For those of you who want to let your inner geek show, have we got the desktop background for you!

While we’ve been exploring potential ways to upgrade the hard drive in the new iMacs, our own OWC Jamie took these photos of the new machines with their screens removed to expose the electronic goodness found inside.  They make quite unique desktop pictures.

Or, you could use this as a static screensaver to discourage others from using your precious computer making them think your machine is down for maintenance.

The desktops are custom sized to the resolutions of the respective monitors:

21.5″ iMac   : 1920 x 1080

27″ iMac      : 2560 x 1440

To download, right-click on the links above and Choose “Save Linked File”

To install your desktop background, go to System Preferences (on the Apple menu) and choose Desktop & Screen Saver (in Personal): Desktop (control-clicking the desktop and choosing Change Desktop Background… from the pop-up menu will also get you there), then click Folder… (in the left panel) and select the folder in which you saved the picture. If the folder is not in the list, click the “+” in the lower left and navigate to the correct folder to add it. Click the picture in the right panel to display it as your desktop background.

Do you have an Apple aficionado that’s notoriously hard to buy for? Do you have an extra $50,000 burning a hole in your pocket? Well, you can do a number of things…

• Max out the memory in 40 Mac Pros.
• Buy 62 256GB Mercury On-The-Go SSD Triple Interface portable drives – 15.5TB of solid state storage is nothing to sneeze at.
• Buy 5000 single layer, recordable Blu-ray Discs, for over of 122.0TB of recordable storage space
• Buy 31 entry-level Modbooks – get a tablet that’s a real Mac, not just a big iPhone.
• Buy and drink 30,381 cans of Brain Toniq – at 2 cans a day, it would take approximately  41½ years.

All of these are great gifts (even in considerably smaller quantities) but for the ultimate in Apple fandom, you may want to rotate your eyeballs on over to eBay, where someone is selling an Apple I computer, complete with original invoice, shipping box, and letter signed by His Steveness, himself. There’s no bids on it as of this writing, and the starting bid is at fifty grand, so get your checkbooks out for this ultimate in Apple collectibles.

You can ship it to me care of OWC if the holiday spirit is upon you. ;-)

Let’s face it, you love your Mac and “feeding” it with upgrades, accessories, updates, and tweaks to keep it running at optimum performance levels is one of your passions. And, as you can imagine, that’s pretty much Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) around these parts. But by maxing your Mac, you might be neglecting to take care of yourself. Our wonderful customer Robert M. from New Hyde Park, NY, shared a great recipe from his mom that can nourish you faster than perhaps how your Mac runs after one of our upgrades. And if you’re a guy, ya’ just gotta love the idea and the ingredient measurements!

Scrambled Eggs in a Mug

Ingredients:

• 1 qty “two serving cup” of Egg Beaters (or the Stop and Shop version)
• 1 or more handfuls of shredded cheese
• 1 teaspoon or so of bacon bits
• 1 cooking spray, preferably butter flavored (optional)

Preparation:

1. Spray interior of a 16 oz coffee mug with the cooking spray. (Robert prefers 16 oz Dixie PerfecTouch travel cups)
2. Shake and pour “two serving cup” of Egg Beaters into mug.
3. Drop shredded cheese to taste into mug.
4. Drop bacon bits into mug. A teaspoon or just a bit more is enough otherwise it tastes a tad salty.
5. Mix all ingredients together.

Cooking:

1. Place in microwave for about a minute.
2. Stir and then place back in microwave and cook until done which is defined as when the eggs are no longer runny.

Like all good informational sources, Robert recommends “keeping an eye on the eggs as you nuke them because they’ll fluff and possibly overflow the mug during the ‘nuking process!” He assures us that they will settle after cooking though.

Hats off to you Robert for keeping the Mac faithful fueled. About the only thing better than Robert’s recipe is an idea from a movie I still want to go into business on someday…

If you upgrade a Mac to an SSD drive – having good management of your files is important where you use an additional drive or drives to have capacity for your photo, music, video libraries, etc.  With the relatively small sizes of SSD drives, they can fill up with data fast; but the performance benefits of SSD are undeniable.

If you’ve been following our blog since the beginning, we’ve given several tips on relocating these types of files off your internal storage on onto external storage solutions. Today’s modern operating systems make this pretty easy.

For those audiophiles out there, an iTunes library can quickly become an overwhelming size.  Back in March, we showed you how to move your iTunes library to an external hard drive such as the Mercury On-the-Go Pro.

Photography enthusiasts will also find their pictures taking up more and more hard drive space.  You can also move your iPhoto library to an external drive to keep your primary drive lean and operating at top speeds.

My basic rule of thumb to follow is to keep the Operating System and your applications themselves on the main, internal hard drive while storing the files, documents, pictures, movies, music, etc. on the separate drive.  By doing so, you can even use a 64GB SSD for boot and application performance benefits WHILE maintaining access to extensive file libraries that can’t all fit onto an SSD.

Check out OWC’s full selection of SSD Drives and External Hard Drive Solutions to find the fit that’s right for you.

Four years ago today, Web users everywhere that were looking to escape from the mediocrity of Internet Explorer were treated to the official release of a new browser, Mozilla Firefox. Since then, It has since become one of the most popular Web browsers currently available, second only to Internet Explorer, which, of course, ships as the default browser for Windows.

Firefox started as an offshoot of the Mozilla Application Suite which, in turn, was built on the open-source code of Netscape Communicator. Since then, Mozilla dropped active development in favor of the standalone apps Firefox and Thunderbird, and the full application suite was spun off as the community-developed project, SeaMonkey.

Firefox is considered by most to be stable and safe, and is available in Mac, Windows and Linux versions. That compatibility, plus an extensive add-on architecture which allows users to customize Firefox, are the main contributing factors to its popularity.

Even though I, personally, tend to stick with Safari for the vast majority of my Web browsing (especially in Snow Leopard, where Safari 4 is a 64-bit application), I still keep an updated copy of Firefox handy; every so often, I’ll find a site that pitches a fit over Safari, yet handles Firefox just fine. However, on the two virtual machines (Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux) I have on my MacBook Pro, Firefox is the main browser I use.

Many other people I know, both Mac and Windows users, use Firefox almost exclusively. Its compatibility with many corporate and online banking sites is far better than Safari (without changing user agent strings); I don’t think we need to go into its security advantages over Internet Explorer. ;-) I’ve also found Firefox to be reasonably zippy on PowerPC-based machines, often rendering more complex pages faster than Safari, so it may be a good option for you if you have an older machine.

Overall, Firefox is well worth the download, even if you don’t use it every day. You can find the latest version (v.3.5.5, released late last week) at www.mozilla.org/firefox

During my time here at OWC, I have cultivated my love of the Mactintosh independent software community. In the past, I have shared some software gems with you, be it here on the OWC Blog, in various QuickTips and in full-blown reviews. What I’ve always liked about independent software companies is that they often put out software that’s just as good as (and sometimes, better than) the larger software companies at a fraction of the price, so I’m generally glad to toss a few bucks their way and/or give them a featured write-up.

It’s a part of that support for independent developers that I feel the need to draw attention to a great deal going on over at MacHeist. These guys somehow manage to get together high-quality pieces of software from independent developers and bundle them together for additional savings over the already affordable prices of most independent software. For a limited time, though, they’ve got an even better price on their bundle than they usually do – FREE!

Yep. that’s right. For the next six days or so, you can register and download the MacHeist nanoBundle at absolutely no cost.

So what’s in this free bundle? Let’s take a look. more…

During the course of a normal day here, I see/hear/read a lot of customer correspondence. The majority of it is very complimentary which is very gratifying and really pumps up the team morale here. Sometimes one comes by though that is a bit unique in nature/subject and I dive into those with much curiosity. Such was the case yesterday when I saw an exchange between a customer and none other than OWC Larry…the CEO here for you newbies. Now before you say, “well sure, probably a long time customer who has spent gazillions with OWC!”, what sealed the deal for me was that this customer was two years new to us.

It turns out Scott A. from Saint Paul, MN, was looking for a bigger Cinema Display for a legacy MacBook Pro. He had stopped by an Apple store and was told to contact us. While we didn’t have anything that Scott could purchase, OWC Larry researched it enough to refer Scott directly to another source as his best option and provided a link to the exact listings.

And while Scott summed up his appreciation for this action as:

“You guys are a great source of expert, practical,  helpful information about Mac products…you must be if the Genius Bar at the Apple Store recommends you.”

the entire interaction got me thinking that truly is one of the OWC Differences…we aren’t about selling products as really anyone can create a storefront and do that. We do, from every corner in our LEED Platinum designed building, truly exist to serve you. Is that a “Genius” approach to running a successful business? I dare say it’s surely better, and more soul fulfilling, than putting the bottom line on a pedestal. And I think the man in the poster looking over my shoulder in my office would agree.

