08/29/2009

7 Hours to upgrade to Snow Leopard - worth it?

Tags: Mac

A quick note for those planning to upgrade to Snow Leopard: check the kind of partition you intend to install Snow Leopard on.

Somehow I managed to have an Apple Partition Map (APM) rather than the GUID style needed. The fix was simple but a little time consuming. If you know a better solution than this, please do tell..

  • Installed the brilliant "Super Duper"
  • Connected a GUID formatted external drive
  • Used Super Duper to make a botable copy of my internal drive [3 hours]
  • Once complete rebooted and booted from the external drive by holding down the option key as the computer booted and chose the external volume
  • Used the OSX disk utility to repartition and format the internal drive ensuring that you I chose the GUID partition type, I formatted with the extended journaled fomat case insensitive [I was erasing all the data on my internal drive at this point so I checked the copy I booted to make sure all of data was there and that I repartitioned the right drive]
  • Used Super Duper to backup [restore] the external drive to the internal drive [3 Hours]
  • Rebooted with the USB drive disconnected

Snow Leopard would now install. Installation seemed to take about an hour. The result's aren't spectacular but this Macbook seems faster and I haven't found any appplications that won't work yet. Not sure how I ended up with the APM but I suspect it's a default option.

All in all the upgrade took 7 or so hours, Is it worth the effort? The jury is still out but things in general feel a little faster which is good.

Posted by Jason Hook At 9:50 PM Location | | Comments (0)

11/09/2008

Have bought an Airport Extreme

Tags: MAC Networking

I've been using a ZyXEL wireless G modem and router for a while and it's been driving me mad.  The wireless LAN seems to have an "oh you want to actually use me for something? No, that won't do" feature that causes the WLAN to drop out whenever it's called upon.  On top of that the WAN would also drop out sporadically obviously as some sort of redundant system just in case the WLAN hadn't already gone down.

Very frustrating.

Half the problem lies I think in the overcrowded 2.4 ghz frequency here.  Normally we've got five wireless DECT Telephones and there are two XBOX 360's nearby Not much I can do about that stuff so I'm hoping I'll have better luck with the 5Ghz range offered by the Extreme.

The Airport was a doddle to set up.  To configure the router you need to install software, I'd prefer a Web Interface.  The Airport Utility works well but the Airport seems less configurable than the ZeXEL.  There are no parental controls, bandwidth management, or content filtering for example.  The good news is I don't care about those things

Within a couple of minutes of plugging the Airport in it's up and running and doing useful work downloading the WordPress Jumpbox VM Ware appliance.  It seems fast much faster than the wireless G, that's to be expected.

The Airport doesn't have a built in modem so it's plugged into the ZyXEL still, but so far so good. If the random disconnection goblins have been banished then the AE wil be worth every penny of the £120 paid.

Next job is to plug in an external USB disk and start using Time Machine.

Posted by Jason Hook At 10:25 PM Location | | Comments (3)

09/23/2008

Applications on my MacBook

Tags: Mac OSX

Here are some of the Apps/Utilities I'm using.  All of the info you need is available via the links for each product.

Caboodle:
Collect and keep Snippets of Text and Images.  I'm using a version that came free with Macworld, there are alternatives which may be better (Scrivener, NoteBook, et al) but this one does the job.
http://www.dejal.com/caboodle/

VMWare:
Fusion 2.0

TextMate:
Great text editor
http://macromates.com/

Coda:
Text Editor/HTML/CSS Editor with Subversion support, find and replace across files, and FTP, SFTP, FTP+SSL, and WebDAV support
Online reference books
http://www.panic.com/coda/

CSS Edit:
Open a remote site in css edit, download the styles, tinker with the CSS and see your changes override the real styles
http://macrabbit.com/cssedit/

Skitch:
Ace screenshot tool
http://www.skitch.com/

Super Duper:
Very cost effective backup tool.  Free verson allows you to clone your disk.
www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

OmniGraffle Pro:
Like MS Visio but better
www.omnigroup.com

QuickSilver:
Launch Apps, Files, Scripts quickly just by typing a couple of characters
http://www.blacktree.com/


