The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘MacBook-Air’ Category

Retina MacBook Pro: extending battery life by disabling the discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/14

One of the big differences between my old 13-inch MacBook Air and (fairly new) 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro was the predictability of battery usage.

The MacBook Air lasts between 4-5 hours. The Retina MacBook anywhere between 3-5 hours.

I finally found out the cause: Chrome, Remote Desktop and VMware Fusion will often (VMware fusion immediately) switch to the  discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics. Which uses a lot more battery (but less memory) than the integrated Intel HD 4000. Though both can drive the retina display at 2800×1600 (see Retina MacBook Pro Pushes the Limits of its Graphics Capabilities – Mac Rumors) the latter is better suited for the road warrior.

But still having the need for Chrome, Remote Desktop and VMware Fusion, I wanted a way to block switching to discrete graphics.

Luckily, quite a few sites describe how to do that:

The all come down to installing gfxCardStatus by cody krieger.

Steps to force integrated graphics: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Apple, Mac, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | 3 Comments »

Find my MacBook with “Find My iPhone” Service

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/31

So I won’t forget when setting up a new MacBook from scratch: enable the “Find my Mac”  feature:

Find my MacBook with “Find My iPhone” Service? – Online Tech Support Help from Ask Dave Taylor!®.

It makes it easier to do things like this: osx – How to find my stolen Macbook – Super User.

I might actually install Open source anti-theft solution for laptops, phones & tablets – Prey as well.

–jeroen

Posted in Apple, Mac, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Mac OS X: editing ~/.bash_profile using TextEdit

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/05/10

Finder on your Mac by default does not show hidden files, and the console has vi, which lots of people find awkward to use.

There is an easy trick to open a hidden file like ~/.bash_profile (for instance to add an alias) with a visual text editor.

Just execute this in your terminal:

  • Always with TextEdit
    open -e ~/.bash_profile
  • For the default text editor (usually TextEdit)
    open -t ~/.bash_profile
  • For a specific text editor (in this cast TextWrangler)
    open -b com.barebones.textwrangler ~/.bash_profile

The man open(1) page has more information on the parameters you can pass to open.

–jeroen

PS: You can teach Finder to Quickly show and hide hidden files | Finder, Terminal | Mac OS X Tips.

Posted in Apple, bash, Development, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Power User, Scripting, Software Development | 6 Comments »

Mac Photo/Slideshow Viewer that supports recursion: Phoenix Slides

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/02/18

Phoenix Slides is a great tiny (about 600 kilobyte) slide show viewer for Mac OS/X that supports directory recursion.

Great! Finally I can use my Mac (-Mini server, or -Book Air) showing pictures the way I want it to show them (:

Features

  • fast (pre-cached) full-screen slideshows
  • rotate/zoom in slideshow
  • fast JPEG thumbnails (uses Epeg)
  • lossless JPEG rotation
  • view EXIF data, JPEG comments
  • search subfolders (recursively) for images
  • move files to trash, set image as desktop
  • supports drag and drop, Finder aliases
  • Localizations: Chinese, German, Spanish, French
  • Universal binary (runs on Intel Macs)

–jeroen

via Phoenix Slides.

Posted in Apple, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Some interesting USB devices to add more than 2 monitors to your PC or Mac (via: USB Graphics – Graphic solutions GeForce & Radeon)

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/11/09

Thanks to Matthijs ter Woord who pointed me to these.

They require a single Intel®, Nvidia®, or AMD® primary WDDM driver. That driver does the actual rendering, the USB device then gets the rendered parts over USB to the monitor.

The really cool thing is: they work on a PC with Windows XP and higher, and on  Mac with OS X Tiger or better.

The chipsets are based on DisplayLink technology; they have their own USB devices as well.

USB2.0 to DVI-I Graphics

CSV-2000D – SenseVision USB Graphics – USB2.0 to DVI-I

USB2.0 to DVI-I graphics devices let you easily add an additional monitor to your notebook PC, desktop and MacBook®. The Club 3D SenseVision USB2.0 to DVI-I Graphics allows you to extend your desktop display beyond 1080p HD resolution displays. … View Details

USB2.0 to HDMI Graphics

CSV-2000H – SenseVision USB Graphics – USB2.0 to HDMI

USB2.0 to HDMI graphics devices let you easily add an additional monitor to your notebook PC, desktop and MacBook®. The Club 3D SenseVision USB2.0 to HDMI Graphics allows you to extend your desktop display beyond 1080p HD resolution displays. … View Details

–jeroen

via: USB Graphics – Graphic solutions GeForce & Radeon.

Posted in Apple, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Leave a Comment »

Resetting the SMC again solved my MacBook Air Fan Noise With Lion problem

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/10/24

Today, my MacBook Air again kept keeping the fan speed at high, even though nothing was using CPU or other power.

So I again resolved it by following: Resetting the SMC solved my MacBook Air Fan Noise With Lion problem « The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff.

The not so cool thing is that this ONLY works if your Mac is connected to a Power Source.

–jeroen

Posted in Apple, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Zero-day Java exploit fixed: Either update Java immediately, or disable it if you don’t use/need it

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/08/31

On monday, I wrote it was Time to disable Java for a while: Zero-Day Season is Not Over Yet.

Today Oracle released a fix, which you should either install immediately (that is NOW, don’t hesitate!).

For this vulnerability, it is enough to disable Java from your browser – see: How to disable Java in your web browser – but as with any software: if you don’t need it, just disable/uninstall it.

Disabling/uninstalling on a Mac may impose a problem, as Apple hasn’t come with an update for the OS X editions that came with Java pre-installed.

Most other users can either install the version on their current system on-line from Download Free Java Software, or download offline installers for other systems at Java Downloads for All Operating Systems.

I might actually try the Java Unattended Silent Installer and Updater from Ninite – Install or Update Multiple Apps at Once.

–jeroen

via:

 

Posted in *nix, Apple, LifeHacker, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Time to disable Java for a while: Zero-Day Season is Not Over Yet

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/08/27

Hmm, time to disable Java for a while:

Malware Intelligence Lab from FireEye – Research & Analysis of Zero-Day & Advanced Targeted Threats:Zero-Day Season is Not Over Yet.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, Apple, Chrome, Google, Linux, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | 3 Comments »

SSH tricks

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/08/24

SSH tricks

SSH tricks

Recommended reading:  SSH tricks

Quote:

SSH is a protocol for authenticating and encrypting remote shell sessions.

But, using SSH for just remote shell sessions ignores 90% of what it can do.

$ ssh home -L 80:reddit.com:80

This article covers less common SSH use cases, such as:

  • using passwordless, key-based login;
  • setting up local per-host configurations;
  • exporting a local service through a firewall;
  • accessing a remote service through a firewall;
  • executing commands remotely from scripts;
  • transfering files to/from remote machines;
  • mounting a filesystem through SSH; and
  • triggering admin scripts from a phone.

–jeroen

via: SSH tricks.

Posted in *nix, Apple, Cygwin, Endian, Internet, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Mac OS X: Copy and paste the full path of a file in the Finder (via: Reality Distortion)

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/07/27

FilePathToClipCMPlugin is a live saver.

  1. Download it.
  2. Open the .dmg
  3. Open a new Finder window
  4. Point it to the folder “/Library/Contextual Menu Items/” or to “˜/Library/Contextual Menu Items/” (create the latter if it does not exist).
  5. Drag the required plugins there
  6. Restart your machine (restarting the Finder did not work for me)

–jeroen

via: Copy and paste the full path of a file in the Finder — Reality Distortion: Macs, Mac OS X, and Apple stuff.

Posted in Apple, Clipboard, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, Power User | Leave a Comment »