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News & Opinion
Products & Services
Software
News & Opinion
Apple Repeats iPod touch Back-to-school Deal
Computerworld's Gregg Keizer reports:
"For the third year in a row, Apple today kicked off its annual
back-to-school promotion, offering rebates of up to $199 toward the
purchase of an iPod touch or another iPod when bought with a qualifying
Mac."
Link:
Apple Repeats iPod touch Back-to-school Deal
4 Free Apps to Give Your Mac a Little Boost
MacFixIt's Joe Aimonetti says:
"...though your new Mac is great out of the box, here are a few free
applications you might want to add right away."
Link: Four Free Apps to Give Your New
Mac a Little Boost
General Maintenance Recommendations
MacFixIt's Topher Kessler says:
"There are many times when in our articles we will mention 'General
Maintenance' as part of a troubleshooting routine. If you are having
software issues, either with third-party applications or the Mac OS
itself, giving the computer a virtual scrub-down will many times help,
or at least give you a cleaner slate upon which to do more in-depth
troubleshooting."
Link: MacFixIt 'General Maintenance'
Recommendations
Find a New Use for Your Old Computer
Computerworld's John Brandon says:
"Turn your old machines into media servers, e-mail stations and
nodes to help with scientific research . . . They're
collecting dust in storage rooms and taking up extra space in your
garage or office. They can't handle today's applications, peripherals
or operating systems. Yes, older computers are a nuisance, like the
brother-in-law who sleeps on your sofa for a few months.
"But tossing tech gear into the garbage is not exactly
environmentally correct. Better ideas: Recycle older computers or
retrofit them to serve a new purpose....
"Here are my top 10 choices for what to do with a PC that's past its
peak as a primary computing device but still has plenty of life in it
for other uses. I've tried all of these, and I let you know how well
these projects have worked for me."
- Use an old laptop as a guitar amp
- Use an old notebook as an email terminal
- Use your old PC + iTunes as a home media server
- Turn any older PC into a gaming rig
- Turn an old system into a Folding@Home system
- Use any netbook for home security
- Install Jolicloud to liven up an old netbook
- Use an older desktop for Netflix movie night
- Try home automation using Hawking Tech gear
- Run a dedicated gaming server on any old desktop
Link: Your Old Computer, Born
Again
5 Apps to Enhance Your Trackpad and Magic
Mouse
App Storm's David Appleyard says:
"Your MacBook trackpad (and the back of that fancy new Magic Mouse)
is a blank slate. It's simple, sleek, and elegant. The functionality of
these pieces of gadgetry has gradually improved with every release, and
recent 'multi touch' capability has made your trackpad far more
useful.
"In fact, the ability to track multiple touches and swipes isn't
really used to it's full potential by default. There are plenty of
applications and utilities that can really boost the functionality of
your trackpad and Magic Mouse - today we'll be looking at a
selection!"
Link:
Five Apps to Enhance Your Trackpad & Magic Mouse
The Mouse Ain't Dead Yet: 5 of the Best Mice
Reviewed
Engadget's Joanna Stern says:
"For over thirty years the computer mouse ruled over the kingdom of
computer navigation. Despite losing its rubber ball and cord over the
years, the peripheral lived a long, full life of being pushed across
desks and tables getting the cursor where it needed to go. It died
today from neglect as it was abandoned en masse for touchpads and
touch-based computers.
"Many tech pundits have already started drafting an obituary of the
computer mouse like the one above, but let's be clear: we think the
death of the mouse is greatly exaggerated. In fact, we're so convinced
the mouse isn't dead that we've been testing some of the best on the
market for the last couple of months. Click on below to find out why we
think the lowly mouse has more than a few good years left, and which
ones out there deserve your attention . . . No matter how you
slice it, Windows 7 and Mac OS X are still very much mouse-based
operating systems."
