Mac magic and magicians

What do you use?

2009-03-24T19:12:00.001-04:00

Monitoring hard disk reliability: SMARTReporter

FTP - CyberDuck

Setting alarms: Pester

RSS reader: NetNewsWire. The free Lite version works for me.

Monitoring outgoing network connections: Little Snitch

Audio editing and digitising analog audio: Amadeus Pro

Conversion to/from various video formats: iSquint, MPEG Streamclip

Capture audio from any source: Audio Hijack

Making your photos into comics: Comic Life

Manage large numbers of PDFs, similarly to the way iPhoto manages photos:

Yep

Resurrect an old scanner that doesn't have a manufacturer-supplied OS X

driver: VueScan

cix OLR: Vienna

Bit torrent: Transmission

Handle archives of various kinds: The Unarchiver, UnRarX, Forklift

Text editing: Textmate

Astronomy: Stellarium

For examining SQLite databases, as used by several Apple applications &

Vienna: SQLite Database Browser

Launching applications: QuickSilver. Less useful IMHO now that Spotlight

works the way it should.

Windows: Parallels or VMWare - take your pick. Parallels works for me so I

haven't felt the need to look at VMWare.

Charting & diagramming: OmniGraffle

Mind mapping: Novamind

If you have a USB web cam not supported natively by Mac OS X: macam

If you're into getting things done: iGTD

Converting just about any graphic format: GraphicConverter

VNC client: Chicken of the VNC

Reading Windows CHM files: Chmox

Booklet printing: CocoaBooklet

DVD ripping: Handbrake, Mac the Ripper

For keeping an eye on disk usage: GrandPerspective

Finding wireless networks: MacStumbler

Slate throws Apple a $100B idea, suggests iBank

2009-01-23T16:06:00.001-05:00

In an interesting -- not to say wildly speculative -- essay, Slate Magazine's Karim Bardeesy says that Apple should take some of its $28 billion and start a bank.

During Wednesday's conference call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer made it clear that the company was looking to keep its cash right where it is. Anecdotal evidence suggests that now might not exactly be the best time to get one's feet wet in high finance, but Bardeesy does make a few interesting points.

First, if Apple takes $15 billion of its own cash, at 'regulated reserve ratios,' Apple could offer $100 billion in loans. Couple that with the company's tech savvy and trustworthy brand, Bardeesy says, and you're looking at an opportunity to 'revolutionize the industry.'

Second, Bardeesy suggests creating an internet-only bank, taking deposits from everyday people -- via an iPhone fund transfer app, of course. He says the rise of Internet banks isn't unprecedented: just look at how popular they were in Iceland! (Ignore for now those banks' participation in the total collapse of Iceland's banking system.)

And how about a slice of that sweet, sweet government bailout? Apple can have some -- if it's a bank. 'Goodie side benefits to banking status include access to some of that TARP money and a steady revenue stream to smooth out any bumps in retail demand for other Apple products,' he writes. Contradictorily, in his final sentence, Bardeesy chides the banking industry for 'pocketing taxpayer billions while sending nary a penny [his] way.' You can't have it both ways, buddy.

In sum, Bardeesy admits that 'Apple has prided itself on sticking to its knitting and not indulging in diversionary acquisitions or enterprises.' He claims, however, that 'an exception can be made when economy and country are at stake and profits are on the table.'

Can it? Really?

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Are they stupid? Microsoft says that 77 percent of Mac users use Office

2009-01-08T20:12:00.001-05:00

Microsoft says that 77 percent of Mac users use Office: Despite Apple's entry in the field, Microsoft remains the undisputed king of the office suite

Highly recommended: Securing your laptop and iPhone web traffic with Hotspot Shield

2008-12-06T08:44:00.001-05:00

Securing your iPhone web traffic with Hotspot Shield: "

Filed under: iPhone

Have you ever wondered whether the wifi data you send and receive with your iPhone or iPod touch at the local coffee shop or airport is secure? Well, I bet if you hadn't wondered that before, you are now. It's easy to forget that inside that cute little handheld device live the guts of an actual computer, and likely a lot of personal data. Depending on your surfing habits, you could be sending and receiving personal information in a non-secure way over public wifi.

If you're concerned about your data's safety, consider using Anchorfree's Hotspot Shield free VPN service. Hotspot Shield has been a great way to lock down your laptop's wifi for a long time now, and just recently they have released instructions on how to take advantage of their service on an iPhone / iPod touch. Pleasantly, the service does not require that a program be downloaded to your device, but rather takes advantage of the iPhone and iPod touch's built-in VPN functionality.

My only gripe with Hotspot Shield is that it can sometimes be challenging to get the VPN to successfully connect. Anchorfree recommends performing a quick reboot of your device to get your connection going, but in my experience even that can be a hit-or-miss scenario. But it's still better than letting that creepy guy that keeps hitting on the barista peruse my http requests. 'Cause I'm not paranoid, but I'm sure that's what he's doing.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

Hackers Update Mac Porn RSPlug Trojan Horse

2008-11-18T14:28:00.001-05:00

Hackers Update Mac Porn RSPlug Trojan Horse: "

(Photo: otzberg/flickr)

Mac users are being warned to beware of a new scam by hackers to plant a Trojan horse. RS.Plug.D is a more flexible update of the RS.Plug.A threat discovered in 2007, a security software vendor claimed Tuesday.

Like the original, the new version relies on Mac users to visit malicious porn sites, according to Intego. Unlike RS.Plug.A, this trojan software opens a security hole enabling hackers to repeatedly download files to your system.

When on a suspect porn site, visits will be shown an error message: ‘Video ActiveX Object Error,’ followed by a message that the browser is unable to view the video file and a request to start a download.

ActiveX is usually linked to Windows-related files, not Macs. Despite that, the Web page downloads a file (often named ‘cleanlive.dmg’) from a remote site. Once downloaded, the file automatically launches a trojan that contacts the remote site again.

To avoid downloading the Trojan file, you must quit your browser, according to the company. Simply choosing ‘Cancel’ returns you to the original ‘error’ message.

Mac users can disable the Trojan by using an anti-virus application.

(Via Cult of Mac.)

Please sign this petition now...

2008-10-23T10:51:00.001-04:00

New Apple laptops only released today and there's already a patch! :)

2008-10-14T18:57:00.001-04:00

Apple MacBook/MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2 - Addresses a responsiveness issue. (Updater): "

Apple MacBook/MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2

About MacBook, MacBook Pro Software Update 1.2
This update contains software bug fixes for precision aluminum unibody enclosure MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook computers introduced in October 2008.

The update improves compatibility with external displays and includes a variety of software fixes. This update is recommended for all users of these systems.

REQUIREMENTS

Mac OS X 10.5.1

DEVELOPER

Apple

DOWNLOADS

6438

DOWNLOAD NOW (45.5'MB)

More information

(Via MacUpdate - Mac OS X.)

Steve Jobs’ Health - A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words

2008-10-14T16:07:00.001-04:00

Photo credit: Wired

Before the QA at Tuesday’s MacBook rollout, Steve Jobs said there’s a few things he wouldn’t talk about: Apple’s latest quarter, the global financial meltdown, and his health.

With that he put up a slide showing his blood pressure: a healthy 110/70.

‘This is all I’m going to talk about on my health today,’ he said.

(Via Cult of Mac.)

Fake Steve Jobs heart attack post highlights citizen journalism perils

2008-10-03T15:52:00.001-04:00

Friday’s false report on CNN’s iReport site that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack is a strong example of potential pitfalls posed by so-called citizen journalists. [MY ADDITION: And also raises the question of whether somebody deliberately setup this story in order to short Apple stock, knowing the effect this would have on the market]

The report prompted a temporary 10 percent tumble in the company’s stock price before Apple moved quickly the quash the report that Jobs had been hospitalized for chest pains and shortness of breath. Though CNN quickly yanked the report from the Web, the citizen journalist posting the phony report to the CNN site that allows any Internet user to report news had already done the damage.

The stock rebounded only after the share price fell below US$100 for the first time since May 2007.

Calls to Turner Broadcasting and CNN parent Time Warner were not returned.

While many news sites using citizen journalists filter comments or posts from citizen before they go live, CNN does not, said Ellyn Angelotti, interactivity editor and adjunct faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists and journalist professors.

The main goal of CNN iReport “is to really empower citizens to be the reporters,” she said Friday. “They don’t want to be that filter the way that some news organizations feel is important. Citizen journalists can’t exist without real journalists out there to fact check and provide sense out of these flood of information.”

She added that other breaking news stories have been uncovered first by updates to Wikipedia or Twitter messages. While this story originated on a CNN site, she added that CNN has distinguished between the iReport and official CNN reporting.

“[On iReport] they are saying this person reported it and they are a CNN iReporter, but what that means is they are a citizen journalist, and this is information that is coming from the community and not something that we have had a chance to verify through our news sources,” Angelotti said.

Erick Schonfeld, a blogger at TechCrunch, said that this incident shows that iReport news carries more weight than a Twitter microblog or other blog posts because it is on a CNN site.

“That may be purely because it gets distributed more broadly,” he added. “It could also be because people tend to believe what they read on CNN-branded sites. There needs to be a better truth filter on iReport and other sites that allow the anonymous reporting of news. A better reputation system for contributors would help.”

Read Macworld’s report on how Steve Jobs’ profile impacts Apple

Adam Ostrow, a blogger at Mashable noted that Internet rumors concerning the stock market have been popping up long before those posting them were called “citizen journalists.”

“I think this is mainly a special circumstance-concerns about Jobs’ health have been in the news for months, and any indication that it is moving in one direction or the other has had implications for Apple’s shares,” he noted. “Further, the premise of iReport is that the best news makes it on-air to CNN (presumably after being verified by professional journalists) [and] that didn’t seem to happen here. News about public companies is obviously a delicate subject, but I would hardly call this blunder the beginning of the end for citizen journalism.”

(Via Macworld.)

Gallery of Whimsical, Inventive Apple Product Mock-ups

2008-09-30T10:43:00.001-04:00

Gallery of Whimsical, Inventive Apple Product Mock-ups: "

The lull between Apple product announcements is always a fertile time for the imaginations of Apple users and, over the years has produced many compelling, sometimes laughable ideas for products the company should, or might make. Occasionally, users end up hitting quite close to the mark of what eventually makes it to the marketplace, as shown by a few of the items in this mock-up retrospective.

Images in the gallery are taken from a much larger presentation of past Apple mock-ups at Andrew Wise’s blog. Click through the thumbs for larger images.

(Via Cult of Mac.)

Security Matters: Airport Pasta-Sauce Interdiction Considered Harmful

2008-09-18T16:51:00.001-04:00

And another brief piece from the always excellent Bruce Schneier 2 Hours Ago

"Airport security found a jar of pasta sauce in my luggage last month. It was a 6-ounce jar, above the limit; the official confiscated it, because allowing it on the airplane with me would have been too dangerous. And to demonstrate how dangerous he really thought that jar was, he blithely tossed it in a nearby bin of similar liquid bottles and sent me on my way.
There are two classes of contraband at airport security checkpoints: the class that will get you in trouble if you try to bring it on an airplane, and the class that will cheerily be taken away from you if you try to bring it on an airplane. This difference is important: Making security screeners confiscate anything from that second class is a waste of time. All it does is harm innocents; it doesn't stop terrorists at all.
Let me explain. If you're caught at airport security with a bomb or a gun, the screeners aren't just going to take it away from you. They're going to call the police, and you're going to be stuck for a few hours answering a lot of awkward questions. You may be arrested, and you'll almost certainly miss your flight. At best, you're going to have a very unpleasant day.
This is why articles about how screeners don't catch every -- or even a majority -- of guns and bombs that go through the checkpoints don't bother me. The screeners don't have to be perfect; they just have to be good enough. No terrorist is going to base his plot on getting a gun through airport security if there's decent chance of getting caught, because the consequences of getting caught are too great.
Contrast that with a terrorist plot that requires a 12-ounce bottle of liquid. There's no evidence that the London liquid bombers actually had a workable plot, but assume for the moment they did. If some copycat terrorists try to bring their liquid bomb through airport security and the screeners catch them -- like they caught me with my bottle of pasta sauce -- the terrorists can simply try again. They can try again and again. They can keep trying until they succeed. Because there are no consequences to trying and failing, the screeners have to be 100 percent effective. Even if they slip up one in a hundred times, the plot can succeed.
The same is true for knitting needles, pocketknives, scissors, corkscrews, cigarette lighters and whatever else the airport screeners are confiscating this week. If there's no consequence to getting caught with it, then confiscating it only hurts innocent people. At best, it mildly annoys the terrorists.
To fix this, airport security has to make a choice. If something is dangerous, treat it as dangerous and treat anyone who tries to bring it on as potentially dangerous. If it's not dangerous, then stop trying to keep it off airplanes. Trying to have it both ways just distracts the screeners from actually making us safer."

(Via Wired News.)

The Mac Tablet...

2008-09-18T14:41:00.001-04:00

...nobody is sure whether (a) one is even on the drawing board at Infinite Loop or (b) what it will look like, although there are some nice mockups by fans here. But this one is just plain funny!

Get a Mac, get a job...

2008-08-21T14:22:00.001-04:00

Get a Mac, get a job

Filed under: Productivity, Tips and tricks, Developer, Graphic Design

As the economy makes with the poop, we can all use a little bit of extra help finding work. Whether it's side projects, or full-time employment, there are plenty of jobs available for system administrators, programmers, and creative people -- all who use a Mac.

