Pem’s Tech Blog

On Windows, try: echo hello | clip

On Linux, try: echo hello | xclip

On Mac OS X, try: echo hello | pbcopy

For example, you might do (cat myFile.txt | xclip).  This would basically allow you to edit the clipboard directly.

Pem (Admin) :: 2010/01/21 (Thursday, January 21, 2010) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X, Operating System focused: Windows, Software Development :: No Comments »

DropBox is an awesome easy way to sync your files with the cloud and with multiple computers.  To start, just install it, point it to a data folder, and let it automatically sync your files with DropBox in the cloud.  Please click my referral link:
https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEyODU2ODk

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/12/18 (Friday, December 18, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X, Operating System focused: Windows, Web :: No Comments »

Edit -> Preferences -> iTunes Media folder location –> [folder]\iTunes_Media
* check Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library
* check Keep iTunes Media folder organized

File -> Library -> Organize Library, check Consolidate files, OK
=> consolidates your files into [folder]\iTunes_Media, can take seconds or hours depending on how many files it has to copy
=> when it’s done, you can delete the original files

iTunes Database files will still remain here, including (for Windows 7): C:\Users\[you]\Music\iTunes\iTunes Library.itl

This was the way to go when upgrading from (iTunes 8 to iTunes 9), since it used to be “iTunes Music” centric organizing, but now it’s “iTunes Media” (more generic).  Or when moving to a new computer.  Or when moving the location of your iTunes library.  Let iTunes organize the files for you, and consolidate them.

Here’s a really long tutorial for this with iTunes 9, posted 2009/09/21 (for moving your files to a new location, or to a new computer): http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/moving-your-itunes-library-to-a-new-hard-drive

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/09/27 (Sunday, September 27, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X, Operating System focused: Windows :: No Comments »

What’s the best part about Mac OS X?  Is it the fact that it’s different than Windows?  No, let’s be honest, the best part about Mac OS X, and the only thing that makes it useful, is the fact that you can run Windows on it.  Let’s be honest, the only thing useful about a Mac is that you can run Windows on it.  Okay, sarcasm aside, of course this means I had my few weeks of fun with Mac OS X, and now it’s time to look at (dual-booting with Boot Camp) and (virtualization with Parallels and/or VMware Fusion).

Fortunately (thank god), I can use my same (Windows 7) boot partition both for dual-boot and for virtualization.  Here’s the summary of how I set it up:

1) get ISO and/or DVD of Windows 7

2) run Boot Camp in Mac OS X to create the partition, simple / self-explanatory (I gave mine 35 GB of hard disk space)

3) boot from Windows 7 DVD, format Boot Camp partition (mine was 35 GB) (so it will be NTFS), install Windows 7, do the usual install/update stuff

4) inside Windows 7, insert Mac OS X install DVD, and it will run the Boot Camp setup / install wizard, so that you will have a Boot Camp control panel in Windows

5) reboot back into Mac OS X (you can select from the Windows Boot Camp control panel to restart and boot Windows, or you can hold down command or something during the boot: later I will check if you can make it a 5 sec count-down timer like my Vista boot loader does)

6) install Parallels and/or VMware Fusion 2.0 (I did Parallels Desktop 4.0), create a new virtual machine, point it to the Windows 7 iso or dvd-drive, and make sure to select Boot Camp partition when it asks.  I left the default 1 GB RAM 1 CPU for now.  It gave me warnings that I will need to reactivate MS Windows and MS Office, and that Windows 7 isn’t officially supported by Boot Camp yet (I ignored the warnings).  I let Parallels do its thing, and eventually has you log into Windows and run a virtual disc setup.exe file to enable the Coherence mode.

