shuffle April 2007 content

[Magnus]

Kaboose.com: a family-oriented web site
by Crystal

Kaboose.com (www.kaboose.com) is a website that the whole family can enjoy. Here you will find help and ideas on just about anything. The children will enjoy the different games (they have a section on computer games for the Mac), crafts, and clip art. Parents will enjoy the message boards, tips on health, recipes, crafts, party ideas, and much more. Moms even have a special section.

Each day Kaboose has something new for children and parents. In the Healthy Kids section you will find loads of information from a healthy home to how handle the cold and flu season. Here you will also find information on fitness for Mothers and children.

Have you ever had a unhappy child that wanted to do something fun, and you had no ideas about what to do? This site has loads of ideas and suggestions. How about making homemade play dough, or any other of the many ideas that they have? Each section has message boards, so if you do not find what you are looking for, you can ask.

Now to the fun stuff - games for the computer, and better yet for your Mac. They have a list of many games and you will find them by age group or by type of game. With this section you and your child can have many hours of fun.

They also have many games that you can play online. One such game is called Planet Pursuit, where they send you to different planets to get a probe. You need to collect five different probes and you have to battle your way to the planet, by blasting the rocks and other things coming your way. Once you are on the planet you have to find your probe and then go through a maze to answer the question for you to be able to retrieve the probe. I had a lot of fun playing the game and I think your 7-10 year-old will enjoy this game as well. You learn a lot about our solar system and other planets. Just an added note, this game played very well in Safari, so it’s a good online game to play on your Mac.

So check out Kaboose and start getting ideas.

[Magnus]

MySQL on Mac Part 2
by Magnus

We're continuing the MySQL series with the steps involved in creating tables and fields. In the first part (see the March issue of shuffle), we looked at logging into a MySQL database server running on a Mac, as well as how to see what databases are available, and how to create a database.

Create and Select Database
You learned this in part one of this series, so I'd like you to go ahead and log in to your MySQL server, and create a new database called "emug", and select it for use.

Tables, Fields and Field types
Each table has a number of fields. Think about a table that should hold information about EMUG members, for example. It should hold information about a member's membership number, their name, their mobile, and their email address. You also need to decide what type of data would be entered into each field. For example, membership number is a number, so only digits. Their name is obviously characters, etc. Finally you need to decide on a primary key. The primary key is a field that makes one record unique from all other records. In our example, membership number is what makes one member unique from all other members, in the database's eyes.

Create Table
Our next step is to create our table, "member", and set what fields goes into the table. When you create a table you also create the fields. You can later add, delete, and edit fields, but it's a good idea to try to get it as correct as possible from the start. We're now going to create a new table called "member", with the fields "membershipnumber", "name", "mobile", and "email" in it.

CREATE TABLE member (membershipnumber INT PRIMARY KEY, name VARCHAR(100), mobile VARCHAR(11), email VARCHAR(50));

This creates a table called member with four fields in it. The "membershipnumber" field can contain just digits ("INT") and it's the primary key. The other fields can contain characters and digits of various lengths ("VARCHAR").

You can now type "SHOW TABLES;" to see that MySQL did indeed create the new table.

Enter Data
So now we have a table, with fields, but we still don't have any data in the table. And the whole idea of a database is to work with data, so how do we get some data into the table? Try this:

INSERT INTO member (membershipnumber, name, mobile, email) VALUES (1, 'Michael Jackson', '050-1231234', 'michael@jackson.com');
INSERT INTO member (membershipnumber, name, mobile, email) VALUES (2, 'John McEnroe', '050-1234321', 'john@mcenroe.com');

This creates two records in the table. Notice how we made the membership numbers different (1 and 2)? That's because the primary key field has to contain a unique number for each record. Entering the same number for both members would not work.

Wrapping Up
That concludes our second part of the three part MySQL series. We covered how to create a table, set what fields should go into the table, and what data should go into each field. We also entered a little bit of data. In the next issue we will see how we can get some data out of a table. Obviously we don't just want to put data into the database, we also want to get data out.

SIDEBAR
MySQL AB recently released the 1.0 version of the GUI (Graphical User Interface) tools (dev.mysql.com/downloads/gui-tools/5.0.html). With them you can administer and work with MySQL databases through a point-and-click interface. We will get back to these tools in a future issue of shuffle.

