appleJAC Users Group

Great Scanner Software

Do you have an older model scanner or perhaps scanner software that really stinks?

VueScan is the world's most widely used scanning software, with more than 5 million copies downloaded. VueScan is easy to use, saves you time and improves your productivity. It saves you money by letting you continue using your existing scanner, and it gives you higher quality scans than the software that comes with your scanner.

But, the best part is that VueScan changes nothing on your system, installs nothing in your operating system and all other scanner software will continue to function.

Get a trial at the companies website and see what you think.  It is a little pricey but I really like how it works.

So you want to make a Podcast...

I have a friend who is just geting into podcasting with Garageband and he found this great ow cost kit of hardware to get started.

The Podcasting Kit #3 PC includes Alesis Multimix 8USB 8 Channel Mixer, Cakewalk Pyro 2004 MP3 & CD Maker software (for the PC), 2 MXL V63M Condenser Studio Microphones, 2 - 20' Lo-Z mic cables, 2 Musician's Friend Low Profile Die Cast Mic Stands, and AKG K44 Headphones. This advanced podcasting kit features the gear you need for more elaborate productions. The Alesis Multimix 8USB routes 8 channels of audio into your PC. The 2 MXL V63M mics are an ideal solution for podcast shows with 2 hosts.  AKG's K44 headphones let you monitor your production comfortably and accurately.

Musician's Friend Podcasting Production Kit #3 PC Features:

Alesis Multimix 8USB 8 Channel Mixer
Cakewalk Pyro 2004 MP3 & CD Maker software
2 MXL V63M Condenser Studio Microphones
2 Musician's Friend Low Profile Die-cast Mic Stands
2 - 20' Lo-Z mic cables
AKG K44 Headphones

This looks like a single package, when used with Garageband 06, to allow creation of a professional podcast.  The real cool part is that the mixer is a USB device and is fully compatable with Garageband.

Come on Adobe, don't let us down

Adobe has been a premier Macintosh developer for years.  Ever since Pagemaker in 1985, Adobe and Apple have been joined at the hip for the mutual benefit of both companies.  So what is the deal with Adobe and the Intel transition?

Adobe has an official statement on Intel based Macs.

Adobe said it would not deliver native Intel versions of currently shipping professional products and that customers would have to wait until future major releases--which could be more than one year away--for native Intel Mac support. While noting an upcoming release of a native Intel Mac beta of Lightroom, its newly introduced professional applications for photographers, Adobe refused to provide additional release dates on the native Intel versions of its applications, except to say it was moving its development to Apple's Xcode development platform to help ease the Intel transition and was focused on the next major releases of its professional, which due to planned development cycles would delay the release of any native Intel Mac support.

The company, however, reiterated its support for the new Intel-based Mac platform, noting that at last year's Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference, Adobe CEO Bruce Citizen expressed "strong support" for Apple's transition plans: “We think this is a really smart move on Apple’s part and we plan to create future versions of our Creative Suite for Macintosh that support PowerPC and Intel processors."

Ok, but what about all the other applications and why no patches to make them work in Rosetta.  I am a Contribute user (a product Adobe got from Macromedia) and it does not work in Rosetta.  This is ridiculous.  The least Adobe should do for paying customers is to fix the problems to allow us to get by until they release the real deals.

Other developers have done this, it is time for Adobe to get in gear and make it right.

Mac OS X: Why your Mac might not sleep or stay in sleep mode

Learn why your Mac might not go to sleep when you expect it to, or why it might not stay in sleep mode. What's sleep mode? It's a low power, energy-saving feature of that offers both environmental and economic benefits, as well as helping to extend the life of batteries and displays.

On the other hand, you probably don't want the computer to sleep at certain times even if you're not using the keyboard or mouse, such as when you are:

• While watching a DVD movie
• Listening to your iTunes music library
• Running an automated backup
• Away from your computer while downloading large files

It' likely something to do with the Energy Saver settings on your machine.  Apple has a great page about sleep and the lack there of.  CHeck it out if you are seeing the problem.

