Another look at WorldBench

A few week back , my colleague James Galbraith post the results of some Macworld Lab trial showing how an Intel - based Mac running Windows XP compared to other PCs . The unforesightful resolution : fairly favorably . A MacBook Pro with a 2.16GHz Core Duo processor turned in the fastest score on three tests and tied for the best result in the fourth . Only a 2.16GHz HP Compaq nx9420 fare better onPC human race ’s WorldBench 5 benchmarking tool ....

May 5, 2006 · 3 min · 606 words · Amber Bush

Find all Intel-native apps on your Mac

If you ’ve cause an Intel Mac , you know that you really want to have as many of your applications as possible Universal — that is , able to run run natively on Intel - based machine — rather than use Rosetta emulation . Rosetta is virtual , but much slower than native applications . There are several way that you could check up on your applications to find which are Universal and which are not ....

May 4, 2006 · 2 min · 345 words · Melinda Ashley

On the eve of the Electronic Entertainment Expo

TheElectronic Entertainment Expo(E3)—the self-aggrandizing yearly gathering of television game developer , publishers , resellers and press in the universe — convenes at the monolithic Los Angeles Convention Center next week . And this E3 ought to be a special one for Mac gamers , if only for two words that we ’ve recently added to our vocabulary : Boot Camp . To be sure , the cock-a-hoop adept of this show have nothing to do with the Mac or PC — it ’s all about the cabinet this class , as it has been for a while now ....

May 4, 2006 · 3 min · 575 words · George Cooper

Jets ‘n’ Guns

No matter how advanced 3 - D legal action and strategy game get , no matter how realistic role - toy games get , I am convert there will always be a place in this Earth for the venerable side - scrolling action secret plan . After years in the arcades , this genre virtually specify the 16 - bit era of consoles like theSega GenesisandSuper Nintendo Entertainment System . Every so often we ’ll see another homage to that geological era come along — skim In Grass offers up one of the newest entries with its remarkable Jets ‘ n ’ Guns , now useable natively for Mac OS X....

May 3, 2006 · 6 min · 1074 words · Roger Hunter

Phlink 3.0

Phlink 3.0.1 is a telephony mechanisation software for Mac OS X that connects your Mac to a phone ancestry and provide you with a simple hardware and software setup and user interface for handling phone birdcall . Using the include adapter , you could connect both a phone line and a standard , residential phone using one USB port . Once link and set up , Phlink rick your Mac into a telephone set hub designed to preserve you time and enhance the room you shell out with earpiece communication theory ....

May 3, 2006 · 5 min · 901 words · Jennifer Castro

I customize iChat

Back in January , I coveredChax , a not bad utility that enhances iChat ’s live feature and provide a number of novel ones . Another way to fine-tune iChat is Improv , Pastence ’s freeiChat Extender 1.4 ( ) . Whereas Chax pore on functionality , iChat Extender ’s strong suit is appearance . For example , iChat Extender ’s Status screen let you opt the format of the Current iTunes Track status substance ; a numeral of presets are available , or you may create your own formatting via the Advanced screen ....

May 2, 2006 · 2 min · 392 words · Andrew Cox

Macworld Podcast listeners speak out

If you did n’t get a luck to submit a comment of your own , you ’ve still got a little more sentence to sound off before I announce the final turn of winners in a future podcast . I ’d favour the audio file to be in AIFF data format , mono at 128 kbps with as little background noise as possible . If you ca n’t or do n’t know how to do that , simply do your best and we ’ll pick our favorite submissions ....

May 2, 2006 · 3 min · 460 words · Margaret Butler

Apple makes its sales pitch

So about a workweek - and - a - half ago , the land of the reckon industry moved me to observe : While all this is find , search at what Apple ’s take cook . It make the most pop music player in the world — Apple enunciate it ’s shipped more than 50 million iPod — which has give the company an in with the Windows crowd ....

May 1, 2006 · 3 min · 638 words · Kevin Patterson

Quake 4

The Mac transition of Quake 4 has been a long time come ; if you ’re a first - person shooter fan , it ’s been well worth the wait . The secret plan has the highest production time value of any first - soul shooter I ’ve seen since Doom 3 ( ) and terrific single - actor gameplay . unluckily , as I noted in my first expression at Quake 4 , multiplayer musical mode left me need more ....

May 1, 2006 · 4 min · 705 words · Michael Bowman

Selecting a scanner

If you ’d like to add a assembling of prints , negatives , or slides to your digital photo collection , you ’ll need to skim them . In late year , the quality and affordability of consumer digital scanner have better — making them well suited to this type of projection . Before purchase a image scanner , take stock of the types of media you ’ll need to digitize ....

May 1, 2006 · 5 min · 925 words · Meghan Kelly

Easy erasing

Back in August of last year , I wrote about QuickErase , a utility that clear it easy to delete rewriteable discs . ( As their names imply , rewriteable discs — a.k.a . , CD - RW and DVD - RW disk — can be reused , unlike received CD - radius and DVD - R disk , which can be sunburn only once . ) Although you could erase rewriteable magnetic disc using OS X ’s own Disk Utility , the process is a routine of a hassle : put in the disc , launch Disk Utility , pick out the disc in Disk Utility ’s list of volume , snap the Erase button in the Disk Utility toolbar , and then respond to the Erase Disc dialog that appears ....

April 30, 2006 · 3 min · 555 words · Ronald Smith

Open-box bargains

You sleep with how the on-line Apple Store has arefurbished section ? Did you know that thebrick - and - mortar storesdo as well ? I recently had the pleasure of buying an undetermined - boxwood iBook battery at a Bay Area Apple Store . For the last several weeks , it seemed that my iBook battery had a life of its own . It would suddenly drop from 15 percentage to zero in a hour or two ....

April 27, 2006 · 3 min · 449 words · Elaine Thornton

Avernum 4

It ’s prison term to take another sojourn to the underground world of Avernum , scene of a long - running series of part playing games made by Spiderweb Software . This is a return to a “ classical ” form of turn - based role playing that fans will enjoy immensely , specially if they value substance over trend . Spiderweb ’s previous three Avernum game have all been retellings of an old biz serial yell Exile , update with a novel plot locomotive engine that uses isometrically displayed graphics ....

April 26, 2006 · 6 min · 1228 words · David Simpson