Wednesday, April 16, 2008
After much waiting, we at The MacDoctor we’re pleased to see Alsoft release a download updater for their highly praised Disk Warrior product. It’s a software product we recommend to all our clients and with this latest update it becomes fully Leopard compatible.
We can’t say enough good things about Disk Warrior. We’ve seen it save clients bacon again and again when confronted with hard disc and directory related issues.
So do yourselves a favor and make sure you pick up a copy for that heart stopping moment when nothing else seems to work with your mac. It ain’t cheap but worth every penny. Truly the warrior of the hard disc rescue world!
No Comments » | 
3rd Party Apps, System Utilities | Tagged: hard disc, maintenance, troubleshooting | 
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Posted by The MacDoctor
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Great news today for all us legit UK iPhone users with an O2 contract. The mobile provider has announced an upgrade to the currently available iPhone tariffs, effective from February and at no additional charge.
In brief;
a £35 per month contract now buys you 600 minutes and 500 texts per month
a £45 per month contract now buys you 1200 minutes and 500 texts per month
the previous £55 per month contract is lowered to £45 with the above allocation of minutes and texts
All contracts include unlimited data plans using O2’s Edge network and free access to The Cloud’s WiFi network.
At The MacDoctor, we’ve set about notifying all our existing iPhone owning clients of the tariff changes, and also those clients sitting on the fence re the iPhone due to the tariff plans previously available. This has got to be a welcome upgrade for current owners and an incentive to to be would be owners.
No Comments » | 
MacDoctor News, iPhone | Tagged: iPhone, O2, uk mobile tariffs | 
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Posted by The MacDoctor
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Bit of a pet peeve from us here at the MacDoctor today. Email bloat!
Whether you use Apple Mail or have crossed to the dark side and dabble with Microsoft Entourage, ( a whole other rant), most people’s email application woes often source back to database corruptions. And the more emails, received, sent, deleted, junked and drafted you have populating your email app, the more opportunity there is for a file to go skwiffy and mess up your perfectly happy email program.
Now we’re not saying don’t keep, sort, archive or otherwise hold on to important emails. But keep a sense of perspective and make a more active decision about what you keep and what you delete.
For instance, if you set your application to say permanently delete it’s sent, trash and junk mailboxes after one week, it will be up to you actively move items you truly want / need to a different location. And once you get in the habit, it won’t take you long at all. You’ll certainly find you no longer have a need for those 3000+ emails you sent saying ‘ fine, see you at 8′ over the course of the last 18 months.
In our experience, the daily or weekly time you spend now, going through your email debris, will seem like nothing compared to the time, money and headache of calling someone like us to come and resurrect your email database when it all goes wrong and fails to load on the one day you most need it to.
Prevention is better than cure. Be a man, move that mouse over delete and make a decision or two when it comes to the emails you keep and delete.
No Comments » | 
email, productivity | Tagged: email, pet peeve, productivity, rant | 
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Posted by The MacDoctor
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Just an observation from the the coal face down here at the MacDoctor. We seem to be increasingly helping more and more users remove Boot Camp installs, Windows Installs and PC software from Intel macs. That’s right, not to install but rather un-install.
After the initial excitement of being able to run a Windows install along side Mac OS X, the bubble seems to have burst and most users we’ve come across are asking why they would want to bother in the first place? Very few of our clients have any real reason to continue running PC software or the Windows operating system once they’ve become comfortable and inspired by Mac OS X.
Admittedly there are a few professional apps which lock certain users into life with Windows. But for home users, creatives and most small business’s there’s little point in having a dual boot machine.
Just a dispatch from the trenches….
No Comments » | Mac OS X, MacDoctor News | Tagged: boot camp, intel, pc, switchers, windows | Permalink
Posted by The MacDoctor
Monday, January 7, 2008
It may seem odd, but ever since the introduction of Leopard, we at the MacDoctor have started to use Backup with our machines in the office and not Time Machine. With the introduction of Leopard, Backup 3.1.2 was released and we’ve found it a little more flexible and robust than the early incarnation of Time Machine.
For starters we can use it with an Airport Disc or Network drive. Secondly we have no data specific issues in terms of the backup data. Thirdly we don’t need to have drives equal or larger than the actual hard drive of the machine in question, especially as we use this day to day backup for Home Folder’s only. And finally, the interface in terms of including / excluding data to backup is much clearer than Time Machine’s at present.
We’re not down on Time Machine, we think it’s a great idea, but may have a little development ahead of it. It’s a little too simplistic in many ways and quite a pain to amend.
We’re by no means relying on Backup as our sole safety, it’s simply one of three things we do. All machines in the office create a complete disk image of themselves on a weekly basis using Disk Utility on to a Airport Disc. All the machines have time critical data; mail, address book, invoices, documents, spreadsheets etc backed up in the background throughout the day to the excellent Mozy service, and then finally Backup provides a daily backup of all users complete Home Folders to a second Network drive.
Each to their own of course, but this sudden conversion to the .mac bundled Backup software has taken us a little by surprise and we thought we’d see if anyone else was traveling a similar road?
Happy backing up whichever way you swing hombres!
No Comments » | Mac OS X, dotmac | Permalink
Posted by The MacDoctor
Friday, January 4, 2008
Back in October we at the MacDoctor posted a blog entry detailing our experiences using Rogue Amoeba’s, then new application, Radioshift. In essence the application allows you to source and record live streaming radio stations on the internet. While excited about the promise and opportunities presented by the application, in practice we were quite frustrated by it’s actual performance. Frustrations that prevented us from recommending the software to clients looking for such a solution.
Well, time has passed and we’ve continued using Radioshift, applying upgrades and updates as they’ve become available, and we thought it was long overdue that we paid Rogue Amoeba some credit and reported back with our new found love for the software.
We’re currently running version 1.0.4 under Mac OS X 10.5.1 and the software has been rock solid, recording every single program we’ve asked it to (compared to our earlier findings where 50% of our scheduled recordings proved unsuccessful). The built in RadioGuide can still be a little hit and miss but we’ve simply been manually scheduling recordings. The UI feels a lot more responsive and we’ve seen none of the random error dialogs and crashes we were experiencing previously.
All in all, we’ve a lot more confidence in the software and all use it personally on a daily basis. As a we begin to explore more and more of the application’s facilities we’ve also begun recommending the software to our clients. At last, an application that makes sourcing and recording streaming radio from the internet a breeze.
Good work Rogue Amoeba and three cheers for Radioshift.
2 Comments | 3rd Party Apps, iTunes & Audio | Tagged: internet radio, radioshift, review, rogue amoeba | Permalink
Posted by The MacDoctor
Thursday, January 3, 2008
We frequently provide one to one tuition to our clients here at the MacDoctor, covering all the mac basics and beyond. Showing and teaching someone what they can do with their mac and what it can do for them, is one of the best bits of our job. It’s great to see someone go from complete mac novice to empowered user after just a few lessons.
But almost without fail, whenever we undertake a course of tuition we advise a client to pick up a copy of David Pogue’s excellent Mac OS X: Missing Manual, to boot. And just released before christmas was the Leopard edition.
There’s many sources for learning more about your mac and its’ software, not least Apple’s built in help and web based tutorials. But for a one stop, how do I do this, type shop, you can’t go too far wrong than this brilliantly written, amusing, informative and downright awesomely laid out tome. It’s still something we use ourselves from time to time. As close to a reference manual for the Mac OS as you’re ever likely to need. I’ve actually just ordered our new copy from Amazon today.
(ed as I sat down to write this entry, I noticed in our RSS feeds that Lisa Hoover over at TUAW had posted an almost identical entry. Oh well, guess Mr Pogue and his now classic tome deserve all the praise it gets.)
No Comments » | Mac OS X | Tagged: tuition, leopard, Mac OS X, missing manual, david pogue | Permalink
Posted by The MacDoctor
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
We absolutely love our iPhones here at the MacDoctor and find the same reaction amongst 99.9% of our clients. We’ve had the magic little chap here in the UK since November 9th, just under two months now. And we’re just starting to get to the point where we’re getting greedy and want more more more! And with MacWorld just around the corner were very very hopeful.
There are some basic improvements we’re surprised we haven’t seen already, considering how long the device has been available in the US. But patience is a virtue.
SMS
1. The ability to text message multiple individuals
2. The ability to send MMS, photos, sound files etc.
Contacts
1. The ability to create groups on the iPhone.
2. The ability to use such groups for email and SMS purposes.
iCal & Notes
1. Want my ToDo’s and Notes from my Mac to Sync
2. A visual Indication of the Calender type being viewed. i.e Work, Home, Social from iCal sync.
Then, there’s a more hopeful wish list.
1. Improved software for the Camera; focus, white balance, zoom etc
2. Universal Cut, Copy, Paste.
3. The SDK to allow a Skype port. Come on, we all want VOIP on this puppy.
4. An iChat Application.
5. Enhanced Bluetooth compatibility and usability.
6. Full Third Party Plugin Safari support; RealPlayer, Java, Flash etc
Really looking forward to what MacWorld will bring in terms of iPhone updates, news and possibilities. It’s the best phone we’ve ever owned, used or had the privilege to abuse. The video quality blows us away and the device as a whole is the most stable mobile phone platform with ever interacted with.
Come on Steve, just 20 more things this time please 
No Comments » | iPhone | Tagged: iPhone, MacWorld | Permalink
Posted by The MacDoctor
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Let’s face it, our blogging efforts for 2007 were woeful. Good intentions, a positive start but we quickly tailed off as work and life pressures accumulated.
So a bit of a no brainer that one of our main New Year resolutions here at the MacDoctor, is to make better use and pay more attention to our blogging platform. We still intend to avoid the easy way out of simply amassing content by reprinting and linking to Apple & Mac related news from around the internet, and instead give you the Apple & Mac world as we find it, through our day to day dealings with Mac users across old London town and in our own personal use of the Apple Mac platform.
So here’s to a prosperous New Year for one and all and to a more active blog for 2008!
No Comments » | MacDoctor News | Tagged: apple, blogging, MacDoctor, Resolutions | Permalink
Posted by The MacDoctor
Monday, October 29, 2007
Here at The MacDoctor we’ve spent most of the weekend helping existing clients update to Leopard and garnered a selection of new clients having problems updating to Leopard. It’s been fun and we’ve learnt a lot. So what experiences have we and our clients had 48 hours in?
In relation to the initial install, whether straight upgrade or clean install and migrate, we came across several clients having problems with an existing mail account not wanting to play ball with the Leopard mail upgrade process. In each case, manually recreating the account details and then moving the appropriate mail files into place solved the problem.
A less easy fix was encountered with keychains not surviving the migration process. We we’re unable to find a suitable work around and so for some the keychain had to be rebuilt from scratch. A frustrating but rarely terminal issue. We’ve started to note other reports of this behavior on the web too, so hopefully Apple will take note and fix this soon.
Aside from the well documented APE issues, that’s pretty much all we saw in terms of frustrated or unsuccessful install attempts.
With Leopard successfully installed the majority of apparent bugs and gremlins seem to be for the most part quite minor; Airport in the menu bar showing the incorrect setting, the dock not redrawing occasionally when apps drop out or are added, Safari RSS feeds fleetingly showing new posts then correcting and disappearing, the dock remaining visible in quicktime and quick look full screen mode on occasion.
The most serious misbehavior we’ve seen would include Printer Sharing working at a snails pace, Spaces not properly instigating when applications are switched and Disk Utility seemingly unable to repartition a perfectly fine USB drive. On each occasion, these instances were only noted on one machine and we we’re not able to repeat the problem on a different machine.
So what don’t we like about Leopard at this early stage? Well the stack icon displaying the first item in a folder for one, the constant reminder of which applications have been downloaded from internet as two, and the changes to the firewall settings as a third.
We’d have to say that switching back into Tiger as we occasionally do, feels like a slight step back, so Leopard must be doing something right. It’s a really promising start and the more we discover the happier we are. Sure we’ll be living with the bugs, inconsistencies and general weirdness for a bit but I guess no pain, no gain.
Just a brief post but much more to come.
No Comments » | Mac OS X | Tagged: 10.5, APE, keychain, leopard, mail upgrade, os x, spaces | Permalink
Posted by The MacDoctor
