Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C8180 All-In-One Printer
Company: HP
http://www.hp.com
US $399.99
I’ve been a happy user of my HP 7280 all-in-one unit for a number of months. After I reluctantly returned the C7280 review unit, I put my money where my review mouth was, bought one, and have had no regrets.
HP asked me to review the C8180, and here’s what I found after using on it for quite a while.
First off, the 8180 is not simply a 7280 with HP’s revisions du jour; it has a higher resolution scanner and printer. According to HP, the additional sensors that make up the 96 bit scanner sensor produce better color accuracy as well as reduced noise and grain from negatives. It is more obvious when scanning certain colors, like saturated reds and greens, and scanning certain types of originals, like offset press or inkjet prints. As we’ll see, actually producing a 96 bit scan is awkward.
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Storyist
Company: Storyist Software
Price: (Download + CD) — $69.00
(Download Only) — $59.00
http://www.storyist.com/
With Apple’s continued success with artists it’s no surprise that an abundance of writing tools are written for the platform. Storyist is a unique tool that really takes advantage of OSX and is geared towards creative writers. Storylist is an organization tool, word processor, and format template for novelists and screen writers. But the question that I ask myself when confronted with one of these organization aids is, will this be better than a standard spreadsheet?
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Recommending a good book for newcomers to the Mac platform is always tricky. You want to recommend something that doesn’t just cover all the basics but also has some depth as well. A book that only covers the simplest aspects of the Mac interface like how to copy files or connect to the Internet will quickly become obsolete as the user’s skills increase. So the best sort of beginner’s book is one that doesn’t just cover the interface and the operating system but also explains how to use the supplied programs to complete a variety of different projects.
Mac OS X Leopard Edition: The Missing Manual by David Pogue (O’Reilly, $34.99) and My New Mac by Wallace Wang (No Starch Press, $29.95) are books that meet this challenge in completely different ways. Pogue’s book essentially takes an OS-centric view, running through all the different utilities and applications, explaining what they do and how you can use them. Along the way he reveals all kinds of tips and tricks that will make a Mac user’s life easier and more productive. Wang’s book takes a different approach, focusing instead on specific projects and describes how they can be done (mostly) using just the stuff that comes as part of the Macintosh OS. By steadily ramping up the complexity of each project, Wang expands the reader’s skills so that by the end of the book pretty much every major aspect of the Mac OS will have been used in one way or another.
Kensington Ci70 Keyboard with USB Ports
Company: Kensington
Price: $49.99 USD
http://www.kensington.com
I’m a pretty fast typist but the one thing I kept hearing while I was typing at home was “Why are you typing so loudly?” Hey, it wasn’t me, it was just the keyboard responding to my fingers flying over the keys. I’ve always, for the most part, used an Apple keyboard hooked up to my Macs. You know, the big, almost sounds like a typewriter, keyboards.
Now when I purchased and started to use my new MacBook in January, there were no longer any complaints of my banging the keyboard to death. Why, maybe because of the change in the keyboard style from the larger keys to the shorter, chicklet-like, keys on the MacBook. So when the chance came around to get a new Kensington Keyboard, with added USB ports, for my regular desktop Mac, I couldn’t resist.
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Ever since Steve Jobs got up in front of the World Wide Developer Conference and announced “yes – the rumours are true!” and thereby ushered in the Intel Macintosh age, many of us were tantalized by two diverse possibilities.
The first was the possibility of running Windows natively on a Mac. After all, switching to the Intel architecture meant that a Mac would effectively be a PC, and with some fairly minor differences this has proven to be the case. he existence of Apple’s officially approved Boot Camp software for installing and running Microsoft Windows confirms this, and the clever solutions from Parallels and VMWare allow Windows to run as virtual machines under OS X. But what about the opposite? If Apple had redeveloped OS X to run on the Intel architecture, how easy would it be to run that same OS X on a standard PC designed to run Windows?
It turned out that it would be very easy indeed – principally because the development platform Apple made available to allow programmers to test their work under Intel OS X were in fact standard PCs. Naturally, as soon as the first real Intel Macs were launched, attempts were made to install OS X on conventional PCs.A thriving community and a formal project (knows as OSX86) has worked since the release of the first Intel Macs to provide simple and reliable methods to get OS X working on ordinary PCs.
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LAbesace Lime Drop MacBook Laptop Bag
Company: Be.ez
http://www.be-ez.com
Retail: $69.99
With out wishing to stereotype the typical MyMac magazine reader, let me ask you a question. Have you ever shopped for a handbag? If not for yourself, perhaps accompanied a loved one or friend? It is a frankly bewildering experience. They come in so many different shapes, colors, sizes and prices that I had no idea how my wife was ever going to be able settle on just one.
