New (mighty) mouse

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A few months back, I wrote about the problems I have been experiencing with my Apple Mighty Mouse.

I got used to cleaning the scroll ball, but after a while, the right-click became unreliable – to the point where I had to connect an ordinary PC mouse to the Mac, which then worked perfectly (indicating that my configuration was fine).

Contrary to the anecdotal reports that I linked in my original post, last week I took the not-so-mighty Mouse to the Apple Store in London (Regent Street), where a “genius” exchanged it for a new one.  I hadn’t been hopeful (as when it was my turn for service he was displaying a really unhelpful attitude, still complaining to a colleague about his previous customer) but, even after trying it out on another machine and not finding any problem, he commented that I “seem to know what I’m talking about” (I hope so!) and exchanged it anyway.

I’d forgotten how good it was when it was new – I just hope this one lasts a bit longer.

My computer is better than your computer…

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

A couple of weeks back, I posted some clips of spoof Mac vs. PC ads, as well as pointing out that the Apple campaign is a little… how can I put this… untruthful… at times. I couldn’t be bothered to report Bill Gates getting annoyed on US television over the whole Mac vs. PC thing but I can tell this whole episode has gone mainstream when British comedians start poking fun at the Mac vs. PC ads on BBC Radio 4.

I was laughing out loud when I heard last Friday’s The Now Show – so much so that I thought I’d share a short segment of the show here – thereby illustrating that the whole “my operating system is better than your operating system” nonsense is quite ridiculous really:

Jon Holmes: Let’s take two letters at the same time…

Mac: Dear Jon, I’m a Mac.
PC: And I’m a PC.
Mac: I wonder if you could settle, once and for all, the controversial debate that’s been raging as to which one of us is better for the home and which one is better for the office?
PC: Well it really is a tricky one that, isn’t it? Umm.

Jon Holmes: But the Mac or PC argument has of course been a source of techie conflict for years; personally I couldn’t give less of a t*ss either way – they both let you download p*rn don’t they – what’s not to like? But speccy computer enthusiasts on either side treat the Mac and PC divide like open war…

(gunfire/explosions)

Admiral Horatio Nelson: The Battle is won Mr Hardy. Those Mac-loving scum have taken their stupid mouse that has only one clicky button and turned tail and fled. We can claim victory over those who would dare prefer an OS X operating system that utilises GUI and Unix underpinnings.

(explosion)

(Windows exclamation sound)

Arghh!

Admiral Horatio Nelson: Mr Hardy! I’ve been hit by a spam e-mail! I thought this ship’s Windows anti-worm and virus software had been configured to prevent unsolicited e-mails. I am done for.

Captain Thomas Hardy: Sorry Sir, the ship’s firewall was down. IT say there was a .DLL file error in the hold.

Admiral Horatio Nelson: It is over Mr Hardy. My battle is lost. Kiss me Hardy.

Captain Thomas Hardy: No thanks Sir, someone might film it on their phone camera and put it on YouTube and we’d look well gay.

Jon Holmes: PC or Mac, Mac or PC it’s causing a national divide pitching brother against brother, cousin against cousin, spoddy geek against spoddy geek…

Geek: At my signal, unleash Dell.

Jon Holmes: However, Mitchell and Webb aren’t the first double act to advertise computers either. Punt and Dennis did one some years ago, back when they were famous, in which they too had to pitch computer against computer but back then, there was no real contest as to which was the best…

Sinclair ZX-81: Hello, I’m a Sinclair ZX-81.
Space Invaders machine: And I’m a Space Invaders machine in the pub.
Sinclair ZX-81: I’ve got up to 1K of memory, an external cassette recorder (not supplied) and a lead to connect me to the back of the television.

(pause)

Space Invaders machine: Yeah but I’m in the pub.

Jon Holmes: No contest!

Notice
The above work has been copyrighted by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the author believes that the republishing of the script and low-quality recording on this page constitutes criticism, review and news reporting under the terms of fair dealing in the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA). It also represents free publicity for one of the BBC’s excellent programmes!

Mac vs. PC

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.


