Longtime Mac users often have pictures scattered across several different machines in multiple iPhoto libraries. Sometimes it’s nice to merge everything together when upgrading to a new machine:

I saw your MacRx article on Consolidating Your iPhoto Library and Removing Duplicates. How would you recommend I consolidate several different libraries? I have my first iPhoto library on my vintage Mac Mini. I have a 2nd iPhoto library on a laptop. My third library is on my new iMac. I want everything on the new iMac. What is the best way to attack this? – Deb

Here’s a fun, kinda crazy way to use the sudden motion sensors that come in some Mac notebooks, like the newer unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros. These sudden motion sensors are used by Apple to detect when a laptop with a physical spinning hard drive is dropped, and therefore this tip won’t work on the 2010 or 2011 MacBook Airs that shipped with flash-based, non-spinning SSDs. Using a third-party app, you can pick up your laptop and give it a shake-to-undo option, just like the one on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.

Back in 1978, an upstart company called Apple Computer moved into its new headquarters at 10260 Bandley Drive in Cupertino, California — a building soon to be known as “Bandley 1.” One of Apple’s first employees, Chris Espinosa, sketched out a floor plan of the Bandley 1 offices and labs in the new building at the time.

A copy of this historic Apple document recently showed up on Espinosa’s website.

iPad users have been looking forward to a Retina display since the company introduced its iPhone 4 — its first iOS device to feature the high-resolution display — and recent reports have claimed the feature will finally surface with Apple’s third-generation tablet.

Strengthening those claims is a new report which suggests Apple is working with component suppliers to design a new backlight that is capable of maintaining the iPad’s existing level of brightness with the higher resolution panels.

OS X Lion’s Finder is noticeably more drab than its predecessor. The once-colorful sidebar icons have now turned a rather flat shade of gray. In this video, I’ll show you how to restore color to your Finder sidebar icons.

Curvy. Smooth. Uncomplicated. Think of any product One Infinite Loop has spat out over the last decade or so and you’ll almost invariably and immediately come up with a few key adjectives to describe them (and if you don’t, you’re probably not reading this right now anyway).

But The Bluetooth-equipped Altec Lansing InMotion Air ($200) is pretty much the opposite of anything and everything Jony Ive and his colleagues at Apple believe in. At least, that’s true as far as its aesthetics and ergonomics are concerned; under the hood though, it packs a punch.

Steve Jobs will be making an appearance on the sliver screen, and we’re not talking about the biopic that Sony is backing.

Missing footage from the 1995 PBS documentary Triumph of the Nerds features an interview with Steve Jobs during a pivotal time in Silicon Valley’s history. The interview was apparently lost for many years, and it has now resurfaced to be shown in Landmark theaters around the nation beginning November 16th.

Loren Brichter is the man behind Twitter’s official app for the iPhone and iPad. Many will recognize Brichter as the creator of the beloved Tweetie app prior to his work at Twitter itself.

Yesterday, Brichter announced via a tweet (aptly sent from the Twitter for iPhone app) that he has left his position at Twitter to “figure out what’s next.”

A few years ago, everything was peaceful in the Valley of Silicon. The relationship between Apple and Google was cozy and friendly. The two rising and dominant superpowers pursued compatible, non-overlapping businesses, for the most part, and helped each other fight mutual competitors like Microsoft, Amazon and others. Google’s founders worshiped Steve Jobs. Eric Schmidt was on the Apple board.

But then Google recklessly chose to attack Apple head-on with Android.

The future of Apple’s most profitable businesses will run iOS, including iPods, iPhones, iPads and probably laptop and desktop systems of the future — not to mention TV. Google’s decision to compete head-on with Apple for multi-touch platforms ended the alliance.

Steve Jobs took it personally, and told biographer Walter Isaacson that he was “willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

But what did he mean by that?

Our story so far: For the better part of a decade, Orb Audio proceeds to build a stellar reputation for high-end home audio with their award-winning, modular systems based around the iconic spherical speaker for which the outfit is named.

But then the iPod and its iDevice cousins sneak into a rapidly-growing number of pockets, creating a massive, swollen market that’s eager to be introduced to high-end audio, yet yearns for a more compact, less complex setup than the traditional high-end home audio layout. And what about all those computer users stuck with tinny PC speakers? Surely they deserve siren-like audio too.

So the company comes up with a solution: Take a pair of the celebrated spheres, marry them to a tiny amplifier and call it the Orb Audio Mini-T Amplifier and Speaker Package ($299): bam, instant Orb Audio experience for your iDevice or Mac!

No, not quite.

The holiday season came a little early this year for Apple’s top executive team. According to CNET, Apple has given 7 of its execs stock bonuses that could mean huge payouts in the years to come.

Many Senior Vice Presidents at Apple have been given 150,000 shares, while the newly-added SVP Eddy Cue has been given 100,000 shares. For the majority of the exec team, this 150,000 shares bonus will equal a $60+ million payout in 2016.

Apple added a subtle solution for developers in iOS 5.0.1 that addresses the issue of purged app data. In iOS 5.0, apps were suddenly restricted from caching large amounts of data in-app for offline access. Apps were effectively “cleaned” of temporary data when iOS 5 determined that the app was taking up too much space.

Previously, iOS would allow an app to store needed information, such as saved web articles for a news app, in a temporary cache that wouldn’t slow down iTunes backups, restores, and syncs. When Apple introduced iCloud, the company became more aggressive about not allowing apps to temporarily store too much information in-app.

In the recently released iOS 5.0.1 beta 1 and beta 2, Apple has provided developers with a new way to “specify files that should remain on device, even in low storage situations.”

Over the years we’ve seen lots of crazy things happen in the Apple Store, but we have yet to see an astronaut.

Until now.

The above photo, spotted by OS X Daily, was taken at the 14th St Apple Store in New York City. Apparently this moon man is part of an upcoming promotion for the Mini Cooper car. Very weird.

The idea of Apple entering the fractious and shark-infested waters of the television set industry has always made us scratch our heads. We were almost convinced the fever had passed when Steve Jobs biography was released, quoting the Apple co-founder that he’d “finally cracked” the problem of integrating home computers with television. Now comes an analyst suggesting the whole idea is bonkers and why even bother?

After only two days, Apple has released iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 to developers following the release of the iOS 5.0.1 beta.

The iOS 5.0.1 beta addressed battery life issues, patched the Smart Cover security flaw, and added enhanced multitasking gestures to the original iPad. iOS 5.0.1 beta 2 seems to be a minor update.

Developers can check for 5.0.1 beta 2 in the iOS Dev Center and also check for an over-the-air update on devices running iOS 5.0.1 beta 1.

Here’s a good riddle: What has just four percent of the market, yet pockets more than half of the profits? The answer is Apple, the tech giant known for squeezing every ounce of profit from its iconic products. According to one analyst, Apple took 4.2 percent of the mobile handset market and transformed it into 52 percent of industry profits. Neat trick, huh?

Amazon reportedly plans to scale down the screen size of its next Kindle Fire tablet, producing an 8.9-inch device, rather than an originally expected 10.1-inch product for 2012. The report could be another indication that suppliers are busy filling orders for Apple’s iPad.

Apple has added a feature to iOS 5 that will allow you to check the storage apps use on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It’s an important feature to know if you are using any of these devices without a computer and syncing straight to iCloud.

I didn’t own many cassette tapes when I was a kid — CDs had already taken over — but I did have a small collection. There wasn’t much about the cassette that I liked actually; the sound quality wasn’t great, waiting for them to rewind was a pain, and they’re no good for Frisbee-ing at your friends like the compact disc. AirCassette for iPhone, however, is one cassette tape that’s just plain awesome.

Don’t look for the Occupy movement to picket Apple. The iPhone maker is among just a few tech companies paying their fair share of corporate taxes. According to a report released Thursday, Apple paid a 31 percent tax rate. By comparison, the likes of HP, Yahoo and Amazon.com appeared to have paid less than half the 35 percent corporate rate — or even lower.

Even just looking at the picture, it’s easy to see this 11-inch MacBook Air “luxury mod” is a grotesque mockery. Crystallize-Your-Design would probably have you believe that recreating “Angel of the Chapel Sistine” on a MacBook Air in Swarovski Crystals took some sort of artistry, but this is the high-end equivalent of smearing your laptop in glue and then rolling it in crushed glass and glitter.

Here’s where you’ll want to lose your lunch, though. This frickin’ thing is being positioned as a product that pays tribute to the life of Steve Jobs! A man whose obsession with clean zen aesthetics would have caused him to suffer some sort of rectal prolapse just looking at this glittering pile of faux-diamond puke. The audacity!

I’ve been in the blogging-in-my-underpants business for a long time now, and over the years, one of the only things that has been an immutable law is that the long-awaited iControlPad for iPhone will always be just on the cusp of release.

So imagine the way my whole world flipped topsy-turvy when I checked my email box this morning and noticed that the unthinkable had happened, and iControlPad had finally been released. Is this even real life?

The iPad nano is undoubtedly the coolest wristwatch available if you’re an Apple fanboy, and it has become so popular as a watch that Apple even introduced a number of new clock faces in its latest nano update. However, because it’s an iPod, it’s also very delicate and it doesn’t cope well with water damage. Unless you have the Proof strap — a wrist strap that not only makes your iPod nano waterproof, but also introduces Bluetooth functionality.

This is one iOS app I am particularly excited about. I’m a huge fan of the Sparrow email client for Mac OS X, and ever since rumors started circulating that claimed the app is coming to iOS, I’ve been itching to get my hands on it. According to the application’s developer, Dominique Leca, Sparrow will land on the iPhone in the coming months.

It’s not set to open for another hour yet, but the curtain’s already been pulled back on Apple’s redesigned 5th Avenue store, which sees the iconic cube pared down from 90 panes of glass to just fifteen, and the architectural cruft needed to support them eliminated in favor of a new “seamless” design.

The end result is quite lovely, and makes the 5th Avenue location even more of a wonderful contradiction: how ironic that New York’s most photographed landmark is also its most invisible! More pictures below.