TidBITS#785/27-Jun-05
=====================
Jeff Carlson continues his exploration of computerized poker
players with a look at iPoker this week. Matt Neuburg then takes
a quick glance at Typinator, a sleek new utility for expanding
typed abbreviations, and Adam examines both the Canary Wireless
Digital Hotspotter and Monster Cable's iTV Link. In the news,
we cover the releases of Now Up-to-Date & Contact 5.0 and Eudora
6.2.3, explain how to change Tiger's screen capture format, call
for more translators, and give away copies of Rogue Amoeba's
Audio Hijack Pro.
Topics:
MailBITS/27-Jun-05
DealBITS Drawing: Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro
A TV Watching Monster
You Type, It Typinates
A Canary in the Network
Trying My Hand at Poker: iPoker
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/27-Jun-05
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Copyright 2005 TidBITS: Reuse governed by Creative Commons license
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This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* READERS LIKE YOU! Support TidBITS with a contribution today! <----- NEW!
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Special thanks this week to Ran Mano, Michael Stoner,
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* SMALL DOG ELECTRONICS: iPod Tools Bundle - $79
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512 MB USB Flash Drive - $61; Shure Earphones - $72
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* FETCH SOFTWORKS: Fetch 5 is now available, with SFTP, Bonjour, <--- NEW!
StuffIt, Unicode, Dock progress, AppleScript, and a simplified
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Download your free trial version! <http://fetchsoftworks.com/>
* Dr. Bott, LLC: Sophisticated. It's black leather, silver- <------- NEW!
accented and it smells good. Add to that the variety of sizes
and sleek and comfortable strap and the Marware Milano just
might be your PowerBook's new home. <http://www.drbott.com/>
* Web Crossing, Inc: Site Crossing brings Web Crossing power to
your small biz, family or club. Build a core site or bolt onto
a current one for discussions, blogs, chat, polls, calendars,
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* Circus Ponies NoteBook: Never lose anything again. NoteBook <------ NEW!
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publishing. Free 30-day demo! <http://www.circusponies.com/>
* AUDIO HIJACK PRO: Gain total audio control to record <------------- NEW!
and enhance any audio. Save internet streams, import
vinyl & much more. MacUser's Utility of the Year!
Download it now: <http://www.rogueamoeba.com/tb/>
* [Math+Magic] - The ultimate Equation Editor on the planet!
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MailBITS/27-Jun-05
------------------
**Now Up-to-Date & Contact 5.0 Released** -- Now Software has
released Now Up-to-Date & Contact 5.0, the latest version of the
company's long-standing multi-user calendar and contact management
software. New features include a Schedule View for seeing multiple
people's schedules simultaneously, a single interface to manage
multiple calendar and contact servers, the capability to subscribe
to iCal calendars, vCard and iCalendar support, a redesigned
interface for a more modern look and improved ease-of-use, and
customizable toolbars. The update also provides compatibility
with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and Now Software plans a free update
for later in the year to add support for Tiger-specific features
like Dashboard, Spotlight, and most importantly, SyncServices,
enabling Now Up-to-Date & Contact to share data with any other
SyncServices-aware application or device. (Roughly speaking,
SyncServices is the system-level version of iSync that promises
to provide more generalized synchronization capabilities.) And
last, but certainly not least, Now Up-to-Date & Contact 5.0 will
feature a new Take Control user manual written by Joe Kissell;
it should be available in the relatively near future. The upgrade
to Now Up-to-Date & Contact 5.0 from version 4.x costs $50,
and there's a 30-day free trial version available as a 13.9 MB
download. [ACE]
<http://www.nowsoftware.com/>
**Free Macworld Boston 2005 Passes** -- If you've been thinking
about checking out Macworld Expo in Boston this July 12th through
14th, our friends at Peachpit Press are once again offering a
pair of free exhibit-only passes (a $50 value) on a first-come,
first-serve basis. To request a pair of passes, send your name
and postal address in email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> before
06-Jul-05. [ACE]
<http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/events/20BOS05A/>
<http://www.peachpit.com/>
**Eudora 6.2.3 Fixes IMAP Bug** -- Qualcomm has released Eudora
6.2.3, a free update designed largely to fix the annoying IMAP
bug that could result in lost messages (see "Qualcomm Acknowledges
Eudora Bug" in TidBITS-781_). Along with that bug, the new version
squashes a variety of other bugs, adds a few x-eudora-settings for
esoteric needs, and adds a checkbox to send mail through the SMTP
submission port (587) in the Sending Mail settings panel. Also
worth noting is that Qualcomm has relaxed their approach to
requiring payment for new Paid-mode updates 12 months after the
last payment; until further notice, updates that change only the
third digit (the 3 in 6.2.3) won't trigger the need to pay for a
new version even if more than 12 months have passed. Eudora 6.2.3
requires Mac OS X, is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, and is
a 7.8 MB download. Finally, Qualcomm has announced that the next
major version of Eudora will be a significant rewrite, which is
necessary to take advantage of new technologies such as Spotlight
and WebKit. [ACE]
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08117>
<http://www.eudora.com/download/>
<http://www.eudora.com/download/eudora/mac/6.2.3/RelNotes623.txt>
<http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2654hq.html>
**How to Change Screen Capture Formats** -- Last week, when
talking about the new version of Snapz Pro X in TidBITS, I
mentioned that Tiger changes the default file format used for
screen captures taken with Command-Shift-3/4 from PDF to PNG.
