Last week, my esteemed co-blogger, OWC Michael, posted his findings on the new MacBook Pros. While I agree with him that they’re pretty nice machines, I do take exception to the assertion that removal of the ExpressCard/34 slot from the 15” MacBook Pro isn’t that much of a loss.

The main thing we lose is versatility. That expandability was what many people (myself included) saw as the main delimiter between the “consumer” and the “pro” lines – not the materials or the size. The Mac Pro has expansion options via PCI Express cards, and the MacBook Pros had the ExpressCard/34 slot. The iMac, the Mac mini, and the MacBook don’t have these options.

With the notebook replacing the desktop machine as many users’ primary computer, this expandability is a key option to many Power Users. The simplest example is for those who use an ExpressCard for wireless connectivity. Most of the major cell phone companies I checked offer an option to connect to their wireless data networks via an ExpressCard, yet none offered one in an SD format. This is a major snag for those who do a lot of traveling and can’t rely on an available WiFi hotspot for communication.

Then, there is also the versatility in storage. As I mentioned before, there are a lot of people who use their notebooks as a desktop replacement. With this use often comes the need (or at least desire) for faster data connection. While FireWire 800 is a nice, fast option, sometimes you need something a little faster – like eSATA. There are a number of eSATA ExpressCards available for fast connection, several of which also support multiple drives.

If FireWire 800 is fast enough enough for you (and, admittedly, for many it is), there’s still only one port on the MacBook Pro. What happens if you have more than one FireWire device you’d like to use at one time? Sure, you can daisy-chain the devices together, but if there’s a single FW400 device in that chain, it reduces all the devices on that chain to FireWire 400 speeds. A simple FireWire ExpressCard allows you to connect multiple FireWire devices without any worry over loss of speed.

Technically, if you have one of the new MacBook Pros and need an ExpressCard/34 slot, you can use a USB to ExpressCard adapter. However, the down side to this is that, rather than the 2.5Gb/s maximum transfer rate of a native ExpressCard/34 interface, you’re limited USB 2.0’s theoretical maximum of 480Mb/s – and we all know that USB speeds usually test considerably slower than that in OS X.

So what about that SD card slot we got in exchange? It’s “okay,” if all your devices use SD cards. However, what about users with cameras or other devices that use Compact Flash (like my Canon EOS Rebel Ti), Sony’s “Memory Stick”, or any of a myriad of other cards? They still need an external USB adapter, making that SD card slot all but useless until you shell out more cash for a new camera/phone/gadget.

I can hear a lot of you saying, “If the ExpressCard/34 slot is so important, then why not just go with the 17” MacBook Pro?”

The answer to this is twofold – price and portability. The 17” MacBook Pro is about $200 more expensive than its 15” counterpart. While that’s not too much more (less than 8%), the “portability” factor also comes into play.

While the extra screen real estate is nice, it comes at the expense of portability. It becomes a tight fit in many laptop bags (often not fitting at all) and on an airplane (especially if you’re flying “coach”), you’ll be lucky if you can open the screen all the way. This is much less the case with the 15” model. Trading that convenience for a ExpressCard/34 slot is counterproductive to the whole point behind having a “pro” notebook in the first place – portability with expandability.

In conclusion, while I’m rather excited about many of the features of the new MacBook Pros, the loss of the ExpressCard/34 slot has me looking in the “Refurb” section of the Apple Store until this oversight is corrected.

It’s a little later than expected, but the latest Instructional Video is ready to go! This time around, we’re showing you how to replace the hard drive in the new 13” MacBook Pro.

I can hear you saying, “Why on earth would I need to upgrade the hard drive? I just got it.” This may be true, but the benefit is twofold. First, as the old axiom goes, you can never have too large a hard drive; no matter how large it is, it will fill up eventually.

The second place you can see a benefit is if you put in a faster hard drive. The faster the hard drive is, the faster the system can access data it needs. The stock drives in the 13” MacBook Pro are 5400 RPM drives. According to our benchmark testing, upgrading to a 7200 RPM hard drive resulted in up to a 6% increase in performance in some tests, particularly the ones involving disk-intensive tasks.

Whatever the reason, our new video shows you how to perform this upgrade step-by-step. As always, you can find the videos both in our Tech Center and on our YouTube Channel.

Welcome External Storage Fans to the lovely Other World Computing Blog in beautiful Woodstock, Illinois. For today’s title fight, we have a three-round, knock down, blow-out cage match. In the far corner weighing in at 3.85lbs. we have the G-RAID2 Triple Interface Dual-Drive RAID Solution hailing from G-Technology, a recently acquired division of Hitachi. In the home corner, hailing from Other World Computing and weighing in at approximately 3.0 lbs. the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM External RAID Triple Interface Solution is ready for action.

These two heavyweights of the Data Storage world match up toe to toe in so many categories.  Both have the sleek, stylish, brushed aluminum look to compliment your Mac Pro or G5 tower. Both units offer an amazing array of connection options including USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800. Both are built around two high-quality, brand name hard drive mechanisms. Both are configured as RAID-0 (Striped) for high performance data transfers – yet offer Plug and Play setup simplicity. Both are backed by a hefty 3 Year Manufacturer’s Warranty. So, let’s get this matchup underway…

Round One:

These two contenders are fast, but just how fast is fast? For matching up speed, FW800 has the fastest theoretical transfer rate available. As each contender reaches into its box of accessories, both find a 36″ FW800 9-pin to 9-pin cable to begin streaming their data through industry best Oxford 934 chipsets (tests shown were completed independently by their respective manufacturers):

POW!

OOMPH!

Whoosh!

Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!

For my money, that was close!  Real world transfer speeds approaching the 80MB/s theoretical limit is pretty amazing!  While the OWC contender has a slight edge in write speeds and the G-Tech competitor edged out in read speeds –  I’m going to have to call this one a tie.  (Testing protocol and which test running can make a difference to overall results)

Round 2

Reaching for the next cable down in speed, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro pulls out the 36″ FW400 6-pin to 6-pin cable included in its packaging.  The G-RAID2 comes up empty, the only cable listed on their packaging is the FW800 cable.  The OWC contender has the USB 2.0 cable included as well.  As the G-RAID2 bobs and weaves to avoid the jabs there is one last small feature the Mercury Elite-AL Pro comes forth with.  The Mercury Elite-AL is constructed with drive mount shock protectors adding extra protection between the drive mechanism and the enclosure itself.  The G-RAID2 does not.

Ding! Ding!
Ding! Ding!

Wow, the match is getting a bit exciting now!  The Mercury Elite-AL Pro is staring to land some solid blows and the competitor is wobbling.

Round 3

These two Titans are at it for the third and final round.  The options and price round.

