Jim Lynch: Technology Tips & Tweaks

How To Create A Google+ Page

Jim — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 19:30:24 +0000

Here’s how you can create a Google+ page for your business or brand.

1. Go to the Google+ Create A Page tool.

2. Pick the appropriate category for your page.

3. Click the Create button.

4. Add a tagline and profile photo then click Continue.

5. Share your new page on Google+ then click the Finish button.

It only takes a couple of minutes to set up a page. Here’s a screen shot of a page I set up for Desktop Linux Reviews. Click the link or the screen shot to visit DLR’s Google+ page.

The Google+ page for Desktop Linux Reviews.

How to Speed Up Your Mac

Jim — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:26:47 +0000

If you find that your Mac is slowing down a lot, here are some helpful tips to speed it up again.

1. Get rid of unnecessary dashboard widgets.

2. Eliminate unnecessary extensions and addons in your browser.

3. Remove items from the startup menu. Open System Preferences then go to Accounts then choose your account then go to Login Items. Hit the minus button to remove all unnecessary items from the startup menu for your account.

4. Upgrade your hardware. Extra RAM especially can give you a huge speed increase. Beware of buying RAM from Apple as you can get it cheaper elsewhere at places like NewEgg.

For more information, see the original article at the link below.

Speed Up Tips if your Mac Slows Down | MacitFaster

Ark Linux 2005.1-SR1 Released

How to Find Prime Eligible Kindle Books & Read for Free

Jim — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:17:28 +0000

Amazon recently launched its Kindle Owners Lending Library, which is part of its Amazon Prime service. If you’re an Amazon Prime member or if you’re thinking about becoming one to read free books on your Kindle, then you can see a list of Prime Eligible Kindle books.

Read Free Kindle Books on Amazon Prime

There’s quite a bit to choose from there so check them out if you’re interested in Amazon Prime. If you aren’t familiar with Amazon’s Prime service, here’s what you get and how much it costs:

FREE Two-Day Shipping on millions of items
No minimum order size
Unlimited instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with Prime instant videos
A Kindle book to borrow for free each month from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library
Join Amazon Prime for $79/year.

For more information, see the original article at the link below.

List of free Prime eligible Kindle e-books | CNet

Fix Mac OS X Lion Wi-Fi Problems

Jim — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:57:49 +0000

If you’re having problems with Mac OS X Lion’s Wi-Fi performance, here’s how you can fix it.

Before you begin please make sure that you are running the latest version of Lion, that you’ve applied all software updates and that you’ve reset your router.

Here’s how to fix your Lion Wi-Fi problems:

1. Open System Preferences and select Network.

2. Click the Location menu and then click the Edit Locations setting.

3. Create a new network location by clicking the + icon and then give your new location a name, then click done.

4. Go back to the Network panel and click Advanced, then click the TCP/IP tab, then click Renew DHCP Lease, then click Done.

Fix Mac OS X Lion Wi-Fi Problems

That should fix any Wi-Fi problems you’ve been having with Lion.

For more information see the original article:

Still Having Lion Wi-Fi Problems? This Solution Works | OSX Daily

Undock or split the iPad keyboard in iOS 5

Jim — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:48:02 +0000

The iPad’s virtual keyboard can easily be undocked and split to make it easier to type with your thumbs. Here’s how to do it.

1. Open the application that you want to use.

2. When the virtual keyboard appears on the screen, tap and hold the keyboard menu on the bottom right.

Keyboard Menu iPad

3. You will see two options “Undock” and “Split.”

4. If you choose “Undock” then your keyboard will appear in the middle of the screen.

iPad Keyboard Undocked

5. If you choose “Split” then your keyboard split into two pieces on either side of the screen.

iPad Keyboard Split

I suggest experimenting with both settings to see which one you prefer to use. I’m partial to the split keyboard as I like typing with my thumbs, but your mileage may vary. It’s very nice to have these options either way though. It makes writing on your iPad much better if you’d rather not go with the standard virtual keyboard placement.

For more information on this topic, see the original article:

Split Your iPad Keyboard In iOS 5 And Give Your Thumbs A Workout | Cult of Mac

Make Free iPhone Ringtones with GarageBand

Jim — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:03:54 +0000

Here’s how you can make free iPhone ringtones with GarageBand. DRM music will not work so be sure your song isn’t encumbered by any DRM.

