Apparently, Apple.com reserved the domain name iSlate.com as far back as 2007. This is a fitting title for a tablet style computer! Already the iPhone is a mini portable machine but is limited when it comes to full blown applications. I guess my vision of the rumored new addition to the Mac line is bigger than the phone but smaller than the 13 inch macbook, perhaps something with touch capabilities, a stylus, and a keyboard for input. Perhaps my last article – Macbook vs Macbook Pro – should have ended with vs iSlate .

Let’s see how my ideas measure up to reality.

IMHO the starting point in this decision should really be screen size. The Mac Book laptop only comes with a 13 inch screen where as the MBP offers 3 different choices. If you are looking for something bigger than thirteen inch then the Pro is the one you want. Of course, there are various configurations to choose from within the MBP line and these options also need to be carefully considered.

If the smaller screen is what you need then you need to look closely at the MacBook and the MacBook Pro specs to figure out which one is right for you. The MB is considered the Apple.com “bargain” model but don’t let that fool you. It only comes in a white plastic housing – while the MBP of the same size is encased in aluminum. If looks are important to you then once again your decision process might just end here – pick the one that is more appealing. However, if what is under the hood matters (which it should) then the next step is to consider your desired usage – and buy a machine with enough power and memory to handle your demands.

Some general rules of thumb when deciding between a macbook vs macbook pro – if you use your computer to primarily surf the net, organize your life, and prepare word processing or spreadsheet documents, then the Apple MB should be able to handle those tasks with ease. In this case the size of the hard drive would be an important factor if you have a lot of info to store. External hard drives are a way to handle any overflow but are a bit inconvenient if you have to hook your notebook up constantly – after all the portability of a laptop computer is part of the benefit. If, however, you use graphics intensive applications like gaming, or heavy duty design, video editing, and photography work, then a souped up MBP may be more in tune with your needs.

One thing to keep in mind is that any of the Apple Mac computers can be made to order at the Apple.com website. Upgrades to the memory, graphics cards, hard drive, and more are options when you purchase online. The hardest part about doing it this way is the anticipation!

In summary, first consider screen size, then the overall look and feels, and finally the internal configuration.

A trip to the Apple Store if you have one close by may also aid in your decision. Actually seeing one up close and personal can give you an idea of how the screen looks and the keyboard feels. After all this is one computer that should last you many years to come.

But as of late I have taken to using the webmail interface – in my case gmail – but this would apply to yahoo or any other online service. When I wanted to attach pictures directly into an email that I was typing online – I would have to go through several hoops of copying the photo from iPhoto to the desktop and then attaching that file to my message.

It didn’t really have to be this difficult, did it? Come on – this is Apple we are talking about.

So I searched around for a solution and I found one right here – how to attach a picture from iPhoto to a web based mail. Thanks, Rick!

Anyhow in a nutshell, in gmail compose mail screen, click attach a file. In the window that appears, scroll down in the left hand side choice bar until you see the media heading. Click the photos subheading under this and your entire photograph library will be available as choices. Select the pics you want to attach and you are done.

Such an easy solution to using internet email accounts and iPhoto together. And a big timesaver too!

The good news is that The Apple Store is not the only place to find these machines – and sometimes other retailers do offer a discount. I have seen lower prices at

• Amazon.com
• Best Buy
• and MacMall

Just to name a few.

Another route is to look into whether your employer has an affiliate relationship with the folks from Cupertino – then you can shop the business store, which is a little cheaper than regular price. If you are unsure, any “genius” can look it up for you or you can check the website as well. You can also check to see if you qualify for the education discount. Rules are on the site but I think you either need to be a full time college student or be an officer or administrator at a k-12 school.

Sometimes there is not an outright price cut on the MacBook notebooks themselves but rather a promotion. Over the summer – Apple usually runs the free ipod promotion for students, and often there is a printer rebate going on as well.

Other options are out there if you are willing to make a few compromises. Refurbished models, especially those that are bought through the official site, are almost as good as new and come in a variety of configurations. And buying a used Macbook Pro from a friend or relative or even on eBay (buyer beware!) are other reasonable choices. Many people are looking for the latest and greatest (yes – I am salivating over the 27 inch iMac) and are ready to part with the older models even though there are working just fine. (no – mine is not on the market – yet )

If you have found some good Mac computers sale prices please do share and leave a comment!

For those that aren’t familiar, this photo editing program comes packaged as part of the iLife suite of software. This suite is included on every iMac and Apple laptop but as newer versions come out, the upgrade must be purchased. Basically, this program is very user friendly and is used by beginners and experts alike.

Picture Organizing
At it’s simplest, iPhoto 09 is a powerful database in which people can store their digital photographs. Picture organizing is made easy with a variety of tools. They can be organized into events, tagged with keywords, assigned faces and locations, manually placed into albums, or automatically arranged into smart albums. The level of detail is only limited by the time that the user has to give.

Picture Editing
Each picture can be edited using the built in photo editor. Or for a more full featured editing experience, the photo can be automatically set to open in a completely separate program like Adobe Photoshop Elements for Mac. Once the changes are complete the updated picture is then saved back into iPhoto.

Photo Projects
iPhoto also has the capability to create many projects. From slideshows, to calendars, cards, and photobooks that can be ordered directly from Apple or printed at home. Every element of the slideshow can be customized (music, transitions, zoom) and the finished product can be exported to a variety of other devices like AppleTV, iPhone, and iPod.

