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Archive for » January, 2010 «

Looking Back At OWC Over The Years.

Friday, January 29th, 2010 | Author: OWC Jen

While I celebrate my 13th anniversary of working at OWC this month, I thought a virtual stroll down memory lane might be informative and entertaining. When I first came here, there were only about six employees, so we all did whatever was needed to make sure orders got out the door and customers were happy. I would take an order in the morning, help run it through the credit card terminal later in the afternoon or evening, and sometimes help enter it into the Fed Ex terminal at night.

I had a number of paper pages stapled together that gave me the latest prices on 30-pin and 72-pin SIMMs, 168-pin DIMMs and everyone’s favorite SCSI drives (is my SCSI fast, wide, ultra, ultra fast, ultra wide, fast wide?).  Notes were all over it since we didn’t yet have the website we have today with all its helpful information. With the Apple II I used once or twice in the library at my grade school being my only Apple/Mac experience, I relied heavily on www.everymac.com and a program called QuickConference to instant message Larry (a.k.a. OWC Larry) or our other techie guy to figure out what was compatible with what.

You can check out early iterations of our website here by typing in “www.macsales.com” into the field at the top. If you aren’t familiar with the Wayback Machine (not to be confused with the WABAC machine), it is a very cool tool and project. Article Continues…

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Category: OWC Difference, Random Thoughts & Topics
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The Apple iPad, Casual Home Computing Untethered

Friday, January 29th, 2010 | Author: OWC Erik

I was out last night and someone asked me what I thought about the Apple iPad, saying that they thought of it as a great new mobile computer.

I stated back that I didn’t really think of it as being a “mobile computer” as much as I thought of it creating a new category of “untethered” home computers. No wires, not to the wall, and not to a mouse.

While it can definitely be thrown in the car or in a bag and taken out on the road and have access to 3G wireless connectivity (if you are willing to pay for it), I think that it will play a big part in the living rooms, kitchens, and bedrooms of the future.

The Nintendo Wii is kind of responsible for what has been coined “casual gaming”. I think the iPad will be the device that spawns the term “casual computing”.

I am sure iPhone and iPod Touch owners would agree that they rarely sit down at their computers to check their e-mail anymore, they just pull out their iPhone/iPod wherever they are at the moment. When out and about that will not change as those devices will be what is in their pockets, but in the home the iPad will become the go-to device as it expands the experience of touch-based computing with a larger screen and more power.

While I, and others, have some complaints about iPad’s glaringly obvious missing features, I am still very optimistic about it and it’s product line’s future.

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Category: Fresh from Apple, Product Spotlight
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Plug and Play eSATA Card Makes Your Mac Pro Faster

Friday, January 29th, 2010 | Author: OWC Grant

The benefit of eSATA is high performance data transfer typically 2-3 times faster than FireWire 800 for connecting external devices. A drawback has been the need to install and maintain drivers for modern eSATA controller cards… Until now.

The NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card is among the very first in eSATA Controller cards for the Mac Pro and PCs that is fully Plug and Play. No drivers required for Apple OS 10.5 and later (also Plug and Play driverless with Windows Vista and later), this ACHI compliant PCI Express card is as easy as it gets for adding external SATA device support. Just “install it and forget it” by plugging it into an available PCIe slot and you can then enjoy the performance offered via the eSATA port standard on many OWC, NewerTech, and other third party single drive and hardware RAID solutions. This card isn’t for multi-drive Port Multiplier enclosures/solutions that require software or special RAID controller to enable RAID operation – but it’s an excellent choice for those solutions like the NewerTech GMAX, OWC Elite-AL Pro RAID, and OWC Qx2 solutions that provide a hardware controlled RAID solution and support higher data throughput via standard eSATA ports.

And for all you speed freaks out there, we’ve created the ultimate performance bundle. And we’ll have some benchmarks up soon showing just how fast you can go!

But I digress…back to this awesome card…it offers exceptional ease of use without the worry of a driver that may not work with a future OS release – it’s also an exceptional bargain priced at just $59.99. Because it doesn’t have those pesky drivers to maintain and possibly cause incompatibility down the road, one of its greatest benefits – that Plug and Play ease – also allows it to be exceptionally affordable too.

Bottom line…if you’ve ever wanted to enjoy the higher level of performance available from eSATA – but with the Plug and Play operation that you’ve grown accustomed to with FireWire – the NewerTech MaxPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card is your ticket to the fast lane.

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Category: New @ OWC, Press Releases, Product Spotlight
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The Enterprise Class SSD For The Rest Of Us

Thursday, January 28th, 2010 | Author: OWC Ron

Being in the Product Development Department at OWC means I get my hands on a large amount of product you see listed on our site (as well as some you don’t). Any loyal OWC blog follower will be quick to realize that this is my first blog post. The reason for that is here in Product Development, we’re BUSY  testing, documenting, benchmarking, researching, and most importantly…brainstorming products! All done in an effort to be sure you get the highest quality products priced competitively.

