MacMost: Archives

1/10/08
Molly demonstrates the basics of recording audio on a Mac using Apple's GargeBand '08.
1/10/08

Listen to MacMost Review 19

Gary, Jay, and Will talk about the upcoming MacWorld Expo and try to predict what will be announced there.

Subscribe to the MacMost Review via iTunes.

MacMost Now 24: Word Processing Alternatives
1/9/08
Gary Rosenzweig looks at alternatives for casual users to Microsoft Word. These include Pages, Nisus, Papyrus, OpenOffice, ThinkFree, AbiWord, Google Docs and others.
1/8/08
Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at the new Mac Pro with 8 processor cores, a 1.5gb video card and RAID drive.
MacMost Now 22: Beginner Leopard Books
1/7/08
Gary Rosenzweig looks at two books about Mac OS X Leopard for beginners: Easy Mac OS X Leopard and Mac OS X Leopard On Demand.
MacMost Now 21: The Incredible Leopard Dictionary App
1/3/08
Gary Rosenzweig looks at all the cool news features in Dictionary with Leopard. You can look up definitions, thesaurus entries, a special Apple dictionary, Wikipedia and Japanese dictionaries. You can also see dictionary front matter and look up words while in other applications.
1/2/08

Listen to MacMost Review 18

Gary, Jay, and Will talk about the upcoming MacWorld Expo and some rumors, Blue-ray Mac-centric gifts they got for the holidays.

Subscribe to the MacMost Review via iTunes.

MacMost Now 20: How to Make iPhone Ringtones
1/2/08
Gary Rosenzweig shows you how to use GarageBand to make ringtones for the iPhone.
MacMost Now 19: 2007 in Review
12/31/07
Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at Apple news in 2007, including the release of the iPhone, Leopard and the high stock price.
MacMost Now 18: A Look at the Keychain
12/29/07
Gary Rosenzweig shows the Keychain access application and how you can control which passwords are stored and how.
MacMost Now 17: Finding Cool Web Sites
12/26/07
Gary Rosenzweig shows you some places where you can find cool Web sites. Suggestions include Stumble Upon, Del.icio.us and the net@nite podcast. Also, the free online games at http://gamescene.com.
MacMost Now 16: Our 2008 Apple Wish List
12/24/07
Gary Rosenzweig lists 5 items he'd like Apple to give the community as gifts in 2008.
MacMost Now 15: iPhone Case Reviews
12/21/07
Gary Rosenzweig looks at the iSkin Revo and the Otterbox Defender, two iPhone cases that work well to protect your iPhone.
MacMost Now 14: Backing Up and Archiving
12/20/07
Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at backup procedures, including Apple's Backup program that comes with .Mac, and Leopard Time Machine. He also talks about archiving and backing up off-site. Some 3rd party backup applications we found were Data Backup 3.0, Retrospect Desktop, Synk Backup and BackityMac.
12/19/07

Veronica BelmontVeronica Belmont is the host of Mahalo Daily, a new video podcast about everything and anything. She is also a huge Mac fan. Although her love of gaming and all things geek goes back to childhood, her love affair with Macs didn’t begin until college.

“I’ve always been kind of a geek. I grew up playing tons of video games,” she said.

“I’m a Mac gamer, which is kind of a rare breed,” she said. She plays World of Warcraft, Civilization, Age of Empires, and games from Aspyr. But gaming isn’t the only thing she uses her MacBook Pro for.

While attending Emerson College and studying audio production and new media, it quickly became clear that she needed a Mac.

“I decided to make the switch finally after seeing all of my friends who were enjoying their Macs very much, so I went all out and got a top of the line G5,” Belmont said.

That first Mac she owned was a dual G5 tower, which she used throughout her time at Emerson where she was doing a lot of audio and video editing.

Soon, mobility became much more important so she traded in the tower for her current MacBook Pro.

“I can’t believe that I ever didn’t have a laptop. I can’t even fathom not being able to pick it up and take it with me. I go everywhere with it,” she said.

“I enjoy working on computers. I enjoy Internet culture,” she said. Which has made working in new media very natural for Belmont. Professionally, she began her career in new media at CNet in the Fall of 2004, after graduating from Emerson. She spent almost 3 years there, until recently, when she joined Mahalo.

