Other Sites
Apple Storms Past HP To Lead Global PC Market, Thanks To iPad - Canalys
The iOS-ification Of Apple’s Ecosystem
MacMall.com Coupons Can Save $450 On A MacBook Pro At CouponBuzz.com
Rain Design Introduces iRest iPad Lap Stand
Tex Edit Plus 4.9.10 Final Released
Who Moved My Menus?
Sick of Ubuntu's Bad Breath? Suck On A Linux Mint Instead
DashExpander vs. xType: Which Free Snippet Expander is Better?
FaxDocument 2.3 - Fax Documents From Your Mac Instantly
Songbird Desktop Player 1.10.2
Apple Storms Past HP To Lead Global PC Market, Thanks To iPad - Canalys
Canalys has announced that Apple, after reporting stellar results, became the leading worldwide client PC vendor in Q4 2011. Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs, representing 17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in Q4. Overall, the total client PC market, including desktops, netbooks, notebooks, and pads grew 16% year-on-year. Excluding pads, the client PC market declined 0.4%. The floods in Thailand, that impacted hard drive assembly plants, caused mild disruption to shipments during the quarter, but the side effects are likely to be felt in the first half of 2012.
Among the other top five PC vendors, only Lenovo managed to increase its market share, by a relatively modest two points, compared to Apple's six-point gain over the same quarter a year ago. Acer, Dell and HP - the hardest hit - all lost market share. Now the second largest client PC vendor worldwide, HP will struggle to compete with Apple following the end of its Touchpad.
"Currently, HP is pursuing a Windows strategy for its pad portfolio, producing enterprise-focused products, such as the recently launched Slate 2, until the launch of Windows 8," says Canalys Analyst Tim Coulling. "However, questions remain over Microsoft's entry into the consumer pad space. While early demonstrations of the Window 8 operating system seem promising, Microsoft must focus its efforts on creating an intuitive user experience that is far less resource intensive."
Lenovo continued to close the gap on HP, thanks to successful investment outside of core markets. The acquisition of Medion in Germany helped Lenovo double its shipments in Western Europe during the second half of 2011. The vendors decision to use Android for enterprise and consumer pads gives it a better opportunity than HP to continue gaining market share.
Dell placed fourth among the top five PC vendors, followed by Acer. Acer's shipments continued to decline, as a result of the pad's impact on the netbook market. Acer did, however, make headlines at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in January, when it revealed its S5 Ultrabook. Unsurprisingly, Acer and other vendors have been quick to announce their support for the new Ultrabook form factor, with the view of driving innovation and renewed customer interest in notebooks.
"We expect Ultrabook volumes to see limited adoption through the first half of 2012, before finally gaining momentum later in the year as price points decline and Intel launches a new line of processors and embarks on an aggressive marketing campaign," says Canalys Research Analyst Michael Kauh. "In the short term though, vendors will experience more pressure in the netbook and notebook segments, especially with Apples annual iPad refresh approaching.
Pads accounted for 22% of total PC shipments during Q4 2011. In addition to Apple's strong performance, the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet by Barnes and Noble boosted volumes in the U.S. market, allowing both vendors to claim spots among the top five worldwide pad makers, in second and fifth place respectively."
All regions grew year-on-year with the inclusion of pads. Excluding pads, however, shipments in Europe, Middle East and Africa and North America declined, due to weaker consumer demand in Western Europe and the United States, despite the traditional Q4 sales periods. Vendors and channel partners took a cautious approach to inventory levels in Q4, as many had expected a slow quarter. Notebook volumes grew slightly, at approximately 1% in these regions, but continued their impressive rise in Asia Pacific and Latin America, as more consumers embraced mobile computing.
"The consumerization of IT continues to be a significant disruptive force in the PC industry, but many of the leading vendors have failed to capitalize on the trend to date," says Coulling. "This year will be a pivotal year for those vendors that were slow to launch pads. It is not just the product that they need to get right, business models are equally important - driving revenues from content delivery can help vendors reach lower price points in a market that is incredibly price sensitive."
For more information, visit:
http://www.canalys.com
The iOS-ification Of Apple’s Ecosystem
MacStories’ Federico Viticci says that looking at his Mac’s OS X Lion screen he can count dozens of iOS-inspired elements now co-existing with old school Aqua interfaces and controls, and contends that the iOS-ification of OS X goes far beyond simply converting graphics and updating apps from one platform to another, but is actually more a conversion of the entire Apple ecosystem to an iOS-inspired system of graphical elements, user interactions, business models, user experience paradigms, and functionalities - a fundamental shift of strategy.
