Shuffle September 2007 content

[Magnus]

Price AED5200
From Eizo FlexScanS2411W
Distributor Layout Middle East FZC LLC (04 391 1666)
Web http://www.eizo.com/products/lcd/S2411W/index.asp

EIZO’s 24” FlexScan S2411W LCD monitor is well designed with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200. It boasts an amazing contrast ratio of up to 3000:1, a 178º angle of view, and works with analog and digital signals. The S2411W has swivel stand, and an arc-like slider. It is like looking at an architect or drafting table when lowered all the way down, a very pleasant position for designers. Touch sensitive control buttons on the lower panel of the monitor provides easy control and delivers wide range of settings, but the setting menu that appears on screen is very small and I found it hard to read. This wide screen format S2411W has a slim edge that works good for side by side monitor layout in graphics and video editing jobs. I have tested the monitor with my own images, I used it for Photoshop and played movies on it, Overall, I was pretty impressed with the display sharpness in all my tests. Since it enhances all images with a seven level filter called OutlineEnhancer, it really made me see the difference of my aging Apple Studio Display. More impressively, the brightness of the images displayed on the monitor didn’t clip-out any details in the highlights or shadows in my color or greyscale images. This is due to its EIZO patented technology that compensate for surrounding or image brightness and due to its 14-bit color processing. This monitor is an excellent choice for photographers, graphic esigners and movie editors for its sharp and bright quality output.

[Magnus]

Peel the Apple
by Magnus

Q: I am really confused. Please help me out, I don’t know what I should do with my networking - get the Airport Extreme and the Express? Or only the Aiport Extreme and use the range expander I got (I have a Linksys WRT54GR)? Should I call Etisalat to put another line downstairs and use the expander upstairs? But I am scared that if the line will be downstairs the signal wont be strong because of the thick walls. A: To start of with, calling Etisalat and have them install another line is of course one possible solution but not a very good one. You end up paying extra for the additional line and there may be problems with com puters connecting to either access point and it may be tough getting them to talk to one another. In the case of your range extender I doubt it works with either the Airport Express or Extreme. My suggestion would be to get an Aiport Extreme (the new 802.11N model preferably) and connect it to whatever broadband modem you have. Then you can choose between Express or Extreme to extend the network. Airport Express is cheaper and smaller and you can always take one with you when you travel if you need to. The issue with using an Express to extend the network is of course that it is 802.11G so you will not get the higher speed and range of the Airport Extreme’s 802.11N network. But that may or may not be an issue. If you have Macs or other devices on the network that are not N-compatible, then you get the lower speeds anyway. The Airport Extreme’s higher speed and range may mean that you can get away with just one Extreme base station to cover most if not all of your house.

Q: I don’t have a Dot Mac account, can I still use iChat to chat with my friends?
A: No problem. If you have an AIM account (get one at www.aim.com) you can use it instead of a Dot Mac account. If you have a GMail account (gmail.com) you can also use it. If you want to use GMail you set it up as a Jabber account. From the iChat menu, select Preferences, then the Accounts tab, click the plus sign, select Jabber Account for Account Type. The server you will use is talk.google.com.

Q: Apple just increased the Dot Mac space for customers to 10GB but I only see 5GB on my iDisk. Where’s my othe 5GB?
A: It’s most likely due to your sharing preferences in Dot Mac. You can control how that 10GB is divided between your iDisk and email storage. Log in to your Dot Mac account, go to the Dot Mac homepage, click on your username at the top right of the page, click Storage Settings. In the drop-down menus select how you want to divide your space between email and iDisk. Remember that if you do set it to 10GB and you have synchronization turned on, your iDisk will take up 10GB of your hard drive’s space.

Q: I have a MacBook. I bought it when they first came out. It’s still fast enough for what I do but I would like to play some 3D games and for that it’s not enough. Can I upgrade
the memory on the MacBook’s graphics card or even upgrade the whole card?
A: The answer to both questions is simple and short, no you can’t. Let’s elaborate on that a bit. The MacBook has what’s called integrated graphics. Its graphics card is really a part of the motherboard, the main circuitboard driving the machine. The graphics in the MacBook has been ridiculed by many as being slow and weak. And it’s true it’s not the fastest graphics card around but it’s also true it’s fast enough for most average users. The memory on the Intel integrated graphics in the MacBook is a part of the main system memory. 64MB of whatever amount of RAM you have installed is used for graphics.

