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- Weekly App Store Roundup: Jan, 24. 2009
Unholster your iPhone and boot up iTunes because it’s that time of the week when we all gather round the App Store and have a look at some of the freshest picks from the last seven days.
While I’ve been wandering the boutiques and bars of Berlin this week, things have been busy for Apple. First up was the Q1 conference call where Tim Cook — standing in for Steve Jobs — revealed that the $199 iPhone price point is working well.
Less pleasing for those in Cupertino was a court ruling that, due to the fact that the first generation iPod Nano is overly susceptible to scratch damage, Apple is going to have to pay up to $25 to owners of the tiny damaged device.
Setting the serious stuff aside, let’s get down to business with this week’s App Store Roundup.
This week, I’ve been looking at iSniper, Slingshot Lite, Fantastic Contraption and Haruzou - Photo Uploader.
iSniper ($1.99)
Back in my student days, I was an avid online gamer; favorites included Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Battlefield 1942. My class of choice was always sniper — you need to be cunning, patient and then quick on the draw when the time comes. While I’ve ditched the gaming PC for my luxurious but FPS-free Macbook Pro, my trigger-finger still itches for the thrill of shooting faces off. Imagine my joy therefore at discovering iSniper, a game which strips away all the running and jumping, leaving just the satsifying snipey bits.Slingshot Lite (FREE)
Slingshot Lite brings applied physics to your iPhone, as you literally slingshot your missiles ’round planets in a bid to destroy your target. It’s a game of trial and error, constantly refining the variables until you achieve success. The best thing though is that, due to all the number balancing and variable tweaking, you feel exceedingly clever after completing each stage. It’s like an ego-boost in your pocket. And, if you dig the lite version, the full edition is available for a few bucks.Fantastic Contraption ($2.99)
First things first, let’s get this out the way: this game is an absolute must have. It should sit in your iPhone game collection alongside that other essential title, Rolando. The idea is that you craft your own clever contraptions which move themselves — through the joys of phsyics — to the goal area. Chuck together a device using cogs, wood and other bits and bobs, then set your creation in to action. The game even features a built in level editor, extra levels and the ability to share your contraptions with the community. If you’re still not positive that you should immediately purchase this game, go try it out now, online.Haruzou - Photo Uploader (free)
Even though I’ve just purchased an awesome new camera (Panasonic DMC LX3, for those wondering), my iPhone (with the help of Polarize) is still getting some photo love. In the past I’ve recommended Klick for uploading to Flickr, it’s feature-rich, polished and free; however, some users may want a more bare-bones solution to getting their snaps on Flickr. Haruzou uploads to both Flickr and Picasa, includes multiple-image uploading, re-size and rotate, plus it’s totally free.Just One More Thing
Back in the Summer of ‘08, Kentaro Kumagai released an app for touch and iPhone called iview. The description on the App Store was lacking, there was only one preview image and, despite being free, the app has only notched up one review on the store (albeit a four star rating).
General App Store fluff? No, it’s anything but, this is an entertaining toy for passing the time and, at best, a feature-rich re-blogging tool for users of Tumblr. The problem is that Kumagai just ain’t the world’s best copy-writer — he’s not so hot at marketing his wares — as such, this app got lost amidst the general onslaught of App Store releases.
The app allows you to view images from several image book-marking services such as FFFFound!, We Heart It and Vi.Sualize.Us – it’s a great way to wallow in weird imagery or browse for creative inspiration.
For users of Tumblr — a site that is somewhere in between Twitter’s micro-posts and traditional blogging — iview takes it to the next level, allowing users to reblog any image with a quick tap of a button. No forms to fill in, no multiple taps, no text entry. Just click the reblog button and it’s posted to your esoteric corner of the Internets.
For creatives on the look out for inspiration, Tumblr users looking for their next potential meme or iPhone owners with a penchant for visual stimulation, iview is a wonderful app in need of some serious championing. Grab it, use it and tell me if you dig it.
That’s all from the App Store this week, I’ll be back next Saturday with more of the latest releases. In the meantime, drop by the comments and let me know which apps you’ve been looking at.
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Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Daily Apple: Take 3, Bad Apples, & Boot Camp Heritage
Apple TV “Take 3″ Update Next Month, Here’s a Wish List - TG Daily seems to be under the impression that Apple is in the business of giving customers their dream machines, so they’ve provided a list of exactly what it’ll take to propel Apple TV to the next level with their upcoming update. If they provide these things, I’ll buy one.
Six Bad Apples Don’t Spoil The Whole Bunch, Baby - PCWorld, eager to reaffirm the value of their own chunk of the market, are celebrating Apple’s 25th anniversary by printing a big smacking list of Apple’s notable failures. I still know a guy who uses number six, but the list doesn’t lie.
Removing the iWork Trojan From Your Ill-Gotten Gains - In case you somehow mistakenly downloaded iWork ‘09 from a Torrent site, and got stuck with the Trojan it came packed with, Mac.Blorge has produced this lovely guide on how to rid yourself of your unwelcome guest. Simple process, since it’s just a program designed to get rid of it.
Windows On Apple in ‘83 - Long before BootCamp, Parallels, VMware, or anything else came along, there was Windows on an Apple computer. It used a hardware emulator card to get it running, but there it is, in full green and black glory. Cost, on top of computer and Windows 1.0 purchase: $899.
Very Reasonable Suggestions Which Will Go Unheard - Here’s some business tips for Apple’s board of directors, from an Apple shareholder. Maybe when they’re done laughing, they will do exactly the opposite.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Keep Your Fonts Together With Fontcase
Bohemian Coding have announced the public release of their font management application Fontcase, providing an elegant and powerful workflow to help you organize the fonts you have installed on your system.
Aiming to act as iPhoto for your typography, Fontcase has been designed with applications like iTunes and iPhoto in mind; the interface is very intuitive and uncluttered. It behaves just as you’d expect a Mac application should, with great use of subtle animation and a solid feature set. I’ll be offering a brief overview of Fontcase, along with explaining how it can help you manage your font collection.
The Current Situation
The default application which ships with OS X to manage your font library is Font Book, a fairly basic app with limited functionality. A few other tools are available, such as Font Agent Pro, FontExplorer X and Suitcase Fusion, but none really stand out as an excellent choice. There has long been a lack of a great font management app for the Mac.
A few of the features which Fontbook cites as pushing it ahead of the competition are:
- Collects all fonts in its own vault and carry it between Macs
- Beautiful streamlined interface
- Activating and Deactivating fonts or entire collections
- Metadata support
- Multiple preview options
- Sharing between macs
- Print previews of your fonts
- Dragging sample texts and glyphs as pdf
Fontbook’s Interface
The interface does indeed have echoes of iPhoto, with similar sorting and resizing functionality. Icons across the top of the app allow you to activate and deactivate fonts, browse by preview or list, show a sample sentence, or view in depth information about a particular font.
