July 26, 2008 at 3:37 PM · Filed under Apple / Mac
I’ve all but gutted my first Hackintosh — the Celeron D-powered war horse and by doing so, I saved myself some cash. While everyone’s running to buy the wireless Time Capsule device, I only have one machine i really need to back up and that’s my HackBook Pro I use at the office. Why waste cashola on a wireless hard drive when I can turn my old internal Time Machine drive into a backup solution for my portable Mac?
After searching the usual geek discount sites including TigerDirect, NewEgg and eBay, I settled on finding a great deal at a CompUSA retail store. It’s a silver aluminum 3.5″ IDE to USB hard drive enclosure. I know what you’re saying: “You have a SATA laptop, why slow things down with an IDE backup?” Well, it’s actually an EIDE (Like that makes a huge difference) but what I was doing before I bought this enclosure was backing up using the drive inside my Hackintosh — over the network. Ouch! I’m still using 10/100 Ethernet, so those backups were moving pretty slow even for IDE.
Now I’m hitting about 3X that speed through USB on the same Western Digital EIDE hard drive! Well worth the $19 I paid for it and it comes with a power adapter, USB cable, and the chip supports up to 750GB IDE drives. More than I’ll ever need since I have a smaller, older 160GB in it now and it’s doing great. I will warn you though, Time Machine gets picky with what drives you try to feed it via USB. Older drives, like my 120GB WD wouldn’t work correctly — kept erroring after only 50-100MB into the first backup. So play around with it, but once you find a drive that Time Machine “likes” in your external enclosure, you’re in business!
July 26, 2008 at 3:27 PM · Filed under Apple / Mac, Mobile Gadgets
The first 3G iPhone has arrived, but for a mobile power user like myself, is the iPhone really going to cut it? I don’t think so. While I love the look and feel of the “Steve Phone,” there’s something seriously missing from these devices. I live and use my smartphone in the United States, where GSM lags behind CDMA in terms of signal, quality, and data speed. I hate to break it to you guys over at AT&T, T-Mobile, etc., but some people like talking on their phone without a ton of static, dropped calls, etc. GSM just doesn’t have enough decent coverage here in the U.S. to be a real fesiable option. If it were “that good,” more carriers would offer it nationwide and Verizon (Mainly CDMA) wouldn’t be the #1 carrier here.
War driving to get faster data by hopping on insecure wireless routers? Come on, now. That’s less than the perfect solution to poor speeds. And I’m not too impressed with the faster 3G iPhone. I own an HTC Titan (PPC-6800) and while Windows Mobile just plain sucks, third party applications like SPB Phone Suite and Missing Sync make it usable day-to-day, it’s still a lot better than your iPhone. And Steve Jobs is still calling this thing a smartphone. Why all the issues, downtime, etc. if this thing is supposed to be so “smart?” I expected more from Apple on this new toy. I would’ve rather seen the Apple Tablet than see everyone working on that project shuffle over to the iPhone team and create this rather… interesting device on a rather poor network.
July 24, 2008 at 8:35 AM · Filed under Apple / Mac
A lot of us on laptops using Intel’s onboard GMAX3100 are having to do something called the “sleep trick” to get our screens to display Mac OS X after you boot or reboot. The most common way to perform this trick is to set a hot corner (Expose) to “Sleep Display” and blindly move your mouse over to the spot, hoping it wakes the screen up and displays your new Mac. For most of us, this trick works well. For the power user (or those without Sleep), we’re constantly booting up and shutting down to save battery life.
The biggest issue is since Expose uses your user settings, you have to leave Automatic Login on for your user account to get access to that hot spot. This leaves our Hackbooks at risk for theives to just boot right up, and if they figure out how the fuck to turn on the screen, they’ve got access to all your data. Not anymore! By following my instructions below, you can have a more natural experience by forcing the display to sleep automatically during boot, BEFORE you reach the Login screen!
Download the SleepDisplay Hack
Drag SleepDisplay.app to your home directory. In Finder, this is the “place” that is shown with your username.
