JT's Blog

In his editor’s note in the March 2010 edition of Macworld, Jason Snell penned a great quote

“ The entire point of Apple’s products is that they are not interchangeable with anybody else’s. Only one company makes Macs, iPhones, and iPods, and that’s Apple.”

That statement was never more truer then after last nights experience I had trying to hack my Apple TV with Boxee. The hack ended up rendering my Apple TV useless, leading me to  a factory restore (hold down the menu button and the minus button at the same time until it reboots). In the past I loved to tinker with computer related equipment and normally the Boxee hack would have proceed, that was until I purchased my first Mac back in 2006.

You see I have swallowed the Apple Kool-Aid and like a cold glass of Grape, with a little extra sugar, its fantastic. I own a iMac, a MacBook, a iPhone, a Apple TV and several iPods. I would eventually love to own an iPad.

The geek in me loves new gadgets and over the last few years my gadgets have centered around Apple. All my Apple devices work with each other without any issues and the software is top notch. I have run 3 versions of OS X as a Mac user. I enjoy the community of MacHeads as they are simply head and shoulders above the rest.

Back In January in an attempt to get back to my tinkering ways, I purchased an HTC Droid Eris. Though I thought it was a great phone for the price it just didn’t fit my Apple lifestyle, and as Jason stated, it just wasn’t “interchangeable” with Apple. Not only that the Android community was not up to the challenge like my fellow MacHeads. So I took the phone back to Verizon Wireless and purchased an iPhone, ending my 12 plus year relationship with Big Red.

As a side note I later came across an article in the March 2010 issue of MacLife that listed the 10 steps in which you could sync your Android phone with a Mac. Yes ten steps to match the one you complete with an iPhone and iTunes. Not this is not the 10 steps upon set up but rather the ten steps each time. Setting up an iPhone takes a few steps at first but after that is is simply one step. Best of all I don’t have to tell the iPhone to mount on my Mac like an Android phone.

When it comes to my Apple products its like what Steve Job’s says “it just works.” Yes they all just work and that is alright by me. Now that may not be for everyone. At times I wish Apple would do a little more, but I don’t complain. Typically search google and find the third party app that will do what I am looking for.

I also love my OS X software that I have purchased over the years, and iTunes had been the go to app for me since I first used it on the Windows side. I still work in a Windows environment during the day and its in an operating system (XP) that is nearly 10 years old. It is safe to say it is an operating system that has gone past its recommended shelf life. Like an old gallon of milk, it needs to be thrown away. After a week at work its nice to come home and work with my Apple gadgets and delve into my Mac Life.

The Mac lifestyle has been good to me and I for one am satisfied living in my Apple Lifestyle.

Upon purchasing Apple’s Magic Mouse one will notice that the middle trackball is missing. Upon updating to the Magic Mouse Software, either for Leopard or Snow Leopard, one will notice there a few options to make up for the missing functionality of a standard mouse, after downloading Better Touch one has limitless options at ones finger tips.

Remember that missing middle trackball from the Apple Mouse (formally known as the Mighty Mouse, Ya I don’t know why Apple thought they could use that name either) after installing Better Touch your worries float away.

With Better Touch I use the 3 Finger Click to reveal my desktop and the the 2 Finger Swipe to get to the dashboard.   With Better Touch I am able to the same things with a Apple Mouse and more.  Better yet if you touchpad on a Mac Laptop you can apply gestures as well.  The best thing, the application is free, download here.

Its Life’s little moments.

During the February 1st, 2010 Mac Geek Gab Podcast cool stuff found segment, John and Dave talked about Perian.  Perian is the self proclaimed Swiss-Army Knife for Quick Time.  As the site states:

“Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats.”

As a OS X user I get emails from family members with video, that most often will not play in Quick Time, until no. Previously I had been using the plugin, Flip4Mac, but a small number of video files still failed to play.  After installing Perian, many file formats became available via Quick Time. The best part about Perian is that it is free and is compatible with Quick Time and Quick Time X.