One real advantage over Font Book is the number of options for previewing fonts. You can do so with any sample text you want and you can view individual glyphs as waterfall text or as body text. If you want to go in to more detail, there’s a special Compare-mode which was designed to compare a small set of fonts and allow you to choose the right font from them.
The sidebar allows you to organize fonts by collections, smart tags and designers, and everything in the interface can be dragged; fonts to a tag in the sidebar or a designer from the source list to a foundry. But don’t be deceived by the simple interface. While it may look simplistic, there are quite a few advanced features built in.
Organizing and Tagging
Fontcase focuses on metadata and for every font and weight you can add a wide variety of different pieces of information. You can set tags, genres, assign designers and foundries and much more.
They are not just pieces of supplementary text, but actually show up in the source list, right under your smart collections. This integration between tagging a font and having a visual link to that tag in the sidebar is a welcome interface addition — it removes the need to search for fonts you’ve tagged with a certain keyword.
Smart collections are also available, allowing you to view activated and deactivated fonts, your ‘top rated’ fonts and those allocated to the OS X system. You can make your own smart collections based upon any of the meta data attached to a font.
Comparing Fonts
It’s often difficult to decide between a couple of different fonts for a particular task. Rather than needing to mock up a document with each different font side-by-side, selecting several and clicking the ‘Compare’ icon will generate a side by side comparison of each.
This can be done in three different ways:
- Characters: For those needing intricate perspective, you can view each character side by side
- Header Text: View each font displaying a particular sentence or defined phrase
- Body Text: Fontcase will automatically generate Lorem Ipsum style text to give you a view of what a paragraph would look like
Sharing Fonts
Bohemian Coding understands the importance of being able to easily share and access fonts, making it easy to achieve through Fontcase. There’s no need to maintain a dedicated font server or pass files person-to-person via email; you can let the application do the work. Just like in iTunes, you can share your Library with other people, but in Fontcase other people can also download fonts from your vault. You not only share fonts but also the associated metadata, to anyone else connected to your network.
I can imagine this will be incredibly useful in workplaces where design and typography are important, and can see the app being a hit in graphic and web design studios.
Requirements and Pricing
Fontcase requires Mac OS X 10.5 or higher with hardware that is fully compatible with Leopard. It is available as a full-featured demo download and a single user license is $55. Bohemian Coding is currently offering a discount is available for the first two weeks at $45.
It’s difficult to pick any fault with Fontcase at this stage, and it seems like a reliable, well rounded application. I wouldn’t consider myself a typography expert, however, and I’d be interested to hear your comments if you work with many fonts on a daily basis.
What are your thoughts on the app? I’ve been using Font Book for the past few years, but welcome the chance to use a fresh new application for managing my font collection.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Apple Ordered to Pay Up for 1G Nano Scratches
Photo credit: Patrick Haney
At any given time, there are so many active suits against Apple that it can be downright impossible to keep track of them all.
Answer me this: How many of those actually end up with an “L” in Apple’s column? In fact, how many of those are we even privy the outcome of, considering the number of them that are resolved in settlement, for which the terms can’t be revealed? Well, we know the ending of at least a couple, and we can add another to the list. Today a class action suit filed against Apple for the decidedly un-scratch-resistant first generation iPod Nano got a ruling.
The court ruled recently in favor of the plaintiffs in the case, agreeing that the older iPod was too susceptible to scratch damage on its front surface. If you own either the 1G Nano, or other iPods released at the same time, you probably know what they’re talking about. My own black iPod Video looks like it was in a car accident, when in fact I just carried it around in my pocket without a case the entire time I had it.Any 1G iPod Nano owners who feel they deserve a piece of the pie can go ahead and claim either $15 (if there iPod shipped with a slip cover) or $25 (if it didn’t). Don’t go expecting a check the next day, of course, since you’re wandering into civil law town, where nothing is every prompt, and true resolution takes forever.
If the ruling stands, this could mean trouble for Apple down the line, since, as I mentioned, the iPod Video has a similar finish on its surface. The amount that they could eventually pay out, even at only $15-$25 per unit, when you consider that 1 million of the things were sold in the first 17 days of its release isn’t anything to shake a stick at. That’s between $15 and $25 million, should they end up having to pay out for just the first 17 days worth of iPods. Not chump change, by any means.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - What Makes a Mac App
One of the things that I’ve always loved about the Mac is its cohesiveness. Everything just flows. It’s the experience that careful attention to design has created.
When I open the lid of my MacBook, OS X springs back to life, just as expected. When I press CMD+I in Safari, the page I’m viewing is opened Mail in a new message, ready to be sent. When I press Shift+CMD+P in NetNewsWire, the news item I’m viewing is sent over to MarsEdit in a new blog post, ready to be quoted and posted. With Yojimbo, if I want to save a serial number, I highlight the serial number, bring up Yojimbo’s Quick Input Panel, and Yojimbo knows its a serial number and brings up the appropriate template. Same goes for passwords and bookmarks.
I mention these apps specifically because they are all very Mac like. Each of them feels right in the Mac environment. I’ve tried other email services and clients, mainly web based, but I always come back to Mail because it fits. A Mac app may not have all of the features of its competitors, but if it fits, if it feels right in the Mac environment, if it goes along with the flow of how I use the Mac, that’s the app that I’m going to come back to use again and again. It’s difficult to quantify exactly what makes a Mac app, but here’s a short list of how I judge.
Functionality
Or perhaps a better description of this category is “does what I expect it to do.” A great example of this is Yojimbo and Evernote. Evernote is a great app, and an awesome service, especially if you work with both a Mac and a PC, and carry an iPhone. The difference is that when I copy something from one of the other applications, and then press the hotkey to import whatever I’ve copied, Yojimbo brings down its quick import panel, and Evernote jumps to the front and demands my attention. Perhaps I’m doing this wrong, but if I am, it’s not obvious how to convince Evernote to do what I want.
Appearance
The Human Interface Guidelines over on the Apple Developer site say to use the standard controls and buttons that are available in the developer tools. Those are what Apple uses, and it’s best to keep a consistent look and feel to all the applications. Now, Apple doesn’t always follow its own advice, but if an application is bringing its own controls to the table, it stands out. That being said, there are always going to be times to break the rules.
Cabel Sasser from Panic once rewrote an entire toolbar because of three pixels of a control didn’t match up. That’s attention to detail, and the kind of polish that makes a Mac app beautiful as well as functional. I once attended a CocoaHeads meeting where much of the discussion focused around ensuring that the lines drawn by an application to separate the different areas of it were crisp and clean, while the screen was zoomed in as far as it could go. Attention to detail creates quality interfaces.
Integration
Apple has worked hard integrating the default applications that ship with OS X. They have also worked hard at making the data stored in these applications available to developers in their apps. When developers do not take advantage of this integration, I’m left wondering why. I’m sure it’s a different reason for each application, but for the most part, I notice it in apps that have been ported from other platforms. Keychain, iCal, Address Book, Mail, iPhoto, all of these services are available to tie into. A good Mac app takes advantage of this, and a great Mac app makes their data available to other apps as well. Integration makes my work, flow.
