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THE ESSENTIAL MACINTOSH® RESOURCE
www.macworld.com
SEPTEMBER
Macworld —
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anniversary with
31 fabulous,
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Incorporating MacUser
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Cover Story
68 The Fun Is Back!
BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN It’s a
great time to be a Mac user, ain’t it?
So celebrate by taking a spin
through our colorful roundup of
Create
105 Photoshop's Color
Calamities
sy eruce Fraser Defend your
scans from Photoshop 5’s RGB
wacky Mac products for every occa- Frolic through our carnival of fun ie eae
sion. Discover all the fun and freaky ‘Mac goodies, page 68. ‘olor-space co! .
goodies that await you!
Graphics
110 Fast, Filmless Photo Collages
BY MIKE wooLpRioGe Make
quick and easy photo collages with
snaps from your digital camera.
Picture Perfect: ivorktin
Macworld’ f 113 Collaborate Long-Distance
Pro Imaging Guide, p. 76 ey sim Hero Learn the best ways
ae to work with clients and colleagues
across the miles.
‘ON THE COVER
Photograph by Mark Johann
Create cool collages from digital
Photos, page 110.
2 September 1999 MACWORLD
27
28
28
29
29
Fun shareware games that won't
break the bank, page 65.
News
Web Sites as Design Tools?
New Web-based applications from
Extensis and other developers will
soon let you preflight PDF files
and retouch photos without leav-
ing your Web browser.
MP3 Audio Tunes Up on
the Mac
New software products nudge the
MP3 audio format to center stage
on the Mac.
Photoshop Gets Web Savvy
Adobe Systems rolls the Web-
graphics features of ImageReady
into a new version of Photoshop.
Deneba Canvas Adds
SpriteEffects
Deneba’s integrated graphics soft-
ware package now lets you apply
Adobe Photoshop filters to vector
illustrations.
Product Watch
New products for your Macintosh,
including flatbed scanners from
Umax and digital cameras from
Ricoh and Epson.
Opinion
23 The Vision Thing
BY ANDREW GORE Amaz-
ing MP3: the music revolution
is digitized.
65 The Game Room
BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN
Cool shareware games for the
budget conscious.
184 The Desktop Critic
BY DAVID pPoGue What
Apple and Microsoft should
steal from each other.
10 How to Contact Macworld
Practically perfect new PowerBook G3s,
page 34.
Secrets
95 Files without Borders
By JOSEPH scHORR Meetthe
magical control panel that lets
files slide seamlessly from Mac
to PC.
99 Quick Tips
BY LON POOLE
and shortcuts.
‘Tips, tricks,
panel that lets Mac and PC files
cross the border, page 95.
34
36
38
40
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Reviews
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[RECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR IN CHI Savraj Benedict
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SENIOR EDITOR/DEFARTMNTS Naney Peterson
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Dave cures
SEPTEMBER
Going All the Way
HE MACWORLD WEB MERCHANT'S
Ak Companion” (June 1999) didn’t go
quite far enough in discussing e-commerce
site development. Sure, you can set up the
best site on the Web using Tom Negrino’s
suggestions, but if you don’t market it,
few people will ever see it.
While the Internet offers a way to
level the playing field for our niche food
business, getting eyeballs to view our
Web site has been our single biggest
challenge. Banner ads, print ads, public
relations, and other devices are essen-
tial—and often expensive—components
in addition to the creation and mainte-
nance of the site.
ELtizg MACDOUGALL
Wells, Maine
Left-Out LaserWriters
INCE I JUST BOUGHT AN iMAC, I
was very interested to see your recent
article on USB products (“USB from A
to Z,” June 1999).
Iran down the list of USB-to-serial
adapters, hoping I could find one that
would allow me to use my Apple Personal
LaserWriter LS. However, I found that
none of the products listed in the roundup
support serial LaserWriters like mine. Do
you know of any products on the market
(or in development) that do?
Exiza GALto
New York, New York
You are not alone in wanting to save your
LaserWriter, and at least one adapter manufitc~
turer has heard your plea. Keyspan (510/222-
0131, www.keyspan.com) says it plans to ship a
new USB-to-serial adapter that supports Laser~
Writers by the time you read this.—Ed.
1999
Es]
=|
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_-
Pa
we
hey
hy
\
=
Sosa
Sanity for Service Bureaus
HANKS FOR BRINGING MUCH
needed service-bureau submission
guidelines to the forefront for all designers
(“Don’t Sabotage Your Professional Print
Job,” Create, June 1999). The top ten were
dead-on but only put a dent in the dia-
tribes of everyday prepress troubleshoot-
ing. I was so relieved to find it isn’t just
my department that encounters these
problems. I can now prove they are not
anomalies that we randomly make up as an
excuse for not getting a job out on time.
I passed along the information to our
clients and our front office in hopes that
it will ease our troubled workplace. We
feel like an unlimited source of free soft-
ware training, often allowing our clients
to use us in fixing their files just as they
flee to another vendor. I keep dreaming of
a total cure, but thanks for treating some
of the symptoms.
CALLIE HOUSEHOLDER
Atlanta, Georgia
lier
READ STEPHEN BEALE’S ARTICLE,
“Don’t Sabotage Your Professional
Print Job” with great enthusiasm. I
found it to be pretty much on the money.
However, I would like to mention a
problem we come across too often on the
job: stylized fonts. For example, a job
will come in where the bold or italic box
for a font is selected in QuarkXPress.
These fonts may print fine on a laser
printer, but if the actual printer fonts are
missing, the italic or bold will print in
roman on high-end output devices,
instead of the way the client intended.
AARON KROUN
Woodside, New York
GoMac, Go!
if T WAS NICE TO SEE ACTION
GoMac 2.0 get some worthwhile
press (Reviews, June 1999). I’ve been a
GoMac devotee since version 1.0, And
while it was hard to make the leap from
$15 shareware, when Proteron owned it,
to a $40 application under Power On
Software, I’ve found the improvements
are well worth the cost.
Christopher Breen’s review left out
a couple of GoMac’s more endearing
features and conveniences. To manage
items in the Start menu, just click on
the Start button while holding down the
option key, and the window pops open.
Also, you can add control-strip modules
to the Clock Tray at the right side of the
task bar. Simply click anywhere on the
task bar and hold down the mouse but-
ton, and you get a pop-up menu that
includes Add Module and Remove
Module commands. So in addition to
launching and managing applications
easily, you can handle features such as
continues
www.macworld.com September 1999 17
ve is E-mail
iB TOP the,
real world,’
Still Using
Freebies?
Those free E-mailers are fine if E-mail
isn’t all that important to you. But if
your business depends on E-mail,
QuickMail Office is the smart move.
Feature-packed and easy to use,
QuickMail Office gives you the power
that comes only with a professional's
E-mail program. You can settle for
crippled freeware or you can get serious.
QuickMail Office 2.0, E-mail for people
who need to get things done.
Get Serious About
E-Mail! QuickMail
Choose 170 at www.macworld.com/getinfo
18 September 1999 MACWORLD
LETTERS
resolution or sound—even Internet con-
nections—on the fly.
STEVE GREENBLATT
Brooklyn, New York
Palm’s Poor PIM
RANKLIN TESSLER WAS WAY TOO
kind in giving a 34-mouse rating to
MacPac 2, the new Mac desktop soft-
ware for Palm handhelds (Reviews, June
1999). As he points out, MacPac 2 sends
notes attached to calendar items into
limbo, and simply ignores some repeat-
ing calendar items.
That violates the fundamental idea
that has made the Palm devices so suc-
cessful—having one body of information
available whenever and wherever you
want to access it, on a variety of platforms.
Now we're back to the days where we
have to say “except on a Mac.” After hav-
ing had the Mac fully connected to the
Palm, we're back to playing second fiddle
to PCs, or maybe we're playing first vio-
lin with only three strings.
Palm designers have been so smart
until now. What happened?
Jerr Byers
San Francisco, California
Mac users are divided on whether these short-
comings constitute a fatal flaw. Despite its
problems, I find that MacPac 2 offers much
more functionality than its poky predecessor,
but it still falls short of my favorite PIM, the
defunct Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact
bundle.—Franklin Tessler
HAVE BEEN USING MACPAC 2 WITH
a PalmPilot and found a good work-
around for the main problem described
in the review of this product (not being
able to attach notes to tasks or events on
the desktop that will appear on the Palm).
