Macworld articles from April 2005

Macworld archives from April 2005

Apple's advantage.(Apple Computer Inc., market share)
April 1, 2005... For years, Apple's percentage of the worldwide computer market remained mired in the single digits. Conventional wisdom held that the high price of Macs was responsible for the small market share. But that argument has always been debatable,...

Who needs a video iPod?(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... Last fall, rumors flew fast and furious that Steve Jobs had a big iPod announcement in the works. Lead runner in the rumor race was an iPod that would store and play videos. As it turned out, TV fans were disappointed when all Steve had to...

iPod photo: your turn.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... PHIL BROWN * Maybe it's anti-Apple to even think it, but I think the iPod photo is way overpriced for what it does. Maybe some folks can use all that storage. But for me, my year-old PalmOne Zire 71 does fine, and it was half the price of...

Helpful suggestions.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... WARD MUNDY # Two things I wish Mac developers would implement: I get really tired of trying to turn off my system, only to have it ask me whether I want to save the Clipboard's contents. I wish I could just select an option somewhere that...

Lose the JPEGs.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... BYRON C. KORT # Your article "Picture Your Perfect Camera" (January 2005) neglected to point out just how lossy JPEG files are. Depending upon compression, JPEGs throw away between 30 and 95 percent of the pixels that the camera captures....

OS 9 debate continues.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... MATTHEW THOMPSON # In the article "So Long, OS 9" (Mac Beat, January 2005), Glen Turpin of Quark claims that OS X offers "access to the lower levels of the system, which enables us to provide a quicker application." Ha! I work in catalog...

More Web tips.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... PHIL MAHLER # You didn't mention my favorite new tip for searching the Internet in your "Untangle the Web" article (December 2004): when you want to learn how to do something (for example, how to perform red-eye reduction in Photoshop),...

Virtual lockout.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... JAMES KERWIN # Robert Ellis's review of Microsoft Virtual PC 7 (VERY GOOD; January 2005) left out one major drawback that the new version has: users with DSL connections that don't have static IP addresses can't access certain Web sites...

Blatant self-promotion.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... JIM KANE # Even in this "everything's-on-the-Web-already-so-why-would-I-need-a-print-magazine?" era, print magazines such as Macworld are still useful. I've subscribed since 1985, and reading each issue cover-to-cover is still a high...

Corrections.(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2005... In "Inside the iPod Photo" (Digital Hub, February 2005), we stated that the iPod photo wouldn't fit in the Sonnet PodFreq. Sonnet has since announced a version that will hold the iPod photo.

How does the Mac mini stack up against bargain PCs? Apples and oranges.
April 1, 2005... For years, people have criticized Macs for being more expensive than Windows PCs. The problem with that logic, however, is that Macs and PCs aren't usually configured the same. In fact, when you compare similarly equipped Macs and brand-name...

Apple makes PowerBooks faster, adds features, lowers prices: speedy 'books.
April 1, 2005... Road warriors take heart: Apple hasn't forgotten about you. No, there isn't a PowerBook G5 yet--but that doesn't mean the company has stopped working on its powerful laptops. In fact, Apple has refreshed the entire PowerBook G4 line to make...

Digital audio vendors aren't afraid of the iPod shuffle: quaking in their boots?(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... While hordes of people rushed over to the Apple Store to pick up the new iPod shuffle moments after Steve Jobs announced the product at Macworld Expo, the only thing competing digital audio vendors rushed to do was downplay the significance of...

Doctor Mac Direct makes house calls--via the net: the doctor is in.(new service)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Perhaps the most frustrating part of technical support--other than waiting on hold--is getting someone to explain clearly how to solve your problem. A new service hopes to improve that experience with a different approach. Doctor Mac...

Productivity beat.(new management software)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... 4D Meetings 1.0, from 4D (www.4d.com): Meeting and task-management system provides contact-management, group-creation, archive-storage, and report-generation capabilities (free). LeadingReporter 1.0, from CS Odessa (www.leadingproject.com):...

Imaging beat.(new digital cameras)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Dimage Z5, from Konica Minolta (www.konicaminolta.com): Five-megapixel camera offers 12X optical and 4X digital zoom, along with Konica's Anti-Shake system (contact Konica for pricing). Dimage Z20, from Konica Minolta...

Hotels begin offering iPods to guests: enjoy your stay.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Guests at upscale hotels have become accustomed to 600-thread-count Egyptian-cotton sheets, pool concierges, and travel butlers. But the latest offering for travelers in search of the ultimate experience is even cooler: iPods. ...

