ATPM14.05 / May 2008 Volume 14, Number 5

About This Particular Macintosh: About the personal computing experience.™

ATPM 14.05 1 Cover

Cover ArtCopyright © 2008 Simon Griffee1. We need new cover art each month. Write2 to us!

The ATPM Staff

Publisher/Editor Michael Tsai3Managing Editor Christopher Turner4

Reviews Editor Paul Fatula5

Web Editor Lee Bennett6

Copy Editors Chris Lawson7

Linus Ly8

Ellyn Ritterskamp9

Brooke SmithVacant

Webmaster Michael Tsai10

Beta Testers The Staff11

Contributing Editors Eric Blair12

Mike Chamberlain13

Chris Dudar14

Ed Eubanks, Jr.15

Matthew Glidden16

Ted Goranson17

Andrew Kator18

Robert Paul Leitao19

Wes Meltzer20

Sylvester Roque21

Charles Ross22

Mark Tennent23

1http://www.simongriffee.com2mailto:cover-art@atpm.com3http://mjtsai.com4http://www.retrophisch.com5mailto:pfatula@atpm.com6http://www.secondinitial.com7http://chrislawson.net8http://qaptainqwerty.blogspot.com/9http://www.ritterskoop.org

10http://mjtsai.com11mailto:editor@atpm.com12http://www.raoli.com13mailto:mchamberlain@atpm.com14mailto:cdudar@atpm.com15http://www.eubanksconsulting.net16mailto:mglidden@atpm.com17http://www.sirius-beta.com18http://andrew.katorlegaz.com19mailto:rleitao@atpm.com20http://www.wesmeltzer.com21mailto:sroque@atpm.com22http://www.chivalrysoftware.com23http://www.tennent.co.uk

ATPM 14.05 2 Cover

Evan Trent24

Vacant

Artwork & Design

Layout and Design Michael Tsai25

Web Design Simon Griffee26

Cartoonist Matt Johnson27

Blue Apple Icons Mark RobinsonOther Art RD NovoGraphics Director Vacant

EmeritusRD Novo, Robert Madill, Belinda Wagner, Ja-mal Ghandour, Edward Goss, Tom Iovino, DanielChvatik, Grant Osborne, Gregory Tetrault, RaenaArmitage, Johann Campbell, David Ozab.

ContributorsLee Bennett, Ed Eubanks, Jr., Paul Fatula, MattJohnson, Chris Lawson, Robert Paul Leitao, LinusLy, Wes Meltzer, Sylvester Roque, David Siebecker,Mark Tennent, Christopher Turner, Macintosh userslike you.

SubscriptionsSign up for free subscriptions using the Web form28.

Where to Find ATPMOnline and downloadable issues are available at theatpm Web Site29. atpm is a product of atpm, Inc.© 1995-2008. All Rights Reserved. ISSN: 1093-2909.

Production ToolsAcorn, Apache, AppleScript, BBEdit, Cocoa, Do-cutils, DropDMG, FileMaker Pro, Git, Graphic-Converter, LATEX, make, Mailman, Mojo Mail,MySQL, optipng, Perl, Photoshop Elements,PyMesh, PyObjC, Python, rsync, Snapz Pro X, ssh.

ReprintsArticles, original art, and desktop pictures may notbe reproduced without the express permission of the

author or artist, unless otherwise noted. You may,however, print or distribute copies of this issue ofatpm as a whole, provided that it is not modified inany way. Authors may be contacted through atpm’seditorial staff, or at their e-mail addresses, when pro-vided.

Legal StuffAbout This Particular Macintosh may be uploadedto any online area or included on a CD-ROM com-pilation, so long as the file remains intact and unal-tered, but all other rights are reserved. All informa-tion contained in this issue is correct to the best ofour knowledge. The opinions expressed in atpm arenot necessarily those of the entire atpm staff. Prod-uct and company names and logos may be registeredtrademarks of their respective companies. Thank youfor reading this far, and we hope that the rest of themagazine is more interesting than this.

• • •

Thanks for reading atpm.

24http://www.symphonysound.com25http://mjtsai.com26http://hypertexthero.com27http://www.cornstalker.com28http://www.atpm.com/subscribe/29http://www.atpm.com

ATPM 14.05 3 Cover

ATPM 14.05 4 Cover

SponsorsAbout This Particular Macintosh has been free since 1995, and we intend to keep it that way. Our editorsand staff are volunteers with real jobs who believe in the Macintosh way of computing. We don’t make aprofit, nor do we plan to. Our aim is to produce a fiercely independent magazine, with multiple formatsdesigned for easy reading rather than showing ads. The views expressed in these pages have always beenour own, and to help prove it we do not accept direct sponsorships or advertising. We do, however, need topay for our Web site and other expenses, so we rely on minimal advertising, sold indirectly via Google andYahoo, as well as the support of atpm readers who shop using our links1.

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ATPM 14.05 5 Sponsors

Welcomeby Robert Paul Leitao, rleitao@atpm.com

Welcome to the May issue of About This ParticularMacintosh! We’re happy to report Macintosh salesgains have recently been so strong lately that com-petitors appear to be running in semi-circles over thenews. According to one Wall Street analyst, Appleappears to have captured over 20% of US consumerPC sales. To commemorate the Mac’s resurgence andthe flummoxed state of competitors desperate to com-pete, we’re calling this the Semi Edition of atpm.While competitors struggle to catch the Mac, Appleis closing the loop with its new iMac offerings andleaving no room for sales inroads by challengers.

PA SemiIn April, Apple announced the purchase of PA Semi-conductor for $278 million in cash. The acquisitionhardly dented Apple’s cash position of $19.4 billionas of the end of March, but the purchase may helpApple negotiate better terms with Intel for Macin-tosh chips during future periods while also providingthe company with greater versatility in product de-signs and enhancing the company’s ability to createproducts that can run on a variety of chip architec-tures. Notably, PA Semiconductor has used PowerPCdesigns in many processor products. Some considerApple’s acquisition of PA Semi a seminal statementon product development plans

Semi RecoveryAt press time, Apple’s share price has recovered mostof the value it lost in the first calendar quarter mar-ket slide. AAPL ended April trading at $173.95, lessthan 30 points or about 15% from its all-time high of$202.96. How well the share price performs over thenext few months will depend on news of the much-desired 3G iPhone and whether or not the Macintoshcontinues on its torrid sales pace.

Semi RecordFor the three months ended in March, Macintoshsales came within 1% of setting an all-time quarterlysales record. Unit sales increased 51% over the prioryear period with 2.289 million Macs shipped in thequarter. The unit sales record of 2.319 was set in thefourth calendar quarter of 2007. In other words, Mac-intosh sales were so strong in the traditionally weak-

est sales quarter for the company that unit shipmentsalmost matched sales for the quarter encompassingChristmas, the historically strongest sales quarter forthe Mac maker.

Semi SatisfiedFor the three months ended in March, Apple recordedrevenue of $7.51 billion and net income of $1.05 bil-lion or $1.16 per share. Still, despite the impressiverevenue and profit gains, some analysts and investorswere not satisfied with the dip in Apple’s gross mar-gins (product revenue less the costs of manufacture)to 32.9%. The slight decline in gross margins wasdue in part to the price cut on the popular iPod shuf-fle and waning demand for shrink-wrapped copies ofLeopard (Mac OS X 10.5) following unprecedenteddemand at release. In other words, most people whoplanned to upgrade to Leopard have done so already.Still, the results represent the best first calendar quar-ter sales and earnings in the company’s storied his-tory.

Semi ProDuring the last week of April, Apple introducedan upgraded line of iMac personal computers. Thetop-of-the-line iMac offers a Penryn-class processorrunning at 3 GHz and a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GSgraphics card equipped with 512 MB of GDDR3memory. This new iMac is a semi pro-level computerpacked into the slim, all-in-one enclosure. For mosthome hobbyists and many creative pros, a Mac Prois no longer needed. This iMac will amply handlethe load.

Semi-FinalThe scores on Vista’s popularity are coming in,and the results don’t look good for the team fromRedmond. Even as Vista’s first Service Pack wasreleased, there’s already talk of its replacement.Windows 7, purportedly based on what’s calledMinWin (a stripped down Windows core encapsu-lated in kernel-like structure) is rumored to be indevelopment for an early 2010 release. Microsoft hasextended the commercial availability of Windows XPto June 30, 2008. There’s talk that the unpopularityof Windows Vista may compel Microsoft to extend

ATPM 14.05 6 Welcome

the commercial availability of Windows XP beyondthat date. In other words, Windows Vista may see anabbreviated commercial life as Microsoft acceleratesplans for the release of its replacement. While thismay not be the final word on Vista, the productis not winning many fans. Apple’s 51% growth inMac unit sales last quarter was fueled in large partby consumers who chose to abandon Windows andembrace Mac OS X.

Semi SummerIt’s only the beginning of May and already temper-atures have warmed in the west. By Memorial Day,summer weather will have arrived in much of the USand Europe. Our monthly magazine makes for a nicewarm weather and travel companion. Please enjoyour special Semi Edition of atpm as our natural sur-roundings come into full bloom.

Our May issue includes:

Bloggable: Alpacas Cynics ForemostWes Meltzer is out with the clone and “Back In Mac.”This, and more, in Bloggable.

MacMuser: CD-ripping Rip-offMark Tennent states that Music Business Groupcomplains of a cacophony of illegal usage.

MacMuser: Another Ripping Rip-offDon’t read the fine print—it won’t help.

Next Actions: Master ListEd Eubanks Jr. gives his first fly-over of applicationsfor Getting Things Done.

Photoshop For the Curious: No SmokingGun: Re-tooling Dodge and BurnIt’s time to get out of Dodge. Fans of Photoshop’sDodge and Burn tools will appreciate this trick forperforming these actions in a nondestructive manner.

Desktop Pictures: White MountainsReader David Siebecker provides this month’s photosfrom a six-day hike through New Hampshire’s WhiteMountains.

Cartoon: CortlandAll seems lost for Cortland and company as Lisamakes a last bid for victory, any way she can takeit.

Review: Apple KeyboardCan a thin, rubber membrane-equipped keyboardreplace an ergonomic, mechanical switch-using key-board in the life of Christopher Turner?

Review: Blue Crab 4.9.5Blue Crab lets you download a little or a lot of theWeb, as long as you know how to tweak it.

Review: Drive Genius 2This genie may have minor imperfections, butSylvester Roque discovers the magic in Drive Genius2.

Review: Flipp Premium Leather Case ForiPod classicPDO shows the established iPod accessory makershow to make a proper leather iPod case, the bestwe’ve seen yet.

Review: SpacePig 1.0.2There’s no easy way to put this: you’re a pig, on themoon, and you’re destined to chase after riches untilyou die. But at least you’re having fun.

ATPM 14.05 7 Welcome

E-MailWikipedia: The Missing Manual1Thanks for the info, and thanks for atpm. I am soglad the world has people like you!

