Aint that special » Hardware

Free your Mac’s IP

Macgiver — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:49:59 +0000

The internet has become as much a part of OS X as Mail.app. But if your like me, your mac is stuck behind several layers of security. My first layer of “protection” is Comcast. Comcast really does not want you running your own server with their cable system. They effectively block IMAP ports to prevent you from running your mac as a mail server. They have even begun to packet shape BitTorrent traffic. There is little the average user can do about this. This outline is about the other layers of security that prevent you from using VNC, Devonthink Server, Omnifocus server and many other applications that now offer data up over the internet. I’ve tailored it for use with the Airport Extreme base station

The first step is to get a static DNS entry and point it at your router. I use DynDNS. I chose something memorable so I don’t have to look it up all the time. If you can remember the IP address of your router, then you can probably skip this step.

Open up the Airport Utility and select your router. Click the “Manual” button in the lower left corner. The IP address that your provider has assigned to the router should appear at the bottom of the next screen. Write that down.

Now go back to the DynDNS web page and enter your routers IP address as the address that you would like traffic routed to. You’re telling DynDNS to make a readable URL address available and point all traffic to your router. Don’t worry, there are TWO firewalls between the internet and your Mac.

Get a static IP address for your Mac

Your Mac’s IP address can be found in the System Preferences. Open the “Network” preferences and select whatever connection you use to get on the internet. Mine is Ethernet 1. On the TCP/IP lozenge, choose “Using DHCP with manual address” as the method for “Configure IPv4″. Most likely, your router is distributing a series of IP address from 10.0.1.1 to 10.0.1.200. You need to choose an IP address outside this range. I suggest using 10.0.1.201. Type that into the box next to “IP Address”. The “Subnet Mask” and “Router” IP address should already be set. Set the DNS server to your router as shown. We only need the router to do the DNS look-up for us anyway.

Firewalls

The Airport Extreme is your first line of protection. No unsolicited traffic can make it past the router. That is, unless we tell the router to make some openings in the firewall. These are called Port forwarding or Port Mapping. To add port mapping to the Airport, click the “Advanced” button at the top of the Airport Utility window.

Now click the “Port Mapping” lozenge

Click the little plus sign underneath the “Allow:” box. The next pop-up window allows you to either choose a common service to add such as Apple Remote Desktop or Windows Sharing. A really useful port to open is the one used for VNC. This will allow you to control your mac remotely from anywhere on the internet.

To add a VNC port, do not select a service. We are going to create one instead. VNC typically uses port 5901, so type that into all the port boxes shown. Enter your Mac’s IP address as the destination of the ports forwarding. This essentially tells the router to send any traffic it receives on port 5901 directly to your Mac.

So now the router understands what to do with the traffic. You have to tell your Mac what to do with it. I said earlier that there were TWO firewalls. The first is the Airport Extreme. The second is the one built into your Mac. Back to the system preferences and open the “Sharing” preferences. Click the “Firewall” lozenge. If you have never done so, turn on your Mac’s firewall and then flog yourself for not maintaining your personal security. Never do that again!

Now click the “New” button to open up a new connection through the Macs firewall. From the pull down menu, select “Other” and enter 5901 as the port number to allow through.

Now the world can access port 5901 on your Mac. That’s kind of scary. You can always go into either Airport Utility or the Mac Firewall and turn off the port again without deleting all the work you did. The same technique can be used to open up BitTorrent or Telekinesis ports. There are several online tools that will tell you if the ports have been successfully unblocked.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Security, Tip, Trick, Web

We are living in the future

Macgiver — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 14:29:22 +0000

If I had any doubt that technology was not living up to my expectations, I’m a believer now. I just installed iPhone Remote on my Mac Pro and all I can say is WOW! My iPhone can control my Mac over the Edge network.

iPhone Remote is brought to us by the good people at Google (code named Telekinesis). Maybe they got tired of waiting for the gPhone and decided to make the iPhone the device dreams are made of. The server software is a quick install. It’s a lot like a VNC server. It runs in the background and receives requests from some port that it is told to listen to. The server software then directs traffic to its own applications. Here is a quick run-down of what you can do remotely from your iPhone.

You can take a picture with your Mac’s video camera and receive it right on your iPhone (only one frame, not a video stream). Any file on your Mac at home can be accessed from your iPhone. How about taking a screenshot of your Mac’s desktop? Yup, you can do that. You want to do a Spotlight search for a file? No probelmo. I’ll illustrate a quick tour of the application below. The screen shots are taken from Safari running on my Mac Pro (since there is no way to take a decent picture of the iPhone interface). But you have to trust me, this looks great on the iPhone.

This first picture is of the iPhone Remote software running on my Mac. It’s very simple to use. Just open up the ports in your firewall and start the server. I like to have the “applications” open in a new window on the iPhone just for ease of use.

This is the main application view on the iPhone. Just tap one of the buttons. That background image is automatically pulled from the Mac running the iPhone Remote server. That’s my desktop.

This is the list of applications on my Mac. Did you forget to fire-up your BitTorrent client this morning? No problem. Just turn it on from your iPhone.

You can just as easily access your files. Click through directories and open up that PDF file right from your phone. I found a strange twist, that I don’t think was intended but could have very interesting consequences. When I clicked on a Subethaedit document that contained an HTML snippet, my Mac opened the document in Subethaedit (talk about remote control!) and my iPhone presented me with a rendered webpage, rather than the snippet of code. I don’t know which surprised me more, windows just poping open on my mac, or the iPhone rendering the HTML code. This opens up a very easy way to make your own web applications without having a web server. I’m not sure this method would support cgi though.

And if you don’t remember where that file is, just use the iPhone Remote’s Spotlight function. Here is a Spotlight search for the word “Perl”

A feature that has a lot of potential, is streaming media from your Mac at home to your iPhone. The server software can stream audio or video directly. You gotta have a remote to control that music, right? One is included.

While the Edge service may never be fast enough to allow for true Remote Desktop, there is a work around. You can actually select and then trigger Applescripts from your iPhone. This has potential to allow you to FTP upload to servers, start Backup software, or even secure a stolen computer.

Finally, for all those Leet Mac users, there is actually a Terminal application. Finally, we can run our cron jobs while we’re on the road.

The service works through a secure shttp connection, so you don’t need to worry too much about the data being transmitted. It’s all encrypted. However, it’s a little scary to think that if some nefarious person gets your user name and password, they can have complete snooping privileges. I like a suggestion I found on the Telekinesis Wiki which is to setup some Mail.app Applescript triggers. Send an email with the Subject “iPhone Remote On” and voila, your Mac starts up the server. Send another email to turn it off. It’s really just one more layer of security. You could even have the script look for a particular password in the body of the message before running.

iPhone Remote is a wonderful application. Apple may someday provide an SDK for the iPhone, but until then, a little creativity and elbow grease will carry the device a long way.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mac, Programming, Review, Security, Software, Tip, Trick, Web

Apple, why do you hate early adopters?

Macgiver — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 02:02:19 +0000

If you read through the posts on this site, you will see, on the whole, I love me some Apple products. I’m thinking of declaring Apple as a dependent on my next tax return. However, I’ll be the first to warn a new switcher to stay away from first generation products. They are always buggy! Worse, rather than fix our hardware, they just release version 2 with the added feature of having fewer bugs. Now I know nothing is perfect, but it’s pretty well know that Apple’s Version 1 releases are particularly bad.
I just received my new Apple keyboard to use with my MacPro. Sure, it’s sexy. It’s lightweight. The cord is slightly longer (which means I can recline and write). And… the function keys don’t work. Oh wait, that’s not a feature.

The first 4 function keys do nothing. In fact you can not reassign them to any function. I thought I got around the problem by just using the plethora of other F-keys provided. I just use F13-F16. But then I noticed the buttons on my Logitech MX Revolution mouse stopped working. I had a great work-flow that involved the side buttons on the mouse for Expose modes. Basically it looks like the keyboard breaks Expose and Dashboard triggers.