I've assembled a collection of sites and job boards that cater to those with a technical and creative skill set -- people who probably use a Mac. This is by no means a complete list, but should help anyone starting to look for work.

Comments consisting of "how could you dare possibly omit [insert name of board here]" will be met with resigned sighs from me, but cheers from our readers. So feel free to point people in the direction of boards that you've used or trusted before in comments.

Follow me across the jump for the list.

Continue reading Get a Mac, get a job

[The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)]

“Calvin and Jobs,” the Story of a Boy and His iCEO

2008-08-06T13:41:00.001-04:00

“Calvin and Jobs,” the Story of a Boy and His iCEO: "

In my childhood, I had two obsessions: Calvin and Hobbes and Apple. And someone has finally had the foresight to bring them together for Calvin and Jobs, which chronicles the adventures of a boy and his imaginary Apple CEO. It’s quite witty, very much in the tone of the real series. The cartooning isn’t so elegant as (almost certainly disapproving) Bill Watterson, but that’s pretty much a certainty. Still, my favorite remix comic since Garfield Minus Garfield, so well done, PinkFloyd99 of Flickr! Click through the jump for four more adventures of Calvin and Jobs!

(more…)

(Via Cult of Mac.)

Oh dear :( Apple’s Infrastructure...

2008-08-05T15:27:00.001-04:00

Om Malik on MobileMe’s Infrastructure: "I have picked up some tidbits from my Internet infrastructure sources, who tell me that:

There is no-unified IT plan vis-a-vis applications; each has their own set of servers, IT practices and release scenarios.
Developers do testing, load testing and infrastructure planning, all of which is implemented by someone else.
There’s no unified monitoring system.
They use Oracle on Sun servers for the databases and everything has its own SAN storage. They do not use active Oracle RAC; it is all single-instance, on one box, with a secondary failover.
Apparently they are putting web servers and app servers on the same machines, which causes performance problems.
One of my sources opined that Apple clearly wasn’t too savvy about all the progress made in infrastructure over the past few years. If this insinuation is indeed true, then there is no way Apple can get over its current spate of problems. It needs a crash course in infrastructure and Internet services. Apple’s problem is that it doesn’t seem to have recognized the fact that it’s in the business of network-enabled hardware."

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Secure Your DNS Since Apple Hasn't

2008-07-30T13:36:00.001-04:00

You can either use the DNS servers at OpenDNS as I mentioned before (a simple change to your server or router) or you can use this nice path to upgrade the version of BIND used in Mac OSX:

From TidBits:

As Rich Mogull and I wrote a few days ago, Apple has lagged behind nearly every other operating system and computer maker in releasing an update to a critical flaw in the way in which domain name system (DNS) software has been implemented. (See 'Apple Fails to Patch Critical Exploited DNS Flaw,' 2008-07-24.) This flaw allows an attacker to fool a DNS into accepting the wrong IP address for a domain name. While servers that provide DNS lookups to clients - such as customers of a large ISP - are most vulnerable, individual Macs are also at risk although they have much less likelihood of being attacked.

I tested out a simple command-line method of installing BIND 9.4.2-P1 in Mac OS X 10.5.4 Leopard; this release is an updated version of the widely used software that handles DNS for tens of millions of servers and ordinary systems worldwide. Although there's a newer version - 9.5.0-P1 - Leopard still uses 9.4.1, and patching it to 9.4.2-P1 makes more sense than moving up an entire release version.

Proceed at your own risk! This process worked for me, but it may not for you. You likely want to have a full backup in place.

Join Apple's developer program, which has a basic free level anyone can use.

After joining, log in to your account, click the Downloads link, and then the Develop Tools link in the list of Downloads in the right navigation bar. Download the large (1 GB) Xcode 3.1 Developer Tools disk image, mount it, and install it. This is needed for the compilation tools required to install BIND.

Visit the Internet System Consortium's BIND page, and download BIND 9.4.2-P1: Click the link for that release, and scroll down to the Downloads section. Click the bind-9.4.2-P1.tar.gz link.

Launch Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

Navigation to the directory in which BIND was downloaded. Likely, you need to type the following two commands. (If you use a different directory for downloads, change ~/Downloads/ in the command to the path of your download directory specified in your browser, or move the downloaded file to your home folder's Downloads directory.)

cd ~/Downloads/ ls

If the BIND file in the list that appears after the 'ls' command is typed has .tar.gz at the end, type:

gunzip -c bind-9.4.2-P1.tar.gz | tar xf -

Now type, to enter the BIND directory:

cd bind-9.4.2-P1

Switch to superuser or root mode to install the software. Type the following and enter a password when prompted. You need an account with administrative access to proceed.

sudo su

Now type the following sequence in turn each time you get a prompt. (Each command will result in a lot of scrolling output explaining what's going on at a level far beyond what you need to know. Make test, in particular, can take a long time to run as it runs through a set of standard activities.)

./configure --prefix=/usr make make test

If either 'make' produces errors and doesn't complete, or 'make test' explains after running thousands of tests that something's wrong, don't proceed. Just stop here and your system is still untouched.

Type:

make install

You're now updated. If you type:

dig

as an example, you'll see at the top of the resulting DNS root server information a banner that includes 'DiG 9.4.2-P1' to show the latest version is in place.

I have not installed this under Leopard Server. Suggestions are welcome for that process.

Copyright © 2008 Glenn Fleishman. TidBITS is copyright © 2008 TidBITS Publishing Inc. If you're reading this article on a Web site other than TidBITS.com, please let us know, because if it was republished without attribution, by a commercial site, or in modified form, it violates our Creative Commons License.

Fetch Softworks: Fetch 5.3 has WebView, the easy way
to view files in a browser and copy Web addresses from Fetch.
Also a new look for Leopard, droplet shortcuts, and more.
Download your free trial version! <http://fetchsoftworks.com/>

(Via TidBITS: Mac News for the Rest of Us.)

Cloud computing and Amazon' S3 down-time - an analysis

2008-07-26T18:50:00.001-04:00

Amazon Web Services » Service Health Dashboard » Amazon S3 Availability Event: July 20, 2008
Amazon S3 Availability Event: July 20, 2008

We wanted to provide some additional detail about the problem we experienced on Sunday, July 20th.

At 8:40am PDT, error rates in all Amazon S3 datacenters began to quickly climb and our alarms went off. By 8:50am PDT, error rates were significantly elevated and very few requests were completing successfully. By 8:55am PDT, we had multiple engineers engaged and investigating the issue. Our alarms pointed at problems processing customer requests in multiple places within the system and across multiple data centers. While we began investigating several possible causes, we tried to restore system health by taking several actions to reduce system load. We reduced system load in several stages, but it had no impact on restoring system health.

At 9:41am PDT, we determined that servers within Amazon S3 were having problems communicating with each other. As background information, Amazon S3 uses a gossip protocol to quickly spread server state information throughout the system. This allows Amazon S3 to quickly route around failed or unreachable servers, among other things. When one server connects to another as part of processing a customer's request, it starts by gossiping about the system state. Only after gossip is completed will the server send along the information related to the customer request. On Sunday, we saw a large number of servers that were spending almost all of their time gossiping and a disproportionate amount of servers that had failed while gossiping. With a large number of servers gossiping and failing while gossiping, Amazon S3 wasn't able to successfully process many customer requests.

At 10:32am PDT, after exploring several options, we determined that we needed to shut down all communication between Amazon S3 servers, shut down all components used for request processing, clear the system's state, and then reactivate the request processing components. By 11:05am PDT, all server-to-server communication was stopped, request processing components shut down, and the system's state cleared. By 2:20pm PDT, we'd restored internal communication between all Amazon S3 servers and began reactivating request processing components concurrently in both the US and EU.

At 2:57pm PDT, Amazon S3's EU location began successfully completing customer requests. The EU location came back online before the US because there are fewer servers in the EU. By 3:10pm PDT, request rates and error rates in the EU had returned to normal. At 4:02pm PDT, Amazon S3's US location began successfully completing customer requests, and request rates and error rates had returned to normal by 4:58pm PDT.

We've now determined that message corruption was the cause of the server-to-server communication problems. More specifically, we found that there were a handful of messages on Sunday morning that had a single bit corrupted such that the message was still intelligible, but the system state information was incorrect. We use MD5 checksums throughout the system, for example, to prevent, detect, and recover from corruption that can occur during receipt, storage, and retrieval of customers' objects. However, we didn't have the same protection in place to detect whether this particular internal state information had been corrupted. As a result, when the corruption occurred, we didn't detect it and it spread throughout the system causing the symptoms described above. We hadn't encountered server-to-server communication issues of this scale before and, as a result, it took some time during the event to diagnose and recover from it.

During our post-mortem analysis we've spent quite a bit of time evaluating what happened, how quickly we were able to respond and recover, and what we could do to prevent other unusual circumstances like this from having system-wide impacts. Here are the actions that we're taking: (a) we've deployed several changes to Amazon S3 that significantly reduce the amount of time required to completely restore system-wide state and restart customer request processing; (b) we've deployed a change to how Amazon S3 gossips about failed servers that reduces the amount of gossip and helps prevent the behavior we experienced on Sunday; (c) we've added additional monitoring and alarming of gossip rates and failures; and, (d) we're adding checksums to proactively detect corruption of system state messages so we can log any such messages and then reject them.

Finally, we want you to know that we are passionate about providing the best storage service at the best price so that you can spend more time thinking about your business rather than having to focus on building scalable, reliable infrastructure. Though we're proud of our operational performance in operating Amazon S3 for almost 2.5 years, we know that any downtime is unacceptable and we won't be satisfied until performance is statistically indistinguishable from perfect.

Sincerely,

The Amazon S3 Team

Conditions of Use | Privacy Notice © 2006-2008 Amazon Web Services LLC or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

The Carambola tree....

2008-07-26T18:27:00.001-04:00

This tree, currently about 4ft. in height (but grows to around 33'!) is now ensconced on the front terrace. I decided it looked plain, so hied off to the nearest Home Depot and brought this back, unaware that it produces the star fruit as well!

Anyway, let's see how it does over the next few months....

Carambola

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the plant. For the cue sport, see Carom billiards.

Averrhoa carambola

Carambola fruits

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Oxalidales
Family:	Oxalidaceae
Genus:	Averrhoa
Species:	A. carambola

Binomial name

Averrhoa carambola

L.

Carambolas still on the tree

The carambola is a species of tree native to Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka and is popular throughout Southeast Asia, Trinidad, Malaysia and parts of East Asia. It is also grown throughout the tropics. Carambola is commercially grown in the United States in south Florida and Hawaii, for its fruit, known as the starfruit. It is closely related to the bilimbi.

1 Health risks

2 Drug interactions

3 History

4 Gallery

5 References

6 External links

[edit] Health risks

Individuals with kidney trouble should avoid consuming the fruit, because of the presence of oxalic acid. Juice made from carambola can be even more dangerous owing to its concentration of the acid. It can cause hiccups, vomiting, nausea, and mental confusion. Fatal outcomes after ingestion of star fruits have been described in uraemic patients.^[1] ^[2]

[edit] Drug interactions

Like grapefruit, star fruit is considered to be a potent inhibitor of seven cytochrome P450 isoforms.^[3]^[4] These enzymes are significant in the first pass elimination of many medicines, and thus the consumption of star fruit or its juice in combination with certain medications can significantly increase their effective dosage within the body. Research into grapefruit juice has identified a number of common medications affected, including statins which are commonly used to treat cardiovascular illness, benzodiazepines (a tranquilizer family including diazepam) as well as other medicines.^[5] These interactions can be fatal if an unfortunate confluence of genetic, pharmacological, and lifestyle factors results in, for instance, heart failure, as could occur from the co-ingestion of star fruit or star fruit juice with atorvastatin (Lipitor).

[edit] History

The star fruit originally came from Sri Lanka and the Moluccas. For the past several hundred years, it has been cultivated in Malaysia.^[6]

[edit] Gallery

Leaves- both sides in India.

Fruits, leaves & Trunk

Full grown fruit

[edit] References

^ Chang JM et al., Am J Kidney Dis 2000;35:189.

^ http://www.nutritionatc.hawaii.edu/HO/2003/202.htm

^ Abstracts: Metabolism and metabolic enzymes studies for the 8th National Congress on Drug and Xenobiotic Metabolism in China

^ Potential Drug-Food Interactions with Pomegranate Juice

^ P450 Table

^ Star Fruit, Carambola - star fruit facts - Food Reference

[edit] External links

Intoxication by star fruit (Averrhoa carambola) in 32 uraemic patients: treatment and outcome (Oxford journals)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Averrhoa carambola

Chris Barnes's iPhone availability checker

2008-07-23T19:34:00.001-04:00

A great first name and a fun application from Chris Barnes's page :)

Last Updated July 23, 2008 @ 7:15 pm EDT

DISCLAIMER: This page uses data from Apple's site that is retrieved every 15 minutes.
However, it does appear that Apple only updates the data every night at midnight PDT.
I strongly advise calling your local Apple store to check inventory before visiting said store.