—Ever Micheille

ScanSnap S500m2

I’ve gone through your review just to know that theScanSnap is really what I’m looking for. A question:I can’t really understand if there are any hardwaredifferences between the S500m and the S510m. Itseems the only difference is the software (e.g. thedrivers for Leopard, which I can download from Fu-jitsu). The price is very different. Can you help mewith that? Thank you.

—Ignazio Pediconi from ItalyIgnazio, the main difference, as I understand it,is that the new one is supposed to be faster andhave a larger sheet capacity (in other words,both hardware differences). The S510m is anew version that has come out since this review,and I haven’t seen it firsthand.

Wouldn’t it be great if they would releasea firmware update that would bring the S500up to the capacities of the S510? But I doubtit. . .

—Ed Eubanks, Jr.

Chips With Everything3

I didn’t know you guys could read my mind! Icouldn’t agree more with your observations re:

• QuarkXPress 7. . .check

• iTunes. . .check

• Microsoft Office. . .check

• FreeHand. . .check

Well said! Keep up the good work.—Beth Pauley

• • •

Stop being so mean to Illustrator. I’ve used bothas well and, honestly, comparisons aren’t fair. They

1http://www.atpm.com/14.04/wikipedia-manual.shtml2http://www.atpm.com/13.03/scansnap.shtml3http://www.atpm.com/14.04/macmuser-chips.shtml

each have features the other could use. And, after all,FreeHand is dead, so long live the new Vector King.

—Jacques Daviault

I’m not being mean. Maybe it’s a left-hand-right-hand thing, but Illustrator remains, formany people, the most awkward way of makingvector illustrations.

Thankfully, XPress and InDesign bothhave advanced bezier abilities, plus layers,transparency, and export options that makeIllustrator almost unnecessary. Add in bet-ter colour control, typography, tables, andmulti-pages and you arrive back at FreeHand.

—Mark TennentI agree, and I'll hang on to my last copy of

FreeHand for as long as it will continue to runon Mac OS X.

For the love of Pete, why am I able to workwith bezier shapes more easily in InDesign thanin Illustrator? Shouldn't it be the other wayaround?

—Lee Bennett

A Tutorial on Resolution4

I’ve read this entire article and numerous others, andmy art brain just isn’t grasping this, so I’ll just askthe question I need answered and hope for the best.I’m creating a digital painting for a book cover thatwill be printed at 9′′×12′′ (at a minimum of 300 DPI).However, I’d like to cover my printing options in an-ticipation of this artwork being printed at 18′′×24′′inches for poster-sized prints.

I try setting up the image in Photoshop as an18′′×24′′ document at 600 DPI (I figured higher DPIis better. . .?) but the document ends up being like11,000×14,000 or something close to that. My ma-chine really slows down with a document that size.It also makes the files size huge, like 450 MB. I knowthat there’s one of these numbers I can change with-out sacrificing quality (or at least I think I know),but I don’t want to learn the hard way by findingout after I’ve spent all this time painting the workand then having to redo it because the image is toopixelated. Please help me out here if you can. Sorryif I didn’t understand your article. I really did readthe whole thing. Thanks in advance for any help youcan give.

4http://www.atpm.com/13.08/photoshop.shtml

ATPM 14.05 8 E-Mail

—ChristopherThe math isn’t really all that hard, and thereare two aspects of it to consider.

First: pixels divided by PPI (that shouldbe Pixels Per Inch, not Dots Per Inch or DPI)equals inches. In other words, whatever num-ber is defined as your PPI (or DPI as peopleimproperly call it) is how many pixels are go-ing to be represented as one inch of the image,either in height or width. Thus: 10,800 (totalpixels in width) divided by 600 (pixels per inch)gives you the 18 inches.

Second: more resolution does not automat-ically mean better. You should make a decisionon how much resolution you need for a partic-ular job. In most offset printing scenarios, theamount of resolution you were talking about iscompletely overkill.

I realize it may get even more confusingwhen you learn that commercial imagesettersfor outputting film and/or plates for commer-cial printing run in the neighborhood of 2400PPI and higher. These resolutions are neededfor things like simple-color line artwork. Taketypefaces, for example. Usually one color andmaximum contrast (e.g. black text on a whitebackground). These types of images do needmore resolution, but because they have fewercolors and tend to be smaller in printed size,they don’t create a multi-hundred-megabytefile.

You say you are creating a digital paintingwith what I assume will be a full spectrum ofcolors. Thus, your image will essentially be likea photograph. The easiest rule of thumb tofollow is to use a PPI value that is between 1.5and 2 times what the halftone line screen fre-quency will be when the piece is commerciallyprinted.

The halftone frequency refers to the tinylittle dots used for printing. Take a magnify-ing glass and look at the pictures in a news-paper. Start with black-and-white photos first.Newspapers generally print with a lower screenfrequency than magazines. You might even beable to see the dots with your naked eye. Thedistance of those dots (which are not individualpixels, by the way) is measured in terms of thehalftone frequency. The measurement is LinesPer Inch, or LPI. Newspapers tend to print any-where from around 85 to 133 LPI, though someare doing higher. Magazines, however, gener-ally use much better (and more expensive) pa-per, which can handle a finer screen frequency.The higher frequencies on the paper used innewsprint usually make the ink bleed into a

solid dark blob. But on the nicer papers usedby magazines, you’ll generally get 150 to 200LPI.

Back to the image resolution. I’ve prettymuch always set up my pictures at 300 PPI atthe final size they were to be reproduced. Yearsago, my less-experienced brain told me I shouldgo with a PPI exactly double the halftone LPIfrequency. Back then, we were doing 150 LPIjobs, so I made my photos 300 PPI.

Today, I know that 1.5 times the LPI issufficient unless the photo has some extremelyfine detail in it. However, today, I’m doing allmy jobs at 200 LPI. Yet, I still use 300 PPIphotos (which is 1.5 times the LPI frequency).

For those photos which have much finer de-tail, bumping back up to double the LPI is ad-equate. So, for a 200 LPI frequency, a 400 PPIimage will suffice.

Remember those little halftone dots youlooked at with the magnifying glass? Thoseare the reason that any more PPI resolutionis wasted—those “larger” halftone dots com-pletely chew up any additional resolution.

Think of it as a container of new tennisballs. They come in a canister of three balls.The balls are pixels and the canister is ahalftone dot. Suppose you take out the tennisballs and put golf balls inside. You now havemore pixels. But, if you close the canister, youwouldn’t really know what was inside just bylooking at it because the canister (the halftonedot) is still exactly the same size. So all thatextra resolution inside is useless. (Unless, ofcourse, you’re a pro golfer!)

So, lastly, how do you find out what LPIyou’ll be using? Just ask whoever is doing thepress work. In most cases, the press workers willgenerally reply with another question, “WhatLPI do you want?” That’s because most ofthem will run the job at whatever frequency youspecify—within reason. Talk to them about it,but aim for a 200 line screen.

If they start talking to you about somethingcalled a stochastic screen, well, that’s an en-tirely different discussion which doesn’t workin terms of halftone LPI. If the press only doesstochastic (and more are starting to), then stickwith the 300 PPI images or 400 PPI for veryfine detail images. You should be pretty safewith those.

In summary, no, you don’t need a 600 PPIimage. It’s fine if you want to paint at 18×24size just so you have a nice large image for yourarchive. But setting it up at 300 PPI shouldbe quite adequate. Then, when you’re done,

ATPM 14.05 9 E-Mail

make a copy of it (always keep original finishedimages), then scale that copy down to the 9×12at 300 PPI for your book cover.

—Lee Bennett

Coping With Mac OS X’s Font Rendering5

Glad to find this discussion, because I thought I waslosing my mind (and my eyesight).

I just got a MacBook Pro and mainly use a 24′′Dell LCD panel—the same one I had previously beenusing with my Windows laptop. Now I’m runningMac OS X as much as possible, and running XP viaParallels for the Windows software I just can’t escape.Same machine, same screen, same everything.

Since I switched back to Mac (after four longpainful years with Windows only), I have noticed myeyes are a lot more tired at the end of the day, and Ihave been getting more headaches.

Once I got a hint of what was going on, I startedcomparing browsers, etc. and—who would’ve thunkit—old and slow IE 7 on XP is way easier on the eyes.

As I would rather gargle with shards of glass thanhave to use XP for browsing, I’m very interested infinding a solution to this.

—Lex

We’d love to hear your thoughts about our publication. Wealways welcome your comments, criticisms, suggestions, andpraise. Or, if you have an opinion or announcement aboutthe Macintosh platform in general, that’s OK too. Send youre-mail to editor@atpm.com. All mail becomes the propertyof atpm and may be edited for publication.

5http://www.atpm.com/12.01/paradigm.shtml

ATPM 14.05 10 E-Mail

Bloggableby Wes Meltzer, wmeltzer@atpm.com

Alpacas Cynics ForemostThey say everything old is new again, but I didn’tthink my childhood was going to be new anytimesoon.

I was wrong.From 1995 to 1997, Apple licensed Mac OS to

third-party hardware manufacturers, in an attemptto be more like Microsoft. But at the time, name-brand Macs were pretty expensive, and the demandwas fairly limited, so it only had the result of de-stroying Apple’s ability to function as a company.Rather than turning into Redmond, they got turnedinto Be, Inc.1, with a legacy hardware program at-tached. One of prodigal CEO Steve Jobs’ first actionswas to eliminate the licensing program.

Jobs gets the lion’s share of the credit for rescuingthe company today, and I mean this in its originalsense (“all,” as per Aesop, not the colloquial “most”).And most of us thought that, in spite of the bizarrechatter from computer industry “analysts” who don’thave any idea what they’re talking about, the cloningprogram was done.

So it came as an, uh, interesting2 surprise to meto hear that there was a company with an Internetstorefront offering Mac clones for sale with Mac OSX on them. I came at this a little later than every-one else, apparently, since I had the temerity to leavetown on business and came back midway through thenews cycle. And all I heard was “PSYSTAR!” ArsTechnica’s Charles Jade broke the story3 (as best asI can tell), and he also had a lot of juicy details aboutthe mysterious Mac clone they were offering for sale:

Psystar, a plucky little company from Mi-ami, Florida is, for the moment, sellingOpenMac, a Mac clone with Leopard pre-installed for $554. You also get:

• 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU• 250 GB Hard Drive (7200 RPM)• 2 GB DDR2 667 RAM

1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Inc.2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_inter

esting_times3http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/04/

14/company-claims-to-sell-mac-clone-for-399

• Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics• DVD+/-R Optical Drive• 4 USB ports

For another $110, you can get an NVIDIAGeForce 8600GT, and for another $50,you can get FireWire too. Even withoutthat, this price seems a little high com-pared to other OEM PCs sold by momand pop.

