The MacCast » Cool Stuff

Thanks 30 million for your Movember Support

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff

Maccast beforeMaccast afterJeff Gamet beforeJeff Gamet after

See full images on Flickr

As promised. Here are the images of myself and Jeff Gamet before and after shaving for Movember. In case you missed it, during the month of November (aka. Movember) I grew a mustache to help in an international effort to raise money and awareness for the fight against prostate cancer. This year globally the effort raise more than 30 million dollars. In the US we raised almost 3 million and the US money will be split between The Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong LIVESTRONG foundation.

For our part, the Maccast community raised almost $600 ($589.97). And Jeff really helped push things forward by agreeing, on this episode of the iPhone Alley Podcast, to shave off his signature mustache and goatee if we raised at least $250.00. As you can see from the above images, we obliterated that goal. So thank you Jeff and thank you Mac Geeks.


Enable Magic Mouse Momentum Scrolling in Leopard

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff, Hints & Tips

After mentioning on Twitter that Apple doesn’t support momentum scrolling on their new Bluetooth Magic Mouse under Leopard:

a helpful listener sent me a reply with this handy Terminal command to enable it.

defaults write com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse MouseMomentumScroll -bool true

After entering the command above into the Termial and hitting enter, simply turn Bluetooth off and then back on to update the setting. After that scroll away with full momentum in Leopard.

To change things back issue the same command, but rplacing the last word ‘true’ with ‘false’ and turn off and back on Bluetooth again.

Video: Magic Mouse Unboxing

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff, Reviews

A short unboxing video of Apple’s new Magic Mouse. I also, share some of my early thoughts and impressions on Apple’s latest attempt at this input device.

Video: 5th Gen iPod nano Video Shootout

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff

Some sample video comparing the video quality of the new 5th generation iPod nano against the iPhone 3GS and the Flip Mino.

Photos: Unboxing the 5th Gen iPod nano

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff

I’m not the best photographer in the world and I just used my trusty old point and shoot, but these will give you a good idea of the “out of the box” experience you get with the new 5th generation iPod nano.

Can’t view the Flash? View them on Flickr

Video: Unboxing the 5th Gen iPod nano

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff

A quick video, shot on my iPhone 3GS, of unboxing the new 5th generation iPod nano.

I accidentally shot this in portrait mode on the iPhone, so apologies for the strange aspect ratio.

Video Sample: 5th Gen iPod nano

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff

A quick sample video taken with the new 5th generation iPod Nano. Enjoy!

Maccast Apple 9/9/09 Live Event Chat

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff, Live Event

Join us for a live Maccast Skype chat starting at around 9:30 AM PDT. We’ll have the conversation going until the end of Apple’s live “It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll” event which starts today (09/09) at 10:00 AM PDT. We are using Skype this time because iChat rooms have a 35 person limit. If you have Skype already installed, use the link below to join If you don’t have Skype you can download it and use it for free at Skype.com. The Skype room limit is 150, so it will still be first come first served. See you there.

Video: Snow Leopard Live Install

Written by: Adam Christianson

Categories: Cool Stuff, Loop

Me a few other of the Mac geeks got together on Saturday and hung out while I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Turned out to be both fun and educational. hope to do more stuff like this on the Maccast in the future. Thanks to all who stopped by live and for those who couldn’t make it, enjoy the video.

iPhone 3.0 has brought some fantastic new features that are well known like Cut, Copy & Paste. However some smaller tweaks have been made to the operating system that provide a better user experience. To me most of these changes effect Podcasts. For example you now have easy access to the speed controls and a 30 second skip-back button incase you missed something. Fantastic for shows that go in-depth on specific topics like Security Now!

secnow_podcast

Also seen in the screenshot is the little envelope icon. This button allows you to share current podcast with a friend via an iTunes Link. This does not work on podcasts not featured in the iTunes store, so if you’re subscribed to an RSS feed you are unable to share.

The feature most important to me for daily use isn’t MMS, but the ability to quickly see the remaining battery life. My way around this was a little app called Free Memory, which has the auxiliary feature of telling you the battery life percentage. The app is still worth keeping around if you own an original iPhone or an iPhone 3G and for the ability to free some memory on your device. For iPhone 3GS owners, you now have a nice little option to show the battery life in the top tray of the iPhone.

To access the battery life option, head over to your settings button on the iPhone home screen. From there tap General, then tap Usage, and there will be a slider button on the top. This option is turned off by default and hidden in a screen most people never make there way into.

Battery Percentage

iPhone OS 3.0 has been great to me so far, but my big excitement is over the speed of the new 3GS which I was reluctant to pick up at first. A full review of my 16 GB 3GS White will be coming up soon. In the meantime, what features of the iPhone 3.0 update have proved useful to you?

Updated: Added text to help clarify that the battery percentage feature is an iPhone 3GS only feature. Thanks to the astute folks in the comments for pointing this out.