I had not jumped on the CD technology bandwagon when I received the review unit of the QPS Que! 1394 CD-RW. The reason was simple: Speed. USB CD-RW’s were slow by most reports, sometimes taking 45 minutes to burn an audio CD. My immediate backup and archiving needs were not such that I felt the need for a CD burner. Finally, I had not joined the MP3 revolution either. All that changed when I received this review unit.

We at applelust.com like to review products which in some way capture the Mac spirit of simplicity, design innovation, and usefulness. The ST drives we reviewed are a case in point. So does the Que! 1394 drive. Three elements make this CD burner a very attractive purchase: style, software, and speed.

Let me hasten to add that we received this product some time ago. Almost a day later QPS came out with the faster model CD-RW with speeds of 12x10x32. Oh well, so it goes. But still, the drive that we look at here is a great purchase if you cannot afford the faster and pricier model. It does a fine job in its speed class and that is how I will rate it.

The first thing you notice about the drive is its external design. It is a stylish drive, and nothing else out there is quite like it. It matches the G4/450 we have pretty well. Yet the drive is sturdy. The style goes down to its accessories. The drive comes with a black leather carrying case with a shoulder strap. I am not sure who will be carrying around this drive, but it’s nice to know it’s there of I need it.

But this drive is much more than stylish: Its style is more than skin deep. You realize this the first time you use it.

Also included with the drive is a universal AC adapter, a 1394 IEEE cable, software (see below), and two CD-RW media ready to burn. The manual is short and to the point; it doesn’t have to be very long because of the ease of using this drive. The software includes FireWire drivers, but we suggest just making sure you have Apple’s latest drivers installed, and the Lite version of Adaptec Toast. It is this software which is one of the elements which makes this drive a joy to use.

FireWire was developed just for devices like this. FireWire leaves USB in the dust when it comes to devices like this. I will talk about its actual speed later. But since a CD burner takes over your machine while it works, the faster the better because the faster you’ll get your machine back. Also, due the large amount of information that can be burned to a CD, speed is an important quality for these drives. FireWire provides it. We hooked ours up to both the native 1394 port on the G4, and also to a KeySpan FireWire PCI card we have in the G4. It worked flawlessly on both and we saw no speed compromises.

If you are going to use the drive be sure to have the latest FireWire drivers from Apple, as well as any Firmware updates that are out for your machine. Simply have the drivers installed, hook up the drive, install Toast, and you are on your way to creating CD’s. In fact, within fifteen minutes of receiving this drive we had burned our first audio CD. It is that simple. Anyone can do it.

The software is one of the things which makes this drive a joy to use. Adaptec’s Toast Lite is CD burning software for the masses – - no brainier software we might call it. You simply start up the program and it presents you with a window. You just drag and drop your files, MP3′s, or whatever you want to burn to the CD, click ‘Write . . .’ and you’re on your way. Toast keeps track of the minutes and MB for you. You can set time between tracks with audio CDs, rename files and folders for data CDs, and includes the ability to burn to any standard format. Go ahead, burn those pictures of your trip to a CD and pass them out to anyone in the family, because you can burn Windows compatible CDs as well. The disk copy feature is especially useful for making backups of disks. The software is a joy to use because you don’t have to think about it at all. It’s so Macintosh!

Since receiving the drive I have burned audio CDs, data CDs for backup, copies of downloadable software we have bought, archived digital pictures from a trip, and have set up a catalog of astronomical images as a database for use with StarryNight Pro. What I am about to tell you is the truth: I have had 100%, yes, 100%, success burning CDs with this drive. I have not produced one single “coaster” out of over 25 CDs I have burned. While I realize that some have had problems with this drive on some models of the Mac, from my own experience there is only one word to describe this drive and software’s performance: Flawless. I think that speaks for itself. Of course, the machine we tested on has all the latest updates, drivers, and software installed for MacOS 9.04 and this makes a difference. (Never under-estimate the ability of a simple update to calm down your wacky machine.)

Now for the speed. The drive is 8x4x32. This means it writes to CD-R media at 8x, writes to CD-RW media at 4X, and reads at 32x. As I said at the outset, QPS released a faster 12x10x32 model within days after we received our review unit. These drives are, to say the least, much faster than the one we tested. But the one we tested is not a slouch either.

Before I go any further, the media I used should be noted. One of the most important factors of successful CD burning is the media. It’s like RAM: Don’t skimp on cheap media. I chose Imation CD media, both for CD-R and CD-RW media. Be sure to choose disks which can write at 8x and 12x too, so you can get the full speed. Not only is the price competitive, but the company has a solid reputation. The new slimline jewel cases mean you can fit more of those CDs on your desk or storage rack as well. We have had no problems with this media.

Though I didn’t have another drive to test the QPS drive against, the times below represent respectable burn times.

Burning an audio CD (74 minutes): 14 minutes

14 minutes. Burning a full data disk (700 MB): 11 minutes.

While this may not burn it up (sorry for the pun), these speeds are respectable in their class. However, if you look closely you will see that they do not quite measure to the 8X speed. taost reports faster times for burns than are actually achieved sometimes; and the tim,es include some verification time. In reality, you will get about 5x to 8x speed, but they are enough for most purposes as most will not be fillng disk with 700 MB anyway. When you burn a rewritable disk the QPS can only hit a speed of 4x and this slows it down significantly. But any speed issues you might have with the drive are counterbalanced by its reliability and durability.

Since receiving this drive for tests I have burned many audio CDs, several data disks, have backed up two months of email from Outlook Express (very easy to do really), and saved several software packages which I purchased through download. It’s true: The CDR revolution is cool indeed. With shelf lives of 200 years in some cases, packing 450 floppies on one disk, and the portability of CDs, CD-RW is the way to go for long term backup and archiving solutions. Add a stylish Que! Drive, with Toast, and you have an easy, relatively inexpensive, solution for many needs. The faster drive which was just released is, well, faster, but for the price/performance ratio, this drive cannot be beat. Its style, speed and software makes it a great bargain as prices drop.

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With so many lousy products coming from the big guns I am always glad when a small guy manages to release something that’s cool, and works well. After all, if companies that should have the resources to come out with cool stuff can’t, what are the chances of a small developers?

Turns out that the small developers are where it’s at. Somehow by becoming bigger concerns, many also lose market agility. Lose touch with the customer needs. Lose the ability to innovate.

And so: If I am glad when small guy manages to release something that’s pretty cool, and works pretty well, how do you think I feel when one releases something even better than that?

In his review of Parliant’s Phone Valet last year, Applelust’ Pierre Igot had to moderate his enthusiasm in what he did nonetheless consider a well rounded product. With the release of version 2 of the software, I can now tell Pierre he can let go of the breaks: Phone Valet is as hot as it gets.

I used to run an application on my shiny PowerMac 6100 called Megaphone. Until today Megaphoone still has set a standard to reach, let alone beat, and no contenders had come close. Well – new standard time, because my favorite has been K.O.’d in the first round.

Picture this: An answering machine that works across multiple phone lines, handles multiple phone boxes, keeps a detailed, caller-ID log of all phone calls made from any handset in your home or office, can email to the addresses of your choice messages as they come in, can pass faxes to the built-in 10.3 software, allows you to dial any phone number from within any application – including Address Book – AND can allow you to call in and remote control your Mac.

The kicker is you don’t need anything but the Parliant adaptor – no modem necessary.

I am not one to do overly technical reviews of products. You can read the spec sheet, or the promotional releases for in-depth information. What I look at is real life application: Is the product I am reviewing able to deliver on its promises, unobtrusively, without the need of constant reconfiguration or troubleshooting.

With the ubiquity of phone company vocal boxes, and the low cost of a physical answering machine, any computer based solution would have to provide a great amount of added-value to be worth the trouble. The alternatives are just more attractive otherwise. This added-value also has to be practical, for what would be the point of nifty features nobody actually uses? We’ve got Microsoft Word for that.

Overview

Phone Valet is a Hardware/Software solution. The phone line adaptor connect to any USB port on your computer, and has worked flawlessly connected to a cheap, unpowered USB hub on mine. Unlike similar solutions, this implementation leaves your modem port free, and can even be used if you do not have a modem.

Plug it in – that’s it. Nothing complicated for the hardware.

On the surface, the software is also rather simple. It comes with two obvious user interface modules, and one that’s more discreet: since the core functionality of the software is provided by a limited-license of the OpenBase database engine, you can also access your data through it’s own user interface.

I will skip on the Openbase aspect of things, sufficing to say power-users will undoubtably find such an open architecture quite attractive; it opens the door to third-party module integration, with billing or call center software, for instance.

For most users the primary interface will be the Phone Valet application. Using this, you will be able to do all configurations. Another application, the PhoneValet Message Center, provides a simple interface to recent calls and messages; it can also be launched from a convenient menu bar item, which also gives an instant feedback of calls/messages received.

