The chart above is from the August 2010 issue of Macworld.
Showing posts with label macworld. Show all posts
Showing posts with label macworld. Show all posts
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Macworld Speedmark Ratings Chart - August 2010
The chart above is from the August 2010 issue of Macworld.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Macworld March 2010
"The End of Carbon Copies"
A reader switched from Pandora to Slacker Radio because the music better matched his tastes.
A reader said the January 2010 article "Signing Electronic Documents" was very helpful.
The Chrome browser tabs are treated as separate processes. They protect the whole browser from crashing and loosing all your tabs, but they chew up more more memory than Firefox with the same tabs running.
The TruePower UCS wall power outlet includes 2 USB ports to charge devices. ($20)
All 3rd generation iPod touches have the same battery life for audio and video.
IMDB has released an iPhone app.
Blogpress iPhone app for Wordpress publishing on the go. 4.5 stars.
DSLR Camera Remote Pro Edition 1.2 for iPhone, $20. Remotely trigger many digital SLR's.
Dropbox for iPhone, free. Store and sync files online.
Mom should read the security article starting on page 32.
Store files securely with an Encrypted DMG, secured with a password and created in Disc Utility.
Crash Plan backup software. Used by one of the writers in addition to Time Machine.
** Author writes about how a person had multiple accounts hacked because he used the same password for all of them.
Prism extension for Firefox.
A reader switched from Pandora to Slacker Radio because the music better matched his tastes.
A reader said the January 2010 article "Signing Electronic Documents" was very helpful.
The Chrome browser tabs are treated as separate processes. They protect the whole browser from crashing and loosing all your tabs, but they chew up more more memory than Firefox with the same tabs running.
The TruePower UCS wall power outlet includes 2 USB ports to charge devices. ($20)
All 3rd generation iPod touches have the same battery life for audio and video.
IMDB has released an iPhone app.
Blogpress iPhone app for Wordpress publishing on the go. 4.5 stars.
DSLR Camera Remote Pro Edition 1.2 for iPhone, $20. Remotely trigger many digital SLR's.
Dropbox for iPhone, free. Store and sync files online.
Mom should read the security article starting on page 32.
Store files securely with an Encrypted DMG, secured with a password and created in Disc Utility.
Crash Plan backup software. Used by one of the writers in addition to Time Machine.
** Author writes about how a person had multiple accounts hacked because he used the same password for all of them.
Prism extension for Firefox.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Macworld September 2009
Cabledrop (add image)
Each adhesive CableDrop is a cute, round clasp that keeps a single unplugged cable from falling behind your desk. That means no more crawling underneath your desk to find the right plug. You can also attach CableDrops to your display, to hold, say, earbuds you're not using. A six-pack is $10.
Hulu Desktop
Has a front-row style interface. Requires a Mac with a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better, 2GB of RAM, and OS 10.4 or later.
www.hulu.com
Cram iPhone App
"Study for tests with flashcards and multiple choice tests on your Mac & iPhone. Featured as an Apple Staff Pick.
I Love Stars 3.0
Free, 4.5 Stars
The program puts iTunes' five-star rating scale in the menu bar. The rating scale automatically hides when iTunes ins't playing. It sounds an audible alert and flashes the rating scale as a reminder, after a song has played about tw-thirds of the way through. Keyboard shortcuts can be assigned to rate tracks. The author [Dan Frakes] uses Cmd-Option-5 to assign a five-star rating, for example.
iPhone 3.0 Software Update
Major Features
"Apple considers the memory and hard drive to be user-serviceable parts."
The 15" MacBook Pro models now have a nonremovable battery (lithium-polymer) that lasts for 1,000 charges, or approximately five years, instead of the 300 recharges that most notebook batteries get.
SD Card Emergency Disk
The new 13- and 15- inch MacBook Pros have SD card slots that can be used if you've made an SD card into an emergency boot drive. In Disk Utility, set the default partition table to GUID and format the card in the Mac OS Extended file format. Then run the Mac OS install disc that came with your MacBook Pro and set the SD card as the destination. To fit Leopard on an 8GB SD card, you'll need to do a custom installation and deselect the options for Printer Drivers, Additional Fonts, Language Translation, and Xn. About 30MB of free space should still be left on the SD card.
Password Assistant Tool in OS X
A Password generator is actually built into OS X . It's available as a small, black, key icon when changing passwords under the Accounts pane of System Preferences.
Top Password Tips
Excerpts:
"A brute force attack can easily defeat as password with seven or fewer characters. . .You'll get the best protection from a random password of at least 11 characters."
"One way to create to create a random password is to think of an easily remembered sentence, then use the first letter of each word, substituting numbers as appropriate. The string ZTwt12potYS, for example, follows no apparent pattern. But it's still memorable because it's derived from the sentence "Zachary Taylor was the twelfth president of the United States."
"Words, names, and dates someone might associate with you make poor passwords. But you can produce strong passwords by combining them."
Take Control of iTunes
Skip to next/previous track
Right/left arrow keys
Seek 5 seconds forward or backward in the current track
Cmd-Option-Arrow (left/right)
Make the search bar active
Cmd-Option-F
GimmeSomeTune 4.2
(payment requested)
The writer uses this iTunes Controller app.
Keyboard shortcuts to play, pause, and control the volume, and rate tracks. It can automatically download artwork and lyrics for the music.
Mac OS Hints
View Huge Preview Icons
- Run a spotlight search
- Enable the Icon view mode (Cmd-1) or View > As Icons
- In the bottom right corner of the results window is a slider that can make the previews large.
- Use the Cmd-1 shortcut to a
Control Hot Corners with Modifier Keys.
As you're selecting an action for hot corner, hold the modifier key (or keys) you wnat to use.
Interesting Ad
"Your iPhone ideas to Cash Flow in 3 Steps)
Zco develops, deploys, and supports your app.
Final Article
"Give Peace a Chance" by Harry McCracken
Each adhesive CableDrop is a cute, round clasp that keeps a single unplugged cable from falling behind your desk. That means no more crawling underneath your desk to find the right plug. You can also attach CableDrops to your display, to hold, say, earbuds you're not using. A six-pack is $10.
Hulu Desktop
Has a front-row style interface. Requires a Mac with a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better, 2GB of RAM, and OS 10.4 or later.
www.hulu.com
Cram iPhone App
"Study for tests with flashcards and multiple choice tests on your Mac & iPhone. Featured as an Apple Staff Pick.
I Love Stars 3.0
Free, 4.5 Stars
The program puts iTunes' five-star rating scale in the menu bar. The rating scale automatically hides when iTunes ins't playing. It sounds an audible alert and flashes the rating scale as a reminder, after a song has played about tw-thirds of the way through. Keyboard shortcuts can be assigned to rate tracks. The author [Dan Frakes] uses Cmd-Option-5 to assign a five-star rating, for example.
iPhone 3.0 Software Update
Major Features
- Cutting and Pasting
- Buy/rent movies, music, and TV shows on the iTunes store
- Voice Recorder
- Mutiple iTunes accounts available
- MobleMe subscribers can use the Find My iPhone service to locate a lost phone
"Apple considers the memory and hard drive to be user-serviceable parts."
The 15" MacBook Pro models now have a nonremovable battery (lithium-polymer) that lasts for 1,000 charges, or approximately five years, instead of the 300 recharges that most notebook batteries get.
SD Card Emergency Disk
The new 13- and 15- inch MacBook Pros have SD card slots that can be used if you've made an SD card into an emergency boot drive. In Disk Utility, set the default partition table to GUID and format the card in the Mac OS Extended file format. Then run the Mac OS install disc that came with your MacBook Pro and set the SD card as the destination. To fit Leopard on an 8GB SD card, you'll need to do a custom installation and deselect the options for Printer Drivers, Additional Fonts, Language Translation, and Xn. About 30MB of free space should still be left on the SD card.
Password Assistant Tool in OS X
A Password generator is actually built into OS X . It's available as a small, black, key icon when changing passwords under the Accounts pane of System Preferences.
Top Password Tips
Excerpts:
"A brute force attack can easily defeat as password with seven or fewer characters. . .You'll get the best protection from a random password of at least 11 characters."
"One way to create to create a random password is to think of an easily remembered sentence, then use the first letter of each word, substituting numbers as appropriate. The string ZTwt12potYS, for example, follows no apparent pattern. But it's still memorable because it's derived from the sentence "Zachary Taylor was the twelfth president of the United States."
"Words, names, and dates someone might associate with you make poor passwords. But you can produce strong passwords by combining them."
Take Control of iTunes
Skip to next/previous track
Right/left arrow keys
Seek 5 seconds forward or backward in the current track
Cmd-Option-Arrow (left/right)
Make the search bar active
Cmd-Option-F
GimmeSomeTune 4.2
(payment requested)
The writer uses this iTunes Controller app.
Keyboard shortcuts to play, pause, and control the volume, and rate tracks. It can automatically download artwork and lyrics for the music.
Mac OS Hints
View Huge Preview Icons
- Run a spotlight search
- Enable the Icon view mode (Cmd-1) or View > As Icons
- In the bottom right corner of the results window is a slider that can make the previews large.
- Use the Cmd-1 shortcut to a
Control Hot Corners with Modifier Keys.
