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36-A
012 Matthew JC. Powell
The rumour mill — champing at the bit
015 AMW readers
Stop waiting for an iPhone, hold off
upgrading to Leopard, take it easy on
the updates, run AppleWorks and
o6-N
019 The CPU guessing
game.
Despite Intel's openness, it's
still hard to fathom what's next
from Apple.
020 Adobe launches Media Player
and Apple ships Final Cut Studio.
021 Watch music videos for free.
get a tattoo? 022 MUG events for May.
023 New Coolpix from Nikon, plus
a-K the MacBook Air comp winner.
028 Dan Warne 024 Pro File: Gotye
Pitfalls of naked DSL 026 Off the Net
034 Fleur Doidge
CyberPsych Les Posen chats about
dancing
050 Martin Levins
Screen capture is your friend
36-0
064 Keith White
Two approaches to iPhoto
082 Alex Kidman
Overcome the Apple snob within
www.macworld.com.au
030 Smartphone roundup
Anthony Caruana
Everyone knows the iPhone is about
to arrive. We don't know when, and
we don't know exactly what kind of
impact it will have when it enters the
Australian market. What we do know
is what it will be up against, and how
you can go about making sure you
pick the smartphone that's right
for you
036 Office suite smackdown
Various authors
Microsoft Office 2008 is finally on the
market, and it's up against a leaner,
more mature opponent than it's faced
in a while in the form of Apple's own
iWork '08. How do they compare,
pound for pound? And if you don't like
either, what else is out there?
AMW May 08 09 4
d-?
053 Colour-correct digital photos
055 Corral group calendars
059 simplify the “Open With” menu
Troubleshoot Java applets
Store streaming videos
060 Agjust volume more finely
Transfer video from VHS
to iMovie
062 Destroy a hard drive
(on purpose)
Embed subtitles
Save your movies to
an external drive
010 Al
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Bringing back the radio star
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tees
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he
Opera 9.26
tee
07 Ableton Live 7
More-than-able musical tool
Auth
07 AirPort Express
Update features 802.11n, ProxySTA
4a
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Value at the price
athe
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Optimised for Getting Things Done
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The killer app for the Mac
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ga _ Macworld :
IBEST|
ial OF SHOW
{Available at Apple Online Store, Apple Resellers, Online Stc
Major Retailers Australia wide
Australian Distributor CONEXUS onexus.com.au
Matthew JC. Powell
has a deep and
abiding passion
for the Mac, the
magazine and its
readers — in no
particular order.
Hotlinks
Commentary on all and sundry
iPhone rumblings
itorials in a row and this is supposed
to be a Mac magazine. Duly noted.
| hereby vow, swear and declare that
my next editorial will not be about the
iPhone. OK?
Let's move on.
The week before this issue went
to press, an online Mac forum called
MacTalk was abuzz with a rumour
story from “reliable” sources, claim-
ing that Apple had been briefing its
channel on the coming release of the
iPhone, including release dates and
all sorts of juicy info. Now, normally
I'm very sceptical of reporting rumours
because they're almost always wrong,
so | was happy to ignore it.
Then the phone started ringing.
One reseller after another called
— by the end of the day I'd had four
separate calls, plus I'd been told
about calls that had come to other
AMW staff and contributors. And all of
them had the same message: Apple's
been briefing the channel about
iPhone release dates and how it's to
be sold and so forth.
Well, when you have multiple people
telling you the same thing, you start to
take a little bit of notice. There was one
curious thing, though: no two of the
callers seemed to have the same info.
There are a number of explanations
for this. One is that Apple briefed its
channel partners on the upcoming re-
lease of the iPhone in Australia, includ-
ing a great deal of detailed information
that they really don't need this far out
from the release, but gave everyone a
different briefing. This might be some
kind of sneaky tactic to root out leaks
| know, | know, two iPhone-related ed-
www.apple.com/au/iphone
When there's something here other than an error message, believe it
>012 AMW May 08
and find out who's telling Apple's
secrets to the wrong people.
Another is that Apple has not been
briefing its resellers because it knows
full well that as soon as it tells its
partners something it might as well be
public knowledge. Apple's resellers are
always bearing the brunt of customer
complaints when they've bought a Mac
only to discover a new model came out
days later that was better and cheaper.
This happens for one reason, and
one reason only: Apple doesn't tell its
resellers diddly in advance.
In this scenario, the resellers who
called — every one of them — was
acting on information they'd heard
from someone who'd heard it from
someone else. And if you're a
reseller and you hear Apple's been
briefing resellers, you might just
call Macworld and let them in on it,
because you don't want to look like
you're out of the loop.
Before | put anything up on ww.
macworld.com.au — Australia's
premiere source of Mac information
online — | did what any responsible
journalist would do, and phoned
Apple. “Have you guys been briefing
resellers on the iPhone release,” |
asked? "No," was the reply. “Really?”
“Really.” “You wouldn't tell me if you
had been briefing resellers, would
you?” “Honestly, we haven't. Now if
you'll excuse me | have to go finish
beta-testing my multitouch-capable
Mac tablet if it's going to make its
release date in September.”
| made part of that up. Guess
which part.
As it happens, follow-up calls toa
number of sources the following day
revealed that they had, in fact, been re-
porting what they had heard from other
resellers and that they had not actually
been briefed by Apple yet but they
were certain the briefings were taking
place and they'd get theirs soon
My guess? Someone, somewhere,
made the whole thing up. And be-
cause everyone's so fired up to know
when the iPhone's coming, everyone
believed it.
Why is Apple’s channel so keen to
know when the iPhone's coming? Is it
because they've always, deep down,
wanted to be phone resellers? Is it
because the iPhone is superior to any
other phone in the way it can send
SMS messages and make phone
calls? Come on, how much better can
it be? Other phones work just fine.
The only reason why Mac resell-
ers are so keen to get their hands on
the iPhone is because, uniquely and
unlike every other product in its class,
itis a Mac. It's a Mac that fits in your
pocket (if you wear your baggy jeans)
It's a Mac that allows you to interact
with your information and media in
ways you never could before thanks
to the multitouch interface. It's a
device that — there can be little doubt
— represents the future direction of
Apple technology.
As a phone, it's pretty good —
some quirks, some pros, some
cons — but not earth-shatteringly
better than many other phones on the
market. It's the rest of what it can do
that makes the iPhone interesting, and
makes people want to believe any
snippet of news they hear, no matter
how shaky its foundations.
If | were a manufacturer of some
other smartphone, I'd be thinking a lot
‘on that concept. &
Vahl Bool
www.macworld.com.au
Log onto www.averyproducts.com.au/au/downloads/macexpert
for your FREE Mac software.
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Each month, Conexus
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valued at $200 to the Australian
Macworld reader who sends in
what we deem to be the most
interesting letter.
JBL's Creature Il three-piece
speaker system produces high-
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Letters should be e-mailed to
matthew.powell@niche.com.
au with a subject header of
“Command - V” or by post to
Australian Macworld Mailbox,
170 Dorcas Street, South
Melbourne, Victoria 3205. Let-
ters of fewer than 200 words are
given preference. Comments
posted to the forums on
www.macworld.com.au are also
eligible for the Creature II prize
We reserve the right to edit
letters and probably will. To be
eligible for the JBL Creature II
prize, you must include your full
name and address, including
state or territory.
www.macworld
iPHONE NOW!
| bought an iPhone in the USA last week,
downloaded Ziphone version 2.6 and took
20 minutes to hack. Now the phone works
on my local Australian GSM network with
my local mobile phone SIM card
There may be many good reasons that Ap-
ple is delaying the phone, like developing
a 3G/Next G version, but it works now. And
even if a better one came out next week,
I'd still be happy for the $US399 | paid for
the 8GB version. | have Wifi, Bluetooth, a
camera and all my addresses and contact
details of everyone | know.
So why not make it available now in Austra-
lia? It's good value for what it does! Apple
makes some money, we get the phone/
organiser we want and like anything, if a
new version comes along, we salivate a bit
longer until we can afford it
Name and address provided
Apple regards Australia as part of Asia from
an organisational perspective, so we'll get
the iPhone when Asia does. And Asia's
a very big market and very different from
the USA or Europe. So Apple's brewing
Asia-specific plans for the product. I's
also effectively given a wink-and-a-nod to
people importing them under the wire such
as yourself, — M.JC.P
MIND YOUR OWN
Ihave recently come to grief with my deal-
ings with MYOB and Mac for my winery
business.
MYOB advertises itself as a Mac friendly
business offering AccountEdge software
for Mac users to provide them with all the
opportunities of managing accounts as
they do for PC users.
