[WelMac] Welmac News & Update 11 Sept 05
WelMac Secretary
g-moffatt at paradise.net.nz
Sun Sep 11 08:59:09 CDT 2005
CONTENTS:
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1. MEETING UPDATE
2. MAC 911 - SOLUTIONS TO YOUR MOST VEXING MAC PROBLEMS
3. BOOM BOX
4. IKEY 2.1 MOVES TO IAPP-LIKE INTERFACE
5. DEFAULT FOLDER X 2.0.2 NOW AVAILABLE
6. APPLE INTRODUCES ITUNES 5
7. APPLE INTRODUCES IPOD NANO
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1. MEETING UPDATES
The next main meeting of the society will be held on Monday 26
September 2005. This meeting will be held in the Large Gallery, Level
One in Turnbull House, 11 Bowen Street, Wellington from 7.00pm until
9.30pm. (parking should be available on The Terrace and further up
Bowen Street, past The Terrace intersection)
The first part of the September Home User meeting will be about
making a movie on your Mac using a digital video camera. This will be
followed by a look at shareware for your Mac and where to find it. We
will break for a short supper then conduct a Mac Help Desk session.
For those members living at or near the Paraparaumu area, our next
Kapiti meeting will be on Monday 5 September at the Rita King Cottage
at St Marks Church in Rosetta Road, Raumati. The topic will be
announced shortly. Please note that meetings will be held on the
first Monday each month from now on.
The next Speciality Group meetings are as below and each meeting is
held from 7pm to 9pm.
Mac Help Desk Monday 26 September 2005 at Turnbull House
(see above)
New Media Group Check <http://nmug.welmac.org.nz/>
Digital Video Users Group Monday 19 September 2005 at Turnbull
House (see above)
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2. MAC 911 - SOLUTIONS TO YOUR MOST VEXING MAC PROBLEMS
By Christopher Breen
Trimmer iPhoto Library Is there any way to make Apple's iPhoto save
changes to an original photo, short of moving the altered photo
completely out of the program and importing it again? For example,
when I reduce red-eye, I end up with the original photo and the
altered one. Sometimes this is a waste of hard-drive space.--Eric
Anderson
I agree that this feature is both a blessing and a curse. Granted,
you can always gain access to your unaltered original: just select
the edited picture and choose Photos: Revert To Original. But iPhoto
makes the magic happen by squirreling away two copies of the photo--
the original and the edited version.
If you turn off iMovie HD's Show Clip Volume Levels option, you can
trim your audio clips.
To free up hard-disk space, consider Martin Fuhrer's free iPhoto
Diet. This utility slenderizes your photo library by eliminating
duplicate photos, removing backups of rotated or modified photos,
stripping out your photos' thumbnail icons, and locating and
disposing of photos never added to an album.
Audio Clip Control
I consider myself a veteran user of iMovie, but I'm vexed by the
latest incarnation, iMovie HD. Before, I was always able to trim
audio clips in the timeline viewer simply by hovering the pointer
over either end of the audio clip. In the current version, all this
does is move the clip. What gives?--John Smith
Apple has changed the behavior of audio clips. If iMovie HD's Show
Clip Volume Levels option is enabled (View: Show Clip Volume Levels),
clicking on an audio file in the timeline allows you only to adjust
the clip's volume or move the file--you can't trim it. Turn this
option off, and you're welcome to trim to your heart's content. For
this reason, it's a good idea to memorize the Command-shift-L
keyboard shortcut, which switches this option on and off. (You can
also access this command by control-clicking on an audio clip and
choosing the command from the contextual menu.)
