While Hurricane Earl will most likely spare the Mid-Atlantic area (MacMedics territory), it will hit somewhere and it will destroy some data in some way.

Here in the Mid-Atlantic area, MacMedics clients and friends should un-plug their computer and remove and store back up hard drives in a dry place if you’re not going to be around when the rain and wind hits us.

Power surges via power lines and lightning hits via Comcast’s network seem to be the leading cause of damages to our client’s Macintosh computers.

This might also be a good time to enhance your back up plan by adding an off-site back up. MacMedics is now a Mozy partner, so click here if you’d like to sign up for that.

For our friends north of the Mid-Atlantic, MacMedics recommends that you back up your hard drive via a “clone” use Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner, as that way you can “test” your back up to insure you have a good, bootable copy.

Take that back up put it in a Ziploc bag and have it ready to go with you, if you should need to evacuate. Also, hurricanes bring the rain with them, so plan ahead to protect your computer AND your back up. If you have to leave, put a garbage bag over your computer. If you have a light roof leak, that might be enough to save your computer.

The important thing is to PLAN AHEAD. Your back up is not complete if it’s not:

1. Automatic
2. Redundant
3. Off-Site

We have tons of posts on Time Machine and we even have a free White Paper on it If you’d like a copy, let us know. If you’re not using an automatic backup, your data is at risk!

P.S. If you are going to be where the hurricane is, then you DO need to go get a Ziploc bag right now, and put it with your iPhone. That way if you get caught outside or you’re checking out the surf at the beach, your iPhone is protected. Take my word for it, and you’ll thank me later!!

Update: Apple to live stream it’s own media event tomorrow (9/1/10). Tune into www.apple.com at 10 AM PDT. It looks like non-Apple devices won’t be able to watch. See the press release from Apple here.

Apple is holding a media event on 9/1/10 at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, CA

There are several well placed rumors that Apple with be announcing several new items.

Most widely speculated is the Apple TV. A next generation Apple TV based on the same OS as the iPhone, in order to provide support for Apps on your TV. Rumored to be priced at just $99.

This turned out to be true, however it does not run iOS. It appears to pretty much the same as the old Apple TV which has a Front Row type of interface. Apple TV is now available for pre-order from Apple and will ship in about a month. It’s 1/4th the size of the old Apple TV and is based on a streaming data model, as it has no internal hard drive. You can rent movies and TV shows on it from iTunes, or you can stream music, video, and photos from your home computer.

Another pretty hot rumor concerns a redesign of the iPod nano that appears to have some backing from both some photographic and released protective case design evidence. It would appear that the new Nano will be smaller, square shaped designed device with a 3cm x 3cm touch screen.

This also turned out to be true. The new nano has a touch screen that is large enough to show four app style icons at one. It will be shipping from Apple in about a week.

Back to the rumor mill again after leaked photos showing a camera have popped up over the last year or so is the iPod touch. It’s new design looks to include both a back side camera and a front facing camera, microphone, updated footprint, possible 3G and even a Retina display as in the iPhone 4.

Again, also 100% true. The new iPod touch support Face Time and does have now include the Retina LCD, which is the same LCD that is in the iPhone 4. The iPod touch will also be shipping in about a week.

There also has been quite a bit of buzz concerning Apple’s desire to rent TV shows for 99 cents. I’m assuming that this will also include some tweaks to iTunes and the Apple iTunes store.

This also turned out to be true. TV shows can be rented from ABC and FOX for 99 cents and iTunes 10 was released as well to support this. Apple also announced Ping a new music based social networking site inside of iTunes where you can follow popular artists like Lady GaGa, U2, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry.

You can watch the full event video from Apple’s own website here.

Due to our hugely successful iPod and iPhone repair programs, MacMedics is please to announce that we are now offering Apple iPad Repairs as well.

iPad Glass repairs are $199. If you’re a Facebook fan you can take $10 off.

Questions? Give us a call at 1-866-MAC-MEDICS or stop by our Millersville, Maryland office to drop off your broken Macintosh, iPhone, iPod, or iPad. We’re the only company in Maryland that fixes all Apple devices.

Reminder: MacMedics is an Apple Authorized Service Provider, and we can service your Macintosh computer that is under Apple’s Limited Warranty or AppleCare. iPhones, iPods, and iPads that are under warranty need to be serviced at the Apple Store or mailed back to Apple.

MacMedics End Of Summer Back To School iPhone & iPod Repair Sale

Take $20 off any iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S, or iPhone 4 Glass or LCD repair when you like MacMedics on Facebook.

Take $10 off any iPod or iPad repair when you like MacMedics on Facebook.

Hurry, this repair sale only lasts until the end of August 2010. Enjoy what’s left of the summer!

As Apple quickly picks up more and more dedicated Apple users, the Apple Store and their retail service offerings are frequently overloaded. MacMedics is often able to complete Apple Limited Warranty and AppleCare repairs in as little as 24 hours. See our posting on this topic here.

In the meantime we continue to collect excellent reviews from the anonymous Apple Service surveys as well as from Google and Yelp.

Here’s our most recent review from our client, Evan:

“I Had the toplid of my MacBook Pro replaced under warranty. Was effortless, they diagnosed it properly and gave me the time of day. The whole staff was very friendly and accommodating and the store was near empty, which is a welcome change from the busy and annoying Apple Stores and their notorious “Genius” Bar service in the back. Highly recommended!‎”

Thanks to friend of MacMedics, Mario Armstrong for inviting Dana Stibolt, Owner and Founder of MacMedics onto The Mario Armstrong on XM Radio channel 169 last week.

It was a fun talk about a really serious subject. The majority of the radio visit was focused on the MacMedics 5 Rules of Data Preservation and Protection, which can be reviewed at our web page, http://www.HardDrivesDie.com.

You can listen to the segment here. If you’d like to download the MP3 file and listen to it in iTunes, just hold down “Option” and click the link to download the file.

The interview starts at 7:45 into the recording.

We recently helped a new client from New York with a pretty tricky data recovery situation. She had visited the Apple Store to have her hard drive replaced. They were not able to do anything with her old hard drive. They ran some tests and told her her hard disk had “failed and lost all data”. She asked them if she was able to hang onto her old drive, which our Apple colleagues graciously static bagged for her. She then securely packed it and shipped it to us for data recovery.

On our first attempt, we were not able to grab any data, but we stuck with it and was able to recover all of her data.

Below is what she had to say about sending her hard drive to MacMedics:

ECSTATIC! FROM “ZERO DATA” TO FULL RECOVERY!

Sincerely,
Susan Henderson,
author of UP FROM THE BLUE
http://LitPark.com

You can read more about this including comments from her Blog readers and MacMedics at this link. You can read more about the MacMedics 5 rules of data protection and preservation at http://www.HardDrivesDie.com.

Also, don’t assume that when someone tells you your hard drive has “failed and lost all data”, that that is the gospel. Many folks don’t have the time, knowledge, or the energy to really know what’s up with your hard drive. At least 50% of the people that come into our shop with a “dead” hard drive don’t need clean room data recovery. If you send your drive away to “clean room” recovery for a free evaluation, and they can recover your data easily, you are still going to pay a pretty penny. Can you risk your data to our process, in almost all cases, yes. You can can do further damage by using the wrong process to try and recover the data, but if we suspect that your drive needs the clean room treatment, we’ll refer you to one of our partners. You data is worth a second opinion. If your data is worth $150, then it’s worth letting us have a crack at it.

Also, the data recovery firms pay a commission to the folks that refer business to them (including us). Many people would rather just have that commission, rather then trying to take the trouble of trying to recover your data. If your data is super critical, then you may want to go right to a clean room firm. If you’re not sure, please call us and ask us how we think your case should be handled. We do this every single day, so we do have a good deal of Macintosh Data Recovery experience we can share with you.

I recently helped a new client, Jet Stream Girl; deal with a terrible data loss issue. We did our best with her hard drive recovery from a 12” PowerBook. Sadly we were not able to get her data. She had an older iBook that was sick, but still had some of her data on it, so we migrated that unit to a new computer for her.

It was a bad situation, as she lost a large amount of data and photos. This is unfortunate reminder of why backups are SO important. See our web site: www.harddrivesdie.com for more info.

She gave us a nice shout out in her blog, which can be found here.

Apple today released Safari 5.0.1 to enable Safari Extensions for all users and introduced the Safari Extensions Gallery so they can quickly find and download extensions. Safari is available for both Mac and Windows.

Safari Extensions are created by third-party developers and add powerful new features to the browser, from toolbars that display live web feeds to sophisticated programs that filter web page content.

The Safari Extensions Gallery is accessible from the Safari menu or at http://extensions.apple.com. Users can download and install extensions with a single click, and there’s no need to restart the browser.

Use Software Update to download version 5.0.1.

For more information about Safari, go to http://www.apple.com/safari.

To view the Safari Extension Gallery, go to http://extensions.apple.com.

Apple released a new line up of iMacs and Mac Pros today. They also announced a new 27″ LED Cinema Display and a very interesting looking “Magic Trackpad”.

New Mac Pro

Thanks to the next-generation Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processors and new system architecture, the Mac Pro now delivers performance that’s nearly twice as fast as before. Each processor features an integrated memory controller and 8MB of fully shared L3 cache. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR3 memory provides up to 2.9x the performance of previous Mac Pro standard graphics cards. For even more graphics power, choose the ATI Radeon HD 4870 with 512MB of GDDR5 memory. With blazing-fast 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM, high-performance graphics, a redesigned interior for easier expansion, and up to 8TB of internal storage, itʼs the most advanced Mac Pro ever.

Features

• 8-core or quad-core processing power with Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processors up to
3.33GHz
• 8MB of fully shared L3 cache per processor
• Integrated memory controller and up to 32GB of 1066MHz DDR3 ECC SDRAM (16GB in quadcore configurations)
• Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz
• Hyper-Threading for up to 16 virtual cores
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 or ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics and a double-wide PCI Express 2.0 graphics slot
• Up to 8TB of internal storage with up to four Serial ATA 3Gb/s hard drives2
• Optional Mac Pro RAID Card providing hardware RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 0+1
• Three full-length PCI Express 2.0 expansion slots for specialized cards
• Convenient front and rear I/O and dual Gigabit Ethernet ports for connecting a variety of devices
• Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and Apple Mouse
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Fully customizable with an innovative enclosure that supports future expansion

New iMacs

The new iMac is the ultimate all-in-one computer. Its Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 processors feature an advanced architecture and set new benchmarks for iMac performance. And fast discrete graphics processors now come standard in every iMac. The 21.5-inch and 27-inch widescreen displays are perfect for HD video, and the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Mouse keep your desktop tidy.

Features

• 21.5-inch display with 1920-by-1080 resolution; 27-inch display with 2560-by-1440 resolution
• Dual-core Intel Core i3 and i5 processors up to 3.6GHz
• Available quad-core Intel Core i5 and i7 processors up to 2.93GHz (27-inch model only)
• ATI Radeon HD 4670, ATI Radeon HD 5670, or ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics
• Wireless Magic Mouse and Apple Wireless Keyboard
• Built-in iSight camera, stereo speakers, and microphone
• Built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi1 and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

Magic Trackpad

The new Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer. It uses the same Multi-Touch technology you love on the MacBook Pro. And it supports a full set of gestures, giving you a whole new way to control and interact with what’s on your screen. Swiping through pages online feels just like flipping through pages in a book or magazine. And inertial scrolling makes moving up and down a page more natural than ever. Magic Trackpad connects to your Mac via Bluetooth wireless technology. Use it in place of a mouse or in conjunction with one on any Mac computer — even a notebook.

New 27″ LED Cinema Display

Connect your Mac with Mini DisplayPort to the LED Cinema Display for a panoramic viewing experience unlike any other. You get a huge 27-inch glossy widescreen display with a cinematic 16:9 aspect ratio and an astonishing 2560-by-1440 resolution. With 60 percent more pixels than the 24-inch LED Cinema Display, the 27-inch LED Cinema Display gives you even more room for all your windows and applications.
Unlike most displays that take time to warm up before they reach maximum brightness, an LED-backlit display is instantly on and uniformly bright. LED backlighting also gives you greater control over screen brightness. So you can tune the LED Cinema Display to suit the ambient light in even the dimmest room.