1. Cellular Data switch: This is great news for people outside of the US and UK who have limited data plans. Now if you have no data plan, are reaching your limit, or just don’t want to use any data at a given time you can turn it off independently of 3G/edge voice and SMS.
2. Missing music controls: Double tapping on the home button to bring up Multitasking has come at the cost of the iPod controls (the little blue menu that would appear over whatever app you were working in). I suppose this doesn’t matter when you’re using Apple earphones, but I already miss that feature quite a bit and I hope they can re-implement it.
3. Threaded email doesn’t work (yet): The universal inbox works perfectly, but the actual threading makes strange mistakes. Completely unrelated messages from different people are grouped together, not all conversations are threaded…its a mess. Hopefully Apple can get this figured out by the Summer release date, and I’ve just disabled the threading for now.

I have four email accounts that I want pushed to my iPhone. 1 Gmail, 2 Google Apps, and 1 external account. Since you can only use 1 Exchange account (Google Sync) on your iPhone I had to come up with a crafty solution.

You could forward all mail to one MobileMe / Yahoo / Exchange / Google Sync account. The problem with that setup is that when you reply to emails they will all be sent from your push enabled account, and not necessarily the one they were sent to.

Instead, I setup all of my email accounts using IMAP and set the fetch interval to 1 hour. This way I can open emails on the right account and reply normally. I’m still not getting push, so I also went into the online settings for my email accounts and setup forwarding to a single Google Sync address (eg iphone@mydomain.com). Now I have the four normal email accounts and one push (iPhone Pushmail) that receives all mail from the others instantly.

Another problem. Now I receive immediate notifications of new mail, but once I open up Mail it fetches from the IMAP accounts, and now I have duplicate new emails. Gross. To solve this problem I logged into to my iphone@yourdomain.com Google Apps (Google Sync enabled) account, and setup a filter that makes all messages “skip the inbox” and applies a label “iPhone” to them.

Then I went in to my Mail settings on my phone and enabled push for the new “iPhone” folder on my iphone@youdomain.com account.

The result: when new mail is received, I get an instant notification. The counter on Mail doesn’t increase, but there is a sound and the phone vibrates just the same. From this point I can open Mail and new messages are quickly fetched from the IMAP accounts.

This solution is far from elegant and I hope if you find something better you’ll share it with me. Hopefully Apple can work with more email providers to make push support a little more common.

So when I got my 15″ Unibody MacBook Pro I decided to get a hardshell case along with it. I travelled to a few local Mac resellers, the Apple Store and various websites, considering what options were available along the way. I asked a couple questions that helped me make a decision:

1. How well does this fit and will it make use difficult?
2. How effective is it at actually protecting my Mac?
3. What’s it going to cost me?
4. Will it make my sleek computer look dorky?

So here’s what I discovered. Cases from Incase and Speck both fit reasonably well, with the Incase having a slightly better implementation. It’s hooks seem more sturdy and connect in better places. Neither case seems impede use at all, except that they make the screen feel looser. It will fall if you use your MacBook at an extreme angle (this is annoying if you use your computer in bed).

Both cases will protect a Mac from bumps and scratches. I couldn’t say which would do a better job over time, but I doubt there’s a big difference.

The Incase and Speck offerings have the same exorbitant price of about $60 CAD (Can you spell collusion?). For the love of broccoli, how could two pieces of plastic cost that much? Anyway, its a price that I agreed to pay to protect and customize my MacBook and YMMV.

The dorkiness factor is a pretty subjective topic, so bear with me here. I found that the Speck product looked a little cheaper and less refined. It doesn’t follow the shape of the MacBook Pro as closely and and it looks bulky when attached. The Incase seems to preserve shape and sleekness, following the nice lines and curves of the computer very well.

So I settled on a green Incase 15″ Hardshell Case for MacBook Pro. Public opinion of my case is good. Two or three people ask me where I got it everyday, and its always easy to tell which laptop is mine. It fits well, protects my Mac, cost me a lot and looks pretty good. Probably my favourite part about the case is the soft-touch rubberized coating. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you should really go see one of these cases, because its truly awesome.

Other than the price, I don’t have anything negative to say about the Incase. If you follow the instructions its simple to attach and forget its even on. It is difficult to remove, but there is no danger of damaging your Mac in the process. And in all honesty, if you plan to remove the case that often you should probably be looking at a sleeve-type case anyway. All in all I’m very happy with this purchase. If you’re looking for a hardshell case for your MacBook I’d recommend it for you too.

The app is put together by Mira Software, who provide frequent updates and, in my experience, excellent support. It works with a great number of devices and there is an updated list of compatible phones. These are my favourite capabilities:

• Readings texts on my Mac’s large screen
• Receiving instant notification of new messages
• Typing messages on a full size keyboard and sending them through my cell
• Mass archival, moving or deleting of texts
• All over Bluetooth (as the name implies) so there aren’t any messy cables

The applications provides a seamless SMS experience. When you receive a text your Mac’s screen flashes white, and the message appears in an iChat-like window. You can then type your response and send without having to touch your phone. Messages in the chat windows are threaded so you have one open with each of the contacts you’re chatting with.

BPE also has a number of calling features. I don’t really use them since Skype is available on my computer, but they are impressive nonetheless.

When you receive a call the screen flashes and displays a window that contains the phone number of the caller. If the caller is in your address book, it will also show their name and display picture. Even better, the app will fade out and pause iTunes if music is playing, and then resume playing when the call ends. You can also initiate calls with a dial pad on the screen or by clicking “Call So-and-So” straight from your address book. The integration is nearly flawless.

Issues and Solutions

I use BPE with my KRZR K1m on the Telus network in Canada. This setup has worked very well for me, although I’ve had a few issues. Sending texts on my phone is not possible when “Hands-Free” (the protocol that lets you make calls through your Mac’s speakers and microphone) is enabled. I’ve solved this problem by choosing “Suspend Hands-Free” from the BPE menu. Alternatively you can set an option that only opens Hands-Free when in a call, which was successful in my limited testing. You should know that the Caller-ID and iTunes features work regardless of these settings.

MMS messages also seem to mess with BPE, so they should deleted or moved before you use the app (at least on some phones). I don’t imagine these issues will affect every phone, mine is quite old, but this is what I have learned through trial and error and in conversations with the support team.

Conclusion

Its definitely a great app, but before you buy you should test to see wether your phone is fully compatible. Fortunately Mira Software provides a trial period, and if you’re still not sure you can even request a trial extension. Given the complexity of the app, its a bargain at $24.95 USD. I would recommend it to any Mac user that spends a lot of time tied to their computer and phone.

If you have any questions about app I’d be glad to answer them in the comments.

Something in has changed in Snow Leopard that causes problems on some Gmail and Google Apps accounts. I’m not completely sure whats going on behind the scenes, but a problem has arisen where Gmail complains the “Account exceeded bandwidth limits.” This means that too much data has travelled between Mail.app on your Mac and Gmail, and Google automatically cuts your account off to maintain service for other users.

If you’ve already been blocked, don’t worry, you can still get your mail online. The block should be removed within a day. I also changed this setting that seems to have prevented me from getting blocked again. In the menubar, click Mail > Preferences > Accounts > select your account > Advanced and change the “Keep copies of messages for offline viewing” to “All messages, but omit attachments”.

Select "All messages, but omit attachments"

Please tell me if this solution works for you guys. I hope that either or Apple or Google comment on this issues because it does seem to be effecting a number of people.

Using the built-in zoom and screen sharing capabilities (or any VNC) together on OS X can be a real pain in the posterior. If you leave your screen zoomed it becomes virtually unusable via screen sharing or VNC. That’s because there is no way to effectively move the cursor (and therefore the screen position) or turn off zoom (since you can’t easily access System Preferences, and the keyboard shortcut isn’t applied to the remote machine).

As someone who uses zoom quite extensively, I often find myself trudging up flights of stairs to manually zoom out one computer so I can access it from another. Its pretty counter-intuitive. I would have though Apple to make zoom usable remotely, make it easy to shut off or just disable it when the Mac is being controlled remotely.

But no, there was no solution. So I found one myself. I put together a cute little AppleScript and packaged it up as an Application. It executes the keyboard command to zoom all the way out, re-enabling your Mac for remote use.

It can be used in a number of ways.

1. Put in your dock for a painful, yet possible, launch.
2. Executed via SSH in Terminal (I’ll explain in a follow up post)
3. Soon using a companion app on your local Mac (this will do the SSHing for you)

So here’s the app. It is an AppleScript that zooms out your screen. That’s it, it zooms right out and quits. As usual, released under the Creative Commons license (with no warranty).

I know this of limited utility even to a small group of people, but it was irritating enough to me I though I would share. Tell me if this turns out useful for you.

New and refurb iMac.

Some of you know that I ordered a refurbished 24″ aluminum iMac last August. The ordeal proved to be an exercise is in my patience and sanity, but now that the dust has settled I can make a few conclusions. The biggest problem was the faulty displays that shipped in my first two iMacs. I explained the problem in detail when I got the first machine. The second was slightly better, but had more or less the same problem. Since I was a month behind on some work, I decided to keep the second machine until I was back on track. Generally that means giving up any hope of getting a replacement (within 14 days of purchase). Service was supposed to be my only option. I figured that didn’t matter, since a new refurb unit would probably have the exact same problem. 

After Christmas I decided I had caught up enough and took my iMac into the Apple Store to get it fixed. The genius told me there problems with LCD, but also with the graphics card and optical drive. He said that it would cost Apple more to fix the machine than it would to send me a new iMac. I agreed to exchange my machine, getting ready for another disappointment. I had no idea that when he said “new” he actually meant new. Apple shipped me a brand-new iMac in retail packaging, and I sent the second defective refurb back.

It was a frustrating five month ordeal. Ultimately, though,  I paid $1400CDN for a 2.4GHz 1GB refurb and received a brand new 2.8GHz 2GB iMac. The new one is flawless, just what I had expected from Apple in the first place.  

Most people have a better experience than I did. As far as I can tell, the 24″ iMac has been the only fiasco to date. I suppose the moral of the story is that if you order an Apple Refurb, you’ll get a top quality product. Eventually.

It started a few months ago when I got my new iMac. Long story short; it was a disaster, I got a new one, its a little off as well.. Anyways, it scratched my Leopard DVD. No problem though, I acquired a new image and tried to burn it to a double-layer DVD. Toast quit halfway through and seems to have toasted the DVD drive. The half-baked disc was stuck in my iMac and the drive isn’t recognized anymore. This pushed me to find a different way to install OS X, and I learned a lot in the process.

Booting from an External Hard Drive
Most people know you can boot almost any OS X capable Mac from a FireWire hard drive. All you have to do is restart the machine, and hold down the Option key until it shows you the list of bootable disks and click on it. Many people don’t know that all Intel Macs can also boot from USB hard drives. This means you can clone your internal HD to your external USB drive, and have a fully bootable backup whenever you need it. Its also possible to copy the OS X installation DVD to an external, boot from it and install (this method is faster than using the DVD). This takes us to the next possibility.

Booting from your iPod
I recently went on a house-call where an OS X reinstall was needed. Rather than carry around a bulky external HD, I stuck the OS X installation in a partition on my iPod video. Just like any other USB drive, its fully bootable (by Intel Macs) and be used to install OS X.

Leopard is Universally Bootable
But the system that needed a repair was PowerPC Mac mini. Uhoh. PPC Macs can boot from USB drives, right? Well that’s true, but if you install OS X 10.5 (Leopard) there’s a way to get around this problem. As long as you own or can borrow an Intel Mac you’ll be fine.

1. Start the PPC Mac in Target Disk Mode. (Turning into an expensive, shiny FireWire HD)
2. Plug the iPod or USB drive into the Intel Mac.
3. Boot the Intel Mac holding down the Option key, boot from the USB drive containing OS X Install. 
4. Choose the PPC’s HD as the destination (you made need to change to use the GUID boot record).
5. Install OS X as normal.

This fresh OS X Leopard install is universally bootable. That means it’ll run on either a PPC or Intel Mac. So after the install is complete and you restart the PPC computer, it’ll work just as if you installed it directly on that machine. This method is typically faster, and great if your PPC Mac doesn’t have a DVD drive (or doesn’t quite meet the requirements like my 800Mhz iMac G4). Its also worth noting that you can use Leopard recovery discs from one Mac to install OS X on the HD of another. Just follow the instructions as posted above, but the PPC Mac could also be another Intel Mac. For example, I used this method to reinstall Leopard on my MacBook and my iMac G4. I’m not sure about the licensing implications of this method. I own a Leopard family pack disc, its just scratched.

As promised, I started work on Dark Intentions 1.4. Its coming along nicely. I need to add some buttons, iron a few areas and insert all the little niceties. We should see a release some time this week. I’m serious this time. I’m also happy to tell you that I intend to provide an enhanced version sometime down the line. It will be easier to customize, and may even integrate in to your K2/WordPress site. We’ll see how it goes.

So last Sunday I followed the advice of many veteran Mac users and pulled up the Apple refurbished section. Its stocked with nearly everything in the regular store at a great discount. For the savings you give up the gorgeous retail boxes (refurbs ship in a plain brown box). That’s it, really. The product may have been taken home by another customer, but has since been returned to Apple and reconditioned. This process involves replacement of any internal parts, if necessary, and a thorough cleaning or case replacement. Refurbs arrive in perfect cosmetic condition with no scratches, scuffs or imperfections with brand new keyboards, mice and accessories. They have same warranty as new Macs and are generally better inspected than new machines. Mine apparently fell through the cracks.

Needless to say, I was willing to make the compromise. I can do without the box, and don’t mind if the was computer pre-loved so long as it doesn’t show cosmetically or in function. I ordered my refurbished 24″ aluminum iMac last Sunday. 

Yesterday the FedEx lady visited with a giant brown box. Inside was a perfect, or so I thought, iMac that looks absolutely brand new. I turned it on and immediately noticed the backlight was disturbingly uneven. I told myself this was normal, and after an hour or two it would look fine. It didn’t though, the display is a massive issue. My screen exhibits the following problems:

• The left side is far brighter than the right
• There is a yellow tint in the center of screen
• Sides are very dim, this is noticeable most with light colours
• There is a horizontal dark section that spans from right to left

An unedited picture I took of the screen.

My description makes it sound a little worse than it is, and my intention isn’t to exaggerate. The iMac is still quite usable. Its just that even at the refurb price, I expect better for the money. Comparing the display quality of my new iMac and my iMac G4 is a joke. The G4 has an obviously superior backlight (although not as bright). I called AppleCare and I was immediately offered a replacement. Hopefully I receive something from a later build week that comes with an improved display. 

Please note that this isn’t a vote against going the refurb route. This problem was existent in quite a few early aluminum iMacs and I probably just received one of those duds. Ordering the machine, having it shipped and using it has otherwise been a very positive experience. The quick offer of a replacement is appreciated, but I’ll reserve judgment on wether I’d buy refurbished again.

More information on defective 24″ iMacs: 

http://blog.neofoto.nl/?p=3/

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1093045

http://www.trick77.com/2008/01/13/uneven-imac-displays/