Tidez of Life

Fixing a Rotary Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0000

It just goes to show you can't rely on others to do things for you. I couldn't find any antique refurbish shops in my area, and I really wanted my rotary phones fixed. When I want something done, and there is no one around to do it, it means it is time to work on it myself. Plus, I learn a little something every time I do a project. My project this time was on a Western Electric 554 rotary phone (Seen above).

Here is the breakdown. The phone I had had all the parts in tact and the wire running out of it was cut. So this leaves me one option: rewire. This phone is on an older system and uses RJ11/RJ14 cables. These cables are composed of Red, Yellow, Green, and Black wires. To get the system working again, I simply had to connect the wires together by twisting them around each other. It took a little while because the newer wire that I bought from RadioShack was very thin so it was hard to grip it. If you needed to crimp the wire with a new head, which luckily I didn't, it would be easy to just google the proper wiring alignment. Now I only have one rotary phone left to rewire and get it working, that one is 20 years older, so it may be a bit more challenging.

~Dave

PS: Due to my life getting very busy I will be doing updates less frequently until things calm down.

Windows 8 Developer Preview is Out

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0000

With the recent release of Lion, the tech world now turns its head to Microsoft. They are expecting something just as good/bad depending on how they liked Lion. Microsoft was quick to unveil Windows 8. Windows 8 is actually like Lion in a huge way, it combines the mobile aspect of the Windows Phone, and the desktop aspect of Windows OS. This is the same thing Apple did with Lion, but combining the mobile and desktop aspects of the Mac and iOS. The Windows 8 Developer Preview dropped this week for people and developers alike to try out.

The new start menu in Windows 8

The Lock Screen that is used for Windows 8

What makes Windows 8 so different is that Microsoft is really gearing it toward mobile users, which in my opinion will anger the PC community greatly. Even though you are not required to upgrade, there are many improvements that make it worth doing so. Things like hardware accelerated applications, and a build in firewall/antivirus system are use a few. If you have some time and want to try it out, you can make a 30-40 GB partition on your drive and install it. See if you like it before it comes out.

~Dave

The Unfortunate Bottleneck.

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I believe this is it, then to a long drawn out battle between my laptop and me. I didn't want to accept it at first, I didn't want to believe that the problem was the drive, but it was. Ever since I made the disk drive upgrade to my Macbook, I was having consistent freezing, disk i/o errors, as well as data underrun error being reported in the console. I would really like to thank Scott and Mike at iFixit for trying their best to help me. They sent me a new caddy, even a new drive adapter. And even though that did not fix the problem, the fact that they made the attempt to fix it really is amazing. They are the best customer service I have ever dealt with in a long time. I had never dealt/bought from iFixit prior to this, but that didn't matter. No matter what, they were determined to aid me with my issue.

So what was the problem in the end? The problem is that the Caviar Black 7200 RPM I bought was too fast. Simply put, when the data had to be converted from SATA to ATA, the disk would be moving to fast for the computer to handle. This would cause the data to "bottleneck" in the conversion area, thus slowing down my computer. How am I so sure this was the issue? To find out, I took an old 5400 RPM drive that I had, which is failing but still works, and popped it in the bay. I am writing to it, reading from it, and not seeing as many disk i/o errors in my console. There are still a few showing up in the console, but they are not enough to slow the computer down. Because of this, I now have to make another transaction. I will now have to go to Amazon and request an exchange for a slower Caviar Black drive, as well as pay the difference for the drive. This just goes to show that you can't rule out the most obvious option right away.

~Dave

Problems Persist

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Since my second hard drive was installed, I have been issues backing up to time capsule. I shouldn't get any issue, but for some reason problems are arising. I attempted a backup last night and after about 6 GB of backed up information time machine stops, says there is a problem, and then says if the problem persists to repair the disk. At the moment I am repairing my time capsule sparse bundle in hopes that it will fix the issue. This isn't the first time I have this issue, it happened last week after I installed the hard drive originally. I am guessing it has something to do with the second hard drive being in the computer. I am not very good when it comes to time capsule, and since I don't want to not be able to backup I think I will call Apple on this one.

~Dave

The Second Hard Drive Dilemma

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0000

As some of you may remember, I purchased a second hard drive bay from iFixit a while back. Well, unfortunately I have been having some issues. The bay was causing my computer to lock up constantly. Finder would become unresponsive. It would even force me to turn the computer off manually. Even worse, that would cause my hard drive to go into "read only mode". Read only mode meant that my hard drive had to be formatted to be writable again. After this happened three times I made a point to call iFixit to try and solve the issue. The representative told me it was most likely the bay causing the problem, but just to be sure I should remove the drive and test it else where. So I disassembled my Macbook, removed the drive, and proceeded to test it on my desktop computer via a USB to SATA adapter. There was absolutely no issue with the drive at all. At this point I called iFixit it back.

