Category: software

  • Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

    It’s kind of a disaster when your two most critical IT vendors won’t play nice. And it’s happening right now to me with Apple and Google feuding over iPhone apps. Google had an iPhone app for managing its fabulous Google Voice service but Apple nixed it (or didn’t approve it, or whatever). Now I have…

  • With growing Apple tablet excitement, misguided Kindle whining returns

    We’re coming up fast on the 2nd anniversary of the introduction of  Amazon’s Kindle e-reader. Yet despite the many improvements and price cuts in KindleWorld, we’re still subject to the same weird, off-base complaints we first heard back before anyone even had even gotten their hands on one. Recently, my favorite Mac guru, John Gruber,…

  • Apple still isn’t going to kill Amazon’s Kindle, or any other ereader

    Steve Jobs’ latest mouthing off about the market for electronic books and dedicated ereader devices like the Amazon Kindle has sparked the usual conflagration of comments, interpretations and predictions. Some are way off-base, others quite savvy. But after seeing a bit on Techcrunch claiming that everyone was misinterpreting Jobs, it seems like some further clarity…

  • Times Reader’s offline New York Times needs improvement

    “Welcome to the future,” reads the web page for the New York Times’ software/web hybrid application, Times Reader. “Your newspaper is here.” Well, I certainly hope not. The Times Reader, a program which allows you to download virtually the entire contents of the newspaper in seconds online for offline perusal at your leisure, is rather…

  • Kindle DX: Even better electronic book reader

    No secret that I’m a huge fan of Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader. I’ve had one since Day 1 and read dozens of books and hundreds of shorter articles on it. Its crystal clear e-ink screen works even in bright sunlight. The battery life is phenomenal. And the free wireless connection makes it a breeze…

  • Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

    For more than two years, I’ve been quite happily using the Mozy online backup service. Now owned by storage giant EMC, Mozy offers unlimited backup space for under $5 a month per computer and a slick Mac program that automatically uploads new files in the background (there’s also a Windows version but I don’t use…

  • Sony Reader adds some brilliant features, 3 years late

    Almost three years ago, Sony unveiled the first version of its electronic book reader, dubbed, excitingly enough, the Reader. As I predicted at the time (Short-tailed Sony reader needs a much longer one), the device bombed because it was a product in search of a need. The Reader didn’t offer enough (if any) advantages over…

  • Apple makes deleting a Boot Camp partition super easy

    A couple of years back, when I upgraded the hard drive on my then-new Macbook Pro, I used Apple’s incredible Boot Camp software to install Windows Vista. Using Boot Camp, you’re not just simulating running Windows under Mac OS X — you can actually boot up into “pure” Windows on your Apple hardware. The only…

  • Aspyr finally releases Mac version of Civ IV: Beyond the Sword

    UNBELIEVABLE – video game publisher Aspyr has finally released a Mac version of Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword expansion pack only TWO YEARS after it came out for Windows. What the heck? (Tip o’ the cap to CivFanatics for alerting me to the news). I may be peeved but that probably won’t stop…

  • History and Uses of Amazon Kindle for People Living in Caves

    I used to kind of like author Nicholson Baker. I think the first time I encountered his writing was a long essay in The Atlantic (going on memory here) about his quest to preserve huge collections of old newspapers that libraries were rapidly tossing out. As a guy who used to spend hours in the…