How to transfer your account to a new aluminum Macbook

November 9th, 2008

Since the new Macbooks don’t offer a firewire port, you’ll need to use a network connection to transfer your data from an old Mac to your new Macbook.

Apple has made the process very simple though: the first time you boot up your new machine, you’ll be asked to pick another Mac on your network. I usually connect to my network via wireless LAN, which is a bit slow for large amounts of data, so I just connected my old and new Macbook via an ethernet cable. 

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Posted in Hints, Mac | 1 Comment »

The New, Uncrippled Macbook.

October 16th, 2008

With the introduction of the new aluminum Macbooks, Apple has finally dropped their long-standing policy of offering a “crippled” entry-level Notebooks. For years now the iBooks and Macbooks have been limited in one way or another in order to distinguish them from their “Pro” cousins. 

Whether G3 vs. G4, Combodrive vs. Superdrive, Mirroring vs. Screen Spanning, Plastic vs. Aluminum or Integrated Graphics vs. Dedicated Graphics, Apple’s low-end offerings over the years have always included some kind of “gotcha” to keep them from cannibalizing Powerbook / Macbook Pro sales.

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OS X Curiosity: Clippings

October 4th, 2008

Leopard is the 6th major OS X upgrade, and as such feels very refined and polished. Nearly every nook and cranny has been through a number of iterations and most features feel very well thought out.

Sometimes though, you’ll come across features or behaviours that leave you scratching your head. Today we’ll take a look at one OS feature that feels as though it was added with 10.0 and forgotten about ever since: Clippings.

Text Clippings

If you’ve ever selected a bit of text in Safari and dragged it to your Desktop, OS X will save it in a “Text Clipping” file. Double-clicking this file will open a small window displaying your text. That’s all you can actually do in that window though: You can’t select, drag or edit the text in any way.

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Back to School Shopping Guide Part II: Essential Apps

September 21st, 2008

No college student can get by nowadays without a few productivity apps to help them keep track of assignments, files, notes etc. There are a ton of different apps designed to do this sort of thing, but a lot of them are either aimed at business users (and priced accordingly) or don’t just feel to feature-laden and dense to be really practical for quick notes in classes.

So here’s a few productivity apps that students might find are worth checking out. Affordable, intuitive and ideal for quick notes, references, links and more.

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Back to College Shopping Guide – Part 1: Notebook Stands

September 8th, 2008

It’s that time of year again – the start of a new college term, when new and old students alike start rummaging around their wardrobes for bags, books and other necessities.

In this series of articles, I’ll be taking a look at some Student essentials for coping with schedules, cramped dorm rooms and life on campus in general. In each article I’ll not only pick the try to pick options suitable for every budget as well as highlighting the best solutions. So without further ado, let’s dive in!

Notebook Stands

Hands up if you gotten neck cramp from staring down at your notebook computer for too long, whilst sweating over a term-paper with a looming deadline.  Been there, done that. But there are some affordable and simple solutions that can fix that problem and help you to avoid clutter on your desk to boot. 

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Posted in Mac, Reviews | 1 Comment »

MobileMe users given another free extension

August 19th, 2008

I just received another email from Apple regarding MobileMe. It seems as though they’re giving all users (regardless of whether you experienced trouble or not) an additional free 60 day extension on their subscriptions.

Whilst 60 days might not seem like a huge deal, it does show a certain amount of goodwill on Apple’s part and a willingness to put things right. More importantly this comes at a point when most glitches seem to have been worked out, so this news should be received much more positively than the initial 30 day extension some members were offered previously.

Link to Apple’s Knowledgebase for full details.

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Error message of the week

July 12th, 2008

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MobileMe trial now requires Credit Card & Opt-Out

July 12th, 2008

In what I believe is a change from the previous .mac trial model, Apple is now requiring potential customers to enter  credit card details in order to test mobileme for 60 days. That in itself isn’t too bad, but the trial membership will now also automatically be upgraded to a full membership unless you cancel the subscription during the trial. I think requiring users to opt-out these types of trials always seems a bit dubious and isn’t the most user-friendly approach to take.

I suppose it helps to prevent people from “freeloading” by using multiple email addresses to use the service for multiple trial periods, but I find it hard to imagine anyone actually bothering to do that (especially considering some of mobileme’s features have excellent free alternatives). But I’m sure some people who have a more casual interest in the new services and want to ‘try before they buy‘ may be inclined to not bother signing up for a trial because of this.

Ideally I see a trial model where users are encouraged to enter Credit Card details, but are presented with a simple dialog window at the end of the trial period that offers a single-click option to automatically upgrade to a full membership. Sure, Apple would miss out on a few customers that simply forget to cancel the subscription, but I think the customers retained anyway would appreciate the entire experience all the more due to the “pro-customer” approach.

Posted in Mac, Opinions | 2 Comments »

Waiting games: Automator

June 7th, 2008

 Automator - which was introduced in 2005 as one of Tiger’s major new features - is a great concept, but unfortunately one that I think is let down by one minor flaw: speed (or more to the point: the lack of it).

For those of you who have never used it, the short explanation is that Automator is a tool to automate repetitive tasks. You don’t need any programming knowledge and instead create “Workflows” by visually arranging “actions” (e.g. you could create a workflow to convert, rename and upload a folder of photos).

