PC Guy with a Mac

Why did I buy this thing?

Archive for June, 2008


Apple Mouse Utility

Published June 26th, 2008 in News and (mostly) Opinions | 1 Comment »

As readers of my rantings know, I recently utilized BootCamp to load Windows Vista Business on the MacBook.  Everything is running great so far, but not having that second mouse button available for use really throws a cramp in my Win-Fu.

I was surprised that BootCamp (on the Windows side) didn’t have a utility or setting to compensate for the absent mouse button, so I fired up Google and found a great little utility called Apple Mouse Utility.

The file size is small and it’s beauty is in it’s simplicity.  When activated, it allows me to hold down the Control button and use the one-button mouse as if I was using the second mouse, as it does in Leopard.

The software is free and its author is asking for donations.  It’s a cool little utility that I believe deserves a couple bills.

Gizmodo: Why I Still Use Windows Despite the Peer Pressure

Published June 26th, 2008 in News and (mostly) Opinions | 1 Comment »

Adam Frucci at Gizmodo has a great blog post about why he’s still a WindowsXP user.  My favorite blurb from his post is..

Macs are too hip. Oh, look at me! I do graphic design! I wear women’s jeans and hang out in coffee shops! I’m a DJ! Well good for you. My computer is not a fashion statement. It’s a computer.”

Well said!

MacBook from Scratch – Part 2

Published June 4th, 2008 in News and (mostly) Opinions | 2 Comments »

Yesterday I began the process of “starting over from scratch” with the MacBook and the two restore discs that came with it. I won’t bore you with the details, since the install was pretty much a “follow the bouncing ball” process that would be hard to mess up (and recording the procedure in this blog post wouldn’t really benefit “Mac Nubs”). What I will do is note a couple things I found interesting during this ordeal:

  • Verifying the Installation Disc Before Proceeding
    During the OS installation process, the MacBook wanted to make sure that the installation disc was good and readable before proceeding. Even though I understand why this is a good idea, it adds anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes to the recovery process. Also, if I’m not mistaken, the hard drive is already wiped at this point in the process, so why bother verifying? If the disc is bad, it’s bad and there’s no turning back now!
  • Where the hell is iMovie?
    This one really threw me for a loop. After installing Leopard clean and updating it to the nines, I let my seven year old son get on the MacBook. The first thing he asked was “Where’s iMovie?” I took the helm and went to the Applications folder. Sure enough, there was no iMovie to be found.
    A few Googles later, I found a hint to a solution that led me to insert Install Disc 1, select the option for just installing the software packages, found the install for iMovie and loaded it. Can anyone explain to me why it wasn’t automatically installed with the rest of the iLife products?

All in all, the procedure was relatively painless.  I hope this process was worth getting Boot Camp to run properly.

MacBook from Scratch – Part 1

Published June 3rd, 2008 in News and (mostly) Opinions | 1 Comment »

There is a post that I was working on before this post that was titled “My Experiences with Boot Camp.” In it, I began to log all the steps involved in using Boot Camp to (a) re-partition the MacBook’s hard drive and (b) get Windows Vista loaded in the new partition.

Well, it turns out that the MacBook had other plans for my afternoon.

To free up space, I moved files from the MacBook to my primary workstation (which is an XP box) and also burned a lot of data to a couple of DVDs. After doing this, I fired up the Boot Camp Assistant and during the partitioning phase, I was notified that I would have to restart.

Well, three hours later, it turns out that every time I try to partition the drive with Boot Camp, Leopard locks up. I have run every flavor of disk fix afforded me, but still no resolution. So, with that said, it’s time to burn this OS down and start from scratch.

More and more, I’m beginning to see that this is just a PC in Steve’s clothing..

Burning a data DVD

Published June 3rd, 2008 in Unlocking the Mac-steries | 1 Comment »

Well, it took me 10 minutes to fumble around, but I think I figured out (one way) to burn a data DVD on the MacBook:

  1. Select the files to burn
  2. In Finder, go to File -> Burn X Items to Disc (X being the number of items to burn)

I’m sure there are other ways to do this, so feel free to post a comment and let me know.