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2 posts from June 2009

I built a computer!

Last week, I built my very first computer as a present for the boyfriend. He needed an upgrade for his gaming machine and we found that his 2006 model just couldn't be upgraded any further and the latest games wouldn't run... So, we would refit it. New motherboard, new processor, new graphics card.

He wanted a top-of-the-range machine so that it wouldn't need upgrading for a while yet, so we selected the almost-best-but-not-quite (not made of money here :P ) parts.

We went with the following:

When it arrived, we found that ah - previous computer case was a Micro ATX form and the motherboard we purchased was ATX. The graphics card required at least 400W of power and the current PSU would only supply 115W. Hmmm. Oh well, blame my n00biness. :P Out we went again, and picked out the following extra parts:

So! Now we build (pictures described by text underneath them)...

Toys!
Parts!

Working area
The working area - ooh, shiny

In goes the motherboard
In goes the motherboard

It's in!
Processor

Almost there
Almost there... Most of the bits in now!

Aaaand... Then I forgot to take more pictures, so here's the finished product:

The finished product

The front bit opens up to reveal the optical drive etc. Yes, it lights up (not my idea...), but it worked first time, the drivers and everything installed without a problem, and everything is great :D We took the 200GB hard drive and 8-in-1 card reader out of the old computer as they were still pretty good, then reformatted the lot and put Windows 7 RC 64-bit edition on there (it previously had XP Media Center which would only see 2GB of RAM :\ ) and lo and behold... Latest games run fine, not found a single problem with it yet. We'll definitely be getting the full version of Windows 7 when it comes out as the boyfriend hates Vista and needs DirectX 10 for his games (which is only available in Vista and 7)... So, there we have it. He can pay for that though :P

I was surprised to find that it worked, to be honest... I'd never built a computer from scratch and while I did have some guidance at first, I was apparently doing so well I didn't need it XD

More pics can be seen on my Flickr account :)

Reverting to Safari 3 from Safari 4 on Mac OS X 10.5

Did you make the same mistake I did, and update to Safari 4 when it was offered as a Software Update, then found some things didn't work any more, or you just plain don't like Safari 4? If so, here's how to revert back to Safari 3.2.3 on Mac OS X Leopard.

  1. Remove your existing Safari installation. Drag /Applications/Safari.app to the Trash, and rename the ~/Library/Safari folder (where ~ is your home folder, e.g. /Users/your-username) to something else (you're essentially making a backup here). It is important that you empty the Trash after doing this, as I found my 'new' Safari copied itself to my Trash folder.
  2. Rename ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.plist and ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.RSS.plist (if you have it - I didn't, but then I wasn't subscribed to any feeds) to something else (backups again - these files contain your bookmarks and RSS feeds so if you don't want to lose them, don't skip this step)
  3. Edit /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework/Resources/Info.plist and replace all instances of the number 5530 with 5525. Please note: you may need to modify the file's permissions in order to be able to edit it. This can be done by right-clicking it, selecting Get Info, and modifying the permissions at the bottom - you need to give your username read and write access.
  4. Download Safari 3.2.3 and install it (you will be asked to reboot afterwards)
  5. Hey presto, you have Safari 3 again! Replace the files from step 2 (you may need to remove the new files created by Safari 3). Some people have said this doesn't seem to work for them, and if it doesn't for you or screws up your Safari, you might need to open the files and add your bookmarks back in manually... It seems there might be an inconsistency in the XML but I haven't looked into it in too much detail.

There you go, just thought I would share :P

Instructions for Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4)

Edit: I have been asked for instructions for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) - unfortunately, I don't have access to that version, but I'm told the instructions do work, except that the following modifications are to be made: