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Tim Robertson, David Cohen, and Guy Serle look at Mac OS X 10.5.3, pontificate on the upcoming WWDC and iPhone revisions, and much more. Sam Levin then joins the show with an all-new Cool Mac Picks.

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This episode sponsored by Other World Computing

Audio Engine USA A2 Speakers
Sandisk Extreme Ducati Edition SD Plus
Jabra SP5050 Bluetooth Speaker Phone

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i.Sound AudioDock for iPod Shuffle 2nd Generation
Company: i.Sound
http://www.isound.net
Price: $40

i.Sound does it again. Their dreamGEAR and i.Sound audio products continue to impress MyMac for innovation, value, and best-in-class sound quality. This tiny speaker system for Gen2 shuffle iPod has a surprisingly rich sound.

AudioDock is easy to use with USB computer power or 3-AAA batteries. For tethered listening and charging, or portable shuffle listening, this little wonder is a very good choice.

MyMac was reluctant to evaluate i.Sound’s AudioDock, because we didn’t want to spend time on a clunker. What a surprise — sound was richer than we ever expected. A handy printed manual is included, as is a toll-free USA phone number for tech support.

Four colors are available for this product: blue, green, orange, or white. Pick a color to match your Gen2 shuffle, or your knapsack/purse, or bathroom/bedroom, or car/bicycle. Take two! They’re small.

This is a "there is no step three" audio device: after inserting batteries or connecting to USB port, turn on AudioDock and start listening. That’s what I’m doing right now. Nicely done, i.Sound.

MyMac rating: 4.5 out of 5

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XtremeMac Incharge Auto
Company: XtremeMac
http://www.xtrememac.com
Price: $20

XtremeMac has done an exceptional job with this multi-purpose charger+cable. Its dedicated web site has great photos and product descriptions. Other companies should learn from this example of customer info.

The Incharge Auto is with me at all times in my car as a mobile iPod charger. Its detachable USB cable gets bonus points when I’m in need of an extra iPod charging cable while on my rounds as peripatetic computer tutor.

With its $20 price tag and lifetime warranty, Incharge gets our highest 5 out of 5 MyMac rating.

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Pipe iPod Speaker
Company: Skullcandy
http://www.skullcandy.com/
Price: $60 – $70 online
Available in black, chrome, or wood/rust color

Skullcandy’s Pipe speaker is stylish, small, and portable, with a very good remote control. Pipe has no onboard treble/bass settings, so you’ll have to adjust your iPod’s Equalizer if you don’t like the default sound. Audio output is clean and substantial, without any distortion, but maximum volume is not exceptional.

Four AAA batteries will turn a Pipe in to a roving groove tube. Four little rubber feet support the round Pipe when it’s stationary. Insufficient iPod inserts are provided: only one each for new nano and shuffle. Other iPods must reside on Pipe’s dock connector with limited stability.

The company’s web site is strange, and incomplete. Do a web search for "skullcandy pipe" (quotes not necessary) to learn more about this product, but there isn’t a ton you need to know, other than black is probably your best choice in color.

MyMac especially likes the stereo separation achieved by having speakers piped out to the round ends of Pipe’s tubular pipe. The sound is spacially pleasant to the ears over long listening periods.

Out of a possible perfect score, we deduct one point each for no treble or bass controls and not enough iPod inserts, then add back a half point each for clean, compact styling and handy remote, for a MyMac rating of 4 out of 5.

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GrooveSafari Mini Wireless FM Transmitter with Charger for iPods
http://www.cygnett.com
Cost: $49.99 MSRP

GroovePowerPack
http://www.cygnett.com
Cost: $49.99 MSRP
Company: Cygnett

What’s not to love about this new company’s innovative approach to iPod auto FM transmission and multi-cable packaging?

GrooveSafari is the best ever basic FM tuner/charger for iPod, with solid signal strength and clear, visible in-car display. The three component pieces are detachable, so the transmitter can be used with or without charging an iPod. No FM transmitter is perfect, but when radio frequencies are available, you’ll agree with our strong 4 out of 5 MyMac rating.

GroovePowerPack is even better. In one small box are: USB iPod tabletop AC dock cradle, USB iPod charging cable, USB power brick, USB A/A extension cable, USB 12 volt car adapter, mini-stereo earbud Y-splitter, and mini-stereo RCA splitter. You can charge, dock, connect, split, and listen to an iPod via car, headphones, or stereo wherever and whenever with the contents of this tidy carton. MyMac rating 4.5 out of 5 — where is the double-male mini audio extension cable?

MyMac hopes to be able to work through Cygnett’s entire product line, so watch this space for future reviews of their full range of audio and auto goodies.

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iCube II iPod Speaker
Company: Boynq
http://www.boynq.com/
Price: $47 – $50 for "femme" pink, and $34 – 70 for "homme" black

Echoing our recent review of Boynq’s Sabre speaker system, MyMac recommends the bold black model of the iCube over the yucky pink version. iCube II is extremely easy to use, with its full range of six iPod dock inserts, effortless charging/syncing capabilities, and large array of included connector cables.

The company web site is still peculiar, especially when trying to read about the "femme" model, with white text on a lavender background. A clever CoverFlow simulation photo gallery is worth a peek, but there is too much self-praising hyperbole on this official web site description. You’ll have more success reading reviews and doing your shopping on sites such as Amazon.com, where their Marketplace has prices as low as $34 for the black "homme" iCube II.

At this price, iCube is a steal of a deal. Consider how much you can pay for an iPod charger, and Boynq’s value pricing is stellar. iCube II is a go-anywhere plug-in one piece speaker. Audio spectrum is thin, with very little bass, but midrange and treble sound clarity and volume are very good. MyMac likes the push button on-off-volume illuminated knob, but the little round treble and bass controls are not as handy.

Cube II is a cubicle killer, or dorm demon. You’ll hear and see what I mean when you get your little speaker cranked all the way up. Friends, colleagues, and family will love it or hate it, but they won’t be able to ignore it.

MyMac rating: 4 out of 5 for exceptional value and versatility

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earbudJACK
Company: What If Widgets
http://www.whatifwidgets.com
$9

Jack stores your iBuds with a flair, and a purpose. Five percent of all sales go to the American Hearing Research Foundation.

As earbudJack’s company states: "Just throw the earbuds over his shoulders. Pull the cord under his foot. Wrap the rest around his head and feet. Place the plug in his hand." Then "Jack’s got it all wrapped up."

MyMac rating: very clever, and very affordable 4 out of 5, if you’re using your official Apple buds.

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Tunewear Icewear Clear Case for iPod Classic
Company: Tunewear
http://store.tunewear.com
Price:$25

Tunewear’s clear solid iPod case is almost identical to two other "shields" reviewed here from Agent18 XtremeMac and. Again, if this sort of case is your top priority for protection and visibility, Tunewear has the answer.

MyMac rating: 4 out of 5

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Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac — The Missing Manual
O’Reilly / Pogue Press
http://www.missingmanuals.com
ISBN 978-0-596-51936-0, 536 pages
$44.99 US and CN (large discounts are available from Amazon.com and other online booksellers)

MYMAC: From your long list of "What’s New in Elements 6" on pages 3, 4, and 5, which ones are your top personal favorites, and why, Barbara?

BARBARA: Ooh, let’s see, John. I really like the new features in Adobe Camera Raw, the black and white conversion, Lens Distortion correction, and Refine Edge.

MYMAC: Are there any new items that the average PE6 user probably won’t use, for whatever reason?

BARBARA: Sure. I don’t think anyone will use every feature; that’s pretty much a given. Which features you use will depend on what you’re doing. A scrapper will use pretty different features from someone correcting photos to send in to a photography contest, for instance. I think the Downloader is probably the least useful feature for most Mac users, since it’s just another piece of software to do a job the OS already handles well, except for certain very specific uses, such as when you want to apply metadata templates on import. See my comments below also.

MYMAC: Which of these new features make the best case for prior users of Elements to upgrade from version 2, 3, or 4, especially version 4?

BARBARA: Well, all of them, really. Of course, if you have an Intel Mac, the ability to run natively on your hardware is probably the best reason of all.

MYMAC: Is Guided Edit a gimmick, or does it really work?

BARBARA: Oh yes, it works, although it’s not necessarily always the most effective or efficient way to do some of the tasks there. But it can be a real help to nervous beginners. For those who are braver, I’d start with the Quick Fix instead, and just push buttons and shove sliders around till you understand what everything does.

MYMAC: How easy is it to learn to make use of the new Quick Selection tool?

BARBARA: Can you draw a line? That’s really all there is to it. If you can drag with a mouse, you can use it.

MYMAC: Looking through the many new features at this Adobe official URL can readers get a decent idea about what these items do, or is this sneak peek too cursory?

BARBARA: Well, it does give a list, but it’s pretty cursory. I think they’d get a better idea by looking for one of the "first look" videos posted on many online sites. The most complete one is probably from Terry White here. That’s the best Mac-specific one. It’s 45 minutes long and gives at least a mention to most of the new features. 