All you need to do is this: first, create the
task or event. Then create a note and
name it Handheld Note. Drag and drop
the note onto the task or event. The note
will be shown as an attached item on the
desktop and will also appear as an attached
note on the Palm.
VicToR LESSER
New York, New York
3Com/Palm Computing, maker of MacPac 2,
admits this solution might work but doesn’t rec-
ommend it, as it may lead to trouble down the
road.—Franklin Tessler
Opening a Can of Worms?
COULDN’T HELP BUT EXPERI-
ence déja vu when I read about Apple’s
decision to open part of the OS X Server
source code (“Apple Goes Open Source
with Mac Server,” News, June 1999). I
thought Apple would come to its senses
and give up or at least revamp its strategy.
But now that I see it in Macworld, 1 know
this cannot be.
Remember Mozilla, Netscape’s open-
source spin-off that never really amounted
to anything? Apple is following exactly
the same approach, and I hope for its sake
that it doesn’t end up in the same place.
Open source seems to be all the rage
these days with software manufacturers.
As Apple’s product manager for Mac OS
X Server said in the article, “It’s as if we
had hired a huge bunch of programmers
for free.” Haven’t we seen the results of
this type of corporate greediness and
laziness before? Apple, there’s no such
thing as a free lunch.
JerFRey PAUL
via the Internet
Supporting Sherlock
ENJOYED ANDREW GORE’S COL-
umn “Where’s Sherlock?” (The Vision
Thing, June 1999). When I first saw ads
for Sherlock, I thought it was just more
Web-related hype and brushed it off.
Then I installed OS 8.5 and started to
take a closer look. I was very impressed. It
greatly simplifies Web searches, and index-
ing my drives by content and searching for
files based on keyword content is really
fantastic, It has saved me so much time.
Sherlock is one of those how-did-I-
ever-live-without-it tools. I completely
agree that Apple should aggressively sup-
port and market Sherlock. If only the
Web sites that maintain the search data-
bases would get rid of stale URLs, the
efficiency and effectiveness of Web
searching would really improve!
Apple, don’t flush a good thing!
Sam GassTER
Los Angeles, California
A NDREW GORE CORRECTLY
asserts that Sherlock is “the most
easy-to-use search technology on any
platform.” Not only that, but it renders
virtually instant, on-target results every
continues
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When the world met the sleek
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Performance-driven.
And, of course, so is the TT.
If you want your website
to quicken millions of pulses,
take Flash for a spin.
www.macromedia.com
add life to the web
macromedia
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LETTERS
time. I love asking my PC-challenged
friends to find their own name. Invari-
ably the final choice is an Internet site that
mentions them, since none of them has
registered with any search engines. To
their amazement, newfound respect, and
envy, I have located multiple sites in mere
seconds in every case. Sherlock is contin-
ued proof that Macs rule!
DAN AUGSBURGER
Berrien Springs, Michigan
Don’t Hold Back Now
I AM SICK OF THE NAMBY-PAMBY
whiners out there in Macdom who can-
not grasp the necessity of change, focus,
radical ideas, and direction in Apple. I’ve
been reading letters in Macworld criticizing
Apple for the new G3 and the iMac, and I
have heard enough. Thankfully, Steve Jobs
has the chutzpah to take the Mac in radi-
cal new directions—forcing needed
change in what was a comatose, under-
achieving platform. You complained when
Apple was in the red for years, offering no
inspiring technologies and no real OS
direction—and now you complain because
that’sall history. Number one-selling com-
puters, flexible and efficient new technolo-
gies, radical designs, and even a bit of
humor. Oh, yeah—this is bad!
The Mac is back in fact and in spirit.
Ies time to embrace the radical changes
and get on board with the brightest future
Apple has seen in years.
There—I feel better now.
Ron TAVALIN
Palatine, Mlinois
Letters should be sent to Letters, Macworld, 301
Howard St,, 16th Fl., San Francisco, CA 94105; via
fax, 415/442-0766; or electronically, to letters@
macworld,com. Include a return address and day-
time phone number. Due to the high volume of mail
received, we can’t respond personally to each letter.
We reserve the right to edit all letters. All published
letters become the property of Macworld,
The viewable area for Eizo Nanao Tech-
nologies? FlexScan T960 is 19.6 inches
(‘Think Big,” June 1999).
Contrary to our assertion, Macromedia’s
Fireworks 2.0.2 does have tweening
capabilities (Reviews, July 1999). mm
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New features such as Workgroup Referencing, =
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Music for the Masses
The Vision Thing
by Andrew Gore
WHY MP3 AND THE MAC WILL REVOLUTIONIZE THE MUSIC WORLD
ONVERGENCE IS THE
bogeyman of media
megacorporations. In
the music industry, where
so much is made by so
many for doing so little,
the idea that artists can
now eliminate the
middleman and deliver
their content directly to their admirers is
a frightening thing indeed.
These music publishers should be
afraid—very afraid. Because MP3 has
finally arrived on the Mac. And once this
emerging standard for encoding and dis-
tributing high-quality audio combines
with Mac users’ creative zeal, the result-
ing tidal wave will be big enough to swal-
low media moguls whole.
Special Delivery
In the last couple of months I’ve finally
had the opportunity to tinker with MP3,
an extension of the MPEG multimedia
file format now famous for housing
extremely good-sounding music in fairly
small sound files. And while audiophiles
are practically frothing at the mouth over
claims that MP3 sound quality is as good
as that of compact discs, one thing that
can’t be challenged is that MP3 files are
much smaller, about one-tenth the size of
the equivalent data on an audio CD. MP3
files can be downloaded over the Internet,
or you can create your own from your
personal CD collection by using MP3-
encoding software. Best of all, you can
download your own custom mixes to
pager-size portable MP3 players, in addi-
tion to playing them on your Mac.
Diamond Multimedia recently an-
nounced the $269 USB-based Rio PMP.
500, the latest version of the leading MP3-
player hardware. The new Rio works with
any Mac with a USB port, can store two
hours of music on its built-in RAM, and has
a slot that can use removable SmartMedia
cards to add another hour of music to the
mix (see News, elsewhere in this issue).
Because MP3 players like the Rio store
music in RAM, they're the tops in terms of
stability. There are no moving parts, so
there's nothing to bounce, jog, or otherwise
disrupt the playback of your favorite tunes.
The only thing holding back MP3 on
the Mac has been software. Around the
Macworld offices, we've been testing the first
two commercial Mac MP3-encoding pro-
grams: Xing ‘Technology's $30 AudioCata-
lyst (already in version 2.0) and Casady &
Greene’s $49 SoundJam MP, which should
be available by the time you read this.
With MP3 encoders like these, copy-
ing an audio CD to your hard drive is
about as easy as sticking it in your
CD-ROM drive. In both SoundJam and
the shareware MacAmp, you can create
custom song sequences (or playlists) by
clicking on and dragging tracks from the
CDs you've recorded and from MP3
tracks you’ve downloaded from the Net.
‘Then there’s the issue of sound qua-
lity. I’m here to tell you that at higher sam-
pling rates—say, 144kHz—I simply can’t
tell the difference between songs recorded
in MP3 and those on a conventional audio
CD. I’m sure there is a difference—I just
can’t hear it. And truth be told, I’m not
that concerned about what I can’t hear.
Revolution 10
Copying your favorite CDs to your hard
drive is great. But the real power of
MP3 will be in the sounds you tune in
over the Internet.
Ever wonder why a CD can cost
upwards of $18 when the cost of materi-
als is about a buck? Distribution. Market-
ing. Advertising. Corporate profits. By
the time everyone’s done getting their
share of that price tag, the artist is left
with only a modest percentage of the take.
With MP3, suddenly the infrastruc-
ture disappears from the equation. Musi-
cians can charge a couple of dollars for an
entire CD's worth of music, keep most of
the proceeds (considerably
more than they’d see from the
sale of a CD), and you, the
consumer, save a bunch and
get your music in easily man-
aged files. Ever try to mix a
custom MiniDisc or audio-
tape? Let's just say the inter-
faces were designed by the
same folks who invented
VCRs. With MP3, you get to
use your Mac as your audio
dashboard. You can even use
plug-in “skins” to completely
customize your MP3 player's
interface. How cool is that?
