12/22/2003

Holiday Report...

Hello, all, and Happy Holidays! Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be traveling over the next week and only connected via dial-up (ugh), so there will probably be little or no posts here until around New Years. See you in 2004!

12/21/2003

Give us a choice, Apple...

Here's the thing: Silent Night (see below) fixes the fan noise problem that started with 10.3.2. But the fan noise itself is a side effect of an Apple fix for the problem of the 12-inch Powerbooks running hot (which everyone has been complaining about since these suckers were first released this summer). What I would like to see, rather than a roll-back hack like Silent Night, would be a preference pane where you can choose between running cool or running silently (essentially switching between the older and newer versions of AppleADM103x.kext and the AppleADT746x.kext, depending upon one's preference). If any coders at Apple are reading this, could you make this thought a reality? A third part hack that would switch between old and new would work, but I'd prefer it come from Apple. Thanks.

12/20/2003

Fix for excessive fan since 10.3.2

Check this out:
Silent Night fixes 12'' PowerBook fan noise
iDriveX has written a utility to fix the problem with excessive fan noise caused by the Mac OS X 10.3.2 update on 12" PowerBook G4s. [MacMegasite]
I just want to state that I advise against this hack. The fan turns on more, yes, but as a result, the 12-inch isn't as hot to the touch (and warping and other bad side-effects of the excessive heat of these units is probably avoided).

'Nother Security Update

Run Software Update now for yesterday's latest Security Update.

Wireless Keyboard for your 3650...

Check out Rael's post over at MobileWhack:
I gave this a whirl the moment I found it this morning and have been IR-keyboarding my 3650 throughout the day without a hitch. Simply download the .sis file, copy it to and install it on your handset, launch it from the Menu, turn it on using Options > Palm Wireless ON or Pocketop ON, depending on the keyboard you have, background it (hold down the Menu button), and use it in any app that expects texting input.
I need to go buy myself a Palm Wireless Keyboard now...

12/19/2003

.Mac Getting Started Manual

Apple has released a GettingStarted.pdf for .mac. . . . after nearly two years.

iFlex portable iSight holder for your 12-inch...

MacMice introduces the iFlex. Oh, I really want one of these from Santa. Too bad they don't ship until January. $19.99, though, is not too high a price point. Pretty cool.

12/18/2003

Photostudio X for FREE

If you have .mac, you can find a free copy of Photostudio X in the Members Only folder of your iDisk. I must note here that this is one of the things I really like about .mac. If you add up the price-tags of all the free software .mac gives away over the course of a year, the sum is greater than the cost of .mac.

Java Update 1.4.1

Available via Software Update and weighing in at 42.5MB: Java Update 1.4.1.

Xcode 1.1 Update...

For all you coders out there: Xcode 1.1 update is now available via Software Update.

3650 FAQ

Check it Out: Nokia 3650 FAQ (pdf).

Oops... Huzzah!

Guess I was wrong about the fan being a good thing:
Do not install Mac OS X 10.3.2
Owners of first generation 12-inch PowerBook G4s are advised not to install Mac OS X 10.3.2 until Apple resolves a problem caused by the update with this particular machine. The update causes the PowerBook's fan to run non-stop while on AC power [Mac Net Journal]
Why does every update from Apple recently, royally screw-up things for a small percentage of their users? I must say, though, that my 12-inch has never run so cool... hopefully, the fan won't blow.
UPDATE: This is bogus. The fan isn't running all the time when plugged in; just a bit more than usual. And it doesn't do it when you are unplugged, so who cares? I think it's a good thing. Update now everybody!

Update Craziness: iTunes 4.2 with Security Updates to follow...

Well, after releasing OS X 10.3.2, QuickTime 6.5, and a Battery Update for portables, Apple has now released iTunes 4.2 and there is word of more Security Updates to be released later this afternoon...

Mac OS X 10.3.2 may cause increased fan usage on 12-inchers...

Check this out:
One bad side effect of Mac OS X 10.3.2
The most annoying side effect of Mac OS X 10.3.2 on my 12-inch PowerBook G4 is that my machine's fan is running a lot more - nearly all of the time when I have the machine plugged into the AC. Are others seeing this? [Mac Net Journal]
I didn't really make this connection myself until I read this, but I had noticed that my normally silent-running 12-inch has launched its fan twice on me today. Both times when I launched NetNewsWire Lite and the processor was in heavy usage. Odd. UPDATE: I'm starting to think that this fan thing isn't a bad thing. It is hardly audible and would appear to be keeping my usually quite warm 12-incher rather cool. Now, if it does this with the unit unplugged and runs the battery down more quickly, I will be irritated, but for now, the extra fan running is a nice boon. It's actually comfortable to sit back at my desk with my 12-inch in my lap!

Quicktime 6.5 with 3GPP...

Run Software Update to gain the latest Quicktime 6.5 with added 3GPP support for compatibility with your 3650's video capabilities...

Conserve your 3650's memory...

There's a good post by Rael over at MobileWhack about how to conserve your 3650's memory by using the MMC card. Check it out.

Spy! for your 3650

I normally don't blog all the new bits of software that comes out daily for the 3650, as most people will go to Handango if they want to find software that they and/or I haven't tested out. But this is just plain cool! I saw something like this the other day on some news program or another about using portable devices to spy on people, but this is really cool. I mean, all my dreams of becoming a P.I. are floating to the surface with this little bit of Spy!ware. Imagine, take your phone, drop it anywhere you need to survey the area and walk off—wait. I can't leave my 3650 behind!

12/17/2003

Cocktail 3.3

Get Cocktail. Pay for it. It will save your butt.

Battery Update 1.1 & OS X 10.3.2

Battery Update 1.1 and Mac OS X Update 10.3.2 available via Software Update now. UPDATE: Here's the KBarticle with a list of all the improvements in the 10.3.2 update.

Register reports on Combo USB Flash-drive/Wi-Fi

Check it out:
Taiwainese memory specialist TwinMOS is hopping onto the USB Flash Drive/WLAN adaptor combo bandwagon with a curvy, blue entry into the market.
Now, this is a pretty cool little piece of technological portability for us 12-inchers. I mean, think about it: First, you have a little bit of USB accessible storage space for transferring files to other computers. Secondly, assuming that you have Airport locked n' loaded on your 12-inch and that you can use one of these dongles to set up an ad-hock 802.11 base station, then you have the ability to set-up WiFi internet service to your 12-inch in situations where everything is wired. Pretty cool!

New Sleeve for your 12-inch...

If you're looking for a skin-tight case for your 12-inch, check out the new Willow Minimus Powerbook Sleeves. The 12-inch models are $41 (but word to the wise: the shipping charges *start* at $10).

12/16/2003

MPEG-2 Expired...

Check it:
QuickTime MPEG-2 Component Expired
As reported by MacFixIt, we have confirmed that QuickTime's MPEG-2 component (an additional purchase made by several users which allowed the playback of MPEG-2 files) expired on December 14th, 2003, leaving thousands of users without the ability to play MPEG-2 files. We have also confirmed that a re-install of the component has no effect.

Update: Repairing permissions has no effect.

Update: Several MacFixIt readers are reporting that the MPEG-2 component for QuickTime 6.3 is working properly. This problem may only be related to the new MPEG-2 component released for QuickTime 6.4.

Like Pixels? Check out MacDesign [MacMerc]
I was a little peeved at seeing this report, because I shelled out the extra dough for the MPEG-2 Quicktime Component. I wonder if I could downgrade to 6.3...

A Smaller Plug for your 12-inch for Cheaper...

Mini AC Adapter for PowerBook & iBook for $48.95—that's $11 cheaper than I previously reported when I first mentioned that MacResQ carried it. Word to the thrifty... Thanks, Josh!

12/15/2003

Plethora of 3650 links over at MobileWhack

Rael reposted several tidbits for 3650 users from his archives. Check it out.

Welcome MobileWhackers!

I just wrote a small blurb over at MobileWhack about my Share2Blue2th scripts. If you clicked over here from over there, please make yourself at home. Feel free to browse through the archives . . . click on some links . . .

12-inch set-up postponed...

For those of you eagerly awaiting my reports from setting up my friend Andrew's 12-inch this past weekend: he fell sick and there was a wee bit of snow here in New York on Sunday, so the tweaking has been rescheduled for next weekend (possibly). I'll let you know when it happens, and what I do to make his machine nicely tweaked...

OSX to Bluetooth to 3650 to T-Mobile GPRS to the Net

MobileWhack has detailed instructions complete with screenshots on how to set up your 12-inch to connect to the net via your 3650 using T-Mobile. These instructions are much clearer than the ones I had previously blogged.

12/14/2003

Theme-able OS X

Want to customize your 12-inch's on-screen look to more carefully resemble the Aluminum finish than the default brushed metal appearance of OS X? Do you miss the options that Kaleidoscope used to give you in Mac Classic? Check out this Wired article. Get ShapeShifter. Start searching for themes. I'm running Power Metal from Swizcore Studio (pictured) now. If you want to skin Safari as well, you're going to want SafariIcon. UPDATE: You can also use ThemePark to create your own themes.

Weirdness with Share2Blue2th...

I don't know what exactly caused it, but for the first time in months, I was having trouble connecting with the Share2Blue2th scripts today. Whatever it was, running
sudo ipfw -f flush
in the Terminal solved the problem. If you have similar problems give it a shot. Some sort of firewall interference going on...

