Reviews
Canon Pixma MX850
Pros - Speedy; user-friendly; Superior text quality comparable to lasers; includes duplexer and automatic document feeder.
Cons - Scan resolution is slightly fuzzy and jagged; some colors look muted in scan output.
Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive
Pros Small; good bundled backup software; bus powered.
Cons Slow performer; drive activity light in rear.
Bon Jovi Rocks Kansas City, MO and I Was There!!
I saw Bon Jovi at home in Vancouver, BC back in December ’07 and next to Springsteen's 1984 marathon, it was almost as good, playing at just shy of three hours. The guys recorded three of their biggest albums in Vancouver so their show in my hometown was very special because of all the back-stories and memories they shared of those earlier days.
So when I made plans to visit John "Bynkii" Welch and his beautiful wife Mel in Kansas City, MO, I was excited to pick a time that coincided with Bon Jovi dates in KC.
Hope you enjoy!
~Sly
Photoshop Express
Pros: Free, reasonably powerful toolset, easy to setup and use, integrates well with social networking sites
Cons: Requires a fast internet connection, browser interface can be clunky
Photoshop Elements 6
Perhaps the hardest part of early 2008 wasn’t waiting for the cold, icy fingers of winter to release their grip here on the East Coast where I live—it was waiting for Adobe to release Photoshop Elements 6. A worthy winner of Best of Show honors at this January’s Macworld Conference & Expo, the Elements update was among the most anticipated product releases showcased at the annual Mac trade show.
Adobe promised to make photo editing easier than ever, and, boy, it delivered.
(Shawn's Comment: Make note of the review's author!!)
Time Capsule
Pros - Allows both internal and USB-connected drive Time Machine backups for Leopard users; includes all AirPort Extreme features; archive option for simplified off-site backups; houses drive, power supply in one tidy case.
Cons - Can’t swap internal drive; Time Machine’s hourly backups are too often for networked system; storage capacity will be strained in multi-user environments.
Penryn powers MacBook Pro Gains
Just as the hubbub over the MacBook Air has begun to quiet down, Apple has turned the spotlight on the rest of its laptop lineup. Last week the company introduced new MacBook and MacBook Pro models, replacing the Core 2 Duo processors with a new generation of faster chips and increasing the hard drive capacity.
We’ve put the new MacBook Pros through their paces and found that the changes add up to noticeable performance gains over the last-generation of Apple’s high-end laptop. More significant, the revamped MacBook Pro lineup is decidedly faster than the Core Duo-powered models that debuted two years ago.
2GB iPod shuffle
Pros - Cute, rugged finish; good battery life; loud as you need; very affordable.
Cons - No Apple Lossless support; not the best iPod for listening to podcasts and audiobooks.
Brother HL-4070CDW
From Macworld
Pros - First-rate print quality; fast; inexpensive; built-in duplexing; wireless networking.
Cons - Less-refined color-text print quality; complicated wireless networking setup.
MacBook Air
From Macworld
Pros - Weighs three pounds; bright LED-backlit 13.3-inch screen; full-size keyboard.
Cons - Slow processor; slow and small hard drive; limited configuration options; unswappable battery.
Microsoft Entourage 2008
From Macworld
Pros - Excellent mail and calendar features; faster e-mail searching; improved Exchange support; better database integrity.
Cons - Light on new features; could do a better job of synchronization; minor bugs; My Day application is of limited use; Automator workflows don’t work under Leopard.
Final Cut Express 4
From Macworld
Pros - AVCHD support; open format timeline; ability to import iMovie �08 projects and use iMovie as a video library; editing with most of Final Cut Pro�s features; lower price compared to earlier versions.
Cons - Soundtrack no longer included; limited number of included LiveType effects; modest changes from previous version may underwhelm would-be upgraders.
Sound Studio 3
From Macworld
Pros - Extremely easy to use; supports Audio Units plug-ins for access to powerful effects; allows automated workflows.
Cons - No support for VST plug-ins; poor time- and pitch-shifting tools; MP3 support requires additional software.
Epson MovieMate 72 Projector
From Macworld
Pros - 720p high-definition capable; integrated, up-converting DVD player; very good audio quality from built-in speakers; USB port for displaying photos from a thumb drive.
Cons - No DVI port; no automatic keystone correction; no automatic focus.
MarsEdit 2
From Macworld
Pros Set-up for existing Weblogs is swift and easy; managing images and photos is efficient; can set preferences for comments and trackbacks.
Cons Some of the best features are hard to find in menus; text-markup tags can appear to clutter entries.
Dueling Kindle Reviews
Walt Mossberg's "Amazon’s Kindle Makes Buying E-Books Easy, Reading Them Hard"
Andy Ihnatko's "Kindle can Light Up your Life"
One Terabyte Drives - Hitachi versus Seagate
From Bare Feats
As promised, here is our shootout between the two new one terabyte 3G SATA hard drives (Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 and Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000). Until the "TBs" started shipping, the 750GB drives were the capacity "kings." For perspective, we included the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 and Western Digital Caviar SE16 750GB drives in the shootout.
Click here to read more "One Terabyte Drives - Hitachi versus Seagate"
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica Review
From Ars Technica
As I see it, operating system beauty is more than skin deep. While the casual Mac user will gauge Leopard's worth by reading about the marquee features or watching a guided tour movie at Apple's web site, those of us with an unhealthy obsession with operating systems will be trolling through the internals to see what's really changed.
These two views of Leopard, the interface and the internals, lead to two very different assessments. Somewhere in between lie the features themselves, judged not by the technology they're based on or the interface provided for them, but by what they can actually do for the user.
As in past reviews, I've chosen to delve deeply into the aspects of Leopard that are the most interesting to me while also trying to provide a reasonable overview for the non-geeks who've decided to take the plunge into an Ars Technica review. (Hi, Mom.)
Okay Leopard, let's see what you've got.
Click here to read more "Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard: the Ars Technica Review"
Mac OS X Leopard
From Macworld
Pros: Easy backup tools; major improvements in included applications; addresses numerous shortcomings from previous OS versions; improved security and networking functions.
Cons: Stacks and Dock features seem poorly thought out; illegible menu items with some Desktop backgrounds; some bugs in Spaces window behavior.
Casio Exilim EX-V7 Digital Camera
From Macworld
Pros: 7x zoom lens; manual exposure options; excellent battery life.
Cons: Ineffective image-stabilization features; awkward controls; clunky docking station required to recharge battery.
HP Photosmart A826 Photo Printer
From Macworld
Pros: Extremely intuitive and innovative user interface; attractive kiosk-shaped design.
Cons: Dark prints appear flat and dull due to processed blacks; rounded, smooth design makes printer clumsy to handle.
Nikon Coolpix S50c
From Macworld
ros: Wi-Fi system for e-mailing photos straight from the camera; useful in-camera editing tools.
Cons: Soft images; limited Wi-Fi connection choices; hair-trigger power switch.
Painter Essentials 4
From Macworld
Pros: Friendly new interface; informative brush stroke previews; RealBristle brushes emulate the real thing; integrated print services.
Cons: None significant.
(Shawn's Comment: Another *great* review from my favorite Macworld.com reviewer! :))
The Starbucks iTunes WiFi Music Store Reviewed
From Gear Live
As promised Apple and Starbucks started their rollout of the Starbucks WiFi Music Store in select cities. Gear Live is lucky enough to be in Seattle, the first city to get the special version of the iTunes Music Store in our Starbucks. The service allows laptops, iPhones, and the iPod Touch users to connect for free to the iTunes store while sipping lattes without having to pay for for a T-Mobile Hotspot account. Click through for our full impressions on Apple’s new partnership with the coffee mega-store Starbucks.
Click here to read more "The Starbucks iTunes WiFi Music Store Reviewed"
First look: Pixelmator
From MacFormat
Touted as everything from a Photoshop-killer to an 'image editor for the rest of us', it's safe to say that Pixelmator has been one hotly anticipated application. The final build of 1.0 was posted for download during the wee small hours, and as someone who regularly uses various image editors on both Mac and Windows, I just had to take a look.
iPod touch
From PlayList
After much speculation that a “phone-less” iPhone held a prominent spot on Apple’s “To Do” whiteboard, Apple released what many anticipated would be such a device in the form of the iPod touch, an iPod that shares most of the iPhone’s multimedia features and a small subset of its communications tools. Yet it bears the iPod name rather than allying itself with the iPhone. As an iPod touch its main mission remains media.
For some expecting a hybrid of the iPod and iPhone, the touch will come as a disappointment. But even without skewed expectations, the iPod touch is an imperfect player—offering a somewhat arbitrary feature set, no physical or remote controls for adjusting volume or controlling the player, very restricted video output capabilities, and, at best, an under-whelming display (and, at worst, one that’s virtually unwatchable when viewing dark video).
Canon PowerShot TX1
From Macworld
Pros: 10x zoom lens; above-average image quality; swiveling LCD view screen; good image stabilization.
Cons: High-quality video format gobbles memory; awkward styling; expensive.
Fake Steve Jobs' 'Options' is Funny, but Optional
From CNET
Lyons preserves some of the hilarious writing style from the blog that kept the tech media world amused during the last year, but a novel is the wrong outlet for Fake Steve. The plot exists seemingly to kill pages between the funny anecdotes, and it steers clear of the skewering of Valley executives like Google's Eric Schmidt (known as Squirrel Boy to FSJ's readers) and Sun's Jonathan Schwartz (My Little Pony) to focus more on Steve's internal angst.
Still, it's an entertaining read for the tech industry veteran and a quick one, perfect for your next "nerd bird" flight between San Jose and Austin.
Click here to read more "Fake Steve Jobs' 'Options' is Funny, but Optional"
Review: 80GB and 160GB iPod classic
From PlayList
As of September 5, 2007, the full-sized iPod turned six (as in sixth-generation) and, because of the existence of the iPhone-like iPod touch, was pronounced a classic—the iPod classic. Offering increased capacity, a thinner form factor, a full-metal enclosure, an enhanced (and sometimes sluggish) interface, and incompatibility with some accessories that get along quite happily with earlier iPods—in short, the high-capacity version of the third-generation iPod nano—the iPod classic is mainly about size and storage. If you want to pack every speck of digital media you own into your pocket, this is Apple’s best iPod option.
Click here to read more "Review: 80GB and 160GB iPod classic"
Painter X
From Macworld
By Lesa Snider King (YAY!)
Pros: RealBristle brushes simulate true painting experience; compositional tools aid learning and cropping; enhanced photo painting with Smart Stroke brushes.
Cons: Challenging learning curve for beginners.
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