With Windows 8 now finally released, there comes a new generation of hardware with a strong emphasis on the input device – the fingers. Touch as we know and love today has been around in common perception since the release of the first iPhone which was in 2007. The first smartphone like phone was actually released in 1994 by IBM, the IBM Simon. Based on todays standards you can imagine this wasn’t a device one would call “a beauty”. In fact, the Wikipedia page lists the form factor as “brick”. From a current point of view you probably wouldn’t want to use and play around with such a type of touch interface.
Category: Computer
(Mountain) Lion automatically wakes from sleep
Since I first got my iMac I always wondered why the machine would suddenly just wake up from Sleep in the middle of the night. I didn’t touch it since at night I prefer to sleep (or else I must be sleepwalking). I initially found a way to fix this but it came up again with the update to Mountain Lion (which just reset the preference).
Go the System Preferences and hit Energy Saver. There you’ll uncheck Wake for Wi-Fi network access (in German: Ruhezustand bei Netzwerkzugriff beenden). I figured that must be the reason because at night my router automatically turns off wireless and just before I get home from work it turns it back on. For me it did the trick.
Here are two images, one from my machine (in German) and one found on Google for an english machine.
Controlling a Mac’s fans (AppleSMC)
Since the iMac found its way onto my desk I’ve been bothered with the heat generated when playing Diablo 3 (or possibly any other game) – just as with the MacBook Pro. The only difference: The MacBook’s fans were howling to stop the torment, the iMac just swallows the pain it seems. Don’t get me wrong, the system is not overheating and temperature is well within its limits. In fact, the CPU doesn’t even really heat up. It’s more the graphics chip and the power supply. But for me as a former PC user who built all the PCs himself and always had a good (and mostly quiet) cooling this is just a bit unusual.Read More »

