A brief moment of panic today: I open up my MacBook Pro and can’t log in. The left half of the keyboard doesn’t seem to work, and there’s an odd green light on under the function keys. Turns out, it’s just Num Lock, which I’ve never used. Thanks, Apple, for making an entirely inscrutable Num […]
Apple
Flash Forward or Flash Back?
This is part of an ongoing series of longer articles I am posting every Sunday. The tech industry has been buzzing about solid state drives (SSDs) again lately, but many questions remain. Even after many major vendors (Apple, EMC, and Dell to name a few) have introduced NAND flash-based disk into their core products, it is […]
Warning: HP All-In-One Error With Mac OS X
My workhorse home office printer/scanner/copier/fax is an HP Photosmart C6180 All-In-One. It’s really quite good – an excellent printer, especially for photos, with solid scanning and fax capability. But HP’s software leaves something to be desired. In both Vista, it would “forget” how to find the scanner after a few months, forcing me to reinstall. […]
How I Get 7 Hours of MacBook Pro Battery Life
Shortly before landing in San Francisco the other day, the MacBook Pro-using guy in the seat next to me leaned over and asked, “how did you manage to use your Mac all the way across the country? Is that some special battery you have?” For a minute, I was tempted to make something up, as […]
Hallelujah! OS X Can Reduce PDF File Size!
One feature of OS X that really surprised me was it’s amazing ability to handle PDF files. Since switching to mac earlier this year, I’ve become a PDF monster – OS X allowed me to go completely paperless for most business functions, including expense reports. I’ve started using the “Save as PDF” function constantly, organizing receipts […]