Yesterday, I had an issue with my trackpad. I started down the road to making a Genius Bar appointment, resigned to living without my computer for a few days while Apple has a swing at repairing the problem.
As it turns out, Apple called me, was able to talk me through the repair so I didn’t have to so much as get out of my chair. Here’s that post, in case you are interested.
Point being, the best repairs are the ones you do yourself. To that end, spend a few minutes reading Joe Caiati’s Mac troubleshooting guide, posted on 512 Pixels.
Joe is a former Apple Genius and writes from hard-won experience. He walks you through a very logical sequence, starting here:
When you’re tackling an issue on your Mac, there are three overall troubleshooting categories you must keep in mind. Is the issue software, hardware or environmental? It sounds very basic, but figuring out which category your problem fits into will get you far when diagnosing it.
Great place to start if you are having trouble with your Mac.
A number of owners of Samsung’s smart TVs are reporting this week that their TV sets started to interrupt their movie viewing with Pepsi ads, which seem to be dynamically inserted into third-party content.
“Every movie I play 20-30 minutes in it plays the pepsi ad, no audio but crisp clear ad. It has happened on 6 movies today,” a user reported on Reddit, where a number of others were struggling with the same problem.
The sense I get is that this may be an error (though that is still not clear), but the presence of the ad on the TV’s media storage does seem to point to the emergence of advertising originating on the TV itself, as opposed to the traditional ads that come embedded in the stream from the cable company or network.
Consumers rarely ever get to know about these deals — unless something goes wrong, which seems to be exactly what happened in the case of that Pepsi ad that popped up on Samsung TVs this week. That’s bad, because there are other issues at hand than interruptions from unwelcome ads. Who, for example, gets what kind of data when TV manufacturers strike deals with advertisers? And how can consumers opt out of data collection altogether?
The project in Monterey County, California will provide enough energy for 60,000 homes as well as Apple’s future head office in nearby Cupertino, Cook said at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco.
“We know in Apple that climate change is real. The time for talk is passed,” he said. “The time for action is now.”
Three volunteers are on the shortlist to be among four people on the Mars One programme, the first manned space flight to Mars – a one-way trip that’s effectively a suicide mission. Why do they want to leave Earth, and who are they leaving behind? As the list of potential Mars explorers is whittled down further on 16 February, meet those competing to be the first to land on the Red Planet.
The company is stepping in to tell everyone to calm down and that those 1984 references are way off base. In a blog post plainly titled “Samsung Smart TVs Do Not Monitor Living Room Conversations,” the company does acknowledge that its clumsy, broad-strokes privacy policy could’ve used some clearer language.
The problem for Samsung is that, even if their TVs don’t work the way they are accused of working, many of us have no problem believing they’d be sleazy enough to do that.
Unlike the transistor, the lithium-ion battery has not won a Nobel Prize. But many people think it should. The lithium-ion battery gave the transistor reach. Without it, we would not have smartphones, tablets or laptops, including the device you are reading at this very moment. There would be no Apple. No Samsung. No Tesla.
In 1980, Goodenough, a whip-smart physicist then aged 57, invented lithium-ion’s nervous system.
He says, “I’m only 92. I still have time to go.” What a great attitude.
I have no trouble with the Law of Large Numbers, it only underlines Apple’s truly stupendous growth and, in the end, it always wins. No business can grow by 20%, or even 10% for ever.
But, for the other three, Market Share, Commoditization, and Modularity, how can we ignore the sea of contradicting facts?
Part of the reason why it seems Wall St doesn’t understand Apple is because the company’s operations don’t conform to so many commonly held beliefs about economics and business.
Starting next week, passengers on select JetBlue Airways flights can use Apple Pay on their iPhone 6 and 6 Plus handsets to buy food, drinks and certain onboard amenities when the plane reaches cruising altitude. You’ll be able to upgrade to available premium seats, too.
JetBlue is the first airline to accept Apple Pay at 35,000 feet. It almost certainly won’t be the last.
Canadians have a reputation for being some of the world’s kindest people. This video proves that to be true.
In order to test how Canadians would react, a blindfolded Muslim man stood at Dundas Square in downtown Toronto, with signs that read “I am a Muslim. I am labelled as a terrorist,” and “I trust you. Do you trust me? Give me a hug.”
To be fair, it doesn’t prove that – Canadians can be as racist as anyone else – but the video does make me very proud of my fellow country men and women.
Austin Mann is a professional photographer and videographer who has put all the recent iPhone cameras through their paces. His most recent post is about Instagram’s Hyperlapse app.
If you aren’t familiar, this app is designed to create extremely stable handheld time-lapses. The stabilization technology is really fascinating (it uses the gyroscope in your iPhone to stabilize any shaky video).
Austin’s page shows off his favorite Hyperlapse video and he offers some tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the app.
You can read about the technology behind Hyperlapse here.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve run into a problem with the trackpad on my MacBook Pro. Seems like, over time, it took more and more pressure before a mouse click was recognized. I did some research, tried all the suggestions I could find short of opening my computer (I’m still under warranty). This morning, I reached the tipping point. I accepted the fact that I’d have to make the trek over to my nearest Apple Store.
The first step was to make an appointment at the Genius Bar. I followed this link.
It’s been a while since I’ve made a Genius Bar appointment, but something seemed different to me. The last time I went through this process, I went through a process of selecting my nearest store, then homed in on my product, made an actual appointment. I added a few notes, then I was done. I might have the order of things wrong, but the process seemed pretty linear. All roads led to an appointment at the Genius Bar.
This time was different.
This time around (as you can see if you click on the link above), I was funneled to this page, which led off with this text:
A Genius Bar reservation is an easy way to get hardware repairs, but we can solve many issues over the phone or by chat. Tell us a little about what’s going on and we’ll suggest the right support option.
I clicked my way to Mac, then Mac Notebooks, then through some clicks to diagnose my problem. Ultimately, I ended up at a page that offered me an immediate callback from Apple tech support, along with a range of other options (schedule a callback or a follow-on call, start a chat session, set up a visit to the Apple Store to drop off my machine, or schedule a Genius Bar visit). I chose the immediate callback. My phone rang within a minute.
Two things here. First, if you have a Mac with a wonky trackpad switch, this fix worked for me. I pressed down hard on the four corners of my trackpad with four fingers at once. Then I pressed down hard in the middle of the trackpad, again with four fingers. Like magic, the trackpad seems back to its old reliable self. If you are under warranty, I would bring it in to the Apple Store, if possible, just to get it on the record in case the fix proves temporary.
Second, I love the immediacy of this service path. I did not have to leave the comfort of my couch (one step closer to WALL•E, right?) to get help. I asked the Apple support rep when this happened, he told me the process changed towards the end of last year. He wasn’t sure of the exact date, but thought it was sometime in November.
Not sure how widely known this is (it was new to me), thought it was worth a mention.
Apple CEO Tim Cook will speak at the White House cybersecurity summit Friday at Stanford University, according to an event invitation.
The White House is expected to reveal its next executive action on cybersecurity at the summit, which will bring together tech executives, leading academics and government officials to discuss ways in which the government can better collaborate with the private sector on cybersecurity initiatives.
Cook’s remarks will come amid a debate between tech companies and law enforcement officials over encryption.
Encryption and security is becoming more and more important to everyone on the internet – business, consumers, and governments. It will be interesting to see if anything concrete comes out of this summit.
We all snap pictures like crazy these days and post them to a number of sharing sites. But there was a time when you would be so excited to get your roll of film back to see what pics you shot. Mari and Linda Johannessen are bringing that experience back with a new app for iPhone. You can take 24 pics, but you can’t review them. When the “film roll” is full, you send it away and get back 24 developed prints, delivered to your physical mailbox, within a week.
The floral wire services, FTD and Teleflora, were very relevant in 1910 and 1934 when they began, respectively. These companies, along with 1980s upstart 1-800-Flowers, now dominate the industry by advertising their national brand and squeezing local florists. While these companies, and mail-order services like Proflowers, blanket the airwaves and Web pages with ads showing off their great deals before major flower-giving holidays, they are not the best choice to get the best bloom for your buck.
We have long recommended that flower-givers follow this basic process
Definitely buy your significant other, male or female, a flower arrangement. But do your best to support your local flower merchant.
Apple’s record-breaking holiday quarter, which brought in $18 billion in earnings, allowed the company to capture 93 percent of the profit in the handset industry, according to a new report from Canaccord Genuity, an investment firm.
Samsung took the rest, but its share is shrinking, the report said.
A hidden treasure trove of gear flown on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon sees the light of day after Neil Armstrong’s widow shares the find with the Smithsonian.
In our terrestrial view of things, the speed of light seems incredibly fast. But as soon as you view it against the vast distances of the universe, it’s unfortunately very slow. This animation illustrates, in realtime, the journey of a photon of light emitted from the surface of the sun and traveling across a portion of the solar system, from a human perspective.
This visualization of the speed of light and the realization that, on a galactic scale, it’s actually really slow, is all kinds of mind boggling.
Unlike other affordable photo-editing apps out there, which are usually dumbed down offerings with only a subset of Photoshop’s usefulness, Affinity Photo is trying to set itself apart by offering the power of Photoshop in a program that’s blazing fast and ridiculously affordable.
Looks very interesting and for free, there’s no harm in giving it a try.
After three and a half hours of the Grammy telecast, you may feel like you saw everything that could possible be imagined – even Kanye West hilariously rushing the stage in defense of Beyoncé, yet again. But although the show was tailored for the home audience, those actually in attendance at Los Angeles’ Staples Center were privy to a few jokes, celebrations and candid moments that didn’t make the CBS broadcast. These were our favorites.
There were some great moments on TV but, as always, the best often happen away from the cameras.
Once a week, inside the 142-square-foot apartment he shares with his parents and two siblings in a rural California farming town, a two-year-old has a standing appointment with an iPad.
Born deaf, the toddler received cochlear implants seven months ago. He and his mother use FaceTime video chat to have hour-long sessions in Spanish with a speech therapist who is helping the boy learn how to listen and understand the new sounds.
I just can’t get over how good they are after all these years. Interesting to note that drummer Phil Rudd wasn’t with the band—try to hire one hitman and you lose your job.