1. Make sure that you have GarageBand open on your computer.

GarageBand

2. Click on the Media button in the lower right corner of GarageBand. You can now access your iTunes library.

3. Find the song you want and drag it to the main GarageBand window.

4. Click the Media button again if you want to hide that window to have more space to work on your ringtone.

5. Click the Cycle Region button and you’ll see the yellow region bar at the top of your screen.

6. Drag the beginning and ending parts of the yellow region to be where you want the ringtone to begin or end.

The Yellow Region

7. Once you’ve made your decisions, click the Share button and then click Send Ringtone to iTunes. Your song will be called “My Song” and you can change it to whatever you want in iTunes.

8. Now you just need to sync your iPhone with iTunes to use your new ringtone.

For more information, see the original article:

How-To: Create iPhone Ringtones in Garageband | Gigaom

Download GarageBand for the iPhone and iPad

Jim — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:34:08 +0000

GarageBand is now available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. You can download it right now from iTunes for the very cheap price of $4.99. Here’s what you’ll get when you download GarageBand:

GarageBand turns your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch into a collection of Touch Instruments and a full-featured recording studio — so you can make music anywhere you go. Use Multi-Touch gestures to play pianos, organs, guitars, drums, and basses. They sound and play like their counterparts, but let you do things you could never do on a real instrument. Enjoy a full range of Smart Instruments that make you sound like a pro — even if you’ve never played a note before. Plug an electric guitar into your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch and play through classic amps and stompbox effects. Use the built-in microphone or a guitar to record, or capture any performance. Then mix up to eight tracks to create a song you can share.

GarageBand

Play your iPad, iPhone and iPod touch like a musical instrument
• Perform on dozens of musical instruments on the innovative Multi-Touch keyboard
• Tap out beats from the seat of acoustic and electronic drum kits
• Recreate legendary guitar rigs with 9 amps and 10 stompbox effects
• Record your voice using the built-in microphone, and apply fun sound effects
• Use the Sampler to create an instrument from sounds you record, then play them on a keyboard

Sound like a virtuoso with Smart Instruments
• Tap chords to instantly create keyboard grooves with the Smart Keyboard
• Strum chords on acoustic and electric Smart Guitars, or trigger fingerpicking patterns for popular chords
• Groove with an onscreen electric or upright Smart Bass by tapping on chords
• Drag drum instruments onto a grid to create your own beats with the Smart Drums

Create a song anywhere you go
• Arrange and mix your song with up to eight tracks using Touch Instruments, audio recordings, and loops
• Trim and place musical regions exactly where you want them to play
• Use the Mixer to fine-tune each track’s volume – solo or mute any track, or adjust pan, reverb, and echo
• Use over 250 professionally prerecorded loops as a backing band to your song

GarageBand

Share your songs
• Email songs right from GarageBand (AAC)
• Export your song and add it to the iTunes library on your Mac or PC
• Send a project to your Mac and open it in GarageBand to continue refining your song

How to Fix iPhone 4S Battery Problems

Jim — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:23:43 +0000

Many people are reporting that their iPhone 4S batteries are draining much too fast. Apple is aware of the problem and is working on a fix. Here’s how you can prolong your iPhone 4S’ battery life.

1. Turn off Wi-Fi.
Go to settings then Wi-Fi to turn it off.

2. Turn off all Location Services.
Go to Settings then Location Services and turn off all location services. If there’s something you really need, keep it on but be aware it will cost you some battery life.

3. Turn of Setting Time Zone and Location-Based iAds.
Go to Settings then Location Services then System Services (at the bottom of the page). Then toggle off these services.

4. Use the ringer instead of vibrate.
Vibration uses more energy than the ringer so turn off vibration.

5. Turn off all notifications.
Go to Settings then Notifications. Turn off all notifications or at least the ones you really don’t need.

6. Turn off iCloud.
Go to Settings then iCloud then Documents & Data. Turn off Use Cellular.

7. Turn off Diagnostics and Usage Reports.
Go to Settings then General then About then Diagnostics and Usage. Make sure it’s set to “Don’t Send.”

8. Turn off Bluetooth.
Go to Settings then General then Bluetooth, and toggle Bluetooth to Off.

Hopefully there will be a fix out soon to stop the iPhone 4S battery problems. Until then these tips will help you save your iPhone 4S battery from being drained unnecessarily.

For more information, see the original article at the link below.

iPhone 4S Battery Life Problems: 10 Tips to Improve Bugs in Apple Software
| IB Times

View iOS 5 Notifications By Swiping

Jim — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:27:59 +0000

Here’s how you can view iOS 5 notifications by simply swiping.

When you get a notification on the home screen, just swipe it and your phone will be unlocked and you’ll be taken right to the notification. This is a very fast way of getting to the most important notifications you get on your iOS 5 device.

