MacWorld0302February2003

APPLE CHALLENGES MICROSOFT Apple's Safari and Keynote Take On Microsoft's Internet Explorer and PowerPoint, www.macworld.com The Mac Product Experts March 2003 17-Inch PowerBook ear Apple's Most Powerful of the Portable Offers 1GHz G4 onimens Notebooks G4 Power Arrives in Lightest PowerBook Ever Apple Introduces Two New Laptops PLUS | AirPort Extreme In-Depth | OS X Scanners Reviewed | G4 Upgrades M8 ©2003 Apple Computer, Inc Allrights reserved. *Base station not included. Call 1-800-MY-APPLE or vist wwww.apple.com. Less is more. Presenting the world’s most compact full-featured notebook computer. Unlike other compact notebooks, everything is built in. Like a blazing G4 processor, super-crisp 12" display (1024 x 768), slot-load CD-burning/DVD- playing Combo drive and integrated Bluetooth. Plus a battery that lasts up to 5 hours, so you can do more-anywhere. All incredibly engineered into a stunning aluminum enclosure that's just 1.2” thin. The new 12" PowerBook: 4 More is more. Presenting the world’s first 17" notebook computer. Featuring a breathtaking 17" widescreen display, blazing 1GHz G4 processor, slot-load CD/DVD-burning SuperDrive” and the industry's first backlit keyboard. Plus AirPort’ Extremes (802.11g) and integrated Bluetooth make it the most wirelessly connected notebook ever. All miraculously engineered into a 1"-thin enclosure that’s ultra-light and ultra-desirable. The new 17" PowerBook. O Supporting the Mac aficionado since 1987 We know Mac! Rely on Mac Warehouse for: © Our Experience 15 years, 34 million orders fulfilled ¢ Our Knowledge You have a question, we have the answer elena * Our Service — We're open for business whenever you call et RIGn etglay dies Oh, and our 24/7 Tech Support is FREE to 800MHz G4 processor for the lifetime of your product. é Authorized Reseller epson © VAN gamma sony. The new 1GHz PowerBook® G4 features the largest display yet — 17 inches! That's the same viewing area as a 19-inch CRT monitor! Built-in AirPort Extreme delivers the next generation of wireless technology — at nearly five times the speed of 802.11b — while providing extreme backward compatibility and built-in Bluetooth™ support! SuperDrive” is included, along with all the software you need to create and burn CDs and DVDs, listen to music, archive data — watch a movie! The new 1GHz PowerBook does it all! vi 17-inch PowerBook G4 Canon ZR45C Digital lomega® Zip* Adobe® HP Photosmart Video Camcorder Drive 750MB Photoshop® 7.0 7550 InkJet Printer AMICRON E Company CRS 1-800-434-3035 LACIE) macromedia Canon For all Canadian inquires and orders please call 1-877-375-3173 Choose 19 at wwnwmacworld.comigetinfo OPINION seeeracdcnen From the Editor's Desk RICK LEPAGE Apple brought exciting news to Macworld Expo, but other developers contributed just as much. 12 Feedback Readers respond. 120 thnatko COVER STORY ANDY IHNATKO. The path from user to programmer is paved by Welcome Back AppleScript Studio. DAVID WEISS Mac OS X broke the connection to scanners, but thanks to Jaguar, the lines Ml AC B E AT. of communication are open again. We judge six new models on how well they work ‘in Jaguar and on their overall performance, Our first look at the 17-inch and 12-inch PowerBooks, iLife, Safari, Keynote, and Final FE ATU R ES Cut Express; force feedback comes to Mac games; and an interview with Gene Gable, 61 The Way to Wireless former president of Seybold Seminars. | ADAM C. ENGST AND GLENN FLEISHMAN | Several years ago, Apple brought easy-to-use wireless networking to the S E @ R ETS | Mac with AirPort, but bigger and better things are on the way. We'll explain 5 a AirPort Extreme, give you a peek at what the future of wireless holds, and 74 Data-Driven Publishing show you how to get more out of this technology. DAVID BLATNER Ra a ~ Take information from a database and transform | 88 Power Mac Power Boost it into an easily updateable print catalog. KRISTINA DE NIKE Do you want to run OS X but wonder whether your older Mac has what it 78 Error-Free Excel HELEN BRADLEY | takes? Find out which components you can upgrade—and when doing so is worth the cost. We also look at 10 processor upgrade cards, to help ‘An Excel worksheet filled with valuable data is you if you decide to go the upgrade route, no place for a mistake. Use these tips and tricks Es ES to ensure error-free data. 80 XPress Time-Savers DAVID BLATNER QuarkXPress libraries give you easy access to items you frequently reuse. 82. Mac 911 CHRISTOPHER BREEN This month, we look at CD-R and DVD-R media. Get tips on backing up application files to disc with Apple’s Backup utility, creating Video CDs, effectively destroying the silver platters, and more. | On the Cover PowerBiooks photo, Peter Belanger; | LUVIN THE FETT Steve Jobs photo jim Dakymple; | — Photoshop artist, Stephen Sugg. [4 | MACWORLD | March 2003. | wwrnmacworld.com | Music-production application _ $465 Cubase Sx 1.051 Electronic whiteboard sy systems $$$ eBeam System 3 $88 mimio 3-D-animation software $o3 Universe 5.0 This Month in Printers $8$$) Canon i850 $$$ Canon S530D $669 Epson Stylus C82 $689 Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 5550 8% Lexmark 265 Color Jetprinter Color laser printer $$$) Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2500L All-in-one backup system $8$6 Maxtor Personal Storage 5000 Diagramming program $bbi Inspiration 7 Font-management program $8963 FontAgent Pro Genealogy program __ $8945 Reunion 8 Text-manipulation software F408 BBEKE7.O Utility for 3-D Flash 98) Swift 303 Internet traceroute utility $863 VisualRoute 7.0 QuarkXPress plug-ins $96! XPert Tools Pro Reviews in Brief Art Directors Toolkit 3, DragThing 4.5, Six Degrees 1.5, WebMerge 2.1 The Game Room PETER COHEN Not everybody can be a secret agent in real life, but games are another matter. _wewmacwortd.com | = — ___| March 2003 | Macworto | 5 | Maes and PCs have never been so compatible. Microsoft® Office v. X lets Mac users effortlessly open, edit,ond ‘Office file, to make working with PCs a breeze. Complete with easy-t tools that simplify complex tasks. And it's built for Noosa: reliable, easygoing Office yet. [Go> www.officeformac,com to download a free 30-day trial of Office v. X today. Manage your | _»-/ SUBSCRIPTION with a simple click! Using our Subscriber Services Web site is the fastest way to take care of any of your Macworld subscription inquiries. ‘, Your online service options allow you to e Pay for your subscription (3) Change your mailing address 3) Sign up for continuous service 2) Give a gift subscription e Renew your subscription Inquire about missing/duplicate issues Contact us directly with your questions aan serviee,macworld.co MACWORLD | March 2003 VP of Content/Editor in Chief Editor Managing Editor Deputy Managing Editor Senior Features Editor Senior News Editor Senior Reviews Editor Test Manager, Macworld Lab Senior Associate Editors ‘Associate Editor Copy Editor Contributing Editors David Blatn Henry Bortman, Chistopher Rick LePage Jason Snell Jennifer Werner Charles Purdy | Ter Stone | Philip Michaels | Jennifer Berger James Gatbraith Jonathan Sef si Roter Sue Voetkel ‘Breen, Adam C. Engst Bruce Fraser, lim Held, Andy Ihnatko, Ted Landau, Deke McClelland, Scholle Sanyer McFarland, Tom Negting, David Pogue, Stephan Somogyi Franklin N. Tessler Ant Ditector Design Associate Design Consultant Prepress Consultant Editor, Online Senior Editor, Macworld.com Senior Editors, MacCentral.com Jennifer Steele Alissa Mach Jean Zambel ‘Stephen Sugg Jim Dalryrople David Leishman Peter Cohen, Dennis Sellers International Editors Matthew JC. Powell, Australi; Bernard Le Dy, France; Sebastian Mirsch, Germany, Enrico Lott Italy; Yoshio Moriya, Japan; Tomasz Bitner, Poland; Daniel de Blas, Span; Nits Holmlou, Sweden; Engin Gedi, Turkey; Simon Jr, United Kingdom President and CEO \PIChief Operating Officer Director of Finance ‘Accounting Coordinator Senior VP, Human Resources Human Resources Director Human Resources Representative I Director VP of Sales/Publisher Associate Publisher, East National Accounts Manager ‘Wester Advertising Director Sales Assistant Showcase Account Manager Showcase Account Manager Online Sales Manager Sales and Marketing Assistant Colin Crawtord ‘Stephen Daniels Eos de Feminis Ronda Bittner Richard Willoughby Kate Coldwell Julie Mele Sean Greathouse Steve Pievin Cynthia Ramsey Poul Bonatigo Sara Culley Franck Zamora Niki strane aro Johnstone Doug Deletsen (4151243-3509) (9731243-1197) (508/533-4020) (831/438-8408) (415/243-3628) (415/243-3668) (415/243-3691) (415/243-3598) Rachel Desjardins (1157267-4562) Sharon L. 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Aa he Ale ge Mac and nts are regsced traders of Appe Compute Inc Pete the Unie Sates of Aero IDG wwwmacworld.com _ FROM THE | | THE EDITOR’ S DESK _ Apple Wasn't the Only aly Newsmaker at a Lively Macworld Expo Melting Pot THE JANUARY MACWORLD CONFERENCE & EXPO, HELD annually in San Francisco, is a bellwether of the mood and vibrancy of the Mac market, and its spirit hangs over us all through the winter and into the spring. At last year’s show, Apple introduced the flat- screen iMac and cranked up the heat on the Mac OS X transition, Both of these announcements were huge, but they had the overall effect of sucking the oxygen out of the show: the only thing anyone was really talking about was Apple, and Mac developers had a hard time being heard above the static. ‘This year’s show had a much different vibe to it. While Apple had a pack of exciting announcements, which ran the gamut from simple software updates to new portables, it didn’t dominate the show. There were plenty of other companies, small and large, with news and products to sell, and the mood of Expo attendees was good. After what I saw and heard, I'd say that we're in for a fun ride over the next few months. Looking for the Sweet Spots As always, Apple led the charge with Expo-related announcements. But unlike last year’s iMac-focused announcements, this year’s Steve Jobs keynote con- tained something to make most Mac owners happy. The new 12-inch PowerBook looks to be a sweet machine for travelers, especially for people like me, who still pine for the old PowerBook Duo every time they lug a backpack onto an airplane. The 17-inch PowerBook, on the other hand, is pretty darned expansive, but when I picked one up and toted it around, it didn’t fee/ as huge as I thought it would. The large screen is nothing short of stun- ning, and the little touches in that big box—the lighted keyboard, the bigger speakers, the counter- balanced lid—should make it the most-desired Mac we've seen ina long time. Apple’s other announcements at the show, detailed in this issue's Expo coverage (see Mac Beat), were pretty wide-ranging. What really surprised me, though, was how little complaining I heard about | Apple. It’s a favorite sport of Expo participants, but most of the people I spoke to (attendees and vendors alike) felt that Apple was doing a good job right now, Leaving Room for Developers However, my favorite trend at the show wasn’t what Apple was doing; it was what developers were doing. ‘There were longtime Next developers such as Black- woyewemacworld.com smith (www.blacksmith.com), who was showing Chartsmith, a slick-looking charting application, and newcomers such as Slim Devices (www.slimdevices .com), whose booth was jammed with people looking to buy a SIiMP3 Ethernet audio player. Some companies, such a Extensis (wwwextensis .com) and Intuit (www.intuit.com), were showing reborn versions of dormant products—in those cases, Mask Pro and QuickBooks Pro. In fact, the biggest controversy at the show was Apple’s inclusion of QuickBooks with the new PowerBooks; many people commented on how this deal seemed to be a slap in the face to longtime OS X standard-bearer MYOB (www.myob.com). This Expo also showed an abundance of niches for utilities and smaller-scale products. For example, font