We're back with another edition of Ask TUAW. This time around we've answering questions about iTunes libraries, Mac data recovery, Snow Leopard on older Macs 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.

Daneel asks:

I'm running OS X 10.5.7 and Windows Vista (via Bootcamp) on my iMac 24". I was wondering if there was any way in which I could make the iTunes apps in both Windows and Mac use the same iTunes library. File access is not a problem as I've got the ntfs-3g driver on the mac side and mac drive on the PC side.

I have my iTunes library on an external hard drive. To make iTunes use this particular folder, I create an alias of the folder on the external drive and replace my iTunes folder located in Users> "User Name" > Music with the alias. iTunes has no problem with this setup.

You should be able to do the same thing in both the Mac and Windows versions of iTunes. Just set an alias of the iTunes folder you want to use in Windows pointing to your Mac iTunes library and you should be good to go.

This video is making the rounds lately -- on first glance, it looks someone running the iPhone OS on a Mac Pro with a 24" multitouch monitor. As you can see, everything more or less works as you'd expect, and therein lies the rub: anyone who's looked at it with a critical eye, including our friend and former TUAW-er CK Sample III, has pronounced it fake. I'd have to agree -- besides the fact that it comes from a visual effects house, the picture flipping at about :56 is a little bit off. How'd they do it? It's most likely just a movie running on a screen, with a guy pretending to control it. But even so, it's a compelling idea -- if you could find a multitouch monitor that worked like that and ran the iPhone OS with it, wouldn't it work exactly that way anyway?

I've actually brought up this idea before -- there is a ton of software running on the iPhone currently, and some of it is even better than the equivalent versions on the Mac. It would be extremely useful to port the iPhone's OS (and all of its software in the App Store) to another form, whether that be on your TV (I originally suggested a Wii-like interface) or on a multitouch input like this desktop. Apple has sunk a lot of work and design thought into this OS -- they may never do it, but it seems like it would be a terrific decision to bring some of that successful R&D back on to the TV or the desktop.

A lot of us might not care that the color on our screens doesn't precisely match reality, but for most designers color matching is a crucial part of their work. That's why they use monitor calibration systems like the new La Cie blue eye pro Proof Edition (US$429.99) to make sure that what they see on the screen is exactly what they'll see on a finished product.

The blue eye pro Proof Edition is the blue puck that you see on the left side of the photo illustration at right. It supports monitor calibration and profiling and can provide UGRA (Swiss Center of Competence for Media and Printing Technology) soft proof testing and reporting.

La Cie has announced immediate availability of the blue eye pro Proof Edition, which is compatible with the Adobe Creative Suite, QuarkXPress, Aperture and other design and photography applications. it requires Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later on Intel Macs, as well as a USB port for connectivity.

The e-mails have been arriving here at TUAW headquarters for a good portion of the morning with many asking the same question: "What happened to the 20-inch Cinema Display?"

It's true. A check of the direct link to the 20-inch Cinema Display's page reroutes you directly to the main Apple page. The portion of the Apple site dedicated to displays, however, not only still lists the 20-inch Cinema Display, but its departed brethren the 23-inch Cinema Display.

Oh where, oh where, have the 20-inch monitors gone? It leaves a devastatingly slim choice for people wanting an Apple-branded monitor. The new 24-inch LED Cinema Displays won't play nice with either the Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini, or any other machine that doesn't have a Mini DisplayPort connector -- which pretty much means it's the unibody MacBook family or nothing. The price of the 30-inch Cinema Display is most likely out of reach for a lot of people, as well.

What to do? Take no fear, Amazon still has the 20-inch Cinema Display in stock with free shipping. There's also a host of very nice third-party panels out there. I supplement my MacBook with a 20-inch display from Acer that I picked up at Best Buy for less than $150.

Anyone else have any recommendations for a good non-Apple branded monitor? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks to all who submitted this!

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 envelope-filler: a prototype version. As you can see above, there's no "MacBook Air" nameplate under the monitor, and hardware inside is dated to May of 2007, which is way before Apple officially announced the machine.

Apparently someone given an early working version of the notebook has already moved on to the new [REDACTED] that Apple is working on, and has sold off their old prototype of the Air. Very cool -- as I said, collectors know that there are prototypes floating around out there still, but this is the first I've heard of the phenomenon. And I like that it's almost a time capsule back into the beginnings of the product we know now as the Air -- the model name given in the software just says "Mac," so this predates the name we associate with the machine. You wonder what would have happened to a system like this if it hadn't actually gone into production and been released.

While some of us are waiting to purchase the new 24" LED Cinema Display, Apple has quietly pulled the old 23" Cinema Display from the online store. Apple is still selling the 20" and 30" Cinemas, but they have put the words "Ships: Discontinued" on the 23" model.

I'm sure these are very sad words for the folks who don't like glossy screens; however, this could also mean local retailers (and Apple Stores) might have 23" models on sale very soon (did someone say black Friday sales?).

If you still want a 23" model, you can check Apple's online refurb store where they are currently being sold for $749 (US).


Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

For what seems like forever (or at least since April 29th, 2005), the crew at iSlayer have leveraged their obsession with system performance and statistics and provided us with arguably the best darn donationware iStat widgets on the block. For a little while now, they've been teasing their fellow stat enthusiasts with screenshots on the iSlayer blog of their latest creation, iStat menus, which is currently in a private beta. As you might guess, iStat menus is an app (installed and managed as a System Preferences pane) that will display your vital system stats in the menubar, complete with a thoroughly customizable set of options for displaying just the information you want to know.