UPDATE: Apple does update this file throughout the day.
The data from Apple was last modified on July 23, 2008 @ 6:54 pm EDT OK

States: AL AZ CA CO CT DE FL GA HI IA IL IN KS KY LA MA MD MI MN MO NC NE NH NJ NM NV NY OH OK OR PA RI TN TX UT VA WA WI

Kaminsky on How He Discovered the DNS Flaw

2008-07-23T14:26:00.001-04:00

If you (or your ISP) haven't patched your name-servers yet, then now might be a VERY good time to do so. For why, take a look at Dan' interview below. And to see if your network (or that of your ISP) is vulnerable, take a look at the test here. And my ISP Road Runner (a part of Disney) still hadn't patched as of 10 minutes ago :(

Another command line version is detailed here courtesy of DNS-OARC as follows:

Yesterday's announcement of CERT VU#800113 makes it clear that resolvers should use random source source ports when sending queries. Here at OARC, we've crafted a special DNS name and server that you can query to learn whether or not your own resolver is using random ports. Use a DNS query tool such as dig to ask for the TXT record of porttest.dns-oarc.net:

$ dig +short porttest.dns-oarc.net TXT

You should get back an answer that looks like this:

z.y.x.w.v.u.t.s.r.q.p.o.n.m.l.k.j.i.h.g.f.e.d.c.b.a.pt.dns-oarc.net.
"169.254.0.1 is FAIR: 26 queries in 0.1 seconds from 25 ports with std dev 3843.00"

Your resolver's randomness will be rated either GOOD, FAIR, or POOR, based on the standard deviation of observed source ports. In order to receive a GOOD rating, the standard deviation must be at least 10,000. For FAIR it must be at least 3,000. Anything less is POOR. The best standard deviation you can expect to see from 26 queries is in the 18,000-20,000 range.

DNS records used in this test are given 60 second TTLs. To repeat the test you should wait at least 60 seconds.

Note that you can tell dig to test a specific resolver with an @-argument:

$ dig @4.2.2.3 +short porttest.dns-oarc.net TXT

Dan Kaminsky is understandably swamped today, given the unexpected early release of information about the critical DNS flaw he discovered that potentially affects the security of every website on the internet.
But he found some time to speak with Threat Level about how he discovered the vulnerability that has system administrators scrambling to patch before an exploit -- which is expected to go public by the end of today -- is widely available.
Kaminsky discovered the bug by chance about six months ago, which he promptly disclosed to people in the DNS community. At the end of March, an emergency summit was convened at Microsoft's headquarters, gathering 16 people from around the world to discuss how to address the problem.
On July 8, Kaminsky held a press conference announcing a multi-vendor patch and urging DNS server owners to upgrade their software with the patch immediately. But he declined to disclose details of the bug until next month, when he plans to deliver a talk about the flaw at the Black Hat Hacker Conference. Until then, Kaminsky asked researchers not to speculate about the bug, to avoid giving hackers information that could help them exploit it.
Thirteen days after that press conference, however, the security firm Matasano inadvertently released details about the bug on a blog post that the company quickly removed, but has been re-posted elsewhere.
I spoke with Kaminsky about that disclosure, among other issues.
Threat Level: So how pissed off are you?
Dan Kaminsky: (Laughs) I am not the important part here. The important thing is that people patch.
I have to be blunt. The drama is fun and interesting and cool, but it's a distraction. (The important thing is that) it's a really bad bug that really impacts every website you use and your readers use. It impacts whether or not readers are even going to see the article you're about to write. Now I could get into a big fight with lots of people ... and that might happen at some point! But it's a distraction from right now, which is, you know, we did good. We got 13 days of a patch being out without the bug being public. That's unprecedented. I'm pretty proud of at least 13 days. I would have liked 30, but I got 13 ... But the circumstances of how it went public are not what's important today. There will be a time for that, just not now. What is important now is people need to patch.
TL: There were a lot of people who balked at patching because they didn't know the details of the bug.
DK: Well you know, there were people who said, 'Dan, I wish I could patch but I don't know the bug and I can't get the resources I need to patch it.' Well you know the bug now.
You know, Verizon Business has a blog entry where they say that the greatest short-term risk from patching DNS was from the patch itself, from changing such a core and essential element to their systems. I know this. I was a network engineer before I was a security engineer. So that's why we took such extraordinary lengths to try to get people as much time as possible (to patch their systems). There's just a lot of complexity in doing something on this scale. This is something I think a lot of people don’t realize. It was difficult to get the patches even written, let alone get them all released on a single day.
But let me tell you, the complete lack of whining from the (DNS software) vendors ... if I could have gotten as little whining from the security (professionals) ... no I'm not going to say that. It's so tempting! I'm simply going to say this in positive terms. I wish everybody could be as cooperative and understanding and as helpful as Microsoft and ISC (the Internet Systems Consortium) and Cisco and everyone else was who worked so hard to get customers what they needed to protect our networks.
TL: How did you come across the bug? You said in the press conference on July 8 that you hadn't even been looking for this. So what were you doing when you found the bug?
DK: If you look at the history of my talks ... one year I had done some stuff on triangular routing. It's where you have multiple hosts that are all trying to host the same data and you want the fastest one to host it.
So I'm working at this, and I'm wondering if I can, like, use DNS races to figure out the fastest name servers to provide data. I started thinking about this trick I had done (before) with CNAMES -- they're an alias in DNS.
I realized I could look up a random name, and then whichever random name won would override the record for www.mywebsite.com. Essentially, I was looking for a faster way to host data on the internet and I remembered I have ways of overwriting which record the name server uses for 'www' by looking up something else and having it overwrite. And then I thought about that for a second. Wait, it's going to overwrite whatever is wwww.mywebsite.com! This kind of has security implications! Because if it works you can get around all of our DNS cache-poisoning protections. Then it worked!
I first tried it about six months ago. It took a couple of days to get working. I wrote it in Python to begin with and it was pretty slow. Then I rewrote it in C and it wasn’t slow anymore. It was a couple of seconds. That's when I realized I had a problem.+
TL: Then what did you do?
DK: I looked at it for a while, talked to a couple of really, really trusted people about it. Eventually I went to Paul Vixie (of ISC).
I've been ... looking at other issues with DNS for some time and I had already been working with Vixie on some of the fallout from last year's talk, when I was talking about DNS re-binding attacks. So I go to Paul and I say, Listen, we've got a bigger problem. And I send him the code and the packets and the details. And then there's that moment of, Yeah, we do have a problem.
Paul's an institution in the DNS realm and he basically goes ahead and contacts everybody and brings in Florian Weimer from Germany and brings in representatives from Cisco, Open DNS ... And we start talking on (an e-mail) thread for a couple of weeks about what the implications of this are. A couple of weeks in we realized we should probably have a summit and we should probably have it soon. So I asked Microsoft if they'd provide hosting and they absolutely agreed. On February 20 I had mailed Paul Vixie. And on March 31, 16 people from around the world were in Microsoft headquarters.
When I say there was no b.s. from the vendors, there was just no b.s. from the vendors. They got it. They understood they were in trouble. We skipped past the entire 'Is it really a bug?' phase, that's still continuing in public (discussions).
TL: But you’ve got to understand why people said that. You acknowledged that in not disclosing the details, you opened yourself up to people being skeptical about the bug.
DK: People are allowed to be very, very skeptical. But, you know, don't be so skeptical that you're telling people to not patch.
This is a really bad bug. And for everyone who (says), Oh, I knew about this years ago . . . no, you didn't. Stop pretending you did. Because every time you say it, another network doesn't patch (their system).
This (attack takes) ten seconds to hijack the net. . . . Unless you like other people reading your e-mail, go patch. If you want to actually see Google and Yahoo and MySpace and Facebook and the entire web, if you actually want to see the correct web sites, go patch. The debate about whether this bug is new or old is ultimately useless. In ten seconds, the ISP DNS servers are taken over.
TL: It was kind of pie-in-the-sky to think that everyone was going to sit on their hands for 30 days and not post information about what they thought the bug was wasn't it?
DK: You know, a lot of people did. The guys who were actually smart enough to find the bug (didn't disclose it). The people who have been complaining have been people who couldn’t figure it out.
The people who could figure it out e-mailed me privately. And that says a lot. . . . The people who were good enough to figure out the bug by themselves I am incredibly gracious and appreciative of them for mailing me and helping me get the thirteen days that I got.
TL: How quickly did you get the first response from someone who discovered what the bug was?
DK: It was a couple of days.
TL: How far along are people in patching the DNS servers? Do you know how many have been patched?
DK: Way more than I ever would have hoped, (but) less than I would have liked. We were in the high double digits (in terms of percentages). We were getting some pretty good pickup on this patch. The last time I looked at people who were testing against my site it was somewhere in 30 to 40 percent . . . people who were going to my site to test their name servers.
There are a couple million name servers on the internet. There are many million more that are not physically on the internet but are behind firewalls. Ultimately any name server that is not patched is vulnerable and will probably eventually be attacked. The attack is just too good and too easy. My grandma's going to be in the audience (at Black Hat). My grandma's going to understand the bug."

(Via Wired News.)

A Mac tablet? Not just no, but 'heck no'

2008-07-23T12:16:00.001-04:00

I agree with this piece, despite (or perhaps because of) using one of the original Apple Newtons, although interestingly, the doctors practice that I attend uses Windows based tablets for their nurses, doctors and support staff. They aren't designers and tend to use this to tick off items on check-lists, add the odd comment ("cholesterol STILL too high" in my case!) and similar.

Since Apple's third quarter conference call, the rumor mill has been grinding its latest batch of corn: or what natives call 'the MacBook tablet.' The endless list of features, the bad Photoshop: It's already here.

Every time Apple has whetted our appetites for new products, the same people keep predicting a tablet-style device, and, since the Newton, they've yet to be right.

I know tablets are useful to some, but is Apple going to make one? Not just no: Heck no. Picture trying to drive with your hands in front of your face the whole time. If you design with a computer, a tablet of any kind just isn't for you.

Join me for a medium-sized rant about this Mac tablet, why it's a bad for Apple, and why they won't sell it.

Continue reading A Mac tablet? Not just no, but 'heck no'

First look at the Live Mesh client on Mac OS X

2008-07-23T11:40:00.001-04:00

First look at the Live Mesh client on Mac OS X: "

Last week, with some help from our friends at LiveSide.net, we got a first look at a mobile web version of Microsoft Windows Live Mesh. It's working great on my iPhone, but for now it does seem a bit limited when compared to the same portal on a Windows Mobile device. Keep in mind that Live Mesh is still in a preview state, so there's bound to be bugs and functionality still in the works.

The LiveSide folks just came through again and I now have a first look at the Live Mesh client on my MacBook Pro. This app is still in a pre-beta state, so there's bound to be changes, but from what I've seen, most of the functions are there and working. With the client on my Intel-based MacBook Pro running OS X 10.5.4, I was able to add my Mac as a device to my Mesh and all of my files and folders within ~~the Matrix~~ my Mesh are in sync. Files and folders on my Vista-based UMPC are appearing on my Mac and vice versa.

For the moment, the largest bit of functionality I don't see working in

the Mac version is the Remote Desktop function. It's likely still in

the works, so certainly not a big deal to not see it in an early version of the app. I expect to see it because the caution sign on my MacBook Pro in my Mesh devices is there due to the Remote Connection function not working yet. In any case, there are other alternatives if you need this functionality now, i.e.: LogMeIn is free and works great for me on all of my devices.

So what is there and working? I have my Live Desktop, News, files,

folders, etc... the Mac version inserts itself in the Menu bar, where

you can navigate to files and folders as needed. Here, you can see the

three folders I have in my Live Mesh. Obviously, clicking the New

Folder option creates a new folder in the Mesh, while clicking Add

Existing Folder lets you browse and choose a folder that's on the local

machine; that folder will then be shared across devices on your Mesh.

The next two options will open up your Live Desktop to show News, or a

history of files and folder changes, or will allow you to manage the

devices in your Mesh. Remember that even without the client, you can see and use most of this right over the Live Mesh website in Safari or Firefox.

Just as you can for Windows devices, you can control the

synchronization settings for individual files and folders. They can be

synched across the Mesh when being added or modified, when opened or not

at all.

Here I've opened the Test Files folder from the menu bar; you can

see that it opens in Finder on the Mac, as expected. You can also see

Live Mesh properties in a separate window alongside: it provides the

ability to see the folder history, the Live Mesh members I might have

shared this folder with and also what devices this folder is

synchronized with.

I like how folders in the Mesh appear differently when connected or disconnected from Live Mesh. Here's the Test files folder on my Mac Desktop when connected.

And here's the same folder on my Desktop when not connected. Looks like a regular file for now, but once we connect again, everything gets back in sync.

All in all, this client is looking to be similar (if not nearly

identical) to the Windows client. And that makes sense. The goal from a

consumer standpoint isn't to have many different looks and ways to get

at the same set of data. The goal is to have your data easily accessible from

any of your devices. Although it's very early yet, it looks like

Microsoft is well on its way to meet that goal, regardless of whether you

use a mobile phone, a PC or a Mac. Just for kicks, here's the same folder view on my UMPC; yes, it's Windows Explorer and not Finder, but the files are there for use just the same.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the final Mesh product. The ability to work cross-platform is very appealing to me as I'm a 'use the right tool for the task' kind of guy. If Live Mesh can be the glue that keeps all of my data together and available, so much the better.

Before I forget, I'll just make a general comment or observation on Live Mesh performance in general. Don't take it as an 'end-all, be-all' performance commentary since the service is still in preview. However, it's a good sign to me that on the Mac, I only see the client using between one and two percent of the CPU at any given time.

(Via jkOnTheRun.)

As I blogged sometime back: Apple demands Psystar recall Mac clones

2008-07-16T16:56:00.001-04:00

TUAW noted yesterday that the Mac clone maker, Psystar, was sued by Apple for copyright infringement, among other things. According to a recent ZDNet post, Apple wants Psystar to recall all of the Mac clones sold since April. 'Psystar's actions have been committed with intent to damage Apple and to confuse and deceive the public,' Apple claims.

'As a direct and proximate result of Psystar's infringing conduct, Apple has suffered and will continue to suffer lost sales and profits in an amount not yet fully ascertained in an amount to be proven at trial,' Apple notes.

I really don't see how Psystar will be able to recover all of the Mac clones sold since April. But, if you bought one, would you send it back? I certainly wouldn't. Engadget, our sister blog, is also looking deeply into this high-profile lawsuit. They take a look at what each allegation means for both Apple and Psystar.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

One bad Apple: Server problems spoil iPhone 3G launch

2008-07-11T15:55:00.001-04:00

By Katie Marsal
Published: 03:00 PM EST

Apple Inc.'s iPhone 3G roll-out has quickly shifted from the much ballyhooed consumer electronics launch of the year into a nightmare for both the company and its loyal customers.

Thousands of new iPhone 3G buyers around the world are stuck Friday with iPhone's that aren't able to make calls, as the iTunes servers required to fully activate them experienced a high-tech meltdown due to an overwhelming number of simultaneous requests, ultimately falling offline.

The issues almost immediately soured the US launch of the highly anticipated touchscreen handset, as the backlog of activations kept thousands of other customers waiting in long lines outside of retail stores much longer than they or Apple had anticipated.

What's more, the problems trickled down to first-generation iPhone owners who were attempting to upgrade their devices with version 2.0 of the handset's software, which was also released Friday. Unlike previous updates, the 2.0 release completely erases all data on first-generation iPhones and deactivates them before installation.

After installation, the phones are required to connect to Apple's iTunes servers for reactivation -- the same servers that had fallen offline due to requests for new iPhone 3G activations. As such, existing iPhone owners attempting to update their software were also left with phones that were unable to make calls.

The issues appear to be a result of Apple underestimating the number of simultaneous worldwide connections to its iTunes servers during the iPhone 3G launch, a problem that wasn't helped by the simultaneous release of new software updates for existing owners.

Unlike last year, when the Cupertino-based company launched its first-generation iPhone exclusively in the U.S. and then later followed up with successive launches in a handful of European countries, this year's launch kicked off in 21 countries over the course of 24 hours.

Attempting to stifle the grey market for iPhones that were being purchased in the U.S., then unlocked and resold overseas at higher prices, Apple also did away with home activation, mandating that each and every new iPhone 3G sold in the U.S. be fully activated before it leaves the store.

Apple has also been experiencing a number of problems getting its new set of 'MobileMe' online tools up and running smoothy. The $99 per year 'push' email and calendar service launched early Thursday morning but was still facing a large number of issues outside of email as of Friday afternoon."

(Via AppleInsider.)

The new 3G iPhone - why?

2008-07-09T16:39:00.001-04:00

Is everybody certifiably insane? People queuing for a week outside the Apple Store in NY, O2 in the UK finding their servers glowing red-hot as millions of Brits attempt to get the jump on the 8a.m. worldwide opening tomorrow. Why? It's a phone FFS! It's not the 2nd coming. It's not the last gig ever by say, The Who. It's a phone! And as it's not able to be bought generally without a contract (and a more expensive one than before!), what's the point?

You can of course send me one. But I'm not wasting my money until somebody figures out a way to (a) jail-break it and (b) more importantly, not require my first born in payment (hear that Ben?).

And this is what it looks like in case you're going shopping, despite what I've said :)

Secrets of Mac trackpad, from iBook to MacBook Air

2008-07-08T19:33:00.001-04:00

Editor’s Note: This story is excerpted from Computerworld. For more Mac coverage, visit Computerworld’s Macintosh Knowledge Center.

Never even thought to find these things out being such a dyed-in-the-wool Windows user (or CLI-type), so the basic stuff is DNA encoded now!

Basic one-finger features
The most basic set of options for Mac trackpads are performed with single-finger motions. These options have been around since long before Mac OS X; they’re supported on every Mac notebook since the original iBook, as well as a handful of earlier PowerBooks.

Although widely supported, many novice users (and some experienced Mac users) aren’t aware of some of these features or their usefulness. Single-finger options include tap to click, tap and drag, and drag lock. They’re pretty basic, but they save time and make using the trackpad more intuitive.

Tap to click: Probably the most underrated of all trackpad options is tap to click. When it’s enabled, a single tap on the trackpad acts as a mouse click.

This allows you to easily make selections without changing your hand position. Simply move the cursor over the item you want to select or button that you want to click, and tap your finger.

Dragging: With dragging enabled, you can tap on an item (such as an icon, a window’s title bar, or text) to select it and move your finger without lifting it off the trackpad. The selected item drags around the screen the same as if you were holding a mouse button down. Lift your finger off the trackpad, and the item is released as if you had taken your finger off the mouse button.

Drag lock: It isn’t uncommon to run up against the edge of the trackpad when you’re dragging an item across the screen, which can lead you to drop the item someplace unintended. That’s where drag lock comes in.

The effective use is the same as dragging, except that the selected item isn’t released when you lift your finger. If you reach the edge of the trackpad, just reposition your finger and keep dragging. A second tap of the trackpad (or a click of the trackpad button) releases the item.

Tip: A secret feature for users of pre-2005 trackpads
Early Mac trackpads could not distinguish input from two fingers, but this deficiency harbored a hidden advantage: If you place a finger at one edge of these trackpads, then place another finger at the opposite edge and remove the first finger, the cursor’s position shifts almost entirely across the screen, eliminating the need to repeatedly drag a finger across the trackpad surface.

This “feature” remained until Apple introduced trackpads capable of understanding two-finger input in 2005.

Two-finger functions
While the single-finger trackpad features have been around for many years, two-finger clicking and scrolling options were introduced on the PowerBook G4 models in 2005 and were added to iBook G4 models later that year. They have become standard features on MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

When enabled, these features prove invaluable, particularly for users accustomed to using multibutton mice and mice with scroll wheels. Since they are hardware-based, they won’t work on pre-2005 notebooks, although you can add similar functionality to some older models using the handy iScroll2 utility.

Two-finger scrolling: When this option is enabled, placing two fingers on the trackpad and moving them across the trackpad simultaneously simulates a scroll wheel on a mouse: The active window scrolls as if you were using the scroll bar. (In OS X Leopard, you can even scroll through background windows.)

Like the scroll ball on Apple’s Mighty Mouse, the trackpad’s two-finger scrolling is omnidirectional, so you can scroll up and down as well as left to right.

Once you’re gotten used to two-fingered scrolling, you’ll find that it becomes an integral part of Web browsing or skimming through documents, because you don’t need to take your focus off of what you’re looking at to keep reading.

Secondary click: No less useful is the two-fingered secondary click option. Windows users are used to right-click with a two-button mouse or trackpad to see options in a contextual menu. Despite Apple’s penchant for one-button mice and trackpads, Mac OS X and many applications make use of similar contextual menus.

Users of pre-2005 Mac notebooks had to press the control key when clicking to simulate right clicking, but in newer models with two-finger secondary clicking enabled, simply tapping the trackpad with two fingers at one time produces the same effect.

Note: This feature was introduced with the MacBook Pro and MacBook in 2006, but PowerBook G4 and iBook models released in 2005 (those that support two-fingered scrolling) will offer it if they are running Mac OS X Leopard.

Multitouch gestures
The most notable and recently added trackpad functions, known as multitouch gestures, were introduced earlier this year on the MacBook Air and later appeared in the most recent MacBook Pro models. (Since the multitouch features rely on new hardware, they’re not available in older models.)

Multitouch gestures take many of the touch-screen gestures used in the iPhone and iPod Touch and bring them to the trackpad. They work particularly well on the MacBook Air, which has a larger than normal trackpad surface area.

Multitouch gestures let you:

Pinch your fingers together and push them apart to zoom in and out of a document
Rotate images by placing one finger (typically the thumb) on the trackpad and then rotating the a second finger around it
Swipe the trackpad with three fingers to navigate through a series of items, such as pages in a browser history or photos in an iPhoto album
On Macs that support multitouch gestures, the Trackpad options in System Preferences provide video tutorials of how to use the features.

Although multitouch gestures have an extreme cool factor, they can also be helpful in navigating and zooming, particularly when working with Web pages in Safari, images in iPhoto or Aperture, or images and PDF files in Preview.

See Computerworld’s Ken Mingis demonstrating the new multitouch gestures in this short video.

Note that unlike the trackpad features introduced on earlier Mac notebooks, multitouch gestures require application support. This means that not all gestures are supported in all applications, or even in some parts of the Finder.

This is understandable because these gestures are creating specific effects that will work differently depending on the type of application or media they’re being used with. Earlier trackpad options, by contrast, simply simulate standard input-device functionality that works the same regardless of the application.

Some extra trackpad tidbits
In addition to the basic single-finger, two-finger, and multitouch gesture options for trackpads, there are a few noteworthy additional options. In some cases, these are model-specific, and in others they are general options.

Screen zooming: This option, which can also be used with a mouse, lets you hold down a modifier key (by default the control key) while swiping you hand up or down on the trackpad to zoom the entire display in or out. This can be a handy way of getting a closer look at images or hard to read text without resetting your display’s resolution.

In addition to changing the modifier key, you can specify when the feature is available and whether to smooth the edges of images and text while zooming.

Ignore accidental trackpad input: It isn’t uncommon for notebooks users to accidentally brush the trackpad with a palm, wrist or forearm while typing. Typically, this places the cursor somewhere else on-screen (such as an entirely different application) or selects text in the wrong part of the document.

This option tells the Mac to ignore any input from the trackpad at the same time that keys are being pressed (other than special modifier keys), thus ensuring that the cursor stays in place when you’re typing.

Ignore trackpad when mouse is present: This does exactly what it implies: ignores any trackpad input if a mouse or other pointing device is attached to a Mac notebook. This prevents accidental input if you brush the trackpad with your hand or arm.

Finally, don’t forget to adjust the speeds required for the cursor tracking, double-clicking and, on machines that support it, two-fingered scrolling.

Put your trackpad on steroids
If Apple’s array of trackpad features isn’t enough for you, you may want to check out SideTrack (shareware, $15). An alternate trackpad driver, SideTrack enables a whole new range of special gestures and other tricks.

With SideTrack, you can create horizontal and vertical “scroll zones” along the edges of the trackpad (as some Windows notebooks offer), map the trackpad button as a left- or right-click, map the action taken when you tap on the trackpad to varying types of clicking and dragging features, and even map the taps in the corners of trackpad to specific features (much as you can with a multibutton mouse).

SideTrack works on a much wider range of older Mac notebooks than Apple’s built-in features do. Ironically, though, SideTrack doesn’t currently support the newest MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models with multitouch trackpads.

UPDATED: A dictionary for US readers...

2008-07-03T11:27:00.001-04:00

...if there are any readers out there, Septic or otherwise, you may find this helpful when attempting to decode some of the posts (written in The Queen' English I hasten to add - sorry Matt!) on this site http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/ and if you're interested in Cockney Rhyming Slang, then this will help you to baffle your fellow Americans - be careful, if you think English English is hard, this is a whole new language! http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/. And finally, from a friend on CIX, Mike Todd, here's his lexicon of terms.

A dictionary for US readers...

2008-07-02T17:50:00.001-04:00

10.5.4 is in Software Update Now and installs just fine here...

2008-06-30T18:18:00.001-04:00

10.5.4 is in Software Update Now!: "

Filed under: Software Update

Fire up Software Update - Mac OS X 10.5.4 is available NOW! According to the update KB article listed above, the update includes:

General

Recent Apple security updates.

Resolves an issue with saving and reopening Adobe Creative Suite 3 ﬁles on a remote server.

Includes additional RAW image support for several cameras.

Addresses an issue that may result in a partially installed X11 application.

Improves L2TP VPN client reliability.

AirPort

Addresses AirPort reliability issues with 5GHz networks.

Addresses AirPort issues that may result in slower performance in Logic Studio or MainStage.

iCal

Improves overall iCal reliability for meeting requests, cancellation notices, delegation, and syncing with iPhone.

Resolves an issue that prevents deleting an iCal event without notifying the creator.

Addresses an issue in which events in all calendars affect availability. A checkbox now enables information-only calendars to be transparent from free/busy lookups.

Resolves a UI issue preventing delegated calendars from showing up as a separate window.

Addresses an issue with copying and pasting attendees from one event to another.

Resolves an issue in which iCal may not delete events after a speciﬁed time interval, even when set to do so in iCal preferences.

Addresses an issue in which To Dos cannot be marked private.

Safari

Addresses a potential performance issue when loading secure web pages.

Resolves issues that may be encountered when accessing secure web pages with client certificates that reside on a smart card.

Spaces and Exposé

Addresses an issue in which switching from a space with a Finder window keeps the Finder as the active application instead of the application residing in the destination space.

Fixes an issue in which dragging an application from the list of application assignments in Spaces System Preferences does not assign the application to the desired space.

Resolves an Exposé issue that may result in only a subset of windows being shown.

There are also a number of security changes listed in the security KB article as well.

Found Footage: Boost your MacBook's RAM

2008-06-29T09:23:00.001-04:00

Found Footage: Boost your MacBook's RAM: "

Filed under: Macbook Pro, MacBook, Found Footage

Have you ever thought about upgrading your MacBook's scrawny 2GBs of RAM that Apple ships to something a little more deserving? Well, ChannelFlip has a very cool video showing you how to upgrade the RAM in either a MacBook or MacBook Pro. In addition they tested the performance of the 2GB and 4GB Apple RAM and the new Corsair 4GB low-latency Mac RAM. They show off the results in the video.

