appleJAC Macintosh Users

New Turnaround Times for Drive Savers Evaluation Service

 
In case you haven't already heard, DriveSavers now offers free evaluations for 5-7 business day service. DriveSavers evaluation process takes the guesswork out of pricing data recovery services and provides you with a more accurate cost range before work is completed. You can now decide on the value of lost data without risk or cost.

The new evaluation process works as follows: DriveSavers engineers will perform a preliminary diagnosis of the media within 2 to 3 business days of receiving it. At that point, DriveSavers will contact MMCS or you to explain what's involved to complete the recovery process and provide a cost, then you can make a decision. Once DriveSavers receives approval, they will complete your data recovery within the following 3 to 4 business days.

There is no charge if data is unrecoverable and . . . you save 10% when you mention DS10086, on all successful data recovery projects.

Call DriveSavers 800.440.1904 anytime (24 hours a day-7 days a week) if you have any questions about the evaluation service or when you're ready for your next data recovery job. Ask about special contract pricing for all government agencies. GSA Schedule# GS-35F-0121S

Mid-Misouri Computer Services is a authorized DriveSavers Partner, DS10086

MMCS will remove your drive and prepare for shipping free if under warranty or for a flat $30 charge out of warranty.

Joe Mertzlufft
Mid-Missouri Computer Services
PO Box 10050
Columbia MO 65205
(573) 881-6800
AIM: JoeMMCS

Third party tools for eBay

These sites and services are not affiliated with eBay. We can't provide technical support or assistance for these tools. If you have questions about these systems, visit their websites and contact their customer support directly. The prices noted may be outdated.

iSale
This is a bulk listing, listing designer, and tracking tool.
iSale can't revise active listings.
It's currently $39.99 for a single license or $59.99 for a double.
You might be able to try a demo version of the latest release.
Visit http://www.equinux.com/us/products/isale/download.html

eLister
This is an offline bulk listing creator.
eLister is the Mac version of  Turbo Lister.
It's $19.95 per month or $34.95 for 6 months.
It's only compatible with eBay (not any of our sister sites).
Visit http://www.blackmagik.com/elister.html

GarageSale
GarageSale is an all-in-one tool.
It's a lot like BlackThorne.
It's fully integrated with iPhoto and comes with over 70 built in listing templates.
It has a built-in image editor and built-in scheduler.
It's $24.99 for a single user license or $44.99 for a family license
(allows up to 5 computers in one household).
Visit http://www.iwascoding.com/GarageSale/

AuctionGenie
This is an all inclusive tool that helps with listing and bidding.
It has reporting, feedback, payment, and delivery features, a built-in
proxy bidder, and an item watcher.
It's $40 a year.
Visit http://www.luxcentral.com/auctiongenie/

Recycle your old Computers

Mid-Missouri Recycling, Mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District, Cole County Commission, and the City of Jefferson City are co-sponsoring an electronic waste collection event. This event is open to the residents of Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Cole, Cooper, Howard, Moniteau and Osage Counties. No Businesses.

The event occurs on Saturday, June 6th from 9am till 1pm at the Cole County Public Works Department, 5055 Monticello Road.

A $5 fee will be charged for each television, computer monitor, copy machine and microwave. All other electronic items will be accepted FREE of charge. For more information, please call 573-874-7574 or visit www.mmswmd.org.

Electronic items that are accepted at these collections include: desktop PC’s (CPU’s); monitors, keyboards, mice, cords & cables (power, USB, etc.); modems; laptop PCs; main frames; hard drives; CD ROM/Zip/Tape drives; handheld electronic organizers and games; copy machines; printers (laser, ink jet); televisions; VCRs/DVD players; video game players; joysticks and game controls; cameras (film and digital); camcorders; speakers; radios; stereos; portable CD players; typewriters; word processors; fax machines; adding machines; scanners; postage machines; calculators; telephones; cellular phones; answering machines; pagers; CBs and two-way radios; and microwaves.

Electronics Recycling in Jefferson City

Mac vs. PC: The Ultimate Lab Test for New Desktops & Laptops

This computer rivalry has been elevated to a cultural divide on par with Pepsi versus Coke. Taking it beyond personal taste, PM crunches the numbers—with some surprising results (and detailed benchmark scores).
Popular Mechanics does a very comprehensive benchmark test.

appleJAC on the Radio

On Saturday April 19th, appleJAC Officers will be talking about the club and the Macintosh in general on the radio.  At 8:30am, KWOS in Jefferson City will be broadcasting a short segment that talks about our club.  Be sure to tune in and listen.  The station website lets you listen through the web.

