Latest Posts in Macworld Video

Monitor triple play

You don't need me to rattle off the benefits of working with multiple displays. (I mean, other than the fact that you get more screen real estate and can work more productively.)

But what if your machine is one that doesn't offer built-in support for multiple displays—like, say, a Mac mini?

You can turn to an external solution such as the TripleHead2Go. This box from Matrox supports up to three monitors; I'll give you a first look at it in this week's Macworld Video.

Dealing with common annoyances

Sleek and capable as Apple’s products are, they have their bad days like the rest of us. And when they do, you’ll want to know how to back out of a bad situation as gracefully as possible. That is the subject of this week’s video—dealing with common iPhone, Apple TV, and iTunes Store annoyances.

In the course of the video I show you how to:

• Avoid long iPhone backups (and all iPhone backups, for that matter).
• Force-quit a frozen iPhone application.
• Throw your iPhone into DFU (Device Firmware Update) mode for restoring it when it appears to be dead.
• Restart, diagnose, or restore an Apple TV with a hidden Apple Remote command.
• Beg Apple to allow you to download an aborted iTunes Store purchase.

All this, in under six minutes!

iPhone apps for toddlers

I’ve spent the past few weeks on paternity leave. Since my time out of the office coincided with the launch of the App Store, I’ve had the chance to try out a bunch of new iPhone programs. I’ve learned that those apps can sometimes come in handy at keeping our two-year-old occupied for a few minutes while mom and dad tag-teamed the newborn.

In this week’s video, I look at some of the inexpensive—and age-appropriate—apps that our toddler found interesting… for a few minutes, at least.

Download Macworld Video #61

Stay cool with the MacBook Air

I love my MacBook Air, but a few months back I discovered a problem that made me seriously consider giving it up. The issue: Turns out that Intel’s Santa Rosa chip architecture, used by the MacBook Air, shuts down a core when it gets too hot. The result? At random times, generally on warm days and generally in the afternoon after I’d been using my MacBook Air for a while, the computer would become crazily unresponsive. Turns out I was running on a single processor core!

Running two cores at lower speeds is much preferable to running a single core at a higher speed. The sad thing is, the MacBook’s built-in software currently just isn’t up to the task. So I reluctantly tried CoolBook, a $10 utility that lets you reduce the speed and voltage of the MacBook’s processor.

I was skeptical, but two months later I haven’t noticed a single instance of a core shutdown. While recording this video, I disabled CoolBook, pulled up a couple of Flash-based Web videos and, sure enough, within 10 minutes I was once again experiencing full core shutdowns.

A look at Sun’s VirtualBox

Virtualization continues to be a big topic among Mac users with Intel-powered Macs. Products from Parallels and VMware allow you to easily run many different operating systems on your Mac, each within its own protected virtual environment. Recently, a third player entered the market—Sun, with its VirtualBox product.

In this Macworld video, I’ll give a brief overview of VirtualBox, including the process of installing an operating system, a look at how well it runs with XP Pro, and a quick performance comparison using some HD video playback on VirtualBox and VMware Fusion.

Download Macworld Video #59

Hands on with the iPhone 3G

Another year, another iPhone.

What? Not jaded about the iPhone yet? Neither are we! As you can see from our coverage on Macworld.com this week, we think the launch of the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 2.0 software is big news.

I'm working on a full, in-depth review of the iPhone 3G, which we'll be posting on Monday. But in the interim, I'm here with a brief overview of the iPhone 3G, including what's new, what's not new, what's cool about the iPhone 2.0 software, and whether or not your should buy one.

Flipping for the Flip Video

Because it’s me, it’s you too: You’ve missed the bulk of your child’s/life-mate’s/hamster’s landmark moments because, by the time you’ve unearthed your camcorder, charged its battery, and finally removed its lens cap, the moments you wanted so desperately to capture have passed into the pages of history.

If blogs, podcasts, and Twitter haven’t made it clear enough, let me make it so here: The aughts are all about documentation—recording every insignificant moment of your life and the lives of those around you—and, frankly, you, like me, have fallen down on the job.

In this episode of the Macworld Video I show off my new favorite device for creating such video documentation—Pure Digital’s Flip Ultra pocket camcorder. As I mention in the video, the Flip Ultra carries 2GB of non-removable flash RAM, runs on two AA batteries, shoots at 640x480 for up to 60 minutes in 3vix format, includes a digital zoom, offers a flip-out USB connector, has a reasonably bright 1.5-inch LCD, sports a built-in microphone, and can be operated by creatures both four-legged and two. It’s small enough to fit in your pocket and it can be used as a USB flash drive for storing files.

Hands-on with Tenori-on

Remember the Lite-Brite, the toy dating from the 1960s that let you create colorful pictures with light bulbs and plastic pegs? It’s undergone a radical makeover! Well, sort of. Yamaha has launched the $1,200 Tenori-on, an innovative music sequencer composed of 256 LED buttons. Combining the functions of a drum machine and a synthesizer, the Tenori-on visualizes the patterns of creating music with its LED-button landscape.

Whether you’re a serious electronic musician or a beginner, the Tenori-on’s intuitive, inventive design will get your creative juices flowing in no time. PC World senior associate editor Danny Allen joins Macworld associate editor Brian Chen in discussing and demonstrating the powers (and weaknesses) of the Tenori-on.

Download Macworld Video #56

A farewell to iCards

Apple had plenty of big announcements at this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco—a new iPhone! Updates on the status of the iPhone 2.0 software! Even a new version of OS X. Unfortunately, for the purposes of our video, none of those announcements translated to tangible products. The iPhone 3G won’t be out until July 11. The iPhone 2.0 software—and its attendant third-party apps—is slated for an early July arrival. And OS X Snow Leopard? Check back about this time next year.

So what does that leave us for this week’s Macworld Video? Well, associate editor Brian Chen and I decided to focus on one aspect of another Apple announcement from this week—the .Mac-replacing MobileMe online service. No, we can’t show you the service itself—like the other announcements at WWDC, this one won’t be released until later. Instead, we focus on one feature that disappears with the arrival of MobileMe—Apple’s eight-year-old iCard online greeting cards. We hope you take our video tribute in the spirit in which it’s intended.

Download Macworld Video #55

Working with multiple Macs

If you’re a Mac fan, chances are there’s more than one machine set up back at home. If you hail from a multi-Mac household, this is the Macworld video for you, as I offer tips and tricks on working with multiple machines.

Download Macworld Video #54

• Format: MPEG-4/H.264
• Resolution: 320 x 240 (iPhone & iPod compatible)
• Size: 25 MB
• Length: 10 minutes, 33 seconds

Show Notes

I cover a number of things I do to make the task of working with multiple Macs under one roof a bit easier, specifically: