Mac

NeatDesk Review

From The Neat Company….. “The NeatDesk is a high-speed desktop scanner and digital filing system that will quickly turn all the paper on your desk into organized, digital files. More than just a great scanner, NeatDesk also includes patented NeatWorks software to identify and extract key information from your paper files, then automatically organizes it in the easy to use database.” I’ve tried a bunch of systems to manage my receipts, business cards and paper but I just can’t seem to find one that works the way I want it to. Previously I was using Evernote to manage my business cards but that meant…

How to Do It Yourself!

Seagate DockStar + iPad = Limitless Storage On The Go

I ordered a 64 GB iPad because I have long subscribed to the belief that you should always order and purchase the device with the largest amount of memory that you can afford. (The only exception to this comes into play when you’re purchasing a new notebook. In that case I believe that you should only order an SSD drive, but still… the largest solid-state drive that you can.) So I ordered a 64 GB iPad. It should be a good amount of space, and will likely hold me for quite some time. Then again, if I end up loading…

News

How to Get Your Free ‘Underground Guide to the iPhone’ and ‘Mac Manual’

Have I mentioned our TradePub affiliate store lately? It’s a place where you can sign up for magazine subscriptions and technical documents based on your profession … and assuming you qualify — you’ll get them all for FREE. Sounds good, right? Well to get you started, here are two new documents which might be of interest. The Underground Guide To The iPhone Read about the basic user interface and a ton of incredible iPhone features you would’ve otherwise missed. This guide explains in detail how to perform both the very simple and the most tedious tasks. Find out how to…

How to Do It Yourself!

Monolingual: Delete unused language packs on your Mac.

I personally use only one language on my Mac computers, English. Unless you’re multi-lingual or unless you’re like Judie and plan on taking up another language, chances are you only need one language on your computer as well. The Mac comes preinstalled with several language packs. These packs includes fonts, and other things which all take up hard drive space. That’s where Monolingual comes in. Monolingual is a free application (donations are accepted) which allows you to selectively remove any language pack from your Mac that you choose.

Gear Bits

Giving the 17″ MacBook Pro Laptop a Try

I’ve been greatly enjoying the HP dv6 that I recently upgraded to Windows 7, and that got me wondering about Snow Leopard (OSX 10.6). Dan was evil kind enough to send me a link to the latest Apple refurb sales last week, and I couldn’t help myself…after perusing the wares, I bit.

How to Do It Yourself!

My Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh – The Installation

This is Part One in a series about my journey with my new Dell Mini 9 into Hacktinosh territory…I’ll be talking about my installation process, my impressions of the Mini as a Mac netbook, performance, software, and more. I was pretty early to jump on the netbook bandwagon. When I saw the original 7″ Asus Eee PC for the first time, I knew that I had to have it. I had been lusting after computers like the Sony Picturebook for a long time–something that could fit in my purse and go with me everywhere! As a writer, having a full…

How to Do It Yourself!

Take Control of Time Machine

I’m a Apple fanboy through and through. This I admit freely. But I’m also man enough to admit that not everything Apple does is perfect. Time Machine, Apple’s default back up program, is one of those not so perfect things. My biggest problem with Time Machine is the inability to customize just when Time Machine backs up. The only time management setting offered by Time Machine is on or off. When it’s on it backs up everything on your Mac, every hour. I find this to be a major nuisance as it seems my iMac is always backing itself up and it’s…

Reviews

Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 Storage Array Review

If your drive goes south, without backup storage and some type of backup strategy, you could be in a world of hurt. Everyone here at Gear Diary knows what that means… We’ve had a couple of server issues over the past few years that have caused all of us some major pain. Enter the Elite-AL Pro Qz2. It’s a RAID drive system and backup device that will accommodate up to 8TB (yes… that’s 8 TERABYTES) of data in a single drive array. Let’s take a look and see how it does with both Windows and Mac systems. The Elite-AL Pro…

Reviews

Blue Icicle XLR-USB Interface Review

Blue has been making microphones for a while now but this is their first adapter. This adapter takes any microphone with an XLR connector and converts it to a USB connector making it possible to record high quality audio through your computer.

How to Do It Yourself!

Blowing in the Breeze Part 2 – OSX 10.5.6 & the MSI Wind

Before I get started, I wanted to say special thanks go out to Dan Cohen, who stayed up with me until 3am Eastern/2am Central working on the Flash drive needed to get this all done. So… OSX 10.5.6 and the MSI Wind… Yah ok… maybe not so much. Quick update – I’ve got OSX installed on my Wind (calling it miniMBP); and I’ve learned some interesting things as of this morning. 1. I can still survive and be human on as little as 2.5 hours of sleep as long as there’s good, strong coffee around…somewhere. 2. You have to find…

How to Do It Yourself!

The Creation of a Hackintosh

(Note- This post is done in order to share my experience creating a Hackintosh. It is not intended to recommend or encourage similar hacks. Gear Diary neither recommends, nor takes any liability, if you choose to do the same.) I’ve been through the whole UMPC thing from the start. I had a TabletKiosk UMPC the day they were shipped. I had a Samsung Q1P, Q1Ultra, Q1Ultra Premium and a Sony UX 280P in rapid succession. I loved the whole UMPC concept but none of the machines ever fit the bill quite well enough for me. Each was either returned or,…

Editorials

Is 64bit Vista Ready for Prime Time?

There’s been a big push by Microsoft to get everyone to cross over to the 64bit version of Vista. Are you and your hardware ready for it? I’ve got a MacBook Pro. I purchased the notebook in December of 2006. It’s the low end unit, with a 2.16 GHz C2D processor, 4GB of RAM (yes, Leopard will see and use all 4GB of RAM, despite what you might think, or are told), and a 120GB hard drive. It’s not a bad unit; and has treated me well in the almost 20 months that I’ve been using it. The biggest problem…

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