Jeff Carlson (.Thought)

Projects Project Projects!

The past few months have been some of the busiest of my professional life, mostly due to a confluence of deadlines that I expected would be spread out over a longer period of time. But since I mostly write about Apple and the Mac, I never know when new products are going to hit. In this case, they hit all at once. Here's what has kept me up until 1 or 2 a.m. most nights over the last three months.

iMovie ’08 & iDVD ’08 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide: When Apple announced iLife ’08 with a completely rewritten version of iMovie, I knew I was in for a lot more work than I expected. I just received my first author copy of the book, and it looks great! I've almost completely rewritten the iMovie section to account for the changes in this version, including a new chapter on managing video (one of iMovie's hidden strengths, with keywording and marking features), and of course tips and tricks for using iMovie to its fullest. Amazon has the book now for just $16.49; if you click the link above, I get a small piece of the purchase, in case you want to help your favorite author (and hopefully that's me).

I've also just finished helping another Peachpit Press author update portions of his book, but since I'm not a listed co-author, I'm hesitant to name the title until it's available (which is very soon). In this case, I ended up doing most of the work in an extremely short amount of time due to scheduling issues. Getting 12 hours of sleep over three days while also entertaining visiting family is fun, to a degree, but not something I recommend often.

In addition to book projects, I've recently written several articles, in reverse-chronological order:

• First Look: Final Cut Express 4 (Macworld.com)
• Apple's so hip Part II is a must, some noteworthy features of Mac OS X 10.5 (Seattle Times).
• Apple's latest cool cat, a review of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard for the Seattle Times.

In the midst of this, I've been preparing to become a father, a big project indeed!

Accessing My Home Music Library with Simplify Media

When Apple first added the capability to share an iTunes library with other iTunes users on the network, my friend David Blatner loved the fact that he could sit on his porch at home with his laptop and stream music located on his computer at work. The Internet is just a big network, after all. At the time, I didn't really care because all the music I needed was already on my laptop.

Unfortunately, Apple locked down the Internet sharing aspect in a subsequent release, so now you can only share over a local network. That's what I do at home: my entire music library lives on an external hard drive connected to my old PowerBook G4, and I carry a (still large) subset of it on my MacBook Pro.

Recently I was introduced to Simplify Media, a utility for Mac OS X or Windows that opens a connection between two machines, no matter where they are connected to the Internet, and enables you to stream music within iTunes (or Winamp). You set up a free account with Simplify Media and run their software on each computer you want to make accessible. Specify your music folder, log in, and forget.

When you launch iTunes with Simplify Media running, your machines show up in the Share category of iTunes' left column. Click one and you'll see your library as if it were loaded onto your computer's hard drive.

Now, when I get a hankering to hear a specific song or artist that isn't on my MacBook Pro, I can tap into the big library at home. It is almost time to start listening to holiday music, which I hate to add to my computer and then remove in January to make room for other music.

Mac Journalism, or When Emotion Clogs the Brain

Glenn Fleishman and I wrote a review of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard that appeared in the Seattle Times last week (we both write a bi-weekly column called Practical Mac). Depending on the topic, we get a little email here and there from readers and the occasional request for advice that has nothing to do with the topic. And every once in a while we receive letters from people who are writing based more on their gut assumptions or feelings and very little to do with what was published. This week has seen several of these, and I'm a bit perplexed.

By far the biggest response has come from a section talking about the security improvements in Leopard, which are significant. I'm posting the entire section below as reference.

Beefed-up security. Microsoft received a lot of due credit for some significant changes in Vista's underlying structure that prevent entire categories of viruses and worms.

The Mac has proved more resistant to attacks, partly through a lack of attention by crackers until recently, but the threat is still a possibility. Apple has taken a page from Microsoft's book and added new security features that should improve the odds of deflecting future attacks.

Leopard will now record information about any program you download over the Internet and provide those details to you the first time you run it. This should prevent attacks that rely on ignorance or a program launch that carries out malicious intent before you know what hit you.

Apple also added digital signatures as an option, where encryption is used to verify a program is unchanged since it was produced by its developer.

Apparently, even mentioning Microsoft means we're anti-Mac (as one person wrote). The latest email (which is titled "Do you work for M$?" which is a pretty clear sign that it's not going to be friendly) starts, "After reading your article, 'Apple's latest cool cat,' I was not sure. Your article was very biased towards MS/Windows."

Let me point out that the section quoted above is about one-sixth of the article, which gives our mostly-positive impressions about the major new features in Leopard. If you read through this block, we're essentially saying that Microsoft has had to deal with attacks; Apple has been immune so far but we know that won't always be the case; and Apple has implemented a few technologies that appeared in Vista first.

Going back to the letter, where the author reveals his colors at the end: "The plain truth of the matter is, Apple has made the finest desktop Operating System for over a decade. What they have not been doing is ripping their customers of with predatory pricing, and SW licensing fees." (Incidentally, most of the letters followed a similar pattern: Start with a concern that we've gotten something wrong, maybe with a backhanded "you did make some good points, though" thrown in; make a case that's only tangentially related to what was originally written; and end with a screed that finally gets to the person's longstanding grudge, whether that happens to be "Microsoft is evil" or "Gaming on the Mac sucks because I can't play my favorite game from 1997 on it". I think this is the Mac reader equivalent to "monologuing" from The Incredibles.)

Look, I don't like some of Microsoft's business practices (they did engage in monopolistic behavior after all), but that doesn't make them evil. Microsoft made a huge strategic mistake in not addressing security early or thoroughly enough, and they're paying for it. Apple knows that Mac OS X isn't going to be immune forever (currently hackers are exploiting a security hole in the version of Mac OS X that runs on the iPhone in order to unlock the phone), and frankly, anyone that thinks the Mac is infinitely rock solid is delusional. What keeps the Mac secure is not a BSD Unix foundation; it's Apple being diligent and staying on top of exploits that are discovered.

Another recent example of how emotion clogs the brain was a short news piece we ran at TidBITS a couple of weeks ago. It involved an Apple board member whose high-profile usage of Macintosh technology aided in a huge amount of media coverage. Of course, I'm talking about the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Peace to a number of researchers including Al Gore. Mark Anbinder wrote the piece, I edited it, and we both actively focused on what was news: Apple board member receives international recognition.