MYMAC: Which version of PE6′s Picture Package do you find most useful or productive? The Windows or Mac edition, and why?

BARBARA: The Mac version. I like the easy drag from one photo zone to another in the Windows version and wish the Mac version had that, but all printing from the Windows Organizer happens at 220 ppi whether you like it or not, and you can’t save your package for another time. The Mac versions of the Picture Package and Contact Sheet, while maybe a tad trickier to learn at first, are far more useful.

MYMAC: Do you think many Mac users will take full advantage of Adobe’s Downloader and new Bridge, or ignore them in favor of iPhoto’s downloader and its ability to organize images?

BARBARA: Some of both. If you do use iPhoto, probably the only time you’d want to go into Bridge would be to take advantage of some of the online features. You really need to choose between iPhoto and Bridge for organizing, or you’ll go crazy. I don’t see the downloader as being very useful to the average Mac Elements user. You don’t need more software to download photos, even if you don’t use iPhoto or Aperture or anything, but it can be worthwhile for those who want to apply a metadata template (such as copyright info or usage permissions) to their photos on import. I don’t know how many Elements folks fall into that category, though, although it is a nice addition for those more advanced or professional users who primarily use Lightroom or Aperture and just need Photoshop Elements for occasional regional editing.

MYMAC: How much do you personally use PE6′s Bridge for its keywords, metadata, labels, ratings, and organization?

BARBARA: Personally, all the time. I like living the disorganized life and I can’t stand software that takes over and forces you to do things its way. I love the fact that Bridge doesn’t care a bit about what I do with my photos outside the program. It just goes finds the current situation, and tells me where they are now. I don’t like having to launch a program every time I want to move a photo from one folder to another, and  prefer a standard like IPTC metadata <http://www.iptc.org/photometadata/> keywords to a proprietary tagging system.

MYMAC: In your opinion, are people with G5s having only 32MB of video memory not really able to take advantage of PE6, with its 64MB video memory suggested minimum?

BARBARA: Yes, alas, I do think those people would most likely be better off sticking with Elements 4. Elements 6 will run, but I’m hearing from people with under-specced Macs that some PE6 features, like Photomerge, are very cranky and slow, if they work at all. If your computer falls into this category, I’d definitely give the trial a test drive before purchasing PE6.

MYMAC: Why don’t you recommend readers to "click-hold-drag-release" from iPhoto to PE6 in Dock to open iPhotos into Elements?

BARBARA: Well, I do mention drag and drop, but not specifically from iPhoto. I just think that for most iPhoto folks, learning to use the external editor command makes for a workflow that is easier for a beginner to understand, since you know exactly how the two programs are inter-relating. There are always a lot of different ways to do anything, both on a Mac and in Elements.

MYMAC: At what point in their knowledge curve do you think most PE6 users really need to learn about DNG or RAW?

BARBARA: For some people, the sooner the better, especially if you’re a mediocre photographer like me, since Raw gives you so much more latitude for correcting lousy shots. There are a lot of folks who really won’t need to use Raw ever, though, although I do suggest that at some point everyone should try correcting an image, even a JPEG or a TIFF, in the Raw Converter, just to see what it does. I’m still not totally sold on DNG, myself. It’s a great concept, but so was JPEG 2000, and for now, I don’t see it happening yet that DNG is supported when the proprietary Raw format isn’t. It’s an interesting idea for the future, though.

MYMAC: Do you use your mouse for rotating images in PE6, or have you set up any custom key commands to do this? Is such a thing even possible?

BARBARA: Mouse. Unfortunately, Elements is not natively scriptable the way Photoshop professional version is, and you can’t use System Prefs to add shortcuts to PSElements. It may be possible to set this up with a third party program, but I mostly only need Free Rotate Layer, myself, and it’s not worth going to any trouble to set up a key command for things you don’t use. Only my older cameras’ photo orientation is not recognized, and those images were all rotated long ago. I can see that it might be worth looking into what’s out there for someone who has a current camera whose orientation is ignored by PSE, but given that you can command-click (ctrl-click for the Windows Organizer) those images to select all the images you need to rotate in Bridge (ctrl-click for the Windows Organizer), and rotate them all at the same time, it’s not a huge problem. Remember that if you turn off folder viewing in Bridge (click the little folder icon with the No symbol on it on the Filter Tab), you can even see all the images on your drive at once, if you need to.

MYMAC: Thanks, Barbara. We’re glad to have you as a resource as we dig deeper in Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 and Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac — The Missing Manual. Book Bytes at MyMac Magazine highly recommends this outstanding title.

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C.E.O: Premiere for iPhone
Company: Marware
Price: $29.99
http://www.marware.com

I have to admit it right up front-I’m quite partial to the “folio” style iPhone cases; those that clip to your belt and hold the iPhone in a horizontal (sideways) fashion. Sure, it’s a tad harder to extract a ringing phone from the case, but most of them provide a cutaway at the bottom so you can push the phone out quickly if necessary. Obviously if you’re using a wired or Bluetooth headset, it’s not much of a consideration.

The primary reason I prefer the folio style is because in my line of work (Mac support) I am constantly crawling under desks and behind workstations to access cables and connections or move equipment around. With the iPhone constantly clipped to my belt, a case with a vertical orientation would, each time I bent over, create a permanent dent in my lower ribcage, and/or cause the iPhone to pop off my belt and crash to the floor. Clearly, not acceptable. Further, these cases cover the front of the device completely with a thick hunk of leather, so even if I inadvertently scrape it against a metal table leg or mash it into the wall trying to extricate myself from behind an equipment rack, the iPhone emerges unscathed.

So I was very excited to give Marware’s C.E.O: Premiere leather folio case a try. The first thing that struck me about this case is that it’s just so darned good-looking-jet-black Napa leather with very clean lines, a smooth off-white leather interior with a large “push the iPhone out from the bottom” hole, and side panels that allow access to the headphone and sleep/wake button. You do need to ensure that you insert the iPhone into the case with the top of the phone on the right, since only one of the side panels is cut away sufficiently to allow access to the sleep/wake switch. You can’t access the volume controls or the dock when the iPhone is in the case; it would be nice to have the volume buttons accessible, although I can’t imagine why you would need dock access with the iPhone clipped to your belt.

This is the right side of the case, showing the access to the headphone jack and sleep/wake switch. The side panel on the left side is much larger and blocks the sleep/wake switch, so you’ll need to remember to insert the phone into the case with the top pointing to the right.

The C.E.O: Premiere has a magnetic closure, which has a much superior feel and action when compared to velcro or a metal snap-type closure. I recall when the iPhone first emerged and these cases started coming out of the woodwork, there were some concerns that a magnetic closure could erase data or even damage the iPhone. Although I have not seen any official statement from Apple or any of the case manufacturers debunking this theory, the general consensus appears to be that the magnets utilized in closures of this type are nowhere near powerful enough to result in data loss. The magnetic-style closure allows the flap of the case to close completely flush with the front, giving it a lower profile and making it less likely that I’ll bash it against the door getting into my car. The tiny silver badge on the front of the case flap is a nice accent, although I could live without the “MARWARE” name stamped into it.

Thanks to the magnetic closure, the case flap is completely flush with the front of the case when closed. The little silver badge is a nice accent with the black leather, but with the name stamped into it I feel like I’m shilling for Marware.

All in all, I think the C.E.O: Premiere is a winner. It definitely has that refined, buttoned-down CEO look to it and I could definitely see this case clipped to the belt of any executive wearing a black power suit. For a folio-type case it’s about as low-profile as you can get. The belt clip is metal sheathed in leather, and based on my early testing it promises to hold up through thousands of clippings and unclipping, something I can’t say about the belt clips on a few other cases I’ve used.

As always, I do have a few “cons” to point out in the spirit of constructive criticism. First, the case is quite rigid and strong, and that would seem to be A Good Thing, but it’s really not padded in any way, and that means when I inevitably grind my C.E.O: Premiere-encased iPhone into the metal leg of someone’s computer workstation, the case absorbs less of the impact and the iPhone absorbs more. Second, why not put actual belt loops on the back of the case, as well as the belt clip, so it can be strung through one’s belt as well? This would save wear and tear on the clip and provide a much more secure connection to the wearer. And as noted above, I find that I end up placing the iPhone into the case so that the sleep/wake switch is blocked about, oh, I’d say, 50% of the time. I hope to overcome this through a program of rigorous training and self-discipline.

Since I’m the sole employee of my consulting company, I suppose I could refer to myself as the C.E.O. were I so inclined. With this case, I feel as if I certainly look the part.

MyMac.com Rating: 4 out of 5

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Pastor 1.8
Author: Markus Mehlau
http://www.mehlau.net/pastor/
Price: Donationware

I’ve never before used a password program to securely store personal passwords – I have had my usernames and passwords all listed in a single TextEdit file (or back in Mac OS 9, SimpleText). It seemed to have worked well enough, but it may have wasted much of my time.

