MacMost: Archives

Take a look at Back to My Mac, a feature of MobileMe that allows you to easily connect to your home Mac while away. You can share files and the screen. Back to My Mac will communicate with MobleMe so you can connect even if you are on a different network and have changing dynamic IP addresses.

Skitch is a free tool that can be used to capture your screen and then draw on the image. You can also start with a blank image, photo or any file. You can export the result or upload it to the Skitch Web site to share.

If you want a new 27-inch iMac for Christmas, you’re going to have to settle for next year. Shipping times for the largest-ever iMac have now slipped to two weeks or more. Many are speculating that this is due to the numerous reports of screen problems with the larger iMacs. But Apple simply states that it is due to the popularity of the model.
The reports are of cracked screens or screen flickering. It is apparently in a small minority of the 27-inch iMacs. It is unclear whether it might be caused by a manufacturing defect or damages during shipping.
Apple tweaked the design of the App Store inside the iTunes Music Store this week to re-arrange information on the app pages. Now when you view information about an app, you can see screen shots in a horizontal scrolling area and much of the specifics of each app are in a sidebar to the left.

Web developers creating pages specifically for the iPhone can ask for GPS location data on their Web pages with some simply JavaScript. See a basic example that can be used to get the latitude and longitude of the iPhone viewing the Web page.

A basic look at Energy Saver Preferences. These can be used to reduce the power consumption of your Mac when you are not using it. You can also schedule shut down or sleep patterns, and set how how Mac behaves while it is asleep.

Dropbox creates a folder on your drive that automatically syncs with a remote server. You can then access these files from your other Macs and iPhone, as well as share them with friends or everyone. It is a good way to keep a set of files in sync if you have more than one Mac.

Both real news and rumors combined this week to give us a potential picture of Apple’s future. In the real news area, Apple purchased Lala, a company that ran an iTunes-competitor, with a twist. Lala allowed you to access your music everywhere, by storing it on the Internet, or “in the cloud.” Theoretically, this could mean that the future of iTunes will look more like a service where you buy a license to hear a song, and then that song is instantly available on any of your net-connected devices.
On the rumors front, several analysts are predicting that an iPhone 4G is in the works, and that it may be available on Verizon in the U.S. next year. In addition, more speculation about Apple’s tablet device place a release date for that at March of 2010 at a whopping price of $1,000.
In third-party software news, Google released a beta version of the Google Chrome browser for Mac, and says they plan to have extensions for this version, unlike the earlier Alpha release.
Adobe announced that the Flash player for Mac will be switching to Intel-only in 2010, leaving PowerPC Mac users with a stable but never-to-be-updated version of Flash. They say this is because new performance enhancements will require Intel processors.

There are hundreds of keyboard shortcuts for Mac users. There are Finder shortcuts, system shortcuts, application shortcuts and more. Many you can find by just looking through the menu bar for that application. You can find system ones by looking in the System Preferences under Keyboard.

But some keyboard shortcuts are more useful than others. And some are harder to remember than others.
So MacMost has compiled a list of our top “power user” keyboard shortcuts. Here they all are on a single PDF page, downloadable and printable: The MacMost Snow Leopard Power User Keyboard Shortcuts. Download it and pass it along!

Instead of letting iTunes update podcasts every hour or in the middle of the day, you can schedule iTunes to check at night. Using a simple AppleScript and scheduling it to run with iCal you can have new podcast episodes waiting for you when you get to your Mac in the morning.

If you want to go beyond the default titles built into iMovie 09, you can create your own titles in a graphic editor. You can bring them into iMovie as titles between clips, or as overlays on top of existing video.

You can customize your Safari toolbar by adding a variety of buttons and re-arranging them. You can also revert to the default set. You can specify which buttons stick around when the window shrinks. Interesting additions include a New Tab button, an Add Bookmark button, Mail and Print buttons and Zoom buttons.

Two major legal battles in the Apple world wound down this week when AT&T and Verizon seemed to call a ceasefire and Apple scored a key victory over clone maker Psystar.
AT&T sued Verizon over its “map” ads that claim Verizon has more 3G coverage than AT&T. AT&T didn’t like how the maps ignore 2.5G Edge networking and seemed to suggest that no connectivity was available outside of the 3G map areas. Verizon did alter the ads to remove a “Out of touch” label for non-3G areas, but AT&T pressed on. However, this week AT&T dropped the suit, and Verizon dropped its countersuit. Perhaps the two companies decided to spend their money improving their networks rather than paying lawyers?
AT&T has since countered with its own ad spots pointing out iPhone features and the ability of its 3G network to handle data and voice at the same time.
Psystar, who makes PCs that come with Mac OS X installed, settled with Apple in their legal case. Apple got them to stop selling their Mac clones and pay $2.7 million. But Psystar’s lawyers say they will appeal the settlement to a higher court, which could take years. An interesting tidbit came from one report stating that Psystar only sold 768 Mac clones since it started.
More iPhone carrier rumors floated around this week as analysts predicted that perhaps both T-Mobile and Sprint may be able to carry the iPhone next year when AT&T exclusivity runs out. Verizon’s involvement seems less likely now, considering their strong anti-iPhone ad campaign for the Droid phone.

Which is better, Mac or PC? Why choose? After all, your Mac is a PC, it just runs Mac OS X instead of Windows. And it looks pretty. But what if you need to run an application that is Windows-only? Like a piece of accounting software, an engineering simulation, a database application, or even Internet Explorer to access an IE-only site. But who’s kidding who — we know you probably just want to run a Windows-only game on your Mac.

