shuffle February 2007 content

[Magnus]

A word from the editor
Apple begins the next 30 years

I would be remiss if this issue and this editorial didn't focus on Macworld Expo and what announcements Apple made there. The iPhone was undoubtedly the main announcements and it has reverberated around the world, even in many traditionally non-Apple circles. Even here in the Emirates we've seen how businesses that never touched Apple products before are now interested. We even posted on the site about an email we received from a major mobile phone retailer in the Emirates, asking us about when we could sell them iPhones and at what price. With the iPhone Apple enters a new phase. They have to deal with issues they've not dealt with before and they stand to gain a lot but also to loose a lot. With the iPod Apple started what seems to be a steady march into more mainstream consumer electronics. They even dropped "computer" from the company name, probably more significant than any other news from Macworld Expo. Will this mean that there will come a day when there will be no more Mac computers? Perhaps, but I think that day is far off into the future. One thing that doesn't seem to have changed though is Apple's focus on hardware and software. They still seem to be making the best hardware around, and tightly integrate it with the best software available. The Apple TV is I think also a bit of a gamble. And a question many of us have is will it replace the Mac mini? Personally I'd be sad to see the mini go, but I would not be at all surprised. Whether it is another sign that Apple is moving away from computers as we know them, I don't know. I do think we're slowly going to see a changing role for the Mac over the coming years, both in how it's designed and its intended use. EmiratesMac had a small gathering in Dubai during the keynote speech and we had a lot of fun. This is something we hope to repeat at future events. I think there's a lot of interested in Apple in the Emirates as the growth of the site and our user group has shown. I for one is eagerly looking forward to the next time Steve Jobs gets on stage for a major announcement. Leopard, anyone?

[Magnus]

Software for kids: Alpha Baby
by Crystal

I have found a software program called, Alpha Baby, that lets your child play with the computer with out missing up your work. This game is free and it's available from http://www.kldickey.addr.com/alphababy/. Alpha Baby has nice interaction, because if you hit the “J” key, then a “J” will pop up on the screen. This will help with letter recognition. So this software should take your child from their toddler years, through there preschool years. Alpha Baby can be a lot more, than a game that lets your child hit the keyboard. You and your child can come up with so many games of your own when playing this software. What is also better about this game is that it is free, and you cannot get much better than that. Your child can bang away at the keyboard all they want to, and click the mouse, and different shapes, letters, and photos, pop up on the screen, depending on what key they press, and what settings you have selected in AlphaBaby. It integrates with iPhoto so you can select an iPhoto album to be displayed, and you can select different things in terms of colors, shapes, and all kinds of things. It’s really a simple program but we think you and your child can get much entertainment out of it. There are a lot of preferences you can set. Something to note is that if you are integrating with iPhoto and select AlphaBaby to speak the names of photos, make sure you have meaningful names on those photos. One final piece of advice I have about using AlphaBaby is this: buy a cheap keyboard that you won’t mind being bashed to pieces by your little one. And a special AlphaBaby-dedicated mouse might be a good idea too.

[Magnus]

Review: Belkin USB and FireWire 6-Port Hub for Mac mini
by Magnus

Belkin is a well known name in Mac and iPod accessories and their usual quality and thought is evident in this product. This is a USB and Firewire hub intended to extend the connectivty of a Mac mini. The hub features four USB 2.0 ports and two Firewire 400 ports. One of each port is on the front of the hub. It's case is the same milky white color that Apple uses in their products, and it has exactly the same outer dimensions as a Mac mini. This obviously means that it looks very good sitting on top of or beneath a Mac mini. My only wish is that it would use the same brushed aluminum as the mini which would make it blend in even more. It should be pointed out that even though this hub is particularly made to be used with a Mac mini it could just as well be used with any Mac or PC. A potential downside for some users is that the hub is powered by the Mac mini meaning it does not have it's own power supply. This may mean that some devices that you try to connect will not have enough power. That said, without a power supply, installation is easier and looks neater, and most devices will very likely still work fine. So who should invest in this hub? Really, it's only if you are going to use it with a Mac mini that it makes sense. You can find other hubs that have the same functionality for less money. The attractiveness is the mini form factor. But if you're looking to expand your Mac mini, look no further than this hub from Belkin.