A few of password security programs are available today. These include 1Password ($30) and Steel ($9), both of which are shareware and have been rated 5 out of 5 by users at VersionTracker.

Pastor 1.8, which is “Donationware,” apparently lacks many of the features of these other two password security programs, but its elegant interface and simplicity make it a viable alternative. Simply put, it’s a small database program for passwords.

The friendly interface of Pastor 1.8 adds to its appeal as an all-in-one password protection program.

The left side of Pastor’s window shows your list of Web sites requiring passwords. When one clicks on a Web site on the list, the right shows “Name of Entry” or Web site; the site’s URL; User ID, Name, or Login; Password, Serial Number, or PIN, and, finally,
Notes.

To add a new entry, simply click on the Add Entry button to add to the list. Pastor lists all Web sites in alphabetical order for easy browsing.

Beside the URL, User ID (or Log-In, Name), and Password entries, one gets the option to take action to get to the desired Web site. Beside the URL entry, there is a “Visit” button you may click to launch the browser and get you to the site quickly. Next to the User ID entry there is a button to click and copy for pasting the User ID onto the site. Beside the Password entry is a button to click and copy quickly to get you to the vital innards of that “essential” site.

AUTOMATIC PASSWORD GENERATOR

Under the “Tools” drop down menu you’ll find a useful automatic password generator. Pastor will generate a random password based on the criteria you set, such as alphabetic, numeric, alphanumeric, hexadecimal, and speakable. I chose a 10-digit hexadecimal password and it turned out to be “E95353D1C0.” Paste this randomized password into one of your entries and you’ve got some extra security.

It would have been nice to import my passwords from my TextEdit file, instead of manually writing them in, but perhaps that’s a bit unrealistic. On Versiontracker, I read that people can’t import passwords from MS Excel or other spreadsheets either. Perhaps this may be fixed in the future.

But, for me, this is all I need for passwords. No more delving deep into my hard drive to find ‘em. They’re all there in Pastor 1.8, well organized and easily accessible.

Pastor 1.8 runs on Mac OS X 10.2 or later.

MyMac rating: 4 out of 5

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TripleHead2Go
Company: Matrox
Price: $299
www.matrox.com

The TripleHead2Go by Matrox is a small (1.25″ x 3″ x 6″) box, that splits one video signal into 2 or 3. So if you are looking to add more monitors, is it the right tool for you?

Well, if you have 3 of the same digital monitors just laying around this devise does work, but I must say I wasn’t very impressed with the results I got.

The TripleHead2Go originally retailed for $399, but in recent weeks the price has dropped about $100. Nice, right? Maybe not.

As a Mac user I’m used to being able to just plug things in and have them work. The TripleHead2Go wasn’t that easy. In fact it took me multiple calls to Matrox tech support to figure out why I was getting such wacky results.

The TripleHead2Go requires a 3rd party system preference plug-in that doesn’t ship on the CD included with the unit. But that’s no big deal just be sure you download and install the software before you hook up the TripleHead2Go. Some explanation would be nice, documentation stating that fact. But why not include it on the CD?

The first few times I tried to set up my three monitors, my screens didn’t align or were out of sequence. In other words my center monitor was on my right or my right monitor was on my left as I scrolled around my desktop with my mouse. This was extremely frustrating because I plugged in the monitors in the order they should have appeared on my desktop.

The worst part was once I finally got all of the monitors in the right order the resolution was incredibly low and the image quality was very blurry. Throughout all of my testing I never achieved the resolutions I thought I should have. I was later told by Matrox tech support that it may be because the hardware I was testing the TripleHead2Go with had an insufficient video card.

I my opinion if you have a G5 tower or a MacPro the TripleHead2Go is not for you. You could easily add a faster and more powerful video card for half of the cost of the TripleHead2Go and be able to attached 4 monitors to your system rather then just three.

However, if you have a MacBook or a MacBook Pro and need to add more then one monitor to your setup then the TripleHead2Go just may be an option. The TripleHead2Go is small enough to take with you when you are on the road but are you really going to carry around 3 extra monitors with you?

Needless to say the TripleHead2Go is not something I highly recommend and I only give it a MyMac rating of 1 out of 5.

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AppMenuBoy
Company: Google
Price: Free
http://code.google.com/p/appmenuboy/

AppMenuBoy 1.0 is a handy little application that takes away some clicks (and valuable time) to get an application opened. It also put your apps in a quick invaluable hierarchical list, so one can get to all apps in no time flat.

As the included AppMenuBoy “Read Me” This is a small Cocoa application that creates a hierarchical menu, in the dock, and when it is the frontmost app, in the menu bar, of your apps. It only shows apps. If a folder has a single app, it hoists the app up, so no subfolders of exactly one app.

And it works great. I’m running Mac OS 10.4.11, the last version of Tiger, and I feel like I’ve been given it’s a free download something that should have been included with Mac OS X, although the fact that AppMenyBoy exists gives me more faith in third-party developers. The author, David Phillip Oster, created the program for Max OS X 15.0 and he says, “I admit, that AppMenuBoy made more sense when I first wrote it back in the 10.5.0 days. But, there are enough differences between it and Apple’s 10.5.2 implementation that I thought it was worth posting the AppMenuBoy source code.”

So I dragged the application AppMenuBoy to the dock and voila! I now have rapid access to all my apps. Holding down the AppMenuBoy icon on the dock, an alphabetical list of all my applications goes up in a menu and none of the extraneous stuff in the apps folders appears. No Read Me, no License Agreements, no extra anything, all one sees is the apps in their purest form. The apps are also in alphabetical order to make life even easier.

So go for it. It’s clean little program that does exactly what it’s supposed to do. And it could save you a lot of time.

MyMac rating: 5 out of 5 stars

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Download the show (mp3) here
Gedeon Maheux from The Icon Factory joins Tim and David for a lively interview at the start of the show. Taking care of some business, we announce the winner of the Essential Jacket from SCOTTEVEST, and call the winner on the phone! Later, Lee Givens joins in to answer a listener question on which Mac to buy on his budget, while David talks about getting later versions of Mac OS X on unsupported Apple hardware using Other World Computing’s XPostFacto. All that and MUCH more.

We want to hear from you! Questions or comments can be phone in at 1-801-938-5559

Subscribe to our podcast via iTunes HERE.

This episode sponsored by Other World Computing

Links from the show
The Icon Factory
SCOTTEVEST
XPostFacto
Let’s Get Down To Earth… Science Podcast

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VUDU
Company: Vudu
Price: $295 for box, plus rental fee per movie or TV show
http://www.vudu.com

There are many ways to see movies today. You could go to the theatre, but the $12 per person ticket price, the hassle of parking, the expensive soda and popcorn, the annoying advertisements before the film, and the people talking around you have ruined that experience in my view. With new big screen HDTV sets and surround sound audio systems, watching a movie at home has become a true ‘movie going experience’, so staying home, eating your own food, and being comfortable on your couch has a great many advantages. But how do you get the movie you want in your home when you want it?

Lets just forget services like HBO and Showtime, the movies are old and the schedules are awful. There is always the local movie rental house, but they never seem to have the movie I want when I want it, and I always forget to return them on time, racking up high fees. Netflix is a great choice, delivered and returned to your door via the US postal service, but then you have to wait for the mail and hope they send what you want when you want it. Streaming movies on the computer is becoming more and more popular, but do you really want to sit around the computer to watch movies? Not me. There are movie devices that bring movies to your TV, including the AppleTV box, TiVo, and even the newer Dish Network set tops all allow you to download movies right to your living room via the Internet. Unfortunately, you still have to wait a rather long while for the movie to download to the box before you can watch it, and that can take from 1 to 4 hours or longer, even with a fast internet connection.

But if you have a broadband internet connection, there is now something better, and that better thing is VUDU, a movie rental store right in your living room, den, or bedroom, ready for instant access to a large catalog of movies and TV. The holy grail of broadband, instant, on-demand access to movies and TV in your home has finally happened. VUDU is a small black box (8.9”w x 7.3”d x 2.4”h) that hooks to your broadband connection and to your HD or SD TV. Costing just under $300, the box is basically a computer for your TV, a little larger than a Mac Mini, and just as quiet. Set up is fairly simple, just plug in a network line (there is no wireless unfortunately), attach audio (HDMI, digital optical, digital coax, or RCA stereo pair) and video connections (HDMI, Component, S-Video and composite video out) to your TV and sound system, and plug it in! If you did it all correctly, you will see the VUDU logo , the machine will “boot” and you will see a short introduction video that gets you set up and started.

The first time you plug it in, you are walked through the remote “pairing” (just in case you neighbor has one) and a quick description of how to use the remote, then the unit will take some time to update its local content, including library, previews, and other data. However, this only happens once, and future updates are trickled to the box while it is not busy.

