Newsletter to Members
September 2007
SEPTEMBER MEETING MONDAY 3RD 6:30PM
Usual Venue: Level 3 Theatrette, Webster Building, UNSW Kensington. Colin’s presentation will focus on one or more of Apple’s recent product announcements.
Yes, despite possible transport disruptions because of APEC, we are going ahead with our Monday night meeting as scheduled. We hope you can make it. Anyone who normally travels through or near the city CBD to get to our meeting is advised to allow extra travelling time. Buses and trains are expected to provide all regular services, albeit with possible delays, and some inner-city bus stops will be relocated. If driving, a lot of Special Event clearways will be in force in and around Sydney and suburbs. Refer to updated transport information from the RTA web site:
Main prize this month is an Apple Airport Base Station 802.11g (dome shape), kindly donated by Colin Palmer.
SATURDAY WORKSHOP DEFERRED BY ONE WEEK
Because of the APEC long weekend and more significant transport disruptions than on the previous Monday, our Saturday Workshop this month is deferred one week to 15 SEPT from 10am.
Learn Mac OS X basics in a friendly, informative environment. Presented by AMUG Sydney.
Saturday 15 September, 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
AGM: Committee re-elected
At our August 6 meeting – our Annual General Meeting – all incumbent committee members were individually nominated, seconded and agreed to stand for their respective positions. There being no other nominations, all were unanimously elected. Acting Treasurer Barbara Watson formally accepted the position. Committee members for 2007-2008 are:
Warwick Harty – President - Ken Driver – Vice President and Webmaster
- Greg Sclanders – Secretary and Public Officer
- Barbara Watson – Treasurer
- Brian Cooper – Equipment Officer
- Robin Workman
- Serge Tauber
Colin Palmer, while not an elected committee member, agreed to continue in his role as Meeting Convenor, for which we are very grateful.
The iPod nano was won by Barbara Watson – pictured at right being congratulated by club President, Warwick Harty.
Entertainment Book
Hundreds of discount vouchers for $60
The 2007/2008 Entertainment™ Books are available now, and are bigger and better than ever. They can be ordered through AMUG Sydney and the club can benefit through a commission on sales.
The Entertainment™ Book is your guide to the best restaurants, hotel accommodation, attractions, sports and leisure activities... all with 25% to 50% off or 2-for-1 offers – up to $10,000 in total value! Plus, new this year, My Bookings™... Compare rates, check availability and book your accommodation on-line.
Localised Entertainment™ Books currently available are the Sydney edition (includes Sydney CBD, Eastern Suburbs, Inner West, Southern Suburbs and more), and the ‘Parramatta, The Hills, Blue Mountains and Macarthur’ edition.
The books are valid until June 2008, and cover all these categories:
- Fine Dining
- Casual Restaurants and Café Dining
- Informal Dining and Takeaway Restaurants
- Arts, Sports and Attractions
- Retail, Travel, Leisure and Accommodation
If there is enough interest from members, the club can organise a bulk order. Let us know at the September meeting or email an expression of interest to Serge Tauber. More info: www.entertainmentbook.com.au/
Apple Product Announcements
At a special press event on Tuesday August 7, Apple CEO Steve Jobs released a breathtaking deluge of new product announcements at Apple Headquarters in Cupertino...
- New aluminum iMacs and aluminum Apple Keyboards
- iLife '08 (including a completely new iMovie application)
- Enhanced dotMac with new Web Gallery & 10GB Online Storage
- iWork '08, now with Apple's new spreadsheet application Numbers.
- Spec’d up Mac mini line, all with Intel Core 2 Duo processors
- 802.11n AirPort Extreme Base Station with Gigabit Ethernet
Clockwise from top right: New aluminium iMac, Magic Garageband, Steve demonstrates iPhoto Events, new iMovie ’08, Numbers (new to iWork ’08), Steve holds court. Images courtesy of Apple. |
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Apple Posts Video of August 2007 Special Event
Apple has posted a video of the special event that took place at its headquarters on Tuesday, August 7, 2007. If you have ever sat through (or given) a boring PowerPoint presentation, you will appreciate how Steve Jobs sets the standard for presentations using the vastly superior cinema-quality Apple Keynote, combined with a lively on stage pace, professional lighting, high production values and slick post-editing.
Watch the event in streaming QuickTime and MPEG-4. The movie runs approximately an hour and twelve minutes.
As explained last month, you cannot save a streaming QuickTime movie as a complete file (it would be huge even if it was possible) – instead, if you want to quickly revisit the video, you can either drag the URL icon from browser to desktop to create a .webloc alias (which you can rename, but keep the .webloc extension or it won’t work); or in QuickTime Player Pro, ‘Save as a reference movie’.
New iMacs and Apple Keyboards
All New Line Features Sleek Aluminium 20- and 24-inch Designs
Redefining Apple’s signature all-in-one design, the new iMac integrates the entire computer system into a sleek, professional aluminium enclosure for a striking, clutter-free desktop. Screen sizes are 20- and 24-inch (there is no 17-inch model available). The new iMac’s glossy widescreen displays provide incredibly crisp images, ideal for photos and movies using the all new iLife ’08 suite of digital lifestyle applications that are included.
“This new iMac is the most incredible desktop computer we’ve ever made,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Our new design features the innovative use of materials, including professional-grade aluminium and scratch-resistant glass, that are highly recyclable."
All models feature the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors running at 2.0 or 2.4 GHz, 1GB RAM (expandable to 4GB), 802.11n Airport Extreme, Gigabit Ethernet, slot-load 8x SuperDrive and built-in iSight video camera.
Pricing – 3 base models:
- 20-inch 2.0 GHz iMac – RRP $1,698 inc GST:
1GB RAM/250GB HD/SuperDrive/128MB graphics; - 20-inch 2.4 GHz iMac – RRP $2,149 inc GST:
1GB RAM/320GB HD/SuperDrive/256MB graphics; - 24-inch 2.4 GHz iMac – RRP $2,599 inc GST:
1GB RAM/320GB HD/SuperDrive/256MB graphics.
The new ultra-thin aluminium Apple Keyboard is just 0.8 centimetres thin at its front edge. A new optional Apple Wireless Keyboard is a compact design that, with Apple’s wireless Mighty Mouse, offers a cable-free desktop. The Apple Wireless Keyboard costs $40 as a build-to-order option with a new iMac or $70 when purchased along with the wireless Mighty Mouse; or as a standalone purchase it costs $109 (all prices inc GST).
Apple Introduces iLife ’08
Major New Versions of iPhoto & iMovie
“Apple has taken iLife ’08 to a new level that is years ahead of anything available for the PC,” said Steve Jobs. “We think iLife ’08 gives Mac users even more reasons to love their Macs, and PC users even more reasons to switch.”
iPhoto '08
The primary new feature is the concept of Events – many photos are taken at a particular event. Events are created automatically and contain the photos taken on a particular day (unlike film rolls that contain all the photos imported in a particular session), and Events can be split or merged as need be. When you're browsing by Event (as opposed to the traditional method of browsing by individual photos), you can "skim" through photos in an Event by moving your mouse over the event icon, itself set to one of the pictures in the event.
iPhoto '08 also adds hiding: a way to suppress the display of photos you don't want to delete. iPhoto's editing capabilities see improvement as well, with shadow and highlight tools that work on just portions of photos, a cropping tool that helps you follow the "rule of thirds," and tools for noise reduction, edge sharpening, and white balance.
iPhoto '08 has tighter integration with the updated .Mac as well, enabling users to publish Web-based galleries – a feature cleverly called .Mac Web Gallery – and featuring one-button photo sharing.
iMovie '08
The most aggressive change in the iLife suite is iMovie '08, which is a completely new application with a new interface. Following in the vein of iPhoto, iMovie keeps track of all your video in a library, using events to make finding clips easier. In addition to standard DV and high-definition HDV video formats, iMovie now supports editing AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition), a compressed format introduced last year that's designed to be saved onto random-access storage devices such as SD memory cards, hard disks, and MiniDVD discs.
iMovie also beefs up its sharing capabilities by providing options for encoding and sending movies directly to YouTube, to an iPhone via iTunes, and to Apple's enhanced .Mac service.