The whole saga began with pluck, but that wasn’tgoing to last. Jade foreshadowed what was going tocome with 22 simple words in very plain English fromApple’s End User License Agreement for OS X: “Youagree not to install, use or run the Apple Software onany non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable othersto do so.”

Set aside the question of whether it’s realistic tosell a Mac clone. The amount of work required to runOS X on an Intel PC is apparently quite onerous, anda lot of hardware is bound not to work, because Appledrivers are customized to the exact models of hard-ware in their branded computers. So your hardwarechoices are limited, never mind the level of polish thatApple puts into their cases and peripherals and thelike. But having said that, you can do it. The largerquestion isn’t can you, but may you?

Their Web site may have been flooded with visi-tors, so much so that their site was down overnight onApril 14. But by the next day, they were back and“defiant4,” to borrow CNET’s Tom Krazit’s term.InformationWeek’s Paul McDougall got an employeenamed Robert to comment on the story, and all hesaid was, “What if Microsoft said you could only in-stall Windows on Dell computers5?” He went on toclaim that Apple’s EULA was what was in the wrong,and that Apple was a monopolist.

So Krazit does a little analysis: for the purposesof antitrust litigation in the US, Apple could onlybe a monopolist if the relevant market is “comput-ers running OS X.” He thinks that’s a bit, ahem,

4http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9919432-37.html5http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/

2008/04/mac_clone_maker.html

ATPM 14.05 11 Bloggable: Alpacas Cynics Foremost

constipated reading of the law. He wasn’t the onlyone to pick up on this angle: NewsFactor’s JenniferLeClair got an actual intellectual property lawyer tocomment, Ilan Barzilay of Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks(in Boston). Barzilay told6 LeClair, “If the relevantmarket is personal computers, there’s no way you cansay Apple has a monopoly.”

Now, there’s an argument to be made here (andnot just from Psystar; for instance, PC World’sTravis Hudson sounds like he’s edging toward it7)that the EULA is itself a sham. These agreementshave so far been presumed to be valid prima facie,but Psystar is saying that they will litigate.

Then, the next day, Psystar’s payment processingcompany ended their relationship with the company.PowerPay accused Psystar of violating8 the terms oftheir agreement. Psystar switched to PayPal, whichmay or may not still be processing payments for them.(I can’t confirm it because I can’t access Psystar’s siteat all.) And CNET’s Krazit got a direct explanation9

from PowerPay’s CEO:

The applicant processed almost 200 per-cent of his anticipated annual volume overjust a few days. In doing so, the applicantnever used AVS (address verification ser-vices), which is a vital part of validatingcardholder consent. . . This, coupled withthe fact that product was substantiallydifferent from what was described in theapplication, left PowerPay no choice butto suspend services. The discrepancy inaddresses and other info only add to ourdiscomfort with the account.

At about the same time, there was some goodcitizen journalism going on, trying to determineif this Psystar existed at all and who and whatthey were. With tips from readers, The Guardian’sCharles Arthur started trying to hunt down who thisPsystar was (hint: neither the BBB nor the Chamberof Commerce had ever heard of them10). It was hewho hit on the changing address on the Psystar Web

6http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=59323

7http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006799.html

8http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9921271-37.html?tag=nefd.lede

9http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9922664-37.html?tag=nefd.lede

10http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/04/15/so_exactly_who_or_what_is_psystar_we_dig_a_little.html

site throughout the day on April 15, something thatcertainly smells a little funny. A reader e-mailedKrazit to say that a Miami screen-printing companywas located at one of their listed addresses11; then,they changed the address twice more. And they gotsome more information: the company appears to beowned by Rodolfo Pedraza.

Some of Gizmodo’s readers in South Floridaactually drove to the locations and took photos12:one was a residential address, and some otherswarehouses in west Miami. Another reader foundsome incorporation filings from the State of Florida—apparently these yahoos (Rodolfo and an accomplice,Roberto Pedraza) are the state-registered officers ofseven corporations of one bizarre stripe or another.My favorite is Dade Elevator Corp, filed in October1979 and involuntarily dissolved on December 16,1981. I can find no evidence of any elevators everproduced by the Pedrazas. And I’m not sure I’dwant to ride in one. They’ve had other corporationsdissolved by the state, for lack of paperwork filed(e.g., Foreceed Corporation, Expressi Networks,Deco Motors). Their only two active companiesare Psystar and Floridatek, LLC, listed as based inHomestead, in far southwest Dade County, Fla.

Richard Koman, ZDNet’s government blogger,thinks that the whole thing smells rotten. In fact, helists a variety of interesting reasons that they’re justa big phishing operation13. I’m not sure, but goodgrief, people. If you’re a real company, why wouldn’tyou register with the Chamber of Commerce, theBetter Business Bureau, a directory—something?

After all of the uproar settled down, Macworld’sRob Griffiths took a stab at building his own Macclone. He figured, I guess, that it might be a goodexercise. End results? “While it was fun to buildthe Frankenmac,” he wrote, “the truth is that I’mnot generally willing to live14 with the downsides ofa build-your-own Mac over the real thing fresh fromApple’s factory.” Plus, I’d forgotten how awful theinteriors of a home-built PC look in comparison to aMac. Ouch.

Inheritances Mosh Town• Apparently the next version of the Adobe

Creative Suite, CS4, won’t be 64-bit on the11http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9920436-37.html12http://gizmodo.com/380488/psystar-exposed-looks-li

ke-a-hoax13http://government.zdnet.com/?p=376114http://www.macworld.com/article/133028-0/2008/04/b

uilding_mac_clone.html

ATPM 14.05 12 Bloggable: Alpacas Cynics Foremost

Mac but will be in Windows. Ars Technica’smaestro John Siracusa says you can blameeither Apple or Adobe15, either because Adobewas unprepared or because Apple changed therules of the game. John Gruber (can you be-lieve this is the first time I’ve linked him?) asksif it’ll matter at all16. In real-world use, a 64-bit Photoshop would be 8–12 percent faster17,he quotes John Nack of Adobe. Hmm.

• Are you still using Eudora? Seriously? Eventhe Engsts, of TidBITS, are now using AppleMail. It may be time to switch, guys. Have Imentioned that I lost patience with Eudora andits ridiculous, unmodern ways a long time agonow? Anyway. Tonya Engst documented herexperience switching to Mail18, and althoughit’s clear that her setup isn’t perfect, the timehas come.

• OmMalik and John Gruber do some interestingmath on how much money Apple makes fromGoogle referrals. Apparently Malik thinks it’sat least $25 million19 and wants to know more,and Gruber notes that we don’t know exactlyhow much—but that Apple almost certainly hasbetter negotiators20 than the Mozilla Founda-tion.

• Marco Arment takes an interesting, long-viewlook at the pricing and profitability of iPhonesoftware sales. As he puts it, you could make$18,648; or $186,480; or $1,86421. What’s thesweet spot? How does the number of iPhoneusers affect the dollars? What price will userspay for iPhone applications? I don’t know, andneither does he, but it’s good to see people ask-ing the question. I hope, for the iPhone andfor developers’ sake (and for mine, once the ex-clusivity contract is up) that the answer isn’t“free,” because we’ll see a much more robustsoftware ecosystem at $10-$15, I think.

15http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2008/04/02/rhapsody-and-blues

16http://daringfireball.net/2008/04/64000_question17http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/04/photoshop_lr_

64.html18http://db.tidbits.com/article/956419http://gigaom.com/2008/04/10/how-much-money-does-a

pple-get-from-google/20http://daringfireball.net/2008/04/apple_google_mon

ey21http://www.marco.org/288

• Have you ever wondered about the magic ofthe graphical user interface, what makes itwork and where there’s room to improve? BretVictor takes a very, very long, Edward Tufte22-esque (and dissertation-length) look at theworld of interactive graphical design, called“Magic Ink23.” You’ll be glad you read it.(Someday. When you’re finally done.)

Therefore Whiten PotentOn a final note, I finally got around to relaunchinga sort-of blog for this column. There’s always plentythat I think about writing, and flag for later work,but for a variety of reasons doesn’t make it in at theend of the month. (Sometimes, it just doesn’t fit; andsometimes, it doesn’t look interesting anymore aftera few weeks.)

If you want to follow along, and get the unfil-tered Mac and blog news from just about everysource I can bear to read, you can keep reading atSon of Bloggable24, my tumblelog. Send me photosof your Macs, links to anything that interests you,and whatever else you think deserves to be heard.We’ll make it so.

You see, this column has always been about you,Mac users on the Web. Except, “you” has alwaysrequired that you have a blog or some other publicforum, and that I be able to find you. Now, I havethe opportunity to take down those barriers. All youneed, now, is the ability to send me an e-mail or IM.Let’s see if we can make this work.

And that’s all for the news. Have a wonderfulMay!

Copyright © 2008 Wes Meltzer, wmeltzer@atpm.com.

22http://www.edwardtufte.com/23http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/24http://sonofbloggable.tumblr.com/

ATPM 14.05 13 Bloggable: Alpacas Cynics Foremost

MacMuserby Mark Tennent, http://www.tennent.co.uk

CD-ripping Rip-offNot content with the hullabaloo created by their colo-nial cousins, the RIAA, the British-based Music Busi-ness Group (MBG) have their sight firmly set on iPodusers. The MBG cartel, err, trade association whichrepresents music publishers, songwriters, performers,and their numerous hangers-on, have decided theywant a cut of the profits from the sales of iPods. Theirreasoning is that most of the music on MP3 players isillegal because it has been copied from CDs. Accord-ing to the Gowers report (see below) in 2005 over 20million MP3 players were sold in the UK, and 90% ofthe music on them had been copied.

It is still technically illegal in the UK to trans-fer the music you legitimately bought and own fromone media to another. Andrew Gowers, whose claimsto fame are a biography of Yasser Arafat and a stintediting the Financial Times, was asked to conduct anindependent review of the UK intellectual propertysystem, and in 2006 Gowers’ report1 recommendedthat the law be changed to allow strictly limited, pri-vate copying, format-shifting from one media to an-other.

Cassette KickbacksFor years the music industry enjoyed a kick-back fromthe sales of blank compact cassettes because they con-vinced the powers-that-be that the tapes would beused to copy music from LPs. In some parts of theworld, blank CDs also carried a surcharge which wentdirectly to the music business to cover their “losses”from piracy. Gowers recommended extra safeguardsand easier anti-piracy legislation for the music indus-try to ensure the correct balance between users andcreators.

But this isn’t good enough for the MBG, who re-ject Gowers’ findings and want their snouts in thetrough as well. As less use is made of “traditional”media such as CDs, tapes, and vinyl, and more mu-sic is stored and played on computers and MP3 play-ers, the MBG is liable to lose control of their incomestream. End users, their customers, will choose to

1http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/gowers_review_intellectual_property/gowersreview_index.cfm

purchase downloads rather than go to the bother ofripping music to disk and storing the source CDs.The MBG will be at the mercy of the download li-braries. If they want to sell music, MBG memberswill have to accept the terms and conditions of thelibrary owners.

