Volume Number: 24 (2008)
Issue Number: 02
Column Tag: Editorial

From the Editor

February is one of my favorite months for a few reasons. Living in the North East of North America, February brings both harsh cold and beautiful spring-like days. It reminds me that change is constant, and sometimes, you find the pleasant ensconced in the unpleasant. We've been doing a lot of work - since the early beta days - with the new Microsoft Office Suite, 2008 for Mac. If this change was more than you envisioned, and you are a scripting person, now is a great time to revisit the MacTech Office Transition Guide, published in the April 2007 issue. It's also available on-line (viewable, and as a purchasable PDF) at http://www.mactech.com/vba-transition-guide. MacTech also created quite a stir with our virtualization benchmarks, when released in December 2007. We've had great feedback and conversations with people interested in how they can extrude those results into situations applicable to them, and more. We'll be following up on all of that in the future. One thing to remember with these benchmarks: change is always at work, here, too. Both Parallels and VMWare continue to grow their products, and Microsoft continues to release patches for XP and Vista, changing how they interact with your machine. Change is everywhere!

We're thrilled to have José Cruz lead us through an intro to Git. Git is a version control system that has been gaining attention and popularity thanks to its unique approach and features. If you've heard about Git and were curious, "Working with Git" is the place to start!

Ben Waldie - AppleScript maven, and former MacTech columnist - has contributed an article sure to help anyone using AppleScript in an Adobe CS3 environment. For those of you who have heard Ben present at Macworld, or read one of his books, you already know what a great teacher he is. With there always being something new to learn, follow Ben as he deals out more great AppleScript knowledge.

More changes! Apple releases a new OS (Leopard) and all of the certification courses and tests now need an overhaul (change). Doug Hanley brings us part 3 of updates to Apple certifications. This time, he guides you through Apple's Hardware Repair Certification, which qualifies a technician to perform warranty repairs on Apple products while working at Apple-authorized service facilities. If you're a hardware geek, this is a excellent direction to take, scoring you the cert and the possibility of some extra coin.

This month's MacEnterprise column brings us some great new functionality in Workgroup Manager and preference manifests. Managing your machines once they're in the end-user's hands takes a number of different paths, and this is just one more method for your sys admin toolbox.

The other usual suspects are present this month, too. Dave Dribin's Road to Code expands the teaching of Object Oriented Programming and Objective-C. The Mac in the Shell discusses the differences that Leopard brings to your shell scripting environment thanks to Unix 03 certification (change!). Of course, we round out the issue with someone being features in the MacTech Spotlight.

This month's Spotlight focuses on Marcus S. Zarra, Owner of Zarra Studios. I first heard of Zarra Studios through their product "iWeb Buddy." What really intrigued me, however, was "seSales," a Point of Sale System for OS X - a category that seems better served all the time! Marcus has interesting perspectives and deep knowledge of development on the Mac. We're hoping to see more from him in the future.

For a "short month," we have a lot to pack into it! Perhaps it's the fact that we're still absorbing everything that came out of Macworld. Perhaps it's because Leopard is still so new. Of course, it could be that change is constant, and forever keeps us on our toes! This issue went to the printer just before Macworld, so we'll see more comprehensive news from there next month. Until then, enjoy!

Edward Marczak,

Executive Editor