Well my MacBook Pro reached the 2-year-old mark and it was starting to show its age a bit, I use it near 24 hours a day, it’s always doing something… downloading, ripping, encoding, you name it! I have it set to never go to sleep.

In all that time it has never had a hiccup. The battery is in need of a replacement, it’s at about half of it’s original capacity which is not bad for a machine that has seen as much run-time as this one has.

I would actually still be using it but lately my trusty MacBook Pro has been letting me know to ease up a bit, I have been experiencing some annoying video card artifacts when I push it to the limit graphically speaking that is. This seems to only happen when I do my Screen Cast recording or other heavy duty video related work. I get these periodic and random horizontal lines in the video and as you can imagine this is not good when I am trying to record to print for my new Mac Video Training videos. It only happens when things heat up, if I start on a fairly cold Mac I can work for a while with no problems but as I said my MacBook Pro is usually working away so it stays pretty warm most of the time… Worst of all I didn’t get Apple Care which would have covered the battery and screen issue so for now resolving this issue would not be economically viable.

My previous MacBook Pro was the last generation Intel Core Duo (Not the Core 2 Duo) running at 2GHz. I had maxed it out to the 2GB of RAM limit and also upgraded the internal 80GB hard drive to a 160GB drive. The video card was an ATI Radeon with 128MB  of VRAM. My older MacBook Pro did not have a FireWire 800 port, the Dual Layer DVD burner or the 802.11n capabilities. (but rather a 1 FireWire 400, Single Layer Super Drive and 802.11b,g) Read the rest of this entry »

Apple has reached the 5 billion iTunes songs sold marker, sounds kind of like a McDonald’s slogan. Remember when McDonald’s used to put the total amount of burgers sold on their signage? And then I think they realized after they reached 8 catrillion or so that we all got the point, they sell a lot of burgers!

It’s still a tone of songs and reiterating the fact that Apple is the numero uno music store in the US and now even the most popular movie store with over 50,000 movies sold each and every day.

Congratulations to Apple!

The new 3G iPhone is going to make its debut in 70 countries this year and 22 of them by July the 11th (Canada being one of them - yippee!).

So what’s different about the new 3G iPhone? It comes in Black and White (plastic backing), it sports a 2.5x faster 3G radio over its edge based predecessor, it now has a built in GPS and it costs about half the price of the existing iPhone.

It’s all good news but I really want to point out the part that makes the most sense here… it’s being launched in 70 countries! Who really cares what the iPhone does if you can’t get one! Getting the price down will also make this little Apple gem not only a must have but a can have device. Apple is playing their cards very well here, by getting an iPhone into the hands of as many people as possible. Apple is effectively cramming Mac OS X and all it’s sexiness down the throats of of millions and millions of previous non-Mac users. Combine this with Apple’s new “me.com” dot-mac replacement and all of it’s push services and web based iApplications and it’s going to be really hard for the PC iPhone user to go back to that Windows based PC everyday. No matter what you thought about Apple, when an iPhone is staring you in the face day after day with all of its glory you are going to cave in at some time and take that first baby step into an Apple store even if it’s only the online one.

There was a lot more discussed at the (WWDC) today, Apple spent a lot of time talking about the new iPhone 2.0 software as well as the Software Development Kit (SDK) for developing Apple iPhone supported application. This only supports what Apple is doing by getting as many iPhones out their as possible and making sure the software is as good as it can be.

It kind of reminds me of what Apple did with the iPod, they turned the Walkman concept into something new that everyone wanted even though at the end of the day they both played your music. Could this be the future of the iPhone? Will the iPhone be the new iCon of the smart phone?

It’s been a long time since I switched to Mac but about a year ago my Mother-in-law switched back over to a Mac and so I inherited her used HP PC laptop. And until just recently it has sat lifeless on my shelf - so sad

I have been using my MacBook Pro as an iTunes server for my two Apple TV’s, I keep all my shows and movies on an AirDisk connected to an Airport Extreme all of which streams wireless throughout the house. The only downside to this is when I take my  MacBook Pro with me, so to goes the iTunes Server content which leaves my wife movie-less.

So I got an idea, PC’s can run iTunes, why not turn my aging PC laptop into an iTunes Server? And then I remembered the AirDisk my movie data was on, which on a Mac is very easy to connect to and share. An so the Googleing began… I needed to find out if/how a PC could connect to an Airport AirDisk. A few minutes later and the results where in, PC’s can connect to AirDisks too, maybe not as elegantly as a Mac does it but at least it was possible.

So this is what I did or should I say did twice because the first time I got the PC iTunes Server up and running she decided to go down about a week later virus ridden and ashamed, nothing a day and of my time and a format and reinstall couldn’t fix! No more casual surfing with PC iTunes Server for me And yes I had Virus software on it to boot! Read the rest of this entry »

Now that I have my Canadianized US iTunes account working like a charm, Apple gives us Canadians Movie Rentals! According to Apple’s Press release there are more than 1200 films available from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Television International, Lionsgate and Maple Pictures.

Not a bad start, I wonder how this equivolates to the total available movies for other countries? I know TV show availability in Canada is very limited and so at least for now, sticking with the US iTunes model works for me. This is great news for the majority of Canadians who just want a simple and convenient way to watch movies from the comfort of their own home. It looks like pricing and other features are comparable to US iTunes accounts.