Ah, the joys of owning a new camera. Tim Robertson talks about his new Sony DSLR 300K, iTunes $10,000 gift cards, Plants vs. Zombies, Mac and iPhone gaming, and much more.
Archive for » February, 2010 «
$10,000 Gift Card, Zombies, & Slow Cars – OWC Radio #16
Friday, February 26th, 2010 | Author: OWC Tim
Category: OWC Radio
A chicken in every pot, a Mac in every kitchen
Thursday, February 25th, 2010 | Author: OWC Alan
I love to cook. I do 85% of the cooking in our house and create, test, alter and enjoy all types of recipes. My cabinet is full of cookbooks and three binders full of recipes I have printed out, torn from magazines or handwritten in the hopes of trying one day. It was a fine system, or so I thought.
One day, my wife was looking through a magazine and came across an advertisement for a program that creates a recipe database. Ever the organizer, she recommended I check it out to tame the madness that is my recipe cabinet. I did, but found it was only for PC’s. I thought, “There has to be something like this for Mac, right?”
I was not disappointed. Turns out there are several Mac-compatible programs out there. I downloaded a demo of MacGourmet onto my MacBook Pro, tried it for a few days and—wow! It wasn’t long before I purchased the software (a mere $25) and was adding, searching and importing recipes.
My first order of business has been to enter all the handwritten, faded, food-stained recipes I have stored in my binders. These are the recipes passed on from relatives that are irreplaceable, at least to a foodie like me.
A great feature of the software is the “Chef View,” an enlarged window with black and white text of the recipe in a large enough font that even my 75 yr old aunt Lois can read (she makes a darn good chicken parmesan). I take my MacBook Pro into the kitchen, open the recipe software and start cooking without the worry of spilling on my cookbook or measuring incorrectly because I can’t read the smudged type of a recipe I printed out years ago.
My Mac is not only a vehicle for audio entertainment, games, e-mail and web surfing. It is now an integral part of my family’s meals. All I have to do is back-up my laptop’s hard drive on my Mercury Elite-AL external hard drive (plus a quarterly back up to another drive I keep off site, just in case) and I no longer fear losing all the hard work and recipes I’ve collected. Article Continues…
iTunes Store Approaching 10 Billion Downloads!
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 | Author: OWC Michael
Apple has had some impressive milestones when it comes to their iTunes Store:
100 million songs sold: Summer, 2004
250 million songs sold: January 24, 2005
1 billion songs sold: February 23, 2006
5 billion songs sold: June 19, 2008
10 billion songs sold: Fast approaching!
Apple has started a countdown to the 10 billionth song downloaded and that lucky downloader could win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card! At the current rate of download it looks like that milestone could very well be crossed this afternoon or tonight!
If you’ve been putting off your purchase, this may be a perfect time to get that new song or album!
For official rules and to watch the countdown in action visit http://www.apple.com/itunes/10-billion-song-countdown/
Category: Fresh from Apple, Random Thoughts & Topics
OWC’s Laura Park & the Mac News – OWC Radio #15
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | Author: OWC Tim
Is Adobe coming out with CS5 already? What $25 Million will get you. Are the Apple Police out in full force? Is the new Apple remote worth picking up? Many questions, and an interview with OWC’s Laura Park on this episode.
Links from the show
Did a Pennsylvania school district use iSight to iSpy?
Ngmoco Buys Freeverse
Should Apple Police the App Store for Sleaze?
Adobe CS5 in April, 2010?
Transfer LP records to your computer
Category: OWC Radio
iChat: The Little Application with Super Powers
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | Author: OWC Tim
One of the hidden gems on every Mac sold over the last half-decade is iChat. Many people think of iChat as Audio / Text / Video chat only. And while iChat does all three of those things very well, there is a less documented feature of iChat that should put it at the top of your list of tools for helping other Mac users.
