Category Archives: Macintosh

Convert text to an audio file on your Mac

Posted on April 16, 2010 by jim

Using terminal: say -f ~/Desktop/barker.txt -o ~/Desktop/barker.aiff Here's how this works: Save the text you want to translate into an audio file as a txt file (barket.txt in my example). Feed that text file to the say command, using the … Continue reading →

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Force Mail in 10.6 to only copy e-mail addresses

Posted on December 8, 2009 by jim

In Leopard when I copied an email address via the Mail App that's all that was copied. In Snow Leaopard the person's name is copied, along with the email address inside of brackets. This change is really annoying in Snow … Continue reading →

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Fake Steve Jobs on Google Chrome OS

Posted on July 9, 2009 by jim

It's funny because it's true. Read it. Pure genius.

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Solid State Drives: The Intel X25-M is king

Posted on June 24, 2009 by jim

The only SSD drive that I can recommend at this time, after extensive research, are the X25-M drives from Intel. I have one of them in my MacBook and Mac Pro. They are used for the OS and the applications. … Continue reading →

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Replacing a Samsung hard drive under warranty

Posted on May 11, 2009 by jim

My Mac Pro is configured with four drives. The OS and applications reside on an 80GB Intel X25-M SSD (solid state drive). A 500GB drive act as my "documents" folder to keep the SSD as free as possible. Two Samsung … Continue reading →

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How fast is a solid state drive (SSD) drive in a Mac Pro?

Posted on April 10, 2009 by jim

How much faster is a Solid State Drive (SSD) than a hard drive when it comes to launching applications? This video shows about 20 applications being opened at one time on a Mac Pro Quad Nehalem 2.66. The first part … Continue reading →

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Unibody Late 2008 Aluminum 15" MacBook Pro Fans Gone Wild

Posted on March 1, 2009 by jim

Update: After opening a case with Apple about this and then taking it to the Apple Store in Cleveland (Legacy Village) I was able to demonstrate these problems to the Apple Genius and he arranged for me to return the … Continue reading →

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Enabling Remote Disc on non-Air Macs

Posted on February 22, 2009 by jim

In order for my MacBook to share the DVD on my G5 over the network, I had to add the following commands to the MacBook: In terminal defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser EnableODiskBrowsing -bool true defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser ODSSupported -bool true Simply … Continue reading →

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The end of MacBook kernel panics

Posted on February 1, 2009 by jim

Well, let's hope so… My MacBook, an original white 1.83GHz Duo Core, was upgraded to 2GB of RAM from the stock 512MB. It ran pretty well until I upgraded to Leopard. Soon after I was having frequent kernel panics. Eventually … Continue reading →

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Making phone calls on an iPod Touch

Posted on December 22, 2008 by jim

Until the day you have persistent wifi availability this isn't going to replace your cell phone, but it's a neat trick. I'm hoping we can use this in Europe to place phone calls in a pinch.

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Track a stolen laptop with Adeona

Posted on December 15, 2008 by jim

I've tested this on my MacBook and it works. With the Mac version you can even have photos of your thief sent you you. Watch the video below to get started and then download the software. It should take you … Continue reading →

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Keys out of order on MacBook, DiskWarrior to the rescue

Posted on October 25, 2008 by jim

My white MacBook is from the first run of 1.83GHz machines from May of 2006. I don't depend on it for anything more than couch surfing and on-the-go computing. It has been back to Apple several times early on for … Continue reading →

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