TidBITS#733/14-Jun-04
=====================
Now that Office 2004 is out, Tonya takes a look at the new
features in Entourage 2004 in conjunction with the release of
Tom Negrino's ebook "Take Control of What's New in Entourage
2004." Speaking of email, our poll this week asks which email
client you use. Also in this issue, Travis Butler compares two
portable speakers for the iPod, Adam and Tonya invite you to
the Mediterranean in November, and we note the releases of Apple's
new liquid-cooled Power Mac G5, SyncDeK 5.0, the German translation
of "Take Control of Upgrading to Panther," and a money-saving
update to "Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail."
Topics:
MailBITS/14-Jun-04
Poll Redux: Your Preferred Email Client
Join Us in the Mediterranean in November
Two Portable Speakers for the iPod
Entourage 2004: Important Incremental Changes
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/14-Jun-04
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-733.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2004/TidBITS#733_14-Jun-04.etx>
Copyright 2004 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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MailBITS/14-Jun-04
------------------
**Dual-Processor, Liquid-Cooled Power Mac G5s Announced** -- Apple
last week announced a new line of Power Mac G5 desktop computers,
featuring dual PowerPC G5 processors in each model. The top-of-
the-line dual 2.5 GHz configuration ($3,000) sports a new liquid
cooling system, circulating liquid past the G5 processors and
through a radiant grille, where the liquid is cooled by air
flowing through one of the Mac's four thermal zones. Mac OS X
dynamically adjusts the flow of the cooling fluid and the speed
of the fans based on the temperature. A dual 2.0 GHz G5 retails
for $2,500, and the entry-level model, featuring two 1.8 GHz G5
processors, starts at $2,000. These models, featuring Nvidia
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra video cards, are available immediately, and
the high-end, liquid-cooled dual 2.5 GHz model with an ATI Radeon
9600 XT graphics card, will be available in July. Apple has also
ended production on the 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4; remaining units
will be available for prices starting at $1,300 while supplies
last.
<http://www.apple.com/powermac/>
<http://www.apple.com/powermac/design.html>
Apple has also added a nifty software improvement, too. A new
Mac OS X setup assistant can migrate your data from an existing
Mac - including user accounts, applications, system preferences,
and permissions - to the Power Mac G5 over a FireWire connection
(using the Mac's target disk mode). For now this feature exists
only in the new Power Mac G5s, no doubt part of Apple's strategy
to encourage customers to retire their Power Mac G4 production
machines, though it will undoubtedly appear in new Mac models
or in an upcoming revision to Mac OS X. [MHA]
**Web Information Systems Sponsoring TidBITS** -- I'm pleased to
welcome our latest long-term sponsor, a small developer called Web
Information Systems that has recently released the $25 application
MindFortress for Mac OS X 10.3. On the face of it, MindFortress is
a highly secure card-based database for personal information, much
like Web Confidential or PasswordWallet, but when I looked more
deeply, I realized that MindFortress goes well beyond acting as a
secure digital wallet. That's because MindFortress lets you create
your own card templates, so you can define what fields, and what
field types, appear on the card. Also, because MindFortress allows
unstructured text notes (with all the Cocoa text handling features
like inline spell checking), you can use it as a general snippet
keeper. It also supports importing graphics and movies, offers
AppleScript support, provides automatic update checking, and more.
MindFortress is an elegant application now, and Alexander Kac,
its developer, has big plans for future releases that have me
intrigued. If you're looking for a place to store all sorts of
data, give MindFortress a look. We're happy to see Web Information
Systems supporting the Macintosh community through their TidBITS
sponsorship. [ACE]
<http://www.mindfortress.com/>
**SyncDeK Synchronizes FileMaker Databases** -- At the last
Macworld Expo in San Francisco, I saw an interesting product
called SyncDeK that offered a unique feature: field-level
synchronization of the data within FileMaker databases even when
the databases aren't on the same network. SyncDeK accomplishes
this through the clever use of standard Internet email to move
data in XML format between databases. It's an intriguing approach
that will be useful for organizations with remote offices or
travelling employees, or even loosely knit groups without any
sort of centralized location that would benefit from shared
databases. WorldSync has now released SyncDeK 5.0, supporting
both FileMaker 6 and FileMaker 7 on both the Mac and Windows.
Introductory prices range from $200 to $1,300, depending on
what you need, and there's also a SyncDeK Developer Kit for
$500 that enables FileMaker developers to include synchronization
capabilities in customized solutions. A demo is available by
request. [ACE]
<http://www.worldsync.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07511>
<http://www.worldsync.com/s_uses.html>
**SpamSieve Coupon Reduces Effective Price of Ebook to $0** -- Our
recently released 1.0.1 revision to Joe Kissell's $5 "Take Control
of Spam in Apple Mail" ebook now includes a coupon for $5 off the
purchase of Michael Tsai's highly regarded SpamSieve, which can
replace the Junk Mail filter in Apple Mail. Joe's ebook also
explains how to get up and running quickly with SpamSieve in Apple
Mail. If you already purchased the 1.0 version of the ebook, you
can upgrade for free by clicking the Check For Updates button on
the cover. The $5 off coupon is located on the last page of the
1.0.1 ebook; click the link on that page to order. The $5 discount
appears when you check out. [TJE]
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/spam-Apple-Mail.html>
<http://www.c-command.com/spamsieve/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07076>
**Take Control of Upgrading to Panther in German** -- Thanks to
the hard work of German translator Hartmut Greiser, the German
translation of Joe Kissell's best-selling "Take Control of
Upgrading to Panther" ebook is now available for sale. As with our
Japanese translations, we felt that Hartmut should be compensated
for his efforts, so we're splitting the proceeds from the US$7.50
ebook equally between us, Joe, and Hartmut. To thank any German
speakers who have already purchased the English version, we are
offering them a free copy of the translation. If you are a German
speaker and already own the English version, contact Tonya at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> so we can look you up in our sales
database and send it to you. [TJE]
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/de/panther/upgrading.html>
Poll Redux: Your Preferred Email Client
---------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Over four years ago, we ran a poll asking which program was your
preferred email client. We've meant to run that poll again on a
variety of occasions, and with the recent major releases of
Entourage 2004 and PowerMail 5.0, and with Eudora jumping to
version 6.1.1 and Apple Mail taking a small step to version
1.3.8, it's clearly time to revisit the question.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05664>
We are, of course, also interested in the topic now that we've
started to publish Take Control ebooks about some of the major
email programs, including Tom Negrino's just-released "Take
Control of What's New in Entourage 2004" and Joe Kissell's "Take
Control of Spam with Apple Mail." We've had requests for Take
Control ebooks about other email programs as well, notably Eudora,
but without knowing roughly how the usage percentages break down
among the different programs, it's been hard to determine how
many people would be aided by such books.
So tell us which Macintosh email program you primarily use by
voting in the poll on our home page (depending on your screen
size, you may need to scroll down to see the poll form). Judging
from the popularity of the previous poll on this topic, our poll
server may have trouble dealing with a rush of simultaneous votes;
try later in the week if you have trouble. Also, this poll
suffered from serious ballot box stuffing last time, as fans of
one program or another encouraged people on other lists to come
and vote. Please don't do that this time, since it skews the
results horribly, as we saw by the then-obsolete Cyberdog's 17
percent response rate.
