MyRailLite is dead. Long live MyRailLite.

Here in the UK we are not blessed with a rail service that is reliable. Oh the rail operators will probably trot out statistics that say 90%+ this and 95%+ that, but the reality is that out of the last twelve rail journeys I have undertaken, no less than six have been late – the [...]

Logitech Control Centre 2.7, Windows diNovo Edge & Leopard

Logitech Control Centre 2.7 (one step forwards, two steps backwards) and a trio of diNovos.
When I saw the new version of the Logitech Control Centre (LCC) v2.7, and then spotted that it at least recognized my Windows diNovo Edge keyboard, I thought it was a step forward. It now seems that my excitement was a [...]

Icy Box 2 Disk ‘JBOD’ SATA Enclosure – Uncooth but useful

A by-product of having built and upgraded my own Windows PCs in the past is that I now have an assorted collection of 3.5″ IDE and SATA hard disks. However, the one place I was short of storage space was on my entry-level Mac Mini which sports a mere 80Gb internal drive. To solve this, [...]

A (very) cheap and cheerful iPhone 3G case from Wenger

The iPhone 3G is a very sleek and tactile device which presents case manufacturers with a problem. While owners want to keep their phones looking good, a lot of cases simply don’t do the phone justice and end up looking… well just a bit naff, so you have to choose carefully.
Now Wenger make pretty good [...]

Webroot SpySweeper – The curse of the automated renewal

For many years as a Windows PC user, I used various bits of security software. One such product was Webroot SpySweeper and I have to say that it worked very well and generally got good reviews for its performance. However, on switching to the Mac I naturally no longer had a need for it and [...]

Windows diNovo Edge keyboard & Leopard – A step forward?

In addition tp my Logitech MX Revolution mouse, I use a Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard with my Mac Pro. It’s not the Mac version of the diNovo Edge, rather it’s the original Windows version with the soft orange lights. It works fine as a basic keyboard with OS X Leopard, and the volume slider, mute [...]

OpenDNS, a free and useful layer of defence for your Mac

Many people switch to Macs simply because they’re fed up with the constant fight against viruses, trojans, spyware and the like on their Windows PC, and it’s fair to say that as a general rule Macs aren’t yet the victims of such attacks (notwithstanding recent reports of trojan infected pirate copies of Adobe CS4 and [...]

A secure document library for your Mac (part 1)

I spend plenty of time futzing* around on the Mac listening to music, watching movies and surfing the web so it’s quite rewarding when I really put it to good use. Shrinking the mountain of old paperwork that filled dozens of A4 ring binders in my study bookcase was one such project, and I now [...]

Macbitz Musings – Netbooks

I have read lots of posts from people who seem to have a genuine requirement for something larger than an iPhone/iPod Touch and yet smaller than the 13″ MacBook to use for basic web and PDA duties. There are also lots of rumours that Apple is preparing to enter this market, but that they have [...]

Little bundles of… Well, it’s not joy

Having recently added a new hard drive to the Mac, I thought I’d check its ‘SMART’ status just to make sure everything was OK. There’s a neat little app called SMARTReporter that sits on the menu bar and alerts you if any of your drives start to feel a sick – probably long before you [...]