AltiM@c

One of the other hats I wear these days is that of a product reviewer for the MyMac.com Web site. Recently I took a look at the ScottEVEST Essentials Jacket, which just happens to have no fewer than 19(!) pockets and comes with instructions for use, being the first “technologically-enabled” jacket I’ve had the privilege of donning. If you’ve got a hankering for the cutting edge in clothing, the Essentials Jacket is a steal at $120.

Need a littie more convincing? You can read the full review here:

http://www.mymac.com/showarticle.php?id=3337

A quick MacWorld Expo 2006 report direct from Franklin Park, NJ
OK, so I’ve got issues with getting on a plane these days. But that’s a topic for another posting, and even though I may be afraid to fly through 3000 miles and three time zones, I’m not afraid to fly through the most significant announcements from this year’s MacWorld Expo. So without further ado…

New iMacs and MacBook Pros w/Intel processors
The highlight of this year’s keynote address was the unveiling of new iMacs and laptops with Intel processors, along with the announcement that the entire Mac product line will be running on Intel chips by the end of 2006. While the iMac models are essentially unchanged, the MacBook Pro laptops sport a few nifty new features—including a breakaway power adapter cord and built-in iSIght camera! The most important thing to keep in mind regarding the new iMacs/MacBook Pros (formerly known as PowerBooks) is that very little is different in terms of how you will use them and interact with them. OS X looks and works exactly the same on these machines as it does on your old Titanium G4/867 with the broken hinges and the battery that keeps falling out. It’s just going to be a lot faster, given that all the new Intel Macs are using dual core chips, which essentially means that they have dual processors. Not too shabby—and they’ve actually arrived six months ahead of schedule.

But there is a caveat—all applications need to be rewritten and recompiled to run “natively” on these new machines, otherwise they operate in emulation mode using a technology Apple has dubbed “Rosetta.” Why do you need to know this? Because if you are using programs that are not written for the Intel chip, their performance will be affected. Even Steve admitted in passing during the keynote that Adobe Photoshop, which has not yet been “rewritten,” will not run fast enough on the new boxes to satisfy professional users. Also—and hopefully this is not a dealbreaker for most of you—Classic mode is no longer supported or even possible, so if you’re still launching Classic to run QuarkXPress 4.11 or MS Office 2001, better plan on keeping that G4 Quicksilver tower around for a while longer.

The bottom line is, for those of you who have been holding out for a G5 PowerBook, these should perform even better than a G5 laptop ever could have. But it might behoove you to make sure that you have no further need for Classic mode, and that your favorite applications have been recompiled for the new chip before you take the plunge (Quark and Microsoft have already committed to new versions and presumably Adobe will as well, but they have given no timeframe). The new iMacs are allegedly available now; the MacBook Pro models are slated to ship in February.

DTP Software
QuarkXPress 7 is now available in a beta version that the more adventurous among you may wish to download and experiment with. Among the new features are transparency and alpha masking—which may or may not bring them up to par with InDesign in this area—support for OpenType, and (finally!) the option to embed fonts when saving a Quark page as an EPS file (I hear sustained applause from the Coast Star production department on this one). As far as InDesign goes, no word from Adobe on any of the CS products, although they did announce a digital photography workflow application called Lightroom, which will now compete with Apple’s new Aperture. In case you have not heard about either of these, the serious photographers among you will want to check them out ASAP.

Speaking of fonts, Extensis announced Suitcase Fusion v 1.0, which for reasons unbeknownst to me takes the worst feature of Font Reserve, the Font Vault, and shoehorns it into Suitcase X1. I guess they needed justification for buying Font Reserve in the first place, but this seems to be a huge step backward and will only cause bewilderment among those of us who will now have to choose between Suitcase X1, Suitcase X1 w/Suitcase Server, Suitcase Fusion 1.0, or Font Reserve, with or without the Font Reserve Server (neither of which support OS X 10.4 according to the Extensis site). What is truly frightening is that they appear to have eliminated the standalone Suitcase product completely??? At the same time, Insider Software has rolled out FontAgent Pro Server, complete with an “integrity manager” that “ensures your fonts are in good shape before working with them.” No word on pricing; one needs to contact Insider Sales directly, same as Extensis. Among other things, this announcement means that all three font server products are now being sold via the “haggliing” method normally reserved for street vendors and car salesmen:

“Hey, buddy, how much for that Suitcase Server with the 100-user license?”
“That depends—How much you got?”

