Author: admin

Apple’s new spaceship HQ – “Apple Park” – doesn’t have a very impressive name, but some other facts help make up for that.

• Once the dust settles, the total cost of the campus is expected to be about $5 billion.
• The initial land purchase was cobbled together from nine Cupertino properties that were completed in 2006
• Apple Park will be set in a 2.8 million-square-foot area – That’s 176-acres.
• The campus was conceived by Steve Jobs but designed by British architect Norman Foster.
• Forster+Partners founder and chairman Norman Foster explained that he was inspired by the idea of a London square, where houses surround a park. This eventually evolved into the present design: a circular structure surrounding a large outdoor park.
• The building is more than a mile around.
• All the windows on the outside of the building are curved and, according to Apple, are made of “the world’s largest panels of curved glass.”
• Jobs wanted no seam, gap or paintbrush stroke showing; every wall, floor and even ceiling is to be polished to a supernatural smoothness.
• All of the interior wood was to be harvested from a specific species of maple, and only fine quality ‘heartwood’ at the centre of the trees would be used.
• The architects were required to consider the different departments that would need to work together, and considered vertical proximities as well as horizontal ones.
• Apple has actually designed its own smart door lock for the campus – Apple has applied for a patent for its device with model number A1844. Doors will be opened with an employee badge.
• Once fully operational, the campus will house up to 12,000 employees.
• Parking is built both underground and in two large parking structures accommodating approximately 14,200 employees.
• There will be 300 car-charging stations and 2,000 bicycle parking spaces.
• 1,000 bikes will be kept on the site and available to staff to get around the campus.
• Apple said that the process of moving more than 12,000 people will take over six months, and construction of the buildings and parklands is scheduled to continue through the summer.
• There will reportedly be custom-designed 18-foot tables by a Dutch company, Arco, for Apple employees to take advantage of in open work spaces to discourage an office-like atmosphere.
• The inner courtyard will be home to a 30-acre green space complete with mini fruit orchards including apricot, olive, and apple trees; and will also host a herb garden and pond.
• All landscaping is intended to make the area look very park-like. It will include jogging paths and walking trails around the building.
• 

  The campus’s ring-shaped main building will cover 2.8 million square feet. That’s about 49 standard football fields.

• The employee café can seat around 3,000 patrons.
• The 1,000-seat underground auditorium will be named the Steve Jobs Theater. (It doesn’t not resemble a turtleneck, nor is it black!)
• The main building will include a ‘wellness centre’. This $75m fitness centre will probably cater for the needs of the entire Apple community in Silicon Valley, which is around 20,000 people.
• The campus will be exceedingly eco-friendly, run entirely on renewable energy. Energy sources will come from solar panels on the roofs, supplemented by on-campus Bloom Energy Servers, which run off of harvested methane.
• The new campus will reportedly use recycled water and will use 13,300 feet of pipeline to share the supply between it and Cupertino.
• The campus will house two separate buildings for a highly secure R&D department.
• Apple will not open a museum at the new HQ. As Phil Schiller explained, Apple is “focused on inventing the future, not celebrating the past”.
• Even with this new colossal project opening in 2017, Apple has no plans to destroy its existing headquarters building located at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino.
• 

  Apple is also developing a new HQ in London in the Battersea Power Station building for its 1400 UK staff. This $17 billion investment makes ‘Apple Park’ look cheap!

The Mac App Store didn’t get the same kind of promotion that brought so many great indie games to the iOS App Store in March, but that’s OK — March brought macOS players plenty of great options to consider. Atmospheric puzzler, The Witness, leads the latest stack of releases, giving you a vast island of conundrums to solve, but there’s plenty more in the mix.

For example, Thimbleweed Park brings a dash of old-school point-and-click adventuring to Mac, while Out of the Park Baseball 2018 looks like another strategic home run. Seven others made the March list – but they have invoked invisibility in the App Store! We will add some from February instead.

