Replacing the internal battery on a Macbook Air

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Another hyper-technical FilmHelp article by Greg Pak
I recently replaced the battery on a first generation Macbook Air (1.8 GHz). The Macbook Air battery isn’t considered “user replaceable” by Apple — it’s locked inside the enclosure, held in place by nine screws. Apple charges $129 to replace the battery. But I wasn’t thrilled about wiping the drive (for security reasons) and giving up the computer to be serviced. Instead, I bought a new replacement battery for $70 on ebay and followed the incredibly helpful instructions at ifixit.com to open the case with a tiny Phillips head screwdriver and replace the battery.
I started the project with some trepidation because I’d generally seen laptop batteries peter out bit by bit — I’d never had a battery suddenly cease to hold a charge the way this one died. So I had my fingers crossed that this wasn’t part of a bigger problem involving the logic board. But since the computer works perfectly post-op, it’s pretty clear I just had a dud battery.
Since I couldn’t find an exact description of the symptoms I was seeing online, I’m posting what I experienced in hopes that it helps others.
Symptoms:

  1. The battery suddenly stopped charging. The computer would work as long as it was plugged in, but the LED on the magsafe charger would stay green rather than turn to the amber charging color and the battery monitor would report that the battery was empty and wasn’t charging. This might have been shortly after the battery was totally drained. The battery had 227 cycles on it. I followed the instructions at Apple.com to reset the SMC. And I reset PRAM for good measure. Neither procedure helped.
  2. In OS 10.5.8, under the “Power” tab in the system profiler, the battery showed up but was tagged with “Check Battery.” When I restarted using a Snow Leopard (OS 10.6.1) installation on an external USB drive, the battery icon in the menu gave the message “Replace Battery.”

    3. If the power cable was disconnected after shutting down, upon restart, the computer would give me an alert that time and date were incorrect. On other computers, that would be an indication that the internal PRAM battery was dead. But now that I have a working battery in the laptop, there’s no problem with losing date and time settings. I’m deducing that the Macbook Air has no internal PRAM battery — so if the laptop battery is totally drained, the settings that the PRAM battery would normally maintain are lost.

  3. Several times after the computer died because the the AC adapter was unplugged, it made a long “bong” sound upon restart. Not the normal startup chime, but a long, more alarm-like bong. That’s generally a sound associated with memory failure. But the computer started up normally after making the bong and the System Profile showed all memory intact. I ran the Apple Hardware Test, which also showed no problems with the memory.

Solution:
Replacing the battery fixed everything.
Conclusions:

  1. A completely dead battery in a Macbook Air apparently causes Date & Time settings to be lost — presumably because the computer has no separate PRAM battery.
  2. A Macbook Air battery might indeed just conk out suddenly rather than gradually lose its ability to recharge over time.
  3. Still no idea where that long “bong” sound came from.

Snow Leopard doesn’t allow writing to Zip disk

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Another hyper-technical FilmHelp computer post from Greg Pak
While undertaking the mind-blowingly nerdy task of updating a 1995-era PowerBook 190 from OS 7.5.2 to 7.5.3, I discovered that my Mac Pro (running OS 10.6.1) would read a Zip disk in an external USB Zip drive — but it would not write new data to that same disk.
After doing some poking around, I found this helpful post that explained that Snow Leopard has disabled the ability to write to HFS-formatted disks — which was the standard when this Powerbook was produced.
In practical terms, that means to get files from my Mac Pro onto the PowerBook 190, I had to transfer them to a G4 desktop via a USB drive. Then I transferred them from the G4 to a Zip disk. And then transfer from the Zip disk to the Powerbook 190. Whew!

