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Bean 3 Free Word Processor Released
How to Use Your Mac as a Wireless Router
How to Connect to Hidden Wireless Networks
Ultrabooks To The Fore In 2012
Google's ChromeOS-based Notebook One Year Later: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Truth
Google Releases Corporate Macintosh Management Tools
Online Backup Reviews Selects Top 5 Backup Services for 2012
Bean 3 Free Word Processor Released
Bean 3 is a small, easy-to-use and free rich text editor and lightweight word processor designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable.
Lean, fast and uncluttered, Bean starts up quickly, has a live word count, page layout mode, full-screen mode, regular expression search/replace, multi-column text, inline graphics, detailed statistics, and much more, and its user interface is easy on the eyes. While MS Word, OpenOffice, etc. try to be all things to all people, sometimes you just want the right tool for the job. That's Bean's niche. For example, Bean doesn't do footnotes or use stylesheets and is only partially compatible with Word's file formats. Also, it allows in-line graphics, but not floating graphics.
New in Version 3 are an optional single-window tabbed interface layout, template documents with boilerplate text, a split view, a two-up layout view, freeform headers and footers, plain text editing, and other improvements.
Bean features:
• live word count
• make template documents with boilerplate text
• free-form headers and footers
• page layout view (optional 2-up)
• alternate colors option (e.g., white text on blue)
• split-window editing
• full screen editing
• date-stamped backups
• selection of text by text style, paragraph style, color, etc.
• find panel allows regular expressions (pattern matching)
• all of Cocoa's good stuff (dictionary, word completion, etc.)
Bean natively reads and writes these file formats:
• .rtf format (rich text)
• .rtfd format (rich text with graphics)
• .bean format (identical to .rtfd)
• plain text (Unicode and legacy)
• .webarchive format (Apple's web archive format)
Bean transparently imports and exports these formats:
• .doc format (MS Word '97, minus images, margins, and page size)...more info here
• .docx format (Word 2007, minus images and some formatting)...more info here
• .odt format (OpenDocument, minus images, margins, and page size)
Bean can export all of the above formats to these formats:
• .html (web page format)
• .doc compatible (with images intact)
New in Version 3.0.1:
• Totally rewritten, with many new features. Requires OS X 10.5+
• Drag-resize of edit view in draft mode now works (oops).
• Tabbed editing
• Ability to resize the width of the draft edit view within its window
• Plain text editing
System requirements:
• Bean requires a Mac with a PPC or Intel processor running OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard, or 10.7 Lion
• An older version (2.4.5) is still available compatible with OS X Tiger 10.4+
For more information, visit:
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html
How to Use Your Mac as a Wireless Router
MacInstruct's Matthew Cone explains how you can turn your Mac into a wireless router for your home or office, a useful capability if you have cable or DSL service, but no wireless router. Cone shows how to connect several computers or devices - such as an iPhone or iPad - to the Internet via your Mac's wireless network.
You can check it out at:
http://www.macinstruct.com/node/118
How to Connect to Hidden Wireless Networks
MacInstruct's Matthew Cone notes that to connect your Mac to a wireless network you click on the wireless menu bar icon, select an available network, and your Mac automatically connects. But what about connecting to wireless networks that are hidden? The hidden wireless networks won't appear in the list, so you'll need to use a different method to connect to one of those networks. He explains how to connect your Mac to a hidden wireless network.
You can check it out at:
http://www.macinstruct.com/node/418
Ultrabooks To The Fore In 2012
Time TechLand's Doug Aamoth thinks that 2012 will be an interesting year in the notebook orbit thanks to an onslaught of ultrabooks - MacBook Air-style laptops from major PC manufacturers weighing in at around three pounds and measuring less than an inch thick, but not requiring nearly as much compromise as ultraportable notebooks have in the past.
However, with about half the notebooks on the market expected to be these new razor-thin designs it will deal another blow to physical media - CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray, and so forth, since ultrabooks are too thin to accommodate built-in optical drives, although notebooks with optical drives won'r entirely disappear, and external drives are an option.
Ultrabook advantages cited include portability, speeds, instant-on features like flash storage media and improved power management with new processors from Intel and AMD, with ultrabook entry-level pricing expected to drop $700 by mid-2012.
