Travis Reynolds

This question was asked: Should I buy an iMac with a 500GB HD now, or should I wait to buy it later when they upgrade?

The answer to this question was you should definitely buy it now. Apple just upgraded the iMac’s not to long ago, and I do not see them being updated for a while now. You also asked if you should buy it not, or wait to buy it with your student discount. Just like I said in the video, you should buy it now because no matter what you should be able to get an iMac with your student discount, not matter what the year is.

My only suggestion is that if you want to wait, you should wait for a few months, that way you can get a more powerful computer at the same price if you buy it refurbished. I usually do buy refurbished products from Mac because they are extremely cheap, and they are as good as new. So this is to everyone out there: If you want to get a more powerful computer for a cheaper price, look at the refurbished section!

A powerful feature that a lot of people use on Safari is the search bar on the top right corner of the window. This feature is great, but David Watanabe made it better. Not only does it help complete your search, but it can also find the website for you.

Inquisitor has made searching the web a lot easier, simpler, and enjoyable. Here are quotes from the Inquisitor website, that better explains what exactly Inquisitor is.

“Inquisitor… it’s like spotlight for the web. Start typing and websites pop up immediately. It’ll autocomplete your words. (is it reading your mind? and you can add more search engines to safari with customized keyboard shortcuts. “

Inquisitor is really simple to set up too. All you do is go to their website, and click download. After you unzip the folder, just click on the “package” and it will basically install itself. That’s all you have to do, now just open safari, start searching and you will notice that searching is a lot different.

You can also fully customize the settings for inquisitor as well.

To access these settings, just go to preferences on safari, and click on search. You then get this screen, now I already changed some of my settings around, so yours will not look exactly like this. You can see though that you get to decide what search engine you want, how many websites to show, and how many keywords to show.

This is a great application, and I would recommend it to anybody. To me, this is like quicksilver, only its for the internet. It will greatly improve your workflow.

What type of plug-ins do you use for safari?

I think it is time to start and thank my viewers. I am going to be doing a monthly competition from here on. Every month, I will reward $20 US dollars to the person that comments the most via paypal.

Here are the rules: First, You may only comment on posts after this post, meaning you cannot go back and comment every single post. Second, if there is a tie, I will go back and see who made the most informational or “better” comment, then finally, it must be a comment related to the post

Those are the only rules, so start commenting. Also hey, wouldn’t an extra $20 in your pocket be nice? Subscribe to the RSS feed too so you know when I make a post.

Well, sorry for the lack of posts, it is my fault and I apologize. I have been extremely busy the past few weeks (last month of school). School is almost out, but starting now I am going to start posting on a regular basis again.

I made a few changes, nothing too exciting, but I thought that I would let you guys know. I took away the “Travis Live!” page, as I do not have a camera anymore. I do plan on purchasing the Logitech Quickcam Orbit, which means I will have a live broadcast going on 24/7! That’s something we all can look forward too.

I also totally revamped the “About Me” page, it even has a new name as well, “Colophon“. I like this name better, makes it sound more professional. So you can check that out if you like, I want to add a few more pictures to it, but did not know where to add it, I probably will later.

Those are just the major changes I did, I am going to start a monthly contest, so stayed tuned for that as well :-). So if you want to see what I have got in store for you guys, I would suggest subscribing to the RSS feed. Did you know that even if you don’t have an RSS reader you can get my updates directly to your mailbox? All you have to do is click on the subscribe button on the top right corner or the link that is at the bottom of this post.

So what do you guys think of the new “Colophon” page? Let me know what you guys think :-)

In case you did not know, I have a twitter account. For those who do not know what twitter is, it is basically answering that question people always ask you, “What’s up?”. So when you are busy, and you do not want people to bother you by asking you what’s up, or what are you doing, or anything else along those lines, you can just let people know through twitter.

I am usually not at home, so I cannot tell people what I am doing. A friend of mine, Neil from WizzHack, told me about this twitter application called Hahlo. It is made specifically for the iPhone. So I told him that I would check it out, and let me tell you, it is by far the best twitter app for the iPhone I have ever used.

So as you can see, this is the screen you get after you log in. You get to see who your friends are, you get to see what is following you, who has replied to you and what people are doing. Then you cannot see it from the picture, but if you scroll down you can see the last thing that you “tweeted”. Now the picture below is what you get when you click on the tweet button on the top right.

