WE FIX THINGS AND STUFF....

TWITTER etc.

2010-09-03T13:38:00.001-04:00

Cloning XP ATA drives

2010-03-04T15:01:00.003-05:00

In my years of cloning, this is the easiest solution. I cannot stress enough how frustrating it is attempting this via other methods. Keep in mind this works with all versions of XP and any ATA drive from any manufacturer. The motherboard must have two ATA buses but again, can come from any manufacturer.

First, acquire a Symantec Systemworks 2003 CD. I have no idea if anything later works but I tried the 2006 version and had issues. Many of the later versions are oriented toward backup and cloning Vista or Windows 7.

Install only Ghost from this CD. This requires a restart. When finished, eject the CD and shut down. Once shut down, remove the power cable from the back and remove all cables from any CD/DVD drives.

It's important that you set the secondary (new) drive as master on this bus via the drives dipswitches. If you place it as slave or cable select it will show up when booted to XP but might not clone.

When this is set, plug back in the power cable and reboot. Format this drive.

Launch Ghost and go to --> Ghost Advanced --> Clone. This process is completely self-explanatory.

The machine will reboot and next thing you know you'll have booted to your new drive. You may have to restart once you've booted, but all is good after that.

iPhone bug in 3.0 OS with POP email

2009-06-21T13:51:00.005-04:00

I was just alerted to this bug on the Apple Consultants Network email (Tech) list. I'm unaware of it working on all iPhones, but if you have recently updated your iPhone to 3.0 it includes an amazing new search function that allows you to search for instant messages, emails and contact information just by tapping left from the main (first) screen.

The bug exists within iPhones ability to cache old POP email (does not appear to affect IMAP accounts). Let's say you have an email from one company that you are receiving, and have read it, deleted it and made sure it's no longer on any other mail servers. Lets also say you replied using your iPhone, and deleted that email from your "sent" messages.

If you received it or sent a reply, REGARDLESS OF DELETING THE EMAIL -- that email will magically show up in the list of searches and be recreated if you click on it.

Again -- this only works if you have a POP email account; the bug does not exist with IMAP-enabled email.

I'm unaware of any means of eliminating the iPhones cache of POP email, so to me this is a major bug and/or potential security risk for those people who thought these emails would be completely deleted from their iPhone.

How to assign a permanent drive letter in Windows

2009-06-18T08:11:00.003-04:00

A client recently asked me how to assign a permanent drive letter to a USB drive that was moved between two machines, A and B. Occasionally, the drive would show up as E: sometimes as F: sometimes as G:

This would cause backups to be missed when she used certain backup software -- in this case, Karen's Replicator, a solid if under-featured app.

One simple solution would be to open Disk Management (right click on My Computer-->Manage) and assign the drive a letter nearer the "back" of the alphabet, i.e. X, Y or Z -- this way other devices could compete for the beginning letters every time they were plugged in.

The link above leads to a more permanent solution using mmc, or Microsoft's Management Console.

As an aside, I'm going to look into the 2brightsparks.com free backup product, Syncback. Might become a better solution than KR, which has been my recommendation for a couple of years now.

PCMag.com: 12 free security products

2009-06-03T16:48:00.002-04:00

Great write up on 12 free security products from PCMag.com, including two parental solutions and an app remover.

No mention of the great (in my mind) Spyware Blaster, but no worries. Well, now that they mention it I also didn't see word of Avira Antivir, either. Or the Mcaffee Stinger. Or...

Link here:

12 Free Security Software Tools

Vetted Conficker cleanup tools

2009-04-01T09:04:00.001-04:00

Are here:

http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5860

2009-01-15T08:20:00.001-05:00

"Welcome to Macintosh"

2008-12-23T16:55:00.002-05:00

Had heard about this over the past couple of months, and looking forward to seeing it!

(click title above)

Mac: "Are You Surprised?" MS Word macro "virus"

2008-11-20T09:48:00.003-05:00

I've been a fan of MS Word ever since version 4, but with the introduction of scripting and bogging-down of features, it's become problematic and buggy. And yesterday was my first time ever seeing this -- a macro-based "virus" that spreads among Word documents. Whether or not it is classified as a "virus" remains questionable. It has no way to self-propagate itself and so spreads itself only when someone inadvertently emails the infected .doc to another person that uses Word without Macro protection. It corrupts the preferences so that you can't save any documents and leaves an annoying "are you surprised" message when you try to do so.

The solution is pretty simple -- turn on Macro protection and reset the prefs as seen here:

Removing Word Macro Viruses

Be sure to toss out any docs that might be infected or you'll have to repeat the process.

