Confessions Of a Mac Switcher

I must confess to never having owned an iPod, nor any other MP3 player. But last month good friends of mine finally took pity and gave me the best present ever – an iPod touch. Apart from the to-be-expected “0ohs” and “Aahs” over its sleek design and cool built-in applications, it has really been a joy of discovery to find out its many uses.

The first thing you’ll be asked when you plug into iTunes is whether you want to purchase the latest upgrade through the iTunes Store. In my case it was worth the extra money as the upgraded software included the ability to connect to Microsoft Outlook at my workplace, allowing me to track email on my iPod anywhere I go within Wi-Fi range at my college campus. My Outlook calendar also magically synced to my iPod calendar at the same time this mail account was configured.

The thing I’ve enjoyed most about this device is the ability to upload holiday photos and movies via iTunes to show colleagues and friends.  Expect more “0ohs” and “Aahs” when you pinch the screen to zoom in or out, pan an image, or when you initiate photo viewing in slideshow mode.

However, be warned that uploading movies to your Touch may first require you to convert them into a format compatible with an iPod. This is quickly done if you have Quicktime Pro: First open it in Quicktime and choose File > Export.  Then, from the Export dropdown menu, select the Movie to iPod option. Formatting will automatically commence.

The Wi-Fi enabled Safari Web browser is great for checking RSS feeds. No more downtime for me in long drawn out meetings - talk about multitasking. By default the search engine is Google, but can be changed to Yahoo via the Settings application.

Another word of advice: If you keep Wi-Fi permanently switched on, you’ll quickly drain the battery - requiring a recharge every day. To avoid this, go to Settings > Wi-Fi and switch the Wi-Fi option to Off when not checking email or surfing the Web. Simply reverse this procedure when you wish to reconnect to Wi-Fi again.

And let’s not forget the multitude of iPod touch applications that can be downloaded from the iTunes store (many of them free of charge). This is what makes this device truly great; each day cool applications are being devised that extend your iPod touch into an even better personal digital assistant than it already is.

by Brian Nielsen

يجب ان اعترف بانني لم امتلك ايبود قط او حتي مشغل MP3 ولكن الشهر الماضي احد اصدقائي الاعزاء اعطاني افضل هدية حصلت عليها علي الاطلاق الا وهي جهاز ايبود تاتش المثير للاعجاب بسبب التصميم الجذاب و التطبيقات الموجودة بة و بطبيعة الحال كان اكتشاف الاستخدامات المتعددة للجهاز متعة ما بعدها متعة.
اول سؤال سوف يطرح عليك عندما تفتح برنامج ايتيونز هو اذا ما كنت ترغب في شراء احدث التعديلات من متجر ايتيونز و بالفعل لم اتردد في ذلك حيث ان التحديث الذي اجريتة يشمل امكانية الربط ببرنامج ميكروسوفت اوت لوك الخاص بمكان عملي مما سمح لي بالاطلاع علي بريدي الاليكروني عن طريق الايبود في كل مكان ذهبت الية مغطي بواي فاي (Wi-Fi) كما ان تقويم برنامج اوت لوك توافق مع تقويم جهازي الايبود في نفس اللحظة التي تم التعرف فيها علي الحساب.
الميزة التي تمتعت بها كثيراً هي امكانية تحميل صور و افلام العطلات التي قمت بتصويرها عن طريق برنامج ايتيونز لكي يراها اصدقائي و بالطبع يمكنك تخيل صيحات الاعجاب التي تصدر من الاخرين كلما قمت بتكبير او تصغير الصور او حتي عرضها تتابعياً (slide show).
يجب ان تعلم ان تحميل الافلام علي الايبود قد يتطلب تغيرها الي نمط اخر متعارف علية من قبل ايبود، الامر يتم بمنتهي السهولة اذا كنت تستخدم برنامج (Quicktime Pro)، كل ما عليك فعلة هو فتح Quicktime Pro و اختيار File ثم Export بعد ذلك اختر  Movie to iPod من قائمة Export المنسدلة عندها سيتم تغيير  النمط اوتوماتيكياً
برنامج سفاري لتصفح الانترنت يوفر خاصية عظيمة لتفقد مواقع RSS (احدث التغيرات) مما يوقف اهدار الوقت اثناء اجتماعات العمل.
محرك البحث مضبوط تلقائياً علي موقع Google ولكنك تستطيع تغييرة الي Yahoo من خاصية Settings.
شيء  اخر يجب ان تعلمة و هو ان ابقائك علي Wi-Fi مفتوحاً دائماً يسبب ضعف البطارية و يتطلب شحن الجهاز كل يوم و لكي تتجنب ذلك اذهب الي Settings ثم Wi-Fi ثم اختر خاصية اغلاق الواي فاي عندما تكون لا تتصفح الانترنت او تتفقد بريدك الإلكتروني، و لكي تتصل مجدداً بالانترنت اعكس ما قمت بة.
يجب ان لا ننسي التطبيقات المتعددة التي يمكن تحميلها علي الايبود من خلال متجر ايتيونز- الغالبية العظمي منها مجانية - مما يجعل هذا الجهاز بحق رائع حيث ان هناك دائماً الجديد كل يوم مما يحسن اداء الايبود لكي يصبح مساعدك الشخصي الإلكتروني.
ياللعجب !!! هل ذكرت انكم تستطيعون الاستماع الي الموسيقي عن طريق الايبود؟

Apples at Sun

Sun Microsystems and Apple Computer have a long history together. Sun considered buying Apple in the mid-1990s, the companies also nearly merged on two other occasions, as well as almost co-operating on a number of technical projects, according to Bill Joy, one of Sun’s founders. Both companies have always been the maverick of their markets, relying on quality products and innovation over the power of mass marketing.

The Sun of 2008 is much more than the Unix workstation and server company of the mid 90s, with a product range that encompasses everything from the Java programming language, to business integration software, thin client technology and x64 servers. Solaris, Sun’s Unix operating system, is the platform of choice for telcos, banks and business customers around the world.
Gil Amelio was in charge at Apple when Sun looked at buying the company in 1996. With Steve Jobs back we’ve all seen Apple’s star rise again – the iPod, the move to OS X, the move to Intel, etc. Shuffle readers are well aware of what our favourite consumer tech company has achieved.

In recent years, co-operation between Sun and Apple has continued. Apple have integrated Sun’s open source Dtrace code into OS X. Dtrace helps programmers diagnose performance bottlenecks in their code. Apple have also integrated Sun’s open source 128bit ZFS file system into OS X server. ZFS allows for TBs of storage to be easily managed across multiple drives with no single point of failure.
How else are Sun and Apple co-operating? The clue lies in the MacBook I’m using to write this article. For years, particularly since the advent of the Unix based OS X, Sun engineers have preferred Macs over the Windows or Linux alternative. Non-travelling employees use a Sun Ray thin client to access a Solaris desktop. Company issued laptops, however, have always been Toshibas. Over the last few months however, Macs have been added as an option.
Every Sun office I visit these days has employees poring over their shiny new Macs. Internal aliases have been set up for Mac newbies – most new owners at Sun are using a Mac for the first time in many years, myself included. We’re also finding ourselves buying other Apple products for our own personal use as well.

Who knows what might have happened had the mergers gone ahead? Either way, thanks to Sun, I’ve been able to switch. What if I get fed up with OS X? Well, I can always put OpenSolaris on this lovely Apple branded piece of hardware.

by Christopher Saul

Christopher Saul lives in Dubai and works for Sun Microsystems, selling thin client desktop solutions across Sun’s Southern and Eastern EMEA region. You can follow Chrisopher’s adventures at http://blogs.sun.com/christophersaul/.

Mac of the Month: Mac mini

Performance
Even though the Mac mini is very small, it’s no slouch when it comes to performance. With a 1.83GHz or 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo processor it will take on most tasks with ease. Don’t expect to do heavy 3D rendering quickly on the mini though.

الاداء:-
بالرغم من صغر حجم Mac mini الا ان اداءة رائع ، بمعالج ١.٨ او ٢.٠ Core 2 Duo يستطيع ان يقوم باغلب المهام بسهولة ولكن لا تتوقع ان تمم وظائف 3D بالسرعة المطلوبة.

Memory
It has two slots for SODIMM memory, maxing out at a total of 2GB RAM. This is not great but should be enough for most everyday tasks.

الذاكرة:-
الجهاز بة مكان لذاكرة صوديم .  قدرتة القصوي تصل الي 2 جيجا بايت. و هذا ليس بالامر الرائع و لكن يكفي للقيام بمعظم المهام اليومية.

Communications
The mini is well equipped with 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet, 54-Mbps AirPort Extreme wireless networking, and Bluetooth 2.0 EDR. You can also get Apple’s optional external Apple USB Modem if you need to connect to phone line.

الاتصالات:-
الجهاز مزود ١٠٠٠/١٠٠/١٠ جيجا بايت ايثر نت بالاضافة الي نظام AirPort Extreme الشبكي و بولوتوث. كما يمكن الحصول علي Apple UBS Modem اذا ما اردت توصيلة بالهاتف.

Display and Graphics
The mini uses similar integrated graphics to the MacBook. Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics, taking up 64MB of the main RAM for video, is not for those who desire to play the latest video games but it works very nicely as a media center.

الاوضاع و الرسومات:-
الجهاز يستخدم رسومات مشابه للرسومات المستخدمة في MacBook تشغل حيز ٦٤ ميجا بايت من مساحة القرص الرئيسي للفيديو -مما لا يكفي لمن  قد يرغبون في مشاهدة احدث افلام الفيديو- و لكنها تعمل بشكل جيد.

Storage

Standard options are 80GB or 120GB 5400RPM drive but you can go for the optional 160GB drive. Depending on which model you pick, you also get a CD or DVD writer.

التخزين:-
الامكانيات المتاحة هي ٨٠ و ١٢٠ جيجا بايت الا انة من الممكن اختيار Drive ذو ١٦٠ جيجابايت، وفقاًٍ للموديل الذي تختارة يمكنك الحصول علي وحدة CD او DVD.

Expandability
The Mac mini is probably the least expandable Mac, notebooks including. It’s not really expandable internally, which is understandable due to its size. Basically all you can do is expand by USB and FireWire ports.

زيادة السعة:-
يعتبر الجهاز من اقل انواع Mac التي يمكن زيادة سعتها و هو امر مفهوم و فقاً لحجمة. الزيادة الوحيدة الممكنة عن طريق UBSاو Firewire.

iPhoto ‘08: Tips and Tricks

Although iPhoto is a relatively easy to use application, it can really pay off to get to know it, especially if you’re a frequent photographer. Here we present just a handful of tips and tricks.
By Mohammad Abu Ajamieh

بالرغم من iPhoto برنامج سهل الاستخدام الا ان الامر يستحق المزيد من الجهد لاسيما اذا كنت من هواة التصوير، سوف نستعرض بعض المعلومات المفيدة و طرق استخدامها.
كتبة: محمد ابو عجيمة.

Editing
iPhoto has many editing features like resizing, cropping, and functions for enhancing photos. It’s certainly not as powerful as Photoshop but you’d be surprised what you can actually do from within iPhoto.

اعداد النص Editing
iPhoto  بة العديد من امكانيات اعداد النص مثل تغيير الحجم و العديد من وظائف تحسين الصورة، انها ليست في مثل قوة Photoshop ولكنك بما يمكنك القيام بة في iPhoto.

Full Screen
To turn on full screen, click on the two diagonal arrows in the bottom-left corner. In full screen mode you get to enjoy your photographs in all their glory across the entire screen.

الشاشة الكاملة  Full screen
لكي تحصل على الشاشة الكاملة يمكنك ان تضغط على السهمين الافقيين فى أسفل يسار الجهاز مما سوف يمكنك بالاستمتاع بجمال االصور علي كل مساحة الشاشة.

Rating
Click the info button in the bottom-left corner and give your photos some stars. You can create a smart album for your top-starred photos. It’s also an easy way to organize photos as you can quickly find good and bad ones.

التقييم Rating
اضغط على زر info   فى اسفل يسار الجهاز وأبدأ بتقييم صورك بواسطة النجوم كما يمكنك ان تنشىِ البوم ذكى وفقا لاعلى نسبة تقييم للصور كما ان الامر مفيد فيما يتعلق بتقسيم الصور حسب جودتها.

Front Row
Increase the fun by adding all your photos as events in iPhoto, and then watch them as presentations in FrontRow. Events are time-based, so it could be a wedding, a party, or a vacation.

الالبومات الذكية Smart Album
اختر (الالبوم الذكى) (smart album)  من مربع البوم جديد حيث ستجد مجموعة متنوعة من الامكانيات , على سبيل المثال اختر ( تقييمى) .My Rating
لكل ما هو اكثر من ثلاث نجوم و سمة أفضل الصور بعد ذلك كل الصور ذات الثلاث نجوم واكثر سوف تظهر في الالبوم.

Batch Change
Select a few photos, then from Photos menu select Batch Change. From here you can batch process multiple things. The easiest example is to change the name of photos by appending a number. This makes it easy to change many photos quickly.

التغيير الجماعى Batch Change
اختر مجموعة من الصور ثم اضغط من قائمة الصور على خيار التغيير الجماعى Batch Change, اسهل شىء يمكن ان تقوم بة هو تغيير اسم الصور باضافة رقم. تلك الخاصية
من سوف تساعدك علي تغيير العديد من الصور سريعاً.

Multiple Libraries
Holding down the Option key “alt” when opening iPhoto will prompt if you want to make a new library. Very useful when you have family, friends and business photo libraries. Or if a library is getting to large, create a new one.

المجموعات المتعددة Multiple Libraries
اضغط بشكل ميواصل على زر alt  اثناء فتح iPhoto  سوف يظهر خيار اذا ما كنت ترغب فى الحصول على مجموعة جديدة. يعتبر الامر مفيداٌ اذا ما كان لديك مجموعة عائلية للصور وأخرى للاصدقاء و ثالثة للعمل.

