Happy Apple Halloween!!

Want to make your own? Follow these instructions…

Here  is a Quote from PC World about their findings when testing which is the fastest Windows Vista Notebook, Mac vs PC?

“The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year is a Mac. Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year–or for that matter, ever–is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware. The $2419 (plus the price of a copy of Windows Vista, of course) MacBook Pro’s PC WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88 beats Gateway’s E-265M by a single point, but the MacBook’s score is far more impressive simply because Apple couldn’t care less whether you run Windows.”

Was I surprised the MacBook Pro is the fastest Vista Notebook this year? Nope! Do I care that it runs Vista fast? Nope! But some people do and that’s all that counts…

Apple made an announcement today that it sold - delivered over 2 million copies of OS X Leopard since its Friday release!

“Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit with customers,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Leopard’s innovative features are getting great reviews and making more people than ever think about switching to the Mac.”

Read the entire press-release

So you have your shiny new Mac with Leopard installed, or you have just upgraded. Your Mac is ready for action… but wait? Where is your PC on the network?

Well, Leopard has a few new features up its sleeve to do with networking, and as such needs a bit of tweaking to get your PC to show up.

To locate and connect to a Windows computers on your network, click the disclosure triangle next to Shared in a Finder window sidebar to display the computers connected to your network.

If you cannot locate the Windows computer in the sidebar, you may be able to connect to it using the ‘Connect To Server’ dialog in the Finder.

OK, it is known that Vista does not like to share. And as so you have to make it play nice.

On your Vista computer to find your IP, open a dos window. This can be done by searching for the ‘run’ program in the search field in the menu, and then accessing it and typing in the command ‘cmd’ and pressing the [ok] button.

In the black dos window type ‘ipconfig’ and press return. This will list your IPaddress. The address is a string of numbers like ‘192.168.30.2′. the shared folder name may be the ‘public’ folder or something else, these need windows sharing setup on them.

Once you have this information from the Vista computer go back to your Mac.

Go to the Finder Menu > Go > Connect To Server..

This will open a server address box. in the text field type: smb://IPaddress/Shared folder and click the [+] button to add to the list then click the [connect] button.

This will bring up a connect as box asking for login details, just put the username a password used to log into your vista computer, tick the keychain and click [ok] and you will have a connection to your vista computer.

I have to say the ability to easily Share a Screen in Leopard may be one of my favorite new features. I use Remote desktop allot, mainly because I’m lazy, if I can sit on the couch and quickly check my email on my main computer upstairs from my wife’s iBook then why should I have to get up? It’s all about working smart not hard! What I like about Screen Sharing in Leopard the most is how well it actually works, I mean it is very usable. It’s easy to launch (From finder click on the “Go” menus and select “Network” from the list - navigate to the computer you want to control and select it - you will be given the option to “Connect as” or “Share Screen” - select “Share Screen”) that’s about it. You can even re-size the shared computer screen to virtually any size you like big or small!

Leopard Share Screen is also very snappy, the default setting automatically adjusts the quality to the speed of your network bandwidth, my network is wireless-G and it was more than adequate to do the job. I was so impressed I went a step further to see if Leopard Screen Sharing was as good as I thought it was, I attempted a double Screen Share. What I mean is I Shared my MacBook Pro’s Screen using an iBook, but the kicker is the iBook was being Screen Shared from a MacBook. And what was really interesting is the MacBook Pro didn’t even have Leopard installed on it and all of this was still usable!

If you have more than one Mac at home and find yourself running back and forth to chech or run stuff, stop the nonsene and get Leopard!!

This came as a shocker to me, mainly because I have done uncounted OS X upgrades in the past with only very minor issues mainly to due to some accessory drivers… but tonight while upgrading my Friends 24 inch iMac 1st generation we had a biggie of a problem, the blue screen of death that did not go away no matter how long we stared at it. We tried resetting the PRAM and booting into Single user mode and running FSCK repairs but nothing seemed to help. So we booted up his IBM laptop and had a look on Apple’s forum, it seems 8000 or more people where interested in the same thing as the Post for “Leopard Blue Screen Freeze” was a very popular one to say the least!! After searching through many of the post we found one that looked worth trying and like an angle of mercy it worked! On our next reboot we where in to leopard, few! Well here is a cut and paste from the actual post, if you are experiencing this problem give this a try and I really hope Apple fixes this because it is very unlike any Apple update I have experienced in the past.

The Leopard Blue Screen of Death Fix:

“I had the same blue screen hang but the instructions below fixed it for me.

1. Reboot into single-user mode (hold Cmd-S while booting machine)
2. Follow the directions OSX gives you when you get to the prompt (I
think these were them - just type the two commands it tells you to):
fsck -fy /
/sbin/mount -uw /
3. Remove the following files:
rm -rf /Library/PreferencePanes/ApplicationEnhancer.prefpane
rm -rf /Library/Frameworks/ApplicationEnhancer.framework
rm -rf /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/ApplicationEnhancer.bundle
rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.unsanity.ape.plist
4. Exit, to continue booting normally
exit

In my case I think “application enhancer” was installed on my machine
when I installed RezX on my mini but I am not sure”

Update: Looks like the program Application Enhancer APP is the likely source of this problem, so make sure to uninstall it before you do a Leopard Upgrade Please!!!

To uninstall Application Enhancer - open your System Preferences and in the “Other” section will be the icon for Application Enhancer (If you have it installed), click it and then click the “Troubleshooting” tab, next click the “Uninstall Applications Enhancer” tab.

Not sure what to be this year for Halloween… Why not be an iPod Advertisement!

Here is a Switcher who certainly has some influence with others, he is recommending to all his Big POS customers to Switch over to Mac minis to power their Point of Sales terminals and this has resulted in 80% less related support calls. That is good business for everyone, well except the support guy I guess… I think in this case he does sales and offers support so less support means more getting back to sales!!

Anyways check out the Article, it is very interesting what this long time PC’er has to say about his Switch to a Mac…

I found this Leopard review to be one of the best I have read so far, very detailed but easy to understand and great info on what really matters.

“Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard has two audiences: those who already own a Mac and are interested in upgrading their experience, and new buyers investigating a Mac purchase. This review series is designed primarily toward Mac users looking to upgrade but includes notes of interest to new Mac buyers as well. This segment provides a 2-page introduction to Leopard’s overall features and an introduction of the desktop, with real world usage notes about its peculiarities so you can decide if Leopard (and the Mac) is right for you.”

An Introductory Mac OS X Leopard Review: Meet Your New Desktop