Yesterday I finally got around to removing my flakey superdrive from my Macbook Pro and replaced it with an optical bay hard disk (OBHD) from NewModeUS. This meant I was able to add another 320GB drive where my superdrive once lived (much needed as I was at 92% disk usage on my system drive). I also have an Intel X25-M 80GB to install but I’ll save that for when I have the time.
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Update April, 2010: I’m happy to report this pain is avoided with the latest (10.26.2) MP620 CUPS drivers from Canon when installing this printer on Snow Leopard. After installing the drivers, then adding a new printer, you have to wait a few minutes for SL to detect the printer before it displays it in the list.

This might seem like dumb thing to blog about but I spent an hour or more trying to get this to work. Partly due to my own stubbornness, I resent using driver installation CDs. The driver on them is typically out of date (certainly for graphics cards), and they’re loaded with bloatware crap you don’t need to operate your device / peripheral. Manufacturers love to re-invent the wheel, providing a utility for a service that already exists within the operating system.
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Having recently switched to Mac OS X, I stumbled upon issues when mounting shared folders on my Macbook Pro from our linux development server. Previously, both Windows Vista and Ubuntu have had no trouble sharing a directory then mounting it from the dev server via smbfs. This enables me (and other developers) to edit files locally which then also appear as a local files to our development server, where we run Apache / MySQL etc.
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If you choose not to sign up for MobileMe, there is no option in preferences to remove the sync icon (which you will never use) from the menu bar.

Fortunately, holding the Command (Apple) key and dragging the icon to the desktop should detach and remove it.

I started writing this post some months ago back in September but never got around to finishing it. At first this post was going to be me singing my praises for Ubuntu and how well Ubuntu supports the Macbook Pro. Unfortunately in that time I’ve now moved to Mac OS X…
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This was my first week in my new job and on an iMac. I was looking forward to trying out OSX, I’ve seen OSX grow in popularity over the last year or two in the development community, a lot of the screen casts are done on Macs.

I was told by others in the office that I’d be sold on Mac within the first day or two because “its much better than Windows”. After a week on it though I still find OSX gets in the way. Read the rest of this entry »