Download the show here, or listen in the player above.

Tim and Chad go over the weeks Mac news, including the iPhone update, the Amazon MP3 store, and Emoticons in school. We also go over some reader feedback, and say goodbye to Chad for at least one show, possibly many more.

As always, we would love to have some feedback. Send us an email here, or simply call 1-801-938-5559 and leave a message.


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Fifty bucks? That’s not much chicken scratch these days. It will buy you two years of AppleCare for your iPod, or a pair of replacement iPod batteries. It will pay for the difference between the 8GB and 4GB new "wide body" iPod nano. It will get you into Moscone Center next January for a week of Macworld 2008 Expo fun and games, with enough change to pay for a cookie that was baked fresh at Halloween.

Or you can pay $50 for some world class software. I have written separately about the three applications being discussed below. This Nemo Memo will focus on their utility and value.

* * * * *

DiskStudio from Micromat was featured here, including an interview with Christian Pickman, product manager. Since then a new Universal Binary version 1.5.2 was introduced that extended the functionality of the application, and allows it to work with Intel Macs.

Apple’s free included Disk Utility does an acceptable job of creating and deleting hard drive partitions when a disk is initially being set up or initialized. DiskStudio allows users to create or delete specific partitions, without erasing the physical hard drive.

Both when testing hard drives for MyMac.com reviews and for my personal/professional volume management, I use Micromat’s DiskStudio at least once every week. Roughly once per month it helps me with partitions that are either invisible or unusable within the Mac OS and Disk Utility. On those occasions my clients or I would gladly pay fifty dollars per partition !! when the alternative is lost or corrupted data.

Most readers of MyMac.com can probably go their entire lives without giving two hoots about DiskStudio’s specific skill set. But techies, power users, and gear-heads who mess around with hard drive partitions will consider this gem to be a phenomenal bargain for its $50 price tag.

The software is not perfect. There are occasional unexpected times you need to scratch your head and figure out how to get it to behave to your specifications, especially in complex multi-partition situations. But when it works, it works, and you can save hours/days/lifetimes of stress and frustration when DiskStudio digs you out of a mammoth case of partitionitis.

You know who you are, if this is a utility whose time is right, because the cost certainly is reasonable.

* * * * *

Fission from Rogue Amoeba is priced at only $32, leaving you $18 change to spend at the aforementioned Macworld 2008 Expo. Fission is to audio tracks what Micromat’s DiskStudio is to hard drive partitions: it allows you to alter them to your specifications, with precision and panache.

Let’s say you record an hour of Bob Dylan’s "Theme Time Radio Hour" on XM/AOL Radio using Audio Hijack Pro, also from Rogue Amoeba. Only two of the songs Bob plays during the show are keepers, and the rest are disposable. The two worthwhile songs are not adjacent to one another.

Using Fission, you remove all unwanted audio, glue the two segments together, and have a seamless, lossless MP3 file of your custom edited mix. I do this every week, after selecting my favorite parts of Dylan’s programs. The possibilities are infinite.

The learning process is quick. Rogue Amoeba provides a thorough manual plus quick response email support. Version 1.5.1 of Fission has some nifty new features added since our review, posted here. If MyMac.com was reviewing it today, we’d award it a perfect score. Personally, I can’t live without it, and all audio aficionados will quickly agree with my appraisal.

Update: Paul from Rogue Amoeba reminds MyMac.com readers that "for $50 they can get Fission AND Audio Hijack Pro. It’s a pretty darned good deal."

* * * * *

Glance from Glance Networks is a life-altering network-based screen sharing application. Read about it in our interview here with one of its founders, Taylor Kew, who died recently. He will be missed.

The cost of Glance is fifty dollars per month, or $500 per year. That sounds expensive, until you see Glance in action. Just ask any of the dozens of Nemo’s friends/clients/family members who rely on it. Most of them would fork over fifty bucks per session, when it helps them get through a critical situation.

Big news: with a single Glance subscription, up to a hundred viewers now can be hosted simultaneously. Wowzer. For a small-to-large training, sales, education, or schmoozing group of Glancers, it’s a heckuva lot easier than driving or flying for an in person meeting.

Let’s say I’m helping Artie learn how to post his photo essay as a MyMac.com blog. He fires up the Glance application on his MacBook, and within a minute I’m explaining how and where to point and click. This is a non-invasive procedure, and I have no access whatsoever to his crown jewels.

Like the two applications above, Glance is exceptional value, easy to use, straightforward of purpose, and provided by a very user-friendly company. I’m hooked. Again, you know if this sort of software will ring your chimes. The free trial makes it easy to try before you buy.

* * * * *

MyMac.com thanks the talented engineers, developers, and other dedicated people from Glance, Rogue Amoeba, and Micromat, for your ongoing support of the Macintosh community.

I just bought an iPod Classic. Well, not quite. My Wife bought me an 80 GB iPod Classic for my birthday. I could have gotten any of them, but the new iPod nano that is video capable was swallowed up in my huge hands and the click-wheel felt very fragile as compared to the previous versions. She also asked if I wanted to wait until the iPod Touch was out, but after playing a bit with its more expensive brother the iPhone, I decided against it. I use my iPod mostly in my car and the comfortable and easy to use click-wheel is better for what I wanted an iPod for.

So good for me, I now have a full-sized iPod. So what? Well, this is the first iPod I’ve owned that was video ready and this necessitated some changes in how I manage the media for it. I do have two iTunes purchased movies (Star Trek: Generations and The Sixth Sense) and a boatload of TV episodes (Heroes, 3 seasons of Battlestar Galactica, a few South Parks), but I keep them and most of my other QuickTime/iTunes compatible video files off my main drive. Why? Because they take up a LOT of room.

I have a 250 GB drive in my 24-inch Intel iMac and I need some extra space for occasionally trying out stuff and making movies. So imagine my dismay when once I consolidated my iTunes library to now include videos to put on my new sparkly iPod and discovered that I lost about 15% (a little more than 36 GB) of the available space. Yikes!

I needed to do something. That something was to remove my entire iTunes movie folder to another drive. Before continuing, remember that in order to use iTunes when this is done, the volume or drive you moved your iTunes library to MUST be mounted in order for iTunes to work properly.

Fortunately I have a lot of external drives. I use one more often than not as my main backup drive because it’s the quietest of them. I also have a two-bay FireWire 400/800 behemoth that would be perfect for this if it didn’t sound like an Airbus 380 with all engines on reverse thrust. I prefer as little noise as possible while working and the one I chose besides being quiet also had a 250 GB hard drive in it. All the steps I had to take to first use this drive (since I was already using it for backup) are unnecessary, so I won’t bore you those details and instead I’ll bore you with the steps you can use for an external or separate from your main drive for your iTunes library.

Before you start this procedure, it is imperative that you remember ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING! Before you delete any data, make damn sure you have successfully re-created your iTunes library. Nothing will make you want to kill yourself (or possibly me, which in my opinion is worse) than losing your entire audio and video iTunes collection. Also, if you’re a Windows user this will probably work as well, but I don’t have access to iTunes on a WinPC to try it. So, please be aware that I’m talking about Macs only. When we get to the part about moving stuff around, I’ll remind you of this again and give you a way to protect yourself in case something goes disastrously wrong. Lastly, if you don’t need to make a backup of your main drive, just follow the steps required to move the iTunes folder.

