MacWorld0309September2003

dui My a www.macworld.com | September 2003 SMILE CMILCT VAIPDE ON MAC VINES The Mac Product Experts 2GHz Processors _* Blazing 1GHz Bus Superfast Apple and IBM Give Mac Users the First Desktop 64-Bit Processor _ Take an Insider's Tour with the People Who Built the G5 GH or Bust: Apple Is Playing 0 Win the nS mane REVIEWED QUARKXPRESS 6.0 | AIRPORT ANTENNAS The dawn of a new PC era For the last decade, every processor chip in every personal computer in the world has been based on 32-bit architecture. It was the best technology we had. Until today. Introducing the revolutionary PowerPC G5 processor, the world's first 64-bit processor for personal computers. Before now, a chip this formidable could only be found in the world’s fastest servers and supercomputers. Which is precisely Theworld’smostadvanced Where the G5 chip came from. Developed by IBM and personal computer chips ‘are mariutactured in the: Apple; the G5's DNA is from the core of IBM's highest world’s most advanced . F, semiconductor factory. performance 64-bit POWER4 processor. But just as impressive as the G5’s pedigree is how it’s manufactured. In IBM's (and the world’s) most advanced semiconductor facility, the G5’s 12-inch silicon wafers are untouched by human hands as robots guide them through 500 The 64-bit processor. processing steps, creating 58 million transistors and connecting them with over 1000' of copper wire that's less than 1/800th the width of a human hair. The new PowerPC G5 has a 1-gigahertz frontside bus’ that moves data in and out of the processor almost twice as fast as the s competition, removing a key bottleneck that @ limits performance. And it can support more than 200 in-flight instructions at a time -71% more than the 32-bit Pentium 4. Perhaps most importantly, the G5's 64-bit architecture can address dramatically more memory - over 4 billion times more than 32-bit chips _~ ~ — - The world’ first64-bitdesktop processor can only be found in one place: Inside the new Power Mac: G5, the world’s fastest personal computer. — so that systems built around the G5 can shatter the 4-gigabyte memory (Bi secre mone hora cal SOD APP Envet naples pe ee personal computing. ceiling that limits every other PC on earth. The 64-bit PowerPC GS. It’s not just a new chip. It’s the next chapter in SAVING BOODEVE TO M EEPORE YOUR TRIP, PRINTING HIS PICTURE LIHEH YOU GET TO THE HOTEL. DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: EF wn The i7o Portable Printer with Bubble Jet Direct. It’s nice to know that no matter where business takes you, his picture is only moments away with the sleek, new i70 Portable Printer. It's amazingly small, but designed to deliver the performance youd expect in a full-size desktop printer. Like borderless photos’ at up to 4800 x 1200 color dpi. And print speeds of up to 13ppm black and up to 9ppm color” Plus, you can plug select Canon digital cameras and camcorders directly into it and print! The i7o Portable Printer. It's ready to go when you are. To find out more, visit www.usa.canon.com/consumer or call us at -800-OK-CANON. Canon knownow~ Sle. covecrsamerabbeetsrec Choose 23 at wwmemacworld.comigetinfo OPINION From the Editor's Desk JASON SNELL Say hello to Panther, the Power Mac G5, and QuarkXPress 6.0. 14 Feedback Readers respond. 85 Ihnatko ANDY IHNATKO Apple's iTunes Music Store just might be on to something. MAC BEAT iChat AV and iSight, Andy hnatko at MacHack, an interview with Nisus Software's Jerzy Lewak, Adobe After Effects 6.0, Macromedia Contribute 2.0, indie music and the iTunes Music Store, and the return of After Dark. SECRETS BBEdit Version Control JOHN GRUBER Minor coding errors can create major problems. Avoid snafus with version-control software. 78 FreeHand Type Design SANDEE COHEN Take advantage of new features in FreeHand MX to quickly design eye-catching text. 80 Excel Chart Art HELEN BRADLEY By using Microsoft Excel X's built-in tools creatively, you can make charts look great. 82 Mac 911 CHRISTOPHER BREEN Some parts of Mac OS X can be downright mys- terious. This month's Mac 911 sheds light on such arcane aspects as services, invisible database files, and shuffled iMovie export options. on On the Cover Photograph courtesy of Apple Computer, digital retouching by Stephen Sugg September 2003 COVER STORY 58 The Next Generation JASON SNELL A new processor, a new architecture, a new enclosure—find out why the G5 is out of this world. FEATURES 68 Take a Peek at Panther The next major release of OS X won't be available until the end of the year, but here's a look at some of the new features and improvements you can expect to see when Mac OS X 10.3 hits the shelves. www.macworld.com i Incorporating MacUser 4 MACWORLD September 2003 ‘www.macworld.com os ee 55 ee U oe Ss 2: bet e so cree oe ; ES ee s = ee see sete g] ee +] MISTER) REVIEWS _ Desktop publishing program $886 QuarkXPress 6.0 | 43 AirPort Extreme antennas | $66$ Dr. Bott ExtendAir Direct $868 Dr. Bott ExtendAir Omni Find out whether Unreal Tournament 2003 lives up to its hype. Plus, we've got Harry Potter, Bloodrayne, Barrage, and ThinkTanks. 35 PDF software : — $693 Acrobat 6.0 Standard 44 3-D—modeling utility ___BHBHE Acrobat 6.0 Professional | $484 ImageModeler 3.5 36 Video-editing application 45 Diagramming program iii Final Cu Cut Pro 4 = | $$$3 OmniGraffle 3.0.1 Professional 38 250GB FireWire 800 drives 46 Organization software $6$% EZQuest Cobra FireWire 800/USBII | $663 Tinderbox 1.2.3 $988 LaCie D2 Ual | = $$$! OWC Mercury Elite Pro FireWire 800 | 47 Digital SLR camera $694 WiebeTech 250GB Fire800 | $8843 Canon EOS 10D 40 FTP clients 48 Reviews in Brief $66} CaptainFTP 2.6 Accordance 5.5c, FontDoctor 5.5, iLife Voice Solution, $8 Fetch 4.0.3 Marine e Aquarium 2.0 $9865 FTP Client 4.0.1 Fes So $86 Interarchy 6.2 49 Hot Products $$8H RBrowser 3.1.2 The best recently reviewed Mac products. $43 SimpleFTP 2.01 51 The Game Room $98) Transmit 2.5 PETER COHEN 42 Network server $866 Apple Xserve 42 2.5TB RAID | 120 Mac Gems $894 Apple Xserve RAID ROB GRIFFITHS | This month's gems help you search faster, move files easier, organ- | ize better, communicate face-to-face, and keep up on the news. wwwmacworld.com September 2003 MACWORLD 5 mac<3warehouse Help is on the house Order your G5 today and get ready for the performance of your life! smacworld.com, Our Tech Support specialists are on-call to support you FREE for the lifetime of your products. These specialists hold industry certifications on the latest technology from the leading manufacturers, including: A+ Certified Adaptec Certified Apple Certified Desktops Apple Certified Laserwriters Apple Certified Servers Apple Learn & Earn Cisco CCNA IBM PSE MicroSoft MCSE Chris Mac Warehouse “Technical Support Manager Call us today! 800-ALL-MACS (800-255-6227) macwarehouse.com For Canadian inquires and orders please call 877-375-3173 ih renin A Love Story Seiicare lected ts legescetadcty. he yore : nature. Buk now you find keeping t going is har work Youre dluays making excuses For him.. lant tine you gave FileMoker the bool? For more mecringful, longer term -seletienships Macworld id 7 mL 4th Dimension 2003 www.4D.com/switch ©2003 4D, Inc. All rights reserved. 4th Dimension, related logos and all 4D product Mames are registered trademarks of 4D SA. All other tradenames or registered tradenames are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK BY JASON SNELL Powertul Developments WHENEVER STEVE JOBS TAKES THE STAGE, EXPECTATIONS run high. Apple’s rock-star CEO commands the attention of not only the Mac faithful but also the world’s technology and business press. And with few exceptions, Jobs has delivered the goods with his public presentations. But at Apple’s annual World- wide Developers Conference (WWDC) this June, he delivered on a scale the likes of which we haven't seen for years. Before the WWDC, everyone was buzzing about the details of Panther, the next edition of Mac OS X. And indeed, Apple delivered a preview of Panther (which is due by the end of the year). The Finder’s new brushed-metal, iTunes-style interface will take a little getting used to, but I think it will go a long way toward making the Mac easier for novices to use. Will the Finder's new look—as well as Panther’s loads of additions and enhancements—convince people to spend $129 to upgrade? Until we know the full scope of what's new in OS X 10.3, that’s hard to say. You can start making your own judgments about Pan- ther after taking in our first look at the new operating system (page 68). And of course, as Panther's arrival approaches (and after it’s unleashed on the world), you can expect much more from us—from previews of all the new features to tips and troubleshooting advice. Now, the Main Event But unveiling Panther didn’t take up even half of Jobs's WWDC address. The OS X update was only the opening act of this particular show; the main event was the Power Mac G5. Apple doesn’t take changes in Power Mac genera- tions lightly. The G5 is completely different from previous Power Macs—from the IBM microprocessor at its heart to its new aluminum chassis. Everything inside has been engineered for speed. Because the G5 was such a major engineering chal- lenge for Apple, we wanted to get the details straight from the people who built it. So I spent some time at Apple with the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, Jon Rubinstein, and vice pres- ident of hardware product marketing, Greg Joswiak. At our side were a prototype Power Mac GS and a bare G5 logic board. Rubinstein and Joswiak took me through the process of building the G5, and now you can see the results of that guided tour (page 58). What struck me most in my time with the two Apple VPs was their regard for IBM, which is mak- www.macworldcom ing the G5 processor at plants in East Fishkill, New York, and Burlington, Vermont, The two companies are working closer than ever before, and both Rubin- stein and Joswiak had high praise for IBM’s engineers and their work in converting the core of IBM's high- test Power4 processor into the shiny new G5. Most Mac users understand that pure clock speed (measured these days in gigahertz) isn’t the only indicator of a chip’s performance. But the general public is not particularly familiar with how processors work, and a gigahertz number is easy to understand. After several years of falling well behind Intel and AMD in that one raw statistic, Apple has shown that it’s still in the race. And for those in the know, it’s clear that the GS isa far faster and more efficient processor than Intel’s offerings at the same clock speeds. Encore! Encore! OF course, Jobs's WWDC address featured other interesting announcements, chief among them the release of the new iSight camera and a beta version of iChat AV (see Mac Beat, page 18), two products that truly make me feel as though I’m living in the 21st century at last. But for one group of Mac users, Steve Jobs’ WWDC appearance wasn't as big a deal as I've made it out to be. Designers were more interested in his late~May appear- ance at Apple with Fred Ebrahimi, president and CEO of Quark. At that event, the two CEOs announced the impending release of QuarkXPress 6, which runs natively on OS X. The good news, as former Macworld editor Galen Graman reports in this issue (see Reviews, page 32), is that XPress 6 is more than just an OS X-native version of XPress 5. We'll have to wait and see whether designers transi- tioning to OS X will stay with XPress or make the switch to Adobe InDesign, which is coming on strong. But with QuarkXPress now on OS X, that debate can begin in earnest. 