Mac « Being Connected by Ian Fogg

Entries categorized as ‘Mac’

Twitter Tweets

August 31, 2009 · Leave a Comment

12:07 Burglars & social media (Reuters) Tip: take care with posting real address or tel number – bit.ly/UoWXf #

21:05 watching Orbital do the Doctor Who theme live feels very out of its time. #

22:03 RT @jackschofield Clever redesign of the UK mains plug, inspired by MacBook Air bit.ly/mx54G #

22:12 RT @mashable “Tweeting By Numbers: 7 Ways to Become a Twitter Analyst” – bit.ly/2w4m2K #

22:38 @jemimakiss if 59ukp recovers irreplaceable pics, then it’s worth it. Problem is, the gamble: may not help to find the lost iphone… #

Follow me on twitter or please comment below. This entry was automatically posted by Loudtwitter.

Categories: Blogs · Mac · Tweets

Update – Fixing 3 partitions and Boot Camp problems

August 10, 2009 · 1 Comment

A while ago I wrote about how to set up a modern Mac to boot into Windows (or Linux), as well as Mac OS, but using three hard drive partitions. As standard, the Mac OS Boot Camp utility only works with two (see Tips for setting up Bootcamp with three partitions)

Due to the amount of video and photos I’m creating now, I wanted to get rid of that third hard drive partition so as to make more space for Mac OS. But deleting the additional partitions caused Windows on the Boot Camp partition to stop working. If this happens to you here’s how to fix, or to avoid:

To avoid the problem – Instead of deleting the additional partition, resize it to be the smallest amount possible (in my case about 800MB) instead using Disk Utility. This third partition should be between the Mac partition and the Boot Camp partition on your disk.

To fix, if you’ve already deleted it and gone to two partitions:
- Resize the Mac OS partition to be about 900MB smaller.
- Create a new 3rd partition in the newly unused disk space and call it the same name as your original 3rd partition.
- That’s it!

Don’t touch the actual Boot Camp partition at any time with Disk Utility or the Boot Camp utility during the above steps, unless you feel braver than me.

Categories: Mac · Tips · Windows

Favourite Firefox Extensions

April 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Foxmarks bookmarks sync
This is the killer feature for me and the reason I’m going to stay loyal to Firefox for now: Foxmarks delivers reliable and secure sync of bookmarks across multiple computers whatever OS they are running. In a recent version there’s an option for users to define whether each computer is ‘work or ‘home’ and then sync a different set of bookmark folders with each type of machine. Foxmarks stores a copy of all the bookmarks either on the Foxmarks server or one a user specfies. The advantage of syncing with Foxmarks own server is that the ‘my foxmarks’ website allows users to log in and access their bookmarks from any web browser, for example using a shared computer in a cafe.

Add bookmark here 2 (Windows only)
I really miss this when I’m not using Windows. Puts an ‘add bookmark’ item into each folder in the your bookmarks. So, to add a bookmark you just navigate your folders, as if you were choosing to load an existing bookmark, then pick the appropriate add button when you’ve navigated into the right folder.

Openbook (Windows only)
This causes the ‘add bookmark’ dialog to appear with the folder tree extended. Handy. Although it’s largely, but not entirely, superceded if you have the ‘add bookmark here’ extension. Again I really miss this when I’m not on Windows, especially on the Mac version of Firefox.

Tiny menu (Windows only)
This is a fantastic extension for use on laptops (especially) or any machines that are low on vertical screen space. It collapses the entire menu to a single word with a hierarchical sub menu. However, there is a downside: Once installed, you need to manually configure the space to the right of the word ‘Menu’ with whatever buttons you desire (back, forward etc) and then hide the standard ‘navigation’ toolbar.

Tab preview
Adds mini previews of each tab as the mouse hovers over the tab’s name. IMO this is especially useful if there are a lot of tabs open.

Adblock Plus
I used to use the original Adblock, but found that it interfered with Flash working on some websites, especially movie trailer sites for some reason.

Cute menu crystal svg
Pure eye candy. I suppose you could argue that the icons next to menu items improve usability….

Web developer toolbar
…what it says. I especially like the ability to fiddle with what CSS elements are active.

Pdf download
Offers options for how to handle pdfs when they’re left clicked.

Tab Mix Plus
Offers customisation of the way tabs work. On Firefox 3 it’s less essential but still has some nice features.

Others that I have installed, but don’t use very often:-

Downloadthemall
Useful download manager but I use it occasionally and not all of the time: my main use is to grab multiple things for download from a single web page without a lot of manual clicking.

Copy plain text
Does what it says via the right click context menu.

