Missing delete key on Mac keyboards
March 31, 2008 at 2:43 pm | In Mac | 3 CommentsTags: Apple, delete key, forward delete, keyboard, Mac, right delete
I love the new Apple wireless keyboard
The only problem? There’s no forward-delete key. This might not seem like a big deal until you realize just how many applications require the forward-delete key to delete an object.
Fortunately, there’s an easy solution. If you hold down the function (“fn”) key and then press the normal delete key, the keyboard will generate a forwards-delete instead of a backwards-delete. I think I can live with that.
(The above applies to Apple laptop keyboards as well.)
No sound from external microphone on Mac
May 20, 2006 at 1:23 pm | In A/V, Mac | 3 CommentsTags: external, input level, mic, microphone, preamplifier
I recently had occasion to attach an external microphone to my Mac. I plugged it in, went under “Sound” in System Preferences, and chose “Line In” as the sound input device. Then I said a couple of words to check the input level. Nothing. I tried increasing the input volume. Still nothing. I shouted. It barely registered. I thought perhaps the battery in the external mic was low, so I replaced it with a new one. Didn’t help.
Turns out the “audio in” port on most Macs takes line-level input. The problem is nearly all microphones output mic-level signals, which are weaker than line-level signals. Thus sound from a microphone connected to the analog “audio in” port on a Mac is either too quiet or inaudible.
The solution is to connect the external microphone to a microphone preamplifier and then connect that to the Mac. Unfortunately, microphone preamplifiers can be quite costly. I did find one that was reasonably inexpensive and did the job, though: Griffin’s iMic 2. The iMic 2 has the added advantage that it converts the analog signal to digital outside of the computer, which supposedly helps reduce noise.
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