Open Terminal and type sudo su - then open /etc/rc.common with your favorite text editor (as root), and at the top, add the following:
# Sleep display on boot
/Users/richard/SleepDisplay.app/Contents/MacOS/sleepdisplay
Replace “richard” with your username, or the full path to the location of SleepDisplay.app plus the trailing path you see above. Save the file and type head -n 5 /etc/rc.common to make sure it’s in there. Good? OK. Now go to System Preferences, Accounts, Login Options and disable automatic login. Keep Expose set to the hot corner as a fail over in case an update wipes your rc.common changes. Now reboot. Need I say more? If you’re ever stuck with a blank screen, just touch your mouse and boom — it’s up. No hot corner bullshit. If for any reason this doesn’t work, the hot corner is still there so just pretend you’re looking at the Login screen, type your password and hit Enter, then move your mouse to the Expose corner.
Easy, huh?
July 21, 2008 at 3:29 PM · Filed under Apple / Mac
(At the time of writing, 10.5.4 is the latest version of Mac OS X)
I’ve done it, and I absolutely love it for more reasons than one. Now I’m going to show you how it’s done so you too can have your own Inspiron 1525 HackBook Pro. First, let’s look at the specs and see what we’re dealing with. I bought this laptop at Best Buy about a week ago now for $499.99. It was either on a fast sale or priced incorrectly because now the identical model with the same SKU and Best Buy # is showing up for $649.99 — same color and everything. You snooze, you lose.
On the outside is a rather unattractive and hard to keep clean jet black lid with silver trim. I’d say the only good thing about the exterior is the Dell logo. Opening it up reveals a very sexy, modern silver design, perfect key placement, a really attractive touchpad that looks like it’s built right into the case — very nice indeed. Touch senor media buttons with a nice blue light finish off a well-designed interior with a very modern feel. This thing was well thought out on the inside. One of the best I’ve seen from Dell.
Under the hood boasts a little bit older processor technology with a 533MHz FSB — Intel Pentium Dual Core. This is very similar to the new Celeron Dual Cores but don’t let it confuse you with the Pentium D — this CPU is actually rather nice. Although using the Pentium name, the Pentium Dual Core is based on the Core technology you’re already familar with on your Core Duo and Core2 Duo Macs. While the battery doesn’t last quite as long as a similar Core2 Duo (Centrino), this 1.87GHz packs a punch and unlike all you other dual core users, I don’t have to boot with cpus=1 — that’s right! This HackBook Pro is using both cores and it’s putting out some power with Mac OS X.
Let’s go over the fine details:
- Dell Inspiron 1525
- (Best Buy Model: I1525-121B / SKU: 8878002)
- Intel Pentium Dual Core 1.87 GHz
- 15.4″ Glossy XGA HD Widescreen LCD (1280 x 800)
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (Like MacBook, MacBook Air!)
- 2 GB DDR2 Memory (Up To 4 GB!)
- 160 GB SATA Hard Drive (5200 RPM)
- Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW w/ Label Support
- 16×4x16 DVD+RW; 8×4x16 DVD-RW; 40×24x40 CD-RW
- Built-in 10/100 Ethernet, 56K Dial-up Modem, Dell 1395 Wi-Fi
- USB 2.0, Firewire, ExpressCard/54, Lithium-ion Battery, Card Reader, etc.
There are a couple things I’m going to end up doing to this laptop over time, including upgrading to a larger, faster SATA hard drive and maxing out the 4 GB supported memory. A few really attractive points of this system is not in the hardware, but in the drivers and support for Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.4). The wireless card is recognized and used as AirPort and the battery management works. Those are two huge pluses for those of you who have “half-supported” laptops running jury-rigged applications to connect to your wireless network or preserve your battery life. Oh, and did I mention that you don’t need ANY graphics drivers? That’s right, this model is fully supported with Quartz Extreme and Core Image!
Of course, getting your new Inspiron to run just like mine is going to take a bit of work, including downloading the ususal files from the usual places like a certain bay of thieves or the little green monster, but once you’ve burned everything to a single layer DVD, you’ll be up and running in under an hour! I highly suggest to any “noobs” that you don’t attempt to dual boot just yet. Let’s start with a full hard drive, no partitions, no “bull.”
1] Start by doing some downloading on a working computer that is connected to the Internet. You’re going to need a DVD burner, a fast Internet connection, and some Googling skills to find everything you need. Lucky for you, I’m going to provide all the difficult stuff to find — the drivers and hacks that are going to give your laptop the extras you need. First, download “Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2 Kalyway” (AMD/Intel) installation DVD. It should be around 3 to 4 GB. Next, download the “Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.3 Kalyway Combo Update” which should be around 500 to 600 MB. Go ahead and burn them to separate discs using Disk Utility if you’re already on a Mac, or PowerISO if you’re on Windows. If you use Windows a lot, PowerISO is one of those few programs I’d actually purchase. It’s that good. I suggest burning everything at 8X or slower to ensure it’s 100%.