View iOS Notifications By Swiping

For more information, see the original article at the link below.

Swipe iOS Notifications By Swiping | Lifehacker

No related posts.

Jailbreak iOS 5 on the iPhone 4, iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone 3GS

Jim — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 17:46:57 +0000

Here’s how you can jailbreak your iOS 5 device using Redsn0w.

1. Download the necessary files:

iTunes 10.5
RedsnOw
iOS 5

2. Connect your device to iTunes, sync it and then upgrade it to iOS 5 (if it’s not already running it).

3. Open the RedsnOw file, go to Extras then click IPSW and then find the iOS 5 IPSW file on your computer.

4. Hit back then Jailbreak and then Install Cydia.

5. Follow the instructions and your device will be put in DFU mode.

When you go to reboot in the future, you’ll need to do a tethered boot. Here’s how to do it.

1. Open the RedsnOw application on your computer, go to Extras then click the Just Boot button.

2. Click next and then follow the instructions to get back into DFU mode.

RedsnOw

For more information on this topic, please see the original article at the link below.

Jailbreak iOS 5 iPhone 4, 3GS, iPad, iPod Touch (HOW TO) | RedsnOw

Become an Organ Donor in Memory of Steve Jobs

Jim — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:15:10 +0000

Steve Jobs has died after a long battle. You can honor his memory by becoming an organ donor. Give the gift of life in memory of Steve Jobs.

Here’s a video of Steve speaking about organ donation and how it helped him live longer.

Visit organdonor.gov to find out how you can become an organ donor.

The Need Is Real: Data

During your visit to organdonor.gov someone may have been added to the waiting list. It happens every 11 minutes.

Each day, an average of 75 people receive organ transplants. However, an average of 20 people die each day waiting for transplants that can’t take place because of the shortage of donated organs.

Organ transplantation has become an accepted medical treatment for end-stage organ failure. The facts prove it. But only you can help make it happen.

Here are some interesting facts:

As of May 4, 2009, the percentage of recipients who were still living 5-years after their transplant is noted below for kidney, heart, liver, and lung.
Kidney: 69.3%
Heart: 74.9%
Liver: 73.8%
Lung: 54.4%

In 2008, 60% of living donors were women. The statistic is reversed for deceased donation.

In 2008, 67% of all deceased donors were White, 16% were Black, 14% Hispanic and 2.5% Asian.

As of November 2010, the national waiting list was made up of 45% White, 29% Black, 18% Hispanic, and 6% Asian.

In 2007, (the most recent data) there were almost 2.5 million deaths in the U.S. Imagine if every one of those persons had donated.

Currently, more than 86 million people in the U.S. are signed up to be a donor — sign up and join them.

Become an Organ Donor in Memory of Steve Jobs

Hat Tip: MacDailyNews

Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEO

Jim — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:02:23 +0000

Wow. The end of an era for sure. He must be in a bad way for this to happen. My best wishes to him and his family. Thanks for all the great products over the years, Steve.

Letter from Steve Jobs

CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– 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

Contacts

Apple
Katie Cotton, 408-974-7269
katiec@apple.com
or
Apple
Steve Dowling , 408-974-1896
dowling@apple.com

Free Kindle eBooks

Jim — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 20:11:02 +0000

The Kindle book store has some great free books if you know where to look. I recently downloaded a ton of free classics. You can get everything from Sherlock Holmes to Mark Twain to the Three Musketeers, and tons of other free ebooks.

There are a couple of places you look in the Kindle store for free ebooks. The first is the 100 Best Sellers list. Just look to the right and you’ll see the list of the top 100 Free eBooks. You can also browse the Fiction Classics section for free books. Note that they are mixed in with some ebooks that require payment so look carefully before you click the Buy button.

You should also check out the Free eBooks Collection page for Kindle. There are links to the excellent Popular Classics list (many free classics listed there) and also to other sites and resources for free ebooks.

You can also check out these sites and resources:

Project Gutenberg

Free Kindle eBooks Search on Amazon

Free Kindle Books

The Free Library

There’s quite a lot of free books out there for your Kindle or Kindle application. Poke around and I’m sure you’ll find something great to read.

Linus Torvalds Calls for GNOME Fork

Jim — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:51:14 +0000

Linus has shared this thoughts about GNOME 3 in a Google Plus thread and he’s not happy with it. At all.

He’s using Xfce instead, and I really can’t blame him. I wasn’t impressed with GNOME 3 either. It probably should not have been released in its current form. I would not use it and I used to be a big GNOME fan.

Here are the text of his messages, and here’s a link to the Google Plus thread they came from.

First message:

“While you are at it, could you also fork gnome, and support a gnome-2 environment?

I want my sane interfaces back. I have yet to meet anybody who likes the unholy mess that is gnome-3.”

Second message:

“+Cyrill Gorcunov: it’s not that I have rendering problems with gnome3 (although I do have those too), it’s that the user experience of Gnome3 even without rendering problems is unacceptable.

Why can’t I have shortcuts on my desktop? Why can’t I have the expose functionality? Wobbly windows? Why does anybody sane think that it’s a good idea to have that “go to the crazy ‘activities’” menu mode?

I used to be upset when gnome developers decided it was “too complicated” for the user to remap some mouse buttons. In gnome3, the developers have apparently decided that it’s “too complicated” to actually do real work on your desktop, and have decided to make it really annoying to do.

Here’s an example of “the crazy”: you want a new terminal window. So you go to “activities” and press the “terminal” thing that you’ve made part of your normal desktop thing (but why can’t I just have it on the desktop, instead of in that insane “activities” mode?). What happens? Nothing. It brings your existing terminal to the forefront.

That’s just crazy crap. Now I need to use Shift-Control-N in an old terminal to bring up a new one. Yeah, that’s a real user experience improvement. Sure.

I’m sure there are other ways, but that’s just an example of the kind of “head up the arse” behavior of gnome3. Seriously. I have been asking other developers about gnome3, they all think it’s crazy.

I’m using Xfce. I think it’s a step down from gnome2, but it’s a huge step up from gnome3. Really.”

Installing Mac OS X Lion

Jim — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:17:39 +0000

As I noted in an earlier entry, I’ve upgraded three machines so far and found Lion’s install easy and reasonably fast. Here are some helpful links though to help you get started upgrading your Mac to Lion. These tips cover everything you need to know before you upgrade and will also show you how to do the upgrade and even make a Mac OS X Lion install disc from one of your blank DVDs.

Mac OS X Lion Install Checklist
Go through this checklist before you being installing Lion. It may save you a lot of trouble and headaches later on.

Mac OS X Lion Install Checklist

How To Create a Mac OS X Lion Install Disc
Instructions for creating an install DVD rather than just using the installer from the Mac App Store.

How to Create a Mac OS X Install Disc

How to Burn Your Own OS X Lion Install DVD or USB Drive
Here are some alternative instructions on making an install disc or installing via a USB drive.

Burn Your Own Lion Install DVD or USB Drive

Apple’s Official Mac OS X Lion Upgrade Instructions
If you just want to use the regular process, you can follow Apple’s official instructions. It’s a simple, three step process that should make it very easy for you to get Lion on your Mac.

Apple's Mac OS X Lion Upgrade Instructions

Mac OS X Lion Reviews

Jim — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:46:44 +0000

Mac OS X Lion has already had more than a million downloads, and many Mac users are considering an upgrade. But should you upgrade? Is Mac OS X Lion really ready for primetime or should you sit tight until after Apple does the first batch of patches?

My experience so far has been very good. I upgraded two iMacs and an older Macbook Pro laptop and didn’t run into any problems. The upgrade process went very well for all three machines and I haven’t seen any noticeable bugs or problems. However, your mileage may vary so don’t take my word for it.

Mac OS X Lion

Here are some of the Mac OS X Lion reviews available around the net that will give you an idea of what to expect from it. Read these carefully and make sure you have a good understanding of what Lion is all about before making a decision about upgrading.

Ars Technica Review
A very deep and detailed review of Lion that runs about 19 pages and covers many details about Lion.

MacNN Review
A shorter, one-page review that covers most of the Lion features. Good for those who want a quicker read than the Ars review.

TechRadar Review
A seven page review that is a bit of a middle ground between the MacNN and Ars reviews.

Anandtech Review
Another long and detailed review that covers many details about Lion.

Guardian Review
A good, one page review that covers the basics.

Mac OS X Lion Downloads

Jim — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:21:10 +0000

Well Apple’s lion is certainly roaring in terms of money! It did more than one million downloads in its first day. So what is that? About $30 million dollars or so on the very first day? Not a bad haul for Apple. No wonder they are sitting on 75 billion dollars! Wow.

If you still don’t have Lion, you can download it here from the Mac App Store.

Apple® today announced that in just one day, over one million users bought and downloaded Mac OS® X Lion, the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system. Available through the Mac® App Store™ for $29.99 (US), users are buying Lion faster than any other OS release in Apple’s history.

“Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.”

Lion introduces more than 250 new features to the Mac, including Multi-Touch® gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

Available in 123 countries, the Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to the Mac so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes® account, download and install them in just one step. The Mac App Store offers apps in Education, Games, Graphics & Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, Utilities and other categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews. The Mac App Store is built right into Lion and available for Snow Leopard® users through Software Update as part of Mac OS X version 10.6.8.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Mac OS X Lion

Mac OS X Lion and World of Warcraft

Jim — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:13:45 +0000

Mac OS X Lion has finally been released and I upgraded my iMac. I couldn’t wait to fire up World of Warcraft and see how Lion ran it.

So far it seems to be running it very well, indeed. My framerate seems a bit higher than it was when WOW ran on Snow Leopard. This is a pleasant surprise as you never know with new versions of an operating systems. Sometimes the end result is very bad for gamers, but not this time. Mac OS X Lion seems to be quite well suited to running World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft in Mac OS X Lion

I’ll be checking this out more as I have more time to play WOW and tweak performance settings. I was able to go from “good” to “high” and not notice a performance drop in terms of framerate so that bodes very well for Mac OS X Lion.

Here are some interesting threads in the WOW forum related to gaming and Mac OS X Lion.

An older thread but still worth reading:

What Version of OpenGL?

And also a thread that was started today:

Mac OS X Lion Today! Anyone Upgrade?

Blizzard’s official Mac OS X Lion release thread:

Mac OS X 10.7 Now Available

See also the thread by Blizzard with tips & troubleshooting ideas:

10.7 and WOW

The early buzz in the World of Warcraft Mac support forum seems to be pretty positive. That’s good to see and hopefully we’ll get a lot more feedback soon as more WOW gamers upgrade to Lion.

Here’s a comment from one of the threads above:

Well I am in WoW under 10.7 and the experience is great.
Actually I’m pleased w/ Lion overall.
With regards to WoW, I think it runs better.

2011 15″ MBP i7
AMD 6570
8G RAM
Apple SSD

Here’s another one:

Seems to allow using shadows on my machine now without any performance loss. View distances could also be turned up without any impact, although sunshafts, water effects and anti-aliasing still bog down.

2009 Macbook Pro 13 btw. Most settings are on low except those noted above and textures are one notch above low. Capped at 30fps.

It seems so far, so good as far as Lion running WOW.

You can also get more information about OpenGL for Mac OS X Lion on the Apple Developer site.

What’s your take on Lion and World of Warcraft? Is it running well for you? Tell me in the comments.

Mac OS X Lion Released

Jim — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:02:20 +0000

Well it’s finally here! And you can get it from the app store right now. Woohoo!

Mac OS X Lion

Here’s Apple’s press release:

Apple® today announced that Mac OS® X Lion, the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system with more than 250 new features, is available today as a download from the Mac® App Store™ for $29.99. Some of the amazing features in Lion include: new Multi-Touch® gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software, built right into the OS; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

“Lion is the best version of OS X yet, and we’re thrilled that users around the world can download it starting today,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Lion makes upgrading a Mac easier than ever before; just launch the Mac App Store, buy Lion with your iTunes account, and the download and install process will begin automatically.”

Additional new features in Lion include:

• Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;

• Auto Save, which automatically and continuously saves your documents as you work;

• Versions, which automatically records the history of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, revert and even copy and paste from previous versions; and

• AirDrop, which finds nearby Macs and automatically sets up a peer-to-peer wireless connection to make transferring files quick and easy.

Pricing & Availability

Mac OS X Lion is available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.6.6 Snow Leopard® from the Mac App Store for $29.99 (US). Lion is the easiest OS X upgrade and at around 4GB, it is about the size of an HD movie from the iTunes Store®. Users who do not have broadband access at home, work or school can download Lion at Apple retail stores and later this August, Lion will be made available on a USB thumb drive through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com) for $69 (US). Mac OS X Lion Server requires Lion and is available from the Mac App Store for $49.99 (US).

Lion requires an Intel-based Mac with a Core 2 Duo, i3, i5, i7 or Xeon processor and 2GB of RAM. Lion is an upgrade and can be installed on all your authorized personal Macs. Details regarding Business and Education licensing can be found at apple.com/macosx.

The OS X Lion Up-to-Date upgrade will be available through the Mac App Store at no additional charge to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 6, 2011. Users must request their Up-to-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchase of their Mac computer. Customers who purchased a qualifying Mac between June 6, 2011 and July 20, 2011 will have until August 19, 2011 to make a request. Additional information can be found atapple.com/macosx/uptodate.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

Silver Prices & Technology

Jim — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:55:27 +0000

The price of silver has been on a tear lately. Silver, as you may already know, is widely used in technology to produce all kinds of different products. Here are some examples from the Silver Institute:

NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, on its four year scientific mission, gave scientists their clearest look ever at the surface of Venus. 24,171 silver-coated quartz tiles protected the spacecraft from overheating under twice the solar radiation experienced orbiting the earth, plus the extra heat reflected by the Venusian clouds. The protection afforded by these tiles allowed the sophisticated electronics to work flawlessly, mapping the surface of the planet and its gravity fields with unprecedented detail.

Silver imparts special properties to aluminum alloys. The addition of silver to aluminum has provided the strongest cast aluminum alloy known, now used to advantage in aircraft such as the Air Force C17 transport and in the Army’s Apache helicopter. A new silver-lithium-aluminum alloy is the strongest wrought aluminum alloy known. It has been used on several of the NASA space shuttle missions.

Silver’s use as a gasket material in the chemical process is due to its chemical inactivity even under powerfully oxidizing conditions of the Space Shuttle engine.

Wikipedia also has some interesting information about silver use in various industries, including technology:

Some electrical and electronic products use silver for its superior conductivity, even when tarnished. The primary example of this is in high quality RF connectors. The increase in conductivity is also taken advantage of in RF engineering at VHF and higher frequencies, where conductors often cannot be scaled by 6%, due to tuning requirements, e.g.cavity filters. As an additional example, printed circuits and RFID antennas can be made using silver paints,[5][17] and computer keyboards use silver electrical contacts. Silver cadmium oxide is used in high voltage contacts because it can withstand arcing.

Some manufacturers produce audio connector cables, speaker wires, and power cables using silver conductors, which have a 6% higher conductivity than ordinary copper ones of identical dimensions, but cost very much more. Though debatable, many hi-fi enthusiasts believe silver wires improve sound quality.[citation needed]

Small devices, such as hearing aids and watches, commonly use silver oxide batteries due to their long life and high energy to weight ratio. Another usage is high-capacity silver-zinc and silver-cadmium batteries.

But I’m not sure technology is what’s driving this rise in prices. It may be related to government policies, debt and spending. It’s good news for silver investors but probably not good news for technology companies that use silver in their products as their costs will obviously go up as the price of silver rises.

Will silver prices keep rising? That’s anybody’s guess but it seems to on a real tear lately and we may find that a rising price in silver could result in more costly technology products. I sure hope that’s not the case but you never know.

Here’s a chart with Kitco’s current price of silver:

What’s driving the price of silver? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.

Star Trek Captain’s Summit

Jim — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:40:13 +0000

Star Trek has had an amazing impact on technology over the years. Many people have been inspired to go into technology-related fields after growing up watching the Star Trek movies and TV shows.

In this show Whoopi Goldberg sits down and interviews the various Star Trek captains. Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner sit down together and share their memories and inside gossip about Star Trek.

It’s quite fun and interesting to listen to these guys. They’re clearly having a great time chatting together. I enjoyed watching this.

The show is broken down into 7 parts, each is embedded below.

What’s your take on the show? Did you enjoy it? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Spotify: More Music, Less Money?

Jim — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 16:06:43 +0000

Online music distribution has changed a lot over the years and the latest potential game changer is Spotify.

Spotify is a music service that lets you listen to your music on any of your devices. You can also share music and connect your Facebook account to Spotify. You can also search for music, sync music and create playlists of music.

If you’ve used iTunes then you’ll probably consider Spotify to be the version of iTunes that you always wanted, one where you already one every song on the service. After you install the desktop application, Spotify should find your local music and recognize your iTunes playlists automatically.

The free service is ad supported but you can also sign up for premium or unlimited (starting at $4.99 per month). The premium service lets you use Spotify on your phone too.

Here are some reviews of Spotify:

Spotify US Review

Spotify Premium Android App Review

Spotify iPhone Review

And here’s a guide to getting started using Spotify:

How to Get Started With Spotify

You have to wonder what Apple’s response will finally be to Spotify. This new service really has the potential to cut into the profits of iTunes since it offers so much music for a flat fee rather than forcing people to buy music one song at a time or as an album. No doubt Apple will probably respond aggressively to protect its iTunes cash cow.

Spotify

Spotify Android

Spotify iPhone

Here are three videos that give you a quick look at the service.

Mac OS X Lion Release Date & Features

Jim — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:39:51 +0000

Mac OS X Lion is just around the corner and many people would like to know more about it. The two things that seem to come up in terms of questions are when it will be released and what features will be included in it.

So far Apple has been quiet about the exact release date. But IBTimes is betting that it will probably happen on July 22:

Apple did not comment on the buzz around its newest operating system, only mentioning a “July” release. Now that half of July is gone, there aren’t so many days in the lot. Apple-watching sites have renewed their predictions to sometime next week (there are only two weeks left, anyway) and some have specified the release date as either July 19 or July 22.

Considering Apple’s tradition (or mere coincidence) of releasing its Mac OS X updates on Fridays, it would seem safer to wait for the roar on July 22.

Mac OS X Lion

There’s no way to know exactly when, however, until Apple itself tells us or somebody manages to find out. If you’ve heard any juicy rumors about the exact release date please post them in the comments section.

And here are some helpful links with information about the features of Mac OS X Lion:

Apple Complete List of Mac OS X Lion Features

Apple’s page also has some good screenshots that illustrate some of Lion’s cool features.

WikiPedia Mac OS X Lion Background & Features

Here’s part of the list available in the Wikipedia article:

Address Book now uses an iPad-like user interface^{[citation needed]}

AirDrop – Lion-to-Lion direct file sharing via Wi-Fi Direct. No wireless access point required.^[15]

Address space layout randomization – Address space layout randomization (ASLR), a security technique that puts important data in unpredictable locations, making it harder to target known weaknesses, is available for 32-bit applications, and “has been improved for all applications”, in Lion.^[16]

Auto-correction now behaves much like on iOS devices, displaying an iOS-like popup box.^[17]

Auto Save – As in iOS, documents in applications written to use Auto Save will be saved automatically so users don’t have to worry about manually managing their documents.^[18]

Emoji support – Apple has added a new Emoji font commonly used in chat to express ideograms.^[17]^[19]

Exposé in the Dock, a way of activating Exposé for a single application from the Dock, a feature added in Mac OS X 10.6,^[20] is altered. One must now double-tap with two fingers on a dock icon to initiate single application exposé, or simply right-click or control-click and select Show All Windows.

FaceTime comes bundled with Lion.^[10]

FileVault now offers full disk encryption added security with XTS-AES 128 data encryption. Support for FileVault on external hard drives has also been added.^[21]

Finder improvements – Finder search offers suggestions, files can be grouped by various attributes, and one can now merge files under two folders with the same name – a prompt will appear asking whether one wants to replace or keep both files.^[22]^[23]

Font Book 3—Font Book 3 now provides more flexible displays of character glyphs supplied by a particular font face. Duplicate font files are now flagged with a warning icon, and can be fixed automatically or resolved manually.^[19]

Full-screen apps – Native, system-wide support for full-screen applications. Supporting applications display a new button at the top right of application window, this button opens applications in full-screen mode.^[24]

High-quality multilingual speech voices – users can download new high-quality voices in more than forty languages and dialects.^[25]^[26]

iCal has an updated user interface, an annual view, and support for a full-screen view.^[27]^[28]

iChat now has support for logging into Yahoo! Messenger. Users can audio- and video-chat with other iChat users using their Yahoo! accounts.^[29]^[30]

Languages/Localization – Arabic, Czech, Turkish and Hungarian are added as full system languages, to make the total number of twenty-two languages available in Mac OS X.^[31]

Launchpad – An application launcher that displays an iOS-like icon grid of installed applications. It features the ability to make multiple pages and group apps into folders that function the same as folders in iOS.^[32]

Mac App Store – An application store built in the image of the iOS App Store. Like in iOS, it will provide ways for shoppers to discover apps, one-click installation of apps, and one-click updates of all or selected installed applications.^[5]^[33]^[34] Despite being announced as a future feature of Lion, the Mac App Store was released for Mac OS X Snow Leopard on January 6, 2011 as it was bundled with the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update.^[35]

I am really looking forward to upgrading my own Macs to it when it’s finally released. I don’t have much to complain about when I use them right now, but I’m always happy to get a better version of Mac OS X. Lion seems like it will fit the bill nicely.

The Best Google+ Tips and Tricks

Jim — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:16:59 +0000

Google+ is taking the social media world by storm. Despite Google limiting the number of invites initially, Google+ has already gotten millions of users. Facebook is no doubt running very scared of Google+, it’s the first real competition they’ve had.

