RIP, Steve!

Lost your MacBook? Find it with Prey

http://www.preyproject.com

I was reading Cult of Mac article (http://www.cultofmac.com/man-recovers-stolen-macbook-thousands-of-miles-away-heres-how-to-recover-yours/94947) about how a man recovered his MacBook using a free service called Prey (www.preyproject.com). And I decided to try it out myself.

There’s a free recovery service by Apple (via MobileMe) but nothing has been written about it. Moreover, I dunno how long Apple will keep the service free (BTW, MobileMe is a subscription service). And to pay a subscription of more than US$100 a year is definitely a drain to my savings.

Installation is a whizz and with a very small footprint. The Prey software is undetectable in your MacBook and runs invisibly in the background. Once activated, you can log-in into your account (via Prey website) and indicated that your MacBook is missing. The software will then send you a report every 10, 20, 30 or 40 minutes to your email. The software is also able to capture the location of your MacBook, picture(s) of the culprit (via webcam), screenshots of what is being displayed on the screen, uptime and logged users (all these settings can be modified via Prey’s Control Panel).

I would like to report here that I have tried the Prey service thrice (that’s three times), and all three attempts works like a charm.

Prey works with Mac, Windows, Ubuntu, Linux and Android phones. The codes are open-source and available for download at Prey’s website.

Check out Prey introduction video above. May it prove useful to you.

quirky’s PowerCurl for MacBook Pro

One of Apple’s strength is its ability to create wonderful and desired products. Just look at the iPhones and MacBooks. People bought them in millions. Steve Jobs couldn’t get any richer than that.

While having good products under their wings, Apple is intelligent enough to sniff the opportunity to make more money for itself. Therefore, all of their products didn’t come with their own accessories, relying instead on third party companies churning out every accessories known to mankind, which Apple gladly agreed to license.

Simplified

In their Macbook package, Apple supplied two types of extension of their power adaptor, one short and one long. The long extension cable is really long, and storing them in your laptop bag might be messy. Then came the quirky PowerCurl cord manager.

The PowerCurl itself

The PowerCurl is available is several colours (Pink, Blue, Orange, Grey and Lime Green) and supports various MagSafe adaptors’ sizes (be sure to get your exact size or it won’t fit). I got mine in charcoal black as I like the contrast in colour between black PowerCurl and the white MagSafe.

The material of the PowerCurl is made from some sort of rubberised polymer and seems to be able to handle some abuses, consistent with the day-to-day activities of the office warriors.  In the box, it contains the PowerCurl organiser and a clip for plugging the end of the power cord. That’s about it.

How do I organise these cords?

The idea of the cord organiser is for both ends of the cord (plug end and MagSafe end) to wrap around the PowerCurl, allowing for quick and easy unraveling. The included clip enables the plug end of the cord to clip to itself, just like the MagSafe end does.

As you can see from the photo above, my MagSafe is rather disorganised, with cords from both sides tangling without proper organisation.

Apple should make one of these

The MagSafe fits in the middle of the PowerCurl nicely, with both ends of the cords slotted nicely through their openings. A word of caution: If you’re using the other option (shorter cord) which have the plug attached straight to the MagSafe, you can’t use this PowerCurl. It’s more suitable for user who prefer using the longer power cords.

Attach clip to secure cord to PowerCurl

The included clip helps to safely attached the plug to the rest of the cord, thus securing the overall cord.

Look nice and well made

Once secured, you can just throw the PowerCurl inside your laptop bag without having to worry whether the cords will get tangled.

Organised, at last!

If I’m not mistaken, this is the 2nd version of the PowerCurl. The original version didn’t have two sections, which is a damper as both the small and medium cords shared the same section. The new version segregates the cords.

Pros: Easy and straight forward solution to cord management, inexpensive, durable, light, elevates the MagSafe for improved air circulation and cooling, cord is devoid of breakage, protected the MagSafe from scratches (sort of).

Cons: Bulky, only suitable for longer cord, can be made cheaper, only available in Malaysia at Machines outlets.

The PowerCurl is available now for RM58.00 at all Machines outlets.

My Long-term Test: Apple MacBook (White – Oct ’09)

I’ve been using my MacBook for about 6 months now, and I guessed it’s time for my long-term test.

My MacBook White Duo Core

Since using the Mac OS X, I’m getting more familiar with the OS, and almost 8 out of 10 times, I will usually opted for the Mac OS X over Windows 7. I won’t be dwelling on which OS is better, but it’s safe to say that I like Mac OS X very much. And very stable.

