Category Archives: free & cheap software

fixed : upgrading the firmware on a Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive

Posted on by
Reply

Question :

I’ve heard that upgrade in the firmware on my Seagate Momentus XT hard drive will vastly improve the drive’s speed and stability. But… how do I do that ?

Answer :

Here’s a little tutorial :

– put OSX Lion installer on a 4GB USB stick, instructions can be found here :

http://blog.gete.net/lion-diskmaker-us/

– burn the Seagate firmware update on a CDrom and printout the instructions :

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/215451en

– shut down and completely unplug
– plug in the USB stick
– put the firmware upgrade CDrom in the drive
– startup pressing the ALT key and choose the “EFI Boot” (USB installer) to boot from
– then install the basic OSX EFI
– continue and open Disk Utility
– select the 500.11 GB Seagate disk and Erase to a “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” format (to get a one-partition OSX HFS+ formatted drive)
– then click on the “Info” button and write down the name exactly and completely (e.g. “Seagate ST…..AS Media”)
– exit and restart pressing the ALT key
– now choose the CDrom called “Windows” to reboot from
– when you’re done reading the README, press the ESC key
– press the right key on your keyboard to install the firmware that is right for your model (as outlined in the instructions you’ve printed)
NOTE : in my case the firmware is refusing to upgrade because I have TD27, and that can’t be upgraded to SD28… [*]
– restart normally (booting from the internal drive) ; done !

[*] update : I found a way to upgrade in that case also, go here for more info :

fixed : update firmware TD27 to SD28

 

Some extra info on the firmware revisions :

v28 is the newest, fastest and most stable to date (June 2012)

v27 was never released as an upgrade, it just came preinstalled on some drives ; since it cannot be upgraded to v28, chances are that is nearly the same as v28

v26 wasn’t released as an upgrade either, it also came preinstalled on some OEM-drives (OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer ; which in this case means “separately sold as a spare part”)

v25 was also never released as an upgrade ; it is even doubtful if it was even preinstalled on any OEM-version

v24 was the previous upgrade version, but it turned out to be problematic in some cases

v23 was the upgrade version before that, which also had stability problems and erratic behavior

about firmware versions v22 and earlier very little is known

info : Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive – is it a good upgrade to your Mac ?

Posted on by
2

Question :

I’m thinking about upgrading the internal HD of my MacBook Pro. At this moment I have a 2.5″ 250GB HD 5400rpm SATA-1.5GBps, and I would like something that’s preferably both faster and bigger. Is the 500GB Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drive my best choice ?

Answer :

The jury’s still out on that one…

Expericences with the Seagate Momentus XT vary, though most bad experiences are from people that have firmware versions older than v24 (the current version is v28).

Let me start out by saying that, when your older MacBook Pro is at least a ‘late 2008’ model (which has a 2.5″ SATA II / SATA-300GBps transfer rate) your options are pretty much these :

1- a regular 2.5″ 500GB 5400rpm SATA II harddisk, will go for about €65 (so about €0,13 per GB)

– This is probably your best choice if low noise level and low(est) price are your main reasons to buy. And it will be slightly speedier than your old one, because this SATA-interface is twice as fast

2- a regular 2.5″ 500GB 7200rpm SATA II harddisk, will cost you about €75 (so about €0,15 per GB)

– This is probably your best choice if you primarily want a low price and secondarily the highest speed. Even though these could be a little noisier than 5400rpm drives, the 7500rpm drives are more interesting if have a more intensive usage, like doing a lot of video editing for instance.

3- a hybrid 2.5″ 500GB 7200rpm + 4GB SSD (Flash-memory) SATA-3GBps like the Seagate Momentus XT will cost you €100 (so about €0,20 per GB)

– This is probably your best choice if you primarily want high speed and secondarily the lowest price. The noise level is about the same as a regular HD, and the speed is notably faster (but still no way near SSD-speeds)

4- a 2.5″ 256GB Solid State Drive (a.k.a. SSD ; Flash-memory only) SATA-6GBps like the Crucial M4 will cost you about €210 (so about  €0,82 per GB)

– These ‘drives’ are way faster than any hard disk, and also completely silent, but they’re completely overpriced compared to regular hard disks, so this is only a good solution if you have money to burn… (mind you, this one doesn’t gain any storage capacity compared to your old HD, and the 6GBps SATA-speed has to be geared down to 3GBps since the ‘late 2008’ MacBook Pros don’t support this latest SATA-speed)

To have an indication of the speed increase I herewith include my test scores, based upon benchmarking results from two different benchmarking program.

The benchmarking softwares I’ve used are iBench and NovaBench. They can be downloaded for FREE here :

http://ibench.sourceforge.net/

http://novabench.com/

(NovaBench can also be downloaded from the Mac App store)

the benchmarking-scores I’ve measured are :

the original version : MacBook Pro 15″ ‘late 2008’ with 4GB RAM and 250GB @4500rpm ; iBench score = 3.31 ; NovaBench score = 346

the same, only with doubled RAM-memory, MacBook Pro 15″ ‘late 2008’ with 8GB RAM and 250GB @4500rpm ; iBench score = 3.37 ; NovaBench score  = 389

the same, but both with doubled RAM and doubled HD-capacity (using a Seagate Momentus XT) ; iBench score = 3.38 ; NovaBench score = 402

so… the Momentus XT is a really good step forward from the old internal hard drive, but it’s speed increase is not dramatic.

NOTE : if you need to upgrade the firmware on a Seagate Momentus XT disk from MacOSX, look here :

https://macmanusnl.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/upgrading-the-…t-hybrid-drive/ 

fixed : get the WMA-recordings from an Olympus voice recorder into iTunes

Posted on by
Reply

Question :

I have an Olympus VN-88500PC voice memo recorder and I can get the WMA-recordings onto my Mac, but not into iTunes – what can I do ?

Answer :

iTunes for Mac doesn’t import WMA audio files (even though it seems like for some reason iTunes for PC does…).

So you will have to convert the WMA into a file format that iTunes does understand like MP3 or AAC, before you can import the recordings into iTunes.

There are a lot of audio converters available on the Mac, but a lot of them won’t allow you to convert WMA-files. Others might suggest Switch or Tunesify,  but I would recommend Smart Converter, as it’s FREE, it has a simple user interface and it creates small MP3s.

FYI :

my source was a 30MB WMA-file,

Switch (FREE version) turned it into a 225MB MP3-file, even though I was using the “small file” option

Tunesify (the €3 version) turned it into a 180MB MP3-file,

and Smart Converter (FREE version) turned in into an MP3-file of only 45MB (using the “Music” conversion option)

Smart Converter is available in the Mac App Store :

http://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/smart-converter/id447513724?mt=12

…and after the WMA-to-MP3-conversion is done, you can just drag & drop the MP3-file onto the iTunes window to import.

fixed : get the embedded video from my Opendisc-enhanced audio-CD into iTunes

Posted on by
Reply

Question : I just got a new audio-CD that I imported into iTunes, but this CD also has extra video-content on it when you put it in your Mac (or PC). The system used for this is called Opendisc®. Though it seems impossible, is there a way to rip this video of the CD and into iTunes on my Mac ?

Answer : Yes, and you don’t even have to rip or hack for it.

1- download HideSwitch :

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36771/hideswitch

2- install HideSwitch and run it – in the small window that appears, click the “Show All Files” button, now your Finder will refresh, and you will be able to see all so called ‘hidden files’ on your Mac

[ CAUTION : do NOT touch or mess with any greyed files (= normally hidden files) when you’re in “Hidden Files Viewable” mode ! …as it will very probably cause you software problems that can only be restored doing a complete system reinstall ! ]

3- put the Opendisc-enhanced audio-CD into your Mac – on your Desktop it will be visible twice : once as a regular audio-CD which has the name of the actual CD, and once as a (greyish) CD named “Opendisc”

4- when you double-click on the “Opendisc”-icon, a folder wind will open, in there go to the (greyed out) folder called “CDEXTRA”, inside that one go to the (greyed out) folder called “OPENDISC”, on to the folder called “MEDIA” – in there you will find a file called “video.mov” (yes, that’s a regular QuickTime-movie) – drag that file called “video.mov” to your Desktop

5- go back to the HideSwitch window and press the “Default” button, wait for the Finder to refresh and close HideSwitch

6- download and install Miro Video Converter (for free) either from the Mac App Store or from the developer’s website :

http://www.mirovideoconverter.com/

7- run Miro Video Converter and drag the file called “video.mov” onto the red window – select “Apple Universal” from the drop down menu and put a check mark in front of “Send to iTunes” – then click on the “Convert!” button

8- after the conversion is done, open iTunes and in the video section the converted video can be found as “video.apple” – now adjust that name to whatever you want it to be

9- to clean up you can now drag both the “video.mov” and “video.apple.mp4” files from the Desktop into the Trash and empty the trash

Done !

Enjoy !

tip : play some Angry Birds on your Mac for free [1]

Posted on by
6

Question :

On my iPhone and iPad I can play some Angry Birds games for free by using the “Lite” (demo) version from the iTunes App Store instead of the full (paid) version… but on my Mac I can only get Angry Birds in the full (paid) version and only through the Mac App Store… why isn’t there a free (demo) version for my Mac ?

Answer :

You can play Angry Birds for free on your Mac (some levels), not only on OSX 10.6+ Intel Macs…

…even G4 & G5 PPC Macs running OSX 10.5 Leopard are eligible…

just use your web browser, and play online from Rovio’s official Angry Birds website :

Angry Birds Chrome beta (using Safari 5 you can play online, Google Chrome will give the option to play offline) :

http://chrome.angrybirds.com/

Angry Birds FuijTV (Japanese costumes version) :

http://fujitv.angrybirds.com/

Angry Brids Wonderful Pistachios (“The Hunt For The Golden Pistachio” version)

http://getcrackin.angrybirds.com/

Angry Birds Volcano (“Tyrkisk Peber” version)

http://fazer.angrybirds.com/Index.jsp

Enjoy ! 😉

—— [ UPDATE ] ——————————————————————–

I found some other ones, but they’re not on Rovio’s official webpage (so please be aware of any potentially harmful links these may present to you ; even though we don’t expect any) :

