Note: This software is incompatible with Snow Leopard.

With it now easier than ever to dual boot Linux and OS X, you might be considering giving Linux a try (or even more favorably, Ubuntu). Linux in general is great due to its stability, many customizable looks, and ability to run on aging/inexpensive hardware. It’s also great to have a multi-OS system, but there always tends to be that scenario where you need a file from one of your other Operating System’s partition. Linux has got you covered, boasting support for HFS+, NTFS, FAT32, and countless other File Systems. Unfortunately, OS X can’t return the favor, as it lacks native support for any of the Linux File Systems.

As you already well know though, we wouldn’t state flaws if we didn’t also know how to remedy them. That is why many thanks go out to Brian Bergstrand and his aging project, ext2fsx. With his program, you can now easily mount and access all your ext2 and ext3 partitions. And to top it all off, the install process is super easy. Instructions follow.

1. Install ext2fsx and restart when prompted.

2. Log back in and launch System Preferences.

3. Click on the ExtFSManager Preference Pane.

4. Expand a listed Drive to see its partitions.

5. Click on the partition you want to mount (it will most likely be grayed out) and then select Mount.

The partition is now accessible through Finder. You can set specific options for each partition (such as auto-mounting, mounting as read-only, and ignoring permission on the partition) through the Preference Pane. Enjoy your new Linux File System support!

If you found this guide useful then feel free to make a donation by clicking the link at the end of the Author’s Mini-Biography, or by clicking on some ads around the site. Any amount truly does help.

That extra click—By default, the Windows 7 taskbar groups instances of the same application together, so that all your windows are contained in one icon. This isn’t really a new feature, it’s more like a revised version of the grouping that Vista and XP users are familiar with. It’s more functional, yeah, and it’s pretty, but it also gets in the way. The most contentious thing about this new behavior pertains to web browsing. Internet Explorer is set up to show each tab as a different window in the taskbar, and more browsers are following suit. This is wrong. Let’s say you have several tabs open in IE, now you minimize the window and go work on something else. Now, when you want to go back to working in IE and you click on the icon, it doesn’t just automatically switch you to the last tab you had open. No, it pops up a preview of all your open tabs and asks you to pick one. This requires two clicks instead of one, and subverts the native tab-management of the web browser. Also, the taskbar makes no distinctions between tabs and windows, so if you had several tabs open along with a couple windows, each showing the same site, you would have no idea which one is a tab and which a window. Quick! Tell me which ones are tabs and which windows:

I’m not saying that this behavior is completely useless; it just shouldn’t be the default. Clicking on the icon should bring me to the last window/tab I had open, and control click or hover click should take me to the preview thing. Thankfully, though, you can return some sanity by selecting the option to never combine taskbar items in the properties menu.

Text labels are illegible—This one is pretty ridiculous. When you turn off that annoying combine feature, you get the good old text labels back! Too bad they’re damn near illegible when you hover over them. The default highlight intensity for the active application is ugly and bright, and the text blends into the brightness.

Notifications—On windows, application notifications are shown with a flashing orange color on the taskbar icon. But what if you choose to hide your taskbar? You can still see the notifications, but it’s just a small sliver of the screen that flashes. In OS X, the Dock handles application notifications differently: icons bounce, so when your Dock is hidden, the application bounces into view, which makes it pretty obvious.

It’s Still Application-Centric—You’re probably wondering what exactly I mean by this. To understand my point, I’ll have to talk about one of the major differences between OS X and Windows. In OS X, when you close a window, you don’t close the application; you just close a document. The application is still running, even with all of its windows closed. In Windows, when you close an application’s window, you close the application as well, because the application is the window. This means that when you open a new document in Windows, you’re basically just opening the application again, and that eats up resources. Back in the days of Windows 95, this wasn’t a problem, as the computers of that era were adverse to multitasking. But computers today certainly aren’t, with 4GBs quickly becoming the standard for RAM. Several different systems have evolved to try to address this problem, like the Multiple Document Interface, or MDI, pictured below:

You can easily see the flaws in this system: documents are stuck inside a parent window, limiting the space in which they can be dragged around. The taskbar hasn’t really evolved to take advantage of MDIs, and you can’t switch to a document inside an MDI window. If you want a more in-depth examination of the differences between the Dock and taskbar, read this excellent post over at Ars Technica.

