Undocumented iPhone Field Test Mode

March 10, 2008 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Tips, Hardware

Here’s a screen that you weren’t supposed to see on your iPhone. It’s the iPhone’s Field Test Mode which provides the following menu items to be used in test mode:

• Network Information
• Cell Information
• GPRS Information
• PDP Information
• Call Information
• Versions

iPhone Field Test Mode

1. Select the Keypad (dialer) on your iPhone
2. Enter the following number:
   * 3 0 0 1 # 1 2 3 4 5 # *
3. Press the “Call” button

That’s it-your phone will present you with the Field Test screen. This was originally posted on the Cellular PCS web site (Apple iPhone Field Test Mode).  To be honest, I really have no use for this kind of information…  Interesting though.

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MacBook Pro hard drive upgrade tips

December 2, 2007 at 9:08 pm · Filed under Tips, Support, Hardware

After upgrading my Mac Book Pro hard drive last week, I’ve got a few tips if you’re heading down that road yourself.

The job: Upgrading my internal 80 GB hard drive to a 120 GB or larger drive.

What I ended up selecting for the replacement drive was a Hitachi Travelstar (5K160) 160GB Mobile Hard Drive. I chose this as my upgrade drive for a few reasons:

1. I knew that specific drive would work well as I learned about it in a Mac World hard drive upgrade article.
2. The drive has received very good or excellent reviews as a MacBook Pro upgrade drive. It gets good marks for how quiet it is (my unit is no louder than the one it replaced), it is a bit faster than the stock 80 GB unit, and battery life doesn’t suffer, but improves.
3. The price of the drive is hard to beat.

Here’s my notes and recommendations, I hope they help you make a quick, painless upgrade to your MacBook Pro:

Leverage these two guides as a starting point for your hard drive upgrade:

• Mac World: Upgrading the MacBook Pro’s hard drive
• iFixit: Fixit Guide (select your MacBook model, then download and print the guide)

Shopping List

• Hitachi Travelstar 160GB Mobile Hard Drive - OEM
• #0 Phillips Screwdriver, Torx T6 (Many kits do not have the #0 OR the T6—Radio Shack sells an excellent kit with both included)

Additions/modifications to the Mac World and iFixit Guide:

• If you are going to use Boot Camp (ever), read my last post about how to erase (format) the hard drive to ensure it is Boot Camp ready.
• When you disassemble your MacBook Pro, use some duct or masking tape to ensure you don’t lose screws. It may sound silly, but when that first screw goes tic-tac-tic across your tile floor and you waste 20 minutes trying to find it you’ll thank me. Actualy printing out the iFixit Guide and taping the screws to it isn’t a bad way to go.
• After removing the hard drive from the Mac chassis, you also need to remove four additional screws which have rubber ‘washers’ and transfer them over to your replacement drive. Removing the screws from my factory drive was easy. When you place them onto your new drive just be sure not to over-tighten them. I’m not sure exactly what those ‘washers’ are called. Take a look at the photos below to see exactly what I’m referring too.
  
  
• For backing up my drive, I used Carbon Copy Cloner (Mac World’s article suggests Super Duper) and had no problems whatsoever. Carbon Copy Cloner is a well thought out donation-ware (uncrippled shareware) title.

The “do not cover” hole on the Hitachi Travelstar

After seating the new drive in the chassis, I started putting the cabling back in place and ran into a problem. The Travelstar 160 GB had a clear message on it to not cover a hole on its housing. That hole is a “breather hole” and meant to be left open. After trying several different ways, I could not find a way to re-route Apple’s cabling. There are two DIY solutions. One, cover the hole. I covered mine and I’ve been watching the drive temperature and it has been fine. The second, with some thin foam or plastic build a riser so the drive can breathe.

I hope your upgrade is quick and easy!

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Leopard Dock and Menu Bar user interface options

November 4, 2007 at 2:54 pm · Filed under Tips, Support, Software

I installed Apple’s latest version of OS X, version 10.5 or “Leopard” last week. I’ll sideline the oh-so-popular debate about questionable UI changes in Leopard, and instead post quick ‘fixes’ I found regarding two things I wasn’t a fan of:

Change OS X Dock for Leopard

Not a fan of the new 3d dock? Try a 2d dock that is available but unfortunately not exposed as an option. Here’s all you need to do:

1. Open the Terminal application located in your Applications > Utilities folder
2. Type:
   defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
   killall Dock

The first line requests that a 2d rendition of the Dock be used. The second line terminates and then restarts all instances of the Dock.

Change Leopard’s Translucent Menu Bar

The Apple hacking community has yet to find a quick Terminal command to revert to an opaque Menu Bar. What can be done is a quick modification to your Desktop Wallpaper which will achieve the same effect. Some have scoffed at this method. My take? It’s clever and easy: thumbs up.

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OS X startup programs

September 27, 2007 at 4:43 pm · Filed under Mac for PC Users, Tips

There will come a time (and it may be now!) when you find yourself wanting to add or remove programs that automatically start when your Mac boots up. The first time I did this I struggled to find where the startup programs are managed on OS X. So, for the newly converted or simply frustrated here’s a quick walk-through:

1. Open System Preferences (if it’s not in your Dock, you can go to > System Preferences at the top of the screen)
2. From the System Preferences screen, click the “Accounts” icon under the “System” settings.
3. For each account, there is a “Login Items” tab where you can add and remove programs to automatically launch at startup. If you cannot edit your Login Items there it is one of two things:
   • You do not have proper access to edit the person’s account you are looking at.
   • You have proper access, but you need to “Click the lock to make changes.” Just look at the padlock icon at the bottom-left corner of the page. If it’s locked, that’s what you need to do.

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