Has anyone else had this problem? The keyboard works just fine for my new iMac. I’ve installed and reinstalled the Apple Keyboard Software and Logitech Software as well as unplugging the keyboard several times.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Gear, Mac, Review

Go-go Gadget Fleece

Macgiver — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 15:04:27 +0000

I recently picked up the Scottevest Fleece 4.0 Jacket. I don’t know if there were even versions 1.0-3.0, but I’m pretty happy with this latest build. It was on sale for $139.99 and I had a discount code. The whole thing came to $130 with 3 day shipping.

The Review
First off, this thing is the best fleece jacket you can get for your gear. Before I get to all of the go-go gadgety goodness, I want to highlight what a great jacket it is. It’s made of pretty thick material. Almost too thick. This isn’t the kind of fleece you would were when it’s 70+ outside. This sucker is WARM. The cuffs have elastic banding, which I’m not really a fan of, but if you are then you’ll love it. The stitching is surprisingly not that sturdy, but definitely adequate. I have a Patagonia and a Northface fleece. As far as construction, the Scottevest is on par with the NorthFace fleece, but inferior to the Patagonia. But hey, this jacket is not about becoming an heirloom for your kids. It’s about hauling all that electronic gear around with you.The jacket has 12 pockets of varying sizes and positions. It almost has too many pockets if that’s possible. I can see losing stuff in this baby pretty easily. The jacket comes with little cards in some of the pockets describing special features. I really appreciate that level of concern for their users (I consider this jacket to be a piece of hardware more than a simple garment). Two of the cards actually have this printed on them:“Special Features: It’s a hidden pocket! Other than creating an extra pocket where there was none before, there are no special features associated with this pocket”. I think that says it all about the number of pockets this thing has.Several of the pockets have magnetic closures. Apparently magnets are the new velcro. They are definitely convenient, but I’m left wondering why some pockets have velcro and some have magnets, while others have zippers. I think I would prefer magnets instead of Velcro for most of the pockets.The pockets are positioned conveniantly for all of the primary gear. Many of the gadgets are accessable from both inside and outside of the jackets (this is a very handy feature). The jacket also has something called a Personal Area Network (PAN) which is essential a channel to route the various cables that usually end up dangling out of your pocket. With the Scottevest, your iPod headphones now run up the inside of the jacket to the colar.There is a microfiber cloth clipped inside one of the pockets. Now this proves the jacket was designed by fellow geeks. Several times a week, I wish I had a microfiber cloth in my pocket to wipe my iPhone screen (I even considered carrying a hanky in my back pocket like grandpa did).
The little extras
There are wide elastic bands inside some of the larger pockets. I mean large enough to put around your phone or iPod to secure it. The shoulders of the jacket are extra thick to help support all the weigh of your gear. My other jacket would really start to slide off my shoulders when the pockets were laden with tech treasures.An id badge clip is included inside the jacket, but it is far too flimsy to be useful. It’s actually surprising how crumby it is, as it stands out from the great quality of the rest of the jacket. The Key clip in the outside pocket is of much better quality, albeit too small for my keyring.The drawstrings at the bottom of the jacket are thick and sturdy. While the front zipper is smooth, it’s feels a little cheap in comparison the outer fabric of the jacket.There is a large pocket on the inside of the back panel. It is suggested that this be used for a hydration pack (such as a Camelbak). I can see using it to hold a magazine or files during a commute. I’m sure it wont go to waste.

Shortcomings
Finally, the two areas I would like to see improved in the jacket, is the quality of the mesh used for the pockets and the quality of the small zippers on the pockets. Considering that the pockets are really what make this jacket unique, I expected more attention to detail here. The mesh is fairly thin and I can imagine it getting ripped pretty easily. The zippers are small toothed and get snagged a lot. I with they would have gone with a more dense mesh and some large tooth nylon zippers like on a Timbuk2 bag. I’d like to see the innovation of Scottevest merged with the quality and simplicity of Timbuk2. I’d pay double for that product.

Conclusion
The Scottevest Fleece 4.0 Jacket is worth more than the $150 price tag. You get some really innovative layouts for your gear and a high quality fleece to boot. This would be a great jacket for the most of the year but I’m a little worried about the durability of the pockets. I’ll have an update at the end of winter on its durability.

Technorati Tags: Clothing, Gear, iPhone, iPod, Organization, Review

Don’t do it!

Macgiver — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:50:50 +0000

I tried out a trick making the rounds on many of the Mac news sites. Supposedly, it is possible to enable Apple’s Front Row on the MacPro.

This sounded like a great idea. I’d love use my Mac Pro as a media machine but for some reason Apple chose not to include an IR remote with the Mac Pro. The hack seemed easy enough. Just modify the AppleHIDMouse extension to allow the mighty mouse to control Front Row.Â So I backed up my file and applied the hack. I then tried to install Front row from my installer CD but got the usual error. So I downloaded the updated installer from Apple. This time it claimed to install the package, but I couldn’t find the application anywhere on my machine. So, I gave up and pretended nothing happened.

Well, my Mac wasn’t going along with that decision. Within a few hours I was having kernel panics just about every hour. For no particular reason. Sometimes when I was using iTunes. Sometimes in Safari. No specific cause.

I tried to just replace the modified extension and delete the cache files. This, of course, required me to rebuild my privileges as well. No good. I was starting to think that I would have to do a new system install. I finally resorted to running Onyx, restarting, and then running Applejack. Everything seems fine now. No kernel panic for the past hour. I’ve been pushing it with Safari, Aperture, Devonthink, and now Ecto.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, Software, Tip, Trick

The wonders of Apple Hardware Test and Console

Macgiver — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 16:31:43 +0000

It seems that Disk Warrior is not going forward to support Intel macs. It’s pretty disappointing because I was a big fan of this software for the PPC macs. Unlike the Windows world, there are few system diagnostic tools for the mac. Maybe that’s because there are fewer issues with incompatible third party hardware. However, sh*t happens and sometimes you need more than Apple’s disk utility program to figure it out.

As I mentioned previously, I had some serious issues with kernel panics on my Mac Pro. Coincidentally I had installed a third set of 512MB ram cards just a few days earlier, bringing me to a grand total of 3GB (Aperture is finally feeling a little more peppy). I was concerned that the new chip was the origin of my problems.

Luckily, Apple includes a Hardware Test application on my system install CD. I only had to restart my machine with the “D” key held down. The Mac Pro booted right into a diagnostics program. Ran the extended diagnostics which took about 12 minutes. It tests the RAM, CPU and motherboard. It also provides some info about the machine.

Since it is not possible to do a screen capture from the hardware test, I’ve added a link to a larger camera shot.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, trouble shooting, Software, Tip, Trick

Feeding the Aperture needs

Macgiver — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 05:23:47 +0000

My Mac Pro received another 1GB RAM upgrade tonight. That puts it at 3GB total. Apple’s Aperture just sucks up the RAM. Especially when dealing with the NEF (RAW) files from the Nikon D80.

The extra RAM has made a considerable difference. Aperture is snappier and I can listen to music while I play with my photos.

Doing a self-install of the RAM was a snap. Here’s the instructions:

1) Power down the Mac Pro

2) Open the side panel

3) Pull out the top RAM riser

4) install two 512K RAM chips (from Apple)

5) Put the memory riser back, close the side panel and power-up

Done.

Technorati Tags: Aperture, Apple, Hardware, Mac, Tip

More keyboard surfing

Macgiver — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 13:27:30 +0000

Just a quick link today. This one is for the list of keyboard shortcuts from Apple. It’s really meant to discourage programmers from using these standard key combos for their applications.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Productivity, Tip, Trick

The best (and worst) of both worlds

Macgiver — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 02:16:41 +0000

The latest revision of Parallels Desktop for the Mac is running butter smooth on my Mac Pro with 2GB of RAM. No hangs or crashes. In fact, right now, I’m using Ecto for Mac to write this post while watching DL.TV Episode 100 and installing software updates on Windows XP.