PC guy - Mac guy

A few months back, I commented that Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads were amusing but it still strikes me as odd that a company with a brand as strong as Apple’s would drop to what is effectively bragging. Anyway, despite the rumours of Mac guy Justin Long being replaced (which he appears to deny on his website), new ads are running and they are still amusing… even if they do sometimes sail a little close to the wind (more on that in a moment).

The ads have grabbed the public attention so much that there are even spoof ads:
Even Microsoft seem to be getting in on the act, and although the original source of the Zune vs. iPod clip below is unclear, it was reported to have been shown at a Microsoft event (I can believe that):

Meanwhile, the United States’ campaign has been so successful that it is now being rolled out in other parts of the world – David Mitchell and Robert Webb have been brought in as PC guy and Mac guy for the UK ads and it seems to work well (my favourites so far are definitely “Restarting” and “Virus“).

I said that Apple are sailing close to the wind here and this is why… I have to restart my Mac far more often than my Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 PCs – so that’s one of the UK ads that’s a blatant lie then. I’ll accept that view is a little subjective, so let’s objectively consider the new “Security” ad in the US which pokes fun at Windows Vista’s user access control:

…and here’s a screen shot from my Mac, after I change the default behaviour which allows me to run as an administrator although admittedly not as root (and with the client firewall turned off):

OS X authentication

I know the ads are largely about fun but isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?

More on cleaning the Apple not-so-Mighty Mouse

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Last week I wrote about problems with my Apple Mighty Mickey Mouse. Then, a couple of days back, it completely stopped right-clicking and scrolling down. To say that I was not happy would be an understatement (it’s not inexpensive and none of my other rodents have died after just 6 months of use) – the only reason I didn’t actually get to an Apple Store to replace it was scheduling the time it would take me to make the 100+ mile round trip to Birmingham or London (somehow, I didn’t think the staff at the Tesco “Apple Store” 10 miles down the road would be any help).

After reading various articles on the ‘net (most notably from Kevin Lim and Shirster), I tried Brendan Fenn’s sticky tape cleaning method, following which the right mouse button jumped back into life (not sure what was going on there). Still left without a working scroll ball (left, right, up, but not down) reading the comments on the Shirster article led me to the realisation that late model Mickey Mice could not be reassembled so I resorted to 70% isopropyl alcohol swabs (£0.10 each from the local pharmacy) and after a few seconds cleaning (with no noticeable dirt removed), I plugged the mouse back in to find that the scroll ball was working again. I’m not sure what the long term effects will be, but not being able to scroll down was extremely annoying and if even I have shortened the life of the mouse then that’s still an improvement on yesterday (when it was just about to head for the trash can).

It still seems to me that the design is fundamentally flawed, but until I can find another mouse that looks good alongside an Apple keyboard I guess I’ll be sticking with it.

My Mighty Mouse is not so mighty

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Mighty MouseMy Apple keyboard looks nice but it shows the dirt and is not the best keyboard in the world (the keys stick a bit). I’ve also got mixed feelings about the buttons on my Apple Mighty Mouse (wired version) although the 360º clickable scroll ball (scrolly nipple thing) is particularly useful as it can be used to scroll left, right, up or down.

Except that my scrolly nipple thing frequently refuses to scroll down – and it seems I’m not alone (a quick google turned up “Shall I kill this damn mouse?“, “Mighty Mouse reviewed: Garbage” and “I hate my Mighty Mouse” – if you’re still not convinced then look at the comments on the Apple Store page for the product). Previously, some frantic scrolling has restored action but tonight I rebooted, plugged it into another PC and was just about ready to accept that I need to make a trip to an Apple Store to replace it when I spotted the tiniest piece of detritus on the edge of the case close to the mouse ball. After dislodging what I assume was just a few flakes of dead skin (unpleasant yes, but a simple fact of life), it jumped into life, but I’m a little disappointed as the whole point about optical mice is that they are not supposed to need cleaning – it seems that Apple’s design looks great on the surface but merely replaces a dirty ball on the bottom of the mouse with a similar one on the top.

It gets worse as anecdotal reports suggest that scroll ball issues (even after just a few months) are not covered under warranty as they classified as “wear and tear”. Hmmm. Apple have published advice on how to clean your Mighty Mouse though.

