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 003

End of the line

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
for Psystar?
Mac cloner’s defeat is good news not
just for Apple, but for consumers, too.

C
ould the Psystar story finally be drawing to a close? If you’ve
missed it – somehow – Psystar, a US-based PC builder, found
a way to convince Mac OS X that its PCs were actually Macs.
It was a clever bit of fiddling with the bootloader that upset Apple
and saw it haul the company to court.
Its defence was equally clever, with Psystar claiming that it
had every right to buy a product and sell it on, even if it had been
tweaked. It’s logical: if you bought a car, sprayed it pink and then
re-sold it, you’d be well within your rights, but that’s because you don’t
sign up to an End User License Agreement. The Agreement – often
truncated to EULA – restricts what you can and can’t do with the
software, and in Mac OS X’s case one of those restrictions is running
it on non-Mac hardware.
Now depending on your point of view, this could be a good thing
or a serious restriction to fair and free use. On the pro side, it means
Apple’s hardware, which isn’t exactly cheap, remains desirable and
thus profitable as it’s the only platform on which you can legally run the
world’s best operating system. The case for the cons is that it helps
Apple retain those unrealistic prices by blocking competitors
like Dell and HP from building cheap Mac clones which, if
you’re cash-strapped and don’t care what your computer
looks like, is a bad thing indeed.
For my money though, I’m glad that the courts
upheld the EULA and Psystar looks set for a resounding
defeat. Not because I don’t want a cheap Mac (I do) and
not because I have anything against Psystar at all, which
I’m actually glad had a go at bucking the trend if for
no other reason than to test the law.
No, the proceedings’ outcome was
important because it protected not just
Apple, but all hardware and software
producers from a very unwelcome
precedent. Had it gone the other way,
there would be fair argument that another
company should be allowed to strip out,
tweak and re-sell the software in Sky+ boxes,
making it available to anyone who refused to
pay Sky’s prices. Want another example? How
about mobile phones? A sector with such
intense hardware homogeneity that the
operating system is often the only clear
differentiator. Would you want to see iPhone
OS on a Motorola, Nokia or Sony Ericsson?
If the courts had ruled in Psystar’s
favour, countless companies could have
seen their profits diminished and, in the
process, we would have seen competition
falter and innovation stall.
Psystar may have lost this battle,
but we should applaud its plucky
approach for confirming, once and
for all, the validity of the EULA.

Nik Rawlinson is the editor. This

issue he’s been pondering the annual
dilemma of what to buy his chickens
this Christmas. Turkey outfits?

& www.fantamag.com
004

contents
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

MACUSER, 4 DECEMBER 2009 – VOLUME 25 – NUMBER 25

P48
▼ PAGE 48

REVIEW
P25

P42

OF THE DECADE
P38 We step back in time to revisit the
key moments that shaped Apple
P64 P24
and the world over the past 10 years
P82
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ww w.st
stor
oremag
ags.co
com & ww
www.
w.fa
w. fant
fa ntam
nt amag
am ag.c
ag .com
.com
 005

▼ PAGE 64

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
WIN! this
MICROSOFT OFF
ICE
2008 FOR MAC ION
BUSINESS EDIT
issue
News 007
Apple climbs to fifth place in PC
sales chart + US judge rules Psystar
breached Apple copyright + Gates
praises Jobs for doing ‘fantastic job’.
www.macuser.co.uk/news

▼ PAGE 25 Reviews 024

MAC MINI The latest products reviewed and rated
by our team of experts, including: Mac
mini with Snow Leopard Server We
SERVER take a look at how Apple’s mini server
measures up + Samsung Flashcam
C10 Striking-looking and easy-to-use
camcorder + Canon PowerShot G11
Canon’s high-end compact that delivers
great picture quality.
www.macuser.co.uk/reviews

Features 042
Get organised for 2010 Start the year
with a new attitude to managing your
Mac with our 20 top tips. Review of
the decade The past 10 years have
seen interesting times, not least for
Apple, so we look back at the seminal
moments that made the decade.

Macshopper 065
Classified Looking for a specific
product or service? Try these.
Hot Kit The definitive guide to
the best Mac products.

Method/Create 080
Method Exploiting the rule of thirds
for more powerful images Create
Develop photographic looks in Adobe
Lightroom + Luminous line effects in
Photoshop + Tethered shooting

Help 092
▼ PAGE 42 Master of all things techie Howard
Oakley answers all your questions

PREPARE in our Q&A section, and focuses on

understanding the Mac OS X Installer

FOR 2010 in this issue’s Mac Business section.

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 007

news

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
FOR THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS GO TO WWW.MACUSER.CO.UK

Apple climbs to fifth

place in PC sales chart
A
pple enjoyed soaring Mac sales ‘The decline in the PC market in the UK
in the UK, even as the market as has slowed down and the return to growth will
a whole declined during the third be slow and a difficult process,’ said Ranjit
quarter of this year, according to figures Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner. ‘While
released by market researcher Gartner. the consumer market continued to defy the
For the three months ended 30 economic environment, the business market
September 2009, unit was still very weak.’
sales of Macs in the PC unit sales fell by
UK reached 165,000, ‘Apple has leveraged the [iPod/ 0.3% across Europe.
a year-on-year increase ‘Overall, the UK’s
of 26.6%. Unit sales iPhone] “halo” effect into the PC mobile PC market ▲ Mac cloner Psystar has illegally breached some
parts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
for the PC market as arena, dominating in the mid to saw growth and was according to Judge William Alsop.
a whole slumped by driven by a continued
2.4% to 3.29 million
for the quarter. Gartner
higher price brackets’
Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst, Gartner
increase in consumer
demand for mini-
US Judge rules
said the Mac had a notebooks. With Psystar breached
5% market share, consumer spending
up from 3.8% a year previously. Apple was restricted, mini-notebooks are becoming more Apple copyright
the fifth biggest PC vendor in the UK behind appealing, as they provide better functionality

A
Acer (24.5%), Dell (18.3%), HP (17.5%) and at the lower price points,’ pple won a major victory in one
Toshiba (6.5%). observed Atwal. ‘Most of the PC Page 009 of its court cases against Psystar,
the maverick Mac cloner based in
Florida. A Federal judge agreed with Apple’s
contention that Psystar violated Apple’s
copyright when it sold its range of Mac
clones with Mac OS X pre-installed.
‘Psystar has violated Apple’s exclusive
reproduction right, distribution right and right
to create derivative works,’ ruled US District
Judge William Alsop in a California court,
where one of the two companies’ legal battles
has played out.
‘Accordingly, Apple’s motion for summary
judgment on copyright infringement must be
granted,’ concluded Judge Alsop.
Alsop’s ruling backed Apple’s claim that
its end-user licence agreement (EULA) that
outlaws the installation of Mac OS X on
non-Apple hardware is legally enforceable.
Alsop also threw out Psystar’s contention
that someone who buys Mac OS X should be
permitted to do what they want with it.
Image Danny Bird

In what was a grand slam for Apple,

Judge Alsop determined that Psystar had
illegally broken parts of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA) that outlaw
The strength of the Apple brand in the UK has led to a 26.6% year-on-year increase in Mac sales.
actions to circumvent copyright Page 009

Analyst reveals Apple is gaining market
share despite overall market slowdown
vendors now offer mini-notebooks as they
realise the importance of this category. Mini-
notebooks represented more than 40% of the
total consumer notebook market in the third
quarter of 2009,’ he said.
The only other top-five company to grow
sales in the UK was Acer, which saw its unit
sales rise by 35.5%, compared to falls in
sales of 14.6%, 10.4% and 26.1% for Dell,
HP and Toshiba respectively. Acer’s rise
in sales might look impressive, but it was
chiefly generated by the company’s strong
representation in the netbook sector, which
is fast growing but very low margin.
By contrast, Apple’s rise in sales occurred
despite the company’s refusal to compete in
the low-price sector of the PC market.
Apple wins first legal battle with Psystar
protections that prevent Mac OS X being
installed on non-Apple hardware. Alsop also
dismissed Psystar’s claims that Apple was
abusing its copyright.
Although Apple’s victory was more or less
complete, the company faces another legal
battle with Psystar in a Federal court, based
in its home state of
Florida. In August,
Psystar petitioned a ‘Judge Alsop also threw out
Federal judge in Florida Psystar’s contention that
to rule that Apple
illegally limits Snow someone who buys Mac OS X
Leopard to running
should be permitted to do what
on Apple hardware.
‘By tying its
they want with it’
operating system
to Apple-branded
hardware, Apple restrains trade in personal
computers that run Mac OS X, collects
monopoly rents on its Macintoshes, and
monopolises the market for “premium
009
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
Image Courtesy Microsoft
Gates praises
Jobs for doing
a ‘fantastic job’
A
pple CEO Steve Jobs was the
unexpected beneficiary of some kind
words from Microsoft co-founder Bill
▲ The only other top-five PC vendor to show growth
was Acer, as it had a strong showing in the fast- Gates, who credited Apple’s mercurial leader
growing but low-margin netbook sector. with saving Apple and ‘doing good things’.
Gates was a panelist on Keeping
America Great, a 90-minute US TV special
aired by the CNBC cable TV station.
Gates shared the spotlight with veteran
investor Warren Buffet.
‘Most of the vendors are facing a Gates initially looked bemused after a
difficult time. Interestingly, the two vendors member of the studio audience, business
at either end of the price spectrum are undergraduate Damien Matthew, asked
winning the battle. At one end, Acer Gates if he could ‘just comment and tell us
continued to provide price-conscious products what your thoughts are on the job Steve Jobs
through multiple channels to attract a wider has done as the CEO of Apple?’
buying audience. At the other end, Apple The audience laughed somewhat
leveraged the “halo” effect of the Apple brand nervously before Gates began a well-natured
created by the iPods and iPhones into the tribute to his erstwhile rival and nemesis, and
PC arena, dominating the mid to higher price the man who has commissioned numerous
brackets,’ noted Atwal. TV commercials that disparage Microsoft’s
‘Acer gained the number-one position, Windows operating system.
while Samsung is closing the gap on Apple ‘He’s done a fantastic job [as CEO
in fifth place, with 4.8% market share. of Apple]. Apple’s in a bit of a different
Samsung also saw the highest performance business, where they make the hardware
of the quarter, with 206.6% growth year-on- and software together, but when Steve was
year,’ he added. coming back to Apple, which was through
an acquisition of NeXT, which he ran, Apple
was in very tough shape,’ said Gates, who
modestly left out his own role in bailing
out Apple in 1997.
‘In fact, most likely [the company]
computers”,’ asserted Psystar in its second wasn’t going to survive. And Jobs brought in
lawsuit. ‘Apple’s share of revenue in the a team, and he brought in inspiration about
market for premium computers – computers great products and design that has made
priced at over $1000 – is currently 91%. Apple back into being an incredible force
‘This case raises a wholly separate and doing good things.
set of issues from those in Apple Inc vs ‘And it’s great to have competitors like
Psystar Corp because that case is limited to that. [Microsoft writes] software for Apple…
Psystar computers We compete with Apple. But of all the leaders
running Mac OS X in the industry that I work with, [Jobs]
Leopard,’ claimed showed more inspiration, and he saved
Psystar’s legal team. the company,’ Gates concluded.
‘Both the technical
mechanisms used
by Apple to tie Mac
Quote, unquote
OS X Snow Leopard ‘We are selling 400 times more
to Macintoshes and games on iPhone than on Android.’
the technology used Gameloft finance director Alexandre
by Psystar to get de Rochefort explains why the games
Mac OS X Snow Leopard to run on Psystar developer is focusing more of its
computers are new and different and not efforts on iPhone games than those
within the scope of the California litigation,’ for Google’s Android platform.
the company claimed.

Palm made no mention of iTunes support in its release notes for the latest Pre software update, which focuses on email, instant messaging and SMS support.
Rogue ends iPhone app support
R
ogue Amoeba, the respected
developer of Mac applications
including Airfoil and Audio Hijack,
has abandoned plans to develop new iPhone
apps in despair at Apple’s review process.
Coming just a day after Facebook
developer Joe Hewitt said that he’d given up
on the iPhone, Rogue Amoeba’s revelation
is a sure sign that developers’ patience
is being tested to breaking point. Many
are unhappy with the largely oblique and
inconsistent way in which Apple assesses
whether or not apps meet its criteria for
inclusion in the iTunes App Store, the only
legitimate way that apps can get onto the
iPhone and iPod touch.
Rogue Amoeba’s experience is recounted
at some length by its chief executive, Paul
Kafasis. The company submitted an update
Queen’s speech cements ‘three strikes’
T
he Government has used the
Queen’s speech to confirm that
it will press ahead with plans to
disconnect illegal file-sharers, scotching
rumours that the proposals would not be
put before the next Parliament. The ‘three
strikes’ proposals will be included in the
Digital Economy Bill, to force ISPs to penalise
persistent file-sharers.
As expected, the Government plans to
initially withhold the threat of disconnection,
while Ofcom is tasked with measuring the
effectiveness of warning letters – a study
that will last a year. If illegal file-sharing
to Airfoil Speakers Touch, an app that
lets you transmit audio from a Mac, using
the desktop Airfoil software, to an iPhone
or iPod touch. The update addressed a
significant issue with audio syncing, but
was otherwise unchanged from the original
version which Apple had approved.
Suddenly Apple took issue with the
app’s use of images of Macs to indicate
where audio was being transmitted from,
citing a section of the developers’ licence,
which prohibits the use of ‘the Apple logo
or any other Apple-owned graphic symbol,
logo or icon’.
That was back in July. With little or no
communication from Apple, Rogue Amoeba
resubmitted the app on three occasions,
seeing it rejected each time. Finally, with the
offending Mac images removed, the update
is not reduced by 70% by April 2011, the
Government will begin ordering that illegal
file-sharers be disconnected after receiving
two further warning letters.
The bill was welcomed by the BPI (British
Phonographic Industry). ‘The creative sector
in the UK needs new measures implemented
urgently that address this problem for now
and the future if the UK is to lead Europe in
giving consumers innovative and high-quality
digital entertainment,’ said Geoff Taylor,
its chief executive.
The mood wasn’t quite so celebratory
over at the Open Rights Group. The privacy
011
News fl
fla
ash
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
No iTunes fix in
Palm Pre update
Palm has released a software update
for its Pre handset, and for the first
time has failed to restore syncing with
Apple’s iTunes. The two companies
have been engaged in a cat-and-mouse
game ever since Palm introduced the
Pre earlier this year and decided to use
iTunes to load music onto the device.
Apple almost immediately broke the
connection, only for Palm to restore it.
The breaking point may have been
the response of the USB Implementers
Forum (USB-IF) to Palm’s complaint
that Apple was breaching the terms
of its USB licence. It sided with Apple,
Image PA Photos
telling Palm that by tricking iTunes into
thinking that a Pre connected to a Mac
or PC via USB was an iPod, Palm was
the one at fault.
was approved, displaying instead a logo for
the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which
is, according to Kafasis, ‘the organisation
defending the rights of both consumers and
developers in the digital world’.
This approval has, however, come too
late for Rogue Amoeba’s boss. He has had
enough. ‘We wanted to ship a simple bug
fix, and it took almost four months of slow
replies, delays and dithering by Apple. All the
while, our buggy, and supposedly infringing
version, was still available. There’s no other
word for that but broken.’
There will be no more Rogue Amoeba
apps, and it’s expected that updates to
its existing software will be sporadic. ‘The
iPhone platform had great promise, but that
promise is not enough, so we’re focusing
on the Mac,’ explained Kafasis.
body is urging people to contact their MPs
and protest against the bill. ‘This plan
won’t stop copyright infringement and, with
a simple accusation, could see you and
your family disconnected from the Internet –
unable to engage in everyday activities like
shopping and socialising,’ says a statement
on its website (openrightsgroup.org).
‘We have a few days to show this (and
any future) Government that it can’t mess
with the Internet – just ask the 600,000
people who recently had access to their
Xbox Live accounts blocked. Any of us
could easily be next.’
012
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

Apple overtakes
Nokia on profits
Image Verizon via YouTube

from phones

J
ust two-and-a-half years after it
entered the handset market with the
iPhone, Apple has overtaken market
leader Nokia when it comes to making money
from the mobile market, according to a report
▲ One of Verizon’s ads shows the iPhone in the Island of Misfit Toys because its 3G coverage is so poor. by market analyst Strategic Analytics.

iPhone assault
Strategic Analytics analyst Alexander
Spektor claimed: ‘Apple became the world’s
most profitable handset vendor in Q3 2009.
Fueled by strong volumes, high wholesale

I
t’s not often Apple gets out-muscled the iPhone is dismissed as a Liberacé-styled prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor
when it comes to marketing, but the jewelled accessory that embodies ‘semi- has successfully broken into the mobile
company is under sustained attack in functional giggling brat vanity’. Meanwhile, phone market in just two years. What can
a campaign by US network Verizon, which the Motorola Droid, which is available from Nokia do to regain the number-one position?’
has variously attacked the iPhone for being Verizon, runs ‘thousands of Android apps It was a stunning achievement for an
dysfunctional and even unmanly. with axle-greased ease’ and is ‘a bare- upstart such as Apple to overtake the world’s
While Apple uses a relentlessly upbeat knuckle bucket of does!’. leading mobile phone company on profits.
strategy with its Mac and iPhone commercials Perhaps Verizon ‘protesteth too much’. Apple accounted for about 17% of the
that combine a sort of cheery Californian Certainly, if industry rumours are correct, world’s smartphone market compared with
feel-good outlook (‘There’s an app for that’) the leading US network would actually love 39% for Nokia, according to Gartner’s figures
with an insider bitchiness (the ‘Get a Mac’ to carry Apple’s iPhone. And according to for the third quarter of
campaign, which industry insiders, 2009. And that’s not
ridicules the PC Apple is busy even counting the overall
character), Verizon developing an iPhone handset market, which
has decided to go for ‘In a Verizon advert that oozes ‘nano’ that will work on Nokia also dominates.
the jugular by focusing thinly disguised, testosterone- Verizon’s US network Gartner believes
on the iPhone’s weak as well as AT&T’s. ‘smartphones account
fueled homophobia, the iPhone is
point. And that’s In the UK, Apple for 14% of overall mobile
Apple’s choice of US dismissed as a Liberacé-styled has seemingly realised device sales’, so Apple
exclusive network jewelled accessory ’ that exclusive network has less than 3% of the
partner, AT&T. tie-ups are clearly in total global market for
AT&T has even the past. Given O2’s mobile phones.
gone to court to try rather mixed record However, Spektor’s
to prevent Verizon from running one of its with UK 3G coverage, it was only a matter of contention soon came
adverts on US TV. In the advert in question, time before a rival UK network started running under attack on the
the iPhone appears in a parody of a well- adverts highlighting just how poor the iPhone’s grounds that while
loved US Christmas special telling the story telephony was in this country. Nokia’s entire Q3 profits ▲ Despite having
the biggest market
of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. In it, With the iPhone now available from were $1.1 billion (about share, Nokia has
an iPhone shuffles dejectedly onto the Orange, and with Vodafone due to carry the £665 million), Apple’s total fallen behind Apple
in terms of profits.
Island of Misfit Toys, where flawed toys are handset, Apple UK may just have escaped profitability came to $1.67
banished because Santa can’t offload them from having its most important product billion (about £1.01 billion).
to children at Christmas. being attacked in TV commercials over here This would imply that Apple’s entire non-
‘Hey, check out the new guy,’ exclaims a for its distinctly patchy 3G coverage. Hey, iPhone business only made $570 million
Jack-in-a-box. everyone’s a winner. (about £345 million) for the third quarter, an
A spotty elephant toy asks: ‘What are extremely unlikely scenario.
you doing here? You can download apps The solution lies in whether you consider
and browse the web.’ the ‘real’ revenues accruing to Apple from the
‘Yeah, people will love you,’ adds a doll. iPhone, or the revenues that Apple can register,
The iPhone stops in its tracks before a according to US accounting regulations, which
map of AT&T’s 3G coverage in the US pops require the company to account for iPhone
up above it like a thought bubble. revenues over a two-year period.
‘Oh!’ exclaim the assembled toys, as the When Apple’ iPhone sales are accounted
map wilts Dali-style and the alleged inadequacy for in the quarter in which the company
of AT&T’s coverage becomes apparent. actually makes a sale, they reach $2.85
Image Nokia

‘You’ll fit right in here,’ chuckles a toy plane. billion (about £1.72 billion) as opposed to
Paul Nesbitt has never ceased to be amazed by the
In another advert, Verizon takes aim at the sheer oddness of Apple over the decade that he
$1.67 billion. This suggests Apple almost
iPhone itself. In an advert that oozes thinly has spent writing about its alternating moments of certainly eclipsed Nokia as the world’s most
disguised, testosterone-fueled homophobia, madness and genius for MacUser. profitable handset maker.
014
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
MICROSOFT EMBARRASSED
BY PLAGIARISM COMMENT
Microsoft executive suggests Windows 7
copies some features of Mac OS X…
M
icrosoft rushed to distance itself
from the embarrassing assertion
by one of its executives that the
company had copied parts of Mac OS X in
the latest version of Windows.
Attending a Microsoft partner conference
in London, Microsoft partner group manager
Simon Aldous said: ‘One of the things
people say an awful lot about the Apple
Mac is that the OS is fantastic, that it’s very
graphical and easy to use.
‘What we’ve tried to do with Windows 7,
whether it’s traditional format or in a touch
format, is create a Mac look and feel in
terms of graphics,’ said Aldous.
However, while Aldous acknowledged
that Microsoft might have used Mac OS
X as an inspiration for Windows 7’s look
and feel, he claimed that Microsoft’s
operating system was superior underneath.
‘We’ve significantly improved the graphical
user interface, but it’s built on that very
stable core Vista technology, which is
far more stable than the current Mac
platform,’ he said.
Nonetheless, Aldous’ comments upset
some of his colleagues at Microsoft,
who are sensitive to allegations that the
company copies Apple’s ideas when it
comes to software development.
A clearly peeved Brandon LeBlanc, a
Windows communications manager at
Microsoft, commented in the official blog
for Windows he runs for Microsoft. In a
posting entitled ‘How we really designed the
look and feel of Windows 7’, he wrote: ‘An
inaccurate quote has been floating around
the Internet today about the design origins
of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel
was “borrowed” from Mac OS X.
‘Unfortunately, this came from a Microsoft
employee who was not involved in any aspect
of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this
about one of our own, but his comments
were inaccurate and uninformed.’

