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Software
News & Opinion
Plans to Buy Apple Products at All-time High
The
National Post's Jonathan Ratner reports:
"In the weak market for consumer spending, there is a bright spot:
Apple Inc. The computer and electronic device maker is attracting
potential buyers like never before and is getting top marks in customer
satisfaction.
"A survey of more than 4,400 people between August 4 and August 12
conducted by RBC Capital Markets and ChangeWave Research showed that
34% plan to buy a Mac laptop in the next 90 days, compared with 31% in
May. Those planning to buy a Mac desktop rose to 30% from 27%.
Meanwhile, 81% of those who recently bought an Apple product in the
past 90 days were 'very satisfied,' while only 58% Dell Inc. buyers and
55% Hewlett-Packard Co. buyers said the same...."
Link:
Plans to Buy Apple Products at All-time High, Survey Shows
Apple May Report Unprecedented 3 Million Mac
Quarter
AppleInsider's
Sam Oliver reports:
"The investment banking division of the Royal Bank of Canada said
Thursday that Apple's back-to-school promotion is showing signs that it
will drive the company to a record-smashing quarter in
which sales of Macs could exceed 3 million.
"In a report to clients, analyst Mike Abramsky cited proprietary
data from his firm's recent IQ/ChangeWave Panel which 'suggests that
massive back-to-school Mac sales' could see the Cupertino-based company
report year-over-year growth of 44 percent to 3.04 million units for
the three month period ending September."
Link:
Apple May Report Unprecedented 3 Million Mac Quarter
Apple Shipping 'Massive' Numbers of Macs
MacNN reports:
"Apple appears to be doing far better in terms of Mac sales than one
might have expected this quarter, says RBC analyst Mike Abramsky. Based
on a new technology adoption survey, Abramsky has raised his forecast
of Mac shipments during Apple's fourth financial quarter from 2.8
million to 3.04. He describes Mac shipments as 'massive,' particularly
in light of what he calls a 'sluggish consumer spending
environment.'"
Link: Apple
Shipping 'Massive' Numbers of Macs: 3m?
Are Macs More Expensive? The Skinny on the Mac
mini
Technologizer's Harry McCracken says:
"Pity the poor Mac Mini.
After being unveiled with plenty of hoopla in January 2005 as 'the most
affordable Mac ever,' it departed the limelight with surprising
swiftness. The glossy white micro-Mac has received only minor updates
such as CPU upgrades and actually got less affordable when the base
model went from $499 to $599. Last year, there were even premature
reports of the Mini's imminent death, and most Mac enthusiasts didn't
seem too griefstricken at the prospect of its demise.
"But the Mini lives - and even though $599 is no longer anywhere
near a dirt-cheap price for a computer, it remains the cheapest Mac. It
also comes in a super-small package that's still fun and distinctive.
So it's the subject of my fourth excessively in-depth Mac-vs.-PC price
comparison. My goal, as always, is to gauge whether you pay a 'Mac Tax'
when you buy a Mini instead of a roughly comparable Windows PC."
Link:
Are Macs More Expensive? Round Four: The Skinny on the Mini
Completely Reset to Fix MobileMe Sync Issues
MacFixIt
says:
"While Apple's iSync and MobileMe syncing services work fine for
many users, others have experienced a plethora of problems ranging from
data not syncing to inability to access services such as the Calendar
on the MobileMe website. Apple has been working to correct many of
these issues, and has sent out account extensions and other incentives
for users to maintain their accounts through the troubles. Many of the
problems users are experiencing have various fixes, including resetting
the sync history, sync services, deleting accounts and clearing
specific sync data in order to retry and hope everything works
properly.
"For many users the various fixes have worked, but sometimes these
problems are temporary and other times nothing seems to fix the
problems for some users. For users in this situation, or for users who
are only getting intermittent relief from sync problems, they may wish
to fully and completely reset their calendar and contacts
synchronization data. This will wipe clean any contacts and calendar
data on all devices except for one, and then re-propagate the data back
from the one source, and hopefully bypass data inconsistencies and
other glitches with the current synchronization setup that are giving
the user troubles."
Link: Completely
Reset to Fix MobileMe Sync Issues (#@&^*% subscription
required)
Grim IT Spending Indicates Rougher Times Lie Ahead,
but Apple Boosts iPhone Share Among Businesses
The downturn
in the US economy is far from over. ChangeWave's latest IT purchasing
survey shows an even greater pullback occurring in corporate spending -
both for the current quarter so far and for the next 90 days going
forward.
Current Quarter
Next 90 Days
At the same time, the Apple iPhone is beginning to gain traction in
the corporate marketplace even as RIM maintains a big market share
lead.
