AuburnCom Weblog

 A brief question from a valued client: 

Chris has mentioned you set him up at home where he can use virtualdesktop to log into work? Can you send me the instructions for this or alink to the download? Ideally I can do this with our imac so I do notneed to bring my lap top home.

  You’ll need VPN access to your work network, once you have that you need to make that connection, if it’s a simple VPN connection, then the built in VPN functions of the Mac can get you connected, if it’s more complex or secured, you’ll need “VPN Tracker”($119), available from: http://www.equinux.com/us/products/vpntracker/Once you can get connected to the office, you open and execute “Remote Desktop Connection”($Free) from Microsoft, available here: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/remote-desktop/default.mspxThe VPN settings for your company should be easy to get from your Tech Department, putting those into the Mac or VPN Tracker may be difficult, but after that, setting up “Remote Desktop Connection” is pretty straightforward.Don’t hesitate to ask more about this, I build VPN solutions often for clients, for both large and small companies,

WSJ’s Walt Mossberg has written a neat article over on the All things digital website, it covers some simple things to know for switchers, like:

 Menu Bars: In Windows, each program typically has its own menu bar. On the Mac, there’s a single menu bar at the top of the screen that changes, depending on which program you are actively using.

Task Bar: The equivalent of the Windows XP Task Bar on the Mac is the Dock. Unlike the Task Bar, which primarily holds icons representing open windows, the Mac Dock primarily holds icons of programs you use most often. To place a program onto the Dock, you just drag its icon there. To remove it, you just drag its icon off the Dock and it disappears in a puff of animated smoke.Start Menu: There is no Start Menu on a Mac. Its functions are divided between the Dock and the Apple menu at the upper left of the Mac screen.Control Panel: The Mac equivalent of the Windows Control Panel is called System Preferences, and it can be launched from either the Dock or the Apple menu.Keyboard shortcuts: Common Windows keyboard commands, such as Ctrl-S for Save, Ctrl-P for Print, and many others, are also available on the Mac. However, instead of using the Control key, they use the Mac’s Command key, which bears either a cloverlike symbol or an Apple logo. So, on the Mac, for instance, Command-S is for Save.

But, best of all are the comments, of which there are currently 43, which all have more advanced tips like:

 If you are lucky enough to live close to an Apple store, they offer a great program called One to One, which is personal training. For just $99 a year you can come in up to once a week for training on your Mac. My neighbor just got her first Mac and it’s amazing what she has learned so far. She says that the trainers are very patient and make the lessons on what she wants to do with her laptop. She hardly calls me anymore with computer questions. It’s a bargain! 

—————————–One argument I often hear from Windows people is that menus belong to an application so should be in the window. This is logical programmer’s thinking, but Apple thinks different. Well for one thing that wastes screen space because every window requires menu space. But there is a much more fundamental reason - Mac menus are much faster for the user. It’s called Fitts’ Law and is expounded by Bruce Tognazzini at:http://www.asktog.com/basics/f…..l#fittsLaw

What this means is that an object (the menu) at the top of the screen is infinitely big in the up direction. Thus a user needs only flick the mouse upwards and has an easy-to-hit target. In Windows, the user must carefully position the mouse over the menu before clicking. The claim (backed by some tests) is that Mac users are five times faster hitting menus than Windows users. It is probably why Windows users much more rely on so-called keyboard shortcuts, which aren’t even shortcuts compared to the shortcuts on the Mac.IanPosted by Ian Joyner at July 3rd, 2008 at 8:15 pm  

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I switched last December. My concern at the time was the learning curve after using Windows all my life (I’m 64). Within hours I was up and running and had no problems what so ever. I believe that the iMac I purchased was one of the best investments I have made and even today it still amazes me.