Put HTML in Your Outbox
I want to send HTML e-mail messages that look like Web pages. So far,
the only way I have found to do this is by creating the page in
Macromedia Dreamweaver, uploading everything to a server (for access
to the graphics), and then inserting the Dreamweaver file into
Microsoft Outlook on a PC. But is there any mail program on the Mac
that can send complex HTML? I've tried Apple Mail and Microsoft
Entourage (v. X), but both just seem to attach an HTML file.--Steve
McGillivray
You have a friend in Rob Buckley, who created the free Send Complex
HTML with Inline Files 2004 AppleScript. This script allows you to
embed complex HTML files in messages created with Entourage v. X or
2004. It works this way:
After placing the script in the Entourage Script Menu Items folder (/
your user folder/Documents/ Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu
Items), create a new e-mail message in Entourage and address it. If
you like, add a subject (if you don't add a subject, the script will
place the title of the HTML page in the Subject field). Choose the
script from Entourage's AppleScript menu and, in the resulting Choose
A File dialog box, select the HTML file you want to send. Click on
Choose, and Entourage lets you either send the message now or send it
later. (If elements in the file are missing--one of the page's
graphics, for example-- the script will return an error message.) If
everything goes according to plan, the script will then embed the
appropriate HTML code into the message.
Spam Scam
I regularly get "Undelivered mail returned to sender" messages in my
e- mail inbox. According to the information in the message, someone
else is hiding his or her identity by using my e-mail address to send
pornography out over the Internet. I'm offended that someone is using
my address for this purpose. Is there any way to resolve this issue?--
Jim Klausen
Not really. For people unfamiliar with such a scenario, I'll explain:
spammers have spoofed Jim's e-mail address, meaning that verminlike
souls have stolen his address and are pretending that it's theirs. On
occasion, an ISP blocks these pernicious messages and bounces them
back to the alleged "sender"--a perfectly silly practice that wastes
bandwidth and punishes innocent parties who had nothing to do with
the original messages.
If you receive multiple bounced messages from a particular ISP, you
might contact it and suggest that it stop bouncing messages, as the
practice is both futile and annoying. To protect yourself against
this annoyance, employ a spam filter and teach it to recognize these
messages as junk.
Liberating Location
I have a PowerBook G4, which I use frequently at home and work.
Because my Internet connections are different at the two locations, I
have configured my Network preferences with Home and Work settings.
Can I make the default printers change automatically when I switch?--
Daryl Thornton
What you're looking for is something like OS 9's Location Manager--a
utility whose functionality OS X doesn't duplicate. Thankfully,
you'll find many of the old Location Manager's capabilities in Alex
Keresztes and Greg Novick's Location X 2.0 ($20). (Version 2.5, which
became available after our August 2005 issue went to press, adds
Tiger compatibility.--Ed.)
OS X's Network preference pane allows you to create locations that
include network settings such as the default network port, IP
address, and proxy settings, but Location X takes this a step
further. It lets you assign a default printer, an SMTP server, a time
zone, a QuickTime connection speed, Energy Saver preferences, Mail
and Entourage preferences, and a Web browser's home page that differ
depending on where you are.
Just fire up the program, create a new location, and add the options
you'd like to assign to it--Energy Saver and Default Printer, for
example. Then quit the application. When you're ready to change your
location settings, launch Location X, select the desired location,
and click on the Make Active button.
Recalling Uninstall
I downloaded a demonstration version of Network SpyAlert and decided
not to buy it. I trashed every file associated with this application
I could find, except for a file named NetworkSpyAlert.kext. This file
will not allow me to move it to the Trash. When I drag it there, this
message appears: "The operation could not be completed because this
item is owned by root." How can I get rid of this alert box
permanently?--Dan Yett
We Mac users are accustomed to simply dragging unwanted applications
to the Trash. However, certain programs, such as Allume Systems'
Internet Cleanup ($30) and its demo, perform their magic with the
help of special files stored away from the main application. For this
reason, it's not a bad idea to run the installer of an application
you no longer want, to see whether it has an uninstall option.
Internet Cleanup's installer does have that option, accessible from
the pop-up menu in its installation screen
Nagged by warnings and alerts from programs you thought you had
deleted long ago? Instead of trashing an application by hand, use the
installer's uninstall option.
If you've taken matters into your own hands by trashing an
application, and you discover that its remnants pester you, try
reinstalling the application and then running the uninstaller.
