to span your desktop from the built-in display to a second externai display. But did you know there’s a hack to make that work on certain iBooks and iMacs that don’t have this capability? Whether this hack works depends on your Mac’s internal video circuitry. For example, it should work on the iBook G3/700 and faster (and some 600MHz models), the iBook G4 models, the 17- and 20-inch iMac G4s {and very recent 15-inchers), and the eMac models with the ATi Radeon 7500 graphics card. See www.rutemoeller.com/mp /ibook/ibook_e.html for the compatibility list, the disclaimer, and the software you need to make this work. €Q) Save Battery Power To maximize PowerBook and iBook battery running time, the mantra is to do as little as possible. Eject CDs, since they tend to spin up occasionally; use as few applications as possible to keep Mac OS X from swapping to disk; and disconnect anything that you don’t need, such as USB and FireWire devices that may draw power. Also, turn off AirPort cards (in the Network System Preferences) and Bluetooth (in the Bluetooth System Preferences). Finally, open the Energy Saver system preferences and set the Optimize Energy Settings menu to Longest Battery Life. To optimize your Book's battery, change your Optimize Energy Settings. EE) Speed Up Your Mac Aside from RAM and processor speed, three major issues can make your Mac Seem sluggish: video performance, hard disk performance, and permissions problems. For desktop Mages, install a new video card if your Mac’s game or graphics June 2004 MacAddict 25 performance is lacking. For disk performance, use a disk doctor utility such as Norton Utilities ($99.95, www.symantec.com) or TechTool Pro 4 ($97.97, www.micromat.com) to regularly look for problems and optimize your hard drive, For permissions problems, launch Mac OS X’s Disk Utility and use First Aid to fix permissions. 5 Wipe the Slate Clean What's the best way to optimize your drive? Back up your documents, format your hard drive using Disk Utility, and reinstall the Mac OS and your apps. It may not be practical to do this more than every year or two, but take advantage when an opportunity arises—for example, when you plan to install a new Mac OS X version. Still cringing at the thought of doing the above? Then create a second volume or buy another drive, and use it to store video, photos, and music. That keeps your multimedia files from fragmenting your startup disk and slowing down your system. Shop Cheap “ Find deals on the Web. Go Used or Refurb If you’re looking to get a good, solid Mac at a reasonable price and it’s not mandatory that you be on the bleeding edge, then consider a refurbished Mac—a returned item that Apple has taken into the shop, checked out, and fixed ifnecessary. Apple lists refurbished equipment on its own store page (www.apple.com/store)—just look forthe red-tag Special Deals button. Another great place to check is Small Dog Electronics’ “Famous” Price List (www -smalldog-com/Sma\lDogPriceList.txt), which lists new, demo, refurbed, and used-system prices. Snail DOG veer, used, refurbished, J ) Flectronics | and more. 5) Look at Upgrades Another way to save money is to upgrade your current system. A great place to check out upgrade choices for your machine is Other World Computing, which carries accelerator cards from a number of vendors. Go to www. .macsales.com and choose Accelerators. Choose your Mac from the scrolling list, then click Show Models. The results show various processor accelerator options. You can also look up other types of upgrades, such as RAM and video. 26 MacAddict June 2004 Wate imunes Tour Om On its face, iTunes may seem like a simple digital jukebox. Even so, it has some interesting nooks and crannies where you can still find nifty features. 2) Mini-fy Tunes If the iTunes interface is hogging too much room on your screen, click the green maximize button to turn it into a tiny player. Or you can Option-click the green button to set iTunes to the exact right width to display song information. Make a Mini-Me version of iTunes. ®) Quickly Control iTunes Don't feel like opening up the iTunes window to skip to the next song? Luckily, you don’t have to, Just Control-click or click and hold the iTunes icon in the Dock to display playback options including Shuffle, Next/Previous Song, and Repeat All. Enlist the Dock to control iTunes. Choose Your Own Organization Ifyou want to organize your iTunes Music folder rather than having iTunes automatically arrange itinto album and artist folders, then open iTunes > Preferences and click Advanced. Turn off the Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized option. Now, you’re free to make any changes—those changes won't affect your Library and Playlists, only the way the songs are arranged and filed away on your hard disk. =) Find Your Tune By default, iTunes buries your music several levels deep on your hard drive. But there’s a quick way to locate that song file when you’re in iTunes. Simply select your song and go to File> Show Song File, or press Command-R. iTunes will take you to the selected song on your hard drive faster than Dorothy