International Mac Podcast

Now, your first thought is probably: “Emulation? Huh? Why would I want to emulate anything? I mean, yeah, I use a Windows VM every so often, but aside from that…”, right? Well, in this post I’ll give you a few use cases for miscellaneous emulation, and list a few sites to get emulators from.

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Hi there, it’s the newest member of the IMP team, Matt Rhinesmith, with my first post!

Today I’ll be talking about some neat and useful things you can do with the old PowerBook or iBook you have sitting in your “Macs I Used To Use But Didn’t Have The Heart To Get Rid Of” closet/shed/bin/etc.

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It seems I start every post with a discussion of my GTD theme, but I do want to say that it has evolved. Instead of being about GTD, the system, it’s more about organizing and removing distraction. It is in that spirit that I bring you a comparison of many apps that any writer may find a use for: the fullscreen text editor. This idea revolves around removing more or less everything but your words from your screen, and having you concentrate on what you type. (more…)

A little disclaimer before I begin the review. Ambrosia Software, developers of Wiretap Anywhere, did provide me with a review license of their product, however please know that it has not in any way biased me in my review. I thank Ambrosia Software for allowing me to review their product.

Again before we begin, I have an apology to make. The above mentioned review copy of Wiretap Anywhere was given to me, at my request, almost one year ago, in March, 2009. I had every intention to review it immediately, but as often happens, life gets in the way. I hope Ambrosia will forgive me for this.

Now, into the review proper. Wiretap Anywhere ($129 USD, http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wta/) is a piece of software for the Macintosh to allow you to direct any sort of audio in any sort of way. It does this by creating virtual audio devices. (more…)

Like most of you reading this post, I have a fairly worrying number of social media accounts: Facebook, Flickr, Google Reader and multiple Twitter accounts, which for some reason I feel the need to be constantly updated on. I think you realise you’re a social media addict when you meet someone in person and refer to by their Twitter handle, as @Chris… I mean Chris Wall will attest to!

Up until recently I’ve had to run a Twitter client (Tweetie, of course), an RSS reader, and then have Fluid SSBs for Facebook and Flickr, which meant a lot of dock real estate hogging and a fair bit of CPU and RAM usage too.

Then I found Socialite, formerly EventBox, from the lovely folks at Real Mac Software. I had a license of EventBox from a while ago, but the Real Mac Software gang kindly upgraded that to a Socialite license for no extra cost.

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[EDIT: Will everyone PLEASE stop calling it the MacPod - Stu]

My prediction for the magical flying unicorn of a product that is the Apple Tablet is as follows; almost everything everybody, including me, has predicted so far will be partially to totally wrong. Obvious paradox aside, the build up to this iUnicorn mirrors that of the iPhone almost perfectly; hundreds of tech blogs speculating wildly different things about a product, agreeing only on a name (well, usually) and a few basic ideas about what it is. So yes, I could spend the next 3-4 paragraphs analyzing the exact position and length of every one of the few hairs remaining on Steve Jobs’s head looking for any clues to what this iFlyingNarwhal is, but that would be stupid, unhelpful, repetitious, and take longer than the 45 minutes I have allotted myself to write this before Chuck starts, so instead I’m just gonna write about what I’d like to see, and what I wouldn’t. (more…)

As one of the more public Mac users, I have a lot of experience evangelizing for Apple and the Macintosh among my school community. I have come to realize that when I get into a conversation with a Windows user, they almost always end in one of three ways.

1. I convince them and they agree with me that Macs have value and are worthwhile, and sometimes they even look into drinking the koolaid.
2. They sort of grumble and walk away, realizing that I have beaten them, but refusing to admit it. This is generally the most common.

What is unfortunate is that the following response is becoming more and more common:

3. “Macs are overpriced and not worth what Apple charges because I can get any software for free.”

This, of course, means that he pirates software. I hate pirates. They ruin everything for everyone else.

They make small developers struggle because people aren’t paying them, they make large companies (*cough* Adobe *cough*) keep their prices high, and they perpetuate DRM and license enforcement (*cough* Microsoft *cough* RIAA *cough* MPAA *cough*). Their stealing (yes, that’s right, folks. Software and media piracy is STEALING) ruins the experience for everyone else. (more…)