The Witness (U$59.99)

Did you play Braid? Released on Mac in 2009, it was one of the first big sensations of the modern indie movement, delivering a puzzle-platformer take on the classic Super Mario design that folded in time travel and an emotional gut-punch. The Witness is creator Jonathan Blow’s long-awaited follow-up, and while it’s a different kind of experience, it’s likewise highly impressive.

Set on a stunning, colourful island, The Witness is a first-person puzzle adventure that finds you exploring the terrain, observing clues from nature, and solving puzzles to overcome the obstacles in your path. It’s vast and challenging, with 650-plus puzzles and plenty of patience needed along the way, but The Witness has earned rave reviews from critics and buyers alike.

Thimbleweed Park ($29.99)

Anyone with an itch for old-school point-and-click adventures shouldn’t miss Thimbleweed Park. It’s a throwback quest styled like classic LucasArts genre entries like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island… because it’s designed by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, two of the original creators of those legendary games.

In look, feel, and interaction, Thimbleweed Park really seems to nail the homage with its murder mystery set in the oddball, titular town in 1987. After a body is discovered, you’ll control five different characters as you unravel the tale, soak in the plentiful jokes, and solve what are sure to be some really challenging brain-teasers. And as you might imagine, you won’t need high-end hardware to run it!

Out of the Park Baseball 2018 ($59.99)

The long-running baseball strategy series is back for the 2017 season with Out of the Park Baseball 2018 — yes, 2018! As before, it’s officially licensed by both Major League Baseball and the Player’s Association, meaning you’ll be able to manage all of the big-league teams and players from either the general manager’s suite or from the dugout.

This isn’t a hands-on simulation: you’ll never swing the bat or throw or catch the ball. Instead, you’ll navigate menus as you build and improve your team, as well as dictate on-the-field strategy. Out of the Park 2018 has up-to-date rosters, as well as international teams, an enhanced 3D mode, and a Challenge mode for competing against your online friends.

Torment: Tides of Numenera ($66.99)

Amongst PC role-playing fans, 1999’s Planescape: Torment is regarded as one of the most daring and beloved games of all time—and it became playable on Mac later via GOG.com. A proper sequel to the Dungeons & Dragons-related game was never made, but Torment: Tides of Numenera, a high-profile spiritual successor, has just released.

Tides of Numenera holds closely to the original top-down design, and luckily, it keeps the quality as well: PCWorld’s 4.5-star review says “there is perhaps no single RPG in the last decade more consistently surprising and delightful than Torment: Tides of Numenera.” Developed by inXile Entertainment and releasing more than two years after the target from its $4 million Kickstarter campaign, it’s surely the biggest and buzziest Mac game of February.

XCOM 2: The Long War 2 ($74.99)

Firaxis’ XCOM 2 was one of last year’s must-play Mac games, just like XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Enemy Within before it—but if you’ve already poured in dozens of hours into the game, you might be looking for a fresh challenge. Luckily, The Long War 2 mod is now available and compatible with Mac (via Steam), and it’s both officially sanctioned and totally free to play.

You’ll need the original game to run it, and The Long War 2 not only provides a much longer campaign to play (as the name suggests), but also a much harder one. It’ll change your battlefield tactics in a number of ways, forcing you to ditch your tried-and-true techniques and learn new ways to dispatch the aliens in this extensive tactical campaign. Like the original Long War mod for Enemy Unknown/Within, it’s an essential add-on for serious fans.

(Note the configuration restrictions.)

Forma.8 ($21.99)

Inspired by side-scrolling adventure classics like Metroid and Castlevania, Forma.8 puts a new twist on the genre by putting you in command of a flying sphere. You’ll navigate the striking 2D environments, which look a bit like those of Badland, all while blasting enemies, solving puzzles, discovering secrets, and securing upgrades that enhance your capabilities.

There haven’t been a lot of reviews for Forma.8 just yet, whether from critics or average buyers, but there’s some solid praise for its mysterious tone and quiet, almost lonely feel compared to more action-packed and relentless genre entries. On the other hand, the lack of clear objectives or a helping hand could drive some players away, although the sense of intrigue seems like a strong allure.

