BT210 Bluetooth USB Printer Adapter
Company: BlueTake Technology
Price: $99.00 (US)
http://www.bluetake.com

Bluetake Technology’s new BT210 Bluetooth USB Printer Adapter is a handy little device that adds remote printing from Bluetooth-enabled devices. What this means is, you can print from your PDA, Mobile Phone/Camera or laptop without having to tether yourself to your printer with an ungainly USB wire.

Printing remotely from your desktop computer is one obvious use, but while this adapter eliminates the USB cord, it adds a power cord. This is not a problem though, as long as you have an extra power outlet near the printer – at least you don’t need any USB wires strung across the room to any of your computers. In an office setting, this could eliminate a whole maze of wires.

While evaluating the usefulness of this device, it occurred to me that I was finding more and more uses for it than I had imagined. For anybody interested in setting up their own little "piconet" (small, personal wireless network) the BT210 is practically a must-have piece of equipment.

Bluetake Technology is making great strides forward in providing products that bring a "Macintosh-style" ease-of-use to all platforms. Upon inspection of the BT210 Printer Adapter, one finds that a lot of thought went into the user-friendliness of the design. The placement of the USB port on printers varies greatly, so the USB plug on the BT210 is extended enough for even the most hidden port, and it swivels to accommodate any printer style. An extendable antenna boosts reception to a claimed 100 meters! In my tests, I consistently got a signal from over 200 ft away.

Printing from outdoors! Wow! This is a boon for us smokers that spend a lot of time puffing outside the office. Even you non-smokers (you know who you are). Just grab a laptop and set up office outside! Who says you have to stay inside on a nice day like this? If you’re lucky enough to have an office with cheap walls or that isn’t lined with lead, you should be good to go! If the boss gives you any hassle for being outside all day, you can tell him I said it’s okay – I mean, what’s he going to do? Fire me?

The package includes the BT210, the power cord with small transformer block, and an "Instroduction" Manual. "Instroduction" may be a typo, but I like to think that they are simply following the recent trend of making up new words for the English language (since we’ve already used all the old ones). So consider it an "Introduction" to the "Instructions". I’ll get Webster on the phone and see if we can get it included in the next unabridged edition.

When I began the evaluation process, my first impression was that the BT210 was another one of those products that was obviously great at what it does, but not necessarily something every computer user would have a use for. It quickly became apparent that, for under a hundred bucks (US), this was one of those "insanely great" devices that many people need – but they just don’t realize how badly they need it, until they actually have it. As Bluetooth becomes more and more popular in the United States, and especially on the Macintosh, the ability to print from these devices is essential. The BT210 USB Printer Adapter is about as easy and carefree as it gets.

MyMac Rating: 4 out of 5

Remember all the excitement back in January? Apple sites were abuzz with the semi official rumors of a killer promotion involving Pepsi, the ultimate promotion company. The deal was going to become a competition killer. All the lesser online music vendors were going to be over run by the tsunami-size wave of teenagers rushing to purchase Pepsi bottles. Well, a funny thing happened of the way to glory, the promotion fizzled for a lack of carbonation.

On closer examination it was a classic case of Apple hype and Pepsi’s secret penny-pinching. Apple, a company who normally quashes all rumors with legal threats let the promotional rumors fly. After all, the best advertising is always free. Pepsi, looking at theoretically huge financial bill, knew they had to limit their liability. To avoid writing a huge check, Pepsi looked at their slowest-selling bottle product, the 20-ounce single. In addition, they also knew that a lower potential number of iTunes users would purchase this size. The foundation was set by the beverage maker for a controlled promotion that would limit their financial liability over the short term.

The day after the Super Bowl, some of my more musically inclined students were excited by the iTunes commercial, even though none of them had an iPod. Within a few days their excitement turned to puzzlement and frustration. The ads had said 20 ounce bottles, which my students and a vast majority of potential players thought would be available in six-packs. Instead, what they found was that 20-ounce bottles are quite hard to find in regular stores. That particular bottle size is sold in convience stores and gas stations, places that charge too high of a price in comparison to a grocery store, etc. Secondly, most people buy soft drinks in six packs at a savings of fifty percent over individual purchases. Third, schools sell soda out of pop machines, thereby eliminating another potential source of mass winnings. The stage was set for the biggest promotional dud since New Coke.

I even went looking for 20 ounce bottles at the various local grocery chains, Target, Wal-Mart, among others. I failed to find any Pepsi-iTunes bottles, six-pack or single. My intention was to download a few songs that I use in my teaching of poetry, i.e. Janis Ian’s classic, “At Seventeen”. My own frustration turned to disbelief. How could Steve Jobs been so hoodwinked? Was it karma payback for stealing John Sculley all those years ago? This blunder is equal to the tremendous delay in the iPod for Windows rollout.

It is becoming increasingly apparent to me that Apple develops blinders every time it hits a marketing homerun. The iMac had the same sort of effect. Apple dilly-dallied celebrating its success and waited four years to bring out a 17inch version, the eMac. This was two years too late and helped to end any chance of staying with Dell in the education market. The same holds true with the easy access case design of the G3 & G4 towers. As wonderful as that engineering feat was, many users were left hanging while PC’s jumped out in front with CD burners.

The iTunes-Pepsi juggernaut, much like the campaign of Howard Dean imploded by it’s own arrogance of confidence. Apple accepted the idea that Pepsi could do no wrong with Super Bowl advertising, now sits red-faced over the low download numbers. While Pepsi, because its bottom line is healthier, the blame will never show. Yet, within the industry whispers will tell a much different story, that of an opportunity failed between two powerhouse players in merchandising. All because one side looked only at the bottom line, while the other only cared about the initial splash instead of watching the ripples.

Concord EyeQ 3341z Digital Camera
Company: Concord Camera Corp
Price: $180 US (approximate street price)
http://www.concord-camera.com

We began receiving favorable promotional announcements and press releases for this new brand of digital still camera during the recent Las Vegas Photo Marketing Association show, so we decided to follow up and spend a few weeks with Concord’s entry level unit, the Concord EyeQ 3341z.

The physical camera is very small and light, with well-located controls and menu options. Its high-impact plastic case at first felt flimsy, but now I’m used to it, with no serious gripes except for a rubberized cover over the USB port, similar to many digital cameras from different manufacturers.

The shipping components are generous, including a versatile (if extremely slow) 4-battery charger that accommodates both AA and AAA size batteries. This camera uses two of the former, which are provided.

Concord gives users a thorough, extensive printed manual written in English, French, German, and Spanish. I needed to refer to it several times, and writing and illustrations are accurate and straightforward. Two additional slim printed booklets provide info for the charger and for Quick Start setup, both written in six languages, with Italian and Dutch added to the aforementioned multinational slate.

The manufacturer provides a USB camera cable, wrist strap, and high-quality neoprene and velcro case. In addition to their printed manual, additional support is available via telephone (toll-free!) and the Internet.

If you’re familiar with any other digital still camera, basic setup and operation are effortless. You’ll be taking your first snapshots in a few minutes, once the batteries are charged. SD card compatibility is a plus.

The 3341z also has a high-quality video mode, which I didn’t try. My experience with videos made on still cameras is consistently disappointing, and Concord’s 16MB memory card would fill up too quickly to pursue this avenue very far.

Let’s face it — the majority of entry level camera purchasers will exclusively use auto mode for their still photos, leaving many (if not all) fancy enhanced features unused during a typical product lifespan.