Thankfully, the iSlayer folks were kind enough to give me a copy of the beta, along with permission to post thoughts and a screenshot gallery for your perusal. While I've been trying iStat menus out, I've also been asking the crew a few questions surrounding how it stacks up against iStat pro and nano, especially in terms of performance. One catch with the way iStat menus runs is that it doesn't create its own separate process that can be monitored in Activity Monitor (or, I assume by relation, the Terminal). Instead, each menu item monitor you activate runs as a Menu Extra which lumps itself into the SystemUIServer thread, so the only way Marc Edwards at iSlayer recommended I could compare iStat menu's performance against my long-time favorite iStat pro is simply to watch that thread before and after enabling iStat menu's items.

The crew over at iSlayer have been busy releasing major updates to their killer system monitoring widgets, and not a moment too late for this year's Apple Design Awards (entry deadline is April 23rd). Earlier this month we missed a major upgrade and UI overhaul to iStat nano, bringing the compact system monitoring widget to v2 and adding a ton of new features.

With the release of what almost looks like an all-new version of iStat pro v4, however, iSlayer has brought a consistent, uniform UI to both widgets. While I agree that you should probably sit down and take a deep breath before reading through the extensive list of changes, the big-hitters include: support for the battery meters in bluetooth keyboards and mice, instant update for things like network changes and disk mounting, a choice between memory and CPU usage in the process panel, as well as drag and drop re-ordering of sections inside the widget, allowing you to customize the layout to your heart's content.

That isn't all though - go check out the huge list of changes for either of these widgets and consider showing iSlayer some donation love for all the stellar work they've done on two of the inarguable kings of system monitoring widgets for Mac OS X.

iSlayer, makers of the istat widgets we're all such a fan of, has just announced 7 new Dashboard system monitoring widgets, as well as a full iStat application (call me crazy, but I think these guys like keeping an eye on their systems). The new widgets more or less cover the same ground their iStat nano and iStat pro widgets do - they just take on the individual tasks of monitoring everything from CPU, memory, wireless, battery and even temperature performance.

The standalone iStat app offers a bit more customization options, as well as the ability to make it float above other applications or even stay at desktop level, so it can't get in the way of anything else you're doing. It also features a more standard Mac OS X preferences window, including a pane which states that Growl support is coming soon (for Growl cliffnotes: it's a system-wide monitoring utility through which 3rd party apps like Transmit, Quicksilver and - soon - iStat can display notifications of things like completed tasks).

All of these widgets and the new app are, surprisingly, donationware, and available now from iSlayer's website.

iStat nano, a handy system monitoring Dashboard widget, has been updated to version 1.51b with support for CPU temps on Intel Macs. The one catch is that you'll have to install SpeedIt, a System Preference pane and kernel extension that allows this kind of functionality (and much more). We've heard nothing but good things about SpeedIt and the features it provides (such as controlling CPU whine by regulating voltage), but we'd understand if the thought of installing kernel extensions has already made you skip this post in your newsreader.

If you're still reading this, however, it seems both iStat nano and the SpeedIt kernel extension are provided free, so have at it.

[thanks Aaron]

If your picture is hanging on eBay's 'Favorite Customers of All Time' award wall, this eBay Watcher widget might be just for you. As a powerhouse eBay monitoring tool, this widget has it all: up to three items can be watched at once, audio feedback for price changes and auction ending, Growl notifications, automatic refreshing at user-specified intervals, localized display labels for German, French, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese and Italian and even a world clock. Just about the only thing this widget is missing is a kitchen sink, though I'm sure an eBay widget could help you even with that minor setback.

One complaint I have about this widget is the explanation as to why you should register it from Hawk Innovations. Discussions about whether one should charge money for a widget aside, check it out: "Our demo version has a 50-50 chance of working. Make sure your widget works 100% of the time by registering now!" Cryptic as that may be, I think it deserves at least a few points for being one of the more... unique demo limitations I've seen.

So, a '50-50 chance of working' demo is available, and a license (which includes two machines) will run a mere $5. Hey: nobody said making eBay's 'favorite customers' wall was free.

While I'm still a bigger fan of the iStat pro widget, miniStat2 definitely wins points for compactness, creativity and for quickly incorporating a monitor for Intel Mac temperatures. Other updates include the ability to change the currently monitored network interface right from Network tab of the widget, the storage tab only displaying physical hard drives (as opposed to including .DMG files and the like) as well as a Spanish localization.

A demo of miniStat 2 is available from ShockWidgets, and a license will cost $5.

CoreDuoTemp, the handy little app for monitoring your Intel Mac's temp, CPU usage and frequency, has been updated to version 0.8. New features include:

• window position saved
• menu extra indicator
• new panel prefs
• correction of the English translation
• German language added

You can grab your own copy here.

Two of my favorite system monitor widgets have been updated: iStat pro 2.3 and iStat nano 1.5. The main new additions are drive filtering, as in: CDs, DVDs and .DMGs will no longer appear in the drive list, and support has been included for MacBook Pro batteries. Unfortunately, it looks like the temp and fan monitors don't support the MacBook Pros just yet.

Both of these widgets are available from iSlayer.net, apparently for free, as I can't even find a donation link. Also: their download links do point to these new versions, so don't pay any attention to the versions listed on their site, as it seems they haven't updated it to reflect these new additions just yet.