The Apple Blog

Apple computers are well known for their long lifespans. In the late 1990s, while at UC Berkeley, vintage late-1980s Mac SE/30s powered

I’ve done several screencasts here on The Apple Blog - and have many more planned. Lately I’ve been taking in many other screencasts around the web and have noticed a huge variation in how people execute them. Some have very professional editing and eye candy, while others are quick, choppy, but to the [...]

I’ve done a post like this before, but it’s fairly old at this point in time so here we go again.
One of the best ways to find great new software for your system is by checking out what other people are running on their Macs. Every forum I follow, and every flickr group that [...]

But I didn’t know it was this simple! All I had to do was ask a friend for their PowerBook and I could’ve gotten one for free. Or not. Does anyone know somebody like this? I’m getting ahead of myself.
In case you haven’t clicked the link and read the [...]

By now most everyone’s probably heard about Twitter. Evan Williams, who started Blogger, and then Odeo, has moved on to his next project which is called Twitter. If you’ve been under a rock, it’s sort of instant messenger input meets blog-style publishing. I’m blurring the lines here on The Apple Blog just [...]

CoolOSXApps posted SerialSticker, which is an application for storing all your software licenses. I don’t know how it works, as I haven’t tried it. But it got me wondering how everyone manages the multitudes of software they accumulate on their systems (assuming it’s legit…).
I know there are a handful - if [...]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Mac has evolved into something that fits the needs of any computer user. But I still hear the argument all the time that Macs are only for creatives. Or Macs can’t handle the same files that Windows PCs generate. Man, [...]

My Powerbook’s hard drive died last summer, so when I rebuilt it I set up three users, one as the “Super Duper All Powerful” User, and one for my day job (”mike-work”) and one for my personal stuff (”mike-home”). The Admin user is only used for system upgrades and installing software. I don’t have to [...]

Apple TV is one of the products from Apple that so many were waiting with bated breath to finally hear about. The unit offers some interesting media options, but ultimately little in the way of new and exciting. Then there came talk of games being available over the Apple TV delivery system. [...]

I don’t typically like reporting on all the rumors that abound. So much of it is just fluff created for buzz that it’s borderline annoying. But my inner-geek always likes to hope… So what’s your favorite rumor of late? The most recent that sound interesting to me are “MacBook Mini” notebooks, [...]

A few weeks ago I covered Login Items and there was a little discussion that arose over better ways to launch some of those services. The discussion revolved mostly around the use of Overflow in place of clogging your startup process with tons of Login Items.
So I removed all the applications from my Login [...]

After months of dragging her feet, my younger sister finally ponied-up and bought a MacBook. She’s an exceptional piano player and has a Digital Yamaha Piano that she plays. I sent her the USB/Midi cable she’ll need to marry the two pieces together and allow her to get crazy in GarageBand, so lack [...]

This one goes out to all my fellow notebook users out there. As iTunes expands to offer more and more downloadable content, the size of the (ever poorly named) Music folder on your hard drive will continue to envelope your free space. My Music folder is just a shade larger than my Pictures [...]

Microsoft’s Windows XP successor, Windows Vista launched today. As it seems some in the world of blogging feel, it should be driving more people than ever to the OS X platform. Sure, that’s poking some fun at Microsoft, but behind every joke there’s some truth…
Anyhow, in preparation for our newly saved brethren, I’d [...]

I’m at a complete loss.
Steve said at the Keynote that Yahoo would be providing a free push email account with every iPhone.
But I don’t understand. Why is push email better than simply automatically checking the server every five seconds? Or, for that matter, every two minutes? Does it really matter if you get email, and [...]

I hate transparency. Only recently, though. I used to love it.
And Mac OS X is littered with it. It’s everywhere - in the Dock, in Terminal, in Dashboard, etc.
At one point, you could see about 5 layers of transparency at once on my screen, like this:

Yup, pretty ridiculous.
But recently, I’ve decided that I hate transparency.
Sure [...]

The title of this post is the slogan Jeff Croft suggests for the iPhone. Apple is no stranger to poking fun at Redmond, but that would’ve been a bit much. Even still, I like it.
Looking through my News Feeds last night and this morning, I’m almost sick of hearing about the [...]

There were many things going on at today’s Keynote, which I was lucky enough to be able to see live. So much great stuff happened, in fact, that many people may have missed something that I think was rather important.
In fact, I even think Steve was teasing us with this.
Did you notice how, almost every [...]

As has been reported in a few places, iTunes seemed to be a hot item destination this Holiday season. The iTunes Store got hit pretty heavily from what was presumably a load of gift cards and new iPod users looking for songs to stock up on. This has been the 3rd season in [...]

I’m not a huge - read: knowledgeable - user of Apple’s Mail program. I use it minimally but haven’t dug too deep into its nooks and crannies. So I’m reaching out to the readers of The Apple Blog for some assistance.
I have 3 accounts setup in my Mail program. When I create [...]