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This is another post in our Small Biz Corner series where each month we cover a specific topic specific to Small Businesses who use Macs. If you need something more powerful than iCal, but don’t need Snow Leopard Server with CalDav, then BusyCal from … Read More »

Well, I am sold. There is now a real reason to buy the iPad. As if all of the other functions weren’t enough (e-reader, iPod, photo viewer, browser, and more), I can now work on documents with complete ease. The iPad appears to be a real productivity … Read More »

 
 

Welcome to a new monthly series from TheAppleBlog. Each month we will cover a a specific topic specific to Small Businesses who use Macs. As a small business owner/sole proprietor, connecting with customers is hard. There are all sorts of communication tools available, with … Read More »

Carrying physical scripture with you can be challenging, especially when you consider the sheer physical space a Bible or many Bibles require. Thankfully, there are options now available for portable scripture. And, one of the most recent newcomers for the iPhone is Read More »

If you have need to visually demonstrate your product, and you have the resources, then it just makes sense to produce a screencast. With the release of ScreenFlow 2.0, I thought it’d be useful to perform a real-world comparison review of the screencast heavyweight … Read More »

Who doesn’t battle the Apple Sync Services dragon on a semi-regular basis? Here are a couple of examples from Apple Support about how to resolve problems with this very useful yet unfortunately flawed feature: Mac OS X 10.5: … Read More »

Small business owners have it hard, especially in the current world economic climate. They have lots to do, not enough resources, staff, and time to get it done. For many small business owners, computers are only one more thing to worry about. It doesn’t have to … Read More »

More Must Reads

The included Camera App on the iPhone is pretty much featureless: Take a picture and you’re done. You must use the Photos app if you want to view or share (via MobileMe) your photos. What if you need more? If you’re a fan of Read More »

For corporate users, there are many apps within the iTunes App Store that enhance the default iPhone experience. Let’s take a look at the available options and see how you might be able to leverage these apps to improve the use of your iPhone within the … Read More »

If you’re into serious business productivity, then the folks at Marketcircle will become your new best friends. As of this week, there is a new version of Daylite that will enable even higher productivity. We’ve written about Daylite Read More »

The holy mecca of VOIP calling could be coming to an iPhone near you. Om Malik wrote that he received a tip that Skype is nearing release on the iPhone. What does this mean for us iPhone users? Well, if I had my druthers, … Read More »

If you haven’t noticed, the writers here at TAB like to write about invoicing applications. Some of our recent reviews include Billings, OnTheJob and Involer. But forget … Read More »

Get ready for yet another cloud-based backup offering for the Mac. The folks at Carbonite are now shipping a beta version for us Mac folks. Should we be excited? Well, let’s see… After trying out their software, I can’t say that it does anything more … Read More »

Do you mind map? Do you like to brainstorm with others using software that helps focus your ideas and prioritize project plans? Maybe you’re into Getting Things Done (GTD) and like to prioritize your tasks visually? If so, then read on my … Read More »

Fresh — is this app “Fresh” or is it “Exciting”?* Well, let’s talk about it. Just this week, the folks at Ironic Software released this clever little utility for all to use. When I first read the product information and watched the instructional … Read More »

Weather apps on the Mac are sorely lacking. You generally have to use a Dashboard widget to find out the latest weather conditions in your area. In searching for a decent desktop solution, I found that many of the major weather/news publishers provide Dashboard widgets but … Read More »

Do we need another Mac email client? Well, the folks at Postbox believe we do. They have taken the core of Thunderbird 3, reskinned it, added some goodies and given us something new to use. Is Postbox ready for primetime? … Read More »

Organizing information is hard work. There are many applications available to help manage your information. Rather than iterate through each one, let’s talk about two products that hold the key to information management: DEVONthink Pro Office (DTPro), which we reviewed yesterday, … Read More »

Apple doesn’t want you to find quality apps in the App Store. Yes, I said it. The way the App Store is currently designed, Apple would rather you spend your valuable time discovering apps either by going category by category or making “staff picks” for … Read More »

iMovie ’08 was not considered one of Apple’s best releases — to put it mildly. In fact, the outcry of disappointment was so high, that Apple responded by re-issuing iMovie HD 6 (v6.0.4 to be exact) for those who were unwilling to embark on the new … Read More »

