Keyboard and that damn disc

Learning some stuff about my Mac this morning.

First of all, when in Mac emergency, use the wired keyboard instead of the wireless one.  I tried using the bluetooth wireless keyboard to force bootup (either by press Alt or C) and it failed.  However, using wired keyboard worked even when the wired keyboard was hooked up thru a USB hub.  So that's a good thing.

Second, you can figure out whether a disc is a self-bootable disc by checking Startup control panel and see if it shows up.  If it does, then it's a bootup disc.  Otherwise, it's not.  I knew it because I got a shitty damn so called OSX Lion preview install, but it was shit and didn't show up on Startup control panel. Sure enough I couldn't boot up that disc, and even running the executable on that disc failed.  POC.

So all of my DVD+RW discs are useless for my MacMini

I was fustrated the fact that the MacMini with Toast Premium software couldn't create a proper OSX Lion Preview DVD (I right clicked on the .dmg file and select "Toast It") when I used those DVD+RW disc that I brought and used 3+ years ago.  But when I finally used a DVD+R disc, everything went well.  Obviously MacMini hates my old DVD+RW disc.

At least it finally worked.

Also, copying .dmg (3+ Gb) across my home network doesn't seem to work. It's so much better if I just copy over the rar pieces and then decompress them on my Mac.

Crash on Windows 7 side ... on MacMini

Haven't been touching the Windows 7 side of my MacMini for such a long while, and when I did like this morning, I got an error saying "Mafw.sys" was crashing the system.  Odd, didn't really know what it was .  But at least I didn't experience the problem after reboot.

Fixing the damn bluetooth mouse

Once again the bluetooth mouse lost connection with the MacMini.  I solved the problem by using another pair of battery.  Somehow  I start to wonder if it's the battery that messed things up.  Maybe it's all about the bad pair of battery, or worst, my "bad" battery recharger.

Can't sync with my sync cable .... for short while

I got into a tiny problem syncing my iPhone and iPad touch with the white sync cable that I have with my all the time.  This time I thing the problem is more on the machine that I sync with, which is my work machine Dell Precision 6400.  The odd thing was that it was working fine this morning.  I could update a set of podcast without any problem.  And then I did an LDAP update in my office network, did some reboot, and then I found that my machine couldn't recognize my iPod Touch.  Both iTune and iPhone Explorer recognizing the existing of my conncted i-device.  After stuggling for a while, I did a windows update, which has like 200+Mb of update pending.  I did that, reboot, and now everything is back to normal.  My computer has no problem recognizing my iPad and iPod Touch.

So honestly I still don't know exactly what the problem was.  There was a moment when I wonder if there's something wrong with the sync cable, but later I tend to think it's probably just the machine.  Well, at least things are back to normal now.

Sad ... cross device restore didn't work

My wet dream is to backup my PacMan Champion edition setting on my iPod Touch gen2, move it to iPad, restore the setting on iPad, and continue playing on iPad the level that I was cleared on the iPod Touch.  Well, tried several different ways.  Did not work out.  Sad :-< .

PacMan Champion Edition still awesome.

Installous and IOS 4.2.1

At first I thought Installous supports iOS 4.2.1 since the downloading continue after I left the app, but based on my experience today, the success rate is almost like 0 if I DIDN'T leave Installous running while downloading stuff.  So I guess I better continue this particle, otherwise I will waste a lot of time on failed downloading.

Tried Remote Potato, but not worked for me

Sure, this is so far the only solution that allows me to  remotely program my Windows Media Center machine, and also stream the content to my iPhone (no iPad edition yet).  But the program is that my router is flicky, and setting up dynmaic DNS service is clumsy just for the sake of this little feature.  And streaming TV using my super low performance Lenovo S12 is more than pain.  Pretty nice idea.  But not for me.

Problem solved on the mouse

Seems like the problem of the Dell bluetooth mouse was on the battery.  I rebooted the machine, and didn't helped.  But then I swapped up the pair of Energizer battery in the mouse with a pair of freshly fully charged battery, and the mouse was being recognized properly.

