Yippie! My MacBook is reviving. With new Apple logo on its palmrest. I’m sure that at the moment this is the only MacBook with Apple logo on the palmrest.

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After Windows and Linux, it's about time that Google launches Picasa for Mac. After my MacBook's HDD crash, it's also about time to try out new application. I  really think that Picasa for Mac certainly will become competitor to Apple iPhoto. However, Picasa might lead many users who reluctant to switch to Mac to become new switcher, knowing that they don't have to re-adapt to iPhoto.

Posted via email from arya [at] posterous

I’ve been using CoconutBattery since April 2008, but yet I just found out that this application provide additional information, including the age of my MacBook. However, I’m not sure if this is actually the age of the laptop instead of the battery.

Posted via email from arya [at] posterous

WHEN I’VE BEEN FOOLED BY A CHARGER

Have you ever complained on how bulky your notebook charger is? Carefully check your notebook’s box and package, it might already supply you with extra item that you can use to reduce the “size” of your charger.

This was my MacBook charger during the first week after purchased.

This was my MacBook charger for the last 12 months. And I keep, repeatedly, complain that the charger has been made my backpack bulky. Arrgh, one’s never satisfied.

Accidentally, when I cleaned up the clutter charger-basket (FYI: I have a basket for all charger that I and my wife have, just to make it unclutter) I found an extra charger adapter, which I believe was design for 110V power outlet. And it was so small. The adapter is fully fit to each adapter that I have in Berau office, Jakarta Office, and home.

Take a look how slim my MacBook charger is now.

*dooh,beingfooledbycharger*

The OOo team finally launched the OpenOffice.org 3.0.0 on October 13,2008. Unlike the predecessor version, the OOo 3.0.0 includes the OOo Aqua (native) for Intel MacOSX, which is the good news for any Mac user around the world.    

Being dissatisfied to Microsoft Office for Mac, I had to look for any Office Application replacement. I used OOo in PC before, but native OOo in Mac was not available at that time. It made me to choose NeoOffice as the alternative.     

Since OOo releasing OOo3 Beta that include OOo Aqua for Mac, I switched to OOo for testing and, thenafter, realized that testing is not the only thing I did but somehow use OOo3 Beta and its Release Candidate for daily activity, including develop monthly report and analysis.

The final release of OOo 3.0.0 certainly pleased me and I believed many others whom dissatisfied to Microsoft Office for Mac around  the world. But, somehow, the OOo team misjudge how they have already become a huge competitor to Microsoft that this misjudgement lead to server error (or down?) at the day they launched the OOo 3.0.0.

Anyway, good luck to the OOo team.

Posted by email from arya [at] posterous

Ibu saya pernah berkata,

awali hari-hari kamu dengan baik dan semangat tinggi, insya allah sisa hari akan berjalan lancar.

Kenangan adalah memori personal, saya bahkan bisa memodifikasinya menjadi

awali hari dengan ceria, insya allah sisa hari berjalan dengan menyenangkan.

Saat bangun di pagi hari saya bisa memilih apakah hari ini dimulai dengan hati gundah atau sebuah keceriaan, menular menjadi semangat.

In a good mood adalah pilihan, yang menentukan performa kita sepanjang sisa hari.
In a good mood bahkan bisa dibentuk dengan cara yang berbeda untuk setiap orang.

Ada yang memulai hari dengan secangkir kopi, panas dan dingin bukan soal. Sebagian memulainya dengan sebatang rokok, sebenci apapun saya dengan batangan putih coklat ini, ia telah membantu sebagian lainnya to make their day. Sebagian tersisa memilih mendengarkan lagu (ter)-favorit, membangkitkan semangat. Sisanya, mungkin, meningkatkan spirit dengan memandang lekat-lekat gerak-gerik siapapun tambatan hati di seberang meja. 

Bagaimana dengan saya?

Ah, entah mengapa lekuk liku buku putih ini selalu membuat saya in a good mood, membangkitkan semangat kerja.

Bagaimana dengan Anda? Apa yang membuat Anda in a good mood di pagi hari?

Ilustrasi: asia.cnet.com

After using Windows Vista for almost one week and compare Vista to Leopard on my MacBook, I am finally able to express my impression on Vista by stating this:

There are more important things to do other than waiting for your computer to startup or to shutdown

That’s correct, you have to be a very patient person to use Vista. The startup and shutdown process on Vista took sometime (I have to insist myself not to use “long-long-longtime”) which, I believe, can be used as psychology tools for patient test.

