TidBITS#643/19-Aug-02
=====================
Interested in the future of content in a digital world? Join us in
an experiment into the direct valuation of information. Adam also
offers techniques for circumventing areas in which iPhoto's
simplicity makes it clumsy. Then we look at the new Power Mac G4s
and minor eMac changes, plus an update to Retrospect Client.
Finally, we have an update on last week's article on the fate of
the digital hub concept in the wake of Hollywood protectionism.
Topics:
MailBITS/19-Aug-02
Apple Releases Beefy Dual-Proc Power Macs
Updates on the Digital Hub vs. Hollywood
PayBITS: Acknowledging the Value of Information
iPhoto Power Techniques
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-643.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2002/TidBITS#643_19-Aug-02.etx>
Copyright 2002 TidBITS Electronic Publishing. All rights reserved.
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MailBITS/19-Aug-02
------------------
**eMac Gets New Drives; iMac Gets Cheaper** -- Apple last week
announced small changes to its consumer desktop line of Macs.
The eMac, which initially offered only a CD-RW drive, now features
either a Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) for $1,100, or Apple's
SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) for $1,500 (the two configurations differ
in other ways too - the SuperDrive-equipped model has a faster
CPU, more RAM, and a larger hard disk). If you want the stylish
iMac with its flat-panel display instead, Apple just sweetened
the deal by dropping the prices on the CD-RW and Combo drive
models by $100, to $1,300 and $1,500 respectively. (Both repriced
models come with the 15-inch LCD screen; the 15-inch model with a
SuperDrive remains priced at $1,800 and the 17-inch model comes
only with a SuperDrive and costs $2,000.) Although these changes
are minor, they help make the iMac and eMac even more attractive
to students just before the start of the school year. [ACE]
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/aug/13consumer.html>
<http://www.apple.com/emac/>
<http://www.apple.com/imac/>
**New Retrospect Client, Xserve, Jaguar Compatibility** -- Dantz
Development last week released a new version of the Retrospect
Client for Mac OS X along with additional information about
compatibility between their Retrospect backup application and
Apple's new Xserve server and the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.2
Jaguar. The new Retrospect Client, version 5.0.536, offers Jaguar
compatibility, corrects a bug that could cause it to turn itself
off after approximately 17 minutes, and makes it so the Defer
button in the Backup Server alert window works in Mac OS X 10.1.x
(though it's still non-functional in Jaguar). Retrospect Client
5.0.536 is a free 2.4 MB download for Retrospect owners.
<ftp://ftp.dantz.com/pub/updates/client_mac_50536_installer.sit>
Dantz also announced that Retrospect is compatible with the Xserve
under Mac OS X Server 10.1.5 (but not yet Mac OS X Server 10.2).
Retrospect supports the Xserve's optional ATTO UL3S-66 SCSI card
and uses the highest priority active Ethernet port, switching as
necessary if that port is turned off (Retrospect Client, in
contrast, can only switch network ports if you turn it off by
Command-clicking its Off button, and then turning it back on).
Finally, although the just-released Retrospect Client lets you
back up a machine running Jaguar from a computer running Mac OS 9
or Mac OS X 10.1.x (or Retrospect 6.0 for Windows), Dantz also
promised a future free update to Retrospect to support Jaguar
fully; right now, Retrospect cannot auto-launch under Jaguar
and many SCSI cards will need new drivers. [ACE]
<http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=27638>
Apple Releases Beefy Dual-Proc Power Macs
-----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In a move many people expected to happen at last month's Macworld
Expo, Apple has unveiled new Power Mac G4s that offer significant
enhancements to Apple's professional desktop line while changing
only the front panel of the elegant Power Mac industrial design.
In fact, the front panel change points to the Power Mac's
differentiating name - Apple identifies the new models as with
the clunky moniker "Power Mac G4 (Mirrored Drive Doors)."
