Wayne Priestley

If like me you experienced the double Contacts and Calendar entries after upgrading to the iPhone 3.0 software update don’t worry there is a easy fix available courtesy of TUAW.

Double Contacts and Calendar Entries
After setting up Mobileme and syncing my phone the first time, I found that all my contacts and calendar entries had been duplicated so that there were two identical entries of everything. Our own Chris Rawson set me straight on fixing this. If you disable calendar and contact syncing from the iPhone, all the information brought in from Mobileme will vanish. Next, re-enable them and you will be asked if you want to merge the contact and calendar information of what’s on the iPhone which was brought in by iTunes. You do. And in doing so, the problem will vanish. This tip is not just for iPhone 3G S owners, it’s also happened to previous iPhone users who updated to system 3.0.

It’s a easy fix and sorted the problem for me straight away, but typically I had tried a few other things including a full restore before this fix popped up in my RSS feed.

There are a few other tips and tricks included in the article so click away and read the full story from TUAW.

I’d like to invite you all to a Tweetup (meet up of Twitter users) that’s been arranged for 19th December 09.

If your interested or just want to know a little more about it check out LiverpoolTweetup.co.uk for all the details and a list of people who are coming along.

A few of us are making it a all day event so we’re staying over for the night, there is a link to local hotels in the area on the Tweetup site so check it out if you’d like to join us.

Thank you and I hope to see you there…

For a few weeks now I’ve been using an application called Notebook from Circus Ponies.

It’s an application I’ve tried a few times in the past but never really found a reason to buy after the free trial.

After the update to version 3.0 I decided to give it another go and try to see if I could use it to consolidate information on my Mac and clean up some folders.

So upon looking into my folder’s I found there were a few candidates for that could do will a little better organisation.

• I had all my PDF web receipts in one folder.

• I had all my e-mail copies of software licences in PDF’s in folders.

• User guides for applications in another folder.

• And lots of similar things stored in folders all over the place.

So I set about reorganising things once I downloaded NoteBook V3.0 and soon had a everything in one place in a easily searchable notebook.

The searching and organisation is what makes NoteBook special.

With NoteBook, you organize your information naturally, using a familiar notebook interface, complete with pages and tabs, sections and subsections. Add notes and other text.
Drag in files and folders. Even “clip” web research, mail messages and other content into your Notebooks without leaving the application you’re working in.
Annotate your information with diagrams and sketches, highlighting and keywords.
Take voice-annotated notes that you can download to your iPod. And protect private thoughts with passwords, covers, and encryption.

My folder system is now a lot cleaner thanks to Circus Ponies NoteBook.

After a week of using the previous shortcuts I’ve mentioned so far, I have to say that it’s working out okay.

I think a week is long enough to get familiar with the shortcut and to allow your hands to get used to using them.

This weeks shortcuts are:

CMD + DELETE, ⌘ ⌫
CMD Delete moves the selected item to trash.

SHIFT + CMD + A, ⇧ ⌘ A
Shift CMD and the letter A opens your Applications folder.

I’ve decided to make more use of keyboard shortcuts on my Mac.

My reasons for this are two fold.

To speed up my workflow and more importantly these days, to reduce the risk of RSA from the constant use of my mouse.
I have already replaced my old mouse with the more comfortable VX Revolution, this had made some difference but getting away from using the mouse as often as I do is the main aim.

I’m planning on trying to master a few different shortcuts during the course of a week as a way of trying to remember them.

This weeks shortcuts are:

CMD TAB, ⌘ ⇥

The CMD TAB key is the application switcher shortcut, used to easily switch between running applications on the Mac these keys bring up a bar like view showing all applications running, allowing selection from left to right, using the SHIFT key ⇧ along with CMD TAB allows application switching from right to left.




The second shortcut is:

CMD H, ⌘ H
CMD H will hide any open application on the Mac, thus allowing the application to be opened again using the CMD TAB shortcut.
If an open application is closed by clicking the red button in the top left corner, then the CMD TAB shortcut will not re-open the app.

Next is:

SHIFT CMD H, ⇧ ⌘ H when in Safari.
An application specific shortcut, SHIFT CMD H takes you back to your Homepage, Google in my case.

My first thoughts on the SnowFlake mic from Blue.

It’s a nice piece of tech for sure, only let down a little by the detachable white plastic back-piece which is used to store the USB cable inside the mic housing when put together.

The Snowflake appears well built and solid, once detached from the plastic back-piece and placed on the top of my MBP the small pads on the inside of the body prevent any damage and stop the mic from sliding across the top of the screen if the MBP is moved.

