For a limited time, you can grab Belight Backup Pro (Mac) for free. Normally $19.95, this drive-cloning tool creates a bootable backup and includes features like file-syncing and scheduled activities.
Having helped usher in simple-to-use Wi-Fi networking in 2000 with its futuristic-looking AirPort Base Station, Apple has finally confirmed what has been: Its line of AirPort and Time Capsule Wi-Fi gateways is. This comes as no surprise, given that the last updates for the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule models internals came in 2013 (to include the 802.11ac Wave 1 standard), while the compact AirPort Express has remained stuck in 2012. Apple has, however, embedded recent Wi-Fi technology in the radio systems of its computers, mobile devices, and the Apple TV. And the company will continue to sell out its current inventory and, of course, honor its technical support and warranty obligations. If you’re an Apple household and your home is already full of Apple base stations, you may be concerned about pivoting away and losing features you rely on, or creating a mixed network of Apple and non-Apple routers.
You need not be concerned, because you actually have several options, which we describe below. As for losing out on special features, see our section on why are no longer relevant. (A tip on extending the life of your AirPort base station: If you purchase an AppleCare warranty for a Mac and have bought an AirPort base station of any vintage within the two years prior to the Mac’s purchase date, Apple extends the warranty to the AirPort gear through the duration of the AppleCare warranty. You can wind up with as much as five years of base station warranty that way.) Drop-in replacement: A Wi-Fi router Your router choices can come down to whether you want to sweep everything out of the house and start fresh, or you’re looking to replace or extend an existing network. The best cheap routers have effectively the same features and networking philosophy as the Apple base stations. They’re really a combination of an access point (Wi-Fi management), a router (moving packets around a network and to and from the internet), and an ethernet switch to handle devices that only have wired connections or that work best with a gigabit ethernet connection. If you’re using or planning to use two or more of this kind of “old-style” gateway, they should be connected via ethernet.
(See below why WDS or similar wireless systems aren’t reliable and reduce performance.) Mentioned in this article. Mesh networks, described in the next section, work like gateways, but some lack ethernet switches entirely, and they have extremely robust connections among each other. This is where your budget comes to the fore: It’s easy to drop $300 to $500 on a great, new, multi-router mesh Wi-Fi solution that fills every nook and cranny in a house and never needs to be poked. But you can also spend as little as $100 for a single gateway that could work nearly or completely as well in a more modest single-floor house, apartment, or condo. For a single or multiple old-style router network, the ($100) offers nearly everything you need in a drop-in AirPort Extreme replacement.
You can swap out an AirPort base station and swap this in, and you might not notice the difference. It’s also a good choice for multiple units, due to its cost, or you could find Wi-Fi extenders, which connect via ethernet and are used just to fill out coverage. Netgear Netgear R6700 Nighthawk AC1750 The R6700 has a USB 3.0 port for hard-drive sharing, a USB 2.0 port for printer sharing, and a four-port gigabit ethernet LAN switch. A drive attached via the router can be used with ReadyDLNA, which allows streaming media from the drive to certain gaming systems and TVs. Unlike Apple’s base station, the Netgear router allows for QoS (Quality of Service) prioritization, letting you elevate audio and video streaming above other data, which improves playback. The R6700 can set up a separate guest-access network. The one proviso here is that we haven’t reviewed the R6700 yet, though it’s received excellent marks from customers and was the previous budget pick by the New York Times’ product review site, Wirecutter.
Our sister publication PCWorld has, however, reviewed favorably the Nighthawk R7000, which has a similar feature set, potentially faster throughput, and better speed at a distance. Mesh networks: The new hotness The alternative to the AirPort-style routers, both cheap and expensive, is a mesh networking system. Mesh networks don’t require configuration on each device to get them to find each other, and they don’t require an ethernet cable. Rather, mesh devices—called nodes—self-configure, making the optimum connection for routing data among themselves. The best systems help you place routers for best performance around your house or office, too. (For more information,.) Mesh nodes manage this with multiple radios, devoting one radio to communicating among other nodes, and with proprietary networking systems for node communication.
On the Wi-Fi side, it’s all standard and all Wi-Fi devices connect as expected. The use of proprietary intra-node communication means that you can’t mix and match nodes from different manufacturers. Mesh networking systems usually offer help through an app or visual signals (like an LED) about where to place nodes optimally for coverage. If you decide you need more coverage (or, in some cases, better throughput), you can just add more units, and the system reconfigures itself to accommodate them. Some mesh systems rely entirely on a smartphone app, available for iOS and Android, leaving out web-based or desktop app configuration, but others have both smartphone and web app options.
Netgear Netgear Orbi We’ve, all of which are mesh:. received our top marks. For $300 you can buy two nodes, a Router, and full-sized Satellite, each of which has ethernet LAN ports (3 and 4, respectively). Or, for the same price, get a bundle with the Router model and two smaller satellites, which have an integral AC power plug but no ethernet ports. Mentioned in this article. offers better throughput through its radio design. For $340, a two-node package can blanket many houses; a three-node bundle is $450.
The units include two gigabit ethernet jacks under their bases, one of which has to be connected to a broadband modem on one of the nodes. is our budget pick, with less throughput but only costing $230 for three nodes.
Competition has dropped the prices of some of the leading mesh systems, and it’s likely the price will drop somewhat further, but with our top pick at as little as $100 per node and our budget at about $80 per node, it’s not likely to drop as much as prices have already in the last couple of years. What about Apple’s proprietary base station features?
From Apple’s introduction of the original AirPort until just a few years ago, its base stations were often the best on the market, even if sometimes the most expensive'. However, for Mac users in particular, the gateways had Apple-specific features you couldn’t get elsewhere.
There’s no question about it: the Adobe suite of graphic design and illustration software isn’t going anywhere anytime soon as the industry champion. Despite its quirks and teething problems that come with nearly every version update, it’s also arguably the best suite that money can buy. The problem is, it takes a lot of money to buy it. Purchasing any of the CS titles outright can cost anywhere between $300 to $2,000 depending on which version you plump for, and Adobe’s attempts to convince people to pay on its new subscription model can cost anything between $50 to $200 every single month. Obviously, that’s not an issue for those at who have got full access to the CS suite as part of their tuition program, but these are prohibitive price tags for everyone else. As such, today we’ll be exploring: 6 Free Alternatives to Adobe Illustrator Platform: Any modern web browser What It Is: An editing suite that deals solely in SVG (scalable vector graphics), which may sound like a restriction but is actually quite useful given the versatility of the format. If you’re scared of getting into SVG editing, you’re missing out, and this will break you in gently.
Being a web browser platform also sounds limiting, but again, the speed at which it operates as a result is often superior to desktop counterparts. Platform: Windows/Linux What It Is: As with SVG-Edit, Inkscape is also geared towards those who want to work primarily in the SVG file format. Featuring both a clean and intuitive user interface, but packed with advanced features (such as alpha blending, object cloning and very accurate bitmap tracing), Inkscape comes as a highly recommended free alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Platform: Mac What It Is: Full rasterizing controls, layer management, multiple file format support, infinite zooming and every vector drawing tool you could ever hope for Affinity Designer could quite possible become a true Illustrator killer. At the moment it’s only available to Mac users and the full version comes with a small price tag of $49.99 with free upgrades for two years, but the trial version is still remarkably functional and worth a shot if you’re looking for a free editor. It’s even worth it just to play with the infinite zoom function (yes, infinite.) Platform: All of them What It Is: The one you’ve probably heard of. GIMP, an acronym for (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is more of an alternative to Photoshop rather than Illustrator since it its vector functions are limited, but what it can do in terms of image manipulation is second to none.
Entirely free, open source, and loved by thousands (which have formed a very active online community since its release.) Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac What It Is: While Apache’s flagship vector illustrator looks a little outdated these days, that’s purely a cosmetic concern. It’s still packed with features and is especially geared towards diagram and object manipulation. It also comes with the very handy feature of being able to create Flash (.swf) files from your document. Platform: Windows What It Is: The starter edition of Serif’s DrawPlus is aimed towards the amateur illustrator given that A) it’s free software, and B) it’s very much a scaled-down version of the fuller release, but don’t let that put you off.
It’s not limited in any way, there’s no pressure to shell out for the professional edition DrawPlus X6, and it does a good job of emulating its heavy weight cousins. You might find you need to use a combination of the above free alternatives to Adobe Illustrator to get the job done, but for many people it’ll be worth the cash it saves and you may even find a new favorite. Got any others we need to check out? Drop a suggestion in the comments below! Are you interested in the visual arts industry? Check out NYFA’s and programs!
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