Often these lists are pretty boring or cover a very narrow niche of sites. So, when I came across this “50 Kick @$$ Websites You Need To Know About” created by MaximumPC, I was pretty dubious I would find anything too captivating.

Wrong.

Being frugal and a deal hunter, the entry about Craiglook.com caught be by surprise. The lead in “Craiglist Gets Unstuck from 1995″ and a visual of what the results look like will now have me using that portal for all my buying and selling needs. For me, Craigslist is a blast…I’ve bought and sold such a variety of items that it truly is a one stop marketplace. So anything that improves that experience is a Top Site in my book.

As I only had a brief moment to check out the entire list, the other selection that caught my eye was What The Font. Now while the MaximumPC lead in was “Because Not Everyone Uses Helvetica”, any site that has something to do with fonts always catches my eye. The reason for that is because I have deemed OWC Chris here a “fontaholic” for his hobby/interest/whatever in collecting fonts. To me, that’s a pretty cerebral pursuit and really an appreciation of visual nuances that many of us just overlook on the superhighway of daily tasks.

So if those two sites are new to you or you’re interested in what you might find equally captivating, check out the list. And if all of this hasn’t been too thrilling then I suppose this might suffice for some real geek interest.

Back in August ,when Apple updated their MacBook Pro line of laptops, the ExpressCard slot was replaced with an SD cardslot.  Here in October, Apple again has added this feature to the entire iMac lineup. It’s located just beneath the optical drive on each machine.

This would be a good time to revisit my prior article: What good is the MacBook Pro SD card slot anyway? to learn how to make the most out of this added feature.  It goes into detail on making a boot drive out of an SD card as well as an emergency startup disk.

Additionally, the widescreen form factor of the new iMac lends to using the machines for multimedia displays.  An SD card makes a great medium for transferring your multimedia data between computers.  A DVD quality movie takes up about 2GB per hour of playtime.  With SD cards ranging from 2GB to 32GB currently, one could store up to 16 hours of footage on a single card.  More exciting is the introduction of the SDXC format which as early as 2010 could have us storing from 64GB up to 2.0TB on a single card.

I for one wouldn’t be surprised to see movies, TV shows and other media being distributed on SD cards just the same as we see CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs currently. Time will tell on that one.

In case you missed it in our other posts, there’s an important change in the new 13.3″ 2.26GHz MacBook White that Apple announced earlier this week: FireWire compatibility has been removed completely.

This is an important thing to note, as this means that if you have any older FireWire-only devices, you’re not going to be able to use them with the new MacBook.

This is not an entirely surprising development, though; we’ve been given glimpses of this direction for quite a while. Apple has reduced FireWire’s presence to a single FireWire 800 port on most models (though the Mac Pro has four) and has completely eliminated FireWire 400. Given this reduction, removing FireWire entirely on the “consumer” models seems to be the next logical step.

In fact, we were given a preview of this step this time last year, when the aluminum Unibody portables were first introduced. The 13″ model was labeled as a “MacBook” and had no FireWire ports, just USB. Does that sound slightly familiar? Sure, the 13″ aluminum ‘Book eventually did get FireWire back, in the form of a single FW800 port, but it is also important to note that when it did, it was also reclassified as a “MacBook Pro”.

So, really, Apple removing FireWire from the $999 13.3″ 2.26GHz MacBook White is nothing to be all that shocked about. We’ve ridden that ride and purchased the souvenir t-shirt.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m not happy about this development at all. I liked FireWire and still find it superior to USB 2.0 for most data transfer purposes. Unfortunately, though, its popularity seems to be on the wane, and we – as Mac users – should probably get used to it.

Fortunately, most of the newer storage solutions and consumer electronics have USB 2.0 functionality built in, so you still have options for external storage and data capture.

It just won’t be quite as fast.

The Search For Water (LCROSS image courtesy of NASA)

OK…that headline might be a bit on the dramatic side…NASA is calling it an impact…but in any event, a pretty cool event is taking place this Friday, October 9, beginning at 6:15 AM EDT. And by now, you loyal readers should know about our affinity for all things space related…from our company name and founder’s initials to out of this world company events, so covering a live event that answers an ages old question about the moon seems pretty newsworthy to us.

