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Get yourself a real steal for your mac by purchasing the MacHeist bundle. Get your self 12 top grade applications for only $49. The bundle includes all types of programs. Manage your personal finances with Cha-Ching. Easily listen to your iTunes from the desktop with CoverSutra or play a 3D game like Nanosaur 2 for example. All 12 applications are top-notch and very useful. Check it out for more info.
There are some applications that are so amazing, every mac user should have. Although some are payware, the are limited and are definitely worth it. A lot of good applications are included with Macs in iLife, however there are still some that are necessary for the happiest mac-ing!
These applications pretty much cover it for me. iWork is awesome for me, but some business users would prefer something with more Microsoft compatibility should opt to the new Microsoft Office 2008. Adium is a great, muli-protocal instant messaging client thats more light weight than iChat. Perian allows for playing of many different types of media files from within quicktime. Photoshop, although expensive, is the greatest image editing program available.
Yesterday,Apple finally decided to release updated MacBook Pros with the newest Penryn processors from intel. I headed to the apple store to purchase a 17″ baby for myself. So far, it has been amazing! The 17″ screen (matte) is brighter and bigger than I thought! All my applications launch instantly. The hard drive upgrade to 250Gb (from 160) in this generation of Macbook Pros is also a great benefit as well as the 512Mb VRAM they upgraded the 8600 to.Now, as opposed to a hackintosh I built, I have a real genuine Apple computer. I’m very impressed with the build quality. I don’t have one complaint about it.Later, I will post information such as benchmarks, etc. With this post will come a more indepth review of the laptop.
Yesterday, while still anxiously awaiting for new MacBook Pro (which are now rumored for either the 5th or 12th), I built a hackintosh with Leopard. How? I will show you.
First thing to do is get the parts for our hackintosh. For this project I used a shuttle barebones system system because of the size.
Here are the specs:
We are not getting a video card because the motherboard that comes with the Shuttle has a built-in Intel GMA950 which is the same graphics that the previous rev. of MacBooks used and therefore are supported by Leopard out of the box anyways.
Great, build it. If you have never built a computer before, it is pretty straight foward. The Shuttle comes with a guide anyways not to mention all the guides available on the internet.
Once you have it built it is time to install Leopard. You will need the Kalyway Leopard DVD to install it. Get it through this torrent would be the easiest option. Burn it to a DVD with ISO Recorder or a program of your choice. You will also need a few drivers for the ethernet and sound. I have packaged them together. Download here. You can put those files on a CD, flash drive, or external hard drive.
Now we are all set. Boot the Shuttle up and put the Leopard DVD you burned in. I didn’t have to change any big setting in the BIOS, however you might want to set the date and time and stuff by pressing the delete key when the Shuttle logo comes up. Otherwise, boot from the DVD. It will show a text message that says “Loading Darwin” for a few minutes if you burnt the DVD correctly. It will then turn to a gray screen. It takes a while to boot the DVD so be patient while this boots. Select the language of your choice when it comes up. Next, go to the utilities menu and go to disk utility. Create a new partition by clicking on your hard drive on the left, then going to the partition tab. Select 1 partition and name it “Leopard.” You can actually name this anything you want, it is what the hard drive icon on your desktop will be labeled, just make sure it is ONE word and contains NO SPACES. There is a glitch where if it is more than one word, the OS will not boot. Also, go to options and make sure GUID is checked. Make sure the format is ‘Mac OS Extended (Journaled).’ Now apply it. Once it is done, close out of the disk utility. Pass through the next couple screens click Agree, and then on the next screen click the ‘Customize’ button. A screen like this will pop up.
Follow those settings, and let ‘er install!
Assuming the install went ok, it should restart when it is finished. When it turns on, take the DVD out and let it boot from the HD. It should boot Leopard! This first boot takes a little longer than usual and has some set-up that it has you do. Do what it asks in then it will take you to your brand new desktop. Lets waste no time! You may notice your internet isn’t working, either is the sound, and the resolution is a little funky too.
Let’s fix the resolution first. Go to the settings icon (It’s the one on the dock that has a bunch of gears), and go to ‘displays.’ Change the resolution to the max. Now it should look better.
Put in the flash drive/cd/external hard drive and look at the files. First lets install the audio patch. Unzip the AppleHDAPatcher now drag the text file ALC888-a.txt ontop of that crazy icon. It should patch the sound. Now we will fix the ethernet. Spotlight ‘kext’ and you should see ‘kextHelper’ come up. Open it. Drag the skge.kext to the white box in the KextHelper, it should add it in, type in you’re password and click ‘Easy Install’ or what ever it says. It should pop a message up saying to cross your fingers and restart. Restart. Once you are booted back in, got to the settings again and this time click network. Configure the stuff there. DNS servers seems to frustrate a lot of people, so in there put 4.2.2.1. Its a public DNS server that most people tend to like. You can also put your gateway which is usually something like 192.168.1.1.