Let’s talk about the drive or volume for a moment. However big it is not too important other than that it is at least as big as your current iTunes library with some extra space (if you use a video iPod, a LOT of extra space). I have a 250 GB internal drive in my iMac. Why not use this for backup as well? Hard drives are cheap and getting cheaper all the time. So in my case I could use say a 320-500 GB drive to pull double duty. So, connect your external drive (that has nothing on it that you care about as we are about to wipe it clean) and fire up Disk Utility (Hard Drive -> Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility). Select your new drive and click on the “Partition” button right there in the middle. Find the “Split” button and hit it once. The drive will show as being of two parts. Use the upper part for your bootable backup (there are excellent reasons why to do this so just trust me on this) and the lower part for your iTunes moved library. Remember it needs to be at least as big as your current library and it’s probably not a bad idea to make it as big as your iPod’s storage capacity. Note that I have mine set-up for 100 GBs even though I have an 80 GB iPod. Why? Maybe there will be stuff I want to have around but not on my iPod all the time.

You’re all set now. Hit the partition button on the bottom (Last chance to back out) and the drive will wipe itself clean. Name each partition whatever you want, but make them distinctive enough to remember. Use SuperDuper, CarbonCopyCloner, or the backup utility of your choice to backup the rest of your drive, but let’s get back to iTunes and moving your library.

Step one is to find your iTunes folder. If you have an unblemished version, it is in your “Music” folder. Starting from scratch? Here’s the path: Hard Drive -> Users -> Your User name -> Music. There’s some other stuff in there too (like GarageBand files if you have iLife), but the only thing we’re concerned with is the actual ‘iTunes” folder.

Inside the iTunes folder are various other folders and important information. In for a penny, in for a pound, let’s move the whole thing. Select the volume or drive that you made earlier and now want to use for your iTunes music library. Once it’s available on your desktop, you can move the iTunes library to it. Drag and drop the entire folder. Depending on the size of your iTunes library it could take awhile. Once it’s finished, open the iTunes folder in its new location and play a few things in the finder window to make sure things are kosher. If everything is fine, we’ll move on to the next step.

Trash your iTunes library on your main drive….I’m kidding, DON’T do this. At least not yet. We need to make everything work first. Go ahead and fire up iTunes. Once it’s up, go to your iTunes menu bar and under iTunes is “Preferences”.

Bring that up and select the “Advanced” icon. You’ll see near the top a slightly grayed out section and “iTunes Music folder location”. Hit the change button and a new window will open. Click your way to the partition where you copied the iTunes folder, select that and then the “iTunes Music” folder inside. Now quit iTunes.

In your Music folder on the main drive (the one that currently holds the now former iTunes library) make a new folder and call it oldtunes. Drop the iTunes folder inside that to prevent iTunes from finding it. Start up iTunes again. It will take a little bit for iTunes to re-index all your stuff, but once it’s done, everything should work just like it did before.

Try stuff out. Make sure a wide variety of music, videos, and podcasts all work like they should. For a little extra fun, create an alias of the new iTunes folder on your new volume (select the folder and either use right-click or control-left-click and select “Make Alias). Move it to your music folder. Now you can look at what’s in your iTunes folder and play selections within it without having to choose the other drive or volume. If everything is good, go ahead and trash the oldtunes folder and reclaim a big chunk of your main drive. What if that external volume or drive fails???? Go back to the section where I talk about making backups. Use another drive to back up either both partitions or how ever many volumes you currently use. What if those fail too??? Now you’re just being paranoid.

Tim, Chad, and Guy talk about the latest happening in the Mac world, and put a call out to the listeners: what do YOU think the big Apple announcement will be for Macworld Expo 08 in January? Robert also sends in his comments on the new line of iPods and the iPhone. David Cohen returns with Fenestration, in which he talks about the difference between Parallels and VMware Fusion.

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LInks from the show:
SWsoft Parallels
VMware Fusion

I’ve read reviews about Dreamweaver, comparisons between it and GoLive, and even comparisons between different versions of Dreamweaver. What I haven’t read is how people use the program. So rather than write another review about its’ features I decided I would write about how I use Dreamweaver (DW) CS 3, version 9.

First a little background
I began using DW back at version 3 when Macromedia owned the program. I was new at web programming, taking some classes to create some web pages for a company I was employed at. The first class I took started me programming directly in HTML. Yes, writing code in this fashion was a good experience, but slow for me since I wasn’t doing it all the time. The next class introduced something to me called “Dreamweaver.” I remember how excited I was to not have to write code for a rollover. All I had to do was use drop down menus and tell the program what pictures I wanted to use, and where, and there it was on the page. Most of the time it worked as advertised. So I decided to use this newfound skill to share one of my hobbies, weather watching. My site can be viewed here.
This URL is primarily what I use DW for. I do a little freelance web programming, but the vast majority of the time I spend using DW is for my own site.

The First Time
Opening DW for the first time is an intimidating experience.
There are so many menu options and so many places to begin, it’s really tough using this program if you don’t have a training book, or had the opportunity to take a hands-on class. Sure, there are some people who could open the program and start right up, but I think most won’t be able to do that. Having said that, I will admit that the latest version of DW makes it much easier to start using the program than previous versions.

After starting up the program, you are greeted with a “Welcome Screen” full of choices.

This menu is broken up into three sections, “Open a recent item,” ‘Create New,” and “Create from Samples.”
Let’s take a look at the last two sections.

Create New
This section provides the user with blank pages or blank scripts. Click on “HTML” and get a blank page to start writing code in, if that is your pleasure. The same can be said for the Cold Fusion, PHP, CSS, JavaScript and XLM buttons. Other than the HTML button, beginning users probably will not use this section unless they can program in those languages.

Create from Samples
I think this is one of the most useful sections, especially if you are a beginner. Clicking on “CSS Style Sheet” or “Frameset” will give you blank CSS styled or various kinds of pages with frames enabled. This is a great place to start a new page. When you click on “Starter Page (Theme)” you’ll find a list of themed blank pages that come in sets.

For example, if you look at the “Travel” site pages you’ll see that DW provides five pages for this theme, a homepage, catalog, text page, product page, and a calendar page. If you were going to design a travel site, this themed sample provides all of the pages you need including links and images. These are all very customizable. Some others included are a Restaurant, Spa and lodging, but you can customize these themes to fit just about anything. The “Starter Page (Basic)” section gives you 25+ forms and basic layouts you can adapt for your site. All in all, this is a great area to start exploring DW from.

At the bottom of the Welcome Screen, there is a link entitled, “Getting Started”. Clicking on this link sends you online to the Adobe Help Resource Center.

From here you can access an index on the left that will answer just about any question you might have. There is also a search field provided so you can type in keywords to search on. The Adobe online help areas are quite extensive. They provide video tutorials and blogs that you can use to get answers to some of your questions.

After you set up your web site, and you are regularly uploading web pages to your host, you will want to use the “Manage Sites” window which you can access under the “window” menu option by dragging down to “Files.”

From this window you can see your web site files on both your hard drive AND on your remote host’s drive. Manipulating files using this window makes it easy to upload new files, update pages, and delete old pages and files off the host drive. If you have updated a page, say, added new graphics, when you use the upload option within the Manage Sites window, you’ll be given an option on whether or not you want to upload new images (Put dependant files?) or just the text portion of the page. This makes for swifter uploads to your site.

In conclusion
DW is the premier web creation program on the planet. It can help you create any kind of web page you can imagine with a variety of web programming languages. As you might expect, this much power can be very complicated. I have barely nicked the surface of what this program can do. If you can afford to take an external class, I would certainly suggest it. If not, buying one of the many DW books to use as a handy reference is highly recommended. You can use this program without any formal training, but the learning curve is not for the faint of heart.