12/12/2003

MCE Quickstream DV

If you use your 12-inch as your portable movie-studio, as I sometimes dream of doing, you are going to really want one of these. The MCE Quickstream DV captures DV footage directly to hard drive via your camera's firewire port while you are taping! Then you can simply plug it in to your 12-inch as a FW drive with all the video files ready for editing with no need to log and capture. Unfortunately, this magnificence is a little out of the realm of the consumer / prosumer buying level, as the intro model with 90 minutes of video capture space weighs in at just under $600.

Setting up a new 12-inch...

My good friend, Andrew, just bought a brand new, loaded 1Ghz 12-inch with Superdrive, 512MB of RAM, Airport Extreme, and a 20GB iPod to boot. Needless to say, I am supremely envious, as my non-tech-minded friend's new computer surpasses my own beat-up, first generation 12-inch. But, as his guru friend, I get to play with his new toy this Sunday, when he will bring it by for me to configure and tweak it for his specific needs. A small, evil part of me wishes he were gullible enough for me to pull a switcheroo on him, using Carbon Copy Cloner to make his machine mine and my machine his, but unfortunately, Andrew is a pretty bright bulb, even though he's not too tech-minded, and I, of course, am cursed with this darn conscience and a mind over-crowded with ideas of ethics and morality... In any case, I will most likely post about the tweaking experience after the weekend, for you 12-inchers interested in ways to optimize your computing experience.

For those of you who haven't updated to Panther yet...

Word to the wise: If you haven't loaded Panther on your 12-inch yet, and you qualify for the Mac OS X - Up To Date Program:
The program ends on December 26, 2003. Your order must be postmarked or faxed by December 17, 2003, so order your upgrade now.
I recommend the upgrade. Two main reasons: 1. Fewer appearances of the spinning beach-ball of death. 2. Exposé rules.

EasyFind 3.0 from DEVONtechnologies

DEVONtechnologies today released a free little program called EasyFind 3.0, which you can download from this page. According to the Read Me file:
EasyFind is an alternative to or supplement of Sherlock and finds files, folders or contents in any file without the need for indexing - and therefore immediately! This is especially useful if you are tired of slow or impossible indexing, outdated or corrupted indexes or if you are just looking for missing features like case sensitive or insensitive search, boolean operators and wildcards or searching for phrases. In addition EasyFind uses multithreading and is therefore very responsive even with multiple search processes running, provides contextual menus & services and displays the location of each item in a separate column for a better overview. Finally EasyFind uses little memory, supports drag & drop and the clipboard and finds optionally invisible items or items within packages.
I can not praise DEVONtechnologies highly enough. I use their DEVONthink database program on a daily basis, and it has improved my productivity 10 fold. The few times I have had any problems with their software (which has always been something I've done) they have been very open and helpful via email correspondence to help me troubleshoot. That's what makes a great software product: a useful tool with supportive people behind it who are interested in their users' needs and what their users have to say. Go buy their products now.

Expanding Airport for your 12-inch...

Matt Croydon has a post over at Mobitopia linking to different ways to aim and expand your Wi-Fi signals. Pretty cool. I especially like the parabolic waveguides, which "are an extremely inexpensive way to boost your signal and fill in those wireless dead spots." I hate dead spots. Now if I could just get a similar fix for the two dead spots in my cellular connectivity with my 3650 on the drive home, I'd be set. Go check it out.

A Smaller Plug for your 12-inch...

For you portability pros who like to cram as much stuff into as small a space as possible, MacResQ has their MacResQ Mini AC Adapter for PowerBook G4 & White iBook priced at $59.99. There's even a review of the product at O'Grady's PowerPage.

12/11/2003

iSkin Protection for your 12-inch...

The New iSkin ProTouch PB for your 12-inch Powerbook or iBook (as well as other models of Apple portables):
...prevents the keyboard’s keys from general wear and tear caused by everyday use.
and
...is designed to cover each key of the keyboard and create a non-slipping protective layer that allows you to type normally and comfortably. Since it's made of durable, flexible silicone, it's soft to the touch and dampens the sound of the keystrokes– handy when in quiet zones like libraries, meetings or classrooms.
I'm somewhat tempted to get one of these, as I tend to type as if each of my fingers is the hammer of Thor striking down his adversaries. In other words, I type loudly. People often comment on how loudly I type. And my 12-inch is less than 6 months old and the T, U, G, and SPACE keys are all showing a little bit of wear and tear, and the W is a TOTALLY different shade of grey than all the other keys. Plus, iSkin offers an iSkin Tattoo Service through which you can get:
...custom logos, web site addresses and corporate messages printed on the spacebar.
I'm thinking it would be pretty cool to have 3650 and a 12-inch along my spacebar... However, I am still regretting getting a cover from MacSkinz for my 12-inch, which I found rather flimsy and cheap looking and never use any longer. My thought is that I enjoy the tactile feel of the 12-inch's keyboard so much that putting a bit of silicone between me and the keys would not last for too long before I would become totally annoyed with the ProTouch and stop using it. Still, it would seem to have some advantages. If anybody from iSkin wants to send me one to try out, I'll write a review of it, and—if I like it—purchase a customized version. Also, if anyone has used one of these and can shed some light on the experience, please email me at cks3 at mac dot com. UPDATE: After digging around on the iSkin site some more, it looks like the tattoo service is only available if you are ordering quantities of 50 or more. If you would like a customized 3650 and a 12-inch ProTouch, email me and let me know how much you'd be willing to pay for it, and I'll look into ordering some if more than 50 people express interest.

Applescript: The Definitive Guide

Here's a book that I wouldn't mind finding in my stocking this Christmas:
AppleScript: The Definitive Guide explores and teaches the language from the ground up. If you're a beginner and want to learn how to write your first script or just understand what the excitement is all about, you'll be able to do so after reading this book. Experienced AppleScripters will love having the most definitive, up-to-date AppleScript language reference available.

12/10/2003

My little rubber feet...

All but one of the little rubber feet on my 12-inch have disappeared. It's more my fault than Apple's b/c I slide this sucker in and out of a very small bag packed with other things on a regular basis. Now here's my dilemma: try to get replacement feet? or just rip off the last one?

If your 12-inch isn't resolving DNS correctly...

...you can try running the following in the Terminal:
lookupd -flushcache
Info on the where and why of it all can be found in this Mac OS X Hint.

New TinkerTool for Panther...

Free customization for your account in OS X made possible through TinkerTool 3.1. Get it.

Don't bring your 3650 with you to the movies in California...

Check out this story over at Gizmodo. California (now with Arnold at the helm) has passed a law prohibiting recording devices from move theaters. Gizmodo notes, "The law is aimed at people using camcorders to bootleg films, but you could conceivably be thrown in jail for up to a year if you're spotted with one of those new video cellphones or even a tape recorder." Law goes into effect on January 1st. Add this to my list of reasons for not having much desire to ever live in California. Although, I am worried that such a stupidly misaligned and redundant law (copyright already protects against the type of pirating towards which the law is aimed) will make its way east with MPAA money backing it. I regularly, at the beginning of each film I see, pull out my 3650 and take a single snapshot of the projected image. Why? I'm not selling or using the image for profit. I am merely recording the smallest moment of what I have seen. Because I can...

12/08/2003

As Mentioned in Mac OS X Unwired, p.155...

Thanks, Phil! I just received my copy of Mac OS X Unwired: A Guide for Home, Office, and the Road by Tom Negrino & Dori Smith in the mail today. Click on the link above to order your copy direct from O'Reilly. On page 155, you will find mention of me, my Share2Blue2th scripts, and 3650 and a 12-inch. How cool is that?!

12/05/2003

Bluejacking with your 3650...

Gizmodo has a write-up about the phenomenon of bluejacking for any of you out there who are interested in sending surprise messages via your 3650 to other bluetooth devices in your immediate area...

12/04/2003

Dissappearing Bluetooth Menu

This is from MacFixIt:
Bluetooth menu (and other menu) issues Yesterday we covered a report by a reader for whom the Bluetooth status menu disappears whenever attempting to send something to his Mac via Bluetooth. We've since received a few confirmations of this issue, as well as a number of reports of other status menu issues. Reader Jim Hassinger, for example, notes that for him, Apple's "Network Connection" [we assume he means modem or AirPort connection status] and volume menus, and the third-party Salling Clicker status menu are unreliable: "They just seem to come and go."
I've had this happen quite a bit. In fact, I just noticed that the bluetooth menu is gone again. It would be nice if it didn't keep disappearing...

Free Screensaver for Christmas...

Free Christmasy Screensaver for your 3650. But be forewarned: it's a beta...

12/02/2003

MobileWhack

From Raelity Bytes:
I've a nice surprise for those of you who've read my endless prattle about my beloved 3650. I've just launched MobileWhack, a site dedicated to just such prattle.
Check it out.

12/01/2003

PithHelmet for Panther!