In early December of last year, the folks at Western Digital released some new USB/Firewire “Turbo” drivers for their My Book line of external storage devices. There was no mention of this news, nor was there a press release issued from the company. For my own storage … Read More »

Get ready QuickTime junkies — Apple is taking care of you. If you check Software Update, you’ll notice a new flavor of QuickTime is available today. From Apple’s support document, here is what we can expect in this update. Video: Improves single-pass H.264 encoding quality Increases … Read More »

Do you have a need to capture screenshots for personal or work use? If so, you are in luck as the market for these tools is improving. In case you did not know, Apple provides default screenshot capturing within OS X (via command keys) and also … Read More »

At the Macworld Expo last week, Weldon Dodd and I spent about an hour with Alkyhan Jetha (AJ), the CEO & President of Marketcircle, makers of Daylite, Daylite Touch and Billings. It was a real treat to spend time with AJ as both … Read More »

At Macworld Expo 2009, the folks at Marketcircle, makers of Daylite, are announcing and demonstrating their new iPhone application: Daylite touch. Marketcircle originally announced this tool in the summer of 2008 and many of their users have been anxiously awaiting this new companion … Read More »

A little while ago, Google released a free iCal-to-Google Calendar sync tool called Calabaration. I don’t believe that Calabaration works very well, given how it generates a new calendar group within iCal and has limitations on how the Google Calendar can then sync to MobileMe. … Read More »

Do you have small office/home office (SoHo)? Is managing your peripherals (printers, scanners, fax machines) a hassle? Well, if you are looking for a new all-in-one (AIO) printer that consolidates these peripherals into one for your SoHo, thankfully, there are many choices available for you today. … Read More »

At the $300 price point, the Epson Artisan 800 is a very nice all-in-one (AIO) printer. For most small office/home office users (SoHo’s), it could easily meet their needs. It is very small (18.4″ x 23.0″ x 7.8″) compared to most … Read More »

At the $400 price point, the Canon Pixma MX7600 is a beautiful all-in-one (AIO) printer. For most small office/home office users (SoHo’s), it could easily meet their needs. It is moderate in size (21.0″ x 19.7″ x 10.1″) and includes wired … Read More »

Last week, the folks from EdgeRift released an update to their iPhone app, FastCall. Now, there are many apps for the iPhone that enable a faster form of dialing, but FastCall takes a different approach. For those who are used to how … Read More »

I have been using MobileMe, and its previous incarnation DotMac, for just over two years. Everyone has talked about the great features it has as well as some of the near-misses. However, I haven’t seen anyone point out a major flaw in MobileMe — how it … Read More »

A few weeks ago I wrote about the beta of BoinxTV and provided a brief overview of the product. As a quick refresher, BoinxTV is a videocasting (video podcasting) tool designed for small production teams. It has a … Read More »

I thought that might get your attention. Well, boatload might be an exaggeration, although how about 8GB of free storage space? More importantly, how about they support either the Mac or the iPhone? As part of any backup solution, having offsite storage is pretty key these days … Read More »

Making simple videocasts can take time and some work utilizing a few different tools. Until now. A little while ago, I elected to participate in a new product offering from Boinx Software, called BoinxTV. In all honesty, I had forgotten about the … Read More »

Hello everyone! I am one of the new writers here at The Apple Blog. The team here is great and they have been very welcoming. Most of my history with Apple dates back to the late 80′s when I purchased my first Mac — an SE with … Read More »

Today, Jumsoft released their All-in-One Business Packs for Apple’s Keynote, Pages and iWeb. Maintain the same style among your documents, Web site, e-mails, and even presentations. With the great experience of developing various templates, Jumsoft has finally created amazing All-in-One template packs for … Read More »

Mail.app is an imperfect beast. Thankfully, with a little modification and some extensibility, you can make Mail.app a more modern email management client. In my previous post, I criticized Mail.app for not providing modern tools to improve email management. Nevertheless, I was able to find a … Read More »

Yesterday, Apple released both an iTunes (8.0.1) and Apple TV (2.2) update. The Apple TV update has some great new features: Support for the Genius Support for HD Television Shows Numerous bug fixes One unmentioned feature change is how Apple TV now handles Wish Lists. In the previous release (2.1), … Read More »

When will Apple move Mail.app into the modern world of email management? Even with version 3.5 (included with the latest OS 10.5.5 update), users of the application are stuck with some pretty cryptic email management paradigms. Why are we stuck with email folders? How about those … Read More »

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