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For many families and college students, we’re about to enter the final weeks of back-to-school preparation. Our Mac to School specials will run through August and into the beginning of September. Our most popular offer features a free $50 or $100 gift card with purchase of any new Mac with AppleCare. Click here to see our Mac to School page.
Also, we continue to offer all Mac software for 10% – 25% off! Click here to see Mac software on sale.
If you are a gamer who has been plagued by slow frame rates and unstable graphics performance since updating to Mac OS 10.6.4, you’ll be happy to hear Apple has officially released a fix. The problem, which effected certain NVIDIA cards in newer Macs, caused unpredictable frame rates, unresponsiveness, and graphical glitches in many current games. Valve and Blizzard titles such as “*Portal*”:http://store.steampowered.com/app/400/ and “*StarCraft II*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/76463/blizzard-entertainment-starcraft-ii-wings-of-liberty/at_kb were particularly troublesome. Other graphically intensive titles including Apple’s own “*Aperture 3*”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/75425/apple-aperture-3/at_kb were also experiencing problems prior to the new patch.
The Snow Leopard Graphics Update can be easily downloaded by selecting Software Update from the Apple Menu. It can be externally downloaded “*here*”:http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1083
Fellow art geeks rejoice. The folks at the MoMa have released an official iOS App for Apple’s mobile devices. This free app brings the museum’s vast collection of modern art to your pocket, alongside other high quality and informative museum related content. The default screen is a calendar of current events taking place at the institution including current exhibitions and film schedules. Users can also select from Tours, Art, and Info by tapping on the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. The Mobile Tours portion of the app is designed to provide accompaniment to a museum visit, and the Info screen provides museum hours, admission, a floor plan, and more.
Unless you’re actually at the museum, the Art category of the app is the next best thing. This immense catalog of the museum’s permanent collection provides users with information and high quality images of every piece to ever pass through the MoMA’s doors. Art can be searched by artist, collection, and by current exhibitions. The app also features a comprehensive “Art Terms” section. This can serve to bolster both the credibility and pretentiousness of the art historian in us all. Plus, its an awesome way to impress people at parties! (A trick I learned pretty quickly as an art major.) The only downside to the app is that due to its small size, it relies on a Wi-Fi or 3G connection to load the majority of its content.
You can download the app here
Well, here’s a confession. Today (August 20) is my birthday. I’m celebrating by going down to one of my favorite places on Earth, Fenway Park, to watch the 2004 and 2007 World Champion Red Sox play baseball on a mild August night. I’ll probably pay a little too much for beer, drink a little too much beer, cheer a little too loud, and then sleep in a little late the next day. This is all a gift from my lovely and talented girlfriend, to whom I must say: Thank you.
I hope all of you have a truly great weekend. We’ll be back next Friday!
_Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,_
_Ben, Ed, Kali, and Don_
We have three different Airport wifi networks at our headquarters in Waitsfield, Vermont. Recently I was in the office by myself and couldn’t remember the very complicated password for our secure network, which I needed to access on my iPad. I almost gave up, but then remembered that I had previously accessed the network with my MacBook Pro. Unfortunately, I had only entered the password once and then clicked “Remember Password”, so I still had no clue what the password was.
But slowly, like an iceberg melting in the Indian Ocean, the realization dawned on me: Keychain Access. This utility stores all of the passwords you tell your Mac to remember. I grabbed my MacBook Pro, launched Keychain Access, recovered the password and set up my iPad. Here’s how you can do this:
In Spotlight, search for “Keychain Access”, or navigate to Applications folder > Utilities > Keychain Access. You’ll see your different keychains organized here, such as Login, PrivateEncryptedData, System, or System Roots.
To reveal the password to a wireless network you’ve logged into in the past, double click the name of the network under “System.” Under the attributes tab, select the “Show password” checkbox. Now enter your keychain password, which is usually the same password you use to log into your Mac or install new software. To display the password for the keychain item, click Allow. The password will be displayed next to the “Show password” checkbox.
There you go! I need a Keychain Access for my brain.
Last week we posed the question: Do you prefer to read digital or paper books? in our weekly Kibbles & Bytes newsletter. We received an overwhelming response from our readers which led us to wonder which apps are best on the digital side of things. With the steadily rising popularity of the iPad, and the firmly established iPhone/iPod touch platform, App developers have taken full advantage of the surge in ebook popularity. Though one of its highly advertised features, the iPad does not ship with an included e-reader. Apple’s free iBooks may seem like a no brainer on your inaugural trip to the App Store, but it unfortunately lacks some of the content and features supported in other apps. So which e-reader apps are the best of the best? We’ve surveyed iPad users around the office as well as our Twitter followers to find out.
The first five apps are listed below. “Click here to see the top five on our Blog, Barkings!”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/toptenplist-1-our-favorite-ios-ereaders/
*10. Nook*
Barnes & Noble’s reader features the largest library of digital publication available on any platform. Similar to the Kindle app, the Nook app allows syncing between all Apple iOS devices including Macs. Though the library of over 1 million titles is impressive, the Nook experience just doesn’t quite compare to iBooks and Kindle. *Free*
*9. Classics*
Classics was one of the first e-readers to land in the App store and has been claimed by many to be the inspiration behind iBooks. As its name implies, Classics is a collection of literary masterpieces ranging from Pride & Prejudice to Treasure Island. In total the app features about 25 books several of which include illustrations. *$2.99*
*8. STARSS*
Depending on how you feel about Star Trek, STARSS may be the coolest or dorkiest RSS reader ever. Featuring an excellent recreation of the LCARS graphical user interface this app make the news of today feel like the news of tomorrow. *$2.99*
*7. Goodreader*
If you’ve got momentous PDF files to view on the go, GoodReader is your app. With users reporting fine performance with file sizes up to 1GB, this app can tackle nearly any file you toss at it. Featuring additional support for MS Office and iWork documents, web archives, TXT, and media files, this app is a must have for referencing documents on the go. Plus, it’s a steal! *$0.99*
*6. Instapaper*
The folks behind Instapaper realize that when you’re at work you should be working. This app is incredibly useful if you’ve ever stumbled upon (get it?) something you’d like to read but just don’t have the time to. The app allows you to effortlessly save long news articles or blog posts (like this one) for reading later on when you’re off the clock. *$4.99*
Again, these are just the first five apps “Click here to see the top five on our Blog, Barkings!”:http://blog.smalldog.com/article/toptenplist-1-our-favorite-ios-ereaders/