He notes that in Lion the Home users Library directory is no longer visible by default, eliminating an important piece of filesystem from the default configuration of the OS, and that Mac developers will soon be forced to implement sandboxing, which limits the access a third-party app has to the filesystem. Vittici maintains that very soon, almost every aspect of Apple’s operations will be iOS-inspired or iOS-unified, like it or not.
For the full commentary, visit:
http://bit.ly/xlnaMw
MacMall.com Coupons Can Save $450 On A MacBook Pro At CouponBuzz.com
CouponBuzz.com has announced major rebate savings on the MacBook Pro, available only at MacMall.com. After instant and mail-in rebates, consumers can save up to $450 off retail pricing via the link featured on the new MacMall.com coupons webpage at CouponBuzz.com:
http://couponbuzz.com/macmall-coupons.html
These closeout savings are available now for a limited time on all MacBook Pros offered at MacMall.com, ranging from 13 inch to 17 inch glossy widescreen displays and quad cores from 2.0 to 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7. Each MacBook Pro also includes an Intel HD Graphics 3000 video card and 7 hours of wireless web battery life. These fully customizable laptop computers are perfect for both the dedicated MacBook Pro consumer, the aspiring MacBook Pro user, and any PC user considering crossing to the other side. For individuals unsure which type of Mac product they are looking for, the best of the available deals, rebate offers, and coupon codes are featured near the top of the CouponBuzz.com’s recently launched section dedicated to MacMall.com coupons.
“We always have customers interested in finding coupons to save money on their purchase of Macbooks, Mac Desktops and other Mac brand items,” says Justin Bowen, CEO of CouponBuzz.com. “MacMall.com is one of the largest online retailers of Apple products other than Apple itself, and they do a great job of consistently offering great coupons for significant savings on all Mac products.”
CouponBuzz.com is aware of the fierce debate between PC users and Mac users. As both sides seem to be able to offer compelling arguments, it will most likely continue for decades yet to come. The one thing that all computer users seem to have in common, however, is their loyalty to their processing platform. For those fiercely dedicated Mac users out there, the costs can get prohibitive. Coming to their rescue is the dedicated MacMall.com section at CouponBuzz.com.
To discover all the bundles, rebate savings offers and Mac coupon codes available from MacMall.com visit the new page at:
http://couponbuzz.com/macmall-coupons.html
Rain Design Introduces iRest iPad Lap Stand
Rain Design Inc. has announced the release of the iRest lap stand for the Apple iPad. The iRest is claimed to be the first tablet stand designed specifically for use on the lap. It frees your hand for a comfortable viewing and typing experience away from the desk.
Beneath the simplicity of the patent pending design, the iRest is exceptionally lightweight at 15 oz., thanks to an innovative design that avoided the of extrusion manufacturing technique and thereby more than halved the aluminum’s thickness to just 1/16 of an inch (1.5mm). The iRest also features soft foam cushions that rest on the lap and a torque hinge that makes it easy to adjust the angle up to 60 degrees. It improves your ergonomics by preventing hand fatigue caused by holding the iPad and raising the screen for easier viewing.
“The beauty of the iRest is its functionality and form,” says Aven Koh, Vice President of Rain Design. It makes using the iPad on your lap so much more comfortable and enjoyable, whether you’re on a couch or on a plane.”
Versatility and Portability
The iRest also functions as a stable desktop stand. The cushions can be detached to reduce its footprint in desktop mode. The stand folds flat for portability and storage.
iRest also has cutouts for the dock connector and speaker, and can accommodate regular iPad cases. Generous padding keeps the iPad safe from scratches.
Compatibility
- The iRest works with the iPad and tablets with a thickness less than 0.47 inches (1.2 cm).
Rain Design’s iRest Lap Stand is now available at http://www.raindesigninc.com/iRest.html for a suggested retail price of US$49.90.
For more information, visit:
http://www.raindesigninc.com
Tex Edit Plus 4.9.10 Final Released
Trans-Tex Software's Tex-Edit Plus X 4.9.10 is a scriptable, styled text editor ASCII text editor that fills the gap between a Apple's bare-bones TextEdit and a full-featured word processor. It's fast, efficient, and has a clean, uncluttered interface, and is also great for cleaning up text transmitted over the Internet. Tex Edit Plus can read and write RTF documents and support pictures in common formats (TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PICT, PSD)
Anothere Tex Edit Plus specialty is it’s integrated support for AppleScript — Apple’s wonderful, Mac-only technology that allows ordinary people to create automated shortcuts with minimal effort. Doug Adams maintains the official AppleScripts for Tex-Edit Archives, filled with scripts for download, hints, tips, examples, and step-by-step instructions for those of you interested in saving time, impressing the boss, and avoiding repetitive stress injuries.
Tex-Edit Plus also supports Apple's new Automator, which has been drastically enhanced for OS X 10.7 Lion. With 36 custom Automator actions and unrivaled AppleScript recordability, Tex-Edit allows you to create custom scripts and workflows with the push of a button. Of course, if your time is of little or no value, please feel free to ignore AppleScript and Automator.
Natural-sounding OS X voices are now available. If you use Tex-Edit's speech facilities to proofread documents (or if you want to find out what Eliza really thinks about you), check out the high quality voices produced by Cepstral. The Version 5.2 voices, including the new Callie voice, are extremely cool.
New in version Version 4.9.10
- New preferences file format. (Note that all Preferences settings will reset to default values the first time this new version is launched.)
- Tools panel now preserves find string, replace string, and checkbox values between launches and prefs dialog reset.
- Tools panel find & replace functions now operate independently from values in main "Find & Replace" dialog.
- Added "Open Scripts folder" and "Open Script Tools folder" buttons to Script Tools panel.
- Added "Duplicate Document" and "Duplicate Selection" scripts.
- Minor improvements to Tools panel interface.
- Minor improvements to Script Tools panel interface.
- Both panels are displayed by default.
- The "Shift Left" and "Shift Right" functions now honor the "Preferences->Tabs->Tab keypress will insert x spaces" setting. (For example, if this pref is selected with 5 spaces per tab, then Shift Right will insert 5 spaces instead of a tab at the beginning of each paragraph.)
- Improved behavior of "save" command, to minimize appearance of the "save as" warning when editing non-native text files (e.g. html).
- Updated Automator actions so they function properly on 10.7 (Lion).
- Will now run on G3 or newer and MacOS 10.4 or newer. (Recompiled to accomodate older G3/10.4 systems.)
- Fixed font size bug noted when printing page numbers.
- Fixed bug in text clipping file name.
- Fixed bug in "uniform styles" AppleScript property.
- Fixed bug noted when creating RTF files that contain pictures. The pictures are now drawn correctly in other word processors (e.g. Word).
Tex-Edit Plus is $15 Shareware, and is not locked, crippled, time-limited, or ad-infested.
For more information, visit:
http://www.tex-edit.com/
Who Moved My Menus?
The Manila Standard's Chin Wong says anyone who has grown up using a mouse or a trackpad will understand the concept of menus, which give us access to commands or functions that a program can carry out. For example, in a word processing program, you can execute a search and replace command by going to the Edit menu and clicking on Find & Replace.
Wong observes that menus are easy to use in two senses: 1) They can display the complete range of commands available; and 2) They make selecting these commands easy. Just point and click and youre on your way. The approach is tried and tested and more than 30 years old, first introduced by the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the early 1970s.
Ergo, he contends that menus have become such a central part of the computing experience that it’s difficult to imagine what a desktop would be without them, but notes that is exactly what Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth is asking us to do, starting with the upcoming release of Ubuntu Linux, which will seek to replace traditional menus with a heads-up display or HUD.
For the full report, visit here:
http://bit.ly/x54Tji
Sick of Ubuntu's Bad Breath? Suck On A Linux Mint Instead
The Register's Scott Gilbertson suggests that if the jump from the GNOME 2 desktop to the new GNOME Shell or Unity desktop in Ubuntu has left you feeling dissatisfied, one increasingly popular distribution just might offer something that turns out to be the best of both worlds - Linux Mint.
Originally created as a spinoff of Ubuntu, Mint has long since come into its own and offers a number of advantages over other distros, including a desktop that dares to stay firmly in the Middle Earth of the ongoing desktop holy wars, Gilbertson noting that Canonical will drive more people Mint’s way with its plans to dabble further on the interface: Mark Shuttleworth’s just unveiled HUD - or Head Up Display - for Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, intended to swap menus for type-what-you-want access to functionality, and with HUD on the horizon, its worth taking a look at how Mint stacks up.
For the full report, visit here:
http://bit.ly/xU00DT
DashExpander vs. xType: Which Free Snippet Expander is Better?
AppStorm’s Joshua Johnson says:
As a writer, one utility that I simply cant live without is some sort of text expansion app. These tools are simply invaluable to my workflow and save me hours of typing every month. I personally am a huge fan of TextExpander. Its my go to text expansion app and it simply blows away the competition. I wouldn’t dream of switching.
That being said, I realize that not everyone can justify dropping $34.95 for a snippet expander. Newbies to this specific app genre might want to cut their teeth on a free app, so today were going to compare two such apps from the Mac App Store: xType (formerly Presto) and DashExpander. How are these two apps different? Which is the best for your needs? Read on to find out.
