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.

MacMedics is proud to be a sponsor of the Washington DC area InDesign User Group’s Adobe CS 5 release event for the third time!

The DC-Area InDesign User Group is once again holding an all-day, special event heralding the introduction of the latest version of Adobe’s leading creative software, CS 5. The featured presenters are:

CHRIS CONVERSE, author of the new book “Bringing Your Web Design to Life”

NOHA EDELL of Adobe Systems

MICHAEL MURPHY, creator and host of “The InDesigner” podcasts

The all-day event will be held TUESDAY, MAY 25 At the U.S. Navy Memorial Auditorium, 701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC.

This year’s venue is smaller then the Shakespeare Theatre where it was held for the CS 4 roll out event, so reserve your seat early! You can register right here!

Before you install this or any other software update, be sure to read our Software Update/Upgrade Warning Page which can be found here.

Here’s the text from the Apple Software Update window:

The 10.6.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes for:

An issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly

An issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account.

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3874.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

After failing to meet their own self imposed deadline of late summer, AT&T has finally released MMS text messaging capability to the iPhone.

Here’s the free text message AT&T send to me this afternoon (9/26/09) at 3:03 PM

“Picture and video messaging (MMS) is now available for iPhone. Txt, pic or video msgs you send/receive are included in your msging plan and subject to the limits of your plan. To enable MMS, connect iPhone to your computer and click “Check for Update” in iTunes, then restart your iPhone.”

Here’s the screen shot from my iPhone 3G S:

Here’s the screen shot from iTunes:

Update 1/27/10: This topic was mentioned on the Apple forums. See the link here.

Apple released Snow Leopard to the public on August 28. This new version of OS X leaves behind support for the Power PC and it will only run on Intel based Macintosh computers. It’s faster, smaller in size, and much cheaper then previous Apple operating systems. At $29 it’s a good value and well worth the investment. It’s $29 for the single user, $49 for a 5 user family pack, and Tiger users can upgrade via the Mac Box Set which includes iLife ’09 and iWork ’09 as well as Snow Leopard.

Update 9/12/08: MacMedics has both Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Family Packs in stock in both Lanham and Millersville locations.

Our initial reaction to Snow Leopard has been good, and most of the MacMedics are running it now and have been using it and testing it for some time. While we are excited for it, we have not yet begun to install it for clients just yet.

Before you take the leap to Snow Leopard (or any other update to Apple’s OS) be sure to read our software upgrade warnings page first. It can be found here, but to get the word our we’ve copied the text of the page to this Blog post.

As noted below, MacMedics also strongly recommends you have a tested and fully functional back up in place BEFORE you install any Apple system software update. Something could go wrong, and you could have a major problem on your hands. Whenever Apple releases a major update to OS X we usually see 4 or 5 clients’ hard drives die that first day. If your hard drive is dying or already unhealthy, the extra hard drive activity needed to install a major update is often all it takes to kill a hard drive. Please see our web page on the subject of hard drive failures.

For more detailed information on installing Apple system updates, please see details below.

Upgrading to Snow Leopard and/or installing any Apple OS X software update

Running a software update from Apple (or elsewhere) as soon as it pops up is not always the best plan. In our travels we very frequently see clients who have run a software update without planning ahead for it, and as a result end up with annoying issues, sudden incompatibilities, and even data loss. One thing to consider is how healthy your hard drive is overall before running an update. Never try to solve an issue such as system lock ups or crashing by installing the latest update, as symptoms like those can be exasperated by applying a software update.

Here’s our safety checklist for running software updates or installing a system upgrade.

6. Consider the possibility that major applications and/or features might be affected by an Apple software update or system upgrade.

Don’t run a software update on a production machine while on a deadline. You want to be certain that the update will not cause more problems than it was designed to fix. If your machine is working, let it continue working as is, and plan to install the update after you know it’s not going to cause any issues for you. We install the updates on our test machines here at MacMedics as soon as they are released to Apple Developers, and again when they are released to the public.

Can your hard drive handle Snow Leopard?

Installing a new OS is like taking your hard drive to the gym. It can be quite a workout for an older hard drive, and whenever a new OS comes out, we always see a few dead hard drives as a result. No matter what you do, make sure you have a back up of your data before you begin! Also, don’t forget (or skip over) the important task of TESTING your back up. Time Machine is what many clients are running, and while it works most of the time, it can suffer from issues. It’s very hard to test that a Time Machine back up is totally working, and we often find ones that don’t work. Just keep that in mind when you plan your upgrade.

Prices have dropped significantly on hard drives over the last year or so. MacMedics now recommends retiring hard drives after three years in desktops, and two years in laptops. Be sure to check out new web page to find out why you should retire your older hard drive and to learn about our 5 rules of data protection and preservation. Why take a chance with your data when faster, larger, and generally more reliable drives are available. Moving to Snow Leopard is a great opportunity to get a new drive, while at the same time insuring your data is safe.

Both MacMedics Baltimore (Millersville) and MacMedics Washington (Lanham) have ample supplies of Apple’s Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6) in stock. Stop by to pick one up.

The MacMedics office in Millersville will be open tomorrow, Saturday 8/29 from 10 to 1.

Apple released Leopard 10.5.8 today. MacMedics always recommends that you don’t install Apple software updates right away. See all of the details on our software update warnings webpage for the reasons for that advice.

10.5.8 DOES include some security updates, so it is an update that we’d like to see get installed as soon as it’s clear that it’s not going to cause any major problems. And, it should probably be noted that 10.5.8 includes Safari 4.0.2. If for some reason anybody has been avoiding Safari 4, they would not want to apply this update.

Follow MacMedics on Twitter for our up to the second advice on this update.

Here’s what Apple posted in Software Update regarding 10.5.8:

The 10.5.8 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac, as well as specific fixes for:

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3606.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Blog post by Brent Amersbach, MacMedics Baltimore:

We installed 10.5.7 on a MacMedics MacBook that we use as a media center tonight, and it made a wreck of things. We did see some on-line chatter about the topic, but that seemed to have something to do with attaching a Mac to any display via DVI to HDMI cables. Regular DVI, fine. VGA, fine. DVI to HDMI, PROBLEM! 10.5.7 now apparently treats “HDMI” differently than regular monitors, and by differently we mean completely different. It wants to use oddball resolutions that add in overscan rather than the regular native resolution of the panel. To make it worse, the native resolution tends to disappear as a choice in System Preferences.

You can turn overscan off, but then your display shrinks to a rectangle in the middle of the screen with a border around it, even if the resolution you’re using is greater than native. The only fix is to use this handy piece of third party software called SwitchResX that comes in a full blown shareware version, and a free control panel version. The free version seems to do the trick. It’s mildly complicated, so be prepared to re-configure it a few time to get it the way you want:

1. Launch the app
2. Tab over to Custom.
3. Hit the + button to bring up a dialog
4. Fill in what your display’s native resolution should be
5. Enable the Use Simplified Settings checkbox and choose one of the options from the newly enabled drop down menu to its immediate right
6. Click Apply and then reboot. See if the resolution now appears in Display Preferences
7. Repeat steps 5-6 until one of those drop down choices makes the custom resolution appear as an option.

If none of the three “simplified” choices work, you may be able to get it working by tweaking the settings manually, but this is for very advanced users only.

In short, if anyone has a Mac attached to a TV or even a regular monitor by HDMI, you may want to avoid 10.5.7 for the time being. See this Apple discussions thread for more details:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2004318&tstart=0

Apple released the much anticipated 10.5.7 update to Mac OS X today.

PLEASE be sure to have a fully tested backup before installing the update. Also, unplug that backup drive and any other USB or FireWire devices before your run the 10.5.7 update. It is also a good idea to “restart” your computer BEFORE running the update, and install the 10.5.7 update before running any applications.

In general, MacMedics does not recommend that you install this update on a production machine. We also suggest that you not install the update the very same day it comes out, in case the update is recalled for any reason.

See our update warnings page for all of the things to watch out for.

http://www.macmedics.com/updates.htm

Also, see our full 10.5.7 post from a few days ago: http://www.macmedics.com/blog/?p=615

Message from Dana Stibolt:

Greetings from MacMedics. Things have been busy for us this week. It always seems to pick up when it rains. We’ve had a few days in a row where it was starting to look you might need a boat in order to come visit us. Thankfully, today looks rain free, and the forecast from MacMedics clients WJLA-TV in Washington, DC and WMAR-TV in Baltimore, MD looks pretty clear at least for the next few days. We might have a chance of rain tonight, but Mothers Day looks good.