IE tab
This isn’t as useful as it appears. The goal is to enable incompatible websites to be opened within the firefox UI. In reality, the only problematic site I’ve come across in recent years, a UK stockbroker, crashes in this too!

IE view
I find this more useful: it adds an ‘open in IE’ link to the right click menu.

Chatzilla
An IRC client

Streetmap

Freetranslate

Categories: Firefox · Mac · PC · The cloud

Summertime fallout

April 2, 2009 · 1 Comment

It’s Thursday, four days after European clocks changed to what others call daylight saving and I’m still finding clocks stuck on GMT.

I’ll forgive those without an Internet connection like the wall clock in the kitchen, but way too many devices should know better. Windows Mobile still seems awkward, probably because I’m still running 6.0. The brand new Blackberry Bold hooked up to my company’s Blackberry Enterprise Server really should have updated itself. Two years ago I wouldn’t have cared.

But iPhone has changed everything. It just worked.

A former colleague wrote recently that ’save file’ should have no place in this day. Everything should be saved automatically all of the time. I think manually changing the clocks twice a year should follow it into extinction.

Sidenote – This is the first post I’ve written on the new version of WordPress for iPhone. It’s a big improvement and worth returning to if you’ve tried and rejected it in the past. It means I can post more easily from wherever I happen to be:

Categories: Calendar · Fail · Gadgets · Mac · Mobile · PC · Sync · iPhone

Arc: Microsoft can do design

February 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Today, I’ve been testing out an Arc mouse, which Microsoft created for laptops. People forget that Microsoft makes hardware — at least mice and keyboards — and has done for years, way before the Xbox or the Zune.

The Arc mouse looks like something Apple designed, except it’s black. However, Microsoft’s website does the Arc no justice, unlike Apple’s representation of its gear.

The Arc is both innovative and yet still does many things right:
(Many flawed products have far too much innovation.)

The mouse folds for transport. The action of opening it up automatically switches it on.
The tiny USB wireless transmitter attaches to the mouse underside using magnets when not in use. Plus Microsoft supplies a pouch to keep the mouse clean.
The fold design makes the mouse large to hold, but small to put into a bag. It’s close to a best of both worlds between desktop and laptop.
Works without any extra software on both Windows and Mac OS. Although, to have the extra button trigger Expose on Mac OS requires a driver install.

So far, so good, but like all mobile products the jury is out until I’ve been using it for a few days.

Categories: Gadgets · Mac · PC

Windows 7 on a Mac

January 12, 2009 · Leave a Comment

After the pain of trying to download Windows 7 and failing repeatedly (you need to use Internet Explorer which installs an Akamai download manager), I’ve installed the beta on a Mac using Boot Camp. I’ve previously used Vista 32bit on the same machine. Win7 seems to be working fine.

So far, only had time for initial impressions:-

Appearance – Looks very like Vista with the exception of the start bar and the system tray. I rather liked Vista’s look — especially the translucent window border — so this isn’t bad by me. But if Microsoft is trying to distance Windows 7 from Vista then they should try harder!
Memory – Idle memory on start-up is lower than Vista. I’m not sure how much lower as I’m making a guesstimate by comparing this vanilla install with a Vista that had many applications set-up, some of which ran on start.
Sleep/wake – Goes in and out faster than my old Vista install, but slower than XP or Mac OS.
Functionality – It really doesn’t seem much different. The only enhancement I’ve noticed and liked is that the ‘tray’ icon for the current WiFi network shows signal strength. The hyped ‘jump’ menus from the application task bar icons seem a little pointless.
Boot camp / running on a Mac – The Vista Apple boot camp hardware drivers installed just as they would on Vista and seem to be working. This appears to confirm that there is little under the bonnet difference. I will try running Windows 7 under VM Ware Fusion later this week.

Categories: Mac · PC · Windows

Time Tradeoffs

January 5, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Back from two weeks on leave from the office. I had a pile of books I wanted to read, websites to build, blog posts to write. But family and friends filled the time almost completely. This is not a particular bad thing, but!

I’ve spent much of today musing about the trade-offs we make to save us time. I’m hosting this blog on wordpress.com rather than self-hosting. Why? I’m choosing to focus on writing rather than keeping the server patched and up to date. I’m ceding some control over look/feel for example, in return for time saving. Blog software and other content management tools do the same, why self-host WordPress rather than building the site from scratch in PHP, Rails or Drupal or whatever? It’s quicker.

Elsewhere, I’ve been using Mac OS more and more. Why? Because I spend less time patching it with software updates, fixing things that break, and it starts up, shuts down, and goes in and out of sleep fast. The downside is that there’s less software available for it and much less legal hardware I can run it on. Sure I could grab a MSI netbook and put OS X on it, but to my mind that defeats the point. If I want to spend time tinkering I may as well run Linux on my main machine.

This applies right across many areas. Why do people buy music on iTunes? It’s not cheap compared to retailed CDs now. The music is lower quality and most has DRM that restricts what devices can play it back. However, iTunes is quick and easy to use. It’s faster than visiting a shop or waiting for a CD to arrive from Amazon. People trade off sound quality and freedom for speed and save time.

Why do people write so much about other trade-offs — money/quality/size/weight/battery/features — but not time?

Categories: Blogs · Linux · Mac · Music · Online media · Tradeoffs

Tip – Fixing Quicktime on Mac Firefox

December 7, 2008 · Leave a Comment

Quicktime video playback wasn’t working at all within Firefox on the Mac. Safari was fine. I did the usual thing and Googled the problem — always a good idea with any tech issue — and found lots of people had the same experience. But I couldn’t see a fix anywhere.

I found Adblock (original add-on) was the cause. I uninstalled it and I switched to Adblock Plus instead, and Quicktime now works fine in Firefox.

Categories: Firefox · Mac · Tips

Quantifying the ridiculous time it takes to set up a new PC

December 3, 2008 · 7 Comments

Every time I set up a new computer it seems to take ages. I’ve wondered how much of that pain were subjective perceptions caused by the number of clicks / restarts vs the actual time taken.

This time I kept note.

The new laptop has both Windows XP and Mac OS installed. I can make comparisons as both Mac and Windows are using the same hardware.

Scorecard Windows XP, using bootcamp. (Note, this could have taken longer: I downloaded Windows updates on an above average speed connection (12Mbps), apps had been downloaded ahead):-

Windows = 23 minutes for XP itself (SP2).
Windows updates = 42 minutes. Included four reboots to install and update Windows.
Drivers = 14m… another reboot
Windows applications = 124 minutes, including a further two reboots.

Windows total = 203 minutes, or 23 minutes over three hours, with seven reboots. But I’ve not still not migrated across all my data yet or tweaked all the numerous application preferences. The worst of it was that I had to be present for every minute.

Mac OS = Unsure exactly, as I didn’t need to do much and left it running, probably about three hours in total.

The Mac ‘migration assistant’ is one of the Mac’s best kept secrets. It will transfer everything from either another Mac or a Time Machine backup. For me, it copied across all my applications (including third party ones, both paid and free), preferences and documents. I left it running which made it feel painless.

I fell of my chair when I realised what it had successfully done and how much effort it saved me.

Migrating to a Mac is about as painful as migrating from one PC to another. But migrating from an old Mac to a new one is absolutely simple, provided both run Leopard.

Categories: Mac · PC · Tips · Windows

Tips for setting up Bootcamp with three partitions

November 12, 2008 · 4 Comments

This was a lot easier than I thought. Background – Bootcamp is the name for the part of Mac OS that enables modern Macs to have Windows installed alongside Mac OS. On start-up a user can choose whether to run Windows or Mac. Normally, Bootcamp setup only allows a user to split a hard drive into two parts.

I read the guide here first which looked scary. But things seemed to have changed since:

Disk utility can split a hard drive into three, without deleting data. This avoids the need to back up that way or restore a disk image afterwards.
Time machine, part of the most recent Leopard version of Mac OS, enables easier backups.

The process worked like this:

Back up Mac with Time Machine. As this was a new Mac it was quick.
Boot from the Mac OS install CD by holding ‘c’ while the Mac powers up.
Exit the Mac OS installer app and run Disk Utility, which is listed on the menu.
I chose to set up three partitions as follows: 32Gb FAT32 last; 20Gb unformatted middle; remainder Mac OS. I understand it’s important that Windows is on the last partition.
Boot from the Windows CD, follow the install prompts to install into the last 32Gb partition.
Don’t alter the partitions using Windows installer.
I chose to do a “quick format” of the drive, although I’d already formatted it in Disk Utility.
When Windows installer asks to reboot hold the ‘c’ key to boot from the CD.
Boot into Windows. Install the Bootcamp drivers from the Mac OS CD.

Tip: the above was on a brand new Mac. Previously, I’ve set up Bootcamp on an older Mac and had problems. I was using the Bootcamp application itself to split the drive into two parts. Bootcamp refused, despite there being ample free drive space. The problem seemed to be that the drive was fragmented and the Bootcamp installer wouldn’t re-arrange files. After defragging, the install all went smoothly.

Update – Fixing 3 Partitions and Boot Camp Problems, published August 10, 2009.

Categories: Mac · Tips

Being Connected by Ian Fogg