Dismantle the Apple Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse for Cleaning

Kennyboy7 — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 11:35:18 +0000

Your reading this because you have a Wireless Bluetooth Mighty Mouse and the roller ball is not working, if you have a wired mouse this help guide is not for you because the layout and way you dismantle the mouse is completely different. If you require assistance with a wired mouse simply google “wired mighty mouse cleaning” and you will get the answer.

Firstly you might not have to resort to this method because you might simply need to turn the mouse upside down and rub the roller ball with a slight bit of pressure with an alcohol wipe or screen cleaning wet wipe. If this fails and you have tried that method several time it’s now time to consider the full open up and clean method as described below. Now hopefully you have a steady hand because you will require the following equipment.

Disclaimer

By following this guide you might permanently damage you mouse, I accept NO responsibilty for any damages caused by following this guide. I will NOT pay any money for any damages caused to your mouse or yourself if you follow this guide.

YOU FOLLOW THIS GUIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK !!!

Equipment

Wireless Bluetooth Mighty Mouse
Scalpel or other type of sharp thin knife
Superglue
Watchmakers screwdriver with phillips (cross) head
Patience and a steady hand
Alcohol wipes ( screen cleaning wipes )

Step 1.

Remove the battery compartment cover and remove the batteries.

Step 2.

With the mouse upside down so you are looking like the image below ( if you click on the image you will see a full size image ), use the scalpel to gently seperate the grey oval ring from the white mouse body. This is held on by small plastic pillars and should seperate quite easily, by working from the inside nearest the battery compartment you can ease the scalpel blade between the grey oval ring and the body. By doing this the grey oval ring will start to come apart. Don’t worry if you damage any of the small pillars because when rebuilding you will be glueing this back in place.

Step 3.

With the grey oval ring removed to now need to look at the outside edge of the mouse. You are going to seperate the white oval ring from the main body of the mouse. This is NOT easy, you need to use the scapel and easy it inbetween the body and the ring, see image 2 & 3. In the images below I have already carried this process out once yours should not have as large a gap between the body and the white ring but it should be clearly visible where the join line is running.

I found by starting next to the squeeze buttons I could get the seperation started more easily, it becomes harder towards the curved ends of the mouse where it would appear Apple has used the strongest glue know to mankind. You can with patience and a little bit of pressure get the two parts to seperate. I found that by swapping from one side to the other during this process helped the seperate rather than trying to work round in a uniform fashion. Please be clearful as this is where an accident could happen, you have been warned.

Step 4.

Once the white ring is removed you should have something that looks like this image below. It shows the forward Retaining Catches, this is what is holding the mouse together. At the rear there are hinges where the clicking ability of the mouse is carried out.

To separate the mouse base from the outer casing you need to use the scapel and put it inbetween the base and the forward retaining catch and apply a slight bit of pressure outwards which should cause the clip to pop out, I found that I only had to do this on one side because the other was easily removed by wiggling the mouse base to withdraw the other retaining clip.

Step 5.

Once you have released the front retaining catches then it’s time to move onto the rear hinges, again this is a case of prizing the hinge from the braket holder using the scalpel. The image below shows the base and the cover separated now be careful once you have sperated these two parts because there are 2 ribbon cables still connected and we don’t want to damage them.

Step 6.

The 2 ribbon cables need to be disconnected now because at this stage the base and the cover should now be apart and only joined by the ribbon cables.

The connectors need the black side clips(see above image) sliding forward to release the cables, when removing the cables they should slide out easily, if they dont fall out and you have to apply any pressure or pull on them you are not doing it right and haven’t released the cable locks. The locks might need wiggling from side to side to release them but general pulling them evenly with your finger nails will ease them out.

Step 7.

We are nearly there now, in the removed mouse top cover which should now be completely detached from the main base unit we can find the Roller Ball Unit. We need to remove the three retaining screws ( mine were extremely tight and took a watchmakers and a pair of needle nose pliers to turn the screw driver shaft to loosen them so watch out )

Once the three screw are removed turn the removed item over. Again using the scalpel gently ease the white cover that is covering the roller ball off this is done by working it from the bottom and do not try to get it from around the ball as you will damage the ball and that’s not good.

Step 8.

Once the white cover is removed you can take out the ball and the 4 roller units with black ends. Now I bet your roller unit looks something like the one below. This is what was causing your mouse not to work, it’s all the grease from your fingers especially if you eat at your Mac and use your mouse.

Now with all the bit removed use the Alcohol wipes or screen cleaning wipes to rub off and clean the ball and the 4 rollers until you are happy there is no more finger yuk on them. Start to replace the roller units back into the base unit. Watch out because the are slightly magnetised and can be a bit fiddley. You need to have them is the following orientation.

Step 9.

Refit the white Roller ball unit cover, this can be a bit tricky if you have accidently moved the tiny supoorting legs on the underneath, if you have gently move them back into position. The cover should easily fit and once fitted screw the unit back into the cover, make sure the roller ball is poking throught the mouse cover in the correct way.

