iPhone
Review by: Katie
http://www.apple.com/iphone
Price: $399, 2 Year Contract with AT&T Required


I wasn’t going to buy an iPhone. I had agonized back and fourth over the decision for months and when release day came, I watched all the coverage on the news and Internet wishing I could be a part of it all. But no, the iPhone wasn’t a practical decision for me. Finances were tight as I wasn’t working while in graduate school, I was getting ready to move to a new city and start a new job, and I was happy with my current provider and in the middle of a two-year contract. On top of it all, the phone was a first generation product that still lacked many features and cost $600.

The first few weeks after the iPhone came out I avoided actually touching one. Sure, I had read all about them, watched the tutorials, and probably knew more about the iPhone than the average person who owned one. Corey had played with an iPhone that a co-worker owned and offered up this bit of advice. “If you really don’t want to buy one, don’t touch one. If you touch it, you will buy it.” He was right. I touched it…and I bought it…and now I can’t imagine my life without it.

The iPhone is a hard product to review because it does so many different things. I’m going to try to break this review down into the different categories of iPhone functions in hopes of making it a little easier to digest. Read More...

Billable 1.1.2
Review by: Corey
http://www.clickablebliss.com/blillable
Price: $24.95

Billable is a easy to use Invoicing application, that will make creating your invoices quick and easy.

You setup your clients in an easy to use client editor window. The window allows you enter important information about your clients, and you can also use the window to import a client from your address book. This is actually one thing I love about Billable, too many applications make you store these Clients in your Apple Address book, which I don't want. I like that Billable has its own database, and Billable automatically backs it up each time you open the application. Read More...

iPhone
Review by: Rick Chin
http://www.apple.com/iphone
Price: $499 for 4GB, $599 for 8GB, 2 Year Contract with AT&T Required

I worked with an iPhone for a while on Tuesday at the Mall of Millennia. Here are my first impressions. Before reading this, you should know I rely heavy on my Blackberry phone for work, so I’m looking at this from a business user viewpoint.

Note: This review was done just after the iPhone was released. Because much of the functionality on the iPhone is software based, it is very possible that a software update has corrected some of the concerns since this review was written Read More...

Disco
Review by: Corey
http://www.discoapp.com/
Price: $29.95

Since Mac OS 10.2 (Jaguar) I have been using the Finder to burn CDs with the data from my drive, just drag and drop and the CDs are cross platform. Its really all I need. What turned me on first about Disco, and what may just get everyone to try it is the user interface. The ooolest feature by far: the animated sequence when you are burning a CD. Disco has the option of displaying animated smoke, fire, goo, icy mist, purple haze, read sea, and steam. My favorites are smoke and fire. This is an amazing effect and just goes to prove even more how cool and creative mac developers are in creating their apps. Read More...

DiskWarrior 4
Review by: Corey
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
Price: $99.95

I've had DiskWarrior 4.0 for approximately 3 months, and have been asked for a review several times by many colleagues, clients, and friends. A program like this really takes a long time to review, in my opinion. So what is Diskwarrior?

Alsoft says, "DiskWarrior is not a disk repair program in the conventional sense. Instead of patching the original directory, it uses a patent-pending technology to quickly build a new replacement directory using data recovered from the original directory, thereby recovering files, folders and documents that you thought were lost and that no other program could recover."
Read More...

Apple TV
Review by: Katie
http://www.apple.com/appletv
Price: $299

I had no intentions of buying an Apple TV for several reasons. First, I didn’t buy all that much video content from iTunes, second, I thought the $299 price tag was a bit steep, and third, I didn’t have a “compatible” TV according to Apple’s specifications page. Nevertheless, the device intrigued me, perhaps I was just caught up in Steve’s “Reality Distortion Field” but when the opportunity came to win one at our local MUG meeting I jumped on it. Now, 48 hours later, I must say I’m enjoying the device much more than I initially thought. Read More...

Airport Extreme
Review by: Rick Chin
http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/
Price: $179

Initial reaction is a big thumbs up.

Items on the network: two 802.11n capable Macs, a 802.11n Windows laptop (ugh), a Windows desktop connected via Gigabit Ethernet, a TiVo via 100 MB Ethernet, another TiVo connected via 802.11g, and a Canon inkjet printer.

Previously, I used an Airport Extreme B/G but it’s signal wasn’t strong enough to reach the computer and TiVo at the other end of the house, so I deployed an Airport Express to create a Wireless Distribution System (WDS). This extended the network wirelessly to that computer and the TiVo. (The TiVo is plugged into the Ethernet port of the Airport Express, allowing a WPA encrypted connection into the TiVo Ethernet connection. This is a little-known trick I picked up while reading the Airport Express manual – if you’re not using an Airport Express as your primary router, you can use the Ethernet port for device connectivity. TiVo does not support a WPA connection with any third party adapters – they only have WEP. Now TiVo makes a TiVo-branded wireless adapter that supports WPA, but it is overpriced and wasn’t available at the time I was setting this up.) Read More...

TVMicro
Review by: Katie
http://www.miglia.com/products/video/tvmicro/
Price: $99

Many of us are waiting for Apple to release a Mac that will serve as a home media center. Apple’s upcoming iTV product is a step in the right direction, but iTV will only allow users to stream content from one Mac to their television set. The Mac Mini attached to a television set combined with Front Row and access to the iTunes Store to buy and download TV Shows and movies comes close, but that’s still leaving out the primary method with which most of us receive our entertainment- cable television. TVMicro along with Elgato’s bundled EyeTV software fills this gap and can allows a consumer to finally, have a true Mac home media center. Read More...

Speed Download
Review by: Katie
http://www.yazsoft.com
Price: $25 (free trial and switcher pricing available)

Speed Download is not only a fully-integrated, highly advanced, and full featured download manager but it's also a whole lot more and also boasts Safari, iTunes and .Mac Integration, a fully functional FTP client, and encrypted peer-to-peer file sharing for easy document sharing and collaboration. Speed Download is very intuitive and easy to use (you all know I never read a manual!) and the customization and options are nearly endless. The built-in filters give you maximum flexibility in keeping all your downloads organized into categories using smart lists (similar to the Finder's smart folders) so you can actually find your downloads when you're done with them rather than end up with a jumbled mess on your desktop. Read More...

FileChute
Review by: Katie
http://www.yellowmug.com/filechute/
Price: $14.95

I love email, it's without a doubt my favorite form of communication though there are at times a few "kinks" in the system. One of my biggest annoyances is the file size limitations that many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) put on email attachments and the problems when trying to send a large file to someone via email. At best, sending the email takes a long time to send and receive. At worst, your file ends up lost somewhere in cyberspace because either your or your recipients ISP refused to send or receive the file because of it's size and you never had any idea the file wasn't transmitted. Sure, you can use, and I recommend Apple's .Mac service by sending large files via your iDisk, or you could use an FTP transfer protocol, but all of these methods can be troublesome, especially if the person you're sending the file to doesn't have a .Mac account or understand how FTP works. Alas, in comes FileChute which finally rids me of my largest email annoyance for good. Read More...

AppZapper
Review by: Katie
http://www.appzapper.com
Price: $12.95

AppZapper is one of those applications that once you start using it, you just don't know how you ever got along without it. The premise is quite simple, drag an unwanted application into AppZapper and ZAP! the entire application, including all those annoying little orphan files are instantly moved to the trash. Read More...

iSale
Review by: Katie
http://www.equinux.com/us/products/isale
Price: $39.95

Until recently, selling on eBay has always been a bit of a pain. I’d have to take pictures of my item and if I wanted more than one picture in my eBay listing I’d have to host the photo on my own .Mac webspace and then figure out how to link to those photos. If I wanted something other than simple text and a photo I’d have to open up an html editor and basically create a webpage that looked pretty. Once that’s all done, I’d have to copy the code, open up my browser and go through another half-dozen webpages to list my item on eBay. As I said, it was a pain, until iSale came around. Read More...

