Recommended
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Note: Amazon offers new & used products from many dealers. New products ordered directly from Amazon typically include free Super Saver shipping. If an Amazon page shows another dealer, click the "used & new" link to find an Amazon-direct page.
Alsoft DiskWarrior 4
When hard disk corruption occurs, your Mac may behave strangely (e.g., loooong pauses in Finder or Open/Close dialogs). In severe cases your Mac will refuse to startup. When Apple's Disk First Aid (a feature of the Disk Utility) fails to fix a corrupted disk, turn to DiskWarrior. Have it on hand before problems arise.
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Alsoft's DiskWarrior 4 is the disk repair champion.
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Mac OS X "Leopard" (10.5)
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Mac OS X "Leopard" adds Time Machine ("A giant leap backward") and Spaces ("Room for everything"), as well as enhancements to Finder, Mail, iChat, ....
Leopard requires a Mac with built-in Firewire and a G4†, G5 or Intel processor, which excludes older Macs like the eMac and original iMac.
Order the Family Pack if you're upgrading several Macs under the same roof.
† G4/867 or faster
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iLife '08
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iLife '08 includes enhanced versions of iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD and Garage Band, and iWeb.
Order the Family Pack if you're putting iLife on several Macs under the same roof.
See also: iPhoto '08: The Missing Manual
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iWork '08
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iWork '08 combines the brand new Numbers spreadsheet with Pages (word processor) and Keynote (slide presentation) application—an "Office" suite, the Mac way! All three work in great harmony with iLife applications. Plus they're compatible with MS Excel, MS Word and MS PowerPoint.
Order the Family Pack if you're putting iWork on several Macs under the same roof.
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Aperture 2
FileMaker Pro 9 & FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced
Windows on Mac OS X
Back in Mac's PowerPC days, Virtual PC provided an Intel PC emulator that enabled PC operating systems (mostly various releases of Windows) to run in a window on Mac OS X. Since the Power PC CPU was pretending to be an Intel CPU, performance of Virtual PC, even on the fastest Macs, gave new meaning to the computing adjective "glacial."
With the advent of Macs with Intel Inside™, Windows "virtualization" became a practical solution for Mac users who needs to run Windows applications and the Windows environment at the same time as Mac OS X. (Apple's Boot Camp takes a different approach, allowing you to startup your Mac as a Windows PC or as a Mac, i.e., one or the other, but not both at the same time.)
| SWsoft Parallels Desktop for Mac was first to the Mac market with Windows virtualization. |
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VMware Fusion is a recent entry.
Fusion is the solution I've chosen for my Mac.
See the Amazon page for a $20 rebate.
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Parallels and Fusion, running on Mac OS X, provide a platform for running an PC operating system (typically MS Windows XP or Vista) plus layered applications (e.g., QuickBooks for Windows). So, at a minimum, you need to add a copy of MS Windows to your shopping list.
| Windows XP is the most popular choice for Windows on a Mac. The XP Home Edition is best choice for a single-user environment.
Choose Windows XP Professional if you need Remote Desktop, website hosting, encrypted files, multi-lingual interface, and other advanced features.
Choose the Full Version ($191.49) for support by Microsoft or the XP Home Edition for System Builders if you're comfortable supporting yourself.
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Windows Vista is an alternative if you absolutely must run the latest release of Windows. It's not very popular because it's considerably slower than Window XP on the same hardware.
Although Vista Home Edition Basic ($109.99 – $164.49) may run in a virtual machine, Microsoft's license specifically prohibits this. So your most affordable choice is Vista Business ($144.99 – $269.99).
Note: The price differences are System Builder vs. Full Version.
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