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MacTuneUp (version 3.4.3), now includes greatly improved Leopard compatibility, the ability to redesign the dock, and the support of three languages: English, French and German. Current users can update MacTuneUp by selecting "Update..." in the MacTuneUp menu, or by visiting their website

Easily prevent system instability and speed up your Mac with a few simple steps. MacTuneUp quickly discovers and fixes problems, restores hard disk space, creates bootable disk backups, and maximizes Internet and network connections to squeeze the best performance from your Mac.

MacTuneUp allows you to:

• Create a bootable backup of your hard disk that can be used to create disk clones, move your running operating system from one disk to another (for example, when replacing a hard disk), or to backup system folders individually. You can also create a disk image of a system volume that can be recovered using Apple Software Restore (ASR).
• Accelerate your Internet network connection with a few simple clicks to boost the performance of your email, FTP, Internet browsing, chats, and other online activity.
• Keep your Mac running like new with an easy Maintenance Pilot that runs periodic tasks, repairs permissions and optimizes your system.
• Add an extra layer of protection to your Mac by configuring your Mac firewall or adding a custom firewall with your own set of rules to keep harmful files off your system.
• And more...

MacTuneUp is now available in Apple retail stores, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Fry's Electronics, Microcenter and other Mac software retailers, or online for an MSRP of $29.99. More information is available on the Macware website at: http://www.macxware.com/site/products/MacTuneUp/overview.html

1. Bibliographies Made Easy: Save 50 Percent on EndNote
   Maximize your research time with EndNote from Thomson Scientific. Use EndNote to manage your references, images and PDFs, and create bibliographies instantly in over 2,800 publishing styles. Save retyping references for research papers, grants, dissertations, CVs and more! Compatibility with Mac AppleScript lets you automate and extend EndNote functions between applications.
   
   This $149.95 (U.S.) special offer to U.S. and Canada Mac user group members is a 50 percent discount from the regular price of $299.95 (U.S.). Full-time students should check the student prices available for EndNote.
   Promotional code: ENMUG08
   
   Learn more and purchase.
   http://www.endnote.com/enmug08
   
   This U.S. and Canada offer is valid through July 31, 2008.
   
   
2. Stellar Phoenix iPod Recovery: 25 Percent Discount
   Stellar, a leader in data recovery since 1993, proudly announces a discount offer for "Stellar Phoenix iPod Recovery for Mac" which provides quick, simple and powerful data recovery software for crashed or unresponsive Apple iPods. It helps recover data from damaged, deleted or corrupted iPods.
   
   Stellar shows its love for user groups with this offer of $29.25 (U.S.), a 25 percent discount off its retail price of $39.00 (U.S.).
   Coupon Code: SPIPODDISC
   
   Buy now at http://www.ipoddatarecovery.net/buy-now.php
   This worldwide offer is valid through July 31, 2008.
   
   
3. Skobos Personal Television for the Mac: 20 Percent Off
   Own a Mac? Like to watch television? Want to watch television on your Mac anytime or anywhere there's a high-speed connection? Whether you're plugged in or on wireless, interactive television will never be the same, and Skobos can prove it to you. Skobos, regularly $29.00 (U.S.), is available for an introductory Apple user group member price of $23.20 (U.S.).
   Coupon code: AUG7qo301
   
   Get information and purchase at https://www.skobos.com
   This worldwide offer is valid through July 31, 2008.
   
   
4. The MUG Store: Blowouts and More
   Looking for a used iMac or a great deal on an internal hard drive? Just love sorting through discounts and closeouts? Then visit the Blowouts area of the Mug Store, where you will find great deals on all sorts of new, discontinued and used products.
   
   Remember that everything you buy means points for your group to spend any way it wants!
   
   User ID: user / password: group
   
   See this month's Blowouts at: http://www.applemugstore.com/mugstore/blowouts.php
   
   Shop the MUG Store at: http://www.applemugstore.com.
   
   This U.S. only offer is valid through June 30, 2008.
   
   
5. That's Easy: Apple User Group Market & Apple User Group Offers
   Looking for information on a past offer? Tom Piper of the Apple User Group Advisory Board, publishes a single page with all current offers, expiration dates and codes. Watch for intermittent special offers.
   
   Password until May 15, 2008: value
   
   http://homepage.mac.com/ugab/offers/vendorcodes.htm

Also, be sure to subscribe to the Apple User Group Market Report podcast. This month's sessions will feature a series on Web 2.0 for user groups and a new column for the User Group Resources service. The AUG Market Report is a great source for information about Apple user groups, vendor discounts, special events and more.