management—a feature that Apple once suggested would be built into OS X and therefore a nonissue—was thriving, at least on the show floor. Extensis and DiamondSoft (www.fontreserve.com) were offering new versions of Suitcase and Font Reserve, respectively, and Insider Software (www .insidersoftware.com) was showing off an update to FontAgent Pro. Even Alsoft (www.alsoft .com) got into the act, with an impressive new version of MasterJuggler Pro with an iTunes-style interface. You could go to just about any corner of the Expo floor and see vitality—except, perhaps, at the Internal Revenue Service booth. When I walked off the show floor for the last time, I felt pretty good about things. We seem to be past the worst part of the OS X transi tion, something especially evident from the products I saw at the show. A colleague in the mainstream press remarked at length about how much energy there was at Macworld Expo, something neither of us had seen at last year’s “big” trade shows, such as Comdex and PC Expo. For all the complaints about the small size of the Mac market, it sure seems like a good place to be right now. | We're in for a fun ride over the next few months. What did you think about Apple’s Macworld Expo announcements? Do you have to have the 17-inch Power- Book, even if that means selling family heirlooms on eBay so you can buy one? Drop me a fine about these topics, what you're looking for from Macworld, or anything else related to the Mac. | can be reached byemal ak epage@ acto, or you can jin ne cdscson forums at wavmacwo com | March 2003. |_ MACWORLD 1 To learn more sée us online at | pt 1 | www.geekcruises.com/home/mm2_home.html | June 1-8, 2003 | HOW TO CONTACT MACWORLD Subscription information and Services > 7 ] iy /) n = <a 7 ] IA/E OOTY €) | Phone $00/288:6848 from the United Sates V/ Ci | cm i and Canada y y B P td Cé G I t 5152433273 fam al othe locations U.S. Mail Macworld Subscriptions Department 20, Box 37781, Boone, 1A 50037-0781 (Include a maiing label with correspondence.) 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Fr information, please vist waw.macworldexpo.com. EDUCATION THAT TAKES YOU PLACES ‘Vera. 10 | MACWORLD | March 2003 worwmacworld.com | Abood (and the rest of ourteam) would be happy to help you configure your Anthro workstation, F WATCH OUT, MICROSOFT es, For What It's Worth... C.D. TAVARES. B | “What's .Mac worth?” (December 2002) | isn’t the important question: Mac is worth only what enough people will pay for it, More disturbing is how Apple so glibly | reneged on its promise that this service would be free for life. The question Mac loyalists need a more satisfying answer to | is “What's Apple’s word worth?” | JAY GOLDEN & I thought Adam C. Engst’ article was thoughtful and well written. He covered the pros and cons impartially and presented a good case for purchasing .Mac, as well as viable alternatives. However, the letters in Feedback complaining about Mac were piti- ful. Apple is in business to make money. Apple offered a great free service to its cus~ tomers. To do so, it had to build and 1 tain a large network. With its success, iTools became a strain on the balance sheet oran attractive profit center. Either way, the free ride is over. SHAWN O'LAUGHLIN & I was flabbergasted that there wasn’t a peep about how slow Virex 7.1 is. I have a 400MHz G4 with two internal hard drives—a 60GB drive running Jaguar on one partition and Mac OS 9.2 on the | other, and a 20GB drive with OS 9.1 and Virex 6. Virex 6 takes only a few minutes | to scan all three of my virtual drives, | However, Virex 7 running in OS X takes approximately six to eight hours to scan only my OS X partition. One of the rea- sons I purchased a .Mac subscription was that I thought I was getting two valuable pieces of software: Backup and Virex. But the OS X version of Virex is practically useless to me. 12.| MACWORLD. | March 2003 FEEDBACK Look Out! Ol’ Mac Is Back. In our December 2002 issue, we asked, “What's Vac worth?" As it turns out, it's worth an avalanche of letters. Readers seemed to think that our article—which concluded that .Mac was “a solid value” for many users—was worthwhile, The bad news for Apple is, many former users of the free iTools service felt that the article was more valuable than .Mac itself. Another hot topic among readers was our comparison of Web browsers, each of which has its own vocal contingent of fans. We can certainly understand how some- one could come to feel strongly about a free product—just ask all those iTools users. | SCOTT MURRAY. Ee) I paid for Mac because I couldn't pass up the e-mail account’ tight integration with OS X’s Mail app. Who could have imag- ined my work and personal accounts working. sid i -Mac feature is iDisk, which I use primar- ily as Web space. At first, like many others, I was miffed by its lack of FTP support. Now I use GoLive’s Site Window to publish to my iDisk as though it were a WebDAV server, which, in effect, it is. GoLive does all the work, and I get even more convenience and system integration. Thanks for your helpful review of the -Mac services. They may not be for every- one, but I think they’re pretty darn slick. FRANK DOBBELAERE While I like the .Mac review in general, I want to point outa huge sore spot. Apple promises that communications on its members-only discussion board will be monitored by Apple to ensure that que: tions are replied to within one busine: day. I've been wondering who monitors and helps .Mac members and who super- vises the one-day policy. They both need to be fired on the spot for not doing their jobs. Questions go unanswered for weeks. If Apple expects to get away with this kind of treatment of paid mem- bers, it’s in for a surprise. = MELONIE JACKSON a4 Your article provides an honest look at -Mae. It’s actually fairly critical until the last sentence, which seems to have been added to soften the truth about .Mac’s failure to be good enough to warrant its exp: “Ultimately, .Mac may prove to be just like the Macintosh—it’sa little more expensive, but what you get is worth the extra money.” Tthink the key word there is may. Golden Apple PAUL KENT ies} After reading all the letters that slammed Apple (Feedback, December 2002), I want to defend the company. OS X 10.2 is worth its upgrade price. If Apple had called it “OS 11,” there would probably be a lot less complaining. It’s a significant upgrade, and T will now make the move from OS 9. Browser Preferences STEVEN B. LEWIS es) Iwas intrigued by “Battle of the Browsers” (December 2002), but I think you were a little off the mark. Jeff Carlson asks, “Does the browser render content correctly and support Web standards?” It’s misleading to ask these questions together. I ran each of the test pages through the World Wide Web Consortium’s HTML validator. Only one validated—not surprisingly, it was the Web Standards Project page. Note that the site coded to standards seemed to have the trouble across all browsers. Your evaluation of rendering fidelity concen- trated on two sites that didn’t contain valid HTML. Blaming the browser is the equiv- alent of vacationing in Italy and blaming Tralians for not understanding your faux- Italian gibberish put together from watch- ing Godfather movies. You also complained about the spotty JavaScript support in various browsers. Did you check the pages to make sure they not only coded to just one browser but also interfaced to the W3C-standard DOM? For the last several years, we Web designers have had two choices: code to browsers or code to standards, We should call to task those Web sites that disregard standards. That would make browsing in any browser an easier proposition. wormmacworld.com | (© 2003 PiceCvatbeccen LP os te @ * i @ F Pact I t a ba al mw £ the best products and prices online. Just pick a category, click, and within most convenient to locate and compe moments you're tching products by brand, popularity, features or price. While you're at it, get the lowdown on products and merchants from buyers just like you. Bottom line? Whether you're shopping for computers, software, electronics, movies, games or dozens of other products, PriceGrabber.com provides all the information you need to make the best buy @ power shopping begin PriceGrabber.com > Computers > Software > Electronics > Video Games > Mavies > Music Books> Toys> Office Products Comparison Shopping Beyond Compare. an e-mail from an EyeTV user, who wrote, “EyeTV lets me watch TV wherever I go. T've even watched TV while going to the bathroom.” We'd also like to thank the many Macworld readers who wrote to com- pliment us on the ad. It's Still 9's Time KEVIN WARREN ies} Regarding “9 Questions: What's Ahead for Mac OS” (Mac Beat, December 2002): it seems Apple has forgotten that my printer still doesn’t have the same functionality in OS X as it does in OS 9. My scanner driv- ers stopped working with the 10.2 upgrade. My trackball still doesn’t have the same functionality it does in OS 9. Apple should realize that many of us still need OS 9. Server with a Smile? JOSEPH O'BRIEN = T enjoyed Mark H. Anbinder's review of Mac OS X Server 10.2 (December 2002). While I agree that the software is powerful and feature-rich, its drawbacks include more than just quirky SMB connections. Files modified or written to the server by Jaguar clients do not inherit the parent folder’s ownership or permissions. Owner- ship is assumed by the Jaguar user, and the file becomes read-only to the group. Imag- ine this scenario in an environment where files need to be edited by several users before publication. A server administrator would have to manually override the file’s permissions from the server. Picture that if dozens of files are being edited every hour, Apple responds to this by saying that this is asecurity feature. Nonsense. A file server is supposed to serve up files that can shared by a group of users. This prevents my organization from upgrading. any more users to Jaguar. My tests confirm that such a file is written with the user as owner and is set to read-only Sor the group. No one else can save a change, so this is indeed a bug. But at this point, some applications will ask if you want to overwrite. Choosing Yes works.—Mark H. Anbinder No Office SOS BRIAN A. PEAT jes When I read ‘Tom Cavanaugh's letter (Feed- back, December 2002), I just had to laugh. 14 | MacwoRLo | March 2003 Microsoft saved Apple? People would stop buying Macs if Microsoft stopped selling Office? When Apple's sales took a nosedive, it was because the products were lousy, not because Office was lousy. If Microsoft stopped selling Office, some smart Unix- based software company would step in and create a better alternative, or Apple would beef up AppleWorks. Sure, Apple might lose a few possible new switchers, but would it go under? Not on your life, The Cost of Music ERNIE MANSFIELD ies} Ivan Beeckmans’s calculations of the “legitimate” cost of a music CD (Feedback, December 2002) were woefully inaccu- rate. He guesses that the production cost of a music CD is $2 to $3, including the raw-materials cost of the CD plastic. Typ- ically, a musical artist will spend anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000 on recording studios, session musicians, artwork, and copyright fees. Then there are promo- tional costs, which can easily equal or exceed the recording budget. The artists and record producers are hoping to make a profit after all these expenses are met. Out of the thousands of CDs released, only a few will bring in enough profit to subsidize the CDs that lose money. Given this reality, I don’t see why people would prefer sharing music to paying $12 to $15 for a legitimately purchased CD. Not the Debating Type DAVID DUENAS. e) Why does there have to be a heated debate about Quark versus InDesign in every issue (Feedback, November 2002)? If you were or are a QuarkXPress user and you've tried InDesign and like it, hooray for you. If you don’t try it, ’'m sure you'll just keep using QuarkXPress. So every- body is happy. The people who won't be happy are InDesign 1.5 users who upgrade to version 2, open their 1.5 documents, and see that all their text has reflowed. This has to do with InDesign’s type engine. InDesign has a feature that is sup posed to resolve this, but it doesn’t work. Adobe says that text should reflow only when you start making text edits or other changes that affect the text, not when you open up an InDesign 1.5 document in InDesign 2. If you've seeing different bebavion, you should | contact Adobe's technical support. An upgrade entitles customers to 30 days of free support, starting at the first incident, not the purchase date.