RapidWeaver
Review by: Katie
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/
Price: $39.99

I have three websites that I manage, this one for MacPeople, one personal site and one professional site. Until a few months ago, none of them looked very good. I used GoLive and was able to get sites that functioned and looked just okay, but updates were a pain and they took literally days to build. I didn’t want or need anything super-fancy, I just wanted something that worked, was easy to update and looked clean and professional. One of my favorite podcasts, ScreenCasts Online did a series on RapidWeaver that peeked my interest and I haven’t looked back!. Read More...

Audio Hijack Pro
Review by: Katie
http://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/
Price: $32 with upgrade pricing available.

In a nutshell, Audio Hijack Pro will allow you to "hijack" audio from any source, and redirect it to another source and record and mix audio sources. If you can get the audio into your Mac, you can record or redirect it with Audio Hijack Pro. Here are a few examples, you could record conversations over your favorite voice-enabled instant messaging client. You could (with the proper hardware) record any audio you can get in your Mac from an analog source, this would include your old LPs, and cassettes. You can record streaming radio off the internet for playback at a later time. Read More...

SpamSieve
Review by: Katie
www.c-command.com
Price: $25

How many emails do you receive a day? How many of them are spam? According to SpamSieve's statistics window, I receive on average 24 Spam email messages a day, that accounts for currently 68% of all email received. In the last two months I have received 1037 good email messages and a whopping 1517 spam messages. that's an astronomical amount of junk mail and quite a bit of time each week filtering through what's good and what's junk email. Read More...

Apple iPod Hi-Fi
Review by: Rick
http://www.apple.com/ipodhifi/
Price: $349

Summary:
Good sound, especially with a newer iPod
A bit pricey
Some features not available with 4G iPods and earlier iPod models

First things first: The iPod Hi-Fi is better than you think it is. When you hear it, it’s better than you expect it to be. And that makes it part of the Apple family – a product that does more than you expect, more than you asked for, and more than enough to grow with you. And it does all that elegantly. Read More...

Apple iPod Nano
Review by: Bill Castine
http://www.apple.com/ipod
Price: 2GB (500 Songs) $149, 4GB (1000 Songs) $199, 8GB (2000 Songs) $249

iPod Nano (Apple Computer, Inc.) already has its own reputation to which I can add little. I took Dan Spiess's advice and bought a case for it (thanks, Dan). Although I do have music on the Nano, I'm more impressed with being able to carry photos around. I'm still experimenting with all the things Nano can do and loving every minute of it.

Apple Pages
Review by: Bill Castine
http://www.apple.com/iwork/pages/
Price: $79 (Part of iWork '06)

Pages is a delightful desktop publishing program for preparing "specialty" documents such as term papers, newsletters, journals, invitations, etc. Numerous templates are provided, as well as a blank form. Like so much Apple software, it is well integrated with other Apple programs; for instance, if one wishes to insert an image, Pages goes automatically to the iPhoto library. Naturally, one may use other sources as well. I've had limited need for Pages, but readily see its virtues and ease of use. I wish I had had it when I used to produce a newsletter for a professional organization to which I belong, but it wasn't available then.

Apple Keynote
Review by: Bill Castine
http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote/
Price: $79 (Part of iWork '06)

Keynote is presentation software not unlike Power Point, but so much easier to used and more appealing to the eye. I've used it several times to produce presentations for meetings. A presentation may be saved in Power Point format and run on a Windoze machine if necessary, but the complete beauty of Keynote does not transition into PP. We've all seen Keynote during MacPeople meetings, so I need not mention all the features in this short review, but importing photos, movies, or music is incredibly easy due to the integration capabilities with the corresponding Apple software.

Apple Mighty Mouse (Wired)
Review by: Bill Castine
http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/
Price: $49

Mighty Mouse (Apple Computer, Inc.), which now ships with new iMacs, was a brand new item when I won it and few people had one. I quickly developed an affinity for it because it allows one to left-click, right-click, scroll in four directions (up, down, right, and left), call up Widgets with a click of the scroll ball, and call up open software with a thumb-and-ring finger click. To my own surprise, I prefer it to the wireless mouse to which I had upgraded with purchase of an iMac G5 in November, 2004.