Hiragana Keyboard Layout
Last night I decided to connect an external monitor to my Powerbook G4 so that I could work with a larger screen and not use the smaller laptop screen. Apple calls this clam shell mode. To do this you need to connect a USB keyboard, USB mouse and an external monitor then close the laptop.
While I was installing some old drivers and in the process the keyboard language type got converted to Hiragana. I am not sure exactly which driver made the change, as I installed USB Overdrive, MacAlly IceKey Driver and SteerMouse.
I am thinking it was SteerMouse as it was the first driver I installed. The Logitech MX 518 mouse wasn't responding when I click and it appeared to move too fast. Later I notice that the USB wasn't working, as I was typing strange characters on my Macally IceKey keyboard.
SteerMouse was created in Japan, so that might be another clue that it was the application that changed my keyboard type to Hiragana.
I am going to uninstall all the drivers and third party utilities to see if I can identify the root cause and get everything working. Part of the problem I am running into is that I am using 10.5.8 on my laptop and some of drivers don't support that any more.
PermalinkCrossover and Notepad++
There seems to be a problem with Notepad++ and CrossOver. In particular the use of Dockable Windows with Plugins such as NppFTP and Snippets.
The problem that I keep running into is the inability to move a dockable window from the right side of the screen to the left side. The problem is that I am unable to drag and drop to the left and the window becomes undock. When the window is undock, there is no way to connect is back to the main window. To get back the previous state, I have to reinstall Notepad++.
Maybe someone else have better luck at moving the Dockable NppFTP window, but it just doesn't work correctly in Crossover.
Here's the complete description of Dockable Windows:
PermalinkNotepad++ supports so called Dockable Windows. These are part of the GUI, but you can move them around and choose whether you want them aligned to any side of the main windows (docked), or floating like a separate window.
To change the location of a dockable window, click and drag the titlebar of the window around. When you drag near any edge of the main window, a rectangle will be drawn indicating that the window will be docked there if you release it. Moving it anywhere else will draw the rectangle in the same way the window would be positioned if it were floating.
You can resize floating windows like any other window by dragging its edges, but to resize a dockable window you have to drag the edge that is adjacent to the main window.
There can be multiple dockable windows grouped together. If this is the case, only one of the windows is shown, and the others are reachable by a tab bar that is shown below the visible window. Selecting an item from the tab bar will hide the visible window, and show the corresponding window from the tab bar.
Swann Firewire hub
I have an old Swann Firewire hub and was going to connect it to my computer. I wanted to use to connect multiple devices. I purchased this hub a few years ago and its been sitting in the basement for a while. When I put it in storage, I didn't keep the power brick with it. Which causes a dilemma, what power jack will I need? When I looked on the bottom of the hub it didn't have any specs. So I decided to search the Internet.
After searching several sites, I found the required power specs. It looks like the 12vV/1A is what will properly power up the device. I figure I post it here in case I needed this information in the future.
Here's the full details of the Firewire hub:
The Swann FireWire 6 Port Hub not only overcomes the 4.5M length limit in the 1394 standard for the user?s devices, but it offers 6 independent 1394 bus connections, each with a 400Mbps transfer rate. Swann FireWire 6 Port Hub is the best choice for corporate and professional users who want a solid solution to IEEE 1394 / FireWire connectivity.
Features- True plug & play hot-swappable device
- Self or Bus Powered
- Fully supports IEEE 1394 standard
- FireWire protocol allows for connection of up to 63 devices
- Data transfer at 100/200/400 Mb/s
- 6 bi-directional ports with over-current protection per port
- PC & Mac compatible.
- Allows connection of up to 63 FireWire devices
- DV cameras, DV camcorders, DV recorders, still digital cameras
- HDD, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, DVD-RAM Digital TV, Set top box, scanners, printers, disk drives
- 1394 standards compliant; IEEE 1394-1995, P1394a (rev1.1)
- Asynchronous & isosynchronous data transfer
- 100/200/400 Mb/s transmission rate
- 6 x 6-pin 1394 bus connectors
- 1 x DC 12V/1A input jacket
- G3 300 or higher
- Mac with 1 FireWire port
- System 9.04 or higher
- 64MB RAM minimum
New iMacs
New iMacs were announced today and when looking at the specs I noticed that there is no DVD drive and no SD slot for Flash cards. While having a nice thinner machine would be nice, I am happy of the machine that I got.
