I’ve always been a bigger is better kind of guy. The biggest hard drive, biggest laptop screen, biggest monitor on my desktop, etc. It really has no end. What’s funny about me, though, is every 6 months or so I go through this big life cleaning thing and start downsizing everything. I suppose it’s some kind of self-preservation mechanism that keeps me from getting overrun by too much crap in my life.

Recently, on the tail end of a big declutter phase, I decided it would be very handy to have two 24″ monitors on my desk. Let me pause to say my dream system is a MacPro with dual 30″ Apple Display monitors connected to it. Some day, I’m going to get this setup. Course the $7,000 to $8,000 price tag to go with such a setup will definitely require me to be in a different tax bracket before I can even consider it.

Needless to say, I wanted dual monitors, which I happened to have at my disposal. The only problem is I sold both of my MacPro machines a couple of “declutter” cycles ago. I’ve got a new MacBook Pro that I use for everything. So I set out to see if I could somehow drive 2 external displays from the Mini DisplayPort on the MacBook Pro 15″.

To my surprise, it’s not only doable, it’s darn easy. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Matrox Dual Head 2 Go DP Edition (here’s a link to it on Amazon.com: Matrox Dual Head 2 Go DP Edition)
• DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort Cable
• 2 DisplayPort to DVI Cables

That’s it. That setup will let you connect two monitors of all different sizes to your single MacBook, MacBook Pro or Mac Mini display port connection.

Setup of the device and monitors is pretty easy and straightforward. Once you unpack the Matrox DualHead2Go device, you plug in the cables and your hardware is ready to go. No power cable needed since it will pull power from the USB port on your laptop.

Next you install the Matrox PowerDesk software. This allows you to control settings across the monitors and handles a single stretched image across both monitors. I didn’t run the laptop display alongside the dual monitors. I just used the 2 external Dell 24″ displays and was very pleased. The picture was gorgeous and it was just like other dual monitor setups I’d used on desktop machines in the past. Here are a couple of pictures of where I placed the Matrox and MBP under my desk:

There were, however, a few wrinkles. First, your Mac won’t see the external displays as separate devices. Instead it sees it as one monster monitor. My displays were each running at 1920×1200, but as far as the Mac was concerned, it was just one device. This kills the ability to dock applications or other windows onto a particular display. You have to manually move things around most times. Also, the dock, which I typically have centered at the bottom was in the middle…..of the one monster display. This means it was half on one monitor and half on the other. Moving it to the left-hand side fixed that though.

The other problem I’ve run in to is some weird issue where my MacBook Pro loses the ability to display to the monitors. I have to go through a painful unplugging, plugging in and sometimes restart process to get things working again. Of course it comes at the worst times too. I finally broke down and called tech support (which I HATE doing) because I thought there might be an issue with the Matrox device itself. Turns out DisplayPort connections are some of the most finicky. Didn’t really get that problem solved.

Overall, this was a cool experiment, but not a realistic long term setup. If you’re desperate, give it a try, but keep your expectations realistic. It’s not without it’s faults.

Also, there are different Matrox devices for analog, DVI and even a triple display device.

Can’t wait for Apple to release the new iPad? Build your own iPad…well, sort of. This is more like an iPaperPad, but it will be one heck of a sweet piece of “gear” until you get your hands on the real thing. The process is pretty easy. Here it is:

1. Go here to print out the front and back of the iPad: Front, Back. Make sure you print in color on a printer capable of borderless printing.
2. Cut along the dotted lines and fold.
3. Put either a pad of paper, or a stack of heavy paper into the middle.
4. Glue everything together.
5. VOILA! You’ll be the envy of the coffee shop.

If you’ve got a large format A3 printer, you can grab a PDF that will print an iPad to full size here: iPad A3 PDF.

Personally I think it looks pretty nice. A great mod would be to use a bound pad of paper and keep the front page loose so you can use the pad underneath it. Then it would serve a useful purpose as well as be some eye candy.

1. Make a backup copy of Normal.dotm (Default Word Document Template) found in /Users/~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/.
2. Open the Normal.dotm.
3. Make whatever changes you’d like to make to set it up the way you’d like to start each new document in Word.
4. Save the template.

That’s it. Keep in mind that whatever changes you make to the template will change the starting point/default template for all future Word documents.  This process should also work for other default templates for Microsoft Office for the Mac applications.

Last year I was one of the first couple of people in our town to get an iPhone. I brought down my RV and we played Halo and Guitar Hero all night long, got in the local paper, had friends bringing down food and drinks — really made a party out of it. This year, nada. My camp out buddies from last year went down at 5 am the day of, got in a then-short line, and walked out with iPhones.