Transferring images to your Macintosh running either OS 9 or X is as easy as reading this sentence, so no concerns there. Reviewing and deleting pictures is simple, once you get used to a three-step “Are You Sure” fail-safe final warning.

Zoom lens operates as it should up to 3x, and framing is as accurate as expected from such a basic consumer model. The viewfinder and LCD can be set to display a bewildering array of “helpful” icons, which I found to be distracting during general-purpose photography.

The flash snaps quickly, but its coverage is not extensive. Image quality from Concord’s lens is best when outdoor lighting conditions are ideal, but every photo I took exhibited unacceptable color shifts.

How is this possible? For reference I duplicated all test images using my old-faithful Fuji FinePix 2 megapixel pointnshoot digital camera. Comparisons were stunningly in favor of the Fuji, meaning Concord has a color accuracy problem that needs to be addressed immediately. Here are four dramatic examples, and you can be the judge. Neither photo has been altered in any way.

The 2.0 MP Fuji FinePix Picture

The 3.1 MP Concord EyeQ 3341z Picture.

The 2.0 MP Fuji FinePix Picture

The 3.1 MP Concord EyeQ 3341z Picture.

Rear LCD brightness and contrast are unspectacular, which is typical for low-end digicams. Why don’t camera makers spend a little more $$$ and time on display presence and a lot less $$$ on featuritis?

Specifications:
3.1 Megapixels, 2048 x 1536 Resolution
1.5" TFT Color LCD Display
16 MB Memory, External SD Card Slot
12x Zoom (3x Optical, 4x Digital)
Macro Mode, Continuous Shooting Mode
AVI Movie, 30 fps at QVGA
6 Preset Scenes
Compatible with Windows® 98/2000/ME/XP and Mac OS 9.0 and higher

MyMac.com cannot recommend this Concord camera. Accessories and support are first-rate, but image quality is not.

MyMac.com Rating: 2.5 out of 5

GarageBand. The name alone conjures up images of untalented high schoolers banging away at instruments with their fathers grumbling about “all that noise” coming from what was once his exclusive domain. That’s not to say that many of the best and most popular bands today didn’t start out that way. However, most bands that begin in this fashion come to an inglorious end. The guys (let’s be honest, most are guys) in these bands with names that are notoriously badly spelled on purpose do this as a rule to meet young girls in hopes of a mutual understanding. The understanding is that the girls will feed their egos and hopefully remove articles of clothing. What the girls get out of this deal is a mystery to me and I freely admit that I don’t understand the way woman think and probably never will. Well, let’s not go off on THAT tangent. I think I was talking about GarageBand.

Apple’s resurgence into audio didn’t begin with GarageBand. Nor did it begin with SoundTrack. It really began the day they released the first public beta of OS/X. For those of you still using OS/7-9 (or earlier, shudder…) productively and without shame, congratulations. Better keep those machines in good shape because when they fail, it’s doubtful that Apple will still have a new machine capable of running that OS. Perhaps this is a topic for another day. Moving on now. OS/X was a rebirth for the Macintosh platform. It cleaned away years of abuse and neglect and allowed Apple to redefine what personal computing could be. The advantages of the Mac OS have never been clearer than they are today. It is of course an ongoing project that will take many years to come to fruition. While we saw glimpses of the direction Apple was going in with iMovie and iTunes, it was the professional applications that really defined the platform. Final Cut Pro in a very few years has turned heads in the entertainment industry in a way that didn’t seem likely in the darkest days before the Steve returned. Included with FCP, was a program that seemed unlikely at first and has launched a thousand lawsuits since. The name of that program was SoundTrack.

The first time I saw SoundTrack I was memorized! It was my first visit to an Apple Store and I had lots of cool eye candy to deal with. What drew my attention? A little music program bundled with FCP. I started to play with it at the store and before I knew it, two hours had passed. Drag and drop music creation with over 4000 sound loops of every shape, size, and genre. Easy to use and best of all, fun. All kinds of ways to manipulate the sounds from within each track and loop. You could throw banjos, bagpipes, and some cool jazz guitar licks together (but for the sake of western civilization, please don’t) and SoundTrack makes them all play nice no matter what the time signature or key. Keep in mind that I am not a musician. I was without a doubt the worst trumpet player that the North East High School marching band in Oakland Park, Florida has ever had (but I sure looked good in that uniform. Go Hurricanes!). I can’t play a note in any instrument offered by SoundTrack, but using them I can be brilliant! I explained this to my long-suffering wife and she was kind enough (OK. I did beg…a little bit) to give it to me for my birthday after Apple released it as a separate application. There were a few sites that catered to the SoundTrack crowd, but it had one problem. It was too expensive for the casual user at $299.

Apple did two things in relatively quick order. It released GarageBand bundled with iLife 4 and it reduced the price of SoundTrack to a more reasonable $199. WOW! Most of the features of SoundTrack for ? of the price. Except that’s not quite true. SoundTrack allows direct manipulation of each loop within a track based on the kinds of effects you have applied. Once an effect is applied in SoundTrack, a drop down screen for each track is available and manipulating each part of the effect is done instantly. No waiting for rendering. GarageBand kind of lets you do this, but it’s applied to the entire track instead of each loop separately. It is also not directly changeable within the track, but in a separate window. People with little screen space will find themselves constantly moving things around just to get at some of the controls. One really cool thing that SoundTrack does that GarageBand does not is to give you an exclusive track for the video you may be editing this music for. This allows emphasizing a comedic moment or highlighting an emotion that the video alone would not be able to convey. SoundTrack also gives you 4000 loops as compared to the 1000 bundled with GarageBand. To be fair, if you also purchase JamPack from Apple, they give you a lot more loops and additional instruments, but this is another $100. You’ve now spent almost as much as you would have for SoundTrack, although the extra instruments are a bonus not available with SoundTrack alone. Both also allow you to create your own loops with real instruments and a MIDI setup. I’m not qualified to comment on the ease of doing so within each program so I won’t. It can be done though. One last thing to consider between these two is the hardware requirements. First, you’ll need a DVD drive to load the loops on either program. There are ways around this, but they’re not pretty. If you don’t have at least a 500MHZ G4 (I have heard of success stories with 400-450 dualies as well), don’t bother with Soundtrack. Not only can you not run it, you can’t even install it. GarageBand on the other hand has more modest needs. I’ve installed it on as little as a 400MHZ G3 iMac. That’s not to say that GarageBand doesn’t need some horsepower as well. Using software instruments is guaranteed to make the G3 choke and gag and spit out “Not enough resources” messages before the first guitar wail. The machine I use it regularly on is a 500 MHZ G3 Pismo laptop and it does the trick if I don’t push it too hard.

Lastly, what do you do with your creations after you’ve made them? There has been an explosion of GarageBand sites to post your tunes. Some have fallen by the wayside, but others have really made an impact. The two I prefer and use on a regular basis are iCompositions and MacIdol. They seem to have a different focus and the site design reflects this. iComposition has a more professional look and the authors are trying to tie it into a whole online digital lifestyle package called the MUGnetwork. It’s still in the works and not ready for primetime just yet. MacIdol, seems to be the “Let’s have fun with this!” site and it’s easy navigation and charts listing the top downloads in each music category reflects this. My tunes are available on both with my “Artist” name (Take the word Artist when it applies to me with a very liberal grain of salt) listed as GuyDude on iCompositions and Guy Serle on MacIdol. The MacIdol site has the most up to date listings as far as my stuff goes. One thing to keep in mind, in order to download any of the songs from almost any artist, a broadband connection of some kind is almost a must.

