Tag Archives: macbook

Posted on
by

It doesn’t quite work :) , a little bit, but not really.

Often if the specifications of computers match with other Macs you can install an older OS X on it then what came pre-installed on the Mac. Like in this situation I discovered that the Macbook Pro Early 2011 (MacBookPro8,1) has a lot of specifications in common with the Mac Mini Mid 2011 (MacMini5,1)

Same CPU, GPU and ram type. Both have Thunderbolt, bluetooth, wifi, Sata 2 clocked at higher speeds etc.

The Macbook comes with Snow Leopard 10.6.6 and the Mac mini with Lion 10.7. In the old days that would mean that the Mac mini could also run 10.6.6 or newer (10.6.8). Because all drivers are available. Thus if Lion or Mountain Lion doesn’t work for you, you could downgrade to Snow Leopard.

I’ve tried this many times before with G5 macs, earlier Intel models and all kinds of hardware really.

But in this case it seems Apple used a different I/O chip in the Mac mini. Also the I/O for the thunderbolt seems different. Because of these tiny hardware differences it doesn’t work. Very sneaky.

I successfully installed Snow Leopard on the Mac Mini but quickly discovered that the Sata Bus had a throughput of maybe 10/20 kilobytes while using the system. Instead of the advertised 3 Gigabit. This basically means the Sata Bus functions in a sort of fallback mode called PIO. And this is something of the 80′s and with that is super slow. Copying data and writing to the disk will literally take hours.

Another thing that seems to happen is that when you use the Thunderbolt port on the Mac Mini and Snow Leopard loads, the screen goes black. This suggests the firmware or the thunderbolt chip has a slight difference with the Macbook version of it. The Thunderbolt port does, however, keep showing as connected in System information. But it has no output.

However, and this is the weird part. Sata and Thunderbolt worked fine throughout the installation of the setup. This suggests this can be resolved with a driver or modification in Snow Leopard somewhere but I couldn’t find anything constructive for this. I guess no-one has tried this before. Since such things are notoriously hard to find for OS X I didn’t go into that much further and simply upgraded to Mountain Lion.

Posted on
by

I’ve been thinking, with still nothing useful from Apple about it’s epic tablet thing.
The colory flashy invitation image they spread around last week inviting us to go see their “new creation”.

What if there is no tablet… Then most mac fans have spend months, if not years, speculating about the slick fucker and it will be the epic anticlimax!

I would enjoy that, just for the heck of it. The tablet rumor fun wore of for me a few months ago and i got thoroughly tired of all the stupid rumors and idiotic ideas.

What if all we get is iPhone 3.2 and a refreshed MacBook line but in different colors like the iPod Nano? The MacBook in it’s current state is a very nice computer but a bit lonely in it’s line. And with the 13″ MacBook Pro there probably are many people getting the Pro rather than the weaker white mate. So it needs something special. Something to lure people back to the MacBook line.

What if that’s all we’re getting? What if there is no tablet.

The economy will probably crumble, AAPL will fail. And, well… we will see i guess.

Posted on
by

2 Months or so ago i bought the new 27″ iMac, last summer i bought the then new MacBook Pro 13″.
And both needed backing up.

With the ever bigger harddisks and increasing lazyness when it comes to connecting peripherals to computers i wanted something simple. I have never really backed up any iMac. Just the MacBook as i drag it around to places and thus is more prone to defects. however, with me moving my development files to my iMac and the hassle for IF it goes wrong a backup is just nice to have.

I used to back up my MacBook Pro with SuperDuper, which i bought, and synced an Western Digital 500GB Hard disk with every wednesday and sunday. It was manual and tedious. Too much steps for something i didn’t really want to do. Later i figured out that Time Machine didn’t really need the disk at all times and wouldn’t make a fuss if the disk was not found. I still use SuperDuper regularly for various things and i like it alot. But for a drive that isn’t always there it’s not really what i wanted.

So here’s how i do it now. In iCal i have made a repeating event to make some noise 3 times a week, prompting me it’s time for the backup. Then i simply hook up the drive and let it connected for a bit. And a few hours, or minutes, if i think about it. When Time Machine did it’s thing i simply disconnect the drive again.
I now do that for my iMac too since this week and it’s been really simple. For the iMac with the ports less accessible i bought a Western Digitial 1TB drive that shut’s itself off after a minute inactivity and just leave it connected.

It almost couldn’t be simpler.

So here i am, ending up using Time Machine and even liking it. When it was first introduced i didn’t like it much for it’s lack of options. With some tweaks using the preference pane Secrets even that can be solved. Like setting a longer interval for backups every day or every 12 hours instead of every hour.

Posted on
by

The iPhone 3G is coming next friday and i’m still in doubt if i should take their 29.95 p/m contract or try to get it on a cheaper contract and pay more for the phone.

I just read that i get unlimited access to their wifi hotspots as well. Which is nice, means that i can hook up my macbook pro too on every train station or whatever *tempting tempting*. Just trying to get a map of the covered area by those hotspots to see if it’s a good deal for me.

Posted on
by

So i unplug my headphones from my Macbook Pro and now my sound port is broken on it… Nuts!
Well the sound port isn’t broken… It works when the headphones are connected and when disconnected it’s convinced i’m using some optical device… completely insane.
So our magical tech guy ripped the machine apart and replaced some part to test and it worked again.

Getting a replacement tomorrow…