Google Chrome for Mac is released!
Another, “I like this!”:
Google “Chrome” is a fairly new web Browser that was developed by our friends at Google. Its been out for PC for awhile, but we Mac owners who wanted to try it were out of luck…Till Now. Google even had a Sign Up list to be notified for when the Mac version was released. You may have gotten the notice from Google that the Mac version is finally out. I did, downloaded it, and I’ve been trying it out for the last few days. Its has some very nice features and is Way Fast (and free* of course) Another nice tool from the folks at Google, who seem to be getting more and more on the Mac band-wagon all the time. Link below to download the Mac (beta) version. Check it out, and see how it feels compared to Firefox (or Safari).
* http://www.google.com/chrome
More: Snow Leopard and HP (PSC 1350) printer issues & UPDATE
Did an install recently of Snow Leopard; My client owned an HP PSC1350 All In One printer. And we find out post-install while I could get the printer online and printing fine with Snow Leopard, when I tried to use the Scanner however – it was not recognized. ARGH! So I checked the Apple list (at that time) …. Sure enough that HP model was checked off Printing OK but Scanning…NO. Tried what I found about doing the HP install again with the older 10.5 softwware, but this time it didnt work and the scanner was still inactive.
UPDATE:
12/3/09
Well HP seems to have finally updated a bunch of drivers for owners of older models. The PSC 1350 now scans, after updating Snow Leopard’s HP drivers to the latest version. Heres the current list of suported printers for HP: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669#HP
Snow Leopard HP Printer Drivers updated; v.2.2! NEW
Here is the link for the updated drivers just released (9/22/09) Many more drivers are supported! Direct link : http://support.apple.com/kb/DL907
And this link from Macworld offers quite a few details on the HP printer/Snow Leopard story (with interesting note about HP seemingly telling customers after they found no driver for thier old printer to go buy a new one… Now thats what I call Customer Service!)
HP Officejet printers & Snow Leopard UPDATE 2
Update: Apple Software Update HP PRINTER DRIVERS 2.0 — yesterday notified me of a new software update for Snow Leopard
Here is a direct link
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/firmware_hardware/hpprinterdriversformacosxv106.html
Please post your success (or lack thereof) and/or comments.
Scanning in Snow Leopard with HP All In One Printer
Scanning in Snow Leopard is a bit different than in Leopard. In Leopard with my HP Officejet 5610 All In One printer, I had done scanning via HP’s application called HP Scan Pro, and/or the HP Device Manager. In Snow Leopard however, this is changed.
Scanning in Snow Leopard (10.6) is done directly from Apple’s applications, Image Capture or Preview. It can even be done from the System Preferences Print and Fax pane (you should now see “Scan” as option there) See below pic for details on how scanning is done:
Here’s how Scanning now works in Snow Leopard with most HP AIO printers (and I assume others):
1) Open Image Capture or Preview.
You should see your printer/scanner listed as a Device on the left. Your scanner will display “Scanner Warming Up” and do a pre-scan. If you do not see the Adjustments screen on the right, click on DETAILS to get additional controls such as Color or Black and White, etc. After the preview scan, you can make any adjustments like resolution, type (tiff, jpeg…) destination folder, flatbed or feeder, etc as you can see in the illustration below.
Finalize your choices, and then SCAN:
At the moment I don’t see a way to scan directly into PHOTOSHOP as I did before with IMPORT from Twain Device – So I’m now just scaning to the desktop as a TEMP file, and opening the temp TIFF file in Photoshop, do my editing, and Save it. No biggie. It seems to work fine.
Snow Leopard: Its Here! (with photos)
Just got it, day of release. Here’s a photo of the actual box, front and back, US release. So the images (see post below) of the Portuguese release were very close. You might notice the Apple logo was missing on the Portuguese box front? The DVD Installer Disk looks identical to the previous photo posted. As a side note, my only complaint so far is that the box had no way to “easy open”, its glued shut on all sides, so I had to cut the box open, which I was not keen on as we all know how well designed Apple products are that most people actually keep the Apple packaging, yours truly too. How many products do you know that are so beautfully designed and packaged that you want to keep the box it comes with? (Tiffany’s?) That is Design.
The “build” of the Snow Leopard DVD release: 10.6 (10A432). Of course I will test out; and hopefully post about in next day or so.
(ps..Naturally to be safe I made sure to do a Time Machine backup prior to the install, of course!)
