shuffle May 2007 content

[Magnus]

A word from the editor
Have you had an Apple moment?
by Magnus

Have you ever had an Apple moment? I mean one of those situations when you just go “I’m so thankful for being a Apple user”. It may be because your Mac helped you accomplish something really complicated in an easy way, or because you managed to impress your boss with a nice looking document that you created. It may even be when your Windows-using friend of colleague complains over more viruses, worms and spyware. But this is not about gloating and feeling superior. It’s about feeling good about your chosen computer platform and what it can do for you. Just the other day had a real Apple-experience. I was giving a really important presentation the next day and I had a script of a couple of minutes to rehearse and memorize. I wrote my script in Pages, and polished until I was happy with it. Then I recorded myself reading it as a podcast in Garageband. From Garageband I sent it to iTunes, and finally, from iTunes I put it on an iPod shuffle as the only track on there. Then I spent an evening and most part of the night listening to my recording over and over again with the shuffle. The next day I nailed that presentation - thank you Apple!

[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.

Searching the site
If you have a question or a problem, chances are it's been discussed or even answered before. That's when the search comes in. And you have several options for how to search the site. The easiest thing to do is click on Search and type in what you’re searching for. If you want more options go to the Search page. There you can decide to search only certain sections of the site, posts between certain dates, posts by a certain user, etc. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what is actually already available on the site, if you do a little search. Something else to remember is you can always use Google to search EmiratesMac.com. Just type in what you want to search for at Google's site, followed by “site:emiratesmac.com”. That way you search through Google's index of the site. If you frequently do the same type of searches you can save your settings by clicking “Go” next to “Save Search Preferences” at the bottom of the search page.

Low-bandwidth version
If you access the site with a PDA or mobile phone, or some other type of device with a slow connection and perhaps a small screen, the main version of the site is going to be slow and the format unsuitable. The solution is to try the archive version of the site (www.emiratesmac.com/forums/archive). The archive is really a text-only version of the site and you can browse the forums and read the posts without any graphics, which speeds it up considerably.

Order of posts
When you view a thread, the default is to show the first post first. Makes sense, right? Most of the time you really want to see the most recent post first. Go to your User CP and click Edit Options. Find the section that says Thread Display Mode and change it to Linear - Newest First.

[Magnus]

Adobe Tutorial: Car Branding
by Zaid

If you’d like to groom your car in any photo from your image collection, you should create a visual on the computer first before spending heaps on printed sticky vinyl. Actually it is rather nice to try wrap any photos on your airplane picture, car, Burj Al-Arab perhaps just for the sake of experimenting. We shall use a Photoshop filter called Displace that needs some preparations such as a source grey and blurred image before applying it on our destination image. Also the filter need an exaggerated highlight and shadowy areas for distortion while neutral grey will not distort.

STEP ONE: Open beetle.psd document (http://www.emiratesmac.com/newslette...07/beetle.psd). From Image menu, choose Duplicate to duplicate current image. Convert new copied image into Grey color mode, Image > Mode > Grayscale then click on Discard button when prompted.

STEP TWO: From Image menu choose Adjustments > Levels, drag Highlight, Shadow, and midtone slider inward to exaggerate details or enter amount numbers as shown in the figure.

STEP THREE: Apply some blur, under Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, apply 2 pixels blur. then save the image under the name “Source Beetle” and make sure the Format is Photoshop, then close this blurry image.

STEP FOUR: Display back our original document Grey_Beetle, then open flowers.psd (http://www.emiratesmac.com/newslette...7/flowers.psd), use the move tool to drag flowers layer into the Beetle document while holding the Shift key as this will insure the flowers image is centered over the car, if it didn’t work, just visually move the flowers layer to cover the car completely.

STEP FIVE: Highlight the Flowers layer by clicking on it once, then from Filter menu, choose Distort > Displace. Change Horizontal and Vertical Scaling to 5, select Wrap Around under Undefined Areas within Displace filter dialogue window then click OK to prompt the Open window, locate the blurry image we named “Source Beetle” and hit Open button. You should see the flowers image has distortions already.