That was easy, wasn’t it? Your hackintosh should now work 100%! If something doesn’t work, or I missed something, write a comment!
Another helpful resource is the InsanelyMac Forums. They are usually quick to get back, and have tons of drivers if you are building something different than the specs I used.
Happy hackintosh-ing!
This is a really cool tip brought to my attention by WhaleSalad. Firefox is historically known not only for it’s speed, standards, and its protectiveness as opposed from Internet Explorer, but also as a great tool because of all of the plug-ins it supports to make debugging a website easier. On a Mac, however, the default browser Safari is even faster than firefox according to benchmarks. The thing is, it doesn’t support plug-ins like firefox does.
But have no fear, Safari provides it’s own set of hidden website debug tools. They can be enabled via one command in the terminal.
defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeDebugMenu 1
While Safari is closed, open the terminal and copy and paste that in! Next time you open Safari, right-click somewhere on the pages and click “inspect element”
It’s a small tip, but a really helpful one to web designers on Mac.
Well,
That was disappointing! Sure the new MacBook Air is cool and all, but who really needs it? It has less power than the MacBook and how many people really need that much portability? I was hoping a for a new MacBook Pro as previously discussed.
I’m willing to guess that new MacBook Pros will arrive shortly anyhow. Most probably had to do with the short amount of time they have had since Penryn was launched and also not taking the limelight off of the MacBook Air.
The MacBook Air does, however, give a few clues about whats to come in the next MacBook Air. The keyboard for sure. A Back-lit MacBook style chicklet keyboard. The casing will probably stay the same. If they are going to change the case, it would make more sense to have a new motherboard (Logic Board) that fits with it. The new MacBook Pro will use the same Santa Rosa chipset as the current rev. MacBook Pro. For intel’s next generation mobile chipset, Montevina they will have to change the motherboard. Montevina also supports the next generation Wi-fi, WiMax. Montevina is expected Mid-2008… Please Apple, don’t wait that long before another revision!
I’m estimating updates will come for the MacBook Pro sometime within the next month.
Hello again,
Long time no see! I can’t beleive I let myself go 5 days without posting! I will never let that happen again. Anyways, winter break is almost over and I get back to school on Monday. It really sucks, break went by way to quick. Tuesday, January 15, however is a day I’m looking forward to. I am expecting Mr. Steve Jobs to announce a brand new MacBook Pro. With the new Penryn processors out from Intel, now would be an ideal time. The MacBook Pro’s haven’t seen an update from apple in well over 200 days. Although the current 2.2/2.4/2.6 Ghz Merom Mobile processors are blazing fast, these new Penryns are a 45nm die shrink with new technology. They are smaller, faster, and more energy efficient.
Intel is releasing 5 mobile penryn processors.
X9000 2.8 GHz, 44W, 6MB, $851
T9500 2.6 GHz, 35W, 6MB, $530
T9300 2.5 GHz, 35W, 6MB, $316
T8300 2.4 GHz, 35W, 3MB, $241
T8100 2.1 GHz, 35W, 3MB, $209
The MacBook Pro’s would get the T9500 for the high-end 15″ and 17″, and the T9300 for the low-end 15″ if price points were to stay the same. I wish Apple would make the X9000 available as an option, but I don’t see that happening. However I see something more than a mere processor jump because the chipset (Santa Rosa) will stay the same. Maybe an upgrade from 8600M GT to 8700M GT? Although the 8700M GT happens to be just an overclocked 8600M GT, it would be nice to throw in there anyways? Or maybe the 8600M GT from 128/256Mb (low-end/high-end) of V-RAM to 256/512Mb? Or, how ’bout a case redesign. I personally love how the MacBook Pro looks already, but I know there are some things they can fix. They could remove the case latch and replace it with the magnetic, latch-free design from the MacBook. Maybe offer a black anodized aluminum MacBook Pro? I wouldn’t pay the extra premium to get a black computer instead of silver but there are definitely people who would.
Either way, MacBook Pros aren’t the only products of Apple that are expecting updates. A brand new Ultra Portable is rumored too. Something In between an iPhone and laptop perhaps. Numerous patent applications seem to point to it. Mac Pro’s also haven’t seen an update in 277 days!
In the mean time I have to finish up a week of school then right after finals, hopefully I will have my own. It’s been a long few years. Currently I’m on a 3 1/2 year old windows machine I built for myself. Specs are: AMD XP 3000+ (Yep, 32 bit, single core), X800 Pro AGP, Asus A7N8X, 1 Gb RAM. I can’t wait to get rid of this thing and install Linux on it.