Newer Technology's MiniStack hard drive/hub
The diminutive Mac mini has spawned a small cottage industry
of accessories to extend its capabilities. One of these is Newer
Technology's combination hard drive and powered FireWire 400/USB 2.0
hub, in a stackable case that matches the mini's footprint and color
scheme.
The MiniStack is available
with drives from 80 GB ($140) to 500 GB ($450), as well as an empty unit
($80) into which you can install your own 3.5-inch drive. NewerTech
includes Retrospect Express (Mac/PC) for backup and Mac-only utility
software with the populated MiniStacks.
I don't own a Mac mini,
but I recently picked up a bare 250GB drive and also needed some
accessible ports for my G4 tower, so I decided to try out the MiniStack.
Though it's a tight fit, installing the drive is straightforward, and I
was impressed with the MiniStack's thermal management. It sports a
massive aluminum heat sink that attaches to the bottom of the drive and
has a variable-speed fan that responds to input from a thermistor taped
to the top center of the drive. The fan spins up and down as needed, but
is barely audible even at its highest speed.
You connect to both
the FireWire and USB ports on your Mac or PC with the provided 16-inch
cables (plenty for the mini-and others if you keep the drive close). A
switch on the back selects either FireWire or USB for drive
communication, and the drive automatically powers up and down with your
computer.
There are three FireWire ports--two on the back and one
around the corner on the adjacent side. The computer needs one of these,
leaving two free. Three USB 2.0 "A" ports are available (two on the back
and one on the side), in addition to a "B" port for input. A quibble: I
wish the side ports were on the more accessible front instead.
The
MiniStack has performed flawlessly for me, and the extra ports are
frosting on the cake.--Ken Henningsen
QuickBooks 2006
Intuit's QuickBooks
($100- $400) has been the most popular small-business accounting program
in the world for a couple of decades. Available in both Windows and Mac
OS X flavors (a welcome new feature is the ability to move QuickBooks
data between the two platforms), it comes in several versions. I tested
QuickBooks Premier 2006 (Windows) and QuickBooks Pro 2006 (Mac).
More limited SimpleStart and Online versions are also available,
as are much spendier Enterprise installations. (This review is
necessarily very brief; for more detail check out my Web
site.)
At their core, accounting programs are just relational
databases that obey the rules of double-entry bookkeeping--debits,
credits, and such. They free one from the "green eyeshade" tedium of
making journal and ledger entries, don't make math errors, and don't let
you create an unbalanced transaction. QuickBooks puts a user-friendly
face on this process, letting you enter data in on-screen replicas of
forms like checks, bills and invoices. (This works much like Quicken,
Intuit's single-entry Windows and Mac personal finance program, which
comes in a Windows-only Home and Business edition for very simple
business needs.)
At the output end, QuickBooks provides a wealth
of budgeting and historical reports with which to plan and track your
business and do your taxes (and it can transfer data to Intuit's
TurboTax).
Windows QuickBooks Premier has a newer and friendlier
interface than QuickBooks Mac Pro. This includes a graphical home page
for picking activities; vendor, customer and employee centers that
consolidate information on these entities; and optional installations
that optimize QuickBooks for several specific kinds of businesses.
Ancillary capabilities in some versions--often requiring additional
hardware, software and/or service purchases--include project estimating,
time tracking, payroll, point-of-sale systems, credit card handling, and
support for multiple simultaneous users.
Bottom line, I can't
imagine putting up with the drudgery of bookkeeping today without a
program like QuickBooks. But for my Mac preference, I'd pick the fancier
Windows version.
However, the newest Mac version is old-shoe
familiar to me, does everything I need, and lets me stay with my Mac for
everything I do, so I'll probably stick with that for now. --Ken
Henningsen
