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SSDs are amazing. They’re so fast, once you’re using to using one in your day-to-day work, switching back to working from a traditional hard drive is painful. You’ll get so used to apps opening nearly instantly that everything will feel slow. It’s no wonder Apple’s switched its most popular laptops – the MacBook Air and the new MacBook Pro Retina Display – to SSD.
There’s only one problem: SSDs cost more per gigabyte than traditional hard drives, so instead of the roomy 500Gb hard drives you might be used to in other computers, a MacBook with an SSD will likely only have 128-256Gb of storage. With HD video downloads and retina display ready apps, it’s rather easy to fill that up.
If you’ve got a 13″ Air or a Retina Display MacBook, though, you’ve got an SD card slot. Now what if that could be used to add extra storage that felt integrated fully with your Mac? That’s exactly what the Nifty MiniDrive - a tiny microSD card adaptor that sits flush with the exterior of your MacBook - sets out to do.
There’s one major problem with going paperless: everyone keeps sending you paper, and you can’t just tap a “Save to Dropbox” button on paper. You’ve still got to take it digital. Scanners are nothing new, but they’re typically synonymous with bulky all-in-one printers that are clunky and frustrating to use. Unless you’re really dedicated, odds are you’ll never digitalize all the paper you keep around with a traditional scanner.
The Doxie team recently sent me a Doxie One, their newest and simplest scanner, to try out. I’d recently purchased an HP printer+scanner, one that’s nice enough to have built-in wireless AirPrint. It’s no match for the Doxie, though, but then, the Doxie’s still no match for it either.
Here’s why.
When it comes to drawing your next masterpiece, creativity is essential. If you have creativity, the next step is to get the best tools for the task at hand – that is where AppStorm comes in. As you know, we love reviewing useful apps that are often geared towards the creative beast inside us. But what if this task requires you to have a different form of input?
If your next masterpiece can’t be crafted by using your mouse, you are probably in need of a pen tablet that’ll work wonderfully with your Mac; if so, you are in the right place because after spending some quality time with a review unit sent by Wacom, we are pleased to introduce you to Wacom’s Bamboo Create pen & touch tablet.
Here at AppStorm, we consider our keyboards to be one of the most vital tools a writer can and should have at his or her disposal. While, yes, we often take our keyboards for granted, sometimes we remember why the keyboard is such a paramount instrument to our day-to-day operations – heck, this article was written thanks to one great keyboard.
What keyboard is that, you ask? Well, It is Logitech’s k760 Wireless Solar Keyboard. This baby is Logitech’s answer for having one keyboard for all your devices, be it your Mac, iPhone, or iPad. But. Should this keyboard be your next? After receiving a review unit from Logitech, we had to find out for ourselves.
Video games are fueled by competition, skills, fun, determination, and of course, bragging rights. In all fairness, competition always brings us to bragging rights. And why wouldn’t it? As long as you are not a cocky trash-talker, bragging rights can be given to those who humbly prove themselves to be at the top of the food chain.
But what is the best way to display your skills? What is the best way to exercise your bragging rights? Video, of course!
For years now, most gamers have depended on a popular personal video recorder to capture their gameplay. Recently however, the famous company that was responsible for EyeTV, Elgato, released a new product. Known as the Game Capture HD, this small device, bundled up with its rocking app, sets a new bar for video game recording.
There are many reasons you might want to switch to a Mac: design, software, sheer awesomeness. Whatever your reason, you might not yet have your heart set on a specific machine, but don’t worry, I am here to fix that very issue.
Apple have six main product lines for Mac OS X: MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, iMac and Mac Pro. That’s a whole lotta Mac. But, whether you’re a student wanting a notebook to write essays at Starbucks, or a hardcore, photo/editing user who wants a desktop, there’s a Mac that’s perfect for you.
Today we’ll take you through each of the six product lines and also tell you whether it’s the right time to buy, who each model is best suited for, and where you should purchase from.
When you own a PC, you need to pay attention to things like defragmenting your hard-drives, installing and updating antivirus, antivandal and firewall software. If you switch to a Mac, you need worry a lot less about such things. I’m not saying you should be complacent, but things generally just work much more easily and straightforwardly.
Your Mac has built-in maintenance routines that run periodically, and – for the most part – you will have a simpler computing experience that requires you to spend much less time under the hood tweaking things.
If you’ve made the switch from a PC, one thing that you might find yourself wondering about is defragmenting your hard-drive. Today we’re delving into that topic, and taking a look at iDefrag. After the jump, I’ll walk you through the app, and conclude with some reflections on whether or not you need it.
In 2005, Apple released the first Mighty Mouse. A year later a bluetooth version was released. As much as we appreciate Apple’s attempt to creating a good looking mouse, the Mighty Mouse was heavily criticized for its usability – right click was awkward and the scrolling wheel was difficult to keep clean. How many times did we bang our heads because the wheel had stopped working?
The future of Apple’s mouse family is all of a sudden looking brighter with the introduction of the new Magic Mouse. If you are inline with Apple’s design philosophy, you would love the hardware design of the Magic Mouse – it’s simple, and it’s beautiful. The Mighty Mouse was a great piece of design with only a visible scrolling wheel on the top surface, the Magic Mouse takes one step further and presents you with one clean, curved top surface. From purely the appearance perspective, the Magic Mouse is absolutely breathtaking.