FileMaker-Leopard incompatibility

Apple's database subsidiary has posted this note about a FileMaker-Leopard incompatibility:

We are very excited about the release of Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). We are currently working on Leopard compatibility updates for FileMaker Pro 9, FileMaker Pro 9 Advanced, FileMaker Server 9 and FileMaker Server 9 Advanced. At this time FileMaker does not recommend the use of FileMaker 9 products on computers running the Mac OS X Leopard.

If you would like to be notified when these updates become available, please subscribe to FileMaker News.

We also do not recommend the use of earlier versions of FileMaker software on the Mac OS X Leopard because we have not performed compatibility testing on them.

This is the precise issue with being the first one to update to Leopard.  If Filemaker is a critical application for you, you better wait a while.

The Making of 1984

You have all seen the commercial that launched the Macintosh called 1984.  Here is a video that shows some of the inside of making the commercial.

How about a new port for your drive

By Jeffy Milstead of MacWorld

Drive vendors are touting one new step in hard-drive technology: a more flexible type of hard drive known as the quad-interface (or four-port) configuration. Quad-interface drives—with USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA ports—are smart choices because they’ll satisfy your backup needs now, but they’ll also be relevant in the future.

Why would you choose to buy a four-port drive when perfectly good three-port models are available for less money? Depending on where you shop, the difference in price between triple- and quad-interface drives of the same capacity can be surprisingly close: from 0 to 20 percent more for a quad-interface drive. Pricing always matters, for sure, but in most cases, that extra port is affordable.

Perhaps the best reason to choose a four-port drive is that it allows for maximum flexibility. Three-port drives can connect to a variety of ports, but four-port drives offer the external SATA (eSATA) port—one you may find yourself using more often two years down the road. The eSATA connection isn’t yet another new type of hard-drive connector that may or may not catch on; if you own an Intel Mac, you’ve been using an internal SATA drive, perhaps without realizing it. SATA lets you realize high speeds; it’s here to stay, and we’ll be using it for years to come.

Think All Memory Cards Are Alike? Think Again

Popular Photography reports on five memory card innovations, from high-speed cards to the latest microdrive cards to cards designed for forensic imaging to cards containing built-in USB ports—no media reader required

TomTom gets even better Mapping

TomTom has updated its mapping data for the U.S. and Canada, and claims to have the "most accurate and detailed maps in the industry for the US and Canada." The update is free for all existing GO x10 and TomTom ONE customers (you have to validate your serial number to qualify).

What's new in the updated mapping data? According to TomTom:

• 410,000 miles of new roads;
• more than six million new household and business addresses;
• 500,000 new Points Of Interest;
• improved road detailing resulting in better visual representation; and
• updated shopping centers, golf courses and more.

This updated map release is based on the Tele Atlas MultiNet(tm) 2006.10 global digital map database. I've made no secret of my strong preference for NAVTEQ's mapping data over Tele Atlas', so it will be interesting to see if the new data can out-perform NAVTEQ's data, which up until now has proven consistently more complete and accurate than Tele Atlas'.

I still believe the TomTom is the better GPS solution on the market and this just makes that even better.

Get all your Mail with Gmail

Gmail has launched a new feature which allows users to collect email from up to five external accounts says this report from the website Hawk Wings.

This represents a substantial leap forward for the functionality of the service, making it more easy easier to use Gmail as a global email solution.

According to the Gmail announcement , the new “MailFetcher” feature, which is accessible from the Accounts tab of Gmail’s preferences, offers options to leave copies of the retrieved messages on the remote server, to use SSL when retrieving the mail, to apply a label automatically to the collected messages and to archive the incoming email.

Full instructions for using the new feature can be found  on another Gmail web page.

Obviously, this will put an end to the various complicated forwarding work-arounds that have been necessary in the past. It makes Gmail a much more attractive option as a total replacement for the traditional desktop client.

There’s only one hitch:

This feature is currently only enabled for a limited number of users. We’re working on making it more available soon.

It hasn’t appeared in my preferences yet, but it might be there in yours.

Everything iPod with the iPod Buyers’ Guide

If you like iPod stuff, this is the download for you.  The 2007 iPod Buyers’ Guide, by iLounge.com. At 180 pages, this is the largest Buyers’ Guide ever, and jam-packed with everything you need to get the iPod and accessories you want for the holidays!

As always, The 2007 iPod Buyers’ Guide, by iLounge.com is a totally free download. They have designed two versions - one in a full-screen single-page format, and one in magazine-style two-page format. Please note: This issue is specially formatted to fill your screen horizontally rather than vertically, unlike past issues. As a result, if your monitor is smaller than 20” on the diagonal, they strongly recommend that you download the single-page version rather than the two-page version.

