Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard

Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard Unboxing

Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard Unboxing: Close-Up

 

 Just got my copy of Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard, currently installing in my trusty old Mac Book Pro.  Estimated time was around 45 minutes from install Mac OSX Installer.  Should be a simple installation process.  Will be upgrading my wife’s unibody 13.3″ Macbook pro tonight.  What’s new in this release, check out the details at apple.com.  Personally, i would like to feel the performance tweak on the stuff under the hood.

Update: Snow Leopard installed without a hitch (straight upgrade not from scratch).  So far all my applications are running fine.  Is it faster than before?  Feels like it, but its too early to tell, need more real world use.  Basically, this looks like the same old thing (which is not necessarily a bad thing) with changes underneath.  Worth the price of admission, I like it.

Seagate BlackArmor 420 Unboxing

Seagate BlackArmor 420 Box

Seagate Blackarmor Packaging

Seagate BlackArmor Box Contents

BlackArmor Drive Bays

Apple Macbook Pro 15″ (mbp 4.1): my hard disk upgrade.

With the prices of hard disk storage going down, I decided to replace my 15″ Macbook Pro’s 250Gb HDD to 500GB.  Unfortunatley no 2.5″ SATA drives were available on the market that time but I was bitten by the must-do bug.  Went to DG Sharaf and bought a Seagate Freeagent Go 500GB 2.5″ portable hard drive which will be opened and the hard drive used for parts.

Taking apart the Seagate Freeagent Go is fairly easy, you do need to be carefull though if you want to preserve the visual asthetic of the enclosure.  The top lid is held togther by some sort of double adhesive tape (no screws are involved), started at the back of the enclosure where the USB port is located and used a putty knife to create a small gap between the body and the top lid.  Work your way around the edges and you should be able to remove the lid, there is a cable connecting to the LED (the throbbing light effect) to the enclosure electronics, just unplug the connector.  To remove the hard drive, there are two gaps where you can insert a screwdriver and pull the hard drive completely from its plastic enclosure.  Remove the rubber caps and unsscrew the drive its metallalic protector and you should be able to remove the 500GB Seagate Momentus 5400. 

Replacing the hard drive on a MacBook Pro 4.1 requires taking apart the aluminum body.  There are a lot of instructions and video on the web, I followed OWC’svideo instruction on how to disassemble and replace the internal hard disk drive.  It took me roughly around 15 minutes to take the unit apart, plug in the hard drive, do a bit of testing to see if it boots (I did pre-install OSX on the new 500GB hard disk) and put it all back together. 

Fortunately, the whole activity went smoothly without any incident.

30 days after installation, everything is all well and good.  Until a 1TB 2.5″ SATA drive becomes locally available, I guess this will have to do.

 

Mechander Robo DX Version

Ahh, Mechander Robo or Mekanda Robot as I have known it for long.  Finally a modern toy on one 70’s the more brightly colored super robots.  Mekanda’s appeal to me when I was as a child was it’s dual spiked shield which simply looked awesome, shark missiles firing out from it’s feet and of course the three mekanda ships (1,2,3 repsectively).   Bummer of course would be the enemy omega missile which launches as soon as Mekanda activates.  On with the toy, CM’S Corporation Mechander Robo DX version is a terrible dissapointment.  The kit reeks of cheap hard plasticy material that, given a forceful nudge on the parts, would break apart the connectors.  Care should be applied when putting the head in place, might break off the ears and helmet decor.  Joint articulation is okay, Mechander standard poses can be replicated.  The mechander ships, looks and feels cheap.  Mechander-3 parts keep on breaking off.  All in all, CM’S Mechander Robot feels like a knockoff , hope Bandai gives Mechander a Soul of Chogokin treatment sometime in the future (wishful thinking).  Definitely not worth the price of admission, but Mechander is Mechander and as such I am satisified that I now have Mechander in my collection.  CM’S is coming out with Balatak set, this time I am not setting my expectations so high.

Blu-ray drive replacement for Dell XPS M1710

Got a relatively old but still relevant Dell XPS M1710 which I bought sometime around 2007.  The specification of the machine is still respectable even by today’s standards:  Intel Core 2 T7400 (2.16 Ghz), Nvidia GeForce Go 7900GS, upgraded memory to 4GB  and replaced 160Gb HDD to 500GB running Windows Xp SP3.  Only thing missing now to update this device for 2009 was a blu-ray optical drive .