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Updating to Lion? Make Sure Your Apps are Ready.

Thursday, July 7th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Just a quick reminder: when OS X 10.7 is released later this month, there will be no support for PowerPC applications running under Rosetta. As we’ve known for several months now, Apple has pulled support for the PPC emulation in its latest OS, so users who are using older software reliant on this technology will find that it won’t work after upgrading.

For quite some time now, Apple has been telling developers that they’d better switch over to Intel code; Power PC support (Rosetta) wasn’t going to be around forever. Apple made Snow Leopard Intel-only, but Rosetta was available as a custom-install. By that point, devs should have converted to Intel if they hadn’t already. Now, Rosetta is gone and end users need to make the choice whether to stick with the OS version and computers they have so they can run the software, or upgrading their systems and switching to another program. Article Continues…

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Category: Tech Tips
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10.6.8: The Little Update That Didn’t

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Apple released the OS X 10.6.8 update last week. According to the Knowledge Base article on this update:

The 10.6.8 update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:

  • Enhance the Mac App Store to get your Mac ready to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion
  • Resolve an issue that may cause Preview to unexpectedly quit
  • Improve support for IPv6
  • Improve VPN reliability
  • Identify and remove known variants of Mac Defender

According to a post on MacRumors, there are a couple of other additions, as well. First is the enabling of TRIM support for Apple-branded SSDs. The other unannounced addition seems to be a boost in graphics performance nearly across the board.

While it’s great to see that Apple is moving towards the future with many aspects of its OS, there are several items they have not addressed yet, specifically on the 2011 MacBook Pros. Article Continues…

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Category: Fresh from Apple, Tech Tips
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Firmware Update Enables 6Gb/s in 2011 iMacs.

Thursday, May 5th, 2011 | Author: OWC NewsFeed

Well… that was quick! Just two days after they were released, the 2011 iMacs have a firmware update.

While iMac EFI Update 1.6 is described as including “fixes that improve performance and stability for Thunderbolt,” it would also seem that an unadvertised benefit is that it also unlocks the full 6Gb/s, SATA 3.0 capabilities of two of the internal drive bays.

Unfortunately, the optical bay remains at 3Gb/s.

We’ll be doing some testing and posting some numbers to show the speed differences, and posting them as soon as we get them, so hang tight.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, it appears there’s also an update for the 2011 MacBook Pros, which includes “fixes that resolve an issue with Turbo Mode in Boot Camp, and improve performance and stability for graphics and Thunderbolt.” No word on if it addresses any issues with 6Gb/s SATA in the main hard drive bays of the 17” model.

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Category: Fresh from Apple, Tech Tips
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10.6.7 Font Problem Follow-Up

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

You may recall a few weeks ago when we reported a widespread problem in Mac OS X 10.6.7, where documents with OpenType fonts in them did not print or view correctly. At the time, our recommendation was to roll back to 10.6.6 and wait for a fix. Unfortunately for some, this may have caused problems with other OS patches, resulting in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.

Late yesterday, Apple released a patch to 10.6.7 to address this problem. According to the update’s release notes:

The Snow Leopard Font Update addresses issues displaying and printing certain OpenType fonts and is recommended for all Mac OS X v10.6.7 users.

If you’re running 10.6.7, you can get the patch via Software Update or download it from Apple’s support site.

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Category: Fresh from Apple, Tech Tips
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10.6.7 and Open Type Fonts – A Dangerous Combination

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

“What do you get when you cross a font geek and the latest Snow Leopard update?” It sounds like the beginning of a really lame joke, but it’s exactly what some of us went through last week after applying the 10.6.7 Software Update.

Apple’s forums are filled with threads like this one about people having problems with various applications, most notably Adobe apps and PDF production, though it was noted to pop up in other places as well. It seems that it’s somehow tied to OpenType fonts and Apple’s implementation of the PostScript rendering engine.

With my affinity for type, it was surprising that I didn’t notice this right away. It was even more surprising how I came across the error. Apparently, font rendering in Motion (and, by extension, Final Cut Pro) is handled in a similar way as printing, so as I was rendering out one of our instructional videos, the text fields came out with missing letters.

