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Spring Cleaning! 3 tips for getting your Mac up to speed
On May 15, 2009 Apple | OS | Tips 0 No Comments
All year long your mac has been collecting bits of everything everywhere. Temp files here and pref files there. Chances are you don’t need the half of them anymore. Here are 3 great ways to speed up your mac!
Free up drive space on your startup disk. OS X uses the free space on your startup disk as virtual memory. So when you pack every last mp3 on that drive there remains no room for the virtual memory, thus performance decreases. As a general rule, it’s best to have 10% of your drive free at its fullest. For freeing up extra space I use Xslimmer and it does a pretty good job of slimming out all the unnecessary bits of code and language in your apps. Depending on the number of apps you have you can save upwards of 15GBs. This slimming of the apps speeds up launch time as well.
- Repair your permissions. You hear this all the time, basically because it does wonders and you should do it! After downloading this and installing that and then deleting that some things get a little bit confused as to how its supposed to exactly function. Repair the permissions basically makes sure that everything is being pointed in the right direction.
- Check you login items. If you have multiple apps launching as you log in you may want to disable a few as they tend to slow the whole launch process a bit. You can view which items launch at login by going to: System Preferences<Accounts<login items Here you can view and enable/disable apps from launching at startup.
Happy computing. (Oh, By the way, did you know I launched a new site? Check it out! alphaapp.com)
Everyone needs a great monitor. Whether it be for video/photo editing, Graphics Design, Movie Watching, or Gaming. All monitors are not created equally. Shopping around and paying a little extra is often worth it in this field. Simply calibrating your monitor can often achieve better looking images and video. But that can only take you so far. If your looking for the best viewing experience possible, you may need a new monitor. Today monitors are advancing by leaps and bounds.
I have rounded up three of the better monitors that come pretty close to giving you what you pay for.
- 2ms Response Time
- 20,000:1 Contrast Ratio
- VGA,DVI, and HDMI inputs
- 160 Degree Viewing angle
- 2ms Response Time
- 50,000:1 Contrast Ratio
- DVI-D and VGA
- 170 Degree Viewing Angle
3.) 23″ HD Apple Cinema Display. – $250
- The Specs of this monitor fail to give it justice. It is said to have some of the most accurate color reproduction to date and is still in high demand. It was released in 2002 and it still goes for over $250
- It features a 1920×1200 Resolution and has a 170 Degree viewing angle.
- Be careful though, it’s ADC (Apple Display Connector) Only. ADC to DVI adapters run around $80
The Hackingtosh G4. -Part 1
On Mar 18, 2009 Apple | Hacks/Mods | Linux/UNIX | OS | Tips 0 No Comments Tags: Mac Pro, OS X, OSx86, TipsThis is a documentation of my project to mod a Powermac G4 into a hackintosh.
Very little effort went into the research of compatibility. I was shopping on a budget and I knew if they didn’t fit I could just get a cheap pc case.
So, $470 dollars later my tigerdirect shopping cart is full of mostly everything I need.
- Thermaltake Pure-Power 430-Watt power supply. – $39.99
- 250GB SATA 3.5″ HDD from Seagate. – $49.99
- 4 Gig of OCZ SLI-Ready PC6400 800MHz DDR2 RAM – $19.99
- Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 wolfdale @2..8GHz and a 1600MHz FSB – $119.99
- LG 22xDVD-R and 16x DL-DVD Burner – $29.99
- Gigabyte EP43-UD3l Motherboard.w/ 1600MHz FSB. – $84.99
- XFX Ultra-Silent GeForce 9400GTw/ 512MB DDR2 RAM – $49.99
- I also got a NetGear WiFi Card and a Wireless Logitech Keyboard/Mouse set- $19.96/$34.99
As of now I have been able to install the new Hard Drive, DVD Burner, and Power Supply into the G4.
Read on for pics,. Read More
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The Week In Review.
On Feb 21, 2009 Apple | Hacks/Mods | Rumor | Tips 0 No Comments Tags: Apple, Mac Mini, MacBook Pro, OS X, Tips
What did Apple do the week of Febuaray 15th – 21st? Read on to get the goods.
