Computers

Jan 2 2012

Keep it Clean – Regularly

Dirty computer

So, you buy a new car.

You take it home and, for the next few years you drive it every day.

In those few years, the only time it sees a servo is when something breaks.

No oil changes, no 10,000km service, nothing.

What sorta condition do you think you car would be in after those few years?

If you said “pretty crappy condition” then you’d probably be fairly close to the mark.

While a computer is clearly different to a car, some of the same things apply.

If you don’t do some regular maintenance on you computer you can quickly end up needing to do some expensive repairs.  The photo with this article is real.  It’s the inside of a computer recently in my workshop.  The build-up of crap was pretty serious, to the point that some components had failed.  Much more expensive to fix than just giving I a good clean.

Moral of he story?

Regular maintenance matters.

By admin • Computers • • Tags: , ,

Jan 1 2012

The Trackpad Double – A Mini-Tip

I’ve been fiddling around with my Macs over the Christmas break.  Nothing huge, just minor configuration tweaks, adding some stuff to better gain access to my data from my iPad and so on.

But in the process I found the Magic Trackpad I’d put aside to use on my Mac mini (which shares my desk with my iMac).  I’m still using the Magic Mouse on my Mac mini at the moment.  As much because I felt I should be at least a little familiar with it in case I need to provide support but also because my two Macs live side by side, monitor-wise, and I’ve been using Teleport so I only actually need one keyboard and mouse to drive both computers.

Finding the spare Trackpad got me thinking.

I wonder if I can use both Trackpads on one Mac?

Actually, I knew the answer to this without even checking.  You can connect multiple Bluetooth devices with no trouble at all.

But will having two Trackpads be more efficient and useful?

Ah, now that’s a whole different question.

In order to find out I’ve set them up.

Because they’re both the same shape and size they fit well together and your fingers naturally move from one to the other without any real problem.

As you’d expect, multi-touch gestures don’t work across Trackpads – all “touches” have to be on the one Trackpad.  Interestingly, though, you can click-hold (e.g. to move a window) on one Trackpad and as long as you hold that click both Trackpads will behave consistently.  This has let me move a window from the right hand side of my 27″ iMac all the way to the left end of the 19″ LCD also running on my iMac without having to pick up my fingers and shuffle back again.  Nice.

As your finger moves from one Trackpad to the next there’s a slight pause (I guess the sensors don’t actually work all the way to the edges of the surface after all) but the movement keeps going where it left off.  It’s not like the mouse pointer jumps to a new position or anything.

After a few hours of playing with it I’m not sure I can see enough benefit to keep it but it certainly makes moving the pointer from the extreme left of my screen setup to the extreme right a far easier task.

 

By admin • Apple •

May 26 2011

Digital Economy Awareness Program – Longreach

On 27 May I’m presenting at an information day in Longreach on the Digital Economy.

Presentations include introductions to email, twitter, skype and so on.

My presentations are on:

  • Web Pages
  • Mobile Data
  • Security

If you attended, and have follow-up questions or would like further information, please feel free to contact me.

By admin • Computers • • Tags: , ,

Jul 18 2010

Shhh! You’ll Wake Someone

If you’re wondering, I haven’t stopped writing stuff online.  It’s just that most of it is now being contributed elsewhere.

Mostly, now, I’m writing over at MacTalk.  Have a look at my work there.

By David • Computers • • Tags: , ,

Dec 27 2009

Sysprep for Mac OS X

I admit it, for the last fifteen years or so I’ve been almost exclusively Windows-centric.  I’m sure there’s a Mac-specific term for this but I haven’t found it yet.  So, I’ll use sysprep for now.

What do I mean?  In Windows there’s a set of tools available that lets you build a reference computer with all the latest updates, pre-installed drivers and software and your own configurations.  Then you strip out all the bits that make it a unique computer such as user profiles and their associated passwords, unique computer identifiers and so on.  At the end of this you have a reference install of Windows that you can take an image of and deploy to other computers.  The first time you boot on a new computer it goes through some basic setup stuff and away you go.

Because I run a computer business that sells (and services) Apple computers I’ve been looking for a way to achieve the same sort of thing.  What follows in this article is the results of a some in-depth research and putting together bits and pieces from various sources.

My result is a disk image (.dmg) file that I can use to restore on any current version of Mac hardware (laptop and desktop – although untested on a Mac Pro) that will have a user environment I’ve already configured and with additional software that I’d like available.  It hasn’t got any pre-existing users created but runs the standard Apple welcome/setup process when first booted up instead – that way you get to create a new user profile for the new owner of the computer. More →

By David • Apple, Computers • • Tags: , , , , , , , ,

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