Macworld AustraliaOctober 2014的目錄

A NEW, BIGGER APPLE LINEUP APPLE REVEALS TWO NEW iPHONES, THREE WATCHES AND A NEW MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEM. Apple took to the stage in September to unveil two much anticipated, new iPhone models, the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus, a new payment system called Apple Pay and the Apple Watch range. iPHONE 6 AND iPHONE 6 PLUS Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller introduced the new, thinner iPhone lineup. The phones feature Retina HD displays, curved bezels, a new A8 chip and stainless steel Apple logos. The last two iPhone models have featured a 4in display but, as expected, the iPhone 6 model has a larger 1334 x 750, 4.7in display, with a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch, while the iPhone 6 Plus…

Security is probably the biggest issue in IT at the moment. And while for many years Mac users felt that they were immune to the vast array of different threats out there, the reality is different today. Unlike the ‘I’m a Mac, I’m a PC‘ ad that lampooned Windows’ security credentials, today’s world is a very different place. Viruses are no longer the main threat. The bad guys are getting smarter and employ lots of different tactics such as social engineering attacks, phishing and even plain old theft. So, what can you do about it? WHAT ARE WE PROTECTING? When we are thinking about protecting our data we need to think about two different things. • data at rest • data in flight Data at rest is what’s stored on…

With a smartphone or tablet always in arm’s reach, it’s tempting to document every waking moment of our lives but, when it comes to great photography, less is often more. Before you press the shutter button, consider what you might do to transform your quick happy snap into a treasured memory fit to hang on the wall. There’s a treasure trove of great photography tools in the App Store, from alternative camera apps, which add professional features, to hipster image filters and photo sharing services. You’ll also find plenty of accessories such as tripods and detachable lenses to help you capture the perfect shot. If you’d prefer to stick with your trusty compact digital or hefty digital SLR, then your iPhone can act as the ultimate photographer’s assistant. POINT AND…

Setting up a printer in OS X is usually as simple as plugging it in to your Mac or connecting to a shared printer on the local network. But OS X also offers some advanced options for connecting and managing printers. Here’s a rundown. ADD SHARED PRINTERS ON THE FLY While you can add a shared printer available to your system using the Printers & Scanners pane in System Preferences, you can also do the same from the Print dialogue box in any document. In the Printer drop-down menu under the standard Print dialogue box, you will see a submenu labelled Nearby Printers. Choosing a printer from that list will let OS X automatically install its driver and set it up for use. In this way, you can quickly print…

Unless you’ve got just the right desk, there’s a good chance you need to elevate your iMac or display to get it to the best ergonomic height – with your eyes about five centimetres below the top edge of the screen. And while there are many options for elevating your iMac or display – from stands to piles of books – we’ve been testing Twelve South’s US$79.99 HiRise Stand for iMac for several months, and it’s become one of our favourite desktop accessories, both as a stand for raising the display to a better height and as a nifty storage compartment to remove desk clutter. With the exception of Apple’s 30in Cinema Display, the HiRise works with any iMac, or any Apple display with a metal, L-shaped base. We have…

" ou have chosen poorly, young Y Jair," says the screen, flashing an image of grinning Death. I hate him. I hate his bony little skeleton face so much. I've seen it at least 10 times in the last hour and a half, each time listening to his snide comment about my demise. I've been burned to a crisp by a dragon. I've been shot by an arrow from the dark. I've had a rickety wooden bridge burned from under me. Even non-lethal occurrences may as well be – I've heard the screams of a banshee and come under a curse, I've seen an enormous spider frozen to the ceiling, I've gazed upon the face of a demon. Shadowgate is impossibly hard, and I mean that as a compliment (I…

Are you still using a fax machine? It’s hard to believe that this almost obsolete technology still has a place at the heart of many businesses. Some companies insist on receiving paper documents, which means the process of faxing remains important, albeit less used. And if you think everything has to be high-tech to work – the 1988 protest in Tiananmen Square and 2011 revolution in Egypt were fuelled by humble fax machines. Faxing does offer some advantages over email. The ability to easily generate delivery reports is often considered important and, depending on the type of document being sent, the legal status of faxes may be different to email. Incredibly, some recent research suggests that there are 130 million fax machines still in operation globally and more than six…

At this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced – among a great many other things – HomeKit, a suite of tools for controlling devices such as thermostats, furnaces and air-conditioners, lights, cameras, smart appliances, garage-door openers and security systems. You’ll be able to control them all from your iOS device. And it sounds great. Imagine your garage door sliding open and your back door unlocking as your car approaches the driveway, or the lights dimming and the fireplace blazing into action as you near the front door with your date. But imagine this as well: you’re halfway across the country on a business trip, and your kids call and ask if you can flip on the lights downstairs because they’re afraid of the dark. Or a heat wave hits home…

While we have passed through the winter months, a common problem still arises that’s shared among iPhone, iPad, other smartphones and tablet users – frozen fingers. On those freezing days your digits can become quite cold when trying to use your phone or tablet outside or on public transport. And wearing standard gloves is not an option, unless you want to take them off every time you need to use your device. That’s where touchscreen gloves come in, and the Digits touchscreen gloves by Moshi are one example that performs exceptionally well. The Moshi Digits come in two different sizes/colours – dark grey (large) and light grey (small or medium). I tried the large gloves, which fit quite comfortably. Some of the fingertips were slightly too loose, but the Griptrak…

Australian pay TV has always been expensive and a few years ago you wouldn’t have believed that Foxtel would ever come to the party with an online service like Foxtel Play. Faced with a growing number of online rivals and the rise of the National Broadband Network, the pay TV giant has decided to move with the times rather than stick its head in the sand. You can watch Foxtel Play via the Foxtel Go app for iPhone, iPad and some Samsung Android devices. Alternatively, you can watch in a browser on Mac or Windows, or access Foxtel Play on your television via the PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and some Samsung and LG smart TVs and Blu-ray players. You can link up to three devices to your account…

WHAT DO YOU DO? I work at Google on the Google Search App for iOS, and my ‘20 percent project’ is iTerm2 (iterm2.com). I’m also into woodworking, and my goal is to build all my home furniture from scratch. I love making stuff, whether physical or virtual. Helping others to be more productive is how I accumulate karma. WHAT HARDWARE DO YOU USE? My setup at work is pretty cool: I sit in a zero-gravity recliner. My monitor is a Dell 4K display. It’s on a pole-mounted monitor arm so I can position it exactly where I need it when lying almost horizontally. I use an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and Magic Trackpad, which is the greatest thing since oxygen. And I use a Mac Pro. When I’m at home, I…

iPHONE 5 BATTERY REPLACEMENT PROGRAM LAUNCHED Apple is offering a second replacement program for iPhone 5 users after offering to replace the sleep/wake button on some models in April. This time around it’s the phone’s battery that’s giving users headaches. Apple says that a “very small percentage of iPhone 5 devices” may be experiencing poor battery life, requiring users to charge the device more frequently. Affected devices were sold between September 2012 and January 2013 and are within a specific serial number range, Apple says. You can check your serial number on Apple’s site (ssl.apple.com/support/iphone5-battery) to see if your phone qualifies for a free battery replacement. If you have an affected device you’ll have the choice to replace your battery free of charge at the Apple Store, an Apple authorised…

There was a time when file sharing meant handing a 720k Floppy disk around the office – what we affectionately called ‘sneakernet. Over time, our needs grew to zip disks, CDs and DVDs. But today, we often need to quickly share large files, often gigabytes in size, with colleagues and clients right across the world. So, how can we share large files easily? THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY It may seem low tech, but copying files to a USB stick or some other media and popping them into the post is a viable way of moving large files. In cases where either the sender or the recipient is constrained by bandwidth and delivery of the data isn’t time critical, it may just be easier to copy the data to some media and…

PRODUCTIVITY DAY ONE LIFESTYLE | BLOOM BUILT | $12.99 The superb Day One makes keeping a journal easier than ever, thanks to smart features and a beautiful, welcoming interface. The app offers helpful (if generic) prompts such as “Do you have any favourite pets?” above each new entry window; these little nudges take away some of the pressure of seeing the empty space below. You can also fire off quick entries from an icon on your menu bar. Day One can gently remind you to write something – just tell it what time of day and how often you wish it to prod you. You can add photos and tag them with keywords and (optionally) your current location. The app lets you back up your journal to iCloud, Dropbox or…

Today’s iOS devices include mono microphones that are good enough for general-purpose recording – making voice and video calls, capturing audio notes and identifying tunes with Soundhound. But they’re not ideal for situations where you need higher-quality audio, such as when recording podcasts, lectures or musical performances. In such situations, an external microphone is the way to go, and Zoom's iQ5 Professional Stereo Microphone captures good sounding stereo audio. THE DESIGN The iQ5 is a Lightning-connector microphone. It comes from the same company that makes the well-regarded H5 Four-Track Portable Recorder, and you can see the similarities in the design of the iQ5 as well as the free HandyRecorder app that works with it. However, unlike with the H5, which has two crossed microphones, the iQ5 bears a single perforated…

LaCie updated many of its desktop drives to include the new Thunderbolt 2 specification, and while some of the drives retained the same external design, the 2big Thunderbolt 2 has quite a different look than before. It also features hardware RAID, a handy USB 3.0 port for increased versatility and a hidden compartment that conceals the ports and RAID selector. The glowing blue ‘eye’ remains, albeit smaller, and functions as a power button for the new drive, as well as a drive status indicator. When connected via Thunderbolt, a short press of the blue power button puts the drive in standby mode; via USB 3.0, a short press puts the drive in power-saving mode. A long press of the power button shuts down the drive. Swappable drive bays now load…