Innholdsfortegnelse for Feb-13 i MacLife

The Hottest Articles on MacLife.com The 25 Best iPhone Games There’s no shortage of fun diversions on iOS devices, but the staggering selection can be intimidating. Keep an eye here for our periodically updated recommendations. http://bit.ly/SVIhXS The New iMacs Are Here! The New iMacs Are Here! Coming in just under the wire for 2012, Apple’s sexy, slender new iMacs started shipping at the end of November. http://bit.ly/TVrap1 The First Feature Film Shot Entirely on an iPad 2 We won’t know if it’s actually any good until we see it, but Standards of Living’s iPad-driven production has us intrigued. http://bit.ly/12lUJD9 How the Twentieth Anniversary Mac Changed Everything Rounded Rectangles, Mac|Life’s new design column, takes a look at a mostly forgotten machine that forever altered the course of Apple’s products. http://bit.ly/VCW3eU Get…

I have a fairly serious addiction to reading. Novels, textbooks, newspapers—heck, I’ll read the back of a potato chip bag. Sitting here in my home, I’m beginning to notice a growing problem: my living space is overrun with reading material. Thankfully, the iPad, and now the iPad mini, too, are trusty alternatives to the printed page. But if I’m going to keep my wife from throwing all my stuff in the trash, it’s going to take more than just the obligatory iBooks and Kindle apps. Where’s a word-junkie to turn? A few years after leaving college, my brain started to feel neglected. Buffing up on old subjects, or even learning something brand-new is a breeze with Inkling (free, universal). While textbooks are becoming more readily available on the Kindle platform,…

SUSIE AQ SMARTSPEAKER www.aqaudio.com $179 >>>AirPlay speakers are great, since they work over a longer range than Bluetooth speakers, the audio isn’t compressed, and you can send music to multiple speakers from iTunes or your iOS device. But they tend to be really expensive, too. So AQ Audio’s SmartSpeaker seems like a deal at $179 each (discounts if you buy two or more). Can’t wait to try them out. CHRIS HOFFMAN BLUELOUNGE MILO www.bluelounge.com $29.95 >>>Bluelounge’s accessories always look sharp, and the Milo just got redone in handsome aluminum. (The original plastic version was reduced to $14.95, but it works the same way.) I dig how the suction pads hold my phone at a perfect angle for videochats, and I can still access the ports on the bottom. CHRIS SLATE…

Apple has been very busy over the past year, with new technologies taking the Mac to even greater heights. In the summer, a MacBook Pro refresh brought us the much-vaunted Retina display, the world’s highest-resolution notebook screen. Then an autumn refresh brought us a radically redesigned iMac packed with new features, an exciting new storage solution, and a 13-inch version of the Retina display MacBook Pro. But what do these new technologies mean for you? The late 2012 iMac’s call-out feature is its ultra-thin case. At its edges, its body is now just 5mm thick, and it’s 40 percent smaller in volume than the previous generation. But to achieve this thinner, smaller form factor, Apple had to raise its game in several key areas. The first challenge faced by Apple’s…

Lili If you’re like my wife, you can’t get enough adventure games for your iPad. And if you’re like me, you appreciate colorful, console-quality graphics. Lili ($2.99, universal) delivers on both fronts, with a fun flare for unraveling mysteries while exploring uncharted areas. Word Chums This Scrabble-like game ($2.99, universal) shows you a word’s point value as you build it, and the little badge turns green when you’re at least halfway to the best possible score. You also get an avatar you can level up and buy stuff for, plus the app won’t spam your Facebook wall as much as Words with Friends. Wreck-It Ralph Fix-It Felix Jr. is easily the highlight of Wreck-It Ralph ($0.99, universal), offering a more complete old-school arcade experience than the free FIFJ app. And…

Playing an entire game of football on the go can be difficult. That’s where Madden NFL 13 Social hits its stride. Taking the approach of other turn-based titles, Social tasks players with completing a game in alternating bursts. Each turn consists of one offensive drive (with defense excluded), and you can have multiple games running at any given time. It’s hampered by social game tropes like locked plays and coins required for use, but pumping in cash didn’t seem necessary. Direct control over players is nice, even if passing takes some getting used to, and playing turns when you can makes things move at a fluid pace—one that a game like this really needs. The bottom line. Madden NFL 13 Social might not be the best football game on iOS,…

