Kibbles & Bytes Blog

The vast majority of insert/eject problems on Apple laptops are related to how users pick up their machines. It sounds ridiculous, and some people even take offense when I offer a tutorial on how to handle their machines, but if you squash the optical drive opening, that is considered damage and is not covered by your warranty.

By picking up your laptop with two hands, and avoiding at all costs putting pressure on the optical drive area, you can prevent problems down the line. These range from failure of the optical drive, scratching disks on every insert or eject and failure of the drive to suck a disc in or spit one out.

When we see this problem, we’re often able to use a non-marring nylon probe tool to pry open the optical drive slot. These tools are thin and rectangular, and by inserting the tapered end a few millimeters into the slot and twisting, the slot can be coaxed open. However, if your optical drive is having issues and your slot is compressed, there cannot be warranty coverage for the problem.

The non-unibody 17-inch laptops are especially prone to this problem, as the optical drive is right under the wrist rest area, and the slot seems less reinforced than on other models. Plastic MacBooks are also very vulnerable. Apple, recognizing this oversight in design and engineering, made the optical drive slot in unibody laptops much more rigid. This said, you should still make an effort to avoid pressing or squeezing this opening.

Apple announced late last week a program to replace a “very small number of Seagate 1TB hard drives used in 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac systems” sold between May and July 2011. If you did not buy your iMac in this time frame, or have an older iMac with 1TB hard drive, you are not affected and do not qualify for free replacement.

1TB hard drives installed in other Mac models sold around this time are not affected.

Apple is always good about owning up to quality problems. The old-style MacBook cracking wrist rest issue is a good example, and any old style MacBook qualifies for free top case replacement regardless of warranty status–as long as the cracking is not a result of abuse or physical damage.

“Click here to determine whether your computer is affected.”:http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/

It should be noted that this is an issue with the Seagate hard drive. Seagate is a huge manufacturer of storage products, and Apple had nothing at all to do with the development of the hard drives in question.

I’ve had some calls over the past few days from people who recently had to replace their AirPort Express due to passing storms. In each case, they configured their new base station through AirPort Utility, and the unit had a green status light, but none of their systems could connect to the Internet. When they checked their AirPort settings in Network Preferences, there was a message saying their system had a self-assigned IP address (169.x.x.x).

Any active network adapter, whether it’s wired or wireless, requires an IP (Internet Protocol) address to talk to other network devices. For most networks, it will be similar to 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x. Your cable/DSL modem will have an address as well, which is assigned by your Internet Service Provider. An IP address is either static (meaning it will never change) or dynamic (meaning it can change as needed).

A web or email server is typically static, since it has to be accessible from anywhere in the world all the time, whereas your iPod is dynamic so you can change wireless networks easily. In order for dynamic addressing to work, something on the network has to hand out IP addresses to devices that connect, so when you walk into the local Starbucks your laptop can automatically join the wireless network. This is known as DHCP–Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol.

In your home, this is handled by your router–such as an AirPort Express or a Netgear/Belkin/other brand device–but it needs to be configured to do it. In some cases, this is automatic when you first connect it, but in the case of an AirPort Express, DHCP is turned off by default.

When you connect to the AirPort Express using the AirPort Utility, there will be a row of buttons on the top–AirPort, Internet, Printers, Disks, and Advanced. Clicking on Internet brings up a screen that says Internet Connection; the last option is Connection Sharing. It’s probably currently set to “Off (Bridge Mode)” but in order for your network to work properly, it needs to be changed to “Share a public IP address.”

Changing this setting now adds two new options at the top, DHCP and NAT. Click the “Update” button and your AirPort Extreme will restart itself. After about a minute, your system should re-configure itself; you can verify this by checking the Network Preferences for your AirPort. It should now have a valid IP address (usually 10.0.x.x), and Safari should open your home page when you start it.

Happy Tuesday,

After a seemingly endless heat wave, Saturday night brought cool breezes and temperatures in the high sixties. It was over 100 degrees Friday in much of Vermont, and even hotter in my warehouse office without air conditioning. Needless to say, the Mad River is a resource I am very thankful for. Many Small Dog employees at our Waitsfield, VT headquarters head to the river on their lunch breaks, or even just to cool off mid-afternoon.

While Lion is not yet qualified for use on Small Dog workstations, I borrowed a laptop over the weekend, installed Lion, and poked around a bit Sunday afternoon. I’m a big fan of the new gestures, but seemingly unable to overcome muscle memory to use the new “natural” scrolling feature. I disabled that in the first five minutes.

Launchpad seems to me unnecessary visual overload, but I’ve used Quicksilver to launch my programs for at least five years, so I’m biased. I don’t understand the appeal of “All My Files” seen in the Finder sidebars: why would you want to scroll through a giant list of files when you can use Spotlight?

Overall, though, Lion is a substantial step forward in interface and design. We should expect a continued trend towards iOS-like features in Mac OS. As Mac OS X ages and iOS matures, the lines will continue to blur. Some day iOS may succeed Mac OS entirely.

If you haven’t already, you can “get your copy of Lion here.”:http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=19XpSnZWhPI&offerid=146261&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fos-x-lion%2Fid444303913%3Fmt%3D12%2526uo%253D6%2526partnerId%253D30

As always, thanks for reading, and keep in touch.

Matt
“matt@smalldog.com”:mailto:matt@smalldog.com