7) to shutdown Mac OS X, it says to shutdown the virtual machine (Parallels with Windows) first

Okay somehow this broke my Boot Camp.  I can’t seem to boot natively into Windows anymore via Boot Camp???  Startup Disk only shows the Mac OS X disk???  Never mind, shrug, somehow rebooting multiple times, with the Mac OS X install DVD in the drive caused (Startup Disk) to show it again.  I also went to the Boot Camp wizard inside Windows (inside Paralells) and selected boot from Windows there.  After all this, I also finally got it to show the boot menu by pressing (ctrl, win, alt, ctrl, win, alt, over and over, during boot-up)

9) boot (Windows 7) with Boot Camp, looks good , boot (Mac OS X) then open Parallels virtual machine pointing to the same (Windows 7) partition, looks good , enter Coherence mode and open OneNote.  God’s in his heaven- all’s right in the world

Now for the crazy stuff…  I wonder if it’s going to break my notes if I do this: (Mac OS X runs Live Mesh native.  OneNote running inside Parallels points to Live Mesh folder for notes).  Arg, this is probably a dangerous idea.  Maybe I should redo this to be running Live Mesh inside the (Windows 7) partition, and point my OneNote notebook to that copy…

Btw, I will post some screen shots later, and probably also try out VMware Fusion with the same Windows 7 partition (hopefully it’s okay to run all 3 from the same disk)

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/08/08 (Saturday, August 8, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: 1 Comment »

Here’s what I am using (as of 2009/07/18):
* most of my hard drives are primarily for Windows and use NTFS; if necessary then I can use macfuse on Mac OS X
* my Mac Mini’s internal/boot drive will stay HSF+, (Mac OS X Extended (Journaled))
* my one OS X Time Machine hard drive will be NFS+, using MacDrive on Windows

The rest of this article is the details and background info…

Notes from simple CNET video, regarding native support:

* NTFS is standard for Windows
* HFS+ is standard for Mac OS X
* FAT32 is cross-platform
* FAT32 can not create a file bigger than 4 GB

Mac OS X: options to also write NTFS:
* macfuse
* Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X
* NTFS-3G

Windows: options to read/write HSF+:
* MacDrive: read/write, not free
* HFSExplorer: only does read

Notes based on: http://cnettv.cnet.com/format-drive-mac-os-x-windows/9742-1_53-50074180.html

So why would anyone want a file bigger than 4 GB?  Some obvious examples:
* large video file
* system backup disk image file, such as (Acronis True Image, or Norton Ghost)
* iso disc image (standard DVD is 4.7 GB, dual-layer is 8.5 GB, blu-ray is much more)

Mac OS X, More Details:
One catch is that Mac OS X Time Machine requires HFS+

Mac OS Extended is the same as HSF+ or HFS Plus

Mac OS X (Journaled): better, plus Mac OS X Time Machine requires journaling

HSF+, not case sensitive: By default, both my Mac Mini’s internal drive, and my recent purchase pre-formatted for Mac OS X external drive, were both not case sensitive.  They both came as and still are "(Mac OS X (Journaled))”.

UFS: Unix File System:
Another twist is the UFS file system, which is supported by Mac OS X.  UFS is case sensitive.

Case sensitive?
* UFS : yes
* NTFS: no
* Mac OS X Extended: no
* Mac OS X Extended, Case Sensitive: yes

Because UFS is case sensitive, this might be a theoretical concern for (compiling something for unix on Mac OS X) or (for using a drive with both Mac OS X, and Linux such as Ubuntu)

One reference says (If this kind of case-sensitivity is important to you, you can create a UFS partition or disk image and use that for your sources) — http://developer.apple.com/unix/crossplatform.html

However, at this point I am planning to just ignore that, and leave all my drives as not case sensitive (NTFS is not case sensitive) (my Mac OS X drives are not case sensitive).  Maybe I will worry about it later if I start running Ubuntu on one of my home computers.

One reason is that the default is (not case sensitive).  The other is that I’ve read some rumors suggesting it might cause some incompatibility problems with certain software.

Mac OS X Disk Utility doesn’t call it HSF+:
* Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
* Mac OS Extended
* Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive)
* Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)

As explained in my article, I am keeping the default: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

I feel like it could reduce confusion if they would just call it HSF+ instead of “Mac OS Extended”?  But then again, it is common to have more than one name for the same technology standard: consider (HyperTransport was originally LDT) and (FireWire is the common name for IEEE 1394).  And I guess Apple thinks they are making things simpler by using a more “friendly” sounding name.

