Mac Adventures!

A guide to OS X software for switchers.

2006-07-10T07:45:00.000+10:00

I have yet to see a Switcher's Guide that focuses on the Switcher. Most seem more concerned with listing a few personal favorite programs or touting some of the wonderful features of OS X itself. My goal is to outline those applications that are not only the most useful, but have direct bearing on the life of those who have recently switched over.

read more | digg story

Turning Back the Clock: Is a G3 iMac Usable in 2006?

2006-07-09T13:07:00.000+10:00

Surprisingly, these ancient machines perform quite well for everyday tasks. Not bad for $50-$100 used!

Well, looks like the secret is out! But this is definitely what we have found in our experience.

read more | digg story

The Brain Workout: In praise of video games

2006-06-12T19:21:00.000+10:00

"Yet the critics of video games are not only conjuring up a threat where none exists; they're ignoring the positive moral lessons and cognitive benefits that many of today's sophisticated games offer."

read more | digg story

I particularly liked the application for pain relief! A very worthy application of video games. Also, games like the Sims teaching life skills in a realistic setting.

Of course, as with any media, if parents are not prepared to monitor what their children are using, that's when the game is really lost.

Video Games ARE Good For Children

2006-05-23T08:04:00.000+10:00

\"Playing computer games may actually be good for children, according to a government study that found no proof that even violent games triggered aggressive behaviour.\"\r\n\r\nThis relates to an earlier post I did, and it\'s an issue that isn\'t going to go away. Sometimes the line between \"educational software\" and \"video games\" gets quite blurry. The concept of course is that if kids are having fun, they won\'t notice they are learning in the process. \r\nWe are eagerly awaiting our order of Edalive Software with groovy graphics and titles such as \"Baggin the Dragon\". Cleverly incorporated into these programs are different levels of word problems relating to maths and spelling.

read more | digg story

The Cult of Mac: All the reasons you'll love a Mac.

2006-05-18T09:21:00.000+10:00

The Cult of Mac: All the reasons you'll love a Mac.

Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro Comparison Chart

2006-05-17T17:04:00.000+10:00

Use this chart to easily see the differences and options available for all the notebooks in the MacBook and the MacBook Pro lines.

read more | digg story

Introducing Macbook

2006-05-17T07:39:00.000+10:00

It is finally here!!!

See also,
http://www.productdose.com/2006/05/16/apple-macbook/

read more | digg story

Honest Tips for those Switching to Macs

2006-05-13T19:17:00.000+10:00

"There are already scores of religious fanboy zealots who are going to tell you - in great detail - how great the Mac is, and why you should switch. I'm not going to. But beware. Just because the Mac is an excellent computer, that doesn't mean it's panacea. Here are some things you're going to want to pay attention to as you switch."

read more | digg story

Key Isolation Features in Mac OS X

2006-05-11T13:48:00.000+10:00

Apple built OS X with security in mind. As part of that central security theme, OS X has been designed using three key isolation features: System Isolation, User Isolation, Memory and Application Isolation

read more | digg story

10 Strangely Compelling Reasons to Love Mac

2006-05-08T10:20:00.000+10:00

After reading this post on digg (link below) on

10 Things to Love about a Mac (Reasons to switch?)

I was inspired to create my own top ten list. Calling all Mac users, what are your top ten???

read more | digg story

First of all, lets just take it as read that Macs are beautifully designed. Saying a Mac is aesthetically pleasing is like saying a Ferrari is fast. So I refuse to use up any of my ten points stating the obvious, especially as I'm having great difficulty narrowing it down.

