Me and My Apple Toys by Ron McElfresh
Manage money, track, and control finances better than Quicken with Banktivity 6. Setup budgets, track bills, check investments, monitor assets.
But can a loss of money stop the talking heads? File this under What Took You So Long? Advertisers drop inflammatory Fox entertainer Glenn Beck:
A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck’s show.
Yet people watch but don’t listen.
First, big newspapers, now another print magazine on the rocks. This is the changing of the guard. Analog vs. digital. Atoms vs. bits.
“Advertising is down, circulation is down, there are alternatives like the Internet where people are getting their information”, said Richard Mikels, a partner with law firm Mintz Levin. “It’s a tougher industry than it used to be.”
It will only get worse. Online advertising revenue for media entities is not as prosperous as print and broadcast advertising revenue used to be.
So, you’re a MacBook owner, right? Is Apple’s biggest selling Mac a notebook computer, or a laptop computer? Officially, Apple calls the MacBook line a notebook, not a laptop. Common terminology for most portable PC users is laptop, not notebook. Netbook is different. Which term should be used?
The problem with assuming that it doesn’t matter is that not every portable PC or Mac is created equal. By size, a MacBook Air may not be considered a laptop because it’s rather small to be used on your lap.
Apple calls the gargantuan 17-inch MacBook Pro, which costs more than a 24-inch iMac, a notebook. Shakespeare’s Juliet said:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Laptop or notebook? Does it matter? Does it matter to Mac users if Windows users call Macs PCs? Ugh.
First came the personal computer generation. Computers that sat on the desktop, mostly hard wired to a single spot in home or office. Shortly after that came the portables.
One of the most popular was also my first computer, the Osborne 1, a sewing machine case sized portable computer that ran CP/M, dBase II, WordStar, and SuperCalc on a tiny black and white 9-inch screen.
It was more luggable than portable, as were the similarly sized Compaq portables that came afterwards. No one would consider those models laptops or notebooks, which came a few years later in clamshell designs.
Laptop is a descriptive term, which implies a portable computer that fits on your lap. I stopped using laptop with my first aluminum Mac PowerBook. Why?
There was that very hot spot on the bottom of the PowerBook which was too hot for my lap, regardless of what I was wearing at the time. After that, all my portables became notebooks.
If anything, I’m verbally pragmatic.
Notebooks are generally smaller, thinner, and much lighter than the original laptops of the last century. In other words, they look like, well, note books. These can easily be tossed into a briefcase or backpack for transporting.
Some may different laptop to notebook when screen sizes hit 15-inches and above, relegating the upper range MacBooks to laptop status. Look at the difference between Dell’s cheap 15-inch and 17-inch models, which often are twice as thick, and much heavier.
The MacBooks are in a different class, hence Apple’s use of the term notebook vs. laptop, often used for large models. Whether the portable computer actually can be used on a lap doesn’t matter.
The 21st century brought changes to the portable computing line, especially in size, power, and capability. The inappropriately named netbook class of notebooks, and the appropriately named handhelds, embodied by the iPod touch and iPhone.
A netbook is simply a very small, very inexpensive, often underpowered notebook. It may run Linux, Windows XP, and future versions may run Windows 7, but the hallmarks are small screen, small keyboard, low price.
The closest Mac to the netbook genre is the MacBook Air, large by netbook standards, and priced over $1,000 above mid-range netbooks.
So, is it notebook or laptop? I say notebook. Laptops are large, clumsy, bulky portables. Notebooks are sleek, slender, full-featured, and fast.
Honestly, I do not remember the last time I sent a fax from my Mac. These days it’s scan and email. From MacFixIt:
Besides just scanning and emailing a document to someone, there are a variety of online faxing services that will take a document and send it to a standard fax machine. Some of these are free, and others require a small fee for extra services or large faxes, but should be able to take documents in various formats and relay them to digital or analog fax machines.
Alternatives to using your Mac to fax (and avoiding the need to buy an external USB modem):
Molly Edmonds:
Though a little stress can be good for you, an overabundance of it has been linked with a host of dangerous health conditions, including heart disease, headaches, stomach problems, sleep disorders and a compromised immune system, to name just a few.
Most of that comes from marriage. And children. And work. And who knew that using Windows could be so bad on your health?
Dan Sung on the differences between Mac OS X and Windows, and their respective left-handed, and right-handed users. First, the desktops:
Have you ever taken a good look at something as simple their desktops? There’s the recent addition of the Dock and obvious graphic subtleties but one thing, although noticeable, that barely seems to register is the icons and where they sit on the screen. Sure you can drag and drop them wherever you like but the default auto-arrange on the Mac is to the right side of the screen and, with Windows, it’s to the left.
The default layout for files on the desktop is Windows, left, Mac, right.
Icons on the right-hand side of your visual field fall into the left-hand side of your brain; meaning that on a Mac, your left hemisphere is occupied while the blank space on the other side of your desktop leaves your right brain to think.
So, right sided visual, left sided brain. Left sided visual, right sided brain. Windows is left sided. Mac is right sided.
The right side of the brain is associated with imagery, graphical and geometric shape analysis, is more intuitive and supports more holistic approach to thinking.
Next, time to compare and contrast the Windows desktop experience with the Mac’s desktop experience, right-handed vs. left-handed.
With the icons and the mess on the left side, the left brain is free to work and the left brain is sequential, logical, verbal, mathematical and supports a more linear approach to solutions. You could argue that it’s represented in the users of these systems and they ways they work - Apple providing holistic machines with everything you need running out of the box and in tune; a more design-orientated, image-friendly appearance and a strength in graphics applications - whereas PCs provide a more hands-on, straight numerical and logical linear-based approach.
Microsoft’s Windows has roughly 90-percent market share among all PCs. Apple’s Mac has about 10-percent. Generally speaking, right handers outnumber left handers by 90 to 10. But only 30-percent of Mac users are left handed. Microsoft’s Bill Gates, a Windows user, is left handed. Apple’s Steve Jobs, a Mac user, is a right hander. My father uses a PC. He’s left handed. I’m a Mac guy. I’m right handed.
It’s an interesting theory but seems full of exceptions. What are you? Leftie? Rightie? Mac, or Windows?
Sir Richard Branson tried to get William Shatner to board his Virgin space flight, but wanted Captain Kirk to pay for the privilege:
Beardie’s twist is to charge the celebrities for the honour of promoting him. Fortunately he tackled the wrong man when allegedly booking the famously irascible Captain James T Kirk to be one of the well-known faces boarding the first Virgin space flight. There’s no doubt that Bill Shatner is the perfect fit for the product and he and his agent were probably taken aback when Sir Richard asked how The Shatner wanted to pay him? Fortunately, The KirkMeister was right back there with his rapier-like wit, countering“ How would you like to pay me to do it?”
Captain Kirk’s take on Branson’s deal? “We didn’t talk anymore. That shut him up.”
If we’re to believe PC technopundits, 2009 is the year of the netbook, those small, inexpensive, lightweight notebooks, that run Windows XP or Linux, and sell for $300. Much has been written about Apple’s need to enter the netbook market. If that’s the definition of a netbook, it won’t happen. An Apple netbook will never see the light of day.
What is a netbook? Who makes them? What advantage does a netbook have over traditional notebooks, such as Apple’s MacBook Pro line? From Wikipedia:
Netbooks are a rapidly evolving category of small, light and inexpensive laptop computers suited for general computing and accessing web-based applications; they are often marketed as “companion devices,” that is, to augment an user’s other computer access. Walt Mossberg called them a “relatively new category of small, light, minimalist and cheap laptops.”
A netbook is smaller than a MacBook Air; lighter, less expensive, less powerful, less capable. They’re optimized for low weight, low cost, and usually have smaller than normal screens and keyboards, and seldom have a CD/DVD drive.
Because of the low price, netbooks are growing in popularity, at least at purchase time. Netbooks are popular in three main categories.
Home
The netbook becomes a shared PC for the living room for family members to check email, browse the web, chat, play some games, and be involved in other online social efforts.
Netbooks are underpowered relative to Mac notebooks, and seldom are used for more traditional uses, such as Microsoft Office (spreadsheet, documents, presentation), graphics or multimedia product.
Road Warriors
Some executives and managers to who travel frequently prefer the lightweight netbook to a full-fledged notebook. Most of their usage is email, web browsing, and reading documents.
Portability, battery life, light weight, and low cost are attractive to people on the go.
Students
Netbooks have begun to increase market share among high school and college students whose requirements include portability, light weight, and low cost.
The basic list of criteria for a netbook is the antithesis of Apple’s current methodology for product development and marketing. Netbooks are almost indistinguishable from one model to another.
CNET noted “the specs are so similar that the average shopper would likely be confused as to why one is better than the other,” noting“ the only conclusion is that there really is no distinction between the devices.”