Miscellaneous
A wireless USB 2.0 extender was announced by Gefen, which will enable any USB device to be parked up to 30 feet from your computer and still function. No word on price; it’s expected to be available late spring. Google Earth now supports the Mac; I’ll let you check this one out for yourself so you can see just how neat it really is. Finally, Apple’s iLife suite was upgraded to version 6; I was having a hard time getting excited about this personally, but among the noteworthy additions are a podcast creation tool built into Garage Band 3, a new template-based Web site builder (iWeb) and support for up to 250,000 photos in iPhoto 6 (which also appeared to perform orders of magnitude faster than version 4 or 5, but Steve was using a new Intel dual-core iMac, which I suspect accounted for much of the speed boost).

So that’s the AltiM@c take on this year’s Expo. Next year, if I plan a little better, maybe I can train out to Vegas to see the Consumer Electronics Show and then drive up to San Fran from there. Anything to keep my feet on the ground???

Next time on AltiM@c: Studies show that more people are killed by donkeys than in airplane accidents.

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MANY, MANY YEARS ago, even before I came to be, and certainly way way before the golden oldie DJs of WCBS-FM were tossed aside in favor of the JACK format, a jock by the name of Harry Harrison recorded a two minute and forty-two second spoken holiday message writen by Larry Marks and Dick Charles. Replayed on WCBS dozens–if not hundreds–of times each year around the holiday season, “May You Always” has garnered a cult following both among those who snicker at its shameless sentimentality, as well as those who eagerly await its first airing to bask in the glow of Harry’s genuinely warm and heartfelt delivery.

Here at AltiM@c, we hate to leave a perfectly good holiday message unsullied by the spirit of parodies present, so here’s our version of the Harry Harrison holiday classic, shaken vigorously and served with a twist of Apple. Enjoy!

Download the MP3 version (mya.mp3, 2.4MB 128kbps MP3 file)

BONUS! Watch our classic “Year Without A Santa Claus” parody from 2001 (misers_2MB.mov, 2.1MB QuickTime video file)

May You Always
As holiday bells ring out the old year, and sweethearts kiss,
And Mac users prepare for the transition from the PowerPC architecture to new Intel processors
May I wish you not the biggest and best of life,
But the small victories that make computing worthwhile.

Sometime during the New Year, just to prove you can do it
May you fix that file permissions problem without calling anyone for help

May you find a little island of time to actually read that “Read Me” file
Or to purge those extraneous bitmaps from your Type 1 font suitcases

May StuffIt unstuff your stuffed files and stuff your unstuffed files–not the other way around
May Suitcase auto-activate only those fonts that should be auto-activated
May at least some of your Quark files not open with “Error 39–End of file” messages

May all those people who told you to back up, refrain from saying, ìI told you to back up.

May your iPod enjoy an entire year without once being dropped onto a hard, unyielding surface

May that expensive AppleCare support contract rescue your PowerBook from an untimely death

In a time of rampant viruses and spyware, may your Mac be rampant-virus-and-spyware free

May you be able to pass that old G4 tower on to your kids, so they quit screwing up your new iMac.

For a change, on a day when your Mac seems to be working as advertised
May a friend or colleague call on you for help with their computer

When you zap your PRAM, may it stay zapped!

And, if you happen to accidentally delete an important file
May you be able to recover it from a recent backup–without calling me to walk you through the process

May that long and lonely night be brightened by an email from Quark technical support.

When buying that new version of Photoshop, may you qualify for a half-price upgrade.

When you crash in a 24-page Word document without saving, may there be no one watching to laugh at you–or feel sorry for you.

And sometime soon, may you:

Be paid by your clients within thirty days,

Receive a comp back marked “No changes,”

Be told by your printer that your file was “perfect,”

And be mentioned by Steve Jobs in a keynote address.

More than this, no one can wish you.

Happy Holidays from the employees and staff of AltiM@c Consulting!

Next time on AltiM@c: Live from the Grammys: AltiM@c wins “Best New Artist” for cheesy spoken holiday message

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