gets back to Kansas—after clicking the heels of her ruby-red slippers, of course. €=) Adjust Individual Volumes and EQ Got a song that blasts you off your chair every time it comes on in ‘Tunes? Well, if you don’t like that feeling, select itin the Library, choose File > Get Info, and click the Options tab. Now you can set the Volume Adjustment slider. In that same pane you'll also find the Equalizer Preset option, which allows you to seta different EQ preference for 7 ama pea each song in your Library. Set a song to its own EQ setting for customized thumpability. ‘Volume Adjustment: shod * "vane * soe caatee rece (EB GZ} Mind the Gap When iTunes imports tracks from a CD, it inserts a short gap between tracks. With some albums—especially classical ones, where music often continues from track to track—that gap interferes with playback. To avoid that gap, you can join tracks ona CD before importing it. Choose the two (or more) tracks in question and then choose Advanced > Join CD Tracks. iTunes will even indicate that the operation was a success via a connecting line between the two tracks. CE) Rip Off Some Scripts iTunes is nicely scriptable, and for those of us who have avoided learning AppleScript, power user Doug Adams comes to the rescue by providing tons of prefab scripts (check them out at www.maicolmadams.com/itunes/index.php). The scripts available on that site enable you to perform such voodoo as renaming batches of songs, finding artwork on the Internet (such as from Amazon.com or iTunes Music Store), and displaying your current song as your status message in iChat—just in case you want to let your buddies know what you’re listening to at any given moment. 5) Change Up the Visualizer The iTunes visualizer can get a bit redundant at times. But using some keyboard commands, you can learn to controi and customize it. Command | What It Does Sommanelet | turns onithe visualizer Command-F isualizer full-screen ie background pattern Changes colors of effects i \de (for example, random de-show mode ‘versus user-configured a Manipulate iPhoto = Make iPhoto do things it ordinarily can’t. Change Your Camera's Buddy By default, iPhoto should launch when you connect your digital camera to your Mac. You can change that behavior, but talk about your nonintuitive solutions! Launch Image Capture (in your Applications folder) and open Image Capture > Preferences. Under the Camera tab, choose the application you want to launch when you connect yourcamera(orNo Use Image Capture to set what Application). happens when you connect a camera. GE) Run iPhoto at 800 by 600 According to the iLife 04 system requirements, you needa display with at least a 1,024-by-768 resolution, thus leaving older Macs such as 800-by-600 iBooks in the dust. Fortunately, some hard-working souls have discovered that this restriction is about iMovie, not iPhoto, and have provided a workaround. Simply use Pacifist ($20, www.charlessoft.com) to extract the iPhoto installer package from the iLife dise, and install it separately. You can check out the instructions in the tutorial at Blogintosh (http://blogintosh.com/pages/tutorialmain.html). GS) Slim Down iPhoto {Dieting Options iPhoto retains extra copies of O Remove Ali Originals your pics whenever you rotate @ Remove Selectively an image, make corrections, @ Redundant Duplicates launch another app for image QUnrotated Originals editing—possibly even when you orphans ‘sneeze—and these duplicates end up wasting precious hard- t drive space. The solution is t Ee not Atkins, but instead, iPhoto auto Start Diet (free, http://pages.cpsc sucalgary.ca/~fuhrer/personal Remove unwanted duplicate /freestuff). Use this app to images from your iPhoto Library. slim down your library—you get several dieting choices, such as the option to remove all originals, unrotated originals, or redundant duplicates. | | | | | | | J Gistrip teon Thumbnails =) Move Your Library By default, your iPhoto Library is stored on your startup disk in your home folder. Want to move it somewhere more convenient, such as your desktop? First, quit iPhoto. Now, move your Library to a new location. Once it’s there, launch iPhoto. A dialog will appear telling you that iPhoto can’t find your library. Simply click Find Library and use the resulting dialog to locate the Library in its new location. June 2004 MacAddict 27 iMovie’s been around the block a few times, and so there’s no shortage of choice tips and tricks available to help you get the most out of your iMovie experience. Ea Transfer a Clip Those clips that iMovie stores in the Media folder—particularly the ones named Clip 62 or similar—are actually raw DV files that you can play in QuickTime or move to other iMovie projects. In the Finder, just drag and drop them into another project’s Media folder—and if you need the clip in both projects, hold down Option while dragging to create a duplicate. In the Finder's Column view, you can even preview clips. You can view raw iMovie footage clips in the Finder. 