Apple User Group Market Report podcast: http://homepage.mac.com/ugab/resources.html

For public information about vendor offers and more visit:http://homepage.mac.com/ugab/offers.html

by Jonathan Seff, Macworld

Apple TV 2.0 owners can now buy movies directly from the set-top box, reversing a limitation that had in place since Apple updated Apple TV earlier this year.

As reported by iLounge, the new feature shows movies available for purchase with a Buy button. That's a change from the updated Apple TV software announced at this year's Macworld Expo and released in February. Up until now, Apple TV users could only rent movies directly from their set-top box; movie purchases were limited to the desktop version of iTunes, which could then sync with Apple TV.

Macworld confirmed the existence of the new feature by buying There Will Be Blood directly on an Apple TV. The purchased movie then synced back to the linked iTunes library, just as music or TV shows bought through the set-top box do.

The ability to buy movies directly from the Apple TV comes at the same as Apple's announcement that movies would be available for purchase at the iTunes Store on the same day as their DVD release. Previously, movies appeared on iTunes within 30 days of their availability on DVD.

Click here for article.

by Charles W. Moore

No, Apple hasn't brought back AppleWorks or made Pages freeware, or revived the late, lamented AppleWorks. I'm talking about Text Edit, the amazingly powerful and capable little word processor that comes bundled with every copy of Mac OS X. With the Leopard release of Text Edit, many users may find that it meets all of their practical word processing needs without the necessity of buying Pages, Microsoft Word, or another third-party word processor solution. Leopard's version of Text Edit can now even open MS Word files with basic formatting preserved, and save documents in Word's .doc file format. Sweet.

Whether or not you use Microsoft Word, odds are that you will encounter Microsoft Word-formatted (.doc) documents fairly frequently, in email attachments, files produced by word-user colleagues, or informational data downloaded from the Internet.

This is not as much of a problem as it used to be for us non Word users. Many, (in fact most) word processors can open and save Word files these days with formatting reasonably intact. However, if you're using Leopard, you don't need any other Word-savvy software other than Text Edit, which can both open .doc files with basic formatting such as fonts, text formatting (bold, italic, etc.) colors, line- spacing, alignment and justification, etc., sustained reasonably accurately. It's not a perfect solution if you need to retain full document integrity. More advanced formatting such as borders, style sheets, graphics, footnotes, bulleted lists, and such don't survive the conversion intact or at all, but tables seem to translate, although not necessarily appearing exactly the same as they would in Word.

When you save a Text Edit document as a Word file, some of that sort of advanced formatting stuff actually will make the transition in the other direction, notably buttons, numbering, and tables, but not style sheets.

As for the issue of whether Text Edit really does qualify as a word processor, while it's true that the program's antecedents, including the earlier versions of Text Edit that came with previous editions of OS X, as well as SimpleText, and if you go far back enough TeachText - applications that filled the same role in the Classic Mac OS, which were more properly described as basic text editors, Leopard's Text Edit is now a pretty powerful word-crunching program in its own right.

And for more information using Text Edit (in Tiger) see the article Text Edit Functionality in the September 2007 MAGIC Newsletter that can be found on the MAGIC web site here.

Click here for article.

by dvanderbyl

I have been very frustrated by OS X's (Preview app) handling of image rotation. You can, of course, have Preview rewrite the EXIF tag and make the image appear rotated, but as soon as you go to put that image on the web or use it in Word, etc, that rotation simply doesn't exist. What's more, even after you apply new icons to a file (i.e. using CocoThumbX), the icons might not show up correctly.

Until now, I used a combination of Preview (to modify the EXIF orientation value) and PhotoToolCM (to do lossless JPG rotations) to achieve images that look correct both in Preview and in non-EXIF/web apps. Well, I finally found a program that both rotates the image and the thumbnail consistently! Enter the freeware Cheese by Stuffware.co.uk. This is a bare-bones program that has two basic purposes: rotate pictures properly, and allow you to add comments easily (it can also create web pages from your images).

Once you've rotated your pictures, here's a fast way to get your thumbnail icons to show correctly (i.e. refresh):

1. Create a new folder (keep the untitled name)
2. Move the affected images into the folder
3. Using Column View, move the images back into the original folder.
4. Delete the empty untitled folder.

