Appletell

More and more people are switching to the Mac these days. I, myself, am a “Windows refugee” who came over to the Mac camp in 2006. I am very happy with my decision to do so, as the Mac is so much more intuitive, easy to use, and secure than Windows.

The learning curve is certainly minimal, especially for tech savvy folks. In fact, I’ve found that the most common problem switchers have is that they overthink the issue—generally, solving problems and performing everyday tasks on the Mac is far more intuitive than the average Windows user is used to.

For those of you who are thinking of making the switch, Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal has put together a nice “switcher’s guide” on his All Things Digital blog. You’ll probably find that switching to the Mac is a lot easier than you may have thought.

Via [All Things Digital]

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More and more HDMI-equipped devices are appearing - and you’ll probably find that your brand new HDTV runs out of free HDMI ports quickly. Devices like Apple TVs, games consoles, satellite receivers and more are all becoming HDMI compliant because it provides the best quality in both audio and video; supporting Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, and 1080p.

XtremeMac, well-known for making iPod and Mac accessories, have introduced an HDMI switcher that is designed to fit with the Apple TV. The device sits nicely underneath or on top of an Apple TV, as it has the same white plastic and aluminium trim that the Apple TV has,  as well as exactly the same footprint. It’s also incredibly thin for an HDMI switcher of this type, and looks great wherever it’s placed.

Included in the box is the HDMI switcher itself, and a 5-button remote control - which is used for switching between the four different sources. It’s a shame that you can’t have the box automatically switch between sources when a signal is detected, but systems that have this feature often don’t work too well. The bundled remote control is tiny, and also about the same size as the Apple remote - although this has a different design.

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Apple has officially launched a “Find Out How” section of their website, seemingly aimed at Windows switchers. It is an expansion of the few video tutorials that were seen at the bottom of Apple.com’s Mac page. The page features video tutorials on basic Mac actions, such as “Moving to Mac,“ the “Anatomy of Mac” in which the dock, menu bar, etc. are explained.

Tabs at the top of the webpage allow the visitor to choose tutorials related to Photos, Movies, Web, Music, and Documents, which basically collect the tutorials already available for iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, GarageBand, and iWork, respectively.

Unfortunately, as with the great “Switch 101” page detailing how to do things on a Mac vs. Windows, this page is a little bit hidden. With as many pages as apple.com has, it is impossible to make every page accessible, but some pages are inexplicably hard to find (for instance, finding the brick and mortar Apple Store directory page is nearly impossible unless you are looking for light grey size 2 text at the very bottom of the website.)

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With the new Apple TV looking to be a big success this year, expect a whole new line of Apple TV accessories to go with it. One of the most useful accessories for your brand new high definition television is an HDMI switcher. This basically turns one HDMI port on your TV into four. These started off very expensive, but are getting cheaper as the production costs decrease. One of my favourites is XtremeMac‘s one.

Gefen has introduced a new line of HDTV accessories for home consumers beginning with its TV Switcher. It costs $199 ($100 more than XtremeMac’s one). The TV Switcher does what all other HDMI switchers are supposed to do: Take one HDMI input and enable users to use it as if it were four inputs. It works with any HDMI device - from games consoles to Blu-ray players. It can switch automatically when a signal is found - or you can have it on manual mode, where you press a button to switch. When it starts up it will go to the most recently-powered device. An optional remote control is available. The TV Switcher is fully HDMI 1.3 compliant and supports HDCP.

Via [Macworld]

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