Who hasn’t encouraged a Windows user with the promise that they could continue to use their beloved MS Office applications after they have switched? The trouble is that sometimes the Mac versions of Office feel like the unappreciated stepchild and lacked true compatibility. Office:Mac 2011 has made great strides to close this gap and this can be seen in the outstanding version of Excel.

If you want to build your own Photoshop filter effects or have access to thousands of high quality filters, you may want to look at Filter Forge 2. You can easily create your own filter by dragging and dropping controls in the editor and downloading the nearly 8,000 filters that have been created by other users. If you have Photoshop CS2 or higher, there is a plug-in so you can apply the effects to the current layer you are working on from within Photoshop.

My first training session Macworld Conference and Expo 2011 was in the iPad usage track with Macworld’s featured artist, Kyle Lambert. A traditionally trained artist, he has easily adapted to using computers for his art. Kyle shared with us a video that highlighted some of his digital works, and then he began to explain and show us how these were created using his Mac, iPhone and iPad.

Macworld Expo is deeper than just the expo hall or even the keynote speakers. There is also a conference that includes training sessions that are hidden gems just waiting to be discovered. There are basically two types of training: all day workshops that start the day before the expo opens, and then shorter technical or skill-enhancement sessions that are spread out over the days of the expo. In past years, I have attended the workshops and conferences where I hope you will see in this series is a genuine value to those of us who use Apple products.

Making backups is crucial to keeping your data safe, and having a reliable utility for synchronizing files makes this task easy. I rely on a variety of utilities for backups, but sometimes you just need to keep two folders synchronized or set up an automated folder backup. There are lots of synchronizing applications out there, but many of them are expensive and hard to use, or they lack the features that you will find in GoodSync Pro for Mac.

While showing off my brand new iPad, I had to clench my teeth as a friend of mine slid it across a countertop. This was just the harsh realization that my pristine iPad was eventually going to show the rigors of real life use. Having the StealthArmor on my iPad makes me less hesitant to put it on a hard surface or hand it over to a friend. It is so thin and virtually adds no bulk so you could probably slide your iPad into another case for added protection even with the StealthArmor applied.