“When I started working at Mahalo, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that they use Macs exclusively at the office.”

She keeps her Mac by her side at all times because, “It’s my main tool of communication, obviously.”

“I have anxiety dreams that I’ve gone to the airport and forgotten my laptop. You know how some people have those dreams where they’re in high school and they’re naked, mine, I’m at the airport with no laptop,” she jokes.

“I’m not a big phone talker, I’m really really attached to email at all times,” she said.

Currently, she uses it as her primary workspace, since she works remotely from her office. She’s in San Francisco, while Mahalo is in Santa Monica.

When it comes to software, she’s serious about what she likes.

“I’m constantly finding new stuff. I’m always deleting apps and adding new ones and trying new stuff,” she said.

“It’s hard to find the right combination for you,” she said of locating the perfect software applications for each individual. But for Belmont, she’s found the right combination for her. She’s a big fan of Colloquy, which she uses to chat in IRC. She uses Flock as her web browser, and for audio editing, she likes Audacity, but is trying out Sound Studio from Freeverse. Finally, for editing photos she uses Pixelmator, but she still uses iPhoto for organizing photos.

It’s not just the apps she likes, however.

“The ease of use and the interface. It suits my personality more than a PC does,” she said.

“I find Macs to be very whimsical, like the Dock and the genie effect. Little details like that make me happy,” she said.

And if ease of use, good looks, and whimsical details weren’t enough to spread the love of all things Mac, “They last a long time, they’re good,” she said.

She sold her G5 tower to a former coworker who is still using it for video editing.

“Especially since you can upgrade them so easily, give them more RAM and stuff, it lasts a long time,” she said.

Belmont isn’t the only Mac fan she knows.

“Yeah, almost all of my friends are Mac users actually, even my non-techie friends have Macs now,” she said.

Describing living in San Francisco she notes, “You go into the coffee shop and there’s 20 MacBook Pros, a couple MacBooks and the really depressed looking ThinkPad.”

Belmont adds, “Everyone I know professionally and even non-professionally are using Macs these days. I guess it’s just the crew I roll with.”

But her MacBook Pro isn’t the only Apple product Belmont owns and loves.

“I can’t imagine a time before my iPhone,” she said.

Although she’s not a big phone talker, she likes being connected to the world. After using smart phones in the past, she discovered that, “they just don’t work the way I want them to.”

Having survived smart phone trial and error, Belmont now says that “I know the iPhone isn’t the most heavily featured phone, but it does everything I need it to do, really, really well.”

Someday, she’d love it to be 3G, have GPS and do video recording, but for now she’s quite happy with what she has. For awhile she had an NES emulator and really got into Tap Tap Revolution. Belmont also really likes the new Google on iPhone and listens to some of her 20G of music in iTunes. When not talking, web browsing, or listening to music, she also takes movies and podcasts on the go.

“I’ve started enjoying using a cell phone since I have an iPhone.”

MacMost Now 13: Google iPhone Apps
12/18/07
Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at using Google iPhone apps such as gMail, Picasa, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Notebook and local search.
MacMost Now 12: Leopard Phrasebook Review
12/17/07
Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at the Mac OS X Leopard Phrasebook by Biran Tiemann. The book features the Terminal application and shows you the basics of using Linux directly on your Mac.
MacMost Now 11: KVM Video Audio Time Machine
12/14/07
Gary Rosenzweig answers viewer mail: Using KVM switches with Macs, extracting audio from video, Time Machine over Airport Extreme, and Time Machine zoom.
MacMost Now 10: Online Shopping Safety
12/12/07
Gary Rosenzweig gives some basic tips for being safe while shopping online. Look for secure checkout pages, use a credit card, have good passwords, and trust your instincts.
MacMost Now 9: Ultra-Portable MacBook Rumors
12/10/07
Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at rumors of lightweight ultra-portable MacBooks possibly coming out in January. He talks about Flash NAND memory replacing hard drives, and which machines use them now. He also looks at Sony and Toshiba ultra-portables and speculates on what Apple might come out with.