Apple Reviews

I already had 512M of Crucial memory when I saw the price on this 1GB SODIMM (which is at this writing $200 cheaper than the same from Crucial and within a few dollars of the price of generic memory). Given the price and the guarantee I decided to go for it. It arrived very quickly via FedEx. I installed it next to my Crucial memory and booted it up using a CD containing a freeware memory test program that I had downloaded. After running a complete pass (which ran for 2 hours), there were no problems so I re-booted into Windows XP where it has run with no problems after a week of usage. I have disabled virtual memory usage in XP and with all that memory one of my extremely large programs that I use frequently starts up much more quickly now. Good memory at a good price.

If you have the 1.0-GHz 17" flatscreen iMac and are looking to add memory yourself, this is NOT the correct memory. This is the internal memory which can only be installed by an Apple technician. The memory which fits the user accessible slot is: Viking MPG4/512DS 512MB DDR266/PC2100 SO DIMM

I bought this printer because I thought I wanted a direct printer cable and not USB. So I installed the driver (easy) and waited while the thing paused several seconds between every line. The thing was going right back to the store on the printer cable. For kicks I tried the USB cable and zoom! Boy did that make a difference! The draft printing is so good I use that as my default, switching to a finer mode for presentations, legal documents, pictures. It actually shoots out so fast I nearly need to catch them. Maybe a better out tray is in order.

I have been a Lexmark fan for many years. What really drives my purchase is ease of refills for the ink. I love to print lots for home and office and don't want to moan about expensive cartrides.

The thing no one talks about in these reviews is ease of refills. You cannot easily refill Canon or Epson cartridges. I was sad about switching to new inkjet cartridges "8" and "9" instead of 15M0120 etc but now I'm grateful to move up to the new technology with the printer costing less than two cartridge refills!! The cartridges are smaller so they can zip along printing faster. The quality is much improved. I don't print photos on photo paper so don't ask me the picky un stuff.

So Atlascopy dot com gets you a nice refill kit and anyone with a tiny bit of dexterity will refill cartidges for about $5 a shot. Every 8th or 10th refill you will replace the cartridge. Do the math. I'm cheap and I am used to filling Lexmark cartridges. Lexmark has a sponge inside and it's fast, no special hot glue or tools and you can use the cartridge right away. I liked the HP black cartridges which a ton of ink went into but you had to set the cartridge unused overnight. Yuk! Usually in the middle of printing Christmas cards. And color looked too complicated.

So despite some reviews that made me worry I was screwing up I find myself printing up a storm! Be a refill convert! You will never regret it!

I'm actually giving this Apple iPod four and a half stars, and that is only because you can't download songs and stuff from a Windows computer, which is what I have. My friend has this Apple iPod and she's always listening to it--she showed me how to download songs on it and such. And I've even listened to some of the songs she's downloaded onto this iPod. It is actually quit a good little gadget. You can download over 1000 songs on this little thing, and it's so small you can fit it inside your pocket. The earbuds that it comes with have great sound capability. The songs come out clear and it does not skip. Another con about this Apple iPod is that you cannot listen to your CDs on this or listen to the radio...it is only for downloading MP3 songs. A pro is that it keeps your songs well organized, which is good, especially if you are the kind of person who is usually disorganized or whatever. It doesn't take a very long time to download the songs, too. It is actually pretty fast when downloading the songs. So once again, if you do not have an Apple Mac, then this iPod is obviously useless to you. But if you have an Apple Mac, then this is THE MP3 player to buy! Heck--if I had a Mac computer, I'd buy this thing, too!

I bought my iPod in December and I have no regrets, even though they just announced a 10GB version. 5GB can hold around 1,000 songs, and using iTunes to manage your play lists, there's no reason why you can't make this work for you. For instance, around Christmas time, I downloaded a lot of Christmas music onto it, but once the season was over, I just removed that playlist. Does this mean I have to redigitize the music next Christmas? Nope, it's still stored on my hard drive ready for me when I want it again.

The simple controls and backlight lend itself to ease of use. I use my iPod most in the car and feel I can manipulate the controls without being distracted from driving. It also doubles as a hard drive, but I haven't had a need for this feature as yet.

