The Cult of Mac
By Leander Kahney
Publisher: No Starch Press
Price: 39.95 US
ISBN: 1886411832
I review quite a few computer books, most of which are technical how-tos and the like. I read a ton of other books, though, most of which are fiction or historical in nature. But the books reviewed here at MyMac.com are Mac focused books, most of which end up on a shelf before I donate them to the local library. So it was a pleasant surprise to find Leander Kahney’s hard cover The Cult of Mac in my mailbox last week.
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Happy Thanksgiving!
This cartoon is copyright Chris Seibold.
I’m going to say something serious here. No really, I am. I AM! Stop with the eye rolling and waiting for the punch line.
OK, XP is not a bad O/S based on the user interface. I doubt many could argue that it is not better than Windows 95/98/ME. It is easy to navigate (especially networked drives, though still not as easy as OS/X’s Finder) and setting up shortcuts to important items is just as easy as it is on the Mac (Easier in some cases). Where it breaks down is security. Microsoft made a big mistake in trying to include everything and the kitchen sink. Not that it is a bad idea; it was their implementation that was faulty.
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40 Digital Photography Techniques, Second Edition
by John Kim
Sybex / Youngjin.com
ISBN 89-314-3511-8, 215 pages plus Windows-only CD
$16.99 US, $23.99 CN, £9.99 UK
The rarest title to cross our path in a long time, this second edition of 40 Digital Photography Techniques delivers exactly what it promises: photographic techniques. With bare-essential content concerning camera selection or software image manipulation, readers can actually learn to become better photographers by following the time-tested advice in this most affordable book.
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OK, I admit this sounds like hysterical ranting especially from someone who writes on a Macintosh biased site. Bear with me a moment.
First off, you must turn off your blinders. There are people out there who for whatever reason don’t like Apple. Many of these people are well educated, know computers very well, and are able to put together more than two sentences without saying “um”, “ya know”, or “like” as thought gatherers before moving on to their next topic.
Their reasons for not buying or even trying the Mac O/S range from replacing software that they are comfortable with, lack of Mac support for a favorite application, investment in their current hardware, lack of knowledge of the benefits of O/S X in comparison to whatever version of Windows they are running, and so on. So be it. They will continue with their choice because it is what suits them. At least they have valid and well thought out arguments for staying with Windows. I wish them the best of luck and Godspeed. Then there is the second type.
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Color Management in Mac OS X: A Practical Approach
by Joshua Weisberg
Apple Pro Training Series / Peachpit Press
ISBN 0-321-24576-8, 381 pages
Includes CD with project and lesson media files
I am not happy with any previous methods used to match color from screen image to printed output. A serious investment in hardware and software is often necessary to make sure “what you see is what you get,” with reliability and consistency. Photographers and digital artists worldwide are frustrated, and so are my students and I.
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Mac News Sites and Advertising – A Call To Arms
Chris Seibold recently wrote an article, without naming names, about the practice of many Mac websites who simply copy and paste press releases and call it “news”. While I agree this is a deplorable practice, and is very much being an unpaid shill for the PR agencies of the hardware and software world, it is widespread in practice. And not just the Mac world.
Real news isn’t hard to come by on the Mac web. MacInTouch is an excellent example. It is, in essence, news by the readers. The readers supply almost all of the content on MacInTouch. Any press releases there, and there are a bunch, are clearly marked as such. The readers and those who participate in the freeform style of Mac journalism are not paid. They do so of their own free will, to share their thoughts, views, frustrations, and platitudes of all things Mac with their fellow readers. This makes it an invaluable source for actual news, even if there are flaws with this approach.
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Altec Lansing VS-3121 Computer Speaker
Company: Altec Lansing
MSRP: $79.95
Manufacturers Product Web Page
When undertaking a speaker review the reviewer treads dangerous ground. You see there are these people that exist who call themselves audiophiles. These are the kind of people who will make argue indefinitely about the various pros and cons of audio encoding, proper acoustics for a listening area, the various merits of speakers that reproduce tones beyond the range of human hearing and the renormalization of the acoustic waveform with respect to personal brain biomass (actually I made the last one, but it sounds deliciously technical). Plus they’ll go nuts about Ogg Vorbis all day long. If you are one of these people (and they are about as rare as meat eating Gorillas) I urge you to read no further. Trust me when I say Altec Lansing’s VS-3121 are not for you (for the semi technical minded the spec sheet can be found here. I suggest you save the $79.95 suggested retail price and deposit it in a compound interest bearing account. Given enough time and a favorable interest rate you will finally be able to afford that purest of listening experiences: hiring the damn band to play in your backyard. Of course you’ll be disappointed in Foghat’s performance, but it is the price of perfection.
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Mac OS X Power Hound
by Rob Griffiths
Pouge Press
Price: $24.95
ISBN: 059600818x
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/macxpu/index.html
I have read a ton of Mac books since starting MyMac.com back in 1995. A LOT of them. And while most actually do convey the information you were hoping to glean from buying the book in the first place, many do so in such a dry and boring manner that I found myself simply trying to stay awake while reading. That was my worry here as well, as I have never read any of Rob Griffiths writing before. He’s the creator of MacOSXhints.com, a site I have visited often. But that site is more a collaborative effort with a ton of other people, all pooling their knowledge together. So how would Rob do all by his lonesome?
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RoadTrip! FM transmitter
Company: Newer Technology
Price: $19.99
http://www.macsales.com
If you are an iPod owner, you probably want to be able to listen to your iPod in the car. It is a perfect fit, really. Unfortunately, Apple does not have an easy, built-in solution. So the after market is afloat with add-ons which will allow you to connect your iPod to your car stereo, or at the least, transmit the audio to your cars radio. The later are called “FM Transmitter” because that is just what they do, they transmit the audio coming from your iPod to a radio signal that can be picked up and played over your cars radio.
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Book Bytes Panther Titles – Comparison Review of:
Special Edition Using Mac OS X, v10.3 Panther
by Brad Miser
Que Publishing Continue reading »
ISBN 0-7897-3075-8, 1047 pages
$39.99 US, $57.99 CN, £289.99 UK
Apple restricts the flow of songs between computer and iPod, in order to protect the integrity of corporate digital rights management agreements with music producers. How is an iPod owner supposed to archive or back up songs?
Donationware/freeware Senuti addresses this problem, and I use it daily to make sure my precious songs are archived onto an external drive that resides in a different location from my iPod.
Shareware author Whitney Young agreed to an email interview with MyMac.com. (With minimal editing, I left his written syntax and formatting as I received it, to preserve the flavor of his energetic prose.) You can learn more about Senuti and Whitney’s other creations at:
The RePorter
Company: Marathon Computer Inc.
Price: $59.00 US
http://www.marathoncomputer.com/reporter.html
Do you find yourself constantly reaching around the back of your G5 to plug and unplug USB cables? Firewire? Audio in or out? Do you wish there were more ports in front of your computer, or at least extensions to the ports on the back? If so, then Marathon Computer’s new RePorter may be your answer.
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PayPal Hacks
By Shannon Sofield, Dave Nielsen, Dave Burchell
Publisher: O’Reilly
Price: $24.95
ISBN# 0596007515
PayPal Hacks is a 343-page book designed for those who use PayPal often. I am one such user, so I was very interested in reviewing this book to learn more about the service. Unfortunately, the book fails on many levels, while still giving some good examples of how to most benefit from PayPal.
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I spend my days as an educator and even student on college campii. This year I am spending more time at a state school here rather than the private school. Two very different worlds they are too. What struck me immediately when I went on campus was that immediately after class everyone digs out a cell phone and starts talking. If you’re walking you’re talking. Pretty hard to carry on a conversation with them. The cell in the cell phone contains all their interests and rational plans, and only these. Anything outside it is just incidental. It’s a weird sort of techno-solipsism in a way I suppose.
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Mail Factory 1.4
Company: BeLight Software
Price: $38.95 US (CD version) $29.95 US (Download version)
http://www.belightsoft.com
BeLight Software also has another great app for OS X users called Mail Factory. Simply put, it allows you to create labels and mail envelopes. But we’re not just talking only plain old labels and envelopes. Mail Factory also lets you produce envelopes and labels where you can add images, ClipArt, graphics and whatever text you want. No more dull, boring labels and envelopes!!
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Believe it or not, we are only two months away from another Macworld Expo! (And even scarier, around seven weeks until Christmas! AHHH!) So I was thinking, and without going into the rumor mill, what can we expect at this Macworld Expo?
On the Apple side, I think it is reasonable to look for both a new hardware and software product announcement. The new iMac was just released, so I don’t expect anything new on that end. The PowerMac G5 line is still relatively fresh, but a huge speed boost would probably be in order come the first of the year. I would not, however, consider a G5 speed boost a Steve Jobs “One More Thing” moment. I expect he will mention it in passing during the keynote, however.
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PearPC running Mac OS-X 10.3
A How To!
By Owen Rubin
There it was on the net, something called PearPC, which is a G3 emulator for Windows and Linux environments. Of course, a PPC running on a Windows machine just screamed out for me to try and get it to run Mac OS-X. A quick view of the about page for PearPC at Sourceforge says Mac OS-X 10.3 runs well with some caveats. Cool, how difficult could this be?
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Business Card Composer 2.3
Company: BeLight Software
Price: $48.95 US (CD version) $39.95 US (Download version)
http://www.belightsoft.com
Once upon a time, if you wanted business cards, you went to a print shop and ordered either five hundred or a thousand and then came back in a week to pick them up. Five hundred would cost $25 and a thousand for $45. And then for the next few years, whenever you changed phone numbers or were promoted or moved to a different section, you would just scratch out the old information and pen in the new stuff. (I still have half a box from when I first ordered business cards in 1986!)
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Leo LaPorte’s 2005 Gadget Guide
Leo LaPorte and Michael Miller
Que Publishing
www.quepublishing.com
US $24.99
MyMac book reviewers receive a steady stream of Mac-related books for review; the local UPS driver could find the way to my house in in the most Stygian gloom.
Most publishers generally do a creditable job of of publishing books that have at least a fighting chance of selling enough copies to recoup their publishing costs, even if the author gets little for his toil. Accordingly, most books that I review are at least good; very few deserve bad notices.
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MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384