So why is a full inbox a bad thing? Both Apple’s Mail.app and Microsoft’s Outlook (née Entourage) both launch into your inbox. If you have a lot of mail there, all that mail has to load each time you launch the app. When you have 35,000 messages, each of those messages loads when the inbox is loaded. Which means each time you launch your email all 35,000 messages have load – attachments and all. Now let’s say you wanted to find an email you sent. Whether you search for it, or go into the sent messages folder, going back into the inbox causes, you guessed it, your entire inbox to load!!!

Ok so we’ve established keeping all your emails in your inbox is a bad thing – so what do you do?

One thing to do is make folders. Here’s where most people go – but if I make a folder I won’t have that mail on my phone! Well stop POP’ing mail.

Interlude: The difference between POP and IMAP. POP essentially means you pull the messages off the server. So your computer has the only copy. IMAP means you are looking at the server, so if you mark it read on your computer it’s marked read on your server. Folders also sync with IMAP. End interlude

If you use IMAP you can have folders in your mail application and they will show up on your phone. If you file something on your phone, it will be filed automatically when you look at your computer next time. Amazing!

Another thing to do is use the Rules. Any good mail application has the ability to apply rules to mail. A rule would be if this mail is from a specific person move it from my inbox into my folder for that person. For the computer that would be:

if mail is from joe@domain.com move to FOLDER:FamilyMail

Mail app would look like this:

Mail.app rules

Using rules and folders still allows you to search for emails, and allows for quick loading of your inbox. Doing it this way makes you more efficient that waiting for your inbox to load.

Next time, use a folder

Leave us your stories in the comments about how you use mail rules.

The post Keep your inbox clean…seriously! appeared first on Virtua Computers.

conference is this week in California. Adobe usually takes this time to show off it’s suite of products that will be coming soon. This year they made a turn that we all saw coming – they are going fully cloud based.

Last year Adobe started with Adobe CS 6 Common Cloud edition. Man that’s a mouthful. This year they announced that coming this year will be Adobe Creative Cloud. No more standalone applications to be installed. Creative Suite 6 (the current release) will continue to have some bug fixes but will be the last version of its kind.

Adobe’s Creative Cloud

More details will be posted as they come out of Adobe central.

Leave your comments about your thoughts about this switch. Do you like the idea of paying monthly for a software versus a lump sum?

The post Adobe CS is now Adobe CC – all cloud! appeared first on Virtua Computers.

comScore smartphone percentages.

comScore top smartphone operating systems

What smartphone do you use?

Let us know in the comments.

The post Apple’s smartphone market share near 40% appeared first on Virtua Computers.

© thanks for pix itunes

App Store

is going to be one lucky S.O.B. Apple is holding a contest for that person and they will win a $10,000 gift card to Apple. Apple recently crossed the 25 billionth download back in February 2012. Do the math folks. In just over a year another 25 billion apps will have been downloaded. That’s a lot of downloads (and a lot of money for Apple).

Apple will give $500 gift cards for the first fifty people to download apps after the 50,000,000,000. So if you are semi-lucky end up being the 50,000,000,043 person – you are in luck!

In other news. Apple has released iOS 6.1.4 for users of the iPhone 5. The 11.5MB update just says “Updated audio profile for speakerphone”. There were no beta, there was no announcement, just poof it appeared. To download the update open your Settings app on you iPhone. Go to the General settings, and tap Software Update.

If anyone notices the actual changes, leave us a note in the comments.

Have a great friday!

The post Countdown to 50 Billion app store downloads, and more appeared first on Virtua Computers.

In other Apple news

Head Honcho – Tim Cook

The post MacBook Pro declared best Windows laptop!! and other Apple news appeared first on Virtua Computers.

Those USB 3.0 ports alone really make this device worth it. While USB3.0 is slowing arriving on newer Mac computers, Thunderbolt has been around since 2011. If you have an older iMac, or MacBookPro using this dock will allow you to take advantage of USB3.0 devices which are massively more produced that Thunderbolt devices (we are hoping this changes soon.) According to Belkin’s site – the USB 3.0 ports on the dock will only transfer data at 2.5Gbps versus the standard USB 3.0 speed of 4.8Gbps. This is still much faster than USB 2.0 data transfer at 480Mbps.

© Belkin.com

If you do buy the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock – don’t forget to order your Thunderbolt cable from Belkin Store for $39.99 or from Apple for $39.00.

The post Belkin shipping it’s Thunderbolt Express Dock appeared first on Virtua Computers.