STEP SIX: Make sure the Flowers layer is targeted, choose Overlay from the Blending drop down list in the Layers Palette, and reduce opacity to 60%. You are able to see now how the flowers are following the contour lines of the Beetle.

STEP SEVEN: Duplicate Flowers layer by dragging it to the New Layer button at the bottom of the Layers Palette or from the Layer Menu select Duplicate Layer. Apply Hard Light from the blending modes list, and adjust opacity of this copied Flowers layer to be 85%.

STEP EIGHT: In order to clean up unwanted flowers from the windows, lights and tyers, I have saved a selection for you to use. Target each of the Flowers layers individually, and from the menu Select > Load Selection, and choose Channel: Beetle, then click OK. Once you see moving dots that looks like marching ants hit the backspace/delete button on your keyboard. Don’t forget to repeat this step for both Flowers layers. If you didn’t like the result because of too much distortion, you could always repeat Apply the Displace filter and play with the amount in each Horizontal and Vertical boxes.

[Magnus]

Apple & the iPod - Changing the Odds by Investing to Win
complied by Rockin Babe

Growing business depends on new projects - creating new products, entering new markets, finding new customers, and acquiring new operations. Likewise, improving business depends on major new projects, such as upgrading IT system, simplifying manufacturing processes, and streamlining supply chain. At the moment of launching any project, there’s a problem that most of us don’t come to grips with: the inherent, all-too-human tendency to be over-optimistic about the odds of success.

Steve Jobs is technological visionary. But a visionary perspective, even supported by immense charm and salesmanship, isn’t enough for commercially successful innovation. You also need subtle system for translating visionary ideas into products people want, concrete applications they will buy and business designs they will support. It is Jobs’ unique ability to put all these elements together that has made him today’s most interesting high-tech project manager. It’s also made him, almost as an afterthought, the savior of the music industry, with the success of the iPod. And may yet make him the savior of the movie business with launch of Apple TV. Ironically, the creation of the iPod from a missing feature in Apple’s successful iMac computer- the lack of a CD burner. During 2000, Jobs had been so focused on the iMac’s new operating system that (as he has since admitted) he didn’t see, or didn’t stop long enough to concentrate on, the meaning of a digitally based trend that was exploding all around him, namely, the CD-ripping, file-downloading, and peer-to-peer-sharing transformation of the music business into a user-controlled, digitally based activity. It’s ironic given the fact that Jobs, like most plugged-in kids who came of age in the 60s and the 70s, was a pop music nut.

But by 2000 the pop music scene had drifted off Job’s radar. So much so that he didn’t think to include a CD burner when designing the iMac, an omission that looked worse and worse as the months went by and the digital music revolution gathered force. Eventually, something clicked. Jobs ordered the iMac hardware designers to incorporate CD burners as standard equipment in all future iMacs. But he also started asking an intriguing set of questions. Apple’s specialty had always been taking activities that other computers make possible making them dramatically easier, more intuitive, more creative, more fun. How could Apple do that with music? Most important, how could it be done in a way to create the big new business that Apple needed as a follow-up to the success of iMac? If this was to work, the product would have to be brilliant, embodying all of the stylistic flair and ease of use for which Jobs-inspired designs had long been noted. But the business design would be equally brilliant, finding ways to capture value that some of the biggest and smarted companies in the world had somehow overlooked. And it would all have to be done fast, since Jobs, creative as he is, knew that the high-tech world boasts many other creative thinkers whose footsteps he could hear close behind. (Jobs was competing in advance against the likes of Sony, Samsung and Panasonic.)

