A cracker of a bundle with some great applications.
Parallels Desktop 6
Techtool Pro 5
1Password
DVDRemaster Pro 7
Mac DVDRipper 2
11 all together.
Best MacBundle Yet! $50
280
Related Stores
closed Comments
Yes, but it's pretty much the same nowadays isn't it?
depends on how you pay and if there is a currency conversion fee…
I would use maybe 3 of those applications so cheaper than buying separately but not by much.
Its good to see a Mac bundle but there isn't enough in there I'd use for me to want it. I guess other people might snap it up though.
Divvy is a great app (1st 10,000 buyers only). If you haven't used it, I highly recommend it.
The first three are well worth it. My problem is that I already have them from previous deals.
Great price - that price just for Parallels by itself would've been a bargain !
Parallels 6, Civ 4 & Hands Off! (Little Snitch alternative) made it worthwhile for me.
I was about to buy Hands Off! yesterday for US$24.95 so really I'm just paying $25.05 more for Parallels and Civ.
One of the better bundles I've seen for the Mac, although sadly I already have or don't need most of the applications (happy with Fusion 3). Particularly good deal if you happen to need Parallels.
The bundle mostly sounds good, but I wouldn't trust TechTool Pro, it's the most worthless Mac utility software I've ever seen. The hard disk scanner only does a Read verify, it doesn't perform a Read/Write/Verify, so basically the results are completely meaningless. Modern hard disks only re-map bad sectors when writing to the drive, so you can read from it all day every day but only discover a fault when you try to write a new piece of data to the drive. Proper disk testing tools (even ScanDisk that comes free with Windows) reads data, then tries to write it back, then tries to read it again to make sure the read/write/remap cycle works with the entire hard drive, but this garbage software completely ignores hard drives that have write errors or have run out of re-allocation blocks. It also fails hard drives if it finds a single block that can't be read, without the option to re-map, and without showing which file is affected to assist in recovery.
When I worked at an AppleCentre we did a number of tests and found that TechTool Pro would occasionally give a '100% verified OK' mark to hard drives that weren't even spinning, because it was only reading the drive's cache! Some drives that were making clunking noises and wouldn't boot were given the A-OK by TechTool, because it only tried reading from them and didn't realise they could not be written to. Absolute garbage. We had to perform data recovery a few times for customers who ran TechTool Pro's 'repair hard drive' function, because it quite often did more damage than it repaired.
Steer clear if you want a reliable computer! SpeedTools from Intech is the way to go for hard drive maintenance.
Agreed that TT Pro is one of the biggest scams ever.
Still .. if you take into account the rest of the software .. it's a VERY GOOD DEAL!!
Don't you agree?
As much as I appreciate the warning, I'm sold for the bundle on this product alone. There are multiple reviews from various independent sources (including Mac World) giving this software the thumbs-up.
I don't like that I'm being sold out-dated software (since there's a new version and this is the old one), but then again, criticism I can find on the software says that it can't see what the new version offers.
I'm not discounting your experience with the product, because I haven't looked at it myself yet. I am however tempering it with the fact that others say positive things about it, and you can even buy it from the Apple Store site.
http://www.macworld.com/article/140460/2009/05/techtool5.htm…
MacWorld give it a raving review of 4/5. But then again, they also gave Office 2008 a raving review of 4/5, even though in the last paragraph the author admitted that he could not actually use Office 2008 to complete writing the article because it was so buggy it kept crashing on him and he had to resort to using a Windows PC to submit the story, but he 'hoped those problems would be resolved in later updates' - They are all paid reviews, not based on reality.
The user reviews on the same website give mostly bad reviews, with only 19 out of 69 people saying they'd buy it again, and some awful stories of data loss. Those 19 good reviews are from people who installed the program and 'haven't had a problem yet' - they haven't yet had a problem and seem to believe it's protecting them from danger, so they haven't yet witnessed it failing to repair a problem.
Lots of mostly bad reviews here on the MacUpdate website also:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/4307/techtool-proMore very poor or average reviews on VersionTracker:
http://download.cnet.com/TechTool-Pro/3000-2094_4-10869759.h…Just because they sell something doesn't mean it's good. Apple Stores sell things for a profit. They are there to make money. Go in there with a software related issue from a third-party product that they sold you, you are on your own and they don't want to know you.
The rest of the bundle still looks good and it well worth the money, Parallels, 1Password, DVDRemaster Pro 7 I have used with pleasing results, but installing TTP is a bad idea.
Cool, thanks for replying and sticking to the topic. It adds a great deal of weight to your opinion as an outsider. :) I am having a terrible time with my Mac at the moment, and it is to do with the hard drive. If you are interested, I share my iTunes Library between Bootcamp and OS X. I use Mac Drive to read/write HSF partitions, and it has worked flawlessly until this week. My Mac partition has already been buggered up twice this week - I am not positive, but I suspect it may be Mac Drive causing the corruption after the most recent OS X update. I have no solid evidence to back that up, just loving my Time Machine this week.
So, I have a real need for disk recovery and diagnostic software and I've been weighing up TechTool Vs DiskWarrior. This pack made that decision for me, and if it turns out TechTool does indeed suck, I still have a load of other great software at a bargain price. I've been meaning to get 1Password for ages, and that alone is most the cost.
On to your points:
Yes, Mac World had nice things to say about Office too early, but have you looked at how far Office has come since? Office 2008 was very inferior to the Windows version, but Office 2011 is actually pretty good. I'll still stick to the Windows version, beause that's the OS (BootCamp) I use at work. So, the review you reference is pretty astute. Yes, they're paid reviews - but even more than their sponsors, these organisations need their readers. If they feed them nothing but crap, they lose their readers. The same goes for Apple. Sure, one person bringing in third-party software with problems is told to take it up with said party. But if 40 out of 70 people came back to Apple with genuine beefs, they'd pull the software from the store quick-smart. Frankly, I put end-user reviewers on the same level as people who make YouTube comments for the most part - mewling pack of idiots without a clue.Don't get me wrong - I really am taking your advice on-board, You've already proved you are not such an individual. I will still try the software and form my own opinion. I am not a novice by any stretch, and as I previously said - I love my Time Machine if anything Earth-Shattering happens.
Make sure you turn off the auto renewal for mac update as well.
Is that in $USD ???