The Best Thing about Adobe’s New Photoshop.com is remarkable toll-free live person phone support
Web site: http://www.photoshop.com/
Cost: Free
Photoshop.com is Adobe’s new free Internet venue for uploading, editing, and sharing digital photos. Photoshop Elements 7 (Windows only) is being sold with aggressive promotion of Photoshop.com.
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Stellar Phoenix Macintosh 3.0
Company: Stellar Information Systems Ltd.
Price: $129.95 single-user license
(see Web site for administrator and technician licensing options)
http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/
In my line of work, I’m often called upon by my clients to recover files they’ve accidentally deleted, or to attempt a complete recovery of their data from a crashed hard drive. Over time I’ve found that, just as you can’t be too rich or too thin, you can’t have too many data recovery programs at your disposal, as they each have their own particular strengths and weaknesses when it comes to saving your client’s bacon.
Recently I purchased a copy of Stellar Phoenix Macintosh, version 2, in an attempt to retrieve data from a very stubborn and badly-crashed hard drive that was exhibiting the “click of death” and generally refused to yield to other data recovery apps. To my surprise—and my client’s delight—Stellar Phoenix Macintosh allowed me to create a disk image file of the drive in question by reading around the bad sectors, and I was able to recover 99% of the data contained thereon. I did, however, encounter numerous problems with the software throughout the recovery process.
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Speck’s ToughSkin for iPhone 3G
Company: Speck Products
Price: $34.95 USD
http://www.drbott.com
Imagine your typical morning routine, hurriedly typing an email response to your boss as you stand in line at the local Starbucks when the unimaginable happens. The customer ahead of you swings their book bag over their shoulder, connecting with the most important part of your body, the arm holding your brand new iPhone 3G. Suddenly, caffeine is forgotten, and your world enters an agonizing slow motion view of your prized possession about to slam into the polished floor.
Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro
Company: Logitech
Price $129.99
www.logitech.com
This past spring I made it a mission of mine to find as many Mac compatible webcams as possible. It hasn’t been easy. They seem to be few and far between. Recently, Logitech released the QuickCam Vision Pro, a Mac only camera, that is one of the best webcams I have tried.
The QuickCam Vision Pro is not cheap. It retails for $129.99, but you get what you pay for. The unit is a nice solid camera that has an easel like clip for mounting on a monitor, laptop, is resting on a counter surface. It has a camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and a built in microphone.
When I say you get what you pay for, I mean it. The picture quality on this unit is fantastic! It is capable of up to 720p images up to 1600×1200 resolution. I was blown away by the crispness and clarity of the image. Of course, when talking over the internet the image quality will also depend on the connection speed on both ends. In addition to the great quality, the camera has autofocus, which quickly adjusts as you move the camera around.
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Audiobyte Computer Speakers w/ Amplifier
Axiom Home Theaters
Price: $349.00 USD
EPZero Subwoofer
Price: $179.00
AxiomAudio.com
One never knows what to expect when a company invites evaluation of the product they produce. I suppose they think that, for the money, their product can’t be beat. Well, guess what? There are lots of products out there which can be beat, easily, especially “for the money.” I don’t know why some companies even bother putting out a product at all except for the fact that not everyone knows a good “widget” from a bad one. However, in our estimation, the Axiom Audiobyte Computer Speakers will stand with any home or professional speakers in their class.
I must say that when I first viewed these little speakers and held them in my hand I was impressed with the immediate signs of good workmanship and heft. Those two things alone won’t win the race, but it is certainly a good start. After all, no speaker system is going to sound good if it’s not put together well. Unpacking the sub-woofer and separate amplifier whetted my excitement and spurred me to set the system up ASAP.
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Download the show here, or via iTunes
This week, topics include the new UnBox, Podcamp Michigan, the Macworld After Effects review, BBEdit 9, 6GB of RAM, Refurbished MacBooks, Macintosh collections, and we pull in Jimi Lee from Indie Radio Chattanooga!
Other World Computing Pick
6GB MacBook Pro RAM
Links from the show:
Podcamp Michigan
Macworld Review: After Effects CS4
Indie Radio Chattanooga
Ten One Design’s Pogo Stylus (for iPhone 3G, iPhone and iPod Touch)
Company: Ten One Design
Price: $19.95 USD
http://www.drbott.com
Actual situation… driving down the highway, doing the posted speed limit (plus a few miles) and traffic is pre-rush hour and what happens? A text message from my son. Well, I know enough not to even try answering him even if my texting capabilities were as good as his. (bedsides one should not be texting while driving!) So, I do the next best thing. I hand it to my wife and tell her to respond. What happened? She couldn’t respond back because of her nails. So I wound up calling him to respond to his query. Problem was that where he texted me from, he could not answer the phone call.
OtterBox Defender for iPhone 3G
Company: Otter Products, LLC
Price: $49.95
http://www.OtterBox.com
There are literally scores of cases for the iPhone 3G out there in the market place. Leather, hard plastic, soft plastic, designed to slip in a pocket or clip on to your belt. They all offer some form of protection for your iPhone 3G. However, if you are really looking to provide some real protection, based upon the environment you use your iPhone in or just the way you interact with your iPhone, then you really do need to check out OtterBox’s Defender series for the iPhone 3G.
BBEdit 9
Company: Bare Bones Software
Price: $125.00
Upgrade Version $30
Educational $49
http://www.barebones.com
When we last reviewed our intrepid text editor, back in March 2005, BBEdit was at version 8. During the past three years, BBEdit has enjoyed a few more “point” revisions to version 8. Then the programming gnomes at Rich Siegel’s Bare Bones Software re-entered their cave to crank out the next major update. Version 9 arrived several months ago, and it’s currently up to version 9.02.
What hath the BareBones coders wrought? Quite a bit! Rather than make this review altogether too long, here’s a link to the Bare Bones web page listing the improvements, enhancements, and new goodies in BBEdit 9.
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Comments. Be heard!
MyMac Podcast #403
Review
Review
Review
MyMac Podcast 400-5!