User Profile for DocMacPS

The Tube 2.7.4 (Mac OS X)

Increased TV Device Support in 2.7.4 Helps  

The latest update added a fairly long list of about a dozen pieces of TV tuner hardware for US and markets abroad. A large number of Miglia gizmos are now supported - who are shipping The Tube bundled with their tuners after the fallout with ElGato and the bundling of EyeTV. For $19.95 I was able to try out TheTube with my old TVMicro Express.
The Tube IS getting better. Equinux is at least getting steady improvements out. Still, the achilles-heel is their lack of an EPG - Program Guide for the US market. Don't be fooled by their talk of the .XMLTV standard for obtaining TV program schedules - it is so geeky and convoluted - it's barely usable by determined Nerds - let alone the average consumer who just wants to know what shows are on! Still a long way to go to catch up with EyeTV - but competition is always a good thing...
Doc
http://mac-digital-tv-tuners.com/ [alert admin]

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Saturday, June 14 2008 @ 02:09 AM PDT

Spring Cleaning 9.1.1 (Mac OS X)

Solve One 'Problem', Create Two  

Over my years as an Apple Consultant I've just seen too many clients who OVER-CLEANED thier computer lives with this utility as it cheerfully mucked about in Library and Preferences folders and offered to 'rid' them of stuff just plain _best left alone_. Usually nothing fatal - but all this program seems to really do is try to make people feel good about having spent money on it, and 'solving' trivial, imaginary 'problems' that have nothing to do with why their Mac may be wonky - and perhaps making it just a little too easy to delete things they shouldn't if they really decide to. Ditto with Internet Security which 'protects' them from all sorts of imaginary 'threats' -- that IF they had a good backup, IF they practiced safe, sensible computing, email and web practices -- would be a non-issue anyways. At best, this is Peace Of Mind software, at worst - Piece Of Worthless Cr*p. [alert admin]

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Friday, May 23 2008 @ 12:18 AM PDT

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 (Mac OS X)

Cannot TRY - No Trial?  

Unlike most Adobe products, no Mac TRIAL version is available yet - only Windows try-out version is online. Given the major rewrite and redesign of Elements 6, I'd like to see it in action first. Leopard 10.5.x upgrade rendered all my earlier Photoshop versions inoperable. Hmmph! I've always considered Elements to be a GREAT value - 90% of the power and precision of Photoshop's tools, adjustments and filters at a bargain price. [alert admin]

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Monday, March 24 2008 @ 09:30 PM PDT

OnyX 1.7.5 (Mac OS X)

Pick Of The Litter  

I've tried 'em all and OnyX is the one I use and trust in my Apple Mac tech support biz. Huge help with all the basic maint tasks. Especially like some of the options to disable some of the visual / Finder effects that bog down older Macs, they really change the users _perception_ of system responsiveness after a good OnyX-ing.

Like all similar apps, there's a few SCAREY options that the casual Mac user perhaps ought'nt even be presented to mess with. Too tempting to check a group of EVERYTHING and let 'er rip! Also, desperately wish this and others weren't so System Specific - it'd be nice if it could DETECT the version of OSX and run properly regardless, enable or disable proper options for 10.2/3/4 automatically and be more usable on ANY Mac computer I encounter. DoctorMac - Palm Springs [alert admin]

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Sunday, October 08 2006 @ 06:52 AM PDT

RapidWeaver 3.5.0 (Mac OS X)

Huge Timesaver  

RW was a great help to totally redesign my own Apple Mac consulting and support website in a single evening! Took a few attempts at getting my brain wrapped around its approach to things, also learned to choose HTML-CODE type pages right from the get go to give me the flexibility I need. Made sure to use the inspectors to set some hidden options FIRST, then _duplicated_ this master page to create subpages for a 3 page site to edit with other tools. I *tried* using iWeb and it's Export function to do this and ended up with a HORRIBLE mess of wretched code I couldn't live with. Rapid Weaver gets it right.

I now use RW to help my Macintosh clients get a *GOOD LOOKING* basic 1 page site up QUICK, use TACO HTML Edit to embed some Meta-Tags and after a quick FTP, submit it to the search engines. This has been great for my biz; I can help a customer register a domain at GoDaddy, host it, and have a working site and email all going before noon in a single day. Thank You RapidWeaver!!! DoctorMac - Palm Springs [alert admin]

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Sunday, October 08 2006 @ 06:34 AM PDT

Taco HTML Edit 1.7.2 (Mac OS X)

Great For Beginners or Pro site tweaking  

I help alot of clients get a basic web site up and going as an Apple Computer Consultant. This program is simple enough for novice website / Macintosh users to grasp within 15 minutes and start editing thier own basic HTML with - whether for a personal home page or small business site. All other programs are waaaay to complex, or present too many choices. Newbies can get started as if just using a Word Processing program!

The Syntax checker and Organize Tags features alone are a godsend to write readable, clean code. I use it to manage all my Apple support sites on a daily basis. I may use templates or Rapid Weaver to get a site structure built, then exclusively use TACO to do all the rest. The ONLY HTML editor I need, gosh if it had a simple FTP option built in, I'd be in heaven. GREAT software regardless. Shawn 'Rusty' Smith : DoctorMac Palm Springs [alert admin]