MrNR by rygh.no

Replace hard drive in Mac Book 101

2010-07-26T10:38:00.000+02:00

This is a short “how to” on replacing a hard drive in a MacBook. You can easily find tutorials by googling, but just to make it really easy – here is how I did it:

Connect an external drive, start the Time Machine (OS X backup program).
Ensure your backup of the system is taken.
Disconnect the external drive, turn of the mac and start the hardware upgrade.
You need to remove the battery. Use a coin.

Use a Philips screwdriver to remove the list that hides the RAM and the hard drive.

Take out the hard drive, and remove the shield by using a torx8 (or something else).

But the shield on your new drive (SATA 2,5’’) and do the steps backwards.

Start the Mac with your OS X installs DVD.
Partition your new drive
Connect your external drive (the one with your time machine backup)
Choose to restore from backup – and select the destination drive.
After a few hours your computer is back “in order”, just with your new hard drive!

Images from macinstruct.com

Replacing hard drive in MacBook

2010-07-26T01:17:00.002+02:00

I have reinstalled computers so many times – I don’t even know the number. When I was a student, I work in PricewaterhouseCoopers fixing computers. We installed computers for all new employees, and reinstalled them for software upgrades or if there was any problems. I moved on to PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, and was a part of the transition team when IBM took over the company. We reinstalled several hundred computers; it was from an image… but even that process was time consuming. I have installed my own computer back from windows 3.1 (floppy disks), via Windows98, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and now Windows 7… but it has always been something. There is always this driver missing, and when you have done the operating system, you need to find all your software, and then move all your files over.

Life is easier on Mac. We just have to face it. Buy a Mac – use it and enjoy it. Not sure what will be my mac product, but my next (private) computer will be “designed in California”.

So why this fan boy blog post? I reinstalled my wife’s MacBook this evening. After irritating myself over the fact that this arrogant company used torx8 screws around the hard disk to hold an EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) shield. In all my years fixing computers – Philips screwdrivers have done the job. Anyway. I don’t have a torx8 – but I had something that worked (ping me if you need to know).

After I booted the MacBook from the Snow Leopard DVD with its new 500GB Western SATA drive it asked me if I wanted to install a fresh copy of the OS, or use the Time Machine to get all my files from my backup. And that is what I did. So 3 hours later – I have everything… all files, all programs – everything back in order as it was 3 hours before I started – just on a bigger hard drive. This is a perfect way of saying – we rock!

Hotels stars

2010-07-17T09:10:00.001+02:00

Staying at hotels with different stars make you think about what the stars tell you. In general hotels with more stars are higher quality – but on our trip around Europe I really need to say something about 4 stars hotel in Denmark.

I have travelled a lot to the Copenhagen and to Stockholm because of projects; and normally stay at Radisson Blue, Scandic or Hilton as we get good rates at these hotels. I don’t mind staying at lower rates hotels, but I like to get the feeling that I get what I pay for. On our car trip we stayed at Novotel (Accor hotels) in Germany and Mercure (Accor hotels) in Switzerland. Great service, great rooms and the hotels are not too expensive. Two times we were even offered free rooms for the kids.

Novotel isn’t present in Denmark, and that is sad – because they would rock the world there. We stayed in 3 different hotels in Denmark. One Best Western, one non-brand and one Scandic. And all of them presented themselves as 4 stars hotels. I would have given them no more then 3 – maybe the non-brand was even a 2 two stars.

The best Western Hotel (Best Western Europe) was a nice hotel in the first city after the border between Germany and Denmark – and probably get a lot of visitors who did the same thing as us – stay at the first hotel after the boarder from a well-known brand. The hotel was ordinary, not 4 stars –but of the three hotels in Denmark the best. Free internet, minibar in the room, good breakfast and nice service.

Close to Legoland the prices was high, and there was no brand-hotels available. We stayed at Hotel Svanen their best feature was the short distance to Legoland. This hotel was after my scale a two stars hotel. Presenting themselves with four stars is just plain rude. They had the location close to Legoland – and that was it. The lady at the reception didn’t even talk to me when I checked out – she was one the phone(!).

In Fredrikshavn we stayed at “The Reef”. The hotel is a Scandic hotel, but The Reef is just a big swimming pool. The guests are there to swim or to wait for the ferry to Norway or Sweden. This is a very noisy hotel, people going to and from the swimming pool 24/7 making elevators and floors wet. The bar offered wine in plastic glasses, and they didn’t sell water on bottles in the bar that you could bring to the room. No room service, no bathtube and no minibar. So if you are not there to swim – stay somewhere else ;-) The nice thing about this hotel is the short drive to the ferry (on the other side of the road).

So I’ll start rating the hotels I stay at. Maybe I one day will present my Michelin guide ;-)

BTW… in the European Hotelstars Union you need to have bath tubs in all the rooms to get a 4 star rating – so Denmark – what are you doing to us?

Europe by Car (and Garmin)

2010-07-16T10:54:00.003+02:00

This year we decided to drive to Genève to visit my parents for our summer vacation. We started the trip by boat to Kiel (Germany) and started driving south. With two boys (1 and 3 years old) we didn’t know how long we could drive each day – so we planned with one week down, stay one week, and one week up again. I got a new Garmin for my birthday, so we used it to give us driving instructions. And it was great - accept I don’t understand why it drove us into downtown Hamburg – it can’t be faster than the highway?? The boys loved to drive, so we had fewer days on the road than planned. More time with my parents; and some spare time when we returned – just perfect!

I’ll write some more posts about the vacation shortly – but some tips:

Plan your trip (we had a goal, but decided day after day how long we would drive and where to stay)
Ensure you have help if something happens to your car
Bring some cash on the road (not all places accept credit cards)
Have a map in the car; if the GPS plays some tricks on you

Considering an iPad

2010-07-13T12:53:00.000+02:00

The other day I visited an Apple store and tried the new iPad. I have been really skeptic to this product, but I loved it – and I think I’ll buy one when they sell it with a Norwegian keyboard. I have said, and I still believe that the point of this product is minimal if you own an iPhone, and a small MacBook or Mac Air. And I still think that if you fully utilized your iPhone – you really love gadgets if you buy this one. But on the other side – I don’t have an iPhone or a MacBook, only my IBM issued Lenovo Thinkpad.

Euro policy must change

2010-06-12T11:11:00.001+02:00

I wrote some months ago about how the Euro is a good idea, but will fail if they don’t do big changes to it. It is time for a follow-up; as several European economies are struggling. Greece is the first country and currently the best example that a shared currency without shared financial policy isn’t working. You need to have the same tax regime, the same social policy and the willingness to go in the same direction for the whole zone sharing one currency. Since the countries still decide their own policies – the weakest economies will weaken the Euro. I think the Euro will stay around – but I think the strong economies will force the weak economies to accept that the federal government will put them under administration.

2010 Music Video

2010-06-04T10:01:00.005+02:00

This is summer - just have to post this video! Enjoy!

btw - it is Karpe Diem with "Ruter".

Back in work modus

2010-05-31T23:40:00.002+02:00

Now I am back at work after several weeks of paternity leave. I have worked some days in between when my wife has been at home to spread out my days at home. But now I am back at work – hopefully energized and ready to make a difference before I start my summer vacation some few weeks from now.

RyghSMS beta discontinued

2010-05-20T17:11:00.000+02:00

The RyghSMS beta started in July 2008 and had increasing number of users, and very good traffic made it an interesting project. However the traffic to the service has the last months dropped to a level where the cost of offering this service is too high compared to the value for the users. The service will therefore be discontinued as of today.

Can your plants tell you when they need water?

2010-05-08T10:04:00.004+02:00

Just ordered a Botanicalls Kit to enable one of our plants to tell me when it needs water. This is a really geeky tool - and I can't wait to put it together and test it!

I'll be back with more when I get it delivered!

7 days away from blog and twitter

2010-04-28T09:00:00.005+02:00

It has been 7 days (almost) off the grid. I have been checking my email once a day, and some short visits on facebook. But I haven’t blogged or posted on twitter. I have enjoyed all the time possible being on paternity leave – because in some short weeks will things go back to normal.

See you later!

What links on twitter do you click on?

2010-04-14T23:38:00.000+02:00

I am changing the way my blog updates ping-services that the blog is updated. I am including a ping to the feedburner-site to ensure that my RSS-feed will be as updated as possible (not the 30min delay); and I’ll update my twitter status with a link to my new feed. But I will change what will be in the status update. I have had the title plus as many words from the first paragraph (and the link) that I could fit into 140 characters. But based on the statistics from Google Analytics is these links less interesting to click on than my old setup with:

“MrNR-blog updated | “tittel” – URL.

So I will change back to it. I guess that is a better way of telling that the content is “by me” – and not just a link to something. The link will even a customized bitly.pro domain - a sub-domain on the same domain as my blog-domain.

Windows 7 Activation Error

2010-04-10T23:47:00.001+02:00

If you get the error 0x8007232B when you try to activate Windows 7, then you need to run these commands:

slmgr.vbs -ipk [your product key]

slmgr.vbs -ato

That is it! Run cmd as admin!