Note: iMovie '08 can only import (not open) projects created in earlier versions, and even then the process only acquires the raw video; transitions and effects don't move over.
iDVD '08
Better performance, professional grade encoding, and 10 new animated themes.
iWeb ’08
Offers new features to make websites more interactive by adding live web widgets such as Google Maps, targeted ads using Google AdSense and photos or movies from .Mac Web Galleries. Users can also add Internet video, news headlines, weather and more from any site that supports HTML snippets. A new “My Album” page template lets users easily organise photo albums and videos into one simple index web page. The new iWeb includes a range of beautiful new Apple-designed themes that users can change at any time to experiment with different web page designs, even after their site has been published. With a .Mac membership, users can also now host iWeb websites using their own personal domains.
GarageBand ’08
The signature new feature is Magic GarageBand, an easy and fun way for musicians and non-musicians alike to create a song. Users can pick from nine musical genres and interact with a band of “players” on a virtual stage by selecting an instrument and musical part for each player to create thousands of possible song combinations. Users can play along with a built-in software instrument or record their voice to sing along to their own music. The new GarageBand also offers powerful new features for more advanced musicians, including multi-take recording to capture the best performance, arrangements to cut, copy and paste intros, verses and choruses, and support for 24-bit audio interfaces.
System Requirements
iLife '08 requires a Mac with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 processor running Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later and QuickTime 7.2 or later. Some other special system requirements apply as well: iMovie '08 requires an Intel processor, a Power Mac G5 (dual 2.0 GHz or faster), or an iMac G5 at 1.9 GHz or faster; iMovie no longer supports PowerPC G4-based Macs. Also, iDVD requires a 733 MHz or faster processor.
Pricing
iLife ’08 sells for RRP $99 inc GST and is pre-installed on all new Macs purchased from 8 August.
Apple Enhances .Mac Service
New Web Gallery & 10GB Online Storage
.Mac Web Gallery
With iPhoto ’08, .Mac members can easily create a .Mac Web Gallery and choose whether they want to make their albums available to everyone or limit access to specific people, allow visitors to download high resolution images suitable for quality printing up to poster size, and even allow friends and family to contribute photos. .Mac Web Gallery offers an amazing online photo experience that feels more like a desktop application than a web page. Visitors will have the same rich viewing experience whether they are using a Mac or PC and can experience .Mac Web Gallery photo albums in their choice of views, including mosaic, grid, slideshow or CoverFlow-like carousel. Users can skim through albums just like they do in iPhoto by simply moving their mouse over an album on the web page to see the photos inside.
“.Mac Web Gallery is an awesome way to share photos and movies on the Internet with friends and family,” said Steve Jobs.
With iMovie ’08, .Mac members can easily encode and upload their movies to their .Mac Web Gallery for viewing in several sizes, with the largest size offering higher-than-DVD resolution. Visitors can view .Mac Web Gallery movies on a Mac, PC or iPhone. .Mac members can also choose to make their movies available for download, so that friends and family can play them back on their computer, iPod or Apple TV.
10GB Online Storage
.Mac members now have 10 times more online storage space for photo and movie sharing, email, website hosting, exchanging files and backing up important documents, increasing from 1GB to 10GB for individual members and from 2GB to 20GB for Family Pack customers. Members can choose to purchase an additional 10GB of storage. .Mac members can send and receive larger email attachments up to a maximum size of 20MB and manage unwanted mail better with improved webmail spam filtering.
