I had this same question and there are a lot of discussions about this on forums. Some say that because the iPad charger is twice more powerful than the iPhone charger, using the iPad charger will overload your battery and cause the battery to die faster than normal. Others say it should work fine.

It was very confusing so I went on to find out the real answer.

First: on the iPad charger description on the Apple store, it lists the iPhone as a supported device.

Second: when I measured the wattage, here was what it came out:

- When I charged my iPhone using the iPad charger, the consumed wattage was around: 6 watts.
- When the iPhone was nearly full, the consumed wattage dropped to below 1 watt.
- When I charged my iPad using the iPad charger, the consumed wattage was around: 12 watts.

=> It looks like the iPad charger knows the iPhone and iPad and draws the correct current to charge the iPhone and/or the iPad.

Third: I called Apple Support and was told, it is fine to use an iPad charger to charge the iPhone.

Take care!

If you recently jailbreaks your device, Installous has a known issue where when you click on download and proceed to a download site => instead of displaying a capcha, your iPhone/iPad just displays a blank page.

This is a known issue and Installous has been working on the issue. In the mean time, here is a quick fix by one of the Installous users:

1. Visit here and download this file. This file contains us.hackulo.downloadQueue.plist and blacklist.json (guaranteed by the owner to have no virus).
2. Open your device from your computer and go to /var/mobile/Documents/Installous/
3. Delete us.hackulo.downloadQueue.plist and upload the one from Step 1 above.
4. Go to /var/mobile/Documents/Installous/AdBlock/ and upload blacklist.json in there.
5. Start Installous and download should now work.

If you don’t already know how to open your device from your computer, I use a program called i-Funbox. iExplorer is also good.

Take care!

Update: Installous has been shutdown.

For this method, you need to jailbreak your iPhone/iPad. Once jailbroken => launch Cydia => search for iFile and install it.

Once install, start iFile.

When you first start iFile, you are placed in the /var/mobile directory. The hosts file is located in /etc/hosts so in order to edit it, you need to navigate to the /etc directory.

To do that, you click on “var” under your phone’s signal bar => next click on “/”

Now scroll up, find “etc” and click on it.

Find the file “hosts” and click on it => then click on Text Viewer.

Now click on “Edit” (below your signal bar) and start editing.

Have fun.

Jetpack is really great and provides many very useful modules but on some sites, we do not need all of them; plus when we try out a module and we don’t like it, it is useful to know how to disable such module.

To disable a Jetpack module:

• Login to your WordPress admin
• Click on Jetpack to list the modules
• Find the module you want to deactivate
• Click on the Learn More button
• Pay attention to the Configure button on the right side of the “Learn More” button => this Configure button should now be changed to “Deactivate“
• Now click on that Deactivate button to disable that module.

Take care!

I finally bought an iPhone 4S, yay!!! I bought a few apps then every time when I try to sync apps to my Mac, iTunes pops up saying it wants to delete my apps

It took me a while but I finally figured out how to sync my apps to my Mac:

In iTunes => under Devices => right click on my iPhone and click on “Transfer Purchases from”.

iTunes would start copying the apps to my Mac.

Once done, I can then tick on “Sync Apps” without a problem.

Ever since I switched to using MAC as my main OS, the Grab utility was the only tool I used to grab screenshots. It was great but Grab can only save the screenshots in .tiff format which Windows audience has trouble viewing. Every time, I had to use another imaging tool to convert .tiff to .png.

It has been time consuming so today I went ahead and looked for an alternative to Grab. My finding was surprisingly simple. MAC already has another wonderful image grabbing tool built-in. All I need to do to use it is to execute some simple shortcuts. Once grabbed, the images are saved to my desktop automatically under .png format, fit my needs perfectly.

Here are some of the commands on how to use the MAC OS X built-in screenshots grabbing utility:

This will grab your entire desktop:

Command + Shift + 3

This will grab the entire desktop but place on your clipboard so you can paste into a graphic program:

Command + Control + Shift + 3

This will allow you to drag and select an area on the screen:

Command + Shift + 4

This will allow you to select and capture an active window:

Command + Shift + 4 + Spacebar

Tips:

- Press ESC if you want to cancel the commands above.

- Add “Control” (similar to command 2 above) to the command to put data on the clipboard instead of saving to a file.

I have a Dell Quad Core 2.4GHz running Windows Vista Ultimate that I didn’t bother to use for several years now.

The problem? Even with such CPU power, the system boots very slowly, about 3-5 minutes before I can use it.  And once the system finishes booting, the harddrive keeps hammering for hours making things very slow and the harddrive sound gives me headache

It really bothered me to the point I stopped using it completely. Yesterday, I pulled it out => had it factory restored and loaded it with scrapebox; a software to do backlinks for websites.

Things went great but I experienced the same slow booting up and harddrive hammering issues.  I made a trip to Google and after about an hour of reading, I decided to make a Windows Vista Tweak and that fixed the problem entirely. The system now boots very fast, like Windows XP again! and the harddrive no longer makes annoying sound.

What Windows Vista Tweak did I perform? I disabled SuperFetch. SuperFetch is a program designed to give Vista users better computing experience. It preload the programs that we use often into memory so that when we need to run the programs, the programs can be started quickly.

It sounds great but it didn’t work that way. I am very happy now with SuperFetch disabled and I finally feel to have a useful computer again.