7 was the P or stop by our online forums, at wwwumacworld.com. Everyone was buzzing about Panther, but the WWDC's main event ower Mac G5. Got opinions about the Mac, Macworld, or anything else? Drop me a line, at jason_snell@macworld.com, September 2003 MACWORLD 9 that Rock and roll with the iunes®.Masic Store Upgrades You don’t need to own the latest Mac to join the fun, but you may want to prepare yours for a comeback tour... Whether you consider your Mac an alternative or a classic, Sonnet's got upgrade solutions that fit every genre (and that’s a reason to feel jazzed). Our upgrades can make every one of these machines better, faster, and more capable. So if you just need a faster processor, or a new way to connect more stuff, Sonnet products enable you to be part of Apple’s music revolution. SONNES SIMPLY FAST Choose 133 at wwwsmacworld.comigetinfo 10 MACWORLD September 2003 President and Editorial Director Rick LePage Editor Jason Snell Executive Editor Jennifer Werner Deputy Managing Editor Charles Purdy Senior Features Editor Teri Stone Senior News Editor Philip Michaels Senior Reviews Editor Jennifer Berger Test Manager, Macworld Lab James Galbraith Senior Associate Editors. Kely Lunsford, lisa Schmeiser, Jonathan Seff Associate Editor ill Roter Copy Editor Sue Voelel Contributing Features Editor Scholle Sawyer McFarland Contributing Editors David Blatne, Henry Brtman, Christopher Breen, ‘Adam C. Engst, Bruce Frase, jm Hed, Andy Ihnatko, Ted Landau, Deke McCiland, Tom Negrin, David Pogue, Stephan Somogyi Frain N.Tessler ‘Art Director Jennifer Steele Design Associate Alissa Mach Contributing Designers John Famsworth, Jean Zambal Cover Consultant Susan Scandrett Prepress Consultant. Stephen Sugg Editor, Online Jim Dalrymple Senior Editor, Macworld.com David Leishman Senior Editors, MacCentral.com Peter Cohen, Dennis Seles International Editors Matthew JC. 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All the time. * Revolutionary Avid Mojo DNA © Designed to scale from DV to uncompressed GOI « Simple FireWire® connection * Dedicated media processing power * No need for add-in cards * Professional video, audio, and film editing * Full-resolution real-time effects * Real-time DV and Analog I/O ¢ Real-time digital cut * Automatic, expert productivity and collaboration tools * Mac and PC software included Contact your local Avid reseller or visit wuwuw.avid.com/xpresspro Choose 39 at wirwmacworld.com/getinfo ssoudx PIA Avid Xpress’ Pro with Avid Mojo” The Avid Xpress Pro system is the complete solution for portable, professional real-time video, audio, and film editing. Built on a scalable real-time architecture, Avid Xpress Pro editing software provides powerful real-time effects, titles, keys, audio, color correction, and compositing right out of the box. Add the revolutionary Avid Mojo Digital Nonlinear Accelerator (DNA), built to scale from DV to uncompressed SD video with true real-time DV and analog video out over a FireWire connection. Truly portable. Truly professional. n % Avid make manage move | media™ V1 A ™ APPLE GETS MUSICAL REVIEW: 17" POWWERBOOK — XPress Yourself ERIKA HEGGIE eS] I realize that David Blamer’ intention in “Quark Enters the Land of OS X” (June 2003) was not to compare QuarkXPress 6.0 with Adobe InDesign 2.0. But I couldn’t help but note a few inimitable InDesign-only features that Blatner far too quickly excuses Quark’s blatant negligence of. He writes that XPress 6.0 doesn’t take advantage of OS X’s graphics-rendering technologies, “which could allow transparency and other spe- cial effects.” InDesign users have quickly realized that the direct .psd and .ai importing feature is pure brilliance. Also, XPress’s type engine is 15 years old. Nothing in the article indicates that Quark has made any effort to improve it. Lastly, Blamer highlights Quark’s licens- ing of Jaws technology to allow you to produce high-quality PDFs as a menu option—basically the same process as in previous versions (where it required an XTension and a few more steps). AMY NOORIAN S P'm no big fan of QuarkXPress, but it’s absolutely essential in the print publishing world. Until Adobe gets publishers to change their workflow to InDesign, it won't have a big user base. MAUREEN PACINO L Congratulations to Pamela Pfiffner for delivering the most amazing scoop I’ve ever seen in Macworld: Quark is commit- ted to its customers and giving them what they want (“The World According to Quark,” June 2003). Perhaps the rea- son Quark hasn't perceived any bitter- ness among its users in the last 18 months is because answering the phone has never been part of its business model. 14 MACWORLD September 2003 Be CERDEAGK It Takes Two For every action in our June 2003 issue, there was an equal and opposite reaction from our readers. David Blatner may have focused on QuarkXPress 6.0, but some readers couldn't help but turn their attention to Adobe InDesign. Our coverage of the OS X transition elicited the usual reader comparisons to OS 9—both favorable and otherwise. And the new iTunes Music Store may be one of a kind, but that didn’t stop readers from chiming in with their thoughts. Which is fine by us, since Macworld readers and their opinions are the real dynamic duo, © CHRISTOPHER HERRING B Tn “Quark of Fate” (From the Editor's Desk, June 2003), Rick LePage states that the loudest cries [about OS X-only systems] came from the professional publishing community, who were waiting for their “tool of choice, QuarkXPress.” This misses the point by a mile. We're not wait- ing for QuarkXPress; we're waiting for the entire suite of products that make up the Quark Publishing System, includ- ing QuarkCopyDesk and QuarkDispatch. The reason we’re still waiting for OS X versions of these applications has a lot to do with the fact that press coverage on this issue is hard to find and usually inaccurate. Simply stated, publishers use QPS—not just XPress—and until there are OS X- native versions of all the QPS applications, they will continue to use OS 9. X Factors DAVID ENNS Es} I read “Evolution Endgame” (Mac Beat, June 2003) with great interest. We have a real estate-appraisal business and have used all kinds of Macs since the plat- form’s inception back in 1984. We’re still using OS 9.2 and haven't made the tran- sition to OS X, partly because of the difficulty in replacing two programs— Simply Accounting, from Accpac, and Silicon Beach’s SuperPaint—that will not run in OS X. When we replace the office computers, we'll have to migrate to OS X, but not before. DANIEL GONNEAU B Asa full-time OS X user, Iam very happy with the new operating system. But I know many people who still use OS 9. For them, Apple should develop an OS 9 sim- ulator for OS X, available as a user prefer- ence in System Preferences. It would simulate the basic look and feel of OS 9's desktop and Finder while keeping the guts of OS X exactly the same. That way, OS 9 users could transition to the new Aqua interface at their own pace while still enjoying the stability and multitasking joys of OS X. RICHARD WARBURTON B While no longer state of the art, my 500MHz PowerBook G3 has proved itself to be a praiseworthy workhorse, especially since I converted to Jaguar. No matter what I put it through, my G3 is more responsive and stabler running Jaguar than it ever was under OS 9— which is why I’m sick of all the kvetching about OS X. I don’t bemoan the loss of OS 9s pop-up Finder window or the old Apple menu or the other features that went away, because OS X still allows me to launch applications and organize and open my files, with no more effort than I expended under OS 9. Music for a Song? KEN ALAN, a Apple’s online Music Store (“Apple Carries a Tune,” Mac Beat, June 2003) is a great idea spoiled by the continued notion that consumers will accept crippled, copy- protected content. For the same per-track price as at Apple's store, I can buy a CD at Amazon.com that hasn’t been com- pressed—full 44.1K fidelity—and hasn’t been copy protected. It’s also worth noting that $0 percent of users still have dial-up modems. It took me 20 minutes to down- load one 3-minute compressed music track. WARD CURRY Es} iTunes 4 has a great new feature—CD splitting. I can finally split my songs into multiple CDs with iTunes (a feature I had ‘wwwmacworld.com, SEPTEMBER 2003 FEEDBACK to use QuickTime to do manually before). This is great for the long DJ sets I often download from the Internet—many of which run more than two hours—and split up into multiple CDs. iTunes 4 does it all automatically—just select a playlist and click on Burn, and it does the rest. Going to Extremes TOM MAZE S Congrats to Glenn Fleishman on the informative “Extreme Revolution” (June 2003). One question: The article states that an 802.1 1b client joining an Extreme network “can slow down the traffic for everyone.” Does everything slow down to 802.11b transfer rates to the server? An 802.11b client takes longer to say the same thing as an 802.11g client, so it effectively reduces the overall speed. Updated versions of the AirPort Extreme firmware seem to improve the performance of networks that mix the two speeds.—Glenn Fleishman GREGORY RAMSPERGER iE] Thave noticed a trend at Macworld: leaving out wireless access points when discussing wireless networking options. If you have a working router, an access point can mean that you spend less time setting up your wireless network, as well as less money. At this writing, Linksys’s access point costs $124 from Amazon.com. The full gateway costs $119. Replacing a router with a wireless gate- ‘way is often easier than adding a wireless access point; you can always auction off the old router to recoup some costs.—Glenn Fleishman A Discreet Mention JOSHUA HATCH Christopher Breen failed to mention that Discreet Cleaner 6.0 cannot compress files into Real format in OS X (Reviews, June 2003). This isn’t Discreet’s fault; Real Net- works has failed to deliver OS X tools for encoding Real content. Nonetheless, it’s a significant issue and should have been men- tioned in the review. Pocketful of Trouble JOHN LEONARDINI Se I guess any software that doesn’t actually kill the user gets two mice. In the case of \wwwmacworld.com PocketMac Pro 2.0 (June 2003), the $#3 rating is at least two mice too high. PocketMac not only managed to mess up the synchronization function of my PocketPC to the point where it would no longer sync with a PC, but also made so many changes to the device itself that I had to do a hard system reset to get it working properly again. Credit Where It's Due GEORGE FERENCZ 3 You attributed to film director Ken Burns the technique of panning and zooming across a still photo (Mac 911, June 2003). This technique was pioneered by Donald B. Hyatt, who, beginning in the 1950s, produced dozens of NBC television doc- umentaries on important historical figures and themes. It was termed “stills in motion” then and has become a very use- ful cliché—but please think “Hyatt” rather than “Burns” every time you see or use it. We're happy to recognize Donald B. Hyatt as the person who pioneered the technique. Nevertheless, Apple named the pan-and-zoom feature in iMovie 3 after filmmaker Ken Burns.—Ed. Raw Disclosure JOEL SILVERMAN SB Thave the highest regard for Bruce Fraser, his expertise, and his knowledge. His review of the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in (June 2003) seems objective and fair. But it is improper to present him as an independent reviewer of the product when in fact he is a Photoshop alpha tester and is listed in the Photoshop credits as a creative consultant to Adobe. Disclosure of this fact would have been a service to your readers. An alpha tester is a creative consultant—all the people on the alpha team get a credit like that. For the record, the only money I have ever received from Adobe was payment for articles I wrote for the long-defunct Adobé magazine, and payment for a how-to article, published on Adobe’s Web site, that I wrote in early 2000. While I have some influence over what gets into Photoshop and how it gets implemented, I don’t get paid for my ser- vices.—Bruce Fraser Rotate Debate KEN BECK iE] While it’s true that one can rotate an image by hundredths of a degree in Photoshop, as you told reader Peter Samuel (Feedback, June 2003), this func- tion is not available for line-art bitmap images, only for gray-scale or color images, so the files are larger and the rota- tion takes longer. I often use Photoshop to scan bank statements for archiving, and while I can scan them as gray-scale images, rotate them by degrees, and then convert them to bitmaps before saving, it would save time if Arbitrary Rotation were available for bitmap images. JOAN M. HOUSTON To align a scanned image quickly and eas- ily, first select the Measure tool. Click and drag along any line in the image that is offset x number of degrees from horizon- tal or vertical. Then, while the Measure tool is still selected, go to Image, Rotate Canvas, Arbitrary. The precise offset angle will appear in the dialog box. Click on OK, and the image will automatically rotate that exact number of degrees. © Post comments on our forums (www .macworld.com); send them by mail to © 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 we Teceive, 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 David Weiss's response to a question from reader Joel Snyder (Feedback, June 2003) rec- ommended the wrong small scanner as a replacement for the Windows-only Strobe Pro. The response should have recommended the Canon LiDE 30. We used the wrong photograph in “Ether- net's Fast-Falling Prices” (Mac Beat, July 2003). It was a picture of the Linksys Ether- Fast 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch, not of the Linksys Gigabit 8-Port Workgroup Switch, as ‘the caption claimed. September 2003 MACWORLD 15 > CDW: Where the tech savvy go for tech. . ee Apple® Power Mac® G5 > 1,6GHz IBM PowerPC” G5 processor > Memory: 256MB RAM > 80GB hard drive > DVD-R/CD-RW Superdrive Authorized $1995.00 Reseller COW 508211 ‘Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac 05, Power Macintosh and PowerBook are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, nc. AitPort, iBook, iMac iMovie and Power Mac are trademarks ‘of Apple Computer, Inc. PowerPC" and the PowePC logo” ae trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, used under license there from. FireWire® isa registered trademark of Apple* Computer Corp. ‘All pricing subject to change. For all prices and products, CDW* reserves the right to make adjustments due to changing market conditions, product discontinuation, manufacturer ‘rice changes or typographical errors in advertisements All products sold by CDW are third party products and are subject to the warranties and representations ofthe applicable ‘manufacturers. lease refer to COW.com for additional tems and conditions. (©2003 CDW* Corporation, 200 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Vernon Hills IL 60061 MW 10909 A 09,03 16 | MACWORLD | September 2003 _wowwmacworld.com_| ha © A© Apple® iMac? G4 > 1.0GHz Motorola PowerPC™ G4 processor > Memory: 256MB RAM > 80GB hard drive > SuperDrive” > 56Kbps modem 6 $1795.00 cow 463745, F Symantec Norton AntiVirus 9.0 > Automatically removes viruses from email attachments, Internet downloads, and other sources > Finds and removes PC viruses to ensure that you don’t spread infections to friends and colleagues > LiveUpdate™ technology checks for new virus definitions and downloads them to your computer over the Internet S)) symantec. $68.36 cow 496052, TE —— a | Apple® PowerBook® G4 > 867MHz PowerPC™ G4 processor > Memory: 256MB DDR SDRAM > 40GB hard drive >12.1" XGA active-matrix display od $1595.00 COW 454486 Belkin Omniview SOHO 2Port KVM > Allows you to control two DVI/USB computers from cone USB keyboard and mouse, and one DVI monitor > Convenient switching through either the press of a button or a simple keystroke > Innovative design offers built-in cable management Ep —s 165.13 cow 488111 wowmacworld.com eee Apple? iBook® > 900MHz PowerPC” G3 processor > 40GB hard drive > CD-RWIDVD-ROM combo drive > 56Kbps modem and 10/100 Ethernet . Authorized Reset 128MB memory std, 12.1" diplay $1295.00 cow sasess 25648 memory sth. 41" S58 $4 AQK C0) cov assess Choose 2 at wrwumacword.com/getinfo y. Right A y. Big rechnolod Right cpw The way September 2003 | MACWORLD 7 | wHat's NEXT | It's hard to top autumn in Paris— particularly for Apple Expo 2003. | Europe's biggest. | Mac trade show | runs September 16 through 20, | INTHE PIP INE | WHAT's HoT WITH iCHAT AV, VIDEOCONFERENCING IS JUST A MOUSE CLICK AWAY Lights, Camera, Chat The forthcoming Panther update to OS X (see “Take a Peek at Panther,” page 68) may boast 100 new features, but if you want to experience almost all of them firsthand, you'll have to wait until OS X 10.3 ships later this year. However, one promised improve- ment—an updated messaging client—is already available as a beta. And it will change the way you look at instant messaging. iChat AV is more than just a spruced-up version of the inte- grated chat client Apple intro- duced in 2002. It adds audio and video capabilities to iChat’s instant-messaging features. Now, with a FireWire video camera and a micro- phone, you can videoconference with other iChat AV users over a broadband connection. The free beta runs in OS X 10.2.5 and later. A full version of iChat AV should arrive with Panther later this year. Mac users who stick with Jaguar can pur- chase a stand-alone version of the updated chat client for $29 once it’s final. “(Chat AV is a major break- through in communications,” said Steve Jobs as he introduced the revised application. And even the most-jaded observers should have a hard time dismissing the state- ment as marketing hyperbole. Talk to Me iChat AV will feel familiar to iChat 1.0 users. It features the same stylized interface with comic strip-like balloons for messaging text; you’re still able to connect with logged-in friends and coworkers who have AOL Instant Messenger or .Mac accounts. Only now, your Buddy List—in addition to showing user names and pictures—also sports green video and audio buttons, which indicate the chat- ting capabilities of the folks on your list. A camera icon indicates video-chatting capabilities. (The icons also let you know the avail- ability of people on your list; if that camera icon is grayed- out, your buddy is vid- eoconferencing with some- one else.) Clicking on the green camera button next to a buddy-list name invites that user to a video chat. While the chat connects, a pre- view window appears, giving you the chance to check your appear- ance and adjust your camera. While chatting, the main iChat window shows who you're talk- ing to; an inset in the lower right- hand corner of the window displays an image of you, so you can see what the person on the other end of the chat sees. A dual- arrow icon on the bottom of the iChat window lets you blow it up to fill the entire screen. iChat AV supports full-duplex audio, a technology you'll find in high-end speaker phones. Because of that support, iChat AV users can talk at the same time and hear one another, with- out any drops in audio. In addition to OS X 10.2.5 or later, iChat AV requires at least a G3 processor. If you want to use iChat AV’s videoconferencing features, a G3 processor needs to run at 600MHz or faster. Those specifications aren’t a sugges- tion—if someone invites you to a video chat and you don’t have the necessary processing power, a dialog box will appear, telling you that you’re unable to accept the invitation. Video chatting also requires a broadband con- nection; a 56-Kbps dial-up modem connection is sufficient for audio chatting. While iChat lets you include multiple users in a text chat ses- wwwmacworld.com PHOTOS BY RICK RIZNER, sion, audio and video remain a one- on-one affair. However, the only thing that could stop you from text messaging with one person while video-chatting with another would be an inability to talk and type at the same time. Candid Camera Any FireWire-enabled Webcam will work with iChat, including digital- video camcorders that hook up to your Mac via FireWire. But Apple would prefer that you choose a camera the company designed specifically for use with iChat AV—the $149 iSight. ‘The iSight is housed in the same aluminum-alloy exterior as Apple’s 12- and 17-inch PowerBooks. The camera is made up of a three-part lens, which consists of two aspherical elements and one flat element, and a 4-inch color CCD sensor with 640-by-480-pixel resolution. The lens aperture is a wide £2.8, so the camera lens can collect more light for a brighter, sharper pic- ture, no matter what the lighting. The iSight’s most impressive tech- nical specification is its onboard processor, which optimizes the color saturation, contrast, and white bal- ance, so the iSight can transmit a better picture in both high and low light—something we noticed imme- diately when putting the iChat AV beta through its paces. (As a matter of fact, the hardware design coupled with iChat’s H.263 codec allows for full-motion video at up to 30 frames per second in true 24-bit color—so, in essence, your video chats won’t look as if they’re beaming down from the International Space Station.) ‘The iSight offers more than just a clean picture—it also sports a built- in microphone, providing you with audio and video in a single device. ‘The dual-element microphone enables noise suppression, by using an algo- rithm that determines where the sound comes from—the user in front of the camera or ambient noise from else- where in the room, for example. Your voice hits the two in-line elements within iSight at different times, while ambient noise reaches the microphone www.macworld.com all at once, allowing the microphone to filter out background noise. At 2.3 ounces, the iSight is easy to carry—Apple even provides a plas- tic travel case. Also included with the iSight are three stands that let you mount the camera on top of a flat-panel display, a laptop, or a CRT monitor. That's another key edge the iSight enjoys over other Webcams. Many of those devices sit on a desk and point up at the user, giving view- ers on the other side of a videocon- ference a good look at the bottom of your chin or the side of your face. Apple designed the iSight to perch near eye level, and tilt and swivel so that you can look directly into the camera as you chat. First Look At this point, iChat AV remains a work in progress. During video chats between Macworld staffers scattered around the country, we experienced noticeable and distracting audio feed- back—our own voices booming out from the iSight on the other end of the chat. Earphones cut down on the feedback but don’t necessarily ease your self-consciousness. Still, it’s hard to find much fault with an application that dramati- cally expands your ability to easily communicate with others. iChat AV will undoubtedly go through more changes before Apple rolls out the final version by year’s end, but the basic concept—high-quality audio- and videoconferencing without any complicated setup—is sure to keep tongues wagging.