Kai Mai's Blog - Take Back the Web - Nodes for mac

List of Free Software for Mac

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:39:10 -0800

Who says that you must shell out big bucks for software when you switch to Mac?

NeoOffice - Microsoft office replacement
Thuderbird - Email client
Adium - IM clients for varies IM networks
Disk Inventory - visualize disk usage
NoobProof - firewall
CyberDuck - FTP/SFTP/Amazon S3/Web Dav client
iTerm - better terminal
Navicat Lite - MySQL GUI client with SSH tunnel support

Why Can't It be Easier to Eject a Stuck CD/DVD from Macbook Pro

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 23:48:51 -0700

It's beyond my imagination why Mac doesn't offer a physical eject button for DVD drive.

I put in a blank DVD disc for burning data. A popup dialog popped up asking me what to do. I just hit escape. I opened finder. There's no the DVD drive being mounted.

Searching around, finally found the working solution: Open Disk Utility and choose the disc you wish to eject in the left-hand pane, then click on the Eject button.

Tags: usability mac dvd eject

Free Security Software for Mac OS X Leopard: ClamxAV Anti-virus, NoobProof Firewall

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:02:08 -0700

I've been used to running Anti-spyware, Anti-virus, Firewall Programs on Windows. Mac is "supposed" to be more secure, but I always want to be safe than sorry. Mac is getting popular, so it will become a popular target for virus and spyware writers. Also, Leopard's built-in firewall, which is not activated by default, sucks.

so I did some research, and started using the following free programs for Max OS X Leopard:

ClamxAV Open Source anti-virus - The version on Mac doesn't let me scan my disk in one click cause it said it'd cause problems. I had to select folders to scan instead. Also, I needed to set up the preferences to monitor scan with progress bar, scan email files, alert on virus detection, and the schedule to do daily virus definition update and scan. These things should have been set up as default.

Tags: security mac osx firewall anti-virus spyware leopard

Amazon Gold Box 5% Off Trick: Apple Macbook Pro for $1452, Macbook Air for $1654

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:10:32 -0800

Apple released new generation of MacBook a couple days ago. Amazon has slashed its price on "previous" generation of MacBook and offers rebates as well.

Here's a trick outlined by rabidrobin at SlickDeals to manipulate(aka influence) Amazon recommendation system to offer your desired products as your daily gold box deals:

Create a new account
Go to the product page for an applecare for macbook pro
scroll down until you find the "I Own it" checkbox, and check it
At the top of the screen, click on Recommendations
Go through the list of 20-30 or so recommended items and click "Not Interested" for the ones that aren't macbook pros

Tags: amazon apple macbook deal macbook_air macbook_pro laptop mac trick gold_box discount recommendation