To be more specific, the update is for my Sandisk 4GB flash drive. I can’t recommend this drive enough. It is fast, small and holds a ton of data. It also came with U3 Cruzer security software that allows me to carry sensitive data from my day job home totally encrypted. The down side is that the software is Windows only. But now that I have Parallels on my Mac, I have access to the secure data any time I want. While getting the Cruzer software installed and running under Windows was pretty quick, the Windows update that I performed on my system was another story entirely.

Check out the number of updates in this set. 59!!! Has Apple even had 59 updates ever? This seems pretty crazy, but I went ahead with the updates. I don’t want to get any of the Windows nasty little bugs in my Parallels install.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Parallels, Security, Windows

Some quality time

Macgiver — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 11:00:34 +0000

Parallels has just released RC2 of Desktop for Mac. While the Mac Pro received some love a few weeks back with a beta release, Parallels has put some real quality into this release candidate. Not only is it compatible with Vista and developer builds of Leopard, but there is no longer a RAM restriction. Parallels was only recognizing 3GB before.

I have to ask myself though, are there people out there with $2K of RAM in their Mac Pro that do not have a PC sitting under their desk to run windows on?

Here’s the FAQ sheet for this release:

No RAM limitations

No hardware reconfigurations

while using Windows and itâ€™s critical applications on new 64-bit Mac Pro towers and iMacs.

Other improvements & fixes that make Parallels Desktop even easier to use:

New! Compatibility with developer build of Mac OS X 10.5, code-named â€œLeopardâ€

New! Experimental support for Windows Vista

Solaris guest OS no longer hangs after suspend/resume

An improved Parallels Tools package

Full support for OpenBSD 3.8 as a guest operating system

G4U hard disk cloning tool now works in virtual machines

Better video output improvement and acceleration

Added multi interface USB devices support (including Windows Mobile 2005 devices)

Added isochronous USB devices support (including WebCam devices)

Keyboard support improvement: Eject CD key support, left/right Shift/Ctrl/Alt (Option)/Windows keys difference support

Added virtual disk cache policy option: Mac OS X performance optimized or guest OS performance optimized

Image Tool fixes

Optimized disk cache policy for Suspend/Resume feature

Windows ME Suspend/Resume fix

Shared Folders first time access acceleration

Clipboard synchronization tool fixes (unreadable symbols sometimes added during copy and paste)

Sound playback and recording improvement

â€œUnable to allocate virtual memoryâ€ during virtual machine power on fix

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Leopard, Mac, OSX, Parallels, Software, Windows

New firmware for the Mac Pro

Macgiver — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 02:02:08 +0000

Apple’s been working away patching the Mac Pro firm ware again. I just installed the firmware patch they had from earlier this week and now today I get this:

I’m not sure what these provide yet. Here is what the installer says:
“The SMC Firmware Update adjusts fan behavior in the Mac Pro. The updater application will be installed in the /Applications/Utilities folder. Please follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the process”.

The security update seems to be for the airport, which I never installed.

Update: This appears to be the same update from earlier in the week. The strange thing is that I already applied that update and received the comforting message telling me my Mac Pro firmware was up to date. This one, however, was applied without having to hold down the power button on the front. It was a smooth auto install. So maybe they are slightly different. I don’t care enough to check and my machine is running exactly the same anyway.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, Security

Thank you Apple

Macgiver — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 00:05:19 +0000

I’m an avid reader of Anandtech’s reviews. They do a great job and aren’t afraid to push the limits. This week they swapped out the stock Xeon processor in a Mac Pro for a pre-release quad core from Intel. You gotta love those guys. How many of you would pry out your processor from a new Mac Pro let alone put in some pre-release chip in it’s place. Thankfully Anandtech has huge balls and Mac Pro owners now have an easy upgrade path in the future.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac

Mousing around

Macgiver — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 23:47:12 +0000

I’m not sure if any other Mac Pro users out there are experiencing this, but my apple issued mouse is acting wonky. It will randomly move the cursor and activate Expose. I’ve tried two different mice on both my G4 Powerbook and Mac Pro. It is definitely something with the Mac Pro (or maybe the apple keyboard it is plugged into).

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac

Hungry hungry hippos

Macgiver — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:46:19 +0000

It’s looking very much like 2GB of RAM in the Mac Pro simply is not enough. With any other computer that would not be a big deal. $100 would solve the problem. But oh no…not for the illustrious Apple Mac “Pro.” It will cost a painful $300 for another 1GB. Sure the computer is ultra quiet. I’m sure those special heat sinks are helping. But my god, $300 for a measly one GB of RAM? As this post also mentions, iTunes 7 now sucks a lot of memory as well. Since iTunes is one of those applications that is left running constantly, this is a real problem.

What’s wrong with this situation. I need to spend the equivalent of an iPod to upgrade my RAM to handle the software to update my iPod?

I know what you’re going to say (I’m creepy like that), but I have not heard anything good about the cheaper third party RAM for the Mac Pro.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, iPod, Mac, OSX, Music, Software

Go to sleep and quit locking my VT-x

Macgiver — Sat, 09 Sep 2006 14:04:38 +0000

If you are running the new Parallels RC on a Mac Pro you may have come across this little message when you boot up Windows:

If you read the Parallels support blog about this there’s some help from the user base that indicates you have to put your machine to sleep after reboot in order for this vt-x support to be available in Parallels.

It does work. Before putting the machine to sleep, it took about 1 minuet for Windows XP Pro to startup. After going to sleep and restarting Parallels, it took about 10 seconds to boot.

I still can not apply the Windows update patches though. However, there is a nice little trick. You can simply go to this website in Safari and download the patches to your Parallels share folder. Jump over to Windows XP in Parallels and run the installer. Voila… service patch 2 (SP2) installed!

If you need a tutorial for setting up Parallels and the share folder, go to ARStechnica

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, Parallels, Software

Things just got parallel… for the Mac Pro

Macgiver — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 01:03:18 +0000

Well, I have to hand it to them, the Parallels team pulled it off. Today they announced that a new release candidate is available that enables Parallels to run on the new Mac Pro. I just installed the update. After a minor warning that a virtual machine already existed (from my previous attempts to run Parallels) the rest of the VM startup went smoothly. I created a 12GB hard disk for the VM and allocated 765MB of RAM.

The next step was to startup the VM (which worked flawlessly this time and to pop my Windows XP Pro CD into the drive. I did get a strange message that my Intel chip supported virtualization, but that I did not have it enabled. I just clicked OK and went about my business as if I knew what that meant. The windows install began right away. I did notice a considerable slowdown of the Mac OS, but I selected the option to optimize the performance of the VM over the Mac OS, so I wasn’t really surprised. I formated the windows partition as FAT. I’m not sure why, but it just seemed like I would want to keep my Mac drive NTFS free, even if it isn’t a “real” drive. The subsequent typical 40min windows install went just as I expected…SLOW. But this is entirely an MS phenomenon, not related to Parallels. When all was said and done, I was extremely happy with the end result. I now can have access to a few random PC programs without having to reboot or startup my home-brew PC.

I did find this message pretty funny. At the time, I was listening to iTunes through the Mac OS. Apparently my entertainment just got better. Who knew.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, Parallels, Software, Windows

Graphics upgrade options for the Mac Pro

Macgiver — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 16:27:09 +0000

I’ve been doing some research (which means Google and surfing the web) on the options for upgrading the video card in the Mac Pro. So far I’ve only heard of limited success with off the shelf cards. Here’s a quick summary.

x1900 xtx has been reported by ONE person
GeForce 7900GTX only works under Windows with BootCamp
PC version of x1900 xt is claimed all over not to work on the Mac Pro
SLI on the Mac Pro will only work with BootCamp

So my is guess that we’re looking at a few months until Nvidia starts announcing official Mac Pro/EFI compatible cards. Now that ATI is part of AMD, they may never release a new card, except for a couple editions of the 19XX series. My biggest hope is that Nvidia jumps on this market and figures out a solution for the SLI issue. Don’t get me wrong. The Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT that came stock in the Mac Pro is quite the impressive video card for the Mac market (Call of Duty 2 is liquid smooth). But I build my own PC boxes and I love to push the hardware limits. It’s really a double edged sword though. The more options you push on the OS (needing driver support) the less robust the system could be. I will take stability over speed in my workhorse machine, thank you very much.

Here’s a great place to start if you have more questions about upgrading the Mac Pro

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac

Official battery recall

Macgiver — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 11:44:18 +0000

I received this email today from Apple:
Dear Apple Customer:
Apple has determined that certain lithium-ion rechargeable batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating. The affected batteries were sold worldwide, in systems and separately, from October 2003 through August 2006 for use with the following computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4, 15-inch PowerBook G4.

Apple is voluntarily recalling the affected batteries and has initiated a worldwide exchange program to provide you with a new replacement battery, free of charge. This program is being conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and other international safety authorities.

Issue: The affected batteries could overheat, posing a fire hazard. Apple received nine confirmed reports in the United States of these batteries overheating. Apple urges you to stop using your battery and to order a replacement battery immediately. After removing the recalled battery from the iBook or PowerBook, you should plug in the AC adapter to power the computer until a replacement battery arrives.

Product: Please use the chart below to identify the battery model and serial numbers that apply to your iBook or PowerBook. If the first 5 digits of your battery’s 12-digit serial number fall within the noted ranges, please order a replacement battery immediately. To view the model and serial numbers labeled on the bottom of the battery, you must remove the battery from the computer. The battery serial number is printed in black or dark gray lettering beneath a barcode.

No other Apple notebook computers are affected by this recall.

Note: If your battery’s serial number does not match any of the ranges listed above, you do not have to exchange your battery.
——————————-

Unfortunately my 17″ Powerbook is not included

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac

Let there be Dolby Surround Sound

Macgiver — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 01:18:15 +0000

I just received my new Griffin FireWave. I picked it up on Amazon for $60. It’s a pretty easy setup. After installing the included software from the CD, you simply plug in the firewire cable and then plug the surround speakers into the little shiny white peripheral. Voila…surround sound. All in all, the sound quality is pretty good. The included software has some very basic settings. There are three “modes” which include Music, Movie and Emulation (as shown). The speaker configuration is also pretty minimal. There’s stereo, surround and surround with sub. Not much else going on there. For an office or bedroom, this is an excellent (and cheap) surround sound option. For the home living-room I would go with the optical out (at least on the Mac Pro) to a high end component device. Fortunately, my Mac is in the study, so the FireWave will do great.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac

HP Scanners are Mac friendly

Macgiver — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:46:39 +0000

I have had an HP Scanjet 4670 scanner since they first came out. It is one of those vertical see-through scanners. It works great. You can lay it on a book or use it vertically. It takes up minimal desk space. But the most impressive thing about it, is that it just works well with the Mac. HP provides some pretty useful software called “HP Image Zone.” It is composed of several smaller applications that handle fax, scan, photocopy, etc. They are all universal applications and integrate well with other software. For example, you can scan into a sort of clipboard that allows you to drag and drop a scan directly into iPhoto. How sweet is that. It can also be setup to maintain a library of your scans for you. I guess I’m going on about this stuff, because today I was catching up on scanning in all of my important documents and receipts. I was considering getting Readiris Pro, but the HP method is working so smoothly that I’m not sure if I want to mess with it.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Hardware, Mac, OSX, Software