macs

Love that battery life in the new MacBook Air? Well, that's one reason Apple didn't go Retina this time around, according to an analyst.

The iPhone, the iPad, and the MacBook Pro all have Retina displays, why not the MacBook Air? Power consumption is probably the most important factor, according to Sweta Dash, senior director of display research & strategy at IHS.

"Apple almost doubled the battery life [with the new MacBook Air]. You can't do that with a Retina display" in an ultrathin laptop like the Air, she said.

Not at the moment at … Read more

It may look the same outside, but the MacBook Air got overhauled on the inside.

In the case of the solid-state drive (SSD) and graphics, it's a major overhaul.

SSD: Apple appears to be one of the first to stick a PCI Express (PCIe) SSD in a thin laptop. And that makes a huge difference, according to Anand Shimpi of Anandtech.

"This is a huge deal, totally the future. And pretty much all other notebooks announced at Computex still use [Serial ATA]. Apple did the right thing here," Anand said in response to an e-mail query.

Running … Read more

OS X supports the option to read NTFS-formatted drives, but has not supported writing to these drives. Therefore, the use of a third-party driver such as Paragon NTFS or Tuxera NTFS has been required for those seeking full NTFS support; however, OS X does support writing to NTFS, but this feature is just not enabled by default.

To enable this feature, you have to do so on a per-volume basis, by editing the system's hidden fstab file to adjust the way the drive is automatically handled when attached and mounted.

First ensure that your NTFS drive has a simple … Read more

VinylStudio for Mac easily converts all your favorite tapes and vinyl records to a more convenient digital format without losing sound quality. The program stores your recordings as a well-organized collection, which you can burn on a CD or simply copy to your MP3 player. Additionally, it lets you split your recordings into tracks and helps you clean up your audio with effective sound cleaning filters.

Upon startup you are prompted to create a name for your collection and the location where it will be stored. During the "new user mode" the speech bubbles will pop up to … Read more

Vectoraster for Mac quickly creates vector point or line raster patterns based on bitmap images. The program performs its main functions well and may appeal to more experienced users who frequently use image and video editors.

Vectoraster for Mac comes with a free trial version that randomly alters the output image. A user manual accompanied the program, which was helpful. The first menu that appears is one to purchase the full version of the program. This was difficult to work around, at first, but could be minimized or closed once the main program started. The main window on the left … Read more

Splashtop Streamer for Mac allows users to remotely access their Mac's controls via their mobile device. The computer application works well, but the link from the smartphone application needs refining for a more useful experience.

The computer application is available as freeware for individual use at home or office, but most accompanying applications for smartphones and tablets cost money to operate. To use this application from anywhere in the world or over a 3G or 4G network you will need to purchase a monthly or yearly subscription. For testing purposes, together with the Splashtop Streamer for Mac, we used … Read more

With a rather basic but intuitive interface, SimpleImage for Mac offers more control and customization options for viewing images, videos, and slideshows. In addition to being a viewer, the program offers some useful image editing options, as well.

At around 26MB the download takes a couple of minutes to complete. The program installs in just a few seconds, though, with a drag and drop in Mac's Applications folder. Upon startup the only window visible is the Inspector window, which displays relevant information regarding the file currently opened. Apart from being a typical image and movie viewer, SimpleImage for Mac … Read more

Able2Extract for Mac allows conversion from PDFs to a number of office document formats, something even the newer versions of office software suites don't support. The program offers an intuitive interface and supports conversion to all the major file types such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Open Office, HTML, AutoCAD, and to most popular image formats. The program's conversion features are useful, despite occasional failures to load files which occurred during testing.

After a clean installation using the program's well-designed native installer, the program initiated a menu describing the trial version's limitations and displaying a link to … Read more

iVideo for Mac helps you easily locate, organize, and play back all of your video files. The application supports all known video formats and offers plenty of options for customizing video files and the way you search for them.

Since it's around 30MB in size, iVideo for Mac takes a couple of minutes to download. After a quick installation, the app opens to a basic but neat video organizer. The interface is customizable and you can show or hide a sidebar and information bar to your right. In the upper-right corner there is a search option, which helps you … Read more