The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book
by Scott Kelby
473 pages
ISBN: 978-0-321-50191-2
New Riders Press
www.newriders.com

Like so many other photographers and Photoshop users, I always look forward with delight when Scott Kelby publishes a new book or updates a previous edition of one of his works.

President of the National Association of Photoshop Users, Kelby has a canny knack for explaining things in short order form. You can always expect him to bring the latest techniques and useful shortcuts for getting things done. This new book, The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book follows that tradition.

If you have the previous edition of this book, you’ll certainly want this newest one if you’re now working in CS3. It’s completely updated with new photos, mostly new techniques, and with Kelby’s signature style and humor. Kelby is the author of nearly all the photos in his book. His photography, to me anyway, has greatly improved, making this book not only instructive but inspiring to look at as a photographer and Photoshop user. I’m often been appalled by how-to photography books that contain second and third-rate photos, but profess to talk about quality photography. The photo examples in this book are varied, from portraits, landscapes, abstracts, product shots, to a few of Kelby’s well done family photos. Each example demonstrates well the possibilities of what can be done with good photography and useful Photoshop techniques.

However, for professional and serious amateur photographers, the most difficult thing about developing a workflow process is deciding which image editing and management tools are best to use. Photoshop is no longer the only game in town. Adobe Lightroom, Apple’s Aperture or iPhoto, iView Media Pro and several other lesser known and useful programs are out on the market today and can adequately address many of the basic and intermediate needs of different photographers. But for those who have very advanced needs as photographers, Photoshop still remains the industry standard.

Photoshop CS3, like its predecessor, comes with three programs that could easily fit the needs of any photographer. In the The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book, Kelby covers all three programs which include Adobe Bridge (a image management program), Adobe Camera RAW (a RAW editing and conversion program), and, of course, the image editing program, Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Topics covered in this book include RAW image processing, such White Balance control, multiple photo editing, noise reduction, fixing chromatic aberrations, split toning, and black-and-white conversion. Other image editing chapters include various short 1-3 page how-tos including resizing and cropping photos, step-by-step color management, B&W conversions, portrait retouching, photo sharpening, and displaying photos.

Besides the excellent photography, the beauty of this 473-page book, like other New Riders books, is the layout. It’s nice size book with plenty of margin area for notes. Chapter headings appear on the bottom of every page, and the step-by-step instructions are nearly perfect. Even if you’re new to Photoshop, you still could use this book, though you might not always understand why you’re carrying out a certain steps. Kelby focuses more on the how than the why in what you do in Photoshop.

“Special Effects for Photographers” is one of my favorite chapters. I applied Kelby’s “Trendy High-Contrast Portrait Effect,” to one of my photographs and it worked pretty well. It was easy to follow the instructions and make changes to fit the character of my photograph. Because I find Kelby’s techniques so useful, I often turn them into Photoshop actions that I can just apply with a click of an F-key.

The Adobe Photoshop CS3 Book is one that you’ll want to keep on your book shelf near your computer. My copy has several yellow stickies in it so that I use to revisit favorite techniques as I working on mainly my wedding photography images.

If you seriously want to use Photoshop CS2 or CS3, Kelby the best source to start with and use.

MyMac.com rating: 5 out of 5

Bakari Chavanu is a wedding and event photographer. His blog, Forever Moments is updated on a regular basis.

When I thought about what I should do for Macspiration 100 I though about making a list off 100 links, or 100 terms, or asking readers to pick your favorite articles from the past two years (WOW!). In the end I decided to pick ten of my favorite articles.

In picking the articles I gave myself some rules. I was looking for articles that had uncommon tips. I wasn’t looking for the “burning a CD” article, or the “changing icons” article. I wanted to find ten articles that cover more uncommon topics. I also tried to pick older articles. Why list something that was posted in the last month? I wanted something that might be off the radar.

So, without further ado, here’s ten of my favorite Macspiration articles, in no particular order.

• Macspiration – Three MORE Things A Switcher Should Know
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2089
Monday, 09/19/05

• Three Things a Switcher Should Know
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2084
Tuesday, 09/13/05

The unofficial first Macspiration and the official first Macspiration. These articles still have relevant info that can help a switcher from Windows to Mac.

• Macspiration 21 – Quick Image Editing In Preview
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2238
Monday, 02/06/0

• Macspiration 22 – Four More Hidden Preview Tricks
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2248
Monday, 02/13/06

Many people don’t realize that Preview is a basic image editor that comes free in OSX. Here’s some tips in these Macspirations that show you how to use these features.

• Macspiration 36 – Refurbished Macs and the Verbose Mode Dilemma
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2525
Monday, 05/22/06

This Macspiration article talks about, what seemed to be for me, a common issue in refurbed Macs and how to solve it.

• Macspiration 38 – Installing Fonts with Font Book
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2539
Monday, 06/05/06

If you want some more Fonts in your arsenal this Macspiration tells you how to install them.

• Macspiration 48 – Avoiding The DSL Installation Disaster
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2628
Monday, 08/21/06

Getting DSL installed in your house or office? This Macspiration might help you out.

• Macspiration 52 – The Dead Ethernet Jack Solution for Under $30
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2659
Tuesday, 09/19/06

This is one of my favorite articles, and I’ve received several emails telling me that it has helped some of you out. If your ethernet jack is dead here’s a cheap solution for you.

• Macspiration 56 – URL Shortening
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2694
Tuesday, 10/17/06

Do you send links in emails and have the recipient tell you that the link is broken? Here’s a potential solution to that problem.

• Macspiration 62 – Expose and a Click-Wheel Mouse
http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=2741
Tuesday, 11/28/06

This article explains how to use the click-wheel on your third party mouse to activate Expose.

So, there you have it. With Leopard on its way, and the new iWorks and new iLife I’m sure there are another 100 Macspirations sitting out there.

Thanks for reading and keep the emails/comments coming!

After spending some time with iMovie ’08 and writing a series of articles on it, I thought I’d use this week to explore Apple’s Numbers ’08, the newest addition to Apple’s iWork ’08 suite of office applications.

Now, I must admit upfront that I have little or no prior experience with spreadsheet applications. My basic numbers calculations have been done in programs like Quicken and the analog pen and paper method. I think in the past I may have opened up Excel or tried to use Apple’s AppleWorks spreadsheet program, but not only did the programs look boring, but I had no idea where to begin in using these applications.

Leave it to Apple, however, to create yet another useful production program for the rest of us. That is, a program which is intuitive, practical, and stylish. Numbers ’08 is another fine program that can help you transform the analog fashion of pen and paper calculations and create functions that can help you become more efficient with various projects involving money, data gathering and calculations.

Already I see a number of projects that I can create or improve upon using Numbers ’08. For example, for the last couple of years I’ve been keeping a simple photography equipment inventory list in my business binder. When I make a new $100+ purchase I make note of it in my list. But with Numbers ’08, I can streamline that data and keep a running balance on how much I’ve spent on equipment. Likewise, I can use the same technique for creating a better marketing plan, an equipment needs budget, a business growth plan, a couple of simple to-do check lists for long terms projects, and a few custom invoices for freelance work I do. In fact, I’ve already re-designed my wedding client contract using Numbers ’08 so that I can use it on my laptop and fill it in right after the close of a sale. This type spread sheet method is more accurate and less time consuming than the paper format.

