Google File Storage

WhooHoo, Google does it again! If you have Google Docs you can now upload any file type without having it converted to a compatible Google Doc. Just make sure you un-check the conversion box prior to uploading.

Having a iPhone I've been using MobileMe for this same thing for the last 2 years. Sure I could have gotten free storage with DropBox or a couple of others but I'm not the sort to open accounts everywhere to accommodate my needs, to me this just leads to spam in the long run when you cancel your account. You are no longer bound by their privacy statement when you cancel your subscription or leave it idle over a period of time, take the time to read the small print.

I can access PDF's via the iPhone from Google Docs but I have no means to upload files from the iPhone. App's like QuickOffice or DocsToGo only offer the ability to attach and email documents and QuickOffice also offers the you the ability to upload to a MobileMe account. I'm going to start hounding them to give me access to my Google account. ZoHo I have not messed with but my son uses it on his iPod Touch, I'll need to research this more before I drop my MobileMe account.

How much storage? Well, right now I have over 7 GB for mail and 1 GB for Picasa Photo Album which is all shared storage and continues to grow, you can buy more from Google, they charge $5 a year for 20 GB; I pay $67 for this same amount of storage for MobileMe at Amazon, if I purchased it through Apple it would be $99 + tax.

For cloud users this is a big plus with additional savings.

The unbootable Mac mini

The unbootable Mac mini

Nice troubleshooting refresher on any Mac when you know to much and neglect the little things.

Posted using ShareThis

Cheap and Easy Media Server

Do you want a cheap and easy way to make a home media server? Then you have come to the right place. Upgrading an old PC to do this will actually cost more, which BTW I’ll be doing with Ubuntu sometime in the near future; I’m a glutton for punishment.

A buddy of mine was telling me about having all his DVD’s being served up from his Winders (the hillbilly version of Windows Vista) PC and served the media to different TV’s throughout his house which I thought was well and good but I did not want to occupy the resources of one machine to accomplish this task. Having a background in Unix and Linux and at that present time to make one of these machines be a media server didn’t seem practical... So my quest began and I’ll try to make this as painless as possible to the reader.

Media servers are not cheap by any imagination and having a different device that can serve up the media was another dilemma. In one room I have an XBox 360, in the living room I have a PS3, in our bedroom we still have a tube type TV (I know like living in the stone age, huh!), the family room is in planning phase so anything is possible. This turned my attention to the Western Digital My Book World Edition 1TB for a whooping $176 at Best Buy non-the-less (you might have read about this nifty little machine in my MacBook Hard Drive Upgrade via Time Capsule over a wireless network post). It is essentially a Unix based system that is trying like hell to be a Windows Media Server along with an iTunes Server but instead it’s using Twonky Media Server (now damit don’t run away yet, hear me out).

After doing some homework on what kind of media can be dished up on a XBox 360 and PS3 as far as video, audio, and pictures; the audio & pictures were no problem what-so-ever, video on the other hand was a little more of a problem. Here is what I had to resort to in a nut shell:

• Audio is all in WMA format, you can get into the PS3 settings and have it stream WMA.
• Pictures are all JPEG format (thats a big give-me).
• Video, I resorted to H. 264 video codex in a MP4 format which has served us very well with very little loss.
  

Why this video format? I have a mess load of video’s and if I was to follow the advice of my friend each DVD would have occupied approximately 7GB of space. When the file(s) are converted to MP4 format they usually come out at approximately 1-2GB, that is a considerable amount of space savings compared to 7GB, you can get at least 3-7 video’s at the cost of one.

One thing I discovered and will have to follow-up with the reader at a later time this is coming at a small cost to me because I’m left with having to hard wire, this is primarily due to the PS3. I ventured to guess this latest and greatest router the Linksys Simultaneous Dual-N Band Wireless Router WRT610N would be able to accomplish my goal, but the PS3 does not see the 5 Ghz band only the 2.4 Ghz band. The XBox 360 can stream the video without a problem (it also can see the 5 Ghz band) and it’s the furthest device from the router. The computers all stream the video without a hitch anywhere in the house but the PS3 which is the device located nearest the router does not like streaming video which left me deciding to buy a 24 position switch and start plumbing the house with CAT 6 cable. So if your working on a wired network you’ll have it made.