Dell BT Travel Mouse not being recognized

when I woke up this morning, I found the mouse was not being recognized.  And still not, odd.  Thanksgoodness I have the bluetooth trackpad as plan B.  Let me see if the problem can be resolved by reboot.

SNES fun on iPad

I found this Super Nintendo emulator for iPhone and gave it a try.  It was really fun to play with.  The best part is that it works with a Wiimote,  That makes the gaming experience extremely close to the actual Super Nitendo experience.  Just to make sure you have bluetooth turned OFF before the game start, and then press both button 1 and 2 so that the game can detect the WiiMote.

When I started to game the first time (after using iFile to install the file), the application was crashed.  Frustrated, I went to Cydia, select snes4iphone, and then select redownload.  And now the application is working.  I put in some ROMs in the /var/mobile/media/roms/snes  folder, and enjoyed a few games.

I wonder when the trial period ends.  I am so ready to pay up that US$5.99.

I do hope that there's an option to hide the on screen button image in landscape mode.

MyWi

My friend told me the MyWi mod information was up, and he seemed very excited.  Here's the steps and some tidbit:

Steps

• You need to first install the IntelliStatusBarIcons.  You can find it in Cydia and just install that one should be fine.  Mine is version 0.93.
• Next you need to install the official app from Cydia.  The version I installed was "Version 4.50.20".
• Try it once, and make sure the WiFi setup actually works.
• Uninstall the app from Cydia.
• Use iFile to install the modded version.
• It should be working now.

Tidbit:

• After I installed IntelliStatusBarIcons, I went ahead install the modded version, and it picked up my previous setting, but the wifi hotspot DID NOT WORK.  So I have to uninstall it, install the official one, and found that it also pick up my previous setting, but work this time.  I uninstalled it, installed the modded version, and now all settings are clean, but it's still working.

Surprised that it worked without backup anything

I decided to do the unthethered jailbreaking on my iPad 64Gb 3G last night after seeing so many success story posted on Engadget about using GreenPoison RC5 to jailbreak iOS 4.2.1,  I've been holding back all the way until now, and was very excited to report that the result is fantastic. 

Here's my step:
- Download greenpois0n.app for Mac.  I downloaded a few shitty version and they were ... well .. shitty.  Finally downloaded one that works.
- Run greenpois0n.app and following the on screen instruction.  I tried to follow the timing as close as possible, but for the first 3 to 4 times I kept stuck in the black screen on iPad with "something somehting failed to load, greenposion initialized".  I found out that in the beginning the iPad needs to be still on, and then use the instruction step's timing to keep the whole process in pace.  I also tend to hold the home button a bit longer on the last step.  Eventually the jailbreak script on the iPad got kicked off, and finally I got a jailbroken iPad 4.2.1,  I even tried an appz and found it ran OK.
- Run redsnow 0.9.6b4 to ONLY install Cydia (just check that one check box).  Just like most people said.  The Loader app didn't work.  After the same reboot process (see the big pineapple on the screen), Cydia was installed (first with no icon, but got the icon back after the in-app update).

That basically it.  Just keep tried and eventually you hit to right timing to kick off the restore disk mode and iPad jailbreak code will work after then.

Some tidbit:

• I did not do any special backup on my iPad.  All I did was making sure that I had copies on all the original draw I made on the iPad, and made a copy of backups from AppBackUp folder.  I applied iOS 4.2.1 official firmware on the iPad, and found that no app (authetic and appz) was deleted.  Sure all apps installed thru Cydia were gone, but since they are system level apps, I actually perfer reinstalling.  Seeing everything I've been using (video, eBook, ....) are still there on the iPad give me a fantastic feeling.  
• All music and video that sync with iTune are a bit messed, but since I don't care, I just them all over again.  No big deal.
• The Chinese handwriting provided by Apple is actually pretty good.  So I may not get iAcces right away even though I paid for it.