Since the first two items on my favorite things list were Apple products, I should probably switch gears a bit and talk about some great products from some other companies. One of my favorite little accessories from 2009 has been the Pogo Sketch from Ten One Designs, which you may remember seeing on my Holiday Gift Guide. Ten One Designs makes a few different products mostly designed to aid users of touch enabled devices. Their Pogo line of touch screen pens are inexpensive but high quality and make very nice accessories to any phone, mp3 player or computer with touch capabilites. I suggest the Pogo Sketch, because unlike it’s sibling the Pogo Stylus it has a build in clip and works on a wider range of touch screens including the Macbook trackpad! I’ve been using mine to draw and although it’s not the same level of quality as a Wacom Tablet, it is a great deal for anyone who needs a little more control than a mouse offers!
My Favorite Things of 2009: Macbook Pro
The next tech item to grace my Favorite Things of 2009 list is the Macbook Pro. If you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know that this summer I purchased the newly redesigned 13” Macbook Pro. I have also been fortunate enough to have hands on experience with the 15” model, which my boyfriend purchased a few weeks ago. Overall, I can say with certainty that the Macbook Pro line leaves nothing to be desired. What Apple had introduced with the aluminum unibody in 2008, they practically perfected with the new builds in 2009. These machines are fast, beautiful, and full of functionality, and after more than 6 months with mine, I can say it is still as fast as ever, and in this time hasn’t given me any grief. It was such a step up from my old 2006 white Macbook in every way. The screen resolution is amazing, the processor, hard drive capacity and ram make it a phenomenal machine, and the redesign to the ports make the Macbook Pro the perfect notebook computer- and that’s without mentioning the operating system!
My Favorite Things of 2009: Magic Mouse
The first of my favorite tech things of 2009 that I am going to review for you is something that I have been using for about a month now, but I have been waiting until now to review. Apple’s Magic Mouse made it’s debut at the end of October alongside a beefed up iMac and a remarkable new Macbook which I have already reviewed, and although it was the smalled addition to the Apple family that day, it was my favorite. It took me until Mid November to finally get my hands on the little gadget, but I ended up purchasing two; one for myself and one for my boyfriend who had just purchased his first Mac, the 15″ Macbook Pro. It was my mid-NaNoWriMo gift to myself for being so on track, and I figured it would help motivate me through the rest of the month.
So, like I said, I have had it for about a month now and I absolutely love it because for me, it is the best of both worlds; part track pad, part mouse. I think that is the best way to describe it in fact. It is a movable track pad with some multi touch capabilities. It is lightweight, sleek and small, more ergonomic than a track pad itself and far more attractive on my desk. The one major downside to the device is the lack of the range of multi touch gestures the Macbook track pads have, but this is an issue Apple can fix in an software update if they wanted to. I am sure they will, and they certainly should, but then they would have to change the name of the mouse to “Mystical” or “Amazing” because adding more multi touch gestures would make this mouse more than just Magic.
I am aware that some people who have used the Magic Mouse complain of the slow tracking speed, but I was able to adjust the tracking of the mouse to suit my preferences and I am pleased with that. Also, some have complained that the mouse doesn’t glide as easily as they would like across surfaces, although again, this hasn’t been a problem for me and in fact I think the weight of the mouse makes it easier to glide than any other mouse I have used.
I am certainly not someone who was ever fanatical about a mouse, in fact, I hardly use one, but the design of Apple’s Magic Mouse makes me want to use it and makes it easy for a track pad loving girl like me to switch over to a mouse from time to time. That is what makes a product great in my eyes and that is why it has officially earned a place on my Favorite Things list of 2009!
A few of my favorite things…
Over the next few weeks before New Years I plan to write a series of posts dedicated to my favorite techy things of 2009. I plan to limit my posts to gadgets and gear I own or have used throughout the year, so I hope you will be stopping back to see what goodies I have for you that I may or may not have already reviewed over the year. There are a few choice items I have been holding off on reviewing for this very purpose and some others for which I will give a follow up review with my second thoughts. I know December is a busy month for everyone so I hope these posts make up for my lack of constant posting this month!
The Pink Mac’s Holiday Gift Guide 2009!
Now that the holiday season is finally here, it is time for The Pink Mac’s Holiday Gift Guide. This year has been groundbreaking in many ways in regard to consumer electronics, and especially Apple products. We have seen some amazing bumps in product standards and at the same time some big price drops which have made gadgets and accesories even more affordable! So, I have put together a list of some of the best and most interesting Apple related accessories and products out on the market today, taking into consideration quality and price to ensure that you are giving only the best and most unique gifts this season!
Gifts for Mac’s
Hu2 Design Laptop Decals: These vinyl laptop decals are unique and durable; a sure way to brighten up any Mac user’s holiday!
Fabrix Laptop Cases: The usual brand of laptop cases can get boring, so instead, consider Fabrix cases; they’re handmade and made from unique fabric designs that are sure to spread the holiday cheer!
Apple’s Magic Mouse: For any mouse using Mac user in your family, Apple’s Magic Mouse has all the familiar gestures of a trackpad with the functionality of a mouse!
Gifts for iPod’s
iSkin Nanovibes: Give the gift of unique iPod protection with these interesting patterned cases!
Richard Solo 1800 for iPod: For the avid iPod user in your life, consider this backup iPod power source- small and compact- perfect for the ipod user on the go!
Belkin Rockstar: Does your ipod lover like to share their music? Then this is the perfect gift for them, allowing for up to 5 users to experience the tunes!
Apple Sidekicks
Nook: This well designed e-reader looks the part of the Apple lineup, and with it’s simple touch screen design, it puts other e-readers to shame!
Canon Powershot: There is no doubt that Canon makes some of the best compact digital camera’s out on the market, and this compact design is the perfect gift for any photo lover!
Bose Headphones: What is all the great audio technology good for if you can’t experience it full throttle? These bose headphones are compact enough for use at home or on the go and will surely strike a chord with any music or movie lover in your life.
Stocking Stuffers
Monster Screen Cleaner: Keeping your gadget’s LCD screens clean is always important for frequent users, so stuff some of this in their stockings to keep all their gadets looking new!
Pogo Sketch: Whether it is the touch screen of a iPod or trackpad of a Macbook, this inexpensive accessory is a perfect stocking stuffer for your gadget lover, and cheap enough for you to splurge on yourself!
Netflicks Gift Subscription: Who needs on-demand movies and expensive extra channels when, for less than the price of a single DVD, you can have access to an entire movie library and streaming DVDs online?
Holiday Sales on Great Tech Gear!
Happy Holiday’s to all! Well, now that the holiday season in is full swing, I thought I would share with you all some discounts for tech gear that I have found.
I received in my email the other day a holiday coupon code for Clark & Mayfield that I thought I would share with you all. It’s good for 20% off your purchase and free shipping to the lower 48 states within the U.S. Just use the code holiday09!
Speck is having a holiday sale as well, their hard shell covers for the Macbook line are buy one- get one 50% off! Just shop on their site!
My Gear Store has a Black Friday sale going on until 11/30/09. Use the code Black20 for 20% off their already reduced prices on any purchase!
Finally, Best Buy has begun their 2-day Cyber Monday sale today with free shipping on all orders over $25 and some great deals all around their site, so be sure to check them out as well!
I Won NaNoWriMo 2009!
So, I wrote a novel, now what? Oh right, blog! Yep, that’s right girls and boys, I am an official winner of NaNoWriMo 2009! I hit the 50,ooo word mark today and just kept on typing. My novel is officially written, but not completely edited. I guess I can spend the rest of the month on that! For now, I am going to spend the rest of the night relaxing, but I just wanted to share the good news with all of my favorite readers. Thanks for sticking with me this month despite the lack of posting! I will be back full force with some great content very soon!
"And there you were, working on your Mac…"
So, my word count for NaNoWriMo is ahead of schedule and I’ve hit the 42,000 word mark this morning so I thought I would take a little break and show you guys one of my favorite quasi Mac related scenes in a movie. This clip is from Best in Show and, well, I can’t really describe it to you, so you will have to watch it, but I think it’s hysterical. Now that my boyfriend has a new 15″ Macbook Pro, I feel like this is us, minus the geeky braces and law degrees. Enjoy!
Mulberry for Apple.
While I have been off writing my novel for NaNoWriMo, there have been a few things that I found online I wanted to shared with you. One of these is the new Mulberry line of accessories for Apple. Here are a few of the items in the new line:
Daria Sleeve, $550
Daria mini messenger for iPhone, $250
Bayswater tote for 13″ Macbook, $1,195
As you can see, this is obviously yet another high end accessory line for Apple specific gear, and it reminds me a lot of Violet May’s line of tech accessories with their bright girlish colors and textures, but especially (or, unfortunately) in their price points. Well, at least they are pretty to look at!
MacHeist nanoBundle!
I just wanted to remind everyone that the MacHeist nanoBundle is out for download and it is free! For those of you who are not familiar, MacHeist annually gives away bundles of Mac software for either (A) a ridiculously discounted bundle price or (B) for free. This time around they went with option B, so for FREE you get 6 great pieces of Mac OS X software. This year it looks like they are going with the NaNoWriMo theme and giving out 2 word processing tools, WriteRoom, and Mariner Write, so I just had to get my bundle asap! They are also giving away ShoveBox, Twitterific, TinyGrab, and Hordes of Orcs. I really think this is a great bundle and you can’t beat the price so head on over to MacHeist.com to get yours now! By the way, Mariner Write doesn’t unlock until they reach 500,000 participants so go sign up so I can try it out! Remember their are only 5 days left so get em while they last!