First of all: I like my MacBook. I think Leopard is one of the best OS I’ve used so far. But there are some little tiny things that make me want to jump out of my skin. Sometimes. As a long-time Windows user I’m not used to all ideas and approaches of Mac OS. Anyway step by step I resolve problems and get to know the system better.

My latest problem was with fonts … if you google for font problems in OS X you’ll find thousands of pages. My problem was with the Dashboard. There was something wrong with the fonts and so it looked weired (see picture). Anyway I fixed it and then another problem came. Firefox was acting weired with the fonts than … no aliasing. This is how you fix most of the font problems in OS X:

1. Download Linotype FontExplorer X.
It is free to use and a little more comfortable than font book. If you don’t want to install new software, I think everything I describe here can be done with font book too, I just wanted to give you a link to some good freeware.

2. Clean System Fonts Folder
In Linotype Font Explorer, click on tools > Cleanup System Fonts Folder. Duplicate Files and broken files will be removed from the system. Never mind, there will be backup folder on your desktop with all the removed fonts.

3. Check your Helvetica, Helvetica Neue
My Dashboard Problem was because I accidently installed a broken version of a Helvetica font. After I deactivated “Helvetica CY” my Dashboard looked fine again.

4. (Re)Install Verdana
My Firefox font problem was because of a missing Verdana font (I know, the web-programmers should offer alternative fonts in their CSS files, but sometimes they don’t … and sometimes the design is just made for Verdana). You can download verdana here. Just add it with LinoType and activate it

5. Trebuchet MS
Lately Trebuchet MS got more and more popular for Webdesigns, so you might want to install it to. Download it here and install it as described in point 4.

Ever wondered how you get Clips you don’t buy in iTunes-Store on your iPod? Well, I did. And I found a solution for this problem: iSquint. This little Freeware tool for Mac is very easy to use (just drag in the file you wish to convert and hit “Start”). Then you can drag the file into iTunes and syncronize your iPod - there you go.

Plus: if you want to have youTube clips on your iPod (like videoclips to your favourite songs), there is a little Firefox plugin called Video DownloadHelper that works perfect: You just have to wait until the full videstream is downloaded in your browser and the you can download the video by clicking the icon. The file you will get (.flv) works fine with iSquint.

Time for the apes things again. I have the nokia 5300 now for about 3 months and I have to say, it’s again one of the best mobilephones I’ve had so far.

Most of the time I had a Nokia, I think they do best in design, user interface and hardware lifetime. Very positives properties of the Nokia 5300 are: You can use the phone even when it’s closed (of course only if you don’t need the numbers or letters), you can choose several layouts of the menu, a kind of dashboard to put quicklinks, calendar, radio etc. Plus this is has the first camera I would actually use.

Disadvantages: it has a new power charger plug … the times when I could use all my nokia power chargers at home are over. Plus it seemes to be an unloved child of Nokia. When you are looking for some equipment, you hardly ever find the 5300 on the list (but I was told it should work fine anyway).

Another problem was I couldn’t syncronize it with iSync 3 on Mac OS X Leopard. It just wasn’t supported. There were several hacks out there but they didn’t seem to work for me (or I was just to lazy). Anyway, I found a working plugin here (the credits go to erka).

I think it’s time for another review of one of the ape’s things. This time it’s about a little electronic toy that lets you enjoy your iPod music in your car.

In my old car I had a built in solution called Dension iceLink. It worked pretty good, since you could control the device with the buttons on the steering wheel, but it was way too expensive. This time I thought I’m smart buying a replaceable device. I’ve heard about iTrip, which lets you hear the iPod music over the radio. After some research I found the Griffin RoadTrip as a better choice, since it has a holder and recharges your iPod while you using it. Good idea, bad implementation.

First of all: You need to have the device plugged into the car cigar jack to use it. It just doesn’t work without it. I know charging without beeing plugged in would be a littlebit impossible, but sending the radio signals couldn’t possibly use that much energy. The iTrip works without plugging too …

Second: The holder. It’s just not made for stable holding of the system. It’s huge, unhandy und tends to bend over to one side … not very safe while you are driving and the thing suddenly falls on your gearstick.

Third: The quality of the sound is a littlebit below radio quality. I could live with that, because I’m not a musician and don’t really hear differences between radio sound and mp3-sound … especially in a car. But I think it should be mentioned here.

The only good thing is: it works. You plug in any kind of iPod (even the 6th generation works), push play on the ipod, set up a frequency on the device and on your car stereo and enjoy the music. If this is worth the price … I don’t think so. I hope, next iPod generation comes with bluetooth and lets you control it via your car stereo.

Next of the apes things is a navigation system. I have it now for about half a year and there were already quite some sutiations wouldn’t want to miss it. The TomTom GO 910 is equiped with a hard disk, so you don’t need to change memory cards if you have far journeys. There is also the possibility to use it as a MP3-player and as hands-free-set for mobile phones. I don’t use both of these features, since if it is not wired with the car audio system, the sound quality is way to bad.

Which brings me to the disadvantages: Big disadvantage number one: cable salat. There is a cable for power supply (without it you can use TomTom for about 2 or 3 hours). If you want to use the bonus features there is another cable for the microphone (hands free set), a cable for the antenna (if you want traffic alerts affect the route). Well I wouldn’t know another solution, but it is definitely a disadvantage to built-in systems.

Big disadvantage number two, and this sucks: The windscreen dock isn’t able to hold the weight of the system. I can’t understand why they put in a dock that doesn’t work properly with the product itself. So you have to put it right above the dashboard, so this one can hold the weight. The dock is just for fixing the position of the thing …

Anyway. Big advantages: it is very easy to use. It brings you doorstep to doorstep. There are just a few flaws in the routing, but they can be ignored. And you can take it out of one car and put it in the next one (yeah, of course, that’s what portable navigation systems are supposed to do, but it is an advantage and I want to mention it here). Another big advantage is the built-in point of interest database - a very good feature if the fuel is about to be empty and you are in the middle of nowhere without a clue where the next gas station is.

The TomTom Go 910 is only a littlebit more expensive than the 710 version and if you want the full comfort of not switching cards, take the bigger version. It is worth it!