I just downloaded and installed the new version of PithHelmet. Here's what it does:
PithHelmet adds some some basic but powerful content filtering to Apple's Safari browser. The basic purpose is to block ad images, but there are other potential uses as well (blocking Flash, Shockwave or horrible midi loops).
This is just a series of hacks on top of Apple's WebKit framework, but it seems to work rather effectively.
Due to the manner in which PithHelmet blocks ad content, most types of advertising content can be caught in the filter - this includes images, javascript, css, text, iframes, popups and popunders.
This little program is the coolest hack ever. Get it. And don't worry! If you were thinking of advertising with 3650 and a 12-inch, it doesn't block BlogAds by default. Just slow-loading images...

New iPod or New 12-inch?

I'm debating making a change. Over Christmas, my friend Jason is buying my old 10GB iPod off of me, and my brother is buying an old Wacom tablet off of me. The combined money from this will give me enough cash to buy one of the new generation iPods and the Belkin Voice Recorder. This has been the plan for about a month now. But then the other day, I decided to check and see how much PowerBookMedic would pay me for my 12-inch. The offer is $1100. With that money, plus the money I was going to feed into a new iPod, I could upgrade to one of the newer 12-inch models. What to do? What to do...

11/25/2003

We'll Closed...


We'll Closed On Thanksgiving Day
November 27th, 2003
You've got to love Chinese Take Out Restaurants' announcements...

All Roads Lead to Korn...

The iTunes Music Store is on the fritz. Every link I click on takes me to the clean only version of a Korn album, except for links on that page, that take me to Brittany Spears (but all of her links lead me back to Korn). All links lead to Korn... UPDATE: The problem appears to be fixed. No word yet on whether it was just a glitch or some sort of 3l337 |-|/-\><()R attack (translation: elite hacker)...

11/24/2003

Hallo, Deutschland!

Willkommen zu meinem blog! Macnews.de has reported on my Share2Blue2th scripts. I received an email from Ben Schwan, editor for macnews.de, this morning, asking if I knew how to get the scripts working with a P900/800. I'm not sure how, as I do not have a P900/800, but this discussion states that it has been made to work, and others have reported to me that they use the scripts with a P800. Theoretically, it is simply a matter of getting the P800/900 to see the bluetooth pairing with the computer as one of its available access points. The PPP connection over bluetooth is established between the phone and the computer during any iSync, and all my scripts do is share the computer's internet connection out over that PPP connection. So if you run the scripts, and you've followed all the instructions on the Mac side of things, it is just a matter of figuring out how to get the P800/900 to see the already established internet connection over the bluetooth pairing. If anyone can provide more precise directions of how you have done this on the P800/900, please let me know (cks3 at mac dot com) and I will post the details here. Sehr kühl!

Number Portability...

For those of you who have been wanting a 3650, but your current cellular carrier doesn't carry it: Rejoice! Number portability is here and Gizmodo has a nice group of links for you to look at as you look into making the switch...

11/20/2003

Printing to a Bluetooth Printer from your 12-inch...

For those of you who are frustrated with Apple's lack of any support for bluetooth printing, you might want to look at this discussion. There you will find a link to the most daftly pointless Knowledge Base Article I have ever seen, as well as a few work around solutions that will allow you to use Bluetooth File Exchange to send certain supported files to the printer. Here's a link to the most detailed workaround. I was emailed about all this, (Thanks, Tom!) asking if I would be willing to develop a program to support bluetooth printing in OS X. Unfortunately, I am not nearly that advanced a developer. The things I have written have all been put together piecemeal from bits and scraps of code I've seen around the web (and it looks like CPUfrequency doesn't really work; see below). And I also lack any sort of bluetooth printer to test this all on, should I try to automate something based on the workarounds linked to above. Anybody know of a solution to this inconvenience? Anyone willing to develop a solution? Looks like there are a group of people who need it... Email me (cks3 at mac dot com) if so...

11/19/2003

'Nother Security Update

Available via Software Update now...

CPUfrequency flaw: sysctl command does not work properly (confirmed)

According to this comment on VersionTracker, the sysctl command does not work properly. Here's what it says:
Just run sysctl -a and you'll see what I am talking about... You'll get the same results for hw.cpufrequency, hw.cpufrequency_min & hw.cpufrequency_max This means that the sysctl command does not work properly, a fact we already recognized when evaluating tools like "XBench"...
I followed these instructions and sure enough:
hw.cpufrequency: 866666664
hw.cpufrequency_min: 866666664
hw.cpufrequency_max: 866666664
So, it looks like it doesn't really work, but I'll keep it available, as some people have used it and found their speed to be slower, reset their PMU, and have seen speed improvements according to XBench, which would seem to indicate that something is going on...

CPUfrequency may not work with 1Ghz TiBooks

This discussion, titled "Slowdown on 1Ghz Ti Book" indicates that sysctl hw.cpufrequency is reporting inconsistent results on these machines. Thanks to Steve for this info! It would seem to be a good idea to run XBench along with the CPUfrequency scripts to make sure that the PMU reset actually fixed the problem.

Apple Hardware Test may incorrectly report that the Bluetooth module is not present...

This KB article has information that may be of use to those of you troubleshooting a bluetooth problem with your computer.

CPUfrequency 1.1

Hello everyone. I updated the CPU frequency scripts so that the results will now be displayed in Mhz, rather than just plain ol' hz. This change is based on code provided by Sarah Baucom in this comment. Thanks, Sarah! Here's the new code for the scripts:
display dialog "Processor Speed: " & (round ((do shell script "sysctl hw.cpufrequency | sed 's/^hw.cpufrequency: //'")) / 1000000) & " MHz"
display dialog ("If the Processor Speed displayed is lower than the actual speed of your processor, you need to reset your Power Manager. Shut down your computer. Hold down SHIFT+CTRL+OPTION+POWER for 5 seconds, then start up again. Run this script again to see the improvements! WARNING: This will reset your preferences (clock, etc) to their defaults and erase any RAM disks you may have.")

Explanation of sysctl hw.cpufrequency and what CPUfrequency does...

My friend, Jay Savage, who understands the BSD underbelly of OS X quite a bit better than I, explains what sysctl hw.cpufrequency does:
The poster at version tracker is correct that sysctl doesn't return a real number. It returns a constant passed to the system at system start-up (and possibly wake-up, I'm not sure) by the PMU. The kernel and PMU will modify the actual speed on-the-fly based on load numbers and energy-saver setting in the pref pane, and sysctl will not return that number, you need to actually pool the processor to find out what it's doing at any given time...this is what the bogomips calculated a Linux start-up are all about.

For your purposes, though, the real numbers don't matter, because the bug in question involves the PMU essentially forgetting what the real speed is and setting the max Mhz artificially low. Effective clock speed may well often be below the number reported by sysctl (a kind of variable clock speed is what makes mobile chips possible: why waste power if your load numbers are below 1?), but it will never be above the number reported by sysctl. So if sysctl is reporting 400Mhz for a 800Mhz processor, you know something is seriously wrong. Even under full load, the PMU will not allow the CPU speed up past 400Mhz, which means you're never getting more than 50% out of your hardware. Get that back up to 867, and you can theoretically get 867Mhz out of your chip. You won't get that all the time, especially on battery power, but better and actual 400 out of 800 than an actual 200 out of 400.[bold emphasis mine]
So, the CPUfrequency scripts work fine for what they are meant to do, which is simply to report the maximum possible number (speed in hertz) your computer currently thinks in the processor is capable of achieving. If it reports back 5333333334 and you have an 867mhz chip, as happened with me earlier this week, then your PMU needs to be reset, so that the computer will realize that there is more processing power available there, should it be needed...

11/18/2003

CPUfrequency comments...

Well, according to this comment on VersionTracker the command line instruction that my script uses *might* not work properly:
With sysctl hw.cpufrequency you'll always get the maximum or the reduced processor speed regardless of the settings in the "Energy Saver" panel.

At the moment the only tool which reports the actual cpu speed correctly is Apple's Skidmarks GT (included in the CHUD Tools).
I'm not really sure if the poster of this comment understands that I'm only trying to get the maximum processor speed (b/c if it is lower than it should be it is a problem). It is supposed to be diagnostic for the singular problem of a PMU that needs resetting, not as a processor usage monitor. I made the script based on information that I found on the 12-inch Powerbook Yahoo Group (as I stated below). As I understand it, it is working properly for what it is intended to do. Can anyone provide more info on sysctl hw.cpufrequency? I also realized my description of the program on Versiontracker was rather vague. I've updated it.

Welcome MacNN readers...

If you're looking for the scripts mentioned on MacNN, you'll find them linked under downloads in the side bar. Hope you find them useful. More info on them below and in the archives. Hope you enjoy your stay!

CNET: "Nokia: Original batteries don't explode"

More on the exploding Nokia phenomenon that I've mentioned here before over at CNET. Nokia reaffirms that the only phones effected are ones using 3rd party batteries. Here's an excerpt:
"We believe Test-Aankoop's new test results of original Nokia batteries erase any doubts as to the safety of Nokia products, including original Nokia batteries," Janne Jormalainen, a vice president at Nokia, said in a statement. "The recent media attention to this industrywide problem has put a much-needed spotlight on the potential dangers of non-original batteries--and the industry's ongoing battle to rid the market of inferior, potentially unsafe products."
Good to know.

Share2Blue2th and CPUfrequency on MacUpdate and Versiontracker...

So I just submitted the scripts to VersionTracker and they are at the top of the front page:
I also listed them on MacUpdate. Pretty cool! Hope the traffic doesn't CRASH my iDisk!

