The Mac Observer Forums

SSD as Boot Drive in Express Card Slot

2009-09-21T00:18:36-05:00

Calling all Geeks,

listened to MGG eleven score - 5 (215) and I drank the kool-aid.

I bought a new (refurbished) MacBook Pro 15” (Late 2008) with Express Card slot and Wintec 48GB SSD. I was hoping to use the Wintec as the Boot Drive with applications and keep all document files on the internal spinning drive. GREAT when it works! These are the problems that I had:

1. Could not install the OS 10.6 onto the Wintec SSD in the Express Card Slot. Tried both cloning and fresh install from Apple DVD. Neither worked. I was able to clone and install from DVD via USB. Why??

2. SSD would occasionally “die” and freeze the Mac requiring power button to shut down machine. Occasionally when in the Express Card slot, but not as the Boot Drive I would spontaneously get a message to the effect of “Finder cannot repair the drive, copy your data and reformat. You can read from the drive but will not be able to write to it.” Why???

3. Could not “repair” the drive until I upgraded Disk Warrior to version 4.2, but then only effective some times, not all. Therefore I partitioned the drive and reinstalled the OS about a dozen times.

4. At one point I could not even get the Mac to recognize the drive in the Express Card Slot or via USB.

5. I have sent the drive back to Wintec believing it is defective and have not heard back from them yet.

Any ideas? Am I doing something wrong. Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Authentication bypass at hotel

2009-11-17T21:57:54-05:00

Hi Gang,

I cant seem to find the podcast where Dave discreetly shows us how to by pass internet authentication when visiting a hotel. I travel a lot and im quite getting tired of paying those steep prices when i need to surf the web for a quick info or firing of a quick email.

Does anybody recall how this is done or what # episode this was under?

Thanks in advance.

Safari 4.0.4 not displaying radio buttons

2009-11-17T19:09:14-05:00

Just noticed that on many sites, Safari 4.0.4 on my MBP running Mac OS X 10.6.1 does not display radio buttons. If I guess correctly and click where I think they are, then they behave correctly. I’ve tried running Safari with and without Saft - still same result. Am I the only one with this problem? Any suggestions? I’ve been trying to avoid Firefox because it crashes far too often and is such a memory hog. Thanks.

Changing IP address without transmitting ARP collision detection packets

2009-11-05T12:49:55-05:00

I need to change my IP address either through the command line or through a C API without having the ARP address collision detection packets being transmitted.

I have tried using ifconfig -arp which appears to compelte suiccesfully - no ARP packets are transmitted. However, other network utilies stop functioning. For example - I am unable to ping other machines.

I have also tried using the ipconfig command. While this does change the IP address without breaking other network functions such as ping - there does not appear to be a way to prevent the ARP packets from being sent.

Does anyone know of a way to dymanically change my IP address without sending the ARP packets that does not break other network features?

Help is very much appreciated.

online provider and email

2009-10-31T10:28:02-05:00

I have Verizon as my online provider. I’m having a lot of problems with them right now after moving. I may need to get another email address. I’ve used Seascape for email. I like the fact that I can go from email to online without closing out from one to the other. With Apple they are separate functions—Safari and Mail. In checking Apple’s “Mail” it seems you have to get “.Mac”—for a fee—to get a email address. Right? Worth the money? Are Yahoo and Google online providers that offer email? One better than the other? All suggestions/comments appreciated.

Old MacBook Pro Airport problems

2009-11-03T17:17:17-05:00

Hi. I have an original 15” MacBook Pro, 2.16 GHz Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, no longer under AppleCare. I’m running Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and have a problem with the AirPort failing after being used for some time.

I don’t know if it’s heat-related or time-related, but whether I’m connected to my AirPort Extreme at home or the Linksys access points at work, it works just fine for 20-30 minutes, then loses the connection. The AirPort indicator in the menu bar cycles as if it is searching for a network but is unable to connect to anything.

I’ve seen some posts on the Apple support forums suggesting that others are experiencing similar problems but getting no info from Apple.

So, any suggestions? Is there somewhere I can look for error messages to see what’s actually going on?

Thanks—

Incredible Shrinking Hard drive?

2009-11-10T19:03:30-05:00

Ok, I ran out os space on my hard drive. No big deal, I just shuffled stuff onto other drives, cleared out a lot of old files, and started working more and more off my external drives. Over the next few weeks though, My hard drive continued to fill up. No matter hos much I shift off, it keeps filling up. It’s getting to the point where Programs are crashing because the hard drive is full, even if there’s only one program open. If this is scratch space being used, it’s not working properly.

When I tried to track down the files, I discovered that I’m _missing_ about 20 GB of hard drive space (I.e. if I click “get info” on my partition, it says I have 132 GB on my hard drive, and only 1 GB available. When I get info for the User, Library, System, and Application folders, it comes out to about 112 GB.

Clam AV scans came out negative, short of a few suspected phising e-mails in my junk mail folder. Does anyone know of a good utility that can let me better see what exactly is taking up my hard drive space?

Mapping a drive

2009-11-03T18:01:37-05:00

A pod-cast or two ago I could swear someone called and offered a tip regarding auto mounting drives. I have my drives auto mounting but finding the opening of the windows annoying. I have re-listened to the past couple of pod-casts but I’m missing the tip. Did anyone catch that or did I just have a bad trip?

Thanks!

Brad

Boot camp and Parallels very slow

2009-11-10T21:19:07-05:00

When I first purchased my MacBook in 2007 I partitioned my 250GB hard drive to be 190GB Mac and 60 GB Windows (I use XP). I need both platforms since the technology consulting that I do requires me to know both platforms (even though I prefer Mac OS. I decided to purchase Parallels so I wouldn’t have to switch in and out of Boot Camp. Whether I used Boot Camp or Parallels, my Windows side of Macbook worked well. It was efficient and fast.

As time has gone on though my Windows partition has gotten slower and slower to the point now where it is at a crawl no matter how I boot into it.

I still have 13.9 GB of space on the Windows partition, so space isn’t an issue. I did increase my Macbook’s internal RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB, which I assume should have increased speed rather than slow it down. The slow down has occurred prior to the RAM upgrade.

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Right now I’m using Snow Leopard and Parallel’s 5.0 (though it was just as slow with Parallel’s 4.0)

10.6 Print Button Not Responding

2009-11-07T04:59:34-05:00

Hi my mac is running 10.6 and has developed an issue where the print button no longer responds. i am using a wireless Epson SX600FW and when I print a test page from the utility it works fine. The problem is when I try and print a document or a web page the print button does not respond.

Any ideas about how I might resolve this?

Thanks,

Blair