Others that made the list but as they are not in the App Store, you will need to search for them, include:

88 Heroes (US$15)

We’ve all played games with one hero, or maybe a few—but 88 in total? Well, that’s just crazy. And yet that’s exactly what you’ll find in 88 Heroes, a retro-stylized platform game that truly features that many playable characters, spread across 88 different rooms in enemy Dr. H8’s base, and each stage must be completed within 88 seconds. Yes, really.

Day of Infamy (US$20)

Once upon a time, well before its modern-to-futuristic fixation, the first-person shooter genre was primarily based in World War II. Day of Infamy remembers these days well: it’s actually an officially-sanctioned homage to Day of Defeat, a classic, World War II-themed mod for the original Half-Life from way back when.

Cosmic Express (US$10)

Draknek must have a knack for incredibly adorable, incredibly unique puzzle games, because after making A Good Snowman is Hard to Build—a tricky game about rolling up perfect snowmen—they’ve returned with Cosmic Express.

Kona (US$20)

A winter blizzard might not be the most unique of video game locations, but Northern Canada in 1970? Yeah, that’s pretty original. Kona uses that setting to tell its story, as you take the role of Carl Faubert, a well-known private detective. Your job? Find out who’s been vandalizing the wilderness manor of the rich W. Hamilton.

Don’t Drop the Bass (US$5)

Kona is solitary and unnerving, but Don’t Drop the Bass is social and simply hilarious. As the name suggests, you must avoid the grim fate of having a live bass—yes, the fish—fall on the ground. You’ll keep that from happening by continuing to bounce the fish up in the air using wooden boards, with up to four local players able to participate in this ongoing struggle. (Try looking at: http://www.radishbox.com/dontdropthebass/)

For the King (US$15)

Blending turn-based role-playing battles with strategic action, For the King is an indie adventure with a lot of heart and charm. When the titular leader falls and the kingdom of Fahrul erupts into anarchy, the queen asks the citizens to help restore order and fight against impending threats—and you’ll lead a party against monsters ahead.

Cossacks 3 (US$20)

The original Cossacks: European Wars might be one of those games that real-time strategy fans pined for back when, but the 2000 original and its 2005 sequel never made it over to Mac. Luckily, the new entry, Cossacks 3, has just made the leap to macOS after last year’s PC debut.

Apple’s newest video app Clips, (https://www.apple.com/clips/), released in early April, makes it easy for professionals to create mobile videos with transcribed text and effects. Clips was created with social media in mind, and it could help social media experts and marketers more readily generate video content for their brands.

Videos can be captured within the Clips app, or users can import existing video clips or photos from their device’s library,” Forrest writes. “Using the pinch and drag functionality that iOS is known for, users can add a zoom or panning effect for a little bit of flair.

Live Titles, which automatically transcribes text on the screen while you speak, is the core feature for professionals in Clips. Using Live Titles, businesses could easily create product demonstrations, or how-to videos, as well as creating video that can be watched in an office setting with the sound off. Clips has streamlined the Share Sheet, making it much easier to share content with frequent contacts – something that Apple could consider as a more general enhancement for everyone.

As is the case with most video-oriented apps, you do a lot of fancy stuff in Clips, you just have to know where to look….

Embrace the square

Recording video within the Clips app results in square videos, there’s no way around it. You can, however, record videos or take pictures outside of the app and import them into the app later.

The lay of the land

There are six buttons along the top of the display, each representing different tools you have at your disposal when creating or editing a video.
The down arrow in the top-left corner of the screen will reveal clips you are working on or recently saved.

Centred at the top of the screen are four buttons.Each button enables editing tools. These buttons, from left to right, are for live titles, filters, stickers and emoji, and animated posters.

In the far-right corner is a music note, where you will find preloaded music soundtracks or your music library to use in your videos.

Below the square viewfinder are three options: Photo, Video, and Library.
To the left of the shutter button is a microphone you can tap on to mute recorded audio, with a camera button to the right that switches between the front or back camera.