—PHILIP MICHAELS SEPTEMBER 2003 MAC BEAT QO Editors Face Off | Philip Michaels, Jason Snell on iChat AV For all of Apple's recent announcements—the G5, Panther—this is the one that's going to have the most immediate impact on rovicerse It really goes beyond e-mail and the phone, because the feedback is instantaneous and visual. Now when | use emphatic hand gestures, people can see them. That really doesn't come across in e-mail. bid | | ‘So now you can scare people outside | the office with your hand gestures? ;-) ) | would like it if iChat AV could do a ‘three-way videoconference, although | wonder if that might require more | bandwidth and processor power than | 3 my lite PowerBook could take. | | wish there were a way to-capture i video chats as QuickTime movies— | say | want to reference or double- check what one of us said. 5 | | guess that's something to look | forward to in the iChat update for OS | X 10.5—Tiger or Ocelot or whatever | & Apple winds up calling it. Something | don’t like: When iChat fills up the entire screen with a chat window, Really? It's a pretty sharp image, particularly for a Webcam, And it's cool how you can resize and move a4 around windows on-the-fly in iChat. True, but the fact of the matter is, we | are two not-very-attractive men... . a a4 Speak for yourself. ...and continually seeing my ugly | | mug splashed across a large | } portion of my PowerBook screen ng | really drives that point home. So it's like Apple's personally taunting you? “Take that, Homely Guy!” I'm not sure | can forgive that. bd S September 2003 MACWORLD 19 Dig Deeper into Mac OS X Ingenious Programming Fearless Scripting SysAdmin and Networking— Mac Style Media and Publishing Emerging Topics The 2nd Annual O'REILLY” vt David Pogue James Duncan Davidson Pogue Press Author Terry Gaasterland Robb Beal The Rockefeller University User Creations LLC Adam C. Engst Dan Wood TidBITS Karelia Software LLC Andy thnatko mmalcolm Crawford Macworld Magazine Tim O'Reilly OReilly & Associates Join the Mac OS X Conference mailing list: http://elists.oreilly.com/ Save up to $250 Register by September 12, 2003 WITH PANTHER IN THE WINGS, MACHACK CONFERENCE LOOKS TO THE FUTURE Event Still Hacking Away The annual MacHack conference in Dearborn, Michigan, has always been the perfect In Between event. Its structure falls somewhere between a big, formal tech conference and a casual get-together for Mac developers. It also takes place in June, after Apple’s World Wide Develop- ers Conference (WWDC) and before the summer's big Macworld Expo. But not this year. Needing a little extra time to bash Panther into presentable shape, Apple postponed the WWDC until June: less than 24 hours after bleary- eyed MacHack attendees were hailing cabs for the airport, Steve Jobs was pulling the sheet off of Mac OS X 10.3. The tim- ing took a lot of heat out of MacHack— there was really no point in discussing the Future of the OS because the Future was going to completely change in a few hours. So the focus of the seminars and late-night conversation was on basic, core technologies. And as always, the fulcrum of MacHack remains the Hacks Contest, in which attendees demonstrate various hacks, tweaks, and acts of superheroic, megacool stupidity that they wrote during the show. This year, one team tried to hack OS X so that a kernel panic would result in the classic Windows NT Blue Screen of \wowwemacworld.com Death. “They worked together all week,” an attendee explained to me. “But they’d never tried to tweak the kernel before. So they hooked up with someone who had. It like this every year; you can always find someone with the information you need, and you can’t wait to get home and try new stuff out, even if your hack fails.” The winning hack was Jon and Ben Gotow’s “Unstop- pable Progress.” ‘The father-and-son team—dad Jon runs St. Clair Software, which develops Default Folder X— came up with a hack to patch OS X’s Aqua standard progress bars, causing its win- dow to drown in overflow. It was a classic Mac-Hack— slick, unexpected, and utterly unmarketable. MacHack’s organ- izers chose “Unstop- pable” as the theme of this year’s confer- ence, which is ironic because this was the last MacHack confer- ence. The company that controls the Mac- Hack trademark is pulling out, which is fine by the conference's organizers. Now its ADHOC: The Advanced Developers Hands-On Conference (www.adhocconf .com), slated for July 21 to 24 in 2004. By eliminating the word Mac, organizers hope to expand the conference’s appeal to open- source developers. By dropping the word back, they hope to make the conference easier for prospective attendees to sell to their bosses, most of whom associate the word with remotely seizing control of hydroelectric plants, not with the enthusi~ astic acquisition and application of hard- core geek knowledge—ANDY IHNATKO | More Info: | www.machack.com | You can find a complete CD of hacks and | papers from this year’s MacHack conference at | the event's Web site. | Software INTERNET } BEAT Bi Safari 1.0, from Apple Computer (800/692-7753, vwawwwapple.com): The OS X-only browser was released just in time to become the default Web browser on all forthcoming Apple computers. The browser can syn- chronize bookmarks via the user's Mac account and iSync. Safari also has a forms-autofil feature for Apple's Address Book and a library of AppleScripts that let users tweak the browser's functionality (free), Watcher’84, from Bruno Blondeau (www.bruno blondeau.com/watcher84/): This Web-watching utility lets users select a Web page to monitor, and it keeps tabs on the page content, not the ad rotation. Users are apprised of site updates via visual cues in the page-watching list ($15). Email | ‘CommuniGate Pro 4.1 with Groupware, from Stalker Software (800/262-4722, www.stalker.com): The messaging and collaboration program features aan enhanced Web-based e-mail interface with advanced calendaring, scheduling, and contact- management capabilities. It supports e-mail proto- cols SMTP, POP, and IMA, and it lets users set up and run mailing lists. There is also built-in Wireless Markup Language (WML) support, which allows CommuniGate Pro users to set up and send mes- sages to people who use wireless technology. (Con- tact Stalker Software for pricing.) Mailsmith 2.0, from Bare Bones Software (781/ 687-0700, www.barebones.com): This update to the e-mail client supports the spam-detection software SpamSieve and PGP 8.0 for secure messaging. It also supports Apple's Address Book ($99; upgrade from version 1.5, free; upgrade from earlier versions, $49). Security _— IPNetSentryX 1.0, from Sustainable Softworks (wwew.sustworks.com): This security application uses hierarchical filter rules to set levels of user security within a computer network; thus, users can set up groups of rules to eliminate entire classes of security threats, or set up fine-tuned rules for highly specific undesirables ($40). Web Conferencing PictureTalk Enterprise Conference Server for OS X Server, from Pixion (888/874-9466, www.pixion.com); This Web-conferencing software, which installs on OS X Server, is designed to run on different client plat- forms—including Mac, Windows, and Solaris—and to take different client connection speeds into account. The server software can be set up behind a firewall to comply with company security policies. (Contact Pix- ion for pricing) comin By Usa ScHMEIsER September 2003 MACWORLD 21 CONS: WH. ANDYMARTINUK, COM SEPTEMBER 2003 MACBEAT = | eee CREATIVE _ BEAT Animo 5.0, from Cambridge Animation systems (www cambridgeanimation.com): The 2-D-animation soft- ware adds support for different languages, the ability to include meta information in files, better scanner support, and additional output options. (Contact com- | pany for pricing.) | istopMotion 1.0, from GeBE Computer & Peripherie | (wwwinte.gebe.net): The stop-motion-animation soft- ware for OS X is based on QuickTime. It captures frames |_ and stores them uncompressed so that the raw material maintains as high a resolution as possible. Besides OS X 10.2 and QuickTime 6 or lates, requirements include a ‘QuickTime-compatible video source ($40), Pixels 3D v5.0, from Pixels Digital (858/672-2634, wwnw.pixelsdigital.com): The Mac-only 3-D-modeling and ~animation software offers an improved Tempest rendering engine, automated bone creations and rig- ging, new water and atmospheric effects, and auto- banking for animations ($399; upgrade, $199). Poser 5, from Curious Labs (831/462-8901, www -curiouslabs.com): The 3-D-modeling and —animation tool now runs on OS X and features a new rendering engine. t includes a library of posable models and facial expressions; users can sculpt faces or map them ‘to photos ($349). Wild FX 3.0, from Wildform (310/396-2025, www .wildform.com): Formerly known as SWEX, this tool for building custom text animations in Flash includes hun- dreds of animation effects, automatic text justification, and advanced export options ($39; upgrade, $25). D Systems (305/596-5644, www -deneba.com): The drawing, image-editing, and docu- ment-design application is now available in three differ- ent forms: Canvas 9 Professional Edition ($400; upgrades, $130 from version 8; $170 from version 7); Canvas 9 Scientific Imaging Edition ($600); and Canvas 9 GIS Mapping Edition ($600). Canvas 9 offers CAD-level precision features, a one-step Image Crop and Scale command, and a new image measure- ment filter, ACD Systems takes control of Canvas after ‘an April 2003 merger with former developer Deneba. Workflow DigiPage 4.0 for Mac OS X, from Fusion Systems | International (503/255-5800, www.fusionsystems .com): The universal Render Once, Output Many work- flow is aimed at detecting hidden problems some- times not found in PDF and POF/X-14 files until a press proof is made. Version 4.0 offers new RIP tech- nologies. The release features support for POF 1.4, | including transparency layers; PDF/X-1A; PDF/X-3; and JBIG2. (Contact company for pricing }—comuzD av |_ KELLY LUNSFORO AND PHILIP MICHAELS 22 MACWORLD Septeruber 2003 INDIE RECORD LABELS COULD COME TO iTUNES MUSIC STORE Apple's Independent Streak Look for a Sleater-Kinney single or an Ani DiFranco album at the iTunes Music Store, and suddenly 200,000 songs seems a little skimpy. While Apple’s online music service features offerings from the five major music companies, independent record labels are nowhere to be found. Their absence is often cited as the online store’s most glaring omission. Apple seems to agree. A month after the store debuted, the