MacBook WiFi problem/solution

Last year my MacBook started having very, very slow WiFi connectivity. So slow, in fact, I almost abandoned the thing. My wife’s MacBook was fine. But my WiFi connection just crawled. Then I read about some MacBook Pros, the new ones with the metal case, having a similar problem.

I was sitting right next to our WiFi router getting super slow connectivity. So I decided to remove the transparent plastic case I’d bought for the machine. It sure did look cool.

As soon as I removed the case (which is made specifically for MacBooks and costs about $30), my WiFi connection improved by about 1000%. In fact, it became normal. No more problem.

So if you have a plastic case on your MacBook, and your WiFi sucks, take the case off.  Amazingly, 2 millimeters of plastic is enough to ruin your signal.

Disk Warrior

Yes, another Mac software post.

Last night before going to see Beowulf with my friend Matt down at Northpark Mall, I stopped by the Apple Store. I got one of the good folks there — a fellow skateboarder — to show me the new Leopard OS. Pretty slick. Amazingly slick no less. It will be a bummer to go back to my Gateway PC at work tomorrow after seeing the beauty that is Leopard.

Did I buy it? No. Right now I feel like my current OS (10.4.10) is working just fine. All my software runs, and I don’t have any crashes really. So I will wait until I really need an upgrade to get Leopard or whatever replaces it.

Of course, about half of the demo was on one of those giant Apple studio monitors, which make everything look like magic. Too bad they’re too big to have in your lap. I’m really enjoying just doing my web stuff from my chair in the Chill Zone with my MacBook. I spend enough time sitting at a desk.

I did, however, purchase DiskWarrior, by Alsoft. It is a utility for repairing damage files, optimizing you hard drive, etc, etc. My brother-in-law does tech support for them, so I figure I can get help if I need it. I ran the program this morning, and it found a few things to clean up that cleared up a little hard drive space on my MacBook.

I also backed up all my files to my external hard drive this morning. I’m using iBackup, which works pretty well. I’d really like to find a “smart backup” utility that only backs up the files that have changed — for a faster backup. I’ll have to look into that.

Beowulf was pretty cool. I liked it a lot.

Importing problem with iPhoto and Canon SD750

I just noticed that someone found this blog using the following search string:
iphoto powershot sd750 trouble importing

If that person is still reading, I recently had a problem importing AVI videos from my camera into iPhoto too.  Every time I tried to import the videos, the iPhoto application would crash. Found the following item on the MacFixitforums.com:i might have found a solution: i deleted AviImporter-r7 (Intel).component from /library/quicktime and uninstalled flip4mac. i dont know which of the two caused the problem, but now i can import videos from my camera into iphoto. 
 
It turned out that AviImporter was the culprit in my case. I deleted all the AviImporter stuff from the library, and the problem was solved. Movies imported just fine again.

I also noticed that I’m still getting a lot of hits from the search string “macbook flickering screen” or similar searches. Amazing that there are STILL bad Macbooks being sold out there. It has been several months since I got mine and posted about the problem on this blog. To those people, I can only say take/send the thing back — there are good ones out there.

Just how kick ass is the MacBook?

It’s really kickass. It has the property of kicking ass.

Sitting here surfing the web while downloading some music from iTunes. I wonder about the proper pronunciation of the word heterogeneous. I click the dictionary icon in the side dock, and find out. I wonder what the local temp is, click the dashboard and find out. I want to edit my blog — which I’m doing now. Check the dates of some upcoming events using iCal. I want to edit video or photos — it is all right here. Easy like.

It just kicks ass.

MacBook update

So far, my MacBook has not experienced the screen-static/flickering screen that the first one I brought home did. So I’m pretty happy about that. Fingers still crossed. I’ve had the computer for about 3 weeks.

Apparently a lot of people are getting bum MacBooks. This WordPress blog includes a “statistics” page that tells me what keyword searches are getting people to this site. Every day I get at least 4 or 5 people coming to bibliosk8 based on the following sort of search strings:

down hill longboarding             1
riding a Longboard                   1
macbook problems 2007         1
macbook screen flickering       1
“Macbook Flickering”              1
macbook flickering screen       1

Pretty interesting. And this is just for today. It is like this every day. With these kind of searches hitting bibliosk8, I’m still a bit worried that my machine might develop a problem.

But aside from that issue, I’m still super happy with the computer.