Archive for February, 2008
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
To those of us who are not aware, Apple has been consistently delivering different goods to us every Tuesday this year. This Tuesday, the long awaited iPhone SDK is rumored to be released. Before you start jumping for joy, initial reports gathered by TUAW tell us that we would at best get an Alpha or Beta version of it with a full release following shortly after. In other words, this might not be what Apple has in mind for us this Tuesday, maybe a beefier iPod Touch or a reworked iPhone is in the agenda? Guess we just have to wait it out and find out.
If you have some info to share or just want to speculate, please feel free to post a comment.
Posted in Rumors, iPhone, iPod Touch | No Comments »
Sunday, February 24th, 2008
If you have purchased music from iTunes, there is a quick and easy way to transfer it over to any other authorized Mac computer. Simply plug your iPod in, right click on it from your desktop, then select the Transfer Purchases option and follow the guided prompt. Quick and painless and now you have a backup of all your purchased songs just in case something happens to your hard drive or if you just want to have songs on another computer. While there are many applications that will do this for you (and will give your more options), none of them make the whole process as simple as this quick little tool integrated by Apple.
Posted in Tips/FAQs, iTunes | No Comments »
Saturday, February 23rd, 2008
Let’s face it, stuff breaks. This applies to Macs just as well as Windows PC’s (Only difference is that you have an 80% chance of starting windows and receiving an error, the odds are much more favorable with a Mac :)).
For those of you who run into some problems with your Mac running OS X Leopard, try these quick troubleshooting steps to help resolve you issue.
1. Restart your Mac
A simple restart of your computer might resolve your issue forever. If that is the case, you are officially done troubleshooting.
2. Check to see if you are running out of space
Another fairly common and easy to fix problem. You always want to have a minimum of 3GB available on your hard drive. More is ideal and recommended if you burn cd’s/dvd’s or use resource intensive applications. Remember that swapfiles (generated from applications launched on startup) on launch will take up 2GB of space immediately!
To fix your space problem: Delete some files! Consider getting an external hard drive and upgrade your RAM if you like running a bunch of applications simultaneously as this will reduce swapfiles.
3. Repair Permissions
Open Disk Utility (Applications/Utilities Folder). Select your boot drive (Probably “Macintosh HD”). Proceed to click on the First Aid Tab and then click on Repair Permissions.
4. Create a new User Account
Go to your System Preferences >>> Accounts and create a new user account. Log out of your current account and log in to your new one. If this fixes your problem you know that the cause is your user account. At this point, some serious troubleshooting is in order. Consider taking your Mac in for repairs or if you are up to it, backup your data from your previous account to your new user account until you pinpoint what file is causing your problem.
5. Deep Clean all Caches
Try using a third party tool like Leopard Cache Cleaner to deep clean all of your caches. Reboot your system and see if that corrected the issue.
6. Startup in SafeBoot Mode
You can do this by holding your shift key during initial boot. If you do not run into your problem while in SafeBoot, you can be sure that the problem lies with Extensions or StartupItems. You can find most of these at /Library/Extensions/ and /Library/StartUpItem/. Try moving some to your desktop, starting with third party extensions, and try to pinpoint the problem. There is a possibility that the problem might be from an extension installed in /System/Library/Extension/. You probably do not want to mess with those if you do not know what you are doing since you could screw up your whole system. If you cant isolate your issue moving the /Library/Extensions/ and /Library/StartupItem/ it is probably best to take your Mac in for repair.
7. Reset your Firmware
Resetting your firmware to factory default is pretty simple. Simply hold down cmd+opt+O+F during boot up and you will be presented with open firmware. Once inside type this:
reset-nvram (hit return)
reset-all (hit return again, the system will reboot)
8. Unplug all USB and Firewire Devices
Reboot your computer with everything unplugged except for your Apple mouse. If this fixes the problem, you have a bad external drive or a bad port on your computer. Try to isolate the problem.
I hope that these tips above are useful to some people. If you need some help with any of these feel free to comment and I will try to help you out. If these do not fix your problem, post a comment describing your issue and I might just write a guide to help troubleshoot that issue. Either way, subscribe to our feed to make sure you get the latest troubleshooting guides and up to the minute product news and reviews. Thanks for reading!
Posted in Leopard, Tips/FAQs | No Comments »
Friday, February 22nd, 2008
The musicians behind the iBand project make sweet music with only their iPhone and the available music apps. These guys are good too! If you like their work, consider going to their website and making a donation so they can get their third iPhone. If they can perform well with two iPhones and a DS, they should bust out with a Beethoven type classical when they get their third. Keep it up fellas.
If you want to be big time rockstars like these guys and get all the chicks then consider getting the iPhone apps that can make that happen for you:
Virtual Piano: iAno
Virtual Guitar: PocketGuitar
Synth: iPhone Synth
Virtual Studio: BeatPhone
For some inspiration, check out iBand in action on YouTube.
Posted in iPhone, iPod Touch | No Comments »
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
Good news for those of you having problems with iTunes and Apple TV software version 2.0. This update promises to fix those issues and will allow for much smoother compatibility between the two. The update is quite hefty at 44MB, but if you are an Apple TV user, it is almost an essential download. You can get your hands on this update by running Software Update and will probably be able to download this from Apple’s Download Center later on.