Transcribed captions

Live Title is a fancy term for captions, only instead of hand-typing text, you use your voice.

Tap on the Live Titles button and select one of the templates. Don’t stress too much about this part, you can always go back and change the template after you are done recording.

Next, tap and hold the big red button and speak as you capture video or show a photo. Your words are then transcribed in real time. As is often the case, if the app doesn’t quite hear you right and jumbles the transcription, begin to playback the clip then pause it as soon as the text is present. Double-tap the text to open the editor, where you can then type in what you want to say.

If you don’t want your voice to play along with the text, tap on the microphone button to mute audio before you begin recording. Clips will still transcribe whatever you say while recording, but your voice won’t be included in the playback.

You will need an active internet connection in order for this feature to work.

Animated posters

Double-tap on the text in any of the animated posters after adding it to your clip to display the keyboard and edit the text.

There are currently 12 different posters you can add to a clip.

Add a soundtrack

When you open the soundtrack section of the app, a list of Apple-curated songs is displayed. Most of them will need to be downloaded before you can add it to your video. After selecting a song, you are given the option to trim it down to match up as best as possible with your video.

Set duration of still photo

Taking a photo in the Clips app is a two step process. First, you tap on the shutter button to take the photo, then a big red button titled “Hold to add this photo” is shown just below your photo. Holding the button will extend the amount of time the photo is shown in your video, as well as record audio to play at the same time the photo is displayed.

Pinch to zoom

On both videos and photos, you can pinch to zoom in or out on a portion of your video. For photos and videos captured outside of Clips, you can also reposition the item by dragging your finger across the screen.
For example, if you’re making a video of a recent vacation but don’t want to include the random stranger who photobombed you, you can zoom in to cut the inconsiderate person out of the clip.

Filters, stickers, and emoji

There are currently seven different filters, along with a series of stickers and emoji you can place on a photo or video.

You can adjust the size and position of stickers and emoji with familiar gestures such as pinch to zoom. Tap on a sticker or emoji, then tap on the “X” if you want to remove it from your clip.

Rearrange and delete items

As you add, record and edit the contents of your video creation you may find that you need to rearrange or delete a specific shot.

Tap and hold on the respective clip’s thumbnail along the bottom of the screen, and drag it to your preferred location, or drag it up and let go to delete it.

Sharing

When you have finished creating a clip, share it with a tap on the standard iOS share button. However, what Clips displays on the share sheet is new to iOS. Specifically, Clips will attempt to identify any faces in your video and suggest sharing to that person (or persons).

At the top of the share sheet you will find a row of avatars for your most recent contacts, complete with a Messages icon to quickly open the Messages app with a message composed to that specific contact.

Rating Clips

The Good: Deep editing controls and effects. Impressive voice-transcribing autocaptioning works really well. Uploads to apps like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. Included soundtracks are fun. It’s free.

The Bad: Only makes square videos. Menu layouts can be a little confusing to learn at first. Audio editing is limited. Captions and audio can only be recorded when clip is added.

The Bottom Line: Apple Clips is a promising movie editor for fast Facebook and Instagram-ready videos, and its captioning tools are fantastic.

While trolling for something to review, I stumbled across another browser that has been around for awhile but I was not aware of. It’s based on Mozilla (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/), the foundation of Firefox. It’s name: Waterfox (https://www.waterfoxproject.org/).

Waterfox was started back in March 2011 by myself (Alex Kontos), a 16 year old student. I had a fascination for the web and wanted to help expand on the ideals of what Mozilla had for a free and open web. And so I decided to make Waterfox, a 64-Bit browser based on Mozilla’s free and open source platform.

Waterfox focuses on giving users choice while also helping make the world a better place. Waterfox is partners with Ecosia, a search engine that plants trees with its generated revenues. The browser itself is focused on power users, which lets you make the important decisions. There is no plugin whitelist, you can run whichever extensions you like and absolutely no data or telemetry is sent back to Mozilla or the Waterfox project.

