So, I have a beautiful new 13″ MBP. I enthusiastically used the migration assistant to copy over all my data from my desktop, excited to finally be able to work efficiently with all my files handy while traveling. Everything seemed to go smoothly until I go to update my desktop wallpaper and screen saver and the system preferences pane freezes up. I force-quit and try again, restart and try again, even re-install OSX and migrate my data again, but still the Spinning Beach Ball of Death haunts me.
After much googling, I discover at the very end of this complicated thread (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2035030&start=15&tstart=0) a suggestion to download and install the iLifeSupport update (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/application_updates/ilifesupport903.html) which worked BEAUTIFULLY.
This is only my 3rd day of MBP ownership. Hopefully this will be the last of my troubles but if not you can count on me letting you know about it. 
Filed under: mac
i’ve had some trouble recently on my macbook running leopard. i noticed that it was running very hot, and the fan was LOUD, so i checked the activity monitor and the process, syslogd was going nuts at 100+% CPU. I don’t even know WTF it does, but certainly nothing I care enough to burn my thighs over.
so, fast forward a couple months. after a few more incidents, downloading a temperature and fan speed monitor, and generally being paranoid that my computer will overheat itself to death, i decided this can’t be just an isolated incident. sure enough, the internet suggested a couple possible solutions for now, and hopefully this bug will be fixed in a patch soon.
try this:
- disable “back to my mac”
- stop time machine, force quit syslogd, restart time machine
- download a temperature/fan speed monitor to keep an eye on things
over the last few days i’ve put quite a lot of thought into my new computer purchase. my one nerdy friend commented that microsoft wont be supporting XP after SP3, and with all vista’s issues i felt that took the PC out of consideration, plus all the research and time it would take to put together the ideal system would be prohibitive because i want this computer ASAP. then, my other nerdy friend remarked that the imac probably wouldnt be that much more fast than my macbook, which, in the end, would be a waste of money. two kinda fast computers don’t make one superfast computer. so, mostly through process of elimination, i settled on the mac pro tower. here are the specs:
3.00 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon
1GB 667 DDR2 FB DIMM ECC-2×512 (to be upgraded to 5GBs after purchase from crucial.com)
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s drive
16x SuperDrive DL
Airprt Extrm & BT 2.0+EDR
WL Apple Kybd & WL Mgty Ms
Mac OS X
i’ll let you all out there on the internets know how my new mac pro works out for me. i really hope i’ll think its worth the money. if it disappoints, i think it will put a nail in the mac coffin for me.
tis the season for frivolous-yet-tax-deductible spending. i’m looking to spend less than $2000.00 on a desktop computer that is SUPERFAST, since my cute macbook has difficulty running the entire CS3 suite at once (and i MUST be able to do this – multitasking is my life). Flash in particular really bogs down my computer right now.
i’ve been trying to decide between the lesser of these two evils. if anyone out there has any related experiences or advice, particularly with the imac or some other mac desktop, please share!
1) 2.4ghz imac (20 inch)
+ looks pretty
+ compatible with my laptop
+ comes with good quality monitor
+ no viruses!
+ supports 4gbs of ram ($163 at crucial, $850 at apple.com…. where do they get off??)
-/+ OSX is a memory hog, but its kinda grown on me
- can’t tweak/upgrade like a pc
- more expensive than comparable pc
- i have no experience with it, don’t know how it handles the programs i use most
- steve jobs sucks
2) build-my-own-pc
+ hardware totally hand-picked and upgradeable (i’ve been building PCs since high school)
+ easy to tweak for best memory efficiency
+ i’m confident that XP can handle the workload
- viruses
- time-consuming to research all the parts and options
- vista BLOWS – gotta find an old copy of XP
- all the software i have now is for the mac
- i have no idea how i will manage my files between a pc and a mac
- bill gates sucks
i discovered two enhancements to firefox the other day that have made my life awesome (and consequently resulted in much more internet surfing – uh oh). the first is a build of firefox that has been optimized for intel macs. its AWESOME (i’m saying it again). no more 60+% cpu usage by the firefox-bin. i open up all the browser windows i want and it’s totally cool. now i’m just kinda mad at the firefox people for not making this update themselves. what the hell people? but thanks Neil, for doing what FF can’t.
the second browser happiness is pretty trivial but it has solved months of discontent for me. when i switched to my mac i was disappointed to find that firefox does not include the icons of websites in the bookmarks toolbar, for some bizarre reason i can’t figure out. anyway i found this plugin – mac favicons – and i have my icons back! hooray!!!
im sleepy, but not too sleepy, so here’s the latest:
I did the re-install of OSX and everything went swimmingly. I backed up firefox, thunderbird, fonts, and my itunes library. I had discs for all my software, or downloaded it again from the internet. I ran techtool 3 times since then and no weird failures. I also have 10 more GBs of free space and boot up is a whole lot faster. The only minor hiccup seems to be that I forgot to try and backup my Transmit settings, so I have to hunt down my FTP password again. All in all, it went well, and only took a few hours. I’ll say that restarting from scratch on a Mac is definitely much easier than on a PC.
I discovered a couple awesome new tools also. The first is Disk Inventory X, and its kinda like Add/Remove programs in Windows in that you can see how much memory a program is taking up. But its got a cool color coded visual representation too. The other AWESOME tool is iStumbler. It displays wireless networks in a way similar to the way Windows does… sorting them by strength and showing you which are open or protected. I am impressed that the areas where OSX had disappointedly lacked when compared to Windows seem to be made up for by these small useful tools.
Annnnnd the bad news… I had purchased a monitor 7 months ago (a Sceptre 22″ LCD) and it worked great until suddenly the DVI input stopped working. It flickered a bit and then one day just died. So, I tried bringing it back to Microcenter but of course they don’t deal with that crap after 30 days, so I have to mail it out to California to be repaired. In the meantime, since I have a friend who will take it when its repaired, I figure I’ll get myself a new monitor. I found some reviews that said the Samsung 206BW 20″ had great color depth, etc etc. so I decide to give it a go. This time I got the extra Microcenter warranty for 25 bucks. I bring it home, open the package, plug it in, turn it on, and nothing. NOTHING AT ALL. Not even a self-test or blinking power light. It’s dead . The world hates me. Now I get to go wait in the returns line AGAIN, but at least this time I know I’ll get my exchange no problem. I hope they don’t start remembering me there.
Why does everything have to be so freakin difficult??
Filed under: mac
i ran that techtool product that comes with the apple care package, and the volume structure test failed! and then it says it can fix it but only if i have a version of the software that includes both diagnostic and repair capabilities. for some reason i can’t seem to track this “repair capabilities” software down.
i’d probably just think it was a faulty scan but i also get a lot of weird errors and slowness on boot up. my plan is to just reformat and do a clean OSX install. i’m thinking this might have something to do with my installing and deleting of a boot camp partition.
first, the techy nerd update: I went on a bit of a spending spree and bought a RAM upgrade (up to 2 GBs now) for my macbook. the difference is amazing!!! I’m much happier with the performance of my baby now. hey, look at that, i’m using terms of endearment. it must be love.
I also bought a canon mp460 off of my friend for cheap. so, I decided since i saved money that i would splurge on the bluetooth wireless adapter. WHeeee! Now I can print things from my laptop from anywhere in the room. I haven’t tested yet to see if i can print from the living room, but that would be awesome.
and then, the updated RESUME. I’ve been busier than ever before (well, some finals weeks back in college were pretty bad, but at least now i’m getting paid for what i do) working all day long for Arnold and then going home and working on stuff for the awesome folks at Rainbow Media. I’m tired.
I also realize how much better it is to work from home. Freelancing full time is a weird stress: great to have people to talk to and interact with, but sucky to be sitting at a desk knowing you’re getting paid to sit there and get things done but not always having things to do or not always wanting to be working at full speed. I’ve become a fan of project rate pricing, because I can goof off all i want, guilt free, as long as i get stuff done.
Filed under: mac
i discovered today that my sound pops and crackles and just sounds awful when running windows (using bootcamp) on my new black macbook. i am not happy about this at all. luckily its nothing crippling, for now, but it sure is irritating.
i tried so many combinations suggested on blogs and support sites… but no luck. either the sound doesnt work at all or it sounds bad. i even tried a usb sound card… which continued to pop and crack. i’m hoping this issue will be addressed in a driver update or a boot camp update… anyone out there find a working solution to this specific problem?
Filed under: mac
i bought a macbook yesterday in an panicky “oh my god i have a job coming up and brightcove’s going to take back their laptop” frenzy. i asked around at work and found a lot of people were very satisfied with running windows on their macbook so it was an easy sell.
i went to the store at cambridgeside after work with adam to make my purchase. pretty straightforward… the black macbook with no extra crap, a miniDVI -> DVI cable, and 2 gigs of RAM (not the wasteful 2 sticks of 512 that comes with it). in response to the latter request the salesguy (actually he looked like he just came out of indie rock camp, and spelled his name kristopher… with a K… yeah) told me it would be an extra $400-$450 for this RAM… to which i said, “WHAT?!? its $175 extra on the site!” and then he went on to say that i wouldn’t even be given back this extra RAM, that i PAID for! WTF? i wanted to try and sell it or something, get some of that ridiculous 400 bucks back. but no, apparently kristopher says its no good once you’ve handled it. hmmm maybe you should tell that to all my old sticks of RAM that i used to build my own PC.
anyway, after a ridiculous conversation where static bracelets and bags were discussed, we asked “what does Apple do with all these extra unused sticks of RAM?” Kristopher had no idea. i’m coming up with all sorts of conspiracy theories about this… but none of them seem terribly plausible. but its fun to think Apples trying to take over the world with sticks of 512 megs of RAM.
regardless of all of that my macbook is running very smoothly with windows using bootcamp. i’ve barely looked at osx, pretty much just to install bootcamp. i did run into an issue where the drivers installation off the disc that bootcamp burns flashed the bluescreen and rebooted… but everything seems ok and unaffected. i found it very easy to transfer all the files and settings i would want using file transfer manager, and coping the application data folder in documents and settings.
tomorrow’s my last day of work at brightcove! i’m gonna show off my macbook 
