Last week we i ued the first call for questio for the Ask TUAW weekly help column and now it's time to take a shot at some a wers. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question. And since we'll be back next Wednesday, we want to renew the call for questio . Please submit your question via the comments page (put Ask TUAW in the subject), or just by leaving a comment to this post. Although we will try to be as helpful as po ible, we may not be able to a wer all questio . And naturally we invite our other readers to pitch in with suggestio as well. Read on for this week's questio .
CuriousMac asks:
Is the discoloration still an i ue with the white macbook or is it safe to go out and buy one without any fear of yellow stai ?
As the owner of a discolored MacBook I have some experience with this. According some some reports on the web this was caused by a manufacturing defect involving the original case plastics. A le reportedly changed the case plastics quite some time ago and any MacBooks now being sold should be okay (from personal experience I know of a friend with a MacBook bought in August showing no discoloration).
A le I ider claims that A le will repair any computer affected that falls within a certain range of serial numbers. If you have a problem you should contact A leCare or bring the machine to a genius bar at an A le Store. If you have any trouble reference the A leCare Knowledge Base document 304058
Magnus asks:
HOW do I get rid of the region code on the DVD-player in my M ?
I just want to watch my DVD:s, some of them have different region code than the one we use here (region 2, Swe). It's really a oying, e ecially since I can watch them on any regular DVD player (all sold in Sweden are region free). Is there something to do, to make this silly region coding go away?
TUAW reader Julian suggests that VLC may be able to play discs from out of region. However, according to this thread over at Mac , A le switched to Matshita RPC-2 drives in the Intel Macs so the region code is held in the firmware of the drive itself and no software solution will fix the problem (you would need a region-free firmware from a third party, but it a ears that that won't be coming any time soon). If you're really serious about it you might co ider replacing your Matshita drive with a Pioneer drive that is flashable with DVRFlash.
Workarounds: (1) a poster on the Mac thread, mattfaulds, claimed that you could play a disc with VLC if you ignored the out of region warning. Since I have no out of region discs I ca ot confirm this. (2) Several people have reported succe using the MacTheRi er or Handbrake to rip the disc to your hard drive and playing it with VLC from there (I also ca ot confirm this). (3) A kind of lame work around is to get an external U or Firewire drive that you could flash.
Alex asks:
How do you do startup commands (ie zap PRAM, Open Firmware) with only a wirele keyboard and mouse?
According to A wer #6 on the A leCare Knowledge Base document 86651 you should have no problem using an A le Bluetooth wirele keyboard to get into Open Firmware, however if you are having problems you may need to update your Bluetooth firmware.
John asks:
Hi, I have been preparing to make the full switch-over to A le for a few months now... My question is this: what is TUAW's favorite bluetooth mouse (and keyboard if you have a favorite) for the Mac OTHER than the mighty mouse. The mighty mouse's side butto are difficult for me to pre and I want something that conforms to my hand (I'm right-handed. Also, a dedicated right-click button would be nice. Thanks!
One last thing...Any recommendation for bluetooth headphones to listen to music around my room?
First of all, welcome to the light side John! I personally like my wirele Mighty Mouse, but I know many (including our fearle leader) do not. Just about any Bluetooth compliant mouse should be usable on your new Mac (though you may not have acce to all the butto until Overdrive su orts Bluetooth). Unle you're on a MacBook (Pro) and need a notebook mouse I'd probably second Scott's recommendation of a Logitech Revolution (even though it is not Bluetooth), as it comes with Logitech's Control Center software.
Regarding your second question, that's unfortunately a bit of a soft ot in the Mac's Bluetooth su ort. Although the Mac su orts wirele voice headsets (like those used with cell phones) just fine, as of yet Tiger seems not to su ort the A2DP profile which is needed for stereo music. The profile is a arently built into Leopard (OS X 10.5), but that won't be shi ing until sometime in " ring."
Jeremy asks:
How do I keep my MacbookPro from going to sleep when I close the screen? I want it to be nice and portable and le battery-hogging while still encoding videos in my bag.
I am not sure this is a good idea, as there are some serious concer about overheating. Nonethele , if you i ist you can run your MacBook Pro in clamshell mode by plugging in a U keyboard or mouse with the lid closed. If you're ru ing a MacBook or don't want to plug in a U peripheral, you might try one of the following: I omnia X (incompatible with 10.4.8), Doze, and SleepLe (also broken by 10.4.8, but there is a beta that is su osed to work). Please note, however, that people have reported problem using these sorts of utilities and I ca ot endorse any of them from personal experience
Okay, that will do it for this week. Feel free to leave comments on my a wers as well as more questio for next week.
All of this information is provided for your entertainment. Neither TUAW nor this author can be held re o ible for any problems arising from the use of the information provided here.
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