MacMedics iPhone Repair

As you may have heard MacMedics is now repairing iPhones. We tried to “outsource” these complicated repairs, but the logistics were cumbersome, and we had no control over the price. In the long run we decided that in order to best serve you, we had to bring these types of repairs in house to improve both turn around and price.

I’m happy to report that the response from the iPhone and Apple community has been awesome. We’re doing iPhone repairs same day here in our Millersville, MD Mac Lab. Drop your iPhone off in the morning and we’ll do our best to have it fixed by the afternoon!

MacMedics Macintosh Repair & Service

Here in the lab we recently repaired a sick MacBook Pro shipped in from Costa Rica. The owner of that unit also sent in a pound of Costa Rica’s best coffee. The guys here in the lab loved that. I guess that’s one way to speed up your repair time – just give us some good coffee and we’re in top gear. That’s the Mac repair from the furthest away this week. We’ve handled repairs from Iraq a number of times. We’ve become quite well known for handling complicated repairs such as liquid spills, LCD replacements, and logic board repairs. In fact, many of these come to us from the Apple Store.

MacMedics vs. the Apple Store

Many folks are not near an Apple Store, so they need to send their units in to someplace, often they come here. More and more MacMedics clients are learning that the Apple Store (even if they are near one – MacMedics is right in the middle of three Apple Stores). For most repairs the Apple Store charges far more than we do here at MacMedics. Also, many Apple customers don’t know that when you have an out of warranty repair performed at Apple, you only end up with a 90-day warranty. Here at MacMedics you’ll likely pay far less and our “hassle-free” warranty is a full one-year. Our turn around is amazing, as we regularly complete complex repairs, often involving data transfer in just one day. MacMedics also offers low cost rental machines, so if you need a unit to get your work done on while yours is in the shop we’ve got you covered. MacMedics Service Partner clients get free loaners anytime they need a hardware repair.

We continue to perform iPod repairs at an unprecedented rate. We’ve got a great reputation as folks drive up to see us from Washington DC and Northern Virginia. This week someone even drove down from Delaware. (You CAN mail these iPods to us, we promise we’ll send them right back!)

Beware Of Fly-By-Night Repair Shops

There are so many folks jumping into the iPod/iPhone repair business. Don’t be enticed by all the ads on the Internet promising to fix anything for a wicked low price. I’m seeing tons of ads all over the country popping up on Craigslist. As all of you know, MacMedics is real Mac repair shop and as such we’re well suited to take these iPod repairs on. Don’t forget that many of the places on the Internet are one-man shops hiding behind a fancy web page. We’ve heard about some pretty bad repair experiences out there, and we often end up re-fixing iPods that have been sent elsewhere. We are in the repair business, so our full stock of iPod/iPhone service parts and our crew of Apple Certified techs are waiting to help bring your baby back to life. Don’t forget if at all possible, we’ll keep your music and other data intact.

MacMedics Current Repair Specials

For those of you looking for a really good iPod repair deal, we have made some of our most popular repair “specials” semi-permeant.

iPhone 3G top glass repair w/ 1-way FedEx is $109.99
iPod Video LCD or Headphone jack w/ 1-way FedEx is $55.95
iPod Classic LCD replacement w/ 1-way FedEx is $65.95
MacBook LCD replacement w/ 1-way FedEx is $349.95

Both of the iPod repairs also include a free battery.

Leopard 10.5.7 Is Coming

If you did not catch my Blog post about the rumored forthcoming 10.5.7, be sure to check it out BEFORE this update comes down the pike.

MacMedics “Second Chance” Backups [Second Hard Drive Installed In A MacBook Pro]

MacMedics is now installing our “second chance” back up system in the last generation of the MacBook Pro. This additional hard drive gets installed in place of your DVD drive, and offers a super clever way to ensure you always have a back up of your work. Just think if you are on a business trip and your hard drive dies, how cool would it be to just boot to the second drive and get on with your work. A really cool idea for those “road warrior” types who never seem to have time to plug into the network or stay in one place long enough to use Time Machine.

All of us here at MacMedics hope things are good with you and your Mac. If for any reason there’s a problem or a question, you know where to find us.