company summoned about 150 representatives of top indie record labels to a meeting at its Cupertino headquarters, where the company discussed plans to broaden its musical selections. But indie record labels still have some reservations. “It was nice that [Apple] did this, but it was pretty much a cattle call,” says Kevin Arnold, founder of the Independent Online Distribution Alliance, who attended the meeting. “Tt was not a very personal, end-to-end, individualized way of doing things.” Nonetheless, these labels see a defin- ite benefit to appearing in the iTunes Music Store, which sold 5 million songs during its first eight weeks. “It would be a great way to make our music avail- able via a legal, affordable, and easy-to- use way,” says Gerard Cosloy, vice presi- dent of Matador Records, “and more to the point, a way that ensures that the artists and label are compensated fairly.” Bill Gould, a musician with his own record label, complains that the store’s search features are too mainstream, but he believes that Apple’s service will give his Kool Arrow Records label a new audi- ence. “Someone who's just listening around for cool music can stumble across our stuff,” he adds. So when can you expect to see indie musi- cians alongside Jewel and Nelly in the ‘Tunes Music Store? At press time, major record labels still dominated the service’ offerings, but Apple’s Peter Lowe insists that next to bringing the service to Windows, increasing the store’s music selection is Apple’s biggest priority. And the indie music labels are already imagin- ing a day when their singles are available for 99 cents per download. “We're going to be sharing equal billing with more- and less-successful artists,” Gould says. “Listening to songs becomes the criteria for buying or not buying. That makes us feel competi- tive." —ADELIA CELLINI WITH 802.11G FINALIZED, APPLE RELEASES AIRPORT UPDATE ~z Extreme Compatibility hen Apple’s AirPort Extreme already offers high speeds and backward compatibility with older AirPort networks. Now the wireless-networking technology boasts another important feature—standards compliance. Introduced in January 2003, AirPort Extreme had to rely on a draft version of the 802.1 1g wireless-networking standard. But after the 802-11 specification was finalized in June, Apple quickly released an update—AirPort 3.1—to make AirPort Extreme fully compliant with the new standard. Other additions in AirPort 3.1 include support for “packet bursting,” which can make AirPort Extreme networks as much as 25 percent faster by taking many small bundles of data and repackaging them into a longer chunk that’s more efficient to send. Because 2.4GHz cordless phones and Bluetooth devices can interfere with AirPort, the new soft- ware lets you turn on an “interference robustness” option to better sort out competing signals. AirPort 3.1 also lets you extend your wireless network by connecting as many as four remote Base Stations to a “relay” unit, which, in turn, passes network data back to the main Base Station. And according to noted AirPort hacker Nick Sayer, the new soft- ware also lets 802.11g PC and PCI cards to work with Mac OS X.—GLENN FLEISHMAN ‘wwwmacworld.com kon Coolpix® 5400 ts with perfect s shooting up to 3 g as close as 0.4 If the picture matters the camera matters: Nikon. Choose 59 at wwwmacworld.comigetinfo SEPTEMBER 2003 MAC BEAT IMAGING _ BEAT Hardware _ Cameras A 3.2-megapixel camera from Canon (800/652-2666, www.usa,canon.com): The PowerShot SD100 (6499}—the latest addition to Canon's Digital Elph line—has a 2x optical zoom and stores images on a 16MB Secure Digital (SD) Memory card. The lens is equivalent to 35mm-7Omm in 35mm format. Image Management EasyShare 3.0, from Kodak (www.kodak.com): The digital picture-organization and -sharing program has been rebuilt for OS X. The software, which ships with Kodak's digital cameras, is also available for down- load. In addition to supporting Kodak models, the soft- ware will work with any digital camera that supports 0S X 10.2’s Image Capture Architecture (free). Plug-ins _ AutoCorrect 1.5, from Human Software (408/399- 0057, www.humansoftware.com): The color-correction utility, which runs in OS 9 and OS X, now gives users finer control when correcting light or shadows ($60; upgrade, $19). PhotoSpray 1.5 is a Photoshop plug-in ‘that works with brush tools to let users apply multiple repetitions of one or more images on top of another image ($90; upgrade, $49) —compiten BY TERRI STONE EDUCATION BEAT Data Management _ — ‘abel 1.5, from Gigawiz (wwwgigawiz.com): The Update to the data-analysis and graphing application for OS X adds 35 new chart types in 19 categories (commercial, $349; academic, $249; upgrade, free). Science & Engineering CrystalMaker 6.2, from CrystalMaker Software (wwwxcrystalmaker.com):The OS X-native crystal and molecular structure visualization software adds anno- tation using Quartz graphics (commercial, $535; acad- emic, $369; upgrade from version 6.0 free). Mathematica 5, from Wolfram Research (800/965- 3726, wwww.wolfram.com):The mathematical and scien- | tific calculation app adds more than 100 algorithms for symbolic and numerical computation (commercial, $1,880; academic, $895; student, $140; upgrades, check with Wolfram)—comPiLeo BY PHILIP MICHAELS 24 MACWORLD September 2003 UPDATE OFFERS FIXES FOR BUGS BEDEVILING VIDEO-EDITING APP iMovie—Scene 3, Take 3 If maintenance upgrades were sequels, iMovie 3 would be a trilogy by now. Before most users could even get their hands on the version that shipped with the iLife suite, Apple rolled out iMovie 3.0.1. While that version received high marks for its new interface and integration with other iLife apps, it also took hits for sluggish performance and notice- able quirks in some of its effects (see “Get an iLife,” April 2003). The more that people worked with iMovie 3.0.1, the more troubles they found—sound-sync issues, long wait times, and image-import problems. And iMovie 3.0.2 did little to resolve these issues. Now there’s iMovie 3.0.3, which, along with QuickTime 6.3, promises to solve the problems bedeviling iMovie 3 users. But will this latest sequel surpass the original? “The general speed of the application seems much, much better,” says Daniel Slagle, a database administrator for the Federal Reserve by day and the keeper of the Unoffi- cial iMovie FAQ (www.danslagle.com/mac/iMovie/iMovieFAQ hunl) by night. “Audio and video syncing seems to have been fixed for most users if they reimport and do all their editing in version 3.0.3 along with QuickTime 6.3.” Other improvements in 3.0.3 include changes to the Ken Burns Effect; the pan-and-zoom effect for digital stills is now optional rather than automatic. Not every problem has been fixed—audio pops and clicks are still introduced with titles and certain transitions, Slagle says. The update also creates a problem of its own: a bug that prohibits users from importing iMovie 3.0.3 project files into Final Cut Express or the newly released Final Cut Pro 4 (see Reviews, page 36). Nevertheless, iMovie users are ready to embrace version 3.03. “In general, I think people will find iMovie 3.0.3 meets their needs for putting movies and photos to tape or DVD's with ease,” Slagle says —ANTON LINECKER ADOBE LOOKS TO BOLSTER PERFORMANCE IN AFTER EFFECTS UPDATE More Effects with Fewer Steps Stunning visual effects may have quite an impact on viewers, but they have a greater impact on their creators in terms of workload. Adobe (800/833-6687, www.adobe.com) hopes to address this dilemma with After Effects 6.0, by speeding up the per- formance of the visual- effects program with- out paring down any of its capabilities. Take text creation, which has been a multistep process. Version 6.0 incorporates Adobe's core text engine to let users type and edit text directly in the Composition window. Animating text also requires fewer keyframes. After Effects 6.0 (standard, $699; upgrade, $199) adds OpenGL support, for faster on-screen rendering of 2-D and 3-D composites. The $999 Professional version includes new JavaScript support ‘Animate with Ease In After Effects 6. 0, text animation remains sophisticated but requires fewer keyframes. for automating production tasks and a redesigned Motion Tracker that doesn’t sacrifice accuracy for speed. Other additions to After Effects include built-in vector painting with Photoshop- style brushes, new Warp and Liquify dis- tortion tools, and other effects integrated from the After Effects 5.5 Plug-in Power Pack.—PHILIP MICHAELS wwnw.macworld.com Industrial strength protection for industrial strength Mac users | if % Kee Apple Xserve Apple Xserve RAID APC Smart-UPS 1000 AM 1U Every product carrying this mark has been tested and certified for use with InfraStruXure™ architecture. Before you buy, check for the X to guarantee product compatibility. Robust applications demand robust power protection... 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To enter: Visit http://promo.apcc.com Key Cole m644y « Call 888-289-APCC x4184 « Fax 401-788-2797 For international calls, please dial 401-789-0204 €©2002 American Power Conversion. Alrademarks ae the property of thoi owners. SUZATEF-US » PowerFax: (200) 247-FAXX + Emi: ancinfo@apee.com * 132 Fagrounds Road, West Kingston, Rl 0292 USA Choose 73 at www.macworld.comigetinfo SEPTEMBER 2003 MAC BEAT __ AFTER DARK IS BACK—AND IT HAS PLENTY OF COMPANY PROFILE | Q&A WITH JERZY LEWAK Toasters Take Wing During the 1990s, when toasters flew across desktops from Cali- fornia to Calcutta, the sun never set on the screen-saver empire of After Dark. But after a decade of dominance on Mac displays, Berkeley Systems’ parent company, Sierra On-Line, announced in 1999 that it wouldn’t update After Dark to work with OS 9, effectively grounding the flying-toaster fleet. These days, toasters are on the wing again—along with Mowing Man, a virtual aquarium, and other classic After Dark modules, thanks to After Dark X + Fish, from Japanese devel- oper Infinisys. “Everything was totally redone from the ground up,” says Infinisys CEO Dennis Heazle. The OS X remake takes advantage of some modern OS features, such as OpenGL. graphics and the built-in screen-saver engine. And After Dark’s animated toasters aren’t flying solo. In OS X, screen savers—which Apple now calls screen effects—are enjoying a renaissance. “I think we are seeing more screen-saver modules available on Mac OS X precisely because the developers can concentrate on the graphics code and don’t have to reimple- ment the basic screen-saver functionality,” says Michael Babin, vice president of Order N Development, which ported the popu- lar Marine Aquarium screen saver to OS X—MATHEW HONAN 2 z i an = \ Now You Sea It With Marine Aquarium, your Mac sleeps with the fishes. o—- = e Screening Room Here's a handful of OS X screen savers that caught our eye. > After Dark X + Fish 1.0, from Infinisys (http://en.infinisys.co jp): Tetum to the skies, men go back to mowing, stars resume zooming by, and more in this updated classic ($10). > Laundry 1.5, from Loops (http://loops.pardeike net); You can air your dirty laundry publicly with this screen saver's never-ending spin cycle ($1.50). > Plasma Tunnel Screensaver 1.2.3, from Fruitz of Dojo (www.fruitz-of- dojo.de): It’s a plasma tunnel descending endlessly into the depths of your ‘soul—or, more accurately, a really cool-looking OpenGL effect (free). > SereneScreen Marine Aquarium 2.0, from Prolific Publishing (www -prolific.com): 26 species of 3-D fish swim in a pool of Aqua ($20; see our review of Marine Aquarium, on page 48). > SETI@home 3.08, from SETI@home (http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu): Use your Mac to aid in the search for E.T. (free).