Barring that, you can seek out files that may be causing the problem.
In your case, you can find .kext files by following this path: /
System/Library/Extensions. If the .kext file you're trying to remove
won't budge, open Terminal (/ Applications/Utilities), type sudo rm -
R followed by a space, and then drag the stubborn file into the
Terminal window. Press return and enter your administrator password
if necessary. The file will vaporize.
Tip of the Month: Flexible iPod Files
You can use an iPod shuffle to hold data files from your Mac by going
to iTunes: Preferences, clicking on iPod, and activating the Enable
Disk Use option. Unfortunately, because the iPod shuffle is formatted
as a FAT32 volume (to make it work on both Macs and Windows PCs), it
will not transfer Mac files with certain characters in their names
when you try to copy those files to the iPod shuffle. The list of
characters includes slashes (/ and \), question marks (?), angle
brackets (< and >), colons (:), asterisks (*), and quotation marks (").
To fix this limitation, use Disk Utility (in your Applications/
Utilities folder) to create a new disk image (Images: New: Blank
Image). In the New Blank Image dialog box, specify a disk-image size
that will fit on your iPod shuffle (leave some room for music), and
choose the read-write option from the pop-up menu. Copy the image
onto the iPod shuffle and then double-click on the image. It will
appear in the Finder as a generic white removable-disk icon. Copy any
Mac files with Mac-legal file names onto that disk image. To
disconnect the iPod shuffle safely from the Mac, first eject the disk
image and then eject the shuffle. Note that the files you copy onto a
Mac disk image will not be available to a PC using that device. If
you need to use the iPod shuffle or another Flash-based storage
device to share files between a Mac and a PC, leave those files on
the main partition and not inside the Mac disk image.--Jonathan Woolson
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3. BOOM BOX
by Mary Norbury-Glaser, NCMUG member norburym at mac.com
Roxio's Boom Box is a collection of Mac only software that give
digital audio listeners an arsenal of diverse tools to enhance their
music experience and manage their audio collection: Audio Hijack
(records audio from any application, encodes it and then transfers
it to iTunes or to your iPod), MusicMagic Mixer (builds "intelligent"
mixes based on artists and songs you choose), CD Spin Doctor
(records audio from external sources while providing options to
enhance the resulting sound by eliminating noise), iSpeak It (turns
text based documents into spoken word MP3 or AAC files) and iPodderX
(podcast search and management utility).
The suite works with any Mac and any iPod hardware models but you'll
need OS X 10.3.9 or better and iTunes 4.7 on the software front. To
use CD Spin Doctor, you'll need to have audio input capability on
your Mac and a stereo cable, if you're going to convert audio.
Audio Hijack is my favorite of this bunch and it comes from Rogue
Amoeba (http:// rogueamoeba.com/). While there are other utilities
that will record audio on your Mac (for example, WireTap Pro and
Audacity), Audio Hijack has a number of options that propel it to the
top of the list of available recording tools: it has a timer that can
be scheduled and you can identify a specific file or web site to
open for any given session, it's AppleScriptable (think Automator,
here!) and it will transfer your files to iTunes or your iPod. Audio
Hijack also has some nice equalizer and bit rate sampling settings
that enable you to manipulate and enhance the sound quality of
recordings.
Rogue Amoeba has a Pro version ($32) of Audio Hijack that provides an
advanced feature set (http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/
compare.php) but the version included in Roxio's Boom Box has plenty
of functionality for most users' needs. If you listen to streaming
audio webcasts and you would really love to capture it and have it
encoded and transfered to your iPod for listening pleasure away from
your Mac, then Audio Hijack will very simply and elegantly
accomplish that task for you.
MusicMagic Mixer by Predixis (http://music.predixis.com/) will be
most useful to folks who like to create mixes or playlists of
related music. With the introduction of the Shuffle, the
"randomness" of music has been extolled. However, it's a bit
unnerving to have Nickelback's "Hangnail" come on wedged between Sam
Cooke's "For Sentimental Reasons" and Otis Redding's "Pain In My
Heart". The inclusion of inappropriate music selections has been the
single biggest complaint about the Party Shuffle option in iTunes and
the "randomness" of the Shuffle experience.
