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Having bought my second Western Digital MyBook 1TB, I faced an annoying issue: I couldn’t get rid of the virtual CD. This may seem a small problem, but I dislike when I have to deal with stuff, I didn’t ask for in the first place.

My first thought was to delete the part of my hard drive that contains the files. That didn’t work out well, not to say not at all. Not even my beloved gParted could get rid of it.

Step two was the visit of Western Digital’s website for more information. (Only a geek would understand why this wasn’t my first step. ) I ended up here but wasn’t happy with that solution. Yeah I know, I’m difficult.

My final solution was the cleanest in my opinion and includes typing the following into the terminal:

sudo sh -c "echo UUID=`diskutil info /Volumes/WD\ SmartWare/ | grep 'UUID' | awk '{print $NF}'` none hfs rw,noauto 0 0 >> /etc/fstab"

After a restart there’s nothing but a clean desktop and my Finder isn’t unnecessarily cluttered either.

Seems that I’m in a spacer / blank icon mood lately, but they really help if you’d like to cluster your apps and therefore ‘unclutter’ your working space. (I just wrote an article on how to add a spacer for iPhones here.)

Here are the few steps it takes to achieve this:

1) Go to Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal

2) Type or copy/paste the following:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add ‘{tile-data={}; tile-type=”spacer-tile”;}’

3) Press enter and type or copy/paste this:

killall Dock

4) Once you pressed enter, you will realize that you have just created a spacer.

5) Repeat as you wish (restarting the dock in-between isn’t necessary) and exit the session by typing:

exit

6) Now the Terminal can be closed. The icon(s) can be treated like normal ones (moving and deleting).

Enjoy your new found tidiness.

Since I started using a Mac, my mouse (Logitech G9) didn’t work as well as I was used to when I was still using a PC. The reason was the inability to use and / or configure the mouse buttons. I tried to install Logitech’s driver but that didn’t end up well. (Maybe because there isn’t a dedicated driver for this mouse.) Directly after I restarted my machine, I had the feeling that it isn’t running smoothly. I uninstalled the software and lived without features such as going back one page by clicking a mouse button within Firefox.

Luckily I found an app called SteerMouse. This fine piece of software allowed me to set the mouse buttons up the way I like them to work. Now I can not only go forth and back within Firefox, I can also zoom in and out. This finally allows me to use my mouse the way I was used to and even gives me features (zooming, switching between apps) that I wasn’t used to, but that make my daily life a lot easier.

This should work with most mouses  (or mice – to find out more about that topic read this) and help you to get all the features you would expect from a mouse that has all those buttons that await to be used.

During my pre-Christmas cleaning I decided to sort my Mac mini as well. I really like it clean and fast. A nice article at lifehacker.com may also help you if you find your Mac sluggish, or if you simply are a neat ‘freak’ like me.

The article describes how you can find programs that take a lot of your system resources, and how you can make your Mac start faster by disabling programs that start automatically when you switch on your system. On top of that, software that will delete unnecessary left-overs from uninstalled apps and system checks is introduced to you. While the article isn’t the newest, the hints offered are still up-to-date.

Using iTunes as my main – and most likely only – media player started off quite badly. Not only that I had to change every single video I have into a *.mov-file, I also found *.mp3-files that would neither play on my iPod nor within iTunes. Trying to add these files via iTune’s automatic adding function would move them to the not added folder instead.

The MP3 Validator for Mac OS X neatly solved this issue for me. Just download the software and open it, before you can simply drag-and-drop your mp3-files into the program. It will show which failure persists and repair it. Just checked my whole library and found quite a lot of failures on files which I didn’t suspect in the first place.

PS: Windows-user might be happy to read that MP3 Validator is doing the same for them.

PS:PS: Thanks to Trevin Chow for this helpful piece of information.

Writing mostly about Ubuntu lately, I decided to add a post regarding the look of Windows. If you’re tired of staring at your standard taskbar and would like some changes, you can either wait for Windows 7, or check out the Nexus dock. The second option includes downloading and installing the free app. The result is a little Mac OS Leopard feeling on your Windows desktop. StandaloneStack 2 is another possibility to update the look and feel of your operating system and allows easy access to your files/folder and/or programmes.

Adding software like the ones mentioned above might take quite a bit of your available memory, but do add eyecandy and a more accessible folder structure than the one offered originally. I might add that as much as I like to tweak Ubuntu, I neither really touched the Windows optic nor the system itself. It never really gave me the Wow!-effect. Adding the dock for example will make you wonder what you should do with the ‘old’ taskbar – and hiding it seems to be the only option available, without additional tricks.  These observations are fully based on personal experiences and shouldn’t stop you from trying out various docks or other visual tweaks. Afterall, deleting them is always an option. And if you want to make sure that everything works the way it did before, backing up your system and/or creating a restore-point before the installation of an app is a good idea at all times.

Mac’s operating systems look stunning. No doubt about that. But what if you have a computer and no Mac? Well, if you’re using Ubuntu, you can check out Damien’s post at MakeTechEasier. This easy to follow step-by-step process provides you with all information necessary to achieve that look.

If you’re new to Ubuntu or don’t want to hassle through a guide for an afternoon, then Mac4Lin is probably the right option for you.