GetItNext Blog

Top Ten Computer Speakers!

If you are looking for a good speaker system to enhance your PC or Mac’s audio output, look no further than our top-ten list of computer speakers for 2009 at GetItNext!

1.   Logitech Z-2300
2.   JBL Duet Speakers
3.   Altec Lansing FX4021 2.1
4.   Harman Kardon SoundSticks II
5.   Logitech Z-5
6.   Creative GigaWorks T40
7.   M-Audio Studiophile AV 40
8.   Bose Companion 2 Multimedia Speaker System
9.   Klipsch Groove PM20 2.0 Speaker System
10. Logitech Z-4 2.1 Speaker System with Subwoofer

Blackberry Taking Apple By Storm

 Looking over the October eBay product searches, I noticed an interesting omission in the top 10.  No Apple 3g iPhone, instead the Blackberry Storm is in the top 10.  Even more interesting is that NO Apple products were in the top 10, no iPod, Macbook, iMac, nothing.  Things that make you go hmm as an Apple shareholder.

eBay Safari Issues and Possible Solution

MacFixIt is reporting that Safari users are receiving an error message and they can not purchase items on eBay.  When they attempt to make a purchase via Safari they receive an error message "Your web browser may not be compatible with eBay's checkout.  Please try again with Mozilla Firefox."

So it looks like users should either download Firefox or keep trying the transaction and it will eventually go through according to MacFixIt. 

Here is the full article on from MacFixIt.

Leopard Review

So the cats out of the bag! Leopard, the newest addition to the OS X operating system for mac, was recently released this past Friday by Apple. With over 300 brand new features and a slight change to the overall look of the OS I have to admit that Leopard is one cool cat. Being a "mac fanboy" I had to get my hands on the new operating system as soon as possible and so I did by pre-ordering Leopard via the Apple Online Store. In typical Apple fashion the package was shipped the same day it was released. I popped in the disk and about an hour later Leopard was installed while leaving all of my previous documents and settings in Tiger untouched. My first reaction was that Leopard wasn't a very noticeable change from Tiger but I soon learned otherwise while I continued to explore Leopard. After using Leopard for the past week or so I have to admit that the new features have made my computing experience much more efficient. Here are some of my finds from using Leopard so far.

The New Desktop/Dock:

With the new transparent finder menu and 3D dock, the look of the OS has evolved from modern to futuristic. This alteration makes the mac look even more elegant than before and I would say it is definitely a great upgrade from the basic look in TIger.

Spaces:

Spaces is one of my favourite features in Leopard. The concept at first seemed useless to me seeing as I have never been bothered by keeping all my applications in "one desktop" but after using spaces for the past few days now I feel as though I can't live without it. It helps to keep me on task while doing school/business related tasks meanwhile keeping all of my different work flows separate and organized. It helps especially with computers that have limited screen space like my macbook as it transforms the relatively limited 13" screen into an exponentially larger screen. Being a university student I have found this to be an effective feature to keep myself focused on work while I have my social life just a few clicks away.

iChat:

Being new to iChat I have to say that I am very impressed with the program and it is a shame that I cannot use it on a daily basis. After giving it a thorough run through, iChat works just as advertised by Apple. It offers fun tools and effects to deliver an entertaining video chat but also many useful business tools such as iChat theater and shared screen capabilities to make it an effective video conferencing program for business related tasks. In the near future I hope to see iChat gain compatability with other chat clients like Adium does to make it a viable alternative.

Finder/Spotlight:

With the finder now offering new features such as preview and cover flow to view files, it offers an even easier way to browse through your files. The preview feature has already proved to be very useful for looking through such files as PDF and powerpoint documents meanwhile I have found cover flow to be most useful when looking through my pictures and applications. Spotlight has also been improved with better search results and the ability to search for definitions and basic number calculations right from your desktop.

Safari:

The new safari offers some great new features to improve your browsing experience. One of my favourites is the new dashboard cut out option which takes any part of a webpage and transforms it into a widget for your dashboard. I also like the new "Find" search engine for locating words on webpages which is now much more usable than the previous one.

Recommendations:

My recommendation for mac users who are unsure about upgrading is that unless you use your mac every day or some of the features would be helpful for your daily computing tasks, I would not upgrade until Apple releases a few more updates to fix some of the minor bugs. If you are interested in buying Leopard I would highly recommend checking out Leopard on GetItNext to find some great deals.