G-RAID2 thows out a 1.0TB unit, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro counters with the same.
G-RAID2 thows out a 1.5TB unit, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro counters with the same.
G-RAID2 throws out a 2.0TB unit, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro counters with the same.

However, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro fires off a volley of two more 2.0TB units (one with Enterprise Class drive mechanisms, the other with a 64MB cache option).

With the competitor up against the ropes, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro pulls out a 640GB option, a 3.0TB option, and a double the competitor’s biggest capacity…a 4.0TB option.

In the option category, the Mercury Elite is giving some pretty hard pummeling right now…and a look to the pricing…..

A 1.0TB unit from G-RAID2 $249.99  and the Mercury Elite-AL Price…… $199.99 – a $50 savings!
A 1.5TB unit from G-RAID2 $339.99  and the Mercury Elite-AL Price…… $257.99 – a $82 savings!
A 2.0TB unit from G-RAID2 $429.99  and the Mercury Elite-AL Price…… $259.99 – a $170 savings!

In fact, for under $429 of the G-RAID2, you could get the Mercury Elite-AL 3.0TB unit and still have money left over for the pay-per-view charges of the fight!

There are some subtle differences…however, there’s nothing subtle about saving money in today’s world. In this epic matchup, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM External RAID Triple Interface Solution wins by a decisive knockout!

We here at OWC strive to make your experience with us the best it can be.

You’ve probably heard us say that – in one way or another – thousands of times. That doesn’t make it any less true. Sometimes, though, it’s better to hear it from the other end of the chain – to hear comments from the people who buy and use our products.

We’ve collected a number of great comments from our customers over the years, from magazines, to blog or web forum comments, to feedback left on our site. Today, we’d like to share some of our favorites with you, not to “toot our own horn,” but to validate our commitment to making the “OWC Experience” as good as it can be.

• “I just know I trusted every order, made the upgrades and every one of them worked the first time, every time. Never cussed you once. “- Tom Keith, Ponca City, OK .
• “Thanks for the thorough video from start to finish this is the best out there. I followed the directions to a t and was disassembled, installed and running in 5 minutes.” – “wahoodanb” via our YouTube channel
• “In the six years I’ve dealt with OWC, I’ve never had an issue with them … … you can be very sure everything you’d ever get from them will be fine.” – Dave Perez, MacDave Macintosh Services & Consulting, Berkely, CA
• “You guys operate just like a Mac, always reliable and friendly.” – Mike Ring, Allentown, PA
• “Your prices, shipping are excellent, but your instructional video is OUT f*ing STANDING!! As an illustrator and former Creative Director , I know the value of clear, concise instructions. Well done!” – Clarke Barr,  Danbury, CT
• “I’m a pastor, not a tech guy. You guys make it easy to upgrade with your great support!” – Pastor Ron Heffield,  Orlando, FL
  
• “I’ve purchased two hard drive enclosures (one new and one used), three hard drives, and memory for both my MacBook and my aluminum iMac.  The products have always arrived quickly with no other problems. The installation videos that OWC provides are a godsend when confronting upgrading for the first time. For my mac computer needs… OWC is who I turn to first!!” – Sam Powell, via our Facebook page.
• “Absolutely excellent ease of use on the site and speed of service and delivery.  Between the incredibly fast delivery of my order and the great guide videos on the site I was able to upgrade my Mac mini within 2 business days of my original order.  Unheard of and unparalleled. You guys rock!” – Alain O’Dea, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada
• “I’ve dealt with OWC for years and never had a problem. Great company!” – Terry White, via his Tech Blog
• “After a $400 quote from a walk-in store to change out a superdrive, I did it myself, thanks to your great ‘How To’ videos! It  only took me 12 minutes — you saved my Mac!”  – Joy Anderson ,  Wisconsin Rapids, WI
• “with your video, the only way to fail is by not watching it…” – “docmurdock” via Twitter
• “Just outstanding, folks. I buy all my Mac upgrades from you and have referred others. I just received and installed 8 GB of RAM and a Raptor drive for my new (used) Mac Pro and couldn’t be more pleased with your speed, the quality of your product and the great tech videos you provide. You’re the best in the business. Thanks! “ – Mark Cleveland, Albuquerque, NM
• “You want the best computer, you buy a Mac. You want the best stuff to go into that Mac – you go to OWC. Thanks for the great service…your guys did everything except bring me a cold beer!”  – Jeff Hargiss, Waterloo, IL
• “your external hard drives are the [expletive deleted]! toshiba, western digital and all them are @$$fingers next to you! high5! thanks for maakign[sic] great products!” – name withheld by request
• “OWC rocks! It’s Mac users paradise, in products and prices.  – Javier Pinzon,  Bethany, CT
• “I’m almost speechless at my memory upgrade performance. The online video made the install a breeze, this is coming from a plumber who has never tried anything like this before. Keep up the great work. “ – Peter Murphy,  Belmont, MA
• “OWC put the ‘Y’ in ‘DIY’ for me!” – Michael Dubrule, Michael Dubrule Photography , Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• “Just received my Newer Tech Universal Drive Adapter , and was able to retrieve the data off an old hard drive, pulled from a notebook computer we ran over with a truck back in 2005. Thanks for such a killer product.” –   Michael Dunlop, Pine Grove, CA
• “In these difficult economic times, quality and value are more important than ever . Superior performance, great price, and excellent support, all at affordable price points — good job OWC!!!”  -  Louis Vozza, Staten Island, NY
• “Thanks to this great video, I managed to replace my drive without any hassle” – ‘shenanigang’ via our YouTube channel
• “Hey.. i’ve never -not- loved you guys.. :)” - “LayersTV_RC” via Twitter
• “That OWC Chris S. is such an amazingly cool guy – someone should buy him a MacBook Pro.” – anonymous.

Okay… I made that last one up just to see if you were paying attention.

The rest, though, are all true customer testimonials. In fact, those are just the tip of the iceberg.

We value all feedback on your OWC Experience, whether its here on the Blog, on our YouTube and Facebook pages, via Twitter, or through our Web site, It lets us know how we’re doing in our mission to make upgrading your computer the best experience it can be.

Holy cow! If prices keep falling around here, I’m going to need to buy a helmet! Following those price drops on the miniStack v3, OWC’s slashing the prices on the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID. I had the pleasure of playing with one of these a while back, and I really liked it. It was easy to connect and it was easily fast enough for the data I was throwing at it. If I had justification for high-speed or high-capacity storage, it would certainly be on the top of my list.

