From MacHouse. Funny stuff!
Archive for the ‘Mac’ Category
Windows Vista And Mac OS X Leopard Upgrade Chart
Friday, February 2nd, 2007Launchy: Quicksilver style launcher for Windows
Thursday, February 1st, 2007Quicksilver is arguably the most indispensable app on my Mac. A Mac without Quicksilver is sort of like watching TV minus a TiVo. It’s also something I wish was available for Windows.
So it was nice to see Launchy version 1.0 Final released last week over on SourceForge. While not as feature rich as Quicksilver is today, just being able to launch apps with an alt+space in XP is a huge step forward!
Hello Apple iPhone!
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
At long last, Apple announced the iPhone! For months I’ve been tossing around the idea of buying a Nokia N80. Scratch that idea. Hello iPhone.
MacRumors.com provided great live coverage… with perhaps one exception. At 9:18 am (PST) MacRumors (erroneously?) reported, “we’re only talking about the mac today”. Two minutes later Apple’s stock dropped roughly $2, only to bounce back up when the iPhone was officially introduced. Whoops.
[Update] – From the keynote video available on iTunes, the following is what Steve Jobs said.
“So, 2007 is going to be a great year for the Mac. But this is all we’re going to talk about the Mac today. We’re going to move on to some other things and over the course of the next several months we’re going to roll out some awesome stuff for the Mac. But for today we’re going to move on.”
Safari Alternatives: Flock
Thursday, October 5th, 2006Well my brief browser affair with Camino has ended. It was great while it lasted, but the lack of a built in spell checker was really starting to annoy me. So a few weeks ago I downloaded Flock and for the moment, couldn’t be happier! Flock is billed as a social web browser and as such has built in photo (flickr) service, favorites (del.icio.us) sharing, and blog (wordpress, etc) posting capabilities. But what I really like about Flock is it’s built in RSS news reader/aggregator which presents all your feeds in a very visual newspaper layout.
If I had a rating system, Flock would receive 5/5 
Flock is available for Mac, Linux, and Windows.
Mac OS X 10.4.8 Woes
Monday, October 2nd, 2006I installed the 10.4.8 delta update over the weekend and now my MBP no longer asks for a password when waking from sleep or screen saver.
Doing a quick search online suggested removing some preferences. So I removed these files:
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist
~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.screensaver.*
That didn’t work. I also tried Disk Utility to repair any permission issues. The scan found a few files that needed correcting but my MBP still doesn’t ask for a password. The last thing I did was reinstall the 10.4.8, this time using the Combo updater. Still not working.
It’s interesting that my G5 with the 10.4.8 delta update remembers my security preferences. Oh well.
UPDATE [Oct 29] – I give up! Too many problems with 10.4.8 (not sleeping, random crashes). The MBP is back to 10.4.7.
UPDATE [Oct 8] – I gave YASU a try and the ability to lock my MBP has partially returned. I’m now asked for a password only when waking from screensaver. Still no luck when waking from sleep. I used these options in YASU:
Safari Alternatives
Monday, July 31st, 2006
I can’t keep Safari from crashing on my MacBook Pro! The most frustrating part about this is that there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason for the crashes. Safari crashes when I have one tab open, 20 tabs open, when I close a window, open a new tab, and so forth. Its really annoying.
So last weekend I set out to find a decent replacement browser. Camino seems to be the right answer at this moment and feels right at home on my Mac. Camino takes Mozilla’s excellent Gecko rendering engine and adds an OS X optimized interface.
Camino can be downloaded from www.caminobrowser.org. If you’re like me and have an Intel-based Mac and prefer to have an Intel optimized version of Camino, one can be found at www2.hawaii.edu/~coreya. Coreya provides a great document outlining the steps that were taken to build the optimized version – I may try and build my own version at some point. In the mean time, I’m using the Intel optimized version of Camino found there.
As for Firefox, Neil Lee over at BeatnikPad is building an Intel optimized version of that browser. You can download the Intel optimized version of Firefox from his site at www.beatnikpad.com/firefox.
Both are great browsers to have.
[Edit] More info on the Intel optimized version of Camino can be found on mozillaZine. And some useful plugins can be found at PimpMyCamino.
Shopping for Mac Accessories in Tokyo
Friday, July 21st, 2006Walk into any Yodobashi or Bic store in Tokyo, locate the Mac/iPod department and you’ll immediately discover that you’ve walked into Apple accessory heaven. Of course a lot of what you can find in Japan can be found at various online sites, but it’s just plain fun to see such an assortment on display.
So with every trip to Japan, I prepare a list of Mac accessories and toys. This time around I picked up a few things for my MacBook Pro.
- Sanwa LCD-154W Screen Protector
- Power Support Wrist Rug
- Power Support Body Film
- MacBook Pro slot covers
OSX Password Manager
Sunday, June 11th, 2006The first thing I did after configuring my MBP with my AP was to google roboform+osx. Nothing of value came back. Well it’s been about two of weeks and I still have a couple of hundred passwords to enter into Keychain. Ugg, not fun.
Keychain is nice but it’s functionality (afaik) is sorta limited. For instance, I can’t use the Keychain with Firefox and Keychain doesn’t support multiple passwords per site.
I really miss RoboForm. So just for fun I googled again and this time a few links from the top was a link to 1Passwd. At last, a Mac password manager! 1Passwd works with Safari and Firefox, and it imports RoboForm data. Hallelujah.
As soon as 1Passwd reaches GM, my order is going in.
Upgrading MacBook Pro Memory
Monday, June 5th, 2006
Who wants to spend $300 for 1GB of Apple branded ram? Not me! So, I checked the reviews at Newegg.com and gave Fry’s a call to see what they had in stock. Fry’s has a liberal return policy and I decided to buy what they had (Patriot, Mushkin, and Corsair), test, then return the ram that didn’t work. I also purchased 512MB of Apple branded memory ($90) just in case the Fry’s stuff didn’t work.
First up was the Patriot 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300). I turned on my MacBook Pro and it seemed to boot okay… but then it stopped. An error message telling me there was a hardware problem appeared. I shutdown the MPB, reseated the ram and turned the MBP on again. The same error message appeared. Strike one, that was the end of that test.
Next I tried the CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300). No error messages this time – good! So, I booted the MBP into the Apple Hardware Test. I tested the memory 5 times with the Apple Hardware Test and each time the extended memory test failed. I reseated the memory, swapped sticks, nothing worked. I guess the Corsair memory won’t work either. Strike two.
I really wanted one of these three brands to work… the Mushkin was all that I had left. But it didn’t work either and after another 30 minutes of failed testing I gave up. Strike three on the Mushkin ram.
In the end, I returned all the ram I purchased from Fry’s along with the 512MB Apple ram (why spend $90 for 512MB?). I think I’ll call Other World Computing. More to come!
MacBook Pro at Last
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006If my memory serves me correctly (as they say on Iron Chef) I think it was about one year ago when I last considered buying a Mac notebook. I very much remember visiting my local Apple Store the night before a long business trip to Asia. But I decided to wait and left the Apple Store empty handed, without a PowerBook. And as it turns out, that was the right thing to do.
So with the transition to Intel in full swing over at Steveland, I figured now was the right time and returned to my local Apple Store. The difference this time is that I left with a 15-inch MacBook Pro in hand. And let me just say, I couldn’t be happier!
Aside from the 3rd degree burns I’m developing on my legs from the intense heat this thing pumps out, this is probably the nicest notebook I’ve ever used. The screen is gorgeous and the keyboard it perfect with just the right feedback. As I like to say, it’s high quality.
For those considering a MacBook Pro, try to find one built just recently. I have a week 17 build and have no issues! Of course, your mileage may vary, but I’ve read of some problems from machines built during weeks 1 through 16 in 2006. This whole week thing brings back fond memories of my MINI purchase 