Victor

Apple's iWork: My Thoughts

                        
Soon after Apple's Summer Conference back on August 7th, I rushed over to the Apple website to check out all about the newly updated iWork '08. To my delight I was happy to see that not only did Apple include helpful tutorials, they also had a 30-day trial of the new software suite. After downloading it I was very curious to see the newly added Numbers application that finally completed the family and made it a realistic competitor for Microsoft Office. My first impressions with Numbers is that it is a great spreadsheet application that gives Excel a run for its money. As with all Apple products and programs, it has a very sleek interface and most importantly everything just works and makes sense. It has several unique features that makes Excel look years behind. One of my favourite would have to the automatic calculation feature in the bottom left corner that automatically calculates sum, average, minimum, maximum and count. You can also drag these amounts onto the spreadsheet for easy calculations. I am also am pleased to see that you can export these documents as Excel documents that are fully compatible with Microsoft's Excel (yes I even tried it out for myself, it works!)
    Now on the other hand I have to admit, as far as I have seen with Pages, it has not really changed much and does not seem to be quite on level with Microsoft Word as a word processor. As much as I would like to see all the functionality there is in Microsoft Word in Pages, I will have to wait for the next version and hope for better functionality added by Apple. Aside from the typical word processing jobs I do for school though, Pages has tremendous functionality for other creative jobs and it can offer a professional and creative interface for almost any type of document you can imagine. Definitely worth taking a look at. I even used it when I made my most recent resume!
    Unfortunately for all you fans of Keynote, I have not had a chance yet to take a decent look into it but either way it has always been a great program and IMO much superior to Microsoft's petty PowerPoint. It does apparently offer new transitions and slide interfaces which can only mean it has been improved. When I do get a chance to give the new Keynote a fair trial I will be sure to let you know my thoughts...From what I have seen it looks just as great as before!

If any of you are interested in iWork '08 whatsoever I highly recommend checking it out! Definitely a worthwhile suite of programs for anyone with a mac computer. If you're looking into getting a mac for the first time though I recommend checking out the great deals on macs and mac products available through getitnext.

Victor

Apple Event Today: What's Coming!!!

So the Apple store is down(adding the soon to be revealed items), the press meeting is about to get underway in Cupertino at the Apple Campus and just about everyone is watching and waiting for the latest and greatest of the Apple line of products. A new iMac? Mac mini? Blu-Ray? Multi-touch incorporated into their computer line? No one really knows anything yet but my money is going for a brand new iMac with that updated keyboard everyone has been talking about! I guess we'll just have to wait and see...Keep posted I'll most likely have the new products listed up here as soon as they are announced! Can't wait!

Victor

Battle of the Browsers: Part 2

So just in case you never got a look at my first blog in this series you can check it out first by clicking on this link. So just in case you didn't quite pick up on it in the last blog, I do prefer using Safari for web browsing on my mac. Now most likely being the minority in this case I just want to let you guys know that I do think that Firefox is a great browser and that it can handle everything I could ever want and then some! Now since my browsing needs are pretty minimal, Safari has become my primary browser since it does tend to flow much more nicely with OS X and most importantly it has all the eye-candy I could ever want with its beautiful GUI. On the other hand though, Safari does still lack much of the features I wish were included and hope to see in its future versions. Since I did tear apart Firefox's sub-par "looks" on such pages as Facebook and Google I figured it would be fair now to talk about the downsides of Safari in terms of functionality and features. To begin, I have to start off with one of my biggest pet-peeves regarding Safari but I guess this is more so directed to Google rather than Apple. This of course is the lack of a Google Toolbar for Safari. Like c'mon guys, with the great partnership these guys have you would figure that Google would finally put together even a very basic toolbar for Safari. But lets leave that for another day, I must move onto another big problem for me and that is regarding tabbed browsing. I really do believe tabbed browsing is the smartest and most efficient way to have several windows open at once. On the same note I believe it is a great feature that should eventually be implemented into all programs that utilize more than one window(ie. MSN Messenger). Safari has not seemed to take full advantage of tabbed browsing yet and does not even offer the option to automatically open up new windows in a tab unless you are to manually hold down a command key or right-click the tab bar to open up a new tab and copy and paste the address if you want to get real technical. Along with this, Safari does not even give the option to have a warning message before you close Safari with multiple tabs open in the case that you may have forgotten about tabs or you have accidentally clicked the exit button(really a downside!). All in all though I feel that Safari needs to get with the times and embrace tabbed browsing as it is a great innovation for browsing the internet. Oh and I should add that I do love how Firefox has utilized tabbed browsing and best of all just double clicking to open a new tab, what a nice feature!(definitely one of my favourite features!) Ok, now before I turn this blog into a novel I feel its best that I stop now and leave a open possibility for a part 3 of this exciting series! :P If you are interested in checking out Safari you could always download it from Apple for the PC  version or invest in a new mac. Personally I don't feel the PC version of Safari does justice for the mac version but hey at least you can get an idea! Keep you're eyes peeled for a possible part 3 in the future!

Victor

Battle of the Browsers!

Being new to the mac platform I was only able to choose between a handful of internet browsers available for OS X. Whether it was Opera, Firefox, Safari, or Camino I was going to need a browser that could serve my typical web browsing needs. When it came down to it I eventually grew attached to OS X's included and default browser that comes as part of the iLife suite of applications bundled with the macbook laptop. Since I've begun using it I must say that I have never been let down and I feel that it has all the necessary functions to serve my browsing needs. In time though I did realize that Safari was not compatible with everything on the net. When I came to this unfortunate realization I had to find another browser that could function as my "back up" browser when Safari couldn't function properly for such sites as typepad for writing blogs... If that flew over your head than I should let you know that I am using the alternate browser right now which is the very popular Firefox. Being curious about the Firefox side of things I did give it a try as my default browser but that only lasted a few days before I was missing my Safari. Now after being able to experience both browsers for some time now I have some things I like and on the other hand some things I don't. For Safari I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy the very simple interface along with the very elegant GUI which gives it a more mature and "upper class" look. Just to show you a comparison in terms of elegance I have taken a screen-shot of both browsers on the very popular and familiar website facebook.

Now as you can see, Safari uses a very cool looking blue shadow around the boxes to show which you have clicked on and it turns the typical square login button into a very pleasing brushed metal oval button. Along with this Safari does seem to soften the look of some texts on websites to make them look more modern and less "old school." Speaking of old school, if you've never seen the DVD I highly recommend checking it out.

Anyways, now as we look at the Firefox side of things it does have that typical browser look with the ugly yellow highlighting and the standard looking buttons. One other little GUI feature that I do like in Safari is the nice looking animation for moving texts or bookmarks. In the end this is only a matter of looks but for me and my minimal browsing needs, little things like this do go noticed. Now in terms of usability I once again do seem to prefer Safari as it does seem to be noticeably faster than Firefox, especially in terms of start-up. On the other hand Firefox does impress me with some things that I wish Safari had. One of these is its find feature that pops up at the bottom to avoid cluttering your screen. There is also the very nice double-click tab feature that allows you to just double-click the tab bar in any open spot to open a new tab. With Safari though you need to right-click to open a new tab or use one of the keyboard shortcuts. Firefox also does have the great advantage of having the Google toolbar available for download which I personally do miss a lot from my old browser. I really do wish that Google would get on top of things and finally make a toolbar for Safari!

In the end both are great browsers but for the time being I will stick with Safari for my browsing needs...I'm already getting withdrawal symptoms!

Ps. Keep an eye out for a continuation of this battle of the browsers, I will be posting a follow-up in the future.

Victor

Searching eBay made easier!  getitnext.com

Macbook Sleeves - Which one is right for you?

I recently (along with a growing number of people these days) bought my first Macbook. I opted for the black one, and so far I have nothing bad to say about it. The only thing that somewhat troubled me was looking for a sleeve. Personally, I wasn't looking for a very large laptop bag to carry around my Macbook, but more of a sleeve type thing. After doing a number of Google searches, I found quite a wide variety of sleeves to suit anyones taste. Heres the best of what I came up with:

Brenthaven makes a nice hybrid bag/sleeve, the Edge I, that has a unique CORE Protection System to protect your laptop, unlike softer neoprene sleeves. It has a removable shoulder strap and cool retractable handles to keep it sleek. There is one pocket on the back for things like newspapers, however an power cord pocket is extra. This bag would be alright for throwing in a backpack or something but probably better standing alone.

Fabrixcases makes some very colourful sleeves that are perfect for putting your macbook in and tossing in a backpack or other bag. They are a very simple design with a Velcro tab to close them. The only drawbacks - handles are extra and there are no pockets (but hey, if your throwing it in your backpack these aren't necessary).

Wrappers makes some cool sleeves that your macbook simply slips into. These cases are pretty awesome because they double as a mat to reduce the heat felt on your lap from your laptop and are spongy to reduce any impacts they might have. The only drawback on this one - there is no tab or flap to secure your laptop in the case.

If you are looking for a straight forward sleeve for your macbook without anything too fancy, check out Applesac sleeves. They are very simple and sleek, perfect for using in a backpack and come in a number of designs to show your true colours.

Waterfield makes some very reliable sleeves that are very well constructed and work well as stand alone cases or as sleeves for larger bags. Their simple design will keep your macbook nice and safe.

Finally Incase makes a few very good sleeves for macbooks. The standard neoprene sleeve is a very safe bet, with its very sleek, simple design. The one that I personally own is the Incase hybrid case/sleeve. It offers many pockets for things like iPods, charger or other wires you might use while still remaining quite small and compact with a removable shoulder strap so it can be used as a stand alone bag.

As you can see, there are quite a few options that have many different features. Before making a decision, make sure you check each one out as there is surely one with the features for you!

Jared
Be the first to get it....getitnext.com

The Big Apple Keeps Getting Bigger Earnings Released

The big apple keeps growing bigger and bigger.  Apple profit rises 73%; and revenue climbs to $5.41 billion

AAPL137.26, +2.37, +1.8% ) on Wednesday reported that their fiscal third-quarter profit of $818 million, or 92 cents a share, compared to $472 million, or 54 cents a share during the same period a year ago. Revenue rose almost 24% to $5.41 billion from last-year's $4.37 billion. These results are greater than estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.  Thomson forecast Apple to earn 72 cents a share on $5.29 billion in sales. Apple said that it sold 1.76 million Macintosh computers and 9.8 million iPods during the quarter. In a statement, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the company expects to have sold 1 million iPhones by the end of its fiscal fourth quarter.

Apple continues to keep growing and growing, still a good investment imo.

Matt
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