Upgrading my Mac to run Vista

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

“Hah! How can installing Windows on a Mac be an upgrade?”, I hear you ask – surely that’s tainting all that Apple wholesomeness with a BSOD-inducing, spyware-ridden, unreliable piece of software – at least, that’s the impression that you will get if you listen to Scott Bourne…

Back in the land of all that is operating system-agnostic, my Mac has been running Mac OS X (most of the time) and Windows XP (a fraction of the time) since the end of July and, as it’s the most advanced piece of PC hardware that I have, I decided to upgrade my Windows partition to Vista. The first thing to note is that Apple only supports Windows XP SP2 for Boot Camp (although others have managed to use alternative operating systems successfully), but then Boot Camp is also beta software (i.e. with limited support) so, not to much to lose then!

I booted into Windows XP, inserted the Vista DVD and ran the upgrade advisor (third time lucky as it first insisted that I install the Microsoft XML Parser 6.0 and then the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0) after which was very pleased to see that my hardware would run Vista Ultimate with all the 3D effects so I could finally experience Aero glass first-hand (I’ve seen it demonstrated but all the PCs I’ve run Vista on up to now have had low-end onboard graphics cards). The upgrade advisor warned me about a few devices for which it didn’t have drivers (SigmaTel High Definition Audio Codec, Apple Built-In Bluetooth and Canon CanoScan N650U/N656U) as well a couple of applications that may have problems post-installation (Symantec AntiVirus Client and Windows Messenger) but as there were no show-stoppers I went ahead with the upgrade (Vista also gave me the option to perform a clean installation, but I figured upgrading from an existing Windows XP installation with all the correct drivers would be a good starting point).

The upgrade itself was smooth and after a while I had a running Windows Vista Ultimate Edition system (not yet activated). As could be expected, Windows wanted to locate some missing drivers, but strangely they weren’t the ones previously identified by the upgrade advisor: firstly there was my Nikon LS4000ED film scanner (for which the Windows XP driver seemed to work); and another device that stopped working during the upgrade was my graphics tablet, although Wacom has a beta driver for Windows Vista that was easily downloaded and installed, following which the tablet PC input panel appeared. More worryingly, Mediafour MacDrive 6 stopped working under Vista so I have no access to non-Windows partitions and, annoyingly, there was no mention of this from the upgrade advisor, nor does a search for “vista” on the Mediafour website turn up any results (I have since opened a support request and been referred to an article which states that Vista is not supported – apparently that will be in MacDrive 7 next year, and will cost me some more cash). Although I was able to work through the driver issues (if not the MacDrive application issue) I have to question exactly what is the point of an upgrade advisor that doesn’t identify all the likely issues?

Because I had upgraded from a working XP installation that was using Boot Camp v1.0.2 drivers, most of my Mac hardware was recognised by Windows (and Vista was even able to find a driver online for one device that hadn’t previously worked – the Infineon Trusted Platform Module). Even so, more recent versions of Boot Camp provide additional device support – like being able to use F14 for PrtScr – so I decided to upgrade the Apple Keyboard driver. After creating an updated driver CD using the Boot Camp Assistant v1.1.2 under Mac OS X, Tim Gaden’s article on wrangling Boot Camp v1.1.2 drivers into Windows Vista guided me through extracting the driver files to a location on my hard disk (“D:\Install Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP.exe” /A /v), from where I was able to locate the Apple Keyboard driver (in locationofextractedfiles\program files\Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP 1.1.2\Apple Keyboard\) and run the setup wizard. Tim’s article was written for Vista RC2, but I can confirm that the same fatal error occurs with the RTM build (build 6000) if the /a /v switches are not used to extract the setup files and run them individually.

Feature transfer error: Error -1603 Fatal error during installation

Once the Apple Keyboard driver was properly installed, I could use the extra function keys but as the UK Apple keyboard lacks a # character, I couldn’t type # directly (Alt+3 no longer works) although Alt+035 does the trick (note that the 035 must be typed on the number pad, not using the numeric keys above above qwertyuiop).

There were still a couple of devices with warnings in Device Manager – no driver seems to be available for the performance counters (at least that’s one step ahead of the Windows XP installation which simply referred to this item as a PCI device) and I have a USB Human Interface Device for which the drivers won’t start (hardware ID USB\VID_05AC&PID_8240&REV_0110 – this was also unrecognised under XP and 05AC denotes Apple but I’m not sure which device 8240 relates to). Sadly, the Apple remote still doesn’t work – a shame really as I much prefer Microsoft’s Windows Media Center to Apple’s FrontRow.