<http://www.tidbits.com/>
Join Us in the Mediterranean in November
----------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Two years ago I wrote about the MacMania cruise to Alaska, which
was, at least to me, a fascinating and innovative combination of
technical training and vacation adventure. That such a mix would
succeed shouldn't be surprising, since for many of us, the
Macintosh is as much a hobby as it may be a profession, so
learning something new is as enjoyable as discovering a new
city or touring some local attraction. As an added benefit,
less-technical spouses can come along for the vacation and
simply go off on their own during the sessions.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06847>
Although Tonya and I haven't been able to participate in the last
few Mac Mania cruises, we're starting to make plans with a group
called Techie Tours for a slightly different sort of training/
vacation combination that's even more focused. For five days in
the middle of November, 07-Nov-04 through 13-Nov-04, Tonya and
I will both be teaching a workshop about iPhoto in conjunction
with a photo safari on the island of Gozo, 58 miles off the
coast of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea.
<http://techietours.com/MUG/>
We're really looking forward to it, and not just because it's a
chance to have an adult vacation that won't require train-, ship-,
and dinosaur-intensive activities followed by early bedtimes.
When Jim Sims of Techie Tours first approached me about it, I was
initially astonished. "Five half-days about iPhoto?" I replied,
"I can't imagine what I'd say after the first two hours." But
as I talked about it with Tonya, she made the point that this
wasn't about explaining the features of the program, but was
instead about showing people how to accomplish real-world projects
using iPhoto. In other words, it's not a lecture, but a workshop
with 25 people all actually working away in iPhoto (laptops
required!) on pictures they've just taken.
It will also be fun to concentrate on projects that make sense
in the context of a vacation, such as uploading photo-journal Web
pages, printing personalized postcards to send to friends and
relatives, creating a shared archive of the group's photos to
share, and building and ordering an iPhoto book of the best
pictures. And since it's going to be just us and the group, I'm
sure there will be plenty of time for chatter about Apple, new
Mac models, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, TidBITS, wireless networking,
and anything else that comes up.
I don't know much about Gozo beyond what Jim has told me and what
I've read in the guidebook, but for those of us heading into the
snowy days and frigid nights of winter, it sounds pretty darn
attractive. Warm and sunny, with the oldest standing architecture
and monuments in the world and an entirely modern five-star hotel
with wireless Internet access... it's hard to imagine a better
place to hang out with Mac folk taking photos. From what I gather,
it's easy to fly to Malta and take the ferry to Gozo, and the cost
of the conference is highly reasonable for this sort of thing:
$1,100 (discounted for TidBITS readers through 15-Aug-04), which
includes six nights at the hotel and five days of photo safaris
around Gozo, plus ferry and museum tickets, and mini-van
transportation around the islands. Spouses not attending the
morning workshops pay only $800. Space is limited.
And besides, it's a great excuse to get a new digital camera
that's completely different from my Canon PowerShot S400. We
hope to see some TidBITS readers there!
Two Portable Speakers for the iPod
----------------------------------
by Travis Butler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
An iPod is a wonderful way to carry your music library around
with you... but sometimes, you just don't want to mess around
with using headphones. I travel a lot, and want an external
sound option I can carry with me. The portable FM transmitters
I reviewed a while back can also be used to broadcast to any FM
radio, but you can run into the same signal issues you do in a
car, and often there isn't even an FM radio to use.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07191>
Hence, portable speakers. You can buy cheap unpowered/unamplified
speakers for $10-15 at just about any consumer electronics store
like Best Buy, but even the best ones I've heard sound pretty
lousy. You can also acquire a set of regular powered computer
speakers and travel with them, but they're a mess to travel with
and set up, and they need a wall outlet.
Or you can go somewhere in between by purchasing a set of battery-
powered portable speakers. These are easy to carry around (smaller
than some of the unpowered sets I've seen), but the batteries
allow amplification, giving a much louder, richer sound than
unpowered speakers can manage. I've used two of them: the Sony
SRS-T55 and the Monster Cable iSpeaker Portable.
<http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/
SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?ProductSKU=SRST57>
<http://www.monstercable.com/computer/productPageComputer.asp?pin=2184>
**Sony SRS-T55** -- I found these speakers at an Apple Store
in Indianapolis about a year ago (they have apparently been
superseded by the SRS-T57), and they've been faithful performers
since then. These are traditional magnet-cone speakers, mounted
in "wings" on a folding case, with the batteries in the central
box. The whole thing folds to a block about as long as an iPod,
half an inch (12.7 mm) taller, and about twice as thick.