Open XML File Format converter

2008-11-03T10:54:00.001-05:00

For Mac users running Office 2004 that are running into problems opening Office 2007/2008 documents in the default "openXML" format, Microsoft has released a utility to convert the documents back to a more "standard" .doc or .xls format.

Link here:

OpenXML File Format Converter

(link near bottom of page)

Windows: "Windows XP Antivirus" is a VIRUS

2008-08-25T19:18:00.001-04:00

Some enterprising virus writers are setting their sights on something so devious, so evil and so strange that it's actually quite brilliant. This virus/trojan is an application that infects your machine in a very, very legitimate looking fashion. It's got the Microsoft look to the window. It runs a process that instead of finding and removing viruses, actually infects as it scans. Oh, and did I mention that you can't uninstall it via the program unless you pay them for the "full version" of this software.

See the screenshot for yucks, then below for how to remove:

I ran into this twice in the last week, and the easiest fix is to boot into safe mode after downloading the latest removal tool from a company called MalWareBytes:

MalWareBytes

Mac: using Windows formatted drives for Time Machine backups

2007-12-22T08:18:00.001-05:00

If you are using a Windows-formatted drive (i.e. anything purchased at Circuit City or Best Buy) and have installed 10.5 and want that drive to take advantage of your Mac's automatic backup feature, Time Machine, you'll notice that on occasion the drive fails to mount and/or will backup only a fraction of your drive.

The solution should seem seimple: reformat your drive as a Mac drive using Disk Utility but you'll notice then that there are errors when you try to do so.

The solution is to use Disk Utility but to initially partition the drive into two sections, then you can successfully erase and format the entire drive as a single Mac partition. Detailed instructions are here, courtesy of Gizmodo:

Gizmodo - Disk Utility Format Issues with Time Machine

Urgent -- do NOT update Quickbooks for Mac

2007-12-17T07:36:00.001-05:00

This email went out today to all Extensive Customers:

Hey Everyone,

Just a quick FYI that if you use any iteration of Quickbooks for Mac (Mac only) that you may be prompted to install an update. At this time DO NOT install ANY updates from within Quickbooks. Here is what can occur, courtesy of The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW.com):

"It appears that in the latest automatic Quickbooks update, the updater is coming up with a "not enough free space" message (regardless if enough free space actually exists - and keep in mind, this appears to be a 100k (tiny) update), if the user then clicks "OK" - the resultis that any documents, files or folders that were stored on the desktop are then deleted -- and as of right now NO SIMPLE RECOVERY METHOD APPEARS TO EXIST" (emphasis mine).

Please pass this on to as many Mac users that you know as this is a troubling development. For up to the latest news on this story, I suggest checking out a variety of sources:

Intuit Thread about issue:
http://quickbooksgroup.com/webx/forums/mac/1907

Apple Discussion about issue:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1294040&start=0&tstart=0

TUAW article about issue:
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/12/16/quickbooks-users-be-cautious-of-recent-update/

If a solution comes, it will likely be found on the TUAW page, and relatively fast. In the interim, PLEASE pass this on to anyone who you
think might use a Mac, or run Quickbooks for Mac (any iteration) and let them know to hold off on installing ANY automated update from
within the application. Better yet, take a day or two off from doing anything with Quickbooks for now.

Thanks folks!

Erik Grotz
Extensive Consulting Group, Inc.
804 201 9428 (please note new number)

Mac OS X 10.5: "Blue screen" appears after installing Leopard and restarting

2007-11-10T23:10:00.001-05:00

After completing an upgrade installation of Leopard and restarting the computer, a "blue screen" may appear for an extended period of time.

More info at Apple:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306857

Mac: Microsoft Office 2004 Updates to 11.3.9

2007-11-07T11:26:00.001-05:00

Mac Office 2004 customers can find this update via the Updates menu item. I have no idea what issues it fixes, but maybe it'll finally allow full Exchange shared folders support?

I can dream, can't I?

.

Mac: Unable to Log In after Upgrading to 10.5

2007-10-27T10:30:00.001-04:00

This comes courtesy of Apple:

You may not be able to log in with a user account that has a password of 8 or more characters and was originally created in Mac OS X 10.2.8 or earlier, after performing an upgrade installation of 10.5.

The fix is here:

Unable to Log In After Upgrade Install

Mac: OS 9 is Dead

2007-10-25T16:20:00.001-04:00

Need we say more?

Do Classic Applications work with Mac OS X 10.5 or Intel-based Macs?

2007-10-25T16:19:00.002-04:00

Many of my fellow members of the Apple Consultants Network are claiming that many of their clients are having issues with Address Book contacts suddenly disappearing. Some of these clients have .Mac, some don't.