My only suggestions for improvements are:
* A completely stainless-steel case...the plastic does scratch.
* A case (available from third-party vendors), hard to find though.
* A power adapter for the car. This is where I use mine most and it would be ideal to have it plugged in while I do.

Sometimes, when I'm walking around and I see people with CD players, I just have to wonder how they manage.

The most amazing thing about this device is the size. Not just the size of the iPod itself, which is a lot less than half the size of other MP3 players that hold the same amount, but the amount of space it saves you in terms of CDs. Have you ever seen one of those CD towers with around 60-70 CDs in them? You know, the ones that are as tall as a bookshelf? How would you like to carry that around in your backpack at school or in your pocket on the street? I think carrying this thing around, which happens to be the size of a deck of cards and holds even more than those CD towers, is slightly preferrable.

The next best thing about the iPod is the batteries. This thing goes for 8-10 hours without quitting. That is the same amount of time as a CD player, and twice as long as other multi-GB mp3 players. In addition to that, you never need to buy batteries again. Just plug the iPod into the wall at night and you've got another 10 hours of music when you wake up. That'll work even if you only sleep for 3 hours a night like me! So this thing is saving both space and money (batteries)!

The third thing about this is how well it turns heads. Sometimes I try to hide this thing when I take it out, because strangers will literally come up to me and ask me "is that an iPod?" and want to play with the buttons and stuff. Sometimes, it gets a little annoying. In these cases, the size comes in handy because its very easy to hide while you are using it. But if your in the mood to turn some heads, just put this thing on your lap and play.

There are tons of other great things about this. The interface is beautiful... sometimes, I just stare at the screen while a song is playing, or turn on the backlight for fun. It takes 10 minutes to fill the entire thing, meaning that if you ever get tired of the songs you put on it, you can have them replaced in the snap of a finger.

But it all comes down to this; when you buy this, you will never need another music player again. If you have a Mac, go buy this. The money you save on batteries and future music players will more than make up for the ... price tag.

Years ago, I worked as a custom color printer, so I feel I have somewhat of a background in judging photo print quality. Hopefully the stability of the Canon photo paper pro media truly approaches 25 yrs, as Canon claims. This is good enough for me at this time. My prints are made for myself, and as gifts for my family and friends.....

The output from this printer, with the 8.5"x11" photo paper pro, really impressed me right out of the box. I figured I would give it the acid test right away and try printing portraits. I don't have any professional color management, but the color was bang on, did a +13 intensity change in the print driver and I felt I had honest WYSIWYG work-flow!!

Accurate flesh tones are critical in portrait printing and the printer nailed them. I didn't need the Canon supplied imaging software as I am a PSP 7 user, so I can't comment on Canon's efforts here. I printed 6x8" prints with 1" borders that are easily frameable, wall-hangable prints. I would have no hesitation in giving these prints as gifts to family and friends....

I did a lot of research on photo printers and after reading the Amazon reviews, I decided to get this printer to print pictures off of my great Canon Powershot camera.
The picture quality is truly amazing and very comparable to what I've gotten from ofoto.com. The software is pretty easy to use and pictures seem to print with better quality off of the Canon Easy Photo software than they do with other applications like Adobe. One downside is that the software has a tendency to crop images too much and I haven't yet figure out how to fix this. The Canon Photo Paper Pro works best with this printer. Don't go for the cheap paper because it makes a big difference. Also, since the printer ink cartridges are separated by color, you can just buy the colors you go through the fastest, which is much more economical than having to get the all-in-one cartridges.
The negatives:
- It takes a while to print pictures, so don't plan on doing a big stack all at once.
- The printer doesn't come with a cable, which is totally bizarre, and BEWARE: Amazon.com DOES NOT CARRY THE RIGHT CABLE FOR THIS PRINTER. Even though you can buy it almost anywhere else, they don't have it. They sent me two different cables that were both wrong and I finally had to go to the drugstore and get the right cable.
Overall, the printer is the best I've seen for this price and it looks good too!