[Magnus]

Cooking with Apples
by Crystal

This month’s recipe is an easy, but delicious coffee cake. So if you need a special recipe for that morning staff breakfast, or for that special afternoon friend, this is the prefect Apple Coffee Cake recipe. Just on a side note you will use all the batter, so get ready to scrape that bowl. All the sugar you sprinkle on the top will make a perfect crunchy topping. Also bake the coffee cake until the apples starts bubbling around the sides, this way you make sure that are cooked through. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we have, this is a keeper. This recipe serves 6 and it comes from Simply Recipes (www.simplyrecipes.com).

Apple Coffee Cake

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5 1/2 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup whole milk
1 medium Cortland or other baking apple, peeled and sliced

Instructions
1. Set the oven to 170C. Grease a square baking dish (around 20x20cm) with or pie pan a 4-cup capacity.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. In a bowl, combine 1/2 a cup of the sugar with the cinnamon, set aside.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter with the remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Beat in the egg until blended. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk, beating until just combined.
5. Spread half the batter in the baking dish. Lay the apple slices on the batter so they just cover the batter (you may have to overlap some slices). Sprinkle the apples with half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Spread the rest of the batter over the apples. Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar on top.
6. Bake the cake for 25 minutes or until it is golden brown and apples start to bubble at the edges.

[Magnus]

Review: Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture
by Magnus

The Aperture title by Orlando Luna and Ben Long is a part of Peachpit’s Apple Pro Training Series. We’ve come to expect a lot from titles in this series and once again it doesn’t let us down. This title is about 500 pages and full of step by step instructions on how to operate Aperture.

It has easy to follow directions with plenty of screenshots and sample photographs to help you see what’s going on. This is a book you sit down with at the computer and work with step by step, it’s not so much of a reference book that you can come back to later. There is also a a DVD with all the exercise files on it, so you won’t have to recreate everything from scratch just to follow the instructions.

The Apple Pro Training Series of books are meant to take you to a level where you can take an Apple Certification Exam. As far as I know there are still no Certification for Aperture so from that point of view this book is a bit misplaced, but that’s not something we can blame the authors or PeachPit for, I think.

The book seem to cover all the basics but it also goes into more depth, for example there is a section on how to automate Aperture with Automator. I think if you’ve used Aperture quite a bit you probably won’t benefit much from this title. However, if you’re just getting started with Aperture, this is a good choice for you.

Apple Pro Training Series: Aperture sell in the US for around $40 and you can find it at http://www.peachpit.com/bookstore/pr...sbn=0321422767. PeachPit provided the copy of the book for this review. We will raffle off the book at a future EMUG meeting so make sure you attend.

[Magnus]

Review: Belkin TuneTalk for iPod
by Magnus

Apple’s iPod is a device for listening to music and other types of digital audio, that much is clear. But pretty much since it was first launched many iPod owners have wanted to get digital audio into the audio, not just out of it. Unfortunately for them, Apple severely limited the recording functions in earlier iPods to 8KHz mono, making it almost useless as a mobile recording device. With the recent models of iPods that has changed and they are now much more capable. Now you can record in CD-quality at 44.1KHz, 16-bit and stereo, making possible for really high-quality mobile recordings. What’s needed though is a microphone and that’s where the Belkin TuneTalk for the iPod video comes in.

Link to iTunes
You attach the TuneTalk to the bottom of the iPod. It snaps in to the dock connection. On the TuneTalk is a Record button and pressing it launches the Voice Memo function on the iPod. It’s built into all 5th generation iPods and you don’t even need to install any drivers or other software. When recording the iPod will display a timer telling you how long you’ve been recording. After recording, when you connect the iPod to your Mac with iTunes, iTunes can transfer your voice memos to the Mac. From there you can convert them into MP3 or AAC format to save space or edit them with some application.

Mics
The internal omnidirectional microphones, although there are two of them, seem to have limited stereo functionality. That’s not surprising since they sit very close together. They do record true stereo though, but when listening closely to the recording they pick up pretty much the same sound, due to their close proximity. Also they seem to pick up the iPods hard drive noise at times. You can however connect an external microphone via the 3.5mm stereo connection. If you’re concerned with getting the best possible quality recording, you will do well with spending some money on an external microphone.

