MacBook Pro SSD Upgrade

This morning I drove down to MicroCenter and bought a Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD (Amazon link), which I used to upgrade my mid-2009 MacBook Pro. The machine has 8 GB of RAM and a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, so it was still useful, although before I replaced it with my current work MBP was starting to feel a bit pokey. My goal with the SSD was to improve performance, and especially battery life, for use with my ham radios while camping.

The SSD is smaller than the original Hitatchi disk (256 GB vs. 320 GB) but I don't plan on keeping multimedia files on the machine, so it should have enough space. While at MicroCenter I added a $5 USB 2.0 external enclosure to my cart, into which I put the old disk. I can bring it along for extra storage if need be.

The SSD went in easily and I did a clean install of OS 10.6 Snow Leopard onto it from a disc. I then had to update Snow Leopard to get the App Store, so I could then download and install OS 10.9.4 Mavericks. This all took a couple hours. After getting the OS configured like I wanted I installed the apps I need:

• CHIRP
• Fldigi
• USB drivers for my Baofeng programming cable and for my Icom 7200's USB interface
• LibreOffice
• MS Office for Mac 2011
• TextWrangler
• Skype
• Chrome and Firefox
• Evernote
• StatusClock (to display UTC time in my toolbar)
• Various other utilities

The laptop is noticeably faster in both boot time and how quickly applications open. Excel 2011 in particular opens much more quickly.

Next weekend I'll be taking the MBP into the field, so I tested that CHIRP works with my Baofeng UV5RA and that Fldigi can send and receive PSK31 when connected to my Icom 7200.

As an aside, OWC sells a larger capacity battery to fit this old MacBook Pro. If I find myself getting significant use out of the machine I may invest in one.

I should note that I had considered upgrading the hard disk in my MSI Wind U100 netbook instead. It's certainly handier to pack into the field for use with ham radio ops, but I chose to upgrade the Mac because (a) it's way faster, and (b) the larger keyboard and screen and much easier to use.

Performance and battery life are already noticeably better with the SSD. If you have a laptop that's a few years old changing out the old spinning disk for an SSD is a quick way to give it a new lease on life.

MAJOR Bug in Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard

There is a MAJOR bug in Snow Leopard.

Computerworld - Snow Leopard users have reported that they've lost all their personal data when they've logged into a "Guest" account after upgrading from Leopard, according to messages on Apple's support forum.

The bug, users said in a well-read thread on Apple's support forum, resets all settings on the Mac, resets all applications' settings and erases the contents of critical folders containing documents, photos and music.

...

Specifically, Snow Leopard's home directory -- the one sporting the name of the Mac's primary user -- is replaced with a new, empty copy after users log-in to a Guest account, log out, then log-in to their standard account. All the standard folders -- Documents, Downloads, Music, Picture and others -- are empty, while the Desktop and Dock have reverted to an "out-of-box" condition.

Full story here.


The best way to prevent getting bit by this bug is to go into System Preferences > Accounts and disable the Guest account.  I also recommend disabling Guest access to shared folders.

Hopefully, Apple will fix this in OS 10.6.2.  In the meantime go disable your Guest account if it is still enabled.

Snow Leopard Impressions

Now that I've been using Snow Leopard for a few days I have some impressions to share.

GOOD

Boots fast.

Applications run faster.

More free disk space.  Snow Leopard is smaller BUT it also changes the way it calculates used and free disk space.  Under Leopard Finder showed there being about 322 GB free.  Under Snow Leopard it's about 353 GB free.

Updated Expose is nicer in that it aligns the small windows to grid.  Also, clicking and holding on an open application's dock icon pops up small windows for each running instance.  (Similar to Windows 7.)

AddressBook now syncs with Gmail Contacts, even if you don't have an iPhone.
AirPort drop down menu now has signal strength indicators.

ANNOYANCES

The Apple server administration utilities were wiped out by the upgrade.

Still waiting for Letterbox extension for Mail.app to be made compatible.  Letterbox allows viewing of the mailbox list, message list, and preview pane side by side.  Apple should incorporate this functionality into Mail.

Had to re-setup Bluetooth pairing with my Blackberry 8330.

Had to reconfigure Bluetooth Dialup Networking (DUN) with my Blackberry.  In the Advanced properties of the Bluetooth connection, had to set up the Modem as Generic Dialup Device.

In Mail, Apple changed the keyboard shortcut to empty the Trash from CMD-K to SHIFT-CMD-BACKSPACE.

The polls on AR15.com do not work in Safari 4.0.3.  The boxes to select an option do not appear.  Oh well, back to Firefox.

Snow Leopard ships with a version of the Adobe Flash Player which has vulnerabilities.  You need to go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ to get the most current patched version.   


STILL WAITING TO TRY

My exployer hopes to migrate to Exchange 2007 by the end of 2009.  Until then I will not be able to try the Exchange integration in Mail, iCal, and AddressBook.  I'd like to dump Entourage if it works well.

Snow Leopard

I am now running Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" on Rohan, my MacBook Pro.  Previous Mac OS upgrades (10.3 to 10.4, and 10.4 to 10.5) went very smoothly.  Not so this time.

In preparation for the upgrade I uninstalled programs which I knew would be incompatible: e.g., CrossOver v7 and iSlayer Menus.  I then used OnyX to run a full system optimization, including cleaning out various caches and verifying the hard disk.

The Snow Leopard installer crashed on my three times with a message that an error had occurred.  Reviewing the installer log didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary.

On the third reboot the install finished (it appeared to pick up where it left off after each prior reboot).  Once logging in, SL informed me that incompatible software had been disabled and moved to the /Incompatible Software folder.  A Read Me file in that folder stated that Parallels Desktop 2.5 had been disabled.

Apparently, when I uninstalled Parallels Desktop 2.5 (probably last year), the uninstaller did not remove its kernel extensions.  (Thanks, Parallels. Grrr.)  When I replaced the hard disk in the machine recently, I first cloned the disk using SuperDuper!, which brought over those obsolete .kexts.  I suspect that the presence of these kernel extensions caused problems with the upgrade.

Anyway, we're now up and running.  I haven't used it enough to start making observations but will do so as time permits.