Author: jjmarcus

Apple Specialist, Mac Whisperer, Cloud Wrangler - Your Remote CTO

Where to buy a new Mac

I was wondering where the best deals would be for a new Mac would be? I want to start looking over the next few months for either an iMac like the one I use here, a Mac mini or an eMac. Any suggestions?

I just want to kick this one off, and ask for anyone reading to post their own thoughts on the matter. I’m going to ramble a bit now, but if you want to know how to buy a new Mac, I intend this to be a good place to start.

Which Mac Should I Buy?

Just poking around, I found this great Buyer’s Guide, which will give you some idea (not gospel, just suggestion) about whether it’s a good time to buy the particular model of Mac you have your eye on.

N.B.: I’ve said this before, but RAM, RAM, RAM! Don’t buy a new Mac with less than 2Gb RAM. You certainly don’t have to buy the RAM direct from Apple. I have all of my clients go to Crucial for much cheaper, and lifetime-warrantied, memory. Crucial actually makes the RAM that Apple puts in its computers, but they sell it for a lot less.

So, the eMac is dead, long live the educational-level iMac. But it’s severely crippled — it lacks Bluetooth and other stuff, so let’s skip past that one.

The Mac mini is a fantastic product, for certain applications. I use mine as a media server and to back up my home computers. They are also great for office administration and clerical work, kids, and some basic document production. Don’t consider them an option for more heavy-duty graphics or multimedia work. Factor in price of keyboard, mouse, and monitor if you don’t already have ’em.

The iMac or MacBook are right in the pocket for a household, and I know many graphic designers and photographers who have landed on the iMac as their main production machine.

If you will use your Mac for any pro-level production, or you like a big screen, or you’re a gamer or other sort of speed freak (wait, that’s maybe not the best choice of phrase 😉 or you purely want bragging rights, you should think about a Mac Pro or MacBook Pro.

Where Should I Buy It?

It’s very clear that, unless you’re a bit of a geek and want to mess around with an older machine, you should buy your Mac new. That includes Apple-refurbished units. You can buy used Macs at from SmallDog or PowerMax, or even eBay, but Macs hold a pretty good resale value through at least the first 3 years, so you simply won’t save all that much buying used.

Rejoice in refurb: Go to http://store.apple.com and look in the right column for “Looking for a great deal?” next to the “SAVE” sticker. On the ensuing pages, you’ll find refurbished Macs, and as long as you buy AppleCare with them (which you must do anyway), any of those are great.

Before you make a purchase, please allow me to put you in touch with my friends at the Apple Store at La Cantera. Also, Apple has finally set up a small-business sales department, which seems to be doing some pretty aggressive outreach. I have a contact on that team as well, but I’ve been really grateful to the folks at La Cantera for the service they’ve given every one of my customers.

By the way, if you haven’t been out to that store, it’s really worth it. They’ve established themselves on the forefront of the Apple Retail division.

Lastly, if someone in your household currently haunts the halls of academia, the best discounts on Macs are for educators and students. Go to the Education version of the Apple Store

That’s all on this for now. I’m anxious to hear some other opinions.

I lost my iPod

Can you tell me if this is covered under my warrenty

No, lost or stolen iPods are not covered by AppleCare. Also, Apple will (typically) not repair or replace an iPod that evinces any physical damage.

These things may be covered by your homeowner's or (less likely) business insurance.

Slow Mac

My Mac has not always been sluggish but now it is, unless I shut it down everyday. It is sporadic. I'm afraid it has something to do with my anti-virus updates but I know nothing about computers. Anyway, it is a PowerBook G4 version 10.3.9 with a processor 1GHz Power PC G4, Memory 564 MB DDR SDRAM.

First of all, I think it’s important to say that you really don’t need virus protection on your Mac, and if it’s what holding things up, it’ll be the first thing I ditch from a Mac.

So, here’s the deal: Your Mac is slow because you have near the bare minimum memory necessary for your computer. Bringing it up to at least 1.5Gb (gigabytes) should help performance a fair bit. I encourage all modern Mac users: Install at least 2Gb (that’s two gigabytes) of RAM, and you’ll have a modern, happy Mac. And if you can afford it, and you’re going to do anything serious with it, take that sucker to 3Gb.

I have, after much observation, found that having less than 1Gb of RAM (memory) can really slow a Mac down, unless one is doing only the most simple things with it — like, word processingwhether it’s on 10.3 or 10.4. (Surfing the web is actually a more intensive task for a computer than one might think.)

Addendums:

#1 – If you’re still using OS X 10.2 Jaguar, you seriously need to upgrade to Tiger 10.4.

#2 – You actually shouldn't have to shut your Mac down unless you are going to be away from it for a while, or unless you have done a software installation or update that requires a restart.

#3 – There are a couple of basic troubleshooting techniques for a slow Mac, but the main one is to use the Activity Monitor, to be found in the Utilities folder inside Applications:

I'd like you to bear with me through the next couple of (brief) paragraphs. It's going to sound quite geeky, but it should help us examine your problem.

When you open Activity Monitor for the first time, you'll want to do two things: Change the "Show" drop-down menu to "All Processes", and click the "% CPU" label. This will show you which applications, or processes, are taxing your computer most.

And at the bottom of the window, you'll see a bar graph. If that graph is almost all black (and your computer is sluggish), then we're looking in the wrong place. If you have a lot of green or red in there (say, more than 20%), I'd like you to call or email me what processes are listed in the window as taking up the most of the resources.

(For kicks, here's a more complete article on using Activity Monitor.)