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/aug/13pmg4.html>
<http://www.apple.com/powermac/>
The new Power Macs all feature dual PowerPC G4 processors running
at 867 MHz, 1 GHz, or 1.25 GHz; the first two have 1 MB of
backside L3 cache, and the 1.25 GHz model offers 2 MB of backside
L3 cache. Three video cards, all of which offer ADC and DVI
connectors and support dual monitors, are available: the Nvidia
GeForce4 MX with 32 MB of DDR-SDRAM, the ATI Radeon 9000 Pro with
64 MB of DDR-SD-RAM, or the Nvidia GeForce4 Ti with a 128 MB frame
buffer of DDR-SDRAM for the ultimate in graphics power. The main
system memory is also DDR-SDRAM, which provides twice the
throughput of conventional single data rate RAM. Storage comes
in the form of a 60 GB, 80 GB, or 120 GB Ultra ATA/100 hard drive
running at 7200 rpm, plus either a Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) or
a SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW). If you want more storage, there are
three additional 3.5-inch internal hard drive expansion bays and
one more external expansion drive bay. Additional system expansion
is possible with the four 64-bit 33 MHz PCI slots and one 4x AGP
slot. After that, the specs return to the familiar, with two
FireWire ports, four USB ports, Gigabit Ethernet, an AirPort
card slot, keyboard, mouse, and so on.
<http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html>
The new Power Macs do require (and boot into by default)
Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar; they also include Mac OS 9.2.2. Other
bundled software includes Lemke Software's Graphic Converter,
Omni Group's OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner, Caffeine Software's
PixelNhance, and Ambrosia's Snapz Pro X, plus Apple's full
iApp suite.
The dual 867 MHz Power Mac G4 starts at $1,700, with the dual
1 GHz model starting at $2,500 and the dual 1.25 GHz model at
$3,300. The dual 867 MHz and dual 1 GHz models are available
immediately; the 1.25 GHz model is slated to ship in the second
half of September.
Updates on the Digital Hub vs. Hollywood
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cory Doctorow's article last week on whether Apple's digital
hub concept can survive the political machinations of Hollywood
garnered unprecedented attention, thanks to a mention on the geek
news site Slashdot. Like others who have been "Slashdotted," we
were unprepared for the tidal wave of traffic. After a few hours
we managed to move the cached article from our database server
(behind a 128K ISDN line) to our main server at digital.forest
(where they have a huge OC-12 Internet connection); that helped,
but even our main server maxed out serving 100 simultaneous
connections with no respite until the load started to wane in
the afternoon. Although I still don't think it's necessary to
design a system just to handle an isolated spike in traffic
like this, a move to Mac OS X on a faster Mac will probably
ease future concerns.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06901>
Also, Cory sent a clarification surrounding his statement that the
FCC had announced it "would open proceedings to mandate the BPDG
proposal, turning this 'standard' into the law of the land." He
writes:
"In the FCC rulemaking proceeding, the FCC commissioners and
spokespeople clarified this, saying that the FCC proceeding was
looking for comments on what sort of Broadcast Flag mandate, if
any, would be appropriate; further, they said that the BPDG
proposal would not receive any special consideration. For
information on how you can submit your own comments to the FCC
rulemaking, visit the link below and sign up for regular updates."
<http://action.eff.org/>
Finally, as always, I encourage you to check out the ongoing
discussion on TidBITS Talk surrounding this topic. Although the
outlook may seem bleak regarding legislation in the U.S. seriously
hampering the kind of digital lifestyle that Apple has been
promoting, the efforts of individuals can make a difference, both
by convincing companies we support to stand up and by sounding
off directly to our elected representatives.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1702>
PayBITS: Acknowledging the Value of Information
-----------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
It's time to rethink how we value information, and I have a
proposal about how we can do it.
Some information changes hands at sky-high rates - think about
rewards leading to the conviction of certain criminals. More
commonly, we have consultants, who may charge $100 or more per
hour to convey information to their clients, and niche newsletters
with subscription fees in the hundreds or thousands of dollars
per year. But how radically does information from consultants
or boutique newsletters really differ from the sort of content
that appears in TidBITS, Macworld, or even many Web sites?