So there are various options for running Windows software on your Mac. They come in three flavors: virtualization, a Win32 API or rebooting completely into Windows.

A MacMost poll showed that the two virtualization giants were used by most people, with VMware Fusion beating out Parallels in popularity. Both of these run as an application in Mac OS X and create a virtual PC inside your Mac to host the Windows operating system.

They both work extremely well, allowing Windows direct access to the Intel processor in your Mac so it can run at nearly full speed. And since both are several generations past the first version, they can support advanced graphics required for most applications and game, although they are far from perfect.

To use either of these, you would need a full copy of Windows to install. XP, Vista or Windows 7 will work, as well as alternative operating systems like Ubuntu. The application will then create a large file representing the virtual Windows hard drive and walk you though installing Windows on it.

When you launch the program it would boot Windows, giving you the option to view it as a large Window on your Mac, take of over the entire screen, or mix Windows windows with Mac windows. You can even drag and drop and copy and paste between Mac and Windows.

VMware Fusion weighs in at $80 and so does Parallels, although it seems like the actual retail price of Parallels is often cheaper.

Next in popularity is Boot Camp. This is Mac OS X’s ability to allow you to reboot into Windows using a separate Windows partition. The ability to do this is free with Leopard and Snow Leopard, but you still need to provide your own Windows discs. At present, Windows XP and Vista are supported, although Apple promised Windows 7 soon.
The main drawback to Boot Camp is that you need to shut down your Mac and reboot completely. And then do it again when you are done working in Windows and want to return to Mac.

But the main advantage of Boot Camp is the near 100% compatibility. You are essentially running Windows on a PC when you reboot. The only loose ends are drivers for Apple hardware like mice and keyboards and right button clicks when using MacBooks. But these have mostly been ironed out.

Next down on the list was VirtualBox. Another virtualization application. While not as feature rich as VMWare Fusion or Parallels, it has a better price point: free. You’ll still need to install your own copy of Windows, however.

A few people reported using CrossOver or Darwine. These solutions allow you to run Windows applications without having Windows installed. They contain versions of the parts of Windows that applications rely on to run, so they can run in Mac OS X with that help.
The drawback is that few Windows applications are supported. Application support almost has to be added one-at-a-time, meaning that it is only a viable solution if your application happens to be on the list. And many of those applications are already available in regular Mac versions, so running them with a Win32 API application isn’t very valuable.

Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll here at MacMost.com. We’ve now got a good picture of how people run Windows on their Mac. I should point out that there were also quite a few messages along the lines of “I don’t run Windows at all — that’s why I bought a Mac!”

Here are the complete results of the original poll:

Since Apple switched to Intel processors for Macs, it has become much easier to run Windows applications on your Mac. You can use a virtualization application like Parallels, VMware Fusion or VirtualBox to run Windows while still in Mac OS X. You can reboot into Windows with Boot Camp, and you can run a custom implementation of the Win32 API like with Darwine and CrossOver.

The Mac doesn't come with any drawing tools. Fortunately, two free programs give you some basic ability to draw and edit images. Check out Paintbrush and Seashore for Mac in this excerpt from the MacMost.com Guide to Switching to the Mac.

The new MacMost iPhone and iPod Touch app gives users easily access video tutorials, news, recommendations and other content from the Apple tutorial site MacMost.com.
The free app allows users to view recent episodes of the MacMost Now video podcast right inside the app, without downloading the podcast or using the Web browser. New videos come out several times per week and teach Mac, iPhone and iPod users how to get the most from Apple technology.
Gary Rosenzweig, the producer and host of the MacMost video podcast created the app as an alternative to browsing the site with the iPhone’s Safari Web browser. “I’ve found that some people like to access information from apps rather than the Web, so I thought I’d create an app to accommodate them,” said Rosenzweig.
In addition to the videos, the app also displays a weekly Apple news round-up, syndicated news and rumors summaries, a collection of Web-based games from MacMost, recommendations for other iPhone apps, and the MacAnswers daily audio podcast.
“Because the app draws from content on the Web site, we can continue to expand the app to show more information,” said Rosenzweig.
The MacMost iPhone app is available for free from the iTunes App Store and can be downloaded via iTunes on a Mac or PC or directly on an iPhone or iPod Touch.
You can get the app by going following this link to the iTunes App Store.

Use iMovie 09 to create custom slideshows from your photographs. You can add titles before and between images, as well as text over photos. You can also add transitions, music and audio narration.

It's holiday shopping time again. Here are some good ideas for what you can get Apple fans in your life. Submit your own ideas to https://macmost.com/apple-gift-guide-2009.html

An interesting study by NPD Group shows that Mac desktops counted for about 48% of all desktop retail sales in October. While it may seem that it means half of all computers sold were Macs, some of this can be explained by the fact that Macs are more expensive on average, and don’t have a model that is the equivalent of the low-end PC. It is revenue, not units. But this is a recent record for Apple and it does show that they continue to gain market share.
This increase may continue in November thanks to the new iMacs and a Black Friday sale to be announced by Apple on Friday morning.

If you use MobileMe, then you have an iDisk. It is a virtual hard drive on the Internet that you can use to store files and share them with others. Learn the basics of using your iDisk.

You can create tasks in Automator and then have iCal run them at a specific time in the future, or even as a recurring event. This example shows you how to have thumbnails of new photos automatically sent to an email address every week.