Control your Mac with Twitter
December 31, 2008
Hi, I’m Leslie, and I’m a Twitter-holic. I admit I have a problem. I was tweeting from my phone all during a two week power outage where I live. I tweet while in the car if I’m not driving. I tweet on trains, planes, buses, from my MacBook, in waiting rooms, pretty much anywhere my phone or laptop can get a signal. Oh it isn’t all play, I also work via Twitter much of the time. Toss in the fact that I’m a total Apple junkie, and the news I could control my Mac with Twitter sent me into spasms of glee.
Once you buy a Mac, whether it is a MacBook, iMac, or Mac Pro, you want to keep it running well for as long as you have it. Macs are pretty self-sufficient machines. They aren’t prone to viruses and other mishaps like PCs are, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to be prepared. Here are a few simple, free ways to keep your Mac running well all year long: 
In delicate economic times, it sometimes takes very little for a company’s stock price to take a hit. That happened to Apple Inc. stock yesterday on rumors of Steve Jobs’ supposed ill health. 
When Phil Schiller takes the stage at the Moscone Center, analysts say we shouldn’t expect much. iPhone nano or the yearned for Apple-branded netbook at the big show? Nope. iMac and Mac mini? A fairly definite maybe. But little else seems likely. 
What’s new, right? Apple could be releasing a tablet. But in this case, there’s good word that Apple actually has developed prototypes of a tablet iPod Touch, and with the flood of games and applications to the Apps Store as of late, now could be the best time ever to make the Apple tablet a reality. 
Apple rumors are always rife in advance of MacWorld, and perhaps especially before this last one in which Apple will officially appear. Maybe the best scuttlebutt of this year is the rumored high-end Apple home server. 
Apple is a unique company in that, at least since the turn of the century, it has achieved an almost frenzied popularity that is unmatched in the technology world. And the Internet has proven an apt speakerbox for spreading every piece of news or hint of development that involves the company. But how much of what’s called Apple “news” is more than empty rumor, and more importantly…do we care? 
Most technology stocks have taken their lumps over the past several months as a part of the larger economic downturn. Apple is bucking this negative trend and is performing very well indeed. 
It’s the Monday after Christmas and you’ve probably got better things to do. Still, you should probably get your holiday snaps off your camera and share them on FaceBook where friends and family can enjoy them too. Here’s a painless (and free way) to get that photo of Uncle Fred wearing reindeer antlers out of Apple’s (consumer) photo editing and management application and onto the Web for all the world to see and enjoy. 
We are documenting the process of one user’s move from the Windows platform on a PC to the OS X platform on the Mac. This installment relates how the move from Windows was precipitated and how the Mac was chosen as a replacement. 