Geeky Girl: Any Geeky Girls at Macworld Expo?

Many people say that the tech world is a man’s world, but there are penalty of girls that would make you think different. It is hard to think of a women that has changed the tech world or the Mac world, but if we look I am sure we can find a few. When we go to Mac World Expo, I will be looking for the women of the Apple World, and if you have any ideas whom you would like to hear from at Mac World, please let me know. Also I can not help but think that there are women here in the Middle East that is helping to change the Apple world here.

That said if you look at the top officers at Apple you will not find a woman, and as a women I have to ask why? There is one women, Andrea Jung , that sits on the board for Apple as of January 2008. Jung, is the first woman that has ever sat on the Board. She has an impressive resume that includes the Chairman of the Board and CEO for Avon, previously the Executive Vice President of Neiman Marcus, sits on the board of General Electric (GE) since 1998, just to name a few things. But what does she really bring to Apple other than being a woman and knowing maybe how to sell to women? I do think this is the step in the right direction for Apple and I hope to see more women take the rains at the top of Apple. You can also find more information about Jung at Apple.com. So I will do my part in my posts to find those women that are making us proud in the Apple and tech world

Family-Friendly Game: Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab

It’s not easy to find games you would feel comfortable putting on the family Mac in the livingroom, assured that they’re safe as well as entertaining and educational for as many members of the family as possible. But Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab from Freeverse is one such game.

I won’t bore you much with details and it’s hard to describe BMPL to others. I’d say if you take the concept of Tetris, you know falling blocks you have to place and fit in together, add some monkeys, and add a few twists and you have BMPL.

System requirements: Mac OS 8.6 or later, Mac OS X or later, G3, G4, G5 or Intel Processor, 300 Mhz or faster, 16 MB VRAM minimum, 32 MB RAM minimum, 35 MB hard drive space minimum.
Price: $19.95

Geeky Girl: Who Makes the Tech Choice in your Family?

Okay here is question for all of you Geeky Girls out there: Who in your family decides which computer you get for the family? Deciding between a desktop and notebook is not an easy choice, but then you have to think about if you need a Pro Mac or just a normal Mac (not that you can really call a Mac a normal computer). Also you need to think about if this computer is going to be used by everyone in the family and the ages of the people using this computer. If you have older children then they may need their own computer and they may also need to take this computer with them.  For most families I believe the iMac and/or the MacBooks would be the right choice.   

Buying your Mac is very different than just buying any computer, for most people, so if you are the one that helps make the decision on which computer is best for your family, where do you buy your Mac? Do you go for the experience and take your family with you to buy that new family member?  Then you probably what to go for a place like an Apple Premium Reseller.  For my family when we buy a new Mac it is like a new family member joining the family, and we all go and then take pictures of the event. LOL  So which places do you think work hard on understanding your needs as a decision maker in your family’s computer needs and do they work hard for your sell? Some will say that Apple it self, is just starting to understand the important’s of women in their sales, and our decisions on computers for our family’s. So, can we expect the local market here to understand our needs? Whatever Mac you get for your family I hope you will have a long and happy life, so enjoy your new member of your family. 

CNN Living in the Past

This is what CNN thinks the new notebooks from Apple look like.

CNN International tonight showed a reporter from New York talking to another reporter in California about the new MacBooks, MacBook Pros, and Displays.  The whole time they were talking they were showing the old iBook and PowerBook, with a 1st Gen. iPod.  Now you would think that they could come up with some newer videos or photos of Apple’s notebooks.  They did talk about how nice the new notebooks are and how green they are.  So, maybe Greenpeace will leave Steve alone for a while.

Geeky Girl: The Quest For The Perfect Mac Bag

Here in the UAE I have been looking for the perfect bag for my Macbook Air and unfortunately I have not had much luck. So it got me thinking what is the perfect Geeky Girl bag? What is it that we want or need in a bag?

Let start with what we as Geeky Girls may need to carry in our bag. I myself need to carry my Air, cables, writing notebook and files, two mobiles, my iPod, copies of Shufflegazine, and many other things. But all of these items do not include my girly things, lipstick or chapstick, wallet, nail polish, make-up, you know all things that girls need to be girls. Now, I do not want to carry two bags because that can become too much. Also the bag should protect my Air as it is my wonderful Mac, and it should look as good as my Air does - you know, look Apple-ish.

Now I know this is a lot to ask for in a bag, but this bag should also be light. I carry a lot of things in my bag and I also carry a Macbook Air for a reason, so I do not need my bag to weigh me down. The bag should not look like a Windows user bag or a normal computer bag. As I am a Mac user it should, look creative and cool. I also need this bag to look good for meetings and travel.

As I said that I still do not have the perfect bag and I am up for any ideas that you may have. Right now I am using a Knomo 13” sleeve and a large Charles & Keith bag. It works for now, but I am not sure it is the best that I can find. So, the search is on for the perfect bag that matches the look and coolness of my Mac.

Parental Controls in Mac OS X

Do you have a family Mac in the living room, accessible by everyone in the family, including kids? Perhaps your kids have their own Macs in their rooms? What you probably want to do then is somehow control when and what they can do things on their Macs. You don’t want to them to play World of Warcraft 24/7, you don’t want them to go to certain web sites, and you want to protect them from people online who want to do them harm, etc.

To your help, Apple has built in parental controls in Mac OS X and they’ve improved them significantly in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. You find them in System Preferences > Parental Controls. There you will see a list of the users on the Mac you can control.

In the first tab, System, you can select that the user should see a Simple Finder. It’s basically a very stripped-down version of the regular Finder with less options. For really young users or users who don’t need to be able to do much with their Mac it’s a good option. You can here also restrict what applications the user has access to.

Next tab, Content, controls exactly that, Content of web pages. This is perhaps the weakest point in Apple’s Parental Controls as other competing products allows much more flexibility in this area.

Email and even more so chat can be dangerous for young and innocent individuals online and controlling it is of great importance. In the Mail & Chat tab you can control who the user will be able to email and chat with. You can set up accounts for all their family and friends and restrict their communication to them.

Finally you can also set time limits for when your kids can be online. So they should be doing their homework until 6pm, then you have dinner, and they can be online for one hour from 8-9pm, then you can automatically lock them out during other times.

The built in parental controls in Mac OS X are perhaps not enough for all parents but they are worth taking a look at by everyone who wants in some way control access to a Mac, not just parents.