Newsletter to Members
June 2007
- News from the Net (13 items)
- Saturday Mac Workshop
- Opt Out
Monthly Meeting Monday 4 June, 6.30pm
The usual venue, level 3 Theatrette, Webster Building, UNSW Kensington
THIS MONTH’S PRIZES:
- a D-Link 7-port USB2 Hub valued at $48
- a 1GB Flash Drive
- a USB “gooseneck” light
- CD and DVD blank recordable media.
We are sad to report the passing of long-time AMUG and Club Mac member Stanley Hoy, who passed away last Monday, aged 80. His funeral was held this morning (Saturday).
A review of the club's database shows Stan has been one of our longest standing active members, having joined in July 1991 – close enough to 16 years continuous membership! He also served 2 years on our committee as Secretary from 1999-2001.
Stan was listed in Applecations for many years on the “Help” team, with a focus on beginners learning to use the Mac OS. He typified the User Group ethos – always keen to learn new skills, regularly attending meetings, participating in Club activities, and helping fellow members by sharing his computer experiences.
On behalf of the committe and members, we extend our deepest sympathy to Stan’s wife Dot and their family.
Topics raised in the Q&A session at our monthly meetings are summarised on our web site for members’ easy reference.
Click here for May Q&A. You can also view Q&A pages by clicking the Q&A text link at the top of our home page.
Apple Updates Popular MacBook
Faster Intel Core 2 Duo Processors, 1GB of Memory and larger Hard Drives across the line
Featuring a 13-inch glossy widescreen display, the one-inch thin (2.75 cm) MacBook comes in three models:
- White 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/1GB RAM/80GB HD/Combo Drive, RRP $1,599
- White 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/1GB RAM/120GB HD/SuperDrive, RRP $1,899
- Black 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo/1GB RAM/160GB HD/SuperDrive, RRP $2,199
It sounds good; looks good; and does good too.
iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition. It's the newest member of the iPod family. It's outrageously handsome. And it lets you enjoy your music while, at the same time, making a difference.
That's because Apple contributes a portion of its purchase price to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa, a pandemic causing the most severe health crisis to affect humankind in more than 600 years.
Like its siblings, iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED offers up to 24 hours of battery life, lets you carry up to 2,000 songs or 25,000 photos, and features the award-winning Apple Click Wheel.
Available now from the Apple Store, iPod nano (PRODUCT) RED comes with redesigned Apple earbuds and works with both Macs and Windows PCs.
- 4GB: 1,000 songs, $279 inc GST.
- 8GB: 2,000 songs, $349 inc GST.
www.apple.com/au/ipodnano/red/
Paul McCartney Albums available on iTunes
Thirteen-time Grammy award winner Paul McCartney’s new solo album, Memory Almost Full was made available in May for digital pre-order prior to its CD release, exclusively on the iTunes Store.
“Paul McCartney is one of the greatest musicians of all time, and we were extremely excited to offer his first digitally distributed album on iTunes,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
Memory Almost Full will be publicly available for purchase on CD on 6 June 2007 and represents the first global release by Hear Music, the newly formed record label from Starbucks Entertainment and Concord Music Group.
YouTube Coming to Apple TV
Apple has just announced that it's bringing the Internet's most popular originally-created content from YouTube to the living room with Apple TV™. Beginning in mid-June, Apple TV will wirelessly stream videos directly from YouTube and play them on a user's widescreen TV.
"This is the first time users can easily browse, find and watch YouTube videos right from their living room couch, and it's really, really fun," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "YouTube is a worldwide sensation, and Apple TV is bringing it directly from the Internet onto the widescreen TV in your living room."
Thousands of the most current and popular YouTube videos will be available on Apple TV at launch in mid-June, with YouTube adding thousands more each week until the full YouTube catalogue is available later this year.
Larger Hard Drive Option
Apple also announced that it is offering a new Apple TV build-to-order option with a 160GB hard drive. The new larger hard drive offers four times the storage for up to 200 hours of video, 36,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each.
Apple TV connects to a broad range of widescreen TVs and home theater systems and comes standard with HDMI, component video, analog and optical audio ports. Using high-speed AirPort 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, Apple TV can auto-sync content from one computer or stream content from up to five additional computers right to a TV without any wires.
Pricing & Availability:
- 40GB Apple TV, including Apple Remote: RRP $449 inc GST.
- 160GB model, available now: RRP $579 inc GST.
The YouTube feature for Apple TV will be available as a free software update in mid-June.
Apple Launches iTunes Plus
Higher quality DRM-Free Tracks now available on the iTunes Store Worldwide.
Apple has launched iTunes® Plus – DRM-free music tracks from EMI's digital catalogue featuring near CD-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding.
With the release of iTunes Plus, customers can now download tracks from their favourite EMI artists without limitations on the type of music player or number of computers that purchased songs can be played on. iTunes Plus songs purchased from the iTunes Store will play on all iPods, Mac or Windows computers, widescreen TVs with Apple TV and soon iPhones, as well as many other digital music players.
"Our customers are very excited about the freedom and amazing sound quality of iTunes Plus," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We expect more than half of the songs on iTunes will be offered in iTunes Plus versions by the end of this year."
DRM-free tracks from iTunes Plus cost $2.29 per song. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for 50 cents per song or $5.00 for most albums.
iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalogue, currently over four million songs, in the same versions as today – 128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM (Digital Rights Managed) – at the same price of $1.69 per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available.
EMI music videos are now also available in iTunes Plus versions with no change in price.
Apple Announces iTunes U on the iTunes Store
Free content from top universities now available
Apple has launched iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT.
"iTunes U makes it easy for anyone to access amazing educational material from many of America’s most respected colleges and universities," said Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of iTunes. "Education is a lifelong pursuit and we're pleased to give everyone the ability to download lectures, speeches and other academic content for free."
Apple Refurbished Products Store
Did you know Apple Australia has a section of the online Apple Store just for reburbished Macs?
There are great deals on Apple Certified Refurbished Mac models and Mac accessories. Apple Certified Products are pre-owned Apple products that undergo Apple's stringent refurbishment process prior to being offered for sale. All Apple Certified products are covered by Apple's One-Year Limited Warranty. Visit the Apple Store Reburbished page.
Thanks to Diane Pattinson for this tip.
auDA Panel releases Issues Paper for comment
The Australian Internet Domains Authority (auDA) is currently reviewing the policy framework for .au domain names, including:
- whether .au should be opened up to direct registrations (eg. domainname.au)
- whether the policy rules for domain names should be changed
- whether registrants should be allowed to sell their .au domain names.
The auDA Names Policy Panel has released an Issues Paper, dated May 2007, which sets out the current situation and invites comment on suggestions and options for change.
Closing date for submissions is Friday 15 June 2007.
For more information and a copy of the Issues Paper, go to www.auda.org.au/2007npp/2007npp-index/
Elgato Systems to be distributed by CONEXUS
Elgato Systems has announced a distribution agreement with CONEXUS, a leading specialist distributor of multimedia technologies for the Macintosh. CONEXUS gains the right to market Elgato's digital TV recording and video encoding products to the Australian and New Zealand markets.
The recent product rollout of the Apple TV™ supports Elgato's market strategy around digital media convergence. Elgato's product line includes the EyeTV for DTT, EyeTV Hybrid, EyeTV Diversity and EyeTV 250 digital TV recorders as well as Turbo.264 Video Encoder Hardware.
EyeTV enables Mac users to watch, record, and edit Standard Definition Television (SDTV) and High Definition Television (HDTV) on the Mac. Turbo.264 converts videos to superior quality H.264 (MP4) files at amazing speeds and is perfect for anyone who wants to put their own content on an iPod®, Apple TV®, or Sony PSP®.
Helvetica celebrates half century
Story by i-grafix.com
The world's most popular font, Helvetica, is celebrating its 50th birthday, with its contribution to modern life recognised in a major exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Lauded by some as clean, modernist, easy on the eye and stylish, while slated by others as bland, uninspiring, conformist and unambitious, the list of Helvetica users would fill a book, many iconic names in the corporate world plump for the big H include Gap, Orange, Currys, Hoover, Lufthansa, Panasonic, Royal Bank of Scotland, Tupperware, Zanussi.
The font, inspired by the 1896 font Akzidenz Grotesk, was designed in 1957 by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffman for the Swiss-based Haas Type Foundry, and is currently owned by Linotype. The digital revolution saw a host a clones spun off from the original, the most popular of which is Arial.