They advertise (currently on the MYOB web
site) that small business can network their
Mags in an office to enable more than one
user. The fact is that it is now impossible
to network more than one Mac (even with
a remote Mac server) with AccountEdge in
an office environment. Its no longer sup-
ported by the current MYOB!
This means that with my medium sized
winery business in Wagga Wagga NSW —
which installed a Mac and AccountEdge in
2005 with the idea of expanding the same
Your magazine,
your forum.
into an office network — now find that hav-
ing purchased a new Mac, such a network
option is no longer available with the latest
version of AccountEdge.
To compound the problem even further,
we now understand that AccountEdge
doesn't work at all with Mac's new system,
Leopard! And Leopard has been out since
October 2007
Macs are great for small business with their
reliability and low maintenance and ease
of use. MYOB/AccountEdge is a well-ac-
cepted accounting package in Australian
accounting circles. What sort of company
would deliberately do this to a section of
their market without even a warning?
A. Birks.
Wagga Wagga, NSW
MYOB claims that it was not given access
toa final-release version of Leopard in
time to do product testing before 10.5's
debut. Since MYOB is for many people a
mission-critical application it's important for
the company to test the product fully before
saying it will work with any new operating
system. It does plan to certify the 2008 ver
sion of AccountEdge for use with Leopard,
but acknowledges that there are currently
some known issues and recommends
that users who rely on AccountEdge not
upgrade to Leopard. — M.JC.P
MAC ART
| am trying to find somewhere in Sydney
to get a “tattoo” for my MacBook Pro 17”.
lam not sure of exactly what I'd like to get
done — a few ideas are barcodes, contact
info or business logo. | can't seem to find
anywhere in Australia to get it done. | have
seen it done on a number of different
‘American sites and the laser engraving
always looks good. | have even seen it
done on MacBooks.
Sabian Carey
via e-mail
I have to admit I don't know of anywhere in
Australia that does that kind of customisa-
tion either. If anyone out there is running a
business that does this stuff, drop mea line
and we'll give you a plug. — M.JC.P
inthe value a the prize occuring between the pubish te and ne
‘be note by ma 10.
1 ons degiee of interest. 4, Employees, thor mmeciate lames and agen
‘esponsbiy fer ate or macrected erties. 6 The best etyentnes as
35 become the propety othe Proms
S governetby the Privacy Note 12 The Promoter i Niche Maia Py Lido 170 Dorcas Stet, Sout Melbourne, Vora 3205 Pn 03 848 4800, (ABN 13064 613 520.
conditions a ent. 2. To enter send tps or queries to mathew powet@
7 Macon. The jxdges decsion nrelaton to ary aspect fhe
ays no pat in Geerminng the winners). Each erty wil be indiialy
his competion ae ot permed enter §. Te Prometer accep no
"ed by he judges lw the grees). 7 The Promaler is nether responsive nor hale le any cmange
5) lames 8 The pr2es) not varstrable anc wil not be exchanged fo cash. 9. The wnne's)
‘Tra calecton. use ane oscoeute a pareonal nlomation provdes in connect wth hs competion
AMW May 08 015 4
a
Hotlinks
www.ziphone.org
Unlock iPhones easily
tinyurl.com/Suwvbj
BLOATED LEOPARD
| did the right thing and bought Leopard
OS X 10.5.1 in January 2008 and spend a
couple of hours loading into my computer.
Then | had to download the updates to
make it 10.5.2, which took up some more
time and ate into my download allocation
I can handle all that for my beloved
Mac computer.
Since then there has been the occasional
update, which | have dutifully loaded into
my magic box for the benefit of my OS
X. However, my latest “Software Update"
notification tells me that | have a mere
261.5MB to be digested if | wish to keep
my Apple current and safe. That's certainly
going to make a large hole in my down-
load allocation!
Is it just me that thinks that Leopard has
not been as well sorted prior to sale as
previous versions of Mac OS?
Not happy Steve!
Derek Macphail
New Gisborne, Vic.
You're certainly not alone in thinking that,
and you're not alone in bemoaning the
fact that Apple only makes those updates
available via download and not by any other
means. —MJC.P.
Apple ... Works!
love Appleworks and have used it from
my Performa 5260, iMac G3, eMac, Power
book G4 and now iSight PPC iMac. | also
Use NeoOffice to open MS Office docu-
ments. | try not to have anything Microsoft
on my Mac.
Peter Schaper (c-V 04.2008) need have
no worries. | just sent the Installer to my
son (via YouSendit) who has a new iMac,
running Leopard, and it installed and ran
perfectly (in Rosetta | assume). It also
opened AppleWorks documents created
on my PPC iMac
MYOB's note about Leopard
This makes me more confident to upgrade
toan Intel/Leopard Mac as | cannot do
without AppleWorks
So it would seem that Peter can confidently
go out and buy his new Mac.
Ken Hoyle,
Harvey Bay, Qld
Spam a lot
| read in the 11.2007 issue article "Lock It
Up” about being careful when using a wire-
less network and in particular the mention
made about using public networks, which
are the least secure and noted the Hotlink
for wwwanchortree.com/hotspot-shield.
Unfortunately | read this article after the
event. | was in Honolulu, where Starbucks
Coffee offered free wireless internet which |
could access from our cruise ship
Until using this free wireless internet, |
had never been troubled with spam to my
Westnet e-mail address. | would like to
know whether, if | had been able to activate
Hot Spot Shield before accessing the free
wireless internet would this have prevented
my e-mail address being accessed and
therefore the resulting spam. This is the
only thing | can think of that would have
made me the target of spam.
| have subscribed to Westnet's Spamguard
now so all these troublesome e-mails (of-
ten between 50 and 90 per day) are being
quarantined into one e-mail per day, which
I just delete.
Margaret Boyles,
Ocean Grove, Vic.
Unfortunately, Margaret, you're a target
for spam as soon as you have an e-mail
address. | can't say whether your address
became known by your use of the hotspot,
or whether Hot Spot Shield would have
saved you. But i's highly unlikely you'd
have avoided spammers for long anyway.
Thanktully it sounds like Westnet has a
pretty good filter, — MJC.P
COMING TO AUSTRALIAN MACWORLD
Digital Audio Workstations. Your Mac
is capable of studio-quality recording,
provided you pair it with the right tools
AMW lab: High-performance storage. Big,
fast drives and backup solutions for media
jockeys.
Pro File: Daniel Linnet.
To advertise. Call Liana Pappas
03 9948 4974.
To subscribe. Free-call 1800 804 160.
+016 AMW May 08
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into their creative lives.
Designs on our future. Emerging
technologies that aim to be “green”
Print Centre. All you need to fulfil your
printing needs, wants and desires.
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03 9948 4984,
To subscribe. Free-call 1800 804 160.
Macworld
May 2008 / Issue No. 123,
Publisher
Niche Media
Associate Publisher
Nick Harris
nick harris@niche.com.au
03 9948 4976
Editor
‘Matthew JC. Powell
‘matthew powell@niche.com au
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ana Pappas
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sam gopal@niche.com au
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Tel 03 9948 4900 / Fax: 03 9948 4998
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iPhone is coming
Stay on top of
the latest news at
www.macworld.com.au ©
Hotlinks
www.intel.com
They keep no secrets — OK, maybe a few
Needle in a haystack.
It's easier than before to fig-
ure out what the future holds
for the Mac — but not much.
How Intel's processor plans
might impact the Mac
s positive as the switch to Intel-built proces-
sors has been for Apple, one aspect of that
partnership must drive Steve Jobs’ control-
freak nature absolutely bonkers: secrecy. Or, more
to the point, the lack of it, when it comes to future
product announcements.
Prior to Apple’s 2005 decision to use Intel chips in its
hardware, the Mac’s processors were provided by IBM
and Freescale (née Motorola), and Apple could tightly
control what little — if any — information it provided
about its products prior to their introduction. Neither
chipmaker released roadmaps of their product lines that
were anywhere near as detailed as Intel's.
Intel, on the other hand, keeps its partners — and, by
extension, the general public — well-informed about its
product plans years in advance. Although this open-
ness insulates the entire PC ecology from expensive
surprises, it can also inflate customer expectations
while delaying purchases. After all, if you know that a
much more powerful chip is going to be released Real
Soon Now, why write a cheque today?
Tim Deal, senior analyst at market-research firm Pike
& Fischer, acknowledges that Apple formerly was able
to keep its product plans “a closely-guarded secret”
and that the company “tightly managed and exploited
this secrecy to create anticipation (and drama) around
its new product releases.” But he believes that the new
Intel-enforced openness is a good thing.
“[Apple’s] reliance on the not-so-secret Intel pro-
cessor development cycle allows the market to get a
glimpse of future processor incarnations for the Mac,”
Deal said. “This does not inhibit the company’s ability
to generate excitement about future product releases
orld.com.au
nor does it preclude Apple’s customary mystique and
showmanship surrounding a given product release.”