I was told that since it must be the bay at this point, they would send me a replacement bay and that I would send back the old bay. After waiting 3-4 days, the new bay finally came. As a side note: I made sure to leave the laptop disassembled so I could clean it, and to save me the time installing the new bay. With the new bay finally here, I put it back together. As far as I can tell it is working fine. I noticed that the drive still makes programs open slower then I would like, but at this point I believe it is an issue between the drive SATA- ATA adapter which is slowing it down. I haven't sent back the old bay yet as I am waiting to see if this new bay gives me any problems. In the event it does give problems, I have to give iFixit a call back and go from there.

~Dave

Tell Xcode 4 to Put Its Junk Elsewhere!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0000

With Xcode 4 being distributed through the Mac App Store, the process was streamlined to make it easier to install. In my opinion it is way more annoying. Xcode just puts itself in the root directory without telling you it will be there. If you know it will be there from prior Xcode installations, then you know how big the files are. A total of almost 7 GBs of data are put there. With my SSD, I can't have 7 GBs of information sitting there, it is just too big. So how can you tell Xcode where to put its stuff? Remember when I said Apple stream lined the process to make it easier? Well, what they really did was sugar coat the installer. If you go to the Xcode installer file, right click on it, and click "Show Package Contents" you will see what is inside. What we want to open is the "Xcode.mpkg". This file is located in Contents -> Resources. If you run this installer it will walk you through installing Xcode like any other installer. Plus, when you get to the part where you are asked about installing the Xcode files, you can use the drop down menu to choose where to install the Developer Tools. See image below:

After that, proceed as usual with installing Xcode!

~Dave

PS: Lack of updates was due to preparation for the hurricane.

It is picture clear!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Along with my summer of upgrades, I bought a Logitech c910 web camera. This web cam is good because it works for both Macs and PCs. That made finding a camera for my Hackintosh a breeze. Plus, the camera was just plug in and go. It was recognized automatically, no software needed. The camera takes pictures and does video chat in 720p. However, if you film movies it takes them in 1080p. I assume the difference in because of a bandwidth limit. What I like about this camera is that it just rests on top of my screen. There is no glue, screws, or anything needed to keep it there. Just mount and go. This camera is definitely worth the cost, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a webcam. It is portable too, so if you have a laptop with a poor webcam you can always consider this.

~Dave

After a short Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0000

It has been quite a while since I was able to post an update. I have been busy running around here and there. However, I just received the parts for my additional hard drive bay for my Macbook. So, as most people who are very excited, I got right to upgrading my laptop. This time I took extreme precaution. I was dealing with a component which would cost me extra if I broke it. In addition, I had to be able to re-use it when done. So what did I do? First, I followed the guide on iFixit.com on how to remove an Optical Drive Bay in a Macbook Core 2 Duo laptop. With every step that included screws being removed, I made sure to place those screws in their own little boxes, making sure they were in the order they were removed. Once I had removed the drive, I proceeded to install the new HDD drive bay with the HDD inside it. Since there were no directions on how to screw it into place, I did the one logical thing I could think of, I followed the iFixit guide backwards. In order, I put the screws back, reapplied the tape, put the bluetooth back, everything. I took special care to properly connect the cables, as well as to make sure they were secure. After almost an hour of work my laptop was back together (with a lot less dust since I could blow some of it out). I held my breath and booted up the computer. I heard the familiar "Bummmmm", and then the Apple logo appeared. Once I had logged in, the computer notified me there was a disk that "was in an unrecognized format". This made sense since the disk had not yet been formatted. I click "Initialize" and then, within Disk Utility, formatted the disk as Mac OS X Journaled. At this point, I figured I was home free. Well, I was slightly wrong. You see, in my effort to save some cash I purchased a very cheap CD/DVD external encasement bay. However, I was in a rush when I did so and did not look at the specifications. The bay I purchased was for a SATA CD/DVD drive. My computer has an ATA CD/DVD drive. Because of this, I will have to make a return of the old drive, and spend MORE money to buy the right drive. This time, I will buy from OWC because they are really good at documenting exactly what their product offers. On the upside, I am now able to offload a ton of files onto my newly installed HDD. I can say, from experience, that if you follow instructions, and you know what you are doing, you should have no problem at all performing this upgrade. It is worth the time and money to do! ~Dave

