FEA
TURE
Where’s the technology?
With all the soap opera coming from Apple this year, many wonder where the technological beef is. But there wasa true landmark, and I don’t mean the iPad. I mean the iPhone 4. The 300 dpi screen is a breakthrough. This, too, quickly became scandalous, when Ray Soneira , who knows more about displays than anyone else, disputed Apple’s claim to have achieved ‘retinal’ quality. Ray is right, but Apple has taken a giant step for all computer users by making a 300 dpi screen a reality in a consumer product for the first time ever. When all the screens we look at can show 300 dpi, we’ll really be looking at good displays. And when we’ve gotten to 600 dpi, we’ll be even better off. Don’t hold your breath, though, this is at least a decade away.
Apple’s $699 new Mac Mini is also major. Sniffy PC Magazine, which has spent decades picking holes in Apple’s products, gushes, ‘The Mac mini is finallythe mainstream, compact PC you’ve been searching for. It definesits category, and as such, it earns our highest recommendations and our Editors’ Choice.’ PC’s only gripe? No blu-ray. Steve is trying to kill blu-ray. My feeling is that we do need a better optical medium than DVD. I’m just not sure blu-ray is it. So
maybe Steve’s right on this? I am quite sure he is right to kill Flash. Flash isn’t only responsible for most Mac crashes – it’s responsible for most Windows crashes too. It’s a buggy product which Adobe should have fixed long, long, ago. It’s too late now. Flash is over – there is no appeal against a technology death warrant signed by Steven P. Jobs.
A phenomenal product for all Mac people who use Windows
One of the features of Mac OS has always been that a Finder window could tell you the sizeof a folder. This is incredibly useful, for example, when you get an out- of-disk-space warning and have to locate some hoggish folders fast. Bafflingly, no version of Windows has ever let you know what the size of a folderis. There have been many attempted workarounds, but only one works: GP Software’s Directory Opus . This program either replaces Windows Explorer (Windowspeak for Finder) or works along with it. Whatever Explorer does, Directory Opus does better. And has dozens of additional useful features. No Mac person who uses Windows should be without this product, and no sane Windows user should be without it either. It’s better, faster and more stable than Windows Explorer, and uses tons less memory.
Sonnet’s Edge
Last issue we wrote about Sonnet’s incredible Tempo Sata Pro Expresscard, the world’s fastest eSata interface to your Macbook. Two things could have been improved: price, and bulk. The card’s connectors do stick out of your laptop. Sonnet just released the Tempo Sata Edge Expresscard. It fits flush against the side of your Macbook or other laptop. And it’s an astonishing 1/4 the price of the Pro, at $49 MSRP. What’s the downside? Most users won’t notice any difference between the two cards. The Edge will happily connect your external or RAID external. But the Pro has an additional channel (and an additional connector) which, in a specially configured RAID 0 system, will let you achieve speeds up to 200 megabytes per second – much faster than Firewire 800. The Edge has a maximum transfer rate of 125 megabytes per second – and that is stillmuch faster than Firewire 800. Until Apple deigns to add an eSata port to its laptops – as many PC manufacturers already do – Sonnet provides the best storage connectivity solution for Macbook owners. Not to mention its solid line of cards for desktops, and its scalable drive solutions. We used the Edge with G-Tech’s stylish G-RAID drive (see last issue’s awards) for the fastest backups we’ve ever done – and so should you.
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