Your Resource for Universal Application Information

MacFixIt presents the best source for Universal Application Troubleshooting, Updates, and News. Bookmark this page to follow Universal Application happenings and check out VersionTracker for comprehensive update coverage for all your Macs.

This is a great place for finding out about updates and information for your new Intel based Mac.

Let your Business see some Daylite

Marketcircle’s Daylite 3.1.1 has just enough project-management tools for general business projects. It has the familiar-looking panes of an e-mail client or calendar, and it is useful for managing tasks, appointments, and contacts—but it does more than a PIM (personal information manager).

Daylite is focused on helping you be successful in the work you do, providing you and professionals of all kinds with powerful in-depth capabilities to manage information. It’s all about helping you stay organized and focused so you can be more productive in your work. So whether you need to schedule meetings, delegate, share calendars, plan tasks, stay on top of multiple projects, or even just keep track of contacts and dates…Daylite’s productivity power is working for you.

Daylite also has an optional Mail integration product that will log emails from anyone in your Daylite database.  It is a great addition to look at also.

Nearly Everyone can afford RAID now

Other World Computing's  Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual RAID Solutions are Hardware Striped RAID–0 SATA Drive arrays for high-performance applications. Specifically designed to meet the performance demands of video and audio production, Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual RAID Solutions provide data transfer rates of over 80 Mbytes per second! With highest capacity external drive available and Plug & Play simplicity, the possibilities are endless!

These new units are priced for average users too.  A 1 TB solution is just $599.  That is teriffic for RAID performance.  THe case designs look like the G5 and Mac Pro Towers too.

Fixit Guide Series

Do-It-Yourself Laptop Repair

Broke your computer, but can't afford $100/hr to have someone fix it? Want to upgrade your RAM or hard drive, but don't feel comfortable diving in without any experience? The Fixit Guide Series is your solution. Each Fixit Guide has detailed disassembly instructions that walk you through the process of easily accessing and replacing components in your PowerBook or iBook.

These are great information if you want to do the repair yourself.

Printing From the Desktop (Without a Desktop Printer)

Don’t want a printer icon cluttering up your desktop, but you still want to print files from the desktop or a Finder window (kind of greedy, aren’t you)? Then try this little trick: Control- click on the file you want to print to bring up a contextual menu. Now just choose Print from the menu. Once you choose it, it will either start printing or take you directly to the default application’s Print dialog.

Apple Updates Boot Camp

Apple has quietly posted an update to Boot Camp to version 1.1. According to the Boot Camp page, the new version remains in beta and contains many updates for all new and previous Boot Camp beta users.

New features include:

• Support for the latest Intel-based Macintosh computers
• Easier partitioning using presets for popular sizes
• Ability to install Windows XP on any internal disk
• iSight camera support
• Support for built-in microphones
• Right-click when pressing the right-hand Apple key on Apple keyboards
• Improved Apple keyboard support including Delete, PrintScreen, NumLock, and ScrollLock keys

Boot Camp is Apple's Windows-on-the-Mac solution, allowing owners of Intel-based Macs to install and boot Windows XP alongside Mac OS X. Unlike virtualization solutions, Apple's solution requires you to reboot your machine to switch from one operating system to another.

Boot Camp was originally released in April 2006, and the final version is expected in Leopard Mac OS X 10.5 which is due in the Spring of 2007.

An Apple Retailing Experience

The Apple Retail Store is one of the best place to learn everything there is to know about the Mac or iPod. Apple has staffes these stores with Mac Specialists to answer all your questions. You can visit the Genius Bar for one-on-one support and advice but be prepared for a wait.  Often times the specialists are booked hours in advance. Apple also offers free workshops — for beginners and pros — on apple related software and hardware.

I have to tell you, I love to visit these store just to walk around and look at all the products.  In fact, I have had some very nice conservations with other patrons while just browsing the store.

I have visited nearly 20 different Apple stores.  Guess you could sorta call me a collector.  When I am in an area and have an extra hour or so, I often look for the Apple store to add another knotch to my powerbook. 