Keeping up with the 24-hour news cycle is difficult, but the aptly named Summly tries its best to serve up condensed takes on the action using an advanced algorithm. The app peruses a plethora of sources to curate 400-character summaries of the day’s hottest stories that fit neatly on the iPhone screen, without needing to scroll. It’s as incredible a concept as it sounds. But what sounds useful in theory gets a little lost in the translation. Interface issues are a primary issue, as an over-reliance on gestures makes navigation frustrating, with none particularly intuitive. And while Summlys are very easy to read—aside from occasional punctuation issues—they usually don’t expound the story beyond a subhead. The bottom line. Summly is a fine idea, but in this case, the whole is…

As soon as Apple rolled out the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display last summer, all the Mac addicts we know began clamoring for more Retina models, and this past fall Apple obliged, introducing a 13-inch version. From the outside, it looks just like its big brother: The same jaw-dropping LED-backlit display, with 4 times the pixels (2560x1600 in this case). The same advanced ports, including two Thunderbolt ports, two USB 3, HDMI, SDXC, and MagSafe 2. The same thinner, lighter design—this model just 0.75 inch thin (that’s a mere 7 one-hundredths of an inch thicker than a MacBook Air)—and weighing only 3.57 pounds. But inside it’s pretty different. To achieve the same 7-hour battery life, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina has to make a few concessions. You can…

Scott Forstall may have been defenestrated through a skeuomorphically beautiful digital window, but that doesn’t mean that real world–based GUI fluff isn’t alive and hovering over his body. Such electronic noise is apparent in Calendar Plus, whose primary appeal appears to be in its visuals rather than its functionality. To begin with, Calendar Plus has exactly one functional element. It stays up in your menu bar—since iCal doesn’t—and provides you with a fast glimpse of what’s on your calendar. Beyond that, Calendar Plus defaults to iCal (renamed Calendar in Mountain Lion, but we’ll call it iCal here). Click the menu bar icon, and a large, brightly colored calendar opens with a list of events jutting out in a pane on the left, color-coded by which of your iCal or CalDAV…

The Sony RX100 may cost a little more than the average compact camera, but its 20.2MP Exmoor CMOS sensor is a 1-inch device, bigger than that in the much-loved Canon G12 and beaten only by the likes of the much bulkier Canon G1X and Fuji X100. This extra size allows the pixels to be larger, which means that image quality is higher and less noise is generated throughout the camera’s ISO 125–6400 range. Added to this, the RX100 has a 28–100mm (equivalent) Carl Zeiss T* lens with an impressively bright f/1.8 aperture at the shortest focal length (shrinking to a more modest f/4.9 at the telephoto end). As well as allowing fast shutter speeds for use in low light, this large aperture enables depth of field (the size of the…

PhotoDirector is one of a new generation of image-editing programs that both organizes your photos and applies nondestructive adjustments that you can re-adjust at any time. That’s just what Aperture and Adobe Lightroom do, but while PhotoDirector undercuts Lightroom 4 ($149.99) by a fair margin, it costs $15 more than Aperture does on the App Store, so it has a bit to prove. If you’ve used Lightroom, PhotoDirector 4 will look familiar. The program is split into five sections, accessed by buttons running across the top—Library, Adjustment, Edit, Slideshow, and Print. These match the typical image-editing workflow, and you start by using the Library section to import photos, sort them into albums, and add tags—and maybe use PhotoDirector’s face-recognition system to identify your friends. It’s very similar to those used…

While Mac gamers frequently have to wait a substantial amount of time to see AAA games arrive on the platform, the delay is sometimes a gift. Such is the case with The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition. We’re now free to enter this dark, adult-themed, medieval fantasy world at its prime, with user-interface upgrades and add-ons a seamless part of the journey. You’ll need some hefty hardware to get the full experience, but Witcher 2 is an amazingly well-crafted tale with uncompromising grit. Picking up a month after the final events of its predecessor, The Witcher 2 finds monster-slayer Geralt of Rivia recounting the events that have led to his apparent imprisonment. Revealing too much of the incredibly well-written story would be a massive disservice, but the basic…

