Computer Connections

Computer Connections 11.04

BY LLOYD PREZANT

Nov | Dec 04
Issue No.19

Color iPod: Photo Finish
Apple has announced the iPod Photo, a color iPod available in 40GB or 60 GB sizes. Looking the same as its music playing iPod sibling, it sports a 220x176-pixel resolution that can display 65,536 colors. The iPod Photo shows 25 color photo thumbnails at once, and allows you to scroll through the photos as you would scroll through music playlists. The photos can be viewed through your TV set, using the supplied cable, in the 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio you prefer. With longer battery life than previous models, the iPod Photo shows photo slideshows for 5 hours, or plays music up to 15 hours. Buy for $499 (40GB) and $599 (60GB).
www.apple.com/ipodphoto/.

Woz Gets Award
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was inducted into the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame in October 2004. Back in the day when computers were in their infancy, Steve W. and Steve Jobs collaborated on the Macintosh computer that led the way to that "potato grater" G5 you may own today. Woz says: "My goal in life has been to build the fun, often found in other consumer electronics devices, into computers." He helped change all of the Mac users' lives with his invention!
www.ce.org/press_room/
press_release_detail.asp?id=10590.

Quickbooks Pro 2005 Flies
QuickBooks: Pro 2005 for the Mac has been released. This is Intuit's small business accounting software program. New is: the ability to add PDF backgrounds to forms, integrated iCal support, file sharing with the Windows version of QuickBooks and the ability to back up data files to .Mac. Users of Windows can open Mac files, and Intuit has upgraded the Mac version's menu hierarchy to mimic the PC version's menus. This makes dealing with your Windows-using accountant easy! For more info and pricing, go to:
http://quickbooks.intuit.com.commerce/
catalog/product.jhtml? prodid=
prod0000000000007974802& (yep-that was 10 zeros!).

iMac Screens
Apple's iMac now has a G5 processor, among other things. We go "in-depth" this month:
The iMac is the model that revived the Apple brand in the 1990's. Two years ago the flat-panel iMac won the hearts of the Mac faithful, while being in-your-face beautiful. Now, the new iMac is designed by the creators of the iPod. Its form is a display panel. Yes, that's right. Apple has crammed everything into space behind the display, and has kept it only two inches thick. Removing three screws along the bottom of the back of the display reveals the beautifully laid-out insides. A serial ATA hard drive (up to 250GB) is nestled in there. The slot-loading optical drive can burn CDs and read DVDs or can burn both ends. Insert your discs at the upper right side of the display. Space is there for you to add the optional Airport/Bluetooth modules. The antennas are already built in. A heat-sink-cooled G5 processor that runs at 1.6 or 1.8 GHz takes up residence there. We are talking 64-bit wide, two floating-point units, 533 and 600MHz front side bus G5s. Screaming 400MHz PC3200 DDR SDRAM can exist there in two slots, for a total of 2GBytes. Apple ships the iMac G5 with one 256MB chip. Paltry! The iMac is quiet, --having a 25db noise level, thanks to pulsed fans cooling many zones, rather than one buzzy fan cooling it all. A Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics chip is present and accounted for here. With 64MB on-board memory and 8x AGP support, this processor can not be upgraded by the user; a board replacement by the dealer is the only way this can happen. Its integral speakers fire downwards, powered by 12 watts of power. How do they do all this in two inches of depth? Opening is believing. In and out: USB 2.0, FireWire 400 (but no FireWire 800) and optical audio 5.1 out. With no PCI slots, the USB slots become more important to power your peripherals. The revolutionary lamp-neck monitor arm of the older iMac is no more. Now there is a single foot attached to the back of the screen/cpu which allows users to adjust the display (tilt only) from -5 to +25 degrees. The CPU can be detached from the foot mount and attached to a wall mount or an articulating arm assembly. Check the Apple Web site for all the details! www.apple.com.

Painter to the 9's
Corel Corp. is now shipping Corel Painter IX. This is the latest version of their illustration-and-paint program, which mimics natural media. New to IX are: Snap-To-Path painting, Quick Clone, new Brush Control Palettes, frames-per-second control, customizable shortcut keys and improved Digital Watercolor. Support for Adobe Photoshop and Wacom tablets has been improved, as has been better color management! System requirements are: Mac OS X v 10.2.8, G3/500Mhz or better, 1024 x 768 24-bit color display, 128MB of RAM and a CD-ROM drive. www.corel.com/painterix/home/index.html.

Apple Is Secure. Again
Apple has posted their usual monthly SecurityUpdate 2004-10-27. Recommended for all users, this update installs a new version of Apple Remote Desktop (v.1.2.4) for OS X 10.3, security enhancements and bug fixes. Use the Software Update preference pane or go direct: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum =61798.

Quicktime, Quick Upgrade
Apple QuickTime is updated to version 6.5.2. Do this to: fix bugs, update security, better support iTunes and improve the AAC codecs and the Lossless Encoder. Go to the QuickTime download page: www.apple.com/quicktime/download, or run the Software Update to install 6.5.2. You must have a Mac running OS X v. 10.2.8, a G3 (minimum) at 400 MHz and 128MB of RAM to use this update!

Apple Opens Mini More
Apple Mini Stores have arrived! According to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, these new 750-square-foot mini retail outlets have been designed to be "small and cool." Two have opened in the New Jersey towns of Rockaway and Bridgewater, and one will open in Syracuse, N.Y. By the end of 2004, Apple will have nine mini stores open. Bringing the Apple store to more locations in this format will increase the Apple presence in areas where a large retail store is not warranted. In these stores, customers can go to a touch-screen kiosk, look up the product and pay for it - all without dealing with a salesperson. I'm sure the iPod mini will be there too!

Lloyd Prezant is a NYC computer consultant who buys and sells recent used Mac computers and their peripherals. Call him at (718) 548-1623.

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