Vordels updated appliance take heavy lifting off app servers

“It’s not just beautiful,” says Dana Wollman (laptopmag.com) of the new MacBook. “It breaks the mold for thin-and-light notebooks. The new MacBook’s unibody aluminum construction, one-of-a-kind touchpad, and edge-to-edge glass display draw you in, but what impresses us most about Apple’s overhaul of its most popular portable is that it offers robust productivity and graphics performance without sacrificing endurance.”

In Mac OS X Leopard, Spotlight has become an even more valuable resource. In addition to searching any Mac on your network, Spotlight also lets you take advantage of Boolean search operators—AND, OR, NOT—and other rich search vocabulary. That means you can use Spotlight to conduct pinpoint searches, finding only the files you want. To find out how, watch the latest Quick Tip of the Week.

For its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter, Apple today posted revenue of $7.9 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.14 billion, or $1.26 per diluted share. Gross margin was 34.7%. In one of the best quarters in its history, Apple shipped 2.6 million Macintosh computers (an all-time high), 11 million iPods, and 6.9 million iPhones.

With a wireless remote, Dr. Maki Sugimoto uses his Mac Pro and OsiriX software to superimpose a 3D image on the body of the cancer patient in his operating room. The image allows him to make highly precise incisions and treat his patient with minimally invasive laparoscopic surgery. It’s a surgical technique he conceived and perfected on his Mac.

Giving it a 4.5-mouse rating (out of 5), William Porter (macworld.com) calls the recently released Bento 2 “a very slick, very easy-to-use database management system.” A “more mature product,” Bento 2 “boasts a number of significant improvements, including better data import and export, enhancements to the spreadsheet-like table view, on-the-fly customization of forms, and the ability to share libraries.”