Tag: Apple

  • M-series Macs are Amazing

    I am blown away by this Apple M-series. And by blown away, I mean the complete opposite, because there are no fans. Nothing blows!

    And it seems like I bought it just at the right time. The new prices Apple announced today has made my MacBook Air 3000 NOK (around $300) more expensive in Norway.

    The price change did not come as a surprise. Tim Cook did give a warning last week that prices would have to increase due to high cost on memory and storage chips. The same chips AI eats for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

    I have not yet put the Mac through its paces. But in my experience, most laptops get a heatstroke just by playing a YouTube video these days.

  • Hello (again) MacBook Air

    After fifteen years, I have finally realized that my old MacBook Air from 2011 is not up to the task of being a travel companion anymore.

    To be honest, it hasn’t been for a long, long time. And the age shows. No updates, including browsers, which means that some webpages won’t render properly in either Safari or Chrome. Including Apple.com.

    So, this week, I thought it might be time to get a new laptop. I’ve heard much praise of Apples new MacBook Neo. A quality built laptop on a budget. Good enough for most tasks. Certainly good enough for me.

    What I want — what I need — is a silent machine. Quiet. Over the years I have become more and more sensitive to noise. And Apple has these computers now. No fans. No noise.

    And let’s be honest; a computer with Windows isn’t an option anymore. It hasn’t been for years. I use one at work, and I have reached a limit on how much pain I can endure in front of a screen.

    So, back to the Apple Neo: Looked good on paper. Looked good in reviews. Looked darn good in the shop.

    Then I remembered that I’m not a student on a budget. And that I wanted something I could use for years to come. If not fifteen years, like my previous MacBook, then at least ten.

    So I ended up with a MacBook Air, again. This time the 13 inch with the new M5 processor. Quiet, peaceful, and from what I’m told: powerful.

  • Error Upgrading iPad to iOS5

    When trying to upgrade my first generation iPad to the new and shiny iOS5, I received the following error message in iTunes:

    Error 1611: This error may indicate a hardware issue with your device.

    This upgrade being done on a Windows machine, I did the most obvious thing second; restarted the computer. The first thing I tried was to close and reopen iTunes.

    I search online and found a few posts regarding this issue, both on Mac and Windows. And most of them mentioned uninstalling iTunes and removing a few key files, then reinstall the lastest version of iTunes.

    However; I did notice Windows complaining about an unknown device being plugged in. Knowing how Windows handle device drivers, I decided to try one more thing before reinstalling iTunes.

    So, here’s my tip. Try unpluging your iDevice, and reconnect it to another USB port. This will force Windows to detect this as a new device, and reinstall the necessary drivers. Worked for me.

  • 12 months in the Apple garden

    About a year ago, a friend of mine bought his first Mac and set of to explore the world as an Apple maniac. Now, 10 months later, he has finally begun to write about his experience.

    From his blog:

    Macify me is an attempt to document my first year as a Mac user. The idea is to try out some of the many myths and (mis?)conceptions around Apple, Mac and iEverything. I’ve decided to put myself in the role of the guinea pig and let all the good, the bad and the ugly of Apple Mac get into my life.

    In short – macify me !

  • Windows Photo Gallery – It’s Really Bad

    Today I was processing some images in Adobe Lightroom so I could send them to my brother. After the images was done, I did a quick preview of them. The default program on Windows Vista is Windows Photo Gallery. I was not pleased with the result, so I entered Lightroom and checked the export settings only to find them being set to maximum quality.

    Then I opened the images in both Adobe Photoshop and QuickTime PictureViewer and to my surprise I discovered that the photo was looking better there.

    Take a look at the sample image for comparison:

    Windows Photo Gallery vs QuickTime PictureView
    To the left: Windows Photo Gallery, to the right: QuickTime PictureViewer

    Before you start complaining about the photo being totally awful, and that this has nothing to do with Windows Photo Gallery, but more my camera or my skills. Let me explain to you that this is not the photo itself as a whole. This is a crop of the top right corner of the image. In other words, it’s the background, not the main subject.

    From this crop you can clearly see that Windows Photo Gallery renders the dark areas differently than QuickTime PictureViewer (and Adobe Photoshop).

    I guess this has something to do with Windows using it’s own JPEG-library which differs from the real deal.

    You have been warned.