CPUfrequency Scripts

So, I put together these CPUfrequency scripts (20KB) that basically run the shell script mentioned in the last post, displaying the results in a dialog box followed by another dialog box that provides you with the information on how to reset the Power Manager should you need to... Thanks to my friend, Jay Savage, for helping me to get the scripts working properly and tweaked nicely!

12-inch Processor Slow-down...

This was reported on the 12inchPowerbooks Yahoo Group. Launch Terminal. Type in:
sysctl hw.cpufrequency
When I did this the first time I received the following as the output:
hw.cpufrequency: 5333333334
So, for some reason, my computer thought that my 867mhz G4 chip was only capable of running at 533mhz. Evidently, it is tied into Power Management. So, if you do this with similar results, shut down your computer, then hit the SHIFT+CTRL+OPTION+POWER and hold them down for a slow ten count. Now boot up your computer.[UPDATE: For those of you with RAM disks, from the KB article linked below: "Warning: Resetting the Power Manager on any PowerBook or iBook will permanently remove a RAM disk, if present, and all of its contents." Word to the wise...] After doing this, I ran the sysctl hw.cpufrequency from the command line and received the following output:
hw.cpufrequency: 866666664
Back to normal. Anyway, now everything is running even faster and zippier than it was after I installed Panther, so who knows how long I have been running at half speed. I might put this in a diagnostic script. We'll see. In the meantime, here's the somewhat unknowledgable Knowledge Base Article on the phenomenon. Also, what is going on Apple? Memory leaks are a plague of the PeeCee community that I am all too familiar with from working in a computer lab, but PERSISTENT PROCESSOR LEAKS?! And as the Knowledge Base Article states it is due to a circuit; it is another hardware problem. I wish they had at least publicized the possibility of this in some real way, so that users could be doing what is stated above as a part of their regular maintenance check on the computer.

11/17/2003

New Bluetooth update via Software Update

Run Software Update to download. Restart required. I just installed it, and everything seems to be working fine when syncing between the 3650 and the 12-inch. Share2Blue2th scripts still work. (I'm syncing Avantgo as I write this). I also opened Bluetooth File Exchange and was actually able to upload a file via the "Browse Bluetooth Device" dialog, which has never worked for me in the past. Attempting to create a folder failed, however. And, unfortunately, it still only displays files that you've uploaded with the Put function. I dream of some day when I will be able to drag and drop via my bluetooth connection all the pictures I have taken on my phone onto my desktop and erase them from the camera in one fell swoop. Or better yet, mount my 3650 on my desktop, just like a FW disk, an iPod, or my iDisk...

MCE offers 12-inch iBook with DVD-R/RW drive...

Now you can get a 12-inch with a super suped-up SuperDrive that will burn to both DVD-R/RW and DVD-RAM for under $1300. That ain't too shabby!

More on Paris Hilton's 3650...

I just got the most recent copy of Wired Magazine and on page 120 found this quotation from Paris Hilton:
"I can't live without my cell phone. It's the one with the big round dial, and it has a video camera on it. I have a ring tone of my sister, and she's screaming and singing on it. It's pretty funny."
SO, she doesn't know it is called a 3650, and her favorite features are the video camera and customizable rings. If that isn't found poetry, I don't know what is...

11/14/2003

New 3650 icon for the mobile site...

If you have Avantgo, check out the mobile edition of this site:

I just made a new graphic for it...
UPDATE: I liked the graphic so much that I decided to integrate it into the site design at the top. If you hate it, let me know...

Paris Hilton has a 3650!

Got this from Gizmodo:
And now Wired is out quoting Paris as saying, "I want to get a huge, giant, the biggest flat screen you can get." And guess what: She's got a video camera on her Nokia 3650 phonecam.
I wonder if she reads 3650 and a 12-inch? That would be the coolest...

MacFixIt: Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.3

MacFixit's Troubleshooting Mac OS X 10.3 special report sponsored by Small Dog Electronics is officially online now. I'd advise checking it out and printing pdfs of all the pages you think might be useful, because if you are not a subscriber to MacFixIt, it'll become inaccessible to you after 30 days...

11/13/2003

Exploding Nokia Batteries?

Last week, in this post, I noted how the Register had an article about a 3rd party company that reported that some Nokia batteries for certain models were vulnerable to the same short-circuiting that has caused several 3rd party batteries to explode in Nokia phones. Well, now it looks like they changed their minds... Update: Looks like there is more information here, in this even newer Register article, titled "Unsafe Nokia batteries - or counterfeits?" which states:
However, Warentest still believes consumers should be careful when using Nokia batteries. 'We bought the batteries from retailers, just like any other consumer would have done,’ an Warentest test editor tells the German news site Spiegel Online.

Left my 3650 at home today...

I feel naked.

Java 1.4.1 (Panther) - 41MB

Get it here or via Software Update.

11/12/2003

Share Internet Connection over Firewire

This is a pretty cool thing that I think I will set up on my 12-inch for whenever I need to share internet to a non-Airport / bluetooth capable computer. I can foresee troubleshooting situations in which this could prove useful. Anyway, if there is enough interest, I will try to work out how to share the shared internet-connection via Firewire out via bluetooth for the 3650 and incorporate it into the Share2Blue2th scripts. Coolness!

1GB Chip for 12-incher...

TransIntl.com has reduced the price on the 1GB chip for the 12-inch (Jan. 2003 model) from @ $800 when it was first released to the current "still-too-high-for-me-to-buy" price of $475 (even though the $ to MB ratio isn't too bad). If it would only drop another $200 or so....

Switch your landline over to your 3650...

In case you hadn't heard, there have been a few laws passed recently, one of which gives you number portability, so that if your service from AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, Cingular, T-Mobile, or whoever sucks, you can switch mobile phone networks and take the precious number you've already handed out to all your friends with you to the new network. Pretty sweet! Additionally, if you decide to get rid of your antiquated and rarely used landline:
Go Mobile and Keep Your Number
The Federal Communications Commission released rules Monday that will allow landline customers to keep their phone numbers if they decide to switch to cell phone service. The new rules take effect Nov. 24 in the largest metropolitan areas. [Wired News]
I really like the idea of this, except for one nagging concern: in the big blackout here in New York this summer, my cell phone couldn't always reach the network. But that old analog, wired phone that I keep could connect everywhere...

11/11/2003

Stop memory-resident programs from launching on 3650 reboot...

Very useful hint today over at Russell Beattie's site:
To make sure that no memory-resident programs start when you reboot your phone, hold down the pencil key when you turn the phone on. I don't have anything running on my phone that this affects, but the idea is that you can stop some of those apps - say Handy Day or something like it - that starts up automatically when you restart the phone. [Russell Beattie Notebook]

My one and only Exposé complaint...

I must begin by saying that I love Exposé. It is the most work-conducive feature that I have seen implemented in user interface in some time. However, it has made my very useful workspace, a very cluttered workspace, as in order to navigate to windows easily, I have to keep them all visible. I would much rather have an option to hide all windows that I want to, except for when I invoke Exposé, at which time all open windows, whether visible or hidden, should pop into view for my perusal. That would rock.

FileVault: Data-Loss still a risk under 10.3.1

Check out this Knowledge Base Article:
Important: If the computer is force-restarted or power is lost while disk space is being reclaimed, data loss can occur. Mac OS X 10.3.1 does not address this type of data loss.
So, it looks like if you want to use FileVault, you might want to be very careful about when you freeze your computer and have to force a resta--oh, wait! You have no control of that sort of thing! Might want to pass on FileVault for now...

Advert appeal: Over 1000 unique hits a month...

According to eXTReme Tracking, I'm getting just a bit over 1000 unique visitors to this site a month (and it's been up for just under 3 months), and the daily hits average keeps edging up. It was in the 30s, but now is in the 40s, although for the past week I've been receiving over 70 unique hits during the week and over 50 on the weekends. That's not too shabby. That being said, would you like to advertise on this site, and help me buy more gadgets gear your ads to a specific audience of proven consumers? If so, please click the ad in the left column for more information...

12-inch as ebook reader, thanks to the new Preview!

Check this out. I just discovered yesterday, that you can rotate any document you open in Preview clockwise or counterclockwise, depending on your taste, and then choose view, full-screen. Now, if you turn your 12-inch on the side, you have a nice nearly standard sheet sized piece of "paper" to read off of, and all you have to do is click the mouse button at the side to turn the page. This is the coolest feature of Panther that I have discovered, yet! Here's some pics taken with my 3650:

Turned to the right...

Turned to the left...

11/10/2003

10.3.1 is OUT!

Software Update now for a few fixes for your firewire-drive-shredding OS and file-destroying-FileVault:

Solution to AppArchServerThread error on 3650...

