The February issue is now available for your reading pleasure. If you've gotten over Wes' analogy to high-altitude, fiber-producing, spitting camelids in last month's Bloggable, you'll be pleased to know he's now moved on to the blogosphere discussion of appropriate iTunes App Store pricing. Oh, and Steve Jobs' health. Because the mainstream media will just not. Let. It. Go. Mark wanders down memory lane so far as Internet connections are concerned, and laments that some employment forms across the Pond are in non-editable PDF form. Why is this a problem? When one such form is 28 pages long, that's a lot of handwriting. There's also the testy problem of folks paying for a broadband connection half the speed of which they're paying for. For anyone looking to get things done, Ed has updated the master list of applications which might help you to do so. Yours truly, with much help from Lee and Eric, offers a report from our adventure in San Francisco, and Macworld Expo 2009. Speaking of memory lane, Linus takes a stroll about Removable Storage Avenue, with a column title that made me smile nostalgically. Speaking of San Francisco, one of the things the three ATPM musketeers did while we were there was take lots of photos, and the Bay Area offers lots of opportunities for great shots. Lee shares some of his favorites with us for this month's desktop pictures. Linus contributed a cartoon complimentary to his column, wherein an old maxim is shown to not be true. Some of you may think laptop stands are just not cricket, but Frank Wu is impressed with the Cricket Laptop Stand. (What? Too many Britishisms in this month's ATPM post?) Ed puts MacSpeech Dictate 2.1 through its paces, and the voice recognition tool emerges unscathed and highly recommended. As usual, ATPM is available in myriad formats for your enjoyment.

About This Particular Macintosh enters its fifteenth year of publishing with the release of our January issue. Angus found himself doing some iPhone evangelism during the holiday season, even if it was completely unintentional on his part. Wes returns, after many months, with a look at the latest in the Mac blogosphere, notably the latest news regarding lawsuits between Apple and Mac-clone maker Psystar. Mike is very happy with his iPhone 3G, but is disappointed that it meant his having to leave Sprint. He wonders if we'll ever have mobile phones and mobile serviced unbundled from one another. As Mike notes, the cable companies don't tell us what TV to use, and thank Jobs and Woz we aren't required to use Windows to access content on the Internet. (Well, most content, anyway.) As his next action for 2009, Ed lays out where he's taking his column, and looks for feedback from the ATPM readership. Ken Aspeslagh was kind enough to share some photos from around the world for this month's desktop pictures. Locations include St. John, France, and New England. Linus entertains with this month's cartoon, related to a review in this same issue. Speaking of reviews, Ed gets on the, er, Freeway. No, not of love, but of web site design. If you've got a ton of URLs you'd like to store for later reference, Paul thinks you can do worse than ShoveBox. For those looking for a hands-free kit to use with their iPhone, Ed thinks highly of the Vizor SUN. (Yeah, I had a line there about shining brightly, or using your car's sun visor, but I couldn't make it work, and it's already past midnight, so this is getting posted on the 2d instead of the 1st. Maybe next year.) Finally, Linus wraps up our first issue of 2009 with a look at WordSoup, and if you're still trying to figure out the cartoon, hopefully it makes sense now. As always, this month's issue is available in multiple formats for your reading enjoyment. Thanks for reading ATPM!

The December issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available. We wrap up our fourteenth year of publishing beginning with some fantastic cover art courtesy of our friend Catherine. Mike ponders Apple's sales strategy post-Black Friday, given the downturn in the economy, while Mark comments on the oft-overlooked Services menu. GTDers, rejoice, for Ed has another installment, this time focusing on non-typical lists, or, in humanspeak, "things that don't conveniently fall in to our normal lists or categories". Ed also updates the application list for the final time this year; if you can't find an app to help you get things done, well, then you're just not trying. Or reading ATPM each month. Our friend Mike Shields returns from a long hiatus with perspective from a Mac user in Hollywood. Mike recently took part in the 168 Project, and discusses how you, too, can use your Mac to shoot an almost no-budget flick. Sylvester offers a guide for everyone who would like to run a second monitor on their Mac. Before I brought my old G4 Cube out of retirement, I was doing this with my 20-inch iMac and an older 19-inch LCD, and I confess, I do miss the extra screen real estate. Lee brings us some gorgeous shots of the Rocky Mountain National Forest in this month's desktop pictures section, including some widescreen shots. My personal favorite is number three. Just in time for the holiday buying season, we have a slew of product reviews to assist you in purchasing decisions for the Mac users on your list, or for yourself! Linus takes us through the new version of Art Text, while Ed lugs around Tom Bihn's Checkpoint Flyer, a bag which allows travelers to keep their laptop in the bag without being hassled by the TSA. Lee puts the Finder-based FTP client ExpanDrive through its paces, as Paul summarizes the tome, Foundations of Mac OS X Leopard Security. If you're unable to hit the links on a regular basis, Ed may have found a solution for you with GL Golf. Finally, Lee looks at the iRecord Pro to see if it measures up to its predecessor. As usual, ATPM is available in a variety of formats for your reading pleasure. On behalf of the ATPM staff, thank you for reading. Concluding fourteen years of publication is quite a milestone, and we're looking forward to continuing the standards we've set forth as we enter year fifteen. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

The November issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Charles returns with another Filemaking column, taking readers through layouts and tables in the book database we're building. There are lamentations from across the Pond, as Mark bemoans Honda and FireWire neutering, yet we can rejoice and be thankful this month on the American side of the ocean, as Ed has updated the GTD application master list. Lee breaks down the various file formats available to us in Photoshop, while ATPM reader Zac Stivers was kind enough to share some photos from his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas in our desktop pictures offering. I think the second Quince photo is lovely. Speaking of photos, and Photoshop, Lee also reviews Mask Pro 4.1.2, which can be helpful for those of without the experience Lee has in building masks from scratch. Chris rocks the Logitech MX Revolution's world, putting the ergonomically-shaped, wireless mouse through its paces. Ed likes the intriguing PDFPen, while Linus enlisted the help of his wife and son in his review of the game StoneLoops. We say good-bye to a dear friend this month in the pages of About This Particular Macintosh. Matt Johnson has been drawing his Cortland cartoon for us for six years, and this month, brings the series to a close. Matt has seen a lot of changes in his life of late: new wife (congratulations, you guys!), new job, and a new city. He's taking a breather from cartooning to get in to the swing of things, but assures us he'll be back in the near future. Thanks for six great years, Matt, and we can't wait to see what you come up with next! As usual, ATPM is available in a variety of reading formats for your comfort. Thanks for reading!

The September issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Mark informs us that more ISP chicanery is afoot across the Pond, and how Mac users in the UK might be affected. Ed's updated the master list of GTD apps with a new item: iPhone Presence. Does the app have an iPhone version, or a web version the iPhone can access? Pretty handy if you're looking for an application to get things done with that will run on your Mac and your iPhone. In this month's Photoshop For the Curious, Lee shows us how to use the Merge tool to stitch together those vacation photos to get those great panoramic shots. Sylvester scratches the surface of Preview's usability to help us get more out of that handy little app. This month's desktop pictures are again courtesy of Julie Ritterskamp, who took these great photos in various national parks throughout the western United States this past July. The identity of Lord Fate, present and past, is revealed, as Cortland's saga comes to a close. Todd and Angie begin to move their lives forward again, though Angie is having trouble letting Cortland go. But does she have to...? First Officer Chris Lawson, our nation-trotting staff pilot, pounds around on Das Keyboard Professional, while the Big Boss, Michael Tsai, reviews three hard drive enclosures which allow one to treat hard drives as floppy disks. (For you young'uns, we used to have to store our computer data on this pieces of five-inch discs, which were encased in a floppy plastic material, hence the name, floppy disk, or floppies.) Lee looks at a pair of headsets from Maximo, while Ed does some recipe filing with MacGourmet Deluxe. Finally, Linus puts Séquence through its paces to see if it can dethrone screen-capture king Snapz Pro. As always, this issue of ATPM is available in a variety of formats for your reading enjoyment.

The August issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Angus gets us started this month with a look at Microsoft's latest attempts to market its way out of its Vista doldrums, while he's very impressed with Microsoft Office: Office 2007 for Windows, that is, and notably the suite's OneNote slice of software. If you're wondering what this has to do with the Mac, read the whole column. Mike goes a bit Billy Shakes on us as he recounts his tale of iPhone 3G acquisition, while storage is on Mark's mind. As we go through the Great Room Reshuffle of 2008™ here in our home, storage is on my mind as well, but Mark's thinking in terms of data storage. For Photoshop geeks, Mark also notes how to get the Pxl SmartScale plug-in working on an Intel Mac. Gedeon Maheux, of the Iconfactory, twittered a couple of months back how he wanted a native to-do list app for his iPhone. He suspected that once the iPhone SDK was available, we'd see a "dev to-do list Thunderdome" of productivity apps. Judging from Ed's roundup of Getting Things Done (GTD) applications for the iPhone, it looks like Ged's prediction come true. Lee takes a break from the normal tutorials in this month's Photoshop for the Curious to talk about when and when not to actually use some of the tips and processes he's been teaching us on our photos. This month's desktop pictures are courtesy of Julie Ritterskamp, and features that sleepy little West Coast burb of San Francisco. Also, s the villianous legion regroups and remembers, the shocking truth about Cortland is finally revealed! Linus has some fun running his photos through Comic Life Magiq, while Eric throws Knapsack over his shoulder for some trip planning. Finally, Lee thoroughly runs SmartMask 2.0, a plug-in for Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, through its paces. As always, ATPM if available in a variety of formats to suit your preferred reading habits. The release of last month's issue marked a personal milestone I failed to notice at the time of publication. I've now completed my 10th year of working on About This Particular Macintosh, and I've worn a variety of hats during that time. I have to thank Michael Tsai, our Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, for giving me the chance ten years ago to be a part of something I believe to be very special. In addition to being the boss, Michael has become a valued friend. ATPM is a second family of sorts. While staff members come and go, it is amazing how entrenched in one another's lives we become. We have seen one another through a wedding, the birth of children, a reality television game show, Macworld Expo meet-ups, even one of our own getting out in public to sing the National Anthem at a ball game. Rob's family, and quite a few of my own, is still amazed that Michael and I showed up for his marriage to Sandy; it was first time any of us had ever met in person. ATPM has delivered my best friend in the online world. Rarely does a day go by that Lee and I are not in touch, mostly by instant message. Working on the publication has been an honor and a treat, and I extend my thanks to all of the staff members, past and present, for the privilege of working alongside you.

The July issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Kicking things off, Mark gets in touch with his inner “me” as he ponders the news from Apple's World Wide Developers Conference this year. When the iPhone Software Developer Kit (SDK) was first released, it was theorized in the Twitterverse and throughout the blogosphere that once Apple provided a means to install standalone applications on the iPhone, we would see a raft of to-do list and other task management apps. With the impending release of the iPhone 3G and the iPhone App Store, Ed reflects on these thoughts, along with some on what we might find in the near future. In this month’s Photoshop For the Curious, Lee shows us how to make the image on a computer monitor or television pop and not appear burned out when the monitor is photographed. Boy, I wish I had had this info back when I did my iPhone review... Sylvester follows up his thoughts from last month on network attached storage drives with some practical advice on playing well with one. Or two. Or three. Maybe four. Heck, you know how it is with NAS drives... Oh. You don't? You don't even know what a network attached storage drive is? You can't even figure it out from the name? ... Let's move along, shall we? ATPM reader Harry Torres is kind enough to share some of his vehicular art with us in this month's desktop pictures selection. Cortland’s foes celebrate his vanquishment, and reminisce on how they got to that point… Paul puts EyeTV 3.0.2 through the ringer, while yours truly reviews Macworld's iPhone Superguide, a great resource for any iPhone owner. If you're looking for a spelling-bee game, read Linus's Spell-Jam review before continuing your search. Finally, Lee takes a look at a potentially handy piece of software for getting your Mac and Wii to play nice together. As always, this month's ATPM is available in a variety of formats for your comfort. Thanks for reading, About This Particular Macintosh!

The May issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Wes has a great round-up of the Mac blogosphere's reaction to the Psystar Mac clone, as well as bits on Adobe Creative Suite, e-mail clients, Apple's proceeds from Google referrals, profitability of potential iPhone software sales, and user interfaces. Finally, the blog about the column returns as Son of Bloggable. It's about time, Wes! Mark's understandably unhappy with actions of the MBG (Britian's RIAA), and notes the fallacy of DRM in light of the closing of MSN Music. Ed has a revised list of GTD applications in this month's Next Action, while Lee dodges and burns up Photoshop for the Curious. This month's desktop pictures are courtesy of David Siebecker, and are from a six-day hike through New Hampshire's White Mountains. All seems lost for Cortland and company as Lisa makes a last bid for victory, any way she can take it. Yours truly pounds out a review on Apple's latest keyboard, while Linus grills Blue Crab. Sylvester is impressed with Drive Genius 2, while ATPM's Official Pilot™, Flight Officer Lawson, puts the Flipp Premium Leather Case for his iPod through its paces. ATPM is a labor of love, with no staffer receiving compensation, so we really can't complain when Paul takes time to play with SpacePig. As always, About This Particular Macintosh is available in a variety of formats for maximum reader comfort. Thanks for reading!

The April issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Wes kicks things off with a look at what's been popular in the Mac blogosphere of late, and that's namely been about a product that isn't a Mac, but works with your Mac: the iPhone. The announcement of the software development kit (SDK for short) for the iPhone has generated quite a lot of discussion amongst developers and pundits. Mark talks about chips of all sorts, from his uniquely Brit point of view, as well as the latest DRM nonsense across the Pond. Charles has another Filemaking, and walks through relational databases. This month's desktop pictures are courtesy of several ATPM readers, and feature views from all around the globe. Thank you, all, for sharing! Back in meatspace, Todd turns the tables on the enemy with a reprogrammed Lisa. Cortland and Angela arrive safely from the Mudrix, but Cortland has paid a heavy price... My good friend Tom Bridge returns to the pages of ATPM with a look at The Book of Wireless. Lee rounds up the latest iPhone accessories from Newer Technology, while Ed puts PhotoAcute Studio through its paces. Paul is pleased with Take Control of Permissions in Leopard, and Ellyn closes out the Tome Edition™ of ATPM by digging through Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. As always, you can read ATPM online, as well as in three other formats of your choosing. Thanks for reading!

What is ZDNet trying to tell us, I wonder?

Click to see a larger size

The March issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Wes has analysis and the roundup from the blogosphere on Microsoft's attempts thus far to acquire Yahoo!, as well as bits on the MacBook Air, a disastrous HP PC (is "disastrous" redundant there?), the iPhone, and Aperture. Mark notes Apple's approach to design, compared to others. Chuck takes a break from the normal workflow of Filemaking to look at what's new in FileMaker 9. Time warp with us back to the 1950s and 60s with ATPM reader Jennifer Curry's shots of automobiles in and around Havana, Cuba, from a trip she took there in 2006. Sorry, Marty, no De Loreans. Meanwhile, Lisa is history, and the Mudrix code dissolves to nothing as Cortland makes a huge sacrifice to save the woman he loves. But is that sacrifice enough to save Angie from Cortland's enemies in meatspace? Lee puts Microtek's ArtixScan M1 Dual Media Scanner through its paces, while Eric sees if LicenseKeeper can keep track of all those pesky software serial numbers every computer user tends to accumulate. Ellyn shoots a little pool with her Mac, but after finding it really hard to get the chalk off its case, she elected to shoot pool on her Mac, with MacPool. Chris tries to extend the wireless range of his PowerBook with Wi-Fire, while Linus reclaims some space on his hard drive with Xslimmer. As always, we get to the nitty-gritty of Mac and technology products so you don't have to! Every month, About This Particular Macintosh is available in a wide variety of formats for your reading pleasure, and this month is no exception: on the web; as an offline webzine; a PDF optimized for reading on your computer screen; or a PDF optimized for printing. On behalf of the entire staff, I hope you enjoy our work.

The February issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Yes, he's a month late for such reminiscing, but Wes weighs in on the comings and goings of 2007 in this month's Bloggable. He also looks at the blogosphere's rumblings over the new MacBook Air, and other items of interest. From across the pond, Mark offers an Englander's point of view on Steve Jobs' Macworld Expo Keynote, while he waits for a CyTV update, due to an incompatibility with Leopard. Angus offers the pros and cons from this year's Macworld Expo, as he sees it. Ted offers a progress report for this month's ATPO, pre-announcing (pre-pre-announcing?) an outlining product he's endeavoring to build, as well as offering his thoughts on Macworld Expo (anyone else see a theme here?) and an opinion regarding software business models. Photoshop For the Curious returns from its brief hiatus, as Lee introduces us to Photoshop's wonderful world of Masks. And, yes, while I didn't attend Macworld Expo in person, this will not stop yours truly from offering his impressions of Steve Jobs’s keynote address to open the 2008 Macworld Expo, which took place in San Francisco last month. (There it is, again.) This month's desktop pictures are courtesy of ATPM reader Kim Lee, from a November 2007 trip to Manado, Indonesia. Thanks, Kim! Linus looks at Chameleon 5.0.881M Legacy, a Photoshop plug-in for combining images, while Ellyn plays around with Flip Words 2, something of a combination of Boggle and Hangman. Chris, ATPM's official pilot, puts the Kinetik 15.4 Backpack through its paces, and Ed puts a few balls in to play with MacPinball 2.6. As always, this month's issue is available in a variety of formats for your reading pleasure.