Here are the most important excerpts from the official NASA LRO/LCROSS Press Kit:

“One of the first steps in NASA’s 21st century lunar endeavor will be the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, missions that will help to set the stage for future exploration and scientific research.

Although LRO will remotely sense evidence of resources such as water ice in cold regions of the moon, the LRO launch will also carry another spacecraft, LCROSS, which will directly determine if water ice occurs in an area of permanent shadow near the lunar poles.

LCROSS is a spectacular mission that is taking a novel approach at answering a lingering scientific question: does water ice exist on the moon? If the answer is yes, it could potentially be a useful resource for future exploration. LCROSS represents a new generation of fast development, cost-capped missions that use off-the-shelf hardware and flight-proven software to achieve focused mission goals. LCROSS also uses the spent second stage of the Atlas rocket, the Centaur, as an SUV-sized kinetic impactor – something that has never been done before – to excavate a small crater in the bottom of a permanently shadowed lunar crater. Whatever LCROSS discovers about the presence of water, it will increase our knowledge of the mineralogical makeup of some of the most remote areas of the moon — deep polar craters where sunshine never reaches. People around the world will take part in observation campaigns to witness the mission’s historic twin impacts on the lunar surface and their results. These companion missions, launched together on an Atlas V rocket, will mark the return of NASA to the moon and usher in a new era of scientific exploration of our sister in the solar system.”

That witness link above shows all the “impact events” scheduled should you wish to attend one in person rather than watching it on NASA TV. For our local readers, check out what Northern Illinois University (Go Huskies!) is doing at the Davis Observatory.

And for complete details on the LCROSS mission, events, and facts, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LCROSS/main/

While you’re visiting NASA’s site, or perhaps to set the stage for your own Impact Event, you might want to have this playing.

Lastly, tip of our hat to NASA…keep boldly going!

A month ago today, Apple released OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. Coincidentally, my MacBook Pro arrived right around that same time. I took advantage of having a “pristine” system and installed Snow Leopard on it immediately.

Looking back on the last month, things went surprisingly well. One by one, I added new apps and utilities to my system, making sure to check their compatibility as I went. Fortunately, most of the programs I use every day were already 10.6-compatible. My only major losses were iStat Menus and iSync compatibility with my Palm Centro. Luckily, iStat was updated soon after the 10.6 release, and I’ve got some good leads for Palm compatibility, so I’m 99% good to go.

Sure, even a month in, there are some mild annoyances – I lost the use of the full drivers for my home printer. Sure, the Gutenprint drivers work, but they just aren’t the same. I haven’t even tried scanning anything, but I’m relatively certain that it will be an exercise in futility. However, as both the printer and the scanner are 7-8 years old, I really can’t complain a whole lot – they have far outlasted my expectations for $20 at a garage sale.

As far as “whiz-bang” new features, there really weren’t any, though adjustments to things like Image Capture, Exposé, Time Machine, QuickTime, drive and file size reporting and a number of other things were welcome changes.  While, normally, simply tweaking the system for better performance/compatibility might be considered as a “service pack,” what the Snow Leopard naysayers seemed to have missed in calling it that is the whole shift in the system’s focus.

This is the first “Intel Only” version of OS X. It cut out a lot of the older, bloated PPC code, resulting in a much smaller installation. On top of that, they’ve added easier implementation of support for multi-processor apps as well making the system 64-bit capable on hardware that supports it. While this may not be all that useful at the present time it certainly opens the door for things becoming faster as applications are rewritten to take advantage of this technology.

So what is all this saying?

Effectively, what I’m saying here is that, despite a few hiccups at the beginning, Snow Leopard is certainly heading in the right direction. There are a few missing pieces here and there, but nothing that I found to be insurmountable. Further updates, both on Apple’s part and those of software developers, will continue to improve the experience.

A month into the process, I’d say that unless you either have a machine that won’t support it or you rely on one of the applications not yet supported, it is an upgrade well worth your time and money.

I’m a recent Mac convert and loving every minute of it. Do I feel ashamed for ignoring the Windows-based units that are now collecting dust at home? A little bit, but thankfully the guilt is short-term.

I’ve been having a great time reading comments from Mac users about their experiences with Snow Leopard. It’s even more interesting to hear all the chatter about Apple’s first OS update 10.6.1, made available less than two weeks after releasing Snow Leopard. Some users have called the OS release “pointless” due to the lack of new features. Others, wanting to keep their OS up-to-date, have willingly embraced the update.