iPhone Hard Reset

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Recently my friends iPhone completely stopped responding. The screen was completely black, it wouldn't take a charge, and I couldn't turn it on or off. I had no idea what the issue was. My first though is maybe it had gone dead or something was defective, however I didn't want to believe that to be the issue. So I searched the problem on Google. I came across multiple Apple support threads in which people suggested a "hard reset" of the device. A hard reset, for those who don't know, is a way to force a device to restart if it is frozen. To do this with the iPhone, you have to hold the power button and the home button at the same time for 10 seconds. After doing so the iPhone restarted and booted as it normally would, thus fixing the problem. I am not quite sure what caused my friends iPhone to do this, but this fixed it. If you ever have that issue make sure to try a hard reset before you get on the phone with Apple.

~Dave

Plans for the Future

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I have been busy recently with personal stuff, but I do have some plans for the future. First, I will be installing a had drive in my macbook in place of my CD Rom drive so I can have a second hard drive. This will allow me to offload some of the information from my SSD to my HDD. You might wonder, "What about the the CD Drive? You won't be able to use it will you?". No worries there, I thought ahead. I made sure to get a external USB encasement for my drive, thus allowing me to keep the drive and still use it. I made sure to purchase from reputable suppliers. I bought from iFixit.com, as well as Amazon.com. I saved money on my purchase, as well as made sure that I was getting what I wanted. The great thing about iFixit is they help you narrow your choices down to the ones that only work with your computer, so unless you choose the wrong computer it is pretty hard to buy the wrong thing. Later this week, when I receive the items, I will do a write up about it.

~Dave

Xcode and Moving Files

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I noticed that Xcode was not recognized as "Installed" on my Hackintosh due to the fact that I had moved it to another drive. So, as I should have done originally, I created a Symbolic Link. However, it still was showing up as "Installed" in the Mac App Store. Then I remembered that my version was outdated, so what I did was I re-downloaded the installer and ran it. I was overjoyed to see that the installer recognized the symbolic link, and immediately went and updated the files. I then deleted the installer and checked the Mac App Store. To my surprise, it was recognized as "Installed"! Hopefully I have no issues down the line, but as of now this is great since I didn't want to keep a 10 GB developer kit on my SSD.

~Dave

Name your Price for 12 Games

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Humble Bundle has done it again. The guys over there are offering not only 5 games, but an addition 7 games to buy for what ever price you want. As long as you spend over $5.38, you get these 12 games. The 12th game is actually a free to play membership of mine craft for a couple of days. Although you are not getting the full game, you do get to try out what makes the game so popular. You will also receive the games from the previous Humble Bundle (Humble Bundle 2 that is) and a game called Steel Storm. So head over and check it out, give a little and get a lot!

~Dave

How much RAM can your Mac hold?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Today I will be performing a RAM upgrade for an iMac, mid 2007 version. Now, usually RAM upgrades can be very annoying, especially on Macs where you needs a certain type of RAM, as well as a certain amount. On PCs it is not so annoying as you can put any type in, just has to fit the socket, and you can usually have upwards of 8GB of RAM. Older Macs, like the one I am performing the upgrade on, can only hold about 4GB of laptop RAM. That is one of the reasons the iMacs are so thing, because they use laptop RAM instead of desktop RAM. So how was I to figure out the speed and type of RAM to use? Well, one way would be to use Crucial.com, and search out my RAM using their special RAM finder. Or, in Lion, I could go to "About this Mac" and find out. That is what I did.

From the example above, you can see what type of RAM is needed. In this case, it is two sticks of 667 Mhz DDR2 SDRAM. However, if you notice in the bottom right corner, there is a button that says "Memory Upgrade Instructions". If you click on that it will take you to an Apple support page which not only tells you how to upgrade your RAM, but also the maximum amount you can put in your computer. That is how I found out how much I needed, and then I went bargain hunting across online dealers to find the right RAM.

~Dave

iPad Photo Syncing Solution

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Over the weekend I came upon a problem regarding my relative's iPad. My relative only had 500 of his 3000+ pictures in his photo library, and every time he would sync it would tell him that "Some of the picture, include PictureX.jpg, could not be synced with this iPad because they are not compatible". Well, that made no sense to me as all the pictures should have been compatible. I searched the internet for hours trying to find a solution. Some people said to delete your iPod Photo Cache, other said to remove all the pictures and re-sync them. Both of these I tried, but to no avail. When I thought I was out of option, I decided to try a fix of my own. Although impractical if it worked, it would get the job done. I rummaged through some items and pulled out our iPad Camera Connection Kit.

iPad Camera Connection Kit

Next, I took the SD card out of my camera and plugged it into the computer. It showed up on my desktop as usual. I then opened iPhoto, and dragged a bunch of pictures that were "incompatible" and placed them on the SD card under one of the folders that store other pictures. After they copied, I quickly ejected the card and plugged it into the iPad. As I expected, the card showed up and with it the "incompatible" pictures did to. I selected them, then hit import select and they were transferred to the iPad. Why no one on the internet had tried this baffles me, but it worked. My reasoning was that the iPad would read an SD card as long as it was formatted by a camera first, which it was. Then I thought, the iPad has to be able to make pictures compatible with it when they are transferred from a camera. By putting two and two together I was able to get my incompatible pictures onto my iPad.

~Dave

Help Fund a Game

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

While browsing kickstarter yesterday, I came across a game that is in the early stages of development. The game, known as Blade Symphony, is a sword fighting game who's game mechanics are based on those of the Star Wars: Jedi Knights series. What is better is that you can help fund this game! The more you give, the more you get. One of the neediest promotions is if you donate $1000, you get named an Executive of the game in the credits. This game has potential, and is definitely worth donating to.

For those of you who don't know what Kicstarter is, it is a website where people post their ideas for products. If the idea is accepted, then Kickstarter will fund their prototype and let them make a video about it. The person(s) then try to promote their idea, so as to reach their goal. When they reach their goal they go and start producing more of that product.

~Dave

Weekend Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Once again the weekend is here and I off course have some plans to get to. First, I plan on going ahead in my Objective-C 2.0 programming book. This is the 3rd Edition by Stephen Kochan, it is geared towards people who have no previous programming knowledge. I don't know how many books it will take, but I eventually hope to reach my ultimate goal: creating an application. Second, I am still looking an SSDs. Mushkin just introduced its line of Chronos SSDs. They are fast and cheaper then the Patriot Wildfire. Before I buy I just have to make sure that they don't have any issues working with Windows. As always, I will try to be patient with my decision, even though that can sometimes be tough. And of course, last but not least, I will be updating my blog (here). So that is just a brief overview of my weekend, hope you all have a good weekend out there!

~Dave

Humble Bundle 3 is Here!

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Humble Bundle is back and this time sporting five new games. Humble Bundle, for those who don't know, is a charity promotion event that allows you to buy the five offered games for any price you wish, even free. This is one of the best ways I have seen to raise money for charity. Past Humble Bundles have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity, just by selling games for what ever price the buyer wishes to pay. In addition to buying the games, you have the choice of where your money gets to go. You could send it all to charity, or you could send it to the developers. Split it however you would like. This time around the games up for grabs are Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, VVVVV, And Yet it Moves, and Hammerfight. All of these great games for what ever price you want. So what are you waiting for? Go buy some games!

~Dave

Why I am Waiting for a Windows SSD

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

In recents months SSD prices have been dropping to the point where I am considering buying one for Windows. I came very close to buying some of them, but then I strayed away. The reason being is that all the current drives that are SATA III are having issues with Windows. Many of the newer drives are having problems where they randomly get a Blue Screen of Death. This is a huge no buy point for me, as I don't wish to deal with any issues. I keep looking, but at the moment there only seems to be one drive that doesn't have any issues, and that is the Patriot Wildfire. With no issues, and comparable speeds, it is the drive worth buying. However, with a price point of $300 I am not ready to buy that yet. For 120GB I would like less then $200 to be spent on the drive. Until these issues are fixed, or this drive drops in price, I will be waiting to buy a SSD for Windows. Plus, I have no issues at the moment with my 1 TB Caviar Black drive.

~Dave

Dell Has Impressed Me

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

A while back I mentioned the new laptop I helped my friend pick out. Earlier this week it arrived, and as of yesterday we opened it. The Dell XPS 17 that he ordered performed much better then I expected to be honest. Everything was pre-installed, including all those annoying dell drivers, After booting up, we made sure to remove the annoying Dell drivers, as well as Mcafee and Roxio Creator. Freed up quite a bit of space. We were a little disappointed with the fact that Steam was suppose to come pre-installed at no extra charge, but it would seem Dell forgot to do that. It only took us about half an hour to get the computer to where we wanted it to be. We installed the normals: Google Chrome, Pidgin, Skype, and Steam. Then, we updated the graphics drivers, and updated Windows itself. I usually use Microsoft Security Essentials, mostly because it is free and does a great job. My friend prefers to use Malware Bytes. I have never used this, but he says it is lighter (takes up less space) and does the same thing as MSE. In my opinion, what ever floats your boat.

