Mac notebook and other portable computing is covered in The 'Book Review. iPad, iPod, iPhone, and
Apple TV news is covered in iOS News
Review. All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.
News & Opinion
Reviews
Apple Updates
Products & Services
Software
News & Opinion
Apple Releases Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
Built right into OS X Lion,
Lion Recovery lets you repair disks or reinstall OS X Lion without the
need for a physical disc.
The Lion Recovery Disk Assistant lets you create Lion Recovery on an
external drive that has all of the same capabilities as the built-in
Lion Recovery: reinstall Lion, repair the disk using Disk Utility,
restore from a Time Machine backup, or browse the Web with Safari.
Note: In order to create an external Lion Recovery using the Lion
Recovery Assistant, the Mac must have an existing Recovery HD.
To create an external Lion Recovery, download the Lion Recovery Disk
Assistant application. Insert an external drive, launch the Lion
Recovery Disk Assistant, select the drive where you would like to
install, and follow the on screen instructions.
When the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant completes, the new partition
will not be visible in the Finder or Disk Utility. To access Lion
Recovery, reboot the computer while holding the Option key. Select
Recovery HD from the Startup Manager.
System Requirements
- A Mac running OS X Lion with an existing Recovery HD
- An external USB hard drive or thumb drive with at least 1 GB
of free space
Publisher's note: Also see the news release about Lion DiskMaker below. dk
Link: Lion
Recovery Disk Assistant
Apple May Offer Free USB Recovery Drives to Some
Lion Users
MacFixIt's Topher Kessler notes that Apple's OS X 10.7 Lion
operating system by default reconfigures your main boot drive to
contain a small 650 MB recovery partition that, like the original OS X
installation DVDs, contains options to fix problems with your OS
installation or reinstall the OS if necessary. While the OS will set up
this partition on most systems, the installer may not be able to
configure the drive with the recovery partition for some setups
(especially those running RAID or custom partitioned drives), and if
you've already installed Lion on a system and can't use the built-in
recovery tools, then you may be eligible to receive some sort of
recovery option from Apple.
Link: Apple May Offer
Free USB Recovery Drives to Select Lion Users
Apple's Ill-Founded Attempt to Bring the iOS
Experience to the Mac
TidBITS' Matt Neuburg reports that OS X 10.7 Lion can cause an
application to quit while you're not using it, thanks to a new feature
called Automatic Termination, citing Ars Technica's John Siracusa
explaining that Lion will quit your running applications behind your
back if it decides it needs the resources and if you don't appear to be
using them, noting that Apple's own discussion of Automatic Termination
affirms that an application can be told to quit even if it has open
windows provided that those windows are not currently visible to
the user (because they are all minimized, or because the application is
hidden or in a different space than the one the user is looking
at).
Neuburg contends [and your editor agrees - cm] that the
attempt to copy the iOS experience to the Mac is inappropriate, and
Apple's entire agenda here is misguided. While with iOS, you can use
only one application at a time, so it makes sense that the system can
quit an application you're not using, but not so with a full-features
desktop OS like OS X, where robust multitasking support should be
a paramount priority
Says Neuburg:
"Moreover, there's a larger question at stake: Who, precisely, is in
charge? I think it should be me, but Lion disagrees and not in this
respect alone. Automatic Termination is merely one aspect of an overall
nanny state philosophy characteristic of Lion, and which I find
objectionable. When I tell an application to run, I mean it to run,
until I tell it to quit; Lion thinks it knows better, and terminates
the application for me. Conversely, when I tell an application to quit,
I mean it to quit; but again, Lion thinks it knows better, restoring
the applications windows when the application launches again, and
relaunching the application if I restart the computer. By the same
token, when I tell an application to save, I expect it to save, and
when I don't tell an application to save, to save, I expect it to save,
and when I don't tell an application to save, I expect it not to save;
again, Lion wants to abolish a distinction and a choice that I think
should be up to me . . . Whereas I think my computer is mine
to command, Lion has other ideas."
Editor's note: What he said. cm
Link: Lion's
Attempt to Bring the iOS Experience to the Mac Ill-Founded
How to Make OS X Lion Less Horrible
BGR's Zach Epstein says that while OS X 10.7 Lion is claimed to
include more than 250 new features, unfortunately for a seemingly large
group of users, including him, the only new features that really
mattered were numerous annoyances that came to light after just a few
minutes of usage, such as autocorrect, annoying new event behavior in
iCal, lack of key repeat, bizarre defaults set throughout the OS, and
more, causing some serious users to considered rolling back to OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Epstein
observes that unhappy users will have to grit their teeth and learn to
live with much of the new behavior if they wish to continue using Lion.