Here's the entire two-paragraph article:

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, whose documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" won an Academy Award (or "Oscar") and who himself won an Emmy Award for his Current TV channel, last week added the ultimate award to his resume. The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize would be shared between Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Such announcements are normally outside what we cover in TidBITS, but both Gore and his film are deeply connected to Apple and the Mac industry.

In fact, while we were hoping for other news from Apple's PR machine (see "Leopard Slated for October 26th?," 2007-10-04), they instead spent the day touting Gore's achievement, customizing Apple's home page and linking to multiple news reports on the Hot News page. The one-time politician, named to Apple's board of directors in early 2003, has frequently been linked to the company's products. He has for years been an avid user of Apple's Final Cut Pro software, and he used Keynote to assemble the material presented in "An Inconvenient Truth."

We specifically noted that this isn't the type of thing we cover in TidBITS, but the connection between Apple and Gore are significant in the Mac industry. (We even correctly wrote that the film An Inconvenient Truth earned the Academy Award; Gore himself did not receive the award, as he was not one of the filmmakers, only the film's subject.)

And yet, we were treated to several vitriolic emails and TidBITS Talk posts about how terrible Al Gore is. The words "Al" and "Gore" seem to make some people froth at the mouth no matter what context. A sample: "Come now. A 'one-time politician'? Gore hasn't stopped being a politician for 50 years, and can't stop. If Apple wants to use its time PRing a politician/board member, let them do it. But TidBits [sic] time is too valuable to use even mentioning a politician (any politician) in its pages. Please save that for the news channels."

I understand that people have strong views, and I want to encourage freedom of expression. But ranting for the sake of ranting is just a waste of our (your and my) time. I understand why mainstream journalists who don't cover the Mac get defensive and start throwing out words like "Mac zealots" and "cultists" when they cover Apple; they no doubt get much, much more volume of this type of email and don't know how to handle it.

To try to encourage better communication here are a few suggestions for people who feel compelled to write:

• Ask yourself, "Am I writing to correct a factual error or to provide constructive information?" If so, send it along! If not, then assume you're ranting.
• If you're ranting, ask yourself, "Does my rant directly deal with what was written, or am I just pissed?" If you're just pissed and writing a response helps get that out of your system, do it but don't send it. (Or, look at it tomorrow after you've slept on it and then decide whether to send it.)
• Threatening or insulting the person you're writing to doesn't help your case. In fact, it's a sure bet that I'll just toss it out. If you're compelled to make a statement about how well portions of my anatomy are operating, I won't pay any attention to whatever else you might say, even if it's legitimate. As Glenn wrote to one person, "You can't start nasty and expect a dialog."
• If you're writing because you think I'm somehow in bed with Microsoft or anti-Apple (or fervently pro-Apple) or that I'm getting some back-room kickback, know that I'm not. Glenn and I are freelance writers expressing our opinions. No one is pressuring us, no one is paying us (aside from the publication for whom we're writing for), no one has set up some cushy retirement fund that we get to tap into if we write X or Y.
• And if you legitimately have a concern with something we've written, and you can express it in a civil way, let us know and we can talk about it. (However, if you're just looking for random tech support, we don't have time to troubleshoot everyone's issues; Google search is your friend.)

Emotion doesn't have to clog the brain, and the best part is that even when it does (and I know it does), it's not a permanent affliction. A little bit of consideration will ensure that your time and mine aren't wasted.

My Leopard Review at The Seattle Times

My colleague Glenn Fleishman and I wrote the Seattle Times review of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which is now available online: Apple's latest cool cat. In addition to talking about Time Machine, Leopard's signature built-in backup feature, we hit on a few things that I haven't seen given a lot of coverage so far, such as what Apple has done for improving security. Of course, Leopard is a big cat - our article was longer than assigned and still we only scratched the surface. So expect to see more about Leopard features in upcoming Practical Mac columns.

Gruber Is Gonzalez?

This will appeal only to the Mac nerds, but I've made the shocking discovery that musician José González is actually Mac pundit John Gruber:

TidBITS Redesign Is Now Live!

This has been a long time coming, and now I'm happy to announce that the redesigned Web site for TidBITS is now live. The backend was built by Glenn Fleishman, I did the graphics and HTML/CSS, and publishers Adam and Tonya Engst herded Glenn and I.

We'll be talking more about the redesign in TidBITS in the coming days and weeks, so I won't go into much detail here. But I want to defend myself a little before the Web designers out there and say that the priority was on shipping, so the CSS and HTML isn't as clean as it should be (and it's not quite 100% valid with the W3C's validator); but that will be rectified as we go along.

The last time I did any significant Web design work was when we used tables to do layout (plus a bunch of other ugly hacks). Glenn and I even wrote a 1,000 page book about Web design using Adobe GoLive way back when. Doing the TidBITS site was a clear revelation: there are no tables that aren't comprised of actual tabular data; it's all CSS; and CSS is really a wonderful thing.

Un-damn: $100 iPhone Rebate

I shed a little tear yesterday at the news that the iPhone dropped $200 in price, but today I'm dry-eyed: Apple to Offer $100 iPhone Rebate for Early Purchasers.

8 GB iPhone Now $400. Damn.

Yes, I finally broke down and bought an iPhone - on August 8, which inconveniently for me is outside Apple's 14-day price protection guarantee. That means I paid $600 a month ago for what costs $400 now.

But I'm not really upset, honest. Every single time I get a phone call, I feel a zing of excitement because Apple did the experience right. And, as John Gruber wrote:

(And for those of you who’ve already bought one and are pissed about the price cut, if you didn’t think the iPhone was worth $599, you shouldn’t have bought it. That’s how supply and demand works.)

My other favorite quote of the day is from poster "bdkennedy1" on Macworld's forums:

I swear, Steve could stick a touch-screen on a toilet brush for $900 and someone would buy it and whine.

Toilet touch! It's so crazy, it just might work.

NBC Yanking TV Shows from iTunes

Macworld: iTunes Store to stop selling NBC shows in September

NBC: "Thanks to Apple and iTunes, we're making money we otherwise wouldn't have made, so now we're greedy bastards."