In Missouri, we are fortunate enough to have 3 stores.  Two in St Louis, and one in Kansas City.

Here are the links to those retail locations.

Country Club Plaza - Kansas City
St Louis Gallerea
St Louis West County
 
If you are in the area, drop by and see what the excitement is all about.

How do I learn Photoshop Elements?

So many people ask me how to learn photo ediing techniques.  Believe me, t is a challange to do it from a book.  I ran across a great tuorial method to assist you in the process of learning a program as deep as Photoshop Elements.

The team that brought you the Photoshop Elements Techniques newsletter invites you to spend the next three weeks – 21 amazing days – in the most in-depth, fascinating, and outright fun interactive online training course for Photoshop Elements that’s ever been produced.                                              

This training is called Digital Photography Workflow and your instructor is Scott Kelby, author of the #1 best-selling  Elements book, The Photoshop  Elements Book for Digital Photographers, and Executive Editor of the Photoshop Elements Techniques newsletter.

Each day, Scott will take you through nothing but the most  important, most useful, and most fun features of Elements for digital photographers, and you’ll see exactly how it’s done, from start to finish. The class sessions are designed to be quick,easy, and straight to the point, without a bunch of lofty theory or confusing jargon.

The great part is hat each session is just 5 to 15 minutes a day.  What a great method to learn complex techniques over a short period of time.

This looks to be a real training winner.

Intel Macs: What Apps are we missing?

If you have had the opportunity to use an intel based mac you can see that Apple has done wonders with the transition.  Not only are the new machines fast but they are Macs through and through.  As with any transition, there are applications that either take forever to be converted to the new technology or may never make the cut.  One of these, called Drop Drawers I talked about the other day.

So what, in my opinion what are we missing on the application front?  Keep in mind, these are applications I use so some make no difference to you but here is my list:

• Drop Drawers - My application launcher application of choice
• SnapZ Pro - The utility I use everyday to make screen shots ( the developer says they are working on this one)
• Microsoft Office - We know this is being worked on but in reality, the applications run just fine in Rosetta so this is not a high priority to me (and Microsoft, while I have you hear... add the new Office 2007 formats and call it good.  We don't need the 100 new features that no one will use)
• Adobe (don't get me started...) - Photoshop and the like are holding the Pros out of the intel revolution.  And the guts to release Photoshop Elements 4 as a non-universal this late in the transition..... plus, I hear Contribute 4 will still be released as non-intel.  Get with the program guys.
• FilmLoop - Loved it at Macworld but we need an intel release... or at least a release with a 1. in front of the number.

Believe it or not, that's about all I need.  Looking in my applications folder, most all the others I use, even on a weekly basis, are Universal. 

Are there applications you use that are not yet Universal?  Let me know by commenting to this post and lets see the list.

Launch your Apps with Drop Drawers

Need a place for quick launching applications without filling the Dock up?

Drop Drawers is a revolutionary user interface enhancement for Macintosh which provides floating pull-out, snap-shut drawers on the sides of your screen to store text, URLs, aliases, scripts, pictures, sounds, movies and anything else.

Here are the features it has from the developers web site.

• Highly customizable interface with colors, fonts and transparency.
• Image and movie files shown as QuickTime image thumbnails.
• Auto insertion of text (or anything else) into any application.
• Drawers can be positioned easily on any side of any screen.
• All drawer items can have key shortcuts assigned.
• Optional speech recognition for drawer items.
• Drawers can be password-protected.
• Sophisticated arrange and clean up options.
• Patterns and pictures for drawers and tabs.
• Drawers have optional configurable grids.
• AppleScript editor and compiler built-in.
• Tool Tips show hidden names of items.
• Comprehensive documentation and tutorial.

Unfortunately it is not a universal application and I don't know if it will ever be but it runs just fine in Rosetta (the PowerPC emulation layer on Intel Macs).

How to use the sound input port?

Q: I'm damned if I can find ANYTHING to stick in the in-put jack on the Mac Book that will record. I'm still futzing around...using a USB headset for skype calls...but I can't figure out what hell that jack is FOR.

A: On a MacBook, the default input device is the built-in mic.  If you want to use the port on the machine, all you have to do is go to System Preferences:Sound, select the Input tab, and select the Line in as the active input port.  That should make it work.

Why isn't my Harddisk as big as I thought?

Mac OS X reports hard drive capacity in binary math, hard drive manufacturers report capacity in base 10 math

Modern operating systems such as Mac OS X use binary mathematics to define the total capacity of a hard drive. Using binary math, an 80-gigabyte (GB) hard drive reports approximately 74.51 GB of available space.

In binary math, 1 GB is equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes, whereas conventional (or base 10) mathematics instead calculate 1 GB as exactly 1,000,000,000 bytes.

This numerical discrepancy (73,741,824 bytes per gigabyte) represents a difference between the physical “base 10” specification used by hard drive manufacturers and Mac OS X’s binary measurement of available capacity. The 80 GB and 74.51 GB values represent two methods of mathematical measurement that describe a hard drive with approximately 80 billion bytes.

This is normal behavior, and there is no hard disk space missing. Regardless of which method is used to measure total capacity, the storage capacity in bytes of the hard drive is the same. Previous operating systems (including Mac OS 9 and earlier versions) also demonstrate this mathematical difference.

Other factors, such as the system software, applications, updates, and customer data count against the available disk capacity, meaning a new Macintosh computer will not show the total capacity listed as available for use. The amount of hard disk drive space required for normal operation of a Macintosh computer will vary widely, depending on configuration, model, and personal requirements.

Note: Hard disk manufacturers may also round off decimal places when stating storage specifications, such as approximately "39.5 GB" instead of "39.49 GB".

iTunes: Moving your iTunes Music folder

If your hard drive is nearly full after loading all your music into iTunes, or if you just want to move all those music files to another hard drive on your system, here's a way to make the move while retaining all your playlists, ratings, and play history.

First make sure that the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" option is checked in iTunes Preferences

1. Mac users: From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences.
2. In the resulting dialog, click the Advanced button and then click the General tab.
3. Select the "Keep iTunes Music folder organized" checkbox.
4. Click OK.

Once you've done that, follow the next set of steps to change your iTunes Music library location to the new drive and then consolidate your library to the new location. This not only copies your audio files over, it also retains your ratings and playlists. Note: If you move your music library to an external hard drive, you will need to have that drive connected to access your files. No matter what, it's always a good idea to have a backup of the media you have in iTunes.

1. Open iTunes.
2. From the iTunes menu, choose Preferences (In Windows, from the Edit menu,choose Preferences).
3. Click the Advanced button in the Preferences window and then click the General tab.
4. Click the Change button in the Advanced pane.
5. In the Change Music Folder Location window that appears, navigate to the location where you would like your new Music folder to be created. Note: By default, your iTunes Music folder is a folder named "iTunes Music" in ~/Music/iTunes/ where the tilde "~" represents your home directory. In Windows, the default location is: \Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Music\iTunes
6. Click the New Folder button in the Change Music Folder Location window.
7. In the New Folder window that appears, enter the name of the new iTunes Music folder.
8. Click Create.
9. Click Choose in the Change Music Folder Location window.
10. Click OK in the Advanced window. A message appears that says: "Changing the location of the iTunes Music Folder requires updating the location of each of the songs in your music library. This update will not move or delete any of your song files."
11. Click OK.
12. From the Advanced menu, choose Consolidate Library. A message appears that says: "Consolidating your library will copy all of your music into the iTunes Music folder. This cannot be undone."
13. Click Consolidate. Important: This action copies all of your music files to the new location. There must be enough hard disk space available to copy all of your music files.
14. After the folder has been copied, locate your original iTunes Music folder, and drag it to the Trash or Recycle Bin. Note: Don't remove the iTunes 4 Music Library files that may be in the same location as the iTunes Music folder.
15. Empty the Trash or Recycle Bin.

