• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

805-720-9276

[email protected]

MacCog: I help humans.

MacCog: I help humans.

... your Digital Life Coach and Apple support guru

  • Your Digital Life
  • Your IT Department
  • Your Carbon Coach
  • Contact Justin
Remote Support

Mac

July 20, 2009

iTunes Store doesn’t have wish lists! Or does it?

If you’re like me, you find lots of music you want to buy on the iTunes Store every time you go. Neither of us, though, allow ourselves to buy everything we see, right? Some of it is a “maybe” or a “compare to something else” or whatever.

iTunes doesnt have a built in wishlist function... or so it seems
iTunes doesn't have a built in wishlist function... or so it seems

The point is iTunes doesn’t have a button to save a list of songs you want to buy later! I’d wished for this feature since the early days of iTunes, but it wasn’t until I took a step back and wondered… “What is the most intuitive way possible to do this? If Apple put this in and didn’t tell anybody, how would they have done it?”

Well, a testament to their utter simplicity and over-the-top sensical nature… Apple has hidden this feature in plain daylight.

Ready?

A wishlist is the same as a playlist. Just make one and drag songs from anywhere, including the store itself, into that playlist/wishlist thingy. It’s that simple!

The Secret to creating an iTunes wishlist
The Secret to creating an iTunes wishlist... just drag it into a playlist!
... and there you have it... an iTunes wishlist/playlist thingy!
... and there you have it... an iTunes wishlist/playlist thingy!

weird, huh? hidden, right under your nose.

justin

PS: how many people reading this have already discovered this one somehow? If so, I’d love to hear how you came across it, or who told you. I doubt it was Apple.

Category iconBlog,  Mac

January 23, 2009

Why not to use Bit Torrent

Well, I’m being a little hypocritical with my headline on this one since I use Bit Torrent from time to time (for legal things!) but I’m very aware that this stuff could contain something malicious if not simply annoying.

Now there is proof of an actual malicious Trojan Horse for the Mac! Let’s repeat: a Virus-like thing has been released into the wild for the Mac. You won’t get it unless you’ve used Bit Torrent to download a pirated copy of iWork ’09, but according to zdnet, about 20,000 people have downloaded it already.

Don’t freak out about this one because if you’re not doing anything nefarious in the first place, you’re still immune. I just want you to be aware of the possibility.

Also, this morning I got a call from a client saying that after clicking on a google link she was greeted with a message like “your computer has been infected! You must install a protection package right away to protect from malware and spyware! Click here to install!” Well, needless to say, that message was a hoax, and luckily they didn’t click on it… but if they had it could have been a similar Trojan or Virus.

Lesson being: Don’t download illegal things and don’t believe it when a website tells you the world is going to end unless you click to download something. ALWAYS navigate directly to the site you’re trying to download something from rather than using some ad or link to it!

If you have any more questions about this, feel free to email or call me about it!

justin

UPDATE: According to ZDNet, there is now an “iBotnet” of Macs who have been infected with this virus that came from pirated copies of iWork and Photoshop. Again, if you didn’t get the software illegally, you have nothing to worry about… but this is a troubling development because it’s the first coordinated hacker effort against the Mac that has gained ANY traction (to my knowledge)

Category iconBlog,  Mac,  Need to know Tag iconTips

January 22, 2009

Bush’s White House computers: stuck in the 90’s

Obama Staff Arrives to White House Stuck in Dark Ages of Technology – washingtonpost.com

One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

It’s shockingly predictable… and infinitely sad that Bush’s White House was technologically inept. It’s just another example of how Bush’s Administration didn’t get it.

My favorite quote from this article from Obama spokesman: “It’s kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari”.

Oh man, this is when I wish I did Mac support in DC… hire me, Obama!

justin

PS: The Mac news media has picked up this story and we’re all rooting that the White House IT department will approve Macintosh computers soon!

Category iconBlog,  Mac

January 9, 2009

Goodbye Macworld, Goodbye Apple

Macworld 2009 is over and Apple won't be back. We will miss you.

Steve Jobs, I hope you reconsider coming back in 2010! If there is a
Macworld next year, I'll be back.

