TidBITS#688/14-Jul-03
=====================
As we gear up for Macworld Expo in New York, our thoughts turn
practical: how can I import Netscape bookmarks into Safari, why
use PrintFIX to build ColorSync profiles for printing photos, and
what's new in Retrospect 5.1? We also cover Nisus Writer Express
1.0, WorkStrip 3, and Style Master 3, offer additional details
about AirPort 3.1 compatibility, and note Jeff Carlson's talk
at the Apple Store Bellevue Square on Saturday!
Topics:
MailBITS/14-Jul-03
Retrospect 5.1 Improves Disaster Recovery
Importing Netscape Bookmarks into Safari
Building ColorSync Profiles Using PrintFIX
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/14-Jul-03
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MailBITS/14-Jul-03
------------------
**More Details on AirPort 3.1 Compatibility** -- Darn those nit-
picking product numbers! Last week I wrote in "AirPort 3.1
Supports Third Party 802.11g PC Cards" that Buffalo Technology's
802.11g PC Card costs about $60 and works with Macs thanks to
the AirPort 3.1 update. Alert reader Dale Rice pointed out that
Buffalo Technology actually sells two 802.11g PC Cards: the $60
WLI-CB-G54 card is not actually compatible with AirPort 3.1,
whereas the $80 WLI-CB-G54A is. Make sure you get the right one!
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07256>
<http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/airstation/wlicbg54.php>
<http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/airstation/wlicbg54a.php>
Dale also noted that he'd seen reports of AirPort 3.1 working with
a Belkin 802.11g PC Card. More interesting, for those people who
would like to connect a pre-AirPort Extreme Power Mac to an
AirPort Extreme network, are anecdotal reports of 802.11g PCI
cards from Buffalo Technology (the WLI-PC-G54) and Linksys (the
WMP54G) working with AirPort 3.1. The moral of the story would
seem to be that compatibility is broad, but check for specific
compatibility claims or at least user reports before buying. [ACE]
<http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?&Product_Id=136500>
<http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/airstation/wlipcig54.php>
<http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=33&scid=36&prid=520>
**New Life for Western Civilisation** -- Style Master, Western
Civilisation's flagship editor for Cascading Style Sheets (CSS),
has arrived on Mac OS X with version 3 (see "Precision Web Pages
with Style Master" in TidBITS-501_ for more details). This is not
a mere port or carbonization: the program has been completely
rewritten, to brilliant effect. Floating windows and dialogs have
been replaced by drawers, colorful toolbar icons have been added,
and the whole interface has been made more informative and just
plain easier. There are no modal dialogs or even OK buttons: as
you work in one window, Style Master updates its other windows on
the fly. It even provides live reporting of compatibility between
your CSS and a dozen common Web browsers. Style Master 3 is a
top-notch example of a program that knows the syntax rules of a
complicated markup language and mediates between those rules and
a clean, clear interface. As a result, the user can create, edit,
and preview CSS-based Web pages with no formal knowledge of CSS
whatever. A new online manual and CSS tutorial is included. Style
Master 3 costs $50 ($30 to upgrade from an earlier version), and
a 30-day demo is available as a 4.3 MB download. [MAN]
<http://www.westciv.com/style_master/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05602>
**Nisus Writer Express 1.0 Released** -- Nisus Software has thrown
its hat into the Mac OS X ring with the release of Nisus Writer
Express 1.0, a new Mac OS X word processor. Although this version
isn't as full-featured as the company's long-standing Nisus Writer
Classic 6.5, it's no slouch. It reads and writes documents in
plain text, Microsoft Word, Unicode, RTF, and RTFD formats, and
it features non-contiguous text selection and a customizable
interface. Fans of the Classic version will appreciate the
inclusion of the three-level Find and Replace feature, including
regular expressions (grep), and multiple editable clipboards.
Nisus Writer Express also provides scripting support using menu
scripting, AppleScript, and Perl. Most important, however, is
that this version provides a Mac OS X foundation to build upon
as future releases come closer to the full power of Nisus Writer
Classic. Nisus Writer Express costs $60; licensed users of Nisus
Writer 6.0 and later can upgrade for $35 for a limited time.
