Giving Directions With Google Earth

You know how you sometimes have to give directions to a friend who’s coming over to your house for dinner? What you probably end up having to do is either try to explain the way, write down directions, draw a map for them, or all of the above. Next time, save yourself some trouble by just sending them the Google Earth coordinates for your place instead.
by Magnus Nystedt

Step 1
Download Google Earth from http://earth.google.com/. It’s a free download.

Step 2
Install and start up Google Earth. Find the position of your house. In my example I’ve picked the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi.

Step 3
Click the Add Placemark icon. A new placemark appears on the map. Move it to the exact desired location.

Step 4
In the floating window that appears, type in a name for the place. Then you can close the window.

Step 5
Right-click on the yellow pin on the map and click Email in the menu that shows.

Step 6
Your email application should open and you’ll find a KMZ file attached. When your recipient opens that file with Google Earth, they will be shown the exact location of your place.

Create a Pie Chart in Excel 2008

We continue our series of short and simple tutorials on the various applications in the Microsoft Office 2008 suite for Macintosh. This time we tackle something that many of you may find trivial, creating a pie chart. However, many beginners find creating charts difficult, so we thought it would be appropriate to show you how. Pretty much all instructions apply equally well to earlier versions of Excel for Mac.
by Magnus Nystedt

Step 1
Start Microsoft Excel 2008 and create a new spreadsheet document, which may start up in Pay Layout View. Personally I prefer Normal View, so first thing I do is switch view by clicking on the Normal View button.

Step 2
Type in the data you want to make into a pie chart; in this example I typed in various categories of clothing in the first row, and typed how much was sold in each category in the second row.

Step 3
With your mouse, select the data in the first and second rows.

Step 4
Click on the Charts tab in the Elements Toolbar, then click on Pie in the sub-menu that appears.

Step 5
Excel now creates a pie chart based on the data you typed in. Re-size the pie chart and move it around until you have it in the desired position.

Step 6
You can now do some final touches to the pie chart, such as dragging out one section from the pie chart to highlight its importance.

Insert Video Into Powerpoint 2008

Most of us have sat through long and boring presentations using PowerPoint. They often look the same and are too full of text. Sometimes it would spice things up a bit if the presentation contained some video; and with PowerPoint 2008 it’s become easier than ever to put video in PowerPoint. So grab that digital camera you have (they can often shoot video), make some brief movie clips, and take your presentations to a new level.

by Magnus Nystedt

Step 1
Create a new slide and select the appropriate slide layout.

Step 2
Select Insert > Movie and select the video file you want to insert.

Step 3
Select “When clicked” or “Automatically” in the dialogue that is displayed. You can change this later if you need to.

Step 4
Resize and position the movie on the slide.

Step 5
Select the options in the Movie section of the Formatting Palette. Also look at the options in Quick Styles and Effects in the same window.

Step 6
When you save the PowerPoint file, make sure you run the Compatibility Checker. Also check the report it produces for suggestions about potential compatibility problems and what you can do to address them.

WriteRoom: Wonderfully Yummy Mac Software

“Distraction-free writing” is something it seems more and more people talk about. It basically means that modern operating systems offer too much menus, gadgets, widgets, docks, and other stuff sitting on the screen, and all that takes away attention from the task at hand- writing. So WriteRoom makes it very simple. It blanks the screen and shows your text, and only your text in the middle of the screen. In fact, writing in WriteRoom can look exactly like this page. I love this idea and use it all the time. Must of my writing takes place with WriteRoom. It’s just scrumptiously delicious to use. You can try WriteRoom for free (http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom) and if you wish to keep using it, it’s $24.95.

by Magnus Nystedt

Bento: the Personal Database

I’ve just got a copy of Bento a smaller version of FileMaker Pro with capabilities more aimed at personal use. I just had it for a little while, actually, I installed it today. By first impression it is a great little piece of software. If you need to do anything with database type of filing and at a reasonable price this is the perfect solution. For a heavy programmer this might not be flexible enough. But for a reasonable expectations and an intermediate needs from such type of software I would say it is one of the best. We would like to thank WinSoft (http://www.winsoft.eu) for providing a copy of Bento.

Key Features:

• Easy to use, no programming required.
• SQL capabilities.
• Integrates easily with iCal and Addressbook.
• Pre-loaded formats for differing needs.
• Customizable to a certain extent (but more than basics).
• Capability of creating your own structure that fits your specific needs.
• Around AED443 for a family pack of five.
• Allows storage/attachment of other external files within individual records.

by Sarie

What Happened to iMovie HD?

When Apple introduced iLife 08 in August 2007, many were initially very upset with them for replacing iMovie HD with iMovie 08. Apparently Apple wanted to take a different path with the 08 version compared to the HD version, and many users, including me, thought they made the right decision, but many were also very upset. To alleviate some of these upset feelings, and to give users an alternative, Apple later made iMovie HD available for free as a download from their site (http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html). My view is that Apple felt that iMovie 08 needed to give users a better experience in quickly editing their movies and finalizing them for whatever the end-use is, like uploading them to web sites like YouTube.com. Look at iMovie 08 as iPhoto for movie. It’s all about quickly edit movies, and finalizing them for output to the web, iPod, or whatever else the final destination may be.

by Magnus Nystedt

Download iMovie HD for free:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/imovieHD6.html

iMovie Timeline

• iMovie 1: 1999
• iMovie 2: 2000
• iMovie 3: 2003
• iMovie 4: 2004
• iMovie 5: 2005
• iMovie 6 (HD): 2006
• iMovie 08: 2008

Review: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac

When Microsoft launched Office 2008 at MacWorld Expo in January of this year, it was received with great anticipation. The main news in Office 2008 is that Microsoft has finally made it Universal Binary, meaning it’s optimized for Intel processors. And many would say “it’s about time”, since the previous 2004 version has been out for about four years, and Apple completed the transition of the entire Mac lineup in late 2006.

One big piece of news with the 2008 edition is that the standard file format is new for all applications. Office 2008 uses the Open XML file format and files now end with “x”, as in “.docx”. This can cause problems in some situations as the new formats are not backwards compatible, so Office 2004 users won’t be able to read them. You can of course save in the old formats from Office 2008, but you may then loose some functionality.
Word has been transformed into more of a desktop publishing program. With a new Publishing Layout mode, which mimics the layout functionality in applications like Pages, it is easier than before to place pictures, resize them, and move them around.

With Excel there doesn’t seem to be too much new stuff. They increased the size limit of spreadsheets to 16,000 columns and more than one million rows. More importantly, Excel 2008 does not support Visual Basic for Applications. This means that thousands of users who depend on macros in Excel, are now left out in the cold by Microsoft. On the bright side though, a new formula-builder makes creating formulas easier than ever before.
With the 2008 version of PowerPoint, Microsoft is catching up with KeyNote. It’s now easier than before to create better-looking presentations, with new themes, and especially the new SmartArt Graphics. Think of SmartArt Graphics as simple wizards or guides, which assist you with building graphics.

Entourage is the Mac-equivalent to Outlook for Windows, but they are two totally different applications. There are some changes to the interface and Microsoft have introduced support for Kerberos Single Sign-on Authentication, the out-of-office assistant and managed folders. These are all welcome additions, but are certainly not mind-blowing.

All in all Microsoft has done a good, but not great, job with Office 2008. After such a long wait it’s a bit like “Is that all there is?” Bottom line - if you’re happy with Office 2004 there is little reason to upgrade, other than if you work in an environment with all Office 2007/2008 users, in which case the file compatibility will be a necessity. If you run an Intel Mac, there doesn’t seem to be any great speed increases in Office 2008 compared to 2004, but it does seem more stable, which is a very good thing. We would like to thank Microsoft GCC for providing the copy of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac that was used in this review.

by Magnus Nystedt

Price: Around $300US (standard edition)
From: Microsoft
Distributor: Microsoft
Web: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Office2008/default.mspx

Review: FileMaker Pro 9 ME

FileMaker, a subsidiary of Apple Inc., has produced their database product for a long time and now it’s reached version 9. This is not a revolutionary upgrade, rather it’s an incremental upgrade of an already mature product. And version 9 of FileMaker is really not without interesting new things. One main argument for many to upgrade to version 9 is that all previous versions of FileMaker will have varying degrees of problems with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. But to put it simply, if you run Leopard, get FileMaker 9.

The biggest news in FileMaker 9, in my view, is that you can now hook up to SQL data sources, and use FileMaker as a graphical, user-friendly, interface. If you have data sitting in any number of SQL databases, FileMaker now makes it fast and easy to interact with that data. You could do some of this previously but it was fairly complicated and the functionality was limited. Now you can use an SQL database just as you can any FileMaker database. For web developers using MySQL as their database engine, another welcome addition in the PHP Site Assistant helps you create dynamic web pages using FileMaker Pro. FileMaker has quite a way to go though to make this a really attractive feature. This version includes Middle Eastern features which means users can now enter and display text in Arabic language, search data and use Arabic text attributes. THere are also 20 localized work templates. One nice feature is the ability to mirror an English layout with a push of a button to instantly convert an English database to Arabic. There is also an Arabic user guide to make FileMaker more localized.

In conclusion, FileMaker has made great progress with their flagship product and version 9 is surely a tempting offer for anyone needing a powerful but relatively user-friendly database. Arabic support is an extra bonus, which may seal the deal for some potential customers.

by Magnus Nystedt

Price: Around $300US
From: WinSoft
Distributor: GraphEast
Web: http://www.grapheast.com/ge-software/cp.php?id=16