Posted in Software Updates, iTunes | No Comments »
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
A quick and easy way to make your large files a bit easier to e-mail is by using the built-in Compress tool. With it, creating a ZIP archive of a single file, multiple files or even complete folders is a simply a matter of a few clicks.
3 Steps to Smaller File Sizes:
1. Select everything you want compressed and right click on any of the files.
2. Scroll down to Compress “Your File Name Here” and select it.
3. Wait a few seconds and enjoy your smaller, more compact file that is ideal for e-mailing.
That’s it! You are done. You will be presented with a .zip file. Simply attach that file to your e-mails and you are well on your way! See images below if you need further help.
Right click on a file and select the “Compress (File Name)” Option.
Wait a few seconds and enjoy your new ZIP archive. In this example notice that the folder went from 1.1 MB to 676KB when ZIP archived.
Changing LINKS
Posted in Tips/FAQs | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
In one day, we saw the price of the iPod shuffle plummet from $79 to $49. First thing that came to mind was that Apple was trying to make room for something new. To our pleasant surprise, almost immediately after the price slash, the announcement of the beefier 2GB iPod shuffle was made. The new 2GB iPod Shuffle set to release sometime this month with a price tag of $69, will allow Shuffle aficionados to enjoy double the capacity in all of the colors available with the 1GB model, including a (Product) RED version.
Posted in iPod Shuffle | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
If you have not heard about the MacBook Air by now, you probably have been living under a rock for the past month. The incredibly hyped notebook, dubbed as the thinnest notebook in the world, has been available for about a month with a starting price tag of $1,799.
This ultralight (if it can even be placed under the ultralight category) laptop comes standard with Mac OS X Leopard, a full-size keyboard, a 13.3 in. backlit LCD, and if you so please, a cutting edge solid-state drive. The only real nagging problem with this notebook is the fact that it only has one USB port and one FireWire port. I mean, we cant really ask for more can we? This thing looks like the product of a Sumo Wrestler sitting on a MacBook Pro for crying out loud, they had to cut some features out. Simply put, if you need a lot of ports to connect your toys to, look elsewhere as the MacBook Air is probably not for you.
On the other hand, if you enjoy traveling light and in style, this notebook will be sure to turn heads wherever you go. After all, what other notebook can you fit inside an interoffice mailing envelope? Besides that, the MacBook Air weights a mere 3 pounds! You really need to go to an Apple store and pick up the MacBook Air yourself as it is impossible to put into words how light and compact it feels.
Ok, I get it. It’s small and sexy but how does it perform?
You would think that it would not perform anywhere near the level of the MacBook Pro, after all, on paper the entry-level MacBook Air sports a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo chip, an 80GB hard drive, and 2 Gigs of Ram (Which by the way, you can’t upgrade, it is soldered to the logic board), which is not really mind boggling. With these specs I thought it could not possibly measure up to my MacBook Pro running a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo chip and rocking 4GB of Ram. To my surprise, the MacBook Air faired very well. E-Mails could be composed and sent out with a few clicks, Internet browsing was lightning fast, and text editing was quick and painless. In other words, common every day tasks where no problem for the MacBook Air. When faced with more resource demanding applications such as Photoshop or loading games, the differences became more apparent. While your system will not crash and burn on you while opening resource intensive applications or games, there is a significant trade off in load time. On average, the MacBook Pro opened said applications about 12 to 15 seconds faster than the MacBook Air.
The previous example was brought forth for comparison purposes only. Comparing the MacBook Pro to the MacBook Air is unfair. The fact is that the MacBook Air was designed with a different consumer in mind. It is an ideal computer for those who enjoy having the latest technology and like to travel light. Is a trade off necessary? Yeah, of course it is. But let it be known to all that the MacBook Air performs very admirably regardless of what you throw at it. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of technology ever made and if you do not mind trading a few USB ports and a bit of performance for an extremely portable and gorgeous looking notebook, then do not hesitate to make your purchase.
Bottom line: The MacBook Air handles day to day computer operations admirably and would fit the life of an on the go executive just fine while turning heads in the process, just don’t expect it to replace your desktop, or your MacBook Pro for that matter.
Posted in MacBook Air, Reviews | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Apple has released an update for the MacBook and MacBook Pro today that addresses some issues with their keyboard functionality. Here is Apple’s painfully detailed description on what the update accomplishes: “This MacBook and MacBook Pro firmware update addresses an issue where the first key press may be ignored if the computer has been sitting idle. It also addresses some other issues.” Awesome. Looks like I need this one.
If you have been suffering from this problem or are not sure and still want to install it, you can open the Software Update to do so (Apple Menu > Software Update) or you can just download the installer directly from Apple.
You can read the full release notes on Keyboard Firmware Update 1.0 here.
Posted in MacBook, MacBook Pro, Software Updates | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
If you are looking to remove Time Machine from the dock, the Time Machine Launcher 1.2 widget might be the ideal tool for you. This simple and free widget allows you to launch Time Machine directly from your Dashboard instead of using the Dock or menu bar. The widget will also keep you up to date on new releases.
Screenshot of widget and all of its features.
Looks good right? If you haven’t done so already, you can download Time Machine Launcher 1.2 here.
Posted in Leopard, Useful Widgets | No Comments »
