Tag Archives: mac

Finally Found a Good Web Page Capture App…

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I finally found a great free app for the Mac that will capture a whole web page from Safari. I’ve been trying to find a free app, but haven’t found one I liked.

The app is called Skitch and I’ve actually been using for a while now. I just discovered the web page capture function today by accident. The commandto capture a web page from Safari is Snap Safari under the Capture menu item.

I’ve use a Firefox plugin called Pixlr Grabber for work, but it crashes so much. Every time I release final files for a HTML emails, I need to send along a screenshot of the whole page and the Mac’s built in screenshot only captures a portion of the screen. I think Skitch will help me out a lot.

MacBook Hard Drive Replacement…

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I have a spare 500GB SATA hard drive that I’m not using, so I decided to replace the 250GB internal hard drive. I bought the 500GB hard drive a while back to try to fix my old Mac mini, but I never got it to work again, so I gave up.

For reference, I’m using the article “Simple Hard Drive Cloning/Backup with Carbon Copy Cloner” for step by step directions:

First step was to get a 2.5″ Hard Drive Enclosure so I can clone my existing MacBook internal hard drive to the new one. I got a cheap Vantec NexStar TX 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Enclosure from Amazon for under $10. Once I got this in the mail. I installed the new 500GB drive into it, plugged it into my MacBook and formatted it.

Cloning Todipoli Hard Drive

Next, I download the Carbon Copy Cloner app to clone my existing drive onto the new one.

After more than 3 hours of copying files over, I shut down the MacBook, opened the back panel and unscrewed the internal hard drive. I then swtiched it with the new drive… powered it on… and it booted up with everything pretty much the same. The only big difference was that I have way more hard drive space.

Available Space

Now, I’ll keep the original hard drive (in the USB hard drive enclosure) for a couple months, just in case something goes wrong with the new drive.

MacJournal

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I’ve been manually transferring my journal entries from my old blog to this one, but haven’t quite completed the process.

As, I was trying out an app called MacJournal, I discovered a slightly easier way to transfer entries from one blog to another than using a web browser (which was hoe I was doing it). I still have to do each entry manually, but I don’t have to copy/paste/enter entry dates/etc.

Here’s how I did it:

1. First, I created a New Journal for old blog. I’ll name this “Old Journal”… I then connect the old blog to “Old Journal” by selecting Journal > Edit Blog Setting… (Follow the steps to add the blog)

2. I then created another journal for my current blog (the one you’re reading) following the same steps as above.

3. I then downloaded all the blog entries to MacJournal using Journal > Download Entries from Blog… Now I can see all my entries from my old blog.

4. I selected an entry from my old blog, right-click it, then select Share > Send to other blog…

[Update]

So, as I was transferring my entries from my old blog to this one, I noticed that some of the formatting got messed up when the entries were downloaded from the old blog to MacJournal. Also, I can’t figure out how to look at the HTML code directly; I can only see it WYSIWYG… so I was also losing the LJ-cuts… so I think I will stick to manually transferring using a web browser for now… It’ll just take longer, but I’ll just do it in batches…

Friday Tweets…

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  • 12:35pm Going to the cemetery to visit my father. He passed away 7 years ago on this day… … I miss you Tatay! #
  • 2:53pm It’s 2:53!!!… Wacka-wack… #
  • 4:46pm is driving my Mom around town to do her errands and of course go shopping… #
  • 5:56pm is Island Pacificing… #
  • 8:00pm is Seafood Citying… #
  • 9:15pm I’m going to attempt to cook another clay pot dish. This time, veggies in a peanut sauce… #
  • 10:46pm Bought 9 seed packets from 99c Only Stores for just 99c: Flowering Kale, Aster, Statice, Larkspur, Tomato, Celsosia. 11c each :) #
  • 11:07pm I didn’t know I can use Apple’s Image Capture program to scan from our fax/scanner/printer. No need for a scanning app or Photoshop plugin. #

New iMac Hard Drive…

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On Christmas Eve, my 20" iMac’s hard drive began to fail and intermittently work and not work. When I tried using my account, the spinning rainbow ball would just spin and spin and it would take forever to get something to work, so I remembered just forcing the iMac off by pressing the power button.

After a while, it eventually died and all I got was a flashing folder icon with a question mark… so the iMac would no longer start.

I talked with an Apple Support person about a week ago and they told me the the iMac had all the symptoms of a dead hard drive. He said that since it’s out of warranty, I can either try to fix it myself by buying a new hard drive and installing it myself. He even suggested searching YouTube for "hard drive iMac replacement". The second option was to bring it into an Authorized Apple Center, which was Macvolk in Concord.

I opted for the later, since the videos on YouTube were really intimidating… plus I tried to replace the hard drive on my Mac mini and I think I killed it, since it does work. I called Macvolk, and told them I would try to find a day off and bring it in.

Earlier this week, I was telling our Mark (our I.T. guy) and Ed (my coworker) and they suggest that I fix it myself. They said I can do it… hehe… plus they said I can get a 1TB hard drive for under $100… so that’s what I did…

I got the hard drive yesterday in the mail and with the help of iFixIt’s hard drive replacement guide. I embarked on repairing the iMac myself. I was nervous about opening the iMac up and bring it, but after getting through a few stumbling blocks, it started up…

iMac Innards (3)  iMac Innards (1)

I also decided to document it by taking time lapse photos of my progress. I use my regular XSi camera, but I also used my new PlantCam time lapse camera.

When I review the photos, I noticed that the PlantCam didn’t take photos of my whole progress. It stopped in the middle of it. I then realized that it was because the PlantCam has a programmed shut off time (so the camera would not take photos in the dark if placed outside)… and the time was set to 12 midnight… Oh well…

So after I got the hard drive replace and iMac put back together, I restarted it with a Mac OS X install disk and it worked… It took a while to install the base Mac OS X, since the hard drive was blank… so I left to continue overnight and now I’m installing other programs into it.

One last thought, I think I should get a portable hard drive to use as a backup for this iMac, using Time Machine… If I backup it up before, I could have just restored all the data… There are five accounts on the iMac now and since the hard drive fail, all that data is pretty much lost…

Friday Tweets…

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  • 9:52pm I’m wondering what will happen if I post something that is longer than 140 characters long in TwitBird Pro. Dangit tl.gd/32kge #
  • 10:57pm is going to attempt to replace the broken hard drive in my 20″ iMac… Wish me luck… (I hope I don’t break it) #

Air Mouse Pro (Remote/Trackpad) iPhone App

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I just stumbled across a really cool iPhone app called Air Mouse Pro that allows you to use your iPhone as an air mouse, trackpad or remote for your computer. I bought it (for 99¢) and played around with it for a little bit here at work and it seems to work okay. I usedit mostly as a trackpad, since the air mouse mode takes some getting use to.