AAUG Reviews

By Bruce Herman, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

The Apple iPod Shuffle is a minimalist MP3 player. Open the box and you find the Shuffle, earbud headphones, and a cap for its USB port. There are no cables. You recharge its battery by plugging the Shuffle directly into your USB port. But what it you’re away from your computer? You can purchase a power adapter from Apple that will all you to charge your Shuffle from a standard wall outlet for $29. Or you can purchase Belkin’s Power Pack for $0.99 more and charge your Shuffle not only from a wall outlet but also from your car’s 12 volt lighter or accessory outlet.

The Belkin Power Pack also comes with a 3 ft USB cable that gives you more flexibility in where you place the Shuffle while it’s being charged. You no longer have to plug your Shuffle directly into the side of your computer, which on tower systems can be in an inconvenient location. This departure from Apple’s design concept of plugging the Shuffle directly into the charger is of particular importance when using the car charger. If the Shuffle were plugged directly into the charger, the vehicle’s vibration would eventually damage the USB connection. The 3 ft cable allows you to place the Shuffle in a secure and out-of-the-way place.

One problem that I experienced with the original product was that it caused a glitch in my Shuffle when I used it in the car. The original product did not have instructions for it use. With such a simple product, why would you need them? So I plugged the charger into my car’s accessory outlet, plugged the USB cable into the charger and then my Shuffle and then turned on my Shuffle. WRONG! It hiccuped, played a bit and stopped. When I turned it off and then on again, it still shut off when it played the song that it was starting to play when I turned it on when first connected to the power adapter. I discovered when I went to the Belkin web site that they had posted a special warning that you must have the Shuffle turned ON to charge it. They now glue a label with these instructions on the packages of the Power Packs. It is this caveat on usage that causes me to downgrade the product from 5 to 4 moose.

By David Enders, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

Drive Genius from Prosoft Engineering is a suite of utilities maintaining, managing and optimizing your hard drive. There are ten utilities included with Drive Genius: Repair, Defragment, Duplicate/backup, Sector Edit, Shred, Integrity Check, Benchtest, Scan, Initialize and Repartition.

Installation was simple and went without any hiccups. The program CD is bootable and useful if and when you have a drive that will not boot. Booting from the cd also allows the user to run certain utilities like repair and duplicate.

Although all of the utilities have uses , the following applications are more likely to be used by the everyday user : Repair, Defragment, Duplicate/backup, Shred, Benchtest , Scan and Integrity Check.

Repair

The user has a four choices to choose from: verify, repair, rebuild and repair permissions. Once the volume is selected for use and the start button is pushed, the utility will return the condition of the drive. This is similar to the features offered by Disk Utility included with OS X. The rebuild feature is not available in the OS X utility.

Defragment

As files get written to the hard drive they can get fragmented as files as added, deleted and modified. This can potentially cause a decrease in performance. Running de-fragment on a regular basis can help avoid this performance issue. When running de-fragment on my iBook 30gb drive , the de-fragment process took quite a long time. (more…)

By David Enders, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

Tune Tech for iPod is a program that has eight “must-have” utilities as described on the product packaging. I am always concerned with my iPod music and the amount that I purchased from the Apple Music Store as well as the some 400 csd’s from my collection that I have ripped over the years of the pod generation. I have been one of the lucky people out there to have a hard failure and not have a backup. So now I have an external hard drive that backs up my G5 drive and all my important data. With Tune Tech for IPod, it enables me to have a secondary method of backup while providing some useful utilities to manage,maintain and optimize the iPod.

Installation was a very simple process, one we have come to expect with using a Macintosh computer. Once the program is started, the GUI is a super-sized iPod graphic with the various utilities displayed. The name of the connected iPod is displayed at the top of the application. The utilities included are Backup, Optimize, Repair, Undelete, Shred, Duplicate , Scan and Info. To run each utility , simply select the utility and click the play button. One thing to keep in mind is that the backup,optimize,shred and duplicate utilities will take a lengthy time to process if you have a lot of data on your iPod. For these utilities , I started them, walked away and came back later. To use these utilities your iPod has to have disk use enabled. this can be done through iTune’c current version or manually on the iPod. Check www.apple.com/support for the instructions for your specific iPod. The utilities will not work with any iPod that is formatted for use with a Windows computer. I had high expectations of this collection of utilities since Drive Genius (also by Prosoft) got 4 mice from MacWorld and an awesome rating from MacAddict. I have to say i was not disappointed.

