Software

Creative Suite 5

Now that Adobe have finally announced the Creative Suite 5, the full performance gains that Apple have been promising with the Intel Macs can be realised, especially with Photoshop now going 64-bit and able to access the ludicrous amounts of memory in your Mac. But beware, it’s Intel Macs only, so those G5 users are out of luck.

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard”: If you use a Mac then the Operating System is the heart of the Mac experience. OS 10.5 added 300 improvements to the list of useful features with QuickLook, CoverFlow, Time Machine, Boot Camp, Spaces and improvements to Mail at the fore. Snow Leopard doesn’t add many new features, but those that it does are a real boon for business users. Finally we can all throw away Entourage and use Apple Mail, Address Book and iCal to talk to Microsoft Exchange mail accounts with 10.6′s Exchange Server support.

OS 10.6 “Leopard Server”: a massively powerful, feature packed network server, that provides massive file serving performance. Ideal for design studios throwing big files about. Now with Windows authentication and the ability to authenticate clients
and serve their home folder from the OS X Server. And it supports unlimited clients, something Windows doesn’t do. Forget using an NT or Window 2000 Server forever.

Aperture 3.0

Aperture 3

Apple’s foray into software for professional photographers gets a welcome update. But let’s get one thing clear. It is not, and never has been, a replacement for Photoshop. Aperture is designed for photographers shooting in RAW mode, who want to be able to manage these digital assets in a more intelligent way.

All crops, colour corrections, heals and tweaks are stored as a series of actions that are applied to the RAW file. Editing is COMPLETELY non-destructive. You maintain a pristine “digital negative” that you can always revert back to. Ever had dust on your CCD, and shot 200 images? Bummer isn’t it? Not with Aperture…

Quark XPress 8

Quark Xpress has been the mainstay of the publishing market for over a decade. Whilst its dominance is being threatened by InDesign, the OS X native Quark Xpress 8 removes one of the last hurdles to adopting an all Intel based OS X workflow, to get the full speed gains of that shiny Intel Mac. And if you are still in the dark ages, forget struggling with Classic and Acrobat 5 forever.

Office 2011

Microsoft pulled their finger out and finally given us a Intel native version of Office with Office 2008. There aren’t any revolutionary new features in the Office 20011, unless you’re using Exchange Server for email. The new Mac Outlook client is absolutely fabulous. Everything Entourage should have been, but wasn’t. For those people, Office 2011 is a must have upgrade.

If like me, the sluggish performance of Entourage and Word drove you to distraction, it will make a worthwhile upgrade if you’re currenty running Office 2004. And if you don’t have Office, but you need to collaberate with people using MS Office, or you work in an environment that use Exchange Server for email, then Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Entourage are essential tools.

Filemaker 11

Filemaker is still the best database available on any computer platform for small business. The speed with which you can build complex relational databases with little experience
is astounding. One of the newer features in Filemaker is that all tables are stored as one single file, rather than dozens of individual ones. And the maximum file size goes into the terrabytes. Scary.

Best of all those databases, can be shared between Macs and PCs, over the internet, with anywhere from 1 to 500 users. Filemaker Mobile lets you use your database on Palm handhelds. Filemaker Server lets you host really complex databases for many users.

AccountEdge (formally MYOB)

AccountEdge is really the only Mac specific program that I have confidence in recommending for accountancy. Its not the easiest program in the world to learn, but then again accounts aren’t simple. However it can handle everthing from Payroll, stock-control, invoicing, reminders, producing VAT returns and producing 100s of different reports. It also can work in a cross-platform, multi-user enviroment.

Sweet Apple uses still uses MYOB, and find it invaluable in tracking our finances. We’d forget to chase your overdue invoices if we didn’t get MYOB nagging us every time we open it up. But if you need something a bit more modern, give AccountEdge a whirl.

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