Tabla de contenidos para March 2015 en Macworld Australia

Chemical engineering student Liam Hartley was on his way to Southern Cross Station in Melbourne to meet up with friends when he took this month’s winning image. Capturing an aeroplane flying above with his iPhone 6, Hartley decided to apply a little editing and produced a beautiful monochromatic image that we can all enjoy. “While the majority of my photography has minimal editing (usually just tonality/ colours), this one required a little more drama,” says Hartley. “The plane silhouette was added on the iPhone from a previous photograph using the Image Blender application. The photo was then imported to VSCO Cam to allow for a more photographic film look to be applied. Hopefully, it was subtle but effective.” As with many of the previous iSnap winners, Hartley didn’t set out…

The latest sleek and sexy iGadgets are a joy to behold, but it’s the amazing App Store that helps the Apple ecosystem stand out from the crowd. No matter what your passion, there’s always an app to help you along the way. NEWS, SPORT AND WEATHER With an iGadget in hand, it’s easier to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in the world. Google News is a great starting point if you like to keep track of current affairs. The HTML5-based website looks very slick in Safari and you’ll find it at news.google.com.au, but there’s also a dedicated Google News & Weather app. Sign in with your Google account and it’s easy to customise your news feed. If you’re specifically after Australian news, then it’s hard to go past the main…

As our lives increasingly go digital, security is a major concern not only for the various online services we use, but also for the devices on which we save our data. Chances are that if you’re reading this article, you own a Mac. And on your Mac, you’d like much of the work you do on it to be kept private. While OS X is relatively secure by default, there are some additional steps you can take to ensure the data on your Mac can only be accessed by you, even if your Mac is stolen. Take the following tips to heart to better protect your Mac and its data. ENABLE THE OS X FIREWALL The firewall in OS X is a network filter that allows you to control which…

Adjusting the exposure! For all the iPhone photographers out there, iOS 8 has a new feature that may be of use. When you line up a shot in the Camera app, you can tap where you would like to set the automatic exposure and focus, and then adjust the exposure by sliding your finger up or down on the yellow sun icon to the focus box. Donald Clifton • EACH MONTH, STM gives a prize to the Macworld Australia reader who submits the best and most useful tip (undocumented tips preferred). This month’s prize is a comfortable and portable STM quantum laptop shoulder bag worth $119.95. Your everyday commute requires the perfect bag. Enter quantum – a soft-sided business brief that will keep your entire docket organised and protected. The…

Grim Fandango is a classic adventure game released in the long-distant past of 1998. You play the part of Manuel ‘Manny’ Calavera, who looks a lot like the Grim Reaper until he takes off his cloak and his stilts and folds up his scythe and reveals he's... a travel agent. No, seriously. When you die, you end up in the Land of the Dead where you must embark on a four-year journey to the Ninth Underworld. If you were a good person, however, you can skip that whole ‘four-year journey’ thing and travel in style – by car, boat or the fabled ‘Number Nine’ train, which can get you to the Ninth Underworld in mere minutes. Manny's job is to sell these travel packages. There's a huge conspiracy afoot in…

Electrostatic speakers have long been favoured by audiophiles, as they ditch the traditional speaker cone in favour of a membrane suspended in an electrostatic field. The result isn’t just amazingly thin speakers, it’s also phenomenal sound reproduction – but at a cost. Alongside the high price tag, you’re also sacrificing some low-end grunt. BenQ's treVolo brings vocals, strings and brass to life, but efforts to reproduce thumping bass lack conviction. Electrostatic speakers are designed to do jazz quartets, symphony orchestras and acoustic performances justice, rather than hard rock or grunty rhythm and blues. It’s not a judgement on your taste in music; it’s simply a matter of playing to the strengths of the technology. The treVolo’s big selling point is that it’s portable, something that’s quite rare for sensitive electrostatic…

PARADISE LOST, PARADISE FOUND Having been a self-confessed computer geek for over 30 years, I enjoy new technology and everything that it offers us. I love to play with new toys and try and get the best out of them, sometimes to my own detriment! Case in point – a few months ago I became somewhat disenchanted with Apple’s new operating system offerings as, for me, neither OS X Yosemite or iOS 8 were behaving as they should and were not the stable, well-tested products that we have all become accustomed to from Apple. This led me to lose the plot/ toss my toys out of the cot and declare in no uncertain terms that I was done with Apple for both my computer and mobile requirements and that I…

THE TIMELINE Australian Macworld was launched with a February-March edition in 1985 and stayed bimonthly until February 1987, save for a bonus issue featuring a software guide in September 1985. That bonus issue reflected the success Australian Macworld had achieved in its first few months in providing a focal point for the local community of early enthusiasts in a year that saw Australian Mac sales triple, while US sales failed to build on what had been achieved there in 1984. Computerworld Pty Ltd (later IDG) had launched Australian Micro Computerworld two years earlier, but in April 1984 had moved closer to the directions of its US parent by launching Australian PC World. Neville Angove had been hired as technical editor for both Micro and PC World, then promoted to editor…

FIVE PODCASTS FOR BUSINESS OWNERS BY ANTHONY CARUANA Trying to keep up with what’s happening and why it’s happening is a significant challenge in the business world. While it would be nice to be able to simply work every day and bring in enough money for life’s essentials, the reality is that savvy operators have an eye on what’s happening around them as well as managing the day-to-day challenges. Podcasts are a great way of keeping up with news and to listen to experts who share their insight. They’re also excellent sources of new trends and commentary from people who work at the coalface of business. So, what are the best business podcasts out there? There are literally hundreds to choose from. We’ve focused on podcasts that have been around…

