A large screen Apple 27″ LED Cinema Display can cost about $800. For about $400 more, the iMac all-in-one computer and display seems like a bargain. However, because it is an all-in-one computer, the display has no video input. There is only an output jack for an additional external digital video display.

Follow these steps to use the iMac as an external display for an alternate computer such as an Apple notebook or Apple Mini:

1. Start your alternate computer in target drive mode by turning on the computer while holding down the letter “T” on the keyboard.
2. Then, using a Firewire cable, connect the alternate computer to the iMac. You may need to find just the right cable. If your computers are new, it’s likely you’ll need a Firewire cable with Firewire 800 plugs on both ends.
3. Start the iMac holding down the Option key, and choose your externally connected computer.

Now you’ll be able to take advantage of the larger iMac screen and powerful processor, while at the same time retaining the benefit of using a single drive for your programs and data. While mobile or computing elsewhere, you can just use a regular display (for an Apple Mini) or the built-in Apple notebook display.

Summary. On 26 August 2010, Google announced the addition of free VoIP telephone service for outgoing phone calls to the US and Canada with very low rates to the rest of the world.

While most chat services offer text, voice, and video chat from computer to computer, the new Google service allows for calls from your computer to a regular mobile or landline telephone phone.

The Google Voice Blog article about the service explains more.

Google Voice lets you manage all your phone communications and seamlessly make and receive calls on any of your existing phones. But what if you don’t have your phone with you? Or what if you’re in a place with poor cell phone reception, or you’re travelling internationally and don’t want to incur expensive roaming charges? Wouldn’t it be great if you could use your computer to make or receive calls?

Starting today you can use Gmail to receive or place Google Voice calls.

To get started, check the box next to Google Chat in your list of forwarding phones and the next time someone calls your Google Voice number, Gmail will notify you of an incoming call. You can take the call or even listen in as the caller leaves a message, in a single step right from your computer.

Video. Below is an overview showing the features of Google Voice.

Joel Grubbe has been working with graphic design and cartoons for over two decades. As with most artists, Joel draws from the existing contemporary forms for inspiration. However, his work is clearly unique and inspired.

His humorous and thought provoking cartoons and drawings look great in print as well as on the web. They are ideal for various products such as mugs, business cards, t-shirts, calendars, hats, mouse pads, or bumper stickers.

WordPress.org is the website for those seeking to choose their own website host and independently use the free WordPress software for website management. Using WordPress independently offers greater customization but costs more and it’s necessary to do your own updates to the software and take measures to secure your site. An impressive list of clients have chosen WordPress.org software to manage their independent websites such as Boston University, Herman Miller, Kobe Bryant, Old Spice, Staples (Canada), TED, The Economist (Chinese Edition), and Wheaton College.

Benefits of WordPress.com Hosting. When using WordPress.com the site hosting and management are taken care of automatically, and free. This is why over 250,000 websites are hosted by WordPress.com with varying degrees of customization.

Getting Started. Here are the steps required to get started using WordPress.com for your website.

1. If  you want to have a personalized website with your own domain name, register a domain name with WordPress.com (about $15 per year) or through a company like Network Solutions (about $35 per year). Otherwise, a free WordPress.com site has an address such as http://yourwebsite.wordpress.com (for example).
2. Create some basic pages such as home, articles, contact, and about.
3. Start writing some articles for your website.
4. From your WordPress website Dashboard, under Settings > Reading,  you can set the Home page to be the Front Page Display for your site. Otherwise, site visitors are presented with the latest articles you’ve written. Also, set the Articles page to display the running directory of yoru latest blog articles.

That’s all you need to do to setup a secure, professional, and inexpensive website.

WordPress.com – Websites made simple.

Summary. Apple technology users have enjoyed various implementations of multitouch found on the Apple Macbook, MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPod Touch, and more recently the iPad. Apple has now announced the Magic Trackpad for desktop users, meaning that the touch interface is now available for all Apple products.