Imagine how pleased I am when using Leopard, since I don’t have to wait for my MacBook to startup or to shutdown. I simply can go working on or even put the MacBook into my backpack almost instantly.

Following my latest post on Preview of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Preview can also be a “limited” PDF editor which I recently noticed during the preparation of a report for my Company. Limited means not all of the capability of full PDF editor, such as Adobe Acrobat, are stashed away in its menu. But, for all I know, fine Application is the one that provide what you need not provide you everything – and Preview has come with that attitude, at least for my need.

During the preparation of my report, I have to divide my report into several document within three Application: Pages of iWork, Word of Microsoft, and Excel of Microsoft which I have to publish in PDF format thenafter – but these separate document must be compiled into one single document – and it can not be done, at least in my case, in one of the above Application. To complete my report, I also have to “grab” and edit an image from an already finished report in PDF format, which I do not have the “raw” format in doc or pages.

Voila! I found out that Preview can handle all my problem instantly.

1. Crop and save an image in PDF
   Preview’s image editing feature can do this trick easily. To crop an image from a PDF document click Select button in the toolbar, click and drag to create rectangle around the image you want to crop, then select Tools > Crop or press Command+K. Save As into format you like.
2. Merge PDFs file or move pages from single file to another
   it is amazing to have this feature in your hand. Usually, I used to combine several document (e.g. three report with different format which I have to combine into single document) by copy paste into one single document and then create one PDF file from this document. Now, I can just combine them after all report finish. The best thing is I don’t need to adjust any formating in the document – Hey, it’s already a PDF, ready to be distributed. I just need to combine them and re-arrange the page or adjust the orientation.

   To merge PDFs file or append any pages from one file to another you have to open both file you want to merge. Make sure the sidebar is visible. Drag one page (or all pages) from one document’s sidebar to another, and drop it/them in the appropriate location. Done, piece of cake!

3. Delete or re-arrange pages in PDF and insert Blank Page
   You may find that you want to delete certain page or pages in a document. Just press Command+delete on the selected page in sidebar. Again, make sure sidebar is visible. To move page/pages, select the page in sidebar, drag and drop into the desire location. The best thing about editing the PDF using Preview is you can even add Blank Page in the document wherever you like. This will come handy when you have to create a report with transition page on each chapter. Select, in the side bar, the page after where you want to add the Blank Page, choose Edit > Insert Blank Page.

The very best thing about having Preview as an Image Editor or a PDF Editor is it’s already included in Leopard.

I’ve been using Preview as an Image Editor for sometimes. Though I said “Image Editor”, my requirement is quite simple, which are: size adjustment (in term of resolution and size of the file) and color adjustment – and Preview provides these tools which I noticed by accident.

Under the Tools Menu you can find Adjust Size and Adjust Color tools which provide simple, yet powerful, image editing, even for a newbie.

Size adjustment is very handy. Preview already provides you several standard image size / resolution starting from 320 x 240 pixels. But if you need a certain resolution for specific requirement (or perhaps you’re looking for an optimum size reduction), Preview enable you to enter specific width, height, and resolution with options of scaling the image. Simple is the word.

Simplicity doesn’t mean weak. Powerful is another word for color adjustment on Preview. Let’s keep in mind that we’re not talking about “Powerful” as Photoshop. Under the Adjust Color tool Preview provides flexibility for exposure, brightness, and contrast adjustment. You can add effects to your image by using the saturation, temperature, tint, and sepia adjustment or you can just let Preview do the magic by using Auto Level of black and white composition.

Simple, yet Powerful!

But then I realized that Preview always quit unexpectedly every time I use the Adjust Color under Tools Menu. I figured out that these error/bug will be fixed sooner of later since I found the same experience from other users on the Internet.

Two days ago I found out, by accident (again), that this bug has been fixed. It seems that the bug is fixed along with an update of either other Application or the Leopard itself. I’m not aware whether or not Preview has been updated so I put the above image to let you know my current version of Preview.

I’m not sure why Apple put Aurora image as its login image on Leopard. In my opinion this image is a bit of downfall to overall package of new MacBook and Leopard on late 2007. I’m not saying that the image is bad but Aurora does not fit into Apple’s brand in my mind. Perhaps, I already get use to Apple’s abstract image (Aqua), either in blue, gray, and once I even got the yellow, gold, and brown combination, which is very good and I got this one for free. (Check this link). The abstract image is very well known among Panther and Tiger iBook/PowerBook/MacBook/MBP users.

Due to this matter, changing the startup login image is my option to create a “full-feel” Leopard MacBook. I know that there are many tools which I can use to change the login image of Leopard, but the main reason of switching into Mac is the simplicity it offers, in this case there must be an easy way of changing the startup login image by using all default application and Administrator privilege.

1. Pick any picture, other than Aurora. This image must have at least 1280 x 800 resolution with jpg format.
2. Create another copy of the above file and rename into “DefaultDesktop.jpg” – case sensitive.
3. The startup login image you’re about to replace can be located in ~/System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg.
4. The easiest way to replace the file is by drag and drop using the new file you’ve chosen earlier. In this case you have to have the Administrator privilege. Enter the Administrator password into dialog box popup.

Congratulation, you have just changed your startup login image of Leopard with just the power of Finder, though you may find out that the ownership and permission of DefaultDesktop.jpg has changed. This can be fix by running the Repair Disk Permissions using Disk Utility application.

And all is Done!

The above picture is my late 2007 white MacBook startup login image after being changed into what I believe Panther Aqua Blue – that is what any MacBook should look like.

Ada satu masalah yang cukup mengganggu saya saat menggunakan Safari untuk membuat posting langsung di wordpress.com yaitu tidak bisa pindah paragraf. Yang saya maksud dengan pindah paragraf di sini adalah meskipun saya telah menekan Enter saat membuat posting, namun hasil posting saat telah di-publish maupun di-save tidak menunjukan perpindahan paragraf tersebut. Kalimat sesudah Enter akan disambung langsung dengan kalimat sebelumnya. 

Arrrggghhh

Beberapa langkah saya coba untuk berpindah paragraf, mulai dari menekan kombinasi Shift+Enter dan menekan 2x Enter. Yang belum saya coba hanyalah mengedit langsung html-nya. Tapi jika benar harus seperti itu, “ribet” bener hanya untuk mengahasilkan perpindahan paragraf yang bisa dilakukan dengan cara menekan Enter di Firefox.

Ada Solusi?

UPDATE:
Problem’s solved.
Dari Menu Dashboard, pilih Users > Your Profile > Un-check pilihan “Use the visual rich editor when writing”.

That should do it.

Janji harus ditepati – dan salah satu janji saya adalah membuat posting tentang cara force maintenance di Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.Ada tiga tipe periodic maintenance di OSX yaitu daily, weekly, dan monthy. Awalnya saya cukup bingung tentang konsep maintenance OSX ini – khususnya berkaitan dengan acara “bersih-bersih” log di OSX. Namun pada intinya sistem secara berkala akan melakukan maintenance bagi dirinya sendiri termasuk melakukan rotasi log.

Saat saya membongkar script(?) maintenance, saya juga baru tahu bahwa daily maintenance dilakukan pada pukul 03.15 pagi, weekly maintenance dilakukan pada hari ke-6 pukul 04.30 pagi, sementara monthly maintenance dilakukan pada hari pertama setiap bulan pukul 05.30 pagi. Sayangnya sistem tidak dapat menjalankan periodic maintenance jika sistem dalam keadaan down ataupun sleep. Sementara rata-rata pengguna MacBook jarang sekali menghidupkan mesin-nya 24/7 selama 12 bulan. Tentu saja saya adalah bagian dari orang-orang yang lebih memilih untuk menidurkan MacBook pada dini hari seperti itu.Oleh karena itu, menurut saya, force periodic maintenance menjadi alternatif yang dipilih agar sistem tetap dapat “merasakan” maintenance yang dibutuhkankannya.Forcing dilakukan melalui terminal dengan ketentuan-ketentuan sebagai berikut:

1. Ketik “sudo periodic daily” untuk Daily Maintenance
2. Ketik “sudo periodic weekly” untuk Weekly Maintenance
3. Ketik “sudo periodic monthly” untuk Monthly Maintenance.

Alternatif lain adalah mengubah waktu pelaksanaan periodic maintenance dengan cara meng-edit periodic-daily.plist, periodic-weekly.plist, dan periodic-monthly.plist. Langkah yang satu ini belum pernah saya coba, namun secara logic hal ini dimungkinkan.Ada catatan penting yang perlu saya ungkapkan di sini:

1. Weekly maintenance cukup memakan waktu, jadi pastikan MacBook Anda terhubung ke outlet power. Sebaiknya tidak bergantung pada batere saat melakukan maintenance.
2. Do at your own risk. Saat melakukan maintenance ataupun meng-edit file plist, Anda sudah pasti bertindak on-behalf of Super User, pastikan bahwa semua yang Anda ketik benar.