It’s not an application switcher—The really big problem with the taskbar is that it’s not an application switcher, and hasn’t been since Windows 95. OS X’s Dock, however, is an application switcher, and should remain that way, with window-switching being left to Exposé. Apple was smart in not integrating window-switching and application-switching into one user interface element, like Microsoft has. The Dock is already doing too many things at once, as is the taskbar. Which leads me to my next point . . .

It’s still overcomplicated—Yes, it is. Don’t say it isn’t, because you know it is. Deep down in your heart, you know. Seriously, the taskbar in Windows 7 is responsible for application launching, application-switching, window-switching, application notifications, explorer shortcuts, system notifications, and time. That’s quite a lot for one user interface element to handle, and that doesn’t include the numerous functions of the Start Menu (which is also ridiculously overcomplicated).

Well, that’s it for my gripes with the Windows 7 taskbar. Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

A hackintosh, though not susceptible to viruses just like real Macs (due to them running the same Operating System), has unique reasons why it should be the victim of a regular backup. The Hackintosh user constantly installs new kexts that damage his system and render it unbootable. The need to backup your Hackintosh’s data skyrockets because of this factor. I can think of 10 instances alone in the past month where, if I had not backed up my system before installing a new kext, I would be reinstalling OS X and starting completely fresh. And don’t take the word “system” lightly either as I don’t just mean all of my pictures, music, and documents; I mean copying those previously mentioned files, as well as the filesystem (the system that organize these files and allows you to access them), to an external hard drive. This includes copying every document, application, setting, etc. on your Hard Drive (HDD) to another location. However, there are countless backup methods, so I’ve outlined the three most common for you today. From this information, you will then be able to decide what works for you and what doesn’t. Be sure to post in the comments which method you decide to go with.

All three of these common methods are universal amongst Macs and PCs; however, the specific programs in the third option are OS specific. For the reader’s convenience, I have included programs compatible with both OS X and Windows. Sorry Linux guys, guess you’re left out on this one. You can use an online service, NAS (Network Attached Storage), or another physical Hard Drive to backup to. Each one has its own benefits and downfalls.

Snow Leopard has been available to the public for almost 6 months now, has received 2 updates, and has been running nearly perfectly on the 1525 (and mostly every other hackintosh that could run Leopard). The newest update, 10.6.2, has been out since early November, but a lot of users have yet to make the upgrade.  Unlike the Leopard distro days, users are running retail copies of Snow Leopard and thus the upgrade processor is much simpler. So call it old superstition, or sticking to what you know, but users have been hesitant about performing the update. Well that fear of upgrading bears no merit in this case as the 10.6.2 is one of the easiest updates we’ve seen. Instructions follow, and I think you’ll be shocked just how easy the update is.

1) Download the 10.6.2 Combo Update from Apple.com. It’s a fairly large download, 473MB, so grab a cup of coffee in the mean time.

3) Download the new SleepEnabler.kext and unzip it to your Desktop.

2) Install the update from step 1 but sit tight; you do not want to restart you computer yet. Once Installer tells you the update is finished and to restart, launch a new Finder window. Copy the unzipped SleepEnabler.kext from your desktop to /Extra/Extensions/, overwriting your the previous kext.

3) Navigate to /System/Library/Extensions/ and remove IO80211Family.kext.

4) Now go ahead and restart.

That’s it! As long as you followed those four simple steps, you’ll be up and running 10.6.2 without a hitch. If you found this guide useful then feel free to make a donation by clicking the link at the end of the Author’s Mini-Biography or by clicking on some ads around the site. Any amount truly does help.

This is a response to the article “10 reasons I’ll be passing on the iPad,” where Debra Shinder details how the iPad isn’t for her. I’ve criticized Deb before. I read her blog and I’m subscribed to her Win7 News mailing list, and I’ve noticed that whenever she talks about Apple, she somehow gets in several jibes. This article was basically a whole list of them, and most are the result of a lack of research and are easily refuted.