Posted by Allan Sherman at July 3rd, 2008 at 9:01 pm  

 

 

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You can find an excellent free switchers tutorial at MacProVideo, as well as other quality video tutorials… Highly recommended!

http://www.macprovideo.com/tutorial/xpToLeopard 

As First reported by AppleInsider,

The MacBook Air premium model, that’s with a 64gb Solid State drive, and a 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo processor has come down from $3098 to $2598, and, with an apple developer membership, only $2338!

Sustainability and greening are the hot topics of the moment, roughly 100 years on from Nikolai Tesla’s experiments with electricity that gave us this wonderful current through our villages and cities, we, as a responsible race have looked to make these tools as energy efficient as possible.

Green Laptops

There’s a great new showing of Buckminster Fullers work at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York now running till the 21st of September, and , when I read about how keen he was to make the most out of limited supplies, I correlated his work with my newest technological toy and current love, the MacBook Air.

As well as receiving the popular vote in a three way usability test recently, the MacBook Air has in fact been praised by Treehugger, they quote a Businessweek article written by Bruce Nussbaum that states

It doesn’t have mercury or arsenic in its LCD and glass. The aluminum frame can be recycled. The circutry is PVC free. And there is less packing material than other laptops. 

Also remember that the MacBook Air has an LED backlit display which saves power, and uses a maximum of 45 watts at peak operation, a regular MacBook uses 60 Watts, and MacBook Pro’s can use 85 watts at peak, that means your air is using half of a standard incandescant bulb at it’s very hardest, most of the time, the air is using under 20 watts!

With the rapid rollout of LCD tv’s, I thought we’d catchup on the simple information about HD, 1080p, Blu Ray and all that Jazz.

Back in the 90’s, our early early computers had screen resolutions of 640×480, that literally meant that there was 640 vertical lines(left to right) and 480 horizontal lines (top to bottom) displaying the image our eyes could see.In those days we never discussed how many lines a TV had because those TV’s were analog, light shining on glass that was rarely measured and never discussed, the resolution at a rough estimation of these TV’s was 320×240, about half of what Computer monitors were displaying, which is why, when you plugged the video output from a pc into a TV it looked blurry and enlarged, because the stadard TV couldn’t display the text and images at a sharp enough resolution.

Computer monitors started accelerating their resolution improvements and quickly jumped to 800×600 and then 1024×768, TV screens followed suit, and the better CRT models got their resolution up to 640480 too, this is what is called (Standard Definition, this didn’t occur in any major sense until 2005, when Plasma screens were already well entrenched (despite their price tags in the low teen thousands) and LCD Tv’s were beginning to gain raction in the consumer market place.

Today, 1080p indicates that a screen can display 1920×1080 resolution and comes standard on 40 inchand 52 inch tv’s, (I like the Samsungs best), 720P is about normal for the 30 and 32 inch models, but, how do Macs stack up against these impressive figures, and, can a Mac show you a picture much better than these TV’s?

Judge for yourself: 20 inch iMac: Resolution: 1680-by-1050 

24 inch iMac Resolution: 1920-by-1200 

 So, before you choose to watch all the upcoming HD movies, like 

Wall.E , Indiana Jones, Journey to the Center of the Earth or the Mummy 3, be sure to carefully pick out what’ll serve you best.

Slightly Obfuscated question from a client:I have a G5 that needs a little work. I would like to update the operating system – currently has OS X, version 10.3.9. I would like to upgrade to Tiger or Leopard. I would also like to have MS Office Suite added to the system.Details about my G5 I purchased G5 4 years ago. It has a 1.6HHz processor and 1.25 GM DDR SDRAM memory. It has OS X, version 10.3.9. The hard drive It’s got a 75 GB hard drive and I also have another 100 GB external hard drive. It also has an airport to connect to wireless network - DSL. What can you recommendThe G5 computers are true milestones in Apple’s history, they’re fast, handle video and media really well and look good. Do you have a PowerMac or an iMac?OS X leopard retails for $129 from Apple and that’s what I sell it for too, it IS available from Amazon for $119 with free shipping, MS Office 2008 sells for $149 at the Apple Store or through me, from Amazon, it is $129 If you can, I would highly recommend using Apple’s iWork 08 over MS office, you can read more about it on my website, it’s $79 from Apple or $69 from Amazon If you require my direct consultations or work on your Mac, you can come to our office at 660 Alabama Street (that’s near 19th street), 94110.