At first glance, the Logitech UE Boombox looks a bit like something Judy Jetson would carry to a beach party on an asteroid. It’s all smooth curves and brushed aluminum, evoking the Mac Pro’s cheese-grater aesthetic, as well as mid-20th-century design. This is the boombox of the future—there’s no Lightning or 30-pin dock. It connects to your iPhone wirelessly, or use the stereo minijack input. Bluetooth setup is a standard “press and pair” affair, and the Boombox makes a beep when you’re successfully paired. You can connect up to three devices at once, and switch between them on the fly, making this a good investment for owners of multiple devices. That includes the Mac; the UE Boombox’s slim-ish 15.2-by-3.1-inch design is a good stand-in for a pair of computer speakers…

There’s a lot of subtlety in recreating vintage photo effects. A simple sepia effect doesn’t really do it, because your image still has that underlying “digital” clarity and smoothness. The Old Photo effect, applied with the Smart Brush tool, is better. It adds a subtle sepia effect and adds scratches and striations for a “distressed” look. Even this isn’t quite enough, though. The results are contrasty, and the toned black-and-white image doesn’t hint at the colors in the original. Combining the Old Photo effect with subtle adjustments and masking can produce a much more appealing result. First, we need to ensure the key parts of our picture aren’t too dark, as the Old Photo effect will make them darker still. Then we’re going to blur the background to reinforce the…

The new iTunes is a hit in the Mac|Life offices, but our friends on Twitter and Facebook aren’t sure they can dance to it. When we asked for favorite features, biggest gripes, and wishes for the next version, you all had plenty to say... THE GOOD “Personally, I think it was a much-needed update. The option to remove the sidebar is great for use on, say, a 13" MacBook Pro, where screen real estate is limited. Overall, it’s simpler, more user friendly. I don’t regret upgrading one bit.” —ANDREW CLIFTON “I love it. Love the new layout. A little sad that podcasts only get info in one view, and that playlists don’t show on the side anymore. But I love that it shows when you drag a song!” —MATTHEW JORDAN…

Like a lot of people, this Holiday season I got to spend time with friends and family that I don’t often get to see. And like a lot of you, my fellow Apple enthusiasts, people often wanted to chat with me about iPhones, iPads, and Macs. On the flip side, I got to spend some quality time with my sister’s Android phone, and I used the opportunity to take a long look at what the other side has to offer. As a result, I am now 100 percent certain that I would never swap my iPhone for an Android, even if it had twice the processing power, a clearly superior screen, and indestructible construction, because it still wouldn’t have Apple’s App Store. As much as hardware matters, its only purpose…

You’ve likely noticed that Apple is removing optical drives from its Macs, both desktop and laptop. First, the MacBook Air arrived in 2008 without one. Then they disappeared from the Mac mini in 2011. The Retina Display MacBook Pros eschewed them in 2012, and they’re absent from the new slim-line iMacs. They’re still there in the older MacBook Pros and the all-but-forgotten Mac Pro, but when the non-Retina MacBook Pros get revved, don’t expect optical drives. As for the Mac Pro, well, I’m not sure that Apple CEO Tim Cook remembers that his company still offers that elegant workhorse. When Apple’s marketing honcho Phil Schiller introduced the new anorexic iMacs last October, he betrayed Apple’s true feelings toward versatile, do-everything, shiny-disc spinners. “And for those who are still are stuck…

You know that Men’s Health book series and website, Eat This Not That (http://eatthis.menshealth.com), right? That’s the one that explains why French toast is better than Belgian waffles, from a nutritional standpoint, or that an A&W chili dog is a healthier choice than the deluxe cheeseburger. It’s fun to play around with, even if the chances we’ll actually remember their advice when we step up to the counter are small. We thought that same concept would be great for apps, too. Just like you gotta eat, iPhone and iPad users gotta use apps, but some people don’t venture too far past the packed-in options or maybe whatever’s at the top of the App Store charts. But maybe you’re settling for a plain old cake donut when you could have a…

Pulling together a pair of entertainment juggernauts, Angry Birds Star Wars does a stellar job of blending elements from both properties in clever and well-executed ways, making this mega-mash-up much more than a mere cash-in—though it’s sure to bring in plenty of that for its cunning creators. Splitting its focus between the series’ well-worn fling-and-smash approach and the newer gravitational-pull twist established in Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Star Wars utilizes classic characters, scenery, and scenarios from the original film trilogy, recasting the colorful birds as iconic heroes such as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. The former serves as the standard red bird, who at first can only barrel through blocks and glass where he’s flung, though he’ll soon master the use of a Lightsaber, letting you tap the screen…

In its past life as My Xbox Live, Microsoft’s companion app allowed Xbox 360 users to lightly interact with friends, view their created Avatars and Achievements, and have a mobile way to stay looped in on the home console gaming service. Following a radical transformation, the new Xbox SmartGlass goes beyond mere surface-level synergy to become both a touchscreen input device for the console, plus a second screen for expanded game and media experiences. After a breezy syncing process to your Xbox Live account, your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch becomes an extension of the Xbox 360 menu interface. The iOS device screen takes the form of the console’s dashboard, letting you view your Avatar and friends list, discover games and media available on the console, and even browse the…

With its cool top-down perspective on Pandora’s desolate post-apocalyptic landscape, Borderlands Legends HD makes an impressive transition from a first-person shooter to an iOS hybrid of real-time strategy and tower defense. Working with four heroes at once opens up a lot of strategic doors as you join forces to blast burly beasts, with each character offering unique powers. Unlockables and upgrades add incentive to the randomized missions, but trying to control your crew is where Legends starts to come apart. Conducting your quartet is a juggling act that feels like a chore, and with the fast-paced flow of combat, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and have your party wiped out in the process. The bottom line. For all its authentic flash, Borderlands Legends HD doesn’t live up to its namesake’s…

From the folks behind ThumbJam comes DrumJam, a fully featured beatbox and drum sample collection that includes a wide variety of programmed rhythm styles that span a range of world music. Its interface provides both instant gratification and loads of musically useful results, which can be used in actual music-making endeavors. What makes DrumJam really shine is how it lets you instantly mix and match styles and instruments, along with a highly playable interface that encourages exploration. Everything synchronizes in real time, so it’s hard to make something that sounds awful. Its only notable shortcoming is a lack of event-level editing tools, but the app delivers just about everything besides that fine-tuned approach. The bottom line. DrumJam feels like a bargain even at $7.99, and unlike most drummers I know,…

Hollywood is a veritable poster child for Apple products, where Macs have long been favored over Windows PCs, from scriptwriting to post-production. Adobe has offered solutions for the latter nearly forever, but it only recently dipped its toes into the former with Adobe Story. Available in free and subscription-based editions, Story attempts to go beyond simply writing a screenplay or scheduling a production, uniting both in a collaborative workflow that will help producers see their vision through from inception to completion. Story lives in the cloud. There’s no Mac-native desktop app, but because it’s written using Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR), you have a choice of using a modern web browser (Safari, Firefox, or Chrome) or an AIR-enabled build for Mac and Windows. Subscription-based Adobe Story Plus can work offline when…

Launched two decades ago to ensure a document created on one computer could be viewed on another with its formatting intact (indeed, during development it was known within Adobe as “super-ASCII,” making design elements as universally understandable as the ASCII code had made text), Acrobat has become much more. With the arrival of version XI, it completes a critical transition: from being essentially a utility supporting use of the PDF file format to being a full-fledged productivity app. You can create PDF files from pretty much any app that can print documents. And now, when you open those PDF files in Acrobat, you can do much more than viewing and rudimentary modification, which were at the core of previous versions. Instead, you use the new Edit Text & Images tool…

