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Author Archive

Two Years of iPad

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012 | Author: OWC Mike H.

OWC web site on iPadMy how time flies; it’s already been two years since the iPad was originally released, and what a ride it has been. I remember the storm of rumors around it beforehand, and when it was first announced, it was panned by critics as either a big iPod touch and questions abounde about what it did that you couldn’t do with anything else. I saw its potential, though, and wanted one right away. Apparently millions of others agreed as well and began using, in my opinion, one of the best computing devices ever made.

Like the iPhone before it, the iPad has changed the way many people compute. In fact, it doesn’t quite feel like computing anymore, which is a bold statement. It just feels natural, with a computing device that finally embraced and captured how things should interact, read, and how the Internet should work. The iPad thrust forth a fully seamless experience that has altered the way many people read, learn, study, and do practically anything any app will allow them to do. Article Continues…

Will Apple’s Retina Display make it to MacBooks?

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 | Author: OWC Mike H.

Apple’s third generation iPad announcement came with a lot of upgrades, but due to most of the announcements being leaked out long before showtime, there were few surprises. The least surprising was the long-rumored Retina display, which makes it easy to underestimate it’s impact on the “post-PC” era. Without a doubt, the Apple Retina display is a huge game changer. Perhaps the biggest of all the upgrades. Really! The biggest.

If you’ve had an iPhone 4 or 4s for a while, take a look at an iPhone 3Gs and see how pixelated everything looks. Now imagine that effect when viewing the non-Retina display on any computer. That’s the huge difference that the Retina Display offers, and it’s a trend that’s going to change a lot of people’s perception of what a computer is, and the quality expectations thereof.

Sure, we’ve had Retina displays in the iPhone 4 for almost a couple years, but using a Retina display at a large scale is going to dramatically change the way people view normal PC/Mac monitors. The pixels on today’s monitors will seem obvious and huge to those who’ve lived with a new iPad for awhile, relegating even a new iMac’s glorious monitor to second-tier status compared the iPad display quality.

The 11” MacBook Air has one of the highest pixels per inch of any computer with 135 pixels per inch, with most all other monitors having somewhere from 90-110 pixels per inch. Compare that to the iPad’s Retina display with 264 pixels per inch, and the iPhone’s with 326 pixel per inch displays and it’s easy to see that, pretty soon, all computers are going to have a lesser display quality compared to the iPad. Article Continues…

Time Machine to the Rescue

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 | Author: OWC Mike H.

Apple released an awesome backup feature called Time Machine back in 2007 when OS X 10.5 Leopard was introduced. Why? Essentially Apple spent the decade building awesome computers in the digital life concept of music, photos, and movies. Apple likely realized that backup solutions, aside from cloning the entire computer, were a bit heavy and hard(ish) to implement by general users. With Time Machine, Apple essentially made a backup solution that’s easy-to-use, works in the background, and is essentially “plug in and forget about it”. “Backup made easy,” if you will.

The amazing thing Time Machine does is that it creates incremental backups, allowing you to step back in time to a previous version of a file. This feature has saved my butt more than a few times when I’ve accidentally overwritten a master Photoshop file, or whenever an important file goes missing. I can just go into to Time Machine and retrieve it from the past.

Time Machine also does a massively valuable trick… it’ll let you restore your Mac to a previous state in the OS. Yup, you can make your Mac go back in time as a whole as well! Article Continues…

Category: Tech Tips

Mountain Lion. Seems cool to me.

Monday, February 27th, 2012 | Author: OWC Mike H.

From my quick assessment perusing popular online forums, Apple’s announcement last Thursday of the next version of OS X, Mountain Lion, has struck a nerve with some people among the Mac faithful. If you’ve listened to the OWC Radio Podcast, you may know that I’m more the Lion fan in the group while my counterpart in the podcast, OWC Chris, is not so much a fan as you can read in his recent OWC blog post.

For me, I’ve really liked the Lion upgrade overall. Adobe said they wouldn’t support CS3, but lo and behold, CS3 works better for me in Lion than it ever did in Snow Leopard, all while being unsupported by Adobe. Go figure, but that’s more of an Adobe issue.

I use Lion at home on my family Macs and use Snow Leopard at work. I didn’t change the scrolling characteristic as I always try to walk a mile in the OS makers’ shoes before deciding if I don’t like something just because it’s different. So I kept Lion’s new scrolling feature, and I can easily switch from home use and work use even though they scroll different. Admittedly, I’m a heavy iPad user so that might have aided my learning curve a bit. Article Continues…

Category: Apple News

Will The Internet Separate?

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 | Author: OWC Mike H.

The Internet has been a relatively unregulated zone of international freedom the entire time it’s been used by the general public. In America, we take this freedom for granted as the Internet has always been that way, we invented it, and in America, it’s fairly safe to say we wouldn’t imagine it any other way as freedom is what this country was founded upon.

But what if the Internet were no longer free? 

What if international regulation sought to charge a website owner when the site was simply browsed from a visitor residing in another country or even taxed based on actual clicks and/or traffic?

What that would likely entail is the beginning of the separation of the International Internet that we know today, into segmented Internet factions or cooperatives. For example, the US, Canada, and UK may have one free Internet they agree to let be open among their countries, while other nations may group together into different factions.

What if all this was planning on being implemented at the end of 2012?

What if we told you this could very well happen?

A recent eye opening Wall Street Journal opinion piece The U.N. Threat to Internet Freedom, by Robert M McDowell, a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, discusses the impending regulation and charges the International Community is seeking to impart on the Internet by the end of 2012, the ramifications of which would be far reaching.

Tell us what you think (and remember, this is a family-friendly blog) and what actions you personally might take now to help prevent this outcome…as well as what you might do differently in the future if it indeed comes to pass.

Category: Industry News

OWC Radio #64 – Pennies For Your Thoughts

Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 | Author: OWC Michael, OWC Mike H., OWC Grant, and OWC Chris S.

The usual suspects are cashing in their opinions on a wide-variety of topics this month. From the massive coin that Apple has amassed to the single penny that NASA is sending to Mars and everything in between. Bet your bottom dollar, you’re sure to enjoy this one…and you can take that to the bank.

OWC Radio is a monthly, forum-based podcast focused on the events and happenings in the Mac community. This month’s hosts are: OWC Grant, OWC Chris S., and OWC Mike H. Article Continues…

Category: OWC Radio

OWC Radio #63 – The Post-CES Show

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012 | Author: OWC Michael, OWC Mike H., OWC Grant, and OWC Chris S.

We’re home from the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show and while some might be a little worse for wear, it was a great show. Join us as we discuss what we introduced, what we saw, and what we think this year in electronics is going to bring.

OWC Radio is a monthly, forum-based podcast focused on the events and happenings in the Mac community. This week’s hosts are: OWC Grant, OWC Chris S., and OWC Mike H.

Article Continues…

Category: OWC Radio

Hear Your iDevices’ Full Potential

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 | Author: OWC Mike H.

Grado SR60Little known and less often written about is the sound quality that the iPhone 4, iPad, and the latest iPod touch are capable of outputting. Apple must’ve upgraded something in the hardware or software design because these iDevices can output near laptop quality sound. The only thing holding the iDevices’ sound quality back is a full blown custom equalizer, like that found in iTunes, which would allow you to “tune” your iDevice to sound as good as a dedicated CD transport. (Audiophiles debate that all you want. I’ve got my iTunes tuned to match my audiophile CD transport and I could A/B test anyone to guess the wrong source.)

The main point here is if your using the original headphones that came with your iDevice you’re missing out on all that yummy sound quality, and the difference is breathtaking. Article Continues…