—Ed. Best Face Forward PAULA. COLLINS 2 “Jaguar’s Interface Face-Off? (Mac Beat, December 2002) says, “Apple remains firm in its refusal to offer a supported system for creating menu-bar applets.” Apple does sup- port them in OS X 10.1 and Jaguar, It’s called NSStatusBar, and Apple not only approves and supports it, but also has a whole how-to article about it. Developers who used private Apple APIs to create sys- tem menus before NSStatusBar or to add nonpublic features such as %¢-draggable menus may have found their menus broken when OS X was upgraded. But private APIs are private for good reasons. As a third- | party developer, I appreciate that Apple went to the trouble of providing system- menu capability. While Apple does provide a Status Bar API, it doesn’t allow developers to create full-fledged Menu Extras. With Jaguar, Apple actively pre- vents third-party Menu Extras with the can- LoadClass function, which forces developers to come up with workarounds.—Stephan Somogyi ‘© Post comments on our forums (www .«macworld.com), or send them by mail to (i Letters, Macworld, 501 Second Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94107; or send them by e-mail to letters@macworld.com, Include a return address and daytime 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 and posts, All published letters and forum comments become the property of Macworld, CORRECTIONS In our review of Sciral’s Consistency 1.0 (Reviews in Brief, January 2003), we printed an incorrect price. The product costs $25. In "Director Takes Action” (Mac Beat, January 2003), we incorrectly reported on a Director MX feature, Content created in Director MX can be played back either natively in OS X or in OS X's Classic mode. wwntumacworld.com JAMES STRICKLAND (es Tt felt as if Jeff Carlson were more inter- ested in telling us how the other browsers were not as good as Internet Explorer (IE). He made it clear that IE offered great standards support. This is true—if those standards were created by Microsoft. That has been one of the greatest obstacles for challengers. Too often, the problems other browsers face have to do with Web s optimized for IE instead of built to conform to W3C standards. In fact, W3C standards compliance has always been at the heart of the Mozilla project, upon which Mozi scape, and Navigator (Chimera) are bi Just about eve: that creates problems for these brows was optimized for IE. You also gave some conflicting information about Netscape and Mozilla. Both contain an e-mail client, They’re essentially the same pro- gram, with the exception of a few bells and whistles and mostly minor program- ming changes in Netscape. You men- tioned the lack of tabbed windows as a con for Netscape. Netscape 7 does have tabbed windows. rs HAVE FUN WITH YOUR DIGITAL PHOTOS For just $99, the Graphire2” you the control you need to quickly and easily edit your digital photos, Have fun with Graphire2 and join more than 2,000,000 satisfied Wacom? tablet users, HOW TO FIX BLINKS Use the control of your Wacom pen to seamles fix the blink by bringing ina pair of ‘open eyes from another digital photo, Then haye some fun turning that awkward sign in the background into something special FREE PHOTO FUN CDI! cy Nt our website to see a ate video of this fun action. And while you're there, request your FREE Photo Fun CD. visit call wwew.tabletphotofun.com | 800-922-2589 (0202 Ya eae open i pl ep wvew.macworld.com 1 agree that making Web pages support stan- dards is a worthy goal for all Web designe the focus of this article was on browser users, who simply expect Web sites to display properly. Strickland is right about Mozilla’s e-mail client and Netscape 7's tabbed windows; we had to hastily revise our article when version 7 came out, and we failed to update the accompanying table, As for IE, its faults have more to do with its support of recent standards such as CSS-2. The Web Standards Project has praised IE's standards support. Unfortunately, this is a catch-22—until more designers support W3C Web standards, Microsoft won't be as compelled to be more standards-compliant, and designers will continue to create pages that look best in the dominant browser—Jeff Carlson Sound and Fury J.D, MILLS Es] MARCH 2003 FEEDBACK you'll be hard-pressed to find a single pos- itive word about the new machines. WILL RUGGLES G When I fired up my spanking-new dual- 867MHz Power Mac G4, I was utterly amazed and sickened by the abrasive noi it made. There are two always-on, horrible little fans that cool the power supply, and one big blower for the heat sink on the pro- cessors. The power supply makes a particu- larly grating electronic noise that can be heard in adjacent rooms. And then there's the hard drive—the loudest I’ve owned, hands down. I would never have bought this machine had I known how irritating it would be to use, and now I'm stuck with it. El Gato's Ad VICTOR NEMECHEK (EL GATO SOFTWARE) Your review of the new mirrored-door Power Mac G4 (December 2002) makes it sound like a dream machine. Unfortu- nately, that isn’t the case for hundreds of very loyal Apple customers, including me. Visit the Apple Discussion Boards, and SHE’LL LOVE HOW YOU CAPTURED THE MOMENT. ‘Choose 85 at wwrw.macworld.comigetinfo El Gato would like to apologize to Macworld readers who were offended by our EyeTV ad (December 2002). Our intention was to show a humorous glimpse of a real-life sce- nario, not to offend, This ad was based on continues PATENTED PEN Pressure-sensitive for control, with a built-in eraser for easy fixes. There's no cord to tangle, no batteries to buy — ever. And it works with any software a mouse will. / CORDLESS MOUSE No ball to clean, no cord to tangle. And no batteri to buy — ever, FREE SOFTWARE Adobe Photoshop Elements, procreate Painter Classic and penPalette LE by nik rmullimedia graphire2 a WACOn| ~ OP Intuos2 starts Grapbire2——Cintig® starts ati only S99 at $1899 sre A dara perl eprom ‘March 2003 | MACWORLD | 13 _WHAr's NEXT The cream of the imaging-industry crop heads to Los Angeles for PhotoshopWorld. The conference tuns February 19 through 21. | APPLE ADDS 17-INCH AND 12-INCH MODELS TO ITS POWERBOOK G4 LINE More Sizes Fit All Compared side by side, the two newest PowerBooks don’t appear to have much in common, apart from a brand name and a metallic shell. One sports a wide-screen 17-inch display like the one found on Apple's flat-panel iMac. The other is the smallest portable ever designed by Apple and seems to have more in common with the iBook than with the other PowerBook offerings. But both of these new PowerBook G4s stem from a key Apple philosophy: ‘Mac users are increasingly choosing laptops over desktops. According to Apple, 20 percent of the computers it sold in 2000 were laptops. The company expects that number to increase to 35 per- cent this year. As the ranks of Mac laptop users swell, those users will demand more options from Apple— hence the introduction of high-end features such as DVD-burning capabilities to the PowerBook line (see “One for the Books,” Mac Beat, January 2003). Ac the top of the newly expanded PowerBook line, the 17-inch model gives laptop users the same kind of large display they'd tradi- tionally get from a desktop Mac. And on the opposite end, the 12- inch PowerBook squeezes the high-performance capabilities of Apple’s professional laptop line into a more compact frame. Add the existing 15-inch Titanium PowerBooks and the three editions of the iBook into the equation, and Apple's got laptops ranging in price from $999 to $3,299. Big-Screen Idol ‘There's no mistaking the most eye- catching feature on the 17-inch {16 | MacwoRLD March 2003. | PowerBook—the wide-screen dis- play, with its 1,440-by-900-pixel resolution. Some changes had to be made to the PowerBook’ dimen- sions to fit the wider screen—it’s two inches wider and nearly an inch deeper than the 15-inch Titanium PowerBook. But Apple’s engineers managed to retain the 1-inch height while keeping the 17-inch model's weight under 7 pounds. Just as eye-catching as the dis- play is the 17-inch PowerBook’s keyboard—at least after the lights go out. Apple equipped the laptop with ambient-light sensors; as the surrounding light dims, the Power- Book automatically decreases the brightness of its display while turn- ing on fiber-optic lighting hidden under the keyboard. The light shines up through the tops of the keys, which have been painted and then laser-etched so light can shine through the key labels. But Apple has changed more than just the PowerBook’s exterior. The two new models are the first Apple laptops to ship with DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM, Unlike the PC133 SDRAM in the 15-inch PowerBooks, DDR RAM sends data on the rise and the fall of the clock signal, doubling potential bandwidth. The 17-inch Power- Book also features a 167MHz sys- tem bus—a PowerBook record. Like the PowerBook models introduced in 2002, the 17-inch version ships with 1MB of Level 3 cache, which improves system per- formance by providing quick access to data on its way to the processor. | www.macworld.com Buy AccountEdge Get Mac OS X! Mac OSX AccountE . Now, for a limited time, when you buy Account Edge MYOB AccountEdge 3, we'll send you Mac OS X. ‘Complete Accounting and Small Business Management $129 value MYOB AccountEdge Evolving with the Mac since 1989 Small Business Management and Accounting www.myob.com/us (iiyAs)39 — 800-322-MYOB(6962) Small Business. Smart Solutions: Offer details available online at www.myob.com/us. Valid for retail product #meurm purchased between 1/7/03 and 3/31/03. Cannot be combined with other offers. Void where prohibited. MYOB, the MYOB logo and AccountEdge are registered trademarks of MYOB Ltd. Mac and Mac OS X are trademarks of Apple Computer registered in the U.S. and other countries. © MYOB 2003 ~{( MAC BEATTMARCH 2003. UPDATED DIGITAL-HUB APPS BUNDLED INTO ONE INTEGRATED PACKAGE iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes Evolve into iLife There's really no point in a digital hub if all its parts don’t work together. So after rolling out a series of free appli- cations that have helped Mac users connect their computers to digital devices such as cameras and DVD players, Apple has updated four of the programs and integrated them more seamlessly with one another. These programs will be available as a $49 boxed bundle dubbed iLife. audio tracks, titles, transitions, and effects. An iDVD tab lets you quickly send your iMovie project to iDVD— much easier than using the Export command in iMovie 2. Other new features include built-in support for creating panning and zooming effects on still photos (an effect Apple named after Civil War documentarian Ken Burns); a collection of sound effects created by Oscar-winning sound Three of these programs—iPhoto 2, iMovie 3, and iTunes 3—will continue to be available as free downloads from Apple.com. iDVD 3 will be sold only as a part of this package. iTunes 3 Apple actually rolled out the first update to its iLife package last summer, when it released iTunes 3. But many of the improvements to the MP3 player are just now coming to light, since they involve integration with other iLife updates. iMovie 3 Perhaps the most impressive update in the suite, iMovie 3 eliminates the program's single-window design, letting users with large screens stretch the iMovie interface as much as they like. An updated timeline window lets you modify the audio throughout clips, letting you increase and decrease the volume at specific points—a great benefit if you need to turn down your background music when someone speaks on your video track. iMovie’s redesigned media bin features seven tabs for access- ing movie clips, photos from iPhoto 2, sound effects and iTunes New Image In Photo 2, photo-sharing features and iDVD integration are part of the Organize tab. editor Gary Rydstrom; and support for DVD chapter marks, which let you quickly jump to scenes within long movies. iPhoto 2 The major new feature in Apple’s photo-library software lets you share your photos with the other iLife applications. Other new features include one-click photo enhancement, a Retouch tool that can remove blemishes from your images, and AppleScript support. If your hard drive is getting bogged down with massive amounts of photos, you can use iPhoto to export part of your photo library to a CD or DVD. iDVD 3 Apple's DVD-burning software gets a solid set of new features, including chapters within movies and animated themes with “drop zones” where you can integrate your own still photos or video clips within the Apple-supplied themes. Apple is selling iDVD for the first time to the general public, but it still works only with internal SuperDrives; FireWire-based external DVD burners are still not supported.