This site is the online companion to my book, "The Macintosh iLife '06", published by Peachpit Press and Avondale Media. If you like this site, you'll love the book. Learn more. Now shipping! The iLife '06 edition of my book is off the presses and beginning to ship; you can order it from Amazon for 37 percent off the cover price. You Might Also Like Sell It on eBay: A Guide to Successful Online Auctions, Second Edition, by yours truly and Toby Malina. Completely revised and featuring the same beautiful, full-color design as my iLife books. Learn more or buy from Amazon for just $16.49 (34 percent off). Have news, tips, comments, or links? Send them along! How to contact me. Get an iLife. Get your own copy of "The Macintosh iLife '06". Patronize your local bookstore or buy from Amazon for just $22.04 (37 percent off!). Learn more about the book. Find out what all the buzz is about: view samples of this beautiful book. Upcoming Appearances Web Design World, Seattle, July 10-12 Photo gallery. I love the Flickr photo sharing service; here are my most recent shots. (Newsreader users: To subscribe to my photostream, drag this link into your newsreader.)

iDVD 3.0.1 Follow-Up: Installing on a Mac Without a SuperDrive

After posting yesterday's tip about iDVD 3.0.1 running on Macs without SuperDrives, I received several nearly identical emails: "When I try to install iDVD 3.0 on my Mac, a message appears saying that I don't have a SuperDrive and that I should use the other iLife installer disc."

It's true: If you use the standard iLife installation DVD, you won't be able to install iDVD 3.0 -- and if you don't have 3.0 installed, you can't update to 3.0.1.

What to do?

You can install iDVD 3.0 on a Mac without a SuperDrive, provided that Mac has a DVD drive. You just have to perform a couple of extra steps.

Step 1. Insert your iLife installation DVD in your Mac's DVD drive.

Step 2. Locate the icon named Install. Select it and choose Show Original from the Finder's File menu. A window will appear, and in it will be a folder named Packages.

Step 3. Double click the folder named Packages. A window will open containing five icons, one of them named iDVD.pkg. This is the iDVD 3 installer.

Step 4. Double-click the icon named iDVD.pkg, and install iDVD 3.

Step 5. After the installation is complete, run the iDVD 3.0.1 updater.

I successfully used these steps to install and update iDVD on my PowerBook G4, which has a DVD drive.

iDVD Now Runs on All G4 Macs

Apple quietly introduced an update to iDVD last week. Version 3.0.1 fixes some bugs, and that alone makes it worth installing.

But there's another, hugely significant change in iDVD 3.0.1: the program now runs on any G4 Mac or PowerBook, even if you don't have a DVD burner.

This tidbit is mentioned in an Apple Knowledge Base document, and it's huge. For the first time, you can create an iDVD project on a Mac that doesn't have a SuperDrive. You can't burn your DVD unless you have a SuperDrive, but you can design menus, add movies and photos, and otherwise fine-tune your DVD.

When it comes time to burn, copy the iDVD project file over to a Mac containing an internal SuperDrive. Don't forget to also copy the DVD's assets -- the movie files and so on that you want to be included on the final disc.

This new capability is a boon for schools and businesses that don't have a SuperDrive in every one of their Macs. It's a godsend for me -- I have a PowerBook G4 without a SuperDrive, and now I can demonstrate iDVD at user groups and our iDay digital media seminars, not to mention work on iDVD projects at 30,000 feet.

Get the iDVD 3.0.1 update from Apple's site. (If you don't have iDVD 3, you'll need to buy the $49 iLife package.) And while you're grabbing updates, don't forget to get the free iTunes 4 update to my book: 18 full-color pages covering iTunes 4, the iTunes Music Store, and the new iPods.

Meet Me in New York: My Macworld CreativePro Schedule

I'm off to New York for the Macworld CreativePro Conference & Expo and our iDay 2003 digital-media seminar.

My speaking schedule:

Thursday. Session 143. From Music to Movies: The Secrets of iLife. 1:30 pm to 2:45 pm, Room 1E21. My favorite tips and add-ons for iLife and the iPod.

Friday. iDay 2003: iLife and Beyond. A full-day digital media seminar covering iLife, Photoshop, Final Cut, and much more. $99, including handouts and the full version of Econ Technologies' Portraits & Prints photo-printing utility.

I'll post an Expo dispatch as time permits (if time permits). I hope to see you there!

My Book's iTunes 4 Update Featured in Apple eNews

The July 10 edition of Apple's biweekly eNews newsletter is out, and it features an item on my book's free iTunes 4 and iPod Update.

If you don't subscribe to eNews, you can read it online.

And if you haven't yet snagged your copy of the update, which updates my book to cover iTunes 4, the iTunes Music Store, and the new iPods, just go to this new page.

The Monday Mailbag: iLife Tips, Answers, and More

It's been another busy week and there's no end in sight, what with our iDay digital media seminar coming up on July 18 in New York.

But incoming email keeps incoming, and in between the offers for special enhancement creams and low, low mortgage rates, there are iLife questions from readers.

Let's open up the mailbag.

Q: iLife. If my iTunes music is in AAC format and I use the music in iMovie and iDVD, will my living room DVD player be able to play it back?

A. Yes! iDVD always converts audio into a standard format that all DVD players can play back. (The format is called PCM. DVD players also support Dolby AC3 audio, but iDVD currently doesn't encode audio into AC3.)

Q: iMovie. I record all my digital video in a wide-screen (16:9) format so that I can play it back on my wide-screen TV. Can I create my iMovies in wide-screen as well?

A. No. iMovie doesn't support 16:9 format, and your clips will look distorted. See this Apple support article. So stop shooting in 16:9 format, and send that wide-screen TV set to me.

Q: iTunes. How do I back up my iTunes music on DVD?

A. Use the new backup features in iTunes 4. I've described the process in the free update to my book (available here). Apple has also provided instructions in this technical support article.

Q: iDVD. I would like to make a compilation DVD of a dozen movies. I am not able to make more than six buttons on any theme in iDVD. Is there any way to add twice as many smaller buttons to the opening menu page?

A. No can do. iDVD 3 is limited to a maximum of six buttons per menu screen. However, you can create additional menus. Put five of your movies on one menu, and make the sixth button a "More Movies" button that takes viewers to another menu. On that menu, put another five movies and another "More Movies" button that takes viewers to a third menu. If the movies fall into logical categories -- one third of them are about kids, one third of them are about dogs, and one third of them can't be discussed on a family Web site -- then consider creating a main menu that leads to three submenus, each for a particular genre. See pages 166-167 of The Macintosh iLife for advice on menu and DVD interface design.

Q: iPhoto. I have a Sony Mavica CD 400 camera. According to Apple, it works with iPhoto, but only if you use the USB connection. I'm unable to insert the CD from the camera into the computer and have it show up on the desktop. I must boot into OS 9 (which reads the CD) and copy over onto my external hard drive, restart into Mac OS X, and then copy into iPhoto. That's a lot of work -- do you know of any way to get the CD to work in OS 10.2 or later?

A. I feel your pain. One of my digital cameras is a Mavica CD 400. I love the camera -- its Zeiss lens is superb -- but transferring photos via USB is oh-so-slow. And alas, Mac OS X can't read the multi-session, UDF-format CDs that the camera burns. Until Apple adds this capability (to Panther, perhaps?), we're stuck with slow USB transfers.

There's more mail to go through, but I'll save it for next time. In the meantime, grab your free update to my book: 18 full-color pages on iTunes 4, iTunes Music Store, and the new iPods. It's waiting for you.

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©2002-2005 by Jim Heid.