News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
You have way too much stuff on your Macintosh, but you can’t chuck it away — it’s important stuff. Well, you suspect it’s important but there’s just too much stuff to go through and find out what really is important.
Ian Yates | Dec 31, 2007
Choosing a GPS receiver really comes down to fitness forpurpose and personal choice. If you want one for your car, then any ofthe reviewed units does the job quite adequately and is orders ofmagnitude better than scrabbling through an out-of-date streetdirectory, particularly if you are travelling solo. You can choose abasic no frills GPS-only model such as the Mio Digiwalker C220 or goall out for the widescreen Hitachi with Bluetooth hands-free, music,photo, videos and input for your reversing camera. In between are theGarmin nuvi250W and the Kogan FIO. If you want to boldly go where no4WD fool has gone before, the Kogan is the one most likely to keep upwith your attempts to get lost. We would really like to see a unit withthe screen clarity and ease of use of the TomTom plus thewide-but-not-too-wide format of the Garmin, loaded with the maps fromthe Kogan.
Ian Yates | Dec 2, 2007
If you like iiNet, its supplied Belkin router has the lot, and if you change ISPs down the line, you can still use the box with a new provider. If you’re already happy with your ISP and just need some VoIP and want to reduce the box and cable clutter, then either offering from engin or MyNetFone will solve the problem and make setup easy. The Linksys would suit those who don’t want to fiddle with their ISP modem and landline phone, but want to add VoIP and WiFi features. And for those who are only satisfied by total control, D-Link is the obvious choice.
Ian Yates | Nov 1, 2007
Just a few short years ago you couldn’t use the word “budget” to describe a colour laser printer, unless your budget was considerable. For this review we tried to gather printers that sell for under $500, and we managed to find three. A fourth came in at $600, which is still half the price of similar models we reviewed back at the start of 2005. Unfortunately, Epson’s budget model is just about to be superseded and we couldn’t get our hands on the new model before deadline. If you’re a fan of the Epson brand — and there’s good reason to be — keep an eye open for the new model sometime next month.
Ian Yates | Oct 21, 2007
These days you can buy an inkjet printer at the supermarket for lessthan $50 — less than the cost of replacement ink cartridges. However, if you need to do more than produce the occasional printed page you’ll soon wish you’d bought something a bit more substantial. Those budget inkjets do a decent job of producing postcard prints captured on the weekend. They just don’t excel at spitting out large quantities of textpages. Usually hobbled by tri-colour cartridges, or at best allowing you to swap-in an all-black cartridge, they weren’t designed to be printing powerhouses.
Ian Yates | Sep 15, 2007
It’s been about twelve months since we looked at portable projectors and there have been some subtle changes in the market.
Ian Yates | Aug 15, 2007
If you want the most real estate you can get, and you want it right infront of your face for creative work, any of these 30” displays willmore than satisfy. If you need to match your décor with your otherApple acquisitions you won’t be disappointed with Apple’s 30” CinemaDisplay and your financial penalty is now much lower for remainingloyal to the fold. However, the other vendors provide swivel and heightadjustment while Apple only provides tilt, which might be important insome work environs. While HP would like you to pay an extra $200 abovethe Apple price for a fully adjustable stand, Samsung and Dell give youthe same capacity with a price below Apple’s. Dell is still asking lessthan al the other vendors and the price includes delivery. Which ishard to ignore.
Ian Yates | Jul 15, 2007
The Apple and NEC displays are almost double the price of either theLG, Acer or ViewSonic monitors. The absolute bargain here is the Acerat $429. For less money than either Apple or NEC is asking you couldhave dual Acer displays and get some serious screen real estate,provided of course you have a dual-screen-capable Macintosh. For anextra $70 over the Acer price ViewSonic gives you a height-adjustablescreen with the bonus of built-in speakers, which just might clinch thedeal for some buyers. Then again, you can get some serious speakers for$70. We’ll stick with the Acer and count our savings.
Ian Yates | Jun 15, 2007
For the easiest solution to your webcam needs, buy one with theMacintosh logo on the box, such as the iDCam offered by Try & Byte.If you want a webcam with more features, spend some time hunting theweb sites of IOXperts and Sourceforge, choose a shortlist from thosemarked “works” and then back that up by looking for online users whocan confirm that your chosen model does indeed work as advertised. Ofcourse, you could always upgrade to a nice new Macintosh with built-iniSight and avoid the problem entirely.
Ian Yates | Apr 30, 2007
If you want the best looking prints at the cheapest price, don’t mind average-quality copying and don’t need camera card slots, the Epson CX3900 is the winner. If you need a fax machine along with printing, copying and scanning, then the Lexmark X5470 is the only game in town at these prices. You’ll just need to spend a bit of time setting up a profile which gives you decent looking prints, which will waste a bit of ink and paper before you get everything set just right.
Ian Yates | Mar 15, 2007
The choice between these NAS devices is really simple: you pay yourmoney and you make your choice. Each one provides all the essentialsyou could ask for in shared storage, and as the price increases, so dothe features. For solid fast shared storage the LaCie Ethernet Big Diskis hard to beat on price. If you need the security of RAID 1, then theMaxtor holds instant appeal. If you need RAID 5 or you want your NASavailable without wires, step up to the Iomega StorCenter. None ofthese will disappoint.
Ian Yates | Feb 11, 2007
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.