2] Insert your newly burned 10.5.2 Kalyway Installation DVD into your laptop and boot from it. I assume you still have Windows Vista pre-loaded, which is fine. We’re going to delete all that crap. It’s going to take a while for the installation screen to load and you’re going to be flooded with a ton of text lines, even some errors, as the DVD probes and pokes around your hardware. Once the screen loads, you’ll notice your keyboard and touchpad instantly work out of the box. The first thing you want to do is click on Tools in the menu bar and select Disk Utility. Once this loads (give it a minute), select your hard drive (160.0 GB ….) by clicking on it, and then click on the Erase tab. Select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for Volume Format and for Name type “Macintosh HD” then click “Erase …” Give it a few minutes to rid all instances of Bill Gates and you’ll see your new “Macintosh HD” appear. Once that has completed, exit out of Disk Utility and continue the installation by going through the on-screen instructions. You may want to click “Customize” before you go through actually installing Mac OS X as Kalyway has included a lot of extras that might appeal to you. Be careful not to select the wrong items, like things that don’t pretain to your hardware or you’re going to end up screwing yourself later. I got you covered, don’t I? After your installation is complete, it’s going to reboot your computer.
3] This is where the fun begins! Take out your installation disc and reboot. When you get to the Darwin boot loader screen, hit F8 to enter some boot flags. Type -v -f and hit enter. After a ton of scrolling text, your screen will black out as if it’s asleep. Don’t panic! You want your computer to sleep. When you see the screen go black and activity slow down on your CPU light, unplug your inspiron from the power cable and close the lid. Come back to it in about 15 minutes when it has fallen asleep and wake it up by moving your finger around on the touchpad. Welcome to the post-installation. Go ahead and opt out of transfering files from another Mac, and also select that you don’t have an Internet connection. Keep clicking and you’ll be asked to enter your personal information. Keep clicking! You’ll soon be presented with the desktop — sexy, huh? Now there’s something you need to do ASAP or else you’ll be waiting for this computer to fall asleep every time you reboot.
4] Before you start drooling and examining your Mac-powered laptop, click on the Apple and go to System Prefernces. Click on “Expose & Spaces” and then click the “Expose” button. On one of the Active Screen Corners select “Sleep Display.” I chose the lower left-hand corner. Go ahead and exit out of that and reboot. When the screen goes blank, move your finger down towards the corner you selected. It may take a few imaginary strokes since you can’t see the mouse pointer. After a few tries you’ll master it and your screen will appear — ta da. Now, one thing I did notice that few people report (Maybe it’s just me?), with the “sleep trick” being used, sometimes the desktop icons become unclickable or hidden. Although this is a pain in the ass, it only takes a moment. After you boot up and do the sleep trick with the touchpad, go ahead and log out of your user account and log back in. This ensures everything’s 100% with your session. The only downside to the sleep trick is it requires you to leave Auto Login going. There’s a work around for this to put the display to sleep at the Login screen but I’m not going to go there yet.
UPDATE! Want this sleep trick to happen automatically and be able to see the Login screen? Click here!
5] Now it’s time to pop in your other DVD — the Combo Update. Go ahead and drag it all to the desktop and install it. Before we get busy with it, let’s make a copy of our current kernel for safe keeping in case you fuck something up. Open up Terminal (use Spotlight if you’re not sure where to find it) and type sudo su - to get a root session. Root is like the Administrator account on Microsoft Windows. If you screw up as root, you’re done. After su’ing to root, type cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_bkup1052 to make a copy of your existing kernel that you can use to boot up with later if you need to. It’s always good to have a backup plan, right? Install the Combo Update but don’t reboot. It’s going to ask you to but keep that window open! With that window still visable, go ahead and install the kernel package. Once that has installed successfully, hit reboot on your other window and hang on for the ride.
6] Boom. Now you’re running Mac OS X 10.5.3 Leopard. But that’s not the latest version. Lucky for you, the next round of upgrades to get to 10.5.4 are going to come from Software Update. That’s right, directly from Apple like a real Mac! But not just yet. First, we have to get this laptop online. This is where I come in. Click on one of the links below to download my Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack. A lot of this stuff may/will work on other Inspiron models but I only guarantee it’ll work on my exact model (see above). Go ahead and grab my pack, although I only take credit for making all this stuff easily accessible, I didn’t create any of these tools, just modified them to work with this laptop (if applicable).
