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Problem #1: Help Me! How do I install Windows 7 in my macbook while retaining Mac OSX.
Problem #2: Driver issues! I can’t install my 64 bit bootcamp drivers in Windows 7!
Problem #3: Sound: My Macbook sounds very tinny and awful in Windows 7
Problem #4: Right Clicking: How do I right click in Windows 7 using macbook?
Problem #5: How do I disable my trackpad if my mouse is present in Windows 7?
Problem #6: How do I rebind some of my macbook keys in Windows 7?
_Introduction_: This guide will help you install Windows 7 to your Macbook and also solve the Mac driver issues in Windows 7. Although the case sounds like Bootcamp Drivers doesn’t support Windows 7 64 bit on some macs(Core 2 duo), this is not exactly true as you can still install the 64 bit drivers(Scroll down to the “Windows 64-bit drivers installation” section to see more details). Another solution is to use a virtual machine like VMWare Fusion and Parallels. They basically put Windows and OSX side-by-side and it works wonderfully (Great for web developers and those who want to have that coolness factor added to OSX)
How To Install Windows 7 while retaining your current OSX Installation:
Step 1. Start OSX (Leopard / Snow Leopard), Run Bootcamp Migration Assistant (type “bootcamp” in your finder)
Step 2. During the Bootcamp Migration Wizard, create a partition with around 30gb+ of disk space. After completing the wizard, OSX will prompt you to restart with the Windows 7 CD in your drive.
If OSX is complaining about being unable to continue with bootcamp, you probably need to defrag your Macintosh Drive. To do this, download a defragger software such as “iDefrag” and do a complete defrag on your primary hard disk, unfortunately you can’t really do a complete defrag on the hard disk you are currently running OSX in so you will need an external hard disk to boot from in order to do this. Please see step 1 of “How to backup your OSX and do a Fresh Install of Windows 7 and Leopard / Snow Leopard in your Macbook” below to find out how to run OSX from an external hard disk. Once you’re running OSX in your external drive, run “iDefrag” and defrag your primary hard-drive. Once defragged, restart macbook and you should be able to complete Bootcamp now.
Step 3. After restarting, you’ll be greeted by the Windows 7 setup, complete each steps until Windows 7 asks you where to install it, simply select the drive that is labeled: “BootCamp” and format it(it is disabled until you format it, don’t worry it’s safe.).
Step 4. Congratulations! Windows 7 has been installed, now insert your Leopard / Snow Leopard Installation Disk and Navigate to your CD Drive Folder —> Boot Camp —> Drivers —> Apple and open “BootCamp64″. If an alert window is informing you that your current OS is not supported, don’t worry as it’s easy to fix that. Please scroll down until you get to the Windows 7 64 bit Driver Installation for Macbook section.
How to backup your OSX and do a Fresh Install of Windows 7 and Leopard / Snow Leopard in your Macbook:
Step 1: Backup your system to an external hard disk:
Connect an external hard disk to your macbook and run this awesome software called SuperDuper to backup your files. Once backed up restart your macbook and hold Alt/Option until your see a boot selection menu, select the external hard disk with the backup you made in SuperDuper, if all goes well you should be running OSX, only this time, you’re running it in your external hard-drive(your backup). If you are comfortable with how the backup looks, proceed with the following steps:
Step 2. Run Disk Utility (type “disk” in finder to see it from the list of Applications)
Step 3. Format your Macbook’s Hard-drive(Take care that you don’t select the external one.).
Step 4. Insert your Leopard / Snow Leopard Installation CD, while restarting hold ALT/Option to get to the boot menu. Select your Leopard / Snow Leopard CD and complete your OSX installation.
Step 5. After Installation, boot your newly installed OSX and run Bootcamp Migration Assistant (type “bootcamp” in your finder), complete the Bootcamp Migration Wizard and insert your Windows 7 CD before proceeding to restart:
Step 6. After restarting, proceed to install your Windows 7, when Windows 7 ask you where to install it, simply select the drive that is labeled: “BootCamp” and press the format button(don’t worry it’s safe).
Step 7. Congratulations! Windows 7 has been installed, now insert your Leopard / Snow Leopard Installation Disk and Navigate to your CD Drive —> Boot Camp —> Drivers —> Apple and open “BootCamp64″. If an alert window is informing you that your current OS is not supported, don’t worry as it’s easy to fix that in the next section.
Installing your macbook’s Windows 7 64 Bit Drivers. Important: The following is only required if you can’t install the 64bit drivers that’s included in your Leopard/Snow Leopard Installation Disk.
Step 1. In Windows, press Start —> Select “Run” — Type “Cmd”, from the Programs List, right click on “cmd.exe” and select “Run as Administrator”
Step 2. In Windows Command Prompt, enter the following command:
net user administrator /active:yes
Step 3. Press Start —> Logout and re-login, select the “Administrator” Account from the selection.
Step 4. Navigate to your Leopard CD Drive Folder —> Boot Camp —> Drivers —> Apple and open “BootCamp64″, complete the installation and you’re all set!