Thanks to Paul Schreiber for alerting me to the fact that you
can change that default format back to PDF or to another format,
presumably as long as it's one supported by QuickTime, such as
JPG (extra points for anyone who wants to figure out all the
possibilities and send me a list). Follow the steps below to
make Tiger save screenshots as PDF.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08132>
1. Open Terminal.
2. Copy the "defaults write" line below, paste it into the
Terminal window, and press Return.
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf
3. Log out or restart your Mac to make it pick up the new setting.
If you wish to reset the file format back to PNG, just repeat
the steps, replacing "pdf" in the "defaults write" line with
"png". [ACE]
**Call for TidBITS Translators!** The coordinators of our intrepid
translation teams tell me that it's time to recruit some new
volunteers to help translate TidBITS into Dutch, German, and
Japanese. Plus, although we have some French translators, we need
someone to step into the coordination role (which could be perfect
if you want to help but aren't confident of your translation
skills). About 6,000 people currently read TidBITS in one of those
languages, so if you'd like to help increase that number and bring
TidBITS to native speakers of your language, check out the pages
below. Thanks in advance! [ACE]
* Dutch
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/nl/tidbits-nl/over-vertalen.html>
* French
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/fr/consignes.html>
* German
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/de/TidBITS-de-uebersetzer.html>
* Japanese
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/lang/jp/join_us.html>
DealBITS Drawing: Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro
-------------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Back in early December, we ran a DealBITS drawing for Rogue
Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro 2.1.1 and gave away three copies to
highly deserving TidBITS readers. Since then, the amoebas with
attitude have released Audio Hijack Pro 2.5, adding an AAC quality
selector, more variables when setting ID3 tags and file names,
a "Stop Recording After" option to the Silence Monitor, full
AppleScriptability, support for radios like Griffin's RadioSHARK,
a plug-in that accepts input from multiple applications, the
capability to record all audio emanating from your Mac at the same
time, a check to make sure scheduled recordings don't overlap,
and more. It's a significant update, and is free to registered
users. But if you don't already own a copy of Audio Hijack Pro
and want to record Internet radio programs, rip your old vinyl
albums, or just about anything else related to recording audio,
it's worth a look.
<http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/>
In this week's DealBITS drawing, you can enter to win one of three
copies of Audio Hijack Pro 2.5.1, each worth $32. Entrants who
aren't among our lucky winners will receive a discount on Audio
Hijack Pro, so if you didn't take advantage of the discount after
the last drawing, be sure to enter at the DealBITS page linked
below. All information gathered is covered by our comprehensive
privacy policy. Be careful with your spam filters, since you must
be able to receive email from my address to learn if you've won.
Remember too, that if someone you refer to this drawing wins - as
happened with the Matias keyboards last week - you'll receive the
same prize to reward you for spreading the word.
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/rogue-amoeba1/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/privacy.html>
A TV Watching Monster
---------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
A few months back, in "Sometimes It's Just Broken" in
TidBITS-766_, I wrote about my trials and tribulations in
displaying video from my 12-inch PowerBook on our television.
I had purchased a Mini-DVI to Video Adapter, but the first one
was defective and Apple politely sent me a replacement that worked
fine. After that article, a TidBITS reader who worked at Monster
Cable offered to send me a review unit of Monster's iTV Link
cable, which goes beyond the Apple adapter by also providing
audio. After a spate of ignoring video entirely, I finally got
around to testing the cable in a real-world situation.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07984>
<http://www.monstercable.com/computer/productPageComputer.asp?pin=2697>
On the Macintosh side, the iTV Link gives you a mini-DVI connector
and a standard headphone plug; on the TV side you get an S-video
connector and a pair of RCA audio plugs. The connectors all feel
solid and well-constructed, and Monster claims they have 24k gold
contacts for maximum signal transfer. In fact, the iTV Link Web
page lists all sorts of jargon-filled reasons why the iTV Link
is utterly fabulous - "heavy-duty double shielding 100% mylar
foil and 95% copper braid," "nitrogen-injected dielectric,"
"super fine multi-stranded copper conductors," and even
"DoubleHelix construction dual tightly twisted conductors."
Honestly, I haven't the foggiest idea what any of that really
means, if anything, but I can say that the audio and video signals
from the PowerBook to the television are of good quality. It's
tricky to be sure, though, since our 15-year-old Sony TV is
awfully fuzzy compared to the PowerBook's crisp LCD screen,
and the TV's speakers would undoubtedly be laughed at by any
home theater aficionado.
The basic advantage of the iTV Link over Apple's Mini-DVI to Video
Adapter is the addition of audio, since watching a picture on the
television while listening to faint sound coming from the tiny
PowerBook speakers off to the left of the screen isn't an ideal
experience. Initially, though, the iTV Link was more trouble to
hook up, since I had to swap the S-video and audio connections on
the back of the television (insert repeated swearing at the rat's
nest of associated cables) from the TiVo to the iTV Link instead
of just stealing the S-video cable that already ran from the TiVo
to the television. Then I realized I could just plug the iTV Link
into the TiVo's input jacks and treat it as "Live TV" in the
TiVo's interface. As an added benefit, that means I can record
directly from the PowerBook to the TiVo, which is a slightly odd
sensation. I haven't tried recording with a DVD yet, but it worked
flawlessly with a QuickTime movie.
The iTV Link really is a different beast from Apple's Mini-DVI
to Video Adapter; it's a complete solution for sending audio and
video to your television, whereas the Mini-DVD to Video Adapter
is just that, an adapter that makes it possible for you to plug
an S-video or composite cable into your Mac. So if you want to
integrate your PowerBook or iBook into your home entertainment
system, the $40 iTV Link is worth a try; if all you want to do
is have the capability to use a television as a presentation
screen, Apple's $20 adapter is all you need.
<http://www.smalldog.com/product/12652174>
You Type, It Typinates
----------------------
by Matt Neuburg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Ergonis software, whose PopChar and KeyCue utilities have been
mentioned in TidBITS, now throws its hat into the typing assistant
ring with Typinator. The idea is that you provide Typinator with
a set of abbreviations and expansions; when you're working in
any program, if you type an abbreviation, Typinator substitutes
the corresponding expansion. For example, I could type "tb" to
generate "TidBITS", or "AS" to generate "AppleScript", and so
on for any boilerplate, short or long, that I expect to use.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07372>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07690>
<http://www.ergonis.com/products/typinator/>
Typinator's primary competition is TypeIt4Me, which I've also
mentioned in these pages. The approaches taken by the two
utilities vary radically. TypeIt4Me is an input method; you
switch to it using your Input menu (the status menu at the right
end of the menu bar whose icon is usually some country's flag),
which means that you can't use it in conjunction with any other
input method or keyboard layout. Typinator, on the other hand,
is an ordinary application. It watches the characters you
actually enter by typing - I don't know how - and when you
type an abbreviation, it uses GUI scripting to select it and
to substitute the expansion. This is done by pasting, which
means that Typinator can enter images if an application allows
this. It also means that entering a Typinator expansion wipes
out whatever was on the clipboard; I don't quite see why this is
necessary, since it ought to be possible for Typinator to restore
the old clipboard contents afterwards, but in any case you can
work around this, if you find it problematic, with a multiple
clipboard utility such as CopyPaste or ClipBlock.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07798>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07102>
<http://www.copypaste-x.com/>
<http://www.netwave.or.jp/~andoh/ClipBlock-e.html>
Typinator also doesn't require you to type any terminator
character to signal that what precedes is an abbreviation;
instead, it watches to see whether you've typed an abbreviation
at the start of a word, and if you have, it just expands it (and
if that isn't what you intended, Undo restores the abbreviation
in most applications). Typinator also does some smart things such
as letting you use the capitalisation of the abbreviation to
dictate the capitalisation of the expansion (useful for ordinary
words that should be capitalised at the start of a sentence but
not elsewhere). And that, aside from letting an expansion enter
current time and date information in a variety of formats, is
about all Typinator does; it doesn't permit multiple abbreviation
files, or application-specific abbreviation files, like TypeIt4Me.