Of course, they could always set up their owndownload sources and refuse to sell music to the likesof Apple, but then there is the danger that artistswill strike their own agreements and bypass the mu-sic studios altogether. Which is exactly what a lot ofthem are doing already.

Copyright © 2008 Mark Tennent2.

2http://www.tennent.co.uk

ATPM 14.05 14 MacMuser: CD-ripping Rip-off

MacMuserby Mark Tennent, http://www.tennent.co.uk

Another Ripping Rip-offDigital music is set to take another kick in the teeth.Have you got any tracks you downloaded from theMSN Music service? If so, think again, because onAugust 31 Microsoft is going to turn off the licenseservers. This means those tracks that you boughtwith your hard-earned cash will eventually becomenothing more than digital detritus on your hard disk.

Microsoft’s attempt to topple iTunes from itsnumber one position started in 2004 and lasted twoyears before it realised it was yet another failure andstopped the service. Instead, the Zune Marketplacetook over, presumably destined to go the same wayat some point unless Microsoft can persuade iPodusers that the Zune is a better device. That will beon the same day as the porcine air show no doubt.

Closing the MSN Music servers will not meanthat tracks become unplayable immediately, becausethe currently authorised computer will remain unaf-fected. But the tracks will not be usable on anothercomputer or operating system because Microsoft’sdigital rights management (DRM) stops the tracksbeing duplicated or transferred.

The only solution is to burn the tracks to audioCD, never 100% effective because they have alreadylost quality when the compressed versions were made,and more quality would be lost if you re-ripped them.Or you could find some nefarious means to crack theDRM.

Microsoft Inspires PiracyIt’s almost as if Microsoft was encouraging piracy.Music, unlike computer programs, doesn’t suddenlybecome obsolete, and “owners” of the tracks reason-ably expect to be able to listen to their music foryears to come. When they get a new computer theywill also expect to transfer their digital music fromone to the other. As many have pointed out, thisis the weakness in protected music tracks where onerelies on being able to transfer the tracks.

Of course, this is all pointed out in the friendlycopyright notices that you scrolled to the bottom of,before you clicked on the Agree button. You don’tactually own the digital tracks, just the right to play

them until such time as the content provider decidesotherwise.

You did read them, didn’t you?

Copyright © 2008 Mark Tennent1.

1http://www.tennent.co.uk

ATPM 14.05 15 MacMuser: Another Ripping Rip-off

Next Actionsby Ed Eubanks, Jr.

Master ListAs promised, here is the new version of my ongoinglist of Getting Things Done (GTD) applications. Atleast, here is the first installment.

This list covers only those applications that arelocally installed and promoted as GTD-specific. Reg-ular Next Actions readers will recognize this distinc-tion. Over the course of the next several months, I’lladd two other lists: one for locally installed GTD-friendly applications and another for Web-based ap-plications. I believe these are helpful distinctions,although the lines blur considerably.

As always, I have striven to be comprehensive inthis list; I’m sure, however, that there are others thatI have missed. I welcome feedback on the list, but Iwould ask that you keep my distinctions (above) inmind. In other words, please don’t give me a hardtime for leaving an application off that isn’t GTD-specific!

I hope you find this helpful.

Locally Installed Applications

Action Tracker1

Developer: Mac ProductiveCurrent Version: 1.3.1Price: FreeDevelopment Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: FileMaker Pro (free Run-

time version available)Distinguishing Features: Also organizes notes,

contacts, and other information related toprojects.

1http://macproductive.com/actiontracker.html

News: None

ActionTastic2

Developer: Jon CrosbyCurrent Version: 0.9.3Price: Free, open-sourceDevelopment Status: BetaiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: YesPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Processing engine; iPod

sync; Mail and MailTags compatibility.News: Developer recently discussed the path to 1.0

on his Web site.

EasyTask Manager3

Developer: Orionbelt.comCurrent Version: 1.9.2Price: $20Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: Yes

2http://www.kaboomerang.com/blog/category/actiontastic/

3http://www.orionbelt.com/

ATPM 14.05 16 Next Actions: Master List

Print Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Windows version avail-

able; automatic advance of uncompleted duetasks to “today.”

News: Improved online presence for iPhone compat-ibility; improved printing capabilities now in-clude notes; recently released EasyProject.

Frictionless4

Developer: Twin ForcesCurrent Version: 2.0d15Price: Free, open-sourceDevelopment Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Quick-entry box; fuzzy

repeated actions.News: 2.0d15+ released with Leopard compatibility.

Ghost Action5

Developer: Ghost Park SoftwareCurrent Version: 1.1Price: $20Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: None

4http://www.twinforces.com/frictionless/5http://ghostparksoftware.com/

Distinguishing Features: .Mac syncing (withoutiCal running); PDA/iPod syncing.

News: A beta version is available for Leopard users;plans are in place for iPhone compatibility.

iGTD6

Developer: BartekCurrent Version: 1.4.5.6Price: FreeDevelopment Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Compatible with Ad-

dress Book, Mail, iSync, and MailTags, aswell as Web browser support, Path Finder,Yojimbo, MacJournal, and others; quick-entryfeature; simple yet powerful interface.

News: Ongoing development of current version fre-quently brings additional features; v.2 is in de-velopment (public alpha release available fordownload), as is iGTD Pro.

iCog7

Developer: HensPaceCurrent Version: 1.88Price: FreeDevelopment Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: Yes

6http://igtd.pl/iGTD/7http://www.henspace.co.uk/ikog/index.html

ATPM 14.05 17 Next Actions: Master List

Required Applications: Python 2.4 or higherDistinguishing Features: Compatible with any

OS running Python (including Windows); verysimple, text-only utility.

News: None

Kinkless GTD8

Developer: Ethan SchoonoverCurrent Version: 0.83Price: FreeDevelopment Status: BetaiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: OmniOutliner Pro 3.6 or

higherDistinguishing Features: Nothing fancy, but a

simple list management tool.News: Schoonover has effectively abandoned devel-

opment of kGTD since joining the staff of theOmni Group and working on the OmniFocusdevelopment team.

mGTD9

Developer: Apokalypse Software CorpCurrent Version: 1.2Price: FreeDevelopment Status: “Pre-final”iCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: Mori 1.4

8http://www.kinkless.com/9http://apokalypsesoftware.com/products/node/1385

Distinguishing Features: Expands Mori (digitalnotebook) functions to include GTD principles.

News: None

Midnight Inbox10

Developer: Midnight Beep SoftworksCurrent Version: 1.3.1Price: $35Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Action timer; quick-

note and quick-action hot keys; Mail compati-ble; “automatic” data collection.

News: Latest version is Leopard-compatible; v.2was recently discussed in great detail on theWeb site.

OmniFocus11

Developer: Omni GroupCurrent Version: 1.0.1Price: $80Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Mail- and Spotlight-

compatible; simple interface with powerfulview features.

10http://www.midnightbeep.com/11http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/

ATPM 14.05 18 Next Actions: Master List

News: None

pyGTD12

Developer: Thiamin TrekCurrent Version: n/aPrice: FreeDevelopment Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: PythonDistinguishing Features: Cross-platform compat-

ibility; incorporates Covey-style prioritizationwith GTD; a simple text-based list.

News: None

Ready, Set, Do!13

Developer: Todd VasquezCurrent Version: 1.2jPrice: $20Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: A very different ap-

proach using a set of AppleScript routines12http://96db.com/pyGTD/13http://homepage.mac.com/toddvasquez/Ready-Set-Do!/

Personal93.html

to impose organization and communicationacross a computer’s entire filesystem; multiplelanguage support.

News: A feature allows exporting action lists toiPhone by e-mail.

TaskPaper14

Developer: Hog Bay SoftwareCurrent Version: 1.0.3 (26)Price: $19Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Simple, text-based sys-

tem; no-frills, intentionally designed as an al-ternative to more full-featured systems.

News: Introductory pricing currently available.

Things15

Developer: Cultured CodeCurrent Version: 0.9.1Price: $50 (pre-release price of $40 with signup for

newsletter)Development Status: AlphaiCal Sync: YesQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: None

14http://hogbaysoftware.com/projects/taskpaper15http://culturedcode.com/things/

ATPM 14.05 19 Next Actions: Master List

Distinguishing Features: Features will include:iCal sync; repeating tasks; Mail compatibility;network and multi-computer operation; andimport/export options.

News: Those who want to serve as alpha testers mayrequest access. Final release version will costbetween $40 and $50.

Thinking Rock16

Developer: Avente Pty Ltd.Current Version: 1.2.3 (2.0e also available)Price: Free, open-sourceDevelopment Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: NoWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Cross-platform compat-

ibility through Java; interactive collection andprocessing.

News: “Epsilon” version of v.2 includes a majoroverhaul, including plug-in modules, an im-proved interface, and fixes to problems inprevious versions.

Vortex17

Developer: AirBlade SoftwareCurrent Version: 1.0.13 (r22)Price: £15 (approx. $30)Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: No

16http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/17http://airbladesoftware.com/

Web-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Two-panel view; single-

click creation of new tasks and projects;contingent and dependent actions; time andenergy requirement indices; Windows versionavailable.

News: Current version is only compatible with MacOS X 10.4.

What To Do18

Developer: Objective SatisfactionCurrent Version: 1.3.2Price: $29Development Status: ReleaseiCal Sync: NoQuickSilver Plug-in: YesWeb-app Sync: NoPrint Lists: YesRequired Applications: NoneDistinguishing Features: Drag-and-drop inten-

sive for easy reorganization; .Mac syncing formultiple computers; XML export.

News: None

Copyright © 2008 Ed Eubanks, Jr.

18http://www.objectivesatisfaction.com/what_todo/

ATPM 14.05 20 Next Actions: Master List

Photoshop For the Curiousby Lee Bennett, lbennett@atpm.com

No Smoking Gun: Re-tooling Dodge and BurnIn my article from October 20071, I described howAdjustment Layers could be used to perform visiblechanges on an image while leaving the original imageuntouched. Making apparent changes to an image inthis manner, without actually changing the image, isknown as nondestructive editing.

Photoshop’s Dodge and Burn tools, however, havelargely been known as destructive tools. Destructiveediting may sound like a harsh term, but all it re-ally means is that pixels which comprise the originalimage have been changed. Barring a few levels ofthe Undo command and/or saving a separate copyof the image, a destructive edit permanently changesthe pixels.

In this month’s tutorial, I’ll show how using toolsother than the original Dodge and Burn tools can per-form nondestructive dodge and burn edits, and finishby showing how almost nothing—possibly absolutelynothing—in Photoshop is locked to just one task.

The History of Dodging and BurningThose unfamiliar with the process of dodging andburning may be surprised to realize that these toolsoriginate from an extremely low-tech trick used in thedays of photo darkrooms and enlargers. Many moonsago, to make a photo, a film negative was placed intoa device called an enlarger. The enlarger was akinto a slide projector with the image from the nega-tive being projected onto a piece of photo-sensitivepaper. The longer the light remained on, the darkerthe photo became.