Call Logging

From the day you install the software on your Mac, Phone Valet starts keeping an accurate log of all calls made and received on the line it monitors. Not the phone, on the line: all the phones, including hand-dialed calls on extension phones.

The database engine means you can search through your calls and find details, including messages, from months ago in an instant. You can also extract, and print, detailed call reports according to any variables you choose.

Every log entry lists the line on which the call was received or made, the Caller ID information, the start time and date, the length of the call, and the type of the call: Anwered, Unanswered, Placed, with Message or Remote Access.

If you make a call to anyone included in your Phone Valet address book, details are also logged, otherwise the only phone number, time, date, call length and type will show.

Phone Valet does not integrate directly with Apple’s Address Book, but importing data is intuitive and quick. This non-integration is not a liability, since unlike FaxSTF, for instance, it does not force you into using Address Book if you prefer to use another contact manager.

Apple’s idea of having one central depository for contact information may have been wonderful in theory, but in practice I find the implementation lacks many essential features long available with alternative such as Now Contact. An application that forces the use of Address book creates the situation Adddress book was meant to eliminate…

Message Center

PhoneValet can handle up to 11 independent message boxes, each with its own setting and sub-greeting.

The software comes with nicely professional greetings, or you can record your own phone alert. An unusual alternative is using Apple’s Text-to-Speech engine to generate greetings. You can also record greetings in any audio application and import it into Phone Valet, a great bonus for those with some creative juices brewing, or simply to add a little echo to a thin voice.( Using this method I added the “dih-da-doh”, line disconnected tones at the beginning of my message in an attempt to defeat telemarketers using predictive dialing. It works!)

You can also choose the compression format for the messages you receive. You can pick highly compressed 3GPP, AAC or WAV.

Proper compression choices are essential in some circumstances; for instance, you can program Phone Valet to add all incoming messages first to iTunes, then to your iPod. In this case you would obviously need to use the iPod-compatible audio format, such AAC. You can also have Phone Valet automatically email received messages to an address of your choice; if the recipient is using Windows, the larger WAV format may be the safest choice.

Each box can be assigned a different audio compression format, and a separate email address.

Call Filtering and Recording

Ahhhh…. The power of Caller ID!

As would be expected, Phone Valet provides full call filtering features. Calls can be announced both on the screen and by Apple Speech, block and redirected directly to messages.

If you are so inclined, and the law where you live allows this, you can also record any phone conversations and save the file for later. I can think of a few relationships that may have been saved this way.

Dialing Features

Of all similar products, Phone Valet has to be the one offering the most choices for dialing calls: You can dial by voice using any microphone, dial from any application using Apple Services or the clipboard, dial via AppleScript, dial directly from Apple’s Address Book, or dial by double-clicking a call registry in your log.

I am hard pressed to think of any missing, practical dialing method. No matter where, if it’s a phone number, you can call it. Select the number, and use the Phone Valet menubar item to dial it.

Oh – and pick up the phone at some point, too!

Scripting and Automation

Here comes my favorite bit. Until now, we’ve been discussing and answering system, albeit a good one, And no matter how good, I find it hard to get extremely excited about an answering system.

Except…

Phone Valet offers a high level of integration with Applescript. Out of the box, you can use one of the Parliant scripts, and by assigning a proper remote access code, for example have the software retrieve the local weather from the Internet and read you the nest week’s forecast over the phone.

There is also another included script that will read the contents of your iCal calender. Nifty.

Applescript is used in other handy ways. For instance, you can have Phone Valet pause/start iTunes and change your iChat status whenever you pick up or hang up a receiver.

But add to this a little technology called X-10, the standard for computer-controlled home automation which is also highly scriptable, and you can now control all your appliances, thermostat and whatnots remotely, via phone. Just ask via Applescript your X-10 controller, Xtension, Indigo or other, to send the proper command to your X-10 modules.

Obviously, you can also remotely control your Mac in the same manner by procuring, or creating, the proper Applescript.

It makes my head spin to think about all the possibilities. Because the system is open-ended, and uses already popular technology, it should be a breeze to find and download already-written scripts to do almost anything. Turn off the Air Conditionning or start the heater. Restart a server. Upload snapshots to a FTP site. Have your computer play a Sousa rally, really loud at 4AM to wake up your roommate. Whatever. Mac users are known as being creative.

Phone Valet provides a gateway between your phone system and your computer; with it, anything your computer can do, you can now control by phone.

Conclusion

I really like Phone Valet, a product that truly delivers. I think you should have picked that up by now from my subtle hints. But what I truly love in Parliant’s product it the potential it shows. Not potential in “how the product could be improved”, since it’s already almost as good as it can get. No, I mean the potential in uses that will arise that nobody could have predicted.

It reached both that practical man in me looking for a practical solution, and the geek tinkerer looking to create wonderful, innovative application, or just crazy stuff, depending on my caffeine intake of the day.

Anything that arouses my creativity in such a way deserves all my bounces.

By the way, check our Tech Blog and our Apple news related one – iPhone Blog.

Of course, now we have Firewire and USB 2.0. Both offer high speed transfer rates (400 Mbps for Firewire and 480 Mbps for USB 2.0), like SCSI but unlike SCSI, Firewire and USB 2.0 are hot swappable and easy to manage. Each format has it’s own unique advantages over the other. With Firewire, you have the ability to power the device through the cable… so only one cable to the device and you are set. Firewire also has some nifty networking capabilities and just about every Mac sold for the last couple of years has Firewire, so there’s a high chance of device compatibility. USB 2.0, is the next generation of USB. It’s great advantage is that it can utilize any machine with USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 (transferring at the speed of the port it’s plugged into), so while you may not be able to get great performance out of every machine, there is an even greater chance of compatibility than the Firewire device across platforms and with older Macs. Since no Macs come with USB 2.0 standard right now, you either have to be happy with the comparatively glacial performance of USB 1.1 and wait for USB 2.0 support from Apple or forget about USB 2.0 and stick with just Firewire.

We received a couple of OWC Mercury external hard drives from Other World Computing that are both Firewire and USB 2.0… the best of both worlds in a manner of speaking. This brings you high compatibility and performance across the platforms.

What Are You Looking For?

What are your needs? Are you looking for a drive for backing up your data, transferring your data from one machine to another, or for additional storage? Given your choices, your needs do indeed make a difference. If you are looking for transferring data from one machine to another, then a smaller, more portable drive could be for you. If you are just looking into storage or backup, then performance may be a more important factors. The two drives we’ll be looking at are the OWC Mercury On-The-Go drive and an OWC Mercury Elite drive. Both drives come with USB 2.0 and Firewire cables, power adapters, and Initech SpeedTools software. Both drives also come with an assortment of Mac freeware, shareware, desktop pics, and Apple movies on the drive.

At Home…

Drive: Mercury Elite Combo
Capacity: 40 GB – 120 GB
Ports: 2 Firewire, 1 USB 2.0/1.1
Price: $179.99 – $319.99
Drive Mechanism: ATA 100 7200 RPM, 2 MB buffer (all except the $319.99 120 GB model which features an 8 MB buffer)
Dimensions: 1.5 in (W) x 9 in (D) x 5.5 in (H) (when standing vertically)
Power: External AC Adapter

The Mercury Elite is a gorgeous external drive that could be everything you want in a drive… especially if you are looking for more storage or just to backup your files. We tested an 80 GB model (OWCME2FW7080GB), which sells for $219.99.

When looking at the figures for this drive, the first thing I thought was that this was a no-compromise drive. What I was getting was the capacity and performance of one of my internal hard drives, but with the added advantages of an external device. For someone with an iMac or an eMac who is looking for a second drive for additional storage, or for someone looking to backup their files in a drive that they can keep safely locked up, this drive has a lot of potential.

One majorly cool thing about this drive is how cool it is… not just in looks, but in heat dissipation. Having owned external drives in the past, I’ve always considered what parts of the drive get hot and where the vents are so that it operate effectively. Like many other USB drives the Mercury Elite drive contains no fan, and stays incredibly cool. Of course, power brick is completely external of the drive, and this has a lot to do with it, but it is impressive nonetheless.

When testing, my initial assumptions of the performance to expect from a 7200 RPM drive though Firewire showed true in the tests. Read performance was pretty much on par with my internal 7200 RPM ATA hard drive. While write performance was significantly slower, it was only noticeable when backing up large amounts of data to the drive. When just utilizing the disk in normal fashion, it felt zippy.

On The Go…

Drive: Mercury On-The-Go
Capacity: 20 GB – 60 GB
Ports: 2 Firewire (1 6-pin powered, 1 4-pin unpowered), 1 USB 2.0/1.1
Price: $189.97 – $419.97
Drive Mechanism: 4200 or 5400 RPM with 2MB or 8 MB buffer depending on model
Dimensions: 3.5″ (W) x 5.5″ (D) x 1″ (H)
Power: External AC Adapter, Firewire/USB powered (on compatible machines)

The Mercury On-The-Go drive lives up to it’s name, being small enough to fit in your pocket, in fact, it’s volume is nearly one fourth of the Elite model. We tested a 60 GB model (OWCMOFWU60GB) which sales for $359.97.

Immediately, you should note that there is a price for the added portability. While it is significantly smaller than the Elite drive we tested above, it spun at a slower rate (4200 RPM vs. 7200 RPM) and had a smaller capacity for a higher price.

But the portability advantages go beyond just the smaller size. For one, this drive is capable of being powered just through the bus on the 6-Pin firewire or USB (if the machine supports it)… so you can leave that AC adapter at home too to save some space.

Also, the On-The-Go drive comes with a cool carrying pouch to toss it in when you are heading out the door. And with the drive comes much shorter Firewire and USB 2.0 cables… that are much easier to stuff away for transportation.

Read performance for the OTG was slower than both the internal drive and the Elite, but for my personal use, it wasn’t noticeable at all. Write performance was virtually identical to the Elite drive.

Conclusions

What is the cost of portability? The OWC Elite model is certainly portable to a point but nowhere near as portable as the On-The-Go model. With the On-The-Go model, you get a more compact design, a cool carrying pouch, and a drive capable of powering itself (no lugging the adapter around). With the Elite model, you get more hard drive space, a higher transfer rate, and a lower sticker price.

Both are very capable drives and in the end it all comes down to budget and need. Forget need… I want them both!

Adobe Photoshop can be an extremely intimidating application for the beginning digital photographer, and still daunting even to the intermediate user. First, it can do so many things. Second, everything it can do can be done several different ways. Some of those ways are extremely inefficient; others are efficient, streamlined, and elegant. The trick is to find and choose the latter.

I’m impressed with Eddie Tapp’s ability to make the complex easily understandable. In his Photoshop Workflow Setup from O’Reilly (www.oreilly.com) it’s all about customizing Photoshop for Digital Photography; in short, it’s about organization and efficiency.

The first two topics that arise for discussion when two or more digital photographers get together are color management and workflow, and there are usually as many answers, procedures and opinions as there are photographers present. Many of the procedures are simply based on “That’s the way I do it”, rather than a logical, methodical, well thought-out workflow. Eddie Tapp has brought his reasoned approach to the analysis of digital photographic workflow in Photoshop Workflow Setup and saved the discussion of color management for another volume entitled Practical Color Management.

Arranged in six chapters his discussion of Photoshop workflow begins by opening Photoshop as an application and creating an efficient workspace (Creating Efficient Workspaces in Photoshop). Since computer screen real estate is limited, the number and arrangement of palettes, windows, and menus is critical if any attempt at organizational efficiency is made.

The second chapter (Getting Familiar with Palettes) reviews the tools and options available to the digital photographer. A digital photographer and a graphic designer may both be using Photoshop, but the tools they need vary in many aspects. Photoshop, as an application, can be compared to an enormous factory tool-room capable of supporting everything from carpentry to metalworking to assembling a moon shuttle. In this case, the artist’s the digital photographer’s needs to select those tools suitable for the job and keep the rest in the tool-room out of the way.

Chapter three (Setting Important Preferences) allows the digital photographer to fine tune Photoshop ‘s tools to the most efficient (there ‘s that word again) defaults for digital photography.

Chapter four (Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts and Menus) shows the digital photographer how to customize the key commands and shortcuts for the specific job or for the personal preferences of the photographer.

Chapter five (Working in Bridge) is a fine tutorial for those new to Bridge in CS2.

Chapter six (Tapping Into The Tools) covers refinements and subtleties of tool usage that are worth their weight in gold in the precision adjustments of tools.

With that brief overview in mind I have to say, that for myself, sitting and working with Eddie Tapp ‘s book was the closest experience I have had lately to sitting with a mentor who seriously cared about my learning the best way to handle Photoshop as a digital photographer. Never writing down to me, and always covering every step in precise, logical order, Eddie Tapp’s writing gives me a feeling of a very personal relationship between the author and myself.

The page layout and design is one of the best that I have encountered in a long time as far as arranging to enhance my own learning process. The basic text’s the information’s is arranged on the left side of the leftmost page and the right side of the rightmost page, and is set off in a light gray text block area. The show and tell, the examples of menus, procedures, examples and steps are arranged left and right of the gutter and placed against the white space of the page. Chapter headings are in red; topic headings are in blue, and yellow stickies emphasize key pointers of information. This arrangement makes for an instant organizational structure and leads your eye directly to the important points of information.

The overall appearance of the book is light and positive as opposed to some books that introduce themselves with all the Èlan of a telephone directory. It was a joy to pick up and to read, and though I’d like to think that I am a reasonably experienced Photoshop user (since I began using it around version 3), I learned a number of extremely useful tips and have rethought some steps of my own workflow after realizing that just because I had done it that way for about five years or more did not make it right, and I’m not too old to correct mistakes.

O’Reilly press has three more Eddie Tapp books forthcoming: Practical Color Management, (I’ve already mentioned), Creative Enhancement Techniques, and Professional Production Techniques. I am looking forward to all of them and expect to learn something from each. Eddie Tapp’s books are straightforward enough for the novice and yet loaded with clear thinking techniques and procedures that will benefit even the experienced professional.

Haitham

Book: Modding Mac OS X
Author: Erica Sadun
Publisher: O’Reilly
Publication Date: September 2004
ISBN: 0-596-00709-4
Info: xxi + 227
Price: $24.95

One of the Mac’s strongest selling points is a consistent look and feel. In contrast while Microsoft keeps a pretty tight rein on their own applications, many of the other developers give their Windows applications idiosyncratic (and frequently just plain terrible) user interfaces. Linux is of course even more unpredictable in this regard, with different installations have any one of several ‘desktop environments’, each with its own keyboard commands, icon styles, and so on.

But the other way of looking at this is that Mac users are forced to use their computers and programs in a way that might not be ideal for them. Mac OS X was designed not to be particularly configurable: unlike previous versions of the operating system you cannot change what items are in the Apple Menu or what font is used in the menu bars, for example. Users are not encouraged to alter the System files, and applications generally get installed in a ‘one size fits all’ way, meaning that templates, foreign language fonts, and other optional extras get dumped on your hard drive whether you want them or not.

But is this really a big deal? A couple of new books from O’Reilly presuppose that it is, and that one way to increase your productivity is to take control of OS X at a deeper level than Apple would otherwise have you believe is safe. In doing so, you can clean up disk space, create shortcuts, and get better use out of otherwise familiar applications like iTunes and Safari.

Mac OS X Power Hound

Rob Griffiths has steadily made a name for himself as one of the leading purveyors of Macintosh secrets and tricks. His web site is certainly one of the best places for Mac users to read up on this sort of thing. Mac OS X Power Hound is a reworking of his previous book, Mac OS X Hints, brought up to date for Mac OS X 10.3 and edited by David Pogue and Adam Goldstein.

Basically the book is an archive of freestanding tips and tricks arranged into broad subjects. There isn’t any overarching theme, and reading through the section on, say, iPhoto, from start to finish isn’t going to make you an instant expert on the particular program. Rather, this is a potpourri of items into which you can dip and hope to bring out something fun or useful.

Taking the ever-popular iTunes application as an example, Griffiths reveals tips on how to rip multiple CDs quickly, crop music files, and make CD jewel case inserts, all from within iTunes! Not bad for a freebie application that most Mac users play with every day. The rest of the book carries on in much the same vein, with a succession of secrets and tricks for applications as diverse as Quicken, BBEdit, and iPhoto.

Browsers get a very thorough review, and not just Safari and Explorer, but also less widely ones like OmniWeb and Camino. Since web browsers tend not to be covered in any great depth by other books, their inclusion here is welcome, and most users will find at least a few neat tricks in this part of the book. Among my favourites are the keyboard shortcuts file hidden inside the Safari application package and secret powers of its Downloads window.

The last quarter of the book is probably the least accessible because it is concerned primarily with the UNIX side of Mac OS X, either through the Terminal window or the X11 add-on application. Much as I enjoy messing about with Terminal from time to time, I’m still not convinced that many Mac users really care very much about it. Still, there are a few gems in here that even the most jaded reader might find fun, such as the adventure game hidden in the Emacs program and the list of major world event anniversaries (both accessed through the Terminal). Installing programs through Fink and setting up an Apache web server are both touched upon, but not in any great depth, and for these any one of several books on ‘UNIX for Mac users’ will fit the bill rather better.

Mac OS X Power Hound has a bit of everything, but whether or not it has enough to justify the $25 cover price is difficult to say. Certainly, it doesn’t replace an OS X or iPhoto ‘Missing Manual’, and newcomers to the Macintosh would probably find a lot of the content either puzzling or more probably pointless. Although it contains many tips that would definitely improve the user’s experience, it isn’t structured as a troubleshooting manual and so cannot be recommended as the second book to keep on the shelf alongside your day-to-day Mac bible. In short, it’s a fun read but probably one that would appeal most strongly to the geekier Mac user, rather than the one who depends on the Mac for work or study.