Automatic gain
On the bottom of the TuneTalk is an Autogain switch. You can set it to on and the TuneTalk will then automatically control the gain (audio level) of the recording, or you can set it to off and it will record exactly what it “hears” without making adjustments. It seems to be a bit of a hit and miss game whether you set Autogain to on or not. You have to experiment a bit since some situations call for it to be on, while in others the recording sounds better with Autogain off.

Limited recording formats
The main drawback with the TuneTalk that I can find is that it limits recording to WAV format. WAV is lossless, meaning it’s not compressed, so the full quality of the recording is intact, but the file size is also very large. Somewhere in the region of 10MB per minute of recording is needed. It would be nice to be able to pick some compressed formats for recording, including MP3.

Conclusion
The TuneTalk is a small but impressive product. Somewhat limited recording formats and extra drain on the iPods battery are among the drawbacks. It has excellent recording quality, especially with an external mic, and it’s easy to operate. The integration with iTunes makes it a delight to use, and I highly recommend the TuneTalk to anyone who needs to record audio with their iPod video. The TuneTalk sells for $70.

[Magnus]

Review: The Cult of Mac
by Magnus

Not so long ago I asked on the site whether we Apple users could be considered a cult (http://www.emiratesmac.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=2229). And I should really say Mac users because that’s what it is all about. There may be people obsessed with iPods but as a whole, Apple culture is about the Mac. Leander Kahney, in this book, goes through all facets of Apple and Mac culture, covering the whole scale from users that think Macs are just simply better computers, to the obsessive fans, and everything in between. This is a funny book to read, and at times you can’t help but go “do people really do that?” at something you read, even if you’re the most dedicated Apple fan. It seems no matter how much you’re into Apple, there’s always someone else who is even more so. Take the examples of tattoos and haircuts in various Apple themes. Kahney has dedicated an entire chapter to this particular issue. The Cult of Mac is a book that any self-respecting Apple fan should have in their collection. It’s more about entertaining the the already convicted than trying to explain to those who don’t already believe.

SIDEBAR
The Cult of Mac sells in the US for around $30. Leander Kahney keeps a blog with the same name as his book (www.cultofmac.com). He has also published The Cult of iPod.

QUOTE
“To Mac users, Apple represents everything that Microsoft isn’t. Apple innovates; Microsoft copies. Apple puts out solid products; Microsoft puts out buggy ones. Apple represents creativity and individuality; Microsoft represents business and conformity. Apple is the scrappy underdog; Microsoft is the big, predatory monopoly.”

[Magnus]

Review: DevonThink Pro Office
by Magnus

In the December 2006 issue of shuffle we reviewed DevonThink Pro and Devon Agent. Now we’re taking a look at the Office version. Since the Office version has everything in the Pro version with some added functionality, we’ll focus on what’s special in the Office version.

Database manager
Whether Office or Pro version, DevonThink is at its heart a database manager in which you can stick all your documents to make them searchable and retrievable for later use. What the Office version adds is (http://www.devon-technologies.com/pr...parison.html): Email archive, Scanner including Fujitsu ScanSnap support, Optical character recognition, and Web sharing. The Office version a whopper of a download weighing in at 88MB. Once installed you can open databases created with the Pro version, it’s totally compatible across versions. The Email archive feature is helpful if you have a lot of email and you want the emails collected with the rest of your data in one place. DevonThink Pro Office can import email from most common email programs. Scanner and OCR support are necessities if you’re going to use this software to create the paperless office. Is it a utopian dream or actually possible? You decide. Perhaps with DevonThink Pro Office it’s at least a bit more feasible.

Web sharing
The feature that definitely interested me the most was the web sharing. In effect it turns in DevonThink Pro Office running on one Mac into a server, which shares its database across a network. A few clicks and the server is running. From Safari you will see the DevonThink Pro Office servers running on your network under Bonjour. Double click, give username and password, and you’re connected. After that it works like your own localized Google search engine. You type in what you’re looking for, it searches through the database and displays what it finds. In the browser you can click on a hit to download a file and it will download, just like it does on the web.

Limitations
The main limitation I see is with the web sharing. I would prefer it if I could open a remote database with DevonThink Pro Office, and not just search through it with a web interface. The web search is a nice feature but only goes so far to making this into a multi-user system, which is where I think the real power would lie. Imagine you’re an office of ten people. You constantly share documents, search for documents, create documents, etc. Sure a shared folder will do some of that, but it’s limited. That’s what I would like to see DevonThink Pro Office be. As of now it doesn’t seem to reach that far in functionality.