2009.10.03 – “All Amateur Ecstasy” and “Mouse” in DC

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Greg Pak’s short films “All Amateur Ecstasy” and “Mouse” screen today in the “Best of the Shorts” retrospective programs at the DC APA Film Festival.
“All Amateur Ecstasy” will be screening at:
U.S. Navy Memorial Theater
701 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 2:00 pm
“Mouse” will be screening at:
U.S. Navy Memorial Theater
701 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 4:00 pm

Marvel.com interviews Greg Pak about “The List – Hulk”

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Marvel.com Jim Beard has interviewed writer Greg Pak about his “Dark Reign: The List – Hulk” one shot coming out on October 21. Here’s an excerpt:

Pak’s joined on the one-shot by artist Ben Oliver, himself seemingly gamma-fueled and ready to tackle such an, dare we say it, incredible chapter in Osborn’s days of infamy.
“Ben’s layouts and character renditions have a kind of graceful elegance that provides a brilliant contrast to the savage action that Skaar brings to the book,” notes Pak. “I’m loving everything he’s drawing; it’s a perfect match for a story that’s half battle-of-the-brains and half just wall-to-wall smashing.”

Click here to read the whole thing — and view the amazing preview art from Ben Oliver!

Rave reviews for “Incredible Hercules” #134

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“Incredible Hercules” #134, written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente with pencils by Reilly Brown, continues to garner rave reviews from all corners. Just a few excerpts:
The Buy Pile:

A fun book with great art (thanks to Reilly Brown, Nelson DeCastro and Guillem Mari) a witty script by Fred Van Lente and Greg Pak and a twist at the end that’s just about perfect, making the next issue… a must-see. Great fun.

Comics Should Be Good:

This issue is pure pleasure. The recap page mocks Oliver Coipel’s version of Thor, which is hilarious (“thipples”?), and from there, we just page after page of sheer insane delight. From Hercules believing that sunlight turns trolls to stone because he saw a documentary about The Hobbit to Alflyse’s dramatic entrance, from the Acme anvil that lands on Herc to his knowledge of Star Trek pop culture (and the elf’s rejoinder), and finally the ending, with the Warriors Three playing their ace in the hole, this is a wonderful comic.

Newsarama:

Hercules’ gregarious nature is what carries this book, as he rises to the challenge of impersonating the Norse God of Thunder: when the beautiful Dark Elf Queen Alfyse challenges the ruse, saying that his distinctive demeanor and intact hammer are suspicious, Herc simply grins. “Of course. I am Thor,” he says. “And I assure you, my…hammer works just fine.” Never change, Hercules. It’s this sort of humor that reigns for the rest of the issue, culminating in a brilliant final page.

IGN:

This is definitely one of the more humorous issues of the series to come along in a while. Heck, the last page still has me chuckling.

Randy Lander loves “Incredible Hercules” #134

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Here’s the blurb:

Incredible Hercules #134 (One of the funniest (and most fun) comics I’ve read all year, Herc in Asgard is turning out to be one of the best stories this very good book has seen)

Click here to read the whole thing.
And Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog has named “Incredible Hercules” #134 the Book of the Week.
“Incredible Hercules” #134 was written by Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente with pencils by Reilly Brown.

Creating a burned in time code window in a FCP 7 sequence

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Another hyper-technical FilmHelp article by Greg Pak
To deliver a rough cut of my new short film “Mister Green” to the funders at ITVS, I needed to create a file with time code burned into a window along the top or bottom of the screen. There’s a nice explanation at thefilmeditor.com about how to manage the trick by:

  1. Creating a nested sequence by hilighting the video clips in the sequence and hitting Sequence > Nest Item(s)
  2. Creating a window with time code for the sequence by hilighting the new single clip representing the nested sequence and hitting Effects > Video Filters > Video > Time Code Generator

But when I’d completed those steps, I saw that the burnt in time code was several minutes off by the end of the program. The problem was that the default setting for the Time Code Generator filter is 29.97 fps, while my footage was 24 fps.
Ordinarily, I’d just double click on the clip and change the effects settings in the source window that pops up. But clicking on a nested sequence opens up a different kind of window that shows the clips within the sequence. I could not find the effects settings that had been applied to the nested sequence that way.
I ended up going to the Effects tab in the browser window. Under Video Filters > Video I found the Timecode Generator effect. Double clicking on that brought up a window that allowed me to adjust the settings. I changed 29.97 fps to 24 fps, then dragged this effect to the nested sequence. And then the numbers synched up properly.
Finally, I exported via Quicktime Compression to m4v for delivery to ITVS. Word to the wise: It’s apparently not necessary to render the sequence ahead of time — the program renders the new file as it exports.