Helvetica’s success is much the same as Switzerland's – it works, it won't grab attention, you won't lose your job using this one. Fans say its dependability allows other elements in designs to express greater freedom. Opponents, of which there are many, including an 'I hate Helvetica web site' claim it stifles creativity. The typeface's dominance over the past half-century, cemented by the release of the Helvetica Neue family in the 1980s, has now inspired a documentary – Helvetica – and exhibitions in the US and Europe.
Desktop Clutter: MacFixit Performance Tip
Keep the Desktop clutter-free (empty, if possible).
Mac OS X's Desktop is the de facto location for downloaded files, and for many users, in-progress works that will either be organized later or deleted altogether. The desktop can also be gluttonous, however, becoming a catch-all for files that linger indefinitely.
Unfortunately – aside from the effect of disarray it creates – keeping dozens or hundreds of files on the Desktop can significantly degrade performance. Not necessarily because the system is sluggish with regard to rendering the icons on the desktop and storing them in memory persistently (which may be true in some cases), but more likely because keeping an excessive number of items on the Desktop can cause the windowserver process to generate reams of logfiles, which obviously draws resources away from other system tasks.
As such, keeping as few items as possible on the Desktop prove a surprisingly effective performance boon. Even creating a single folder on your Desktop and placing all current and future clutter inside, then logging out and back in can provide an immediately noticeable speed boost – particularly for the Finder.
Extracts from TidBITS#879/14-May-07
Reprinted with permission
Microsoft Releases Office 2004 11.3.5 Update
by Jeff Carlson
Microsoft has issued an update to Office 2004 for Mac, which the company says includes "fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code." The update is 58.5 MB, largely because it also includes all previous Office 2004 updates, and is available as a stand-alone download or via the Microsoft AutoUpdate application. Download link.
Apple Releases Pro Application Support 4.0
by Jeff Carlson
Apple has released Pro Application Support 4.0, a non-specific update that "improves general user interface reliability for Apple's professional applications." Affected programs include Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Aperture, Final Cut Express HD, Soundtrack, Logic Pro, and Logic Express. I'm guessing this release heralds the arrival of Final Cut Studio 2, which is expected to ship soon. The update is available via Software Update or as a 7.6 MB stand-alone download.
www.apple.com/support/downloads/proapplicationsupport40.html
by Adam C. Engst
A number of high profile scientific institutions joined together last week to announce the Encyclopedia of Life, a global project to document on a Web site every one of the 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other organisms. In essence, the Encyclopedia of Life will run along some of the same lines as the Wikipedia, although contributions may be limited to scientists with expertise in the subject, a restriction that may both slow the growth of the project and avoid some of the errors and argumentativeness that exist in Wikipedia.
But from the standpoint of those who need information about living organisms, the Encyclopedia of Life's demonstration pages look extremely promising, bringing together written information, photos, video, audio, maps, and more, and presenting it all in an interface that can be scaled to the reader's level of experience. There isn't any live information yet, but it's worth viewing the demo pages, reading the FAQs, and watching the video on the main page.
Steve Jobs Addresses Greenpeace at Shareholder Meeting
by Adam C. Engst
At Apple's annual shareholder meeting on 10-May-07, the company's environmental efforts played a large role, though one that was undoubtedly reduced in contentiousness by Steve Jobs's open letter, "A Greener Apple". In that letter, Jobs laid out what Apple is doing today and plans to do in the future to reduce the use of toxic chemicals in manufacturing Macs and iPods, and to increase the level of recycling of old equipment.
Read Adam’s full article.
by Adam C. Engst
Learn All About Your Apple TV
Whether you're an early adopter of the Apple TV or still considering adding one to your home entertainment system, here is a new ebook for you. TidBITS’ friends at Macworld (many of whom also write for Take Control) have been working with the Apple TV since the day it was released, and they've brought together everything they've learned about it in the "Macworld Apple TV Superguide," the latest in Macworld's series of electronic books.
Inside, you'll find help setting up the Apple TV, navigating its interface, and managing your media – video, music, and photos – for easy access on the Apple TV. Should anything go wrong, an extensive troubleshooting section covers common problems and solutions.
PDF, 50 pages, 1.3Mb, US$12.95. Buy it here.
