Kuneri bloggy

Due I am a newbie on Macbook and have never had to use my Nokia till today (see my How to connect Internet using a Nokia on Macbook post), I didn’t know how to browse my Nokia (N95) on Macbook (Leopard).

Can’t be simpler:

1. Download and install Nokia Multimedia Transfer

2. Run NTM

3. Connect your N95 using USB cable and select ‘PC Suite’ on the phone

4. Click on NMT icon on top bar and select ‘Tools and Settings -> Open Nokia Device Browser’

That’s all :)

Ugur.-

I used to use my lovely Nokia N76 (or N95) to connect to Internet with my unlimited GPRS (3G) data plan, whenever I had to sit on my ass for many hours in a train. I said I “used to”, because I neither use PC nor a Nokia (sorry guys, Apple stole my heart). Today, I gotta sit in a train for 5 hours, therefore had to figure out a way to connect to Internet with my Macbook and iPhone. But the thing is: I don’t have a 3G iPhone (yet), therefore I had to figure out how I could connect to Internet with my Nokia N95 on my Macbook (Leopard), which would be faster.

So this is how;

1. Go to ‘System Preferences’ on your dock

2. Select ‘Network”

3. Plug in your Nokia to your Macbook via USB cable (faster)

4. Select ‘PC Suite’ on the phone

5. You should now see your Nokia connected on left pane. Click on it.

6. Check ‘Show modem status in menu bar’ option and click on Advanced

7. Choose ‘Nokia’ as vendor and enter your APN (you can find it on N95 under Tools->Settings->Connection->Access Points->(Carrier name)->Access Point Name) and hit OK.

8. Click ‘Apply’ (this is important, otherwise nothing will happen)

9. Click ‘Connect’

That’s all. If it doesn’t connect you might need to enter a phone number, user name or password depending on your operator. Please contact to your operator or see operators web site for details.

Hope helps.

Ugur.-

I recently felt the need of changing my VMWare Fusion 2.0 Beta, because it kept on locking my Mac. I found VirtualBox, which is recently acquired by Sun, offered for free and has a recent release 1.6. I read some nice reviews, and although it lacks some features, looks like it’s quite fast and reliable (will review it when I get to use it more).

First thing I needed to do with VirtualBox, after setting up a Windows was to share files between my Mac (Leopard) and Windows (XP). VirtualBox does not offer drag and drop for now, but hopefully will do soon. To share files between 2 computers:

1. Install Guest Additions

Go to “Devices->Install Guest Additions”. After selecting this, open “My Computer”, and you will see there is Guest Additions installer mounted. Just double click and install. After installing, do not forget to reboot (that’s important).

2. Create a shared folder

Go to “Devices->Shared Folders”. Press “Add” (+ sign on right side). Browse for your shared folder on your mac. Pick up a good name and note it down (we will use the name later on). I suppose you selected a folder to share and named it “shared”.

3. Create a batch file

On Windows XP, shared folders are browsable. Easiest way to mount shared folders is to create a batch file, instead of writing a command each time you login. To do that, right click on Desktop, select “New->Text file”. Rename your text file to “Mount.bat” (or something else you wish). After renaming, right click on it and select “Edit” and paste the code below (with necessary modification, depending on your shared folder name. I assume it’s “shared” in our case)

net use x: \\vboxsvr\shared

Beware of the space in between “x:” and “\\” otherwise you will get;

System error 67 has occured

Which in my opinion a common mistake. Save the file and you are done. Just double click on “Mount.bat” on your desktop and you will see X: drive will appear with your shared folder on My Computer.

Enjoy :)

If you like Inkscape (an open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator) and have a Mac with Leopard; you will figure that it after installation it will not work. It will say that font caching might take time, but never start. It’s because of a simple bug, with a simple solution. Just open a terminal (Applications/Utilities) and type this, followed by an enter;

mkdir ~/.fontconfig

After that it should start normally.