Here is how to disable SuperFetch:

• Click “Start” (or the Windows logo on the bottom left) => in the search box, type “services.msc” without quote and hit Enter
• You will see a whole bunch of lines => scroll down to find SuperFetch
• Once found, double click on SuperFetch => this would open up the SuperFetch Properties
• On the line  that says “Startup Type” => select “Disabled”
• Click “Ok” and restart your computer
• Done

That is it. In the many years of owning this computer, I finally feel that I have a useful computer again.

]]> http://www.unixnewbie.org/fixing-vista-harddrive-hammering-problem/feed/ 0 http://www.unixnewbie.org/windows-xp-guest-os-inside-mac-os-x/ http://www.unixnewbie.org/windows-xp-guest-os-inside-mac-os-x/#comments Sat, 22 Oct 2011 18:27:38 +0000 Stephen http://www.unixnewbie.org/?p=1300

As many of you already know, I have switched to use MAC fulltime. MAC is really good, the experience is awesome and I enjoy it a lot.

Still because I use many programs and some of them do not run on MAC so I need to power up my Windows PC from now and then.

Windows Emulators

It is a little bit inconvenience so I recently looked into running Windows Software inside my MAC. I have tried many Windows emulators including CrossOver, CrossOver works wonderfully but still, some programs do not fully work as expected.

Virtualization

I then looked into virtualization thinking… the only way to make these Windows software to fully work is to have them running inside Windows. It turned out that I am correct. The virtualization software I am using is called VirtualBox. This is a free virtualization program developed by Sun Microsystems, now Oracle. It is very simple to use and is very stable.

Steps by Steps

Installing VirtualBox:

• Simply download VirtualBox here
• Once downloaded, simply double click on it and follow instructions to begin the installation

How to install Windows XP OS Guess in VirtualBox:

• Start VirtualBox
• Hit “New” on the top left to start creating your virtual machine
• Click “Continue”
• Under Name, enter your virtual machine name, i.e. “Windows XP”
• Click “Continue” => then choose your memory size
• Click “Continue” several times => then choose your hard disk size
• Click “Create” to finish creating your virtual disk

Once your virtual disk is created, it will appear on the top left, inside the Virtual Box Manager => simply start it => virtual box will then prompt you to install the Guest OS => from here, enter your Windows XP CD into your CD drive and start the installation.  If you have Windows XP in your computer as .iso file, you can select it and begin.  Pretty easy.

One thing that I was struggling with was how to access the MAC OS X files from inside the Windows XP Guest. Here is the solution:

How to access MAC OS X files from inside Windows XP Guest OS:

• Once you have your Windows XP Guest OS fully installed => boot it up
• Click on “Devices” on the very top left menu => then click on “Install Guest Addition”
• Once complete, reboot your Guest OS
• Once Guest OS boots up => click on “Devices” => then click on “Shared Folder” => now choose the folders you want to access
• Here is how to access the files inside Windows XP:
  -  Click on Start => click on Run
  - Enter “explorer” without quote and click “Ok”
  - On the left menu => click on “My Network Places” => click on “Entire Network” => click on “VirtualBox Shared Folders”
• There you go, now you can open/edit/copy/paste the files/folders in your MAC OS X to your Windows XP Guest.

Hope this helps someone! Take care.

My Windows XP Guest OS inside MAC OS X

I have DSL from ATT for the past two years under the smallest plan.  Its speed? like snail… I got too tired of it and upgraded to the highest plan last week, ouch…

Then problem came. Because of the better speed, I started doing more downloading and watching movies, yea

Every time, yes, every time, I download a big file or watch a movie, the 2wire modem keeps restarting itself or other people call it 2wire modem drop out or connection drops repeatedly or whatever you call it.

It kept doing that for a week until yesterday when I couldn’t handle the frustration anymore and called ATT customer service. The gentleman was nice, worked with me for close to an hour doing this and that: from unhooking power to removing DSL filter, etc…

None worked so he finally concluded that the problem was with the 2Wire modem and that he would transfer me to someone who can send me a new one.

Then a lady greeted me with “It is a good day here at ATT, how can I make your day a good day?” That was pretty awesome so I told her that a support technician diagnosed my modem that it fails and I need a new one.  She said it would cost me money for a new modem.

I told her I was under the impression that I would get a replacement without cost. She said it would cost me $100. I told her that wouldn’t make my day a good day. She said, “we ain’t give any modem for free.”

If I happen to have to spend on a new modem, I know I can get it for much less else where so I didn’t buy from the lady. I started to search Craigslist and found several of them for just $20. I emailed the sellers with some questions and waited.

In the mean time, I googled to see if anyone experiences the same issue. It turns out there are MANY and there is a solution to fix the 2Wire’s constantly drop out issue.

After tweaking several times, here is the final setting on my modem that works:

Wireless mode: 802.11b
Max connection: 12mbps
Authentication: WPA2

Under this setting, my modem never drops. Under 802.11g and other max connection setting, my 2wire drops.

How to change 2Wire wireless settings:

• Open up a browser and type: http://homeportal/ => hit Enter
• Click on “Home Network”
• Click on “Wireless Setting” (this is located under the ATT logo) => if your modem is password protected, it will prompt you for the password, go ahead and login
• Scroll down, you will find wireless mode and max connection under Additional Setting.

Here is my list of the best free and open source software for Mac OS X.

Reference:

For a lot more good, free programs/applications for Mac OS X, check out this Ubuntu list: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ListOfOpenSourcePrograms