The very first thing that you notice is the incredible speed of this browser. And I mean amazingly fast. I wish that my backwater’s ISP bandwidth was up to the task of utilizing this app’s peak performance.

The UI is pretty much the same as the Firefox browser, so this should feel like home turf to Firefox users. I was thrilled when I found that I could use 1Password (https://1password.com/) and You Tube’s HD plug-in from the Toolbar! (Once again, I’m easily amused. You should see what happens when you dangle a shiny object in front of me …)

Also available on Waterfox’s Download site are dozens upon dozens of language packs. Customizing things such as the ToolBar was a breeze.

I did come across a few cons. No matter how many times I would set Waterfox as my default browser, it kept on asking me upon launch whether or not that was my choice. Assigning said status and turning off the option to ask me if that was my intention via Preferences or the screen prompt, never worked.

(UPDATE: Twas the result of OM – Operator Malfunction. Upon launch, the only tab that would appear was my selected homepage. After a bit of noodling around, I found the way to achieve what I wanted. After launch, I went to History>Restore Previous Session. After clicking on that, the browser would repopulate with all my tabs. And yes, I visited Safari’s prefs to assign Waterfox as my primary browser but to no avail. Eventually, for whatever reason, the problem disappeared on its own.)

Swiping between pages worked fine. Instead of sliding to your adjoining page, the page would instantly pop up. I liked that.

But several trackpad gestures I perform routinely wouldn’t perform within the browser. I couldn’t perform a two-finger double click to zoom in on text, which is something that I routinely do when reading a webpage. On my 21” iMac that’s not a big problem but on my 13” MacBook Air it could have been a deal breaker. So why didn’t I simply pinch with two fingers? I couldn’t get that to work either.

I couldn’t create pins in the TabBar, a feature that I use extensively in Safari. Instead, I had to keep the sidebar open to access pinned sites. A little real estate lost but a minor irritation.

Something that I found to be quite innovative had nothing to with Waterfox itself but with the developer’s business model.

Waterfox has now partnered with Ecosia as a way to raise funds. When using Ecosia, revenue generated from ads helps plant trees and contributes to Waterfox upkeep costs! If you’d like to help support Waterfox while also doing some good in the world, please help us out by using it!

Who would have thought that by enduring ads **anywhere** on the internet, you could be helping the planet!?! Click to learn more about Ecosia.

Support for various issues that you may encounter can be answered through the Help Menu link to Mozilla Support (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/firefox?as=u&utm_source=inproduct). A couple of the Help Menu selections did nothing at all but as all the various ‘foxes’ are based on the same open source code, my guess is that you should have no difficulty getting answers at Mozilla’s Support site.

As for requirements, the previous version required OS X 10.4 or later. Any plug-ins must be 64-bit, as well.

Regardless of the few features that I would like added, I enjoyed using Waterfox very much. In fact, I have been using it exclusively for the past several weeks while writing, gathering graphics, and researching this review. As well as for day-to-day surfing. And I have been quite pleased.

I definitely recommend that you download a copy and give it a bash. (https://www.waterfoxproject.org/downloads)
You’ll be pleasantly surprised.

©2017 Frank Petrie

After dabbling in computers, revolutionising phones, tablets and watches, testing self-driving cars and exploring augmented reality, Apple seems to be up to something new. Two recent hires, from Google, have joined Greg Duffy, co-founder of camera maker Dropcam, who joined Apple earlier this year. John Fenwick, who led Google’s spacecraft operations, and Michael Trela, head of satellite engineering are now with Apple, adding their expertise in the demanding, expensive field of satellite design and operation. These endeavours typically fall into two fields: satellites for collecting images and those for communications. Perhaps these hires should be coupled with regulatory filing last year, inwhich Boeing Co. detailed a plan to provide broadband access through more than 1,000 satellites in low-earth orbit. The aerospace company has talked with Apple about the technology company being an investor-partner in the project.