Tidy Up:
Find and prune duplicate files
http://www.hyperbolicsoftware.com/TidyUp.html

Easyfind:
Find files easily with wildcards
http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/index.html

Comic Life Deluxe:
Make Comics out of your photos
www.plasq.com
http://weblog.jasonhookonline.com/jho/blog.nsf/images/JHOK-7JQTYE/$File/Barney.png" alt="Barney.png" />

AppCleaner:
Delete applications cleanly
http://www.freemacsoft.net/AppCleaner/

ClamAv:
Anti-virus
www.clamav.net

Name Mangler:
Bach rename of files
http://www.manytricks.com/namemangler/

KeyCue:
Shows the shortcut combinations for the App your using
http://www.macility.com/downloads/dnld_keycue.html

Posted by Jason Hook At 1:17 AM Location | | Comments (1)

08/08/2008

Notes 8 Beta NSD followed by fault report followed by SMTP Error 550 sending fault report

Tags: Notes Mac ND8B1
Notes crashed for the first time the other day (Nothing to do with VMWare. I tried running the Windows Beta of VMWare Workstation recently which then ate my VM. So until I get over the PITA that losing the VM was - no beta of VMWare anything). Anyhoo Notes crashes reading mail I think: nsd.png After the restart a little dialog asks me if I want to report the error. Of course, says I this is a beta after all, feedback is good. Well it's only useful if it's wanted Error550.gif Apart from the one little crash it's been solid.

Posted by Jason Hook At 11:18 PM Location | | Comments (0)

02/23/2008

Mac Update Keyboard Firmware

Tags: Mac
So much going on at the moment I've not been able to find time for many things. Hopefully after a weekend catching up I'll have a few things to talk about next week. In the meantime I thought I'd mention that Apple have just released a firmware update for the MacBook and MacBook Pro keyboards. I've been struggling a bit with my MacBook keyboard but just assumed I wasn't hitting the keys hard enough. Looks like that wasn't wholly the case as the firmware update has made keystrokes much more reliable. Updating my previous post on life with the MacBook - I've had one or two Apple-Equiv BSOD's with GarageBand and VMWare Fusion recently. In both cases the OS just put up a screen telling me that I have to restart the systemusing the power button. Anything I was working on was lost. This seems worse than the equivalent event in Windows where the OS survives an application crashing more often than not. Not sure exactly what's going on. When I restart I get the chance to submit crash information to Apple who provide no feedback at all. It's odd but even though the Windows feedback is generally useless at least you get something..... I miss having a disk light - there's probably a software one somewhere I try to find it. I'm upgrading the Macbooks memory and considering a HDD upgrade (from 120 to 250gb) I've currently got 2.5Gb ram in this machine and I'm placing an order for another 2Gb with Crucial to give me the maximum 4Gb. I'm currently evaluating Vector Graphics/Image Manipulation and Web Development tools (Can't justify CS3 or Studio 8 unfortunately) - if you have any recommendations I'd love to hear about them. TTFN

Posted by Jason Hook At 1:00 AM Location | | Comments (0)

02/03/2008

Are you Skitching (Mac)?

Tags: MAC Graphics Software
We arrived home yesterday and after a long sleep we're getting unpacked and ready for a return to normal life I'm thinking about a Lotusphere wrap-up post but in the interim and as I'm working on a short how-to post for NotesBerry.org I thought I'd mention a couple of cool bits of Mac software I'm using: Skitch - http://www.skitch.com Easy Screen Grabbing and annotating. Integrates with the iSight Mac camera. Skitch.com also allows easy image hosting and sharing with support for Flickr and MySpace. At the moment Skitch is a public Beta so you can download it for free, Comic Life - http://www.plasq.com Ever wanted to create a comic or maybe make how-to articles more interesting :-; then have a look a Comic-Life! Comic-Life integrates nicely with iPhoto and allows you to create Graphic Novel/Comic layouts. It has a bunch of filters that can be applied to images to make them appear hand drawn, or colorized. You can download a 30 day evaluation from www.plasq.com.

Posted by Jason Hook At 4:23 PM Location Home | | Comments (0)

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