The January 2008 issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available to help you ring in the new Mac year. Mike Chamberlain looks back at the first of 2007, and how his desire for a "MacPhone" panned out, and surprisingly so, later in the year. Mark notes how smaller cars might not always be a good thing, but smaller iPods are, and wonders what lies ahead for Apple's music player line. Mark's also thankful that FileMaker has remained easy to use, lo these many years. ATPM reader Tricia Roach becomes an ATPM contributor, with a Segments piece on how she uses her Mac's video capabilities to stay involved in the lives of her grandkids. This month's desktop pictures are courtesy of ATPM reader Jennifer Curry, from her 2006 trip to Cuba. They feature the island nation's buildings and cityscapes. Meanwhile, Angie flashes back to 1984 as she and Cortland face off against Lisa in the Mudrix for a final showdown. Linus takes Baseline, a utility which helps you look at file and folder sizes on your Mac, through its paces. Ed uses BusySync to get things done, allowing others to subscribe to or read his iCal calendars, thus assuring everyone's on the same page. Chris Lawson tries out, and really likes, the Fin Laptop Handle/Stand, while Lee pairs his iSight up with Iris for some fun. Reader Mark Stoneman contributes a review of Mellel, a word processor I'm fond of, and a must-have for those who work with right-to-left languages such as Hebrew or Arabic. This issue marks the entry in to the fourteenth year of publishing for About This Particular Macintosh, and we hope it's a great year for our readers, and Mac users everywhere!

The November issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading pleasure. Wes kicks off the month by covering--what else?--the blogosphere's reaction to Mac OS X Leopard. He also has a choice bit regarding the ZFS file system, which I encourage you to read. I realize that particular topic sounds boring--I teased Wes I was printing out that part to help me get some sleep--but he's done a stellar job of condensing a boring subject in to easy-to-understand layman's terms. Our intrepid blog investigator also dishes out the links on the forthcoming iPhone development kit for application programmers, as well as a few other choice bits. Mark--who seems to have the same attitude toward mobile phones as my parents--talks iPhone from the Brit perspective, while also pondering the Google goings-on in the mobile phone space. Speaking of pondering, Mark's also beginning the laptop or desktop? dilemma. He gets extra points for using a title from one of my favorite authors. Lee's taking a break from his great column, Photoshop for the Curious, returning in our February edition. To tide you over until then, he documents some other Photoshop-related links you may be interested in. Sylvester offers a great how-to on extending iTunes' abilities with content presets. ATPM reader Graham Lindsay was nice enough to share photos from his native Australia for this month's desktop pictures. Just as all seems lost, our intrepid hero reenters the Mudrix to save the woman he loves in this month's Cortland. Small business owners may be interested in Ed's review of Billable, whereas many folks may be interested in Paul's look at Graph Paper Maker. Yours truly makes an appearance this month, as I contribute to the iPhone Case Roundup, with Lee and David. Lee likes XtremeMac's Luna, and Ed is impressed with Nisus Writer Pro. Finally, Eric puts SuperSync through its paces. As usual, you can read this month's issue in a format of your choosing.

The October issue of About This Particular Macintosh is now available for your reading enjoyment. If you haven't gotten enough iPhone news in the past month, or if you've just been vacationing in the Eastern Hindu Kush with Osama, Wes has a big round-up in this month's Bloggable. Speed is on Mark's mind, as is, um, more speed. Of a sort. And referencing the first in a certain series of science fiction movies many would know by name, but few will recall by the included reference. Lee delves in to one of Photoshop's premier features, layers, while Sylvester talks about your Mac's speed. (Was there a theme for this issue that no one told me about?) Matthew has a how-to for installing a cooling fan in our beloved Cube. (For the record, he installed it in his Cube, which is not the same as my Cube. We don't share a Cube. I was using "our" in a communal sense, as in all Cube owners everywhere. Oh, never mind...) Tim Allen--the photographer, not the actor (though that would be pretty cool)--shares with us some shots he's taken around the United Kingdom, including his home town of Kent, as part of this month's desktop pictures selection. The Usual Suspects it ain't, but to paraphrase Bill and Ted, "Strange things are afoot at Wieser Graphics" in this month's Cortland. Chris Lawson tries out a pair of iPod cases, the Claro, and the PodFolio, while Linus puzzles the ins and outs of Crossword Forge. Chris Dudar dives in to digital watermarking with iWatermark, while I am underwhelmed by DLO's TuneStik. Lee hauls around the Velocity Matrix Backpack, and yours truly reviews Apple's latest game-changing device, the iPhone. As usual, ATPM is available in a variety of formats, so you can read it however you choose.