Merry Christmas (and free software)

I wanted to take the time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for sticking with me through this first year.

I also wanted to make sure that you were aware that MacHeist is giving away more free software for Christmas. There are two announced so far (Synergy and Enigmo 2) with a couple more available on Christmas day (and a couple more if you refer the site to your friends). Christmas Eve now and they have some freebie iPhone apps that you could win.

iWOW 3 - Solves Some Problems but Loses Functionality

iWOW 3.0 has just been released. It's an add-on for iTunes that makes the awful speakers in the MacBook sound pretty good. I wrote a review of the earlier version on the blog.

Changes from 2.0 to 3.0 - you'd think the details would be on the web site. They're not. Here's what I found:

1. The user interface got worse. It's been simplified but it's lost a lot of capability.
2. The CPU usage got better. Much.
3. They got rid of genredetection. Genredetection would hang about 20% of the time I'd try to unplug my iPod. It was a good idea to have the genre detected so that the appropriate preset could be set automatically but genredetection was a bad implementation of that option. I would rather set iWOW manually and have the iPod disconnection go smoothly.
4. They got rid of the Spoken preset. General works okay with Podcasts and Audiobooks though.
5. There's only one customizable preset now. That might be a problem for some but not a big deal for me.

I would recommend this upgrade if for nothing else than they got rid of genredetection.

Bag to Carry Around a MacBook

I got an e-mail yesterday asking me about what computer bag I use. I use a red MAXXUM backpack from SwissGear by Wenger. It fits everything I need to carry around with me, is excepionally well made and was under $40.

Amazon has them now for a little more and their site includes a couple of images of the bag full of stuff (I love Amazon, they carry everything).

Pros: Durability, lots of storage space, strong zippers, padded back and shoulder straps, can stand up on it's own, available in red (I like red and even have a red MacBook thanks to Speck).

Cons: Can't think of any.

Blogger Admits That He May Have Been Wrong

Well I feel like I'm letting the side down by admitting this but I may have made a mistake in a previous post.

I questioned the reasoning behind Apple dropping the Firewire port from the new MacBooks. I suggested that this action would mean customers would have less need of iMovie if they couldn't connect their camcorders to their macs. There may even have been an implied question as to Steve Jobs' sanity in the matter.

Well, it might not have been that big a deal as there may be a couple of inexpensive solutions to the problem:

1. The $3 solution - http://tinyurl.com/usb2firewire (I need a cable anyway, right?)
2. The $25 solution - http://www.iogear.com/product/GUH227/

Now, there are speed issues brought about by architecture differences with the FW400 being some 33% faster than USB 2.0 even though the nominal transfer rates are 400 and 480 MBPS respectively. The speed issue may or may not be an issue for your application but most likely not in my case (transferring a movie from our camcorder).

I ordered a cable (option 1) and will post a review when I get the chance to test it. None-the-less, I think my initial reaction may have been an over-reaction.

Forgive me for doubting you Steve.

How to Reset the Subscription for Norton Antivirus Version 11

So my boss bought a new Mac and it came with a free copy of Norton Antivirus (NAV). He doesn't like NAV so gave it to me. "Thanks" say I as my subscription is just about to run out.

Well, you can't just install a new copy over the old copy and get the license term to extend. No point trying to call Norton for help so I played around a little.

I tried uninstalling the old version and reinstalling the new version. That didn't work.

I tried uninstalling the old version, trashing everything I could find that the uninstaller missed and reinstalling the new version. That didn't work either.

At this point I realized that the old version and the new version were exactly the same. No big deal, it just meant that I didn't have to keep worrying about which version I was installing.

I tried uninstalling the old version, trashing everything I could find that the uninstaller missed, tried to find anything hidden and reinstalling the new version. Love the internet as a source of hints of what to look for here. That finally worked.

So here's a step-by-step on how to get your NAV Version 11 subscription extended:

1. Uninstall NAV 11 using the uninstaller
2. Restart Computer
3. Hunt down and manually delete the following:

• Library/Applications Support/Symantec
• Library/Applications Support/Norton Solutions Support
• User/Library/Preferences/com.symantec.WHATEVER. If you can't find any of these, don't worry, you just have a better uninstaller than the one I have.
  

4. Launch Show-Hide Files Automator to show hidden files
5. Delete the com.symantec folder in .private/var/db/
6. Launch Show-Hide Files Automator to re-hide previously hidden files
7. Restart (may be slow to restart)
8. Reinstall NAV 11
9. Enjoy

A lot of steps to legally extend the life of my NAV. This method will also extend the life of a subscription if you don't have a new legal copy.

And yes, I know; it's a mac, why use an AV? I just prefer to seeing as how I play in a multi-platform environment.