Windows 7 SP1 beta

2010-04-07T21:53:00.000+02:00

Microsoft has several times stated that the first service pack for Windows 7 not will arrive until later as they hare very happy with the current release. But Lifehacker wrote today that the service pack can be found via the usual Torrent sources.The service pack will only include fixes already distributed via Windows Update; the only new feature is the client for the new Remote Desktop platform RemoteFX.

Will you download the private beta?

Changing the way I manage my photos

2010-04-06T00:18:00.001+02:00

It has been overdue for some time, but I really need to change the way I manage my photos. I am not a professional photographer. But my wife and I do take a lot of pictures. It was manageable before we got children. But when I gave my wife a MacBook for her birthday when she was pregnant our common computer at home wasn’t longer the “main copy” of everything. We started to import images on both her Mac, and my laptop – and I took backups to the old computer. When we moved last year the computer was never unboxed again – and the storage was replaced with a NAS. Now I keep all my photos on my laptop – and I have several backups of all my files. The backup dump regularly to a hard drive located in my docking-station; and less regularly to usb2.0-drives. So from this perspective I have control.

I created a fancy photo solution for my homepage back in the days when I had a server at home; but I don’t publish as many pictures anymore. And the configuration was based on properties on each photo – something that is totally unmanageable when you take ten-thousands of pictures each year.

I have started to use Picasa to manage my photos. I don’t think this is the best photo editor program available, but Picasa is strong on meta-tagging. I can now just connect my camera and it will automatically import the pictures to the root-folder I chose, and then dump the pictures in a folder named with the date of import, or when the pictures was taken. I will sync almost all my pictures to Picasa Web; this is today about 100GB of data. The upload process take some time, but having all my photos available online from any computer is great.

Maybe my summer project should be to import all those 35mm photos from earlier days.

J.mp'ing to ON!

2010-04-04T22:37:00.000+02:00

I have just been invited to test bitly.pro, and I have now configured my account to use my own domain as my URL-shortner. I know my new “short” domain isn’t very short – but with this service I keep my name in the URL. I’ll let you know how this works out for me!

Family travelling

2010-03-31T09:00:00.000+02:00

We just returned from a great trip to Genève where we visited my parents. Some days enjoying the spring was a great break from winter in Oslo. And with up to 20 degrees we really felt the summer coming. The return to winter in Norway yesterday was not that fun; so tomorrow we’ll help the spring my moving some snow around with the boys.

Time has changed; in the last years I have travelled a lot because of work – but with my current assignment I stay in my home city. So when we travel by air – it is pleasure. I have lost my Star Alliance Gold card. And to Genève the only airline flying direct is Norwegian (the low price company). And I just have to say they make it work. I don’t like the way they price the “additional services”; like seating, paying by credit card… but when you have your ticket and passport – it just works. It probably work this well because this is a point-to-point travel. Travelling with children makes point-to-point travelling even more important.

And yes, we did bring home both coffee, chocolate and cheese.

Office 2010 activation error

2010-03-31T00:17:00.000+02:00

Have you installed the beta of Office 2010? Then you’ll probably get the activation error as the key you get when you download the beta software can’t be activated. You need to replace the product-key with one from this page. Good luck!

Do you remember Knol?

2010-03-24T10:30:00.000+01:00

The nextweb wrote in 2008 that Knol would beat Wikipedia:

“Even Google noted that Knol is not designed to compete with Wikipedia, but you have to admit that from a online knowledge-base perspective, the sites are quite similar. Knol might become the preferred choice in this field within a very short time.”

So… do you remember knol?? I don't. But it is still out there. You can find it on: knol.google.com. I don't think Google think it will be the next "search", and I guess they have moved on to voice, buzz and phones. But it is funny to read what the big web 2.0 sites wrote about these services 2-3 years ago.

Seamless IE6 in windows 7 using XP mode

2010-03-23T10:00:00.000+01:00

I like to use cutting edge technology. I work in a company that enables me to use both Linux and OS X, but based on the applications I need to use – windows is the easiest choice. But I don’t use the standard image. I use the latest build of the latest OS from Microsoft. Windows 7 has been a very stable and good OS – maybe the best ever from Microsoft. And one of the features making it really great (especially with the shared hardware functionality) is the XP mode. It is a virtual XP workspace. One of the web applications I need at work has the following requirements:

Windows XP
Internet Explorer 6.0

And this is easily solved with Windows XP mode in windows 7. I have even made the application available in my windows 7 start menu. This is done by creating a short cut in the following folder in the virtual XP machine:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu

The short-cut I created was

"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" http://my_url

Cutting edge technology - now and then

2010-03-22T22:36:00.004+01:00

Cello in parts
Originally uploaded by Violinmaker Jacob von der Lippe

One of my friends (Jacob) is a violinmaker (or as I like to say cellomaker). Browsing his site makes me think about different ways of work. His work that creates beautiful instruments is something totally different than my technology focused work. But when the first violins where created – it was cutting edge technology.

So now you know what I will buy if I win the lottery :-)

First week with Dual-SIM Mobile from #Samsung

2010-03-22T09:00:00.002+01:00

I ordered my Samsung C5212 in the start of February, but it took some time before it arrived. The phone isn’t a smart phone, it isn’t a multimedia phone – it is “just a phone”; or maybe more correct it is “two phones in one”. It has the basic functions, talking, SMS, MMS, email and a camera. It even has a FM-radio. It has a browser (not a very good browser. I would say you WAP and not browse pages). It has GPRS/EDGE, but not 3G. The menus are easy but simple. Battery capacity is good, and the voice quality is great. But this isn’t way this phone is the perfect phone. The possibility to have two SIM cards is great. I use one number for work and one number for friends and family. Only having one handset is perfect. Bot numbers are available; and you easily change between the two numbers when you make a call or send a message. You can turn off one of the numbers, have different ring tones and (not that I think it will ever be needed) have two calls to each number.

This phone, or more to the point, this functionality is brilliant for travellers. When you travel to another country – you can put a local SIM card in your phone to use more attractive rates. Or you can use SIM cards from different providers to ensure that you get the best deals for calls or data traffic. This is why this type of phone will have problems winning the market. The big operators like AT&T, Vodaphone, Telenor, TeliaSonera etc – will not like you to have this option. Samsung’s experiment will be interesting to follow. Because if this functionality is accepted by the consumer as a key feature that will enable them to get more choices – then we’ll see smart phones with this functionally. Having you iPhone loaded with two SIM cards… one that gives you free local calls, and one with fixed data traffic – that will change the business model for the mobile industry.

This phone isn’t the perfect phone – but this functionality is.

Opt-out plugin for Google Analytics on way from Google

2010-03-19T23:34:00.000+01:00

Google tells us in a blog post that they are developing a browser plug-in that will enable users to change how Google Analytics is collecting data when they browse Google Analytics enabled sites. This is a big change for sites owners as Google Analytics provides key data not only on number of vistors, but also trends in how users use/visits their sites. This complex tool collects a lot of data; and I understand from a privacy perspective that some users are worried about how the data about them are used. But the data collected by Google isn't hidden even if Google develop a browser plug-in that stops the browser from telling the Google Analytics server. All the data is available in the browser request - so the only way to stay "hidden" is to hide. You can hide by using a proxy; or by no visiting a site. For blogs reading the RSS feed is one way; but keep in mind that services like feedburner (another Google service) keeps track of reader stats too. So I guess if privacy is an issue - hide ;-)

I use both feedburner for my RSS-feed, and Google Analytics for my sites. I don't use the data collected to track each user, I use the data to see trends in numbers of page views, visitors, time on site etc. I see that when I write about topics like twitter, google, apple (iphone, itunes etc), web 2.0 in general and hacks in specifics - I get more readers. When I post daily - readers return more often. If I am away for a week, it takes a long time before my regular visitors return. And the numbers of subscribers increase more than the number of web visitors - telling me that the web 2.0 crowd I see as my audience subscribe if they find my stuff interesting the first time they visit.

So what to do? Don't visit sites you don't want to be associated with.

Do you want to post to twitter via a Norwegian Mobile number?

2010-03-19T10:58:00.002+01:00

Do you want to send SMS to twitter? Now you can with the SMS service from RyghSMS. RyghSMS posts your SMS twitter (and/or identica). The beta has been closed for a long time, but RyghSMS will today have it's sign-up form open for all.

What to do?

Register here: Signup RyghSMS
Send your tweets via +47xxxxxxxx

Enjoy!!

Moving your itunes libary to a new computer

2010-03-17T10:46:00.001+01:00

I have reinstalled my laptop, and I want to move my music and video files over. I have a backup of all my CDs... so it is more than 100gb I want to import. I don't want them to be copied over to my laptop, but I want the files to be available when my external drive is connected. To do this I used iTunes Library Updater. This nice tool compares the current library with the folders you want it to check, and then syncs in the new media files. This is good when you want to import 24000 files. A normal "add folder" in iTunes will make the application "not respond".

Nice features like "Get Album Art" is next!