Christopher Price .net » driver

MacBook Windows 7 Driver Fix at CentralGadget.com

Christopher Price — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:26:43 +0000

A few people have emailed me asking for the driver to fix Windows 7 sound on newer-model MacBooks (2008 and onward). Luckily, I already found it and have posted it over on CentralGadget.com… jump over there at the link below.

MacBook Having Windows 7 Audio Trouble? We’ve got your driver fix… – CentralGadget.com

Boot Camp Drives Update Themselves, Finally

Christopher Price — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:06:35 +0000

While it didn’t initially, Apple Software Update for Windows now finally picks up the Boot Camp 2.1 update.

This is actually a huge paradigm shift for PC markers. For the first time, Apple is updating all the drivers for all their systems in one payload. And, the software that is on every Mac will update the Windows drivers automatically.

It’s a bit unfortunate that it took Apple to come up with an installer that ensures that their Windows PC get every last driver update available. No other PC manufacturer I’m aware of comes close to doing that. Tools like HP Update and Dell Support don’t even scratch the surface of installing their own drivers consistently.

It will be interesting to see who catches up to this trend… if any of the PC manufacturers are smart enough to do so. This is one move that makes me more inclined to replace my PC hardware with Macs, even if they’re only going to run Windows. Drivers are one of the main reasons why Windows is so unreliable, so updating them is paramount in my opinion.

Mac HP Photosmart Driver Update

Christopher Price — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:29:38 +0000

As usual, HP is botching a driver update for Mac. With the release of Leopard, some Photosmart systems didn’t have Leopard drivers. HP said that the workaround was to install Tiger, install the HP driver set, and then upgrade to Leopard. One problem with that… new systems can’t run Tiger (not to mention the obvious lack-of-clean-install-choice).

So, HP this month has issued drivers for those systems with a proper Leopard installer. My Photosmart 2610v was updated to version 5.3.1. And, 5.3.1 has some nice perks, like a unified utility that lets you troubleshoot all the HP Photosmarts on your network (I happen to have two units in different locations).

Now, how did HP botch this release? They forgot to issue 5.3.1 for all the Photosmarts that did get a Leopard installer initially. They’re still stuck with version 5.3.0. So, you’re actually now better off having an older Photosmart since they have the newer driver.

HP could fix this easily… come up with a unified Photosmart driver. Older printers out of support would be prompted that they aren’t compatible with the latest unified installer, and be directed to the older version. This is what both ATI and Nvidia do with drivers on the PC, so it’s not a stretch that this would be the optimal situation for HP.

I was sitting with an Apple engineer having lunch, and we were debating what was the absolutely worst Mac app out there. We both agreed that HP Software Update was the worst… it never worked, continued to not work. Well, after years of not working, I was presented with the item below after updating. It works, finally!

PDFCreator 0.9.5 Released

Christopher Price — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 04:59:59 +0000

Yes, I know it’s Christmas… but there’s one great app for Windows that hasn’t been updated in awhile. And, as a Christmas gift, it has been updated once again. PDFCreator creates a virtual printer that generates a PDF. No Adobe Anything required.

I haven’t taken a look yet at the change list for 0.9.5, and I’m not sure if Vista support was added (there was a bounty out there for it). Sound off in the comments with your experiences and let everyone know if it does indeed work in Vista now.

PDFCreator Download

HP AiO 4.0.1 Drivers on Apple Software Update

Christopher Price — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:23:24 +0000

For some weird reason, Leopard ships with HP AiO 4.0, while HP AiO 4.0.1 has been available since October.

Even weirder, some Leopard systems pick up the update when running Apple Software Update, while some don’t. And, that’s even taking into account an HP all-in-one printer added to the systems.

Finally, weirdest, Apple doesn’t offer a direct download, nor does HP. Since Apple Software Update is the only way to get it, this means it’s sometimes not an option to download (like, when your system doesn’t pick it up).

So, to wrap all this up, I’ve uploaded a zipped copy of the installer here to download. If you have an HP all-in-one, download the update from the link below:

HP All-in-One Drivers for Mac 4.0.1