So to give you an idea of what my dream system is going to look like once I buy a switch will take a considerable load off the router. The only two device that will be plugged into the gray matter of the system will be the Vonage VOIP converter and the 24 position network switch. The dream switch will be a 10/100/1000Mbps so if you have some advice for me on the BEST network switch to buy... Please leave a comment below!

Now to touch on our archaic TV in the bedroom, and since the wife is not likely to read my blog post I plan on getting her a newer TV. She is warming up to the idea of looking through a menu of movies and selecting whatever her heart desires I’m considering in obtaining a Mac Mini to accomplish this task. At first I was considering the Apple TV but this device seems to confining, the Mini on the other hand is the way to go.

Now about all you Linux users out there, you have to have Samba installed and running then open Nautilus and in the address bar type “smb:// and the IP address of the WD World Book on your network” (leave out the quotes). I really haven’t had time to make this process easier but when I do... Yea, I’ll update the post. If you have this WD My Book World Edition and come up with a way please fill me in with the particulars.


If your into file swapping, or your into finding stuff relating to one machine while surfing on the other this media server has a "download" directory that makes file swapping a breeze.

On the next post I’ll tell you how I rip and convert my DVD’s to MP4 format.

Upgrading MacBook Hard Drive & Restore by Time Machine Backup on a Network

Before the drinking began on 12/31/09 I had this urge to installed a Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive in a Apple MacBook MB402LL/A (Early 2008). The Western Digital hard drive was purchased from Newegg.com for a whopping $85, considering this was a steal compared to buying a hard drive from Apple.

Material needed to accomplish this rather easy upgrade was:

• 1 - Nickle, yeah 5 cents
• 0 or 00 Phillips Screw Driver
• T9 (torx) Screw Driver. Had to run out to Sears in the middle of the install to buy one.
• 1 - Light colored hand towel. The dark color torx screws are easy to loose on a dark color towel, believe me!
• Mac OS X installation disk (DVD)
• Backup your Time Machine
• Have your WPA/WPA2 key for your wireless router, no key? Shame on you!
• Have your access name and password  for Time Capsule or whatever medium you use for your Time Machine backup

Tim Molter has some excellent tips for this same upgrade with a cloned volume he includes a few warnings, I would recommend reading before proceeding. If this is the case you can always repartition to 250GB and make the other partition as mounted file space. I haven't tried it yet but if I run into problems I'll let you know. Also some recommended reading from the Big Fruit, MacBook Hard Drive Replacement and Restoring files from a Time Capsule backup, for this install you will be interested in the section "To restore an entire volume that was erased".


For my Time Capsule I use a Western Digital 1TB My Book World Edition that I also use as a media server throughout the house (more on that later). The MacBook is on a wireless network via Linksys Dual-Band Wireless Router so speed is not a problem.


After the install I was a little concerned (not much, could have been the alcohol thinking) of heat from the new drive so in my drunken state I decided to rip a mess load of DVD's and start converting them over to MP4's. Let me reassure you there is no heat issue.


Okay lets get started spread out your LIGHT colored towel or cloth on a stable work space and after the Mac has had time to cool down internally (about 30 minutes) turn it upside down to access the battery compartment. Taking your certified Apple U.S. Mint nickel unlock the battery latch and the battery will spring up, remove the battery.

Next is the removal of the RAM door (aka L-Bracket), if you downloaded the Hard Drive Replacement PDF from Apple they suggest you touch the metal chassis to discharge any static... Good idea! Take your 0 or 00 Phillips Screw Driver and loosen the three screws holding the RAM door, I believe they have retaining clips on the back so you don't have to fully remove them just loosen them enough to get the plate free of the chassis. Once loose take the longer part of the door and swing toward the front of the computer.

