Oliver Siodmak's Rants & Raves » Apple Macintosh Related

Letter to Steve Jobs

Oliver Siodmak — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 03:27:52 +0000

To Steve Jobs,

Of the millions of people in the world who in some way have touched me – you will alway be someone whom without you ever knowing it has had a tremendous positive impact on my life and my career. Through your vision, drive and unwillingness to compromise you have inspired me. Through the products you developed at Apple you showed me that it is OK to lead instead of follow. To think differently and to want more from yourself and those around you. You demonstrated through your example that if you believe in what you are doing and continue to encourage yourself and others to keep trying, you can accomplish great things! I will always look upon your contribution to the human race and raw strength from your example.

Thank you Steve for being an inspiration to us all.

Sincerely,

Oliver Siodmak

Apple MacBook Pro 15.4″ for Sale

Oliver Siodmak — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:28:41 +0000

Interested in getting a MacBook Pro as a first your first laptop or a second machine as a backup? I just posted my MacBook Pro 15.4″ 2.33 GHz for sale on eBay (Auction #250467093464).

This MacBook Pro 15.4″ 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo has been my primary work machine for the past 1.5 years. I have upgraded both the RAM (3 GB) and hard drive (320 GB). Original display and both batteries were replaced 3 months ago under AppleCare warrantee.

The MacBook Pro specifications are a MacBook Pro 15.4″ 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo w/:

3 GB RAM
320 GB Hard Drive
Dual Layer Super DVD Drive
Built-in iSight Camera
Built-in 802.11n Airport Extreme (WiFi)
Built-in BlueTooth (v2.1.6g8)

Package also includes:

2nd battery w/ black battery carrying case
Mac OS X Leopard installed (disks not included) and upgraded to 10.5.7
Original restore DVDs
Apple iLife ’09 installed (disks not included) and upgraded with latest updates
Original Box and documentation
Applecare TechTools disk
Remaining AppleCare service (coverage expires on 11/25/09)
Speck “see-thru” hard shell case (plastic case that protects your Mac)
Marware leather wrist rest

The machine is in great condition but does show signs of being used; Command, Shift and N keys are slightly worn, exterior case shows some scratches.

AppleCare coverage includes telephone and in-store Apple Genius hardware and software support.

Reason for selling: Recently upgraded to 17″ MacBook Pro

Check out the auction on eBay (Auction #250467093464)

Steve Jobs — I’m not dead .. yet

Oliver Siodmak — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:05:52 +0000

No one can accuse Steve Jobs of not having a sense of humor. As he kicked-off the Apple Let’s Rock event in San Francisco, the screen read, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” in reference to Bloomberg Financial Newswire accidentally posting his obituary to the internet. You can read the posting on Gawker’s web site.икони

Securing your Mac

Oliver Siodmak — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:39:05 +0000

One of the features I normally implement on my Mac .. especially my MacBook Pro .. is the firmware password. By activating the firmware password you prevent someone from rebooting your mac using an external drive or forcing your machine into “firewire” mode which allows then to use your mac as a large hard drive.

While this doesn’t prevent someone from ripping open your machine and stealing your hard drive, it does prevent the casual thief from trying to steal files off of your machine while you are at lunch.

Unfortunately, not all Firmware Password Utility programs from Apple are the same. And with the release of Leopard 10.5, you have to know the secret to where the utility file is located. After a heart stopping experience (A.K.A. using the wrong utility from an old Start-Up Disk), I was able to learn the double-secret hidden location of the file and how to use the utility.

Before you attempt to apply this password on your machine, I strongly recommend that you read Apple Knowledge-base article #106482.

While the information I am providing here provides new information (from Apple Support) on locating and implementing the Apple Firmware Password Utility for Intel-based machines running Leopard 10.5, the article does provide a thorough of the program. I have no doubt Apple will be updating the #106482 article at some point in the near future.

Let’s get down to it. You’ve decided that implementing a firmware password on your machine is a good thing.

You will need the following items:

Intel-Based Mac with Leopard 10.5 installed
Leopard 10.5 Installation DVD
Access to an Administrator account on the machine

Implementation steps:

Boot the Mac and log into the Administrator account
Load the Leopard 10.5 DVD in the DVD drive
Once the DVD loads, go to the Finder
From the GO menu pull-down, select “Go to Folder …”
When the Go To Folder dialog box appears, enter “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD/Applications/Utilities/”
When the Finder window appears, scroll down the list until you see a program called “Firmware Password Utility”
Drag this file to your /Applications/Utilities directory on your Macintosh HD (or whatever you call your primary hard drive)
Navigate to the /Applications/Utilities directory and run the “Firmware Password Utility” program
The dialog box that appears with describe what this utility will do and warn you that you must be using an account with Administrator capabilties to run this program.
Click the “Change” button
A new dialog box will appear allowing you to activate the firmware security and set a password following dialog box will appear
To activate the utility, mark the “Require password to change firmware settings” check box and enter a password
As with any administrative password on your system … Don’t Lose It!

I will warn you that while the dialog box for this utility is simple, it is very powerful. Once the Firmware password is in place you can not boot of a CD or an alternate drive unless you have the Firmware password.

Read the above referenced Apple Knowledge-base article carefully.

Best of luck .. hope you found this helpful.

But Steve .. 24 Hours is just not enough time!