The first utility I ran was Info, this program provides (more…)

By Guy Okada, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

I own a black 30gb 5th generation iPod, better known as an iPod video. I like the clear plastic covers because it shows off the entire iPod yet protects it well. MicroShield is made for both the 30gb and 60gb models. It comes in two halves which snap together. There is a round cutout for access to the clickwheel. The back panel has two small zigzag rubber pieces to keep the case from scratching the back of the iPod. Interestingly, the front panel doesn’t include a similar buffer to avoid scratches but the case snaps onto the iPod so snugly that there is no movement. My other clear hardcase had a thin clear plastic shield that covered both the screen and the clickwheel to provide some protection which I liked so I combined the clear plastic film from my other hardcase with the MicroShield and got the best of both products!

The MicroShield includes two back panels: one is a solid pieve and the other has a handy belt clip. The belt clip is sturdily made but it can’t swivel so the iPod can be held in vertical position only when using the clip. When the two halves snap together, the top and bottom of the iPod are exposed allowing easy access to the headphone jack, hold switch and the dock. But exposing the top and bottom of the iPod sort of defeats the purpose of encasing the rest of the iPod to prevent damage. The other hard case that I have has cutouts for the jacks and hold button rather than leaving the entire top and bottom open. That’s the only criticism I have of this product. (more…)

By Devon Peake, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

This clear cover did make my iPod look better, but, if you are a perfectionist, you’ll also find that it was challenging to apply just right. I followed the directions on the back of the envelope, first cleaning my iPod (while wearing lint-free gloves) so there were no smudges or specks of dust. (I used eyeglass cleaner with the glass cleaner cloth to clean the iPod prior to application of the film.) I think one thing that would improve this product is to have the wheel cover and front cover all-in-one; the directions say to apply the wheel cover last, and I found it too difficult to “drop” this part of the film on the wheel right where it should go, centered. I just left this section off. Probably because Alaska is so dry, the side of the film which is NOT adhesive immediately stuck to my hand (static). So even though I had the iPod as clean as possible, the adhesive side of the film right away attracted a bit of dust and fuzz. I used some clear tape to remove what I could so I wouldn’t put any oil from my fingers or any fingerprints on the adhesive side. As the directions read, it IS easy to “slide” any air bubbles out while applying the film, and I was pleasantly surprised that some marks which were at the top of my video window previously do not appear anymore.

Overall, I am happy with the results - my iPod looks better, newer, and I know it won’t be easily scratched. The website has a link for “Post-Installation Dust and Air Solutions”, which I tried on the back film, but since I do tend to be a perfectionist (can you TELL??… :-), I decided my results were good enough. Since I own a few different cases for my iPod, I intend to leave this film on, since it is thin enough (but not too thin), and won’t interfere with any of my carrying cases.

By Chris Tofteberg, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

Solitaire games have been around about as long as the personal computer itself. As such, this genre of game has been done over and over again. That’s not to say that solitaire games today are the same as they were in the old days. Interface and game play improvements have come a long way and today’s solitaire games are getting better all the time. Unfortunately, Smack Solitaire is not up to par with some other solitaire games available today.

Installation was a breeze, as most Mac apps are. Once launched, you are greeted with thirty solitaire games to choose from. Think of a solitaire game you’ve played and it is probably included here. Variety is a good thing with a computer card game, as one can only play so much FreeCell, which is also included in the set.

Once you’ve selected the type of solitaire game you want to play, game play begins. Manual click and drag as well as double clicking on your cards will play the cards for you. What is noticeably missing from Smack Solitaire is useful help or preference options. All help and rule selections kicks in your browser, a negative in my book, as you have to switch back to the game when you’re done with them. Options are limited only to card color, background color, audio volume and full screen. Preferences are nonexistent. In fact, the only item on the menu bar (more…)

By Guy Okada, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

If you are a baby boomer like me, you probably have a box of LP records stored somewhere in your house or perhaps a box of old cassette tapes. Unwilling to relinquish my copy of Saturday Night Fever and Three Dog Night’s Greatest Hits, I have toted my records from California to Hawaii to Alaska. I could, of course, buy a re-release of these albums on CD but I cherish those vinyl discs and the colorful jackets they came in. I also have a huge collection of Hawaiian albums that have not been re-released on CD. Finally I have found a cost effective way to transfer these treasures onto CD using a nifty gadget from those great folks at Griffin Technologies.

iMic allows you to connect a tape deck, LP turntable, microphone, guitar or other instruments to your computer to be recorded-there is no need to go through a pre-amp. It connects via your USB port which is supposed to be of higher quality than the microphone jack. It is that simple! There is no software requirements or drivers necessary for iMic to work with either OS9 or OSX. The device itself is the size of a silver dollar with a a USB connection on the other end. It also includes a female stereo plug with a 1/8″ mini stereo plug to connect devices to iMic. A toggle switch on the iMic allows you to switch between the line level (audio from decks, CD players, turntables) and mic (microphones). (more…)

By Brian Schilling, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

Lets keep this simple. You’ll want the iLife ’06 suite of programs if you currently or wish to do any of the following: manage and edit photos, print albums, greeting cards or calendars; make movies; burn DVDs on most any burner; create music or podcasts; or create websites but you don’t know a lick of HTML. If you’re not interested in any of the above, then why do you own a Mac?

Apple has always distinguished its products from the mundane competition. With the dawn of the new millennium, Apple jumped light years ahead with the introduction of iLife. Each year, Apple adds another program to the original programs, iPhoto and iMovie. At Macworld Expo in San Francisco this January, Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs announced the greatest advancement in the iLife suite since its introduction in 2002. The most exciting program in iLife ’06 is iWeb, the newest member of the suite.

The homepage feature of .Mac was a good start for beginners who wanted a simple website for their photos and movies. Though homepage’s templates were beautiful, they allowed for little customization and websites with numerous pages were difficult to navigate. But with the help of iWeb, any Mac user of any skill level can create beautiful websites that viewers will find informative, beautiful and easy to navigate. Terrific websites are no longer the domain of those who know HTML. Users can choose from over a dozen page themes created by the graphic geniuses at Apple. Each theme offers (more…)

By Ron Schoedel, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

“The Apple Way” is definitely not a computer book. It will do nothing to help you figure out how to work your computer or your iPod or anything of the sort. Instead, what it aims to do is provide business persons with management lessons gleaned from Apple’s thirty years of interesting and storied existence. It is a management book, and I read it with the intention of seeing how The Apple Way could possibly help my own organization.

Author Jeffrey Cruikshank is not afraid to lay out Apple’s failures along side their successes, being that this is a business book. We learn the scoop behind Apple’s decision to not license its OS to other manufacturers early on (the biggest decision Apple has made, and the one directly responsible for Windows being installed on 95% of the world’s computers). We also learn the genius behind Apple’s retail store initiative, predicted by many business writers to fail within the first year, and now bringing in billions in revenue over half a decade after the first Apple Store opened its doors.

We get fleeting glimpses into the genius of Steve Jobs, and also a few reminders of how other Apple CEOs might have been lacking the drive and ability that Jobs thrives on.

Among the lessons we can learn from Apple:

• Make the product and the customer King.
• Balance manufacturing with delivery logistics

(more…)

By Elaine V. Robinson, AAUG Member
Reviewed 4/06

TuneFlex is a iPod Nano charger and all-in-one holder for use in your automobile. It has a docking cradle and the strong flexible steel neck adjusts to any angle and rotation. Besides the cradle holding your Nano, it also charges and powers it when plugged into your cigarette lighter outlet. Nowadays they call it a 12 volt accessory outlet! I guess black is the only color as I didn’t see any other options on the Griffin web site.

When plugged in, the TuneFlex glows a circle of the coolest blue at the base of the neck to show the power status. I easily moved the flexible neck to an angle that was comfortable for me and it doesn’t get in the way of my Suzuki’s gear shift.

Not only does it securely hold your Nano and get tunes to your audio system, there are more features. The base contains a 1/8″ jack for audio out and a switch to select between High or Low audio output to prevent distortion. Also, the web site says there is a cassette adapter included. The box that I have made no mention of it and it sure wasn’t in the box. The cradle has a pass-through dock connector on the bottom to attach other iPod devices such as Griffin’s iTrip with Dock Connector FM transmitter, AirClick remote, SmartDeck cassette adapter, or others. The TuneFlex also has a fuse to insure that while charging, your iPod is safe.

Besides the cassette adapter confusion, I was very impressed with the Griffin TuneFlex and recommend it if you want to play your iPod Nano while riding in your car. I give it a moose rating of 4.