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How to: Prepare your Mac for Lion

If you want to upgrade your Mac to OS X Lion, you don’t have to worry about going to the store and having to install a bunch of discs from a box; you can just go to the Mac App Store and buy Lion for $29.99. You also need to prepare your Mac for Lion. Your Mac must have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor for your Mac to be able to run Lion. You can check to see what processor your Mac has by clicking the Apple icon on the top left of your display and choosing About This Mac. Your Mac must also be up to date with the latest version of OS X Snow Leopard. Click the Apple icon and choose Software Update to install version 10.6.8 if you haven’t done so already. After you have done those steps, you can open the Mac App Store and purchase OS X Lion.

There have been questions about the pricing and availability of OS X Lion to business customers and education customers. Apple decided to give business users Volume License contracts at the same $29.99 per license with a minimum of 20 users. Maintenance contracts for extra support will be available for $49.99 with a minimum of 20 users. For education customers, Lion will be included in the Apple Software Collection. The Apple Software Collection will contain Mac OS X Lion, iLife, and iWork for $39 per license with a minimum of 25 licenses.

You are still able to use the same mass installation techniques people use today to deploy Mac OS X. To install Lion on multiple systems on a network, you can simply copy the Install Mac OS X Lion application to the target system and run the installer. Administrators will also be able to use the System Image Utility included in OS X Lion Server to create a NetInstall or NetRestore image.

If you bought a Mac on or after the June 6, 2011, you are eligible to request an up-to-date upgrade. The upgrade will allow you to upgrade to Lion for free. You must request your Up-to-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchasing a new Mac computer.

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How To: Turn your iPad into an external monitor for your Mac

Many iPad owners don’t realize that you can use the iPad as an external monitor for your Mac or Windows PC. For $4.99, you can purchase iDisplay from the App Store. What is iDisplay? iDisplay is basically an app for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. You have to install iDisplay Desktop for free on your Mac or Windows PC if you want to use the iDisplay app on your iOS device for use with your Mac or Windows PC. There are also certain requirements you should be aware of before you decide to use iDisplay.

As written on iDisplay’s website:

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later. Intel-based Mac, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or later or Windows XP 32-bit, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (all versions, except Starter). Non-Intel Macs and Macs running OS X in 64-bit mode are not supported.

To setup your iPad as an external monitor for your Mac, you must first go to the App Store and purchase the app iDisplay for $4.99. You must also go on your Mac and go to Shape Services to download the iDisplay Desktop for Mac OS for free. Install the iDisplay Desktop software and restart your computer. Now that you have both iDisplay and iDisplay Desktop, you can click iDisplay Desktop to get it running. The iDisplay Desktop application will not pop up, but will show up on the top right menu bar to show that it is running. Now you can run the iDisplay app on your iPad and an alert will pop up on your Mac display that will say that an “Unknown device is attempting to connect to “iDisplay” on this computer.” You can “Allow always”, “Deny”, or “Allow”.  After you either click “Allow” or “Allow always”, the iPad now acts as an external display.

You can now drag windows onto your iPad. The iPad display may be delayed depending on your internet connection speed. You can take advantage of the iPad as an external display for simple things such as IM, Twitter, and weather. It will really keep your Mac monitor less cluttered. The external monitor is great for when you do multiple things and you are running low on space.

Feel free to leave comments.

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Zoom! Zoom! MacBook Pro

It’s off to the races. Talk about fast, the new MacBook Pro’s are coming in at blazing speeds. To put this is an understatement for sure. The new top of the line MacBook Pro 2011 is faster than the existing Mac Pro desktop. Basically, the ‘low-end’ base MacBook Pro 2011 13” is just as fast as last years top-end MacBook Pro models. The MacBook Pro 13” with Intel Core i5-2415M 2.3 GHz (2cores), which is the “slowest 2011 MacBook Pro’ is almost as fast as the last years fastest MacBook Pro. Osxdaily.com put together some benchmark speed tests and it shows that the new MacBook Pros’ are extremely fast. Some of the new Mac Book Pros’ are almost 3x’s faster then last years models. That is an incredible feat by Apple. Some companies make their computers maybe just double their speed. Sometimes companies just focus on the looks of the computer. Not Apple though, they focus on what really matters. A computer is good until it starts to become slow. Apple’s new MacBook Pros’ are faster then many computers out on the market. There are only so many things you can actually do to a computer until you can’t do anymore. Apple hasn’t changed the design, granted that it looks extremely good so it is probably unnecessary to change the outerwear, but they have definitely changed the inside. Isn’t that what matters though? The outside appearance is only good until you figure out what’s on the inside.

