mac diddy

Remember a couple of weeks ago when Apple said they were “surprised” to find that the formula they used to calculate reception bars was faulty and “in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength”? While I remain skeptical that this was truly a surprise to Apple, it appears that they’ve adjusted their formula with the new iOS 4.0.1 update.

I haven’t lost any bars yet, but apparently I live on top of a cell tower. What I did notice is that Apple’s signal bars have become taller. So while you may soon get hit with the reality that your three bars are really one bar, you can at least take comfort in the fact that it’s represented by a taller bar.

In semi-related news, Apple will be holding a press conference tomorrow, most likely about the iPhone 4’s antenna woes. Could this be related to a report from TheStreet that the problem is related to an internal insulator and an internal “bumper” fix may be coming? It’s an enticing thought for those of us who love our iPhone 4s, but fear the consequences of touching them inappropriately.

Bouncing a message is a tricksy little feature in Mail that not a lot of people seem to know about. Usually when a message is “bounced”, it means that it was sent to a bad email address. For example, if you were to send a message to lothar@macdiddy.com, you’d receive a message in return that looks like this:

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at p3plsmtpa01-08.prod.phx3. secureserver.net. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.

:
216.69.186.201 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected lothar@macdiddy.com
Giving up on 216.69.186.201.

However, Mail also lets us bounce a message when we want it to appear that the address was entered incorrectly, which can be useful in trying to throw off a spammer, a stalker, or a Nigerian prince. Simply highlight the message you want to bounce in the message list and right-click it to choose Bounce on the little pop-up menu. Or if you prefer, you can select the message and then go to the Message menu and choose Boulder. Keyboard shortcut: Command-Shift-B.

Unfortunately, spammers usually don’t give their real return addresses, so bouncing doesn’t always work with them, but keep this trick in your arsenal and it will surely come in handy on occasion.

Almost two years ago when I got my first iPhone (a 16GB iPhone 3G), my iPhone became my iPod. All of a sudden I had my favorite tunes with me everywhere I went and there was much rejoicing. The only problem: my 40GB music library wasn’t going to fit on my 16GB iPod. Even less would fit as I eventually would put 2.5GB of apps on there, along with photos, video, etc.

So I prioritized. Rather than synching my library wholesale, I made playlists of my favorite stuff and synched only those to the iPhone. This worked out pretty well for a while, but it wasn’t too long before I had well under a gigabyte of free space and needed to start juggling tunes and apps.

Well iTunes version 9.1 has finally delivered a very simple way to improve the situation: a little checkbox in your iPhone Options box that says “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC”. iPod Shuffle users have long had access to this option, but it wasn’t until iTunes 9.1 was released on March 31st that all iPod/iPhone users could do the same.

It so happens that a large portion of my music was originally ripped at a higher bitrate, along with all of the iTunes Plus purchases, which are 256 kbps by default. Higher bit rate = somewhat better sound = significantly bigger files. Well when you check this magical little box, iTunes will automatically re-rip your higher bit rate tunes at 128 kbps, freeing up (in my case) gobs of space, while leaving your iTunes library itself untouched.

But won’t my music sound worse if I do this? Technically, yes. Barely. The strength of the iPhone/iPod is in interface, simplicity, and portability; it’s not an audiophile’s device. Chances are the device’s DA converter, headphones preamplifier, and the headphones you use are already enough of a limiting factor for sound quality that you won’t miss the higher bit rate on most of your tunes. Most pop/rock music is already so compressed in the studio that compressing the bit rate further won’t matter much.

The bottom line is that if you use really good headphones and listen to lots of classical music, you might skip this step, but for most people the space gained far exceeds any diminishing in sound quality. I got 2.5GB freed up. Your mileage may vary.

Big news for Mac users who like to game and gamers who like to Mac: Valve Software’s game platform Steam has gone live for Mac users. But perhaps the biggest news is that until May 24th, Portal is a free download for Steam users. Originally released as part of Valve’s excellent Orange Box, Portal made waves in the game industry for its innovative first-person puzzle gaming. Gamers will eat it up and people who game less frequently should check it out too.

Other games available at launch include Civilization IV, the time-bending innovative platformer Braid, World of Goo (a favorite of this author), and a bunch of others. Valve has also promised a new “set of games” every Wednesday for the next several weeks. All of a sudden Mac gamers have reason to feel significantly less neglected!

As AT&T approaches the home stretch of their third year of iPhone exclusivity, the inevitable question arises: will the next iPhone be available on other networks? I’d wager it will. Sort of.

