Apple eNews: March 10, 2005

	Reporting for Wired News, Cyrus Farivar tells us that “the South Huntington Public Library on Long Island, New York, became one of the first public libraries in the country to loan out iPod shuffles.” Patrons check out an iPod shuffle to read audio books from the Library’s growing collection. Says one avid audio book reader: “It’s changed the books on tape experience fom a car-only experience to a bring-it-with-you experience.”
	As a technology reporter for the Detroit News, Tom Gromak can almost count on being asked the same question week after week: “‘I need a computer, but don’t want to spend a lot of money. What do you recommend?’” Ever since he tried one on for size, his recommendation’s been Mac mini. “Its sleek, sexy, 2-inch tall, 6-inch square, 2-1/2 pound brushed aluminum and white plastic case screams style. And setting it up was a breeze.” Mac mini, he says, “just runs and runs and runs.”
	“Thanks to its superior ergonomics, great in-hand feel, easily readable screen, jazzy colors, and generally good music performance,” PCMAG.com “picked the iPod mini as one of our favorite music players when it debuted.” And as journalist Bill Macrone enthusiastically reports, “Apple’s recent refreshing of the player has made it even better. The Apple iPod mini 6GB holds 50 percent more music, has more than twice the battery life, sounds better, and costs the same ($249 direct) as the original 4GB mini (which now costs $199).”
	More news...

A mini it may be, but our newest Mac is big on connectivity, letting you take advantage of a huge number of printers, optical drives, flash drives, displays, speakers, scanners, and more. Including every iPod from iPod shuffle to iPod photo.

Got DSL? The 10/100 Base-T Ethernet port lets you easily connect your DSL or cable modem, router, hub, or similar device. And, of course, you can also use the Ethernet port to connect directly to another Mac, a great option for file transfers. The DVI/VGA port lets you use many Apple displays, and the included DVI to VGA adapter lets you connect a host of VGA displays you may already have around the house or office.

Read “Mac mini external ports and connectors” for more about Mac mini’s good connections.

“The iPod Book: Doing cool stuff with the iPod and the iTunes Music Store.”

Did you know that you can have more than one album cover per song in your iTunes music collection? That you can tell iTunes to begin importing songs immediately after you insert a CD in your computer—then eject the CD when it’s done? That there’s a secret way to jump back to the beginning of your iPod shuffle playlist?

It’s all true. And there’s a lot more that Scott Kelby reveals in “The iPod Book: Doing cool stuff with the iPod and the iTunes Music Store.”

If you’d like to add a powerful, compact, and affordable 3D video card to your Power Mac G5, take a close look at the new Art VPS PURE Card. Packed with eight raytracing processors, the PURE Card delivers exceptional performance and includes plug-in software for Alias Maya 3D. Render faster. With the PURE Rendering Card.

Thanks to two new, highly affordable ebook titles from Jeff Tolbert, you can learn how to get even more out of GarageBand 2.0. The first ebook, “Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand,” explains how new and experienced GarageBand musicians can create songs using GarageBand’s AppleLoops.

Tolbert’s second title, “Take Control of Recording Music with GarageBand,” accompanies readers into the recording studio, offering advice on running a recording session and applying effects like a pro.

Maid Marian. Will Scarlet. Little John. Friar Tuck. And Robin Hood, of course. You’ll find all your favorite medieval characters waiting for you in “Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood,” a new title from Freeverse Software. If you’d like to go toe to toe with Prince John, download a demo of the strategy game and sharpen your sword.

Every week, developers release new products for iPod, the Mac, and Mac OS X. Like to see some of the newest arrivals?

Got friends who’d enjoy reading an article in today’s issue of Apple eNews? Then be sure to send them to our online version.

Apple eNews
March 10, 2005
Volume 8, Issue 5

We hope you enjoyed reading today’s issue of Apple eNews. We’ll bring you more exciting news from Apple on Thursday, March 24. See you then.

Apple eNews is a free, bi-weekly email publication.