Category iconBlog,  Mac

January 7, 2009

Macheads!

"don't love apple, love the mac community" is a quote from this
documentary about the mac and its extremely loyal base of followers…
I mean users.

I was one of the 45,000 mac evangelists in the late 90's before Steve
jobs came back and saved the company. To say I have mixed feelings
about the sucess of apple which led to the loss of the close-knit
community of which I was a very young part… Is an understatement.

More thoughts later on this. I liked this movie a lot. It sure brought
me back in time!

Category iconBlog,  Mac

January 6, 2009

Artsy skins…

Gelaskins – Pretty cool stuff if you like cluttering up your beautiful
mac or iPhone. I don't know who was asking for something like this but
I'm posting this for you!

Category iconBlog,  Mac

December 4, 2008

2 Great things that suck together: iPhone and MobileMe

There are many many things I love about my iPhone. They are too great to list here so I won’t… but I do want to bring up how the combination of two great things combine to make them both SUCK.

First, Ringtones. I love these things. I love being able to make them myself in a variety of ways (check out my recent post on the many ways to do so). Consequently, I have over 15 Ringtones that are assigned to different people. It is fun and it lets me know who is calling me before I even look at the phone… which is especially great if I’m handsfree on a walk or a bike ride.

Second, MobileMe syncing. It’s also pretty great. It syncs my contact list (and my calendar) with the “cloud” and then to my iPhone and back to my computer. I LOVE not having to sync every day and could never go back to manually syncing with my computer (even though just that is far more than most people can or will ever do with their cell phones… but they should!).

THE PROBLEM IS THIS: Sometimes MobileMe seems to just erase all of the contacts on my iPhone. It’s temporary so I don’t freak out. Just yesterday I was listening to a voicemail and when I switched over to recent calls they were just a bunch of numbers instead of the names… meaning that I’d lost all of my contacts. Since this has happened several times before and they always come back, I didn’t worry too much about it and just postponed any phone calls I was about to make. This by itself is no big deal to me. I understand that glitches happen. But this one is starting to really get on my nerves because….

See, the BIGGER problem is that when this MobileMe glitch happens it also deletes any and all ringtone assignments that I’ve made. All of my custom ringtones stop playing when my friend calls and I’m forced to re-assign them one by one… a process that takes several minutes when you’re using about 20 of them! It seems to me that the ringtone assignment should be a field that is stored in the MobileMe AddressBook database rather than only in the iPhone. This way when the glitch happens the ringtone assignments will be saved along with all of my even-more-important phone numbers and email addresses!

Or they could just fix MobileMe. Ah, but now I ask too much?

Are you having this problem too? Let the world know with your comment!

justin

Category iconBlog,  iPhone,  Mac,  Reviews,  Web 2.0

November 11, 2008

IMAP… not your father’s email

I’ve been explaining the value of IMAP email to clients for years. It’s far superior to POP, especially when you check your email from more than one computer or mobile device. Plus, if your computer crashes and you have no other backups, at least your email is safe! I set up pretty much all of my clients with it.

Now, Apple and MobileMe have done a good job explaining it too. In this article, they explain why your MobileMe account uses IMAP over POP. It’s worth a read… and if you’re still using POP, think seriously about switching!

justin

Category iconBlog,  Mac,  Need to know

October 22, 2008

Don’t kill the Mac Mini!

Nooooo, Apple, No!
Are you listening? Don’t kill the Mac Mini!  Are you crazy? It’s a great little machine that fills so many niches I can’t even list them here.
My two favorites are: Entertainment Center (more powerful than an AppleTV) and low-cost server. I’ve set Minis up as both with many clients.
The end of the line for the Mac mini? | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2418&tag=nl.e550


While we’re at it… what are you thinking with killing off FireWire?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/community/?p=120
Argh.
justin

Category iconBlog,  Mac

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Contact Justin

805-720-9276
[email protected]

  • Justin’s Thoughts on Tech
  • What clients say about Justin
Install Monitoring
Backblaze Online Backup
Get Started with 1Password