Stability
Being able to launch an application, and know that it is going to perform as expected, every time, is also one of the trademarks of a true Mac app. Without stability, none of the other points I’ve made mean anything. It’s so important, that it’s almost not even worth mentioning, if it were not for the random application that seems to have it all, but then crash three or four times in a single day.
As a burgeoning developer myself, I know how hard it is to meet the standards of the Mac community. However, developers have raised the bar again and again, and now create some of the best software for any platform.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Boxee Tells Mac Users to Get LOST
Boxee is telling their Mac users to get LOST — that is, they are telling them that they can watch the hit show on their Mac.
Boxee is releasing a new update for their Mac version today that allows users to stream content from ABC. The release is timed to coincide with the season premier of LOST, which will be available through ABC.com the day following the broadcast. The Apple TV, Windows, and Linux updates are in the works. I’m not-so-secretly pleased to see this update out on the Mac platform first.
I had a chance to ask the boxee team for a quick response on why support for ABC is coming to the Mac before all those other guys. If you are a regular visitor to TheAppleBlog, you will not be shocked to see that the team at boxee just likes the Mac. And I say, why shouldn’t they?
Here are the four reasons that they said Mac people are getting the ABC love first…- Consistent hardware - The Mac is the easiest to program for because they know exactly what kind of hardware people are on.
- Macs work well with (and often come with) remotes.
- Half of boxee users are using boxee in conjunction with their big screen TV and an AppleTV. Since the majority of their users are on Mac, that was the platform they decided to launch ABC with (and the platform they initially launched boxee on back in June).
- Last, but not least, they’re all on Mac and they like Apple products.
We have been encouraging people to try out boxee on their Mac or AppleTV, but I am pleasantly surprised to learn that half or more of their users are on an Apple product. Now if we could just get Apple to sit up and notice that boxee is the perfect reason to buy a Mac mini, maybe they would get around to updating the graphics chip after three whole pickin’ years with the GMA950.
Of course, adding more streaming media isn’t all that boxee has been up to lately. They received a lot of recognition at CES and have started receiving coverage at major news outlets like the New York Times. There’s been some interest in getting boxee onto a specialized media player device that would be easier to set up than hacking your AppleTV. Even if the patchstick procedure is pretty straightforward for the technically literate, it’s certainly not something my parents would ever do.
You can sign up to join the public alpha test at boxee.tv.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Startup Shortcuts: An App for Misbehaving Macs
You own an iPhone. You probably own a Mac as well. We all know that there are startup keyboard shortcuts for every troubleshooting procedure a user can follow when his or her Mac misbehaves. Some are easier to remember than others. Some are truly arcane. If you remember only some but not others, developer Eric Barbosa has an iPhone app that you might want to keep on your iPhone or iPod touch.
Startup Shortcuts is an app that lists just about every procedure for troubleshooting a Mac and its accompanying keyboard shortcuts. The main screen of Startup Shortcuts shows a list of troubleshooting scenarios.Tap on any one of them and you will be brought to a second screen that shows both the keystrokes for that procedure and a short description of the symptoms typically associated with that particular problem.
Startup Shortcuts probably has nothing much to offer to the power user, as the troubleshooting scenarios it lists are what should by now be common knowledge to such users. But I confess that, even as a power user, I found myself hit by a mental blackout on the morning my MacBook Pro suddenly died, and I had to Google for the keystrokes for resetting the SMC (speaking of which, resetting the SMC is a procedure absent in this version of Startup Shortcuts).
If you are a recent switcher or a novice Mac user, give Startup Shortcuts a place in your iPhone or iPod touch. It just might come in handy for the power user as well.
Startup Shortcuts (direct App Store link, developer’s product page) costs 99 cents. For a dollar, this is an app worth keeping.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Daily Apple: Unethically Transmitted Diseases, App Store Clone, & Time Travel
Don’t Pirate That iWork, And Not Just For Morality’s Sake - It might be tempting to go around abusing Apple’s decision to remove the installation key requirement from their recently updated iWork ‘09 suite, but it could also get you in more than just ethical trouble. CNET, among others, is reporting the recent discovery of a nasty Trojan in a pirated version of the software making its BitTorrent circles.
App Store Recreated for Those Who Hate iTunes - You might want to browse the ol’ App Store without firing up iTunes, or maybe you don’t own an iPhone and you just want to see what all the fuss is about. No problem, thanks to this fully rendered HTML version of the store, rendered in all its glory. Not sure if Apple’s thrilled about this one, but my money’s on definitely not.
Gizmodo Never-Ever App Photoshop Contest - While we’re on the subject of iPhone/iPod touch Apps, I came across this today in my daily travels. It’s one of Gizmodo’s regularly scheduled Photoshop contests, with the focus this time on creating fictional Apps that will never, never ever, never ever nev make it into the App Store.
Larry Magid’s Original L.A. Times Macintosh Review - An oldie but a goodie, this review of the first ever Macintosh computer will have you strolling down memory lane or thanking your lucky stars that technology advances at such a breakneck pace. I like where he talks about the Apple II, making reference to “stiff competition from Radio Shack,” which no longer exists here in Canada, having been replaced by soon-to-go Circuit City venture The Source.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Photo From Apple's Design Studio: Latest Apple Product Revealed?
In promoting his upcoming film, Objectified, a documentary maker published a photo (above) of Jony Ive from “inside Apple’s design facilities.”
Naturally, tech bloggers the world over will examine the photo in detail in the hope that Apple slipped up and left something in the photograph that reveals their next “sooper seekrit” product. Rumors and speculation will run rampant. After all, if every Chinese newspaper or two-bit tech pundit or analyst publishing nonsensical information becomes grist for the rumor mill, then certainly an actual photograph of “mad scientist” Ive’s lair should give us material for months.
I’m getting ahead of the curve to reveal that, after close inspection of the photograph, I can report on Apple’s latest cool new device. No doubt they thought it was too far back to appear in the photo. The fools! And now I can scoop all the rumor-mongers and post it myself. Remember, you read it here first…
Look closely at the picture above. Do you see anything “unusual”? It’s hard to notice, but there it is, hanging on the back wall in the top right corner of the picture. Below is a zoomed view of the photograph.The blurry zoom doesn’t tell us much, but I processed the photograph through numerous filters to reveal a clearer picture of the next great Apple thing. Obviously, I cannot publish the processed photos for fear of reprisal from Apple’s legal department, but I can “speculate” on what I might have seen with no fear of repercussions.
Here’s what I’ve been able to gather about this new device:
- It’s round, with an unusual graphic interface. It looks nothing like Mac OS X or the iPhone.
- The outer circle appear to be “numbered” in some manner. Who knows what use this is put to, perhaps it’s the number of open windows or apps?
- There does not appear to be any “cursor” or prompt of any kind. Rather, there are two “interface bars” (my name, Apple will no doubt trademark a cool term for these).