Adobe products may need to be re-activated after Archive and Install

Sometimes, when you are having system problems, an archive and install of the operating system is the best solution.  Unfortunately, this process often caused problems with some adobe products.

Adobe requires that you activate your copy of Adobe Creative Suite 2.0, Adobe Acrobat 7.0, Adobe GoLive CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, Adobe InDesign CS2, and Adobe Photoshop CS2 within 30 days of installation. This document can help you resolve problems that occur when you try to activate your Adobe application.

Once activated, the application continually verifies activation. Activation problems can manifest themselves in different ways.

--    If your Adobe application prompts you to activate again, proceed to the Reactivation section of this document.

--    If your Adobe applications are slow to start, fail to start, or return the error "The license configuration data for Adobe Creative Suite is long longer usable." proceed to the Beginning and intermediate troubleshooting section of this document.

--    If your Adobe application returns the error, "Current user account does not have the privileges to perform Product Activation," proceed to the Advanced troubleshooting section.

What do the lights mean on my new iPod Shuffle?

iPod shuffle has two status lights, one on the top and one on the bottom, that let you know when you've pressed a button, the state of the battery, that iPod shuffle is enabled as a disk, or if there's something wrong.

Now there is a way to migrate away from AOL

For years, the only way to get you email addresses from you AOL address book was to print them out and enter them again.  Now, with AOL Service Assistant, you can finally leave AOL and use Apples applications.

The AOL® Service Assistant enables you to set up the following Apple applications to work with the AOL® service:

    •    Mail - The AOL Service Assistant makes it easy to configure Mac OS® X Mail to send and receive AOL mail. If you've used the existing AOL® service for Mac OS X, you can also import your incoming and outgoing messages from your Personal Filing Cabinet into Mail.
    •    iChat - You can now easily set up iChat to work with your Screen Name.
    •    Address Book - Using the AOL Service Assistant, you can now easily import your AOL® Address Book contacts into your Mac OS X Address Book without bringing in duplicate entries.
    •    Safari™ - AOL Service Assistant enables you to import your AOL® Favorite Places into a folder in the Safari Bookmarks Bar.

Macintosh Internet Security Guide

This page provides links to background information, security vendors, comparative and individual reviews of personal firewall, anti-virus, anti-spam, privacy and suites of software as well as hardware firewalls and anti-theft services to help you protect your Macintosh desktop or laptop computer

Protect your Mac

18 ways to safeguard your data and your privacy right now
By Mark H. Anbinder, Jeffery Battersby, Glenn Fleishman and Kirk McElhear

This article is likely the best Mac Security reference available......

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Your Mac is the safest personal computer on the market. Even though we’ve had a couple of scares this year, there are still almost no Mac viruses. According to research done by Sophos (a maker of antivirus software), at press time there were only four known OS X viruses, compared with roughly 80,000 on Windows.

But let’s face it—we live in a dangerous world, and not all of those dangers (especially those to your privacy) are platform-specific. Here’s how to keep your personal information out of the wrong hands—and keep your Mac out of trouble.

Mac Mobile Security

Here is an article from MacWorld author Jason Cook covering Mobile security

Laptop owners adore PowerBooks and iBooks for their snazzy looks, light weight, and excellent resale value. Unfortunately, thieves like them for the very same reasons. And the person who steals your laptop not only nabs your hardware but also may gain access to financial records, corporate data, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information. There are ways to protect your computer and your data. Whether you lash down your laptop with steel cables or apply military-grade data encryption across your hard drive, protecting your laptop takes some effort -- but it may be easier than you expect.

I even call Apple Support sometimes

I have people that I assist tell me that they think I know everything.  That certainly isn't the case.  I do have some well honed skills at using Google to make it sometimes look that way but it doesn't always work.

This evening I came home and after starting my mac, launched iCal to look at my schedule only to see the iCal window go away and get an "Application Unexpectedly Quit" error"  After a few Google searches, removing a few files in the preferences, and a few expletives, I still had no success in getting iCal to run.

I decided to give Apple Support a cal.  After 5 minutes on hold, a nice gentleman came on the line. asked my serial number, and asked what my problem was.

I explained it to him and he told me to delete the folder called Caches in the User Library folder.  No assistance on the web told me about that.  I deleted the folder, and the preference file for iCal for good measure, and iCal magically ran again.

This goes to say that we all need to be willing to accept assistance.  I spent about a half hour trying to fix this problem I had never seen but after 10 minutes on the phone with the mother ship, I was back in business.

Don't be afraid to call.