You can check it out at:
http://bit.ly/w40V0i
FaxDocument 2.3 - Fax Documents From Your Mac Instantly
Finally there is a simple way to fax your documents from your computer. With FaxDocument.com you don't need a fax number, fax modem or fax machine.
FaxDocument lets you fax documents from your Mac instantly. Simply drag and drop documents into FaxDocument and provide the fax number - it's that simple! Download the app for free and begin faxing.
Features:
- A Free cover page is included with every fax.
- View detailed fax logs of all your faxes sent.
- Use the included free fax cover page or include your own fax cover page.
- Receive email confirmations of your faxes.
FaxDocument.com provides an outbound fax service with no monthly subscription fees. Simply purchase a fax package, at a one-time purchase price of $19.95 to fax your document(s) up to 25 fax numbers, OR $29.95 to fax your document(s) up to 50 fax numbers!
Fax packages are one-time payments and not subscriptions.
After purchasing a fax package you can login at any time and upload the documents you would like to fax, enter the fax number(s) and voila! your faxes are sent. Once you've used up your fax package, you can purchase additional packages when you need to.
Upload the documents you would like to fax, or type a document within FaxDocument.com. Enter one fax number or many fax numbers, attention(s) for each fax number, and Text for the fax cover page. Click "Fax" - and your document(s) are immediately faxed to each location with a free cover page. FaxDocument will alert you after each fax has been delivered via email. Best of all you don't even need a fax machine or need to pay extra to have your own fax number.
New in version 2.3:
- More countries were added to the fax list
- A Logout option was added to the main menu
System Requirements:
- Intel
- Mac OS X 10.6 or later
For more information, visit:
http://www.faxdocument.com/
and
http://bit.ly/lKVHv6
Songbird Desktop Player 1.10.2
Songbird 1.10.2 is an open source music player based on Mozilla frameworks.
Songbird features include:
Music
- streaming audio and Internet radio.
Playlists
- Build smart playlists, filter and sort your music instantly.
Downloads
- Download and purchase music from popular MP3 sites, including 7digital and Last.fm. Available add-ons accelerate downloads for fast, reliable service.
CD Ripping
- Get your tracks from your CD collection to your Songbird music library quickly, with our CD Rip add-on.
Audio formats
- Supports MP3, AAC, OGG, FLAC, WMA, WAV formats.
Video
- Video comes to Songbird with crystal clear clarity, and seamless playback, on the go, on supported media players.
Video formats
- Supports H.264, Windows Media Video, MPEG4 formats.
Photo
- Take your memories with you on your player or smart phone.
- Picture formats: Supports BMP, GIF, JPEG, and PNG formats.
Devices
- Songbird now supports the latest generation of smart phones and media players.
Transfer
- Auto synchronize or manually drag-and-drop files on MSC (Mass Storage Class) and MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) devices.
Smart load
- Intelligently load files depending on available space on the device.
SD cards
- Transfer files to and from device SD cards.
Transcode
- On-the-fly transcoding converts files to play on supported media players.
Add-ons
- Enhance your media experience with hundreds of add-ons that can add features, integrate services and customize Songbird.
Feathers
- Customize the look and feel of Songbird with Feathers.
MediaFlow
- Browse your collection by flipping through album.
mashTape
- Bring songs to life for a 360 experience. Load YouTube videos, Last.fm artist biography, Wikipedia discography, GoogleNews updates, and Flickr photos.
Last.fm
- Discover new music.
Sync
- Sync your Songbird library to and from iTunes. Set up watch folders to keep Songbird in sync as your media changes over time.
Manage media
- View and organize media by category such as genre, artist, or album. Edit and view track metadata in various tag formats.
Downloads
- Automatically download tracks from the Web directly into Songbird.
Album art
- View and add album art.
Open Source
- Built on the same Mozilla framework used for the Firefox Web browser and other open source projects.
Open APIs:
- Create your own add-on to extend Songbird's functionality, customize its look, or integrate your service. Or, your website can use the Songbird Webpage API to directly interact with Songbird's media player functions without requiring the development of an add-on.
GStreamer
- Use the GStreamer plug-in framework to playback a wider selection of media and easily add more codecs and formats.
Deep linking
- Create deep-links from your website to Songbird via the Songbird Protocol Handler.
Community
- Collaborate with the Songbird community on future enhancements, suggested add-ons, and player questions.
Compliance
- Comply with relevant open-source licensing requirements.
Languages & Supported Platforms
- Open source, cross platform, and built for the World Wide Web.
Localization:
- Songbird sounds sweet in over 50 languages.
System Requirements:
Mac: Mac Intel OS X 10.5+ (Intel only)
Windows: Windows 7, Vista, XP SP3
For more information, visit:
http://getsongbird.com/
Tags: News ď Tech-Industry ď