Snow Leopard update: Photos of Snow Leopard Disc and Retail Packaging?
Mac Rumors claims to have recvd images of a Mac OS X Snow Leopard retail box (Portuguese)
Story here: http://www.macrumors.com/2009/08/15/photos-of-snow-leopard-disc-and-retail-packaging/
Authentic or someones hoax?
I must say it looks pretty convincingly like Apple product. We’ll see if thats the image on the box when its released publically, in reportedly Sept.
Nice kitty!
Mac Owners, “No, you’re not infected”
I’m posting a link to a piece in MacWorld thats very relevant these days about “scary looking websites”, especially as a followup to another recent blog post I put up about Scam-Ware and Scare-Ware
“A reader says, ‘I used Yahoo to search for something and was sent immediately to the following [redacted] site. I believe my Mac was invaded and don’t know what to do!’
As Mr. Breen says: “First, relax. Your Mac wasn’t invaded, infected, compromised, co-opted, or conquered. If you’d clicked through a few of those dire pop-up warnings you might have been as amused as I was to see a phony Windows Security Alert appear on a Macintosh. What you’ve encountered is termed “scareware”.
I myself got linked to a website last night that just INSISTED on telling me how badly my “PC was infected” as it “scanned” my hard drive Registry (which doesn’t even exist on a Mac!) Of course, it offered to “fix and clean everything” for a fee. Total Bullsh$#@!. So above is very topical and worth a read. So be forewarned. The link again, here:
http://www.macworld.com/article/142200/2009/08/scareware.html?lsrc=nl_mwweek_h_cbintro
Email…Gmail vs. AOL
It always is a bit surprising to me how many of my clients still use AOL for their email after all this time (and for example, have not switched to Gmail…. a far, far superior email service in every way)
This seems to be a common holdover from the time, many years ago now, when AOL was a huge internet presence; I guess they were the ‘Google of their day’. Remember back when AOL used to send out what must have been millions of CD’s, with a “Try AOL for Free” come-on? I remember I used to get one of these in the mail a few times a week, only to have to just throw them all out. Wow AOL, that was certainly not “green” at all by todays standards, huh? I saved a few for coasters, but what a waste.
To me AOL basically was the “internet made easy” and dumbed down a bit. AOL was aimed at people who needed a little hand-holding back then in the earlier days of the surge of the Internet. AOL supposedly made it “easy” to use the internet, or so they alledged, hence the famous “You’ve got Mail!” sound whenever you got new mail, like you really need to hear that 9 million times just to see you had a new email. OK the first time its cute but still cute the millionth time you heard it?
But the main thing was about AOL was most users didn’t understand AOL was a totally unneeded “middle-man” in the whole process. They were actually just standing between you and The Internet at large. You didnt need AOL to get on the internet…any browser (like Netscape at that time) could get you on the internet. AOL just SEEMED to make it a bit easier by adding cute little icons and dumbing things down a bit. But it REALLY slowed down one’s access with those tons of graphics thet had and that you would have to wait to load just to even start using thier software, especially on (what we would now call) really SLOW computers back in the day. Oh did I mention DIAL UP MODEMS which made every graphic just crawl to get downloaded? So all this made just getting online crawl when I used to use AOL. Funny thing is for a lot of people, they are just used to it now and can’t leave. Many even are unaware AOL stopped charging long ago (but they didnt really tell their users that).
Today AOL as an email provider is still quite mediocre. Their email system’s been plagued with problems over the years. Yet still – strangely to me at least – many many people have hung on to it for all of the above reasons and more.
In a nutshell of all the email providers I’ve tried, in my opinion Gmail is by far the best. I encourage all my clients to switch to Gmail. And no, they didn’t pay me to say that (yeah I wish).
Benefits? Gmail is FREE; they give you a HUGE amount of space; theres no graphics clutter and flashing logos distracting you like on AOL still (!); the small text ads they have you barely notice, plus so many other added features and benefits its not funny: online calender, free “office” software, Shared Google documents, etc, etc, etc… Should I add “of course, its Google”?
Well Google does know a tiny bit about the Internet don’t they, and by and large Google seems to generally just get things right. Me, once I tested out Gmail and started using it, I switched to it and never went back.
Here are a few tips on using Gmail which might be handy….
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/01/gmail-is-different-heres-what-you-need.html