When installing Mac OS X, you can choose UFS or HSF+:
I found this referenced in some Apple articles, such as: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1410?viewlocale=en_US

I’ve read there might be some theoretical scenario where you want a case sensitive file system on Mac OS X, such as for compiling certain unix code.  Maybe.

However, right now (2009/07/18), my Mac Mini OS drive and Time Machine drive are both HSF+, called Mac OS Extended (Journaled).  So that is my plan, unless at some point I hear about some good reason to use a case sensitive format, such as UFS or (Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), which means HSF+ case-sensitive journaled).

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/18 (Saturday, July 18, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X, Operating System focused: Windows :: No Comments »

Overall my first impressions are generally positive, though definitely not to the point that I’d even consider any chance of ever "switching".

However, one thing that has really bothered me so far is the differences in the keyboard shortcuts.  I have Ctrl mapped to whatever crazy Apple keyboard button does alt-tab and ctrl-c ctrl-v ctrl-x etc.  This is much better than having to press alt+c for copy etc.

However, it still sucks.  ctrl+tab is doing alt+tab.  I have to use alt+tab for tabs switching in FireFox.  ctrl+shift+left/right doesn’t highlight text words properly.  alt+D doesn’t let me type in a web URL in FireFox (or Safari), and ctrl+E doesn’t let me do a web search in FireFox (or Safari).  On the xterm console window, I have to press alt+c instead of ctrl+c.  This reminded me that it’s not just Windows keyboard shortcut standards, but Linux too, that Mac OS X is breaking (for example, I can cut copy paste and alt+tab properly in RedHat, probably Ubuntu etc too etc).  Yes this is a complaint about vi too; shift+z+z is not the right way to save a text file, it’s ctrl+s.  However, vi is a specific old-world legacy application rather than the OS; the actual Linux OS GUI’s (desktop environments) that I’ve used have the correct keyboard shortcuts.

I have to say that I came pretty close to fixing this problem with a proper method such as (SMASH MAC MINI WITH SLEDGE HAMMER) or (reformat hard drive and install Windows 7 on it, or maybe Ubuntu).

I’m sorry if it sounds “hater” or narrow-minded.  I am fine with memorizing keyboard shortcuts: I think it’s a great convenience (and efficiency improvement) to use the keyboard most of the time (instead of the mouse).  However, I am not fine with memorizing a second set of keyboard shortcuts that are only used by Mac OS X!  Apple should follow the standard and try to minimize the differences between different default hotkeys for different OS’s and different applications and different platforms (such as mobile / smart phone).  Is it too much to ask for Alt+Tab and Ctrl+C to just work, regardless of what OS I am using!?

I really don’t want to sound pointlessly negative or “hater”.  Overall there’s a lot I like about it: I have some overall very positive impressions of Mac OS X and the Mac Mini (Mar 2009).  However, the keyboard shortcuts need to be fixed.

At this point I am probably going to look for some add-on software (or preferences) that will let you easily remap everything to be more like the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/11 (Saturday, July 11, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

Keyboard Shortcuts
One of the biggest things that’s a disappointment so far is the keyboard shortcuts.  They’re not the same as on Windows!  ARGGG, why???

What the hell is Command Control Option?  Where is my Ctrl Windows Alt?  Windows+D, Alt+Tab, Alt+Shift+Tab, Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab; really using a mouse is for n00bs.  Okay, so (Command is like Control, Option is like Alt, and Control is like right-click).  That’s a start, but Alt-Tab doesn’t seem to work, though Windows+Tab does.  Obviously the problem is that I’m using a Windows keyboard with Mac OS-X.  But honestly, why don’t they just make it work out of the box anyway?  Come on Apple, this is NOT true simplicity.  Apple says “simplicity is you have to use our special keyboard or your life will suck”.  True simplicity would be my keyboard works with your stupid OS.  Ranting aside, I’ll wait to judge whether it’s an actual concern until after I research keyboard remapping, add-on software for Windows-like shortcuts on Mac OS X, or whatever.

(System Preferences –> keyboard & mouse –> modifier keys), the first thing I tried is to remap (Option to Command) and (Command to Option).  This makes alt+tab work (instead of being windows+tab).  However, copy/paste is alt+c alt+v, which is very annoying.

