New TidBITS article: VMware Releases Fusion Beta (2007-01-08)

New Macworld review: “Backing It Up,” a round-up of reviews covering the following backup applications: Backup 3.1 (Apple); Data Backup 2.1 (Prosoft); Personal Backup X4 10.4 (Intego); Retrospect Desktop 6.1 (EMC Insignia); and Tri-Backup 4.0 (Tri-Edre) (December 22–29, 2006; February 2007 issue, pp. 38–46). Also reviewed, but appearing only on the Web due to space constraints: BounceBack Pro 7.1 (CMS) (December 13, 2006). I summarized the best options in Backing it up (January 4, 2007).

New Macworld article: Easy Mac Backups (January 3, 2007; February 2007 issue, pp. 80–81)

Hello all. Over the past couple of months, this blog hasn’t seen much action, and the other alt concepts sites have also been pretty quiet in recent weeks. Apart from the holidays and related travel, Morgen and I have been frantically preparing for our upcoming trip to Indonesia and Hong Kong—we leave in a matter of minutes! There’s been so much to do that a few things, such as actual work, have gotten put on the back burner. However, I did want to provide a few updates before I head off on my big 40th Birthday Trip.

Take Control of Running Windows on a Mac: A couple of weeks ago, we released version 2.0 of this book, which reflects the huge number of changes in the Windows-on-Mac world in the last several months—major updates to both Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop, the release of CrossOver Mac, and the sort-of release of Windows Vista. Of course, no sooner did we get the new edition out than VMware went and released a beta of Fusion, yet another interesting way to run Windows on your Intel Mac. So I’ll update the book to discuss that at some point after I return from my trip. In the meantime, I think all the information there is still solid and reliable, and it’s a great improvement over the first edition.

Take Control of Mac OS X Backups: Version 2.0 of this book—a significant expansion—is also pretty much ready to go, and has been for weeks. But because of the holidays and preparations for Macworld Expo next week, it may not be released until mid-January or so. This new version discusses Time Machine to some extent, but after Leopard is released, I’ll do another update that covers it in detail.

Interesting Thing of the Day, SenseList, and The Geeky Gourmet: All these sites will be running on a greatly reduced schedule during January. We plan to collect lots of interesting things, lists, and food stories on our trip, and will be back with fresh content in February.

Macworld Expo: This’ll be the first time I’ve missed the show in I can’t remember how many years. But it’s for a good cause: you only turn 40 once. I’m sure I’ll have 32,768 email messages awaiting me on my return, informing me of all the cool things that were announced and that I must immediately buy. And, of course, there will inevitably be all sorts of books requiring updates .

So that’s the update. If there’s anything I forgot, I’m sure it’s on my list somewhere, and I’ll attend to it in February. See you then!