David Snow - page 125

When you spend a third or more of your waking hours all but chained to a computer setup, you might as well make it a pleasant place to spend time. That’s what most of Cult of Mac‘s Setups coverage is all about, really — glorifying both the high-tech performance and the stylish comfort that ease your enslavement to whatever it is you do with tech.

Today’s 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro-based featured setup shows a “before and after” transition. Musician and Salesforce consultant Jon Young said a revamp of his wife’s “nicer and more spacious” work area inspired his changes. “Mine just has more gadgets lol,” he said.

If you own an Apple Watch, you know how easy it is to switch bands. It takes about five seconds. Having a band for every occasion is part of the fun of owning the wearable. Silicone, nylon, leather, metal mesh — you can change things up on a dime.

Speidel makes all sorts of watch bands and straps — including a wide range of bands for Apple Watch. And right now you can get two great ones for 70% off regular prices in the Cult of Mac Store. The Speidel Square Tip Oiled Leather Band for Apple Watch is on sale for just $9.89. And the Speidel Matching Scrub Band for Apple Watch is just $5.99.

This week the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America recognized Apple TV+ content with a pile of award nominations — five in the DGA Awards and four in the PGA Awards, both set to take place in March.

For the first time ever, Apple TV+ has offered the first episode of an Apple Original series — the crime comedy The Afterparty — on YouTube, where you can watch it in full for free.

That’s a promotional angle we haven’t seen before from the Cupertino tech giant. But will it work?

On Fridays it’s fun to focus on computer setups with entertaining features whenever possible. Sometimes it’s seriously vintage gear. Or it could be wacky decor. Once in a while, an exotic location pops up. Today we found one where a brand new M1 Pro MacBook meets a kooky crew of bobbleheads and other figures under a really over-the-top camera rig used as a webcam.

If you want to run more than one display with your M1 MacBook Air or M1 MacBook Pro, Sonnet Technologies just made things easier. The company rolled out new dual-display adapters that let you hook up two 4K displays to your laptop using just one of its precious few ports.

Hot on the heels of Denon’s launch of a soundbar-and-subwoofer combo with Dolby Atmos for just $449, Sony said Thursday it will offer its own affordable surround-sound rig for only $300. It’s the HT-S400 2.1ch Soundbar, set for launch in April.

At that price, Sony’s new soundbar looks like a solid budget-friendly option for stellar TV audio. Pumping out 330W of sound, it comes with a wireless subwoofer, easy connectivity to the company’s newest TVs and an OLED heads-up display.

Judging by the Denon and Sony launches, it appears an era of high-quality, affordable TV audio solutions is upon us. After all, just months ago, companies raced to put out similar gear that cost many hundreds of dollars more, in many cases.

Anyone who uses a stream deck to streamline hardware and software workflows with shortcuts now has the option to go hands-free with the new Elgato Stream Deck Pedal, unveiled Wednesday.

And in addition to launching the pedal, the company said its new Discord communications software plugin for Stream Deck is now available.

Serious gamers like to use specialized gaming gear in their computer setups. And that includes input devices like souped-up mice and sleek mechanical keyboards. The good news is, the latter keep getting better and cheaper. On Wednesday, Logitech’s gaming arm, Logitech G, rolled out the G413 SE Mechanical Gaming Keyboard in two sizes.

And better yet, the two new keebs’ prices won’t break the bank.

If your TV sounds a little thin on its own, you might want to beef up that audio with a soundbar and subwoofer. Until recently, sets offering Dolby Atmos 3D surround sound tended to cost quite a bit. But Denon’s got an affordable new outfit for you — the DHT-S517 soundbar.

Known for it AV receivers, Denon now takes on the likes of Sonos Arc with its release of the DHT-S517. You can plug it into any TV to jack up your entertainment experience with Dolby Atmos for $449.

Some computer setups knock your socks off with lighting. It can be tasteful, warm, welcoming and conducive to work without eye strain. It can be bright, inventive and dazzling, like fantastic decorations. Or, as in today’s MacBook Pro-based featured setup, it can be either one of those, depending on both choice of settings and time of day.

