roobasoft blog » Hardware

Buy My PowerBook

BrianC — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:24:46 +0000

update 2006.09.05: SOLD!

I’m trading in my PowerBook for a bottom of the barrel white MacBook (I plan to add a 7200 RPM drive and 2GB of RAM sometime after purchase). If you need a PowerPC laptop, give mine a gander over @ eBay: 15″ PowerBook 1.67 Ghz 80GB 1.5GB SuperDrive Airport

If you “buy it now” ($1200 US) and you let me know that you read about it via my blog I’ll refund you the shipping (A $30 VALUE!!!11!!!11). I’ll also be sure to give you the coveted “A++++++” feedback on eBay (insert smilie face).

Why sell it? The PowerBook has two months left before its AppleCare runs out and I don’t want to shell out the $300 clams for AppleCare. I also don’t want an Apple laptop that isn’t covered by AppleCare. In case you’re wondering, yes, I have another PowerPC based machine (a mini), so I don’t need the PB for testing PPC bits.

I used the award winning iSale to create the post. It’s quite nice (disclaimer: I’m not an eBay connoisseur, but it seemed to make a clunky web based entry system a lot more enjoyable). If you’re going to post to eBay give iSale a try. They’ve got a pretty generous demo where you can post and monitor three items for free.

Pop Out Your Dead PowerBook Battery With Its Replacement

BrianC — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:54:33 +0000

I’ve had two batteries for my PowerBook for about three weeks now. Every time I went to switch out the dead battery for the charged one I would fumble around for something to release the old battery with (nickels and quarters work well. In a pinch, a credit card works too). Just a few minutes ago I slapped myself on the forehead with this “they probably designed it this way” realization. You can use the replacement battery to pop out the dead one. See picture:

This might be common knowledge, but I didn’t know it. Oh, and this is a 15″ PowerBook G4. Not sure if this works on Mac Book (Pro)’s or not. If you have a MB(P), feel free to drop the answer in the comments.

Warning: The Intel Firmware Update is Loud

BrianC — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 07:34:29 +0000

My iMac sits in my bedroom. There are certain rules: 1) always mute it 2) don’t use the CD-ROM (it’s quieter than my PowerBook, but still annoying) 3) don’t update it’s firmware (this one is new – learned minutes ago)

I just snagged the firmware update and did the install. If your Intel based Mac exists next to a sleeping spouse, wait until said spouse wakes up before running the update. Otherwise you’ll welcome them with:

1) a super annoying “fire alarm!” ish BEEEEEP during the firmware’s initial boot (the one where the power indicator starts to flash). My mac has never made a more “something is wrong” kind of noise (nothing was wrong). 2) the Mac bootup sound. Regardless of the fact that my Mac was muted, after the firmware update was complete it gave a nice big “that update was a success” chime.

Also, if you’ve previously done the onmac.net method of dual booting, you’ll want to read this prior to doing the firmware update or the bootcamp install.

My 5th 5G iPod is a Winner

BrianC — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 10:02:07 +0000

Last we heard, my fourth iPod was on its way. Well, that one has been replaced and now number 5 is here. What happened to number 4? Things were looking good. I received it on a Saturday morning and it still had some charge in it. I plugged it in, synced it and let it sit playing an album over and over. Five hours later and it was still going. Success! Then, on the way to get some pizza, I plugged it into my FM transmitter. Before I could even choose a playlist I’m welcomed with the wonderful smell of burning electronics. I pick up the iPod, confirm it’s the source of the smell and just let out a sigh. Then, to top things off, the pizza was horrible (I’ve been experimenting with pizza places lately, all disappointing).

I’ve been through four iPods and an FM transmitter, but I think it’s happened. I think number 5 is the one.

As for FM transmitters, I’m now using a griffin roadtrip ($50 on amazon) and am quite happy with it. I was previously using a Newer Technology RoadTrip! (yes, they have the same name, very different product). I was happy with Newer Tech’s model, until it died as part of number 4’s death.

iPod #3, DOA (again, not really dead, just useless)

BrianC — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:41:56 +0000

On January 30th I purchased a video iPod. Since then, I’ve held three different video iPods, each were considered “mine”. Each of these were enjoyable for about one day. At the end of that enjoyable day I realized the battery life was horrible. As soon as I notice and come to terms with the poor battery life I run the prescribed test and each time the iPod lasts between one and three hours (Apple says they should go for up to 14 hours, I’d be happy with 10). I’m now sending back the third iPod and can only guess I’ll be getting a fourth, broken iPod. What am I supposed to do? My wife thinks I should be calling and creating a stink over this but I just don’t see that as a productive use of anyone’s time. If the fourth one shows up and is dead I’ll either drive the thirty minutes to the nearest Apple store or call and see what they say. This situation saddens me.

rooVid 1.0 beta 3 will be a Universal Binary

BrianC — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 11:56:45 +0000

I ordered my stock 17″ iMac on Friday via Amazon. UPS says it’ll show up today. Conveniently, today is a US holiday so I’ll be home all day doing miscellaneous things and working on rooVid beta 3 (well under way). Beta 3 will almost certainly be a Universal Binary. The first thing I did after ordering my iMac was flip the config bit to compile rooVid for PowerPC and Intel. It compiled uneventfully and is ready to be tested.

iPod service, done

BrianC — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 18:28:50 +0000

DHL dropped off my replacement iPod today, it’s syncing now. The replacement seems to be in good working order, but only time will tell. To recap, here’s a timeline of events:

Wed Feb 8th: Filed my problem report with Apple
Thu Feb 9th: DHL dropped off the packaging to send the iPod back in
Sat Feb 11th: DHL showed up to pick up the iPod (the 1 day delay here was my laziness).
Mon Feb 13th: email shows up from Apple explaining they received the iPod
Wed Feb 15th: email shows up explaining that they’ve shipped the replacement and gives me the tracking number.
Thu Feb 16th: DHL tried to deliver my iPod, but no one was home.
Fri Feb 17th: DHL successfully delivers my replacement iPod.

A tad over one week and my defective unit is replaced without any push back or questions from anyone, and free overnight shipping[1] on everything. Very refreshing.

It would have been nice to not have had to deal with this problem, but it’s understandable considering the volume that they’re manufacturing and shipping these things in. The problem existed, Apple acknowledged it and fixed it in a very timely manner, all is well in the world.

[1] The overnight shipping was nice. Gives me the feeling that they really wanted to fix the problem. This is similar to the included packaging tape I mentioned before, thoughtful.

update 2006.02.23: The replacement iPod has the same issue. I couldn’t believe it. Surely it must be something I’m doing. Or at least that’s what I’ve been saying to myself for the past few days. However, after reading the comment from Chriztian about having to do this four times I’ve already fired off my problem report. Here we go again.

I wonder how many people have these iPods and don’t even know they’re getting lousy battery life. Hopefully none, but I’m sure there are some who don’t realize it and that’s not good. Surprisingly (I read a lot of blogs) I hadn’t heard of this problem before experiencing it myself.

Switching Primary Displays

BrianC — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 14:08:09 +0000

I often have an external display attached to my PowerBook. Just recently I wished my “primary” display, the one with the menu, was my external display. After about five minutes of poking at the display preferences pane I realized you can drag the little menu from the display it’s on to whichever display you want. That’s nice. This is one of those things I feel like I should have known, but didn’t.

Oh, and don’t worry, changing this doesn’t shuffle any windows, it just adjusts which display the menu and dock are on and which display is considered the primary display (this matters for some other apps like quicksilver, growl, etc).

iPod service, part 2

BrianC — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:54:58 +0000

Filing the “my iPod’s battery is useless” complaint was easy. Enter your serial number, explain the problem[1], wait. Next day a box shows up at my door. Open it, read the instructions, pack up the ‘pod, tape up the box, hand package off to DHL and wait some more.

Kudos to Apple on the packaging. Not only do they pay for shipment both ways (that’s expected – I got a busted product, they better), but the box they send comes with little strips of packaging tape to seal it up with. That’s just thoughtful.

[1] there was a drop down entry for “my battery doesn’t hold its charge”

iPod video, DOA (well, not “dead”)

BrianC — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 03:25:14 +0000

The app I’m working on has the ability to easily take your iMovie project or QuickTime movie and push it over to iTunes where it can then be synced with your iPod. In order to ensure this feature worked I purchased a 30G iPod video (aka 5th gen iPod).

It was about a week ago that I received the iPod from amazon, charged it and let it do it’s super lengthy sync (5GB’s of music, some video and 5700 photos took quite a while (guestimating it was about two to three hours)). At the end of the sync I made sure that the home movies I encoded and imported into iTunes via my app were indeed viewable on the iPod and they looked great. I then continued to snag some other content to play with via iTunes. Note: If you like stupid things and are looking to waste two or three minutes of your day, I suggest AskANinja.com. It cracks me up (at least the episode titled “roger” did), but I’m told from others that it’s really not that funny. Oh well, on with the post.

After a day or two I noticed the battery life was horrible. I’d listen to an audio podcast on my ride home from work and when I got home, I’d turn on ‘hold’ and then leave the iPod in my jacket pocket sitting idle. When I woke up in the morning the battery was dead!? Coincidentally, the same day I started coming to terms with the poor battery life, I found “How to accurately determine your iPod battery life” in NNW via Hivelogic Links. I ran the suggested test and my iPod’s expected 14 hours of audio playback turned out to be just over 3 hours. I ran the test again this morning with the identical results.

Now it’s time to try out Apple’s “iPod Service Request”. I’ll post my results as they happen, but from the looks of it I expect it to be as easy as:

Apple sends me the packaging to ship the unit back in (pre-payed)
I package it up in the supplied box and send it to Apple
Sometime later I get some other iPod back.

Unfortunately it seems the iPod they send back could be a refurbished model. That would be sad, but somewhat understandable. Not sure if I would know or not. Hopefully not. I’d much rather just assume it was a brand new replacement unit.