What's in a name. That's true, of course, only if
customers can decode the sometimes arcane world of
Intel roadmaps, codenames, product lines, and plat-
forms. Recently, for example, came the announcement
that a six-core Xeon processor codenamed Dunnington
would be released in the second half of this year. The
mere codename of this chip speaks volumes about the
difficulty of deciphering Intel's roadmaps — Dunning-
ton’s original codename was Aliceton, but it was renamed
after the development of another Dunnington processor
was halted when a third processor-development effort —
codenamed Whitefield, upon which the first Dunnington
was based — was discontinued.
Confused? You're not alone. But worry not, Dunning-
ton lore won't be on the test — that six-core beast is
unlikely to ever make it into any Mac Pro. Mac Pros
use Intel's 5000-series Xeons, which fit into their dual-
processor platform codenamed Stoakley. Dunnington is
a 7000-series Xeon, designed for the quad-processor,
server-level platform codenamed Caneland.
You're also to be forgiven if you were never informed
that Intel and Apple have two different definitions for
the term “desktop processor.” When Intel introduced its
Core 2 Duo processor line, the first desktop processor
out of the gate was codenamed Conroe. This chip, how-
ever, never made it an Apple “desktop” computer. The
iMac was instead built around what Intel referred to as
a “mobile processor,” codenamed Merom.
Merom’s replacement, which shipped in November
of last year, is codenamed Penryn, and it comes in
APPLE NEWS]
AMW May 08 019 4
many flavours with more to come. For example, Intel
confirmed last month that it will release a quad-core
Penryn later this year. Although this chip is identi-
fied by Intel as a mobile processor, its power appetite
(defined as its TDP, for Thermal Design Power) is ex-
pected to be a hefty 45 watts. In comparison, the TDP of
the new Penryn-equipped MacBook Pro is 35W — and
if you've had one on your lap for any amount of time,
you know it’s already pushing the thermal envelope.
The increased TDP would also, of course, more-quickly
drain battery power.
That said, there are plenty of 17-inch MacBook Pro-
using video editors who'd kill for those two extra cores
when encoding on location, plugged into AC or not. The
17-incher also has more room for cooling technologies
and batteries, should Apple care to make use of those
extra cubic inches.
What lies ahead. Another pair of recently an-
nounced quad-core processors spark the imagination.
Intel recently introduced low-power quad-core 2.33GHz
and 2.5GHz Xeons, each with a TDP of a mere 50W.
In comparison, the top-end 3.2GHz Xeon in the top-end
Mac Pro is listed in Intel's literature as having a TDP
of a scorching 150W (unless Apple has a private deal
with Intel to provide a lower-TDP 3.2GHz Xeon, which is
certainly a possibility).
If you want to indulge in a flight of fancy, drop two
of these new Xeons into a Stoakley-based logic board
in a smaller form-factor desktop Mac, and fill the ever-
widening gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro.
There's also an upcoming tiny Penryn pair — 1.2GHz
and 1.4GHz processors with miserly 10W TDPs — that's
fodder for interesting speculation. Might we finally see
the ultra-mini laptop we've been jonesing for?
Or might Apple offer a truly teeny laptop — something
on par with the Asus Eee PC — based on an entirely new
line of ultra-low-power Intel processors christened Atom
(and codenamed Silverthorne and Diamondville during
their development)?
We don’t know. And neither do you. Despite the rela-
tive openness of Intel’s microprocessor roadmap, Apple
still keeps us guessing.
>020 AMW May
Hotlinks
www.apple.com/au/finalcutserver
Final Cut Server
Apple ships Final Cut Server
pple has begun shipping Final Cut Server, the
company's new asset management tool. First
announced in April 2007, Final Cut Server was
supposed to ship last year. Paul Saccone, Apple’s director
of video marketing, said that Apple wanted to make sure
they got it right before releasing it so customers could
rely on it.
Final Cut Server catalogues media and generates
thumbnails to enable viewing annotation and approval
of content from anywhere using a Mac or a PC.
According to Apple, Final Cut Server has broad search
capabilities, which extend from simple keywords to
complex combinations of IPTC, XMP and XML meta-
data. The application also configures a range of specific
access controls that define user permissions on an asset
or project basis.
Final Cut Server is a scalable server application, so it
supports many different sized workgroups. Of course,
Final Cut Server is tightly integrated with Apple’s
Final Cut Studio. The server tool also includes Compres-
sor 3, Apple's industrial strength digital encoding and
compression tool. Saccone said that there are now over
one million editors using Final Cut. Over 80 percent of
independent filmmakers are using Final Cut and 50 per-
cent of all new purchases are going to Apple's high-end
application suite.
Final Cut Server is available immediately for $1299 for
one server and ten concurrent client licenses, and $2599
for one server and unlimited client licenses.
Hotlinks
www.movideo.com
Free music videos
Look and listen
n Australian web site is trying to take on iTunes
A“ it comes to viewing music videos. The
site, Movideo, bills itself as “Australia’s premier
online destination for high quality music videos” and
provides high-quality music videos for free.
That's right, while iTunes charges you $3.39, Movideo
gives you the ability to watch it for free. Free! But wait
you ask, what's the catch?
No catch, but unlike iTunes where you can download
the music video and watch it on a range of Apple prod-
ucts, you'll need to be in front of your computer, con-
nected to a network, to enjoy Movideo music videos.
Movideo delivers “near DVD-quality” videos using
Flash technology, and makes a big fuss about “incredibly
crisp and full range audio”. I watched a couple of videos
and, while impressive, it really depends on the quality of
the speakers that you use with your computer.
Movideo currently has 2500 videos online, with 5000
due to be available by the end of the year. At the price
you can't really complain, but if you want to watch
your video offline you're stuck with iTunes for now.
— Danny Gorog
Detta Goocrem - Lost Winout You
Symbiotic Point of Sale Solutions
Experts in Point of Sale & Inventory Management. swioncausteaia
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Customisable reports Multi Store, Mult Site
Stock, Invoicing, Debtors... Stock, Invoicing, Debtors
Integrates with accounting Integrated Webstore
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Touch Screen Capability available on iMacs
POSeIM Reports now on your iPhone.
Call Symbiotic Australia on 03 9895 2999, or email sales@symbiotic.com.a
d6-N
USERS AND
GROUPS]
Hotlinks
www.macworld.com.au/events
The latest lowdown on what's happening
MUG activities for May
TasMac [TAS]
AUSOM Incorporated [VIC]
South Australian Apple Users’ Club [SA]
Gold Coast Macintosh User Group [QLD]
AMUG Sydney [NSW]
North Queensland Macintosh Users
Group [QLD]
MacTalk — Newcastle & The Hunter MUG
(NSW]
fed
South Australian Apple Users’ Club [SA]
Club Mac [NSW]
Toowoomba Apple & Mac UG (TAAMUG)
{QLD}
hu &
Melbourne Cocoaheads [VIC]
AMUG Sydney [NSW]
Gold Coast Apple Users Group [QLD]
Mon 12
Macintosh Users Group Sunshine Coast
{QLD}
Macintosh Multimedia Group [3MG] [VIC]
u 1
ACT Apple Users Group [ACT]
Wed 14
Bellarine Mac User Group [VIC]
Club Mac [NSW]
Coffs Harbour Mac User Group [NSW]
AUSOM Retirees & Others [VIC]
Sun 18
Apple-Q [QLD]
Mon 19
Byron Shire Macintosh Users Group.
(BSMUG) [NSW]
Thu
Central Victorian Macintosh Users Inc
(CMU) [VIC]
Apple-Q [QLD]
Mon 26
Alice Springs Apple User Group [NT]
iMug (Internet Macintosh User Group inc)
(viC}
BEAUT (Bendigo Education Apple Team)
{MIC}
Sat 31
AUSOM Incorporated (VIC)
The latest in web development, tools
and techniques. Catch up, meet up
and get inspired!
Www.webdu.com.au
SYDNEY AUSTRAL|
CSS
JUNE
2008
A
Alr
Flex
design
R TAX cotdFusion
tinyurl.com/4suful
The winning entry
Reviewa |
MacBook Air
ack in the March issue, we gave readers the op-
Bees to win a coveted guest spot on the
highly prestigious Australian Macworld Weekend
Edition podcast, reviewing the new Apple MacBook Air.
As a sort of bonus, we'd let you keep the MacBook Air
after you'd finished with it. Well, why not?
All you had to do to win was prove your chops as a
reviewer by posting a review on our forums at www.
macworld.com.au.
We had a huge number of entries, and many of them
were of a remarkably high standard. If we'd been able
to give a MacBook Air to everyone who wrote a great
review we would, but ... well, we can't.
In the end, there can be only one, and the only one
was Pat Beretta of South Hobart, Tasmania (aka Dark-
melody). You can read his winning entry on the forums
(see “Hotlinks”). When he comes on the podcast we might
get him to perform it with a backbeat, old school.
Or not.
Anyway, congratulations to Pat and many thanks to
all who entered. — MJC.P
Hotlir ks [PHOTOGRAP
www.nikon.com.au
Home of Coolpix
New Nikon Coolpix
cameras
i J ikon has introduced three new models to its
Coolpix digital camera line. The P80 will be re-
leased in April for $599. The S52 and S52c are
coming in May for $399 and $449 respectively.
The P80 is a 10.1 megapixel model featuring an 18x
optical zoom lens that offers a 27-486mm focal length. It
also features an all-new Sports Continuous Mode, which
lets you shoot up to 30 consecutive pictures at four, six
or 13 frames per second. It has light sensitivity up to
ISO 6400. The $52 and $52c both sport 9.0 megapixel
sensors, 3x 38-114mm zoom lenses, and use Nikon’s “Ex-
peed” image processing.
The $52c can send images through e-mail using a
built-in Wi-Fi connection. — Peter Cohen
HY]
) ZVIECH
-com.au
MacBook Pro.
—
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[PRO FILE]
>024 AMW May
Hotlinks
www.gotye.com
He's a Mac man now
Gotye: Hyphenated musician
uring 2007, Gotye (aka Wally De Backer) picked
up an ARIA award and suddenly he became one
of those Australian artists people knew.
AMW: Can you explain your history with Macs?
Gotye: | was scared of Macs. They didn’t have a right
mouse button. They weren't subject to all sorts of secu-
rity issues and incompatibilities. They didn’t run Win-
dows. It was like they didn’t fit my understanding of
what a computer was (laughs). But seriously, I'd never
used them until about four years ago when I bought a
G4 and started using it for music. I now use a MacBook
Pro both for music production and for web surfing, word
processing, accounting, everything really.
AMW: So is there a particular reason you've stuck
with Macs for your work?
Gotye: Since making “the switch” I've just found Macs
to be easier to keep functional, lean on bugs and issues,
and inspiring in their stability.
AMW: For those who haven't heard your work, how
would you categorise your music?
Gotye: Sample-based alt-pop. Lots of hyphens there,
I know. How about “hyphenated music’, Add as many
hyphens as you like. It’s hard to categorically describe
my music in terms of genre. I'd like to think that one
record could be a sample-based cut-and-paste down-
beat record, while the next could be alt-country-fla-
voured acoustic-folk.
AMW: Can you describe your studio?
Gotye: This is always embarrassing when speaking
about my use of Macs, because all of the music I've
released so far was actually com-
posed when I was still a PC man.
I had an old Pentium III] PC-com-
patible system, on which I ran
Acid Pro. It was a very lo-fi setup,
but it was all I could afford and
I used it to the limits of its abili-
ties. Macs featured prominently in
the mixing and mastering stage
of my records though, used by
Francois Tetaz at Moose Master-
ing in his Pro Tools HD 3 mix
session and subsequently in the
final master EQs on the tracks.
Since writing that material, I've
started using my MacBook Pro to
run Ableton Live and have rear-
ranged all of my album projects in that software. It's
very powerful and flexible, and runs excellently on the
new Macs.
AMW: What do you see as the main advantages of
home-based recording?
Gotye: No limits of time on experimenting with ideas. The
chance to let ideas gestate over long periods. The comfort
of your own home is usually better than a foreign loca-
tion, no matter how nicely the studio is decked out
AMW: Some of your songs merge some very contem-
porary sounds with some vintage ones — where do
you source your vintage sounds?
Gotye: I sample small snippets of vinyl, cassettes, VHS
tapes I collect from op shops, or sometimes mp3s I find
on the web. I stretch, pitch shift, chop and generally
manipulate them to sound different and to become the
building blocks of my tracks. Sometimes I will re-re-
cord things I've sampled and use the original snippets
as inspiration for my own interpretations. The process
of songwriting in this way for me is totally married to
the pre-production, recording and mixing stage of the
process. It’s all happening at the same time. Sometimes
the last thing to be added might be a central instrumen-
tal hook. Sometimes the last thing might be the drums,
having used scratch drum parts while writing the song.
Sometimes the chorus lead vocal is the last idea 1 come
up with. It’s all just a constant process of pushing the
tracks and songs forward piece by piece, idea by idea,
usually over a long period of time (anywhere between
two months and two years).
AMW: You mentioned you now use Ableton Live ap-
plication as your primary recording tool — what made
you choose that?
Gotye: I've settled on Ableton Live because it’s designed
to work with samples, but also with larger recorded slabs
of sound (like other virtual studio software). I just find it
has the right layout and functionality to allow me to fol-
low up on ideas quickly and easily, but also to get quite
complex and “nitty-gritty” with mix decisions.
AMW: If you could start over again with your use of
computers in music, what technical or creative mis-
takes would you try to avoid the second time around.
Gotye: I would start off on a Mac. And I wouldn't sample
things from the headphone jack of my home amplifier
(a mistake I made for many years), or normalise all my
sound files as a quick-fix for not getting the gain struc-
ture right when engineering sounds in the first place.
— David Holloway
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Hotlinks
www.ausmac.net
Download individual files from our friends at Ausmac, or get the disc from your local participating MUG
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AUSOM Incorporated
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BEAUT
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Central Victorian Macintosh Users Inc
www.gmug.org.au/
Geraldton Macintosh User Group
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Gold Coast Apple Users Group
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Toowoomba Apple and Macintosh User Group inc
Toolbox essentials
his month's AMW Disc of the Month (available from
T your local participating MUG) is a collection of es-
sential utilities and applications all Mac OS X users
are recommended to have.
Anti-Virus
ClamXav. A free virus checker for Mac OS X. It uses the
ClamAV open-source anti-virus engine as a back end.
SpamSieve. By learning from the very messages that you
receive, SpamSieve is able to block nearly all of your spam.
Archiving
Pacifist. Opens Mac OS X .pkg package files, .dmg disk
images, & .zip, tar, .tar.gz, .tar, .b22, and .xar file archives.
Stufflt Expander. Easily expand and decode all the files
you download from the web or receive in your e-mail.
The Unarchiver. A much more capable replacement for
the built-in archive unpacker program in Mac OS X.
UnRarX. Allows you to expand rar archives and restore
corrupted or missing archives
Audio
MP3 Trimmer. Remove unwanted portions of your MP3
files — without losing any of the quality!
SoundConverter. Convert sound files between different
sound formats.
SoundGrinder. An advanced yet simple to use audio file
batch convertor.
Switch. Convert and encode a range of audio file formats.
Communications
Firefox. An alternative, standards-compliant web browser.
Transmission. A fast, easy, and free BitTorrent client with a
focus on being lightweight yet feature-filled
Gaming
Mine Swept. Mac OS X version of the “second most
popular Windows Application”
Solitaire XL. Mac OS X version of the “most popular
Windows Application”
+026 AMW May 08
Graphics
FileJuicer. Extract images from PDF, Word, Excel, Power-
Point and other files
GraphicConverter. Photo software for graphics conver-
sion and image editing
ImageVacuum. Extract images from a PDF into a
thumbnail-browser view.
VectorFileConvertor. Convert WMF formatted files into
PDF or EPS format.
Text
Adobe Reader. View, search, digitally sign, verify, print,
and collaborate on Adobe PDFs.
CombinePDFs. Merge multiple PDFs or images into a
single PDF.
docXConverter. Easily open and use files saved in the
new Office 2007 formats: .docx & .xIsx.
icExcel. Utility for Viewing Microsoft Excel files.
icWord. Work with Word, PowerPoint, NisusWriter and
AppleWorks files that were created on Macs or PCs.
TextExpander. Save countless keystrokes with custom
abbreviations for frequently-used text and images!
TextLightning. Convert PDF files to RTF.
Textsoap. Clean messy e-mails, web sites and other text
littered with odd characters and other junk.
TextWrangler. Powerful and richly-featured tool for compos-
ing, modifying, and transforming text stored in plain-text files
Video
Flip4Mac WMV. A collection of QuickTime components that
allow you to play, import, and export Windows Media video
and audio files on your Mac using QuickTime.
HandBrake. DVD to AVI/MPEG-4 converter.
MPlayer. Video playback client
Perian. The “Swiss Army Knife for QuickTime” that adds
native support for many popular video formats including
Flash Video.
RealPlayer. Multimedia playback client.