Step 5. Remove the administrator account from showing up by going to Start —> Run —> Cmd —> press enter. Type the following command from the command prompt:
net user administrator /active:no
After the installation of these drivers, you may notice your macbook sounding really tinny or pitchy, this is easily fixed by installing the sound driver from Realtek.
Step 6. Download Realtek HD Audio Drivers here.
Step 7. That’s it! Perhaps the final step is to tweak your keyboard/trackpad settings by accessing the Bootcamp Control Panel (This can be seen in your system tray — lower right portion of your task bar, click the arrow besides the date if you can’t see it. If you still can’t see it, simply press Start and type “boot camp” to find it.)
To right click in Windows 7 using your trackpad, touch your trackpad with 2 fingers and click on the button. If you are like me, you may prefer to do a 2 finger tap to do a right click, you can do this by going to Boot Camp Control Panel(Press start and type “Boot Camp” to find it), go to the trackpad tab and click on One Finger Tap to Click and secondary click below Two Fingers.
There’s a nice software called Trackpad Magic, it’s a very handy tool that allows you to disable your trackpad easily via the system tray. It also have a nifty option that automatically disables your trackpad when a mouse is present/plugged in. For the best effect, add a shortcut of the Trackpad Magic program to your startup folder.
If you are uncomfortable with how some of your keyboard keys are setup, you may want to rebind them using the Remapkey software. Remapkey is included with the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools. You can find it in the c:\Program Files\Windows Resource Kits\Tools directory called remapkey.exe respectively.
Well, that should cover it! Don’t forget to share this in stumbleupon to help those who are looking for a similar solution.
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2 Comments »
Help! I’d like to create a toolbar similar to facebook that is locked in the bottom of the screen.
Introduction Facebook is such a great website – usability, features, speed, you name it, facebook has it. One of facebook’s most useful feature is the toolbar that is being displayed to the bottom of the page. This post is made to do just about that. Follow these easy steps to create a Facebook-toolbar clone in no time at all!
_Solution_ Using the following steps, you would be able to duplicate the look of the Facebook toolbar.
1.) First, copy the following css and paste them inside your <header> tag.
html { height: 100%; }
body { height: 100%; }
#wrapper { position: relative; min-height: 100%; }
* html #wrapper { height: 100%; }
#content { padding-bottom: 25px; }
#toolbar_outer { bottom:0; color:#111111; font-size:11px; height:25px; padding:0; position:fixed; right:0; width:100%; z-index:99; }
#toolbar_outer { position: relative; margin-top: -26px; }
#toolbar {
background:#aaa;
border-right:1px solid #b5b5b5;
overflow:visible !important;
margin-left:15px;
margin-right:15px;
position:relative;
}
#toolbar ul { height: 25px; background: #e5e5e5; border-top: 1px solid #eee; border-left: 1px solid #ddd; }
#toolbar ul li { float: left; padding: 5px; font: normal 110% "lucida grande", tahoma, verdana, arial; border-right: 1px solid #aaa;}
Important: The only drawback here is you’ll need to know the height of your toolbar (not really a problem, you should know that anyway). I’ve highlighted the properties above that you will probably want to edit.
2.) Finally, Paste this in your <body> tag.
<div id=”wrapper”>
<div id="content">
<!– Your Content Goes Here –>
</div>
</div>
<div id="toolbar_outer">
<div id="toolbar">
<!– Toolbar –>
<ul>
<li>Applications</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
- (Optional) You can also download everything above here.
Well, that’s everything there is to it really! Don’t forget to thumb this up and share with others!
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25 Comments »
One very important usability feature of a website is to have the menu or links highlight the current page the visitor is currently in. Here’s a trick I do with jquery to do just about that. For educational purposes, i’ve split it to 3 lines of code to make it more understandable.
Simply add the following to your header (don’t forget to include jquery first!).
$(document).ready(function()
{
var loc = window.location.toString().split("/")
loc = loc[loc.length - 1]
$("#navigation li a[href=\""+loc+"\"]").addClass("selected");
});
Of course, jquery isn’t really needed to do this. If you prefer to have it done _without_ jquery, here’s a native way of doing things:
window.onload = function()
{
var current_page = window.location.toString().split("/")[window.location.toString().split("/").length - 1]
var links = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for (x in links)
{
var link = (links[x].href != undefined) ? links[x].href.toString().split("/")[links[x].href.toString().split("/").length – 1] : ""
if (link == current_page)
links[x].className = (links[x].className == "") ? "selected" : links[x].className + " selected"
}
}
_Important_: The above code takes use of the .selected class. Simply add the class to your a:hover classes.
#navigation ul li a:hover { color: #ff0; }
Should be written as:
#navigation ul li a:hover, #navigation ul li a.selected { color: #ff0 !important; }
_Don’t Forget!_, this works for menu/links with background images as well.
and that’s all there is to it! Don’t forget to thumb this up and share!
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1 Comment »
Problem: Help! I’m using the OCUpload, or One Click Upload Plugin for Jquery. IE7 and IE8 is requiring me to do a double click to display the upload dialog box!
Solution: The one-click upload technique uses a trick that sets the file input’s browse button directly in front of your mouse cursor. This is misbehaving in IE7/IE8 due to how they handle CSS, this can be resolved by directly setting the cursor position through javascript instead. You can fix the problem by editting the script and updating the following lines (highlighted in bold):
Somewhere on line 87:
/** Move the input with the mouse to make sure it get clicked! */
container.mousemove(function(e){
input.css({
top: e.pageY-container.offset().top+’px’,
left: e.pageX-container.offset().left-175+’px’
});
});
Finally, we need to set the margin css property to 0, you can find it somewhere on line 63:
/** File Input */
var input = $(
‘<input ‘+
‘name=”‘+options.name+’” ‘+
‘type=”file” ‘+
‘hidefocus=”true” ‘+
‘/>’
).css({
background: ‘#ffffff’,
position: ‘relative’,
display: ‘block’,
marginLeft: 0+’px’,
opacity: 0
});
That’s it! Hope this helped!
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3 Comments »
Problem: I’ve decided to re-install windows because of some issues. My new install is ok but I can’t delete the directory of my old windows anymore!
Solution: The folder you are trying to delete has it’s administrative privileges locked from your previous windows. You could change the ownership of your folder by right clicking on the folder -> Properties -> Security -> Advanced -> Owner -> Edit -> Select Administrator and put a check on “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects”
An Easier Solution: You can also do a command prompt to remove the ownership which is a more straightforward process. To do this, press your window’s Start button, type “cmd”, right click on the “cmd” program that shows up, right click and select run as administrator (running the command prompt with administrator privileges is important).
In the command prompt, enter the following command:
cacls “c:\WINDOWS.OLD” /t /g administrators:F
Note: Don’t forget to change the drive letter and path above to the locked folder.
That’s it! You can now delete this folder.
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Problem: Help! How can I pass parameters in my Bindings?
Solution: By using lambda functions in python(Check your PL’s manual for anything similar), you would be able to create on-the-fly functions that returns your bindings with the extra parameters/arguments you want to pass.
Example 1: Passing an argument to a wx Button Event
btn = wx.Button(self, 10, “Button”, (10, 10))
self.Bind(wx.EVT_BUTTON, lambda event: self.OnClick(event, ‘passthis’))
def OnClick(self, event, somearg):
print somearg
Example 2: Passing an argument to Pyhook’s HookManager.KeyUp Event
hook = pyHook.HookManager()
hook.KeyUp = lambda event: OnKeyboardEvent(event, ‘Pass Me.’)
hm.HookKeyboard()
def OnKeyboardEvent(event, myarg)
print myarg
That’s It!
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Problem: Help! My mask clipping isn’t working because of the my layer’s overlay effect! I need to rasterize my effects first but I don’t know how!
Solution:
Step 1: Select the layer with the effects you want rasterized.
Step 2: Press Control(CMD for Mac)+Shift+N to create a new layer.
Step 3: Add the layer from Step 1 to your selection by holding Shift and clicking on the Layer.
Step 4: Press Ctrl(CMD for Mac)+E to merge the two layers and voila! your effects are now rasterized.
__Note__: This tip is especially useful for mask clipping to a layer that have some gradient/color overlays.
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Problem: Help! I need to replace some words with something else in my database.
Solution: Use the replace() function to do a search and replace query.
UPDATE table_name SET
table_field=REPLACE(table_field,"old_text","new_text");
Here’s an example:
UPDATE wp_posts SET
post_content=REPLACE(post_content,"localhost","www.cybervaldez.com");
Easy as pie!
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3 Comments »
Problem: Help! I’ve pasted some text from Microsoft Word and saved it to my SQL database! Now whenever I print my text there’s a bunch of diamonds with a question mark symbols appearing!
Solution: You are trying to display characters that are outside your page’s character set, you have to tell your browser that you need to display characters from the iso-8859-1 set so it will know how to render them correctly.
Simply put the following inside your website’s <head></head>
<META http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
and in PHP(or any other similar language), simply put this at the top of your page(for other languages, look for an identical function):
<? header("Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"); ?>
and voila! Your characters should now be displayed correctly.
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I really love SQLite. It’s lightweight and got a really small footprint. I use it as my database initially when i’m creating web applications(I then move to mySQL during production), the only issue I have is the lack of IDE for working with it. Of course there’s SQLite Administrator, i’m just not into the idea of installing a software especially with SQLite being small(I prefer not to cramp up as much software possible in my Windows).
This is where sqlite-manager comes along. It’s a 100kb plugin for Firefox(which also means cross compatibility with other OS), it’s a great complement to SQLite’s lightweight and small footprint. If you need to work with the database, you simply fire up sqlite-manager from the Tools menu.
That’s It!
