In part 2 of this series, I took the fan out of my 13″ MacBook Pro, cleaned it and lightly lubricated it. For about a day, the fan noise was almost non-existent and the heating issue was mildly approved. Unfortunately, the noise quickly returned along with the hot CPU. This problem had to be fixed one way or another or I was going to have to throw the computer out of the window since it had become painfully slow and buggy. The next plan was to buy a new fan and replace the loud, failing original. I also decided to double the RAM from 4 to 8 gigs since the back would already… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In search of a different distro (term of endearment for Linux distributions) to try, I decided to try installing probably one of the harder distros to install, Arch Linux over the weekend.  I thought I would gather some thoughts into a post and share what I think of this interesting distro that doesn’t get the press that Ubuntu does. Arch Linux is a bit different than most Linux distributions out there.  For example, it doesn’t have a default graphical interface.  It boots directly into a Linux command prompt from the CD.  You get into the install by typing in: /arch/setup in the command… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Having used iTunes Match along with iTunes in the Cloud for the last few months, I have developed a few habits that I don’t even realize are new anymore! This weekend I gave my younger son my 4th gen iPod Touch to use as his own, as he was constantly pushing beyond the limits of his 8GB iPod Touch that was the pseudo 3rd gen that was really a 2nd gen model holdover. Since I almost never use it, I had no qualms since I’d rather it actually get used than sit idle. But while going through things with him I realized just how much has changed with iOS 5, iTunes in the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

In part 1 of this 3 part series, I discovered that my computer was not acting happy due to a fan issue. Catch up with the post here to follow my MacBook adventure. One goal of this project is to avoid the Apple Store and keep the cost down as low as possible. The fan noise is definitely out of control, the machine is running hot and it has become super slow. My next plan of action is to open up the case to clean and lubricate the fan. I took a few photos to explain how to open the machine, take out the fan and clean and lubricate. Remember, this is purely for… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I pretty much live on my Mid 2009 13″ MacBook Pro. The computer literally goes everywhere I go, and it contains most everything I need for work and home life. The past few months, my amazing little machine has developed some annoying problems. First, the fan started making a loud noise. At first I thought that it was running too fast, but after adding iStat Pro to my Dashboard, I quickly found the fan to be running at normal speeds with extra noise. Soon after the loud fan issue came the heat. My CPU was regularly running a temperature up to 90+ degrees. When this would occur, the machine was almost unusable. It seemed the noisy fan just could not keep up with the temperatures. I know the MacBook is getting to be a bit old when looking at computer years, but I love this computer and cannot afford to replace it. In fact, the computer was a family gift to me upon graduating with my Masters degree. Fixing the MacBook will be a three-part series of my adventure from start to finish. DISCLAIMER: ALL OF WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ WAS DONE AT MY OWN RISK! IF YOU [...]

My biggest personal tech find of 2011 has to be the Sonos home audio system. I got a review loaner and bought one within a day. I was that impressed with it and continue to love it. You can read the the initial review here and read the review of the new, smaller PLAY:3 here. During the inaugural Gear Fest last summer I had Carly film a quick walkthrough of setting the Sonos system up. It never made it into a post… until now.   Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I hate bills.  I also hate paying for things I can get for free. I was at Thomas’ house last year just hanging out. We were watching a movie on his Roku box, and I realized that the little box was giving him everything that I watch on TV except for local channels. That was the beginning of my quest to get rid of my cable bill. At first I searched the web and found that all you need is an antenna to pick up local television stations. I could remember back to my childhood, and how we had an antenna that was pointed toward Indianapolis so we would get about 10 channels; that is… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If you have been using Google to search for a while, chances are you have picked up a few tricks along the way such as putting quotes to specify phrases to find, or adding a ‘+’ or ‘-’ to specify things that must be included or excluded. But now the folks at HackCollege have come up with a great new infographic to help you see even more possibilities for searching.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

One of the coolest features in iOS 5 WiFi syncing, which I now use far more often than USB syncing. Being able to hit “Sync” on my MacBook for my iPad while it’s still in my bag (it only needs charging every few days) makes me giggle every time I do it. It’s just so simple, and works so effectively every time. With it, new music, an updated playlist, and a few new apps are just a click away. Obviously this functionality is normally used over a WiFi connection at home or the office, but it turns out you can actually use WiFi sync when you’re mobile too. As a regular user of the Personal… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Do you have less room on your iDevice then you think you should?  Are you seeing space taken up by a media file that you can’t remove via an iTunes sync?  Do you have weird, grayed-out items in your list of iDevice media files when you look at them in iTunes?  Well, Gear Diary is here to help!  (This comes firmly under the heading of, “Doug screws things up and finds out how to fix them so you don’t have to!”) I am pretty dang happy with iOS 5 on both my iPhone and my iPad.  But there is some odd behavior that I have been seeing since I upgraded, and I wanted to share with you all what to do about it should it happen to you. In a nutshell, I’m getting some zombie media files. “What the heck do you mean by that, Doug?”  Well, it’s pretty simple: for some reason, on my iPad and iPhone, I have ended up with TV show and movie files–both purchased and rental–that show up in iTunes, but don’t appear in the appropriate media app on the device.  For example, I rented an Episode of “Primeval”, watched it, and then (I thought) [...]

I have been teaching for the past few years and have found that recording my lectures is helpful for students that are sick or that need assistance due to attention deficit issues. Many of the programs to record lectures are costly, so I set out to see if I could use my MacBook and a Bluetooth headset to accomplish the task. I found that not only can I, but that it works remarkably well. The Bluetooth Device: The Bluetooth device I opted for is the Jabra BT3030 Bluetooth Stereo Headset [affiliate link]. Not only is it a good headset, but it can… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

I’m a huge fan of the application TextExpander. It is, in fact, one of the key Mac utilities I cannot do without. TE offers a good deal of power but the primary reason I use it is that it allows me to create text shortcuts that have saved me a great deal of typing. For example, instead typing in Gear Diary’s URL constantly I simply type “ggear”. Less than a second later TE converts that combination into “www.geardiary.com”. That’s five characters instead of seventeen. It is even more helpful when using HTML code in a post. For example “llike” yields “What I Like: ” at the end of a review. TE is also good if… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Perhaps it was because I was using the Sony Vaio S-series laptop with its 15-hour battery, but I never really looked critically at the battery life on my 2011 15″ Macbook Pro. But recently I have been using it almost exclusively and have felt that I should be getting more hours between charges. My assumption – particularly how the fans would spin up even when I was doing nothing particularly challenging – was that there was something related to the graphics card. So I looked around and found that the dynamic switching on the graphics cards will often leave the system stuck using the discrete card when the integrated is more than enough (for… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

The Notes app that is built into iOS has always struck me as a bit anemic. That’s hard for me to write, considering that my cousin works for Apple and is one of the key people involved in its development. Unfortunately… it’s kind of true. Sure, Notes is great for jotting down quick memos, but that is about it. There is very little you can actually do with it other than, well, take notes. Documents can’t be formatted. You can’t add pictures. The app doesn’t even have folders, so you can’t organize your notes. The message Apple is sending with it is simple, “This is the most basic of notes apps. If you want something… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

If the apocalypse comes, I want to spend it with the teams who competed in the Red Bull Creation event. They were given 72 hours and a pile of junk, along with the mission to illustrate “Energy in Motion”. Any scraps were fair game, from metal to electronics to slabs of wood, and the creations were just astounding. What they created was absolute brilliance, from hamster wheels to see-saws, and did I mention they did it in 3 days? If you left me in a room with a pile of junk and Red Bull, you’d come back to find a hyper-caffienated blogger probably trapped under said pile of junk. You certainly wouldn’t find the jaw-dropping creations these 16… Continue reading on Gear Diary …