2 Crop Photos If you're working with still images in iMovie, you don’t have to go back to your image editor to crop your pictures to the correct dimensions. Click the Photos button, turn on Ken Burns Effect, and choose an image. Now, click the Start button and use the pan and zoom commands to position the image the way you want it to appear. When you're done, press Option while clicking Finish. Set atime for the clip, click Apply, and you’ve gota perfectly framed photo. ES) Explore .Mac If you're trying to find the perfect piece of music to accompany your movie—and you’re a proud member of .Mac—check out your iDisk, which contains royalty-free music. Go to your iDisk, and navigate to Software/Members Only/Freeplay Music. There you'll find tons of clips in AAC format that you can use in your iMovies (GarageBand, too). EZ) Fix Jerky Playback If iMovie 4 playback looks choppy, launch iMovie Preferences and in the Advanced section choose Standard Quality (Smoother Motion) in the Playback Quality group. 28 MacAddict June 2004 &5) Get into the Groove iMovie 4 offers the ability to view the waveforms of a song that you’ve placed on an audio track in the timeline (in iMovie Preferences, select Show Audio Track Waveforms). Waveforms can give you a visual guide to help you pace your video to music—great for working with montages and music videos. ES) Think Before Emptying It can be handy to empty the Trash often in iMovie in order to recover disk space for more editing. However, emptying the Trash makes it impossible to undo any recent changes. You also won't be able to use the Restore Clip feature (under Advanced) on clips that you’ve cropped if you've emptied iMovie’s Trash. Get QuickTime Pro QuickTime Pro is great for any editing project, but it’s particularly useful for translating video files from one format to another. It can handle all sorts of files—even PC-based movies— and export them to DV Stream format for use in iMovie. EE) Rename Keyboard Buttons In the Loop Browser (Command-L) you can change the keyword buttons to display different sets of loops. Control-click a button, then choose a different genre, instrument, or descriptor (such as cheerful) from the contextual menu. The name on the button will change—click that button to see the loops that go with your new keyword. ES) Fade Out Need your song to end, but don’t have an ending to give it? No worries—there’s always the ol’ fade out. Turn on the Master Track (Command-B, or Track > Show Master Track) and click the Master Volume check box. Near the end of your song, click the volume line once. Click again at the end of your song and drag that second dot to the bottom of the track. GE) Use a Mute If you’re recording using a microphone with GarageBand, you should either wear headphones or mute the track you're recording. Unmuted, your instrument (or voice) will play through the speakers as it’s recorded. Mute it so you don’t record the playback or generate feedback. Choose the instrument's track, and click the speaker icon (that’s the mute button). If it’s highlighted, it’s muted. Ans Mute the track you're recording to keep an instrument tm playing through your speakers. * lose Wora’s Know Your Keyboard Shortcuts If you're like us, you press Command-X and Command-V (aka cut and paste) about a bazillion times a day. But there are some lesser-known shortcuts that are also useful. Command- Option—Page Down and Page Up take you to the bottom and top of the window respectively. You can easily cycle through caps, lower case, and initial caps via Shift-F3. {f you want to quickly jump to the very beginning or end of your document, press Command-Home or Command-End, respectively. (Note that these commands may or may not work on your keyboard.) © Transfer Your Styles Ifyou create styles or custom toolbars in one Word doc, that doesn’t mean that they'll appear in the next Word doc you open, Aquick way to transfer elements from one doc to another is to use the Style Organizer. Go to Format > Style and in the dialog that appears, click the Organizer button. In the Organizer dialog you can move styles, toolbars, AutoText elements, and macros from one document to another—and if you move them to Word’s Normal file, they'll be available in every new document (File > New Blank Document). t | = Use Word's Organizer to give a silo makeover to another doc, Copy Formatting Quickly Aquick way to copy and apply custom formatting is to use the format painter tool. Highlight a word that has formatting you want to copy, click the paintbrush icon in the Standard toolbar, and select a word to apply the same style to them. Ifyou double-click the paintbrush, you can paint the style for noncontiguous words (those that aren’t in a continuous line) by selecting them. Click the paintbrush again to stop this behavior. 