Angry Birds Rio (asian online demo version)

http://www.angrybirdsriogame.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/angrybirdsrio.swf

Angry Birds (asian online demo version)

http://www.mijngame.nl/files/angry-birds-flash-game.swf

—— [ UPDATE #2 ] ——————————————————————–

There is a new Angry Birds promotional version on Rovio’s official webpage :

Angry Birds Coca-Cola (asian language version)

http://coca-cola.angrybirds.com/

(you need to register and be of legal age, but as it’s in some asian language that I don’t understand, I can’t help you on this one ; please report back is you’ve figured it out…)

—— [ UPDATE #3 ] ——————————————————————–

Yet another new Angry Birds promotional version on Rovio’s official webpage :

Angry Birds Heikki (‘Finnish unite’ team-up of F1 racer Heikki Kovalainen and Angry Birds)

http://heikki.angrybirds.com/

(registration required)

new levels will be added as the F1 season unrolls :

Upcoming levels:
Hockenheim — 11.7.2012
Budapest — 25.7.2012
Spa — 22.8.2012
Monza — 5.9.2012
Singapore — 12.9.2012
Suzuka — 26.9.2012
Yeongam — 3.10.2012
New Delhi — 17.10.2012
Yas Marina — 31.10.2012
Austin — 7.11.2012
Sao Paolo — 21.11.2012

—— [ UPDATE #4 ] ——————————————————————–

Some new links to official demos of Angry Birds Rio and Angry Birds Star Wars are in my follow-up post :

https://macmanus.nl/2013/03/23/tip-play-some-angry-birds-on-your-mac-for-free-2/

tip : use iPhone-SMS from your Mac

Posted on by
1

iMessage (the free iPhone-to-iPhone messaging service that is integrated into the SMS app on your iPhone running iOS5) is now also accessible from your Mac. Apple has released a Mac-version called “Messages” that is ‘available for beta-testing’ (i.e. ‘free to use’, but it might still have some bugs and shortcomings) :

http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/messages-beta/

Using it is quite straight-forward, as you just need your AppleID to login and the interface resembles both the iPhone’s SMS-app and iChat’s text-chatting.

Messages will be part of Apple’s next MacOS (called OSX 10.8 “Mountain Lion”) which will be released this summer. The beta-version will run on MacOSX 10.7 “Lion” only, and will stop working after the introduction of OSX 10.8 “Mountain Lion”. (A procedure we’ve seen before with other beta-applications like FaceTime for Mac.

So with the release of MacOSX 10.7 “Lion”, iChat was abandoned, but FaceTime only replaced iChat video-chat. With the release of OSX 10.8 “Mountian Lion”, Messages will revive what was formerly know as iChat text-chat…

fixed : export contacts database from AddressBook to Excel

Posted on by
Reply

Question [1] : I’m new to Mac, I just switched to my first Mac, before I only used Windows PCs. How can I import my contacts from my Windows PC into my new Mac running OSX ?

Question [2] : I’m a Mac user myself, but I need to share my contacts database from Apple AddressBook with WindowsPC-users I’m working with. Since there is no Apple AddressBook for Windows, this seems impossible. What can I do ?

Answer to both [1] and [2] : It’s possible, and it isn’t that complicated either.

There are (free) MacOSX-applications that can do this for you.

! BEWARE ! there are 2 applications around that are extremely similar (and therefore easily confused) both in name and features :

Address Book Exporter 2.1.2 (from 2003 ; with a space in the name)

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9312/address-book-exporter

AddressBook Exporter 1.0 (from 2005 ; without a space in the name)

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/17501/addressbook-exporter

The first one (from 2003 ; with a space in the name) is the best one. That’s the one that still works properly with Apple AddressBook from MacOSX 10.6 “Snow Leopard”.

How to install :

  • download the application (from 2003 ; with the space in the name)

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9312/address-book-exporter

  • drag the application-icon to your Applications folder

How to use it :

  • startup the application “Address Book Exporter 2.1.2”
  • from the “Groups” list, choose “All” to start converting your entire AddressBook, or choose only the selection that you want to export
  • if you would like to convert / export a selection that is not listed, go back into your AddressBook and create a (temporary) group from your selection
  • now, in “Address Book Exporter 2.1.2” check the checkbox of “Export using current field settings”
  • click the “Configure Settings” button
  • in the pull-down menu that appears, check the checkboxes of everything that you would like to export, and click “OK”
  • click the “Export Address Book” button
  • if you like, you can change the name of the exported file
  • then choose a destination on your Mac where you will be able to easily find the exported file (e.g. “Desktop”) and click “Save”
  • quit “Address Book Exporter”
  • open “MS Excel”
  • drag the icon of the exported file (from the Desktop) onto the MS Excel icon in the Dock, to have it opened in Excel
  • and… here you are : all your contacts are in Excel now
  • from there you can “Save As” to have a .xls-file that you can share with WindowsPC-users