You may remember my first post on this back when Calendar syncing with the 3650 was finally officially added to Apple's iSync functionality. While I was overjoyed to have iCal calendar syncing with my 3650, every time I would sync the 3650 and my 12-inch the following error would appear twice:
App. closed! AppArchServerThread
Over the weekend, I received a 128MB MM card for my 3650! When I replaced the 16MB card in the 3650 with the new card, without bothering to move any of the information over, and synced, the error entirely disappeared. The reason for all these errors? I was housing all my images on the 16MB card, including the ones that were linked into my Address Book, and evidently the pictures in my 12-inch's Address Book and my 3650's Address Book were causing the conflict, as the 12-inch couldn't overwrite the linked-to images that weren't in their default location in the phone. This at least is my theory, because in addition to the disappearance of the error, several images linked to contacts changed on the phone, based on the images in my 12-inch's Address Book. So, if you are having this problem, I would advise moving images linked to your address book over to the phones main memory and relinking them to the Address Book and then attempting to resynchronize everything. Good luck! In other news, having 128MB on the 3650 is amazing! Unfortunately, I discovered that I need to get some sort of USB card reader to transfer the large files, as sending a 3GPP version of Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers, weighing in at 98MB, via bluetooth was going to take 4 and a half hours according to Bluetooth File Exchange. Oof!

More on exploding Nokia batteries...

Here's another article from the Register about exploding Nokia phones. The problem has been occurring due to faulty 3rd party batteries, but now a consumer watchdog group says "that some Nokia batteries (in particular the Nokia BML-3, BMC-3 and BLC-2) are also unprotected against short-circuiting." None of these battery models are used in the 3650, but nonetheless, if you find your 3650 growing inordinately warm in your pocket, remove it from your pants immediately! A public service announcement courtesy of 3650 and a 12-inch...

11/07/2003

More Local iDisk Problems...

Well, the image in the last post isn't loading yet. Why? Because for some reason, although I only updated one file, when I went to sync my iDisk it decided to re-upload the entire disk and is taking forever, eating up my processor, and heating the bottom left corner of my 12-inch. What is up with this flakey iDisk? Could this have something to do with it?

Cool Panther Feature: Activity Monitor

After installing Panther, if you navigate to your Applications folder and then your Utilities folder, you will find that the Process Viewer has been replaced by Activity Monitor. Some of you might have used Menu Meters or perhaps the CPU Portal widget for Konfabulator in the past to keep monitoring your processes in the Dock. Now, however, you can launch Activity Monitor and click and hold on its icon in the dock:

Notice the menu options that pop up when you click and hold on the Activity Monitor icon in the Dock.
Here, you can set the Dock icon for a variety of different display options. I like to keep it running on Show CPU history, so there is a changing graph of CPU usage in the Dock at all times. An added benefit of this, beyond what you receive from the above mentioned programs for monitoring such things, is that you can launch the Activity Monitor main window from this menu as well, in case something freezes and you need to quickly quit some processes. Cool!

Jason Ball's TechBytes back online...

After a snafu with his iDisk, my friend Jason finally got Apple to reset it, so that he could upload the local copy he has to fix the problem. He notes:
Also, if you do completely botch your iDisk, like me, post a request on .mac discussion forms asking that they "reset your iDisk to it's original state". An Apple Engineer will reset it for you (and erase all files, backups, websites, etc. You need to make a local copy before requesting this). It took 3-4 days for them to reset my iDisk, but it seems to be fine again. I'm going to request that Apple offer a "reset iDisk" preference pane or check box...because I have a feeling this won't be the last time this happens.
Good idea. If anybody at Apple reads this, we'd like a reset iDisk option in the System Prefs. Thanks.

Information on backing up your 12-inch...

Pretty useful article provided by Babel Co., talking about OS X backup issues and options. Check it out.

11/06/2003

Mac OS X Unwired

Check this out: Mac OS X Unwired: A Guide for Home, Office, and the Road:
Mac OS X Unwired is a one-stop wireless information source for technically savvy Mac users. If you're considering wireless as an alternative to cable and DSL, or using wireless to network computers in your home, office, or on the road, this book will show you the full-spectrum view of wireless capabilities of Mac OS X, and how to get the most out of them.
I just got an email from an O'Reilly & Associates editor asking if it would be okay to include mention of my Share2Blue2th scripts and a link to this site in the book! Pretty cool! Go order a copy! Now! I'll write a review of it here when it comes out. Thanks, Phil!

Don't use 3rd party batteries in your 3650...

I think this is the fourth story I've heard over the last several months about Nokia phones exploding because of 3rd party batteries. None of the reports have been associated with the 3650 specifically, but better safe than sorry, I'd say... Official statement from Nokia (via The Register):
"Using inferior quality standards may lead to these types of incidents [exploding phones] occurring. The best way to prevent such incidents is to use only original Nokia enhancements and to buy them from an authorized or other reputable dealer."

11/05/2003

Gopher!

I just downloaded the tarfile of Gopher from here. Get it, drop the uncompressed folder into your root directory. Launch the Terminal. Then type the following (each separate line should be typed in front of another command prompt and then hit return. some text may scroll.):
cd /.
cd gopher
./configure
make
sudo make install
you will be prompted for your password
export PATH=${PATH}:/usr/local/bin:$HOME/bin/
Then, go to your System Preferences/Sharing/Firewall and open up port 70 for Gopher (add port, other, 70, gopher). Now simply go back to the terminal and type "gopher" without the quotes! Tada! You now have gopher, the super fast information highway that predates the internet ready to go on your 12-inch. You also have just compiled a program and ported it to OS X. Whoo-hoo! i am a g33k! Gopher rules! Veronica!!!

11/04/2003

Panther Updates via Software Update

Apple has released a new security update that fixes a potential vulnerability in the Terminal and an update to Xcode, both available via Software Update.

Cool japanese "bag" for your 12-inch...

Click on the image to the right to check out the Mongoworks:
Is a cloth used to wrap things, comes from the word 'furo' (bath) and 'shiki' (spread). As the name describes, Furoshiki is a wrapping product. It accommodates objects of various sizes and shapes. The inner material of 5-mm polyurethane can sustain shock, and keeps your electronic or other gear safe and handy. It can be carried by the outside belt, or in your bag. It is a novel Furoshiki for our generation.
$69.

Nokia accessories for your 3650...

Check it:
Nokia's new Bluetooth accessories
The Nokia avalanche continues this week, with a few new Bluetooth products due out early next year: the HS-4W wireless headset, the Nokia 610 Bluetooth Car Kit (which has an LCD display for caller ID), and the AD-5B Wireless Audio Adapter for adding Bluetooth to phones that don't already have it built-in. Read... [Gizmodo]
I want that new headset...

Grrrrr.... Panther rant...

Okay. For some reason, even though I have my .Mac system preferences for my iDisk set to sync Manually, it keeps kicking back to Automatic. This earlier caused Panther to crash (effectively) as the automatic sync kicked in when I had no net connection and this caused the Finder in Panther to entirely freeze. Tried to Force Quit and Relaunch, and it absolutely refused to, so that ultimately I had to reboot the entire machine. Also, after rebooting, TextEdit froze again; it would appear that there is some sort of odd conflict between TextEdit and X11, as when I quit X11, TextEdit unfroze. Bizarre. Anyway, with people's firewire hard-drives erasing themselves, and FileVault mangling people's Home folders and locking them out of their machines, these freezes I am having would seem to be small things, but insanely irritating nonetheless. Can't wait till 10.3.1 rolls out with bug fixes. Let's just hope that it fixes more bugs than it releases, eh? Update: I should accentuate that I like all the Panther improvements. It is faster than Jaguar. But it is nonetheless extremely buggy in some areas. I would probably be furious if I had suffered any of the data loss that others have reported.

Looks like my friend Jason is having a bad day...

This post is odd: Pocket Quran

EDIT: I had a crash in Panther, due to the iDisk trying to connect and freezing the Finder when I lost my internet connection earlier. Quite some time after the crash, a forced reboot and several posts, this post suddenly re-materialized on this blog, albeit in mangled form, even though I never successfully posted it. Kind of scary! Do you read Arabic? Have you always wanted to read the Quran, but didn't want to carry it around with you on the subway? If so, here's a FREE copy of Pocket Quran for your 3650. Unfortunately, I myself do not read Arabic, as I am very interested inmargin-top:30px;width:300px;margin-bottom:0px;color:gray;font-weight:bold} .PostTitle{font-size:16px;font-weight:bold;font-family:arial, helvetica;} .Post{margin-bottom:20px;font-size:14px;padding-right:15px;line-height:17px;font-family:arial, helvetica;color:black;} .PostFooter{margin-bottom:10px;margin-left:0px;color:gray;font-size:10px} #menu{border-left:1px solid #000;border-bottom:1px so

Porn for your 3650...

I saw this linked to over at Gizmodo:
Sexy Mini Movies for Cell Phones
Not great for the Nokia image, a website calling itself RingtonesNokia, offers downloadable mini porn movie clips for cell phones. Images take about 1 minute to download via wap. Not for children. Or anyone you would want to know.[picturephoning.com]
The RingtonesNokia site is not safe for work, so I am not linking it here. If you actually do download these for your 3650, please know that you are, in fact, a freak.

Pocket Quran

Pocket Quran is free for your 3650. Wish I knew Arabic, as I am a big fan of comparative religion and have always wanted to give the Quran a gander....

11/03/2003

Avoid FileVault on Panther!

Here's why...

Panther troubleshooting guide...

Check it out.

New 12-inchers would appear to lack "wobble"...

