Macking 119

Welcome to the first issue of Macking written specifically for my e-list. (Computer Bits is no more but was/will be replaced by Computer Chips appearing in mid-June.) Now I can quote extensively from other sources, in addition to writing my own "bits". The down side for some: I am no longer limited to 2000 words so I can ramble and quote at will. I will try to keep it reasonably tight, though. Just skim over the parts not relevant to you.

Tiger (10.4)
Saw a sneak preview of it just before release. While there is no killer feature that made it a must-buy-now like Expose did for Panther, there are a number of cool additions.
Automator. This brings AppleScript to everyone. AppleScript is a form of programming language that you use to automate certain features of the Finder and other applications, but hardly anyone took the trouble to learn the language. Now it is a simple operation with drag-and-drop options. You can use it to create a Smart Folder (another part of Tiger) that will keep track of your most recently modified files all in a single folder, regardless of where they are on your hard drive.
The files aren't moved to this folder, understand, it's all done with aliases. You can apply whatever limitations to this folder that you want, so that it doesn't track irrelevant updates like the "Recent Items" folder does now. Work on client projects in InDesign and Photoshop? Track only those files.
Dashboard. Stored off the screen are little applications you use frequently like Stickies, Calculator, Clock, Calendar, iTunes QuickPlayer, DVD Player, etc. One hotkey overlays your regular desktop with all the "widgets" so you can use them or simply refer to them and then whisk them away with the same hotkey.
Quartz Extreme. Any Mac with at least 64 megs video ram (any G5; the 2004 and 2005 PowerBooks, the Mini) adds more eye candy to the screen and enables 3rd-party developers to create image manipulation tricks not before possible. Look for new animation and special-effect apps like Stone Studio's "Imaginator" which brings tricks formerly in very expensive programs down to $49. The Stone Create suite of applications provide a nice cheap alternative to the Adobe package and costs less than $250. Not only that, you get free upgrades for life. Stone Studio is not new; they had been developing software for the NeXT machine and when Apple bought NeXT and brought back Steve Jobs, Stone was one of the first developers out with OSX-native products. The first version of Stone Studio was released and demoed at PMUG two years ago.
AppleMail. Major improvements including smart mailboxes that cluster mail by specific conditions similar to the way Smart Folders do. These mailboxes are only reference points; the actual mail remains in your IN box or whatever other mailbox you transfer it to. Much better search capability. You are still not allowed to edit received mail like you can in Eudora and Entourage.
Spotlight. Enhanced search capability all over your Mac. It puts a permanent icon on the far right side of your menubar that when clicked, drops down a field to type into and then finds anything on your drive. It can search inside documents and look for keywords assigned to photos.
Plus there are improvements, according to MacOS Rumors.com:
Faster bootup, especially on G5s (which were pretty quick already). Faster permissions repair (which it would be nice not to need - Linux users don't have to repair permissions).
Disk burning. Vastly sped up the process of burning CDs in the Finder. It used to have to create a disk image first, which took time and disk space. Now it just burns directly to disk, like Toast does.
System Profiler. Includes more info than ever before. Answers every question about your Mac that a tech help department would want to know.
Tiger goes on sale on the 29th of April for $129, but is discounted at the Mac Store Beaverton for PMUG members (5% off) or through a rebate at Amazon accessible through Macintouch.

Nikon Encrypts RAW Photos
(from Macintouch) Scary news from Nikon. The newest digital high end cameras now encrypt part of the RAW image data file. RAW format is the actual photo image data...Many photographers prefer this format [because it doesn't use image compression as JPEG does], and archive these files. Nikon's hostage handcuffing of this data holds no upside for users.
There's DMCA problems already... Adobe Photoshop allows you to open other Raw files, but now cannot without paying a tax to Nikon or reverse engineer solutions which the DMCA law forbids. Any new software written would need to pay Nikon for decrypt approval. Who knows what this holds for future software that can process RAW Nikon data?
Sure, Nikon allows you to save to JPEG, but it's like saving a copy of a print, not the negatives. It plays heavy in my mind on any future Nikon purchase. Why should anyone allow Nikon or any company to hold hostage my photographs in their native format? No thanks, Nikon. Canon does not mess with the user this way and also makes great cameras. Be sure to tell Nikon why you passed over them if you buy something else, or they will think they can get away with this scheme.
Of course things change quickly in Networld; there was such an outcry to this Nikon posted a response.
Meanwhile, on the BoingBoing blog, "There's one thing to remember with all this guffaw over Nikon's 'encryption' of the white balance data in the NEF format and that's that all this commotion has arisen from an Adobe press release. Adobe have their own agenda to push as they're having difficulty getting any manufacturers to support their own 'RAW' format DNG.
"I haven't looked at the 'encryption' scheme either but from what I've heard it's simply an obfuscated lookup table that's perhaps not as simple as it used to be. Although the change looks suspicious we'd be cautious to remember Hanlon's Razor: 'Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.'."
So I suppose nothing significant will change. Sheesh.

The Well-Equipped Mac
Not every piece of software that would be useful or necessary is shipped with your Mac. This month I'll suggest a few, most of which can be located by simply going to Version Tracker.
Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat) - Better than Preview for interacting with .pdf (Portable Document Format) files, especially if they have hotlinks and indices installed. Download from Adobe.com.
AppleJack - UNIX tool that you install and then run when you have problems with starting up. Boot into single-user mode (hold down Command-S at startup and you enter the command-line structure. Type "applejack" without the quotes and hit Return, then follow the instructions. Note: it doesn't tell you to hit Return after each command so I'm telling you. Freeware.
Burnz - Drag and drop CD creation. Instead of having to create a disk image first, which can be impossible with an overly full drive, it just gathers the desired files from your drive and creates the CD. Shareware, gives you ten burns before you have to pay. Put your files into a folder first, then drop that on the Burnz icon. Put it in the Dock for easy access. $10.
CarbonCopyCloner - A freeware program composed of AppleScripts that can duplicate any hard drive to any other hard drive. Since you can't just drag and drop in the Finder any more (Unix permissions must be respected) this is the best free solution to either make backups or move all your data to a new hard drive.
Eudora - Still my favorite email application after 15 years. Treats all mailboxes as text files which can be read in a word processor should Eudora die, which hardly ever happens. My most stable program. Attachments are not stored in a proprietary database like all the other programs; they are separated at arrival and stored in any folder you designate. Free but you have to have an ad on screen while using it. Pay $40 to get rid of the ad and it also turns on the junk mail filter, which is one of the best.
Firefox - Tight, quick web browser from the open-source Mozilla org. Some people prefer it to Safari. It, and the full-featured Mozilla app are built by the open-source community on Netscape code and is similar in appearance. Free. For email you can also use the companion Thunderbird program.
Pith Helmet - Modifies Safari to add extra preferences. Contains an effective ad blocker that even redraws a page to cover up the place where the ad was! Also activates the Debug menu, which lets you manually import bookmarks from any bookmarks.html or favorites.htm file, and also contains a User Agent which you can use to lie to a Web host that won't let in anyone not running IE for Windows.
Real Player 10 - Must have for RealAudio and RealVideo files. There is a free version on Real's site but you gotta hunt for it because they would rather sell you the commercial version.
Retrospect - The backup program I recommend for everyone who wants to make regular, automatic backups of everything on their drive, and other Macs on their network, to an external FireWire drive. Also works on removable media like tapes and cartridges and, within limitations, DVD-Rs. It's about $100; add another $149 or more for a drive, and never worry about losing your data again. Warning: It is advisable to recycle (erase and start over) your backup every month because the program can become unreliable with hundreds of thousands of files to keep track of - and you won't know anything is wrong until you need to restore. Prefer extreme simplicity and reliability? Use Carbon Copy Cloner, above.
Safari Speed and Safari NoTimeout - There are built-in wait states and timeouts in Safari which can be annoying when trying to load a very busy site. One patch will extend the time Safari will wait for a site to load up, while the other removes the requirement that some web sites impose that prevents the page from displaying until all of the ads, icons, etc. have been loaded. Not necessary with versions of Safari released after OSX 10.3.8.
Spamfire - My favorite spamfighting program for OSX. Visit Matterform for more info. Sound Studio - This is the program that I and a couple of you use to convert your vinyl and tape collection to MP3. You record the music, add markers where the tracks break, select and delete little clicks and pops and remove long pauses between sides, then export the tracks individually.
Next step is to drop them onto the iTunes Library icon, or create a playlist and drop them onto that. GetInfo the tracks first as a group and fill in artist, album name, date, etc. and then repeat the process individually to convert the track titles from Marker 1, Marker 2... to proper titles and number the tracks. Last step is to select them all and choose Convert Selection to MP3 under Advanced.
When that finishes you select all the larger AIFF files and delete them from the Library. iTunes will ask if you want to move them to the Trash. Say OK. Finally, throw away the original recording and the separated tracks you created in Sound Studio. Voila, a selection of MP3s as good as if you ripped them from a CD. Sound Studio is $50. It has the best try-before-you-buy demoware scheme out there: You get to use it for ten non-contiguous days! Launch it now and look at it, forget about it for two months and then decide to do some recording. Launch it again and you have nine days left. Use it all day, quit and relaunch as many times as you want, and you will have eight more days of use to go. I wish everyone would use that kind of demo setup.
Temperature Monitor - Very useful utility to keep track of the temperature of your processor. Download here. I use it in conjunction with cee pee you - (read all about this on Macking 103 and get it from Unsanity) so I can tell when something is overheating my Mac, which runs down the battery quicker. Not all Macs have temperature sensors on the processors, but all the laptops do.
Tomato Torrent - A client for Bit Torrent, which is where you can find video, music and movie files ripped from television and posted for all to grab. I last used this a few weeks ago when my VCR didn't capture an episode of 24 that it should have, so I located it there and downloaded it in four hours. Broadband connection mandatory. There is an amazing collection of things on there, but if something isn't being actively traded it can take a day to download an hour-long show. Free. Lately I have been also using Bits on Wheels and it works just as well.
TrashIt! - Something in the trash you can't delete? Drop it on this and it gets wiped away. Free.
Windows Media Player - I hate to contaminate my drive with any Microsoft products, but you gotta have it to view a lot of web site content.
VLC - Video LAN Client. Open-source movie and media viewer that can play most of those obscure .avi files that QuickTime and Windows Media can't read. Can also read some Windows Media files.

New Trojan for Macs
Anti-virus company Sophos has info about Mac Cowhand/A. While its prevalence is low, it might be time to think about buying an anti-virus program. Not Sophos, though, because they sell only to small business or larger with a 5-pack for $249/year (which includes all virus updates and support). Discounts: $375 for two years, $498 for three. Otherwise go to Authentium (see Macking 115, or go directly to Authentium for info about their $50 product.) Or just use Norton, such as they are - Symantec doesn't care about Macs very much.

Hitachi Increases Density of their Micro Drives
A clever and entertaining animation to demonstrate how this technology works. Remember, this is from one of the biggest companies in the world. They took over the drive manufacturing arm of IBM.

Problems with Latest iPod Update
Go to this site to read about a problem with the latest iPod Update:
Excerpted:
Kunio Mitsuma writes: I have been watching some posts at the Apple Discussion Group for the past week or so, and the number of posts is increasing that describe the inability to connect an iPod to iTunes.
Here is what happened to me. A while back, I ordered a 40GB iPod and it arrived a few days ago.

• I used a FireWire connection. (Later, I confirmed that it made no difference even with the USB connection.)
• I put the iPod Photo in the dock.
• iTunes 4.7.1 launched under OS 10.3.9 with all latest patches installed.
• As asked by iTunes, I installed the latest iPod update: iPodUpdater2005-03-23
• After the update, 'Do not disconnect' on the iPod Photo never went away.
• So, I ejected the iPod and quit iTunes.
• As I reinserted the iPod Photo in the dock, iTunes tried to launch but quit.
• The iPod did mount on the Desktop.
• The launch/quit was 100% reproducible.

• The CD installed the iPod Updater Version 1.1 (circa 2004-10-20).
• Since a newer update is already installed, the Update button was dimmed.
• So, I clicked on Restore.
• Upon restarting iTunes 4.7.1, I chose NO for updating the iPod software.
• All functionality of my iPod Photo and its interaction with iTunes 4.7.1 were restored.

For Sale items:

2003 Mini Cooper S. Yep, it's mine. You've all seen it if you have hired me in the last two years. I ordered a 2005 so I thought I would give the list first crack at it. $21,999. Details:

• Just under 20,000 miles
• S model, supercharged 165 hp
• Three year/36,000 mile warranty
• 4-year roadside assistance program
• CD Player
• Air conditioning
• Leather seats
• Sunroof
• British Racing Green, solid color (top same as rest of car)
• Xenon headlights
• Onboard computer (not a Mac, but at least not Microsoft)

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

email mp at moonmac dot com. (I took out the mailto link because that's how the spammers find me.)