In many situations, photographers would want aphoto to be a little bit lighter in one spot or a lit-tle bit darker in another spot. To darken a particu-lar spot, the darkroom technician would use either alarge opaque sheet with a hole cut into it or, far moreoften, his own hands to block the light coming out ofthe enlarger. When using hands, he would cup themin a way to only allow a small spot of light through.By moving the respective devices around, the spot oflight could be made to “burn” more light at any pointof the photograph.

1http://www.atpm.com/13.10/photoshop.shtml

On the opposite end, various shapes, such as thehole cut from the above-mentioned burn tool, wouldbe attached to very thin wire and held above por-tions of the photo. This process would “dodge” thelight from exposing the photo paper during that time,making the area a bit lighter.

In both cases, the technician would typically keepthe respective dodge and burn devices in constantslight motion so the area dodged or burned wouldnot create a hard edge around the perimeter. Also,in both cases, the process was a very inexact sci-ence. The results could never been seen until afterthe photo had been developed and could be takeninto viewing light. I can speak from personal expe-rience in darkrooms that I would often attempt tododge or burn portions of an image up to a dozentimes before getting it exactly the way I wanted.

Today—at least in my world—darkrooms are anancient memory, and I now perform dodging andburning with tools in Photoshop specifically createdto approximate the effect of doing so.

Each new major version of Photoshop has im-proved the ability to perform image adjustments in anondestructive manner. Though the Dodge and Burntools aren’t currently nondestructive by default, theycan be—with a minimal amount of advance prepara-tion.

Preparing a Faux Adjustment Layer

1. Open an image in Photoshop. Any imagethat could benefit from a bit of dodge andburn love will suffice for this tutorial.

2. Create a new layer above the image.While technically not an AdjustmentLayer, this is where the dodge and burnadjustments will be performed, insteadof on the original image.

3. Under the Edit menu, select Fill. . ..

4. Select 50% Gray in the Contents sectionof the Fill dialog box. Ensure the Blend-

ATPM 14.05 21 Photoshop For the Curious: No Smoking Gun

ing Mode is set to Normal, Opacity is100%, and Preserve Transparency is off.

These steps will result in a neutral gray color thatcovers the original image. This 50% gray color ap-pears on its own layer above the image in the Layerspalette.

5. With the gray layer highlighted in theLayers palette, change its Blending Modeto Soft Light.

A 50% gray fill occupies an entire layer above the originalimage. Its Blending Mode has been set to Soft Light which,

at this stage, has made it invisible.

Right now, the example photograph, above, ap-pears unchanged because the Soft Light BlendingMode hides the 50% gray layer. This is why 50%gray is considered neutral. Therefore, dodging andburning can now be performed on this gray layerwithout directly affecting the original image.

Abandoning the Traditional Dodge andBurn ToolsThe nature of this faux Adjustment Layer makes thetraditional Dodge and Burn tools useless. I’d be a liarif I said I completely understood how the Soft LightBlending Mode changes the behavior of the Dodgeand Burn tools. But, I do know, for one, that everytest I performed while writing this tutorial resultedonly in varying degrees of dodging. I could neverperform any burning.

Secondly, since I am working on a single, 50%gray color, regardless whether it’s visible, there are nohighlights or shadows. Consequently, the Dodge andBurn tools’ selector for adjusting Highlights, Mid-tones, or Shadows is a bust.

Use the Brush Tool InsteadThankfully, the solution is a very simple one. I’veestablished that the 50% gray fill on top of the imageis completely invisible when the gray color’s Blend-ing Mode is Soft Light. Quite predictably, if the graybecomes lighter, toward white, the result is that theimage on the layer beneath is also lightened. Con-versely, when the gray becomes darker, toward black,the image beneath is darkened.

So, instead of using the Dodge and Burn tools, theBrush tool makes the perfect stunt double. Here’s theprocedure.

1. Ensure the 50% gray layer is selected inthe Layers palette. This is the layer to beedited—not the original image.

2. Set the foreground color in the Toolspalette to black for burning or white fordodging.

3. With the Brush tool active, choose abrush size and hardness in the samemanner as if the original Dodge and Burntools were being used.

4. Choose an opacity percentage. Highernumbers equal increased lightening ordarkening.

5. Use the Brush tool over the image in thesame manner that the Dodge and Burntools would be used.

Instead of toggling between the traditional Dodgeand Burn tools to lighten and darken, respectively,painting white (to dodge) or black (to burn) with theBrush tool on the 50% gray layer offers near identi-cal functionality while preserving the original image’spixels.

ATPM 14.05 22 Photoshop For the Curious: No Smoking Gun

The shadows and the people sitting by the water werelightened using a dodging method, but performed on the 50%

gray layer instead of on the original image.

By hiding the layer containing the original image, the 50%gray layer becomes temporarily visible, revealing the exact

areas where I painted white to lighten certain portions. 100%opacity was used on the bottom to lighten the ground

shadows considerably. Only 50% painting opacity was used onthe people in chairs, which is why my painted shapes only

appear to be a lighter shade of gray instead of white.

The image above showing my 50% gray layer aftersome dodging exposes one small caveat resulting fromthe Soft Light Blending Mode: dodging and burningcan only be done to a certain amount and no further.Even if 100% white or 100% black is painted with theBrush tool, the area painted will never become solidwhite or black because the Soft Light Blending Modewill always allow some of the original image to showthrough.

Yet, one must remember that the typical goalof dodging and burning is only to gently lighten ordarken bits of an image by small amounts. WhenI require more significant lightening or darkening toareas of an image, I’ll generally reach for other Pho-toshop tools instead of Dodge and Burn.

Don’t Forget—It’s NondestructiveReturning portions of an image to how it looked be-fore any dodging or burning was done is accomplishedsimply by using the Brush tool to paint 50% gray backover the areas to be restored.

Instead of painting black or white, set the foreground colorto 50% gray by clicking the foreground color well in the Toolpalette, then set a value of 50 in the Brightness field, labeled

B, with the H and S fields at 0, as shown above. Alsoremember to set the Brush tool opacity to 100%.

Now having used the Brush tool for dodging andburning instead of the actual Dodge and Burn tools,it becomes clear that one should never assume thata particular tool or command in Photoshop is onlymeant to accomplish one thing. With that in mind,here is this month’s. . .

Homework AssignmentI’ll be stepping outside the realm of nondestructivedodging and burning for this assignment. In the spiritof recognizing that probably nothing in Photoshop isa uni-tasker, this assignment is to use the same stepsdescribed above to perform a very different result—ahand-tinting effect.

You may have already surmised that there’s ab-solutely nothing wrong with using colors other thanblack, white, or 50% gray on the faux AdjustmentLayer. The result can approximate a hand-tint effecton any part of the image.

ATPM 14.05 23 Photoshop For the Curious: No Smoking Gun

By using some green and blue shades, I deepened the colorof the grass and the water by painting a small bit of the

respective colors on the 50% gray layer. Of course, tints likethis don’t have to be restricted to improving realism. It would

be just as easy to paint a purplish sky.

This effect can be even more pronounced when theoriginal image is desaturated to grayscale. If the orig-inal image is grayscale to begin with, be sure to firstchange to RGB Mode from the Image menu. Now,try just a few accent colors.

Take note that this is not the same as holding the originalcolors from parts of an image and desaturating the rest. This,instead, is tinting new colors onto specific areas of the photo.

I vividly recall using photographic tinting inks,cotton balls, cotton swabs, and toothpicks to hand-tint black-and-white prints I’d made in the darkroom.Today, using this faux Adjustment Layer technique, Ican now continue to enjoy the fun of tinting grayscalephotographs without the worry of permanent mis-takes or costly tinting inks.

Above all else, don’t stop experimenting—oncopies of your original images, of course! Try settingup multiple faux Adjustment Layers and overlappingyour edits. Try Blending Modes other than SoftLight. And, most importantly, if a result is not what

was expected, don’t be so quick to hit the Undocommand. Take a second to examine the result andwhat was done to create it—knowing what was donemight prove useful in the future.

Copyright © 2008 Lee Bennett, lbennett@atpm.com.

ATPM 14.05 24 Photoshop For the Curious: No Smoking Gun

Desktop Picturesby David Siebecker, http://www.sidekickr.com

White MountainsWe need new desktop pictures each month. Write1

to us!

This Month’s Desktop Pictures2

This month’s photos were taken by David Siebecker3

on a six-day hike through New Hampshire’s WhiteMountains.

View Picturesa

ahttp://www.atpm.com/14.05/white-mountains/

Previous Months’ Desktop PicturesPictures from previous months are listed in the desk-top pictures archives4.

Downloading All the Pictures at OnceSome browsers can download an entire set of desktoppictures at once.

iCab Use the Download command to download “Getall files in same path.”

OmniWeb Choose “Save Linked . Images. . .” fromthe File menu.

Safari Use this Automator workflow5.

Contributing Your Own Desktop PicturesIf you have a picture, whether a small series or justone fabulous or funny shot, feel free to send it toeditor@atpm.com and we’ll consider publishing it innext month’s issue. Have a regular print but no scan-ner? Don’t worry. E-mail us, and we tell you where

1mailto:editor@atpm.com2http://www.atpm.com/14.05/white-mountains/3http://www.sidekickr.com4http://www.atpm.com/Back/desktop-pictures.shtml5http://automator.us/examples-02.html

to send it so we can scan it for you. Note that wecannot return the original print, so send us a copy.

Placing Desktop Pictures

Mac OS X 10.3.x through 10.5.xChoose “System Preferences. . .” from the Applemenu, click the “Desktop & Screen Saver” button,then choose the Desktop tab. In the left-side menu,select the desktop pictures folder you want to use.

You can also use the pictures with Mac OS X’sbuilt-in screen saver. Select the Screen Saver tabwhich is also in the “Desktop & Screen Saver” Sys-tem Preferences pane. If you put the atpm picturesin your Pictures folder, click on the Pictures Folderin the list of screen savers. Otherwise, click ChooseFolder to tell the screen saver which pictures to use.

Mac OS X 10.1.x and 10.2.xChoose “System Preferences. . .” from the Applemenu and click the Desktop button. With the pop-up menu, select the desktop pictures folder you wantto use.

You can also use the pictures with Mac OS X’sbuilt-in screen saver. Choose “System Preferences. . .”from the Apple menu. Click the Screen Saver (10.1.x)or Screen Effects (10.2.x) button. Then click on Cus-tom Slide Show in the list of screen savers. If youput the atpm pictures in your Pictures folder, you’reall set. Otherwise, click Configure to tell the screensaver which pictures to use.

Mac OS X 10.0.xSwitch to the Finder. Choose “Preferences. . .” fromthe “Finder” menu. Click on the “Select Picture. . .”button on the right. In the Open Panel, select thedesktop picture you want to use. The panel defaultsto your ~/Library/Desktop Pictures folder. Closethe “Finder Preferences” window when you are done.