Modding Mac OS X

Years ago, I used to play with a utility called ResEdit that allowed me to make all sorts of changes to the Mac operating systems and applications. With ResEdit I could create my own keyboard shortcuts, change the way the Trash Can looked, and take sound effects from one program and dump them into another. ResEdit was basically one of the coolest toys around. Erica Sadun has written a book that essentially brings all that fun – and more – to OS X through the use of things like the Terminal, the X Tools utilities, and AppleScript. Whether or not this is actually helpful is another question entirely.

The format is noteworthy. Running alongside the main body of the text are blue margins containing screenshots, the names of the programs being used, URLs for accessing the supplementary utilities, and various other bits of information. These ‘two toned’ approach to the text certainly makes reading the otherwise fairly involved and complex material much more pleasant. Another innovation are graphical previews at the top of each chapter informing the reader of how long working through this chapter will take and how difficult it is to complete, for example. There’s also a “Chinese Take Out Equivalent”, a reflection of not just how advanced a particular project is, but also what precautions the reader should take before embarking on them.

The simplest and often the most useful tips are in the “Tech Help” sections of the book. One of my favourites is on page 92, where Sadun describes in a few steps how to create a folder that automatically creates preview icons for graphics files using the OS X Folder Actions. These latter are very powerful but hardly-ever used tools that many Mac users probably aren’t even aware of. Page 85 is another of these great Tech Help pages, laying out fair and square the philosophy behind the Mac icons. For example, did you know that productivity application icons are meant to be bright, while utility application icons are supposed to be more sombre and serious looking?

However, most of the book is concerned with describing rather involved, and often complicated, software hacks that tend to rely on advanced tools like the Terminal and are focused on modifying applications rather than the Mac OS. The first chapter is the exception, describing some fairly well known Desktop and user interface tricks like modifying the Dock. Among the topics covered in later chapters are opening up Application bundles to find icons, sounds, and other goodies; altering or adding tool-tips and keyboard shortcuts, and scripting applications using AppleScript.

The thing with this book is that very little of any of this has much value except that the fun of performing the software hacks themselves. Possibly adding a keyboard shortcut to a certain application could speed things up a bit, and a well-crafted AppleScript is always handy, but this book is essentially one for geeks rather than ordinary users.

Conclusion

Ultimately, neither of these books comes across as a must-have title. Of the two, Modding Mac OS X is the more difficult to recommend simply because it will only appeal to a very specific type of Mac user. It isn’t a bad book by any means; in fact it is well written and tackles its subject clearly and methodically. The introduction to AppleScript and the icon-crafting tutorials are particularly nice, for example, but the problem is that even the best of the chapters cater only to Mac users with very specific interests. As its name suggests, this is a book that is more about tweaking Mac OS X for its own sake than actually using your Mac to be more productive. Some other tips and tweaks can found here www.uniqpartner.com

In contrast Mac OS X Power Hound has many tips and tricks that even non-expert Mac users will find of some value, but it is still a difficult sell in terms of a cost/benefit ratio. While many important applications do get the Griffith work over, in and of itself the book doesn’t really remove the need many people will have for a ‘Missing Manual’ for each of these programs. It’s a bit like eating a bag of Chex Mix instead of a proper meal: sure, there are plenty of different tastes and textures to be had, but you’ll still be hungry for more afterwards.

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I have always, always, been very fastidious regarding my backups, be it on punched paper tape (wha?), IBM punch cards (huh?), 8.5″ floppy disks (doh!), 3.5″ floppy disks (hmmm…), Zip disks (ahhh…), or an external hard drive (duh.). The thought of a CD burner never really got my attention, for two reasons, speed and dependability. I mean, sure, I thought, I might get into making audio CDs. But could I really use a CD burner for backup? Would it be fast enough? And all of this talk about buffer underrun seemed like a joke to me. OK, so maybe if someone got a pop on an audio CD, that would merely be an annoyance. But to actually use a device to go through the process of making a backup, and then wonder if the device actually *had* made the backup? Or have the device repeatedly fail in the process of making the backup? Unpredictably? Excuuuuuuse me. Forgetaboutit.

So, you could imagine my excitement when I got the chance to review the OWC 24x10x40 Mercury Pro Oxford911 Plextor FireWire External CD-RW Drive (OWC241040PXFW), which, at the time of this writing, includes all cables and Roxio Toast Lite version 5.0, and costs US$299.95 after a US$30 rebate. Could everything that I wanted in a CD burner have finally come together? Could the CD planets finally have come into laser-like alignment? Could this be the dawning of the age of Burnarious?

Holy Uranus, quite possibly so. Right out of the box, quite frankly, I have never been more impressed with the quiet strength of any high tech gadget.

The OWC drive arrived mounted in an attractive Universal translucent grey plastic external storage enclosure, whose jet black front panel has a power button with a green power on LED, the door for the sliding CD tray, an eject button, an activity LED, and a mini headphone jack with volume control. The rear panel houses two FireWire ports, stereo RCA output jacks, and the power cord connector. The activity LED is green when power is on and there is a disc in the drive, yellow when initializing or reading from the disc, and blinking orange when writing to the disc.

The case itself has eight dark blue rubber bumpers, two on the bottom that serve as feet, and two on the top to facilitate stacking. Good to their claim, OWC included a 6′ three-prong power cord, and a 6′ FireWire cable. Top it off with being able to see the grey metal case of the drive itself though the translucent sides and top of the external enclosure, and this drive looks professional, reliable, functional, and just plain pretty. I mean, even the FireWire cable looks and feels above average in quality (seriously), six feet for both is a nice, generous, nonrestrictive length, and the minijack, volume control, stereo output jacks, and dual FireWire ports are a nice attention to detail.

The good looks of this drive are not just skin deep, either. Plextor has had one of the best reputations in the industry for quality, technical innovation, and performance since their first SCSI CD-ROM drive over a decade ago. Basically, if any CD-RW drive can do it, Plextor can do it.

And gone are the days when you must start a CD burn and then tiptoe away with your fingers crossed. With Plextor’s BURN-proof technology, coasters due to the dreaded buffer underrun error are effectively a thing of the past. I mean, you can even continue to surf the web while you are burning a CD, try *that* with any CD burner without buffer underrun protection. Not that you will have that much time to surf the web, mind you, because this drive is just so blazingly fast.

Setup could not have been easier. Load Toast Lite, which in and of itself has one of the most attractive and easiest installation procedures that I have ever encountered, let the installer automatically restart your Mac for you, plug the drive into the wall, turn it on, plug in the FireWire cable, and you’re burnin’, baby…you are so HOT!

The drive, weighing in at 5.8 pounds, feels surprising heavy, but that just instilled more confidence in me that this was a sturdy and reliable unit. The drive does have a continuously running fan, and definitely makes some noise when it is whirring away at 24x, but quite frankly, I don’t care.

This being my first CD-RW, playing with this drive has been an interesting experience. For example, right out of the box with the default Toast Lite settings, I was able to burn a 49:44 minute audio CD in 14:09 with my Pismo 500Mhz. But, by upgrading to Toast Titanium and fiddling with parameters, I discovered that the actual rate that this drive could burn that CD was in 3:03. And this is with this off brand 50 pack of 24x CD-Rs that I got at Fry’s Electronics for US$9.50 no less. And without a single coaster in the mix. Interesting, huh?

So, if you are in the market for a CD-RW, you appreciate quality, and Santa knows that you have been nice, keep your fingers crossed, and stay tuned to see how this drive performs in my more detailed performance tests to follow, because everything about the OWC 24x10x40 Mercury Pro Oxford911 Plextor FireWire External CD-RW looks like a winner.

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When it comes to radio and TV, are you still stuck in limbo between the analog and the digital worlds? Do you have legacy audio/video technology that you’d like to be able to use for a while longer with your Power Mac computer running Mac OS X before purchasing all that fancy brand new all-digital equipment (and a more powerful computer)?

If so, you might be interested in a new product by Miglia called the AlchemyTV. It’s an reasonably-priced expansion card that features a range of audio and video input ports, as well as a TV tuner and a FM radio tuner. The package also includes a CD-ROM with the software required to use the card under Mac OS X.

Video and audio have a long history on the Mac. For many years now, Apple’s computers have been the platform of choice for both amateurs and professionals interested in working with audio and video content. These days, of course, digital video (DV) is all the rage. You can buy a digital camcorder, record hours of video on cheap tapes, and then import your high-quality movies directly into iMovie and edit them before burning them on a DVD with iDVD.

But what do you do if you have a cupboard full of old videotapes? Over the years, various manufacturers have come up with different types of solutions for turning old analog recordings into digital content that can be viewed, listened to, and edited in a computer environment.