Google+ is a little bit different than Facebook though, so if you are familiar with Facebook you might be thrown off by Google+. Things like “circles” really add a lot of value to Google+ but they do take some getting used to though. So I decided to spend some time combing through various sites to find the best Google+ tips and tricks.

Hopefully these tips will get you up and running with Google+ as quickly as possible.

Google+ A Collaborative Document
This is a fantastic document that has been created by many of those who first hit the Google+ service. It covers many of the basic and advanced features, and there are lot of helpful screenshots included in the document. A great place to get started with Google+.

Google+ Help, Tips and Tricks on Facebook
Yes, there are actually Facebook heretics who have created a very interesting Google+ tips page on Facebook. The page contains a lot of tips links along with questions from Facebook users about Google+. A very interesting wrinkle that the people running Facebook would probably rather not see.

Google Plus Tips and Shortcuts
This guide covers brands, chat, chrome extensions, comments, the Google+ API, privacy, text formatting and a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s a good place to get started with your Google+ experience.

10 Google+ Tips for Beginners
PC World has a good slideshow that will point out various helpful tidbits about Google+. If you’re totally new to it then this slideshow then you’ll find this particularly useful.

Google+ Tips and Tricks
Janet Fouts, a search engine guru, also has a list of tips and tricks that cover many of the basics of using Google+.

28 Google+ Tips to Enhance Your Google Plus Experience
Webtrickz.com has a neat list of 28 tips, and quite a few of them are illustrated with screenshots to make it even easier for you to learn.

40 Google+ Tips for Newbies
Here’s another helpful list with a lot of screenshots that covers a wide range of things including circles, friends, photos, profiles, security, notifications and a bunch of other stuff.

20 Google+ Tips, Tricks and Hints
This list covers quite a lot of basic stuff and also illustrates the tips with screenshots.

Ultimate Google+ Tips and Tricks
This page is a bit of a blend of basic and advanced tips for Google+.

10 Things You Never Knew Were Possible On Google+
Business Insider has a pretty good slideshow that includes tips of obvious and less obvious things on Google+.

What Is Google+? A Video Tour
This is a video introduction to Google+ for those of you who aren’t familiar with it and just want an overview of the service.

I hope all of these tips are useful to you. Feel free to drop by my own Google+ page and say hello.

How Star Trek Created the iPad

Jim — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:37:20 +0000

I remember watching Star Trek and wishing I had something like what they were using. Thanks to the iPad, I actually do. Woohoo!

This is a great overview of how the devices in Star Trek came into being. You have to really admire the vision of the Trek producers, they almost hit the nail right on the head with their PADD devices.

One interesting characteristic of Star Trek: The Next Generation—one that separated it from the original series and most of the early films—was its widespread use of smooth, flat, touch-based control panels throughout the Enterprise-D. This touch interface was also used for numerous portable devices known as PADDs, or Personal Access Display Devices. These mobile computing terminals bear a striking resemblance to Apple’s iPad—a mobile computing device largely defined by its smooth, flat touchscreen interface.

To understand the thinking that lead to the design of the Star Trek PADD, we spoke to some of the people involved in production of ST:TNG (as well as other Star Trek TV series and films), including Michael Okuda, Denise Okuda, and Doug Drexler. All three were involved in various aspects of production art for Star Trek properties, including graphic design, set design, prop design, visual effects, art direction, and more. We also discussed their impressions of the iPad and how eerily similar it is to their vision of 24th century technology, how science fiction often influences technology, and what they believe is the future of human-machine interaction.

From “electronic clipboard” to PADD

The Star Trek films, beginning with 1979′s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, had sizable budgets for set design, props, and special effects. However, the original Star Trek series from the 1960s didn’t have the resources to fill starships with buttons, knobs, and video displays.

According to Michael Okuda, original Star Trek art director Matt Jefferies had practically no budget. “He had to invent an inexpensive, but believable solution,” he told Ars. “The spacecraft of the day, such as the Gemini capsules, were jammed full of toggle switches and gauges. If he had had the money to buy those things, the Enterprise would have looked a lot like that.”

Because Jefferies was forced by budget restraints to be creative, however, the original Enterprise bridge was relatively sparse and simplistic. “Because he did such a brilliant job visualizing it, I think the original Star Trek still holds up today reasonably well,” Okuda said.

Similar budget constraints meant creative solutions were required for ST:TNG as well. “We had a much lower budget than the feature films did,” Okuda told Ars. “So, for example, I looked at the production process of making a control panel, and I said, ‘How can I make this as inexpensive as possible?’ Having made those decisions, ‘now what can I do to make it as futuristic as possible?’”