Posts tagged ‘Apple’

Really? I have to restart my computer for 6Kb?

I guess I never noticed it, but I have a lot of menu icons! In order from left to right is:

Adium
Waveboard
Tweetie
BetterTouchTool
Alfred
Dropbox
Google Notifier – Calendar
Google Notifier – GMail
Caffeine
MobileMe Sync
Time Machine
Bluetooth
Wireless
Audio/Volume
Time
Spotlight

Check out a screenshot of all of them on my desktop:

After almost a month without a laptop, I finally got one again. You’d be surprised how much wish you had a laptop when don’t have one. It is a 15″ Macbook Pro. 2.66 GHz processor. 4Gb RAM.

Now I get to go through and install all of the software and set up all of my preferences.

My home command center is almost complete!

I don’t really want to go into all of the details, but about a month ago my apartment was broken into. They got a lot of my computer equipment. They also left a lot of it behind. They did take both of my computers though. How long is 2 1/2 weeks for a web developer without computer? It’s a lifetime. Time passes very slow.

Thank God I had renters insurance. For $7 a month, it’s almost dumb not to have it. It’s the price of eating at a fast food restaurant. Skip the fast food for one day out of the month and you just paid your renters insurance.

When I finally got the check from insurance, I went to replace my Macbook Pro with another Macbook Pro. No one seems to have any. Well, people have the 17″ but I wanted the 15″. So I have to hold off on get the Macbook Pro. So I started looking at computers to replace a Sony Vaio that was also taken. The only reason I use a PC is to test things in IE, so I wasn’t looking for anything fancy. Then it hit me. Why get a computer that I really won’t use much? I can always get another Mac. Install Windows on a virtual machine or Bootcamp it. This allows me to get a computer I want but still be able to test things in IE. So I got a Mac Mini.

For now it is in my bedroom because it is the only computer I have. When I am able to get another Macbook Pro, I’ll put the Mini in the living room and hook it up to the television. The Mini will by my entertainment computer with light IE testing. The Macbook Pro will be my primary computer.

[Update @8:00PM Feb 21, 2010] And a picture of the Mini on my desk.

When I first updated to Snow Leopard I was using a Logitech mouse. But I kept having problems with it. Some of the time it would read my single clicks as double clicks. So if I was selecting a bunch of files to be deleted, it would then open them all up. It became very annoying. So I started using the Mighty Mouse until the Magic Mouse came out. I use the Magic Mouse exclusively now.

I have to say the Magic Mouse is almost the best mouse I have ever had. I say almost because with both the Logitech mouse and Mighty Mouse, I had a way to do application Exposé without touching the keyboard. For most people, this isn’t a big deal. But I spend a lot of time on the computer. Shortcuts like that really help.

I’m pretty sure Apple is working on updating the Magic Muse driver to do it now, but in the mean time, you can use BetterTouchTool. I have it set right now to three finger click opens up Exposé. I can easily change it to a two, three, four, or five finger click, or tap, or swipe. It’s a pretty nice little program. If you gave a Magic Mouse, I recommend you try it out.

Even if you don’t have a Magic Mouse, you can still use it on multitouch touchpads on the Macbook and Macbook Pro.

[Update Jan. 11th, 2009] There is also MagicPrefs which looks like it does the same thing. I haven’t tried it because BTT is working great for me.

I went to an office Christmas party today. When I got back from the party, my Safari icon was done. The Safari application wasn’t gone because I could still open Safari and go to websites.  The icon was just transparent.

I removed it from the dock and put it back in thinking that would do the trick. It didn’t.

So I tried the official Windows fix and restarted. The icon was still in the dock at this time. That still didn’t fix the problem. So I removed the icon from the dock again and then put it back in the dock and it started showing up again.

I assume restarting the computer then adding the icon back in the dock solved the issue but I can’t be sure because the icon is displaying now and I don’t know how to make the ico transparent again.