Understandable everyone today is “busy”. People need access to their files so quickly they put it in the most convenient place for them. Don’t get us wrong, we get it. The issue is the computer doesn’t get it.

Your Mac computer renders each and every one of those pretty little icons. The more data it has to render on the Desktop the slower your computer will be. The Mac OS’s graphical system uses a lot of resources to display those icons. So when you have a window covering them, and you move said window the graphical system has to redraw all those icons. Each time that redraw happens your computer has to think about what icon is where and of what type. Now of course we are talking about nano-seconds but they add up when you have 2,000 items on your desktop! (Yes we’ve seen someone with 2000+ items on their desktop).

There have even been cases reported where the Desktop itself doesn’t show anything but the internal HD, yet if you open the Desktop folder (Macintosh HD/Users/yourhomefolder/Desktop/) you will see thousands of files. Your computer has now given up on you and instead of displaying all of them, it’s just slowing down. You’ll end up with the spinning rainbow beachball.

Well have no fear – there are solutions for this!

Solution #1 – file them appropriately in correct folders. Mac OS has given you folders for each of these items:

• Documents
• Movies
• Music
• Pictures

Use these folders appropriately. And create subfolders. Got a client you communicate often with? Make a folder inside your Documents folder specifically for your client. Put all those contracts, word files, and the like in there! Then use the Spotlight feature. Quickly search for the title of the documents, or even words inside the document (yes Spotlight can search inside most documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs and even email!).

Solution #2 – Use a helper application. There are some great apps out there, like Hazel and Launchbar to name a few of the more popular ones. These apps help maintain the cleanliness of your desktop.

Do you like having a mess desk? Probably not! Treat your Desktop the same way.
My final statement: Having the file you need on your Desktop for quicker access may actually end up slowing down your whole system and you may end up being less productive because of it!

Do you keep all your files on your Desktop or none? Leave us a comment and tell us how you’ve conquered your Desktops!

The post Desktop Clutter is a no no! appeared first on Virtua Computers.

Have no fear. Since thunderbolt technology is still relatively new and still being adopted, many HD providers are using USB 3 or eSata on their hard drives.

Here’s a better example. You got yourself a MacBook Pro. You have this power demon in your hands, and voila someone hands you The Avengers on BluRay. “Watch this movie!” they say. But alas, your MacBook Pro doesn’t have a BluRay player.

Sonnet has released (for pre-order) the Echo 15 Thunderbolt docking station. This monstrous machine hooks up via Thunderbolt to your Mac, and offers the following:

• Optical drive – either an 8x DVD+-RW or a BluRay drive
• Hard Drive slot – put in a 2.5 or 3.5 HD or SSD
• 4 USB3 ports – 2 on the front, 2 on the back
• 2 Audio In and Out ports (one set on front, one on back)
• Two Thunderbolt ports (hook up more docks!)
• FireWire 800 port
• Gigabit Ethernet port
• Two eSATA ports

Pricing is great, albeit a little funky based on configurations:

• Unit with DVD Drive – $400
• Unit with 2TB HD & DVD Drive – $500
• Unit with BluRay – $450
• Unit with 2TB HD & BluRay – $550

The Echo 15 is slated to ship this summer. Grab one!




Graphic © Sonnet Tech 2013

The post Sonnet releases the thunderbolt dock to end all thunderbolt docks appeared first on Virtua Computers.

]]> http://virtuacomputers.com/sonnet-releases-the-thunderbolt-dock-to-end-all-thunderbolt-docks/feed/ 0 http://virtuacomputers.com/10-8-4-in-development-with-the-q2-earnings-call-on-deck/ http://virtuacomputers.com/10-8-4-in-development-with-the-q2-earnings-call-on-deck/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:17:54 +0000 Justin Esgar http://virtuacomputers.com/?p=2710 Apple has released a development seed of 10.8.4 to AppleSeed testers. These AppleSeed testers are higher level developers than the general, registered OS X developers (which people pay $99/year for). More than likely registered developers will see this beta in the next few days. Apple usually has developers test things like WiFi, and graphic drivers. Hopefully Apple will finally fix some of the bugs, our team has submitted. Have you found what you think is a bug? Submit it to Apple’s bug reporter. In more Apple news, Apple will hold it’s quarterly conference call on Tuesday the 23rd of April. On the docket most likely is the strength in iPhone 5 and iPad mini sales. What will be interesting is how Apple will deal with the drop in their stock over the last recent months. Stay tuned to find out what they say.

The post 10.8.4 in development, with the Q2 earnings call on deck appeared first on Virtua Computers.

]]> Apple has released a development seed of 10.8.4 to AppleSeed testers. These AppleSeed testers are higher level developers than the general, registered OS X developers (which people pay $99/year for). More than likely registered developers will see this beta in the next few days. Apple usually has developers test things like WiFi, and graphic drivers. Hopefully Apple will finally fix some of the bugs, our team has submitted. Have you found what you think is a bug? Submit it to Apple’s bug reporter.

In more Apple news, Apple will hold it’s quarterly conference call on Tuesday the 23rd of April. On the docket most likely is the strength in iPhone 5 and iPad mini sales. What will be interesting is how Apple will deal with the drop in their stock over the last recent months. Stay tuned to find out what they say.

The post 10.8.4 in development, with the Q2 earnings call on deck appeared first on Virtua Computers.

]]> http://virtuacomputers.com/10-8-4-in-development-with-the-q2-earnings-call-on-deck/feed/ 0 http://virtuacomputers.com/facetime-versus-your-imac/ http://virtuacomputers.com/facetime-versus-your-imac/#comments Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:57:08 +0000 Justin Esgar http://virtuacomputers.com/?p=2707 So here’s another client story for you all. A user got a new home computer, and an iPhone 5. She was very excited to start using FaceTime and iMessages to communicate with her kid. The son had an iPod Touch with FaceTime and the client wanted to be able to message him while she was at work. But alas FaceTime would not work on her semi-new iMac in her office. Frustrated she called our company. “Why doesn’t this work? I keep putting in the right password and it complains about the network.”. So I head over thinking about the possible issues. Other users in the office were on FaceTime and iMessages, so it couldn’t be the network itself. I’m sure the user is just typing her password wrong, but then again that would have prompted a “wrong password” error message. At the client, I sit down and start getting to work on it. I make sure the password provided is correct, and I run all the usual checks – log in/out of iCloud, Disk Permissions, Disk Warrior to no avail. I then try FaceTime in another user account with my own personal FaceTime account (knowing that my account works), and again “FaceTime could not sign-in please check your network connection”. So I open up Console.app. What is going on here? I keep seeing apsd: Certificate not yet generated Ok, so how is the certificate generated. FaceTime and iMessage certificate requires the hardware serial of the machine to be made. So I look at past work tickets to see that the logic board has been replaced on this iMac, due to a fault firewire port. A replacement logic board requires the serial number to be reentered into the machine. I open up “About this Mac” – click to see the serial number is blank! Luckily because I have access to some confidential Apple tools, I was able to get a tool to reserialize the logic board. Once that was done, guess what FaceTime logged in! Such a strange scenario, but definitely a learning experience worth sharing.

The post FaceTime versus your iMac appeared first on Virtua Computers.

]]> So here’s another client story for you all.

A user got a new home computer, and an iPhone 5. She was very excited to start using FaceTime and iMessages to communicate with her kid. The son had an iPod Touch with FaceTime and the client wanted to be able to message him while she was at work. But alas FaceTime would not work on her semi-new iMac in her office.

Frustrated she called our company. “Why doesn’t this work? I keep putting in the right password and it complains about the network.”. So I head over thinking about the possible issues. Other users in the office were on FaceTime and iMessages, so it couldn’t be the network itself. I’m sure the user is just typing her password wrong, but then again that would have prompted a “wrong password” error message.

At the client, I sit down and start getting to work on it. I make sure the password provided is correct, and I run all the usual checks – log in/out of iCloud, Disk Permissions, Disk Warrior to no avail. I then try FaceTime in another user account with my own personal FaceTime account (knowing that my account works), and again “FaceTime could not sign-in please check your network connection”.

So I open up Console.app. What is going on here? I keep seeing

apsd: Certificate not yet generated

Ok, so how is the certificate generated. FaceTime and iMessage certificate requires the hardware serial of the machine to be made. So I look at past work tickets to see that the logic board has been replaced on this iMac, due to a fault firewire port. A replacement logic board requires the serial number to be reentered into the machine. I open up “About this Mac” – click to see the serial number is blank!

Luckily because I have access to some confidential Apple tools, I was able to get a tool to reserialize the logic board. Once that was done, guess what FaceTime logged in!

Such a strange scenario, but definitely a learning experience worth sharing.

The post FaceTime versus your iMac appeared first on Virtua Computers.

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