Joe's geek chic, wonderings and other cool stuff blog » Gadgets

Upgrading macbook pro 13″ hard drive

thiswayup — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 17:29:46 +0000

I thought I'll post up my process to upgrade my Mac book pro 13" hard drive that I bought autumn 2009. I couldnt be bothered to find the exact model

Shopping list

I decided to upgrade my macbook pro hard drive recently as I'm going to use it as my primary method to store my photos. Having only 80gb left on my disc, I decided to buy most of my kit from Ebuyer. My shopping list was :

500Gb Western Digital Sata Hard drive - Good ratings and only £46!
External portable 500Gb Samsung S2 hard drive "This is it!" (Michael Jackson edition) - Bloody cheap for £39! Reason I bought the MJ "limited" version was because it was cheaper then buying the regular edition, go figure! They must've had a over stock on the buggers
Extra Value USB External SATA drive case - £4. So I can use the spare drive as another backup drive and also was a quick way to transfer my existing data
Torx T6 (aka "star" style ?) screw driver - Forgot to get this and had to run down to the local bric a brac shop to get one in the end. If I was more prepared, I would've bought one from ebay as they are dirt cheaper.

Step by step guide

Well not much much to it but here we go.

After putting your new hard drive into the external case, I then backed up the whole thing using SuperDuper. The main reason being is that it not only backsup your drive but prepares it also for the switch by making it fully bootable! The benefit being is that it saves you having to install OSx and restore from the Time machine backup
I then followed this video and you are done!

Other stuff

Don't forget to perform another time machine or SuperDuper backup after!

Little tool to try and get things done regularly

thiswayup — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 22:41:21 +0000

Holy heck, it's February and it seems to be like I haven't been doing as much as I should be with regards to my regular tasks. Anyways, I decided time to do more stuff and to learn some more programming and cool web stuff. I thought to myself how best to motivate myself and stumbled upon this article in Life Hacker. The brilliance is in its simplicity! Keep a diary and every time you do the regular thing enough, cross it off. Sort of reminds me of Brain Training. The aim is that you keep a chain of regularity and aim to ultimately to keep it going for as long as possible without breaking it.

So here it is, the badly fitting table on the right hand side. Lets see if I actually keep it up!

Google take over pt231 -> Google maps + GPS styleeee!

thiswayup — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 20:22:38 +0000

Read a nice piece from The Register which describes Google's latest Google Maps being able to use the cellID to figure out where you are when you download maps from them.

It does'nt seem to be available for the Treo but I downloaded the google maps for treo anyways, bloody heck! Amazing! Finally I do not have to take out my A-Z

Portable speakers

thiswayup — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:53:04 +0000

I been looking for some cool speakers and have had these babies for a couple of weeks and have found the JBL Ontour iPod Speaker System - Black. Even thought it says ipod, it actually includes a normal 3.5 jack that fits all mp3 players. Don't trust the title, it doesnt have the specific ipod connector thing one would assume.

Did a battery test and they must've lasted about 8-10 hours on 4 AAA! Amazing and the sound quiality is much better then my old (lost) travel speakers