During the upgrade, I also noticed a nice feature as I held down the Alt/option key on each reboot to select the Windows partition – as well as Macintosh HD and Windows, the boot loader offered the choice of booting from the Windows DVD (I’m not sure if this is available to Mac users without Boot Camp?).

I have previously criticised the Vista user interface but I’m finding that I actually like the full experience with all the 3D effects turned on (sorry Microsoft). Flip 3D is cool; so is the taskbar thumbnail preview; and I like the way that Windows fade in/out as I maximise/minimise them.

Flip-3D

Thumbnail preview

Extolling the virtues of Vista’s user interface does not in any way reverse the opinion I have previously expressed as a Microsoft business customer – by and large, corporates don’t care about 3D graphics and the main requirement is for a reliable and secure operating system, something for which only time can tell if Windows Vista is or is not.

As for those who point out the similarities between Windows Vista and Mac OS X (I did blog about the spoof videos earlier this year and yes, I have seen David Pogue’s video article on the New York Times site, to which it should be added that Pogue is a well-known Mac user – he even writes books about Apple software!), let’s play that particular criticism back another way (which I haven’t seen anybody comment on)… it’s well publicised that it took many years for Microsoft to write Vista and Microsoft is far less secretive about new features than Apple is – who says that Apple didn’t steal some of Microsoft’s ideas in the meantime and bring them to market first? After all, the much acclaimed Time Machine feature in the forthcoming version of OS X sounds very like a feature we have had in Windows for years (the volume shadow copy service). Or maybe (and more likely in my opinion), consumers expect features like a calendar application and digital media management built in to our operating system (heaven knows that Outlook Express was long overdue an update). As for gadgets/widgets and desktop search (Spotlight) – they are not Apple inventions either (in fact, many Mac users eschew Mac OS X’s Spotlight search in favour of Quicksilver).

I’ll still be running Mac OS X most of the time (at home anyway – I need to use Linux and Windows XP for work) but it’s good to be able to test Vista in all it’s glory and it seems to run well on my Mac Mini. In fairness, I do have a Core Duo processor and 2GB of RAM, but it feels responsive (at least as much so as OS X) and the overall experience is positive – and that’s on a machine which only scores a Windows experience index of 3.0 (dragged down by the built-in Intel GMA950 graphics – the other metrics are all above 4).

Performance information and tools

As I’ve written previously, Windows Vista is a fantastic achievement on Microsoft’s part, although I do wish that there had been simultaneous consumer and business launches (if only to stop all this ¨we don’t support it because it’s not available yet¨ nonsense from software vendors who should have been getting ready for Vista months ago). Now we just need to stop all the noise from David Pogue and others about how Microsoft copied Apple and just live with the fact that Vista will be on hundreds of millions of PCs by this time next year – regardless of whether or not it is the best operating system. Despite my initial reservations, I like running Mac OS X, I also like running Linux, and I like running Windows too – they all have their good and bad points so let’s play nicely together.

(In the interests of my operating system-agnostic credentials, I should add that I started to write this post on a PC running Fedora Core 5 whilst the Mac was being upgraded, then I switched to the Mac, adding details whilst booted under both Windows Vista and Mac OS X!)

Typing # on an Apple UK keyboard

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

One thing that’s really annoying for UK-based Mac users is the lack of a # symbol on the Apple keyboard. In the US this is known as a “pound” but in UK English (or “English”, as I prefer to call it!), a pound symbol is £ for pounds sterling (our unit of currency) or lb for the imperial unit of weight and we call # “hash”.

Anyway, it turns out that UK keyboard users can type alt+3 to generate a # character.

Now all I need to do is work out how to get a backslash (\) when I’m working in Windows from a remote console (RDP) session on my Mac…

Providing extra USB and FireWire capacity for a Mac Mini

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

One of the problems with the current Apple Mac Mini model is a lack of USB ports. Strictly speaking, not so much a lack of – 4 USB and 1 FireWire sounds plenty but the keyboard takes one of them (although the keyboard includes a 2-port USB hub, which I can use for my mouse, it’s not powerful enough for most devices), my external hard disk takes another, then there’s my iPod, my scanners, my video camera, etc.

