2011

Office 2011 gains Retina Display support

Microsoft today released an update for Office 2011 for Mac that provides support for the Retina Display in Apple's latest MacBook Pro systems.

As explained in its Office for Mac blog, the update (version 14.2.4) gives the enhanced resolution support to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, and should give text and interface elements throughout the Office suite a sharper feel and look when used on Apple's MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

While this update may be beneficial for those who have Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro systems, Microsoft makes no note of the update offering any … Read more

Kaspersky 2013 ups the ante with exploit prevention

The 2013 updates to the Kaspersky protection suites bring to consumers some of the most advanced security technology currently available. It involves introducing an exploit prevention engine as part of the security suite, but also a Safe Money banking protection tool that you can interact directly with. The suite's scans aren't the fastest, but it definitely will protect you.

Installation Installing Kaspersky has been dramatically simplified over the past two years. Following on 2012's fuss-free install, the installer for 2013 will remove conflicting security programs and any detected malware automatically.

You're still on the hook for … Read more

Best MacBook Air cases and covers

When a hot Apple product hits the market, it has a tendency to spur a cottage industry of accessories. The MacBook Air is no exception, with several companies making MacBook Air cases and covers.

Since the Air's design hasn't really changed in the last couple of years, most of the cases, covers, and sleeves that worked for the older 11- and 13-inch 2010 and 2011 models should work with the updated 2012 MacBook Air versions.

As always, feel free to make your own suggestions for cases and covers you like and we'll consider adding them in the next update.

Click on any image to start slideshow. Cases are listed in alphabetical order.

Updated August 8, 2012 with four new cases.… Read more

Microsoft squashes bugs with Office for Mac update

Microsoft has released an update for Office 2011 for Mac, which fixes a number of bugs with various Office application functions, but in addition closes a vulnerability in the program where a malicious program downloaded by one user could be run with that user's privileges by another local user on the system. While not a serious security vulnerability for most users, it has potential to be a problem for multiple-user setups such as computer labs.

Microsoft has made this update available via its Autoupdate program that will either run automatically or which can be launched from the Help menu … Read more

Microsoft releases fixed Office 2011 SP2 update

Microsoft has released a fixed version of its Service Pack 2 update for Office 2011. The update was originally on April 12 and offered a number of improvements for Microsoft's Outlook e-mail client; however, soon after its release a number of people found that the update had caused corruption in their identity databases. This resulted in the suite's programs not opening correctly.

Microsoft initially addressed this problem by issuing instructions that users could follow to prepare their identities for the upgrade, or restore their identities if they had been corrupted after the upgrade; however, these did not help … Read more

Database corruption causing woes for some Office 2011 SP2 users

Recently Microsoft released the Service Pack 2 upgrade for its Office 2011 for Mac productivity suite, which primarily addresses issues and functions with Outlook for Mac, but also addresses problems with other aspects of the Office suite. After applying this update, a few people have had problems in which the Office identity database has become corrupted and when launching Office programs have received messages stating "Please upgrade the Office database."

Yesterday Microsoft acknowledged in a blog posting that some users have been experiencing this error, and has provided a couple of options for getting around it.

If you … Read more

SIW-eet suite of system information tools

Gabriel Topala's System Information for Windows is widely known as SIW. It's also widely known as a very good (and free) system information utility. It detects just about everything that can be detected about your hardware, software, operating system, and peripherals and displays it in a tree view for easy access. It includes some useful extras, too, such as a broadband speed test, MAC address changer, and network ping and trace tools. As we noted, it's free, but you can buy the developer a cup of coffee right from the toolbar.

SIW's Explorer-style interface features colorful … Read more

Windows PCs to decline as Android, Apple devices rise

The venerable Windows-Intel PC will see a sharp decline by 2016 while devices running Android and Apple's iOS are on the rise, market researcher IDC said today.

There will be a "dramatic shift" between 2011 and 2016, with the "once-dominant" Windows-Intel (aka, x86) PCs dropping from a market-dominating 35.9 percent share in 2011 to 25.1 percent in 2016," IDC said.

Mobile devices like Android phones and tablets and Apple iPhones and iPads will step into the void and begin to dominate. Android devices (using ARM chips) will grow from 29.4 percent … Read more

iPad and Kindle Fire both strong in recent quarter, says IDC

Lest we forget, Apple still has some competition. Though IDC confirmed big shipment numbers for Apple, the market researcher said Amazon made a good showing too.

Global tablet shipments into "sales channels" rose by 56 percent on a sequential basis in the fourth calendar quarter of 2011 to 28.2 million units, according to IDC.

That represents a whopping 155 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2010.

IDC tablet shipment highlights:

In 2011, tablet shipments reached 68.7 million. In 2012, shipments will be 106.1 million, up from 87.7 million in previous forecast. Apple shipped … Read more