The April issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Mark discovers an unexpected benefit of the iPod nano apparently having a mind of its own, while at the same time dealing with the beta of Safari 4 and problems with paperless billing. As usual, Ed updates the GTD App Master List, while exploring the automation of file management.
Rob brings us photos of the Vasquez Rocks, part of the San Andreas Fault just north of Los Angeles, in this month’s desktop pictures. (Be sure to tune in next month when Rob’s teenage daughter’s photos of Yosemite are featured, and we can all see how much better a photographer she is than dear ol’ Dad. Love ya, Rob!) Linus shows us how Mac users really can be affected by Windows viruses.
Ed expands the capabilities of Photoshop Elements with the extremely capable Elements+, which unlocks big-brother Photoshop features otherwise hidden in the application’s source code. In the quest to protect sensitive data, Linus conducts a little Espionage, while Lee looks at the iPhone app for Facebook, a place where far too many people aren’t sensitive enough with their data.
Frank conducts the Mother of Current Big Three GTD Mac Apps Round-Up™, having a hard time choosing between OmniFocus, TaskPaper, and Things. (I use TaskPaper myself, though I admit I don’t really use it every day, in the way I should be using it. I guess I have trust issues. Which is funny because many times, my brain itself can’t be trusted, so… Oh. Right. This month’s issue. Sorry.)
Chris is a little disappointed with the iFlyz Personal Media Solution Stand, whereas Lee finds KavaServices rather useful. Finally, when he’s not flying the friendly skies, Chris is trying out the Showcase with his iPhone 3G.
As usual, ATPM is available in a variety of formats to suit your reading needs:
+ Offline Webzine
+ Print-optimized PDF
+ Screen-optimized PDF
Tag: Mac
The March issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Mike ponders a Jobs-less Apple future, especially in light of a certain comment made by a certain Apple fan-baiting hack. After a long hiatus, Mark re-enters the world of book design with a job hunt, and comes away pining for a twenty year-old Mac rather than suffer the slings and arrows of the Windows machines he encounters. Also in the employment hunt, Mark discovers the paperless office and instant communication are still a long way off, especially, and not surprisingly, in the bureaucratic wasteland of government offices.
Sylvester has a wonderful introductory piece on Time Machine. Be sure to read the comments; after submitting the article for publication, Sylvester encountered an error with Time Machine backups, and his solution may prove valuable to some of you in the future.
David Siebecker was kind enough to share some amazing photos from his 2006 safari to Tanzania for this month’s desktop pictures. (Consequently, Tanzania is the home of Emmanuel, the boy our family sponsors through Compassion.) I especially like the shots of the rhino, elephant, and the two sunsets. In this month’s Qaptain Qwerty, Linus shows us how backups have grown up.
Speaking of Linus, he puts ChronoSync, an app I’ve long had on the Eventual To-Try list, through its paces, and finds it worthy. One booth we made sure to stop by at while at Macworld Expo was the Eye-Fi one, and Lee has given the namesake Explore wireless SD card a workout. Finally, Chris determines whether or not the PED3 iPhone Stand is a worthwhile replacement for Apple’s iPhone dock.
As usual, ATPM is available in a variety of formats for your convenience. Thanks for reading About This Particular Macintosh!
The February issue is now available for your reading pleasure.
If you’ve gotten over Wes’ analogy to high-altitude, fiber-producing, spitting camelids in last month’s Bloggable, you’ll be pleased to know he’s now moved on to the blogosphere discussion of appropriate iTunes App Store pricing. Oh, and Steve Jobs’ health. Because the mainstream media will just not. Let. It. Go.
Mark wanders down memory lane so far as Internet connections are concerned, and laments that some employment forms across the Pond are in non-editable PDF form. Why is this a problem? When one such form is 28 pages long, that’s a lot of handwriting. There’s also the testy problem of folks paying for a broadband connection half the speed of which they’re paying for.
For anyone looking to get things done, Ed has updated the master list of applications which might help you to do so. Yours truly, with much help from Lee and Eric, offers a report from our adventure in San Francisco, and Macworld Expo 2009. Speaking of memory lane, Linus takes a stroll about Removable Storage Avenue, with a column title that made me smile nostalgically.