2 Split the Window Ever find yourself madly scrolling back and forth through 46. pages of Word just so you can compare text in two parts? Well, go ahead and break Word—in two. Choose Window > Split, and your document will divide into two window panes that display the same document (you can also split a window by pulling down the little aqua widget at the. top-right of your scroll bar). After you split a window, you can scroll through each pane independently, thus allowing you to do all sorts of useful things, such as cut pieces from the end of a document and place them somewhere in the middle, eure Fut vesrivat ‘SPONSORSHIP LEVELS, ‘Yoraumein gh el waker Premier Spears 11,00 +190 ia itn Fou Pers Fos) Pa Fl sia 3. | Your eyes do not This = Turn Off Auto-Correct Idiocy Ifyou don’t like the way Word likes to fill in words or change Internet addresses to clickable links, choose Tools > AutoCorrect, Under the AutoCorrect tab, you can tell Word to stop capitalizing the first letter of every word or correcting two initial capitals, or you can specify exceptions to those rules. Under the Auto Format As You Type tab, you can turn off options such as automatic hyperlinks, bulleted lists, and smart quotes. GS Save Multiple Clipboard Items Command-C and Commancd-x retain the last item you copied orcut in your Mac’s Clipboard. But did you know that Word can hold multiple Clipbeard items? Go to View > Office Clipboard and you’ll get a window that stores everything that you copy and cut for easy retrieval! later on. Strengthen iCal iCal may not be the marquee iApp, but it has its strengths. Publish iCal Calendars on Your Site .Mac may be the easiest way to publish your iCal calendars, but what if you don’t want to spend $99.95 a year on a .Mac membership? Ifyou have a WebDAV-based Web server, you can still publish your iCal calendars. In iCal’s Publish dialog, choose On A WebDAV Server from the Publish Calendar menu. If you don’t have WebDAV-based server space, then you can use iCal FTP (free, www.drewfindley .com/findleydesigns/products.html) to send those puppies to any old Web server space. GS Use iCal to Automate Tasks New in iCal 1.5 and later is the ability to launch an application or AppleScript when an alarm goes off. In iCal, set an event, and then edit that event’s alarm setting in the details tray. From the Alarm pop- up menu, choose Open File, then from the iCal pop-up menu, choose Other. Now, locate the file, application, or AppleScript that you want to launch. This is great for setting reminders, automated backups, and other tasks. dune 2004 MacAddict 29 We love Safari, and we can’t live without it. There, we said it. Now that we’ve admitted our dependence, it’s time to talk about some of the features you may not know about—and how best to use them. G5) Use Page SnapBack {fyou haven't yet discovered the wonders of the Page SnapBack feature in Safari, learn to use it—and the keyboard commands that empower it. Page SnapBack enables you to set a page that you can snap back to—like eBay results or an index page for game cheats. To mark a page for SnapBack, press Command-Option-K while viewing the page. To snap back to that page, press Command- Option-P, or press the orange arrow button in the address field, (Click the orange button in the Google search field or press. Command-Option-S to snap back to recent search results.) avis | /chronicie/archiye/2¢@ The orange arrow iam §| button puts you som back to a page you've marked. Open Links Anew You may already know that you can Command-click a link in Safari to open it in a new window. We can do you one better. Command-Shift-click opens the link in a new window and places it behind the current window. If, however, you have Safari’s Tabbed Browsing feature enabled, Command-click opens the link in a new tab and Command-Shift-click opens the link in a new tab while still displaying the contents of the first tab. Now what if you have Tabbed Browsing enabled, and you want to open links in new windows rather than tabs? Well, Command- Option-click takes care of that, while Command-Option-Shift- click opens a linkin a new window and places itin back. &@ Get a New Search Results Window Every Safari user has likely used the Google search box as often as they’ve used cut and paste in Word—a bazillion times. But there’s a little trick that allows you to view search results in a 30 MacAddict June 2004 new window or tab (if Tabbed Browsing is enabled). Enter your keyword and then hold down the Command key as you press Return. Presto: results in a new window or tab. Hold down Command-Shift when you press Return to keep your original page in front. Drag That URL Everywhere Click and drag the small URL icon (also known as a favicon) in Safari’s—or most any browser’s—address field, and you’ve got a draggable URL. You know that part. But how about dragging that URL icon to a Bookmarks Bar folder for a lickety-quick way to create a bookmark? Or to the desktop to save that page? Or to an iChat message to send that URL to one of your buddies? Presaltg URL icon into an iChat message sends that URL—without all the http:// junk. Master Mail Yep, even email has its share of tricks. Redirect Mail Mail, along with some other email programs—Entourage, for one—has a handy little function called Redirect, which you can use to send someone else an email message you've received. The difference between redirecting and forwarding is that the message will still have the original sender’s address in the From section of the message. To redirect in Mail, select a message and choose Message > Redirect. in the message window that appears, enter an email address. You can even edit the message before you redirect it. But don’t get any sneaky ideas—Mail snitches on you if you modify the message. Quick Mail Commands Click and hold the Mail icon in the Dockto see its quick menu, which lets you access the often-used Compose New Message and Check For Mail commands. Send Mail from Other Apps Remember the Services menu (see “Use Services,” p22)? Highlight some text in many native Mac OS X applications (remember, Word doesn’t support Services), go to the application menu, and choose Services > Mail » Send Selection. Doing that pops open a new mail window with the selection text and/or images already embedded. aie”, Add Google Search ta Your Site Google offers you the option of including a Google entry box on your own Web site. This lets users search your Web site using Google technology (or the user can opt to search the whole Web). See www.google.com/searchcode.html, or check out our how-to, “Add Search to Your Site” (Mar/04, p70) for details. Google is both powerful and right there Add or Exclude Keywords on the frickin’ Safari toolbar—and with In order to refine Google searches, make use of the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in keyword searches. A plus sign is helpful when the tight tips, you can make it do you want to include a word that’s commonly excluded, as in some amazing stuff. Temple +of Doom. A minus sign excludes results that include the keyword, as in Apple Founder Steve -Jobs (which, it so happens, produces pages of links to Woz-mania.) Search a Site Ifyou want to limit a keyword search to one site (especially one without its own search engine), you can use your old friend Google. just type the search word or phrase followed by site: and the Web site address in the Google search field. For example, if you want to search MacAddict’s site forthe word iMac, type /Mac site:www.macaddict.com. Google will list everything it finds, but limits the results to just the MacAddict.com site. Use the minus sign to exclude certain results from a Google search ttyl. Our exclusive search yielded tons of hits on Ste fozniak, that is (bottom). Who needs a search function on your site when you've got Google? Learn Google Shortcuts Google has many hidden features that work right within the Google search box. Check these out (and see www.google.com/help/features.html for the whole list). fair S(t z _| Click Google Search to Get... 5 (any math, actually) The result define: word Links to definitions File Type | Search term filetype: extension (such as 1099 filetype:pdf) | Results for your search term that match the specified file type Phone Book | first name, last name, zip code, or last name, zip code Possible phone-book matches Special Numbers | package tracking numbers, area codes, vehicle ID numbers | Relevant results (it just knows) ‘Stock Quotes | stocks: ticker symbol Recent Yahoo quote Maps | street address, city, state, or zip t Links to maps Who Links to link: site URL Sites that link to the specified URL Todd Staufferis a freelance writer and the author of three dozen books including How To Do Everything With Your iMac, Fourth Edition (Osborne/ McGraw-Hill). For contributing or inspiring some of these tips, Todd would like to thank his frequent co-author Kirk McEthearn and numerous ‘MacAddict Forum dwellers, including bloomsday, JubilleeOR, Lucky}, Phydeaux, Og, pottymouth, and anyone alse he may have missed. June 2004 MacAddict 31 As always, do-as we say, not as we do. This procedure is presented purely for infotainment purposes. Do not try this f at home. Dismantling your iPod will = definitely kill the warranty and might turn your $249 investment into a paperweight—albeit a colorful anodized-aluminum one. 32 MacAddict June 2004 PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK MADEO Step inside the MacAddict operating room to find out what makes Apple’s new infant tick. By Niko Coucouvanis "NP" he iPod mini is sleek and sexy in anodized aluminum—and it’s sealed up tight as a Bs drum. Which is why we were more anxious than ever to get our hands on—or rather, into— one. This month, we set out to learn what Apple has stuffed inside a mini besides a 4GB hard drive. After anesthetizing and scalpeling the sucker, we discovered a medical miracle. Inside, there’s an eight-hour battery; a luscious little LCD screen; skip- stopping buffer RAM; FireWire and USB conduits; and not one but two tiny processors—and it’s all wrapped up in a tiny 0.5-by-3.6-by-2.0-inch package. June 2004 MacAddict 33 ——iPodAutopsy tool for the job. FIRST INCISION: Take Off the Bottom End Cap After warming up the iPod for a few minutes with a hair dryer, you can sneaka small screwdriver under the edge of the white end cap and gingerly work that piece off. Under the cap is a metal plate securing the guts in place. The plate is wedged in tight, but some careful prying with a small screwdriver sets it free. Be gentle on the | headphone jack “and Hold switch | while removing the ipenl on. SCREWECTOMY: Remove the Screws Once you finish removing the top end cap, all you have to do is remove the two microscrews to free the mini’s innards. Make sure to stow these screws safely—the sticky side of electrical tape works well—or you may never see them again. 