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. ;-)

Now that we’ve got upgrade installation videos for the Late ‘09 MacBook and iMacs, we are turning our attention to the other upgraded model – the Mac mini. While we’re hard at work on the upgrade videos for the new Server model, those of you with the standard mini aren’t being left out in the cold. In fact, the videos for your mini are ready to go!

As it turns out, the internals of the Late ‘09 mini are identical to those of the Early ‘09 model. That means the take-apart is exactly the same, too. So whether you want to put in a larger hard drive or bump up the RAM, the free video instructions can be found both in our Tech Center and on our YouTube channel.

Of course, if you decide after watching the process, you’d rather have this upgrade professionally done, we can help you out there, too. Our Installation Service offers swift turnaround and professional results, all at a reasonable price.

Even though your Mac mini isn’t one of Apple’s “flagship” products, it doesn’t mean it can’t be a heck of a workhorse. Maximize your mini’s performance with upgrades and a little help from OWC.

In case you didn’t see it mentioned on other news sites, forums, etc, we announced free shipping on all orders over $150 today thru December 31st from our on-line catalog of over 2,500 products and a Top 10 Gift Giving Ideas list with “stocking stuffer” suggestions starting at $3.99 to help you make tech/gadget gift giving easier and more economical heading into the upcoming “Black Friday/Cyber Monday” holiday shopping kickoff dates.

We’ve been reading that value and frugality are the key objectives of shoppers this year and wanted to make sure we offered the right products and services to make us the easiest, one-stop choice for all your Mac, PC, iPod, and iPhone product purchases. And even bigger news perhaps is that we’ve extended our operation hours so qualifying orders can ship same day when placed as late as 10:30pm as well as permanently extending our Live Chat support to a full 24/7 service level.

OWC Top Gift & Stocking Stuffer ideas include:

• Kensington Pocket-Link 3-in-1 Cable $3.99

Provides retractable Ethernet/telephone and USB cords in a single, self-contained housing.

• Cellboost iRecharge $4.99

External battery pack for iPods/iPhones and other USB chargeable devices.

• OWC Memory Upgrade Kits from $15.99

More memory = faster Mac with easy to install OWC Memory upgrades.

• OWC Express USB 2.0 Enclosure $19.99

Pocket-sized, bus-powered 2.5″ SATA hard drive enclosure for the digital mobile lifestyle.

• NewerTech® NuPower® Charge & Sync+ $39.99

Portable charger, battery pack, and sync solution for iPods, iPhones, and other USB compatible devices.

• NewerTech Voyager Quad Interface Hard Drive Docking Solution $89.99

“Quad Interface” hard drive dock for 2.5″ and 3.5″ SATA hard drives up to 2.0TB.

• NewerTech Guardian MAXimus $319.99

Plug and Play RAID 1 with two 1.0TB hard drives for protecting precious holiday memories.

OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual-Bay RAID “Quad-Interface” Solutions use the latest Serial ATA drive technology and a custom Oxford 936DS based bridge design to provide total interface flexibility along with Sustained Data Rates of well beyond 200MB/s. These solutions are excellent for a wide range of applications and data storage needs – including all the way up to live High-Definition video capture! High-Performance, Plug & Play, and Reliability backed by an industry leading 3 year full solution warranty.

They’re constructed of aircraft-grade aluminum, measure only 9.3″ L x 2.8″ W x 5.6″ H, and are fully A/V Certified as well as EMC Retrospect Backup Certified for all your A/V, Backup (Time Machine Ready), Graphics, Music, General Data needs and more! You can Plug & Play on whichever best interface option is available on your systems today as well as have future compatibility with 2 x FireWire 800 ports, 1 x FireWire 400 port, 1 x USB port, and 1 x eSATA port. Completely transparent, total interoperability of data access, read/write regardless of what computer(s) and/or interface you switch between…ease of use just doesn’t get any better than this.

Prices start at just $199.99 for these solutions with capacities going all the way up to 4TB. And speaking of that 4TB model, that’s the early “Black Friday” deal…now just $499.99…a $50 drop! And if you want to look at it on a per byte basis, that’s like $0.12 per gigabyte of storage. Or further still, you could use this 4TB model as a home media center and store up to 481 uncompressed DVD’s.

But getting back to the reasons why OWC is better than other brands – we provide detailed information in our descriptions of the exact hard disk drive models you’ll find inside our solutions as well as performance throughput test data so you can see what these fastest in class solutions can offer you in real-world use.

Like all OWC storage solutions, ,the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual-Bay RAID models 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 complete Intech HD Speedtools performance suite. None of these applications are required to use the Elite, but are excellent applications to have in your utilities library. Plus, don’t overlook the convenience and cost-savings of the included FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB, and eSATA connecting cables.

