Jeffery Battersby

If you're a MobileMe user, you've no doubt been put on notice that your files, folders, and MobileMe account data is about to disappear into the ether.

Open a free Dropbox account, if you don't already have one.While you probably have a good idea what to do with your personal files and folders, you may not know exactly what to do with the websites hosted on your MobileMe account. One relatively simple alternative is to move those files to a free Dropbox account.

Bento 4, Filemaker's personal database application for the Mac, is a perennial favorite because of how simple it is to use and how easy it is to sync data between your computer and your iOS devices. But there have been completely justifiable complaints about Bento-for such a consumer-focused application, it lacked some very obvious consumer-focused features. Namely, it was impossible to print labels with the application unless you resorted to a workaround using your Mac's Address Book app. The other issue was that, while Bento allowed you to print your data, what your printed data looked like was a glorified print screen, not a professional form that you'd want to send to your customers or friends.

Bento 4 fixes that, offering you over 250 label templates and giving you the option to create your own label templates if the one you need isn't available. In addition to labels, you can also export templates that contain data and Bento 4 has added a number of new field types that allow you to take advantage of location and audio information collected when you use Bento's iOS apps. In short, Bento 4 rescues Bento from being a kind of cute but impractical boutique application, making it an excellent and inexpensive way to manage a variety of data.

Bento 1.1.3 for iOS, the pocket-sized database app for your pocket-sized iOS device, or the book-sized database app for your iPad, offers a number of new features that make it a worthwhile addition to your iOS utility belt, but it still doesn't offer up enough of what it should to make it your one-and-only personal database application. Like earlier versions of the iOS app, you'll still need Bento for Mac to make this app great.

As with earlier versions of this app, Bento ships in two distinct iOS version, one for your iPad, and another for you iPhone or iPod touch. While both of these apps offer roughly the same feature set, not surprisingly, the way you interact with each of these apps differs significantly depending on what device you're using.

MyThoughts 1.2.1 (Mac App Store link) is a mind-mapping application that helps you to create visually appealing mind maps that can include images, Web links, or links to audio, video or other types of files stored on your Mac. But while the application gives you the freedom to create interesting-looking mind maps, it lacks the template and outline-to-mind-map options available with other, similar programs.

The principle behind mind mapping is simple. Instead of corralling yourself with the limitations and seeming formality of a standard outline, mind maps allow you to brainstorm an idea, getting all your thoughts out on the page in a way that is linked, but not necessarily sequential. Once your brainstorming session is complete you can then go back and rearrange and reorganize your broad and far-reaching ideas into something more coherent and sequential.

I'll start this review with a small caveat: Mind-mapping on a small-screened iOS device is not much fun and best avoided. True, all three of the apps reviewed here are designed for the small screen, but the small size of the iPhone/iPod touch screen and the expanse that even a basic mind mapped brainstorming session can become are two things that don't go great together.

Of these three apps, only two offer native iPad versions--SimpleMind and iThoughtsHD--and neither of those apps is Universal, which means that if you want to use them on all your iOS devices you'll have to purchase both versions.

If you're using tax preparation software on your Mac, such as those from TurboTax or H&R Block, chances are you're not too worried about printing your tax returns to send to the IRS. These applications typically offer you the option of filing your taxes electronically. But, if you prefer to keep a hard copy of your tax returns for future reference--rather than a PDF file saved somewhere on your computer--these applications offer you options for printing all or portions of your state and federal returns.

While each of these applications handles the printing of tax forms in a slightly different manner, both use specialized dialog windows within which you can select the types of returns, or selected portions of a return, that you want to print. After you're done selecting what you want printed, these apps hand the print job off to what is, for the most part, your default Mac OS X print dialog. There, you can make printer-specific changes to how your forms are printed, such as using duplex printing, or collating the documents.

Jumsoft's Relationship 2.1.1 (Mac App Store link) is a customer relationship management (CRM) and project management (PM) application that leverages your existing iCal events and address book contacts, making it easy for you to group contacts and events, as well as e-mail messages, documents, and Web pages in a central location. While the concept behind Relationship is great, it lacks the basic features necessary for any good CRM or PM application, which makes Relationship an ineffective CRM/PM tool, and something more like a container in which you can collect your project data.

Like every Jumsoft application, Relationship is a beautifully designed application that puts all of its major tools right at your fingertips. The program uses a three-part window that consists of two sidebars, one on the left and the other on the right, with a Workspace window in the middle that displays detailed information about the part of the project you're working on at the moment.

I have to start this review with a small confession: The TiVo app is fantastic for messing with your kids while they're watching TV. For the first ten minutes after I installed the app from TiVo on my iPad, I drove my son absolutely nuts as I paused, rewound, changed channels, and, in myriad other ways, messed with what he was watching on TV. He was going nuts, fully convinced that there was something wrong while I was nearly in tears sitting at the desk behind him.

General hijinks aside, the TiVo app for iPad offers an excellent way for you to find shows to record, manage your TiVo to-do lists and season passes, and, as my son learned indirectly, change channels, pause and play recordings, open the TiVo Guide, or do anything else you would normally do with your TiVo remote.

Splasm Software's CheckBook Pro is a basic, inexpensive personal finance Mac application that helps you track your income and expenses and provides minimal reporting capabilities. While not as full-featured as applications such as iBank ( Macworld rated 4 out of 5 mice ) and Moneywell, CheckBook Pro does offer everything essential to tracking your finances.

Like the paper register that comes with your checkbook, CheckBook Pro offers a simple, one window view that displays each of your transactions in a single, sequential spreadsheet-like row. Like a spreadsheet, you can sort your transactions by simply clicking one of the headings‚ (date, check#, to/from) Unlike iBank, older versions of Quicken, or even your paper register, CheckBook Pro cannot display each transaction on two lines. While this isn't necessarily a problem, such an option would make it easier for your eyes to follow your transaction information.

One gripe you'll hear about Pages '09, Apple's otherwise excellent word processing and page layout application, is that it provides little in the way of support for printing labels. But, while it's true that Pages doesn't ship with any built-in label templates, it's actually easy to create and use standard labels using Pages.

Step 1: Check to see if there's a pre-made template

Looked at side-by-side it's hard to believe that Evernote on the iPad is the same app that runs on your iPhone or iPod touch. Now a universal app, Evernote offers almost all the features on the iPad as it does on other iOS devices. But the tablet version lacks the elegance and simplicity of the iPhone version of Evernote we've come to know and love.

Which is not to say that Evernote isn't useful on the iPad-it's just not as polished, as nice to look at, or as easy to use. It's a disappointing effort, particularly for iPhone users who've grown accustomed to the better implementation on Apple's smaller device.

If you're a Quicken user there's no doubt that you've been disappointed over the last several years with diminishing value in what was once the preeminent personal finance application on the Mac. IGG Software is set to fix what ails you. iBank 4.1 is a powerful and easy-to-use personal and small business finance application that is constantly being updated, offers a useful set of features, and, most importantly, is designed by developers who seem hell-bent on pleasing their customers and adding new and better features to their application.

In answer to your first question: Yes, iBank can import all of your old Quicken data, with the exception of Quicken Essentials ( Macworld rated 2.5 out of 5 mice ), which cannot export data in the QIF, OFX, and QFX data formats that iBank supports.