Multitouch gestures can help reduces keystroke and mouse fatigue because the touch interface requires lower strain hand movement and reduces the number of actions required to accomplish a task.

The new Magic Trackpad is the first Multi-Touch trackpad designed to work with your Mac desktop computer. It uses the same Multi-Touch technology you love on the MacBook Pro. And it supports a full set of gestures, giving you a whole new way to control and interact with what’s on your screen. Swiping through pages online feels just like flipping through pages in a book or magazine. And inertial scrolling makes moving up and down a page more natural than ever. Magic Trackpad connects to your Mac via Bluetooth wireless technology. Use it in place of a mouse or in conjunction with one on any Mac computer — even a notebook.

Magic Trackpad is just like the trackpad on the MacBook Pro — but bigger. It’s made with the same advanced touch-friendly and wear-resistant glass surface. But with nearly 80 percent more area, it’s the largest Multi-Touch trackpad made by Apple. So there’s even more room for you to scroll, swipe, pinch, and rotate to your fingers’ content. And since the entire surface is a button that clicks, you can use it in place of a mouse.

Magic Trackpad features the same sculpted aluminum design as the Apple Wireless Keyboard, and side by side the two sit flush at the same angle and height. Go from typing to gesturing in one motion, or do both at the same time. How perfect is that?

Magic Trackpad works using Bluetooth technology, so you don’t have to deal with an annoying cable that dictates where you place it. Once you pair Magic Trackpad with your Bluetooth-enabled Mac, you’ll enjoy a reliable, secure connection up to 33 feet away. Magic Trackpad detects periods of inactivity, and it’s equipped with an on/off switch. Together these features help to conserve battery life, so you can keep gesturing for months at a time.

Even though Magic Trackpad is capable of multiple gestures, you may find one or two unnecessary. Not to worry. Simply access the Magic Trackpad pane in System Preferences to enable gestures you want and disable those you don’t want.

Summary. Apple recently announced that they are now selling rechargeable AA batteries with a special charger that senses when the batteries are changed to significantly reduce its standby power usage.

“The Apple Battery Charger has one of the lowest standby power usage values of similar chargers on the market. That’s the energy most chargers continue to draw after their batteries are fully charged. But the Apple Battery Charger senses when its batteries are done charging and automatically reduces the amount of power it needs. In addition, the reusable batteries that come with each Apple Battery Charger are designed to maintain a high charge capacity for hundreds of charges, so you no longer have to buy new batteries or toss them every few months.”

Summary. Symantec (Norton) Ghost 2003 is a utility program that makes it possible to create a complete system image that can be restored later (to the same computer) in the event of a hard drive crash. The backup includes data files, as well as the operating system, programs, and settings. The Ghost 2003 Version CD is included with versions as late as Norton Ghost 2009.

Hard Drive Compatibility. The Ghost program works well with most older computers manufactured prior to 2009. However, it needs to access the internal hard drive and an external hard drive to work properly. Some newer SATA internal hard drives and some external larger capacity USB drives aren’t recognized by Ghost. In such circumstances, use Acronis True Image Home 2010.

System Backup. Follow these steps to create a system image backup.