—wMaTHEWw HONAN: 26 MACWORLD September 2003 WRITE STUFF Microsoft Word may be the 800-pound gorilla of the Mac word pro- cessing market, but Nisus Software's Nisus Writer—which debuted in 1989—has long offered an alternative, particularly for users who ‘want more text-processing power or better WorldScript capabilities. Lately, though, those features have been available only inOS9orin | OS X's Classic mode, as Nisus worked on an OS X-native version | of the word processing program. With Nisus Writer Express 1.0 now available, Macworld caught up with Nisus CEO Jerzy Lewak to find ‘out what to expect from the new program.—aDAM C. ENGST AT A GLANCE JERZY LEWAK CEO, Nisus Software MAC: 15-inch PowerBook G4 SOFTWARE: Microsoft Internet Explorer What improvements can Nisus Writer’s core audience of text-processing mavens and multilingual writers expect to see in the final release? Nisus Writer Express is a relatively basic release. It certainly cannot be—and is not meant to represent—a replica of the feature set of Nisus Writer Classic. It is a new foundation for a new word processor, written in Cocoa, with some flavors of Nisus Writer Classic. Improvements over the beta release will largely consist of the polishing of the details, which will have a substantial influence on user perception. After release, we intend to have quite frequent new feature releases, with the feature priorities guided by our users’ requests. Do you think you stand a chance of attracting a signifi- cant number of users away from Microsoft Word? I don’t think we do stand much of a chance head-to-head with Microsoft, but I do think that we have a select market now and see a much bigger additional market for Nisus Writer Express—a market that Microsoft does not care about on the Mac. [It’s] a minority market by far, but one that cannot be satisfied by Microsoft, which caters to the great masses. ‘So what sort of user is in that minority market? | The current Nisus Writer Classic market includes higher edu- | cation, professional writers, and those who, for numerous rea- | sons, find Microsoft Word limiting. Necessarily, this market comprises a large number of advanced users. Nisus Writer | Express is targeted at the average user. From the responses to | | More Info: = our public beta release, we conclude that this market will add a substantial number of average users who find the Nisus Writer Express experience superior to that of Microsoft Word. www.macworld.com/2003/09/macbeat/lewak Jerzy Lewak covers the new features in Nisus Writer Express, at Macworld.com. wwvemacworld.com Choose 9 at www.macworld.com/getinfo (XXxXxS vv Extensis. > > =e >< 56 3B De Dd ph m= > KC DS DC ' ><BS >< oe HK >< KE OED >< >< 3S><8S X pe > Pe =< DS ><> < me DE PS = >< Dd Dd ed pO KOK XXX * XX ho KK Miz XXX XBXXX) KH XX x k xX Y x X ¥ | x x? AOXCK XX \XXXXXA xX x X x X. XX X) Xx X i xe mx A ey 10 | www.extensis.co Osx é3<4 (><a >< ~ ><! MK DKP< Pd >< < Be pe? » ERR XE <PAR % >< ' -.< >< RPK, ~< P< x be eet peat photsie >< 6 K SEK PK De <p 7 mes re bas SES * foe olatele yee X< > = (me RE = HS ve XY >< 3 SEPT EMBER:2003 MAC BE A ns APPLE'S RETAIL INITIATIVE IS MORE THAN TWO YEARS OLD—AND MORE THAN 60 STORES STRONG Seeds of Growth: Apple Stores on the Rise All two-year-olds should have this kind of growth spurt. Apple opened its first brick-and-mortar retail stores in McLean, Vir- ginia, and Glendale, California, in May 2001. A little more than two years later, Apple Stores have sprouted up across the coun- try. At press time, Apple had opened 63 stores and made plans to reach 70 by the end of 2003. And while the stores have yet to see a profit, they’re accomplishing one of Apple’s goals—expos- ing the Mac to new markets. Between April and June of 2003, 3.1 million people visited an Apple Store; half didn’t own a Mac, Apple says.—MACWORLD STAFF Apple Stores from Coast to Coast 2001 Openings 12. Farmington, CT 24. Costa Mesa, CA 34, Los Angeles, CA 46. Las Vegas, NV 56. Sacramento, CA 1, McLean, VA 13. Chandler, AZ 25. Salem, NH 35. Wellington, FL 47. King of Prussia, PA 57. Honolulu, HI 2. Glendale, CA 14. Northridge, CA 26. West Nyack, NY 36. Novi, MI 48. Edison, NJ 58. Chestnut Hill, MA 3. Plano, TX 15.Woodcliff Lake, NJ 27. Cambridge, MA 37. Wauwatosa, Wi 49. Denver, CO 59. Chicago, IL 4, Bloomington, MN 16. Cincinnati, OH 38. White Plains, NY ‘50. Emeryville, CA 60. Boca Raton, FL 5. Schaumburg, IL 17. Littleton, CO 2002 Openings 39. Houston, TX 51. Oak Brook, IL 61. Santa Monica, CA 6. Peabody, MA 18. Newport Beach, CA 28. Durham, NC 40. Des Peres, MO 62. Walnut Creek, CA 7. Columbus, OH 19. Buffalo, NY 29. Phoenix, AZ 41. Towson, MD 2003 Openings 63. Burlingame, CA 8. Tampa, FL 20. Miami, FL 30. Atlanta, GA 42. Troy, MI 52. Pasadena, CA 9. Palo Alto, CA 21. San Diego, CA 31. Short Hills, NJ 43. Orlando, FL 53. Highland Park, TX Planned Openings 10. Albany, NY 22. Santa Clara, CA 32. New York, NY 44, indianapolis, IN 54. Huntington Station, NY * San Francisco, CA 11. Germantown, TN — 23. Arlington, VA 33. Garden City, NY 45. Edina, MN 55. Bellevue, WA * Aventura, FL 28 MACWORLD September 2003, www.macworld.com INFOGRAPHIC BY TADEUSZ MALEWSKt BUY 1, GET ++ FREE’ *Purchase one full copy of TechTool® Pro 3 Drive 10™ and get a free upgrade to TechTool Pro 4 when it ships at the end of summer. TECHTOOL FRO UH The ultimate computer repair utility for the Macintosh Offer expires Oct 31, 2003 Only available on specially marked packages. Promotional offers cannot be combined. Void where prohibited. ii 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. Drive 10 is a trademark of Micromat, Inc. Choose 37 at wwwmacworld.com/getinfo SEPTEMBER 2003 MAC BEAT —- ew CONTRIBUTE BRINGS EASY WEB CONTENT UPDATING TO THE MAC No HTML Experience? No Problem. PRODUCTIVITY With the release, last ates templates and style sheets for page December, of Macrome- _ consistency. Designers can even limit dia Contribute (800/ file sizes for bandwidth-sensitive ele- | 470-7211, wwwamacro__ ments such as photos and movies. Once | software =*~CSCS media.com), even people __ the site is set up, Contribute users os x who speakno HTML —_can access existing Web pages—or cre- pataba See a ial nae whatsoever have been ate new ones—through an interface | 9973, wovelakevioadstudlos.com):This single-user able to change Web- that makes editing and adding content relational database software manages text, number, page content—unless they happened as easy as word processing. Importing URL, file path, and image data. The application runs to be working on Macs. Initially a content from Microsoft Office X | on OS 9 and OS X ($40), Windows-only release, Contribute is applications isa drag-and-drop affair; | yitity now Mac OS X-compatible. Contribute converts Word documents Ten for X Utilities Volume 2, from Aladdin Systems With Contribute 2.0 ($99; five and Excel charts into Web-friendly (800/732-8881, wwwaladdinsys.com): The second ver- licenses, $399; academic, $79), a Web HTML while preserving the format- sion of the OS X utilities collection includes 11 fully designer sets user privileges, specifies _ting. A built-in versioning system lets registered applications (50). ~\ whatcontentcan be users revert to previous versions of a | WHAT'S | changed (preventing __ page if they make a mistake. And while _ Announced : : 40T other users from Macromedia would prefer that you use —_|_The end of irene for Coat) § Sieine ft accidentally alterin; Contribute to update pages created asada cons}: The company Closed in July after H | scripts, fing oe bhi Saab asna ys Web-design _ | Sse stpiitishing sofware Its products revert back A Quick Look at | = ey ks with to their original ‘owners; Casady & Greene’s Web site the World of Macs | Other complicated app, the program works with pages includes e-mail and URLs for these software develop- elements), and cre- built with any tool—KELLY LUNSFORD —_|_ ers —compitep By PHILIP MICHAELS 1. iChat AV adds video- conferencing capabilites | toinstant messaging. | RF-BASED CONTROLS KEEP YOU IN COMMAND OF YOUR PRESENTATION Look for workplaces around | . "ye 8 semeewtes- Remote Possibilities “No more pants-less iChats” meee | CTT SSIDIIT employees | With Apple’s Keynote now com- drivers (although some, such 2. Microsoft plansto | peting against Microsoft Power- _as the Keyspan Presentation pares ae Point, Mac users looking for Remote, include software in because of increased | SOftware to create and organize —_case you want to customize your The Keyspan competition from Safari. | presentations have another controls). Presentation Remote “Where does an operating- | option. But that software selec- Some remotes offer additional = people like Apple | tion is nothing compared with features to appeal to on-the-go from Powr Marketing, doubles as ger otutinaheconee-) she choices they have in terms of Mac users. Take SmartDisk’ a fully functional mouse. Instead soit spokesman con hardware for running those pre- _ PowerPlay Pro, a remote that also. _of yelling yourself hoarse calling plained. “Lousy copyats.* | sentations, Developers have pro- packs 32MB of flash memory on _for the next slide, use any of these 3, OSX’s Panther update | duced a spate of remote controls __ the receiver unit for storing Power- _ remotes to put control over promises plenty of that make it easier than ever Point and Keynote presentations your presentations back in your nptonemanis ts tie to manage a presentation from —_—_on the road. The Powr Pointer 2, hands.—ADELIA CELLINI Finder. The new leftside across the room. pane will provide context- ‘ Wha tual help for new users while These latest devices use radio t's the Frequency? - ~ ‘making derisive remarks waves to transmit between the {Mac Users can chonée one of many Rbased reriote controls for managing presentations, aboutlongtime Macuser. | remote and a receiver that plugs COMPANY PRODUCT PRICE CONTACT RANGE 4. Specs for the new into your Mac. Unlike infrared Atek 888/889-9990, 30 feet haynes beset controllers that require a direct eth comn : ok js i Interlink Electronics 800/340-1331, 50 feet Web site before Steve | line hae these devices “ eemdspravcon Jobs announced thenew | control your presentations from systems. Hey mistakes | a room away—as far as SO feet “*°™ adegeiaan ee happen—that's what we i i Pnpen tts whate | in the case of the RemotePoint pope wating Seen rar the error when he delivered | Navigator, from Interlink Elec- ww-powrmarketing.com those pizzas we ordered. | tronics. With most of the SmartDisk 239/425-4000, 33 feet ——s __.___/ remotes—all of which work with om www.smartdisk.com = both major Mac-friendly pre- ‘SmartDisk 239/425-4000, 33 feet wwwsmartdisk.com sentation apps—you won't need 30 MACWORLD September 2003 wonw.macworld.com PHOTO BY RICK RIZNER HEADPHONES THAT OFFER SUPERIOR NOISE REDUCTION AND EXCEPTIONAL AUDIO. WHAT COULD BE BETTER? THE NEW AND IMPROVED MODEL. hen our original QuietComfort® headphones were intro- duced, Upscale magazine called them “revolution- ary." The Boston Globe wrote, “with the Bose Acoustic Noise Cancelling headsets on, the airplane roar became a whisper.” And audio critic Rich Warren named them his “product of the year.” INTRODUCING THE New QuietComrort®2 Acoustic Noise CANcELLING® HEADPHONES. Imagine what you'll say about our new QuietComfort®2 headphones — which combine the exceptional Noise-reduction technology of our original headphones with dramatically improved audio performance and enhanced convenience REMARKABLE NOISE REDUCTION. We originally designed our noise-reducing headphones for airplane travel- ers, But customers soon started telling us how well they work in other noisy places. That's why our new QuietComfort?2 headphones feature the same patented technology that electron- ically identifies and dramatically reduces noise while faithfully pre- serving the music, movie dialogue or silence you want. So you can use them to concentrate at the office, reduce the whine of neighborhood lawn mowers or watch a movie during your next flight. Or simply relax in peace. PREMIUM SOUND. The improved audio technology inside our new QuietComfort®2 headphones delivers sound so real, even the subtlest musical nuances come through with amazing clarity. When audio critic Wayne Thompson heard our new QuietComfort®2 headphones, he reported, “Bose engineers have made major improve- ments.” If you're a headphone user, we think you'll agree — this technology makes your music sound better. The details come shining through. ENHANCED CONVEN- ENCE. Their new fold-flat design means they'll slip easily into a bag or briefcase. You can listen to portable CD/DVD/MP3 ayers, home stereos, computers and in-flight entertainment systems — or nothing at all. And you can wear them for hours, because we've made them so lightweight and comfortable. CNET says, “They feel good — even luxurious — on your ears.” We say it's easy to forget you have them on. TRY THEM FOR YOURSELF — RISK FREE. We don't expect you to take our word for how dramatically our new head- phones reduce noise, how clean and full they sound or how com- fortably they fit. So we invite you to try them for 30 days. If you can live without them, return them for a full refund. It's that simple. Call and ask about our 12-month interest-free payment plan.* And discover the kind of performance that has made Bose the most respected name in sound CALL 1-800-901-0199, EXT. Q2212 For information on all our products: www.bose.com/q2212 Name. Address. City. State___Zip FOS E, ‘Sound through researches Day Phone ( Eve. Phone ( E-mail (Optional) Mail to: Bose Corp. Dept. DMG-02212, The Mountain, Framingham, MA 01701-9168 OUTSTANDING: Th VERY GOOD: $ets | GOOD: iid | FLAWED: + UNACCEPTABLE: % Reviews you can trust: Macworld rates only final shipping products, not prototypes. What we review is what you can actually buy. QuarkXPress 6.0 More Than OS X-Native, Industry-Standard Publishing Software Gives Designers More Flexibility BY GALEN GRUMAN Yes, while we've been waiting (and waiting), Quark has actually been doing something. ‘The fruit of this labor is QuarkXPress 6.0— finally a Mac OS X-native XPress. In fact, it runs only on OS X 10.2 and higher. This move should let designers at last switch to OS X-only environments, leaving behind the unsavory alternatives: the inconsistent screen redraws of XPress 4 and 5 in OS X’s Classic mode, constantly booting between OS 9 and OS X, and forgoing OS X com- pletely to use XPress 4 or 5 without bother. But does XPress 6 offer anything more than OS X support? And does it provide a rea- son to stick with XPress (and not jump on the momentum-gaining Adobe InDesign band- wagon)? The answer to both questions is yes. What's New QuarkXPress 6 has several significant enhancements: multiple undos and redos (iv’s about time!), the ability to synchronize text across a layout, built-in PDF creation, the ability to convert print layouts to Web format and vice versa, and the ability to have multiple layouts with different speci- fications in one file. Each of these welcome additions makes XPress more capable and more flexible. XPress 6 also brings improvements to some of the many features introduced in ver- sion 5—for example, rollover and menu capa- bilities for layouts destined for the Web and several refinements to table and cell format- ting. Many, if not most, XPress users skipped version 5 for various reasons and are still using version 4; for them, the switch to ver- sion 6 will be an even larger upgrade, adding cell-based table creation, Web-page creation, support for transparent backgrounds in exported PDF files, and layers. Of course, since so many designers didn't upgrade to version 5, a file-format issue will likely arise. XPress 6 can’t save files in ver- sion 4 format, though it can save version 5 files. (It can open files created with version 3 and later.) If you upgrade, all your col- leagues and contractors will have to switch to version 6 on OS X orat least move to ver- sion 5 on OS 9. 32 MACWORLD September 2003, TrWrrodGuide Sering2003.ax0 | ci And you'll need to replace all your XTensions with version 6-compatible ones. This includes updaters for DiamondSoft’s Font- Reserve and Extensis’s Suitcase font managers. Until they're available, you can’t automatically activate fonts in XPress 6. Any time a docu- ment uses fonts not already active, you'll have to quit XPress, activate the fonts in your font manager, and then relaunch XPress. (Font- Reserve users may also have to deactivate and then reactivate fonts so XPress 6 will see them. On my system, XPress didn't recognize previously activated fonts until I eage FrergeMedta. Copyright © 2002 Emergetedia All Fits reserved. ja-it-mireless.com3 spring 2003-¢ 1 did so.) Expect smaller plug-in developers to wait until adoption trends are clearly positive before they invest in software revisions— many never bothered with version 5 XTensions. A Lowly Apprentice Produc- tion, Badia Software, Em Software, and Gluon plan to release version 6-compatible XTensions by this fall (some should be available by the time you read this). Exten- sis says it’s considering updating its once popular utility kit QX-Tools, which it hasn’t updated since XPress 4, What's Not New Quark has made very few enhancements to the core typographic, item-creation, graphics, and basic layout tools—it seemed to avoid even obvious, overdue changes. XPress still doesn't convert two hyphens into an em dash as you type, let you create print styles from within the Print dialog box, import Microsoft Word and Excel tables as tables, offer automated fraction building, allow drop-cap text-formatting settings as part of a paragraph style, or integrate the Starburst tool's preferences with the stan dard Preferences dialog box. (InDesign doesn’t do some of these things, either.) This version would also have been a good oppor- tunity to bring in item transparency for the creation of sophisticated drop shadows and overlapping objects, keeping XPress's artis- tic layout capabilities level with InDesign’s. Automated Boilerplates When you designate a text box or path as synchronized text, its contents can be applied to other boxes and paths, and textual changes to one instance automati- cally affect all others. But each can have different text formattit Version 6 often feels and works like the same old QuarkXPress—this is good for long- time users, whose workflow will be largely unaffected. Though XPress 6 conforms to OS X's interface standards and therefore intro- duces a few menu changes, the functional interface is the same, with only the “skin” updated to the cleaner, lighter Aqua look. That the interface retains its essential Quarkness is not an issue. But XPress 6 lacks complete support for a key modern Mac OS technology: the OpenType standard and its wider selection of characters and glyphs. Sure, you can use OpenType fonts in XPress 6, but you can access only the basic Western European characters. This was a foolish move. XPress was the first layout program to offer professional typography; now that the OpenType standard is in place, extending a font’s uses and capabilities, Quark should have embraced it. Adobe included it in InDesign 2, which makes its omission from XPress 6 seem even more unwise. Like version 5, XPress 6 doesn't ship with a printed manual (which costs $50 extra and was unavailable for review). A 676-page PDF ver- sion is included on the installation CD, for those people inclined to print it out or page through it in Acrobat or OS X’s Preview app. wwwmacworld.com 32 Desktop publishing program 40 FIP clients 44 3-D-modeling utility Quark Press 6.0 CaptainFTP 2.6, Fetch 4.0.3, FTP Client 4.0.1, ImageModeler 3.5, 35 PDF software Interarchy 6.2, RBrowser 3.1.2, SimpleFTP 45 Diagramming program ‘Acrobat 6.0 Standard 2.01, Transmit 2.5 OmniGraffie 3.0.1 Professional Acrobat 6.0 Professional 42 Network server 46 Organization software 36 Video-editing application Apple Xserve Tinderbox 1.2.3 Final Cut Pro 4 42 2.578 RAID 47 Digital SLR camera +38 250GB FireWire 800 drives Apple Xserve RAID ‘Canon £05 10D EZQuest Cobra FireWire 8OO/USBII, LaCie D2 «43. AirPort Extreme antennas 48 Reviews in Brief UB, OWC Mercury Elite Pro FireWire 800, Dr. Bott Extendir Direc, Dr Bott ExtendAir Omni Accordance 5.Sc, FontDoctor 5 WiebeTech 25068 Fire800 Solution, Marine Aquarium 2.0 49 Hot Products The best recently reviewed Mac products, 51 The Game Room Barrage, Bloodrayne, Harty Potter and the ‘Chamber of Secrets, ThinkTanks, Unreal Tournament 2003 5, iLife Voice For me, reading a manual on screen is diffi- cult, especially because it obscures the appli- cation I want to use. The less-intrusive help integrated with Apple’s Help Viewer is ade- quate for refreshers and quick explanations. All in all, XPress 6 is a very familiar pro- gram with several new features that will appeal to specific groups of users. But if you don’tuse those features, XPress will feel very much unchanged. No More Documents ‘The most significant, and most easily ignored, change in XPress 6 is the use of the project metaphor. Documents as we knew them no longer exist: projects take their place. A proj- ect can hold as many as 25 layouts; in turn, each layout can have separate page settings (its size, whether it’ a spread or single-sided lay- ut, its orientation, its margins, and so on). A layout can be for print or the Web, and a proj- ect can contain both types. At the bottom of your project window are now a series of tabs that let you switch between layouts. Unfortunately, you can’t view multiple lay- outs from the same project at the same time. ‘To move elements between them, you have to do the old copy-paste or cut-paste routine rather than the simpler drag and drop. Also, spell-checking and auxiliary spelling and hyphenation dictionaries work only within a layout. You can’t spell-check or find and replace across an entire project or easily use the same auxiliary dictionary across a project's layouts. And many tools work only in the cur- rent layout, so you can’t update fonts and images across all layouts in a project, or copy or apply master pages across layouts. (But col- ors and styles defined in one layout are avail- able in others—go figure.) These divisions among layouts are much too stringent. Tf you don’t use