If you are a long-time reader of Applelust, you might remember that I once reviewed an ATI Technologies product called the XClaim TV USB. It came out a few months before the first version of Mac OS X was released. As I indicated in my review at the time, the fact that it was USB-based meant that audio and video quality couldn’t match DV content. Sadly, ATI also never provided Mac OS X-compatible software for the XClaim TV USB, and it soon disappeared without a trace.

The AlchemyTV is part of the same category of products. It is not a professional-level product — but then it doesn’t carry a professional-level price either. It’s an entry-level product. However, it is a significant improvement over a product such as ATI’s XClaim TV USB. Not only is it Mac OS X-friendly — in fact, it requires Mac OS X 10.2.4 or higher — but it is also PCI-based, not USB-based. This means that it requires a computer with PCI expansion slots (in other words, a Power Mac computer), but on the other hand it doesn’t suffer from the problems posed by USB-based technology (limited bandwidth and CPU dependence).

Hardware and Software

The AlchemyTV product kit consists of a PCI card with a number of video and audio ports: stereo audio input (jack), composite video input, S-VHS video input, stereo audio output (jack), TV antenna input, and FM radio antenna input. As with most PCI cards, installation is fairly straightforward, especially with Apple’s well-designed Power Mac enclosures. (The AlchemyTV requires a Power Mac G4/400 MHz or higher.)

The kit also includes a short stereo jack cable, and an FM antenna cable. (Video cables are not provided, but if you are like me, you already have a drawer full of such cables that you have accumulated over the years.)

Once you have installed your card, and plugged in the cables from the source(s) that you want to use with the AlchemyTV, you need to install the software provided on CD-ROM.

Software installation is straightforward, but does require a hard restart once it’s been completed, because the AlchemyTV software relies on a kernel extension to run in Mac OS X. (I didn’t encounter any stability problems after installing the software, however.)

After you’ve restarted your machine, all you need to do is launch the AlchemyTV application, and take a trip to its “Preferences” dialogs, where you can identify your audio/video source and set up the software to receive the signals coming from the source.

FM Radio

The AlchemyTV software acts as a complete audio/video environment. If you have plugged the FM antenna (provided) into the FM antenna input port, you can use the FM radio window, which acts as a small FM radio receiver device. The window uses — fittingly, since we are talking about a piece of software that mimics a real-life device — the brushed-metal appearance:

Using the “Preferences” dialog for FM radio, you can identify your favorite radio stations, which can then be selected using a pop-up menu in the FM radio window. FM reception is not very good where I live (in a remote rural area), but I was able to get the two or three FM radio stations that I normally get with the radio tuner in my living room sound system. Sound quality was good.

TV Tuner

The same principle is used for watching TV. If you’ve plugged your TV antenna cable into the TV input port, and switched the view to “TV Window”, you are then provided with two windows, one with the TV picture itself, and another one looking like a TV remote device:

Here again, you can identify your favorite TV stations in the “Preferences” dialogs and then select them with the pop-up menu in the TV remote window. You can also adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation.

AlchemyTV also provides a “Channel Preview” window in which you can get the software to display thumbnail previews of all the channels found by the TV tuner built into the PCI card. And it also comes with a “Show Channel Assistant…” command actually launches a separate assistant-type application that guides you through the process of using TV Guide’s online service in the US for TV programming options. Miglia also told me that they will soon release a DVR-like variant of the AlchemyTV, which will let you program and record TV broadcasts automatically to your hard drive. (You can already record programs, as explained below, but only manually.)

Using the AlchemyTV menus, you can further customize your viewing environment, by choosing a different window size for your TV screen window. (The window can also be resized on-the-fly by grabbing its bottom-right corner.) You can also watch TV at full screen size, if you so desire.

Recording Video

If you have plugged another video source into the S-VHS or composite video port (such as a VCR or a camcorder), the same controls will be available to you: window size, brightness, contrast, brightness, saturation, etc.

Whether you are watching TV or using another video source, you may, at any point, choose to record what you are watching — i.e. use the AlchemyTV card and software to “digitize” the analog video source.

In that area, the important thing to understand is that the ultimate quality of your video capture will depend on your computer’s capabilities. All the necessary adjustments can be made in the “Preferences” dialog for video, where you can choose the compression settings that work best on your machine.

For video, AlchemyTV gives you access to all the codecs available in QuickTime, including “Animation”, “Cinepak”, “Component Video”, “DV/DVCPRO” (PAL or NTSC), “Motion JPEG”, “Sorenson Video”, and many more. You can then also specify the desired frame rate (number of frames per second), as well the number of key frames, or an upper limit for the data rate (in KBytes/sec).

For sound, again, AlchemyTV gives you access to the codecs available in QuickTime, including “MACE”, “QDesign”, “Qualcomm PureVoice”, etc. You can choose 8-bit or 16-bit audio, and mono or stereo sound. You can also adjust the gain. The sampling rate for the audio input on the AlchemyTV, however, is limited to 32 KHz — which falls short of the standard 44.1 KHz for CD quality, but still provides decent enough results for casual audio/video recording.

I used the AlchemyTV on a dual 1.25 GHz G4, which means that I have quite a bit of processing power. I was able to capture video clips at 640×480 pixels using the “DV/DVCPRO” video codec and optimal sound settings. The video clips were decent looking, and the capture only dropped frames when I tried to do something else on my computer at the same time I was capturing the video source.

Depending on the compression settings you choose, you may or may not be able to import the captured video clips into a program such as iMovie for video editing. So if you want to do any video editing, you need to be aware of the capabilities of your machine and determine whether you’ll be able to capture video clips with a good enough frame rate and with a codec that gives you the ability to import the clips into iMovie.

It should be noted, however, that the AlchemyTV is not intended for professional-level editing. If you really want to capture analog video recordings in high quality for video editing and DVD authoring, you need to look at more expensive solutions, such as Miglia’s own Director’s Cut Take 2. (You can also simply purchase a digital camcorder with analog “pass-through” capabilities and use the camcorder to digitize your old analog tapes.)

As indicated earlier, the AlchemyTV is an entry-level device that is intended for watching analog TV, listening to analog FM radio, and do some casual audio/video recording from analog sources.

Notes on the Software

The interface suffers from a few quirks, notably in the “Preferences” dialogs where you define your favorite TV or radio stations. Once you’ve typed in the name of the station, you need to press the Tab key to go to the next field and validate your entry. If you just click elsewhere rather than using the Tab key, the software “forgets” what you’ve just typed.

I am also not convinced that using the “Preferences” dialogs for all kinds of options (selecting the type of source, changing the compression settings, etc.) is the best approach from a UI point of view. I would have preferred a palette-like approach which requires less menu-based navigation.

This is particularly relevant in light of the fact that these “Preferences” dialogs do not behave exactly as such dialogs are expected to behave in a Mac OS application. Since the “Preferences” command appears in the application menu itself, it is expected to be accessible at all times, regardless of what application or document window is currently open in the application.

The “Preferences” in AlchemyTV don’t work that way. The “Preferences” command in the application menu is actually a submenu containing five options:

The first four (“Video…”, “Sound…”, “Tuner…”, and “FM Radio…”) are the important ones here. (See above in this review for notes regarding the “Show Channel Assistant…” command.)

However, as you can see in the snap shot above, the four preference dialog options are not always available. In fact, they are only available depending on which “mode” the application currently is. If it’s in “FM Radio” mode, then “Sound…” and “FM Radio…” are on. If it’s in “Remote Control” mode (i.e. for watching/recording video), then “Video…”, “Sound…”, and “Tuner…” are on.

I am afraid this simply isn’t right. Preferences are supposed to be available at all times. Just because I am currently listening to FM radio doesn’t mean I might not want to change my video settings before switching to TV/video mode.

Coming to the defence of Miglia is the fact that this behavior is a limitation of the hardware itself, whose settings cannot be changed unless it is currently in use. But this confirms my opinion that these settings do not really belong in “Preferences” and should appear elsewhere in the user interface.

Another illustration of the problem with the preference-based approach is the fact that the “Video…” preferences dialog also includes a “Preview” area in which you can see what the effects of the compression codec you’ve chosen on the current video feed. You can even use this “Preview” pane to display advanced diagrams that analyze your video signal, such as in the “RGB Parade” in the screen shot below:

Again, this is the type of functionality that could and should be provided through a palette-like interface instead.

I find that the current interface causes the AlchemyTV software to be slightly non-intuitive for the average Mac user, who’s used to interface consistency across applications. Granted, it’s only a matter of adjusting to the quirkiness of this particular interface, but Mac users typically don’t like to have to adjust to non-standard quirks.

Conclusion

The AlchemyTV product is, as its price range indicates, an entry-level product that provides a decent set of features and a quality level that is more than adequate for casual listening/viewing/recording. In spite of its occasional quirkiness, the software is stable and reasonably Mac OS X-friendly. And if your computer is powerful enough, you can actually achieve rather decent results in analog video capture.

