I was not too upset about this as this was not the original hard drive that came with the computer. This was an aftermarket Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm hard drive that was over 3 years old. In fact I used this hard drive in other MacBook I had for a year before I got this Macbook. The hard drive was older then the computer.

To remedy the situation I headed over to Fry’s and picked up a new Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM hard drive. 2 1/2 times the storage. Thank God I had a good Time Machine backup as I was able to get the computer back up and running in just a couple of hours.

So What Does This Have to do With the Acer Apsire One?

Well the first thing this has to do with it is that I got the Acer because my MacBook was running slow the last few weeks especially with Windows 7 in Parallels. After I put the new hard drive in it ran better then before it started to run slow. I could now run Windows 7 in Parallels without skipping a beat.

The second thing was that after loading everything on the Acer it ran slower then Windows on my MacBook so it kind of defeated the purpose. The biggest culprit for this was Dropbox which is a necessity for me. If I turned Dropbox off it ran pretty well, with it on it was a dog.

So having the Acer kind of defeated the purpose. I needed to check browser compatibility the quickest way possible and that was now with the MacBook.

The Acer was cool but it just didn’t quite fit the bill for what I needed.

Related posts to my journey of MacBooks and Acer Aspire One’s:

• I Picked Up Another Acer Aspire One Netbook
• Trading in the Acer Aspire One for a MacBook
• Acer Aspire One – The Perfect Vacation Computer
• Blogging from the Acer Aspire One Mini Laptop

While looking for a new Product Manager position I am stepping up my side business in Web Design and Development to generate some extra income. I tried using my wife’s Aspire One but it was just too small and underpowered. Therefore tonight I went to the Apple store and got a white MacBook.

Netbooks are great to travel with because they are so light. But unfortunately there wasn’t much more I could do with it that I couldn’t do with my iPhone. The MacBook isn’t full size but it is bigger then the netbook and is a reasonable price for the features. I used to have one that was issued by my company so I am already used to it’s size and performance.

Netbooks are cool but just a little too small for me to be completely usable. Your mileage may vary.

I did a quick Google search of “u-verse dns slow” and found that a lot of people were having the same issue. I guess 2Wire who is the provider of the wireless router that U-verse uses doesn’t officially support Macs. From my research it seems to be related to IPv6 DNS queries that only Macs use or something like that.

Anyway, out of everything that I found everyone recommended switching the DNS servers to the ones at OpenDNS. I signed up for a free account and hard coded their servers in my Macbook. The difference was like night and day. I have never seen my U-verse internet so quick. I quickly rushed to my iMac and changed its servers as well. Same thing, nice and fast.

I was (and now am) a happy camper .

Here are the links to the search and the sites that help me come up with this resolution:

• Google Search: http://www.google.com/search?q=u-verse+dns+slow&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
• DSL Reports – Slow Google Maps: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22813876-slow-load-google-maps-since-uverse-yes-its-the-RGs-DNS
• DSL Reports – U-verse 2Wire Wireless + Apple Problem & Solution: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21748105-Uverse-2Wire-Wireless-Apple-Problem-Solution

Finally here is the link to Open DNS:

• Open DNS Leopard setup instructions: https://www.opendns.com/homenetwork/start/device/apple-osx-leopard

I have not figured out if I need to or should download their client software yet. My system seems to be working fine without it.

You can still check out my other solution below as it still may help you out.

I had not used my MacBook at home under OS X for a while because it had temporarily became my main computer at work using Windows XP under Boot Camp. A few nights ago I booted it into OS X to do some browsing and the internet was so slow under OS X that I rebooted into Windows XP (Sad, I know ). I had experienced the same type of slow connections before at Starbucks but could never figure out the cause.

Tonight I had the same issue and was determined to figure out what was going on. There were a few suggestions out their about renewing your IP Address and rebooting your system, which I tried to no avail. Others said to reinstall OS X to try to fix it which I thought was going to far. Finally someone suggested changing the channel that your router was broadcasting on to try to fix it.

Previously I had a Linksys router that in between it and my computer was a microwave. Every time the microwave would go on I would lose my internet connection. When the microwave turned off the internet would come back on. While investigating that issue someone had suggested changing the channel on the router to a higher channel and sure enough that worked for the microwave issue.

I am happy to say that changing the channel on my Airport Extreme router fixed my MacBook slow Wifi issue as well.

The place to change it in the Airport settings was under Airport and then Wireless and then about half way down is the channel selector. Mine was set to Automatic and was on channel 1. I selected channel 10 and then once the Airport rebooted I had a speedy internet connection on my MacBook via Wifi.

This obviously won’t help me at Starbucks but it is possible that if I have this same issue that I can call their tech support and they can hopefully VPN in to change the channel. I had issues with T-Mobile at Starbucks before and their tech people helped me out so I would hope that AT&T would do the same.