Regardless, if you use Address Book, it is always a good time to do a backup. And while we're at it, we'll also make a backup of iCal for good measure.

In Address Book, go to File --> Backup Address Book. Choose a location and click save. That's it! You can revert back to earlier saved Address Book databases by then going to Revert to Address Book Backup...

If you use iCal to manage your calendars, backing up iCal databases is just as simple: go to File--> Backup Database. To revert to saved databases, simply go to File --> Revert to Database backup.

Mac: Mossberg loves Leopard

2007-10-25T15:00:00.001-04:00

Coming straight to you from the "no big surprises" dept. is Walt Mossberg's column today in the Wall Street Journal. While he didn't find much about the OS earth shaking ("evolutionary, not revolutionary") he did make mention of the fact that a single $129 version of Leopard is faster and easier to use than all five or six of the Vista versions. More info courtesy of All Things Digital:

Walt Mossberg - Leopard: Faster, Easier than Vista

Mac: Leopard FAQ

2007-10-24T08:25:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of the long running Macintouch.com comes this great FAQ on Leopard. If you need to know the minimum system requirements (867MHz G4), or how fast an internet connection you need for screen sharing (128kbps), this link has it all:

Macintouch - Leopard FAQ

*** Also to note, like Tiger, Apple is shipping this as a single DVD so you obviously need a DVD drive to install.

Mac: FileMaker incompatibility with Leopard

2007-10-22T23:28:00.001-04:00

From FileMaker comes this press release that version 9 of it's software is incompatible (for the moment) with current builds of Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard". FYI:

FileMaker and Leopard

Mac: backup iCal and Address Book databases!

2007-10-19T22:10:00.001-04:00

Obi Wan to Luke: "We Must Be Cautious..."

2007-10-18T21:06:00.001-04:00

While the hype machine is rolling along at a fine pace, and Apple is showing us all 300 new features of Leopard that we all just cannot live without, it goes without saying that I'll be the thorn in the side and say whoooaaaahh there nelly, hold on. Take a deep breath. Drink a tall glass of ice water. Wait until you oh crap I can't wait. Only ten more days! I'm jumping in as soon as I can.

I'll work out the bugs for you! More soon...

Funny...

2007-09-18T18:19:00.001-04:00

Wall Street Journal cartoon ("Pepper, and Salt") from last week:

Three cavemen, huddled around a blazing fire. One says to the other: "Someday, your name will be known everywhere, Blog."

Microsoft's "Art of Office" (Mac)

2007-08-29T09:50:00.001-04:00

While working hard on an updated version of Office (not yet scheduled for release this year) and finally seeing Apple's own vision of what an Office suite should be (iWork), Microsoft's Mac Business Unit has come out with a website that focuses on the "artistic" side of office, and a place for users to exchange ideas on documents, spreadsheets and uh ... power point presentations...

No comment as of yet from Edward Tufte

Art of Office

Unplug all cables before storms!

2007-07-31T09:40:00.001-04:00

Just a reminder as with the oncoming summer storm season I will inevitably get a number of calls from people whose networking capabilities have disappeared.

Unplugging ALL cables, not just the power cable, from the back of your machine can save a lot of headache. When I used to work at Capitol Mac we'd have a slew of iMacs come in the day after a storm for motherboard replacements. A number of their owners were diligent about unplugging the power cable, so they were baffled as to why the network didn't work? Well, electricity can spike through any cable line, whether it's ethernet, phone or power. Many of these folks hadn't realized it, and unfortunately on the early iMac there is no way to simply replace the modem, or the "ethernet jack" -- it's an entire motherboard replacement, and it's an ugly price to pay for two seconds of work.

For those of us who can see the storm coming, and have the capability to do so, please UNPLUG!!!

New Hamachi Survey

2007-02-02T09:57:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone

If you haven't already heard my spiel, Hamachi is a wonderful 'easy' solution for remote administration and support. It allows folks to bypass (certain) firewalls and offers a secure alternative to traditional VPN. You can set up your own private, secure network between your home and office. It's secure and (sort of) "zero config" meaning it takes very little time to actually get up and running between two machines. The "client" which you install on your machine, Mac or PC, allows you to connect to private networks securely.