I suppose some people might be compelled to try the new Fox/NBC Hulu.com service, which I read somewhere will require that you're online to watch. But I'll bet this action is going to push a lot of people — people willing to pay honest money for the convenience of downloading from iTunes — to the P2P services to download pirate copies. (It's not encouraging that the Hulu page includes an image for the series Drive, which Fox cancelled after four episodes.

I give it 9 months before NBC announces a return to iTunes.

iMac Review at Hot News

My latest Seattle Times column on Apple’s new iMac appeared on Saturday, and today a friend pointed out that Apple is featuring it on their Hot News page:

“The very model of a modern Macintosh”

iMac, “the very model of a modern Macintosh,” may have evolved over the years into “this new aluminum fighter-jet of a personal computer, but the same idea is retained: You can put everything you need in a computer into an all-in-one design that actually looks good on a desk,” reports Jeff Carlson (Seattle Times). [Aug 21, 2007]

As a writer who covers the Mac, there are times when I wonder if I can come up with something clever enough that would prompt Apple to feature it in their marketing, the way Pogue and Mossberg get big slides during Steve Jobs's keynotes. At the same time, of course, I'm not trying to come up with glorious things to say just to get quoted (journalistic ethics and all that).

The funny thing about this review was that I was completely and utterly blocked for how to open the column in an interesting way. Then, I spied the old iMac we own on the floor in my office, which hasn't been functional for months (maybe even more than a year). The rest of the column came pretty quickly after that. I needed to get it done and turned in to my editor, who had given me an extension because the machine didn't arrive until what would normally be my deadline. So the rest of the article was just banged out and sent.

(Oh, and I may have unconsciously stolen the "very model" line from my friend Andrew, who wrote in a review of the Xserve, "Apple's Xserve is the very model of a modern Intel-based 1U server, with a few caveats." However, I get alliteration points over his version.)

Do I ever have my work cut out for me

Last week, Apple dropped a bomb I knew was going to arrive at the most inconvenient time: the release of iLife '08. For the last few years, the peak event for my professional life has been Macworld Expo in January, where Apple typically announces new hardware and software. One of my major book projects has been my iMovie & iDVD Visual QuickStart Guide, and in general Apple has revved the software each year.

But not this time around. Apple threw all of its focus onto the iPhone last January, without a peep about iLife. I was still plenty busy with projects, but suddenly my iMovie/iDVD book became a moving target. Months passed, and I heard rumors that perhaps iLife contained features that were specific to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but then Leopard was delayed until October. A few weeks ago, a rumor site named August 7 as the introduction of new iMacs and iLife, which incredibly turned out to be true.

Normally, I'd be happy (and I am, really - when you're a freelance writer, having work is good). The timing isn't so great in terms of other projects I'm working on now, but okay. It wasn't until I was following along with online coverage of Apple's special media event last Tuesday that I started hyperventilating.

iMovie '08 is a completely new application. Not just we've-cleaned-up-the-code new. No, the old iMovie HD has been shelved in favor of this new version, which sports a completely different interface, a few completely different ways of working (some good, some bad), and lots of features missing from its predecessor. I wrote about it in TidBITS last week (see "New iLife '08 Revealed, .Mac Upgraded," 2007-08-13), and also wrote the First Look article for Macworld, which starts out:

Take what you know about iMovie, put it into an imaginary box, and store that box in a corner of your brain for now. When Steve Jobs unveiled iLife ’08 (Best Current Price: $69.98) and mentioned that Apple is “completely replacing one of the key apps with something that takes it to a whole new level,” he wasn’t exaggerating. iMovie ’08 is a completely new video editing program that just happens to have inherited the iMovie name.

I've also written the First Look for iDVD '08, which was posted today:

If you watch Apple’s webcast of its August 7 product announcements for news of iDVD ’08, it may take you longer to jump ahead to that point in Steve Jobs’ presentation (the 54-minute mark or so) than the 33 seconds Jobs spends on the DVD-authoring component of iLife ’08 (Best Current Price: $69.98). That gives you a clue to how important DVD creation has become at Apple.

What all this means is that I need to basically rewrite a huge chunk of my iMovie book (it also affects a couple of the other projects on my plate). I was scheduled to write the full review of iMovie '08 for Macworld, but had to beg off when I realized that the laws of time and space wouldn't provide enough time to do it.

Now that I've stopped hyperventilating, I'm not really complaining (much), because this also represents a good challenge to create new material. That's exciting. But it also means that me and 2 a.m. get to become close friends again for the next month or two.

My iTunes Feature

Apple yesterday released a feature called My iTunes, which generates code for a Flash widget that you can put on a Web page. The widget displays information such as recent iTunes purchases (with links to the items at the iTunes Store, of course). It would be nice to be able to sample a song directly from the widget, but oh well. This seems to be a clever way to express your musical taste (or lack thereof). Here's one:

I've also added a skinny one to the sidebar at left.

Seattle Times Column and Safari 3.0.2

My Seattle Times Practical Mac column today talks about Safari 3, which is a beta for Mac but also for Windows: "Trekking through Apple's new Safari". In addition to talking about improvements over Safari 2, I noted Apple's initial hiccup with Windows security:

Safari also offers better security, especially compared with Internet Explorer, which is often used as a gateway to deploy malicious software. However, Safari stuttered at the starting line in this respect as several security flaws were discovered shortly after the software was made available. Apple quickly released Safari 3.0.1 for Windows to plug those vulnerabilities. Although Safari 3 is beta software, Apple will need to work hard to ensure that it's not permanently tagged as being insecure.

Sure enough, today I see that Apple has released Safari 3.0.2 for both Mac and Windows. Nice timing, Apple! My column gets turned in earlier in the week, so of course there's no way this could have made it into the article. But still.

Wrangling Fonts Presentation Links

At the HOW Design Conference today, I gave a presentation called "Wrangling Your Fonts." Here is a list of resources that I mentioned (or didn't mention but found useful).

• "Avoid the Most Common Mac OS X Font Mistake," by Sharon Zardetto Aker; TidBITS, 2006-05-29
• Take Control of Mac OS X Fonts, by Sharon Zardetto Aker (electronic book).
• Take Control of Font Problems in Mac OS X, by Sharon Zardetto Aker (electronic book).
• Real World Mac OS X Fonts, by Sharon Zardetto Aker (physical book version of the above ebooks, if you prefer paper).
• "The Mac OS X font managers review," by Dave Girard; Ars Technica, 2006-12-28
• Smasher, by Insider Software. Opens old font suitcases and breaks them up into new suitcases for better font management.
• Suitcase Fusion, Extensis
• Font Doctor, Extensis
• Linotype FontExplorer X
• FontAgent Pro

Thanks to everyone who came to hear me speak!

