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mac.nz is owned by Mark Webster, an experienced writer and IT commentator with articles published over the years in Monitor, Stamp, Loose, Macguide, Tone, Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll, D-photo, NZ Classic Car, The Dominion Post, NetGuide, NZ Herald online and for PC World. He is also a director of the CreativeTech conference.

He was the editor of NZ Macguide magazine for five years and has worked exclusively with Macs for 20.

Mark is the author of the NZ history book Assembly: NZ Car Production 1921-1998 (Reed Books, 2002).

He is a speaker on Information Technology and automotive, historical and Apple subjects, and works as a Mac trainer with wide experience. Mark has dispensed Apple knowledge at Natcoll, to MAINZ, for ImageText, to 3Media, MacMillan Publishing and for Microsoft, and to dozens of individuals.

Much more on MBPs, gaming

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

New MacBook Pros – heat, battery life and 'secret' feature: According to PC Authority.au, the new MacBook Pro design isn't as good as dissipating CPU heat as other laptops that run similar hardware. The Core i7 MacBook Pro ran up to 100 degrees on Cinebench testing while a similarly-equipped Fujitsu notebook ran 20 degrees cooler. Tests were done on the MacBook running both Windows and MacOS.
In another test, a Macworld staffer got four hours battery life out of the new 13-inch – Apple claims up to ten. 
Cult of Mac talks about the 'secret' inertial scrolling feature of the new MacBook Pros, and Macworld runs a full review of the new 15-inchers. 

Apple gives Adobe a fillip for Flash: Apple has introduced a new Technical Note for OS X 10.6.3 that allows third-party developers to use hardware acceleration to decode H.264 video. Cult of Mac discusses this. 

Apple hires Nintendo expert: Apple seems set to make an even mightier push at the games market, hiring in Nintendo games expert, Matt Casamassina of the IGN gaming site. Casamassina becomes Global Editorial Games Manager. People have been agitating Apple to improve gaming for years.

More on the future of the Steam game client for Mac OS X: It’s future debut on the Mac is fantastic news for Mac gamers, and likely to make the platform a PC gamer’s peer.
The following games have been confirmed for Mac OS X:  Counter-Strike (presumably Source); "The Half-Life Series"; Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2; Portal and the forthcoming Portal 2; Team Fortress 2; and Killing Floor is semi-confirmed. Cult of Mac has more.

Safari bookmark bewilderment: Cult of Mac explains how to take control of them. 

Apple's recession survival: As we approach 2010's halfway point, it's interesting to reflect on Apple's successful navigation of the American economy's recession. TUAW reckons its Apple's portfolio of non-Macs that saw it through.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Apple 2.0 published a chart demonstrating unit sales of Macs vs PCs over the last nine years. While the industry suffered as a whole, as did so many others, Apple sold more Macs during that period. There's an off-the-chart dip in 2005-2006, which coincided with the Intel transition; a time when many users stopped buying as they waited for the new machines (The first Intel iMacs were released in January 2006).