There is a remedy for a few Lion gripes in the form of a little
freeware utility called Lion Tweaks that allows you to
customize and correct certain annoying new features of OS X 10.7.
Link: How to Make OS X
Lion Less Horrible
Get an Apple Gift Card for Your Old Mac, PC, or
iDevice
Send Apple your old iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC for reuse or recycling,
and if it has monetary value, they'll apply that toward an Apple Gift
Card that you can use for purchases at any Apple Retail Store or the
Apple Online Store. If your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or PC doesn't qualify
for reuse, they'll still recycle it responsibly for you at no cost
.
Only iPhone, iPad, and Mac or PC desktop and notebook computers
qualify for the Apple Reuse and Recycling Program. When you apply,
Apple contracts with PowerON, who will estimate the fair market value
of your product and provide convenient prepaid options to package and
ship your product to their facility for evaluation.
If all you want is to dispose of your unwanted equipment, regardless
of brand, Apple can help you do that. Apple contracts with WeRecycle! to responsibly recycle
computers and displays from any manufacturer. Call 877-712-2405 to
receive a free prepaid shipping label, then pack up your equipment
using your own box and send it off.
You can also bring your old Mac batteries to an Apple Retail Store
near you, and Apple will
recycle them for free.
If you live in one of the following Canadian provinces, you can also
participate in free electronics recycling by clicking the links
below:
If your province isn't listed here, Canadians can responsibly
recycle Apple-branded products free of charge by calling
905-874-8510
Link: Apple Recycling
Program
Has Apple Made Hardware Specs Irrelevant?
AppStorm's Adam Williams observes that since the dawn of home
computing, the cognizenti have measured a machine's worth with a look
at it's systems specifications: for example, a 500 MHz iBook G3 was naturally
superior to its 300 MHz
clamshell ancestor, and once you understood the terms and the math,
it was simple. Or at least used to be.
However, Williams notes that in more recent years, the picture has
become muddled - is a 2.2 GHz AMD CPU superior to its Intel rival?
Throw in multiple cores and a choice of video card, and a confused mess
becomes positively Byzantine. Then there's Apple, who as usual does
things its own way, with the MacBook Air not spec'ing out as
conventionally powerful, but its real world performance speaking for
itself.
Williams says one could also point toward Apple's iOS devices, which
can often be seemingly underpowered when compared to their competitors,
but are satisfactory performers nonetheless, and that whichever the
product, Apple has gone a long way toward relegating hardware specs to
a less important place when considering a computer purchase.
Publisher's note: It's not so much that Apple has made hardware
specs irrlevant as that moving from hard drives to SSD has
significantly reduced the bottleneck between storage (hard drive,
optical drive, thumb drive, SSD) and system memory. That makes almost
everything faster even on a 1.6 GHz dual-core MacBook Air.
dk
Link: Has Apple Made
Hardware Specs Irrelevant?
Gmail Gains Preview Pane
Google Associate Product Manager Maciek
Nowakowski blogged about a new Preview Pane feature in Gmail.
"When I check my email, I often rely on the message snippets to
figure out which messages to open first. Sometimes, though, I want to
see more than snippets, which is why I'm happy to announce that you can
now preview messages in your inbox using a new feature in Gmail Labs
called Preview Pane. Its probably a very familiar layout to those of
you who have used Gmail on a tablet device. We also think its going to
work especially well if you have a larger resolution screen."
"After you enable Preview Pane from the Labs tab in Gmail Settings
you'll see a toggle button in the top right corner of your message
list, which lets you switch between preview and list views. For those
of you who have more vertical space you can also move the preview pane
below your message list. You can enable this using the dropdown arrow
next to the toggle button."
Link: New
in Labs: Preview Pane
Reviews
2011 Mac mini vs. MacBook Air
Bare Feats' rob-ART Morgan notes that since its first incarnation in
January 2005, Apple's minimalist Mac mini has gone from a PowerPC G4 to
an Intel Core i5/i7 processor, progressed from a Radeon 9200 GPU with
32 MB of memory to Radeon HD 6630M with 256 MB of memory, and instead
of an 80 GB Ultra ATA hard drive, you can get it with a 750 GB SATA
hard drive and a 256 GB SATA SSD. Yet it weighs less and is thinner
than the 2005 model.
Morgan rates the 2011 Mac mini's performance with some basic
benchmarks comparing four different 2011 models and, since he considers
the MacBook Air the other minimalistic Mac, he's included three Air
models in the graphs as well.
Link: Minimalistic Macs: The 2011
Mac mini Versus Itself and the MacBook Air
Apple Updates
Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X 10.5
Leopard
Apple's Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Leopard addresses an issue with
the Migration Assistant application in Mac OS X Leopard that prevents
transfer of your personal data, settings, and compatible applications
from a Mac running Mac OS X Leopard to a new Mac running Mac
OS X Lion.