There are a lot of reasons to believe that AT&T’s exclusive deal with Apple is coming to an end, but really they boil down to one: it would seem that this exclusivity no longer sufficiently benefits both parties to keep it going. While I have no numbers to back this up, it is easy to imagine that AT&T must be seeing diminishing returns on subscribers who are switching solely for this very expensive iPhone exclusive. And given recent research on the relatively massive data consumption by iPhone users compared to users of other smartphones, it is doubtful that AT&T’s already stressed network could handle significantly more iPhone subscribers, particularly as slower old iPhones are weeded out and faster (more data hungry) ones take their place.

But perhaps the more compelling argument for the end of Apple phone exclusivity is Apple’s own interest in going multi-network. When Apple first released the iPhone, there was nothing comparable and so the game was changed with the iPhone, continuing with the 3G and 3Gs. And not only did the landscape change completely, but in time so have Apple’s competitors. Where there was previously no product to offer serious competition to the iPhone, we’ve recently seen a number of solid offerings from Google, Palm, and even Windows, particularly in the last year.

Apple doesn’t want you picking up a Google phone on Verizon or any network. They don’t want you to realize that even Microsoft is bringing cool new innovations to the smart phone market. But you will realize this if you’re one of the over 90 million subscribers on Verizon’s network who wants a sexy smartphone but can’t get the iPhone due to an exclusivity deal with AT&T. Apple doesn’t want this. They want consumers consuming in their App Store, not someone else’s. They want developers to favor their App Store and they want to continue to dominate the market they re-shaped and re-created. The fact of the matter is that if Verizon subscribers can’t get iPhones, then they’ll simply get other phones. And while many of them might have preferred iPhones, most of them will be relatively happy with something from Google.

My guess is that we’ll see a sexy new iPhone announced for AT&T only in June and then, once the buying frenzy has subsided somewhat, an Apple phone will be at least announced for Verizon by the end of the year.

“An Apple phone?” you ask. “Don’t you mean the iPhone?” Maybe, but not necessarily. Perhaps the iPhone as we know it will come to other networks, or perhaps the offering will be a cousin, like an iPod Shuffle or and iPod Nano are cousins to the iPod Touch and the iPod Classic.

Part 3: Make the battery last.

Battery technology has come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go. When your Macbook is new, its battery life is great and all is well in the universe. But the honeymoon doesn’t last. Used batteries hold their charge for less and less time and they can be expensive to replace, especially for Mac users.

A battery is only good for so many cycles, one cycle representing a battery going from completely charged to completely depleted and then completely charged again. If you run your battery down to 50 percent and recharge it, that’s a half cycle. If you have a white or black Macbook, the battery is only good for a couple of hundred cycles and they add up quickly. A new aluminum Macbook Pro has a new/improved battery which will supposedly be good for several times the life of the older battery types, which is a good thing because they’ll be more difficult and more expensive to replace. Let’s start with an all-too common myth.

Myth: you should always run down a battery all the way before recharging it.

I’m often surprised by how many people work under this assumption. This belief is a throwback to a truth from the days of nickel-cadmium batteries, but no longer relevant in the world of Lithium Ion batteries like those found in Macbooks. In fact, Lithium Ion batteries “like” to be charged and will last longer if you don’t let them fall below 50% too regularly.

However, there are reasons to let your battery deplete all the way once in a while: if you let your computer run until it completely runs out of juice and goes into “deep sleep”, then you are effectively resetting or recalibrating the battery life meter. Or if you’re a laptop user who most of the time happens to use the laptop plugged-in at a desktop, Apple suggests that you run the Macbook on battery once per month in order to cycle the battery.

Did you know that you can check how many times your battery has been cycled? Open up the System Profiler (Macintosh HD->Applications->Utilities) and click on Power in the column on the left. You should find the Cycle Count along with other details.

Part 2: How to safely clean a Macbook or desktop LCD screen.

OK, now that we have the safety tips out of the way, let’s talk about the most common question I hear: how do I safely clean the screen? Well if you’re like me, the worst thing to ever happen to the screen should be a little dust. That’s because I don’t touch the screen, I don’t sneeze on the screen, I don’t open fizzy drinks near the screen, and I don’t touch the screen (repeated for emphasis).

Yet even my screens get the occasional splotch, mostly due to my nemeses: screen-touchers. You know who I’m talking about. Screen-touchers are that reprehensible sort who feel they can’t point to something on a display without actually pressing their greasy fingers against the optical-grade plastic or glass, sometimes with enough force to cause a little rainbow-spehere of liquid crystal distortion. Every once in a while one of them smudges up my Macbook screen or desktop LCD before I get a chance to politely intervene (simultaneously quelling my desire to non-surgically remove the offending digit).

I digress. Every LCD will eventually get some kind of mark or smear on it, so let’s talk cleaning. Matte screens are especially delicate and glossy/glass screens smudge easily, so either way cleaning effectively is a challenge. I’ve never found a great pre-pagacked solution. Most of them are of questionable quality or tend to leave lots of smudgy badness behind. So let’s start with some dos and don’ts.

