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Four products in one review
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Blue Lounge CableDrops are simple little, semi-flexible, self-stick buttons designed to collect and route cables.
Peel off the back, stick it a surface, push the cable(s) into the clip.
For the surface you want to stick one to, preferably choose something shiny or the side of a desk or even of a monitor or computer tower. In my experience, if you try and get a sticky surface of this type off a standard NZ painted gib-board wall, the paint will peel off with is.
These are very easy to use and handy. One pack comes with six buttons, two in each of three colours (the bright range contains purple, tangerine and greeny-yellow; the muted range contains orange, white and brown), so if you’re wise you can even colour-code the types of cables or the tasks they carry out.
You can fit three or four cables into one clip, depending on cable thickness.
Verdict: If cables drive you mad, here's an elegant solution that's very easy to use.
Blue Lounge CableDrop multipurpose clips, RRP $30
Contact MacGear NZ
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SmirkAbout protective art skins come sized for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch – in fact, the entire SmirkAbout catalogue is available today across over 500 supported devices including the Kindle.The SmirkAbout iPad skins provide some scratch protection and are designed for the front and back of the device. A matching digital wallpaper is available as a free download from www.smirkabout.com. This combination of physical and digital art provides a more cohesive finish and better grip due to the slight matte texture of the vinyl.
Online, you can preview designs on all of the 500+ supported devices. All SmirkAbout skins are easy-on/clean-off, provide UV protection and have lifetime guarantees. The catalogue of designs is from international artists and ranges from paintings to illustration to photography.
Australia-based SmirkAbout has online stores for 10 geographic regions, with local pricing and local shipping rates. SmirkAbout skins can be applied to a wide range of devices including phones, laptops, netbooks, handheld game consoles and controllers, tablets and eReaders.
Verdict: Curmudgeonly adults don't get 'em; some kids love 'em. And hey, your iPhone is less likely to slide out of your breast pocket into the bathroom sink. Or worse.
Smirk About skins – for iPhone $14.95 each; for iPad and MacBook Pro 15-inch $31.95.
More info: Smirk About
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Smirk About Budsock
The Budsock is designed to keep your headphones and earbuds tangle free. It Budsock attaches directly and unobtrusively over the headphone cable, at the junction where the headphone leads separate.
When you've finished, you can pull the ear buds down into the Budsock and tuck the head phone plug in between the studs and snap them shut. The head phones and plug stay protected in the Budsock and the cord is in a single loop, preventing knotting.
Verdict: I didn't find these much use as far as just wearing earbuds went, but they're useful for the instant 'put-away tidily' function.
Smirk About Budsock, $3.50 each plus p&p.
Contact Smirk About
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Norton Internet Security Dual Protection
Coming in a pack with a disc for Windows Vista and another for Mac OS X, thus justifying the ‘dual protection’ bit, Norton Internet Security has Norton Antrvirus 11 for Mac, plus Norton Confidential, Firewall and Deepsight (four apps), whereas on the Windows disc there’s Antivirus, Personal Firewall, Antispyware, Antiphishing, Identity Safe, Browser Protection (six applications).
Installation in Mac OS requires your password and a restart, and don’t worry about the differences in names – once your Mac is back up and running, you get a Setup Assistant that talks you through the location-aware firewall, phishing protection, virus protection and ‘vulnerability’ protection – so at face value, all the Windows’ protection bases seem to get covered despite there being two less programs on the Mac disc.
As you follow through the screens, the Firewall settings are of interest. Every Mac comes with a firewall anyway, and you can turn it on or off and tailor it to a small extent (by pressing the Advanced tab) in System Preferences under Security. I had mine off, actually, as I could not resolve problems with iChat with it on, no matter how often I fiddled with it.
In NIS, I can allow local connections under Apple file sharing, or disallow or block them, plus make settings for Common Internet File System (CIFS), Kerberos, Printer Sharing and Windows File Sharing.
A More Info … button tells you what the Firewall is and does. To summarise, some services on your Mac allow connections and and out – a Firewall stops this occurring, to stop access by nefarious people and/or ‘bots’, but of course, you want some computers (say, on your own network) to access some services (like the one printer in the building).
Once you OK the final dialogue in this assistant, you may be asked if you want SMTP to allow connections. You most likely do, as that’s the protocol that lets email in and out.
All in all, the Mac protection seems to work as advertised, but be warned if you administer any sites using a Content Management Service (CMS) interface. Norton NIS can prevent it working on Safari and Firefox, and I never did resolve access until I uninstalled it – and there’s a plus – anything like this should ship with an Uninstaller and it did.
Verdict: If you have a Mac and a Windows PC, or a Mac upon which you also run Windows, this looks like a good, thorough and comprehensive system that’s relatively easy to understand and configure, at least on the Mac side. But hey – I still didn’t find any Mac-specific viruses, although I did detect three PC trojans in archived emails from PC users. So there’s a warning.
On the downside, it kept waking my Mac up to scan – all those intrusive scans, yet nothing detected. Draw your own conclusions – but if viruses arrived, this looks like it would cope.
Norton for Mac Dual Protection RRP is $129.99 (Norton for Mac retails at $99.99).
More info: Norton online NZ Store.