It just works. No blue screen of death - been there, done that, got the t-shirt. No 2 inch test. No endless wads of setup and installation screens. All our Macs talk to each other and the hardware easily. Which all means that being the network administrator at home is easy-peasey.
Airport Express: makes ordinary broadband and printers wireless. (Apparently it can be used to listen to music as well). Morning cuppa and my laptop in bed,*contented sigh*.
Tiger (OS X 10.4): I guess that's a bit all encompassing, but really, it's a fabulous operating system. How does it rock? let me count the ways...
The dock: I'm quite visual and I love the way I can keep my favourite icons handy, ready to launch applications and folders. Very versatile- I keep constant favourites on left, and move shortcuts in and out of the dock as I'm working on stuff. Big bonus I don't have 500 shortcut icons cluttering up the desktop.
Calculator: I laughed and laughed when I saw the new Mac ads and the PC was so proud of his bundled applications - including calculator. When I was using XP I could NEVER find where that wretched app had gone!!! I know it might be a small thing but my mental arithmetic skills are, in a word, pathetic. The Calculator on Mac is like a dream come true for me (you can see it sits in the dock above). The most awesome thing is that it can also convert all sorts of things like currency, length, temperature etc. For an eBay addict like myself, having these conversions on hand is brilliant! In fact, I like it soooooo much I also have a widget in the dashboard that does the same thing! This to me is the essence of what technology is supposed to do - make life easier.
Safari: built in RSS feeds, tabs, built in RSS feeds, form filling, built in RSS feeds, bookmarks bar - fast and flexible. (Did I mention it has built in RSS feeds?)
iLife - in particular iDVD, iMovie and iPhoto. We've made amazing "live" photo books including video on DVD to send to rellies. Also the ability to print your own photo books from iPhoto is fabulous. Honestly, I've had so much fun with these features I haven't even gotten around to trying out Garage Band yet.
Smart folders: I use them all the time across the board - Mail, iTunes, iPhoto...
iCal - it's colourful (which I need to visually sort all the events) and I can quickly notify everyone of events. Great customisable reminders and repeating of occurances.
The dashboard, especially my lava lamp ;)

Battle of the Browser Beta's

2006-05-07T21:35:00.000+10:00

Cool chart comparing Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera.

Although Safari isn't everybody's cup of tea in a browser, one thing I LOVE is the inbuilt RSS feeder. It has totally changed the way I read news and blog feeds. It's interesting to see that this feature is in the beta versions of other browsers. I think this is great because it's such a fantastic feature - the more folks use it, the greater the demand for RSS services.

read more | digg story

Learn how to use Apple's Automator

2006-05-07T21:01:00.000+10:00

This site's full of tours, examples and downloads. Very nice resource for any one curious on how to use that fancy Tiger app.

I've used automator to create a shortcut that sits in my dock. it's called "daily brew" and when clicked on, it launches mail, ical and a specific page in safari.

Here's the icon that I gave it,

The icon is part of the "coffee culture" set by Watiworks.

Of course, after I went to all the trouble to work out how to use automator, I discovered that the icons in the dock have a menu option to "open at login" - which essentially nullified the need for the automator I'd created. Duh-oh! However, now I don't tend to shutdown so often anyway, so it still has it's place for speed launching my favourite applications.

read more | digg story

Hunting the Snark

2006-05-06T13:29:00.000+10:00

What was the last model Dell released? Any ideas? No? How about Acer? Hmmm, HP? Give up??? I'm not going to narrow it down for you I'm afraid - it'd take hours to sift through product pages.

Which brings us to an entirely different kettle of fish - the Mac. I can tell you right off the top of my head that the last model they released was the 17" Macbook Pro. Now, wouldn't it be so very disappointing to buy a brand new Mac, just to discover a few days later they release a newer, shinier, whizzier model? If you casually meander over to Apple, there's no hint of what they might be up to. Indeed, with Apple, it's all "cloak and dagger" marketing.

Check out the Wikipeadia topic on "Mac Rumors"

This article is about the community of Macintosh rumor sites. In recent years, a subculture has developed around rumors about new products and services from Apple Computer. Apple Computer enjoys a cult-like following for its Macintosh platform. This, combined with a very tight-lipped corporate policy about future products, has fostered this interest in the company's every move.

The top sites for current Mac rumors are:
Think Secret
Apple Insider
Mac Rumors
Mac Rumors has a great buying guide, which gives an indication of when the next product release might be.
Another site that adds fuel to the fire is Digg, where rumours whizz around with more hot air than a popcorn machine.

However, should you be in the market for a new laptop, I strongly suggest you hold off buying until after Tuesday 9th May. Check out the pictures of the lastest Mac (found on Digg), as seen when Apple momentarily decloaked: the Macbook and it's specs.
Look, it's even on Wikipeadia and it hasn't even been released yet!

For all of you who still cling to windoze, there's always Dell Rumors.

A Mac is not a stuffed suit

2006-05-02T21:46:00.000+10:00

Hey, if you're a Mac, you're a scruffy kinda dude but if you're a Japanese Digital Camera then you're much more like... an air hostess? Okaaaaay. I'm sadly disolusioned as I thought my iBook was quite chic. Check out what Mac thinks of himself here,
http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Tragically after viewing the "restart" ad, my session of Safari "unexpectedly quit". But don't worry, I notified Apple that their ads caused Safari to spontaneously combust!

A Great Team Effort

2006-05-01T21:08:00.000+10:00

I'm very proud of my family this month. Two days before the end of April we received a very ominous email from our internet provider stating... you have used 8GB of your *unlimited* account and once you reach 10GB, your account will be subject to shaping. So that would be an *unlimited* plan in a kind of limited way, LOL.

The technincal footnote for it says,
"The term shaping means that data sent to and from your broadband modem will have a maximum transmission speed applied to the service. In the case of the 'Broadexpanseofwater' Broadband Unlimited* plans, when a customer exceeds 10GB of data transfers, the service will be shaped to 64 Kilobits per second (64kbps)."

Well, we all tried really hard and really pulled together as a team, but we weren't able to crack that 10 GB limit before the end of the month. We're hopping for a better performance this month, perhaps with a few more "Youtube" videos we might be able to do it. we may need some more intensive training sessions and I think we might have to find a few internet radio stations to listen to... either that or the baby needs her own laptop!

Brewing the perfect cup of tea

2006-04-26T11:03:00.000+10:00

Now I don't know about you but I've lost track of the number of times I've made myself a lovely hot cup of tea, left it to brew and gone off to do something on the computer - just quickly, mind you - and rediscovered the cup of tea so much later it needs to be stirred with a knife.
Finally a nifty little dashboard application that can be customized to time your perfect cup of tea,
http://www.nathanatos.com/software/
It's called "cuppa" and sits in the dock. It can also be used to time other events - so no more burnt dinner in this house!!! Fantastic!!!

via http://coolosxapps.net

Two flaws with the Canon Pixma MP800

2006-04-22T16:56:00.000+10:00

I've had a wonderful time trying out the new features on my printer. I've printed a colour photo direct from a negative, a colour photo directly from a slide, a black and white photo from a negative and a black and white photo from another b&w photo. The results have been fantastic to say the least.

So, there are only two tfaults as far as I'm concerned.
1. It needs to be white to colour co-ordinate with my iBook.
2. It needs a remote control for true uber geek status.

Apart from that, it's perfect ;)

And the winner is...

2006-04-20T15:39:00.000+10:00

The Canon Pixma MP800!!! It is a thing of great beauty - well, it's very big, black and shiny and still beautiful while nobody else is allowed to put their mitts on it! I might need a microfibre cloth nearby to keep it glossy LOL!

So far I have tested B/W copying, printing an index sheet from a SD card, printing an A4 colour photo on plain paper (mainly because I forgot to change settings to 4 x 6) directly from the SD card, scanning and printing an old photo using the fade restore feature. I have printed off web pages, auto-duplex in colour AND (thank goodness) printed using it connected to the Airport Express. It was easy to install (once we removed the 10,000 pieces of orange sticky tape) and works perfectly. It is an AWESOME printer.

*contented sigh*

The continuing printer search

2006-04-19T11:00:00.000+10:00

So I found the ideal laser / copier / printer combo, it's the Fuji Xerox WorkCentre C2424. The only technical problem with this is that it costs, oh, about 20x what we were looking to spend. Hmmm. Back to the drawing board.

Thopught I'd better revisit HP's offerings. Well, kudous to HP as they seem to be the ONLY printer manufacturer who provide an easy to find list of Mac compatible printers. Plus they even do a quarterly Mac newsletter. Wow. Far less painful than clicking on the specifications brochure for *every* *single* *model* of printer to find out if it plays nicely with Mac OS X. However, The reviews for HP on Amazon and CNet are very, very, mixed. They MIGHT be great or they MIGHT be a very expensive mistake. I like the HP ($30 eBay bargain wahoo!) that we are currently using but I also really liked the Canon we had before that.