Startup Commands for OSX

Ever wondered what the startup key commands are for your Mac?  Here is a short List.

Press X during startup will force Mac OS X startup

Press Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup will bypass primary startup volume and seek a different startup volume (such as a CD or external disk)

Press C during startup will start up from a CD that has a system folder

Press N during startup will attempt to start up from a compatible network server (NetBoot)

Press T during startup will start up in FireWire Target Disk mode

Press Shift during startup to start up in Safe Boot mode and temporarily disable login items and non-essential kernel extension files (Mac OS X 10.2 and later)

Press Command-V during startup to start up in Verbose mode.

Press Command-S during startupto start up in Single-User mode

You may not need some of these commands but it is often handy to have the list in case you need them.

iMovie: Tips to improve performance

Try some of these tips to improve the time it takes iMovie to open, if iMovie is slow to respond to clicking or dragging, or if video or audio in the playback window is jumpy.

Install the latest software

Periodically, Apple releases updates to iMovie, QuickTime, and the Mac OS. Make sure you've installed the latest versions of this software. The Software Update feature in Mac OS X makes downloading and installing the latest updates a snap. Of course, the latest version of QuickTime is always available from the QuickTime website.

Make sure your computer meets the system requirements

Each version of iMovie has different requirements. Make sure your computer is able to take advantage of iMovie's features.

Rendering clips takes a lot of processing power. If iMovie seems unresponsive, consider waiting until a clip is finished rendering before continuing or rendering another clip. You could also render clips in small batches to improve responsiveness.

Change playback quality

If you are using iMovie 4 or later, consider changing the playback quality setting in iMovie preferences.

Turn off Audio Waveforms

If you are using iMovie HD 5 or later, consider turning off "Show Audio Waveforms" from the View menu to free up processing power.

Don't store your project in a folder that uses FileVault

If you are using Mac OS X 10.3 or later, make sure the project you are working on isn't saved in a folder that's protected by FileVault.

Quit unused applications and users

Quit any open applications you're not using. If Fast User Switching is on, consider logging out other users.

Check the disk

Open Disk First Aid. Check the startup disk, and the disk where the project is saved.
Use Disk Utility to Repair Permissions on the startup disk.

Check for plug-ins

Check to see if there are any plug-ins in this directory: ~/Library/iMovie/. If so, remove them. Reopen iMovie and see if performance is improved. If this resolves the issue, contact the plug-in's developer for more information.

Copy the project to the computer's hard disk

If your project is saved on an external hard drive, try copying the project folder to the computer's hard disk (if there is room) and open it from there. See if this improves performance.

Rebuild the project

If you are only experiencing the issue in one project, consider rebuilding it.

Defragment the disk

If you have access to a disk defragmenting utility, consider defragmenting the drive where the project is located.

How to tell if my Network is working?

Many people tend to forget that the MacOS is really just an shell running on top of Unix.  While everybody knows that there are tools in unix called commands that you can type into the Terminal application, many people don't realize that Apple wrote programs to allow you to get access to these commands without learning the syntax and typing them in.  When it comes to testing your network, the utility Apple created is called Network Utility.

Found in the Utilities folder, Network Utility allos you to use the Mac interface and run some commands that can be of assistance in finding network problems.  I was working on a client's computer receintly and had to call the DSL company to determin what kind of networking problem was happening.  On the phone, I told the tech guy I was using a Mac and he told me there was no way to troubleshoot it because we needed to run come commands to see if the network was cconnected.  He told me the mac could not uun commands such as "Ping" and "Lookup".  Well knowing the Mac as I do I proceeded to tell him about Network Utility.

Network Utility is an application included with Mac OS X that provides a variety of computer network information.  Most of these run Unix commands such as:

Network interfaces -- Netstat -- AppleTalk -- ping -- Lookup -- Traceroute
Whois -- Finger -- Port scan

While you definitely don't need to know what all these do, just keep in mind Network Utility is there for the next time you are trying to troubleshoot a network problem on your mac.