As you're selecting an action for hot corner, hold the modifier key (or keys) you wnat to use.
Interesting Ad
"Your iPhone ideas to Cash Flow in 3 Steps)
Zco develops, deploys, and supports your app.
Final Article
"Give Peace a Chance" by Harry McCracken
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Macworld July 2009
Macworld July 2009
DVD Copying Goes to Court--Why You Should Care
- RealNetworks and the MPAA
Newsweek wrote about how the U.S. Military is extensively using the iPod touch.
macworld.com/4831
LaCie offers iamaKey USB flash drives that look like keys.
4GB, $27 ; 8GB, $37.
Anti Mosquito app for iphone/ipod
High frequency sounds generated by Anti Mosquito stop mosquitos flying around you.
macworld.com/4802
CUPS-PDF 2.4.6.1
Free
It's a virtual printer driver that lets you create a "printer" that will save documents as PDF files. Choose it and click on Print to create a CUPS-PDF folder on your desktop. If, like me, you save to PDF more than you print to paper, you can set your virtual printer as the default through the Print & Fax preferences pane; this makes saving documents as PDF files as easy as pressing Command-P and then return.
The biggest drawback to CUPS-PDF is that the PDF files it creates are larger than thse than OS X's built-in Save as PDF feature creates--sometimes twice as big.
iClip Lyrics 1.3.3
Free
For each track that plays, iClip Lyrics shows the lyrics if they exist in iTunes; otherwise, it uses the track and artist names to search LyricWiki.org. If it finds them, iClip Lyrics displays them and adds them to the current track's ID3 tags.
Troubleshoot Like a Genius
Quick Fixes
- Restart
- Repair Your Disk.
- Make Sure Things Are Up-to-Date
- Reinstall (misbehaving software)
- Do a Safe Boot (hold the shift key at startup)
Problems You Usually Solve Yourself
- Root Out Corrupted Preferences Files
- Dump Corrupted Cache Files
- Purge Problematic Plugins
- Rebuild the Program's Database
Mini Media Hub
Turn your mac mini into your entertainment headquarters
WPA is useful in a mixed-platform network, because Windows, OS X, and iPhones can all use the same passphrase.
Gmail Power Tools
- Tasks
- Canned responses. (helpful for removal from mailing lists.)
- Forgotten attachment detector
- Quote Selected Text
Because Tasks is web-based, you can view, add, and edit your to-do list from your iPhone.
Access a Mac When You Don't Know the Password
"The State of American Broadband"
DVD Copying Goes to Court--Why You Should Care
- RealNetworks and the MPAA
Newsweek wrote about how the U.S. Military is extensively using the iPod touch.
macworld.com/4831
LaCie offers iamaKey USB flash drives that look like keys.
4GB, $27 ; 8GB, $37.
Anti Mosquito app for iphone/ipod
High frequency sounds generated by Anti Mosquito stop mosquitos flying around you.
macworld.com/4802
CUPS-PDF 2.4.6.1
Free
It's a virtual printer driver that lets you create a "printer" that will save documents as PDF files. Choose it and click on Print to create a CUPS-PDF folder on your desktop. If, like me, you save to PDF more than you print to paper, you can set your virtual printer as the default through the Print & Fax preferences pane; this makes saving documents as PDF files as easy as pressing Command-P and then return.
The biggest drawback to CUPS-PDF is that the PDF files it creates are larger than thse than OS X's built-in Save as PDF feature creates--sometimes twice as big.
iClip Lyrics 1.3.3
Free
For each track that plays, iClip Lyrics shows the lyrics if they exist in iTunes; otherwise, it uses the track and artist names to search LyricWiki.org. If it finds them, iClip Lyrics displays them and adds them to the current track's ID3 tags.
Troubleshoot Like a Genius
Quick Fixes
- Restart
- Repair Your Disk.
- Make Sure Things Are Up-to-Date
- Reinstall (misbehaving software)
- Do a Safe Boot (hold the shift key at startup)
Problems You Usually Solve Yourself
- Root Out Corrupted Preferences Files
- Dump Corrupted Cache Files
- Purge Problematic Plugins
- Rebuild the Program's Database
Mini Media Hub
Turn your mac mini into your entertainment headquarters
WPA is useful in a mixed-platform network, because Windows, OS X, and iPhones can all use the same passphrase.
Gmail Power Tools
- Tasks
- Canned responses. (helpful for removal from mailing lists.)
- Forgotten attachment detector
- Quote Selected Text
Because Tasks is web-based, you can view, add, and edit your to-do list from your iPhone.
Access a Mac When You Don't Know the Password
"The State of American Broadband"
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