Video LAN Client (VLC). Highly portable multimedia
player for various audio and video formats (Divx, mp3, ogg)
as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols
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Ca rng Stove
harris!
sent @ sound
Dan Warne
remains passionate
about the state of
broadband in
Australia.
Getting connected with your Mac
Naked DSL and other nasty tales
ave you heard about naked
DSL? It's the ability to get
ADSL broadband over a home
phone line without having to pay Tel-
stra's annoying line rental tax which,
for many people who use internet or
mobile phones, is an yet another bill
to pay each month and a seemingly
unnecessary cost.
This all sounds very attractive on
the surface. And to be sure, there are
some benefits. For example, ISPs can
connect premises further away from
the exchange than they used to be
able to on Telstra's network.
But naked DSL is also the meat in
the sandwich of a major fight between
Telstra, the competition regulator, and
every other telco in the country. The
crux is that the regulator says Telstra
shouldn't charge more than a few
dollars a month for “naked” access
to phone lines. Telstra feels cheesed
that it is being denied the opportunity
to make the kinds of profit on phone
lines it has been making for the last
100 years.
Telstra has been overruled through
numerous appeals and has reached
the end of the line in the court system
So, Telstra is forced to provide ISPs
access to its copper phone lines for
about $3 a month, to much gnashing
of teeth and wailing of senior execu-
tives. But, taking a leaf from the book
of American telcos, just because you
have to provide a service doesn’t
mean you have to do it well.
I have experienced Telstra's lack of
motivation first hand when | applied
for iiNet Naked DSL at home. “Great,”
| thought, “no more $30 Telstra bill
each month for basically nothing.”
Little did | realise that | was auto-
matically placing myself into a big
Hotlinks
www.gonaked.com.au
iiNet’s naked DSL service
+028 AMW May 08
black bucket of customers that Telstra
pretty much seems to want to pretend
doesn't exist.
First, | applied for my service, and
was told it would be connected on a
certain date. The date came and went,
and | was informed that Telstra had
rejected the application out of hand
because my address didn't exist. “Er,
yes it does” | said, incredulously. See,
one drawback of naked DSL is that
because there's no phone service,
there's no phone number either, so
simply locating your phone line can
become a battle with Telstra.
When | reapplied (and waited
another two weeks, which is the
‘standard provisioning time for naked
DSL services), the date came and
went again, and when | rang iiNet, |
was informed that Telstra had simply
missed its installation appointment
and | would have to apply yet again —
another two weeks.
So, | reapplied. (Yes, | really
wanted Naked DSL. | was deadset
‘on achieving the ideological nirvana
of not having to pay for something
| didn't want.) Third time round, the
DSL line was rejected again because
iiNet forgot to tell me that | needed to
have a phone plugged into the phone
socket at home. OK, fair enough, not
Telstra's fault.
Fourth time lucky, my service was
connected at a glorious 17Mbps
For the first time ever, | was actually
able to get broadband at something
like broadband speeds. For several
months, my downloads rocketed
along at speeds nearing 2MB a sec-
ond — it was bliss.
Then, Sydney had severe rain and
lightning storms, with claps of thunder
that would wake the dead. Somewhere
outside, | heard a scary “tttt-t-tt-ttt-ttt”
lightning sound — very close to my
house. A few minutes later, when | dis-
covered my net connection was dead
and my modem had a smoked-salmon
smell, | realised the sound | heard was
my modem getting fried. Darn.
So | procured another modem,
which connected OK — only this
time, the speed was 3Mbit/s. And it
dropped out frequently.
Guess what's happening now, trying
to get the phone line fixed? After my
sixth call to iiNet customer service, |
finally had to put on my journalist hat
and ask senior executives at iiNet and
Telstra what the hell was going on
and to see if they could actually get
someone to fix my line. Before then,
every time | called to enquire on the
status of my fault, Telstra had a dif-
ferent excuse. “That’s within average
line speeds. he job was closed
without any reason being given...”
and so on.
The moral of the story? Naked DSL
might be available, but don’t count
on the service actually being available
to you. ER
www.macworld.com.au
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do=1
Anthony Caruana
Hotlinks
www.blackberry.com
Pearl
www.hte.com
Touch
www.nokia.com.au
Communicator
www.sonyericsson.com.au
PI
+030 AMW Mz
ith a such a huge variety of different smart-
phones on the market it’s hard to know which
device will be suitable for your needs. Given
‘ent options it's little wonder
the dazzling array of di
that buyers feel like they're entering a maze. Here are
some pointers to help you negotiate the confusopoly.
Will you be using the device to enter lots of informa-
tion? If you will, look for a device with a QWERTY key-
board. Although there have been great advances made
in the use of predictive text entry a full keyboard is easy
to use, particularly if you're a novice.
Is access to e-mail important to you? If it is, Black-
Berry is a good option as it's able to retrieve e-mail au-
tomatically. Most other smartphones presently on the
market can retrieve e-mail but few are as simple to use
as BlackBerries.
Pre-paid or contract? If you're buying on a contract,
take the time to look at the last few bills you've had
and ask the service provider to recalculate them with the
new pricing structure. Factor in the cost of the handset
and, if you're moving to your first smartphone plan to
08
Phone smarts
‘Y End Call
access e-mail or surf the net, make sure you allow for
some data costs.
How good are your eyes? The size of icons and text
is important to consider. There isn’t a direct correlation
between larger screens and larger icons so you may find
a smaller screen is actually easier to read and less busy.
Hold the phone in your hand. Is it comfortable? You'll
need to be able to type easily, or the smartest phone in
the world is no use to you. Extra keys should also be
easily accessible, but not so easily that you'll be forever
pressing them accidentally.
What features do you really need? There are literally
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of potential devices to
choose from and it’s easy, in the heat of the moment, to
be swayed by a persuasive salesperson to buy a smart-
phone on the basis of a feature you don’t really need.
For example, if you're not planning to use your smart-
phone as a substitute for your digital camera, then a
5MP camera auto-focussing camera is a waste of money
and added complexity you don’t need. By the same token
GPS may seem like a useless gee-gaw, but if you actually
think you'll use it, it could be money well spent.
acworld.com.au
iPhone — the elephant in the room. It’s impos-
sible to survey the smartphone market without consider-
ing the iPhone. However, that survey is difficult to com-
plete as the iPhone doesn't officially exist in Australia
yet. That said, there are plenty of people running around
with a “cracked” iPhone. The problem with these units
is that each firmware update Apple releases (there have
been several already) renders the iPhone useless until
someone finds a way to crack the phone again.
The question on everyone's mind is “When will the iP-
hone come to Australia”. The answer to that is very simple
— when Apple is ready. One of the challenges Apple may
face is its preference to do deals with specific carriers.
Australian laws forbid “third arm forcing” — this is where
a vendor selling one product forces you to buy another
product. Arguably, this includes having to sign a contract
with a specific carrier in order to buy the iPhone.
The main obstacle to having the iPhone available on
all phone networks is that it relies on EDGE for its inter-
net access. This effectively limits the iPhone’s full utility
to Telstra. However, by the time the iPhone is released
locally, there may be a 3G version on the market.
With the release of the iPhone and iPod touch SDK,
Apple's taken a leaf from the Symbian, Windows Mo-
bile and Palm books. One of the reasons those plat-
forms have been so successful is that they've been hubs
for developer communities that have found all sorts of
ways to add value to devices through some very inge-
nious applications.
My advice — if you need a new smartphone but are
waiting for the iPhone then consider buying a temporary
phone without a contract. That way, when the iPhone is
released you won't be trapped in a contract and can of-
fload your phone on the second-hand market and buy
an iPhone.
BlackBerry 8120
Type Smartphone
Rating tthe
Pros Great messaging
Cons Syne troubles
SRP $659 plus data plan
Manufacturer | RIM
It has to be said that experience counts for a lot. The
BlackBerry 8120, also known as the Pearl, is a far cry
from the earliest BlackBerry devices. It’s sleek, weighs
less than 100g and delivers great telephony and excel-
lent messaging capability.
www.macworld.com.au
The setup process for the test unit, running on Op-
tus’s network, was very Mac-like: follow some simple
prompts and you're done. RIM, the company that makes
the BlackBerry, has done a deal with the folks at Pock-
etMac so I downloaded the latest version of Pocket-
Mac for BlackBerry so I could sync the Pearl with my
test system.
Once navigated the PocketMac/BlackBerry web site
and registration system, I installed PocketMac for Black-
Berry and encountered a problem. Despite everything
seemingly having worked, PocketMac simply wouldn’t
connect to the Pearl. Some research revealed that the
problem might be related to a lack of power coming
from the USB port. This isn’t surprising as more recent
Mac portables seem to have a lower power output from
USB than previous versions but it's disappointing that I
could not sync calendar and contact data.