Of course, what it really comes down to is the features, and that’s where this already-great storage solution really shines. Here’s the highlights:

• Triple-Interface - The  Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID can connect up via FireWire 800, FireWire 400, or USB 2.0. All you need to do is plug it in and go, so its great for projects that need to bounce between computers.
• Fully Bootable - If you’re taking advantage of the drive’s speed by cloning your system to it, you can rest assured that if your main drive goes down, you can boot right to the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID and continue working. Speed enthusiasts may also want to try using it as their main boot drive, taking advantage of the speed this solution can offer.
• Custom Oxford-based bridge - This A/V Certified bridge chipset ensures fast and reliable data transfer between the drives and your computer.
• Fast, Fast, Fast - There are two 7200 RPM drives, configured in a RAID 0 (striped) in this solution. This provides phenomenal read/write speeds, making disk-intensive tasks, such as video capture and editing, much faster.
• Large Capacity -  The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID is available in capacities up to 4.0TB. That’s enough room to store all your music, Photos, capture video, or even make backups.
• No searching for cables - Like all OWC products, the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID comes with all the cables you need. Whether you need FireWire 800, FireWire 400 or USB 2.0, the cable is in the box so you can use your drive right away.
• Backup software included - For making your backups easy, we include the full retail version of Prosoft DataBackup III ($59 retail value) for OS X and NovaStor NovaBackup ($49 retail value) for Windows. Also included is the Intech HD Speedtools performance suite and Carbon Copy Cloner. None of these applications are required to use the Elite, but they are excellent applications to have in your utilities library.
• 3-Year Warranty - The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID is backed by an industry leading 3 Year Full Solution Warranty, underscoring OWC’s commitment to quality, performance and reliability.
• The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID also qualifies for our exclusive Prosoft Drive Genius offer! Buy Drive Genius now for as low as $25 with purchase of a qualifying storage product – That’s up to 74% off retail price, up to 37% off OWC’s lowest normal selling price!

So now we know that the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID is packed with features. That means that it’s going to be extremely expensive, right? Of course it isn’t! That was the whole point of this post in the first place! Check it out the offerings:

• 640GB 7200RPM with 32MB Data Buffer – $184.99
• 1.0TB 7200RPM with 32MB Data Buffer – $199.99
• 1.5TB 7200RPM with 64MB Data Buffer – $257.99
• 2.0TB 7200RPM with 32MB Data Buffer – $259.99
• 2.0TB 7200RPM with 64MB Data Buffer – was $329.99, NOW $294.99 (a $35 price drop!)
• 2.0TB “Enterprise Class” 7200RPM w/64MB Buffer – NOW $364.99
• 3.0TB 7200RPM with 64MB of Data Buffer – $379.99
• 4.0TB GreenPower w/64MB of Data Buffer – was $749.99, now $679.99 (a $70 price drop)
• OWC Elite-AL Pro RAID SATA HD x 2 enclosure kits are also available without drives as  ‘Add Your Own Hard Drives Kit’ starting from $104.99, and have user configurable options for different RAID and non-RAID modes.

For fast storage that’s easy use, you can’t go wrong with the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Performance 7200RPM RAID. For best value, you can’t go wrong with OWC.

We at OWC pride ourselves on offering the best peripherals with the best prices, and in these times, every penny counts. That’s why we’re happy to announce price drops on Newer Technology miniStack v3 Storage Solutions. I’m pretty excited about this, as the miniStack has been a favorite of mine since its release, and these price drops may justify my purchase of yet another one (I currently have two connected to my Airport Extreme Base Station at home, bought another for my dad, and use one for backups and connectivity here at work).

Why am I so keen on the miniStack v3? At the risk of coming off like an infomercial, let’s take a quick look at some of its features:

• “Quad” Interface - Whether you wan to connect via eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 or USB 2.0, the miniStack v3 can oblige, offering connection speeds of up to 150MB/s via eSATA.
• Fully Bootable - Whether you clone your system over to it as a backup like I do or you use it as your main drive like my dad does, the miniStack v3 is fully bootable, so you can work off of it just like you would work off of the internal, without missing a beat.
• High-Performance Oxford924 based bridge - This is the highly-regarded, A/V certified bridge chipset found in the highest quality storage devices. Speed, stability, and compatibility are all hallmarks of this chipset.
• Versatile for all your storage needs - The miniStack v3 is great for general data storage, backups (it’s Time Machine Ready), video capture, Music storage, Photo work, and more.
• Built in powered FireWire and USB hubs - This is a big one. You never seem to have enough FireWire or USB ports, and they’re almost always inconveniently located around the back of your machine. The miniStack v3’s built in powered hubs not only provide you with extra FireWire and USB ports, but if you happen to have a newer Mac that lacks a FireWire 400 port, the miniStack v3’s hub includes a FW400 port, allowing you to connect your FireWire 400 peripherals without the need for an adapter cable.
• All the cables are included - Nothing honks me off more than getting a new peripheral, only to have to go back out to the store and pick up the appropriate cable for it. The miniStack v3 comes with all the cables that you may need – USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and even eSATA! Its ready to go right out of the box.
• Software included - Even though the miniStack v3 doesn’t require any special software to use, you also get copies of Intech Hard Disk Speed Tools (Mac), ProSoft Data Backup (Mac), NovaBackup (Windows), and Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac) to help enhance your drive’s functionality.
• 3 Year NewerTech Warranty - As reliable as the miniStack v3 is, sometimes the unthinkable happens. Fortunately, NewerTech stands behind their products, with an industry-leading 3-year warranty for their storage solutions.
• NewerTech miniStack solutions also qualify for our OWC Special Offer Exclusive for the award winning Prosoft Drive Genius – As low as $25 with purchase of a qualifying storage product which is up to 74% off Prosoft’s retail price or up to 57% off OWC’s lowest normal selling price!

That’s a whole lot of features packed into such a small package!

I mentioned before that we’ve had some nice price drops on the miniStack v3. Here’s a list of the current soutions available.

• 160GB 7200RPM w/ 8MB Buffer – $134.99
• 250GB 7200RPM w/ 8MB Buffer -  NOW $137.99!
• 320GB 7200RPM w/ 16MB Buffer – NOW $139.99!
• 500GB 7200RPM w/ 16MB Buffer – $149.99
• 750GB 7200RPM w/ 32MB Buffer – $179.99
• 1.0TB 7200RPM w/ 16MB Buffer – $184.99
  
• 1.0TB 7200RPM w/ 32MB Buffer – $199.99
• 1.0TB “Enterprise” Class 7200RPM w/ 32MB buffer – $239.99
• 1.5TB 7200RPM w/ 32MB Buffer – $249.99
• 2TB “GreenPower” w/ 32MB Buffer – was $419.99, NOW $379.99! (That’s a $40 price drop!)
• NewerTech miniStack enclosure kits are also available without a hard drive as an ‘Add Your Own Hard Drive Kit’ starting from $49.99.

The miniStack v3 has always been a great value. These new prices make it an even better buy.

