The most exciting Hardware Mod I have performed to date: I have added a second Hard Drive to my Inspiron 1525. The modification may have also been my easiest yet, taking a mere 1:30 to complete. By simply replacing my DVD Drive with a Sata to Slim IDE drive bay adapter, I have added a second hard drive performing at near-SATA2 speeds. This additional drive completely replaces my need for an External USB backup drive, and allows for much faster backups. It also allows for automated backups of my documents through Time Machine as the drive is always connected. The drive is recognized by OS X as an internal drive and identifies as a HDD in the BIOS (see picture below). As an added bonus, Disk Utility also reports that it can read the HDD’s S.M.A.R.T. Status.

I suspect that adding an additional Hard Drive to my 1525 will negatively affect battery life (albeit minimally), though I prefer data protection to an extra couple of minutes of web browsing. I haven’t actually tested the claim about battery life, so take it with a grain of salt. You can purchase your own DVD Drive-HDD adapter for ~$20 USD on eBay by searching for “Sata 2nd hard drive caddy.” Note that the Inspiron 9200 version is also compatible with the Inspiron 1525. In fact, it’s the one in the video and also the one I use. Plus, it costs about 50% less than the Inspiron 1525 version (the only difference is the labeling; they’re the exact same product).

Embedded below are two videos: one of the installation process and one of my 1525 booting from the second drive. Please ignore the man behind the curtain. If the text in the video is cutoff, click on the videos while they are playing to be taken to YouTube. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them below.

Recently, I decided to try out AppDelete, a program for removing other programs, widgets, preference panes, and more. Running the free trial of AppDelete, I was able to successfully remove several programs I no longer needed, as well as a widget that I hadn’t used for months.

One way to find applications, widgets, and other files to remove is to use the intuitive list AppDelete provides you with. You can then check the items you want to remove and AppDelete will remove it and all associated files. In the image below, you can see how AppDelete presents you with a list of the Application in your Applications folder, and you can easily decide which programs to mark for removal. It also functions similarly for Widgets, Users-added Preference Panes, Plug-Ins and Screensavers.

The other way to remove programs is to drag them onto the AppDelete windows. One program I removed was PeerGuardian. Instead of dragging PeerGuardian to Trash, I used AppDelete to remove it. To do so, I simply dragged the app from my Desktop to the AppDelete window.
Upon doing so, I was presented with a window showing me all the things that would be removed.

There were 6 other program files associated with PeerGuardian that I hadn’t accounted for. By simply moving the Application to the trash, I would have left behind a kext, two folders, two plists, and a widget. Wow! Files like these build up overtime and can lead to a messy OS and wasted space.

The feature I found especially useful was the Undo button located in the upper right corner. Clicking it undoes your last operation, giving an added layer of protection. You can also choose to protect System applications so that you don’t accidentally delete them.

AppDelete is available in English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Swedish. It has a log for viewing everything that has been removed and the log can also be opened in TextEdit. Plus, it has a “hidden” mode for removal of items while running in the background.

Overall, AppDelete was super useful for removing the crap I no longer needed. There was both super useful and complete functionality, and I was only running the free trial. You can download the free trial of AppDelete at http://reggieashworth.com. If you like the software, which I’m sure you will, you can take advantage of a special deal strictly for Daily Blogged users. Simply purchase AppDelete using the link in the sidebar and you will receive a 37% discount on the software, bringing the total down to just $5. So give the application a try and see how it can help remove your crap too!

The service is very easy to use and can be accessed by simply clicking on the Feedback button. We encourage users to post their opinions (both positive and negative), suggestions, feature requests, design requests, post requests, etc. We want to hear what’s on your mind! So feel free to check out the service and leave a comment for us; we will read every one. Also, remember that the service allows you to vote on other users’ feedback, so let each other know what you think. We hope you all enjoy the service and see it as another way to voice your opinions and help us improve. Thanks!

To install the app on your iDevice- launch Cydia, click Manage, Sources, edit, and then Add. Type “http://repo.dailyblogged.com” w/o quotes and allow Cydia to reload. Once it does, click on Search and type in “Daily” w/o quotes. You will have the option to install “Daily Blogged” or “Daily Blogged for iPad.” “Daily Blogged” is for iPhone and iPod Touch users, while “Daily Blogged for iPad” is exclusively for iPads. Once the app is installed, respring your device and you will now have the Daily Blogged app on your spring board. Enjoy!

Original post below

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At Daily Blogged, we like to mess around with new technologies and just plain ‘ol cool stuff. Yesterday, my curiosity led me to install the iPhone SDK. I had always wanted to develop an app, and figured it would be cool if it was centered around Daily Blogged. Several hours, plenty of YouTube tutorials, and quite a few test builds later, I had developed a Daily Blogged/Intrepid Mac app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The app, though fully functional, is far from completion.

