Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bose QuietComfort2 headphones are quite nice

This post is a bit of shilling.

First let me say that I know the QuietComfort2 headphones are nice because I've had a pair for around three years. I work with them on frequently, I travel with them all the time, I use the heck out of them basically and they're much loved.

But they broke on a recent trip, and that reminded me of another feature I like about them: support. Bose replaced them for me (3 year old headphones!!) with a new pair for $50 ($50!!). If you haven't bought them because they cost a lot (and they *do* cost a lot) you should know that you're going to get a set of headphones that will last and last, and if they don't, you'll be able to get a new pair without taking out a loan

Apple Bluetooth Not Available fix

A lot of people have experienced the dreaded "Bluetooth Not Available" problem on their Apple machines, and I just recently had it happen to me.

I've seen it before, and just rebooted to resolve it but this time I researched more.

Some people report that resetting the SMC will fix it. Some report it's a temperature thing. Odds are it can be many things, so this fix may not work for you.

One forum post reported that they hadn't noticed it, but they were using VMWare, and one of their VMs had taken control of the bluetooth device - simply unhooking it from the VM allowed it to be used in OS X again.

Imagine my chagrin when I noticed that was what had happened to me...so if you get this message and use VMWare, check your VMs to see if one of them grabbed the device. Disconnecting it will get you going again.

MacBook Pro rev3+ works with 6GB ram (1x4GB SODIMM, 1x2GB SODIMM)

1x4GB SODIMM RAM sticks just came out, and they're actually not that expensive ($179 @ NewEgg)

Read on a zdnet review site that a Rev3 or higher MacBook Pro would boot with 2x4GB sticks, but not work well

An enterprising forum member on some Australian tech site defied someone else's unsubstantiated data to show that in a 1x4GB+1x2GB SODIMM configuration it would work, so I ponied up to try it for myself along with a colleague.

Works just fine for me, second day running. Going to kit out the rest of the office with them.

VMs running with 2 CPUs and 3GB of RAM while your host machine is still humming along? Definitely worth $170...