LowePro Compact AW DV Camera Bag
Company: Lowepro Camera Bags and Accessories
Price: US $149.00
http://www.lowepro.com
Watch our video review!
If you’ve plunked down upwards of two g’s for a really nice video camera you’re going to want a nice bag to store said bank account breaking piece of digital goodness. Alas not all bags are created equal; a bag was included in the package when I ordered my GL2 and I assumed the included bag would be adequate. In a classic example of “you get what you pay for” the bag was pure junk. Of course I had really paid for the camera so this was somewhat expected. Not only was the bag a bit on the junky side (think North Korean manufacturing quality level) the camera didn’t really fit into the bag. You had to move the viewfinder to the up position and kind of squish the thing in sideways. Unacceptable, so I began a hunt for the right camera bag. Forays to various discount stores proved fruitless, the GL2 was just too big for most bags. Finally I happened on the Compact AW DV from LowePro. This bag was designed with the GL series in mind, and the design carries the day.
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Recently I was whining about the lack of original material on the Mac web. I opined that more and more Mac sites were just republishing press releases and not linking to or producing any original content. While I expected a lambasting, I was surprised to find not many people disagreed. A few folks did have some complaints: one e-mailer accused me of pandering for using the word “Sucks” in the title, another e-mail suggested I was emasculated for not naming names and providing links and one e-mailer defended a site. The rest of the e-mails, the overwhelming majority, agreed with my take on the “Major” Mac sites (of course, this doesn’t mean that a majority of people actually agree with me, just the ones that e-mailed). Most people kind enough to write also pointed me to their personal favorite Mac sites, which I dutifully looked over and passed judgment upon. Now, as a public service, two sites you might not visit but probably should:
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Wireless Printer Kit
Company: AmbiCom, Inc.
Price: $69.99
http://www.ambicom.com
Got cables?
Sure, too many!
Every computer user has to deal with cables for AC power, cables for USB, cables for FireWire, cable for mice, cables for speakers, and cables for monitors. While technology hasn’t yet figured out an affordable way to transmit electrical power from your wall to components without power cords, progress IS being made in reducing or eliminating the cable spaghetti that we all dine on. Wireless keyboards and mice are now available for the Macintosh, and Rendezvous-capable network printers are beginning to appear in the mail-order catalogs, if not on the shelves.
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Take Control of Upgrading to Panther
Joe Kissell
TidBITS Electronic Publishing
US $ 5.00 online purchases only
http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/panther/upgrading.html
TidBITS founders Adam and Tonya Engst have launched a new series of ebooks. Published by TidBITS Electronic Publishing, the series is called Take Control. The premiere title in the series is Take Control of Upgrading to Panther, written by Joe Kissell.
While Mac OS X early adopters have upgraded from early versions of OS X, many current OS X users have never had the (dubious) pleasure of doing a major upgrade to their Mac’s operating system. While each succeeding version of Mac OS X has become more stable and feature-filled, with a more predictable upgrade process, there are still plenty of pitfalls to avoid, and possible pratfalls to make. If you read and follow the steps outlined in Take Control of Upgrading to Panther (hereafter referred to as TCUP) you’ll almost certainly have an uneventful upgrade.
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OS X 10.2, “Jaguar”, was pretty much an essential upgrade. The early versions of the new Mac operating system had been rather slow, which rather offset any benefits like stability, more efficient virtual memory, and the ability to run UNIX programs. So while early adopters enjoyed playing with the very first iteration of OS X, known as 10.0 or “Cheetah”, home and office users preferred to stick with OS 9 whatever its shortcomings simply because it was the only operating system that could run their programs quickly enough for them to get their work done. Apple released an updated package not long after, 10.1 or “Puma”, and this version cleaned up some of the rough edges to OS X and more importantly upped the speed significantly. Still, for many users Puma was still too slow, and it wasn’t until version Jaguar that OS X shifted from being a toy for Mac nerds to a viable operating system for home and business users. Unsurprisingly, Jaguar was the first OS X operating system that Apple marketed aggressively, and the turning point for many Mac users that had been holding off from switching away from OS 9. Of course there was more to Jaguar than just plain speed, not least of all the Quartz Extreme graphic acceleration and the seamless integration of OS X with Windows-based networks, but for the majority of users the key selling point to Jaguar was its speed.
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VTBook 32MB DDR Graphics Card
Manufacturer: Village Tronic
Company: Small Dog Electronics
Price: $245.00
http://www.villagetronic.com
Requirements: Apple PowerBook with Cardbus 32 bit, Mac OS 9.2.x or 10.2.x or later installed. Translation: Wallstreet, Lombard, Pismo, Titanium and Aluminum 15″ and 17″ PowerBooks can use this without modification.
