While connected, the external display is either as a mirror, which is not preferable since it will be limited to the Macbook maximum screen resolutions, or as extended display. Having two display is good but not entirely true since different dpi, colors and not placed side by side. Yes, I can drag the top bar on display preference to make the external as main screen and dimming out the MacBook backlight but windows pop up on MacBook screen really disturbing and confusing. Plus, using video memory and adding workload to GPU.

I can’t find how to make my external display as main and disable my MacBook display on System Preferences until recently I stumble upon a forum which one of the member found out that if the MacBook sleeping *by closing the lid* while connected to external display is woken up by plugging in usb keyboard/mouse, the external display will turned on but the MacBook display will still be off, hence became the only main display.

So, remember, plug you external display, close the MacBook lid, plug keyboard/mouse usb. Voila!

Update: Plugging power should do the trick too.

Yes, Win7 tablet shows more speed when launching. But how about battery life?

Judging from the GUI and feedback, iPad still have better response and eye-candy.

hmm, not to mention viruses…

My search was in a dead end in desperate I hit on Wikipedia and found this,

ISO image files typically have a file extension of .ISO but Mac OS X ISO images often have the extension .CDR.

That’s quite enlightening. Why OS X use other file extention instead? So perplexing.

It’s quite easy to create the .CDR a.k.a .ISO using OS X Leopard built in Disk Utility. Here is the steps,

• Slide in your disk to the drive.
• Fire up your Disk Utility *type in your spotlight search for faster access, on top right most lup icon*, you should see the mounted disk on the left pane.
• Hilight the disk on the left pane *some disk may have two level, the Session number and the disk name. Hilight the Session number*
• Click the New Image on top windows icon
• Change the image format to “DVD/CD master” and save.
• When finished, rename .CDR to .ISO.
• Double click to open and mount it to test whether it’s working

This way you can create bootable .ISO from bootable disk. Pretty useful when playing in virtualization. Enjoy.

But I was wrong. After I launched the Apple Mail, It just froze, my mouse cursor turn to rainbow turning wheel. Ok, I’m doomed. I have my work mails that need to be responded that day. Tried to restart, delete the cache, remove some.plist (I backed them up before delete them). Nothings work. Somehow I got a feeling that the index was screwed up but I don’t know how to fix them.

Luckily after sometime *while toying with 64 bit inteprid*, uncle google gave me a random page that told me how to prevent Mail to retrieve, open folder and open preview for on focus mail after launched. Simply by holding the shift button while launching Mail should do the trick.

Obviously on launch Mail tried to go directly to the last folder and mail position but the index was messed and it went for a walk in the limbo. With shift button pressed, Mail skip that behaviour and back to the senses. It realized that the index was corrupted and need to import all mails again. In 30 minutes all back normal.

When your Mail screwed up, remember, press SHIFT button while launching it. Hope that will save your day.

The JS is snappier compared to previous Safari and Opera but I believe Gears is still not working well in this release. One thing that keep me back to Safari is it’s performance. I like the way it scroll, so smooth. Guess I don’t need Chrome in my OSX anymore.

When users with high expectation teased by “heavenly” words and advertisings and then got smacked with awful product, that is what I called “The Vista Effect.”

The Microsoft itself tried to clean Vista name with the series of campaign ads but it seems the air were too foul to clean. Now they drop to use “Vista” name anymore and revert back to Windows for Vista’s successor.

Apple as Microsoft’s rival even mock them on their ad titled “V word”. Watch it here or download it here.

When your massive marketing and advertising are not coupled with good product, “The Vista Effect” may lurking in the shadow behind you. The marketing and advertising may backfire and hit back hard.