Recordings made with the AlchemyTV cannot and will not match DV-quality video signals captured from a digital video source via FireWire, of course. But they provide a good alternative for non-professionals who are looking for an affordable, “in-between” solution to transfer some of their legacy video content to digital media — or simply for an easy and affordable way to watch conventional TV or listen to conventional FM radio on a Power Mac G4 running Mac OS X.

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AppleLust doesn’t commonly review hardware, but with the ongoing transition from the PowerPC processor to the Intel ones, I think it it’s worth taking a look at these new machines in the context of day-to-day work and play. One of the things that stands out when you read many of the hardware reviews is the use of benchmarks. I’m all for benchmarks; they’re objective tests of speed that allow the reader to see clearly how one machine compares with another. But there’s more to using a computer than speed.

Basic Hardware

Perhaps a good place to start is the new magnetic power supply connector. Ironically, it’s because of power supply cables that I even got the new MacBook Pro. I’ve been using a Titanium 1 GHz PowerBook since late 2002, a machine that has stood me in good stead over the years. About a month ago, while taking the PowerBook from one room to another, the cable caught on a door handle and pulled the machine to the floor. On the plus side, the electronics worked fine, but alas, one of the hinges was broken, making it impossible to close the display properly. Luckily, my PowerBook was insured for accidental damage and with a declared value on my household insurance policy, something I recommend any Mac owner to consider. Within a couple of weeks, my insurers had assessed the PowerBook, decided it was uneconomic to repair, and sent me a brand new MacBook Pro.

The magnetic power supply connector is supposed to stop this sort of accident from happening. It’s difficult to tell if it really would. The magnet is surprisingly strong, and while a neat gimmick, I wouldn’t call it a big-ticket item as far as selling the MacBook Pro goes.

Lots of reviewers have commented on the fit and finish of the MacBook Pro. The hinge is certainly much more sturdy than those on my old G4 PowerBook, being a much larger chunk of plastic and metal than two spindly little things. Only time will tell if the paint job is significantly better, but there are some reassuring plastic trimmings at the edges where the paint most quickly got scuffed on my old PowerBook.

Two high profile additions to Apple’s new hardware is the built-in iSight camera and the remote control. The iSight camera works nicely, and delivers really nice pictures, but to be honest I only use webcams as imagers for use on telescopes, and so don’t have much need for the iSight. The remote control, on the other hand, is a thing of sheer joy. I love listening to podcasts and talking books at night before dropping off to sleep, and being able to control iTunes so easily from my bed is wonderful. The remote seems to have considerable range and although using infrared beams, seems pretty tolerant about not being pointed in the right direction, so it “feels” more like a radio control.

A lot of the other stuff on the MacBook Pro doesn’t feel that different though. The keyboard lights up in the dark, like those on the Aluminium PowerBooks, and likewise has a metallic finish instead of being translucent plastic, but otherwise feels similar to the one on my old G4. The trackpad feels about the same, though it does have some “cool” new features like horizontal scrolling. To be honest, I found the horizontal scrolling much more awkward than simply clicking the window scroll bars.

Finally, while the overall size of the machine looks about the same, it is sufficiently larger that G4-sized goodies like carry bags and screen protectors might not work. My Tucano Second Skin sleeve certainly didn’t fit, and the the Radtech screen protector seems slightly too small to provide full protection.

What’s Missing, Or At Least Different

There are a few things reviewers have fussed over that don’t bother me in the least. The replacement of the PC card slot with the smaller ExpressCard slot, for example, is no big deal. While I have quite a few such cards for my old PowerBook 3400, they were either unnecessary or incompatible with my G4 PowerBook. Since the MacBook Pro comes with wireless and Ethernet networking already, those cards aren’t needed. A 56k modem might be something some users will miss, since these Macs don’t have one, but there isn’t yet an ExpressCard modem available for the Mac, leaving an external USB modem the only option for that functionality. PC card adapters for digital camera memory cards are popular, but I admit to using the slow USB adapter that came with my little Nikon, so again, this issue doesn’t really bother me either way.

Another supposedly big deal is the lack of a two-button trackpad. Am I really the only person who doesn’t care? Trackpads are not nice input devices at the best of times, and it’s their clumsiness for doing graphics work or playing games that leaves me thankful I can plug in an external mouse. For typing e-mails or editing word processor documents on the go, the trackpad with one button is fine.

Most of the ports on the machine are the same as those on my G4 PowerBook, except that they’re distributed along the left and right of the machine instead of all being at the back. There’s a single FireWire 400 port on the right, for example, along with the DVI video port and a security socket for one of those chains that supposedly keeps your PowerBook from being stolen. Incidentally, it’s worth noting the absence of a FireWire 800 port. Quite why it is missing is a mystery to me, since the 17-inch MacBook Pro has one. Either way, if you need high-speed connectivity beyond the specification of USB 2 or FireWire 400, the absence of FireWire 800 will be an annoyance. The USB 2 ports are distributed one on each side, while the audio in and out ports are both on the left. A surprise is the lack of a restart button. When my MacBook Pro did freeze, and wouldn’t respond to the reset keyboard combination, I had no choice but to pull out the main adapter and remove the battery. Not nice. It turns out there’s a new keyboard sequence: Shift-Function-Control-Power, to be held down until the machine shuts down, and then after 30 seconds, press the Power button.

One obviously missing thing that does matter is Classic. You can’t run OS 9 software on the MacBook Pro. The trade-off presumably is that you can potentially install and run Windows XP.

What’s Better

Perhaps a funny thing to start a list of improvements with, but the first thing I noticed was that the loudspeakers appear to be much louder, and the stereo effect when playing movies is distinctly better, perhaps because of the increased volume. I always found the loudspeakers on my G4 PowerBook a bit anaemic, significantly worse, for example, than those on my PowerBook 3400.

The screen has slightly more pixels than my old PowerBook (having a resolution of 1440 x 900 compared with 1280 x 854). Curiously, this PowerBooks immediately preceding the MacBook Pro featured resolutions of 1440 x 960 in the 15-inch screen format, so the MacBook Pro is a slight downgrade in that regard. On the flip side, the screen is wonderfully bright, and whatever the actual improvement in percentage-points, it’s certainly noticeable.

Wireless reception is distinctly improved, and seems closer to that of my iBook than the old G4 PowerBook. In my usual workspace, my PowerBook would often drop one or two “bars” in the reception strength menubar icon, but so far the MacBook seems to get onto my network at full blast each and every time.

Specification

I got the machine sent to me with 512 MB of RAM, and while not optimal, I was surprised how well the machine performed. I could comfortably run Safari, Word, Mail, Photoshop, and Freeway Pro, for example with only the occasional sign of spluttering. Having said that, ramping up the RAM to 1.5 GB did help, and I can basically run as many programs as want without any noticeable memory issues. Installing the RAM, incidentally, wasn’t difficult, though first time round I didn’t push the memory module in far enough and the computer failed to start up at all.

While the RAM allocation is perhaps adequate out of the box, the hard disk size is definitely uninspiring. My old PowerBook had a 60 GB drive, and the MacBook totes an 80 GB one. Okay, that’s an improvement of 33%, but there’s also a good 3 year age difference between the two machines. I’d like to see Apple bump up the hard drives on these things pretty quickly, iTunes and iPhoto alone gobble up gigabytes of storage before you even begin to think about video and high-resolution images. There aren’t many applications that don’t requisition a few hundred megabytes either, and games are even worse. Partition your hard drive to install Windows XP (or Linux, for that matter) and your need for hard disk space will become even more severe.

The MacBook Pro comes with OS X Tiger. That’s fine with me, but I have to say I didn’t upgrade from Panther on any of my other machines simply because I wasn’t all that impressed with Tiger. Admittedly, it works as well, if not better than any previous version of Mac OS X, but there just wasn’t anything about it that compelled me to buy the upgrade. After a week or so of using Tiger, I remain unconvinced. Spotlight doesn’t do much for me (perhaps I organise my files just too carefully?) and I find Dashboard completely useless (I don’t like applications that monopolise the user interface to the exclusion of any other apps I’m already running). Mail does seem faster, though I think I preferred the old interface, but if it doesn’t corrupt my mailboxes and rules as Mail in OS X 10.3 did, then I’ll definitely be a happy bunny.

Performance

OK, this is where we get serious. So far we can say that the MacBook looks good, enjoys a few small improvements over the G4 PowerBooks, and runs the new Mac OS perfectly well even with its default RAM and hard disk allowance. But what about performance.

My basic impression is this: provided you’re using software optimised for the Intel processor, things run swimmingly. Freeway Pro, for example, really shines on the MacBook. The operating system itself flies (it boots up in a fraction of the time the G4 did) and stuff like Mail and Safari really do sing. The iLife ’06 programs are likewise optimised for the Intel processor, and performance is pretty impressive.