One of the celebrated features on the new MacBook Pros is the return of FireWire 800 to the 13” model. Since the transition to Intel processors, FireWire has taken a less prominent role, with most current Macs eschewing FireWire 400 completely, and having one or two FireWire 800 ports. On the original 13″ Unibody MacBook, it was eliminated completely, so its return to the MacBook Pro 13” is quite significant.

FireWire has long been an Apple mainstay for plug-and-play storage, so there are quite a few FireWire peripherals out there. Unfortunately, while almost all Macs have one or two FireWire 800 ports, many peripherals (especially older ones) are FireWire 400 devices which, though compatible with FireWire 800, have considerably different ports.

So, in order to connect your old FireWire 400 devices, you’re going to need an adapter of some sort.

The adapter cable

This is probably the simplest solution. On one end, you have a FireWire 400 connector. The other end has a FireWire 800 connector. Each end goes into its appropriate port, and your FireWire device shows on the desktop.

Pros: Fairly simple implementation, widely available.

Cons: can only hook up a FW400 port to a FW800 port. Straight 800-800 or 400-400 connections require another cable.

The plug adapter

This adapter plugs on the end of a FireWire 400 cable converting one end to a FW800 connector. When hooking up a straight FW400 connection, the plug is removable.

Pros: Easily portable. Allows you to use the same cable for both FW400 enabled computers and FW800-only machines.

Cons: Small adapter can be easily lost.

Drive with a built-in hub

Any drive with both FW400 and FW800 ports can be used as an adapter. Just plug the FW400 device into the other device’s  FW400 port and it will be recognized, through FireWire’s backwards-compatibility and daisy-chaining capabilities. If you’re really going for connectivity, there are drives (such as the NewerTechnology miniStack) with built-in FireWire and USB hubs which are designed for exactly this purpose.

Pros: Storage plus a hub, always a good combination. Great for desktops.

Cons: not very portable…

Expansion Card

If your computer doesn’t have the ports you need, why not just add them? Expansion cards are available for all Mac towers, right up to the latest Mac Pro. Previous MacBook Pros (with the ExpressCard/34 slot) also have options to add FireWire 400 capability.

Pros: Your FW800 devices don’t have to slow down to FW400 speeds when FW400 devices are connected.

Cons: Not available for all computers.

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Even though Apple has removed FW400 ports from all their machines except for the plastic MacBooks, FireWire is still a fast, easy, and stable method for connecting your high-volume data transfer devices. With OWC, you can be sure you can continue using the FW400 devices you’ve come to rely on.

Not sure what you need for your particular setup? Give our friendly, knowledgeable sales staff a call at 1-800-275-4576 and they’ll get you set up with just the solution you need.

There have been a myriad of posts circulating the web that Steve Jobs has returned to his duties at Apple, showing up in his signature black turtleneck and jeans. So far, the only sign from Apple that Steve has possibly returned to the One Infinite Loop campus was a quote from him in an Apple press release released Monday regarding the iPhone 3Gs.

Since the reported sighting, the flood of rumors, speculations, and concerns have been flowing faster than a tap on a college campus quarter beer night. Mainly, they revolve around Steve’s health issues yet again and the weight loss he took his leave of absence to get under control. The biggest statement made is, according to the Wall Street Journal, Jobs underwent a liver transplant in Tennessee about two months ago. This revelation has already sparked some heated debates over the legality of disclosing a serious medical condition to Apple shareholders versus the right to personal privacy.

What is interesting though, is while the WSJ is a very reputable journalistic resource, they did not disclose the specific source(s) of where this information came from. That omission, whether intended or not, does raise many questions as to where the information was leaked from, and if true, is this secrecy cause for a breach of public trust in Apple?

Regardless, we wish Steve all the best whether at the helm of Apple, recovering from surgery (liver or otherwise), or whatever. Love to hear some thoughts you have on this, please feel free to leave your comments here or on our facebook page.

We’re to the third and final installment of our MacBook Pro lab findings…

Installment Three – MacBook Pro 13″

That’s right, Apple added the “Pro” designation to the 13″ MacBook Unibody model and certainly added Pro features to do so.  As the entry level Pro model with 2.26GHz and 2.53GHz processor speed offerings, the raw speed and computing power is understandably lower than its 3.06, 2.8, and 2.66GHz 17″ & 15″ brothers. But it definitely takes a performance leap above the comparable non-pro 13″ models – especially once more memory is introduced to the system.

Speaking of memory, the 13″ MacBook Pro model can use up to 8GB of memory versus the 4GB limit Apple supported on the prior, non-Pro generation. It also comes standard with a 160GB 5400RPM hard drive.  Both components are fully upgradeable through OWC.

Rather than a removable battery, the 13″ MacBook Pro now boasts a 7 hour internal battery. Not too shabby when compared to the 4.5 to 6 hour batteries of prior generations.

As with the 15″ MacBook Pro model discussed yesterday, the 13″ model also includes the SD card slot which introduces the possibility of massive amounts of storage down the road.  If you missed my last installment, read more about that here.

In short, this is a solid entry-level machine to the MacBook Pro line. The graphics are equal to the rest of the MacBook Pro family with an impressive field of vision for the screen size. It is an ideal machine for those users looking for the Pro power and features, but don’t want to lug around a larger form factor machine.

Upgrades, Upgrades Upgrades…

Ok, now that you’ve decided that this is the machine for you, what can you do to make it better?

The most economical upgrade has always been memory – and OWC has always had you covered there. The 13″ MacBook Pro can support up to 8GB of memory. Ordering the 8GB stock from Apple will cost up to an additional $1,100 – or- you can get this same memory upgrade separately from OWC for considerably less. We’ll even show you how to install it in our Installation Video Series.

Our benchmarking on these models is complete and you can see for yourself here just how much faster and more efficient these systems run when given enough memory. Once Snow Leopard is released, were predicting these numbers will really take off between the true 64-bit processing and Grand Central Dispatch.

Additional speed can be gained by upgrading the hard drive to either a 7200RPM model or going to speed and security of a Solid State Drive. The installation instruction video is currently in post-prodution and will be available within the next few days in our Installation Video Series.

As far as the optical drive goes, there isn’t an internal option available that is faster or includes Blu-ray (which we’re still waiting on Apple to support natively) than the 8x slot loading SuperDrive already installed. As technologies advance down the line, you can be sure we’ll be on the cutting edge and will be ready with the units themselves and the video instructions to match.

Snow Leopard is coming and with it will be a major streamlining of the whole code base. This is a bit of a mixed blessing.

This streamlining (and the addition of a number of new technologies) will allow for a reduction in size of an OS installation, while still allowing for a decent jump in speed and/or efficiency.

The down side of this, though, is that Snow Leopard will only run on Intel-based Macs. This really isn’t something unexpected. Every iteration of Mac OS and OS X has had some sort of hardware cutoff, and this time around it’s “Intel processors only.”

This is understandable; by limiting to one type of processor, the redundant code can be eliminated, allowing for more efficient use of system resources and overall optimization. The OS is able to move forward by leaving behind that which holds it back.

However, this is also a bit of an annoyance to those who have PPC-based machines, many of which are still in operation. The new OS doesn’t support it, and as a result, many day-to-day applications may soon no longer work. That doesn’t mean they’re not useful, though. Heck, I still challenge any other Mac to beat my Mirror Drive Door in consistency and performance when benchmarking FireWire 800 hard drives.

While the newer versions of some software may eventually require Snow Leopard, anything currently shipping will work just fine under Leopard. There should be a number of Security Updates for 10.5, just as there were for 10.4, so you’re not being left high and dry in that regard. Finally, many third-party apps are coded so they’ll work just fine under any OS X version from 10.3 and up.

If, however, you require the latest and greatest in OS and applications, then you’ll be needing an Intel Mac soon. That, however, leaves you with the question of what to do with your PPC Mac.

Even though they may not be suited for your Snow-Leopard-Requiring day-to-day tasks, PPC machines are still capable of acting as single-task workhorses. Here’s just a couple of ideas:

File Server: OS X’s built-in file sharing allows for easy setup of a machine as a simple file server. For those with more advanced needs, OSX Server has a number of extras that should easily do the trick. All you need is an 867MHz G4 processor or faster. Those with G4 Towers that don’t quite make this speed requirement can still use Leopard by first installing a processor upgrade. You can then install up to 4 or 5 extra internal hard drives, either on the internal ATA bus, or add a SATA card and put in the largest, fastest drives you can. A couple of quick licks in the Sharing preferences, and your files are available anywhere on the network you want them to be. While you’re at it, you can also set up Printer Sharing on that machine, allowing all your networked computers to share the same printer, too.

Kids computer - Got kids that have homework to look up or games they want to play? While it may not play the latest and greatest games, your PPC Mac has enough life in it to cover many kids uses. A decent word processor for reports, basic email & Web apps and some older games all run well on these machines. Once you have what your kids need installed, simply set up their account(s) as needed, and then fire up the Parental Controls preference pane. There, you can limit time spent on the computer, bedtime, which sites can or can’t be visited, and the like. You can even limit which programs can be run.  Once it is set up, your kids have a terminal of their own, leaving your machine open for your own marathon sessions of World of Warcraft.

Guest Terminal - Many years ago, I was renting a house with three other people, and we all were frequently online. The main problem was that only three out of the four of us owned computers. The fourth would always need to “borrow” one of ours. Unfortunately, they also had a habit of downloading whatever caught their fancy, opening up possibilities to viruses or, at the very least, filling up the hard drive. As a Mac user, I had more resistance to viruses than my Windows-using roommates, so I set up a “spare” machine (in fact, my trusty Wallstreet PowerBook) with a “Guest” account, where they could check their Web-based email, read news, etc, but they couldn’t change anything or save any files. It worked great. An older ‘Book can easily be left in the guest room with a similar setup, allowing overnight guests a way to check their email while visiting without exposing you to their careless computing.

Music Repository/Jukebox - If your music collection is approaching the proportions of some of the people around the office here (myself included), it may be time to move a good portion of it to a central location, especially if you have multiple machines you listen to it on. Several years ago, I wrote a piece on turning a G3 iMac into a simple jukebox. Once you’ve set your computer up with all your music, simply turn on the option to share the library in the preferences, and you’ll be able to listen to music from that library on any computer running iTunes on your local network.

Dedicated BitTorrent Client - Though most people immediatly think “illegal file sharing” when they hear “BitTorrent,” it is also a very effective way to distribute large files legally. Examples of this include independent bands with MP3s that don’t have the server bandwidth and various distributions of Ubuntu Linux. By dedicating a single machine to this task, it frees up other machines (and their bandwidth) for more immediate use. I know several people who use a G3 iMac for this purpose.

Curing diseases - Truth be told, this could be added to any of the above suggestions, but I’ll put it down as a separate item anyway. Even if you’re not using your PPC Mac all the time, there’s no reason it can’t be working. Set up Folding@Home, and put those spare processor cycles to good use, folding proteins and helping to find cures to diseases.

There are many more dedicated uses out there – the possibilities are really only limited by your creativity.

Of course, to get the most out of these machines, you’re going to want to make sure they’re running at peak performance. Maxing out the memory gives you the most bang for your buck, but adding a faster hard drive and even upgrading the processor can add some significant “oomph” to your PPC’s performance to its new tasks.

Even if you don’t know what upgrades are appropriate for your machine, OWC’s got you covered there. Simply check out the easy-to-use “My OWC” upgrade finder, enter in your computer’s information, and you’ll be given a list of compatible upgrades.

Don’t worry about Snow Leopard leaving your PPC Mac behind. With a little creativity and OWC, your PPC Mac can get a new lease on life.

In our last installment we visited our findings on the MacBook Pro 17″ model. Logically, we’ll visit the next step down in size.

Installment Two – MacBook Pro 15″

First off, the reduction in starting price from $1999 to $1699 is very exciting, especially when for your $300 ‘discount’ you double the starting memory! The MacBook Pro 15″ now ships with a minimum of 4GB RAM which is easily upgradable to 8GB.

The other major change to the system – Apple has added an SD card reader. Arguably the most popular form of data storage on video cameras, digital cameras, mobile phones, PDAs and GPS receivers; the SD card format is here to stay. I for one couldn’t be happier with this switch from the ExpressCard 34, even if many of my colleagues find they will miss the expandability of the ExpressCard/34 slot. I won’t miss it, and look forward to the advancements in SD cards.

Let’s start with what we’re missing out on with ExpressCard/34. There are several options on the market today for expansion cards. For example, adding more ports to your system. Well, with USB or FireWire, if you need more ports, you can always go with a hub to add more ports, keeping in mind that the more you add to a laptop, the more you have to lug around with you or give up the portability. There are also the myriad of memory card readers, but really there are plenty of USB options on the market and if you happen to use the SD card standard in your devices (as I do), you’re all set. There is also the option of adding eSATA ports to the system, but the main reason for having the port is external storage. Laptops are meant to keep their portability and I for one don’t want to lug around a 4 bay or better RAID 5 storage solution and have to find an unused power outlet every time I want to use it.

Ok, I’ll concede that you can’t beat the benefit to ExpressCard/34 wireless cards for those of you who travel a lot and find yourself in places without WiFi access. I for one, don’t travel that often and my routine takes me from one WiFi hotspot to another.