Having set the Pearl to retrieve messages from a very
active Gmail account, I found that messages arrived on
the Pearl almost instantly. Composing and replying to
messages took some practice with the BlackBerry’s pre-
dictive text input system. If you're accustomed to the
T9 mode of most mobile phones, the RIM way of doing
things, while very good, does take some getting used to.
Rather than arranging the letters in alphabetical order
on sequentially numbered keys, the Pearl has a sort of
QWERTY-like arrangement. Odd, until you get the hang
of it.
The Pearl’s supported application suite is quite im-
pressive, with Yahoo! and Google Talk IM clients.
An AIM Messenger client has also been re-
leased but I couldn't install it because of the
connection issue. Other apps looked excel-
lent on the two-inch colour screen.
Connectivity is covered off with quad-
band GSM and EDGE for data commu-
nications. There's Bluetooth so that the
Pearl can be used as a wireless modem
with the Mac, but not for syncing. In-
ternet connectivity was also 802.11b/g
WiFi and I used this to connect to the
web over the office's wireless LAN for
web browsing.
The BlackBerry 8120 Pearl is a great
phone and communications device. How-
ever, the synchronisation issues I faced
were significant and, I believe, will be a
deal-breaker for many potential users.
Australian Macworld’s buying
advice. The BlackBerry 8120 Pearl is a
great handheld that works as expected. If
the sync solution worked as it should, I'd have
little hesitation recommending it.
AMW May 08 031 4
E90 Communicator
Type Smartphone
Rating ttn
Pros Comms powerhouse
Cons Size and weight
SRP $1499
Manufacturer | Nokia
At first glance the Nokia E90 Communicator looks
like an early '90s handset. The screen's small at just
52mm, there’s a keypad, and plenty of vacant space
around all of that. Weighing in at a touch over 200g,
it’s heavy to hold and quite chunky. However, there's
a lot more to the E90 than meets the eye. That retro-
styled front face flips up to reveal a full QWERTY key-
board and a 103mm 800x352-pixel colour display. The
E90 Communicator is, as its name suggests, designed to
be an internet communications device.
As far as comms go, the E90 ticks all the right boxes
with quad-band GSM and 3G data. There's 802.11g for
wireless and Bluetooth for connecting the phone to your
Mac as a modem and for calendar and contact sync-
ing. Nokia provides a free iSync plug-in so you can eas-
ily connect the E90 to your Mac either via Bluetooth
or USB.
In giving the E90 a split personality, with the simple
phone on the outside and computer on the inside, Nokia
has largely solved the issue of the phone interface com-
plexity, albeit in its own and completely idiosyncratic
way. When you need to make calls, use it as a traditional
phone. For e-mail, web browsing and other tasks open
the face and use the larger screen, keyboard and point-
ing device that are hidden away. The QWERTY keypad
is surprisingly comfortable to use. It does require some
practice but it's adequate for re-
plying to e-mail, making short
notes and entering URLs
while surfing. There are
four buttons adjacent to
the screen and I found it
&
>032 AMW May 08
annoying that some actions required me to move away
from the keyboard in order to respond to a dialog or ap-
plication pop-up. Other than that annoyance, the rest
of the interface, running Symbian $60 V3.1, behaved as
expected. Nokia has done a good job in porting an inter-
face that’s designed for small screens to a larger one.
Battery life is about average for a smartphone, with
five hours of talk and about 14 days of standby. Of
course, with Bluetooth and WiFi active, you can expect
much shorter returns.
Multimedia capability rounds out the package with a
3.2MP camera equipped with a flash and autofocus. I
took some test shots and found it adequate for quick
snaps. However, I'm surprised that a device touted as a
communicator lacks a second camera for video-calling.
Photos and music, which can be played back through
the music player app that supports AAC and MP3, can
be stored on a microSD card.
Australian Macworld’s buying advice. At almost
$1500, many people will be weighing up the value of
an all-in-one device versus an entry-level MacBook.
The E90 Communicator will be attractive to some but it
won't suit everyone
Pti
| Type Smartphone |
Rating ate
Pros Great screen
Cons Hit and miss Mac syne
SRP $799
Manufacturer | Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson's P1i is the first smartphone to really
surprise me in quite some time. You see, it's a phone
without the traditional call and hang-up buttons I've be-
come accustomed to. Instead, it uses its 20-button key-
pad for data entry and the touchscreen for other tasks.
Once the phone's powered up for the first time, you're
directed to go through a setup wizard that lets you set
your home city, the time and date and messaging set-
tings. After some digging through the Sony Ericsson
support site I did find an iSync plug-in but couldn't
make it work. My research showed that this was not an
uncommon issue although some users reported that their
handset didn’t have the same problems I faced.
In day to day use, the P1i is very competent. The dis-
play is very clear and the home-screen provides a sum-
mary view of unread messages, pending tasks and ap-
pointments and quick access to your calendar, address
www.macworld.com.au
book and inbox. Most icons are
quite large and tappable with
a fingertip although many
other operations like enabling
Bluetooth or WiFi will require
use of the stylus that sits in
a slot in the top left corner
of the device.
Although the P1i is a little
on the chunky side it is rea-
sonably comfortable to hold.
There’s a roller on the left side
that you can use to navigate
around screens and a dedicat-
ed button for the 3MP camera.
The camera can take decent
snaps and there are basic ed-
iting tools on the phone for
cropping and annotating im-
ages. A secondary camera, on
the front corner, can be used for
video calls over 3G. Talk time is rated at between 3.5 and
10 hours depending on whether your on a UMTS or GSM
network with standby rated at between 14 and 18 days.
‘As always, these numbers are only indicative and will
drop back significantly if Bluetooth and WiFi are used.
Australian Macworld’s buying advice. If Mac
synchronisation were reliable I'd have little hesitation
in recommending the P1i. However, the unreliability of
that feature pulls the P1i's score down significantly.
Touch Duo
Type Smartphone
Rating tthe
Pros Sleek, easy to use
Cons poor camera, no WiFi
SRP $745
Manufacturer HTC
HTC has emerged as the new force in the smartphone
market. Its Touch Duo looks a lot like the HTC Touch but
adds a phone keypad that's revealed by sliding the screen
up. Despite the addition of the keyboard, the Touch Duo
retains a slim profile that, at under 16mm, is still pocket-
sized and comfortable to hold.
Running Windows Mobile 6 Professional, the Touch
Duo is replete with a full suite of office applications,
multimedia management programs and other essential
tools such as a PDF viewer, Flash video player and a
www.macworld.com.au
voice recorder. The 2.6-inch screen does a good job of
displaying content and the QualcommMSM 2700 pro-
cessor drives the system nicely. I didn’t experience any
significant slowdowns even when there were several ap-
plications running.
The internal memory packs 256MB — that might seem
a little skinny in comparison with the iPhone, with which
the Touch Duo is inevitably compared. However, this can
be easily bolstered through a microSD slot.
The Windows Mobile user interface has been
customised by HTC. The today screen uses HTC’s Live
home screen, which provides an application launch-
er that can be used with a fingertip, reducing depen-
dence on the stylus that’s quite difficult to extract and
put away from the slot on the bottom right corner.
The custom Today screen uses the 3G data connection
(my test unit was on Telstra’s NextG network) to get
live weather updates and provide quick access to
commonly-used applications.
Connectivity is rounded off with Bluetooth 2.0 so you
can wirelessly connect the Touch Duo and sync your iCal
and Address Book, or Entourage data. However, you will
need to add the cost of Missing Sync to your budget as
Mac sync support isn’t included in the box.
As a communication tool, the Touch Duo is a solid
device. The keypad means that you won't cover the
touch screen with fingerprints and there’s a
camera for video calls on the front and
2.0MP unit on the back for grabbing
quick snapshots. It auto-focuses quite
well but I found image quality — par-
ticularly when indoors or in uneven
lighting — to be fair at best.
Battery life is rated at 250 hours
standby and three hours talk.
In testing, I found that the
standby rating was reasonable.
Talk time is more difficult to
assess but I found that I was
able to use the Touch Duo for
a full day between trips to the
power outlet.
Australian Macworld’s
buying advice. | liked the
HTC Touch Duo. The display
and keypad were comfort-
able, although the inbuilt
storage is a little skinny.
Some further refinement
to reduce the stylus-de-
pendence will make this
a worthy rival for the
AMW May 08 033 4
Fleur Doidge
believes everyone
has a story to tell
Insights into the Australian Mac community
Hotlinks
Mac dance
alcolm McLaren's seminal
1983 track “Buffalo Gals”
plays in my head when |
think of Melbourne psychologist Les
Posen and his passion for Israeli folk
dancing. Maybe it's the “dosey-doe
your partner” element of video-based
folk dance instruction. Maybe it's the
association with viral, vaguely under-
ground internet technology. Maybe
it's just that, no matter how you spin
it, Israeli folk dance seems to an
outsider every bit as quirky as “all that
scratchin’ is makin’ me itch”
Whatever. What's often overlooked
when it comes to the channel are the
people not directly involved selling or
distributing product themselves, but
who support sales by their own in-
novative engagement with the brand
Les Posen is one of those.
