I sometimes get asked if I know anyone who does PC work.  With more Mac users considering using Parallels and loading Windows on, it brings a new level of dual computing on their machines.  I know enough Windows stuff to get along, but there are sometimes more complex issues that come up.  Or the customer might have some other PC’s in the office and don’t already have someone that they like working on them.

I have tried to find some good companies or people in the past that I can recommend but nothing has stood out.  Some recommendations have even brought forth complaints from the customer.  Is there no good PC consultants out there?  Do any PC guys live and breath the hardware and O.S. like us Mac fanatics do?  Or is it just a job for them?

If you are a PC consultant or know someone who is, please contact me.  But to recommend you I require you to have excellent customer service skills.  Knowledge is important also, but it is a close 2nd for me.  They also have to be able to have a good synergistic relationship with me and not bash Macs.  I do not bash PC’s when customers want them for the task they have at hand.  (I just prefer to use a Mac   Also they should not be afraid to troubleshoot windows issues under Parallels VM on the Mac.

As you may have heard by now Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) has now been released.  Snow Leopard brings upon us a very unique release of an operating system.  At first glance, it does not bring any new “whiz bang” features to the table, but upon further investigation this release in our opinion is one of the best operating system updates to have been released.  The best part is Apple has dramtically lowered the price of the operarting system to $29 per machine (or $499 for unlimited client license Server operating system)

Snow Leopard speeds up your computer in most cases and in all cases will free up some disk space.  In our tests it averages about 9 gig’s of extra disk space upon install.  Snow Leopard implements 64-bit processing as much as it can.  This means the ability to use memory more efficiently and process tasks.  Think of it as adding more lanes to the freeway so you will not get as many “bottlenecks”  There are also many behind the scenes and undocumented features that you will notice along the way that makes your day to day tasks better.

Snow Leopard Server also brings many speed enhancements to the table.  Wiki and ical server have been much improved in this release, and the addition of “push” features make it ready for prime time iphone instant up-to-date availability.

Snow Leopard only works on intel machines, so check to make sure you are not running a G5 or older, but all intel machines should eventually be upgraded to Snow Leopard.   We would suggest Server installs to wait a little bit to evaluate some outstanding bugs and fully test it out.  Desktop clients so far seem to be pretty reliable on Snow Leopard, so it’s a good time to start considering it.  As always the biggest thing to consider is evaluate what software is on your machine to make sure it will work with Snow Leopard.  Some software may need to updated to work well or at all with Snow Leopard.   We can help you through this process and install Snow Leopard for you.

Please let us know if you have any other questions about Snow Leopard, and have fun working on your Mac!

There has been a strange issue affecting some users starting today.  For those with or without the 3.0 update yet.  If your iPhone is not showing up in iTunes, go ahead and redownload iTunes and install it.  That should help.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

June is in full swing and now is the perfect time to spring clean your Mac before the temps warm up for good.   For example, did you know that programs get loaded up in the startup items over time just like a PC? (but to a much smaller extent)  This can cause your computer to slow down if you do not need them running all the time.   Another example is all those lovely icons on your desktop.  The more you have, the more processing it takes to show all those icons especially on an older computer.

Just like a car mechanic we can provide a multiple point inspection of your computer to check over it including looking at logs, running disk check utilities, checking over auto start programs, and give you general training on how to help keep it clean.  Not only that but we can help you backup your computer for free as long as you have an external Hard Drive.  An ounce of protection in the case of computers is definately worth the time and small cost compaired to the potentially thousands of dollars you can loose if it was to crash without a backup.

Have a happy summer, and remember to keep your computers up to date with any software updates that come out!

At KingsleyMac Consulting we pride ourselfs in being able to resolve most issues on site and the first time we stop by.  Occasionaly though there are issues that constitute a hardware repair that would be better handled by Apple directly, or times where we need to research out an issue that is either too new to know the answer to or may not have an answer yet due to some bug in the programming.  Apple provides a service called Applecare that customers can call if they are in warranty and need general help.  As an official Apple Consultant we can call Applecare on behalf of the client for their computer.  This can even be done on-site and we have a direct tie in to get high level support right away so that issues are solved quicker than if you were to call yourself.  What’s more is that even if your computer is out of warranty, in most cases we can call in for free to get troubleshooting taken care of.   This is just one more way that we can provide you the best service in Utah for your Apple Macintosh needs.

I will be attending Macworld this week from Jan 5-9 in San Francisco.  This wonderful event is where many new products, services, and ideas are presented for the first time for Mac enthusiasts around the world to see.  I often see a lot of great new things at the conference, therefore I will be updating my twitter page with cool things that I see.

Follow me at www.twitter.com/mckingsley

The latest Apple Security Update 2008-008 if applied when running Pro Tools 7.3.1 will cause it to break and not be able to open up anymore.  To get it working in the mean time:

Navigate to your Pro Tools Application in the Applications folder.

Right click on the App and choose, ‘Show Package Contents’

Open the Contents Folder, and then open the MacOS folder

Double click on the Pro Tools Icon that is in here.

This will bypass the regular opening of the program through the normal icon interface and open it as a unix executable.  You will have a Terminal window open in the background but you can ignore it and continue to use the program as normal.  Something in the latest security update must have broken the binding of opening the program the normal way.

Have you ever been confused with all the hype out there with “Media Servers” or ways to view movies and tv on your computer?  Xboxes, PS3, Windows Vista Media, etc?

Of course, from Apple we have the lovely AppleTV.  It is a great device, as I have on, and I recommend it to anyone.  It will do an excellent job of playing any video that you can get into itunes, and can even rent and buy movies and TV shows directly from the device.

Well what if you don’t want to pay for your TV shows and just want to watch them the way they view on regular TV with some commercials?  What if you have some video formats that are a type the AppleTV cannot play without converting (and loosing some quality in the process)  Boxee is a media player for your Mac that can solve many of these problems.  What I have noticed so far is the ability to play many different TV shows from CBS, ABC, WB, etc that they allow for streaming over the web – for free of course.  You can also play your Netflix instant viewable titles through it. You can also play youtube and other common online videos.  Of course you can also play pretty much any type of video file you may have on your hard drive including RIPed DVD’s.  But where this can really excel is if you have a Mac Mini – you can hook it up to an LCD screen and make it a media player and watch these things on a big screen.  Plus, boxee will even allow itself to be controlled by the apple remote, so it makes it that much more desirable to sit back and control.

Boxee can also be installed directly on an AppleTV to give it some extra features such as the TV show viewing.   It is in an “Alpha” state right now which means it still has to be worked on a bit before it is ready for prime time, but I have found most of it to be very stable.  They have a closed invite system right now, so if any of you want to check it out let me know.  Kingsley Macintosh Consulting can help you install this and set it up if you would like and we already have some clients that are getting ready to try it out.

Check it out at:

http://www.boxee.tv/

Hello!  For those of you who are reading the blog, I am offering half off our normal rates for the first 10 people that contact me.  Offer good for up to 2 hours of service.

We now provide another alternative to the mail server built into Mac OS X server.  Kerio mail server is a higer level implementation of hosting your own email on a server.  Some benefits include:

- Much better Spam protection, including some tools that only Kerio has to “repel” spam.
- Much better webmail, including full calender, contacts, and more built in
- Ability for users to change their passwords in webmail, instead of an Admin having to do it in Workgroup Manager.
- Ability for users to set vacation or out of office messages.
- Full integration with iPhones, and other wireless devices.  Push support for calendars and contacts so that you can schedule on your iphone and then see it online on your webmail
- Calendar scheduling with free/busy lookups and inviting users to events.  Can also use full calendaring with 10.5 ical including free/busy lookup and inviting users to events.
- Support for Archiving email’s on server in case a user accidently deletes a message (Also good for Audits)
We can help you install the mail server or also just sell it to you.  Kerio mail server can be installed on a Mac, PC, or Linux server, but plays well with macs no matter where it is installed.
Check out more at:

http://www.kerio.com/kms_home.html

and please contact us if you have any questions.