If you really miss it, we do carry a USB ExpressCard/34 adapter for $9.99

So, what is there to gain with SD?  Simple….. Storage. Nice, light, massively portable storage.

At the time of writing this article, SD and SDHC (high-capacity) are readily available on the market with capacities of up to 4GB and 32GB respectively. While not colossal in size, the SD card can hold several documents or presentations which can then be physically removed from the computer for safekeeping and security. The SD card slot is bootable and an SDHC card could certainly store an operating system and several utilities as an emergency boot disk or even relocate your home folder to the SD card to use as a physical key to your computer.

The 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) however introduced the SDXC format introducing 32GB to 2TB of storage in the same form factor. Kevin Schader, director of communications for the SD Association, recently announced that SDXC cards should be hitting the market in 2010 starting with a 64GB capacity.  I for one can’t wait to see the maximums realized on the SDXC form factor where I can carry around several 2TB SDXC cards with a 300MB/s transfer rate in my pocket.

Upgrades, Upgrades Upgrades…

Ok, now that you’ve decided that this is the machine for you, what can you do to make it better?

The most economical upgrade has always been memory – and OWC has always had you covered there. The 15″ MacBook Pro can support up to 8GB of memory. Ordering the 8GB stock from Apple will cost an additional $1,000 – or- you can get this same memory upgrade separately from OWC for considerably less. We’ll even show you how to install it in our Installation Video Series (the video is not complete at the time of this posting but should be available online within 1-2 weeks).

Our benchmarking on these models is nearly complete (we’re still awaiting the 15″ MacBook Pro 2.66GHz model) and you can see for yourself here just how much faster and more efficient these systems run when given enough memory. Once Snow Leopard is released, were predicting these numbers will really take off between the true 64-bit processing and Grand Central Dispatch.

Additional speed can be gained by upgrading the hard drive to either a 7200RPM model or going to speed and security of a Solid State Drive. Again, the installation instructions will be available within the next few weeks in our Installation Video Series.

As far as the optical drive goes, there isn’t an internal option available that is faster or includes Blu-ray (which we’re still waiting on Apple to support natively) than the 8x slot loading SuperDrive already installed. As technologies advance down the line, you can be sure we’ll be on the cutting edge and will be ready with the units themselves and the video instructions to match.

We’ve got new hardware from Apple, and that can mean only one thing: new instructional videos!

This time around, we show you how to put more memory in your 13″ MacBook Pro. After all, these new releases can take up to 8GB. We’ve proven time and time again that more memory gives you better performance, so with OWC’s great memory prices, there’s no reason for you to stick with the 2GB that Apple sticks you with in the low-end model.

Upgrading the memory in MacBook Pro is incredibly simple to do. If you can use a screwdriver (preferably one from the Newer Technology 11-Piece Tool Kit), you have all the skills necessary to perform this upgrade.

Don’t believe me? Check out our how-to video, either in our Tech Center or on our YouTube Channel, and see how easy it is.

It’s almost as easy as pumping gas.

Well, most of the new MacBook Pro laptops have arrived and we’ve been busy in the lab updating compatibility, fully testing each memory module, and benchmarking the memory in the machines.  I must say, these machines are tight!

I’m going to use a series of three blog posts to review each of the different machines with some of our findings…

Installment One – MacBook Pro 17″

The biggest and baddest of the MacBook Pro line, in short, starts with two ups and one down:

UP - both models have a boost to processor speed over prior generation. (2.8 and 3.06GHz vs. 2.66 and 2.93GHz)

UP – both models have a boost to starting hard drive capacity over prior generation. (500GB 5400RPM standard vs. 320GB 5400RPM)

DOWN – the price starts $300 lower than the prior generation!

Any way you add it up – what a deal.

Some very noteworthy non-changes are in order as well:

ExpressCard/34: Mainly the ExpressCard/34 slot is still present on the 17″ MacBook Pro.  It has been removed from all other MacBook Pro machines and replaced with an SD card slot – but we’ll get into that in further installments.  At this time, if you’re looking to upgrade and are among the single-digit percentage of users (according to Apple) that use ExpressCards, then the 17″ model is the machine you’ll need.  There are ExpressCards to add eSATA capability, additional FireWire 800 or 400 ports, or media readers for compact flash, MMC, Memory Stick, Memory Stick pro, xD cards and others.

Graphics and video: The 17-inch high-resolution LED-backlit glossy widescreen display with support for millions of colors is an absolutely brilliant display.  With a 1920 x 1200 native resolution and up to 2560 x 1600 on an external display, screen real-estate doesn’t become an issue.  If you need more than that – you could always add a USB display adapter or two (or three!) for a plethora of monitor configurations.

Upgrades, Upgrades Upgrades…

Ok, now that you’ve decided that this is the machine for you, what can you do to make it better?

The most economical upgrade has always been memory – and OWC has always had you covered there. The 17″ MacBook Pro can support up to 8GB of memory. Ordering the 8GB stock from Apple will cost an additional $1,000 – or- you can get this same memory upgrade separately from OWC for considerably less.  We’ll even show you how to install it in our Installation Video Series (the installation process is exactly the same as the previous generation MacBook Pro 17″ Early 2009 “Unibody”).

Our benchmarking on these models are now complete and you can see for yourself here just how much faster and more efficient these systems run when given enough memory.  Once Snow Leopard is released were predicting these numbers will really take off between the true 64-bit processing and Grand Central Dispatch.

Additional speed can be gained by upgrading the hard drive to either a 7200RPM model or going to speed and security of a Solid State Drive. Again, the installation instructions for either is available our Installation Video Series.

As far as the optical drive goes, there isn’t an internal option available that is faster or includes Blu-ray (which we’re still waiting on Apple to support natively) than the 8x slot loading SuperDrive already installed.  As technologies advance down the line, you can be sure we’ll be on the cutting edge and will be ready with the units themselves and the video instructions to match.

It’s June 12. In the United States, by midnight tonight, broadcast television will be completing the transition from analog to digital. That means that outside of a couple of low-wattage local stations, all television broadcasts will require a TV with a digital tuner to receive.

For those who have cable or a dish, you shouldn’t notice anything different. When hooked up to to non-digital televisions, the cable/DSS box handles the digital to analog signal conversion, allowing you to watch normally.

Those like myself, however, who rely on an antenna for television reception aren’t so lucky. If you haven’t already purchased one, you’re going to need a digital-to-analog converter box in order to receive any TV programming. Depending on your distance from the transmitters, you may also need to purchase a higher-gain UHF antenna to get in all the stations you’re used to.

AntennaWeb has a wonderful utility to find out what kind of antenna you’ll need. For those of you who are handy with tools, you may even want to try building your own antenna. There are a number of plans available online, but I had some great results with the plans featured on Make Magazine’s Web site. I made a couple of small changes in the materials (such as using 14-gauge copper wire rather than clothes hangers and carriage bolts rather in place of wood screws), but I still came out under $25 for the whole project.

