MacMegasite

High-tech hardware and software manufacturer Axiotron® today announced that it will be returning to the Macworld Expo for the third year in a row, where the company’s booth (#502) will showcase the improved and enhanced Modbook® – the one-of-a-kind tablet Mac® computer and previous winner of Macworld’s “Best of Show” award. The company will also demonstrate new software for the Modbook and will unveil innovative new hardware products and technologies at the show.
 
Axiotron’s booth will feature artists, designers, photographers and software representatives who will highlight the Modbook’s new hardware and software enhancements. In addition, Axiotron is partnering with a number of companies, including Adobe, Microsoft, Autodesk, Vision Objects, SmileOnMyMac, Chromatic Bytes, MindMeister, Circus Ponies, Edge Health Solutions and AssistiveWare, to present the Modbook’s broad range of application functionality at numerous hands-on demonstration stations.
 
Macworld visitors will get an exclusive first look at innovative new hardware products and technologies from Axiotron. An unveiling event featuring Axiotron CEO Andreas E. Haas will take place on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009, at the Axiotron booth.
 
“We are very excited to be back at Macworld. Our booth is designed to be highly interactive, informative and fun for visitors,” said Mr. Haas. “It is especially exciting this year since we will have the opportunity to present some of the new technologies our team has been working on.”
 
At Macworld, Axiotron will also debut Quickscript™, its new handwriting recognition software developed in partnership with Vision Objects. Quickscript will offer a dramatic enhancement of the Modbook’s capabilities by providing high-quality handwriting recognition – the software accurately recognizes cursive and printed handwriting in 21 languages. Already embraced by artists and creative professionals as a portable sketchbook and all-in-one studio, the Modbook significantly expands its usefulness for general users with the new Quickscript application.
 
Presentations and seminars featuring the Modbook will be conducted at Axiotron’s booth by artists and designers, including comic book artist Kody Chamberlain, Emmy award-winning animator Shannon Tindle, painter and illustrator Paul Lee, and storyboard artist Louie del Carmen.
 
The Axiotron booth will host various promotions during the expo. Visitors will have the chance to win free software and other prizes, and will even have the opportunity to win a brand new Modbook.
 
The Macworld Expo takes place Tuesday, January 6th through Friday, January 9th, 2009, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. For more information visit http://www.macworldexpo.com.
 
More information about Axiotron, the Modbook and Modservice – Axiotron’s new Modbook conversion service – is available at http://www.axiotron.com. Customers can place an order request for the Modbook or Modservice by visiting http://www.axiotron.com/buy or at any Axiotron Authorized Reseller.

About Axiotron

A high-tech solution hardware manufacturing company and an Apple Premier Developer, Axiotron (http://www.axiotron.com) produces the Modbook, the award-winning tablet Mac solution. Following its unique vision of Customizing Your World™, Axiotron is dedicated to becoming a leading high-tech innovator through the conception and development of intriguing digital lifestyle products. In addition, Axiotron offers its product development expertise to companies in need of custom hardware solutions. Founded in January 2005, Axiotron is a publicly traded company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V: AXO) in Toronto, Canada, with headquarters in El Segundo, California.

Milan, Italy – December 15, 2008. Most people are familiar with images of financial dealer rooms with each person having several displays on their desk. It is a great way to increase productivity as users can have several programs open at once, each on a different display without having to open and close panes. Village Tronic, one of the pioneers of multi-display solutions, has announced ViBook™ which now makes it very easy and inexpensive to run several screens from one computer using just standard USB.

Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research, explained, “Having several screens can dramatically increase productivity for almost any computer user. Now that the costs of displays and the multi-screen technology have dropped significantly, we are forecasting a market growth for multi-screen solutions of between 25% and 50% in 2009 as people realize just how much better and productive their working environment becomes.”

One of ViBook’s first users, Harry Newton of www.InSearchOfThePerfectInvestment.com, added, “I love my ViBooks. I use them to run four screens - my internal laptop’s screen – and three external monitors, the largest of which is 22” and 1680×1050 pixels. On one screen, I have Outlook. On another Quote.com, which shows real-time share quotes. On another I’m working on a large Excel spreadsheet or doing some Word stuff. The fourth screen is running Firefox. I can scissors and paste between screens. And I still have room to sneak in my Stickies list of Things to Do. My four screen arrangement saves me enormous time.”

Up to six displays can be driven by one Windows based computer and up to four for a Mac OS one. This gives a huge amount of screen area that can significantly increase productivity as many different programs can be open and visible at the same time. Each display is driven by an ultra compact ViBook that plugs into the DVI socket of the display and the other end of the cable goes to the USB port of the desktop or notebook.