Which one is better? Depends on your focus. If you want to do background music for your videos or desire a lot of control over the individual tracks, go with SoundTrack. Being able to adjust your soundtrack with the film playing in the background is a feature that GarageBand cannot match. The 3000-loop advantage and the drop down effect editing for each loop in every track also makes this a very versatile program.

Quicken 2004 for Macintosh OS-X
Company: Intuit

Price: $69.95 retail
http://www.intuit.com/

In my review of the MacWorld trade show earlier this year, I took a cheap shot at Intuit and Quicken, basically saying that Quicken 2004 was a release to forget. I said on initial use, there were serious problems using the new software that may leave some users stuck at Quicken 2003. But as it turns out, this problem only affects a small percentage of the existing users (like me), so I decided to take a second, closer look. Perhaps the ugly work-around may be worth the time. Stick with me here as I am writing this as I investigate…

My History with Quicken

I have a love / hate relationship with Intuit. On the one had, I feel Quicken is one of the most useful pieces of software I have ever owned, and it has, in the past, worked fairly well on the Mac. I have my entire financial life is in this program and use the software almost every day. On the other hand, for quite some time the lack of customer support for Mac products, the ever-increasing number of unfixed bugs, and even reported and confirmed bugs still going unfixed, and I was quickly reaching a breaking point with Quicken.

I have been a Quicken user since the early 90’s, and keep everything in Quicken including my checking accounts, credit card transactions, assets, and tracking all my stocks, bonds, and other investments. I do budgets, and rely heavily on the ability to easily and quickly reconcile checking, credit card, and portfolio accounts. Recently integrated on-line services makes keeping accounts always easily up to date without having to enter every transaction manually, and this feature in Quicken seems to improve with every release being one of this releases bright spots. Quicken is an amazing product that offers so many features as to satisfy every user with plenty of user options. While the program is easy to learn on the surface, the complex abilities of this program are still sufficient enough to handle almost all personal and small business financial needs. And add this all to the ability to (supposedly) quickly export all your transactions right into Turbo Tax, making that year end tax chore considerably easier, and this is an amazing piece of software.

But with complexity comes a price, and for many years, there have been so many issues, bugs, crashes, and data corruption errors plaguing this product that I often become aggravated just trying to use it correctly. Many of these problems I reported as a beta tester many versions ago, and they still went unfixed from version to version. I was loosing faith in Intuit to properly support Quicken, especially on the Macintosh. And until this 2004 release, the Macintosh products had only one real support option: a charge of $1.95 per minute to call a 1-900-phone number. There was no email support, poor “live” (non-FAQ) web support, and this phone support became expensive to call EVEN if just reporting a bug. I even considered changing to another program, but what are my choices without switching to a PC?

To be fair, Intuit did and does have an extensive Quicken FAQ and help support web site, and product updates are also handled there as well. You can usually find a fix or work-around to most problems by searching this area. However, the data to cover issues and problems is so vast that it can take a long time to find the proper solution to a problem. This site supports current and many past versions which is also impressive. (Note: support for Quicken 98 and 99 ended April 20th, and will end for Quicken 2000 on May 18th, 2004)

For Quicken 2004, Quicken claims improved Macintosh support. They still offer the same $1.95/minute “fee for call” 900 number, but they also claim to also offer a non-fee phone number direct to Quicken, but I could not find this number on their website. They also now offer a “live support chat” on their website, which, again supposedly, you can chat live with a tech person to get Quicken help, but the several times I tired this option I waited over 30 minutes in the “#1 next in line” position and never chatted with anyone even though I was supposedly connecting during normal hours. Lastly, not supporting their improved Macintosh claim was the following dialog I saw on their site which gave me a good laugh: If you go to Intuit.com – Support page and select Quicken and then press GO, a dialog pops up that says “Some customers may experience difficulty viewing our Web site using Internet Explorer and Macintosh OS 10.3. If pages do not display correctly, please try an alternate browser.” How’s that for great Macintosh support?

It also bothers me greatly that NO free phone support is included with the purchase of Quicken, even if only for a limited time. To me, this meant that people who copied this software from someone else receive the exact same support from Intuit as one who bought it, and this seemed wrong. The difference between buying software and stealing it should, at the least, be support when needed.

My First Trial of Quicken 2004

But being a junkie for Quicken, when Quicken 2004 was originally released, I was eager to upgrade for hopes of new fixes and features. I first installed it on my G3 500 MHz PowerBook running 10.2.8. Upon first running it, I immediately noticed that my “net worth” shown at the bottom of the accounts window was wrong. In the accounts list where you can see the current balance of each account at a glance I noticed my portfolio accounts (ones that track stocks, bonds, etc) had values that differed from those in the 2003 version of Quicken. Not one of them had anything close to their correct balance. (NOTE: I started running Quicken 2003 and 2004 side by side to do a comparison of the two products.)

During install of 2004, a dialog suggested reading a warning about using old Quicken files from Quicken 2003, so, I read the documentation and discovered that Quicken admitted a previous error in the way they calculated stock values inside a portfolio account (I believe I reported that bug as in 1998 or 1999.) It seems actions on the accounts, such as “net worth”, as well as other calculations will result in the wrong values in Quicken 2004 when importing a Quicken 2003 or earlier file.

Unfortunately, in order to correct the problems of my Quicken data file in 2004, instructions say I must re-enter any transaction for any stock where it split or partially sold at different times. And each transaction was to be entered not once, but twice! TWICE, by hand? Sadly for me, over the last 8 years, I have thousands upon thousands of transactions in my many portfolio accounts, and re-entering all these transactions by hand twice would take months. It was starting to look like I was not going to be able to use Quicken 2004.

What I did not understand is why these errors are not fixed when importing the old data file into 2004, or at the least, include a small application to fix the problem before importing the file? After all, they know the problem! In a discussion with Intuit, I learned two thing:

1). They said, “If we could have fixed it this way, we would have.” I read this to mean that the engineering cost to fix it this way was not justifiable. But if the main program can fix the data by re-entering it, it should be easy to take the same code and make a small application to fix it as well. I found this answer disappointing.

2). They also said they feel that the problem only affects only a very small user population. I read this to mean they deemed it a less important problem than others, which is strange as ANY data error should be a high priority bug. But this decision might result in abandoning their high end advanced users, the one group I would think they would want to keep. This too was disappointing.

Needless to say, I returned Quicken 2004 and continued with 2003.

Trial #2, A Second Chance

To better understand these problems, I called Intuit and spoke with the product manager of Quicken. I told her of these Quicken issues, explained how upset I was at not being able to upgrade, and she agreed to speak with me about the product. I wanted to know what else was new in this release to know if I should invest the great deal of time necessary to get me to Quicken 2004. I must say, this person is very committed to the Macintosh version of the product. I only hope she can make some difference in the long run.

I was given a pre-release copy of Quicken 2004 R2, an update from the R1 version I bought the first time. (They are now up to R3!) So I installed R2 on my new 1.3 GHz G4 17” PowerBook. Installing Quicken 2004 was again easy.