Mac Photo Help
With all of these features it is no wonder that good instructions and tutorials are key. Even if you know the program inside out there is always some shortcut to learn. Obviously the first place to find assistance is by clicking the “Help” option in the menubar. This will open the oline manual that is maintained by the company. While this works great in a pinch, I find it to be somewhat inadequate. Apple.com also has a variety of iPhoto tutorials and videos in the support section of their website. There is good info there but I find the site surprisingly difficult to navigate. Ironically, in this electronic day and age I find that the best advice comes from a good old fashioned book. There are many to choose from. Some of my favorites are:

• The Missing Manual Series
• The Visual Quickstart Guide

I will often explore a book by borrowing it from the library first. If it is truly useful – I will start racking up fines because I can’t bear to part with it. At this point I usually end up purchasing the manual. It is this desk reference that I find myself pulling off the shelf again and again.

What is your favorite source of Mac iPhoto help?

Basically, the installation went quite smoothly. Each computer took about an hour – although I didn’t time it exactly. The newest Macbook Pro – which belongs to a family member, had no issues at all. I put the disk in, set it to install and walked away. The computer restarted on it’s own and when I got back I just signed in and was good to go – well, almost. Since the packaged disks have come out the Snow Leopard operating system has a new version. Automatically, Software Update kicked in and showed me a message that there was new software for my machine. I installed this which involved another reboot and then Software Update ran again – showing me that I had a performance update to install. After one last shut down everything was up and running.

The only inconvenience here was not having use of the laptop for some time. Compared to Windows – Mac OSX is a piece of cake!

The iMac upgrade also had no glitches. Again, there was the subsequent rebooting to bring everything up to date.

Finally on my older intel Apple MacBook Pro – I had a few issues. The installation went fine but when I came back to the machine, it appeared that it had not restarted. The screen was black. Not knowing what to do, I hit the power button a few times. Finally, the apple logo came up with the little round timer thing showing that the machine is working. But then a black screen again. Upon closer examination I saw that the screen, in fact, was dimmed – not off. I just adjusted the brightness with the keyboard and now I could see the screen. I then was able to log in and Software Update did the remaining update.

This issue seemed a little odd but thankfully was easily resolved.

So, in the end, my Snow Leopard upgrade was successful. I will now do a little exploring and report back with some of the new features that I am learning about.

Finally, just a note that the SN disk can obviously be purchased from Apple.com but there is a bit of a discount to be had at Amazon.com, on the single user version, the 5 user family pack, or the box set – so you might want to check there as well.

However – the uncluttered look of the whole new iMac package is very classy. What I would give to do away with all of the cords and cables that snake their way in and around my workspace!

I will have to make my way to an Apple Store to try out the new Magic Mouse before I take the plunge. What are your thoughts?

What are your view on the new announcement today? Even the mini has seen a revision and the specs are pretty darn impressive for so small a device. If you have an existing monitor this one is also tempting.

Now I love Apple computers and I have been a mobileme.com user since it’s upgrade from .mac. The main reason that I signed up was because of the push feature for calendar and contacts to my iPod Touch. I manage a team of six people, called my family, and having all of the calendars stay in sync with my computer automatically was a big plus for me.

But aside from the sync feature, I wasn’t using many of the other features that me.com had to offer.

I was toying with the idea of starting a family website. Since I am a private person, I didn’t like the idea of plastering the web with my family’s pictures and details of their daily happenings. I discovered that publishing a site using iWeb that is hosted at MobileMe had a password protection feature. I was quite tempted by the array of fancy templates and decided to give it a go.

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed. Let me just say that I am running iLife ‘09 so you know where I am coming from.

Building a web page was easy enough. The drag and drop feature for pictures and videos was easy to use. But arranging items on a preset template was harder. Things would overlap and creating more space for my new objects was not intuitive. I did scan the manual but did not really pore over it.

I liked that I built the pages on my computer and uploaded them to the web. This meant that even if I cancelled my MobileMe. com service – the pages that I created in iWeb would still exist on my computer and not disappear. After all a family website is a chronicle, a history or diary of our life – and that is precious.

I think I would have stuck with it – but for the fact that the iWeb pages loaded very slowly on other people’s computers. Grandpa, for instance, uses DSL and Windows. He could not get the site to load correctly and videos took up to 15 minutes to load completely. Not very effective – since most people would click away long before the process was complete.

The only explanation for this slow load time that I could find is that iWeb pages are very graphic intensive and the underlying code is not web optimized. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t about to spend my time building a wonderful website that no one would be able to read.

I have since started the family website using Blogger. Blogger has a permissions feature that lets me list the emails of people that I want to access the site. However, the people should really have a gmail address so they can access the site when they are signed into their gmail account. This is harder than the iWeb process of assigning a username and password to the site itself. And it puts a burden on my relatives to sign up for a gmail account that they may not want.

Finally, now Blogger will own my site. All the pages are stored on the web – not on my computer. If they decide to shut my site down then bye, bye hard work. Or if I don’t use my account for a certain amount of time – then my site will disappear as well.

I didn’t look into WordPress.com as an alternative. But I know that it is difficult to password protect an entire site using self hosted WordPress.org.

I haven’t found an ideal solution. But if you have one – I would love to hear about it in the comments.

If anyone has had this issue and successfully solved it – please do share your solution in the comments. I would greatly appreciate it!