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Tag-Archive for » Macintosh «

iCloud To Be Announced At WWDC

Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

In an Apple Corporate press release dated this morning, in addition to Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” and iOS 5, Apple will be unveiling their new “cloud services” offering, iCloud, at the Worldwide Developer’s Conference keynote next week.

The existence and function of iCloud has been subject to rumor for some time, though it’s generally been accepted that the service will leverage that huge data center Apple has in North Carolina. However, the exact nature of what it will do is still a matter of debate.

Some believe that iCloud will be a replacement for MobileMe, while others think it’ll be an add-on service, focused more on media and “bringing your music with you.” Apple’s acquisition of music-distribution site Lala in 2009 would seem to give at least a little credibility to the latter.

Whatever the exact details are, we’ll find out early next week. That is, of course, unless you happen to work for Apple and want to violate your NDA’s. In that case, post away!

Apple Further Restricts Upgrade Options on New iMacs

Thursday, May 12th, 2011 | Author: OWC Michael

Since Late 2009, there’s been a well-documented issue with the iMac line. If you upgrade the hard drive, the fans can start spinning like crazy. The fans at high speed are loud, mainly unnecessary, and have caused a lot of headaches for DIYers everywhere.

The reason the fans spin this way has to do with the iMac’s method of hard drive temperature sensing. Prior to 2009, sensors were placed outside the hard drive to gauge how warm the drives were – if they got too hot, the fans turned on to keep everything nice and cool. This method was simple, effective and made changing, exchanging, or upgrading the main hard drive a relatively simple task.

With the release of the Article Continues…

Where Do You Get Your Mac News?

Monday, May 9th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

With all the developments, innovations, rumors and controversy that goes on in the Mac Universe, it gets kind of hard to determine the best places to get your information. And since the Mac is more popular than ever, those sources have increased steadily over the years.

So where do you get your Mac News?

  • Business-related blogs like this one?
  • Mac-centric news sites, such as Apple Insider or The Unofficial Apple Weblog?
  • General Tech Industry sites like Ars Technica or Engadget?
  • Industry commentary blogs, such as Daring Fireball?
  • Magazines like Macworld or Mac|Life?
  • Traditional mass media like TV, radio and/or newspapers?
  • “Specialty” sites like Barefeats.com or Anandtech?
  • Something else entirely?

We’d love to see where and how our customers get the word on their (and our) favorite computer platform. It’ll help us get a better idea of what kind of content you’re looking for.

Let us know in the comments below.

Great Deals Pop Up Like May Flowers In This Month’s Garage Sale

Saturday, May 7th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Another month or so has gone by and we’ve got another Garage Sale chock-full of great deals for you. However, there are times to wax poetic about it, and there are times to just proceed on to business. This is the latter, so let’s just get right to it and see what’s available this month.

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Apple turns 35 years old!

Friday, April 1st, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

On April 1, 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne established Apple Computer. What followed was an amazing roller-coaster of an adventure that’s continued on to this day.

While we could go on and on about the history of Apple, it would just be a rehashing of everything that’s pretty much common knowledge, can be found on Wikipedia and/or was dramatized in Pirates of Silicon Valley.

We all know the wide-reaching parts of Apple’s story. But how about you, the readers? When did an Apple product first touch your life? How has the Macintosh affected your career, lifestyle, or way you do things?

We’d love to hear all your stories, just plug them into the comments below. I’ll share my story first, just to get you all started.

And The Mac Pro Upgrade Savings Beat Goes On

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 | Author: OWC Grant

I read a good interview on Cher the other day and when I sat down to write this post, her “Beat Goes On” duet just seemed apropos for this topic.

Now that Apple officially supports 64GB of RAM in the Dual Processor 2010 Mac Pro 8-core and 12-core models, I got to wondering what the cost of that upgrade would be compared to our own 64GB kits.

A 64GB factory RAM upgrade will set you back a cool $3550.

Wanna save up to 48% on that upgrade? Then just buy OWC kits priced from $1819.99.

You don’t have to have a top of the line Mac Pro to enjoy those level of savings.

The single processor Quad-core model maxes out at 32GB at a factory cost of $1775. OWC’s 32GB RAM upgrade for this machine runs $919.99…and savings of 48% again.

And those savings don’t even take into consideration our cash back rebate offer for factory modules!

If I can pound that drumbeat rhythm into any Mac Pro owners consciousness, it’s that you can save big money by upgrading your RAM with OWC.

To see all the upgrades for the 2010 Mac Pro models, just visit this easy to find what you’re looking for page.

Have a 2006-2009 Mac Pro? No worries, we have just what your machine needs to run its best.

And the beat goes on….

How Training & Resources Serve OWC Customers

Friday, March 4th, 2011 | Author: OWC Jessica

As a first time poster,  I would love to share my OWC experience with you and how it makes a difference for you.

You may remember an introduction to OWC’s hybrid representative role from a blog post in June 2010. OWC Tracey explained the extensive training involved in preparing “hybrid” reps with the various skills and knowledge necessary to provide one-call resolution for our customers. I was one of the reps hired at the same time as Tracey and I must completely agree with her conclusion. OWC Hybrid Training offers a way to serve our customers with in-depth knowledge.

And, truthfully, that training never really stops. With over 2,900 products and new products being developed everyday, it really can’t. Fortunately, we have so many resources at hand that we can learn something new every day.

Just a few weeks ago, a customer asked me a very specific question: “How would you describe what your gel case feels like compared to you carbon fiber case for the iPhone 4?” OH NO! I had never actually held either case in my hands. I had read the press releases and even seen the cases in our product training classes, but what on earth do they feel like? I had no idea. Article Continues…

“Secret” Firmware lets Late ’08 MacBooks use 8GB.

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 | Author: OWC Grant and OWC Chris S.

Every once in a while, a blip on the radar comes up, letting us know that there’s something not quite right in our little corner of the Mac Universe. This time around, it came in the form of Tweets directed to us, as well as in posting in popular Mac forums.

As it turns out, several other memory vendors—along with some Late 08 MacBook/MacBook Pro users—have laid claim to these machines working with 8GB of RAM. This was contradictory to our testing in December 2009 which quite clearly showed that while these models recognized a full 8GB, if an application addressed more than 6GB, the system would slow down significantly.

Not being the type to just let these sorts of claims to go unchallenged, we went back to our testing lab, grabbed the affected model machines, running 10.6.6. and dropped an 8GB upgrade kit in them.

The results were exactly the same as in 2009, lending credence to our conclusions, but the sheer number of claims to the contrary led us to continue searching—and the trail ended at Apple.

In late 2009, an EFI Firmware Update was released to address the buzzing noises coming from the optical drive. However, it seems that somewhere along the line, Apple changed this update without notating it anywhere.

Whether any other elements were affected by this change is undetermined, but it did change memory addressing; with the later version of the update installed, you could address a full 8GB in Snow Leopard. Unfortunately, Software Update doesn’t show this version as being different from the previous one, so users wouldn’t be notified if they had already updated their firmware to the older version.

The practical upshot of all this is that if you installed the EFI Update when it first came out, like we did, you would have gotten the old code, which meant your computer would only address 6GB properly. Those who didn’t upgrade until after Apple changed the updater got the newer firmware, which allowed proper addressing of 8GB.

Once we manually installed the “updated” version of the EFI Firmware in our test machines, they were able to address 8GB normally, without any crashing or slowdowns.

How do you ensure your Late ‘08 MacBook/MacBook Pro can address 8GB of RAM?

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