A couple of casualties…

While standard TV viewing is affected, there are other victims to this changeover, as well. The first is television recording. All VCRs (as well as some DVD and hard disk based recorders) will also be affected as they, too, receive and record analog signals. While you can hook up your converter box to these and record, the process is rather complex.

The other thing we lose is the portable television set. These units almost never have built-in digital decoders, and very few of them have external antenna inputs. Even if they did, you’d still lose portability because there are very, very few converter boxes available that don’t require a wall outlet.

Elgato to the rescue.

Fortunately, both problems can be addressed with the EyeTV units from Elgato. I talked about them last year in an in-depth article, and all the information is still relevant.

As both the EyeTV Hybrid and the EyeTV 250 Plus allow you to record DTV transmissions, you can easily record all your favorite programs for viewing later, even burning to DVD for easy television playback. You can also do something you can’t do with conventional recording devices: you can convert those programs for viewing on your iPod or other portable device.

While there’s little that can be done to adapt your existing portable television for digital broadcasts, combining the EyeTV Hybrid and your laptop Mac allows you to use your MacBook/MacBook Pro for television on the go, while also allowing you to play back programs you’ve saved, as mentioned above.

Oooh… special…

We’ve told you how to get around these setbacks with the DTV transition, but we’re going to go one step further. Right now, we’re extending the special price for the EyeTV Hybrid that would normally be reserved for our Newsletter subscribers to you, our Blog readers, as well. Of course, if the Hybrid doesn’t quite meet your system’s needs, we’ve got great pricing on all the Elgato items in stock.

Of course, the best way to be in on all the great deals is to subscribe to the OWC Tips n’ Deals and Hot Deals Blast newsletters. Rest assured that your e-mail information will only be used for the purpose of sending the newsletter emails, and nothing else.

Now that you’ve got the tools (and a great deal), go enjoy the advanced programming that Digital Television offers!

Well, the WWDC Keynote has now come and gone. While His Steveness wasn’t in attendance (at least not on camera), Uncle Phil managed to deliver a plate full of Apple goodness to us, no matter what you’re into.

Hardware

Time for an update across the MacBook & MacBook Pro families. Let’s start out with the one that caught my attention.

MacBook Pro 15″
Well, they got rid of the removable battery and have changed over to the same setup that’s in the 17″. This isn’t really all that surprising, as it keeps specs in line with the 17″ version. More surprising is the change in slots – we lose an Express Slot but gain an SD slot. This is great if you have a camera that uses SD cards, but it’s pretty darn crummy if you want to hook up drives via eSATA.

It seems they’ve improved the display a little bit and, as expected, there’s a little bit of a speed bump up to 3.06 GHz, but what’s that? A price drop!?!?! Starting at $1699… wow! Now I only have to sell one kidney to afford one.

MacBook Pro 17″
Less excitement here; No new features, but at least you get to keep your Express slot. Price drop here, too – looks like those recent Microsoft ads are having more effect than people would have you believe…

Unibody 13″
The biggest changes seem to have come for the 13″ Unibody MacBook. It’s got the same battery upgrade as the 15″, but it also gained the SD slot, where nothing existed before. The big news, however is that it gained back the one thing it was missing before – FireWire!!!

Yes, it seems Apple has heard our pleas and has added a FireWire 800 port. Though not eSATA speeds, at least FW800 is faster than USB 2.0.

Since the addition of FireWire 800 puts its features on par with the MacBook Pro line, the 13″ Unibody MacBooks have been reclassified – they are now the 13” MacBook Pros. Even with that “promotion” these guys have had a price drop as well, starting at $1199.

MacBook Air
Not much to report here, other than a $700 price drop! Prices now start around $1499. Still a bit much for a machine that has no upgradability, but at least its a huge step in the right direction.

Software

OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard is on its way. Apparently, we’re going to see a lot of speedups in the new version. It appears that they’ve rewritten the Finder from the bottom up, which should give us all sorts of speed boosts, and have also made improvements to the Dock, including integrating it with Exposé.

Those of you who are feeling the squeeze of Leopard’s rather copious install size will be happy to know that a standard installation Snow Leopard will be less than half the size of the standard install of Leopard! That should be a savings of around 6GB!

Snow Leopard, with Grand Central, Open CL, and other system enhancements, will finally be able to harness the full power of your computer’s resources. A fully 64-bit OS will allow you to more effectively utilize larger amounts of memory, and Grand Central will help distribute both memory and processor cycles to all your apps, allowing them to take advantage of all available resources.

The full version of Safari 4 will come installed (it is also available via Apple’s site and/or Software Update), featuring a slew of improvements, including a faster JavaScript engine and HTTP streaming for audio and video.

QuickTime has also gotten a boost, becoming “QuickTime X” (pronounced “Quick Time Ten”). Much of the improvements have been made under the hood, though the interface has also gotten a newer, slicker overhaul as well.

Finally, office workers everywhere that rely on Exchange compatibility for their day-to-day tasks can rejoice. Mail, iCal, and Address Book now have support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

iPhone OS 3.0

Of course, most of the buzz around WWDC this year was centered around the iPhone.

Unfortunately, not too much more was revealed about iPhone OS 3.0 than has already been discussed.

The big one, of course is Cut/Copy/Paste functionality, which should be available system-wide. Landscape mode will be available for Mail and a couple other apps. Many of the same enhancements in the desktop version of Safari have also filtered down to the iPhone OS version as well.

Google Maps are now easily embeddable into iPhone apps, and have turn-by-turn support.

There are a couple of other things that really caught my attention – one that’s been discussed before and one that’s fairly new.

First, iPhone 3.0 will support tethering! In theory, this means you can use your iPhone’s data connection with your laptop, an invaluable feature if you’re on the road a lot. Unfortunately, support for this feature is not available everywhere.

Another interesting feature that I’m sure will be popular around here is the “Find My iPhone” option. Effectively, it uses triangulation and GPS features to locate the approximate location of your iPhone, and can even override the mute switch to play a tone so you can find. If you still can’t find it, then you can remotely send a “wipe” command, removing all the user data on the phone, so nobody else can make off with your precious data.

This last feature would have been a lifesaver two years ago when I put OWC Larry’s good humor and benevolence to the test by… *ahem*… accidentally losing his iPhone at Macworld. Yes, I was that guy… If we’d had the “Find My iPhone” feature, we might have been able to recover the phone and I would have one less embarrassing event to try and live down around here.

iPhone OS 3.0 will be available on June 17, so it’s a little more than a week before you can take advantage of all the new features… and before Larry lets me within 500 feet of his new iPhone.

iPhone 3G S

If you follow any of the rumor sites, there’s been some buzz about a new iPhone rearing its head around this time. Turns out the rumors were true, and we’ve been given the iPhone 3G S.

