Macgasm

Do you ever want to same SMS messages but want to save them to your Mac? Want an easier way to manage your iPhone or iPod touch? Well now you can with PhoneView! Phoneview lets you save and archive SMS messages, move music, podcast, movies and more from your iPhone/iPod touch to your Mac and much much more. Try out the demo at http://ecamm.com.

[download in HD]

[Download] [01.5 MB] [0:03:00]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Grant talks about using Super Duper, Carbon Copy Cloner, Time Machine, or Automator to keep your Mac backed up.

My Mum’s Core Duo 2ghz Macbook with 1gb of RAM was getting a little long in the tooth so my Dad had me research and find quotes for parts to upgrade etc. A local Apple Dealer and Repair shop was going to charge almost $500 to upgrade to a 320gb drive and 2gb of RAM.

I’m here to tell you that taking it to a store is wholly unnecessary.  I knew beforehand that this upgrade should be easy so I told my Dad that I could probably do it. It’s one of the craziest, easiest processes I’ve run into with computers.

I’ll walk you through the basic steps.

1. First you want to take a Disk Image with Disk Utility and save it to an external HDD. (Click New Image and Select your home drive.)
2. Turn off the computer and take out the battery.
3. Remove the L-bracket from inside the battery case.
4. Flip the gray switches and out pops the RAM.
5. Insert New RAM (Push hard, the most common problem from this upgrade is not seating the RAM properly.)
6. Pull out the HDD by tugging on the white strap.
7. Take off the Magnetic Shielding(what the white tab is affixed to), reattach it to the new drive.
8. Slide the new HDD in.
9. Reattach the L-bracket and reinsert the battery.
10. Boot from an OS X DVD (insert the disk and hold C on start up.)
11. Select the proper language at the initial prompt, but at the install screen select Utilities – Disk Utility from the Menu Bar.
12. Attach your external drive.
13. Format the new drive by selecting Erase in Disk Utility, here you will choose the Volume Format, the default is Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) which is what I went with.
14. Move to the Restore tab, click Image and browse to the Disk Image you took in step 1 and saved to the external drive.
15. Drag your new drive from the list on the left to the Destination field and click Restore.
16. Wait! and Reboot. The copying of my Mum’s disk image took about 2 1/2 hours over USB 2.0 for a 72 gb image.

Amazing huh? 16 steps to a more capable computer.

The process might scare some people but I’m mostly writing this because I feel that this really is easy enough that someone in your family should be able to do it. There is really no need to pay someone for the service. My Dad saved about $300 by going to Newegg (and Me!) rather than taking it to a service center.

And really, if Jony Ive spent so much time designing these machines so it would be this easy, don’t we owe it to him to at least try?

*Disclaimer – If you are very encouraged by this post and decide to try the upgrade, neither I nor Macgasm.net claims any responsibility for it going wrong in any way. This guide should be taken as a informative article only, not a set of instructions.

Apple Upgrade Guides – RAM – http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1651

PDF LINK  - HDD

There have been talks for months about Google possibly acquiring Twitter. You have seen it in blogs, social media sites, and even in magazines. At this point, you are probably sick of hearing about these rumors and want something to finally happen. However, quietly lurking in the dark is another contender who might also be interested in Twitter. Apple. It’s currently a rumor, but what if it turns out to be true?

“œAccording to a well-connected Silicon Valley source who spoke with Gawker, and who may have been recruited by Apple for a senior position, Apple and Twitter’s management are engaged in serious negotiations. In fact they may be close to sealing a deal for as much as $700 million, with the intention of announcing the purchase at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in June.“

—- Fast Company

Twitter interfaces with smartphones with ease and is currently on the rise with celebrities starting to use the service. The iPhone, Apple’s smartphone, has several Twitter apps that are very popular with Twitter users.  Additionally, the rumors indicate that Apple might want to bundle it up with their MobileMe cloud service. In the Fast Company article, they say that another reason for Apple’s increased interest in Twitter is Twitter’s new live search function. Some experts are saying that it will soon rival Google’s search.

