Halloween is coming! Do not miss the opportunity to send unique Halloween greeting cards to your friends, family members, colleagues or others. These free Stationery templates from iPresentee are designed to be used with Apple Mail and include five awesome templates: Happy Pumpkins, Bloody Letter, Halloween Coffee, Skeleton and Hot Pumpkins. If there is ever a time for the beauty of ugliness and the delight of terror, Halloween must be it! Mail Stationery templates require any Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.5 or higher.

Click here to download>>

With all the junk mail running around out there, having a good management system in place is a must. While most ISP’s have some pretty good filters as a first line of defense (check with your ISP for more info), Apple Mail has it’s own built in filtering which must be set up. Here we’ll take a look at enabling it and explore some of the customizable options……

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If you use MS Office office for Mac 2004 or Office X and have had trouble opening documents received from friends and colleagues, it may be because the documents were created in newer versions of Office.

The Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter 1.1 converts files that were created in Office 2008 for Mac or 2007 Microsoft Office system so that you can open and edit the files in Office 2004 version 11.4 or later and Office v. X version 10.1.9 or later. Word documents, Excel workbooks, and PowerPoint presentations that are created in Office 2008 for Mac or 2007 Microsoft Office system are saved in the Open XML Format.

Click here for more information and download link>>

Apple’s Mighty Mouse is a good mouse in my opinion. Some people really like it, some people don’t. One of the main complaints I have heard is that the top scroll ball becomes inoperable over time due to the collection of gunk. Dirt and grime from our fingers can collect on the little ball causing the sensors to stop functioning.

Cleaning the scroll ball is really a snap. Simply lay a sheet of plain white typing paper on a sturdy, smooth flat surface. Turn the mouse upside down and with light pressure, move your mouse in a circular motion with the ball against the paper for about a minute. Don’t press too hard – you don’t want to damage your mouse. You’ll start to see little lines of gunk appear on the paper as the scroll ball is cleaned.

After a cleaning, your Mighty Mouse should be mighty once again!

I was at a new client’s residence last week doing some work on a MacBook. Their “High Speed” network was really slow, so I conducted some bandwidth tests. The tests showed some unacceptably slow numbers (consistently around 170 kbps down), so I contacted their ISP, COMCAST. Once I got through the automated phone system to an actual voice with a pulse, I gave the individual the bandwidth test results and explained the situation. He immediately informed me that the numbers were accurate for the “High Speed” internet plan that my client was paying $29.95/month for (not to mention myriad additional fees and taxes).

For the sake of clarification and perspective, the following information is provided:

• Dial-up has a top speed of 56 kbps. 1000 kbps is equal to 1 mbps.

• Some Excerpts from Wikipedia: Broadband is often called “high-speed” Internet, because it usually has a high rate of data transmission. In general, any connection to the customer of 256 kbit/s (0.256 Mbit/s) or greater is more concisely considered broadband Internet. Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just broadband, is high data rate Internet access—typically contrasted with dial-up access over a 56k modem. Dial-up modems are limited to a bitrate of less than 56 kbit/s (kilobits per second) and require the full use of a telephone line—whereas broadband technologies supply more than double this rate and generally without disrupting telephone use. Although various minimum bandwidths have been used in definitions of broadband, ranging up from 64 kbit/s up to 1.0 Mbit/s, the 2006 OECD report is typical by defining broadband as having download data transfer rates equal to or faster than 256 kbit/s, while the United States FCC, as of 2008, defines broadband as anything above 768 kbit/s. The trend is to raise the threshold of the broadband definition as the marketplace rolls out faster services.

It would appear that there are numerous conclusions one could draw from this snipped Wikipedia info, and that ISP’s may use the somewhat vague FCC definitions to their advantage. Even though I personally consider charging a customer $30 a month for a 184kbps internet connection borders on criminal, in all fairness my client did sign up for the plan. I do take exception with plans of 184kbps being marketed as “High Speed”, as the case surely can be made that they are anything but “High Speed” (Yes COMCAST, I am talking to you).

Conclusion: Regardless of whether you understand the above technical mumbo jumbo or not, I encourage you to take the time to look over the statement from your ISP. Pay attention to what you are getting for your money and periodically check with them to see if their plans have changed. It may be worth your while to do a little cost comparison in your area as well. As technology progresses, so do internet speeds.

Buyer Beware.

<End Rant>

OS X contains a built in Dictionary that you may or may not be aware of. It is an application that can be found in the Applications folder. It not only functions as a standard dictionary but contains channels such as a Thesaurus, a Wikipedia section (when your computer is connected to the internet) and an Apple specific dictionary. And much, much more……..

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If you are into Twitter, you need a Twitter client. My favorite is Tweetie from atebits. Just download this gem of an application and set it up with your Twitter account info. It’s that easy! atebits also has Tweetie for the iPhone.

Click here for more information and download link>>

Follow MacNutsAndBolts on Twitter here!>>

Yeah, I have stuff all over my desktop, too. It’s amazing how fast stuff accumulates, the item count just continues to grow and grow. Eventually, it gets so bad I can’t find anything. There are people who diligently maintain a clean desktop, and then there is the other 99% of us. For the record, OS X does provide us with folders already categorized to store our stuff. But it’s kind of like keeping your room clean, you have to make it a point to put stuff away. Let’s discuss a few things to make our computing life a bit simpler….

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A simple, synchronized inventory manager for your kitchen. Pair with Pantry on iPhone for management on the go.

- Know what you have: With Pantry, you can see at a glance how much spaghetti sauce, dog food, or toilet paper you have left. When you run low, the item will automatically appear on your shopping list on your iPhone.
- Syncronize with others: Family members see the same list. If you run out of milk while a family member is out, milk will automatically appear on his or her iPhone Pantry list. It’s as simple as that!

If you try this, please post feedback on what you like about it!

Click here for more information and download link>>

We all have stuff. We have music and letters and pictures and recipes and…. stuff. We have stuff that we’ve had for years. We have stuff that we don’t have a clue as to what it is. We have stuff that has stuff in it. You know… Stuff.

There’s really no such thing as bad stuff, but you have to make sure your computer doesn’t have too much of it. Too much stuff can become a bad thing.

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