System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5.8
Link: Migration Assistant Update for Mac
OS X Leopard
Products & Services
Seagate GoFlex Turbo Performance Hard Drives
Feature SafetyNet Data Recovery Services
PR: Seagate has unveiled its new GoFlex Turbo performance
drive with SafetyNet data recovery services (DRS).
SafetyNet data recovery is the first recovery
service offering by a hard drive manufacturer to be included as part of
the purchase price of an external drive. With the latest super speed
USB 3.0 interface and RPMs clocked at 7200, the GoFlex Turbo drive is
equipped to handle transfer speeds up to 40% faster than that of its
USB 2.0, 5400 RPM siblings. This latest addition to the GoFlex family
was developed with the understanding that those who place a high value
on their data should have the peace of mind that their data is even
more secure regardless of what unforeseen incident might occur to the
drive.
The new GoFlex Turbo performance drive features two-years of
SafetyNet data recovery services and is now available from Best Buy for
a manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP) of $119.99 for 500 GB and
$139.99 for 750 GB.
"When our products are used as a backup to a primary system or even
as supplemental storage, people should know that they can get a further
layer of assurance that their data will be there when they need it.
With this new GoFlex Turbo performance drive, it is our aim to provide
more peace of mind for the people who choose Seagate to back up and
store their valued digital assets," says Patrick Connolly, vice
president and general manager of Seagate's retail product group. "When
our products are used as a backup to a primary system or even as
supplemental storage, people should know that they can get a further
layer of assurance that their data will be there when they need
it."
Seagate is now bringing to market a solution that shelters our
customers, who purchase the GoFlex Turbo with SafetyNet, from the
potential thousand-dollar cost of recovering lost files. Seagate is
providing a solution that will no longer cost thousands of dollars to
recover files. SafetyNet DRS provide an extra layer of protection for
your content.
SafetyNet
SafetyNet Data Recovery Services are included with the new GoFlex
Turbo performance drive that provides additional protection in the
event of data loss. Many things can contribute to data being
inaccessible from a drive and Seagate is now providing a safeguard
against mishaps such as: physical damage to the drive, human error and
software viruses. The GoFlex Turbo performance drive includes two years
of SafetyNet Data Recovery Service, a service which separately often
comes with a price tag of hundreds to thousands of dollars. The
SafetyNet service covers one recovery attempt on your GoFlex Turbo
performance drive within a two-year period. Seagate's Data Recovery
Specialists will determine whether remote or in-lab service is the best
way to recover the data.
The SafetyNet program provides one data recovery attempt in the
first two years after date of original purchase. Not all data may be
recoverable. For more information, see SafetyNet program terms and
conditions at seagate.com/safetynet. SafetyNet service currently is
available only to legal residents of US.
GoFlex External Hard Drives
First introduced in May of 2010, the family of Seagate GoFlex drives
and accessories have introduced a new level of flexibility to external
storage which has changed the way people store, access, enjoy and share
their digital content. The GoFlex storage family includes easy,
plug-and-play portable and desktop drives, with an array of
interchangeable cables and desktop adapters that allow each drive to
adapt to the interface or device being used. Seagate GoFlex Turbo
performance drive and the entire family of GoFlex ultraportable drives
are the first to meet the new Universal Storage Module (USM)
specification1. GoFlex hard disk drives are also specially designed to
provide interoperability between operating systems in order to work
with both Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers.
Link: GoFlex
for Mac
Software
Lion DiskMaker Facilitates Burning a
Bootable Lion Installer to DVD, USB Drive, or SD Card
PR: Lion Disk Maker is a small application programmed with
AppleScript that you can use with Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7 to burn a DVD
or build a bootable USB key from Mac OS X Lion's installation
program.
As soon as you launch the application, it checks the presence of Mac
OS X Lion Install in the /Applications folder or tries to find one
using Spotlight. Then it proposes to build a DVD or create a USB
bootable install disk.
To burn the DVD, you'll need a SuperDrive and a writeable DVD
(single layer, 4.7 GB). To build a bootable drive, you'll need a
4 GB (minimum) USB or FireWire drive or an SD Card.
The best time to use Lion DiskMaker is when you just finish downloading Lion from the Mac App Store.
Lion DiskMaker is donationware
Link: Lion DiskMaker
MemoryFreer Clears Your Mac's Memory Heap Without
Rebooting
PR: Rubin Wang's MemoryFreer does just what it says - free up
memory, especially the inactive memory that occupies the precious RAM
on your computer. It greatly improves the performance of your
memory-hungry applications such as Photoshop, Safari/Firefox, Office,
iWork, etc.
