Category Archives: Hardware

Installing additional SSD in Mid-2010 27" iMac

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The 27" version of the Mid-2010 iMac is available with an additional 256 GB Solid State Drive for a small extra fee of $750. As I already owned an 160 GB Intel X25 G2 SSD I wanted to use this in my new iMac as well. There is several information on the web, how to replace the hard disk or the optical drive with a SDD, but information about adding a SSD without losing the hard drive and the optical drive is very rare.

spare parts

The problem is, that all iMac which haven't been ordered with the built-in SDD miss the mounting option for the SDD and the cables. So you have to order them separately. Fortunately http://applecomponents.com has them in stock. You will need three parts:

  • The power cable 922-9531 with connectors for logic board, LED backlight, hard disk and SDD which replaces the old power cable.
  • The mounting kit 922-9485 for the SSD which will replace a small plastic part
  • The SATA data cable 922-9538 which connects the SSD with the logic board

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Geotagging mit dem iPhone

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GeotagPhotos

Nachdem meine neue DSLR Kamera kein GPS mit eingebaut hat, habe ich nach einer anderen Möglichkeit gesucht, meine Bilder mit GeoTags zu versehen. In AppStore bin ich mit GeotagPhotos fündig geworden. Das Programm macht genau das was, was ich möchte: Im Hintergrund die Position per GPS mitloggen. Zu Hause kann ich das ganze dann als GPX Datei per eMail auf meinen PC übertragen. Die GPX kann dann direkt in Aperture (oder fast jeder anderen Bildbearbeitungs/verwaltungssoftware) importiert werden. Die Photos werden dann anhand der Uhrzeit mit den GPS-Track abgeglichen und korrekt mit GeoTags versehen.

Bei meinen heutigen Photospaziergang hat das ganze wunderbar funktioniert. Im Gegensatz zu meinem früherer GPS Tracker, dem i-gotU, scheinen die Routen auch deutlich gleichmäßiger zu sein, da die Software nur neue Punkte speichert wenn man eine einstellbare Mindestdistanz vom alten Punkt entfernt ist.

Ich kann die Software bisher also uneingeschränkt empfehlen, und da ich mein iPhone eh immer dabei habe, ist das sogar praktischer als ein extra GPS Tracker. Besser wirds eigentlich nur wenn die Kamera dann mal das GPS selber integriert hat.

iOS 4.1 introducing HDR on iPhone 4

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Today, Apple released iOS Version 4.1 for all newer iPhone/iPod devices. It introduces HDR for the built-in camera application. The make in HDR image, the application actually takes three pictures.  One with the correction exposure, another one which is over exposed and the last one which is under exposed. The HDR image is then automatically generated from these three images. Continue reading →

US International on OS X

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Last year I promoted the US International keyboard layout as the ultimate solution for english keyboards. A weeks ago, I started using OS X on my MacBook (It had been running Gentoo Linux before) and so I wanted to use the US International keyboard layout within OS X. At first I was enthusiastic when I saw the "U.S. International - PC" layout in the Language & Text settings, but after a few seconds I realised that this wasn't the layout I was looking for.

After some googling I found Ukulele, a nice editor for creating custom keyboard layouts for OS X. So I created my own US International keyboard. I use the "USA International (ALtGr dead keys)" layout from GNOME as my draft, because I'm used to it. It has a very few differences to the US International layout described on Wikipedia.  Continue reading →

keyboard layouts - US International as ultimate solution?

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As I grew up in Germany my keyboard layout has always been the QWERTZ based German keyboard layout. The main difference between QWERTY keyboard layouts is that the Z and Y keys are swapped and most special characters are moved to third level as the German language uses umlaut (diacritic) characters like ä, ö and ü and the ligature ß.

German keyboard layout

German keyboard layout © Wikimedia Commons

This is very handy for writing German text but if you program in programming languages like C, C++, Perl, PHP, ... where brackets like [] and {} and slash/backslash are frequently used it's a pain to use it. So I decided to change to the US keyboard layout, which I thought is the best choice as it is very popular. The problem was, that typing umlaut characters is very circumstantial as there is no standard method. Continue reading →