Quicken 2004 automatically backs up your old data, but you should do this yourself BEFORE starting to install just to be safe, because for me, Quicken immediately crashed after converting my 2003 file, corrupting the new version of the file. Not a good start! A long search of the web FAQ told me I should delete my old Quicken preferences before I install. (So why do they not just do this with the installer?) To do this by hand, go to /username/Library/Preferences/ and throw away the Quicken Preferences files and the file called “com.intuit.quicken.plist.” Once I did this, the program modified my file and started correctly.

Again, I ran Quicken 2003 next to Quicken 2004 R2 to do some side-by-side comparisons. First off, I notice something quite different with this R2 version. With the exception of 2 accounts (I have around 30) the account values all matched the values in the 2003 version, which was quite different from the first time I tried Quicken 2004. For the ones that were wrong, it seems a few recently entered stock transactions did not properly set the stock price correctly resulting in a different value. However, after re-entering 8 or 9 stock transactions (all purchases) the values were all correct. (To do this, go to the line that is wrong, change the memo area and then hit enter. Simply hitting enter without any change to the transaction line will not actually re-enter the transactions.)

Ok, I was AMAZED! The R2 version seems not to be plagued by the portfolio bug of the first Quicken 2004, or if it did, my VERY LARGE data file was not effected much at all this time. I still received the warning at install time, but it SEEMED that there were few problems now. This was great, I could now move forward to Quicken 2004.

But I was still paranoid, so I have been running Quicken 2004 along side of my previous version of Quicken 2003, and entering all transactions into both versions. At the end of a data entering session, I would then check the accounts list balances against each other. I wish I could say that they always gave the same answers, but this is not the case. It seems that register balances would occasionally differ, and a search for these differences found errors in some with Quicken 2004 portfolio transactions. Additionally, the errors seem to be random and hit what appeared to be random old transactions. I suspect that this is part of the problem reported in the install warning. For reasons unclear to me, all of a sudden an old stock purchase or sale transaction would CHANGE on its own and calculate a wrong net value. These were old, reconciled transactions that have been fine for years. For example, I bought 100 share of stock at $5 a share and in Quicken 2003 it showed as expected, a $500 purchase. However, in Quicken 2004 this would show as 100 shares at $5 costing $643. What? Reentering the transaction corrected these errors, but if I were not running 2003 and 2004 side-by-side, there is no way I would ever know it had changed. This is especially disturbing as I use this data at the end of the year to do my taxes, and one needs to trust that Quicken knows how to do math!

Speaking of taxes, Quicken 2004 continues the tradition of making errors and omissions when exporting its data into Turbotax. For the last 3 to 4 years, Quicken has failed to properly transfer stock transactions into TurboTax. I cannot understand why this happens though, since both programs come from the same company, you would think they would actually test this stuff. If you use Quicken and TurboTax, check your imported data carefully for errors and omission.

Lastly, now that I have been using both side by side for about 2 months, I am happy to report that these random errors seem to have stopped. Perhaps I have triggered them all? But I remain paranoid of this product and continue to run both side by side just to be sure, as for the first time in Quicken history, I do not trust this version completely.

What is new in 2004?

As I said above, Portfolios have been completely revamped and contain over 20 new items for dealing with stocks. Most important here is the ability to now customize the Portfolio view. This view now allows you to display much more information, including 52-week range, a daily change as well as values for the day’s change in percent, high, low, gain/loss, open and close. You can also display dividend info, fund averages, industry news and information, Morningstar rating, and other new choices. You can also now display the individual lots for each security with their purchase price. This is very cool if you bought shares of the same stock over time instead of all at once. The look of this window is new as well with easy to read and follow alternating blue and white bands which replaced the simple lines between items before which made this window much harder to read.

Not all is good however. For some reason, this area no longer tells you that Quicken is recalculating the values being displayed like it has for years. If you have a large number of items in this list, it can take some time to update, and rather strange effects happen if you change any numbers in the list while it is calculating. Without the indicator, this can be very confusing.

Customizing windows has also changed to be more OS-X like in look and feel. Gone are the old style check box lists for options, replaced with two side-by-side lists where you move items from the list on the left to a list on the right to make selections.

In general, the basic look and feel did not change much from Quicken 2003 to 2004. The button bar, the icons, the account registers, the Accounts windows, reports and graphs, and most other basic features have not changed, nor have the general preferences panes, which still have check boxes! There is one new addition to Quicken 2004 registers: A small iCal button is displayed next to the RESTORE button which lets you “move” a transaction to Apple’s iCal program. Selecting a transaction and pressing this button will launch iCal (if not already running) and add a new calendar event named after your Quicken account name. In iCal, clicking on this event will display the Quicken transaction details. I am not sure is why I need this however! I suspect if your do not launch Quicken all the time (which I do) this will let you put a reminder in your calendar to make a payment. While this is an interesting feature, its one I would never use, and I would much rather see Intuit spend their engineering efforts fixing the problems mentioned above than adding additional features such as this. Additionally, I, like many, still use Entourage’s calendar, and there is no way to export transactions to that calendar.

For the most part, the menus have not changed either. A new item has appeared in the ACTIVITIES menu called the “Emergency Records Organizer.” This is an interesting tool to help you collect and organize important information about you and your family in one place. Selecting this option launches a separate program to handle this task. You can store information on Contacts (emergency, accountant, childcare, doctors, lawyers, etc) , Financial Account info (bank, credit, and investment accounts), Income, Loan, Insurance, Real Estate, vehicles, etc., plus info on adults and children in the household. While this too is an interesting idea, I was immediately disappointed that information already stored in Quicken was not exported into the proper places in this program, nor was their an “import” function to easily get this info. And given the major import problems with earlier versions of Quicken, perhaps the engineering effort spent writing this program could have been spent on writing a file conversion program? Or maybe fixing the tax export functions? I cannot help but wonder why this was a better use of engineering time?

The biggest changes in this release are in and around the handling of portfolio accounts and most visible changes can be seen in the portfolio window as mentioned above. Quicken 2004 also returns functionality to the Net Worth function. While this has been in most previous version, the NetWorth graph has been broken for many years, and now once again shows the proper values in the graph. If you are trying to save or build your net worth, this is a very fun tool to see how you are doing over time. It is, unfortunately, VERY slow if you have a lot of transactions.

Quicken’s bill-paying functionality is also improved this year and easier integration with their Bill Pay service (about $10 a month) makes paying ANY bill easy. Integration to a large list of financial institutions for bill paying is also now included, and the Online Access too makes setting this up rather easy. Although once set up, actually paying the bill from the proper account through the proper financial institution is a bit more complex, but easily learned. Unfortunately for me, Bank Of America, one of the first banks in the US to offer on-line bill payment service, while supported for on-line statements, was not supported for direct on-line bill payment and offered only Bill Pay for this institution. Bank of America offers free bill payment, so why would I want to pay $10 a month to use a free service?

Another service added to Quicken this year is something called “Always Up To Date.” Quicken 2004 will now automatically update your on-line accounts, payments, and security prices on a regular schedule. If enabled and Quicken is not running, a dialog will appear to warn you that Quicken is about to launch on its own and do a daily update, so Quicken does not have to be left running to use this feature. If you track a lot of stocks, this is a great way to get daily news and prices into Quicken, as well as to assure that any on-line transactions are automatically handled every day, which is great for reoccurring automatic payments that you might otherwise forget to enter.

Quicken is optimized for OS-10.1.5 OR 10.2.6 or greater, and support for OS-9 is still included, requiring at least 9.2.2. A PowerPC processor is required, at least 128 MB of memory, and 75 MB of free disk space to start, but expect your data file to grow large quickly if tracking lots of stocks and running daily update. Video resolution of 800×600 is required at a minimum of 16 colors, and internet access (broadband or 56.6K modem) is required to use on-line features.

The Bottom Line

To update or not update to Quicken 2004 will be based on your needs. If you are a basic users, the better on-line integration and the iCal feature may make this a reasonable update, especially if you passed on Quicken 2003 last year. If you track a lot of stocks and bonds, then this update brings you a great deal of new features worth considering, but comes at the price of some buggy handling and changes to previous transactions if you come from Quicken 2003. If you do update, I suggest going to www.Quicken.com or using the Update function and be sure to get the latest updater installed before actually opening your account in this release. Finally, Quicken 2004 is MUCH more stable than previous version which were prone to a good number of random crashes and hangs, and eliminating that alone may be worth the update.

If you’re a new users, Quicken 2004 is a great, stable program with a good number of features to help manage your finances. Without the upgrade issues of older data files, this program will work very well for you.

MyMac.com rating 3 out of 5 if updating from Quicken 2003, 4.5 out of 5 if a new user

What Mac users wanted in 1996!
In September of 1996, we asked our readers this question: “You can have, free of charge, ANY computer related items of your choice. Pick anything you like, up to three items.”

What were the answers? What was so hot eight years ago in the Mac world that everyone wanted to have? Read the answers yourself, just click here!

Altec Lansing MX5021 2.1 Speaker System
Company: Altec Lansing
Price: $199.95
http://www.alteclansing.com

As the resident speaker reviewer here at MyMac.com, I have the opportunity to listen to a bevy of different speakers, but that has far from made me a jaded reviewer. In fact, I absolutely love opening the box FedEx or UPS drops off to find a new pair of speakers ready to be tested.

This time around, it is the MX5021 speaker system from Altec Lansing. This is the third pair of Altec Lansing speakers I have reviewed, the first being the 2100 series back in February 2003, and the other the VS4121 from October of last year. In a direct comparison of all three, for total sound quality, I would have to rate the MX5021 the best sounding.

The MX5021 consist of a 6.5” subwoofer featuring 50 Watts at 4 ohms with 10% THD. The two satellite speakers consist of a 1” horn-loaded tweeter and two 3” full-range drivers, which provide 25 Watts per channel at 5.8 ohms and 10% THD.

The subwoofer is large, but not overly so. The satellite speakers, however, are larger than most desktop speakers, and I found that they simply took up too much space on the desktop. To alleviate the size, they ship with wall-hanging brackets, which I used to mount the speakers on the wall on either side of my monitor.

Sound quality varies. At times, I really liked the sound, and thought them rich and expansive. Then, on my next listening, the sound quality was a little muddy in the mid-tones. What’s going on? Turns out, the sound quality actually changes according to the music I am listening to. Harder, base heavy rock such as the tune “Jackson, Mississippi” from Kid Rock sounded muddy in the base, and a wee bit shrilly in the highs. The song, encoded at 256 kbps MP3, sounds much better on the Altec Lansing VS4121s. On the other hand, Silence (The Michael Woods Remix) by Delerium Featuring Sarah McLachlan sounded much better. In fact, that song sounded better on the MX5021’s than on any other computer speaker system I have.

The only conclusion I can realistically draw is that these speakers seem to have either a split personality, or they simply don’t like some songs at all.

Sound quality was also greatly affected by speaker placement. Sound imaging (Where the music sounds like it is coming from, rather than where the speakers actually are) was greater the further apart I hung the speakers. Imaging was great overall, as the MX5021’s sound much more like a large speaker, and less like a simple satellite. From two rooms away, one would never guess the size of these speakers, assuming that the sound would be coming from a good home audio speaker system costing three times as much.

One drawback for some would be that these speakers are not USB, but plug in with a mini-jack audio plug. I personally do not like the USB speakers, and much prefer the mini-jack option instead.

The MX5021’s ship with the above listed three speakers, as well as all the cables you will need. Also included are the satellite wall brackets, an infrared remote control (Volume control, base and treble control, and on/off switch), and a desktop control pad that has a nice turning knob, and has all the functions of the remote. (It is also the infrared remote control pick-up.)

Specifications:
Front speakers: 20 watts per channel at 6 ohms; 18,000 Hz 2 channels loaded
Subwoofer: 50 watts at 4 ohms; 150 Hz single channel loaded
System response: 30 Hz; 22 kHz (-10 dB)
Signal-to-noise ratio: Less than 80 dB
Satellite dimensions: 5.2 x 10.2 x 2.5 inches (W x H x D)
Subwoofer dimensions: 8.7 x 15.7 x 12.2 inches (W x H x D)
THX Certified
Shielded Satellites-For use near video monitors.
Auxiliary Input Jack-Connect two different audio sources – your CD player and MP3 Jukebox

The MX5021 speaker system is marketed at the serious audiophile.

There is more to testing a speaker system than listening to music, such as playing a DVD and listening to how well the speakers perform under both quite and loud moments during a movie. In this regard, the MX5021 sounded and performed superbly. Much better, in fact, than any other speaker system I have tested over the past three years.

The one draw back I have found (other than the not liking some songs thing) is that the power output is not quite up to par. They simply do not have enough power to suit my every desire. Or, more simply, they don’t go loud enough before distortion kicks in. When the wife and kids are away, I like to kick up the volume and jam! These speakers, while very fine in most situations, simply put, do not rock loud enough.

My overall impression, however, is that the MX5021 are a very nice speaker system. The shortcomings I mention above probably won’t be an issue with ninety-five percent of you, but my ear and experience with speaker systems are very trained at this point.

I very much enjoyed my time with the MX5021 speakers, and would highly recommend to anyone wanting to move away from simple computer speakers and move up to a more professional audiophile sound.

MyMac.com Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Gamers who can’t get enough card games, inventive simulations, and monkeys (Yes, I said monkeys), should take a three hour tour over to Freeverse Software and check out the news section for information on the game that will take the Mac gaming community by storm (or at least a brief period of precipitation)! After a wait of a few years, Freeverse Software is coming out with the sequel to its popular game “Wingnuts”. It’s called (in a fit of originality), “Wingnuts 2”.

For those of you who have never played the original, its concept is very similar to the 80s vintage arcade game “Time Pilot”. This top scroller starts you off on an aircraft carrier and you’re soon doing battle with hordes of other planes and ground based units in league with Baron von Schtopwatch. The nasty Baron has lots of tricks up his sleeve, including cannons, dirigibles, floating air bombs, and vintage fixed wing planes. If you manage to beat his nefarious minions, he sends his big bad boss plane (of course he does) to try and finish the job. Once you finish off the Boss Plane, it’s back to the carrier for some R and R. This doesn’t last long, and soon it’s back up in the air to fight the next wave.

Each wave gets progressively harder, with the Baron using more up-to-date planes and additional ground and ship based squadrons whose goal in life is to kill you. What fun! While zooming around trying to avoid destruction, you can pick up your fellow pilots, more fuel, shields, missiles, and better weapons. Points are scored off combination kills, people saved, fuel left, and other factors. While it’s nice to build up to a high score, the real challenge is how many waves you can get through before your last plane is destroyed. Yes, it’s one of those sometimes infuriating “Never really ends” types of games. All to the tune of what starts off very catchy and soon turns annoying (you can turn it off if you wish) soundtrack. The Baron himself taunts you along the way and you get encouragement from the obligatory uniformed girl (I assume she’s waiting for you back on the ship) on your side. There are different difficulty levels from reasonably easy to AHHHHH! MAKE IT STOP!