Event dates and product specifications are subject to change. Some products, programs, or promotions are not available outside the U.S. Visit your local Apple site or call your local authorized Apple reseller for more information. Prices are estimated retail prices and are listed in U.S. dollars.

You can record your performance while you sing and accompany yourself on the guitar. You can invite a friend over to sing harmony. Or have several musical chums back you up.

In fact, thanks to GarageBand’s new multi-track recording capabilities, you can record up to eight Real Instrument tracks—and an additional Software Instrument track—at the same time, offering you numerous ways to build out your newest musical composition. And that’s not all. After you’ve recorded your performance, GarageBand 2 lets you display your recording in full musical notation, enhance timing and tuning, change the tempo or key of a Real Instrument track, or lock a track for safekeeping.

Find out how you and GarageBand 2 can make absolutely beautiful music together.

At the three JAX Outdoor Gear stores Jim Quinlan owns and operates, the Mac takes care of business.

Completely.

When customers step up to the “register” to pay for purchases, an iMac runs the point-of-sale system (POS*IM) that scans bar codes, operates the cash drawer, records credit card purchases, and prints receipts. Behind the scenes, a Power Mac G5 collects the data from all of those sales, offering Quinlan up-to-the-minute reporting and analysis. What’s selling? Quinlan knows.

Thanks to the stores’ AirPort wireless network, Quinlan can stroll the aisles with a PowerBook and a scanner anytime he wants to check inventory. And he not only depends on the Mac for marketing and advertising but also keeps the books and takes care of payroll on the Mac, as well.

Find yourself copying and pasting paragraph styles? Creating outlines? Increasing or decreasing font sizes? Or frequently printing documents? Then you might want to customize the Pages Toolbar to make such tasks easier.

Here’s how simple it is to do so:

1.	Pull down the View menu
2.	Choose “Customize Toolbar”
3.	Drag items you use all the time into the Toolbar

You can opt to have as many—or as few—items in the Toolbar as you’d like. Include separators, fixed or flexible space between items. You can also change the size of the text with a click. In fact, you can even hide the Toolbar with a click of the mouse. Just click the Hide/Show Toolbar button in the right-hand corner of the window.

Thanks to a staff with an incredibly wide gamut of creative skills, the Artemis Design Group can turn high-quality work around amazingly quickly, says Christine David, who started the full-service advertising and design agency.

“That means, if a client is going to a trade show, our people can design and build the booth, design and print the collateral materials, design and make the rep’s uniforms, handle the promotion and PR for the event and do it all with the same quality—and often lower prices and faster turnaround—than most conventional agencies might offer.”

They do it—and consistently, too—using an arsenal of Macs and a seemingly unending supply of highly motivated and immensely talented advertising and design students attending The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.

If you’re after the highest quality tunes and regularly import songs at bit rates higher than 128 Kbps, iTunes offers you the best of both worlds, letting you keep your high-quality songs in iTunes while exporting leaner versions of the songs, sized just right for iPod shuffle.

Here’s how: Connect iPod shuffle, open the iPod Preferences dialog, and click the iPod tab. Click the check box next to “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC for this iPod.” Then click OK.

The next time you Autofill iPod shuffle, iTunes will automatically convert songs to 128 Kbps as it exports them to iPod shuffle. The original versions in your iTunes collection, meanwhile, will remain in your library at their higher encoding rate.

Documentary filmmakers Eitan Weinreich and Nina Parmee weren’t exactly sold on Final Cut Pro—until, that is, it started solving problem after cinematic problem.

“The issue,” says Weinreich, “often became, this is a great moment—but can the sound be salvaged? And Final Cut could fix it. Or picture issues—we’d be following a character from one fluorescent-lit room where his skin looked green, to the next room where his skin looked red, to the next where it looked purple. And Final Cut could fix it.”

In the end, concludes Weinreich, “We realized that the resources of Final Cut were amazing. Not only did we have an easy time fixing most of what we thought were difficult problems, but it was designed in a way that was very smart, really intuitive.”