jim arnold » Macintosh

Blank icons in Mac Dock?

jim — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 05:00:09 +0000

Try his command via the terminal. It fixed two missing icons in my dock.

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/ \
Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/ \
A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Enable TRIM on a Mac Third-Party SSD Drive

jim — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:13:37 +0000

See this link for instructions. Trim Enabler is an app to enable TRIM, but a feud is ongoing between these two camps.

Convert text to an audio file on your Mac

jim — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 05:35:17 +0000

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 “f” flag.
Convert the resulting AIFF file into an MP3 in iTunes. -o ~/Desktop/barker.aiff is saying to output the barker.aiff file to my desktop.
Copy to iPod.

Force Mail in 10.6 to only copy e-mail addresses

jim — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:47:32 +0000

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 Leopard. Here’s to get back to Leopard goodness.

Quit Mail if it’s running, then enter this command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard -bool NO

If you try this and decided you prefer the default version, quit Mail and run this command in Terminal:

defaults delete com.apple.mail AddressesIncludeNameOnPasteboard

Via MacWorld

Fake Steve Jobs on Google Chrome OS

jim — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:39:13 +0000

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

Solid State Drives: The Intel X25-M is king

jim — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:47:53 +0000

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. I only have the 80GB version, but how I have things set up this works fine for such a small drive. Let me come back to that, but first point you to a few articles. I’m linking to the conclusion pages. You can dig further into them if interested.

Update: August 30th, 2009

AnandTech updates their SSD review with the G2 version of the X25-M

My MacBook is not my main computer. After loading up my MacBook with the OS and apps, I still have about 45GB remaining on the drive. For day-to-day use this is plenty of space. If I ever go on trips or need more space I will simply attach a 2.5″ drive in a small external enclosure. I think this is workable even if you use the MB as your desktop. If you have a unibody Macbook you can also look into the Optibay for additional storage – http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

Snow Leopard will reclaim a few GB of space to use for storage over Leopard.

On the Mac Pro the SSD is attached to the SATA bus in the lower CD/DVD bay, which still leaves open the four drive bays in the computer for data storage. The drive is simply laying on the shelf where the DVD drive would go. I do leave my mail on the SSD drives since it only takes up a few GBs of space and makes mail very fast. Everything else goes on a regular hard drive.

Now that the 80GB X25-M can be had for under $300 it’s a viable solution considering what it brings to your system in terms of speed and reliability.

I’m truly sold on the SSD’s. They make the computer lightning fast compared to a traditional hard drive. If you are not sold yet on the speed, see the little video I made.

Replacing a Samsung hard drive under warranty

jim — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:13:16 +0000

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 HD103UJ 1TB drives are in a RAID 1 configuration. The system sees this as a single terabyte drive. RAID 1 means that anything copied or deleted from the RAID gets copied or deleted from both drives. I only put the photos and videos I shoot onto these drives.

It’s important to realize that RAID is not backup. But it does give me immediate redundancy. Should one of the RAID drives fail I still have the second drive. I actually have more versions of my photos and videos on two other drives. Theoretically I don’t delete anything from these drives, just add to them. I also do not overwrite anything on these drives.

Well, the failure time has arrived. One of the RAID drives has failed so we’ll see how much of a hassle Samsung puts me through to replace my drive. Samsung is not very clear on registering their drives. You used to be able to register drives online. My 500GB docs drive is also a Samsung and it’s registered online. There is no way to register the newer drives online. They’ve stopped doing that. But they don’t bother to tell anyone.

Instead, you go to this page and fill out a form if you need service. I’ve done that on 5/12/98 so we’ll see how long it takes to get a response back.

When I spoke with a CSR he gave me the number of the hard drive repair unit. It’s 201-935-0671. I will call them tomorrow if I have not heard back yet.

UPDATE

Smooth RMA with no hassles. I shipped off the hard drive after getting the authorization and a replacement hard drive arrived a few days later.

The OS X raid software duplicated the drive and I was back in business a few hours later.

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

jim — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:42:35 +0000

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 of the video shows the stock Western Digital 7,200 RPM drive. The second part of the video shows an Intel X25-M 80GB SSD at the same task.

Click to play

Just to see how it improved my MacBook (CoreDuo 1.83GHz with 2GB RAM), I put this SSD into it. It was like a different computer. I was amazed at how fast and responsive it became compared to running off a hard drive. I opened approximately twenty applications and was able to switch seamlessly between them, something that would have ground my MB to a halt if it was running with the HD.

80 GB is kind of small, but considering a notebook is not my main computer, I can get away with limited HD space. When needed I can also attached a portable hard drive. I’ve also contemplated adding an Optibay and the stock HD from the MacBook for more storage, but right now it’s not an issue. For a couch surfing / road warrior machine I can make do with the >50GB remaining on the SSD.

Unibody Late 2008 Aluminum 15″ MacBook Pro Fans Gone Wild

jim — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:45:02 +0000

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 MacBook.

I’ve been using the MacBook over the weekend before I return it on Monday so I can move things off. A new wrinkle has appeared — the MacBook now wants to turn on after being put to sleep or even shut down.

Two nights in a row I shut the MacBook down, only to awake the next morning to discover it had turned itself back on shortly thereafter. “Wake from Bluetooth event” is not enabled. I tried resetting the SMU again and checked power settings to make sure a wake command was not in play.

One guy found that a missing file lead to some instances of MacBook waking from sleep when it’s not suppose to. My MacBook was missing this file but his fix did not work for my MacBook.

This MacBook has some serious issues. Luckily I got in under the 14-day return period. Props to Apple Genius Rex for his help.

Now back to the original post from March 1st:

I can’t figure out the fans on my MacBook Pro. The lowest normal speed for the fans in 2,000 rpm. They will spin up at times for no apparent reason to 5,000 or 6,200 rpm with nothing really taxing the CPU while it’s also pretty cool, usually around the high 30′s or low 40′s celsius.

The other night I was converting a movie with Visual Hub, with the process taking 80% of the CPU and the temp reaching 75 c with the fans staying at 2,000 RPM until about half way through the eight minute conversion. This is a time I would have expected the fans to kick in much earlier than they did.

I have reset the SMC previously with no effect. Coming from a Polycarbonate MacBook this machine is much nosier, but also much cooler running.

Check out the videos I made showing iStat and Activity Monitor during these episodes. Thanks for any feedback. I’m coming to the end of my 14-day return period and wanted to verify if my MBP is operating like others.

Thanks for any feedback.

Long Clip (14mins showing fans running full speed for a long period with low CPU and low temps)

Fans running at low speed with high cpu load and high CPU temp

Fans ramp up to high rpm, low temp, low CPU usage

Fans running at high speed with 25% cpu load and low CPU temp

Fans running at high speed after waking from sleep, CPU temp 104F, 98% idle

88% CPU Idle, temp 41c, fans at 6,200rpm

Enabling Remote Disc on non-Air Macs

jim — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:15:46 +0000

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 turning on DVD or CD sharing won’t work without the above commands.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=455975