Well, I've actually heard back from a few people now, who say that their new revision 12" Powerbooks lack the warping casing resulting in a rocking wobble phenomenon. Several of the first models suffered from this (including the first one I owned) and it seemed to be a production flaw. Looks like it is being eclipsed now by the recent issues with the new 15" Powerbooks having spots all over their screens, and Panther erasing people's Firewire 800 hard drives. Is it just me, or does someone in Apple's quality control department need a good talking to? UPDATE: Evidently, it's not just me.

10/30/2003

(Semi)Panther Review: Part 2-Text

Panther Text Abilities: For 3650 owners, two of the coolest new features in Panther are the "Send file to Bluetooth Device..." and "Send to Bluetooth Device..." options in the Services menu which is available in all Cocoa applications. This means any file you select in a Finder window can be sent to your 3650 quickly and easily using the "Send file" option. This also means that any text that you select in any document or on any web-page that you happen to open in Safari, can be highlighted and sent to your 3650. Pretty friggin' cool! Of course, the Services menu doesn't work in Microsoft Word or in Open Office, so I was really looking forward to using TextEdit. TextEdit: Good, Bad, and VERY UGLY: I wanted very badly to love the new Panther TextEdit. As it is I like it quite a bit. I will most likely be using it as my primary word processor from now on, but simply save everything in rich text format always. If I ever need anything in Word format, I will be opening the rtf that I created in TextEdit in Word and converting from within Word. Hearing that TextEdit would be able to read and write to Word file format, I was overjoyed, as I dislike Word, and while I like Open Office, it is still very ugly, rather large, and slow to launch in comparison to the nice little TextEdit. Also, TextEdit is the only one of these programs that supports the nice bluetooth services mentioned above. Unfortunately, TextEdit is absolutely refusing to save the formatting that I apply to any file that I try to save in Word format. If I use Rich Text Format, it will keep all the formatting. If I open up a file in Word format and try to fix the little odd formatting problems and then re-save in Rich Text Format, it will keep all the formatting except for the margins. For some reason, even though I have one inch borders defined across the board for when it opens new documents and in my page setup, if I work on a document for a while, save it, close and reopen, inevitably it has changed from 1-inch margins to 1.25 inch margins (must be a default setting in the Word conversion process). There would appear to be no way to get it back to 1-inch margins even if you save the file again in rtf (with the exception of opening a new document with my default 1-inch margins and pasting the entire document into that new document. Of course, this is rather ludicrous, as these settings are lost once again whenever I close the new document and reopen it.) Also, Word documents opened in TextEdit aren't as nicely formatted as they were in Word, and Word documents created by TextEdit inevitably have some of the same formatting problems. In short, as far as Word compatibility is concerned, TextEdit is very much like a Mac port of Windoze's Wordpad (in other respects it is much more powerful.) UPDATE: There is also a bug with saving in RTF, where the last lines of paragraphs do not remain after saving, closing, and reopening. I discovered it first with the bibliography page for a paper I have been writing, where all the hanging indents reverted to flush with the left margin after re-opening (even though the ruler shows it still set to drop). The solution is to delete a space at the end of the line before the problem line, and then it will suddenly line up properly.

Here's a screenshot of the problem. Notice in this 3 line bibliographic entry how the last line returns to being flush with the left margin, even though the ruler settings are correct. I could highlight the entire works cited page and choose the correct style that I previously defined for my Works Cited page, but I would lose the underlining in each entry, and I would have to redo this each time I open the file. Not fun.


Here, you will notice that the last line of the paragraph inexplicably indents itself to match the first line. You can fix it, but once you save, close, and restart, the problem returns.
I have to ask why Apple is more concerned with TextEdit opening Word documents than it is with it opening AppleWorks files. TextEdit can open all my old AppleWorks files, but not as cleanly as Microsoft Word's Appleworks converter plug-in. When I open an AppleWorks file in TextEdit, there is a lot of useless header and footer information book-ending the actual meat of the file. This seems like a huge oversight on Apple's part, as a native Macintosh program cannot handle reading files from another native Macintosh Word Processor, when a Micro$oft product can do so nicely. Also—and this is a rather scary occurrence—while working in TextEdit, I decided to choose the "Allow Hyphenation" in the Format menu, just to see what it would do.... Bad idea. Not only did TextEdit give me the spinning-beach-ball-of-death, but I could not manage to Force Quit. There was no kernel panic. Everything else was working fine. But no matter what I did, there was TextEdit in the background, refusing to close. I tried logging out, only to have log out time out because TextEdit refused to quit. Same thing happened when I tried to shut down. Ultimately, I had to force the computer to shut down by holding down the power button for 10 seconds until it powered off. I will be submitting a detailed bug report to Apple about this and I sincerely hope that Apple resolves these issues in the next release.

(Semi)Panther Review: Part 1-Speed

So, I've noticed that there are quite a few people out there writing rather detailed overviews and reviews of their experiences with Panther. Rather than repeat everything that everyone else is saying on the subject, I think I am going to point to a few places where you can find out more of what they have said, and make a review split into several mini-reviews, focusing on improvements that affect usability between the 3650 and the 12-inch, as well as a few wishes for 10.3.1 that I haven't seen any mention of yet. Here it goes: Speed: Panther is fast. Zippy even, compared to Jaguar. Oddly enough, especially if you have an older G3 that doesn't support all the advanced visuals of Panther. (My friend reports that his wife's purple clamshell iBook works much faster than his newer white iBook with Panther installed). One of my largest problems with Jaguar had always been the Finder-spinning-beach-ball-scenario where some program or another has to work with the Finder to produce some task or another (like copying a file from the desktop to an FTP server, via Goliath, or opening a file on the desktop in Safari). Depending on what else the Finder was busy doing in the background, the time of day, the pull of the moon on the earth, and a myriad of other unknown factors, this sort of action could sporadically result in big spinning beach-ball of death in the Finder, and possibly also in the program involved, and either you just sat there and waited in the hopes that it would eventually complete the task, or you would have to Force Quit the program, restart the Finder, and try it all again. It also tended to happen from time to time when I was accessing the bluetooth status icon I keep in my menu bar (or whenever I was accessing any of the icons up in the menu bar). That doesn't happen anymore with Panther. However, there is an added feature that does cause some slow down from time to time: the local copy of the iDisk. If you go to System Preferences under Internet & Network, you will find a .Mac control panel. Now, if you have a .Mac account this is useful, if not, you can move on to the next section. Click on .Mac, and select iDisk. If you check the "Create a local copy of your iDisk" box, Panther does just that: it makes a duplicate of your iDisk appear on your desktop and in all of your Finder windows in the sidebar. When you first select this option, it takes quite a bit of time depending upon your connection to the internet and the amount of information you have stored remotely on your iDisk, to download all that information. After this initial sync, however, accessing your iDisk is faster than ever. It eliminated my need to use Goliath (which is still an extremely useful and powerful program that I highly recommend) to access my iDisk on a regular basis. Unfortunately, there are a few buggy things about keeping this copy of the iDisk on your computer. For example, every time it syncs, I receive an error message in the middle of my screen saying that there is a duplicate file name (with different capitalization) on the remote iDisk, so that file will not be synced to the local disk, as Panther does not support such duplicate file names. This pops up without warning in the middle of your screen, with no option to choose not to display the error again and no way of solving the problem through the dialog box that jumps up. Plus, since I now access my iDisk through the local copy, I am not even sure how to rectify the situation (although I assume I could use Goliath to do so). Also, when the iDisk is syncing, it does cause a certain slow down in overall performance, so I would recommend setting it to sync automatically for the first sync, but after that is finished set it to sync manually, so you can determine when you can stand to give up a little system performance and when you would rather not. Manually syncing is easy enough, as all you have to do is click on the little iSync-like button next to the iDisk in the sidebar of any open Finder window.

10/29/2003

Get your RSS feed here...

Well, it's ugly, doesn't parse correctly, and doesn't include the titles to the posts, but thanks to this service, I now have an RSS feed: http://www.karakas-online.de/myServices/rssify.php?url=http://3650anda12inch.blogspot.com/ Once I get the time and energy, I will finish the process of hand-rolling my own 2.0 feed that I began last week. Once I have all the older posts brought up to speed, I should be able to modify that file each time I post to the site with very little difficulty. Until then, thanks to Martin Little for pointing out via email this temporary solution for me!

Immediately lock your 3650's keypad...

Check this out:
N-Gage Thoughts. . . while perusing the documentation for the N-Gage I learned how to lock the keypad quickly on my 3650!! Press the left screen key and the * button at the same time and *poof* it's locked. Press them again and it's unlocked. I had NO idea this worked and always used the menu on the off switch ... LOL. That right there may have been worth the price of the device alone.[Russell Beattie Notebook]
That is a really useful thing to know! Thanks!

10/28/2003

PANTHER RULES! IS REALLY NICE!

This is one sleek update. I'll post a full-length, more detailed review later, but for now know that it works, it works well, and it plays well okay with the 3650. Get it! UPDATE: Well, turds. I just attempted to send a file via bluetooth to the 12-inch from the 3650 and it is stalling out:
After about 60 seconds of this it failed! This is my first real complaint about Panther. grrrrr..... UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: It works now. Thanks to Jason for suggesting that I go ahead and update the Bluetooth Firmware, which I never did, b/c of the warning about the update making bluetooth incompatible with Windoze systems. 3650 file transfer trumps Windoze in my book, though...

10/27/2003

Getting Panther tonight...