When an app like Skitch has an overhaul, you can approach it in one of two ways: compare it with what it once was, or objectively consider what it now is. In the former case, you might be angry at new owner Evernote amending the interface, and dumbing down some of the app’s features, such as the ability to save to a custom server via FTP. But approach Skitch as a newcomer and there’s much to like. The app makes it simple to take, annotate, and share screen captures. Despite the odd cumbersome moment, adding nondestructive arrows, lines, boxes, and text to an image is child’s play, as is subsequently forwarding it via email or social networks. Of course, if you also sign into Evernote, your images are available on…

Space is a lonely place—especially if you’re a working-class dude trapped in a cube floating through the cosmos, scavenging loot from mutant-filled cargo holds in order to provide for your loved ones. Cargo Commander strikes an intriguing balance between whimsical space-sim and a brutal take on the dungeon crawler–esque “roguelike” genre. Even when the controls have you pulling out your hair, the game’s charm will bring you back, holding your breath for one more space donut. Cargo Commander takes place on an adrift cube, functioning as both home and workspace for a bearded, uniformed protagonist. Beyond the everyman exterior, your character also wears a fist-cannon, capable of drilling through walls or blasting nails into wayward mutants. Your job is to activate a large magnet at the start of each workday,…

Remember those Apple ads that said “There’s an app for that”? ZipCloud is an online backup service whose motto may as well be a variation on that theme. The basic service does exactly what you expect, backing up your files to their secure Amazon S3 backend via the Internet. But the experience is marred by the numerous up-charges. Want hourly backups, faster uploads, or support for large files? Yep, there’s an add-on for that. ZipCloud does a good job of making online backups simple. Signing up only takes a few minutes, and the default backup settings cover everything most users would want to back up, namely your Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Pictures folders. Plus, ZipCloud’s desktop application makes it easy to add additional folders to your backup. ZipCloud automatically backs…

THAT SYNCING FEELING It’s been a while since I last synced the apps on my iPhone with iTunes. Now the Sync Apps checkbox is unchecked in the Apps section of iTunes, and when I check it, I see a warning dialog that says syncing will erase the apps on my phone and replace them with what’s in iTunes. How can I enable app syncing without erasing my device? This dialog (which you’ll encounter in pre-11 versions of iTunes) sounds a bit scary, but not to worry. First, you can make sure the apps on your iPhone are in iTunes by connecting your iPhone and choosing File > Transfer Purchases from iPhone. (If you use iCloud app syncing, any apps you buy on your phone should already be in iTunes, but…

WHAT YOU NEED LEVEL: easy >> iPhoto ’11 Most modern digital cameras can shoot movies as well as stills, and, of course, you can shoot video on your iPhone or iPad, too. Movies are a great way to capture memories and experiences, and video files are almost as easy to work with as still images. Things have moved on since the days of tape-based camcorders, and you no longer have to plug in your camera and capture videos with iMovie. Instead, movies are saved as self-contained video files on the camera’s memory card, and you can copy or drag them across just as you would a photo. The only exception is any camera that shoots movies in the rather more complicated AVCHD format, but these are in the minority. So…

LETTER OF THE MONTH Hello, and Merry Christmas! I have this pre-lit tree that I set up in my classroom every year. My students all know that I am a true Apple fan, and what better way to prove that than by replacing my traditional ornaments with defunct iPods? I have 17 of them (so far) carefully placed on the tree. Everyone agrees that they look great as ornaments, and people from all over the district have been poking their heads into my class to see “the iPod tree.” —Ron Reynolds So…many…questions! has anyone ever tried to steal any of your iPods without realizing they don’t work? have you ever intentionally dropped an iPod because there weren’t enough “ornaments” to balance out the tree? And where did you get 17…

GHOST TRICK: PHANTOM DETECTIVE Free ($9.99 for full content) This unique adventure game casts you as a deceased amnesiac whose spirit can possess and manipulate objects to solve environmental puzzles and protect others from meeting similar grisly fates. As good as the gameplay is, it’s the mystery-driven story and interesting characters that keep me coming back for more. This is one of my favorite games on the Nintendo DS, and I’m more than happy to play it all over again on iOS. Don’t miss it! BACK IN BLACK AC/DC $9.99 At long last, AC/DC has brought its entire library of legendary hits to iTunes, and what better way to celebrate the occasion than with the Australian band’s seminal Back in Black album? Alongside the title track, “Shoot to Thrill” and…

Despite being a month late, iTunes 11 didn’t disappoint. Version 11 has been completely overhauled, reimagined from the ground up, and we love the new features. It’s fully integrated with iCloud to make it easy to find all your purchased music and videos, and all the music you have stored in iTunes Match. The new interface is a huge change from the old iTunes look and feel, but we can help you get comfortable in no time. Kick off your shoes and settle into your new digital living room. And don’t forget to turn up your speakers. WHERE IS MY…? WHERE ARE MY PLAYLISTS? Playlists, both the regular kind and auto-updating Smart Playlists, are at the core of the iTunes experience. In iTunes 11, the playlists are accessible by selecting…

Amidst a hectic day, you may only have spare moments to catch up on the latest world headlines and developments. Rather than serve as another gateway to point you toward lengthy web stories, Circa News does the heavy lifting for you, scouring through various news sources’ pieces to deliver brief and carefully curated summaries that share only the essential bits. Scrolling through the main listing, you’ll find an array of recent stories—spanning hard news, politics, business, and more—and clicking each brings up a colorful intro image with a one-line teaser of what’s ahead. Swiping upward delivers the next screen, showing a pin on a map with the story’s date, along with the first couple of sentences of the story. From there, you’ll find a few more pages, each with only…

Letterpress is a marvel of minimalistic design. From the main menu, it almost looks like a Windows Phone app, featuring multicolored tiles on a stark white backdrop, with only the relevant details in view. Click on any icon and you’ll reveal the game board, with its 5x5 randomized letter arrangement split between each player’s distinctive color. Letterpress is a turn-based game of word creation, and with only 25 total points available on the board, each move tips the momentum as players claim or steal tiles. The only tiles not in play are those you can seal off by surrounding them with other secured tiles; foes can still utilize them for words, but until uncovered, the points remain yours. Words cannot be repeated or lazily pluralized for reuse, and each game…

Perhaps you’ve prepared a meal from an app that made you say “wow,” but when is the last time a cooking app itself elicited that response? Panna is a dazzling vision of what’s possible when such an app takes the form of a specialty magazine—complete with glossy production values—rather than a barrage of images and steps. Every bimonthly digital issue contains a dozen recipes from top celebrity chefs, each presented through a series of well-shot, high-resolution videos. The first issue contains more than three hours of video, which include start-to-finish directions and can be streamed or saved locally. And the app itself is a visual marvel in portrait or landscape, with a sleek and lively UI that’s easy to navigate and heavy on photos and video. Occasional bugs and odd…

When it comes to plunking down cash on fun “necessities” like dinner with the wife at our favorite restaurant, or other guilty pleasures like beer-fueled karaoke nights, it’s sometimes easy to let recreational spending take our meager budget by the reins now and then. But even if you’re frugal outside of sporadic indulgences, more mundane expenses like household bills, groceries, and car repairs can still add up into a nerve-wracking financial sinkhole. Like many self-run professions, the writing life has its pitfalls. Chief among them is that income can wildly fluctuate from one year to the next, and not always in a good way. Last year was a real rollercoaster, so my New Year’s resolution this time around is to tighten the old belt. With the help of some cool…

If Evernote and Keynote and NovaMind were all shoved in a blender, the resulting smoothie might taste a little like Zengobi’s Curio. A virtual whiteboard with presentation capacities, Curio has the organizational chops of Evernote, mind-mapping capabilities comparable to the best apps, and the ability to run slideshows with transitions, though with a limited palette. Taken together, Curio is one fast-loading, responsive package with fantastic potential and tons of flexibility. If there’s a downside, it’s the price: $100 for new users and $50 for upgraders. But you get a lot of bang for your buck, from the excellent Getting Started tutorial to the well-designed pop-over toolbars that’ll look familiar to anyone who’s used an iWork app on iOS. Upon opening Curio, you’ll navigate your projects in the left pane, and…