Extracts from TidBITS#880/21-May-07
Reprinted with permission
Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter in Beta
by Adam C. Engst
If you find yourself needing to access Office Open XML documents created by Windows users in Word 2007, Microsoft now has a free beta converter that may help. The Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 0.1b can convert .docx and .docm documents (the latter are Word macro-enabled documents) into RTF format, which can be opened in Word 2004 and Word X on the Mac. The converter provides both individual file and batch conversion.
The Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac beta is a 24.9 MB download and expires on 31-Dec-07. It requires Mac OS X 10.4.8, and either at least Office 2004 11.3.4 or Office X 10.1.9 to open the converted documents. Free upgrades to both versions of Office are available from Microsoft's mactopia page.
Download the Converter or get more info here.
Alternative converters are Panergy's docXConverter and MacLinkPlus Deluxe v16.
by Glenn Fleishman
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has certified the iPhone for use in the United States. When Steve Jobs announced the new smartphone at Macworld Expo in January 2007, he said it would take some time to pass the necessary FCC. Certification is required in advance of offering the phone for sale.
Because the iPhone handles cellular calls and data, plus Wi-Fi, the FCC certification is in four parts, two for each set of frequencies. The iPhone uses the worldwide GSM standard, which only AT&T and T-Mobile employ in the United States. The iPhone also features Wi-Fi for browsing and email – the major two services initially announced by Apple – and Wi-Fi also requires certification.
The iPhone is a quad-band phone, Apple said at launch, but two of the four frequency bands aren't available for use in the United States. Other regulators will issue their own certifications in their own countries for use of those bands. Full story.
by Jeff Carlson
Adobe's John Nack, senior product manager of Adobe Photoshop, confirmed on his blog that an old favorite drawing application, Macromedia FreeHand, is no longer being updated. It's an Adobe Illustrator world, it has been for quite some time, and now the company is making it official. Adobe has written a migration FAQ (PDF, 180K) that explains some of the reasons for halting development.
FreeHand has followed an odd orbit around Adobe for its entire history. Originally created by Altsys, FreeHand was the main competitor for Adobe's Illustrator. Aldus snapped up FreeHand from Altsys so that it could complement its page-layout application PageMaker, and eventually, in 1994, Adobe bought Aldus.
FreeHand then passed back to Altsys (which allowed Adobe to avoid any antitrust issues involving owning the two dominant illustration programs on the market), which was sold to Macromedia. Ultimately, in 2005, FreeHand found itself once again at Adobe's door when Adobe acquired Macromedia.
Although essentially retired, FreeHand will still be sold for some time, and technical and customer support will be provided. However, FreeHand runs only under Rosetta on Intel-based Macs and won't be receiving any code updates, so buying a new copy now doesn't seem to be a wise investment. Adobe is encouraging FreeHand users to move to Illustrator by offering a US$200 upgrade to Illustrator CS3 and providing resources for switching. Full article.
Extract from TidBITS#881/28-May-07
Reprinted with permission
Security Update 2007-005 Released
by Jeff Carlson
Apple has released its fifth Mac OS X security update of 2007 to patch a number of potential vulnerabilities. Security Update 2007-005 makes changes to a number of system components, in most cases correcting problems that require either local user access or access to the Mac via a local network.
However, several fixes are more important... an update to BIND prevents a possible remote denial of service attack; a new version of fetchmail prevents possible disclosure of passwords, and a fix for CoreGraphics in Mac OS X 10.4 provides additional verification of PDF files to avoid possible crashes when opening maliciously crafted PDFs.
The update is available via Software Update or for download in four varieties: for Mac OS X 10.4.9 as Universal (29.2 MB) and PowerPC (15.7 MB) installers; and for Mac OS X 10.3.9 Client (42.5 MB) and Server (56 MB) systems.
Learn Mac OS X basics in a friendly, informative environment. Presented by AMUG Sydney.
Saturday 9th June, 10am-2pm.
Room 136C (Computer Lab), Ground Floor, Webster Building, UNSW Kensington.
- One Mac per person
- No questions too silly
- Use one of the Uni's iMacs or bring your own Notebook
- Get Apple's latest Software Updates on CD, without the big downloads
- Get MacFixIt's "Year of Fixes" archive Help files
- Free for AMUG members
To book, phone Rob on 9387 2069 or email sydamug@mac.com
If you do not wish to receive any future editions of this online newsletter, please send an email to AMUG Sydney.