If I had an Apple Cinema Display then the balance would tip back in my favour (as it includes a USB and FireWire hub), but I don’t – instead I saved almost £200 by not buying an Apple monitor and am very happy with my Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleoview S20-1W (incidentally, this seems to have dropped in price since I bought mine).

The trouble with most external USB hubs is that they come with a huge power brick, but for Mac Mini owners wanting to maintain the stylish appearance of their components there is an option – the Belkin Hi Speed USB 2.0 and FireWire 6-port hub for Mac Mini. Designed to be placed under the Mac Mini, with the same width and depth dimensions, it uses one of the existing USB ports and the existing FireWire port as uplinks and power sources, providing a net increase of 3 USB and 1 FireWire port, of which two ports (1 of each type) are positioned at the front of the unit – ideal for iPods and other often-removed devices.

Belkin Hi Speed USB 2.0 and FireWire 6-port hub for Mac Mini - F5U507uk

The only drawback I found was that the supplied USB uplink cable didn’t reach to the uplink port – I guess Apple must have moved the ports when they redesigned the Mac Mini for Intel; but thankfully they work, regardless of whether I use the port marked “to computer”. The power indicator, which exactly matches the Mac in both location and style, is also a nice touch although I do wish the device had been given the aluminium finish of the Mac Mini rather than iMac-style white plastic.

There are alternative products available, some including additional hard drive capacity, but they are difficult to get hold of in the UK, and mostly seem to be much taller, with ugly manufacturer logos on the front, or huge power indicators.

There’s also a 4-port USB-only version, but the 6-port USB and FireWire hub seems a better option to me and it was only £29.99 (shop around on the ‘net and you should be able to get if for less than £25). Now… if only they made one in silver with a built in CF slot, and perhaps even room for a 2.5″ SATA hard disk drive, I’d be very happy!

MacBreak Weekly rant

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Leo Laporte’s TWiT Podcast Network has some really good podcasts including This Week in Tech (TWiT). More recently, the network has launched MacBreak Weekly and (I understand) will soon launch a Windows Podcast hosted by Paul Thurrott. Of course, some of the information is subjective and must be taken with pinch of salt – it can also be very US-centric (this is helped when there are European guests, e.g. Wil Harris from Bit-Tech); however MacBreak Weekly annoyed me greatly as I caught up on a few podcasts over the last couple of days.

