tech Shit » 15 minutes

connect macbook to the internet via iPhone

sebastian — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:00:04 +0000

Sometimes one doesn’t have a wifi or cabled internet access (on an airport, in a hotel etc.) – Then you might want to connect your macbook via iPhone to the internet – Here is what you have to do:

on the iPhone go to settings > general > network > (scroll down) and change Internet-Tethering to On and choose USB
connect your iPhone to your Mac via USB cable
the Mac should ask now, wether you wanna open the network settings > Yes you want!
Click on the iPhone connection and click apply

From now on your Mac connects to the internet every time you connect your iPhone with a USB cable

create password protected zip file on mac osx

sebastian — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:15:07 +0000

It is crazy for which simple tasks, that I did on Windows for many years, one has to find a solution on a macbook…

To create a password protected zip-file on mac osx just open a terminal and put in:

zip -e myzipfile.zip content1.pdf content2.pdf

For opening a password protected zip-file on mac osx download the Unarchiver (Open Source) from here.

Missing a delete key on your MacBook?

sebastian — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:47:33 +0000

I have recently switched to the apple side of life – which has way more style and is much more fun!

But I also found myself missing some keys – e.g. the delete key
To help you find out faster than me, here are some helpful keyboard shortcuts (combinations) for former pc users:

+ – this is like the DEL key

+ – this is like the END key
+ – this is like the POS1 key

+ – goes right word by word
+ – goes left word by word

You can find more keyboard shortcuts here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343

I like – You like!

sebastian — Sat, 08 May 2010 08:50:13 +0000

Nowadays everybody wants to tell about what he/she likes or dislikes. Some of them even sing about it- the most impressive one is Keri Hilson with her song “I like”: 47 times in 3:40 min (look at the lyrics)

For me it is becoming an obvious trend which is why I’d like to provide you the chance to say “I like” to our posts (look at the upper right corner)

Wow – This blog is connected to facebook! How did you do that? – Actually that is pretty easy. Because of the new Open Graph Protocol every website/blog can be connected to a new kind of social network – The Open Graph (see introduction from Mark Zuckerberg):

And if you use WordPress as your blogging platform it is even easier to add the “I like” Button to your blog: Just install one of the available plugins! We are using “Like” from Bottomless…

Welcome to the web3.0 which has the ability to like, dislike and maybe one day: to love

(Installing this WP-Plugin and writing this article took me 15min.)

Activating a Base (E-Plus) voice mailbox

sebastian — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:29:34 +0000

Some weeks ago my girlfriend got a new cell phone plan including a brand new cell phone
(About the problems with the phone itself she will tell you later in an extra posting )

Today she asked me to activate the voice mailbox – So I said: “Baby, I’ll do that for you ”
So I started on google with the words “e-plus mailbox” and got some postings that say, that you have two options: call the hotline (which would cost a lot of money) or do it online at http://my.base.de. So I tried to register my girlfriend at my.base.de – no luck, the website said: “Sorry it is not working – Please try again later!”.
Hahaha – somehow the admins learned to much from the cell phone networkers

So I’ve used google again and I’ve found
http://www.base.de/downloads/BASE_Bedienungsanleitung.pdf
which is obviously the manual of the service

So I took her phone and called 9911* which is the number to call the voice mailbox setup. Then a computer voice told me “Herzlich Willkommen im E-Plus Mailbox-System. Diese E-Plus-Mailbox ist momentan nicht erreichbar – Bitte versuchen Sie es später noch einmal!” in plain english that means “Welcome to the voice mailbox system. This voice mailbox is actually not available – please try again later!”…

I’ve tried again half an hour later – same result: still no voice mailbox

DELL Latitude E4300 Touchpad

sebastian — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:21:38 +0000

For work I use a DELL E4300, which is a really nice and handy laptop. But one thing that gets on my nerves is that sometimes when I type a long text the text cursor jumps to the position of where the mouse pointer is. After several minutes I come to realize, that a problem with the integrated touchpad has occurred. (I kid you not I was not even able to complete this sentence without this happening.)

So I’ve started investigating the problem in detail…
…I’ve tried to deactivate the touchpad via driver but the driver is also needed for the pointing stick
…I’ve tried to deactivate the touchpad via BIOS but there you can only deactivate both – the touchpad and the pointing stick

So there is only one way to work around this: Use an external mouse.

PS: Lenovo disables the touchpad if you start to type
PPS: My girlfriend also has problems with my laptop because the letters z and y are switched – Hahaha