As usual with Ergonis's products, simplicity and reliability are
the watchwords. Like PopChar, Typinator can enter characters from
throughout the Unicode repertoire; and like PopChar, it seems to
work just about anywhere - I wasn't able to find many applications
that give Typinator trouble (though I did quickly find one,
Panorama). Typinator requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and costs
just $20; you can try it out for free (a 500K download), the only
limitation being the number of abbreviations the trial version
remembers.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08058>
<http://www.ergonis.com/downloads/>
A Canary in the Network
-----------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Before our May trip to New Mexico, my friend Oliver Habicht asked
if I wanted to borrow a Canary Wireless Digital Hotspotter, which
is one of those little devices for finding wireless networks
without needing to pull out the PowerBook. My initial reaction
was, "Nah, I like walking around with my PowerBook open!" to show
off both the PowerBook and its wireless capabilities, but with
a moment's rational thought, I reconsidered and accepted Oliver's
kind offer. And in fact, the Digital Hotspotter proved useful
to us in Taos, where we desperately needed to find high speed
Internet access, since our host for the night was, coincidentally
enough, Oliver's mother, who had only a modem connection to the
Internet.
<http://www.canarywireless.com/>
**What It Is, What It Does** -- Physically, the Digital Hotspotter
is unprepossessing. It's roughly 2.5" by 2" by 1" (6.3 x 5.1 x
2.5 cm) and is made of gray plastic. Unlike some of the early
portable wireless network detectors, which had only LEDs, the
Digital Hotspotter sports a 12-character LCD display across which
information about the networks scrolls. A single button turns it
on and starts a scan; it turns off automatically after displaying
available network information to save the power provided by a pair
of AAA batteries. It feels sturdy, and I didn't worry about it
breaking when it was rattling around in my PowerBook bag.
Like sniffers such as KisMAC, the Digital Hotspotter performs
a passive scan that can detect closed networks (they appear as
"Cloaked" in the display). In contrast, stumblers like MacStumbler
and iStumbler perform active probes that both fail to detect
closed networks and show up in KisMAC's display (the Digital
Hotspotter isn't designed to detect active probes). For each
network it detects, it displays the network name, the signal
strength, the channel, and the encryption status (Open or Secure,
where Secure means WEP- or WPA-encrypted, although it doesn't
differentiate between WEP and WPA). If more than one network
is available, clicking the button multiple times cycles through
the display for each one.
<http://www.binaervarianz.de/projekte/programmieren/kismac/>
<http://www.macstumbler.com/>
<http://www.istumbler.com/>
**Real World Usage** -- We didn't need the Digital Hotspotter for
the first few days of our trip, since wireless Internet access was
widely and obviously available. The Albuquerque airport had signs
telling everyone that they offered free wireless access, two of
the user group meetings at which I was presenting provided access,
and Robin Williams and John Tollett of course had wireless access
at their house. But once we ventured past Santa Fe on our way to
Taos, locating a connection became more difficult. We figured we
could eventually find a coffee shop in Taos that would have it,
but amazingly, the main one we happened on, the World Cup coffee
house, had no wireless network. However, walking a bit further
into the Taos Plaza in the center of town and checking regularly
with the Digital Hotspotter, we found a network called
"made_in_new_mexico" that was wide open and clearly run by the
Made in New Mexico store on the Plaza. Using laptops outside
in the sunshine isn't the easiest, but we managed to settle on
some park benches and take a quick pass through email. Amusingly,
a woman saw us working away, Tonya on the iBook, me on the
PowerBook, and was ecstatic both that we'd found wireless Internet
access and, a moment later, that I knew how to configure Mac OS 9
on her blueberry iBook so it could connect. The next day, before
leaving town, we checked mail again, and made a point of stopping
in the Made in New Mexico store to thank them and pick up some
presents for our parents.
One thing we discovered while playing with the Digital Hotspotter
during the trip was that it is more sensitive than our laptops,
and I've always considered Tonya's white iBook as the gold
standard of laptop sensitivity. If the Digital Hotspotter
reports a network as having only a single bar of signal strength,
laptops may not be able to lock onto the signal sufficiently.