A 3.9 MB demo version is also available for download. [JLC]
<http://www.nisus.com/express/>
<http://www.nisus.com/NisusWriter/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1927>
**Have a Nice Strip** -- SoftChaos's WorkStrip 3 is a major
upgrade to WorkStrip X (see TidBITS-647_). WorkStrip is like
having multiple Docks blended with the classic Now Menus; its
hierarchical menus and file-list panels are excellent for file
navigation and manipulation, and its workspace organization is
great for assembling applications, documents, and folders specific
to particular projects. This version lists (and can switch to)
individual windows of running applications, and its Recent Items
feature now tracks documents opened from the Finder and from
within applications. (There are exceptions, though; some
applications, such as Microsoft Excel, remain opaque to
WorkStrip's gaze.) There are many aesthetic and keyboard-shortcut
improvements as well. WorkStrip 3 costs about $40 and requires
10.2.4 or later. A 30-day demo is available for download. [MAN]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06935>
<http://www.softchaos.com/products/ws3/ove.html>
**Jeff Carlson at Apple Store Bellevue Square** -- With Adam and
Tonya now living in Ithaca, New York, there's no need for other
TidBITS staffers to make the trek to New York City for this week's
Macworld Expo, which means I miss out on meeting TidBITS readers
and rubbing shoulders with thousands of Mac users this time of
year. Instead, I'm going to do something more engaging (and with a
much better commute). On Saturday, 19-Jul-03, I'll be at the Apple
Store Bellevue Square in Bellevue, WA between 10:30 AM and noon to
talk about iMovie 3, video editing, and other topics related to my
just-released book iMovie 3 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide.
Stop by and chat about video editing or just say hi! [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/retail/bellevuesquare/>
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321193970/tidbitselectro00/>
<http://www.necoffee.com/imovievqs/>
Retrospect 5.1 Improves Disaster Recovery
-----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Tomorrow Dantz Development will release Retrospect 5.1 for
Macintosh, the latest version of the company's popular and
powerful backup software, which we've relied upon for years to
help us recover from lost or corrupted files and damaged hard
disks. Retrospect 5.1 improves upon the previous version in a
number of ways.
<http://www.dantz.com/>
**New Features** -- Most important is that Retrospect 5.1 now
ships with a disaster recovery CD-ROM that can boot a Mac OS X
machine, thus eliminating one of the big gotchas that has plagued
Retrospect users who back up to removable media. The problem is
that Retrospect must be running in Mac OS X to restore permissions
properly, but the only way to boot into Mac OS X on a machine
whose hard disk had been reformatted was to use an external hard
disk. The Retrospect 5.1 recovery CD doesn't drop you into the
Finder, but instead runs Retrospect so you can initiate a restore
and get back to work without having to reinstall Mac OS X from
scratch, then restore the rest of your files with Retrospect.
Unfortunately, the Retrospect recovery CD won't solve everyone's
problems. Apple doesn't provide any way for bootable CDs to access
a network, making the recovery CD useless for restoring from a
Retrospect backup server over your network. It's still worth
keeping an external utility hard disk around. (See "Configuring
a Utility Hard Disk" in TidBITS-672_.) Dantz's license with Apple
also doesn't let them include Disk Utility, so you'll have to use
the Mac OS X Install CD to reformat or repair a problematic hard
disk.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07116>
Note that Retrospect's disaster recovery CD boots into Mac OS X
10.2 Jaguar, and if you use a slot-loading iMac that hasn't had
its firmware updated, you could experience the video problems
Geoff Duncan explained in "Update Firmware Before Installing
Jaguar!" in TidBITS-653_. This isn't an entirely theoretical
problem - Alsoft's DiskWarrior 3.0 also comes with a bootable
Mac OS X CD, and I've seen reports of the problem occurring when
someone used that CD to boot an iMac that hadn't been updated.
So make sure to update your firmware if you have a slot-loading
iMac!
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06973>
<http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/>
<http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75130>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1997>
Also new in Retrospect 5.1 is a Retrospect Client application that
works in Red Hat Linux to let you back up Red Hat Linux machines
to your Macintosh- or Windows-based Retrospect backup server.
Other flavors of Linux aren't currently supported, but Dantz is
working on adding them for future releases.
People who have struggled with Retrospect's lack of support
for specific models of optical drives will particularly
appreciate Retrospect 5.1's new optical drive auto-configurator.
When Retrospect finds a writable optical drive that it doesn't
recognize as a supported model, it interrogates the drive by
sending command after command and analyzing the responses.
