Appletell

Geeksugar, who was right about the new MacBook Pros refresh last time around, is now reporting that new iMacs will be out next week, most likely on Tuesday.  The last time this product was updated was all the way back in August 2007, but that was a complete case redesign.  These new machines will be at the same price points, but will have faster speeds (i.e. the new Penryn processors) and a larger hard drive.  With recent news of Apple shipping 2.289 million Macs this most recent quarter, this could help raise that even more this coming quarter.

What do you think?  Is this just another rumor started to get some hype and commotion, or are new iMacs due for a little refresh?  Either way, it would be nice to see a few improvements made to the machine to draw some more customers.  So save that money you were just about to spend on a new iMac for another week or so if you can just in case this rumor turns out to be true.

Product: Photoshop Elements 6.0
Link: Photoshop Elements 6.0
Price: $89 USD
Rating: 8/10

In February, I reviewed a beta version of Photoshop Elements 6.0. I focused on interface, speed and features. As a whole, my review hasn’t changed too much.

In February, I wrote that “launching Photoshop Elements is a painful process. Startup took about 17 seconds: six bounces of the icon on the dock, then about 11 seconds on the splash screen. This is about the same as Photoshop Elements 4.0, which was running through emulation.” The final version of Photoshop has most definitely improved in this area, beating CS3 for start time, taking about 10 seconds on a cold start, which is very acceptable. 

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Adobe Systems Incorporated announced yesterday that Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 6 for Macintosh® is available immediately. “Since its January launch at the 2008 Macworld Expo, Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac was named “Best of Show,” and given the 2008 Editors’ Choice Awards by The Mac Observer and the 2008 Macworld Award by Macsimum News,” the Adobe Press Release reads.

The biggest new features to Photoshop Elements 6.0 are the fact that it is now a Universal Binary, the new Photomerge technology, and a new interface and different levels of the program depending on the user’s expertise.

According to Adobe, “Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 for Macintosh runs on Leopard, (Mac OS X v 10.5.2), as well as previous versions of Mac OS X starting with 10.4.8. [...] Photoshop Elements 6 is immediately available in the United States and Canada for an estimated street price of US$89.99. Owners of previous versions of Photoshop Elements can upgrade to Photoshop Elements 6 for US$69.99 with an in-box, mail-in rebate or through http://www.adobe.com.”

Photoshop Elements 6.0 can be purchased at Apple Stores, Apple.com, Amazon.com, Best Buy Stores, BestBuy.com, Costco.com, J&R, Microcenter, NewEgg.com, Staples Stores and Staples.com.

You can read my first look reviews, on speed and features and the interface, and also keep an eye out for a final review of the final copy, coming in a few days.

As you may or may not know, MacHeist customers have been having problems with an app included in the recently sold bundle, Speed Download 4. The app was included in the MacHeist II bundle, however Speed Download 5 was released very soon after the bundle sale. Yazsoft, the creators of Speed Download, gave Speed Download 5 to MacHeist users for a price even though non MacHeist purchases were eligible for free upgrades. After much arguing, both MacHeist and Yazsoft have reached an agreement. Yazsoft is now offering free Speed Download 5 upgrades to all MacHeist Speed Download 4 purchases. However, they’re only running this for a limited time until March 27th, so go on over to the upgrade page to enter your details. If you’re looking for two keys and a free upgrade to Speed Download 6, Yazsoft is offering that as well for $15.

[Speed Download Upgrade] Via [TUAW]

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, due out mid-March, is touted as a large advancement over the previous version, Photoshop Elements 4. There are many new features, and the program as a whole has been further targeted at consumers, but overall, it doesn’t seem like enough has changed to call it an important release. This section of the Photoshop Elements 6 review will focus on speed and new features.

Keep in mind that the review copy of Photoshop Elements is in beta, and therefore may include some glitches or performance issues not found in the final retail copy.

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Is your Mac running slow, and you don’t know why? Well here are some tips and programs to help you get the most out of your Mac.

1) You may not know that having large image files - such as ones from your digital camera—make your computer slower. I don’t want to stop you from making your computer pretty, but it does slow down the system.

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