Oliver Siodmak — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:30:21 +0000

I just knew this was going to happen. I rented Gross Point Blank from the Apple iTunes Store a month ago thinking, “hey this would be great to watch on the way back from LA.” Unfortunately I had to work on the flight and I never got a chance to watch the movie. No problem I thought .. I still have another 29 days. But .. what I failed to consider was how fast 29 days can pass.

So yesterday when I checked my email after I boarded a flight from Boston back to NYC, my iPhone reminded me I only have 2 days left to watch this movie before it will be deleted. My big presentation behind me I kicked back and started watching the movie. Which for anyone who has an iPhone or iTouch knows .. is a really enjoyable experience. Unfortunately, the flight was only 45 minutes so I only got up to the part where John Cussack goes back to his home town only to discover that his parent’s house is gone and replaced with a convenience store. I figured .. I’ll watch the rest of it tomorrow. ERRRRRRRR! Wrong answer. I let 24 hours pass and the movie was gone.

I am sooooo .. not so happy. I understand the need to set a time limit on movie rentals but would it have killed the movie studios to let Apple set the expiration time to 48 hours vs 24? I mean really? Would it have hurt?

BTW .. if anyone can tell me what happens at the end of the movie I’d really appreciate it.

History of Apple .. in Pictures

Oliver Siodmak — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 13:39:10 +0000

Edwin Tofslie has created a very simple image that visually illustrates the evolution of Apple’s products from the Apple I to the newly announced iPhone. Viewing all the images I find myself saying, “I owned that, used that, owned that … “.

You can check out the image at Tolfslie.com

How do you know if 802.11n is working on your Intel based Mac?

Oliver Siodmak — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:20:37 +0000

The following Macs have 802.11n hardware built-in but not activated:

MacBook Pro with Intel Core 2 Duo
MacBook with Intel Core 2 Duo
Mac Pro with AirPort Extreme option
iMac with Intel Core 2 Duo (except the 17-inch, 1.83GHz iMac)

To enable it, you need the Apple Extreme 802.11n Enabler software that Apple includes with the new Airport Extreme base station or purchase the software separately for $1.99 from the Apple Online Store. I recently purchased the new base station, installed the configuration software and had the new unit operational in minutes. I could not however tell if the 802.11n support was enabled. The software installation gave no indication of the hardware change. Fortunately, Apple does provide a quick and easy way to see if the software is installed and operating.

To verify that your Mac’s Airport card is configured to use 802.11n you need to run the “Network Utility” program (located in the Application\Utilities folder). Select “Network Interface (en1)” from the network interface selector pull-down option. At the bottom of the dialog box you should see, “Model Wireless Network Adapter (802.11 a/b/g/n)” (as shown in the screen-shot below).

You can read the Apple article on the Apple Support page.

iPod Subway Maps – New York, London and more!

Oliver Siodmak — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 13:23:05 +0000

William Bright, Design Director for Nerve.com, has developed a series of free downloadable transportation system maps that are viewable on iPod that supports photos. From his website, iPodSubwayMaps.com you can download maps from over 22 countries. Each map is segmented into a series of Jpeg images that can be viewed easily on an iPod’s color display. While you may not want to plan an entire trip to a new city using these maps, they are a great thing to have when you are traveling and need to consult a map quickly.

Although I live in NYC, I often travel to Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC. I have found these maps a helpful travel companion when traveling. I often use mass transit to keep travel costs to a minimum and bypass commuter congestion.

While Mr. Bright has experienced some push back from both the NYC and San Francisco transit authorities regarding what they consider their proprietary content, he is now looking into developing his own versions of those maps. It is unfortunate that those transit organizations do not recognize how Mr. Bright’s efforts will help increase public use of mass transit. Hopefully in time they will recognize the need to support the efforts of someone like Mr. Bright vs. impeding them.

Contributing to iTunes

Oliver Siodmak — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 14:30:05 +0000

I have been using iTunes on my Mac and PC for years but it was not until this past week that I actually contributed back to the iTunes community by creating and uploading my own iMix to iTunes.

iTunes allows you to organize, share and listen to music on your computer. The iTunes program is downloadable for free from Apple Computer. Once installed, you can use iTunes to puchase downloadble music and audiobooks from Apple’s iTunes store as well as convert audio CDs to music files that you can store on your PC. Once you have music files (i.e., MP3 files) on your PC you can organize them into playlists. What is great about using a computer to manage your music collection is that you can create numerous playlists that meet your needs. Once you have created a playlist, you can share them with other iTunes users by exporting your song list up to the iTunes store. Once uploaded, any iTunes user browsing the iMix section of the iTunes store can view my iMix and opt to purchase one or more of the songs I have listed in the mix.

The iMix I created is called Enjoyable Background Tunes and it is viewable in the iTunes store.

Redesigning the iPod

Oliver Siodmak — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:01:05 +0000

In Lev Grossman’s Time magazine article, Stevie’s Little Wonder, he talks about how Steve Jobs challenged his team at Apple to make the iPod better. It only takes one look at the new Nano for you to realize that they have succeeded. The Nano is very small and very functional. The screen is exceedingly sharp and provides features that until a few months ago were only available in the iPod Photo. “We use every fraction of a millimeter of space to get things in there,” says Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller. “It’s like a puzzle to fit all that stuff together. It has the tightest tolerances of anything we’ve ever made in the history of this company.”

All signs are pointing to another home run for Apple. My only challenge is to figure out what I’m going to do with the 3 iPods I already own!