So when you reach this, you get to tell people what you are doing. So when I am on the bus leaving school, I can write that, and all of my followers will be able to see what I am doing.

Once I saw this, I instantly bookmarked it, so I can visit it anytime I want. So I would recommend you “follow” me on twitter, so you can see what I am doing. For example, after I publish this post, I will post that I just uploaded a post to my blog on twitter.

What type of phone application do you use for twitter? Do you have a twitter account?

The one thing that I liked about Windows, is that they had the ability to run emulators, for video games. So this means I could play my favorite games from when I was younger, from N64, Super Nintendo, and more.

I finally found a Super Nintendo emulator! It is called Snes9x, and it works amazingly, very simple to use, and very simple to configure. Here is a screen shot, from when I was playing Donkey Kong.

So as you can see, it is just like the same thing, only you are playing on your computer. Now when I have nothing to do, I plan on catching up, and beating my favorite games all over again.

How it Works

So here is how you set it up, you can play your favorite games within minutes. Download Snes9x from their website, unzip, and drag to your applications folder, or wherever you want it. After you have the application installed on your Mac, it is time for you to visit some ROM (that is what the games are called) sites, to download your favorite games. Here is a list of sites that supply a huge amount of ROMS.

• http://www.romnation.net/srv/roms/snes204.html
• http://www.coolrom.com/roms/snes/
  
• http://www.doperoms.com/roms/Super_Nintendo_Snes.html
• http://www.snesorama.us/ROMS/

Once you download the game that you wish to play, just open up Snes9x, click on emulation => Run, then choose the ROM you just downloaded. It is really simple, you can customize the controls to your liking, import cheat codes, and much more.

This is an application that I plan on to use at least once a day or so, so when I have nothing better to do, I can just make hours go away faster and faster.

If you need any help, or have any questions, fell free to email me or leave a comment. What is your favorite Super Nintendo game? Do you know of any other emulators?

For the most part, I do not like to create posts off of someone else’s post, but this one was just too good. I had to share this with the whole audience. If you do not read MacMost, by Gary Rosenzweig, I strongly suggest you do.

MacMost is a blog that talks about Mac related news, gives amazing tutorials, and talks a lot more about the Mac. I first found MacMost on iTunes, when I was trying to find more Mac related podcasts, I found Gary’s podcast and I was hooked. I get a few videos a week into my podcast folder on iTunes, and I learn great tips on what I can do on the Mac.

Here is the video that I want to talk about:

In case you cannot see the video, here is a reason why an iPod is more than just an MP3 player:

Alarm Clock: This is a great tool, I too use this on my iPod, wether your in a hotel or at home sleeping, you can use the iPod as an alarm clock. Just plug in your headphones or set up to some speakers and you are good to go. It’s also great for using on the road, because you can add different time zones to your iPod.

Calendar Synced: This is another great feature that I use everyday. I am a huge sports fans, so I got my favorite teams schedules right on my iCal. When I am at a friends house, all I got to do is check my iPod, and this tells me when there playing, what channel there on, and who they are playing against. Remember though, you can add anything you want to your calendar.

Contacts: Having your contacts can be extremely useful; lets say that you are at a friends house, and your computer is no where close to you. Now your friends want to order pizza maybe, but do not know the number. All you need to do is look at what you have the pizza contact on your iPod, and you are good to go. You can have anybody you want in your contacts.

Photos: Nobody can say that think photos on the iPod are a bad idea. I have lost track, of how many times I have showed somebody a picture on my iPod when I am out and away from my computer. I am sure you have too!

Games: You tell me what other MP3 player has the game selection as the iPod does? Games are great because they can really burn time when you need to. Now I am still in school, so whenever I want a class to go by faster, I can just whoop out my iPod and start playing some games. This can be used for anybody too, whether you are in the car waiting, or at home doing nothing, games on your iPod is great for burning time

Podcasts: Ah, Hello! The reason I say this is because this is exactly how I found out about MacMost. I listen to the podcast on a regular basis, as it gives a lot of information on the Mac. You can put all of your favorite podcasts right on your iPod!

AudioBooks: Now if you are like me, you are probably not a big reader. I have never liked reading, but when there is a great book out that everybody is talking about, I have to get involved. So instead of reading it, I just search the iTunes store for the book, and I can have it read to me instead of reading it myself. I enjoy this much more than actually reading it.

Reading: Thats right, you can now read on your iPod. You can read anything from books, news articles, or even short little stories. All of this can be done as long as it is a text file. Have you ever thought about using your iPod as a notecard when giving a presentation? Just keep all of the notes on your iPod and you are good to go!

iTunesU: The reason that this is on here is for one main reason: to learn on your iPod. Maybe you are going to give a big presentation, or you want to learn about something new. Well now you can learn on your to work or school, while you are in the car, or while you are just listening to your iPod at home. iTunesU is great for learning more information.

Video: Probably the most used feature on the iPod. Ever since the iPod video came out, it has been like a dream come true. I travel a lot, and believe me, I hated lugging my MacBook around, it was always such a hassle. I took on planes and in the car to usually watch videos to make time go faster. Now I can do all of this on my iPod, so instead of lugging a big old MacBook around, I can just cary all my entertainment in my Pocket :-)

Concluding Thoughts

Ever since I first discovered MacMost, I have really learned a lot more on what my Mac can do. Here is just 10 reasons the iPod is more than an MP3 player. Chances are you knew about all of these already, but where not as informed; take me for instance, I plan on using iTunesU now to study for a class, and get ahead of my work, you can do the same too!

So take a time, and look around at the MacMost site, I am going to supply the links so you can more informed of what MacMost is all about.

• http://macmost.com/
• http://youtube.com/user/macmostvideo

What is your favorite feature of the iPod? Do you have anything to add on to this? Leave your thoughts!

When you a purchasing a new Mac, you get the opportunity to fully customize it so that it will perform best for the tasks that you are going to hand it. The first option that Apple gives you, is what kind of processor you would like. Now remember, bigger is not always best, you need to think about the type of tasks your computer will be taking on.

First, I want to help you understand what exactly a processor, also known as a CPU does. A CPU basically runs your computer, whenever you are running a program, it mostly is ran through the CPU. Certain programs require a lot of CPU usage and some do not. You may notice that you can run programs faster on a desktop than a notebook.

Here is an example, I edit a lot of videos, and going from a MacBook to a Mac Pro, I could not believe the difference. It truly will enhance your Mac experience, I can edit a video within a few minutes, where it would take me 20 - 30 minutes per video!

Picking the Processor

Now it is time to learn which processor is best for you, are your a graphic editor, a gamer, or just use the computer for music and internet? The first one I am going to talk about is graphic editing or gaming.

The reason that I am doing these at the same time, is because they both require a lot from the CPU. First I am going to talk about is Graphic Editing. Now, I do a lot of Graphic editing myself, like creating websites, making movies, and a bunch of other stuff. If you are trying to save money, go for the cheapest one that is in your budget, that is what I did. After a while you get use to it; Apple has some good processors so you should be fine. Although if you want top quality, go for the best that Apple has to offer, you will not be disappointed. Switching from a MacBook to a Mac Pro, the change in processors was unbelievable!

Now maybe you are a gamer; which will require a top processor. I cannot tell you that going for the best your money can get, and say that everything is going to be alright. If you are a gamer, you are going to need to invest some big bucks into your machine, like graphic cards, RAM, and of course a powerful CPU. So if you are a hardcore gamer, go with the best processor that Apple has to offer; this way you will not see any lag or any other problems in your gaming experience.

Now maybe you have a computer just for the internet, storing photos, music, and just everyday stuff. Then what I would recommend is choosing the most powerful processor that fits in your price range. If you can afford the best processor that Apple has to offer, do not get it, you should not need more than 2.4GHz. So set your bar at 2.4GHz, and invest your money in something else like another display or more Hard Disk space.

Concluding Thoughts

A processor is part of the Mac that you need to really think about. Think about what programs you run, how big of programs you run, what you use your computer for, and all of that information. If you have any questions, feel free to email me!

What processor do you use? Are you satisfied with your speed, or do you wish you had more? What programs eat up your CPU’s usage?

That’s right, I am going on a short little vacation until the end of the week. So there most likely will not be any posts until next monday. Sorry for the lack of posts again, I have had a very hectic week, and I still do in the next few weeks.

However, after May 10, there is no plans for a very very long time, so expect things after May 10 to be at least one post a day. Talk to you all in about a week!