Laptop bags are a little like that too. You can pick up a cheap no-brand generic black bag from your local superstore, or you can spend substantially more on something with a particular design focus or features. Where to start? Be.ez, the French laptop bag specialist, reckon they have you covered with a wide range of bag styles and colors that stand out from the crowd. I reviewed their plum-colored LEvertigo messenger bag a while back, and found it much to my liking. This time round, I am looking at the LAbesace bag, sized for the 13.3-inch MacBook.
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Tim, Guy, David, and Sam talk about the latest happenings in the Macintosh world. A great discussion about Microsoft wraps the show. Plus, Nemo chats with Jim Dicker.
Jumsoft iWeb Themes
Company: Jumsoft
Price: $9.99 or all ten themes for $69.99
http://www.jumsoft.com
Requirements: iWeb 2 from iLife 08
As a long time user of iWeb I have become somewhat jaded with the themes that Apple supplies with their easy to use website creation program. So much so that I did a series of articles on how to use it and make your site look anything OTHER than yet another iWeb site. It’s relatively easy to do so, cut this piece there, add a little here, not entirely unlike gourmet cooking but with a Betty Crocker Easy-Bake oven.
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FS100 Digital Video Camera
Company: Canon
Price: $323.23 (Amazon.com)
http://www.usa.canon.com
I’ve been avoiding buying a new camcorder to replace the 8 year old DVC tape unit for awhile now. There were plenty of tempting offerings, but none matched the feature set and price point that I was looking for until I happened upon Canon’s FS100 model at an Apple Store. While giving it a once over there, I liked the light weight, the responsive and variable zoom, the microphone input, and that at $399, it was still very much reasonable in price. I almost bought it right there at the Apple Store, but resolved to sleep on it first and check out what other people were saying about it. I’m glad I did, and afterwards I almost gave it a miss but decided that no other camcorder available currently in the this price range would meet my needs.
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SCOTTEVEST/SeV Essential Jacket-Men’s
Company: SCOTTEVEST, Inc.
Price: $120.00
http://www.scottevest.com
IT WAS JUST before 7:00 AM when I got the call. I grabbed my laptop bag and my various and sundry gadgets and hurried over to HQ.
Pennymoney flashed her usual smile for me as I entered. “They’re waiting for you in there, Gil. Looks important.”
“You know there’s nothing more important to me than you, Pennymoney,” I assured her. She rolled her eyes and buzzed me into the conference room.
“You sent for me, sir?”
“Sit down, double-O zero, and try to pay attention for once.”
“L,” the head of AltiM@c Computer Consulting, was in no mood for pleasantries.
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The Moment It Clicks
By Joe McNally
O’Reilly
256 pages
US $54.99, CAN $59.99, UK £29.99
http://www.PeachPit.com
ISBN-13 978-0-321-54408-7
If you’re a serious a photographer who keeps up with what’s going on in the photography industry, you’ve no doubt heard about acclaimed photographer Joe McNally’s recently published book, The Moment It Clicks. It has been blogged and reviewed aplenty on many websites. His friend and editor, Photoshop guru Scott Kelby, has promoted the book on his blog and other places, and there’s been a healthy debate amongst Amazon.com reviewers about how useful the book is or isn’t to learning McNally’s awesome photography techniques.
I’m not here to necessarily write a review of the book. There’s plenty of reviews already published. I want to respond with my own personal likes and dislikes of what some readers are calling a great guide book, while others claiming it’s basically a great coffee table photography with little to learn from. First off, when I saw it in the bookstore, I simply wanted it for the awesome photos and the creative energy the images convey. I could tell that with the sparse amount of text that there wouldn’t be a wealth of how-to information in the book, so I wasn’t expecting that.
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LaCie 1TB external Hard Drive, design by Neil Poulton
Company: Lacie
Price: $269
www.lacie.com
Hardware Requirements: G3/4/5 PowerPC/ Intel Mac with open USB1.1/2, FireWire 400, or eSATA port
Designer hard drives. Has it really come to this? A hard drive should be utilitarian, be robust and have oodles of space for all the stuff we want to put on it. Considering that we rarely look at them except over whatever icon is assigned to them (or that we assign to them ourselves) on our desktops to access information and data, who cares what they look like and I’ll be damned, DAMNED I say if I’ll buy a drive based on looks alone.
Except…
This drive looks cool. It’s all black in a Monolith/ 2001: A Space Odyssey kind of way. When it came in for review, my first impression was to dismiss it in the same way I dismissed those Ferrari-branded laptops from some time ago. The outside packaging gave me no reason to believe that this wasn’t just another average hard drive with pretensions.
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Drive Genius 2 (Version 2.0.3)
Company: Prosoft Engineering, Inc.