What’s in the update?

Apple suggests that users update to 10.6.1 because it offers “general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac.” The update itself fixes a Mail issue, includes a more recent version of the Flash plug-in for Safari and provides device updates for modems, printers and DVD drives. For more details, see the full summary of 10.6.1 fixes from Apple.

Newbie says what?

I’m a glass-half-full guy and tend to focus more on positive benefits. Although some users have criticized this release as a knee-jerk reaction by Apple to offset product launch shortcomings, I personally think is sends a clear message that they take security seriously.

Generally speaking, it appears that a number of users are reporting improved performance and bug fixes after applying the update. The good news is that if you are running newer software it is unlikely that you will experience compatibility issues since most applications that work on Mac OS X 10.5 will also work in 10.6. It’s important to note that not every program has been tested and in some cases it’s up to the user to determine which applications still work. For example, Adobe decided to test Creative Suite 4 for compatibility on Snow Leopard without any mention of supporting CS3. What’s a CS3 user to do? Some are running CS3 on 10.6 without any issues; others are frustrated while teetering between waiting for a fix or upgrading to CS4.

When it comes to discussing hardware and software support under a new OS, I feel it’s all about shared liability – if the OS includes radical changes, some programs will not work or may require an update. If the developers do not test their software with the new platform or offer an alternative solution, they risk alienating loyal users.

It’s been at least a month since I’ve booted up a Windows machine at home and I am certain that there are countless updates, security patches, service packs and bug fixes are waiting for me. The decision to install the single point revision to SL seems easy compared to my previous life of daily Windows updates.

I’m also a marketing guy and understand Apple’s desire to release Snow Leopard early to meet customer demands. At some point you have to release what you have to the masses in order to address real-world application issues and improve the overall user experience.

The 10.6.1 update may not address every issue that has been logged, but it’s a quick step in the right direction. If you are having a problem and don’t find it resolved with this release, be sure to let Apple know via Apple’s feedback page for Mac OS X.

At the moment, most – if not all memory upgrades – are still selling for substantially below the prices the same upgrades went for this time last year. What’s significant is that those prices a year ago were pretty much at lows already with the chipmakers (Micron, Hynix, Samsung, Etc) selling the parts at prices under that which it costs to produce. These companies have posted – individually – billions in losses on these memory chip sales over the past 2 years. Micron alone has lost over $2 billion during that period. When 4GB was selling for $99 last August – those prices were not sustainable. Due to the global economic meltdown at the end of 2008, costs that were already way below what was supportable dove to all new lows as the chipmakers needed to keep cash flow going. In 2009, we’ve seen productions reduced and entire producers (Qimonda/Infineon for example) completely exit production. As a result, prices had been easing up over the course of this year as the supply/demand equation has come into balance.

Today’s prices are still as much as 50% less than where the cost of various modules could easily be heading. Just over the past five days we’ve now seen cost increases of another 5-10% on DDR2 and DDR3 memory that was already up about 20-30% just over the prior 3-4 weeks. After about two years+ of supply imbalance, we are seeing things start to move swiftly back to a cost level that – if nothing else – will ensure memory continues to be available while these producers stop bleeding red ink to turn out the parts.

Currently, we have stock that doesn’t reflect the latest cost increases. More memory makes a tremendous difference for performance and will make an even bigger difference with Apple’s 10.6 Snow Leopard too. I have no crystal ball – with respect to real costs and supply – but it’s far more likely for pricing to continue ticking up a slope than go downhill again. It’s finally come to the point where the remaining chip makers no longer can continue producing parts sold below true cost vs. that long time bit about it being better to keep production lines going. They can’t afford to and the adjustment to supply is starting to show.

So, how do you turn this somewhat scary price ride into a fun, thrilling experience? Add some speed thrills to your Mac by getting in line on our site right now with these deals:

Add up to 8GB of Memory / Ram to Apple MacBook and MacBook Pro models with 4GB kits from $62.99

Add up to 8GB of Memory / Ram to Apple iMac models with 4GB kits from $62.99

Add up to 4GB of Memory / Ram to Apple Mac mini Models with 4GB from $62.99

Add up to 32GB of Memory / Ram to Apple Mac Pro Models with 8GB Kits from $25.62 per GB of upgrade

Your model not listed above? Never fear…we have upgrades for nearly every Mac produced during the last two decades!

