Tag: Apple

New Apple stuff at iBox Plaza Indonesia

Apple’s 2009 lineup is almost complete at iBox APR at Plaza Indonesia. The 27" beast of an iMac has just arrived, Magic Mouse is in stock, as well as the new aluminum Apple Remote. No sign of the 21.5" iMac yet. I wonder why they didn’t just activate the screensaver with a password or lock the screen from Keychain Access on that iMac.

Btw that remote is BIG. Humongous compared to the old white Apple Remote.

Sent from my iPhone

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How to open a locked Time Machine drive

The other day I had the opportunity to troubleshoot two issues on an iMac using iChat’s Screen Sharing feature. While the screen sharing itself isn’t new, it’s been around for ages via various VNC software and was made easier in Mac OS X when Leopard came out in 2007, the actual use of it makes you feel like you’re working in the future.
iMac can’t boot properly
The first problem was that the iMac wouldn’t boot into the system. It would display the Apple logo and just stays there for hours. This is unsolvable using screen sharing since the iMac wouldn’t boot so we went via text chat.

Get the original Install DVD from the box the iMac came in. If you don’t have this DVD or something similar, you’re basically screwed until you can get yourself one or you go to an Apple Service Provider to fix your problem.. Don’t lose this DVD. If you do, you need to have a Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard DVD that you can buy from any Apple Reseller.
Insert the DVD, follow along as if you were to install the OS but once you see the menu bar on top, select Utilities from the menu bar and choose Disk Utility. Select the hard drive of the Mac and choose Repair Permissions. Once it’s done, it doesn’t hurt to click on Repair Disk.

Once you do that, restart the computer.
If the hard drive is not detected by Disk Utility then your problem is more serious than that. You need to take it to an Apple Service Provider.

Locked Time Machine drive
The second problem I faced while troubleshooting that iMac was that it had a Time machine backup drive, presumably a Time Capsule, which was inaccessible. 
Once the iMac restarted successfully, the backup drive appeared with a padlock image on its icon indicating that the user account is unable to access it. It turns out none of the administrator account could access that drive.

Until I found this solution on Apple’s discussion board.
1. Open Terminal
2. Enter the following lines:

sudo chflags nouchg /Volumes/“TM drive name”
followed by

sudo chmod 775 /Volumes/“TM drive name”
This command needs a password.
Note that you have to have a password set for an administrator account. When you enter the first command, you’ll be prompted for a password. This is the password for the administrator account. If you set up your account without a password, go to System Preferences > Accounts > and change the password. You can replace the password with a blank one after this is done if you don’t want to use one.

How do you know you use or have an administrator account? Go to the Accounts pane in System Preferences and see the label underneath your account name.

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iPod touch web ad

The other day I was alerted about this iPod touch ad on IGN.com.

Today I discovered a version of it that ran on wired.com

Both are essentially the same ads playing around with the elements of each website. Cute. Reminds me of the old Get a Mac ad on the New York Times website.

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eStore Redesign

He finally relented after years of persuasion. The store finally looks good. This is the APR at Ratu Plaza.

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Value

Reading this post at Navinot (Indonesian) and this one from Nindya sent flashbacks of business school to my head.

Perceived value is more important than real value. It’s what gets people to buy. Or not buy for that matter. Otherwise why would someone pay so much to fly first class? First class may offer better service than coach, or economy but think about it. Is it really worth the price just because that’s how much they charge for it? How do you monetize the term first class vs business class, vs economy class? How do you know they’re not actually overcharging you? Some even have exceptional economy class service that exceeds that of other airlines’ business class. The brand of the service or product also plays part in determining value.

Apple to some, is arguably one of the biggest offenders in this regard. An iPhone 3G is made up of components costing less than US$300 according to iSupply but a fully unlocked 8GB iPhone 3G costs about US$600 direct from the telcos that do sell unlocked or $700 direct from Apple in Hong Kong. In the US, if you sign up for an iPhone you end up paying in excess of $1800 over the life of the contract (2 years).

Is the Mighty Mouse worth $70? Probably not more than $50. iPods are in general more expensive than their competitors’ but should they be really that much more expensive or are they a bargain? Being able to easily manage music in them via iTunes and other iPod software capabilities add more to value but it’s difficult to be expressed in monetary terms.

And then there’s the Macs themselves. Are they really priced at premiums? Majority of perceptions say yes but perhaps not necessarily. Further to that point, the integration of Mac OS X itself with the hardware as well as across Apple’s other software line up such as iWork, iTunes, iLife, Final Cut or Logic series, and the general stability and seecurity of Mac OS X over XP and Vista present the Mac with an even higher intrinsic and perceived value which makes the seemingly premium price now a bargain.

Ticket price or printed price may be absolute but the value of the product is certainly relative to the eye (and mind) of the buyer.