Category Archives: Mac Stuff

Problems with Mountain Lion running in Windows 7 VMware Workstation 9

Posted on 05/09/2012 | Leave a comment

I was using a Hackintosh on my previous Quad2core desktop before upgarde to i7 3630k. I need more processing power to setup my Cisco study lab. I need to learn about their ISE, the CUCM, CUPS, NCS, UCCX, etc. After I have a i7 3630k, I have decided run VMWare EXSi 5, however, for some reason, it doesn’t recognize my Network Card and I was unable to install VMware EXIs 5.

I have installed Windows 7 Professional 64 bit and purchased the VMWare Workstation 9 to run VM on top of windows. I am happy with the result so far. Having 4 – 6 VM running with CPU load at lower than 20% most of the time, I know I can run a few more VMs.

Since I was using a Hackintosh, I would like to setup a Mac OS VM and mount my old file system back.
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Apple has updated their product tech spec info

Posted on 05/02/2012 | Leave a comment

I noticed that all the battery life information on the Apple Mac Book products line has been updated. I remember previously they have listed the battery life of a MacBook Air is 10 hours. However, ever since their Battery Problem on Lion, a lot of reports/complaints about battery life. What happened now after they released 10.7.3?? IMO, They are unable to fix the battery problem, but changed their product spec from 10 hours to 7 hours.

I have downloaded the 10.7.3 on my 2011 MBP, when I was using 10.6.8, I could easily get 7 – 8 hours of battery life. After installed the 10.7 (Lion), my battery life dropped to 2 hours only. And then after applying the SMC reset fix, it can last up to 5 hours.

I am testing it with 10.7.3 with 50% brightness, fully charged, 1 hour of web browsing on WiFi, it dropped 15%. So 10.7.3 can improve a little bit of battery life. In my test, it can run for approximately 7 hours.

There are a lot discussions on the net about this Lion Battery Problem. Someone even test this by re-installing the OS, compare SL and Lion. In all the tests people have done, Lion uses more power and need more battery. I think this may be one of the reason, Apple updated the web site, MBA battery from 10hours down to 7hours (due to the bad Lion OS).

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Mac OS 10.7.3 is released. Will that fix the battery problem?

Posted on 05/02/2012 | 1 comment

I’ve just realised Apple has released 10.7.3 update for Lion OS. I have been reading / searching for the update about the battery problem. I did mention that the SMC reset fixed my battery problem, that fix plus the gfxCardStatus Apps helps a lot to improve battery life. However, my MBP is never able to reach that battery life prior to the Lion upgrade.

I am going to download the new update, have the MBP reset back to factory and test the battery life again.

According to Apple, the 10.7.3 will fix the following….
Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support
Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X
Address compatibility issues with Microsoft Windows file sharing
Address an issue printing Microsoft Word documents that use markup
Address a graphics performance issue after sleep on some earlier iMacs that use ATI graphics

Resolve a Wi-Fi connection issue when waking from sleep
Address an issue that may prevent Safari from opening before joining a wireless network
Fix a potential issue authenticating to an SMB DFS share
Include RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras

The graphics performance issues may be related to the battery problem, I will see if that fix the battery problem.

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Print Screen (Screen Capture) on Mac OS X

Posted on 03/02/2012 | 1 comment

There are few ways to do screen capture in Mac OS X.
Follow the steps below and you will be able to do a screen capture in Mac OS X.

Switch to the screen that you want to do screen capture
Hold down Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 3 and release all
then use your mouse to click on the screen
Done. You will see a picture file in at your desktop. That’s the screen capture picture.

You can also do a screen capture for a portion of your screen.
Switch to the screen that you want to do screen capture
Hold down Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 4 and release all key
Now, You will see the mouse cursor will change to +
You can start to drag your mouse to select the portion you wish to capture.
Once finish, you will see a picture file in at your desktop. That’s the screen capture picture!

If you want to do a screen capture for a particular application window, you can follow this:-
Switch to the screen that you wan to to do screen capture
Hold down Apple key ⌘ + Shift + 4 and release all key
Now, You will see the mouse cursor will change to +
Press the space bar once
You will see the mouse cursor change to a camera
Now you can use the camera to select which application window to screen capture
Once finish, you will see a picture file in at your desktop. That’s the screen capture picture!

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iPhone4s (should it be called iPhone For Steve?)

Posted on 14/10/2011 | Leave a comment

Today iPhone4S released in Australia. I have already reserved one for myself yesterday. I am currently using an iPhone 4 32GB and I still have 22GB left in the Phone. So this time, I am not going to go for 32GB or 64GB. I have ordered myself a 16GB iPhone4S. I believe one of the reasons the I ordered the iPhone4S is because of the Siri function. After reading some reviews and the online instructions from Apple web site, sound like this Siri really can make my life easier!!