Send your Apple tech support questions to techsupport@emiratesmac.com. Your questions are answered by Magnus Nystedt, a Certified Apple Help Desk Specialist, with experience of Macs going back to the Mac Plus. Also with over ten years of teaching IT at college and university, he’s in a perfect position to help you sort out your problems. You can reach Magnus at magnus@nystedt.org or at www.nystedt.org.

[Magnus]

Sync Mobile with Google Calendar
by Magnus

We are all looking for that perfect, transparent, easy, reliable solution for keeping information synchronized between computers, devices, online, and other people. If you’ve found this holy grail of personal information management, I applaud and congratulate you, and please tell us what it is on EmiratesMac.com. If you haven’t, join the club, and take a ticket to wait in line. I’ve been using Google Calendar (www.google.com/calendar) for quite some time to share calendar information with other people. We can all have access to view and edit meetings, appointments and more on the web, which obviously makes things easier. But it’s still on the web so it doesn’t have some of the ease of use that a regular application have. So the problem then is how do we partner up iCal and Google Calendar. That’s where Spanning Sync (spanningsync.com) comes in. It acts as the bridge between iCal and Google Calendar and you can set it up to sync any number of calendars. For example, I have a calendar in Google for work, one for personal stuff, and I also manage EmiratesMac’s calendar that way. All these calendars sync to corresponding ones in iCal. Changes in one place transfer over to the other. One interesting thing about Spanning Sync is the licensing model. It’s tied to your GMail address that you use for Google Calendar and you can use it for as many Macs as you want to. It’s tied to you as in your GMail address, not a particular computer. So I’ve installed it on several Macs. It’s on my MacBook which is my main work machine, an iMac at home which I use for some things, and my wife’s MacBook too. On all of them Spanning Sync manages the sync between Google Calendar and iCal without any fuss. So Spanning Sync keeps my iCal and Google Calendar online in tune. Then what about keeping that information in tune with what’s on my Nokia phone? That’s even easier since Nokia offers a lot of iSync plug ins for free on their site (www.nokia.com/A4299040). Download the right one, install it, and you can sync both Adressbook and iCal with your Nokia device. And add to that Spanning Sync and you sync between your phone, iCal and Google Calendar. We’ve used it now for some weeks and it works fine on three Macs, two phones, and one Google Calendar account shared between a number of people. Spanning Sync is $25 for a one year subscription or $65 for a one-time purchase. You can download a 15 day trial from their web site. Google Calendar is a free service.

[Magnus]

Recipe: Apple Honey Oatmeal Cookies
by Crystal

Doesn’t just about everyone love cookies? Well I do, and I love to bake them. There is no better way to make an adult feel like a kid again, than to give them some cookies. This recipe will take you back to when you could not wait to get home from school and have some milk with the homemade fresh baked goodness of Apple Honey Oatmeal Cookies. If you are not a big fan of raisins you can leave them out, and the cookies are still good. (cookierecipes101.com/applehoneyoatmealcookie.htm)

INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup butter flavor shortening
1 1/4 cup light brown sugar - firmly packed
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
2 tablespoons honey
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups quick oats, uncooked
1 cup flour, all-porpuse
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled - cored, & finley chopped

PREPARATION
Heat oven to 375 F. Grease baking sheets.
Place sheets of foil on counter top for cooling cookies.
Combine shortening, brown sugar, egg, milk, honey and vanilla in large bowl. Beat with electric mixer at medium speed until well-blended.
Combine oats, lour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
Mix into creamed mixture at low speed just until blended.
Stir in raisins, walnuts and apples.
Drop rounded measuring tablespoonfuls of dough 3 inches apart onto baking sheet.
Bake one baking sheet at a time at 375 degrees 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly browned. Do not overbake.
Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet.
Remove cookies to foil to cool completely.

Crystal is the founder and editor of EmiratesBaby.com. She writes about various kinds of issues of interest to parents in the UAE. Crystal will be bringing us a new recipie based on apples in each edition of the newsletter. She promises it will be an exciting and mouth-watering mix of dessert, main courses, snacks, and more.