kdmurray.blog

The crossroads of life and tech

Monthly Archives: September 2008

BarCamp Vancouver 2008 Party

I just got back from the BarCamp Vancouver 2008 networking party.  This is the meet & greet prior to the actual unconference which takes place tomorrow down at Granville Island.

It was great to see a few familiar faces like Rebecca and Raul.

I also got to meet some of the folks who I’d only known online.  Duane, John, John & Andy.  Looking forward to meeting lots of other great people tomorrow.

I did forget one thing tonight: Business Cards.  However, I did manage to find a few spare sheets of my Avery business card blanks tonight.  I also discovered (somewhat to my surprise) that Google Docs supports Avery business card templates.

sample business card from google docs

sample business card from google docs

The implementation isn’t quite as slick as MS-Word, but it will more than do in a pinch.  I managed to whip up this snazzy little number in a matter of minutes.  Now I feel more prepared for tomorrow.  Hopefully Dave doesn’t mind that I borrowed the show logo, I promise I’ll promote the show!  :)

Replacing my MacBook’s Hard Drive

What do you do when you get sick of choosing between whether you have easy access to either your 35 GB music collection or your 60 GB photo collection? Buy more storage.

I decided it was finally time to put a new larger hard drive in my Mac Book. The unit is nearly two years old and was still using its original 80 GB drive. I managed to find a good deal on a new 320 GB drive from my equipment provider of choice and set about to do my own bit of MacBook surgery.

This isn’t my first forray into a self-guided MacBook upgrade. About a year ago I doubled the RAM on my second-generation MacBook. Both of these upgrades proved quite straight forward.

The first task is to make sure that you have all the necessary gear. In this case you will need:

  • 1 cluttered out-of-space MacBook
  • 1 spanking new big hard drive
  • 1 small Phillips screw driver
  • 1 coin
  • 1 very small hex screw driver – six-pointed star
  • 1 Sheet of paper or cloth

Now that you have all the gear you need to make this happen, let’s get started.

Step 1: Turn the MacBook over so that the battery is facing up.  Place it on the paper or cloth to avoid scratching your baby.

Step 2: Place the coin in the battery release catch, and turn to release the battery

Step 3: Remove the battery and set it aside.

This is also a good opportunity to clean around the edge of the battery compartment, and the edge of the battery. Take care not to drop any debris into the battery compartment, or the “inner workings” of your macbook.

Step 4: Unscrew the ‘L’-shaped faceplate on the inside edge of the battery compartment. Remove it from the long side first, set it aside once it’s clear.

Step 5: Extract the tab from its position folded beneath the drive and pull gently to release the drive from the casing. Continue to pull until the drive is fully extracted and sitting in the battery cavity.

Step 6: Pull the drive out and remove the screws holding on the faceplate attached to the plastic tab. In my case I needed I needed to pick up a six-pointed star screw driver which I didn’t originally have. Thank goodness for extended hours at Wal-Mart.

Step 7: Transfer the plate to the new drive. Make sure to affix it so that the tab is placed away from the pins which will dock it with the computer. ==>

Step 8: Re-insert the new drive into the computer. Push gently to ensure that it’s correctly aligned with the computer, it won’t take much pressure to complete the connection. Tuck the tab back beneath the drive.

Step 9: Re-attach the ‘L’-shaped faceplate. Start with the short end near the hard drive and work it into place from left to right. You will need to tuck into place the two pads protecting the memory modules as you work across, I used my screw driver for this.

Step 10: Replace the battery and secure it with the coin.

Step 11: Reboot your system and enjoy the glorious new freedom of lots of new disk space.

At this point you have a couple of different options. If you put the old drive into an external FireWire enclosure, you can boot from it, and clone that disk onto the new drive. This will put everything on the new drive precisely where it was on the old one, with the exception of a ton of new space.

My preferred option is to opt for a clean re-install of the system. Despite what some Mac proponents will tell you, even OS X is prone to clutter and even performance problems after enough time. If you’ve got the time, a clean re-install will allow you to take everything you’ve learned up until now and use that knowledge to rebuild a better Mac install.

So if you’re feeling at all cramped, pick yourself up a new hard drive and try out this weekend DIY project.

5 Things You Did See At Apple’s September Announcement

So now that all the hubbub has come and gone, I’m pleased to announce that I was 100% correct in my non-predictions for the Apple event.  So I thought I’d come back with a review of just what did make the cut, and tell you about the my top 5 from the “Let’s Rock” announcement.

New iPod Nanos — No surprise here, at all.  Announced today, shipping sometime between now and Christmas, a return to the slimmer, sleeker design of the iPod nano.  The screen is much larger than the Gen 1 and Gen 2 nanos, and the ipod is now oval shaped (read: won’t sit flat on a table).  It also comes in about a dozen different colours.

“New” iPod Touches — Though not receiving anywere near the revision that the nanos did, the iPod touch now sports new side-mounted volume controls and a small external speaker.  Both of these will make the App-store games much more fun to play.  I’m sad that they’ve chosen not to integrate a microphone (though the exclusion was one of my predictions), the external volume controls will be a very handy new feature.  I wonder how hard they had to convince Jobs to abandon his “no buttons” policy?

Apple & NBC Kiss & Make up — Again, not a big surprise, NBC is returning to the iTunes store.  All your favourite syndicated NBC crap will once again be available in iTunes.  Meh…

iTunes 8 — The next version of iTunes is out, and it sports a fancy new “genius” feature whereby Apple takes a look at your listening habits and makes recommendations.  It’ll also build playlists for you.

iPod Touch / iPhone Software 2.1 — A revision of the software for the two fanciest iThings to hopefully fix the bugs and constant crashing that have plagued the devices (even 1st Gen iPhones / iPod Touches) since the 2.0 and 2.0.1 releases.  I sure as hell hope it’s stable ’cause I’m planning to get a new iPod touch to replace the one that “disappeared” somewhere in the Minneapolis airport.

So there you have it.  5 things that actually did happen, to go along with the 5 that didn’t.

5 Things You Won’t See At Apple’s September Announcement

So I’m lying here, unable to sleep, not because I’m dreaming up what Apple is going to announce tomorrow, but it has given me some time to think.

There’s been lots of ideas floated around, so I figured I should jump into the mix now before the news so I can call these predictions of things you definitely WON’T see

The iPod Touch with a built-in microphone and bluetooth — This would harshly cannibalize iPhone sales, particularly given the cost of iPhone data plans.

iTunes Music Subscriptions — People like to own their music. ’nuff said.

iPhone Revisions — Not a chance, with the 3G iPhone barely 3 months old, there’s no way that Apple can justify a revision already.  The backlash from iPhone early adopters last year will be a lesson.

The “MacBook Touch” — Even though a niche of Apple fans would love to see a Mac tablet to compete with all of the Windows based tablets out there, it just doesn’t make up a large enough piece of the overall computer market for Apple to try to carve out a piece.

Beatles Music in the iTunes Catalogue — Despite recent notions from some pundits that the Fab Four’s music will be part of the “Let’s Rock” announcement, there have been far too many false alarms for this to be the case.  Besides, the music is being remastered right now and will probably go through some kind of digital release next year once that’s done.

So there you have it, the five things you definitely won’t see at the Let’s Rock announcement.  Now we can sit back and see what the all things “i” maker will announce later today.