As far as which button on my keyboard maps to a software action in Mac OS X:
* ctrl key => control key
* windows key => command key
* alt key => option key

So what I did is map them like this:
* Control maps to Command
* Option maps to Control
* Command maps to Option

This person (http://www.tuaw.com/2008/09/11/mac-101-using-your-windows-keyboard/) said to do something different.  But my remapping let me do ctrl+a, ctrl+c, ctrl+v, ctrl+x, ctrl+n (for select all, copy, paste, cut, new).  My remapping Ctrl+Tab does the task-switching instead of Alt+Tab, and then Alt+Tab changes tabs in Safari web browser.  Not perfect, but at least a lot better.

Frankly it’s kind of driving me crazy at this point.  I prefer to use the keyboard as much as possible.  I was really annoyed that ctrl+e doesn’t let me do a google search in Safari.  And to do word-highlighting I have to do win+shift+right/left instead of ctrl+shift+right/left.  I was excited to open up an xterm console.  But when I wanted to kill a program, it was alt+C instead of ctrl+C !!!  Arg, I can only take so much of this horrible Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts…

To some (novice who uses the mouse too much?), this might sound petty.  But for me, it’s entirely a deal breaker – basically the difference between whether I will enjoy using the Mac vs. find it annoying and slow (slow in terms of UI, due to lack of standard Windows keyboard shortcuts).  It feels wayyy too slow for me to use the mouse for most things, after I am so used to using the keyboard shortcuts.

It’s bad enough that there are software engineers who write software programs that don’t use the correct standard Windows shortcut keys.  But changing the standard OS short-cuts like this?  It is just too much!  It is just too horrible!

This is not just an annoyance – it is a matter of life and death.  Of course I just with the hyperbole: I realize it’s just a keyboard (and keyboard shortcuts) and maybe in the long-run we’ll replace keyboard shortcuts with human-brain interfaces, or some alternative to Windows Ctrl Windows Alt keys (and the mouse/application key, which I also love btw, because it lets you right-click without using the mouse!).  But honestly, it drives me crazy, and using standard keyboard shortcuts is a huge improvement on efficiency for advanced keyboard-shortcut users who want the standard hotkeys to do the right thing (the standard thing)!

Probably long-term I will look into some settings/program that lets me completely replace my OS X keyboard shortcuts with Windows keyboard shortcuts.  This is one place where thinking different I think is really annoying.  Why can’t they just use the standard hotkeys that everyone already has muscle-memorized?

While we’re on the subject…  I really wish at least Microsoft itself would do a better job with making the Windows Mobile keyboard shortcuts for the next version of Windows Mobile be more like normal Windows (XP, Vista, 7).  Microsoft doesn’t make their own hardware smart phones, but they should enable the shortcuts in Windows Mobile and push the hardware smart phone OEM’s to use them for the tiny smart phone QWERTY keyboards.

While we’re on the subject…  Any video game (or other interactive 3d application) that uses the keyboard to control a camera, should, in the vast majority of cases (possibly 100%) use WASD please!  And for my personal tastes, please use QE for rotate or orbit too!

Here are some references for the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts:
* http://www.seoconsultants.com/windows/keyboard/
* http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449
* http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms971323.aspx

Pardon the narrow-minded rant, but please, go forth and implement it correctly!  That means you Apple!

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/11 (Saturday, July 11, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: 2 Comments »

Software Updates
Even before messing with the keyboard/mouse stuff mentioned in the previous post, the first thing I did is run Software Update, and it found 13 updates (including a 449 MB download to upgrade from Mac OS-X 10.5.6 to 10.5.7) (btw, 10.6 "Snow Leopard" is coming out 2009/09 for a $29 upgrade price, so I’ll probably upgrade as soon as it comes out). I think the Mac Mini went into low power mode during the download, so it got interrupted, but I just started it again. After the reboot, I checked Software Update again, and it found 3 more updates to install: wow just like Windows Update. Then it asked me to reboot again for Bluetooth update. Oh well, I don’t complain, because I tend to like software to auto-update to the latest version.

Quick Boot
If I restart or shutdown-then-turn-on my Mac Mini, it’s literally less a minute before I can open up Safari web browser and surf the web.  I’m saying it like it’s a big deal, but probably my desktop used to boot about that fast: it just takes really long now because I have so much extra stuff that starts up during the boot.  Maybe one day my Mac Mini will take 5 minutes to reboot.  Well, hopefully not, but we’ll see .  Actually, hopefully one day I’ll get a fast SSD hard drive for it, and it will boot in 15-30 seconds?  We’ll see

Speakers
One big thing I noticed, especially when playing the DVD is that the Mac Mini has built-in speakers.  I actually didn’t think about this beforehand, but for me personally, this is a huge convenience for the Mac Mini as a secondary computer and as a portable computer.  Of course you can still plug-in external speakers/headphones, but as long as it doesn’t take up a significant amount of space/weight, then I’m all for having some decent convenience internal speakers, like this Mac Mini has.

Play DVD Movie: not enough buttons on Apple Remote
Well it’s got a DVD drive, so I might as well try it out, right?  I put in the DVD and it opened up in full screen and played, and my Apple remote worked.  However, I’m going to say that although I was not necessarily disappointed, my first reaction is that I like better my remote that I use for Windows Media Center (that came with my HP desktop for Windows XP).

The main reason is just because I like the bigger remote with more buttons.  For my personal tastes, so-called simplicity and so-called think different loses again.

With the Apple Remote, I was unable to change the volume during the DVD Menu, because volume up/down turns into a controller.  Similar problem, to fast forward or rewind, you have to hold down forward or back button; for me this is annoying because it’s less instant than having 2 separate buttons for skip-forward vs. fast-forward.  In fact, even my much larger many more buttons Windows Media Center remote I am not totally happy with because it doesn’t have enough buttons: many times I want to be able to press a button on the remote to fast-switch between sub-tittles and languages (such as English voice-over vs. native language).

Another remote quirk is that having to hold-down for fast-forward and rewind meant there were only two modes; 1x and 8x.  While on my Windows remote you can press/click it multiple times for like 1x 2x 4x 8x 16x 32x or something like that.

That said, I can probably just get a different Mac-compatible remote that has more buttons, and/or see if there is other remote-centric DVD movie playing software for Mac OS-X.  Assuming I can get a remote with more buttons that works with Mac OS X, these are probably just gripes about the remote.

In fact, unrelated to the remote, I did notice that it doesn’t lag when switching between rewind vs. play.  On my Windows XP media center system, there’s an annoying delay in the audio for some reason when you stop rewinding and go back into play mode.

I think long-term, it’s (form factor, built-in speakers, fast-boot time) gives it great potential to upgrade to a Blu-ray movie player and other multi-media.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/11 (Saturday, July 11, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

Turning it on with a KVM

VGA: So the next thing I wanted to do is plug it into my KVM and hope it works.  Unfortunately my KVM is VGA, and the Mac Mini only comes with a mini DVI to DVI adapter, and the DVI output on this adapter does not include the analogue pins, so a DVI to VGA adapter won’t help.  So I went to Best Buy and got some mini Display Port to VGA adapter, and it worked with my KVM.

Mouse: I have an $80 wireless Logitech MX 1100 mouse with a pretty awesome scroll wheel, and a less exciting but reasonably functional USB wired mouse.  It worked, but it was way too sensitive, and the + – button to adjust sensitivity did not work immediately, so I initially used my backup mouse.

Keyboard: My Logitech G15’s advanced features (hardware macros, multimedia keys, mini display) does not work so great with KVM’s.  You have two options: the normal USB device plug/unplug which has a noticeable delay when you switch, or the standard emulated keyboard input which causes the keyboard to lose the advanced functionality.  My desktop (which I should admit was refurbished, which is probably why it’s broken) has some issue where it freezes/crashes when I do lots of USB plug/unplug.  Kind of off-topic, but I use a G15 even though I have it plugged into the KVM’s keyboard port instead of a USB port, so it has limited functionality.  In this mode, the Mac Mini detected it and it just worked.

Tweaking display, mouse, keyboard

Display: the default resolution was 800×600, but no big deal seeing as Windows does this too, so I changed it to 1280×1024 (ahh much better).