ATPM 14.05 25 Desktop Pictures: White Mountains

Cortlandby Matt Johnson, mjohnson@atpm.com

ATPM 14.05 26 Cartoon: Cortland

ATPM 14.05 27 Cartoon: Cortland

ATPM 14.05 28 Cartoon: Cortland

Copyright © 2008 Matt Johnson, mjohnson@atpm.com.

ATPM 14.05 29 Cartoon: Cortland

Hardware Reviewby Christopher Turner, cturner@atpm.com

Apple KeyboardDeveloper: Apple1

Price: $49Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.10, Key-

board Software Update.Trial: NoneCould it be that a flat, standard key-board using rubber membranes could displace themechanical key switch-using Datadesk Smartboard Ihad come to know and love2? That was the questionI set out to answer when I purchased the Apple Key-board (wired version) a month and a half after itsdebut in August of last year. I’ve been using Apple’slatest keyboard since mid-September, and I haven’tlooked back.

Though it has been termed Apple’s “AluminumKeyboard” for the purpose of identification, the onlyaluminum part of it is the slender top surface. Theeven slimmer bottom surface is made of white plas-tic, like the keys atop. In a nod to the color of thealuminum, the print on the keys isn’t black, as onemight expect, but a grey.

The keys themselves are, of course, inspired bythe keyboards of the MacBook line. My only expe-riences with such a keyboard prior to the purchaseof this one, were the few times I’d tapped out linesin TextEdit while on a MacBook in an Apple Store.Not long enough to make a truly informed decision,but at least long enough to know I didn’t totally hateit. As it turned out, not only do I not hate the keyson the Aluminum Keyboard, I love them. So muchso, that I’m hoping Apple brings this keyboard styleto the next MacBook Pro refresh.

Speaking of the keys, the function keys on theAluminum Keyboard sport a lot more functions than

1http://www.apple.com/keyboard/2http://www.atpm.com/12.05/smartboard.shtml

did those of its predecessors. With the KeyboardSoftware Update installed, not only do they controlthe brightness and volume levels of your system, butthey can also launch Dashboard and Exposé, and con-trol iTunes. For me, enabling these features meantfinding a new capture key for EagleFiler, which bydefault is F1. Apple has left F5 and F6 “blank,” soF5 was the winner.

A look at some of the special-feature F keys.

Moving from a keyboard like the SmartBoard,which uses mechanical key switches—think of theloud clackety-clack of keyboards of yore; those usedmechanical key switches—to one using the now more-common rubber membranes to control key functioncan take some getting used to, and it was an oddcouple of days at first. Now, I can’t imagine goingback. You don’t have to press very hard on thesekeys, meaning less finger travel, which saves wearand strain on your digits’ muscles. Likewise, the lowprofile and slight angle of the Aluminum Keyboardtake the strain off of my wrists just as much as theSmartBoard did with its design. Unlike with theMacBook keyboard, there is no flex to the AluminumKeyboard when you get into a heavy typing session.

ATPM 14.05 30 Review: Apple Keyboard

The keyboard is very thin, but very sturdy.

I imagine the wireless version of the AluminumKeyboard is very similar in operation, though I haveno personal experience with it. I have noticed thatthe arrow keys are smaller on the wireless version,and users should note that keyboard also lacks thenumeric keypad and function keys F13–19 found onthe wired edition.

If I had my druthers with the Aluminum Key-board, I would move the two USB ports further outto the edges of the board. The current placement byApple is more for aesthetics than practicality, and Inearly always have to lift up the keyboard to line upthe plug of the device I’m plugging in with the port.

As with many things, using a keyboard is verysubjective. I like the reclaimed desktop space due toits smaller size, and the fact that my fingers don’thave to work as hard as before. I really like Apple’slatest keyboard, but there are plenty of folks who donot, and that’s okay. If you’re in the market for anew keyboard for your Mac, though, you could do alot worse than Apple’s Aluminum Keyboard.

Copyright © 2008 Christopher Turner, cturner@atpm.com.Yes, Managing Editor Christopher Turner was quite seriouswhen he said he hoped the next version of the MacBook Prohas a keyboard like that of the MacBooks. Really. Reviewingin atpm is open to anyone. If you’re interested, write to usat reviews@atpm.com.

ATPM 14.05 31 Review: Apple Keyboard

Software Reviewby Linus Ly, lly@atpm.com

Blue Crab 4.9.5Developer: Limit Point Software1

Price: $25Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.

Universal2.Trial: Fully-featured (10 days)I love writing and found Blogger.comto be the right outlet for my passion. When I work onqaptainqwerty.blogspot.com, I do not need to worryabout HTML syntax or other technicalities. I justneed to concentrate on whatever topics that I wantto rant about. The one downside is that the wholeblog exists only on the Web. I have been looking fora way to archive my blog for posterity. I need a Webcrawler, and Limit Point Software’s Blue Crab lookspromising.

Standard InstallationBlue Crab’s installation is straightforward—downloaddisk image, mount it, and drag the package to thehard drive. You do need to obtain a passwordfrom Limit Point Software, however, in order to usethe software either for the ten-day trial or the fullversion.

OverviewWeb crawling is a serious job, and Blue Crab triesto make it easier. The most straightforward way isto select “Crawl URL” from the Grab menu. Entera Web address and click Start, then off you go withthe Default configurations. As Blue Crab crawls theURL, the log window tells you exactly what is hap-pening. However, all that reporting slows down theprocess very much. By selecting “Grab Quickly,” youuse a faster download technology, and there’s less re-porting. For an even faster result, you can go withthe “Download One Page” option but, of course, youwill get just that one page. In all cases, you have theoption of grabbing the URL from the Web browserit’s currently open in and not having to worry aboutmistyping. Once the Web site is downloaded, youcan browse it or search through it with Blue Crab’sbuilt-in search function.

1http://www.limit-point.com/BlueCrab/BlueCrab.html2http://www.apple.com/universal/

The classic Crawl URL shows what’s happening with thedownload.

Prior to having the Blogger site, I had anothersite for exposing my still cartoons3. I would drawthe cartoons at work to entertain my colleagues, usu-ally covering topics such as office politics or currenttech news. I would next capture the drawings with adigital camera, then import them into iPhoto. A sim-ple HTML export generated the Web gallery. SimpleWeb sites like this work well as either a one-page grabor a complete grab.

Options GaloreChances are the Web site the typical user wantsto grab is a complex one, with links to otherWeb sites, banner ads, and Flash animations.Blue Crab has many ways of helping with thegrab, although the learning curve gets steeperfrom here. Probably the most obvious way isto limit the number of levels to dig into thesite. Using my simple .Mac site as an example,http://homepage.mac.com/linusly/qq would be Level0, then http://homepage.mac.com/linusly/qq/index-Pages would be Level 1, and so on. You can also limitthe folder depth the crawling occurs at. Whereas thelevel is associated with HTML links, the folder depthis about the number of folders in any given URL. Afolder depth setting of 3 would cause links such as

3http://homepage.mac.com/linusly/qq

ATPM 14.05 32 Review: Blue Crab 4.9.5

http://www.blah.com/folder1/folder2/folder3/folder4to be skipped.

Oodles of options to download the whole Web or not.

Level and folder restrictions are easy to imple-ment, but other settings may not be so straightfor-ward. For instance, to limit the crawl to files match-ing a certain criteria, the text to be searched has tobe URL-encoded. Space characters must be replacedby %20 and the @ sign must be entered as %40, for ex-ample. The number following the percent sign is thehex value of the original character. Hex equivalentsof everyday characters may be more meaningful toyou if you have some programming experience. Sup-posedly there is a listing of all these so-called “unsafecharacters” out there on the Web, but I have notstumbled across it yet other than some references toRFC 17384. It would be helpful if Blue Crab’s doc-umentation included a full table of unsafe charactersand their hex equivalents, or if it simply let you typethe characters without URL encoding.

Without a doubt, Blue Crab is full of features tocontrol how much you want to download from theWeb. Most of the time, I can guess the uses for thevarious features. For other features, looking themup in Help Viewer clarifies the issue. Unfortunately,Blue Crab’s documentation does not keep up withits development. There are some features that aresimply not mentioned in the documentation. I sus-pect the “Ignore dynamic URLs” option can be usefulfor skipping ads, but neither the documentation onthe hard drive nor the online tour mentions it. Onlythe version history file, accessible as Release Notes inBlue Crab, refers to the feature. The online tour doesinclude a section called Improving Speed, in which

4http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1738.html

many Blue Crab options are discussed with regard tooptimum content and fastest speed.

Another function that is covered only in the ver-sion history is imaging. At first, I thought it wasrelated to grabbing images. It turned out to be away to capture a Web site as a picture file, althoughI am not too sure how to use it. On the surface,it seems the end result is a JPEG file that mostlyresembles what the browser showed at the moment.But then Blue Crab also opens a sort of Web browserwindow within which you can navigate the Web. I donot know what the purpose of Blue Crab’s browserwindow is. Bug or feature, I will have to wait for thedocumentation to catch up.

Blue Crab makes use of configurations to storecombinations of the many settings. You start with adefault configuration that is not changeable. Instead,you can copy the default configuration or create newones. While it may be interesting to poke aroundwith Blue Crab’s oodles of options, I think it wouldbe more helpful if the software came with pre-set con-figurations. In addition to the default, perhaps thereshould be one for ignoring pictures and movies forfaster download, another for optimal speed with allthe settings as suggested by the online tour, and onefor optimal content.

If having too many options turns you off, you cantry Blue Crab Lite, which is just a straightforwardcrawler that allows you to manually control the down-loading process. All you can do is pause and resumethe crawling process, or stop it altogether. LimitPoint offers Blue Crab Lite as one of its many utili-ties. Interestingly, with just one donation amount of$10, $15, $20, or $25 you can unlock all the utilitiesand receive their updates free, too.

Blue Crab Lite is the bare-bones version of Blue Crab, inwhich you have no control over the crawling process other

than pausing or stopping it.

ATPM 14.05 33 Review: Blue Crab 4.9.5

VerdictPower and ease of use usually don’t go hand in hand.While anyone equipped with Blue Crab can easilystart grabbing Web pages, making the most of thesoftware requires an extra level of technical exper-tise. Not everyone can readily associate %20 withthe space character or know the extensions for imagefiles displayable on the Web. It does not help thatthe documentation is a few versions behind. Havingreference materials in the documentation, perhaps assimple as a URL, would help the less technical users.Still, Blue Crab is a good tool to have for any Web-archiving endeavors.

Copyright © 2008 Linus Ly, lly@atpm.com. Reviewing inatpm is open to anyone. If you’re interested, write to us atreviews@atpm.com.