Now for the sound…

Strange though it may seem, I can’t actually comment on the quality of the audio from the SnowFlake.
I’m the only person from the list of people I’ve spoken to so far that hasn’t actually heard my audio from the Snowflake, saying that all the comments are positive so far, with the SnowFlake delivering clear and good sounding audio.

It seems that the SnowFlake can be placed at some distance from you while still delivering excellent results, which turned out to be rather a funny tale while trying to explain the placement of the mic during a recent Mac20Q roundtable discussion.

That story aside for now I would say that the SnowFlake can still deliver excellent results even while placed 3 feet away.

So my investment in the SnowFlake seems well worth it so far, I’m hoping to hear some of the audio soon so I’ll be able to tell for the first time just how good it actually is.

After trying for an hour without success to join in the chat on a Mac20Q roundtable meeting using my internal mic on my MBP I decided to splach out some cash on the SnowFlake USB microphone from Blue.

Not the cheapest Mic available for the Mac, but I’ve read nothing but good reviews about the SnowFlake.

The best deal I found was from Dolphin Music.
At £10 cheaper than most other online retailers I feel I got a good deal.

Features

. Unique design fits on your desktop or laptop.
. Plug ‘n’ Play – no software needed.
. Perfect for podcasting, internet telephony, voice recognition software, movie narration & music.
. Mac & PC compatible.
. Includes USB cable.

I would suggest reading the post below this one-first to familiarise yourself with the story so far.

As I was saying, I had decided to get myself a new MBP and give my Son the one I have now.

I was happy with this decision until I saw a few tweets from @Gazmaz about his predicament, he considering a iMac buy then started considering the idea of a Mac mini and a 24″ Apple display.

So this got me thinking once more, shall i get the cheaper 15″ MBP and a 24″ Apple display to give me way more real estate along with duel monitor set-up…

Then along came @DonMcAllister with his explanation of how he went from deciding to buy a Mac mini and ended up ordering a Mac pro…

So, so far I’ve gone from a Mac Mini to a iMac for my son.

Then to a new 17″ MBP for me, and giving my Son my old 17″ MBP.

Then to a new 15″ MBP and an Apple 24″ LED display.

But it didn’t stop there however, I use my MBP to make home movies with Final Cut Express, and organise my pictures with Aperture 2, and I’m starting to use pixelmator and a few other apps more often that require some serious hardware to get the best out of them.

So getting the 17″ MBP with 4GB of Ram as standard would be the way to go as it gives me the option to upgrade to 8GB and put in a SSD in the future.



Now this along with the 24″ display, Apple keyboard and AppleCare is going to cost a little more than I have available at present to invest.

So my plan is that in a few more months, I shall take another look at the 17″ MBP along with the 24″ Display and see how the finances are….

You can be sure that I’ll be posting my final decision once the time comes

My decision was simple.

Wait until the Mac Mini was updated by Apple and buy one for my Son who is using an old desktop PC with windows XP Pro installed.

The PC is about 5 years old and over the last 12 months it’s started to show signs of its age, and as I want to eventually switch all the family over to using Mac’s I don’t see any point in spending money upgrading the PC.

So when Apple finally updated the Mac Mini I was all ready to buy, until that is I had reason to visit the Apple Store in Liverpool to have a repair done on my daughters Macbook.



I took the chance to get a good look at all the new Apple hardware on display and have a bit of a play.

I was immediately impressed with the 24″ Apple LED displays.
With the LED backlight the images on the screen seemed to pop out at you, and the size…. Well, a bit overwhelming after sitting in front of the 17″ display on my Macbook Pro.

Even though the spec’s of the Mac Mini were given a serious rev, I still wasn’t sure how long my Son would get full use out of it as he likes his games on the PC, and for this reason XP will be getting installed on his Mac.

Because of the price increase in the Mac mini I started the think that after a few upgrades to the basic Mini, that the iMac was starting to look a pretty good deal.
And this is how the whole process started to get out of control, but more on that later.

I was so impressed by the service I received from the guys at the Apple store, even though the Macbook was out of warranty, I left the store and made my way home feeling quite good.

It was on the drive home when I started thinking about my options and how best to address the need of my Son and his new Mac.

At present I have a 2007 MBP with a 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 3GB of RAM installed.

It’s an extremely powerful machine and way out performs his current desktop PC as you could imagine.

So that got me thinking.
Why not get myself one of those new MBP’s and pass my current MBP along to my Son.

Good idea, I decided I would do this.

To be continued……….

Found some nice FREE Wallpaper for my Mac from Minimamente.

They’ve got all the most common resolutions available:

1280 × 1042
1600 × 1200
2560 × 1600

There are 8 color variations in total so finding one you like shouldn’t be difficult.
Mine is set to change the Wallpaper every 15 minutes.

Here is the direct download link from the Apple website.