Tag Archive: apple

Mac OS X: GoogleTalkPlugin.app Uses Lots of CPU

Written on April 6, 2009 by in apple, macosx

image by Thomas Hawk

On a new MacBook 13″ Aluminum Unibody, I noticed that the whole machine was running kind of slow even though very few apps were in use.

Running top in a Terminal, it seemed like GoogleTalkPlugin was using lots of CPU even though no browsers were running.

The application is actually the Gmail Videochat that folks install to be able see and talk to other Gmail users inside the browser.

Assuming you can live without the videochat, to uninstall it, simply download the dmg from http://mail.google.com/videochat and run the uninstall application that shows up when the dmg is mounted.

Everything runs like a charm afterwards.

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apple, macosx

My Current Man-Crush: Apple Keyboard

Written on August 14, 2008 by in planetubuntu, ubuntu

Since I have the occasional man-crush (see Weechat and Weechat on 21″ LCDs), I thought I’d share my latest one.

A little backstory first. My workstation at the office was initially an IBM box, 2 gigabytes of RAM, 2.5GHz or so, single core. It worked fine for a while. Then everyone was upgraded to Core 2 Duo machines, with 4 gigs of RAM, Nvidia video cards…with CentOS 4.5.

Eh.

Now, CentOS is a fine server OS, but for a workstation? And RPMs? We won’t get into that. Plus we had to run XP in VMware, so we could use Outlook. Why not use Outlook Web Access you ask? Apparently the version of Exchange we were running didn’t support reserving resources or rooms when creating appointments from OWA.

Some lucky people got Ubuntu 7.04 or 7.10 instead of CentOS. Still, dual head set up with Nvidia was a bit tricky. And kernel updates would cause VMware to gag, creating headaches for our internal IT department.

So what was the solution?

Everyone got a Mac.

Not just any silly Mac. The new Mac Pros. 8-core. 16 gigs of RAM.

Now you may ask “Nick, why on earth would you need that much horsepower? Rendering video? Some super awesome scientific application?”

No.

I look at Java code all day. Need I say more?

Seriously, between running Eclipse, VMware, and four Tomcat servlet containers, I am very happy to have 16 gigs of RAM.

But the best part about the Mac? The keyboard.

I don’t know how to describe my fascination with it. The aluminum is beautiful. The keys look like cheap plastic, but they are perfectly slick. No need to press hard, making it easy for me to type fast.

Typing on its low profile almost makes it seem like I’m gently drumming my fingers on the desk.

Yeah, the ridiculously priced Optimus Maximus is all the rage today, but the Apple keyboard simplicity reminds me of the old school clickity IBM M keyboards.

After a couple weeks of using the Apple keyboard at work, I decided to get one for my home desktop. It worked pretty well out of the box, except some of the function keys required pressing the Fn button simultaneously.

Of course, the Ubuntu wiki came to the rescue and had a fix.

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planetubuntu, ubuntu

Slapping my iPod

Written on July 1, 2006 by in Random

So yesterday, my iPod shows the dreaded sad icon when it started up. I tried resetting it by following the directions from Apple’s support site. Made sure the iPod was fully charged.

Nothing.

I try to create a service request for the iPod on the Apple site, but I run into two problems: first, its been over a year since I bought the iPod; second, I didn’t buy the extended care insurance thingie. The online form basically says I’m going to get ripped off if I want to send it in for service. But about 4 months ago, the iPod was having some random issues, and I sent it in. They replaced it with a different iPod. So, shouldn’t the one-year warranty clock restart since Apple sent me a different iPod? That sounds like a fair deal to me. Oh well.

As a last ditch effort, I decided to check out iLounge, which is a pretty popular iPod forum. And then I noticed this thread. Basically it says to slap the iPod. Yes, slap the iPod. Its possible that the hard drive moved or the connections are loose. Either way, slapping the iPod may move everything back into place. There is even a Wikipedia entry on it (even though its supposed to be deleted since its not “encyclopedic” material).
It just seems wrong. I’ve enjoyed my iPod for thousands of hours. I have discovered and enjoyed new music like Ladytron and Lily Allen. I’ve fallen asleep many nights listening to it. How could I slap it? I had nothing to lose really. All my music was backed up on the computer hard drive. Decided that it was worth a shot.

*SLAP*. Tried to restart. Sad icon. *SLAP*. Wohoo! It worked.

Ain’t technology grand?

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Random

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