MacBook random "deep sleep" fix

I've had very few complaints about my MacBook C2D 2.0. Leopard, on the other hand, has been nothing but trouble. I kind of figured Leopard was part of the problem behind my MacBook randomly going into deep sleep mode.

What happens is randomly, I'd open my MacBook and it wouldn't wake up. Pressing the power button, it would act almost like it was booting cold, but then a progress meter would show up and then it would resume where I left off. It started happening shortly after the upgrade from OS X 1.4 "Tiger" to OS X 10.5 "Leopard". Fortunately, it was just a little hardware glitch.

First, shut down your MacBook and invert it. Use a coin to open the battery compartment.


Notice that there are several metal tabs, but the ones on the end are embedded in plastic. These two are the ones we're looking for. Only one is visible in this picture.


Get under the metal part of the tab with a sewing needle, precision screwdriver or knife blade and bend it just enough to give it some more tension.


I did this a few weeks ago and I haven't had the problem since. be careful not to break any of the metal or plastic tabs. I'm pretty sure these parts aren't replaceable.

What was happening is that one or both of these connections were occasionally jostling loose when I'd pick up the laptop, put it in a backpack, or even move it around on a table. Now, the connections are a little more firm. Other options might include a little dielectric grease, but that may not work well, either. I tried cleaning the contact surfaces quite a while ago and it had no result. I'm glad this worked, as the problem was starting to get out of control.

iPod touch hack released

iPOD touch hack released.
Check out http://www.ziphone.org/. Zibri found the solution to the iPod touch's in ability to be unjailed. The problem was with the nvram being corrupted.
Here is how to do it.

1. Just run the un-corruption utility in the zPhone utility
2. Run the jailbreak.
3. Install the BSD Subsystem.
   
4. Then Run the 1.1.3 updates for the BSD subsystem terminal for back spacing.
   
5. Then install the SUID Lib Fix .
6. Install The Term-VT100 terminal program.
   
7. Install the Cydia package (DEBIAN style package management!) which will replace the BSD subsystem.

Side notes:

• The /Library/LaunchAgent/ folder contains the daemon launch plists. deleting one will prevent it from loading.
  
• If you still have the BSD subsystem do not change the root password. The BSD passwd utility BREAKS the OS causing you to need to re-install the firmware. The Cydia utility works with out incident.
• The default root password for for the iPOD will be either "alpine" or "dottie".
  

Shutting off wireless auto-config in Mac OS X

As a matter of security and simply less annoyance, I prefer my computers to not connect willy-nilly to just any wireless network in range. OS X currently doesn't connect to random open networks, but it does always look for them, and by default it prompts you to connect to new ones. In OS X, all you have to do is un-check the "Ask to join new networks" on the AirPort adapter in Network preferences to stop this behavior.



Once you do that, go into the Advanced preferences and remove all those random access points that you've connected to in the past, leaving only the ones you know and trust on the list. If your access point has a default-ish name (like WLAN, Default, linksys, etc) you should probably change it so that your computer doesn't join up to the first "linksys" network it runs across.

On Linux and BSD, it's easy. You simply have to try -- and mean it -- to get on a wireless network. You don't just accidentally connect.

Also, it's a cold day in hell. Last week, I bought my wife a new computer that came loaded with Windows Vista Home Premium. I can only use it for a few minutes at a time before I have the urge to go take a shower with a steel wool pad to try to get Vista off of me, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to kill Vista's auto-join feature while letting it connect to preferred networks only. If you have any tips, drop us a line. It definitely isn't like XP. The only thing I saw told me to kill the Wireless Autoconfig service (maybe called something a little different) and all that did was completely disable wireless access on Vista.

Apple Releases OS X Tiger 10.5.2 Update

Just in case you haven't read it anywhere else (or everywhere else, as the case may be), Leopard users can now get Mac OS X 10.5.2, the much-awaited update to Apple's latest operating system.

The MASSIVE update, and links to more info can be found on the Mac OS X 10.5.2 page. Alternatively, you can just fire up Software Update and twiddle your thumbs for quite a while. It should be worth the wait.