Just click
"Free Memory" button and watch the magic work. In some instances you
may need to run it a few times to shrink inactive memory to
minimal.
New in Version 1.0.1
- Added option to auto launch at login.
- Added warning message at first run.
- Fixed the bug that the process may not exist correctly in some rare
occasion.
System requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
99¢
Publisher's note: At present 25 users have rated this app, giving it
a score of 4+. Similar apps are
Purger King (free, 4+ with 6 ratings),
iMemoryCleaner (99¢, 4+ with 15 ratings),
Memory Cleaner ($5.99, 4+ with 34 ratings), and
Memory Sweeper Pro ($9.99, 4+ with 34 ratings, currently on sale
for 99¢). Only MemoryFreer supports OS X 10.5; the other
require 10.6 or later. I have been testing Memory Cleaner and hope to
publish a review in the near future. dk
Link:
MemoryFreer
Hallmark Card Studio for Mac on the Mac App Store
at 25% Off
PR: For more than 100 years, Hallmark has been designing
greeting cards for life's special moments. Hallmark Card Studio For Mac
extends this tradition, making it easy to create one-of-a-kind Hallmark
cards as unique as the people you care for.
You can create personalized cards in 3 easy steps:
- Select from thousands of cards
- Add your own custom message or photo
- Print or email your special card
It's a fast, easy, and fun way to create distinctive Hallmark cards
for any occasion - birthdays to anniversaries, Christmas to Valentine's
Day. But cards are just the beginning. Commemorate events and bridge
the miles between family and friends with custom calendars, photo
frames, postcards, stationery, invitations, scrapbooks, certificates
and more.
Send personalized Hallmark E-Cards using a selection of prerecorded
sounds for any occasion. Or add your own recorded sounds and WAV files
for an extra personal touch. You'll get tips for writing more
personalized, heartfelt notes with the Hallmark Note-Writing Guide.
Hallmark Card Studio For Mac Features:
- Commemorate events and bridge the miles between family and friends
with invitations, photo frames, scrapbook pages, stationery,
certificates, e-cards and much more
- 7,500+ Hallmark Greeting Cards and customizable projects
- 10,000+ Graphic Images
- Exclusive Hallmark Fonts
- Optimized for Leopard and Snow Leopard
- Integrated iLife Features
- Import photographs from iPhoto and iSight cameras
Multitouch Gesture Support
- Hallmark Graphics Collection
- A tutorial gets you started fast
- Browse projects by design, theme or occasion
Digital PhotoPlacer
There's no better way to personalize a Hallmark greeting card
than by adding a family photo captured from your digital camera or
scanner.
With Hallmark Card Studio, you can insert photos directly into your
favorite Hallmark card. You can also capture life's special moments in
beautiful photo frames or create custom photo newsletters to bridge the
miles between family and friends.
Creative Projects
Create your own one-of-a-kind Hallmark cards for friends and family
with Hallmark Card Studio for Mac! It's the fast, easy and fun way to
create customizable Hallmark cards for any occasion - from birthdays
and anniversaries to Christmas and Valentines Day!
Hundreds of Other Projects
Hallmark Card Studio for Mac also helps you capture life's special
moments with scrapbook pages, photo frames, stationery, personalized
invitations, stickers and certificates. Also included are personal
calendars for monthly and yearly use.
To give your cards a truly unique look, there's an array of clip art
images included suitable for any occasion. You can also import your own
clip art if you prefer.
System Requirements
- Mac OS X 10.6 or later (Download Version)
- Mac OS X 10.5 or later (Boxed Version)
- Intel-based Mac
- 1 GB RAM
- DVD Drive
- Internet Connection Required to Use Download Version
- High Speed Internet connection recommended
$39.99
Limited Time Introductory Price: $29.99 - 25% off at the Mac App
Store.
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Link: Hallmark Card
Studio (Mac
App Store link)
River Bible King James Bible Viewer
PR: Jolon Faichney's 99¢ River Bible Viewer is a project
designed to let you live with your Bible. River is based on an SQLite
backend accessed through Core Data allowing for fast searching and
retrieval. A simple table-based interface is provided to browse and
search the Bible.
River offers a variety of
features:
- King James Version
- Beautiful typesetting
- Clean, simple user interface
- Fast Core Data backend
New in version 1.2:
- River Bible now supports daily Journal notes
System requirements:
- Intel
- Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later
Link: River Bible
(Mac
App Store link)
Desktop Mac
Deals
Low End Mac updates the following price trackers monthly:
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,
iBook G4, PowerBook G3, and iBook G3 deals.
We also track iPad,
iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, and iPod shuffle deals.
