It may come as somewhat of a surprise that I, the vehement Apple fan and humble Macist would ever say anything even remotely negative about my favorite computer -- er, sorry "consumer electronics" -- company, but here I am saying just that. After much hype, speculation and furor all across the web and beyond, the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference Keynote went off this morning not with the expected bang, but with a whimper. And... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Ryan in Silverlake. He asks: I'm seriously considering a new Mac but I always hear rumors about newer ones coming out so I always end up waiting. Should I just bite the bullet and do it or should I wait? When to upgrade or get a new piece... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Alexa in Beverly Hills. She asks: I know the Mac comes with iChat but is there anything else I can use for IM that lets me use other accounts besides .Mac? When you decide you want to explore the world of Instant Messaging on your Mac, you are... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Mark in Santa Monica. He asks: I'm new to the Mac and was wondering which web browser I should use. Safari, Firefox or something else? Which web browser to use can sometimes be a hard question to answer. The three major ones for the Mac that I use... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Jill in Silverlake. She asks: I travel quite a bit for work and need to check my email on the road. What's the best way to do that? Accessing your email while out of town and away from your home or office is usually pretty easy to accomplish.... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Will in North Hollywood. He asks: I know there's a method for updating Mac OSX all the time and sometimes I get the window popping up saying I have updates. Should I always update when it tells me to? That's a good question and an important one to... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Jim in Santa Monica. He asks: I have a bunch of PDF files that I need to combine into one document. How do I do that? That's a good question that I get asked frequently. In fact, I had to do this just the other day with several... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Josh in Los Angeles. He asks: There's no problem downloading .avi files, converting to .mov, and playing on the Apple TV, is there? Or showing .mov files generated by iMovie? Also, does it run with 10.3.9? The answer to your questions are pretty simple, fortunately. Anything you can... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of 'Ask the MACist', the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Sam, who lives all the way in Portland. He asks: "Even though Apple and EMI are not going to have DRM on their songs, is there any way to have songs from other companies in your iTunes without DRM to? With Apple announcing yesterday that they, along with... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of "Ask the MACist", the column where I answer your Macintosh and other technology questions. Our question this week comes from Jeff in Santa Monica. He asks: "Ok, I'm tempted to get an Apple TV but what will it do for me and is it worth the price?" Well, as always our readers come up with the best questions. And in this case, the most topical as well considering... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of "Ask the MACist" the column where I answer your Macintosh and technology questions. Our question this week comes from Larry in Culver City. He asks: "I've got a Mac and I've got an XBox 360. Is there any way to get them to talk to each other?" Like Larry, I to am an avid XBox 360 user as well as a Macintosh lover so I have also been... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of "Ask the MACist" the column where I answer your Macintosh and technology questions. Our question this week comes from Steve in NoHo. He asks: "I'm using Apple's Mail program and I want to check my Gmail account using the program as well. Can I do it and if so, how?" Google offers so many great features and one of the best is, of course, Gmail. Some people like... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Please, keep it up! This weeks question comes from Susan in Encino. She asks: "At the moment I'm on Verizon but I think I really... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Macintosh, Macintosh-related and other technology questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. We'll get to your questions in a moment but first I just want to thank those of you who sent well-wishes to me during my bout with pneumonia last week. I'm happy to say that I'm well on the road to recovery... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Please, keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Mac, Mac-related, or even something about other technology like TiVo, cell phones,... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Please, keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Mac, Mac-related, or even something about other technology like TiVo, cell phones,... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Mac, Mac-related, or even something about another technology like TiVo, cell phones or... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Macintosh, Macintosh-related, or even something about another technology like TiVo, Blackberry, XBox 360,... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of Ask the MACist, the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Mac, Mac-related, or even something about another technology like TiVo, cell phones or... more ›

Welcome to the latest installment of Ask the MACist and my special Macworld Expo 2007 coverage. After many hours in the car last night and a long stop at the grapevine because of an accident, I made it back to LA around 2AM this morning. It's good to be home. San Francisco is a nice place to visit but LA is my home. Although, as a Mac fan, it would be cool to live... more ›

Hello again and welcome to the second installment of Ask the MACist Macworld Expo Edition. Last time I thrilled you with some of my predictions for this year's keynote speech given my Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Well, the keynote is over and so let's see just how I did. As Elina pointed out earlier, Apple introduced a few new and exciting products this year including the new Apple TV and a new iPhone which... more ›

Welcome to part one of a special week of "Ask the MACist" coming to you live-ish from beautiful and rather warm San Francisco. I'm here because this week all things Macintosh converge and the faithful enjoy a full week of all-Mac goodness known as Mac World Expo. At the expo, all the newest Apple goodies will be reveled for all to see and touch and yours truly will be right in the middle of... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of “Ask the MACist", the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of “Ask the MACist", the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Mac, Mac-related, or even something about another technology like TiVo or anything, send... more ›

this year LAist introduced "Ask the MACist" and now we give you... Ask the PCist! by Andrew Solmssen - send your questions to pcist at bitboy dot com Hey PCist, I love to do new and wonderful things with my PC, but I want to pay zip, nada, zero, zilch and bupkis for the privilege. What are some great free tools that will make my heart sing and my wallet happy? There's some amazing... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of “Ask the MACist", the column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! more ›

this year LAist introduced "Ask the MACist" and now we give you... Ask the PCist! by Andrew Solmssen - send your questions to pcist at bitboy dot com I have a wireless laptop, and I'm tired of having to plug in my printer every time I want to print the sides for my commercial auditions. Is there anyway to print over the wireless connection? You bet. What you need is called a wireless print... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of “Ask the MACist." The column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Mac, Mac-related, or even something about another technolgy like Tivo or anything, send... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of “Ask the MACist”. The column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. You may have noticed that today is Monday and not Saturday. Well, as of this week "Ask the MACist" will now be appearing every Monday here at LAist instead of Saturday. So, mark your calendars! Plus, my apologies for not having a column last... more ›

Welcome to the latest edition of “Ask the MACist”. The weekly column where I answer your Mac and Mac-related questions with hopefully more clarity and insight than you could ever need. As always, I want to thank those of you who sent in questions this week. They are much appreciated. Keep it up! And remember, if you have a question about anything Mac or Mac-related, send it to me, The MACist, at: themacist at... more ›