Categories
General Mac Tech

Daddy’s Got a “New” Keyboard

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Okay, I couldn’t wait the couple of weeks more before Microsoft came out with their next version of Intellipoint. If you’ve been following along you’ll know that I’ve recently upgraded to Snow Leopard on my big machine. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn’t have a 64-bit version of their Intellipoint software for my Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 6000. The keyboard still works, but none of the special buttons. Especially the remapping of the Windows and Alt keys – this basically makes the Windows keyboard layout like a Mac keyboard.

It took me a week to remember but I did remember that about two years ago I bought a USB Bluetooth dongle along with a bluetooth headset. Since I really didn’t need the USB Bluetooth dongle, it sat in a box in the basement. Plus the two aging iMacs in the kid’s study room have been shutoff since they got laptops, thus their bluetooth keyboards were not in use…

I made the jump. I’m now typing this useless blog entry about a new keyboard on the newly setup Mac Wireless Keyboard on my Hackintosh. Not a lot of special buttons… ooo an Eject button… woohoo… However, there are 16 function buttons. Not sure what to do with all of them, but I’m sure I’ll find a use. Most importantly, the keyboard layout is perfect. The only complaint I have is that the keyboard is stark white, which really doesn’t go with the silver and black layout I have. Oh well, having the right keyboard layout is that important to me.

Now if I could just get the apostrophe key moved on my Dell Mini 9

-JT

Categories
Mac Tech

Adventures in Snow Leopard

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Overall, I’m impressed with Snow Leopard. I waited a while before upgrading as I wasn’t too much in a hurry to upgrade everyone in my house to the next “service pack” (as those Windoze fanboys call it.) That changed of course when I downloaded the newest iTunes v9. I couldn’t browse the iTunes store without upgrading my main machine to at least OS X 10.5.8 and Safari 4. I decided that if I was going to go through the effort I might as well go with the latest and greatest.

I was able to upgrade all the MacBooks and my wife’s MacBook Pro over several nights. I did one a night and got everything updated — went up to 10.6.1, upgraded iTunes, drivers, etc. Easy peasy. Really no surprises. Even got back a few gigs on each machine. I’m hoping that the upgrade will fix some of the weird issues my wife has been seeing on her machine.

Then came time to upgrade of the Dell Mini 9 and my big hackintosh machine…not so easy

Categories
Mac Tip

Dell Mini 9 – Upgraded to 10.5.8

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Wow.. I just upgraded my Dell Mini 9 to OS X 10.5.8 and I’m just completely overjoyed on how uneventful the upgrade went. Almost not worth writing a blog entry about it. I made a backup of my DellEFI v1.2 alpha 5 application, upgraded to 10.5.8 via Software update, re-installed the DellEFI, reboot. Done.  

Although it seems like a lot of people have starting doubting the usefulness of these netbooks, I can tell you I get a lot of mileage out of mine yet. It now has a permanent home in my Go-Bag.

Categories
Mac Tech Tip

MacBook 13.3″ LCD Replacement

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Ahhh… kids…. such bliss. What could be better? Kids and laptops… or rather broken laptops.  

One of the kids’ 13.3″ MacBook LCD screen was damage – magically, of course. The screen had two very serious cracks which rendered the device pretty much useless. However, that didn’t stop them from using it anyway.. In any event, this is a quick article to point out a couple of really great resources to perform your own upgrade.

Categories
Mac Tech Tip

Browsers do make a difference

images.jpegOn both my hackintosh and my Dell Mini 9 have had some serious video performance issues with both Hulu and Netflix. I thought it was because of the ktext files I’ve used for the build. However, it nagged me that other owners of the Mini 9 have had no issues with video performance from Hulu and Netflix. After a bit of research I found out that people were using Safari as opposed to my favorite browser Firefox.   

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit, but I simply changed my browser to Safari to access those services. No more performance issues.

-JT