The survey of 1,947 respondents involved with IT spending in their
organization was conducted August 11-21.
Link: Grim
IT Spending Findings Indicate Rougher Times Lie Ahead, but Apple Boosts
iPhone Share Among Businesses
gOS: Mac-like Linux for the Windows Crowd
The Register's
Scott Gilbertson reports:
"What's free, looks like Mac OS X, just works and is actually Linux?
The answer is gOS, which recently launched a new beta that builds on
the distro's initial success and adds new tools like integrated Google
Gadgets for Linux.
"When it launched onto the scene late last year, gOS (which stands
for good OS) made quite a splash for getting Linux into the US retail
giant Walmart. Through a partnership with PC manufacturer Everex, gOS
brought Linux to your parents' generation via Walmart.
"But chances are, if they picked up a gOS equipped machine, Mom and
Dad would have no idea they were running Linux. Like the Xandros distro
that Asus packages with the Eee PC, gOS doesn't trumpet its open source
credentials or advertise its infinite customization options. It just
works."
Link: gOS - a Google
Good OS for Your Mum - Mac-like Linux for the Windows Crowd
Products
SteelSeries iron.lady Siberia Full-Size
Headset
PR: The leading manufacturer of innovative
professional gaming gear, SteelSeries, today announced the release of
the SteelSeries iron.lady Siberia Full-size Headset in Pink. The pink
headset was designed for today's growing female gamer contingent and
will be used by the women's team previously known as Les Seules, now a
part of the leading E-Sports organization, Meet Your Makers.
Women currently make up 40 percent of the gaming population, and
females over 18 are playing almost twice as much as males under 17,
according to the Entertainment Software Association's "2008 Essential
Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry".1
As a cornerstone for competitive female electronic sports,
SteelSeries iron.lady is a unique and popular gaming event held in
China, gathering the top female professional Warcraft 3 delegates from
across Asia in order to battle against each other for the ultimate
title of "Super iron lady." With a 2008 audience of more than 3.7
million people in China alone, SteelSeries iron.lady represents and
signifies the strength, determination and ability of female gamers to
compete at a professional level.
Meet Your Makers is represented in 24 different
countries, including some of the best players in Warcraft III, DotA,
Counter-Strike, Starcraft: Broodwar, FIFA and Call of Duty 4, creating
one of the largest combined team/community sites in the world. The
MYM.CS team will be using the SteelSeries iron.lady Siberia Full-size
Headset during Counter-Strike competitions at the Electronic Sports
World Cup.
"Female gamers are having a significant impact on the gaming
industry and are influencing how we design our products," said Bruce
Hawver, CEO of SteelSeries. "We're excited to introduce our
professional gaming products to the growing female audience and
players. Whether they chose to use our signature black and white
products or chose to distinguish themselves with pink, gamers know that
SteelSeries designs the best tools to compete with to win."
The SteelSeries iron.lady Siberia Full-size Headset was developed in
cooperation with professional gamers to ensure that the soundscape,
specifications and comfort is suitable for long gaming sessions. The
headset is also designed for multi-functionality. Apart from using the
headset for PC-gaming, this product has been designed so gamers can use
it with their favorite MP3-player, handheld gaming device or
practically any other kind of portable digital device.
The SteelSeries iron.lady Siberia Full-size Headset, with an MSRP of
$79.99 , will be shipped in Q4 2008 and will be available from
SteelSeries.com, NewEgg, Amazon.com,
and other resellers.
- The Entertainment
Software Association
Link: iron.lady Siberia Full-size
Headset
Aluratek Tornado Plus External Hard Drives with
RFID Security Key Data Encryption
PR: Aluratek, Inc. has announced the availability of its new
Tornado Plus line of external hard drives featuring built-in radio
frequency identification (RFID) security key data encryption, lightning
fast transfer speeds and storage capacities of up to 1 TB.
"As consumers continue to embrace a truly digital lifestyle,
keeping that digital content backed up and secure is becoming more
important than ever," says Aluratek's John Wolikow, Vice President of
Sales and Marketing. "Our new RFID Security Key Encrypted Hard Drive
backs up all of your important files and keeps them ultra-secure. A
swipe of the RFID security key by the external hard drive encrypts the
data so that it cannot be accessed without the unique RFID key swipe a
second time to unlock it. Two RFID security keys ship with each
external drive."
Aluratek's Tornado Plus RFID USB 2.0 External Hard Drives come in
capacities from 160 GB to 1 TB in two different sizes (2.5"/3.5").
Data transfers are quick and easy across a high-speed USB 2.0
connection that can reach transfer rates of up to 480 Mbps. The devices
are compatible with Microsoft(R) Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows
Vista™ and Macintosh OS X 10.3 and above.
