Leaked Specs Point To Three New Mac Pros, Spec-Bumped 13 And 15-Inch MacBook Pros

The MacBook Pro might not be going anywhere just yet.

Apple rumor site 9to5 Mac says it has gotten its hands on the entire spec sheet for the Macs expected to be announced today. There will be a a pair of new desktop Mac Pros, along with a server version.

The site also claims that the current 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pros will get a spec bump, and that there will be a new Retina-display 15-inch model.

Read the rest of this post »

Apple Replacing Faulty ATI GPUs In 2006-2008 Mac Pros

If you bought your Mac Pro from between August 2006 and January 2008 and if you’ve noticed your video acting wonky, good news: Apple has heard your plaintive cries and posted a support document acknowledging an issue with that computer’s ATI X1900 XT graphics card.

Read the rest of this post »

Use Your Mac to Copy Your Old DVD’s & Burn Them to Disc [How To]

One of the biggest problems with physical media is that it breaks. As soon as your DVD gets a couple scratches it’s rendered un-usable and worthless. Copying a DVD with encryption isn’t as easy as it should be. The good news is that with this walkthrough Cult of Mac will show you how to do it.

Read the rest of this post »

Automatically Add Lyrics To All Songs In Your iTunes Library [How To]

Ever been singing along to a new song and wondered just what the heck the lyrics really are? Searching for the lyrics on the internet isn’t the fastest of solutions to avoid lyric confusion. Here we’re going to show you how to utilize scripts and a widget to search out the lyrics for all of the songs in your iTunes library and automatically save them to song’s meta data, so that next time you can correct your friend when they sing “where’s my Asian friend,” when the lyrics really are, “what’s my age again.”

Read the rest of this post »

Rip Songs Off Your iPod/iPhone & Back On To Your Mac [How To]

iPods are great nifty little devices that allow you to take music off of your computer and carry  it around town with you inside a magical Apple electronic device. But what happens when you want to transfer the music that’s on your iPod and put it back on your Mac? Despite all of its friendliness, iTunes is unwilling to pry the music of your iPod or iPhone. In this walk-through we’ll show you how to reclaim your music from your iPod and get it back on your Mac.

Read the rest of this post »

Custom Water-Cooled Mac Pro Both Speedy And Quiet

Dealing with overheating engines by running cold air over them is fine for old Volkswagen Beetles with almost the horsepower of an electric toothbrush and weird French cars (I know, the word “weird” there is redundant). As engines have become more powerful though, air-cooling has become less attractive — at least, in the automotive world. Computers still lag behind though. Mostly.

Zack Fanning, who handles (surprise) marketing for computer cooling system expert Asetek, asked the outfit’s engineers to mod his Mac Pro with a liquid cooling system. The results are pretty interesting: He’s able to overclock his 2.8 ghz Mac Pro to 3.18 while reducing noise — due to the fan not having to work as hard — by 13 decibels over a strictly air-cooled Mac Pro running at the same speed. Pretty cool.

Want one? While Zack’s is a one-off, lovingly handcrafted custom job, Corsair’s H50 liquid cooling system (actually made for them by Asetek) can be had for about $80; just make sure to check first about compatibility, because the H50’ll only work with later-model Mac Pros.

Achieving 2010 performance with a 2006 Mac for Under $700.00?

– Part 1. “The Plan”

The new hexacore Mac Pro’s are coming, the screaming performance and egg frying potential of those new machines are making my previously five thousand dollar 2006 model look positively dated.

To be sure, I’m in the midst of a computational mid-life crisis. Follow me after the jump for the cure…

Read the rest of this post »

12-Core Mac Pros Now Available For Order

The Apple Store went down this morning, and when it came back up, Apple had given us all a depressingly good excuse to give them five grand: their new 12-core Mac Pros.

Even the minimum specs for this thing are eyeball melting: two 2.66GHz hecacore Xeon Westmere CPUs, 6GB of memory, an eighteen-speed dual-layer SuperDrive and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 GPU with 1GB of DDR5 memory.

Prices start at $4999.99, but I was able to spec one close to $15,000 with all the bells and whistles before my eyeballs bugged out of my sockets. Shipping is in seven to ten business days, so get ordering

Introducing the Apple Magic Trackpad [First Look]

It only makes sense that the company who brought us the first mouse would try to re-invent the way desktop computers are used. Apple is attempting to bring multi-touch to the masses with its new Magic Trackpad. While this might seem like just a trackpad, this could be a sneak peek on how Apple plans to implement iOS onto OS X. Regardless of their intentions, this is the most exciting input device since the Magic Mouse. Read the rest after the break.

Read the rest of this post »

Apple Store Down – New iMacs, Mac Pro, Cinema Display & Magic Trackpad?

This morning the Apple Store is down and backs up rumours that product updates and introductions could be imminent.

Rumors have circulated recently about updates to the iMac and the Mac Pro, as well as the introduction of a 27-inch Cinema Display and a “Magic Trackpad“.

We’re not sure yet whether new products will appear, but this is a good sign. It’s also typical of Apple to release/update products on a Tuesday.

We’ll keep our eye on the Apple Store and be sure to inform you when it’s back up and if there’s new goodies to check out!