Sounds like a brilliant idea, right? The basic premise actually works very well: Apple includes a lot of actions for common tasks and some 3rd party developers also include their own actions that allow you to integrate  their apps into your workflows

But there’s one caveat: On both of the Macbooks I regularly use, workflows can sometimes take as much as 10 - 15 seconds to launch. Read the rest of this entry »

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Embedded graphics = shot in foot?

May 19th, 2008

OS X has led the way in GPU powered user interfaces on desktops. Over the years Apple has introduced Quartz, Quartz Extreme and the Core Image, Video and Animation frameworks, all of which can take advantage of the video processor. Developers have been putting the new frameworks to good use in Leopard, making applications such as Times, Pixelmator, ScreenFlow, CoverSutra, Stationery Pack & Candybar 3 very visually appealing.

But despite this push to offload work to the video card, since switching to Intel processors, Apple has been shipping its lower end Macs with relatively mediocre Intel integrated video chipsets (first the GMA950 and now the X3100). Whilst these cards are more than capable of running a few simple animations here and there, as the use of Core services becomes increasingly prevalent in Apple and 3rd party apps you can’t help but feel that the graphics card is quickly becoming a bottleneck.

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Times - a sleek new RSS reader

May 2nd, 2008

Dustin MacDonald has given users a first glimpse of his new RSS reader “Times” on his blog.

Unlike other RSS readers that use an interface similar to a desktop email client, Times promises a new interface that looks reminiscient of a traditional newspaper.

The standout - and probably most controversial feature - is Times’ abillity to follow links within a RSS feed to retrieve the actual content of a story from a webpage, strip the advertising and formatting from the webpage and display it alongside other feeds. However MacDonald also states that this feature is mainly targeted at larger news sites that tend to only include one paragraph teaser in their feed.

All in all this looks like a very welcome fresh approach in the crowded category of RSS readers and will surely be an Apple Design Award contender (Times will be released this coming Friday, the deadline for ADA submissions is May 12th - so expect to see a few more announcements this week…)

Posted in JetLinks, Mac | Comments »

Dear Stuffit: Stuff it.

April 21st, 2008

If anyone happens to read this who still think using .sitx archives to distribute things over the internet is a good idea, please don’t.
OS X no longer ships with Stuffit Expander and downloading the free version requires you to give Smithmicro your email address to receive their download link.

Luckily most knowledgeable Mac developers don’t use Stuffit any more, but occasionally you’ll come across the odd printer driver or Icon set that presumably someone who mainly uses Windows has thoughtfully archived in a “Mac friendly” format. The hapless user will then install Stuffit, which of course promptly hijacks all your file associations.
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Review: VoodooPad lite

April 14th, 2008

Yeah I know - reviewing the “free teaser” version of a Mac shareware application isn’t really the point of having a “lite” version. But everyone needs a little organisation in their lives, right? VoodooPad Lite is a great & free way to start your off in the right direction…

What’s it for?

Everything! If you’re anything like me, you’ll have a hundred little bits of information, clipboard contents, urls, email addresses and short-term todos to keep track of on any given day.
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OpenMac - a Mac mini alternative?

April 14th, 2008

I found an interesting post on the German mac news website Macnews:

A company by the name of “Pystar” are offering a $400 x86 configuration they’re calling the “OpenMac“. The draw? The OpenMac can be configured with a better graphics card, processor and larger harddrives than the similarly priced Mac mini: For $550 you can get a machine that’s faster than a Mac mini AND has a graphics card with 512MB of dedicated video RAM. (Of course, it has none of the mini’s good looks - but then again, looks aren’t everything).

Pystar claim the OpenMac is capable of running a stock Leopard installation without any modifications. But once you dig a bit deeper, it turns out that’s not quite the case:

“The OpenMac runs the Vanilla kernel with minimal kext patching “

Their FAQ page also includes this tidbit:

“Can I run updates on my OpenMac?

The answer is yes and no. No because there are some updates that are decidedly non-safe. Yes because most updates are not non-safe. It’s best to check on InsanelyMac for this information but when in doubt don’t update it. You may have to reinstall your OS X if it is a non-safe update.”

So they’re basically selling Hackint0sh’s. I expect Apple’s legal dept. is already looking at ways to take this down.

It’s a shame that Apple doesn’t offer a configuration like this though: A Mac mini with a slightly better graphics card would be a great second mac for notebook owners who already have an external monitor who want to play the occasional game without shelling out for an iMac or Mac Pro. 

Posted in Mac, The web | 3 Comments »

Three OS X quirks that confuse the hell out of switchers

April 13th, 2008

OS X is a great OS for “newcomers” and “power users” alike. Almost inevitably it’s OS X’s user-friendliness that (deservedly) gets most the attention - printers just work, BSOD-style crashes are (almost) unheard of and drivers are such a non-issue, they’re practically invisible (they either just work, or they don’t).

But instead of focusing on the good, today we’ll be taking a look at the bad and (shock!) ugly areas of OS X that confuse far too many switchers…
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Posted in Mac, UI Design | 20 Comments »