Finally had to fix the Dell Mini 9 keyboard. If you’ve played with one of these netbooks or have one, you’ll know that the quote/apostrophe key is located in the wrong spot when compared to normal US keyboards. The key is located to the bottom row of keys and takes some getting use to.
Well I thought I could get use to it. It started to become one of those minor irritants that you can’t seem to correct. Sort of like an itch you can’t scratch. The other night I had enough of that itch.
Recently I changed from FIOS back to Cablevision and I found myself in a position of not having a modern wireless router. Yeah, I realized that as soon as I had order the re-installation of cable only 5 days before the install. FIOS had come with it’s own cable modem with built-in wireless router. Cablevision on the other hand, requires that you get your own. When I switched from Cablevision to FIOS I had given my Apple Extreme Base Station to my Dad as I thought that I didn’t need it any more. Now with the change back, I thought I had to go out and buy a new modem. Not that I mind – I’m jonesing for the NETGEAR WNDR3700-100NAS that just came out. However, at $180+ I think I’ll wait awhile for the price to come down.
In the meantime, I dug into the Pile of Tech (other wise known to my wife as the garbage pile in the basement) and found my old Linksys WRT54G. It’s actually a v1.1 model, so it’s going back some time – it’s ancient as far as tech goes. At the time that it came out, I believe that 802.11g was just ratified. So the router was top of the line, cutting edge at 54mbps. Compared to 802.11n, I thought using it would feel like going in reverse. Since I owned it already and I really needed to get online with a router after the cable guy had left, I thought I’d give it a chance.
I was fortunate enough that the router had retained it’s configuration from the last time it was used. Thus nothing really had to be change in the way of security. I was up and running in a matter of 10-15 minutes once I got the right cables pulled through the network cable nest I have in the basement. (Another project I haven’t had time to get to yet.)
But I couldn’t let it rest there… I had to improve it!
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
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
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.