Facing the music. Poser’s first
blog was about Israeli folk dance, fol-
lowing a brush with an existing Yahoo!
discussion list when, according to
him, not all on the list were happy
with his pro-Apple views: “I wanted
my own place to expose my quirky
thinking!"
He began by commenting on how
technology was affecting the psychol-
ogy profession, but the blog gradually
focused more on Apple issues. “Any
Apple user around for a decade or
two has been the butt of ridicule,”
Posen said. “My blog was an effort to
debunk some of those myths, but also
to apply my clinical nous and, later,
my studies in knowledge manage-
ment, to Apple in ways other bloggers
were not.
homepage.mac.com/lesposen
Les Posen's site guide, including links to the CyberPsych
podcast and Fear of Flying blog
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SgvJY9xxcA
YouTube — 1983 video clip for Malcolm McLaren's
“Buffalo Gals’
+034 AMW May 0
8
Sy
var
‘The Mac has what | want in a PC: el-
egant software that ‘knows’ how | want
to use it, then gets out of the way.”
Unsurprisingly, Posen has become
quite the Keynote fan. In his pro-
fession — along with virtual reality
therapy, biofeedback and the like
in his independent practice treating
anxiety and phobias like fear of flying
— giving presentations is part of the
game and Keynote, he says, fits in
better with cognitive science on how
we learn. This year he gave a presen-
tation on Keynote at the Macworld
Expo in San Francisco
“Keynote's cinematic qualities
encourage users to be more visual
in their presentations and to use the
beautifully-rendered text carefully. Our
visual systems are to broadband while
our auditory systems are to dialup,”
Posen said
“But when you use both together
appropriately, you get an enhanced
effect. PowerPoint's cognitive style
— what its wizards invite you to do
— emphasises the textual display
of data in bullets. The classic boring
presentation.”
Movement by Mac. He got
interested in Israeli folk dancing not
long after he got his first Mac — the
second-in-charge of the clinical
psychology program at Melbourne's
Austin Hospital in 1988 was a Mac fan.
Posen used PowerPoint slides in
his first-ever university presentation
“| hated it, and half-way through
stopped using it and talked to the
students about my experience as a
psychologist. That set the standard for
how | present,” he said.
In 1990, a girlfriend took up danc-
ing. “Rather than spend two nights
apart, | joined in, and while slow to
catch it to begin with, | discovered |
could learn new dances quickly and
soon had a repertoire of several hun-
dred dances,” Posen said.
Posen said each piece of Israeli folk
dance music has its own dance — a
unique physical “signature”. “So when
you hear the music, your feet go on
automatic pilot and you just move,”
he said.
He says folk dancers can move
at their own pace; it can be mild
exercise or more strenuous. You can
hold hands with strangers, so it fills a
human need to be touched as well
“It's a great connector and, of course,
for those who have a strong connec-
tion with Israel or the Bible, it puts that
connection into a physical form,”
he said.
In early 2001, after the first Titanium
PowerBooks were released, he
bought one plus a Sony Digital-8
camera. Posen says he had “no
idea” about FireWire and digital
movies, but soon discovered Quick-
Time, iMovie and iTools — which al-
lowed him to upload 20MB of Quick-
Time videos free to Apple's servers.
“| had about a dozen, to contain my
growing collection of dance-related
videos,” he said.
At the time, the sole distributor of
dances was a tightly-controlled Israeli
“monopoly”, he says, which mailed
out VHS tapes of the latest dances
from monthly workshops. “If you were
lucky, one or two out of 15 were good
enough to teach — so people were
paying $US40 each month for a lucky
dip. | cherry-picked the good dances
by attending camps and deciding on
displayed popularity,” Posen said
He made his choices available
online, and the service proved
popular. Then dance instructors
started sending him VHS tapes of new
dances from their dance camps and
local workshops. Posen uploaded
the choreographers’ versions too, so
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viewers could see the original idea of
the dance — how it “should” be done
—rather than just an interpretation
“My idea was that no matter
where you danced around the world
you would know the same dance,”
he said. “Later, when | led dance
sessions, | combined iTunes and Me-
gaseg dedicated DJ software to make
up my playlists.”
Posen says the Israel group has
since tried to copy and charge for its
materials. However, too many people
now use mobile phone-to-video and
services like YouTube to distribute
new dances. “Quality, however, is
quite variable — and not all dances
are shown with the choreographer in
action,” he added.
Cultural ties. Posen is not an
Israeli himself but he is Jewish. “I've
visited Israel a few times. | don't
speak Hebrew and prefer to live in
Australia,” he said,
Early immigrants to what is today
known as Israel, he says, brought
their own local culture with them,
mainly from Eastern Europe, merging
it with influences from places such as
Morocco, Yemen and Persia. In aid of
developing a specific Israeli culture,
people eventually developed a unique
folk dance form.
Unlike other folk dance movements,
which seek to preserve pre-existing
traditions, Israeli folk dance more
reflects current ideas — sometimes
even using hit parade songs as a
base as well as older music styles.
“Some dances are created just to
be popular, others have particular
contemporary meaning, such as
recent military activity or it's a variation
‘on a liturgical piece of music,” Posen
explained. “Many Christians are at-
tracted to Israeli folk dance because
of the religious themes.”
Apart from dancing, he enjoys
movies and training his four-year-old
German Shepherd. His partner of
eight years, Lili, has two children,
now in their early 20s. “I've intro-
duced them all to the Mac way. The
kids are grateful to have [older]
adults around them so into technolo-
gies. They used a PC for games and
IM until it became weighed down with
malware — the youngest is getting a
MacBook for his 21st.” &
HANSAWORLD
"RENEE ENTERPRISE
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a5 2
-
Lome) )
Jeffery Battersby,
Rob Griffiths,
Franklin N Tessier
Illustrations by
Jonathon Carlson
or years, Microsoft Office was the undisputed champion of Mac software =
suites. Then came Apple's iWork. At first it consisted solely of Pages and Keynote —
not enough to take on Office head-to-head. But when Apple added Numbers to iWork ‘08,
the suite became a viable alternative to Microsoft Office.
How viable? That's what we asked our go-to experts on word processors, spreadsheets, and
presentation programs to find out.
We asked each of them to use Office and iWork to create a project in their respective areas of
ch project was to progress from the basics (data entry and formatting) to more-advanced
expertise.
features (adding a data-entry form to a spreadsheet, for example, or advanced animations in a
are their strengths and
presentation). Our questions: Is one program better than the other? WI
weaknesses? Which jobs (and which users) require which tool?
Of course, we knew our test wouldn’t touch on every single feature in every program, but we figured
we'd be able to compare the tools that you might typically require in a real-world job.
Editing styles.
Because of Word's
style-formatting
tools, modifying
and creating styles
is easier in Word
than it is in Pages.
Word 2008
vs Pages 08
© compare Microsoft Word to Pages ’08, I used
T each program to create the same four-page news-
letter. I created my basic text and layout in each
program’s word processing mode, and then added a
variety of paragraph styles and some design elements,
including columns, callouts, drop caps, and graphics. Fi-
nally, I switched to each program’s page-layout mode to
create a more sophisticated, template-based version of
the same document.
Round 1
Text entry, simple formatting. I started by creating the
basic newsletter layout: title text, volume and issue num-
bers below that, a headline for my main article, body text
for the article itself, and a page number in the page footer.
Lused each program's default styles for the initial format-
ting and then edited those styles to alter the document's
look. Both programs make all these initial steps simple.
In Word, I created each element of the document in
Word's default paragraph style. To format those elements
more distinctly, I then selected the styles I wanted to use
from the Style menu in the floating Formatting Palette.
I used Word's new Document Elements tool to add page
numbers to the document's footers.
It's only slightly tougher to do all that in Pages. Again,
lused the default style and typed my text, and then ad-
justed my paragraph styles, But I couldn't assign para-
graph styles from a floating palette in Pages. Instead, I
had to open the Paragraph Styles drawer and choose the
style I wanted from there. (I could also have assigned
a keyboard shortcut to each style and applied it with a
couple of keystrokes.)