Now it’s time to reconnect the ribbon cables x 2, again with the black side slide pulled fully forward gently push the ribbon cable into the slot and once it’s fully in push the black side slide into the plug base ( see below for correct fitment of ribbon cable )

The ribbon cables are the orange on fits at the back and the green one fits on the side. (see image above for orientation ). Now at this point you can put the batteries back in,cover on and as if your mouse is now working again. If you have tried this then removed the batteries again before carrying on.

Step 10.

It’s now time to refitted the hinges at the back of the mouse, put one side into the retaining bracket and you might have to use the wacthmaker screwdriver to gently push the outer shell out the way to allow you to fit the other side.

Step 11.

Once the hinges are both back in place the you can simply push the front of the mouse base back into the top cover and the retaining catches at the front will engage and hey presto you mouse is back together.

Step 12.

Now it’s time to glue the inner grey ovel back into place, it only fits one way so work that out before applying the glue. You only need a couple of spots of glue on the underneath of the ring to secure it back place. Once you are happy that it’s glued back into place correctly now do the same with the outer white ring you removed. Again you only need a couple of spots og glue to hold this back on.

Step 13.

Refit the batteries and the battery cover and hey presto one nearly new Wireless Bluetooth mouse cleaned and ready to use.

If you have followed this guide can you please leave a comment with any hints and tips you worked out and whether you found it useful. It’s all about sharing the knowledge.

Thanks for reading and hope you mouse is working again and you haven’t damaged yourself in the process of following this guide.

Turn off Mac or PC with your IPhone

Kennyboy7 — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:07:46 +0000

Off Remote! lets you turn off your PC or Mac directly from your iPhone.

This app is fantastic if you use your Imac as a television (as I do) and are too lazy while lying in bed to get up to either sleep or switch off the computer.

I’m currently using the free version wich has adverts and takes a while to allow you to use the off button but at £1.79 I think it’s worth the few seconds wait to save the money.

Available in the Apps Store under “OFF”

More info available at http://hobbyistsoftware.com/Off-more.php

Unlock emoji’s for free on your IPhone

Kennyboy7 — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:08:18 +0000

Download and app called “Spell Number” from the apps store, you need this app before you can carry on. Don’t worry it’s free but you need the current version which is 1.03

Launch Spell Number, and enter secret digit 91929394.59

Quit Spell Number by pressing the home button and return to home screen. Now open “Settings”

Go to General->Keyboard->International Keyboards->Japanese, and now you will find a new switch called “Emoji”, check it if you want to enable Emoji keyboard. You can also uncheck it to disable Emoji keyboard later.

If you cannot find the emoji option, please reboot your iPhone/iPod Touch.

You should able to see the emoji option after reboot.

Now the Emoji keyboard is enabled, go to any program (I use Notes for example), click any field to popup the keyboard, click the “Earth” icon until Emoji popup

You can also delete Spell Number if you don’t want it, the setting will still be here.

Prevent iPhoto from opening when you plug in your iPhone

Kennyboy7 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:59:16 +0000

I love that OS X automatically fires up iPhoto when I plug in my digital camera. It’s one of the Mac’s many little touches that make it such a pleasure to use.

But ever since I got an iPhone, I’ve been frustrated that plugging it in opens up iPhoto, too. The combination of iPhoto and iTunes opening and syncing slows my computer to a crawl. And it’s particularly painful when most of the time I just want to sync my address book or music.

Fortunately it’s pretty easy to work around this annoyance. Keep reading to see how you can teach your Mac to open iPhoto when you plug in your camera but not your phone.

I recently stumbled across an option in Image Capture’s preferences that lets you select any application to open when a camera is connected. That gave me an idea: what if I could tell it to open a special application that would check to see which camera I’d plugged in? Then that application could in turn open iPhoto only if I’d plugged in my Digital Rebel.

It turns out you can do all of this using the command line and a little bit of AppleScript. Here’s how:

1. Set up the script

Open Script Editor (in the AppleScript folder inside your Applications folder). Copy and paste this script into the editor window:

on device_is_connected(device_name)
  set check_for_device to "ioreg -rn " & quoted form of device_name
  return (length of (do shell script check_for_device) is not equal to 0)
end device_is_connected

on run
  if device_is_connected("") then
    tell application "iPhoto" to activate
  end if
end run

2. Get a list of all the USB devices connected to your computer

Keep Script Editor running, and open Terminal (in the Utilities folder inside your Applications folder). Copy and paste this command into the terminal window:

ioreg -Src IOUSBDevice | grep '^\+' > /tmp/ioreg

This command lists all the USB devices connected to your computer and stores the list in a temporary file.

