Apple Posts Streaming Audio Webcast of Q1 Financial Results

by Tom Nelson

Apple today posted an audio webcast of its Q1 – 2012 financial results. The quarterly results stacked up as the best quarter that Apple has experienced in a long time, with a record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and a net profit of $13.06 billion.

Apple sold 37.04 million iPhones, a 128% increase over the same quarter last year. iPad sales were an astonishing 15.43 million, a 111% increase over the same quarter last year. The Mac accounted for sales of 5.2 million units, a 26% increase over the same period last year.

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Epson Stylus Photo R2000 – An Affordable Wide-Format Inkjet Printer

by Tom Nelson and Mary O’Connor

The Epson Stylus Photo R2000 is one of the most affordable high-end, wide-format inkjet photo printers currently available, and it doesn’t skimp on quality or features. At $499.99 (or $399.99, if you take advantage of a $100 mail-in rebate available through February 29, 2012), it’s not out of reach for serious hobbyist photographers who want to take their work to the next level. The R2000 is also a good choice if you’re an illustrator, designer, or painter, particularly if you create your work on a Mac (or a PC; the R2000 is Windows-compatible).

Epson Stylus Photo R2000 – Pros

• Print quality is well above average. Colors are rich and vibrant.
• Also does a good job with text, on plain or specialty papers.
• Fast print speeds.
• Flat paper path for specialty papers.
• Can print on cut sheets of paper from 4″x6″ up to 13″x19″.
• Can create prints up to 13″x44″ using rolls of paper.
• Prints are water, smudge, and fade resistant.
• Individual ink cartridges save money by letting your replace just the color that’s running low.

Epson Stylus Photo R2000 – Cons

The Epson Stylus Photo R2000 with all trays closed.

• Lacks an LCD preview screen.
• Control buttons are a bit cryptic.
• Epson doesn’t provide yield information for the ink cartridges, so it’s difficult to determine a cost per print.
• Epson doesn’t provide a duty cycle figure per month, so it’s difficult to know if you’re working your printer too hard and risking shortening the printer’s life.
• Doesn’t support pre-802.11n Wi-Fi standards.
• The single-sheet guide and roll-paper adapter can’t be attached to the printer at the same time.
• The roll-paper adapter doesn’t include a cutting blade.
• Needs lots of desktop space.

Read more on About: Macs.

Going Wide – The Epson Wide-Format Stylus Photo R2000

by Tom Nelson

At some point, just about every hobby photographer wants large prints of their favorite shots. In the past, this meant sending the pics to a photo lab to be output on one of their wide-format printers.

Epson Stylus Photo R2000

Wide-format printers have come down in price, and some are now within range for many amateur and semi-pro photographers (designers and artists, too). What was once strictly pro gear is now readily available to the rest of us.

Read more on About: Macs.

 

What to Do When Your Mac Suddenly Has No Working USB or Bluetooth

by Tom Nelson

This morning I turned on my trusty Mac, just like I do every morning. And just like every morning, the desktop appeared and the apps I have set to automatically launch did their thing. By the time I sat down with coffee in hand, I was ready to get to work.

Or maybe not. After I warmed up my mouse (details here), I was ready to read my email, but when I moved the mouse, the cursor didn’t respond. It was stuck in the upper left corner of the screen. I then noticed that the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar didn’t show an active connection. Since my Magic Mouse uses Bluetooth, the menu icon should have shown an active state.

No problem. I’ll just use the command+F2 keys to access the Apple menu, go to the Bluetooth menu item, and turn Bluetooth back on. That’s when I discovered that the keyboard wasn’t working, either. After some fiddling around, I discovered that all of the USB ports and the Bluetooth module in my Mac were dead. Well, nearly dead; the USB ports had power, but wouldn’t respond to anything else.

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Resetting the SMC (System Management Controller) on Your Mac

by Tom Nelson

The SMC (System Management Controller) controls a number of the Mac’s core functions. The SMC is a chunk of hardware incorporated into the Mac’s motherboard. Its purpose is to free the Mac’s processor from having to actively take care of rudimentary hardware functions.

What the SMC Controls

Depending on your Mac model, the SMC performs the following functions:

• Responds to the press of the power button, including deciding whether the press is for a power off, sleep, or an accidental misstep by your cat.
• Detects and responds to the opening or closing of the lid of a portable Mac.
• Manages a portable’s battery performance, including charging, calibration, and displaying remaining battery time.
• Thermal management of your Mac’s interior. This is primarily accomplished by sensing temperature at various places inside your Mac, and then adjusting fan speed to create or reduce airflow.
• Uses the SMS (Sudden Motion Sensor) to respond to the sudden motion of a Mac portable and acts to prevent damage to various devices.
• Detects ambient lighting conditions and sets appropriate lighting levels for various devices.
• Controls keyboard backlighting.
• Controls built-in display backlighting
• Controls SILs (Status Indicator Lights) that are present on or in your Mac.
• Selects external or internal video sources (primarily for iMacs with video input capabilities).
• Starts hard drive spin downs, as well as power up sequences.
• Controls sleep mode functions (waking and entering sleep).
• Controls trackpad functions for some Mac models.

Read more on About: Macs.

Apple Steals & Deals: Sunday, January 22, 2012

by Tom Nelson

Looking for a fabulous deal on an Apple or related product? Well, so am I! Every Sunday, I scan the Apple refurbished store to see which Apple products are currently available, and which ones represent good bargains. I try to look only at current versions of Macs, but once in a while there will be a great deal on a last-generation product that may be too good to pass up.

This week, the 13.3-inch MacBook Air and the most recent generation of the Mac mini return to the Apple refurb store. If you’re looking for a Mac for your home theater system, the Mac mini is just about a perfect fit.

Apple Refurbished Store

Quantities are limited, so if any of these tickle your fancy, be fast on the trigger to make a purchase.

MacBook Air

11.6-inch MacBook Air 1.6 GHz Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $849.00

13.3-inch MacBook Air 1.7 GHz Dual-Core i5 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $1,099.00

MacBook Pro

13.3-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.7 GHz Intel Dual-Core i7 with Intel HD Graphics 3000: $1,189.00

15-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.2 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics: $1,659.00

17-inch MacBook Pro (Review) 2.2 GHz Intel Quad-Core i7 with AMD Radeon HD 6750 graphics: $1,359.00

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Starry Night: Tom’s Mac Software Pick

by Tom Nelson

If you have been using a Mac for a long time, you may remember the After Dark collection of screen savers from Berkeley Systems. The screen savers included the famous Flying Toasters and the ever-popular Starry Night.

The After Dark screen savers have long been little more than a fond memory. That is, until Evan Green and Mind Console Productions decided that recreating the Starry Night screen saver was a good idea.

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The Cold Hard Facts About the Magic Mouse

by Tom Nelson

We’re fast approaching the coldest part of the winter here in New England. For those of you who live in the area, or have family or friends here, you’ve probably already heard about the October snowstorm of 2011. (If you’re a “Vicar of Dibley” fan, it was The Great Storm, not to be confused with a moderately windy night.)

The storm did a great deal of damage around our property, including sending a beautiful maple tree crashing into the solar arrays we use to heat our home. The damage to the arrays hasn’t been fixed yet; that will likely be a spring project. That means that for the foreseeable future, our primary heating system is defunct. In the meantime, we’re relying on a pellet stove and supplementary oil heat. To keep the cost down, we turn off the pellet stove and the oil heat every night, and turn them back on when we get up in the morning. Our cats haven’t spoken to us since late November.

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Apple Reveals iBooks 2, iBook Author, and Updated iTunes U

by Tom Nelson

At its educational event at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City this morning, Apple revealed its new textbook publishing and distribution system. It also updated iTunes U to better serve educators in creating online courses.

iBooks 2 is an update to the current iBooks reader app for the iPad. This new version is designed for use with interactive educational textbooks that will be produced using various publishing tools, including Apple’s own iBook Author. Apple is partnering with McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, three of the leading textbook publishers in the U.S.

Apple says no textbook will cost more than $14.99. Students can keep their textbooks forever, and even re-download them from Apple’s cloud servers at any time. Authors can update their textbooks at any time as well.

Read more on About: Macs.

DiskWarrior Leads Nominations for Best Mac System Utility 2012

by Tom Nelson

It’s only been one day, but the nominations for the Readers’ Choice Awards 2012 are already piling up. So far, DiskWarrior has the most nominations in the Best Mac System Utility category, but I’m sure other nominees will be getting their dues soon.

Read more on About: Macs.