At the end of the process, Retrospect will have built up the
necessary set of commands to use the drive for backup, assuming
of course that the drive passed all the tests sufficiently well
(Retrospect will still refuse to back up to drives that don't
pass the necessary tests). In some cases, the configurator may
allow use of drives that had previously failed Dantz's in-house
testing for the preferred packet-writing method; Retrospect 5.1
can now test for and use a track-at-once writing method, which
manufacturers reportedly get correct more often, but which
doesn't use space quite as efficiently.
Lastly, although we don't have full details, Retrospect 5.1
reportedly builds in numerous bug fixes and customer requests.
One feature I'd like to see still isn't present - the capability
for a backup set to span multiple hard disks, just like it can
span multiple disks for forms of removable media. Now that I'm
using Granite Digital's FireVue hot swappable FireWire drive bays
with multiple hard disks, it would be great to be able to treat
these hard disks as true removable media in Retrospect, because
otherwise my backup sets are limited to the size of the disk.
<http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg26_firewireidehotswapdrive.htm>
<http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/pg32_firewiresmarthotswapdrive.htm>
**Pricing and Support** -- The most notable pricing change for
Retrospect 5.1 is that Dantz has stopped selling the low-end $80
Retrospect Express, which lacked a few of the more powerful
features available in other versions of the program, such as the
capability to customize selectors and work with Retrospect Client
software to back up networked computers. The bottom of the product
line will now be occupied by the $130 Retrospect Desktop, which
comes with licenses to back up two networked computers with the
Retrospect Client. Dantz found that enough homes had multiple
computers that most people were paying $50 more for network backup
capabilities. Upgrades from either Retrospect Express or
Retrospect Desktop 5.0 cost $60.
Retrospect Express isn't exactly going away though, and companies
that bundle the product with hardware (such as Maxtor including
it with their hard drives) or software (like Symantec bundling it
with the just-released Norton SystemWorks 3.0) will continue to do
so. The bundled version remains at 5.0 for now; it takes longer to
slip a revision into bundling situations.
<http://www.maxtor.com/en/products/external/personal_storage_5000/>
<http://www.symantec.com/sabu/sysworks/mac/>
The more-expensive $500 Retrospect Workgroup and $800 Retrospect
Server retain their prices and configurations, with Retrospect
Workgroup including 20 licenses for Retrospect Client and
Retrospect Server including 100 licenses. Retrospect Server is
also necessary for backing up multiple Macs running Mac OS X
Server. Upgrades from Retrospect Workgroup 5.0 cost $100, and
upgrades from Retrospect Server 5.0 cost $160.
All of these prices are the prices Dantz charges for direct sales;
resellers such as TidBITS sponsor Small Dog Electronics offer
discounts on new copies and upgrades that range from 30 to 40
percent off the list price. Value-added resellers (consultants who
help clients install, configure, and maintain Retrospect) can also
sell Retrospect at a discount.
<http://www.dantz.com/en/buy/buy_step1.dtml>
<http://www.smalldog.com/search/x/x/wag125/?z=1&find=Retrospect>
Finally, Dantz has developed a new and significantly cheaper
annual support and maintenance plan. For some time now, Dantz
has had to charge for tech support calls ($40 per incident for
Retrospect Express, $70 for all other versions) because it costs
them $30 to have a tech support engineer merely pick up the phone
(support via the Web forum remains free). Now people who buy
Retrospect Server and Retrospect Workgroup may want to opt for
the annual support and maintenance plan. Along with unlimited
telephone support, it includes both this upgrade _and_ the next
one for free, which makes the $280 cost of the plan for Retrospect
Server an easy decision (since upgrading to Retrospect Server 5.1
costs $160, and the next major upgrade will cost at least as much,
probably within a year). The plan for Retrospect Workgroup is
almost as good, at $200, but it's not particularly worthwhile for
Retrospect Desktop, for which the plan costs $180. Dantz expects
relatively few consumers to opt for the support and maintenance
plan for Retrospect Desktop since it may not pay for itself on the
upgrade fees, as it will for the other versions of Retrospect.
<http://www.dantz.com/en/support/>
PayBITS: If Adam has given you the information you need to
justify upgrading, say thanks with a few bucks via PayBITS!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=ace%40tidbits.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Importing Netscape Bookmarks into Safari
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The initial beta releases of Apple's Safari Web browser could
import bookmarks you had created in Internet Explorer; they
appeared as an Imported IE Favorites collection in Safari.
