DragonDrop: Tom’s Mac Software Pick
Here at About: Macs, we love utilities that make common tasks easier. DragonDrop does just that. It takes the task of dragging an item from one location to another and makes it easier. If you're wondering how such an easy task can be made any easier, how many times have you started to drag an item and then had to stop halfway through to find the destination? This usually means dropping the item back in its original location, opening a Finder window, navigating to the target location for the item, and then grabbing the item again and dragging it to its destination.
DragonDrop
With DragonDrop, you can pause the dragging process by simply shaking the mouse or dropping the item on the DragonDrop menu bar item. Either way, the item is temporarily stored in a floating window that stays on top of the Desktop, while you unclutter your Desktop or open a Finder window and navigate to the destination. You can then simply continue dragging the item from where you left off.
DragonDrop is $4.99. A demo is available.
See other software choices from Tom's Mac Software Picks.
Replace MobileMe Services With Free Alternatives
Come June 30th, MobileMe will be a thing of the past, a footnote, a forlorn entry in an obscure corner of Wikipedia. In the meantime, Apple has been trying to move MobileMe users to its new iCloud service.
Courtesy of Apple
But iCloud may not be the solution some MobileMe users are looking for, especially those who don't want to (or can't) upgrade to OS X Lion, the minimum requirement for making the transition to iCloud.
On the good news front, Apple has stated that existing MobileMe mail accounts will continue to work long after the June 30th date. If you rely on MobileMe mail, you'll still have access, but the rest of the service will go dark at the appointed time.
If you use MobileMe, I highly recommend backing up your iDisk information to local storage. After that, you'll need to decide what you want to do about the cloud-based services you currently use that will be going away.
Your choices are to move to OS X Lion and iCloud, or to use alternative cloud services to replicate the MobileMe services.
If the latter appeals to you, take a look at:
Replace MobileMe Services With These Free Alternatives
This list will guide you through creating your own versions of MobileMe's core cloud-based services.
Apple's Maiden Data Center to be Run 100% From Renewable Energy
Apple has updated the environment section of its web site to indicate that by the end of the year (if construction goes according to schedule), the Maiden, North Carolina data center will be run 100% from renewable energy.
Apple has listed the data center as requiring 20 megawatts of power at full capacity. Apple plans to produce the majority of its power from on-site solar and fuel cell energy systems. The solar installation will cover two 100-acre sites, with each site able to produce 20 megawatts or 42 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually. The bio-gas powered fuel cell system will add another 5 megawatts of capacity to the system.
Energy needs beyond what is produced onsite will be purchased from local or regional clean and renewable energy sources.
Apple is also in the planning stages for its new data center in Prineville, Oregon, and is planning to power that data center with renewable energy sources as well.
Also in the planning stages is the conversion of Apple's existing data center in Fremont, California to run exclusively from renewable energy sources. In the Fremont data center, this will take the form of electrical supply contracts from clean renewable energy suppliers in the area. You may see the windmills at the Altamont Pass turning a bit faster soon.
Use Cloud Storage to Keep Your Mac Safari Bookmarks in Sync
Have you ever wished that your Safari bookmarks were exactly the same on all of your Macs? MobileMe users have had bookmark syncing for quite a while, and syncing is built into the Firefox browser.
Courtesy of Apple
But with MobileMe going away, and the current version of iCloud lacking some MobileMe features, including the ability to sync Safari's bookmark, I thought it was time for a guide to creating your own bookmark syncing service.
In this guide, we will take you through the process of syncing Safari to a single bookmark file stored in the cloud. So, if you're ready for all of your Macs to share the same Safari bookmarks, take a look at:
Rumor Roundup - New Macs in the Pipeline
With the Worldwide Developers Conference 2012 just around the corner, the rumor factories have been in full swing. WWDC is typically a time when Apple announces new products that will appear either right away or sometime in the summer.
Courtesy of Apple
Let's look at some of the more interesting rumors.
