work

Sync your notes across platforms and devices

Evernote (Free) is just one part of an excellent, access-from-anywhere note-taking system. In addition to using Evernote on your iOS device, you can also create and get to your notes from a variety of mobile devices (including apps for both the iPhone and iPad) and any Web browser on any computer. A free Evernote account links all your notes together.

Evernote is a mature and popular app, with an impressively streamlined interface that shares similarities across its multiple platforms and gives you many ways to create notes and collections of notes called notebooks. Your notes can be text, images, or … Read more

Apple's Keynote, Pages, Numbers apps go universal

Apple this morning rolled out universal versions of all three of its iWork apps, bringing the suite to iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

Keynote, Pages, and Numbers (updated reviews), which have been on the App Store for the past year, were previously only available for iPad users. Today's updates shrink the same user interfaces down into pocket-size versions that let users create, save, open, and edit documents.

Along with going universal Apple has tweaked the user interface a bit to let users see thumbnail previews of documents to find them by sight.

The software suite originally made its debut on the Mac OS, beginning with Keynote, Apple's presentation software. Apple later added Pages then Numbers, rolling together all three applications into iWork. Apple now sells the individual applications through the Mac App Store, and in the iOS App Store, letting users get a single program without having to buy the others.

The apps continue to retail for $9.99 each, and this morning's update is free of charge to existing owners of the applications. The software is only available to users of Apple's more recent iOS products, including the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, third- and fourth-generation iPod Touch devices, and iPad and iPad 2. … Read more

Better notes mean better grades

Notability might be the best note-taking application we've seen for the iPad, with tons of useful features that are easily accessed through the app's intuitive interface. Perfect for students or really anyone who needs to gather and organize information, Notability lets you use your onscreen keyboard (or a compatible Bluetooth keyboard) to keep track of information by grouping your notes into categories by subject.

You can start a new note by tapping on the Compose button, or open an existing note from the start screen. You have the option to open notes from Dropbox, or from your iDisk … Read more

Office² HD 4.0 adds PowerPoint support, mostly

Office², the app that lets you view and edit Microsoft Office Documents, has just today announced support for PowerPoint Presentations with version 4.0, making it a good way to take your Microsoft work with you on your iPad, but it has one major limitation.

It's no secret that when Apple's first iPad hit stores, working people wondered if they could get rid of their laptops and use the touch screen for business and productivity purposes. Apple offered up solid, but abbreviated versions of their own iWork suite (with some Microsoft compatibility), but many users' companies relied … Read more

Q&A: MacFixIt Answers

MacFixIt Answers is a feature in which we answer e-mailed questions from our readers. This week there were questions about the location and duplication of iTunes music folders, USB flash drives not mounting in the Finder, and how to read ClarisWorks and AppleWorks documents. We continually answer e-mail questions, and though we present a few answers here, we certainly welcome alternative approaches and views from readers and encourage you to post your suggestions in the comments.

Question: iTunes music duplicated in two locations

MacFixIt reader Ali asks:

My macbook is telling me lately that i have to free up space … Read more

Mini Motorsport WRC shares team launch event on Facebook and YouTube

Huge drifts and squealing tires (in the video below) marked the launch of the new Mini WRC Team at the Mini Plant in Oxford, England. Mini shared that launch on the Mini motorsport Web site, Facebook and YouTube.

Monday's event marked the official launch of the team that will compete in six rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) with the Mini John Cooper Works WRC. Based on the Mini Countryman production model, the car is powered by the same 1.6-liter turbo engine used in Mini production vehicles.

The team's first chance at competition, with drivers … Read more

Zynga appoints DreamWorks CEO to board

Zynga is beefing up its board of directors by announcing today that it has added Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation.

Katzenberg, who created the animation studio along with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, marks the sixth board member of the privately held social-games company, which earned a jaw-dropping profit of $400 million on $850 million in revenues last year.

Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus made the announcement in a blog post today on the company's Web site: "I knew he'd be a great fit for the board after he suggested that the … Read more

Apple AirPlay: 10 things you need to know

At some point you've probably heard about AirPlay, a wireless streaming feature found on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or any Mac or Windows PC running iTunes. While some features had been available for years under the AirTunes moniker, Apple rolled out the AirPlay name and an expanded feature list in the fall of 2010. With the arrival of iOS 4.3, AirPlay has been further enhanced, and--perhaps most significantly--third-party consumer electronics manufacturers are adding it to their products.

Apple sums up the technology like this on its regularly updated "Using AirPlay" page, which has some troubleshooting tips.

With AirPlay, you can wirelessly stream videos, music, and photos from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to Apple TV (2nd generation) and stream music to AirPlay speakers or receivers, including AirPort Express. You can also wirelessly stream videos and music from your computer to Apple TV (2nd generation) and stream music to AirPlay speakers or receivers, including AirPort Express.

That pretty much tells you what it's all about, but here's a closer look at what you need to know about AirPlay and some tips for getting the most out of it.

Only a limited number of products are currently AirPlay-compatible: Right now, only a handful of products offer AirPlay compatibility (see slideshow, below) and they tend to be fairly expensive. The exception is the Apple TV, which only costs $99, and Apple's AirPort Express (also $99 list). The majority of early AirPlay products are speaker systems, plus a few AV receivers that offer built-in AirPlay support.

… Read more

Windows-integrated CVS client

CVS, aka the Concurrent Version System, lets software developers access a centrally maintained project via a client-server architecture, which helps keep versions under control. TortoiseCVS is a free CVS client that integrates itself into the Windows shell with context menu entries as well as tortoise icons identifying all CVS-controlled files. It replaces the command-line CVS interface and lets you view and edit CVS-controlled files from inside Windows Explorer. The program's name and mascot play on the Windows shell association (the mascot even has a name, Charlie Vernon Smythe), which is fairly unique to TortoiseCVS, since most CVS clients run … Read more