Sadly, because soooooo many laser printers are not compatible with Mac, I am forced, forced I tell you get something else. Something a little more colourul and lively. Oh woe is me ;)

Here's my favourite site for checking out technology doo-dad prices in Australia,
http://www.staticice.com.au/

Happy new printer to me!

2006-04-18T20:47:00.000+10:00

HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY

I'm getting a new printer! It's has been driving me BONKERS that I can't copy anything. In this day and age it seems unbelievable. The fact that I can borrow the folks Brother Printer to do copying just emphasises how overdue this feature is. The question is, what else do we really NEED the printer to be able to do?

The next trick is finding printers that are Mac OS X compatible AND airport express compatible. As far as I'm concerned, airport express is the 8th wonder of the world. Luckily there's a handy web site with recommended printers at iFelix,
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/1013.htm

Now, I have to admit that buying a multi-function B/W laser printer would be the sensible thing to do. Like the, Samsung SCX-4216Fl. That would be the fiscally responsible, adult, and logical thing to do. But unfortunately for Samsung (and Brother who seem to make the only other Mac compatible multi-function lasers) I looked at the Canon Pixma range first. Ahhhhhh. You can print on cd's. You can make double sided photobooks with iphoto, you can colour photocopy.... *true love*. Fortunately they have individual ink tanks (so it's not that bad really). Also great reviews on Amazon (who knoew printers were given stars there?), cnet and epinions.I'm making sure we avoid the MF760 and MF780 as they are not airport compatible. But choosing from the rest of the range is going to be very difficult indeed.

RSS feeds for dummies

2006-04-16T21:17:00.000+10:00

How to use RSS

So this week I have been exploring the power of RSS feeds using Safari and OS X 10.4. I have come to the conclusion that RSS feeds are dangerous as they cause you to neglect very important other jobs ... like feeding the family, housework etc. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon - in the meantime, here's the low down on how RSS feeds work with Mac.

You're happily surfing the web and then you notice it - those three little letters at the end of the url in the address bar "RSS", in a little blue logo style box. "RSS" means "Really Simple Syndication". But what it meansto you is that you don't have to waste time re-checking and reloading your fav web sites to see if anything intersting has been posted there since the last time you looked (like 5 minutes ago). No more wading through irrelevant articles and endless pop-up windows on the front page of The Age. Instead, you choose who delivers to you!!!

Here's an example, cruise on by
http://digg.com/
See the logo at the end of the address bar? Just click on that little blue RSS logo. The page should reload. Now at the end of the address bar the "RSS" has changed to blue text on a white background. (You'll also notice the layout of the page is a little different). At the front of the url instead of "http" we now have "feed". Click, hold and drag the paper looking icon to the left of the word "feed" and stick it somewhere on your bookmarks bar. Give it a nice name (like "DIGG").
Now, you should check your RSS preferences in the Safari preferences. (Up to the "safari" menu and click on "preferences"). Click the RSS tab. Make sure your default RSS reader is set to Safari. For maximum time wasting make sure your RSS feeds update every 30 minutes. Choose a colour to make you happy.
Now, within the next 30 minutes, your feed from "DIGG" should update and right there, in the menu bar, you'll find a number of how many unread articles there are. (Click on the bookmark to open the page - maybe in a new tab for convenience). You have two choices with the new page of feeds. To mark the article as "read" simple click on the blurb (rather than the title bar of the article). Now the "time posted" next to the title changes from the happy colour you chose to grey. If you want to read the article, click on the title (or right click / option click to open in a different tab). After you've marked all the articles as read, you'll see the number of new articles on the top right of the screen disappear.

Once you have the hang of getting RSS feeds, there are a number of interesting ways you can use them on Safari. You can create a bookmarks folder for them (again in the bookmarks bar is a handy location). If you open your bookmarks you'll see you have an option called "auto-click". If you check this box, when you click on the bookmark folder, it will open all of the RSS feeds in one combined page! Voila! You can mix RSS bookmarks in with your normal bookmarks in a folder too. I have DIGG in with my news links. When I click on the triangle next to the "News" folder, I have the option down the bottom of the menu of "view all RSS articles".