This new iPhone seems to be considerably faster than predecessor, with both software enhancements and upgraded network support, allowing up to 7.2 Megabit speeds via HSDPA.

Features also got a boost with the introduction of a three megapixel camera with autofocus and auto white balance support. You can also capture video at 30 frames per second at 640×480 resolutions, and even edit it down via touch. Both video and photos can be shard via MMS, email, and MobileMe.

Another new feature is Voice Control. Its an interesting concept, especially when using the phone or iPod features in the car. Unfortunately, you still have to hold down the button to activate it, so it’s not completely hands-free. It’s a start, though.

Business users also haven’t been left out. By popular request hardware encryption is now available. There’s also a new Compass application. Its integration with Maps opens up many nice options for helping you find your way around when visiting another town, be it for business or pleasure.

Last, but not least, battery life has been improved – up to 5 hours talk or 9 hours of WiFi internet.

When they’re available on June 19, expect to pay $199 for a 16GB or $299 for a 32GB model. If those prices are a little steep, Apple is continuing to sell the iPhone 3G, for only $99.

In summary

Clocking in at a little over 2 hours, the WWDC keynote had a lot to offer. We got updated MacBooks, iPhones, and previews of the OS that runs on them. This is just a quick rundown of what was discussed. Keep checking back as we go more in-depth on the new developments (no pun intended).

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, is reported to be returning to work from his medical leave this month according to the Wall Street Journal.  In August 2004, Mr. Jobs underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Steve Jobs has been subject of several rumors since the World Wide Developers Conference in June of 2008 when he appeared to have lost quite a bit of weight. In January, Jobs announced that he was taking a leave of absence from Apple and leaving Tim Cook, Chief Operating Officer, in charge while he was away.

Much of the speculation about his health in the run-up to the announcement had been over whether that cancer had returned, but Jobs has maintained that a hormonal imbalance was preventing his body from absorbing certain proteins.  Whatever the case may be, we’re happy to hear that Steve Jobs is doing better and look forward to many more years of Apple with Steve at the helm.

Rumors of Steve actually attending the World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco are of yet unconfirmed.

Apple updated the MacBook “Core 2 Duo: 2.13 13″ (White – Mid-2009) quietly, without as much as a press release. The new model boasts a 45 nm “Penryn” 2.13 GHz Intel “Core 2 Duo” processor (P7450) up from the 2.0GHz previously offered.

Additionally , the new model received a base hard drive upgrade from 120GB to 160GB (5400RPM) and the battery life of the new machine has an estimated 1/2 hour longer runtime. (5 hours up from 4.5 hours of the Early 2009 model*)

Like its predecessor, the Mid-2009 model shares the same white polycarbonate case as the Early 2009 model that it replaced and connectivity is the same as well with AirPort Extreme (802.11a/b/g/n), Gigabit Ethernet, a FireWire “400″ port, two USB 2.0 ports, optical digital audio in/out, and video out capabilities (mini-DVI) that supports an external display.

Other specs on the machine:

• 3 MB shared “on chip” level 2 cache
• 1066 MHz frontside bus
• 2 GB of 800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-6400) installed in pairs (two 1 GB modules)
• 160 GB Serial ATA (5400 RPM) hard drive
• 8X DL SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor (with 256 MB of SDRAM shared with main memory)
• 13.3″ widescreen TFT active-matrix “glossy” display (1280×800 native resolution).

The MacBook 2.0GHz “Unibody” design shares many features internally with the new MacBook “Core 2 Duo: 2.13 13″, is equipped with the same NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, but uses a faster processor and slower RAM (800 MHz DDR2 compared to 1066 MHz DDR3 in the “Unibody” models).

*Battery life as officially reported by Apple using a “wireless productivity” test.

Last week we discussed cross-platform compatibility. I’d like to continue the theme of interoperability with something a little more close to home – document layout.

With basic documents – large blocks of text with few, if any images – you can usually get away with a Rich Text File or a Word document and “standard” fonts. However, unless someone else is going to be editing the document, there’s a better way to distribute the information, so that its viewable cross-platform, while retaining all its formatting: use the Portable Document Format, commonly known as PDF.

PDF documents contain three major components:

• PostScript page description information, for layout
• Embedded fonts used in the document
• Storage for any other content (images, movies, etc.)

The only thing the end user sees, though, is a single document, which can be read in a number of different programs, including the free Adobe Reader, Preview (built into OS X) and Safari. What appears on screen is a document laid out exactly as it was created, with the same fonts, images, positioning and the like, regardless of what application was used to create it or what computer, OS, or program is used to read it.
In other words, no matter where it’s viewed, a PDF always looks the same.

This is great for a number of different uses.

• Its cross-platform compatibility makes it great for online distribution of documentation and sales materials.
• Cross-platform readability also comes into play for job hunters who can have a résumé available online that’s readable by potential employers (though, unfortunately, many still prefer a Word document version, so you may wish to offer both).
• For students and teachers who want to save a couple trees, it can be used to electronically distribute documents that would normally require printing – course syllabi, handouts, reports, and the like.
• Graphic artists can use them to make online portfolios.
• Its basis in PostScript and its retention of fonts, images and positioning make it wonderful both for paperless print previews and sending off for mass printing.
• For that matter, anybody with a document that has special fonts, graphics, Web links or the like which they would like to distribute while retaining the same format can do so with PDF.

This is just a short list that I came up with off of the top of my head; I’m sure there’s more.

Of course, after going on about how useful PDFs are, I suppose I should talk about how to create them.

In Mac OS X, if the program supports the standard printing protocols, then you should see a “PDF” menu in the lower left corner of the Print dialog box. Select “Save as PDF,” choose a location, fill in the document information if you wish, and click Save. In a moment, a PDF will appear where you specified.

Microsoft Word 2008 has a couple of ways to create a PDF. You can create one using the “Print” method mentioned above. Alternatively, you can choose to “Save As…” and select PDF from the Format menu.

If you’re going for real sophisticated PDF creation, though, you’ll want all the features of Adobe Acrobat Pro. This program will allow you to apply passwords, set permissions, create forms that can be filled out electronically, and a number of other things, as well. Combine it with Adobe InDesign CS4, and you have a design powerhouse, allowing you to create sophisticated documents that integrate text, graphics, even multimedia. Both pieces, as well as other useful apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator, can be found in Adobe Creative Suite 4.

From a simple paper to a huge business proposal, presentation plays a large part in getting your message across. Using PDFs helps you keep control of how your documents are presented, allowing your full message to shine through.