Price: $99.00
http://www.prosofteng.com/
Prosoft bills Drive Genius as “THE industry standard disk utility for the Mac platform.” That’s a big claim, so I thought I’d have a look at the latest Leopard-compatible version, Drive Genius 2, to see if I could improve the performance of my 1.83 GHz MacBook. Short answer? Yes! Long answer? Read on…
OVERVIEW: Continue reading »
I sometimes tutor Mac users and offer help when things go wrong. Most problems I encounter are simply due to lack of knowledge, not hardware issues. I’ve also found over the years that average users hardly have a clue when it comes to disk maintenance. Most of them get by just fine, thanks to Apple engineering and the general level of component quality. That could change, though, as more and more people fill up their hard drives with digital media files.
DIY Upgrade Bundle
Other World Computing
Price: $162.99 (320GB Samsung 5400 RPM+ OWC On-The-Go USB 2.0/eSATA enclosure)
www.macsales.com
When I bought my MacBook it came with a “spacious” 80GB hard drive (HD). That HD filled up pretty quick and I moved to a 160 GB HD which was the largest 2.5” drive (that is the thickness HD measurement that fits in a portable) available at the time. Now I’ve filled that up. After watching HD capacity grow over the past year (it’s up to 500 GB now) I decided to upgrade my MacBook drive.
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Download the show here, or via iTunes
What went wrong? Apple’s launch of the iPhone 3G, Moble Me, iPhone 2.0, and the App Store were fraught with problems, and Tim, Guy, and David look into it. We also talk with Bill Dudney from GalaFacatory Software, an iPhone software developer. And Sam Levin drops in for a Cool Mac Picks.
Example:
My gas station down the road has gas priced at $4.00 per gallon. (I wish)
It is reported on the news that the price of a barrel of oil goes up $3. The next day, that gas station is selling gas at $4.03. Continue reading »
Isn’t that the SAME gas that was in the tank yesterday, that sold for $4/gal?!?! How could that gas now cost more???
Brenthaven Prolite 1 Computer Bag
Company: Brenthaven
Price: $99.95
Available from Dr. Bott
When I bought my MacBook I got a free bag. I thought this was great, since I wouldn’t have to spend more money on yet another accessory. I’ve been using this bag for the better part of a year now, and I must say, it is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever owned. I’ve hated this bag since day one and recently at a business meeting, the flap opened up and the bag “threw up” all over a conference table. I had reached the limits of my patience.
I started researching computer bags and quickly realized there are somewhere near one bazillion of them for sale. Even worse, going to an Apple Store, Best Buy, or any computer store only gave me access to about four or five different brands. That left one bazillion minus five left to look at. This was not going to be easy.
At this point I started visiting Amazon and other sites, reading reviews that others had posted, and asking anyone that had a bag over their shoulder what they thought of it. Funny how I found that most of the people I asked hated their bags as well. Someone should really do a study on computer bag compatibility, “How much do you hate your bag?” on a sliding scale.
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Unison i-XD
Company: Cygnett
Price: $49.99
www.cygnett.com
The Unison i-XD is a multi-function dock for charging, syncing, connecting speaker systems to your iPod for audio, and playing video from your iPod to a TV (5th gen iPods only).
The unit supports audio on the Touch, all Nanos, the iPod Classic, and 5th gen iPods. Video out is supported on the 5th gen iPods, but none of the newer models.
What you get
The unit itself is a nice looking and compact dock that takes up very little space. It is about 1 inch high, and a little larger than a business card for width and height. It comes with adapters for the various iPod models, and it also comes with all of the cables you would need for any of the connections. No need to run out and buy cables
Also included is a slim remote that is very comfortable to hold and very easy to use. The buttons are soft and spaced nicely so that even a person with larger hands can easily use it. The remote gives you all of the functionality you would use controlling the iPod with the click wheel, or other controls.
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Time to look at some of the iPhone / iPod Touch apps. David tries to sell his iPhone on ebay and runs into problems. Plus a GREAT deal we found on MacSales.com.
The HP All-In-One L7590 Printer
Company: HP
List: $299 Street: $199
http://www.hp.com
I am a fan of the multi-function printing device. They take up less space than four machines combined (obviously) and I only need to buy supplies for one machine. Time was, however, when owning one meant compromise on all functions. However, about 8 years ago, the first of what I considered good devices in this class started showing up from companies like Cannon, Brother, and HP, and their abilities continue to grow.
I own an older HP G85xi All-In-One. This is a full color, full duplex (with adapter), 4-ink printer, copier (with sheet feeder), scanner, and fax machine all in one reasonably sized device. It was not cheap 8 years ago, at almost $700, and to use it on a network with both Macs and PCs, I had to add a $300 Jetdirect 300X network interface box, as that printer was USB and parallel only. So, for nearly $1000, I had one device of amazing quality that took up little space, and now, almost 8 years later, is still working fairly well. Except…
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MyMac Podcast #385
MyMac Podcast #384