1. Insert CD. Be sure to have a compatible external USB hard drive attached with sufficient storage space to create a backup. Place the Norton Ghost 2003 System CD into the CD tray prior to starting the computer but don’t insert the CD tray into the computer yet. Turn off (shut down) the computer, then close (push in) the CD tray.
2. Start the computer. You will want to startup the computer with the Ghost program instead of Windows. Some computers are set to look for an operating system in the CD drive before checking for an operating system on the hard drive. This is configured in the BIOS setup. For Dell computers, press F12 at startup for a boot menu and choose the CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive.
3. Press any key. When the computer starts from the Norton Ghost CD, press any key when prompted to start using PC DOS (the disk operating system used by Ghost).
4. Select USB2. The next menu will have a list of options. Choose option #4 (USB2) if your system supports it (or USB1 if  you don’t have USB2). This will automatically include the CD ROM device drivers as well (so you can keep working with the CD after starting up). It is normal at this point to see error messages while starting because some of the CD ROM drivers may not be compatible with your computer. The very first message that appears, however, should indicate that the external hard drive was found.
5. Start Ghost. Once startup has completed, you should be at the A: prompt. Type C: and press Enter (or in some cases you may need to type D: and press Enter). Then type “cd support” (without quotes) then press Enter. Then type ghost and press Enter. This will start the Ghost program. As an alternative, if you wish to backup to CD or DVD, type ghost -bootcd -ghostoncd -z2 (This will allow you to backup to CDs or DVDs and will also put the ghost program on that media for future restores. The z2 ensures a relatively fast backup with some compression of data).
   1. Make Drive Compatible. If you are using a new hard drive for your image backup, you will be prompted to make the drive compatible with Ghost. This only happens the first time. Confirm to make the drive compatible, then Click Ok at the About Norton Ghost startup window.
6. Start Backup. From the program menu, choose Local > Disk > To Image. Be sure not to choose the “To Disk” option because this would completely overwrite whatever drive you are backing the image up to.
   1. Select Source. On the “Select local source drive” menu, the source drive should be automatically selected and highlighted, so click the OK button.
   2. Select Target. On the “File name to copy image to” menu, the external drive should be selected. You may need to click on the drop down menu and specifically select the drive even though it is showing up as the selected drive. If you don’t do this, the process will halt with a non-desrcript error just after starting your backup. Once you’ve selected the external drive, give your image a unique name in the space provided below. Click Save. For Compress Image, choose Fast. Click Yes to proceed.
7. Finish. When done, shutdown and remove the external drive.

Video Instructions. Below is a video that reviews the System Backup and Restore instructions. The first video presents the steps required for backup. The second video shows the step-by-step restore instructions.

System Restore. A system restore using Ghost will completely erase everything on your computer and replace it with the backup image you are restoring. Follow these steps to restore from a system image backup.

1. Insert CD. Be sure to have a compatible external USB hard drive attached with sufficient storage space to create a backup. Place the Norton Ghost 2003 System CD into the CD tray prior to starting the computer but don’t insert the CD tray into the computer yet. Turn off (shut down) the computer, then close (push in) the CD tray.
2. Start the computer. You will want to startup the computer with the Ghost program instead of Windows. Some computers are set to look for an operating system in the CD drive before checking for an operating system on the hard drive. This is configured in the BIOS setup. For Dell computers, press F12 at startup for a boot menu and choose the CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive.
3. Press any key. When the computer starts from the Norton Ghost CD, press any key when prompted to start using PC DOS (the disk operating system used by Ghost).
4. Select USB2. The next menu will have a list of options. Choose option #4 (USB2) if your system supports it (or USB1 if  you don’t have USB2). This will automatically include the CD ROM device drivers as well (so you can keep working with the CD after starting up). It is normal at this point to see error messages while starting because some of the CD ROM drivers may not be compatible with your computer. The very first message that appears, however, should indicate that the external hard drive was found.
5. Start Ghost. Once startup has completed, you should be at the A: prompt. Type C: and press Enter (or in some cases you may need to type D: and press Enter). Then type “cd support” (without quotes) then press Enter. Then type ghost and press Enter. This will start the Ghost program.
   1. Make Drive Compatible. If you are using a new hard drive for your image backup, you will be prompted to make the drive compatible with Ghost. This only happens the first time. Confirm to make the drive compatible, then Click Ok at the About Norton Ghost startup window.
6. Start Restore. From the program menu, choose Local > Disk > From Image, and follow the prompts. Accept the default destination, and accept the default settings for partitioning and drive size. Click Yes to continue.
7. Finish. When done, follow the prompts on screen to shutdown or restart and remove the external backup drive.

* * *

Document History. This document was first published on 20080328at1407. It was revised on 20100720tu1404 with the addition of an accompanying video.

