The Pink Mac

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!

The Pink Mac

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!

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The Pink Mac’s Holiday Gift Guide 2009!

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?
The Pink Mac

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!
The Pink Mac

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!
The Pink Mac

"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!
The Pink Mac

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!
The Pink Mac

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!

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New White Macbook vs. Macbook Pro

Here it is! My video comparison of the new White Macbook side by side with the Macbook Pro. If you aren’t able to watch the video, let me give you a quick written review of the specs and what makes these two models different.
New White Macbook Base Specs:
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
250 GB Hard Drive
2 GB of DDR3 Memory
New Brighter Display
Full Unibody Construction
7 Hour Battery
Multi-Touch Glass Trackpad
Total $999
Aluminum Macbook Pro Base Specs:
2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
160 GB Hard Drive
2 GB of DDR3 Memory
LED Display
Full Unibody Construction
7 Hour Battery
Multi- Touch Glass Trackpad
SD Card Slot
FireWire 800
Back-lit keyboard
Battery Indicator Light
Total $1,199
Obviously, each model also includes a display port, ethernet port, two USBs, an audio in/out, Kensington Lock, and a Superdrive, so we can just ignore those specs, along with the processor, the memory, 7 hour battery and glass track pads which are the same between the two models. What we are really interested in are the components of the computer that differ. To begin with, the screen. Although they both have the same screen resolution and LED Backlit display, the Macbook Pro still has a superior quality of the screen. In the video you can see the difference between the colors on each screen and although I believe Apple has made vast improvements to the Macbook’s screen, it is still not on par with the Macbook Pro.
Now, the Macbook has a greater hard drive capacity in the base model. There is no way around this, the numbers speak for themselves. You can of course upgrade the size of the Macbook Pro’s hard drive, but this is one area where the new Macbook is superior to the Macbook Pro. However, this is really where the superiority ends, as the Macbook lacks many of the great features that make the Macbook Pro a more functional and fully equipped computer.
These Pro features include the SD card slot, FireWire 800, a back lit keyboard, and battery indicator lights. Now, for a difference of $200 you can get all these useful features, by giving up 90 GBs of hard drive space, and to me, that is worth it. When it comes to computers, space isn’t a major issue because hard drives are one of the most easily replaceable components of any computer. Apple charges you a mere $50 to equip your Macbook Pro with a 250 GB hard drive, and for not too much more, you can bring your laptop to an Apple certified repair business to have the hard drive upgraded. You also have the option of many different forms of external hard drive space that any computer owner should use to back up their files -if for no other purpose. Remember, you can always get more hard drive space, but you can’t just add an SD card slot, or a backlit display to a notebook computer.
When it comes down to it, the difference between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro base models is $200, and you certainly get your money’s worth for the difference, especially if you are someone, who like me, values those added features and would prefer them to a $200 savings. Of course, another major factor in the decision between the two machines is the difference between white plastic and aluminum, and although I am not going to discuss that difference because to me it will always come down to personal taste, I just wanted to remind my readers that this is a machine that you will probably have for some time and you should like the way it looks just as much as you like the way it works. So, if you love the way the white Macbook looks and can’t stand the Aluminum, I think you have already made your choice, because no amount of extra features will turn one unibody into another 😉
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NaNoWriMo 2009

I just wanted to let everyone know I am an official participant in NaNoWriMo 2009. If your not familiar with the annual event, I will explain. For the past 11 years, November has been National Novel Writing Month, where people from around the globe attempt in write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days. I have been interested in participating in the event for a few years now, but I have either forgotten about it or was too late/busy to join. This year, however, I am official! You can visit my “Author Page” here and follow my progress online. If you too are participating, feel free to add me as a writing buddy- so far I have none 😉
On the advice of the dedicated writer/bloggers over at Macworld who are also participating in NaNoWriMo, I have decided to download and use the writing program Scrivener, which is offering an extended trial of the software for those participating in the event. I downloaded it yesterday and started playing around with it, so I suppose after this month is up I will have a good review of the program for you guys. Best part is, Literature and Latte (the developers) are offering 20% discounts on the program for those who participate in NaNoWriMo and 50% discounts for those who win (winning means hitting the 50k word mark)! Hopefully, if things go well, I will have my own copy of Scrivener half off come December!
On a blog related note, I am expecting this to sorta take over my life for the next month, so chances are posts will be scarce, but I will try my best to get you guys some great content to hold you over until December! As always, thanks for your support- I really do appreciate all you each do to help me make this blog a success.
I’m not going to say “goodbye” because I do not intent to leave you for a month, but I do wish you a Happy Halloween, and while I’m at it a Happy Thanksgiving in advance!