Muting the Mac startup sound

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November 1, 2006

One of the mildly annoying things of owning a Mac laptop is how it can draw unwanted attention with its startup chime when it boots up. There was once it went off rather loudly while I was on the train and I’d imagine I must have looked rather sheepishly embarrassed. From then on I kept trying to remember to lower or mute my Mac before shutting down, but it still slips my mind most of the time. To be honest, I think that even the Windows startup chime sounds better than the one on my MacBook Pro.

So I was rather pleased when I saw someone had created a simple application (preference pane, rather) called StartupSound.prefPane that allows you to control the startup volume or mute it completely.

Intel Mac owners take note: I grabbed version 1.1b1 of StartupSound.prefPane off the MacUpdate page for StartupSound.prefPane though, as I noticed it said “StartupSound.prefPane now works on an Intel-based Mac” for that version. Wouldn’t want to try the stable release version (1.0.4) since it’s for PowerPC-based Macs.

Posted by Chu Yeow at November 1, 2006 SGT |

Permalink |

| Category: Applications, Mac

4 Comments & TrackBacks (Add yours)

The paper doll icon that precedes each comment is an idea conceived by Vanessa Tan.

Not having a volume control button (hardware) can be quite annoying. I realized it after switching from the Thinkpad to Dell. If I had forgotten to mute it before shutting it down, then I just switch it on and pretend I’m deaf in the library because there is nothing much I can do at that point. If I have a pair of headphones, they come in handy in such situations :)

Anyways aren’t SMRT trains too crowded to use a 17″ MacBook Pro?

Posted by: Harish Mallipeddi on November 24, 2006 4pm

Yeah I hated that too when I was in NUS (I was using a Dell).

Oh, and the MacBook Pro 17″ is just fine for using on your lap if you’re seated on the train, even though it’s widescreen and all it doesn’t get in anyone else’s way.

Posted by: Chu Yeow on November 25, 2006 12am

Don’t waste your time and energy. This application does not work with Leopard in a MacBook Pro 17″. It worked great for me under Tiger, not anymore.

Rod

Posted by: Rod on November 12, 2007 11am

OK ! It works perfectly . This is a correction of my above port. Something that has not been explained is if you have installed this application before, it is not enough to trash it, you have to uninstall first with the unistall software that comes with it. Only and only after that is possible to do a clean install and it wiil work in a MacBook Pro and Leopard.

Thanks.

Rod

Posted by: Rod on November 12, 2007 12pm

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