Hello! My name is Lars Schwarz (aka Bitrocker)
I'm a Freelance Web Developer from Oldenburg, Germany
Black MacBook of Death
… it doesn’t seem to get any better. After my first MacBook Harddisk Crash one year ago, three dying Batteries, now my second replacement Harddrive crashed yesterday.
The first (original) Drive was the Seagate Momentus 5400.2 one, the second (replacement) Drive a Hitachi OEM one – both died with the same good-bye Headcrash Sound.
So after all i now got 2 dead Drives and 3 dead Batteries.
Obviously something fishy is going on with the black MacBook…
Leave a Reply
Meta
Tags: apple, battery, black, crash, drive, dying, hitachi, macbook, momentus, osx, seagate, warranty
Posted in apple, life, osx |
MacBook Battery and Snow Leopard
There are a lot of Discussions recently on “dying” Batteries after installing Snow Leopard.
My Battery Problem started when i bought my first Intel MacBook – the Black one. The first Battery died just after some weeks (X Symbol above the Battery Icon). I called Apple Support and got a new Battery some days later. The new Battery also died some weeks later. Another call at Apple Support, another Battery. Number 3 survived nearly as long as my Apple Warranty lasted.
When Snow Leopard was released i updated my Black MacBook, but did not check for any News on the Battery Problem. Today i did. I was happy when i found a new Battery Update (1.4) on the Apple Support Site. My current Battery has Pack Lot Code 002, so it seemed this update might help. Unfortunately the 1.4 Battery Update is not working on Snow Leopard.
Though Apple did not ask to send back the 2 other Batteries i tried replacing those to see if there is any change with Snow Leopard. Both have Firmware Version 102, Hardware Version 0300 and Pack Lot Code 001. No Change, still the old Symptom.
Putting back in my current Battery (Firmware Version 102A, Hardware Version 0500, 75 Cycles) i suddenly noticed a “Battery wait”. After 5 Minutes the Percentage dropped to 0% and it’s still on “Battery wait” for something like 30 Minutes now.
According to the System Profiler everything looks ok, but it’ still waiting to load…
It seems another Battery bites the Dust.
Looks like these Guys have some more broken Batteries: 15 x broken A1185 on Ebay.
I’m thinking of installing Leopard on a external Drive to apply the 1.4 Battery Update to the 2 old Batteries to see if those 2 might get alive. I’m also thinking of calling Apple Support again, regardless my Warranty expired. Meanwhile the Battery is at 3% Charge (but still on “battery wait”…). If all of these fail i guess i have to spend some more money on a FastMac Replacement Battery.
1 Comment
Leave a Reply
Meta
Tags: A1185, apple, battery, black, charging, cycles, hardware, macbook, snowleopard
Posted in life, osx |
Firefox 3 Window Redraw/Ghosting Bug – fixed?
Using Firefox has always been a nice Experience until the day this nasty Redraw Bug occured.
Opening a larger Amount of Tabs/Sites caused a Bug that made Firefox (3.0.5 in my case) to redraw only Parts of the Site. A Ghosting Effect that was really getting on my nerves, because you had reboot completely to fix it partially. Scrolling or resizing the Firefox Window sometimes redrawed Pages correctly, but still when opening a new Tab everything was mashed-up again.
According to Bug 434602 this has been fixed with a nightly Build (download link in the Thread).
For now it seems to be fixed. Let’s keep Fingers crossed…
Update: running 3.07pre now. Sites like http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2009/miami/speakers cause problems while scrolling like not updating background images properly or loading images on-rollover only. Sometimes Background-Images are disabled/gone completely after switching Tabs.
Leave a Reply
Pre-Christmas Harddrive Crash
hey, what a present! just 2 days before christmas my internal macbook harddrive went boom.
just while i was away for 5 mins getting milk (to serve delicious coffee to our dear guests), “timbo” had to reboot from windows to osx. when i came back all we saw was the “blinking question mark on a folder” icon while osx tried to boot… obviously it did not find a system disk. listening closely i noticed that “no-i-don’t-wanna-hear-that” clicks when the head tries to access the disk. funny we just talked about “cloud networking” 20 mins before… and now:
boom!
seagate momentus aka ST98823AS firmware 7.01, made in china rest in peace.
guess what? it seems i’m not the only one. when taking on the phone the next day, the guy speaking to just told me a friend of him just had the same on his macbook some days ago… aha – and yeah, there is it, computerworld and other sources reporting on “risky” seagate drives that hardly need a backup soon. gotta call apple support tommorrow and see what they say. even the can’t rescue my data i guess (yeah, right, i’m backing up all my EXTERNAL harddrives, but not my internal one) they maybe can offer … something.
what would mac guyver do?
1 Comment
-
Just had a friend have the same drive go bad.
Leave a Reply
Less time or less good movies?
Recently i noticed the number of good Movies i’ve seen hasn’t increased for a long time. Most Movies i’ve seen within the last 2 Years are “okay movies”, but not “real Movie Movies”. Am i missing those really good Movies, did i change my own Rating for a good Movie or did the Number of good Movies decrease?
Well, here’s my own List of movies i really enjoyed recently:
1. In Bruges (one of the funniest Movies i’ve seen for a long Time)
2. Vantage Point (one Story, different Perspectives, good one)
3. Taken (Liam Neeson to be the next James Bond?)
Well, yeah, that’s it! All others have been watched, rated “o.k.” and that’s it. All other’s are not in the “recently” Category like “11:14″ or “No Country for old men”. Any Recommendations? I’m really missing those good Movies.
Leave a Reply
Part of the Weekend never dies
Just saw the Soulwax “Rockumentary” Part of the Weekend never dies – really enjoyed it. The DVD comes with a Mix CD. It’s a bargain, buy it. Somehow it reminded my of Air’s “Eating, Sleeping, Waiting and Playing”.
The Movie contains nice Titles by “So Me“, lot’s of live Footage, lot’s of Good Music, lot’s of People going crazy while dancing, appereances by Justice and other Kitsune Artists, James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem (and his bottomless Porta Filter) and lot’s of Vintage Equipment in the Studio 54 and of course not only Soulwax Performances but also 2 many DJs Gigs… any way: go watch!
Leave a Reply
iPhone Developer Program Enrollment
I registered as iPhone Developer on that Day the SDK was released. On the Day the iPhone 3G was released i bought one. 1+1=2 so on the same Day i started doing some Stuff with XCode and the Emulator but soon i wanted to try some real World testing on my Phone and not on the Emulator so i applied for the Standard Developer Program… Instead of dropping the Program into the Shopping Card i ended up on a Page that told me that i’ll shortly receive Information about my Enrollment Status. What?
I tried again. Same Result.
I contacted the ADC Support via Email. No Repsonse (except an automatic Confirmation Email letting my know they received my Request).
1 Week later i tried again. Again i ended up on that Enrollment Status Page…
Antoher Email to ADC Support, another automatic Reply, another no Answer.
I tried again, but this time not with my existing Developer Account, but creating a completely new Apple Account and “TaDa!” the iPhone Developer Program went into the Shopping Card.
Ain’t it strange? Existing Users get an Enrollment Notice but no chance to buy the Program and new Users can shop it directly? Tsk Tsk Tsk.
2 Comments
-
Dann warte ich jetzt mal sehnsüchtig auf die ersten Programme von dir. Beta-Tester? Hier!
-
admin on September 17th, 2008
Cert ist heute gekommen, kann also los gehen … i’ll keep you up to date
(Still) no WiFi on a Powerbook G4 running Leopard
It’s been a Problem since i upgraded my good old 12inch Powerbook G4 from Tiger to Leopard:
WiFi Connection drops when moving more than 1 metre away from the Router.
There are various Websites and Forum Threads describing the same Problem, mostly when updating the OSX Install (not doing a Clean Install). I tried nearly all from removing the Airport Startup Preferences Plist File, changing Channels, turning of IPv6 Support, disabling DNS and so on. Latest try was changing the Encryption from WEP to WPA: Still no WiFi Connection when the Powerbook is more than something like 2 metres away from the Router.
Guess my last try will be doing a clean Install, after i backuped all my Data… Thanks Apple for nearly no Support on this Thread.
1 Comment
-
PowerBook User on November 14th, 2008
I am having the same problem with my 17″ G4 Powerbook 1.5ghz, 2gig RAM, with a clean install of Leopard. I would love to sell the machine, but I am worried because of the wifi dropping constantly. Please post something if you figure this one out. THANKS!
Leave a Reply
iPhone 3G and Google Maps “lite” or No KML on the iPhone
This weekend we did a little Trip to Groningen (Holland). Shopping, Coffee, relaxing… I thought it would be a good idea to use Google Maps “MyMaps” Feature and collect some “Points of Interesst” before starting the Trip. So i added some placemarks to the Groningen Map and sent the link to my iPhone.
… trying to open that Google Maps generated Link on my iPhone opened Google Maps but did not show any of the Placemarks i placed. Hmmm, ok, let’s try to export an KML File and open that… Error. Na, nothing, just the Map, but without any Placemarks. Diggin’ a little deeper i learned that Google Maps on the iPhone doesn’t support KML Files (even it did prior to v2.0). Even there’s a little Hack by changing the original Google Maps URL and redirect to the KML File stored on your own Webspace i could not make it work.
I ended up in taking a Screenshot and adding it to my iPhone Photos… but, well, as you maybe know they get scaled down, resulting in a pixelated Map of Groningen with no Chance to read a single Street Name. Lovely. So back to good-old printed Street Maps.
p.s.: i’m aware that Applications like Nearby allow you to create own Maps with Placemarks, but i was looking for a solution to access that Maps without any further Roaming Costs when accessing it in a foreign Country, something like a cached Map or even a static Screenshot one.
UPDATE: Thanks to Tim i now have a working Solution for the next Trip: http://adlr.info/mymaps-iphone.html
5 Comments
-
tim on September 11th, 2008
A neat little trick/app that I found at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8058751&tstart=0 is a little webpage created by Andrew de los Reyes at http://adlr.info/mymaps-iphone.html which gives you a url that you can send to your iphone that will bring up the KML link from a google MyMaps in your iphone’s google map program, with all placemarks/data.
-
Sweet! I’ll give that a try. Thanks
-
Interesting to know.
-
At least in iPhone 3.0 you can put the URL of a a kml/kmz file in the search box of the Maps app and it will pull it up. So, email/message the link to yourself, copy it, and paste it in!
-
Hey, great tip, thank you. Also, really like your site’s colorform.
Did you have any luck getting your battery working via the Snow Leopard route? I’ve had the same problem with my MacBook. Battery was the same lot as yours, except from reading the 1.4 Battery Update release notes it only seemed applicable to battery firmware older than what mine had, so I didn’t try it. Currently I’m battery-less and pondering what to do.