I am looking for a few individuals with Jailbroken iDevices to test out the app for bugs and report new features they would like in the app. The app has been tested working on 3.1.2 and 4.0, so compatibility on 3.1.3 is highly likely, along with the rest of iOS3. If you would be interested in trying out the app, please leave a comment below including which iDevice you are using and the version of iOS it is running. I will then email you with the details to install the app. The app isn’t yet in a Repo for access from Cydia because it isn’t yet complete, so basic knowledge of SSH is required (I can walk you through the installation steps if necessary). Remember, only Jailbroken iDevices will be able to use the app, due to the way it is installed.

Thanks for the help on the matter, and I look forward to hearing from testers.

Over the past 10 days, there have been some major changes to DailyBlogged, and I would love to hear what you think about them. Please leave a comment below regarding what you think about the new changes, and I’ll be sure to listen to what you say. Also feel free to leave suggestions on new changes you would like to see.

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Changes below are from the original post. A newer set of changes have been released, however the changes listed below are still in effect.

Wanting to do so for a while now, I played around with a bit of code and got the site’s theme to take up a wider part of the screen. No longer will you see huge borders on the sides of pages. Instead, the border is much more narrow, and thus the actual content has more space. I like the new look, and think the site benefits from the added space. Let me know what you think in the poll in the sidebar (also located below). There are two other notable changes that have been mode. The first is that the site once again uses nested comments, so you will see when someone replies to your comment; the second is that author comments are now highlighted. This makes it easier to locate comments made by the actual author of the post, and plus I think it looks cool :). I hope you enjoy the new changes as much as I do!

Now that my promotion with 1and1 hosting is expiring, I’ve switched hosting to nexx.com, where they were able to offer me a super competitive price. The plan we’re now running on includes unlimited disk space, bandwidth, and a couple other features we didn’t have before. These features won’t really be noticed by the user, though they’re huge improvements for us to potentially play around with some stuff. Plus, if it doesn’t work out with Nexx, which I’m sure it will, we can always go back to 1and1.

The only thing I’m a little worried about is speed since Nexx isn’t as popular and mainstream as 1and1. From my end, however, things seem to be running a bit snappier. Downloads also seem to be quite a bit quicker, which is always a plus. Be sure to answer in the poll below so I can get a feel on how the site is running for the users. This poll will also appear in the sidebar. Once again, thanks for your cooperation through all this.

I have just made my 1525 look more like a MacBook Pro. I painted the bezel black!

Intrigued by this, I decided to follow Alexander’s example and paint my bezel black also. 4 coats of spray paint, one angry neighbor (I did it out behind my apartment complex), and 12 hours of drying later, I had a black bezel! In this post, I won’t be showing you how to disassemble the laptop to paint the bezel, though how to do so should be fairly obvious. Also at the end of the post is a poll. Be sure to vote in it.

Some things to note:

- I still have my warranty, so I was able to get a replacement part to perform this on. If you do decide to do this, make sure you have a spare part in case the bezel cracks when removing it

-You need a big open space outdoors to spray paint so as not to breathe in the harmful fumes

-If you have a webcam, you will need to remove the small plastic cover from the back of the bezel. If you don’t remove it, the webcam lens won’t be able to see through the black spray paint, rendering your webcam useless

-Minor disassembly is necessary. Make sure you have all the proper tools

-Both glossy and flat spray paint will suffice. I used glossy (by accident) and think it looks great, so it’s all user preference.

Now that you’ve been noted, lets get on with the pictures! The last picture is a little mess up on my part. Just remember, paint does not like to be scratched.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

http://lifehacker.com/5440703/winebottler-turns-windows-programs-into-standalone-os-x-applications?skyline=true&s=i

If you purchased your Inspiron 1525 with Bluetooth, you have a Broadcom BCM2045 chip/card. Luckily enough, Apple supports a wide variety of Broadcom wireless chips, so we have native Bluetooth support. Apple doesn’t, however, directly support our exact card, so we’re missing the ability to power the card on/off from inside OS X. This feature can be added though with a quick change to IOBluetoothFamily.kext. Simply add your Device ID and Vendor ID to the correct info.plist file and, after a quick reboot, you will have the ability to turn the card on and off directly from within OS X. Remember, this physically turns the card off, thus saving you battery power. And since you can just as easily turn the card back on, I don’t see why everyone wouldn’t turn the card off.