In many cases, there's little or no difference. We've been
conditioned to value the message by the medium. In part, we pay
consultants high hourly rates because they filter information and
present it to us in customized ways. Niche newsletters promise a
similar benefit, often presenting a single person's view on a very
specific field. A paperback book costs less than a hardcover, but
the content is the same; we pay more to read the book sooner (plus
a little more for the higher materials cost). We pay to subscribe
to print magazines, but many of us expect to find the same content
online for free, even if we aren't subscribers. We buy CDs of
music, but millions of people download music for free from file
sharing services.
I'm all for different business models, but none of the traditional
approaches let readers place their own value on content. Instead,
value is assigned arbitrarily based on a variety of attributes
entirely separate from the information itself. Despite the famous
admonishment, we _are_ valuing books by their covers. It's time
we looked past external factors and put a value on the content
inside.
**A Fragmented Business Model** -- Over the last few hundred
years, information has been delivered in collections - the
newspaper, the magazine, the record album, the cable television
package. That's been necessary in part because the inherent costs
in distribution offer economies of scale to collections. It isn't
significantly cheaper to distribute a single article on paper than
it is an entire newspaper. Couple that with the concept of mass
production for a mass market - multiple identical copies of the
same item for sale to many people - and you can see why we've
ended up with the now-familiar business models for information:
per-copy sales, advertising, and subscriptions. When the number
of sales are large, the price per copy can be low, which makes it
possible to buy a magazine for a few dollars or subscribe to one
for a low annual amount. If the audience is sufficiently large or
appropriate, advertising sales can make it possible to give the
content away for free.
It wasn't always this way, and in some cases it still isn't. The
patronage system was responsible for much of the art and music of
the Renaissance, and even now, analyst reports can cost thousands
of dollars. The patrons of old and the people who buy expensive
reports today share one thing - they place a high value on
content.
I think we need a compromise - a financial model that values
content irrespective of the distribution method or the physical
medium while keeping that content both freely available and
affordable. Many people have said they'd like to be able to
pay musicians directly for downloaded music; we're now making
a similar approach possible with authors of TidBITS articles.
We're calling our foray into this space PayBITS, and in short,
it will make it possible for a reader to compensate an author
directly for the received value of a given TidBITS article.
**The PayBITS Proposal** -- TidBITS is free for anyone to read,
but we have a history of experimenting with business models. In
1992, when it became clear that we couldn't continue without
earning some income from TidBITS, we created our corporate
sponsorship program, based on the public broadcasting model
(Masterpiece Theater is brought to you by...). As far as we've
been able to find, it was the first advertising program on the
Internet - a scary move back in the days when the National Science
Foundation Acceptable Use Policies were still in place. Then, in
1999, at the instigation of our loyal readers on TidBITS Talk, we
started our voluntary contribution program, resulting in over
850 readers contributing directly to the financial survival of
TidBITS, with more than 200 people being continuing supporters.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=02995>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05565>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
The sponsorship program keeps the business going, although we
subsidize TidBITS heavily with our time - we could all earn much
more at other jobs. And the contribution program, though it can't
replace the sponsorships, has also provided some extremely welcome
income. Although the downturn in Internet advertising has
certainly hurt us as well, we've managed to stay afloat.
What we've never been able to do is figure out how to pay our
authors. Our staff already earns much less than comparable
positions at traditional publications - there's just no money
left over to compensate authors with anything but whatever benefit
they can derive from being published. Some authors have parlayed
writing for TidBITS - sometimes with our help - into magazine
articles and even book projects, but that's always an
unanticipated bonus.
Here's where PayBITS comes in. At the end of appropriate articles
in TidBITS, we'll be placing a few lines of text and a link to an
Internet payment service that will make it possible for readers to
compensate the authors directly. Apart from a one-line explanation
of PayBITS for readers who have missed this article, the specific
text, suggested amount (if any), and payment service (likely
PayPal or Kagi) will be up to authors.
<http://www.paypal.com/>
<http://www.kagi.com/>
If you find an article valuable or particularly interesting,
especially if it saved you time or money, click the author's
PayBITS link to compensate them directly and support the concept
that information has real value. The author may provide a
suggested amount, but you can pay as much or as little as you
feel is commensurate with the value of the information.
