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APPLEBYTE ONLINE

The Christchurch-based Apple User Group of Canterbury (AUGC) monthly magazine Applebyte in PDF format. To download the June issue, click on this link: http://www.appleusers.co.nz/pdfs/AUGCApplebyte200807.pdf

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Several computing queries and suggested solutions included:

COMIC LIFE INTO POWERPOPINT

How can a page created in Comic Life be inserted into a PowerPoint slide?

• Probably the simplest way is to take a screenshot of the Comic Life page, then insert the resulting image file into the PowerPoint slide. First, make the page as large as possible on the screen to get the best resolution in the image (hiding the Toolbar in the View menu will help), then take a picture of the page using Command-Shift-4 and dragging over the page area. The picture's file will be saved on the desktop, but if you hold Control while pressing the other keys, the picture will be put on the Clipboard (rather than create a file), and you can then paste it into PowerPoint.

DELETED USERS

When using OmniDiskSweeper to clean up my hard drive, I found a folder labelled 'Deleted Users' which took up over 4GB of memory. Can I safely delete it?

• As the folder refers to users which no longer exist on your computer, it should be safe to delete it.

TIME MACHINE RESTORE

Recently I replaced my computer due to a mishap, but when I attempted to recover my files from my Time Machine backup they wouldn't open. Now what?

• Is someone who has had experience with Time Machine able to help? Apple Support http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1304707 was suggested, but did not solve the problem.

Thank you to the various members who helped in this session.

SESSIONS

MICROSOFT EXCEL

Russell gave an introduction to Excel, the spreadsheet application which is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and demonstrated how he uses it to process the information which is required in conjunction with running a golf tournament.

Excel, like any computer-based spreadsheet application, is used for keeping track of data and manipulating it: names can be arranged alphabetically, scores can be recorded and used as a basis for cumulative results, numbers of players can be shown and their resultant green fees calculated, etc.

Functions like these are performed by entering data in respective cells in the spreadsheet - certain cells have formulas attached to them which calculate the values which appear in them, eg. a cell showing the total of a list of numbers will add the values in the column above it.

Spreadsheets can thus be used for accounting purposes, keeping records and displaying data, and of course the process is considerably facilitated by having the calculations made automatically by the computer.

Thank you Russ for giving this useful demonstration.

MacBASICS ~ QUICKTIME

Tony described the QuickTime application, which allows Mac (and Windows) users to display movies and slide displays, and also to play audio files in various formats. QuickTime Player, the version which comes with each Mac computer, allows basic playback and presentation functions to be used, including viewing of movie trailers from the QuickTime website: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/

QUICKTIME PLAYER

QuickTime recognises a variety of formats, and enables them to be shown in a high-quality player which acts as a 'container' for whatever type of medium is being used: audio, movie, still image, streaming files (audio or video) from the Internet. The file is presented in a QuickTime Player window, which (for audio files) displays a timeline, duration indicator, a tiny equalizer, volume control and playback controls:

An image file is displayed in the the same Player format, although by itself it has no duration or volume. Movie files of course have duration and may also have a sound track:

QuickTime provides Audio and Video Controls — go to View Menu and select Show A/V Controls (or press Command-K). These let you easily adjust:

• audio balance and volume or make changes to bass and treble response.
• djust brightness, color, contrast and tint with sliders in the same control palette.
• speed up a movie, or really s l o w t h i n g s d o w n: set playback speed from 1/2x to 3x normal speed.
• use Jog Shuttle to adjust the speed at which you search through individual movie frames.

QUICKTIME PRO

Your computer comes with QuickTime Player installed, and you are able to use its basic features. However, you'll notice that in the various drop-down menus there are many advanced features to which you do not have access - they appear preceded by PRO and in grey:

If you upgrade to QuickTime Pro these additional features are 'unlocked' and able to be used.