Overall, I've been very happy with these speakers; they seem
well-designed and solidly built, and are a major improvement
over unpowered speakers. A nice touch is that you can use them
unpowered if the batteries run out, though it highlights the
advantage amplification adds! I have only a few minor complaints:
* After a year of use, the hinges have loosened some - not enough
to cause problems, but enough to make me wonder how well they'll
last another few years.
* Although the shape is convenient for packing in a suitcase,
it doesn't fit well in a laptop bag.
* The battery compartment latch is problematic; for a couple of
months, it kept popping open unexpectedly, although it is now
working again, for no particular reason I can see.
* The audio patch cord is permanently attached, only about two
feet long, and can't be stored in the case; this limits how far
apart you can put the iPod and the speakers, and makes carrying
the whole unit around messier than it could be.
Minor nits aside, I like these speakers and would recommend them.
**Monster Cable iSpeaker Portable** -- These speakers appear to be
identical to the Wharfedale LoudMan Portable Flat-Panel Speakers;
I'm not sure who originally manufactures them, but Monster Cable
seems to have a much broader distribution network.
<http://www.iagamerica.com/wharfedale/loudman.htm>
The iSpeaker Portable is a flat-panel speaker set built into a
case that looks and works like a double-CD jewel case. Although
I've been happy with the SRS-T55, I bought an iSpeaker Portable
a month ago for a couple of reasons: I hoped the touted NXT flat-
panel technology might give better sound, and it fits into a
pocket on my laptop bag. The results were mixed; it fits my bag
beautifully, but the sound is only about equal to, though notably
different from, the Sony (read on for sound comparisons).
While I'd still recommend these speakers, I'm overall less
satisfied with them than I am with the SRS-T55. The main problem
I have is that the design seems unaccountably poor/cheap in spots:
the swing-out panels stick in the closed position, the battery
compartment door doesn't fit solidly and has to be fiddled with
to latch properly, and the wires leading to the speaker elements
are bare and exposed. I expect to see things like this when I
disassemble a speaker, not when I flip it open to use.
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/733/MonsterSpeaker.jpg>
<http://www.tidbits.com/resources/733/MonsterSpeakerDetail.jpg>
Other minor nits:
* The speaker/iPod cable is a separate piece, and is solidly made
with what appear to be gold-plated connectors - appropriate for
a company that made its fame from high-quality audio cables.
However, there's no place to store the cable inside the speaker
case, so you must carry it separately.
* It needs more room to set up than the SRS-T55, and the panels
must be spread fully open for best sound.
* It's more fragile than the Sony; I feel like I need to treat
it with special care to make sure it lasts.
The iSpeaker Portable's defining characteristic is the way it
packs decent sound into a slim package; I just wish it had better
attention to detail, both in design and construction.
**Overall Performance and Notes** -- I'm not an audiophile. That
said, neither of these speakers will win any audio awards, except
in their own narrow category. Both have decent highs and midrange,
but are seriously lacking in bass. The iSpeaker Portable's flat-
panel technology has a crisp, clean sound to it, but feels
somewhat flat and hollow compared with the Sony; the SRS-T55 has
a deeper, richer sound, but it's not as clear or well-defined.
Overall, I'd rate them about equal in sound quality, with my
preference flip-flopping between them depending on my mood. Both
are capable of filling a 30-foot by 40-foot (9.1-meters by 12.2-
meters) room and being heard another 50 feet (15.2 m) down the
hallway, which is reasonably impressive for something this size
running off batteries.
