Is My Mac’s SuperDrive Dead?

Dec 02

ClaudeHardware, How-To , , 2 Comments

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been unable to burn DVDs on my MacBook Pro. I insert a blank disc whenever the SuperDrive prompts for one, it then checks and checks for about a minute before ejecting the disc. At first I thought this was related to the type of disc I was using, TDK DVD-R 1-16x 4.7GB, but they burned just fine on my wife’s slightly older iMac.

Have you reset your PRAM and NVRAM lately?

After a bit of Googling for a fairly recent and verifiable solution I decided to reset the machine’s parameter random access memory (PRAM) and nonvolatile RAM (NVRAM) as suggested by some folks and Apple’s technical support site. It works!

Try this before you declare your SuperDrive dead and go out and buy a new one.

iTunes Crashes During Sync Post 2.2.1 Upgrade – FIX

Feb 03

ClaudeHardware, How-To , , , , , , 1 Comment

ITunes began crashing on Super Bowl Sunday after I upgraded my iPod Touch to the latest firmware, version 2.2.1 — Since then I have reinstalled iTunes, did a factory restore of the iPod to no avail.

A few minutes ago I was looking through the Apple discussion groups and came across this fix by Jeff McCord. It is a simple one when you think about it:

  1. Deauthorize your computer
  2. Authorize it again
  3. Visit the App Store and “Buy” a free app
  4. Sync up

I am a happy camper again. All my music, movies, videos and audio books are back!

Creating an Apple Style Menu with Animation

Jul 28

ClaudeFeatured, How-To, Tutorials , , , , , No Comments

Kriesi Budschedl has posted a very detailed tutorial to help you build your own Apple.com style menu and adds a nice touch by animating it.

To construct the basic menu, Kriesi takes advantage of CSS Sprites, a technique to reduce the number of image files necessary to accomplish things like rollovers, without the need to preload the images using JavaScript.

A single image contains all the navigation menu options in their normal and active states and CSS rules are used to move the appropriate menu option into view. Once the basic menu is working, animation is added by using Kwicks for jQuery, a plugin written by Jerry Martin, resulting in the final product seen here.

Is it Time to Backup your Mac?

Jul 01

ClaudeOpinion , , No Comments

I recently made the move to all Apple Macs at home and I am concerned that I do not have a backup plan and it may come back to haunt me. Last week I visited the Apple store in hopes of buying one of those time capsules but instead purchased an Apple TV, which is very nice and my kids love, but didn’t get anything yet for the all important backups.

Today, I came across this post by Aliza Sherman where she describes the results of ten months of procrastination.
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