However, when it comes PowerPC applications, then things don’t look so good. MS Office runs about as quickly on the MacBook Pro as it did on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook, and Photoshop 7 slightly slower. Smaller applications, like TextWranger and GraphicConvertor, run just fine, without any obvious performance issues. On the other hand, some applications simply don’t work at all, most notably Virtual PC 7.

The problem for the MacBook Pro is that PowerPC applications need to run in an emulator (which Apple call “Rosetta”). A program with a lot of calculating to do is the worst-case scenario, and many games fall into this category. A real challenge is SimCity 4, a dog of a program as far as performance goes even on G4/G5 Macs, and frankly I was disappointed by how the MacBook handled it. It’s sometimes about the same as the G4, but other times very obviously slower. On the other hand, Tenebrae Quake, which wasn’t at all playable on the G4, works quite well on the MacBook. Presumably it is the improved graphics card, with 128 MB of memory, that makes the difference.

Integration

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Conclusion

The MacBook Pro is obviously a better machine than a three-year old G4 PowerBook. Or is it? The short answer is it depends. The absence of Classic mode is a big deal for some people, and if you still use software that doesn’t exist in an OS X format or you hadn’t planned on upgrading, then you’re stuck. The absence of FireWire 800 and S-video output (at least, not without adapters or expansion cards) might be a problem, but I think they’re pretty trivial ones. Performance is very good with Universal Binary programs, but often insipid with PowerPC ones, and whether or not now is the time to jump to the Intel platform depends a lot on how much PowerPC software you use. The option to run Windows XP is a tempatation of course, but really, if I wanted a Windows laptop, I’d have bought a Dell. But I didn’t, I got a Mac.

In short, the MacBook Pro remains a difficult machine to review, it’s good in some ways, but less good in others. Its problems are primarily to do with the the PowerPC to Intel transition, so as the months pass, it should be easier to obtain software written specifically for Intel Macs. As that happens, the subjective performance of the machine will improve. But if you use mostly PowerPC software, and your existing PowerBook does everything you ask of it more or less competently, then upgrading from the Titanium or Aluminium G4 PowerBooks offers little real advantage.

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Some might argue that the Keyspan Digital Media Remote is a solution in search of a problem, but I wouldn’t be one of them. No, this little gizmo actually has practical functionality for folks who use their computers to play DVD’s, movies, or to make presentations.

Essentially, the DMR is an infrared remote control and receiver for computer multimedia applications that can support any Mac or PC with a USB port running Mac OS 8.5.1 or Windows 98 or later. It will support remote operation of QuickTime, iTunes, Microsoft PowerPoint, and other DVD, C.D., MP 3, VCD, and other software player applications in the same way that you now control your TV and VCR.

The Keyspan Digital Media Remote controls your multimedia applications by sending them the same keystrokes that you do when you control the application from the keyboard. For example, if your program uses the “N” key to advance to a new slide, the Keyspan DMR Remote Control can send the same key to your application allowing you to control your application from across the room.

The Digital Media Remote package consists of a handheld remote unit, and infrared receiver unit, and a USB cable to connect it to the computer. A bundled CD-ROM contains an installer for the DMR driver software, and an HTML user manual.

To install the driver software, insert the CD-ROM, run the installer application “Keyspan DMR Installer” and follow the on-screen instructions. Once the installer has completed,restart your computer. You should now be able to control your player and presentation applications with the DMR.

Prior to using the Keyspan Digital Media Remote, you must start the “KeyspanDMRMapperDaemon” application. The Mapper Status item should report that the mapper is “RUNNING”. If the Mapper Status item reports that the mapper is not running, simply click on the Start button to start the “KeyspanDMRMapperDaemon” program.

Keyspan Digital Media Remote Using the Keyspan Digital Media Remote Using the Keyspan Digital Media Remote to control your programs/applications requires that you do the following:

1. Start the Keyspan DMR Mapper Daemon application

2. Select the Application you want to control

3. Control your Application with the Keyspan DMR Remote Control The following instructions will guide you through this process, step-by-step.

Controlling your Programs with the Digital Media Remote

Step 1 – Start the KeyspanDMRMapperDaemon application Prior to using the Keyspan Digital Media Remote, you must start the “KeyspanDMRMapperDaemon” application.

Note: In most cases, the “KeyspanDMRMapperDaemon” application will already be running.

To check if the “KeyspanDMRMapperDaemon” program is running, open the Keyspan DMR Assistant control panel (located in the CONTROL PANELS folder in your SYSTEM FOLDER).

The Mapper Status item should report that the mapper is “RUNNING”. If the Mapper Status item reports that the mapper is not running, simply click on the Start button to start the “KeyspanDMRMapperDaemon” program. Once you’ve clicked on the Start button, the Keyspan DMR Assistant control panel will report “Mapper Status: RUNNING”. Close the Keyspan DMR Assistant control panel once you see this message.

You can select the application that you want to control by pointing the DMR Remote to your DMR Receiver and pressing the CYCLE button until the application that you want to control is in the front. You can also select the application that you want to control by selecting a running application from the Applications menu.

The Remote buttons act differently depending on which application is in the “front” and whether or not Keyspan has created a customized setting or “map” for that application.

For example, the Menu button will access a DVD-video disc’s menu screen in Apple’s Apple DVD Player application. However, the same Menu button will STOP playing audio CD using Apple’s AppleCD Audio Player. You can change or add any settings or “map” for any application using the Keyspan DMR Assistant. Actions of this nature are called “App Specific Actions.”

You can also assign a button to a “Global” action that happens regardless of which application you are in. Global actions are especially useful for controlling system volume and launching applications.

In addition to sending keystrokes, the Keyspan Digital Media Remote also can be configured to:

Launch any file or program
Run an AppleScript
Control your computer’s System Volume
Send a Text String

Besides the required drivers, the Keyspan Digital Media Remote installer software installs an application called the Keyspan DMR Map Editor. This application is used to modify, customize, and view the Keyspan DMR’s button settings> Customized mapping is detailed in the documentation on the CD.

It is addictively convenient to be watching a movie or listening to MP3s on your computer, and able to change tracks or adjust the volume from across the room.

The only glitch I ran into is that I first forgot to remove the piece of clear plastic film placed between the remote’s battery and its contacts to preserve the battery’s life while in storage, and of course the unit would not work until my son pointed out the problem. Duh!

The remote control unit is sized to fit in your palm and comfortably shaped. It is powered by a Sony CR2025 lithium sell. My only complaint is that the 17 control buttons are perhaps just a bit small for comfortable manipulation by someone with hands as large as mine, but they are intuitively laid out and labeled with standard symbols, unlike some remotes I have used.

The receiver unit is designed to be placed on top of your monitor or CPU case, and has a soft rubber feet that keep in place nicely. It also has an aperture in its case for storing the remote-control handset when it’s not in use.

I have tested several Keyspan products over the past several months, and have been uniformly impressed by their solid design, thorough and user-friendly support bundles, and apparent quality of construction. The Keyspan Digital Media Remote is no exception.

Keyspan Digital Media Remote Features:

IR receiver connects to the USB port on a Macintosh or Windows PC
17-key IR remote transmits signals more than 35 feet • Includes “key maps” for PowerPoint, QuickTime, RealPlayer, WinAmp, Sound Jam, and other popular applications
Software can be customized to support additional applications
Requires Mac OS 8.5.1 (or later), Windows 98, Windows 2000, or Windows ME.

If you have an earlier model of the DMR, the latest DMR 2.0.1 Beta driver for Mac adds the following new features:

New Features

Improved map editor user interface.
Now fully supports 15 and 17 button Keyspan DMR remotes as well as a JVC VCR remote (which can be found on many popular universal remotes)
You can associate a button on the remote to run an AppleScript script.
You can now assign a button to open any document/file/application/scripting file
You can now use the remote to control the overall system volume (including mute and fade), not just volume in a particular application
In addition to individual key characters,you can now associate an entire string with a button on the remote.
Previously you could map all buttons for a particular application, or have a default map for unmapped applications. Now you can also have global actions for particular keys (e.g. overall system volume)

With the original iMac introduced back in 1998, Apple signaled the beginning of a new era for small computer peripherals such as mice, keyboards, joysticks, bar-code readers, etc. Up until then, Mac users had had to put up with the idiosyncrasies of the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) architecture, including — most notably — the need to restart your machine every time you wanted to plug or unplug anything.

With the iMac, Apple adopted the (Intel-developed) architecture called Universal Serial Bus (USB). USB is truly plug-and-play, in that you may plug and unplug your USB devices at any time without having to turn off your system. Thanks to its greater throughput, it also supports a wider range of devices, including printers, modems, digital cameras, hard drives, scanners, etc. And you can use lots of USB devices at the same time, as long as you have enough available plugs, and as long as those not directly connected to the computer can draw enough power from their USB connection. (If they have their own power supply, then this shouldn’t be a problem.)