Now, with that said, the Mac OS X version has no beautiful GUI like the Windows world does -- it's command-line based and hard for a lot of people to "get." As well, the Mac version hasn't had a significant update since June of last year. Why? Well, for one the company was bought by LogMeIn, developers of the PC-only remote control software. This allowed for the company to get some cash, but also seems to have completely halted development for any other platform besides Windows. For another, the market dictates development -- sad but true. There are way more Windows users out there with a nice looking GUI that can launch automatically at login. See the two screenshots to see the differences:

Windows users see this when they log in:

Mac users have to launch Terminal and then type this mess in to connect:

However, Hamachi folks are listening and have posted a new survey on their site. I strongly advise all of my Mac users to fill it out and check "yes" on the "Do you use a Mac?" question. This way we can send Hamachi a strong message that they really need to continue development for the Mac:

Visit http://www.hamachi.cc to fill out the new survey.

Exposé limits not yet reached?

2007-01-25T13:31:00.000-05:00

A funny thing I just found on Flickr via Digg: someone has posted a screenshot of literally hundreds of windows being managed by Mac OS X's Exposé. Here's a link to the pic, pretty incredible!

PC freeware to note: Recuva

2007-01-23T00:01:00.000-05:00

I'm still recovering from the ho-hum keynote last week and am mid-read on Walt Mossberg's column as to why Vista is ho-hum. But everyone knows Mossberg on Apple's payroll right? I mean, come on -- who else gets to spend more than fifty minutes with the iPhone? No one I can think of...

In the meantime I give you a new PC only file recover utility called Recuva. From the website:

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Just in time for the State of the Union!

More info and download is here:

http://www.recuva.com

MACWORLD freebies, anyone interested?

2007-01-16T17:13:00.000-05:00

The above photo should show you all pretty clearly some of the freebies I was able to acquire. I already have a few folks lined up for things (that Oranged/Studiometry shirt is one thing that's spoken for). Among other things, I've also got the following:

Quark 7 Tee shirt
VMWare Tee
~~Parallels Tee (I'm keeping this one!)~~
four or five Roland stickers
Omnigroup buttons! (very cool)
BBEdit sticker
two Propellerheads Reason stickers
two EyeTV buttons
VMWare Fusion demo CD
~~Parallels 128MB flash drive (might keep)~~
Epson pen
Macsales/OWC pen
~~Studiometry pen~~
Griffin mints & container
MacLife "dog tags" (?)
(2) Belkin pens with "built in" post-it pagemarkers
Quark Pen
MYOB (pleather?) business card holder
XSilva Lightspeed pen Quicken bean bag thing
~~Codeweavers Wine stopper (tentatively spoken for...)~~
Kagi foam ball

Feel free to email me at extensivegroup (at) gmail (dot) com. If I don't hear from anyone in a week or two I'll leave them at select clients in hidden locations. Okay, over and out.

Photoshop CS3 and InDesign CS3 preview

2007-01-11T12:07:00.000-05:00

I was lucky enough to grab an early seat at the Apple Store here in San Francisco to watch the Adobe Photoshop and InDesign CS3 sneak peak given by John Nack and Chad Siegel from Adobe. Below are some random notes and photos are coming soon! (sorry in advance for the quality). Before anything got started, John said that speedwise, Photoshop ran twice as fast and under Rosetta and that by going Universal improvements to everything were made across the board.

The hour-long preview was pretty much divided into two half-hour chunks with Bridge CS 3 starting it out. There is a new filter panel on the left with a check box to filter out selections. For instance, if you are looking at an unorganized folder of images, you can bring up just the JPEG or TIFF images. You can also quicky preview any of a number of multiple selected images ala Darkroom or Aperture and use the new loupe tool to quickly magnify similar points on multiple images. And it's freaking FAST too.

Also shown were the new HSL (hue, saturation, lighting) controls. You can quickly apply any of a number of these changes to the images (non destructively). Also shown was something called "split toning" that allows you to give warmth (or coolness) to a selective color range while the image is greyscale. You also have the ability to non-destructively clone and heal RAW images in Bridge, and have your selection work across multiple similar images.

Next up was Photoshop CS3 ... much of this covers what many people have seen in the public beta (available here): new pallets can be docked and you can stash pallets in a compact form at the side. With the newly-written interface this really allows photographers to save space if they are working on a laptop.

Masking was next with John making a joke that the magic wand was often called the tragic wand: this has been completely rewritten and now you can easily select portions of a photo to mask things. "Quick Selection" looks at textures and shapes via algorithms rather than simple shades and colors. You can choose "refine edge" to quickly mask portions and blur, bump up, feather etc. portions of the photo outside the mask. The radius slider in refine edge is perfect for masking things like hair and flames against dark backgrounds. Neat!

The ability to auto-align layers was shown. This was amazing, looking at five photos all taken of the front of a hotel and then literally aligning them so they all matched up and created a panoramic. This ability to stitch has been around for a while, but this was done with such ease that it really was impressive. For those interested in HDR you can choose "merge to HDR" and have all your bracketed images compile into one. Also shown was the following photo composed of two photos where a few of the kids were not smiling in both pictures. Voila! After auto aligning layers you can literally blend in all of the smiling kids into one photograph. Incredibly easy too!

Another new feature is the ability to non-destructively add filters, and to add filters on a layer-by-layer basis. To do this you turn the layer into a smart object. Filters can be turned on or off on a layer-by-layer basis. You can also bring the filter up or down in the layer, so you can see what happens to an image with either filter 1 first, then filter 2, then filter 3 OR swap filter 3 with filter 1 etc. etc. pretty neat and extremely fast rendering. This was amazing to see. I forgot to ask what this means for the overall "history" settings that we've been used to since Photoshop 5.

Another feature was ZOOMIFY that allows you to upload a massive image to the web and use a Flash-based player to render it on the website ala Google Maps. John said that it's a very early version of this technology and that more controls will be added in the future but it looked cool.

Vanishing point has been upgraded allowing you to work with multiple planes not just 90 degree planes as in CS2. A CD case was shown here with three or four angles. The flat artwork merged perfectly onto the different planes.

NOT IN THE BETA: the ability to load multiple images and treat them as a single image. For instance, you have five or six photos taken of a fountain, with tourists walking around in every photo. You use the auto align feature first to align every image, leaving you with images where everything NOT MOVING is perfectly aligned. Then choose layers --> smart objects --> convert to smart object. After that, choose Smart Objects --> medium and holy crap! All the tourists disappear leaving you with a completely person-free image. ***From what I'm told now this feature is a relatively new addition and is not guaranteed or promised in the final release, but it looked really neat!

Next up was Chad talking InDesign. It has new integration with photoshop. To showcase the performance he adjusted the quality of the images in preferences to high resolution. To highlight features, this portion was divided into sections focusing on productivity and creativity.

Productivity features: ability to place multiple images at once i.e. select multiple images and use left and right arrows to move between them before placing them on the page. The thumbnail gives a number showing how many images you have selected in the clipboard as well:
You might not be able to tell but in the photo above there is a "ghost clipboard" to the right of the orange logo that contains mulitple selected photos.

You can also "fit content to frame" which is a long-requested feature, and you can do this with multiple images flawlessly -- no longer having to go back to photoshop to crop. You can also use the Quick Apply panel to turn this into a key command -- (for this I didn't get many notes on but it seems real useful.)

When looking at the layout, page thumbnails actually have a preview of the page -- in color:

Creativity: Chad went over transparency and the new "fx" panels. You can adjust custome transparency for objects and apply the same transparency to other object simply by clicking the little "fx" button and dragging over the other objects, no need to go back and adjust transparency on each object manually.

New Creative Effects were shown (feather gradients) ala photoshop. This was neat but I don't know how practical it was. And again, you drag and drop the little fx logo to other layers and it will apply the custom effect. You can also, I believe, save custom effects for use later on.

Pricing has not been set for the suite, and the date is still "Spring 2007". Also there will be NO PUBLIC BETA for InDesign as there is now for Photoshop. I did find out that CS3 will ship with Dreamweaver instead of GoLive. They will keep GoLive available for the foreseeable future but it does look like it will eventually be phased out and features will be phased into Dreamweaver.

On the End of Apple Computer

2007-01-11T11:07:00.000-05:00

Well as if you don't know already, the keynote held no news for Macs, either software announcements or hardware upgrades. Over the past couple of days I've seen a few fellow correspondents and consultants disapprove of the moves Apple has made by heading into the cel phone market. But in the end, who doesn't want an iPhone?

When I was 12 I had a paper route that allowed me to save money pretty quickly. I started with the first USA TODAY route in my area and then "graduated" to a more lucrative Washington Post route. This was 1983, I was in middle school, and the Police had just released their last record "Synchronicity". My favorite class in school was creative writing, not for the writing per se, but for the fact that we were allowed to use computers -- Apple computers, matter of fact, and the model was the II and //e.

Cut to Spring of 1984. My dad and I took off on a snowy day to head to Tyson's Corner where the Sears store was selling Apple computers. The Mac 128 was out (as was the //c -- remember them?) and on display but I held firm and decided against getting a 128 -- no, I told myself, no software is really available yet for the Mac. So I got a //e. Unwrapping it at home was literally one of the greatest moments of my life, and ever since I've been an Apple fan.

So when Steve Jobs announced the removal of "Computer" from the Apple name, I was a little disheartened. I've been such a big fan of this company for so long that to see it happen (especially at the largest Macworld gathering without a "Mac" oriented keynote) was shocking. Sure, the iPod has driven Apple stock. Sure, you have to believe in an iPod "halo" effect, whatever but to me the company has always been a computer maker first. Now there is so much merging of technology into every aspect of our lives it's starting to make my head spin a bit...

