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ALERT: Mavericks Issues

Typically, not half a day after saying Mavericks was great…..we get our first reports of clients suffering after upgrading! As always, beta testing a new OS has not found every possible bug that users will experience, and it will take a few patches before the OS is completely stable. We’re running it ourselves and haven’t suffered any problems (yet), but think that after hearing of this issue it’s best to revert to our standard advice of waiting until the first few patches have been released, unless you absolutely have to upgrade.

For those that have upgraded, if you’re using Google Drive you may begin to see issues with Finder closing windows down and quite a lot of screen flickering. After checking logs, we’ve found that this being caused by the Google Drive client, and that closing it down will stop the problem completely. However, we’ve also found that if you uncheck “Show file sync status icons” in Google Drive preferences, the crashing will stop and you can continue to use Google Drive.

When we hear of a more permanent solution, we’ll let you know and also update our advice on upgrading to Mavericks.

EDIT (6th Nov, 2013): Google have updated their software so this problem should now be resolved. You may need to restart the Google Drive process for this to take effect (or a full machine restart would also work).

Thanks to Glyn Dewis for bringing this problem to our attention.

 

Quick Update on Apple Announcements 22/10/13

Morning all

Last night we had a 90 min presentation from Apple on their updated products, and we tweeted throughout as we heard the announcement. Without wishing to rehash news that’s elsewhere, here’s a really quick summary:

Mavericks has been released (it’s free)
MacBook Pro’s have been updated immediately (they’re better and cheaper)
Mac Pro confirmed for release in December (much faster, but more expensive that previous generation)
iPad has been renamed iPad Air (faster, lighter, thinner). Available in higher capacity. Ships November.
iPad mini has been updated to a retina screen (old model still available, new model more expensive). Available in higher capacity. Ships November.
Virtually every bit of Apple Software has been upgraded (and all but the Pro apps such as Aperture, Final Cut and Logic is now free).

Lots of great news, and as we get to spend a bit of time with everything over the coming days we’ll give you more information (follow our twitter stream for immediate comments). If you have any questions, comments or sales queries on the above, please get in touch.

Have a great day!

 

 

What You Should Do About iOS7 Today

At 6pm today, Apple will release iOS7 for those devices that are capable of supporting it. Whilst many people will be eager to download and install it, please read the following before going ahead.
Leave it at least one more day
Typically when major releases become available, the world and his dog will be attempting to download it immediately. Apple’s servers will be incredibly busy, and it’s likely the process will take a couple of hours per device during this initial mad rush. For previous releases, I’ve always been eagerly checking repeatedly on the big day desperate to see the improvements Apple have made. But, after several years of experience, this year I will be waiting till tomorrow. The thinking is that, by tomorrow morning in the UK, the initial rush will be over, and the majority of the US will be asleep, so I’m expecting the servers to be starting to respond normally. In the past, this has reduced the upgrade time (including downloading the new software) to around 30 minutes, a much more realistic period.

That said, I’d be tempted to suggest leaving it a week or more for many end users. iOS7 has been in testing for a few months now, but it’s inevitable that bugs will be found in the coming days that hadn’t been seen in the limited testing the developer community is able to do. Unless you really need to upgrade (and I’d question whether anyone ‘needs to’), it might be prudent to wait until the first updates are released, probably in a week or two, dependent on what bugs or issues are found.
Prepare your device now
When it does come to upgrading, whether its today or in a week or two, one common […]

Great New Deal for Photographers from Adobe

Announced at Photoshop World in Las Vegas today, Adobe will soon be offering customers who are licensed for Photoshop (Standard or Extended) CS3 or later an upgrade to the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop AND Lightroom 5 for less than £10 per month.

Based on past refresh cycles, Adobe tend to release new software every 18-24 months so that’s effectively (less than) £240 per version of both bits of software. A quick google shows that Photoshop CS6 is currently available for £499, and Lightroom at £97 so that’s a considerable overall saving, not forgetting the cashflow advantage of small regular payments for hobbyists and small businesses rather than a lump sum payment up front.

I understand that the offer will be place within a couple of weeks and will be available until the end of 2013. Anyone subscribing before then will, as I understand it, pay the offer price until such time that they wish to unsubscribe.

Weekly News Round Up 30/8/13

iPhone Announcements Imminent
After months of speculation, it looks like an announcement for the forthcoming 7th generation iPhone is imminent. No dates have been confirmed yet, but many industry insiders are predicting September 10th as the day announcements will be made, with availability probably 7-14 days later. It is widely expected that the new phone will look similar to the previous generation iPhone 5, with the addition of a fingerprint sensor, improved processor, better camera and dual LED flashes. There is also a huge amount of speculation that Apple will be expanding the colour range of the new model, to include gold/champagne along with the black and white models we’re used to. Further rumours include the possibility of a lower-cost model (which may be limited to certain countries) sporting a plastic shell and there is the slightest chance that iPad models will be announced at the same event.

Of course it goes without saying that iOS 7 is expected to release along with the new phones, promising many usability updates and a much commented on new look.

If the expected date of 10th September is true, we expect to see press coverage from invited journalists from around the 3rd of the month, so we’ll keep our eyes peeled for updates.

 
SimCity for Mac Finally Launches
Delayed by six months, the Mac release of SimCity is finally available. This is the first release of a new SimCity game for the Mac since 2003, and the gameplay has changed significantly. For the first time, users are required to have Internet connectivity to play the game, as it involves regional play where cities being controlled by multiple players are able to share resources and citizens, doing business together to enable their own cities to […]