Thanks, Wil!

Read'|'Permalink'|'Email this'|'Comments

(Via Clippings.)

MacRuby

2008-06-25T14:41:00.001-04:00

MacRuby ‘is a version of Ruby 1.9, ported to run directly on top of Mac OS X core technologies such as the Objective-C common runtime and garbage collector, and the CoreFoundation framework. While still a work in progress, it is the goal of MacRuby to enable the creation of full-fledged Mac OS X applications which do not sacrifice performance in order to enjoy the benefits of using Ruby.’
(Via ranchero.com.)

Very interesting piece: The iPhone as money

2008-06-11T13:58:00.001-04:00

The iPhone as money: "This week’s iPhone 3G news has Christopher Breen daydreaming of a future where the phone’s ability to know where it is and be able to purchase stuff based on location leads to new possibilities:

What prompts his examination are two iPhone features that, while currently considered merely convenient, have the potential to change the way we obtain information, goods, and services. Those two features are the iPhone’s new location and communications protocols—WiFi, EDGE/3G, cell-tower triangulation, and GPS—and the existing iTunes WiFi Music Store.

Specifically, there’s incredible power in a device that knows where it is and that can purchase stuff based on its location.

We already have an example of this power in the form of iPhone-friendly Starbucks outlets. Walk into such a Starbucks and a new Starbucks entry appears within the phone’s iTunes application. Tap it and you can learn what’s recently been played in the store and then purchase one of these tracks simply by tapping a Buy button.

So, let’s move beyond Starbucks and forward in time to capabilities the iPhone could add a little farther down the line.

You’re just blown into town for a business trip and you’d like to eat somewhere other than in the hotel’s restaurant. You and your iPhone leave the hotel and stroll down Main Street. Tap the iPhone’s Local button and a screen appears featuring Shopping, Services, Restaurants, and Entertainment entries. Tap Restaurants and every eating establishment within a mile appears. Choose a cuisine, find a place that sounds interesting, tap its name, and its menu appears—complete with the day’s specials. Tap Reservation and the iPhone tells you if there’s a wait for a table. Tick off the items on the menu that you’d like and tap Order. Head to the restaurant. As you walk in the door, your iPhone tells the receptionist that you’re there and ready to be seated at the table reserved for you. Moments after you sit down your cocktail is delivered as, later, is your dinner. When you’re ready to leave, get up and go, your iPhone has already paid.

Or…

It’s 11 a.m. and time for your coffee break. Leave the office and stroll the 14 steps to the café next door. Your iPhone vibrates and asks if you’d like the usual double-wet cappuccino. Of course you do, so you tap Yes. Within a minute your name is called and you have your caffeine-rich libation in hand. Again, no cash or credit card necessary because your iPhone automatically picked up the tab.

Or…

Clothes.

Groceries.

Books.

Electronics.

Whatever.

The benefits to just about everyone save restaurant servers and retail clerks is obvious. Customers can learn about inventory and pricing before walking into a store, they can obtain what they want with ease, and they needn’t stand in line to pay for their purchases.

And Apple? How’s a penny a transaction sound? Put enough iPhones in pockets, establish and distribute the infrastructure to retail (with, of course, the promise of Minority Report-style push advertising), and Apple could be as successful in the financial space as it is in the music market.

All because of a mobile phone.

Just imagine.

(Via Macworld.)

Agreement? Apple's worst logo ever?

2008-06-11T09:45:00.001-04:00

After my earlier post here, I saw this one:

I'm eager to test out Apple's upcoming MobileMe service, the .Mac replacement scheduled to launch in a few weeks. Unfortunately for many, my enthusiasm is matched by disdain for the MobileMe logo.

Gawker says '...it should be on a package of Japanese soap.' Paul Thurrott notices a similarity between MobileMe and Microsoft WindowsME and Manhattan Offender asks flat-out: 'Is 'MobileMe' the worst logo in the history of Mac?'

First of all, Manhattan Offender, Apple is the company that produced MobileMe and its graphic representation, not 'Mac.'

Remember, Apple is pushing this (get it?) as 'Exchange for the rest of us.' It's not a corporate product, but a consumer service with corporate-like features. We think the logo is airy and fun.

What's your take? Decent enough or utter garbage?
(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

UPDATE: Just downloaded the beta of Safari 4.0 and my initial impression is that it's FAST!

2008-06-10T20:56:00.001-04:00

And something I missed before:

Safari 4 adds the ability to Save a webpage as an application, similar functionality to the third-party application Fluid.

Apple has seeded developers with a copy of the new Safari 4, which adds some new features and is based on a newer version of WebKit. Apple is also rumored to be using the SquirrelFish JavaScript engine which allows for faster Javascript processing.

New to this version of Safari is the ability to save webpages as 'Web Applications.' This new feature allows Safari to save pages similar to the way Fluid does. You also have the ability to choose how new windows will open (i.e. with your favorite bookmark, blank page, etc.).

One of the biggest 'features' is the fact that Safari 4 (along with the new version of WebKit) scored a perfect 100/100 on the Acid3 test. If you are inclined to see what the new version looks like, World of Apple has placed some screen grabs on their blog for your viewing pleasure. (Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

My chat client of choice: Adium Beta "Even More Psychic"...

2008-06-10T19:53:00.001-04:00

The newest beta of Mac instant messenger Adium boasts a super-cool new feature—the ability to pop a new chat when one of your contacts starts typing a message to you (but before he or she hits Send.) Neat! (Via Lifehacker.)

Am I alone in thinking that "MobileMe" sucks as a service name?

2008-06-09T16:57:00.001-04:00

It's twee and reminds me of those awful Austin Power films. This is what the .Mac service is now being re-branded to. Oh well. I probably am a lone voice :)

WWDC and Steve Jobs....

2008-06-09T14:46:00.001-04:00

.....not going to blog this myself as (a) I'm not there and (b) Wired are doing a fine, fine job here. But so far, 3G and GPS confirmed in the iPhone 2, lots of amazing new apps available soon and a substantial price drop, plus Snow Leopard (the next revision of OSX) to be talked about later. Keep an eye on this feed as they seem to be up to the minute...

Ah, I did wonder - Amazon.com's US site KO'd! Saves me hitting the plastic I suppose...

2008-06-06T15:21:00.001-04:00

Amazon.com's US site KO'd!: "

Assailant unknown

Amazon.com has been knocked out of service by an undiagnosed glitch that's making it impossible for people to access the website.…

(Via The Register.)

Hot Tip: iPhone 2 Features Detailed — 3G, GPS, 2xRAM, Thinner, Better Battery and Only $200

2008-06-02T14:30:00.001-04:00

Nice if true :) Will just have to wait for Steve to tell us one way or another next week :)

Hot Tip: iPhone 2 Features Detailed — 3G, GPS, 2xRAM, Thinner, Better Battery and Only $200: "

I just got a hot tip from a programmer at a major software publisher who claims to have seen the specs for the iPhone 2. This is unconfirmed, but according to the tipster, the iPhone 2 will be announced by Steve Jobs at Apple’s WWDC on June 9, and will much offer more for much less — and be thinner to boot.

The iPhone 2 will have:

2 x memory (16GB and 32GB)

22 percent thinner

Better battery life

The tipster says Apple will subsidize the iPhone’s price to better compete with RIM’s Blackberry. The London Times is reporting the same thing — that the iPhone will cost about $200 in the UK when it goes on sale in July.

(Via Cult of Mac.)

Automate Your Home With Open-Source Software

2008-05-29T20:33:00.001-04:00

Nice :)

Must try this at the apartment:

Automate Your Home With Open-Source Software: "Forget to turn the lights off? Want to warm up the hot tub while you're still on the slopes? Use free software and inexpensive wiring components to control your home appliances from afar. In Wired's How-To Wiki.

(Via Wired News.)

Interesting concept: Glide ‘mobile OS’ adds new features, new design

2008-05-29T15:37:00.001-04:00

Glide ‘mobile OS’ adds new features, new design: "Glide, the mobile operating system software, has gotten major enhancements in its 3.0 release.

(Via Macworld.)

10.5.3 brings Gmail/Address Book sync... for iPhone users

2008-05-28T15:54:00.001-04:00

10.5.3 brings Gmail/Address Book sync... for iPhone users: "

Apple snuck in a new syncing feature along with that mountain of bug fixes in 10.5.3. Unfortunately, it sounds like not everyone will be able to sync their Address Book and Gmail contacts.

(Via Apple Section - Ars Technica.)

Successful upgrade: Mac OS X 10.5.3 released; squashes slew of 10.5.2 bugs

2008-05-28T15:29:00.001-04:00

Mac OS X 10.5.3 released; squashes slew of 10.5.2 bugs: "A massive update in terms of bugs fixed."

(Via MacFixIt.)

stifle a yawn! Windows 7 Multitouch Demonstration

2008-05-28T12:56:00.001-04:00

Windows 7 Multitouch Demonstration: "Starturtle writes 'Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have shown a small snippet of the upcoming Windows 7 at Walt Mossberg's D: All Things Digital conference. It seems like the Windows team have switched their focus for inspiration from Mac OS X to the iPhone OS. Multitouch is the biggest addition, and will appear system-wide, usable anywhere. The most interesting part of the touch UI is not the eye candy, it's the Task Bar, which seems to have morphed into a pie menu.'

The common myths about Macs

2008-05-16T13:51:00.001-04:00

The common myths about Macs: "

What prevented David Alison from switching to Mac? For a long time he stuck with common myths that kept him from considering a Mac over a Windows machine.

(Via MacMegasite.)

Avoid the potholes when switching from Windows to Mac

2008-05-15T08:55:00.001-04:00

Avoid the potholes when switching from Windows to Mac: "

Thinking about switching from Windows to Mac? Got a shiny new Mac and you want to learn the ropes quickly after spending years on Windows? Got a friend that just converted and they say the Mac doesn't work like Windows? David Alison's quick guide should help overcome the most common problems new switchers encounter.

(Via MacMegasite.)

An Inside Look at the Great Firewall of China

2008-05-12T12:24:00.001-04:00

An Inside Look at the Great Firewall of China: "alphadogg writes 'An interview with James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, who has experienced 'The Great Firewall of China' firsthand, an experience people from around the world will share this summer when the Olympics comes to that country. Based in Beijing, Fallows has researched the underlying technology that the Chinese use for Internet censorship. One good thing to know: With VPNs and proxies, you can get around it pretty easily.' Will these Olympics lead to a more free China, or is it just corporate pandering?

Shame :( Free AT&T WiFi for iPhone users not currently accessible

2008-05-05T12:02:00.001-04:00

My earlier post showed a "hack" allowing free W-Fi access by "emulating" an iPhone. This seems to have been stopped, at least for the moment:

Free AT&T WiFi for iPhone users not currently accessible: "

Last week, Starbucks locations in Texas and California started offering free AT&T WiFi access to iPhone users. Users now report the service is currently unavailable, however.

(Via Apple Section - Ars Technica.)

Only in America! No-fly list grounds US Air Marshals

2008-05-02T12:46:00.001-04:00

I'm sorry, this made me laugh out loud and I just HAD to share it with you. The people tasked with guarding US citizens are being "grounded" and refused the right to fly because their names are on the DHS "No Fly List". That's irony guys. Do you get the concept now? :)

No-fly list grounds US Air Marshals: "

Bureaucrat's memo takes on blacklist madness

One aspect of the American response to air safety in the year after the September 11 attacks that generated relatively little controversy was welcome expansion of the Federal Air Marshal program - other than some concerns about what kind of weapons could be used safely within a pressurized cabin, really, who could complain about extra beat cops in the sky? Airport rent-a-cops, that's who.…

(Via The Register.)

"Be careful out there!" - your personal data just got permanently cached at the US border

2008-05-01T19:54:00.001-04:00

Your personal data just got permanently cached at the US border: "

Fact or fiction? US Feds won't say

Now that US customs agents have unfettered access to laptops and other electronic devices at borders, a coalition of travel groups, civil liberties advocates and technologists is calling on Congress to rein in the Department of Homeland Security's search and seizure practices. They're also providing practical advice on how to prevent trade secrets and other sensitive data from being breached.…

(Via The Register.)

Get Free Wi-Fi Access on Your Laptop at Starbucks, Barnes and Noble

2008-05-01T18:58:00.001-04:00

Get Free Wi-Fi Access on Your Laptop at Starbucks, Barnes and Noble [Free Wi-Fi]: "

Our gadget-obsessed brothers at Gizmodo report that many AT&T hotspots—including Starbucks and Barnes and Noble—have started offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users. With a little ingenuity, the same free Wi-Fi access can be granted to your laptop. Using it from your iPhone, you just connect to the hotspot and give the site your iPhone number. To get the same access on your laptop, the key is to fool the hotspot into thinking your browser is still an iPhone. Here's how:

To masquerade as an iPhone, you'll need to tweak your browser's user agent, which web sites use to identify your browser when you connect to the site. In Firefox, you can install the previously mentioned User Agent Switcher. In Safari, you can select the iPhone user agent through the Develop menu (which you can enable by navigating to Preferences -> Advanced and checking 'Show Develop menu in menu bar.' Likewise, Opera has user agent switching built in. On the non-Safari browsers, you'll have to manually add a new iPhone user agent like so.

Now that you're all set up with your spoofed iPhone user agent, head to the hotspot page and enter your iPhone number (or, if you've got permission, maybe the number of an iPhone owner you know).* Once you're done, you should hopefully have free hotspot access from your full screen rather than your tiny iPhone screen.