Okay we're cooking with gas now, see the white tab to the left it's rolled under the hard drive chassis, take something and bring the flap out.

Nice, now gently pull the tab out into battery the bay area there is some slight resistance due to the interface plug and the carriage has a little slop to it, it will bind along the sides if your pulling toward the front or back of the chassis. Note: Not to get ahead of ourselves but when your sliding the new drive back in just remember to tuck the white plastic tab back under the drive carriage then push the carriage back in place.

Holding the old drive by the sides set it down and get your T9 Torx Screw Driver and remove the 4 carriage shield screws surrounding the old drive. You will be placing this carriage shield on the new drive. Hint the printed circuit board side is what is being covered by the shield, you should see the drive pins as your remounting the shield.

Your doing great! Now it's time to slide your new drive back into place and remember to tuck your white plastic tab under the drive carriage as your doing this. You will meet a little resistance as the new drive plugs into it's interface about the last 1/8" of travel. Install it the same way you took it out (or you can look above if you forgot).

Okay, now you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, put the RAM door back on with the short side first (pic below). There is a slot that it slides into then the longer section will push back the RAM levers, after a little manipulation on the longer end making sure the RAM door EMI gaskets are safely tucked so they don't give you a fit when reinstalling your battery. You know that unsightly bulge around your waist-line when your slipping on a tight pair of jeans... Was that to much information, sorry!

Reinsert your battery and lock the battery latch and we're ready for hard ball! In my case it was a couple of highballs the night I was doing this. Place the Mac upright, plug in your power supply, get your Mac OS X installation disk ready and turn on the Mac and insert the installation disk. After a little while you will get the Mac OS X Installation screen, select the Utilities on the menu bar then Disk Utility as illustrated below.

Select the "partition" tab, then select the new hard drive in the left window, Click the "+" at the bottom of the Volume Scheme window to get your partition that you will name "Macintosh HD" (without the quotes, naturally). You want to keep the Format selection at "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and click on the "Options" at the bottom of the Volume Scheme window and select "GUID Partition Table" radio button as in the next picture.

Select "OK" and the Disk Utility should look as such:

Then click on "Apply" and it will setup your new drive. You will have something similar as illustrated below.

Can you feel the excitement? I can hardly contain myself. Actually I'm having a hard time remembering all this from last night after going through that mental cleansing that causes your skull capillaries to swell the following day, just bare with me kindly. Okay, the picture above is what I think I ended up with after the new drive was partitioned, that's my story and I'm sticking with it! Did I mention your doing this at your own risk? Okay here is my disclaimer... YOUR DOING THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK AND IN NO WAY AM I PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR SCREW-UP! With that being said all in love lets carry on.

Now restoration from a previous Time Machine backup go back to the Mac OS X Installation menu bar and select "Utilities"   and at the bottom of the menu you will see "Restore System from Backup". And you will see this window open.

Next go to the upper right hand corner of the Mac OS X Installation screen and select your wifi icon and the drop down menu will appear with the routers available, select the router and a window will open that you can input your WPA/WPA2 key.

You are so close to being finished, stand up and soak in the moment... Okay maybe lets wait on this because you will have plenty of time while it's restoring. After this is accomplished you can click on continue from the "Restore your System" window that was opened previously (3 illustrations back). Next you will see something like this illustration.

When you click on "Click on Remote Disk" you will more than likely get another pop-up window asking for your name and password to access the drive. You might end up with something like this

Then select the backup drive and again select "Connect to Remote Disk" and next you will have this.

Select the Backup Time & Date and select "Continue" it will come up with your destination disk, yep thats the disk you just installed.

After selecting the new drive  select the "Restore" and  you will have a screen pop-up like this. Now its time to get up and find something else to do.

After the system has been completely restored and the system restarts you can eject your Mac OS X Installation disk and log in to your profile select the apple in the upper left of the menu bar and select "About this Mac" then "More Info",  in the left hand menu of the System Profiler select Serial-ATA and you can see the fruits of your labor.