MusicMagic Mixer probes each track's sound wave and matches songs
that have similar acoustic patterns to the songs you pick to base
the mix on.
One caveat, though: MusicMagic Mixer will take quite a long time to
take these "fingerprints" of your songs. A sample library of 1400
songs took nearly 3 hours. If you have a large library, this process
may literally take days to complete. However, it doesn't seem to
affect overall performance in other applications so you can run it in
the background. Once the scan has been completed, MusicMagic Mixer
will easily sync to iTunes to include any new songs that you add to
your library.
MusicMagic Mixer did quite a good job of keeping mixes consistent and
coherent. If you like to put together "random" playlists for
parties, background music or simply to suit your particular activity
or mood, then you'll find MusicMagic Mixer a time (and sanity!) saver.
CD Spin Doctor may only be appealing to aging LP and tape collectors
(and I admit to being one!) who would like to transfer their vinyl
and cassettes to digital audio.
The software has the added benefit of letting your remove noise like
hisses, clicks and crackling from your recordings before importing
the audio. There are other applications out there that do this and
are more feature rich (SoundSoap 2) but I found that CD Spin Doctor
scrubbed audio very well and with little effort on my part.
iSpeak It, from Zapptek (http://www.zapptek.com) isn't useful for me
but this can be a helpful item for anyone needing an extra tool for
universal access. iSpeak It will convert any text file into an audio
track that can be transferred to iTunes and even bookmarked. By
default, the application uses the build-in Mac OS X voices but other,
less robotic voices, in multiple languages, can be downloaded
(http://www.cepstral.com/downloads/). iSpeak It can speak RSS feeds,
Web pages, news headlines and weather as well as downloaded books
and email. With the inclusion in Tiger of the new VoiceOver
Utility.app, iSpeak It provides a really nice addition to anyone who
requires universal access capabilities.
With podcasts becoming more and more ubiquitous, you'll have a good
tool with iPodderX (http://ipodderx.com/) to help you explore the
world of podcasting. iPodderX bills itself as "the world's very
first Media Aggregator" and allows for automatic delivery of
podcasts, video, images and documents to your Mac. The application
is very well designed and executed: you can browse by subject or
search for podcast feeds, subscribe to the ones you like and then
export them into iTunes as MP3 files or AAC files that are
bookmarkable. It has a nice feature called SmartSpace which provides
allocated space for podcasts and deletes the old files as the
designated space is filled up.
Is Boom Box worth the $49.95 price tag? Well, the weakest app of the
bunch for the masses is iSpeak It but I have found that I use all
the other applications on a nearly daily basis. So even if I
recalculate the "5 apps for under $10 per app" to the less economical
"4 apps for under $12.50".... I still feel I come out on top.
Previously, you could only get CD Spin Doctor if you purchased
Roxio's Toast 6 at a published $99; Audio Hijack is $16, from Rogue
Amoeba's site; MusicMagic Mixer is $30, and iPodderX is $24. Everyone
will have a favorite tool in this suite and if you use any
combination of these collected applications, you'd do well to buy
this one CD and get it all.
Roxio Boom Box <http://www.roxio.com> $49.95, US
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4. IKEY 2.1 MOVES TO IAPP-LIKE INTERFACE
Script Software has updated their Macintosh automation utility iKey
to version 2.1, adding a few features but mostly streamlining the
interface to make it easier to create and edit shortcuts, menus, and
palettes that automate repetitive actions. iKey 2.1 now features an
iApp- like interface, with a left-hand pane that displays the
applications in which particular shortcuts, menus, or palettes are
active, making it easy to see which items are available for editing
in the main pane. Also new is a Library window that contains all the
commands (the basic functions iKey can perform for you), launchers
(the ways you invoke shortcuts, most commonly by pressing a hotkey),
and contexts (the applications in which shortcuts are active) that
you've defined. The Library window simplifies the task of reusing
already defined commands, and it also lets you see and delete
commands, launchers, and contexts that aren't currently in use.
iKey's programmer, Philippe Hupe, also added some new commands and
options to existing commands, enabling iKey 2.1 to wake a sleeping
Mac after a delay or at a specific date and time, to repeat the last
or next-to-last shortcut executed, to choose items from hierarchical
menus more flexibly, and more. Last but not least, iKey 2.1 resolves
a few compatibility problems with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. In the
interests of disclosure, note that I use iKey daily, that I make
design suggestions during development, and that the update contains
the 1.1 update to my "Take Control of iKey 2" ebook, which documents
the entire program and covers all the changes. The iKey 2.1 update is
free to those who have registered the $30 iKey 2.0; it's a 3.7 MB
download. [ACE]
<http://www.scriptsoftware.com/ikey/>
<http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/ikey.html>
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5. DEFAULT FOLDER X 2.0.2 NOW AVAILABLE
St. Clair Software has released version 2.0.2 of their essential Mac
OS X utility, Default Folder X. The new version improves
compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, fixing potentially crashing
problems with Safari, System Preferences, and other Cocoa
applications. Support for QuicKeys, Trans Lucy, and iClock has also
been added. We've written about Default Folder several times in
TidBITS, because it still improves basic Mac OS X Finder behavior
(see "Tools We Use: Default Folder" in TidBITS-475_ and "Default
Folder X Improves Mac OS X Open/Save Dialogs" in TidBITS-617_).
Default Folder X 2.0.2 is a 4.1 MB download, and is free for
registered users; a full license costs US$35.
<http://www.stclairsoft.com/DefaultFolderX/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05341>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06718>
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6. APPLE INTRODUCES ITUNES 5
Apple announced on September 7, 2005 the release of iTunes 5,
bringing new features and a refined look to the world’s most popular
digital music jukebox and online music store. iTunes 5 includes a new
Search Bar to make it even easier for users to find what they’re
searching for; the ability to organize playlists into folders; Smart
Shuffle, which lets the user change the “randomness” of shuffled
songs; and the ability for Windows users to automatically sync
contacts and calendars from Outlook onto their iPods. The iTunes
Music Store has also added parental controls and album reviews, and
now features a catalog of over two million songs, making it the
largest online music catalog in the world.
“iTunes is widely regarded as the best jukebox, with the world’s most
popular online music store built right in,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s
CEO. “We are constantly improving iTunes with new features like
Podcasting and better searching because we love music ourselves and
want to surprise and delight music fans around the world.”
iTunes 5’s new Search Bar helps users find exactly what they are
looking for within the catalog of two million songs, 15,000 Podcasts
and 10,000 audiobooks on the iTunes Music Store, plus everything in
their own iTunes music library. iTunes and the iTunes Music Store
have a new refined look, as well as parental controls allowing
parents to determine which music and Podcasts their children can
access on the iTunes Music Store. Users can now do even more with
playlists, including the ability to organize them into folders and
have greater control over random playback with the new Smart Shuffle
feature. Windows iPod users can now use iTunes to automatically sync
calendars with Outlook or contacts with Outlook or Outlook Express.
The iTunes Music Store now features over 1,000 album reviews from
Apple’s team of music experts. The reviews cover some of the best
albums over the past 50 years, including current hits from Coldplay,
Kanye West and Yo-Yo Ma, as well as classic artists such as Pink
Floyd, Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra.
With Apple’s legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as
integrated Podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, seamless
integration with iPod and groundbreaking personal use rights, the
iTunes Music Store is the best way for Mac and PC users to legally
discover, purchase and download music online. The iTunes Music Store
features more than two million songs from the major music companies
and over 1,000 independent record labels, 10,000 audiobooks, gift
certificates and exclusive music not found anywhere else online.
Pricing & Availability
iTunes 5 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Music Store and is
available as a free download immediately from www.apple.com/itunes.
