Tag: mac os x

Skype has released a new version of the Skype Application for the Mac.  Version 5.6 includes a number of improvements including: Automatic Updates Improved UI for group video calling New full screen mode in OS X Lion Ability to delete conversations Ability to disable Audio Gain Control They also have fixed several issues including: Category Description Conversations Chat messages aren’t shown after clearing recent conversations or closing the last one Calling Choppy audio issue with USB headset while in group…

Apple Inc. is giving users a bit of an advanced look at what the next version of Mac OS X will look like.  The Mac OS X Mountain Lion Website gives a few hints and also allows members of the developers program to download beta versions of the OS.  The Developers Program login requires membership in Apple’s Developers Program, a paid service of Apple Inc. The latest version of the Mac OS X Family will include a closer integration of…

While the preparations for Apple’s next major OS upgrade have gone on quietly for some time now, the way Apple is treating its latest addition to the Apps of Mac OS X is anything but quiet.   Messages is Apple’s new app which allows users to “send messages to any Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.” The app almost looks like something of a twitter clone, with some distinct differences.  Messages replaces your iVhat client and it allows you to make…

LibreOffice, the off shoot of the OpenOffice program run by The Document Doundation, is now in Version 3.5.0 Final. The program is a multi-platform office suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation creator, a drawing program, and a mathematical function writer. LibreOffice was originally created in order to remove control of the OpenOffice Project by major corporations and based on progress made this year, the LibreOffice Suite is progressing at a steady pace. Some items for users who…

Quicksilver Application Launcher has been updated to Version Beta 64.   Quicksilver allows fast and easy control of the Macintosh allowing the user to use keystrokes to launch applications.   The program uses the first letters of the file name to find, and launch an application. Fixes in the latest version of Quicksilver include: You can download the Quicksilver Application Launcher for free from the Quicksilver website at: http://qsapp.com/download.php Quicksilver is available for Mac OS X 10.3 (beta 36), 10.4 and 10.5…

Apple Inc, has released the long awaited Mac OS X 10.7.3 Update.  The seventh developers seed was released last week with 11D50.  That particular seed was figured to be fairly close to release of the product and today, Apple fulfilled that assumption with the release of the formal update. This update , while addressing a number of Microsoft related items including Windows file sharing and MS Word printing issues, the update also focuses on the networking aspects of the operating…

The latest build of Mac OS X, Build 11D36 is the developer version of 10.7.3.  With this update arriving less than a week after the previous build, it is expected that a gold version will be available to developers within about month or so.   With the normal upgrade of Apple’s line of computing platforms in early 2012, it is suspected that Apple is trying to release 10.7.3 in time to coincide with the upgrade of the product line. The latest…

MacUpdate is offering 12 major Mac applications for $49.00 for a limited time. The Applications in this bundle include: Tech Tool 6 Icon Box (only to the first 15,000 customers) Total Finder Postbox 3 Fontpack Pro Master Labels & Addresses Mac DVDRipper Pro 3 Back In Focus NeverWinter Nights 2 Hear iClip 5 FoldersSynchronizer The entire suite of apps would normally cost $741, however for the next 13 12 days, they are selling them for $49.00 for the entire suite. …

This article is presented for those with Intel Macs (and PCs) who choose to have an alternative operating system available. It is possible to install it as a Dual-Boot system, Virtual Machine, or just run it from the live DVD. Late last month (November) Mint 12 was released to the public (free). Mint is a full multi-media distribution of Linux. There has been a lot of extremely positive press about this version. It’s almost as if someone hired the PR…

The long awaited update for the Mac OS X Lion operating system has been released by Apple.  Thanks to a bevy of issues in the preceding releases of the Mac OS 10.7 series, many users have been counting the days until Apple released the latest update to resolve those issues. The 10.7.2 update includes the following new items in it: iCloud stores your email, calendars, contacts, Safari bookmarks, and Safari Reading list and automatically pushes them to all your devices….

This is a command coming from the *NIX world I found to be useful for maintaining a backup for important software. It works either on a single computer or with two computers. The details can be found in the man page for the command. I’d like to thank Mike Doob from the MUUG for reminding me about this command. The simplest way to use the command is “rsync <file list or directory 1> <file list or directory 2>”. All it…

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving everybody. This review will be just a quick one. I’m not an expert with this sort of thing and have only dabbled with it from time to time… What is it? Handbrake is simply a transcoder. It converts DVD’s to video files and video files from one format to another. Does it work? Yes. It does what it was designed to do quite well and actually is fairly stable in spite of having not been updated in…

A few minutes ago I downloaded and tried out a free music player called aTunes. They had a version update to 2.1.0. My impression is it is a good try. There are a couple of features which iTunes doesn’t have but (on the Mac at least) the interface is a little clunky. For the moment Apple doesn’t have much to worry about. However I can see where this project is going so it may be worth considering in the future….

The short response is don’t. The long response is it can be done but… It is  very painful to get the TV to work as a monitor. The resoluton of a 720p TV is supposed to be 1200 x 720 (or fairly close). The aspect is 16:9. Unfortunately up to this point I’ve only been able to get 1024 x 768, which is an aspect of 4:3. To get there I first wasted a couple of hours fiddling around with…

The three readers are Adobe Digital Editions from Adobe, Stanza from http://www.lexcycle.com/, and Skim from http://skim-app.sourceforge.net. Each of the three have their strong points and weak points. Adobe is fairly powerful and fast, but lack many of the whiz bang features of other readers.They concentrate mostly on PDF documents (which is no surprise). Apart from formatting, there really isn’t much there which can’t be found in Preview (built into OS X). It has the look of a Windows program ported…

Jomic is another comic book reader. It is written for the PPC, so the Intel folks will need to install Rosetta (allows the Intel machines to run PPC code). The version I have appears to be a demo. Many of the items in the menu are greyed out. However, I found by a bit of experimentation some of these items do function. Since the program was written for slower machines I’ve observed it is very fast on a faster machine….

This article is a variation/enhancement to a post I found at http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/freenas/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=9289 for a FreeNAS server. Of course purely Mac folks would likely want to stick with the AFP protocol. In terms of generalities the NFS server does not necessarily have to be running FreeNAS. It just has to work. FreeNAS is basically a “Swiss Army Knife” of external storage. I find it does a lot of things very easily. It doesn’t work on all machines (I’ve had a 60%…

Apple, Inc. released another update for its iTunes program.  Version 10.2.2 addresses a security vulnerability known as the Man-in-the-middle attack.  For more information about the update, check the Apple iTunes Update page at: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4609

Plagued by inquiries from users with issues with their new MacBook Pros, Apple, Inc. has released an update for Mac OS X intended to deal with those issues directly.  Mac OS X 10.6.7 update has come more than a month after the release of the product and is “Intended to resolve stabilitity issues” with the os. The issues with the new line of MacBook Pros are graphics related according to an article in Engadget (http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/21/new-macbook-pros-freezing-under-heavy-load/) in which the machine feezes…

Product: Yule’s Christmas Quest. Version : 1.1 Date : 2008/12/14 Publisher: Candlestone Productions Website : http://www.candlestoneproductions.com Category : Mac Intel / Game / New Release Cost : Free About The Program : Candlestone Productions has released a nifty little Christmas game / adventure game which is directed primarily at kids. Yule’s Christmas Quest is a freeware package that focuses on the idea of finding all of the gifts from the twelve days of Christmas. Santa apparently forgets where he puts…