This Friday at 8PM Eastern, perhaps my favorite TV show of all time will begin for the last time. Chuck, on NBC, ends its five season run Friday. I’ve talked about Chuck quite a few times on this website.

Why has a show with mediocre ratings become one of my favorite TV shows ever? Simply put, the show is a joy to watch. Action, comedy, drama, romance, geek references (some of which even go over my head), and heart. The two main characters, Chuck and Sarah, are the heart and soul of the show. Whoever cast Zachary Levi and Yvonne Strahovski in the lead roles should have definitely received a raise. The Chuck/Sarah relationship, while at times complicated, became the heartbeat of the series.

While Chuck has little to do with Apple, many Apple products have made it into the show through the years. Chuck was the first show I saw the iPhone make an appearance. An Apple Cinema Display and Mac Pro played a vital role in the Pilot. The iPad has shown up in several episodes of season 5.

Chuck will be the first show I’ve watched from Pilot all the way to final episode during the original airing. I still remember sitting down on my couch the first Monday night it aired and having one hell of a good time. Watching Chuck is easy, and that’s one of its greatest strengths. I’m going to be extremely sad this weekend as the show ends, but I’m thankful it got to go out on its own terms. Not many shows get that chance.

Despite being on the chopping block nearly every season, it survived to reach season 5. The show was beloved by critics and fans alike. Chuck even has its very own podcast. Here’s to Chuck, the little show that could for five seasons. If you haven’t watched it, what are you waiting for?

I haven’t done a review in quite some time here at Apple Mac HQ. Instead of doing a software review, as most of the previous reviews have covered, I’m doing a book review. Specifically My New Mac Lion Edition – Simple Projects to Get You Started by Wallace Wang.

Most of the books I read tend to fall in the biography, adventure (think “Into Thin Air”), and programming categories. My New Mac Lion Edition doesn’t fall into any of these categories, but will draw some similarities with a programming book in that the goal of the book is to get you to learn. If you’re a new Mac user or new computer user in general, this book will certainly accomplish the goal of learning more about your Mac.

One of the first things that impressed me about this book was contained in the first couple pages, the typically unexciting table of contents. A brief table of contents is followed by an insanely detailed table of contents. The table of contents allows for quick access to any part of the book if you want to skip ahead or reference any part of the book at a later time.

The book begins by offering a brief introduction suitable for anyone who has never used a computer before. Topics covered include introduction to terminology and actions like clicking, dragging, double-clicking, etc. Obviously if you’ve used a computer before, you can skip right past this introduction.

The 56 chapters in the book are organized into seven different parts. You can see a list of all the parts and their accompanying chapters here (halfway down the page). The intended audience for this book is new Mac users and I think the author, Wallace Wang, did a good job of covering topics for the core audience.

Part 1: Basic Training – Covers basics like using mouse controls and gestures to navigate within the Mac operating system. This part includes a very nice chart with common trackpad gestures (page 24). It goes into detail about using and customizing the Menu Bar and Dock. Chapters also cover new Lion specific features like Full Screen viewing, Mission Control, and Lauchpad.

Part 2: Wrangling Files and Folders – Covers the basics of file management using the Finder. To my surprise, it also instructs users on how to use one of my favorite OS X features, Quick Look. Quick Look is such an enormous time saving feature, I pray Microsoft copies it so that I can have it on my work computer running Windows 7. Part 2 covers more Lion specific features like AirDrop, Resume, Auto Save, and Versions. There is an entire chapter devoted to the life saving feature Time Machine too.

Part 3: Making Life Easier – Covers a lot of the items located in System Preferences like Hot Corners, User Accounts, Parental Controls, Universal Access, and more. Chapter 22 and 23 cover the Mac App Store and how to install, update, and remove software not purchased on the Mac App Store. I’ve heard stories about friends parents running Applications from disk images (dmg files) because they never knew you had to copy the application to the Applications folder. This part also covers the use of several built in Mac Applications like iCal and Address Book.

Part 4: Playing Music and Movies and Part 5: The Digital Shutterbug – If movies, pictures, and music are your reasons for owning a Mac, these two chapters have you covered. It includes the basics like playing music in iTunes and importing pictures to iPhoto. It also covers importing CDs into iTunes, playing DVDs, downloading podcasts and iTunes U content, and so much more. It was great to see a note about Podcasts in the book as I think it’s something most iTunes users don’t even know exist.

Part 6: Surfing and Sharing on the Internet – Safari is covered in detail in this part, including using the new Safari feature Reading List. Other topics include Mail, Face Time, and iChat.

Part 7: Maintaining Your Mac – Fittingly, the shortest part of the book is titled Maintaing Your Mac. Some good tips are included in this part however. Often overlook, but even gathering basic system information about your Mac is covered here. Page 444 includes information about disabling the Automatic Login feature, something I tell every Mac user to do. Instructions for encrypting your Mac HDD begin on page 448.

That’s a brief overview of the contents of My New Mac Lion Edition. I tried to include a mention of some of the more important parts of the book, but by no means did I mention everything. Some of the nice touches contained in parts of the book include several ways to perform the same action. At times where a menu action is shown, a keyboard shortcut is shown right below it. Each chapter ends with an “Additional Ideas” section which offer up the opportunity to learn more about a section or include alternative programs to perform similar tasks. For instance, the section on Face Time ended with a mention about Skype.  The book is filled with screenshots, you can hardly turn a page without seeing one, great for visual learners.

My New Mac Lion Edition would make a great gift for anyone who recently received his/her first Mac or for Windows switchers. It would also be beneficial for anyone upgrading from a much older version of OS X as many new Lion and iLife features are covered. If you are the computer support person in your family, My New Mac Lion Edition might be a cheap alternative to hours on the phone if someone in your family just purchased a Mac. You can pick up a copy for just shy of $19 on Amazon.

Full Disclosure: I was provided a review copy of this book.  If the publisher approves, I’ll be giving it away on this site.  Stay tuned.

Our deepest condolences go out to the family of Steve Jobs in this time of great sadness. May Steve rest in peace.

In what can only be described as shocking, Steve Jobs resigned as CEO of Apple Inc this evening. Here is his resignation letter in full (via WSJ):

CUPERTINO, Calif.–August 24, 2011–To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community:

I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know.

Unfortunately, that day has come.

I hereby resign as CEO of Apple. I would like to serve, if the Board sees fit, as Chairman of the Board, director and Apple employee.

As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.

I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role.

I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.

Steve

We all knew Steve was having health problems, but I never hoped it would come to this. Get well Steve.

When you first launch the app, you’re asked to sign in with your Netflix login. Once you sign in and allow QueueUp to access your account, you are taken to a simple search box after the app syncs your current queue information. Begin typing any movie or TV show into the box and click the search button. You’ll be presented with a beautiful list of results.

From there you can add to your queue or see additional information about your selection. If your content is available to stream, you’ll be shown two buttons to add to the queue of your choice. The red button adds the selection to your disc queue, while the blue button adds it to your instant queue. On the additional information view, you have the choice to add the selection to the top or bottom of your disc queue. After adding something to your queue, the app refreshes to show the remove button instead of the add button.

Essentially, that’s the extent of QueueUp. If you’re thinking that QueueUp sounds simple, you’re right. But that’s also the beauty of the app. QueueUp is a relatively simple app, but it performs that job incredibly well while looking great. Like a Brazilian super model walking down the runway, QueueUp makes something look simple and beautiful.

I’ve found myself using QueueUp quite frequently as movies or TV shows pop into my thoughts. Since Netflix removed the ability to add items to your disc queue from their iOS app, QueueUp has become my go to app for adding items into my Netflix queues.

If I could make one improvement to the app, I’d like to see a proper queue management feature. While you can add and remove items from your Netflix queue, your can’t reorder them or see them all in a list form. The app does exactly what it says it does, so this is a feature request and not a criticism of the app in its current form. The developer, Patrick Burleson, told me he has plans for additional features, but he’s keeping them a closely guarded secret for now.

QueueUp is developed by BitBQ and is available from the iOS App Store for $1.99. If you are a Netflix subscriber and frequently add items to either your disc or instant queue, I recommend giving QueueUp (iTunes link) a try.

Over the past few months I’ve been having some issues with my MacBook Pro. Random freezes and kernel panics were happening more than once a month, which is very uncommon for my laptop. I decided it was time to do a complete erase and install of OS X on my Mac. I was hoping to wait until OS X Lion was released, but the issues were really starting to annoy me so I just decided to go with it.