#4 – Now, here's another, and fairly important question: Do you use a lot of different fonts? If so, try closing them and see what happens. (If you're not sure what I'm talking about, then fonts are not the issue.)

#5 – Finally, there are a couple of maintenance tasks that one can perform. I can walk you through them over the phone. I'll mention that the tool I like to use is Onyx; the version of it for your Mac can be downloaded by clicking here.

How bloggeth thou?

I need to figure out create a blog to my personal web domain. I’d like to be able to upload my thoughts/pics just as easily as you do. I would name it something like: blog.mydomain.net. There are several options that I’ve seen.

  • Blogger – free – but not as customizable. I’ve tried to transfer a blog to my domain but not had much luck.
  • MarsEdit – seems like a good candidate – $24.95  http://www.red-sweater.com/marsedit/
  • WordPress – seems like a steep learning curve but free – http://wordpress.org/
  • iWeb?
 

There's a gazillion ways to blog now, and honestly all of the good ones (as opposed to a MySpace blog page) are going to help you create a full-fledged weblog.

So, to go through some options:

  • I would skip iWeb unless you want to keep it simple… I mean like Forrest Gump-simple.
  • Many pro bloggers love WordPress …
  • … but many also really like Six Apart's TypePad ( http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/), or their Movable Type (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/)  if you're gonna get serious. I know a teacher who really likes TypePad for distributing information to her students.

Note that MarsEdit is blog publishing software for the Mac, intended for use with a blog service such as TypePad, Blogger, or your own server. Note, also, that MarsEdit is in transition of ownership, and I wouldn't put down money on shareware in those circumstances.

As someone who does not want to spend a lot of time maintaining a blog, I appreciate Blogger's simplicity. (It should be stated here that Blogger and Blogspot are the same service.) I really really like that I can send an email or a text message to publish to my blog.

Import a DVD

Is there any way to copy a DVD's contents to your computer. We were trying to copy some business videos to a folder on our computer so that they would be more easily accessible.

Two methods:

1) MacTheRipper is a fine app for doing exactly this: Put a DVD in. Create a new folder on your desktop and name it, perhaps, "DVD importing." Then open MacTheRipper, and go to File > Save To… to choose that folder. It will save the DVD information inside two folders called AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. You can use the wonderful, free media player VLC to open that VIDEO_TS folder.

2) AND THIS IS PROBABLY THE WAY YOU WANT TO GO … You can use HandBrake to import the DVD content (or an imported VIDEO_TS folder) straight to a QuickTime- or iPod-playable movie.

Of course, we would never ever want to use these techniques to distribute copyrighted content, would we?

Back dat s*** UP!

I use several different backup packages, depending on the job and the need. Deja Vu, SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner (though I haven’t gotten scheduled backups to work in its latest Intel-ready version) are great for bootable backups, and Deja Vu also works well if the user doesn’t want the backup to get in their way (or you don’t want them to screw it up ;-).
Recently, I’ve come to absolutely adore ChronoSync for just about every other task, esp. backing up to a networked volume. ChronoSync will email you when a backup is complete; it also organizes your backup sets in the most logical, and least screen-hogging way.

The Keychain to Success

Having problems with keychains?
If keychain permissions are giving you fits, the first thing to do is type “keychain” into Spotlight, and open Keychain Access. When it’s open, click on the Keychain Access menu next to the Apple menu, and click on “Keychain First Aid.” In the appropriate blank, click the “Repair” button, and click “Start”
If any errors show up in red, click Start again, until no more errors are found. 
Now, you also probably want to keep your default keychain unlocked. And unless you’re using a generic user account on a workstation, you’ll want to turn on “User Names and Passwords” in Safari’s AutoFill preferences.

There are other techniques for securing your information. Needless to say, once should take extra precautions when storing sensitive material on a laptop. Get ahold of to discuss the options.

Bonjour, kemosabe. Vie gates?: iChat on your private network

Everyone do this with me: Open iChat (if it ain’t in your Dock, it’s in your Applications folder). Click on the Window menu in iChat. If you see Rendezvous, click on that; if you see Bonjour, click on that. If you’re asked to login to that network, click Login.

If everyone in your organization does this, you’ll all see each other in the Rendezvous or Bonjour window. I find sending quick text messages often more civlized — and always more quet — than phone intercom. I know of one office where they change their iChat status to show when they’re in the office or out to lunch, on the phone, etc. …

… Guess most people I know are fairly out to lunch most of the time, but that’s another story.

By the way, you can text to my AIM account s1r4real. If I’m not online, your message will be forwarded to my phone — which is easily set up, by the way, in your AIM preferences.

Also, for folks using a server, Apple is including secure private iChat in the next version of OS X Server.

"If you invite them, they will come": iCal invitations & notifications

This is a natural question, and I hope Apple makes this procedure more obvious in the next iCal:
In a calendar that you administer, click on an event.
Look to the right of the main iCal window; if you don’t see a separate information panel, like a drawer, sticking out to the right, click on the button with “i” in the circle at the bottom right of the main iCal window. There’s rarely any need ever to close this Info.
Now, in the info panel, click the grey word “None” next to the black “attendees.” Start typing the name of someone in your address book. When their name is filled in automatically, hit the key. Now, add your own address in there (just this time, for practice). Finally, at the bottom of the info panel, cilck the Send button.
Et voilà! You have just emailed an invitation to someone, and you (and Apple Mail and iCal) stand awaiting their reply. Look in your email, and also in the Notifications panel of iCal (there’s a button bottom left of iCal, and “Show Notifications” is in the View menu.