Printed boarderless pictures, taken with my Canon G3 4.0 megapixel, are nothing short of astounding. Easy to install (you do have to align the print head, but it's a quick couple of minutes), easy to use with the included software (not the psycho 2 billion options that Epson printers have, I like simplicity, and can do my adjusting in photoshop elements 2.0), and fast, fast, fast. The drawbacks are no on board flash card reader (no big deal to me, but to some...), and you must use Canon products to print the great quality pictures.

Important cost saving measure!!! Sure, there are some pictures that you will want to use the .60/sheet photo paper pro (when perfection is needed), but for most I would suggest the wonderful Canon matte photo paper, at .20 / sheet 8 1/2 x 11 (either run them 1, 2, or 4 up on the sheet, no its not glossy, but good nonetheless), and you've got one of the most cost effective photo printers on the market (the think tank system with separate ink compartments already makes this one of the cheapest for inks).

Canon has, in my opinion, the best 4.0 mp solution for pictures (G3)and printing (i950) for the photo hobbiest. Add Photoshop Elements 2.0 , and you've got an astounding all around digital photo solution for around [$$$].

Have owned 4 months. Bought 2 128MB cards. no problems for 3 months. camera stopped recognizing 1 of the cards, but Viking promptly replaced. Best customer service I,ve seen for a long time. rebate was extra slow to arrive, took about 3 months.

I am using this in my Olympus 3000 and it works great. I read lots of hype about Smartmedia being very corruptable. So, to be on the safe side, I decided that I would just buy a 128MB card and leave it in the camera all the time. The corruption we read about probably comes from mishandling the smartmedia cards and sliding them in/out and/or getting fingerprints on them. They are very thin and look flimsy, handle with care!

The 128MB card holds 169 images at the HQ (High Quaility 3 MegaPixel setting) in the Olympus 3000/3030 and so far so good, but I am still waiting on that rebate check from Viking. :(

Also, there is a "hack" to enable the panaorama feature of the Olympus camera's... It has to do with formatting with "Olympus PAN" in the header :) ....

From research, I found that there are only two companies that produce smartmedia cards and that the only difference between the two is the country in which they are produced. The Viking media comes from Japan, which is supposedly better.

You'll get a lot of bang for your buck with card. I previously had an Olympus 32MB card. Going up to this Viking 128MB card was astonishing. I can now snap about 100 HUGE, very high quality images more than big enough for 8x10 photos, or over 500 photos big enough for your standard 4x6 photos. And now I snap away at vacations, special ocassions without worrying if the card is running out of room. I probably won't ever need to take the card out of the camera for anything. Although it's from a different manufacturer from my Olympus 32MB card and costs significantly less than their cards, there have been absolutely no problems whatsoever with this Viking card. I highly recommend this card and the inexpensive price makes the purchase even sweeter.

*** UPDATE ****

In my last review, I returned the i850 for credit. Two weeks later I found a i860 WHICH IS GREAT!! I'm glad I returned the i850.

i860: I highly recommend the i860 with "ContrastPLUS": "Canon launches the next evolutionary step in digital printing with the introduction of ContrastPLUS, an advanced 5 color ink system. Offering the best of both worlds, the i860 printer delivers exceptional black text quality with a pigment-based black ink. Plus, it provides true 4 color photo printing with a photo black ink for improved image contrast and overall photo sharpness".

I had complained about image contrast and sharpness and not being able to get true RED. The i860 improved these items except I was not able to get a true RED but at least I could get an orangy-red.

ALSO, this printer comes with EASY-WEBPRINT. I have been looking for this software for YEARS !! EASY-WebPrint: "automatically analyzes and formats web pages so they will print with full color and WITHOUT TRIMMING OFF THE RIGHT-HAND MARGIN. Thank you Canon !!!

