In-Audible.

It seems they've been around for ever and barely a podcaster clears their throat without telling you how great Audible are these days. And tempting as many of those podcast based Audible promo's and deals are, they are more often than not US only offerings. So when I saw the Audible.co.uk £3.99 & £7.99/month for the first three month offers, I thought it the opportune moment to finally experience Audible for myself and our clients here at The MacDoctor ..... O Brother.

While the range of Audio Books and other material available is impressive, I personally feel the standard £7.99 one book per month book deal is expensive. So the current offer seems far more reasonable, at least in terms of sampling the experience as a whole. The online sign-up process seemed simple enough, but is was once I'd provided personal and financial details that my Audible experience began to fall down.

The membership plans work on the basis of monthly credits added to your account, allowing you to take advantage of the included audiobook purchase and downloads per month. So once signed up and in, where were these credits displayed? Nowhere. A quick search in the 'help' section and it seemed credits would be added at checkout. Simple enough right? So I selected two Audio Books to fulfil my first monthly 2 credit deal (£7.99) and proceeded to the checkout. I was a little perplexed to be asked to confirm my purchase at approximately £34.98. Needless to say I declined.

Back into the Accounts section to check if I was missing something in relation to credits or the setup of my account. Nothing.

Into my email to see if I'd been sent any enlightening instructions by Audible. Nada. Hmm.

I'd noticed that when I'd added the two books to my basket there were 'Join Now' buttons at reduced prices. But I'd already joined right? Yes and no. Until I selected the 'Join Now' options next to the books in question, my credits and subscription plan were not set up. Very confusing. Oh well, I suppose 10 minutes isn't too long to grasp the poor logic of the website and initial purchase design. Right, onwards to download my new bounty .....

Ooooo, Enhanced Audio Formats. Where do I click? 1hour 45minutes for a 180MB download? You've got to be kidding right? Ok, I'll take the MP3 instead for now. 45 minutes for a 80MB download? I'm sat on a DSL connection with a 16Mbps average speed and all seems nice and fast with every other service I use today. Still it's coming down the pipe I suppose.

Some time later and I've finally got two AudioBooks, with mono audio at 22Khz sample rates. You not rocking my world at this stage Audible, and when I realise these aren't simple MP3 files but rather .aa (AudibleAudio) file types I'm even less enamoured.

It's a simple operation to copy the downloaded files into iTunes. But what I want to know and can find no answer to, is whether it's possible to purchase and download Audible content using my Membership plan direct from iTunes? Hello ... anyone?

So for me after today's experience, my Audible trial period will be ending as soon as it began. I noticed Audible is owned by Amazon. Website and price tweaks inline with the parent company may see me return one day. But for now it's been a frustrating and disappointing experience and not something we'd be recommending to clients here at The MacDoctor.

Sorry Audible. C+

The New iMac Line-Up.

Long rumoured and eagerly awaited, yesterdays refresh to the iMac product line certainly hasn't disappointed. Here at The MacDoctor we're constantly asked to provide purchase advice and the new line-up makes our job that much easier. There simply isn't an iMac in the new range we wouldn't be happy to endorse. From the entry level 21.5" 3.06GHZ Core 2 Duo, to the flag ship 27" 2.66Ghz Quad Core i5 every price point and set of user requirements are covered perfectly.

Fantastic to see the base memory configuration at 4GB for all machines and a 500GB minimum storage capacity. With screen size often the first consideration for clients, having two models at the smaller 21.5" and two at the larger 27" provides a much better balance and choice than the previous line-up. And throwing in not only a Wireless keyboard but the new Apple Magic Mouse is a fantastic bonus for al potential purchasers.

Good work Apple, happy spending people!

Word Up!

Here at The MacDoctor, probably the most common question we get from switchers and clients new to the Mac is; 'will it come with Word installed? I need to read and write Word Documents'. It's a totally sensible and understandable question, Word documents being one of the most common file formats exchanged between users and platforms everyday. But it also comes loaded with a common mis-understanding that unchecked see's users spend large amounts of money on Microsoft Office simply to open Word Documents on their lovely new Mac.

To clarify, the .doc (and also .docx) file format was created and maintained by Microsoft for use with it's Word product. But that does not mean only Microsoft Word can read and write .doc (and .docx) files. And further, Word is by no means always the best choice when it comes to word processing tasks at whatever level on the Mac.

For starters, Text Edit, which comes pre-installed on every new Mac, is capable of both opening and creating .doc or .docx files. For many users with basic to intermediate word processing requirements Text Edit, while not the prettiest application is a capable and easy to use piece of software. Next up is iWork's Pages. Part Word Processor, part layout program, Pages gives Word a pretty good run for it's money in virtually every area and surpasses it in many others. Cheaper, easier to use, not to say easier on the eye, Pages becomes a favourite with pretty much every client we introduce it to.

To be honest, if you don't have to use Microsoft Word our advice here at The MacDoctor is don't. It's an expensive, bloated, un-Mac like piece of software, which most users will rarely use more than 10% of. Like most Microsoft software, it tries to be all things to all men and suffers the side effects.

So before you spend your hard earned pennies on Microsoft Office for Mac, give Text Edit or Pages a spin. Word Up!

Out With The Old And In With The New.

Perhaps there's something in the air, it's the time of the year or a modern day Timothy Leary has dropped the Apple Cool Aid into the water supply. But here at The MacDoctor more and more, clients both old and new, are approaching us looking to replace their current Mac hardware. We suspect the reasons are more practical than air or water borne with many hard working and trusty G3's and G4's coming to the end of their productive lives. Many of these machines are still in working order, but a combination of storage, upgrade and service issues are leading many clients to think it may well be time to put those 5,6 and 7 year machines out to pasture and upgrade to Apple's latest and greatest.

It's a decision we often find ourselves being asked to advise on and happily hand out the same key points to one and all. First, has the current machine earned it's keep and proved cost effective to date? Second, what is the lifetime a new purchase is expected to cover and does any possible investment make sense and seem economical over that same time scale? Third, are you using and relying on any current or future machine enough to make it worth your while investing in a brand new machine? And lastly, what are you hoping to gain from the upgrade to a more modern machine?

Once clients have answered those questions, sometimes with our help, the answer is usually clear to either invest in new hardware or stick with the machine they have. If the decision is to invest in new hardware we then advise two more things. One, don't economise on a purchase intended to last 4/5/6/7+ years. What we mean is don't try and save £200 say, on a a more powerful processor, larger hard drive, more memory, faster graphics card etc. Over the planned lifetime of the machine, these savings make little sense when divided yearly. Certainly don't spend more than you can afford but do buy as much as you can for your money. Two, consider purchasing Apple Care for your machine, not at the point you make the initial purchase, but towards the end of the first year.

That's it. If you need anything else you know where to find us!

Up In The Clouds.

Here at The MacDoctor we're often asked by clients to provide a solution to sync their data across multiple machines. And the best way we've found is a system we use ourselves each and everyday. As opposed to one specific service it's actually a combination of services providing separately for email, calendars & contacts & program settings and finally for sync'ing specific user created files and folders. So what's the system and how does it work?

Well, first up is email and we really have to say is IMAP IMAP IMAP. It's certainly not the purpose of this post to explain in detail the full specifications of the protocol. But in essence switching to an IMAP capable server for your email will allow all your mailboxes and folders to remain in sync across multiple machines and platforms. There are as many providers who offer IMAP as those that don't. Our personal choice is Google Mail in the form of Google Apps but there are certainly many more options out there. You may find out your current provider offers IMAP but if not, switching to one that does can be fairly painless.

Second up is our use of MobileMe to sync contacts, calendars and various other program and system settings. This also provides us with push style updates of contacts and calendars to our iPhones, invaluable in the course of a busy and ever changing day. While certainly not denying the occasional problems we've all had with MobileMe syncing over the years, once setup correctly you forget how you ever lived without it.

And finally, DropBox provides our files and folders solution. Simple to setup, stable and reliable in use, the basic free 2GB solution works well for many clients and the paid 50GB model is cheap enough beyond that point.

Something to bear in mind with all three of these provisions and services, is that they not only provide a reliable and robust syncing solution but also an effective off-site backup solution for the data in question into the deal.

At Your Services.

With the release of Snow Leopard, Apple has done a good job of polishing it's previous incarnation of it's operating system, Leopard. And while the snowy cat certainly doesn't deliver any where near the amount of new features and eye candy as it's predecessor, it does include many hidden gems and improvements. One such improvement, and something we find ourselves using everyday here at The MacDoctor, is the new improved contextual Services menus.

In essence Services are a system wide way of allowing common operations to be accessed in any and all suitable applications and in the Finder on any and all suitable files and folders. For a really good primer you could do worse than reading this MacWorld article. And the secret of Services are how easy they are to create yourself using Automator. A quick look in the office and I can see nine home-brew services across the three machines still switched on. From sending an audio file direct to Rogue Amoeba's Fission for editing, to a video conversion Service and an email attachment Service. Once you realise how easy Services are to create and how powerful and time saving they can be, there's no looking back. And our clients seem to agree. We've been surprised by how even novice users have taken to this deceptively powerful utility once it's been demonstrated to them.

So get in there, learn a little about what Services could do for you and start creating your own in Automator. And remember, if you're in Olde London Town and need some help, we're at your Service, so get in touch with The MacDoctor!

Blackberry Desktop For Mac

After a long wait Research In Motion have finally released the long overdue Blackberry Desktop Software For Mac. The hope, is that Blackberry syncing on the Mac platform, will now be as seamless as it has been for other mobile phone models and of course the mighty iPhone. The previous incarnation of the product, Pocket Mac For Blackberry, left much to be desired and developed a reputation for being less than reliable. Leaving the only other contender, Mark Space's Missing Sync For Blackberry, a solid but expensive option.

So does the new software deliver? We'll, at this early stage it's basic to say the least, but in early testing seems solid enough. Only time will tell how reliable and dependable the software really is and here at The MacDoctor we'll be keeping a close eye on our clients experience with the software. But fingers crossed our weekly Blackberry and Mac headaches are coming to an end.