Leopard is cheesing me off.

Just a quick update.

The in-place upgrade I did to MacOS X 10.5 Leopard simply wasn't working as well as I had planned. Never before have I encountered problems upgrading major versions of OS X.

The first thing I noticed is that operating system stability was hindered. The OS would go flaky for a few seconds at a time or just hang indefinitely with the "spinning beach ball o' DOOM!" Then, I started encountering problems with applications that would crash. GIMP wouldn't even start up. I installed a fresh version, which would start but would crash as soon as I even tried to modify images. Firefox would go non-responsive or just simply crash and exit disgracefully. A fresh install of Firefox including deleting its profile information didn't help. My Last.fm agent hasn't worked properly at all since the upgrade. This is just a smattering of the problems I've had in the last week.

With that, I went ahead and did a fresh install last night, completely formatting and erasing the drive. I wanted a mulligan. I finally bought a new external enclosure for my backup hard drive (my wife borrowed my old enclosure) and went to work backing up only what I really, really needed. I didn't use Time Machine or anything. I just salvaged my virtual machines from Parallels, my photos, my music, and my documents. I wrote down a list of the apps I use most often, and went to work.

After the fresh install, my MacBook feels much more lucid and rich. Now, I'm disappointed because I didn't realize that iLife doesn't come with Leopard. It came pre-installed on my MacBook when I got it back in December, so I'm hoping beyond hope that the iLife packages are on the disc that came with my MacBook and that they weren't just installed at the factory as a one-time thing. I rely heavily on iPhoto and GarageBand, as amateur photography and music composition are two hobbies of mine.

FireFox seems to be stable for a change, but GIMP still doesn't run properly. I haven't gotten the rest of my applications installed yet, so only time will tell what works and what fails miserably.

For the time being, I am a little miffed. I don't quite regret installing Leopard yet, but it definitely wasn't the smooth transition that I'm used to.

Operating systems out the wazoo!

In a matter of two weeks, we've seen a plethora of new OS releases:

• Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) (Oct 18th, 2007)
• MacOS X 10.5 (Leopard) (Oct 26th, 2007)
• OpenBSD 4.2 (Nov 1, 2007)

I know that I am currently playing with all three:

I'm currently working with a fresh, clean install of Gutsy Server, building an end-all, be-all shared host for a client of mine who wishes to give dozens of end-users their own web space and e-mail domains. I haven't messed with Gutsy on the desktop yet. In due time.

I did an in-place upgrade to Leopard on my MacBook, and it's everything I expected and then some. There are a few minor annoyances, but I'll chalk them up to Apple making an attempt to match and/or exceed Vista's user-interface flair. Unfortunately, I feel that the UI changes in Leopard traded friendliness and clarity for sex appeal. It looks slick, but the graphical changes are skin deep. Functionally, Leopard is still lean and mean. I don't feel like it took a performance hit, and there are boat-loads of new feaures - some of them long overdue (like Spaces, and QuickLook which I'm already a fan of). Things I'm looking forward to testing out: ZFS Support (which requires a developer download to fully implement on Desktop Leopard), Time Machine, and the new "Firewall."

I also did an in-place upgrade to OpenBSD on the virtual machine that I use most often. At first glance, it's the same deal as usual. More hardware support, more robust drivers for certain devices, and some new functionality. I haven't gotten to test it yet, but I'm eager to see the new features in pkg_add, which has never, ever worked the way I would like -- so much so that I actually wrote (and released) a set of scripts to make installing software a breeze in OpenBSD. Finally, I'm interested in seeing how sensorsd works in its new zero-configuration mode on my 1U servers, which have always given OpenBSD's sensorsd some trouble.

I'm sure that HiR will revisit some of these in more detail after really giving them a good shake down.

If you're in or around Kansas City, come join us at the 2600 meeting tonight, Friday October 2nd, 2007 in the Food Court at Oak Park Mall - half a mile east of I-35 on 95th street. The "Official" start time is 5:00PM, but people generally show up as their schedule allows. Look for laptops. That will be us.