SSDs, or solid-state drives, are all the rage in portables these days. They come in MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs directly from Apple (with the appropriate upgrades, of course), and we've seen people upgrade their old-school mechanical drives, hack in a second drive to take advantage of the speed of a shiny new SSD, oreven put one in an AppleTV.

Desktop computers are usually left out of the solid-state love-fest. After all, 3.5" drives are usually less expensive than a 2.5" drive of a similar capacity, and desktop machines are less prone to damage to the disk since they are usually stationary when running.

However, there are times when a solid-state upgrade to a desktop machine makes sense. For Jason Siebert, this was one of those times. When the drive on his 24" iMac started showing the tell-tale signs of a drive on the brink of death, he decided to tear the machine apart and throw in a smaller & faster SSD, and use his Drobo for external storage. Installation was simple for the most part, but some adjustments had to be made to allow for installing a 2.5" drive in the space of a 3.5" drive, and some finagling of the drive due to a too-short SATA cable.

The result is a pretty satisfying speed increase when it comes to opening up applications, and especially when running a virtual machine. Check out the installation instructions and first impressions on Jason's website.

Any upgrades like this should be performed only by skilled users, and of course it may will void your warranty. Proceed at your own risk.

Tweetie 2, the upgrade to the extremely popular app from atebits for Mac and iPhone, is now available on the App Store [iTunes Link]. The upgrade, as you probably know, costs $2.99 for new or existing users of Tweetie. It seems like it's been somewhat of a long wait, but you can finally go over to the App Store to download it.

Tweetie 2 for Mac is still coming sometime soon, as the iPhone version was intended to be released first.

What do think of Tweetie 2? How does it compare to the other Twitter apps for the iPhone. Leave a comment below and let us know!

Users of Tweetie, the popular Twitter client for both Mac and iPhone, have reason to be excited: a new version of the iPhone app, Tweetie 2 (aptly codenamed "Bigbird"), is confirmed to be on the way.

In a preview of the new version, Scott Kleinberg of ChicagoNow detailed his experiences with beta builds of the upcoming release. From the screenshots provided, it's clear that several interface improvements have been made, including a quick menu that provides easy access to several new features while posting a tweet. Other improvements include the ability to send video tweets, persistent session handling that restores the app to its previous state, conversation threading, draft management, and geotagging.

While Scott's review suggests that the changes and improvements make Tweetie 2 feel like a whole new app, Tweetie developer Loren Brichter indicates that it really is -- it's a complete rewrite from the original app. In addition to the major features, the new version also boasts integration with several 3rd party services, and a host of configuration options, from new gesture options to custom Twitter API settings.

Of course, not everyone will be happy with the update. There is already a stir among beta testers over the app's use of pinstripe backgrounds on the profile and single tweet views. Also, there is the issue of cost: Tweetie 2 will set you back $2.99, as it is being offered as a new app instead of a free upgrade to existing users. When it comes to upgrades, most desktop applications follow a pattern where minor updates (such as upgrading from version 1.0 to 1.1 or 1.1.2 -- often refered to as "point releases") are provided free of charge, and major updates (from version 1.0 to 2.0) usually require the user to purchase the new version of the software.

With iPhone apps, however, Apple does not provide a system to allow developers to do this. Developers can release upgrades and bug fixes as free updates to their applications, but if they invest a lot of time into a major update to their app, they have to submit it as a new, different version of the application rather than an upgrade to the old version, and there is no option to allow users who have perviously purchased the original app to receive a discount on the new version. So users are faced with having to pay full price for the upgrade, which in this case, is another $2.99.

In my opinion, this is not an unreasonable amount to pay for a major upgrade to an already great application, but there are users who feel they shouldn't have to pay for the upgrade. My advice to them? If you can't spare $3 for the amount of time and effort that was put into making a decent, feature-rich upgrade, don't bother using it. Stick with the original Tweetie or find another app that you're willing to pay for.

So, controversy aside, Tweetie 2 looks very promising. The latest beta build that was provided to developers is expected to be the final build, and if things go well, we should see it hit the App Store in the coming weeks. An update to the desktop version of Tweetie is also in the works, and will probably surface after the iPhone app is released.

Update: TUAW reader Ahmed drew our attention to this tweet, indicating that Tweetie 2 has been submitted to Apple! Assuming there are no hold-ups, we can probably expect to see it hit the App Store in a few weeks.

What do you think of the new version? Will you be upgrading when it's released? Let us know in the comments!