- The “interface bars” differ in that one is longer than the other, but it’s unclear the purpose of either.
- There is a third “interface bar,” but unlike the others it is thin and red. One wonders if it somehow “sweeps” the circular interface, perhaps a real-time monitoring tool?
- It’s hard to gage size, but it appears to have roughly the footprint (in cubic inches) of the existing MacBook.
- That it’s a portable device is obvious not only by its size, but also the fact that it’s hanging on a wall and there is no power cable.
Any further speculation would go too far. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the Chinese press and a couple of analysts to join me. Meanwhile, I stop short of trying to guess what this new device will actually do, or to take a stab at its hardware specifications.
When will we know exactly what this device is for? Only time will tell.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - The Pleasure of Productivity
As a recent (sort-of) switcher, I've been exploring iWork ‘08 a fair bit, and with the launch of iWork ‘09 I've really thrown myself into Pages, Numbers and Keynote. For someone who has used Microsoft Office almost exclusively for the last twenty-odd years, that's a huge change! Along the way, I've started to notice subtle — but important — differences between them, but they're not the nuts-and-bolts workaday differences you might expect.
Productivity apps are at the core of most desktop publishing. After all, everyone eventually gets around to writing a letter! Very many of us have the dubious pleasure of living in a spreadsheet every day of our working lives. Some of us even use presentation tools like PowerPoint. (Just don't get me started on how horribly most people use it.)
I was five years old when Word was released. It's a very dear friend. So, when I started using a Mac in mid 2008, I bought Office 2008 right away. My reasoning was: Office is the best Productivity Suite in the World. I know it inside and out. It's all I'll ever need.
Fast-forward six months (and one upgrade to iWork ‘09 later) and that opinion has changed radically. Office is undoubtedly the best productivity suite in the world, if you measure "best" by the sheer number of features it packs beneath that shiny ribbon.Yet, after pushing myself to use Pages I'm rapidly moving away from Word. Why? Well, it's not because Pages has more features. It doesn't. Pages, by comparison, is a bare-bones word processor, far less mature than Word.
No, the reason I have migrated to Pages is because it offers a far superior experience. I probably get just as much actual work done in Pages as I ever did in Word, but the process seems to be so…different. I enjoy work more when I use Pages because it makes me feel more creative, more empowered. More productive.
And while its themes or image formatting tools aren't as feature-rich as those in Word, the results are definitely superior. It's Apple's indomitable style and attention to detail that permeates iWork and, I like to think, adds a little of its sparkle to my own documents.
In a classic example of quality over quantity, the (relatively) small selection of image effects in Pages produces far more beautiful results than the unimaginative million-billion effects crowbar-ed into Word 2007.
The same is true for Keynote. And Numbers. Especially Numbers. For 30 years business computing was mired in gun-metal grey spreadsheet-hell. Then Apple wanders up to the bar in all its turtleneck glory and, with a flourish, produces an application that makes spreadsheets a pleasure to produce. Spreadsheets become Art. Incredible!
I think that's the secret of iWork — it encourages us to take something that was always fairly bland and run-of-the-mill (a spreadsheet, an essay, a presentation) and challenges us to press a few buttons and produce something utterly gorgeous. Microsoft Office gives us the same tools (and more) but it doesn't care if we don't use them. iWork, on the other hand, gently coaxes us to do something special…and richly rewards us for making that tiny bit of effort.
Upgrading to iWork ‘09 is a no-brainer for me. And if you haven't tried it yet, you should do yourself a favour and download the trial. I dare you not to produce something extraordinary!
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Tips and Tricks for Running QuickBooks for Windows In a VM
Running QuickBooks for Windows in a virtual machine (VM) on your Mac is often the best way to get all the advanced features of QuickBooks that are only available in the Windows version and still have fun using your Mac the way nature intended, running OS X Leopard. If you choose to go this route, here are a few tips and tricks to help you run QuickBooks smoothly inside a VM.
Clean Installs Are Always Best
I know it’s tempting to just run VMware Converter or Parallels Transporter and just suck the contents of your current PC into a VM. For many of us, we only really need to run one or two critical Windows applications and everything on our old PC is way more than we really need. In that situation, you’ll thank me later for telling you to take the time to set up a clean and lean VM that does exactly what you want it to do, without all the cruft and junk that often creeps into a Windows install. Load Windows, load your anti-virus software, and load QuickBooks.
Always Quit the App
Suspending your VM is a fantastic way to cut down the time it takes to relaunch later. Suspending a VM is a lot like putting your computer to sleep; the current state is saved and the VM is ready to pick up right where you left off. In order to do this for a VM, the contents of RAM for the guest OS are written to a file and then restored when the VM is opened again. The problem is that sometimes restoring the contents of RAM doesn’t work right. In this event, you must restart the VM and whatever you were working on (that hasn’t been saved to disk) is lost.
While I often suspend a VM when I’m done with it, I always quit my running applications so that they have a chance to write their data files to the VM disk file and close them properly. This is especially important with QuickBooks. You really don’t want a problem with restoring a suspended VM to hose your company file. You are always better off to quit QuickBooks so it can close its data file properly and then suspend the VM. If the OS cannot be restored, at least the QuickBooks file in the virtual disk is still good and you have a much better chance of rebooting your VM and finding that all is still perfectly fine with your accounting info.
If you want to access your virtual disk from the Mac side when the VM is not running, then you will probably want to shut down the VM too so you can use VMDK Mounter for VMware Fusion or Parallels Explorer to mount the virtual disk to the Mac desktop.
Use Shared Folders for Backups
Backups of QuickBooks company files are so important that the ability to create them can be automated to run every time you quit the application. I can’t stress enough how important it is to enable this feature and make a backup copy every time you use the application. Here’s my absolute favorite trick for using this feature in a VM: point the backup location to a shared folder that is visible on the Mac side. I usually recommend that you create a folder called “backup” or “quickbooks” in your Documents folder on the Mac side. Configure your virtualization software to allow the guest OS to have read/write access to this folder. Now you can tell QuickBooks to write its backup file to this shared folder every time you run the app. Don’t let Windows have read/write access to your entire Home folder though. A virus may cause Windows to randomly delete or rewrite files and you want to limit the potential damage.
Why do this? Well, now you have a backup of your company file that is accessible to the Mac side of your computer. Because the virtual disk itself appears as a huge monolithic file to the Mac, you may want to exclude it from Time Machine so that you don’t save copies of this 6-8GB file every hour. If you have a copy of your company file in your Documents folder, your Mac will take a snapshot of this file every hour and make another copy on your Time Machine drive. If you have MobileMe, you can configure the included backup application to routinely make a copy of this company file to your iDisk storage. This is a great way to take advantage of all the ways your Mac protects your files for you and apply that to your critical Windows files as well.
Best of Both Worlds
The real key here is to use the benefits of virtualization and avoid the pitfalls. These simple tips and tricks will help you enjoy running QuickBooks for Windows on your Mac and really leverage the advantages of the approach.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - In Pursuit of Quality: The Apple "Fanboi"
For quite a while (heck, pretty much forever), the knock on Apple has been that it’s overpriced, that the same thing can be had for much less elsewhere.
A much more recent complaint is that somehow Apple never gets any critical reviews, it’s all just shoddy reporting. A couple of big hitters on the other side have jumped on this latest argument. I’ll leave it for others to attack the attackers, so to speak, but I believe it gives the topic more credibility than it deserves, and leads down a path that neither side can possibly “win” anyway.
What’s especially funny is that the day after Paul Thurrot’s screed he published a two-part review of Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials proclaiming it to be “awesome” and “excellent.” These are just the mail, chat, etc. apps recently unbundled from Windows. I’ve been running them for a few months now. They’re OK, but there’s nothing particularly special here. If they’re “awesome,” then their Mac equivalents must be super duper, fantastic, magical, and other-worldly. It’s funny how Paul railed against “bad reporting” and a company having “too many friends in the media,” yet then provided examples of both in a review that gave four stars to what’s essentially the old Outlook Express app with a facelift and botox. Bad reporting, indeed.
Concern About Being Labeled a “Fanboi”?
Getting back to the whole “fanboi” thing, one of the more recent Apple hardware introductions is their LED 24″ monitor. While I’ve seen great reviews of it, they’re frequently tempered with an almost apologetic tone, as if the author is sorry he’s not slamming Apple for an overpriced fashion accessory.
I swear, every time I read an article that begins something like “I’m not an Apple fanboi, but…” I want to puke. What’s with the disclaimer? What are you afraid of? Being branded? Paul Thurrott writing bad things about you? Dan Lyons yelling at you? Please. Do you like the product or not? For Pete’s sake show some backbone and stop whimpering already.
It seems to me such disclaimers try to fend off the “fanboi” label, or to appear as not lacking objectivity (some articles nit-picking Apple masquerade as “proof” of the latter). As if simply by praising an Apple product you must be in the RDF, worship Steve Jobs, be incapable of critical thought, etc. You know, the kind of name-calling we thought we’d left behind on the third-grade playground.
Apple Quality
The truth is, if you like an Apple product or service or, heaven forbid, buy one, Apple-bashers will label you a “fanboi” regardless of your protestations to the contrary. It’s what they do. Trying to be pro-active about it won’t help; I think it just makes the writer sound wishy-washy.
Apple quality and value are not that hard to find for those who look. Whether they matter to you is another thing altogether. Different people want different things. But to state that, say, Dell, is making the exact same thing at half the price is laughable.
For example, some claim a Dell monitor’s 8ms response time makes it better than Apple’s monitor at 14ms. The problem with such a simplistic comparison is that manufacturers typically don’t even specify the standard they used to derive the spec, and where they do it’s usually the “easier” grey-to-grey measurement. Comparison of response times are generally meaningless, and there’s more to a monitor than a single number anyway.
Apple’s 24″ LED Display
What matters, obviously, is the product itself. Apple’s 24″ LED is getting glowing (heh, pun intended) reviews. If you haven’t compared such screens side by side, have you been in an electronics store and had the chance to look at LCD TVs? Ever wonder why two screens of the same size and “specs” can look so different? It’s the total package, it’s engineering, it’s sweating the details. Apple does this. You do not have to appreciate it. You don’t even have to be willing to pay for it. But you’ll forgive me if I’m unmoved by the name-calling. You have your criteria, and I have mine.
Apple’s monitor also includes:
- Single-cable for a dock-like connection to the unibody Macs
- Speakers and “subwoofer”
- Microphone and web cam
- USB ports
- It’s LED, with the attendant advantages of “instant on” and energy savings
And there’s also Apple’s great customer support, and support system of the Apple Stores, to consider. The total experience of all this is quite compelling.
Another example of Apple’s differing approach to quality is to consider the recent move by many manufacturers to the 16:9 screen ratio (cheaper due to being used in TVs) that further reduces the already too-small vertical size of a screen. Dell and others are bringing many of these to market, but I was happy to see that with the new MacBook, MacBook Pro, and LED display Apple resisted that temptation, staying with the 16:10 ratio. Yes, it means Dell is introducing still cheaper monitors, but they display less for the same screen size.
Conclusion
It would be wrong to see this article as a slam on Dell or others. I’m not saying Dell’s hardware is crap. By most accounts they’ve made hardware representing decent value for years. I couldn’t care less if anyone who is primarily price-sensitive went that route. After all, price is a very valid criterion.
However, unlike what the Apple-bashers seems to think, this is not all or nothing. There’s no reason to believe that in order to praise Apple’s value proposition I must denigrate the other guy’s. That’s the whole point. I’m saying there is value (frequently a lot of it) in Apple’s offerings. The idea that those who go that route are just “rich,” or in the RDF, or “fanbois,” or “smug,” or not technical enough to know better, and on and on, is pure BS.
Sticks and stones, people. Sticks and stones. I’m well-versed in both sides and have no turf to defend. Buzz off. I’ll make no apology for what I like or the criteria I use.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Reading Between the Lines: Some Takeaways From Apple's Q1 2009 Conference Call
Apple’s quarterly earnings call is primarily a retrospective affair. They report their numbers for the previous quarter, discuss strengths and weaknesses (and what made them strengths and weaknesses), and spend a little bit of time talking about how they plan on continuing and repeating success next time out. In the end, the only clear message they present is that they’ll keep doing what’s working, and improve on what isn’t. At the same time, they’re dropping hints about the future. Here are some of those hints, and what I think they mean.
We Love the $199 Price Point
On the subject of iPhone pricing, Tim Cook, Apple COO standing in as CEO while Jobs is recuperating, made clear that their $399 and $199 price points were working well for the company. Quite specifically, he emphasized the company’s love for the $199 price point, which is clearly leading to high sales numbers. Interestingly, he didn’t talk about storage size, just pricing.
We could see a pricing move based on strong sales and a shrinking consumer smartphone market that may result in a $199 price point for the 16GB iPhone to stimulate sales. Whether this also leads to a lower cost 8GB phone or a 32GB model, I can’t guess, but we will mostly likely see a pricing change when sales start to dip.
We Have Some Ideas, But Right Now We Think Those Products Are Inferior
The netbook saga/flirtation/denial continues. They’re spot on about the hardware deficiencies when they point out that the keyboards on these devices are still too small, and about the software not being well-tailored to the platform as of yet. Which shows that they’re thinking much more deeply about those issues than the offhand remarks would seem to suggest.
Make no mistake, Apple is developing a device for this space. And they’ve targeted the specific issues their competitors have so far failed to address, which means they probably intend to come to the market late but with a superior product. This could be the reason they sought to separate “OS X” from the “Mac” moniker, if they’re preparing a version of the OS specifically designed to run on netbook hardware.
We Feel Extremely Good About Our Product Pipeline
This comment was made in reference to their projections about iPhone seasonality. They also made a followup comment noting that Apple has fear in terms of the danger of the economy affecting smartphone adoption, considering the higher monthly rates that come with them.
References to the product pipeline in this context are extremely tantalizing. What does Apple have in its pocket to offset the threat of smartphone contract prices? Two possibilities come to mind. Either they think that upcoming iPhone iterations will be impressive enough to attract consumers anyway, or they’re planning on moving away from the smartphone market to take advantage of lower contract costs. In either case, references to product pipelines should not be taken lightly.
That’s my take on some of the more salient points of the Q1 conference call, the content of which I reviewed thanks to CNNMoney’s transcript of their live blog of the event. You may think some of my predictions are reaching or far-fetched, but they all come from an analysis of the context within which the statements were made. Whether you agree with me or not, share you own interpretations below.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - ShiveringKittens: iPhone Game Presents Mild Risk of Frostbite
I like puzzle games on my iPhone, and I like Tetris. With that in mind, I approached ShiveringKittens ($2.99, App Store) fairly optimistically since, since it is a puzzle game which resembles Tetris. Certainly, other apps for the platform have used this recipe to great success, like ngmoco’s Topple. Maybe I was making unfair comparisons with outstanding games, but ShiveringKittens left me a little cold.
The game from developer GiantCrayon features, appropriately enough, frozen kittens as the core gameplay component. There are also unfrozen kittens, and kitten-free blocks of ice, too. These three different types of blocks appear at the top of the screen in varying configurations (i.e., “L”-shaped, etc.), and proceed to slowly descend to the bottom of the screen. You can move and rotate the block, with the object of creating groups of five or more unfrozen kittens, at which point those blocks will disappear.
To rid yourself of the remaining blocks, you’ll have to make a solid horizontal row of either type, ie. frozen blocks or frozen kitten blocks. Unlike in Tetris, when a shape hits the bottom of the screen, blocks without any support underneaht do not hang in the air, and instead fall to the lowest level possible.
In theory, it sounds like an interesting enough twist on the basic Tetris concept to keep veteran players interested, but in practice, I found otherwise. Starting out on the easiest possible level, I figured the game would be simple enough to get the hang of. That was not the case.
Right away, I found the mechanics unnecessarily difficult and poorly thought out. Controls were awkward, especially the down swipe, which doesn’t simply accelerate the fall of the piece you’re working with, but sends it directly to the bottom. Getting kitten groups together while still trying to arrange ice blocks and frozen kittens in screen-spanning horizontal lines proved immensely complicated, too much so for the first skill level. I did manage to get a grouping of five kittens eventually, but by that time my screen was so cluttered and disorganized that it would’ve been impossible to dig myself out of the hole I’d created.
In the end, ShiveringKittens is too complicated to be a distraction, and not substantial enough to make me want to meet the significant challenge it presents. I’m not opposed to a good, difficult game, but this one just seems poorly designed, not intelligently tricky. If I were you, I’d take a pass on ShiveringKittens, even if you happen to be a cat person.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Daily Apple: Pencils + Elastics = Fun, Money Talk, and Candy
Make Your iPhone Stand On the Super Cheap - I was very disappointed when I opened up my brand new 3G iPhone and didn’t find a little plastic bit that would hold it up on my desk while I watched movies (this happens all the time). Now I’m less disappointed, since I can prop it up using pencils and erasers.
iPhone Now Used to Help Stutterers - No simple app could accomplish it alone, but entirely reprogrammed iPhones are being used by folks at the Hollins Communication Research Institue to help treat people plagued by persistent, chronic stuttering. The software evaluates and scores coping behaviors taught in therapy.
DopeWars Makeover Brings it App Store Acceptance - Unsurprisingly, App Store reviewers didn’t let an iPhone optimized version of DopeWars make it into the App Store, but developers remained undeterred and took it back to the drawing board and came up with Prohibition 3: Candy Wars. You can probably guess what they changed.
Apple Hinting at Legal Action vs. Palm Over Pre? - Part of the Apple conference call, towards the end, has PC Magazine thinking that Apple may be planning to take Palm to court over their recently released Pre smartphone. In no uncertain terms, Tim Cook says they’ll hunt them down like dogs if it turns out they stole Apple IP.
Conference Call Summary: iPod/iTunes Success - Here’s a good breakdown of what the Apple Q1 fiscal conference call was all about, courtesy of The Washington Post. Also, retail is slowing. No big surprise in this economy. We’ll see next time around how the Steve Jobs
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Updated White MacBook vs. Entry Unibody MacBook
With today’s news about the great update Apple made to the entry white MacBook, there are a couple things to wonder about.
One, of course, is why was the model updated as opposed to being phased out like many thought would occur?
I won’t dwell too much on this, but it doesn’t surprise me that Apple wanted to keep a “low-end” MacBook in the lineup, and of course they’d update it from time to time. As for why they used the newer NVIDIA chipset and graphics, it seems to me that ultimately it becomes cheaper for Apple to use the same guts in the entire lineup. Better negotiating on price due to better volumes, and of course one less old part to deal with.
The bigger issue, to me, is discussing the relative “worth” of the $1,299 unibody MacBook in comparison to the updated white model. This comparison is interesting, and as someone who owns both a white MacBook (one year old) and a new unibody I can offer my personal experiences as well.
Overall View
At first glance there may seem little to choose between them:
- Same 2.0 GHz C2D processor
- Same front-side 1066 MHz bus
- Same NVIDIA 9400M graphics
- Same amount of RAM
This is in fact a significant upgrade to the white MacBook, and at $999 is a great value.
It should be noted that the RAM is actually the slower DDR2 667MHz variety instead of the unibody’s fast DDR3 memory. That difference may come out in benchmarks, but one wonders whether a user would actually notice it. I suspect DDR2 was used because it remains lower cost.
Also note that the white model only employs a 120GB hard drive, which is pretty small by today’s standards. Updates are readily available as build to order components, however. If you get the white model with the same 250GB drive as the entry unibody, then the price delta shrinks to only $150.
Differences
First, for some people there is one thing the white model has that may make it especially appealing:
- FireWire
For those that made a big deal out of its removal from the unibody models, here’s your chance to get the newer technical updates while keeping the FW port.
The remaining differences all fall on the side of the unibody:
- Unibody construction
- Slightly smaller and thinner
- Half a pound lighter
- 30 minutes more battery life
- Mini Display Port
- Much better LED screen
- Glass trackpad
While the slightly smaller dimensions may not mean much, the half-pound weight loss is quite nice. Combined with the bullet-proof nature of the unibody this makes for a more durable machine. For me, the white model feels almost “fragile” to me now.
Extra battery life is always nice, especially when you can pull it off with no weight gain.
I list the mini Display Port as an advantage because this thing can drive up to a 30″ monitor, which the white model cannot do.
As for the remaining two items, I know the unibody’s screen was criticized as not being quite as good as those in the MacBook Air or the MacBook Pro. This was silly to me because why would you compare the new screen to models that cost $500 or more than the unibody? The only thing the new screen should be compared to is the white model’s it replaced, and in this comparision there is no contest.
I frequently have the two models side by side, with the unibody unplugged (and screen therefore somewhat dimmed) and at 90 percent, and it’s still brighter than the plugged in white model at 100% brightness. It’s pretty obvious side by side and, trust me, once you get used to that screen on a day to day basis the while model’s looks even more flat and washed out. No, the white does not have a crappy screen, but the unibody is a vast improvement.
As for the glass trackpad, I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrated I am with the old trackpad on the white model now. When I use it my finger just seems to “drag” since it’s nowhere near as smooth. I miss the additional three- and four-finger gestures tremendously, as well as clicking anywhere. Much like with the screen, it was nice at first, but after much day to day use it’s now much more than “nice,” it’s nearly indispensable.
Conclusions
Far be it for me to dole out buying advice since everyone’s needs and budget vary. If a thousand bucks (not an insignificant amount), is your budget, you can get the white MacBook and no longer feel as if you’re buying yesterday’s model. Snap up this model because it represents a great deal.
Further, if FireWire is critical to you, then that may push you in the white’s direction.
However, I believe the $300 delta to the entry unibody is easily justified (remember, half of that is represented by the hard drive alone). In fact, if you’re thinking of the white with a bigger drive, than your budget is already greater than $1,000 and I’d recommend the entry unibody. The refinement of the total package is excellent. As much as I like the white model, I don’t particularly enjoy using it now, the new model is that much better.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Running QuickBooks for Windows on Your Mac
QuickBooks is one of those key business applications that many people who are considering a switch to the Mac are worried about leaving behind. While QuickBooks 2009 for Mac might be the perfect answer for many, others do not want to give up some of the key features of the Windows version.
Intuit provides a list of key differences, and I think the most important ones are the industry-specific editions of QuickBooks Premier, multi-user access, and the ability to create an Accountant’s Copy of your company file. If you need any of those features, then you’ll want to continue to run the Windows version of QuickBooks.
Fortunately, there are several good methods to accomplish this feat that won’t break the bank or leave you pulling your hair out. Just remember that you are still running Windows (with one exception pointed out below). You will need to make sure that you are protected from viruses and spyware. You might be tempted to turn off networking entirely to avoid the anti-virus tax, but QuickBooks receives frequent updates over the Internet and many people use the DirectConnect features to pull down their financial statements through the intertubes as well.
Boot Camp
You can use Boot Camp, a feature of Mac OS X Leopard, to run Windows on your Mac. This solution allows you to shut down your Mac and reboot into Windows natively. You can’t use your Mac applications while Windows is running, though. In this scenario, you are running Windows on your Mac just like you would run it on a PC. Compatibility is excellent because you really are just running Windows. The downside of this approach is that you can’t take your Mac email and documents and easily copy and paste or import that information into QuickBooks. Likewise, it can be hard to get to the Windows files when you are in the Mac side unless you install MacFUSE to read the NTFS filesystem.
CrossOver Mac
CrossOver Mac is a WINE project that tricks some (but not all) Windows software into thinking that it is talking to Windows XP and passes those requests along to Mac OS X. Because of this trickery, it doesn’t work for every application. If you search the compatibility list for “QuickBooks” you’ll see that CrossOver Mac is listed as “known not to work” for the most recent versions. It could be a good choice if you are running QuickBooks Pro 2004, but not if you have already upgraded to 2007 or 2009. Since it runs in Mac OS X, you can still pull information from your email or other documents on your Mac. And since it’s not actually Windows, you don’t have to worry so much about viruses and spyware.
CrossOver Mac is $40 for the Standard version and $70 for the Pro version. A free trial is available to download, but I can’t really recommend it until it is updated to work with the latest versions of QuickBooks for Windows.
Virtualization
Virtualization provides a way to create a virtual machine (VM) where another guest OS can run inside Mac OS X. In contrast to CrossOver, you are actually running Windows inside the VM.
There are three major virtualization packages – VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop, and xVM Virtual Box. The convenience of these virtualization solutions is great because you still have access to all your Mac OS X applications and features while the virtual machine is running alongside your other Mac software. You can even hide the Windows desktop and only view the QuickBooks application window itself and use Exposé and all the other cool windowing features of OS X.
While, virtualization is not a good solution for 3D design software or computer games (as these types of software want to talk directly to the hardware rather than a virtual machine), it works great for QuickBooks and is the solution that I recommend to most users. Because you are essentially running two complete OS installs on one machine, it’s best to have at least 2GB of RAM.
One potential benefit of VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop is that they both provide Windows software to convert the entire hard drive of your existing PC into a virtual machine file that you can use on your Mac. This is great if you have a nice, lean Windows install with only the files that you need to bring with you to the Mac. It’s not so great if your PC is having problems and Windows is not running well. You’ll bring all those problems with you when you create a new VM file. If QuickBooks is the only Windows software that you need to run, I would recommend a clean install of Windows, Anti-virus software, and QuickBooks in a brand new VM.
VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop are both $80 and free trials are available to download. xVM Virtual Box is a free solution supported by Sun Microsystems. Be sure to read TheAppleBlog’s take on VMware vs Parallels and our review of Virtual Box.
Remote Desktop Client
Another solution is to continue to run QuickBooks on a PC, but access it over the network from your Mac. Remote Desktop Client from Microsoft provides a simple way to remotely control a PC running Windows XP Pro or Vista Business or Ultimate and it works just like screen sharing in Mac OS X Leopard. The killer feature is local printing so you can make hard copies of QuickBooks reports using a printer that is connected to your Mac. This can be a great solution if you already have a PC running QuickBooks on a required version of Windows and you don’t want to spend any more money on virtualization software. You can still access your Mac applications and documents and transfer information back and forth between the remote PC and the Mac you are sitting at while you work. The downside is that it’s difficult to set up to use over the Internet if you travel away from the PC with a portable Mac. Remote Desktop Client is a free download.
Specific Scenarios
I need to run the multi-user version of QuickBooks.
OK. You definitely need QuickBooks for Windows. What I recommend here is buying a cheap PC and installing QuickBooks for Windows with the “Install Database Server Only” option. This PC will then host your multi-user company file(s) which you can access over your office network from other computers running QuickBooks for Windows. Now you just need to make sure that you put your backup plan in place for the company file(s) hosted on that PC. For licensing, the host computer does not count as a user if it is running in “Database Server Only” mode. Of course, if you already have a desktop PC that is running QuickBooks, you can make that the host by configuring multi-user mode. Just make sure that you leave it turned on with QuickBooks running.
As an alternative, if you already have Windows Small Business Server 2008 in your office, you could set up a second machine as a Terminal Services host and use RDC to open sessions on that machine. That way you don’t even need to install QuickBooks on each computer, just on the terminal services host machine.
I want to backup my QuickBooks data to Time Machine (or MobileMe).
One of the amazing features of Leopard is Time Machine. If you want Time Machine to grab a copy of your QuickBooks for Windows data, then I recommend you use virtualization and then configure QuickBooks to save a backup copy of your company file to a shared folder on the Mac side so it gets picked up by Time Machine. Incidentally, this also works if you are using Backup.app to make offsite copies of critical files in the cloud.
I already have Boot Camp setup and don’t want to spend more money.
Alright, alright. I won’t force you to switch to virtualization, but this is probably the only situation where I would use Boot Camp. You would have a lot more benefits with virtualization (flexibility, convenience, snapshots, accessibility of files in either environment, etc.), but I will let you keep the Boot Camp setup you have already made.
Recommendations
If you need or want to run the Windows version of QuickBooks from your Mac, each of these four methods will help you accomplish that goal. CrossOver is hard to recommend because it will not support the latest versions of QuickBooks. Remote Desktop Client works great if your PC is working fine and is sitting in the same office as your Mac. BootCamp is simple and straightforward and included with Leopard. One important consideration is that Intuit is more likely to support a BootCamp or Remote Desktop solution because you are running Windows natively, either on your Mac with BootCamp or on a PC using Remote Desktop.
Virtualization is by far the most convenient way to take advantage of the best of both worlds. However, support can be hard to come by because you are running an Intuit product in a Microsoft OS inside a 3rd party virtual machine on an Apple computer. That’s four companies that might all try to pass the buck when you have a problem or failure. That said, I’ve found virtualization to be stable, relatively fast, and easy to manage. I love that I can hide the Windows desktop and just look at the application that I need. When I don’t need that application, I can quit the VM and continue to enjoy all the merits of Mac OS X.
Frankly, isn’t running OS X why you bought a Mac in the first place? Now you can still get all your work done and play with the shiny new toys from that store with the ginormous glowing fruit sign. Ahhh, such sweet joy to have your cake and eat it too. Or at least your Mac and QuickBooks for Windows.
Since I recommend virtualization for most users, I have some tips and tricks for you to use that I will share with you. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another helping of advice on how to run QuickBooks for Windows effectively.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - QuickTime 7.6 Released
Get ready QuickTime junkies — Apple is taking care of you. If you check Software Update, you’ll notice a new flavor of QuickTime is available today.
From Apple’s support document, here is what we can expect in this update.
Video:
- Improves single-pass H.264 encoding quality
- Increases the playback reliability of Motion JPEG media
Audio:
- Improves AAC encoding fidelity
- Audio tracks from MPEG video files now export consistently
Application Support:
- Improves compatibility with iChat and Photo Booth
You can download the new version right now via Software Update. Just note that you’ll have to Restart upon completion of installation, as QuickTime is a system component.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать - Say Cheese: 3 Screen Capture Tools Reviewed
Do you have a need to capture screenshots for personal or work use? If so, you are in luck as the market for these tools is improving. In case you did not know, Apple provides default screenshot capturing within OS X (via command keys) and also provides an enhanced free tool (Grab). However, if you need more control than what Apple provides, you will want to read on and see what else is available to you.
We’ll be taking a look at three different screen capture tools. A longtime standard of mine has been Ambrosia’s Snapz Pro X. Another very popular tool is Plasq’s Skitch. And a short while ago, the folks at RealMac software released LittleSnapper, a new tool that takes a different approach to screenshot capturing.
Let’s take a look at what each tool provides…
Snapz Pro X - $69 (Ambrosia)
This is a very powerful tool, although the UI is a little dated. However, the rich functionality plus simple operation makes it a great choice, depending upon your needs. Of course, the price is very high at $69. However, when you compare the functionality to the price, Snapz Pro X is a great value.
Some of the key highlights for Snapz Pro X include:
- Capture screen, objects (menus, windows) and selection.
- Save your image to a variety of formats (PNG, BMP, etc.).
- Live preview what you are about to capture.
- Add watermarks to the image and change borders.
- Change the bit depth of the image from color to grayscale to black & white.
- Record movies of your clicks for screencasts with voiceovers using your Mac’s microphone.
On the downside, Snapz Pro X neither has any additional editing tools nor the ability to share images to services like Flickr or an FTP site.
Note: I had to use LittleSnapper to take a screen capture of the Snapz Pro X UI. I thought this was strange and thus appropriate to share (Snapz Pro X cannot capture its own UI).
LittleSnapper - $39 (Realmac Software)
LittleSnapper was released in late 2008 to a flurry of pretty positive reviews. The application has a ton of functionality and has a very modern UI. The price is more reasonable than Snapz Pro X, and the initial purchase guarantees free upgrades until version 2.0.
Here is a list of LittleSnapper’s key functionality:
- Capture complete web pages, or capture specific elements (via the HTML DOM).
- Capture screen, objects (menus, windows) and selection.
- Collect, tag and rate images. One of the unique features of LittleSnapper is its ability to organize all of your images, rather than leaving them loose in a folder.
- Edit your images via non-destructive tools. Yes, you can add information (text, arrows, blurring, etc.) without negatively impacting the image itself.
- Share your captured images with others via Flickr or via the QuickSnapper service (included with the product).
As I mentioned, LittleSnapper is very easy to use. It has a rich set of capturing tools for both the web and desktop. The file management features are exceptional, as you can group images by project or by rating. In fact, you can even create smart collections based upon specified criteria.
Compared to Snapz Pro X, this tool is much more modern. However, you can’t capture video/screencasts. Depending upon your needs, this might not be an issue.
Skitch (beta) - FREE (Plasq)
Skitch has been in public beta on the market for a little while now. The folks at Plasq have built a Mac screen capture tool that enables you to send the images to the web via their own service, Skitch.com.
My biggest beef with Skitch is that the UI is just completely non-standard. It’s meant to be fun, and you can argue that it is, although some of it just feels clumsy and busy.
Let’s take a look at Skitch’s core functionality:
- Capture screen, objects (menus, windows) and selection.
- Edit your images with text or drawing. Skitch automatically smoothes any drawing.
- Leverage existing iPhoto images and make edits.
- Share your captured images with others via email, Flickr, MobileMe or Skitch.com (included with the product).
Skitch is still in beta and it is unknown what the price will be once it officially launches. I know a lot of folks who swear by Skitch. However, given the user experience, I did not prefer it.
Conclusion
In researching the apps for this review, I came across many other tools that were either freeware, shareware or commercial. However, many appear to have become abandonware, having not been updated in over a year. So, I focused this review on current offerings.
For the money, I really have to say that LittleSnapper wins in this round-up of tools. When it comes to capturing, managing and sharing screenshots, LittleSnapper really takes the lead on all three fronts. Even though Skitch is free, it is also in beta and its UI is clumsy.
I will say that each company’s web site has excellent visual examples and video tutorials on how to use their respective products. Further, each company also has a downloadable trial, so that you can test the software for yourself before making a purchase.
Click here to save cost on your IT demandsПереслать
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