Anil Sharma

Just upgraded to Mac OS X Lion (10.7) on the Macbook and iMac. As in most Mac updates, faced no issue at all. I’ve been playing around with Mac OS X Lion for some time and it’s really cool. Here are a few quick notings:

1. On the Macbook with a Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 and 3 GB DDR2 RAM (Mid 2009),  Lion is as fast or probably faster than Snow Leopard.

2. Some of the Key new features of Lion over Snow Leopard are :

• Mission Control – I would rate this as the most useful new feature. I’ve never managed to use Spaces effective, with Mision Control, I can use multiple desktop screens much more effectively.
• LaunchPad – This too is useful, for the first time, I can see the whole host of Applications that are there on the Mac and think of using them. I also don’t have to clutter the Dock now, I’ve kept only very useful icons there and use the LaunchPad whenever I need any other application.
• Conversation View in Mail and Multiple Flags – It’s made the whole Apple Mail experience different and my life simpler. Don’t have to keep searching for old mails now
• Full Screen Apps and cleaner windows – Both cool features to increase valueable screen real estate. The vanishing scroll bars are really cool, they appear as soon as the mouse is on the window. Full screen applications are totally cool to use.

3.  Another thing I’ve noticed is that in Lion, the /User/Library folder is hidden. While this is ok for most users, I need that folder once in a while. A quick way to access it is to do a Option + Click on ‘Go’ in the Finder. This shows Library as an option in the pulldown menu.

4. Overall, the new OS feels fast and effective.  I would recommend all Mac users to upgrade.

It’s cold in New Delhi, especially at night. Without central heating, sitting on a chair and working on a desktop at night is agonizing so for the past few days, I’ve been working in bed using the MacBook pro at night. This has created a new problem. The brightness of the 13″ LED, which attracted me to the MacBook Pro, is now a distraction for my sweet wife who prefers to sleep while I work. In fact, the bright glow is enough to light up the entire room. I could even see our dog making faces at me, he couldn’t sleep so I kept bribing him biscuits to keep quiet.

Some Google searches later, I ended up with the simplest of solutions. Just press Command + Option + Control + 8 on your mac and you’re done. The screen inverts colors to a negative format, so the white and light gray background of most windows become black and light gray.

The control of contrast in this negative display format is within System Preferences -> Universal Access -> Seeing -> Display. I’ve really never had to change any settings there.  Pressing the combination of four keys works both ways to revert back to original display.

It takes some time getting used to this new screen format but it’s definitely soothing and less disturbing. I’ve lately been using this negative format during daytime.

Now if I could figure out a way of getting a biscuit back from the dog…

My friend didn’t know the admin password of his Apple iMac so I figured I would reset it. While it’s easy to reset the lost or forgotten password, I realized there aren’t too many step-by-step guides so I decide to create one.

I’m assuming you have either an iMac, Macbook or Macbook pro. I’m also assuming you have Mac OS X installed. All these machines come with a boot DVD, if you don’t have your own, you could borrow one from anyone else who has one. Your DVD look like one of these:

Mac OS X Restore DVD's

The good part – and I’ve tested this – you can use any iMac’s DVD on a Macbook / Macbook Pro or vice versa. As long as the DVD is of a software version almost matching the one installed on the computer, it should work.

Insert the DVD into the computer and shut it down. Press the “C” key on the keyboard and while keeping it pressed, start the computer. After some time, when you hear the DVD being used, you can release the key. The DVD will start the computer with a screen asking you to select a language where I choose English.

Depending on the DVD you have used, you can get two choices.

a. If you’ve used the correct DVD for the computer (that means a Macbook Pro DVD on a Macbook Pro), your next screen will show a screen to Install Mac OS X. You don’t want to re-install Mac OS X, you just want to reset the password so do not press continue on this screen. On the top menu bar which appears, go to Utilities and select “Reset Password” as shown here:

Reset Password from Utilities menu

You will get a screen that shows the main hard drive. Clicking the hard drive icon will show all the user accounts on the computer. You can now select the admin account and enter a new password for it as shown here:

Any user's password can be reset

You can reset the password of other accounts if required. Once you’re done, go to the Reset Password option in the menu bar, exit and again from the menu bar, shut down the computer. When you start again, let the computer boot to the hard drive and you can enter the new password to login.

b. If you’ve using an incorrect DVD, for e.g., if you need to reset the password of a Macbook Pro but the only DVD you can lay your hands on is of an iMac, you can still reset the admin password. There’s only one change in the process described above. Instead of the “Install Mac OS X” screen, you get the screen showing “Mac OS X can’t be installed on this computer” as shown below:

If the DVD doesn't match computer specs

Since the Utilities menu is also grayed out at this screen level, you need to click on the “Restore from Backup” button. The next screen shows “Restore Your System” as shown below, do not press on the continue button on it.

Do not restore the system

The Utilities menu is now active and you can Reset Password as explained above.

Utilities menu now allows password reset

I apologize for the poor quality of these images; I clicked them using a cellphone and that’s the best I could get. I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way of taking screenshots at this level but I haven’t found one yet.

History has always been a boring subject for me except when it came to computers. It’s so much fun to read about the evolution of various systems and features over time. One reason why the history of computers interests me is probably because I can relate to it more than I can to all the excesses of the past kings and their queens. The fact that I’m using a particular computer today makes it interesting to know about developments in the recent past leading to this model. It sometimes also helps me predict the future and take decisions.

One of the best documented histories in the development of computers is that of Apple. As the company releases limited products and specifications each year, it has been possible to keep track of all of them. The website www.apple-history.com is amazing, it has the entire specifications, photos and prices of all products released from 1976 onwards. From the data available, I made a small chart to see how the specification has moved up to the latest iMac desktop computers :

Progress of Apple to its latest iMac

What’s interesting to note is that in the past 20 odd years, the specification of computers in the $1000 – $1500 price range has improved a lot and the speed of improvement has increased.  You can safely bet that Apple desktop prices will remain in this price range while their specifications will keep improving.  What’s also interesting to note from the website  is how in the past few years, development is moving towards a wider range of non-desktop mobile products like iPad, iPhone etc.

I wish it was as easy to go through the history of other giants like HP and Dell. If anyone is aware of resources to keep track of their progress, please do add links in the comments.

While it’s exciting to see Apple update a major part of its hardware lines, I won’t talk about the newly released hardware and their specifications etc – you can easily check that information on all tech sites right now. What I’ll talk about is the way the buildup happens to these launches, leaving a lot of people excited and some, disappointed.

If you’re a regular Apple fan, you will know by now that Apple is highly secretive of its new products and makes no announcements ever of what it intends to launch. This has created a whole ecosystem that thrives on rumors, primary amongst them being sites like www.appleinsider.com, www.macrumors.com etc. In fact, these sites monitor all releases of products and help potential customers make informed decisions about buying Apple products. Like all Apple fans, I visit them regularly and keep a track of what they post.

They were able to predict today’s launch of new iMac’s, Mac Pro and Cinema Displays well in advance. However, a few of their predictions were 100% wrong, a few things that were announced were never predicted and some of what they predicted turned out to be true.

Here’s an example :

On 16th July 2010, www.macrumors.com predicted that the new iMac and Mac Pro range would get USB 3.0 and Firewire 1600. These are powerful features, when the new range was launched today, both these features were missing from the new models.

Instead, the new iMac range got an upgraded graphics card, higher speed Ram and an advanced SDXC slot – none of which were predicted by any of the rumor mongers.

The only part that these rumor sites got correct were that fact there updates were expected and the processors would be of higher speed – something that Moore predicted in the year 1965

Apple also launched the new Magic Trackpad today. No one was aware of this impending launch till a day before the launch when John Gruber predicted it.

What these sites manage to do is raise expectations in the market place, build up the noise and create an environment where Apple fans go crazy. It’s exciting to see these new products. However, it’s disappointing to note that fake expectations raised by some of these free sites leave a bad taste. If Apple worked towards a better strategy of announcing new products will in advance, it would probably keep staunch customers satisfied.

As far as I am concerned, I love the new iMac’s. The 27″ iMac with a faster quad core i5 processor, 1GB Graphics card upgraded from the previous 512 and a faster 1333 Mhz RAM for the same price I was willing to pay 2 weeks ago – sure !