Now that MP3 is finally
‘on the Mac, the revolution it
embodies will only accelerate.
The Mac is already the platform of
choice for many musicians. And with
MP3, those musicians will be able to
encode their works for distribution over
the Internet with ease.
Just add a few digital groupies who
will breathlessly follow a musician’s files
around the Web, and the record compa-
nies won't have any enticements left to
offer the aspiring rock virtuoso. m
Editor in Chief Andrew Gore is a co-
author of My iMac (IDG Books Worldwide,
1999). E-mail questions and comments to
Andy at visionthing@macworld.com.
www.macworld.com September 1999 23
STOP BY AND WE'LL
SHOW YOU HOW TO BUY
A COMPUTER.
STAY LONG ENOUGH
AND WE'LL SHOW YOU ie
HOW TO BUILD ONE.
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ose 67 at www.macworld.com/geti
SEPTEMBER 1999
raphics
Web Sites Take On Application Roles
CREATE AND MODIFY
GRAPHICS THROUGH
YOUR WEB BROWSER
by Stephen Beale
a he next time you need
to touch up a photo or
convert an image file,
| you may have an extra
software tool at your
disposal: your Web browser. A
handful of developers, includ-
ing Extensis (800/796-9798,
www.extensis.com) and a new
company called Avivo (415/
242-0400, www.atomz.com),
have introduced Web sites that
let you perform graphics oper-
ations that would otherwise be
handled by stand-alone soft-
ware. As Internet bandwidth
increases and developers look
for new sources of revenue,
such Web-based graphics apps
could become commonplace.
Web sites that duplicate
commercial software's features
are nothing new. For example,
Nertstudio.com offers tools for
creating simple Web graphics.
However, these sites are largely
geared toward casual users.
The new Web application sites
target graphics professionals.
Creative Pros Extensis,
best known as a developer of
graphics plug-ins, has launched
a Web site called Creativepro
com that offers discussion
forums, service directories,
links to industry news sources,
and information about soft-
ware products from Extensis
and other companies. Nothing
unusual—but Extensis has
ambitious plans to offer a vari-
ety of graphics services via
the site, including PDF-to-
HTML file conversions, digi-
tal photo enhancement, and
portfolio hosting. Extensis
plans to offer its first Web-
based application—a PDF pre-
flighting tool based on its Pre-
flight Pro software—shortly
after Creativepro.com goes
public in July. Extensis won't
charge for basic PDF pre-
flighting but eventually will
offer a more fully featured ver-
sion of the service for a fee.
Atomic Power Avivo, a
new company founded by ex-
Macromedia employees, has
launched a Web site—www
.atomz.com—that will offer
free software applications for
Web developers. The first app,
Atomz Search, lets you quickly
produce search engines for
your Web site. Using tools on
Atomz.com, you can create
customized results pages that
conform to your site’s design.
The free service is limited
to Web sites with fewer than
500 pages, and you must
include a “Powered by Atomz
.com” logo on the search page.
The company offers a premi-
um service, beginning at $30
continues
www.macworld.com September 1999 27
per month, for larger Web sites
or those that don’t want to dis-
play the logo. The premium
service also provides automatic
reindexing of your site; with
the free service, you must peri-
odically hit a reindex button
accessed through Atomz.com.
Avivo plans to offer other
server applications, including
workflow management and
dynamic generation of data
and graphics.
Extra! Extra! Targeting
the newspaper business,
B-Linked (800/254-6533,
www.b-linked.com) and
iPrint (www.iprint.com) have
teamed up to offer the Virtual
Ad Design Studio (VADS), a
service that allows advertisers
to create and customize print
ads using a Web browser. An
advertiser can take an ad cre-
ated for one newspaper, mod-
ify the copy, fonts, graphics,
and other elements, and then
redistribute the ad to other
publications.
28 September 1999
[ News
Other Vendors Although
they have not announced
plans for Web-based applica-
tions, most of the leading
graphics vendors have sub-
stantially stepped up their
Web presence.
In May, Macromedia
announced Shockwave.com,
a new business venture that
will manage an entertain-
ment-oriented Web site of
the same name (see “Macro-
media Bets the Store on
Flash 4,” News, August 1999).
MetaCreations offers direct
links to online interest
groups through menu com-
mands in its software pack-
ages. For example, the Bryce-
Talk command in Bryce 4
accesses an online forum for
Bryce users. And Adobe, as
part of an ongoing restruc-
turing, says it will beef up the
electronic-commerce features
on its Web site, making it
easier for customers to buy
the company’s software.
MACWORLD
MP3 Audio
Tunes Up on
the Mac
NEW SOFTWARE LETS
YOU CREATE MP3 TITLES
by Macworld Staff
P3, the audio for-
mat that has gained
a huge following on
the Web, is tuning
up to occupy center
stage on the Macintosh.
Apple’s QuickTime 4 soft-
ware, which shipped in June,
lets you add MP3 audio to
QuickTime movies, and
Macromedia’s recently an-
nounced Flash 4 software
puts MP3 in Flash anima-
tions. Now Casady & Greene
(800/359-4920, www.casadyg
.com) has taken MP3 a step
further by offering a $49 pro-
gram that lets you encode
MP3 audio in addition to
playing it back.
Sound Jam MP, sched-
uled to ship by the time you
read this, will include a cus-
tomizable player with con-
trols similar to those found in.
AppleCD Audio Player. An
application programming
interface for the player will
allow developers to create
different looks, including
players with large buttons or
irregular shapes. Casady &
Greene also plans to offer a
collection of MP3 songs. A
version of the software will
be bundled with Diamond
Multimedia’s forthcoming
Rio PMP 500 digital-audio
player, the first MP3 player
to offer Mac support.
MP3 has become a pop-
ular music format for the
Web, thanks to its compact
file sizes and near-CD-qual-
ity audio. You can store as
many as 2,300 MP3 titles on
an 8GB hard drive. MP3 has
raised concerns in the re-
cording industry because it
makes it easy to pirate copy-
righted music. However,
some musicians have em-
braced the format because
they can offer samples of
their recordings directly to
potential fans, bypassing the
music industry's convention-
al distribution channels.
Along with Sound Jam
MP, Casady & Greene has
released upgrades to Conflict
Catcher and Spell Catcher, as
well as two new products,
iLiner and Speed Startup.
iLiner is a $49 outlining tool
that lets you take notes while
viewing QuickTime content;
it also provides access to the
automatic document-summa-
rization features in Apple’s
Sherlock software. Speed
Startup, a $19.95 utility avail-
able exclusively through the
Casady & Greene Web site,
speeds system boot-ups,
especially on PowerBooks or
Macintosh systems with large
amounts of RAM.
Photoshop
Upgrade Gets
Web Savvy
IMAGEREADY ROLLED
INTO PHOTOSHOP 5.5
by Stephen Beale
hen Adobe Sys-
tems (800/685-
3612, www.adobe
.com) released
Photoshop 5.0
last year, many users thought
the company had made a big
mistake. Rather than add
enhanced Web-graphics capa-
bilities to its image-editing
powerhouse, Adobe chose to
SUZANNE ROADY
tntay cone
place those features into a
new program called Image-
Ready. The problem—aside
from weaknesses in Image-
Ready itself—was that you
still had to use Photoshop to
begin many of your Web-
graphics projects. Meanwhile,
Macromedia introduced
FireWorks, a much
more successful pro-
gram that integrated
most of the functions
needed to create
images for the Web.
With Photoshop
5.5, Adobe appears to
have recognized the
error of its ways. Many
of the Web-graphics
features previously
found in Image-
Ready have been
incorporated into
Photoshop. Other functions,
such as animation, image slic-
ing, and JavaScript rollovers,
are available in a new version
of ImageReady that is bun-
dled with—and tightly inte-
grated with—the image-edit-
ing package. Instead of using
separate programs to create
Web animations and other
graphics, you can now do itall
in Photoshop. Adobe will no
longer offer ImageReady as a
separate program.
Web Features Photo-
shop’s new Web savvy is
apparent in many areas. For
example, in addition to dis-
playing an out-of-gamut
warning when you specify an
unprintable color, Photoshop
5.5 can display a warning
when you specify a color out-
side the 216-color Web-safe
palette. If you’re working on
a transparent GIF image,
Photoshop can now display
the transparency.