For me, it's always been about personal computers, and knowing that I can get work done at a specific time in a specific place. I don't like to merge my personal life with my professional life -- I really like that division, and need it. It's the reason I'm finishing my workshop and moving my business out of the house. I know that Apple, Inc. is looking to put the power of a computer in your pocket, with the ability to retrieve email, listen to music, surf the web and instant message from anywhere. The technology is incredible and yes, quite revolutionary. And to many people, the question is "when?" rather than "why?"

But I like to listen to my iPod in peace and not have to worry about who is calling. I find I turn my phone off during lunch for an hour and I really like that. My dad once got pissed when he couldn't reach me on a train. I absolutely HATE people who talk on their phones on the train! I do own what is called a Smart Phone -- but in truth, I don't want to have the web/messaging/calendar/email everywhere I go. It leaves little room for the "random fuckup", the beautiful mistakes that happen when our lives aren't so regimented in clay. I like looking out the window. I enjoy awkward interaction with the real world too much and I find this device will only serve to isolate us just a little bit further. Maybe not -- but isn't that why I put my iPod on in the first place?

So goodbye, Apple Computer and hello Apple, Inc. I'm still a big fan -- don't get me wrong. I just don't want to be tuned in quite as much as you might think.

Macworld here I come ... cheaply

2007-01-08T00:18:00.000-05:00

A little apprehensive about flying, as usual, but I just thought I'd share with readers the overall expenses that I'm looking at for the week.

I don't know how I did it, but I guess early December is the right week to book for early January. Round trip tickets from Richmond to Oakland (via Dallas) cost only $247.00

I'll be staying with my wonderful parents while I'm in California. They live in San Rafael, so it's just a short ferry ride every day into the city (about $5.00 each way). The ferry is an amazing way to commute in to the city and I'm extremely jealous of anyone that can do this daily.

San Francisco is full of cheap places to eat. For food I'll likely head south on Mission and head to one of the amazing burrito and taco stands. For about $5-6 you are looking at way more than you can eat, and it's so delicious. Worse comes to worse, I'll go to a Chipotle and do the "Starbucks of faux-Tex-Mexican food".

All in all, I think this is going to be an extremely frugal trip.

As long as Apple doesn't release anything.

Right.

Information Week on "Vista vs. OS X"

2007-01-07T09:56:00.000-05:00

We all know that next week will herald some even greater news on the imminent release of "Leopard", Apple's newest iteration of OS X. Microsoft has been quietly plugging away holes in it's soon-to-be-released monster, Vista. Who knows when we'll actually see either.

In the meantime, sit back and relax and read what John C. Welch had to say about the two in an article that might just give away the ending:

Review: Mac OS X Shines In Comparison With Windows Vista

Macworld coming up...rumors FLYING

2007-01-03T08:46:00.000-05:00

A quick reminder that next week is Macworld in San Francisco. As usual I'm heading out for the week to discuss business with my fellow Apple Consultants Network members, so I'll have limited availability from Jan 8th through the 15th.

Keep your eyes posted on some of the better Mac news sites for info on whether all or any of the rumors are true! In addition to faster processors, there is a ton of speculation (and only speculation at this point) that Apple might be releasing "some sort of phone device". Also look for possible updates to iLife and iWork, which could be a true sleeper hit this year!

Some sites to check out the day of!

http://www.macnn.com/

http://macdailynews.com/

Seminar cancelled

2006-08-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

Hey Folks

Sorry for the news but the seminar for next week has been cancelled due to the venue closing it's doors. I'll let you know ASAP when I find an alternate venue and date and time. Thanks for your patience in this matter! Talk to you soon.

Erik

Reminder: Windows on Mac Seminar Aug 17th

2006-07-21T23:54:00.000-04:00

If you have ever wondered how to run Windows on a Mac -- or why on earth you'd want to do so in the first place -- this seminar is for you.

In January, Apple released the first Macs to run on Intel-based architecture. What this meant was that suddenly Windows and Macs would share the same type of processor. Since then there has been a virtual explosion in technolgies allowing Macs to run all variations of the Windows operating system, including --at last-- true virtualization, allowing you to run Windows and Mac OS X at the same time.

Subtitled "When Worlds Collide" this seminar will highlight these latest technologies and software solutions available -- from Microsoft, Parallels, and even Apple's own BootCamp. We'll run through some examples of how to install and deploy machines that can run both operating systems, and go over a general "best practices" for doing so. Whether you are a designer/developer looking for a "one machine" solution or just interested in running a few PC applications on a Mac, you won't want to miss it.

