Drobo version 2

So you’ve got a hard drive and it died. Was it a La Cie? Then of course it died! Well, now you’ve got the FEAR that your other drives will die, too. And, well… I hate to tell you this but they will. All drives die eventually. The really quick ones to go are any Western Digital drives. Boy they stink. That’s why they come with a 1 year warranty. But they are cheap you say. Yeah, you pay for what you get.

So what do I get? Invest in a Drobo. It’s hard drive housing that stores up to 4 hard drives. It combines all the drives together into 1 large volume. Should one of the drives fail the others take over until you can put a new drive in. It can even survive if two drives fail. The best thing about this is you should never lose data. However, what you won’t read is that a Drobo’s data can become corrupted so it’s best to maintenance the drive with diskwarrior now and then.

If you put four 1TB hard drives in the Drobo will format them to 2.7TBs. A lot of the extra space is reserved for data recovery in case one of the drives dies. What’s nice to know is that when larger drives come out you will be able to put a new drive into your drobo. So when 2TB drives are sold you can swap out a 1TB for the new one. Nifty. This means you won’t have to keep shuttling your data around. It GROWS with you.

They cost $499 and are pretty freaking awesome. Check out the drobolator to see how it’s configured.

Mommy, should I upgrade to Leopard?

The new OS X 10.5 is coming out October 26th for $129. Should you upgrade? Absolutely! Should you do it the day it comes out. That depends…

DISCLAIMER: ANYTIME A NEW OPERATING SYSTEM COMES OUT YOU SHOULD BE VERY CERTAIN THAT ALL 3RD PARTY SOFTWARE IS UPDATED BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH THE UPDATE. Also, never do a simple upgrade as this will more than likely cause problems down the road. I ONLY archive and install.

If all you do on your machine are the following: use apple mail, use safari,
print some documents, ichat people and surf, surf, surf, then there shouldn’t be any issues.

There are over 300 new features in Leopard. Here are some of the coolest ones.

Things I’m looking forward to:
new Apple Mail - can make “to dos” from emails that sync to iPhone.
new Safari - supposed to be faster and is finally catching up with Firefox.
new iCal - cleaner interface
new syncing - can sync dock prefs, and user prefs between machines
better windows support - crossover works great in this version. allowing you to run Windows Apps without even needing Windows
new iChat - better video, more features, ability to share screen with other users and go over documents, etc.

coverflow throughout the system - just like iTunes version of Cover Flow but now embedded in the finder.

time machine - whiz-bang backup utility with killer graphics to retrieve missing files. (see photo below)

What if I use Now Contact/Up-to-Date? Well, it “should” work as there’s nothing saying it won’t. Again, if you rely on this software wait a bit. They have an update coming out in January that was due six months ago so don’t hold your breath… you can always make the jump to Apple Address Book and iCal.

REQUIREMENTS

Still using that old cute colored iMac? Well, Leopard won’t install on it or any other G4 processor below 867MHZ. Time to donate it or sell it on craigslist. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I really doubt it will run that well on a G4 1GHZ and lower.

You’ll need 512 RAM minimum, but make sure you have 1GB to run it well.

It loves a new INTEL mac so it can run natively at 64bit. Tiger (10.4) is a 32bit OS and this is a 64bit. What’s that mean? Remember the Super Nintendo? Well, think of this as the Nintendo 64! Woo hoo!

This means “less spinning rainbows” when accessing network volumes and the ability to do more multi-tasking operations in the background. So it’s faster meaning it crashes faster. (total joke)

However, if you have a computer that CAN NOT afford to be down because, woops, your DV deck, MBox audio device or some other scanner doesn’t work with Leopard, then you should wait.

I always suggest waiting for the maintenance release. This will be 10.5.1 that will be out about 3 to 4 weeks after Leopard ships.

If you have any questions about your systems lemme know as I’ll be thoroughly testing the software and will know all the ins and outs the following week it is released.

Check your internet speed connection

Ever wonder what kinda connection you have? Well, wonder no more. Go to speedtest.net and check it out.

Backup Power Supplies

Okie dokey. A recent post of mine mentions backing all your data up. Please do this! Now, you should (don’t should all over yourself) get a back-up power supply also. It is very important to make sure the the backup unit is rated high enough for the wattage of your computer. It is a well known fact that if you overload the backup supply it can fry your equipment. Ouch!

Fixing File Permissions

You ever have a folder that won’t let you copy anything into it? Or maybe you can read everything in the folder except one file? Well, you can remedy this situation either by using the GET INFO command from the file menu in the Finder or by using Batchmod. It’s a small utility that easily rewrites permissions. I’ve included a training video.

Noah video

I found this on Youtube.com. Wow. This guy photographed himself everyday for six years. Watch this.

Send large files with no fuss

You ever have a file that is much to large to send via e-mail? Of course you have. Well, you can easily send a file as large as 100Mb by using yousendit’s service. Whomever you send it to must register to download the file, but it’s free both ways.

Screen Capture

Most computer losers know they can take a picture of the screen any old time by either using the GRAB program in the Utilities folder or by chording some keys together.

So to take a picture of the screen her are your options:

1. Apple+Shift+3 (takes a picture of the entire screen)
2. Apple+Shift+4 (creates a cross hair to select the area you want to capture)
3. Apple+Shift+4 (once you see the cross hairs, press the spacebar to take a perfect picture of any open window).
4. Apple+Shift+Ctrl+4 and it auto pastes the selection to your clipboard, then paste it wherever you want it. This is killer, diller

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Back it up, baby…

It amazes me how many people do not back up their data. It’s a simple process but you have to be committed to doing it like brushing your teeth, or going to the gym. It’s even easier to backup your Mac with Apple’s Backup program that is part of the .MAC support plan. Or you can get Retrospect and have it do it’s similar thing, albeit that program’s interface is ancient, but it works fine. You’d want to use this for multiple machines and compression reasons.

Either way you go please, please, please back up your data! Otherwise, that battery you were meaning to replace do to the Apple battery recall could make your data smoke! If you need help give me a jingle and I can get you rolling.

Woot! and MacZot

Woot sells electronics at bargain prices. The cool thing about it is every day there’s something different as they only host one item per day. It could be an air compressor, dvd-vcr combo unit, walkie talkies, computers, etc…

And if you like this concept then check out MacZot. They sell Macintosh shareware software. Some of it’s crap, some of it’s not… but a lot of the time it’s pretty cheap.

You still using Orbitz?…. that’s so 1982

Check out Kayak. Wow, this site searches over 120 different websites. It has a clean interface and works great

Max the couchmaker

My couch needed repair so Max, a friend of Tony (the apartment handyman), came over to fix it. He saw my Alvarez steel string and couldn’t resist!

If you need a good carpenter call Max. 323-384-5088.