Apple has initiated it’s 2008 Back to School campaign today on their site 

The bottom line of the promotion is that students who buy a Mac between now and the start of school get a free iPod touch, that’s a $299 value.

(In prior years students only got an iPod valued at $199)

In addition, students get much better pricing on their computers, MacBook Airs are only $1699(saving $230), regular MacBooks are $999 and the savings continue up to the MacBook Pro and iMac lines.

The site is nicely designed, located at http://apple.com/backtoschool and features some of Apple’s slogan writers better lines, like :

and, my favorite

I’ve been enjoying my Macbook.  I am interested in learning more about the inner workings of the Mac.  What sites or forums beyond Apple’s own do you recommend for accuracy and depth of expertise for the Mac platform?

One of the best sites is ArsTechnica, their educated and calm coverage of Apple News by John Syracuse is great: http://arstechnica.com/apple.arsAnother good site is  Daring fireball, written by John Gruber, it’s more op-ed than Ars Technica: http://daringfireball.net/Both of these often link to the really good and exciting news and developments in the Apple community so they’re both on my must read list.

It looks great and is published by O’Reilly No Starch Press, who are (soon to be one of) my very favorite tech publishers:
It’s available on Amazon for $19.77 plus 5% discount!  http://www.amazon.com/My-New-Mac-Projects-Started/dp/1593271646/ref=podcastsonfar-20

My New Mac—New from No Starch PressNew book shows readers how to make the most of their Macs with 52 simple projects

San Francisco, CA—More and more people are ditching Windows and buying new Macs, whether it’s because of the compelling design or the easy-to-use operating system. But switching to a new operating system can be confusing, even for the geeks among us. No Starch Press’s geeky publisher, William Pollock, confesses: “I admit that I’ve had trouble turning a Mac on and off. When you’ve spent years with a PC, a Mac can be an entirely different animal.”

My New Mac (April 2008, $29.95, ISBN 978-1-59327-164-0) was written to meet the needs of new Mac users. “This is a project-oriented book that will have newbies doing useful things with their Macs right away,” said author Wallace Wang. “I know I’ve never enjoyed wading through menu after menu to become an expert on software I’ll hardly use, and I figure I’m not the only one.”

My New Mac focuses on the sorts of entertaining and practical things people want to do with their new Macs, like surf the Internet, send email, listen to CDs, take notes, or play with digital photos. It’s fun stuff, if you know how to do it.

Among the book’s 52 simple projects are ones that show new users how to:

• View stocks, flights, and the weather
• Organize files and folders by color and keyword
• Set up and manage parental controls to control computer and Internet access
• Play and burn CDs and DVDs
• Transfer photos from a digital camera to a Mac and organize them with iPhoto
• Share songs, images, and documents wirelessly between Macs
• Track birthdays with iCal
• Clip and save information from the Internet
• Keep themselves and their computers safe online

From the smiling origami iMac on the cover (instructions included) through each of the projects, My New Mac encourages readers to treat their new computer as an opportunity for fun and exploration, not something serious and overwhelming. By diving in and learning as they go, readers will find that their Macs are as user friendly as promised—it just takes a helping hand.

For a review copy or more information please email nostarchpr@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.

About the AuthorWallace Wang is the author of several best-selling computer books including Steal This Computer Book, Steal This File Sharing Book, and The Book of Nero (all No Starch Press). He is also a successful standup comic who has appeared on A&E’s “Evening at the Improv” and appears regularly at the Riviera Comedy Club in Las Vegas.