• Don’t use household cleaners.
• Don’t use paper products – tissues, paper towels, napkins, lens wipes – as they can scratch your screen.
• Don’t use much force. It there’s something on your screen that could scratch it, you don’t want to press it into your screen while you wipe. Also, LCDs – especially matte ones – are fragile and don’t like much pressure.
• Do start with a dry microfiber cloth. Softly use this cloth to get rid of dust and any potentially scratchy debris.
• Do unplug your computer and remove the battery before using anything which could get moisture into the system.
• Don’t spray anything directly onto the screen. This gives liquid a chance to get into sensitive areas where it can cause damage. If you’re going to use a liquid, then spray it on the cloth.
• Don’t use tap water because it contains lots minerals which can leave residue on your screen.
• Do use distilled water, as it will not leave its own residue.

Here’s my standard procedure:

1. Start with a dry microfiber ultra-soft cloth and very gently remove any dust and particulates.
2. Next slightly moisten a clean microfiber cloth with distilled water and gently attempt to wipe away stuck on debris.
3. For oil-based stains (fingerprints) or other more persistent stains, you may need to use something stronger. I find that a 50% (or less) solution of isopropyl alcohol is pretty safe and effective. Use distilled water in equal parts to isopropyl alcohol to make your own solution. This is not something you should do commonly on plastic screens, as repeated contact with alcohol can discolor plastic. However, using this weak alcohol solution on occasion to get rid of stubborn spots shouldn’t be problematic.
4. Optional: go smack the scamp who touched your screen.

You can also use the 50/50 solution to clean your keyboard on your Macbook. Again, unplug the Macbook and remove the battery, make the cloth moist (not wet) and gently wipe down the keyboard. White Macbook keyboards are dirt magnets. Avoid using your keyboard/trackpad immediately after putting on hand lotion, as the white plastic readily soaks up oils and discolors quickly. In fact, avoid using lotion altogether, allowing your hands to naturally mummify while your Macbook stays clean and neat. Actually, you should avoid using your Macbook altogether, encase it in glass, and protect it from dust and sunlight. Don’t touch it. Don’t even look at it. I’ve got to go wash my hands…

Apple’s Magic Mouse has been on the market for just a few months now and while many users are very pleased with its functionality, the magic has been short-lived in one area: battery life.

When Apple annouced the Magic Mouse in late October of 2009, they claimed that it would have an impressive 4-month battery life. So needless to say I was surprised when my Magic Mouse’s batteries died after about a month of use. A quick search of some forums and it quickly became apparent that this was not an exception, but rather the norm. When it comes to battery life, a couple of AA alkalines will get you little more than a month of moderate-to-heavy use. Apple’s 4-month claim was either extremely optimistic or based upon a very low-use scenario.

I should mention that the Magic Mouse has been a pleasure for me to use in every way and is in many ways a fantastic evolution in this input technology, so I’d still recommend it for anyone with a Mac with bluetooth and 10.5.8 or higher. Just while you’re at it, get some high-quality rechargeable batteries to go with it. The buzz on these ones has been quite good.

Each time it dumps snow in Colorado (October?!) I find a certain request coming up more and more often… companies want remote access to their server so people can work from home. Can’t make it to school? Well the teacher can email you assignments. Can’t make it into work? A little SFTP magic and you’re working on that file from home.

While this is no doubt good for business productivity and similar technologies save me a lot of trips to clients, it seems the concept of the carefree snow day is a victim of improving technologies. Tunnel into work via the internet? The only tunneling you should be doing today is in real snow, not Snow Leopard!

So in the spirit of sledding and snow angels, I present to you an excuse which just might get you off the hook and into the cold powder and hot cocoa…

“Um, my internet is out. Comcast said something about the storm taking down my local node and they’re working on it.”

Did it work? OK, now get the sled dogs ready and for the love of consistency, don’t post to Facebook!

The Quick and Dirty: Some Snow Leopard users have reported losing their user data when logging into the Guest account on their system and then logging back into their own user accounts.

Who is affected: Apparently those who had a Guest account enabled in 10.5 and then upgraded their systems to 10.6 are potentially vulnerable.

How to avoid: Supposedly if you disable your Guest account and then reenable it, the bug gets ironed out as your system makes a new Guest account in 10.6. That said, it might be wise to simply turn off the Guest account and not use it until Apple releases a fix.

How to fix: If you’ve fallen victim, then you should look at the fix posted by Cnet.

Moral to the story: As I mentioned in a previous article, we early OS adopters are basically glorified beta testers. I’m always beating people over the head with the B word (backup) and early adopters especially have no excuses not to have their data well backed up.