After some reading about other people’s problems, I conducted a few very informal tests and came to the conclusion that the problem had to be in Apple’s rendering engines; non-Apple apps I tried had no problems printing. However, as the font we use in our videos is an OpenType font, and we use Final Cut (an Apple application) for editing/rendering, we still needed a solution. Unfortunately, the only effective solution we could find was to go back to 10.6.6. Article Continues…

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Category: Tech Tips
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Keep your Mac up-to-date with AppFresh

Friday, March 11th, 2011 | Author: OWC Brian

If you’re anything like me, you like to try and keep all of your Mac’s software up-to-date. Until recently, your only options were Software Update and following software sites like MacUpdate. The newly created App Store has certainly made this easier but, like with Software Update, you’re limited to software available in the App Store or written by Apple.

About a year ago, I found an application called AppFresh that allows you to update any application installed on your Mac. After using AppFresh for the last year, I don’t know how I ever lived without it. AppFresh is still in development preview release, but don’t let that hold you back. I have yet to experience any bugs in my year of using the app.

AppFresh helps you to keep all applications, widgets, preference panes, and application plugins installed on your Mac up to date, all from one place, easy to use, and fully integrated into Mac OS X. AppFresh works by checking the excellent iusethis.com for new versions and lets you download and install available updates easily.

Setup is fairly simple. Once you have installed AppFresh, it will scan for available updates using iusethis.com. After the scan is complete, you will see a list of available updates. Highlight the ones you want and select “Install” from the drop down menu. Most updates are automatically installed, however, some require that you run the installer once it has downloaded.

A nice feature built into this application is the ability to customize what is updated. This includes options for always ignoring certain applications from updating, only free updates or to skip a version.

If you’re someone who likes to have all the latest updates and wants save time searching for them, then AppFresh is for you.

OWC has no affiliation with this software and receives no benefit related to this support (other than a benefit we all share in the continued support of these applications). If you appreciate the function or functionality this software offers, we encourage you to support the authors.
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Category: App Review, Tech Tips
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Apple Announces iPad 2, iOS 4.3 and some new Apps.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Well, Apple’s big iPad event was today, and tech blogs across the Internet are abuzz with the new unveilings. Knowing how much our readership is involved in anything Apple, we’re no different. Apple events usually have a large amount of surprise to them, even if the basic framework has been in the public consciousness for a while now. This time around, though the biggest surprise of the day came right at the beginning of the presentation, when Steve Jobs himself walked out onto stage despite his being on medical leave.

As expected, the first half of the presentation was a run down of the different aspects how great and successful the iPad has been since its launch, sales numbers from iBooks, of iPhones, and of iPads, then a short movie. There really wasn’t anything new, mostly iPads used in all sorts of places and all sorts of ways. In short, it was an iPad love-fest akin to pretty much anything OWC Mike H. says during your average episode of OWC Radio. (Sorry, Mike, had to say it…)

iPad 2

Finally, though, they got past the hype and delved into the new hardware we were all expecting. As someone who’s been somewhat cynical of the whole “OMG! It’s an Apple tablet!” mindset that seems to surround the iPad, even I find the specs on the iPad 2 to be pretty nice. Article Continues…

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Category: Fresh from Apple
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App Review: Mac App Store

Thursday, January 6th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S., OWC Michael, and OWC Mike H.

Apple’s Mac App Store went live today. Introduced in October as part of the upcoming OS X 10.7 Lion, it was also announced to be offered as part of 10.6 Snow Leopard. Effectively, the Mac App Store allows you to buy and install applications on your Mac much in the same way that you do for your iOS device(s).

In order to use it, you will need to make sure you’ve updated your computer to OS X 10.6.6. Select “Software Update…” from the Apple menu to both upgrade OS X and install the App Store. You will be prompted to restart.

Once your computer has restarted, Select “App Store…” from the Apple Menu. However, don’t buy anything yet; restart your computer first—there have been reports of a glitch in connecting to Apple that can be remedied by doing this.

Once your computer restarts, relaunch the App Store and log in using your Apple ID (or get one if you don’t have one). Now you can find a piece of software you’d like to purchase and install. Simply click the price and the App Store will deduct the price from your iTunes account (or ask for a credit card if there are insufficient funds), then download and install the software on your Mac.

Though we plan on covering this a little more intensely in the next episode of OWC Radio, here’s a quick preview of some of our first impressions… Article Continues…

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Category: App Review
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