Speaking of San Francisco, one of the things the three ATPM musketeers did while we were there was take lots of photos, and the Bay Area offers lots of opportunities for great shots. Lee shares some of his favorites with us for this month’s desktop pictures. Linus contributed a cartoon complimentary to his column, wherein an old maxim is shown to not be true.
Some of you may think laptop stands are just not cricket, but Frank Wu is impressed with the Cricket Laptop Stand. (What? Too many Britishisms in this month’s ATPM post?) Ed puts MacSpeech Dictate 2.1 through its paces, and the voice recognition tool emerges unscathed and highly recommended.
As usual, ATPM is available in myriad formats for your enjoyment.
About This Particular Macintosh enters its fifteenth year of publishing with the release of our January issue.
Angus found himself doing some iPhone evangelism during the holiday season, even if it was completely unintentional on his part. Wes returns, after many months, with a look at the latest in the Mac blogosphere, notably the latest news regarding lawsuits between Apple and Mac-clone maker Psystar.
Mike is very happy with his iPhone 3G, but is disappointed that it meant his having to leave Sprint. He wonders if we’ll ever have mobile phones and mobile serviced unbundled from one another. As Mike notes, the cable companies don’t tell us what TV to use, and thank Jobs and Woz we aren’t required to use Windows to access content on the Internet. (Well, most content, anyway.) As his next action for 2009, Ed lays out where he’s taking his column, and looks for feedback from the ATPM readership.
Ken Aspeslagh was kind enough to share some photos from around the world for this month’s desktop pictures. Locations include St. John, France, and New England. Linus entertains with this month’s cartoon, related to a review in this same issue.
Speaking of reviews, Ed gets on the, er, Freeway. No, not of love, but of web site design. If you’ve got a ton of URLs you’d like to store for later reference, Paul thinks you can do worse than ShoveBox. For those looking for a hands-free kit to use with their iPhone, Ed thinks highly of the Vizor SUN. (Yeah, I had a line there about shining brightly, or using your car’s sun visor, but I couldn’t make it work, and it’s already past midnight, so this is getting posted on the 2d instead of the 1st. Maybe next year.) Finally, Linus wraps up our first issue of 2009 with a look at WordSoup, and if you’re still trying to figure out the cartoon, hopefully it makes sense now.
As always, this month’s issue is available in multiple formats for your reading enjoyment. Thanks for reading ATPM!
Expert Macintosh users who see “MacWorld” in an article know you don’t know what you’re talking about, just as most technology-literate readers would laugh at “MicroSoft,” “QualComm,” or “LexMark.” Referring to a famous technology event without the correct name or spelling is a quick way to throw away your credibility. Saying “That’s how I always thought it was spelled, and besides, everyone knew what I meant” is saying “I didn’t bother to get the facts about my subject before I wrote my article.” Don’t be that writer.
The December issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available.
We wrap up our fourteenth year of publishing beginning with some fantastic cover art courtesy of our friend Catherine. Mike ponders Apple’s sales strategy post-Black Friday, given the downturn in the economy, while Mark comments on the oft-overlooked Services menu. GTDers, rejoice, for Ed has another installment, this time focusing on non-typical lists, or, in humanspeak, “things that don’t conveniently fall in to our normal lists or categories”. Ed also updates the application list for the final time this year; if you can’t find an app to help you get things done, well, then you’re just not trying. Or reading ATPM each month.
Our friend Mike Shields returns from a long hiatus with perspective from a Mac user in Hollywood. Mike recently took part in the 168 Project, and discusses how you, too, can use your Mac to shoot an almost no-budget flick. Sylvester offers a guide for everyone who would like to run a second monitor on their Mac. Before I brought my old G4 Cube out of retirement, I was doing this with my 20-inch iMac and an older 19-inch LCD, and I confess, I do miss the extra screen real estate. Lee brings us some gorgeous shots of the Rocky Mountain National Forest in this month’s desktop pictures section, including some widescreen shots. My personal favorite is number three.
Just in time for the holiday buying season, we have a slew of product reviews to assist you in purchasing decisions for the Mac users on your list, or for yourself! Linus takes us through the new version of Art Text, while Ed lugs around Tom Bihn’s Checkpoint Flyer, a bag which allows travelers to keep their laptop in the bag without being hassled by the TSA.