His specs were good, coming in with an Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia 555M 1GB graphics card, 6 GB RAM, a Samsung solid state drive, and a half terabyte Toshiba. His boot time was about 12-15 seconds, which is still really fast. I have to keep reminding him that he has to install more stuff to the hard drive and less to the SSD as the SSD will get slower the more it fills up, as well as die quicker. The computer only really got hot when we started gaming, but that was no big deal as the ventalation took care of most of the heat. Overall this is a great product, and I am quite surprised at how well it performs considering Dell's track record. I would recommend this computer to someone looking to an affordable gaming laptop.

~Dave

Creating a Symbolic Link

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

This walkthrough was a little bit complicated for yesterday's SSD setup guide, so I made a separate post for this specifically. If you are running a computer with an SSD and an HDD, obviously you want to keep the larger files on the HDD. However, certain files and folders are needed by applications so that they can run properly. You can't just simply move those folders because then the application won't run properly. Certain apps such as Steam, iTunes, even iPhoto, all store information in your home directory. This is fine on an HDD, but on an SSD where you have minimal space this is not ok. So, how do we move these files? We have to create what is called a Symbolic Link. What this will do is make the OS "think" the files are in the right place, when really you are directing it to the HDD instead of the SSD. This does use terminal, so if you are not comfortable with using terminal I suggest you get comfortable soon, or deal with the space issue you have another way.

1. Find the folder you would like to move. I am going to use my iTunes Music folder located in /User/*insert your username here*/Music/iTunes

2. Copy that folder that you have chosen anywhere you want on your HDD

3. When you are done copying, open up terminal. We want to delete the previous folder, so type:
cd /User/*insert your username here*/Music/iTunes
That will make sure terminal knows what folder we are in. Next type:
sudo rm -rf iTunes Music
It will ask you for your password, and then it will delete your iTunes Music folder from your SSD.

4.Now we have to create the Symbolic Link. Before moving forward, make sure terminal is still in the folder iTunes since that is where we are making the link. If you are doing this for something else, just make sure that you are in the folder that the original file (the one we just deleted) was in. Here is the difference between being in a folder and not being in a folder in terminal:

Notice one says desktop and the other doesn't.

Now, while in the folder type the following into terminal to create the Symbolic Link:
ln -s /Volumes/*Name of hard drive you moved the file to*/path/to/the/file
For me, I would type ln -s /Volumes/Applications/iTunes Music
All we are doing here is telling the computer to make a redirect folder pointing to where we moved the folder to.

If everything went as planned, then you should have something that looks like this:

Notice the folder with the arrow. That is a symbolic link

So go ahead, and give it a try. Best of luck to those you want to do this. Took me a couple of tries to get it right.

~Dave

Optimizing an SSD for Lion

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

TRIM
First and foremost, the one thing you must do after installing Lion is run Trim Enabler. What this does is enable the trim feature for your SSD if it is a non-Apple certified one (e.g if you bought something like an OCZ or a Corsair drive). Without trim enabled, you will wear down your SSD faster because the SSD will have to re-write information a lot more. What trim does is when you delete a file it is completely removed from the memory block. However, without trim, the SSD will think the file is not in the memory block, even though it still is. That means that when a new file has to be written, the no trim SSD will have to delete the old file and write the new one, where the trim SSD just has to write the new one.

HIBERNATION OFF
When OS X goes to sleep normally, it uses hibernation mode. This is ok on a HDD as you have a ton of space. However, on an SSD you don't have a ton of space and every byte counts. When hibernation mode is enabled, your computer will write all the contents of your RAM to your SSD. That means if you have a total of 8 GB or RAM, it will be written to your SSD. That is a lot of space to lose to RAM. We want to turn this off, so go ahead and open up Terminal.

Note: The $ sign is not required as part of the code.
1. In Terminal type the following:

$ sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
This will then turn off hibernation.
2. Next we have to remove the old file (you may not have a file to remove if you just installed Lion and haven't put your computer to sleep yet). To remove the file type into Terminal the following:
$ sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

And that is it, you will now have no hibernation on your computer!

