Give your latptop a new internet connection in remote places

This month, MacFormat has teamed up with Vodafone to offer one lucky reader a brand new MacBook and Vodafone USB Modem Stick. The prize does not include a data package, but these are fairly cheap to pick up these days and you will probably want to shop around. They cost anything between £15 and £25 per month, depending on your bandwidth needs.

What impressed us about the Vodafone USB Modem Stick, aside from the Vodafone service that we have used for years now, is the compact, elegant design and reliable reception. It slips into a side pocket in a laptop bag with no bother at all, and can be trusted on the road, whether you’re in the UK or roaming further afield.

Once configured, you can initiate a new connection in seconds. When connected, it smoothly steps the speed up and down, depending on the best-quality connection available in your location.

The main appeal, though, is the convenience. Whether you need to get in a last-minute bid on an eBay item, or keep your email inbox up to date, it’s an incredibly useful bit of kit that’s also Mac friendly.

To enter this month's competition please click here

The ultimate Mac survival guide

Essential hints, tips and kit for your iLife apps, mobile, design and music

No matter what kind of Mac user you are, our ultimate survival guide will tell you what you need. We’re not talking about buying the most expensive or most beautiful kit, but the stuff that you’ll really need to use your Mac to its highest potential. We have kit lists for iLife gurus, mobiles workers, troubleshooters, music makers and design professionals. Make sure you check it out!

If you’re looking for a new Mac but the credit crunch has gotten to you, then read our great feature on buying refurb Macs. You could save hundreds on your latest Apple purchase with our help. Plus we also show you how to get more from Apple’s great iWork ’08 suite.

Also this issue

Tutorials
Restore photos in Photoshop Elements
Take control of Apple Mail
Uninstall apps properly from your Mac
Make and upload video blogs
Work smarter with Spaces
And more…

Reviews
Apple iMac 3.06GHz 24-inch
Canon EOS 450D
Griffin RoadTrip with SmartScan
OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta
Toon Boom Studio 4
Savvy snappers for less than £150
And more…

Mac questions answered
The backup Time Machine forgot; importing US software to the UK; quick and dirty network security; mysteriously corrupting files; banish the startup bong and more…

On the disc
Three full programs: Citra FX 2.0, skEdit 3.6.3 and TimeSlice 2.8, plus Japanese lessons, Leopard video training, freeware toolkit, hot demos and more…

It’s all in MacFormat issue 197, on sale now!

Visit the MacFormat forum by clicking here
Subscribe to MacFormat and never miss an issue again!

In this edition of MacFormat This Week...

Christopher Phin and Misha Sakellaropoulo join host Brad Gibson to talk iPhone 3G and round up all the news and opinion from this year's WWDC. Plus, Trevor Middleton answers your technical support questions.

Here are your links for this week's show...

You can subscribe to the enhanced edition of MacFormat This Week through iTunes. To do this, click here.

Or you can download the files directly: For the enhanced edition of this show, click here.

For the MP3 edition of this show, click here.

If you'd like your questions answered in a future edition of MacFormat This Week, then please email machelpme-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

We'd love to hear your questions or comments regarding MacFormat This Week. E-mail us at macformatthisweek-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

You can download the issue 196 disc cover for printing out here.

I will rightly be accused of taking things out of context with what I’m about to say, but I’d be thrown out of the Blogger's Union if I did anything else.

Over on our sister site TechRadar, the ever-excellent Dan Grabham has an interview with Andy Lees, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business, basically discussing Windows Mobile and its competitors. [*Cough* iPhone *cough* etc] And when asked about the advantage that Microsoft’s relationship with mobile operators brings, Lees says:

One of the things that we can do slightly differently to Apple and Google is that they have what I think of as the 'over the top' scenario - they're not doing anything to enhance the mobile operator's ability to create data plans.
They just want the operator to create the '$30 all you can eat' data plan - what the number is varies around the world. Our approach is to be very operator friendly, so we offer tiered services they can use to have different price plans.

"Our approach is to be very operator friendly"? What about the end users, dude?

So Apple launched the iPhone 3G last night, and it quickly became clear that this launch was less about adding whizz-bang new features – 3G and GPS are really the only new additions – and more about selling (and this is a technical term) a shitload of iPhones. The price cut and the move to subsidised, traditional mobile phone revenue models (no revenue sharing, in other words, at least with AT&T that we know of) means that Apple's stated goal of 10 million iPhones sold in 2008 begins to look positively conservative.

The really big news, though, is how well we in the UK are doing out of the deal. Here's why:

• At least on the surface, we're getting a proper dollar-to-pound conversion: $199 in the States has translated to £99 here. Hurrah.


• Existing iPhone owners on O2's £45 or £75 per month tariffs get handed the new iPhone free. That's it; all you have to do is sign a new 18-month contract. If you're on the £35 contract, you can upgrade to the 8GB model for £99 and the 16GB model for £159. Americans only get a free upgrade if they bought the phone after May 27.


• However you upgrade, you get to keep your existing phone and either migrate a friend onto a contract with O2 or pop in a pay-as-you-go SIM. Initial reports suggest that in the States, you have to give your old iPhone in if you're claiming the free May 27 upgrade; that's not the case in the UK. Double hurrah.


• While with AT&T in the States the contract is going up by $10, here in the UK, O2 has kept the existing tariffs the same, and even added an even cheaper £30 option. It's not particularly good value compared to the others (125 texts and 75 minutes versus 500 texts and 600 minutes on the £35 tariff), but it's great to have that option. Hurrah and huzzah.

What are you most excited about with the new announcement? Me, it was the on-the-quiet news that TomTom is developing its software to run on the iPhone. I already own a TomTom One, but the idea of using my iPhone's GPS with the peerless software from Tom Tom for proper turn-by-turn directions is really exciting. Oh, and Super Monkey Ball. I love me some Super Monkey Ball.

See you in a queue on July 11?

In this edition of MacFormat This Week...

Dean Mortlock shares tips for your iPod, iPhone and iTunes. James Ellerbeck reviews three products including a wonderful learning software package for youngsters. Craig Grannell joins us with his summer shareware picks and we take questions from listeners.

Here are your links for this week's show...

You can subscribe to the enhanced edition of MacFormat This Week through iTunes. To do this, click here.

Or you can download the files directly: For the enhanced edition of this show, click here.

For the MP3 edition of this show, click here.

If you'd like your questions answered in a future edition of MacFormat This Week, then please email machelpme-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

We'd love to hear your questions or comments regarding MacFormat This Week. E-mail us at macformatthisweek-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

If you have a look at the iTunes Store right now you'll notice that movie rentals are now available in the UK. There's a whopping 700 films available, so enjoy your browsing!

Another update to iTunes that may have slipped under the radar for many is the launch of iTunes U in the UK. This is Apple teaming up with some of the UK's top universities to offer free access to university lectures. As of Tuesday 3rd June leading course materials from the Open University, for example, were made available for free download via iTunes U. You can access the Open University content from http://www.open.ac.uk/itunes. Topics on offer include World Archaeology, The Arts Past and Present and Islam in the West, so if that sounds like your bag then start downloading today.

This month MacFormat has teamed up with Roxio to offer one lucky reader a
brand new MacBook Air, complete with an external SuperDrive and Roxio’s
MacFormat Choice award-winning Toast 9 Titanium software.

Toast has just been updated to version 9 and has for a long time been the best disc-burning software for a Mac. A Mac, of course, is a perfectly good place to burn discs without Toast, but the software dramatically expands your options. We use it here at MacFormat to test our DVDs before sending them out to readers. For home use, though, it can spread large volumes of data across multiple discs perfectly and format and verify different types of files for different end uses, thereby guaranteeing that the disc will play back flawlessly in a car, or output video content so it plays back on your iPod or iPhone.

Over the years Toast has scooped up new functions as it’s matured. It now provides Blu-ray support, so you can burn Blu-ray media from a Mac to a compatible external drive. It also has excellent music mixing and editing tools that let you drop, mix, blend and add markers to audio discs. For movies, aside from importing and exporting video in different formats, it can chop movies into chapters, then burn the footage to DVD while adding a menu for quick searching. Perhaps above and beyond all this is the trust that Toast has in the community. It’s a Mac stalwart and has no near competitors that come to mind.

To enter the competition click here.

iTunes & iPod masterclass

Handle your movies and music in style

This issue we have a complete guide to getting the most from iTunes and your iPod. It’s packed with tips and shortcuts that will enable you to do more with your favourite media player and software. We show you how to print CD labels, back up your iTunes Library and explain the usefulness of Smart Playlists. We also look at all the recent iPods, revealing essential tips on using the devices.

We also investigate data recovery to see how to hard drive doctors recover files from broken disks. Plus we uncover the world of Hackintosh and see how many hackers have turned their PC box into a Mac!

Also this issue

Tutorials
Turn a colour image black and white
Retouch shots in Aperture 2
Access your email anywhere
Get Photoshop for free
Upgrade a Mac mini
And more…

Reviews
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Beta
ProjectWizards Merlin 2.5.2
BlackBerry Pearl 8110
Miglia TVMini2
Vodafone USB Modem Stick
Sub-£120 hard drives
And more…

Mac questions answered
Floating Desktop in iMac G5; fully transparent Leopard menu bar; unsharable master iTunes library; rights protected video files and more…

On the DVD
Three full programs: Narrator 1.1.4, TouchCopy 2.5 and PhotoAcute 2.70, plus Dutch lessons, freeware toolkit, hot demos and more…

It’s all in MacFormat issue 196, on sale now!

Visit the MacFormat forum by clicking here
Subscribe to MacFormat and never miss an issue again!

I noticed today that Delicious Library 2.0 has been release. It's a great app, so I downloaded it today to try it out and saw this curious message the first time it was run:

Does this indicate that the next OS X 10.5.3 update is right around the corner?

I love the BBC. I'm quite happy paying the licence fee to ensure that the UK retains a decent public broadcaster not in thrall to advertisers. Also, frankly, the BBC News website rocks. However, I also hate the BBC, because it so often seems (even if it isn't the case) to be in bed with Microsoft. Case in point: iPlayer. On Windows, you can download content; on Mac (and Linux, too, fact fans), you're limited to the online Flash-based player.

The BBC promises Mac support eventually, but we've waited long enough, and so, apparently, has an enterprising Mac freeware author. He created iPlayer Downloader, which enables you to grab iPlayer content by bunging a URL into a field, clicking an amusing (one might say 'goading') 'Steal!' button, and waiting for a bit. Once the show's done downloading, it appears on the Desktop as a QuickTime file for your viewing pleasure.

It remains to be seen how long this application survives; it most likely breaks the BBC's terms and conditions, and there's a pretty good chance the BBC's legal department will have a fit when it sees it. However, I'm rather hoping it merely spurs the BBC on, speeding up the availability of an official Mac-based solution.

In this edition of MacFormat This Week...

Part 2 of our interview with Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg where he talks about everything Apple. Are you getting the speed you paid for from your UK broadband provider? We'll tell you what to look for to get the best speed.

Here are your links for this week's show...

You can subscribe to the enhanced edition of MacFormat This Week through iTunes. To do this, click here.

Or you can download the files directly: For the enhanced edition of this show, click here.

For the MP3 edition of this show, click here.

If you'd like your questions answered in a future edition of MacFormat This Week, then please email machelpme-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

We'd love to hear your questions or comments regarding MacFormat This Week. E-mail us at macformatthisweek-AT-futurenet.co-DOT-uk.

Got musical leanings? Our sister magazine Computer Music wants to help you indulge them with their brand new special issue, The Ultimate Guide to GarageBand. It’s packed with tutorials and features introducing Apple's most accessible music software to Mac users of all ability levels. From first steps with Magic GarageBand to publishing your tracks on iTunes, everything you need to know is here, teamed with audio demos and GarageBand songs to remix on the included disc.

The disc also features 12 video tutorials and an exclusive 'Best of Jam Packs' collection of 200 quality sample loops. These cover a range of styles and give you an awesome bank of sounds to use as starting points for your own compositions.

It looks absolutely fantastic, and I fully intend to sit down this bank holiday weekend with the magazine and get to grips with the one iLife app I've tended to overlook.

The special issue is on sale now from all good newsagent, and, I imagine, some pretty mediocre ones too.

You can download the issue 195 Disc cover for printing out here.