Apple’s notebook line is clearly differentiated from PC notebooks in style, design, materials, performance, resale value, usability, and price. Apple’s Mac margins are two to three times the industry standard.
A mid 2009 newspaper article said that a typical netbook is 2.5lb (1.2 kg), US$300, and has a 10-inch screen, 1GB of memory, a 160GB drive, and a wireless transceiver for both home and a mobile network.
If netbooks are small, cheap, lightweight, plastic devices, with no profit margin, little model differentiation, and popular with the throwaway segment of the population, instead of those who cherish value and performance, why would Apple consider making a netbook?
Clearly, Apple has no interest in producing a cheap, flimsy throwaway Mac. However, a gap in the product line exists between the iPod touch, at $299, and the lowest priced MacBook, the white polycarbonate model at $999.
Speculation abounds as to what, if any, product Apple would move into the netbook priced market segment. A smaller, cheaper, less powerful Mac? Any Mac model in that price range would cannibalize sales of Apple’s more profitable MacBook Pro models.
How about a touch screen, tablet Mac? This idea has been beaten to death in recent years, yet may have merit, particularly if Apple avoids the tablet pitfalls of the Windows PC tablets. From Wikipedia:
A tablet PC refers to a laptop or slate-shaped mobile computer, equipped with a touchscreen or graphics tablet/screen hybrid to operate the computer with a stylus or digital pen, or a fingertip, instead of a keyboard or mouse.
Other than size, that begins to sound like specifications for Apple’s hot selling iPod touch.
This form factor offers a more mobile way to interact with a computer. Tablet PCs are often used where normal notebooks are impractical or unwieldy, or do not provide the needed functionality.
There are substantial differences in functionality between an iPod touch or iPhone, and a tablet PC or a Mac notebook. Power, screen size, keyboard, operating system, and applications.
Slate computers, which resemble writing slates, are tablet PCs without a dedicated keyboard. For text input, users rely on handwriting recognition via active digitizer, touching the screen with a fingertip or stylus or by using an external keyboard can usually be attached via a wireless or USB connection.
So far, netbooks, tablet computers, and slate computers have not done well in the marketplace. With one exception. Netbooks are selling in ever greater numbers but produce less revenue and virtually no profits for manufacturers.
Tablet PCs and slate computers have had modest success in niche operations, but have never caught on with the general public, and sales are dismal. What’s the one exception? Apple’s OS X platform in the iPod touch and iPhone. Over 40-million have been sold in two years.
Without question, Apple will not build a Mac version of the netbook. Even a very small, nearly full-fledged Mac netbook would impact MacBook and MacBook Pro sales. Revenue and margins would be reduced.
Other than OS X, higher price, and and an improvement in style and construction, what could Apple put into a netbook to differentiate it from PC offerings, and compete in a market segment which is mostly price restricted? With traditional thinking, not much. A Mac netbook won’t happen.
Thinking different is what Apple does best. If a product gap exists between the iPod touch and iPhone, then an opportunity exists as well. If hybrids are all the rage in the automobile industry, Apple may well surprise us with a hybrid Mac.
Think aluminum, think small, think 10-inch, multi-touch screen, wireless, Bluetooth, USB, thin, flash memory, onscreen keyboard (ala iPod touch, iPhone), and capable of running both Mac OS X applications in Snow Leopard (optimized for a touch screen experience), and iPhone OS for games, applications, and utilities from the Apple iTunes App Store.
Apple faces a few problems with such a hybrid device. Price. Pocket. Performance. Potential.
The price must be competitive with higher end netbooks. The device won’t fit into a pocket, so competes with netbooks for portability. Performance may not approach that of the MacBook Pro line. The hybrid’s potential, while substantial, may also be a potential flop for Apple and the company’s high flying stock price.
The questions remain.
Will Apple enter the so-called netbook market segment? If so, with the risk of a game changing product, or merely a very inexpensive MacBook?
Without question there are more than enough money management software titles for the Mac. There was a time when Intuit’s Quicken was about all we had to manage money. Years of abusing Mac users has relegated Quicken to also-ran status. Mac users found other solutions. In the past year I’ve changed my solution three times. The latest?
In some cases, switching to a different Mac money management application is straightforward, since data can be exported and imported (allow me to thank Quicken for that). While it may seem scary to go from one app to another, once you’ve done it, correctly, a few times, it’s easy.
Why not use Intuit’s Quicken? Intuit hasn’t upgraded Quicken as often as the Windows PC version, and it lacks a number of its cousin’s (they can’t be brothers) features.
Quicken for the Mac is Intuit’s forgotten step child. They keep promising a new version, but haven’t delivered on any of their promises in recent years, so why should I believe Intuit now?
So, a few years ago it was “Bye, bye Quicken” for me.
During the Ditch Qucken process I made a list of what I thought my money management needs would be. I kept it simple. A checkbook on my Mac would be enough.
So, that’s what I bought and installed. CheckBook from Splasm. It worked fine. CheckBook is what you think it is. A basic digital checkbook with a few extra features; accounts, currency, and so on. I used it for a year and decided to switch again.
Cha-Ching caught my eye because it had an iPhone version. It was also free during one of those Mac bundle promotions so I didn’t have to fork over any additional coin.
Cha-Ching worked fine. For awhile. A few upgrades went wonky which messed up the entries, which consequently messed up the synchronization with my iPhone version. You have to be able to trust money management software, and I found that Cha-Ching was no more trustworthy than Quicken.
In barely a year I had gone from an old Quicken, to an easy and competent CheckBook, to a fancy Mac and iPhone compatible newbie. My needs changed, too. I was ready for more features than CheckBook, still wanted an iPhone version, and was under a vow not to consider an Intuit product.
That brought me to a search of a dozen Mac money management software titles. I settled on MoneyWell.
MoneyWell™ gives you powerful personal finance organization and analysis tools in a simple, single-screen solution. Without running complex reports or having to trudge through six levels of pie charts, you’ll know immediately if your spending is on track.
The hidden gem among the features is the single-screen solution and MoneyWell’s ability to show me how I’m doing financially without printing out a tree of reports.
There’s an analog money management technique called Envelope Budgeting where you take your cash, put the bill payments into envelopes marked for each espense; rent, food, car payment, alimony, utilities, child care, whatever.
MoneyWell does something similar but does it digitally, on your Mac’s screen, and it’s easy to do. MoneyWell calls the same concept buckets.
Splitting up your paycheck into envelopes for each category of your budget is a tried and true method for stopping overspending. Unfortunately, with direct deposit and debit cards that work like cash, it’s nearly impossible to do today. MoneyWell supercharges that concept and gives you back control over your spending with spending buckets.
This feature alone is worth the price of admission because it eliminates the need for a Mac user to be a CPA or an accountant or the owner of a Mac Money Management for Dummies book.
Simply put, MoneyWell lets you budget according to buckets for each basic expense. That’s where you start.
Part of the problem is knowing exactly how much you have been spending and the other part is knowing what you have left to spend right now. Most personal finance software forces you to print reports and click down through layers of pie charts just to find out if you are on budget. MoneyWell is different. It makes it easy to track what you spend so you know your spending patterns and it tells you at a glance what you have available to spend today.
I like that approach because it shows me at a glance where I stand in relation to how much money I have left, or, whether there’s too much month left at the end of my money. Think of the advantage to this method:
MoneyWell’s buckets are very visual. When a bucket is empty, it tips over and dims in color. If you overspend, a large red exclamation point appears to warn you. This means that at a glance, you’ll know exactly where you have money left to spend. It’s all right there on the main window.
From there, MoneyWell’s feature set grows but in more of a gentle curve that a bullet point list of components each of which requires an individual instruction PDF.
Good money management software still needs a list of common features for a user to grow into. MoneyWell does repeating transactions (rent, mortgage, car payment, alimony), connects to your bank (mine, at least), multiple accounts, and credit card management.
Credit cards are dangerous because they fly under the budget radar. MoneyWell is an equal opportunity spending manager. It sees money coming out of your Clothing bucket even if it comes from your credit card instead of your checking account.
What that means is that MoneyWell still tracks a specific expense in the right category even if you use a credit card for the purchase. This is big.
MoneyWell comes with a few surprises. One is the aforementioned iPhone version. No, it’s not here yet, but it’s coming. I’m confident enough in MoneyWell that an iPhone version will be worth the wait, though it may only sync via MobileMe.
The MoneyWell site also has tutorials on the basic components, including Cash Flow, Reconciliation, Credit Cards, and Getting Started. Tutorial? No PDF. It’s video. Easy on the eyes.
A companion product called Debt Quencher helps people with credit card problems. Enter your card balance. Pick a payment method. Follow the payment plan. Don’t use that particular credit card.