Quite frankly, the installation of OS X is the easy part. The backing up and preparation took longer than the install itself I believe. Below are the steps I used and I also included some good guidelines to limit any potential data loss. I made a conscience decision not to use Migration Assistant. Using Migration Assistant makes the process much easier, but I didn’t want to bring over any software or settings that might have been causing my issues.

Preparation
- Make sure you have installation media for all programs and OS X (.dmg or CD/DVD)
- Have all serial keys handy; I use 1Password to keep track of my serial number information
- Take a screen shot of your Applications folder, it makes a good reference for adding your applications back after you install OS X
- If any programs make use of a library file (many do), make note of the location of that file
- De-authorize iTunes (do this just before shutting down for the final time before installing OS X)

Backup
- If you have an iOS Device, sync it with iTunes and sync any additional programs you can. I used my iPhone to sync 1Password, Money and MacGourmet data so that I could restore from my iPhone if necessary. This also works well for iCal and Address Book.
- If any important programs have an export feature, use it to export your data to your Documents folder (or elsewhere)
- Run Time Machine
- Use SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to create a bootable backup. Also, test the clone to make sure you can properly boot from it.
- Make sure your off site backup is up to date (I use Backblaze)

Restore
- Install OS X
- Begin to install applications
- Restore Data
- Once you have all data restored and are comfortable with everything, begin your normal backup procedures

So that’s it. I hope this was a help to some of you. It should be very useful once OS X Lion comes out this summer.

Video Monkey is my go to application when I need to convert video. Development of the application was very slow in 2010, but the project is still in development and it remains a very solid application. Any video that goes onto my original Apple TV is converted with Video Monkey.

1Password continues to be one of my favorite Mac applications. It makes managing your online passwords incredibly easy. 1Password 3 added some nice features, including the ability to manage software license information. I’ve entered a number of my software licenses into the application. The 1Password iPhone App (iTunes link) gives you the ability to make your login information mobile, which has been incredibly helpful at times. There is also a iPad App and Windows version as well.

If you want to manage multiple calendars, BusySync will make it easy. My wife and I use Google Calendar and BusySync bridges the gap between my iPhone, my work Outlook calendar, my Mac, and my wife’s calendar. For work and home, BusySync keeps my calendars in sync.

Cooking is one of my passions and MacGourmet is what I use to keep my recipes organized. I watch a ton of Food Network shows (Throwdown, Barefoot Contessa, and Giada At Home are some of my favorites) and have added countless recipes from their website. MacGourmet includes a very easy method to import recipes from the Food Network site and a handful of other popular recipe sites. For recipes on any website, the text clipping feature makes adding a recipe dead simple. MacGourmet touch (iTunes link) allows you to take your entire recipe collection with you on your iPhone or iPod touch. Having my recipes on my iPhone has been immensely useful when grocery shopping and I’m not sure what to make. MacGourmet 3 was released in 2010 and an iPad version and update to MacGourmet touch are both currently in development.

Caffeine easily allows you to suspend your power settings to prevent your Mac from going to sleep. I didn’t use Caffeine as much in 2010, but it’s still heavily used on my Mac. If you watch video on your Mac, you need this application. Best of all, it’s free!

I still write every AMHQ post with MarsEdit. Simply put, blogging with MarsEdit makes blogging easier. MarsEdit 3 was released this year, but I’m still running version 2.4.3. MarsEdit supports all the major blogging software platforms. If you blog, this application should be on your Mac.

After three years in beta, Skitch 1.0 finally hit in 2010. Nearly every screen shot you see on this website has been captured with Skitch. After capturing and resizing the picture, I just drag it straight from Skitch into MarsEdit and click insert. The application remains free with Skitch Plus offering additional features and storage on skitch.com for $19.95 a year.

After loosing faith in Cha-Ching, I began to look for alternatives to manage my finances on my Mac. I eventually settled on Money. The budgeting features are more solid than Cha-Ching and the free iPhone/iPad App (iTunes link) is very easy to use. I preferred the Cha-Ching UI over Money, but have no regrets in moving to Money after Cha-Ching was abandoned by the developer. Money is solid, easy to use, and actively developed. Having both a Mac application and iPhone app sealed the deal for me.