1. No physical keyboard

Deb argues that the iPad is inferior because it lacks a physical keyboard. Well, we all knew it would. But Deb must not’ve known about the keyboard dock accessory and the fact that the iPad will be able to pair with any Bluetooth keyboard.

2. One size doesn’t fit all

“If the tablet is going to fit into some gap between the phone and the netbook, the size should be somewhere in between, too. The iPad’s screen is about 10 inches, the same as most netbooks. It won’t fit into your pocket. It’s thin and light, but so are many of the netbooks on the market now. For example, the Sony VAIO X series laptop/netbooks are the same half-inch thick and virtually the same weight (1.5 lbs. vs. 1.6 lbs.). And we’re also starting to see netbooks in the convertible tablet form factor, which is really exciting.”

Deb says the iPad should be somewhere in between the size of a phone and a netbook, which is not how Steve Jobs positioned it in the iPad keynote: as a middle ground between a 13” laptop and an iPhone, which the iPad is with its 9.7” screen. An iPad that’s slightly bigger than an iPod Touch but still fits in your pocket? What would be the point of that?

3. It runs a phone OS

“I would have been more tempted by the iPad if it ran OS X instead of the iPhone operating system.”

This just shows how unfamiliar Deb is with the technological underpinnings of the iPhone, because it does run OS X. It’s still Unix, still the same kernel, the same file system, etc. The big difference is the interface, which is designed to be used on a touchscreen with new graphical toolkits and APIs. When Microsoft tried to enter the tablet market, they just slapped some touchscreen controls on Windows and called it good. We all know how that turned out. Apple’s approach is far better.

4. There’s not enough storage

“From my experiences with the early netbooks, I learned that 16 or 32 GB of storage isn’t enough for me. Granted, my needs may be greater than that of the average user. But by the time I install all the programs I want to use and put my music, photos, and a few videos on there, what once upon a time seemed like a lot of space really isn’t.”

Your experiences with early netbooks? I assume you mean the ones running Windows XP. iPhone OS is not Windows XP. The whole OS takes up a little more than 1GB of space. Applications don’t take up as much, either. I have about 70 installed, and they only total about 1GB. You must have a lot of photos and music.

5. No HDMI or camera

“Today, computing is all about multimedia — both consuming it and creating it. You can watch HD movies on the iPad (although it doesn’t have the 16:9 standard aspect ratio), but you can’t output them to your HDTV because there’s no HDMI connector.”

Why would you want to hook up your iPad to an HDTV when you could just watch a movie in your lap? As for the aspect ratio, Apple made the most logical decision by going with 3:4 instead of 16:9, as the 3:4 ratio is perfect for everything else you could do on the iPad except video. Why would Apple make everything else suck just for the sake of video?

“One handy use for a device of this size and form factor would be video conferencing… except Apple forgot to include a camera and microphone. Most new laptops and netbooks have a built-in Web cam. Even the iPhone has a camera, albeit not a particularly good one.”

The iPad does come with a microphone. Did you not even bother watching the iPad event? And a camera will probably either be included with the next version of the iPad, or Apple will surprise everyone by announcing it just before it ships.

6/7. No USB/SD slot

Most normal users probably won’t notice or care that the iPad lacks these. Deb really should’ve combined these two. I think she didn’t just because she couldn’t think of a tenth complaint. Are most users going to use a USB or SD slot? Not really. If I needed it for syncing, I could just use Dropbox or Mobile Me, both of which have their own app.

8. The price isn’t right

“The iPad is being touted as a better ebook reader, but it costs twice as much as the Kindle and other ebook readers.”

This is just false. While the baseline iPad costs almost twice as much as the standard Kindle ($259 vs. $499), the iPad offers more than twice the features, with a 9.7” color touchscreen, apps, email, music, 802.11n, and so on. The deal gets even better when you consider the $489 Kindle DX, which has the same limitations as the standard Kindle in comparison to the iPad.

