Cutting Through SATA Naming Confusion

I’ve been suffering from Product Confusion Fatigue (PCF). It happens a lot in the world of computing. You want to upgrade something simple like a hard drive. Instead of just looking for the best price, you find a half-dozen different product descriptions – and now you don’t know which one is compatible with your computer.

Seashore: A Free, Basic Image Editor for Mac OS X

Open source high-end image-editing software is an unlikely concept when you think about it. For one thing, anyone who really needs an industrial strength image editing application for professional purposes can probably afford and will more often than not have the undisputed king-of-the-hill in bitmap graphics software, Adobe’s Photoshop CS, and most users – professional […]

Does Running OS X System Maintenance Routines Really Do Any Good?

Running system maintenance utilities is more often than not an act of faith – or at least hopeful optimism – with no really tangible evidence to indicate that it’s doing anything. However, once in a while it does fix an obvious problem. Some folks disparage running OS X system maintenance routines “routinely”, most conveniently executed […]

The iMac Legacy: After the G3

2008 – The G3 range of iMacs had propelled Apple into the public eye, had sometimes been the best selling personal computer on the market, and had helped Apple come back from the brink. Between the iMac and the iPod, the whole world was watching Apple.

The Mac Is a Personal Computer, but It Is Not a PC

PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff says, “Macs are PCs, dammit!” He then goes on to explain that the “PC” at PC Magazine stands for personal computer. I am not convinced. You see, I was there when the first IBM PCs reached the local ComputerLand store in 1981. And I know that was not the birth of […]

Upgrade Options for 15″ and 17″ Aluminum PowerBooks

The 17″ and high-end 15″ aluminum PowerBooks, aside from their modest (by today’s standards) 512 MB of standard RAM, are pretty lavishly equipped in standard trim. Even the “entry-level” 15-incher is no slouch. However, that doesn’t mean these ‘Books aren’t candidates for a bit of upgrading – especially now that we’re closing on three years […]

Toward a Better Computer Keyboard

In his blog, Tim Bray states: “There’s a design flaw in Apple’s current lineup of Mac keyboards; easily fixed though.” He goes on to complain about both of Apple’s current keyboards, the USB ‘board with its full complement of keys and the Bluetooth keyboard with its significant lack of keys.

The Mac’s Growing Market Presence

2008: The iPod very much dominates the MP3 player market, the iTunes Store dominates the digital music market (and probably video as well), the iPhone has redefined the smartphone market, and the Macintosh is the #3 personal computer brand in the US – and the #2 personal computer operating system, growing at an impressive rate […]

Superior Dithered Images with HyperDither

Some programs seem to do a thousand different things. Others are one trick ponies. HyperDither falls in the second category, and compared to image editing powerhouses like Photoshop and even Photoshop Elements, its feature-set is incredibly sparse. In fact, it only does one thing – it dithers images.

Hooked on Macs, New and Old

I’ve been into computing for over 15 years, but I didn’t see the Apple light until 2000. I had always liked Macs, but they were way out of my budget. I started working for a publishing house and was using an old Quadra. Even though it was old, it was amazing. It was my first experience […]

iPhone 3G

One of the biggest complaints about the original iPhone was that it didn’t use 3G for wireless data, instead depending on the far slower – average data speeds between 75-135 Kbps – EDGE protocol. Another complaint was the lack of third-party apps. The iPhone 3G addressed both of these.

Time Machine Can Now Backup to a Shared Hard Drive

2008 – Apple released the Time Machine backup utility as part of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in October 2007. Time Machine is most commonly used to back up to an external USB or FireWire hard drive directly attached to a Mac running Leopard.

PowerBook G5: Long Rumored, Never Produced

Five years ago this week, on June 23, 2003 (although it seems longer somehow), Apple Introduced the G5 Power Mac, claiming it to be “fastest personal computer ever” and “first 64-bit personal computer”. Speculation soon began about the possibility of a G5 PowerBook. Not so much at first, since the G5 was launched as a power […]

Tales of Old Mac Data Retrieval

2008 – Macs have been around for a long time, waxing and waning in popularity – 24 years as of this writing. Many people have used Macs in grade school or college, as business users, or personally, and have old data and software stored on floppy disks, SyQuest cartridges, hard drives, etc. from these Paleolithic […]