Like many retailers, Apple is holding their Black Friday deals close to their vest. The Apple homepage has one of the four secondary banners devoted to their “special one-day Apple shopping event”. Clicking that link however, just tells you to come back November 26th. Apple promises “dozens of great iPad, iPod, and Mac gifts for everyone on your list”. Based on previous years, expect Apple hardware discounts of 8% – 10%, and better deals on software and accessories. You can look at the past three Apple Black Friday deals here. If the new Apple TV gets discounted, I just might pick one up!

Update 11/25/2010:

Apple has released their Black Friday deals on the page linked above.  As suspected, discounts are in the range of previous years.  Save $101 on the iMac, Macbook Pro, and Macbook Air.  Save $41 on the iPad, $21 on the iPod touch, $5 on a number of Apple accessories, and more.  These aren’t the only discounts as the page says, “Tomorrow, you can save on these Apple products and many other accessories”.

Apple is holding another media event today, which for a change is focused on the Mac.  The event starts at 10AM Pacific time and according to the latest rumor (as I type this), Apple will again stream the event live.  What should we expect from Apple today?

• MacBook Air Update:  The MBA is long overdue for an update and some rumors event point to a MBA with a smaller screen to be added to the notebook lineup.
• iLife 11: The Apple Discussions forums leaked new forum categories for a number of iLife 11 applications.  Engadget has the story.
• OSX 10.7: Judging by the invitation the media received, it looks like the next cat in the OS X franchise is Lion.  The king of the jungle; is this the last version of OS X?

The above items are a near certainty.  Will Apple have anything else up their sleeve?  We’ll have to wait and see.  I usually visit Engadget for my Apple special event coverage.  Engadget is covering the event in liveblog fashion here.

After a long hiatus, Google Voice Apps have returned to the App Store. In the span of less than 48 hours, not one, but two Google Voice Apps are now available for purchase.

GV Mobile, one of the original Google Voice Apps has returned as GV Mobile + (iTunes link). Sean Kovacs, the developer of GV Mobile +, says it has been approved by Apple and is still propagating through Apple’s servers. As of this writing, it’s still not available in the US App Store. Sean will be giving away promo codes for GV Mobile + on Twitter and if #gvmobile trends on Twitter, he’s going to set the price to free for the night. GV Mobile + is selling for $2.99. You can follow Sean on Twitter, @seankovacs.

GV Connect (iTunes link) went live Friday night and currently costs $2.99. If you’re an international user, there seems to be a known issue with some Google Voice accounts and GV Connect. The developer, Andreas Amann, is aware of the issue and hopes to have a fix soon.

Apple seems to be loosening their App Store restraints with the reintroduction of Google Voice Apps in the App Store. It’s great to see GV Apps return and I look forward to trying them out as I have a Google Voice number now.

Scoutmob is similar to Groupon in form, but functions a little different. Both Groupon and Scoutmob allow you to experience local restaurants and businesses at a discount, but unlike Groupon, Scoutmob is completely free to use.

Each day, Scoutmob has a different daily deal. You can visit the Scoutmob website and enter your mobile phone number and you’ll receive a text message with the deal information. The deal is good for about 3-4 months, after which it will expire and you cannot use it. You can only claim the deal if you visit the website and enter your mobile number during the time the deal is being offered; unless you have an iPhone. If you have an iPhone, you can download the Scoutmob iPhone App and you can see all current deals (ones that have yet to expire) and there is no need to “claim” the deal.

Using the deal is simple. If you have the text message, just show the text message when you pay and your discount will be applied to your bill. I’ve never used the text message method, but I imagine you have to delete the text message on the spot to prevent reuse. If you have the iPhone App, just open the App, select the deal, and click the “Use This Deal” link. The App will verify your location and then just show the screen to the server.

I’ve used the Scoutmob iPhone App about 3-4 times and have never had a problem getting the discount. The first couple version of the App were horrendously slow, but those problems were fixed some time ago. My only wish for the App would be a way to hide deals I know I’ll never use. Scrolling through the deals can take a while, and having the ability to hide unwanted deals would be a time saver. A simple hide flag would be fairly simple to implement, and a button to removed the “hidden flags” would be a great way to get any accidentally hidden deals back.

Scoutmob is currently offering deals only in Atlanta and New York, but are looking to expand to other cities. The handful of cities they are expanding to next are listed on the Scoutmob homepage. Sign up to be notified if you want to know when they launch in your city. Scountmob is completely free to use, and I highly recommend it.

My local Apple Retail Store was out of iPhone 4, and it’s highly likely yours is as well. You can’t reserver one from AT&T and even the few Wal-Marts and RadioShacks I called were out. I didn’t leave the Apple Store empty handed however.

If you show up at your local Apple Store, the staff is allowing you to add your name to a priority list. This list is essentially your way of staking a virtual claim to incoming iPhones. Once you have chosen the model you want, you have to sign in with your iTunes login and you’ll shortly receive an email with the below information.

When a iPhone 4 comes in, you’ll receive another email stating that you can pickup your iPhone 4. From the time you receive the second email, you have 48 hours to purchase your phone at the store you reserved it. I clicked around on the Apple website, and haven’t seen a link to the priority list anywhere. This appears to be an option only in Apple Stores. The Apple staff I spoke to didn’t know the length of the wait for new iPhones to arrive.

Good luck to everyone still looking to purchase iPhone 4!

Click
If the application you want to add to the Dock is currently open, just command click the icon and choose Options from the menu. In the Options menu, select “Keep in Dock”. You’ll see something similar to the screen grab below.

If the application is currently in the Dock and you want to remove it, perform the same actions as above. This time, the Options menu will have “Remove from Dock” as an option.

Dragging
To easily add a closed application to the Dock, being by going to the Applications folder in the Finder. Once there, drag the application from the Finder window to the bottom of the Dock and hold. If you hold the application near the bottom of the dock, you’ll see the two closest icons move out of the way to “make room” for the new icon. Drop the icon where you want in the dock and it will fall into place.

To easily remove icons from the dock with dragging, just select and hold the icon and move it away from the dock. When a little cloud shows up just below the mouse pointer, let go of the mouse and watch the icon disappear in a puff of smoke.

To view more post for Mac OS X beginners, head to our Beginner Mac section.

I don’t watch much TV during the week, except for during the baseball season (My Braves are stinking it up this year). In addition to baseball and cooking shows, I do sit down a watch a handful of network TV shows. My favorite, Chuck, is again on the chopping block bubble this year and needs your help.

So what does Chuck have to do with Apple products? I’ve written about Chuck a few times on this website before. The show has featured a number of Apple products during its three seasons. It was one of the first shows to feature an iPhone. In fact, the two main characters (Chuck and Sarah) use iPhones and they are shown on nearly every episode. The show has featured older Macs, Cinema Displays, and many more Apple products.

If you haven’t seen Chuck before, I very highly recommend it. The plot features an average geek who mistakenly has a CIA database transplanted in his brain. The US government finds out about the intelligence leak and sends two of its’ top agents to protect him. As the show has progressed, Chuck has become a spy in his own right. The show features references to video games, pop culture, comics, and many other things a geek would enjoy. If you like Mythbusters or Big Bang Theory, you’d probably like Chuck. You can read more about the show on Wikipedia.

So how can you help Chuck? Watch the show live! If you are a Nielsen household, your live viewing counts even more. Chuck has four more shows left this season and now is as good a time as any to start watching. The show features comedy, action, adventure, and is a ton of fun. The chemistry between the two main characters, Chuck and Sarah, is fantastic. I’ve heard from a number of people that Chuck is one of the only TV shows the whole family can watch. Please help this fantastic show get renewed for a fourth season!

Chuck is broadcast on NBC at 8PM Eastern on Mondays. If you are an international viewer, check your local listings for the channel and time Chuck is playing in your area. Let me know in the comments if you watch Chuck and what you like about it!

A short search later, I downloaded OmniDiskSweeper. When you first launch OminDiskSweeper, you’re prompted to choose a drive. Once you select the drive, it takes the application a few moments to “sweep” the drive. Once the sweep is done, you’ll see a list of folders with their current size. As you drill down in your folder list, the size is reflected in those folders as well. You can delete files from within the application and the folder sizes are automatically recalculated.

OmniDiskSweeper is a free application by The Omni Group. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. If you’re looking to clear up some space on your hard drive but don’t know what’s taking up the space, I highly suggest downloading OmniDiskSweeper.