Today Filemaker has released Bento, an application they are marketing as “the new personal database...that’s as easy to use as a Mac.” Bento features integration with iCal and Address Book, and allows you to keep track of various projects or types of data. For example, you can use Bento to keep track of your exercise log, track billing, use it to keep track of class assignments, manage projects, and then some.

From the little bit of time I’ve spent with it, Bento seems to be pretty flexible, and works pretty much as you would expect it to. It actually seems like it has the potential to be a pretty cool little app.

FileMaker is currently running a preview program (a nice way of saying “beta” I guess). To take part in the preview program, you will need to fill out a form. After submitting the form, you’ll get an email with a download link. The preview is free t participate in, and you’ll get 30 days to tinker with Bento. Macworld notes that Bento will be officially released in January for $49 ($99 for the family pack).

I’ll post my first impressions of Bento whenever I get around to it (hopefully tonight).

Welcome to Part 7 of Deep Thought’s review of Mac OS X Leopard, the latest kitty to pounce on the world. It has been taking a while, but the Leopard review series should be completed this week. Woot!

In this particular sections, I get to discuss one of the more fun new features in Leopard: iChat 4.0. This is no minor improvement, mind you. So pull up a chair, relax, and get ready learn a little bit about iChat in Leopard.

Of course, no review segment would be complete without the following note on the score. That score you see way down at the bottom of the page only reflects whatever is discussed in this article. When all is said and done, we will assign Leopard a final score. Without further ado, let’s get into the heart of the matter.

(And pardon me for any typos--it’s 1:30 AM as I post this on the site and I’m really tired.)

Chat it up!

iChat made its debut way back in August 2002 as part of Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2). At the time it was a pretty bare-bones IM client. Despite its lacking feature set, however, iChat always had one thing going for it: its user interface. Accentuated by text bubbles in chats, a soundset that didn’t suck, and subtle animations, iChat made instant messaging fun. In time, audio and video chat support was added, along with support for Jabber and a number of other smaller features. This brings us to today…
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Come one, come all, to Part 6 of Deep Thought’s Leopard review! There is still a lot to cover in Leopard, but we hope to have our review completed within about a week, if all goes well. In case you’re just joining us, here’s what you’ve missed so far:

• Part 1: The Leopard UI
• Leopard screenshots
• Part 2: Spotlight and the Finder
• Part 3: Stacks
• Part 4: Spaces
• Part 5: iCal

In this section, we will discuss one of Leopard’s marquee features: Time Machine.

Before we start, a quick note about the score: the score at the bottom of the page only reflects the features discussed in this article. When all is said and done, we will give Leopard an overall score.

Insert “Back to the Future” reference here

Time Machine’s entire existence can be owed to one fact: very few people back up their files on a regular basis. Those who do, however, use an assortment of tools. Some use commercial software such as Retrospect. Some use the free basic backup software that came with their external hard drive. Some manually drag files onto a disk. Still others use software like Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper!, which create exact copies of your hard drive on an external disk called clones (clones are nice because if anything goes wrong, you can start your computer off a clone of your internal hard drive).

Some of these backup procedures are easy, some are more tedious, but the bottom line is that millions of…
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Here we are, two weeks after Leopard Day, and here’s Part 5 of our Leopard review. Today I get to talk about a calendar application. Isn’t that exciting?

You’re snoring.

Okay, so it’s not the sexiest topic out there. An important, useful one, maybe, but it’s not exciting.

iCal is Apple’s calendaring application bundled with Mac OS X. One of my friends switched from Mac OS X to Windows (yes, seriously), but the one thing he misses from the Mac is iCal. Since its release in 2002, iCal has seen little in the way of major changes. Is this still the case with iCal 3.0? Let’s take a quick look at what’s new with iCal in Leopard.

First, here’s the customary note about the score. The score you see at the bottom of this page only reflects what I cover in this article. When we’re done with the Leopard review, we will give Leopard an all-around score. Anyway, let’s do this.

iCal’s user interface has undergone a major update in Leopard (screenshot). Some of the changes are merely cosmetic, others are usability improvements. First of all, iCal now looks prettier! The new Leopard look really suits iCal well. It’s an attractive, streamlined piece of software.

iCal’s sidebar has been reworked, and it now sorts your calendars by category (Calendars, .Mac account calendars, subscribed calendars). Also, you can create your own calendar groups. For example, if you have one calendar for article deadlines and one for event coverage(ahem), you can stick them…
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As you may have heard amid all the Leopard talk the last couple weeks, there is an actual malicious trojan horse in the wild that affects Mac OS X. It is important to make the distinction between this and a virus or other malware that exploits an actual security flaw in Mac OS X. This trojan poses as a video codec and tricks the user into downloading it, mounting the disk image, and installing the trojan. It doesn’t exploit any security holes in OS X, it exploits user stupidity/gullibility.

Naturally, any time this sort of thing happens—a proof-of-concept, a security flaw found, actual malicious malware—there is a deluge of media attention, with some security analysts comparing Mac OS X to Windows 98.

Wait, what?

There are a few things people like to point to when to comes to Mac security. These one-liners may make for plenty of controversy, but let’s take a moment to dig deeper and see if there is something more going on.

Apple doesn’t pay enough attention to Mac security

Back in April I wrote about a Symantec report analyzing how quickly major OS vendors release security patches after flaws are discovered. The Symantec report looks at data between July and December 2006. Their findings? Microsoft took 21 days to issue fixes, Red Hat took 58 days, and Apple took 66 days.

In Wired’s article, New Apple Trojan Means Mac Hunting Season Is Open, security researcher Gadi Evron states that “Hackers will find it profitable and all too…
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