Macbook Paired Memory
Posted on November 13, 2007
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That is the last time I get my information about memory from a company selling memory. It seems as if the problems I was having installing Leopard as well as shutdown issues were due to the memory. I replaced my single 2GB stick for a pair of 1GB sticks and was able to successfully install Leopard and haven’t ran into any new issues.
MacBook Shuts Down When Lid is Closed
Posted on October 30, 2007
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For some reason my MacBook would shut down and completely reboot when I closed the lid to put it so sleep. I tried resetting the Power Management Unit (SMC), no luck. I also tried resetting the NVRAM by holding Option-Command-P-R during startup, that did not work either. I had an eerie suspicion that it may be due to my recent memory upgrade. I tried reverting to my original setup of 2 x 256MB and it solved the problem. I now put in 1 x 2GB and left out the extra 256MB and it solved my problem. Now I am worried that by purchasing another 1GB that I will run into the issues again.
Leopard Installation Woes
Posted on October 29, 2007
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The installation seemed to be going just fine. As the guided tour showed, I just popped in my DVD, clicked the install button, then clicked restart. It takes quite some time to install, so I poured myself a nice cold mug of Asahi and watched the Dragons even the Japan Series. I thought the installation completed, and then I relized that perhaps that was just the installation of the installer. When the “real” installation started out the estimated time was over three hours, but after about 30 minutes it was more than half way complete. The last time I saw was 15 minutes left on the estimated time indicator, then I received the infamous “Install Failed ” message:
Install Failed
Mac OS X could not be installed on your computer
The Installer could not install some files in “Volumes/Macintosh HD”. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.
Click Restart to restart your computer and try installing again.
So, I clicked restart, and was booted into Leopard installer again. When selecting the Disk to install to I was shy of the required space. That was odd because I had 12 GB free space before the install. I attempted to quit the install so I could go back to Tiger and view the Apple Support website to see if anyone else had similar issues. When asked what I wanted to boot, I realized that although the installation failed, it did not revert to Tiger, as my drive to select was my Macintosh HD 10.5. When I restarted it seems that Leopard was installed fine although it does appear that I did not get all the files. I checked to disk using the disk utility and everything checked out just fine, and I did not need to repair it. Anyways, everything seems to work great (for now).
Macbook Memory Upgrade
Posted on October 29, 2007
Filed Under Installations | 2 Comments
Since I have the lowest end 2nd generation MacBook, I figured it is about time to upgrade the memory. Apple’s website says that the MacBook is upgradeable to 2GB, so I set off to get it along with Leopard. I am currently in Japan, and have very poor Japanese reading comprehension, plus I just figured that 2GB memory would come in 2 x 1GB sticks. Silly me I bought a 2GB stick. I was so pissed off when I got home, but after reading Other World Computing’s, “To Pair or Not to Pair” article, I was happy with my mistake. The article tests different configurations of MacBook memory for benchmarking and came to the conclusion that, “More memory is overall better than having less memory that is interleaved.” Also, I found out from the article that the Core 2 Duo MacBook is addressable up to 3GB of RAM. This gives me the opportunity to upgrade further by swapping my last 256MB stick for a 1GB stick. So for the time being I have an awkward 2.25GBs of memory. By the way if you are curious what type of memory the MacBook uses it is 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300).
The installation is simple. The Apple Support site has a great tutorial. It is very simple to access as you just need to remove your battery and a bracket which is held on by three tiny screws. I had to get an eyeglasses repair kit in order to take off the bracket as the handle of my screw driver was too long.
There is a very noticeable improvement if you couldn’t guess. It was well worth the 14,700¥ investment. I haven’t seen the colorful pinwheel any longer than a flash now. There is no delay in switching between programs, or anything like that. The most noticeable improvement is hitting F12 to view the dashboard which pops right in. I would also have to wait a brief moment before when changing the volume or the screen brightness; it is no longer an issue. If you are looking for big improvement to your MacBook for a small investment consider a memory upgrade.
cakePHP
Posted on October 29, 2007
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Fresh out of the oven, new cake build. A Pre-Beta version of Cake 1.2 was recently released. This is great news for those that do not want to build from subversion as there has been a lot of work completed since the last version was released. The Beta version will not be released until all features have been implemented, so the Cake dev team was kind enough to release a Pre-Beta. You will find countless bug fixes and plenty of new features since the last build such as improved support for implementing web services, updates to the Auth component, find() has replaces findAll() and findCount(), improvements to pagination, and full Unicode support, without having PHP6. The Pre-Beta version of the CakePHP 1.2 manual was also released, although there are still places that need some blanks filled in.
WordPress Version 2.3.1 Released
Posted on October 29, 2007
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WordPress version 2.3.1 was recently released. This is a bug and security fix release for the new 2.3 version released at the end f September. If you have not had the chance to upgrade I would recommend it as the 2.3 version codenamed “Dexter” has some great improvements over the 2.2 branch. Some of the new features are an included tagging system. You no longer need the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin or Simple Tags. There is even the ability to import from those plugins. One of my favorite new features is the better handling of URL strings. If you decide to change a page slug, redirections will be kept for the old slug to direct update a permanently redirected link exists for those that come from a search engine. It now comes with full Atom 1.0 support and contains the latest jQuery version.
Upgrade to Apache 2 and PHP 5 in cPanel with 7 Simple Steps
Posted on October 26, 2007
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Apache 2 was released quite some time ago and is very stable, so why aren’t you using it? If you are anything like me, it was because you were worried about compatibility issue with cPanel and Apache 1 has served you quite well. The straw that broke the camels back for me was wanting to install a subversion repository on my server which requires Apache 2. With the current release of cPanel the easyapache installer has been upgraded to install Apache 2, and it truly is “easy”. It is assumed that you have root access to a server that is running cPanel. Here are seven simple steps which will guide you through the upgrade.
- Log in to Web Host Manager as root, select “Update Config” under the Server Configuration section and make sure your cPanel/WHM updates are Automatic from the CURRENT tree. You may need to execute /scripts/upcp from a shell to update cPanel/WHM if you were not on the CURRENT tree.
- Select “Apache Update” under the Software section. If you have a previously saved configuration select that, otherwise I would suggest the Basic configuration. Click “Continue Configuration”.
- Select the latest version of Apache (currently Apache 2.2), click “Next Step”.
- Select PHP 5, click”Next Step”.
- Select the latest version of PHP (currently PHP 5.2.4), click “Next Step”.
- Select “Advanced Configuration” and check any additional modules you may require. I would suggest entering a “Save As”, “Display Name”, and “Description” so that all your custom settings will be there the next time you upgrade.
- Select “Save and Build” and wait a LONG time for it to build. At times you may think it has frozen up, but have patience, go outside and take a walk, or call your mother and tell her how much you love her.
That is all there is to it. If something should go horribly wrong, easyapache will rollback to your previous setup. If you are having problems with your installation, you can submit a ticket to cPanel and their team will help you figure out the problem. You can also check the forums to see if someone else has ran into the same issue, or see if anyone is willing to offer advice. To verify your installation, simply create a php file in any web accessible directory on the server and add the following code:
<?php
phpinfo();
?>
View this file in your browser and verify that it was a success.
Leopard available today!
Posted on October 26, 2007
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October 26, 2007 marks the first post of Serving Aloha, it just so happens that today Apple is releasing OS X v10.5 Leopard. The Leopard Operating System boasts over 300 new features.
- Desktop. A neat place to work. Organize your dock items with stacks which can be displayed in fan or grid display.
- Finder. Give your files the rock star treatment. Browse your files in finder with Cover Flow, just as you scroll through album art in iTunes.
- Quick Look. Look before you launch. Quick Look lets you preview your files without actually opening the application. Flip through pages in a PDF file, playback a movie, etc.
- Time Machine. A giant leap backward. Plug in an external harddrive, and you will have hourly backups of all your files. To recover a file simply go back into time and restore your file.
- Mail. Think outside the inbox. Mail allows you to easily integrate with iCal and Address Book to keep you organized. There is also notes which can be made into a todo list right from your inbox.
- iChat. Not being there is half the fun. Share files and give control of your desktop right from iChat.
- Spaces. Room for everything. Spaces help keep you organized by grouping application windows into separate areas that you can switch between to reduce clutter.
Leopard has a retail price of $129 and is available at your local Apple Store or the Online Apple Store (free shipping). Easily upgrade by popping in the DVD and restarting your mac. You will need at least half a Gig of memory, 9GB of disk space, and a DVD player. For more information watch the guided tour.