34 MacAddict June 2004 x, NS the bottom end cap in place. SCRUBBING IN: Prep for Surgery Prep the patient with liberal applications of hot air: 1,500 watts delivered at low velocity via a Conair Ultra SexYouUp. Aimed at the bottom of the mini, a little heat softens the glue that holds reful prying pops tis plate—watch SECOND INCISION: Take Off the Top End Cap Repeat step 1 on the top end cap, taking extra precautions to protect the Hold switch and headphone jack. When prying, do your best to keep the white piece level with the mini’s top; if you wiggle, angle, or bend ittoo much, you'll stress the connections between these key components and the mini’s motherboard. The top part of the Hold switch will separate and come off with the end cap, but the headphone jack will stayput—unless you wiggled the cap wrong. PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAMANTHA BERG Don't Miss. . ~~ The mini's Vital Organs INDUCED HERNIA: Unplug the Click Wheel’s Data Cable Since the Click Wheel is mounted in the aluminum exoskeleton and also connected to the internal organs, disconnecting the wheel’s plug from the motherboard is vital to a successful disemboweling. Remember: Pull on the plug, not on the cable. INSIDE-OUTITIS: Push Out the Innards As they say in obstetrics, after the hard labor, it slides right out. Same goes for the mini. A little push on the posterioris all it takes to remove the mini’s inner child—the board, battery, and hard disk—and their connecting subsystem, aka the PCB (printed circuit board) motherboard. now...it’s a boy! WHEELECTOMY: Remove the Click Wheel There’s really no reason to remove the Click Wheel unless you plan on completely Frankensteining your mini into, say, an old-fashioned music box. But if you must do so, know that it’s tightly wedged into the aluminum frame, and removing it will most likely scratch the wheel’s surface and could break it. Always true to our Hippocratic oath, we opted out of the wheelectomy. Clik 1, good luck. June 2004 MacAddict 35 The Bobi At 138 pixels wide by 110 pixels tall, the mini’s smaller-than-its-big-sibling’s backlit face is clear, crisp, and protected by a transparent plastic window in the aluminum casing. Samsung K4S561633C-RL75 The RAM allows the subject to store 32MB of music in this instant-access buffer. Besides being quick, RAM is also shockproof, so bump-induced hard- drive burps don’t cause brain farts and consequent stuttering playback. RVOUS SYSTEM: Portal Player PP5020 Playing Solitaire and shuffling songs takes coordination. The mini keeps its stride with Portal Player’s PP5020 Superintegration System-On-Chip, packing dual SOMHz ARM 7TDMI processors (the other iPods use only one 133MHz chip). Some see this little dualie rig as a harbinger of things (video things) to come in future pocket-size Apple devices. All-in-One I/O . The specimen’s most unique trait is its bidirectional digestive tract, which moves. data through the Dock Connector. On the inside, a Philips PCF50605HN PMU (power management unit) transfers juice to the battery, while neighboring circuitry bridges FireWire and USB connections to the hard drive for data transfer. There’s also a line-out audio signal that goes through the Dock Connector—that’s what allows you to connect speakers to your Dock. Me es C26. Ca7) E240964 L CAUTION: Li-Ion Battery AXo0 Not Pur “ure or Incinera Q Assembled in China — SANYO GS Soft Enery Co.,Ltd. e rete : ae MER A Oe eC EL MEIN eH eu BH Ee © e HEART: Sanyo Li-lon ECO03 It’s the battery! Don’t you wish you could survive for eight hours on sustenance this small? ® VOCAL COR Wolfson Microelectronics WM8731 This wee audio processor turns computer-language audio files—MP3, AAC, and the like—into music for your ears. CEREBRAL CORTEX: Hitachi HMS360404D5CFOO The subject’s long-term memory lives on a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive so coveted that at press time the ¢ © manufacturer (www.hitachigst.com) doesn’t even sell the device on its Web site. Hitachi’s site provides the AGB specs, but lists 512MB and 1GB models in stock. You can, however, find these drives sold elsewhere online—but not for less than $400. Granted, that’s cheaper than a 4GB CompactFlash card, which runs about $1,500 from Lexar (www.lexar.com). Microdrive When All If all goes wrong and your iPod mini flatlines, at least you have } | a workable 4GB Microdrive. We slapped ours into a SanDisk Ultra FireWire ImageMate reader ($49.99, www.sandisk.com) and a USB SmartDisk Flash Media Reader for CompactFlash 4GB DANAP 655-1160A =1XO5000 2PRAA+ G19.99, www.smartdisk.com), and it mounted on the desktop as if it were still part of the ’Pod. But try as we might—even using Carbon Copy Cloner (donationware, www.bombich.com) to make a copy of another CF card—we couldn’t get our Nikon, Olympus, and Canon digital cameras to recognize the drive. rl ise Fa Reviews Editor Niko Coucouvanis would never sacrifice a mini just to hawk its Microdrive on eBay—but he’s taking preliminary bids just in case something goes horribly wrong on reassembly. June 2004 Ma¢/ 37 Mainstream Mac s pftware—some of mre you mig ht even have sitting on Jae Industrial Light + Magic. 