As for the remote, if you cannot figure this one out, you should give up watching TV. This small RF wireless remote with a strange “twisted” shape fits conformably into either hand, and has only 5 buttons (power, back, pause/play, VUDU, and more) and a simple scroll/click wheel for everything else. The VUDU button is basically home, taking you to the top navigation screen in case you get lost. All navigation uses the scroll wheel to spin through the options; a click of that same wheel selects your choice. Pause/Play is obvious and “back” navigates you one screen backwards in the interface. And like a good Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy story, the more button does nothing but put up a screen saying that it may do more in the future! I guess they wanted an extra button just in case. I must say, this is one of the best-designed and easiest to use remotes and interface I have ever seen in a consumer electronics product in a long time.

OK, but what exactly does this box do for you? Think of it as having a Blockbuster rental store right in your home, with instant access to all it’s content, well over 5000 movies and TV shows, growing all the time. If your broadband can deliver more than 2 Mbps, you can get instant viewing of standard definition content. If you broadband can deliver 4 Mbps or more, you also get instant viewing to HD content too (1080p/24, 1080i, 720p, and 480p.) But even if you have a slower broadband connection, fear not, because the wait times for this download are significantly shorter than with any other download movie services. So how do they do this?

VUDU developed a network technology based on bit torrents (the popular file sharing technology used for years to obtain illegal content) to securely spread the distribution of VUDU’s legal content around the network on VUDU boxes. This makes delivery of content to your box much faster than simply sending the file from a single server somewhere, as it comes to your box from many different sources all at the same time. And even a slow network connections can start watching a full movie in as little as 20 minutes with this network model. It is important that the box be left plugged in and connected to the network however, as they are constantly updating the catalog and software while the box is idle, and of course, the box is part of this interconnected network of users.

In addition to some amazingly fast delivery technology, the extremely simple operation of this box makes using it a dream. Once the box is ready, the VUDU home screen will display a list of menus available, as well as a strip of new content icons. From here, you can navigate to a number of sub-menus, including “Most Watched”, “New on VUDU”, search movies by genre, title, actor, or director with “Explore Catalog” and view and manage titles you have bought or rented in “My VUDU.” There is also the ”Info & Settings” menu where you can change things like service quality (amount of bandwidth this uses) adjust parental controls, and set audio and video settings. Along the bottom of the home page is a strip of 20 titles shown as little icons. Using a special discovery engine, VUDU will present you with suggestions based on movies you own, rented, or are ready to watch.

Titles can be found by simply exploring the entire catalog, which can be searched, by genre (16 categories), HD only titles, TV shows, search by actor or director, or search by title. Exploring “Most Watched” will display a list of the most popular titles on VUDI, while “New on VUDU” will show you what has just been added, or what is coming soon to VUDU. The interface is extremely clean and easy to use, especially with the simple to use remote, and finding something to watch is also quite easy given the great number of ways one can search for content.

Once you find something, pressing select takes you to a “Movie Details Screen” where you will find information on the title in a short synopsis, and details including photos of the cast members and director, the date, run time and rating of the film, and in many cases, a free preview which can be viewed by pressing “pause/play.” From this screen, you can also select “similar titles” to see a list of related movies, or click on a cast member or director to see all the available moves that person is in. Similar info is shown for TV shows in their “Episode Details Screen.” You can also choose here to “buy” this movie for unlimited viewing, rent it, or add it to your wish list to remind you about it later.

Renting or buying is very simple. Simply highlight buy or rent (some titles are buy only, some are rent only, some allow both) where the cost is displayed, and press select. You will then be presented with a confirmation screen, with one more chance to cancel. Once confirmed, your purchase will be added to the appropriate personal library of owned and rented titles on the device, your account will be debited, and you can then decide to watch it immediately (depending on your bandwidth), or save it for later viewing.

While that may sound confusing, this short movie shows the interface in operation: (Operation Movie.MOV)

Rented titles will be charged against your account instantly, typically, $2.99 to $5.99 depending on how new it is and if it is in HD or not, and “stored” on your system for up to 30 days. However, once you start watching a rented movie, it starts a 24-hour countdown clock, and when expired, the movie will be deleted from your box. If you pause a movie and select to watch it later, it will resume from exactly where you left off. You can also watch it as many times as you like during that 24-hour period, but once that time expires, it will no longer be available without paying again to rent or buy it.

Personally, I had issues with this 24-hour limitation. If I start watching something say after dinner tonight and get interrupted, the movie will “time out” before that same time tomorrow, which means you cannot finish that movie after dinner tomorrow night. I am told this 24-hour limit is a movie studio limitation, but one I hope they can eventually change. I should be allowed to watch the movie completely at least once before that clock starts running. And the same is true for the 30-day hold. If you rent a movie and then forget about it for 30 days, it disappears from your rental box, and you do not get your money back. I believe in order to compete head to head with Blockbuster and Netflix, these restriction needs to be changed in the near future.

Purchased movies are stored on your box and can be watched as many times as you like, when you like, with no time restrictions. The current boxes can hold between 50 and 250 titles depending on the size of movies and the HD size in the box, and purchased titles can be archived “off the box”, and reloaded at a later time for no charge (I did not try this out.) But here too I have issues with the “purchase” idea. While the purchase price is similar in cost to buying a DVD, with a DVD, not only do I physically own something, but most movies on DVD these days also include extra content and features that are not available on VUDU titles. Purchasing movies would be much more attractive if extras were included as an incentive to buy rather than rent. For my dollar, if I am buying, for now, I will still opt for the real DVD!

The box’s performance was amazingly solid, no crashes during use, and not once did I see a movie pause, skip or stutter during playback. The remote is very responsive, and given the RF signal, worked great from the next room or down the hall too. While playing content, the scroll wheel quickly moves you forward and backward through the title, allowing for quick review or skipping. Audio quality was good, and video quality was also good, although on a very larger LCD screen and on a large front projection system, encoding artifacts became more evident. Additionally, the few HD titles I watched did not seem nearly as sharp or detailed as the same movie on a Blue Ray DVD, perhaps a results of the MPEG-4 encoding rates used here which I am sure are lower than those on a DVD. Perhaps I am more sensitive to these types of “digital noise” artifacts then most, as most others watching with me were not so bothered by them.

And don’t even think about saving the title elsewhere, the video output is “encoded” with signals (most likely Macrovision) to prevent the content from being recorded on an external DVD recorder, PVR, or VCR. When I tried this on my Panasonic DVD recorder, it popped up a small box that said the content could not be recorded. My Tivo box displayed a similar message as well, both refusing to record the analog output of the VUDU box. And there is no chance of ripping the video from the disk, as the digital streams are encoded, as are the files on the disk. While this means you cannot keep a copy of your rental, it also means that VUDI will be able to keep their rental prices lower and add more studios’ movies because the content is secure, an important factor to movie studios these days. Currently they distribute from 8 major studios and 17 independent studios and distributors, which gives them a fairly large library of films, and I expect to see more in the future as the box is proven secure.

Paying for titles is straightforward and managed through the VUDU website. Here, customers use a credit card to set up an account, and then charge an increment of $20, $50, or $100 of viewing credit (user selectable) to their account. As titles are rented or purchased, the user’s account is debited the cost from their balance. Should the user’s account drop below $5.00, the credit card will again be charged the initial selected amount to replenish the account. The website can also be used to manage the account and view rented and purchased titles, as well as get customer service info.

Speaking of customer service, in addition to help on the website, they offer sales and customer service via a toll-free phone number Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 8 PM (Pacific Time) and Saturday and Sunday, 11 AM to 7 PM (Pacific Time). A test call to this number for a small problem was answered promptly, and the customer service agent was very helpful and friendly.

VUDU offers a large array of films, some of which may not be appropriate for young children, and the easy to use remote means that kids and teens could easily access the box to watch or buy films without permission as well. Parental Controls adds a password to many features of the box, and allows blocking of buying or renting titles at all ratings, as well as blocking the ability to delete titles too. Unfortunately, the passcodes are fairly simple 5 digit numbers using only the numbers 1, 2 and 3 in the code. The passcodes are entered by pressing “more” for 1, “VUDU” for 2, and “play/pause” for 3, which really means most people’s passwords will be 11111, 22222, or 33333, or some other simple pattern, because anything else is just a pain to remember. Given the easy to use dial, entering a 3 or 4-digit number where you dial in each digit and press select would be a lot more secure, and MUCH easier to remember, than some combination of presses on 3 arbitrary buttons.

Currently, VUDU does not offer adult tiles, which I found surprising. Not that I was shopping for such titles, but in the history of video technology, adult titles have always spurred on viewing technology into the mainstream, bringing down costs for the consumer. If not for adult videos, DVDs, VCRs, and satellite TV technology would have taken a great deal longer to hit mainstream numbers. While I am not disappointed to see these titles missing, I think without them, adoption will take longer for VUDU.