Note that if you have iDisk Syncing turned on in your .Mac preference pane, it will now use 10 GB of space on your hard disk.
System Requirements
.Mac requires a Macintosh computer with Mac OS X v10.3.9 or v10.4.3 or later and 256MB of RAM. Broadband Internet connection recommended. Some features require Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger and iLife ’08, available separately.
Pricing
.Mac is a subscription-based service and costs $139.95 inc GST per year for individuals and $249.95 inc GST for a Family Pack which includes one master account and four sub accounts. Visit www.mac.com to sign up for a free, 60-day .Mac trial account.Apple Introduces iWork ’08
New “Numbers” Spreadsheet Added
Numbers introduces the concept of intelligent tables on a flexible canvas, a new approach that makes it easy to organise information, create calculations, analyse results and make spreadsheets look as great as they work.
And Numbers introduces an interactive print view, which enables you to scale and rearrange items in a print preview mode before committing the job to paper (no more printing a spreadsheet that ends up awkwardly split between multiple pages).
Pages ’08 now features distinct modes for streamlined word processing and flexible page layout, a new contextual format bar and tracking of editing changes.
Keynote ’08. Steve Jobs's favorite application has been updated with new text effects and transitions, as one might expect, but also with animated action builds that can perform actions such as moving objects along a path and scaling objects over time. Keynote '08 adds "instant alpha," a feature for masking out portions of an image, and voice-over recording, as well as a smart builds feature that creates animations the way one would build a simple slideshow in iPhoto.
iWork ’08 can import Microsoft Word (including Word 2007), PowerPoint, Excel and AppleWorks word processing, presentation and spreadsheet files, and can export documents in Microsoft Office file formats or PDFs for easy sharing.
System Requirements:
iWork ’08 requires Mac OS X version 10.4.10 or later, a Macintosh computer with a 500 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, PowerPC G5 or Intel processor, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), 32MB of video RAM, QuickTime 7.2 or later and 1GB of available disk space. iLife ’08 is recommended.
Price: RRP $99 inc GST.
www.apple.com/au/iwork/
Apple Updates Mac mini Specs
The entire Mac mini line now features Intel Core 2 Duo processors. They have been switched from a choice of 1.66 or 1.83 GHz Core Duo processors to 1.83 GHz or 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processors. The base model includes 1GB of memory, up from 512 MB and expandable to 2GB.
Pricing
- 1.83GHz Mac mini – RRP $849 inc GST
1GB RAM/80GB HD/Combo Drive/802.11g/Bluetooth 2/Gigabit Ethernet; - 2.0GHz Mac mini – RRP $1,148 inc GST
1GB RAM/120GB HD/SuperDrive/802.11g/Bluetooth 2/Gigabit Ethernet.
AirPort Base Station Upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet
In the midst of all the other recent announcements, Apple quietly released an upgraded AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n featuring gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps) on all four wired ports.
Apple says that their new gigabit Ethernet base station is up to 50 percent faster for wireless-to-wired links, which would put it closer to 150 Mbps, a speed achieved on the few gigabit Ethernet-based Draft N routers from other manufacturers.
Pricing: $259 inc GST.
www.apple.com/au/airportextreme/
Some portions of the above Apple Products text are extracts from TidBITS #892, written by various TidBITS staff and used with permission.
John Lennon Solo Catalogue Debuts on iTunes Store
On 15 August Apple announced the debut of the John Lennon solo catalogue on the iTunes Store. Sixteen of Lennon's solo works from EMI Music are available for the first time on iTunes, with the “Lennon Legend” and “Acoustic” collections making their worldwide digital debuts. For a limited period until 15 September, exclusive video content will be included with the albums “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” “Sometime in New York City,” “Walls and Bridges,” “Milk and Honey” and the collections “Anthology” and “Working Class Hero.”
“John would have loved the fact that his music will now be available in a format suited to a new generation of listeners,” said Yoko Ono.
