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MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer questions e-mailed from our readers. This week we have questions on why only Safari updates require restarts, trial periods for Apple's "Backup" utility, files not staying in place on the Desktop, and an alternative for the "Print Window" feature from the Classic Mac OS. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: Safari updates requiring a restart

MacFixIt reader Duane asks:

When … Read more

Continuing the onslaught of rebooted gems from the past, Nintendo's one-two holiday season punch began with Kirby's Epic Yarn and finishes with Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii.

Even though we found Epic Yarn to be a bit simplistic, it was still engaging enough to justify a playthrough. Does Donkey Kong Country offer the same amount of appeal? Or is this one franchise that should have stayed dormant?

Jeff: Lately it seems Nintendo has released more of a time machine than a game console, with its recent titles taking us back 15 years or so, reliving our childhoods spent playing Super Nintendo and the like. The latest of this bunch is Donkey Kong Country Returns, the re-imagined follow-up to one of the Super Nintendo's most successful and iconic franchises.

If you didn't feel challenged in Kirby's Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns will immediately fill that void. While we praised Epic Yarn for its success in conventional 2D platforming, DKC Returns innovates within the genre, giving us new ways to play. We really can't stress the difficulty enough here; the game is definitely not for the easily frustrated.

There are plenty of familiar details fans of the series will identify with: collecting K-O-N-G letters, hidden areas, bonus levels, and more. Also, Diddy Kong is around again for the adventure, and he'll take a vital role in your banana-recovery quest.… Read more

Arguably one of the best screen capture programs for Windows is now available on the Mac. TechSmith's Snagit has a long history with Windows fans as a highly flexible and feature-rich tool for quickly grabbing visual info on your screen. The software's main strength is that it offers a number of tools for adding graphics--like arrows, boxes, and thought and speech balloons--to call out specific areas on the screen. When you're finished with a capture, you can quickly add the project to a presentation, just about any document, or send the screen capture through e-mail. One of … Read more

A good screen capture tool is pretty much an essential Windows accessory, and Microsoft's built-in Snipping Tool does a pretty good job, though it's a bit basic and also awkward to use at times. Capture View from GXDevelopment is indeed a good screen capture tool that can also capture directory contents, menus, pop-ups, and even running applications whether they're shown, hidden, or minimized. It has some useful extras, such as a timer delay feature and a suite of frequently used image-editing tools like cropping, resizing, and watermarking tools and grayscale conversion. To top it off, it's … Read more

There is a plethora of screen capture utilities out there, and there's only so much these programs can do to differentiate themselves from one another. Moo0 ScreenShot is one more among many, neither particularly impressive nor disappointing. If you're looking for a basic screenshot program, it's certainly worth checking out.

The program's interface is plain and intuitive, with a drop-down menu that allows you to choose whether you want to save your screenshot as a JPeG, BMP, GIF, PNG, or ICO file. You select the location where you want to save the captured image and then … Read more

Halo: Reach marks developer Bungie's last entry into one of the most successful franchises in video game history. A prequel to the original Xbox's Halo: Combat Evolved, Reach takes place a few weeks before the events of the first game.

Jeff: The best way to describe Halo: Reach is an all-star game. Developer Bungie has once again crafted a blockbuster title, this time by incorporating every detail that worked in all of the previous Halo games and adding a few new tricks here and there. The end result is a never-redundant, action-packed romp that manages to stay fresh and engaging throughout.

Working with a new graphics engine has rendered some of the best-looking visuals we've seen in a Halo game. Reach finally gives Halo that much-needed graphical bump--something critics of last year's ODST felt hadn't been properly upgraded. The visual improvement also gives the game a grittier look, perhaps because of the additional textures and particles onscreen. We think it delivers a sense of maturity and class to the title, and what better time to do so than in the series' final chapter? … Read more

We've reviewed our fair share of screenshot utilities in our time, and we can't say that it gets much easier than SnapaShot. This simple tool lets users easily capture exactly the portion of the screen that they want and save it in a variety of formats. While it's not the most feature-filled program we've ever seen, we think it's a great choice for basic screen capture tasks.

The program's interface is extremely common-sense; it consists of a frame that can be dragged around the screen and resized by dragging its borders. At the bottom … Read more

Screen capture utilities are a dime a dozen these days, and while some of them are crammed full of useful features, others provide only slightly more flexibility than the Windows Print Screen key. Screenshoter falls into the latter category; it's a no-frills approach to the task of taking screen captures, and while nothing about it particularly impressed us, it works just fine for what it is.

The program's interface is plain, just a small gray rectangle with a few buttons. Users select whether they want to capture the whole screen or a particular area; the latter is a … Read more

The release of Starcraft II not only signifies what's arguably the most notable PC game release in a while, but also marks one of the longest periods of time in between two franchise releases (not counting expansion packs). After 12 years, developer Blizzard Entertainment is finally set to release the follow-up to the 1998 real-time-strategy instant classic, Starcraft.

Set in a far-off galaxy in the 26th century, Starcraft II has three chapters, the first of which (Wings of Liberty) will release July 27. Later on, two expansion packs will add on to the game, fleshing out the fate of … Read more