You upgrade by going to the QuickTime page on the Apple website, clicking on the button and purchasing your registration ($NZ40). Do NOT click the Download button — you already have the application on your Mac. You will be supplied with a registration key which you enter into the QuickTime System PreferencesvRegistration pane.
Go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime

Some of the things you can do with QuickTime Pro are:

• Convert QuickTime movies to a variety of formats for viewing on iPod, mobile phone, email or the web.
• Export to over a dozen different video and audio formats.
• Extract the audio track from a movie.
• Use the cut, copy, and paste capabilities to edit your movies or add a new sound track.
• Add annotations, rotate your video, etc.
• With iSight or other FireWire camera connected, create video with a single click.
• Build a library of movies by saving them from the web to your computer.
• View movies shot with camera phone, digital camera, or camcorder. QuickTime 7 Pro supports major video formats including H.264, MPEG-4, and Motion JPEG; etc.
• Capture audio to as a podcast.

When you open an audio or video file in QuickTime Pro you'll see the white editing markers immediately below the grey timeline. These In and Out markers indicate the editing points, and you'll see that the timeline between them is coloured dark grey — this is the selected area, which can be cut, copied or trimmed:

You can activate the editing markers by dragging, or (more precisely) by playing the audio/video, pressing Space Bar to stop where you want the selection to begin, then pressing the I key to set the left (in) marker to this point. Resume playing with Space Bar, then hit it again at the end of the selection and press O (out) — the section between the markers will be selected.

QT Pro gives you access to to a file's Movie Properties, which lets you fine-tune the audio settings for the file, and determine some Presentation Settings in which you can choose what will happen with the file when you open it:

Another of QT Pro's features is the facility for editing so that multiple tracks are enabled, and Tony showed how he uses this in a classroom situation to simultaneously display song words onscreen while playing the song's audio track. The display of words (and sometimes related graphics and/or photographs) is synchronised with the soundtrack so that children can read the words as they sing each section of the song:

This makes an interesting, colourful presentation which can be saved as a QuickTime movie; in a single file both the songwords and music are contained, which makes it much easier to accompany singing sessions than it was when cassette tracks had to be found (and rewound!) and word charts displayed and pointed to.

QUICKTIME HINTS

Correcting Distortion: If QuickTime Player is showing a movie or image file which is distorted (its aspect ratio is not correct), you can rectify the distortion by holding the Shift key while you drag the bottom right corner of the Player window until the aspect ratio is correct — then save the corrected file:

Opening iTunes Songs in QT: To open a file from iTunes in QuickTime so that you can edit it, first open QuickTime (so that its icon appears on the Dock), drag the file from iTunes onto the Desktop (which will save it), then drag the saved icon onto the QuickTime icon in the dock — don't just double-click the file's icon, or it will reopen in iTunes.

Thank you Tony for explaining this process.

SUPER DUPER!

Hugh introduced SuperDuper — a backup application for almost all MacOS X users. It's present version (v2.5) requires MacOS 10.4 (Tiger) or 10.5 (Leopard), but earlier versions are available for 10.2 (Jaguar) and 10.3 (Panther).

Leopard's Time Machine application provides back-up files from which system, application and data files can be restored. SuperDuper differs in that it provides backup files which are fully bootable - they can be used on their own to restart your computer, which Time Machine files can't.

SuperDuper comes in a free basic version, and a fully-featured version which costs $US28, and like other backup applications it needs an external hard drive. Note that if your Mac is a Power PC (pre-Intel) model, you will need an external drive that connects by FireWire (not USB) if files are to be bootable. Intel Macs can use either FireWire or USB drives.

For further info, download and/or purchase visit: http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

Thank you Hugh for introducing this alternative application.

SIBELIUS

Russell introduced the Sibelius suite of software for musical composition. These applications are designed for all levels of musical learning, ranging from primary school to university, and cover a broad spectrum of aspects of composition, orchestration, musical knowledge and understandings, varying styles of music and aural training. Musical coverage includes band, rock & pop, choral & religious, jazz, classical, film and TV styles.

Russell played a demonstration video which gave members an outline of the main component applications of Sibelius; this showed the scope and comprehensiveness of the software, and gave some idea of its use in educational situations. Sibelius is available in both a fully-featured pro version, and a lite student edition. Auralia is an ear-training component which complements the main Sibelius application.

Full details and demos are available on the Sibelius website — visit: http://www.sibelius.com/home/index_flash.html

Sibelius is available from Computer Music Ltd (PO Box 8, Helensville, Auckland) — visit their website for NZ prices: http://www.computermusic.co.nz/index.html

A great resource application, Russell — thank you for sharing it with us !