Click here for article.

by Jason Snell, Macworld.com

One of the oddities of the MacBook Air is, as a system without a FireWire port, an optical drive, or an accessible hard drive, the act of reinstalling Mac OS X and migrating your files from your old system to this new one is more complicated than it has been in the past.

Without FireWire there's no "target mode," a feature that lets you mount a laptop's drive on another Mac as if it were an external hard drive. It's a feature that's been around for a long time (dating back to a SCSI version on old PowerBooks), and it's a convenient way to migrate files on and off of laptops, but the MacBook Air just won't do it. (And no, sadly, there's no USB equivalent.)

But Apple has taken the MacBook Air's release as an opportunity to upgrade its Migration Assistant - which previously focused on transferring files via FireWire - and other software in order to make life easier for MacBook Air users and, presumably, other Mac users via some future software update.

Upon taking possession of the MacBook Air I'm using as a part of my forthcoming review, I knew that a lengthy migration task lay ahead of me. First off, I had to wipe the drive and reinstall Mac OS X, because the system had previously been speed-tested by Macworld Lab and was therefore full of all the test files that we use to generate those test results. I wanted to start fresh.

I reinstalled Mac OS X via the $99 SuperDrive add-on unit for the MacBook Air, although the MacBook Air can also install its software over a network (either Ethernet via its USB adapter or Wi-Fi) from a Mac or PC on your network running Apple's new Remote Disc software.

As soon as the installation was finished, it was time to make the migration from my old MacBook. But my MacBook Air was providing me with a message I hadn't seen before:

I inserted the MacBook Air's installation DVD into my MacBook and installed Remote Disc, which also installed an updated version of Migration Assistant. Once that was done, I ran Migration Assistant and chose To another Mac, as requested.

After clicking Continue, I was prompted, Apple TV-iTunes style, to enter in the six-digit passcode from my MacBook Air's migration assistant. At that point, both systems linked up and I was able to set my files to transfer as usual. (I used an Ethernet cable and the MacBook Air's Ethernet adapter for the transfer, figuring it'd be faster than Wi-Fi. Then I went to bed.

At three in the morning I woke up and wandered into my living room, where the two computers had finished their data transfer. After a quick reboot, the MacBook Air was up and running with all of my files intact. And the best news of all, after the crash diet I put my hard drive through last week, I managed to come in with plenty of free space to spare.

I spent the weekend with the MacBook Air (and, in fact, am writing this item on it) and will have plenty more to say in the days to come. If you've got any questions about it, leave them as a comment to this story and I'll try to address them, if not here then in a future story.

Click here for article.

by Christopher Breen, Macworld.com

What to consider after deciding which Mac to buy

In our recent story, we talked about the new rules involved in picking your perfect Mac. Once you've made that decision, however, there are still some things to ponder before pulling out your credit card.

Where to Buy

You have many choices to consider when you're shopping for a Mac.

Apple Retail Stores Apple has made a massive retail push in recent years - both online and with its brick-and-mortar Apple Stores. And shopping with Apple has its advantages. An Apple Store lets you test-drive the computers you're interested in. And if you want more information, the well-trained Apple Store salespeople can provide it. It's worth remembering, however, that Apple Stores don't carry all third-party peripherals and software. (Visit www.apple.com/retail to see if there's a store near you.)

Apple.com Shopping with the online Apple Store has its advantages, too. People who pre-order items from the virtual Apple Store as soon as those items are announced are likely to receive them before they're available from other online outlets. Apple.com is the only place to order a custom-configured Mac. Also, the online Apple Store offers refurbished Macs at a savings of $200 to $400 on current models, and you can save even more on previous-generation computers. These Macs come with the same warranty as new Macs, and you can extend support for them with AppleCare, making them a good alternative if you don't need the latest model or would like to get a little more computer for your money (as long as you don't mind the fact that these systems once had something wrong enough with them to require their exchange).

Everywhere Else Apple tightly controls the price of its computers, so you won't get a substantial savings by shopping elsewhere - but some discounts do exist. For example, you may save just $5 when you buy a MacBook at Amazon.com, but as we wrote this, Amazon.com was offering a $75 rebate on that computer, as well as a 25 percent discount on AppleCare for the MacBook. Some online stores also offer free RAM upgrades, software, or printers when you buy a new Mac (free, that is, after you send in mail-in rebates, as with the Amazon.com deal). And you can often save sales tax by ordering online, although shipping charges can negate much of those savings. For people who want a new Mac today and don't have an Apple Store nearby, stores such as Best Buy and Fry's carry them (just be sure to do your homework before you go, since the staff probably won't be as knowledgeable about Macs as the staff at an Apple Store). And while many Apple Authorized Resellers have disappeared, thanks to Apple's efforts in the retail space, there are still some that offer great service and support.

