Hard drive storage is so cheap these days. Check out these Western Digital 1.0TB Drives I’ve got several of them. I use them for Time Machine backups and off-site backups. At $85 a piece, it is extremely worth it to know that I’ve got multiple backups of all my data, photos and projects. I just dock them in a cheap hard drive dock, or swap them in and out of my Mac Pro.
Laptops get hot. And MacBook Pros are no exception. If you use one as your primary computer, you inevitably think about what that heat must do to the internal parts day after day. Spending $30 on a USB cooling pad is a good idea, and I’ve been using the Tripp Lite NC2003SR Notebook/Laptop Cooling Pad with 2 Built-In USB Powered Fans for years. In fact, I keep it plugged into a USB hub, so it occasionally runs 24 hours a day for days on end. It does its job and is quiet and problem-free.
With the new iPhone 3GS’ ability to record video comes the question: can you use an external mic? The answer is yes. In fact, the earbuds that come with the iPhone 3GS have such a mic on them. But that can be inconvenient to use. A product like the Monster iMicrophone gives you a stand-alone clip-on mic and the ability to then plug in your own headphones. The mic also includes a pause button like the iPhone’s earbuds, but no volume control. So these make a good clip-on mic as well as a way to get the mic and pause button while using your own headphones.
Screen protectors for iPhones aren’t cool or sexy, but they are often necessary. Lord knows how many scratches I’d have on my screen without one. I’ve been using the Power Support Anti-Glare Film for iPhone 3G for a while and like the fact that it works, doesn’t get in the way, and doesn’t have those annoying bubbles that other protectors have.
Little bluetooth headsets are super cool gadgets — reason enough to get one. So I tried to figure out what the most solid unit out there was, without breaking the bank. I came up with the popular Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth Headset. It works with both the iPhone and the Mac, where it provides a decent external microphone for chat or voice recording.
Been using the Vantec NexStar Hard Drive Dock beauty to quickly dock 1TB hard drives and swap them out almost like floppies. It just works well and seems to be priced well below a lot of other similar devices.
When taking an international plane flight recently, I almost bought an airplane power adapter to keep my iPhone and iPod charged. Good thing I didn’t, as the plane didn’t have the outlet anyway. I found that it was cheaper and more practical to buy the Kensington Battery Pack and Charger which allows me to carry around a full charge and more for just about any USB device. It even comes with a wall-power to USB adapter as the charger, which doubles as an extra iPhone wall charger. I’ll get a lot more use out of this device on long trips or just long days away from the office.
If you need to plug a microphone into your Mac, you’ll need a USB audio adapter. The line-in on your Mac won’t handle most mics. The Griffin iMic USB Audio Interface is small, inexpensive, and gets the job done. For anyone who records from a mic this product, or one like it, is a must-have.
Ever take notes with your Mac? You probably use a text editor or word processor. Instead, use dedicated note-taking software like the feature-rick NoteBook. It doesn’t just let you type in text. You can also add sketches, audio and all sorts of things to your notes. Makes us wish we were still in college.
If you have the need for a deeper copy and paste buffer, then ClipMenu is a powerful choice. It allows you to save a history of your clipboard, and access it easily through the menu bar. You can also assign permanent clips to keep around and there are tons of other features. This is probably a must-have for power users and writers.
Today’s computers are a lot more stable than they used to be, especially hard drives. But back 10 years ago I wouldn’t think of going without a bootable disk diagnostic and repair utility. My choice was TechTool Pro. Now in version 5, this tool is worth having around, especially if you maintain more than one Mac. It can be used to run complete diagnostics on a system, repair your hard drive, and even recover lost files.
We are often asked about the picture-in-picture effect in the MacMost video podcast. We do this using professional software called Wirecast, but you can get the same effect using ScreenFlow from the same company. It allows you to record your screen and from a video camera at the same time. So you can narrate your screen capture. Then you can crop and adjust both the capture and the camera video before rendering the final product.
If you want more from your menu bar clock, then iClock Pro is what you have been looking for. You not only get the time and date, but also tons of other features like alarms, world times, a mini calendar, application run times, stock quotes, stop watch, moon phase and even provides floating clocks over your desktop if you wish. It is quite impressive and worth trying.
Out of the box, QuickTime cannot play back one of the most popular formats found on the Web: The Windows WMV format. Microsoft used to supply a Mac player for these files, but no longer. Instead they suggest downloading the free Flip4Mac WMV player which is actually a codec that extends QuickTime to allow it to play back WMV files in both the QuickTime player and the browser. Don’t be alarmed by the Web site’s talk of a pro version. You only need the free “trial” version if you are not creating new WMV files.
To do list programs are all over the place, including the built-in to do list shared between Mail and iCal. But The Hit List takes it up a notch. You can organize your items in a number of ways and view them as a list or one-at-a-time with notes. It acts like your inbox for everything that isn’t email. Plus the interface is very well thought-out and friendly.
Everyone in the Mac Twitterverse has been talking about Tweetie for Mac this week. It has been a favorite on the iPhone for a while, and is now also on the Mac. This desktop version has more features than the iPhone one, naturally. However, it still lacks some of the advanced features of other Twitter clients like groups. But it makes up for that with a clean Mac-like design.
If you are looking for a quick way to make a complete copy of your hard drive, then the free Carbon Copy Cloner will get the job done. It isn’t as robust of a solution as some, but it is a useful tool to have in your Utilities folder. You can also schedule updates, allowing you to have a completely bootable backup version of your hard drive always on the ready.
A great video conversion tool is MPEG Streamclip. It not only converts video, but can also be used to apply effects and trim clips. I’ve only played with it for a short period of time, but it already seems like a must-have tool for video editors.
Front Row is a nice media center in your Mac. But it lacks connectivity to much of the streaming video on the Internet. Try Boxee. This is a more advanced media center with connections to Netflix, CBS, Comedy Central, Last.fm, and Flickr. Plus it will play your local media files as well.
There are a lot of ways to experience Twitter on your Mac. Right now. TweetDeck seems to be very popular among Mac users. It is free and you can immerse yourself in social media by filling your screen with your tweets, your friend’s tweets, and tweets from around the world. Lots of great bonus functionality.