Now, I’m no stranger to Solid State Drives (SSD). I’ve spent many long hours putting various manufacturers’ drives through their paces and let me assure you, not all SSD’s are created equal. We knew going into this project that only the fastest, longest lasting, and most power efficient SSD could bear the OWC name. After spending months and months testing our new OWC Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD, I am excited to finally say: we have that drive!

Article Continues…

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Category: New @ OWC, Product Spotlight
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Apple Recalls Marketing 101 With iPad Name

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 | Author: OWC Grant

While others here in the halls of OWC and others in the blogosphere grouse about the name iPad for Apple’s new device, it only makes sense to me.

Apple products are as much about the message and the marketing as they are the device. They don’t exclude anyone…from the average user to the ubergeek, there’s something for everyone…features and operations that are easy to use and yet can be expanded upon if one so desires. And I feel a bit qualified to make that statement having been in marketing and at times going head to head with Apple since the very earliest days.

So, how does it make sense? The 3P’s of marketing…and in this instance for Apple…iPod, iPhone, and now iPad.

With that name, they’ve created their own 3P’s to product category killers…and add a family extension of similarity to the entire line. Just like how many of the same features have evolved in the Mac OS.

Come on…iTablet? Did you ever use a tablet of paper? You grabbed a pad of paper.

Perfectly Positioned Product…there’s my 3P’s on the subject.

And I have to say I pretty much told you so in my predictions…for the most part, an iPod Touch…larger screen and a full size QWERTY keyboard. For many Boomers, this is exactly what we’ve been…pardon the pun…looking for since a screen showed up on an iPod.

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Category: Fresh from Apple, Random Thoughts & Topics
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iPad with Steve Sande and John Martellaro – OWC Radio #9

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 | Author: OWC Tim

iPad is the topic for this episode, as host Tim Robertson is joined by Steve Sande, an editor and host of the weekly TUAW TV Live at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, and John Martellaro, senior editor for analysis and reviews at The Mac Observer.

Does the iPad do video out to an HDTV in HD quality? Who is the iPad really for? Does your current iPhone apps work, or do you have to buy again? We look at these and many other questions and try and find the answers.
Plus, did you know that OWC has one of the fastest drives on the market today? Tim talks about the OWC Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD!
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Category: OWC Radio
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iPad Announced by Apple. See the video here.

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Review post to come….  Stay tuned to the OWC Blog.

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Category: Fresh from Apple
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Apple announces the iPad.

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Since at least September (and, really, quite a bit of time before then), rumors and speculation have abounded about Apple’s amazing new tablet device. How big was it going to be? What OS would it run? What price points are we looking at? How would it integrate with our current systems? How many unicorns would it be brought in upon the backs of?

Well, the waiting is over. Today, Apple introduced it’s new product, the unfortunately-named iPad.

We’ll save the pondering of the intangibles for later, once it’s all had some time to sink in. For now, let’s take a look at what is being offered.

  • It’s fairly compact—half an inch thick, 9.56″ tall and 7.47″ wide—and it weighs in at about 1.5 pounds.
  • It sports a 9.7″ backlit LED Multi-touch display that runs at a 1024×768 pixel resolution.
  • The iPad is powered by a 1GHz Apple A4 processor.
  • All iPhone apps will run natively, both in standard size and in full screen via pixel doubling.
  • A version of iWork for the iPad will be available, with many of the features found in the full version.
  • All the “Standard” applications from the iPhone (Safari, Mail, Maps, YouTube, etc.) are updated to work additional features like the new pop-up menus.
  • iBooks is the new feature, with a built-in store, much like the iTMS or the App Store. Books are sent/saved in the EPUB format.
  • Adapters will be available to export 1024×768 resolutions via VGA, or up to 576 and 480p.
  • The battery supports up to 10 hours of Web surfing via Wi-Fi, watching video or listening to music. In standby mode, it’ll be good for up to a month on a full charge.
  • An optional keyboard dock is available, and it will also work with an Apple Wireless keyboard.
  • Apple will also offer a “camera connection kit” which will allow you to plug your camera in via USB or use an SD card to import pictures.
  • WiFi connectivity is available on all models
  • A version with 3G data connectivity will be available, with 2 Data plans via AT&T –  250MB/month for $14.99 or unlimited for $29.99
  • The WiFi-only versions will be available within 60 days. The “WiFi+3G” version will be available in about 90 days.
  • Pricing for the unit itself breaks down as follows:
    16GB 32GB 64GB
    WiFi $499 $599 $699
    WiFi+3G $629 $729 $829

That’s the “hard data” rundown. However, there is a lot more to this device that can’t be broken down into technical specifications. Stay tuned to the OWC Blog for a closer look into the pros and cons of the new iPad.

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Category: Fresh from Apple, Product Spotlight
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