SIDEBAR
You can find further information about Belkin's products at http://www.belkin.com. The tested hub was supplied by Belkin in Dubai, and it sells in the US for $49.99. We couldn't get a price in the UAE in time for this publication to go to press.

[Magnus]

Running Windows on your Mac with Bootcamp
by Magnus

In the previous issue of shuffle we had a review of Parallel's Desktop for Mac. Parallels has fast become a favorite among Mac users for it's slick and convenient way of offering Windows and other operating systems without a reboot. Apple provides their own alternative and it's called Bootcamp. When Bootcamp was released in April 2006 it caused uproar and excitement around the Mac world. Some users felt Apple had betrayed them, allowing Windows to be installed on Macs. Others felt Apple did exactly the right thing, giving users a choice. Bootcamp, weighing in at 143Mb and currently in version 1.1.2 beta, is a free download from Apple. Once installed, the application which is put in your Applications>Utilities folder, will let you partition your drive, burn a CD with Windows drivers, and start the Windows installation.

Partitioning your hard drive
In order for Bootcamp to be installed on your Mac your hard drive has to be partitioned. This basically means the Bootcamp installer will set aside a certain part of the drive for Windows and the two drives, although still being one physical drive, will to your Mac appear as two different drives. How much space you allocate to Windows will depend on what you're going to install. 5Gb is the least you can allocate and then you have to think about what you're going to put in Windows. Figure 1Gb at least for Microsoft Office, several gigabytes for Adobe Creative Suite, and for games the sky's the limit. Most users with average requirements probably get away with 10-15Gb but you may want to put aside more. Think carefully before you commit the installer to a certain size because you cannot increase or decrease it later without deleting the partition. The installer seems a bit sensitive to some files and applications being installed. When I tried to put Bootcamp on my Macbook I kept getting an error message saying there was a file that couldn't be moved so it couldn't partition the drive and the suggested fix was to reinstall Mac OS X. I didn't want to to do that so I removed my Parallels installation (after having backed up the whole drive, of course) and then it partitioned just fine.

Installing Windows and drivers
Once the disk has been partitioned the installer will ask you for your Windows installation disk. It will check the installation disk to make sure you have the required version. To install Windows XP with Bootcamp you need a version of Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2). Once the installer accepts your Windows CD it will reboot and the installation of Windows will begin. After the installation has finished you should as soon as possible update Windows and all its software to make sure you are as safe as possible. To get certain things like the Airport wifi to work you need to insert the drivers CD you burned earlier and install all the drivers. I've done this many times and on each occasion it's seemed to me that the installer has crashed because nothing's happened for a long time. But each time it has eventually finished the installation, so have a little patience.

Bootcamp or Parallels?
Both approaches has their own benefits and drawbacks. The clear benefit of Bootcamp is that it takes over the whole Mac which enables it to make better use of the resource since there is no Mac OS X running at the same time. This means that if you're into graphics-intensive games, Bootcamp is the way to go. Also other demanding software applications will benefit from running in Bootcamp rather than Parallels. The clear downside is that you have to partition our drive and reboot in order to switch operating system. If you don't have to switch to Windows very often that may not be a big deal. Parallels works very nicely and I use it every day, but it does require at least 2Gb or RAM to run well. Remember you have Mac OS X and Windows running at the same time and they both want memory. With Parallels you don't have to partition your drive and it's easier to recover from problems. A good tip is to make a copy of your Parallels installation once it's set up so you can just copy it back if you face difficulties.

A final word
With Bootcamp Apple has given Mac users options. It's opened up possibilities for many user to argue at work that they can now use a Mac in the corporate environment because they can boot into Windows when they have to but keep running Mac OS X most of the time. Bootcamp works very well for being beta software but do take a backup before you install it. I'm sure Apple has some exciting new things coming up with Bootcamp arriving in Leopard. This is only the beginning folks.