the full capabilities of projects, you'll be none the wiser—you could have just one layout in each project and treat it as a separate document, just as in previous versions. Boilerplates without Pain The other major new feature—synchro- nized text—is also mostly a win. It lets you designate one text box as a master story and then apply that story to other text boxes, placing the same text in them. (You can have several master stories, for multiple boiler- plates.) If you change the text in any of them—even those in other layouts in your project—they’re all automatically updated. Anyone who's had to edit legal mumbo www.macworld.com QuarkXPress Ga ‘190 cStheonrt 5 Joprananae j Flexible Documents You can now convert print layouts to Web format and keep both versions in the same project file (see the layout tabs at the bottom of the screen). jumbo across a set of marketing materials will jump for joy. But text is the only aspect that’s synchronized, not the text's format- ting, so you can format the boilerplate as needed in each location. The ability to synchronize text eliminates a lot of tedious work, but Quark should have taken synchronization further. You can syn- chronize only complete text boxes and paths, not snippets of text within a box or story. So you can’t use this feature to synchronize product names across marketing materials, a hyperlink address across a PDF file, or other variable text. And you can neither synchro- nize across project files nor synchronize text that includes embedded graphics (since you can't synchronize graphics, XPress 6 can't handle text that includes them). Better Web Capabilities Version 5 introduced Web-page-creation capabilities, but you couldn’t convert a print document into a Web one, or vice versa, so there was no reason to create Web pages in XPress 5. But with XPress 6, you can con- vert your print documents into decent Web versions; add elements such as rollovers, using graphics from your print layout; and then refine those pages in Dreamweaver or another HTML editor designed for Web pages and Web-production workflows. Sure, XPress lets you create Web standbys such as menus, specify basic cascading style sheets (actually preferred font lists), set up single- and two-point rollovers, selectively convert text boxes’ contents into graphics, convert all graphics into a Web-supported format, add hyperlinks, and preview pages in a browser. But you're still limited by a finite page size. And you can’t create templates, continues RATING: $966 PROS: Allows project files that contain both print and Web layouts, with multiple page sizes; text syn- chronization for boilerplate text; multiple undos and redos; PDF export without additional software; famil- iar interface. CONS: Printed manual costs $50; OpenType support limited to Western European characters; text synchro- nization works only on whole text boxes and paths; product-validation protections can be tripped by minor hardware upgrades. PRICE: $1,045; upgrade from version 5, $199; from version 4, $299; from version 3, $499 OS COMPATIBILITY: Mac OS X COMPANY: Quark, 800/676-4575, www.quark.com September 2003 MACWORLD 33 REVIEWS real cascading style sheets that specify com- plete formatting, or frames; work with Java- Script; switch to an HTML code view; and so on. (You can now link to other pages in your layout.) ‘The XML creation, editing, and tagging capability, little-changed since version 5, remains awkward and mysterious. It’s not worth the trouble of figuring it out. More Refinements Quark has added print-level PDF export to XPress 6 by way of Global Graphics’ widely used Jaws PDF-creation technology, which can remove the need for rival Adobe's Acrobat Distiller software. You can set output attributes similar to Distiller’s, but you can’t save those settings for future documents (as Distiller can), and you can’t take advantage of the new PDF/X print- production format. Designers who need native Adobe PDF- export capabilities can use Distiller with XPress 6. If you use Distiller’s watched- folder capability for automatic PDF conver- sion, XPress 6 lets you specify a destination folder for PDF files. ‘The implementation of multiple undos and redos is an important, long-awaited enhancement, You can undo as many as 30 actions, and you can even pick an action from a menu at the bottom of the docu- ment window, skipping past intervening steps and undoing them all. Bur the undo descriptions are brief, so several actions may have the same labels. A nice touch is the ability to set the redo keyboard com- mand to the Adobe standard (3-shift-Z), the Microsoft standard (3-Y), or the single-undo standard (3-Z). And if you lock or unlock a layer, XPress 6 forgets all its undo and redo actions. The final significant enhancement is the new high-resolution preview. Now you can import images at full resolution, to get a realistic look at them even when you zoom in; high-res previews are also helpful with meticulous mask generation. You can turn this feature on for specific images, and you can disable it for entire projects and then re-enable it. But there’s a catch; it works only if you register the software with Quark (Quark sends you the required XTension after you register). And by registration, Quark means “full name and address” regis- tration, not the new activation feature that simply ties your copy of QuarkXPress to your Ma¢ so someone else can’t use the same software on another machine. (While [have no objection to software activation to prevent piracy, I do object to Quark’s approach. It forces you to call customer sup- port to reactivate if you upgrade your Mac— even if you just install memory, a graphics card, processor upgrades, or a new hard drive—more than five times. XPress should be smart enough to know that you haven't installed it on a wholly different Mac.) 34 MACWORLD September 2003, | It means something that the hubbub online and at conferences preceding this QuarkXPress release usually came down to the question “|s it time to abandon XPress and move to InDesign?” Many users seriously doubt Quark’s commitment to them, and InDesign 2 offers a functionally equivalent alternative for bread-and-butter publishing, the decision to switch for another few years. the other doesn’t. QuarkXPress Exclusives > Projects can contain print and Web layouts, ‘as well as multiple layouts with different page settings > Support for Hexachrome colors > Automatic backup and file-versioning > User-defined stripes and dashes > User-defined underlines > Boilerplate text can be synchronized across text | boxes and paths | > Text-box background goes opaque when you edit | toaid display of text superimposed on graphics | > Text can flow between tables, text boxes, and cells | > Web-specific production tools, such as forms, lists, | radio buttons, rollovers, and cascading style sheets | > Lets you designate which text boxes are con- verted to graphics during Web export > Fraction-building tool that works for any font or combination of numeratots and denominators > Halftone adjustments for individual images and image contrast controls Although there's a lot to admire in InDesign, many designers will remain more comfortable in XPress and see no reason to switch. And why learn a new approach and interface at this point? After all, QuarkXPress isn't an abandoned product (as PageMaker became in the early 1990s, giving professional users no real choice but to move to XPress). At the very least, XPress 6 lets you defer Though these two powerhouses are equivalent, they're not yet equal. Each offers functions that | InDesign Exclusives > Multiline text composition Optical margin alignment Optical kerning Menu for inserting special characters easily Support for OpenType font attributes Custom text strokes \mports native Illustrator and Photoshop files, with transparency Multiple views of the same document Drop-shadow and feathering effects for objects Eyedropper tool for color and text-format sampling > Transparency settings for objects > Excel and Word table import > Tables that flow across pages > Ability to base one master page on another vovvvyvvy v v The rest of XPress 6's changes are largely refinements to existing features. For example, there’ finally a Paste In Place com- mand, which puts a copy of an item in the same location on the destination page as on the original—perfect for copying across pages or layouts, The Quark CMS color- management and Fraction/Price preferences now reside with the rest of the preferences (the Starburst settings still don’t). You can now use the controls in the Print dialog box’s new Layers pane to completely lock entire layers, prevent layer from printing, or allow a locked layer to print. And exception dictio- aries now work across platforms, so you can share them with Windows users. The table feature introduced in version 5 has the most refinements. For example, you can now link text cells, group table items, remove gridlines between cells, and more finely control the formatting of cells and their contents. But InDesign’s table feature is much more pow- erful—XPress is still clearly behind here. Quark Interactions You can’t get around the fact that adopting XPress 6 means adopting OS X. Many pub- lishers would also have to upgrade to G4 or GS Macs and to newer software, such as font managers. Perhaps the costliest com- ponent in a publishing operation, the font library, is no barrier to switching, as OS X supports the same font formats as OS 9, If you can live with some problems in screen updating, XPress 4 and 5 run at decent speeds in OS X’s Classic mode. When you switch to XPress 6 on OS X, you'll find that some operations are faster and some are slower. File-oriented activities, such as opening project files and running Collect For Output to copy all files related to a project into one directory, take a few seconds longer. But switching views and some find-and-replace operations are a bit faster. The performance feels comparable to XPress 5 on OS 9 and OS X. Macworld’s Buying Advice Once you get past the “it’s about time” reaction to QuarkXPress 6.0, you'll start appreciating its enhancements. They're worthwhile for any XPress-based produc- tion shop, and Quark’s upgrade pricing is easy to stomach. Version 6 does a good job of extending XPress’s capabilities with- out complicating its core strengths. For example, XPress has not succumbed to the palette-itis that infects Adobe’s products. Could XPress 6 have offered more? Yes. Does it offer too little? Not at all, ‘www macworld,.com ‘Acrobat 6.0 0 Standard PDF App Becomes the Workgroup's New Best Friend BY JIM FELICI When Adobe Acrobat debuted 10 years ago, it seemed unlikely that Adobe would reach one of the company’s goals: creating paper- less offices and PDF-only publishing work- flows everywhere. Acrobat needed more and better-designed tools for group collabora- tion, as well as extensive graphics features, if professionals were to look twice. But after all those years, we have Acrobat 6.0—in Stan- dard and Professional versions (see “Acrobat 6.0 Professional” for a review of the pro ver- sion). Running only on OS X 10.2.2 and later, Acrobat 6.0 is a must-have upgrade if ever there was one. Faster, Easier PDF Files With either edition of Acrobat 6.0, PDF files are much easier to make than with pre- vious versions. Unless you