We've seen the benchmarks. We've heard from the techno-geeks. According to Apple, Snow Leopard should result in some impressive speed gains, and hefty hard drive space recapture. But does this speed bump actually result in tangible benefits for the average user? Do you really get back a functional amount of hard drive space? I undertook an intentionally low-tech approach to find out, looking at the space on the drive, and using my iPhone's stopwatch function to time various functions before and after upgrade. I took measurements on two computers: a low-end, bare bones white MacBook used lightly as a secondary computer, and a higher-end MacBook Pro used heavily as a primary computer. The white MacBook was generally speedy and efficient before the upgrade, due to the fact that it had very little installed on it. However, the MacBook Pro was bloated and slow due to lots of programs, with problems magnified by years of hard drive image flashes over various computer upgrades, typical of the non-technical business user.

All start up times are true start up times. In other words, I didn't deem the computer to have "started up" until I had full, no-lag control of a fully-propagated desktop. Same went for the programs whose start up times I tested -- none were deemed started up until the program was responding to input and usable. I picked some common programs that I felt reflected typical use. I turned on auto-login to the primary account on both computers to gain timing accuracy. Not all the results are comparable between computers; certain programs were on one computer but not the other. But, in general, the task was instructive.

Just before the release of Snow Leopard, Uncle Walt Mossberg did the unthinkable by writing that the $29 Leopard upgrade:

"will work properly on ...Tiger equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140."

We reported that as well but didn't have all the facts verified at the time. Gizmodo likened Walt to a pirate and guessed that he'll have to apologize or at least clarify his position.

Now, after buying the family edition, I have done every sort of installation known to man and have the facts. It seems that Walt was right, but he didn't tell you the whole story. You can take the $29 upgrade disc and install it over Leopard, over Tiger, or over a freshly formatted hard drive. The disc doesn't care. Regardless of whether you pay $29, $49 or $169, you get the same disc with the same capabilities.

But just because you have a disc, if you use it for a purpose not intended upon purchase, you are breaking your agreement with Apple. The contents of the disc are the property of Apple and how that intellectual property is to be used is determined by the EULA (End User License Agreement) that you agree to before installation.

For each method of purchase the EULA is different. For the $169 package which includes iLife '09 and iWork '09 this is what you agree to:


Clear enough. You can use it on one computer. It doesn't say that you need any operating system to start with. I would assume that you can put it on as many hard disks as you want, as long as you only use those hard disks with one specified computer.

Overall, I'm very happy with Snow Leopard, and loving all of the little refinements I keep stumbling upon. However, I want to mention a few pitfalls I ran into with my upgrade, on the off chance that anyone has a similar setup and might benefit from some advance warning, or any of the fixes I've found.

Safari & Input Managers

There were a few things we knew to expect (and maybe dread), mostly having to do with 32-bit vs 64-bit processing and compatibility. Input Managers were known casualties. Two of the major victims for me were my 1Password and Evernote plugins in Safari. In 64-bit mode, at least at first, they didn't show up at all. See the Switcher's Blog for updates on 1Password and Snow Leopard. The current 3.0 beta of 1Password is working for me in 64-bit, I just have some keyboard shortcut issues to work out. Hopefully the Evernote blog will start offering more updates soon.

In the meantime, there's a partial fix: if you select the application (Safari) in your Applications folder, go to the File menu and hold down the Option key while selecting Get Info, you'll get the Inspector panel (also accessible with a simple Command-Option-I). For applications which have 64-bit capabilities (such as Mail and Safari), you'll see a checkbox to force them to load in 32-bit mode. That gets Evernote working for me, so I'll run it in 32-bit until things get straightened out. I'll be keeping an eye on the Glims blog, as well.

Update: There's a press release & a blog post from Agile this morning that reiterate the company's compatibility stance for 1Password v2: it should work fine on Snow Leopard in all browsers except Safari, and will work with Safari launched in 32-bit mode. Version 3 will be fully supported with Safari in both 32 and 64-bit configurations.

I got to the Walt Whitman Mall on Long Island yesterday and they were doing land-office business, according to the blue (not orange) shirt I was speaking with. He told me that he lost count, but they must have moved over 150 copies of Snow Leopard per hour.

Two minutes later (they really do have their system down), I left the store in a foreshadowing downpour. After looking at the startup, shutdown and disk capacity notes I've been collecting for a few days, I removed the shrink wrap and got down to business with the hopes of upgrading four computers today. Yes, I did buy the family pack. Five hours later, I'd only upgraded two machines. This is not because the upgrades didn't move along speedily, it was because I had some real head scratching problems to deal with.

The first: my 8GB 17" Unibody Macbook Pro running at 2.93 Ghz, took about 34 minutes to upgrade. As I thought, Apple hadn't gotten any better about realistic install times with the last 'under a minute' taking 7 minutes. No news there. Additionally, I gained only 2 GB of usable storage; I did do a Rosetta install. Damn you Quicken!

If you haven't installed Rosetta, and find that you need it, a very helpful box is displayed asking if you want to. It really didn't take a lot of storage at all.

I'd suspected that much of the reclamation of storage is due to clearing out caches and other garbage. What led me to believe this was that I ran Onyx beforehand, and that gave me back about about 8GB of storage right there from maintenance and cleanup. The truth about SL's space savings, however, according to David Pogue: most of the excess storage given back is saved in compressed code and not installing gigabytes of printer drivers that most users will never need.

What follows are a few initial notes from an installation that didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped.

Walt Mossberg has answered a Snow Leopard upgrade question that has been on just about everyone's mind.

Do you need the full $169 box set if you are upgrading from Tiger? The answer is apparently no, not exactly, although that is what's required by Apple's EULA. You will be able to install the $29 individual upgrade or $49 family upgrade on any Intel Mac regardless of whether it's already running Leopard. According to Uncle Walt, as posted on the All Things Digital site:

"Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140."

What's not 100% clear from this report is whether the Snow Leopard install would work as an upgrade, or only as a clean install (on a newly formatted drive), as Lifehacker suggests. Since some experienced Mac users prefer to do a clean install with every major OS upgrade -- either reinstalling apps and files from backup, or using Migration Assistant to pull over from the old configuration -- this may not be a drawback for everyone. Wired's preview of Snow Leopard (based on a pre-release version of the OS) suggests that they were able to do an upgrade install from 10.4 straight to 10.6 using the conventional SL disc, but your mileage may vary.

So there you have it. If you have Leopard running on your Intel machine, you will be fine with the $29 single or $49 family versions on sale Friday morning. If you're willing to wipe down your Tiger install and start fresh, the $29 installer will probably work for you too -- but you'll be in violation of Apple's licensing agreement, making you an OS pirate. Just so you know.

Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly Mac troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about syncing notes, iLife '09, iTunes downloads, the importance of keychains and more.

As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you're running and which version of Mac OS X (we'll assume you're running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions.

Scott asks

When I sync my iphone (3.0.1) with my Mac (10.5.8) and have "sync notes" checked in iTunes, I cannot find my notes synced anywhere in Mail.app - including under "Notes"...what am I missing?

To sync 'Notes' first make sure you have your iPhone connected to your Mac with iTunes open. Then, be sure to have "sync notes" checked in iTunes. Also, be sure to check "Sync Notes" in the MobleMe Sync options in System Preferences.

Then, sync your iPhone as normal. After that, check in Apple's Mail program under "Reminders" to see if the notes appear. You need to click on the little triangle to show the contents of Reminders. If they don't appear, close Mail and open it again. Also, restart your iPhone completely before trying another sync.

Also, keep in mind Notes sync works only via USB and not over the air. If you are not seeing notes appear, be sure you sync your iPhone via USB with your Mac or they won't appear at all. If the notes still don't appear in Apple Mail, it might be time to give a call to Apple tech support because at that point the problem may be something larger than the scope of what this column can answer.

Evan asks

I bought a new MacBook Pro last month, which came installed with Leopard and iLife '09. My purchase was within Apple's "Up-to-Date" program timeline, so I was able to order a copy of Snow Leopard for $9.95. I know Snow Leopard doesn't come with iLife '09 but considering my new computer already comes with iLife '09, I'm not going to have to re-buy iLife, am I?

Need more hard drive space in your MacBook Pro? Well, if you're not scared to get your hands dirty with a little hacking, and not too attached to your DVD drive, you can hack your way to twice the hard drives.

This particular user faced a dilemma when purchasing his new MacBook Pro: get the faster SSD hard drive or the larger capacity rotational drive. Instead of settling on either of those options, he removed his DVD drive, hacked together an adapter to interface with the proprietary Apple connector, and installed a second hard drive. The result is a "best of both worlds" scenario for him; a faster boot time and responsiveness, and plenty of space available for movies and music.

He posted several pictures and instructions if you're ready to take the plunge into a dual-hard-drive notebook. There is some harsh language in the post, so you may not want to open this at work.

Any hacks like this should be performed only by skilled users. This will void your warranty, folks, so proceed at your own risk.

[via Hack A Day]

Amid the leaks and speculation, the online Apple Store went down this morning, only to return with Snow Leopard release information -- August 28th. It also turns out that the box photo that was leaked last weekend was legit, showing the Snow Leopard on the front.

The pricing remains at $29US for a single user upgrade, or $49 for a Family Pack upgrade. You can only install the upgrade edition if you're using Leopard. If you're not, you'll need to buy the Mac Box Set, available for $169 for a single user or $229 for a Family Pack.

Before you install, check out our upgrade guide. Also, note that If you purchased a qualifying Mac on or after June 8, 2009, that does not include Mac OS X Snow Leopard, you can upgrade for $9.95.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

My MacBook Pro and I had a bit of a rendezvous this past weekend. She's a 15 inch Core Duo with 2GB of RAM. Although she'll occasionally get as hot as a toaster oven (leaving red marks on my lap at times) and mooed like a cow when we first met, she's been a consistent workhorse for me.

But her hard drive needed a transplant. Sick of her sluggish performance and hard drive clicking noises, I decided that it was time to fix her up. So, I replaced her 320GB hard drive with, surprise, a 320GB hard drive -- this time a Fujitsu model instead of the Toshiba it replaced. Not because I thought the Fujitsu was any better than the Toshiba it'd be replacing, but because it was the least expensive drive I could find.

Although the hard drive installation went successful, it wasn't without its fair share of bumps along the road. Hopefully, the bumps I experienced could provide many some guidance on what to do as well as what not to do when upgrading your hard drive.

When I wrote about Pogoplug earlier this month, journaled HFS+ support was missing in action. That was a shame, since it's the most common drive format for Mac users.

Pogoplug is a network drive adapter coupled with a web service that allows you to access a personal drive from anywhere on the Internet without having to worry about firewalls and other security issues. You plug a drive into the Pogoplug, connect the unit to power, and you can securely access that data no matter where you are, from your laptop, another computer, or from an iPhone.

Today, Pogoplug has announced support for journaled HFS+ formatted drives. You can now plug in almost any drive formatted for use on the Mac and it'll work with Pogoplug.That's great, because the last few times I dredged up Disk Utility (from /Applications/Utilities), it was to re-format drives to use with the Pogoplug system. (You can also turn off journaling from the Terminal, if you're so inclined, via the 'diskutil' command.)

What's particularly cool is that Pogoplug is currently working on developing remote backup assistance. They don't support Time Capsule yet, but the Pogoplug developers say they're working on having "the Pogoplug play nice with [Time Capsule and other remote storage devices] and allow our users to back up to their home drives automatically and regularly."

Being able to set up off-site backup drives with just a simple plug-and-go sounds like an awesome business opportunity for anyone with a central router and a whole bunch of USB hubs. But even if you're setting up your off-site backup at your sister-in-law's ("Sure, go ahead and plug in that...um...thing. Can I take it out if I need to vacuum?"), that's a fine way to keep your backups physically remote from your primary computing space. At just $99 plus the cost of a hard drive (the lifetime service is included free), a bargain.

A bit late to the party, I started the process of updating my iPhone at 3:00 PM Eastern. iTunes downloaded the update without a problem, but the install process was halted with the error message:

"The iPhone [your iPhone] cannot be updated at this time because the iPhone activation server is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

From there I've got two options: OK, which simply closes the dialog box, and More Information, which points a browser to a Knowledge Base article on iPhone activation issues. Mike also noted the appearance of an error -4 dialog earlier.

It looks to us like Apple's servers are getting slammed hard. A bit of patience ought to do the trick; you might also benefit from restarting both iTunes and your iPhone. Still, the whole thing makes me feel like Veruca Salt: "But I want an Oompa Loompa NOW!"

It's no secret that I didn't mind AT&T's pricing of their 3G S upgrades. However, 3G owners were upset that they were not offered the same discounts as new customers or those who had not fulfilled their two-year contracts.

Well, good news for those 3G owners who are wanting to upgrade to the 3G S. AT&T listened to your complaints and published an open letter and YouTube video explaining that current 3G customers may be given much better upgrade pricing when the 3G S launches. From the open letter:

"Beginning June 19, iPhone 3G customers [who are] eligible for an upgrade in July, August, or September will get our best upgrade price of $199 (16 GB) and $299 (32 GB)." This is definitely great news for some 3G owners, as it bumps up the date when they can upgrade for less -- however, if your discount date is past September 30, you will still have to wait to get the best pricing. Your upgrade-eligible date is based on both your contract age and your service plan; the more money you spend with AT&T every month, the sooner they will replace your phone.

There is also good news for those of you who have already pre-ordered the new iPhone: if the new eligibility window affects you, AT&T will issue you a credit for the difference.

Although I don't think that AT&T had to make this change in their policy, it's encouraging to know they're listening to their customers and making changes. Now that you're listening, AT&T, how about getting on the ball with MMS and tethering?