2490 An appropriately named software product for my last review of 2005 is HappyNewYear! - a cool little custom calendar creator application. HappyNewYear! lets you combine on your own photo images with a standard CD jewel case to make very attractive little desk calendars, perhaps with photos of your kids or other loved ones, shots from your Caribbean vacation, or whatever suits your fancy. Calendars produced with HappyNewYear! will of course make great, personalized gifts.

The program is a quick download, just 1.1 MB for the compressed disk image. The downloaded software operates by default in demo mode, restricted to last year's dates and with watermarks until you've entered the registration key, which must be done with your computer connected to the Internet. You also must register online using a credit card for payment. Once registered, officially the program must be used on that computer.

However, developer spokesman Mark Yamashita tells me that while the product nominally only supports a single computer license, an exception is made for users want to use the software at work and home, or on laptop and desktop. The default registration allows you to install the software on 2 computers, even though the license says it is a single computer license. The online registration procedure is a bit of a bother, and I guess if you change computers after the two allowed registrations are burned off, it will be necessary to contact the developer, 24x7digital; and see about getting registration switched over. As one who tends to keep software for years, or even decades, I'm not crazy about the lack of portability. I still have the copy of MS Word 5.1 I bought back in 1993!

After the demo restrictions are lifted, you can set the month and year that your calendar starts with, and you're ready to create some calendars. The main user interface is a window with 12 picture fields. In order to import pictures from your photo collection, just select Add Image from the File Menu or click on the Add Image icon in the toolbar. A navigation dialog will appear, defaulting to the Pictures folder in your Home folder. Select the desired photo, and it gets inserted in the highlighted HappyNewYear! Field. If you want a full-frame rendering, the imported photo should be a 4:3 aspect ratio (eg: 1,600 x 1,200 pixels) in landscape orientation. If you change your mind about a photo selection, just highlight the field it's in and repeat the Add Image process.

Other modes of adding pictures to the template are:

• Double click the month you wish to add a photo to. Select the individual photo you want to add.

• Drag and drop a photo from the Finder to the month field you wish to add a photo to.

• Drag and drop a photo from iPhoto to the month you wish to add a photo to.

• Copy a photo in the Finder. Select the month you wish to add a photo to. Choose Edit > Paste.

• Copy a photo in iPhoto. Select the month you wish to add a photo to. Choose Edit > Paste.

• Control-click the month you wish to add a photo to. The Image Pop-up Menu will display. Choose Add Image…

Any of these operations can be undone. To undo any one of these operations, choose Edit > Undo.

Note well that when you add photos to a calendar the image files are NOT stored in the calendar. Only the location of the image file (ie: an alias) is stored in the calendar. For the photo to be viewed/printed in a calendar, the image file must remain in the location that it was located when it was added to the calendar.

Consequently, it's probably wisest to avoid adding image files that are stored on removable media, and to copy image files to your main hard drive before adding them to a calendar. If you still prefer to use images stored on removable media, make sure that the archive is mounted before opening a calendar document that uses the images stored there.

You must choose the beginning month and year of your calendar. You don't have to wait until January of next year. You can start your calendar with any month making HappyNewYear!, notwithstanding its name, usable and useful year-round.

To set the calendar date:

1. Choose Edit > Calendar Settings…

2. Use the First month: pop-up menus to set the month and year you want your calendar to begin with.

3. Click Done

Note that when you change the beginning month and year of your calendar, the photos associated with each month field will not move, but stay in their current position relative to the calendar window, and may need to be changed, especially if your photo selection for a particular month is seasonally-themed.

When you have a photo for each month selected and a starting date chosen, you're ready to print your calendar with a color printer. Using standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper, you get two calendar months per sheet, so it takes six sheets to print a whole year's worth.

The print area for a month is 4.75" x 4.75", which is the size of a standard CD jewel case, and the higher quality paper you use for printing (photo print paper is ideal), the more professional your calendars will look.

When you have them printed, cut the calendar pages out, using a paper cutter, razor and cutting mat, or scissors, put them in a standard CD jewel case, and you're done!

Well, not quite. Actually, you first have to take apart a CD jewel case. Find one with a clear, clean cover, and gently remove it from the body of the case, being very careful not to break the plastic tabs from the cover.

Then you reattach the jewel case cover backwards, ie: turn the cover around and put it back onto the bottom part of the case opposite to its former orientation, again taking care not to break the plastic tabs from the cover. Once the cover is reattached, flip it over to create your calendar stand.

Now you slide the calendar pages into the CD jewel case cover, and can store future and past months behind the current month.

You can create and save multiple calendars to your hard drive.

It's also possible to print calendars in other languages than English - any language supported by Mac OSX. The program's user interface is currently only localized in English, but you can still print the Gregorian calendar in different languages by using the Formats tab of the International System Preferences.

The HappyNewYear! toolbar is customizable.

HappyNewYear! includes a good online Help manual to help you with any questions you might have, but it's actually a pretty intuitive and user-friendly piece of software.

Starting with HappyNewYear! 1.2, you can also use the new preview window to quickly view a month and see how a photo will be laid out along with the month and day info. The preview window displays the currently selected month in the current calendar window. Note that the quality of the image and text in the preview window will generally be lower than the quality of your printed calendar. Sometimes you can improve the display of the day numbers in the preview screen.

HappyNewYear! prints cutting guide lines that extend the borders of the calendar pages to make it easier to cut out calendar pages using a paper cutter. The guide lines extend from the borders of a calendar page to as close to the edge of the paper as possible. Most printers do not print all the way to the edge of the paper. Since having the guidelines at the edge of the paper is the most useful for using a paper cutter, you can either extend the guide lines yourself using a pen and straight edge, or cut off the margins of the paper first so that the guidelines are at the end of the paper.

HappyNewYear! is an inexpensive tool that faciliates making something everybody needs - calendars. I found that it works well, and I encountered no noticable bugginess. It's quick and slick. You really can't go wrong for five bucks.

System Requirements
• Mac OS X 10.3 or higher
• Color Printer with at least 4.75" x 4.75" (12cm x 12cm) print area
• Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Compatible

HappyNewYear! is $5.00 demoware.

For more information, visit:
http://www.24x7digital.com/happynewyear/index.php?ad=hh



Charles W. Moore

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