Tag Archives: laptop

Got my Macbook back from the Apple Store

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My Macbook is back from being repaired in the Apple Store. The LVDS cable has been replaced and the screen doesn’t do any random pixel errors any more. When I booted it in the Apple Store the screen had a large sticky line across it which looked like they’d stuck a label or something to it. The man behind the counter gave it a clean, but I hope he doesn’t use glasses from the amount of smear left on it.

Me and Amy then wandered around the Meadowhall Centre for a while looking at random stuff. I needed to get my hair cut so went into one place, and promptly walked out when they said “Our haircuts start at £29…”. £29 to get my hair cut? What planet do you think I come from? I went for a £16 SuperCuts job instead, it took 45 minutes of waiting before I could be processed, and I am unsure about just how much hair they have chopped off. Still, it was cheap.

The parking in Meadowhall was awful. Only livened up by two people trying to reverse into the same space at the same time, and by one moron blinding us with the lights on his giant 4×4… who as we passed a few minutes later had forgotten to turn his twin portable sun-lights off. Hopefully he’s stuck in the carpark with a car that won’t start.

Oh, and there was a trip into the Disney Store where I bought Amy an Eeyore plushie. She also bought some fairy stickers and has now stuck them all over her iBook.

VMWare Fusion in Unity mode

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This is nuts!

Here is VMWare Fusion running Windows XP on my Macbook. I’ve got it in “Unity” mode where the Windows desktop is not shown; all Windows apps run seamlessly on the Mac desktop. It’s a bit like how OS/2 Warp could show Windows apps by themselves – only not as crap ;)

Once I have installed all the apps I need and confirmed the VM is working I can back it up to a DVD for safe keeping.

I will be using this VM to run Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server Express, so I had better increase the amount of RAM available to the Windows installation. VS 2005 isn’t happy in half a gig of RAM, its dialog designer grinds to a halt.

Laptop all working

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My work laptop has had its network identity branded into it. It now connects and drags down my roaming profile data – most of the time. And I can use it for doing Proper Work on again. My Mac’s new RAM upgrade is currently sat in my local Post Office waiting for me to collect it tomorrow. We live in  weird country where Post Offices shut at half past five every evening except Wednesdays when they shut at half twelve. Since I buy stuff at the weekend mostly, it always arrives on Wednesdays.

It’s hard to explain the frustration of having shiny new tech a mere five minutes walk from my house, with the only thing stopping me from having it in my possession being random Post Office rules.

I learnt some new keyboard shortcuts today…

  • Cmd-W to close windows
  • Cmd-Q to quit
  • Cmd-’ for preferences
  • Cmd-left/right for home/end
  • Cmd-up/down for pgup/pgdn
  • Alt-left/right to jump one word to the left or right

I can’t work out the shortcut for Force-Quit though. Well, I can see it, I just don’t understand the heiroglyphs Apple use to describe their keys. It’s weird, like learning a new language.

Drivers updated

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My work laptop is now running like it should. I found its driver CD contained XP drivers as well as Vista ones. Strangely the hardware actually in my laptop is nothing like what its manufacturer’s website says it should contain. For example the Advent website says it contains an Intel wifi card, but it really contains a USB Ralink based card-thing.

It’d be great if the manufacturer of a piece of hardware could actually tell its owners what’s in it.

Now I can give it back to the technicians so they can attach it to their network and install my profile.

Driving the techies up the wall

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My work laptop has been de-vistaified and now has XP on it. Unfortunately, because this is a cheap laptop made for dribbling goons, the only drivers we can download are for Vista. This isn’t so helpful when it needs to run XP Pro to talk to our Windows Domain and Exchange Server; things Vista Home won’t do, thankyou Microsoft.

SYMPTOMS

loadTOCNode(1, ‘symptoms’);

If a computer is running Windows Vista Home Premium, you cannot join the computer to a domain.

CAUSE

loadTOCNode(1, ’cause’);

This behavior occurs because Windows Vista Home Premium does not support a scenario where you join a computer to a domain. Windows Vista Home Premium is designed as the foundation for a home entertainment system.

STATUS

loadTOCNode(1, ‘status’);

This behavior is by design.

I’m now having an enjoyable afternoon printing out student work while trying to find said drivers. I have found many that don’t work, but nothing that my laptop actually wants to use. I will look on the CDs it came with when I get home. If that doesn’t work it’ll have to be upgraded to the version of Vista this place uses.