macbook

Things I have done to fix the ‘Bluetooth: Not Available’ error on Mac OS X

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These are all the things that I have tried to fix the ‘Bluetooth: Not Available’ error on my MacBook:

  1. Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)
  2. Reset the PRAM and NVRAM
  3. Repaired disk permissions
  4. Deleted Bluetooth preference files from my Home and System Library folders

And none of them have worked. Looks like my MacBook’s Bluetooth controller is dead. Great.

Update: It’s working again. Apparently all I needed to do was turn the computer off (at the plug), leave it overnight and turn it on again the following morning. How bizarre.

There’s no leopard like Snow Leopard…

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If you’re at all interested in all things Apple you’ll know that Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, was released yesterday. I haven’t got my copy yet but it is on order from Amazon (sponsored link), so hopefully I’ll have my paws on it next week. I’ve only ordered the single license copy this time and not the Family Pack, as Apple have decided that my 4-year-old PowerPC Mac Mini is too decrepit to run Snow Leopard. A shame, but that’s the price of progress I suppose.

It will, however, run on my 3-year-old MacBook, as it has an Intel processor. I won’t be able to take advantage of some of the new features, such as OpenCL or H.264 hardware acceleration in QuickTime X. And the processor is 32-bit so none of the 64-bit code will be used. But it does have a dual-core processor so Grand Central Dispatch will be able to make both cores work harder, and based on various first-hand reviews I should expect faster startup and shutdown.

In terms of new features, full support for my HP DeskJet F2100 series printer is provided out of the box (partly due to a new version of CUPS) so I won’t need HP’s drivers – this includes scanning and copying support built-in to the OS. Mac OS X will also now remove printer drivers for any printers that I don’t use, freeing up a few gigabytes of space.

Support for Exchange 2007 doesn’t really affect me as I don’t use Apple Mail or Exchange for my email, nor do the iChat changes since I use Adium. The improvement to Services are welcome – until now they’ve been a useful but misaligned feature of the OS.

There are some pitfalls for early adopters, however, as some programs won’t work straight off the bat. The release of Snow Leopard was brought forward with little warning and so some programs are not yet fully compatible – there are issues with Growl, for example, and while a new version is on the way it’s not ready yet. I’ve also heard there’s problems with third-party screensavers. I’d therefore recommend you install AppFresh which is great for notifying you of available software updates for third-party programs. And obviously do a full backup of your system before you upgrade in case you have a power cut while it’s installing, or encounter some other issues.

I may or may not give my own first impressions of Snow Leopard next week, depending on how I’m feeling. Today was my first day off work in 13 days and so I haven’t really had the time or the inclination to think about things to blog about.

How to: fix your MacBook screen

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Had a bit of a panic this morning when I let my MacBook go to sleep, and upon re-awaking the screen’s backlight would not come on. The screen itself was working, as I could see a small portion of the desktop in the middle where the Apple logo is, but the rest was un-viewable.

It’s working now, but not after trying almost every trick in the book. I’ve listed all of the methods here, mostly for my own reference in case it happens again but also for anyone having a similar problem.

Diagnostics

First of all, make sure that the rest of the computer is working. If you have an external display handy, plug that in and use Fn+F7 to activate it (you may not need to hold down the Fn key depending on your Mac’s settings). If you can see your desktop on the external display then the problem is with the display – if not, you computer may have deeper problems. If you have VNC set up, you could try this too.

1. Set your brightness

Sometimes it’s the basic things – your brightness might be set to minimum. Use Fn+F2 to turn up the brightness (you may not need to hold down the Fn key depending on your Mac’s settings).

2. Zap your PRAM

One trick to deal with minor hardware problems is to reset your PRAM and NVRAM. To do this, power down your Mac, then, turn it on and hold down Command+Option+P+R at the same time, until your Mac makes the ‘ding’ noise again. Command is the Apple key, Option may be labelled as ‘alt’ on your computer.

3. Reset your Energy Saver settings

You may need to use an external monitor or VNC for this. While you Mac is booted, open System Preferences and choose Energy Saver. Under ‘Put the displays to sleep’, set the timer to 1 minute, and then wait 1 minute for your machine to go to sleep. Wake it up, and hopefully your screen will spring back to life.

4. Take out the battery

If your Mac is a portable, turn the computer off, unplug the AC power cord, and take the battery out. Next, hold down the power button for 5 seconds, and the re-insert the battery. Then boot up again. In my case, this is what worked.

Been away, going away…

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I’ve been away from this blog for some time – 2 weeks almost – which is mostly due to being busy at work and having very little free time at home. I’ve been playing World of Warcraft a bit more than usual lately, but now have a second level 70 character as a result.

So what’s happened over the past 2 weeks? Well, based on my recent Twitters, here’s what I’ve been up to:

  • Been testing out Firefox 3 RC1 and Thunderbird 3 Alpha 1. Firefox 3 is looking really good now, especially on Macs where the improved performance and native theme make it even more of a joy to use. Thunderbird is obviously an early alpha build but it too is much faster, as it inherits many of the optimisations that were undertaken for Firefox. Unfortunately, it’s not yet very stable, but it is at least usable.
  • Now that I have more than a smidgen of free space on my MacBook, I installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron in Parallels. Unfortunately, despite updating to the latest Parallels release, the Parallels Tools for Linux package doesn’t work with this release of Ubuntu so there’s no adaptive window sizes, cursor integration and clock synchronising. It’s a shame as apparently VMWare Fusion does support the latest Ubuntu release. I haven’t played around with Ubuntu much but it looks good, and including Firefox 3 is a bold but welcome move.
  • Speaking of Twitter, I would recommend the TwitterFox extension if you use Twitter and Firefox, as it’s quite a handy little extension which lets you read and interact with your Twitter friends. It doesn’t have masses of features, but it’s intuitive and it works with Firefox 3 already.
  • Google Reader’s ‘Trends’ feature has an unexpected use as a way of digging out feeds which haven’t updated in a long time. I found one that had gone dead in October 2005 that I was still subscribing to. I also found a few sites which had changed their feed URLs without redirects so I wasn’t receiving updates any more.

This, unfortunately, isn’t the return to regularly scheduled blogging, as on Saturday I’m going away for five nights in camping barn in the Lake District with some friends. It’s really in the back-end of nowhere – it doesn’t even have a connection to the electricity grid so all power comes from a hydro-electric generator, and it’s highly unlikely that there will be any mobile phone reception there either. So until I return on Thursday, you may not hear a peep from me, either on here or on Twitter.

Here’s what you could have bought…

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Apple has updated the MacBook range again, this being the third revision since they were launched last year. Mine is a first revision, and while there’s nothing wrong with it, had I waited 9 months I could have got (for the same price that I paid):

  • A 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, instead of a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor
  • 80 GB hard drive, instead of 60 GB
  • 802.11n Wi-fi, instead of 802.11g (108 Mbps instead of 54 Mbps)
  • Faster writing of CD-RW discs (16x instead of 10x)

But never mind. It’s had 9 months of very heavy use and yet doesn’t seem to be suffering – the battery is still at well over 90% of its original capacity and everyone else seems to work fine. I guess I’m just envious.