The Unfortunate Bottleneck.

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


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

~Dave

Problems Persist

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

~Dave

The Second Hard Drive Dilemma

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


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

~Dave

Tell Xcode 4 to Put Its Junk Elsewhere!

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

After that, proceed as usual with installing Xcode!

~Dave

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

It is picture clear!

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

~Dave

After a short Hiatus

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

Plans for the Future

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

~Dave

Xcode and Moving Files

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

~Dave

How much RAM can your Mac hold?

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

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

~Dave

iPad Photo Syncing Solution

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

iPad Camera Connection Kit

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

~Dave

Creating a Symbolic Link

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

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

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

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

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

Notice one says desktop and the other doesn't.

Now, while in the folder type the following into terminal to create the Symbolic Link:

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

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

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

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

~Dave

Installing Lion

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

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

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

~Dave

Lion unleashes its "Roar".

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

~Dave

You can never trust rumors

It is sad to find out that Lion was not released yesterday. The date had been spread around the internet as almost certainly the date for release. However, in my mind there are some things that don't match up. Here is why I believe people should not have relied on that date. For starters, Apple never sent out an announcement email telling people to be ready. That usually happens a couple of days before release. Next, Apple has a trend of releasing operating systems on the last Tuesday of a month. If this holds true for Lion, it won't be out for another week and a half. And finally, they are just rumors and unless they come with a leaked photo it is hard to trust them. However, there is an upside to this story. Certain apps on the Mac App Store are already approved for Lion and will run on Lion. This is a follow up to the note Apple sent out earlier this week requesting that people send in their Lion applications. We will find out the release date in time.

~Dave

Follow up to Lion Rumor

Yesterday there was a lot of issues when trying to connect to the iTunes and Mac App Store. I, like many others around the internet. could occasionally connect, but would lose connection or not be able to browse at all. According to Macrumors, Apple sent out an email soon after to developers stating the following:

iTunes Connect will be undergoing scheduled maintenance on Wednesday, July 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. PDT. 

During this time, iTunes Connect will still be available. However, pricing changes made between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. PDT will cause the app to become unavailable for purchase until maintenance is complete, at which point the app will become available at the new price. To avoid interruptions to the availability of your apps, do not make price changes during this time. 

Lastly, customers may not be able to purchase apps in the Mexico, U.K., Australia, Switzerland, Japan or Norway storefronts during the scheduled maintenance. 

Regards, 
The App Store team

Today is July 13th, and if the rumors hold true that Lion will be released on the 14th, then this makes sense. Just think, the store will be down for most of the day with "price changes" (aka new apps for Lion). Lion itself will probably be put on the servers through out the day so that it is ready for download tomorrow. All we have to do is wait it out.

~Dave

Rumor: Lion to be released this week

On top of the macbook air refresh rumor and the mac pro refresh rumor, there is the rumor floating around regarding the release date of Lion. Lion is said to be released some time in July, but no specific date was given. However, last night developers were sent an email asking them to submit their applications for Lion to the App Store. This means that Apple is gearing up to have the first round of Lion apps ready on launch day. I would guess that the release would be within the week. Rumors from different sites suggest it will be released on July 14th. However, after reading about I found that Apple usually takes about a week to approve applications for the App Store, which may put Lion's release next week. Then again, if Apple does have a release scheduled for this week it will rush to get apps to the App Store. I for one cannot wait for Lion as it will allow me to utilize my new Agility 3 I put in my Hackintosh, as well as give me a almost 100% stable hackintosh. There will be a post about install procedures regarding Lion.

On a side note, for those of you who want a physical copy of Lion, I would suggest you look up how to make a bootable CD. I plan on doing this because I like being able to boot into a CD if I have any issues.

~Dave

New Time Capsule

Apple quietly updated their Time Capsules over the past week, expanding the sizes to 2 TB and 3 TB drives. This is an increase from the previous 500 GB and 1 TB options. Overall the product is still the same. In a recent teardown of the product, it was found that the drives actually put inside the Time Capsule were Wester Digital Caviar Green drives. You may find this to be nothing special, however; Apple advertises server grade drives, and the Caviar Greens are not rated as server grade drives. This may not seem a big deal, but in a sense it is false advertising. That is not to say that you shouldn't buy a Time Capsule, you should if you need a wireless network and a way to backup your computer. In the shift prices stayed the same. After this refresh, it would seem supplies of Macbook Airs and Macbooks are dwindling, which may hint at another possible refresh right around the corner when Lion is released.

~Dave

Apple Announcement Roundup Part 2/3

OS X Lion


Nothing particularly new has been announced since last summer. Lion is still coming with multi touch gestures, mission control, launch pad, versions etc. It was however priced at $30 and will be released this summer for download only through the App Store.

Let's talk about some big features though. Mission Control will be coming out with Lion, allowing you to be more organized with your applications. It is essentially a much more glorified version of spaces. It can be activated with multi touch gestures, unless you have a computer which doesn't support that in which case you just have to map a hot key to it or something. Mission Control is sort of like a "central hub" so to speak.

Then of course there is Launch Pad, a simpler way to open applications. Launch Pad looks and acts like an iPad, your apps are shown and you click on them to launch. In addition, when you download an app from the App Store, it goes straight to Launch Pad. Uninstalling also occurs from Launch Pad, just click and hold until the icons wiggle. Click on the "x" to uninstall.

Next, and one of my favorites, is called Resume. Resume allows you to shut off your computer and turn it back on with all your applications where you left them. It allows you to "resume" work with out having to re-open everything.

Also very neat is the addition of Versions. Versions is like a more exact Time Machine. It allows you to select and restore a certain version (older save) of a file which you have been working on. For example, say you are working on a presentation, but you have made a couple mistakes a long the way, and you have saved those mistakes. To undo all them would take too much time, but with versions you can travel back to an older save file and restore that, overriding the one with all the mistakes.

These are just some of the big features being added to Lion, for a full list of features and what they do you can visit apple.com

~Dave

Apple Announcement Roundup Part 1/3

As a precursor, it did take me a day to fully understand a majority of the things announced at WWDC '11.

iOS 5

 As expected, iOS 5 was announced at WWDC, bringing a slew of new features to the boards. Apple did exactly what was speculated, and revamped the entire notification system. When I say revamped, I mean they just copied Android. If you have ever used an Android device, you know that all the events on your device are stored at the top in the drop down menu. Any time you receive a message, it can be read on the drop down menu. Tapping on it takes you to the application (messages, mail, etc.). The difference between the iPhone and iPad version though is the iPhone version has weather and stocks, which is odd because you would think with the larger screen the iPad would get the same, if not more. 

In addition, Apple introduced iMessages. Essentially, this is Black Berry Messaging for iDevices. If you own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, you can message another iDevice owner over wifi or 3G. And it is free of SMS since iPod users don't have SMS. This means that, hypothetically, if all your friends had iDevices, you could own an iPhone and message them with out having to pay for a SMS data plan. Also, when you first send a text to someone, your device will check and see if the number you are texting is an iDevice with iMessages. If it is, your send button will turn blue, and your contact for that person will update so you know that he/she owns an iDevice. If not, the send button is green, and nothing is updated in the contacts.

Apple didn't stop there though, they went further with the new Reminders application. Reminders is a simple little to-do list application. It allows you to add to-dos, check them off, and update them. They are also synced with Outlook, iCal, and iCloud (which will be talked about later). You can even set locations for each to-do, so you know where you have to go to get the reminder done.

Apple also jumped on the social networking trend by adding full Twitter integration into iOS 5. You can add as many accounts as you want, and it fully integrated into the new messaging system, as well as all the applications. This makes it easy to tweet photos, information, and more at the tap of a screen. You can also add your location if you want. 

But wait, there's more! Apple has added the ability to take a picture from your lock screen. This is suppose to save the user time when getting his/her camera ready. However, as far as I can tell this circumvents the reason you have a lock screen. If you activate the camera, it unlocks the device, therefore undoing the purpose of having the lock screen, which is to keep your device locked. A nifty addition they added to the camera was the ability to take pictures by pressing the volume buttons. This is suppose to make it easier to take pictures, as before the only way was to tap on the screen. Another feature added was minimal ways to edit your pictures. You can crop, and remove read eye from with the application.

Post PC Activation.

Other additions include the ability to use Reader in Safari, and the ability to utilize the new Reading List within Safari. Reading list allows you to add a page to a list which you can then "read later". Plus, there is also the ability to activate your device without having to connect to iTunes. As it is now said, "We live in a post PC world, where not everyone owns a PC." For this reason, you can now activate your device out the box, and have it ready to go in minutes without having to sync and connect to iTunes. Also, there was the addition of rich text formatting for mail, wireless mirroring for iPads to TV, Wireless syncing, and a Game Center update which allows pictures to be added to your friends, as well as in app game purchases.

This post is part of a three part update so that all the parts of the event can be covered. 

~Dave

Big Day

Today, in my opinion, is one of the biggest days of the year. It is not only the start of WWDC '11, but it is also the start of E3. While Apple will be setting the "tone", so to speak, of the year to come, so too will E3. E3 is where all the major game corporations make their announcements of the games coming later this year. Battlefield 3, Gears of War 3, and many more will show trailers and gameplay footage. There will also be hands on demos around the floor of E3 so the media can show the worlds what is coming in the next year.

On the other hand, there is the Apple Press even happening today. OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud are the three major points that will be made in the conference. There is also rumor that the conference will unveil a new Airport Extreme/Time Capsule. These announcements are sure to set the tone for what the year to come will be like in terms of consumer electronics. Get ready, because today is going to be huge.

~Dave