Elektron secures small Wi-Fi networks: AirPort protector.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... AirPort has changed the way many of us look at networking. One problem, however, is that wireless networks are relatively insecure. Their radio waves penetrate walls and spill out into the streets, and a ne'er-do-well with free software can...

Multimedia beat.(new products)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Combustion 4, from Discreet (www.discreet.com): Desktop compositing software adds Diamond Keyer, custom capsules, a merge operator, and enhanced paint functions ($995; upgrade, $249). GuitarPlug, from MacMice (www.dvforge.com): USB audio...

Internet beat.(ew products, XNet Communications)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Captain FTP 4.0, from XNet Communications (http://captainftp.xdsnet.de): Updated FTP client adds the ability to open new FTP connections in tabs within a single window, as well as built-in viewers for video, audio, image, and PDF files ($25;...

Guitar maker Gibson unveils Ethernet axe: Les Paul goes digital.(Gibson Digital)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... In a quiet meeting room at January's NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) music trade show in Anaheim, California, Henry Juszkiewicz opens a guitar case to reveal the future of Gibson instruments--the digital guitar...

San Francisco band replaces drums with a pair of iBooks: sans skins.(LunaGroove)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Including computers in a band setup is nothing new, but San Francisco's LunaGroove (www.lunagroove.com) has gone one step further--completely replacing a traditional drum kit with two iBooks. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Alex Theory, who...

Creative beat.(new products, E-on Software)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Maya 6.5, from Alias (www.alias.com): Update to 3-D--modeling, -animation, and -rendering program has been optimized for improved performance and includes scene-segmentation and Step translator features (Maya Complete, $1,999; upgrade, $899;...

Storage beat.(new products)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Drive Genius, from ProSoft Engineering (www.prosofteng.com): Suite of utilities optimizes, rebuilds, tests, benchmarks, initializes, partitions, and duplicates hard drives ($99). Mahana II FW800, from TikiMac (http://kahuna.tikimac.com):...

Mac mini: perfect bookshelf box for Mac minimalists.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... When Steve Jobs unveiled the Mac mini at Macworld Expo in January, the reaction was a mix of amazement at its tiny size and uncertainty about whether a high-quality Mac could be housed in such a small box. After all, Mac veterans haven't...

iPod shuffle: smallest, most affordable iPod is a very big deal.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... Not content to dominate just the middle and the high end of the portable-music-player market, Apple is now after the low end, too--with the iPod shuffle, the smallest and most affordable iPod yet. Available in 512MB (some 120 songs) and IGB...

Photo-storage and -viewing devices: new class of photography hardware makes a big splash.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... Until recently, the best way to make sure you didn't lose your freshly shot digital photos was to keep a PowerBook strapped to your side so you could wipe your memory card, view your images, and organize your work. Other options included buying...

Dual-layer 16X DVD burners: faster external drives increase disc capacity, at surprisingly low prices.(REVIEWS)
April 1, 2005... Keeping up with the ever-changing DVD-burner market could be a job in itself. Every few months, faster drives are announced, new features get introduced, and competing (and confusing) disc formats continue to play leapfrog in the quest for...

DayLite 1.7: sales-management software covers all the bases.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... When it comes to contact management, most people can muddle through with OS X's Address Book or Microsoft Entourage. But salespeople typically need something stronger--something that allows them to gather detailed information on prospective and...

Sorenson Squeeze 4 Compression Suite: video utility improves workflow and output quality.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... For many video producers, the last step in a production project is using a compression utility, which takes full-resolution video and prepares it for Web, CD-ROM, or DVD delivery. Sorenson Squeeze 4 Compression Suite can grind video into nearly...

Monitor color calibrators: hardware-software combos give you consistent color.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... Calibrating your monitor is the first step in achieving accurate color on your Mac, so the colors you see on your screen are as close as possible to those captured by your scanner or digital camera. A monitor-calibration system--composed of a...

Delicious Library 1.0: easy and fun Library software catalogs your media.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... Like many people who have large libraries of books, videotapes, and music, I have trouble keeping track of everything, because it's tedious and time-consuming to enter several hundred items into a spreadsheet. But now, thanks to Delicious...

Panorama V: respected database program comes to OS X.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... There's good news for devotees of ProVue's Panorama: Panorama V (or version 5) runs in OS X. And this version adds a boatload of enhancements--including live clairvoyance (similar to the easy search feature in OS X's Finder), more ways to get...

Optura 40.(MINIDV CAMCORDERS)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD 1/2 Optura 40 ($999), from Canon (www.canon.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Optura 40 produces excellent video and respectable still photos, has professional features such as a true 16:9 mode, smooths the effects of a shaky...