Both speakers use 4 AA batteries, and they both have a level of
battery drain that's low enough to last several hours with NiMH
rechargeable batteries. I like to sleep to music, and they usually
last about two nights before needing to change batteries. (As with
most power-hungry devices, I highly recommend NiMH rechargeable
batteries, which sell for extremely reasonable prices these days.)
Both can also be used with optional AC adapters, sold separately.
If I had to pick between them, it would be tough; in the end, I'd
probably decide on the iSpeaker Portable, just because it fits in
my laptop bag and operates well enough otherwise, though I wish
it were more solidly built.
Both of these speakers are designed for general use and work with
any device sporting a headphone jack (such as a PowerBook). One
other choice designed specifically for the iPod is the Altec
Lansing inMotion. For third generation iPods, it acts as a dock
as well as a speaker set, allowing you to sync and even charge
your iPod. However, with a list price of $150, it's three times
the $50 list price of the SRS-T57 and the $60 list price of the
iSpeaker Portable; even at usual discounted prices, it's still
double the price of the others. Dan Frakes thought highly of it
in his iPod Gift Guide, and it's gotten some good buzz elsewhere,
but it's a little too rich for my blood right now.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07480>
[Travis Butler is the computer geek for a small distribution
company located in Kansas City. He has dreamed of computer-based
jukeboxes since the late 1980s, but is still boggled sometimes
at how far things have come in the last few years.]`
PayBITS: Did Travis's article help you decide which set of
iPod speakers to buy? Say thanks with a few bucks via PayBITS!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=tbutler%40mac.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Entourage 2004: Important Incremental Changes
---------------------------------------------
by Tonya Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Although I normally use Eudora as my email client, I recently had
a chance to spend quite some time in Microsoft's new Entourage
2004, because I just finished editing our latest Take Control
ebook, Tom Negrino's "Take Control of What's New in Entourage
2004." Editing the book gave me the opportunity to experiment
with the software and reflect on its new features, and, of course,
I had the benefit of Tom's excellent advice for rapidly finding
and learning about Entourage's new features. More on the ebook
in a bit.
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/entourage-2004.html>
Entourage 2004 is at its heart email software, but unlike other
email clients, it goes well beyond email with integrated
organizational options such as a contacts database, calendar,
to-do list, and project management capabilities. It ships with
Office 2004 (but not separately), so you'd probably buy it only
if you also need, as many Mac users do, one or more of its suite
mates: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
I'm struck by how much more youthful Entourage seems compared
to other Office programs. For example, Word, though chirpy on
the surface with its new Office 2004 interface, seems grumpy
underneath, with its complex mix of views, comments, revisions,
field codes, and styles that comprise a typical document.
Entourage feels like the happy-go-lucky younger brother who is
not yet overwhelmed with feature requests from every profession
on the planet.
We last looked at Entourage in depth a number of years ago, with
Matt Neuburg's "Entourage: The Grand Tour" in TidBITS-550_. In
Entourage 2004, Microsoft has created a slightly more fluid
interface and made an effort to respond to concerns about the
never-ending struggle to stay organized, the growing importance of
online collaboration, and Entourage's one-file-holds-all database.
Let's look at some of the more interesting changes.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06139>
**New View on Email** -- Entourage offers a few optional interface
changes for working with email: along with the old, vertical
display with messages opening in a new window or previewing
beneath the message list, you can now work horizontally with email
messages showing in a third column at the right. Obviously, this
approach works best on larger (and wider) screens, but given the
dimensions of most of Apple's current monitors, it's worth trying.
Entourage also optionally provides a notification window that
appears and fades away whenever you receive email while working in
another program. These window-dressing type changes may or may not
be handy to you, depending on your working style.
**New Views on Data** -- If you (like most of us) have trouble
organizing your email or finding messages once they've arrived,
you'll probably like Entourage's new grouping feature, which lets
you view messages in a mailbox folder in about a dozen different
default ways. And if that's not enough, you can customize the
display by making your own groupings. So, for instance, you can
quickly switch between viewing a date-sorted list of all messages
with attachments from a particular sender and a priority-sorted
list of older messages. Lots of email programs have similar
features, but Entourage does an especially nice job by including
an easy-to-use customization interface and offering a particularly
clear presentation of the sorted groups.