Perbedaan cukup signifikan yang terlihat oleh saya saat membeli MacBook adalah tidak adanya tombol PgUp, PgDn, dan Home pada keyboard layout-nya. Pada awalnya saya menganggap hal ini bukan masalah besar. Namun saya salah besar, terutama saat saya bekerja mempergunakan spreadsheet. Hal ini disebabkan saya jarang mempergunakan mouse dan trackpad saat bekerja – bahkan browsing internet pun saya jarang menggunakan mouse ataupun trackpad. Saya banyak sekali memanfaatkan fungsi-fungsi keyboard shortcut yang menurut saya lebih mempercepat proses input data.

Salah satu kombinasi keyboard shortcut yang sering saya gunakan adalah ctrl+pgdn, ctrl+pgup, dan home. Biasanya kombinasi tersebut saya gunakan untuk beralih worksheet, berganti tab (di Firefox), berpindah ke kolom paling pinggir. Nah, masalah muncul karena MacBook saya tidak memiliki tombol PgUp, PgDn, dan Home. Mac Help ternyata tidak menyediakan bantuan tentang ini. Padahal yang saya cari adalah bentuk kombinasi lain yang pada intinya memberikan hasil yang sama dengan kombinasi-kombinasi yang saya butuhkan.

Akhirnya, hampir putus asa, saya melakukan hal terakhir yang memungkinkan untuk dilakukan yaitu mencoba semua potensi kombinasi yang saya pikir memungkinkan untuk mengganti tombol PgUp, PgDn, dan Home.

Berhasil? Yupe, berhasil.

Inilah hasilnya:

• PgUp = fn + up arrow
• PgDn = fn + down arrow
• Home = fn + left arrow
• End = fn + right arrow

Sayangnya, khusus untuk kombinasi “fn + right arrow” tidak selalu menghasilkan efek yang sama sebagaimana tombo “End”. Hal ini sepertinya tergantung pada aplikasi yang digunakan.

Sebagai salah satu switcher baru (dan tentu saja newbie), internet dan milis adalah rujukan terbaik ketika menemukan kendala saat mengulik white.MacBook baru saya. Namun tentu saja terkadang jawaban yang dicari tidak sesuai dengan yang dibutuhkan. Solusinya? Mencari lebih detil.

Salah satu permasalahan yang saya temukan pertama kali adalah koneksi ke jaringan kantor baik melalui kabel ataupun wireless. Masalah muncul saat saya akan melakukan koneksi ke access point kantor (yang berada di dekat rumah). Admin kantor melakukan filter berdasarkan MAC Address. Hanya MAC Address terdaftar saja yang bisa melakukan koneksi melalui access point tersedia. Nah, kendala yang saya hadapi adalah mencari MAC Address AirPort di MacBook.

Ternyata caranya sangat mudah dan terdapat beberapa cara, namun di posting ini saya hanya akan menuliskan 2 cara yang cukup signifikan berbeda

1. Apple Menu > System Preferences > Network > Pilih AirPort pada Menu di sebelah kiri > Klik Advance > Pilih tab AirPort. Di bagian bawah akan tertera MAC Address MacBook. Meskipun demikian sepertinya di OS X lebih dikenal dengan istilah AirPort ID
2. Di dalam Finder > Application > Utilities > buka Terminal > Ketik ifconfig en1. en1 adalah AirPort Anda.

BTW, Newbie banget ya?

Akhirnya, kesampaian juga punya macbook. Dengan warna super putih, kinclong, bikin semua mata memandang. Jatuh cinta sejak pandangan pertama, semakin jatuh cinta sejak syah membelai tubuhnya.

Meskipun demikian, saya benar-benar harus belajar ulang untuk memahami seluk-beluk Macbook ini. Sebagian memang tidak terlalu jauh berbeda dengan Windows, namun cukup terkejut juga bahwa saya hampir melupakan semua pengetahuan saya tentang Unix (jadi ingat saat menjadi ketua LabKom di kampus dulu).

Screen shot di atas adalah yang paling menarik, paling tidak saya tidak berbohong kepada Bunbun bahwa saya membeli sebuah tempat telur.