 

Last year’s version of the MacBook Pro 13” with 8GB RAM and a 2.4GHz Core 2 duo got a score of 3128. The new MacBook Pro 13” in 2011 with Intel Core i7-2620M 2.7 GHz (2 cores) got a benchmark score of 6796. That’s double the speed in one year. From what I can tell, that’s a pretty decent score in just a matter of time. The fastest MacBook Pro is the 17” model with Intel Core i7-2820QM 2.3 GHz (4 cores) with a score of 10164. That is extremely fast and it triples the speed from the previous MacBook Pro. I’m still rather curious about the MacBook Pro and if it is actually faster then a Mac Pro desktop. Osxdaily.com says that the MacBook Pro’s are, but until I see some tests, I don’t really believe that. The Mac Pro’s are extremely fast and I definitely say that as an understatement. No other desktop can even compete with the type of speeds that the Mac Pro pushes out. Put all the crazy fast technology, all the talk about Intels SandyBridge chips being blazing fast, and it is all true. If you didn’t buy a MacBook Pro last year, or you just want to upgrade, I would definitely buy the new MacBook Pros’. Tell us what you think about these new MacBook Pro models.

 

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Get ready to meet the new MacBook Pro line!

According to MacRumors, they have a reliable source that informs them that the expected release date for the new MacBook Pro line is February 24, 2011. With the MacBooks being updated with Intel Core i5 and i7 chips last year, it is about time for the MacBook to be more up-to-date with Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge processors. The new processors should be much faster and require less energy consumption. We are expecting Apple to release five new models. There will be two new 13-inch versions, two new 15-inch versions, and one new 17-inch version. Apple will most likely use the sleek design from the MacBook Air and bring it to the MacBook Pro. There are also many more rumors out there for us to go over.

There have been rumors about Intel having to delay the Sandy Bridge chips, which was true. Can we be sure that the delay affected the new MacBook Pro? No, because we aren’t even a hundred percent sure that the new MacBook Pro will even implement the new Sandy Bridge processors. As for rumors about the design, it sounds completely plausible for the new MacBook Pro to look very similar to the MacBook Air, as the MacBook Air is Apple’s latest model. With Apple changing their website color to a color similar to liquid metal, rumors have it that Apple may use liquid metal instead of aluminum. There are also reports that Apple will use liquid metal in battery cases. Since Apple has received the rights to LiquidMetal patents, it would make sense that Apple would use that technology on their products. Another rumor about the design is that it will be lighter if they use the stronger, lighter, and scratch resistant aluminum material. There are also claims that they will have a longer battery life, which is very likely. Battery life usually last longer then the previous model when Apple comes out with a newer model.

As for price, the prices for the new MacBook Pros are rumored to be:

$1499 — 13 inch

$1199 — 13 inch

$2499 — 17 inch

$2199 — 15 inch

$1799 — 15 inch

The rumors will be put to the test on February 24, 2011. If the MacBook Pro is released on February 24, we will be able to see all the new features of the new MacBook Pro. As a matter of fact, February 24 happens to be Steve Jobs’ birthday, what a coincidence. I am excited to see what Apple has developed this time. It’s time to save up for a new MacBook Pro.

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It’s light, durable, fast, and thin? What is it? A Mac??

The new MacBook Air is proof of Apple’s advanced technology. Released on October 20, 2010, it is designed around all-flash storage for more reliability and faster speed. The MacBook Air features a trackpad with full Multi-Touch support. Even though it is extremely light, it has the battery power to last for hours on a single charge. The MacBook Air is Apple’s most mobile notebook ever. It is light, thin, durable, and performs quickly. The MacBook Air uses flash storage instead of a hard drive. Usually, the flash chips are enclosed in a hard drive sized enclosure, even though the flash chips themselves are very small. In the new MacBook Air, only the flash chips are put into the computer, leaving space for a bigger battery. Apple’s trackpad also provides the most optimal way to experience Multi-Touch on a notebook. The MacBook Air’s unibody enclosure is made from a single piece of aluminum, which makes it extremely light and durable. The new MacBook Air display is only 4.86 millimeters thin, but it features a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. The MacBook Air also has a FaceTime camera that is so thin you barely see it, but it is extremely high quality.

The new MacBook Air features the NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 48 processing cores. The graphics processor is more than two times faster than the previous MacBook Air. The new MacBook Air also features an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. The new MacBook Air comes with Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The new MacBook Air comes with tons of applications right out of the box compared to PCs. Unlike PCs, Macs do not get Trojan horses, worms, or email viruses. That is a big step up compared to PCs, which are so vulnerable and susceptible to intruders and attack. In general, I think the MacBook Air is fast, efficient, sleek, and full of various features.

What do you think?

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