If Apple were to create a profitable system for making digital online music easy and fun, the first step would be to create jukebox software for storing, managing, sorting and editing music files. Apple’s programmers were more than up to the challenge. But Jobs was in a hurry. With every passing week, the odds of success were getting a little worse. Could he buy the expertise Apple needed rather than creating it from scratch? As it happened, he could. Jeff Robin, a recently departed employee of Apple, was working on a jukebox product named SoundJam. It wasn’t ready for market, but Robbin had left behind a good reputation at Apple. So Jobs bought Robbin’s company and asked him to transform SoundJam into a program with Apple-level stylishness and ease of use. Within four months, Robin had prototype of something the company decided to call iTunes. It was a building block. Jobs, trying to think two steps ahead, was already planning the other blocks he’d need to make his vision work.

Like every teenager of the 70’s, Steve Jobs remembered the Walkman. It had made high-quality audio stylish, comfortably portable, instantly rendering the old transistor radio obsolete and selling over 300 million units for Sony. Why not create a Walkman for the new century? A portable music player that could hold and transport all your digital music? And do it as only Apple could, with sophisticated style and ease of use.

The iPod effort began in April, 2001. Out of the starting gate, the odds for the iPod were no better than, say, 10%. Too low? If we travel back in time to 2001. Apple wasn’t really the right company; Sony was, or Panasonic, or Samsung. The cost of creating the device was going to be high. As for the network software to sell and manage the music (the iTunes project that had started this whole thing rolling), the music industry was developing competing alternatives including PressPlay and MusicNet. And the market for paid music downloads didn’t necessarily exist and might never exist; after all, the consumer had an alternative called Napster that offered a fairly attractive price- free.

The project had just one obvious thing going for it. Apple was cool company and iPod was potentially a very cool product. So Jobs set about changing the odds. The first step was setting an outrageous schedule, much as Toyota had done with the Prius. Normal, reasonable development time for this kind of consumer-electronic project might be a year and a half. Maybe a little more. Jobs decided that the project would have to be done in nine months. Why drive your people to extremes by setting a ridiculous deadline? There were two factors, one external and one internal.

The external factor: iPod was not exactly an obscure concept (everybody else remembered the Walkman and the Discman too.) You could probably name at least four great global companies, starting with Sony, that could make and market one. If just one of them showed up in the market ahead of you, they could spoil your party. If two or there of them showed up, there'd be no party. But the bigger reason for Job’s ultra-rapid scheduled was internal. One of the most precious commodities in the world is undivided attention. Set a reasonable 18-month timetable, and it’s hard to get people’s undivided attention. Set a nine-month timetable, and everybody get very focused.

It had worked at Toyota and now it worked at Apple. People talked to each other all the time. They tested different angles, different ideas. The rejects-pile grew larger. It was the same excess options strategy that Toyota had used: Overinvest in the right projects and let others die. As the rejects pile grows larger, so did the chances of finding the right solution, and the project chance of success increased. Undivided attention also got a partner, which is midnight oil. People who work at Apple cancel a lot of dinner reservations. Reluctantly, perhaps, but they do it. Winners attract energy. People vote with their attention and participation. So with the crazy schedule focusing everybody’s minds, iPod grew from a handful of people (Jobs and a couple of others) to a dozen, to a couple of dozen, to 50, which is a lot of people at a company the size of Apple. What followed was a pretty big conversation. Jobs doesn’t believe in serial development (Step A, handoff to Step B, handoff to Step C, etc.). Jobs prefers parallelism, or rather, synchrony. We have to talk to each other all the time, from hardware people to software people to design people to marketing people to manufacturing people.

Over in Nagoya, Toyota had done the same thing a few years earlier, when they created Obeya, the big room where all the players- engine people, transmission people, battery people, styling people, electronic people, etc.- could talk to each other, as well as their e-mail network to promote equal access to information. In Palo Alto, it looked a little different (“endless meetings everywhere”), but it worked in the same way: “playing together, every step of the way.” Now, playing together is not paradise. Independently thinking people have been known to disagree, often with intensity. There has to be a referee (Steve volunteered), a timekeeper (Steve as well), and a lead debater (Steve again). This psychic cost of running such a conversation far exceeds the dollars poured into the project. And it is far more powerful in raising the odds. In fact, the big dollars without the big psychic cost of the conversation will fail, guaranteed. But when you combine the financial investment with the emotional investment, you improve the odds of project success enormously.

Most project managers in the world do spend the dollars. But they don’t drive the conversation with the enemy, intensity, and intelligence of Steve Jobs. The high rate of project failure should be no surprise. Apple kept looking for ways to improve the odds. The team cast a wide net in searching for the right software and components, they refused to cut financial corners, they focused intensively on the user design, and they made deal with partners to secure a time advantage over potential rivals. Apple soon learned that Toshiba was working on a tiny, 1.8-inch disk drive that could hold thousands of songs. Exactly what the iPod needed, but it was so expensive that other companies had balked. Jobs said, “Go for it,” and Apple cut an exclusive deal for the drives. And added a couple of points to the still-daunting odds of success, maybe to 16%.

(Again, we can watch the scoreboard change as Apple makes its moves.)

Next, Apple discovered that a little company called PortalPlayer had created technology that could serve as the guts of the iPod. Apple licensed the technology, and shaved a couple more months off the schedule. 18%

Meanwhile, Apple’s engineers spent their time on the things they knew best- how to design an intuitive user interface and a beautiful package that would delight customers. Their motto: Think big, but simplify. Apple understood the technical challenges and the likely consumer demand well enough to know what the iPod needed to do and how to make it not just attractive but irresistible. Jeff Robin recalls: “I remember sitting with Steve and some other people night after night from nine until one, working out the user interface for the first iPod. It evolved by trial and error into something a little simpler every day. We knew we had reached the end when we looked at each other and said, Well, of course. Why would we not to do it ay other way?”

The sleek design and simple-to-use interface of iPod further increased the odds. 25%

The outpouring of favorable publicity that resulted when the iPod was launched in October, 2001 also helped. It provided unpaid advertising worth more than all the 30-second TV spots in the world. 30%

Even with software and hardware that worked and beautiful product design, iPod was still far from a guaranteed success. The market was still untested, the gadget was expensive, and rival companies squabbling with one another over control of their music libraries. There was still plenty of reason to believe that iPod could end up alongside the Apple Newton in the annals of project risk.

If the starting-gate odds in 2000 were 10%, how high were they at the end of 2001? For Steve Jobs ad his team, it was all just beginning. Let’s take a moment to reflect on the story of the iPod so far. What moves did Apple make to change the odds? Here are a few to consider:
- Work fast to pre-empt the competition.
- Capture your people's undivided attention.
- Have everybody talking to everybody.
- Buy or license technology rather than making it from scratch.
- Focus on the one thing you do best (interface design).
- Design and redesign until perfection feels inevitable.
- Make the first release so cool that the world has to notice.

How many of these types of moves can a company use in their new-product launch? To be continued in next issue.

Source: Mercer Management Consulting

[Magnus]

What is Bonjour?
by Magnus

Bonjour is Apple’s name for something called Zeroconf, short for Zero Configuration. It’s what’s referred to as a service discovery protocol and it’s widely used in Mac OS X and applications running in Mac OS X. Zeroconf technoloy is used by devices and software to enable them to automatically discover one another on a local network. This enables users to set up and configure networks and services without having to first set up servers.

Among the most common uses is for computers and printers to find one another and for computers to establish file sharing between one another. It is also used by common applications like iTunes to shared music, iPhoto to shared photos, iChat to chat, and more. Also, Safari uses Bonjour to see if there are any web servers on the local network. If we put it in simple terms, Bonjour makes it possible for computers and other devices connected to a network, to be automatically configured for that network, “see” each other, and connect and communicate. With traditional networking technology, a knowledgeable user had to configure the connection, set up special servers, like DHCP and DNS, or set up each computer’s network settings by hand, which is a tedious task. With Bonjour that’s not necessary because it automatically create a usable IP network without configuration or special servers. This allows non-expert users to connect computers, networked printers, and other items together and they should work automatically. This is a very Apple-like technology, making something complicated totally transparent to users. And really all Bonjour does is announce to the local network what devices and services are available, it doesn’t add any new services to your Mac, for example. Whatever networking services that are already enabled are with Bonjour more easily found by other devices and users. Something Bonjour doesn’t do is announce your Mac to the internet. Bonjour’s original nameback in 2002 was “Rendezvous”. In 2003 a company sued Apple for trademark infringement which led to a settlement in 2004 and in 2005 the new name was announcement. Another thing that’s really good is that Bonjour works on other operating systems than Mac OS X. Apple made the source code of the core components of Bonjour available as open source. From that users can build the required software to “speak” Bonjour for a wide range of platforms, including Mac OS 9, Linux, BSD, and Windows. In fact, Apple provides a user-installable set of services called Bonjour for Windows. You can read more about Bonjour on Apple’s web site (Apple - Mac OS X - Bonjour) where you can also download the Bonjour client for Windows (http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...rwindows.html).