Well, we all know what happened with the iMac. It was a tremendous success, the rest of the industry caught up with Apple, and today we have access to what appears to be a full range of USB devices for our Macintosh computers: mice, keyboards, joysticks, bar-code readers, printers, hard drives, digital cameras, card readers, scanners, etc.

However, in most cases, the emphasis in the computer industry has been more on the “plug” part of plug-and-play than on its “play” part. In that respect, Griffin and its little PowerMate device stand out.

Say Hello to PowerMate

The PowerMate is one of these devices that will automatically elicit the same question from all your friends: “What is that for?” It doesn’t look like any other device, and it brings a new, fun approach to the computing experience. It doesn’t look like much, but it can do lots. And it certainly looks cool.

The first thing you notice about the PowerMate, even before plugging it in, is its heaviness. For a round device that’s 2.1 (53.8 mm) inches in diameter and 1.3 inches (33.4 mm) high, it is just as heavy (0.26 lb/0.11 kg) as a mouse that’s at least twice as big. As you start rotating the device, the feel is immediately recognizable: it’s the feel you get from those big volume knobs you find on quality stereo systems.

It also looks just like one of these knobs, with its brushed-metal appearance. And, indeed, one of its default behaviors, once you’ve installed the required software and restarted your machine (because of its low-level functionality, it requires a restart to become fully operational under OS X), is to act as a volume knob.

The last — but not least — aspect of its visual appearance is that its base is made of translucent plastic. And, when the device is plugged in, two LEDs inside the base come on and start emitting a blue glow that shines uniformly through the circular plastic base of the device. (No separate power supply is required. The device draws all the necessary power from its USB connection.)

Once you start playing with the device, you will also notice that the knob can be slightly depressed by pushing on its top. In other words, you can not only rotate the knob in both directions, but also click (and double-click) with it.

But What Does It Do?

This is all very well, but it doesn’t tell us what the device is good for. To find that out, you need to install the appropriate software. The PowerMate that Griffin sent me a couple of weeks ago came with a CD containing a beta version of the PowerMate software, but, since then, the company has released the final 1.0 version of the software, which is available freely on their website.

Installing it under Mac OS X is very easy, but does require a restart, since it relies on what is called a “kernel extension” to provide its low-level system functionality. In my few weeks of using the software, however, I haven’t noticed any incompatibilities.

The PowerMate installer installs three essential components: the extension itself (a file with a “.kext” suffix, inside your System folder), a “PowerMateDriver” application inside the “Application Support” folder in your Library, and a PowerMate preference pane inside the “PreferencePanes” folder in your Library, which adds a pane for the PowerMate to your System Preferences application (in the “Other” section).

The installer also installs an 11-page PDF manual which is your main documentation source for the PowerMate.

The preference pane is the key to interacting with the PowerMate software and configuring it to suit your needs. A quick look at it reveals the power of the PowerMate:

The section called “Action” contains a number of predetermined configurations for the PowerMate. The first one is called “Global Settings” and is used by the PowerMate by default if no app-specific configuration has been created for the application you are currently using. As you can see in the screen shot above, the default behavior is to set the volume level, just like a volume knob would. It’s the fastest way I have found so far to turn the volume down when your computer starts making unwanted noises that you don’t want your coworkers or your sleeping family members to hear. Finding the Volume Up / Volume Down keys on the keyboard or using the Volume menu module in OS X is never quite as fast.

Any Action

The power of the PowerMate is far greater than this, however. The device basically speaks a 6-word language, corresponding to 6 possible user actions:

Each of these actions, in turn, can be assigned to four different computer actions:

The “Adjust Volume Up”, “Adjust Volume Down” and “Mute Sound” actions are self-explanatory. The important one here is the “Type Keystroke”. Selecting this computer action causes a “Keystroke” field to appear below it, in which you may then enter any combination of keys. For example, in the screen shot below, I am entering the cmd-opt-d keystroke:

If I assign this keystroke to the user action “Double Click” in the configuration “Global Settings”, for example, this means that, from now on, double-clicking on the PowerMate will cause Mac OS X to toggle the “Hiding Dock” option on and off. (If you look in the Apple menu, under “Dock”, you will see that cmd-option-d is the keystroke for turning this option on and off.)

More generally, you may thus assign any command for which a key combination exists to one of the PowerMate’s 6 possible user actions.

Application-Specific Configurations

What I did here, however, was add this behavior to the “Global Settings” configuration. But you can also create an application-specific configuration, that will supersede the “Global Settings” configuration whenever the application in question is active.

For example, the default settings of the PowerMate control pane contain a configuration called “Explorer”, which supersedes the default configuration whenever Internet Explorer is the front-most application. In this “Explorer” configuration, turning the PowerMate to the right or to the left will cause the PowerMate to send the “down” or “up” keystroke (i.e. the Down and Up cursor keys) to Explorer, which in turn will make Explorer scroll up or down the currently active web page.

(The ability to use the Up and Down cursor keys to scroll up and down a web page is not documented in the Explorer interface as far as I can tell, but it is definitely there, and the PowerMate configuration takes advantage of it.)

Similarly, you can create a new configuration for, say, Microsoft Word, in which turning the PowerMate knob to the right will cause it to send a “Page Down” keystroke to Word, which in turn will cause Word to jump down one page in your document.

Current Limitations

The possibilities are nearly endless. The only limitations are the following:
The command you want to control needs to have a keystroke. You cannot use the PowerMate to trigger a function that doesn’t have a keystroke. For example, scrolling up and down a Word document with the arrows in the vertical scroll bar doesn’t have a keyboard equivalent — and you cannot use Word’s Customize command to create one, since clicking on the down arrow or the up arrow in the document scroll bar doesn’t have a Word command equivalent (as far as I could tell anyway).
Any app-specific configuration will supersede your Global Settings. In other words, even if you assign no computer action to the “Turn Right” user action in your Word configuration, the “Volume Up” computer action that is assigned to the “Turn Right” action in “Global Settings” will not apply. This is unfortunate, as turning the volume up and down is something that you might want to do even in applications in which you want to use other actions of the PowerMate for other purposes. Maybe this is something that Griffin Technology will remedy in a future version of the software.
The range of keyboard strokes that you can use with the PowerMate is currently limited to the “bare-bones” keyboard layout illustrated above. This keyboard layout doesn’t include the function keys, nor does it include the extra keys of international keyboard layouts or the numeric pad keys. This still gives you quite a range of possible keystrokes and should cover many of the existing keyboard shortcuts of existing applications, but it would be nice to have the added flexibility.

The default PowerMate settings also include configurations for iTunes and iMovie — but you can customize all this. Sometimes finding the keyboard shortcuts for the commands that you’d like to assign to your PowerMate’s actions takes a little research, but that of course depends on the documentation of the corresponding application.

Another problem I found is that, as the Griffin documentation explains, the responsiveness of the PowerMate depends on the way the OS handles the keyboard buffer (which temporarily stores your keystrokes — and the PowerMate’s own keystrokes as well, obviously — before they can be processed). Because of this, you may find that sometimes, when using the PowerMate to send keystrokes to an application, the PowerMate continues to send keystrokes even though you’ve stopped rotating it. This is pretty much unavoidable given the way the PowerMate operates. Fortunately, Griffin has also included a “sensitivity” setting in the PowerMate preference pane that lets you adjust the behavior of the PowerMate and thereby reduce this unwanted side-effect.

Still, with the still significant responsiveness issues in Mac OS X (that have nothing to do with Griffin, of course), I still find that the PowerMate is sometimes inappropriate for actions that would, in theory, benefit from a “turning knob” approach. Let’s hope that future updates to Mac OS X will make this less of a problem and widen the range of commands that the PowerMate can be used for.

The Blue Glow

You might still wonder what this blue glow effect in the base of the PowerMate is for. Well, apart from making your desk look cool in the dark, it does have a function when used in combination with the Volume Up / Volume Down actions, in that the glow increases and decreases according to the volume level. But that’s it.

You can set the PowerMate to “pulse” in true Aqua fashion either while your computer is asleep or all the time, and the frequency of the pulsing is adjustable, but that serves no particular purpose except for increasing the coolness factor.

Conclusion

The really cool thing about the PowerMate is that it invites you to do things differently. After all, knobs are not part of the traditional family of input devices for your computer (the scrolling wheel in some third-party mouse products is the closest cousin I can think of). Yet they have been part of our way of interacting with electronic devices for a very long time, and they do have their advantages.

A knob effectively builds a new bridge between the analog world in which we live as human beings and the digital world of the computer. Even if you take the limitations noted above into consideration, there are still many possible ways of using the PowerMate to enhance your computing experience, and the main limit here is your imagination — and the software you want to use it with.

At a reasonable price of $US45 (with a USB extension cord included), this device is the ultimate cool gadget with a purpose, and it is a great present for your Mac computing friends… or a perfectly good excuse to treat yourself for once!