Thinking of buying a new Mac? At all Apple Retail Stores (nearest to us are the stores in Northshore Mall in Peabody, MA and the Rockingham Park Mall in Salem, N.H.), if you buy a new Mac between now and August 10th, you can enroll your family, free of charge, in Apple Camp. Apple Camp is conducted at the store, and includes hands-on workshops to enhance learning, study, and research skills for students in grades 1 through 9. The camps have both beginner and advanced sessions, run Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings the weeks of August 11 and August 18, and are available on a first to sign up basis. I know it’s a long drive, but it would be a great jump start for a family new to the Mac.

Looking for novel way to get a new iPod? This summer, Apple and Volkswagen have teamed up to offer a free iPod with every New Beetle purchase. The offer includes a special mount and hardware to connect the iPod to the Beetle’s stereo system, and even some MP3s to get started with. Sure, it suddenly becomes a $25000 iPod, but you get a great car thrown in as well.

Software maker Adobe announced earlier this week that their pro video editing application, Premiere, would no longer be supported for the Macintosh platform. No problem, says Apple. On Wednesday, Apple announced a trade-in program. Send in your Mac or Windows Adobe Premiere install CD, and Apple will send you a free copy of Final Cut Express. The offer is available through Sept. 20, 2003, by mail only. If you want the full Final Cut Pro version, buy it, send in your Adobe Premiere CD, and get a coupon for a $500 rebate (that’s half price for Final Cut Pro, if you’re counting). And if that’s not enough, buy any new Mac and get Final Cut Express for $99 – a savings of $200. So much for Premiere support for the Mac.

Finally, in this year’s PC Magazine survey of desktop computer users, Apple and Dell both received A+ ratings. The survey included product satisfaction, tech support, setup experience, and system freezes. Apple bested all other makes in setup experience and system (OSX) stability, and was “significantly better than average” in product satisfaction and tech support.

Keep those emails coming to petez@macmaineiac.com, and, as always, Semper Mac! Take care.

© 2003 Peter F. Zimowski