This happened the first time you launched Safari; the interface
offered no way of importing at a later time.
However, by the time Safari 1.0 shipped at the Worldwide Developer
Conference a few weeks ago, Apple had quietly added the capability
to import bookmarks from Netscape and Mozilla as well. Again, this
happened only the first time Safari was launched after the
upgrade. However, for many people, the import process for Netscape
and Mozilla bookmarks didn't work due to the technique that Apple
uses for finding the location of those bookmarks. This should
improve in the future, but if you have bookmarks stored in
Netscape or Mozilla and Safari didn't import them into an Imported
Netscape/Mozilla Favorites collection, you can use the following
technique to bring them into Safari.
Note that there are a wide variety of other techniques for working
around this problem, ranging from a simple drag of bookmarks from
Netscape or Mozilla into Safari's bookmark view to using a full-
fledged bookmark utility like Alco Blom's URL Manager Pro, which
can maintain a list of bookmarks that are then accessible to
multiple Web browsers (see "Tools We Use: URL Manager Pro" in
TidBITS-635_ for more details). You can also find utilities that
enable Safari's Debug menu and initiate imports from there. But
for now, I'm focusing only on showing you how to make Safari's
built-in import functionality work.
<http://www.url-manager.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06854>
**The Problem** -- Netscape and Mozilla both allow you to have
profiles that enable multiple users to maintain different account
settings, different preferences, and different sets of bookmarks.
These profiles are stored in the ~/Library/Mozilla/profiles
directory; each profile has its own folder. It turns out that
Safari can find bookmarks for profiles stored only in the default
profile folder, which must be named "default". If you've named
your profile in any other way, Safari will fail quietly. It's
not clear how common it is to have profiles with other names;
the entire issue arose because the profiles I'd created had names
like "Adam's Default Profile" and "Default User", neither of which
worked.
**The Solution** -- If you find yourself in this boat, follow
these steps to convince Safari to import your Netscape or Mozilla
bookmarks (they're the same, since Netscape is based on the
Mozilla code).
1) Quit Safari and Netscape or Mozilla, if they're running.
2) Locate your profile folder in ~/Library/Mozilla/profiles (the
profiles folder inside the Mozilla folder in your user's Library
folder). Rename that folder from whatever it is to "default"
(no quotes, all lowercase). Remember the original name for later.
3) In ~/Library/Preferences, open the com.apple.Safari.plist file
in a text editor like BBEdit, or, if you have it installed, in
Apple's Property List Editor utility.
4) Search for "Netscape" and in the line following:
<key>NetscapeAndMozillaFavoritesWereImported</key>, change
"true" to "false". Save and quit.
5) Launch Safari, and from the Bookmarks menu, choose Show All
Bookmarks. If everything has worked, you should have an Imported
Netscape/Mozilla Favorites collection.
6) Back in the Finder, rename your Netscape/Mozilla profile folder
back to what it was originally (this step may not be absolutely
necessary, but it's best to avoid confusing Netscape or Mozilla).
**Soon to Be Unnecessary** -- Apple is undoubtedly working to
resolve this issue, so a future version of Safari should make
these steps unnecessary for those people who have Netscape or
Mozilla profiles that don't use the name default. In the meantime,
this simple process will help you avoid the tedium of moving
bookmarks over manually.
PayBITS: If Adam's steps helped you import your Netscape or Mozilla
bookmarks into Safari, say thanks with a few bucks via PayBITS!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=ace%40tidbits.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Building ColorSync Profiles Using PrintFIX
------------------------------------------
by Keith Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
In the first installment of this article I discussed some of
the advantages that, as a Mac user, you receive from having
ColorSync on your machine (see "Improving Your Mac's Colour"
in TidBITS-687_). The color profiles that come with your printer
are often quite good, but are really intended only for use with
the manufacturer's own inks and papers. For best results the
profile must be matched to each ink/paper/printer combination
you use. How do you acquire these custom profiles? You can pay
a professional to generate profiles for you, or you can generate
your own, as I did recently with a product called PrintFIX. What
follows may seem complex, but don't forget that, once created,
custom profiles can benefit an iPhoto user just as much as a pro
photographer.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07259>
**Where Do Printer Profiles Come From?** The profile for any
particular ink/paper combination is specific to an individual
printer. If you print out a test image containing many known
colours and then measure the results, you can build up a
translation table between what you want and what you printed
(part of the profile). To build an accurate profile you need lots
of coloured patches and a highly accurate means of measuring them.
