Apple Products Reviews and Newsletter Resources

Microsoft Free Lifestyle Presentation

A podcast and Presentation from the August meeting of the Lawrence Apple Users Group. This month’s topic included a presentation on Living the Microsoft Free Lifestyle by Dave Greenbaum.

The meeting opened up with introductions, recent Apple news followed by a discussion of alternative office suites for the Mac. This included everything from iWork, Open Office, Mariner Write and host of others.

The meeting concluded with questions from group members and our monthly door prize, which included Andy Ihnatko’s iPod Fully Loaded and MacBackup by Macxware.

Overflow: Keeping the Dock clean and tidy

I’ll admit it, I’m a dock addict. I put everything in my dock I could ever use. If I had a purse, I’d do great on Let’s Make a Deal (if you don’t know the reference, then you’ve always grown up with Macs–lucky you) However, now that everything is in my dock, I can’t find anything on it! Arrgh.

Overflow was in the bottom of my stack of things to review from Macworld, which only proves why I’m an ideal candidate for it.

Read the Review from the Lawrence Apple Users Group.

Review of MacBackup

MacBackup is one of the backup programs sold at most Apple stores in spite of the fact it competes with Apple’s own Backup software. Even though Retrospect was the industry leader, it’s showing it’s age since it was bought by EMC and never made the transition to the Intel Platform. Ironically, though, neither did MacBackup. It still runs in Rosetta, which concerns me regarding its long term viability on the Mac platform. A backup is only as good as your ability to restore it. If you can’t read your backups, then they are no good. That happened to me with my old FastBack backups!

Read the full Review by the Lawrence Apple Users Group.

Review of Marware’s Protection Pack Plus

Marware’s Protection Pack Plus really fills the bill. Like Microsoft Office, the pack has three useful and unique products in the box. First is the cloth sleeve that protects and helps clean the outside of your Macbook. This should not be a primary form of protection like the typical padded notebook sleeves. It is designed only to protect the cosmetics of the computer. That’s fine with me because it easily coordinates with almost any other protection strategy. Oddly and not surprising, the more I used it, the cleaner the exterior of my Macbook got. When I’d pull it out, it would gently polish the exterior of my Macbook. Also, don’t forget Macs are about style. I did feel like some kind of celebrity pulling out my Macbook from it’s secondary protective sleeve, as if it were the Hope Diamond or the prized knife of a Food Network star (I have one of those knives, but that’s a whole other story).

Reade the full Review from the Lawrence Apple Users Group.