Mouse: Logitech’s website had a download for Mac OS-X for the MX 1100, so I downloaded/installed Logitech Control Center.  Even after installing this, the + – buttons still did not work.  Logitech Control Center said “No Logitech Devices Found”.  So far this is a disappointment, and I am using my backup mouse.

Keyboard: I tried my Logitech G15 with advanced functionality, and after I downloaded and installed Logitech GamePanel Software for Mac OS X (from Logitech’s website), this worked too.

So the only disappointment so far here is the Logitech G15 mouse is not useable for me, because the sensitivity + – buttons don’t work.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/10 (Friday, July 10, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

Unboxing

Because I am only half-serious about the blogging thing and I haven’t stream-lined the photo uploads to ftp (such as get a camera, Eye-Fi and auto-upload to my ftp), this is not much of an unboxing since it has no pictures (or video).  So I’ll just describe it some.

It came in a small box, and it had what it said it should: Mac Mini, mini-DVI to DVI-D (dual link) adapter, power adapter (yes it’s kind of a brick and if you carry it around that adds some weight/space in your backpack), $19 extra for Apple Remote.

I am going to admit that I enjoyed opening it, but I with any good gadgets / computers stuff, not just Apple.

Upgrading the RAM: with a putty knife

I take a while to decide these things, but I settled on the $600 model (120 GB hard drive, 1 GB RAM) but I paid the extra $150 for the faster CPU (2.26 GHz instead of 2.0 GHz): I’m sure it doesn’t increase the performance enough to justify the price difference, but unlike the RAM and hard drive you can’t easily upgrade the Mac Mini’s CPU because it’s apparently soldered or glued (epoxy) to the motherboard.

But I did do the upgrade the RAM, I ordered 4 GB (2GB x2, DDR3 PC3-8500), for $64, but with $4 and $5.61 tax, it was $73.59, which is significantly less than the $150 that Apple wanted for 4 GB.

Upgrading RAM on my HP desktop and my HP laptop is easy and simple.  Upgrading RAM on an Apple product is not so simple, because their cases are hard to open.  Kind of ironic with the “simplicity” marketing stuff.  In fact, on my HP tx1000, you can swap out both the battery AND the optical disc drive without removing a screw (no this is not a typo: you can take out the optical drive just as easy as the battery), and accessing the hard drive, RAM, or wireless chip is 1 or 2 screws each: very simple.  My HP desktop has a simple PDF doc that describes how to do it on their website.

On the Mac Mini, it’s not a big deal, but it’s definitely less simple.  But the good news is you can web search (google etc) to find video and picture tutorials to help make it still reasonably simple.

Upgrade Mac Mini: a few links:
* RAM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KaHNLR6Aac
* HDD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIiSaunTWWM&feature=related
* HDD x2 (replace optical drive): http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Mac-mini-A1283-Terabyte-Drive/660/1
  * have to solder a non-standard cable
* CPU is soldered so don’t bother upgrading it:
  * http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/03/more-mac-mini-details-soldered-processor-drive-upgrades.ars

So I did some reading and looked at pictures from other people who did it, and then I mostly just followed a video.  So it wasn’t bad.  The biggest difficulty is just opening/closing the screw-less case/shell.  But there are also some details about how the Mac Mini’s particular inside screws and parts come apart and go back together, such as the RAM has to go in at an angle a certain way.

To make it easier to open the screw-less case/shell, I got a 3” metal putty knife and a few other plastic putty knives, from the painting section at Walmart (I’m sure you can order them online or Home Depot, etc).  I guess this was another $5 to $10, so maybe rather than saving $75 I saved closer to $65, and spent a few extra hours deciding, researching, and doing it.  And then I have to admit I did scratch the case a little on the bottom when prying it open with the putty knife.  But overall I’m glad I upgraded the RAM myself instead of paying Apple $150 to do it.  It gave me some more case upgrading experience and now I have these extra putty knife tools

Someday I may do other upgrades too, like replace the DVD drive with (a Blu-ray drive) or (a second hard drive) or (a discrete GPU).  Or just replace the 5400 rpm 120 GB hard drive with a larger/faster hard drive or an SSD drive.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/10 (Friday, July 10, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »