A quick thanks to our friends at MacDailyNews for sharing this with us. Wikidot has published a fairly exhaustive list of Mac applications and more importantly are sharing information about their compatibility with Snow Leopard. I suggest that you take a moment and go visit to see what the status of your applications are. Also, they are encouraging early Snow Leopard adopters to share their experiences here.

Whether you plan to upgrade as soon as you receive your install DVD on Friday or are planning to wait a few weeks or months, this post will detail the minimal steps you should take in preparation for upgrading your Mac to Snow Leopard.

Step 1 – Check for application updates/Snow Leopard compliance

Start with your most regularly used, mission critical applications, and make sure that they are up to date. More importantly make sure they are ready and compliant for running in Snow Leopard. If you are running applications that are not Snow Leopard compliant, you might want to wait on the upgrade until the developers release a Snow Leopard compliant version.

Step 2 – Purge

If you are like me, I NEVER take time to purge my Mac. Ever since Leopard was installed and all downloads went to the downloads folder instead of the desktop I haven’t purged a single thing. I’m certain that at least for me, 90% of the contents in my downloads folder can be trashed. While your at it, go through your applications folder and do the same thing. I probably have at least 100 trial versions of applications that I need to trash. Chances are that you do too. Don’t forget to empty trash after you finish purging.

Step 3 – Verify/Repair Disk and Verify/Repair Disk Permissions

When you are installing or upgrading an operating system, it’s always a good practice to make sure that the Disk onto which you’ll be installing or upgrading is in tip top shape. Apple has an application called Disk Utility that you can use to make a quick diagnosis of your hard drive’s condition. This application can be found in the Applications > Utilities folder. When you launch Disk Utility you’ll want to select your internal hard drive on which your current operating system is installed from the left hand sidebar and then click on the Verify Disk button which can be found toward the bottom right hand side of the application interface. Upon completion of the Verify Disk process you’ll receive a short synopsis of what the process found when it ran. If all is well, the final message will be listed in Green text. If there is a problem with your Disk, the final message will be listed in Red. If you get a Red message, your first course of action should be to manually initiate a Time Machine backup. Your second course of action should be to return to the Disk Utility application and click on the Repair Disk button located just beneath the Verify Disk button. Apple’s Disk Utility application is capable of making minor Disk repairs. If after running the Repair Disk process you still receive a Red final message, you should call AppleCare or make a trip to the Genius Bar and let them take a look.

After running the Verify Disk and/or Repair Disk processes, you’ll then want to run the Verify Disk Permissions process by clicking the Verify Disk Permissions button. If you’ve owned your Mac for any length of time, it’s quite possible that there may be some permissions that need to be repaired. If after running Verify Permissions the Disk Utility application lists permissions that need to be repaired, simply click the Repair Disk Permissions button just below the Verify Disk Permissions button. The repair process should take a few minutes and then you should get a message indicating which Permissions were repaired.

Step 4 – BACKUP!!!!

At a minimum you should manually run a Time Machine backup before inserting your Snow Leopard install DVD. I also recommend that you download Carbon Copy Cloner and create a bootable clone of your existing Macintosh Hard Drive. You’ll of course need a spare Hard Drive of some sort on which you’ll create the clone. After you’ve created the clone you’ll want to boot from the cloned copy to verify that it works. Once you’ve booted and verified that the clone works, you should be about ready to move ahead with the Snow Leopard upgrade.

Step 5 – Enjoy Snow Leopard and leave us some comments about your experience

As always, we’d like to hear about how your upgrade experience went. Did you have any problems? Are there any big exciting features that are surprises? Did any big exciting features not make the final release? Leave us some comments.

I’ve heard from a lot of people who plan to upgrade to Snow Leopard as soon as they have it in their hands on Friday. For many this will be no problem. Others may find regret in their haste. Here are three reasons to consider postponing your Snow Leopard upgrade.