The seminar will be held on August 17th at 2 p.m. at the Creative Change Center (C3). C3 is located at 1801 East Cary Street in Richmond's Shockoe Bottom. Parking is available in the lot right next to the building. For directions, please call 651-6047 or check the C3 website located here: Creative Change Center

There is a requested $10 donation for the space rental, and one lucky registrant will win a license for Parallels virtualization software for the Mac ($79 value). If you are interested in attending, please RSVP by clicking the link below. You will receive a confirmation shortly. Thanks!

WHEN WORLD COLLIDE: Running Windows on a Mac

Quick windows tip: remove start menu items

2006-07-17T11:29:00.000-04:00

If you are new to Windows or have been wondering how to add or remove anything from your start menu, here's how:

To remove, simply right-click on the item and go down to "Remove from this list". Presto! Item vanishes, never to be seen (in the list) again.

To add, find the item you'd like to add from your program files and drag it left onto the start menu. That's that!

Mac OS X 10.4.7 Update

2006-06-27T17:28:00.000-04:00

This looks to be a biggie, and fixes many issues including:

• Improves results when retrieving IMAP messages with attachments over unreliable connections.
• You can now create compressed disk images larger than 60 GB.
• Prevents certain Adobe and Quark applications from unexpectedly quitting when saving a file to a non-Apple AFP server.
• You can now verify whether or not a Dashboard widget you downloaded is the same version as a widget featured on (www.apple.com) before installing it.

Get it now!

Mac: Reminder 1.2 widget

2006-06-23T20:02:00.000-04:00

While I'm not a fan of about 90% of widgets out there, some I find indespensible. For instance, at the moment I'm writing this blog post from Dashboard via the Blogger widget -- there is no more need for me to login to blogspot.com to update this blog.

Another widget I find I can't live without is Reminder. It's one of those "does one thing" kind of widgets, but it does that one thing very well. It allows you to simply set reminders from Dashboard, rather than having to open iCal and deal with iCal's funky interface. You can set the number of minutes, hours, days, etc. and then sit back and relax, knowing that you won't burn the house down boiling your water for tea.

Download of the week: Reminder

Windows: Vista Beta 2 download

2006-06-10T14:36:00.000-04:00

File this under the "if you are adventurous enough to try it" category: Microsoft announced yesterday that they have released a Beta version of Windows Vista for general consumption. Do NOT install this on any machine that you really need as preliminary reports show that it is still very, very buggy (and slow). Please read my other post below for "20 things you won't like about Vista".

Again -- only if you DARE!

Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2

The download is about 4GB in size, so prepare for a wait. As well, you'll need a MS Passport (hotmail, etc) account to download it.

Google Browser Sync Unifies Your FireFox Browsing

2006-06-07T23:56:00.000-04:00

Google Browser Sync is a FireFox extension that unifies your bookmarks, history, saved passwords, and persistent cookies across all the computers where you install it.

Works great on a Mac or a PC, or both, using Firefox. One slight problem is when you make changes to your bookmarks on a machine while leaving Firefox open on another. I'm sure this will be solved eventually.
read more | digg story

Mac: Google Video Player just released

2006-06-07T19:59:00.000-04:00

Google has just released it's Universal version of Google Video Player. Here's the link!

Google Video Player for Mac

Windows: 20 things you won't like about Vista

2006-06-04T23:18:00.000-04:00

From Computerworld.com:

I have no problem with Microsoft copying Apple's or any other company's best interface designs. We all win when that happens, and I wish Apple would steal the best things Microsoft does right back. What's really strange is when a company lifts good ideas and makes them worse, not better.

Computerworld.com

Windows: remove evil help balloons

2006-06-01T21:59:00.000-04:00

Ever get sick of the frivolous alert balloons coming out of your task bar when you venture into another room and you get the ever-frustrating "There are no Wireless Networks in Range". What about the "There are unused icons on your desktop" balloon? Urgh, ANNOYING! From the ever-impressive Lifehacker comes this hack that will take care of those pesky alerts once and for all:

Remove help balloons from Windows

More on the whole Intel Mac / Version Cue thing

2006-05-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

Courtesy of the amazing MacOSXHints.com comes a fix for the 10.4.3 updater, which crashes Adobe apps after being updated on Intel-based machines:

LINK

Mac: Double clicking a Photoshop file opens Photoshop ... but not the file!

2006-05-26T09:04:00.000-04:00

Ah, this one is a classic. This problem will occur if you ever had to reinstall OS X via "Archive and Install" using the installer disk(s) or DVD. The solution is to copy a folder back from your Previous System Folder to your current system.