For those Mac users who want a little financial education, the MoneyWell way, a number of well written articles make up part of the support, but show you how by using MoneyWell.
My view of managing money on my Mac is that it should be fun, relatively painless, and not fall apart with a click. So far, so good.
Select, compare, and activate fonts with Typeface, an affordable Mac font management tool with built-in previews, characters, and tracking to pick the perfect font and activate it with a click. Browse all your font collection and compare with ease.
Chris Schoenfeld created Station Stops, an iPhone application that publishes train schedules for New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). MTA didn’t like that and asked Chris to stop. After blistering publicity exposed MTA’s ruthlessness in dealing with a one-man band providing a very useful app to the public, they relented and offered an agreement and data. The agreement required Chris to pay money. Up front. The data would be provided in a CD-ROM. In the age of the internet and instant changes to schedules, and a limited customer base (albeit large in NY), both were no go items for Chris.
Station Stops is for sale.
Having and working with a few hundred Mac add-on utilities I tend to be judicious about those I use everyday. Whatever the utility, it must add something to my moment-by-moment experience, it must be reasonably priced, and it must be stable and dependable. Three of the basic features in Smart Scroll fill my requirements.
Scrolling is a basic function of Macs and PCs in the 21st century. Most of us scroll down on web pages, email messages, documents, spreadsheets, and so on. Scrolling down is natural. We do it every day.
Some applications may require us to scroll left and right as we zoom in on images, or move back and forth across a large document. Apple’s Mighty Mouse makes scrolling up and down and left and right rather easy with the scrolling nipple (I just had to say it that way).
So, what does a scrolling utility do that Apple doesn’t already do? Fair enough question.
Smart Scroll is a utility which adds functions to your mouse and keyboard. It actually improves the scrolling effort on your Mac, and makes it similar to the finger-tipped scrolling on an iPhone.
That’s what the Super Scroll feature does. It even works with Mac trackpads with separate trackpad and wheel controls.
Super Scroll works with trackpads and any regular scroll wheel mouse—any mouse that the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane can see.
Hover Scroll makes scrolling easier for Cocoa applications (read; modern Mac apps). Point to the top or bottom edge of an open window in your Mac and the scrolling begins. No clicking. No scrolling nipple.
You can choose how far from the edge scrolling occurs, and you can set the highest speed to scroll at, when the cursor is closest to the edge. Horizontal scrolling via the left and right edges is also available, with its own independent speed and hover zone size.
Grab Scroll gives your the standard Mac grabbing tool to move a window’s contents up, down, left, right, and throw it all away. Included are Universal Scroll Keys (keyboard shortcuts), trackpad controls, and the ever important accelerator.
Grab Scroll works with any kind of mouse, pen & tablet, trackpad, trackball… With a 2-button mouse, set it to use the secondary button and you can drag to Grab Scroll, or click without moving the mouse to get the usual “right-click” menu.
In short, Smart Scroll simply enhances your Mac’s scrolling, mousing, trackpad experience with sophisticated controls and options. Tools let you manipulate the coasting, trackpad, scroll wheel with sliders and buttons.
Worthless consideration of security, Mac vs. Windows, from Scamtypes:
The truth of the matter is that Windows machines do indeed face the majority of security issues. They have done so for quite some time and probably will do for a few more years to come. Mac users, however, should perhaps try feel some affinity for their Windows brethren as things are beginning to change. The Apple Mac is not totally immune to viruses, spyware or hacking attempts.
The real scam appears to be broad stroke articles online which hype the continuing saga of potential for disaster for Mac users.
The time is coming when the Macintosh will become a genuine target for a whole host of security issues.
Does anyone ever ask the obvious? Why are there so few (count them on one hand) malware attacks on the Mac? It is not security by obscurity. The Mac is a difficult target. Windows is not.
Add this one to your list of This Is Very Cool™ items for Mac users who want to escape Adobe, Photoshop, and expensive tools. Sumo Paint is very cool and a quick look at what the future may bring. From Macworld UK:
If recently established rival SUMO Paint was a margarine it would be called “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Photoshop”. Because, although it’s entirely browser based and is powered by Flash, it has the look and feel of the world’s best image editorTM - from toolbox to layers palette.
It looks and feels like a mini version of Photoshop in a browser window. Photoshop is online, too. Is this the future of computing?