38 MacAddict June 2004 By Kris Fone ho says you need a fleet of SG! machines and mega-high-end software to create award-winning visual effects in Hollywood? Certainly not Todd Vaziri, innovative digital artist at Industrial Light + Magic (ILM). For the past two and a half years, Vaziri—who’s a longtime Mac advocate and proud MacAddict subscriber (and has a stack of issues to prove it)—has crafted spectacular visual effects for the big screen, including for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Hulk, and Star Wars: Episode |i—Attack of the Clones. And he did it on a Mac with off-the-shelf software. We visited Vaziri as he worked his magic on the upcoming action-horror flick Van Helsing. As an evil Pygmy Bat (a fierce-looking creature from Van Helsing) eyed our every move, Vaziri showed us how he created part of the opening sequence in Van Helsing using nothing more than a Mac, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Photoshop. If you’ve got these tools, you too have the power to make a world of make-believe believable. Twister 3.2 demo June 2004 MacAddict 39 fter winding our way through ILM’s maze of office suites, we found Vaziri sitting in the dark (he leaves the lights off to get accurate color on his monitors), listening to iTunes on an iBook at his side. There’s also a Power Mac G4 at his feet and an old, idle Indigo iMac behind him (it’s his mom’s). Vaziri has been a Mac guy since being initiated into the platform by his parents—his first machine was a Mac Plus, which he held onto until college. As a kid, he became interested in visual effects after seeing movies such as Poltergeist, Back to the Future, and, of course, Star Wars. “| really wanted to know how these things were made and the magic behind them,” he explains. In the beginning, he put MacPaint through its paces before Photoshop expanded what he could do on his Mac. His forays into visual effects began when he started experimenting with matte paintings and Photoshop, and then with After Effects to animate his projects. For Vaziri, After Effects has become an invaluable tool. “It’s surprisingly powerful,” he says. “There’s alot of depth to the program, and the cool thing is that it’s relatively easy to learn if you know Photoshop.” For the uninitiated, After Effects has been the industry standard for creating motion graphics for many years. For example, After Effects is the tool behind many of those complex graphical animation sequences you see at the opening of NFL games, television shows, and news broadcasts. introduces the various monsters and establishes how they relate to each other (ILM later converted this sequence to black-and-white to give it a classic monster-movie feel). In this scene, a mob of angry, torch-carrying villagers chase Frankenstein's monster into a giant windmill. The villagers are hell bent on destroying the monster and begin throwing torches at the Structure to burn it down. As Frankenstein's monstet climbs up a few flights of steps, the scene that we're going to dissect begins. Frankenstein’s monster, who's carrying Dr. Frankenstein, emerges Vv an Helsing opens with a flashback sequence that Helsing hits theaters May 7. 40 MacAddict June 2004 Tools of the Trade Todd Vaziri mugs with a Pygmy Bat. In Theaters Universal Pictures’s Van Helsing stars Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing, the legendary vampire hunter summoned to Transylvania to take down Count Dracula, who’s on a mission to destroy human civilization and rule the world. The film also features Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious, who joins forces with Van Helsing to defeat Dracula in the hopes of freeing her family from a generations-old curse. Things really turn chaotic when some other infamous monsters, including Frankenstein’s monster and the Wolf Man, get in the way. Written and directed by Stephen Sommers (The Mummy), Van But beyond typical 2D compositing and animated text and graphics handling, After Effects also features 3D compositing and visual effects tools. On top of that, the Pro version of After Effects handles a particle system, motion tracking, rendering tools, warping tools, and more. While Linux boxes power much of ILM to generate CG (computer graphics) and do much of the heavy-duty composite work, Macs play an integral role in creating art and pre- visualization composites and sequences. Vaziri, however, has taken Mac compositing beyond just pre-vis—his seamless 3D approach has catapulted his work into the final cut. Vaziri says his process involves “putting together pieces of visual-effects shots, be they blue-screen elements, live- action elements, [or] miniature elements shot on a stage.” He adds, “It’s pretty much the last step before the shot goes out to film and people see it in the theaters.” But compositing involves more than just layering pieces together to create a scene. Vaziri works hard to ensure that each real element (film footage or photographic plate) blends with every computer-generated one to make the audience truly believe that every element exists together in one scene. He Tefers to this part of his job as “sweetening.” It’s the last thing that he does to “give it that last bit of reality.” Well, as real as you can possibly get when you've got Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, and the Wolf Man battling Wolverine...er, Hugh Jackman...onscreen. The Art of Making Monsters ‘on the windmill’s platform, which is flanked by flames. The camera swoops in on a close-up of the monster before it pans 180 degrees and tilts down to show the angry village mob, swarming the windmill three stories below—end of scene, in reality, the main windmill footage was shot on location in Prague and lacked any background ambiance or angry villagers—all you see is the film crew and a partial blue screen as the camera pans. The windmill also wasn’t built to scale and Is in reality much smaller than it looks in the film. For the mob scene, the director shot multiple sequences of a group of torch-equipped extras standing in clumps in various areas of the sound stage. This is where Vaziri took over. THERAW "INGREDIENTS __ THE TASKS © Main film footage of Combine all of the villager-group film Remove the camera lighting from Frankenstein’s monster on clips into one large mob scene at the the shot the windmill base of the windmill Remove the crew and equipment from © Multiple film clips that @ Adda sky backdrop to give the setting a the shot show small, angry groups of dark and gloomy feel Crop the lens fixture from the shot villagers clumped together @ Add fire, smoke, and explosions around Create the illusion that the windmill at various locations on the windmill to play up the intensity of platform is taller than it actually is the set the scene Create the illusion of looking into the monster’s electrified brain June 2004 MacAddict 41 and then gave the tracked footage to Vaziri. Matchmoving is a computerized process that lets visual-effects artists track camera movements and key objects within a film sequence. {t places a series of points in key areas of the frame, thus allowing artists to bring that exact motion and framing into a virtual environment for reference when compositing a scene. Matchmoving is crucial for achieving realism when integrating live elements and fabricated ones. The main shot of the windmill is supposed to take place outdoors, but the actual footage lacked a backdrop. Vaziri took a cloudy sky photograph from ILM’s Digital Matte library and manipulated it in Photoshop to give it a dark, gloomy appearance. He then brought the photo into After Effects and wrapped the 2D element behind and to the side of the matchmoved windmill to serve as the environment’s backdrop. Where There's Smoke, Add Fire To create the effect that Frankenstein’s monster was being embattled by a raging fire, Vaziri added more pyrotechnics. He combed through ILM’s massive stock library of digitized movie files to find various smoke, fire, and explosion elements—we're talking real pyrotechnics footage shot at !LM on a black stage and stored ina library for use in any ILM project. Afterfinding the right pieces, he used the matchmoved camera-tracking motion to help direct the timing of each element within the scene. In After Effects, he placed two continuous flame elements behind the windmill on each side at different distances (for depth) to add intensity to the flameless film frames. To add realism, he placed a large explosion and a smoke element on the same piane behind the windmill, which Vaziri placed real fiery pyrotechnics footage behind the windmilt in his 3D After Effects composite. F Here’s how the flames appeared when combined with the fireless film footage. 42 MacAddict June 2004 enhanced the burning effect. He also sprinkled in a few brief flame flashes to add further frenzy to the environment. Add Footage, Lose the Crew To create the illusion that the windmill was taller than the actual filmed structure, Vaziri placed the matchmoved elements (the windmill platform and camera) high above the ground plane, which is where he placed the villagers composites. This extra distance created the illusion that the villagers were standing far below the windmill platform. Once all the visual effects elements were in place, Vaziti brought in the main film footage in place of the matchmoved elements and removed all the unwanted junk from the shot—the crew and gear that appeared when the camera panned, a fixture visible at the top of the camera frame, camera lighting, and the backdrop of the windmill scene—to reveal the composited elements beneath the layer. To remove the crew and existing background from the shot, Vaziri created a ton of roto-masks (@ process of selecting areas with After Effects’ rotospline tool and then masking the selections to make them transparent) to isolate the foreground elements from the unwanted background stuff, and also pulled blue screens (a method of calculating and extracting the blue- screen elements from the foreground). He got rid of the lens fixture by cropp