Lastly, while I like what this box does for the rental video market, I would like it much better if it would also interface via the network connection to my Mac or PC, and allow me to view me computer’s videos, music, and pictures on the TV and audio system as well.

The bottom line: if you are someone who watches a lot of movies and are tired of the theatre issues, the hassle of movie rentals, or the long wait for downloads, this box may be exactly what you have been waiting for. Coupled with a reasonable Internet connection, this box brings you instant access to many thousands of movies and TV shows in a small, compact box, at a reasonable price. VUDU has set the bar quite high for Internet movie and TV rental on your TV. Frankly, this is how Apple TV should work for video rentals, and if VUDU adds computer content sharing, this could easily give Apple TV a good run for the money. Some may be put off by the initial hardware costs, and actually, I was too at first. However, once you start using it, and realize that a movie is just a few clicks away anytime you want it, you will be quickly hooked on this device, and the price may not seem so bad after all.

Pros: Very easy to use interface and remote. Instant start times for content, no download waits, no watching on the computer. No additional fees or subscription costs over movie rental price. Very large collection of movies

Cons: No ability to share PC content (video, music, etc) on this device. 24-hour rental limitation is a problem. HD and TV libraries are still small. No DVD Extras on purchased movies. Poor password function. No wireless. Initial price of box could scare some away.

MyMac rating: 4.5 out of 5

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Running Windows on your Mac
Dwight Silverman
Peachpit Press
www.adobepress.com
240 Pages
US $34.99 CAN $37.99 UK £24.99
ISBN-13 978-0-321-53506-1
ISBN-10 0-321-53506-5

I am the person who threatened my husband with divorce if he ever brought a PC into our home, which he reminds me every time I mention running Windows on my iMac. I have a good excuse though. I needed to run a banking program at work that would only run on Windows, so I convinced myself a new Intel Mac was the solution to my problem. Oh, yeah it sounds easy enough doesn’t it, but once the hardware arrives then there is the dilemma of which software to buy. And then comes the commitment to actually install and run it.

As a long time Mac user, the decision to install Windows on my new Intel based iMac was one of the scariest I’ve ever had to make. I used Dwight Silverman’s book Running Windows on your Mac to make the installation and set up, while not quite a breeze, (it is Windows after all), at least bearable.

This book is divided into three parts:
Part 1, Installing and Running Windows on the Mac
Part 2, Macintosh for Windows Users, and
Part 3, Windows for Macintosh Users

Dwight explains in the introduction of his book that “The first part of the book provides information for anyone who wants to run Windows on the Mac, while the last parts focus on specific user types.”

Part One contains eight chapters which explains the different Windows environments available for running on the Mac; Boot Camp, and the virtualization environments Parallels and VMware Fusion. Chapter One provides an overview of the three, with a chart of features of all three at the end for an easy comparison. I had already purchased Parallels and a copy of Windows XP before I received the book, and I was relieved after reading Chapter One of this book that I had chosen the very best environment for my particular need. Hardware requirements are also specified.

The remaining seven chapters of Part One detail each environment, including chapters on on advanced usage. I paid the most attention to the Parallels chapters, but in skimming through the Boot Camp and VMware Fusion sections I could see they are each contain the same attention to detail, including the always helpful tips that appear in the side margins. Using the Parallels chapters as a guide, I was up and comfortably running my WIndows environment on the Mac in a little less than two hours, which included tweaking my virtual machine.

Part Two consists of four chapters that introduce Macintosh basics to Windows users by explaining the similarities and differences between Windows and Mac. These chapters are titled Mac Basics, Inside System Preferences, Advanced Mac, and Mac Apps: An Overview. I skimmed these chapters as they did not really apply to my situation but from what I read, the writing is clear and concise, just as it is in Part One.

Part Three, Windows for Macintosh users consists of two chapters, WIndows Basics and Advanced Windows. As Dwight says in the introduction to Part Three, “Windows is similar enough to the Mac that the learning curve is not too steep.” And he’s right. He includes just enough information in these two chapters to help a newish Windows user feel comfortable with the hardware and the software. I especially appreciated the explanations about the difference between the keyboards and mice of the two operating systems.

I highly recommend this book for both beginning and intermediate computer users, especially those who need a clear explanation of the difference between Boot Camp and the virtualization environments, and those users who need advice on which will work best for their own application. Before you buy your software, make sure you buy this book. For the beginning or intermediate user, I recommend this book as 5 out of 5. This advanced computer user should compare the information in this book to those books with advanced technical information, so for the advanced user I recommend this book as 4 out of 5.

Dwight Silverman is a veteran journalist who has written about personal computers since the mid-1980′s. He is the computing columnist and technology blogger at the Houston Chronicle as well as the cohost of “Technology Bytes,” a weekly PC-help call-in show on KPFT FM. You can read his blog and columns at www.chron.com.

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A little over 7 years ago, Mac OS X made its debut. With it were a lot of changes from Mac OS 9, including a now unalterable Apple Menu. No more could you put anything in the Apple Menu Items folder. It didn’t exist anymore. The new place where Apple said we would be able to add frequently used items was a new feature called the Dock.

Adding items to the Dock can quickly cause overcrowding however, and a lot of people simply missed their Apple menus. Several 3rd party solutions came along, most of which were docklings (which are no longer supported). In late 2001, FruitMen made its debut. It made the Apple Menu even more customizable than in Mac OS 9. Once again you could add anything you wanted, plus you could also alter what Apple put in there.

There is a dark side to FruitMenu, however. Every major release of Mac OS X has broken it because it is dependent on things in the OS that Apple says programmers shouldn’t do. Things that always change greatly when a new version of Mac OS X is released, and which changed dramatically in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. This isn’t completely bad. FruitMenu disables itself if you upgrade Mac OS X so it won’t cause you trouble. Upgrades to FruitMenu were always quick in coming until the release of Leopard. This time it has taken several months for the first beta to appear.

As a long time FruitMenu user, I was in an awkward position shortly after 10.5 was released. My customers were increasingly asking me about Leopard features I wasn’t very familiar with because I hadn’t upgraded. Having been dependent on FruitMenu during my day to day work, I needed to find a replacement. All of these work with Mac OS X 10.4 or higher and are Universal for both Intel and PowerPC.

As I said in my first look, the first one I looked at was Classic Menu 2.8.1 (4 out of 5, application, $10) from Sig Software. Classic Menu is a semi-faceless background application whose "window" is an overlay of the Apple Menu. By default the standard Apple Menu is accessed by holding Control when clicking. This can be changed in the preferences to a different key or to a mouse click in different areas of the Apple Menu. Other preferences configure the Apple icon color, menu icon options, and startup (actually login) options. The "Open automatically at startup" option inserts Classic Menu as a Login Item in the Accounts system preference.

Classic Menu is the only one of these that uses the Apple Menu, but it does so without integrating it. It excels at simplicity. The majority of items are the user created things in the Classic Menu Items folder in the user’s Preferences folder. Anything, even system preferences and applications that Apple stashes in the System folder such as Software Update, can be added with an alias and documents and applications that do not need to be in a certain place can be added directly. Items can be reordered and separators added as shown using empty folders. Clicking on an item opens it, clicking while holding Command shows the item in the Finder, and clicking while holding Shift shows the item’s Info window. The remaining menu commands bring up the About, Preferences, Register, and Quit commands as well as opening, adding to, and changing the Classic Menu Items folder.

Classic Menu will open a seemingly infinite number of subfolders, which is very helpful when you use it to access mounted volumes. It is inexpensive, simple, flexible, and fairly powerful. It does show a few invisible items that it shouldn’t, such as the Network Trash Folder, but as an application it is far less prone to being disabled by a system upgrade or update.

The second one I tried was SunnyMenu (1 out of 5, application, $12.88) from Light Being Software because I could use it side by side with Classic Menu since it used the upper left corner. SunnyMenu is by far the youngest of our 5 reviewed programs, having debuted only 7 months ago. I started out with version 1.1.4 with one corner menu, and now 9 updates later version 1.2.3 has 4 corner menus. It looks like the developer is working toward a less expensive alternative to MaxMenus.

The best example of my reaction to SunnyMenu is when you select SunnyMenu Help from the Help menu. A dialog appears that says "Help isn’t available for SunnyMenu.". It’s quite rough around the edges. Features have been added fast and furious, the preferences and editor are much easier to figure out than they were in 1.1.4, but the documentation is still lagging behind.

SunnyMenu is the only one in this group that has its own Dock icon and menus. This makes for some behavioral oddities. If the Dock icon is active, clicking on one of the menus brings you out of the application you’re in and into SunnyMenu. If you change your mind and don’t click back in the window you were working in, you may find yourself in an unexpected place. Programs like this work best when the interface is at a minimum with no menu bar or Dock icon. The Dock icon can be turned off in the preferences, but if you open the menu editor the Dock icon reappears and will not go away without quitting SunnyMenu. Another strange thing is looking through several sub-levels of folders some invisible items show (AppleShare PDS did) and some visible items do not (how can the System folder not?).

When first run, the upper left menu auto populates with many of your applications, sorted into Apple, Office, Internet, Text, Imaging, Audio, Video, and Utilities folders. Below this are the Edit Menus, Preferences, and Quit commands. The other 3 corner menus and the Dock menu are unpopulated. Within the menu editor there are buttons to add and subtract items and they can be reordered by dragging. Other buttons can add dividers, labels, and active applications and System Preferences menu items. There is also an option to make one menu mirror another, but in using this the application frequently froze. The preferences allow you to activate and deactivate the individual menus, change their colors, and set options for menu icons and fonts.

SunnyMenu is very much a work in progress. The developer updates it frequently and I expect it will eventually be a good application. Right now it has too many annoying quirks to recommend it.

XMenu 1.8.1 (2.5 out of 5, application, FREE) from Devon Technologies was next on my list because it’s free. Free is good, but in this case you get what you pay for.

XMenu places as many as 5 menus on the right side of the menu bar: Applications (the only one by default), Developer, Home, Documents, and User Defined. The menus are turned on and off in the preferences, which are accessed by holding down the Command key and clicking on any XMenu menu. The first four, as the names suggest, are not configureable and show the contents of the respective folders on your hard disk. The XMenu items folder, located at /Users/yourname/Library/XMenu, contains the things that appear in the User Defined menu. Anything can be put in the XMenu items folder (aliases, applications, documents, etc.), which basically renders the other 4 menus pointless. I mean, why activate the Applications menu when you can just put an alias of it in the User Defined menu?

There are a couple things about the User Defined menu that are frustrating. Other than a preference that controls whether folders are before, after, or sorted alphabetically with files, the items can’t be reordered. You’re stuck with alphabetical sorting. Also, on the startup volume you can go down an infinite number of subfolders but on removable volumes you get only the top level and no folders. Some invisible items (the etc, tmp, and var folders for example) that shouldn’t be are visible. Dividers can’t be added either, but that’s minor in comparison to not being able to reorder.

Other preferences set if the menus appear to the left or right of Apple’s menu extras, icon and font options for the menus, and menu title options. Other commands accessible with the Command key are About XMenu, Check For Updates, Open Folder in Finder, and Quit. There are also modifier keys for the menu selections. Selecting a menu item while holding Control shows the item in the Finder and selects it, Shift shows the original of an alias (or behaves exactly like Control if it is not an alias), Option shows the the original and hides the current application, and Command shows the Info window for the item.

XMenu works well if you don’t mind the limited sorting options compared to Classic Menu and the other little quirks. Heck, the price is right.

Another free option is RapidoStart 2.1.1 (4 out of 5, application, FREE) from app4mac. Unlike the others, this one does not create menus. It launches a translucent palette via a green dot icon in the lower right corner of your display, the location of which can be changed in the preferences. F1 through F19 (no modifier) can also be set as a keyboard shortcut to bring up the RapidoStart palette. When open it looks a lot like the grid view of the Stacks feature of Mac OS X 10.5. Even though it doesn’t do menus like I was originally looking for, it’s appearance is so appealing I wanted to evaluate it also. RapidoStart has the nicest appearance of all the software being reviewed here.

When first launched, RapidoStart immediately goes into a tutorial that tells you everything you need to know about how to use, setup, and configure the different options. This is a most impressive and helpful feature. You can go back to the tutorial anytime by selecting it in the RapidoStart options menu at the lower right hand corner of the palette. Items are added by dragging them in from the Finder just like the Dock or by clicking an empty space, bringing up a dialog to add an item. Anything (applications, folders, files) can be added. Rearranging the icons is a little different, however. When rearranging, icons swap positions rather than sliding over like the Dock. Like the Dock the names can’t be changed, so if you add something like a system preference you could end up with some funny names. If a palette is full when you add an item, another page is added and green dots appear on the sides to turn the pages. To remove an item, Control click or right click an icon and Choose Remove from the menu that appears.

There are several other configuration options. The number of icons per page can be set to 8, 16, 32, 48, or 64 and RapidoStart will not allow you to select a size that is too large for your display. The appearance and page turning effects can be changed. A check to launch automatically at startup, plus a few other options and access to web based support and updates.

RapidoStart is a great compliment to the Dock. Where you might put your most frequently used items in the Dock, you can use RapidoStart to launch other needed items without overloading the Dock with icons. There’s no limit to the number of things you can add, and you can create additional categories. Thankfully with no limits the RapidoStart palette includes a Find field. Since it is a palette, there is no submenu access like the other programs.

The thing that separates Proteron’s MaxMenus 1.5.1 (4.5 out of 5, preference pane, $29.95) from the rest is power, beginning with a very well configured set of defaults. At this point this threatens to turn into a review of only MaxMenus, but it just has so many more features than the others. It has keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop menus, grab and drop menu items, and there is a very thorough 12 page manual that opens in TextEdit by clicking the question mark in the lower left corner of the preference pane (printing this is definitely recommended). These are features that are not in any of the other software featured here.

MaxMenus is a preference pane. Like many, it’s double click to install and it will ask if you want it available to all users or just your account. The master on/off switch is in the Options tab. Once running there are four colored menus, one in each corner, and another that is triggered with Command-Option-Tab which shows currently running applications. The upper left corner, green by default, is the Applications folder. Control or right click to get the Applications (Mac OS 9) folder, if present, and Command click to get the Utilities folder. Blue in the upper right corner shows open applications, mounted volumes, and the Desktop. Control (or right) clicking shows your Home folder, and Command clicking shows Desktop (Mac OS 9) if present. The lower left red menu is your Documents folder. Right or Control clicking displays your Music folder and Command clicking displays Pictures and Movies. The last corner, lower right, is yellow and shows the user Favorites folder. Control (or right) clicking shows the System Preferences. Colors can be changed if you wish.

MaxMenus’ menus can be configured any way you like in the Menus tab. You can add files and folders to existing menus by dragging them from the Finder into the left side of the preference pane or by using the Any File/Folder option on the right side. MaxMenus built in options, such as text labels, separators, system preferences, mounted volumes (submenus go as deep as there are things to go to, but some invisible items can show), open programs, and all of Mac OS X’s standard folders and a few other items (just too many to list here) can be added by dragging them from the right side to the left. Folders can either show a text label with the contents in line (triangle in the pref pane flipped down) or as a submenu (triangle flipped right). Menu items are rearranged by dragging them up or down and removed by dragging them out of the System Preferences window, resulting in the standard Mac OS X "poof". There are six menu icon and font size options. The default is Normal, and there are also Small, Big, Bigger, Huge, and Prodigious. Double clicking on a menu item brings up a selection of options for that item, especially for folders. Icon or no icon, customized name, hide documents, and folder access and sorting options.

New menus are added by choosing New Menu… from the Choose Menu popup. From there you choose the menu location (with modifier keys if needed) and/or hot key that triggers the menu. In addition to the corners of the main display, menus can be added to the corners of any secondary displays, to the empty middle section of the menu bar, and menus that trigger at the cursor with a keyboard combination just like the default Command-Option-Tab menu. MaxMenus will tell you if the trigger you are setting up is already in use by an existing menu to prompt you to choose something else. With all these combinations you can literally create dozens of menus.

Menu items can be assigned hot keys directly in a menu by hovering the cursor over the item and pressing the key combination you would like to use. They can also be deleted by hovering over an item that has a hot key and pressing Delete. All configured hot keys are listed in the Hot Keys tab, where they can be changed or deleted. Hot keys aren’t restricted to the menus. Anything can be given a hot key in the Hot Keys tab by clicking Add, making your choice, clicking in the Hot Key field, then pressing a key combination. The hot key for an item will appear in any menu the item is in.

The drag and drop feature can be used to move, copy, and open files. When you drag a file to a menu, you will see the cursor change to a pointing white hand that signifies drag and drop mode. Let up on the mouse button and the MaxMenus menu will open, allowing you to choose a folder to copy or move the file into or an application to open the file with. Two of the modifier keys used in the Finder (Option to force a copy and Command-Option to make an alias, but not Command to force a move) also work in MaxMenus. Drag and drop also works with the keyboard triggered popup menus, but not the empty menu bar menus. Simply drag and hold on the file then press the keyboard combination.

The opposite also works to copy, move, and open files via their menu items with MaxMenus’ grab and drop feature. To grab a menu item, open the menu and click and hold on the one you want then press Command-G. You can then drag the item into a Finder window, onto a Dock icon, or even onto one of MaxMenus’ menus just as if you had picked up an icon in the Finder. There is also an extensive list of keyboard commands in the manual that take effect on menu items, such as delete, get info, and several others.

These five programs provide a good variety to choose from. If power and flexibility are at the top of your list, then MaxMenus will probably work best for you. If reliable simplicity at a low price is what you want, Classic Menu is a great choice. RapidoStart is the one if you prefer a palette to menus, and it’s free. XMenu works if you’re looking for something that is free and are okay with its limitations. SunnyMenu has a lot of potential, but too many issues to recommend it at this time.