And a note: Latest snapshot doesn’t seem to work. Just grab the latest stable package.

If you just migrated to Mac from your lovely Windows, most probably you will want to copy some of your files to your brand new mac (MacBook, iMac, mini or whatever), using your hard drive as an external USB disk. If your Windows drive is formatted with NTFS, soon you will figure out that, all those files you copied from your Windows will be locked on your Mac, and you will not be able to move, delete or alter those files or directories. If you search google with “mac unlock folder”, you will see many questions about that. So, how to solve it?

- Open a terminal window

- Go to the locked folder path. For instance if the locked folder is called “Locked” on the drive called “Drive” type this;

cd /Volumes/Drive/

Or just right click (or ctrl+click) to the file, “Get Info”, see “Where” in “General” and go to that path.

- Now unlock it;

sudo chflags -R nouchg Locked

You might be asked to provide your password, please enter your administrator password when it’s asked.

Now you can erase, move, or do whatever you want with those files after you unlocked the folder.

Dear diary,

Today I bought my first Macbook. I should tell you what I have learnt and should learn, so that I can remember those back. It’s a different world. Feels like drilling from Finland and getting out from China.

1 - Starts up and shuts down so soon. Something must be wrong.

Weird things going on. This thing starts up so soon. What do I do wrong? Do I start in recovery mode? I also figured out it shuts down very fast (I asked my friends, they also had similar experience). Why? Doesn’t it save my sessions? Will I loose my data? Even didn’t give me choice what I want to do by shutting down. Maybe I meant sleeping? Stupid machine..

Investigate this further, find what is going on.

2 - Learn how to eject CD

Damn, there is no button on this CD-rom! How do I eject this thing? It swallowed my CD, will it give back? Check around: Yes, surely there is no eject button.

Edit: I figured out that there is a button on keyboard. Whenever I press it, it gives the CD back to me. Problem solved.

3 - How to install application

This thing doesn’t have a nice installer. Where is Program Files for instance? Why doesn’t it ask where I want to install? Why no “Quick Launch” or “Desktop” icon selection? And what are those things left on desktop? What does ejecting mean? Figure it out.

4 - How to uninstall application

I looked everywhere, but I couldn’t find “Programs and Settings” menu. How do I uninstall those things? Figure it out.

Edit: There is no registry; therefore no uninstallation. Just drag the application to Trash can. Download and use this free program: AppTrap. Problem solved.

Yesterday, my great laptop’s (LG R200) CPU fan stopped (it’s a great laptop btw, no complaints about that — except I have to use Vista). Practically I can not work with it anymore; which is disastrous for me. Tens of emails to reply, clients / issues to follow, work to do.. I contacted LG support, and most probably I will get a decent support; but in most optimistic guess it will take 2-3 weeks, considering Finland’s fast(!) service approach :)

So, I needed a laptop urgently. I have been looking for an excuse for long time to grab a Macbook; and got this as a message from a greater force and headed right to Stockmann (a store chain in Finland). Luckily there was a good discount, and got a Macbook without too much thinking. Came back, put Leopard CD in and started to wait. Nothing happened. After half an hour phone talk, we figured out (together with Apple support) that my optical drive was defected. No good start. They were talking about a replacement; which would take around 3-4 weeks, which rang death bells in my ear. Damn, I got a brand new Macbook and have to wait 3-4 weeks to use it? And my other laptop is broken? Ok, wait wait; things didn’t go that bad. Luckily, I got the laptop from Stockmann. It’s known by its nice return back and guarantee policy (actually in my opinion, its the only place that you should buy something in Finland. You might want to avoid local shops). Ran back and got a brand new one in 10 minutes. Checked optical drive: OK. Installed Leopard in 1 hour: OK. Now an up and running, trying to figure out how this machine works. Damn, I feel like am in monkey test :) (I searched for CD eject button for long time. Don’t tell anyone)