Purchase and download of songs from the iTunes Music Store for Mac or
Windows requires a valid credit card with a billing address in the
country of purchase.
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7. APPLE INTRODUCES IPOD NANO
On September 7 2005, Apple introduced the iPod nano, a revolutionary
full-featured iPod that holds 1,000 songs yet is thinner than a
standard #2 pencil and less than half the size of competitive
players. The iPod nano features an ultra-portable, lightweight design
with a gorgeous color screen, Apple’s patent pending Click Wheel and
the ability to hold 1,000 songs or 25,000 photos. iPod nano works
seamlessly with the iTunes Music Store, the world’s number one
digital music service. The iPod nano is available immediately in a
4GB model priced at just $249 and a 2GB model priced at just $199,
with both models available in stunning white or black designs.
“iPod nano is the biggest revolution since the original iPod,” said
Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iPod nano is a full-featured iPod in an
impossibly small size, and it’s going to change the rules for the
entire portable music market.”
iPod nano is the perfect combination of innovative design, storage
capacity and ease of use. Thinner than a standard #2 pencil and
weighing only 1.5 ounces, iPod nano comes in two models—the 4GB iPod
nano holds up to 1,000 songs and the 2GB iPod nano holds up to 500
songs. iPod nano features Apple’s innovative Click Wheel for precise,
one-handed navigation, and its ultra-portable design fits into even
the smallest pocket making it easy to take iPod nano to the gym, in
the car, traveling, commuting or anywhere you go.
The most fashionable and wearable iPod ever, the iPod nano features
optional accessories including lanyard headphones, which integrate
the headphone cables into the lanyard, so users can wear their iPod
nano around their neck without dangling headphone cables. For
customers looking to personalize their iPod nano with colors, an
optional set of iPod nano Tubes in pink, purple, blue, green and
clear offers fashionable protection in a sheer casing while enabling
full operation of all functions including the Click Wheel. Optional
armbands available in gray, pink, blue, red and green allow users to
wear their iPod nano as the ultimate fashion and sports accessory.
iPod nano features the same 30-pin dock connector as the iPod and
iPod mini, allowing it to work effortlessly with a wide range of over
1,000 accessories developed for iPod, including home stereo speakers
and iPod car adapters for an incredible music experience at home or
in the car.
Featuring seamless integration with the iTunes Music Store and the
iTunes digital music jukebox, iPod nano includes Apple’s patent
pending Auto-Sync technology that automatically downloads a user’s
digital music collection, photos or Podcasts onto iPod nano and keeps
it up-to-date whenever iPod nano is plugged into a Mac or Windows
computer using USB 2.0. With its stunning, high-resolution color
screen, iPod nano allows users to display album art while playing
music, view photo slideshows or play games in full color. iPod nano
features up to 14 hours battery life* and completely skip-free
playback, as well as new stopwatch, world clock and screen lock
applications.
Pricing & Availability
The 4GB and 2GB white and black models of iPod nano for Mac or
Windows are available worldwide immediately for a suggested retail
price of $249 (US) and $199 (US) respectively, through the Apple
Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized
Resellers. All iPod nano models include earbud headphones, a USB 2.0
cable and a CD with iTunes for Mac and Windows computers.
New optional accessories designed for iPod nano with the following
suggested retail prices include: Lanyard headphones for $39 (US),
armbands in five colors each for $29 (US), dock for $29 (US) and a
set of iPod nano Tubes in five different colors for $29 (US) and will
be available within the next 30 days.
iPod nano requires a Mac with a USB 2.0 port and Mac OS X version
10.3.4 or later and iTunes 4.9 (or later); or a Windows PC with a USB
2.0 port and Windows 2000, XP Home or Professional (SP2) and iTunes
4.9 (or later).
************************************************************************
Some articles above have been reprinted with permission from TidBITS.
TidBITS has offered more than ten years of thoughtful commentary on
Macintosh and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and
access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit www.tidbits.com.
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