SIDEBAR
Bootcamp is a public beta and available for free as a download from Apple at http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/. Apple has said they will ship Bootcamp as a part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

SIDEBAR
By installing and running Windows on your Mac with Bootcamp you're turning your Mac into a PC. This means that any vulnerability that Windows on a PC is susceptible to, Windows on your Mac is also susceptible to. With all the multitude of spyware, worms, viruses and more that attack Windows and software running in Windows, you should protect yourself. Microsoft provides for free a good anti-spyware software called Defender (http://www.microsoft.com/defender). There are many anti-virus softwares to choose from. My favorite is Nod32 from Eset (http://www.eset.com/). AVG from Grisoft is also a good alternative and there is a free version (http://www.grisoft.com). Remember this also applies to Parallels but with Parallels it's easier to recover from a problem by removing the folder with the Windows installation and starting over.

[Magnus]

Hint: Dashboard widgets on the desktop
by Yasir

You know how Mac OS X slows things down when you hold down the shift key and minimize a window, for example? That also works with Expose. Hold down the shift key while you call up Expose and see it happen in slow motion. It also works with Dashboard. Now the real kicker here is that you can use this to drag a widget onto your desktop. First open the Dashboard and the Dashboard menu at the bottom of the screen. Then while holding down the shift key, drag a widget onto the dashboard while its expanding slowly. Then let go of the shift key (but keep hold of the widget) and close the dashboard and then let go. It even does that splash effect on your desktop.

[Magnus]

How to stop .DS_Store files
by Magnus

You know how you can customize the Finder in Mac OS X where different windows can have different settings, positions for icons, window background, etc? Much of that information is stored in a hidden file called .DS_Store (Desktop Services Store). There can be one such hidden file in each folder on a drive that Mac OS X accesses including network drives. If you access folders on drives that users of other operating systems like Windows also access it may be confusing for them to see these files. The problem is .DS_Store files are hidden to Mac OS X but not to Windows. According to Technote 301711 from Apple, you enter a command in the Terminal to turn this off. The command is "defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores true". Press enter after the command and close the Terminal. You may have to log out for the change to take effect.

[Magnus]

Hint: Eject a disc that is stuck
by Magnus

A DVD didn't want to eject from my Macbook. I right-clicked on the icon on the desktop and chose Eject, no luck. I pressed the eject key on the keyboard, no result. It sounded like it was being ejected but it never was and it kept coming back up on the desktop. I found a suggestion somewhere which said go to the hard drive, then System, Library, Core Services, Menu Extras, and double click on Eject.menu. This puts a small eject icon in the menu bar. Choosing Eject from that menu spit the DVD right out. By the way, if you want to remove the little icon from the menu bar, press the Command key and drag the icon out of the menu bar.

[Magnus]

EmiratesMac.com tips and tricks
by Magnus

We continue our series of tips and tricks for how to do certain things at Emiratesmac.com. The intent is to tell our users about some of the perhaps less well known features and functions on the site in order to make their experience with the site a bit better. This time we focus on one feature, chat. We've had a Flash-based chat system installed for some time but it never really worked that well. Most recently during the Macworld Expo keynote many users were repeatedly kicked off the chat. So I decided to look for a replacement that could at least for now work for us. What I settled for was IRC. IRC is not the latest and greatest technology and it certainly isn't the most stylish of chat solutions but it's tried, tested, and reliable. Some of you may have followed an IRC channel at events like WWDC and Macworld Expo so you know that it can take a lot of users at the same time.

How to connect
You basically have two choices for accessing our chat. In the menu bar on the site there's a link to the Chat. If you click on it a new window will open and after a little while a Java application that connects to our chatroom. The other option is to use a dedicated IRC client software, something like Colloquy.

IRC Channel
The particular IRC server the Java chat client connects you to is a server on the Freenode network. The Freenode network is a network of IRC servers spread all over the world with thousands of chatrooms that can be used for free. We have registered with Freenode as Emiratesmac and we have a channel (chatroom) called #emiratesmac. It is reserved by us but at the moment access is not controlled so anyone can get in there.

Nickname
In IRC every user has a nickname, similar to the username you have on Emiratesmac.com. There is no automatic connection between your username on the site and in IRC, so it's up to you to set up your username in IRC and reserve it so others cannot use it. My suggestion would be to try to protect it as soon as you can. We recommend you use the same nickname in the chat as you do on the site so others will recognize you.