More here from Adobe:

LINK

Mac and PC online storage solutions

2006-05-20T10:29:00.000-04:00

Both of the following services utilize Amazon's S3 online storage technology. This is a low-cost, encrypted solution for the masses. While I like what I'm hearing, I haven't tried either of these services out yet. They may be buggy, but show some promise.

For the Macs, we offer you Jungle Disk -- encrypted online storage for pennies per GB:

Jungle Disk

For the PC's we offer you Elephant Drive, which is "apparently" free if you sign up as a beta tester:

Elephant Drive

Tour of Microsoft's Mac Labs

2006-05-19T10:49:00.000-04:00

Amazing lab of Macs at Microsoft:

LINK

Apple Security Update 003 on Intel & Adobe apps crashing...

2006-05-18T18:15:00.000-04:00

Apparently after installing the lates Apple security update, many Intel-based Mac owners are reporting weird crashing, booting to blue screens and other nastiness. If you follow this thread, there is a talk related to removing Adobe Bridge (and other things) that apparently fixes the issue.

Apple Discussions

Do NOT type the following into any search engine

2006-05-13T15:07:00.000-04:00

"Free Screensavers" -- and more:

the Register's list of the Interwebs most dangerous words

Optimizing OS X

2006-05-09T15:47:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post to answer some folks questions regarding "optimizing" or "defragging" OS X.

Apple recommends against this for most users.

See here:

Apple on "defragging"

If, however you are a user of files that are inherintly large (audio, video), and use such apps as Logic, Final Cut Pro, Motion, etc. that can write large files to the drive all the time -- try the following app:

iDefrag.

Remember it will likely not do much unless you really need it.

iPods take down UK Hospital servers

2006-05-04T18:57:00.000-04:00

Unbelievable. Please read about it H E R E

Photoshop CS 2, Mac OS X 10.4.6 and SMB

2006-04-13T09:11:00.000-04:00

There is an issue on the rise -- saving files to certain SMB shares from photoshop CS 2 while using OS X 10.4.6 crashes photoshop.

At the moment, the only confirmed servers are running Windows 2003 Server.

The only solution is to replace some System components with their 10.4.5 counterparts, as detailed in this post:

MacInTouch

Search for the post by Bryan Shappel.

iTunes 6.0.2 and OS X 10.3.9

2006-03-09T16:39:00.000-05:00

Today I had a weird call -- a client with problems connecting to a Windows file server. After authenticating, she would be prompted as to what share she wanted to mount. After the mount was selected (didn't matter which one) she got the Endless Spinning Beachball of Doom.

I turned to the usual suspects -- Disk Utility, Keychain First Aid. KFA showed nothing suspicious, so I ran DFA. Halfway though running it, up popped the following message:

Disk Utility has lost its connection with Disk Management Tool and cannot continue. Please quit and relaunch Disk Utility

Turns out, it had something to do with an iTunes reciept for version 6.0.2 (even though she was running version 6.0.3). Once the receipt is trashed, Disk Utility works fine. After the repair, my client was able to connect to the server again as normal.

Link here:

Silly Dog

New Mac Security Updates!

2006-03-03T14:31:00.000-05:00

These are the ones we've been waiting for. They fix a bunch of vulnerabilities in Safari, Mail and more. Start your week off right by pulling down the Apple Menu and clicking on "Software Update" now.

Memtest (OS X)

2006-03-02T10:25:00.000-05:00

Diagnosing bad memory can be a painstaking task -- the symptoms can be just about anything. Enter Memtest -- it's a great, free utility that runs a massive amount of tests on memory (RAM). Grab it here:

MEMTEST

It can be run standalone, or as a command-line utility for the really geeky.

AVG Free (Windows)

2006-02-24T17:42:00.000-05:00

Had a client earlier today that was having issues with Norton Anti-Virus on a Dell laptop. Turns out, they were using an outdated version from 2003. Not only had it expired, but Symantec stopped updating their virus definitions for all versions pre-2004 (I believe).

Norton has a nasty reputation for being a bloated piece of software, consuming far too many resources and slowing the performance of many machines, sometimes drastically. Now, normally I would upgrade the user to whatever the most current version of the software is ... (if they were running Photoshop, I wouldn't switch them to using Microsoft Paint, would I?) but when it comes to antivirus software, most users want complete transparency -- they need to know when to update the virus definitions, but that is it. So I had to do something.

I found uninstall instructions online (via Symantec themselves!) and proceeded to uninstall the product. In it's place, I installed the amazing free version of AVG from Grisoft. Now the client is happy -- no more spending $20/year, and their machine is noticeably faster.