Conclusion
DevonThink Pro Office is hard application to classify. If you need to keep track of lots of information in one place, search through it and retrieve documents, it’s a good choice. And if you then need to make that information available to others on your network, the web sharing comes in very handy. OCR and scanner support are convenient if you intend to scan documents a lot. Whether all this is worth $150 is a different issue, and probably depends on how committed you are to really using the software.

SIDEBAR
You can find DevonThink Pro Office at http://www.devon-technologies.com/pr...ink/index.html. It sells for $150 and you can download and purchase it from their site. The copy for this review was provided by Devon Technologies.

BOX
Devon Database is a package
As an interesting tidbit, DevonThink databases are really Mac OS X packages. You can see inside the package by right clicking on it and selecting “Show package content”. In there is a folder “Files” and inside it are all the files in the database. I guess this means you could copy files from the database, but I don’t think it means you can copy files into the database this way.

[Magnus]

Review: iBank
by Magnus

For anyone wanting to organize their personal finances with their Mac, the main choice has been Quicken (quicken.intuit.com). Recently some other choices have appeared, including iBank from Igg Software.

Your financial manager
IBank is designed to manage your bank accounts and credit cards, your retirement investment and your loans, analyze your income as well as expenses. You can see how you’re doing financially in charts, reports, and use the knowledge to better plan you future. That’s the far-reaching implication of using something like iBank but it has important effects in your everyday life too. It can print checks, integrate with iCal to schedule payments, and backup your financial data to a .Mac account.

A true Mac app
It’s clear from when you first start iBank that it’s a true Mac app. What that means is hard to define but you generally know it when you see it. Setting up financial accounts is a breeze with the setup assistant, and in a matter of minutes you’re ready to start sorting out your finances. The key to be successful with something like iBank is to categorize your income and expenditures. Whenever you enter a receipt, it should be categorized; whenever you’re paid something, it should likewise be categorized. Fortunately, this everyday activity is something iBank shines at making simple.

No connection to banks
One of the main attractions of using a personal finance software is to be able to connect it to your bank's system to download statements, and other financial information. That makes it easier to keep the information on your computer synchronized with your bank's information. Whether that functionality is at all offered by any UAE bank, I don't know. I do know that iBank does currently not offer this functionality, which is arguably its chief drawback.

Smart import
You can however import financial data in QIF format (Quicken Interchange Format), so if you can export the details from your bank's web site, then you can get it into iBank. In that import process, iBank's Smart Import Rules, can help a lot. Think Smart Playlists in iTunes and you get the idea. You match up the fields and transaction details and categories can be automatically assigned, something that saves a lot of time. It means during import, recurring transactions become a little more automated.

Information is knowledge
What you get out of iBank is obviously of great importance. You can create charts that show all kinds of information. This is where I feel iBank is lacking something. A chart wizard would help users in the beginning, for example.

Conclusion
For the price, iBank is a bargain. That is if you use it regularly and do the input well. Software like this can only help you along the way, not do all the work for you. If you want to get your finances in order, give iBank a try.

SIDEBAR
You can download iBank from www.iggsoftware.com/ibank. It’s free to try, if you want to keep using it it’s $39.99. Igg Software provided a license of iBank for this review. We have raffled off that license at a previous EMUG meeting.

[Magnus]

Review: iPod video 5.5G and iPod shuffle 2G
by Magnus

In September 2006, Apple announced the 2G iPod shuffle as well as the updated 5G iPod video, which some refer to as the 5.5G. Someone have called it the sixth generation although most people see to hold off on that label for the “true”, fullscreen, video iPod. With this we complete the look at Apple’s latest lineup of iPods. For a review of the iPod nano 2G, check out the February 2007 issue of shuffle.