Reserve your nickname
We recommend you reserve your nickname in the chat, meaning that no one else can use the same nickname as you. Even if you reserve a nickname it expires (and anyone else can then reserve it) after 60 days of not being used. When you first connect with Colloquy you have to specify which server you connect to and what your nickname will be. The password you can fill in later. Once you're connected go to the Console and type "/msg nickserv register <your-password>". This will protect your nickname with a password so no one else can use it. You can hide your email address by entering "/msg nickserv set hide email on" but for admins to be able to contact you, you should set your email address with "/msg nickserv set email <your-email-address>".

Other commands
Although you can do most anything you need with the menus and contextual menus in Colloquy, some basic commands may be helpful to know. By entering "/whois <username>" you can see some basic information about a particular user. The command "/away <message>" sets your status to being away from IRC for a while and displays the message you enter. When you come back you type "/away" again. You have access to all the same commands in the Java client.

Time will tell what users think of this new form of chat and how well it works. It should present us with less performance problems than our previous chat did. But it's not as easy to use and it's not integrated with the rest of the site. Even though we're a user group that have meetings in person at least once a month, a chat system could be very useful for us. Everyone is not always able to come to meetings and events and this is one way they could participate albeit in a limited fashion.

SIDEBAR
"Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet chat or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication and data transfers via private message. IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen in late August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser talk) on a BBS called OuluBox in Finland. Oikarinen found inspiration in Bitnet Relay Chat which operated on the Bitnet network. IRC gained prominence when it was used to report on the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 throughout a media blackout. It was previously used in a similar fashion by Kuwaitis during the Iraqi invasion." From WikiPedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat)

SIDEBAR
You can download Colloquy for free from http://colloquy.info/. There are other IRC clients for Mac OS X but my preference has for a long time been Colloquy. It has advanced functionality that can satisfy advanced users and at the same time it's easy to get going for the beginner.

SIDEBAR
Freenode has a FAQ at http://freenode.net/faq.shtml and you can find a list of Freenode servers at http://freenode.net/irc_servers.shtml.

[Magnus]

Review: iWoz
by Magnus

Steve Jobs may be the best known of the co-founders of Apple Computer, and the one credited with saving the company in the late 1990's. But if Jobs is the public face and saviour of Apple, Steve Wozniak is the heart of Apple, and for many the one of the two Steves they feel is more at the core of what Apple actually stands for. Wozniak, or Woz for short, is the engineering mastermind behind much of Apple's early products including the Apple II. If Steve Jobs is the extrovert salesman who puts on a show a few times a year and dazzles the crowds with this "reality distortion field", Steve Wozniak is blissfully without any "distortion field" and comes across as just being himself. Basically the book is divided into three parts. The first deals with Woz's childhood and school-years, the middle part is his work at HP and budding partnership with Jobs, and the last part deals with his work with Apple and thereafter. The first part two parts are exciting and entertaining, telling tales of how Woz learned about electronics from his father, his first constructions and his first encounters with Steve Jobs. It ends with the design of the Apple I and the emergence of Apple Computer. Woz, in this part, talks to the reader with excitement and interest, like he was really having a good time then. And it's probably true that some of the happiest days of his life so far was those early days of exploration and experimentation. He describes with passion the moment he realized that making a computer displaying text and graphics was going to revolutionize the future, and he had built the very fist computer that did that. Unfortunately when it comes to describing the birth of Apple and his work at Apple, Woz seems to almost doze off and just write the very necessary things to get the book to the end. My guess is that he was never that excited about working there, especially after the company grew to a Fortune 500 size. Corporate politics which inevitably sets in as a company grows is something he has little patience for, I'm sure. He spends much time talking about the Apple III which he describes as a hugh failure because it was "designed by committee", for example. This is a bit puzzling since most people would probably read the book to learn more about Apple's history and there's little new that is revealed here. But if you're a true Apple fan you will enjoy it anyway. The book is throughout filled with technical details that the average reader will probably just skip over because they're too advanced. Woz tries his best to describe them in a simple way, and they are probably of interest to the more technically-savvy readers. Also for the more technically interested the early parts of the book contain some revealing stories about the early days of personal computers. In conclusion this is not the best or most enjoyable book about Apple, but it is unique in that it tells Wozniak's side of the story. If nothing else, it's well worth reading just for that fact alone. If you're looking for a great book, iWoz isn't it. If you're looking for a great book about one of the key people in Apple's history, this is it.

SIDEBAR
"So much of the information out there about me is wrong. I've come to hate books about Apple and its history so much because of that. For instance, there are stories that I dropped out of college (I didn't) or that I was thrown out of the University of Colorado (I wasn't), that Steve and I were high school classmates (we were several years apart in school) and that Steve and I engineered those first computers together (I did them alone)." - Woz

SIDEBAR
"I remember I was driving Steve back from the airport along Highway 85. Steve was coming back from a visit to Oregon to a place he called an 'apple orchard'. It was actually some kind of commune. Steve suggested a name - Apple Computer." - Woz

SIDEBAR
"I didn't realize it at the time, but that day, Sunday, June 29, 1975, was pivotal. It was the first time in history anyone had typed a character on a keyboard and seen it show up on the screen right in front of the." -Woz

[Magnus]

Review: Macbook Core 2 Duo
by Magnus

When the Macbook was released last year it became an instant hit with customers. It's been selling like hot cakes, as the expression goes. That seems to have been reinforced after Apple upgraded the Macbook to the Core 2 Duo processor.

Not that much is new
There's really not much to write about in this review. The things that Apple changed in the upgrade is obviously the processor, they put in an 802.11n-ready wifi, bigger hard drives, and you can now get Dual Layer supporting SuperDrives in Macbooks. The improvements seem to have helped the Core 2 Duo Macbooks to be around 20% faster than their predecessors, according to reports, and they sure feels snappier in most applications.

What stayed the same
Well, everything else, really. The new Macbooks have the same gorgeous, 13.3-inch glossy wide screen with 1280x800 pixels, that is sharp and produces brilliant colors. There's still Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, Firewire 400, built-in iSight camera, and Gigabit Ethernet for communications, the trackpad with which you can scroll with two fingers, and optical as well as digital analog audio in and out. What has also stayed are the MagSafe power adaptor and a mini-DVI port for hooking the Macbook up to external projectors or monitors. The Macbook supports monitors up to the 23-inch Cinema Display. Also the differences to the Macbook Pro line of notebooks stay the same. The main one is the graphics card which is still Intel's integrated graphics in the Macbook and a dedicated card in the Pro line. For most users this probably matters little but it's something to be aware of. Also, the Macbooks lack an Expresscard slot, and they only have Firewire 400 (there's Firewire 800 in the Macbook Pros).

Wifi problems
The 802.11n-ready wifi has apparently led to some problems with wifi connections. One really annoying problem we ran into repeatedly was that the Macbook would refuse to connect to several wifi base stations. We had problems with Linksys as well as 3Com and whenever any security was added the Macbook would not connect. We understand many other owners of Core 2 Duo Macbooks also experience problems so this is apparently not uncommon.

Summing up
What can I say? The Core 2 Duo Macbook is a cracking notebook. If you want the smallest notebook that Apple currently makes you don't have much choice: it's the Macbook. But being almost as fast as the Macbook Pros in a smaller package, it's going to appeal to many, and it's great value for money. If you already have a Core Duo Macbook there is little incentive to upgrade. But if you're moving from an older Mac you'll be impressed with the new, speedier Macbook.

SIDEBAR
We tested the 1.83GHz Macbook Core 2 Duo with 2Gb RAM, Combo drive, and 60Gb hard drive. You can find the Macbooks in MacStore in Abu Dhabi and Dubai: The white Macbook 1.83GHz/512/60/Combo sells for 5299Dhs, the white Macbook 2.0GHz/1Gb/80/SuperDrive (DL) sells for 6099Dhs, and the black Macbook 2.0GHz/1Gb/120/SuperDrive (DL) sells for 6999Dhs.