Voicemail QuickStart Guide

  Apple TV Pr0n 
  Originally uploaded by Jeff Carlson.

My wonderful copyeditor on my current book project made a funny side comment in email asking if I could explain her cell phone company some day in the same way that I describe how to do things in my books (embarrassingly, that page hasn't been updated in a while). Of course, she wasn't expecting an answer, and of course I provided one:

1. Push Voicemail button on teeny screen.
2. Listen as annoying female voice tells you that an old message is going to be deleted, and then plays it for you.
3. Resist urge to throw phone.
4. Press 7 to delete the damn email that I didn't keep in the first place.
5. Resist urge to throw phone.
6. Listen as annoying female voice tells you that you have a new message, tells you the time it was recorded, and asks if you want to listen to it.
7. Resist urge to throw phone.
8. Press 1 to listen to the message you dialed up Voicemail to hear in the first place.
9. Recognize that the message is a wrong number, a missed connection, or someone you know you don't need to hear.
10. Press 7 to delete message.
11. Resist urge to throw phone when annoying female voice scolds, "That is not a valid option."
12. Listen to same message, again, FROM THE BEGINNING.
13. Annoying female voice asks if you want to delete the message. Say "Yes!" even though you know she can't hear you (but maybe the government can).
14. Press 7 to delete.
15. Give in to the urge. Throw phone.

Yes, I've run into this (almost verbatim) recently. Can you tell?

My Apple TV Review at Seattle Times

Instead of a regular Practical Mac column this week, I reviewed the Apple TV: Computer, television learning to get along.

Despite my few reservations, the Apple TV is compelling because Apple has done the living room right. The quality of the experience stands out the most, supported by the overall polish and attention to detail ranging from the easy navigation to the drifting photo screensaver that kicks into gear to prevent screen burn-in on plasma displays.

I Finally Made CARS

No, not the Pixar movie. I'm "quoted" in an article at Crazy Apple Rumors Site:

According to a report by Radar Online, Apple has decided to drop Justin Long, the actor who plays the Mac in the “I’m a Mac” ad campaign.

The news left the Macintosh community stunned.

It then left it in denial.

And then angry.

And finally itchy.

“Well, this is just great,” said TidBITS managing editor Jeff Carlson. “Now how am I supposed to anthropomorphize my Mac? Apple has left its entire user base in the lurch.”

Sighing heavily, Carlson said “Well… I guess I could just go back to thinking of it as Jennifer Connolly. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, if you know what I mean.”

Beating the Laptop Heat

The US has been pretty hot the last couple of weeks, and it shows in a trio of Mac articles that appeared recently with similar themes (and which were written independently of each other):

• My latest Seattle Times Practical Mac column, Keep your Mac cool this summer, talks about keeping your laptop cool, as well as other temperature related items.
• In my column, I mention that I received a $48 Levenger Laplander lapdesk as a gift, and use it when I'm working on my PowerBook on the couch. In Mac Gems: Cheap laptop desk, Dan Frakes points out how you can make something similar for about $10.
• And in this week's issue of TidBITS, Adam Engst channels his inner "private i" to relate the tale of The Mystery of the Burnt Thighs, and talks about some troubleshooting solutions for keeping MacBooks cool(er).

John Gruber Eviscerates Mac FUD Article

I saw the article yesterday splashed on front pages of news outlets, "Viruses Catch Up to the Mac," and knew immediately that it was uninformed FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). Not only because I follow the Macintosh world, where, in fact, viruses have not caught up to the Mac, but because it starts out with the story of one guy who did some vague actions.

Benjamin Daines was browsing the Web when he clicked on a series of links that promised pictures of an unreleased update to his computer’s operating system.

Instead, a window opened on the screen and strange commands ran as if the machine was under the control of someone — or something — else.

In reality, a few proof-of-concept viruses have been created which have extremely limited scope of damage. The vulnerabilities have mostly been addressed. Oh, and it sounds like the virus that this guy ran into happened in January or February, so apparently the timeliness of the article hasn't caught up to the Mac, either.

What really gave it away for me was this bit at the end:

With new Macs running the same processor that powers Windows-based machines, far more people will know how to exploit weaknesses in Apple machines than in the past, when they ran on the PowerPC chips made by IBM Corp. and Motorola Corp. spinoff Freescale Semiconductor Inc.

Quick reminder: The viruses and spyware on your PC take advantage of Windows vulnerabilities, and have nothing to do with processors.

But don't take my word for it. Read John Gruber's excellent deconstruction of the article: Daring Fireball: Good Journalism.

Who exactly is touting the Mac as “immune to such risks”? Goodin doesn’t say, but his word is good enough for me. I’m sure whoever they are, they’re experts.

I, on the other hand, had never been under the impression that the Mac was either magically or technically “immune” or “invulnerable” to viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, adware, malware, and so forth. Rather, I thought it was simply the case that, for whatever reasons, such software isn’t a problem for Mac users and hasn’t been for the last 15 years or so. I.e. that Macs aren’t magically protected, and that in theory, malware could be written to target the Mac, but that the point is that in practice, in the real world, they aren’t.

On the other hand, Macs do happen to be immune to Windows viruses and spyware and adware and Trojan horses, thousands of which are discovered every month. But why sweat the details?

Final quick reminder: Yes, the potential for Mac viruses does exist. No, they've not appeared in any meaningful way on the Mac yet.

Bonus: Go watch Apple's new Get a Mac ads; "Viruses" and "Restarting" are particularly enjoyable.

Apple Just Saved Me $1000

The public beta of Boot Camp has been out for a day now, and for the most part I've viewed it as an interesting development, but nothing that impacts me directly. I'm still using an aluminum PowerBook G4/1.25 GHz as my main machine, so I don't even have an Intel-powered Mac to test Boot Camp on. But looking ahead, I realized that Apple not only saved me probably $1000, it also took that thousand bucks away from Dell or some other PC manufacturer.