[Magnus]

Smorgasdashbord
by Yasir

DashQuit
Is your Dashboard clogging up your RAM? Don’t you find it annoying just going around closing all your widgets? Well we hope this will solve it. It’s a small widget that has one command: Quit (your Dashboard). It also has a small place where it shows you a percentage of how much your Dashboard is using from your RAM. Simple and useful.
Ranking: 4.5
Link: DashQuit - Dashboard - Status

I Love Lamp
It’s something to brighten up a dull looking Dashboard & spruce it up with the sweet scent of the 60’s. It comes in a few colours (my favorite is retro white) and all you change is the skin and the lava changes colours every few seconds. Ah, the sweet view of a virtual lava lamp.
Ranking: 3
Link: I Love Lamp - Dashboard - Just For Fun

Daily Comics
Finally- 236 comics in one!
People can now get rid of those old single-comic-widgets. This one has a very nice interface and a smooth way in resizing its window. The smallest problem is it’s too big. It takes up a quarter of my 17-inch screen. Well we can’t really blame them for making the comics so big can we now?
Ranking: 4
Link: Daily Comics - Dashboard - Just For Fun

Easy Currency
Now I wouldn’t be putting a currency converter here unless if it had the up-to-date price of the UAE Dirham, which it does. It’s pretty clear what goes where and it has 60 different currencies including those of Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Although it lacks the style and the good looks of Mac OS X makes me close it after use rather than ruining the good view of the dashboard.
Ranking: 3
Link: Easy Currency - Dashboard - Calculate & Convert



Dash Sign
It’s not that useful nor does it stand out. Basically it’s a sign stuck on the background of your dashboard, it has different colors and you can change the font. But all I see is a sticky rotated 45 degrees... honestly, stay away from this one.
Ranking: 2.5
Link: Dash Sign - Dashboard - Business

[Magnus]

Review: Remote Buddy
by Magnus

Do you have a Mac with an Apple Remote? If so, what do you use that remote for? Chances are all you do is control Front Row with it. But it can do so much more, which is where Remote Buddy comes in. Recently I had to give some presentations, using KeyNote of course, and I wanted to be able to walk around a bit, without having to go back to the MacBook to change slides. I downloaded Remote Buddy, installed it, and bada-bing, bada-boom, I was controlling KeyNote with the Apple Remote. One really cool feature of Remote Buddy is the Behavior Construction Kit. A Behavior is really what should happen in a certain application when you press something on the remote. Most common applications already have behaviors set up but you can always make your own. And Remote Buddy is smart enough to pick the appropriate behavior for whatever application is running so you won’t have to manually switch. Remote Buddy actually supports a number of remote controls besides the Apple Remote, including a line of KeySpan remotes, some mobile phones, and even the Nintendo Wii remote. If you want to control your Mac remotely with an Apple Remote or other remote control, an investment in Remote Buddy is a must. It's easy and straight forward to set up, and you can make it work with pretty much any application.

Price $13
From IOSpirit Gmbh.
Distributor IOSpirit Gmbh.
Web Home // IOSPIRIT - fueling creative minds worldwide ..