“John Lennon is one of the greatest artists of our time,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to have his solo catalogue available on the iTunes Store for the first time.”
As part of EMI Music’s digital catalogue, the John Lennon solo works will be available in iTunes Plus, offering DRM-free music tracks with high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings—for A$2.29 inc GST per song.
Microsoft and Apple Extend Font Licensing Agreement
Seamless Web and software experience for Apple users
TYPECON, Seattle, Wash. — Aug. 2, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. and Apple announced that they have renewed their font licensing agreement, giving Apple users ongoing use of the latest versions of core Windows fonts. Under the agreement, Apple and Microsoft are extending the seamless Web and software experience Apple users have enjoyed for years when using and viewing popular Microsoft fonts such as Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana. Apple customers, developers and Web designers can safely specify fonts knowing that their documents, presentations and web pages will appear as they are meant to be seen on screen and in print.
My iTunes Widgets
Apple has introduced My iTunes, a new service that allows users to create a Web-based widget for their website, blog or social networking profile. My iTunes widgets are simple, self-updating, add-ons for your web page. With the widget, users can share their iTunes purchases, reviews and favorites with anyone visiting their website.
To start, you will need to sign into the iTunes Store and enable My iTunes from your profile. You can then select the features that you want to display on the widget. Once selected, you will be sent to a web page to create the widget and get the code to paste into your website. It's really just that simple. Now, are you ready to start sharing?
www.apple.com/au/itunes/myitunes/
Apple Firmware Updates
Hardware-Related Updates Follow Apple Announcements
Extract from TidBITS #892 by Jeff Carlson
Not long after Steve Jobs left the stage at Apple’s press event, a succession of small updates began to pop up, some of which applied to the brand-new machines themselves. The following updates are available via Software Update or as stand-alone downloads.
- iMac Software Update 1.0 (5.1 MB)
- Keyboard Software Update 1.1 (32.1 MB)
- MacBook Pro Software Update 1.1 (14.7MB, applies to 2.2 and 2.4 GHz models)
- Mac Pro SMC Firmware Update 1.1 (544K, for desktop Macs – adjusts fan behavior)
- AirPort Base Station Update 2007-002 for Mac (updates AirPort Utility to 5.2.1)
- AirPort Extreme Base Station with 802.11n* Firmware 7.2.1 (for the new Gigabit Ethernet model).
iLife '08 Receives Bug-Fix Updates
Available both via Software Update and as standalone downloads, these updates are for the newly released iLife ’08 suite:
- iPhoto 7.0.2 (8.8MB) addresses issues associated with publishing photos to .Mac Web Gallery, rebuilding thumbnails, editing books and other minor issues.
- iMovie 7.0.1 (9MB) also solves an issue with publishing to .Mac Web galleries (for movies) and improves overall stability.
- iWeb 2.0.1 (12 MB) addresses issues with upgrading and publishing sites created using iWeb 1.x.
Apple Security Update
Additionally, on 31 July, Apple released Security Update 2007-007 for Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X Server v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.10 and Mac OS X Server v10.4.10. As there are different versions of this update specific to different systems, it is best installed via Software Update on your Mac (under the Apple menu)
Apple posts a full list of Updates in chronological order, each of which can be downloaded from the Apple Downloads page.
Microsoft Office Update
Office 2004 11.3.7 Blocks Malicious Memories
Extract from TidBITS #894 by Adam C. Engst
Just a month after releasing a security update to Microsoft Office 2004, Microsoft has done it again, releasing Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.3.7 Update. The 8.5 MB update, which you can also install directly from within the Microsoft AutoUpdate utility, reportedly fixes a vulnerability that an attacker could use "to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code." The 11.3.7 update requires that you have already updated to 11.3.6, which in turn requires 11.3.5. Just use the Microsoft AutoUpdate utility, which does all the heavy lifting for you. Or the download is available here.
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