More than just the original factory maximums, we also have tested and support configurations that were not or in some cases still not available from Apple. This includes up to 6GB or 8GB on various MacBook, MacBook Pro, and iMac models that were limited to 4GB; 16GB or 32GB on Mac Pro models originally limited to 8GB or 16GB. When you select memory upgrades by your model – our site shows exactly what upgrade options we have tested and support for your specific machine. Outside of Apple, OWC has the most extensively Apple Mac computer equipped testing lab which enables us to truly confirm all aspects of memory operation. This lab includes nearly every Apple Mac model that has been released over the past 15 years. We don’t just produce & sell memory for Mac – we know Mac memory inside and out.

Not all memory is created equal – OWC guarantees all our memory to meet or exceed Apple Specifications with particular attention to Apple specific requirements including (but not limited to) cooling/temperature, temperature sensor chips, SPD firmware, and gives you purchasing confidence by backing it with a Lifetime Advance Replacement Warranty. Heck, we even offer cash back rebates for your old Apple memory modules!

So go ahead, buckle on in and let us help you take your Mac on a thrill ride before the “admission fee” increases.

It’s been a while since I’ve lobbed some free software your way. Since we don’t have an installation video this week, I figured this was an optimal time to talk about a couple of pieces of Freeware I’ve recently come across that you might find interesting.

Smile for the Cameras!

This is an awesome concept for a piece of software. Normally, whenever you plug in a camera, Image Capture automatically opens your image editor of choice. As with most people, this works well for me, as all I do is plug in my camera, iPhoto opens, and I can import my pictures.

Unfortunately, this setup breaks down a bit when you also have an iPhone, which is also seen as a camera. This can become inconvenient in some cases. If you have an Aperture library of several thousand pictures (this is not unreasonable – I know multiple people that have libraries this large), you don’t want it launching every time you connect your iPhone.

This is where Cameras comes in. This free preference pane recognizes each camera-enabled device you attach to your computer, and sets custom system behaviors for each one. You can set it so your DSLR can open Aperture while your point-and-shoot brings up iPhoto and your iPhone does nothing at all. It’s one of those things that should have been built into the system in the first place.

I’ll admit that I haven’t had a chance to use this software to its best ability, simply because I don’t have an iPhone and only one digital camera. However, as I said before, this is an amazingly great concept and those around the OWC offices that are using it have reported no problems, so I’m passing along the information to you.

Let’s get Geeky!

For the most part, I’m not too keen on using the command line; I’m more of a “graphical” thinker and a terrible typist to boot. There are, however, some things, such as relocating your Home folder, that are just plain easier and/or faster to do in the Terminal.

There are also a number of different command-line tools that provide useful information. The problem with using these tools is they require me to keep one or more Terminal windows open, which is hardly convenient when I have several other programs open at once.

I came across Geek Tool a while back, and liked that it could display all sorts of Terminal results on my desktop, but found it was too difficult to get anything to work the way I wanted it to. With its latest incarnation, though, things have gotten a lot easier to use. I now use it to display a monthly calendar (using an adjustment of the cal command), my upcoming iCal events (using the free command-line tool, iCalBuddy), and a couple other bits of information, such as internal/external IP addresses, uptime,  and a log file or two.

Geek Tool is definitely not for everybody; it is best utilized by folks with a lot of experience with Linux tools. For those who can use it, though, this can be a helpful way to monitor your system.

With the recent unveiling of our new site look, you may have noticed the site “wrapper” space theme. If you have been an OWC customer or follower for any amount of time, you likely will have heard or read about our affinity for Star Trek and all things space related as well as the impetus for our company name.

As such, it was only logical to create a background with that theme. Sorry, I couldn’t resist that and in no means am I as quick with the Trekkie nods as OWC Chris S. was in our movie recap.

So, if you would like to boldly give your Mac’s desktop a look that is from an Other World and join us in stargazing, you can use the very same OWC Blue Star Field background.

Can’t always get what you want…

In an earlier post, we discussed the removal of the ExpressCard/34 slot from the 15″ MacBook Pro and the implications of that loss:http://blog.macsales.com/1391-apple-giveth-apple-taketh-away

As music production becomes more commonplace outside of the studio walls, musicians have become more and more dependent on the power and portability of the notebook.  It’s this need for a high performance machine that has made the MacBook Pro a staple for creative professionals.  Up until recently, increased features have been packed into these machines.  However, it seems that some of the features we’ve all come to know and love have been taken away from the most recent additions of the MBP product line -namely the second FireWire bus and expansion capabilities of the ExpressCard slot.  So, before we start crying “the sky is falling,” we need to answer three very important questions:

1. What have we lost?
2. What do we need?
3. What do we have?

We’ve lost expandability, we need sufficient bandwidth for our work flow, and we DO in fact have just that.