ATPM 14.05 34 Review: Blue Crab 4.9.5

Software Reviewby Sylvester Roque, sroque@atpm.com

Drive Genius 2Developer: Prosoft Engineering1

Price: $99Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4.9, 1 GHz

processor. Universal2.Recommended: Quartz Extreme for ani-

mated user interface.Trial: Fully-limited (many3 disk write

features disabled).If there were an award for sexiest category of Macsoftware, disk drive maintenance utilities probablyaren’t even in the competition. I’m probably in thegroup of Mac users that doesn’t think about theseprograms until I need them. Recently, I was forcedto think about this a bit: I had older versions of sev-eral utilities that either weren’t Leopard-compatibleor wouldn’t boot my Mac Pro.

OverviewOver the years, one thing has occurred to me aboutdisk utility programs. It seems that your options areto buy several programs, each optimized for a fewtasks, or one program designed to perform severaltasks. Drive Genius 2 fits squarely into the secondschool of thought: one utility to perform several re-lated tasks.

Using one program to protect data integrity andoptimize drive performance is only half the equation.A powerful program has to be designed in such away that its use is comprehensible. At best, badlydesigned programs don’t get used. At worst, theyincrease the likelihood that users inadvertently makemistakes. Inadvertent mistakes with hard drive utili-ties can lead to lost or corrupted data. Drive Geniusattempts to create just the right mix of a powerfulyet easy-to-use program.

To be most useful to you, Drive Genius must ei-ther boot from the DVD or from a second drive.Many of the operations it supports cannot be runfrom the current boot drive because the drive mustbe unmounted to complete the operation.

1http://www.prosoftengineering.com/products/drive_genius.php

2http://www.apple.com/universal/3http://www.prosoftengineering.com/downloads/

Initial ImpressionsMy first impression of a new program often beginswith the installation process. I should read the man-ual first, but rarely do, unless the program in ques-tion has a reputation for being particularly picky inthis regard. Drive Genius doesn’t disappoint here.Dragging the Drive Genius folder from the DVD toyour Mac’s Applications folder copies it to your harddrive. Upon the program’s first launch you will beprompted for a name and serial number. If your Macdoesn’t support Quartz Extreme, Drive Genius 2 dis-ables the animated user interface—which can also bedisabled from the program’s preferences. All of thetasks performed will still function but without thepictures of spinning hard drives and flying data. Au-tomatically disabling the animated icons was one ofthe first things to provide a positive first impression.

One of the other polished touches which con-tributes to a good first impression of Drive Geniusis the automatic check for updated versions of theprogram, which happens each time the program isrun. Normally I would consider this an annoyingintrusion, but it is important. Using outdated diskutilities can seriously damage your data. The checkis almost unnoticeable with a broadband connection.If you don’t have an always-on Internet connection,or you’re willing to risk having an outdated pro-gram, this feature can be easily disabled by choosing“Check for Updates” from the Drive Genius menu.The resulting dialog provides an option for disablingauto update checking.

The Main Program InterfaceOnce launched, Drive Genius’s Main Menu resemblesa cross between a system preference pane and thecover flow view in iTunes. The main portion of thescreen looks like a preference pane. Icons represent-ing each of Drive Genius’s major drive operations areplaced in the center of the screen. Six operations arerepresented in the first screen. Clicking the green ar-row provides access to icons representing the five re-maining test areas. Each test has a descriptive iconnot unlike the album art viewed in cover flow modein iTunes. The primary difference is that the icons

ATPM 14.05 35 Review: Drive Genius 2

are side-by-side rather than stacked on top of eachother à la iTunes. This eliminates the need to scrollthrough tests to get to the area that you need.

Main Menu

I thought I would find the process of accessingthe second tier of tests annoying—it really isn’t. Al-though I might prefer having icons for all the testson the same screen, transitioning between the twomain menu screens occurs quickly on my Mac Pro.If you find this process annoying, or perhaps a bitslow on older machines, use the pop-up menu in theupper right side of the program window. From hereyou can access any of the test suites. The name ofthe currently running test appears here, and you canalso use it to return to the main menu.

Once you’ve chosen an operation to perform, stepone of Prosoft’s view of drive management is com-plete. Steps two and three involve selecting a targetvolume and setting the necessary parameters to com-plete the operation. The program window changes abit to make this part of the process easier.

Setting And Applying Test parametersOnce an operation is selected, the main windowchanges slightly. Icons representing the major op-erations are replaced by a four-paned window. Theleftmost pane runs vertically along almost the en-tirety of the program window. In all the operationsthis pane has the same function—select the drive orvolume on which to work. This completes step twoof the process.

The remainder of the window is divided into threehorizontal panes. These panes carry out step three ofthe process—setting and applying parameters for thechosen operation. The top pane either asks you to se-

lect a volume or presents information about that vol-ume depending upon the operation being performed.

The second horizontal pane allows you to set spe-cific parameters for each operation. Choosing Initial-ize, for example, shifts this pane so that the user canchoose either Apple Partition Map or GUID PartitionTable. Choose a Repartition operation, and the pre-viously simple window changes to present options forthe name, type, and size of each partition. Althoughthe content of this pane changes according to the op-eration, the layout is always well thought-out, andchanges are accomplished with a few mouse clicks orkeystrokes. Even the Repartition screen, which hasperhaps the most options, is easy to understand withthis arrangement.

Repartition Screen

The third horizontal pane is the smallest of thepanes. Throughout each operation this pane hastwo functions: inform the user about what needsto be done to successfully complete the operation,and start the operation. The text in this windowvaries from operation to operation but one thingremains constant—the “?” Bubble at the bottomof the screen. A quick click here takes you to DriveGenius’s searchable PDF-based manual. Curiously,the main menu is the only screen without this helpbubble.

What Can Be DoneThere are eleven major operations that can be per-formed with Drive Genius 2. Detailed descriptions ofeach would likely take more time to read than youhave. Instead I’ll list the operations, which have self-explanatory names, and comment about one or two

ATPM 14.05 36 Review: Drive Genius 2

items that caught my attention right away and werelargely responsible for my interest in the program.

Users can perform the following operations withrelative ease: Information, Initialize, Defrag, Repar-tition, Benchtest, Duplicate, Repair, Shred, IntegrityCheck (make sure the data is readable and writable),Sector Edit, and Scan (find and deallocate badblocks).

While preparing for this review I ran each of thetests except for “Sector Edit.” I’ve never been confi-dent enough with my knowledge of that area to riskdata or feel competent discussing it. Having saidthat, all the tests perform as advertised and do soin times that are comparable to other utilities. Ididn’t time most of the tests because too many vari-ables come into play to give reliable information. Mythought is that for most of these tasks you want reli-ability rather than speed.

Each of the tests describes the operation’s pur-pose and includes a well-thought-out interface. Ifan operation could destroy data, users are warnedabout the possibility before continuing. Throughoutthe program and manual there are reminders aboutthe importance of having a backup in case somethingunforeseen happens.

There are a few things that struck my at-tention about the “Duplicate” operation. If avolume/partition is selected, users are limited tocopying HFS+ volumes. Selecting the entire deviceallows copying of filesystems from other operatingsystems, including Mac OS 9, Windows, and Linux.Using this portion of the program on OS 9 volumesmay cause you to lose the ability to boot from the OS9 volume. At the moment, I cannot test its abilityto copy Windows volumes, but I should be able tosoon.

I was able to “clone” my boot drive containingLeopard once I booted from the DVD. The processwent flawlessly and took almost eight minutes lesswith Drive Genius than with Carbon Copy Cloner.In fairness to Carbon Copy Cloner, having to bootfrom the Drive Genius DVD eats about 4:30 of thetime savings if I can’t boot from another drive. Evenunder those conditions, rebooting from another driveconsumes over two minutes of the time savings. As faras I can tell, running this operation from a hard drivewould require three drives, since both the source andtarget drives must be unmounted during the process.

The big draw for me in Drive Genius was the abil-ity to repartition a drive without having to reformatthe drive and losing data. I seem to have a knack for

using drive partitions as a means of organization. Un-fortunately, several times in the past I have createdpartitions that quickly became too small for their in-tended purpose. Drive Genius solves this problemnicely with the ability to repartition a drive. Thecaveat is that you must have some unallocated spaceon the drive before being able to expand the parti-tion. If the space is there, it’s possible to move thingsaround as needed. If you want to hide a partition, thisis the place to go.

What Can’t Be DoneDrive Genius is not a backup program, nor is it a datarecovery program. That’s why reminders to backupyour data are included throughout the program andthe documentation. If you are interested, Prosoft hasother software to satisfy. It’s also not designed tobenchmark or otherwise test the health of your entiresystem. As the name implies, Drive Genius focuseson your drives.

There are some drives that Drive Genius cannotwork with. If you need to work with MS-DOS orRAID drives, you’ll need other utilities.

Things I Would Like to See in the ProgramMy gripes with this program are minor. It does thethings I need this type of utility to perform. Some ofyou may consider it too picky. For what it’s worth,here are the things I noticed:

If you click on the “?” icon within the programit brings you to the manual. As far as I can tell, nomatter what you are doing it defaults to the first pageof the manual. It would be nice if clicking the linktook users to the section of the manual relevant tothe task being performed.

In the “Duplicate” segment, I’d like the ability to“clone” the boot drive while booted from that drive,à la Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper4. I realizethat this process has the limitation of not producinga block-by-block accurate clone of the system, but itwould meet most users’ basic cloning needs as well asallowing users to work in other programs while theclone is being completed.

Final ThoughtsFor a while I debated the rating for this program.Were the concerns I had enough to deny it atpm’shighest rating? After all, this is a rock-solid programthat works as advertised. Ultimately I settled on arating of Excellent because in the scope of things my

4http://www.atpm.com/12.04/superduper.shtml

ATPM 14.05 37 Review: Drive Genius 2

concerns were minor. Drive Genius is definitely wortha place in your utility closet.

Copyright © 2008 Sylvester Roque, sroque@atpm.com. Re-viewing in atpm is open to anyone. If you’re interested,write to us at reviews@atpm.com.

ATPM 14.05 38 Review: Drive Genius 2

Accessory Reviewby Chris Lawson, http://chrislawson.net

Flipp Premium Leather Case For iPod classicDeveloper: PDO1

Price: $30Requirements: iPod video or iPod clas-

sic (two different models, depend-ing on thickness)

Trial: NoneCompared to many manufacturers, PDO is a relativenewcomer to the iPod accessories market, but thatdoesn’t seem to have hurt their ability to produce aquality, functional, and attractive iPod case.

The Flipp is a classic black leather flip-styleiPod case in the same vein as the PodFolio2 andLeatherPod3. The case is available in two sizes: onefor the thin iPod video and iPod classic models (30GB and 80 GB, respectively), and one for the thickermodels (60 GB or 80 GB iPod video, or 160 GB iPodclassic).