The lack of a DVD drive isn't that big of a deal since I have an external drive, but its nice to have dual drives for various reasons. The SD slot has come in handy with downloading photos, as I find it goes much faster than external card readers.
Since I work down the street from an Apple Store, I'll go down sometime during lunch, to check out all the new hardware announced today. I find playing around with the computer for a while you get some understanding of why Apple did what they did. I really want to see how much non-glare they reduced as I don't like glare on my computer monitor.
Going from a Power Macintosh Dual-G4 Tower to an iMac is a big step, there's no need to have the latest and greatest. ( Basically I jump 5 years in technology in one migration.) I am happy with the computer and no-regrets with getting the latest and greatest machine.
Correction: Turns out that the SDXC slot is now in the back of the computer. This is not a good location, since inserting the SD card is something that I would do a lot of, and having to reach the back of the computer and put in the card is not very ideal.
PermalinkCopy Dialog
One of the things that I don't like with the Macintosh OS X. Is the inability to close some dialog boxes. For example, every once in a while I'll insert a data CD or DVD and copy some files to the computer. However, because the disk I insert may have scratches or be slightly damaged the file doesn't get copied.
What ends up happening is that the copy dialog never closes and I am unable to eject the disk. I have to restart Finder, or many times restart the computer to get rid of the dialog and be able to eject the disk.
I thought this would be fixed with Mountain Lion, but I am still encountering this issue. Hopefully some day they will be able to fix this annoying bug.
PermalinkMissing iDVD on iMac
Last night I was surprise to find out that my new iMac didn't come with iDVD. This caused an issue because I was trying to burn a video DVD. It turns out that Apple end of life iDVD with the release of iLife 2011.
Why did Apple think that people wouldn't be burning video DVDs anymore. I know there's some third party applications that have DVD capabilities, but iDVD was a good enough solution for most basic users.
Lucky for me that I had a copy of iLife 09 on a disk, which includes iDVD. I was able to successfully install the application by inserting the disk and running through the install process. I was worried that it would overide the iLife '11 items, such as iPhoto and iMovie, but that was not the case. The installation only installed iWeb and iDVD. After the installation, I then went to the App Store and checked for an update and updated both applications.
PermalinkVirtual PC Images with Parallels
If you have a few old Virtual PC images around and recently upgraded your hardware and software, you should check out Parallels Desktop. You can still access your old Virtual PC environments!
Its really easy to connect your old Virtual Machine. Simple boot up the Parallels application, click on the '+' in the Parallels Virtual Machines and then select 'Add Existing Virtual Machine.' The software does the rest.
Here's the tricky part. Since you are now using a different machine, Microsoft thinks that you have illegally copied this to a different computer and it needs to register Windows again. You have two options do it online or offline.
Clearly doing it online is better, but you might encounter a problem getting connected and Windows comes back and tell you to call some 800 number with a big serial number.
Here's what's really going on. Your Parallels Virtual Machine isn't setup correctly to connect to the internet. It has nothing to do with any configuration on Windows.
- I shutdown the Virtual PC session and then clicked on the PC name in the Parallels Virtual Machine window.
- When a new window appeared, instead of clicking to start it, I configured the PC. You can do that by clicking on the icon on the bottom right, or by going under 'Virtual Machine' and then select Configure.
- Select the Network Option, and then make sure you have the right set up, and make sure it says connected. (You may need to click on the lock in the bottom of the window to make a change.)
- Now when you restart the Virtual PC, your'll be asked to validate Windows and this time it should be able to connect to Microsoft fine.
This is a good time to buy Parallels as they are running some good discounts. Check out their website or their Twitter feed for deals and more information.
Photo Booth's Animated Gif Trick
One of the features that Apple has taken away from Photo Booth is the ability to create cool animate GIF. As described in this MacWorld article:
Finally, if you use File -> Export, Photo Booth will export the image as an animated GIF. You can then use this animated GIF as your iChat buddy icon. In iChat, click on your user picture and select Edit Picture, click Choose and navigate to the animated GIF you just created, then click Set. Other 10.5 users (and those using third-party AIM clients that support animated buddy icons) will then see your four-picture set. (Note that displaying animated buddy icons is disabled by default; to enable it, open iChat?s Preferences and check the Animate Buddy Pictures option in the General tab.)
This is no longer a feature of Photo Booth. They didn't even bring it back for 10.8, Mountain Lion. Pretty much the only thing that you can do is export the picture as a group. It would be really cool if Apple brought back this feature.
PermalinkSetting up a Dual PowerPC Macintosh as Headless computer
Today I was able to setup my Dual 1.42 Ghz PowerPC G4 Macintosh as a headless computer. A headless computer is a computer that is not attached to a monitor. This is mostly done with Unix systems at datacenters. Usually consumers aren't setting up their computers without monitors.
The reason why I decided to make my PowerPC headless is that I wanted to use the 21" monitor as a second monitor to my new iMac. Over time I plan to phase out the use of my old PowerPC computer. There's no reason to have a monitor attached to a soon to be legacy computer.
To set this up, before disconnecting the monitor, I enable remote management for VNC.
I booted up the computer and went into 'System Preferences' and then selected 'Sharing.' I then enabled the Remote Management and turned on all the options except the Observe option. I didn't select this as there will be no way to observe any remote connection. I then click on the 'Computer Settings...' and enabled the 'VNC viewers may control screen with password' checkbox and entered a password. The password is very importaint since anyone could connect to the computer and grab old files.
After performing all the Settings, I then shut down the computer and disconnected the monitor. I also disconnected the mouse and keyboard since I wouldn't be needing that. This frees up more valuable desk space. Obviously the Ethernet cable had to still be plugged in.
I then rebooted the computer and then waited a couple of minutes for the boot process to complete. Actually my PowerPC is so old, I have to unplug the computer and plug it back in to re-boot it. I haven't figured out why I have to do that yet.
To access the PowerPC computer from my iMac I downloaded Chicken of the VNC. Chicken of the VNC is a VNC client for Mac OS X. I was surprised that it discovered my old Computer when I went to connect. I simply had to enter my password, click enter and bingo I have access to my old computer. What's even nicer it's the same resolution as it was before, so I wasn't looking at a smaller window.
I am happy to now have access to my old computer. My task now is to move files from one computer to the next computer.
Last night I tried to copy my iPhoto Library from my old computer to the iMac however it was going to take 2 days to copy it over from my Ethernet connection. (13 GB) Looks like that I'll have to setup a Firewire Disk mode to copy over data. Both computer have Firewire 800 ports, so the data copy should be faster than Ethernet.
Cinema Display to iMac as Second Monitor
I am using my 2005 20" Cinema Display as a second monitor to my new 2011 iMac. The monitor works great! I was able to use the thunderbolt to ADC adapter to connect the monitor to the iMac.
The only technical problem that I ran into was that I could figure out how to adjust the display contrast. I discovered that connecting the USB port to the iMac allowed me control the contrast. I also gain the use of the additional USB ports in the back of the Cinema Display.
The other problem I had is the monitor is not the same height as the iMac. Once solution was to use the Quirky Space Bar which lifts the monitor and added 6 USB2 ports. The problem that I found with the Space Bar is that it lifts the monitor an extra inch and a half more than I needed.
What I found that worked perfectly is the Steve Jobs Biography hardcover book! I discovered this by accident while trying to figure out the exact height that would work. What a great use for the book after reading.
PermalinkAbout
A Mac veteran since 1989, I'm here to share my experience with tips and tricks every Friday. Witnessing the evolution of Mac software and hardware firsthand, I've gained a deep understanding of how these machines work and can help you troubleshoot any issues that may come up.
Check out all the blog posts.
Blog Schedule
Monday | Media Monday |
Tuesday | QA |
Wednesday | SnagIt |
Thursday | BBEdit |
Friday | Macintosh |
Saturday | Internet Tools |
Sunday | Open Topic |
Other Posts
- iMac 2011
- Expanding Polygons Beyond the Default in Keynote
- Viper FTP
- Outlook in Apple Mail
- TextEdit for Clipboard Content
- Serif vs Sans Serif
- Snagit for Quick Video Editing
- Finder Search Techique
- Stitch Effect in Pixelmator
- 2018 Black Friday Watch
- PhotoScape Color Picker
- 2-Page View in Pages
- Viagkiki USB 3.0 Switch
- Peak 3 LE
- iTerm Tips and Tricks