DCR-PC109.(MINIDV CAMCORDERS)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD DCR-PC109 ($899), from Sony (www.sony.com): Although it requires a docking station, this camcorder has excellent image stabilization. It also includes a spot-focus capability, headphone and mike jacks, and a hot-shoe (November...

4-megapixel digital camera.(DIGITAL CAMERAS)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD PhotoPC L-410 ($200), from Epson (www.epson.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This bargain 4-megapixel camera produces sharp, clear photos with very good color. It also has a continuous shooting mode. However, it's bulky, has a...

Macs.(desktop computers)(Illustration)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... DESKTOP Product Processor Display Rating iMac G5/1.6GHz 17 inches VERY GOOD G5/1.8GHz 17 inches VERY GOOD G5/1.8GHz 20 inches VERY GOOD 1/2 eMac ...

Stylus Photo R800.(COLOR INK-JET PRINTERS)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD 1/2 Stylus Photo R800 ($399), from Epson (www.epson.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This fast, quiet printer produces beautiful pages and prints on recordable CDs and DVDs (January 2005; find.macworld.com/0246). ALSO...

LaserJet 2550Ln.(COLOR LASER PRINTERS)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD LaserJet 2550Ln ($600), from Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This inexpensive, networkable color laser printer offers crisp text and very good color fidelity, and it supports Apple's Rendezvous. But with...

Firewire hard drives.(Top Products)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... Mouse Company Product Rating Price Contact PORTABLE HARD DRIVE LaCie Mobile Hard VERY GOOD $319 www.lacie.com Drive by F.A. Porsche DESKTOP HARD DRIVE OWC...

Displays.(Top Products)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... 23-INCH DISPLAY [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] VERY GOOD 1/2 L2335 ($1,599), from Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com); March 2005; find.macworld.com/0278 19-INCH DISPLAY VERY GOOD 1/2 MultiSync LCD1960NXi ($729), from NEC...

Midrange scanner.(FLATBED SCANNERS)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD 1/2 CanoScan 9950F ($400), from Canon (www.canon.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This CanoScan raises the bar for midrange scanners by offering a high optical resolution, improved scan quality, and more-intuitive software...

Low-end scanner.(FLATBED SCANNERS)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD CanoScan 8400F ($150), from Canon (www.canon.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The 8400F has limited film and transparency support but is a great all-around scanner with some high-end features and a low-end price...

d2 DVD[+ or -]RW 16X FireWire, with Double Layer.(NEW: DUAL-LAYER DVD BURNER)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD d2 DVD[+ or -]RW 16X FireWire, with Double Layer ($199), from LaCie (www.lacie.com) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Of the drives we tested, this DVD burner offers very good performance (albeit with a slow read speed), the best OS...

Deskjet 6840.(COLOR INK-JET PRINTER)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD Deskjet 6840 ($200), from Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Deskjet 6840 is a super general-purpose ink-jet printer. It prints great-looking text and photos and has lots of high-end printing and...

Photosmart 8450.(COLOR INK-JET PRINTER)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD Photosmart 8450 ($250), from Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This network-capable color ink-jet printer uses as many as eight inks to print excellent photos with or without your Mac's help...

Stylus Photo R320.(COLOR INK-JET PRINTER)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... VERY GOOD Stylus Photo R320 ($199), from Epson (www.epson.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Epson R320 is a great six-ink photo printer with some nice features, such as CD printing, a preview display, and computer-less printing options....

CanoScan LiDE 500F.(FLATBED SCANNER)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... GOOD 1/2 CanoScan LiDE 500F ($130), from Canon (www.canon.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This superthin scanner has lots of great features, such as a flexible lid and a transparency adapter. However, the larger, but only slightly more...

PowerShot SD300.(DIGITAL CAMERA)(Brief Article)(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... GOOD PowerShot SD300 ($400), from Canon (www.canon.com): [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is a solid pocket camera, but it's pricey, and its images suffer from noise and fringing. If you don't mind a bulkier, more automatic camera, the...

The game room.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... With the free Chess game already included as part of OS X, you may wonder why you'd need another way to play chess on the Mac--or why you'd lay down hard-earned cash to get it. But Feral Interactive's Chessmaster 9000 isn't just a chess game....

Mac Gems.(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... On-the-go laptop users frequently find themselves looking for wireless networks to connect to for a quick e-mail check or surfing session. In the December 2004 issue, I reviewed Marware's $30 WiFi Spy (VERY GOOD; www.marware.com), my favorite...

Inside the Mac mini: you've seen the tiny case. Now we take out the putty knife to show you what's inside.(Cover Story)
April 1, 2005... At first glance, the most notable thing about the Mac mini is its price: $499. But on closer inspection, it's also something of an engineering marvel: a powerful PC that fits inside a tiny, 2.9-pound, 84.5-cubic-inch box. Since the day the Mac...