Entourage's Calendar view also has new ways to view data,
primarily through an easily understood filtering feature that lets
you see only certain types of data on your calendar at any one
time. Given the level to which many of us fill up our schedules,
being able to limit the view to particular types of entries is
a welcome addition.
**The Project Center** -- Initially, I thought the Office-wide
Project Center looked extremely promising for lots of purposes,
but upon closer examination, I worry that it falls short of what I
was hoping it would do, leaving room for improvement. For personal
use, Project Center is a useful way to manage not only Entourage
items, such as email messages, tasks, contacts, and so on, but
also files (any type of file, not just Office documents). The new
Project view makes it possible to see an item on your to-do list
and click an icon to open the file immediately and get to work. If
I used Entourage as my primary email program, I would be excitedly
making projects for the different books that I edit. I think it
would be an elegant way to work, since it's easy to put items into
a project, and so many of my projects combine calendar events and
to-do-list items with email messages and files from Word, BBEdit,
and miscellaneous graphics applications.
Where Project Center falls short is in its sharing feature, which
lets you move a project to a shared server so that multiple people
can work with it at once. When you share a project, external files
physically move to the server; some Entourage items can be shared
or kept private, other Entourage items, including email, cannot be
shared.
Sounds good so far, but because a shared project offers no
sophisticated features for collaboration and version control,
I can't recommend it in situations that would routinely risk
two people editing the same document at the same time. Even for
situations that wouldn't routinely risk such a conflict, you must
weigh the potential benefits against the potential loss of time
if multiple people lose edits (or get confused) while trying to
work on the same document at the same time. I'd like to see some
sort of a check-in/check-out system added to the project-sharing
feature.
**Dealing with the Database** -- Microsoft made an effort to
improve working with the single-file database that holds Entourage
data. The database, previously limited to 4 GB in size, wasn't
capacious enough (or stable enough) for some people to consider
using Entourage, and for others it proved a frequent source of
concern and frustration. Entourage 2004 eliminates the file size
limit, instead limiting the number of items that can be tracked
in the database to one million. Microsoft believes this will help
users store more data in Entourage than they could previously.
Equally as important, Microsoft has taken steps to help users keep
their databases free of corruption. Because the Entourage database
holds all your Entourage data - email, contact information, to-do
list, and more - using it equates to putting all your eggs in the
same basket, and a corrupted database can put serious brakes on
your productivity until you restore from backup (you have backups,
right?). The aptly named Database Utility scans databases for
potential problems and (in theory, I didn't see any problems in
my testing) repairs them. I haven't yet heard reports of any
exciting successes or dismaying failures with the Database
Utility.
Finally, Entourage has a new archiving feature that lets you copy
or move items out of the database file into a separate archive
file. Items can be archived based on various ways of sorting them,
such as by date, type, or project. This handy feature should help
users keep their database file size down and - should you not
routinely do full backups - offers a helpful way to make an
additional copy of important data. Archives can be imported
when desired.
**Slamming Spam** -- Entourage X's spam filtering technology
wasn't keeping pace with spammer tricks, so Entourage 2004 adopts
the technology used by Outlook 2003 for Windows (which appears
to be a form of probability-based filtering generated by Microsoft
based on submitted spam). Instead of individual users training
their individual filters (as people do in, say, Eudora or Apple
Mail), the idea is that Microsoft updates the filter frequently,
and users can run a new utility, Microsoft AutoUpdate, to download
and install updates automatically in much the same manner as
Apple's Software Update system.
<http://www.microsoft.com/office/outlook/prodinfo/filter.mspx>
Tom reports that the new filter works so well on his email that
he no longer uses Matterform's rule-based Spamfire Pro to bolster
Entourage's spam filtering. Other TidBITS and Take Control
staffers have seen extremely good results from Michael Tsai's
SpamSieve, which uses a statistical filtering method and works
with Entourage 2004.