1. Apple projected a Snow Leopard release date of September. Most developers took Apple at their word because of their past track record on delivery. As a result, we’ve heard directly from several developers such as Marketcircle, Agile Web Solutions, and yes everyone’s favorite, Adobe, with news stating that their current versions are not compatible with Snow Leopard. Further these manufacturers don’t expect to have Snow Leopard compliant versions available for at least several weeks after release.
2. While early reviews from beta testers indicate many positive things in Snow Leopard including stability and Exchange compatibility, no one, not even the beta testers know what will officially be released to the public. You may recall that when Leopard was released, there was much hype about a lot of great new features that didn’t make it into the initial release; i.e., Air Disk functionality for Time Machine. While a few missing features may not be deal breakers, the features that you are planning to use after upgrade may not end up in the initial release. Believe me, wait a day or two and you’ll know for sure what did and didn’t make the final cut.
3. This reason specifically applies to business. If you use your Mac as your primary or even secondary business computer, exercise prudence and wait. Production equipment, desktops or servers, should be upgraded with much deliberation. You can always argue a worst case and say that if for some reason Snow Leopard isn’t all it’s cracked up to be or is problematic that you could do a reinstall of Leopard and restore from a Time Machine backup, but remember, that will cost you the better part of a day for most users. Lost productivity = lost revenue.

If you can’t stand it and you must upgrade on Friday, swing back by here tomorrow and read about how you should prepare your Mac for the Snow Leopard upgrade.

There has been a lot of talk about stability improvements and many minor, “under the hood”, enhancements that are coming in Snow Leopard. We’re certainly excited about getting our hands on it and learning about what has changed and what is new and different. While Kevin and I are sure that Snow Leopard is going to be an awesome upgrade, we are recommending that our clients wait until we give the upgrade nod before diving in. We’ll be sharing our Upgrade experiences and our initial thoughts here. As well, we’ll be posting regular updates about what we are finding relative to enhancements as well as any problems or bugs that might arise.

At $29, Snow Leopard is no doubt going to be a great value. Feel free to click here to pre-order your copy of Snow Leopard from the DDS Amazon Store. If you “must” have your copy of Snow Leopard delivered on August 28, 2009, click on the graphic above to purchase your advance copy directly from Apple, Inc.

If you have any questions, please leave us some comments.

Kevin and I have racked our brains, small as they are, to come up with a way to Bcc the Highrise Dropbox in an automated way. We’ve spent countless hours fiddling with Apple’s Automator, and we’re still at ground zero on this. Until now that is…

While doing a little more research late last week on the topic of automatically Bcc’ing the Highrise Dropbox, I finally came across a hack for Apple Mail that does just this. I’d like to offer a big shoutout to Travis Vocino of Vocino Labs for originally sharing this out. The hack does of course require that you are comfortable with using the terminal application and entering information via the command line. ***Please read the entire post before performing the hack.*** Here is the hack:

1. Open Terminal.app
2. $ defaults read com.apple.mail UserHeaders
3. If nothing shows up, you don’t currently have anything set and you should be golden to move to the next step.
4. $ defaults write com.apple.mail UserHeaders '{"BCC" = "dropbox@YOURDROP.highrisehq.com"; }'
5. Restart Mail.app

When I first completed the hack I was quite excited. I restarted Mail as instructed and quickly used the hot key combination command+n to create a new mail message. I was quite disappointed when the new mail message opened up and I didn’t see anything in the Bcc field. My first assumption was that perhaps since I was running a newer version of mail that the hack didn’t work. Fortunately, my trusty sidekick and business partner, Kevin Gilbert, decided to go ahead and send some test emails anyway. What we found was that the hack did in fact work, it just doesn’t place anything in the Bcc field.

A word of warning, if you use the Bcc field a lot or with any regularity, be aware that performing this hack will cause Apple Mail to only send a Bcc to the Highrise Dropbox, regardless of what you enter manually in the Bcc field. In plain English, executing this hack means that you cannot Bcc any other contact besides the Highrise Dropbox even if you manually type their email address into the Bcc field.

To learn more about Highrise, click on the graphic at the beginning of this post or the link below. Give Highrise a NO-RISK 30 day FREE TRIAL. We offer Highrise Implementation and Consulting Services so please let us know if we can help in any way.

We’ve got an additional gift, prize, present, or whatever you wish to call it. We’re going to give it away at then end of July as well. As I mentioned in the post this morning, what we’re giving away is made by the fine folks out in Cupertino, CA, Apple, Inc. Drumroll please…

We’re giving away a 1GB iPod shuffle. After all, everybody could use one more iPod in their lives, right?

So here’s how to get entered into the drawing for the 1GB iPod shuffle. Simply become a fan of DDS on the DDS Facebook page. Already a fan? Then you’re already entered. Not a fan yet? Better hurry, there’s only four and a half days left to be eligible for this drawing.

If not, do it, NOW! There are only 5 days left till we draw the four (4) winners of a DDS Web Presence Development Package.

So far, response has been great. We have 112 eligible followers and that number is growing daily.

We’ve also decided to give away one more awesome prize. A little hint, it’s made by a company out of Cupertino, CA called Apple, Inc. We’ll be announcing this prize and how to win it on our blog today at 1:30 P.M. EST.

“Apple has spent some time outlining technology that would add a new level of interaction between iPhone users, such as the ability to share and control playback of digital media files like music tracks and video during a telephone call,” Slash Lane reports for AppleInsider.

“The concept is outlined in a 19-page patent filing discovered by AppleInsider this week titled ‘Methods and systems for mixing media with communications’ and credited to Apple software engineer Jeffrey Terlizzi. It begins by noting that while media items are becoming increasingly portable for mobile users these days, they’re still not as easily shared with others located remotely in real time,” Lane reports.

via MacDailyNews.

This certainly opens the door for some interesting possibilities. Audio conferencing and sharing a Pages, Numbers or Keynote document (or an Office document) with the person to whom your talking? Maybe? They wouldn’t be able to get away with allowing purchased music to be shared, would they?

Just one day after North Carolina lawmakers approved changes to the state’s corporate tax laws designed to lure Apple and a $1 billion server farm project to one of their rural communities, the state’s Governor signed Senate Bill 575 into law and announced that the iPhone maker is coming to town.

via AppleInsider | North Carolina greets Apple and $1 billion server farm project.

Let the speculation begin. Why would Apple need a server farm on the east coast? Is the fact that it’s on the east coast even important? The fact that they are building a server farm at all indicates an expectation on their part to increase web services over the next few years. iTunes Music, Movies, Apps and Games Store growth? Maybe. Improved with more features and more reliability MobileMe service? Maybe. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be good.

“iPhone is not only a great creative tool — it’s a great way for any business to stay organized,” says Jeff Turlik, Associate Creative Director and Music Director for Blue Man Group. “It’s easy to share information and connect with each other, from scheduling meetings to sharing audio and video files or even spreadsheets.”

via Apple – iPhone – Profiles – Blue Man Group.

Apple profiles Blue Man Group and their use of the iPhone in their business. While they use it on-stage for creative purposes, there are several applications for which it is used that might surprise you. There’s a profile video as well that’s worth a look.

As of June 2, the One to One membership will only be offered to customers who purchase Macs through Apple’s direct channels – our retail stores and the Apple online store. The price for the program will remain $99. Existing customers will be able to renew for one additional year for the same price as well.

What is it that’s driving Apple to tighten these guidelines? Is the program becoming too popular? Is this part of Apple’s strategy to drive more sales through their direct channels?

I’ve heard from various sources within the Apple retail channel that the program’s popularity has begun to grow exponentially. In fact, Apple had to re-word their verbiage about six months ago to reflect and communicate that one-to-one was subject to availability of time slots, according to one source.

What do you think?

A new computer almost always feels faster than the one it replaces. In the old days, though, every few years you’d get a computer with not just a faster processor but a next-generation processor, and the resulting performance increase was dramatic. For the Mac, those were bumps like the first 68030s and 68040s, or the first batch of PowerPCs. For the PC, the 386, 486, and Pentium.

Based on information from informed sources, I believe the processor in the next-generation iPhone is going to be that kind of upgrade.

via Daring Fireball: The Next iPhone.

I’ve been following John Gruber’s blog, Daring Fireball, for a few years now. Mostly I read for his tech-related insights. I’m specifically interested in his knowledge of all things Apple and the information he shares, from commentary to summary to rumors…he provides great perspective and interesting insight. This article is no different. I’m excited about the next iPhone. Are you?

First, a little background. I was an avid Windows user until the Fall of ‘05; truth be told, I really hated Macs before then. I always thought OS X was slow, unstable and just not as powerful as my rock solid copy of Windows XP. However, Apple addressed all of my concerns with OS X Tiger; the operating system had matured with enough powerful features to lure me away from the Windows world I had been attached to for so long.

via 10 Things to Love About OS X « MEDIA SALT.

Eric Murell gives his list of 10 things to love about OS X. Very thoughtful and thorough. Check it out.

With the Daylite touch application you can manage your business on the go without the bulk of carrying a notebook computer. Some of the features of Daylite touch include:

• Multi-user Calendar management
• Contact management
• Opportunity management
• Project management
• Task management and delegation

We hope you’ll come out and join us as we demonstrate how Daylite 3.9 and Daylite touch compliment one another.

Time Machine Editor allows you to manually set the times at which Time Machine runs incremental backup jobs. You have two options. You can set an interval for a number of hours. For example, Backup every 4 hours. The other option is to set a calendar interval where you can choose multiple daily, weekly, or monthly backup times. Apple didn’t include this functionality in Time Machine because they wanted to keep it dead simple for home users. 

We’ve deployed this utility for several clients now and it has worked flawlessly for us from day 1. We strongly recommend it if you have multiple users running Time Machine over the network. If you have questions about getting Time Machine Editor deployed feel free to contact us.

While listening to this weeks MacBreak Weekly audio podcast, we heard Alex Lindsay mention a new MacBreak show, called MacBreak Work. The plan is to focus on iWork and other work related apps on the Mac.

The quality of the MacBreak Video podcasts are always great, and this looks to be a good resource for all the Keynote users out there. We watched this first episode, and while they did have a few of their facts wrong (no, the thumbnail resize option hasn’t been there since day one; yes, multiple inspectors have been there since day one) they do touch on some of the cool new features of Keynote 09. This episode focuses mostly on Magic Move and Text transitions and comes in at just over 9 minutes long.

We’re hoping Keynote gets a good mention in future episodes since, well, it’s our favorite iWork app.

You can find the MacBreak Work episodes at www.pixelcorps.tv/macbreak_work or on itunes under MacBreak Work.

via KeynoteUser.com | Keynote Themes, News, Tips and other goodies » Story Archive » PixelCorps launches MacBreak Work show.

So here’s an example of how social media can work. I was on LinkedIn and I have the BlogIt app loaded on my profile page. A college buddy, Brian Peat, who also happens to run the highly acclaimed KeynoteUser.com website, had posted a blog entry on Friday, that I just saw today, about the new MacBreak Work show from PixelCorps. I’ve been a big fan of PixelCorps and the original MacBreak show and didn’t know about this new one, yet. Thanks to Brian’s blog entry appearing on my LinkedIn page, though, I do now and I will be checking it out. I’m also asking that you check out the best site for commentary, tips and resources for the best presentation software available anywhere. That’s KeynoteUser.com. Thanks, Brian. Keep up the good work.

• System-wide copy/paste
• Support for the integrated camera to capture video in addition to the still photos
• Support for running multiple 3rd party apps

One thing is for sure. Apple will no doubt throw a few surprises in there as well. Stay tuned here for our thoughts and reactions to the announcement.

Daylite Touch Submitted to the AppStore

March 7, 2009 on 1:14 pm | In Apple, Business, Daylite, General

Exactly one year after Apple released the iPhone SDK and exactly one year after we began development, we submitted Daylite Touch to the AppStore yesterday.

Daylite Touch is major milestone for us as a company. Not only is it our first mobile app, it is also a milestone for small businesses. You’ll get functionality that even large scale enterprise systems don’t have, such as scheduling meetings with colleagues right from the phone you can also view their calendars. You’ll get power features such as open projects with linked tasks, appointments and notes from all users. You’ll get really useful “on the go” features such as the home screen with everything you have to do today and tomorrow. And more…

via Marketcircle Blog.

Apple has really created an excellent server platform that helps small and medium businesses leverage the benefits of a true server/client environment without breaking the bank. If you’d like to learn more about Leopard Server you should come on out and check out this workshop.

Here is a link to our event page on Facebook.

You can go here to register to attend this event. We look forward to seeing you there.