Summary. When using Skype on an Apple MacBook Pro, the battery is drained quickly and depleted of power. It is predicted that Apple will use the high-quality low-power video camera technology from the iPhone 4 in future notebooks to reduce the power drain.

Problem Cause. Skype places a high demand on the computer’s processor and resources which causes the battery to drain quickly. Also, when the Apple MacBook Pro is playing any video, such as YouTube, the battery is drained more rapidly. The built-in web cam is also a cause for additional power drain.

Problem Details. Follow the steps below to reproduce this problem.

1. Begin with your battery fully charged and be sure to use a battery that is in good health. You can test this using the free iStat Pro Widget for Apple. The screen shot here is from the battery monitor portion of iStat Pro.
   
2. Observer your estimated battery life under normal conditions. Your estimate will take into account the current screen brightness and other factors. In the example here shown in the screen capture below, the estimated battery life is 2 hours and 24 minutes.
   
3. As soon as Skype starts, the computer recalculates the estimated battery life and it drops by an hour (about 44%). This is a huge power drain caused by Skype.
   
4. In about 50 minutes, the remaining battery life has dropped by 61 minutes with only 12 minutes remaining.
   
5. A few minutes later, the computer switches to reserve battery power.

Assessment. The problem of rapid battery depletion is partly due to programs like Skype being overzealous in their use of the computer’s CPU and other resources. Skype also interferes with other activities on the computer, slowing down all other processes.

Summary. When writing articles about software programs for the Apple OSX computer operating system, it’s nice to use the program icon image associated with the software. This document explains how to obtain a nice crisp and clear large image of the program icon, such as the iCal icon shown at right.

Instructions. Follow these instructions to obtain a high quality program application software icon image of larger dimensions.

1. Using the Finder, go to the Applications folder on your Apple computer and choose to view items in the icon view by clicking on the icon view button as shown here.
   
2. There is a zoom slider adjuster in the lower right corner of the finder window that lets you change the size of the displayed program icons. The slider looks like this.
   
   As you move it to the right, the icons will increase in size. Most will appear to be very crisp and clear. Those not designed properly will get fuzzy at larger sizes.
3. You can create a very nice copy of any icon by using the Screen Shot keyboard shortcut of shift+command+4 which will display a crosshair. When  you see the crosshair, use it to click and drag a box around the permitter of the icon you’d like to copy. Whatever you draw a box around will get copied and placed as a Screen Shot file on your desktop in PNG format. You can open this using Preview and save it as JPG if you like.

The resulting image can be used in print or on the web, assuming the copyright owner of the image is okay with it. If you’re using the image in a journalistic capacity or to promote their product, you probably won’t have trouble with anyone. All of the images in this document were created using this method, including the smaller clippings of controls.

Summary. When writing articles about music, books, or apps in the Apple iTunes store, it’s nice to use the cover art or image associated with the product. It’s possible to have the Selected Item or Now Playing artwork in the artwork viewer window. This is all explained below.

Cover Art and Image Copying. Follow these instructions to get the original artwork in a high quality format:

1. While in iTunes, at the lower left corner of the window, you’ll see some buttons that look like this.
   
2. Click on the right button to display the artwork viewer window if it isn’t opened already.
3. The artwork viewer window shows either the Selected Item or the Now Playing item. To toggle between these, just click on the words Selected Item or Now Playing above the artwork viewing window.
4. It’s possible to click and drag artwork from the artwork viewing window to the desktop area of your computer. The image will be saved as a normal image file such as JPG or PNG format. These can be used to write about and promote the item in question such as a book, music, program, etc.

Copyright. Some people are very protective of their image files and will insist that their music album cover art or book cover is copy protected. This attitude is short sighted since the use of the image to promote their work is in their benefit. Also, images of most music albums and books have already propagated throughout the internet by way of online stores. Irregardless of this, try to respect any requests from content copyright holders.