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AirPort Extreme Time Machine

Time Machine is the "Defining Feature" of OS X Leopard (10.5). There were a lot of improvements in OS X, but Time Machine alone would have made it worth the cost of upgrading. It's brain dead simple. Plug in an external drive that's dedicated for Backups, and say yes when Leopard asks you if you want to use it for that.

But then there are those of us who don't want to have to plug in a hard Disk drive (HDD) to back up, let alone leave it plugged in to get the most out of Time Machine.

Blender 3D on a New MBP 17" with 512 MB video RAM


Blender 2.45 works extremely well on the new 17 inch MacBook Pro 2.5 GHz with 2 Gigs RAM and 512 MB video RAM.

Here is a sample Render of the TWiT logo with a Skull from the BlenderNation Blender model repository(just to be distinctive):

Can it be? Mac Pro + HDTV home office?


I'm brain storming combinations for an ultra geek home office.

So lets say a person has an old laptop, and a newer, but standard level MacBook (non-Pro).

Let's give this office a secretary who happens to be trained in the Microsoft Corporate solutions like Outlook and the rest of MS Office.

Now let's add to our goals a desire to use the HDTV in the Living Room with iTunes content (Rented, Purchased, Free from the web, and self created).

Leopard Update - 10.5.2 - Time Machine

There's a new Time Machine menu in the Menu Bar:

The new Time Machine menu bar menu has a "Back Up Now" option, however, they did not add a backup now button to the System Preferences Pane for Time Machine. So if you uncheck the "Show Time Machine status in the menu bar" option, you can't start a "Back Up Now".


See attached image for full size.

Able

Linux on PS3

Recently I installed 2 different distros of Linux on my 80 Gig model PS3 (Christmas 2007) . Both Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) and the community favorite Ubuntu take a long time to install (almost 1hr) and then don't perform very well. They feel slugish, like running Windows XP on and 133 MHz Pentium II laptop.

Invisible Shield for iPhone

I love the Invisible Shield products I have, and I'm not alone. They bring peace of mind and they are made of a high quality material. That said, the iPhone is not an easy shape to apply a sticker to. They've come up with an interestingly shaped precut sheet to try making that easier.

Downloading MySQL for OS X 10.4 (or 10.5)



The Question: How do I get the installer for MySQL on OS X?

The sort Answer: Download the DMG file, run the install. Open System Preferences and click the "Start MySQL Server" button to start it. DONE. (On Leopard, apply the fix to get the System Preferences Pane working).

BlueTooth feature request

Every want to take that bluetooth mouse from your laptop bag and use it with your desktop? How about using that bluetooth headset with more than one phone or computer? Wouldn't it be nice if there were a away to pair with multiple devices, then use the devices to request pairing?

This does actually exist in one form that I'm aware of. There is a bluetooth speakerphone that can pair with 5 devices.

VPN Tracker 5 (for OS X)

I'd have to say that the New VPN Tracker for Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) is worth the upgrade or initial purchase. It's a shining example of good software on the Mac.

Here's what the main window looks like when it's setup with a single account:

As software often does, VPN Tracker needed to be upgraded when I installed the new Mac OS on my Laptop (the day it came out). However, this turned out to be a surprisingly nice upgrade. Except for the cost, the process was painless, and for what you get, it's actually a great price.

The new VPN Tracker authenticates faster by about one order of magnitude. So it's about 10 sec to launch and 2 more sec to authenticate...

Simple COPY or CUT and PASTE for iPhone

Still dreaming of: Simple COPY or CUT and PASTE for iPhone

Here's my suggestion


COPY/CUT
Two finger touch and hold opens magnifier loop for a start point. Slide the two fingers around together to adjust the starting point. Lifting both fingers off while they're still together will cancel the action.

Once the starting point is selected, hold one finger there and move the other finger away from it then lift either finger off. Move the remaining finger to the desired end point. Lifting the final finger will copy the text and leave it highlighted in a new color.

To adjust the end point, simply use a touch and hold (single finger), and slide to a new end point and release. Since text is already highlighted, the touch and hold will adjust the end point.

Pressing the delete button at this point turns a "copy" into a "cut"...

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