Want to Keep Your Mac Cool? Check Out smcFanControl!

When you run smcFanControl, it will place a small indicator in your menu bar showing you the current processor temperature and fan speed. This is is a great way to understand the correlation between temperature and fan speed. There is a fan RPM that you can’t set below a certain minimum, but you can use…

Quicken for the Mac Delayed into 2010

This isn’t the first delay for the Quicken update. Intuit originally promised an new version would ship in 2008, but then pushed the release out to summer 2009. Now that summer is here, Intuit has pushed the release out to February 2010, leaving users with Quicken 2007 for several more months.Mr. Gulbransen said the company…

Keeping Track of Mac Keyboard Shortcuts

Apple maintains a regularly updated list of keyboard shortcuts for Mac OS X at the Apple Support Web site. Along with key combinations for opening and closing windows, jumping to your Home directory and adding items to the Sidebar, the Web page also deciphers the symbols that represent the Control, Option, Command and Shift keys.As…

Apple Cuts Price on Previous Generation MacBook(s)

The company wrote in that note, “Our MacBook Family has been updated and all current stock of MacBook and MacBook Pros need to be sold. All current in store computers are on a first come first serve basis.” Pricing for the 13″ White MacBook was reduced from $999 to $899, while the 2.66 GHz MacBook…

Computer History Museum Scores Mac Business Plan

The documents were donated to the museum by Dan Kottke and Mike Markkula. Both were active participants in Apple’s early years, Mr. Kottke as part of the Apple I design team, and Mr. Markkula as an investor.The early version of the Mac business plan was released in 1982 and underestimates how long it will take…

The Sims 3 Arrives for Mac, iPhone

Players can also customize everything as well as have their characters interact with others in a seamless neighborhood. In previous Sims games, players had to wait through a loading screen to visit another house go to a specific location, such as a downtown shopping area. Through the game’s launcher, players can maintain profile pages where…

Zero Panic Migration to a New Mac, Part II

Step #3: Multiple Drives My old Power Mac G5 had two internal SATA drives. One was the factory original and one was an add-on. Because the new Mac is an Intel Mac with, for now, just one internal drive, I selected an external drive to receive all the files from the PMG5’s second internal drive.…

QUO Jumps into the Mac Clone Game

The company apparently plans to open its store on June 1, although how long they can keep their doors open remains to be seen since Apple doesn’t take kindly to Mac cloners. Company founder Rashantha De Silva, however, sees his business as a positive for Apple and consumers. “There are others doing this, but we…

Zero Panic Migration to a New Mac, Part I

Step #1: Preserving Your Data The first thing to remember is that there are two kinds of backups. The first is a static backup such as, in the case of a Mac, a Finder copy to an external drive. Specifically, I’m talking about copying /Users and /Applications. Every time you do that, you create a…

Hulu Intros Desktop App for the Mac

Hulu Desktop can display content in a window or full screen, is compatible with the Apple Remote, lets users rate videos and view content from their queue and manage their show subscriptions, and more.The application requires at least a 2.0GHz Intel Core Duo processor, Mac OS X 10.4, Flash 9.0.124, and a 2 Mbps Internet…

Solving the White MacBook Upgrade Mystery

Apple introduced its latest line of MacBooks back in October 2008. The new aluminum unibody MacBooks largely replaced the prior white polycarbonate models. The least expensive aluminum model featured a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics processor. This model is still available for $1299. At the same time, Apple…

Snarb.tk Releases Cover Stream 2.6 Utility for iTunes

Version 2.6 adds the following features and fixes:A new popup control panel to the desktop status bar that adds full control over iTunes playback.Ability to see the iTunes cover art and set track ratings.Improved podcast support.Improved launcher utility.English, French and German language support.Cover Stream 2.6 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later and iTunes 7.5…

IGG Software Releases iBiz 4 for Mac Time Tracking, More

Also available now is the iBiz Professional package. This package includes iBiz Server 4 and two licenses for iBiz Client 4. iBiz Professional allows all connected users to share the same set of data, so changes made by one employee are seen by all other employees as soon as they select that project. iBiz Pro…

Using Older Apple ADC Displays with Mac Pro

Back in 2000, Apple thought it would be really cool to reduce cable clutter for displays, so the company conceived of a combination DVI, power and USB to come up with a 30 pin (3 x 10) connector called the Apple Display Connector. The end of the cable attached to the monitor looks like this:Apple…

Analyst: Apple Could Sell Macs in Wal-mart

We believe Apple could eventually sell select Mac products in Wal-Mart stores,” he wrote, “which could significantly increase distribution and unit shipments of Macs (starting with a pilot program).” He added, while we don’t expect an immediate impact this year and believe Apple would need to reposition its line-up first, we believe that closer ties…

Pairing an Apple Remote with your Mac

To pair an Apple Remote with your Mac, do this: Make sure your Mac is on and awake. Hold the dark end of the remote a few inches away from your Mac. Press and hold the Menu and Next buttons for about five seconds or until the paired remote icon appears on your Mac’s display.…

Action Puzzle Game Luxor 3 Heralds MumboJumbo's Return to the Mac

Luxor 3 features more than 140 levels, seven unique game modes, upgradeable power-ups, new bonus level gameplay, and new ways of making matches, including reflectors. Pricing is US$19.95 and Mac OS X version 10.4 is required. MumboJumbo’s now-defunct sister company, MacPlay, brought many games to the Mac, including Aliens vs. Predator, SiN, Baldur’s Gate II,…

Create High-End Visual Effects on Your Mac

Its features include 3D modeling, rigging, animation, particle effects, dynamics, compositing, and integrated rendering.Houdini 10 also features the Pyro FX toolset which enables visual effects artists to create high-quality smoke and fire. Houdini 10 includes support for viewport display and final rendering of Stereoscopic 3D content. Visual effects artists can download Houdini Apprentice, a free…

Virtual Families Game Released for Mac

The publisher said inspiration for the game came from the way players interacted with its previous release, Virtual Villagers: Players liked pairing up villagers with each other and creating storylines about them. In Virtual Families, players must not only deal with their characters’ situations, with trophies awarded for meeting certain goals, but also solve mini-puzzles…

Details of Intel's New Nehalem CPU in the Mac Pro

Nehalem die Credit: Chip Architect The Nehalem series, based on a 45 nanometer (nm) process, has several, notable technical improvements that will be of interest to Mac Pro users, namely: Turbo Boost Technology. The CPU can, during heavy computational loads, boost its speed in increments of 133 MHz until the thermal threshold is reached. Each individual…

It's All About Speed: Mac Pros, Comcast and Turbo.264 HD

Talk about speed. The new Mac Pro is blazingly fast, even for someone like myself who doesn’t do much processor intensive stuff. Everything, from startup time to opening applications to copying files, takes significantly less time. As a bonus, the Pro is also much quieter than my old Mac. Of course, my old G5 was…

LoJack Can Recover a Stolen Mac, Activate Remote Wipe

Many times a week, a Mac user experiences that sickening realization that a treasured MacBook has been lost or stolen. LoJack for Laptops from Absolute Software Corp. recovers about three out of four of the stolen computers and can initiate a remote wipe to protect sensitive personal or corporate information. It’s an all too common…

Deliver2Mac Adds Solitaire Mac, Dr. Tools Maths Trainer

Mac OS X version 10.4.11, a 1GHz G4 processor, 256MB RAM, and 64MB video RAM (Intel GMA950 chipsets are supported) are required. Dr. Tools Maths Trainer, also priced at $19.99, offers three difficulty levels, plus a training mode, and comprehensive evaluations of the user’s progress through math problems that begin with basic arithmetic and continue…