For the full report visit here:
http://ti.me/ubrnkM
Google's ChromeOS-based Notebook One Year Later: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly Truth
Network World's Howard Wen notes that last December, Google began shipping its Cr-48 lightweight notebook running Chrome OS in pilot program designed to test the experimental "Chromebook" platform under real-world use, with about 60,000 Cr-48's given away by the company, and Acer and Samsung releasing their own Chromebook models for sale to the public last June 15.
Wen observes thast depending on how you choose to look at things, the platform turned out to be a flop or another Google project in beta for an indefinite duration. He was sent a Cr-48 by Google a year ago and says he's found myself using it almost every day since, and offers his thoughts on the strengths, weaknesses, and mixed aspects of the Chromebook platform one year later.
In Wen's assessment, the ChromeBook is too expensive compared with low-end Windows laptops and the form factor is ugly, but the built-in 3G modem and battery life are cool, and he gives the Chrome OS and the general Cloud Computing concept mixed reviews, but wonders if the Chromebook platform, and Chrome OS, will live long enough to celebrate thier second anniversary.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://bit.ly/ukAYMM
Google Releases Corporate Macintosh Management Tools
Google's Clay Caviness blogs that Google's Macintosh Operations team is releasing for public consumption the tools and scripts and utilities they use to help manage their large fleet of Macs.
As a start they've released a simple application usage module (http://code.google.com/p/google-macops/source/browse/trunk/crankd/ApplicationUsage.py) for crankd (http://code.google.com/p/pymacadmin) as well as a simple facter recipe (http://code.google.com/p/google-macops/source/browse/trunk/facter/apps.rb) to create facts from the database.
Caviness says that over time they'll be releasing other items from their inventory of google-macops utilities, tools, and scripts for managing and tracking a fleet of Macintoshes in a corporate environment that they hope will help other Macintosh administrators.
You can check it out at:
http://bit.ly/vvjyOL
Online Backup Reviews Selects Top 5 Backup Services for 2012
The top 5 best and most promising online backup services for 2012 have been identified and reviewed by Online Backup Reviews. These exceptional online backup services all provide cloud file storage to ensure that you always have plenty of storage space for your important files "in the cloud." In addition, these 5 services employ stringent data security methods to protect your data from hacking, file corruption and loss. Based on customer satisfaction, services offered and cost of storage, the top 5 online backup services are CloudBerry, SpiderOak, Acronis, iDrive and Egnyte. Each of these great online backup service offers something unique and special to their users that makes them stand out from all other available cloud-based storage platforms.
Online backup storage providers offer a cloud-based solution for storing your files and alleviate the need for external hard drives and other physical storage devices. In addition, online backup service specialize in securing your data from intrusion and loss. Yet others provide easy to use software and support various mobile platforms, such as the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android operating systems.
CloudBerry
CloudBerry is a complete cloud storage service that provides the ability to schedule backups and is very easy to learn and use. Upload your files to the cloud using your Amazon S3 account. Easy to use server and client based software makes CloudBerry the choice for many novice users.
SpiderOak
SpiderOak is one of the easiest online backup services to use, according to many satisfied users. It is also one of the most secure services, according to the SpiderOak reviews on Online-Backup-Reviews.biz. The client creates their own encryption key, which is required to access files in the SpiderOak cloud. In addition, SpiderOak provides a 2 GB measure of free storage space for users, and charges a modest fee for additional Gigs.
Acronis
Acronis is geared toward the serious user of online backup services, and not so much for the novice or casual user. If you need to back up hundreds of Gigs of important data, Acronis offers affordable solutions starting at $4.95 per month for a 250 GB allotment of space. Acronis Online Backup also offers money-saving annual plans.
iDrive
iDrive provides clients with several software options to make backing up their files quick and easy. iDrive also supports many mobile platforms, and offers 5 GB of free storage space to users. Mac users will find that iDrive enables them to upload files directly from applications to their iDrive accounts.
Egnyte
Egnyte's claim to fame is that they offer a hybrid backup solution, with storage in the cloud, as well as local space. Egnyte supports all mobile platforms, and provides software for Windows and Mac operating systems, many users praise them for these features in the many Egnyte reviews available on the web. The Egnyte platform is centrally managed, and is the online backup choice for many businesses and individual users.
To find the backup solution that is right for your needs, Online-Backup-Reviews.biz advises you to research all available options. Many services offer free storage space, and others offer superior and easy-to-use uploading software. Online Backup Reviews is one of the premier resources on the web to find reliable articles on online backup services, cloud computing and data protection in general.
For more information, visit:
http://online-backup-reviews.biz/
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