“Using USB means that it is extremely easy to set up multiple displays,” said Ascanio Orlandini, Village Tronic’s CTO. “ViBook’s unique plug to display makes it easy to add an extra monitor – it is just like plugging in a USB to DVI cable. Our multi-screen software is just as easy to set up taking only a few minutes to initially configure. Now everyone can surround themselves with an extended desktop of independent applications running on their own dedicated screen or one huge desktop spanning across several screens.”

Technical details

Designed and manufactured in Italy, ViBook is extremely small at only 4.3 cm by 7 cm by 2.4 cm (1.7 in by 2.8 in by 0.9 in) and has a three year warrantee. It is supplied as a complete USB Graphics System that includes a DVI to VGA cable for high quality analog output to displays, a VESA mounting cradle and Village Tronic’s sophisticated multi-screen software for an enhanced user experience - VT MultiDisplay software for Windows and VT Voilà for Mac. Other cable options are available as optional extras.

The ViBook Graphics USB-DVI Cable is compatible with any computer system with an USB 2.0 port running Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5; and Windows 2000, Windows XP (32-bit), Windows Vista (32 and 64-bit). It can support displays up to 22” in size, with a resolution of 1680×1050 (widescreen) and 1600×1200 (standard) in 16 and 32 bit color. As it draws its power from the USB within the specified power rating, no additional power adapters are required and it can even work via a USB hub. It can be used with or independently of the video card already installed in the computer and can even drive projectors and HDTV displays.

Pricing and availability

ViBook is priced at US$129 plus local tax and is available now.

About Village Tronic

Village Tronic is an international, multi-display company and has been pioneering multi-display solutions since 1993. In 1996, it became the world market leader for independent graphics cards for Motorola based Work Stations. In 2004, Village Tronic started the multi-display
revolution for notebook workstations with the introduction of VTBook for the Windows, Macintosh & Linux platforms. For further information about Village Tronic and their products, please visit the website: http://www.villagetronic.com. email: press@villagetronic.com

After upgrading my Aluminum MacBook to 4GB of RAM and a 320GB 7200 RPM drive, I’ve found that it randomly freezes about once or twice a week. TUAW confirms that this is a widespread problem related to third party RAM upgrades.

If you’ve had similar problems with your MacBook or MacBook Pro, share your experience in our forum.

Join the forum discussion on this post - (2) Posts

The new MacBook offers the perfect balance of high performance in a small, lightweight package. The performance is almost equal to a MacBook Pro, yet it’s only slightly larger and weighs only 1.4 pounds more than a MacBook Air.

I replaced my 2007 MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo with a new MacBook and it doesn’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything.

I like the new trackpad a lot more than I expected. The front portion of the trackpad gives a positive click, like the Mighty Mouse, which is nothing like the one-finger tap of the old trackpad (which is still supported).

Not all software supports the new multi-touch gestures. iPhoto only supports pinch & expand in editing mode, not when viewing a photo. Aperture doesn’t support multi-touch at all. Photoshop CS4 does support multi-touch.

The only real drawback of the new MacBook is the lack of FireWire.

Migration Assistant took about 5 hours to copy my applications, settings, and home folder over gigabit ethernet. Running migration assistant from the initial setup failed to replace my home folder, since it doesn’t have any option to specify an alternate name. If you rerun migration manager, you’ll be given an option to rename the account, which will allow it to successfully copy the home directory.

I’ve posted a full unboxing gallery here.

David Alison picked up a Logitech VX Nano wireless mouse for his wife’s new MacBook and covered it in today’s blog post.

David Alison put together a quick iMovie video to show how to upgrade the memory in a MacBook in about 3 minutes. Ironically the video is about 3 minutes long.

What does it take to set up a Time Capsule? David Alison walks through buying a refurbished Time Capsule from Apple (which saved $50) and setting it up in today’s blog post.

Now that David Alison has made the switch from Windows to Mac he’s about to embark on getting his wife, a high school teacher, switched over as well. The first step is getting her a refurbished MacBook, which he details in today’s blog post.

David Alison has finally convinced his wife that she should get a Mac. Given the strong rumors that a new line of MacBooks is close to being released, what’s the best plan? Buy now or wait it out?

The MacBook & MacBook Pro are long overdue for an update, so rumors have been flying about updated models. Several images have surfaced, most of them showing a slim, more rounded design with a dark keyboard that looks a lot like the MacBook Air. Apple has scheduled a media event next month, where they’re expected to introduce new iPods and iTunes 8, but it’s possible they may also introduce the new MacBook Pro.