Remember Mac Classic? That was so last century. Mac OS X continues to mature, perhaps even adding middle aged weight. Middle aged? Think about it. Much of what’s inside Snow Leopard can trace a heritage back to the mid-to-late 1980s with NeXT Computer and Nextstep, the precursor to Mac OS X. So, what’s really inside the Mac’s new Snow Leopard OS?
Despite Apple’s claims that OS X is a modern operating system, it’s really middle aged. The first public beta of OS X was Kodiak, debuting in September, 2000. That was quickly followed by Cheetah, OS X 10.0 in early 2001.
Since then, Mac users have been treated to a growing list of OS X versions, each seemingly better and faster than the last, each with more bells and whistles. From Cheetah, OS X went to Puma at 10.1, Jaguar at 10.2, Panther at 10.3, Tiger at 10.4 on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs, and finally Leopard at 10.5 in October 2007.
Despite the lack of eye candy adornment, the upcoming Snow Leopard promises to be the beginning of the best Mac OS X yet. Beginning? Sure. It takes a few updates for each OS X version to iron out the kinks, right?
Snow Leopard is different than previous Apple cats. First, it’s Intel-only Inside. Snow Leopard won’t run on your old PowerPC Mac. Apple has supported the PowerPC chips since Mac System 7 back in the last century.
Second, the hardware requirements for Snow Leopard are more substantial. Intel-only, of course. One gigabyte of RAM is the minimum. Snow Leopard will run on any Mac with an Intel CPU, including Core Sole and Core Duo, though some will be limited to 32-bits. Newer CPUs will run in 64-bit mode.
Finally, the price tag. Previous Mac cats weighed in at $129 for the single user version, causing some Apple pundits to include the upgrade cost as part of the infamous Apple Tax. Snow Leopard is priced at just $29. Hello Kitty!
Snow Leopard is billed as a refined, faster, more capable Leopard. For example, out of the box, Snow Leopard will provide support for Microsoft Exchange 2007 servers for Mail, iCal, and Address Book.
QuickTime whatever becomes QuickTime X, the Mac’s ubiquitous media player. You’ll notice new screen controls and support for HTTP live streaming. Other goodies include Grand Central Dispatch which will make better use of the Mac’s multiple core CPUs. Not now, but soon, as developers upgrade their wares to take advantage of GCD.
OpenCL (Apple’s Open Computing Language, adopted by Intel, AMD, and Nvidia) will provide improved graphics capabilities, but only with specific graphic processors.
It only works with the following Mac GPUs: NVIDIA Geforce 8600M GT, GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 8800 GTS, Geforce 9400M, GeForce 9600M GT, GeForce GT 120, GeForce GT 130 and ATI Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870.
Exciting, no? Not really, but OpenCL, GCD, and full-on 64-bit capability will play a big part in future Macs.
Apple has added new features to each new cat since Cheetah. Snow Leopard won’t have eye-popping new features, instead sporting few visible refinements, including semi-transparent contextual menus in the Dock icons, faster startup, and less space.
Still, cosmetic differences within Apple’s own software will remain in Snow Leopard. The scroll bars on the Finder will differ from those in iTunes. If you want a reason to upgrade to Snow Leopard it won’t come in a list of new features. QuickTime X is about a new looking as it gets.
If most of what makes Snow Leopard is under the hood, behind the scenes, and yet to become mainstream for users, why bother to upgrade? Is it worth it?
Apple priced Snow Leopard $100 less than previous versions for a reason. Strange as it may seem, Mac users will pay for features. Performance? Not so much. Snow Leopard should make recent Macs run faster, start up quicker, shut down quickly, and run multi-media smoother.
Support for Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2007 will be a plus. Microsoft plans to discontinue Entourage and replace it with a Mac version of Outlook late next year.
From what I can tell, and it remains to be seen, Snow Leopard appears to be an upgrade. That means you can upgrade your Mac from a previous version of Leopard for $29. If your Mac is running OS X Tiger, Apple wants to charge more for an upgrade to Leopard and Snow Leopard. I won’t be surprised if the $29 version of Snow Leopard clean installs on any Intel Mac.
When? Apple promised Snow Leopard in September. Should you upgrade? Why not? It’s only $29 and upgrading is fun.
From Our new secret weapon sucks by Mark Leyner who managed to meet with Saul A. Jenks, CEO of JaniTech, and what it means to develop a vacuum cleaner for the military with 4.5 million air watts. Jenks:
It means that you could approach a cave in Tora Bora and vacuum out high-value targets. I’m talking about literally sucking the sons of bitches right out of there.
Oh, the secrets divulged over a beer at Hooter’s.