[Magnus]

Review: OmniGraffle
by Magnus

OmniGraffle is one of those apps that I just can’t see myself being without. I use it for all kinds of things, from drawing wireframes and mockups of web site designs, presentations, seating arrangements for events, to posters and banners. It’s a swiss army-knife type of application that can do almost anything you would want it to do. So what’s so great about OmniGraffle? Without showing you at the same time, it’s hard to explain. It just makes it so easy to create amazing looking documents. You will find the most common drawing tools, layers, master canvases, and libraries of stencils. OmniGraffle has the same type of floating palettes for tools and settings that you’ve come accustomed to from other applications. This means pretty much everything you need is quickly and easily available. You will also find the sort of live guides you’ve seen in KeyNote, showing you how an object aligns and compares to others. The live guides in OmniGraffle are more helpful though, Apple could really learn something here. One thing I use a lot is the features with layers and master canvases. Each page you create can be based on a master canvas. So by changing a master canvas page you can quickly change all pages that are based on it. You can also organize pages into layers, and hide and lock layers as you work on your creation. You can get OmniGraffle in a standard and a professional version. Whether the extra money is worth it depends on your particular circumstances. To me, just the Visio import and export makes it well worth it. If you need an all-purpose drawing application, I don’t think you will be disappointed with OmniGraffle.

Price $79.95/$149.95
From OmniGroup
Distributor OmniGroup
Web The Omni Group - Applications - OmniGraffle

[Magnus]

Review: Relo Knox iPod nano case
by Magnus

Without trying to be funny, the Relo Knox is like the Fort Knox of iPod nano cases. Made for the 2G iPod nano, it’s a brushed aluminum hard cover, with some rubber details, which totally encloses the iPod and protects it. And it’s really two cases in one plus a wallet. With the Knows comes a clear plastic case that you put the nano in, then that case slides in to one side of the aluminum enclosure. It’s really rather clever. Then on the other side of the enclosure you have a clip which can hold your money, credit cards, or important papers. On the bottom of the enclosure is a cut out where the ear phones attach. One interesting design feature is that the case keeps shut by magnets, like Apple’s latest notebooks. I was a bit worried about this at first but after carrying my nano around in the Knox for about a week I can say there’s no need to worry. I’ve carried the Knox in my hand, thrown it in my bag, even dropped it on the floor, and it never opened up. The downside of the Knox is that if course it adds a lot to the size of a nano and it’s not a case that you choose for its sleekness. But consider it may be able to also replace your wallet, the size may not be so much of an issue. Some will be disappointed that it’s not waterproof, but that’s not what it was meant to be. Basically, if you want the ultimate in protection, the Knox will keep your nano as safe as it can be.

Price $45
From Mophie
Distributor Mophie
Web mophie.com/products/relo-knox/?pod=nano2

[Magnus]

Review: Uniea Leather U-Suit for MacBook
by Magnus

If you’ve been looking for a hard cover for your MacBook or MacBook Pro, Uniea has introduced an interesting alternative for you in the Leather U-Suit series. The U-Suit covers have a hard ABS plastic core which offers real protection for your notebook from bumps, sharp corners and objects. Around that plastic core is a leather outside with some padding, and a smooth, soft protective inside which promises to not scratch your precious Mac. A few “hooks” around the edges snaps around your Mac and keeps both covers (one for the display and one for the computer part) tightly secured to your Mac. I was pleasantly surprised when I snapped the cover on the first time and it really fit tightly to my MacBook. Around all the necessary optical drives, ports, IR-detector, and the fan outlets, the case is open so to give you easy access. However, the one thing I don’t like about this cover, and for me this is a deal-breaker, is that I cannot fit a Kensington-type lock on the MacBook because the cover is in the way. The U-Suit covers come in Red, White, Blue, Grey for MacBook and White, Grey, Black for MacBook Pro. If you want a hard cover for your Mac notebook but you also always want easy access to ports and drives, the U-Suit may be a good choice. That is if you don’t want to secure it with a lock.

Price 255Dhs
From Uniea Corp.
Distributor 4th Dimension
Web www.uniea.com