Author: Chris Barylick

As robust as the screen capture features in OS X are, there’s always room for improvement. Team Apollo’s Powershot 1.5 fills this role nicely, offering a lightweight, efficient utility that allows you to configure keystrokes for taking screenshots, target the areas of the screen that will be used in the screenshot, lets you specify what will be done with the image file, and allows quick line drawings, shapes and annotations to be added to the finished product.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Following up my article on replacing the glass on a first- or second-generation iPad, the question came about as to how to repair an iPad mini’s glass in the event that gravity should exert itself on an off day.

Photo: Chris Barylick

Photo: Chris Barylick

I’ve been both curious and terrified about the process of replacing damaged front glass on a first-or second-generation iPad, but this was the last thing I wanted to attempt on my own. I ventured over to Fix That Mac in Berkeley, California to talk to Rory Pierce and get the perspective of someone who repairs several iPad screens per week and is confident in what he’s doing.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In the wake of my latest Advice from an Apple Tech article that focused on the use of BitTorrent to acquire older OS X installation disc images when the required OS X installation disc was unavailable, some points of clarification need to be made.

The article was in no way intended to advocate software piracy of any sort, even where out-of-print and otherwise unavailable OS X installation discs are concerned. To this end, I devoted a previous column as to how to legally find and secure Mac OS X installation discs that Apple may not be selling through venues such as eBay, Craigslist, local vendors, and local user-group meet-ups. There’s always someone with the installation disc you need and they’re always willing to discuss a fair value price for the item on hand.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If you service Macs on a regular basis, sooner or later, you’ll absolutely need an older Mac OS X installation disc to complete a project that’s due in a very short amount of time. Under normal circumstances, I’m sure you’d be happy to buy it off Craigslist, eBay or any other source, but the deadline is approaching and you’ve run out of options.

If you troubleshoot Macs on a regular basis, sooner or later, you’re going to need an old Mac OS X install CD or DVD. Only the truly organized will be able to locate that Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard DVD they last used two moves ago. For those of you looking to find a way to replace your old Mac OS X install discs, we’d like to offer the following suggestions.

eBay

You’ll find it all on eBay, albeit not at the best possible prices. Like any commodity that’s not being produced anymore, original Mac OS X installation CDs and DVDs are being kept, hoarded, and sold at impressive profits. Remember when Apple routinely insisted that $129 was a reasonable amount to jump from Mac OS X 10.3 to 10.4? Well, the person who kept their boxed installation disc would like to see their money back—and it’s going to come out of your pocket.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

If there’s one thing you learn about any kind of repair, it’s this: There’s always the right tool for the job—and a better way to go about the repair the next time. The Mac that was just about impossible to open the first time becomes much easier to work on two or three repairs down the road; you’ll have a better idea of the sequence to take things apart or put them back together. There are no better teachers than experience and failure.

Using the right tools makes all the difference in the world. Here are some of the advanced tools you might want to invest in for more complicated Mac repairs.

Long-handle drivers

Sometime around 2008 and with the advent of the first MacBook Air, Apple made the declarative statement that the end was in sight for optical drives built into its notebooks. At the time, the lack of an optical drive was a unique feature for the company’s new ultralight notebook, and the MacBook and MacBook Pro units of its day still unquestionably arrived with optical drives, but change was in the air.

Now, at the end of 2013, Apple definitely had a point in asserting that the optical drive could be done without—especially when a USB optical drive can now be purchased for under $35—and an incredibly fast and useful second hard drive can be installed in your Unibody MacBook Pro.

This is what this how-to covers:

• Removing both the optical drive and hard drive in the MacBook Pro;
• Placing the laptop’s hard drive in a bracket and installing it where the optical drive used to be;
• Installing a new solid-state drive (SSD) in the laptop’s hard drive compartment, which makes the SSD as the primary drive.

With that in mind, it’s time to look into swapping out your Unibody MacBook Pro’s optical drive for a speedy hard drive. Here’s a list of items that you will need.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here