With Christmas and New Year’s Eve firmly behind us, I hit the ground running in 2013 with two pieces in the latest issue of iCreate. If you hit the mince pies slightly too hard over the festive period, you might find my double-page Numbers tutorial handy this month. Found on page 58, it shows in detail how to create a basic fitness, weight loss and BMI tracker, complete with progress graphs and automatic calculations, in Apple’s stylish spreadsheet app.

Elsewhere, on page 48, my GarageBand tutorial this month is all about effect automation – what it is, what it does and how to use it to increase excitement and dynamic movement within your mixes. For an app that comes free on every Mac, I’ve always championed the remarkable latent power of GarageBand’s automation system, and with this easy-to-follow guide to how it works, there’s really no excuse not to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in – so grab yourself a copy today!