I haven't actually been able to verify this yet (though there are reports of success), so if you give it a try, let's hear how it worked for you in the comments.

*One Gizmodo reader using his unlocked iPhone with T-Mobile reports that entering his T-Mobile number worked, but your mileage may vary.

(Via Lifehacker.)

Hack Attack: A guide for switching to a Mac

2008-04-30T21:57:00.001-04:00

Hack Attack: A guide for switching to a Mac: "

by Adam Pash

If Amazon's hot holiday seller list is any indication, a lot of you got new Macs this holiday season. If you switched to a Mac from a PC, you've probably noticed that there are a lot of differences between the two.

When I bought my first Mac a few short months ago, it took a while to figure out how to do all the stuff I already knew how to do on my PC. While it's my job to spend time figuring that sort of thing out, there's no need for you to waste your precious time figuring out the minutia of a new operating system. To ease this transition for all of the new Mac owners out there, I've put together a quick guide for Mac newbies making the big switch.

What follows is a round-up of everything that stuck out to me when I made the move to my first Mac. I'm still a dual-OS fellow, but after I figured out the ins and outs of my Mac, it's by far the place I find easiest to get things done. If you're delving into Macs for the first time, the following should come in handy.

Mac OS X Keyboard symbols

You're a lifehacker and you know all the good keyboard shortcuts on your Windows PC. So the first thing you'll want to do is get familiar with keyboard shortcuts on your Mac. This seems easy enough - except for the fact that Macs use a strange and foreign set of hieroglyphics for their shortcut keys. Some of the most familiar shortcuts are:

The Apple/Command key is the main modifier on your Mac. Contrary to its Windows counterpart, the Windows key, the Command key does much of the work that the Control key does on a Windows PC. So don't go hitting the Apple key expecting a system menu to pop up out of nowhere, because it ain't gonna happen. Instead, plan on using this for your most common keyboard shortcuts.

Like I said above, the Control key on the Mac isn't used in the same way as the Control key on a Windows PC. I use it most often when I'm 'right-clicking' on my Mac - often referred to as Ctrl-Click. The Ctrl key also comes in handy in a lot of other ways, like the Ctrl-Tab tab switching in Firefox.

I use the Alt/Option key most often to skip words in a document (and highlight words when used in conjunction with the Shift key) - much like the Ctrl-Arrow functions work on a PC. Like the Mac Control Shortcut, the Option key finds its way into your shortcut workflow here and there (for example, it's also very handy for accenting letters), but not as often as the Command key.

Though Command, Control, and Option are the three main modifiers/symbols you'll see on your Mac, you'll certainly stumble onto several other cryptic communiqués when you're trying to figure out a new shortcut, like the wacky Escape symbol and the big upcase Shift arrow. For a more comprehensive list of the Mac's keyboard symbols, check out this handy reference table.

Keyboard shortcuts

Luckily, when it comes to the actual keyboard shortcuts, a lot of the shortcuts on your Mac are the same as they are on your Windows PC; generally you can just swap Command for Control for a lot of the standards. For example, the Ctrl-C/X/V for Copy/Cut/Paste become Cmd-C/X/V. Simple, right?

Instead of boring you with a long list of keyboard shortcuts like those, I'm just going to highlight some of the less obvious shortcuts.

Force Quit: When a program freezes up on your Windows PC and you want to force it closed, you hit Ctrl-Alt-Delete. On your Mac, you'll hit Cmd-Alt-Escape. This brings up the Force Quit dialog - a similar tool to the task manager for the purpose of closing unresponsive apps.

Window switching: If you're any sort of keyboard junkie, you've used Alt-Tab on your Windows PC all the time to switch between open windows. Your Mac works in a similar manner, with a small variation. Command-Tab switching between running applications, while Cmd-`/Cmd-~ (the backtick/tilde key) will switch between open windows within one running applications (i.e., Cmd-Tab will switch to Firefox, but Cmd-` will switch between open Firefox windows).

Minimize/Hide: You can minimize a window to the dock from your keyboard by pressing Cmd-M. Alternatively, you can also Hide an application by pressing Cmd-H. The difference between a Minimize and a Hide is that hiding an application hides every window of that app, and it does not push anything to the Dock. Instead, all application windows disappear from your view until you switch back to the application. In my experience, the benefit of using Hide over Minimize is that you can Cmd-Tab back to a hidden application and it will be restored to your screen; if you Minimize a window and then Cmd-Tab to the app, the window will remain minimized to the Dock.

Opening the selected file: Chances are you've opened a file or program on your Windows desktop by selecting the file and then hitting the Enter key to launch it. If you're anything like me, you do this a lot. The problem is, when you try doing the same thing on your Mac, your Mac thinks you want to rename the file instead of open it (don't ask me why). If you want to open the file, you have to hit Cmd-O (for open).

Backspace vs. Delete: On Macs, the Backspace key as you know it is called Delete. And the Delete key deletes from right to left, just like the Backspace key. If you want to delete text from left to right (à la the Windows Delete key), you have to press Function-Delete (particularly if you're on a laptop).

Finally, if you want to delete a file or folder from the comfort of your keyboard, select the file and press Cmd-Delete. It'll go straight to the Trash.

Closing windows and apps: In the Windows environment, whenever you close the last open window from a program, that program quits. Things work differently in the Mac world.

Cmd-W will close the active window (incidentally, Ctrl-W will also close most - but not all - Windows apps), however - unlike the Windows world - once you've closed the last window of an application, the app continues to run. If you actually want to quit a Mac app, you hit Cmd-Q (for Quit). When you first start working on a Mac, you'll want to keep this in mind so you don't end up wasting your system memory on several apps you're not using.

For a deeper look at Mac keyboard shortcuts, check out our Mac OS X and keyboard shortcuts tags. Specifically, you might want to check out a few secret (and not so secret) Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts.

Login Items

Any Windows user worth his/her salt knows about a handy tool called the System Configuration Utility, which, among other things, lets you control which applications you want to run on startup (generally these are system tray apps). Similarly, you can use the Login Items tab of the Accounts menu in the preference pane to define which apps/files/scripts will run every time you start up your computer.

Here's a little further reading on managing your Mac's startup.

Installing apps

This may seem like somewhat of a no brainer for Mac veterans, but when you switch to a Mac from a PC, you may find the installation process of new applications a bit confusing at first. That's because, in general, there's absolutely nothing to it. When you download an application (generally in the form of a compressed .dmg file, which will mount as a drive when you open it), you're pretty much done with the installation process. You can run an application (marked by the .app extension) from anywhere on your computer, and there's really no installation to it. Broadly speaking, the installation of a new Mac app generally consists of moving the new application to your Applications folder. Many apps make this very simple, like the mounted Firefox .dmg above.

Unless you have your own system for arranging apps on your Mac, copying new apps to the Applications folder is a good practice. What you don't want to do is forget to move the app from the .dmg folder to your hard disk.

Hard drive structure

Another slight source of confusion you might encounter when switching to a Mac is the structure of your hard disk, namely what difference there is between the Macintosh HD and the Home folder (named with your login ID). Simply put, your Home folder (marked in Finder by the tilde [~]) is sort of like the C:\Documents and Settings\User section of your Windows PC. All of the user-specific data is kept in the Home folder, like your documents, pictures, music, and Desktop shortcuts. It's not a particularly difficult thing to understand, but it can seem a bit confusing if you're not used to it.

The Dock

The last thing I'm going to touch on is the Dock - that cool little quicklaunch/taskbar rolled into one. You can launch, quit, minimize, and restore applications from the Dock. It's not strictly the same as the Windows taskbar, but in general it pulls a lot of the same duty. If you're a big keyboard shortcut user, chances are you won't use the Dock all that much, but it's a good idea to get a feel for what's going on there.

Sensibly swapping from XP to a Mac? XTastes 1.0b8 - Helps switchers find useful freeware

2008-04-30T21:50:00.001-04:00

XTastes 1.0b8 - Helps Mac switchers find useful freewares. (Free): "

XTastes 1.0b8

XTastes helps recent Mac switchers find useful freeware for Mac OS X with ease and CoverFlow feature for Leopard.

More information

(Via MacUpdate - Mac OS X.)

Whilst breakfasting, this article caught my eye...

2008-04-26T04:16:00.001-04:00

Driving back to Gatwick for tomorrow's flight, I stopped off for a sandwich for breakfast, a triple espresso and to use the free wi-fi and this article about a lady who used her (stolen) Mac PowerBook to track, identify and (by the time you read this, probably...), have the thief arrested seemed a perfect use of technology:

California Woman Uses Remote Control Software To Track Stolen MacBook: "was documenting the entire process"

(Via Cult of Mac.)

Think you can depend on the iPhone for location? Think again!

2008-04-16T15:25:00.001-04:00

Researchers meddle with iPhone/iTouch Skyhook location tech: "

Swiss researchers have succeeded in spoofing iPhone and iPod touch locations by impersonate WiFi access points and jamming other WiFi signals. Don't depend on that Skyhook tech to save your life, I guess.

(Via Apple Section - Ars Technica.)

Who'd have thought it: IBM study shows that its own engineers are hot for Macs

2008-04-16T15:18:00.001-04:00

IBM study shows that its own engineers are hot for Macs: "

A pilot program tested the viability of offering MacBook Pros to workers in IBM's research division. After the majority of the participants decided to not go back to their ThinkPads, IBM decided to expand the program for 2008.

(Via Apple Section - Ars Technica.)

The Joy of Tech #1094, Expectations for the 3G iPhone.

2008-04-16T08:24:00.001-04:00

What do you think?

JoT #1094, Expectations for the 3G iPhone.: "

We can rebuild it; we have the technology. We can make it better than it was before.

Click here to visit the comic.

(Via The Joy of Tech.)

A confession...

2008-04-15T21:41:00.001-04:00

...whilst packing for the impending UK trip to visit Mum in Aileen' nursing home, I came across an old Muse T-shirt that I'd tea-leafed from my son, Ben, some years back! Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Lawyers 1, Everybody else, nil - Forget the Courts — Apple May Fight Mac Clones With Tech

2008-04-15T21:36:00.001-04:00

Forget the Courts — Apple May Fight Mac Clones With Tech: "Patent experts, including an ex-Apple patent attorney, think the Cupertino company may have trouble shutting down a rival computer company selling a low-cost Mac clone.

(Via Wired News.)

Bitten by the lawyer - Blue Jeans Cable CEO Responds to Legal Threat From Monster Cable

2008-04-15T21:10:00.001-04:00

Blue Jeans Cable CEO Responds to Legal Threat From Monster Cable: "

Hilarious response to an apparently bogus big-company-stomping-on-little-company cease and desist:

Dear Monster Lawyers,

Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster’s, in form or in function, the better.[…]

It looks like when you sent this letter, you were operating on the premise that I am not smart enough to see through your deceptions or sophisticated enough to intelligently evaluate your claims; shame on you. You are required, as a matter of legal ethics, to display good faith and professional candor in your dealings with adverse parties, and you have fallen miserably short of your ethical responsibilities.

Via Metafilter, where plenty of commenters attest to the quality of Blue Jeans’s products.

'★'

(Via Daring Fireball.)

Here today, gone today? Miami Company Offers Low-Cost Mac Knock-Off — Apple Lawsuit Sure to Follow

2008-04-14T11:18:00.001-04:00

Miami Company Offers Low-Cost Mac Knock-Off — Apple Lawsuit Sure to Follow: "

A company called Psystar is advertising a $399 pseudo-Mac called the ‘OpenMac,’ which it claims is made from standard PC parts and is compatible with OS X Leopard.

Based in Miami, Florida, Psystar is courting a legal smackdown from Apple, which ended its official ‘clone’ program in 1997 after Steve Jobs returned to run the company. Intended to grow the Mac platform, the clones instead took market share from Apple, seriously impacting its botttom-line.

Which is why Apple will likely pounce on Psystar: the Mac is Apple’s most profitable line, and the last thing Apple wants is a company producing low-cost knockoffs.

Apple will likely center on the use of Leopard: The operating system’s software license forbids it being installed on non-Apple hardware.

Psystar’s butt-ugly OpenMac claims to be a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo machine with 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, integrated Intel graphics, a DVD burner and four USB Ports. Most of the components can be upgraded with better graphics or bigger hard drives. Psystar says:

(Via Cult of Mac.)

MarsEdit and Blogs

2008-04-13T12:31:00.001-04:00

Of course, despite what Matt would argue, the Mac IS of course, the superior platform - for ease of use anyway :) An example is MarsEdit, a great piece of blogging software that allows you to edit and work off-line, test and preview and then post with a few key-strokes. Nothing TOO exceptional about that (although it's a lovely looking piece of code as well) but the integration with, for example Newsnetwire, allowing you quickly to post other interesting RSS feeds directly to your site means that THIS blog will suddenly burst into life again - it's just SO easy and quick. Time poor, resource rich? Get a Mac :)

"It's the end of the world as we know it..."

2008-04-13T12:03:00.001-04:00

A posting by a good friend, Henrik Kiertzner

on CIX, deserves a wider reading, so with grateful acknowledgment to him, here goes:

"Strategically speaking, it doesn't become harm to the human race until
around 10% or more of the total human biomass undergoes an involuntary and
sudden state change to fertiliser. I suspect if we're patient we'll see
this occur before 2020. Look for a return to a good old-fashioned
competition between nation states over resources as soon as the current
fad for war among the people (aka asymmetric warfare) passes*.

Add that to creeping deserts and a sudden application of robust
exclusionary measures on to large populations looking to relocate from
arid hellholes to Europe, an unstable China unable to sustain autarky, an
autarkic Russia with a population heading for the toilet and a properly
imperial America and we can look forward to a particularly exciting and
fragrant 21st Century.

Either that or we'll all learn to live together in peace and harmony.

Note that I make no value judgements here of any description and should
not be taken to endorse any of the above as either good or bad.

*This will occur at the point where the West either gives up expeditionary
warfare altogether or concludes that moderation in war is imbecility.
Given that the need for the former will continue (see resources,
competition for, above), the latter seems to me the more likely outcome."

Trim Down Windows to the Bare Essentials

2008-04-13T11:09:00.001-04:00

One of the ways I've cut down dependency to the bare minimum on Windows, is to run VMWare' Fusion - a virtual machine, running, in this case, atop OS X which allows me to host a number of different operating systems inc. XP and Ubuntu. And in "Unity" mode, Windows apps. appear on my Mac desktop and can be used just LIKE Mac applications. Totally recommended, totally cool :)

But Windows still has loads of cruft built-in which you probably don't need, so in a "slim down" operation detailed below you can make it a little meaner and keener:

Trim Down Windows to the Bare Essentials: "

When you're installing Windows in a virtual machine or on old, slow hardware, you want the leanest, meanest and fastest-running configuration possible. Most of the time, you want the best from your operating system, including all the bells and whistles. Other times, you don't want the default, bloated Windows installation, with every single built-in feature slowing you down. Luckily, whether you want to put Windows on a diet in a virtual machine or you want to get Windows up and running all snappy-like on older hardware, you've got a handful of excellent and free options at your disposal. Let's take a look at a few ways to trim down your Windows installation so that it takes up less space on your hard drive and eats less RAM while it's running.

What's the Point?

There are a lot of reasons you might be interested in lightening up and streamlining a Windows installation. I happen to want a super-lightweight version of Windows to run on VMware Fusion on my Mac, so I can run my must-have Windows applications without allocating a lot of hard drive space or memory to the virtual machine. That means that the virtual machine will run more quickly and take up fewer resources on my Mac.

On the other hand, a lightweight Windows install is also perfect for older hardware that just can't keep up with XP. In fact, your hardware doesn't even have to be that bad to still enjoy benefits of this process. A slimmed down Windows install is also appealing for the performance gains it affords, because it allows your computer to allocate more memory and resources to individual programs rather than the operating system as a whole.

Whatever your reasons for wanting a lightweight Windows install, I'm going to focus on a couple of methods for shrinking Windows XP below. In my examples I'll be explaining how I used the freeware applications nLite and GameXP to optimize my Windows installation for fast performance in a limited environment, like a VMware virtual machine.

Build a Lightweight Windows Install with nLite

Freeware Windows application nLite goes directly into your Windows installation disc and helps you selectively rip out all the features and software you don't want. When you're done (and you can be pretty ruthless), you'll have a new Windows installation disc that you can use to install the lighter, gutted version of Windows. Out of all of the options discussed in this feature, the nLite method will probably give you the best results. Before we dive in, here's what you'll need:

A Windows installation disc

nLite

A computer running Windows to run the nLite wizard and create your new install disc

First, fire up nLite. As you'll see on the welcome screen, nLite works with Windows XP, 2000, and Server 2003. If you want to strip down a Vista installation, you'll want to use the Vista version of nLite, called vLite. I'm sticking with nLite and XP in my example, since right now Vista isn't anywhere as close as XP to what you could reasonably call lightweight.

On the next screen on the installation wizard, nLite will ask you to point it to the location of your Windows installation disc. If you've got a disc in your drive, point it there. Next nLite will ask you to pick a folder on your hard drive to save the stripped install files to.

Once you've pointed nLite to all the right places, click Next to copy all the files from your disc onto your hard drive. Once nLite finishes copying the Windows installation files to the folder you selected on your hard drive (which will take a few minutes), the fun begins.

The next window you'll see is the nLite Presets window, which you can use to replicate a previous nLite session so you can re-create a slimmed-down disc without going through the work of manually selecting the components you want to remove. For example, you could copy everything I've done by grabbing my Last Session.ini file (created after you use nLite) containing all the tweaks I made when streamlining XP for VMware and importing it at the Presets window (pictured) of the nLite wizard. Then, instead of going through all the settings yourself, you could choose my presets file, click Next, accept everything on the Task Selection pane as-is, and click through all the windows until you've created the new installation disc.

NOTE: I'm not including my Last Session.ini file because I haven't been able to test it sufficiently, and I'd hate to spread around a broken version of Windows to everyone.

If you don't want to go with a preset, you can make all the changes you want to at the Task Selection window. At this window, you green light everything you want to include or remove from the installation. For example, if your installation CD currently only includes XP Service Pack 1, you could integrate the SP2 update directly into your nLite disc. Likewise, you can integrate any hotfixes (like the revised Daylight Saving Time hotfix) or drivers into your installation.

For our purposes, however, the important part comes in the Remove section. Whatever your preferences for the rest, be sure to green light the Remove Components section. When you're happy with your Task Selection choices, click Next. The nLite wizard will now walk you through each green-lighted feature. For example, if you chose to integrate a service pack, you'll need to point nLite to the downloaded service pack.

Assuming you chose to remove components, you'll eventually come to the Components step of the nLite wizard. In this step, you choose what components of the Windows installation you want to exclude. You can be brutal in this section, but keep in mind that disabling some components can cripple some Windows features.

To help you rip out as many components as possible while ensuring you don't break any important features, nLite has a Compatibility option that allows you to check important features that you want to keep intact.

For example, I want to make sure my lightweight Windows install can still access the internet, so I've ticked the DHCP functionality (Ethernet and Wi-Fi). Since I'm going the merciless route while slimming my install disc with nLite, I'm selecting just a few compatibility options (as seen in the screenshot.) After choosing those options, I'm going through the Components list and checking off most components I'm not expecting to use—which is most of them—for removal.

This part can take some time, but the nLite wizard does a nice job of informing you of what each component does and what may be affected if you remove it. You can remove most of the components without ever noticing, but keep an eye out when you're going through the list.

Once you've set up your components for removal, click Next to advance to the next step. You'll see different steps depending on what options you gave the green light to earlier, like system tweaks. Here you can conduct all sorts of simple system tweaks that can help with your performance. For example, check out the Performance options for various tweaks. Likewise, you can save on performance overhead by tweaking options in the Visual Effects section. Some, like disabling window animations, can boost performance, while others are more a matter of taste.

Like the Components section, you may want to spend a few minutes deciding what you prefer in this section. Don't stress too much about these choices, though, as none of them should really make anything go wrong with your install.

Finally, if you're happy with all the tweaks you've made so far, click Next to start building your new, streamlined Windows installation. nLite may take some time to extract and create the new, slim, and trim installation files and ISO (which is just the disc image you burn to a CD), but when this process completes, you'll have a streamlined version of Windows that will run in either your virtual machine or your old hardware with ease.

Speed Up Your New Windows Install Even More with Game XP

Now that you've created your very own trimmed-down Windows installation, you're enjoying the performance boost and a smaller memory and hard drive footprint. But you can take things even further by installing and running another freeware application called Game XP. Designed to optimize your system settings and speed up your computer to maximize your gaming experience, Game XP can also be used to throttle unnecessary processing and boost the overall performance of your computer.

Your mileage may vary when you try out Game XP on your system, but give it a try and watch your performance with and without to see if it changes how your lightweight system runs. Game XP runs from an executable file, so there's nothing to install. Just run it whenever you want to try out its speed-boosting capabilities. I haven't had any problems with this program, but I have read a few bad experiences, so proceed with caution.

Put Your Current Windows Install on a Diet with XPlite

Finally, if you've already gone through all the work of installing and setting up Windows just how you like it, you probably don't want to start with a fresh install with the likes of nLite. That doesn't mean that you can't still cut some of the bloat out of Windows. A program called XPlite rips selected components out of XP with the same goal as nLite—it just does it post-installation rather than pre-installation. XPlite comes in a demo version that provides limited removal features and a shareware version that can cut out even more fat.

I'm new to nLite, but using the nLite wizard is a simple process. That said, if you've got experience with nLite—or other similar tools for optimizing and slimming down your Windows performance—let's hear about your experience in the comments. If you're a real pro and you'd like to share your Session.ini file with others, feel free to send them our way to host for others to try out.

UPDATE: I'll include reader-submissted nLite Last Session.ini files below as I receive them:

Z. Patrick Lewis' Last Session.ini

Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who likes his virtual machines light and snappy. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

(Via Lifehacker: Hack Attack.)

Blogging and time.....

2008-04-12T20:21:00.001-04:00

Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800

2008-04-12T20:16:00.001-04:00

Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800: "

If the high price tag for Apple hardware has kept you from buying a Mac but you're willing to roll up your sleeves and get adventurous, you can build your own 'Hackintosh'—a PC that runs a patched version of OS X Leopard. What?!, you say. Apple's move to Intel processors in 2006 meant that running OS X on non-Apple hardware is possible, and a community hacking project called OSx86 launched with that goal in mind. Since then, OSx86 has covered major ground, making it possible for civilians—like you and me!—to put together their own Hackintosh running Mac OS 10.5. Today, I'll show you how to build your own high end computer running Leopard from start to finish for under $800. UPDATE: Building your Hackintosh just got a lot easier. After you build your system using the hardware I've listed in this article, here's how to install OS X on your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required.

Right now the cheapest Mac on sale at the Apple store is a $600 Mac Mini sporting a 1.83GHz proc, 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. For $200 more, your Hackintosh can boast a 2.2GHz proc with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB drive, and a completely upgradeable case for expanding your setup in the future.

Building a DIY Mac requires some work on your part, so be ready to dedicate time to this project. To make things as easy as possible, I'm going to lay out how I built my Hackintosh from start to finish, from the hardware I used to the final patches I applied to the Leopard install. If you can build a Lego set and transcribe text, you've got all the basic skills required.

The Hardware

There's no definitive best bet for a Hackintosh hardware configuration, so you may be able to experiment and come up with a better selection of parts than I did. However, I can guarantee that Leopard will (or at least has) run successfully on this hardware setup.

To make things easy, I've put together my entire hardware setup as a wish list on Newegg. (You may notice that the total price is listed at around $850, but I knocked $110 off the price tag due to a couple of mail-in rebates—so 'Under $800' it remains, however fudgingly.)

The build consists of a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a total of 4GB of RAM (four sticks at 1GB each), an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, a GeForce 7300GT (the same basic video card that comes installed in the default Mac Pro configuration), a 500GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and an Antec Sonata case (which I've always liked for its looks and quiet fans). The motherboard is the most important element, since the patches we'll apply later are tailored specifically for this motherboard. You could probably tweak a lot of the other hardware without many complications, but if you stick with this motherboard and follow the installation instructions, you shouldn't see any major complications.

The Build

Now that you've got all the parts, it's time to start putting your Mac together. We've detailed every step of the computer building process at one point or another in the past here on Lifehacker, so rather than cover that ground again, I'll outline the process with links to our previous instructions. As always, be sure to read your hardware manuals before you begin—particularly from the motherboard—to get to know your hardware before you start the installation. Also, always remember to be careful of static electricity and always keep yourself grounded and your board unpowered until you're finished.

Install the motherboard and CPU: You can follow these instructions almost without variation, but the heatsink and fan installation, in particular, is a touch different. Rather than hooking the heatsink to your motherboard, the included Intel heatsink pops into place. For a more detailed description of how this works, consult your motherboard's manual and the manual included with your processor.

Install your RAM: The only thing you need to keep in mind when you're installing the RAM is that you should install the matched pairs—that is, the pairs that come in the same package—in like colored slots. This isn't strictly necessary, but it's a good practice and generally means better performance.

Install the video card: These instructions actually detail how to install a PCI card, which is just a more general way of looking at your video card. The card we're using is a PCI Express card and should be installed in the top (orange) PCI slot.

Install the hard drive and DVD drive: Your hard drive is an SATA drive, which is not the type of drive installed in the instructions (though they do address SATA drives). Just connect one of the power supply's SATA power cables to the drive and then connect the drive to the red SATA connector on your motherboard (it's labeled on the board as SATA1). Follow the same basic instructions to install your DVD drive but plug the drive into one of the other SATA ports (I used the SATA4 port).

When you've finished putting everything together, your open case should look like the nearly completed image below. In that picture, I've yet to install the hard drive and DVD drive and I still need to connect the case power and other connectors to the motherboard. (You may install other features of the motherboard if you prefer, like the FireWire connector for the back of the case).

To make sure everything's working properly, close it up, plug it into a monitor and keyboard and power it up. If the computer boots into the BIOS (by pressing Delete when prompted), you're ready to move on. If the computer won't boot, you may have to open the case back up and double-check your installation. Among other things, be sure that your RAM is properly seated.

I should note that at this point of my installation, I ran into a bum power supply unit (PSU) in my case. Unfortunately that meant that I didn't know whether the PSU was bunk or my motherboard was fried, and since I don't own a voltage meter it took an extra trip to Fry's and some troubleshooting to get to the bottom of it. The point is that when you're building a PC yourself, you can and should be prepared to run into snags, so if you're not ready to troubleshoot if a problem arises, you may want to think twice before trying this. That said, I've built several PCs in the past and this was my only major snag in the course of a build, so it's also very likely that your build could go off without a hitch.

Either way, as soon as you're able to boot into the BIOS, you're ready to get started with the pre-installation.

Pre-Installation

There are two things you need to tackle to prepare your computer for installation. First, you'll need to tweak your BIOS settings to properly work with the Leopard install. Second, you need to patch the Leopard DVD to install on your newly built Hackintosh computer.

Tweak your BIOS: The first thing I did once my build was finished was update my BIOS, since the default BIOS wasn't properly recognizing my processor. Luckily doing so is pretty simple. Just head over to the ASUS download site, narrow down, and then download the latest BIOS for your motherboard. Once downloaded, just stick the file on a USB flash drive. Then boot up your build and enter the BIOS setup. Like I said above, power on your computer and hit Delete when prompted to boot into the BIOS.

Once you're there, arrow to the Tools tab of the BIOS, select EZ Flash2, and then hit Enter. Now choose your flash drive by tabbing to the appropriate drive, find the BIOS file you downloaded, and install it. When the BIOS has updated, your computer should automatically restart.

Now that you've updated your BIOS, you're ready to get into some nitty gritty preparation. If you plugged in your drives like I suggested during your build, you should see your hard drive and DVD drive listed in the BIOS as Third IDE Master and Fourth IDE Slave. (Don't worry about the fact that your hard drive isn't listed as the Primary IDE Master.) Arrow down to IDE Configuration and hit Enter.

In the IDE config, you want to set 'Configure SATA As' to AHCI. Next hit Escape once to go back to the Main screen. Now hit the right arrow key to move to the Advanced tab. In the Advanced section go to 'Onboard Devices Configuration' and set 'JMicron SATA / PATA Controller' to Disabled.

Now you need to arrow over to the Boot tab to configure the boot priority (which tells your computer what order you want to boot off devices in your computer). Go to 'Boot Device Priority' and set your DVD drive as priority one and your hard drive as priority two.

Done? Then you're ready to move onto patching your Leopard DVD.

Patch Leopard for your Hackintosh: There are a couple of different ways one could go about creating a patched Leopard DVD. The easiest is probably to download an already patched version using BitTorrent (I can attest to having seen the patched version floating around before Demonoid went under, but it's probably available elsewhere as well). The second method requires patching a Leopard DVD yourself, which isn't really as hard as it sounds.

If you decide to go the first route and you find a pre-patched version off BitTorrent, you can skip to the next section. Otherwise, let's get down to work. To patch the Leopard install disc, you'll need a Mac and a pre-patched image of the Leopard installer on your desktop. You can get this in two ways: Either by downloading the image—again with BitTorrent—or by buying and then ripping a Leopard DVD to your hard drive. Either way you choose, when you're finished you should place the ripped installer on your desktop and make sure that it's named osx-leopard105.dmg.

Now it's time to get patching. To do so, you need to grab the patch files (created by the resourceful OSx86 forum member BrazilMac, who bundled the patch files and whose instructions I followed for the installation), which you can download from one of many sources here under the 'FILES FOR THIS GUIDE' section at the top of the page. After you've downloaded the zipped patch files, unzip the archive and drag all of the contents of the archive to your desktop (it should contain two files and three folders in total).

UPDATE: We've removed direct links to the forum post containing the patch files on the OSx86 Scene Forum.

Now open the 9a581-patch.sh shell script in your favorite text editor. At the top of the file, replace XXX with your username on your Mac (so that it reflects the path to your current desktop). For example, mine would look like:

APDIR=/Users/adam/Desktop

DMG='/Users/adam/Desktop/osx-leopard105.dmg'

While we're at it, let's edit the 9a581PostPatch.sh file as well. This time, edit the fourth and fifth lines at the top of the file to look like this:

PATCH='/Volumes/LeopardPatch/leopatch/' # path to the patched extensions

LEO='/Volumes/Leopard' # path to Leopard installation

Save and close both files.

Finally, it's time to patch the DVD. Open up Terminal, type sudo -s, then enter your administrative password (your login password). Then type cd Desktop and hit Enter. Now you're ready to apply the patch. Keep in mind that you'll need plenty of space on your hard drive to perform the patch. I had around 20GB of free space when I did it, though I'm sure you could get away with less. To execute the patch, type:

./9a581-patch.sh

and hit Enter. The patch will now execute, which means you've got some time on your hands. You've been working your ass off up until this point, though, so kick back and relax for a bit. I didn't have a clock on it, but I'm pretty sure the patch took at least an hour on my MacBook Pro.

If you have trouble with the patch and you've got less free space, try freeing up some hard drive space and trying again. When the patch has successfully completed, you should see a new file on your desktop: Leo_Patched_DVD.iso weighing in somewhere around 4,698,669,056 bytes. Now we've got to burn this image to a DVD.

Luckily the patch removes lots of unnecessary files so we've shrunk the almost 7GB install DVD to 4.38GB, just enough to fit on a single-layer DVD. To burn the image, insert a blank DVD, open up Disk Utility, select the Leopard_Patched_DVD.iso file in the sidebar, and then click the Burn button. Once it's finished, you're finally ready to proceed to the installation.

But just one more thing before you do. Copy the patch files that we just unzipped from your desktop to a USB thumb drive and name the drive LeopardPatch. We'll need these files for the post-installation patch that we'll apply later.

Installation

If you've followed all of the steps up to this point, you should now be ready to fire up the patched Leopard install DVD. So power on your Hackintosh, insert the DVD, and let the boot process begin (you did remember to set the DVD drive as the first boot device, right?). You'll be prompted to press any key to start the installation or hit F8 for options. Hit F8.

You'll now see the boot: prompt. Enter -v -x and press Enter. (Don't ask me why, but this is the only way the install DVD would boot for me. Not using these options caused the boot to hang indefinitely every time.) You should now see lots of text scrolling over your monitor. You may even see some daunting errors. Don't be alarmed; just let it continue. After several minutes, the graphical Leopard installer should be staring you in the face.

Format the install drive: I know that you're raring to install now that you're finally here, but there's one thing we need to do first: Format our hard drive so that it's prepared to receive the Leopard installation. So go to Utilities in the menu bar and select Disk Utility (if you don't have a working mouse yet, you can still access the menu bar from the keyboard). Once Disk Utility fires up, it's time to format the drive. Here's how:

Select your hard drive in the left sidebar.

Click on the tab labeled Partition.

Select a 1 partition Volume Scheme, name the volume Leopard, and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format.

Last, click the Options button and choose Master Boot Record as the partition scheme.

Now that your drive is ready, so are you.

Install Leopard: This really is the easiest part—just follow the on-screen instructions and choose your newly created Leopard partition as the install destination. Then, before you make that final click on the Install button, click Customize and de-select Additional Fonts, Language Translations, and X11. These components were removed so we could fit everything on the patched DVD, so we won't be installing them now.

Now you're ready. Click install and grab a quick drink. In around 10 minutes, Leopard should have installed, leaving you with just one more step before you're running with the Leopard.

Post-Installation

After the installation completes, your computer will automatically restart. Unfortunately you're not ready to boot into Leopard just yet—you've got one thing left to do. So insert the thumb drive you copied the patches to and, just like last time, hit F8 when prompted by the DVD. Again, enter -v -x at the boot prompt and hit Enter. When the install disc finally loads, go to Utilities in the menu bar and select Terminal. It's time to apply the post-install patch.

When terminal loads, type cd /Volumes/LeopardPatch at the prompt and hit Enter to navigate to the patch directory. Now, just like when you patched the install disc, type:

./9a581PostPatch.sh

...and hit Enter. The script will move and copy files about (answer yes when prompted), and when it's finished, you'll be prompted to restart your computer. When your computer reboots this time, you're ready. It's time to boot into Leopard.

OSx86 on Your Hackintosh

Let your computer reboot, but be sure to leave the install DVD in the drive. When the DVD prompts this time, just let the countdown time out. When it does, your installation of Leopard will automatically boot up. You've done it!

From this point forward, you're running Leopard on your PC just as though you were running Leopard on a regular Mac. You'll be jubilantly welcomed in a handful of languages as if Steve Jobs himself is shaking your hand for a job well done. All of your hardware should work exactly as you'd expect. Your sound, networking, and video will all work off the bat. (I haven't tested the motherboard's built-in wireless yet, but it reportedly works.) Your iPods will sync flawlessly, and CDs and DVDs read and burn just as you'd expect.

On the software front, Mail, Address Book, iTunes, and everything else I've tried so far work flawlessly. Firefox is browsing, Quicksilver is doing its thing, Spaces are rocking, Stacks are stacking, Cover Flow is flowing, and Quick Look is previewing. I haven't tried Time Machine yet, but the patch we used reportedly works with Time Machine as well.

UPDATE: After you complete your install the first go round, here's how to upgrade to OS X 10.5.1 (the first update to Leopard) in just a few simple steps.

But Really, How Does It Work?

I'm still stretching my legs in this new build, and I'm planning on bringing some benchmarks to the table soon so you have a better idea how this machine matches up to its Mac counterparts, but so far it's running like a champ. UPDATE: I benchmarked my Hackintosh against a Mac Pro and MacBook Pro and it stood up very well. Check out the benchmarks here. The only problem with the install at the moment is that it won't boot without the Leopard DVD in the DVD drive at boot—meaning that every time you reboot you'll need to make sure that the Leopard DVD is sitting in the DVD drive. It's not a dealbreaker for me by any means, but it's an annoyance. I've found one post suggesting a workaround at the OSx86 forums (near the bottom of the first post in the thread), but I haven't tried it yet. If and when I do, I'll be sure to post an update.

And that's that. It's a chore to set up, to be sure, but it's also the most powerful Mac per dollar I've ever used. If you've got any experience building a Hackintosh of your own or you've got any questions, let's hear them in the comments.

Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who loves a good hack and cherishes his Macintosh, so building a Hackintosh was a perfect fit. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

(Via Lifehacker: Hack Attack.)

A seperation....

2008-03-08T19:23:00.000-05:00

between the Mac and the world as seen through Windows...

Mac magic and magicians

What do you use?

Slate throws Apple a $100B idea, suggests iBank

Are they stupid? Microsoft says that 77 percent of Mac users use Office

Highly recommended: Securing your laptop and iPhone web traffic with Hotspot Shield

Hackers Update Mac Porn RSPlug Trojan Horse

Please sign this petition now...

New Apple laptops only released today and there's already a patch! :)

Steve Jobs’ Health - A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words

Fake Steve Jobs heart attack post highlights citizen journalism perils

Gallery of Whimsical, Inventive Apple Product Mock-ups

Security Matters: Airport Pasta-Sauce Interdiction Considered Harmful

The Mac Tablet...

Get a Mac, get a job...

“Calvin and Jobs,” the Story of a Boy and His iCEO

Oh dear :( Apple’s Infrastructure...

Secure Your DNS Since Apple Hasn't

Cloud computing and Amazon' S3 down-time - an analysis

The Carambola tree....

Carambola

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Health risks

[edit] Drug interactions

[edit] History

[edit] Gallery

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Chris Barnes's iPhone availability checker

Kaminsky on How He Discovered the DNS Flaw

A Mac tablet? Not just no, but 'heck no'

First look at the Live Mesh client on Mac OS X

As I blogged sometime back: Apple demands Psystar recall Mac clones

One bad Apple: Server problems spoil iPhone 3G launch

The new 3G iPhone - why?

Secrets of Mac trackpad, from iBook to MacBook Air

UPDATED: A dictionary for US readers...

A dictionary for US readers...

10.5.4 is in Software Update Now and installs just fine here...

Found Footage: Boost your MacBook's RAM

MacRuby

Very interesting piece: The iPhone as money

Agreement? Apple's worst logo ever?

UPDATE: Just downloaded the beta of Safari 4.0 and my initial impression is that it's FAST!

My chat client of choice: Adium Beta "Even More Psychic"...

Am I alone in thinking that "MobileMe" sucks as a service name?

WWDC and Steve Jobs....

Ah, I did wonder - Amazon.com's US site KO'd! Saves me hitting the plastic I suppose...

Assailant unknown

Hot Tip: iPhone 2 Features Detailed — 3G, GPS, 2xRAM, Thinner, Better Battery and Only $200

Automate Your Home With Open-Source Software

Interesting concept: Glide ‘mobile OS’ adds new features, new design

10.5.3 brings Gmail/Address Book sync... for iPhone users

Successful upgrade: Mac OS X 10.5.3 released; squashes slew of 10.5.2 bugs

stifle a yawn! Windows 7 Multitouch Demonstration

The common myths about Macs

Avoid the potholes when switching from Windows to Mac

An Inside Look at the Great Firewall of China

Shame :( Free AT&T WiFi for iPhone users not currently accessible

Only in America! No-fly list grounds US Air Marshals

Bureaucrat's memo takes on blacklist madness

"Be careful out there!" - your personal data just got permanently cached at the US border

Fact or fiction? US Feds won't say

Get Free Wi-Fi Access on Your Laptop at Starbucks, Barnes and Noble

Hack Attack: A guide for switching to a Mac

Mac OS X Keyboard symbols

Keyboard shortcuts

Login Items

Installing apps

Hard drive structure

The Dock

Further reading:

Sensibly swapping from XP to a Mac? XTastes 1.0b8 - Helps switchers find useful freeware

Whilst breakfasting, this article caught my eye...

Think you can depend on the iPhone for location? Think again!

Who'd have thought it: IBM study shows that its own engineers are hot for Macs

The Joy of Tech #1094, Expectations for the 3G iPhone.

A confession...

Lawyers 1, Everybody else, nil - Forget the Courts — Apple May Fight Mac Clones With Tech

Bitten by the lawyer - Blue Jeans Cable CEO Responds to Legal Threat From Monster Cable