Lee puts the Finder-based FTP client ExpanDrive through its paces, as Paul summarizes the tome, Foundations of Mac OS X Leopard Security. If you’re unable to hit the links on a regular basis, Ed may have found a solution for you with GL Golf. Finally, Lee looks at the iRecord Pro to see if it measures up to its predecessor.
As usual, ATPM is available in a variety of formats for your reading pleasure.
On behalf of the ATPM staff, thank you for reading. Concluding fourteen years of publication is quite a milestone, and we’re looking forward to continuing the standards we’ve set forth as we enter year fifteen. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!
Every time there’s a new OS release from MSFT they talk about the shortfalls of the current OS & how the new version will fix all problems.
Ever hear Apple dis a former version of their OS? Me neither. 🙂
The November issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Charles returns with another Filemaking column, taking readers through layouts and tables in the book database we’re building. There are lamentations from across the Pond, as Mark bemoans Honda and FireWire neutering, yet we can rejoice and be thankful this month on the American side of the ocean, as Ed has updated the GTD application master list.
Lee breaks down the various file formats available to us in Photoshop, while ATPM reader Zac Stivers was kind enough to share some photos from his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas in our desktop pictures offering. I think the second Quince photo is lovely.
Speaking of photos, and Photoshop, Lee also reviews Mask Pro 4.1.2, which can be helpful for those of without the experience Lee has in building masks from scratch. Chris rocks the Logitech MX Revolution’s world, putting the ergonomically-shaped, wireless mouse through its paces. Ed likes the intriguing PDFPen, while Linus enlisted the help of his wife and son in his review of the game StoneLoops.
We say good-bye to a dear friend this month in the pages of About This Particular Macintosh. Matt Johnson has been drawing his Cortland cartoon for us for six years, and this month, brings the series to a close. Matt has seen a lot of changes in his life of late: new wife (congratulations, you guys!), new job, and a new city. He’s taking a breather from cartooning to get in to the swing of things, but assures us he’ll be back in the near future.
Thanks for six great years, Matt, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with next!
As usual, ATPM is available in a variety of reading formats for your comfort. Thanks for reading!
From my good friend, Brent:
“[T]he only people who bring up the supposed value of IBM/Windows over Mac are people whose livelihoods depend on it. Those PC vs. Mac commercials are correct, and Jerry Seinfeld can’t fix it.”
(It’s worth noting Brent’s livelihood does not, in fact, depend on the Mac. He’s just a satisfied user of one at home, whereas his work computer is Windows-based.)
The September issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure.
Mark informs us that more ISP chicanery is afoot across the Pond, and how Mac users in the UK might be affected. Ed’s updated the master list of GTD apps with a new item: iPhone Presence. Does the app have an iPhone version, or a web version the iPhone can access? Pretty handy if you’re looking for an application to get things done with that will run on your Mac and your iPhone.
In this month’s Photoshop For the Curious, Lee shows us how to use the Merge tool to stitch together those vacation photos to get those great panoramic shots. Sylvester scratches the surface of Preview’s usability to help us get more out of that handy little app.
This month’s desktop pictures are again courtesy of Julie Ritterskamp, who took these great photos in various national parks throughout the western United States this past July. The identity of Lord Fate, present and past, is revealed, as Cortland’s saga comes to a close. Todd and Angie begin to move their lives forward again, though Angie is having trouble letting Cortland go. But does she have to…?
First Officer Chris Lawson, our nation-trotting staff pilot, pounds around on Das Keyboard Professional, while the Big Boss, Michael Tsai, reviews three hard drive enclosures which allow one to treat hard drives as floppy disks. (For you young’uns, we used to have to store our computer data on this pieces of five-inch discs, which were encased in a floppy plastic material, hence the name, floppy disk, or floppies.)
Lee looks at a pair of headsets from Maximo, while Ed does some recipe filing with MacGourmet Deluxe. Finally, Linus puts Séquence through its paces to see if it can dethrone screen-capture king Snapz Pro.
As always, this issue of ATPM is available in a variety of formats for your reading enjoyment.