The spec of my MacBook is standard: Intel Core 2 Duo (1.07 GHz), 2Gb DDR3 RAM, 250Gb HDD and NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphic card. Performance wise, no complaint. But I wish I can afford to add more RAMs, just to speed things up, if needed.

Since the MacBook’s body is all white, some kind of protections are needed. Therefore, I purchased the Moshi palmguard, rubber keyboard protector (brand unknown) and the Speck SeeThru’ Hard Shell Case. I also bought the Golla MacBook sleeve and the Deuter Giga Office Pro laptop bag to complete the protection aspect of the MacBook.

Cool design

So far I’ve installed several software into my Mac, and the more interesting ones are iLife ’11, iWork, Microsoft Office 2008 Mac Edition, Toast Titanium 10, TechTool Pro 5, Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, Aperture 3.0.3, CleanMyMac 1.9.3, iStat Menus, iAntiVirus, Parallels Desktop, jDownloader and some games (Drawn, EggFarm, Mystery of Cleopatra and Plants vs Zombies).

Sometimes I missed my Windows. Therefore, I need Windows on my Mac. Fortunately, Apple has an app for this purpose: Bootcamp. You can install Microsoft Windows on your Mac using a specific driven instruction in Bootcamp. I’ve installed Windows 7 Home Edition and whenever I needed my Windows, I just booted it up. Simple.

With all the applications and games installed, I noticed that the MacBook is a tad slow, and this is probably due to the applications’ resources in the memory and the not-so-optimum 2Gb RAMs. I planned to install another 2Gb RAM to further optimise the experience. While waiting for that, I think the MacBook performs quite well.

As for the battery, I can only get about 4 hours with full charge (far off from the quoted 10 hours). And this is with bluetooth and AirPort (WiFi) on. If I turned off both the bluetooth and WiFi, I still can get only 4.5 hours of usage till empty. This is bad.

Black mark on palmrest area

My worry before I purchased the MacBook is the colour. It’s too white. And it’s prone to smudges and definitely a dust magnet. The frame of the MacBook is made from shiny polycarbonate, and it can be quite dirty if handled roughly. I eliminated the problem by using the Speck shell to protect the exterior and Moshi palmguard to protect the palm area. As you can see from the photo above, the right side of the palm area has become dark through constant use. Imagine if there’s no palmguard to protect that particular area.

Discolouring. Notice the difference between the screen area and the keyboard

I also noticed that the white interior has become a bit yellowish, especially around the screen area. I don’t really know the reason for this, but probably due to exposure. There are already reports on the internet about the yellowish issues, and it happened to almost every owner. I guess I have to live with it, as long as I can use the MacBook normally.

Time to change to the aluminium-bodied MacBook Air?

Recent Convert to Apple’s Mac

I have finally ditched my Fujitsu M2010 netbook! Not that I dislike the netbook, but personally I felt that the netbook is too small and too underpowered for me. Yeah, even for me, the self-professed casual user and gamer.

After managing to sell off the netbook (with only a RM200 loss), I immediately googled for a new laptop. My criteria is simple: the new laptop must be eye-catching (read: poser laptop), able to cope with some graphics (read: adequate processing power) and affordable. I listed some models from Dell, HP, Compaq and even Asus (the UL80 looks awesome!).

But I decided to pick one totally out of my list. The Apple MacBook.

Apple MacBook White (Oct 2009 version)

Boasting with Mac OS X Snow Leopard (the best OS in the world), the new MacBook is supposed to be the most affordable Mac laptop, but when it arrived in Malaysia, it was sold as one of the most expensive laptop in its group.

MacBook

Nevertheless, I am enticed by the new Mac OS X and the redesigned hardware. But later I found out that almost all Mac’s software are expensive, compared to Windows. Even the games are expensive.

So far, I have installed Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, Aperture 3, iWork, Parallels Desktop 5 (for running Windows OS) and Intego VirusBarrier X6 in my MacBook.

Then I decided to buy the Apple’s Magic Mouse to match the look of the MacBook, eventhough I already have the brilliant Logitech V470 as a mouse. The Magic Mouse is different from other mices in term of its capabilities to function as a touch mouse. Other than clicking, the mouse can be used to function by touching its top surface, hence the term ‘magic’.

Apple's Magic Mouse

I will post a long-term report of my MacBook usage later in my future entry.