Jan 06

How to get your external monitor to show a different desktop.

software 6 Comments »

When you plug in a second monitor to Macintosh computer, it may display an exact copy or ‘mirror image’ of what is on your first display.  This is called mirroring.  This is fine if you are doing a presentation and you want to see on your laptop screen exactly what is on the projector,  but it’s not very useful at home to have the same thing on both screens. If you’d like to see different things on each screen, so the second screen gives you more desktop space, you need to turn mirroring off. Here’s how.

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Dec 23

How to find the fastest macintosh

hardware No Comments »

When you are researching buying a mac there are a few things to consider, one of them is speed! There is a great site by primate labs which collates speed tests according to model and ranks them. This was useful for me when I was thinking of upgrading my four-year-old Mac pro to a new Mac mini, only to find that my old Mac pro was faster! Check out how fast the new mac-pro’s are  - insane – I wish I could justify buying one!

Another very valuable site is everymac.com which compares each Macintosh model with the models that came before it. The ‘what are the differences’ section  at the bottom of each model is particularly informative.

Finally, there’s the official Apple specifications page which can also come in useful,  although I prefer everymac.com.

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Jun 02

How to make your printer run cheaply

advanced 2 Comments »

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This hint is not strictly Macintosh, but it’s so good I have to write it up. Did you know you can get what they call a Continuous inking system (CIS) for most big name inkjet printers? It continually feeds the ink into the printer so you don’t have to change the cartridges! You can see the big containers of ink in the photo above – they sit next to the printer.
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Apr 03

How to make a bootable backup of your computer

backup, New to Mac, OSX 16 Comments »

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There are two main ways to backup your Apple computer.

1. Use Time Machine to automatically backup. This is the Apple way – the easy way.

2. Manually backup with some other software such as Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner.

Apple’s way (Time Machine) is a lot simpler. The big disadvantage  is that the backup is not bootable.  So if your computer crashes you need to insert the original DVD and restore from at the old Time Machine backup. This can take hours.

The second method is more complicated, but the advantage is that your backup will be bootable. If you hold down Option-Command-Shift-Delete during startup you can boot off your backup drive. This means that in an emergency you can plug in your backup and be running from it under a minute. You can’t do this with Time Machine.

This article describes the second method of manually backing up using Super Duper. When I wrote this article originally I used Super Duper, but I use CCC now. I like it better. No reason why.

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Oct 07

Is my mac still under warranty?

hardware No Comments »

All Apple computers ship with 1 year international warranty. You can extend this to a 3 year applecare warranty anytime in the first year – before your original warranty runs out. If you are not sure if you macintosh is still under warranty, Apple keep a central record of all macs and you can check out if your computer is still under warranty by entering your mac serial number here. If you are buying a second hand mac this is a good way to check the warranty on it as well.

You can get your serial number by going to the Apple menu, About This Mac, More Info, and then you can copy the serial number from there and paste it into the Apple site.

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Aug 02

How to buy a cheap iMac or macbook

hardware No Comments »

There’s no doubt about it – Macs are great computers, but they re not cheap, and it’s hard to find them on special! What you may not know is that you can buy iMacs, Macbooks, Macbook Pros, Mac Minis –  almost the entire Apple range,  refurbished from Apple, often at reduced prices. I always buy my Macintoshs  from the Apple refurbished store rather than new  from a retail store.  In my opinion the computers at  the refurbished  outlet  are BETTER   than a new one – as well as being cheaper!  Here’s why, and here’s some tips on how to go about  getting one.

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Jul 25

How to find out how much memory your Mac has.

beginners 4 Comments »

I’ve recently had some ask the question, ‘How do I know how much memory my Macintosh has?’ It’s very easy to find out how much memory your mac has – just go to the apple menu (top left of your screen) and select About this Mac.

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May 07

Best presentation controller for keynote or powerpoint

presentations, software 2 Comments »

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This Logitech presenter is great. After using the ATI remote wonder for a year or so, and a Microsoft cordless mouse also, I’ve done a bit of research, and came up with these little units as the as the best in my opinion. They are $79 at Officeworks and have all the features you need…

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