I just talked to my boss and she said I should go ahead and buy a copy of Panther for testing purposes (I'm one of the two Mac guys in my IT department), so I'm heading by the Apple Store after work to get a copy, which I will be reimbursed for later. Sometimes I really like my job... I will post a Panther review after upgrading... Stay tuned!

Panther: Mac OS X 10.3 Reader Reports

Panther: Mac OS X 10.3 Very long and detailed reader reports from MacInTouch for those of you, like me, who are watching and waiting before upgrading to Panther. It would seem that a straight upgrade is the best way to install, rather than bothering with Archive and Install or Clean Install...

Opera 6.1 for 3650

Rael notes that there is a new version of Opera out:
raelity bytes :: /gadget/cellphone/nokia/opera_6_1.html: "Opera Software has released the version of Opera for the 6600 for all Nokia Series 60 phones. It's smaller, uses significantly less memory (Opera for Series 60 has long been known for its memory problems), new menu interface, Small Screen Rendering improvements, and various bug fixes. I'll post a full review when I've had a few minutes to spend with the app."
I use Doris Browser, b/c of Opera's memory issues, but I am going to keep an eye on Rael's experiences with this new version. If it is lighter, I might check it out.

10.3: Exposé and Window Zoom conflict with each other

This is a bit disappointing:
macosxhints - 10.3: Exposé and Window Zoom conflict with each other: "f you use the screen zoom (in Universal Access) and Exposé at the same time, the screen window doesn't follow the mouse and is locked into the location it was in when you zoomed in, or pushed the Exposé button."
I've become accustomed to using Window Zoom to make my 12-inch screen virtually quite a bit bigger when working on graphics, so this incompatibility is a little bit of a bummer. Of course, I don't have Panther yet, so by the time I get it, they may have fixed this . . . that is, unless I end up running by the Apple Store this afternoon. . . .

3650 syncing updates...

I received a rather helpful email from Jan Misker today:
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to install the update before last sunday, when wintertime started. At least when not in DST the problem doesn't exist, I synced today, before DLing the 1.3 update. Anyways, others reported that the problem was solved. BTW: about the AppArcServerThread message, I had it too but it went away after I de-installed Active Today, a very handy tool but very annoying because apparently it puts itself deep inside the system, causing the message. I guess it is because it stop and starts running during synchronizing.[Emphasis mine]
So, it would appear that the recent iSync update does solve the time shift problem that I mentioned last week. The information about the AppArchServerThread error is useful too; although I don't have Active Today on my phone, it would appear that some program or another that I installed on the 3650 is causing the problem. I need to find the culprit and eradicate it. Will let you know how it goes...

10/25/2003

No longer lusting after new iBooks...

Well, my friend Jay Savage called me from the Apple Store in WHite Plains last night, where he picked up a copy of Panther for himself, and said, "You can stop lusting after the new iBooks. They didn't change the design. The keyboard still bounces." Good to know. I hate that bouncy iBook keyboard.

10/24/2003

Surf on your 3650 12-inch via bluetooth connection to PeeCee...

Your trusty 12-inch isn't around with no internet connection, but your office PeeCee is sitting there bluetooth-capable with a T3 connection waiting to be exploited and you want to sync your Avantgo filescheck out my site? Thankfully, someone made some easy instructions for connecting the two via bluetooth over at MacOSX Hints. Sorry for the mis-post a few seconds ago. Misread the article in my haste...

iSync 1.3 via Software Update

Check it:
iSync 1.3 includes support for more phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, as well as stability improvements.
6.4MB download and update. After installing the update, I am still getting the "AppArchServerThread error!" that pops up on my 3650 twice each time I sync (btw, I think this is probably caused by something gone wonky on the phone), but it looks like the update may resolve the time shift problem that I just reported a few hours ago. It's hard to be sure though, because the problem has always been sporadic for me. Could someone who has consistently been having the problem, like Jan, email me and let me know if it has been fixed for you? UPDATE: More info on the update from dotmac.info:
In addition to contact, calendar, and to-do's, iSync will also sync Address Book photo with these phones, and the picture appears when that person calls.[dotmac.info]

Panther report...

Check this out! I wonder how many days of me waiting for my work to buy me a copy of Panther will trickle by before I break and run out and buy a copy for my 12-inch...

RSS feed coming...

Well, thanks to Matt Croydon emailing me and asking about RSS feeds, I decided that until I feel it is worth it to spring for BloggerPro for this site, the least I could do is get up off my butt and handroll my own RSS feed for the site that I'll host over in my .mac space. I'll try to get one together over the weekend and launch it on Monday (although there is a wedding and some other things that could delay it by a few days).

iSync Time Shift Problem

Thanks to Jan Misker for pointing this out! Check out this discussion and also this discussion. Apparently, the new iSync is causing the time to shift an hour ahead on the 3650 and other phones after syncing. I actually have had the problem myself on my 3650, but it isn't consistent. It only happens every third time I sync or so, and due to the inconsistency of it, I didn't really notice it being associated with syncing until I received Jan's email and tested it a few times. Changing the time back to the correct time in the clock program on the 3650 works around the problem, but it is annoying and inconvenient, as is the "AppArchServerThread error!" that pops up on my 3650 twice each time I sync. To be fair, the time shifting problem doesn't seem to be a Nokia problem, but an Apple problem, as people are reporting this happening on 3650s, 7650s, and even Sony Ericsson phones. Please work on fixing this, Apple!

10/22/2003

G4 iBooks

New G4 iBooks including a 12-inch model that is very very similar to my little 12-inch wonder, have been announced by Apple today for $1099. No built-in bluetooth, though. USB 2.0. After I dropped my 12-inch and put a little dent in its metal I wished that it had the sturdy plastic of my old iBook. Of course, unless they redid the design quite a bit, the iBook will still suffer from the arching, bouncing keyboard that I grew to loathe. I love my 12-inch's keyboard!

10/21/2003

Share2Blue2th Icon

I made an icon for the Share2Blue2th scripts. (Under downloads on the left.) Check it...

10/20/2003

Icon Craziness...

So, I became a little obsessed with customizing my 12-inch Powerbook icon, based on Mike Matas's original (see below), but with my actual desktop on the screen. Here's the image I ultimately produced:
I was able to get the file all done up as a icns file (based on the video of Mike's appearance on TechTV on his site), but couldn't for the life of me get it to work so I could easily copy and paste it in the Get Info pane onto my HD. So, I emailed Mike, and he was super helpful, pointing me to this site and a program called icns2icon. Check it out! Now I just have to get a red glow going on, like Mike's 12" PowerBook Aqua icon has in blue...

Mike Matas 12"Powerbook icons...

Check out these cool icons! Mike Matas has made them freely available for download here. (164KB DMG file) Pretty sweet! I've got the 12"powerbook icon (the one on the left in the picture) on my Macintosh HD now. What would be the coolest would be to add my custom desktop picture in the little screen on the icon...

10/17/2003

Yesterday's Apple Announcements: An Editorial

So, today, I actually watched the video of the Apple Music Event, and it makes a lot more sense now--the iPod peripherals, I mean. I didn't realize that the $99 Belkin Media Reader attachment was what it was from yesterday's reading about it online. I thought it was just some overly expensive gadget that made the iPod sync-able with iPhoto. It actually makes sense for digital photographers, although it is still a bit pricey considering how much the iPod alone runs. The main thing though, is that after watching the video I realized how ground-breaking the Belkin iPod Voice Recorder could be. I mean, if you have a 40GB iPod, that means for $50, you could have 640 hours of portable recording time. 640 HOURS! Assuming you had enough battery supply (one of these might help), you could potentially record everything you hear all week long. Every conversation you have. Recording all the time. Go home and archive the important bits on DVD-R. Think of the potential for your arguments with friends / family / lovers alone: "I said what? Oh, you know what? I have the conversation right here. Yes. Let's see exactly who said what and in what context." And for students? Record every lecture you attend all year round. This is actually making me think about trying to trade up from my first gen-iPod to the new 40GB one. Of course, I have to find the money first...

10/16/2003

Mistaken Identity...

I just got the funniest text message on the 3650:
GREETINGS SISTA: JUST WANT 2 SAY HI. JUST N CASE U DON'T KNOW. THIS IS UR LONG LOST FORMER FRIEND, STEVE "NEVER GOT A CHANCE 2 TASTE IT" WATSON :-)
Poor, poor, Steve, never got to taste it... lol

Apple iTunes Music Store

iTunes and iPod announcements today: iTunes Music Store and iTunes for Windows. Pretty cool. A bunch of iPod peripherals, including a voice recorder attachment (cool, but $50?) and a iPhoto compatible attachment ($99?!?!), which makes absolutely no sense to me, since the iPod is already a Firewire hard drive without this expensive adapter.

