Blog Action Day

March 12, 2008

Our First MacBook Mod

March 12, 2008 – 1:07 pm
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When we got our Time Capsule PolyVector and I began a search for Mac compatible USB dongles that would give his MacBook the ability to connect to an N wifi network. PolyVector has a first gen MacBook, meaning it was released before Apple decided to put N AirPort Extreme cards in all their Macs. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t provide an upgrade kit for the MacBooks nor is there an inexpensive USB dongle out there that supports connecting to an N wifi network on the 5Ghz band. So we took matters into our own hands.

I happened to come across quite a few people who were proud owners of the new AirPort Extreme Base Stations that supported N but happened to have first gen MacBooks. The most common work around for getting their MacBooks to support the new N technology was to simply mod it using an Apple AirPort upgrade kit for a Mac Pro (Pre-2008). PolyVector and I decided we would go ahead with this method and see if it would work for us.

The first thing you have to do is make sure you obtain the right part. You must get a Mac Pro upgrade kit with the part number MA688Z/A or MA688Z/B (which is what we used). You can find this part all around the web, but Amazon happened to be selling one from J&R and for $50USD (compared to the up to $300USD for a compatible USB dongle), it wasn’t that bad a price.

The next step of course would be putting the new AirPort card in your MacBook. Thanks to a tutorial from Hardmac we got through the entire disassembly of the MacBook and getting the chip installed with no problem. PolyVector is now enjoying being wireless once again.

Our first MacBook Mod was extremely successful. Phew!

By Skunkie | Posted in Journal | Comments (1)

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Gravatars Down for the Moment

March 12, 2008 – 8:37 am
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I recently updated the plugin I am using to enable gravatars here on Atomac, and unfortunately it looks like the plugin code for setting a rating breaks the displaying of all gravatars no matter what rating you choose. Because I am too lazy to go in and fix the code (simply comment out the ability to set the rating) I have just disabled gravatars for the time being. So if you do happen to have a gravatar profile, please continue using that email address when posting a comment since as soon as the plugin is fixed (or I get off my lazy bum to fix it or downgrade) gravatars will once again be shown next to the comments.

For those who might not know what I am talking about you can check out this article on what a “Gravatar” is and how to use one here on Atomac. While the post says I am using a code snippet and have edited my current theme I switched over to the use of the Easy Gravatars plugin.

Update: Looks like it wasn’t a bug with the Easy Gravatar plugin but rather a glitch in the Gravatar service. We should be back to normal now.

By Skunkie | Posted in Journal | Comments (0)

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