HARD DRIVE SLEEP
By default OS X enables the command to put your hard drive to sleep when inactive. However, SSDs don't need to be put to sleep. Some even are known to freeze up when put to sleep. To disable this, simply go to System Preferences->Energy Saver and disable it. If you are on a laptop, make sure to disable it for both with and without the power adapter.

SUDDEN MOTION SENSOR
Another feature that is Hard Drive specific. This feature prepares a HDD for impact if it detects the computer falling suddenly. The features will disengage the hard drive head and stops the disks from spinning. With an SSD however, there are no moving parts, so this command is useless. To turn it off, type the following code into Terminal:

sudo pmset -a sms 0

DISABLE SPOTLIGHT
If you don't search your computer a lot, then you have not reason to let spotlight index your computer. Simply turn it off by typing the following into Terminal:

sudo mdutil -a -i off

I hope these tips help you out there who wanted to optimize your SSD for Mac.

~Dave

Installing Lion

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

The installation of Lion was a smooth and painless one. After making the $30 purchase from the App Store, it only took about an hour for me to download it. The download is added to your applications folder, and will launch when done. Once you click through the installation screens, Lion will say "setting up". What most people don't know about this faze is that when Lion says "setting up", it really is partitioning your drive to add a recovery partition. You may wonder "Why do I need a recovery partition?". Well let me remind you, you don't have an installation disk. With out an install disk you can't recover right? Because of this, Apple added the ability to have the installation disk stored in a recovery partition. Pretty nifty right?

After that your computer will restart and from there you just select the Hard Drive (or Solid State if you are using one) and let Lion install. It can take anywhere from 20 minutes to maybe an hour depending on your hard drive speed. It took my SSD about 15 minutes to install. After that, the computer will reboot and you are good to go!

I will go over some SSD tweaks tomorrow, and later this weekend I will go over the new products from Apple.

~Dave

Lion unleashes its "Roar".

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

As I write this, the Apple Store website is currently down. Suspected to be coming out of this downtime are new Macbook Airs as well as new Mac Minis. What is confirmed as coming out of this down time is OS X Lion. Lion is the next installment in Apple's major operating system releases, and brings a slew of new features, as well as kills some old ones. For example, Launch Pad will be a new way to open applications, however something like Front Row will no longer exist. Lion will be digitally distributed through the Mac App Store, not through physical copies. However, if you search around, there are tutorials on how to make an OS X Lion install disk. Another thing to consider is that once you update your Mac, if you are running an SSD it is best to do a clean install. In addition, make sure you google how to tweak your SSD for OS X. Later this week I will write an article about that, I have to go through the process myself first. Lion will run you about $30, so be ready.

~Dave

Flash on the iPad

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

No flash on the iPad. That is what you are told to believe. That is all fine and dandy, but if you look around (legally of course) there is a work around. This work around is an app called Photon Flash. Photon Flash is a web browser that allows you to stream flash to your device. The app is great in the way that it allows you to use it as a normal web browser, and when you come across flash you can activate it at any time. All you have to do is tap the lightning bolt button in the top right. The page will then reload and say "Now streaming flash content" and the flash content will be there. Since it is streaming, you won't get perfect frame rates, however it does a pretty decent job of handling flash. You can watch videos, look at ads, even play online flash games. Your games, however, may be limited since you can't make a lot of quick actions. That means you can't really play any games that need a lot of mouse movement.

Another neat aspect is that the app allows you to call upon a keyboard when ever you need. This is particularly great for playing games when you need to have to use multiple keyboard commands at once. The app does come with some stability issues, and crashes every once and a while. I would say that this is the best way to browse with flash on an iPad. For $4 you can pick this app up in the App Store.

~Dave

Google+: The Facebook Killer?

noreply@blogger.com (Dave) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:00:00 +0000

After weeks of on and off usage, I can honestly say that I believe Google+ will be the Facebook killer. In just under a month or so, Google+ has already raked in 10 million users. That is compared to Facebooks 500 million in a couple of years. Not only that, but Google+ is way more intuitive to use then Facebook. Things are simple, laid out in such a way that they are easy to understand. Facebooks has stuff popping up all the time, as well as adds and games. Google+ is a straight forward experience. You can have friends, as well as family, and acquaintances, all grouped so you can visualize your sorting. You can also selectively send status updates. That means I can send a status to my friends, but not to my acquaintances if I wished to. You can also follow people, which is great if you are following a game developer or a news station. The only thing that Facebook has that is like is adding things to your "Hobbies", which in the ends puts a lot of spam in your stream of posts. Just the way that Google+ is laid out makes me believe it will be the next big social networking evolution.

~Dave