MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/4631
140 MacDirectory
COVER STORY
Low-impact Norton protection for both
Mac and PC.
Norton has been listening to user
complaints that Antivirus and Internet
Protection utilities drag down system
performance too much. The latest Norton
Internet Security for Mac and PC, 2009
version, represents a dramatic advance on
previous versions and Norton deserves
great credit for achieving superb
protection without noticeable system
impact. It took decades to get it this
good, but they have finally done it.
Why do Mac users need AV/Security when
attacks on Macs are so few and far
between? Two reasons: anyone working
with Bootcamp, Parallels, or similar, is
subject to crippling viruses; and any_ Mac
user can unwittingly transmit viruses to PC
users via e-mail. Norton makes sure no
Mac user will ever be the bad guy.
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition,
version 4
Oxford University Press publishes the
most important as well as the most
enjoyable English dictionary in the world,
the Oxford English Dictionary, or OED.
Often called the single greatest work of
scholarship in the English language, it has
been available on CD since the early
1990s. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a
Mac version for some time. This year, the
full OED (more than 24 huge volumes in
print) is available in a dual platform version
for Mac and Windows — with all the latest
definitions from the ongoing OED project.
If you have one life to live, live it with the
full version of the OED. Less expensive
dictionaries define the word. The OED
defines the word's universe, thanks to the
fascinating quotations it uses to illustrate
each definition.
MacSpeech
The oft-awarded MacSpeech Dictate is
the preeminent speech recognition
program for the Mac, sharing technology
with its equally esteemed Windows sister,
Dragon Naturally Speaking. Together,
they are the ultimate in speech
recognition. On a well-equipped
contemporary computer, these programs
can recognize your speech at up to 120
words per minute, which is about twice as
fast as a very competent typist can type.
Not only will they transcribe dictation, but
you can run your entire computer with
speech commands. MacSpeech 1.5 is
more accurate than ever, and this year's
new MacSpeech Dictate Legal brings an
additional vocabulary of 30,000 words
specifically for the legal profession. If
you're still on a G4, MacSpeech is one of
the best reasons to update to an Intel Mac.
PC Programs worth running Windows
on your Mac
These are the Windows programs you
must have — and which are made possible
for Mac owners by BootCamp and
enjoyable by Parallels and VMware.
The most important is dtSearch. This is a
professional quality search program that
will find more things faster than any other,
including Apple's Find and Spotlight and
the improved search in Windows. Although
dtSearch will find a lot more than text, text
is its speciality. It truly will find material no
other search engine can locate. Not only
that, but dtSearch is always much faster
than any other find feature. We wouldn't
want to live without it.
Other Windows products so good they
deserve an award in a Mac magazine
include the entire Norton range (including
the Mac/PC Internet and AV Suite and the
PC-only Norton Utilities and Internet-
based backup), Scooter Software's
Beyond Compare 3 (the best file-
comparison/computer synchronization
program on any platform) and Dragon
Naturally Speaking for voice recognition.
Internet's most unusual music
streaming site
If you can believe the newspapers,
downloading illegal music and videos is
down, but music streaming is up. One of
the most intriguing music streaming sites,