To enable this feature, simply kext helper the proper kext included below (either the version for 10.6.4 or 10.5.7) and restart. Note that the 10.6.4 kext will only work on 10.6.4 and the 10.5.7 kext will only work on 10.5.7. These are the versions of these OS’s that I’m running, so I was able to make these myself. If you aren’t running either of these versions, you can follow this superb guide by prasys to edit any version of the kext. Alternatively, you can follow my quick breakdown of the guide below. It’s super simple to do and will result in some extra battery life to dedicate to other tasks.

IOBluetoothFamily.kext for 10.5.7

IOBluetoothFamily.kext for 10.6.4

Quick breakdown:

1. Navigate to /System/Library/Extensions/ and copy IOBluetoothFamily.kext to your desktop

2. Using the copy on your desktop, navigate to IOBluetoothFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController.kext/Contents/ (To get to the Contents folder, right click on the kext and select Show Package Contents)

3. Open info.plist in TextEdit.

4. Find and replace

<key>idProduct</key>
<integer>33292</integer>
<key>idVendor</key>
<integer>1452</integer>

with

<key>idProduct</key>
<integer>33062</integer>
<key>idVendor</key>
<integer>16700</integer>

5. Save the file.

6. Kext Helper the newly updated IOBluetoothFamily.kext. Also be sure to run a Tag Cache Rebuild.

7. Reboot.

You’ll now notice a new Turn Bluetooth Off option under the Bluetooth menu bar icon. Turning Bluetooth off both physically turns the Bluetooth hardware and the Bluetooth LED off.

With much excitement, I bring you this update guide to finally resolve the audio issues in Snow Leopard. Included are 6 kexts, 3 of which replace the dreaded VoodooHDA.kext. The other three included kexts are merely updated versions of previous kexts, though they do have their own benefits; the new fakesmc.kext is placed in /Extra/, the new VoodooBattery.kext is simply updated version, and the updated VoodooSDHC.kext works with 10.6.4.

The included kexts are fakesmc.kext, VoodooBattery.kext, VoodooSDHC.kext, AppleHDA.kext, HDAEnabler.kext, and LegacyHDA.kext. AppleHDA, along with HDAEnabler and LegacyHDA, fix the issue where the audio wouldn’t work properly after waking from sleep. Plus, the internal microphone is now completely functional. It’s also worth noting that, while both headphone jacks work, they will not operate simultaneously; If both headphone jacks are occupied, the system will default to the second/middle headphone jack.

To install the kexts, download the Snow Leopard Update Pack. Then copy the 3 kexts in the “Extra Kexts” folder to /Extra/Extensions/ located in the root of your Snow Leopard partition. Next, Kext Helper the three kexts in the “Kext Helper” folder. Also be sure to run a Tag Cache Rebuild while in Kext Helper. Finally, reboot and reap the rewards of fully functional audio, working SD Card reader, and updated Battery Meter and fakesmc.kext.

Note: If you require the legacy kernel you must follow step 4a. Otherwise, you should skip that step.

Just one day after Snow Leopard 10.6.4 was released to the public, it’s up and running on the 1525 with practically no effort. The USB ports now work at USB 2.0 speeds, even without the removal of AppleHPET.kext. All previous hardware works as it did on 10.6.3, and thus 10.6.4 brings only positives to the hackintosh world. Apple continues to please hackintosh users with extremely simplistic updates, and I praise them for that (and the hackintosh community, of course).

To update to 10.6.4:

1. Download the 10.6.4 update from Apple. You may want to complete steps 2 & 3 while you wait for the 600MB download to complete.

2. Download the Kernel-independent version of SleepEnabler. This kext will work with any version of Snow Leopard.

3. Replace your current SleepEnabler.kext in /Extra/Extensions with the one from step 2.

4. Install the 10.6.4 update you downloaded in step 1.

4a. **This step is ONLY for users that require the legacy kernel in Snow Leopard** Run the 10.6.4/10.4.0 Legacy Kernel package.

5. Navigate to /System/Library/Extensions/ and remove IO80211Family.kext.

6. Open your com.apple.Boot.plist in /Extra/ and add pmVersion=20 as a kernel flag. (Place pmVersion=20 between <string> and </string>, found underneath <key>Kernel Flags</key>) **Do not delete any other kernel flags that may already be there**

7. Restart and rejoice!

Upon restarting, you should now be running 10.6.4 with all the goodies you had before the update. This includes audio, sleep, QE/CI, ethernet, wireless networking, USB 2.0, etc. If you found this guide useful then feel free to make a donation by clicking the Paypal link on the sidebar, or by clicking on some ads around the site. Any amount truly does help.

Finder- She may not be pretty, but she gets the job done. I use the Columns layout as it’s the only one I can actually find anything in!

Thunderbird- This is probably the finest email app I’ve ever used (on both Windows and OS X). It hosts tons of add-ons, is set to automatically make a local copy of every email I receive/send, and has a Windows counterpart so I don’t need to learn a whole other application.

Adium- With support for 18 IM protocols, including Facebook and AIM (I’ll do anything to avoid AIM and facebook.com!), I couldn’t be more pleased. The numerous add-ons and Guest Account features also help. Lacks native Video Chat though.

Safari- I don’t use Safari too often, though it’s great for opening questionable links that I wouldn’t dare subject Firefox to. The Private Browsing and Reset Safari features are also helpful when doing things you don’t want others to find out about; you know, shopping for gifts. What were you thinking?

Firefox- The most frequently used item on my Dock. The add-ons are my favorite aspect, though too many will slow down your browser. I know this issue all too well.

Preview- I’m not too sure why this is in my Dock. It’s my default application for viewing photos and PDF’s, though I never manually launch it.

iTunes- As Alex said, bloated but just so darn loveable. As my default music player, I need it for adding music, movies, and apps to my iPod.

iPhoto- I rarely use iPhoto as I seldom take pictures nowadays, though I have a blast whenever I do use the application. The Faces feature takes the cake for me.

Spaces- Why is this in my Dock? I’ve yet to intentionally launch it, though there is some stupid hotkey on my keyboard that opens it. I still don’t know which damn button it is…

SerialSeeker- Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Eclipse-Competing with Netbeans as my favorite Java editing app, though it is in the lead by a bit.

System Preferences- I’m always in System Preferences looking for something to tweak. I end up breaking more than I fix.

Disk Utility- I visit Disk Utility a lot, especially now that I’m playing around with both Leopard and Snow Leopard.

iWeb- I used it once or twice to explore its features, but then never removed it from my Dock. I also like the icon.

AirPort Utility- I added it to my Dock a couple months back when my Airport Express was on the fritz. The issue has since been resolved, though I also like how it looks.

Airfoil- Though I don’t user her too often, Airfoil is an immensely useful app. I use it for streaming non-iTunes audio to my Airport Express.

Applications- I never use it, but it looks cool. I really need to clean out my dock…

There’s my dock in a nutshell! Whether or not she’s a beaut’ is up to you, though I’m perfectly happy with her. What’s in your dock?

Note2: DO NOT update if you have a Celeron Processor, or any other processor that required you to use a special kernel when updating to 10.6.2. Simply follow step 4a to install the legacy kernel for 10.6.3.

Snow Leopard officially received its third major update, Snow Leopard 10.6.3/10.3 kernel, just over two months ago (sorry about the delayed post). Much like the update to 10.6.2, 10.6.3 is a fairly seamless upgrade. Replace a kext or two and you’re back on your hackintosh feet. Plus, you’ll now have USB 2.0 again!

To update to 10.6.3 from 10.6.2, simply do the following:

1. Delete SleepEnabler.kext from /Extra/Extensions

2. Download the 10.6.3 update. Weighing in at over 700mb, you’ll want to grab a cup of coffee while you wait for the download to complete.

3. Download the new SleepEnabler kext for 10.6.3. Don’t do anything with it yet.

4. Install the 10.6.3 update, but don’t restart yet.

4a. **This step is ONLY for users with a processor that required the legacy kernel on 10.6.2** – Run the 10.6.3/10.3 Legacy Kernel package.

5. Navigate to /System/Library/Extensions/ and remove IO80211Family.kext.

6. Restart and then login.

7. Copy the SleepEnabler.kext from step 3 to /Extra/Extensions/

8. Reboot. Note: Some users report a Kernel Panic during this step. If you experience a KP, boot with the -x flag and delete SleepEnabler.kext in /Extra/Extensions.

9. Navigate to /System/Library/Extensions/ and delete AppleHPET.kext. This will allow your USB to operate at 2.0 speeds.

10. Reboot and enjoy!

After updating 10.6.3 and following this guide, your USB will be operating normally, sleep will be working (on battery), wifi will be working, and audio will be functional (albeit with microphone inoperable and audio out inoperable upon waking from sleep).

If you found this guide useful then feel free to make a donation by clicking the link on the sidebar, or by clicking on some ads around the site. Any amount truly does help.

Using Google’s new Search Story feature, we made a short video for Daily Blogged. When you watch the video, notice that it tells a story of a user installing Leopard and upgrading through to Snow Leopard. It also helps that Daily Blogged is the #1 search result for all of these fairly generic searches (with the exception of Mast Drivers Guide, of course). So give it  a watch, vote, and even leave a comment if you feel so inclined.