Windows Mobile
loses market share
W
indows Mobile lost 28% of its
market share in the smartphone
market in one year, according to
Gartner. And the research outfit painted a
grim outlook for Microsoft in the smartphone
market as its OS gets squeezed between
proprietary systems from Apple and Rim on
one side and open-source operating systems
such as Android and Symbian on the other.
Gartner’s research revealed that Microsoft
had a 7.9% share of the global smartphone
market during the third quarter of this year,
down from an 11% share for the same
quarter in 2008. During the same period,
Apple’s market share with the iPhone rose
from 12.9% to 17.1%, while Rim’s market
share with the BlackBerry rose from 16% to
20.8%. Meanwhile, Symbian’s market share
fell from 49.7% to 44.6%, a drop of 10%.
Google’s open-source smartphone
operating system, Android, rose from nothing
to 3.9%, Palm’s WebOS took 1.1% and various
other Linux-based smartphone operating
systems accounted for 4.7%.
Gartner predicted the global smartphone
market would grow by 29% to reach 180
million units for the whole of 2009, overtaking
notebooks in total unit terms. ‘At present,
smartphones account for 14% of overall
Aldous’ comments are interesting, as
Apple has often alleged that Microsoft has
copied its operating system technologies.
Indeed, the company waged a long-running
and ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against
Microsoft in the 1990s alleging that
the Windows giant had ripped off Apple
technologies in the development of the
Windows operating system.
Moreover, at Apple’s Worldwide
Developers Conference in June 2004,
Image Microsoft
Apple taunted Microsoft with allegations of
plagiarism when the Mac maker unveiled
an enormous poster that read ‘Redmond, Windows Mobile is losing market share as it tries to find space in
start your photocopiers’. the competitive smartphone OS market place.
015
4 December 2008
www.macuser.co.uk
mobile device sales, but Gartner expects by
2012 they will make up around 37% of global
handset sales. Smartphone revenue is
forecast to reach $191 billion (about £115
billion) by 2012, higher than end-user
spending on mobile PCs, which is forecast
to reach $152 billion (about £91.95 billion)
in 2012. From 2009, user spending on
smartphones will start to surpass the
forecast for consumer notebooks,’ the
company predicted.
Clearly the smartphone market will become
very important, but Gartner warned PC vendors
who are ‘eyeing the booming smartphone
market’ that it will prove a tough nut to crack,
especially if they enter the market with
handsets running Windows Mobile.
One Gartner analyst, Roberta Cozza,
predicted that by 2012 around 62% of the
whole smartphone market would be open
source ‘with Symbian, Android and other
Linux flavours’. Meanwhile, the rest of the
market will be dominated by ‘closed
environments’ such as iPhone and BlackBerry.
Cozza said Microsoft could find it harder
to charge licence fees from handset makers
who increasingly have the option to use
free-of-charge operating systems such as
Google’s Android. Already, Microsoft’s
licensees, including Samsung, HTC
and Sony Ericsson, are developing
Android handsets, while Palm and
Motorola have stopped offering
Windows Mobile phones altogether.
Windows Mobile’s strongest
position is in the enterprise
market, but around 80% of
smartphones are sold to
consumers, according to Gartner.
PC vendors have traditionally
used Windows Mobile when they
offered smartphones, but not
counting Apple, Gartner found that
‘PC vendors’ cumulative share in
the smartphone market has been
static, at less than 1% for years’.
Cozza said: ‘PC vendors should
realise that while convergence of
technologies offers an opportunity
to enter into the smartphone
arena, the business models, go to
market and positioning of products
is very different from the PC
market. PC vendors will find it
difficult to simply use existing
supply chains and channels
to expand their presence in
the smartphone market. The
smartphone and notebook markets
are governed by different rules
when it comes to successfully
marketing and selling products.’
Olympus E-P1. Not an SLR.
Not a Compact. It’s a PEN.
 017

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
ANALYSIS:
Life’s little apps and Zunes
Contrary to what Microsoft’s Ray Ozzie believes, apps are the way forward
for the smartphone market, so Apple must get its approval process sorted.

R
ay Ozzie, Microsoft’s chief software Remember the Zune? That was use the iPhone and what it will take to keep
architect, recently told attendees Microsoft’s personal media player that was us upgrading year after year.
at the company’s Professional going to break the iPod’s stranglehold on Sadly, it doesn’t yet seem to understand
Developer Conference that applications won’t the market. Its key feature, or unique selling how to communicate effectively with
be important on smartphones soon because point in marketing speak, was its ability to developers, or even with its approval team.
‘all the apps that count’ will be available on let users beam songs to each other. The That approval system needs an overhaul,
every smartphone. Instead, he said it was latest version is the Zune HD. It doesn’t and quickly. Then Apple can demonstrate to
the operating system itself and the built-in have a Hard Drive. And its screen isn’t High Microsoft just why third-party apps are so
functionality that will count. Definition. It does, however receive HD radio important to every smartphone platform.
His point was that phone applications in the US and can store 720p HD movies so
are much smaller and less complex than you can play them back on a larger screen.
desktop applications, which means the Just what you want from a personal media
time to write and port code is shorter, thus player. That’s an indication of how much
making it easier and less expensive to write Microsoft has lost touch with the market
for every platform. for mobile devices.
Ozzie’s comments were widely seen as At a time when it should be putting
an attempt to downplay the catastrophic everything into improving its share of the
way in which Microsoft has dropped the fast-growing smartphone market by building
ball in the mobile devices market. Once on the foundations laid by Windows Mobile,
the undisputed leader, Windows Mobile now it’s marketing personal media players that
faces stiff competition are designed to be
from Apple, Google connected to HDTVs
and Palm. If ‘What makes the iPhone so and talking about
anything, though, his popular is the developers who adding Zune features
remarks highlighted to the next version of
how much Microsoft produce apps that perform tasks Mobile. And at a time
still has to learn many of us never dreamed of when it should be
about the market for chastened by the way
doing on a phone in a way that
mobile devices. it’s being threatened
There’s a great makes them a joy to use’ by Apple, Palm,
deal more to levelling Google and Rim, it’s
the playing field with instead denouncing
respect to third-party applications than the market for third-party apps, which many
making it relatively easy for developers to see as being crucial to the popularity of the
write them. As Apple has shown with its iPhone, as irrelevant.
disastrous approval process, balancing the Perhaps the clue to Microsoft’s view of
interests of customers and developers with third party apps is in Ozzie’s phrase ‘all the
those of the data networks in a way that apps that count’. If those apps are the ones
makes sense isn’t exactly what you could that allow us to talk, send texts, access the
call straightforward. Internet, exchange email, look up contacts
In Apple’s case, it would appear that it and check calendars, then he’s right, they’ll
has been unable to either come up with a all be available on all platforms. And, yes, big
set of guidelines for approval that make any developers will develop for all platforms.
sort of logical sense, or that it has failed to However, one of the key things that
communicate its policy to those responsible makes the iPhone so popular is the
for accepting or rejecting applications. thousands of independent developers who
Whatever it is that has gone wrong, it has produce wonderful applications that perform
already driven two high-profile developers tasks that many of us never dreamed of
away from the iPhone platform, and more doing on a phone in a way that makes them
could follow suit. a joy to use.
That a company that has done such Many of those developers have been
a great job of building and marketing a writing for the Mac OS for years and have
new smartphone platform could get it so formed a bond with the platform and with Kenny Hemphill has been at MacUser since
wrong should be a stark warning to others, each other. It’s them and the apps they write the week Apple bought NeXT and Steve Jobs
especially Microsoft, which hardly has a who will make the difference. That’s why returned to the company, and the Internet was
glittering recent history when it comes to Apple has spent so much money advertising something that ran on one Mac in a cupboard
selling mobile devices. iPhone apps on TV. It understands how we in the corner of the MacUser office.
018

coming soon
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

WATCH OUT FOR REVIEWS OF THESE PRODUCTS IN THE COMING ISSUES

This issue’s round-up of the latest products features Macally’s cooling

stand, a series of MFDs from OKI and a Bowers & Wilkins iPod speaker.

Macally EzBookPad
Price €39.95 (about £35.67)
Contact Macally
+ www.macally-europe.com

Macally’s EzBookPad is an aluminium cooling stand

for laptops with screens up to 15in in size. The feet
are fully adjustable, allowing you to place them
anywhere on the stand, so you can set the height
and tilt. There’s also a fan that’s powered from
a USB port on the laptop, and which can also be
positioned anywhere on the surface of the stand,
so you can use it to maximum effect.
 019

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
OKI MB400 series
Price from £300 (£261 ex VAT)
Contact OKI + www.okiprintingsolutions.co.uk
OKI’s MB400 series of mono LED multi-function devices features
three network all-in-ones, two of which can send and receive faxes,
as well as scan, print and copy. The MB460, the cheapest of the
three, is a PCL-based device, which has a resolution of 2400
x 600dpi and a 250-sheet input tray. The other two machines
support PostScript 3, have a resolution of 1200 x 1200dpi, and come
with a 50-sheet multi-purpose tray in addition to 250-sheet and
530-sheet feeders, respectively. All three have duplex as standard
and have quoted print speeds of up to 28 pages per minute.

Blue
Microphones
Yeti
Price tbc
Contact Blue
Microphones
+ bluemic.com

The Yeti is the first microphone to attain THX certification. THX is

a quality assurance audio reproduction system, originally designed
to ensure that Return Of The Jedi’s audio soundtrack was
accurately reproduced in cinemas. It has since become a recognised
standard and the THX mark is seen as an assurance of high quality
audio. The Yeti is a USB condenser microphone, which is designed
for podcasts, interviews, music and video soundtracks. It features
zero latency, amplified headphone monitoring, microphone mute,
and hardware-based gain adjustment.

Bowers & Wilkins MM-1

Price tbc
Contact Bowers & Wilkins
+ bowers-wilkins.com

Hi-fi specialist Bowers & Wilkins is best known in the Mac

market for its Zeppelin iPod speaker dock, which has garnered
plenty of praise for its audio fidelity as well as its stunning looks.
Bowers & Wilkins is hoping to achieve the same with the MM-1,
a pair of desktop stereo speakers designed to be connected to
your Mac. The company describes the MM-1 as ‘a serious hi-fi
speaker: a full range, active, near field monitor, with two separate
drive units including an aluminium down tweeter for a refined
treble performance’. It employs Bowers & Wilkins’ digital signal
processing chip, which provides increased bass output, removing
the need for a sub-woofer.
 mailbox
020
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
EMAIL US AT MAILBOX@MACUSER.CO.UK TO HAVE YOUR SAY ABOUT ALL THINGS APPLE
Image Chris Robson chrisrobson.com
Star letter
Windows heaven
From Jeremy Burns
I am a smug Mac user. I have great
delight in teasing friends and family who
use PCs, telling them how easy Macs
are. I hadn’t realised how accurate I was
until I wondered if it would be sensible to
upgrade my Parallels installation from
Vista to Windows 7.
I fired up Vista on Monday for the
first time in about a month and today is
Thursday. In that time, I have been unable
to use it for more than about 15 minutes,
as it has downloaded and installed 34
heavyweight updates, performed a number
of thorough virus scans and needed about
Snow or no Snow
From The MacUser forums at macuser.co.uk
macpheasto > I was thinking of picking up a
copy of Snow Leopard on my way home today,
but a few comments on Twitter have given me
second thoughts. Should I fork out for SL, or
keep my rupees and stick with Leopard?
a dozen restarts. These have rendered
Windows inoperable as it has hogged
network bandwidth, CPU and memory for
hours on end. To get on with my day job,
I have had to switch Vista off and leave
it to do its thing over night.
Now I appreciate Macs need updates
too, but that all happens silently in the
background, a restart is rarely needed and
it doesn’t get in my way. Will I upgrade to
Windows 7? Maybe, if I can be convinced
that it will bring me an easier life. Now all I
need to do is choose which version I’d like
and decide whether it’s worth about £140.
axtron2005 > I upgraded when it first came
out and have had no problems with it (Mac
Pro 2006; C2D MB). It feels quicker and
seems quite solid for my limited home/light
office use. It’s worth the money.
HeatherKay > No Snow for me. I’m not sure
what benefits the upgrade will give me. First,
it will break my PostScript Type 1 font
collection, so I have to decide whether to be
illegal and convert them to OpenType or just
drop all of them until I can buy new ones.
Second, it will kill my old AppleTalk printer,
and I can’t afford a new one at the moment.
So, for now, Snow Leopard is not on
my shopping list.
mrstevenrogers > SL is running on four
systems here with no problems. If you do
get SL, disable the ‘guest’ account before
the upgrade.
Artworker > As HeatherKay said, if you use
PostScript Type 1 fonts, don’t upgrade
unless you can afford the time and money to
replace them with OpenType Font versions.
Otherwise, check that all your essential
software is SL compatible (some of mine
still isn’t) before making the jump.
petermillard1 > Snow Leopard running
without issue on a MacBook and two iMacs
here; average hard disk space recovered
12GB per machine. If you’re sure you won’t
have critical software issues, I’d do it.
SAughton > I’ve been having problems with
external HDDs. Snow just doesn’t seem to
cope as well as Leopard did. Other than
that it’s okay, but I can’t say I miss it when
I’m using the Snowless iBook.

macpheasto > Thanks for the opinions. I’d
forgotten about the font issue, I’ll have a
look tonight. I have a rather large – and
somewhat old – font collection, so it may
well be a problem.
big_D > Running it on three machines (my old
first generation 24in iMac, a 13in MacBook
Pro and mini), and haven’t had any problems.
That said, I don’t have any additional fonts.
technoidiot > I’m on the Snowy one. I have
problems with an HP PSC 1410 – it prints
fine, but I can’t scan. No HP driver as yet. I
have a friend, who after going to 10.6.1 found
he couldn’t use his Epson Photo R380. He
eventually got that working with quite a bit of
fiddling, but I’ll admit he was fit to be tied
since it had worked well on 10.6.0.
krisjones2 > Have you tried firing up Image
Capture?
technoidiot > Now that’s a great idea – it
hadn’t occurred to me.
mrstevenrogers > Can’t the fonts folder be
backed up then after the upgrade use ‘font
book’ to install the fonts back to the system?
HeatherKay > Not really. It’s the way the OS
handles the font data to represent it on
screen and print. The font handling routines
for PostScript Type 1 fonts have been,
essentially, dropped as of Snow Leopard.
It’s possible to convert Type 1 to
OpenType, but when you have a library of
several thousand fonts, it’s not something to
relish – and it breaks the licence agreement.
As it stands right now, I have maybe 30
font families that will work with Snow
Leopard. The other 3,970 will either have to
be binned or slowly converted, or I’ll have to
work through and choose the ones I really
can’t live without, and then see if it’s worth
converting them.
Right now, it’s not worth my while for the
relative benefits of Snow Leopard.
Artworker > Also for future reference anyone
who is going to be seriously affected by the
PostScript Type 1 font issue with Snow
Leopard won’t be using Font Book. They’ll
have a proper font management application.
tombolt > With a studio full of G5s and G4s,
and a large font collection and everything
working perfectly well, I can say no, and
probably not for a long time yet. Not sure
what I’ll do if I need new Macs, as new ones
will only come with Snow Leopard. Still, as I
say, it’s a production environment and it all
works perfectly well for the moment.
Join the discussion
The Mailbox pages of MacUser are not
the only place you can have your say.
Whether you’ve got an axe to grind,
or just want to gush about your latest
Mac purchase or cool accessory, we’re
interested in your opinions. Go to the
MacUser forums at www.macuser.co.uk
to start talking with other Mac users
from across the globe about anything
and everything Apple and Mac.
MacUser Awards 2009
competition winners
The winner of a Mac mini is:
David Ackers, Balham Hill, London
The winner of a Sonnet Fusion F2 640GB
portable Sata Raid is:
Colin Alcock, Solihull, West Midlands
The two winners of Orbitsound T12 stereo
soundbars are:
Chris Andrews, Stone, Aylesbury, Bucks
Tony Barnes, Denver, Colorado, US
The five winners of T3 mobile speakers are:
Arthur Battram, Grantham, Lincolnshire
Paul Beard, Poole, Dorset
Scott Burkett, W Bancroft, St Toledo, Ohio, US
Rachel Byfield, Ramsbury, Marlborough
Darren Connor, Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire
The winner of an iDowell iBox is:
Jerry Creedon, Lissarda, County Cork, Ireland
The winner of a iDowell iPack UPS is:
Nigel Curry, London
The four winners of an Booq Taipan
Bacpack, Steel, are:
Peter Davis, London
Andrew Douse, Rugby, Warwickshire
Julie Earnshaw, Morley, Leeds, West Yorkshire
Michael Gagan, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
The five winners of a Griffin Navigate are:
Aidan Gill, Windlesham, Surrey
Ray Guthrie, High Littleton, Bristol
Marc Hindley, Forres, Morayshire
Peter Hobby, Poole, Dorset
Richard Johnson, Harlesden, London
The 10 winners of a Griffin AirCurve are:
Jon Landeryou, Bedminster, Bristol
Andrew Mayne, Long Sutton, Lincolnshire
Catherine Miller, Millbrook, Southampton
Erica Parkin, Wigan, Lancashire
Alexander Porter, Bridge of Don, Aberdeen
Iain Priestley, Balsall Common, Coventry
George Rankin, Jamestown, Dunbartonshire
Giles Rolph, Hanwell, London
John Rudkin, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire
Peter Russell, Wanstrow, Shepton Mallet
The three winners of a Prosoft & Josoft
bundle are:
David Sung, Liverpool
Adam Watson, South Brentford, Middlesex
Alex Wickett, Eastbourne, East Sussex
Three prizes of a Rain Design iLap 17in
Notebook Stand are:
Don B Wijetunge, London
Denis Williams, Hailsham, East Sussex
Paul Jarram, Long Bennington, Nottinghamshire
The winner of a £400 Fotolia voucher
(see MacUser, 25 September 2009, p55,
and 9 October 2009, p66) is:
Chris Watson, Redditch, Worcestershire
021
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
M
Dennis Publishing Ltd, 30 Cleveland St, London, W1T 4JD
EDITORIAL
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ART
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022
showcase
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
MAC-USING CREATIVES SHOW OFF THEIR WORK AND REVEAL WHAT MAKES THEM TICK
Michael Grecco started his career in Boston while in college working for the
Associated Press as a photo stringer. After working for the Boston Herald
and then People magazine, he decided to pursue his dream of shooting
portraits and celebrities. He now resides in the Los Angeles area.
Leslie
Robert
Image
CONTACT DETAILS
Name Michael Grecco
Current employment Self-employed
Email michael@michaelgrecco.com
URL michaelgrecco.com
Tel +1 310-452-4461
What was your first Mac and what other
equipment do you use?
When I started my business again in Los
Angeles, I realised I needed a way to send
out promotional pieces. My first Mac was an
SE/30, with 4MB of Ram and a 40MB hard
drive, which sounds ridiculous now. Now the
office has eight Macs, my MacBook Pro, the
studio manager’s 24in iMac, another iMac
for the office music, two eight-core Mac Pros
for the images and two Mac minis – one is a
FileMaker Pro and Calendar server, and the
other is an image server. We also have a few
high-end scanners and high-end printers.
Can you offer any tips for success?
Well, I think they’re twofold: work hard and
don’t let yourself get discouraged. Keep
looking – look at what you’re doing and look
at what others are doing around you. Your
work has to exist in the current world and
have some sort of relevance.
As a child, what did you want to be
when you grew up?
I totally wanted to be an astronaut until
I looked at my first Time-Life book on
photography. After looking at masters
such as Ralph Gibson and Bruce Davidson,
I knew I was going to be a photographer.
I had no doubt.
How did you get your first big break?
I don’t know if I ever had one particular
break. The little jump I had was in 1993
when I did a very moody and distinct series
of images for Business Week magazine of
the top entrepreneurs in the world. This
included flying to the UK to shoot Richard
Branson and Anita Roddick.
Talk us through these examples:
01 Steve Martin
This was for Time magazine when Steve
Martin wrote his memoirs. I had this idea that
he had spent his life in the garden writing,
and the vines and garden grow around him.
02 Penélope Cruz and Pedro Almodóvar
This was another feature magazine story
where the concept was the intimacy and
closeness of these two artists.
03 Chelsea Handler
This image was shot as a cover possibility for
her new book Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, in
which Chelsea describes growing up in New
Jersey among the partially renovated cars
from her father’s automotive hobby.
04 Martin Scorsese
Here, I wanted the director to be seen as one
with New York. We shot him on a balcony on
57th Street, with the city behind him.
05 Russell Simmons
I shot the producer/entrepreneur in a
recording studio. My goal was to develop a
unique mood and look to the image. This was
shot as part of a series for Business Week.
06 Fashion Image
This was done as part of a fashion story on
Canadian fashion for Glitterati magazine.
07 Martin Scorsese
This image was shot as part of a portrait
session with the director. I asked him to run
through a range of expressions – and soon
found out how well he can act.
What or who inspires your work?
I tend to take all the art I’ve ever seen along
with me for inspiration. I do have a great
appreciation for surrealism though, and bring
along a little bit of René Magritte wherever
I go. That said, I look at a great deal of
contemporary art, too. The Chelsea Handler
prop was inspired by a contemporary artist
whose work I’ve bought.
What mistakes have you learned from?
Thinking you know something you don’t.
What’s your ideal project?
My ideal project would be a series of
conceptualised images where I can work
with good set builders and creative people
to make my vision come alive. Right now, my
concept pictures are usually single images.
Tell us something good.
It’s sunny and 23°C in Santa Monica today.
It’s a good day to write and create.
023

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4 December 2009
04

07

06
03

05
02
01
 reviews
024
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
FOR THE LATEST REVIEWS GO TO WWW.MACUSER.CO.UK/REVIEWS
Reviews
Mac mini with
Snow Leopard Server
An excellent option for anyone who wants to
run Mac OS X Server on a small network
Samsung Flashcam C10
This striking-looking camcorder is easy to
use and comfortable to hold
CameraBag Desktop
This fun toy allows you to add different
effects to your photographs.
Reframe
If you’re on a budget, this is an inexpensive
way to convert video to a different format
Canon PowerShot G11
It might not be for everyone, but this compact
produces images with superior noise levels
Pure Chronos iDock
Redesigned radio alarm clock with an
iPhone-compatible Dock connection
Pure Siesta Flow
Wake up to the sound of your favourite
Internet radio channels
Canon Pixma MP990
Truly excellent wireless photo printer that
merits our Editor’s Choice award
Parallels Desktop for Mac
It may be more expensive than its rival,
Fusion, but it’s worth every penny
Doom Classic
Old-school gamers will lap up the iPhone
version of this venerable shoot-’em-up
Championship Manager
2010 Express
If you love football, you won’t be able to
tear yourself away from this iPhone app
Command & Conquer
Red Alert
The first installment of the addictive
real-time strategy game for the iPhone
Microsoft Bluetooth
Mobile Keyboard 6000
Well-designed wireless keyboard and
number pad for notebook users
Reviews policy Awards system
25 HOW… Editor’s Choice
MacUser firmly believes that a proper, EDITOR’S
This award can be given at the
detailed review can be carried out CHOICE editor’s discretion to a product
only by rigorously testing the product. judged as outstanding and a
We don’t believe value is derived from must-buy in the issue.
28
describing a product’s features without
any analysis. We’ll never give a positive
Labs Winner
review to a product that we believe isn’t
28 worth our readers buying, which means
Given to the products that in
LABS the opinion of the reviewer are
that a positive MacUser review is of WINNER the best in their field at the
enormous value to both the reader and
time of testing.
29 the manufacturer of the product.
Products are tested in-house wherever
possible, using a mix of industry-standard Best Value
30 and bespoke testing software suites. Only the very best products
make it into our Hot Kit
Top-rated products earn themselves
section. They are the products
a place in our exclusive Hot Kit section to
on which the editorial team
32 provide you with an issue-by-issue update
would spend their own money.
of the best products in any category for use
on a Mac. This, along with our definitive
32 awards system (below), lets you see at
a glance which products are worth the
manufacturers’ asking price.
MacUser ratings
34
PRODUCT SELECTION
We give priority to mainstream products,
36 but we also make every effort to cover a
broad range of items, and regularly feature A perfect product with great features
‘niche’ products. at a great price.
38
COMPLAINTS
38 We do everything we can to publish fair
and accurate reviews. If errors do occur we
A product with minor flaws but which
correct them in ‘Search and Replace’ in the is nonetheless excellent.
Mailbox section.
38
A good product that does everything
it’s designed to do.
39
A product that’s outclassed by
others in its field.
A poor product that we can’t
recommend in its current state.
 025

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
Mac server
Mac mini with
Snow Leopard
Server

Price £7
Pri £799 (£6
(£695 ex VAT)
VAT
Contact Apple
Pros Affordable compact Mac server
Photography Danny Bird

+ Two internal hard drives

Cons No built-in optical drive
Verdict An excellent and good value
option for anyone who wants to
run Mac OS X server on a small
or medium-sized network, though
the lack of an optical drive will be
a problem for some.
026
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
T
he Mac mini has been a hit since
it was launched back in 2005,
and not just as a regular desktop
machine. It has also been put to work as
a server, from small one-off workgroup
installations to the Nevada-based
Macminicolo server farm. Apple
has now officially acknowledged
this with its new Mac mini
server, slightly tailored to server-
focused rather than solo user
requirements. This means it isn’t
suitable for everyone, but it is a
rather more worthy product than
you might think.
Despite its rather clumsy name,
this is a well-considered machine. On
the back it has five USB sockets, two monitor
ports (one mini-DVI and one mini DisplayPort),
one FireWire 800 socket and a single
gigabit Ethernet port. There is also a pair
of analogue/digital audio sockets, although
those will be less of a concern in a server.
On the front – well, there is actually
only one thing that really distinguishes this
from the regular mini, but it is significant: a
complete absence of an optical drive. In its
place inside the mini there’s a second hard
drive, a twin to the 500GB model below it,
giving a total of 1TB of space. As standard,
these drives are set up as regular storage
volumes, and as Snow Leopard Server is
preinstalled, the majority of users will keep
it like that. The alternative would be to
reformat and merge the two drives as Raid
0 (for striped speed) or Raid 1 (for mirrored
safety) instead.
The difficulty here is that this requires
using the supplied installer DVDs, and as
there’s no DVD drive, you’d be forgiven for
wondering how. There are essentially three
ways to go about this: run a second Mac in
Target Disk Mode (requires FireWire), use the
optical drive network sharing trick introduced
for the MacBook Air, or, our preference, buy
the external MacBook Air SuperDrive. Most
modern software is downloadable, so you
won’t face this problem often, but it should
be considered.
The drives are standard 5400rpm laptop
mechanisms; not the fastest possible, but
perfectly adequate. You can add an external
drive to the FireWire 800 port for snappier
throughput, and the five USB ports means
▲ The absence of an
optical drive on the
front of the Mac mini
with Snow Leopard
Server may prove
problematic for some.
that adding inexpensive USB storage is also but apart from the fact that this isn’t suited
simple. The mini’s single Ethernet port might to large-scale access, it barely scratches
be an issue if split traffic routing between the the surface of what’s available from Snow
local network and the Internet is required, but Leopard Server. Centralised file serving is
Apple’s USB Ethernet Adaptor would do the useful, and you can manage and control
trick in this case. client access (cross-platform) very efficiently,
We’re used to thinking of the Mac mini but on top of this, you’ll also be able to
as a kind of entry-level Mac, but today’s manage network Time Machine backups,
calendar and address
book sharing,
‘Centralised file serving is useful, and you can manage and scheduling,
and control client access (cross-platform) very email, instant
messaging and video
efficiently, but on top of this, you’ll also be able conferencing, web,
to manage network Time Machine backups’ blog and wiki serving,
and so on.
Buying Snow
machine is surprisingly well-suited to life Leopard Server on its own will set you back
as a server. With a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo just under £400, and adding this to a roughly
processor, 3MB on-chip level two cache (1:1 equivalent Mac mini (with SuperDrive but
speed), a 1066MHz frontside bus and 4GB just 320GB disk space) pushes the cost to
of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM, this is actually over £1000. That’s still reasonable for a total
a very respectable machine that’s perfectly server solution – just look at the costs for
capable of handling light to middleweight equivalent Windows server solutions – but
work. There are reports that its two SO-Dimm it’s still not as cheap as this Mac mini server.
slots support 4GB cards, giving it an unofficial Not everyone needs a server, so this will
8GB maximum, but for most of the tasks it never be a sales chart-topper. But the scope
will face 4GB should be ample. and ease of use of Snow Leopard Server
Why bother with a server in the first place? and the affordability of the Mac mini should
You could, as many do, simply switch on file make this a big hit in the server world.
sharing on a regular Mac and be done with it, Keith Martin
▼
With five
USB ports, two
monitor sockets,
a FireWire 800
port and a single
Ethernet socket,
connectivity
isn’t a problem.
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028
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

Digital camcorder
Samsung ▼ The C10’s design stands out,
Flashcam C10 especially the upturned nose, which
is supposed to make the camcorder
more comfortable to hold.

Price £129 (£112 ex VAT)

from argos.co.uk
Contact Samsung
+ samsung.com/uk
Pros Neat design
Cons Average video quality
+ No still image function
Verdict Overall an okay camera,
but not one that really stands
out from the crowd.

I
n such a crowded market, the Samsung
Flashcam C10 camcorder is going to
have to stand out to really impress. The
specifications seem run-of-the-mill for this
price point: the C10 shoots at 720 x 576
pixels in H.264 format, has a 2.7in LCD
screen and a 10x optical zoom. It’s available
from Argos for about £130.
The design, however, is immediately
striking, with the small pebble-like shape
really much nicer, to our eyes at least, than
the straight-up types such as the Flip or
Kodak devices. The zoom toggle button sits
on the top of the camera and your thumb
sits naturally on it. The buttons on the body
could do with being more clearly identified,
as they’re all the same colour and are only
distinguishable by an icon etched onto them.
Mind you, over time you’ll get used to which
button does what.
Its upturned nose is supposed to make
the camcorder more comfortable to hold for
prolonged periods, but we’re doubtful about
its ergonomic benefits. It takes a little while
to get used to holding the camera at such an
angle, but, thanks to the rotating screen, it’s
not prohibitive.
The menus are easy to navigate, although
this is most likely down to the fact that there’s
not much in the way of extra features in the

Image editor
CameraBag
Desktop

Price $19 (about £11.42)

Contact Nevercenter
+ nevercenter.com
Needs PowerPC or Intel processor +
512MB Ram + Mac OS X 10.4 or later
Pros Instant + Good photo effects
Cons A little expensive + Overkill if you
have the iPhone app
Verdict A fun photographic toy, the
desktop version isn’t as essential as
its iPhone contemporary.

Drag in a photo and 10 different versions will be displayed along the bottom of the application’s window.

T
he iPhone’s built-in camera has never
won awards for image quality, and
performs poorly in comparison with
the cameras in rival smartphones. There are,
however, apps available that compensate for
these hardware deficiencies.
CameraBag is one such iPhone app. In
seconds, it applies one of a set of pre-defined
image processing filters to your photographs,
and spits out something different; a stylish,
funky photo to replace your dull original. It’s
simple to use, it’s fun and it’s a bargain at
just over a pound.
CameraBag Desktop is essentially the
same application, but for use on your Mac.
Using it is very straightforward. Drag in a
photo from anywhere, and you’ll see 10
new versions of it appear along the bottom
of the CameraBag window. Each is a preview
of one the built-in filters at work; just click on
one to see it full size.
As you’d expect, the desktop application
offers a few more features than its iPhone
cousin. Images can be exported at a wider
range of sizes, from 100 to 1600 pixels.
There’s also limited cropping ability, using
preset sizes only (you can’t specify an

first place. There’s a time lapse setting and
a wind noise reduction option, as well as
built-in image stabilisation, but otherwise not
much to really get us excited. One feature we
did like was the Easy-q setting, which at the
press of a button puts everything into auto
mode. So, if you’ve been tinkering around with
backlight or you’ve set it to record in black
and white, simply press the Easy-q button to
get back to basics. One odd decision is the
lack of a still photo capability. Other cameras
manage to combine photo and video, so it
seems strange for the C10 to leave it out.
Video quality was average and, like many
of these small camcorders, filming indoors
yielded grainy results. Other than that, colours
were good and sound wasn’t bad, either. All in
all, the performance from the Samsung was
fine but hardly earth shattering: you’re not
going to be disappointed, yet neither are you
likely to be over the moon with the results.
The Samsung Flashcam C10 isn’t as well
specified as some of its competitors and the
video quality is at best on a par with the other
devices we’ve seen, but we did find it simple
to operate and used it regularly over the
time we had it. If you’re just looking to chuck
quick videos onto YouTube, then fine, but
you wouldn’t want to use it for anything more
demanding. As it stands, there’s not enough
to mark it out from the crowd. The C10 is a
decent camera at a fair price, but really there
are better alternatives available.
Christopher Brennan
‘In seconds, it applies one of a set
of pre-defined image processing
filters to your photographs, and
spits out a stylish, funky photo
to replace your dull original’
arbitrary crop size). On the iPhone, image
borders are either on or off; here they can
be applied per image. This means you can
use the black-and-white effect, with a border
normally used for a Polaroid-style effect.
Multiple effects can also be applied to
one image, although we got better results
by using this sparingly.
CameraBag on an iPhone is a must-have
application, because it offers so much for
such a good price. On the desktop, it feels
less compelling. You can’t email directly
from the desktop version, nor can you
drag images out of it. It lacks the iPhone
version’s spontaneity, and seems very slightly
overpriced for what it offers.
If you already have CameraBag on your
iPhone, we can’t see a convincing argument
for buying the desktop application as well.
If, however, you love toy camera photography
and have no intention of owning an iPhone,
then there might well be £11-worth of
entertainment here.
Giles Turnbull
Video converter
Reframe
Price $129.95 (about £78.18)
Contact Miraizon + miraizon.com
Needs PowerPC G3 or later or Intel Mac
+ Mac OS X 10.4 or later + 512MB
Ram + QuickTime 7.2 or later
Pros Simple interface and workflow
+ Good results in movies with little
motion + Inexpensive
Cons Sticky advanced settings and
no true presets
Verdict An affordable alternative to
hardware converters, though playing
with advanced settings doesn’t turn
out great results in all circumstances.
R
eframe is a tool for converting
movies between video standards.
Its main focus is the Pal and NTSC
formats, and SD and HD resolutions, which
could cost you a small fortune using a
hardware-based converter.
We can’t fault the immediate clarity of
Reframe’s workflow. Its four tabs show the
process from left to right. Drop movies into
the Input tab, choose the video and audio
settings, then choose the output format
on the last one.
The Input tab seems mundane, but it
conceals some important features. Press
Edit and you can choose which video and
audio tracks from multi-track files to convert,
and override the source’s aspect ratio. You
can also force Mpeg decoding to interpret
video as film, progressive scan or interlaced
footage or rely on automatic detection.
The Transfer button lets you set up the
Video and Audio tabs for one item and
transfer those settings to every other item
in the Input list, which is an excellent time-
Reframe’s presentation is clean and uncluttered rather than bombarding you with technical details, though
you’ll have to dip into the documentation to understand its advanced settings.
029
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
saver if you’re converting several clips that
originated from the same reel or shoot.
After lining up movies for conversion,
the Video tab lets you choose from a list of
common operations, such as moving between
standard definition Pal and NTSC video, and
to 25 and 30fps (frames per second) movies
at 720p and 1080p line resolutions. These
are Reframe’s idea of presets, though you can
override frame sizes and frame rates below.
You’ll have to choose one on the Audio
tab as well; the two operations aren’t
directly linked. You can independently control
interlacing of video and gain on audio, and
there are advanced settings that control
algorithms for image and audio quality. You
can set scaling options (padded, cropped
or stretched), motion vector analysis, and
whether to use motion compensation,
temporal interpolation or film to video telecine
conversion to deal with changing frame rates.
Each tab links directly to the help file,
which requires careful reading to make the
right choices. Advanced settings are sticky, so
every time you open Reframe, you’ll have to
check they’re appropriately set for the footage
you’re working with, rather than following a
wizard that asks about your movies’ content.
Picture quality in a frame with little motion
was very good, with smooth lines on a static
or slow moving car. However, there was
obvious shimmering of colour on the car’s
body that wasn’t noticeable in the NTSC
version. No matter which motion vector and
frame rate conversion settings we chose, a
fast-moving car travelling across the frame
and towards the camera became juddery.
Conversions for iPod and other devices
can be done with tools such as QuickTime Pro
7 or Mpeg Streamclip. For video standards
conversion, Reframe doesn’t mean you can
abandon hardware alternatives, despite its
decent speed on recent Intel Macs. However,
if you’re on a tight budget around Final Cut
Express’s level, it’s an inexpensive way to
add software conversion without stepping
up to Final Cut Studio’s Compressor.
Alan Stonebridge
030
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
Digital compact
Canon
PowerShot G11
Price £569 (£495 ex VAT)
Contact Canon + www.canon.co.uk
Needs Mac OS X 10.2 or later
Pros Picture quality + Low noise
+ Vari-angle LCD + Viewfinder
Cons Pricey + Slight cramping of
controls + Fringing at wide end + No
HD video + Mostly plastic construction
Verdict Given its price, lack of HD
video, plasticky build and quirky
controls, the G11 isn’t the ideal carry-
everywhere camera it could have been.
F
ew high-end digital compacts have
stayed the course like those of
the G-series from Canon, and their
popularity shows no signs of abating. We
were very impressed with 14.7-megapixel G10
last year (see MacUser, 21 November 2008,
p34), although noise levels above ISO400
meant either having to use a tripod or switch
to a DSLR to avoid speckling – hardly the
impression of a typical walkabout camera
for street photography.
In response, Canon has taken an
unprecedented move of offering the
replacement G11 with a smaller, 10-megapixel
CCD using the same-size 1/1.7-in type (7.6
x 5.7mm) sensor. With nearly 50% larger
photosites and improved signal processing,
the G11 boasts the same ISO80 to ISO3200
range, but the maximum sensitivity jumps
from a lowly 1600 x 1200 pixels on the G10
to full resolution on the G11.
Canon also listened to comments about
the fixed LCD screen, and the G11 is the first
to feature a vari-angle LCD since the chrome
G6. In most other details, the G11 resembles
the G10. It has the same 28-140mm f/2.8-4.5
equivalent optical-image-stabilised zoom with
a continuous AF option for moving subjects,
optical viewfinder, knurled metal mode selector
dials and Raw capture – all the kind of features
that appeal to serious photographers.
▼
Canon seems to have listened to its
customers, and has finally included a
pull-out-and-swivel LCD screen in the
PowerShot G11.
▲ Aimed at a narrower target audience than previous offerings, the 10-megapixel G11 has larger photosites
for improved noise up to ISO3200 and produces excellent still images.
The G11 shares much of the ergonomics
of its predecessor. A rubber-covered grip
aids one-handed operation, while shooting
modes, ISOs and EV compensation each
have their own metal selector dials on the top
plate, as seen on the earlier model. Although
that layout garnered praise, we prefer the
simpler control layout of the earlier G9, which
adopted the same method of EV shifting
using dedicated button and the command dial
as that employed by the Eos DSLR range.
‘Where the G11 does excel,
though, is in stills quality. There’s
no denying the superior noise
levels throughout the range’
Not only was the G9’s feature active until
cancelled, making it much quicker to adjust
on the fly, but it also meant the main mode
dial was a decent size. By contrast, the G11’s
mode dial that sits atop the ISO selector is
small and fiddly.
All the same, the tunnel-type optical
viewfinder is usable, and even though the
2.7in 461,000-dot panel is a bit smaller than
the last two iterations, the flip-out and swivel
feature works well and is a real plus point.
Sadly, we suspect that to keep down the
G11’s weight, Canon has shunned the all-
magnesium alloy outer of the G10 for a mix of
metal front and plastic top and rear. Although
the camera’s body seems reasonably solid
overall, it doesn’t have the same carved-from-
stone feel of earlier models.
On powering up, the G11 feels quite brisk
in operation, but we were surprised to see
the excellent wide-area nine-point AiAF mode
integrated into the Face Detection option.
It’s supposed to offer the functionality of
both systems by switching between them
seamlessly, but you can’t select the nine-
point system manually. If the G11 can’t locate
a face, not once did we see the camera
select a focus point off centre. Choosing the
central focus-detection point every time has
its advantages – at least you know where the
lens will focus – but that’s not the point.
The new Quick Shot mode sets continuous
AF, while the LCD acts as a data panel, which
we thought was a sensible addition. However,
the new Low Light mode, which can boost
sensitivity from ISO320 up to an incredible
ISO12,800 with a fixed 1824 x 1368-pixel
image size, is a bit gimmicky.
The G11 shoots pretty good-quality
640 x 480-pixel 30fps (frames per second)
video using the space-saving .mov format
with H.264 codec, but the lack of any HD
video is a real oversight given the price and
target audience. This is especially true when
you consider rivals such as the cheaper
Panasonic LX3, Leica D-Lux 4 or the micro
FourThirds format HD-enabled Olympus E-P1.
Where the G11 does excel, though, is
in stills quality. While it’s true that outright
resolution and detail can’t match that of the
G10, or the G9 for that matter, there’s no
denying the superior noise levels throughout
the range. We’ve no real complaints with the
anti-shake system and the lens is sharp,
although we noticed some slight barrelling
and fringing at the wide end of the zoom.
Viewed in isolation, the Canon PowerShot
G11 is an appealing offering, but it’s not
without its shortcomings.
Kevin Carter
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032

▼
The Chronos
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

across as many radios as you own from iDock lets you

Digital radio alarm
Pure Chronos
iDock
Price £89 (£78 ex VAT)
Contact Pure + pure.com
Needs iPod or iPhone optional
Pros USB charging point + Good sound
Cons None to speak of
Verdict A great redesign of a good
radio, with a decent set of speakers
and the option of waking up to
your iPhone.
Digital radio alarm
Pure Siesta Flow
Price £99 (£86 ex VAT)
Contact Pure + pure.com
Needs Broadband Internet connection
Pros Online favourites synchronisation
+ Unique wake-up option
Cons Sound quality could be better
Verdict An interesting twist on bedside
radios that lets you wake up to
Australian drivetime, Californian night-
time or Russian lunchtime shows when
the UK’s enjoying breakfast.
the range. We tested the Siesta Flow wake up to your
iPhone. The new
alongside an Evoke Flow and
were able to access directly
model is streets
ahead of its
predecessor.
our Evoke favourites – built up
EDITOR’S
over 12 months’ use – on the
CHOICE
Siesta’s screen.
Setup is a breeze,
first requiring
the encryption
password to
your wifi network
(there’s no wired
Ethernet option),
and then the code
dished out by The
Lounge when you
register the radio’s
serial number.
Both of our radios
then appeared
as entries on the
Siesta’s screen,
allowing us to
switch between
them. Any favourites
saved on either radio were also accessible
through a browser for listening to at work in terms of usability. There are now just
or away from the radio. eight buttons on the front of the body, all
As well as live Internet streams, the Siesta clearly labelled and big enough to press
gives access to podcasts and the BBC’s Listen comfortably with the face of your thumb. Its
Again feeds. And if you download the Mac- predecessor had 12 buttons, each a thin
compatible Flowserver software from Pure’s strip that was uncomfortable to use and
website, you can also use it as a speaker for required sufficient pressing that you could
streaming media from your Mac or PC. end up shifting the radio as you used them.
The Siesta is a low-profile device, around Part of this rationalisation can be attributed to
half the height of the Chronos, with an the introduction of a rotary dial for selecting
upward-facing speaker mounted into the stations and changing volume.
top. The controls are split between physical It also has a USB port behind the dock
buttons and touch-sensitive areas around the connector, which is used to power external
screen, all of which are easy to use, with a devices such as USB lights for reading when
large snooze button at the front on top where you don’t want to disturb your partner, a fan,
it’s easy to find when you’re still half asleep. or for charging phones and MP3 players. This

P
ure has beefed up its range of digital
radio alarms with the new Siesta Flow
and an update to the Chronos iDock.
The Siesta Flow, as its name suggests,
is the latest member of Pure’s Internet radio
line-up. It supplements DAB and FM tuners
with a subscription to Pure’s free ‘The Lounge’
service, which lets you organise a collection
of 12,000 online stations that are
then synchronised
The screen is a bright OLED display with super
smooth scrolling, but we found the firmware,
which was automatically updated over our
network during our testing, could sometimes
be slow – particularly, for example, when
entering our 13-character wifi encryption key.
Sound quality is good, but obviously
not of hi-fi standard in a device that will
predominantly be used for short periods at
the start of each day.
The Chronos iDock
has no Internet
features, but it does
have an iPhone-
compatible Dock
connection in the
top. It’s an update
to Pure’s existing
Chronos radio,
and represents a
major improvement
▼
is supplemented by an auxiliary-in port at the
front for non-dock compatible devices.
While both radios are largely triangular in
shape, the Chronos iDock takes advantage
of its height to mount the speakers on two
corners, firing forwards. The sound quality is
better than that of the Siesta, with a warm,
broader spectrum.
The screen needs to display far less
complex menus and less information than
that on the Siesta, and so it’s a traditional
eight-segment clock in the top half, and a
two-line by 16-character alphanumeric display
below. This dims significantly when the radio
is not in use, to save power.
These two radios are very different, and
although both are alarm clocks, they’re not
directly comparable. Which you choose will
be determined by which additional wake-
up option you’d like on top of DAB and FM
stations – iPod/iPhone or Internet streams.
Obviously, if it’s the latter, make sure your

The Siesta Flow accesses ISP can maintain a steady half-megabit

live Internet streams, so make
sure your broadband is up to
the task. It also offers access
to podcasts and the BBC’s
Listen Again service.
connection and doesn’t often suffer outages.
In the UK that shouldn’t be too problematic.
Nik Rawlinson
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034
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
Inkjet all-in-one
EDITOR’S
Canon Pixma CHOICE
MP990
Price £230 (£200 ex VAT)
from amazon.co.uk
Contact Canon + www.canon.co.uk
Needs USB port
Pros Great print quality + Very fast
+ Well specified
Cons None
Verdict If you’re looking for a wireless
all-in-one photo printer, look no further.
T
he Canon MP990 sits at the top
of its inkjet all-in-one range. As you
might expect, it’s feature-rich and on
paper has just about everything you could
possibly want from a multi-function device.
The MP990 offers wifi, Ethernet and USB
connectivity, as well as a digital memory
card reader and PictBridge support. There
are six separate ink tanks, holding CMYK, a
pigment-based black plus a grey for better
monochrome prints. The MP990 has built-in
duplex allowing you to save paper by printing
on both sides. In addition, there’s a CD/DVD
printing attachment, two paper trays capable
of handling media up to A4 in size and a
scanning adaptor that enables you to capture
35mm slide and negatives.
The printer itself is heavy, but the design
means it’s not all that bulky: considering all
of its features, it has quite a small footprint
when not in use. The LCD screen, which is
on a foldaway flap, is bright, sharp and, at
3.8in, very usable.
Setting up the MP990 is very easy,
although as we had Mac OS X 10.6 installed,
▼ Despite its range of features, the MP990’s clever design means it has a surprisingly small footprint.
we had to download the driver from the
Internet. We assume that the Snow Leopard
drivers will make it to the install CD for later
models. Otherwise, it’s all fairly standard
fare from Canon, with a solid build quality
and design. However, that’s what you would
expect for an all-in-one inkjet printer costing
£230 (£200 ex VAT).
‘Our suite of tests provided nothing that the
MP990 couldn’t handle, and it produced speed
and quality worth every penny’
At that kind of price point, specification
is only part of the equation, as performance
has to be up to scratch as well. Happily, the
MP990 is more than capable in this area. Our
suite of tests provided nothing that it couldn’t colour was just right, not over saturated or
handle, and it produced speed and quality
worth every penny.
A page of draft text was through the
printer is just five seconds, which isn’t that
different from other models we’ve tested.
▼ Photo output from the MP990
is excellent for both colour and
monochrome images.
However, the quality of the output was better
than most draft text we’ve seen. A page of
best-quality text was out in 55 seconds and,
again, the quality was very good. Deep black
and sharp characters more than matched
some laser output we’ve seen. We also put
the MP990 to the test with a mixed text and
graphics business-style document. Again,
it didn’t falter: just under
three minutes for 10 pages
of sharp text and excellent-
quality images. Colour text
over textured backgrounds
and pictures was legible and
well defined, too.
Photo quality was just as good, with a
borderless A4 image coming out bright, sharp
and really well balanced. Detail, even in
darker areas of an image, was excellent and
bland, just very pleasing. At two minutes from
start to finish, it’s impressively quick, too.
A 6 x 4in photo was equally pleasing to the
eye and took just 44 seconds to make it to
the output tray.
The scanner was fast and accurate,
capturing a good level of detail and colour.
We particularly liked the way the 35mm film
and slide adaptor was stored in the top of
the case, which means it’s always to hand
when you need it. The scanner took just nine
seconds for a 300dpi A4 scan. Copies were
similarly speedy, at 22 seconds for colour
and 15 seconds for black and white.
There’s no denying that the Canon
MP990 performs very, very well. It’s fast and
produces excellent-quality results. Not only
that, but the specification is impressive. Even
at its list price of £329 the Pixma MP990
is worth every penny, as it’s not going to
disappoint in terms of output or speeds. At
the street price of about £230, it’s excellent
value. If you’re after the best possible all-in-
one inkjet, then this may well be it.
Christopher Brennan
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036
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
Desktop virtualisation
Parallels Desktop
for Mac
Price £59.99 (£52.17 ex VAT); upgrade
£34.99 (£30.43 ex VAT)
Contact Parallels + parallels.com
Needs Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later +
300MB hard disk space + 1GB Ram
Pros Speed improvements + Bundled
software + Good support for Aero
Cons More expensive than Fusion
Verdict Slightly pricier than Fusion,
but its performance merits the
extra money.
T
he arrival of Snow Leopard and
Windows 7 has prompted updates
to both VMWare Fusion and, hot on
its heels, Parallels Desktop for Mac, the two
virtual machine environments that let you run
Windows and other PC operating systems on
your Mac. But which is better?
Aside from support for the latest operating
systems, the big news in Parallels 5 for Mac
is support for 64-bit Windows 7, and 64-bit as
well as 32-bit Snow Leopard hosts, support
for the Aero interface enhancements in
Vista and Windows 7, and the ability to
run Windows over multiple monitors.
At first glance, though, Parallels 5 looks
like an understated upgrade. Its Virtual
Machines List isn’t as flashy as Fusion’s
equivalent Virtual Machine Library, which
shows live thumbnail views of virtual machine
environments, but it’s as practical. You can
start and stop virtual machines from here
and, by right-clicking the name of the virtual
machine in the list, edit its configuration.
Parallels doesn’t offer the same lengthy
list of supported virtual machines as Fusion
3, but the 60 it does support should satisfy
most. Installing Vista from scratch was as
In the brand-new Crystal mode the presence of the Windows operating
system is almost completely hidden.
The ‘peel back’ feature in full-screen mode is a great way of switching back to the Mac environment.
easy as it was under Fusion, and converting a
Fusion-based virtual machine was seamless.
Like Fusion, Parallels 5 offers several
virtual environment modes, including full-
screen and single window. In full-screen
mode, Parallels 5 adopts a clever effect that
allows you to pull back a corner of the screen
to reveal the underlying Mac background. It’s
a neat way to switch control without resorting
to keyboard shortcuts.
Single-window mode has also seen some
improvements. On the left-hand side of the
window’s status bar, a button menu lets
you quickly suspend, stop or pause a virtual
‘Parallels was nearly twice as fast
as Fusion at suspending and
shutting down a Windows XP
virtual machine’
machine, while on the right you can switch
between modes.
Coherence is the equivalent of Fusion’s
Unity mode, allowing Windows applications
to run in a Mac environment. Where Fusion
adds a menu option to control Windows,
Parallels adds a Start menu application icon
and Windows Applications
folder to the Dock. This will
feel familiar to Mac users,
although as each virtual
environment is awarded its
own folder, and even renamed
virtual environments are given
fresh folders, it could quickly
get cluttered. However, a new
variation on Coherence, called
Crystal, removes almost all
trace of Windows by replacing
Parallels desktop icons and
folders with a single menu bar
icon. Right-click this and you
can see available applications;
left-clicking gives access to the
Windows Start menu.
There are a flurry of other practical
improvements, including support for Apple
Remote and trackpad gestures, which worked
in Explorer, PowerPoint and Excel. There’s also
the bonus of additional Windows software,
including a year’s anti-virus subscription (a
deal similar to that offered by Fusion), and free
Windows backup and partitioning software.
How does it perform, though? Parallels
claims to have significantly improved
graphics performance, with support for
DirectX 9 with Shader Model 3 and OpenGL
2.1. Indeed, in general use, it was faster
than Fusion on our test machine. An XP
virtual machine felt smoother in Parallels,
and the Mac was also more responsive
under Parallels when the virtual machine
was running in the background.
We used Vista’s Windows Experience
Index, which determines the suitability
of hardware to run Vista, to gauge basic
performance on that operating system.
As you’d expect, Fusion and Parallels
scored identically in memory and hard disk
performance, but Parallels proved faster in
the processor and gaming graphics tests,
while Fusion was marked higher when it came
to other graphics. In real-world use, we felt
Parallels ran Aero more smoothly – if hardly
speedily – with none of the artifacts that
appeared under Fusion.
Many users are unlikely to need high-
end graphics performance from their virtual
environment, and will instead care about
how quickly the virtual machine can be
launched and suspended. On identical
hardware, Parallels was nearly twice as fast
at suspending and shutting down a Windows
XP virtual machine, and quicker to resume a
suspended virtual machine. Parallels also had
a narrow edge on a Vista virtual machine.
Parallels 5 is an excellent solution if you
need to run Windows or Linux on your Mac.
In performance terms, this version has
leapfrogged ahead of Fusion 3 and while it’s
more expensive, we’d recommend it over
VMWare’s offering.
Tom Gorham
038
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
iPhone app
Doom Classic
Price £3.99 from the App Store
URL bit.ly/1na3JW
Verdict Doom may look its age, but id
has done a good job of adapting it to
the iPhone. The result isn’t perfect, but
there’s still plenty of fun to be had for
a few pounds.
T
his recreation of the 1993 game
lets you punch, chainsaw and blast
your way through the horrors of Mars
across 36 levels. Being unable to crouch,
iPhone app
Championship
Manager 2010
Express
Price £2.99 from the App Store
URL bit.ly/1fyBmF
Verdict An absorbing game for anyone
with a passion for the beautiful game.
I
f you’re already hooked on Championship
Manager 2010, then you’ll be delighted
to know that Eidos Interactive has brought
the game to the iPhone, so you can hone your
managerial skills when away from your Mac.
iPhone app
Command
& Conquer
Red Alert
Price £5.99 from the App Store
URL bit.ly/42VbLA
Verdict While the action feels a little
cramped, its controls feel natural.
T
he first installment in the Command
& Conquer series to hit the iPhone
is just what you’d expect from the
long-running strategy series. Two factions
fight for supremacy on a 3D terrain in
jump and look up and down seems odd
today, but Doom Classic’s labyrinthine base
has a real depth to its level design. Careful
exploration will yield hidden arms caches,
and some unpleasant surprises.
Enemies may look like cardboard cutouts,
but coming face to face with a grotesque
monster is still enough to set your pulse
racing. Their grunts and snarls are repetitive,
and of similar calibre to the noise of Pac-Man
guzzling down pills, adding atmosphere to Doom Classic’s monsters may look like cardboard
cutouts, but they’re still fun to blast.
the red planet. However, it’s the controls that
are the biggest problem. Three variations are
available, including one that lets you move, fear of enemies, but of taking a wrong step
turn, strafe and fire. You can be imprecise and plummeting to our death in one of the
when tapping the virtual sticks as the point game’s pits of toxic waste.
where you first place your thumb becomes There are also four-person cooperative
the new centre position, which keeps your and deathmatch modes over wifi, which adds
eyes firmly on the action in the centre of the some replayability. For a few pounds, you get
screen, though our steps were more tentative an enjoyable blast down memory lane that’s
than with a mouse and keyboard, not out of worth keeping around.
The game is simple – you manage a
football club in one of the top four English
divisions, making the decisions that can
bring your team cup glory or relegation. The
game is played out a couple of days at a time
over the season, punctuated by match days
for league games and cup competitions.
As the manager, you not only pick the
team for each game, but you also determine
its tactics, formation and style of play. On
match days, you watch the team in action,
with options to substitute players and change Choose your formation, style of play and
gamesmanship before watching the drama unfold.
tactics to guide it to victory. During the match
itself, you’ll find yourself engrossed watching
little dots scoot around your screen, hoping desktop game, with many features removed,
your star player snatches a winning goal. On so we were surprised to see the bulk of the
the days when your team isn’t playing, you features was still present. Championship
manage the players’ training, face the media, Manager 2010 Express is incredibly in-depth
make transfers to strengthen your squad or yet easy to pick up, but like the beautiful
remove disruptive players. game will take a lifetime to master. All-in-all
When we first fired up the game, we were this is a must-have for football fans and at
expecting a largely cut-down version of the £2.99 it’s much less than a season ticket.
a series of real-time battles. Equally
unsurprising is that EA has embraced Apple’s
in-app purchases mechanism, though
the only content you’ll find in the Command
& Conquer Store right now is a 59p pack
of six skirmish maps.
You’ll get some additional value from
the game once the free multiplayer update
arrives, but brace yourself for other add-
ons, such as the Empire of the Rising Sun
expansion, to leech more pennies from
warmongers’ wallets. This version offers enough strategic warfare to
keep you occupied while away from your Mac.
The touchscreen interface feels like a
natural substitution for a mouse. Swipe to
explore the landscape, tap and drag around If you’re a huge fan of real-time strategy
units to direct them, and pinch to zoom into games, you’ll probably persevere. The game’s
the action. Gestures make the gameplay 12 levels can be played as the Soviet or
flow reasonably well, though the view feels Allied factions, and while the script is far from
restrictive even when zoomed out to the a literary gem, the scenario is a classic. The
greatest degree. That leaves you swiping a portable version of Red Alert is a passable
lot to see what’s ahead, which gets tiring way to hone your battle skills on the road.
after a while. Jon Lysons and Alan Stonebridge
 039

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
Wireless keyboard
Microsoft
Bluetooth Mobile
Keyboard 6000

Price £49.98 (£43.46 ex VAT)

from ebuyer.co.uk
Contact Microsoft + microsoft.com
Needs Bluetooth support
Pros Comfortable to type on + Wireless
+ Number pad is very useful
Cons Keyboard could be tilted a bit more
Verdict An excellent option for anyone
who uses a laptop and needs a
number pad and separate keyboard.
Both the keyboard and number pad
connect to your Mac using Bluetooth. We
experienced a little difficulty getting the
keyboard to pair: the Mac’s Bluetooth app
wouldn’t recognise the numerical code we
tapped in. However, we were able to resolve
that problem by selecting our own code
and using that.
Once the keyboard and number pad
are paired, they’re recognised by the Mac
▲ Its curved shape may take a bit of getting used to,
but the Mobile Keyboard 6000 is a great buy.
The number pad also works well and if you
regularly use spreadsheets or an onscreen
calculator to tot up sums, it’s a huge
improvement on using the regular numbers
on a MacBook.
The keyboard takes two AAA batteries,
while the number pad uses one AA cell. All
are included in the box.
Our only real complaint about the
keyboard is that, although the rear is raised

M
icrosoft’s Bluetooth Keyboard
and Number Pad are designed
for laptop users who prefer to
type on a full-sized keyboard rather than the
keyboard on their notebook. The number pad
is particularly useful for anyone who bought
a recent MacBook and was disappointed to
find that the option to create a number pad
from the keys on the right-hand side of the
keyboard is no longer there.
whenever they’re in range and switched on.
We found that the curved keyboard took a
little getting used to, mainly because we’re
not used to typing on a keyboard that shape.
However, after a while it became second
nature and very comfortable to work on.
The keys themselves have enough travel to
make them satisfying to tap, although they do
make a rather loud clackety-clack if you punch
them as hard as we’re inclined to do.
slightly, there’s no stand and it doesn’t sit at
enough of an angle for our taste. That really is
a minor point, though, and it doesn’t detract
from the usefulness of the keyboard.
We like the Microsoft Bluetooth Keyboard
and Number Pad a great deal. At £50, it’s not
cheap, but if you spend a significant amount
of your working life using a laptop at your
desk, it’s a worthwhile investment indeed.
Kenny Hemphill

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4 December 2009
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 043

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
From setting up a
backup schedule to
managing your
money, we’ve got 20
top tips for making
sure you stick to at
least one of your New
Year’s resolutions.

Words Tom Gorham

Main image Danny Bird

N
ew Year is the time when, traditionally, we break
bad habits and aim to learn better ones. It’s an
approach that could happily apply to the way we
work with our Macs.
We know we should be more organised – that we
should put in place a backup schedule, stop losing our
contacts and manage our appointments more effectively.
And we know that we’d work better if our files were neatly
organised on our Macs.
However, real-life inevitably gets in the way: keeping
track of calendars and contacts is tough if you’re away
from your Mac, and however useful a backup routine
might be, doesn’t it need a spare drive and self-discipline?
And as for file organisation: how long can that New Year’s
resolution really last?
The truth is that it’s easier than you might think to
better organise yourself, because often Mac OS X’s
features and third-party applications can handle the
organisational spade-work for you. For example, Spaces
can save you from distracting applications, Spotlight can
be turned into an ad-hoc project manager, iCal can act as
a reminder assistant no matter where you are, and online
services can manage backups on your behalf.
Over the next few pages, we’ll reveal some organisation
tips for you and your Mac, as well as some advice on
how to better manage your finances and keep your Mac
in tip-top condition.
If you can spare a few quiet festive moments to set
things up, the results should repay that effort several
times over in 2010.
044
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

iCal can notify you of events by email, so no matter where you are,
your iCal calendar is useful for keeping appointments.

Apple’s iCal isn’t just useful for managing your

6 office or social life – it can also open files and

folders for you. Create an event, and in the
Alarm option, choose the option for it to open a file.
This could be a document, file or even an AppleScript
to perform a series of actions.

Mail launches and runs significantly faster with

7 fewer messages. To archive old email, first sort

your message database by Date Received. Drag the
oldest emails to a new mailbox folder, select Mailbox >
Archive Mailbox and choose a place to store them. Once
you’ve archived all of your mail in this way, you can delete
the mailbox folder in Mail.

Smart Mailboxes are an underused way to organise

8 Mail messages, and they’re much more powerful

than Mail’s simple search tool. Choose Mailbox >
New Smart Mailbox and create multiple criteria that can
Don’t add files to the Desktop. Not only is a gather emails by subject, recipient or even their contents.

1 cluttered Desktop a drag on productivity – files get

lost, and can be a background distraction – but
displaying Desktop icons also draws a fractional amount
Like Smart Folders, these mailboxes update automatically,
so are easily managed.

of processor power. If you can’t be organised, use Is your iTunes content hogging precious disk
DeskShade (macrabbit.com/deskshade) to hide them.

To keep files and folders associated with a project

9 space? If that sounds horribly familiar, drag your
user’s Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder to an
external drive. Back in iTunes, choose Preferences and

2 organised in one folder, prefix their name with

a project code. Next, create a Smart Folder in
the Finder (File > New Smart Folder), and as its criteria,
choose files whose name begins with that code. Save
the folder to your Finder window sidebar.
under the Advanced tab, click on Change. Navigate to the
folder’s new location. Ensure the ‘Copy Files to iTunes
Media Folder When Adding to Library’ option is checked.
Finally, delete the original folder.
Use a similar technique to that above to

3
If you lack an iPhone or MobileMe account, it can
be difficult to manage your contacts. However,
Address Book syncs with Google and Yahoo
Mail, so with an account at either, you can keep all your
contacts together. Set it up in Address Book’s Preferences
window under the Accounts tab.
10 move images and video projects. For images,
copy your iPhoto Library file from your user’s
Pictures folder. When you next launch iPhoto you’ll be
You can save a lot of asked to locate a library. Navigate to the new location and
disk space by removing
movie clips you don’t
click Choose. In iMovie, use the File > Consolidate Media
need from iMovie. command to choose the elements to move.

Internet distractions

4 ruin productivity, and

while there are obvious
ways to avoid them – turning
off your router or running
applications in full-screen
mode – sometimes self-
discipline can do with some
help. Try the free Self-Control,
which blocks email and web
access for a set duration,
or the more configurable
Concentrate (roobasoft.com).

If you keep forgetting

5 to empty the Trash,

TrashTimer (hieper.nl/
html/trashtimer.html) will help
automate it. Don’t forget to
empty iPhoto’s separate Trash,
which can become bloated
with unwanted images. iMovie
09 shares the Finder’s Trash,
but remember to discard
unwanted clips. Choose File >
Space Saver and then choose
what to delete.
 045

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
Finances
Getting your finances in order is a popular New
Year’s resolution, but it’s difficult to reconcile the
ideal with the practical drudgery or complexity of
finance applications.
Fortunately, the days of inscrutability are
largely behind us. A new breed of Desktop and
online tools make tracking finances and managing
budgets possible even for the financially illiterate.
Take MoneyWell (nothirst.com/moneywell).
Rather than adopting the inscrutable double-entry
procedures favoured by accountants, Moneywell
instead adopts a financial metaphor anyone can
understand: buckets. You set up income buckets
to hold the money coming in, and assign any
budgeted expenditure to expense buckets, such
as rent, groceries, bills or cable TV subscription,
which can be ordered according to priority. If
you overspend, the bucket gives you a visual
warning by turning red.
Online tools, too, are a handy way to get
into the world of low-impact personal finance
management. Wesabe (wesabe.com) lets you
upload bank statements, organise and chart your The Spaces feature
finances through tags with minimal fuss. It uses has a useful side Mac OS X’s Spaces feature is great for
what it terms collective intelligence to gather and
share merchant reviews and money-saving tips
based on your financial history.
benefit: arranging
applications so they
don’t distract you. 12 keeping work applications away from games
and other distractions. Open the Exposé &
Spaces System Preferences Pane, drag applications to the
If you want to track your business as well as Application Assignments window and assign them a space
personal finances online, invoicing applications in the pop-up menu.
such as Blinksale (blinksale.com) and FreshBooks
(freshbooks.com) not only let you email invoices If your New Year’s resolution is to get
to clients – a huge timesaver – but also let you
receive payments over the Internet, which can help
with cash flow. You can track paid and overdue
13 things done, you’ll need help from a project
management utility. If you’ve grown out of
simple checklists such as Ta-da List (tadalist.com), Things
invoices and when it comes to preparing your (culturedcode.com/things), which lets you track multiple
accounts for tax early in 2010, you can export projects and organise them by tags, could be for you.
the results to a spreadsheet.
The Finder sidebar gives quick access to

Folder Actions are scripts automatically

14 networked drives and devices, but it’s also
a great application launcher or place to
store project folders or images. Just drag files, folders or

11 performed on files when they’re added to

a folder. To create a Folder Action, Ctrl-click
any folder and choose Folder Actions Setup. You can add
applications to the sidebar from any Finder window and
they will appear in every window you subsequently open.

one of the pre-built image manipulation or file conversion Take the guesswork out of billable time next
scripts or add your own AppleScript to your user’s Library/
Scripts/Folder Action Scripts.
Attaching actions to
folders can save a lot
of time and effort. 15 year. Billings 3 (billingsapp.com) and On The
Job (stuntsoftware.com) are two excellent
utilities to track what you do – and then turn the results
into good-looking invoices. On a tighter budget? The free
WorkTimer (gersh.no) does basic tracking and lets you
export the results.

A crowded Dock is the bane of the

16 busy designer. To avoid clutter, organise

applications there by topic. Create
appropriately named folders containing aliases of related
applications, such as graphic design or web development
tools, and then drag these to the right-hand side of the
Dock so that they become easily opened stacks.

Leopard users can sync iCal with

17 Google Calendar (instructions at google.

com/support/calendar/bin/answer.
py?hl=en&answer=99358#ical), but iCal can email
reminders anywhere. Select the event in iCal, and in its
Event Info window’s Alarm tab, choose the email option.
046
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

Offsite backup

18 has come of
age. BackBlaze
(backblaze.com) allows unlimited
backup including attached hard
drives for £40 per year. The first
backup is slow – it took a month
to copy our hard drive over – but
the advantages are worth it:
it’s always on and data can be
restored from anywhere.

Always on, hardly any setup. For

less than £50 per year, BackBlaze
is an inexpensive addition to Time
Machine backups.

Snow Leopard revolutionises the Services

19 menu, and with Automator you can

create services for tasks such as resizing
thumbnails. In Automator, select Service and click Choose.
In the workflow area, select ‘Service received selected
files or folders’ in ‘Finder.app’. Drag the Create Thumbnail
Images action underneath it. Choose thumbnail size and
suffix. Save and name: easy.
Apple’s Services menu is great in Snow Leopard, and even better
when you write your own actions.

Keep your Mac running

optimally and prevent crashes
There are standard ground rules for keeping your
Mac running at its best, such as plenty of Ram and
a speedy hard disk. However, other quick checks
will improve stability throughout 2010.
First, make sure you have plenty of disk space,
so applications run as speedily and reliably as they
can. While you can save space by moving media to
an external drive or deleting unwanted applications,
some files and folders slip through the net. The
free utility Grand Perspective (grandperspectiv.
sourceforge.net) is great for finding such
recalcitrant files.
The best tools for checking system health are
already on your Mac, such as Disk Utility, which
can spot the signs of a failing hard drive. System
Profiler is a less well-known tool. It can reveal
important clues about your Mac’s health. Under the
Power heading of its single window, you can check
battery age and health, while the Logs section
holds important details about crashes.
Out-of-date software – particularly PowerPC-
based software on Intel machines – is a hard-
to-spot speed drag. Even here, System Profiler
can help. Under its Applications heading, it lists
installed software together with the platform for
which it was built.
Another big cause of system problems is
bloated or corrupt system or browser caches.
System caches can be removed manually from
By adding comments
Spotlight’s a handy organisational tool, but your System/Library folder and in Safari you can

20
how do you track files it can’t index? The
answer is to tag them. To do this, select a
file in the Finder and choose File > Get Info. Add tags –
such as project or client – in the Spotlight comments field,
and Spotlight will find them.
to it, any file can be
tracked by Spotlight. choose Safari > Empty Cache to tidy things up, but
free utility Onyx (titanium.free.fr) does it quickly,
while repairing permissions and performing other
maintenance tasks at the same time.
048
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

IE W OF T HE
REV

DECADE
As the No ug hties draw to a close,
en y
le
ea
t ’s
rs
lo
an
o
d
k
s
b
e
a c k at how
e just how
e lived th rou gh Apple’s gold
w
far we’ve come…

Words: Nik Rawlinson + Kenny Hemphill

Main image: Danny Bird

T
he decade is drawing to a close. It hardly seems possible
that it’s a full 10 years since we were worrying about planes
falling out the sky and power stations shutting down under
the relentless force of the Millennium Bug. Well, that turned out to
be a big fuss over nothing.
After a shaky start, though, the Noughties really picked up,
and nowhere more so than in the world of the Mac. This time 10
years ago, there was no iPhone. There was no iPod, come to that.
Google didn’t enjoy the dominance it does today, and the Mac was
still a PowerPC machine through and through.
What the next 10 years will bring, we can only guess, but you
can be sure it will build on the successes of the past decade. So,
come with us as we look back on the first 10 years of the 21st
Century and relive the good times, the bad times, and the just
plain weird happenings of the years 2000 to 2009.

Special thanks to Square Group LTD for

supplying the iMac for our photoshoot
049

www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
050

2000
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

MARCH bursts
Dot-com bubblest extraordinary rise in the share prices of tec was
hnology
w the mo Internet-related pro
duct
The late 1990s sa y business with an
It se em ed that an of mo ne y for the likes
companies. ions raised huge sums
rke t flotat n former
unstoppable. And
stock ma was worth more tha
wh ich im me diately after its IPO d co rrected itself
1 JANUARY of MP3.com and Pa
lm ,
ma ke
rket realise the error of its wa
d th
ys an
The world enters a new millennium ntually, the
parent, 3Com. Eve
sh . Thousands of
and fears of widespread computer with a hu ge cra
the wall, but
companies went to
failure due to the Millennium Bug ch as Amazon
the stronge st, su
fail to materialise
and eBay, survived.

THE YEAR THAT…

Wifi standard takes off
Apple introduced its first Mac with built-in
wifi, the iBook, in 1999, but it wasn’t until
the following year that the standard really
took off. Companies rushed to market with
wifi adaptors, bridges, routers and eventually
all sorts of peripherals with built-in wireless
interfaces. Most of us were still hamstrung
by dial-up Internet connections and so unable
to enjoy all the benefits of wireless surfing,
but that changed the following year when
Broadband Britain emerged.
JULY
Power Mac G4 Cube ships
The Cube was a masterpiece. The Mac itself
was perfectly cube shaped, but housed inside
a clear Perspex ‘chimney’ to aid cooling. The
slot-loading optical drive was housed vertically,
so CDs slid in and popped out like bread in
a toaster, and it shipped with Apple’s digital
audio spherical speakers. It really was a thing
of beauty. Unfortunately, it was also very
expensive. Priced in the same region as a
Power Mac tower, but much less powerful, the
Power Mac G4 Cube was neither a consumer
machine nor a professional workstation. As a
result, it failed to find a market, sold miserably
and was swiftly withdrawn.

SEPTEMBER
The birth of a new OS
Apple’s next-generation operating system
had been a long-time coming. During the
1990s it had developed an OS codenamed
Copland and then scrapped it. Then it toyed
with the idea of buying Jean-Louis Gassée’s
BeOS, before in 1996 it acquired Steve
Jobs’ NeXT and began work on what was
codenamed Rhapsody. That operating system
was released as Mac OS X Server 1.0 in
SEPTEMBER
Clamshell iBook’
1999, and then was effectively scrapped.
September 2000 s last stand
Much of the development though, made it marked the last hurrah for the
seat’ iBook. First ‘toilet
into Darwin, the open-source underpinnings introduced in July
brightly coloured 1999, the iBook G3
of Mac OS X, which debuted with a public clamshell case an ’s
almost as much att d carry handle gra
beta on 13 September 2000. ention as the first bbed
earlier. The Septe iMac had a year
mber 2000 mode
processor in 366M l retained the G3
Hz and 466MHz co
faster of the two, nfigurations. The
known as the iBo
in Key Lime or Grap ok SE, was availab
hite, while the slo le
in Indigo and Key wer model came
Lime. For the first
both configuration time on the iBook
s featured FireWire ,
ports.
052
OCTOBER
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

Enter the iPod…

What’s left to say about the iPod? Unveiled at a
special event in the US in October 2001, and
JULY rolls out launched in the UK in November, Apple’s MP3
Quicksilver G4’t the first Power player changed the face of the portable digital
wasn
The Quicksilver G4 portable music market. It had a 5GB hard drive
ture Mo torola’s G4 processor,
Mac to fea from – enough to store, according to Apple’s famous
cant step forward
but it was a signifi tur ed tag line: ‘1000 songs in your pocket.’ More
it replaced. It fea
the Graphite G4s , an Alt iVec importantly, it had a FireWire port, meaning you
PC G4 74 50
Motorola’s Power 3M Hz or could fill it in minutes, rather than the hours it
nin g at 73
Velocity engine run Hz would have taken with a USB 1.1 connection.
al-processor 800M
867MHz, and a du perD riv e DVD
tured the Su
model. It also fea the -rang e and
mi dd le-of-
burner in both the ch of
nging it within rea
top-end model, bri
ers.
many more Mac us

THE YEAR THAT…

Internet goes broadband
While the promise of fast, always-on Internet
had been tantalising us for years, it wasn’t
until 2001 that major ISPs began to roll out
ADSL and cable Internet connections for
consumers. Mac users, as so often is the
11 SEPTEMBER case, were left frustrated by the USB modems
Two hijacked that many ISPs used because their driver
planes crashed into software didn’t work properly on the Mac.
the World Trade Things improved quickly though, as more
Center in New York, PCs gained Ethernet ports and ISPs moved
destroying them. A away from USB modems to Ethernet devices,
third crashed at the which finally made good on the promise of
Pentagon with a fourth always-on Internet access.
crashing in Pennsylvania.
Almost 3000 people
were killed

MAY
White iBooks launched
If the clamshell iBook seemed a little like
a toy, due to its styling and distinct lack of
power, the new iBook was something else
entirely. Styled to look much more like Apple’s
professional PowerBook range, the iBook
was smaller and lighter than its predecessor,
FEBRUARY g for all featured a faster processor, more Ram, VGA
DVD burnin ched critical out, stereo speaker and a higher-resolution
format had rea
By 2001, the DVD of 12.1in screen. The top-end model was the
VHS as the media
mass and replaced mo vie s and first Mac to feature a CD-RW/DVD-Rom combo
and watching
choice for buying ati ng yo ur own drive. It also featured two USB sockets and
weve r, cre
TV programmes. Ho ns ive one FireWire port.
s a hugely expe
DVD video discs wa are and
t involv ed complex softw
business tha du plica tion
ecialist DV D
outsourcing to sp c users
t changed for Ma
companies. All tha from As tarte
ht DVDirec tor
when Apple boug Pro . At the
DVD St udio
and turned it into the
ed a DVD recorder,
same time it shipp we r Ma c and the
high-end Po
SuperDrive, in the s up on us . By the
-mak ing wa
age of DVD movie already
though, DVD was
end of the decade an d we b video.
by Blu-ra y
obsolete, replaced

2001
 053
JANUARY
iMac G4 changes design direction

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
When Apple finally switched the iMac from its ageing G3 processor to a G4, it didn’t just
rearrange the innards: it completely redesigned and redefined its consumer desktop Mac.
The result was a dome-shaped computer with a 15in LCD screen and an arm that wouldn’t
have looked out of place on an anglepoise lamp. Indeed, the similarity to Pixar’s Luxo
character was irresistible. The arm was fully adjustable and the screen could be moved
up, down or around in an arc with the push of only a couple of fingers. We worried about
the strength and durability of that arm, and had visions of sorry-looking drooping iMacs.
However, Apple assured us it had been tested to withstand years of adjustment, and it
was right – we never did hear of a single case of drooping iMac syndrome.

2002 APRIL
eMac targets schools
Having whittled Apple’s Mac range down
to a very neat 2 x 2 matrix – professional
desktop, professional laptop, consumer
desktop and consumer laptop – Apple
then muddied the waters by launching the
eMac. Initially only available to educational
establishments, the snow-white all-in-one
looked a little like the early iMac. It featured
a G4 processor, flat CRT screen and became
very popular not just with schools and
colleges, but in offices and in homes, too.

MAY
Xserve means business
By 2002, Apple had consolidated its position
as the computer of choice for creative THE YEAR THA
professionals, begun to claw back market USB 2 vs Fire T…
share in education and started to become Before USB 2, co
Wire hots up
nnection interfaces
more popular among consumers. Next on Mac were split int on the
o two easily distin
the agenda was the enterprise market. Big types: USB 1.1 ha guishable
ndled peripherals,
businesses had ignored the Mac in favour as printers and sc such
anners, that didn’t
of Windows PCs, but Apple knew Mac OS X need fast data tra
nsfer; and FireWire
and its Unix heritage could change that. In used for hard drive was
s, video cameras
2002, it introduced its first rackmount server, anything else where and
speed was critical.
the Xserve. Built to run Mac OS X Server and changed with the That
launch of USB 2,
with the same design values and attention bandwidth of 480M whose
bits/sec was, in the
to detail as every other Mac, it began to at least, more tha ory
n a match for FireW
make inroads and was slowly but steadily Peripheral manufac ire.
turers gradually rem
adopted by large organisations. FireWire interfaces oved
from their hard dri
and scanners, an ves
d it seemed as tho
FireWire’s days co ugh
uld well be numb
JULY ered.
Apple buys Em
MAY/JUNE agic
By 2002, Final Cu
t Pro was beginnin
The Queen itself as the video g to establish
editing application
of choice for
celebrates many professiona
l movie makers. Pe
on by this succes rhaps spurred
her Golden s, Apple attempte
d to repeat
the trick in the mu
Jubilee with sic-making industry
. It bought
Logic’s developer,
a tour of support for PC ve
Emagic, and imme
diately ended
Britain and set about making
rsions of the appli
cation. It then
a Party in sequencer and au
Logic Pro on the Ma
c the best
the Palace dio recording appli
platform. The Em cation on any
agic acquisition als
Logic Express and o spawned
GarageBand.
 JUNE
054 Power Mac G5
plays it cool
The G5 chip was the last hurrah for
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

PowerPC and Apple’s relationship

with Motorola. The Power Mac G5
featured the first 64-bit processor
on a Mac and had an aluminium
chassis whose insides were
designed to help the warm air from
the processors flow away from
the motherboard. The G5 was a
powerful CPU, but Motorola had
been unable to get it to run without
generating significant heat. Apple
was unable, therefore, to use it in
APRIL the MacBook Pro and eventually
The iTunes Music Store abandoned PowerPC altogether
By 2003, the iPod was beginning to move in favour of Intel processors.
beyond its initial market of enthusiasts and
early adopters. Tabloid newspaper pictures
of celebrities jogging wearing the iconic
white earbuds helped it along, but it was
the iTunes Music Store that really made it
take off. Apple managed to negotiate deals
with major record labels and independents
that enabled it to sell thousands of songs MARCH
and albums at one price. At a stroke, it Google launches Adsense
made downloading music legally very easy Search giant, Google had been selling advertising space alongside
and created a whole new market for the its search engine listings for a few years. In 2003, it took this a
music industry. step further and invited website publishers to display its adverts on
their sites in return for a percentage of the revenue. In doing so, it
provided a revenue stream for thousands of site owners, who had
previously regarded their websites only as hobbies. It also indirectly
created tens of thousands of spammy, content-free sites, whose
only purpose was to attract visitors by any means possible in the
hope that enough of them would click on the Adsense adverts to
APRIL make their owners rich.
The Human
Genome project
is completed
with 99% of the
human genome
sequenced, with
99.99% accuracy FEBRUARY
Google buys Blo
gger
Blogs are now su
ch a fundamenta
of the web that it l part
seems hard to be
that at the turn of lieve
the decade, the ide
a database-driven a of
JANUARY G4 17in ships an online diary wa
platform for prese
nting
PowerBook ple announced a laptop imaginative develop
s alien to all but a
ers. It wasn’t WordP
few
Ap
In January 2003, the or Moveable Type ress
reen that was bigger than that took blogging
to
with a sc ir de sktop. the masses, but
ha d on the Blogger. Created by
one many people n Labs and launche Pyra
in boasted a scree d in 1999, it was
The PowerBook 17 els an d wa s acquisition by Go Pyra’s
x 90 0 pix ogle in 2003 that
resolution of 1440 ple had ever Blogger and blogg brought
l lap top Ap ing to millions of
the most powerfu ture campaigners and dia rists,
t ever Mac to fea would-be entrepre
sold. It was the firs bits/s ec version neurs.
new 80 0M
FireWire 800, the firs t Macs
also one of the
of FireWire. It was d Blueto oth.
Extreme an
to feature AirPort in on e
s availab le
The new laptop wa ssor,
a 1GHz G4 proce
configuration, with ha rd dri ve.
d a 60GB
512MB of Ram, an

2003
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056
JUNE ens in UK

2004
iTunes Storersohapd looked across the
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

ne
European iPod ow er of songs
in en vy at the growing numb
Atlantic s Music
le in the US iTune
and albums availab 20 04 wh en Steve
ded in June
Store, but that en a UK St ore along
on to un ve il
Jobs flew to Lond Th e pricing
European Stores.
with several other US St ore :
JANUARY model was the sa
me as that for the
ividual
iPod mini hits the streets .99 , wh ile ind
d at £7
albums were price t would be the
The forerunner of the nano, the iPod mini was the first iPod to stray from the all-white ck s cost 79 p. Anyone hoping tha
tra inc lud e the music
chassis of previous models. It was prettier and smaller than its sibling, but had less reement to
catalyst for an ag the Be atl es, was
storage: only 4GB. Some saw it as the iPod for fashion victims; others, who didn’t need omiss ion ,
of iTunes’ biggest of Beatles
to carry thousands of songs around with them, loved it. At £199, the mini was only ugh. The rumours
disappointed, tho r the mo me nt,
£50 cheaper than the 15GB regular iPod, and that made it a tough sell, even for Apple. ntinue. Fo
music on iTunes co it ab se nc e.
The mini didn’t last long and was replaced by the even more svelte nano. le on ly by
however, it’s notab
JUNE
SpaceShipOne,
partly funded
by Microsoft
co-founder Pau
Allen, is the firs l
privately fundedt
spaceplane
to achieve
space flight

AUGUST
iMac G5 breaks the mould
Rumours of a new iMac design in which the
innards of the computer would be housed
behind the screen had been around for
sometime. So it was no great surprise when,
in August 2004, Apple unveiled the iMac G5.
It was a tribute to the design skill of Jonathan
Ive’s team that, despite the well-known heat
problems with the G5, they managed to
cram the whole lot into a case only 2in thick.
Available in 17in and 20in versions, it formed
the basis for the aluminium iMac case that’s
still used today.
AUGUST
Steve Jobs’ illness
In the summer of 2004, Jobs wrote to Apple
employees to tell them he had been diagnosed
with a rare form of pancreatic cancer. He told
them he would be having surgery and would
need a few weeks to recover, but would be
back at the helm of Apple in the autumn.
Subsequent reports suggested he had, in fact,
been diagnosed the previous year and had
agreed to the Whipple procedure only after
attempting to treat it with a change of diet.
Jobs’ health was a cause for concern again
in 2008, when he visibly lost weight. In early
2009, he travelled to Memphis in Tennessee
for a liver transplant.

SEPTEMBER
iPod photo adds colour
The iPod photo was notable for one reason
only: it was the first iPod to feature a colour
screen. That screen was put to use in a
redesigned user interface and in the feature
that gave the iPod photo its name: the ability
to transfer and view photos. The headphone
socket doubled as an AV output, which could
be connected to a TV to view slideshows. And
the dock that shipped with it had an S-Video
output for the same purpose. Photos were
transferred using iPhoto on the Mac and by
syncing with designated folders on a PC.
 6 JUNE
PowerPC unplugged 057
After months of chatter and
speculation, Steve Jobs confirmed

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
at Apple’s Worldwide Developers
Conference that the company would
be transitioning all of its computers
from PowerPC to Intel processors. The
implications were huge, meaning that
developers would have to re-code their
applications for the new architecture,
and Apple would have the only legal
computer line-up capable of running
both Windows and Mac OS X –
simultaneously if necessary. 6 JULY
London wins the bid
for the 2012 Olympics
5 MAY
General Election:
Labour wins
under Tony Blair’s
leadership for
a third term 7 DECEMBER
Hello .eu
The European Union launched the .eu top-level domain, which
replaced .eu.int not only as the domain of the Union’s own
sites (now focused on europa.eu) and, for the first time,
became available to third-party individuals and organisations,
who were able to register domains within the .eu space from
7 April the following year. This led to a number of high-profile
races to snag the most desirable names, such as the three-
way sprint between Volkswagen, Nestlé and Ralph Lauren to
snap up Polo. If you want to see who won, click on polo.eu.
Image PA Photos

11 JANUARY
Mac mini announced
Apple announced its smallest computer to date – at least
if you don’t count the Newton MessagePad – when Steve
Jobs took the wraps off the Mac mini. It looked like a
stopgap machine to fill out Apple’s product line and give
it a computer in the lower-priced end of the market. Its
appearance wasn’t entirely surprising, as commentators
had been talking of a ‘headless iMac’ in the works for
some time. What was surprising was just how small it
was and how tightly Apple had packed in the components,
requiring a wallpaper scraper if you wanted to do any
upgrades or DIY spec changes. Some said it was a short-
term fix, but it’s still going strong five years later.
15 FEBRUARY
YouTube goes online
Three former PayPal employees, Steve Chen,
Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, founded
the world-changing YouTube in early 2005,
giving the online masses a portal through
which they could post video and movie
content – legal or otherwise – for viewing
by a global audience. Its slogan was – and
still is – ‘Broadcast Yourself’ and nobody
could have guessed at the time just how
big it would become. By 2007, estimates
put YouTube’s traffic equal to that of the
entire Internet back in 2000.
20 JANUARY
George W Bush
inaugurated for his
second term of office

2005
058
2006
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
10 JANUARY
Intel Macs arrive
Apple unveiled the first two machines in its line-up to have made the switch to Intel processors:
the iMac and the MacBook Pro. That latter machine heralded a new product name for Apple,
with the machine replacing the much-loved PowerBook line, albeit in a very similar shell.
JANUARY
Apple outgrows Dell
Michael Dell, when asked what he would
do if he were running Apple, once famously
answered that he would sell off its assets and
give the money back to its shareholders. You
can’t help but wonder whether those words
came back to haunt him when, in January
2006, Apple’s market capitalisation exceeded
that of his eponymous computer firm.
7 AUGUST
The end of PowerPC
Apple completed its transition to Intel
processors, announcing it wouldn’t ship
any further PowerPC-based machines. The
transition was completed ahead of schedule,
with the Mac Pro finishing off the new line-up.
Like the MacBook, which had hints of the
iBook, and the iMac, which was more or less
externally identical to the PowerPC edition,
the Mac Pro used the same case as the G5-
based Power Mac, giving the message that
despite the new processors, it was business
as usual and all the machines performed the
same functions as the models they replaced.
16 MARCH
Blu-ray enters the scene
The format may have been set at the start
of the decade, but it took until 2006 for
Blu-ray to finally appear on sale in the US. It
was immediately up against stiff competition
in the form of rival HD DVD in the battle to
become the successor to plain old DVD for
data storage, movie playback and high-
definition audio. Blu-ray, as we now know,
finally won out when Toshiba announced
it was shutting down its HD DVD player
production lines in February 2008. To date,
Apple doesn’t ship any machines with built-in
Blu-ray drives and, given the company’s move
towards downloads and remote software
installation using drives in nearby machines,
it would seem it’s unlikely ever to do so.
13 NOVEMBER
GooTube is born
Little more than a year after it was
founded, YouTube was snapped
up by Google for a staggering
$1.65 billion (then worth about
£883 million) of its own stock.
13 JULY
Apple gets its shoes on
Apple and Nike teamed up to produce the
Nike+ transmitter and receiver device, allowing
buyers to use the iPod as a training tool.
The transmitter fitted in the sole of special
Nike shoes and transmitted workout data to
a receiver plugged into the Dock connector
of an iPod (and now built into the touch
internally). When connected to iTunes, the
iPod posted the data to the nikeplus.com
portal, enabling users to compare their
performance against that of others.
13 OCTOBER
Ban Ki-moon
is elected
Secretary-
General of the
United Nations
NOVEMBER
Battle of the consoles
Sony and Nintendo went head-to-head in
November 2006, launching, respectively, the
PlayStation 3 and Wii into the US market. Here
in Europe, we had to wait a while to get our
hands on the machines – until 8 December
for the Wii and 23 March the following
year for the PS3. By the end of September
2009, Sony had shipped 27 million PS3s
and Nintendo a massive 56.14 million Wiis.
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 had been on the market
since 22 November 2005.
 5 SEPTEMBER
New iPods unveiled 059
As tradition dictates, Apple
launched a raft of new iPods,

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
including the third-generation
29 JUNE (square) nano, the classic
iPhone ships and new entrant to the line-
up, the touch. Boasting many
of the features of the iPhone,
but without the camera or
21 JULY cellphone capabilities, Steve
Image PA Photos

Final Harry Jobs described it as training

Potter book wheels for the iPhone, although
released it seemed unlikely that many
people would have bought one
just to see whether the iPhone
UNE
27 JU takes
Gordon Browny Blair
was right for them.

over from Ton ter

as Prime Minis

24 JUNE 27 OCTOBER
Millennium s Leopard arrives
Dome re-open Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard finally shipped,
as the O2 having been delayed when Apple devoted
much of its engineering resources to getting
the iPhone out of the door and through
regulator approval. Fortunately, it was worth
the wait, introducing key features such as
Spaces and Time Machine. It was the last
edition of the Mac operating system to
MAY support PowerPC-based machines. Under the
The rights hood, it beefed up security by introducing
and wrongs application sandboxing and signing.
of DRM
Apple started selling tracks
from EMI’s catalogue on the
iTunes Store without any DRM
protection. The move followed an
open letter written by Steve Jobs
outlining Apple’s desire to sell
DRM-free music to consumers,
explaining that it’s down to the
record labels whether or not
it’s able to do so. Other music
labels soon followed suit, offering
not only DRM-free tracks, but
also higher-quality music.

9 JANUARY
iPhone, TV and the
end of Computer
Apple announced the iPhone and Apple TV
21 MARC
during Steve Jobs’ San Francisco keynote
Apple TV shipH
s
address, heralding the next phase of the
company’s evolution, taking it into two new
markets. The iPhone was hotly tipped and
JANUARY an obvious success, but Apple TV’s growth
since that date had been rather slower,
Celebrity Big 30
despite updates to both the hardware and
Brother race row software. On the same day, Jobs announced JANUARY
Apple would be dropping the word ‘Computer’ Microsoft
from its name: it was now just Apple Inc. releases
Windows
Vista

2007
060

2008
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

17 FEBRUARY 29 FEBRUARY
Northern Rock is Playing with time
Apple built on the success of Time Machine by
nationalised at the
introducing Time Capsule, its own external hard
start of the recession drive system. It incorporated a wireless router, 9 JULY
allowing notebook users to automatically .Mac morphs
back up their systems whenever they were into MobileMe
connected. This product was launched on a MobileMe opened for
leap year’s extra day. Coincidence or a neat business. It wasn’t much
play on the theme of ‘time’? more than a rebranding of
the old .Mac service, but the
less Mac-specific name was
intended to appeal to PC-using
iPhone owners, who could
have a desirable @me.com
email address. It built on
JUNE 27 .Mac’s success by beefing up
Bill Gates the web hosting features and
steps down as introducing a brand-new Web
chairman of 2.0-style interface for the email
Microsoft to and calendaring tools.
concentrate on
his charitable
activities

11 JULY
Apps add another string
to Apple’s iTunes Store
On the same day that Apple upgraded the
iPhone to the iPhone 3G, it announced the
arrival of the App Store, allowing developers
to write native software for the handset,
and consumers to download applications
to expand its feature set. It gave birth to a
benign monster, which now hosts more than
100,000 apps – more than any rival – many
of which are free. This, as much as anything
else, has contributed to the enormous
success of the iPhone.
8 AUGUST
Opening of
the Beijing
Olympics
OCTOBER
iPhone success
confirmed
With only one current model in its
inventory and less than two years in
the market, Apple was named the
third biggest mobile phone supplier
in the world. Not bad for a company
that many of its better-established
cellphone rivals wrote off when it
announced it was going to play them
9 SEPTEMBER at their own game.
Nano mark four goes long
Another generation, another shape. As the nano
hit mark four, it switched from square and sleek to
skyscraper-esque tall and curved. The smallest iPod
with a screen saw a radical overhaul and incorporated
the same accelerometer as that found in the touch
and iPhone, allowing it to change to CoverFlow mode
as you turned it on one side and play movies in
widescreen as they were supposed to be shown.
 061

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
28 AUGUST
Snow Leopard unveiled
Apple took the wraps off Mac OS X
10.6, the seventh generation of its
current operating system, having
stripped out the code that made it
compatible with PowerPC processors.
This effectively ended the company’s
transition to the Intel platform. In
light of the fact that there were very
few obvious enhancements for end
users, Apple set the low price of £25
for retail copies.

9 SEPTEMBER
The teeny tiny shuffle
The iPod shuffle got even smaller, with the
third generation returning to an upright
format, but still without the integrated
USB plug. This shuffle really was smaller
than a stick of gum, and a whole lot more
entertaining, with new VoiceOver features
to announce the names of tracks and
playlists as they came up.
Image PA Photos

25 JUNE
Michael Jackson dies
Mi

19 JUNE
iPhone 3GS debuts
The third-generation iPhone – the 3GS
– hit the shelves, but it wasn’t such a
Image PA Photos

radical upgrade as some had expected.

The ‘S’ in its name denoted the extra
speed, and the only material changes
to the hardware spec were a higher-
resolution camera (three megapixels
14 JANUARY rather than two) and a compass to
Jobs takes a back up the integrated GPS receiver.
job break
Steve Jobs announced to the world 20 JANUARY
that he was going to take a six-month Barack Obama
leave of absence from Apple. This inaugurated
came just nine days after he had
as 44th US
announced on Apple’s corporate site
that he was suffering from a hormone
President Air France fligh1 JUNE
t from
imbalance, so there was much Rio to Paris cras
hes
media speculation and intrusion. into the Atlanti
During his absence, he moved to a c
house in Memphis, Tennessee, and
there underwent a liver transplant,
allowing him to return to Apple, as
scheduled, six months after his
temporary departure.

2009
064
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

ENTER OUR COMPETITION FOR FREE AT WWW.MACUSER.CO.UK

WIN!
MICROSOFT
OFFICE 2008
FOR MAC
BUSINESS
EDITION
MacUser has teamed up with
Microsoft to offer you the
chance to win a copy of
Microsoft Office 2008
for Mac Business Edition,
worth £439.99.
WIN!

D
esigned with your business in mind, Microsoft
Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition delivers a
powerful suite of tools to help you manage your
bottom line, build your brand and collaborate with others.
As well as updated versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint
and Entourage, it offers Business Edition extras such
as industry-leading Exchange Server support, Office Live
Workspace and SharePoint support, and Remote Desktop
Connection, which gives you access to your Windows-
based PCs from your Mac.
Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition also includes
training videos, and business-centric clip art and
How to enter
Simply answer the question below
and enter for FREE online at
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QUESTION
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for Mac Business Edition is
MacUser giving away?
2008
On completing and submitting this competition, you will automatically be
entered into a draw for one of these prizes. No correspondence will be
entered into and the winners will be notified by post or email within 28 days
of the closing date. The competition is not open to employees of Dennis
Publishing or participating companies. No cash alternative will be offered.
The prize(s) described are available at the date of publication. Events may
occur that render the promotion or the rewarding of the prize impossible
due to reasons beyond MacUser’s control, which may at its discretion vary
or amend the promotion and the reader agrees that no liability shall be
attached to MacUser as a result thereof. Proof of emailing will not be
accepted as proof of delivery and no responsibility can be accepted for
entries lost, delayed, mislaid or for any technical failure or for any event,
which may cause the competition to be disrupted or corrupted. Where
necessary, in order to determine an outright winner or winners to a
competition, the editor reserves the right to request entrants to take part in
an eliminating contest (or ‘tie breaker’). Where for any reason there are
more winners than prizes on offer, the editor reserves the right to conduct a

templates to help you get the most out of Office. You can
also tap into Microsoft-hosted online services, including
Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office Live
Meeting for enhanced collaboration with both Mac and
PC users. For more information on Microsoft Office 2008
for Mac Business Edition, visit microsoft.com/uk/mac/
promotions/default.mspx.
2009
2010
The first name out of the hat will
win a copy of Microsoft Office
2008 for Mac Business Edition.
Closing date: 30 December 2009
simple draw to determine the winner or winners of the prizes. Unless
otherwise stated, entry to all competitions is restricted to entrants of 18
years of age or over. Names of winners will be available on receipt of a
request, enclosing a stamped self-addressed envelope, to: Competitions
Manager, Dennis Publishing, 30 Cleveland St, London W1T 4JD. If the
winner of a competition is unable to take up a prize for any reason, the
editor reserves the right to award it to an alternative winner, in which case
the first winner chosen will not be eligible for any share of the prize
whatsoever. The editor’s decision is final, and it is a condition of entry to any
competition that the entrant agrees to be bound by these rules whether
they be published or not, and that the decisions of the editor and judges on
any matter whatsoever arising out of or connected with the competition are
final. No purchase of the magazine is necessary.
 065

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
FOR MORE DEALS GO TO WWW.MACUSER.CO.UK/CLASSIFIEDS

Macshopper contents
066 PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

072 LOCAL DEALER GUIDE

074 HOT KIT

072 Apple dealers are thriving all over the
UK, ready to answer your Mac queries
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
local dealers
TO ADVERTISE, CONTACT CRAIG_CHAMBERS@DENNIS.CO.UK OR CALL 020 7907 6652
Albion Computers
Central London
Call 020 7212 9090 Fax 020 7212 9091
URL albion.co.uk
New store on The Strand WC2 Open six days Apple
Authorised Service Provider with a range of support services
Apple Premium Reseller and Internet Solutions Specialist
SupportPlan Plc
Central London
Call 0800 027 2292 Email info@supportplan.com
URL supportplan.com
Supporting Mac and Windows in creative environments
since 1991 Apple Authorised Service Provider Apple
Solutions Expert for Print & Publishing Web solutions
MR Systems
Central London
Call 020 7697 2200 Email sales@mrsystems.co.uk
URL mrsystems.co.uk
Experienced Apple Authorised Service Provider
Remote support and helpdesk
Competitive prices
Trams LTD
Central London and Christchurch, Dorset
Call Trams Sales: 020 7820 7117; Rapid Sales: 020 7820 7110
URLs trams.co.uk and rapidgroup.net
One of the UK’s premier Apple resellers and Authorised
Service Providers. With 20,000 items available online, we
provide a comprehensive range of products and services
MicroMend Ltd
3 Tottenham Street, London, W1
(Near Goodge Street Tube station)
Call 020 7636 6667 Email help@micromend.co.uk
Walk-in computer repair centre Fast turnaround
Apple Authorised technicians Data Recovery Service
iPod repairs
Square Group Ltd
Central London High Wycombe Derby
URL squaregroup.co.uk Email sales@squaregroup.co.uk
Call 0800 08 27753
Apple Premium Reseller Video, Print & Publishing &
Education Apple Solution Experts Apple Authorised Service
Provider Training Centre
Computer Warehouse
London and the South East
Call 020 8400 1250 Email info@computerwarehouse.co.uk
URL computerwarehouse.co.uk
Visit our shop and showroom in West London Open to
the public Monday to Saturday Apple Solutions Expert in
Audio, Video & Education Full finance and leasing options
Core Technical Solutions
London, Surrey and surrounding areas
Call 0800 756 9905 Email support@coretechnicalsolutions.co.uk
URL www.coretechnicalsolutions.co.uk
Onsite and workshop repair services Helpdesk and
Remote support Apple Certified technicians Sales
and Installations Businesses and Home users
LOCATION
FINDER
Scotland
North
Wales
Midlands
South-west
South-east
London
Nationwide
Cancom
Brighton Cambridge Edinburgh Guildford
Kensington High Street
Call 0845 6863500 URL cancomuk.com
Europe’s largest Apple Reseller Apple Solutions Expert
in Education Authorised Apple Service Provider
Configure your Mac on our advanced website
CT Solutions
Premium Reseller Store in Chelmsford
URL ctsolutions.uk.net URL ctsolutionsretail.com
Email info@ctsolutions.uk.net Call 01376 501536
Apple Authorised Reseller with 10+ years’ experience
Experts in total solutions, networking, consumables and
training Apple products in an exciting and vibrant store
MacEssentials
South East
Call 01689 897722 Email service@macessentials.com
URL macessentials.com
Authorised Service Provider & Reseller Call out and
walk in services for business and home users Repairs,
Upgrades, Installations 15 years of exceptional service
Encompass
Home Counties
URL encompassuk.com
Email sales@encompassuk.com Call 01462 790773
Authorised Service Provider Mac OS X server specialist
Mac OS X Leopard roll-out Digital colour specialist
Consultancy (network design) Cross platform
Serviceweb Ltd
Kent
URL serviceweb.co.uk Email sales@serviceweb.co.uk
Call 01227 794768 Fax 01227 792765
Authorised Reseller and Service Provider On-site and carry-in
service Software and hardware installations iPod service
Xserve specialist Showroom Windows-to-Mac migration
MacWarehouse
South East
URL macwarehouse.co.uk
Email sales@macwarehouse.co.uk Call 0800 611116
Your one-stop shop for everything Apple at exceptional
prices. With all the Mac expertise you need to support your
growing business
CBSH Ltd
Taunton, Somerset
URL www.cbshltd.co.uk Email salesteam@cbshltd.co.uk
Call 01823 430530
Distributor of Mac accessories, laptop bags and cases
Exciting new UK range, XGear, Sumo, Mobile Edge & Maddie
Powers Great Customer Service Looking for resellers
Apple Tree Graphics LTD
Bromsgrove, Worcestershire
Call 01527 570535 Fax 01527 570355
URL atg-it.co.uk
Apple Centre Retail and business showroom
Training for major software packages Pre-sales and
consultancy Network design and installation
 073

Meet your local dealer…

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
We catch up with your local dealer to find out
all about the services that it offers to Mac
users. This issue, we talk to SLi about its
commitment to customer service.
SLi
Newcastle-under-Lyme

E
stablished in back in 1995, SLi is SLi also sells all Apple products and is
Call 01782 563999
an Apple Authorised Service Provider. a Sonos wireless music systems dealer as Email sales@slelectrotech.co.uk
Based in Newcastle-under-Lyme, well, which it believes slots in beautifully URL www.slelectrotech.co.uk
Staffordshire, the company is within easy within the Apple product range.
Apple Authorised Service Provider &
reach of the M6/A34 traffic. It offers an easy, A year ago, SLi was appointed a Konica Reseller Fast Turnaround
walk-in repair facility for all Apple products Minolta Business Systems dealer, selling On-site and Workshop repair services
both in and out of warranty. It’s open for and supporting the range of Konica Minolta Helpdesk and Remote Support Showroom
Apple Business Solutions and Consultancy
business six days a week. products from A4 to SRA3 paper, with
‘We are the only local Apple Authorised fantastic quality output.
Service Provider that repairs all products ‘Konica Minolta
in our workshop. We don’t send desktop/ is the best in its
laptop systems away for repair’ says field,’ claims Birch,
managing director Simon Birch. ‘This is ‘and we are proud
important, and enables us to turn a repair to be appointed
around in a matter of hours and not days.’ the local dealer.
‘We support all sizes of businesses, as It came to us
well as the Soho user’, explains technical because we are
manager Chris Rigby. ‘One moment we will well-placed in the
be repairing an iMac and the next supporting marketplace to
a Mac network within the public sector.’ provide the right
‘We are frequently called out to solution to the end
customers problems on-site and are there user.’ He believes
within a couple of hours’ claims senior that SLi can provide
Technician Jay Carney. ‘We also provide a complete solution
telephone and remote support, as well to customers’
as our workshop facility.’ requirements.

Bite Systems The Bookyard Ltd.

Weavers House, Mountergate, Norwich, Norfolk
Call 01603 631801 or 01603 623623
URL bitesystems.co.uk Email sales@bitesystems.co.uk
Apple Authorised Reseller and Authorised Service Provider
Retail and business showroom Showroom open Mon-Fri
9am-5.30pm, Sat 10am-1pm On-site repairs and installations
Liverpool, Nationwide Service
Call 0151 291 6240 Email info@thebookyard.com
URL www.thebookyard.com
Online store offering new and used Apple spare parts with
next-day delivery Old or faulty Apple hardware purchased and
recycled Expert diagnosis & repairs with nationwide collection

i-Aberdeen Jennings Computer Services Ltd

Aberdeen Scarborough and York
Call 0845 094 9820 Email info@i-aberdeen.co.uk Call 01723 374196 Call 01904 796580
URL www.i-aberdeen.co.uk Buy Online jcsltd.co.uk
Fully managed & cost-effective ICT service Specialists in Authorised Apple Reseller & Service Centre Apple warranty
Apple Setup, Maintenance, & Repairs Broadband, Networking repair Out-of-warranty repair Mac, iPod, accessories,
& Web Solutions Cross-platform, OS X & Windows support upgrades Cross-platform support Online store

GBM Digital Technologies LTD SL Electrotech (Instrumentation) Ltd

Manchester
Call 0161 605 3838 Email sales@gbmdt.co.uk
URL gbmdt.co.uk
Retail and business sales specialists with a technical
support team to provide maintenance, installation and
support services for business and education
Newcastle
Call 01782 563999 Email sales@slelectrotech.co.uk
URL slelectrotech.co.uk
Apple Authorised Service Provider & Reseller Fast Turnaround
On-site and Workshop repair services Helpdesk and Remote
Support Showroom Apple Business Solutions and Consultancy

MCC Group istereos.co.uk

Warrington Chester Liverpool Stoke-on-Trent Nationwide
Call 0870 444 4990 Fax 0870 444 1373 Call 0560 244 7377 Email info@istereos.co.uk
URL mccdigital.com URL istereos.co.uk
Apple Premium Reseller Apple Solutions Experts Purveyor of audio equipment with USB inputs (including
for Education and Video Apple Authorised Service Providers USB turntable rentals), which transform your Mac into a
Training Installation Maintenance fine hi-fi set
074

hot kit
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

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The who’s who of top products

Don’t shell out for a product until you’ve checked out our top-fives, from
video editing and DTP software to printers, monitors and digital cameras.

Top 5 displays

APPLE LED
CINEMA DISPLAY
The first LED-based Cinema
Display is designed for
MacBooks with a Mini
DisplayPort, and it can be
used to charge them, too.
Reviewed 16/01/09
URL apple.com/uk

LG Flatron M2294 Wide LCD TV Monitor

Rating 4 Reviewed 07/11/08 URL lge.com
AG Neovo E-W22 LCD
Rating 4 Reviewed 15/02/08 URL ag-neovo.co.uk
Eizo CG301W
Rating 4 Reviewed 01/02/08 URL eizo.co.uk
Samsung SyncMaster XL2370
Rating 4 Reviewed 06/11/09 URL samsung.com/uk

Top 5 external hard drives

SEAGATE
FREEAGENT
DESK FOR MAC
An inexpensive 1TB external
hard disk that delivers good
performance. It has one USB 2
and two FireWire 800 ports.
Reviewed 02/01/09
URL seagate.com

Western Digital My Book Studio II 4TB

Rating 5 Reviewed 03/07/09 URL wdc.com
Freecom Hard Drive Pro 1TB
Rating 4 Reviewed 02/01/09 URL freecom.com
LaCie 5big Network 5TB
Rating 4 Reviewed 21/11/08 URL lacie.com/uk
Amacom ezSecure 160GB
Rating 4 Reviewed 26/09/08 URL originstorage.com

Top 5 DSLR cameras
NIKON D300S
A 12.3 megapixel sensor, 8
frames per second shooting,
HD video and dual memory
card slots all packed into a
sturdy metal body make the
D300S a winner.
Reviewed 11/09/09
URL nikon.co.uk
Nikon D5000
Rating 5 Reviewed 03/07/09
Sony Alpha DSLR-A900
Rating 4 Reviewed 16/01/09
Olympus E-30
Rating 4 Reviewed 05/06/09
Canon EOS 500D
Rating 4 Reviewed 05/06/09
Top 5 super-zoom cameras
CANON
POWERSHOT G10
The PowerShot G10 is the
most compelling compact
we’ve seen. It has a 28-140mm
optically stabilised zoom lens
and a 14.7-megapixel sensor.
Reviewed 21/11/08
URL canon.co.uk
Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1
Rating 4 Reviewed 16/01/09
Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR
Rating 4 Reviewed 05/06/09
Sigma DP1
Rating 4 Reviewed 15/08/08
Canon PowerShot SX1 IS
Rating 4 Reviewed 09/04/09
Top 5 video applications
CAMTASIA
FOR MAC
Camtasia can record video
and audio from your Mac’s
iSight and mic, add transitions,
effects and share the finished
video easily on YouTube.
Reviewed 11/09/09
URL techsmith.com
Final Cut Studio 2009
Rating 4 Reviewed 28/08/09
DV Kitchen
Rating 4 Reviewed 24/10/08
After Effects CS4
Rating 4 Reviewed 10/10/08
DVDRemaster Pro 4.4.1
Rating 4 Reviewed 12/09/08
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 079

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We’ll take you through the changes in
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* Contents subject to change.

Prevention… and cure

How do you tackle the most common Mac problems before they arise?
We’ll take you through the major potential pitfalls for any Mac user and
show you how to head them off before they come to pass. Then, in an
accompanying feature, we’ll help diagnose problems that have occurred
and show you the best, most effective ways to sort them out.
080
method
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4 December 2009
OUR GUIDE TO ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS FOR EVERY DESIGNER
Exploiting the rule of thirds
for more powerful images
It has been around for hundreds of years, but to this day the rule of
thirds continues to turn average images into powerful ones…
Steve Caplin is a designer and
illustrator working for a range of national
newspapers. His best-selling How to
Cheat in Photoshop, now in its fourth
edition, is published by Focal Press.
▲ The grid for the rule of thirds, showing the power points at the intersections.
E
very episode of The Simpsons opens
with an introductory sequence showing
America’s first family returning to their
home in Springfield, where they collapse
onto a sofa in front of the TV. Above the
sofa is a painting of a sailboat. Sometimes
it’s a red boat with white sails, sometimes
an orange boat with red sails. Whatever
the colour, the boat is always right in the
middle of the painting, both horizontally and
vertically. The question is: what’s wrong
with this picture?
As long ago as 1797, the artist J T Smith
wrote a book about landscape painting in which
he outlined his ‘rule of thirds’. For a visually
pleasing effect, Smith argued, the horizon
should always appear at the bottom third of the
picture, so that one third of the painting was
land or sea and the remainder was sky.
The rule of thirds has become a mantra for
painters, photographers and Photoshop artists
alike, as it helps us to create more powerful
01
images by aligning our main picture elements
with the vertical and horizontal divisions.
Imagine a noughts and crosses grid overlaid on
your image, dividing it into nine equal regions.
The horizontal lines mark the optimal position
for the horizon, the vertical lines indicate the
best place to align vertical elements. The four
inner points where they cross define the ‘power
points’ in the image [01], the positions that
have the most emphatic pull: placing the focus
of the image at one of these points instantly
makes for a stronger, more dynamic result.
However, does a rule formulated in the
18th Century really have any relevance today?
Indeed it does, and we see examples of the
rule of thirds throughout the commercial,
artistic and broadcast media. The studio layout
for the BBC’s News at Ten, for instance, places
the presenter’s head directly at the upper right
power point; the dividing line between the desk
at which he’s sitting and the screen behind
aligns with the lower horizontal rule [02].
 081

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
03
▲ Placing the surfer dead centre in the frame kills the
shot – even though it should be full of action.

02
▲ The studio layout for BBC’s News at Ten shows the two thirds rule in action, with the presenter’s head lining up
with a power point and the desk occupying the bottom third of the shot.

So why is this rule so important? The we want to emphasise the land or the sky, so
answer is that, perhaps surprisingly, the centre creating a more powerful image. 04
of any picture is a weak place to position a When a scene contains two objects, such ▲ Moving him to the bottom right power point
key element. Look at our example of a surfer as this shot of a bird approaching its nest [06], emphasises the distance he still has to travel,
showing the expanse of sea beyond.
coasting across the image. When he’s placed we can add extra dynamism by cropping the
dead centre, the image is static [03]. He’s scene so that the bird appears at one power
simply standing there, with no sense of motion. point, and the nest occupies the opposite
When we move him towards the left, we can third of the image. This kind of shot is almost
see the distance he still has to travel [04]; impossible to frame when taking the shot,
toward the right, and we can see how far he but is easy to crop to afterwards.
has already surfed [05]. Some digital cameras now have a
We can also change the emphasis by composition overlay mode, in which lines
moving the image up and down. We can corresponding to the rule of thirds appear
choose to emphasise either the close-up in the viewfinder, enabling photographers to
sea in front or the distant sea behind, by align elements as they take the shot. Some
05
▲ Moving the surfer to the top left power point shows
giving each element a larger proportion of the photographers prefer to crop their image the turbulence of the nearby water in greater detail,
picture. Lining the surfer up with one of the after they’ve taken the shot, using the rule to making for a dynamic shot.
power points almost guarantees a stronger, force picture details to appear in the optimal
more dynamic shot. location. Photoshop artists, on the other when the dead centre of the image really is the
When working with portraits, we can use hand, can create their images from scratch, best location, or where the composition of a
the rule of thirds to align the eyes and the and will frequently bear the rule in mind when shot forbids the precise application of the rule.
mouth. The face may be right in the middle of composing a scene. But as long as we’re aware of it when we take a
the frame, but by positioning the eyes on the We don’t need to be too rigorous in our photograph, create a montage or even paint a
upper hotspots and the mouth on the lower adherence to the rule: it’s a suggestion, not landscape, we can be sure that our labours will
horizontal third, we bring a greater strength to an absolute diktat. There are many occasions have much more punch and visual appeal.
the image. It may operate on a subconscious
level on the viewer – after all, it’s unlikely
anyone would take a ruler to the photograph
to measure the position of the eyes – but the
placement still has its effect. We may rarely
want to crop an image so tightly, but even if
we ignore the power points, placing the eyeline
on the upper third rule will generally lead to
a more balanced portrait.
Landscape photographers regularly use
the rule of thirds to divide the shot into three
separate components – foreground, middle
ground and background. In this case, the
different fields appear in separate sections
of the image. It may well be that nothing
is placed directly on the rules, but each
component will appear firmly rooted within
its own one-third section.
The rule is perhaps most often used when
composing a landscape, as a guide to aligning
the horizon. Placing the horizon directly through
the centre of the image divides the picture
in half, producing an artificial and awkward
06
composition; by moving it to either the upper ▲ This is a perfect composition made easy using the rule of two thirds. The bird is at the upper left power point
or lower third position, we can choose whether while the nest occupies the bottom right third of the image.
 DIFFICULTY
082 RATING
create
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
GET MORE FROM YOUR MAC AND APPLICATIONS WITH OUR STEP-BY-STEP GUIDES
Develop photographic
looks in Adobe Lightroom
By using Lightroom’s development settings, you
can give a photo a number of very different looks.
T
he power of Adobe Lightroom’s
development module sets it apart
from other photographic library/
workflow applications. Yet this flexibility,
for the new or casual user, can present a
learning curve so steep that many never
make it past simple development settings
such as exposure, clarity and contrast.
In this masterclass, we’re going to learn,
using just development settings, how to
create three vastly different looks with
Lightroom that we’ll be able to save and
re-use as presets. More than simply learning
how to recreate these looks for ourselves,
we’ll focus on understanding the process
of creating each one, with an eye towards
Image Vadim Zee vadimzee.com
building confidence and giving us room to
experiment in creating our own visual styles.
Using the same image as our starting
point in all three cases, we will start with
some simple adjustments that we can use
to give the image different looks, from a
soft-glamour wedding shot, a super-saturated
postcard, to an over-developed, cross-process
look suitable for a rock album cover.
As we progress through each step, we’ll
build on the skills covered in the previous
steps, covering some of Lightroom’s tools,
including the use of the target adjustments
tool to fine-tune hues and saturation, using its
simplified curves tool, and moving onto more
advanced topics like split-toning.
It’s trite to say it, but a great image is
made in the camera. This is not to imply
that using the tools available to us in the
‘Digital Darkroom’ are cheating, as some
so-called purists might suggest. Rather,
that having a notion of how you might
want to develop an image in mind before
you take the picture is paramount.
Though taken by photographer Vadim
Zee, and not the author, this photograph
was selected because it fits all of our
criteria: diverse vibrant colors and,
Leigh McMullen is a professional
technology strategist who has written
a number of books and articles on IT
and business strategy. He moonlights
as a travel photographer.
Kit required Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
most importantly, it has a full five
stops of dynamic range. We’ll find that
having this range to work with gives
working room.
Of course, we’re not always going to
have a full lighting rig and a patient model
with us, and in those run-and-gun
circumstances, understanding the full
capability of Lightroom’s development
module will help you make intelligent
compromises on when to under or over
expose to achieve a given effect.

A WEDDING
PHOTO THAT POPS
You know the standard
wedding photograph:
soft focus, high-key
and vignetted, requiring
knowledge of the contrast
and clarity sliders, and little
else. This works for wedding
photography, because it
minimises skin contrast
and reduces blemishes, while
giving the photographs
a surreal, ethereal dreamlike
presence. For this look, we’ll
start with the photo every
photographer could make,
and hand dial in tones to give
it a sparkle that will make it unique. In the left Navigator pane
select Fill, so you can better see the results of your adjustments.
2. Popping the dress
Start by selecting ‘HSL’ in the HSL/Color/Grayscale palette, then
select ‘All’ to reveal an array of sliders. Click on the target adjustments
button to the left of the word ‘Saturation’, move the cursor to hover
over one of the dark yellow portions of her dress and scroll up. Looking
back to the sliders reveals +35 on Yellow and +7 on Orange.
4. Fixing the skin tones
Unfortunately, our adjustments have left her skin a bit jaundiced. You
could mess with saturation of skin tones, hair and dress, until you
drive yourself crazy. This is because Maryia’s dress, hair and skin are
all influenced by the colour orange. If you pump up the luminance of
orange it will soften that colour cast. Of course, you don’t need to know
all that colour theory. Just click the target adjustments button next to
‘Luminance’, select a tan portion of skin and dial up slightly.
083
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
1. Basic adjustments – high key, vignette and softness
We’ll start with those basic adjustments that typify wedding
photography: pump up the brightness to +75, drop contrast to 0 and
set clarity to -50. These are very generic settings that you’ll need to
adjust to your specific images and camera profiles. They give us that
dreamy wedding look, but also wash out Maryia’s red hair and yellow
dress. You can add a bit of punch by setting the Point Curve selection
under Tone Curve to Strong Contrast.
3. Adjusting her hair
Maryia has great hair, and our high key toning has left it a bit lifeless,
so we’ll apply the same techniques that we used on the dress to her
hair. In this instance, select two different areas to make minor
adjustments, the highlighted area next to her eye and a mid-tone
area along the side of her head hair. Leave the Saturation settings
of Red at +21, Orange at +35 and Yellow at +36.
5. Dialing in the perfect vignette
Most users are pretty comfortable with Lightroom’s vignette tool. Yet,
we’ve just spent a lot of time working with this image, so we want to be
exact. The quick way to do this is to set post crop vignette ‘Feathering’
to 0 and ‘Amount’ to 50. Now, you can see the shape of the vignette
that will be produced as you adjust the midpoint and roundness
sliders. All you have to remember is to leave room around your focal
point, and dial the feather back up, until it’s just right.
084
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

A LAS VEGAS
CLUB INVITATION
The ‘Las Vegas’ look is
supersaturated and vibrant,
yet it’s all too easy to focus
only on adjusting those two
dials to achieve this. By
putting a bit of extra attention
in development, you can
create an image that’s far
from ordinary. We’re going to
build on our toning work, and Before After
work on pushing as
much dynamic range as 1. Basic setup
possible into the photo First off we’re going to change the brightness and contrast on the
by manipulating curves. image. Keep an eye on the histogram window, making sure the bulk
of the tones are confined to the mid-range. Wind up Brightness to +6
and Contrast to +9.

2. Using curves to push

the mid-range
Making adjustments to the
tone curve in Lightroom is a
lot easier than in Photoshop,
making curve adjustments
more accessible to the casual
user. We’re not going to use the
Target Adjustments button here.
Instead, we’re going to enter
a pretty basic S Curve, with
Highlights at +15, Lights at +40,
Darks at -40 and Shadows at
-15. With the point curve set to
‘Strong Contrast’, Maryia’s hair is
pretty dark. A more linear curve TIP While Adobe
Lightroom’s
sliders are easier for
would fix this but also take out
casual users, Photoshop
some of the punch. Instead, we
veterans can still adjust
grab Tone Range Split control in
curves by selecting points
the middle and move it to the in the histogram.
left, until it’s around 38.

3. Back to basic (sliders) 4. Final polishing

One of the reasons to manually adjust your tone curve to create depth
and contrast is that it leaves the full range of basic slider controls at
your disposal. So now when you play with the Vibrance and Saturation,
a light touch is all that’s needed: at +21 and +10 respectively. You also
need to add a bit of Fill Light (+14), to bring out highlights in her hair
and belt. This contrasting curve can create some unflattering details,
you can dial down Clarity to -29 without loosing much detail.
Pushing the colours so much has made the blue mast in the
foreground and sail in the background distracting. Using the Target
Saturation button, dial the saturation in both to reasonable levels,
which for this image is pretty much all the way out (Blue at -61, Purple
at -55 and Magenta at -78), creating an effect of girl in colour on a
nearly monochrome background that puts the focus on our subject.
 085

4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
A ROCK ALBUM COVER
When shooting the next big thing practicing in
your neighbour’s garage, simple toning levels
and curves aren’t going to give the edge to
make a group-shot stand out from the also-rans
on the A&R guy’s desk. The classic Hard Rock
look demands cross-processing (especially if
you start as we are with a less than ‘hard rock’
shot). Cross-processing is the technique of
intentionally using the wrong chemicals to
develop film, and is very popular in fashion,
movies and band photography. While we’re all
digital these days, the power of Lightroom’s
develop module will get us there in a snap, TIP Break down development
work into steps. Even with a
look in mind, one of your intermediate
with no risk of spilling things on our clothes.
steps might be a keeper, if not now
then maybe later. The first step here
could be saved as a Miami Neon look.

1. Finding your overdevelopment sweet spot 2. Split toning

Overdeveloping the image is about pushing the Blacks and Fill Light.
The trick here is working out a balance because every image is going
to be different in the way it responds. Here’s what we do to find a
workable ratio: first set the Blacks to 20 and then slide up Fill Light
until things look pretty good, in this case 23, yielding a 2.3: 2 ratio.
Now if you keep that ratio, you’ll get something that looks pretty good,
no matter how far you push it, which in this case is all the way, with fill
light set to around 100 and blacks to 85.
Usually reserved for giving different looks to monochrome treatments,
split toning offers a way to add a different hue cast to the highlights
and shadows in your image. Rather than adjusting the sliders, click on
the box next to highlights to pull up a colour menu. What’s cool about
this is the live preview as you click and mouse around in this box.
While playing around with the highlights and the shadows, you’ll see
that you get some very unusual effects. For our look, we need to be a
bit more conservative, so we’ve chosen a hue of 52 and a saturation of
64 for highlights, and a hue of 119 and a saturation of 38 for shadows,
and we’ve moved the balance bias to +25.

3. Adjusting curves and tones 4. Finishing touches

What we have right now is a great golden sunset glow with aqua marine
details, great for CSI: Miami, but not Heavy Metal. We can dial out the
cartoonish look by dropping the saturation to -50. As with our Vegas
look, we want a contrasting curve, setting lights to +25 and darks to
-25. Just like the last look, we also want to tone down the distracting
sail and mast using Target Saturation adjustments.
This look is finished off by pumping up the exposure one-third of a
stop to give it a bit more edge, adding a vignette using the method
we described earlier to get it just right, and finally removing a touch
of clarity, to keep Maryia looking edgy, but beautiful.
 DIFFICULTY
086 RATING

Create luminous line

www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

effects in Photoshop
Add some sparkle to your blog header or branded
Desktop wallpapers with this smart lighting effect.

I
n this masterclass, we’ll be focusing on
lighting effects and showing off an
assortment of techniques to make your
work sparkle and glow in an unnatural but
eye-catching way.
Photoshop lighting effects are a versatile
set of techniques that have, in recent
times, come back into fashion within
advertising. These effects are a creative
way to add exciting illustrative touches to
an image; they can communicate feelings
of motion and fantasy. By adding glows,
light streaks, sparks and other effects, you
can immediately give your images more
ambiance and flare. Light and motion effects
can become part of the composition, adding
lots of depth to an image.
The techniques used to create them in
Photoshop are good to know because of the
flexibility they offer; they allow you to create
intense effects that stand out, or to simply
add some subtle highlights to an image.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn some
indispensable light effect techniques by
creating an ambient glowing background with
glowing light streaks. We’ll explain how you
Ross Aitken is a design student
can integrate text or a company logo into from Glasgow. He regularly
the piece, and we’ll combine layer styles writes for Photoshop and
and blend modes to achieve a cool glowing design-related websites as well as
effect and add depth by using the Liquify running a few of his own.
filter and some layer masks. This would look
great as a branded Desktop wallpaper or Kit required Photoshop
even using some techniques to add flare
to a blog header.

1. Create a simple background

First create a new Photoshop document that’s 4000 x 3000 pixels.
Use a simple gradient as a background. Select the gradient tool and
create a new gradient going from a dark crimson colour (#4C1020) to
a dark purple (#240F19). Change the gradient type to radial, and click
and drag from the centre of the document to one of the corners. You
can enhance this background if you want, perhaps by adding another
gradient, or some soft brush strokes.

2. Throw in some text

We’ll add some text to the image now, so select the type tool and
create some large text in the centre of the document. Command-click 3. Make the text glow
TIP
Experiment with the
on the text layer, then select ‘Create Work Path’. Create a new layer, With this layer selected, change the fill colour option within
then select the brush tool and choose a 10-pixel hard round brush (the opacity of this layer to 0% at the top of the both these layer
colour doesn’t matter), then hit Return. This will stroke the path so that Layers palette. Double-click the layer to set styles to subtly
you can delete the original, filled text layer. You might substitute this for its layer styles; first add an inner glow and change the glow.
a company logo or some other brand identity, rather than text. just change the blend mode to ‘Color
Dodge’ and the source to Centre. Next add an outer glow; again use
‘Colour Dodge’ for the blend mode and set its opacity to 50% and
size to 40 pixels. Click on the New Style button to save this style, then
click on OK to close the dialog box. Duplicate this layer then lower the
opacity of one of the copies to 50%.
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4 December 2009
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TIP Go to
Window
> Styles to bring up
4. Paint some light strands the styles palette. 5. Manipulate the strands
Now we’ll create some strands of light Duplicate this layer, then choose Filter > Liquify, which allows you to
using a similar technique to the text. Select fluidly distort a layer. Make sure Show Backdrop is checked with All
the Pen tool and draw a curvy path going from one side of the Layers selected. Use your mouse to manipulate parts of the line; try to
document to the other. Stroke the path the same way as you did in draw it towards the outline of the text. Also try changing the brush size
Step 2, but use a 15-pixel brush this time. We want to use the same for different effects, although keep the brush density at 30.
glow as we did for the text, which is why we saved its style, so select
the layer and apply that saved style.

TIP Use the

6. More strands
Repeat Steps 4 and 5 to add more lines; we’ve created five in total, which
is a reasonable amount to avoid clutter. We need to add some depth to
these lines, so put all six layers within a new layer group, then add a layer
mask to that group. This allows us to hide part of the lines by selecting a
large soft black brush (20% opacity) and brushing over parts of the lines.
Try brushing around the edges of the canvas so the lines don’t reach
them and to maintain the text in the middle as the focal point.
square
bracket keys to
increase or decrease
7. Finishing touches the diameter of a brush.
Now let’s add some glowing beads of light;
create a new layer and choose a hard round brush with a diamete
diameter
around 20 pixels (the colour doesn’t matter). Place them on top of the
light strands and the text outline. Vary the brush diameter to give some
variety. Now click on the glow style we created earlier to finish off the
beads. In a new layer, use the white star brush (in Assorted Brushes,
located in the flyout menu at the top-right of the Brushes palette) and
add sparkles to parts of the text outline. Grab a pink, 1-pixel round
brush and scribble some fine freehand lines around parts of the text.

8. Final adjustments
Create a transparent black to opaque
8a Final result
black radial gradient, going out from
the centre of the canvas to the
corners. Lower the layer’s opacity to
50%. Add colour balance and hue/
saturation adjustment layers to push
the shadows towards blue, the
midtones more orange and the
highlights more yellow. Our final touch
is a light sheen. In a layer above the 8b
background, make a rectangular
marquee then draw a radial gradient
(white to transparent) from its edge to
its centre (8a). Lower the transparency
and rotate it into position. Repeat
several times to create three
gradients (8b) of varying opacity.
 DIFFICULTY
088 RATING

Tethered shooting
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

When you have to be absolutely certain

that the image you want to capture is
perfectly exposed, tethered shooting is the
best option. We show you how to do it in
three of the leading digital workflow tools.

A
lthough the LCDs on digital
cameras have become much larger,
to the point where they can fill the
back of the camera, it can still be difficult to
tell whether the image you’ve just taken is
pin-sharp and perfectly exposed until you
see it on your Mac. Nothing can be more
annoying than to find out that a
portrait is slightly out of focus when
you view it on a monitor back at the
office, leaving you with little option
but to try to correct it in Photoshop
or arrange a costly reshoot. Either
way, it’s going to add to the hours
before you can complete the job.
The answer to this problem is tethered
shooting, whereby you connect your digital
camera directly to your Mac and have the
images automatically downloaded as you
take them. Preferred by many professional
photographers, tethered shooting is ideal
for portraits or fashion images when focus
or exposure is critical.
The advantages of viewing your images saves you time downloading the pictures once
on a larger screen as they’re taken, even if the photoshoot has finished. Furthermore,
it’s just a MacBook with a 13in screen, are you can set it up to automatically add
fairly self-explanatory, but the main ones are metadata, such as file names, to your
that you can see the exact point of focus, images as you take them.
exposure and white balance, and identify the In this tutorial, we look at three of
highlight and shadow areas of your image – the leading digital workflow tools
details that are notoriously difficult to see on – Aperture 2, Lightroom 2 and Jon Lysons is MacUser’s production
a small LCD screen. Capture One Pro 5 – to see editor and has been using Macs
If you can identify these flaws during the how easy tethered shooting since 1993. He’s been using camera
for much longer, his first being a
shoot, you can easily make adjustments is. We’ve tested the
Kodak Pocket Instamatic 130.
to your camera settings, studio lighting or technique with Canon
composition, and take another image to see and Nikon cameras,
if you’ve got it right. but most digital
The added benefit of using your preferred cameras should work if they’re
digital workflow tool is that the images are supported by the application, although you
imported directly into your application, which may need to download a dedicated API.
Main image Danny Bird

Kit required one of the following:
Aperture 2 from Apple now supports tethered
shooting natively for most digital cameras.
However, recent Canon models – for example,
the Eos 5D MkII – aren’t yet supported and so a
workaround is needed. Aperture 2 costs £126
(£109 ex VAT).
Capture One Pro 5 is the application favoured
by professional photographers and is developed
by digital back and photography specialist Phase
One, however, it is the most pricey of the three
applications. It costs €299 (about £266).
Lightroom 2 from Adobe doesn’t support tethered
shooting directly, but there’s a simple workaround
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4 December 2009
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to give the appearance of tethered shooting.
Lightroom 2 costs £229 (£199 ex VAT).
Additional kit if necessary
Sofortbild sofortbildapp.com
Hot Folder automator.us/leopard/aperture
Eos Utility
090
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4 December 2009
LIGHTROOM 2
1. Create a Watched Folder
Although Lightroom doesn’t support tethered
shooting directly, there’s a workaround that
enables the application to automatically import
images as they’re captured on your camera.
Depending on what make of camera you’re
using, you need to download an API. Here,
we’re going to cover two of the most popular
camera manufacturers – Canon and Nikon.
2a. For Nikon cameras
If you’re using a Nikon camera, you need
to download an extra piece of software to
allow your Mac to read the images on your
camera. Nikon recommends that you use
Camera Control Pro 2, but this will set you
back a rather hefty £139 (£121 ex VAT), so
we’ve used the free application Sofortbild
If you have a camera made by another
manufacturer, you can still follow these steps,
but using the software dedicated for your make
of camera. First, create a folder on your Mac;
here, we’ve called it TetheredShooting. This is
a Watched Folder to which the API will
download the images and subsequently allow
Lightroom to import them.
(available from sofortbildapp.com). Connect
and turn on your camera. Go to Preferences
and navigate to TetheredShooting (the
Watched Folder you created in Step 1) in
the ‘Save captured images to’ field. Find
the ‘Import captured images into field’ and
select None.
3. Open Lightroom
You’re now ready to work in Lightroom itself.
Go to File > Auto Import > Auto Import
Settings. Now you can navigate Lightroom to
import all of the images that are downloaded
into the Watched Folder, which we’ve called
TetheredShooting.
Next, navigate to File > Auto Import >
Enable Auto Import and make sure Enable
2b. For Canon cameras
If you’re using a Canon model, connect and
turn on your camera, then open Eos Utility,
which is on the CD that came with your
camera. Use this to download the images to
your Watched Folder. Go to Camera Settings/
Remote Shooting to call up the dialog box,
click on Preferences and go to Destination
Folder, and navigate to TetheredShooting (the
Watched Folder you created in Step 1).
Uncheck the three boxes that sit below that.
Next, from this list, go to Linked Software and
select None, as Lightroom is going to import
the images automatically.
Auto Import is ticked. That’s it – you’re ready
to start tethered shooting, as Lightroom is
now able to import these images.
Finally, make sure you’re in the Library area
of Lightroom and your photos are automatically
stored in Lightroom, enabling you to move
them to a folder of your choice depending on
your particular workflow.
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4 December 2009
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APERTURE 2

1. Shooting with Aperture

Canon’s latest cameras
If you’re using one of Canon’s latest
DSLRs, such as the Eos 5D MkII, then
there’s a workaround with an AppleScript
called Aperture Hot Folder (automator.us/
leopard/aperture). Create a Watched Folder
in Eos Utility (see Step 2b, left), open
the Aperture Hot Folder to begin the
script and follow the on-screen prompts.
First, select TetheredShooting (the
Watched Folder you’ve already created)
and choose to load the images into an
existing Project or create a new one. You
also want the script to import the images
into Aperture’s Library. You’re now ready
to shoot tethered.
Tethered shooting is a simple task in Aperture,
but only if your camera is supported. Go to
support.apple.com/kb/HT1085 to see a list of
supported models, but some cameras may
work if you set them to use PTP. Start Aperture
and connect your camera. Before switching it
on, however, you need to create a new Project
and give it a name. Select this Project and go
to File > Tether > Start Session. This brings up
the Tether Settings dialog box, where you can
create subfolders and amend the file names.
However, to actually start shooting tethered,
click on the Start Session button. A black HUD
pops out and you’re ready to go. Your images
are automatically downloaded into the
application in the folder you’ve designated.

CAPTURE ONE PRO 5

1. One for professionals
Tethered shooting is a breeze with the
professional’s tool of choice, Capture One
Pro 5, as this application includes support for
more than 150 cameras. Connect your
camera and open the program. In the top-left
of the window is a Camera icon. Click on this
to take you into capture mode – you should
see your camera model at the bottom of the
left-hand pane. Next, click on New Session
found under File in the menu bar and give
your shoot a name. You’re now ready to start
shooting. The latest photos will appear in the
main window pane, enabling you to view your
captured image with thumbnails underneath
in a Browser. If you require a large image,
click Command-B to hide or reveal the
Browser. Clicking on the Library icon allows
you to organise your images – those captured
with tethered shooting are automatically
located in the Capture Folder.
092
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4 December 2009
EMAIL YOUR PROBLEM TO HELP@MACUSER.CO.UK
No flying sauces in sight
When times are hard, success in business comes through innovation, not
just change. To survive, companies must not repeat past mistakes.
O
ne of the most delightful but
annoying human traits is our
apparent pleasure in repeating
common mistakes. One autumn evening,
when I was tucking into a chilli at a Little
Chef along the A303, my colleague shook
the tomato sauce bottle with vigour. Although
we all joke about the top flying off and its
colourful consequences, following an ominous
pop from across the table, I looked up to
see him covered, as if an extra in Hostel.
We keep repeating these foolish errors:
walking into lamp-posts while concentrating
on GPS instead of visual navigation,
performing major system updates without
first backing up, and so on.
This year has shown, once again, that
the pooled minds of our greatest companies
and institutions conspire to repeat even
greater mistakes. Banks reward employees
for taking risks rather than mitigating them,
politicians – not long ago proclaiming an
end to boom and bust – see green shoots
of recovery when they are in fact weeds
along the road of recession, and weather
forecasters leave us wanting a fine evening
for a barbecue, let alone a whole summer.
iPhone and iPod competitors queue
for entry to the Last Chance Saloon, their
designers clearly never having grasped
why the original products have succeeded.
Amazon makes the Kindle as unattractive
a deal as possible for European Mac users,
while competitor Sony restates its complete
lack of insight into the Mac market. As Intel
Macs go 64-bit with Snow Leopard, Adobe’s
disjointed development cycle leaves Creative
Suite stumbling along in 32-bit mode for
another year or two.
When times are hard, success comes
through innovation, not mere change, nor
the repetition of mistakes. Of course, Apple
hasn’t always innovated right: the Lisa was
WE CAN HELP YOU THEY CAN HELP YOU
If you need technical advice, There’s a wealth of information
write to us explaining the and help available online. Here
problem in full. Please include are some useful sites that may
all the details of hardware and be worth turning to along with
software you use. the MacUser site.
Email help@macuser.co.uk Apple’s pages provide helpful
Post Help, MacUser, information; try the search
30 Cleveland Street, options to find specific help.
London, W1T 4JD URL info.apple.com
Keep abreast of software
releases and fixes, and track
down new utilities and tools.
URL versiontracker.com
brilliant but flawed, the Newton a meteor that
burned up before its time, and many features
in the Mac OS have rankled until they were
dropped or fixed. Few firms have generated
such sustained interest in, and speculation
surrounding, their next step. It’s only through
a culture of innovation that Apple has attained
de facto market leadership, and the moment
that its fire ceases to burn in the cubicles of
Cupertino, Apple will be doomed to enter the
grand corporate care home.
Successful innovation in technology
isn’t a matter of mere invention, but
discovering how to build on invention to
make it accessible to prospective purchasers.
It’s about design for humans – where much
of Apple’s greatest innovation has been
– and helping them do new and exciting
things easily. Those firms that have come to
believe that innovation has anything to do with
haggling over patents, marketing mystique
or bleeding captive markets dry have truly
lost the plot and risk going the way of the
SCO Group, moribund in the wake of its futile
litigation against IBM, Linux and Novell. Just
as politicians do best when they heed the
old caution against negative campaigning,
businesses do best when they manufacture,
sell and support.
In terms of those last basic business
imperatives, Apple has had a very good,
perhaps excellent, year. With its every
move speculated on in countless blogs and
newsfeeds, it may at times have felt like a
rollercoaster ride. With even the BBC running
headlines about a fatal flaw in Snow Leopard,
once we learned the facts all shrank back into
proportion. If anyone has been shaking sauce
bottles in Infinite Loop – the street encircling
Apple’s headquarter buildings, surely an
inspiration to the late and great Douglas Howard Oakley has used Macs in science
Adams – then they checked that the top and medicine for 20 years, and developed
was screwed on first. commercial software.

Bug buster
Mac OS X 10.6.x can misbehave when
using an Apple Remote or other infrared
transmitter, and some applications.
Candelair is a free replacement driver
that can fix these. It’s available from
iospirit.com/labs/candelair.
Pro Applications Update 2009-01
delivers fixes for many bugs in Final Cut
Studio (2009), with Final Cut Pro 7.0.1,
Motion 4.0.1, Soundtrack Pro 3.0.1, Color
1.5.1, and Compressor 3.5.1. It’s at
support.apple.com/kb/DL949.
Final Cut Pro 6.x may not process
jobs when sequences are exported to
Compressor 3 using the File/Export/Using
Compressor command if a Virtual Cluster
is enabled. Either disable the cluster or
export as QuickTime reference movies
If you have access to utilities from Apple’s Xcode SDK (available on your Mac OS X Install Disc), USB Prober is
useful for getting to the bottom of problems, providing more information than is available in System Profiler.
Peripheral vision
From Alan Henderson
Q My iMac, which I upgraded to Snow
Leopard, now has intermittent problems
with USB devices. Memory sticks and other
USB peripherals sometimes vanish from the
Desktop, whether connected directly to a
port on the iMac or via a hub. However,
once they have vanished, disconnecting
them results in a ‘disk was not ejected
properly’ alert. On other occasions, trying
the open the volume results in a spinning
beachball cursor freeze, forcing me to
switch off its power before starting it up
again. Is this a problem in Snow Leopard?
A There doesn’t appear to be any widespread
or systematic problem with USB in Snow
Leopard, although there are occasional
glitches such as losing printer connection
when ejecting a memory stick.
The memory stick(s), the hub or
your iMac’s USB port(s) could be failing.
Demonstrate that this affects multiple
and process in Compressor. Details are at
support.apple.com/kb/TS2594.
Adobe Services Update 1.0.2 fixes a
bug in CS4 services under Snow Leopard,
which prevents authentication for services
and their update. Go to adobe.com/
support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=4568.
Bluetooth Update 1.0 for Windows fixes
problems with Bluetooth devices when
running Windows under Boot Camp. Visit
support.apple.com/kb/DL952.
iMac (late 2009), MacBook (late
2009), and MacBook Pro (13in and
15in mid-2009) models running Windows
may not automatically switch audio output
when headphones are connected. If
affected, manually change the Speakers
devices connected via different ports, and
power your hub before ruling out a hardware
problem. Shed other USB devices in case
they’re to blame – an old USB 1.1 peripheral,
for instance. Next, check installed third-party
software, particularly Startup and Login Items,
and drivers for older USB devices such as
a broadband modem. Restart with the Shift
key held down to engage Safe mode, with
Akvis LightShop works as either a Photoshop plug-in or a
standalone application that can add a wide range of standard
and customisable firework and lighting effects to images.
093
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
properties in the Hardware and Sound
control panel. Further details are available
at support.apple.com/kb/HT3588.
Mac OS X Server up to 10.6.1 repquota
command may erroneously return lists with
users that have no quota enabled even
when they are. A fix is expected.
Wireless Mouse Software Update
1.0 for Leopard lets you use multitouch
features of the Magic Mouse and is at
support.apple.com/kb/DL951.
Default Folder 4.3.2 fixes bugs with
Snow Leopard, improves compatibility
with Final Cut Pro and other applications
exporting using QuickTime, and more.
It’s available from stclairsoft.com/
DefaultFolderX/index.html.
non-Apple extensions turned off. Your Snow
Leopard installation could have become
damaged, either during the original install or
the update to 10.6.1. Try downloading the
standalone update from support.apple.com/
kb/DL930 and see whether that helps.
Note that you should never turn off the
power to your Mac unless it’s a matter of
immediate safety. Even a forced shutdown,
normally effected by pressing and holding the
power button, is preferable, as it shouldn’t
leave software errors on your startup disk.
Ensure you have a good, complete and
recent backup and restart from the Snow
Leopard install DVD. From that, run Disk Utility
to repair your startup disk and then repair
permissions on it.
Explosive fireworks effect
From Adam Court
Q A client has requested that I make
their logo look as if it has been lit up with
fireworks. Is there a plug-in that I can use
to create convincing firework effects in
Adobe’s Photoshop CS4?
A There are several plug-ins that offer
unusual lighting effects and the like, but
arguably the best of these is Akvis LightShop,
€80 (about £72) from akvis.com/en/lightshop/
index.php. You should also look
through back issues of MacUser,
and books by Photoshop Grand
Masters such as Steve Caplin, as
this is a fairly popular subject for
tutorials and workthroughs.
Tidy little MacBook
From Errico Andreou
Q Snow Leopard’s Finder seems
to want to keep my MacBook
Pro tidy even when I don’t want
it to. When I wake it from sleep
lasting more than an hour or two,
it quits all open applications and
094
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4 December 2009

Nasty problem
From Rob Pigott that will result in
Q I’ve been backing up files to a couple the whole of the
of Nas drives. When I look for them there, Mac file being
recently copied documents are fine, but copied, stored and
older ones don’t open in QuarkXPress or retrieved properly.
other applications. Could this be because While SMB and other
I’ve connected to the drives using SMB protocols should be
rather than AFP? able to work fine,
in practice they’re
A Network-attached storage (Nas) systems vulnerable to glitches
are essentially a networked computer, often that can make
running a stripped-down version of Linux documents unusable
sharing its drive space out via different if copied across
protocols. Macs prefer to use AppleShare or retrieved using To ensure that you can connect to a Nas or similar server via AFP rather than SMB,
you save and retrieve the server details in the Connect to Server dialog.
File (AFP) protocol, while Windows systems that protocol.
generally adopt SMB. Although there’s no
To get most Nas systems to work way for your Mac to Go menu so that it offers AFP connections
properly with Macs, you should ensure limit its connections to AFP, you can set the in preference, avoiding typing in SMB
you connect to them using AFP, as Finder’s Connect to Server command in the connection details.

If you want the Finder to leave files scattered in an
Icon view, rather than tidying them up, ensure that
its View preferences are set with the Arrange By
pop-up menu reading None.
see any tint that’s below 20%, as they’re Those with eBook readers such as the Sony
models sold by Waterstones should find the
shown as plain white even on an external freeware Calibre a very capable conversion and
library management tool.
monitor. Rolling it back to Mac OS X 10.5.4
restored normal function for a while, but it
soon started happening again. Why is this
and how can we fix it?

A It’s easy to suggest changes in Snow

aligns document icons I have left scattered
on my Desktop. Can I opt out of this
authoritarian behaviour?
A Although the Finder has been completely
rewritten for Snow Leopard to run as a 64-bit
Cocoa application, and it does still have some
rough edges, this is more significant than
that. Rather than just sleeping and waking up
again, your Mac seems to be shutting down
and starting up altogether. When this has
happened, open Console and consult the
logs to see what they contain.
Quitting applications should leave tell-tale
evidence as to why that occurred and could
even turn out to be a hardware problem. The
only control that you have of Finder Icon Views
is to bring the window to the front and use
the Show View Options command in the View
menu. In the resulting dialog, set the Arrange
By pop-up menu to None to ensure that Finder
windows at least shouldn’t be automatically
tidied up when you’re not looking.
Colours fade away
From Helen Richardson
Q When a colleague is working on InDesign
CS3 documents on his mid-2007 iMac
running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or 10.6.1, he can’t
Leopard that could contribute to this, or
account for it, but more difficult to understand
how it could happen under Leopard, let alone
go away. It could, of course, be one of the
many and growing list of minor problems
in CS3 reflecting its age, so upgrading to
CS4 could be the best solution. It could be
a result of a clash with third-party software,
such as extensions or plug-ins; engaging
Safe mode could be diagnostic, as could
clearing out suspect plug-ins.
Look for software that could be fiddling
with display or image internals, such as
Shade, a System Preferences pane that
could cause this, particularly in Snow
Leopard. This is unlikely to be a hardware
problem, although sometimes graphics
adaptors that are starting to fail can show
problems before becoming more overt.
More specific to Snow Leopard, remember
that it now has a gamma of 2.2 rather
than 1.8, which does alter the appearance
of images: see support.apple.com/kb/
HT3712 for details. Beware of older screen
Adobe InDesign CS4 and earlier have hardly any
controls over the screen rendering of elements
within a page, such as subtle tints. Flaws in
CS3 could reflect its age.
calibrators and their profiles under Snow
Leopard. Ensure their software is updated
to a compatible version, run new screen
calibrations, and use those new profiles.
Perhaps this will strike a chord with another
reader who may have experienced similar?
Read all about it
From Jim Ormiston
Q I’ve bought a new Sony SRP-600 Reader,
and eventually installed my first book
purchase from Waterstone’s. However,
subsequent syncs between my Mac and
Reader have taken forever. How can I
create and install my own books on it?
A Software tools for the Mac that convert
books for use on Sony’s Reader products
include Calibre, DeskUNPDF, Stanza and, of
Did you know...
Network-attached storage (Nas)
systems present several problems
for Mac users when compared with
shared storage attached to a Mac.
Most importantly, they can’t be
searched using Spotlight, and need
their own backup routines, as well as
local repair tools. Despite these, they
can prove cost-effective.

For basic scientific-style 2D and 3D graphing,
Gnuplot performs better than commercial
products such as Microsoft Excel or Numbers in
iWork, but it relies on command scripts.
course, Adobe Acrobat Pro. Calibre, free from
calibre.kovidgoyal.net, is a large and rapidly
maturing tool for converting into, between
and managing a variety of electronic book
formats. Centred on PDF conversion and
adjustment, deskUNPDF is €46.64 (about
£42) from docudesk.com/deskUNPDF-PDF-
Converter-for-Mac.shtml.
Stanza Desktop is still in beta release,
an eBook reader for the Mac that has some
useful conversion features and is free from
lexcycle.com/desktop. Acrobat Pro is the
industry standard tool for working with and
tidying up PDF documents, and is valuable for
preparing them for use as eBooks.
Secrets of chart success
From Barry Lane
Q I’m looking for simple software to turn
paired x, y data into basic graphs, in which
I can set parameters and change the look
of the resulting graph. I’ve tried Excel, but
was disappointed with its business flavour.
Is there some better maths-based software?
A General-purpose graphing and charting
products such as Excel and Apple’s Numbers
are aimed at business users, who seldom
want to plot the sort of paired x, y data that
are more widespread in sciences, including
maths and statistics. If you’re interested in
a high-end maths package, particularly if you
can get academic pricing, then Wolfram’s
Mathematica is an astonishingly capable
and exciting working environment, but far too
much for just a quick graph.
Specialist scientific graphing applications
such as Aabel (from gigawiz.com/Aabel.html)
are also expensive and perhaps overkill for
you, as would be fully featured statistics
Snow Leopard’s better integration of Quick Look document
previewing has changed the way in which icons are displayed.
Select a file and press the Spacebar for a full preview.
Did you know...
Launchd is a key part of Mac OS
X that acts as conductor and
co-ordinator of most processes
running on your Mac. Although you can
still use the traditional cron tool to run
periodic tasks, launchd should now
be used to start and run background
services, as well as those scheduled
at fixed time intervals.
packages. Free products worth considering
include R, a hugely capable statistics
environment that sports excellent graphing,
from stats.bris.ac.uk/R. However, you would
need to work from a book at first, as it’s
still centred on its own command language.
Gnuplot, free from gnuplot.info, is more basic
and easier to use, and could fit your bill.
More specialist scientific graphing is
available in Pro Fit (from quansoft.com) and
Igor Pro (from wavemetrics.com/products/
igorpro/igorpro.htm).
New-style icons
From Claire Russell
Q I’ve upgraded to Snow Leopard and
noticed that document icons have changed.
When I save a Word document, it’s shown
with its familiar, type-specific appearance,
but quickly changes to a generic document
icon. Likewise, a screenshot starts off as
it used to be, but changes to show the
appearance of the screen in miniature.
Acrobat PDF files behave in a similar way
to Word documents at first, before being
changed to generic icons. My preferences
haven’t changed, so why is this?
A Because of the enhancements made to
Quick Look and its closer integration with the
Finder, Snow Leopard generates document
icons differently to Leopard. As it’s still new,
it’s also prone to minor glitches and bugs.
When you take a screenshot, it’s captured
in an image file and is normally displayed
with a custom icon showing the image in
miniature, as before. Documents with more
complex contents that need to be parsed and
rendered, such as HTML and PDF, are shown
with a miniature icon that shows their generic
type, but no preview. Larger icons
will try to show a preview of the
first page of the document, but
the full scrollable preview will only
appear if you select the icon and
press the Spacebar.
Type-specific document icons
are also the rule for documents
belonging to other applications
such as Microsoft Word, which
rely on Quick Look converters
to generate the preview. A
collection of Quick Look plug-ins
is being made at qlplugins.com.
So what you describe is now
normal behaviour.
095
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
Throttling respawn
From David Ward
Q I installed new Epson printer drivers
for Snow Leopard using Software
Update. Now my printer doesn’t
work, with Console showing repeated
messages about ‘throttling respawn’,
and entries such as:
posix_spawn("/Library/Printers/EPSON/
InkjetPrinter/EPW/IJEPWAgent.app/
Contents/MacOS/IJEPWAgent", ...): No
such file or directory
What should I do?
A Your printer needs background
processes running to enable its driver
to work. These are normally controlled
and run by launchd using a technique
known as ‘spawning’ or ‘respawning’
When an update downloaded by Software Update
malfunctions, download a copy of the standalone
disk image from Apple’s support site and install that.
the process. Hence the log entries
you’re seeing repeated so often are the
components that make up your printer
driver trying to get going, but failing
because a file or folder is missing. After
an update, this is a good indication that
something went wrong and the update
was botched. Open the Print & Fax pane
in System Preferences and remove your
printer. Next, download the standalone
installer from support.apple.com/kb/
DL900 and install that. Restart, re-install
your printer in Print & Fax and you should
find that it works properly again.
Earlier releases of Mac OS X were
prone to incomplete or messed-up
updates through Software Update.
More recently, these issues have
become uncommon and you should
be able to trust Software Update.
When it does fail, it’s simple to use
a standalone installer instead. When
this occurs with full system updates,
it’s usually wise to download the latest
Combo installer, as that will repair
and restore everything that has been
changed since the initial installation
of that major version of Mac OS X.
096
macbusiness
www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009
FACING A BUSINESS DILEMMA? EMAIL HELP@MACUSER.CO.UK TODAY
Inside Installer
Every software update relies on the Mac OS X Installer. Understanding
what it should do is valuable in understanding its problems.
M
ac users who have stayed the
long haul from the first public
beta release of Mac OS X will
have suffered at the hands of its Installer
application more than once. Formerly
notorious for turning well-running Macs into
unbootable nightmares, Installer has also
come a long way. Because Mac OS X has a
Unix heart, it has fixed ideas about where
different software components belong. For
instance, an application that includes custom
fonts must install them in the /Library/Fonts
folder, or they will be rendered inaccessible;
document templates and similar supporting
files normally need to be placed in a folder
within /Library/Application Support if they’re to
be made available to all users of that Mac.
The central function of Installer, a
standard application found in /System/
Library/CoreServices, is therefore to copy the
various components required for a software
installation into the correct locations.
Making your own packages
PackageMaker is located in Xcode’s
/Developer/Applications/Utilities folder,
and has a straightforward interface centred
on a single project window. Prepare all
the files that you need to install, ideally
ready in the correct folder hierarchy and
bundled up into an .app as necessary.
If you’ve developed the product yourself
using Xcode, perhaps in AppleScript
Studio, it should be close to that already.
PackageMaker prompts you to create a
new Installer package when it starts up,
and requires specification of the minimum
version of Mac OS X on which a user can
install, and your organisation’s identity,
normally its Internet address in reverse,
such as uk.co.macuser.
Add components to be included in the
package to the left-hand pane of the main
window, perhaps the application bundle
Apple’s updates are either downloaded
by the Software Update pane in System
Preferences as package files (.pkg),
or separately from support.apple.com/
downloads in disk images (.dmg). The latter
are the recommended ‘container’ for Installer
packages, but there’s nothing to stop you
from putting them into compressed archives
or whatever you like. One advantage of using
disk images is that a damaged or corrupt
image can’t be mounted and used. By
contrast, it’s possible for damaged Installer
packages to be run, and this may explain why
some Software Update installations go awry.
More complex installations can be
delivered as several packages, orchestrated
in JavaScript from a metapackage file (.mpkg).
If, however, you’ve downloaded Apple updates
through Software Update, which, like iTunes,
have a combination of .mpkg and .pkg files,
you’ll have discovered that their .mpkg
orchestration doesn’t normally work when
itself, documentation files, and any
Library additions. Selecting each
in turn, you then need to complete
entries in the Configuration,
Contents, Components and
Scripts tabs. Each has extensive
options that will have significant
effects on the installation
process. For instance, enabling PackageMaker gives you full control over the permissions settings
of each file and folder that you build into a package. Kept as a
the checkbox to ‘Allow custom receipt, these are also used to repair permissions later.
location’ will make Installer add
another button that enables the
user to select a different destination folder.
Remember that any components to be
installed outside a user’s Home folder will
require admin authorisation. Components
that should be offered as optional installs
are added as choices, for which you can
determine additional options such as
whether they’re selected initially.
opened in the Downloads folder. Mounting
at the top level of a disk image is usually
successful, or you can install its individual
constituent .pkg files manually. The latter has
the disadvantage that the .mpkg scripts won’t
be run, which could stunt the installation
process, although this doesn’t normally worry
iTunes updates.
An Installer package is a regular file,
not a ‘bundle’ like an application that’s a
folder pretending to be a file. It contains
product information, including any licence
file and version data, and a list of installation
properties. The latter include system, volume
and authentication requirements, and the
action to be followed after installation, such
as forcing a restart. In addition to the files
required for the installation itself, there are
four scripts to cover preflight, pre-installation,
post-installation and postflight. In essence,
Installer runs the preflight then pre-installation
scripts, puts all the enclosed files in the
Select the package, in the top left-hand
section, and work through its Configuration,
Requirements and Actions settings. Among
Requirements, you can’t only set essential
needs, without which Installer will refuse to
proceed, but Optional specifications; if the
target system falls short of those, Installer
will display a warning message, but will
complete the installation if the user wishes.

specified locations, replacing existing files
as specified, following which it runs the
post-installation and postflight scripts.
The first phase of an installation consists
of checking that the Mac meets the package’s
requirements. If it falls short, then Installer
tells the user why the installation can’t
proceed and goes no further. The developer
who produces the package may unwittingly
allow installation on an unsuitable system,
though: this commonly occurs when they’ve
specified a minimum version of Mac OS X
that’s required, but don’t exclude future major
releases. This means you can install products
designed for Tiger on Snow Leopard, although
they could then prove badly broken.
Once Installer has determined that the
installation can proceed, it runs the preflight
script – or, in the case of metapackages,
all preflight scripts from the .mpkg and its
associated packages. After those, pre-
installation scripts are run. If an error occurs
during preflight or pre-installation, Installer
informs the user and cancels the installation.
This normally works perfectly, but if preflight
or pre-install scripts encounter an error but
don’t handle it correctly, Installer will continue
with an installation that will fail.
With all preparations complete, Installer
gets on with the main course, copying every
file from the package to its designated
location on the Mac. Here, there’s ample
scope for programmer error, inadvertently
wiping out key files belonging to other
applications or system components, or
misplacing vital files. When this is complete,
the package file less its payload of files
that have been installed is copied to the
/Library/Receipts folder of the volume on
which installation has taken place. Although
package receipts like this appear identical
to their original packages, they lack the files
that were installed, and are folders disguised
as single files, like an application bundle.
If you open one, you can see its binary
‘bill of materials’ (.bom), a .dist script, and
various of the scripts and other components
that make up a distribution package. Because
the .bom files in receipts specify the intended
permissions of all the files and folders that
have been installed, they’re used by Disk
Utility when you use it to repair permissions.
In Mac OS X 10.3.3 and earlier, there
was a final step needed for an installation
to take properly: updating of prebindings.
In order to launch applications more quickly,
Mac OS X used to process its executable
files in advance, a trick termed ‘prebinding’.
Thankfully, improvements in the loading
and execution of code in Mac OS X 10.3.4
and later have rendered this unnecessary,
so you should never see Installer updating
prebindings now. Before quitting, Installer
runs post-installation and postflight scripts,
and the installation or update is complete.
Most application installations and updates
have to place (and/or remove) files from
folders to which administrator or even root
access is required. Consequently, Installer
Inside packages and uninstalling
Unlike disk images, Installer packages are
a minority pursuit and potentially complex.
This means there are relatively few third-
party tools that work with these packages.
The exception is with utilities to remove or
uninstall software that has been installed
by Installer – something that Installer itself
remains incapable of accomplishing.
Pacifist, $20 (about £12) shareware
from charlessoft.com, is the established
alternative to Installer. It enables you to
open packages and install individual files
or elements within them. Installer will list
the files to be installed from a package,
through the Show Files in its Files menu, but
it’s constrained by the options chosen by
the person who built the original package.
If you inadvertently trash your QuickTime
Player application, you may not want to
re-install the whole of the latest edition of
QuickTime. Instead, you can use Pacifist to
selectively install just the Player application
from the last QuickTime update.
Uninstallers present a more complex
choice. For products that came in Installer
packages, you can open the original
package(s) using Installer, list their
contents, and then manually remove all
the different components that it installed.
Alternatively, an application such as
has to prompt you to enter an administrator
user name and password. One way of
streamlining this process when performing
multiple installations is to load all packages
before Installer has completed and quit
by double-clicking remaining packages or
dragging them to the application icon while
it’s still running. Metapackages automate this
for those distributing complex products.
Constructing Installer packages isn’t
just for professional software developers.
Using Apple’s PackageMaker, part of the free
Xcode SDK, system administrators can build
their own packages and metapackages to
help maintain the Macs that they look after.
Apple calls these ‘managed installs’, and
with the cover of Apple Remote Desktop,
it’s possible to perform remote installs on
multiple clients – for instance, to the many
Macs on a lab network.
Apple’s Installer isn’t the only game in
town, although it’s now probably the most
sophisticated and mature. Smith Micro’s
StuffIt InstallerMaker (my.smithmicro.com/
mac/stuffitinstallermaker/index.html) was
popular in the days of classic Mac OS, and
is available for Mac OS X. More widely used
because of its availability for Windows as
well, MindVision VISE X (mindvision.com/
vise_x.asp) has been adopted by other
application vendors. If you need to build
installers for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux,
then BitRock’s InstallerBuilder (bitrock.
com) could be a good choice.
097
4 December 2009
www.macuser.co.uk
fseventer, free from fernlightning.com/
doku.php?id=software:fseventer:start,
can watch your filesystem using the same
system features employed by Spotlight, and
record the file activity performed during an
installation. This allows you to discover what
any installer has actually done during an
install, including any files generated when
you first run the application. While this is
probably overkill for single users, system
administrators who need to know how to
roll back an update or installation could
find it a useful addition to their toolbox. Its
disadvantage is that the system interface
on which it relies can become overwhelmed
by heavy file system activity, something not
inconceivable during software installation.
Pacifist opens existing Installer packages, so you can
choose elements or components within the package
and selectively install them. This saves you having to
run the whole install or update.
Summary
● Apple’s Installer utility is designed
to perform complex installations and
updates, involving the placement of
components in folders required by
Mac OS X, with its Unix heart.
● Packages delivered in disk images
are automatically checked for integrity;
those downloaded by Software Update
can be damaged but still installed.
● Metapackages (.mpkg) orchestrate
installation of multiple packages
(.pkg) using co-ordinating JavaScript.
Manual installs of constituent
packages normally work for iTunes,
but don’t run that script.
● When an Installer package has
been installed, the package is stripped
of its payload and copied to the
/Library/Receipts folder.
● System administrators can use
PackageMaker to build packages to
facilitate system maintenance. These
can also be installed remotely using
Apple Remote Desktop.
● Pacifist is a valuable tool for
performing selective installations of
only part of a package. Uninstallers
are a more complex issue, and
manual removal using Installer’s
file listing may be best.
098

ONE MORE THING:

www.macuser.co.uk
4 December 2009

I don’t want no freedom?

Fed up with the growing cost of technology-based services, Simon Brew
discovers that there is such a thing as a free lunch, and it’s called Skype.

I
like things that are free. I do subscribe
to the notion that there’s no such thing as
a free lunch in principle, but that hasn’t
stopped my one-man quest to disprove the
notion over the past decades of my life.
My youth was (partly) spent ringing up
for free catalogues, entering competitions
that I always lost on the tiebreaker (‘Why
do you want to win this?’ ‘Because then
I wouldn’t have to pay for it, silly’), and
engaging in a one-man hunt for gift horses,
whose mouth I then never even remotely
stared in the direction of.
As I’ve got older, I’ve found myself far
happier to pay for things, a phenomenon I
never really thought I’d get to grips with in my
infant years (that’s what 25p a week pocket
money does for you). But I appreciate it’s right
and proper that if someone has spent time
and effort working on something, then I don’t
have a right to tea leaf it. That said, I recently
read a story of one IT magazine editor – not
our beloved Nik, I should hasten to add – who
admitted to stealing sweeties from his local
shop in his youth. This
is a well-to-do man,
too, who I’m wagering
‘While I have little quarrel with
got more pocket
money than me. paying a price for good-quality
Yet that didn’t stop products, I’m getting increasingly software and bravely
the young cad from
slipping a packet of bothered at the cost of many
Fruit Polos in his coat technology-related services’
pocket. Fruit Polos!
At the very least go for
the Fizzy Chewits, man!
That’s where the action is. The late, great
Woolworths even used to sell them in bulk
packs. But I digress.
While I have little quarrel with paying
a price for good-quality products, I’m
getting increasingly bothered at the cost
of many technology-related services. A text
message, for instance, has such a miniscule
‘manufacture’ cost that I begrudge even
spitting a penny in the direction of my mobile
phone operator for the dubious pleasure of
sending one (given that said operator’s staff
may well have sold my details, too, I figure it
owes me money if anything). Likewise, I’ve
had a letter from Sky telling me the price
of my telly is going up. Why? As far as I can
make out, the quality of the 2384 channels
it offers hasn’t improved, and it still only
offers a 10-minute limit on previews of, er,
the ‘arthouse’ programmes it transmits late
at night. Why should it have an extra pound
of my cash? But then we, as a society, intend to preserve. But Skype is a technology
tend to cough up easily for things like this, of potentially world-changing genius. The irony,
thanks to the modern-day accomplice of big of course, is that because it’s free, nobody
corporations, direct debit. wants to pay to promote the thing. As such,
Last month, though, I began a very belated the child in us who gladly grabs anything free
fight back. At long last, I discovered Skype. they can find is happy to ignore a genuine gift
I say discovered. This wasn’t some Indiana horse when it turns up and stares lovingly in
Jones-esque quest that had me moving a our direction. I’m guessing if said gift horse
Chocolate Orange slightly from one side of my offered the adult population Fruit Polos en
desk to the other to uncover a new cavern masse for free, there’d be a very different
under the piles of papers. This was me reaction. I can think of at least one satisfied
refusing to pay the bill for an hour-long phone customer straightaway.
call to Los Angeles. I’d like, at this stage, to
tell you that this phone call was to a major
international talent agent, who was primed to
pluck me from deepest Dudley and transport
me to the glitz of Tinseltown, but that would
be a lie, and quite a big one. I’m happy for
you to think it’s true, though. I’ll be in Heat
magazine at this rate.
Nonetheless, a phone call I had to make,
and the thought of saving a good tenner or
two was enough to have me signing up. I
borrowed a fairly clunky USB microphone and
speaker combo that
had been reluctantly
formed into the
shape of a phone,
downloaded the
ventured forward. I
daringly clicked on
a phone number in
my email client, and
waited for the phone
to call a friend’s UK
landline to test it. It was as if the technology
fairies has danced across my keyboard and
sprinkled magic money-saving dust onto it.
I completed a call, only interrupted by two
instant messenger messages sounding their
arrival, and a web pop-up making the kind of
noises that I suspect the person on the other
end of the line didn’t want to hear. I learnt
valuable lessons about closing windows here,
friends, let me tell you that right now.
Then it was time for the big call to Los
Angeles. I’m not used to technology working
first time, so Skype utterly caught me off
guard when a chirpy American voice greeted
me. ‘Have you got video switched on?’, the
person on the other end of the phone asked.
No I haven’t, you nosey fecker, I thought.
I have to hold some values in this new
technological world, and reserving the right to
not wear a shirt when I’m on the phone, while Simon Brew wrote this column fully clothed,
sneaking in mouthfuls of Toblerone, is one I which makes a change.