9. It’s locked in

“You have to buy your apps from the App Store[.]”

Yes, you have to buy your apps from an App Store that currently has 140,000 apps, most of which are free. Oh, the horror. Even if you had some pathological need to not use the App Store, you can always jailbreak, and anyone who hates the App Store probably knows how. However, the closed nature of the App Store is an asset and not a detriment. It protects the user from viruses and keeps crappy apps from getting in. Being a Droid user, I can attest to the general bad quality of Android apps from the market. There’s not a single third-party Android app I’ve found that does a better job than its iPhone counterpart, and in many cases, it does a worse one. Yes, sometimes the app approval process can be a huge pain on the iPhone, but app approvals are going through faster and Apple is starting to loosen it’s grip on what should be allowed.

Many companies are actually more closed than Apple. I know that Deb is a Microsoft fan, so let’s use Microsoft as an example: the Zune HD and Xbox 360, two of Microsoft’s most successful products, are both locked in, and in many ways, they’re locked in tighter than the iPad. Microsoft has shut off Live service to Xbox modders before, and the Zune HD not only has an anemic app selection, but that selection is only available through Microsoft. Imagine if Apple shut off wireless service for jailbreakers. The outrage would be tremendous, and rightfully so.

“The 10-hour battery life is impressive (although some netbooks offer comparable times), but if you were flying to Australia and wanted to bring along an extra battery for the extra-long flight, forget about it.”

Again, a serious lack of research. There are external batteries for the iPhone, and there’ll definitely be some for the iPad. Plus, you’re seriously going to use an iPad for the entire flight? I don’t think so.

“[Y]ou can’t run Skype to make phone calls with it, either. We wouldn’t want to cut into the iPhone market, after all. Nor can you download Flash to install on the browser, which means you won’t be watching those YouTube videos.”

Here’s where Deb’s lack of research really shines through. You will definitely be able to make Skype calls with the iPad, since it has both a speaker and microphone, and Apple has lifted its restrictions on VoIP over 3G. And YouTube? Deb, you do realize that there’s an entire app dedicated to YouTube, right? As for Flash, it’s a good thing it’s not going to be on the iPad. It’s performance would be horrible, and that’s Adobe’s fault, not Apple’s.

10. It’s all about the network

“And you’ll have to pay another $30/month for unlimited data for your iPad (or $20 for 250MB), on top of what you’re already paying for your cell phone. Or do they expect people to give up their phone data plans and just use the iPad for data? I don’t see all those iPhone users doing that. This thing is looking more expensive by the minute.”

Deb really needs to learn how to fact-check; the 250MB plan is $14.99, not the $20 she claims. Deb also forgets to mention that the data plans are contract-free and can be canceled at any time. If you don’t need 3G, you can just buy an iPad without it.

“Here’s wishing you good luck on finding those wi-fi hot spots.”

Really? It’s hard to find WiFi hotspots in the US? Even with every McDonald’s offering free WiFi? How about every Barnes and Noble, too? Most colleges, cafes, and libraries also have free WiFi. I don’t think those people will need luck.

Deb seems to have fundamentally misunderstood what the iPad is supposed to be. It’s not a replacement for a netbook or a laptop, and it’s not just a giant iPod Touch. It’s the ultimate couch computer, giving you access to the web with the portability of a netbook, and that’s awesome.

That’s the end of Deb’s ten (but really nine) points. I look forward to arguing with her more in the future.

You like the way the iPad looks right? I mean, who doesn’t. Now, imagine you can make your iPhone/iPod look like that. Yeah, it’s possible. Only bad thing is it requires a jailbreak (I recommend Blackra1n).

Basically, all you need to do is download the following from Cydia:

• Winterboard
• Simple iPad Theme
• MakeItMine
• Shrink
• ProSwitcher

And then these from the App Store:

• NYTimes
• Classics
• Kindle for iPhone

The video embedded below will walk you through it. I’ve done this to my iPod Touch and I’m really happy with it.

[story, image, and video via Redmond Pie]

[via Toni Nikkanen] ]]> http://www.dailyblogged.com/1974/a-great-moment-in-hackintosh-history-running-os-x-on-a-phone/feed/ 1 http://www.dailyblogged.com/1935/intrepid-mac-our-new-site/ http://www.dailyblogged.com/1935/intrepid-mac-our-new-site/#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:39:46 +0000 Alex http://www.dailyblogged.com/?p=1935 Note: Just to clarify, http://intrepidmac.com is not replacing this site. Rather, it is an additional site in the Daily Blogged network.

We probably should’ve told you dear readers about this awhile ago, but we’ve started a new website called Intrepid Mac. It’s devoted to Apple news and interesting stuff you can do with OS X, and we’re really excited about it. We’ve written quite a few posts already, and we’re gearing up for coverage of the January 27th Apple event. You can keep up with us by subscribing to Intrepid Mac via RSS, or by following us on Twitter.

Thanks for reading!

One upgrade possibility is to move to a 7200RPM Hard Drive, albeit it does kill your battery more quickly than its 5400RPM counterpart. And then there’s the widely popular Memory/RAM upgrade. Upgrade to the 4GB limit on most computers (including the Inspiron 1525) and you’ll see a nice speed improvement. But what happens once all of these upgrades are completed? Is that really as far as you can go?

Well, I was stuck facing the same question when I realized the answer: no! There is still one more hardware upgrade that you can perform on your system to give it a speed bump; you can upgrade your Wireless Internet Card. This upgrade has much less of a direct effect on your computer’s speed as all it does it potentially speed up the load time on Webpages and downloads. Nevertheless, it is a hardware upgrade and it does provide increased speed in your web browser.

Wireless Card upgrades are much less common then, say, RAM upgrades, as not many users are aware that they can be performed. They are insanely easy though and I recommend them to anyone looking to jump from that aging Wireless g to the much faster Wireless N. This upgrade does have its quirks however, such as requring a Wireless N router to see any improvement. On the positive, you’ll be future proofing your laptop and possibly even upgrading to a card more compatible with OS X (if you’re a hackintosh user, that is).

See part 2 of the post for a How To guide featuring the upgrade being performed on my trusty Inspiron 1525.

Part 2 will be up in the coming days.

I do have one issue with the phone, however, and it’s the certain smugness it causes all of it’s owners to have. Most every iPhone owner I know has this certain feeling of greatness because they own said device. Just compare the attitude of any iPhone owner to their nearly equal iPod Touch user. The two devices are practically one and the same, with one lacking the phone aspect, of course. And though the two devices are so similar, their owner’s attitudes are not.

The only thing keeping this iPhone-ridden world from collapsing under the smugness is the fact that, officially, all iPhone users in the United States have AT&T. The whole AT&T contract is a real conversation killer and I feel that it’s the key to keeping the iPhone’s cloud of smug at a controllable size.

It is widely rumored that, in 2010, the iPhone will come to Verizon. While I am pleased with this as I have Verizon, I am also scared. With iPhone users taken under Verizon’s wing, the only thing keeping iPhone smug controllable will go right out the window, along with our tolerance for those idiots. Just imagine a world where some jerk not only has the best phone around (Like I said, I do want an iPhone), but he always has service, and not just that slower 2G coverage. No, he always has 3G coverage. I mean, have you seen those maps? The red coverage map dominates its blue counterpart. And do you think we’ll be able to tolerate these idiots. That is if you don’t become one of them yourself.

All I’m suggesting is that a world with iPhone users that always have 3G coverage sounds like the exact opposite of a Utopia; more like a sort of hell, if you will. The thought of having a sleek iPhone is glorious, albeit I will not get one; I forbid myself from owning the attitude altering device. I am perfectly content with my iPod Touch and standard Verizon phone. The evidence couldn’t be more blatantly obvious, iPhone + Verizon = Hell on Earth.

Preparation

These are the things you’ll need:

1. A Dell Mini 9/10v with at least 16GB of storage

2. A Retail Snow Leopard DVD with 10.6.0 or 10.6.1 (10.6.2 broke Atom support)

3. An 8GB or greater flash drive

4. A machine running OS X

The first thing you’ll want to do is format that flash drive. Open up Disk Utility (Applications -> Utilities) and choose the flash drive from the sidebar. Then, go to the Erase tab and choose “Mac OS Extended Journaled” as the file system, and then click the Erase button.

Now, put in that Snow Leopard DVD and go back to Disk Utility. Go to the flash drive in the sidebar and this time go to the Restore tab. From the sidebar, drag the CD over to the source box and the flash drive over to the destination box. Press the restore button. This will take about an hour or so, so be patient.

Now that you’ve copied all the installation files, you need to use NetbookBootmaker to make your flash drive bootable. Launch NbBM, select your flash drive, and click “Prepare Boot Drive.” NbBM will do its thing and make your drive bootable.

Installation

Now that you’ve got your flash drive prepared, you need to boot it with the Mini 9. Make sure legacy USB support is enable in your BIOS. Plug in the flash drive and boot the Mini. When you see the BIOS screen, hit 0 (zero) to bring up boot options and choose your flash drive. It’ll boot into the Snow Leopard installer.

Note: If you get the “pinwheel of death” when booting, wait up to ten minutes. After that, try rebooting.

When you’re at the install screen, go to Utilities -> Disk Utility and format your drive in Mac OS Extended Journaled and name it “Macintosh HD”. Continue with the installation. It’ll take a long time. I timed mine with my iPod and it took an hour and a minute.

Once the installation is done, reboot.

Setup

Booting your hackintosh’d Mini 9 for the first time will take awhile. After it boots, you’ll get the intro video (neat, huh?) and then the setup screen will appear.

After you fill in your information, you’ll be brought to the desktop. OS X will be ungodly slow until you repair permissions, so it’s time for your old friend, Disk Utility. Select your hard drive, and then click ‘repair disk permissions’ and let it do its thing.

When that’s done (which’ll take awhile) you can enjoy your new netbook running OS X Snow Leopard.

Tips

1. Safari is strangely slow on the Mini 9, so I would recommend using Camino for your web browser, as it uses less memory.

2. If you want to use your Mini 9 with iTunes, you can use Home Sharing to copy over your music from another machine.

3. A neat trick you might try is controlling your Mini 9 using Remote Desktop.

Thanks

A special thanks goes out to everyone at the MyDellMini forums, especially Meklort.

Currently, I’m sporting a T2370 1.73GHz Dual Core Processor with a 533MHz FSB, not exactly the finest babe on the block. Actually, she’s rather old and saggy, if you will. I’ve had my eye out on an upgrade for a while now and I’ve finally chosen the one. Yes, she’s the one for me. As soon as I save up enough money, which is hard now that I’m splurging on Apps for my new iPod Touch, I will be purchasing a T8300 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Processor with an 800MHz FSB for my trusty Inspiron 1525.

At a price tag of ~$140, I really can’t go wrong and the speed increase is much needed. However, money is a little tight. Between the hosting costs of this site and the no job factor, $140 is a lot of money for a high school student. That is why I am asking all the dedicated DailyBlogged users to please make a small contribution to this project. Any amounts are truly helpful and plus, once I am able to purchase this processor, I will document the entire upgrade process with pictures, possibly some videos, and most likely some speed test as well. So now that you know why I need the donations, are you going to help me out? Plus, all users who donate will have their names included in the new Hall Of Donations page.

Update: I found a sweet deal on a T7300 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo with an 800MHz FSB for only $70 so I purchased it. When it arrives, which will probably be a week, I will document the entire upgrade process.

VMware is a great solution for testing out different operating systems, but OS X clients have never been supported (for obvious reasons). Fellow hackintosh site iHackintosh has a great article on getting Snow Leopard to run on an Intel-based Windows machine. It involves getting a pre-made .VMDK file and tweaking some VMware settings. Overall, it’s not too difficult, and it’s a nice option if you want to test out OS X before you commit to it.

Check out the article here.