There are specialists who can make profiles for you, such as Pixl.
<http://www.pixl.dk/index_eng.htm>
Accurate hardware for colour measurement is not cheap, and profile
building requires skill and expertise. If you are planning to make
lots of prints with a particular printer/ink/paper combination,
it's worthwhile to look at having a professional profile made.
They'll send you a target file (or files) containing lots of
coloured test patches. After you print and return the results,
they'll build your custom profile and send it back to you for
use with your printing setup.
**PrintFIX: Do It Yourself Profiles** -- As a photographer and
teacher, however, I was looking for a cheaper way of profiling
that I could also use to demonstrate some of the principles of
colour management to my students. A number of solutions are
available, but most cost more than I was willing to pay. Instead,
I tested out ColorVision's $350 PrintFIX printer profiling system.
It is a combination of software and a small USB-based scanner
that scans test print patches that you've printed on your target
printer with a your chosen ink and paper. It works as a plug-in
from within Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (the pair of which
I'll refer to as Photoshop for brevity).
<http://www.colorvision.com/store/print_gpu125.shtml>
ColorVision lists currently supported printers - generally higher
end Epson color inkjets - on their Web site (check the
Requirements tab in the page linked above). Beware - if your
printer is not supported, the PrintFIX solution won't work!
Fortunately there is a form on the ColorVision Web site where
you can suggest models for them to support.
<http://www.colorcal.com/store/print_gpu125_printers.shtml>
Using the PrintFIX plug-in, you select and print one of the
supplied target images, which contains 729 tiny colour patches.
After the print has dried, you run it through the PrintFIX
scanner to create a scanned image in Photoshop of how the printer
reproduced the 729 different colours. To build your profile, the
software compares this image to what it knows should have been
produced.
To illustrate this process, consider what happens with one
individual colour patch. The original target color (it's what
we are aiming for - hence the term "target") in our example
is a particular bright red. The printer lays down what it believes
are the appropriate inks on the paper you've chosen, creating a
reddish patch on the paper. PrintFIX compares the color value from
the scan with the values it expects to find from that patch to
arrive at one sample of how the printer represents the colours
it is given. Replicating this process for each of the 729 color
patches provides the information for the software to make a
profile.
After the PrintFIX software has done its job, it invites you to
name your new profile. You may be producing several prints and
profiles to refine the accuracy of the devices, so give the
profile a meaningful name. Then, quit and restart Photoshop so
it recognizes your new profile. If you like, you can use the
ColorSync Utility (detailed in last week's article) to view your
new profile. It will probably appear as a somewhat different shape
when compared with the manufacturer's profiles, partly due to
the fact that it shows the range of colours that your printer/
ink/paper combination can actually represent, as opposed
to the manufacturer's predictions.
**The Results** -- PrintFIX includes a convenient test image for
you to test your profile. At this stage it's best to use one like
this rather than a photo of your own, since a lot of work has gone
into making this particular test image extremely accurate. The
test image is akin to a complex version of the old TV test card;
it has objects and people on it to provide a range of tones and
colours that will highlight any deficiencies in your printer. A
copy of the royalty-free test image (a 630K download) is available
at the link below if you want to see how well your current printer
handles it.
<http://www.northlight-it.com/files/Test_Image.zip>
Using an Epson Stylus Photo 1290S printer, I compared the same
print on Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper using first the Epson
PGPP profile and then my custom PrintFIX profile. I also compared
two versions of the same print on a generic matte photo paper
using the Epson Photo paper profile and another custom PrintFIX
profile.
<http://www.epson.co.uk/product/printers/photo/styphoto1290s/>
Overall, both PrintFIX profiles were better than the Epson
profiles. The saturation of colors was excellent, with yellows in
particular being much better than the Epson profiles. The PrintFIX
results weren't perfect, though, looking slightly too green in
the highlights and a little light, compared to the image on my
calibrated monitor and how I thought the picture should look. The
deficiencies were minor though, and by going back to my scanned
target image I was able to make minor adjustments to the PrintFIX
software's profile generation settings to clean up the profile.