While looking at the realm of possibilities, there appears to be another team involved in long-term research into better methods for monitoring blood sugar.
This work is said to have commenced under former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who wanted to develop a sensor that could continuously and non-invasively monitor blood sugar levels to improve quality of life. Apple is believed to be far enough along in its research that feasibility trials are being conducted at clinical sites in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it has hired consultants to sort out regulatory issues.

Many health-related sensors that Apple wanted to include in the original Apple Watch were reportedly dropped because the technology was not consistently accurate, (and FDA approvals were required) but rumours at the time said Apple would pursue its work on more advanced health sensors. Apple has also made several health-related acquisitions and around the time the Apple Watch was in development, hired dozens of biomedical experts.

From Tim Cook in 2015 said:
“We don’t want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it — maybe an app, maybe something else.“

We will just have to wait and see.

Do you remember back in the good old days when you had your first (black/white) Mac? When you weren’t writing documents and drawing pictures, there was a selection of game software to enable you to fill in the odd idle moment – do you remember Dark Castle, Space Invaders, Lode Runner, and Microsoft Flight Simulator?

The Internet Archive is an indispensable resource for web users, backing up websites and documents and providing copies of historical software, such as the earliest home console and arcade games. Now, there’s a new collection that should delight anyone who grew up in the 1980s: an entire cache of Macintosh programs that you can play right in your browser.

The site has released a new software library of emulated programs from Macintosh computers dating from 1984 through 1989. The collection is a wonderful dose of nostalgia for anyone who grew up using these computers at home, work, or school. The best part is that you can emulate the programs right in your browser.

The collection is pretty remarkable and brings back memories: there are a ton of games that I remember playing as a kid at my dad’s workplace and at school as well as desktop programs such as MacWrite, MacPaint, and quite a few more. The page for each program also provides a good description of each.

At the time, the Macintosh’s desktop wasn’t necessarily the first such system, but it did introduce the desktop to a mass audience, which makes looking back at these programs such an interesting experience. It’s a different but entirely familiar. Opening up each one of these programs is a portal back in time. It’s a great way to remember computers from long ago, or to get a feel for what the user experience was like if you weren’t around for them.

Unfortunately, the programs aren’t very playable – a bit too much delay, and there is also a difficulty synchronising the mouse with the screen cursor, but the memories are still there.

Click a program from the library at:
      https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_mac
and then click the start button.

Apple has released new updates for both Final Cut Pro and iMovie for macOS through the Mac App Store.

iMovie version 10.1.5 for macOS includes a few bug fixes and improvements. Without giving much away, Apple state that the upgrade fixes an issue which could add a red tint to video imported from some camcorders, addresses an issue which prevented some videos shot on iPhone from appearing in the import window, and generally improves performance and stability.

Final Cut Pro version 10.3.3 includes a more detailed list:
• Ability to expand the width of the Inspector to view and adjust effect parameters
• Fixes issues with updating older libraries
• Faster redraw of audio waveforms when using clips that are being imported while recorded to disk
• Diamond icon in the Timeline Index to show when the user has modified display of roles in the timeline
• More color options in the Role Editor
• Reveal in Browser correctly displays the location of the original clip in the browser
• Support for Canon Log 3 and Sony S-Log3/S-Gamut3 log processing
• Resolves an issue in which the viewer could occasionally disappear when exiting full screen
• Resolves issues in which Share to DVD could become unresponsive
• Improves font quality of DVD menu and chapter titles
• Improves image quality when creating a DVD
• Enhanced DVD User dialog messages with embedded links to documentation.

Motion and Compressor have also received new improvement updates.

And Some is now Free

Apple recently updated the App Store, making iMovie, GarageBand and the iWork suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote) available for free to all iOS and Mac users. The apps were previously free to anyone who purchased a new iOS or macOS device in the past several years, but the update means a device purchase is no longer required.

Well, after years of passenger complaints, The ‘authorities finally relented last year and conceded that there was actually no reason why you couldn’t use your phones, iPods, tablets and laptops inside a plane. The ban even extended to using modern ‘electronic’ cameras on occasions!

