Keeping Up with Mac News

As a consultant, it is essential that I stay up-to-date with Mac news and information. There are a variety of sites that I can recommend for this purpose. For general news, I read the articles version of MacNN. This gives me paragraph teasers, and optionally full articles, of Mac-related news items, major software releases, and other industry news:

http://www.macnn.com/news/

Personally, I love to find cool new programs, and I always stay up-to-date with all the software I own. I read software update sites the way some people go thrifting or scour record stores for the rarest cuts. I’m always impressed and amazed at how much great software there is for the Mac, and how many new releases and updates there are every single day.

Many of my favorite programs are free or cheap little programs that are too small to ever show up on a store shelf or a product catalog. When you check out these sites, just take a moment to see how many items per day are listed. My favorite software sites:

http://www.macupdate.com/
http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/

There is even one server site from Apple, built for use on the iPhone or iPod touch:

http://help.apple.com/server/guide/desktop.html

Next time, I’ll provide a rundown of some of my favorite freeware and shareware apps!

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