I couldn't decide which printer to get. I am using a Sony DCS P9 (4MegaPixel) camera. I bought both the Canon I850 and the Canon S900. I decided to use both and whichever one I liked better, I would return the other one.
I was only using Canon Photo Paper Pro papers. I used both 4x6 and 8 1/2"x11" full size papers. The price I paid after rebate and tax on the I850 was $140 (yes, afer rebate and including all taxes) and the Canon S900 set me back about $250 dollars + tax. Both were equally easy to set up out of the box. I was comparing 3,072 nozzles on S900 to 1,600 nozzles on I850. But, the I850 also offers:

5 and 2 pico-liter droplet size for ink...S900 is 4 pico-liter
248 RAM buffer for quicker printing compare with 80 for S900
4 colors of ink cartridges including a double size black (because it does text well, too)which is cheaper to replace than 6 cartridges on S900
Very, very quiet operation BOth were quiet but I850 was quieter
Liked the fact the I850 has a door that closes on front AND BACK...the S900 doesn't close on back to keep dust out
Smaller in size than S900...and sleeker looking in aluminum look

Bottom line...I could see a difference in certain kinds of pictures...I saw a little more purple in a flower picture printed on the S900 and more of a deep blue color on same picture printed on I850...the picture looked more blue than purple on my computer though so I don't know how good a test this was. This color shade difference may be due to the 49 graduations of color available on S900 and only 27 on the I850. But, on most printing, the sharpness seemed to be slightly better on the I850..only slightly better...details were darker on the I850, like outlines of green leaves on trees.
Would I justify the difference in price for the difference in print...ABSOLUTELY NOT. It just seems that the I850 is the newest printer technology and the S900, although only out since March 2002, will probably be replaced in the next 6 months or so with newer technology similar to the I850. Some colors on S900 came out with a different shade like bails of hay in a Halloween shot; on S900 it had a little more yellow tones than the I850 but the I850 had more detail on lines in hay and on my kids hair. Both were excellent and I took both 8 1/2x11 sheets (1 from each printer) to my local Best Buy store on a Saturday and the Canon rep working there couldn't tell the difference between the two printer's results. Bottom line is; If you need a magnafying glass to see the difference, then the I850 should be the choice. These pictures on both printers rival those that you get from local photo developing store...and you can adjust the contrast, brightness and color to your liking.
The speed when printing pictures on the I850 is fast. Again, I must stress how quiet this machine is while printing. You will almost forget it's on even when printing. The software that came with the I850 is Canon's Zoombrowser 3.5 version...the S900 came with older version. I took the pictures to show some friends and they couldn't believe I printed them at home. If you get this printer, you will not regret your purchase. Just remember, from what I've heard, that it does make a difference which photo paper you use...Canon's Photo Paper Pro is the BEST (and Canon claims pix will last 25 years on this paper). The text is quoted in Black/White as 22 ppm (WOW). Also, haven't done it yet but I've heard from other's that the I850 does awesome Black and White pictures...better than the S900. I hope this helps in your decision...by the way, it does only take about 30 seconds to do a high quality 4x6 print on this printer. An Epson of equal comparison would easily take at least 4 to 5 minutes to do the same print!!!

Pictures are just as good if not better than prints from photo lab. Have had no problems. Love It! amazon.com has the best price and free shipping too!

Had it for a couple of months now. Everyone I show the prints to can't believe its from my printer and they want to know what kind of printer I have. I've been using Jet Print Professional Photo Paper with real good results, maybe not quite as good as the Canon paper but still very good and much cheaper($5 for 40 8.5x11 sheets on sale). The Software that comes with the printer is very easy to use (Easy Print). From 8.5x 11 photo paper you can print a full page photo(8.5x11),or 2 half page photos(5.5x8.5),or 4 quarter page photos(4.25x5.5)or various smaller sizes. Prints borderless or border photos. Every photo on the page can be the same photo or each one can be a different photo.I use the quarter page borderless setting and 1/2 page borderless setting the most.Photos can be easily cropped right before printing. I Still love this Printer and I haven't bought any Ink yet.

First, I admit I'm a fan of Microsoft mouses. But I'm not closed-minded, and do have in my possesion the Logitech Mouse Pro Traveler mini-mouse which I carry with my Fujitsu notebook.

I got the Wheel Mouse Optical Blue as a gift from my ex-employer as a pink-slip present. OK, I'd rather keep the job, but what the heck, I don't decline freebies.