Most drawing apps have sliders to control things like brush size and opacity, but using just your finger or a regular stylus, it’s hard to feel you have total control. Ten One Design’s Pogo Connect Bluetooth 4.0 Smart Pen is a pressure-sensitive; we hoped it would make drawing on that touchscreen feel more like drawing on our Mac using a Wacom graphics tablet. But the pressure sensitivity features vary between the 13-and-counting compatible drawing and notetaking apps. In ArtSense and Photoshop Touch, for example, pressing hard gave us darker lines, but didn’t change the width, and in Paper by FiftyThree, the thickness changes but not the opacity. The Pogo Connect uses low-power Bluetooth 4.0, so the AAA battery should last a really long time—but this also limits what devices it…

This internet-connected camera features a 60-degree viewing angle, and records color QVGA video at 10 frames per second. It can be wall-mounted, but should be near a plug, as it needs power. The device is easy to set up, and has some good features. It can detect motion or sound, triggering alerts on your iOS device, and you can lower the sensitivity if you get too many false alarms. When an alert is triggered, the camera records a 30-second clip, which is stored on the Stem Cloud service for free. The camera can upload 25 videos a day, which expire after seven days if unmarked, but you can save up to 100 clips. Video quality isn’t outstanding, but it’s clear enough to identify faces. Viewing over Wi-Fi can be patchy,…

On paper (heh), the Brother Business Smart has everything. The multifunction inkjet handles paper from 3.5x5 up to 11x17, in a footprint barely bigger than that, just 18.9 by 11.4 inches, and 7.3 inches high. It can be so compact even while holding 150 sheets of 8.5x11 paper because the paper is loaded, and printed, in landscape orientation, something we haven’t seen before. When not in use, it folds into an unassuming, completely closed rectangle. The Business Smart connects to your Mac over Wi-Fi, USB, or 10/100 Ethernet, and printing from iOS is a cinch using AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, or the free Brother iPrint&Scan app for iPhone and iPad. The large, flip-out control panel has a touchscreen that lets you swipe between menus, as well as a touch panel…

While Apple’s Magic Mouse lets you do a few multi-touch gestures, I’ve never liked how it felt in my hand, and I hate how it scrolls—I’d much rather have a real scrollwheel for navigating the long pages of text I read day in and day out. When I plugged in Kensington’s Pro Fit Mid-Size Mouse, it felt so much more comfortable and responsive that my Magic Mouse immediately went in a drawer and might never come out. Lefties need not apply here—the ergonomic design is shaped to be held in your right hand, but its curves and button placement make it feel great under your fingers and palm. The scrollwheel gives me just enough tactical feedback without any extra noise. (A couple of years ago I used a Microsoft mouse…

Calendar is a great app that has evolved along with OS X to become the hub of a multi-device system. It ties together your iPad, iPhone, and Mac in one handy app environment, but unfortunately, the desktop app on the Mac is often overlooked in favor of the more handy iPhone app. This is because it seems easier to tap in events on the iPhone, or have Siri do the work for you, so the Mac version is left languishing in your dock. Luckily, the Mac App Store is able to breathe a little more life into Calendar thanks to a cool utility called Blotter. It collects the data in your iCloud calendars and the Calendar app, and displays it as your desktop wallpaper. This allows you to see, in…

Spam is everywhere, but with modern email, you can smartly combat this problem. Built into every Mac is the ability to filter out the spam from your Inbox. Apple has made this a relatively simple process with the Mail application, but we’ll show you the ropes in this how-to. Continue reading to learn all about spam-filtering on the Mac. >>>WHAT YOU NEED LEVEL: easy >> A Mac with Apple Mail 1 Activate the Filter To enable the Mail spam filter, navigate to Mail > Preferences > Junk Mail. Once there, check the box labeled “Enable junk mail filtering.” As a safeguard, ensure that the option to “Mark as junk mail, but leave it in my Inbox” is selected under the “When junk mail arrives” option—at least for now. In the…