Retina Displays
It seems that just about every new Mac is going to have or support a Retina display. The rumors include new MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and even iMacs.
Most tech heads in the Mac community have been betting on hi-resolution Retina displays making their first appearance in the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and then other portable Macs as the products are updated. A Retina display in the large-format iMac is probably too expensive to pull off, at least in the near future. To meet the current Retina standard as set by Apple, a 27-inch iMac would need a display with 5120x2880 pixels. That's one expensive LCD panel. Perhaps we'll see a higher resolution panel in the iMac, but not one that quadruples the pixel count, as a Retina display would theoretically need to do.
MacBook Pros
The rumors are all over the place for the MacBook Pro. The 15-inch model historically gets the first updates, and is trailed by the other models. Rumors suggest a thinner, lighter version that may shed the optical drive and add a set of USB 3 ports. If the optical drive goes away, it will be difficult to differentiate between the MacBook Pro line and the MacBook Air. This may be where the rumors of a 15-inch MacBook Air are coming from.
MacBook Air
As mentioned, MacBook Airs are expected to gain Retina displays, but there's also been some rumbling about a new 15-inch model. The 15-inch model may actually be a new, thinner MacBook Pro that has been confused with a MacBook Air; it's too tough to call at this point.
iMac
iMacs are expected to be updated, including the above Retina display rumor. Beyond the display, the more likely updates include a faster Ivy Bridge-based i7 set of processors. If USB 3 is really coming to the Mac, it will probably show up here as well.
Mac Pro
The last Mac Pro update was in the summer of 2010, and to be honest, if there are no Mac Pro updates this summer, I have my doubts about the future of the product line. If there is a Mac Pro update, it will include Thunderbolt support, new graphics, and USB 3 ports.
I'll go out on a limb here and say that if we do see a Mac Pro update, it may include a new case design; likely something smaller, dropping a PCI slot or two and a drive sled or two. Why? Because Apple could reduce the case size and power supply size, and still offer pro users the ability to add drives and PCI add-ons via Thunderbolt and other connectivity ports. This could conceivably bring the production cost of the Mac Pro down a bit, making it more likely that Apple would continue the product line.
As for what will actually debark from the Apple mothership, it's difficult to say, but it's always fun to speculate. Let us know what you think will be appearing this summer!
Sync Your Mac's Address Book Without Using iCloud
Sign up for an iCloud account, and you're just a click or two away from syncing your Mac's Address Book. But what if you have one or more Macs that don't meet the minimum requirements for iCloud? There are several alternative ways to keep your Address Book in sync across multiple Macs.
Courtesy of Apple
In this guide, we'll show you one method that anyone can use to sync their Macs. In addition to being easy to set up, it's also free. If you're a MobileMe user who's been having panic attacks at the thought of the syncing services going away, take a deep breath and quit worrying. Just follow our guide:
Apple Steals & Deals: Sunday, May 13, 2012
Looking for a fabulous deal on an Apple or related product? Well, so am I! Every Sunday, I scan the Apple refurbished store to see which Apple products are currently available, and which ones represent good bargains. I try to look only at current versions of Macs, but once in a while there will be a great deal on a last-generation product that may be too good to pass up.
Screenshot courtesy of Coyote Moon, Inc.
This week, there are quite a few price drops in the refurb store, as well as a few entry-level Mac models that rarely make an appearance in the store.
The 11.6-inch MacBook Air is $20 less than it used to be, and there is at least one 2011 MacBook Pro model available below the $1,000 price point. The iPad 2s all received a small price cut as well.
Quantities are limited, so if any of these tickle your fancy, be fast on the trigger to make a purchase.
11.6-inch MacBook Air 1.6 GHz Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $829.00
13.3-inch MacBook Air 1.7 GHz Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $1,099.00
13.3-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.3 GHz Intel Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $929.00
15-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.0 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics: $1,359.00
15-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.2 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics and anti-glare (matte) screen: $1,659.00
17-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.42 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M and standard glossy screen: $1,949.00.