The color-reduction and
optimization features previ-
ously available in ImageReady
have been rolled into the big
program: a new Save For Web
dialog box lets you experi-
ment with different color
palettes and visually compare
up to four versions of an
image. You can lock colors, so
they are not affected by
palette-reduction operations,
and sort the palette based on
how often the colors are
used. As with
FireWorks, you can
also specify a targeted file
size and have the program
apply. whatever compression
is needed to achieve it. A
gamma preview lets you see
images as they appear in Win-
dows or the Mac OS (images
look darker in Windows).
Tf you want to slice or ani-
mate the image, you can
launch ImageReady 2.0 from
within Photoshop.
Going to Print The
upgrade includes other
enhancements, most notably
new masking functions that
duplicate many features found
in Extensis MaskPro, Chroma-
Graphics MagicMask, and
Ultimatte Knockout. A new
Background Eraser makes it
easier to remove backgrounds,
and you can create complex
masks by drawing inner and
outer boundaries along an
object’s edge.
New Actions in Photo-
shop 5.5 automate the cre-
ation of Web photo galleries,
complete with thumbnails
and HTML links to full-size
photos. You can also produce
photo packs that include mul-
tiple sizes of a single image.
Adobe plans to ship the
$610 package by the time you
read this. Upgrades from
Photoshop 5.0 or Image-
Ready 1.0 will cost $129;
upgrades from earlier Photo-
shop versions will cost $199.
Adobe also plans to offer a
retail version of Photoshop
5.0 LE. for midrange users.
The software, which lacks
CMYK, color-manage-
ment, and channels func-
tions, will ‘sell for less
than $200. Previously,
Adobe offered Photoshop LE
only as bundled software for
scanners or digital cameras.
Canvas Update
Introduces
SpriteEffects
UPGRADE APPLIES IMAGE
FILTERS TO VECTORS
by Stephen Beale
eneba Canvas 6, intro-
duced in 1998, imple-
mented a new tech-
nology called Sprite-
Layers that lets you
create sophisticated masking
and transparency effects using
bitmapped images and vector
graphics. Now, less than a year
later, Deneba Software (305/
596-5644, www.deneba.com)
is preparing to ship Canvas 7,
an upgrade to the integrated
graphics software that adds
another new technology,
called SpriteEffects.
Vector Filters Canvas
combines image-editing and
yector-graphics capabilities,
and the new SpriteEffects
function thus borrows from
both Adobe Photoshop and
‘Macromedia FreeHand. As
with Photoshop’s Adjustment
layers, you can apply filters
such as Blur and Sharpen to a
layer that affects any underly-
ing graphic. But SpriteEffects
also work much like Free-
Hand lenses: you can use
continues
Product
WATCH
‘More Pixels Now that digital
cameras have broken the
megapixel barrier, manufacturers
are racing to offer two-megapixel
models (see “Digital Cameras
Develop," elsewhere in this issue).
The $699 RDC-5000, from Ricoh
(800/742-6410, www.ricohcpg
com), captures images at up to
2.3 million, or 1,792 by 1,200,
pixels. The camera includes 2.3%
‘optical zoom and a USB connec-
tion for easy download to iMacs
and blue G3s. The $699 PhotoPC
800, from Epson (800/463-7766,
www.epson.com), features a
2,14-megapixel sensor, for a max-
imum resolution of 1,600 by
1,200 pixels. For the consumer
crowd, Epson's $349 PhotoPC
650 captures 1.09 million, or
4,252 by 864, pixels. Both Epson
cameras can download images
through USB or serial ports.
Astral Scans Expanding its
Astra line, Umax (800/562-0311,
www.umax.com) has released
two new flatbed scanners for
home-office Mac users, The $129
Astra 2000U and $169 Astra
2100U both offer 36-bit color and
600-by-1,200-dpi resolution, with
USB ports for connection to iMacs
or blue G3s. The Astra 2100U fea-
tures three programmable push
buttons to automate scanning,
direct copying to a connected
printer, or other operations. Umax
also announced it will bundle SCSI
cards with its PowerlLook and
‘Mirage series scanners to allow
connection to blue G3 systems,
which lack a built-in SCS! port.
continues
Project Your iMac Let your
iMac's inner beauty shine on the
wall or through another monitor.
The $99 iPresenter, from Power R
(800/729-6970, www.powerr
com), is a video adapter that lets
iMacs drive a multimedia projector,
extemal monitor, or television. The
adapter connects to the monitor
cable inside the iMac.
Illustrator 8 Update Adobe
(800/833-6687, www.adobe
com) released IMlustrator 8.0.1, a
free update to the popular drawing
software. The patch fixes several
bugs, including one that causes
crashes under Mac OS 8.5.X.
Download the update at www
.adobe.com/prodindex/illustrator/
update801 html
PDF for OS X Stone Design
(605/345-4800, wwwstone.com)
has announced PStill, a PostScript-
to-PDF file-conversion program
that runs under Mac OS X Server
software. The $129 package,
scheduled to ship by the time you
read this, converts PostScript and
EPS files to Adobe's Portable
Document Format.
FileMaker Fix. FileMaker (800/
325-2747, www.filemaker.com)
has released a free FileMaker Pro
update that fixes bugs and adds a
new data-validation feature. The
latter allows you to set up data
fields that validate whether
entries are numeric, date, or time
values. You can download the
FileMaker Pro 4.1v2 updater from
www.filemaker.com/support/
41v2release.html—EDITED BY
‘MICHAEL GOWAN
Bézier drawing tools to modify
the size and shape of the
SpriteEffect—the area affected
by the filter—and you can
detach a SpriteEffect from one
object and apply it to others.
SpriteEffects have another
property unique to Canvas:
they let you apply Photoshop
filters—including third-party
plug-ins—to vector graphics,
as long as the filters support
Photoshop’s Actions palette.
When you apply the filter, the
lens displays a rendered ver-
sion of the vector graphic at a
resolution you define. How-
ever, you can still edit the
drawing in its vector form, and
you can detach the lens and
apply it to other vector objects.
Other Goodies Along
with the SpriteEffects technol-
ogy, Deneba has spruced up
the Canvas interface. The pro-
gram’ many palettes are con-
solidated in a single menu,
and Canvas now includes a
Photoshop-style Navigator
window that makes it easy to
move around a document in
magnified views. You can also
modify vector objects while
viewing their stroke and fill
characteristics; previous ver-
sions let you edit objects only
in a wireframe mode.
‘The program’s Web capa-
bilities have been spruced up
as well. You can create GIF
animations, experiment with
color-reduced palettes, and
[ Hews
preview up to four versions of
each image to see which set-
tings offer the best trade-off
between file size and image
quality. Deneba has junked
Colada, the Java-based Web
export component of Canvas
6, and now provides direct
export of Dynamic HTML.
Deneba expects to ship the
$375 package this September.
VR Toolbox
Prevails in
QTVR Suit
ROUNDABOUT LOGIC
PULLS COMPETING TITLES
by Macworld Staff
R Toolbox (877/878-
6657, www.vrtoolbox
«com) has won a
legal battle with
Roundabout Logic
over the rights to QuickTime
VR (QTVR) authoring pro-
grams sold by the former as
VR PanoWorx and VR
ObjectWorx. Under the
terms of a recent settlement,
Roundabout Logic, which
offered the same software
under the respective names
Nodester and Widgetizer,
will no longer offer either of
those programs. VR Toolbox
will assume technical-support
responsibilities for Nodester
and Widgetizer and also
plans to offer upgrades to its
own versions.
Nodester, used to create
QTVR panoramas, and
Widgetizer, used to make
QTVR object movies, were
originally written by Econ
‘Technologies, a Florida pro-
gramming shop, and pub-
lished by Panimation and
later Roundabout Logic. In
1998, Econ sold the rights to
both programs to a new com-
pany called VR Toolbox.
Roundabout Logic sued,
claiming that it had exclusive
rights to the software; VR
Toolbox and Econ countered
that Econ was free to sell the
tights to another publisher.
VR Toolbox is a subsidiary of
Emery Manufacturing and
Equipment, a manufacturer
of QTVR object rigs. In
addition to VR PanoWorx
and VR ObjectWorx, VR
Toolbox offers VR Scene-
Worx for creating multinode
QTVR movies, and The VR
Worx, a bundle of all three
programs.
