Reviews For January 15, 2010

From MacSurfer

• “Propellerhead Software Record 1.0: Turn your Mac into a fully equipped virtual recording studio” Macworld
• “VirusBarrier: Is it medicine your Mac doesn’t need?” NoodleMac
• “How to satisfy your craving for Mac eye candy” PixoBebo
• “The Top 20 FREE Tools Every Mac User Must Have” Mac360
• “Rescue Me….” MacNews Blog
• “Macsimum Migration Kit: agricultural/farming software for Mac OS X” Macsimum News
• “Use a free third-party Java tool to truly compress PDFs” Mac OS X Hints
• “Create a size-limited playlist of random albums in iTunes” Mac OS X Hints
• “Use Tab-completion for SSH ‘host’ aliases” Mac OS X Hints

Microsoft "Laptop" ads made on Macs?

Microsoft’s Laptop Hunter ads were potentially made by a largely Mac-based marketing firm, a visit to Crispin Porter + Bogusky shows. In spite of producing ads showing creatives opting for less expensive PCs over Macs, the company contracted to produce the commercials is seen in photos using Macs near-exclusively, hinting strongly that most of the production was accomplished using various MacBooks and even some eMacs.

The apparent contradiction isn’t entirely unexpected given the usage habits of the industry and the tendency for ad agencies to regularly serve multiple clients, but comes as Microsoft has tried to portray Macs as unnecessarily expensive in its own online and TV campaigns. Crispin Porter + Bogusky isn’t Microsoft’s only contracted agency but is the primary firm behind the $300 million push, which has also included the Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates spots.

source:electronista

Apple Prepping Cheaper Macs

AppleInsider reports that Apple is planning to introduce cheaper Macs, possibly as soon as this coming spring. According to AppleInsider the move comes as consumers switch to budget computers such as netbooks.

Details no where exactly the cheaper Macs will appear are not known but AppleInsider notes that Apple could reduce the price of the MacBook in the near future as part of revisions across the line.

A Windows guru spends two weeks with a Mac

This is final verdict reprinted from Computerworld:

What did I learn after several weeks of living with the Mac?

First off, I had expected there to be a longer learning curve, and had thought that in the long run there wouldn’t be much of a difference between the Mac and a PC. After all, an operating system is just an operating system.

To a certain extent that’s true. When you use productivity applications themselves, there’s not a great deal of difference between using them on a Mac versus using them on a PC. However, when it came to the operating system itself, there’s certainly a difference, and a substantial one. Mac OS X is simpler to use and easier to configure, yet has more bells, whistles and “eye candy.” And much of that eye candy, such as Exposé, is not just elegantly designed and entertaining, but quite useful as well.

That’s not to say that every aspect of the Mac is superior to the PC. Vista’s Network and Sharing Center, and especially the Network Map, is an excellent, simple, all-in-one destination for networking that Mac OS X would do well to emulate.

Overall, though, Mac OS X beats Windows. There, I’ve said it. And lightning hasn’t struck me yet.

However, there’s no doubt that you often pay extra for a Mac; there really is a Mac tax, even if Microsoft has overstated the amount of that tax. But after living with a Mac, I can understand why people would be willing to pay the tax.

Am I giving up PCs for the Mac? Certainly not. I’ve got multiple PCs at home, including those that run Windows XP, Windows Vista and a beta of Windows 7. And I’ve got one that dual-boots into either XP or Linux running Ubuntu. Replacing all those machines with Macs would be prohibitively expensive, and simply not worth the effort.

As for the MacBook Air, for a portable machine, it’s perfect in just about every way but one — its price tag. Still, I’ve bit the bullet and am buying one, used. This isn’t about productivity or getting work done; it’s pure machine lust.

If you want to read the very long, but great article hit the source link below.

source:macworld

DivX 7 video software released for Mac

DivX has announced the release of DivX 7 for Mac, the latest major version of its video encoding software. The decoder is free — a Pro version with encoding tools is also available for $20.

DivX is commonly used to encode video distributed over the Internet, and the Divx 7 for Mac software makes it possible for you to play .divx and .avi videos using QuickTime. DivX 7 supports High Definition (HD) H.264 .MKV (Matroska) files. Matroska is an open standard for audio and video file “containers” — it’s not an encoder — and is often used for subtitled video content.

The free download includes a six-month trial version of the DivX Pro codec and a 15-day trial of the DivX Converter application. The codec itself, however, does not expire — you can use it indefinitely without having to pay.

System requirements call for Mac OS X 10.4 or later, QuickTime 7 and a G4/800MHz or faster.

source:macworld

Review: Apple's Nehalem-based Mac Pro 'fastest Mac ever'

April 5, 2009 (Computerworld) Every time it updates its professional-level workstation, Apple brands the new Mac Pro as “the fastest Mac ever.” It’s an interesting dilemma for the company, because the boast — albeit true — is both exciting and humdrum. Wouldn’t it bum you out if the latest top-of-the-line Mac weren’t also the fastest?

Don’t worry. The latest update for the Mac Pro pretty much lives up to expectations. In some ways, the basic quad-core 2.66-GHz Mac Pro that Apple sent over for review screamed. But it falls short of last year’s version when it comes to great expectations of across-the-board performance leaps.