The light show in today’s workstation derives from two sources, or schemes. One involves two very different table lamps. The other involves LED light strips.

In time for upcoming spring and summer evenings, smart lighting company Philips Hue offers some cool retro-lighting options for you to try when it’s warm enough to gather outside. Or anytime you want to give your house’s exterior a vintage vibe, really.

Philips Hue owner Signify said three new additions to its outdoor smart lighting line launch on March 1. In addition, two new lighting effects for indoor smart bulbs will arrive on the Hue app later this year, the company added.

Apple paid a cybersecurity student what’s thought to be a record-high $105,000 bug bounty. Why? He showed the company how hacking its webcams can render the devices fully vulnerable to further attacks.

A pair of new featherweight gaming headsets from Audio-Technica feature high-fidelity audio, detachable boom microphones and other features designed to give gamers goosebumps.

The ATH-GL3 comes with a closed-back design to reduce ambient noise. The ATH-GDL3 features an open-back design, offering a wider soundstage.

Leave it to a digital product designer to work their magic in a tastefully pristine workstation with an absolute minimum of cable clutter. “Cable management gets a 10 out of 10,” one person said of today’s featured computer setup. And all that walnut wood doesn’t hurt, either.

But how did they manage to tame the cable monster?

Toward the end of January, Casetify plans to launch an expansive Peanuts-themed iPhone accessories collection. That’ll give fans of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock, Linus and the rest of the gang the chance to snap up special iPhone cases, MagSafe wallets and more.

In a world awash with multi-device charging stations that juice your iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods at the same time, it’s refreshing to see an unfamiliar design once in a while. Intelli provided one recently when it launched its new StepUp Magnetic Wireless Charging Station.

With its tidy little pop-out charging platforms, the MagSafe-compatible StepUp can be a sleek charger just for your iPhone or transform into a 3-in-1 for your trio of devices. But even fully deployed, the design is compact.

If your computer setup had three screens, including a MacBook Pro, an iPad and a 32-inch external monitor, would you make the iPad the center screen? Would you put your screened devices on stands, or leave them at or near table level? Today’s setup saw a transition that might actually save its owner from years of physical therapy.

“This is what neck pain would look like if it were a setup,” someone said about the “before” photo, above.

Every year Samsung subsidiary JBL rolls out a tempting raft of updated or new audio products at CES, but you can’t get them right away. CES 2022, held in Las Vegas earlier this month, was no different. The company showed its new JBL PartyBox Encore and a slew of other Bluetooth speakers, earbuds and headphones. We’ll round them up below. Some are coming in spring and others in summer.

As the number of officially certified third-party MagSafe accessories grows, Mophie adds to the product pile with a new multi-device travel charger. It folds, stores away in a handsome felt case — and you can only get it through the Apple Store.

The Visual Effects Society nominated Apple TV+ titles Tuesday for seven honors in its 20th Annual VES Awards, including the Tom Hanks film Finch and the epic sci-fi series Foundation.

On Tuesday Canon rolled out its new EOS R5 C camera. It called the device a “true hybrid” full-frame mirrorless camera for still photography as well as unlimited video recording. The camera combines the company’s stills-focused EOS technology with Cinema EOS into one thick, actively-cooled camera body.

Here at Cult of Mac Setups Central, we’ve looked fairly closely at quite a few audio-centric workstations used by the likes of sound designers, video mavens and plain ol’ music fans. Today’s featured setup, with a souped-up 16-inch M1 Max MacBook at its core, belongs to an out-and-out audio engineer from Canada named James.

Five Apple TV+ Original films and three series received a total of nine nominations Tuesday for the upcoming 53rd annual NAACP Image Awards.

Last year the streaming service netted 11 nominations and won Outstanding Independent Motion Picture for The Banker.

Belkin rolled out an official, Apple-certified MagSafe iPhone charger this week — the Belkin Boost Charge Pro Portable Wireless Charger Pad with MagSafe. And it bets you’ll pay more for it than you would for Apple’s own MagSafe charging puck.

Why would you pay more? For two reasons. And no, the extra-long product name is not one of them.