Aug 30
adminApple, Tech
Many folks with a first generation MacBook laptop are well aware of the list of issues that have shown up on them over the past three years. Some of the top things I have seen are the staining that occurs on the wrist wrest due to Apple’s poor choice in a plastic, and the habit of iSight cameras to stop working in these models. Other known issues are CD drives having difficulty reading discs, touchpad button problems, and very noisy fans (holy cow).
Recently, a friend of mine who has experienced the staining and iSight issues decided to upgrade to the new Unibody MacBook. After helping her move data from the old to the new, got the “opportunity” to figure out how to solve some issues. More
Aug 17
adminApple, Tech
Apple’s move to make the unibody MacBook become the low-end of the MacBook Pro line marked a few changes. Most notably, the addition of FireWire 800 and the “non replaceable battery”.
The change of the battery made upgrading a hard drive slightly more difficult, as there is no panel that opens to do that anymore. The solution now is to remove the whole bottom casing. There are 10 screws involved, and 3 of the back screws are longer than the others. It is important to keep track of where the screws go.
Once removed, you have access to everything, including the battery with a sticker saying Do Not Remove.
On the lower left, you see the hard drive, positioned in the same place as the original Unibody MacBook.
There is a small black bracket More
Jun 28
adminApple, Tech
Have you ever upgraded the hard drive in your Windows PC? It’s usually not a big deal, right? You open the side of the case, undo the data and power cables from the drive, and remove some screws. Moments later, you’re installing the replacement.
Mac’s have not always been the most friendly machines to perform such upgrades on. Powerbooks were notorious for the thousand plus screws necessary to make any sort of upgrade. There have been some exceptions where Apple made hard drive installs not so bad, such as some older iMacs and the latest generation of Macbooks.
I recently decided to upgrade the hard drive in my Aluminum 24″ iMac. I assumed it would be relatively straightforward, much like the ram install was. I was wrong. I had to remove the glass, remove the aluminum top, remove the LCD screen, and work underneath it to reach the hard drive. Good times.
In the end, the upgrade went fairly smooth. I did run into a couple problem areas, that I made some notes on.
I followed the instructions made available at Amfiteatar.
Some things to be aware of:
- The magnetic pads around the aluminum rim that hold the glass in place are a bit poorly designed. I had one fall off because it’s sticky adhesive was no longer useful. I had to improvise.
- Be very careful handling and storing the glass top. Nobody wants to break it, but equally important is not getting ANY lint or smudges behind the glass. If you do, you end up noticing after the reassemble, and you’ll have to remove the glass again.
- Be equally aware of how you handle the LCD screen. Similar to the glass, it easily attracts dust and finger smudges.
Follow those instructions, and you’ll have a faster and bigger hard drive in no time.
Jun 26
adminTech
At times, I have the need to help a user to remotely solve PC related problems. The difficulty with the built-in solution for Windows (Remote Desktop), is that it requires port mapping in your firewall and configuration that the user may not be efficiently capable of. A similar situation exists when trying to use VNC or other remote support tools.
There are ways around this. MSN Messenger users can invite other MSN Messenger users to assist them, and XP has a couple other ways to invite someone to help. Again, these solutions often suffer from network access (port mapping) issues. More importantly in my case, I am on a Mac, and none of those invite based solutions are feasible.
One evening, I found myself needing to help someone in another state (using a Windows XP machine0, but not capable of getting set up for remote access with the built-in solution. After several failed attempts at walking this person through some problem resolution steps, I gave up, and started looking for a Plan B. After a brief Google search, I found TeamViewer. More
May 20
adminTech Exchange 2003 Tar Pitting SMTP Transaction Time MX Toolbox
I was recently doing some SMTP diagnostics on an Exchange 2003 server. Everything seemed to be working great, except for the transaction times. Averaging at 5.2 seconds, it wasn’t horrible, but in the “warning” range for an average mail server.
Why is the transaction time important? It can mean the difference between receiving or not receiving some email. If the transaction time gets too high, other mail servers may just timeout trying to communicate. This is obviously not a good situation for a mail server.
More
May 15
adminTech
In case you weren’t aware of the exciting news, Wolfram Alpha just launched this evening. While quasi-geeks are typing up there comparisons of Alpha vs. Google (apple vs orange), I thought I would ask this new computational engine the most important question of all: What is the meaning of life?
I was pleased with the response.
Bravo Wolfram, Bravo.
Apr 14
adminTech
Have you ever setup a VPN tunnel between two different brands of endpoints? It can be a fun challenge, and this time it proved to be no different.
Smoothwall Express is a free and easy to use open-source firewall solution. It’s designed to be so user friendly, that they sometimes don’t give access to customize certain features, such as VPN. Below is the VPN endpoint configuration.
They give you the basics for a connection, but they make the assumption that you’ll have a Smoothwall on the other side. As such, they don’t let you see or configure the vpn authentication, negotiation, identity, encryption, and other settings. To make matters worse, I couldn’t find the settings they use documented anywhere (let me know if you find them).
pfSense, on the other hand, gives you the freedom (and expects you) to determine the best settings for your needs.
This is where the problem comes in. Not knowing what Smoothwall’s expect for those settings, makes creating a VPN tunnel rather difficult. It means spending time trying and failing, and staring at logs to figure it out.
In the end, I got it working. Here are the pfSense settings I used to make it work:
Phase 1:
Phase 2:
If you end up with a pfSense firewall on one end, and SmoothWall on the other, I hope this is of help to you.
Jan 25
adminApple, Tech, iPhone
There are many useful and fun applications in the App Store. There are also many pointless apps that seem to catch public attention. While the list of available applications is long, there are two apps I am still waiting for. First, I am hopeful that Adium will release a chat client for the iPhone. Word on the street was that they would release one, but it seems apparent that was just a rumor for the time being. Second, I have wanted a way to remotely monitor my Mac server. This is easily the most important machine in my home network, and it provides many useful functions.
iStat widgets and menus have long been available for the Mac, and are a very popular suite of apps for many Mac users I know. The fact that they are free makes them an even better deal. If you like them, please donate. The one weakness is that these programs are focused on local monitoring, and don’t have a mechanism for remote monitoring. More
Nov 30
adminApple, Media, Tech dvd decrypt, handbrake, videolan, visualhub, vlc
Handbrake is a wonderful, open-source, utility for converting DVD movies to other formats. In my case, I use it to convert my DVD collection for use on my Apple TV. It works great.
Today, a new version (0.93) was released. It includes a long list of improvements from GUI updates to fixes for the lingering errors in 0.92. Among the list of changes was the news that Handbrake will no longer decrypt DVDs! This is no shock to Windows users, who are accustomed to using more than one application to rip a movie. For the rest of us, this is quite the change. I have never needed anything other than Handbrake.
Fortunately, it is an easily fixable issue, and the Handbrake developers include the solution. Simply install the VLC player. Handbrake will automatically leverage the necessary library to do the decryption, if needed.
What makes this news interesting to me is the “why” associated with this change. What was wrong with the built-in solution? Was it fear of some legal pressure? Is it based on a collaboration of those two teams? Is it assumed that the VLC team will continue to develop and manage the necessary library(ies) needed to keep this solution working? Is it possible that VLC is working to have Blu Ray decryption soon that Handbrake would now be able to leverage? In my dreams. 
The possibilities are both exciting, and slightly disconcerting, as this is a relatively important change for Handbrake users.
The more prominent change in their release, while not as interesting to me, was the addition of converting files and sources, other than DVD’s. This is similar in capability to the now open-sourced project VisualHub.
Oct 18
adminTech Clean, computers, iPhone, macbook, Mr. Clean Magic Eraser
Well, maybe I should have titled this “Cleaning Your Laptop”, but this works on other things, including my iPhone.
I have many people ask me how to best clean their laptops, desktops, and other computer electronics. As you may know, there are many solutions sold at most gadget stores. Usually, these solutions are for cleaning LCDs, and contain isopropyl alcohol mixed with water.
However, many manufacturers do not recommend the use of chemicals. More
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