Other than news, there are lots of fun and informative blogs you can get as RSS feeds.
feed://macmum.blogspot.com/atom.xml (of course!)
feed://www.popgadget.net/atom.xml
feed://www.babygadget.net/atom.xml
feed://images.apple.com/main/rss/hotnews/hotnews.rss
feed://www.macrumors.com/macrumors.xml

You can also get search results as RSS feeds. This is great for job searches as you can combine the feeds in one bookmark folder and get the jobs hot off the press!
More dangerous searches you can get as RSS are your favourite eBay search results. Ever missed out on a great "buy it now" deal because the email results were too slow or never came through? Create a folder of eBay RSS feeds!!!

In Mac OSX 10.4, you can also download RSS feed widgets which update your favourite feeds. Handy for those you don't need to refer to every 5 minutes. I have "News Reader" from http://www.benkazez.com/newsreader.php?checkVersion#pound. While you're there check out the "iCal events" widget - I love that too!

Last but not least, you can create a very cool RSS feed screen saver. In your systems preferences, click on "Desktop and Screensaver". Select "Screensaver" and scroll down the list on the left. Select "RSS VIsualizer". Click on "Options" on the lower right hand side". This allows you to select which RSS feed of yours will be honoured by being your very own amazing (windows defying) screensaver. You can test it out right there, but make sure you also choose the appropriate settings in your system preferences to let it display at least once a day!!!!

More on Mac RSS feeds here,
http://www.macworld.com/info/feeds/
And for everything else you ever wanted to know about RSS, here's wiki...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_%28file_format%29

Help! My cd is stuck in the optical drive! Argh!

2006-04-16T21:04:00.000+10:00

Ok, remember the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy mantra - "Don't Panic". I would also add to this , "Stay Calm".

First rule of thumb, don't insert odd shaped cd's into the optical drive in the first place. Second rule of thumb, make sure your kids know how to put the cd in correctly so that it is completely flat - it's worth the time to show them how to check the cd is positioned correctly. Too late for these rules? Read on for guidelines on how to eject cd's from tray loading iMacs...

A. Try restarting the computer while holding the mouse button down.
B. Unbend a paper clip. Put the computer to sleep (this won't hurt a bit..) Poke the paper clip into the teeney weeney hole on the cover of the cd tray.
C. Apple's Help instructions are,
to eject a disc using Open Firmware:
1 Restart the computer.
2 When you hear the startup sound, press and hold the Command-Option-O-F keys. (The Command key has an Apple on it.)
3 Release the keys when you see a white screen that says "Welcome to Open Firmware."
4 At the prompt, type:

eject cd
5 Press Return, then wait a few seconds. The disc drive should eject the disc, and "ok" appears on the screen when the action is complete.
6 Type:

mac-boot
7 Press Return.
D. If the cd is skew-whiff inside the drive, you may need extra assistance from credit cards, sticky tape or gravity. A very successful method for us was to take one expired airpoints credit-style-card and one paper clip as mentioned above. While pushing the paper clip into the teeney-weeney hole on the right, I used the credit card on the left to coax the tray open.

For more suggestions check out,
http://www.appletechs.com/archives/00000004.html

10 things new Mac owners need to know

2006-04-16T20:54:00.000+10:00

Here's a great article that is a good intro for all those contemplating the switch to Macs...

Addicted to gaming?

2005-12-21T08:35:00.000+11:00

I like this spin on computer gaming written by Beverley Paine on her blog,

http://hablog.beverleypaine.com/2005/11/different-perspective-on-addicted-to.html

I agree with her perspective and I like the analysis she has given.

While I had no qualms about buying software like the "Living Books" series when DS1 was less than 1 year old (!!!!!), I have so far been completely resisitant to the idea of getting a Play Station or X-box or whatever. This is because of the "addiction" factor combined with the "they are just gaming" factor rather than anything of percieved educational value. I see I am going to have to rethink my stance on this......

And maybe too it's a bit of the old scenario of kids who are completely denied something go crazy on it as soon as they are independant enough. Eg the kids who are never allowed to drink Coca Cola are the ones who drink bottle loads at birthday parties.....

Oooooh! I digress!

2005-12-20T15:59:00.000+11:00

Check out the Home Schooling Blog awards!
http://www.stillthinkinghq.com/blogawards/

Also I've just joined the Aussie Homeschooling Blog-ring! Check out the link at the bottom of the page. Wow, it's a big wide blogging world out there ;)