Roundabout Logic has
issued a statement acknowl-
edging VR Toolbox’s owner-
ship of the software. The
company failed to return calls
seeking additional comment.
Epson Joins MFP Fray with
Stylus Sean
A SCANT TWO MONTHS AFTER CANON INTRODUCED THE
first Mac-based multifunction peripheral, Epson
America (800/289-3776, www.epson.com) is getting
into the act. Epson's new Stylus Scan series incorpo-
rates a scanner and ink-jet printer—comparable to the
Stylus Color 740—in one unit. Three models are avail-
able. The $349 Stylus Scan 2000 features a sheetfed
scanner; the $499 Stylus Scan 2500 and $699 Stylus Scan 2500 Plus include
a flatbed scanner equivalent to the company’s Perfection 636 model. The
Plus unit also sports an automatic document feeder. All three have USB ports
but no serial connections.—-MACWORLD STAFF
SUEANNE ROABY
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NEW SLIM POWERBOOKS
OFFER MORE AND LESS
S MOST PORTABLE USERS WILL
tell you, the three most impor-
tant considerations in a notebook
computer are size, size, and size.
Luckily for Mac road warriors,
Apple’s latest PowerBook line offers
major improvements in all three. Apple’s
PowerBook G3 notebooks have distin-
guished themselves as performance lead-
ers among laptop computers. But users
have paid a heavy price for that power—
literally—as they lugged the bulky
8-pound portables through airports and
hotel lobbies. No more. With the latest
Mac laptops, Apple has engineered out
some two pounds of bulk while adding
more features, boosting speed, and
extending battery life.
Passing the Weight Test
From the moment you pick up one of the
“bronze” PowerBooks (the nickname
comes from the translucent bronze key-
board), you can tell that Apple has given—
and taken away. The design generally
resembles that of the previous PowerBook
models, with a sleek black chassis; smooth,
rounded corners; and a pair of expansion
bays for storage devices and batteries. But
it’s just 1.7 inches thick—about a third of
an inch thinner than its predecessor—and
weighs in at 5.9 pounds with CD-ROM
drive and battery.
Thanks to its crash diet, the new
PowerBook is light and easy to handle,
PowerBook G3s
but it still has a solid and resilient feel.
However, with the slimmer expansion
bay, storage devices and batteries designed
for Apple’s previous PowerBooks won't fit
in the new one. Aside from VST Tech-
nologies’ Zip and SuperDisk drives, there
are few products available at press time
that work with the new bay.
Macworld Lab tested standard con-
figurations of both new PowerBook
models. One model features a 400MHz
G3 CPU, and the other a 333MHz chip.
Both models include 64MB of RAM, an
ATI Rage LT Pro graphics controller
with 8MB of video memory, a 14.1-inch
active-matrix display, a 10/100BaseT
Ethernet connection, and a 56-Kbps
modem. The 400MHz model also fea-
tures a 1MB L2 cache, a 6GB hard drive,
and a DVD-ROM drive. The 333MHz
model sports a 512K L2 cache, a 4GB
hard drive, and a 24x CD-ROM drive.
At press time, you couldn’t order the
333MHz model with a DVD drive. Apple
says it will offer DVD as a build-to-order
option for the 333MHz model, but you
won't be able to upgrade to DVD after
you've purchased the machine.
Reviews you can trust: Macworld rates only final shipping products, not prototypes. What we review is what you can actually buy.
OUTSTANDING: $99
VERY GooD: $86 Goo: 68$
FLAWED: $8 UNACCEPTABLE: $
34
September 1999 MACWORLD
ARNOLD NOSED
As you can see in the benchmark,
“Bronze PowerBooks,” the 400MHz
PowerBook G3 far outpaced the 300MHz,
reference system in processor performance
and also earned the top scores in our Disk
and Graphics tests. The 333MHz model
‘was less impressive, lagging slightly behind
the reference system in processor perfor-
mance, slightly ahead in graphics perfor-
mance, and about even in disk performance.
The likely culprit for the low Processor
score is the model’s smaller L2 cache. But
keep these numbers in perspective: this is
still a wicked-fast laptop.
A Longer Life?
Thanks to the lower power consumption
of the latest G3 chips, along with new
power-management features in Mac OS
8.6, Apple claims that you can run these
laptops up to five hours on a single bat-
tery, or ten hours when using two batter-
ies, To achieve such long battery life, you
need to step down the CPU speed, using
the Energy Saver control panel. When
testing at full speed, we found that the
400MHz model lasted for three hours
running a standard suite of business-
application tasks; the 333MHz version
kept its charge about a half hour longer.
When we ran this same suite on the pre-
vious-generation 300MHz PowerBook
G3, also at full speed, we got three hours
of battery life under Mac OS 8.6 and
2 hours, 50 minutes under Mac OS 8.5.1.
Apple says that you can watch a DVD
feature movie (namely, Austin Powers)
twice on a single battery’s power. Again,
this claim is based on running the CPU.
ata slower speed. At full speed, we ran out
of power with about 30 minutes left to the
end of the second showing. Fortunately,
running at the slower CPU speed has no
effect on DVD performance.
Our conclusion? While the bronze
PowerBooks offer a modest improvement
in battery life, the 400MHz unit also
offers considerably greater speed, mak-
ing the aggregate a good step forward in
battery life versus CPU performance.
Other Goodies
Portable users cannot live by battery life
alone. And here, the new PowerBooks
offer some nice improvements.
These are the first PowerBooks to
include built-in USB ports (two) and
FireWire connectivity, although the latter
is available only through Newer Tech-
nology’s FireWire2Go PC Card. And
unlike Apple’s desktop models, which
have done away with older hardware
interfaces, the new PowerBooks still
include a SCSI port as well as a 4-Mbps
IrDA port. However, the ADB port is
gone and you get only one PC Card slot
instead of the traditional two. The new
PowerBooks also return a feature missing
from the previous generation of Apple
laptops: the ability to drive the internal
display and an external monitor simulta-
neously. Earlier G3 models required a
separate graphics adapter to do this.
Along with these major additions, the
new models offer a host of small-but-
useful improvements. It is now easier to
remove the keyboard if you want to access
internal components. Before, you had to
remove any devices in the expansion bays;
now you simply release two latches and
remove a keyboard-locking screw. Apple
also improved the design of the expan-
sion-bay latches, making it more difficult
to accidentally eject a drive or battery.
The keyboard's translucence, while
adding a nice design flair, occasionally
tricked us into thinking the caps lock key
was engaged. And if you use PC-emula-
tion software, you may lament the loss of
dedicated Delete, Insert, Print Scrn,
Scroll Lock, and Pause/Break keys, pre-
viously available through the Power-
Book’s function keys. Also missing are
dedicated controls for ejecting PC Cards
and controlling mute, volume, and con-
trast, although the latter three controls
are available through function keys.
‘The biggest problem we encountered
in our testing related to the PowerBooks’
USB implementation. The USB drivers
that shipped with the laptops don’t seem to
recognize the PowerBook Sleep function,
so putting the machines to sleep with an
attached, unpowered USB device (such as
a keyboard or mouse) caused a variety of
minor problems, including the occasional
system crash. We expect that Apple and
peripheral developers will provide updated
drivers that address this problem.
Macworld's Buying Advice
Despite the $1,000 price difference, we
recommend the 400MHz PowerBook
G3 over the 333MHz model due to the
G3/400's built-in DVD-ROM drive and
impressive performance numbers. How-
ever, the slower model still delivers
plenty of laptop power for a mere
$2,499. Either PowerBook will satisfy
those hankering for a light load but
unwilling to give up features—or the
Mac OS—to achieve it—anorew core
www.macworld.com September 1999 35
| Reviews
Color Ink-Jet Printers
HP AND CANON CHALLENGE EPSON WITH NEW MODELS
NTIL RE! EPSON AMER-
ica had the Mac ink-jet-printer
market pretty much to itself as
rivals focused their efforts on PC
users. But now that Apple is back
on its feet, Epson finally has some serious
competition, in the form of new printers
from Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Canon.
Macworld Lab tested Canon’s $320
BJC-6000, Hewlett-Packard’s $300.
