Archive for the ‘MacBook’ Category

BSOD on MacBook

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

I was just playing my Curse of the Azure Bonds port, checking that the game can be played through, when Windows ‘Blue Screen of Death’.  It was a very rude feeling, as I have not seen a BSOD for years, well at least that’s how it feels.

I’m feeling really cheated on the gaming front, because I had gotten into the third zone of the fire knives, and hadn’t saved since starting the game, so lost heaps of progress….

At least Windows kept the dump files, and uploaded them so it might get fixed. The next part always make me laugh, you get taken to a Microsoft page where you get told, “sorry there is not a lot we can do about that…” and then they ask if that was helpful…  sure was!

There is an update from Apple for ‘BootCamp Installs’ which is installing right now, but I had to stop playing my game, as the Installer keep grabbing focus, which gets annoying quickly.

Well it wants to reboot now, so I’ll have to go.

It’s back, and now installing Service Pack 3 for XP, so my evening is over.

Posted in MacBook, Microsoft | 2 Comments »

Casio CTK-800 and MacBook

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Yesterday I found the required USB cable to connect my MacBook to the keyboard we purchased for the “kids”. But nothing happened….

After a few minutes Googling I found that Casio only provide Windows drivers… But then I found a GoggleCode project to provide Mac OS X USB MIDI drivers for Casio keyboards. Oh happy times.

Downloaded the driver, installed it in the root driver folder (so all users accounts could use the driver) and rebooted.

Tada, the Audio Midi Setup (Applications/Utilities) could see the keyboard, and GarageBand could record the input.

Now I’m interested to see what the kids will create.

Posted in MacBook | 7 Comments »

Slow DNS on MacBook

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008

We have been experiencing very slow web page loading times on the MacBook (via Firefox).  After reading lots on blogs and the like of people complaining, I found one note that struck a cord with me on talking about OpenDNS. The slowness was almost pin-able to DNS as all the waiting for data from x.com type stuff went by in a flash, after the huge pause was over.
Firefox waiting for data

So I did a side by side compare of loading a sub-page on Trade Me, on the old Window PC vs. the new MacBook. Using the same Wifi. The PC won hands down.  In fact it finished before the Mac had started.

With it in hand I decided to see how the networks were different.

Long story short-er-ish, The Mac was getting IP & DNS settings from the router, and the PC had them manually configured. Applying manual setting to the MacBook, and hay presto… fast page loads. Yay!

So this is a case of the ‘auto-magic just works’ causing problems, as it wasn’t the best solution, but it did work mostly.

Posted in Internet, MacBook | 1 Comment »

First Week of MacBook

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

Five days into being a Mac user, and on the whole I like it. Here is my running thoughts:

  • Had Dashboard crash (well Michaela did actually)
  • Had Firefox crash
  • I really like the parental controls.
  • The kids really love GarageBand
  • After days of telling Michaela you could use two fingers on the track pad to do a right click, I found Rod’s blog post, (where I read about the feature originally) only to discover that it was not on by default. That explains my lack of success.
  • Found the Super DragAndGo extension, so now I don’t need a middle click to browse with tabs.
  • Found this support note saying why I couldn’t find Boot Camp Assistance, and why I also couldn’t find how to install it. This was really driving be batty

So, now I have Boot Camp, I’ll start the Windows XP install, and then be able to decommission my current desktop PC. Yeah!

Posted in MacBook | 2 Comments »

First Post from my new MacBook

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

My first laptop, and it’s a MacBook. I have gone to the white-side. Seems perfectly good so far. The lappy is faster than my workstation at work, and more than twice the processor than my old desktop at home.  I’m connected to the work wireless network, so I’m ready to start installing extra software.

The only issue is I’m currently using a Microsoft mouse, in the USB port….

That and my formatting like paragraphs are not sticking in Safari. Now that I have changed to Firefox, things are more normal. Didn’t think it would be that easy to drop a key package. Safari (mac) == IE (windows), to be avoided!

Posted in MacBook | 2 Comments »