Apple calls for Special Media Event September 9: New iPods Expected

According to iPodObserver, Apple is holding a Special Media Event on September 9, 2008. The tag line is “Let’s rock” so it’s expected that they will announce new iPods. As usual we fully expect that there will be no live broadcasts from the event but we’re also sure people will live blog it so we’ll probably find out really fast what’s being announced.

So what do you expect from this event? If there are new iPods, what would you want to see Apple announce?

Universal Music Enters Middle East Market

Yesterday it was announced that Universal Music Publishing Group, one of the largest music publishing companies in the world, signed a deal with a Fairwood/BKP Music (Arabia). Under the terms of the deal Fairwood would function as a “sub-publisher and licensing representative across the UAE and neighboring region”. This should certainly pave the way for an iTunes Store deal for the Middle East, I would think. Or at the very least it shows that the big music/media companies are taking an increasing interest in our market.

JungleDisk Launches Online Backup For Workgroups

JungleDisk, online storage software provider which we’ve covered previously in Shuffle, as an easy way of backing up photos online, has introduced their Workgroup Edition. Before you could only use a JungleDisk account with one user but now you can use it with several users, like everyone in your family, and all back up to the same JungleDisk/S3 account. For small organizations and businesses this makes JungleDisk a very attractive option for online backup. I have been using JungleDisk for over six months for my own personal backup and I’ve signed up for the Workgroup edition and will over the coming weeks add all Macs we have at home to the account so they’re backed up. It’s also a solution that we’re looking at for our office, but there a really serious problem is the sometimes huge file and folder sizes that our employees have on their computers. One thing that works in JungleDisk’s favor for us in the office is that it’s available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Since we have all three environments present this could work as one unified backup solution.

The Jungle Disk Workgroup Edition is $2 per user per month, plus 15¢ per gigabyte per month for storage on Amazon S3 with no minimum or maximum. For personal users, the Jungle Disk Desktop Edition is available for a one-time fee of $20. Prices are very reasonable and the flexibility should be very appealing to many individuals and companies.

  

Press Release: Net Nanny For Mac Powered by Intego

Intego Press Release:

Intego, the Macintosh security specialist, today announced that it has partnered with ContentWatch Inc. to provide a Macintosh parental control solution for the company’s award-winning Net Nanny product line. Intego will produce a version of Net Nanny for Macintosh based on its technology and content-filtering engine.

“We’re very happy that ContentWatch has chosen our technology,” said Laurent Marteau, Intego’s CEO. “We have a long experience with parental control software, and our content-filtering engine is recognized as the best for Mac. We’re looking forward to working closely with ContentWatch on Net Nanny for Mac.” 

“In response to our customers’ requests and the rapid growth of the Mac market, we felt we needed to extend our top-rated range of parental control solutions to Mac OS X,” said Jack Sunderlage, president and CEO of ContentWatch. “It was clear that Intego was the best partner to work with, given their experience, the quality of their technology and their adaptability.” 

Intego will provide a content-filtering solution that will work with Mac OS X 10.2.8 and later, and will be fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5, Leopard. The product will be available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. Net Nanny for Mac is available now.  

You can find more information at http://www.netnanny.com/mac.

    

Apple Should Take Inspiration From Nokia’s Ramadan Applications

Nokia has developed and made available for free six applications aimed at helping people manage the month of Ramadan, which is coming up soon. They’re developed by Nokia in the Middle East and they seem to cover a range of information and services. Check them out, they look really interesting.

I think this is something Apple’s representatives in the Middle East (www.appleme.ae) should take after. We even have an AppStore now in the region so why couldn’t they’ve made some iPhone/iPod Touch applications available for free for users? That would be a nice gesture to the community, don’t you think?

Business 24-7 Calls iPod “Tasty Device”

Rachel McArthur, writing for Business 24-7, calls the iPod Touch a “tasty device”.

She starts off with a statement we all can agree with, “Thank goodness for Apple. If there’s one company that has understood the needs of the MP3, sorry, I mean MP4 generation, it has been Apple.”

Rachel continues, “I got my hands on a brand new 16GB-sized version, and it’s an absolute beauty. Like the iPhone, it features Apple’s unique “multi-touch” user interface, so you can access music, movies and the software you need at the touch of a finger.”

And then she gets to one thing which really sets the iPod Touch apart from many other similar devices, that it as Safari web browser. “Meanwhile, not only is the iPod Touch about multimedia downloads, it also features one of the most advanced mobile web browsers to ever grace a music player. In-built with Safari, all you need is a wi-fi connection, and you’re ready to go. The device even has applications including mail, maps and notes, although the maps application is very fiddly to use so I gave up in the end.”

Finally she summarize, “All in all this is really all you need, if not more, in a music player, and you can use it everywhere; you won’t need any other type of music device. Apple – you have done it again.”

So Rachel really liked the iPod Touch. We can only agree with her and congratulate her on her experience.

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