Free iPod Touch
So, it’s true – get a free iPod Touch with the purchase of Apple Mac computers! It’s back to school time again at Apple. For qualifying educators and students pursuing higher education there is a sweet deal going on. Now through early September you can get a free Touch or a $229 credit toward any other ipod.
If you were thinking of getting a new computer anyway…..
But before you rush out to take advantage of this deal – it is noteworthy that WWDC (WorldWide Developer’s Conference) will be taking place on June 8, 2009. Sometimes there are some new products released or new deals announced at these events. The agenda is very hush, hush … so there is no telling what, if anything will be news on that day.
Another thing to note, is that Apple is also offering a $100 rebate on select models of printers with the purchase of a qualifying Mac. Some of the printers that qualify cost only $100 – thus you would also be getting a free printer. This offer is only good through mid July.
Hmmm, by a computer get a free iPod and printer – now that is a good deal.
Entourage for Apple Mac Laptops
I spent the better part of today exploring Entourage for Apple Mac laptops.
Currently, I use the trio Apple Mail, iCal, and Address Book for Mac. They all play very nice together. But what I am missing is a project management application and Entourage offers this.
Before I go on, let me say that I have tried OmniFocus for both my notebook and my iPod Touch. I have also given Bento a whirl on my computer. But what I really want is a native application that pulls it all together and also syncs with the iPhone or Touch. I know, what will I ask for next – an iMac that actually completes the project as well?
The bottom line is that Entourage looked promising. I recently purchased the Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac suite but never looked beyond Word and Excel. But now I faced the problem of having all my data sitting in the native Apple applications and me not willing to commit to switching before putting Microsoft through the paces.
Luckily, I discovered the option called Sync Services in the preferences menu. Using Sync Services, I could set Entourage to sync with address book and mobileme, ical and mobile me, and the Entourage notes could be set to sync with mobileme. I can even set one program’s data to override the other’s. Or set the sync preferences to combine the data. Perfect – now I could make changes in one application and they would automatically be reflected in the other. Problem solved! Or so I thought.
Ah what a tangled web we weave. My contacts synced just fine but not the groupings that I had set up in Address Book.
And my calendar was a different story. You see, Apple’s iCal supports multiple calendars – so I have a calendar set up for each family member plus a few other odd calendars for daily menus, soccer schedules and the like. But Entourage only supports one calendar and has multiple categories. In Entourage, I would have a main calendar and each event would be assigned a category – in my case each category would bear the name of each family member. And, you guessed it – iCal does not support categories.
When I set up Sync Services to sync my calendars what it basically did was create a new calendar in iCal called, oddly enough, “Entourage”. Anything that I enter on this calendar will sync with Microsoft Office on my Apple Mac laptops.
Lovely. (dripping with sarcasm)
So where does this leave me? I probably will leave the project management behind and continue on with the native Mac applications. Or I may use some convoluted combination of Microsoft Office, iCal, and Address Book. The problem with any productivity system is that if it becomes too complicated – well, I just don’t use it regularly enough to be effective.
And what about syncing with Mobile devices. I will explore this issue in a future post. But I have had enough frustration and learning for one day!