News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
There are two superb applications for Mac that make taking the plunge and doing e-mail and calendaring online vastly easier. I’ve finally decided to rid my e-mail and calendar of this earthly life — I decided after a recent MacBook Pro upgrade that it was time for them to go and live in the cloud. I’m talking, of course, about Google’s “cloud” — thousands of computers sitting somewhere in the middle of a desert, powering the web applications in my browser. Until a few days ago, there was no way I’d have been prepared to make this switch.
Dan Warne | Mar 31, 2008
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, speaking in Sydney this morning, said the MacBook Air won’t be a hit (even though he likes it), AppleTV shows the future for digital entertainment (but really frustrates him anyway), and the 2G iPhone was a disappointment to him because of its sluggish internet speed.
Dan Warne | Mar 3, 2008
Microsoft’s not quite handing over the keys to its bank deposit box, but its aggressive $A49.5billion takeover offer for Yahoo is the largest takeover it has ever attempted and tantamount to admitting it has failed in online search. Embarrassingly for Microsoft, there is no way of hiding what an abject failure its forays into search have been, despite the billions upon billions of dollars invested in it. Anyone who runs a web site has the stats: referrals from Windows Live Search are so small that they rarely rank in the top 20 referrers, while Google dominates the #1 slot by a vast margin.
Dan Warne | Feb 4, 2008
The gold standard of Apple rumour sites has, for a long time, been the threatening letter from Apple’s lawyers. It meant you were onto something. So, with plenty of advance information floating around about the MacBook Air, arguably dampening the impact Steve Jobs’ MacWorld keynote revelations, why did Apple stopped suing? Has Apple suddenly got a conscience?
Dan Warne | Feb 4, 2008
The MacBook range is second-rate for internet access, and it’s high time Apple did something about it. OK, perhaps that’s a bit unfair. On WiFi or Ethernet, the MacBook is a fine internet access device -- Draft 802.11n and all that -- but what if you’re out on the road? In an era when just about every notebook manufacturer offers several models with inbuilt mobile broadband capabilities, Apple’s notebooks are notably devoid of this handy option.
Dan Warne | Jan 7, 2008
People who read this column will know that I love Gmail as much as some people love their fully-restored 1966 Mustang.
Dan Warne | Dec 11, 2007
When I get my Telstra bill each month with the $33 line rental, I feel like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz screaming, “I’m melting! I’m melting”.
Dan Warne | Dec 11, 2007
While the rest of the media was getting hot and steamy about Qantas’s new logo, I was getting thoroughly juiced about a different aspect of the airline’s relaunch altogether.
Dan Warne | Dec 10, 2007
I bet, as an AMW reader and your friends’ and family’s tech advisor, you’ve had the question at least 10 times in the past few years: which broadband’s the best type? Unless you’re a tech enthusiast, it’s perfectly normal not to carry round a catalogue of line speeds for different types of broadband in your head.
Dan Warne | Oct 21, 2007
WinClone 1.4.1 Freeware X (10.4) Intel
If you’ve installed Windows on your Mac using Boot Camp, then you must get this utility. It allows you to back up your Windows partition to a disk image while in OS X, as well as restoring it if necessary. It also makes it possible to resize your Boot Camp partition (the process is: back up Windows using WinClone, delete the Boot Camp partition using Apple’s utility, create a new Boot Camp partition of a different size and then restore the Windows installation using WinClone.)
Quickboot 1.0.1 Freeware X (10.4) Intel
Another handy utility for Boot Camp users: it temporarily reboots the Mac into Windows, but when you restart again, it will boot back into OS X automatically. No need to use Startup Disk.
As I type these words, I am waiting for Apple's Developer Connection web site to ease up sufficiently for me to download the long-awaited Software Developer Kit for the iPhone (and iPod touch, just by the by). In a way, I hate developer-oriented announcements — "here's a really cool thing we're working on, and it's available now, and hoi polloi can have it in about six months". Actually, it's the six months I hate.
