Feb 4
SeanTechnology Laptop, Mac
a quick command i found online to check your current battery capacity on your powerbook. run this from within terminal application:
ioreg -l | grep -i IOBatteryInfo
based on different postings from the thread on macnn it appears that if you have a 12” your capacity should be around 4200, 15” around 4500, and 17” around 5800.
i’ve always though that my battery was a bit weak, and this proves it. my capacity from the command was:
“IOBatteryInfo” = ({“Capacity”=3432, “Amperage”=1200, “Current”=3432, “Voltage”=12481, “Flags”=1090519045})
where it should be around 4500, it’s instead 1000 less than that, yikes. right now i get around 2.5 – 3.0 hours if i turn my screen down to about half. in the next few months i’ll likely need a new one, just in time to place my airport express order.
Feb 4
SeanTechnology Laptop, Mac
i received my powerbook back from apple the beginning of this past week. i wanted to wait a few days before i wrote about the results. the first few days i had the machine it seemed like it froze up a bit more than it should have. it wasn’t coming out of sleep properly and it had to be rebooted a few times. i wasn’t really sure what was going on. after reading an article over at mac dev center about macintosh maintenance under panther i decided to follow a few of their tips. i’m not sure if they really had any effect but i can say my machine hasn’t froze up once since following their directions. it’s also now returning from sleep mode without having to sacrifice my first born.
as you’ll likely remember i had my machine sent in for a new display. the above problems had nothing to do with the new display, this i know, but regardless it was the state of my machine when i got it back from apple. i can honestly say that the display is perfect. i have zero complaints about it, nada one … well maybe one complaint, it took 9 days for me to get it back, but that’s being nit picky honestly. the display is bright, vibrant, has zero dead pixels, and more importantly it has zero white blotches. i was a bit concerned since some folks on the apple support forums had received their machines back only to have more white blotches. i waited until those posts had subsided on the forum and then sent my machine after reading come success postings.
after receiving my machine back with a perfect display i can honestly recommend that the rest of the 15” powerbook owners with blotch problems send theirs in for repair immediately.
Feb 4
SeanTechnology Laptop, Mac
i was surfing without my powerbook tonight, yes i still haven’t gotten it back from apple. anyhow, i came across a posting on the apple forums detailing how to properly calibrate your battery. i’ve run into problems similar to what was posted in this thread. for example a few times my laptop battery would get to 30% life and then the machine would instantly go to sleep. i also found myself losing battery life fairly quickly. this writeup makes perfect sense and judging by the number of responses it appears that others are seeing success following this new method. i’ll indeed give it a try when i get my machine back, any day now me thinks.
Feb 4
SeanTechnology Laptop, Mac
i’m now powerbook less. yep, you read that right … i’m not in possession of my powerbook any longer. don’t think it’s gone forever, no sir. i had to send it in for repairs last friday. there was a manufacturing flaw that is causing white spots to appears on the lcd displays of most, if not all new 15” powerbook owners. it usually starts out as a small white blotch but then you get a few more and the screen just starts looking horrible. anyhow, i called applecare and they send me a box that i returned the machine in. i hope to get the machine back some time this week. i have a ton of things i want to do on it and i’m really feeling the windows pain now. i’ll let ya know when i get it back and if the problem is fixed. from what others said they either give you a new machine or swap out the whole display assembly.
Feb 4
SeanTechnology Laptop, Mac
i’ve spent the last week using my new powerbook and i have to say i absolutely love it. i’ve downloaded all of my music, images, personal files and everything else i needed. it was more difficult getting my mail transfered to my mac that i first expected. i had to install mozilla on my windows machine, import my outlook mailboxes, ftp the mozilla mailboxes to my mac, and then import those into mail.app. once it was imported everything was perfect though, just a few more steps than normal. i wonder if apple ever plans on supporting the ability to import mail from outlook for other switchers? anyhow, i love the spam protection in mail.app, it’s pretty sweet. it’s identified about 95% of my spam correctly and is still learning.
the first mac application that i bought was pixadex. it allows you to organize your icon collection and easily export them to folders and containers that can then be applied with candybar to your whole system. i like to change the look of my desktop, files, and folders but never did it in windows because it was a pain in the ars. anyhow, i’ve downloaded 2939 icons since installing pixadex, pretty cool ahe.
the other applications that i’m planning on buying soon are transmit and launch bar. transmit is a very slick ftp application that allows you to easily edit remote files locally, synchronize remote folders and files, and also supports sftp. it’s made my recent web design work a million times easier. launch bar is a very cool utility that allows you to quickly, usually within 3 key strokes, access any application, file, url, or email on your computer. these applications are very cool and are making the switch that much more pleasant.
in case you didn’t know what my new computer looked like i’ve included a few images in this posting for you to check out. sweet looking isn’t it?
i’m also really enjoying the new bluetooth mouse. it’s weird not having any cords going anywhere and not having a base station like some of those other cordless mice. it really does fit in well with my new mobile computing lifestyle.
after i finish designing the website this weekend i’ll spend more time getting my machine tweaked even more. i have a few things i want to mess with to make my web and application development a lot easier, i’ll keep you all posted.
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