In this guide, I am going to show you step by step, how to upgrade to a 4GB RAM kit on a late 2008 model (Uni body Aluminum) Macbook Pro. I am upgrading my 2.4GHz/250GB Macbook Pro from 2GB of RAM up to 4GB. Th process is very easy, but you still need to take it slow so you don’t damage your beautiful Macbook Pro. I believe this same method will work on the new uni body Macbook too, but I have not confirmed this.

BEFORE YOU START:

I would recommend you do this on a table, in a uncarpeted room, doing this on carpet can create static electricity which can fry your whole machines. Also, make sure you shutdown, NOT SLEEP, your Macbook Pro. Finally, disconnect all wires (USB, Firewire, Power,…)

Start by flipping you Macbook Pro over. Be sure to put something under it so you don’t scratch it. I would use some sort of anti static cloth. I am using my neoprene case.

Being the new owner of a solid aluminum body Macbook Pro, I wanted to give a first hand opinion of what to love about the new Apple laptops, and what to hate about them. I will start with the bad news first.

What to Hate About the New Apple Laptops

1. Leading off my list is how the glossy only option is available on both the Macbook and the Macbook Pro. Many people prefer a matte screen option, especially on the Pro models. Matte screens offer truer colors. This is very important to designers and photographers as they need to see true shades of colors for their work. I came from a matte screen model to a glossy screen model expecting to have issues, but I am really surprised at how much it is not a factor for me.
2. Number 2 on my list is one that has not been talked about much. I have noticed that the new Macbook Pro sound quality on the built-in speakers is not near the quality it was on the previous model. What I believe is the problem is that the holes in the speaker greats on the new model are much smaller then the last model. This is causing flat sounding audio.
   Read more »

It appears that Apple is having some issues with compatibility when you restore your new Macbook Pro from a Time Machine backup. The wired Apple keyboard does not work with the new Macbook Pro. It appears the issue only occurs when you boot up your new fall 2008 Macbook Pro from a Time Machine Backup.

My wireless logitech mouse which is plugged into the keyboard works, but the keyboard itself doesn’t work. I have confirmed this is happening with multiple people. Are you effected by it?

Well, it was a big day for Apple fan’s such as myself. Apple made 3 major announcements today at the Apple Cupertino campus event. The event was titled “And now the spotlight turns to Laptops” so it is no surprise that there were minor and significant refreshes across the line for Apples many laptops.

I have received a couple of emails from my readers asking my thoughts on what to expect this Tuesday at the confirmed Apple Macbook event. Many rumors have been talked about in the months leading up to now, so I want to lay everything out as to what is fact, and what is rumored. I will also chime in with my 2 cents on everything.

The Facts

• There is an Apple event on Tuesday, October 14 and there are going multiple sites live blogging from the event. (MacRumors, AppleInsider, Gizmodo, and Engadget)
• With the Macbook 36 days over its average product life cycle, the Macbook Pro 34 days over its average product life cycle, and the invitation issued hinting at an aluminum Macbook, you can expect to see complete and major redesigns to the current models.
  Read more »

Christina Warren of The Unofficial Apple Web log is reporting that she received an anonymous email from an Apple reseller who says they received a request from Apple to remove all Apple TV displays.

We just got an e-mail from an anonymous Apple reseller, stating that they received an e-mail from Apple with instructions to remove all Apple TV displays and literature and to destroy them (which I assume means throw away the literature, send back the Apple TVs) by September 30, 2008 at 5 PM. Additionally, the e-mail says that there will be a webcast “kick off” on September 30.

~ TUAW

This is exciting news, many people have been waiting for an update to the Mac Mini, and it is rumored that this update, could bring a hybrid version of the Apple TV and the Mac Mini. The anonymous email flags September 30th, 2008 as the possible date for the update, and that just happens to fall on a Tuesday which is the day of the week Apple always does updates.

Is this “The Brick” everyone has been rumoring about for a few weeks?

Well, as I am writing this post I am in the process of doing  Time Machine restore. When I originally bought my Macbook Pro, I setup time machine purely because I had an extra 500GB external hard drive laying round, and I wanted to be able to brag to people about how cool time machine looks when you use it. Well, I have had my Macbook Pro for over 4 months now, and today is the 3rd time Time Machine has saved my ass!

I was at work earlier today running software updates on OS X when my machine asked me if i wanted to restart after it installed an update, and with out thinking, I clicked OK. When my machine came back up it occurred to me that I had my Windows XP Pro VMware Fusion partition running, and had not properly suspended it or shut it down. I quickly opened up VMware Fusion to see if it was still OK. Well it wasn’t, I found that it was frozen on the loading screen when trying to load up the Windows XP Pro install from where it left off. So yea, at this point I am worried.

I use Windows XP Pro on VMware Fusion as my primary work computer so when this would not load, I freaked. I had a 50GB partition of my hard drive filled with important work stuff and it would not load.

With in a few minutes I realized I had a Time Machine backup of that data on my home external backup drive. I opened up Time Machine, browsed to the Virtual Machines folder and clicked restore from my update last night. What a relief!!

Time Machine is probably the most unused program that comes on a Mac, but I would recommend you run it in the background all the time. When you happen to need it, it is great! Now if I could just get 50GB of data to restore in less than 1 hour I might actually get some work done today!

As promised, Apple has released the iPhone 2.1 firmware update this Friday. Installation took about 20 minutes including a slow download period probably associated with the high number of people trying to download the update.

List of Fixes

- decrease in call set-up failures and call drops
- significantly improve battery life for most users
- dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
- improve email reliability, notable fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
- faster installation of 3rd party applications
- fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes if you have lots of 3rd party applications
- improved performance of text messaging
- faster loading and searching of contacts
- improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
- repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
- option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
- Genius playlist creation

First Thoughts

The first thing I noticed is the major improvement in over all speed. When scrolling the different home screens, and the contacts list, lag is virtually gone. The backing up process that use to take upwards of 30 to 45 minutes is down to about 5 or 10 minutes.

I will start by saying that I am a huge supporter of Pandora. When I heard about this Pandora like service being built into iTunes, I am stoked because Pandora is looking like it might go out of business. I was very hopeful that iTunes 8 would fill the void in my life that is going to be created when/if Pandora disappears.

I have been playing with iTunes 8 and the new Genius functionality, and I am not very impressed. I like the new viewing options available in iTunes 8, and the new visualizations are stunning, but iTunes Genius is a different story.

iTunes Genius goes through and analyzes your music collection when you first install iTunes 8. From there, it allows you to click the Genius button when you select a song, and it will auto create a playlist filling with a preset number of songs that iTunes believe are along the same style of music. Well, it doesn’t work. I am going to give Apple the benefit of the doubt, that this service will improve once more people experiment with it, but for now, it is no good. Let me give you and example:

As you can see I created a iTunes Genius playlist based on the song I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry, and what is this, Disturbed showed up in the results? Those songs could not be more opposite.

What are your thoughts on iTunes 8 and the new Genius integration? Have you had any strange results appear when using the Genius playlist creator?

Hey just a quick post, my video I made of the iTunes 8 Visualizer was picked up by Mac Rumors. This might not interest you all, but it a big deal for an up and coming blogger like myself. Thanks to everyone who check out the video, and commented about it. I very much appreciate the support. That video is picking up about 700 views an hour because of MacRumors and Digg.

Mac Rumors Post: http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/09/odds-and-ends-new-shuffles-in-ear-headphones-first-impressions-and-more/

Viddler Link: http://www.viddler.com/explore/ATLChris/videos/13/