DeskJet 882C and $400 DeskJet 895C,
and Epson’s $299 Stylus Photo 750 and
$499 Stylus Photo 1200. The DeskJet
895C is a faster, network-ready version
of the four-color DeskJet 882C; both
target general business applications. The
BJC-6000, which lets you choose from
four- or six-color output, is another
general-purpose printer. The Epson
printers, sporting six-color printing
capabilities, target photo output. Epson
also offers two general-purpose Mac
printers, the Stylus Color 740 (#¢¢8;
Reviews, January 1999) and Stylus Color
900 (8448; Reviews, June 1999).
The results? If you have an older,
pre-USB Macintosh, Epson is still your
only option, because it’s the only manu-
facturer that continues to offer a serial
port. But if your Mac is USB enabled,
all these printers offer top-notch output
for reasonable prices.
Output Quality
To test image quality, Macworld Lab pro-
duced a set of output samples from each
printer and submitted them to a jury for
evaluation. The samples included text,
photos, and line art. Jurors compared
each sample with the original print.
The HP printers feature four-color
output, while the other models offer six-
color output. Nevertheless, all five printers
scored high for photo quality. The HP
printers especially impressed us—their out-
put quality on glossy paper rivaled the six-
color photos of the other tested models.
However, we noticed some striping when
printing photos on plain paper.
Although the Canon BJC-6000 uses
an optional six-color cartridge for pho-
tos, our jury thought its default photo
output was slightly dark. In our first pass
with the Epson printers, magenta was too
36 September 1999 MACWORLD
strong and yellow too weak, but we were
able to correct this using Apple’s Color-
Sync 2.6.1 and Epson's device profiles.
When printing black text from a
Microsoft Word document on plain bond
paper, the HP and Canon printers pro-
duced excellent results, although the HP
300 dpi (HP) or 360 dpi (Epson and
Canon). (The HP models print black ink
at up to 600 dpi, but HP doesn’t quote
the maximum color resolution. The
Epson and Canon models print black and
color at 720 by 1,440 dpi.)
As we expected, the higher-quality
pages took dramatically longer to print—
in some cases, ten times longer—than the
low-resolution versions, But the perfor-
mance champ was clearly the HP 895C. In
our high-resolution Photoshop test, it
produced an image in 7 minutes, com-
The Canon BJC-6000 (left) and the Epson Stylus Photo 750
models printed bold text a little heavily.
‘The Epson printers generated thin spi-
der lines in bold text, but when printing
on photo ink-jet paper, they exhibited
excellent output quality.
One often overlooked issue with ink-
jet printers is the durability of the prints.
Epson claims that photos produced on
its ink-jet printers will last two to three
years in normal sunlight. HP claims that
the carbon pigment in its black ink
allows documents to last substantially
longer than that in sunlight.
Print Speed
Print speed can be deceptive, because
most manufacturers quote the speed you
get at the printer’s lowest resolution, not
at the higher resolutions required for the
best-looking output. In Macworld Lab’s
print tests, we timed output from two
programs—Microsoft Word and Adobe
Photoshop—at each printer’s maximum
resolution and at lower resolutions of
pared with about 10 minutes for the other
printers. When printing the Word docu-
ment at low resolution, the HP 895C
cranked out 6.6 pages per minute (ppm)
versus 4.9 ppm for the Canon, 4.3 ppm for
the HP 882C, 1.8 ppm for the Epson Sty-
lus Photo 750, and 1.2 ppm for the Stylus
Photo 1200. The latter speed translates
into a 6-minute wait for 10 pages.
Paper Handling
All five printers can handle a variety of
paper sizes, from 4-by-6-inch cards up to
banner-length paper. The Epson Stylus
Photo 1200, the large-format version of the
Stylus Photo 750, can print full-bleed on
tabloid stocks. All of the models can print
on 110-pound paper stock, but the BJC-
6000 can handle up to 143-pound stocks.
As with all ink-jet printers, you get the best
output quality, especially for photographs,
when printing on glossy photo paper.
The HP printers feature a front-
loading paper path, reducing the amount
3
3
3
of desk space they take up. HP's design
also protects the input tray, making the
printer more child resistant than the
models from Canon and Epson.
Consumables
Among the printers reviewed here,
Canon’s BJC-6000 has the most flexible
inksystem. The box includes a black print
head with a black-ink tank, and a color
print head with tanks for cyan, magenta,
and yellow inks. Each print head lasts
5,000 to 6,000 pages; the tanks themselves
last 500 to 840 pages. You can replace
individual tanks as they run out—a great
feature, because sometimes you'll run out
of one color long before the others are
depleted. For six-color printing, you need
to buy a $42.95 photo print head with
tanks for black, light cyan, and light
magenta inks. You install this next to the
three-color print head, replacing the
black-ink cartridge.
The BJC-6000 also features a useful
low-ink warning that shows up in your
Mac’s Print Progress dialog box.
The Epson Stylus Photo printers
feature two ink cartridges, one for black
and one for the other five colors. A soft-
ware utility informs you if ink levels are
low, but you get less warning than the
Canon printer provides.
Although some HP printers offer a six-
color printing option, the 895C and 882C
are limited to four colors: one cartridge
for black and one for cyan, yellow, and
magenta, Neither printer, nor the included
software, features a low-ink warning.
Connectivity
Epson’s printers are the clear winners here,
because each provides a serial connection
for older Macs, in addition to a parallel
port for PCs and USB for iMacs and blue
G3s. You can also print directly from
Epson’s PhotoPC 7502 digital camera.
The Canon and HP printers limit their
Mac connectivity to USB. Worse, Canon's
USB connection kit is available only asa $70.
option; the printer itself costs $250. All
three companies offer Ethernet options for
their printers, except HP's DeskJet 882C.
Software
Epson’s longtime commitment to the
Mac community shows in its software.
Of the printers reviewed here, only
Epson’s models include bundled software
for the Mac. The Stylus Photo 750
includes Polaroid Photomax Pro for
image editing, ArcSoft Photoprinter 2.0
for creating photo layouts, and ArcSoft
Photobase 2.0 for keeping image data-
bases. The Stylus Photo 1200 includes
Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE, Vivid Details’
Test Strip 2.0, and a trial version of
Altamira’s Genuine Fractals 2.0,
Epson’s printer driver isn’t too shabby,
either, offering extensive color-manage-
ment and image-adjustment features.
However, it would be nice if the software
included a Return To Default button.
Battling Ink-Jet Printers
Canon's printer driver offers simple
adjustments in its basic operating mode
but includes an advanced option that lets
you tweak individual colors. And it sports
that elusive Return To Default button we
wish other manufacturers would offer.
Canon’s software also permits two- and
four-up printing.
HP’s driver is also simple: just
choose your paper and desired output
quality, and you're set for great output.
HP’s software also puts a printer icon
on the desktop, permitting drag-and-
drop printing. However, some features
HP offers on the Windows side, such as
its cartridge-alignment utility and Web-
Smart printing software, are not avail-
able for the Macintosh.
Macworld's Buying Advice
All of the printers reviewed here offer
excellent output quality, so the decision
boils down to what you want to do with
them. For home users, the low price and
child-resistant design of HP’s DeskJet
882C make it a good choice. For small
businesses, the versatility and large ink
supply of Canon’s BJC-6000 make for a
winning combination, although HP’s
DeskJet 895C, along with Epson’s Stylus
Color 740 and Stylus Color 900, are also
worth considering. Budget-minded pho-
tographers and graphics professionals
should consider the Epson Stylus Photo
1200 for its tabloid prints and color-
adjustment capabilities.—Kevin miTcHELL
‘Company's
Estimated
Company Product ‘Mouse Rating Price Contact Pros Cons
Canon USA BJC-6000 an $320° 800/652-2606 Excellent output quality, No serial port; USB available
wyww.ecsiicanon.com, flexible ink system. only in separate kit; photo
ink cartridge costs extra.
Epson America Stylus Photo 750 4008 $299 800/463-7766 Excellent photo quality, Mediocre text quality
wowrw.epson.com serial and USB interfaces; on plain paper.
good software.
Stylus Photo 1200 #448 $499 800/463-7766 Excellent photo quality, Mediocre text quality
wnvwiepson.com serial and USB interfaces; on plain paper.
good software;
can print tabloid sie.
Hewlett-Packard Desklet 882C $300 180/752-0900 Excellent output quality, No serial port;
www.hp.com quiet. rio low-ink indicator.
Desklet 895¢ fi $400 '800/752-0900 Excellent output quality, No sevlal port;
woww.hip.com Quiet: fast. no low-ink indicator.
* Includes the optional $70 USB connection kit
www.macworld.com September 1999 37
Reviews
USB CD-RW Drives
NEW OFFERINGS FROM LACIE, QPS, AND SONY PLAY WELL WITH USB
HEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT,
WAR @f itsamezing that CD-rewritable
BIG 0-21) drives work at all
\ | We with USB. Although the bus
offers a respectable throughput
of 12 Mbps, various devices share that
bandwidth. A printer may not care if
another device is using the bus and caus-
ing a delay, but CD-RW drives must burn
all the information at a steady rate; if they
run out of information before complet-
ing the session, the disk becomes useless.
To see if CD-RW drives could func-
tion in the world of USB, Macworld Lab
tested QPS’s Que, Sony’s Spressa USB
CRXI100E/X, and LaCie’s 226 CDRW-
USB. We found that all three drives deliv-
ered consistently, differing primarily in
price, speed, and backup ability.
All three drives can record on CD-R
(write-once) media and CD-RW (rewrit-
able) media and can read from both
CD-R and CD-RW. Using the standard
notation—CD-R recording speed, fol-
lowed by CD-RW recording speed, then
reading speed—the QPS is rated at
4x2x8x, the Sony at 4x2x6x, and the
LaCie at 2x2x6x.
The Sony and QPS drives burned
600MB ontoa CD-R in 18 minutes, while
the LaCie took 37 minutes. (By compar-
ison, the fastest SCSI recorders can burn
the same data in 9 minutes.) All three
recorders burned the same data onto a
CD-RW in 37 minutes. To increase the
odds of a successful recording, the QPS
stores information in a 2MB buffer; the
Sony and LaCie use a IMB buffer, stan-
dard for SCSI recorders. In our tests,
CD-RW Drives Compared
38 September 1999 MACWORLD
QPS's Que (top) and Sony's Spressa
buffer size didn’t affect performance.
Copying a 600MB CD to the iMac’s
hard disk took 14 minutes (the fastest you
can transfer data over USB) for the Sony,
15 minutes for the LaCie, and 18 min-
utes for the QPS. Read speed isn’t as crit-
ical as write speed, however, since most
people will use the iMac’s faster (24x)
internal CD-ROM drive.
The Software Edge
The QPS and LaCie drives ship with
Adaptec’s Toast 3.8 for recording, while
the Sony comes with the significantly less
intuitive Discribe 2.4.1 from CharisMac.
You can’t simply drop data on Discribe
and record, as you can with Toast; you
must first decide whether this is a new
recording or one you've already saved,
specify a format (HES, ISO, or audio),
choose your files, confirm your selection,
and then finally begin recording.
On the other hand, Dantz Develop-
ment’s Retrospect backup software sup-
ports only the Sony Spressa. Dantz says
the next version of Retrospect (due later
$
this year) should support the LaCie, while
support for the QPS is pending based on
further testing.
Apple recommends that iMac users
update their firmware to version 1.2 to
ensure proper operation of USB devices.
Conveniently, both the QPS and LaCie
drives provide this update on CD; Sony
plans to include the update with recorders
that ship in August.
Outward Appearances
You can tell from a distance what the QPS
drive is up to—the large LED on the front
is green when the drive is attached and
ready to go, orange when the drive is read-
ing, and red when it’s writing. The LaCie’s
small LED simply turns red to signal
recording, while the Sony Spressa is even
less informative—whether the drive is
reading or writing, the light is always
amber and always blinking. All three
drives have audio-out and headphone
jacks with volume controls, but those fea-
tures work only on PCs—not on Macs.
Macworld's Buying Advice
If you can live without backup for the
moment, choose the QPS Que; it’s the
least expensive of the three and by far
the most colorful. If backup is a priority,
go with the Sony Spressa CRX100E/X
(the only drive Retrospect supports at
press time) and get a copy of Toast 4.0 for
more-intuitive recording. Both drives are
a better deal than the LaCie 226 CDRW-
USB—it’s almost as expensive as the Sony
drive, yet its writable speed is only half
that of the other two.—kevin mitcHELL
\Jo ahead, upgrade to that new G3 without sacrificing the SCSI peripherals
you depend on, And in case you didn’t know, Adaptec® SCSI cards support Apple’s
old SCSI Manager and newer SCSI Manager 4.3 devices so you can connect to
whatever SCSI peripheral you might be using. But it gets even better. Adaptec
SCSI significantly outperforms Apple’s previous built-in SCSI, enabling your
Jaz, scanner, and other peripherals to operate at peak performance. So if you want
to upgrade to a new blue G3 without sacrificing anything, get an Adaptec SCSI
card. For more info i www.adaptec.com/mac.
Audio CD-Writing Software
[Reviews
PROFESSIONAL CD-MASTERING APPLICATIONS MIND YOUR P'S AND Q'S
REATING CUSTOM AUDIO
CD-ROMs is no longer an exotic
pastime practiced by those blessed
with more money than sense. CD-
ROM writers, or burners, are now
widely available and affordable enough
for us common folk, and they come with
software so simple that a reasonably
bright chimpanzee could burn a CD.
As easy and economical as this process
may be, the software that ships with today’s
CD-ROM burners—usually Adaptec’s
‘Toast—isn’t full-featured enough to pro-
duce truly professional audio CDs. If you
audio cards, which output sound at higher
bit rates than Apple’s 16-bit Sound Man-
ager. WaveBurner offers similar support
for Emagic’s Audiowerk cards, but the
version we tested doesn’t yet support
Digidesign cards. Likewise, MasterList
CD won't recognize the Emagic cards.
Jam is content to route sound through any
card that has a Sound Manager driver.
Another consideration is the kind of
work you do. MasterList CD is intended
for professional users who prepare refer-
ence CDs for duplication. Unlike the other
applications, it lets you set up to 100 refer-
ence points within a CD track
list; you can compare the vol-
ume among several tracks by
calling up different locations in
the playlist.
Complete though Master-
List CD may be, its interface is
anything but friendly, There
are very few graphical elements
here—mostly number fields
Doing the Wave With its waveform interface, Emagic's Wave-
Burner 1.0 makes it easy to create crossfades.
want to create discs without audible gaps
between tracks, tracks that crossfade into
each other, or an audio master CD for a
CD-mastering house, you need Adaptec’s
Jam 2.5, Digidesign’s MasterList CD 2.1,
or Emagic’s WaveBurner 1.0. The one you
select depends on your hardware, the
intended purpose of your CD, and your
tolerance for an unintuitive interface.
Hold the Toast, Please
Unlike Toast, which produces both data
and audio CDs, the three applications we
reviewed create only audio CDs that con-
form to the Red Book standard. All three
Jet you work with the minutiae of Red Book
audio—the P and Q subcodes that control
such aspects of audio CDs as copy protec-
tion and index numbering. The apps also
letyou create crossfades between tracks and
tweak the volume of individual tracks.
Although none of the three requires
special audio cards (you no longer need an
add-on audio board to use MasterList
CD), hardware is still a consideration.
MasterList CD, for example, lets you
monitor your tracks through Digidesign’s
40 September 1999 MACWORLD
and dialog boxes. Also, unlike
Jam and WaveBurner, Master-
List CD doesn’t support drag
and drop; you must add tracks via a dialog
box rather than simply dragging sound
files into a track list. And, regrettably, Mas-
terList CD is copy protected.
Riding the Wave
WaveBurner’ interface is a different story.
This program looks very much like an
audio editor, complete with waveforms and
graphic handles that you drag to adjust the
length and shape of crossfades. You can also
increase or decrease the gap between tracks
by dragging; simply click on the track and
drag it left or right. Like Jam, WaveBurner
has a preview feature that plays all the tran-
sitions from track to track sequentially—
helpful when you want to review the pac-
ing of your CD, And WaveBurner lets you
record audio directly into the program; the
other two applications require that you first
record audio into a separate program.
Sticky Jam
Jam’ interface is much like Toast’s. To cre-
ate a track list, you drag and drop files into
Jam’s main window. From there you can
create crossfades using the MasterList
method: choose a crossfade type; set the
duration of the crossfade in a numeric box;
and determine whether it occurs presplice,
centered, or postsplice. As with Toast, you
can adjust the RAM cache, preventing
underrun errors, and test each track indi-
vidually before committing to the burn.
One annoyance I hope Adaptec will
address in a future version is Jam’s inability
to impose track markers, something both
MasterList CD and WaveBurner support.
In other words, you can’t take one long
audio file—the side ofan LP, for example—
and then place a track marker at the begin-
ning of each cut. Instead, you must create
regions in the file using another program
and then bring the file into Jam.
Macworld's Buying Advice
Audio-mastering engineers who own Digi-
design audio cards should ignore Master-
List CD 2.1’s rough interface and stick
with the best tool for their trade. Jam 2.5
is also perfectly capable, but WaveBurner
1.0 costs $100 less and is more flexible. In
this case, I’ll take my Toast with Wave-
Burner instead of Jam.—curistorHeR BREEN
Jam 2.5
RATING: $$$ PROS: Drag-and-drop sup-
port; individual track testing. CONS: Can't
impose track markers. COMPANY: Adaptec
(800/442-7274, http://cdr.adaptec.com), LIST
PRICE: $299.
MasterList CD 2.1
RATING: §§ $2 PROS: Autolocate function;
support for Digidesign hardware. CONS: No
drag-and-drop support; unintuitive interfac
expensive; copy protected. COMPANY: Di;
design (800/333-2137, www.digidesign.com).
LIST PRICE: $495.
WaveBurner 1.0
RATING: $§$§ PROS: Intuitive waveform
editing: direct recording into program. CONS: No
autolocate function. COMPANY: Emagic (530/
477-1051, wew.emagicde). LIST PRICE: $199.
In a world where Windows and Macintosh incompatibility causes endless prob-
lems, DataViz offers a little help. MacOpener®. A convenient utility that surmounts
all obstacles when your PC needs to read, write and format Macintosh disks.
With MacOpener installed on your PC, reading and writing files on a Mac-formatted disk, cartridge or CD is a
breeze. MacOpener lets you open the disk on your PC just as if it were formatted for Windows. You can then view
the contents and copy files to and from the disk from any Windows application. MacOpener automatically adds
the right PC extension to Macintosh files, so you can launch a Windows application by simply clicking on the file.
It even lets you format the Mac disk just as if it were a PC disk. How’s that for trouble free performance?
At DataViz, solving PC to Mac compatibility problems is our business. As well as MacOpener, we offer
Conversions Plus®, the premier file conversion program that translates hundreds of different file formats
between PC applications or Macintosh and PC applications. Quickly and accurately. And offers over
1,000 file translation combinations, to solve almost any file conversion needs.
So discover for yourself that with DataViz,
Open Macintosh Files no file compatibility problems are insurmountable.
and Disks in Windows.
Instantly. For answers to all your Mac to PC disk and file compatibility
needs, call us at 1-800-270-0030 Ext 173 or visit our
web site at http://www.dataviz.com/momacw
p
MacOpener
Compatibility. Instantly. Avaiiableat COMPLESA MIOCENE figs
Runs on Windows 3.1, Windows 95 & 98, Windows NT. Al product names are wademarks of har respective holders
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Catthe
The best comprehensive
set of writing tools ever!
v Multi-Lingual—é different lan-
guage spelling dictionaries.
v Customize your dictionary by
importing words from other
programs.
v Use our Speak feature to hear the
word pronounced with your Mac's
voice in English or Spanish.
v Universal—works in all programs,
utilizing a single set of reference
files.
v One of the largest integrated spell
checking, thesaurus, & definitions
dictionaries available.
v Includes powerful supplemental
resources; medical, legal,scientif-
ic/technical,computer,biological/
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Now coming to
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42 September 1999 MACWORLD
| Reviews
Peak 2.0
BUGS MAR OTHERWISE POWERFUL AUDIO EDITOR
UDIO EDITORS ARE THE
Photoshop of the sound world,
letting you “retouch” sound files
to remove flubbed words, to
rearrange the verses of a song, to
create special effects, and to convert one
sound format into another. The long-
awaited update to the popular audio edi-
tor Peak, from Berkeley Integrated Audio
Software (BIAS), has the potential to take
Mac digital audio editing to new heights.
But although Peak 2.03 sports a variety
of interface enhancements and new fea-
tures, bugs mar its power.
Take a Peak Peak 2.03 lets you open a QuickTime
movie to edit its soundtrack.
Peak’s editing features are complete
and well designed. You can zoom in to
make edits at the single-sample level and
set markers to navigate a large document
quickly. Peak 2.03 adds tape-style scrub-
bing—the ability to play a sound forward
and backward slowly.
Like all audio editors, Peak displays a
waveform window that graphically
depicts the sound you’re manipulating.
On-screen volume meters dance as a
sound plays, while a counter ticks off
elapsed time. The program also offers
unlimited undo’s and lets you undo one
operation without affecting others.
Peak 2.0’s audio-processing features
are also dramatically improved. With its
DSP (digital signal processing) menu, you
can change the sample rate, create fades,
remove clicks, change a sound’s pitch
while retaining its duration, and much
more. Unfortunately, Peak lacks high-
quality bit-depth reduction.
‘Third-party plug-ins expand Peak’s
processing repertoire. The new version
adds support for TDM-format plug-ins,
the mainstays of professionals who use
high-end Digidesign audio hardware.
For the rest of us, Peak supports Adobe
Premiere-format plug-ins (see the
accompanying review). You can create
envelopes that gradually apply a Pre-
miere plug-in, or apply a plug-in in real
time—that is, get the effect without actu-
ally modifying the sound file.
Many of Peak’s other new features will
appeal to audio and video professionals.
For example, you can open QuickTime
movies and modify their soundtracks, and
a new batch processor lets you automate
format-conversion and DSP chores with-
out scripting. Peak’s playlist feature lets
you define regions that play back sequen-
tially. And if you have Adaptec’s Toast, you
can burn audio CDs directly from Peak,
using the playlist to define each track.
Finally, musicians with sampling key-
boards and modules can use Peak to edit
samples and transfer them among instru-
ments. The handy new Loop Surfer com-
mand makes it easy to locate the ideal
loop points for samples.
Peak’s keyboard— and tool-bar-
customizing features are terrific, but the
tool-bar icons are too small and cryptic. It’s
also worth noting that Peak uses a copy-
protection scheme: to install the program
onan iMac or a blue-and-white Power Mac
G3, you must contact BIAS for a text key.
Peak’s documentation is thorough,
but the manual’s index is abysmal. Worst
of all, Peak crashes now and then.
Macworld's Buying Advice
Peak 2.03 is an exceptionally powerful,
versatile program, It could be more reli-
able, but BIAS has a solid track record of
delivering free bug-fixes, so there’s hope
that Peak will stabilize over time. If you
need Peak’s power now, don’t hesitate to
buy—just be sure to save often.—iim He1D
RATING: $$$ PROS: Versatile; innovative plug-
in support. CONS: Copy-protected; bugay; no
high-quality bit-depth reduction. COMPANY:
Berkeley Integrated Audio Software (800/775-
2427, wwwi.bias-ine.com). LIST PRICE: $499.
Peak Plug-Ins
FILTERS ADD PIZZAZZ TO PEAK
OOKING TO EXPAND YOUR
collection of audio-processing
tools? A plug-in library might be
just the ticket. Two recent
entries, Waves’ Native Power
Pack II and Arboretum Systems’ Hyper-
prism Plug-in Pack, work in any program
that supports Premiere-format plug-
ins—including BIAS’s Peak.
Native Power Pack comprises just
four plug-ins, but each is exquisite.
Renaissance Compressor boosts volume
during quiet parts and lowers it during
loud parts, Renaissance Equalizer lets
you boost or lower certain frequencies
with a streamlined interface. MaxxBass
creates harmonics that fool the ear into
hearing more bass than is actually pre-
sent, while DeEsser attenuates s sounds.
Unfortunately for iMac users, the plug-
ins require an ADB hardware key.
Hyperprism Plug-in Pack is a grab bag
of more than two dozen plug-ins—every-
thing from workaday tools such as reverbs,
compressors, and equalizers to wacky won-
ders guaranteed to make your dog cock its
head. The workaday tools do a fine job—
the HyperVerb reverb is notably impres-
sive—but Native Power Pack’s compres-
sors and equalizers make my ears happier.
Macworld's Buying Advice
Native Power Pack II is best suited to
well-heeled audio engineers who need
classic sweetening and top
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