Helen Johnson

I have not been having the best of luck with tech lately (the whole MacBook Pro saga for example), and now one of my favourite little pieces of tech has decided to keel over. My Logitech NuLOOQ Navigator no longer works And to make matters worse, Logitech has discontinued it.

If you don’t know what the Nulooq is, Logitech call called it a “design controller”. You still use a mouse, but with your other free hand you control the Nulooq. It has a moveable ring around the middle that would scroll pages when pushed up/down or left/right, and would zoom in and out when twisted. On the top was a touch sensitive ring that could control other adjustable things like volume, and multiple buttons that you could assign different tasks to.

What was really cool about the Nulooq was that you were able to program the buttons and rings to do different things in different programs. So for example I had some of the buttons control back/forward in Firefox, while the same two buttons then controlled copy/paste in Word. It was especially good in Photoshop and TextMate, where I had the buttons control different shortcuts that I regularly use (much simpler and quicker then holding down multi-key shortcuts on a keyboard), and the zoom and scroll functions I will really miss in Photoshop.

The construction was really nice too. The base is made of a solid piece of machined metal, which makes it look cool and gave it weight so it doesn’t slide across your desk.

I am very sad that Logitech has decided to discontinue the Nulooq as it was a great little product. I only hope that they are working on an even better version to launch in the future.

So R.I.P. little Nulooq, we hardly knew you.

After about 2 months out of action, I finally have my MacBook Pro back and working. Got a whole new logic board in order to fix the Distorted or No Display problem with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics cards (see my previous post: Update to my Macbook Pro blank screen problems for details). Was told that the logic board cost $1800.26 AUD, but thanks to Apple I got it replaced for free (which the tech guy made a big deal out of).

So far it has been working fine, which is so good. I really missed by setup, my 1920 resolution and TextMate. Hopefully there won’t be anymore problems, but at least I know now that Apple is honouring their word on the NVIDIA issue here in Australia and that I still have about another 10 months warranty on the graphics card to cover that problem if it strikes again.

After posting about how my 17″ MacBook Pro has become a paperweight Apple now has a support article about MacBook Pro: Distorted video or no video issues in relation to the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors. This sounds exactly like the problems I am having and luckily even though I am out of my 1 year warranty, the cover for this issue on the NVIDIA chip has been extended to 2 years.

So my Macbook Pro is now in the shop and I will hopefully find out in the next couple of days if the NVIDIA problem is actually what is wrong with it. And if it is the problem, then they will replace it with another NVIDIA chip for free (which could have the same issues as it will also be a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT).

But I am hopeful that I can get a few more months work out of it seeing as Apple saw fit to not upgrade (much) the 17″ Macbook Pros at the recent launch of the new Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Yes there technically is a “new” 17 Macbook Pro, but they have not upgraded it enough for me to fork out that much money when it still has the same NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics card and the rumours are for new new 17″ Macbook Pros sometime early next year.

UPDATE: My MacBook Pro is back and working

My 17” MacBook Pro is a paperweight

I turned my laptop off after a day’s work and brought it home, went out for a few hours, and when I turned my macbook on later there was no screen. The hard drive was running and the keyboard was active. I had experienced a few funky things with the macbook, where it wouldn’t wake up from sleep and stayed on a blank screen before, so I held down the power button to turn it off, and tried it again. Still just a blank screen. I eventually gave up and left it for the night. The next day the same thing, no screen.

So I did some research and came across a surprising number of fellow macbook users with the same or similar symptoms, such as a thread on the apple forum: MacBook Pro Blank Screen.

I tried all of the suggestions in the thread and actually got it to work again by using another mac to delete my sleep image. But alas, the joy was short lived. The next day, blank screen again and this time the same fix did not work again because there was no sleep image to delete.

Now of course I was 1 month out of the 12 month warranty and the only “official” fix left was to replace the most expensive part, the logic board (i.e. the motherboard). I was quoted $1200 AUD for the logic board, not including installation. But after doing more reading it seems that some people had the same problem again even after getting a brand new logic board. Now it seems that this could all be the fault of a dodgy nvidia chip.

Luckily I can still get to my files, by connecting another mac via firewire and using target disc mode (hold down T while your mac is booting and the other connected mac will be able to see it as an external drive).

So I’ve been working on my trusty Asus F3 which is about 2 years old now. It’s been handling things quite well, but I miss my 1920 resolution and 4gb of ram. I’m not a rabid mac fan, but I did like my MacBook Pro and it suited me and my work well. So now I am waiting to see if/when there are new Macbook Pros coming (the rumour is for October 14) and that hopefully they will have improved nvidia chips in them.

UPDATE: Update to my MacBook Pro blank screen problems

UPDATE 2: My MacBook Pro is back and working