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Dave Hamilton

Dave Hamilton co-founded both The Mac Observer and <a href="https://www.backbeatmedia.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank">BackBeat Media</a>, and he is producer and co-host of the <a href="https://www.macgeekgab.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank">Mac Geek Gab Podcast</a>. He has worked in the computer industry since the early 1990s, doing time as a consultant, trainer, network engineer, webmaster, and programmer. He has worked on the Mac, all the various Windows flavors, BeOS, a few brands of Unix, and it is rumored he once saw an OS/2 machine in action. Before that he ran some of the earliest Bulletin Board Systems, but most of the charges have since been dropped, and not even the FBI requests that he check in more than twice a year. Dave's reachable for paid consulting at <a href="https://www.davethenerd.com" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">DaveTheNerd.com</a> and you can find links to him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ here, too.

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Lack of Flash Cripples iPad as Travel Device

But it doesn’t mean I agree with it — at least not yet. I’ve been an iPhone user for two years, and never once did I miss having Flash on that device. However, it took just two weeks with the iPad for me to miss it there. To read Steve Jobs lump both together as…

Mea Culpa - What WERE Those Glass Pics?

So what were those pictures of, anyway? We think we have an answer. Or, more accurately, TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid does. Check out the video below.Apple’s mystery glass: In-store displaysNice to know the glass was of something being used, even if it wasn’t the iPad. That’s, OK, though, because we know you had as much fun…

Lightning Lessons From The Ground

I should start by stating that my home and office setup is not entirely common. My office is a completely separate building, with separate power and cable (TV/Internet) feeds from the pole on the street. Between the house and office the previous owner then buried two Category 5e (Ethernet) and two coaxial (cable TV) cables.…

Consolidating iPodObserver ... and One More Thing

This is not to say that any content or coverage is going away. iPO has been quite successful for us, for you (our readers) and for our advertisers. The one thing that kept holding iPO back was that we were treating it as a separate site in terms of layout and design, but nowhere else.…

Will All My Apps Run OK Under Snow Leopard?

It Came EarlyApple had repeatedly cited September, 2009 as the timeframe by which Snow Leopard would be released. Obviously, they’ll beat that target with the August 28, 2009 release date. Most developers, however, assumed Apple’s estimates meant Snow Leopard would be released around the end of September, and many were caught off guard without having fully…

Verizon's MiFi: The Best iPhone (and Mobile Mac!) Accessory

The SpeedThe first thing I’ll say is that the speed isn’t really the most important feature of this device for me, then I’ll go on to explain why I’m wrong in that assertion. In comparison to your DSL or Cable connection, the MiFi will almost always lose, but it almost always wins against AT&T’s 3G…

Little Snitch, ZoneAlarm, Outbound Firewalls, Blech!

There are a few things to set straight because, clearly, they’ve both been mislead. For the record, I do not mean to single out Little Snitch here, though clearly he’s the fall guy in all of this (and I’m sure the kind folks at Objective Development have some unkind opinions of my words!). My concern extends…

SXSW Trends Point Toward Strong Apple Netbook Market

The first thing I noticed is that many netbook users had put Apple logo stickers on their Acer or Dell branded hardware, and as soon as I started poking around, I realized that most of the netbooks I saw here were running Mac OS X Leopard, not Windows. Granted, I saw less than 50 such…

Podcast - Mac Geek Gab #178: Batch Permission Changes, Encrypting Follow-up, Re-Enabling AirPort, and GigE speeds

Listen Now: Download: or (AAC coming shortly courtesy of Michael Johnston of iPhoneAlley) Show notes for Mac Geek Gab Podcast For November 28th, 2008 John and Dave are local in New Hampshire, no bandwidth issues to get in the way today! Just a straight-ahead podcast answering your questions, helping you change permissions, re-enable Airport, suss…

Podcast - Mac Geek Gab #172: Maintenance Utilities, Wiring For Broadband, System Preferences Issues and Cool Stuff Found

Listen Now: Download: or (AAC coming shortly courtesy of Michael Johnston of iPhoneAlley) Show notes for Mac Geek Gab Podcast For October 13th, 2008 John and Dave answer your questions about network backups, drive utilities, crashing preferences, and more. Additionally, they have lots of follow-ups and tips to share on previous topics including shutdown delays…

Podcast - Mac Geek Gab #171: WiFi Troubleshooting, iApp issues, Shutdown Problems and More Media Longevity

Listen Now: Download: or (AAC coming shortly courtesy of Michael Johnston of iPhoneAlley) Show notes for Mac Geek Gab Podcast For October 6th, 2008 Your two favorite Mac geeks talk through WiFi issues, Shutdown problems, Safari troubleshooting, and iTunes library dilemmas. Plus, listener tips about recordable-media longevity put a nice cap on that topic of…

Dave The Nerd - My Backup Strategy

On a few recent Mac Geek Gab episodes I’ve mentioned my current backup strategy and more than a few listeners have asked me to document this somewhere. Here is that somewhere. Starting in 1995 and up until February when Apple’s Time Capsule came out, I was a died-in-the-wool Retrospect user. But I got sick. and.…