Download Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack (Mirror 1)
Download Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack (Mirror 2)
Download Inspiron 1525 Mac Drivers Pack (Mirror 3)
(If none of these links above work, report it here and I’ll add more!)
7] After you download and unzip the pack, take a look inside. Now open up a Terminal window and find the directory on your desktop, or where ever you downloaded the ZIP to. Go inside Broadcom-Script and type sudo su - ; chmod +x bcm43xx_enabler.sh ; ./bcm43xx_enabler.sh to run the installer. Don’t worry, I’ve added the correct values for our internal Dell 1395 Wi-Fi. Once that runs, close Terminal and open up Disk Utility. Repair disk permissions just in case and then reboot your computer. AirPort should appear on your menu bar and you’ll be able to find your wireless network and get online.
8] Go ahead and use Software Update to download everything. When you reboot, since you’re upgrading to 10.5.4, you’ll have to run the Broadcom-Script again like we did above. Once you’ve upgraded to 10.5.4 successfully and re-applied the Wi-Fi drivers, fixed permissions, etc., connect back to your wireless network. Now it’s time to get audio working. Use my supplied 1525 Codec file and fire up crazy green frog (AppleHDAPatcher_v1.16). Drag the 1525_Codec.txt file into the window and let it work its magic. Repair permissions again just to be safe and reboot. Now you’ll notice sound works and you don’t have to keep re-applying the Broadcom-Script patch.
9] At this point I assume you’ve learned enough or done enough reading elsewhere to know how to install kexts. Unzip PowerManagement_137_1.bundle.tar.gz and install the PowerManagement.bundle. Repair permissions, delete kext cache and all that fun stuff. Now reboot again. You should see your battery meter come to life on your menu bar. Keep the settings set to ‘Custom’ if you want it to continue to function. I set mine to Percentage.
10] If you’re like me, you want to be able to “tap” the touchpad to click, and scroll with a finger, etc. For this we use the install.sh script inside of ApplePS2Trackpad. Once that’s up and running, go into System Preferences and you’ll find a Trackpad tab within the Keyboard & Mouse window. Play around with the settings. Sometimes you may have to set it to what appears to be really low (slow) in order to get the speed just right. It’s a little funky, but you’ll find a setting that you can enjoy. Scrolling is a bit more than hit and miss as it doesn’t work REALLY well but it’s still useful to some. I’ve disabled it.
There are some loose ends, but I’m going to leave that up to you. The wired (Ethernet) will work using a quick patch that you can find by searching the InsanelyMac forums. Sleep will wake up properly with a different kernel. You’re welcome to replace your Dock with a darker, more attractive theme like I have included in the Midnight Dock directory. I suggest saving my Drivers Pack and stashing it somewhere, for when the next upgrade to Mac OS X comes out, you may end up re-applying some things again.
All in all, it’s a lot cheaper than spending $1,000 on a MacBook, or even $2,000 on a MacBook Pro. And it’s a lot more fun! I would put my current Mac-powered Inspiron at around the level of a MacBook Air at a fraction of the cost (And a bit less “Airy” since it’s pretty heavy). Unlike you crazy mobile gurus, I don’t carry around a full-sized laptop like it’s Palm Pilot. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll respond within 24 hours in most cases. Good luck!
UPDATE!
Once you upgrade to 10.5.4, if you’re having issues getting the battery meter to display in your menu bar, you may be missing some files. Download my AppleACPIPlatform.kext, move yours somewhere safe as a backup (/System/Library/Extensions/AppleACPIPlatform.kext), pop mine in, repair permissions, kext cache, and all that fun stuff (Or use Kext Helper), reboot and check out your Energy settings in System Preferences now. Boom!
UPDATE!
Need S3 (Hibernation) Sleep on 10.5.4? Tired of putting your HackBook Pro to bed, only to find out it won’t wake up? Open Terminal and type sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 hibernatefile /dev/null then click Apple, Sleep. Wait for it to snooze and the fan to turn off. Now lightly hit your power button and it should crank back up, find your wireless network again, etc. If it doesn’t hold after a reboot, throw it in /etc/rc.common (Or /etc/rc.local if you’ve found that to work). Report your success here!
