I purchased a Mac Mini a few months ago to act as my “media hub” (read “DVD player”) a while ago.? Unfortunately, I still have an old Sony Wega (with a tube) and I’d forgotten how low the resolution is on old style televisions.? It was so bad that I couldn’t even use my Mini with it because I couldn’t read the menus.? So I quickly gave up on that idea and put the Mini on my desktop, nestled under my flat panel displays, where I occasionally would switch over to it via a KVM switch.? Unfortunately, since the mini only supports one display, and my Dell has four, it’s really hard to make the switch in any serious fashion.? As a result, the Mini has gotten very little use.
Plus, despite the fact that I upgraded it from 512MB to 2GB of RAM (using the putty knife technique that you can read about), it is still occasionally very painfully slow.? With no other apps running, Thunderbird was taking something to the tune of 16 bounces on the dock to load, whereas it would load in just three on my 800MHz PowerBook.? Not having a lot of time to troubleshoot things, I pretty much just let it sit and would fire it up to record the occasional podcast or whatnot.
Last night I decided to try to install Ubuntu Linux on it.? After all, I’d put it on all of my other machines, so why not, right?? Unfortunately, I didn’t bother reading any howtos or suggested procedures first – I just slapped the CD in, booted from it, nuked my Boot Camp partition, and dedicated it to Ubuntu. Unfortunately the installer crashed and that was the end of that.
When I attempted a reboot, the Mac wouldn’t load into OS X.? Furthermore, it would not boot from my installation CD! Now I was starting to get concerned.? I called Apple tech support, and they advised me to press and hold the C key to boot from CD (tried, failed).? I also tried the Alt (Option) key (failed).? One time I was able to hold down the mouse to get it to eject the CD, but subsequent attempts failed.
Finally, I figured there may be a problem with my KVM and the PC keyboard I was using.? Remembering that you can use the remote control to select? your boot drive, I held down the Menu button while booting.? Presto!? I was given the option to boot from the CD again.? Not having any data on the drive which wasn’t already backed up, I simply repartitioned the drive and continued on my merry way reinstalling.
I’m going to give Ubuntu on the mini another shot, but I may use an external drive this time instead.
How to Use Email, Part 3: Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling
Continuing on the “do’s and don’ts” of email, here’s this week’s batch of hints! Continue reading “How to Use Email, Part 3: Capitalization, Punctuation, and Spelling”
How to Use Email, Part 2: Better Subject lines
Use a descriptive subject line. What may be even worse than a blank subject is a wrong subject. A subject line of “hi,” “question,” “problem,” or “help” is practically useless. Be descriptive. If you write someone about next week’s board meeting time being changed, then an apporpriate subject line would be “Next week’s board meeting time has changed.” See how quickly that helps convey your message? Sure, you could have said “board meeting,” but what does that really say? Not much. Continue reading “How to Use Email, Part 2: Better Subject lines”
How to Use Email, Part 1: Subject lines
I’ve decided to publish some notes that I’ve been accumulating for a long time on the do’s and don’ts of email. Since it may get a bit long, I’ve decided that I’ll put them out here one at a time, and it will consist of at least five parts. (That way I can be lazy and not have to think up new topics for a while!)
So here’s the first thing that you can do to make yourself a more effective emailer: Always use the subject line. Continue reading “How to Use Email, Part 1: Subject lines”
Norton Internet Security is Garbage
I highly recommend that anyone who purchased Norton Internet Security or a computer that came with it preinstalled, uninstall it immediately and get something else. The firewall that comes with NIS is completely brain-dead, and to date EVERY computer that we have worked on which has NIS installed has had issues where the firewall keeps the user from doing anything network-related.
The idea behind a software firewall is that it keeps the bad guys out of your computer. The problem is that Norton Internet Security seems to take this a step further by keeping you from getting on the Internet or even your local area network! I suppose that the truly draconian network administrator could argue that this is more secure, but the far cheaper and simpler method would be to simply disconnect your Ethernet card from the network.
If you need a firewall, Windows XP comes with one built in, for free, and it works well. There are also plenty of other firewall, anti-virus, and spyware prevention products out there. I’ll list a few for your reference:
Firewalls:
Windows XP’s Built In Firewall – Microsoft – Free
Kerio – Sunbelt Software – $20
ZoneAlarm – Zone Labs – $50
Anti Virus:
Norton Antivirus – Symantec – $40 (yes, this product is okay)
AVG – Grisoft – $39
AVGFree – Grisoft – Free to NON-business users for ONE computer only.
Anti Spyware:
Windows Defender – Microsoft – Free
Spybot Search and Destroy – Free
AdAware Personal – Lavasoft – Free for personal use
SpySweeper – Webroot – $30/year
Alternately, just buy a Mac.
MacNu – My Initial Foray Into Podcasting!
I started listening to podcasts in February of 2006, and quickly became addicted. One that I listened to was known as Duel Boot Radio (yes, we know it’s the wrong “duel”). The hosts were funny and, while I didn’t always learn much from it, I found them entertaining.
A few weeks ago, Duel Boot Radio came to an end when one of the co-hosts backed out of doing the show. I wrote to one of the hosts, suggesting that he keep doing the show, but with guest hosts.
He didn’t want to do that, but invited me to be a guest/co-host of his new podcast, called MacNu. I agreed, and now we’re recording at least one episode a week. Look for it at macnu.com or in iTunes.