The Tornado Plus external hard drives are now available at CDW,
Amazon.com,
Buy.com, PC
Connection, Provantage, NewEgg, and other
select resellers for prices ranging from $119 for the portable 2.5" 160
GB version to $249 for the 1 TB 3.5" desktop version.
Link:
Tornado Plus
Bell Aliant First to Launch Apple Desktop Computer
and Internet Package in North America
Bell Aliant, Atlantic Canada's largest information and
communications technology provider, and the largest (or only in some
parts) dialup and DSL Internet Service Provider serving Nova Scotia,
has announced that it is expanding its relationship with Apple to add
the iMac to the Aliant Computer Purchase Program lineup. Aliant is the
first company to launch an Apple desktop computer and Internet package
in North America. Back in May the company added an Apple notebook - the
MacBook - to the Aliant Computer Purchase Program, becoming the first
North American service provider to launch an Internet package with an
Apple notebook.
Apple
doesn't have a prominent marketing presence in the Canadian province of
Nova Scotia, where I live. There are no Apple Stores - indeed the
nearest one of those is two provinces and some 900 road miles west in
Montreal. There are fewer than half a dozen (that I'm aware of)
storefront Apple Authorized Resellers serving Nova Scotia's population
of roughly 950,000, plus a number of university computer stores selling
to education customers.
The Aliant Computer Purchase Program, introduced in 2005 with PC
computers only and a first for the telecommunications industry, was
designed to connect more Atlantic Canadians (Aliant, a subsidiary of
Canadian telecommunications and broadcasting conglomerate BCE Inc.,
serves all four Atlantic Canadian provinces - New Brunswick, Prince
Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador - as well as Nova Scotia)
with online technology by combining Internet services and computers
together for one monthly package price on the same bill. The Aliant
Computer Purchase Program gives customers a convenient way to purchase
a laptop or desktop and also connect with Internet access in one,
no-hassle package.
"Over the past several years we've been helping our customers get
online with the latest computers," says Joe Mosher, vice-president of
residential marketing for Aliant. "Value, choice and convenience are
very important to our customers and Apple's popular desktop computer -
the iMac - should prove to be another great option for our Atlantic
Canadian customers."
The iMac Aliant will sell comes complete with an Intel Core 2 Duo
processor, 1 GB of memory, and a 250 GB hard drive. iMac features
include a built-in iSight camera (for video chatting on the go), iLife
'08 (iMac's photo, movie, music and web suite of programs), Front Row
(iMac's media centre), and a large glossy 20-inch widescreen display
for as low as $52/month in an Aliant Value Package.
The MacBook Aliant offers is the base model with a 2.1 GHz Intel
Core 2 Duo Penryn Processor, 1 GB of memory and a 120 GB hard drive,
and is available now for Aliant Internet customers starting at
$47/month over 36 months. You can even add an AppleCare Protection plan
for an extra $8 a month over 36 months.
Aliant's package includes a MacBook computer and your choice of
Internet service, or add the computer to an existing Internet Value
Package - broadband where available or dialup - with monthly payments
added to the customer's Aliant bill.
Link: Aliant
Software
VueScan 8.4.82 Now Supports over 1200
Scanners
PR: Hamrick Software, the
developer of VueScan, the world's most widely used scanning software,
has released its latest version 8.4.82 - which now supports over 1200
scanners and 24 languages.
"Our goal is to make VueScan the universal scanning application. We
now support 1200 scanners on Windows, 750 on Mac OS X and 580 scanners
on Linux. A single 5 Mbyte download supports all these scanners, in 24
different languages." says Ed Hamrick, President of Hamrick
Software.
"Our next goal is to add more advanced scanning features, such as
scanning multiple photos placed randomly on a scanner (auto image
segmentation) and integrating Google's Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) code. All of these advanced scanning features will work with all
of the 1200 supported scanners, in all 24 languages, on all three
operating systems - a truly universal scanning application."
VueScan is available for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. VueScan offers
a full range of advanced features; including options for scanning faded
slides and prints and automatically adjusting images to optimum color
balance that reduces the need to manually do it in Photoshop. It
includes built-in IT8 color calibration of scanners, producing colors
that look true to life, batch scanning and other advanced and powerful
scanning and productivity features, including PDF output.
For a detailed listing of VueScan features, see http://www.hamrick.com/abo.html
VueScan is available in two editions, Standard Edition ($39.95) and
Professional Edition ($79.95). The Professional Edition adds unlimited
free upgrades, advanced IT8 color calibration and support for raw scan
files. Multi-user licenses are available. A fully functional, trial
copy of VueScan can be downloaded from hamrick.com
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