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As the masses await the Fed-Ex truck to deliver to their eager hands a copy of the latest Mac OS X release from Apple, Panther, MyMac.com presents our early, first-look at the eagerly awaiting OS.
First impressions: Wow, this thing is fast! Running 10.3 on an Apple Macintosh G5 1.8GHz, we noticed a huge speed boost to almost every finder-level task. Opening windows, scrolling large directories, accessing other machines over the network, you name it, it seemed faster. But lets take a look at some of the unique features in Panther.
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iMovie 3 & iDVD The Missing Manual
By David Pogue
Pogue Press/O’Reilly & Associates
ISBN 0-596-00507-5
450 pages
US $24.95 CAN $38.95
Apple’s decision to bundle iMovie 3 and iDVD together in the iLife package is probably good for those of us whose bookshelves are strained to the breaking point with instructional books. Continue reading »
Whether your bookshelf’s a pine plank that’s suspended between two cinder blocks, or a mahogany antique, if it’s about to give way with the latest treatises on iMovie or iDVD, rejoice, because iMovie 3 & iDVD The Missing Manualwill put an end to its suffering.
Review – Mac OS X Disc 1: The Basics DVD
Tim Robertson
Publisher/Owner, Columnist, MacRelevant
Monday, 10/20/03
Mac OS X Disc 1: The Basics DVD
Company: TackyShirt
Price: $39.99
http://www.tackyshirt.com
So here we have a great idea: make a DVD that will show how to use Mac OS X, or at least the basics of the system. Great production skill went into this DVD, with some beautiful screen shots, crisp and clear video, and a few experts to walk you through it all. But why, oh why, would you put the hideous looking Shawn King in there? I mean, the guy cannot even speak in a clear voice, stumbles all over his words, and worse of all, I hear he is really a closet PC user! (HA! Just kidding!)
Seriously, here is a DVD in which any new user (and those not so new) that will teach the basics of Mac OS X at a pace anyone can follow. Being a DVD, any DVD equipped Mac, PC, or home DVD player can play the disc. It is, really, more of a learning video than anything else. Throw in some commentary from some of the most well known Macintosh personalities, John Welch, Andy Ihnatko, Bob LeVitus, and Shawn King, and you cannot help but enjoy and learn at the same time.
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If you’ve ever read Internet statistics, you might wonder who’s the idiot that skews the average by spending sixty hours a week on the Internet? I plead guilty. What’s worse is that most of my time is spent jumping around various Mac web sites looking for something decent to read. Lately, it seems to me, there is precious little news or opinion pieces. All that’s left are sites full of press releases masquerading as stories of interest. This trend irks me quite a bit for two reasons: I really enjoyed some of the sites that have become little more than areas of press release regurgitation and some sites still have decent content that is pushed off the page by vendor composed copy passed off as new. I’ve brought a nice example with me:
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p>A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece suggesting that Microsoft wasn’t necessarily the evil demon many Mac users think it is. Some thought that this showed a distinct lack of loyalty to the Mac platform on my side, but I’d like to mention to those cynical souls that in the ten years or so I’ve been using the Mac seriously I’ve lived through the same ups and downs as they have, and stuck with Apple through it all. Looking back there have been some really amazing bits of technology let loose from the labs at Cupertino, as well as a few turkeys. So I thought it would be fun to recall some of the highlights and the embarrassments as I saw them, and to see if there is anything we can divine from such ruminations about the future of Apple and the Mac platform.
These are my choices of course, your own may be different. Stop by the forums and let me know what you think. Did I leave some gem off the list? Next week I’ll take a look at the lows, those rotten Apples that should have been left in the Cupertino orchard to decay away in peace. It’ll be no surprise to anyone that the Performa line will feature pretty strongly on that list, but maybe you have some opinions of your own on that one!
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It is probably inevitable that all of us who are the consumers of the new millennium are destined to live on the cutting edge of our technology. In other words, we want the latest and greatest of whatever there is to be had in the way of computers, laptops, iPods, Video gear, gadgets and toys, etc… al. Besides that, we want those things with all the bells and whistles that go with them, right?
“Dang! My Trio Phone’s battery went dead again! Now I lost all my numbers and that ebook I was reading!”
The only problem with that is we are skating in our lives right on the ragged edge of technology. And when our toys fail, we cry.
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She is tired and worn. She slaves everyday scrubbing floors, preparing meals, dressing her children, and sending them off into the everyday world of America. She has given birth to a discordant family; Brothers do not speak to brothers, sisters do not speak to sisters. She loves them all, and they all claim to love her, but their love does not reach to each other. Liberty is heartbroken. At the days end, while they sleep, she weeps.
She was once a young and vibrant maiden, and was taken to be the good wife of Moral Courage. Together they had a blissful wedding ceremony. The whole world took notice. And soon after there arrived new-born states which filled their house from sea to shining sea.
Her father, in the person of George Washington, made a farewell toast at their reception:
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Altec Lansing VS4121 Versatile Speakers
Company: Altec Lansing
Price: $129.95
http://www.alteclansing.com
More and more computer users have found that one of the best ways to upgrade their Mac or PC is to simply buy a better pair of speakers. Most speakers that ship standard with computers today do not sound very well. Computer manufactures don’t make their money on speakers; it is usually thrown in as an enticement for customers to buy the computer. This is why so many computer users who visit my home often comment on how good the sound is on my computer. For the last month, that good sound has been coming from the Altec Lansing VS4121 Versatile Speakers.
I have been really impressed with a number of features the SV4121′s sport, including an on/off button on one of the desktop speakers, a large and easy to use volume control, and separate base and treble knobs.
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Time to Shoot the Programmers?
This old computing world is a world of woe!
Virus attacks daily! Microsoft security warnings daily! PC users are not
safe anymore!
Besides that, these Windows PCs are ever more complex and hard to learn. Common people will never figure out how to set all them security features to protect themselves and all their data on their cheap store-bought personal computers.
How did it all get so complicated? How did it all get so bad? Every PC Continue reading »
commentator is screaming about a pending worldwide Digital Pearl Harbor. What’s worse, they may be right!
While doing my review of Gregory Swain’s Troubleshooting Mac OS X, I became quite interested in the e-book concept, and why Swain chose to self publish his work. I was also curious about his background. The more I thought about e-books, the more questions I had about their economic and legal issues. Unfortunately, we could never find time for a telephone call, so I interviewed him via email Q and A.
If you’ve any interest in learning what one author did to enter the world of computer book writing, and why he chose the e-book format, you’ll enjoy Swain’s remarks.
MyMac: How long have you been using Macs? Continue reading »
Gregory Swain:Since November 2000. As a “power user” of personal computers, I grew tired of the inadequate laptops IBM (my employer at the time) was providing. The vast majority of employees essentially received whatever did not sell, whereas executives seemed to have no difficulty obtaining the latest and greatest hardware. Repeated requests to my manager of the time always resulted in “I would not know how to go about getting that equipment for you since you work remotely.”
In the not too distant past, radio and television were invented. As a tool of instant communication, these discoveries were immediately recognized as a national resource. The government took steps to regulate and administer these airwave technologies in a manner that they thought would best serve our ill-defined “national interest.”
The product of America’s media now dominates the global culture. Our movies are viewed worldwide, product tie-ins are manufactured on the Pacific Rim, and we are, I suspect, the world’s largest consumer and producer of music, despite the rise of file sharing.
Prior to the rise of these technologies, communication was slow and based primarily on the printed word. Actors and musicians were relegated to live performing arts. Musical phonographs, Morse code and the telephone, were the interim technological steps.
While radio and television may seem like the zenith of communication, the web now occupies the future of communication. It returns to a reliance on the written word, but it also combines audio and video. Apple’s iChat AV combines live video and audio. It is the precursor to what will be live, interactive, remote and on-demand audio, video and text communication. The instant polls on many news websites and the experiments in web voting are all indicators of a great technological convergence.
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Last year Jonathan Last wrote a very witty and intelligent piece for the Weekly Standard in which he argued that the Galactic Empire against which the heroes rebel in the Star Wars movies wasn’t such a bad thing after all. The basic gist of the piece was this: the prequel movies have made it very clear that the Old Republic the rebels sought to restore was corrupt and bureaucratic, that it tolerated trade monopolies and slavery, and that whatever high and noble ideals the Jedi Knights espoused, they were not particularly ineffective when it came to enforcing them. On the other hand, the Galactic Empire enforces law and order, and the day to day lives of the citizens appear to be free and safe. There isn’t any obvious Nazi-like racism either despite the jackboot-symbolism running through George Lucas’ portrayal of the Imperial Starfleet officers and Stormtroopers. Many different peoples appear to be working together, and instead of royals and self-appointed Knights, the people running the Empire are drawn from academies all around the galaxy and promoted by merit. Many of the “crimes” the Empire appears to commit throughout the movies are much less obviously evil when looked at in the context of a government trying to keep order in the face of mounting rebellion. The Empire may be cruel and brutal in its approach to dealing with the Rebels, but then much the same thing can be said about the British in Northern Ireland, the Americans in Viet Nam, or the Israelis in Palestine. Sometimes what works isn’t necessarily dainty or attractive — there are times when cold force seems the only way to keep the peace.
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MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384