Parallels Desktop 8 offers many enhancements over version 7. Most of the improvements have been covered by the various media outlets already, so this post won’t be a typical review. What I’d like to cover are some of the more esoteric issues that I discovered with Parallels 8. The first issue was particularly aggravating, but…
Author: Dan
Dan Kessler is the owner of MacMaven Consulting.
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Two great utilities
iStat Menus is a lightweight system monitoring tool that displays a wealth of information right in your menu bar. At a glance, I can see my Mac’s CPU temperature, network activity, free RAM, and CPU activity in each core. More detailed information is available by clicking on each menu bar icon. There are even more…
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Local vs Cloud backup
Many of our clients ask about cloud backup solutions. Cloud is a marketing buzzword, so it’s important to understand why a cloud backup solution may or may not be right choice for your home or business. The primary benefit of a cloud-based solution is that your data is backed up off-site. It’s always important to…
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Apple Brand Value
According to Interbrand, Apple is now the 2nd most valuable brand in the world. While this isn’t a very surprising finding, I’ll add a personal story. I was in a tourist shopping village in Laos last year. I met a little girl, the daughter of a poor merchant. She didn’t speak any English. I showed…
If you use TWC for your internet service, you probably received a post card saying that you will be charged a $3.95 per month modem rental fee. This is essentially a gift to Time Warner. If you currently have a DOCSIS 2.0 modem, you can buy your own 2.0 modem for $20 (used) to $50…
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Lightning to 30-pin Adapter
There’s been a lot of discussion on the interwebs about the Lightning to 30-pin adapters. Charging $29 or $39 for these adapters, on the surface, seems like a major rip-off. I’d like to know more about the innards of these adapters before making my final judgment. I think it boils down to whether these are…
Under Mountain Lion, Apple removed the ability to sync notes between your Mac and iOS devices without iCloud. This option used to be available on the iTunes “info” panel for your iOS device. The option is no longer present. This was not a welcome move for anyone who values information security because, as mentioned in…
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Mountain Lion bugs
I’ve encountered the following bugs on my Mac Pro running 10.8. Feel free to comment on the bugs you’re experiencing. Incoming mail.app notification sound does not always play. Spontaneous wake-ups from sleep mode, fan runs at full speed. (I’ve turned off “wake for ethernet.” We’ll see if this resolves the issue.) Weather widget does not…
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Mountain Lion
Assuming your software and hardware are compatible with Mountain Lion, it’s a no-brainer upgrade. For $20, you’ll get a nice set of new features. Before you upgrade, check the following for compatibility: Supported Macs and other requirements: http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/ Application compatibility: http://roaringapps.com/apps:table Also, check with your printer manufacturer to see if your printer driver is compatible with Mountain…
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Safari slow after booting Mac
Many of you have probably experienced glacial Safari performance right after booting your Mac. This is due to a flurry of hard drive activity. A simple solution to this problem is to clear Safari’s cache on a regular basis. This can be done via the Safari->Empty Cache menu. Since installing a solid state drive in my…