  • Whilst discussing the Mac Pro (in episode 3) there was comment about a lot of software not being optimised for multi-processor configurations and the reply came back (and I quote) “you mean that Apple actually built a computer that’s ahead of its time?”. No! I can accept that Apple may well have built a computer that offers more processing power than many users could use; and in Apple’s credit all Macs now have at least two processor cores (except any Core Solo Mac Minis that are still being sold – I think even they have hyperthreading) but both the other major PC operating system platforms (Linux and Windows) have supported multi-processor machines for some time now – if Mac OS X is not able to make full use of the machines then that’s a fault of the operating system designers at Apple and they need to get up to speed – quickly. I’m no developer but the need to rewrite applications to run on an Intel platform instead of the older PowerPC architecture was given as the reason for the distraction preventing writing applications to use the available processing power. That doesn’t stack up to me. I am casting my mind back 15 years now but I seem to remember from the operating systems internals module that made up a part of my degree that it is the task of the operating system scheduler to assign processor time to execution threads – so that’s Mac OS X then, not the applications. Of course if the applications aren’t threaded then there’s not much that the operating system can do about it, but even applications for a single processor should be multithreaded. Shouldn’t they?
  • They then went on to talk about striping four 750GB SATA drives to give 3TB of “super fast storage performance”. Hmm… it sounds very risky to me. SATA drives are okay for PC use but not designed for 24×7 operation; however, regardless of the disk hardware in use, RAID 0 (striping) offers no fault tolerance at all. Zero. Nada. RAID 5 and 6 would work (but are a bit slow for writing) and would reduce the available disk space to about 2.25TB. If the Mac Pro’s RAID controller supports it, the safest solution (whilst remaining performant) would be RAID 1+0 giving 1.5TB of usable space, mirrored across two disks and then striped. RAID 0 might be fast but you’d better hope it’s being backed up somewhere else and 3TB backups are not very easy to manage!
  • In another section, the panel was amused that PC Magazine would cover a story about why 91% of Mac users are satisfied with their product (as Apple tops a user satisfaction survey). Get over it – Mac OS X is just an operating system and Macs are personal computers (they always have been). If that’s a bit literal then Intel Macs are definitely just PCs! Now, if Windows XP Magazine or Linux Format had covered this story then I could understand the amusement, but PC Magazine and Personal Computer World should be covering Linux, Mac OS and Windows stories (in my experience Personal Computer World magazine certainly does) as well as those relating to any other operating systems that run on PC hardware.
  • In one episode the guys were suggesting that there is no reason to buy a PC as a Mac can do it all, making it a better PC than a PC… but hang on guys – previously you were making a distinction between Macs and PCs – you can’t have it both ways! And as much as I love Apple hardware, a black MacBook sounds pretty expensive to me. Even the MacPress has commented that other PC manufacturers have been making black notebook PCs for many years now (and they don’t charge a £90 premium to have it in black). I’d love a MacBook but my IBM ThinkPad is still my favourite (and best built) notebook PC.
  • Another item that riled me was a comment that Macs have 5% of the PC market share but not 5% of the viruses – duh! Hackers, virus writers, and other miscreants like kudos. No-one gets kudos for writing a virus on something obscure, but as the Mac gains a greater market share it will be the target for more malware – especially as the MacPress continues to stress that Windows on a Mac is subject to the same security concerns as Windows on any other PC (true) whilst stressing that running OS X on a Mac is safe (misleading… and unlikely to remain true indefinitely). All PC users should practice safe computing, regardless of the operating system.

In all, MacBreak Weekly disappointed me with a general Mac-elitist view. Sure, I recently switched to using a Mac, but I run other OSs too (I’m writing this on my Fedora notebook). Mac OS X is good at some things, Linux is good at others and, believe it or not, Windows is good at some things too; Windows Vista and Windows Longhorn Server may be running late but Windows Server 2003 is still a great server OS. The trouble is that there are still too many “my OS is better than your OS” discussions.

Still, at least (in episode 5) I learnt about availability heuristics!

Opening up the Mac Mini – easy when you know how

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Woohoo! 2GB RAM in my Mac for less than half the amount that Apple would have charged me (does anybody want to buy 2x256MB 667MHz DDR2 SODIMMs that have been used for just one month?).

Mac with 2GB RAM installed

Ordinarily, I’d say that upgrading the RAM in a PC is no big deal, but Mac Minis don’t have any screws to open the case; and unlike many notebook PCs, it not a case of popping open a small panel either.

Thankfully the instructional videos at the OtherWorldComputing Tech Center include a hardware upgrade tutorial for the Intel Mac Mini which showed exactly how to do it (thanks guys – if you sold memory in the UK I would have bought it from you).

So, armed with a Stanley DynaGrip 50mm filling knife that I picked from B&Q on the way home and an old plastic visitors pass (from Microsoft of all places!), I gained access to the inside of my Mac and swapped out the standard 256MB SODIMMs for two new 1GB modules from(which arrived in 24 hours with free shipping by Royal Mail Special Delivery – and there was 5% off the day I bought them, so they only came to £178.59 including VAT).

The operation wasn’t without it’s hiccups. First of all, I didn’t quite insert one of the memory modules correctly so when I booted the Mac it only saw 1GB of RAM. Then, when I reopened the computer to investigate, the knife slipped and I made a small scratch on the outside of the case (annoying, but too late to do anything about it now). I refitted the RAM, but dropped one of the screws inside the unit and the airport antenna came off whilst I was trying to locate the missing screw… that was a bit of a heart-stopper but it was easily reattached (once I worked out where to fix it). Finally, I forgot to reattach the small cable at the front of the motherboard so the fan ran continuously until I opened the Mac up for a third time and reattached the missing connector. Notwithstanding all of these errors, everything is working now and the extra memory should make everything a lot faster.