Classic Menu 2.8.1 – 4 out of 5
Pros – Inexpensive, simple, and flexible.
Cons – None really, but it does cover the Apple menu which may bother some.

MaxMenus 1.5.1 – 4.5 out of 5
Pros – Keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop menus, grab and drop menu items, good defaults, easy, powerful, very flexible, and excellent documentation.
Cons – Pricier, but the feature set justifies it.

RapidoStart 2.1.1 – 4 out of 5
Pros – Tutorial on first run, simple, free, and expandable.
Cons – Rearranging icons swaps instead of slides, can’t edit names.

SunnyMenu 1.2.3 – 1 out of 5
Pros – Auto populates on first run and nice menu editor.
Cons – Too many interface annoyances, buggy.

XMenu 1.8.1 – 2.5 out of 5
Pros – Simple and free.
Cons – Very limited sorting options.

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Download the MP3 here, or better yet SUBSCRIBE in iTunes
A large cast this tackles the question: is the iPod generation killing Hi-Fi? Does high fidelity have a place in todays world of small MP3 players and online music stores? Also, All Over the Mac chats with Anne Bowden, and Sam Levin hits us with a new Cool Mac Picks. If all that was not enough, we have a new contest! Listen for your chance to win a $120 Essential Jacket from SCOTTEVEST.

Tim Robertson, Guy Serle, David Cohen, Sam Levin, Lee Givens, John Nemo, and special guest Bill Palmer from iProng Magazine.

Sponsored by Other World Computing
Check out the ElGato Elgato EyeTV Hybrid/Turbo.264 BUNDLE for only $199!

Links from the show:
SCOTTEVEST
iProng Magazine
AOL Mac Desktop
Scott from ScotteVest switched to the Mac video
Future Sonic’s Atrio m8
DLO’s VentMount for iPhone & iPod touch
PowerTune
Sam Levin Cool Mac Picks

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MailSteward
Company: Pubblog
http://www.mailsteward.com
Retail: $49.95

The blight of the digital age is the accumulation of massive amounts of data – as computers get faster and storage gets cheaper, we end up keeping everything, whether we need it or not. After all, it might come in useful one day, might it not? The flip side of this is that it becomes important to store that data in a way that allows it to not clog your system up, and can be easily searched when necessary – as there is no pointing in storing large blobs of data if you can’t anything amongst it.

E-Mail is a particular problem in this regard, simply because it can rack up quickly even if you have effective spam filtering in place. And given that your email account will often be the place where crucial information is stored, such as application serial numbers, details of financial transactions or simply picture from friends and family, it is important that you can store and search it. There are a variety of approaches to this – Google’s GMail service will store massive amounts of email in a single mass, and is highly and effectively searchable, but it is not local to your Mac and relies on an available Internet connection (so no good for laptop users on the road). Apple Mail is the obvious choice, as it is the default mail application under OS X and it is searchable by Spotlight. But there have been issues with Mail.app in the past – it can corrupt databases or mailboxes, and can become unreliable with large amounts of messages in the database.

Your best bet is to archive older mail into a separate area to keep Apple Mail lean and mean, and it contains functionality to do this – but a mail.app archive (an MBOX file) cannot be searched by Spotlight, so if you archive and then delete the mail, it is lost to you unless you restore it.

Pubblog has a mature and robust solution to this problem with MailSteward. Available in a variety of versions, all have the capability of archiving mail from Mail.app, with attachments and headers, and storing them in a completely separate SQL database system from Apple Mail. This database is fully and comprehensively searchable from within the application, so you can safely delete the archived mail and yet still get access to it. My comments in this review refer to the middle of the range MailSteward application.

As you will see from the screenshots, it is not the prettiest application in the world, and it is not particularly Mac-like either. However, remember that as an archive application you will be using it on a more occasional basis, so in that respect the aesthetics are forgivable. When it comes to functionality, though, it hits it out of the park – you can select your mail for archiving my account or individual mailbox, specify attachment inclusion and also limit the size of attachments imported, and archiving can be set on a regular schedule if so desired. Once the mail is imported, you can browse the database via a comprehensive table of the mail records, with a clear preview window of each one. All of the data you would expect for each mail is presented in the table, and columns can be resized, sorted and moved as you see fit. Tagging of database records is supported, and to filter the data there is every search field and combination of search fields you can imagine. Spotlight is not supported, however – SQL database data does not work well with Spotlight’s freeform approach. The speed of SQL searches means that this is not an issue. Once you have the mail you are looking for, you can forward or reply to it, or export the collected mails as text or .MBOX files.

The two cheaper versions of the application use an inbuilt SQLite database engine, which will cope effectively with over 50,000 messages before staring to struggle. For larger amounts of data, the more expensive MailSteward Pro product uses (and requires) a separate MySQL database, which is a freely available open source database system. In my experience, I have not seen a finer archive solution for mail on any platform, Mac or Windows. If your Mail application is starting to bog down, this application will allow you to quickly and simply resolve the situation while leaving the mail freely available to. I highly recommend it.

MyMac rating: 4 out of 5

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EyeTV 250plus
Company: Elgato
Price: $199.95
www.elgato.com

System Requirements from the Elgato.com website:
• Macintosh computer with a Power PC G4,G5 or Intel Core processor
• 512 MB of physical RAM
• a built-in USB 2.0 port
• Mac OS X v10.4 or later
• Internet connection required to download Program Guide data

Note: 720p or 1080i HD features require a Dual PowerPC G5 or an Intel Core Duo processor.

Recently, I reviewed the new EyeTV 3 software by Elgato and loved it. EyeTV software is nothing without hardware, and there are several options on the market. One piece of hardware is Elgato’s EyeTV 250plus.

The 250plus will allow you to record analog and digital television stations on your Mac. If you do not have digital cable, it will pick up free over the air HD digital channels with an antenna attached. My local HD channels were picked up through my analog cable connection. I have been using another device to record analog TV on my Mac for a while now, and I didn’t realize how low quality the image was until I saw the digital channels on my machine. WOW!

The difference between the 250plus and some other TV tuners on the market is that the 250plus has its own hardware encoder. This means your computer’s processor is freed up to do other tasks while you are recording a television show. It also means the unit needs more power than a USB port can provide. As a result it has to be plugged in. This is fine, unless you are looking for a truly portable option.

Another great feature of the 250plus, is the “plus” aspect. The unit comes with adapters that allow you to connect your VCR, or camcorder, or other devices to the 250plus and record from them. Want to transfer old home movies on VHS to DVD? Instead of paying a lot of money for someone else to do it, buy the 250plus and do it for yourself.

Set up is easy. Once the EyeTV software is installed, you connect the unit to a power source, and connect the unit to your computer via USB. It is just that simple. After some software setting up, you are ready to go.

While viewing the channels worked great, I did have two minor problems recording the higher quality digital channels. I do not know if this was due to the processor in my machine, or the unit, but I would get occasional “blips” or “hiccups” in the picture. These were so minor and rare that the viewing experience was not ruined.

The second problem was in the aspect ratio of the picture. If I set the aspect ratio of the picture to be automatically set it would never get the ratio right. Digital would look good and analog was cut off, or the opposite would happen. This was easily fixed by manually changing the ratio. Once again, a minor issue that did not ruin the experience.

In addition to EyeTV 3, the unit comes with a lite version of Toast 8 called Toast 8 Basic, a VHS assistant for help converting those VHS tapes, and an iPod assistant for help converting video to iPod format.

On the hardware side, you receive the main 250plus unit, a remote control, a power supply, and the cable for connecting composite, S-video, and audio to the 250 plus. You also receive the USB cable for connecting the unit to your computer. The main unit is very small and does not take up much desk space at all. It measure about 2.5 inches wide, 4 inches long, and about 1 inch high.

At $199, the EyeTV 250plus is a bit pricey. There are other options which are cheaper, but they do not include a hardware encoder which, to me, makes the EyeTV 250plus a definite option the next time I buy a TV tuner for my Mac. I had a few minor problems, but they were not enough for me not to recommend this product. If you are looking for a TV tuner for your Mac this one is worth checking out.

MyMac.com rating 4 out of 5

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iPhoto ’08: The Missing Manual
David Pogue and Derrick Story
424 pages
US $34.99
http://www.oreilly.com
ISBN 10: 0-596-51618-5

Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual
Jim Elferdink
911 pages
US $34.99
http://www.oreilly.com
US$ paper book 34.99 downloadable PDF ebook $23.99
ISBN 10: 0-596-51618-5 | ISBN 13: 9780596516185

Pogue Press and O’Reilly continue to add new books to the Missing Manual series. As MyMac.com readers know, I’ve been a longtime critic of the software publishers failing to include adequate documentation with their products. This failing is what gave life to the Missing Manual series.

