My “How To” guides on various things
I bought a broadband dongle from 3 Mobile about 3.5 years ago. I’ve barely used it and, to be honest, it’s really just for emergencies. For this reason, it’s good to know I have it, just in case.
Installing it on my MacBook Pro, however, was not quite as smooth as the 3 help pages would suggest, though. After installing the software included on the dongle it simply wouldn’t recognise the device. It wasn’t until I found the latest drivers and installed them that it worked.
I now have a Mac after having used a Windows PC all my life (and will continue to do so, I should add). Moving to a different OS is a bit of a shock and there’s a lot to learn. So, here are some tips based on what I have learnt so far…
Don’t assume all your favourite programs for Windows are available for Mac
Make a list of them and search for their Mac equivalents. They may be the same, there may be an equivalent built in or you may have to search for a new program. If you have to go down the latter route, I’d recommend looking for an alternative that works on both platforms, so you can then replace it on your Windows PC as well.
Personal examples include…
Don’t just go out and download software you know from using Windows
Having made the previous point, you should also bear this in mind too. There is an awful lot of good software and utilities built into Mac – give some time to explore what you have before downloading another program. You may not need it, after all.
Get a book
Whilst waiting for your shiny new Mac to turn up get a book on using OS X – particularly one that’s up-to-date with the version of OS X that you’re going to get.
Think about all those little things you do on Windows now and find out how to do them on the Mac
You know, how do you kill an application? Can you boot into safe mode? This article should help with a lot of these – Google for any other than you think of.
Apple provide a site to help those who are switching from Windows to OS X. Unfortunately, it’s out-of-date and I couldn’t find essential help such as how to install a program in OS X (rather a basic task, you’ll agree).
Here are a few other thing hat I found that you might find useful – many of which cover features in Windows that you might search for in OS X and, in some cases, you simply can’t do…
Reading a lot of forums and blogs on accessories that Macbook owners recommend, it seems that they like nothing better than to put plastic covers on their keyboard. And trackpad. And screen. And on their cover. And put their Macbook on a stand in case they spill anything.
Personally, I can’t see the point in buying a good looking and very robust laptop and then covering it up. I can’t imagine that a plastic cover over the keyboard can’t hinder typing – and quite how you’ll easily damage a glass trackpad, heaven knows.
How much for a mouse?
There seems to be a distinct lack of market when it comes to Apple mice, except those that Apple sell. And at £50 a pop it’s an expensive market. I’ll stick with the trackpad.
Other things I’ve learnt
After Googling and forum posting, here are a few other things I’ve had answered…
If you think I’ve missed anything, please let me know.
I’m going to assume you know what I mean by the new cookie regulations. Anyway, they came into force on the 26th May 2012 although the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) is saying that it has no plans to fine people immediately. Instead they will instigate action when a user complains via a webpage that the ICO have not yet set up. Even then they are more likely to ask you to make changes before going as far as fining you. Never-the-less, there is a potential $500,000 so it’s important that if the changes do apply to you, to do something about it. Of course, you can also complain about the law.
There are a number of plugins currently available in the WordPress.org repository which can assist you with meeting the requirements and I’ve looked at each to see what they offer and what they lack.
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My recent review of the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 tablet revealed that although it’s an excellent bit of hardware for the money it does suffer from some bugs and it would appear that Lenovo are not going to support it very much in the future – certainly not to the point of upgrading the version of Android on it.
Because of this I made the decision to “root” my A1 and install an alternative version of Android on it. CyanogenMod is widely recognised as one the best alternative versions, and even has companies such as Samsung assisting them. The advantage this will give me is that there are a team of developers behind this who will, hopefully, iron out some of the tablet’s bugs that Lenovo appear reluctant to spend time on.
I came across a thread on the XDA Developers forum where details on the process were being discussed, but this was pitched at a level of user with some knowledge of the process. I had none. I therefore got in touch with Graham Markall, the person who started the forum thread and has put together the required files and instructions on how to do this. He talked me through, via an IRC chat, the entire process which I have now documented. If you are therefore interested in installing CyanogenMod on a Lenovo A1 then you can follow the instructions below.
To give you an idea of timescales, after already downloading the requisite files and adding them to the SD card, it took me 10-15 minutes to get to the stage where CyanogenMod was installed and working.