I expect that only a very small percentage of the full TidBITS
readership will find any given article sufficiently valuable or
interesting to be willing to pay the author for it. That's fine,
since in theory, we have enough subscribers for that very small
percentage to still be a fair number of people. And of course,
since authors aren't earning anything for articles as it stands
now, any amount will be welcome. We'll ask authors to let us know
how many payments they receive and the total amount to help us
evaluate which authors and articles readers find the most useful
or interesting.
**Concerns and Confusions** -- I ran this idea past TidBITS Talk,
and the feedback was fabulous (including the name, thanks to
Maarten Festen). Most people were highly positive about the
idea, but a few expressed concerns.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1696>
A few authors said they weren't interested in being paid for
their writing, which is fine. We certainly won't make authors
participate in PayBITS, though they're also welcome to redirect
any payments to other entities as appropriate. For instance, it
would have been easy to see payments from Cory Doctorow's article
about Hollywood's power play directed to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06901>
Some people went nuts with the idea and proposed complex systems
by which we'd serve PayBITS pages to readers, sending the final
click out to an appropriate payment service. Others suggested we
solve the entire micropayment problem. Although I appreciate the
potential elegance and utility of such systems, I want to keep
this initial phase of PayBITS as simple as possible since we're
already overworked. Any infrastructure changes must be designed,
coded, maintained, and migrated to any new systems we create.
That's just too much right now but definitely something we'd
consider for the future.
I saw some slight concern that PayBITS could affect our editorial
mix, but I'm not worried about that, since we've always published
what we've felt was important. Plus, even if PayBITS resulted in
us publishing more articles that people find useful or
particularly interesting, I fail to see the harm in that.
Others felt that although they liked the idea, they were worried
that it might cannibalize the general contributions to TidBITS.
I'm not concerned about that either, since I'm thinking that our
contribution program will move under the PayBITS umbrella. For
articles about what we're doing with TidBITS (like this one) or
those written by multiple people (like our Macworld Superlatives
articles), we'll point the PayBITS link at our existing
contribution program.
More common was the sentiment that readers didn't want to think
about the value of a given article and would instead prefer to pay
TidBITS some annual amount and have us distribute it to authors.
My response there is that thinking about the value of information
is what the PayBITS experiment is all about - one person may find
a given article incredibly timely and helpful, whereas it may not
help another person at all. If people pay us and we pay authors,
we're doing nothing new or interesting, and it would mean more
bookkeeping and accounting work than we can afford.
A few people seemed uncomfortable with the concept in general,
suggesting either that we should switch to a subscription model,
or that readers might go to other sources for their content.
Again, subscription models are old hat, and although they're
working a little better of late (a recent New York Times article
looked at this trend), they haven't been widely successful on the
Internet. I have no interest in switching to a subscription model
at this point, since if trends bear out, we'd be lucky to retain
10 percent of our readership. It goes against my grain to keep
TidBITS away from potential readers - our goal has always been
to make TidBITS as accessible as possible. And as far as people
turning to other resources, the entire point of PayBITS is to
provide a channel for people to acknowledge the value of
information they've already received, not to keep it away from
them until they pay. If someone doesn't want to pay, we're not
going to make them.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/01/technology/01ONLI.html>
**The Experiment Begins** -- All that's left is for us to set
aside our preconceptions of the value of content and try PayBITS.
I'll report on how it has fared after it's been in place for a
while, and of course, if you have any thoughts about it, feel
free to send them to TidBITS Talk.
PayBITS: Want to support TidBITS? Consider becoming a contributor!
Click --> <http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
What's this? Read about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
iPhoto Power Techniques
-----------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Apple's iPhoto is simple and easy to use for importing,
organizing, editing, and sharing photos, right? Not so fast.
iPhoto is extremely simple, but that very simplicity sometimes
makes it harder to use. During and since writing my latest book,
iPhoto 1.1 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide, I've come up
with a few techniques for working around iPhoto's limitations.
If you've found iPhoto clumsy, these techniques will simplify
working with your images.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321121651/tidbitselectro00>
**Keeping Photos Outside iPhoto** -- Many people have expressed
concern about the safety of the way iPhoto takes over organization
of your photos, storing them in a chronological hierarchy inside
your Pictures folder. In the worst possible case, where iPhoto
stops working entirely, you could find and extract all your
original photos for use in a different application, but it would
be tedious. Luckily, there are several ways to maintain a separate
photo archive; remember that doing so doubles the amount of disk
space your photos occupy.
* After you've imported pictures into iPhoto, click the Last
Import album and drag all the pictures to a folder in the Finder
to make identical copies. Alternatively, after clicking the Last
Import album, click the Share button, and click Export. Leave the
Format pop-up menu set to Original, and make sure the Size options
are set to Full-size images. Then click Export and choose the
export location.
* In your Applications folder is a utility called Image Capture
that was the primary way to download photos from your camera to
your Mac before iPhoto. However, you can import photos into iPhoto
normally _and_ use Image Capture to save them to a separate
location on your hard disk (launch Image Capture, connect your
camera, select an appropriate destination using the Download To
menu, and click the Download All button). Be sure not to delete
images from the camera until you've performed both actions.
* Instead of connecting your camera to your Mac via USB, use a
memory card reader and copy the pictures to another location
manually before importing into iPhoto.
Once you have all your originals outside of iPhoto, consider
copying them to CD-R to save space on your hard disk. Obviously,
if you're ever forced to revert to these copies due to iPhoto
problems, you'll lose any changes you made within iPhoto, but
that's preferable to losing the photos themselves or extracting
the originals from iPhoto's folder hierarchy.
**First Pass Culling and Editing** -- One of the wonders of
digital photography is that there's little downside to taking a
lot of pictures. In fact, the main downside, aside from using up
memory card space and battery power while shooting, is the extra
effort needed to cull the lousy shots from the gems. iPhoto
doesn't make this process easy on the surface, but I've come
up with a technique that works well.
Before you get started, open iPhoto's Preferences window and set
the "Double-clicking photos opens them in" setting to Edit View.
Import your pictures as you normally would, and then, making sure
you're in the Photo Library and not in an album, double-click the
first picture so you see the image at full size in edit mode.
There are only two actions you'll likely want to perform on this
first pass through your new pictures - deleting and rotating. You
could perform additional editing at the same time, but I find it's
best to skim through all your photos quickly first, deleting the
terrible ones and rotating those that need it. Other edits can
wait for later.
Decide if you want to keep the first photo. Let's assume it's a
terrible picture. Press the Delete key (something you probably
didn't realize you could do in edit mode). iPhoto prompts to
make sure you want to delete the picture permanently; press
Return to agree.
iPhoto automatically displays the next photo. Let's assume it's
good, but needs rotating. Click the Rotate button under the Info
pane or use the appropriate keyboard shortcut to rotate it.
(In iPhoto's Preferences you can set the default rotation
direction to apply when you click the Rotate button or type
Command-R; Option-clicking the Rotate button or typing
Command-Shift-R rotates in the opposite direction.)
Since you want to keep this picture, after rotating it, either
click the Next button or press the right arrow key. If you want
to go back to compare two pictures, click the Previous button or
press the left arrow key. (To compare two images side-by-side in
their own windows, Option-double-click anywhere on the image to
open the first one, move its window out of the day, navigate to
the other one, and Option-double-click it as well.)
Now go through the rest of your photos, deleting the bad ones and
rotating those that need it. Be careful once you get going - it's
easy to hit Delete and Return quickly without thinking.
Two points. First, although it seems like you could do this in
organize mode with large thumbnails, it doesn't work as well
because iPhoto loses the selection after you delete a picture,
forcing you to click the next displayed picture to be able to
delete or rotate it. Second, if you want a nice shortcut for
switching from edit mode back to organize mode, just double-click
anywhere on the image.
**Working with Keyword Search Results** -- Many people have been
confused about the utility of iPhoto's checkmark keyword (which
you can't modify). I've found it's good for temporary marking of
photos. For instance, when I was showing my grandparents a recent
set of photos, I simply marked the ones they wanted as prints with
the checkmark keyword. That made it easy to find them later when
I had time to do the necessary cropping and uploading.
