I was working on an old Core 2 Duo iMac  for memory and system upgrade to Lion so that she can use iCloud.

System upgrade and software upgrades are generally a straight forward process except that it takes time to install it.

New iMac Upgrade

Fortunately, it’s plenty of free space on the hard drive and therefore there is no issue on this area. The memory is only 2GB  and I have upgrade to 6GB (1x2GB + 1x4GB DDR2 667MHz SODIMM) and it seems to work alright but did not notice any significant improvement on speed especially when launching the current version of desktop publishing software – Adobe Creative Suite and Quark 9 and Office 2008.

One thing that brought to my attention was the computer started up itself every morning and initially I thought I forgot to shut down the computer. But after a few days of monitoring it and I know that it was the computer that started up itself and I thought it was a hardware issue.

Energy Saver of System Preferences

But after checking all the System Preferences and I found out that in “Energy Saver” , you can setup a schedule startup and shout down.

Schedule start up and shut down in Mac OS X

I thought it’s a new feature that was introduced in Mac OS  X  10.7.4 Lion and that’s why I didn’t know about it. I was wrong again, this feature was in there since 2007 in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard  and for some reasons, not many people is using this feature.

So if you have a Ghost Mac computer that starts up or shut down by itself, then go and check out the settings in System Preferences/Energy Saver/Schedule first before getting these wrong ideas of  living in the haunting home.

I have been using the schedule  startup and shut down since and like it very much and I think I save couple of minutes a day  from waiting the computer to shut down or startup.

One of my customers was upgrading her 5 years old G5 17″ iMac to the current model  Quad Core 20.1″ iMac and I was doing the onsite installation. All the data migration went well . The only problem was she never use  internet  on this mac and she was using Hotmail for email on her old pc  .

I thought it’s not a problem as Hotmail is a web  based system and there is no need for me to transfer to the new Mac.

How wrong I was !

Next day I received a call from her and telling me that she can’t send email with attachment and she’s been using hotmail for more than 5 years and she doesn’t want to change to “Apple Mail”. Now it’s great, if Hotmail is not compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, then, it’s nothing I can do. But I’m running the same Mac OS on my own iMac as well, so I registered a new account with Hotmail and test it out myself. Guess what, I do not have such problem and I can send out all the emails with the attachment.

I thought may be  it was something wrong with the data that was migrated from the old computer and I might have to start all over again restoring the new system. Luckily, I didn’t have to do it ! It took only couple of minutes to fix that problem.

The solution was “Microsoft Silverlight“, it took only couple of minutes to download and install it.

https://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/

It wasted me several hours to do the research and find the solution  but took only couple minutes to fix the problem.

* * * * * *

Attachment from Hotmail Dropped Off

There is also another issue that I encountered with Hotmail.

If someone is sending an  email to me from their Hotmail account, I will not see the attachment file even it’s indicated it has the attachment.

I’m using “Apple Mail”  5.2 and running Mac OS X 10.7.4 Lion and the email was sent from iPhone 4. I thought it was the sender problem  changing different format of the attachment , but didn’t fix the problem. Eventually, my work around solution was checking that email in Web mail and then I can access the attachment file.

Right now, I know these 3 things do not work together – Hotmail, email Attachment and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Hope this will help some of the Mac users that are using Hotmail or receiving emails from the Hotmail users.

Following the upgrade of the Macbook Pro 15″ and 17″ recently, Apple has updated the entry level laptop – Macbook 13″ .

This new Macbook 13″ gets the improvement in performance from 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and new high performance Nvidia Geforce 320M video card.

The price remains the same at A$1,249.00 including GST.

Here are the new features in the new Macbook 13′.

•  New and high performance NVDIA graphics bring more speed and efficiency just about everything you do on Macboo.

•  Long-lasting 10 hour built-in battery.

•  The spacious Glass Multi-Touch trackpad gives you plenty of room to navigate.

•  Durable unibody enclosure  which is just 2.74 cm thin and weighting only 2.13 kgs.

Other standard features such as Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11N wireless, built=in camera and microphone are also included. But if you want a Firewire port, then, you will need to get the more expensive Macbook Pro. The standard RAM configuration is 2GB and it’s optional to upgrade to 4GB.

I’m sure this entry level Macbook 13″ will be very popular with the students and home user .

Here is the screen shot of Apple Store in Australia.

At the time of writing, Apple is yet to announce which retail chain is going to directly sell the iPads. Right now you can only pre-order the iPads on Online Apple Store in Australia.

In the mean time, the two major telephone companies  Telstra and Optus has both released the data plan for iPad last week.

Image credit: Delimiter screenshot of Apple online store

The problem with the printer is that the it’s gone “offline” when you try to do a second print after the printer is switched on.  If I do the hard reset by unplugging the power cord  and reconnect and switch it on, it will split out the previous print that caused the printer “offline”.

I have installed  the printer driver from the CD that came with the printer, and also downloaded from Samsung website. I have also reset the printer settings inside Printer and Fax in System preferences.

Took the printer back to our office connected to another iMac that is running Mac OS X 10.6.3, and same problem,

Then, we connect the printer to the network via Ethernet cable, and it didn’t work with “Bonjour” setup , but works with IP printing.

Rang Samsung support and asked me to re-install the driver .

Anyone have any suggestions ?

David wong,

0411 183 567

The iPad will be available in Australia and other 8 countries on Friday 28th May,2010.

Here are the countries  - Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and UK.

The pricing are as follow in Australian Dollars.

Wi-Fi-only iPad:

• 16GB – €479 Europe, £429 U.K., $549 Canadian, $629 Australian
• 32GB – €579 Europe, £499 U.K., $649 Canadian, $759 Australian
• 64GB – €679 Europe, £599 U.K., $749 Canadian, $879 Australian

Wi-Fi + 3G iPad

• 16GB – €579 Europe, £529 U.K., $679 Canadian, $799 Australian
• 32GB – €679 Europe, £599 U.K., $779 Canadian, $928 Australian
• 64GB – €779 Europe, £699 U.K., $879 Canadian, $1,049 Australian

I have not seen the data plan from the Telephone companies for the 3G models yet. Hopefully, they are significantly lower than the iPhone 3G plans.

One of my customers was end up with phone bill of $1,700 for the month with his iPhone last month. So be careful and  make sure you include the running cost before your purchase.

Here are our prices for current model of imac for immediate delivery :

iMac

MB950X/A iMac 21.5”  3.06 GHz 4GB/500GB/Superdrive                                   AU $ 1,499.00

MC413X/A iMac 21.5”  3.06 GHz 4GB/1TB/Superdrive                                          AU$ 1,899.00

MB952X/A iMac 27”  3.06 GHz 4GB/1TB/4670                                                        AU$ 2,089.00

MB953X/A iMac 27”  QC 2.66 GHz i5 4GB/1TB/4850                                              AU$ 2,469.00

Z0GF0000Y iMac 27”  QC 2.80 GHz i7 4GB/1TB/4850                                            AU$ 2,761.00

MA520FE/A AppleCare Protection Plan for iMac                                                         AU$    220.00

Delivery charge everywhere in Australia     AU$ 40.00

Call David Wong on 0411 183 567

EMAIL      dcwong@bigpond.net.au

They’re the product codes for Intel Quad Core  2.66 GHz and 2.8 GHz computer processors.

It just happens to be used by Apple in their current models of iMac 27-inch. It’s a worldwide shortage of these models and some of the back orders are dated as far back as October and November, 2009 for the resellers. But the shortage is only applies to the Apple Resellers, it doesn’t apply to Apple’s own Apple Store. You can walk in any of the Apple Stores and come out with the worldwide shortage product without any problems.

iMac 27-inch i5 and i7

What it mean for the resellers ? Does it mean Apple is no longer needing the resellers to sell their products ? Does it mean the  end of the road for all these  Apple resellers who has supported the Mac users in the past, especially during later part of 90s when Apple was in trouble ?

We don’t know yet at his stage, what is Apple’s policies about their channel partners – Apple resellers.

But we do know that there is a shortage of i5/i7 iMac 27-inch worldwide. You can’t buy them from any of the resellers without extended delay, at least in Australia. But you can walk in any of the Apple Stores and pick one up (i5) straight away.