Apple Censorship: An Editorial

So, the other day I came across this discussion thread, about the problem of white spots developing on the new 15" Powerbook screens. As the owner of a 12-inch Powerbook who had the warped casing problem that caused my 12-inch to wobble / rock when sitting on a flat surface, I could appreciate the frustration of someone who spent over a thousand dollars on a nice new Apple computer that was either by design or production flawed, and which required much wasted time and energy to exchange. I myself spent nearly 3 hours in the Apple Store in White Plains trying to get them to exchange my four day old defective 12-inch for a non-warped model, which they eventually did. During this process, I discovered that two of the floor models of the 12-inch Powerbooks had the same defect which the Apple Store had "masked" by removing one of the rubber feet on these models so that they wouldn't wobble. In any case, having discovered the problem, I was dismayed with how many people online reported having the same problem, but made comments like, "I love my new Powerbook anyway," and didn't want to go through the hassle to complain and get the unit replaced. Apple may be the good guys in our perspective of Micro$oft verses the world, but they are still a huge corporation with their own concerns that will continue to screw you, the consumer, with faulty products for as long as you sit back and do nothing about it. This type of inaction is very bad for the Macintosh community and for Apple. Apple needs to fix all these production and design problems, but they simply won't do it in any other way than in the next production run if people don't continually demand the fully functional well-designed computer that they just spent all their money on. It all boils down to what is most cost effective for Apple. So, I posted a much more tame comment about this on the above linked-to thread, that simply encouraged one of the posters who said that they were "happy" with their 15-inch, and hardly noticed the white spots to do their civic consumer duty and contact Apple about it until Apple does something to rectify it. Today, I received the following in my inbox:
Your post titled "White spot" has been removed from Apple Discussions. Posts including (but not limited to) any of the following are not appropriate:
* Discussions of Apple policies and procedures (including pricing and repair policies)
* Speculations/rumors about future Apple decisions
* Questions/rumors about unreleased products
* Posts in the technical forums that are not directly related to a technical support issue
* Polls, petitions, auctions, or advertisements
* Posts that are only complaints
* Posts which contain or imply abusive or obscene language
* Posts which are abusive to other Discussions users
Please see the Overview section at http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX/help for more information on the purpose of the Apple discussion forums, as well as the terms and conditions for posting on Apple Discussions. Each Discussion user is required to agree to these terms before gaining posting privileges. You reserve the right to not post on Apple Discussions should you disagree with these terms.

Sometimes you have comments or concerns for which there is no technical response. If you need the kind of help that a troubleshooting expert can't provide, you can call Apple's Customer Relations group.

Emphasis mine. Anyway, I am slightly furious. I especially like how they state that I can call Apple's Customer Relations group, but provide no number in the email. This number does not appear on the Apple Support Contact page and a quick search of the site map and their site turns up nothing. Bad show, Apple, bad show!

Panther Review from OS News

Saw this over at /.. Pretty detailed and favorable review. I'm balancing gingerly between waiting for my job to get me a copy of Panther and rushing out to the store and buying it myself.... Although I am a bit concerned about the author of the article's mention that he had to perform a clean install on his 12-inch, because the installation insisted that Jaguar had errors. This is the same trouble I ran into a couple of weeks ago when I tried to roll back (unsuccessfully) to 10.2.6. The un-upgradable or -downgradable machine. Harrumph!

For you upgrading fiends: Bluetooth Firmware Updater 1.0.2

Find it here, although be warned that is only really necessary if you are using one of Apple's new bluetooth keyboards or mice, and, according to the site:
Important: Using this firmware update will make your Bluetooth module incompatible with Windows based systems.
Word to the wise...

10/15/2003

12-inch repaired and delivered...

Amazing! Less than a week after I sent it off, my Powerbook has already been returned to me by Apple! Huzzah!

10/14/2003

12-inch repaired and on its way home...

So, I just got off the phone with Apple Support. Evidently, they tried to deliver the 12-inch to my apartment at 11:45 this morning, but both me and my fiance were at work, so I called and it should be arriving tomorrow afternoon after 4pm. According to the person at Apple, the cable that connected the combo drive to the rest of the laptop was shorted and that was the problem. So that means, in all likelihood they did not have to blow all my data away. Whew! I cannot wait to get my laptop back. Strange how used to computing on my couch I had become...

10/09/2003

Keyboard for 3650

For those of you who have been waiting for this:
Pocketop IR Keyboard for 3650
Pocketop have released Series 60 drivers for their IR keyboard. Yum. [raelity bytes]

Looks like a day on the phone with Apple Support is ahead...

For some reason the combo-drive on the 12-inch is no longer reading CDs. Ejects them after thinking really hard for about 15 seconds. Strange thing is this: all varieties of DVDs, CD-R, and CD-RW seem to work without a hitch, although I am having trouble burning. It is just regular CDs that are giving me the trouble. I did check out the Apple Support page and zapped my PRAM several times, as well as resetting the PMU, all to no avail. Turds! Any ideas? UPDATE: My friend, Jason, thinks that it might be another infamous 10.2.8 bug, as his iBook's CD tray refuses to even open since the update. So, I am going to try rolling back to 10.2.6 and see if that fixes the problem. Wish me luck... New UPDATE: Well, it won't let me reinstall the 10.2.6 combo over 10.2.8, and although it will allow me to restart from the DVD recover disk that came with my PB, it will not let me reinstall the OS. Gives me a very odd error each time I try. I called Apple Support, and they are sending me a box to send my 12-inch to them for them to rework it. I wonder if there is anyway I could "trade-up" to the newer model. Maybe if I wrote a very long sob-story letter about how my first 12-inch wobbled, and this one suddenly starts not mounting CDs after a couple of weeks with only an hour and a half of battery...

10/08/2003

New iCal and iSync and the 3650

Apple announced today that Panther, also known as 10.3, will be officially released on October 24th, and they have a countdown for it on their website. In the meantime, iCal 1.5.1 and iSync 1.2.1 are available for download now through the Software Update control panel. If you download them directly from Apple, install iCal first, as iSync would appear to require it. Everything works now with syncing my phone's calendar with the 12-inch, but for some reason, every time I sync, I get the following error message on the phone, twice:
App. closed! AppArchServerThread
I tried restarting the phone to see if that would somehow magically resolve the issue, but no dice. Oh, well, at least it works. Just a minor annoyance. All three of my current calendars now show up on my 3650 in their separate colors and all the full day events show up as well. Be warned, though. If you have used the iSync hack to make calendar syncing work with your 3650 in the past, as I did, all the entries on your phone are going to merge into your home calendar during the first sync. I had to go through and erase entries for about 5 minutes, before I got it all cleaned up. But now, everything is working. Sweet!

10/06/2003

Random finds from a Feester Search:

The search:

Free 3650...

...with a 2-year contract and after rebates from any AT&T Wireless store, at least in the New York area, according to a 1010wins commercial I heard on the way to work this morning...

MIDP on Mac OS X

Want to program Java Midlets for your 3650? Rael has written up a step-by-step.

10/03/2003

Step by Step instructions for you T-Mobile users...

OSX to Bluetooth to 3650 to T-Mobile GPRS to the Net courtesy of Rael. Cool.

10.2.8 Take 2

If you installed the battery draining (or at the least poor battery reporting) 10.2.8 Mac OS X update, you might want to run Software Update, as their is an update to the update that has restored my full battery to registering at 2 hours and 45 minutes. UPDATE: The Combo version of the sucker is here.

Retro-cool Reflection: A 3650 Commentary

I just was looking over the recent posts on this site and suddenly had an epiphany: with all these cool emulators of old technology available for Series 60s and the old-style rotary phone, it's in some odd way like having this new brilliant bluetooth and IR capable technology back in the 80s, or having unearthed some very odd cultural artifact: a piece of technology that was far ahead of its time, but which has been lost for decades... Even the bulkiness of the 3650 alludes to an older age of cellphones, albeit much more stylishly than the old squarish cellphones that used to be carried around town. . . . in a largish box . . . with an antennae the size of my Powerbook . . . //odd musing off// yes, i am a g33k...

ZXBoy

Rael Dornfest found another goodie: ZXBoy, a ZX Spectrum Emulator. What's a ZX Spectrum Emulator, you ask? Well, it means for $10, you can play Sim City on your 3650, among many other games. Check it out!

3650 vs 3660

Jim Hughes over at Mobitopia just posted an interesting post about Nokia's move away from the innovative circular dial of the 3650 and back to a more standard key layout:
"The rotary keypad is probably the best feature of the 3650, sure it takes a few minutes to initially adjust, but the key spacing is good and it actually works very well."
He then concludes:
Personally I'm disappointed that Nokia don't appear to have confidence to stand by their design decisions.
Sure, there is the huge amount of nagging of people who absolutely hate the rotary keypad, but I agree. Hear hear, Jim!

10/02/2003

HOLY COOL! Commodore 64 on the 3650!

Nokia Commodore 64 emulator
You can emulate a Commodore 64 on a Nokia Series 60 cellphone.
Why on God's green earth would one possibly want a Commodore 64 home computer running on one's cellphone? Aside from the thrill of seeing your old C64 humming away in the palm of your hand and the eyebrow-raising you're sure to see in friends and family, there are the games... oodles of them, available for playing pleasure from C64 UNLIMITED -- and you don't have to spend a quarter.

Sure they're one-off emulations of arcade games running on a one-off emulation of a home computer, but they're suprisingly well-written and very much resemble the real thing--for some definition of "the real thing" amongst all these emulators upon emulators upon emulators. There's Galaxian and Gorf, arcade favourites of the early 80s, Choplifter from my Apple ][, and hundreds more.

Link(via Raelity Bytes) [Boing Boing Blog]
If I don't post for several days, it's because I'm playing old games on my 3650!!!