If you are anything at all like me, you are the person who everyone comes to when they have a Mac problem or question. Friends, family, and sometimes total strangers (referrals from one of the two groups above) will telephone or email me when a problem comes up that they cannot seem to find an answer for. While I am always happy to help anyway I can, it’s not always feasible to drop whatever I am doing to drive to their house, or spend three hours on the telephone walking them through the process. Does “Okay, what do you see on your screen right now?” sound familiar to you? Yeah, been there, done that.
iChat, in many of these situations, acts like a superhero. The feature is called Screen Share, and while there are multiple applications and services that allow you to share screens with other users, iChat is unique in that it is standard on any Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) and has no hidden cost associated with using it.
You can use iChat with your MobileMe account, but a free alternative is to sign up for America Online’s AIM service, and use your AIM account with iChat.
More hullaballoo about Hulu
Monday, February 22nd, 2010 | Author: OWC Dennis
Okay, okay, I’ll admit it—I’m a television (and old movie) junkie. I’ll watch re-runs of CSI-NY, CSI-Miami, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and if they come up with one, I’d probably watch CSI-Keokuk, Iowa. But I really love watching re-runs of older shows that they aren’t running even on cable anymore – shows like Hill Street Blues, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Pretender, Murder One, The Commish, St. Elsewhere, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (my own personal favorite).
Fortunately, there’s a repository of many of our favorite television shows available online: Hulu. With Hulu, you can watch all of the shows mentioned above, and much more. If you can stand it, you can even watch back-to-back Mary Tyler Moore, Rhoda, and Lou Grant episodes. If you’re not from that era, you can also watch more recent shows like Lost, Desperate Housewives, Family Guy, House, The Simpsons, and The Office. The selection of old movies is pretty sketchy so far, but there’s a few old chestnuts – like the classic Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce series of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes movies from the early 1940s – to while away an evening.
Category: Random Thoughts & Topics
Service Never Sleeps – Part Two
Friday, February 19th, 2010 | Author: OWC Grant
One can talk about servant leadership…but as the saying goes, actions speak…and well you know the rest. And if you’re a regular reader, you likely know we’ve gone to 24/7 live support via OWC Stephen’s Service Never Sleeps post in early January.
What you might not be aware of…and may perhaps never need but always good to know…is that we have a Priority Expedited shipping option.
The link above can give you all the details…but how better to understand the simple value of this than a real life, minute by minute example?
A customer ordered a hard drive online after 10PM CT last night. The order was verified, processed, and readied for shipping at 10:38PM. The package was then couriered by unsung hero OWC Joe to Rockford Airport by 12:00 midnight where it flew air courier and delivered to Plano Texas at 9:38AM today.
Now, we don’t pry as to why someone would want a hard drive that immediately…maybe it was for some big presentation and the person needed the capacity and the drive loaded and ready to go early in the morning. Most retail outlets don’t open until 10AM…and they certainly don’t have a late night drive thru window.
So if you ever find yourself in a situation where you need something first thing in the morning, you can rest comfortably knowing the OWC team is willing to put off their own rest to make you sleep easier.
Category: OWC Difference
$.59 or 200 Reasons You Should Get OWC’s Newsletter
Thursday, February 18th, 2010 | Author: OWC Grant
The “world” here spins pretty fast so I learned in my earliest days to sign up for OWC Larry’s email-based newsletters and hot deals blasts. It’s a great way to get his perspective on industry developments as well as when there’s a great deal to be had on an item. Hey, I dig gadgets and deals with the best of ‘em. And with an inventory of over 2,600 products, there’s likely something interesting Larry has hand selected to be featured each month. Kinda like that old TV commecial from E.F. Hutton…when Larry talks or acts, one should listen.
I look forward to this treasure hunt of fun to see what he has selected. Case in point was the deals blast sent out last night. iPod cases for as low as $.59? Hard drive enclosure kits from $19? And over 200 items still on special pricing from our appearance at Macworld Expo 2010? Man, these deals are so crazy I’m thinking OWC Tim and I are going to do some very entertaining videos for OWC TV soon. One idea would be “how much tech can $20 buy you?” and then amaze you with a pile of useful items that let you get more from your Mac or idevice.
So you don’t miss out any longer, just sign up today…it’s free and you can unsubscribe at any time.