Editor's note: I'm a die-hard mouse devotee and touchscreen
skeptic/curmudgeon, and I was delighted both by Ms. Stern's staunch
defense of the mouse and that her five best mouse picks included two of
my own favorites - Logitech's Anywhere Mouse MX, which she says "stole
our hearts most consistently", and the hard-wired ultra-precision Razer
Imperator gaming mouse ("sure, the Imperator was built for gamers, but
it happens to be one of our top picks when it comes to good old
fashioned comfort"). Both priced at $80, these mice are not cheapies,
but with computer mice you tend to get what you pay for. cm
Link: The Mouse Ain't Dead . . . Yet:
Five of the Best Mice Reviewed
Apple Says 'No' to iPorn
First Things' Kevin Staley-Joyce says:
"Steve Jobs can, as one commenter said of his 2007 iPhone debut
presentation, 'sell ice to an Eskimo.' What's more interesting than
what he can sell, though, is what he chooses not to . . .
when asked about the possibility of smut on Apple's mobile devices,
Jobs replied, 'You know, there's a porn store for Android
. . . You can download nothing but porn. You can download
porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go,
so we're not going to go there.'
"In the same breath, interestingly enough, Jobs let out his belief
in 'a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.'
. . . [However] Phil Schiller, Apple's vice president of
marketing, has said that Apple continues to allow applications authored
by the R-rated Playboy and coffee table-unfriendly Sports Illustrated,
as they originate from 'more reputable companies.' Perhaps Apple wishes
not so much to purge its products of adult-themed material, but to
distance themselves from the Internet-dominating sexual profiteers of
San Fernando Valley....
"The most significant fact about Jobs' announcement will be, I
suspect, his introduction of moral language into the sterile domain of
profit-oriented, competition-driven technology...."
Link:
Steve Jobs Says 'No' to iPorn
Group Applauds Apple's Anti-porn Stance
The Christian Examiner reports:
"There's an application for nearly everything - including news,
sports, maps and restaurants - but [Apple CEO Steve] Jobs says the
store won't offer porn. Approximately 5,000 sexually explicit
applications were removed from the store early this year after the
Parents Television Council, the conservative group, urged citizens to
complain to Apple. The PTC noted that children often browse the store,
looking for games.
"Jobs' stance doesn't mean the iPhone can't be used to find porn. It
still comes with a browser to surf the Internet, although it can be
disabled with parental controls....
"Additionally, the iTunes store still offers some risqué
applications, although the majority of them appear to be gone....
"'The Apple CEO can expect further criticism from fans of
pornography; but the PTC applauds Steve Jobs for his bold and
courageous stance in favor of promoting decency and protecting
children,' the Parents Television Council said....
"[Jobs] wrote e-mailer Matthew Browing in April, 'We do believe we
have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want
porn can buy and [sic] Android.' Browing had argued, 'Apple's role
isn't moral police.'
"Then, in May, Jobs defended Apple's new iPad from charges that the
product does not give consumers enough freedom. The e-mailer, Ryan
Tate, had written Jobs saying that 'revolutions are about
freedom....'
"Jobs retorted, 'Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private
data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn.
Yep, freedom.' ... 'You might care more about porn when you have
kids....'"
Link:
Group Applauds Apple's iPhone Anti-porn Stance
Ditching Microsoft Word for Grant Writing
ZDNet's David Morgenstern says:
"A recent blog thread reveals that Mac users in the scientific and
technical fields are taking a break from Microsoft Word. And the list
of excellent Mac writing tools keeps growing - alternatives cited being
Apple's Pages, Literature & Latte Ltd.'s Scrivener, Google docs,
Nisus Writer Pro, Ross Carter's Pagehand, RedleX's Mellel, Mariner
Software's Mariner Write, Bare Bones Software's BBEdit 9.5 and
TextWrangler, and Aquamacs 2 - the now Mac-native version of the Emacs
text editor."
Link: Ditching MS Word for SciTech
Grant Writing
Microsoft Moving Mac Unit into Business
Division
AppleInsider Staff reports:
"As part of its corporate infrastructure shakeup revealed this week,
Microsoft will consolidate its Mac Business Unit - the team that
produces software for Mac OS X - into the company's Business
Division."
Link: Mac BU Moving into Microsoft
Business Division
Could a Closed Platform Mac Be in Apple's
Future?