Once I was done, though, I was faced with a niggling problem. How
could I remove the checkmark keywords from those pictures? I could
of course scroll through the entire set and manually remove the
keyword, but that would have taken quite some time, since the
photos were scattered among numerous film rolls. And although
I could search for all the photos with the checkmark keyword, as
soon I switched the Assign/Search toggle back to Assign, iPhoto
displayed my entire Photo Library again. If you run into a similar
situation, try this technique.
First, in iPhoto's Preferences, make sure the "Assign/Search uses"
setting is set to Keywords. Then click the Organize button to
switch to organize mode, turn off the Film Rolls checkbox and turn
on Keywords. Move the Assign/Search toggle to Search, and click
the checkmark keyword to display just the checked photos. Now
select all with Command-A and drag them to the album pane to
create a new album. (If you had left Film Rolls showing, Command-A
would have selected all the photos in each film roll, rather than
just the checkmarked photos - that's a bug.) If you don't have any
blank space left in the album pane, create an album manually and
drag the checked photos into it.
Now, click the new album to switch to it. Since it contains only
the checked photos, there's no problem switching the Assign/Search
toggle back to Assign, selecting all the photos, and clicking the
checkmark keyword box to remove it from all the photos. Obviously,
the album isn't useful any more, so delete it by selecting it and
pressing the Delete key.
This technique works well any time you want to add or remove
keywords from a set of photos that you've found by searching
for keywords. The trick is that you can create and delete albums
easily while working with photos - don't assume they're permanent.
**Using Photos in Multiple Ways** -- Using albums as temporary
holding spots for photos works well in another situation where
iPhoto falls down. Assume you want to use a set of images in
multiple ways, ordering prints, creating a book, and uploading
to the Web. The problem arises with aspect ratios - Apple's book
layouts assume a 4x3 aspect ratio (the native aspect ratio of
almost all digital cameras), whereas you'll want to crop the
photos for prints, since standard print sizes are never 4x3.
The half-baked solution is to crop your photos for the sizes of
prints you want to order. Those aspect ratios (4x6, 5x7, 8x10,
and so on) won't work perfectly with Apple's book themes, but
if you use the Story Book theme, it won't be a major problem.
And of course, aspect ratio isn't important on the Web. But if
you do want to do things "right," follow these steps.
First, in iPhoto's Preferences, make sure the "Assign/Search uses"
setting is set to Comments, and perform any edits like red-eye
reduction that you want to apply universally. Select your desired
images and add them to a new album. Switch to that album, select
all the photos with Command-A, and then duplicate them with
Command-D. Now you have two copies of each image in your album,
and the only difference between the copies is that one has the
word "copy" appended to its title. Unfortunately, iPhoto doesn't
arrange the copies regularly, so the easiest way to select just
the copies is to switch the Assign/Search toggle to Search and
type "copy" in the big Comments field. That displays just the
copies; select all, add them to another new album, and then
return to the previous album and delete the copies.
You now have two albums containing separate copies of the same
pictures. I'd recommend naming the albums appropriately -
"Vacation 2002 Prints" and "Vacation 2002 Book" - so you can keep
them straight while you're editing. Then go through the album from
which you want to order prints and crop each image as desired. If
you're ordering multiple sizes, drag the photos around so all the
4x6 images are together, all the 5x7 images are together, and so
on to make it easier to remember the sizes for each image in the
Order Prints window.
When you're done with the prints, you can turn your attention to
the other album, where you've stored versions of the photos for
use in a book. Those you'll want to crop using the 4x3 aspect
ratio.
This technique works equally well for creating multiple copies of
the same photos for printing at different sizes or for making one
set black-and-white. One tip, though, if you want to delete these
albums after you've ordered your prints or books, you might want
to note in each photo's title or comments the aspect ratio you've
used. That way, if you want to use that photo again in the future,
you'll know exactly how it was cropped.
**Other Techniques** -- I'm sure people have bumped up against
other limitations in iPhoto, and if you either have a technique
to share or would like one for working around your particular
irritations with iPhoto, send a note to the TidBITS Talk thread
I've started, and I'll see what I can think up. Hopefully the
iPhoto engineers at Apple have been using the program heavily and
will be building in features to work around some of these problems
in iPhoto 2.0.
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