…but if you try sometimes…

All we have to do is re-assess our storage and interface requirements.  When recording music, you have to remember that audio data is substantially smaller than video.  Therefore, the bandwidth provided by FireWire 400 or USB 2.0 speeds is more than sufficient for most.  So what’s the bottom line?  You have two practical configurations for your new 15″ MacBook Pro:

1. USB 2.0 Audio Interface and FW 800 (or 400) External HD
2. FireWire 400 Audio Interface and FireWire 400 External HD (daisy chained)

…you get what you need.

In looking at the two configurations above, there is a method to the madness.  Option #1 gives you more bandwidth for your external hard drive, which can be useful for projects utilizing MIDI & virtual instrument libraries that require more resources for disk streaming.  Being a musician myself, I completely understand the hesitation involved when “USB” is mentioned.  In the past, USB has always been considered “the slow interface.” It’s because of this that I will mention that the new MBP’s have been bench-marked having much higher “real world” throughput than earlier models.  Therefore, you will see little to no performance loss when using a USB audio interface as opposed to FireWire.  So, you can think of Option #1 as your “MIDI Workstation” scenario.

Option #2 allows you to still keep a useful FW400 speed for your external HD, while using a FW400 audio interface (note: when daisy chaining a FW400 device with a FW800 device, both devices will be functioning at a FW400 speed). Currently, most audio interfaces that utilize a FireWire connection are FW400 so you’re not losing any performance on that end.  The benefit of these interfaces are that they are typically built to  handle more simultaneous audio input for multi-tracking than their USB counterparts.  You can think of Option #2 as your “portable live audio recording scenario.”

This takes care of our USB and FireWire issues, but what about the loss of other potential ExpressCard expansions?  Some companies have developed ExpressCard upgrades for audio professionals that use their laptops in a production setting.  Are these upgrades and expansions worthless now?  Absolutely not!  However, if you need to utilize these professional additions you’ll need to purchase the new 17″ MacBook Pro which still provides the user with an ExpressCard slot.  For those of you that don’t want to lug a monstrous 17″ notebook around, your only other alternative is to purchase an earlier version of the MacBook Pro which are still incredibly viable machines for audio/music professionals.

Mr. Jobs and the gang threw us quite a curve ball with this recent feature loss, but have no fear!  OWC is here to light the way through these murky waters of change to help you audio professionals get the most out of your hardware.  You can still make music without an ExpressCard!

As just one of our many ways to connect and communicate with customers at OWC, we dove into the deep end of the “social marketing” Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pools earlier this year as well with the unveiling of and commitment to this blog.

As I am the “man behind the curtain” persona of @macsales on Twitter, I’ve become somewhat of a Twitterholic. That being said, I have no plans of posting random thoughts such as my affinity for Take and Bake meals from Two Tails Market & Eatery.

Rather, what I’ve found other Tweeps to be thankful for are Tweets from us on new product announcements, insights to overlooked features on existing products or even new uses for those products, special price deals, independent product reviews, and facilitating customer service related needs.

The Tweets we are thankful for are the daily recommendations and praise OWC/macsales gets. I’ve visited other users Twitter profiles so I could personally thank them at their website. One person actually then Tweeted that thanking him was a classy act. Ever since that comment, I’ve been trying to come up with a consistent and significant way we could recognize these Tweets and perhaps introduce these folks to other Tweeps.

Additionally, I wanted to come up with a phrase or hashtag that could become as widely used as #FollowFriday or #FF for short. While it would be cool for OWC to be credited as the founder of a Twitter Trend, what would be most gratifying is to see this become THE hashtag used anytime someone wants to Tweet their appreciation for an act of kindness from any source.

So with great hope and positive intentions surrounding this sentiment, I give you Thanks For The Love or #TFTL. While OWC/macsales is well known for high performance, high quality products and a dedication to serving the customer that is second to none, I wanted to make sure we’re also known for truly appreciating our customers loyalty and trust in the form of a Tweet and that #TFTL is just one small way we can “pay it forward” in the world.

So go ahead…make someone’s day…tell them #TFTL.