Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

9 things I learned from almost losing my MacBook Air

by Steven Sande (Jun 5th, 2009)

I swear, getting old is not a lot of fun. Last night, I taught a class in data security for home and small business users at our local community college. There were a lot of good questions from the community education program students, so the class ...

Lawsuit claims MagSafe power cord not so safe

by Mel Martin (May 6th, 2009)

It was just a few days ago we were talking about hacked MagSafe connectors, and now a lawsuit seeking class action status claims the innovative connectors are a fire hazard and a risk to life, limb, and property. As an example, here's a link to some ...

Consumer Reports still hearts Macs

by Mel Martin (May 5th, 2009)

Consumer Reports continues to shower praise on all things Apple it seems. In a report in the June issue, the Magazine says Apple won the top three places in the 13 inch laptop derby. The unibody MacBook was in first place, followed by the MacBook ...

External battery packs for Mac laptops

by Mel Martin (May 4th, 2009)

In what looks like a first for the Mac laptop line, support of MacBook and MacBook Pro owners everywhere, a 3rd party is offering external battery packs for MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook air models. The batteries, from Sanho in California, are ...

16 hours of battery life for the MacBook Air

by Steven Sande (Apr 13th, 2009)

I have a MacBook Air. Although I can get about 5 hours of mobile use out of it by dimming the screen, turning off all wireless, and only running one app at a time, there are times I'd love to be able to stay unplugged for much longer. I could always ...

FunctionFlip reclaims your function keys

by Mat Lu (Feb 6th, 2009)

When researching this week's Ask TUAW I ran across a nifty little utility for reclaiming the function keys on a Mac portable or recent Apple external keyboard. Basically, FunctionFlip allows you to set the individual function keys to be regular ...

Ask TUAW: Removing printer drivers, renaming partitions, running your Mac with the lid closed and more

by Chris Ullrich (Jan 28th, 2009)

Once again, it's time for another edition of Ask TUAW, where we try to answer all your Mac and Apple-related questions. This week we're taking questions about keeping your Mac laptop running with the lid closed, removing unwanted printer drivers, ...

Twitterers remember their first Mac

by Mike Schramm (Jan 21st, 2009)

Reader Sam K. (thanks!) noticed the fun on Twitter -- lots of folks are sharing their memories of the first Mac they bought/used with the #firstmac hash tag, and boy is it fun reading through them. The responses are all over the place, from the ...

Rumor of a 15-inch MacBook Air: Take it lightly

by Robert Palmer (Jan 19th, 2009)

On Friday, AppleInsider noted that Apple.pro, a hit-and-miss Chinese rumor blog, claims a 15-inch MacBook Air is on the way. The post in Chinese (and a copy run through Google Translate) is available. The site claims the new Air will use low-voltage ...

eeeMac creator tells you how to do it yourself

by Mike Schramm (Jan 7th, 2009)

A little while ago, we posted about Gregory Cohen's eeeMac -- he modded an eeePC into an OS X-running ultraportable, including adding a little Apple icon on the back. And now, he's posted how he did it all on a blog, so that if you've got a few ...

Multi-Touch Trackpad Update for Windows & Vista

by Cory Bohon (Dec 18th, 2008)

Last night, Apple released a Windows update for MacBook machines running Boot Camp. It's not clear yet whether you can or should install this on all MacBook/MacBook Pro models, or just the newest (unibody) versions. If you've been running Windows on ...

MacBook Pro tip: resetting SMC saved my day

by Mel Martin (Dec 14th, 2008)

Here's a timely tip if the battery on your Intel based Mac laptop seems to be operating at less than optimum performance. The other day I took my MacBook Pro off the charger and was surprised to see only an hour and 40 minutes of run time, even ...

Apple issues SMC and Firmware update for all unibody MacBooks

by Cory Bohon (Dec 10th, 2008)

Today, Apple issued both SMC and Firmware updates for their entire line of unibody MacBook computers, and the MacBook Air. Read on to discover what was changed for each system, and how you can get the updates. MacBook SMC Firmware Update 1.2 ...

BusinessWeek: HP "out-touches" Apple

by Dave Caolo (Nov 19th, 2008)

Talk about being slightly touched. Arik Hesseldahl's BusinessWeek article, published today, says "...as of Nov. 19, Hewlett-Packard has beaten Apple to the punch, announcing the first multi-touch-enabled notebook PC, the tx2. I can't help but ...

Prototype MacBook Air found on eBay

by Mike Schramm (Nov 19th, 2008)

This is probably old news for most classic Mac collectors, but it's the first I've heard of it: a member of the forums at MacRumors.com bought a MacBook Air "as is" on eBay, and when it showed up, he got something even more valuable than the ...

TUAW Review: MacTrak Theft Recovery Software

by Steven Sande (Nov 18th, 2008)

There are several applications available that will help find a lost or stolen Mac. Here at TUAW, we've talked about LoJack for Laptops, Orbicule's Undercover, MacPhoneHome, and iAlertU from Slapping Turtle. Most of these apps "find" the computer by ...