Keep your eyes open for my upcoming review of Linux Mint 6 (64bit) on the MacBook Pro as well more Apple tips, rumors, and news!
Interested in what I do when I’m not blogging? Follow me on Twitter to stay up to date. Twitter.com/lwestlie
TweetPower Management Tips for your Portable Mac
On Feb 19, 2009 Apple | Hardware | Tips 1 1 Comment Tags: Macbook, MacBook Pro, Tips
Quick tips for keeping your battery in tip-top shape:
- For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. (This means not leaving it plugged in 100% of the time
- Fully charge and discharge your battery at least once a month.
- Have a spare battery you don’t use to often? Don’t store it with more then a %50 charge. (if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may experience some loss of battery capacity)
- Be sure to store your notebook and battery at the proper temperature (Between 50 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit)
Looking for more info on battery management? Try Apple.com/Batteries
More and more HD displays are making there way into our houses. Today the issue isn’t really the TV, its the source. You all know the TV can only look as good as the content passing through it. A high quality source is required to make any TV shine.
Here are 4 sources for top quality video.
- Physical Media. Nothing can really beat a Blu-ray player and a well mastered Blu-ray title. If you were to try and streaming Blu-ray quality media over the net, everyone would need at least a 27Mbps internet connection. Most of residential America is still limited to 10Mbps. Supposed HD web content usually has an HD resolution but bitrates top out at around 1-2Mbps. If you adverse to the prices of buying, why not give Netflix a try.
- OTA/Cable/Satellite. While the later two can get kid of pricey, if you live in a big city you can usually receive somewhere around 15-30 HD Channels for free. All you need is a digital HD antenna. OTA (Over The Air) quality is usually much great then that of cable and satellite due to the lack of bandwidth restrictions.
Stream media to your PS3,Wii,and 360 from your Mac.
On Jan 30, 2009 Apple | Games | Hardware | Media | Software/Freeware | Tips 2 2 Comments Tags: Apple, OS X, PS3, Software/Freeware, TipsMore then likely either you or someone you know owns one. They are Muti-Media powerhouses. Great user interfaces and
access to the internet make all of them ideal candidates for one thing. Media Streaming. That is, streaming your HD movies, tunes, and pics over your home network to your PS3,Wii, or 360. It may sound daunting, but these 3 little apps make it a breeze!
First up, Sony’s Playstation 3.
MediaLink. Your PlayStation 3 has been craving the media on your Mac. Finally, complete Macintosh and Playstation 3 
integration is upon us. MediaLink can stream Music,Video, and Photos to your Mac. It does so by taking advantage of the UPnP technology of your router.
Enjoying your media through the PlayStation 3 has never been this easy, on any platform — and the Mac isn’t just any platform. Its our favorite platform, so we’ve taken great care to create a seamless solution. MediaLink can stream and copy the following formats to your PS3: MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV-MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4-H.264, DIVX, XVID-AVI, WMV, ASF-JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP-RAW, PDF, PS, EPS, TGA.
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5 Battery saving tips to save you.
On Jan 30, 2009 Apple | Tips 0 No Comments Tags: Macbook, MacBook Pro, TipsMy laptop comes with me everywhere I go. I wake up in the morning, toss my laptop in my bag and head out. Often I don’t get back home for another 5-6 hours. This means I need my battery to last me all day. I do take the charger with, but I often never have time to stop and plug in. Here are five simple tips I follow to make sure my battery lasts me all day.
- WiFi – Don’t get me wrong, I love being connected but it’s not necessary 100% of the time. I
like to blog on the go, but when I write I make sure to switch the WiFi off until I am ready to publish my post. - Screen Brightness – I will admit that a nice bright screen is very fancy, but at times, its just not all that practical. You can skip this if you have the automatically adjust screen brightness checked in system preferences. If you don’t have that checked, you can easily forget that you have your screen blasting as bright as it will go.
- Keyboard Brightness – Handy as it may be, it’s just another drain on your battery. Keep it off unless you need it.