(For more results, with pictures, visit the page at my Web site
linked below.)
<http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/printfix1.html>
**PrintFIX Conclusions** -- I was happy with most of my custom
profiles after a minimal amount of tweaking. To achieve the best
print results with third party inks and papers you need a custom
profile, and PrintFIX didn't let me down. I tested several generic
papers and got noticeably better results than using any of the
profiles from the printer manufacturers. I will be using it as
part of my photography teaching, where being able to make and use
a profile should help explain some aspects of colour management,
which is one of the harder concepts for students to grasp when
moving to digital photography.
I can see the PrintFIX as a useful resource for photo clubs,
enabling people to try out profiling on their own printers.
It would also be perfect for testing new printer/ink/paper
combinations for short print runs, where the expense of creating
a custom professional profile is not justified.
One downside is that black and white printing can be somewhat
hit-and-miss. Creating good black and white profiles (neutral
greys) requires extremely precise measurement with accurate
equipment, which ColorVision freely acknowledges is beyond the
capabilities of PrintFIX. You might get a good greyscale, but
then again you might not. Since much of my photography is black
and white, I have another printer set aside for black and white,
using specialized inks.
If accuracy is all-important and you will be producing large
numbers of prints on the same printer with the same ink and paper,
you can't beat buying a good profile from a reputable profile
maker.
Through 30-Sep-03, ColorVision is bundling a copy of its DoctorPRO
software with the PrintFIX package. DoctorPRO offers considerably
more advanced adjustment of profiles, but requires a much greater
level of Photoshop expertise and understanding of colour
management. (See the extended PrintFIX coverage on my site
for more details about DoctorPRO.)
**Getting Your Colour Fix** -- Despite the fact that you can pay
hundreds of dollars for a custom profile built by a professional,
profile building is not an arcane guild secret. Thanks to
PrintFIX, it's possible to create very good profiles with a
do-it-yourself approach. Certainly, any potential purchaser
should have realistic expectations and be aware of the product's
limitations, but it is reassuring to see that ColorVision offers
a money-back guarantee. So, if you're not happy with the colour
of the photos you're printing, I'd encourage you to learn a little
more about the world of colour management (try these Web sites
below) and see if you can use the PrintFIX to create your own
custom profiles.
<http://www.computer-darkroom.com/>
<http://www.adobe.com/support/techguides/color/colormanagement/main.html>
<http://www.photoshopforphotographers.com/colormanage.htm>
<http://www.color.org/info_profiles2.html>
[Keith Cooper is a photographer and long time Mac consultant. He
also teaches photography and digital imaging to adult classes.
More photography and Mac information can be found at his Web
site.]
<http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/links.html>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/14-Jul-03
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**TidBITS Ice Cream Social 2003** -- If you'll be in New York City
on Tuesday, 15-Jul-03, and want to meet me and other TidBITS
readers, come by the TidBITS Ice Cream Social at 8 PM at the
Paramount Hotel. Details below. (1 message)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1994>
**Reselling an iPod** -- Want to resell your iPod and buy a new
one? Read this for information on how to wipe the old one clean
first. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1996>
**Moving virtual memory swap files** -- The discussions of
optimizing hard disks morphed into a question of whether or not
you can improve performance by moving Mac OS X's virtual memory
swap files to another disk or partition. (17 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1998>
**iBook battery problems** -- Recent versions of Mac OS X 10.2.x
have seemingly caused and resolved problems with iBook batteries,
so this thread is worth a read if you're having battery problems
of any sort. Unfortunately, none of the suggestions have helped
Adam resurrect his blueberry iBook's battery. (10 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=1999>
**Software Update operations** -- Two facts of note: Software
Update can operate fully only when an admin user is logged in, and
there's a command line version that's also available. (4 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2000>
**More on color management** -- Readers chime in with additional
details on Keith Cooper's article on color management.
(4 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2001>
**iTunes Music Store exclusive CD** -- Apple scores an exclusive
CD for the iTunes Music Store - the soundtrack to The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen. Of course, if you want to buy a physical
CD, there's still an option for that too. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2002>
**Reading TidBITS on the Palm** -- Lots of different methods of
reading issues of TidBITS on Palm OS handhelds, including a four-
year-old conversion service from Dave Charlesworth. (7 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2003>
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