iPod video 5.5G
To sum up the updated iPod video, you get more for less. More storage, more battery life, more functionality, all for less money. First, let’s deal with battery life. Apple claims the new iPods play music up to 20 hours and video up to 6.5 hours. Although we cannot confirm those claims, during our use of the iPod video it seems to be about right. Battery life seem to have increased considerably from the previous versions, and you should now be able to enjoy several movies during a long-haul flight without running out of battery. While improving battery life it seems Apple have also made the iPod’s screen brighter, by up to 60 percent according to Apple. It’s noticeably brighter which makes movies much more enjoyable to watch. Perhaps the most obvious difference with the updated iPod is that the top model now has an 80GB hard drive up from the previous 60GB. This obviously means more music, more video, and more data. Concerning software news, for the real music fans gapless playback must be the most important new feature. Longer dance mixes can be broken up in individual song-files and classical pieces can be enjoyed without annoying gaps of silence. Apple also enhanced other parts of the iPod’s software. You can search for tunes through the same interface we covered in our previous iPod nano review. If you have a lot of media on your iPod that can certainly help, although personally I don’t find it very useful. With the 5.5G iPod video Apple introduced some enhanced games. The games can also be played on the 5G iPod. This is good since games is probably going to become an increasingly important aspect of the future iPod models. So while we wait for the 6G “true” iPod video with touch-scren a la the iPhone, if you want maximum storage space, watch video, and play games, the 5.5G iPod video is the device for you.

iPod shuffle 2nd generation
Screenless, just like its predecessor, this MP3 player is minute. I guess you could say it’s the size of a thumbnail but you’d have to have pretty big hands for that to be true. So it’s bigger than a thumbnail but it’s still small enough to be worn almost anywhere and still not be noticed because of weight or size. Steve Jobs said it was the smallest MP3 player in the world. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s certainly possible. So the shuffle is of a much smaller size but what else is new? Not much actually. It now comes only in a 1GB version and I guess it makes little sense to manufacture a 512MB version anymore. Battery life according to Apple is 12 hours on a single charge and I would say that’s probably true and you may even get more out of it. The control for locking the shuffle has shrunk in line with the whole device, and is now harder to get to if you have the device somewhere like in a pocket. Apple has also made it harder to see what the shuffle is doing since they put all the indications in one light and it’s really tiny making it hard to see sometimes. In January 2007 Apple updated the shuffle again and it now comes in five colors. Everything else stayed the same however. One thing I find a bit disappointing, is that it no longer has a regular USB port. You have to connect it to the docking station, which in turn connects to your Mac. I carry around a 1st generation shuffle at work and I can stick it into any computer and it doubles very conveniently as a USB flash drive to store files on. But I guess Apple didn’t consider that a very likely use of the new shuffle. Another thing that may disappoint some music lovers is that the shuffle does not support Apple lossless audio format, a format that is popular among those who want only the best quality audio. The main selling point of the shuffle is clearly the small size and low price. It’s the perfect compliment to other iPods, because you can take it anywhere and you don’t have to worry about screen scratches like on other models. Everyone should have a shuffle, I think.

BOX
The iPod shuffle sell at MacStores for AED399, the iPod 30GB for AED1099, and the iPod 80GB for AED1499. Apple IMC ME provided the iPods for this review.

[Magnus]

Review: BoomWave iPod nano skins
by Magnus

Your iPod may be one of your more valuable possessions, so it makes sense you want to protect it, right? The iPod has also become a fashion accessory, and protecting it with a case or a skin may be as much about making a statement as it is about actual protection. And what a statement BoomWave's skins for iPod nano makes. They are quite possibly the cutest skins available. The two skins we tested were both red but one looks like a devil, and one looks like an angel. Both skins have very excellent details with the angel having little wings and the devil a little tail. They're made out of silicon rubber, which has a very smooth surface. In spite of the smooth case, it's a little tricky getting the nano into the skin, but with some patience it works. You won't be wanting to take your nano out of the skin and put it back very often though. The skins come with a little metal dog tag with what I presume is a unique serial number on it, as well as a lanyard, a screen protector, and a cute collector's card with information about the character your particular skin is. For example, the angel is called "Flamebear" and its tag-line is "Am I hot, or am I HOT?". The only really negative thing I have to say about these skins is that their particular style is not going to suit everyone. If you want a skin that doesn't draw attention, this is not for you. The BoomWave iPod skins are distributed in the UAE by 4th Dimension in Dubai and you can find them in select stores around the UAE, including Jumbo and CompuME. They retail for Dh55. You can find more information about these cases at www.theboomwave.com. 4th Dimension provided the BoomWave skins for this review. We'll raffle off BoomWave skins at future EMUG meetings so make sure you attend.