The Wheel Mouse is nice and stylish, and is pure plug-n-play on Windows XP. You don't need to install the software, although I imagine the Logitech software gives you some customization functions. I never bother with customizing my mouses anyway; just stick with the one-click, one-shortcut-menu, and scroll-up-and-down basic functions.

So the Wheel Mouse works very well on any surface; just don't try it on glass since it won't pick up reflection right. Its cool blue color turns heads at Starbucks. But I'm not all happy with its ergonomics; like many other Logitech mouses, including my prized Mouse Pro Traveler, your hand will get tired after about 15 minutes of use. Of course, your actual mileage can vary, but the point is, Microsoft mouses are still more comfortable, especially for people like me with large hands.

First of all, please do not purchase this mouse if you EXPECT the same feel and workings of your old "round ball" mouse. Optical mice are much more precise and sensitive.

I see a lot of reviews here stating that a slight mouse move shoots the cursor from one end of the screen to the other and that it is difficult to operate. I do not know why Amazon does not monitor customer responses more closely, as this is something that takes two seconds to alter. Just go into your control panel and change your sensitivity levels on the mouse, (you can also change double clikc speed as well).

The key reason I have upgraded my computers with this optical mouse is three fold.

1) Any hand size will feel comfortable using this mouse. Microsoft is a little big for smaller hands.

2) Personaly I like tho have the mouse to have some weight to it, not that this mouse is heavy or anything, but I did not really see the point of the "light as a feather" approcah Microsoft took with its optical mice.

3) I despise having to replace my older non-optical mice every year, it was simply not worth it in the long run. I have not only had no issues with this mouse, but I no longer have to use the q-tip and air spray cleaning method every month to keep performance.

Would HIGHLY recommend this mouse, definatly worth it.

I'm reading a lot of reviews that mention skipping or lag, and I can't imagine what's wrong, except to guess perhaps they are using the mouse on an inappropriate surface, perhaps very shiny?

I've owned three of these, for my PC, for my Powerbook and for an ex's PC. I also happen to be lucky enough to have one at work and all 3 of mine plus the 4th have always performed perfectly. No need to install the software at all on a Mac, and mor than accurate enough. As a gamer and a graphic designer I've had no problems with speed or accuracy, the buttons are responsive and natural and the wheel works great.

It's not "ergonomic" but I've found it more comfortable than my old MS Optical which was, and more reliable too. I'll never use a different mouse if I can avoid it, unless Logictech somehow improves on this one.

I got this mouse for Christmas, and so far I love it. After getting used to a wheelie mouse at work and not having one at home, I'd been meaning to pick one up for some time now. This mouse moves extremely smoothly over my mousepad, and has a cheerful looking red light shining out the back (palm) end. The only complaint I have with the mouse is that the two side buttons are too easily pressed while just moving the mouse around, especially when you have to pick up the mouse and reposition it. You have to make sure to grab the mouse at the base, below the buttons while you're moving it around or picking it up. Still, the side buttons are quite useful for web surfing. The thumb button takes you back a page, the finger button takes you forward. Of course, the button action can be customized to suit your needs with the Intellimouse software. Definitely a worthy addition for anyone tired of cleaning out those gunky rollers.

I have both the new IntelliMouse Optical and its predecessor, the IntelliMouse Explorer, both running on Macs. It's difficult to say which I like better, but I would give a slight nod to the Explorer because it fits my hand well, and since it is designed solely for right hand use, it's asymetric shape is more comfortable. I also find the outer "pinky" button on the Optical more difficult to press, although I don't use that button often (the inner button, which by default is set to "Back" in browsers, I use all the time.)

The Optical has the advantage of being less expensive, and its smaller size makes it a better choice for sticking in a PowerBook carrying case. It is also very comfortable, and its smaller size makes it feel a bit easier to manuever, though that's probably just psychological.

The IntelliMouse Mac software has been trouble-free for me, the only thing I wish it had (which the Kensington Mac driver offers) is a choice to configure a button to pop up a contextual menu to switch among open applications.

When the four button Kensington ADB mouse on my home machine wears out (as it undoubtedly will), I'll buy a third IntelliMouse to replace it.

