Category Archive for ‘Apple’ at Jeremy’s Little Corner Of The Web…

Archive for the 'Apple' Category

I ♥ Computers Now North Sydney

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on September 7, 2006

in Apple

. 3 Comments

I just wanted to thank the service department at the North Sydney store of Computers Now for being so damn GOOD.

The battery in my MacBook Pro decided to die today:

It wasn't recognised by the computer, and didn't charge.

I first went to an unnamed store, where I was quoted a 2-week turnaround time for a technician to diagnose and fix the problem with the computer (even though I demonstrated it was a battery problem by swapping in another, which charged). Losing the entire computer would be like a stake in the heart at the moment, so I declined and walked out the store.

I decided to try up the road at Computers Now in North Sydney, as I had good experiences with them in the past. I explained the problem, and that I had a hunch the battery was at fault. The woman at the service desk took the computer (and battery) out the back, and returned a few minutes later, confirming the battery was faulty (I saw them swap it out for another), and that they'd order a replacement from Apple for me. I was in and out of the store in under 5 minutes, and I got to keep my computer. Now that's customer service!

How to configure MacOS X Server to share a PPPoE connection (or, how to not write crappy documentation)

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on July 18, 2006

in Apple

. 0 Comments

I'm in the process of setting up a MacOS X Server box at the office, which will serve as a router/firewall/VPN/etc. I hit a roadblock yesterday when trying to configure NAT (Network Address Translation) for our ADSL connection. It turns out that Apple's Server Admin tool does not allow you to share a PPPoE (DSL) internet connection. Utter stupidity!

To top things off, while the knowledge base article explains this limitation, it fails to explain why this is the case:

You cannot configure network address translation (NAT) in Mac OS X Server when the primary Internet connection uses PPPoE, because the PPPoE network interface will not appear in the “External network interface” pop-up menu in Server Admin (located at Computers & Services > NAT > Settings).

Real helpful. ("Captain Obvious to the rescue!")

This is the recommended solution:

To work around this issue, you need a DSL modem that negotiates the PPPoE authentication itself, rather than configuring the server to do so.
…
The ability of a modem to operate in this manner is sometimes known as "half-bridge mode" or "DHCP spoofing."

Although MacOS X (and Server) supports PPPoE connections, we can't share them because the configuration software doesn't support it, and as a result we should go out and spend more money on hardware. Right…

Thankfully, some smart cookies have figured out that you can just override the settings.

Apple: Rather than shifting the blame and putting the onus on the administrator, why don't you fix the Server Admin tool to support what is already supported by the underlying software?

MacBook Pro problems solved!

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on June 26, 2006

in Apple

. 1 Comment

A while after I last reported about the battery problems I was having, I took the battery to NextByte in the city and shipped the battery off to the service centre. 3 days later, it was back in my hands and I'm happy to say it now works perfectly! No sudden discharges and the computer sleeps properly when there's no power left.

Cocoa SOAP/XML-RPC is a PITA; Core Data is the shizzle

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on June 7, 2006

in Apple and General

. 11 Comments

Atlassian had its 3rd FedEx Day today, so Jens and I tried to tackle CONF-1837 and implement an offline client for Confluence. I've been meaning to try out Core Data for a long time, so this was a perfect opportunity (cross-platform issues aside).

I have to say that Core Data is just amazing! We were able to recreate all of the objects required to store Confluence Spaces and Pages using Xcode's data modelling functionality (including referential integrity - weeeee!). What blew me away was that we did not have to write any model, controller or view code to get the interface working:

The only code written for the entire app (please ignore its temporary ugliness) was to retrieve the Spaces and Pages via XML-RPC and pass them onto Core Data. Yep - that entire interface was displayed without writing any code! It's one thing to see it in a tutorial, but a totally different experience to make a 'useful' app.

and now… for the bad part. Jens and I spent half of the day futzing with Apple's WebServices framework to get Page retrieval working. The WebServices framework appears to be a black hole in Apple's Documentation. There's little information on the methods for making SOAP/XML-RPC calls in a Cocoa application, let alone code examples of how to do it!

MacBook Pro battery problems

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on May 30, 2006

in Apple

. 58 Comments

While I've largely been quite happy with my MacBook Pro, recently some pesky little gremlins have started to appear (and old ones have persisted):

If the machine runs out of battery, it shuts off completely, rather than going to sleep (let alone a deep sleep)
Over the weekend, the laptop spontaneously lost a large chunk of its battery charge in a second (and shut off - see above). Apparently this is a known problem with certain early model batteries (Forum thread)
… and it keeps on whining when not on full brightness (or when the screen dims)

I gave Apple Support a call tonight, reported the serial number and problem, and the guy refused to acknowledge the problem over the phone, instead telling me to take the computer to an Apple Service Provider and get them to diagnose and fix it. FFS! Apple KNOWS it's a problem, and even has a list of serial numbers affected by (potentially) defective batteries. Ship me a replacement battery, already! I don't have time to hand my computer over to a repair shop and lose it for a week, when my thesis proposal is due in just over that.

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!!!

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on April 6, 2006

in Apple

. 2 Comments

So now you can boot Windows XP on the Mac, officially.

I bet those in the know at Apple were having a good chuckle when all those people were hacking around to get it working only three weeks ago!

We’re going to WWDC 2006!

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on March 21, 2006

in Apple and TLAF

. 1 Comment

As Mat mentioned, we're making the trek from Sydney to San Francisco to attend WWDC this year. I'm really looking forward to it!

Erm… why is my laptop buzzing?

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on March 16, 2006

in Apple and General

. 4 Comments

There have been a lot of complaints about MacBook Pros "humming", "hissing" or "buzzing" periodically - and mine is one of them. It doesn't happen always, and the volume seems to fluctuate, but it's still there.

It seems to be tied somehow to the brightness of the display, as setting the brightness to full or nothing (black screen) stops the sound.

Opening iChat, Photo Booth or the Mirror Widget don't seem to fix it, either.

Slightly annoying, but bearable - the speed on this thing is amazing!

Goodbyes and hellos

Published

Jeremy Higgs

on March 1, 2006

in Apple

. 13 Comments

Goodbye Powerbook!

Hello MacBook Pro!

Goodbye crappy old CRT!

Hello 20″ Cinema Display!

I shall call thee… Janus.

Sweeet… I transferred everything from the 12″ Powerbook using the migration assistant with no problems (very slick). This machine is FAST. Much snappier than my old machine (granted, it was 3 years old).

I'm currently compiling the "svn-client-ssl" Fink package. ~~Half an hour so far. We'll see how long it takes.~~ 1 1/2 hours from compile start to finish. Not too shabby. (It took a few hours, at least, on the 12″.)

The screen is also significantly brighter. I would say 1/3 brightness on the MacBook Pro is equivalent to the full brightness of the 12″ Powerbook, which is crazy.