Review: Tasmeem Publisher Edition

I used DecoType Arabic typesetting features in Adobe PageMaker back in the late 90s and I’ve been wondering why Winsoft isn’t continuing this trend with the PageMaker successor Adobe InDesign. Now they are but we have to pay for it. Those of us who have seen old Naskh calligraphic scripts in museums around the Islamic world can now reproduce these scripts to a great extent on their computers. The complexity of traditional Arabic calligraphy is digitally transformed into a smart font, loaded with stylistic letters and controlled by simple Tasmeem palettes within InDesign; and better yet the fonts adhere to the true rules of Arabic calligraphy. In Tasmeem you basically type your text using one of two fonts that come with Tasmeem: Naskh and Amiri fonts. Then you use built-in menus and commands to select the enormous variability of alternative Arabic letters that Tasmeem provides. The result is jaw-dropping cascading letters within a word, and forward or backward extended letters at the end of a word, just like a calligrapher would draw by hand when writing Qur’anic verses or poetry. Tasmeem plug-ins for InDesign ME come in three editions: The Tasmeem limited edition comes free with every retail InDesign ME package. Users could use it simply to open documents created with other Tasmeem products, and also to utilize Tasmeem fonts and Aridi art samples. The real features comes in the Tasmeem Creative and Tasmeem Publisher editions. The only difference between these two is the number of pages; the Creative edition is made to work with two pages maximum, while the Publisher edition can handle full publications such as books, newspapers and magazines. The Tasmeem Publishing edition is a big investment that only large newspapers, publishers and large design studios can afford – while the Creative edition remains affordable to all users. I shall continue to use the Tasmeem Publisher edition, and write an extensive review in the Arabic section of upcoming Shuffle issues.

by Zaid Al-Hilali

Price: AED 46,000 Publisher Edition AED 1,468 Creative Edition
From: WinSoft
Distributor: Grapheast
Web: http://www.winsoft.eu/products_solutions/WinSoft-Tasmeem.php

17 Mac Blogging Applications

There is no doubt that you can blog without buying any extra software, or even without downloading anything that is free. But if you want to make your blogging experience a bit better and more enjoyable and if you want to go for some serious blogging and perhaps even try to make your living from blogging, then it’s time to consider some good tools. This is not meant to be an exhaustive collection of tools, but it’s a suggested start. Some of these applications come with every Mac, some you can download for fre, and some you have to pay for. We tried to give you a bit of everything.
by Magnus Nystedt

Ecto (http://infinite-sushi.com/software/ecto/): If you are serious about blogging, and almost regardless of what publishing platform you’ve chosen, you would want to look at getting ecto. It just makes publishing that much easier.

ImageWell (http://xtralean.com/IWOverview.html): It’s described as “the free and lean image editor” and it certainly is, both free and lean. Drop a picture file on its icon, and with a few clicks you can resize it and upload it to .Mac or an FTP account.

Skitch (http://plasq.com/skitch): If you want something more advanced than ImageWell, try Skitch. It will let you capture something on the screen, do a little editing to it, and upload it. One really cool thing is that Skitch integrates with iPhoto.

CyberDuck (http://cyberduck.ch/): Personally I like Transmit (http://www.panic.com/transmit/) but if you want to go for a free app, CyberDuck is a very good FTP application. And you’ll need an FTP to set up your blog, upload files, etc.

Grab (part of Mac OS X): There are other screen capture utilities with more functionality (some also free), but I think you’ll find that Grab does most of what you need, and it’s already on your Mac.

ScreenFlow (http://www.varasoftware.com/products/screenflow/): Sometimes you may want to show other people how to do something on your screen. ScreenFlow is the best solution for what’s usually called screencasts.

Adium (http://www.adiumx.com/): To keep in touch with as many people as possible, you need to be on several Instant Messaging networks: AOL, MSN, Google, etc. With Adium you can be connected to them all with one application - and it’s free!

Firefox (http://www.getfirefox.com): Safari is a great browser but there will be times when you’ll want to check your site in Firefox, to see whether it displays correctly. And sad as it is, some sites just don’t work in Safari.

BBEDit (http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/): Some say BBEdit is a bit too heavy for blogging, but I find it surprisingly useful - even for writing plain text. A bit pricey perhaps, but a great all-round tool for editing code and writing text.

WriteRoom (http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom): If distraction-free writing is what you need, WriteRoom will let you blank out everything else on the screen so you can focus on your text. While WriteRoom doesn’t offer much else in terms of functionality, other than full-screen editing, that’s its killer feature.

KeyNote (part of iWork): It’s a presentation program, but can double as a simple drawing tool. If you need to illustrate your blog post with a table or a chart, KeyNote is your friend.

OmniGraffle (http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/): If you need to draw something more complicated and KeyNote can’t handle it, OmniGraffle is your tool. OmniGraffle makes easy to draw, eye-catching models, diagrams, and lots more.

Mail (part of Mac OS X): Of course you need to send and receive email and Apple offers a great tool in their Mail application.

iCal (part of Mac OS X): You will need to try to be as disciplined as possible if you want to create a successful blog. So it’s important to keep dates, meetings, appointments, and other activities in your calendar. Since iCal is already there in Mac OS X, it’s the first choice.

iPhoto (part of iLife): Not just for photos, despite its name, iPhoto can become the hub of all your digital picture files. It can also help you do some simple editing.

iMovie (part of iLife): If you need to edit movies, iMovie is a great choice. That it comes free with any new Mac makes it even better.

TaskPaper (http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper): If the to-dos in Mail and iCal aren’t enough for you, try TaskPaper. It’s deceptively simple but with a little effort you can manage very complicated projects, including your blogging, with it.

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