Beyond the Basics

Choosing the Mac you want is the most important decision you'll make, but it's not the only one. You'll also want to mull over many enhancements and add-ons.

Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse If you've purchased a Mac mini, you need everything that attaches to it, while only a monitor is a necessity with a Mac Pro. However, any Mac you buy may benefit from a keyboard, mouse, and monitor - yes, even a laptop that you use as your primary computer at home. Not everyone cares for the feel of Apple's Mighty Mouse or its ultra-thin keyboard. If you don't, consider third-party input devices. And while Apple's displays are beautiful, they're often pricier than the competition's.

RAM A RAM-starved Mac will slow down as OS X uses the computer's hard drive for storing data that could otherwise be stored in available RAM. Also, programs such as Photoshop consume RAM like it's going out of style. So it's a good idea to have as much RAM as you can afford. In most cases, you'll find that RAM is more reasonably priced if you purchase it from someone other than Apple. Although it's convenient to have Apple install RAM at the factory, it's more expensive, and installing or replacing RAM in most Mac models is easy enough for most users. RAM dealers such as Crucial and Other World Computing sell quality RAM at prices that almost always beat Apple's by a wide margin. You can max out most Macs (except the MacBook Air, which comes with 2GB and stays at 2GB, and the Mac Pro, which takes lots of expensive RAM) for about $100, and this is a good place to drop a little extra money.

Hard Drive If you're going to deal with a lot of media files, adding storage to your Mac makes sense. And you'll certainly need to add a drive if you intend to use Leopard's Time Machine backup utility. Apple offers the option of purchasing many of its computer models with higher-capacity hard drives. Some shoppers may balk when they realize that Apple's prices are higher than those of third parties, but in the case of the MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac mini, you're better off sucking up the expense than doing it yourself. Cracking open these sealed computers is not easy. Upgrading a Mac Pro's hard drive (or installing additional hard drives) is a piece of cake, however - definitely shop around for internal 3.5-inch SATA drives priced less than the drives Apple offers. And it couldn't be easier to install a replacement 2.5-inch SATA drive in the MacBook via its battery bay. And all Macs can connect to external hard drives via either a USB 2.0 port or a FireWire port (if it's present). For people with desktop Macs other than the Mac Pro, expanding storage through an external drive is the easiest and most cost-effective way to go. Additional storage for your laptop is a bit more problematic in that it, too, may need to be portable (if you intend to take it with you). Thankfully, you can purchase a portable hard drive, or you can build your own with a portable drive enclosure and a 2.5-inch hard drive from a company such as Other World Computing, WiebeTech, and Transintl. Faster-spinning hard drives perform better but typically cost more; however, if you're capturing video, for example, the increased rotational speed will come in handy.

AppleCare You can extend Apple's support and repair period from the included one year to three years by purchasing an AppleCare Protection Plan for your computer. Priced between $149 (for the Mac mini) and $349 (for the MacBook Pro), AppleCare is a worthwhile safety net. Motherboards and display replacements can be very pricey - close to the computer's original cost - and if one of these expensive items goes kaput during the second or third year of coverage, you'll be happy you took the AppleCare precaution. (You don't have to purchase AppleCare when you buy your Mac - you can add it at any time during the first year.)

Printer As popular as PDF files are, we haven't yet achieved a paperless world. Whether it's photos, invoices, or homework assignments, chances are you'll want to print something with your Mac - so you'll need a printer. Apple routinely offers a rebate on some printers (currently up to $100) when you purchase one at the same time as your Mac. You'll not only save money when shopping but also have the assurance that the printer is compatible with your new Mac.

USB Hub Today's computers are tied to a host of peripherals - printers, scanners, audio interfaces, cameras, input devices, iPods, external storage devices, and more. So it doesn't take long to fill your computer's USB ports. If you've got an expansive peripherals plan, you should purchase a USB 2.0 hub. Powered hubs (which must be plugged into an outlet) are preferable to hubs that pull power from your computer's USB port, because they have enough power to drive any USB peripheral you attach to them. Unpowered hubs do not.

Software All Macs ship with enough software to get you started and then some. But these tools may not be enough. Be sure to calculate the price of the software you need to get important tasks done - $400 for Microsoft Office 2008 or $79 for Apple's iWork, for example.

Connectivity The days when the Internet was optional are over. Updates to Mac OS and the software you run on your computer will come via the Internet, as will your e-mail and, most likely, an increasing amount of your news and entertainment. All Macs except the Mac Pro include wireless networking as standard equipment, and all but the MacBook Air carry at least one Ethernet port. If you haven't plumbed your home or office for Internet access, now is the time. And while you're at it, add a router (a wireless one if you're purchasing a laptop) to the mix. Laptop users should also consider a 3G wireless card (either the USB or the ExpressCard flavor) and an accompanying data plan so they never have to be out of the Net's reach.

Click here for article.

by Ron Sharp

Digitize your cassettes and LPs

This article informs you how to convert your music from records and cassettes to your computer:
http://www.macworld.com/article/131449/2008/01/feb08playlist.html

Review: Audioengine W1 Wireless Audio Adapter

Audioengine is a kit of transmitter and receiver for wirelessly sending your music from your computer to a home stereo or other sound system.

Read the review at:
http://www.macworld.com/article/132861/2008/04/audioengine_w1.html

Browsers

Are you thinking of trying a new browser. Maybe your current internet browser doesn't work with the internet radio station you want or maybe you want a faster browser. Here are a few options to check out:

• iCab 4.0.1
• Shiira 2.2
• Safari 3.0.4
• Firefox 2.0
• SeaMonkey 1.1.8

Screen capture is achieved by using Command - Shift - 3 (or Command - Shift - 4 for selected area). Screen Capture Formats default to PDF but they can be changed from terminal. Options include most of the graphic formats that QuickTime can handle and includes PNG, TIFF and JPEG. Here is how it is done:

1. Open Terminal.
2. Copy the line below,
   defaults write com.apple.screencapture type pdf
   paste it into the Terminal window, replace the pdf in the line to png (or whatever you wish) and press Return.
3. Copy the line below,
   killall SystemUIServer
   paste it into the Terminal window and press Return.

by Robert Yule Elphick

The following email was received by one of our members. It is an example of Phishing:

People who send these out are trying to trick you into giving them information about your bank accounts or other financial accounts. No bank will EVER send you an e-mail like this. You must NEVER give out passwords or social security numbers in response to an e-mail - it is certainly a fraud and is illegal. After someone has stolen your assets using these techniques it is very difficult (often impossible) and very costly to get it back.

from Tom Johnson - RAVEN Consultants

I highly recommend this program for everyone using a broadband internet connection.

From Macworld:
"As with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), the firewall software Apple provides with Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) is designed to screen incoming network traffic-attempts to access your computer over its network ports. Such incoming traffic can be "safe"; for example, instant messages from a friend, visits to Web pages you've published using Web Sharing, or your own file-sharing connections when you're away from your desk. But other incoming connection attempts may be unwanted, and that's what a firewall is designed to protect against.

By contrast, most outbound network connections originate with software running on your computer, such as when you send e-mail or an instant message, when you visit a Web site, or when you print a document to a shared printer.

If all outbound connections were so obvious, there'd be no cause for concern, but more and more software is designed to quietly make outgoing connections without our knowledge. In a world with more and more concerns about privacy, not to mention worries about malware and viruses, many of us prefer to make our own decisions about what outgoing connections are OK, rather than have them made for us.

Enter Little Snitch, which watches for outgoing network connections and clears them with the user before allowing them to proceed. The developers have pre-configured Little Snitch to recognize and allow several sorts of connections that assumed to be safe, such as Safari attempting to connect to any remote server on port 80 (the TCP/IP port commonly used for Web connections) and Mail attempting to send and receive email. But new, unrecognized types of connections will generate an onscreen warning and-just as important-a request for the user's intervention..."

Read more about this program here. Download / Buy it here.

Homework assignment:
Go to System Preferences/Sharing/Firewall/Advanced (or System Preferences/Security/Firewall/Advanced in Leopard) -and make sure that Enable Stealth Mode has a check mark next to it. This ensures that any uninvited traffic receives no response - not even an acknowledgement that your computer exists. This feature's Default is NOT CHECKED, i.e. OFF so you need to change it.

MAGIC, the Macintosh Appreciation Group of Island County, serves people who use Macintosh computers, software and peripherals. Our goal is to share information and get answers to questions to make us more productive with our use of technology. Our monthly meetings give us a chance to discuss computer problems and share ideas with other Mac users, feature speakers on specific topics, and to keep apprised of Apple news.