Reviewed: iLife '05 and iWork '05; Will Apple's latest suites hit the spot?(Product/Service Evaluation)
April 1, 2005... With Apple's iLife applications--iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, and GarageBand--you can do almost anything you want with your video clips, photos, and music. In the new version of this suite, iLife '05, you'll find fantastic new themes; a new...

Macworld's $5,000 photo challenge; Two expert photographers, two setups: which one fits your style?(purchasing methods)
April 1, 2005... What beer is to Homer Simpson, gear is to digital photographers. It's too bad that new lenses, Power-Books, and image editors aren't as cheap as a six-pack of Schlitz. Nope, photography gear is expensive, so you can't have it all. But you can...

iPod gear guide: rockin' new gadgets for your favorite music player.(Buyers Guide)
April 1, 2005... THE SUCCESS OF THE iPOD has created an entire industry: companies both large and small are producing an amazing array of add-ons for the portable music player. In fact, so many products have been released in the past few months that we can fill...

Stop e-mail annoyances.(use of email software)
April 1, 2005... I can't think of any technological innovation that has more potential for annoyance than e-mail: unreadable attachments, bucketloads of spam, and messages that blather on and on before getting to the point--all this and more, several times a...

Share your photos on the Web.
April 1, 2005... Remember that promise you made to send out copies of your photos from last year's family reunion? But there they are, months later, still sitting on your hard drive--along with photos from your cousin's wedding, the company holiday party, and...

Welcome to QuarkVista.(use)
April 1, 2005... QuarkVista isn't the scenic view from Quark's penthouse suite in Denver; it's the most significant addition to version 6.5 of QuarkXPress. QuarkVista lets you edit images--including correcting colors and applying effects filters--directly in a...

Stranger in a strange LAN.(local area networks)
April 1, 2005... You're in a client's office or a friend's house, and you have to get online. No problem: you just fire up your Mac, wait a couple of seconds while AirPort automatically finds any 802.11 networks within hailing distance, and, boom, you're...

Instant collaboration.(new software from The Coding Monkeys)
April 1, 2005... It's the rare individual who produces something--from an automobile to a handcrafted table to an annual report--without the involvement of other people. So why is it so hard to collaborate digitally? Up until now, only Microsoft Word's Track...

Mac OS X Hints.(HELP DESK)
April 1, 2005... Unlock certain compressed Windows files, create a keyboard shortcut for making .zip archives, pause playback of animated GIFs, enable page scrolling in Safari and Mail, use Terminal to check the time in distant lands, and look up your Address...

Mac 911.(HELP DESK)
April 1, 2005... This month in Mac 911, we discuss fixing slow iTunes and iPhoto launches, showing the extensions of a group of files, making Finder views stick, and forcing text copied from Word to appear as text when it's pasted into an iChat window. ...

FastCoder.(new encoders )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Being able to create high-quality DVDs on your Mac is a wonderful thing--watching the hours tick by as you encode your video isn't. That's what makes me so excited about LaCie's $249 FastCoder. Plug the tiny box into a FireWire port on your...

PDFpen 2.0 and PDFpenPro.(new products from SmileOnMyMac)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... As I sit waiting for Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Standard to load, I often muse that there has to be a better way for run-of-the-mill users to realize the promise of PDF--and now I think I've found it. SmileOnMyMac's $50 PDFpen 2.0 lets me look at PDFs...

3D Weather Globe & Atlas.(new mapping software)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Has the sun set in Rome? Is it raining in Lima? And where the heck is Kyrgyzstan? Software MacKiev's $40 3D Weather Globe & Atlas uses high-res NASA satellite images to create an accurate 3-D globe, complete with current cloud cover and...

What's hot: brought to you by John Moltz of the Crazy Apple Rumors Site (www.crazyapplerumors.com).(Apple Computer Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... 1 Apple Stores report that the iPod shuffle and Mac mini are selling like hotcakes. And just to follow through with this analogy, the International House of Pancakes reports that hotcakes are still selling briskly. 2 PC Magazine columnist...

OridjinOffice.(new product from Design Journey Industrial)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... You're never going to confuse your workspace with a nice, sandy beach in Hawaii. But the place where you spend the majority of your waking hours doesn't have to feel like the slave ship from BenHur. Design Journey Industrial is doing its part...

PaperHub.(new product from Pressure Drop)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... It's a paper tray. It's a hub. No, it's both: the $150 PaperHub, a two-tiered, environmentally friendly, brushed-aluminum paper tray from Pressure Drop (which specializes in "visionary solutions fusing art and technology"), looks deceptively...