Here’s a quick look at two recent additions to the Missing Manual library: iPhoto ’08 The Missing Manual, and Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual.

As certainly as the swallows return to Capistrano

Apple updates iPhoto. Apple’s updating means Pogue Press updates their iPhoto book. iPhoto ’08 incorporated some significant changes to its Library organization, changing Film Rolls to Events. Many users found this change unsettling, but in iPhoto ’08 The Missing Manual (iP08MM for short) authors Pogue and Story explain the pros and cons of this new date-based organizational structure so that anyone, even I, can understand it.

Being geared towards the average user, the first four chapters include great material on the fundamentals of digital photography. While the book does cover some recent changes in digital photo technology, the material is much the same as in previous editions.

Each subsequent chapter of iP08MM covers one or more concepts:

Chapter 4: Camera Meets Mac
Chapter 5: The Digital Shoebox
Chapter 6: Five Ways to Flag and Find Photos
Chapter 7: Editing Your Shots
Chapter 8: The iPhoto Slideshow
Chapter 9: Making Prints
Chapter 10: Email, Web Galleries, and Network Sharing
Chapter 11: Books, Calendars, and Cards
Chapter 12: iPhoto Goes to the Movies
Chapter 13: iDVD Slideshows
Chapter 14: Screen Savers, AppleScript, and Automator
Chapter 15: iPhoto File Management
Appendix : iPhoto ’08, Menu by Menu

If you’ve moved up from previous incarnations of iPhoto, you’ll learn the differences without much trouble, as many new features are mentioned in callouts, tips, or hints, as well as a list of new topics on pages two and three.

The writing style is classic Pogue Press; concise, witty, and readable. Of course, this is not surprising since David Pogue, founder of the Missing Manual series, is a co-author.

Conclusion
Without rehashing my previous reviews, all I need to say is that this is a fine update to an outstanding book. The ’08 edition of iPhoto ’08 The Missing Manual continues to set the standard for books targeted at the beginner to intermediate level iPhoto user. It’s too bad that no PDF version is available.

MyMac.com rating 4.5 out of 5

If iPhoto ’08 The Missing Manual was needed to learn the ins and outs of iPhoto 08, then Jim Elferdink’s Office 2008 for Macintosh The Missing Manual (Office2008MM for short) is an absolute necessity. I’d wager that given some time, an adventurous iPhoto user could figure out most of iPhoto’s mysteries. But Redmond’s software Tower of Babel that is Office 2008 would be impossible for most users to figure out by themselves. While Microsoft touts greater ease of use with the inclusion of new Wizards, and easy to use Toolbars, the sheer bulk and vastness of this software suite means that you’d grow old (and very frustrated) if you tried to learn it using only Microsoft’s pitiful documentation.

Elferdink succeeds at explaining the great majority of Office 2008′s features and functions in a readable and useable manner typical of Missing Manual publications. The only problem is that Office2008MM needs almost 900 pages of text and screenshots to do so. Of course, that’s not Elferdink’s fault. He’s undertaken a Sisyphean task and that means there’s a lot to cover.

Office2008MM covers the four applications that comprise the Standard Edition of Office 2008 for the Macintosh: Word, Excel, Entourage, and PowerPoint. It does not cover Expression Media, as that is included only in the Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition.

The depth of Elferdink’s coverage is impressive. On page after page, I found numerous hints and tips that I, a known Mac Office junkie, had not previously heard about. I had planned to list my favorite tips, but when it burgeoned to over fifty before the end of the Word chapters, I gave up that idea.

Perhaps the best parts of the book are Part Five: Office As a Whole, and Chapter 20: Customizing Office.

Office As a Whole brings home the concept that Office 2008 is a suite of application designed to interoperate with each other. You’ll learn ways to exploit this capability. Learning the myriad ways to customize your setup will make both your productivity and enjoyment of Office increase.

Normally, I read every page of books I review. Office2008MM is an exception to this rule, as I did not the time or stamina to work through the whole enchilada. I suspect that most readers will use the book as I did; after going through the most interesting chapters, the book becomes a great reference tool when questions arise.

Many extra points are awarded to Pogue Press/O’Reilly for making this work available in PDF format. Even though the print version has a fairly complete index, the ability to search a PDF vastly improves the reader’s ability to find information. Having a PDF on your computer means never having to say “I know I read it but I can’t find it.”

Now, can we get the publishers to do a discounted PDF/print book bundle?

Conclusion

MyMac.com rating 5 out of 5. While this is a large (verging on a reference) book it is the best manual of Macintosh Office I’ve read.

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Destructor
Razer USA Ltd.
Price: $39.99
www.razerzone.com

When is a mouse pad not a mouse pad? When it has a case of its own and is more expensive than most Mice. The Destructor from Razer USA is such a mouse pad, but to call it a mouse pad is a little disingenuous.

The Destructor is a pro-gamer control surface. It’s designed to allow much more precise mouse control than a conventional mouse pad. In the month I’ve been using it, I can honestly say it does that very well.

There is a surface on the Destructor that uses a propriety coating that allows for very precise and even mouse movement. I used both a standard Apple Mighty mouse and another Blue Tooth mouse, both optical, and found the results, when compared to a standard foam backed mouse pad, to be far superior.

Large in size, it is about the size of a 15″ wide screen monitor. This allows for maximum movement, although on my desk half of the pad is tucked under my keyboard.

The bottom of the Destructor has a rubber coating that makes it stick to most surfaces very well. The pad did not slip at all, even without part of my keyboard sitting on it, even during some hard-core Spacecraft action.

It does ship with its own case, a hard plastic that protects it when traveling.

In terms of aesthetics, this is a great looking control surface. True, all I can compare it to are standard mouse pads that I have used, but it really looks sharp.

This thing works! I was a little dismissive of it at first, but after some time with the Destructor, I cannot imagine using my professional computer setup without it now. It really does make a difference, so either a pro-gamer or a graphic designer. If you have the $40, this is worth the investment.

Very cool.

MyMac Magazine Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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Download the show here, or subscribe via iTunes

BeeJay Bhatt joins Tim, David, and Guy this week to chat about ten years of the iMac, PC Software on a Mac, Macworld Expo joke, Safari instability, and much more. All Over the Mac with John Nemo looks at two different microphones, and Sam Levin helps us kick off the show with a new Cool Mac Picks. Plus, we are giving away a PowerTune from MacAlly! Listen to find out how you can win! (US Residents Only)

This Episode sponsored by Other World Computing

Links mentioned on the show:
Universal Drive Adapter
PowerTune
VMware Fusion 2.0 Beta
Cross Over Games from Codeweavers
Speck Products’ SeeThru Slim Hard Shell Case for Mac Book Air
GelaSkins – skin your iPhone, iPod or Mac Book with style!
Kensington’s Contour Balance Roller

Welcome, MyMac readers, to Fenestration – back after a hiatus from the podcast, and now in a written form to reflect our rebrand back to MyMac Magazine. This column is my guide to using your Mac in a world filled with Windows machines. I will cover issues of information exchange with Windows users, using Windows infrastructure with your Mac, and how to run Windows or Windows-compatible software on your Mac.

While traveling back from the US to the UK recently, I was sat waiting in an airport lounge, and I flipped open my MacBook Pro in search of the local WiFi service. What I found was a single service entitled “Free Public Wi-Fi”. Unfortunately, this was not the cut-price gateway to Internet connectivity you might think – and it is all Microsoft’s fault.

You see, when they were building the wireless network stack in Microsoft Windows XP, they configured it so that if it couldn’t find a hotspot to connect to, it would rebroadcast a wireless network ID from the preferred networks list in ad-hoc (computer-to-computer) mode. Now, ad-hoc mode is a pretty pointless feature anyway, because it is much easier to use a flash drive for quick file transfers between computers rather than try and get a wireless network connection going. But, thanks to Microsoft’s even more pointless addition, we see “Free Public Wi-Fi” everywhere – someone connected to a network with that name once, and then turned their laptop on in a public place. XP rebroadcast the network name, and because the name is attractive to other users, they try and connect to it – adding it automatically to their own preferred networks list in the process. In this way, the network name has spread like a virus throughout the computing world.

As a Mac user, it’s pretty annoying, because Apple’s Airport is much more intelligently designed. Microsoft’s design decision with this ‘feature’ is hard to fathom, as it is hard to see circumstances where this behavior might be useful. They have patched XP to stop this behavior, but have never promoted the update or made it available automatically via Windows Update – and even if it is installed by a user, they have to further configure Windows to prevent the rebroadcast behavior.

If you are running 10.5 Leopard, you can spot these networks whatever the name – the Airport menu will have a little icon next to the network name that denotes the network type, and the icon for ad-hoc networks looks like a desktop computer. For users running older versions of OS X, the iStumbler utility allows you to spot these networks and easily avoid them. In short, connecting to an ad-hoc network will gain you nothing, and you can be glad that as Apple users we are not perpetuating the insidious spread of “Free Public Wi-Fi”!

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