Slow slow graphic on the Mac side (and I am not blaming Mac)

I always wonder fast/slow the Mac graphic is on my Lenovo x60T tablet PC. So today I installed Sketchup 6 on the Mac side. The result: it's kind of lame. The PC version runs much better on the same machine. I guess I should keep doing the graphic stuff on the PC side instead.

iChat fun

I didn't realize that my DV Camcorder can actually be used as a webcam on my Mac (on Lenovo ThinkPad X60T). I tried, and and it was a lot of fun. Photo Booth worked as expected, and the green screen effect was just awesome. Hoever, iChat crashed a few time when I use Photo Booth effects. Also using DV Camcorder as a webcam has it's own problem: the DV Camcorder will turn itself off after a while. So I have to force the camera to stay up my actually taping it while I am video conferencing. It's fun just for using it very once in a while though.

Boot OSX from external USB harddisk

I was wrong by assuming that I can create an external bootable OSX partition by simply copying an existing bootable OSX partition to an USB drive. It turns out that I have to format the external drive in some special way using OSX Disk Utility based on this article.

But then even after following the instruction, I still couldn't get the USB harddisk to boot up OSX Leopard. In fact, along the way, I accidentally used the Boot Setup thing on 10.5 installation disc to altered the XP partition. Thank goodness that I have a backup partition near by, or else I will be extra pissed.

I tried using the Boot Setup thing, to properly install on the OSX parition on the external USB drive, but that caused the OSX in internal harddisk to become not bootable, and I have to use Acronis Disk Director to set the OSX partition to bootable parition again.

So then I thought, maybe I shouldn't use USB harddisk. Maybe I should use the Firewire harddisk. But somehow the Firewire harddisk enclosure that I have didn't work. Interestingly, it sort of caused me to try out the Firewire Solo, and found out that it actually work right out of the box! When I boot up OSX with Firewire Solo plugged in, the system recognition it right away and use it as the audio input and output. In fact, I also found that my DV camera works great with OSX by plugging in the DV camera right at the back of the Firewire Solo box, thus Daisy Chained the two Firewire devices.

So now that I tried so many options and still failed, I will try installing OSX 10.4.8 on the USB harddisk. I will also try and see if other application also prohibit me from installing the application on non-bootup disk.

Fortunately, it seem like not all the apps has to installed on the boot harddisk, so eventually I manually to squeezed more space out of my bootup disk.

Conflict of sync with USB Bluetooth dongle

I learned today that I should not sync my mobile phone Nokia 5300 to two different computer (one Windows XP and one MacOSX machine) using the same USB Bluetooth dongle. Doing so confused the mobile phone and thus the iSync on the Mac will fail simply because the mobile refuse to start the connection. Now I am a little regard that I didn't buy some extra USB blue tooth from Hong Kong where it was cheap.

Test driving MacBook Air right now in Apple store

I rarely do hardware testing in computer store, but everything has it's first time, right :-> 

So I am in Apple store right now (at Gallerias, Houston), typing this blog in an Apple store.  I am my hands on a MacBook Air now, and here's my experience.

The first thing I tried was multi-touch touchpad.  It works OK, but not seems to be as intuitive as I expected.  The experience of multi-touch on a iPod Touch is definitely much better than on MacBook Air.  

Then I tried out the keyboard.  The keyboard itself seems pretty fine, but I miss all the function keys that I found on my Lenovo Tablet PC.  I also miss the right click mouse.  Since I use the mouse and keyboard like every single day, this may affect my decision on switching.

And then I have some strange problem cut and pasting text from Microsoft Word to my blog here.  Probably has nothing to do with Macbook Air, but still ....

And then the weight: I can typing on one hand while holding the MacBook Air by the other hand.  Pretty cool.

However, there's one thing I really do not like: the fact then the hinge between the screen and the keyboard prevented me from opening the screen all the way to 180 degree.  Somehow I was so used to do that to read e-comics book.  In fact I have to say that this could be one big reason to keep me from buying this baby.

And then the lack of ports problem.  Yeah everyone complains about it.  Enough said.

The screen is pretty OK, but the vertical viewable angle is not large enough.  When I look from the top edge, it wasn't looking well. 

All in all, this is a niche device.  definitely not for me, but if I have tons of bling bling, then I probably don't mind having another gear leaving in my car in case I need another device to use.

That's all.  Deecay signing off.

 

Uninstalling Macintosh OSX Application

I was puzzled about how to uninstall application on OSX until today. After reading this article, I practiced and found that uninstalling application is very easy and clean on OSX. One more thing that makes me appreciate OSX over Vista.