If you like everything you’ve read thus far and have your own SATA hard drives, we even have DIY Enclosure Kits starting at $107.99 for different RAID and non-RAID modes.

Today we completed the benchmarking of the last two iMac computers that Apple introduced last month: The 2.66GHz iMac Intel Core i5 and the 2.8GHz iMac Intel Core i7.

With the ability to simultaneously run 4 cores and 8 cores respectively, these machines are quite the powerhouses of processing power.

It’s interesting to note that even with faster starting times than the other iMacs in this series, the RAM Hog II test (which simulates powerhouse usage where 80% of the machine’s resources are busy with other processes) was rendered satisfied after 12GB of memory was installed.

Not to say that 16GB didn’t show significant results in its own right. The After Effects Render Test (which spawns subprocesses for each core processor) showed steady improvement in times as more and more memory was added to the computer.

And speaking of that 16GB upgrade, to put a spotlight on the results, the i5 model was up to 44% faster in that RAM Hog II test with the maximum memory installed.

As always, what level to upgrade your Mac is a personal choice. You can check out all the Late 2009 iMac memory and hard drive upgrade options and decide if you want to go mild or wild.

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…

One of the biggest changes in Apple’s lineup last month was the addition of two more memory slots to the new iMacs, giving them a total of four. This gives the new iMacs the capability to handle up to 16GB of RAM. While adding more memory will always improve performance, 16GB really makes a difference.

Apple has generally made the iMac’s memory easy to upgrade, and this revision is no different. Some people, though, like to see it done first before diving in themselves. That’s why this week’s addition to our Instructional Series of videos is all about adding memory to your Late 2009 iMac! It doesn’t matter if you have a 21.5″ or 27″ model, or whether you have a Core 2 Duo, i5, or i7 processor, the process is the same for all of them and we show you how to do it.

As always, you can find this video (and all of our instructional videos) either in our Tech Center or on our YouTube channel.

We just got our first 2.66GHz Quad-Core 27″ iMac i5 machine within the last hour and I really wanted to share our excitement with you.  So we took photos of our unboxing of this unit.

The box itself is sturdy and strong with a comfortable enough handle to lug this baby with it’s monster screen wherever you need:

more…

Major and sincere thanks to all our Veterans! Words can hardly express as we honor and recognize your service today and every day.

OWC is proud to have several veterans among its ranks and have several whose loved ones have served in the armed forces. The dedication and service to the founding principles of our country is an overwhelming example to all.

OWC recognizes that today’s would be a different one without the service and sacrifices of all our service men and women. Many thanks to all those who have served the United States.

Also, a happy 234th ‘birthday’ to the United States Marine Corps.

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.

Creating a new homepage look can either be met with cheers or yawns depending on how personally invested you are in the site. We get pretty excited here about many products and often can’t help ourselves from “getting our geek on” and wanting to tell you about all the cool stuff we carry…whether it be our own OWC branded products, the products from NewerTech for which we are an exclusive distributor, or a great deal on one of the many other leading brand names in our over 2,500 item on-line catalog.

Realizing that might be a bit much and overwhelm you like a kid in a candy store, we redesigned macsales.com homepage to have a kinder, gentler look. Adding to this fresh approach is a caricature of OWC Larry himself calling your attention to products he gives a hearty thumbs up to.

So we hope this redesign (and our ongoing efforts to come) is met with cheers from you and improves your site experience with us. As always, keep your feedback coming and thank you for your trust in us as your source for your Mac, PC, iPod, and iPhone technology needs.

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…

Continuing on with our series of instructional videos, this week we take a look at another common upgrade for the 2009 MacBook—putting in a new hard drive. You can always use more storage space, so adding a new hard drive is something you may want to consider if you’re “feeling the pinch” of too little room.

Fortunately, unlike with the new iMacs, upgrading the hard drive on the new MacBooks is easy to do. All you need are the right materials and the knowledge of how to perform the upgrade.

First, you’ll need a compatible hard drive.

You’ll also want to have the appropriate tools – in this case, a #00 Phillips screwdriver and a Torx T6 screwdriver (both of which are available in the NewerTech 11-piece Toolkit).

If you plan on transferring the data from your old drive, you’ll need some way of accessing it, either via a docking device like the NewerTech Voyager Q or S2, an external drive enclosure, or a simple USB adapter, such as the NewerTech Universal Drive Adapter. Personally, I’d suggest the enclosure, as it lets you continue to use the old drive for other purposes.

The final thing you need is knowledge, and that brings us back to where we came in. Our latest instructional video will walk you step-by-step through the installation process, and you can find it both in our Tech Center and on our YouTube Channel.

NewerTech’s Guardian MAXimus® is the Plug & Play solution that keeps your data safe with real-time data redundancy via hardware RAID-1 Mirroring. Connect to any Mac or (or PC) with FireWire 800, FireWire 400, eSATA, or USB 2.0 and it does the rest. Perfect for the ultimate Time Machine backup too!

Fast, Easy to Use, Priced Right too!

The NewerTech Guardian MAXimus RAID-1 FW800/400+eSATA+USB2 ‘Quad Interface’ solution provides high performance, exceptional data protection/reliability, and plug and play simplicity with its Oxford936 based bridge interface. This solution is a hardware RAID 1 ‘Redundant Mirror’ which automatically and real-time keeps your data backed up to protect against a hard disk failure. LED indicators on the front of the solution indicate the status of the two drives. Should a drive ever experience a malfunction, normal data operation continues seamlessly. If the malfunction if a recoverable ‘soft’ type, the Guardian MAXimus will rebuild the mirror (also without data interruption) automatically. If the disk failure requires a drive to be replaced, once the new drive is installed – again, the Guardian MAXimus will automatically rebuild the Mirror without loss of data to time.

Available in capacities of up to 2.0TB + 2.0TB Mirrored, the Guardian MAXimus is a sleek, compact Aluminum design of only 9.0″ Long x 2.8″ Wide x 5.8″ High. In addition to the benefits of Hardware RAID 1 Mirroring, these solutions are full certified for Audio/Video, Backup, Graphics, Music, General Data needs and more! With 2 x FW800, 1 x FW400, 1 x USB 2.0/1.1, & 1 x eSATA Ports – units are fully Bootable and provide excellent access flexibility to stored data based via whatever interface choice(s) are available on systems solution may be connected to.

NewerTech Guardian MAXimus FW800/400+USB2+eSATA RAID 1 prices:

• 320GB + 320GB Mirror 7200RPM w/32MB total Data Buffer –  now $219.99 (a $10 Price Drop)
• 500GB + 500GB Mirror 7200RPM w/32MB total Data Buffer –  now $229.99 (a $10 Price Drop)
• 750GB + 750GB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – remains at $299.99
• 1.0TB + 1.0TB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – remains at $319.99
• 1.5TB + 1.5TB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – remains at $399.99
• 2.0TB + 2.0TB Mirror 7200RPM w/64MB total Data Buffer – now $519.99 (a $30 Price Drop)

Solutions all include connecting cables for FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB, and eSATA + Intech HD Speedtools Utility Suite for Apple OS X, Prosoft DataBackup III – Full retail application for Apple OS X ($59 retail value), NovaStor NovaBackup – Full Retail Application for Windows ($49 retail value), everything you need to plug and play and go. Solutions are further backed by a full THREE YEAR NewerTech Solution Warranty.

Also Available – do it yourself GMAX RAID-1:
0GB Kit – build your own Guardian Mirror available now $139.99 (an $8 price drop) – software bundle & cables included.

Special Offer: NewerTech Guardian solutions qualify for Prosoft Drive Genius OWC Exclusive Special 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! Details online here: http://eshop.macsales.com/special_offer/prosoft_Drive_Genius

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.

We’ve received four configurations of the 21.5″ and four configurations of the 27″ machines so far.  The quad core i5 and i7 machines aren’t due out till later this month.  Between the advancements in Snow Leopard and adding additional memory to these computers, they sure can go fast!

In fact – we found up to a 46% performance boost by installing the OWC 16GB Memory Upgrade Kit versus the factory installed 4GB.

We’ve run the machines through a rigorous battery of benchmark tests to test not only the pure processing speed of these machines, but also show what adding OWC memory to the setup can do.  Additionally, the different video card options have also been pitted against each other, so if you haven’t purchased your iMac yet, we now offer a definitive tool for making an informed decision on which graphics card to order.  Both of the Radeon HD options prove to generate twice the gaming frame rates than the Nvidia equipped model.  Not too shabby!

Unlike the prior generation of iMacs, these models have a total of four DDR3 memory slots. You can add an additional 4GB kit and have 8GB total or an 8GB kit and have 12GB total without removing  the standard factory 4GB.

Should you want to max the memory up to 16GB, you will need to take out those original modules. While Apple officially supports up to 16GB in all the new iMac models, they only offer up to 8GB in the 21.5″ model. Not only does OWC offer you the options for up to 16GB total, but even if you just need an additional 4GB, we’ll save you 50% compared to the same installed by Apple.

The results make our company mantra ring true.  ”More Memory = Faster Mac!”

As additional machines are run through the same tests, they will appear on the same page as our overall goal is to have every Snow Leopard compatible machine tested using the same process.