3. Find OS X’s name for your camera

Plug in your digital camera and turn it on. Then copy and paste another command into the terminal window:

ioreg -Src IOUSBDevice | grep '^\+' | diff /tmp/ioreg - |
  tail -1 | sed 's/^> \+-o \(.*\)@.*/\1/' | pbcopy && pbpaste

This command again lists all the USB devices connected to your computer and compares it with the previous list you saved to a temporary file. Then it extracts the name of the camera you just plugged in. You should see this name displayed in the terminal (for example, when I plug in my Digital Rebel XT, I see Canon Digital Camera). It’ll be copied to your clipboard, too.

4. Insert the camera’s name into the script

Quit Terminal and switch back to Script Editor. Find the line that reads:

    if device_is_connected("") then

Place the cursor between the two quotes and choose Paste from the Edit menu, so that you see your camera’s name in the quotes, like this:

    if device_is_connected("Canon Digital Camera") then

Make sure there’s no line break between the camera name and the last quote mark.

You can also change “iPhoto” on the next line to “Aperture” or “Lightroom”, if you’d prefer to open one of those applications instead.

5. Save the script as an application

Choose “Save As…” from the File menu, pick “Application” in the “File Format:” dropdown, and save the script as “Camera Connected” in your Applications folder.

6. Set the application to run when you connect your camera

Quit Script Editor and open Image Capture (in your Applications folder). Choose “Preferences…” from the Image Capture menu and pick “Other…” in the “When a camera is connected, open:” dropdown. Then select the “Camera Connected” application you just created.

Done!

Next time you connect your camera iPhoto will open, and when you connect your phone it won’t.

Article by 37 Signals.com

Iphone 3.0 Update

Kennyboy7 — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:48:18 +0000

It’s coming soon and I can’t wait. It’s providing Copy, Cut and Paste functions at last . The support is across applications as well so you can copy in Safari and paste into a text message. Updates to ical and a new voice recorder (dictaphone) application. Spotlight at last makes it to the iphone, this will help find everything stored on my phone. Peer to Peer connection via Bluetooth is now going to be supported so we can play games against each other. Last but not least again at last MMS which will send audio and pictures.

The update is quoted as being released this summer, please hurry up Apple  and release it now.

Further info can be found here

Malwarebytes

Kennyboy7 — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:07:02 +0000

Malwarebytes is a site dedicated to fighting malware. Malwarebytes has developed a variety of tools that can identify and remove malicious software from your computer. When your computer becomes infected, Malwarebytes can provide the needed assistance to remove the infection and restore the machine back to optimum performance.

Grab it Here

Mac Themes

Kennyboy7 — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:05:20 +0000

Will looking around the wonder that is the Tinterweb I discovered this little gem of a site. Have a look on the forums if your looking for wallpapers and icons etc they have loads of great ones for the Mac and I guess PC as well.

Smashing Magazine

Kennyboy7 — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:57:58 +0000

This is the best daily read on a variety of subjects to do with web design, fonts, icon, photography and just about everything web wise. It’s well worth a look.

Super Video Convertor

Kennyboy7 — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:26:17 +0000

This is the complete any format to any format video convertor for Windows. The download link is a bit difficult to find but it’s right at the bottom of the page.
This software is free and has as far as I know no spyware or Adware but scan it first because the last time I used it was a couple of years ago.

Grab it Here

Os X Shortcuts

Kennyboy7 — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:32:39 +0000

1. Apple Logo

Shortcut : Option-Shift-K

Note. One of the symbols that can be drawn with simple keystroke, the famous Apple logo. Sorry, but I can’t resist to put this as the first shortcut.

2. Zero Brightness

Shortcut : Control-Shift-Eject

Note. Instantly turn your display off without logging out from the system.

3. Adjust Volume Bar

Shortcut : Option-Shift-F4 / Option-Shift-F5

Note. Increase/decrease your volume bar by a quarter each time it’s invoked. This is particularly useful for fine tuning Mac with bombastic sound system.

4. Double Buffer

Shortcut : Control-K (Kill) and Control-Y (Yank)

Note. Like, Cut and Paste, combination of Kill and Yank can help you organize your text easily. Cut followed by Kill grants you double text buffer.

5. Home and End

Shortcut : Control-A (Home) and Control-E (End)

Note. This is pretty much the substitution for Windows button HOME and END. PressingCommand-← or Command-→ performs the same action.

6. Delete and Backspace

Shortcut : Control-D (Delete) and Control-H (Backspace)

Note. In Windows, we’ve got two buttons for this : DEL and BACKSPACE. You can use Fn-Delete to perform forward deletion while the button Delete acts as Backspace.

7. Related Messages

Shortcut : Command-Shift-K

Note. Selects all related messages in the same mailbox.

8. Open Address in New Tab

Shortcut : Command-Enter

Note. While highlighting address bar, pressing this shortcut will bring up new tab of that selected address.

9. Google Search Box

Shortcut : Command-Option-F

Note. Quickly jumps your cursor to Google Search Box. Saving your mouse click as well as your precious ticks of seconds.

X. Zoom

Shortcut : Command-Option-[+] (Zoom In) or Command-Option-[-] (Zoom Out)

Note. Zoom in/out your display; making tiny objects looks huge.