Ryan Lusvardi

Looking for Office 2008 for you Mac?  If you don’t need Exchange email support this is the best version to buy.

As predicted (after finding out about Labor Day), the iPod event is going to be held on Wednesday 09/09/09….that’s according to AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski

And according to sources close to the company, the date is Wednesday Sept. 9. The event will be held in San Francisco — most likely at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where it has occurred in years past — and is expected to showcase upgrades to the iPod line and an update to iTunes that may involve some sort of social element. Our sources insist it will not involve any discussion whatsoever of the tablet that Apple is reportedly developing.

His sources neglected to mention whether or not Apple CEO Steve Jobs would be making an appearance or even keynoting the event.  They did stress that there would be absolutely no tablet whatsoever.

The event is likely to bring us new iPods with GPS and camera capabilities.  We’re also expecting to see the 16/32/64GB iPod Touch varieties with $199/$299/$399 price points.

From 9to5mac.com

Obviously the best answer is right after Apple has made an update. From what I have noticed this typically happens in February, July, or Sept/October. Apple is scheduled to release Snow Leopard September this year.  I would suspect there may be a new Apple product (tablet) lurking around the corner.  Check out the rumors here: http://www.9to5mac.com/Tablet-Apple-September.  Here is a site that has kept track of what has happened historically and tries to make what I would consider the best recommendation of when to buy: http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/.  Looking to buy an Apple computer or an iPod?  Check out my store here: http://ryan.lusvardi.net/store

Set this screensaver to scan your iPhone library for Originals and sit back and watch it fly.  Very cool! Get it here: http://davidmcnerney.com/MovingPhotos3D/index.html

Evernote has a good thing going: Cross Platform (Windows and Mac) note syncronization with mobile access from iPhone, Windows Mobile, Web OS (Palm Pre), and Blackberry.  Very convenient and very easy to use.  They have both a free and a paid version depending on what your needs are.  Check it out here.

OK,  You finally joined the team.  Congratulations.  You are now finally ready to leave the blue screens of death, viruses, spyware, and the memory referenced errors behind.  Where do you start?  I have compiled some of my favorite sites for PC to Mac users to help smooth your transition.  Don’t get frustrated when you can’t figure out how to do something.  The Mac is a very wonderful capable platform.  Do your do dilliagence and spend some time to learn the basics.  Read more…

Airfoil is one of the coolest apps invented.  It allows you to take sound/music from your computer and pipe it to any Windows, Mac, or iPhone on your network or in your house.  This allows you to play the same music on all your computers throughout your workplace or home.  This is one of the least expensive ways that I know to have a whole house music system.  Use this in combination with your iPhone remote and you can have a great setup.  There is a small charge assoicated with this software $25 (Single License) but it is well worth it.  Check out Airfoil here.

Quicksilver is one of my favorite Apps for the Mac.  Here is a description from the blacktree website: “When opened, it will create a catalog of applications and some frequently used folders and documents. Activate it, and you can search for and open anything in its catalog instantly. The search is adaptive, so Quicksilver will recognize which items you are searching for based on previous experience. It also supports abbreviations, so you can type entire words, or just fragments of each. When not in use, Quicksilver vanishes, waiting for the next time you summon it.”

As promised in a previous post here is my Quicksilver Tutorial Series.  Make sure you have Quicksilver downloaded.  You can download it here.

Tutorial 1: Getting Started With Quicksilver
Tutorial 2: Quicksilver The Guide from the Apple Blog

More advanced tutorials to follow shortly…

xCuts is a terrific Mac widget that reminds you what the shortcut keys are in the Mac OS. Get it here.

Awhile back I was asked if it is recommended to run AV software on the MAC.  Apple came out with this response: “Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult,”  However, when I went to find this original comment on their support website it seemed to be removed. Information week explains their thoughts about this comment.  See here. Check out this users question from Apples support site.  In my opinion there is no great AV software solution out there for the MAC.  I think most of the software out there will probably result in slowing down your computer and will provide little or no help at detecting threats.  The MAC OS is still relatively protected in the virus arena.  However, with time and with the growth of Apple I imagine that one day soon we will all be running robust AV software on our MACs.  In the mean time if you are interested in running an on demand scan the best software out there seems to be ClamXav.  A colleague also told me about this product iAntivirus which I haven’t had a chance to look into yet.

To learn more about this subject read this excellent article from Macworld.

Quicksilver has gotta be my favorite application for the MAC.  For the average user Quicksilver is an application that helps you launch applications, documents, and open folders.  However, it can be customized into a very powerful tool.  You can create personalized shortcuts, create macros (create a keystroke to preform multiple events like attach an item to an email), and much more.  I will post a tutorial on how to use Quicksilver in the next few days.  For now here is someone elses tutorial.  Download Quicksilver from here.

YouTube Quicksilver

Shadowbox Quicksilver Video

Ever wish you could see this in the Mac OS finder?

Click here to make it happen.

This is one of the easist ways to be able to help somone out who may have a computer problem.  It is a great way to share your screen with others.  Check it out here.