<http://www.matterform.com/index.php?page=/spamfire/>
<http://www.c-command.com/spamsieve/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07076>
**In the End** -- Entourage 2004's new capabilities may inspire
some people to switch to Entourage, and they certainly add up
to a better user experience with the software. A remaining
disappointment for some is the failure of Entourage to better
integrate its contact and calendaring information with Apple's
Address Book, although you can download an AppleScript-based
solution for synchronizing your Entourage and Address Book
contacts.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/dancre/archive/2004/04/07/109601.aspx>
<http://homepage.mac.com/berkowit28/>
Whether you switch or upgrade to Entourage 2004 will probably
relate more to your overall Office-related needs. Must you upgrade
because your system administrator insists that you do, perhaps
for reasons of project sharing or automatic updates? Are you
considering an Office upgrade in order to access the new change
tracking or Unicode features in Word? Do you just like to stay up
to date? Those all might be important reasons to use Entourage
2004. Or, you might have wanted to use Entourage all along, but
found the idea of the single-file database too scary until now.
On the other hand, if you are already happy with a different
email program or system for managing contacts, calendaring, and
to do lists, you likely won't find the features in Entourage so
compelling that it merits the time and money necessary to switch.
The only way to purchase Entourage 2004 is as part of the full
Microsoft Office suite, which lists for $400 or costs $150 for
educational users; upgrades cost $240. You can also download a
"test drive" version of Office 2004 (186 MB) that works for 30
days. Office 2004 requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 or higher.
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2004/howtobuy/howtobuy.aspx>
<http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=office2004td>
**Take Control of What's New in Entourage 2004** -- I've tried to
give you an idea here of what's new in Entourage 2004, along with
a sense of how successful these new features are. What I haven't
done is tell you _how_ to use Entourage's new capabilities; that's
the topic that Tom Negrino has ably tackled in our latest Take
Control ebook, "Take Control of What's New in Entourage 2004."
Sure, you could wait another few months for the traditional books
on Office 2004 to appear and hope that they provide the necessary
coverage of Entourage's new features, but why wait? Tom looks at
each of the features I've discussed here (and more), describing
how they work and giving step-by-step usage instructions where
appropriate, along with tips and strategies for making the most
of each feature. And like all our Take Control ebooks, any minor
changes we make as more information is learned about Entourage
2004 will be free to people who buy the ebook.
"Take Control of What's New in Entourage 2004" is 64 pages and
costs $5. If you wish to use SpamSieve instead of Entourage's spam
filtering capabilities, we've made Tom's ebook even more valuable
with the inclusion of a coupon for $5 off SpamSieve at the back
of the book, effectively reducing the price of the book to $0.
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/entourage-2004.html>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/14-Jun-04
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The second URL below each thread description points to the
discussion on our Web Crossing server, which will be much
faster, though it doesn't yet use our preferred design.
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/>
**New Liquid-cooled Power Mac G5s** -- Are the new Power Macs
a significant upgrade, or does their speed fall short of
expectations? And what about the new liquid-cooling technology?
(1 message)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2245>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/111>
**Problems with Security Update 2004-06-07** -- Problems with
Apple's recent security fix? Readers offer a couple of solutions.
(7 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2246>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/112>
**Problems with excessive password prompting** -- Mac OS X's
default window behavior and the way it stores passwords can
create user interface problems that could, in theory, expose
you to a security risk. (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2247>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/113>
**Educational games software lacking** -- Where are the quality
educational programs for Mac OS X? (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2248>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/114>
**AirPort Express** -- Apple's new compact AirPort base station
and wireless music streaming device is generating a lot of buzz.
Can it be used to bridge a wireless network to a wired one?
(3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2249>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/115>
$$
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