Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Frustration with computer printer manufacturers



Being a computer consultant that sets up a lot of computers systems, over the past few years I have noticed that the printer companies have changed the way they do business with the consumer market. They have really cracked down on their software support. For example, I have an HP DeskJet 970C series printer (pictured left) that I purchased new back in 1999. It's been a great printer and still works great to this day. The problem I'm having isn't with the printer, but with HP. I can't upgrade my Macs to Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard because HP hasn't written the software to support my printer. Instead, I have to rely on a generic third-party printer driver which doesn't support the two-sided page printing capability. Since I use that feature a lot, I continue to run Mac OS 10.5 Leopard which has the HP software with all the options for my printer. With this lack of support, it forces the consumer to purchase a new printer even though the one they already have works fine. Isn't it enough that these printer companies make millions of dollars on selling the ink and toner on all the existing printers already out there plus new printers being sold currently?
A second problem I encountered last night working with a client's Canon MP470 printer (pictured left) was that I was connecting the USB cable to an Apple Airport Express Base Station to network the printer wirelessly. The Canon software was all up-to-date but the Canon printer would not communicate with the Mac connected through the Airport Express Base Station, but only worked connected directly to the Mac. I believe the Canon MP470 is a new enough model to have Apple's Bonjour networking technology incorporated into it, but it seems not to have it and didn't work.
If your tired about how the makers of your printer does business, let them know, because ultimately we all vote with our dollars and they know that.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

THE ECONOMY AND US

We have all had a hard time during these tough financial times about the past year and a half or so. Since the Real Estate collapse and the Banks crashing, it's no wonder everybody got scared. Unfortunately, when people get scared people stop spending their money and that contributes to the poor economy even further. I have experienced this first hand. It's been extremely difficult keeping the bills paid and the business running. So, I put it to the people that have money but are holding tightly on to it right now; Please start spending, otherwise this poor economy will extend indefinitely and everyone will continue to suffer for it. The final results will show that Capitalism is a poor system for everyone in general.
A quote from the movie THX 1138 might encourage you further:
"Let us be thankful we have commerce, buy more, buy more now, buy and be happy."

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone




It's the time of year when we're reminded to give thanks.

Instead of waiting until next year to be reminded,
Let's make every day one of thanksgiving;
After all, each day is a unique gift.
So, give a hug for no reason;
Say I love you, just because;
Share a smile with a stranger;
Take the time to count your blessings;
Don't take anything or anyone for granted;
And end each day with no regrets.
Thank you, for the opportunity to be of service to
you all, along with your continued support
to keep MacMobile Services going all these years.
I am very fortunate to have such great clients in my life.
And I am thankful you have allowed me
To be a part of yours.
May you and yours have a safe and memorable Thanksgiving.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Mac OS X:10.6.2 Update Released This Morning


Apple this morning released a very important update for Mac OS X: Snow Leopard; version 10.6.2. A fatal flaw in Snow Leopard that some users experienced when a user turned on the Guest Account and logged-in, then logged-in to the Administrator Account would loose saved files in that account. Version 10.6.2 fixes that flaw among other fixes in other Apple software titles too. You can obtain the update by running Software Update under the Apple menu, but I recommend installing the Combo update to insure a more thorough installation. Click Here for all the details that the update addresses and to download the Combo update.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Apple Magic Mouse


Last night I stopped by the Walnut Creek Apple Store to check out the new hardware that Apple announced this last Tuesday. They had both 21.5 and 27-inch iMacs on display with the included wireless keyboard and the new wireless Magic Mouse.
I picked up the Magic Mouse and the first thing I noticed is that it does have one whole clickable button (I incorrectly called the Magic Mouse a buttonless mouse in my previous blog entry) which I thought worked fine. The Magic Mouse is very sleek, curvy, and slim. It feels good in the palm of my hand, but I do prefer a mouse with

more of a higher rounded area toward the rear of the mouse, for example the Kensington ThinkingMouse (pictured left) felt great in the hand, it fits in the palm of your hand better than any low profile mouse.
I tried out the multi-touch surface and it's very accurate. The different finger gestures worked as advertised. Moving your index finger vertically up and down scrolls a page up and down in Safari and moving your index finger horizontally scrolls the page horizontally side to side. The right-click also worked fine. I was however unable to try the two-fingered gesture that allows you to for example, page through a multiple page document or browsing through pictures in your iPhoto library, but after playing with the mouse I'm sure it works fine based on how accurate the multi-touch surface is. I was only able to test the Magic Mouse on the Apple Store's display table because they had a cable tethered to it, so I couldn't test how good it tracked on different kinds of surfaces.
In comparison to the previous Mighty Mouse, the Magic Mouse is an improvement, hardware-wise, meaning it's electronics are solid state with no moving parts with the exception of the clickable top surface. The problem with the Mighty Mouse was that in a short period of time, the scroll ball would either start malfunctioning or stop working altogether. So, because of that, Apple's solution to the scroll ball is the solid state multi-touch surface technology borrowed from the iPhone and iPod Touch.
I hope that Apple will come out with a wired version of the Magic Mouse because unless you are using rechargeable batteries, batteries could become quite costly over time.

The Apple wireless Magic Mouse retails at the online Apple Store for $69.00 US.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

New Apple iMacs Today!


Apple has released the next generation iMac line this morning. New LED backlighting and screen sizes, 21.5 and 27-inch and more pixel depth, 1920 x 1080 and 2560 x 1440 respectively make watching and editing High Definition content amazing. The new iMacs come with a new buttonless wireless bluetooth mouse called the Magic Mouse along with the Apple Wireless keyboard standard. Ports on the back now include the MiniDisplay port which replaces the mini-DVI. These new iMacs do include FireWire 800 for connecting an external hard drive for video capturing when doing video editing for example or for a Time Machine backup drive. All the other ports, USB, Gigabit Ethernet, etc. are included also. Apple mentions the new iMacs have better sounding speakers too!
The 21.5-inch model has a 500 GigaByte hard drive, 4 GigaBytes of RAM, 3.06 GigaHertz Intel Core Duo 2 processor, and a NIVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated video processor standard for a base price of $1,199.00 US. Available now at the online Apple Store. Build to Order options are also available.
The 27-inch model has a 1 TeraByte hard drive, 4 GigaBytes of RAM, 3.06 GigaHertz Intel Core Duo 2 processor, and an ATI Radeon HD 4670 dedicated graphics video card with 256 MegaBytes of Video RAM standard for a base price of $1,699.00 US. Build to Order options are also available. This model will not be available until November.

Friday, October 16, 2009

An iPhone Case that Reflects Current Events



This morning I came across an unusual iPhone case that I thought was hilarious. It's called The Recession Case. It's made of recycled cardboard from Case-Mate for $.99 for one case. At the bottom of their website, there are a couple of videos; The first one, showing a cool review of The Recession Case and the second video, shows you how you can use The Recession Case to Microwave food with it. I think it's a basic iPhone accessory made out of a basic material (Cardboard), but I also think the creators of The Recession Case are very creative. From what I saw this morning, it seems to work and it works for the original, the 3G, and the 3GS iPhones.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Warning: Guest Accounts and Snow Leopard


I've heard that when running Mac OS X Snow Leopard, when the Guest account is activated, there have been some cases of data loss in the main or administrating user account. Until Apple comes up with a fix, I strongly recommend not turning on the Guest account option.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Website Update

Added two new links to the HomePage; The Apple iPhone and Nike+ iPod Sport Kit page.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Website Update

Re-built the Calendar and Blog pages, so this blog entry is a test also. Made changes to some of the wording and rate information on the Home page.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Website Update

Re-directed my old web address http://bayareamacmobile.com/ to my current web address http://www.macmobile.biz/.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Website Update

Added my banner to the bottom of the About, Calendar, and Terms pages. Added Phone Hours and San Francisco Bay Area numbers.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Website Update

Added Google Calendar so viewers can see what city I'm currently working in to see if I'll be near them for future scheduling.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Monday, June 1, 2009

Website Update

Corrected the Made On A Mac badges. Clicking on the badge now takes you to the Apple Store website.
Added a new brochure about my services and rates on the Downloads page.
Made minor changes to the About page.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Welcome

Welcome to the new MacMobile Services in California Website. Website goes online.