If you have any problems then there are some contact details at the bottom.
Installing CyanogenMod 7 isn’t going to fix all those niggling faults with the IdeaPad – you’ll find they occur just the same. The developers do intend to fix all those problems – it’s just taking a while. In additional, CyanogenMod is going to introduce other problems. Here are the post-CyanogenMod issues that I’ve come across…
Here are the downloads you’ll need. Grab them now and install them either on an internal or external SD card. Don’t unzip anything – literally put them on the card as they are.
ClockworkMod is needed for making backups of your system and for installing different ROMs. Assuming you downloaded it at the first stage and now have it on SD card, here is what you need to do to install it…
1. Power off the IdeaPad.
2. Hold down volume down and turn the power back on, keeping volume down held until the tablet boots up to an image of an arrow out of a box with an android (this is the stock recovery).
3. Wait whilst ClockworkMod recovery installs. The progress bar should fill up.
4. Once the installation has finished, you should see a green tick in a green triangle and the IdeaPad will power off.
5. You can now power on as normal to get back to Android, or power on with volume down held to get into ClockworkMod recovery.
Before making any major changes to your system, it’s important to make a backup.
There’s a slight complication, which is due to the fact that ClockworkMod needs to backup four partitions to save everything: system, cache, data, and ramdisk but the version we’re using only backs up system, cache, and data.
However, the ramdisk can be restored by installing it using a zip file from ClockworkMod. There are three or four different versions of the ramdisk. The latest 2643, is available to download from the ClockworkMod link listed above, so if you’re on this version of the stock system then it doesn’t matter that you can only backup three partitions. If you want to go back to stock, you can download the zip for that ramdisk, install it from ClockworkMod the same way you install CyanogenMod7, then restore your backup and reboot.
The best thing to do therefore is to absolutely ensure that your IdeaPad is fully up-to-date before commencing (simply go into Settings -> About Tablet-> System updates).
Ok, here’s how to do the backup…
There is only one kernel on the A1, and if the kernel causes problems (unlikely, but it’s better to save yourself the risk) you won’t be able to boot normally or into recovery. Being able to boot into Fastboot mode gives you a way out of this by allowing you to flash a kernel through USB. Basically, it’s an emergency measure, but one worth protecting yourself with.
To enter Fastboot mode, hold volume up when powering on. The screen turns red when in Fastboot mode. You can get out of it by holding down the power button for 10 seconds, or running Fastboot reboot. Recovery is volume down as usual.
As previously mentioned, CyanogenMod doesn’t come with Google integration, including the Marketplace and syncing abilities. These will therefore need to be added separately.
Assuming you downloaded the required file earlier and added to the SD card you’ll need (again) to boot into ClockworkMod and install the file as you did CyanogenMod – just don’t do a factory reset afterwards!
This will add the necessary Google integration, although some apps (such as Gmail) you’ll need to download from the Marketplace.
Let me say now – I am not the person to ask for help! I was guided through the above by someone who knew what has was doing and it worked for me first time. Yes, there were some “issues” but I resolved all of these with liberal use of Google – I’d recommend the same.
I’m not sure why, and I don’t appear to be the only person reporting this, but recently my favicons have disappeared from my Firefox installs. Although it’s only affected 2 out of the 3 Firefox installations that I use (one XP and the other Windows 7 – the one unaffected is also Windows 7). In all 3 cases I’m running the latest Firefox installation and my bookmarks are synchronised via Xmarks (ironically I don’t use Firefox’s built in Sync because it doesn’t synchronise the favicons).
The problem is, reloading my bookmarks from the Xmarks server doesn’t resolve the issue. Indeed, if I visit one of the sites the favicon doesn’t update, which it should do. This, to me, suggests a corruption – as, indeed, does the solution. However, why this has suddenly happened to 2 installations is a mystery – an update to Xmarks or Firefox maybe?
Anyway, the solution I’ve found is a pain, but works.
It’s now done. However, you also have a new profile so you’ll need to set it back up again, synchronise your existing settings, etc. It might be the case that you can export the bookmarks and put back, successfully, into your original profile. However, because of the original issues I wouldn’t trust it – I believe the profile has somehow become corrupt, which is why I’m recommend a new profile (besides it’s good to do it every-so-often and clear out some of the accumulated crud).