Although I'm not into wardriving, I recently took the Digital
Hotspotter with me while driving to a chiropractor appointment
here in Ithaca. On the drive, which is about four miles through
rural and lightly populated suburban countryside, the Digital
Hotspotter detected eight networks, though some may have been
too weak to use for real. All but one lacked encryption, and four
of the eight had default network names ("default" or "linksys"
in these cases). Interestingly, there may have been even more
networks that it missed; Canary Wireless is up front about the
fact that there are some access points that the Digital Hotspotter
has trouble seeing. In fact, it can see my old Linksys BEFW11S4
wireless gateway, but not if I disable SSID broadcast, thus
making it a closed network.
<http://www.canarywireless.com/default.asp?action=article&ID=16>
(Public service note: Even if you wish to leave your wireless
network open such that anyone can use it, I strongly encourage
you to change the network name and admin password. If you leave
them at the default settings, it's trivial for anyone with a
modicum of experience to take over and reconfigure your wireless
gateway. And if that happens, you'll have to - at the least -
reset your gateway to factory defaults and reconfigure it
properly.)
Given that it costs $60, I don't personally have enough use for
the Digital Hotspotter to buy my own. However, anyone who travels
regularly and needs wireless Internet access would find it useful,
as would anyone who works with wireless networks for a living and
needs to perform security audits, since it's good for verifying
where your network is available and for identifying rogue access
points.
Trying My Hand at Poker: iPoker
-------------------------------
by Jeff Carlson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
If your knowledge of poker comes from watching television shows
such as the World Series of Poker or Celebrity Poker Showdown, you
might think that the only type of poker game is Texas Hold 'Em.
(See my article from last week's issue, "Trying My Hand at Poker:
DD Tournament Poker," for more details.)
<http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/>
<http://www.bravotv.com/Celebrity_Poker_Showdown/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=08141>
However, Hold 'Em is just the current popular variation in
the United States (and to my surprise, poker still seems to be
primarily a U.S. game, as one of our Japanese translators pointed
out to me). Variations were played as early as the Civil War,
and spread across America as settlers moved west.
If you're looking for more than just Hold 'Em on the Mac, you're
looking for Scenario Software's iPoker. It features 101 poker
games that range from simple 5-Card Stud to some that entail a
bewildering array of rules, wildcards, and antes. For example,
take a look at the iPoker description for the poker game called
Baseball:
7-Card Stud is played with all threes and nines wild. When a
three is dealt face up, the player must either match the pot
or drop. When a four is dealt face up, the dealer immediately
gives that player an additional face-up card. With eight wild
cards and the ability to have more than seven cards in your
hand, you'll need at least four-of-a-kind to win this game.
<http://scenario.com/iPoker/>
If that weren't enough, you can customize the rules to each game
to an extent that I didn't realize was possible for a card game.
Want to honor a three-card straight instead of the normal five
cards? Use joker cards? Award chips to a player for being dealt
a specific card? All easily done.
**The Buy-In** -- With so many games to manage, iPoker doesn't try
to mimic the layout of a real poker table, aside from the look of
the cards, the table surface, and the chips - all of which can be
customized. Instead, players are listed top to bottom at the left
of the program's single window. Cards are dealt in horizontal
rows left to right, making it easy to see every player's cards.
iPoker also takes a more general approach to the game overall.
It's one long ongoing marathon poker session, which you happen
to be able to jump into and out of at will; when you quit the
application, the current standings are saved, so that the next
time you play every player has the same amount of money as before.
This approach can be exhilarating if you've managed to hand out
some bad beats to your opponents and stored up a mountain of
chips, but it's depressing when you're thousands of dollars in
the hole and fighting to just break even. Unfortunately, in this
case the only way to start fresh is to delete iPoker's preferences
file.
Having a rolling session simulates what you'd likely be doing at
a casino, carrying your winnings (hopefully) from table to table
trying different games, or simply playing a home game. You can
choose the game type yourself, or enable a preference so that
the dealer chooses the game. Unless you're familiar with all
101 games, or are comfortable losing a few hands to see how
it's played, you can also limit the dealer's choice to just
recent games.
**The Rocks and the Fish** -- iPoker can pit you against as many
as 10 other players, though your screen resolution and processor
seem to determine just how many are possible. On my 15-inch, 1.25
GHz PowerBook G4, I can play comfortably with five opponents using
a Bigger Graphics setting, or eight opponents with a More Players
setting but with slower performance. iPoker won't even let me
choose 10 or 11 players.
Unlike the computer opponents in the current version of DD
Tournament Poker, the players in iPoker retain their own skill
characteristics. Claire Voyant (just one of several entertaining
names) possesses the same playing traits each time you go up
against her, making it easier to guess when she might be bluffing
or holding a strong hand. You can tweak those traits, too, by
double-clicking the player's icon and moving sliders that
determine the strength of skills such as Poker Mathematics,
Psychological Deception, and Betting Courage.
The players exhibit some personality as well. Each player is
represented by a photo of a real person, which is animated if you
enable QuickTime player movies. Watching them furrow their brows
in concentration, grumble when they lose, and smile when they
win is a fun addition... for a while. But there are only so many
little facial QuickTime movies included for each person, so their
antics became a distraction and I turned off that feature.
A clever, if unnecessary, feature is the capability to use an
iSight or digital camera to project video of your own face on
your player's icon. After a few minutes, though, you realize that
you're looking at your cards and not yourself, and are likely to
turn the feature off. If iPoker were a networked game, and I were
playing against real people, it might be fun to see video of my
opponents, but that's not the case.
**The Sound of Winning** -- One well-implemented aspect of iPoker
is its animation and sound. I'm not a fan of whizzing graphics
just for the sake of whizziness, which is why I think Scenario
Software has done a good job of spicing up the play of the game
with minimal, but effective, effects. Cards spin as they're dealt,
with a subtle whiss sound of a card's surface sliding against
another card. The chips sound as if the developers recorded real
chips clicking together (although larger chip values hit the table
with a heavier thud, which doesn't seem realistic but adds weight
to the fact that you just tossed in a $100 chip instead of a $5
one). There's even some calculated whimsy: if it's your turn and
you're taking too long to act, the icon of the dealer's hand snaps
its fingers once, then twice, then three times to make sure you're
paying attention.
Best of all, you can control the speed of the animation via
a slider, which by extension speeds up play overall. I don't
need to wait for Rhonda Voo to figure out which move to make
(especially considering that the decision was probably made
in a few nanoseconds).
However, I quickly turned off the dealer's narration of the
action. And although I like the sound effects, there's no in-game
volume control. So, if I'm listening to music using iTunes at
moderate volume, the sound of shuffling cards is louder than
it needs to be. I'd like to see a simple volume control in an
upcoming version, instead of having just the choice of enabling
or disabling sound effects entirely.
**Shuffle Up** -- iPoker is a program that loves the game's
seemingly unlimited capacity for variety. It's great for trying
out different poker permutations, or just for those days when
you have a few minutes to spare and want to pick up a few hands
without investing the time in playing a full tournament-style
game. iPoker 3.4.1 requires Mac OS X 10.2 or later and is a
36.2 MB download. The unlicensed version offers unlimited play,
but only of 7-Card Stud; a license costs $30 and unlocks the
full version of the game.
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/27-Jun-05
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The second URL below each thread description points to the
discussion on our Web Crossing server, which will be faster.
**What IMAP server did Mac OS X Server 10.1-2 use?** Who needs
Google when you've got the TidBITS Talk brain trust? A query about
IMAP servers leads to discussion of migrating email services.
(8 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2633>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/487/>
**Do inexpensive color laser printers exist?** Printing problems
lead a reader to ponder buying a color laser printer, while other
people suggest tips for solving the issues. (42 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2634>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/171/>
**What would an Apple tablet be like** -- A new portable tablet
computer elicits thoughts on what Apple might produce if it
decided to get into the tablet computing market. (1 message)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2635>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/488/>
**Fixing Snaps in a Snap** -- Readers react to Charles Maurer's
article on improving snapshots, suggesting other software
and discussing the limits of the TIFF file format for use
in adjusting photos. (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2636>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/489/>
**Poker on the Mac** -- Jeff Carlson's first article on poker
software brings the closet poker players out of the woodwork and
sheds light on the differences between playing against computer
opponents and real people. (3 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2638>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/491/>
**Steve Jobs's Commencement Speech to Stanford** -- A reader
provides a link to Jobs's recent speech to college graduates.
(1 message)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2639>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/492/>
**Cross Compiling with Intel** -- A reader inquires about the
capability of Apple's development tools to compile PowerPC code
into Intel code as part of the upcoming transition to Intel-based
Macs. (2 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2640>
<http://emperor.tidbits.com/TidBITS/Talk/493/>
$$
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