1http://www.pdostore.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=423

2http://www.atpm.com/13.10/podfolio.shtml3http://www.atpm.com/8.09/leatherpod.shtml

Closed

It’s obvious that PDO took some notes from thecompetition’s hits and misses. Like many moderniPod cases, the Flipp is lined with a soft syntheticmaterial to prevent scratches due to the case and, likemany flip-style cases, the Flipp holds its outer shellclosed with a pair of tiny—but strong—magnets atthe base of the flap.

ATPM 14.05 39 Review: Flipp Premium Leather Case For iPod classic

Open

Unlike the PodFolio, but like the LeatherPod,the Flipp has a clear plastic window over the iPod’sscreen for extra protection. PDO went the extra mileand sandwiched the clear plastic between two layersof material, holding it off the screen and avoiding thescratch problem that the LeatherPod had. Anotherarea where it’s obvious PDO learned from others’mistakes is the hinge of the flip—the Flipp has a7/8ths-width hinge that leaves ample room for largethird-party headphone jacks but provides almost asmuch protection as a full-width hinge.

Corner

The Flipp has a sturdy-feeling belt clip on theback that easily slips on and off your waist no mat-ter what your apparel is made of, but miraculouslymanages to remain secure even if you’re running. Thedock connector cutout on the bottom is neat and tidy,more so than on many non-rigid iPod cases I’ve seen,and allows for easy charging of the iPod via the fac-tory USB cable. The stitching is also very neat andtidy throughout the case; the overall quality of thematerials and workmanship on the Flipp seem to befar superior to most of the cases I’ve seen in this pricerange.

Another nice touch that adds to the classic lookof black leather is the complete absence of any logoson the flap. The PDO logo is on the back of the case,just below the belt clip, safely out of the way andassuring you that gaudy logos won’t ruin the lines ofthe case with your Armani suit or Wrangler jeans.

ATPM 14.05 40 Review: Flipp Premium Leather Case For iPod classic

Back

I was unable to test the case with any dockconnector–based accessories, but the leather acrossthe bottom of the case is fairly thick, so don’t expectmany accessories wider than the connector itselfto work well, if at all. Of course, this is a fairlywidespread problem with iPod cases and is by nomeans unique to the Flipp.

There are a lot of $30 cases out there, and thereare even a number of leather cases out there in thisprice range, but of all the ones I’ve seen so far, PDO’sFlipp is the highest quality and best looking. Long-time readers will know I do not hand out Excellentratings lightly, but this product truly deserves it.

Copyright © 2008 Chris Lawson. Reviewing in atpmis open to anyone. If you’re interested, write to us atreviews@atpm.com.

ATPM 14.05 41 Review: Flipp Premium Leather Case For iPod classic

Software Reviewby Paul Fatula, pfatula@atpm.com

SpacePig 1.0.2Developer: baKno1

Price: $10Requirements: Mac OS X, Internet con-

nection. Universal2.Trial: Feature-limited (you only get one

life)SpacePig got my attention because of its sillypremise. You’re a pig, on the moon, collecting coinsand diamonds. You’re the only pig on the moon, Imight add; there aren’t any others. If this were anAtari 2600 game, I’d reach straight for the manualto learn the pig’s name and why he has left his hometo risk his life pursuing lunar riches. But since it’sa Macintosh game, all I could do is reach for mykeyboard and start playing.

As it turns out, the moon is pretty small. You’llrun around it many, many times, in all different direc-tions, gathering wealth and avoiding—because theycan kill you—meteroids and green spikey things thatremind me a bit of conkers. Often the wealth is overyour head, but you can jump—very high and veryfar, thanks to your rocket-pack and the moon’s lowgravity—to reach them.

I suppose all of this sounds easy, but it’s not. Itcan be difficult to tell when something is directlyoverhead. Even when leaping for diamonds, which

1http://www.bakno.com/SpacePig/index.html2http://www.apple.com/universal/

are stationary, I often miss and need a second or thirdtry. As for coins, which fly through the sky. . .catchingone is more luck than skill. It doesn’t help that whileyou’re in the air you can’t change direction, only lookaround.

But honestly, I find SpacePig amusing. Lots ofmotion on the computer screen tends to make mewoozy, it’s just the way I am: but I’ll play as longas I can. The graphics are simple, old-fashionedmaybe, kind of charming or nostalgic. And the mu-sic, streamed from baKno, is great, somehow fittingperfectly with floating slowly around the moon. Stopplaying and listen. The pig sits down, and the moonspins and spins until I am so dizzy I have to standup and keep playing.

Like all pigs, it’s inevitable that you will die, coldand alone on the moon. Four times you will die,and then it’s really over. The reward for your effortsis fame: high scores are posted online3. As of thiswriting, I’m number six.

My two biggest complaints about SpacePig havenothing to do with gameplay. The first problem,in fact, is common to many games I’ve played: ifyou play in full-screen mode, the icons on your desk-top are out of place when you quit. To me, thatneedlessly sours the gaming experience. SpacePig, at

3http://www.bakno.com/SpacePig/scores.html

ATPM 14.05 42 Review: SpacePig 1.0.2

least, opens in a window by default: but beware ofthe mess if you decide to play full-screen.

My second complaint only affects those who payto register the game. You can’t paste your serial num-ber into the window to register; you must type out thelong string of hyphenated gibberish. You also mustbe connected to the Internet in order to enter yourserial number. It’s annoying, since there’s no reasonwhy a program shouldn’t be able to validate a serialnumber without phoning home. But it gets worse: if,having successfully entered your serial number, youwant to play again later without an Internet connec-tion (say, on the plane), the game thinks you’re notregistered. This takes anti-piracy measures to suchan extreme that they interfere with the use of thegame by people who actually paid for it.

SpacePig isn’t modern or complicated, and itdoesn’t require much thought. Sometimes, however,that can be a good thing. If you’re looking for asomewhat silly arcade-style game that’s relaxingrather than frantic, and you have a persistent Inter-net connection (Big baKno is watching you!), giveSpacePig a try.

Copyright © 2008 Paul Fatula, pfatula@atpm.com. Review-ing in atpm is open to anyone. If you’re interested, write tous at reviews@atpm.com.

ATPM 14.05 43 Review: SpacePig 1.0.2

FAQ: Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat Is ATPM?About This Particular Macintosh (atpm) is, amongother things, a monthly Internet magazine or “e-zine.” atpm was created to celebrate the personalcomputing experience. For us this means the mostpersonal of all personal computers—the Apple Mac-intosh. About This Particular Macintosh is intendedto be about your Macintosh, our Macintoshes, andthe creative, personal ideas and experiences of every-one who uses a Mac. We hope that we will continueto be faithful to our mission.

Are You Looking for New Staff Members?atpm is looking to add more regular reviewers to ourstaff. Though all positions with About This Partic-ular Macintosh are volunteer, reviewing is a greatway to share your product knowledge and experiencewith fellow members of the Macintosh community.If you’re interested, contact atpm’s Reviews Editor,Paul Fatula1.

How Can I Subscribe to ATPM?Visit the subscriptions page2.

Which Format Is Best for Me?• TheOnline Webzine edition is for people who

want to view atpm in their Web browser, whileconnected to the Internet. It provides sharptext, lots of navigation options, and live linksto atpm back issues and other Web pages.

• The Offline Webzine is an HTML version ofatpm that is formatted for viewing offline andmade available in a Mac OS X disk image. Thegraphics, content, and navigation elements arethe same as with the Online Webzine, but youcan view it without being connected to the In-ternet. It requires a Web browser.

• The Print PDF edition is saved in Adobe PDFformat. It has a two-column layout with smallertext and higher-resolution graphics that are op-timized for printing. It may be viewed onlinein a browser, or downloaded and viewed in Ap-ple’s Preview or Adobe Reader on Macintosh or

1mailto:reviews@atpm.com2http://www.atpm.com/subscribe

Windows. PDFs may be magnified to any sizeand searched with ease.

• The Screen PDF edition is also saved inAdobe PDF format. It’s a one-column layoutwith larger text that’s optimized for readingon-screen.

How Can I Submit Cover Art?We enjoy the opportunity to display new, originalcover art every month. We’re also very proud of thepeople who have come forward to offer us cover art foreach issue. If you’re a Macintosh artist and interestedin preparing a cover for atpm, please e-mail us. Theway the process works is pretty simple. As soon as wehave a topic or theme for the upcoming issue we letyou know about it. Then, it’s up to you. We do notpay for cover art but we are an international publica-tion with a broad readership and we give appropriatecredit alongside your work. There’s space for an e-mail address and a Web page URL, too. Write toeditor@atpm.com for more information.

How Can I Send a Letter to the Editor?Got a comment about an article that you read inatpm? Is there something you’d like us to writeabout in a future issue? We’d love to hear from you.Send your e-mail to editor@atpm.com. We often pub-lish the e-mail that comes our way.

How Can I Contribute to ATPM?There are several sections of atpm to which readersfrequently contribute:

Segments: Slices from the Macintosh LifeThis is one of our most successful spaces and one ofour favorite places. We think of it as kind of theatpm “guest room.” This is where we will publishthat sentimental Macintosh story that you promisedyourself you would one day write. It’s that specialplace in atpm that’s specifically designated for yourstories. We’d really like to hear from you. SeveralSegments contributors have gone on to become atpmcolumnists. Send your stuff to editor@atpm.com.

Hardware and Software Reviewsatpm publishes hardware and software reviews. How-ever, we do things in a rather unique way. Techno-

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jargon can be useful to engineers but is not always ahelp to most Mac users. We like reviews that informour readers about how a particular piece of hardwareor software will help their Macintosh lives. We wantthem to know what works, how it may help them intheir work, and how strongly we recommend it. Pleasecontact our reviews editor3, before you begin writing,if you have a piece of hardware or software that you’dlike to review.

Which Products Have You Reviewed?Check our reviews index4 for the complete list.

What is Your Rating Scale?atpm uses the following ratings (in order from bestto worst): Excellent, Very Nice, Good, Okay, Rot-ten. Products rated Good or better are ones that werecommend. Okay products get the job done. Werecommend avoiding Rotten products.

Will You Review My Product?If you or your company has a product that you’d liketo see reviewed, send a copy our way. We’re alwayslooking for interesting pieces of software to try out.Contact reviews@atpm.com for shipping information.You can send press releases to news@atpm.com.

Where Can I Find Back Issues of ATPM?Back issues5 of atpm, dating since April 1995, areavailable in DOCMaker stand-alone format and asPDF. In addition, all issues since atpm 2.05 (May1996) are available in HTML format.

What If My Question Isn’t AnsweredAbove?We hope by now that you’ve found what you’relooking for (We can’t imagine there’s something elseabout atpm that you’d like to know.). But justin case you’ve read this far (We appreciate yourtenacity.) and still haven’t found that little pieceof information about atpm that you came here tofind, please feel free to e-mail us at (You guessed it.)editor@atpm.com.

3mailto:reviews@atpm.com4http://www.atpm.com/reviews/5http://www.atpm.com/Back/

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