Moy Se
teemaitoy RR BT A
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+038 AMW May 08
Word's styles editor makes it easy to go beyond the
default styles: From the floating Formatting Palette, |
opened the Styles palette, clicked to the right of the field
displaying the style of the current paragraph, and chose
to modify that style. Word then opened a window where
I quickly chose the text colour, font sizes, indents, bul-
lets, and other options. Once my edits were complete,
every paragraph in my newsletter using that style up-
dated to reflect the changes I'd made.
Editing and updating styles isn’t as easy in Pages. I
had to use the standard formatting tools to adjust exist-
ing paragraphs, and then open the Styles Drawer and
choose to either create a new style or redefine the cur-
rent style. This isn’t necessarily difficult, but Word’s way
is much more intuitive and easier to use.
Word 2008 has one other advantage when it comes
to changing a document's overall look quickly: Docu-
ment Themes. These are collections of paragraph styles
that change fonts, paragraph formats, text colours, and
other document features with a single click of the button.
Word ships with over 50 of these themes; you can also
create your own, but, oddly enough, you have to use Pow-
erPoint to do it. Pages really has nothing that compares.
My verdict: When it comes to basic text editing, Pages
and Word are perfect equals. But when it comes to ed-
iting and creating styles, and quickly overhauling the
look of your document, Word is better.
Round 2
Advanced document elements. With my basic text and
formatting in place, I then began adding more-complex
elements, such as sections, columns, drop caps, images,
callouts, and tables of contents.
While both programs easily handle sections and col-
umns, they use a somewhat different vocabulary to do
so. For example, what Word refers to as a Continuous
Section Break, Pages calls a Layout Break.
www.macworld.com.au
Moving objects. Floating objects don't float in Word's word
processing mode, so they wreak havoc on your layout if you make
any major paragraph-formatting changes.
Adding a drop cap in Word was equally easy; it’s a simple
matter of selecting a menu option. Pages doesn’t have a
built-in drop-cap tool. Instead, I had to finagle my own
drop cap by inserting a text box with a single character
in it. This inelegant solution never really worked; the
spacing between my drop cap and the rest of the text
was always a bit off.
The first time I ran into any limitations in Word was
when I started to add floating objects — such as pictures
and callout text around which text flows. For starters,
its image-editing tools aren't very good. More signifi-
cantly, when I changed a column of text, the floating
objects in it refused to stay in place. Instead they moved
around as if tied to the text they were originally placed
next to, destroying my layout. If I selected all the text
in a document and deleted it or replaced it with text
from the Clipboard, floating objects within the original
text disappeared, too. In other words, if you make any
major changes to a document after inserting floating
objects, you'll probably need to completely re-create
your layout.
Pages’ image-editing tools are much better than Word's.
You can, for example, change an image mask or add an
alpha channel. And Pages treats floating objects much
more intelligently — as separate and distinct from the
text that surrounds them. When I edited text within col-
Table of Table of Contents
contents. Word
and Pages don't
allow you to create |
pines coe ae of Contents |
limiting their value Error! Table not allowed |
Hien tortetied in footnote, endnote, |
word processing header, footer, comment,
documents. or text box.
www.macworld.com.au
umns containing floating objects, those objects stayed
where they were. Select and delete text and, again, the
objects remain right where you put them.
I was disappointed with each program's handling of
tables of contents. While both programs use paragraph
styles to gather information for a table of contents,
neither would allow me to place the resulting table in-
side a text box; they insisted on putting the table on its
own full page. To get the table of contents I wanted, I
had to create it manually in a text box.
Overall, when it comes to adding slightly more-com-
plex formatting to basic word processing documents, I
have to give the nod to Pages.
Round 3
Templates. My next step was to switch from word pro-
cessing mode to page-layout mode. Neither program
allowed me to convert a word processing document di-
rectly into a page-layout document, so I had to start all
over from scratch: I used a built-in template to create
my page-layout document, and then copied over the text
T'd created when in word processing mode.
Word and Pages each include a significant collection
of templates, all of which you can modify and person-
alise to suit your own needs. But Pages offers a far more
complete set, and it makes customising them easier.
Templates in both programs are designed with place-
holders for text and images. While both allowed me
to drag and drop images onto placeholders, they han-
dle placeholder text differently. When I dragged and
dropped text onto a Pages placeholder, Pages replaced
the template text with my dropped text. When I did the
same thing in Word, the dropped text appeared in a
new text box. In both cases, it's far easier to copy text
from the original document and then paste it into a
text box in the new document.
10 Key differences Word/Pages
Automation (via AppleScript and/or Automator)
Clip-art library e °
Compatible with .doc format e* e
Drop-cap support e fe)
Embedded charts, er je
Horizontal typing in vertical text fields ° e
Image-editing tools e es
Mail merging from a variety of sources e °
Multiple floating palettes ° e
Support for floating objects e e
@ = yes, O = no. 4 Better. ® From Excel.
AMW May 08 039 4
Alternatives: word processors
Word may have most of the market share, with iWork
a distant second, but there are still some other alter-
natives for Mac word processing.
If all you need is basic text editing, TextEdit offers
everything you need to create a good, basic docu-
ment. It'll let you create bulleted or numbered lists,
adjust line spacing, change text alignment, or fiddle
with your font formatting; it can open Word .doc files;
and it's free with any Mac.
Some of my favourite text editors — BareBones Soft-
ware’s TextWrangler and Peter Borg’s excellent Smul-
tron — are good choices if you heed a bit more than
TextEdit. They have no formatting tools, but they're
great for quickly typing and manipulating basic text,
particularly if said text is bound for the Web. For edit-
ing HTML or CSS files, they both provide coloured
“text-formatting options to help you see keywords in
your code.
Among true word processors, one of my personal
favourites — enough so that | used it to write most of
this article — is Hog Bay Software’s WriteRoom. It’s a
great text editor, with auto-capitalisation and
If the text | pasted into a text box was too large for the
box, both programs provided visual cues to let me know
there was an overflow and both allowed me to link text
boxes so that the text would flow from one box or page
In Word, each text box is colour-coded
and numbered in sequence to make it obvious where
the text flows. If I held the cursor over a text box, the
other linked boxes popped into view. Pages also shows
to the next.
how text boxes are linked sequentially, but I had to
click on an existing text box to see how it linked to the
next box in the sequence. The program then displayed
a thin blue line that started on the first text box and
connected in sequence to the last.
Both programs enable you to rearrange the pages in
your document by dragging and dropping them into a
Hotlinks
www.barebones.com
TextWrangler
smultron.sourceforge.net
Smultron
hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom
WriteRoom
www.marinersoftware.com
Mariner Write
www.nisus.com
Nisus Writer
docs.google.com
Google Doe:
www.thinkfree.com
ThinkFree
>040 AMW MM.
spelling and grammar checking. It'll do basic text for-
matting in Rich Text Format documents. Best of all, it
creates a distraction-free, full-screen writing enviro
ment that I find to be nearly perfect for just cranking
out words.
If you need a little more heft, either Mariner Soft-
ware’s Mariner Write or Nisus’s Nisus Writer Pro is
worth a try. Both can open Word documents and save
in formats that Word can read. And they have some
powerful searching tools. They also have many of the
text-formatting features found in Word and Pages;
both allow you to use paragraph styles to quickly
change your document's look.
Finally, if you find yourself composing documents
from many different Macs, you should consider ei-
ther Google Docs or ThinkFree Online. Both are web-
based applications that you can use via any browser,
and they include high-end word processing features
and support for Microsoft document formats. Google
Docs is the faster of the two, but ThinkFree’s interface
is very Word-like and offers more document-format-
ting options than Google.
navigation drawer. When I moved pages, the page num-
bers automatically updated. If I already had linked text
boxes in the document, neither of the programs reflowed
the text in the proper sequence.
When it came to more-advanced word processing chores,
I again found Pages to be more capable than Word.
The Death of Chez Panache
A (very) Short Story
1 Ye barely begun to read.“
the review when I want to
retch in my cast-iron
Bkillet. In two sentences
Gila Kiesler reduces my
Lntire world to, “..2 plate
bflimp linguine, overdone
shrimp drowning in a
‘sitlic aioli and embedded
ina pile of wilted arugula.
Chez Panache,” she writes,
‘validates the culinary
excellence of a Wendy’s
bacon cheeseburger.”
‘And how do you account
for a day? Even under the
Microsoft Word provides excellent visual
cues for viewing the way text flows between text boxes.
Id.com.au
Excel 2008 vs
Numbers ’08
o find out how Numbers ‘08 and Excel 2008 com-
pare, I used both programs to create the same
sales-tracking spreadsheet.
Round 1
Data entry, formulas, and formatting. I started by cre-
ating a single worksheet, with a fictional company’s
product sales by month across the top and a row for
each of six sales representatives. I then added cells at
the bottom and to the right, where I calculated totals and
averages for each month and each salesperson.
Entering basic d
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