So now, airlines are starting to let us go ahead and use our devices for a bit of entertainment … and now US and UK are starting to ban them again … apparently, you, or rather some unsavoury terrorists, are able to hide explosives inside tablets and do damage to the planes …
 

The UK ban on tablets, laptops, games consoles and other devices larger than a mobile phone came into effect on Saturday. It applies to inbound flights from six countries – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey. Six UK airlines – British Airways, EasyJet, Jet2, Monarch, Thomas Cook and Thomson – and eight foreign carriers are affected. This follows a similar move in the US, which applies to flights from 10 airports in eight countries – Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

I would have thought that if the plane arrived safely, then there wasn’t a problem, … but what would I know?

Now, you need to pack your tablets in your luggage; and have it carried in the plane’s hold … and, presumably, it is OK for it to explode there. Hmmm.

Take a look around your office. Can you see the surface of your desk? Are there piles of paper on the floor and file cabinets lurking in the corners? Regardless of the decorating implications, could you easily find last year’s tax return or the airline ticket receipt from your last trip?

If you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of paper, you can clear some of that clutter with the advice in Joe Kissell’s latest book, the 149-page Take Control of Your Paperless Office, Third Edition. This book isn’t theory—having lived in tiny apartments in San Francisco and Paris, and now in a small home in San Diego, plus having experienced two transatlantic moves, Joe has led a nearly paperless life for years. The book is normally $15, but as a MUG member, you save 30%. [Contact editor]

Joe first guides you through choosing your tools, including scanners and OCR (optical character recognition) software, devices and services for storing scanned documents, and apps to categorize, locate, and view your documents. Once you have your gear in hand, Joe shows you how to convert paper into digitized files and gives you ideas for how to organize your workflow. He explains how to develop an efficient approach that reduces the amount of time you spend pressing buttons, launching apps, and otherwise managing your war on clutter.

If you’ve already embarked on a campaign to reduce the amount of paper in your life, Take Control of Your Paperless Office has a chapter about reassessing your strategy to make sure you’re working as effectively as possible given recent changes in hardware, software, and services.

Plus, Joe discusses using iPhone apps to scan documents while you’re away from your office, creating a digitized image of your signature, and using an online fax service. He even covers switching to paperless billing and bank statements and relying on a paperless postal mail service.

Thanks for supporting Take Control and our hard-working authors!

cheers… -Adam and Tonya Engst, Take Control publishers

 

Without any significant fanfare, Apple has released iPhone 7 (PRODUCT)^RED, with all sales resulting with a contribution to the Global Fund to support HIV/AIDS programs. Surely this has nothing to do with Apple Chairman, Tim Cook’s very recent visit to China, where the red model is very popular. Probably just a happy coincidence!

Feature: It is Red!

The red iPhone joins the red watch(strap), the red Beats Headphones, the red Beats Pill+ Portable Speaker, the red iPod range, and the red silicone case for the iPad.

iPad:

Apple has also introduced a low cost iPad (starting at US$329). The iPad, officially the “5th-generation iPad”, features the usual 10hr battery, 9.7″ Retina display (2048×1536), 8MP & Facetime cameras, Touch ID fingerprint sensor, Wi-Fi and LTE, with an upgraded CPU (A9). The model is slightly thicker and heavier than the previous low-end iPad.

In a nutshell, compared to the iPad Air 2, the iPad has a brighter display and a faster A9 processor (first introduced in the iPhone 6s). Other internal hardware seems to be very similar to what’s included in the iPad Air 2, with the exception of the display and the casing. Camera, battery life, Wi-Fi, LTE, and other sensors are all nearly the same. The iPad does not include a laminated display, and is thus thicker, much like the original iPad Air. It measures in at 7.5mm thick, compared to the 6.1mm iPad Air 2. The thickness and accompanying weight discrepancy is noticeable and the one downside between the new iPad and its predecessor.

The rumours are still saying that upgrades to the iPad range is still coming, possibly in April, so this release may just be to get the model out the door, so it is not distracting from the iPad Pro upgrade. We will just have to wait and see.

Comparison: