A couple weeks ago, I posted about a sales at MicroCenter where you can get a brand new latest model MacBook for 20% off Apple retail price. I was one of the first people to take advantage of this great deal and got myself a unibody MacBook. I upgraded the RAM to 4GB the moment I got her home. That was a nice upgrade but I felt something was still missing as the speed-bump wasn't that much appreciable over the PandaBook that I've been using.

It was faith when I found out Newegg was having a sale on this OCZ Agility SSD. I couldn't resist and pulled the trigger. This is "the single best computer upgrade" I've ever done. The increase in responsiveness throughout was unbelievable. Applications launch so quickly now that it seems the computer actually waits for your next command rather than the other way around. I partitioned the drive to have just enough space for Windows 7 and Mac OS X to be installed on this MacBook. Both show incredible performance on this solid state hard drive.

It may not be time for these SSDs to go mainstream just yet, but let me tell you the performance is well worth its price tag (at least for a geek such as myself it is). So go ahead early adopters, push your computers to that point of diminishing return!

A couple weeks ago I got a call to assist with an iMac that failed to boot into Mac OS X. A quick assessment over the phone gave me enough information to know it's the hard drive which was on its last leg. I took the iMac home attempting to retrieve the data on it and replace the hard drive. It's worthy to note that the iMac was not even 2 years old, very unusual for a hard drive to die in such short period of use.

The moment I had the iMac opened, I knew exactly why the hard drive had such short life. There was dust pilling up every where inside the iMac. Essentially the dust blocked the air flow and kept all the heat trapped inside the computer. The hard drive on these Aluminum iMac is right in the middle of the chassis and arguably take the most punishment from the heat build-up. Luckily though, the hard drive was the only component that failed and not the other crucial parts (which are much more expensive to replace).

So if you have an aluminum iMac at home and in a room without much ventilation, check the bottom vents often to make sure there's no blockage of air flow. A quick way to do so is the tap either the bottom right or left of the iMac and watch to see if there dust particles falling out. Seeing a chunk of dust drops out of the vent is a sign you should call The IT Guy for help immediately. :)

I had the chance to meet Rev. Tomkin Coleman this evening to help him fix the broken superdrive in his Apple MacBook Pro 17". He contacted me a couple weeks ago for help and I was able to point him to an online store that sells these OEM drives at a really good price. He proceeded to order it and kept me updated once the superdrive arrives so that we can set up a time for me to perform the replacement on his Mac laptop.

Normally this procedure of replacing an optical drive on a MacBook Pro would take over an hour to complete which I quoted Mr. Coleman through our brief phone conversation. However, he told me he would have to run in 45 minutes upon my arrival. He said I can stay to finish the job, but I felt that wasn't going to work for me. That put me on the hot seat to get it done in 40 minutes or so. Boy, was I glad to see it took me less than half an hour when I put the last screw back in the laptop.