With this iteration, the Mac Pro takes a significant step forward by moving to Intel’s new Nehalem processor, leaving behind the previous model’s Harpertown and Penryn chips. (Yes, they’re all officially Intel Xeon processors, but Intel’s nomenclature is so arcane that it’s better to go by those code names to keep the models straight.) For $2,499, the entry-level Mac Pro offers a quad-core 2.66-GHz processor, 3GB of DDR3 EEC memory, a 640GB hard drive, an 18x double-layer SuperDrive, and an Nvidia GeForce GT120 video card. For $800 more, you get two 2.26-GHz quad-core processors (for a total of eight cores) and 6GB of RAM. It’s a hefty price bump, mostly for the additional CPU; Intel’s newest processors still command a premium cost. There are also a variety of CPU options: Moving to a 2.93-GHz single quad-core Xeon adds $500 to the price of the base model — or you can get two of them for $2,600 extra in the top model.

For the complete review, hit the source link below.

source:computerworld

I'm sure you have seen the video

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&showPlaylist=true&from=shared" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

But what about this one from GeekCulture.com

source:geekculture

Update on Saturday, April 4, 2009 at 1:15AM by Jon Arnason

Microsoft’s Lauren ad faked say bloggers

Accusations are flying within the blogosphere that Microsoft simply faked its latest ad portraying a real buyer named Lauren shopping for a 17” notebook under $1000, who supposedly couldn’t find what she was looking for in the Apple Store.

Bloggers forensically studied the advertisement in slow motion, pointing out that the shots of Lauren entering and leaving the store appear to have been shot all at once; the surrounding people walking past in both shots appear in the same place. This must mean, they conclude, that Lauren never entered the store looking for the $1000 17” notebook, and that the ad simply included a scene at “the Mac store” to offer Apple some additional free advertising.

Of course, it doesn’t really matter if Lauren walked into the store and spent any length of time there. The entire ad was contrived by definition. Lauren wasn’t given money to find the ideal computer for her needs, she was given a specific budget and told to find a specific hardware feature that Apple does not carry.

Apple only sells one 17” notebook with a high quality, full resolution screen. No PC maker ships anything comparable to the MacBook Pro for under $1000. As the ad points out however, there are plenty of low quality, low resolution 17” screens available from PC makers trying to dangle low prices in front of consumers in the overcrowded, low differentiation market for low end, generic PCs that ship with Windows Vista.

For the complete story, hit source link below.

source:appleinsider

MacBook Mini Photos Generate Speculation

A series of images from a Russian magazine which claims to depict a “MacBook Mini” have been circulating on the internet. The specs on the described machine as said to include the following:

- 10.4” WXGA display.
- 1280 x 768 pixel with LED backlighting.
- NVIDIA MCP79
- Intel Atom Z740 1.83GHz with 1MB L2 cache.
- 2GB DDR3-800.
- NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
- 64GB Solid State Drive.
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n
- 1 x USB 2.0
- 1 x Mini Display Port
- Battery Li-Ion 5100mA

We don’t know what to make of the images, and have our doubts about the legitimacy of the images. Still, with rumors have been circulating that Apple will be entering the netbook market, it makes for interesting speculation. The machine would reportedly retail for approximately $899 in 2009.

source:macrumors

Updated Apple Mac Pro Benchmarks

Since more of the new Mac Pros have been delivered, it seems some of the early benchmarks underestimated the 2.26GHz Mac Pro’s performance in single threaded tasks. The latest numbers show that the new 2.26GHz 8-Core machines appear to have both single-threaded and multi-threaded performance equal to or better than the previous generation 2.8GHz 8-Core machines. Another set of benchmarks are also compiled in this graph by Tesselator.

Meanwhile, Engadget posted a nice video showing the internals of the Mac Pro including the new CPU and Memory drawer which can easily slide out of the chassis.

source[macrumors]

New iMac Has Impressive Speedmark Score of 308

This is how Macworld sums up the new iMac line that was just introduced this month:

“It may sound trite to say that the new iMacs are the fastest iMacs we’ve seen—every new iMac is faster than the previous generation—but there are significant speed gains in this new generation. Let’s start with the fastest iMac, the 3.06GHz 24-inch iMac; it posted an overall Speedmark score that was 24 points (8 percent) higher than the previous 24-inch iMac with the same 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor (then available as a build-to-order model). The new entry-level iMac, a 2.66GHz 20-inch model, had a Speedmark score that was 26 points higher (11 percent) than the previous entry-level model, a 2.4GHz 20-inch iMac.

The new 2.66GHz 24-inch iMac doesn’t simply offer a bigger screen, more RAM (4GB versus 2GB), and a larger hard drive (640GB versus 320GB) than the entry-level 2.66GHz 20-inch iMac, which has the same processor speed. For the extra $300, you get a performance boost, too—the 2.66GHz 24-inch iMac posted a Speedmark score that was 14 points (5 percent) higher than the 2.66GHz 20-inch model.

There’s a $400 difference between the high-end 3.06GHz iMac and the 2.93GHz iMac. Looking at the Speedmark score, there’s only an 11-point difference (4 percent) between the two iMacs. But the key difference between the two is the graphics card; the 3.06GHz iMac has a 512MB Nvidia GeForce GT 130, while the 2.93GHz iMac has a 256MB Nvidia GeForce GT 120. The 3.06GHz iMac posted 7 more frames per second (11 percent) than the 2.93GHz iMac in our Call of Duty frame rate test.”

source[macworld]