I've had this mouse for over 2 years and haven't had any problems. I hot swap it between my old expendable 98se desktop (with the PS2 port adaptor) and my new XP pro laptop (USB plug) all the time and it works perfectly everytime and all buttons are fully functional. After using the two extra forward and back buttons I never want to go back to a 3 button mouse. If I had to pick nits, I'd say this mouse is actually a little big because I use a wrist rest and the mouse tends to bump into it. Otherwise an excellent all round mouse from Microsoft.

After setting this up in about a minute I was scanning. The software/driver package is average. Warm up takes only a couple of seconds becuase it is not a CCD/lamp scanner, it is a CMOS scanner which requires less power and less components. Hopefully it will bring more reliability. USB powered. Easy for people to "borrow" or bring to a friends house. Just remember to lock/unlock it when traveling and scanning. Images are average but the speed is awesome. Beats my UMAX 1220U (1998) scanner by far. I'll probably try out epson scanners next, the quality and speed on that is supposed to be really good. If you are looking for fast, simplistic, reliable scanner, the LiDE 20 fits the bill without paying a big bill.

Like the previous reviewer (June 18), I debated on whether or not to get this scanner. But I figured the price was low and overall the reviews were very favorable. I'm glad I did. It is very easy to set up - just take it out of the box, install the software, plug in the usb cable and it is ready to use. Note: I only installed the drivers, not the image editing software because I use other programs instead, like Macromedia's Fireworks. It installed on Windows XP with no problems, and also interfaces with my image editing programs perfectly.

This scanner looks very good, and I like the slim design. I use lower resolutions because most of the scans are for the web or for viewing on a monitor - even at lower resolutions they look great. The biggest delay is when you make the first scan - it takes about a minute to calibrate. After that, the speed of the scans is relatively quick. It's nice not needing a power cord. Be advised that you will probably have to use a powered usb hub, not the one on the motherboard. I already had one so this was no problem.

Negative: when I scan multiple pictures, the software doesn't always recognize each picture - it sometimes combines more than one. Or, it chops off parts of the pictures. However, I might not be following the instructions so I'll give the scanner and software the benefit of the doubt here.

Overall for the price, this is an excellent value - good quality and good looks. I am happy with this purchase.

I just received my Canon Canoscan LiDE20 scanner and I must say that I'm quite impressed so far.

Software took about 20 minutes to install & it includes a good general image editing program, but I'm used to using Picture It that came on my system so I normally use the bundled software for the initial scan only, plus I don't like wasting time learning new software when I can use something I'm already familiar with. Also included was an OCR program (I've never used OCR that much and I probably won't use this one much either)

The scanner is very small and lightweight.

There's NO power cord, the scanner is powered through the USB cable (I have mine plugged into a POWERED USB hub and it works just fine)

The scanner is quiet while previewing or scanning.

Image quality is very good considering the price of the scanner.
I also considered the LiDE 30 that was a few bucks more, but I'm glad I saved the cash and got this model.

I've been scanning at 300 dpi and 400 dpi today, and after printing the images on photo paper I can't see much difference from the original.

The speed of the preview is good at less than a minute per page.

Depending on the resolution I'm using, the actual scan is quite fast also. Example: a 7" by 11" image scanned at 400 dpi takes a little over a minute to completely scan.

My old umax scanner (that won't work with Win XP) takes 2-3 minutes per preview and depending on resolution, takes 5-20 minutes per scan.

You have options for magazine, photo & other standard methods of scanning. I use the custom settings to raise the resolution to 400 dpi color. (I haven't scanned anything over 400 dpi yet, but I'll get around to that sooner or later) You can also change the image before scanning, including briteness & contrast, etc. I normally leave the other settings alone and tweak the images later.

I have noticed that unlike many other flatbed scanners I've used, the scan bulb is not lit at all times, only when scanning.

The scanner also features "ON FRONT" scan buttons, but I've never been a fan of one touch scanners, so I don't use them.

My only complaint is that after I scan images, onscreen they look pixelated and grainy, even if I use them in MS Publisher they look distorted. When the image is printed, it comes out just fine though.

Overall this is a great little scanner for the price.