I drive a lot – spending at least 2 hours on the road everyday a voice command support on the phone will really helps. I have used the Google Nexus one and I did use the voice dictation for sms input. I think Apple has taken this a step futher, because looking at the demo, it understands your word not only dictation what you say but also action on what you said.

i.e. “remind me to call mum tomorrow”, it will set a remind in your phone.

I really want to test it once I have got my new iPhone 4 S, it will be interesting to test out my Chinese-Accent English.

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Mac Lion 10.7.1 Released, but…..

Posted on 23/08/2011 | Leave a comment

I have updated to 10.7.1 few days ago. Test it and I didn’t notice any different to 10.7.0. May be after I have done the SMC and the maunal graphic card switching which have already resolved my short battery life issue. I did a search on google about what is updated in 10.7.1 and I found that the problem it listed I didn’t notice any of them while I am using that on my MBP.

The main concerns for other people still the battery issues on OS x Lion. However, there is no word about battery life improvement on the 10.7.1 and some people have also confirmed that 10.7.1 make no changes to battery life.

Look like only a few people are lucky enough like myself who can fix their battery life issue with SMC reset and the maunal graphic card switch trick.

Come on Apple, can you confirm your OS works properly before releasing them?

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Thanks to Dilin who found a real fix to Lion Battery Problem

Posted on 05/08/2011 | Leave a comment

Dilin has made a comment on the post about the battery problem with Lion. He found a real fix to have the battery life back to where it was in SL. I am going to follow his intruction and test it. For now, I am going to advertise the fix here. (I think my blog somehow always in the first page in google search……..

The link is here

http://www.shaasthra.com/2011/08/revealed-mac-os-x-lion-battery-drain.html

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More Problem caused by Lion

Posted on 03/08/2011 | Leave a comment

I realised one more problem caused by Lion – My little snitch firewall is not working any more after upgraded from Lion.

I noticed this because I haven’t recieve the warning message from that for a long time and when I went into the configuration, it said the file is corrupted and I need to reinstall it.

I have read someone saying that the Lion upgrade also create troubles for other software on the forum. I think Lion is really giving people a lot of headache.

Sotfware crash, battery, preformance downgrade,…… I am sure this list is growthing is Apple is not going to release a “fix” for all the that…..

I used to love my MBP, but I started to feel sick of it now…..

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A Fix for MAC OS X Lion reduces Battery Life

Posted on 26/07/2011 | 20 comments

I tried to find out if there is a fix to the shorten battery life after the Max OS X Lion upgrade. Finally,  I found a fix. At this stage I am not sure if this is a real fix because I haven’t waited long enough to see how long my Mac Book Pro can last after a full charged. I can confirm that this is a real fix after I tested it for a few hours without the power supply connected to my mac book pro. I could get 6 -7 hours under normal use (before apply the fix, I could only get 3 hours use). If you are having a shorten battery life issue after you upgraded your MBP to Lion. I highly recommend you try the follow step. According to the Apple Support forum, these keys are to reset the power management module in the MBP.

The method was posted on Apple Support Forum as follow:

**** Thanks Justin’s comment below, please ensure you have the power supply connected when you do this****
1. Turn off the computer.
2. Hold down Ctrl+Option+shift
3. While holding down these button, press and hold the power button as well.
4. Hold all buttons for at least ten seconds.
5. power back on the computer.

After I have done this, at 98% battery level the battery life timing was showing 9:15. It seems longer than beforer I upgrade. Anyways, this reading at least make me feel more comfortable. I will let it run and see how the battery consumption is like after applying this “fix”.

*****Update : Please follow Dilin’s blog for a better fix. http://www.shaasthra.com/2011/08/revealed-mac-os-x-lion-battery-drain.html

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Mac OS X Lion SHORTEN the battery life on my Mac Book Pro

Posted on 25/07/2011 | 12 comments

I have a Mac Book Pro early 2011 version running on a 2.2 quad core i7, before I upgraded to Lion, when I fully charged the battery indicator always display 5+ hours of battery life. However, as soon as I have upgraded to Lion, even I have fully charged my Mac Book Pro, the battery life indicator has never display anything over 4 hours.

I then go to change some energy saving setting, adjust the brightness, etc and finally can squeeze the battery timer up to 4:30. However, I still can see a significant shorten life of the battery.

In summary, in my personal experience of this Lion upgrade (+ some other articles online), I am quite certain that the current Mac OS X Lion (10.7) is using a lot more power than it previous OS (10.6.8). Now I am hoping Apple will release a 10.7.1 to get this power consumption issue fixed.

After my extensive testing on my Mac Book Pro, the battery life is shorten around 1 – 2 hours in normal use.

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