—JASON SNELL KEYNOTE DID THE JOB FOR JOBS; NOW IT’S READY FOR OTHER MAC USERS It’s All in the Presentation No matter what you think of Keynote, Apple’s new presentation software, there’s one thing that no one will dis- pute—the application was tested by a pretty demanding user. As Apple developed Keynote, CEO Steve Jobs put the application to the test, using it to develop all of his 2002 keynote addresses. To Apple, this is ample proof that Keynote is powerful enough to be used for the most-impor- tant presentations. Looks matter in Keynote. The pro- gram comes with a library of 100 images you can use in your presentation. Apple also designed 12 presentation themes— similar to menu themes in iDVD—com- | plete with coordinated backgrounds, fonts, colors, bullets, tables, and charts. You can a incdfy the supplied themes or 18 | MACWORLD | March 2003 | create one of your own. Similarly, Keynote ships with eight chart types for creating graphs and tables. Dynamic alignment guides and rulers let you place every element precisely. Mac OS X 10.2’s graphics technol- ogies allow for professional-quality transitions between slides, as well as real-time graphics resizing. Keynote's slide navigator gives you a thumbnail view of all your slides so you can organize your presentation, and an Inspector panel lets you control text, graphics, tables, and transitions. You can import QuickTime movies and Adobe Acrobat PDF files into the presentation app and export Keynote content into those two programs. Keynote also opens Microsoft PowerPoint documents and lets you peteore files into PowerPoint. Thematic Unity Parchment is one of Keynote's 12 themes. But Apple's concern about Power- Point goes beyond compatibility—as the preeminent presentation program, it poses the biggest obstacle to Keynote’s success. Still, an Apple-built app avail- able for $99—compared with $399 for the stand-alone version of PowerPoint X—mnay convince Mac users to try outa program that’s good enough for Steve Jobs. —PHILIP MICHAELS Fast Times for FireWire The news is easy to overlook amid the rush of product releases from Apple, but a single port on the side of the new 17-inch PowerBook will have major ramifications for al! Mac users. It's the new Fire- Wire 800 port, the second generation of the high-speed connection technology first added to the Mac in 1999 and standard on all models since 2000. Also known by the technical name 1394b, FireWire 800 offers twice the maximum data speed of the original FireWire; 800 Mbps. With a theoretical future maximum speed of a staggering 3,200 Mbps, the technology can also be carried over lengths as great as 100 meters when fiber-optic cabling is used. Just like the original FireWire (now called FireWire 400 by Apple), the new FireWire 800 is a plug- and-play technology that can connect as many as 63 computers and peripherals on a single bus. The 17-inch PowerBook’s FireWire 800 port doesn’t bear the familiar asymmetrical shape of Fire- ‘Wire 400; however, the port is backward-compatible with FireWire 400 hardware through the use of an adapter cable, FireWire 400 devices won't benefit from FireWire 800's extra speed, though. Apple may have felt threatened by the emerging USB 2.0 standard, which offered top speeds that eclipsed those of FireWire 400. With the new FireWire 800, Apple's technology has roared back into the lead in the race for faster peripheral speeds,—sason snett Along with a 1GHz G4 processor, the 17-inch PowerBook includes 512MB of memory, a 60GB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce4 440 Go graphics pro- cessor with AGP 4x support and 64MB of DDR video memory. The $3,299 machine, which should reach stores in February, also ships with a SuperDrive capable of burning CDs and DVDs. But it’s different than the one added to the PowerBook line last year—this one writes DVDs at 2x instead of 1x. iBook Inspired Both the 17-inch and the 12-inch PowerBooks incorporate several features from Apple’s iBook design. Start with the hinge for the display—as with the iBook, when you open a new Power- Book, the display goes back and down to save space. Apple has also removed the ports from behind a flip-down door at the rear of the machine. Ports now run along the side of the laptop—on the 17- inch PowerBook, you'll find ports on both sides. ‘The left side of the 17-inch PowerBook features a security slot, jacks for the power adapter and built-in modem, a USB port, a PC Card slot, and jacks for audio input and Bookmobile MopéL PRICE PROCESSOR MEMORY $1,799 867MHzG4 256MB DDR SDRAM 256MB SDRAM 512MB SORAM 512MB DDR SDRAM. headphones. On the machine's right side, you'll find video-out ports (both S-Video and DVI, with adapters available for VGA and ADC support), a 10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet port, a second USB port, and two ports for FireWire devices. One of the FireWire ports is of the new FireWire 800 variety (see “Fast Times for FireWire”). Apple also drew on the iBook for inspi- ration in solving an ongoing headache for PowerBook users—reliable wireless con- nectivity. AirPort antennas, which are on the side of earlier PowerBooks, have been moved back into the display to improve reception. Both new PowerBooks add sup- port for AirPort Extreme, Apple’s name for the speedier, 802.1 1g wireless stan- dard. (For more on 802.1 1g, see “The Way to Wireless,” elsewhere in this issue.) The 17-inch PowerBook comes with an AirPort Extreme card preinstalled. Big Features, Little Package ‘Though it sports the same durable alu- minum-alloy casing as the 17-inch model, the 12-inch PowerBook shares more design similarities with the iBook, due to its small shape. The PowerBook is actually slightly smaller and lighter—I.2 by 10.9 by 8.6 inches and 4.6 pounds, HARD OPTICAL GRAPHICS DRIVE CACHE DRIVE PROCESSOR 40GB none Combo —Nvidia GeForce 420 Go drive - 40GB IMB Combo —ATI Mobility Radeon drive 9000 60GB 1MB SuperDrive ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 60GB IMB SuperDrive Nvidia GeForce4 440 Go compared with the iBook’s 1.3 by 11.2 by 9.1 inches and 4.9 pounds. Its stripped-down size (and its accom- panying $1,799 price, the lowest in the PowerBook line) means that the 12-inch PowerBook doesn’t have all the features the larger models do. The 12-inch model’s G4 processor runs at 867 MHz—the base processor speed of the slowest Titanium PowerBook, but faster than the 800MHz G3 chip in the fastest iBook, An Nvidia GeForce4 420 Go with AGP 4x support | and 32MB of memory actually provides more graphics processing power than you'll find in the Titanium models. Although a slot-loading DVD-ROM/ CD-RW optical drive is standard issue for the 12-inch PowerBook, you can pay an extra $200 to get a SuperDrive instead (one that burns DVDs at Lx speeds, like the 15-inch PowerBook). There's no Level 3 cache in the 12-inch PowerBook, though the machine sports 256K of backside Level 2 cache. The 12- inch model lacks the digital-video-out support that all other PowerBooks offer— it’s got only the iBook’s Mini VGA port, rather than a DVI port. But unlike the iBook, the 12-inch PowerBook can drive a nonmirrored external monitor via that VGA port, to resolutions as high as 1,600 by 1,200 pixels. And while the keyboard in the 12-inch version doesn’t have the same unearthly glow in low light as the 17-inch PowerBook, both new PowerBooks fea- ture a keyboard that feels a lot less spongy, mostly because it doesn’t flip up for instal- lation of RAM or an AirPort card. Instead, you install those add-ons from the bottom of the laptop. The Last Word The two new additions to the Power- Book line act as bookends to the updated 15-inch models from late last year. Apple has cut the price of its 15-inch 1GHz PowerBook by $200, to $2,799. The | price of the 15-inch 867MHz PowerBook remains $2,299. Apple's four PowerBook and three iBook offerings meet a variety of user | needs. This is a smart move by Apple: | if the number of Mac users who want lap- tops keeps growing, the number of options must keep pace. And now, from | the 17-inch titan to the 12-inch light- weight, Apple can please laptop users in seven different ways.—PHILIP MICHAELS ‘March 2003 | MACWORLD | 17 (MAC BEAT|M ta Software Conquest of Elysium I, from Iliwinter Game Design (wwwiillwinter.com): The fantasy strategy game for OS X Supports as many as eight players, who take roles as warlords and wizards in a struggle against one another and various fantastic monsters ($17). Lux 1.2, from sillysoft (wvewssillysoftnet): Inspired by Risk, this game of world domination offers millions of diferent world-map combinations for varied game play with as many as ten computer-generated players ($10). ‘Spaceward Ho 5, from Delta Tao Software (800/827- 9316, www.deltatao.com): This major update to the Mac- | only strategy game runs natively in OS X. It also features free Internet-based play on Delta Tao's own spacewardho shet server, a new interface, and several new battle options ($40; upgrade from previous versions, $30). Super Collapse, fram GameHouse (www.gamehouse .com): Tetris and Bejeweled collide in this arcade-style puzzle game ($20). Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, from Aspyr Media (888/ 212-7797, wwwaaspyr.com): The Mac port of the PC game includes online and multiplayer modes, new lev- els, new tricks, and an enhanced Create-A-Skater feature ($40). Also from Aspyr, NASCAR Racing 2002 Season is a stock-car-racing game featuring 2002 NASCAR drivers, cars, sponsors, and tracks. The game ‘supports races featuring as many as 43 networked players ($40),—comPiLeD BY JASON SNELL I “EDUCATION _ BEAT | Software | Data Analysis ¥ Neural Networks, from Wolfram Research (800/965- 3726, www.wolfram.com): This program uses the compu- tational prowess of Wolfram’s Mathematica to let users test and explore neural-network models for use inengi- | | neering, science, and finance. It requires Mathematica 4 | and runs in OS 8.1 and later, including OS X ($895). Reference World Book 2003 Mac 0S X—Jaguar Edition, from | World Book (800/967-5325, www.worldbook.com): | ‘The updated electronic encyclopedia supports Ren- dezvous, Apple’s networking technology. It also has | new media elements and an enhanced Notepad, The | latest version requires Mac OS X 10.2 ($68; upgrade, $40),—cOMPILED BY PHILIP MICHAELS ARCH 2003 }—— NEW WEB BROWSER HAS OPEN-SOURCE ROOTS—AND COMES FROM CUPERTINO Exploring Apple: S Safari As Web browsers Chimera, Opera, and OmniWeb threaten to seriously challenge Internet Explorer’s dominance (see “Battle of the Browsers,” December 2002), a new player is poised to become the de facto standard for Mac OS X Web browsing—and it’s made by Apple. Apple Safari, introduced as a beta in January, has a fairly spartan toolbar that features four buttons (there are also three optional buttons you can add), a Web-address field, and a search bar that lets you perform Google searches without loading the Google home page. Safari’s unique orange SnapBack button, which appears in both the Google and URL windows, takes you back to the origi- nal search-results page, so you don’t have to repeatedly click on the Back button, Like most other browsers, Safari features a row of bookmarks below its toolbar, At the far left of this Bookmark bar is an icon that, when clicked on, displays a book- mark-organization interface, which you use to sort, edit, and delete bookmarks. Even though it was designed by Apple, Safari isn’t an entirely homegrown prod- uct, Rather, it’s based in part on an open- source browser—but not Mozilla, which In Search Of Safari's Google search bar in the upper right cor- ner of the toolbar lets you easily scour the Web. Netscape Navigator and Chimera are based on. Instead, Apple based Safari on the Linux browser Konqueror (www -konqueror.org). Konqueror’s rendering engine, KHTML, will soon be available as an OS X Framework, allowing other Mac developers to integrate Safari’s HTML- rendering capabilities into their programs. While an Apple application should mean stiffer competition for other browsers, Safari doesn’t offer some fea~ tures that the others do, such as tabbed. browsing and integrated Keychain support for Web forms. But for casual Web surfing, many OS X users may soon embark on an Apple-sponsored Safari—JASON SNELL APPLE PARES DOWN PRO VERSION, FOR MORE-AFFORDABLE VIDEO-EDITING APP. Final Cut for the Rest of Us i For digital-video enthusiasts who want a more powerful editing program than iMovie but something less expensi Final Cut Pro, there's heen a serious gap in Apple's offerings. To fill it, Apple rolled out Final Cut Express. The $299 program offers the fg same user interface and some of the same features as its pricier par- ent app—most notably, titling, compositing, and effects capabilities. ¢ than the $999 Still, as you'd expect from a program that costs a third of what you'd pay for the original, Express doesn’t have some of Final Cut Pro’s features. Express— like Adobe Premiere and Avid XpressDV—works only with DV-format (MiniDV and DVCAM) video, while Final Cut Pro can work with SD and HD video in addition to DV. High-end features—such as EDLs, 24-frame editing, and interaction with Apple’s Cinema Tools—don't ship with Final Cut Express. You'll find color correction tools in Express, but only two-way correction and not sec- ondary color picking. Color correction in Express doesn’t happen in real time, though. Express does have many of the real-time effects and transitions of Final Cut Pro. Unlike Final Cut Pro, which runs in OS 9 and X, Express requires OS X 10.2.—JONATHAN SEFF 20 | MACWORLD | March 2003 |_www.macworld.com Software Design Mac FlipAlbum 3, from E-Book Systems (866/532-8080, www.flipalbum,com):; The Mac version of the Windows application lets users organize and display photos in a digital photo album complete with turning pages and music. I's expected to ship in February ($40), Illustration Eazy Draw 1.0, from Eazy Draw (608/635-7972, www -eazydraw.com): The vector-based illustration software features support for layers, Bézier curves, advanced text controls, and gradients. The program saves to many file formats, including TIFF, JPEG, and POF. Viewing vector ‘output requires a free reader ($95). SketchUp 2.2, from @Last Software (303/245-0086, wwww.sketchup.com): This upgrade to the 3-D-modeling software includes a new Texture Palettes Picker for managing and creating textures, drag-and-drop support for raster images, the ability to apply colors by layers, and new export options including the RIB file format ($495; upgrade from version 2.1, free), Plug-In Mask Pro 3, from Extensis (800/796-9798, www.extensis .com): This upgraded Photoshop plug-in for masking diffi- cult objects—including those with hair and semitrans- parency—has been completely rewritten. The new ver- sion, which runs on OS X, includes a Color Decontamina- tion tool for better edge transparency, new tools for defining which areas you want to keep or remove, enhanced touch-up control, and a new Options palette. It will ship in February ($199; upgrade, $100). PDF StampinStone, from Stone Design (505/345-4800, wwwestone.com): The POF-watermarking program cre- ates a watermark, or stamp, that consists of words or an image. You can control the text's size, font, and color, and include dates and times that update auto- matically. You can place the stamp on top of or under- neath the original POF’s content. StampinStone can also watermark a batch of PDF files ($49).—comeiteo. BY KELLY LUNSFORD AND TERRI STONE HARDWARE BEAT Two monitors from LaCie (503/844-4500, wwrwlacie .comm): The photon2Ovision ($1,500 to $2,000, final pric- ing yet to be determined) is a 20-inch LCD monitor with a native resolution of 1,600 by 1,200 pixels. it supports VGA, DVI, and ADC connections, The monitor, which should ship in February is VESA 100-compliant, so it can Displays ‘wowrw.macworld.com | be removed from its base and attached to the included desk clamp and extendable arm, to free up desk space. The electron22blue IV ($899) is a 22-inch CRT monitor with a naturally flat aperture-grille CRT and a maximum resolution of 2,048 by 1,536 pixels. Printers Three monochrome laser printers from Brother (B00/284- 4357, wwwbrother.com): The HL-5040 ($299), HL-5050 ($349), and HL-5070N ($499) all print as many as 17 pages per minute at a maximum resolution of 2,400 by 600 dpi. The HL-5040 includes 8MB of RAM. The HL-5050 ‘and HL-5070N offer 16MB of RAM. The HL-5070N also offers Ethernet networking and Rendezvous support. Two multifunction devices from Hewlett-Packard (800/ 527-3753, www.hp.com): The Officedet 5110 ($199) and Officelet 6110 ($299) offer printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. The 5110 prints as many as 12 black-and- white pages or 10 color pages per minute and includes a 20-page document feeder. The 6110 can print as many as 19 black-and-white pages or 15 color pages per minute; it also includes a 35-page document feeder, and an optional six-color ink cartridge is available. A color laser printer from Minolta QMS (800/523- 2696, www.minolta-qms.com): The magicolor 2350 EN ($1,099) prints as many as 4 color or 18 mono- chrome pages per minute, offers a maximum resolu- tion of 9,600 by 600 dpi, and comes with 128MB of RAM, Ethernet, and PostScript 3 support—compiLep BBY JAMES GALBRAITH AND KELLY LUNSFORD MULTIMEDIA BEAT Hardware Audio ‘A4.1-channel multimedia speaker system from Harman Multimedia (877/266-6202, www.harman-multimedia .com): The JBL Invader ($180) has a 32-watt subwoofer and four 12-watt speakers for gaming, music, and movies (when used with a multichannel audio card). Two multichannel sound products from M-Audio (626/445-2842, www.m-audio.com); The Revolution 7.4 ($100) PCI card provides as many as eight channels of 24-bit, 192kHz audio while the Sonica Theater (5100) offers eight channels of 24-bit, 96kHz audio via USB, ‘A four-track recorder and MIDI arranger with sound module from Tascam (323/278-8584, www.tascam .com): The Pocketstudio 5 ($499) can record four tracks of audio on CompactFlash media, it connects via USB to Macs running OS X 10.1 and higher. Software Audio Piano & Keyboard Method, from eMedia Music (206/329-5657, www.emediamusic.com): This piano instruction CD uses variable-speed MIDI tracks for eas- ier learning and should ship before the end of March ($60)—comPiten BY JONATHAN SEF MACWORLD CONFERENCE & EXPO: BEST OF SHOW During each Macworld Conference & Expo trade show, the editors of Macworld and MacCentral.com evaluate the new hardware | and software products that debut at the event, selecting the most exciting ones to receive Best of Show honors. These awards are based on noteworthiness and interest at the show, so final versions of some winners have not been released. Here are our picks from January's event in San Francisco; * 4D (408/557-4649, www.4d.com): 4th Dimension 2003 * Apple (800/692-7753, www.apple.com): 12-inch and 17-inch PowerBook Gs, AirPort Extreme * Digidesign (800/333-2137, wwwprotools | .com): Pro Tools 6.0 for Mac OS X * Dr. Bott (877/611-2688, www.drbott.com): ExtendAir * Hewlett-Packard (800/527-3753, www.hp com): 6127 Printer * LaCie (503/844-4500, www.lacie.com): Big Disk and Data Bank & M-Audio (626/445-2842, www.m-audio .com): Revolution 7.1 %* MacSoft (763/249-7600, www.wizworks .com/macsoft); Unreal Tournament 2003 * MasterWriter (866/848-8484, www -Masterwriter.com); MasterWriter 1.0 & Pixion (925/467-5300, www.pixion.com); | PictureTalk 4.0 %* Sorenson (801/287-9400, www.sorenson | .com): Squeeze 3 Compression Suite t STORAGE BEAT Hardware | Optical Drives | Optical-drive upgrades from MCE Technologies (949/ 458-0800, www.mcetech.com): The MCE SuperDrive Upgrade ($449) is a user-installed internal DVD-R/RW drive for PowerBook G4s that can burn DVDs at 2x, DVD-RWs at 1x, CD-Rs at 16%, and CD-RWs at 8x. It can | read CDs at 24x. The iMac CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive ($349) will allow owners of slot-loading iMacs to upgrade their internal CD drives to read DVDs and burn CDs. The MCE Xcaret Pro ($349) lets owners of Lom- bard and Pismo PowerBook G3s install a Combo drive into their expansion bays. Both Combo-drive upgrades will burn CDs and CD-RWs at 8x. Each can read CDs at 24x and DVDs at 8x.—coMPILED BY JAMES GALBRAITH _Marh 2003 | MACWORLD | 19 | Maeworlt Conference & Expo. Conferences Expo New York For more information, call toll free PRO FILE _| Q&A WITH GENE GABLE FORCE FEEDBACK ADDS SENSE OF TOUCH TO COMPUTING PUBLISHING PRO As president of Seybold Seminars and Publications, Gene Gable had the job of introducing keynote speakers such as Apple's Steve Jobs and Adobe's John Wamock. But Gable is more than just a master of ceremonies—he's a knowledgeable observer of the publishing industry. “We are at [a] significant intersection as an industry,” Gable, who recently stepped down from his Seybold post, says, “and everyone is going to have to adapt and change once more.”—eRic J. ADAMS AT A GLANCE GENE GABLE: President, Gene Gable Industries MAC: S00MHz Power Mac G4 SOFTWARE: QuarkXPress, Adobe InDesign, Strider TypeStyler What are your thoughts on Adobe, Apple, Macromedia, Microsoft, and Quark? All of the companies that were once satisfied with being pri- marily a graphics company are trying to break out of that image and expand more into either consumer or corporate products. Apple certainly is; Adobe is, big time; Macromedia is. I suppose Quark is one of the few companies that aren't talking about new markets. Of course, whenever a company moves into new territory, it becomes vulnerable, and since everyone is looking for growth, they run up against each other even more. If you think of it, Apple is potentially one of Adobe's biggest competitors. Final Cut Pro has made a huge dent in the sales of Premiere, and programs like iPhoto may seem innocent enough, but with a few more features, it’s a free version of Photoshop. So Adobe has to play it very smart and not be too greedy—so far, I think they’re doing a good job of positioning products like Acrobat as comple- ments to existing IT structures, not as direct competitors to entrenched products. ... Macromedia has done a terrific job with the new MX product line—it took some time to integrate with Allaire, but the results are great. It’s clearly become the Web-production products company. . . . Quark is the wild card for the near term. It’s become a very frag- mented company. It’s unusual for a company with such a dominant product to still be privately held, but you have to respect Quark for not wavering from its mission. Everyone talks about the impact InDesign is having, but in the trenches out there, QuarkXPress is still the product of choice, and I don’t see that changing as long as it continues to work well and is supported by third-party integrators. I think the lack of OS X support is more emotional than real—not that many large publishing companies are rushing to adopt OS X. It may seem late to the Mac faithful, but Quark will be okay if it releases that product in the next six to eight months. | More Info: www.creativepro.com/story/feature/18378.html Find out what else Gene Gable had to say about the publishing industry at | Creativepro.com, where this interview criginally appeared. Macs Get Ready to Rumble Pretty soon, Mac gamers will be able to feel the rumble of an explosion, the bumps in a road, and the jarring impact of a colli- sion. Force feedback—a favorite request of Mac game enthusiasts over the years—has come to the Mac, courtesy of Apple and Immersion (408/467-1900, www.immersion.com), the leading maker of force-feedback technology for the PC. Astaple of game controllers on video-game consoles, force feedback has gained popularity on PC gaming peripherals. By rumbling and shaking in time with explosions and impacts in your favorite games, game pads and joysticks engage your sense of touch, which otherwise stays largely dormant when you're in front of the computer. Apple has announced it is backing Immersion’s TouchSense technology, which will allow Mac OS X software developers and peripheral makers to add support for force-feedback con- trollers to their products. If you have a USB-equipped Mac with OS X 10.2.3 or later, you already have what you need to enjoy force-feedback-compatible games. Force-feedback- equipped joysticks, game pads, steering wheels, and mice from Logitech, Thrustmaster, Gravis, and others will work with Mac games that incorporate Immersion’s technology. The catch is that the list of force-feedback-compatible Mac games is short—at least for now. At the head of the list are F1 Championship Season 2000, from Feral Interactive (www.feral .co.uk), and two games from Aspyr Media (888/212-7797, www aspyr.com), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and NASCAR Racing 2002 Season. Immersion promises this list will grow as popular PC games continue making their way to the Mac. Game devel- opers who specialize in porting PC titles say it’s pretty easy to make those games support force feedback on the Mac, too. While games may be the first aspect of Mac computing to bene- fit from force feedback, the technology has other applications. Immersion claims that force feedback can even make your desk- top navigation more precise and less reliant on vision because you “feel” on-screen elements such as menus, windows, hyperlinks, and buttons—that is, if you're not still shaking from the stock car race collision. —PETER COHEN is one of the first Mac games to feature force-feedback compat ibility, wwrwmacworld.com |_March 2003 | MACWORLD | 24 _ Software (MAC BEAT] MARCH 2003 PRODUCTIVITY BEAT Business Management eArtist 2.0, from Artscope.net (www.artscope.net): The business-management tool aims to help artists control mailing lists and contacts, track exhibition schedules, document exhibition histories and artwork, and provide invoicing for sales. The update, which runs on OS 8.6 and later, including OS X, adds the ability to import a number of image files from a folder all at once, among other new | features ($105; upgrade, $25). Database 4th Dimension 2003, from 4D (408/557-4600, www .4d.com): The latest version of the relational database- ‘management system adds support for integrated Web ser- vices and application-integration capabilities that allow different applications to reuse one another's data and functionality. Other revisions include increased scalability, | new printing and reporting features, and enhanced devel- oper programming capabilities (Standard edition, $349; upgrade pricing varies). DataManagement NoteTaker 2003, from AquaMinds (www.aquaminds .com); The personal note and idea organizer lets users make lists and organize outlines. The OS X-native appli- cation incorporates the desktop features of OS X while supporting QuickTime and AppleScript. It also features embedded Web-page viewing, as well as document and file linking ($70). | E-mail IntelliMerge 3.0, from Intelli Innovations (919/468-0340, www.intellisw.com): The latest update to the e-mail- automation software, which runs on OS 9 and X, adds automatic bounce detection and flagging, an enhanced receipt browser, hyperlink insertion, and dynamic custom headers (single-user license, $80; upgrade from version | 2X, $30; upgrade from version 1.X, $50). Finance Quicken Bill Pay, from intuit it (888/246-8848, wowwintuit .com): The enhanced service works with Quicken for Mac 2002 and later to schedule and track payments, transfer money between accounts, and pay bills from as many as __ ten accounts ($10 per month for as many as 20 payments). (S500).—comPiLeD BY PHILIP MICHAELS Presentation Storyboard Lite 1.0, from Zebra Development (323/ 874-6558, www.zebradevelopment.com): The new application helps filmmakers, ad agencies, and other creative professionals illustrate sequential images. Users can import hand-drawn storyboards into the program, which organizes and modifies them. The OS X-compatible software can also create 3-D story- boards and import screenplays for storyboarding DEVELOPERS TURN TO OS X'S DOCK TO EXPAND SOFTWARE'S CAPABILITIES | Old Dock, New Tricks The Dock in OS X’s Aqua interface is like a pair of khaki pants—useful and ver- satile, if not exactly flashy. A combination of launchpad and storage silo, the Dock lacks sophisticated options found in tools such as Max- Menus or DragThing. But as OS X versions of Mac software mature, more developers are taking advantage of the Dock, transforming it into a central pow- erhouse of options for launching or choos- ing parts of a program without switching into the application itself. Virtual PC 6, from Connectix (650/ 571-5100, www.connectix.com), show- cases the Dock’s flexibility. Individual programs running within any Windows environment—Microsoft Money, say— appear in the Dock. Clicking on a Win- dows program in the Dock switches to the Virtual PC system and selects that Windows application within it. Another Dock addition re-creates a Start-menu icon, linked to the Windows system within Virtual PC. You can launch a pro- gram from within the Windows environ- ment from that Start menu. Other developers are also using the Dock to extend their applications’ features throughout the OS. PGP Corporation's new PGP 8.0 encryption-sofeware suite (866/747-5483, www.pgp.com) uses Dock menus to offer Clipboard and file encryp- Dock-tered Virtual PC 6 adds a Windows Start menu to OS X's Dock, tion, verification, and decryption. CE Soft- ware’s QuicKeys X 1.5 (800/523-7638, www.cesoft.com) places program-specific and systemwide actions in its Dock menu. Shareware utilities are pushing the enve- lope, mostly by removing the need for | main program interface—the Dock becomes the program's home. URL Man- ager Pro (www.url-manager.com) can add browser-independent bookmarks to its Dock menu. MP3 Dock, from Kanex Group (www.softwarium.com), is an MP3 player that uses the Dock to select and control songs in much greater detail than iTunes’ Dock options allow, SearchWare Solutions’ Print Window (www.swssoft ware.com) restores the feature of its name- sake from OS 9 and earlier, letting you print folder listings from the Finder. Because the Dock is both flexible and easy to customize, the kind of passion Mac users once brought to choosing custom Finder folder icons and system extensions might finally find its oudlet in tricking out the Dock.—GLENN FLEISHMANN | CYCLONE DEVICE COMBINES DUPLICATOR AND EXTERNAL BURNER A Double-Feature Duplicator | Directors are always looking for versatility in their on-screen talent. Why shouldn’t they expect the same from their off-screen equipment? Yet most DV pros are content to use a stand-alone DVD duplicator when it’s time to reproduce their creations. For auteurs who demand greater flexibility, CyClone (www.cdeyclone. fom) offers its DVD One-2-One device—the first DVD duplicator to include both FireWire and USB 2.0 connections. The FireWire connectivity turns the duplicator into a handy exter- nal burner. It can clone a typical CD in 6 minutes and a full-length DVD in 40 minutes. The $1,099 One-2-One writes DVD-Rs at 2x and DVD-RWSs at % One, the only kind of | . Ix speeds. With the One-. dramatic range directors have to worry about kind shown by their actors. —ANTON LINECKER sthe | 24 MACWORLD | March 2003 Register online with Priority Code: A-MWM www.macworldexpo.com Only at Macworld Conference & Expo can the Mac community enhance their knowledge, network with peers and personally interact and purchase the latest products and technologies. Don't miss your chance to be a part of the #1 event for the Mac universe. Acquire what you need (knowledge, products, services or solutions) to stay competitive and on the cusp of technology. Enjoy the one-stop-shop atmosphere only Macworld Conference & Expo can provide you. Test drive brand new products and services — be one of the first to kick the tires of the latest innovations. Apply knowledge learned from 5 intense educational days at Macworld Conference & Expo immediately. WORLD EXPO Network, exchange ideas and build contacts with like-minded, or not so like-minded, users and industry gurus. Feel what itis like to be part of a loyal, powerful and holistic community. Discuss your issues, mention your concerns, or praise the manufacturers of your favorite products directly. Flagship Sponsors Macworld Macworld.com .; maccentral -{ MAC BEAT| MARCH 2003 }— WHAT'S HOT A Quick Look at the World of Macs 4. The new 17-inch wide- screen PowerBook G4 includes a backlit keyboard that glows when the lights dim. Steve Jobs explains: “How'd we doit? A lot of eng neering savy, alittle know how, and a dash of plutonium 2. Apple releases Keynote presentation software, which it designed for Steve Jobs's Macworld Expo keynotes. Now, when you hold make-believe trade shows for your stuffed animals, your pretend keynotes will Took much more professional. 3. Apple teams with Bur- ton Snowboard to create a $499 snowboarding jacket ‘equipped with iPod con- trols. This will go perfectly | with my $600 G4 pants! | 4 iMovie 3 features new “Ken Burns” effect for panning and zooming on still photos. interestingly enough, this Ken Burns effect will also expand 5-minute home movies into 12-hour ordeals that are frequently interrupted by pledge breaks. ae Lasso Professional 5.0.2 Mac OS X Updates Web:site-building tool = Live 2.0.1 poweredby = /ZAawT xing application versiontracker "rn com Micromat Drive 10 1.1.3 ATI Radeon 7000 v208 Improved optimization for disk-repair Firmware update for video card and -maintenance tool Apple Script Editor 2.0 MySQL 4.0.7 = AppleScript-editing tool SQl-database server software BIAS Peak 3.2 PHP 4.3 Audio-editing, -processing, and - mastering program Web scripting language QuickVoice X 1.6 Codec Calculator 2. Voice-recording, e-mail, and stickies Calculator for digital video program CodeTek VirtualDesktop 2.1.1 Shop with Sherlock 1.04 Virtual-desktop support for 05 X Sherlock 3 shopping plug-in Dantz Retrospect 5.0 Driver SNES9X 1.3.96 yy Super Nintendo emulator Driver update for backup software Epson Stylus C80 1.3aD Printer driver Synchronize Pro X 2.0 Makes bootable system backups and syncs files Executive Sync 1.1.4 Tex-Edit Plus X 4.4.1b2 File-synchronization and -backup utility Text editor Freeway 3.5.6 ‘Thursby Dave X 40.2 WYSIWYG HTML editor Mac-to-PC file- and print-sharing Grammarian Pro 1.0.2 ae Speling and grammar checker Unity Session X3.0.6 i032 ‘Audio-synth and -s Bug fixes for instant-messaging client Virtual Desktops 1.1 inane Ea App to create and configure as many as File-transfer and server- and network- information tool KoalaCale 3.1.1 Advanced calculator Labels X 1.1.1 ‘0S X hack adds file-labeling features five desktops WeatherPop Advance 1.6.4 New features for weather-monitoring utility WhereDidAllMyMoneyGo 3.0.2 Income- and expenses-tracking program For the ese and other current updates, visit: www.macworld.com/archive/updates/index.html Macworld.com has the latest from VersionTracker.com. | ACME MADE iCOVERS PROTECT LCDS IN STYLE ICONS: WWW ANDFMARTINCUK.COM Running for Cover After you’ve spent $3,499 on a 23-inch LCD monitor, a couple of specks of dust can ruin your entire outlook. A display cover can provide protection against dirt, smudges, scratches, sun discoloration, and other sorts of wear and tear. But for Mac users who place a premium on aesthetics, it doesn’t make much sense to use a cover that’s not as stylish as the machinery that needs to be shielded. For people who want their protec- tive gear to be as eye-pleasing as it is effective, Acme Made (www.acmemade.com) offers the iCover, Available in gray sueded rubber or in a white or platinum quilted design, the iCover fits snugly over most Apple flat-panel LCD monitors. “These are designed for the machine itself, instead of just being drapes,” says Acme Made’s Kirk Thornby. The iCovers for Apple’s 22- and 23-inch Cinema Displays and 17-inch Studio Display have mesh openings where the monitors’ rear heat vents are located. The iMac’ iCover is designed to clasp onto the bottom of the halo that borders the machine's flat-panel dis- play. Prices range from $30 to $45, depending on the model. A protective sleeve aimed at shielding PowerBook displays should be available by the time you read this. Acme Made also plans to release a line of carrying bags for Apple laptops—PHILIP MICHAELS INPUT-DEVICE BEAT Hardware | Controllers ‘An audio and video controller from Contour A/V Solu- tions (866/894-1127, www.countouravs.com): The SpaceShuttle A/V ($50) i a five-button jog-and-shuttle controller based on Contour’s ShuttlePro device. Each button can be assigned to frequently performed tasks; the SpaceShuttle A/V ships with preprogrammed audio, video, and multimedia settings, Gaming Devices ‘An arcade-style joystick from XGaming (866/942-6464, wownwzxgaming.com): Designed to emulate coin-operated arcade games, the X-Arcade Solo ($100) is a single- player joystick with ten programmable buttons. The device, small enough to fit in a lap, works with Macs, PCs, and game consoles. A two-joystick version ($180) is also available. Hubs ‘Two stackable distribution hubs from Gefen (800/545- 6900, www.gefen.com): The ex-tend-it ADC Splitter (5299) sends the same computer-graphics signal from a G4 Mac with an ADC port to two displays. It accommo- dates ADC and DVI flat-panel displays (with an ADC-to- DVI adapter) and includes a six-foot connector cable. The ex-tend-it DVI Splitter ($249) sends the same DVI- graphics signal to two or more DVI-compatible displays. An iMac-specific hub from XtremeMac (866/392-9800, www.xtrememac.com): The UFO for iMac ($130) is a 1.5-inch-tall illuminated FireWire and USB pedestal hub that sits directly beneath the domed base of flat-panel iMacs. It features four USB and two FireWire ports in its front quadrants; they provide quick access to periph eral connections while reducing desktop clutter, Remote Controls Aremote control from SmartDisk (941/436-2500, www _smartdisk.com): The PowerPlay ($70) lets you wirelessly Software = Webcam EvoCam 3.0, rom Evological (www.evological.com): ‘The Webcam application for OS 9 and OS X grabs live Video from Webcam peripherals and posts it to the Web. The updated version supports multiple windows and cameras and sends e-mail notifications. Evological claims that EvoCam supports almost any QuickTime-compatible camera or video-input device ($20). USB WebCam Driver 1.0 for Mac OS X, from |OXperts (wwwuioxperts.com):The driver gives Mac users access to USB video cameras either available only for the PC or not fully supported by OS X. lOXperts says its software sup- ports more than 30 USB Webcams, The software requires OS X 10.1 of later ($20)—compiteD BY PHILIP MICHAELS [26 | macworto | March2003_| |_wwmwmacworld.com_| control presentations. It has an integrated laser pointer, TTP: 4 Visit www.micromat.com to see the new TechTool’ Pro 4. YR Micromat inc. 800-829-6227 707-566-3831 info@micromatcom www.micromat.com ©2003 Micromat, Inc. All rights reserved. TechTool is a registered trademark of Micromat, Inc. Choose 37 at www.macworld.comigetinfo Us « Apple® Power Mac® G4 Series Aushodized Reseller a6 f Db 2 x 867MHz PowerPC™ b DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive™ $ 1 69 5 00 Viewsont Gt processors b S6Kbps modem jewSonic” D 256KB Level 2 cache > 10/100/1000 Ethernet CDW 417019 » Memory: 256MB DDR SDRAM D Mac? OS 9.2/0S X 10.1 » 60GB hard drive 4 i A Apple eMac™ o Authorized Reseller 1 700MHz PowerPC G4 processor $ 1 09 5 00 » Memory: 128MB ; . » 40GB hard drive 7 CDW 417032 » CD-RWIDVD combo drive » S6Kbps modem » 10/100 Ethernet ».17° CRT display » Mac OS 9.2/0S X 10.1 Al pricing subject to change. For al prices and products, CDW esenes the right to make adjustments de to changing market conditions, product dscontination, manufacturer price changes r typographical errors in advertsements. ll prods sold by COW ae thd party products and ae subject othe warranties and representations ‘ofthe applicable ranufatures. Pease refer to CDV.com for adtonal tems and conditions, (©2003 CDW" Computer Centers, Inc. 200 N. Miwaukee Avenue, Vernon His IL 60061 MWW10064 03/03 _ | wewew.macworld.com (it's not a hard drive) IT’S YOUR 200 GB VIDEO LIBRARY That's not just data. Those are your visions. Maxtor OneTouch™ drive helps you protect them. Now—with the touch of a button—backing up your best shots is easier than ever. And at 7200rpm, it’s ITS THE ONE WITH THE BUTTON: faster too. So you can store your edits. Keep them Maxtor’ organized. Give them room to grow. It’s personal. ‘The Maxtor OneTouch™ Drive Maxtor Personal Storage™ 5000DV For offers and demo: www.MaxtorOneTouch.com/mw What drives you?™ Available at CompUSA, MicroCenter, Fry’s Electronics, J&R ComputerWorld, B&H, Staples.com, Buy.com, CDW, Microwarehouse, Computers 4 Sure, and PC Connection. For Mac & PC. FireWire & USB 2.0 compatibility. | Reviews you can trust: Macworld r rates only final shipping | products, not t prototypes. What we review is ‘what you can naculy buy. CUBASE SX 1.0 OS X-Native Version of Venerable Music-Production Application Needs Minor Tune-Up BY CHRISTOPHER BREEN If you bemoan the absence of a Mac OS X-native version of QuarkXPress within earshot of a Mac musician, be prepared for a chorus of abuse. Such Mac users have waited nearly two years for the tools they primar- ily rely on—software-based dig- ital-audio-production appli- like MOTU’s Digital Performer, Cubase now includes unlimited undo capabilities and an Edit His- tory feature. Edit History allows you to undo a series of actions in one step, so you don’t have to go back through each action. Cubase SX includes a new time-stretching feature called Hitpoints, which is similar to Cubase, you could record fader movements to automate your mix. You still can, and Cubase SX also lets you draw automa- tion within each track (known as vector automation). To do so, just click on the + (plus sign) button within a track to reveal one of the automation subtracks. Select the parameter you want to automate—for example, vol- ume—and you'll see a line that represents the unchanged parameter. Then you can click on the line to add points to it and drag each point to create an automation event. For example, sizers such as Propellerhead’s Reason 2.0 from within Cubase. Easier Interface Cubase is a cross-platform application that, in previous versions, reflected its PC roots in an interface that featured slightly garish graphics. Stein- berg has toned down the color palette and redesigned the inter- face, so Cubase SX is easier on the eyes and easier to use. Functions are grouped in a logical way. For example, when you select a track in the main Project window, most cations (once known as sequencers)—to appear in OS X-compatible form. With the release of OS X 10.2 and its underlying audio and MIDI compo- nents, modern-day profes- sional music applications are finally making their way to OS X. First out of the gate was Emagic’s Logic Platinum 5 (Reviews, Janu- ary 2003), a highly capable (and rather complicated) application, Not long there- after, Steinberg released Cubase SX—a complete rewrite of its flagship Cubase digital-audio- production application— which was compatible only with OS X. Though not as powerful as Logic (and, at times, not as stable), the version we tested, Cubase SX 1.051, boasts a host of desirable features, as well as an ease of use that Logic lacks. New Groove First among those desirable fea- tures is the program's ability to play back as many audio tracks as your Mac's processor can handle. Tf your Mac has what it takes to pump out 256 simultaneous bou- zouki tracks, you can rock on. Steinberg has taken a hint from Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU); Propellerhead’s ReCycle applica- tion, Hitpoints lets you automati- cally slice audio tidbits (a drum groove, for example) so that the program recognizes the major beats within the audio file—a snare drum that falls on beat 2, for example. Then you can change the tempo of the track, and the audio bit will also speed up or slow down to match that tempo. But the resulting groove sounds better when you increase—rather than decrease—the tempo. Automation has also been improved. In past versions of Making Tracks Many of Cubase SX's recording and editing tools are available in the Project window. in a volume subtrack, you could add two points to the beginning of the chorus and drag the sec- ond point down to automati- cally decrease the volume. If you add another two points to the beginning of the next verse and drag the second point up, you can increase the volume. Like Logic Platinum, Cubase SX supports surround-sound mixing. Unlike Logic, Cubase SX also supports Propeller- head's ReWire 2.0 standard, a technology that allows you to play external software synthe- of the functions you'll need—Inserts, Equalizers, and Sends—are immedi- ately available in the tabbed Inspector pane on the left side of the win- dow. To edit your audio or MIDI, just click on the tab of the function you want to edit, make your changes (transpose a MIDI track, for example), and click on the tab again to hide the editing fields. Another convenience is that MIDI and audio faders are now found in the same mixing console—no longer must you click between separate MIDI and audio consoles when mixing. And fades can be added graphi- cally by clicking and drag- ging handles within audio tracks (though you must open a sepa- rate window to edit the curve of the fade). Cubase SX makes MIDI and audio effects operate in similar fashion. Clicking on the Insert tab with either an audio or MIDI file selected provides access to audio and MIDI effects. For audio tracks, you can choose from among the more than 40 included VST effects plug-ins (including such standards as reverb and chorus, along with more-exotic effects 30| wacworto | March 2003 | wwwuamacwerld.com | Apple iBook® » 800MHz PowerPC G3 processor » 30GB hard drive 3 CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive » S6Kbps modem and 10/100 Ethernet ) Mac® OS X 10.2 Apple PowerBook® G4 Authorized Reseller » 1.0GHz PowerPC Ga processor » Memory: 512MB » 60GB hard drive » CD-RW/DVD-RW SuperDrive » S6Kbps modem » 10/10/1000 Ethernet » 15.2" active-matrix display ¥ Mac OS X 10.2 Logitech MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse *1295.00 COW 434068 $1595.00 ‘CDW 434069 2S6MB memory std., Authorized Reseller §2995.00 COW 439468 » Powerful MX” optical engine » Cruise control scrolling system » Quick switch program selector » Convenient Internet navigation » Rapid charge base station Norton Internet Security 2.0 Norton™ Internet Security™ 2.0 for Macintosh* provides essential protection from viruses, hackers and privacy threats. This powerful suite includes three Symantec tools: Norton AntiVirus"-antivirus software for Macintosh systems; Norton Personal Firewall-keeps hackers out by blocking unauthorized internet connections; and Norton Privacy Control-safeguards your personal data. Defend your Mac against online threats with Norton Internet Security 2.0. | wwrwmacword.com | Choose 2 at worremacworld.comigetinfo 577.46 CDW 421490 Ba t CDW 362073 pight Technology ' ry Away: [March 2003 | MACWORLD | 29 26D oo Meee RO i vrip erie ve we WRITE StouLy ‘a = poet Shaw 9K pes oe = BACK To sicuy, bere ee} Under Pressure The electronic dry-erase marker sleeves each device uses require a firm touch to capture all strokes accurately. Shown here are the original white- board (top) and its mimio interpretation (bottom). the eBeam’s built-in network- conferencing capability earns it higher marks than the mimio. On Your Marks ... Naturally, our first concern was whether these devices would accurately translate to the Mac what we drew on the whiteboard. We found that, as with writing on carbon paper (if everyone hasn't forgotten about carbon paper by now), we had to apply firm pressure to both devices’ markers to ensure accurate recording of strokes. In one example, we applied light pres- sure—closer to what we'd nor- mally use on a whiteboard—to draw an image of an iMac, which the mimio didn’t detect at all (see “Under Pressure”). Speed was also a factor; strokes dropped out when we deliberately wrote quickly (attempting to simulate a vigorous brainstorming session). But the software in both pack- ages includes virtual pens and erasers, making it easier for you to edit a project or even create new software-only whiteboards on the Mac without uncapping a single marker. The mimio offers a total of eight marker colors (you can buy additional sleeves separately), plus two eraser sizes. The eBeam sticks with four basic colors (red, green, blue, and black), but improves on the mimio’s features with a text tool for adding typewritten notes on the project screen, as well as a useful highlighter tool (see “Mac Markup”). Virtual Ink claims the mimio’s sensor can cover a maximum 4-by-8-foot area, while the eBeam System 3 can handle a 4-by-6-foot area. (Electronics for Imaging also sells the $599 eBeam System 1, which can cap- ture a 5-by-8 area, but we didn’t test that model.) Our white- board measured roughly 2 by 3 feet, so we couldn’e test the lim- its of the devices' sensor range. Out to the Playground Wish you could go back to the beginning of your presentation, before you accidentally erased all that important information? As you work, each device's soft- ware records every move, so you can replay an entire session at any point. Aside from a basic play-pause button, mimio’s soft- ware includes a horizontal slider for tracking to the point you're looking for. eBeam’s offers a more useful choice of four replay speeds (half, normal, double, and quadruple) along with its play-pause button. As you might expect, you can choose from a variety of export formats for sharing whiteboard data. You can save the replays from both programs as Quick- Time or DV-formatted movie files (the latter are suitable for adding to digital-video produc- tions); the mimio even includes a smart option for creating a com- plete iMovie project openable directly in iMovie. In terms of still images, both programs can create JPEG, PICT, and Post- Script or EPS files; the mimio can also save files as SVG (Scal- able Vector Graphics) format, and the eBeam can handle PDF and TIFF images. Both can cre- ate HTML files for viewing each whiteboard page on the Web. Study Abroad Program Tf everyone is in the same room while you're working away on the whiteboard, the meeting files you create provide a good backup of the session, for archiving or later viewing. But what if your cowork- ers are in another building, another city, or another coun- try? Only the eBeam offers the capability on the Mac to share your ideas remotely in images without having to set up a compli- cated videoconferencing system. ‘The mimio requires a Windows- only plug-in, purchased sepa- rately, or a Windows-only paid monthly service. Sharing an eBeam meeting is as easy as naming the session, specifying an optional password, and clicking on OK. An eBeam company server hosts meetings, or you can specify another server; however, neither the eBeam’s skimpy instructions nor its online help offer any more information on what’ required to set up your own server. People attending your meeting need only down- load and install the free eBeam software to join in. (To initiate a meeting, you must have the eBeam hardware attached to your Mac.) You can determine whether to allow attendees to mark up the workspace for more- collaborative sessions or whether to limit them to simply watching the presentation. Macworld’s Buying Advice Both the mimio and the eBeam System 3 provide the invaluable function of saving whiteboard scribbles to disk, but the eBeam’s built-in remote-conferencing capability and better markup tools make it our top pick. Although neither device is partic ularly inexpensive, they’re both much smaller and more portable than dedicated electronic white- boards that sell for a few hundred dollars less, Now we're just wait- ing for a device that will erase the ink on the whiteboard when we shut down our Macs. [| EBEAM SYSTEM 3 PROS: Good capture; built-in confer- encing capability; good editing tools; compact design. CONS: Marker sleeves need more sensitivity; poor documentation. PRICE: $750 OS COMPATIBILITY: Mac 0S 9, ‘Mac OS X COMPANY: Electronics for Imaging, 650/357-3500, www.e-beam.com MIMIO: RATING: 699 PROS: Good capture; novel iMovie export feature. CONS: No conferencing capability; marker sleeves need more sensitivity, PRICE: $649 OS COMPATIBILITY: Mac 0S 9, ‘Mac OS X COMPANY: Virtual Ink, 877/696- 4646, www.mimio,com 32_| MACWORLD | March 2003 vewreumacworld.com "30. Music-production application Cubase SX 1.051 31. Electronic whiteboard systems Beam System 3, mimio 33 3-D-animation software Universe 5.0, 35. Color laser printer Hewlett Packard Color Laseret 25001 36 All-in-one backup system Maxtor Personal Storage 5000 OUTSTANDING: rrr such as Quadrafuzz and Grun- gelizer) and apply as many as eight effects per track. (Note that some of these plug-ins are carryovers from the older Cubase 5.1, and Steinberg has not extensively tested them with Cubase SX. In our tests, they worked as expected.) You can apply as many as four effects to MIDI tracks, choosing from among such Steinberg-created MIDI processing effects as ArpacheS (an arpeggiator) and MIDI Echo. There are 14 MIDI effects in all. Link with the Past Our mention of VST should prick up the ears of people who follow the state of audio in OS X (see “OS X in Tune,” January 2003). Unlike Logic, Cubase SX doesn’t currently support Apple’s Audio Units effects stan- dard, though Steinberg has expressed an interest in support- ing Audio Units at a later date. (Logic supports Audio Units only). This gives Cubase SX users access to a greater variety of effects and instruments (software synthesizers), because Audio Units-compatible effects and instruments are currently few and far between. Cubase SX includes four such instruments: Al, a two-oscillator virtual analog synthesizer from Waldorf; VB-1, a virtual bass synthesizer; Neon, an analog synthesizer found in earlier ver- sions of Cubase; and LM7, a drum sample play luding Neon, which is a little on the thin side, the included instru- ments produce rich sounds and are versatile. Sour Notes Considering the program's power and its more than 700 electronic pages of included documentation, making music with Cubase SX is remarkably easy. But there are bugs to squash, On several occa- 37 Diagramming program laspiration 7 38 Font-management program FontAgent Pro 39 Genealogy program Reunion 8 40 Text-manipulation software BBEdit 7.0 41. Utility for 3-0 Flash ‘Swift 3D 3 veRY GOOD: one8 GOOD: mid] sions, audio tracks stuttered as we played back (on our 933MHz Power Mac G4) a project that contained fewer than a dozen of them. This aberrant behavior was usually triggered by our switching applications or mucking about in | the Dock during playback. In | most of these cases, we had to close and reopen the project to make it play properly. Like Logic Platinum 5, Cubase SX is copy-protected, requiring a USB dongle to operate. You can use the pro- gram on any compatible Mac the dongle is plugged into, but you may have to pay a substan- tial price to replace the dongle should you lose it (although Steinberg says it will attempt to work out an amicable solution on a case-by-case basis). Macworld’s Buying Advice Cubase SX is a substantial bug fix away from being a solid con- tender for your digital-audio- production dollars. Logic Plat- inum is the deeper program, but Cubase SX packs plenty of punch and is easy to use. When a | stabler version ships, people with earlier Cubase iterations should upgrade in a hurry. If you're new to music on the Mac, you may want to wait for the Os | Digital Performer before you | make a decision. RATING: $49) PROS: Track number limited only by | processor power; improved automa- tion; ReWire support; improved inter- | face is more intuitive. CONS: Occasionally unstable; no sup- port for Audio Units; copy-protected. PRICE: $799; upgrade from Cubase ‘Audio or VST/32, $149; upgrade from | i=} Cubase Score, $199; upgrade from | ma Cubase Standard, $299 OS COMPATIBILITY: Mac OS X COMPANY: Steinberg, 818/678- 5100, www.us.steinberg.net |t 42 Internet traceroute utility VisualRoute 7.0 44 QuarkXPress plug-ins XPert Tools Pro 45. Reviews in Brief ‘Art Directors Toolkit 3, DragThing 45, Six Degrees 1.5, WebMerge 2.1 43. The Game Room Mutant Storm, The Operative: Ho One Lives Forever, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, Zoombinis Island Odyssey 34 This Month in | Printers I Canon i850, Canon | $530D, Epson Stylus C82, Hewlett-Packard Desk- | Jet $550, Lexmark 265 | Golordetortater FLAWED: D: +8 UNACCEPTABLE: t WHITEBOARD BYJEFFCARLSON Ie’s amazing that whiteboards are sold without one crucial feature: a preprinted area that reads, “Do not erase!” Most whiteboards we see include this determined scrawl somewhere, or else the ghostly residue of those words. If you simply can’t think without a dry-crase marker in hand, then it’s time to look into getting a whiteboard capture device, such as Elec- tronics for Imaging’s cBeam System 3 or Virtual Ink’s mimio. You can then save your ideas and drawings in a more-lasting digi- tal format on your Mac with these systems’ included soft- ware, now available for both Mac OS 9 and OS X. Each product includes a cap- ture device that attaches to any | CAPTURE DEVICES | eBeam and mimio Let You Digitize Your Dry-Erase | Brainstorming Sessions ordinary whiteboard, and regu- lar dry-erase markers, which fit into battery-powered sleeves that relay the markers’ positions | on the board by way of ultra- | sonic signals. The capture devices connect to a Mac via | USB, and transfer the marks | made on the whiteboard to the included software. You can also | use both products in presenta- tion mode, which enables you | to control your Mac from the | whiteboard with a projected | display. We tested both systems in OS X (the eBeam System 3 with software version 2.1 and the mimio with software ver- sion 1.6) and found that while each performed well in terms of | capturing