The templates that come installed with Numbers ’08 provide a list of other possibilities that include various financial budgets plans, a home improvement plan, an event planner, grade book, and a science research report.

As with Apple’s Pages and Keynote, Numbers ’08 is also a graphic design application. It contains tools for adding various font styles, shapes, photos, and other media. In other words, you have the ability to tell a visual story with your facts, figures, and data.

If you have no prior experience with spread sheet creation or if you want to learn the features of Numbers ’08, Apple has produced an excellent set of tutorial videos to get you up and running. The 286-page Numbers User Guide is also another useful source for getting started and learning the program.

The most challenging part for those of us new to spreadsheet development is understanding how formulas work in a table setup so that calculations can be made. Numbers ’08 comes installed with over 150 formulas that will perform most all the calculations that we’ll ever need. But the basic mathematical functions that you learned in high school should be enough to get your started. Basically, a formula simply provides the sum of selected cells in a table. Again, the Apple tutorial or User Guide and the installed templates will show you some really easy steps for basic functions. From there, you can study and create formula functions to fit your individual needs.

Already a third-party website called Numbers Templates has been created to share templates, tips, and tricks for using the Numbers ’08 spreadsheet program.

Though I can’t compare Numbers ’08 with the industry standard program like Excel, Apple’s program I think will fit the needs of most home and small business users. No doubt, future versions will include even more advance functions, but as with Apple’s other fine programs, Numbers ’08 has the simplicity and style that we’ve all come to expect.

Download the show here, listen above, or rock it with iTunes.

Guy gets a new iPod, while Chad waits patiently for the iPod Touch. We also look at the possibility of iTunes movie rentals. Robert Hazelrigg takes a look at Adobe InDesign CS3. Plus, a new audio question from Dan Rodriguez!

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Pictures!

LaCie FireWire Speakers
Company: LaCie
Price: $99.95
http://www.lacie.com

Ok, I was intrigued by this unique idea, speakers that do NOT connect to the audio output jack on your computer, and did not use the already overcrowded USB, but rather are bus powered, getting power from your computer, connected to the FireWire port instead. But why do I need this? Every computer I have ever owned had an audio output port, and so far, I have not had reason to dislike the audio coming from it. I wanted to know why I needed these over other USB or direct audio speakers.

So I started iTunes, kicked off The Beatles LOVE soundtrack, and was ready to find out why. Music came pouring from my rather good Sony desktop speakers, which I immediately unplugged. I knew what they sounded like. Audio switched to the rather poor speakers inside my iMac G5, and it was time to put a stop to that lousy sound by hooking up these cute little things from LaCie.

Packaged well, much like a MacBook computer from Apple, in a small black box, these (5.3″ high by 3.9″ wide by 3.5″ deep) white and black speakers were easy to hook up. Well, sort of. I simply plugged the already attached FireWire cable on the “Main Speaker” into my Mac. Then, from the secondary speaker I took the audio cable and connect it to the main speaker. That is all there is to connect. There is no power brick and no batteries are needed because these will get their power and audio from FireWire. Listed as the world’s first bus-powered speaker, the small, 8-watt amp (4-watts per channel) is powered directly from your computer via FireWire. For me, one less AC power brick is an immediate plus right off.

Unfortunately, if you start with the wrong speaker, the audio wire on the secondary speaker looks EXACTLY like a standard audio plug, just like the one you might expect to connect to the Mac’s audio output jack (except that it is a mono plug.) And, if you do plug this into your Mac’s audio jack, you will get audio, albeit very soft and only form one speaker, which should be a clue that something is wrong. (Perhaps this wire’s plug should have used a different type of connector?)

So, why was sound still coming from the Mac’s speakers if these were all attached correctly? What did I forget? Turning to the included Quick Install Guide, I saw that they were indeed installed correctly. But reading a “Note” lower on the page also said that if you do not hear any sound, you need to select the speakers manually. The Mac has a manual speaker selection? This was new to me.

Yes, this is done in System Preferences>Sound>Output. This was a place on my Mac that I had never been to before, and sure enough, I can now select either “Internal Speakers” (or Audio Out if you have other speakers plugged into the Mac’s speaker jack) or “LaCie FireWire speakers (2491)”. So I switched it to the FireWire selection and immediately music poured loudly from these little gems. But now which speaker was right and which left, as LaCie labels them Main and Secondary instead? I opened an audio clip that has audio only on the right channel and it seems that the one with the FireWire connector goes on the right. Of course, I got them backwards. Hey LaCie, a small L and R on the speakers would be nice.

Despite their small size, the sound was rather good. These will not compete with higher end audio speakers costing hundreds of dollars, but compared to many sub $100 speakers for computers, including direct audio and the USB versions, these stand up quite well. Input signal is digital at 24bit / 96kHz, a fact of which most will not care. But, if you use an older PowerPC Mac, these connect via the Midi FireWire Control Panel, and that must be set correctly. With a frequency response of 90Hz-20kHz, midrange and highs were clean and clear, and typically lacked that “tinny” sound many small speakers of this size suffer. Although, some of that tinny sound did manage to come through on a few songs with strong treble passages. Bass response was weak at the low end, no surprise given the small 2” “high excursion neodymium driver” speakers inside. But the lower end of the midrange was strong and it typically made up for that missing bass. Overall volume was on the high side and these speakers played considerably louder then other USB and audio speakers at the same computer volume setting. You may have to turn down both the computer’s master volume setting as well as the apps volume (like in iTunes) to get a level low enough for a environment like an office cubicle or at home at night. The speakers themselves have no volume control. Distortion was low, unless you turn them up very loud, at which point the small amp started to clip and the small speakers could no longer handle that much drive. That said, these will put out a good amount of volume before that happens, especially considering their size. In general, I was surprised that such a small package could sound this good.

There is a CD included, and for Mac users, it is not needed as it simply contains documentation, products, and accessories folders where you can register your product, or buy the optional power supply, cables, and even a FireWire card should you need one (why did you buy these speakers?) These will also run on Windows machines, and the CD contains a setup program to install the necessary software on that machine before they can be used. They worked fine on my Windows XP computer, but LaCie says they are not Vista compatible, and I did not try.

On the bottom of the main speaker is an “audio input” plug where you can connect an external audio device like an iPod, or a computer without FireWire. A small interconnect cable is included in the box. To use such a device, the speakers need to be powered. That means you can leave them connected to a powered computer (so the FireWire power is active), or, to use them stand alone, you will need an optional external power supply. There is a connector for that on the bottom as well. Still connected to my Mac, I connected my iPod to the audio in line, and pressed play. Yes, if you turn on both audio sources, they will both play through the speakers together. Pressing stop on iTunes allowed me to listen to my iPod through the speakers, and again, they sounded equally as good from the iPod. I am bothered however that the external power supply is an option. Given their $100 price tag, LaCie should have included it for iPod users or laptops that do not have FireWire. Of course, if you do not have FireWire, why would you buy these? But still, you might want to carry them with you for portable use.

The look may not be for everyone. LaCie likes to do outlandishly designed products (have you seen that USB hub?), and these are a little strange for speakers. To me, they look like miniature air vents as seen on a boat or ship. And while I liked them, others who saw them thought they were a bit odd. The outside is a glossy white with a black “circle” where the speaker sits on the front, twisting the cylinder shape forward to face the speaker to the front. I was reminded of a slinky for some reason. On the bottom is a rubber ring that keeps them from slipping and sliding on the desktop. Cables come out the bottom as well, through a small slot to allow the speaker to sit flat on the desk. I was disappointed at the length of the included cables. If you computer is not close to where you screen is, or is on the wrong side of your desk (since the FireWire cable is on the right speaker), you may need an extension cable. The wire between the speakers could stand to be longer as well.

I also wanted to know if using the speakers effected my FireWire connection. Since I have drives connected to the other FireWire port, I wanted to find out if these caused problems with the audio. I copied a 284 Mb folder from a FireWire drive to the internal drive with music playing, and again while not playing, and repeated this several times. Given the relatively small amount of bandwidth needed for audio, I did not expect a difference in time, but would I hear the music cut out as the disk drive needed more bandwidth? With music playing, the average transfer time was 28 to 29 seconds, and no audio cut out or distortion was noticed at all. Again with music not playing the average was about the same, so it appears that this does not impact drive use at all, and hard drive use does not affect the audio.

So back to my original question, why these over other speakers in this price range? The small above issues aside, compared to other small speakers, these performed as well or better than most others in their size and price range. And the lack of yet another a power brick is a strong plus. If you are like me, there are no free plugs available anywhere near your computer, and yet another wire missing from the desktop is a good thing too. And my USB is already overtaxed, so I do not want speakers sucking up that bandwidth or power either. Their small size is also a plus, as is the ability to connect a secondary audio input. But what about that FireWire connection, does it really make a difference? The obvious argument that this is an all-digital connection to the speaker so it sounds better must be taken with a grain of salt. These speakers are nowhere near the quality and fidelity one would need to ever detect any difference between the supposed noisy analog output for speakers and an all-digital connection. And besides, the connection to the secondary speaker IS an analog connection anyway. Hello? But if your need is for small, good sounding set of powered speakers that do not require AC power, are easy to install, and your USB is already busy enough, these are a good choice for you.

MyMac rating: 4 out of 5 stars

RTX-100-Q TrayFree SATA Drive External Bay
Company: WiebeTech
Price: $230.00 US (without included SATA drive)
http://wiebetech.com/products/RTX100.php

If you are a gearhead who has loose SATA drives scattered throughout your work area; or a media creator who can never get enough external storage; or one of the smartest, most efficient computer professionals on the planet, then WiebeTech has a new class of external drive that will immediately compel you to scream, “Why didn’t I come with such a great idea myself?” If your swappable multi-drive backups are giving you heartburn, then your heart and tummy will sing the praises of RTX-100-Q.

Here’s how it works — brilliantly:

STEP ONE = INSERT BARE, EXPOSED, 3.5″ SATA DRIVE INTO RTX-100 AND START WORKING.

(There is NO Step Two!)

You can attach RTX-100-Q to your computer via one of the four included cables: FireWire 800, FW800-to-400, USB-2, or eSATA. (Learn more about eSATA here.) Two FW800 ports are on the rear, when you want to daisy chain multiple external FW devices. The unit accepts SATA drives up to 1TB capacity (that’s a LOT). WiebeTech sells RTX either empty or along with the quantity and capacity of SATA drives of your choice, including a current special bundle-of-four.

RTX-100-Q is lightweight, sturdy, sleek, stackable, and stylish. I would prefer beveled edges on its black top cover plate, but that’s being a little fussy. Power is supplied via a smallish two-piece AC adapter that connects to the rear of the bay at a standard-issue six-pin DIN port. A built-in keyed lock secures your precious bay+drive.

Data transfer speeds are lickety-split (that’s FAST) using every configuration. The most popular ports/cables for Macintoshers are FW800, although supergeeks will use eSATA for its slightly speedier potential of up to 65MB/sec. I’ll give some real world results further down the page. Here is the official spec sheet for the model being reviewed.

Many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief when floppies went the way of the madras shorts, but they’re back (the floppies, not the shorts). Except now we have SUPERduperMEGAfloppies, disguised as affordable, high-capacity SATA drives. Warning — exposed circuitry makes all bare drives vulnerable, so please be careful every time you are holding or inserting/removing one. WiebeTech will offer cradles and cases for naked drives, but you MUST treat them with physical respect when they are outside of RTX-100-Q’s shock absorbing bay. What disrespectful data you park on your multitude of drives is your own business. Units are said to withstand tens of thousands of insert/remove operations. I’ll have to get back to you on that one, in the year 4,692.

Let’s take our evaluation unit on a test drive. Please follow along from the passenger seat:

• With power cable inserted, plug the North American generic two-prong (hooray!) plug into wall jack or robust power supply — preferably the latter, just to be smart and safe, but it’s not required.

• Switch on power at back of unit, hear gentle hum of fan, and observe green power light.

• Connect unit to computer using included or other FW800 cable.

• [There is no drive bay light or activity LED. WiebeTech is working on this one.]

• Unmount (eject) SATA-250 drive from Mac’s Desktop.

• Pull cute little orange and white “W” tab, and observe one inch of bare SATA drive emerge.

• Gently remove the drive.

• Reverse the process, and go about ordinary business with drive bay ready to rocknroll.

Internal versions of RTX-100 are available. Ditto for multi-drive bays, and the lineup is expanding. WiebeTech’s prices for SATA drives may not be rock bottom whizbang cheapest, but when you obtain your drives from them you are eligible for tech support on the entire soup-to-nuts process. I’ve used the company’s phone and email tech assistance, and it’s first rate. Keep that in mind both during the initial ordering of RTX components and afterward.

Here are real world comparisons, in minutes, between transferring 15.49 GB of my entire G4 PowerBook’s files using RTX’s variety of interfaces, to and from two different computers:

RTX-100-Q

FireWire 800 [G5]= 32:29
FireWire 800-to-400 [G5] = 36:33
USB-2 [G5] = 70:06
eSATA [PowerBook] = 40:45
FireWire 800 [PowerBook] = 44:53

Bill Head, Product/Support Manager for WiebeTech, explains the FW800 discrepancy: “One comment on your test results: you might see higher numbers if you test it with a desktop Mac. Your numbers might have been diminished slightly by the slower data speed of your PowerBook’s internal 2.5” drive. They’re usually slower than 3.5” drives, even with the same RPMs. Any transfer between two drives will only operate as fast as the slower drive.”

These transfer times are consistent with past results, and with common sense. Most of the time, FW800 is the optimal interface. When eSATA is available, speeds are a bit faster, but the greatest advantage is having a full set of FireWire ports handy in addition to the eSATA.

RTX-100-Q remained cool in my hot office every day during the testing period. Its fan is more cool than silent in a quiet room, but that is of little concern to most users.

MyMac.com strongly recommends WiebeTech’s new RTX family of swappable SATA drive bays. Our rating will be elevated once they add activity/read-write LEDs and provide cradles/cases for exposed drives. The company’s claim that:

“WiebeTech’s TrayFree bays are a breeze to add a drive to. It really is as easy as opening the door, sliding the drive in, and closing the door. No screws, no trays, it just works.”

is an accurate description.

MyMac.com rating: 4.5 out of 5

iFuntastic 3.0.3
Company: bitSplit(tm) Enterprises
Price: Freeware (donations accepted)
http://www.iphonealley.com/

I’m the Mac Guru for Charlotte. Which isn’t too hard as I seem to be the only one in Charlotte actively doing it. So I make a reasonably good living as a Mac consultant. I’m not a tech. Oh, I can swap out a hard drive, add RAM, and even disassemble the occasional iMac to upgrade the wifi to 802.11n. But the boys with the Golden Screwdriver in the back room at the Apple Store have nothing to fear.

But I do have the reputation around town for being on the cutting edge of things Macintosh . . . and that includes standing in line (however briefly) for the iPhone.

You can imagine, then, my shame at having a vanilla ringtone. I mean how positively plebeian!

I am no longer ashamed! I can now hold my head high and grin as an incoming call to my iPhone plays an a cappella rendition of the William Tell Overture. (Edited in Garage Band)

How? I’ve downloaded iFuntastic (v 3.0.3), added my signature ringtone, and customized the four screens.

To be truthful, I hesitated. There’s always the chance you could permanently damage a $5-600 iPhone, but all assurances were made that the worst case scenario was hitting the restore button in iTunes. Also iFuntastic heretofore was Intel only and my desktop computer is a G5 Tower. So when it was announced in TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

This little piece of wizardry worked exactly as advertised as I fretted over the strange numbers scrolling on the iPhone screen. The instructions were always clear but the feedback from the iPhone was not, and the process is not for the faint of heart. I found myself restarting the iPhone frequently to make sure good things were happening.

On iFuntastic’s screen, there are easy-to-understand buttons down the left . . .

Welcome
Unshackle
Home Screen
i (Information)
Carrier Logo
Ringtones
File Manager
Troubleshooting
and
Donate

. . . with lots of hand-holding instructions.

Other than the obvious, “File Manager” also allows you to — copy to disk, delete files, replace the file’s contents (keeping the name), play a sound, view/edit/replace images and text files.

iFuntastic is freeware. However, there is a Paypal “donate” button. I sent him ten bucks for a job well done.

MyMac.com Rating: 5 out of 5

ABOBE PHOTOSHOP CS3 ONE ON ONE
By Deke McClelland
ISBN-10: 0-596-52975-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-596-52975-8
DEKE PRESS O’REILLY
deke.oreilly.com digitalmedia.oreilly.com
US $49.99 CAN $64.99
515 pages

To quote Scott Kelby, President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals: “As a Photoshop author, I hate picking up a book and learning things I didn’t already know. But Deke McClelland done it again! If you want to learn Photoshop CS3 from the ground up, look no further.”

As a true Photoshop master, author of over 20 Photoshop books, and host of hundreds of hours of tutorial-style video training for the great lynda.com Online Training Library, Deke was inducted, in 2002, into the National Association of Photoshop Professionals’ Photoshop Hall of Fame.

His business-like yet personable approach and easy demeanor when teaching the ins and outs of this vast software program are as comfortable as sitting in your favorite easy chair. And that’s exactly how this book/DVD combo is meant to feel.

The book and accompanying DVD are integral parts of the package. Each part is a separate entity unto itself—the DVD is strictly for watching. No practice problems, no aping the screen. Just sit back and watch. The book is the reflection of the DVD and contains all of the examples you could ask for in any given aspect of using the tools in Photoshop CS3. The text is laid out in chapters which follow the DVD, step by step. Because you’ve watched the DVD without any interruptions, like trying out new tools, the familiarity with the new material seems to be more internal, almost intuitive. So when you get to the book the material and examples are easily assimilated. This type of learning is a welcome departure from the usual “lesson, practice” method used in most other technical publications. It’s refreshing, relaxing, and effective.

Before beginning any of the lessons Deke asks us to install a handful of files on the computer’s hard drive, and also to change a few of Photoshop’s preference settings. The suggested preference settings are optional, but Deke feels that some of these settings are “just plain set wrong” by default, and besides, it is much less confusing if teacher and student are in sync. All of the files are provided on the DVD-ROM that accompanies the book, and easy installation steps are given.

There is a folder on the DVD which is entitled dekeKeys Shortcuts. There’s one for the Mac and one for Windows. You will be asked to save these shortcuts in order to complete the task of getting on even footing with Deke. Another folder he asks us to copy, or drag to the desktop, is entitled Lesson Files-PsCS3 1on1 which will be necessary to complete the lesson assignments along with the author. They are the same lessons/images that Deke uses on the DVD. Once that task is done, you’re ready to learn.

When the DVD begins, we see Deke filling us in on the chapter ahead. The first chapter, Navigation and Color Correction, contains lessons 1,2,and 3, which are Navigation, Introducing Levels, and Variations and Camera Raw. If you were to just read about these subjects it wouldn’t take long to start looking at the clock. But in his avuncular style our instructor first gives an overview of the entire chapter and then, as we click on each subsequent lesson, he eases into the details to show us how its done. It couldn’t be easier. If you need to see it again, well, go ahead. Whatever your learning curve is, this “just watch and learn method” can’t be beat.

I’m not going to outline every chapter covered in Adobe Photoshop CS3 One on One. I want to emphasize the Navigation heading as being extremely important, especially for new Photoshop users. The opening screen on Photoshop CS3 can be so daunting, with all its tools and palettes, that it could intimidate the new user. But Deke breaks these things down into manageable bits so the student will not be overwhelmed. Even seasoned Photoshoppers could learn from this lesson. There are features presented which are tucked away, or less obvious, and when pointed out can make a huge difference in the whole user experience.

As Deke tells us, the book/DVD is divided into twelve lessons:

Lesson 1: File management and navigation, including the new Adobe Bridge, as well as the Batch Rename and Contact Sheet II commands

Lesson 2: Brightness and contrast adjustments, including the Levels, Curves, and Shadow/Highlight commands, as well as the Histogram palette

Lesson 3: Color balance adjustments, including the Variations, Hue/Saturation, and Gradient Map commands, as well as the independent digital negative developer Camera Raw

Lesson 4: Selection tools including the lasso, magic wand, and pen tools, as well as the Select menu and Paths palette

Lesson 5: Ways to crop and transform and image, including the crop tool and the Image Size and Canvas Size commands

Lesson 6: Painting and retouching, including the paintbrush, healing brush, and red eye tools, as well as the Brushes and History palettes

Lesson 7: Masking functions, including the Color range and Extract commands, the quick mask mode, and the Channels palette

Lesson 8: Focus and distortion filters, including and the new Smart Sharpen and Vanishing Point commands as well as Photoshop’s most powerful distortion function, Liquify

Lesson 9: Layer functions, including the Layers and Layer Comps palettes, the Layer menu, the Free Transform and Warp commands, and Blending Options

Lesson 10: Text and Shape layers, including the type and shape tools, the Character and Paragraph palettes, and Warp Text

Lesson 11: Layer styles and specialty layers, including Drop Shadow, Bevel and Emboss, the Styles palette, adjustment layers, and the amazing world of smart objects

Lesson 12: Print functions, including the Print with Preview, Color Settings, and Picture Package commands

Also, there’s a handy index in the back of the book which tells where Deke discusses a specific feature.

One of the things the book’s accompanying DVD does not do is reflect the book word for word. In each lesson Deke gives us the basics by introducing us to many of the tools and showing us how to use them by example. Showing ALL the tools and ALL the possibilities would literally be unproductive, and stifle creativity. It would also be highly impractical. After all, Photoshop is merely a tool for image creation. Even Deke himself can’t possibly quantify all the possibilities in a profound program like Photoshop. McClelland admits he hasn’t touched each and every possibility available (he comes real close). But, since he is an expert, he can lead us down the roads we seek, letting us go under our own power to experiment, learn, and create.

One of the most powerful and feared tools in Photoshop is Layers. On the DVD Deke shows us, in Chapter 9, how to organize Layers, their functions, tools, commands, and blending options. He does this through example, and let’s us know right off the bat that he will be giving us a “sense” of how these layers work, but that he will be covering the subject in much greater detail in the book.

This should not discourage people who may feel that their tour guide is abandoning them on the DVD. Quite the contrary. He gives us enough information, which can be viewed as much as needed, so that when we do get to the book we have a strong basic understanding of the subject, in this case, Layers, which frees us up to investigate and learn as we get deeper and deeper into the details.

One of the things I like about this set is its flexibility. There’s enough information on the DVD alone to keep lots of photo imagers busy for the rest of their lives. For those who want more detail, more possibilities, and the knowledge to achieve Photoshop greatness, Adobe Photoshop CS3 One on One will continue that endeavor. And for those who want to go even further by getting into every minute detail that Photoshop has to offer, Deke invites us to get onto www.lynda.com and continue their education with his on-line videos. That series will make you a mini Deke McClelland, or at least expert in Photoshop CS3.

If there’s a better way to learn the power of Photoshop CS3 I surely don’t know what it is. Short of the Vulcan Mind Meld this has to be one of the easiest and quickest ways to learn what at first seems to be an intimidating subject. The way this author breaks the steps down and then leads us into the future is brilliant. Go ahead. Check out the myriad of Photoshop books out there. I know that when you compare this set with any of the others, and there are some good ones to be sure, you will put this one at the top of your list. And rightfully so.

MyMac rating: 5 out of 5

With the introduction of iLife 08 you can now have your iWeb sites use your own personal domain that you have registered rather than using web.mac.com/username. For example, my domain, hedgehogalley.com, now points to my web.mac.com site that I have made in iWeb. Previously, the way to have this work was with domain forwarding through your registrar, but you would need to turn on something called masking to hide the web.mac.com address once the web browser got to your site.

Setting up your personal domain is easy, but you did need access to your DNS settings through your registrar so you can make a change to a setting. If you don’t know how to access these settings contact the company your domain is registered with. It looks and sounds intimidating, but it is really easy to do.

Of course, you need your domain registered at one of many registration services on the web. I use GoDaddy.com.

To set up your personal domain you need to log into your .Mac account and enter the Account Settings page by clicking your username after logging in. Click the option of your personal domain on the right. Follow the directions (which will include that DNS change I mentioned earlier). You can also access this page by clicking “Set Up Personal Domain” in the File menu of iWeb (see Macspiration 98). If forwarding is turned on for your domain it is important to turn it off first.

Once the set up is complete entering www.yourdomain.com will send a web browser to your iWeb site. However, you might encounter the same problem I (and many others) have run into. Entering yourdomain.com into a browser without www does not work. In my case, it pointed to a GoDaddy page, because that is where my domain is registered.

After reading many posts in the Discussions section of Apple’s website I have come up with the following solution that worked for me.

After setting up personal domain sharing I went back into my domain’s information at GoDaddy and I turned forwarding back on. I forwarded my domain to http://www.web.mac.com/username (username would be your .mac username). This still maintained the personal domain settings of .mac, but it also fixed the issues of not entering www with my website. It is important to note that forwarding (as I mentioned above) is turned OFF before activating the personal domain. I turned it back on AFTER activation.

If you have any other ideas, please post them below.

“The Beer Back” Computer Pack for 15″ and 17″ Laptops
Company: Crumpler Bags
Price: $170.00 US
http://www.crumplerbags.com

Artie’s recent review of Crumpler’s smaller “The Salary Sacrifice” sibling to “The Beer Back” (abbreviated here as TBB) says it all, so please read his rave here — with action photos! — before you proceed.

You can buy and drink a lot of beer for $170 US, but it won’t last as long as this TBB case. You can fill Crumpler’s TBB with six bottles or cans of beer and have plenty of room remaining for your 15″ or 17″ MacBook Pro or PowerBook. You can pour some beer over this pack and your computer will laugh it off, being protected by multiple layers of impenetrable beerproof material from anything short of Hurricane Michelob.

The Beer Back can easily hold both a 15″ and a 17″ MacBook Pro, plus perhaps a couple of smaller MacBooks, with all their power cables, and a dozen or more iPods, if you’re careful. The pack will be heavy, but its padded shoulder straps can manage the weight, even if your geeky shoulders can’t.

* * * * *

Here are the specs and description from Crumpler’s psychotic web site, to save you the agony of navigating it:

Water resistant 700D Nylon shell & 420D Ripstop Nylon lining

Fully padded removable laptop sleeve with 6 pocket organizer — the removable laptop insert can be used to insulate your lap whilst working, from a hot laptop

2x external covered & gusseted zip pockets

Holds compact 17″ laptops & accessories, A4/Letter-size documents & magazines as well as daily essentials

Use the shoulder straps to attach an optional extra Thirsty Al mobile phone holder

Pack dimensions 39x55x29cm (15x21x11.5″) plus Laptop Sleeve 40.5x27x4cm (16×10.6×1.6″)

The Beer Back comes in your choice of five colors: black, brown, red, blue, and green. Our evaluation model is green, with a bright orange interior and sleeve.

Why the strange name? I’m not making this up. Crumpler says: “You can have your beer guts, I got a beer back,” referring to the bulging profile of this case.

If you are a road warrior who needs to grab your gear from your computer case with one hand while sending a text message and making a left turn into heavy traffic with the other, The Beer Back is not for you. Crumpler chose protection over convenience when designing and constructing this pack.

Its two angled exterior front pockets are deep and spacious, but their zippers are recessed underneath a sturdy flap. TBB’s giant interior sleeve has an enormous folding cover to keep your computer safe and dry. The rounded “Beer” belly requires immersion of your arm up to the elbow to retrieve objects stowed in the lower gut area of the pack. The overall experience is: put your stuff inside, know it will still be there when you need it, but don’t be in a rush when you want it to rejoin the outside world. Center of gravity can be unpredictable for TBB, so test it in a range of positions when first loaded and unzipped.

TBB’s oversized sleeve easily contains computer(s), but its top edges and corners don’t easily tuck into the rounded, zippered upper shell area. Crumpler should have noticed this physical conflict, and I won’t be surprised if it’s fixed by Macworld 2008. TBB’s critical top-center grab band is nicely rounded, but its fit is too small for adult fingers due to the overhanging fabric that attaches straps to pack. Ditto on the size of the upper of two fabric grab bands on front center. I dare Crumpler to show me the five year old Macintosher who chooses The Beer Back based on the gap for his/her fingers to grab and lift it.

With no built-in exterior accessories in addition to standard issue chest strap and D-rings, TBB’s only frills are on the inside: two heavyweight velcro pouches and one zippered mesh pouch inside the front of the case; plus a teensy portable office section on the inner sleeve, with space for iPod, phone, pens, and passport or wallet.

If you are a student or traveler or mobile professional who needs great protection, plenty of carrying space, thick shoulder straps, and exceptional quality at an exceptional price, Crumpler’s The Beer Back is a good choice. MyMac.com has reviewed large-capacity competitors by Spire and Brenthaven, and Crumpler’s unusual design gives consumers a third approach to solving the techie transportation trauma.

MyMac Rating: 3.5 out of 5

NR-10 produces a clean, powerful sound, with balanced emphasis in the midrange, where voices and instruments are heard. Remix’s bass is booming, treble is soaring, midrange is excellent, without any obvious concentrations through the entire audible and harmonic spectrum.

* * * * *

Comply Noise Reduction Earphones NR-10
Hearing Components
Price: $80 plus shipping
http://www.complyintheear.com

Comply / Hearing Components is a small company with many years of experience and a high pedigree in this field. Their booth was tiny but bustling at last January’s Macworld Expo, and now I know why. Listeners receive solid audio performance from NR-10, and their foam tips are the most comfortable of their kind we’ve tested. The $80 cost is reasonable for the quality achieved. An added feature is the in-line volume control on the portion of the cable that attaches to your iPod or other music player. Black is the only color offered.

NR-10 produces a clean, powerful sound, with balanced emphasis in the midrange, where voices and instruments are heard. Audio falloff is fairly steep to the upper frequencies, so you won’t be knocked over by shattering treble. Bass is substantial — be careful with the volume. Sonic presence is intense once your squishy foam tips are secure.

Two pairs of tips are included. Replacement foam tips are affordable at roughly $4.00 per set, but over time you’ll spend as much or more money on them as you did on your original purchase. Make sure you really like these earphones and tips before you commit to this “free shaver with expensive blades” relationship with Comply. Typical usage allows for one to three months per set, but your mileage will depend upon your personal lifestyle and hygiene.

Compressible foam ear tips are not my personal favorites, but many people prefer them. Sheba, my daughter, has written on this matter in her comments on Etymotic Research’s premium in-ear ‘phones, near the beginning of this review.

Passive noise reduction (translation: tight fit) enables listeners to have an immersive experience. Airline travel can be much more pleasurable when using earphones such as these. Do NOT drive, jog, or bicycle with ANY snug-fit in ear ‘phones, or your safety is at risk.

My iPod has a playlist of songs I use over and over to test earphones and speakers. NR-10 by Comply performed well across the collection of styles and genres. A subjective “very good to good” summarizes my overall listening and comfort experience. (I only located one other detailed review by searching for “comply nr-10 review” on Google, and the author had positive things to say.)

Comply’s $80 price tag, plus shipping, plus replacement tips, is considered moderate in this era of $350 music players and $600 telephones, not to mention $500 ‘phones. “Budget” ends at $50 and “premium” begins at $125 for earphones or headphones.

I’m listening to my playlist now with NR-10, while writing this summary. It’s a lot easier to listen than to type, which is a definite recommendation for these earphones. I can’t hear any ambient noise from the rest of the house. The following is not my favorite expression, but you’ll get the drift: You can do a lot worse than a set of Comply Noise Reduction Earphones NR-10. Serious listeners will enjoy them, if foam tip inserts are okay.

MyMac.com rating: 3.5 out of 5

* * * * *

V-Moda Remix M-Class Earphones
V-Moda
Price: $50 with free USA shipping, or flat rate $5 shipping worldwide
http://www.v-moda.com/collection/modaphones/remix%20mclass.aspx

Remix in-ear phones by V-Moda are improvements on Apple’s original iPhone earbud design, not the newer versions. Different colors of Remix are available, each with a durable, transparent cable. One-inch straight stems connect ear drivers to cables. These all metal stems and enclosures are not tiny, so you’ll have to audition Remix to determine if fit and comfort are acceptable. V-Moda earphones are available at Apple retail stores.

V-Moda provides white slipover covers for stable positioning. These types of covers are currently out of vogue, but I never had a problem with them. Remix’s included covers are too bulky and flabby for this reviewer, so I substituted Apple’s discredited original black covers and didn’t looked elsewhere.

Earbud fit is not snug. Earphone drivers rest within your ear cavity and can shift location, thereby altering audio delivery. If this will cause problems for you, consider the Comply NR-10 earphones reviewed above, plus those in our comparative review here. But don’t jump to conclusions until you read the following sentence.

Remix has the best audio range and transparency of all the under-$100 earphones we’ve reviewed at MyMac.com. Bass is booming, treble is soaring, midrange is excellent, without any obvious concentrations through the entire audible and harmonic spectrum. Experiment with different ear positions for optimum comfort and audio, but don’t make yourself nuts to overcome the somewhat loose driver placement.

You can hear ambient noise when listening via Remix. This is a feature, not a liability, in many real world environments, such as crossing the street. Ditto for the large size drivers and stems, but if your ears are tiny, you’re probably not going to be enamored of this product.

In the budget earphone category, Remix has only one rival, ezGEAR’s ultraEars SX70, reviewed at the aforementioned URL. The ezGEAR drivers’ rubber tips fit more snugly, but their very good sound is not as dynamic as from V-Moda’s Remix. I’m listening now to my iPod using Remix, and I just heard some new parts in my favorite songs for the first time with these $50 ‘phones. Clarity is exceptional.

Do a web search for “review remix v-moda” (quote marks not necessary) and you’ll see how other reviewers rate them — highly.

MyMac.com rating: 4 out of 5

First things first; iPhoto has completely hosed my photo library. After installing iLife 08 I noticed three things: there are now 200 photos in a library folder called “ recovered photos” dated 1998. I didn’t own a digital camera until 2001. Then I noticed none of my pictures taken in 2007 can be found under 2007 “event” dates. Moreover, a number of other pictures have been misplaced in other “events”. For instance I have one photo of my daughter Emily from when she was first born that is sitting in the same event that contains images of her when she was 4 years old.

iPhoto didn’t remove any photos (as far as I know) but it’s as if the application just dumped my neatly organized photo collection all over the floor for me to resort. Luckily for me I have an organized backup. I seem to be having success re-importing the originals one folder at a time.

Then there is iMovie: I have a 2Ghz DP G5 running 10.4.10 with an extra ATI Radeon 9200 Mac Edition. It’s not the greatest card, and I didn’t buy it that long ago, (Apple still sells it on their web site) but iMovie 2008 wouldn’t run with this card installed. In the previous iLife versions (iLife 06) when I launched the application I would get a notice that iMovie will not work on my non-Quartz Extreme video card. (Funny Apple’s site says that card supports Quartz. I guess just not Quartz Extreme) Under iLife 06 even though iMovie said it wouldn’t work it always gave me the option to open it and work because my other video card does support Quartz Extreme. Now using iLife 08 I am forced to quit. No Option. SO I either have to work in the older version of iMovie or remove my extra video card. This really sucks I really like working with 3 monitors. I guess I need to upgrade.

I haven’t played with the other new iLife apps yet. Hopefully they won’t be so problematic.

PDO Reviso iPhone Case

Company: PDO
Price: $29.99

http://www.pdostore.com/

Style
PGO’s Reviso receives 2 1/2 out of five stars for style. This black leather case sports two attractive racing stripes . . . on the inside where no one can see them. Unless you talk on the phone in the case up to your ear. But then you have to take the case off your belt . . .

Substance
The Reviso gets 3 stars for substance. The stitching is good and the construction of the case is sturdy and feels like it would protect your iPhone were it not for the completely open face. To counter that “feature” there is a full face stick-on screen protector that covers the entire front of the iPhone exposed by the case with cutouts for the receiver and the home button.

Utility
Sorry, only 2 stars for utility. To begin with, it’s uncomfortable to wear. The belt clip is only oriented vertically, and is so low on the case it gouges into your side every time you bend. (Especially getting in and out of the car.) If you lift the velcro flap and unholster the phone to use it, you have to fumble around to get the phone reholstered . . . and then your shirt is in the way of the velcro flap. Granted the unique cut-out design allows you to use the phone up to your ear while still in the case. All the touch-screen features are available with the case on, too. But it’s just too clumsy to get the holster off and onto your belt to use it that way. That sure is a good sturdy clip!

Other Plusses
The PDO Reviso’s design allows easy access to all controls while fully holstered.

MyMac.com rating: 2.5 out of 5