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.

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…

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.

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.

Sometimes even the best educated guesses can be thrown for a loop when an unforeseen “X-Factor” comes into play. Such is the case with the Late 2009 iMacs.

As we were getting information together for the new iMac instructional videos, we came across a little tidbit that, apparently, hasn’t been covered anywhere else: Apple has switched the iMac’s method of hard drive temperature sensing. They’ve gone from an external sensor that attached to the outside surface of the drive to a connector that seems to use the drive’s internal sensors. more…

About a year ago, OWC CEO Larry O’Connor revisited a recurring topic in his Tips n’ Deals Newsletter and OWC Chris covered that in a post on how the Rules of Upgrading rarely change.

Both of them explored five different ways you can upgrade your Mac to extend its useful life. Since some time has transpired, some new machines were released by Apple, and Snow Leopard has now become a reality, it’s time we take a fresh look at some “old” rules of upgrading:

#1 – Upgrade Your Memory
I think we’ve lost count of how many times we’ve talked about how upgrading your memory gives you the best performance boost for the investment. Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 is a 64-bit (along with its applications) which allows each application to address more than 4GB of RAM at a time. OSX’s memory management now is a lot more flexible in keeping its cached instructions, lessening the need for a hard drive hit.

The bottom line is simple: Your OS and Applications can certainly run on the minimum memory, but having more memory installed makes for a whole lot more enjoyable and productive experience, all for a low investment. With upgrades ranging from $44.97 for a 2GB module for a MacBook, through 16GB of RAM for an iMac, up to a full 32GB of memory priced at $27.25 per GB to max out your Mac Pro, a memory upgrade is dollar-for-dollar the best investment you can make for your Mac.

You can find memory (and other upgrades) for nearly every Mac produced over the past two decades with our easy online upgrade guide. In addition to the instructions you’ll find in just about any Apple computer manual, we’ve got easy-to-follow free installation videos that further illustrate how easy it is for you to get that memory into your Mac. And if you need further help, it is just a click a way in our online tech center.

#2 – Upgrade Your Storage.
The big news for 2009 was the rapid pace of developments in storage capacity, speed, and overall performance. Now we’re talking up to 2.0TB for 3.5″ drives, up to 1.0TB for 2.5″ drives, and SSDs have truly emerged as a legitimate consideration. Since we promised SSD benchmarks in our last coverage of this upgrade, we’re going to focus on them here. I did a comparison of how SSDs measured up to hard drives and SSDs were the speed, reliability, and quiet running champs. Just how much faster are SSDs? Check it out: more…

As mentioned in one of my blog posts last Friday, we’ve been busy testing the limits of the 2009 Mac mini models.  In late August, Apple released Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2 which improves compatibility with the latest Apple memory kits on Mac mini computers.

It did a little more than that though.  It improved compatibility of OWC brand memory as well.  As all of our memory meets or exceeds Apple’s requirements for RAM, it’s no surprise that, yet again, OWC can support memory expansion beyond the maximum installed amount suggested by Apple.

We have fully tested all 2009 release date Mac mini computers with both Leopard and Snow Leopard and found no issues regarding which OS was used for testing a full 8.0GB of RAM installed.  Under both operating systems, the memory was fully utilized and no system detriment in speed was observed.

Keep in mind, this information is for Mac mini model identifier macmini3,1.  Intel Mac mini machines released prior to 2009 (macmini1,1 or macmini2,1) have hardware limitations that only allow those machines to max out RAM at 2.0GB and 3.0GB respectively.

Want to take your mini to the maximum? OWC has the Mac mini upgrades you need to make your machine screaming fast.

I really couldn’t wait on this… this news is just too juicy to bottle up for the whole weekend.

While we’re not completely finished with our compatibility testing, early signs are pointing to 8GB of memory supported in not only the new October 2009 Mac mini models, but prior generation mini models as well.  We believe we found the “secret ingredient” that makes exceeding Apple’s recommended 4GB maximum in these machines possible.

Previous testing revealed prior generations of the Mac mini were able to boot with 8GB of memory, but sadly either did not utilize the extra memory installed or – even worse – made the entire machine slower when accessing more than 4GB of memory at a time.  In Late August, Apple released Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2 and this allowed these generations to boot without kernel panic. However, we still found that most systems slowed to a crawl when exceeding 4GB of memory in the system.

So far, here’s what we recently found though: our OWC 8GB Upgrade Kit works in the latest Mac mini 2.26 and 2.53 machines and are consistently and completely utilized by the machines.  We then tested these same modules on the prior generation Mac mini (early 2009)… and found them to work consistently as well! All units tested were running Snow Leopard.

We do have more testing to do using the same memory modules with prior Mac mini generation models running OS X 10.5. We also need to do performance tests to make sure that the additional memory actually gives a solid performance boost when more than 4GB is installed. But at this point, we’re feeling pretty confident that our “secret ingredient”…namely the quality of OWC brand memory… delivers the reliability you desire.

Be sure to check back Monday as we’re hoping to complete our testing at that time and be able to confirm that we will support over 4GB of memory in the Mac mini, or if my excitement got the better of me.

If you remember the old Kojack TV show…the phrase “who loves ya” baby came to mind thinking about some features on and upgrades for the new iMacs released today.

A feature long requested for iMacs – the ability to use your desktop computer as a secondary display for your laptop – is finally a reality!

From the iMac Features section on the Apple website:

Mini DisplayPort.
The Mini DisplayPort lets you connect an external display, including the Apple LED Cinema Display, to your iMac. On the 27-inch iMac, the same port offers input, too. So you can connect any external source that has DisplayPort output — including a MacBook or MacBook Pro — and use your iMac as a display.

This means if you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro for mobile computing, you don’t need to invest in/provide the room for a secondary display…just connect to your iMac when you get back to the desktop.

Now that you know what really got our motors revving here on these new “smoking machines” as OWC Jamie called them, I can tell you how to really make them scream with these OWC upgrades.

MEMORY

According to Apple’s Tech Specs page, all the new iMac models come with 4GB (2 x 2GB) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM and can support up to 16GB via four memory slots.

If you want to bump that to 8GB (4 x 2GB) via Apple, that will set you back $200.00. The OWC 4GB Upgrade Kit (2 x 2GB) can be added to the factory stock 4GB for a total of 8GB…but at a substantial lower cost of $87.99.

We’ve got more options too…the OWC 8GB Upgrade Kit (2 x 4GB) adds 8GB to the factory stock 4GB for 12GB total memory for $475.99.

That same 8GB (2 x 4GB) upgrade for the 27 inch models from the factory is $600…

While the factory doesn’t offer the ultimate memory configuration of 16GB for the 21 inch iMac models, we do (who loves ‘ya baby?) and at savings over what’s offered for the 27 inch models. You can put two of the OWC 8GB Upgrade Kits into any of the iMacs for 16GB total at a cost of $952 versus $1,400 for the same 16GB offered by the factory for the 27 inch models only.

And like all our memory upgrades, we give you up to $45 cash back for your iMac’s factory memory modules!

STORAGE

The base 21.5 inch model comes with a 500GB hard drive while the other 21.5 and both 27 inch models come with a 1TB hard drive. The only option offered by the factory is a 2TB for $250.00. Taking a quick look at our current iMac upgrade page, one can find a 1.5TB drive for $129.99 and a 2TB for $239.99.

With all the options and savings we offer for the new iMacs, I’m thinking we should do a commercial with as equally a memorable ending as these Chicago area favorites.

While I share OWC Larry’s disappointment in the mini not getting a built in memory expansion boost, there still is a silver lining here. I’ll be taking a closer look at the new Mac models and showing you where you can upgrade and/or get more for your technology budget with comparable high performance upgrades/accessories from OWC.

I’ll start off with the $599.00 2.26GHz mini because I’m a value hound. It comes stock with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB 5400 RPM hard drive. OWC offers the following money saving upgrades to get the max from your mini:

4GB OWC Memory Upgrade Kit (2 x 2GB) is $87.99 versus Apple at $100.00.

You can store more for less too! A 320GB 5400 RPM hard drive starts at $65.99 versus Apple at $100 while a 500GB 5400RPM hard drive starts at $92.99 versus Apple at $200. Man, other than the faster processor, you could match the memory and HD specs of the $799.00 2.53GHz model and save $46.02.

One more thing caught my eye on the Configure your Mac mini page…the Mini DisplayPort Adapters. And once again, OWC has the options you need.

Our Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter is priced at $19.99 versus Apple’s at $29.99 while our MiniDisplay Port to VGA Adapter is $24.99 versus Apple at $29.00.

And if you’re digging the new dual 500GB hard drive Mac mini Server model, but are looking for more options to the factory external storage and SuperDrive offerings, we got ‘em!

While the External MacBook Air SuperDrive is USB bus powered, it is $99 and burns rather slowly: up to 8X DVD, 4X DVD Dual Layer, and 24X CD-R.

It’s almost not fair to compare that to the  OWC “Value Line” USB2.0/1.1 SuperDrive with up to 22X DVD, 12X DVD Dual Layer, and 40X CD-R burn speeds at just $64.99

And last but not least…that SmartStor 4 x 1TB FW800/FW400/USB external storage solution for $799 doesn’t seem like quite the smart buy when you could have the 4TB OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 for $699 and get a “Quad Interface” of FW800/FW400/USB and eSATA!

So there you have it…a pretty thorough examination of how you can max your mini with OWC. Revisit the blog to see my takes on the iMac and white MacBook models and how you can get the most from them too.

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

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

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

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!

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.

Let’s face it, the main reason for the ubiquity of Windows in the workplace is not due to any superior user interface or stability, it’s due to the cheap initial cost. It costs less to purchase a generic Windows box than it does to buy a Mac. A large  part of that has to do with the fact there are hundreds of manufacturers churning out legit PC clones, but only one company makes legitimate Macs – Apple.

And so, the inevitable discussion takes place about whether or not Apple should license out its OS for use with clones. We’re not going to go into that here, but; a quick Google search should turn up plenty of examples.

The concept of Mac clones is not without precedent. There were several Mac clones in the mid-to-late 90’s made by manufacturers such as Motorola, Radius, and Power Computing. This licensing program was discontinued soon after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1998. Right now, there are no official Mac clones – if you want to use Mac OS X, you have to do it on an Apple-manufactured Mac.

There are, of course, those who are working on ways of running OS X on non-Apple hardware. The OSx86 project is one such group. Those running OS X on their Dell Mini 9 netbooks are another subset. Then, there are those who take this one step further and offer systems for sale, advertised as capable of running (or even installed with) Mac OS X, often at prices substantially lower than Apple’s.

Unfortunately, all of those items are technically against the End User License Agreement (EULA), also known as that large block of text you blindly agree to as you’re installing the OS. According to Section 2, Subsection A of the Software License Agreement for Mac OS X:

This License allows you to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time.

The key point here is this line “You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-labeled computer, or to enable others to do so.” Effectively, it says that if you are running OS X on anything other than Apple hardware, you are in violation of the EULA. Would-be clone manufacturers might want to circle, highlight, and underline the second part of that sentence.

There are also provisions regarding the copying of Boot ROM, firmware, and other code not normally copied by a backup. This is also where “Hackintosh” manufacturers run into trouble.

The end result is that unauthorized Mac clone manufacturers (and, at this point, that’s all they are) find themselves square in the sights of Apple’s Legal Department, and that’s probably not a good place to be.

That’s why you won’t be seeing any of these “Hackintoshes” for sale by OWC, at least until there’s a legitimate option. As OWC Larry succinctly put it in a recent MacResource Forum posting, “[it would] Be great if Apple opened this stuff up. But as it stands… well, we’re listing memory for ’select’ PCs now and may even sell some ’select’ PCs very soon… but no way are we going to cross the line and put us into Apple’s sights on something that’s going to last as long as one can delay in court an inevitable end.”

Due to a recent transfer of old files at home, I came across an old email from my days in radio. One of the producers at the radio station I had been interning at had a problem. All the production studio computers were Macs, but he needed something to play on a Windows machine. He’d followed the instructions I’d laid out for him several months prior, but claimed that it completely refused to work on that Windows box. I had him send me the file, and once I received it, I didn’t even need to open the file to know what the problem was.

Like many Mac users, he hadn’t really given thought to the file extension, those sometimes cryptic letter combinations preceded by a dot at the end of most file names. While these file names are often invisible, and sometimes optional, under OS X, they are a necessity when  trying to open them under Windows.
If you’re going to be sharing your files with a Windows or Linux user (and if you’re on the Internet, you likely will – in one form or another) here are couple things you can do to make sure your shared documents are readable.

First, make sure your file extensions are all visible. You can do this by going to Finder > Preferences, clicking the “Advanced” tab and making sure “Show all file extensions” is checked.

Second, when sending the files, make sure they’re ones the recipient can view. Plain text (.txt) and Rich Format text (.rtf) are fairly easy to read, as are most Microsoft Office documents (.doc, .xls, .ppt), though you want to make sure to use common fonts for the documents, so they lay out right. TextEdit allows you to both read and write plain text, rich text, and Word-compatible documents, at least on a basic level. Apple’s iWork suite can open and save to their Office counterparts but, again, the transfer is not quite perfect. The same goes for the open source Open Office suite. If you find yourself doing a lot of transfer of Office documents, your best bet will be to bite the bullet and purchase Office for Mac. This will solve much of the document transfer problem.

Graphic-wise, common file formats seen on the Web (such as .gif, .jpg and .png) and in printing (such as .eps, .tiff and .pdf) should have no problems transferring. Files from specific programs (such as most Adobe applications) often work just fine with the Windows version as well, so if your recipient has Photoshop, then sending a .psd should give you no trouble.

Music and video is considerably much more tricky. If the recipient’s computer has Quicktime for Windows installed, then anything that plays on your Mac should play for them. If they don’t, then you’ll want to use something fairly common, like .mp3 files for audio and .mp4 for videos. QuickTime Pro can perform conversions to both these types.

Even if all you use are Macs, its not a bad idea to get in the habit of using Windows naming conventions. After all, you never know when you’re going to need it.

Its been a while, but we’ve got another video ready to go for you. This time around, we’re taking a look at one of our most common questions: how to remove the front bezel from a 5.25” optical drive.

Why would you need to do this? It turns out that on every tray-loading desktop Mac since the QuickSilver, the opening for the drive tray is extremely narrow. Installing a new drive right out of the box will result in the tray being unable to eject, due to this narrow opening. Fortunately, the solution for all these Mac models is the same. Removing the plastic bezel on the front of the drive narrows the front of the tray enough for it to fit though the opening.

The process is simple enough. Manually eject the drive tray. Push gently to detach the two tabs on the underside of the drive tray. Slide the bezel off. Close the tray. Sometimes, though, its easier to just see it being done, and so we have this latest video.

As usual, you can find the video both in our Tech Center, and on our YouTube channel.

Apple announced and released a bevy of upgrades to the Macintosh family this week. Mac Pros, iMacs and Mac minis all got upgrades of one form or another. As always, OWC is on top of the game, with a slew of compatible upgrades for all the bumped-up models.

Of course, we’re not just going to sell you the upgrades without showing you how to install them. Installation videos for all the new Macs are in the works, and will be released over the next few weeks.

Keep an eye on our Installation Video page or our YouTube channel to see when we come out with the video for upgrading your new Mac.