During a lull in the camp out this year, I headed into a fairly large town around noon, only to find out that this years iPhone was actually a bigger seller than last years. Apple has reported that it’s sold 1 million iPhones over the weekend, whereas last year it took 74 days to accomplish the same goal. I could have told you that…because there are NO phones to be had around here. Checking in daily since I got back from my trip…ugh:

They had black 8gb iPhones available yesterday, but I’m fairly set on the white 16gb model, so here I sit, in an iPhone 3G void. All is not lost though, I have been enjoying the V2 update for the V1 iPhone mentioned in the previous post. I still have the beta version, and I think it’s acting a little funky, but downloading and playing around with stuff from the iPhone App Store is keeping me entertained while I wait.

Anyone else still waiting, waiting, waiting?

He decided to buy a new MacBook, and asked me to transfer the data from old computer, to new. I agreed, and for my services, I inherited a new MacBook; albeit one without a usable screen. We here at Tweak pride ourselves on being ahead of the curve when it comes to DIY attitudes (especially with computers). So, I consulted with some of the other editors about my dilemma.

To be sure, I was trying to change the screen of a complicated piece of sophisticated machinery. I was attempting brain surgery, and failure mean the death of my patient, the computer.

After Derek did some research, I felt compelled to make the impossible happen, and replace the screen on the computer. I purchased a new screen from an eBay vendor in Taiwan for a meager $200, plus $30 shipping. Interestingly enough, the original screens are manufactured in Taiwan. I won’t speculate as to how my supplier came across the screens he was selling, except to say I’m grateful he sold mine to me!

What follows is a step by step recollection of how I successfully replaced the screen on my MacBook:

Here is the screen before I did anything …

Obviously, that’s pretty broken. I had managed to use the machine for a while with an external monitor plugged into it.

In order to start the disassembly of the machine, it was first necessary to acquire an exceptionally small phillips-head screwdriver. Again, Derek came to my rescue. I started with the first 3 screws on the bottom of the computer, as shown below:

After that was complete, I unscrewed the screws located on the side of the device, followed by the screws on the inside of the battery location.

INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT NOTE!!!!! – Nearly every screw in the MacBook belongs to a unique location. Think about this a minute. This is not like computer repair you may have done in the past. Not all screws are created equal. I dealt with this issue by carefully laying out each screw in a pattern equivalent to how the belonged in the computer itself. However you may tackle this issue is your business, but you have been warned!

Once all of the screws were removed from the outer locations of the computer, I was able to remove the keyboard assembly from the device. This assembly covers all aspects of the internal workings of the MacBook. Afterwards I was able to recognize that I still needed to disconnect the display from the motherboard. This proved to be a complicated feat, since the delicate cables connecting the monitor to the mainboard were looped underneath more delicate internals like DVD ROM connections, as well as HD connections to the motherboard.

Those connections weren’t just cable plugs, but physical, screwed in connections as well.

Once I had all of this disconnected, I was able to disconnect all display connections from the motherboard quite easily. After I accomplished this feat, I re-centered my attention at removing the broken display from the computer.

Below, you see me trying to remove the old screen from the casing. This is delicate stuff, so don’t get impatient here!

Something else to note: you’ll need a special screwdriver to take apart your macbook. Home Depot sells them pretty cheap. Thanks Derek

Now, for the dis-regarded broken display (Hans Solo):

And now for installing the new screen:

Believe it or not, after all of that work, when I finally got the macbook running, I noticed the screen was awfully dim. I had forgotten to plug in the backlight for the display. Yeah, and a few days later, I noticed that I couldn’t use the CD drive. I had misplaced a part underneath the CD / DVD drive. So, the lesson is: Take your time, and do your frankenstein work on a clean white surface, not on the carpet.

Changing The Dock

After a brief 10 minute process, my Dock now appears like this:

The process is straight forward and quick, to modify the look of your dock you will need to:

• Navigate to Macintosh HD -> /System/Library/Core Services/
• Right Click on Dock and Click Show Package Contents
• Navigate to Contents/Resources
• Backup the files scurve-s.png, scurve-m.png, scurve-l.png, scurve-xl.png and frontline.png
• Modify these files to your liking and replace them. For our team, we had to delete the files completely and then add them back into the directory. There seems to be some issues with authentication and copying files into this protected directory. We could not just do a copy/replace.
• Optionally, If you do not feel graphically inclined, Leoparddocks.com has many pre-made dock modifications available for download.
• Open Terminal and type “killall Dock” note: You must spell Dock with the capital “D” to correctly kill the process
• Your nice, new Dock should now be present

Changing the Dock Indicator

To change the Dock status indicator follow the steps listed above and swap out the files indicator_small.png, indicator_medium.png, indicator_large.png, indicator_small_simple.png, and indicator_medium_simple.png. Be sure to make a backup of these files as well!

We hope these hints serve you well, changing our Dock was a breeze. It will only be a matter of time before an application exists to automate this process. Have you modified your Dock? We would love to hear about your experience and any further tips. Leave a comment below!