It would appear that Apple has opened up the UK App Store to the iPad – up until a few days ago you would get a message saying “Your request could not be completed” if you tried to launch the store directly from the iPad. Apps such as iBooks & Pages don’t seem to be available yet but at least it makes it easier to browse and install all the non-Apple apps. You can also download updates for previously installed apps.

Whether you design sites on a Mac or a PC, chances are you won’t always have immediate access to all the popular browsers. As a Mac user I sometimes need to test sites in IE 6 & IE 7.

For IE 7 I can reboot my iMac with Vista, but when I need to test in IE 6 it usualy involves booting an old PC which is not only slow, I also then have to worry about whether the antivirus is up to date etc.

Thanks to Browsershots I can test my sites in IE 6 & IE 7 and a list of other browsers from my iMac. You do sometimes have to wait a few minutes to view the results and there are limits on the amount of tests you can run per day, but it’s a free service. You can even test a site in IE 4!

Give it a try >

I have always been aware of the importance of backing up work but up until recently it was always one of those little jobs that I didn’t quite get round to doing often enough, my setup was a 160 GB Formac external hard drive attached to my old eMac.

While I didn’t have any problems with the Formac drive it had a built in fan which made the drive ridiculously noisy, also despite it’s relatively small storage size of 160 GB the drive was physically big – it took up a footprint of just under an A4 piece of paper and was the height of 2 and a half dvd cases laid flat. Because of it’s design it couldn’t really be stood on it’s end which would have saved a lot of desk space. Having upgraded my iMac to OS X Leopard it made sense to use it’s built in backup application Time Machine, but to get the most out of it I realised I would need a bigger and better external hard drive.

Recommended Western Digital My Book External Hard Drives

I decided early on that I wanted the drive to have more storage space than the iMac’s 500 GB internal hard drive and for speed I wanted a drive with a firewire connection. Having looked at various models by various manufactures including Lacie, Western Digital and Seagate I choose a 750GB Western Digital My Book, I almost went for the next model up that has 1TB of storage but the 750GB version seemed like better value.I have been using the My Book for a few weeks now and and it’s worked flawlessly with Time Machine, which runs in the background and is set to backup every hour.

Once the drive gets full Time Machine will delete older backups. You can also choose to exclude certain folders from the backup.The My Book is well built and size wise it’s slightly smaller in height than 4 dvd cases stood on end – it takes up very little desk space. The black plastic casing with rubber edging has a chunky feel and the glowing rings on the front are a nice touch. Most of the time the My Book is quiet, the only noise being occasional hard drive activity.I would definitely recommend the My Book to OS X Leopard users wanting to use Time Machine, and the drive also works with both Windows XP and Vista.

Update: 24 March 2009 – The My Book is still going strong over a year later and was recently used to recover my iMac which failed to start up due to an internal hard drive problem. It took a couple of hours for the system to be restored from the My Book back to exactly how it was before, no lost work or apps!

Click here to buy a Western Digital My Book from Amazon >

Mac OS X has never been the best platform for SEO software, and although Bootcamp, Parallels and VMware Fusion have provided a way to use Windows based SEO software on a Mac, I still personally prefer to work in Mac OS X where possible.

Here are some Mac SEO applications I have discovered -

Advanced Web Ranking allows you to check your websites ranking in a wide range of search engines for specified keyword phrases and compare how it’s performing to your competitors. Reports can be saved which is useful to monitor changes over time. Advanced Web Ranking comes in three versions – Standard, Professional and Enterprise, and a fully featured trial can be downloaded for free.

Rank Tracker also allows you to check your websites ranking but in a more limited number of search engines, and it only shows your sites ranking – not your competitors. One notable feature though is the integration of keyword suggestion tools. Rank Tracker can be used for free though if you need to save projects you will need to upgrade to a Professional license.

Google Sitemap Automator – as the name suggests this application automates the process of creating Google site maps, which can then be used to help Google crawl your website more effectively.

iSEO – enter a web address into this handy little widget and it quickly returns various useful information about a site including page rank, alexa ranking, and number of backward links.

I am always on the lookout for more Mac SEO software, please feel free to share links.