Currently, I own a Dell Inspiron 5100 hulk of a laptop that I bought refurbished for $800 a few years ago. Although I don't use it much, it's good to have for testing or accessing stupid Web sites that simply don't work on the Mac. I chose a laptop because it's portable, but compared to my lithe PowerBook, the Inspiron is like a fat tank. Still, it works fine. But later this year, it's likely I'll be working on a project where I'll need a Windows PC, and I don't know if the specs on the Inspiron will be up to the task.

I assumed that I'd need to buy a new PC, but thanks to Boot Camp, I can instead spring for a new MacBook Pro (which might be updated by the time I need it) plus a copy of Microsoft Windows and have both environments with me on the same portable. I'll be buying one new laptop instead of two.

It will be interesting to see if PC manufacturers respond to Boot Camp. Sure, right now they're going to say, "We've been doing Windows PCs for years, and we can do them cheaper than Apple." But I'll bet we'll see more effort being put into better industrial design as they realize that a new competitor has climbed into their market space.

A Look at Tech Publishing

If you're interested in seeing a bit behind the curtain of publishing technology books, read this interesting article by David Heinemeier Hansson: Shaking up tech publishing (Loud Thinking), which talks about self-publishing and electronic publishing. Equally interesting is publisher Tim O'Reilly's notes in the comments (scroll down the page to find them), which compactly outlines the general financial state of tech publishing.

Plastic over Bits

I've fallen hard for the instant-gratification of buying music from the iTunes Music Store. A few days ago I noticed that José González was in the catalog; his song "Heartbeats" is featured in the Sony Bravia commercial that I blogged about in October on my iMovie Visual QuickStart Guide blog. I decided to buy the album Veneer, but kept getting errors saying that the item no longer existed in the catalog–even though it continued to show up, and I could play the song samples. After trying six or seven times, I gave up.

This morning, I walked half a block from my office and bought the disc from Sonic Boom Records, a great local music store. Unfortunately, with tax and all it was about $17, versus the $11 or so if I had managed to buy it from the iTMS. But, since Apple couldn't provide what I wanted, I took my business elsewhere. Since it's a store in my neighborhood and isn't a huge conglomerate, I didn't feel too bad about the price.

Subscribe to My Photocast

Part of the new features in iLife '06 is photocasting, an easy way to share photos online from iPhoto 6. I've created a Jeff's Pretty Photos photocast at http://photocast.mac.com/jeffc/iPhoto/jeff's-pretty-photos/index.rss.

If you own iPhoto 6, this should come up in the program itself; if not, you can view it using an RSS reader. However, it appears that Apple is doing something funky with photocasting, since the link won't work in just any RSS reader; only Safari under Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and NetNewsWire can display the images. I'm hoping that this is a temporary glitch on Apple's part.

Where to Find Me at Macworld Expo

I'm headed to next week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, where I'll be giving four presentations:

• Wednesday, 11-Jan-05, 11:00 am: Graduate from iMovie to Final Cut Express
• Wednesday, 11-Jan-05, 2:00 pm: Peachpit Press booth (#1507), talking about plug-ins and add-ons that make iMovie even better
• Thursday, 12-Jan-05, 3:00 pm: Intro to Desktop Movie Making (a Taste of the Conference session)
• Thursday, 12-Jan-05, 4:30 pm: Meet some of the TidBITS gang at the Apple Store San Francisco; Adam Engst, Tonya Engst, and I will talk about what not to miss at the show, the Mac in general, and any other topics that might come up (bring your questions!).

If you're going to be at the show, stop by and say hi!

External Modem: It's 1993 Again!

Part of the fine print of Apple's announcement yesterday of the new iMac G5 is that it no longer includes a built-in modem. Instead, you can buy a USB modem for $50. So let's recap: way back when, you'd spend $200-$300 on an external modem, a big metal box with blinky lights that let you connect to local bulletin-board systems (BBSes) or the Internet. When Apple introduced the first iMac, the TV commercial boasted that you could connect to the Internet in two easy steps: plug in the power plug, and plug a phone cord into the built-in modem slot. Now, with broadband available to more homes, the modem (or "mo-DEM" as a New York Times editor once pronounced it to me) is again an external device. Only this time, it's much smaller and has no blinky lights.

I Heart iMovie at InformIT

I wrote an article for InformIT, which is now online: I Heart iMovie: Why Apple's iMovie HD Beats Windows XP Movie Maker 2.

Two weeks and six full MiniDV tapes later, I sat down at my PowerBook G4 and fired up a little application that I'd previously launched only once: iMovie. In less than two hours—without any instruction—I'd imported some footage, edited it, added titles and music, and uploaded a one-minute short to a web page for family and friends to view.

InformIT set this up as an informal shootout; you can read Matthew David's article about Windows Movie Maker (which I didn't see until it was posted today) here: Battle of the Movie-Making Tools: Why Windows XP Movie Maker 2 Beats Apple's iMovie HD.

Remote Control column in Seattle Times

My latest Practical Mac column for The Seattle Times talks about how I was able to get Timbuktu Pro working on my mother-in-law's Mac so that I can control it remotely: Remote control makes tech support easy.

Patty would have to describe to me what she saw onscreen, reading every error message or menu list to enable me to build a mental image of what was going on. Often, in an attempt to be helpful, she would click through dialogs and jump ahead of where I thought she was, causing confusion for both of us. Things would be so much easier if I could just sit down at her computer and get to work.

Now, I can.

My Final Cut Express HD review at Macworld.com

Macworld.com has just published my review of Final Cut Express HD. It's a good revision, though less compelling for people who already use Final Cut Express and don't plan on working in HDV. But I was happy to see that the iMovie support has improved:

Final Cut Express HD also features improved iMovie project import, which grabs transitions properly instead of stripping them out. However, it’s still a good idea to remove titles and effects from an iMovie HD project before opening it in Final Cut Express HD if you want to edit their settings - they import as normal clips with the text or effect rendered to the footage, not as separate editable elements.

My Seattle Times column on Apple-Intel

My Practical Mac column in the Seattle Times today takes an overview look at Apple's decision to shift to Intel processors: What's in store for Macs with Intel processor inside.