If you're still using an iPhone that's two or more generations old, the chances are that it isn't as nippy as it used to be. The interface seems more sluggish, apps take longer to open or run – it just isn't the swift device you remember. Maybe it's been performing more slowly since you installed iOS 7 or iOS 8. But there are some techniques we can use to speed up an ailing older iPhone. Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are its flagship smartphones, but older models remain popular: the iPhone 5s and 5c are still sold by Apple as budget alternatives, and plenty of Apple fans continue to use a beloved iPhone 4s, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS or even older iPhone. But is your iPhone still performing?…

No Mac is an island and every iPad is part of the main. But Apple has, for many years, had trouble with letting a group of allied people – let’s call them a ‘family’ – make best used of shared devices and shared digital purchases. Family Sharing is the latest attempt by Apple to facilitate families’ sharing (if not caring). It comes with a hidden curse, though: families that share together can have all their devices wiped together and all track each other’s locations, regardless of one’s age. One could argue these are good things when you’ve chosen to opt into Family Sharing and location sharing. But, as your faithful writer keeps stressing, you have to know the risks in order to evaluate them. FAMILY PLANNING Family Sharing requires all…

DaVinci Resolve 11 combines the world’s most advanced color corrector with professional multi track editing so now you can edit, color correct, finish and deliver all from one system! With its legendary image quality, real-time GPU accelerated performance, and support for more wide dynamic range RAW formats than any other system, DaVinci Resolve has the creative tools professional editors and colorists need to work on Hollywood’s most demanding projects! Integrated Editing and Grading DaVinci Resolve 11 gives you professional editing and color correction all in one system so you can move between editing and grading with a click of the mouse! No more importing, exporting, or conforming ever again! Teams can have multiple colorists and assistants working with an editor on the same sequence at the same time! You get…

In the past we have discussed the chain of trust and the weak links in various methods of security. But reader Duane has a question, regarding the safety of VPNs, he asks: “How do you know the VPN operator isn’t stealing your info?” This is an absurdly important question, and one that extends far beyond VPNs and specific issues with Apple hardware and software. Trust is a difficult commodity to measure, made more difficult by the subversion of parties that are in the chain of trust we use every day by government agencies. These security groups have been shown to weaken standards, find exploits and use them rather than disclose to improve for all, and possibly suborn employees or place undercover agents in firms. In some countries, these sorts of…

Photojojo Gee-Whiz Smartphone Projector The Gee-Whiz Smartphone Projector is one of the more fun accessories we’ve seen recently. Assemble the power-free projector from the provided cardboard pieces and magnifying lens to magnify the screen by up to eight times. The Photojojo projector fits smartphones up to 14.5cm long and 8cm wide, so the iPhone 6 is in but the iPhone 6 Plus is out. Photojojo www.photojojo.com US$27 + shipping ClamCase Pro The ClamCase Pro makes your tablet look, feel and be usable as a fully functional laptop. It has a 360-degree hinge so you can use the tablet in a stand, or fold up for use simply in tablet form. The lithium battery allows you to use the Bluetooth keyboard for more than a month between charges. Available for the…

It’s not your imagination: your Mac’s overall performance can slow down over time. Most often this happens because we gradually add more apps and background processes, have more and more documents and browser tabs open and don’t restart very often. All these things take a cumulative toll on your Mac’s performance. Cutting back on the number of things you have open is therefore one of the easiest strategies for putting some zip back into your Mac. Adding RAM (if your Mac supports it), switching from a hard drive to an SSD and keeping your software up-to-date are also effective quick fixes for performance problems. But if I may rant for a moment, I want to call your attention to two oft-touted remedies for slow Mac performance that usually have so…

The BrydgeAir keyboard is unlike any iPad accessory I’ve used before. With integrated speakers underneath a backlit keyboard with a 180-degree hinge, it makes your iPad feel like a laptop, and that’s the entire point. In a market of nearly identical iPad keyboards that offer the same core features, Brydge is trying to set itself apart. After spending a week with its solution for the iPad Air 2, I’d say it does just that. FAMILIAR, YET DIFFERENT As with nearly all iPad keyboards, the Brydge is equipped with the standard Mac keyboard layout. The keys are a bit smaller than those found on the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover, and appear to have the same amount of travel, yet offer less resistance. In my use, less resistance translated into an adjustment…

Multi-tasking can be an issue on a single display. A standard 24in monitor can be a great companion when you’re working on a single window or even running two side by side, but if you’re having trouble displaying all the windows necessary for your work or play, the hassle of opening and minimising windows can grow to be quite the grind. Rearranging multiple browser windows, your favourite text editor, photo-editing software and finder windows into the perfect layout welcomes frustration. Here's a look at two possible solutions. PHILIPS BRILLIANCE ULTRAWIDE LCD DISPLAY WITH MULTIVIEW (BDM3470UP) The Philips Brilliance UltraWide LCD Display with MultiView (BDM3470UP) certainly provides the extra width, in a thin-bezel, pixel-packed package. Featuring a 3440 x 1440-pixel AH-IPS display running at 60Hz, the monitor can easily handle multiple…