How To: Add a bunch of useless stuff to your desktop with GeekTool, Yahoo Widgets, and more!
I’ve recently gotten into playing around with GeekTool, an add-on System Preference Pane that allows you to add a wide range of both useful and useless things to your desktop, not only to make your life easier, but to make other geeks feel inferior. Sure, you can display the current date and time in the menu bar like a noob, but why not have a GIANT clock right in the middle... Read More
How To: Get your MacBook Pro to sleep in OS X Lion
Pre-OS X Lion, all I needed to do to put my 2008 MacBook Pro to sleep was close the lid. However, since upgrading Lion, I’ve noticed that it never really seemed to go to sleep anymore, especially when plugged in to a power source. I would be watching TV and hear the sound of my MBP’s fans whirring from across the room, and even though the lid was closed and I assumed... Read More
How To: Get your external Super Drive working in Lion
Every once in awhile I like to post a tip that will likely help only one other person on the planet. Today is such a time. As some of you may know, I recently replaced my MacBook Pro’s internal SuperDrive with an SSD drive. I chose the MCE Optibay kit for both its ease of installation, and also because it included an external enclosure for my SuperDrive (basically turning... Read More
Review: MCE OptiBay Hard Drive kit for Unibody MacBook Pro
MCE's sled replaces your built-in optical drive with either a regular 2.5 inch Sata or an SSD SSD’s (Solid State Drives) are all the rage these days, and if the MacBook Air is any indication, Apple has plans to include them in most of, if not all of, their future computers. SSD drives boast a number of benefits over traditional hard drives, such as increased speed, low... Read More
How To: Play classic DOS games on your current Mac (Warning: You will likely be eaten by a Grue)
Fresh from the “I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who’ll find this information useful” department, I’ve decided to post a brief “How-To” on how to play classic DOS games you might have purchased back in your PC days on your current Mac OS X system. Why would you want to do this? Well, in my case, it all started when I was helping my... Read More
How to fix “The disc can’t be burned, because the device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media” error
This post may only be helpful to one person, but as I always say, if you can help just ONE person… then you may as well have not even bothered. But just in case this helps TWO people, I will post it anyway. Last week I attempted to burn a DVD in my 2008 MacBook Pro for the first time in about 2 years, and was greeted by a somewhat cryptic but high tech error message which... Read More
How to: Stop iPhoto from opening every time you sync your iPhone
EDIT: Check out the comments for an even better, smarter way to do this provided by faithful Macenstein reader Anonymoose . Faithful Macenstein reader Kelly writes: “Hey, do you know if there’s a way to stop iPhoto from launching every time I sync my iPhone? Just got it, and find it very annoying, thanks!” Well, sure there is, and it’s actually as easy as: 1:... Read More
GrandPerspective: A colorful (and FREE) way to reclaim hard drive space
Earlier today I Tweeted a pic of what my hard drive looks like through the eyes of GrandPerspective, a free utility that creates a graphical representation of the sizes of the files and folders on your Mac. A couple people asked me what it was, so I figured I’d do a quick post about it. Basically, you tell GP a location to scan on your hard drive (I just chose the whole... Read More
How To: Rip a Blu-Ray movie on the Mac
How To: Shake down AT&T for 1000 rollover minutes
AT&T, in an apparent bid to foster some sort of love/loyalty from its current iPhone customers has reportedly begun sending out gifts to a lucky few in the form of 1000 free rollover minutes. The messages come via a text message, which simply asks the recipient to respond “YES” to redeem said offer. The good news is, it looks like even if you weren’t lucky... Read More
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