The best part of this game is how easy it is to figure out how to play. No mouse required, no obscure keyboard commands to get a better weapon or to try and jump or squat. Its mindless entertainment at it’s finest. Most top scrollers force you to move along a limited path with waves of bad guys coming out of nowhere until you get to a certain point where you fight a boss. In Wingnuts, you have a radar screen that shows you the location of everything you need to fight. Good thing too, because you have a limited amount of fuel to finish the level. When you get below a certain point, the good guys send along a plane that you can dock with to refuel. You move in 360 degrees anywhere you want to go within the game screen.

From what I’ve been able to gather, Wingnuts 2 is going to follow in the same vein with some additional tricks added (besides keeping yourself alive, you must also defend your carrier) to make it harder.

Freeverse has many other games to choose from and they’re all well done. Card games like Hearts or Spades, or strategy games like Wingnuts. You can download limited versions of almost all their games in a “try before you buy” mode. Companies like this and Ambrosia http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/ should be commended for their faith in the Mac community and the shareware games (Most of which are NOT available for Windows. Ha HA! IN YOUR FACE!) they produce. If you’re looking for some inexpensive irrelevant fun, try Wingnuts, and keep an eye out for Wingnuts 2. And keep an eye out for the monkeys.

The Best of The Joy of Tech
Nitrozac and Snaggy
Publisher: O’Reilly and Associates
ISBN: 0-596-00578-4
Page Count: 192
Rating: 4/5

I must be crazy; I was flamed so badly after my last review of a cartoon book (published on a much less friendly site) that I had to replace my asbestos review suit. ‘The Best of Joy of Tech‘ may be worth the risk.

Of course it’s easy to enjoy a cartoon book by a pair of cartoonists that share your prejudices. It is obvious from the cartoons that Nitrozac and Snaggy are Macintosh loving, Linux leaning, Microsoft loathing geeks. Hmmm, sounds like me.

Not that Nitrozac and Snaggy are totally one-eyed. They still have a dig at Apple and Macintosh owners along the way. Unlike quite a lot of cartoons about tech these two also see the more human side, just as likely to make a joke about your cat’s relationship to you and the computer as poke fun at LARTing end-users or pointy-headed bosses. Their cartoons are more about living with technology than working with it.

The book reproduces a couple of hundred of ‘The Joy of Tech‘ cartoons from their website, in improved color and resolution. The website features a new cartoon every couple of days. There are also a small number that are original for the book and some funny marginalia in a couple of spots. It also has the matching JoyPoll and a short comment about the cartoon in a ‘JoyWorld’ section at the back of the book.

I find a fairly large number of the cartoons repeatedly funny and most of the rest worth a chuckle. These two have a good eye for the whimsical, ironic and downright funny side to a wired in, geek life. They even manage to get in a sly reference to geek site Slashdot with a fake O’Reilly book, “Trolling In a Nutshell” with a troll wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “FIRST POST” on the cover and an Introduction by ‘Anonymous Coward’.

Oh, that reminds me. The book has a very Wozniak foreword by Steve himself and an introduction by David Pogue that is nowhere near as good as the book (I’m sorry David, but any self-respecting geek [male or female] would rather do almost anything than edit the Windows registry, starting with install a decent operating system and working all the way through to changing jobs, heck, I’d rather sleep with Jobs.)

The book is broken up into various sections, each with a theme. It starts with “Boot-Up” and continues with “4nim4l cr4ck3rs” (most about cats), the whimsical “Geek Love”, “Hacks and Cracks” (I loved the couple who want to get housing within 50 meters of a war-chalked wall), “Techie-daze”, “How about them *nix” (featuring the luscious ‘Linux Lass’), “The Joy of Mac”, “Who do you want to poke fun at today?” (You’ll enjoy the ‘Stress Relief Dartboard’), “Sci-Fi The Comic Frontier” and “Do You think I’m Xexy” before finishing with “The World According to Geek” (with ‘The Lord of The Root – One Geek To Rule Them All’, the two good looking woman who don’t shy away from maths and the Barbie ‘DotCom Rescue’ CD-ROM game)

If you go to Joy Of Tech you can grab a copy from the authors that has been signed (you even get a chance to ask for a custom inscription) and for an extra fee Nitrozac will even bless your book and attach a lucky sticker. You could go to the O’Reilly page, but since they don’t have example cartoons and I don’t imagine a cartoon book will ever have errata there isn’t much point.

It’s not easy to review a cartoon book. Suffice to say that I found the ‘toons in this book to be a good variety from amusing through to funny with some that are just a little too true to make me do more than groan. If you’ve never come across this pair then check out the site and if you like the last few examples then the book will not disappoint.

Tony contributes book reviews to MyMac.com. You can read more at Tonys Book Spot – Reviews and News

Showcasing the talent of our own Todd Long, this weekends archive spotlight features the Todd Long Collection Part 3. Click here to view!

with help from David Weeks
Detour Laptop Case
Company: Timbuk2
Price: $100.00
http://www.timbuk2.com

It is with some irony we finally present our review of Timbuk2’s versatile Detour laptop case. Mark Dwight, company CEO, provided an attractive red Detour bag at last January’s San Francisco Macworld Expo. This was the first item we received for evaluation at the conference, and it’s one of the last to be written about here in MyMac.com. We hope the wait was worthwhile.

MyMac.com’s Owen Rubin wrote a detailed, lengthy discussion, weeks ago, on Timbuk2’s Commute XL, which we suggest you read when convenient.

John “Nemo” Nemerovski carried a 12” iBook and enormous quantity of brochures plus personal effects in Detour throughout the entire Macworld SF week. The bag performed well, with a couple of grumbles. See down below.

Upon return to Arizona, Nemo asked David Weeks to audition Detour. Here are David’s comments. Be aware that references to laptop sleeves from BOOQ are made because we were comparing these products together. Our BOOQ review is linked here.

“This is a backpack, Nemo, not a computer attaché case,” said David. He continues: “You better leave a note to yourself which pocket you put your gear in because it has so many flaps, compartments, crannies, and nooks you could have your stuff but forget where it is. While not as elegant looking as Mamba from BOOQ, you get capacity instead of style.”

David placed his new 15” AluBook into the primary computer compartment, and observed that Detour holds the PowerBook widthwise as a snug fit. There’s not any extra room in this well-padded carrier, but its pockets and flaps are bellowed for expansion.

“To me this is a first-rate backpack,” David said, “because it has sufficient room for accessories, including usable exterior pockets. Detour’s majority of compartments have bellows and extra smaller sections all ready to be stuffed without distorting the shape of this bag.”

David loaded the case and set it on its bottom. “See,” he remarks, “this is a user friendly pack for somebody leaving a dorm in the morning, taking along a computer, sandwich or two, and school supplies for the day going to class. Detour’s balance is good when fully loaded.”

He then put on the hidden, included backpack straps and carried the fully-loaded bag around for a while. He said, “Detour’s straps are integrated and fully padded. Very easy to adjust for comfort. With a computer in backpack mode it won’t hug my back, which is fine. Straps are wide, comfy, and easy to adjust. The fabric handle is decent, with its firm rubber padding. The extra shoulder strap is reasonably okay when used without any padding, and water bottle holders on each side are a nice touch.”

David Weeks’ style-aware closing remarks were: “I hope Timbuk2 has other choices of colors because this red, Nemo, won’t go with an executive’s Brooks Brother overcoat. Color notwithstanding, I give it a MyMac.com rating of 5 out of 5.”

See the Timbuk2 site for additional color options.

Here are John Nemerovski’s remarks:

Unlike David, I feel Detour’s greatest assets are in its handle and shoulder strap (hefty shoulder pad available for slight additional cost). Every weekday for three months, after spending a week to pounding the carpet at Macworld’s Moscone Center and the pavement in San Francisco, I used (and will continue to use) my red Timbuk2 case. Under normal conditions I carry an original “toilet seat” Blueberry G3 iBook with all its cables, plus two external hard drives, two IOGEAR portable USB mini mice, and a stack of paperwork.

When FULLY loaded like during Macworld, Detour had balance and access problems, which I don’t replicate in my work mode. Its backpack straps don’t fit me well, in spite of CEO Mark Dwight’s personal explanation of their specific attributes. The carrying handle is darn good, except for its two seams that must be eliminated for Detour to receive a top “Nemo” recommendation.

Versatility is Detour’s strength. Backpack, shoulder bag, briefcase? Yep. Expansion is ample, but the angled shape and design (difficult to explain, but easy to observe at every Apple retail store) work against overloading this case. The multi-mode features justify its $100 price tag, as do Timbuk2’s dedication to rugged construction and ample pockets-within-pockets.

My major gripe seems puny, but both Owen and I were annoyed by the bottom front clasp dangling far below the case when not in use. Timbuk2: please change or fix! A Macworld pal worried about the longevity of Detour’s velcro, but we’ll need years to decide if that’s a valid concern.

Taking our MyMac.com rating system literally, I’m comfortable ranking Detour at 4 out of 5, because it is “A very decent product. Worth the time and investment, but look for competing products.”

USB 8-LED Flex Light
Company: IOGEAR
Price: $20
http://www.iogear.com

I’m using it now. Dark outside, low light in my office. Far end of Flex inserted into USB port on my iMac’s keyboard. Business end tilted at strange angle so maximum quantity of light falls onto the keyboard. Wish I could show you a photograph of this peculiar contraption at work, but no image does the trick.

I always set switch on top to highest illumination, with all eight LEDs active. Lower level has four active, which is almost useless. Best feature is OFF position, because otherwise Flex would be on whenever iMac is running, even in daylight. How many hours/days/years will Flex Light keep running? Should be quite a few, but for $20 US we can’t be too demanding.

Each morning Flex goes to work when I do, until blazing Arizona sunshine fills my office interior. After dinner more of the same. Temperature? The “bulb” unit gets a little warm, but that’s insignificant? Installer or manual? Not necessary. Plug and play in the most absolute way.

Cable is long enough to twist and bend into a zillion practical positions. Maximum illumination is achieved with LED head poised roughly one foot over the number keypad (right side), angled at approximately 45° down toward center of your alphabet (primary/left) keys.

Illumination is not splendid, but it is adequate for the task of seeing while typing in a dark or dimly-lit setting. Touch typists will benefit most, and huntnpeckers will have trouble at first because of shadows cast and lack of memorized key position.

Would I buy this thing? Yes, because its cool white light is easy on the eyes, and I’m happy not to use any more electricity than necessary in our resource-challenged world. I’m hooked on Flex Light, and will purchase a replacement once my review unit expires.

Our MyMac.com rating is 3 out of 5 for many demanding or inefficient typists, to 4 out of 5 for touch typists.

Honey, I sold the Bed, written by the late Susan Howerter, is just as great today as the day it was published, back in June 1998.

Since computers first entered our lives, much has changed. Like cooking. There was a time when I hustled around the kitchen coming up with 101 variations on Hamburger Helper and Shake & Bake. Now the kitchen’s become a place I pass through on the way to check my email. I’ve almost forgotten how to use the stove…. Read it here!

Seems the Wall Street Journal (Paid subscription required) is about two months behind in the times. They are reporting that users are returning the in-ear headphones at a high rate. (Thanks to MacMinute.com for the link.)

As it seems this is once again a hot topic, we are reposting this article from January 29th. Feel free to post your comments below the article.

Apple’s new In-Ear Headphones Quality Problem?

Not that I am any sort of investigative reporter, but I do happen to speak to a few people who work for Apple and Apple dealers. One such person has reported to me that the recently released Apple In-Ear headphones, retailing for US$39.00, are being returned at an alarming rate. The reason? They sound horrible.

I have not used these headphones before, but my contact tells me that most of the people who have purchased these new In-Ear headphones have complained that the sound is not good at all, and are much worse than the mini-headphones that ship with the iPod.

Another problem? They cannot accept returns on these headphones because of hygiene issues. They do, after all, go inside your ear. Once you take them out of the package, in other words, you own them.

Have you tried the new Apple In-Ear headphones? If so, what is your impression? Let us know, or contribute to the feedback feature below.

It is getting increasingly more difficult to find links to other Mac related websites. More and more, or perhaps less and less is a more appropriate term, the Mac websites out there seem reluctant to link to other Mac websites. There was a time when almost every Mac website had a links page, a dedicated place to find links to other Macintosh resources on the Internet. One such place is MacPicks, be sure to check them out as well!

While there are specialty Mac linking websites out there to find new Mac related news items or stories, such as our friends at the super-popular MacSurfers Headline News, there is very few places to find static links, with a description of what the site offers. We here at MyMac.com aim to change that.

Since this will be a continuously updated list, I have broken the links up into sub-pages. Simply click the category below for links to those websites that fall under that category. There are some websites, which defy a single classification, such as MacObserver.com, which offer reviews, news, and commentary, so you will find those listed multiple times.

Please feel free to email us links you feel we should add, be it your own or sites that you visit, and we will add them is as we go along. If you can, please include a brief description of what the site is, which will allow us to more quickly add it to our links pages.

This will be an ongoing project here at MyMac.com, with sites added often. We will start small (to get the ball rolling) so send us your links today. More categories will be added as time goes on as well.

Enjoy! And if you find your site listed here, and wish to link back to us, please feel free!

Link Submission

Rocport 4 Portable FireWire/USB 2.0 Hard Drive
Company: Rocstor

Price: $225.00

http://www.rocstor.com

What is this company? Where did they come from? Why didn’t I know about them until the final hour of the last day of Macworld 2004 Expo, last January?

At the end of an obscure aisle, far from the commotion at many better-known popular hardware vendors, I encountered Tom, employee #1 at Rocstor. He was enthusiastic about the opportunity to have his stylish, versatile products reviewed in MyMac.com, and posed for a portrait.

I recall Tom explained that Rocstor built its business developing and providing high-capacity external drives and RAID units for demanding content professionals (think: Hollywood), and now the company wants to expand into consumer equipment. If all hard drives and CD or DVD burners are essentially identical under the surface, Rocstor gizmos stand out from the pack with sleek, sexy design plus “I want one!” physical distinction (think: iPod).

My review unit is a 40GB 5400 RPM combo FireWire/USB2 external bus-powered drive with a one year warranty. An attractive leatherette case is included in the box, as are a lean instruction manual, heavy-duty FireWire 400 cable (FW 800 drives will be available soon), and a peculiar custom cable to provide USB2 connectivity for all recent Macs or PCs without requiring an electrical power source. I tried USB both ways, just to make sure—Rocport works fine.

With slim, light 40GB Rocport in my pocket day after day for an entire month, I’m the happiest data delivery dude in Dodge (or Tucson). I pull it out upon arrival at each tutorial client’s house or business, and watch their expressions while I’m connecting it to their computer. “Whazzat?” they ask. “It’s an external storage device with more capacity than your computer has,” I reply. Ten seconds of silence. “You gonna leave it here?” “No,” I say, “but I’ll show you where you can buy one,” as I navigate to Rocstor’s web site.

They use third party resellers (think: MacMall) for sales and distribution, because Rocstor is a manufacturer. Drive prices are affordable. SmartDisk comes to mind as a competitor who makes more rugged (and somewhat stylish) compact drives, and WiebeTech is known for their super-speedy (and almost fashionable) units, but UNLESS YOU DROP IT (please don’t!) Rocport is a winner on price/performance/form factor criteria.

Are you concerned about Rocport’s tech specs or benchmarks? Don’t worry. I tested it using real world data transfer demands, and it flew through its paces. You can get all the techy info from Rocstor’s web site but I’ll save you the effort.

It fits comfortably into my moderate-sized adult hand with easy fingertip-curl around the case. Brushed-aluminum Rocport looks great on or off (there’s a switch!), and the case’s groovy blue glowing front plus ultra-quiet operation and cool temperature are bonuses. Weight is 6.4 ounces, and Macintosh HFS Plus is preformatted.

Owners need to register for 100 days of toll-free technical support during business hours, Pacific Time. Rocstor wants to climb the mighty wall of established Apple-compatible storage peripherals, and we’ll look forward to reviewing additional portable and desktop items as they become available.

Anything wrong with Rocport 4 Portable FireWire/USB 2.0 Hard Drive? Unless you’re planning to play rugby or body-surf with it strapped to your biceps, I’m comfortable rating this high-class drive at 5 out of 5. Keep ‘em coming, Tom.

Now I’ll archive this review onto Rocport, cuz it works!

by John Nemerovski, with help from David Weeks

BOOQ PowerSleeve 12
Company: BOOQ

Price: $45

http://www.booqbags.com/Detail.bok?no=18

During the last hour of the ultimate day at January’s San Francisco Macworld Expo I was finally able to examine an exciting new line of PowerBook and iBook computer cases by a company with an intriguing name and clever logo. The BOOQ booth was so crowded during my previous attempts that I was worried there would be no more laptop sleeves for MyMac.com to investigate. Founder, CEO, and designer Thorsten Trotzenberg gave me two very different items to review.

First comes PowerSleeve 12, a dual-purpose shoulder/hand carrying case. Its heavy rubber handle is solid, providing a good grip that won’t dig into your hand during a sprint out to airport gate G-398 at terminal 74. A large, comfy pad is easy to slide into position on PS12’s adjustable, removable shoulder strap.

Fabric on the sleeve is black heavy-duty ripstop nylon. A two-piece substantial buckle and strap close firmly and securely, but the bottom section, a three-pronged inserter, dangles far below the case when not being used.

There’s a little zippered pouch on the front flap, only suitable for small thin accessories. A similar but larger full-back zippered compartment on the rear can possibly hold a charger and cable but not a whole lot else. Beware of the battle of the bulge.

PowerSleeve 12 is fashioned to be sleek and thin, with an attractive, lean design. Its hefty latch will never pop open by accident, and the case is constructed with ample padding around its edges.

If all you need to carry is your 12” PowerBook or iBook, this is a good case, but it’s far from being a suitcase for your laptop. David would like to have some more room for accessories. PS12 is too small for his personal taste and road usage, because he sometimes need to take week’s worth of peanut butter sandwiches when he flies.

Readers should be aware that BOOQ’s PS12 has two intended applications, according to Thorsten, that differ from David’s usage. PowerSleeve 12 slides into another backpack as added protection to your laptop (its main reason to exist), plus it lets you carry your laptop on short commutes (to a wireless coffee shop, or from office to office).

Our rating: for carrying a teensy computer and not much else, BOOQ’s PowerSleeve is a very good product, with a MyMac.com rating of 4 (Nemo) to 4.5 (Weeks).

BOOQ Mamba.XS 12” Laptop Case
Company: BOOQ

Price: $70

http://www.booqbags.com/Detail.bok?no=63

Do you know what “mamba” means? If not, stay in front of your computer and don’t venture into the tropical rain forest. Think “boa,” because the smaller case we’re reviewing easily zips onto BOOQ’s larger Boa.XL backpack for overnight web surfing in the jungles (concrete or other).

Mamba.XS is versatile, beginning with its split personality as solo case or accessory carrier, and continuing with included hand-grip plus single/double padded shoulder straps. Mamba’s rear support surface is heavily padded and ribbed for strength.

David doesn’t like the fact that Mamba.XS has adequate room for carrying stuff inside the zippered front compartment, but when it is fully opened, everything comes rocketing out of the inside front panel pouch. You’ll need to make sure which end is up when you open the front flap.

A 12” iBook or PowerBook slides into the main zippered compartment, which has good padding, including a hefty bottom cushion. Mamba.XS’s fabric handle has no rubber grip, which seems a mistake when compared to PowerSleeve 12 and other competitors.

A thin, zippered storage compartment inside Mamba’s front section exhibits the same type of problem as mentioned above, meaning you have to be careful and open it all the way or your precious contents will spill out sides. David would rather not have to unzip both accessory sections fully for access to their pouches. With no bellows expandability, watch for big bulges when overstuffing interior sections. BOOQ includes a nice touch: a little clip for your keys.

We realize Mamba.XS is designed to be an extremely compact, lightweight case that lets you carry all necessary accessories. Obviously, this product is not meant to be a full-featured backpack, and should not be viewed from this angle. Attached to the Boa.XL, the combination creates a full-featured backpack for larger laptops and full accessory storage.

Examining Mamba.XS’s straps, we observe backpack straps that hook onto D-rings that attach to the bag with strong plastic loops. Adjustable shoulder pads are too easy to slide around when the case is in backpack mode. As a shoulder bag instead of backpack, the pad on the single strap works more normally.

Once you adjust Mamba’s strap(s) you should be all set, but David suggests users might want to remove the strap pads and simply use unpadded straps in backpack mode. He advises that you won’t need serious padding for a trek up Baltoro Glacier with your PowerBook using Mamba.XS, because a traveler who needs more storage space will graft this versatile small case onto its larger sibling.

For standalone travel, David remains critical of Mamba’s lack of storage space, saying, “If I’m going to go the time and trouble to use a backpack, I still need expandable pockets.” Our MyMac.com rating is 3.5 (Weeks) to 4 (Nemo).

It’s a decent case, except for our unhappiness with the shoulder pads. “This is a shoulder bag passing itself off as backpack,” says David, excepting its attachability to Boa.XL, which we haven’t yet tested. Stay tuned to MyMac.com, please!

In February 1999, the late Ralph Luciani proclaimed, “I HATE MY MAC!” in the pages of My Mac Magazine. Why? Read it for yourself!