#macintosh Articles



Macintosh Keychain syncing tip

Since the iPhone 2.0 release, more people are considering Mobile Me (the follow on to Dot Mac). For those of us with more than one computer, it's a very easy way to keep your contacts, calendars and other data in sync. However, there are some tricks for some kinds …


TaxCut upgrades and Time Machine

This is a warning for those using TaxCut (a pretty good Macintosh Tax program) and possibly other installers and upgraders. The TaxCut upgrade installer scans all connected disks looking for copies of the software to upgrade. This is going to become an increasing issue going forward not only because of …

Yep! Find and organize those PDFs

At the beginning of the year, it's nice to think that we're all starting off with a clean slate. I hear regularly that people are interested in going "paperless," so this entry is for those folks who are interested in this goal, or who just have too many PDF documents …

Securing your private data on the Mac with Disk Images

Many of you Macintosh users out there are concerned for the safety and security of your data. This article will describe how to use the built-in disk image capability of the Macintosh to create a secure file storage location for your important documents. Disk Images are special files that function …


Sun adds engineering support to OpenOffice for Mac

According to an article from MacWorld, Sun has committed some engineering resources to getting OpenOffice running on the Macintosh natively. OpenOffice is a multi-platform office productivity suite that acts as a substitute for Microsoft's Office products. Of particular interest is the rationale provided by Philip Lohmann, project lead at Sun …

Switching friends (to the Mac)

Last year, I managed to convince 8 people to get Macs who either had not done so in the past, or who were coming back to the Mac from a long hiatus. Although I had for many years not considered myself an evangelist for "the cause", recent changes in Windows …

Thank you Sarbanes-Oxley!

It appears that Sarbanes- Oxley is having some more unintended side-effects. This time, you'll be paying $5 for 802.11n to be enabled on your Core 2 iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, because this was not a stated feature of the system before it shipped and therefore would …

Apple blows out numbers (again)

Everyone's favorite computer company (pardon me, after the removal of the word "Computer" from Apple Computer Corp's name, it should read "everyone's favorite company") has announced their FY1Q numbers (4th quarter 2006 calendar year) and they're huge. $1B in profit, $7.1B in revenues, 21M iPods sold, and 1.6M …

Holding back at MacWorld

What was Apple holding back at MacWorld Expo and why? My theory is that basically everything not related to the iTV (as announced in September with a "more in January" promise) and the iPhone were off the table because of messaging requirements. Apple knew that they had one big message …

Tablet Mac coming

It might not be from Apple, but there will be a tablet Mac at this year's MacWorld Expo. Axiotron and Other World Computing will be showing the ModBook, a combination of a MacBook, WACOM pen input subsystem, and a SiRF III GPS device. I would otherwise have been uninterested in …

Adobe bringing Premier back to the Mac

Here's a story that I just don't think has any downside. MacWorld is reporting Adobe is bringing it's video editing program Premier back to the Macintosh. Even if you're an avid (no pun intended) user of Final Cut Studio, it's great to have some competition, and with the Intel versions …

It's not too late to give your Mac a present!

MacSanta just keeps getting better, but you have only TODAY to get it. So run, do not walk, to your browser and browse up the site for some new Macintosh software joy. Click through for more details. At the last minute, some of my old favorites have shown up, so …

Mac developers organize new guildelines

IndieHIG is an open source attempt to extend Apple's well-known (and a little long in the tooth) Human Interface Guidelines. So far, not a lot up there, but some good folks are contributing and all the content is available under the MIT license so it is free free.

MacSanta brings reduced price Mac software

I don't often advertise for people on this site, but I figured that this one's good for everybody. MacSanta is coordinating the use of a coupon code of MACSANTA to reduce the price of popular (and useful) Mac software by 20% through Christmas day. Read the full story and I'll …

MacPro finally promoted to Numero Uno

I'm pleased to announce that after nearly three months of sitting in the upstairs library in "test mode", my Mac Pro has finally graduated to the number one spot in the house. The venerable G5 Quad (all of one year old) is, even as we speak, headed to California to …

Japanese "Get a Mac" ads

Apparently Apple Japan thinks that what's good for the US is good for Japan. Check out the "Get a Mac" ads. You probably won't be able to understand exactly what they're saying, but you'll get the drift. Does anyone else feel a "1.1" aspect to these with the PC …

Hard core hard drives for the Mac

This is very good news for those of us in the Mac community that have been pining after some of the high-performance RAID systems available on other platforms. For a long time, 3ware has been a vendor of choice for hardware RAID in both the SATA and ATA arenas due …