Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by MacDaNife

EBay iTunes Gift Certificates

MacDaNife — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 20:14:25 +0800

For those of you who are considering buying iTunes gift certificates off EBay....

I just bought a US200 gift certificate for US104 from a seller called Latte4mood. Got the codes within 10 minutes.

Don't know if it's a scam but it worked for me....

AppleTV Revisited

MacDaNife — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:20:14 +0800

I've found the AppleTV to be suprisingly nice to have.

I bought a 40Gb one for USD 239 at the AppleStore in Galleria, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Since the January keynote the price for the AppleTV has dropped in the US. Unfortunately it has not dropped in price ANYWHERE else in the world (check the UK AppleStore and see). Obviously, the price in Malaysia remains at the old price point.

I've since upgraded the hard drive to a Western Digital Scorpio 2.5in 250GB PATA drive bought at A-One, Digital Mall PJ for RM415 which included a 2.5in USB 2.0 hard disk case which was required to clone the original hard drive. The cloning process requires expanding the original 40GB Media partiiton. I tried for hours to do this with Terminal (which is free) but due to my noobishness with Unix was unable to do so. Finally lost patience and sprung for iPartition from Coriolis Software (which cost me another US49) . I'd put photos up of the HD upgrading process but there are already so many on the web (which were very useful to me when performing the upgrade that I won't bother here).

The end result:

I've now got 230 Gb to use for Movies/TV Shows/Music Video/Music/Photos.

I used to gripe that the usefullness of the the AppleTV is limited by the fact that it is tied to the iTunes Music Store. While I DO have an iTunes music store account and have bought stuff from there I also download from torrents. Thing is: it is VERY easy to add downloaded torrents to the AppleTV. I use iSquint (free) to convert downloaded .avi files to .mp4 which I then drag over to iTunes on my MacPro. It is then automatically synced to the AppleTV. I am also able to specify that the downloaded content is a TV Show, group them as a series, add "cover art" and even fill in the plot synopsis which is all dutifully displayed on the AppleTV.

The upshot?

Think of the AppleTV as iTunes for your downloaded .avi collection.... Remember when you had all those .mp3 files in a mess from various sources and how iTunes has simplified its categorization and added album art to boot? Well, the AppleTV now does that for my downloaded TV/movie shows.

I'd be please to answer any questions you guys might have. I have a Shuttle windowsXP box next to the Sony Bravia together with the AppleTV but in terms of functionality the AppleTV is WAAAAY better. I also bought a ExtremeMac HDMI splitter (USD 99 at the AppleStore in Fort Lauderdale) so I can connect my HDMI DVD player and the AppleTV at the same time (my Bravia only has one HDMI input). As the ExtremeMac HDMI splitter has four inputs I can also connect the PlayStation3 to the setup should I finally find a game I want to play on the PS3...

ColorSync Profile for use with new LED MacBookPro

MacDaNife — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:08:56 +0800

Found a ColorSync Profile from MacInTouch for use with the new LED backlit MacBook Pros....

Improvements in color saturation. Never realized that my Safari buttons had a slight blue-ish tint before...

Go here: http://www.macintouch.com/reviews/mbp15led/colorcalib2.zip

Directions for use: Unzip and drag file into /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays.

Open Preferences/Displays/Color and select the MacBook LCD Calibration 2 profile from the menu.

New MacBookPro Screen: Glossy or Matte?

MacDaNife — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:42:09 +0800

The new MacBook Pros (2.2Ghz and 2.4Ghz) come with an interesting display option: Glossy or Matte? The default option (and on a quick survey of the KL Mac shops) is Matte. You'll need to do a customised order to get a Glossy screen. It however is not more expensive than the default Matte option.

I'm presuming the Glossy screen looks more like my Vaio SZ....

And most of the online discussions on the subject seem to favor the Glossy...

My question is: Has anyone actually SEEN a Glossy LCD backlit MacBook Pro screen?

Excellent MacPro 2.66 article

MacDaNife — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 06:04:50 +0800

Click here: http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/rev...s/intel/macpro/

Getting a iTunes Music Store Account

MacDaNife — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 00:43:14 +0800

With iTunes 7 comes a neat feature to automatically download album art from the ITMS. Unfortunately you need an account to do this. To get an account you need a USA address and credit card.

PayPal does NOT work either as they check that your PayPal account originates outside the USA.

Anybody have a workaround?

MacPro - Adventures with the Tower of Power

MacDaNife — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:17:29 +0800

The MacPro comes with a cool programme called "ComicLife". It integrates with .mac in the sense you can annotate your photos from iPhoto and upload it to your .mac website.

Anyway, thought I'd use ComicLife to put up photos of my additional hard drives...

These Western Digital Caviar 250 Gb (16gb buffer) are identical to the stock 250Gb drive that the MacPro comes with. The difference is that they were purchased at LYP CZone for RM290. A fraction of what Apple would have charged...

Worklog: PowerMacG5 casemod

MacDaNife — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 14:13:57 +0800

What's better than a LianLi V series case? Silverstone? Antec? Nope - Apple.

Today I got my hands on this...

It just oozes class... Down to the latch that youhave to pull in order to remove the sidepanel...

Some heavy duty modding will be required. I am reluctant to cut too much of the externals. Instead I will be mounting the mobo further in the case and routing cables to the corresponding ports on the case itself. Well that's the plan anyway. Less cutting, more soldering.

Here is the drive bay (where the PSU of a regular ATX PC case would reside)

And the front optical drive bay. It has a neat bay cover that slides down like a window blind rather than the usual out like a hatch design. Note that Apple has prerouted wires for drive connectors and power. They are all black so identifying them would be another chore prior to soldering. I intend to use as much of the original equipment as I can.

The Apple mobo connector will have to go. Note the front panel connectors are housed in thier own cage. Typical Apple design touches.

The motherboard bay is very spacious. I plan to mount the PSUtowards the back of the case with the mobo towards the front bringing connectors from the mobo to the corresponding ports at the back of the G5 case. I will try to maintain the clean lines of the G5 Enclosure as best I can.

Some case cutting however may be unavoidable. Well, I need to make some measurements. Should be a fun mod. Hopefully I am able to complete it...