17-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.2 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M and anti-glare (matte) screen: $1,999.00
21.5-inch iMac (Review) 2.5 GHz Intel Quad-Core i5 with ATI Radeon HD 6750M graphics: $999.00
27-inch iMac (Review) 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 with ATI Radeon HD 6770M graphics: $1,419.00
Mac mini (Review) 2.0 GHz Quad-Core i7 with Lion Server, dual 500 GB drives, Thunderbolt port and Intel HD Graphics 3000: $849.00
Mac Pro (Review) 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphics: $2,119.00
27-inch LED Cinema Display 2560x1440 resolution: $849.00
27-inch LED Thunderbolt Display 2560x1440 resolution: $849.00
2011 AirPort Extreme Base Station, Dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi with printer and hard drive sharing: $139.00
64 GB Wi-Fi iPad 2 (Review): $499.00
16 GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad 2 (Review): $449.00
32 GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad 2 (Review): $529.00
64 GB Wi-Fi + 3G iPad 2 (Review): $629.00
Want to find out more about Apple refurbished Macs? Take a look at the process my wife and I experienced when we took the Apple refurbished store for a spin.
BBEdit: Tom’s Mac Software Pick
BBEdit has long been a go-to text and code editor for web and software developers, writers, and coders. It's also a great text editor for anyone who needs to manipulate text files by converting, sorting, searching, and replacing.
BBEdit
To help you manipulate text, BBEdit has a feature called Text Factories, which is essentially a group of multiple text manipulation options strung together. Text Factories allows you to apply complex transformations with ease; you can also apply the same complex transformations on multiple text documents.
BBEdit can understand and display text in various syntax formats, from Action Script to YAML, and thirty-two other syntax formats in-between. You will also find full support for GREP, and the ability to open and edit remote files.
BBEdit is available directly from the developer and also from Apple's Mac App Store. Because of restrictions Apple places on what an app sold through the store is allowed to do, the Mac App Store version of BBEdit can't install any of the command line tools or perform authenticated saves. For that reason, I highly recommend purchasing BBEdit directly from the developer.
BBEdit is $49.99. A demo is available.
See other software choices from Tom's Mac Software Picks.
Use Dropbox to Sync iCal
If you use iCal, and you have multiple Macs, this guide will help you get and keep all of your Macs in sync with a single iCal Calendars folder.
Courtesy of Apple
You may wonder why you can't just use Apple's iCloud service, which also provides free iCal syncing. You can, but the Dropbox method will work for any Mac, even the ones that don't meet the upgrade requirements for iCloud.
This is the third installment in our series of guides to replacing MobileMe features. So far, we've shown three different alternatives to iDisk (Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft's SkyDrive). We've also shown you how to sync your Mac's Keychain files. If you're ready to get iCal in sync, take a look at:
Disk Encryption With FileVault 2
Now that Apple has updated OS X Lion to version 10.7.4, you don't have to worry about using FileVault 2 disk encryption. Apple fixed the bug that allowed login passwords to be stored in security log files that were easily viewable to anyone who had physical access to your Mac. Although this bug sounds terrible, it only affected individuals who upgraded to Lion, but chose not to upgrade their version of FileVault.
Screen shot courtesy of Coyote Moon, Inc.
Apple quickly took care of the password bug. One advantage of the bug is that it brought some attention to FileVault. Many Mac users have never considered encrypting their drive. Full drive encryption has some obvious security advantages, especially for portable Macs, which are more likely to be lost or stolen. If it's protected by FileVault 2 full disk encryption, a lost or stolen Mac won't divulge any secrets. It also won't be usable without the FileVault password. Sure, the individual who finds or steals the Mac can just replace the drive, but while that gives them a working Mac, they will never gain access to your personal data.
If you would like to try out FileVault 2, the FileVault 2 - Using Disk Encryption With OS X Lion guide will help get you on your way to having a more secure Mac.