I Heart Dealmac.com

Last week I had the opportunity to test out a Power Mac G5 system that included two (yes, two) Apple 30-inch Cinema HD displays. You can see a picture of them flanking my PowerBook here. It was an astounding array of over 8 million pixels, which I wrote about in my Seattle Times column.

Since buying a PowerBook G4, I've used the built-in display as my only display, which has worked well. But having those two 30s reinforced what my colleagues have been saying for years: multiple monitors are better. However, I don't have $6,000 to throw at new monitors, so I went to Dealmac.com to see what was available.

Dell has been offering stellar LCD deals, so I snatched up the Dell UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1" Widescreen, normally $750, but with the Dealmac coupon codes priced at around $525. It arrived, I set it up, and I'm really liking the extra screen real estate. I keep email and Web pages on one screen, iChat and other applications on another.

So today, I figured I'd get another one to have at home (where I work part of the time), and stumbled across an even better deal on the same display. For about $450 total, I got the same 20.1" display and a pack of CD-R media (required to bump the overall price into a bracket that took advantage of another coupon code). That's a $75 savings over the course of about six days. Those deals appear and disappear quickly, so there's no telling what's going to be available on any given day. But it's definitely worth checking out.

Tiger, Articles, and Sleep

Last week was a mix of all-out working and some rare relaxation, which is why I'm a week late in posting this: Glenn Fleishman and I reviewed Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger for The Seattle Times, which includes a goofy picture of me (and, again, has only Glenn's name on the byline for the online version, even though we both wrote it): This Tiger purrs more than growls.

Part of that "all-out working" was finishing a review of Adobe GoLive CS2 at CreativePro.com, and putting together our special, extended-length TidBITS issue covering Tiger.

Thursday was a welcome day of rest. I ended up sleeping in until nearly 11 am (to make up for the three hours of sleep I got the night before), had a sushi lunch with a friend from out of town, and did some light work as a way of celebrating the completion of my iMovie HD/iDVD 5 Visual QuickStart Guide, which went to the publisher a day early, thankyouverymuch.

Happy Jeff. Sleep is good.

(Says the man who's up at midnight working.)

Morgan Stanley Web Rant

Like many people right now, I'm putting together my taxes. My wife and I have investments and a shared money market account through Morgan Stanley. I need some information from the money market account. Although we have lots of paper statements at home, I figured it was time I put all of it into Quicken, and since Morgan Stanley offers online access, I thought I would download my data.

But I'm using a Mac.

First off, Morgan Stanley's ClientServ Web site uses a fucking Java applet for its navigation interface (which, as far as I can tell, could easily be replicated using CSS or even plain HTML) within the site -- which doesn't work on my Mac, using any browser. Not only is this useless tech, it's not even implemented well, because there are no alternate links. Isn't that a violation of federal accessibility laws or something? So the first step, simply getting to the page that allows me to download my statement, is a brick wall for Mac users.

I head to the office to access the site using a Dell laptop I bought for testing purposes. The navigation works, but then I hit another problem. I want to download more than just the most recent month of activity. This appears to be a simple process: click the checkbox saying you want a custom date range, and then change the range in the boxes provided. But checking the box does nothing; the fields are grayed out.

And then the final nail: I can't connect to Morgan Stanley anyway with the Mac version of Quicken 2005, because (according to Morgan Stanley's FAQ), "Quicken doesn't support OFX downloads from Macintosh computers, at this time."

So: Morgan Stanley doesn't want to serve all of its customers, making the blind assumption of too many companies that Mac users are an insignificant statistic. And, Intuit (which has had a terrible record of Mac support, even killing Quicken -- at the time the market leader on the Mac -- before Steve Jobs showed them the iMac... oh, and did I mention that Bill Campbell, Chairman of Intuit, is on Apple's goddamn board of directors?) can't make its Mac software work in parity with its Windows software.

If we didn't already have a good investment (not just in dollars, but in time and relationship via our financial adviser), Morgan Stanley would lose my business right now. As for Intuit, I think it's time to give Moneydance a try, which apparently supports the damn OFX files.

Yeah, I'm stressed and pissed. There you go.

[Update] I'm feeling a little better now, because Moneydance does, indeed, connect to the Morgan Stanley, which means I can grab all my transactions. Yay! The downside... you have to manually accept each transaction. Which is hundreds of instances of "click transaction, click Accept button" to get all of 2004 in. Feck. But it's better than hand-entering the data, I guess.

Teeny Mac mini

Received a Mac mini review unit from Apple today. The only spare monitor I had lying around is this old 17-inch Apple Studio Display CRT, which made for a nice "old vs. new" size comparison (click for larger picture).

As minis start arriving to people who ordered them early, a lot of first-hand information has already popped up on the Web. Check out some nitty-gritty from Macworld.com: Deconstructing mini and The Mac mini: Inside and Out.

Macworld Coverage in Seattle Times

I'm at Macworld Expo this week, and wrote an article yesterday for the Seattle Times about the announcements made at the keynote: Apple goes "mini" with Mac, tiny iPod.

It's been a while since I've had to write an article on a short deadline (about 1.5 hours); my editor, who no doubt does this stuff in his sleep, did a fine edit on my piece to give it more of a news slant.

More coverage at TidBITS.

At Macworld Expo

I'm in San Francisco for Macworld Expo, so I don't know how often I'll be posting.

The joke here is that I don't post often enough to really get away with saying that, but I wanted to say it anyway.

Schneier's Security Advice

Crypto and security expert Bruce Schneier offers a good list of suggestions to improve one's Internet security. Most of these are Windows-specific (don't use Internet Explorer, don't open joke emails or other forwarded material with attachments, etc.), but it's a good list for Mac and Linux users, too.

Take Control of Recording with GarageBand

I mentioned that I was editing three Take Control ebooks, and now the third has just hit: Jeff Tolbert's Take Control of Recording with GarageBand. I'm not a musician (though I've recently started to take up the guitar), but I can see how someone with desire and $10 can make professional-sounding recordings using GarageBand and some relatively inexpensive gear. This ebook is as much about recording sound as it is about recording it in GarageBand; Jeff gives great advice on microphone placement and buying a preamp, for example, while also detailing the steps required to record the audio from your electric guitar's pickup. From the ebook's Web page:

Want to record music with GarageBand? This ebook explains how to use GarageBand to create musical compositions with vocals, drums, guitars, MIDI keyboards, even the kitchen sink! Seattle musician Jeff Tolbert shares his GarageBand know-how and years of recording experience to help you get the most out of your existing gear or purchase new equipment that fits your budget and style. You'll find real-world recording studio techniques, learn how to use a microphone, and discover how to apply effects like a pro. Clear steps and plenty of practical advice help you plan a recording session, record with Software Instruments or Real Instruments, and rerecord if you make a mistake. Two example songs demonstrate many of the techniques discussed. Bonus! Linked-in audio lets you listen to examples while you read about them. Remember us when you're famous!

Note that you if you don't own Jeff's first GarageBand title, Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand, you can save $2.50 when you buy both.

Now, I get some sleep.

Take Control of Mac OS X Backups

I'm thrilled to announce that Joe Kissell's latest ebook Take Control of Mac OS X Backups has just been released! I was the editor for this title, my first in the Take Control series.

I'm particularly fond of this subject, because I've been there, done that: a few years ago I suffered a catastrophic hard drive crash, with no backups in sight. (You can read the full story here: DriveSavers to the Rescue.) Believe me, the cost of setting up an effective backup system pales in comparison to the hours of inconvenience it takes to get your data back (and as a freelancer, my time is certainly worth money) and the cost of having your data professionaly recovered (for this service alone, plan at least $1,000 and go up from there).

After reading Joe's book, I was able to identify holes in my current system and patch them (such as maintaining both a duplicate and an archive of my PowerBook, and then another copy of each). Here's more information on the book, from the blurb:

Coming up with a reliable backup strategy might seem complicated, but in Take Control of Mac OS X Backups, backup expert and best-selling author Joe Kissell provides the straightforward advice you need to go beyond the false security of copying a few files to CD. Joe makes it easy to decide on a backup strategy that protects your data and enables nearly instant recovery, and he goes on to compare the pros and cons of each type of backup media, such as recordable CD, recordable DVD, tape, hard disk, and more.

Trust me, even if I wasn't involved in the creation of this book, the $10 you spend now will save you hundreds of dollars later by avoiding catastrophic data loss.

I'm Now a Newspaper Columnist!

Hooray! Saturday marked my first appearance as a regular columnist for The Seattle Times: Regular change of passwords keeps sneaky crackers guessing.

My colleague Glenn Fleishman has been the Practical Mac columnist, and when he took some time off to become a new daddy, I filled in for a few weeks. (Notice that the Times' Web publishing system wasn't equipped to handle a guest columnist at the time, so Glenn's byline and picture appeared on my columns online.) The experience went well, and so Glenn proposed that we share the column from now on.

The column appears every two weeks, which means I'll be writing one column per month. We're always open to column ideas, so feel free to contact me at carlsoncolumn at mac.com with ideas or questions!

The Tech-Support Generation

Newsweek has a great article by Brad Stone about how many people are headed home for Thanksgiving... to fix their parents' computers: The Tech-Support Generation.

I know, you can't lump everyone into that category, but I suspect it's true more often than not. And it points to the reality that computers are still difficult to use. A Mac is far easier to comprehend than a Windows PC (and you don't have the spyware and virus issues), but there are still lots of things that can stump someone who doesn't know what an IP address is, or who can't tell if the problem is the computer itself or something else, like a wireless base station. (Heck, I've been doing this professionally for years and I still get stumped.)

Still, there is a silver lining. I like being the tech guy for my in-laws, because it was one of the first things that we connected on after being introduced by my wife: it was the springboard for a good relationship, and gave us things to talk about on that first visit home when I spent a good deal of time wondering, "Will they like me?"

My iMac G5 Review in Seattle Times

My colleague Glenn Fleishman and his wife recently had a baby, so I've been writing his Practical Mac column for the Seattle Times. The latest is a hands-on review of the iMac G5: "User-friendly iMac G5 keeps it simple".

Here are links to the previous three I've written:

"DVD led to digital shake-up" (Seattle Times, 02-Oct-04)

"Apple's new iMac G5 deserves a second look" (Seattle Times, 11-Sep-04)

"Mac users sometimes treated as industry afterthought" (Seattle Times, 28-Aug-04)

Iconfactory Halloween Icons

Fall is my favorite season, and it also heralds the fun work of The Iconfactory, which replaces its interface with a Halloween-inspired scheme every October. I use many of their icons (holiday and otherwise) on my Mac because they're well-designed and add character. And I absolutely love the little factory GIF animation at the top of the middle column, which changes frequently. Check it out!

Unpatched PCs Compromised in 20 Minutes

Again, why do I use a Mac? Study: Unpatched PCs compromised in 20 minutes. Look, this isn't a "my computer is better than your computer" issue anymore... if you value your data or security at all (and you should!), the insecurity of Windows is just unacceptable.

RealNetworks Selling Songs to Be Played on iPods

Here's an interesting article from the New York Times: RealNetworks Plans to Sell Songs to Be Played on iPods. What's interesting is that a key piece of information isn't being reported, but the PR spin clearly is. The article states:

Tomorrow, without Apple's authorization, RealNetworks will start to give away software that will allow people to buy and download songs from its online music store and then play them on Apple's popular iPod portable devices in addition to those that use the Windows Media Player format and RealNetwork's Helix format.

This will be the first time any company other than Apple has sold songs for the iPod. While the Microsoft Corporation has freely licensed the Windows format to various music stores and makers of portable players, Apple has kept its business proprietary. This has helped Apple keep the dominant market share both for online music stores and portable players with hard drives, the more lucrative half of the player market.

Wow, that darn Apple has sure been stingy, hasn't it? Valiant Microsoft has freely licensed Windows, which makes it better.

But let's read on:

In April, Robert D. Glaser, the chief executive of RealNetworks, sent an e-mail message to his counterpart at Apple, Steven P. Jobs, asking him to license Apple's format. Mr. Jobs never replied, Mr. Glaser said last week.

So RealNetworks created technology that can create files to be read by iPods. Mr. Glaser declined to say how it did this. But Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, said that RealNetworks used a technique known as reverse engineering - observing how Apple's software behaved as it encoded songs to be loaded onto iPods.

First of all, it sounds clear that Rob Glaser is peeved that he's not worth Jobs's time. Given the quality of Real's Mac software, that's not surprising. But what's not said in the article is exactly what format these new files are. The RealNetworks software is "creating new files," so my first guess is that it's simply creating non-DRM MP3 files, which the iPod can play without any trouble. (That's how you can rip your personal CD collection.)

If RealNetworks has actually reverse-engineered Apple's FairPlay DRM, then is that a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)? Or is reverse-engineering okay as long as you're not cracking the DRM?

Update: it looks as if Real's Harmony does in fact convert files to Apple's FairPlay DRM. Apple released a statement this week saying it was "stunned that RealNetworks has adopted the tactics and ethics of a hacker to break into the iPod, and we are investigating the implications of their actions under the DMCA and other laws." I'm sure this will head to court, although I still think this is a (successful) attempt by Real to strongarm Apple in a PR war.

Another Reason for Using a Mac

I know, I've always been a dedicated Mac head and on occasion have lambasted Windows. Usually it's about ease-of-use issues, since I find Windows to be maddeningly obscure in how it does some things.

However, the last couple of years are revealing that it's not the ease of use that's making people consider Macs, it's the security. Macworld editor Jason Snell wrote about a visit to his in-laws, and trying to help his brother-in-law fix a Dell laptop. The machine, which he got for college, was infested with "200 malicious files," and gunked up with adware, spyware, and other nasties that really have no place on someone's personal computer. I especially liked this quote:

"Mike said he would be typing college papers in Microsoft Word, only to discover that his last sentence had been eaten because an Internet Explorer pop-up ad had magically appeared in front of his Word window."

The Mac has its own troubles and annoyances, but nothing like this. Using Safari (the Mac OS X Web browser), I haven't seen a pop-up ad in MONTHS. And even given recent security vulnerabilities discovered and fixed in Mac OS X, they're still not on the level of onslaught suffered by the swiss-cheese of security, Windows. And did I mention that as of this writing, no email file attachments can turn my computer into a "zombie" machine that helps spammers without my knowledge? Can't say the same for PCs.

Here's Jason's article, which I'm going to bookmark as a great resource for helping to convince people that even if a Mac costs more than a Windows PC at retail, the time and money you put in just to make a PC a workable computer makes the Mac pretty cheap in the long run.

A Slew of Macworld Articles by Me

In January and February I wrote five articles for Macworld magazine, which all ended up in the same issue (May-04). Now it looks as if four of the five are online:

• iMovie 4 Review
• iDVD 4 Review
• Laudable Laptop Stands
• Final Cut Express 2 Review
  Note that Apple's recent Final Cut Express 2.0.3 Update fixes the capture problems that are mentioned in the review (I was able to help Apple find the problem, but the review appeared in print before the updater was released).
• eBeam System 3 (not online)

Best Times for Apple Store Appearances?

I may do an appearance at the local Apple Store - University Village in April, so I'm wondering: when's the best time to do it? Weekdays? Weekends? Midmorning? Midafternoon?

NYTimes on iPod Earbud Fashion

The New York Times ran an interesting iPod-related article in its Fashion & Style section: The World at Ears' Length (free subscription required). iPods are so popular in New York that people are walking around like zombies, tuning each other out.

What I find interesting is the fact that Apple's designers scored yet another home run with the distinctive white earbuds and cord. Nearly every headphone out there uses a black cord, because it's the Way It's Supposed to Be. That would have clashed with the iPod's pure whiteness (or white pureness), so of course they had to be white. Was it a bold design decision to make an iPod owner immediately identifiable? I'm guessing probably not, but that's the end result. Even if you don't own an iPod, it's cool to make it look like you do.

Most companies will never learn this, even after all the iPod fawning and attention and sales, but outstanding design really does matter. A lot.

Why Apple Stores Are Working

I'm writing about Final Cut Express 2 and ran into a problem importing footage from my camcorder. However, I couldn't tell if the problem was caused by my equipment (a Canon ZR20 and PowerBook G4) or the software, and I don't have another camera available to test. What to do?

I headed down to my nearby Apple Store to try to test my problem using another Mac and another camcorder. I briefly explained my problem to the Genius on duty, and he said I could connect my camera to the equipment on display. So I did. For about 45 minutes, I imported footage, did some test editing, and connected my PowerBook to two other camcorders. Several store employees came over to see if I needed any help, and I ended up giving one of them (who normally didn't work in the video section) a run-through of Final Cut Express and some of the cool things it could do.

All of the machines worked (except one iMac, which was equipped with 256 MB of memory and therefore couldn't run FCE), the staff was friendly and helpful, and I got my questions answered. How many stores can you make that claim about? I may not have gotten such good access if I were there on a busy Saturday morning, but since it was 7 p.m. on a Monday night, and I clearly looked like I knew what I was doing, I had free reign.

iMovie to FCE Session

I gave my first conference session at Macworld Expo last week, on moving from iMovie to Final Cut Express. (For those who attended: you can download the session notes, a 3 MB PDF file; a few hours after I posted the file on Wednesday, our Web server went south in a bad way, so my apologies if you couldn't get through.) That's first session ever, not just first Macworld session, and I think it went okay. In addition to being fairly stressed, I should have prepared more and gotten a better sense of elapsed time. Overall, I give myself a C grade, for starting off strong and crumbling some at the end. But I learned a lot, and look forward to seeing the evaluations from attendees.

However, shortly after the Users Conference session, I had an appearance at the Peachpit Press booth to talk about my books, and that went much better, despite the fact that I missed the memo that the appearance would be a theater presentation instead of a simple booksigning. I showed off iMovie 3 (I don't have my hands on iMovie 4 yet) and iChat AV off the cuff.

So, overall, I give myself a B-minus grade for the day. Not bad for the first time out, I say!

At Macworld Expo S.F.

After coasting through a relaxing holiday season, I'm now in San Francisco for Macworld Expo. The weather here is lovely, compared to an impending big snowstorm in Seattle.

Are you going to the show? I'm doing a presentation on Graduating from iMovie to Final Cut Express as part of the Users Conference, Wednesday from 11:00 to 12:15 in room 133. Shortly thereafter, at 1:00, come visit me at the Peachpit Press booth (#1917) where I'll be signing copies of my books and chatting about iMovie, iChat AV, and Palm organizers.