However, will Google not fight to acquire Twitter? The interesting part in all this is that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently investigating the ties between Apple and Google. You have to wonder if there is something in the works under the surface between the two companies with this shift from Google to Apple working to buy Twitter.

All we can do is see what happens at the Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference in June, and we will know if this rumor is actually true.

No one does personal databases quite like Bento these days. For some of us sadistic types there’s Filemaker, but for the rest of us there’s Bento. It lets you keep track of anything you can think of, and it’s going to be super handy to have the application available to us on our iPhone and Touches.

There are 25 templates at our fingertips, and they pretty much cover everything you can list.

For Business: Issue Tracking, Time Billing, Customers, Expenses, Products for Sale, Inventory, Projects, Event Planning, Items Sold, and Equipment.

Personal Uses: Contacts, To Dos, Diet Log, Expenses, Classes, Recipes, Digital Media, Vehicle Maintenance, Projects, Home Inventory, Event Planning, Membership Lists, Notes, and Donations.

The new iPhone App also includes a Blank template for creating an unlimited number of customized templates.

Another pretty nifty feature is that it wirelessly syncs with the latest version of the Bento Desktop. How handy is that going to be when you’re maintaining a Diet Log, or Expenses?

Attached below is a video of their application in action.

The folks over at Id Software, creators of the famed Wolfenstein 3D and Doom franchises have stretched out their famous Wolfenstein 3D franchise to the fastest growing gaming market, the iPhone OS.

The iPhone OS Version of Wolf 3D is an exact port of the original Wolfenstein 3D game for PC, with the added touch controls. See the image below for an example. The graphics on the game are exactly the same with minimal changes. It stars the infamous BJ Blazkowicz. For those unfamiliar with the story of BJ Blazkowicz head on over to the Wikipedia article on the back story.

The control scheme, for being ported to a touch-based platform are exquisite. The controls are kept to a minimum as to not detract from the rest of the game play. There are two methods for controlling BJ. A method with a single control stick, that allows you to turn and move simultaneously, this is my preferred method. The second method is by having two distinct controlling actions. One for moving up down left and right, while the second is for turning BJ.

One of the more clever options with the controls is that you have the ability to fully customize the location of each aspect on the screen. So you can setup the controls exactly how you want them to be setup. This can be quite handy if you need to make sure that your thumbs are more comfortable when playing.

There have been two minor change to the original PC version that many are used to engaging themselves with. The first of these changes is the ability to see the Maps. As far as I remember, unless you wanted to do some hackery you could not see the map layouts while playing. This is not the case with the iPhone OS Version of Wolf 3D, as you can see below.

The second change is the addition of the ‘Stats’ Menu. See below for an example. The stats menu allows you to see how many of the Treasure pieces you have picked up, versus the total available. Along with the number of nazis killed, and the number of secrets for each level you have located. This adds a nice little touch to be able to see how much you remember.

This game will bring back hours of nostalgic gameplay for Wolfenstein 3D fans, and will even revive your love for BJ Blazkowicz and make you remember where all of the secrets are hidden. It can be yours in the App Store for only $1.99. It may not be available in Germany, since they have laws restricting video games depicting Nazis. This is a definite must buy for anybody who loved the original game, because this isn’t any different.

[Download] [01.2 MB] [0:02:20]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, Josh talks about Little Snapper.

We’re giving away a package of both the Shovebox desktop application and the iPhone application.  Unfortunately, you have to have an American iTunes account to be able to us the promotion code for the iPhone application (Don’t say I didn’t warn you, and send some hate mail Apple’s way if you don’t like it.).  We talk a lot about the application here at Macgasm, so we really really appreciate the opportunity to give the program away.

It’s simple this time. Tweet the blow phrase or click this link.

“Macgasm.net is giving away shovebox http://tinyurl.com/ynt4eb”

Giveaway ends the 9th at Noon EST.