TUAW's Erica Sadun says that despite griping by disgruntled software
developers, the iPhone OS has been a smashing market success, and that
the main distinction between the iPhone OS and the Mac OS is the
openness of the platforms, with iPhone OS app developers obliged to go
through Apple's gatekeeping review process before peddling their wares
to the vast audience of iPhone OS device owners, with Apple setting the
rules, vetting the quality, and policing the system.
Sadun asks if this motif could be the future of a new Macintosh line
- not necessarily dropping traditional OS X for the production and
performance oriented, but creating a more controlled and protected
"walled-garden" computing environment for folks who just want reliable,
safe general computing and Internet capability and couldn't care less
about power-user features.
Link: Could a Closed-Platform Mac Be
in Apple's Future?
Products & Services
OWC Drops Price on Guardian MAXimus RAID;
Discounts on Prosoft Drive Genius 3
PR: OWC has got hot new prices across the board on NewerTech
Guardian MAXimus storage solutions.
The NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID-1 FW 800/400+eSATA+USB 2.0 Quad
Interface solution is a hardware RAID 1 Redundant Mirror which
automatically keeps your data backed up in real time to protect against
a hard disk failure. Should a drive ever experience a malfunction,
normal data operation continues seamlessly. If the malfunction is a
recoverable soft type, the Guardian MAXimus will rebuild the mirror
(also without data interruption) automatically. If the disk failure
requires a drive to be replaced, once the new drive is installed. the
Guardian MAXimus will automatically rebuild the Mirror while you use
it.
In addition to the benefits of Hardware RAID 1 Mirroring, these
solutions are fully certified for Audio/Video, Backup, Graphics, Music,
General Data needs and more.
Other Features:
Available in capacities of up to 2.0 TB + 2.0 TB Mirrored- LED indicators on the front of the solution indicate the status of
the two drives.
- Automatically rebuilds the RAID in case of error or drive
replacement.
- 2 x FW 800 ports, 1 x FW 400 port, 1 x USB 2.0/1.1 port, & 1 x
eSATA Port
- Sleek, compact Aluminum design
- 9.0 3 Long x 2.8 3 Wide x 5.8 3 High.
- Fully bootable
- eSATA, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800 cables all
included!
- Prosoft DataBackup III (Mac OS X), Intech SpeedTools (Mac OS
8.6-10.5.x), Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac OS X), and NovaStor NovaBackup
(Windows) included
- guardmax.jpg
- Fully Mac & PC compatible
- Industry Leading Three Year Solution Warranty
While that's impressive in its own right, these new prices make it
even better.
- 320 GB + 320 GB Mirror 7200 RPM w/32 MB Buffer, now $209.99 (a $10
drop)
- 500 GB + 500 GB Mirror 7200 RPM w/32 MB Buffer, now $219.99 (a $10
drop)
- 750 GB + 750 GB Mirror 7200 RPM w/64 MB Buffer, now $269.99 (a $10
drop)
- 1.0 TB + 1.0 TB Mirror 7200 RPM w/64 MB Buffer, now $279.99 (a $20
drop)
- 1.5 TB + 1.5 TB Mirror 7200 RPM w/64 MB Buffer, now $359.99 (a $20
drop)
- 2.0 TB + 2.0 TB Mirror 7200 RPM w/64 MB Buffer, now $449.99 (a $30
drop)
- 0 GB Build your own Kit (software bundle & cables included),
$139.99
Prosoft Drive Genius 3 Bundle Offer
Purchasing Prosoft Drive Genius 3 along with a NewerTech Guardian
MAXimus (or, really, any OWC or NewerTech external storage solution)
can save you $60 off the retail price of the program. Special Offer -
Only $39.00 on any order with a qualifying OWC or NewerTech External
Storage Solution. Special With Enclosure Kit: $45 (55% off retail)
Special Offer - Only $45 with orders that include a qualifying OWC
or NewerTech Drive Enclosure Kit(s) including "DIY" bundles.
Drive Genius 3 is also available for separate/standalone purchase
for $79.99 (20% off retail)
New Genius 3 Features
- DrivePulse: Monitors the overall health of your drive,
alerting you to possible issues before they become major problems.
- 64-bit: Runs as a 64-bit application on Mac OS 10.6 or later
with a compatible 64-bit processor.
- Enhanced Defrag: Provides even better defragmentation of
your files and even more fragmentation information in a new user
interface.
- RAID Support: Support for hardware RAID and Apple's software
RAID.
- Enhanced Repartition: Add, delete, hide, expand or shrink OS
X partitions so you can organize your drive more efficiently.
- Scan: Realtime bad-block scanning and an extended block
verification that stress tests the read/write validity.
- Email Notifications: E-mail notifications can be sent when
long-running tasks complete and you are away from your computer.
Existing Features Returning
- Repair: Quickly fix corruption and errors to get your
damaged drive up and running fast.
- Sector Editor: Fine tune all aspects of your system with
direct, advanced byte viewing and editing of all data on your drives,
volumes and files (for expert users only).
- Information: In-depth report of specifications and space
utilization of all drives or OS X volumes.
- Initialize: Easy, high level OS X formatting to prepare new
hard drives for use on your computer.
- DriveSlim! Free up more space on your hard drive with
Duplicate Files Search, Large Files Search, Language Support Removal
and Universal Binary slimming.
- Benchtest: Make sure your hard drive performance is what it
should be with comprehensive speed tests and graphical comparisons to
other common configurations.
- Shred: Stop prying eyes with DoD compliant (5220.22 - m)
secure erase. Removes all traces of data from free space and deleted
data on any drive or OS X volume.
- Clone: Fast and easy volume or entire drive cloning.
- Integrity Check: Find problems before they find you with
these comprehensive hardware verification tests.
Link: Guardian
MAXimus RAID
Link: Prosoft
Offers
Software
Adobe Flash Player 'Gala' Preview Release
PR: Flash Player preview release, code-named "Gala,"
introduces support for H.264 video hardware decoding on Mac OS X
10.6.3, the most recent release of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Gala
allows developers to preview Flash Player with hardware acceleration of
H.264 video on supported Mac computers equipped with the following
GPUs: Nvidia GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M. The
hardware acceleration functionality in the Gala preview release of
Flash Player is expected to be included in an update following the
release of Flash Player 10.1.
Approximately 75 percent of online videos viewed worldwide are
delivered using Flash technology. The H.264 video codec supported by
Flash Player provides excellent quality, but without hardware
acceleration, H.264 requires a great deal of CPU processing power to
decode. To date, support for hardware accelerated H.264 video playback
in Flash Player has only been possible on Windows PCs and x86-based
netbooks. Beginning with Gala, Mac users will also benefit from
hardware decoding of H.264 video in Flash Player, the number one
platform for video on the Web.
Gala Resources
Many video professionals point out that access to hardware video
decoding is the single most important factor in overall CPU load when
playing video. Mac OS X 10.6.3, which became available on March 29,
2010, is the first Mac OS X release to expose APIs that support H.264
hardware video decoding in the browser. The combination of Nvidia GPUs
(GeForce 9400M, GeForce 320M or GeForce GT 330M) with the Gala version
of Flash Player enables supported Macs running the current version of
OS X to deliver smooth, flicker-free HD video with substantially
decreased power consumption. Users will be able to enjoy a much
smoother viewing experience when accessing rich, H.264 video content
built with the Flash Platform from popular sites like Hulu.com or
YouTube.
The Gala preview release is an opportunity for developers to preview
this functionality and to test compatibility with existing content on
supported Mac computers. We want your feedback to help improve this
feature, which is expected to ship following the release of Flash
Player 10.1.
In this preview release, you will be able to recognize when hardware
decoding is in use when you see a small white square appear in the
upper left corner of a video.
The preview release of Flash Player Gala is based on Flash Player
10.1, which will ship the first half of this year and is now available
as a release candidate. Learn more about the capabilities of this first
runtime release of the Open Screen Project that enables uncompromised
Web browsing of expressive applications, content and video across
devices.
Link: Adobe Flash
Player 'Gala' Preview Release (download
link)
Skim PDF Reader and Note Taker
PR: Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is
designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF, but is
also great for viewing any PDF file.
Stop printing and start skimming.
Features:
- Viewing PDFs
- Adding and editing notes
- Highlighting important text, including one-swipe highlight
modes
- Making "snapshots" for easy reference
- Navigation using table of contents or thumbnails, with visual
history
- View all your notes and highlights
- Convenient reading in full screen
- Giving powerful presentations, with built-in transitions
- Handy preview of internal links
- Focus using a reading bar
- Magnification tool
- Smart cropping tools
- Extensive AppleScript support
- Bookmarks
- Saving passwords in Keychain
- Export notes as text
- Automatic download of remote PDFs
- Support for Apple Remote Control
- Interaction with LaTeX, SyncTeX, and PDFSync
- Integration with BibDesk and other third party applications
- Spotlight support
- Highly customizable
Current Version: 1.3.6
Version 1.3.6 New Features
- Optional Script menu, see the Wiki for details.
Bugs Fixed
- Fix preference for automatic update checking.
- Fix preference control for PDF-TeX synchronization preset.
- Don't show PDF previews in presentation mode.
- Fix an exception on saving.
- Make secondary PDF views key on mouse down.
- Fix hiding Skim in full screen mode.
- Fix info window on Leopard.
- Search TeX editor in application bundle first.
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 or higher
Latest Tiger Version: 1.2.7
Link: Skim
Scribus Open Source Desktop Publishing
PR: Scribus is an Open Source program that brings
award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, Mac OS X,
OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of
"press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the
modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional
publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, Spot Colors, ICC
color management and versatile PDF creation.
Scribus is an award-winning, cross-platform Open-Source page layout
application with a focus on high-quality and commercial-grade PDF and
PostScript output. Originally developed on Linux, Scribus runs natively
on Mac OS X, OS/2, many forms of Unix and Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7
by now.
Scribus is powerful software that helps you create great looking
documents of all kinds. It also comes with a lot of support options to
help you achieve the best result. There is an enthusiastic and friendly
community around Scribus that assists beginner and pro alike through
our mailing list, IRC channel, wiki, contracted support, and the
bugtracker.
Underneath a user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional
publishing features, such as CMYK colour, spot colours, separations,
ICC colour management, printing marks and versatile PDF creation,
including PDF/X.
Encouraged by professionals and beginners alike, the Scribus Team,
supported by a large and constantly growing number of enthusiastic
contributors from all over the world, is dedicated to improve "one of
the most powerful and useful open-source projects out there"
(TechRepublic).
The Scribus Tea announces the release of Scribus 1.3.6. This version
is another major step on the way to the next stable release 1.4.
Compared to the work on Scribus 1.3.5, the development of Scribus
1.3.6 was focused on stabilising the code base, and especially on
weeding out issues that came from the porting of the code from Qt3 to
Qt4.
Almost 150 bugs have been fixed since the release of 1.3.5. In
addition, Scribus 1.3.6 provides some minor enhancements:
- New Scripter functions
- Usability improvements
- Translation updates
- More colour palettes
- Updates to the documentation
- Build instructions for OpenSolaris
The Scribus Team considers this version to be quite stable and ready
for many real-world use cases. However, since there are still some
annoyances that prevent us from releasing version 1.4, more cautious
users may want to prefer to stick with the officially stable version
1.3.3.14.
The Scribus Team will continue to implement new features and
improvements in a new experimental branch. Once tested and confirmed as
working flawlessly, they will be backported and become part of the 1.4
milestone.
An important reminder:
- If you are working with 1.3.3.x and decide to implement some design
features available in 1.3.6, you should only work with a copy of your
file, since once it is saved in 1.3.6 format, you will not be able to
open it again with 1.3.3.x.
Similarly, if you are working with a team, try to make sure that all
team members use the same Scribus version - this will avoid many
headaches and extra work.
Link: Scribus
Desktop Mac
Deals
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For deals on current and discontinued 'Books, see our 13" MacBook and MacBook Pro,
MacBook Air, 13" MacBook Pro, 15" MacBook Pro, 17" MacBook Pro, 12" PowerBook G4, 15" PowerBook G4, 17" PowerBook G4, titanium PowerBook G4,
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