The Brewdy Bawler

Flash is dead?

OK, this is really surprising… but not… I guess Adobe, a company whose roots are steeped in Apple, has remained true to its origins by conceding to Apple’s refusal to accept Flash on their devices.

Hackintosh Build – November 2011

Several friends have requested that I post details about my “Hackintosh” build. It was a time consuming process, but it was worth it, since I saved about $2000!

First of all, I want to clarify that although I’m referring to this as a “Hackintosh”, there is no actual hacking involved. There are a few hoops to jump through to get it to work correctly, but I think you’ll agree that they are minor, in relation to the return you get from your time invested. Therefore, I prefer to refer to it as a MacClonePro.

Researching hardware:
To begin, I heavily referenced tonymacx86.com to decide on the hardware to buy and for OS X installation instructions. This page contains a matrix of several confirmed hardware combinations that have worked. I would recommend not straying far from these options at all to help save you frustration or disappointment after you build. NOTE: I did not bother to get a Bluetooth chip or a WiFi chip. I can add those as USB adapters later on.

Purchasing hardware:
Mostly I used Amazon.com to research prices (I have no faith in eBay at all). I also compared prices over at Newegg.com, since they have had competitive prices in the past and are a reputable company to work with. Each of the parts below are linked to the actual product page from the site that I purchased it from.

Here is a list of hardware that I chose for my MacClonePro:

Motherboard:     Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
CPU:             Intel i7-960 Core - 3.2 Ghz Quad-Core
CPU Cooler *1:   Corsair A70 Dual Fan High-performance CPU Cooler
RAM:             Corsair 8 GB (2x4 GB) Vengeance DDR3
Graphics Card:   Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 PCI-e
Harddrive *2:    Samsung Spinpoint 1 TB 7200 rpm SATA
PSU:             Corsair TX850W
DVD:             Sony Optiarc 24x DVD Burner SATA
Case:            Corsair 600T Graphite Series Mid-tower

*1 – I had to remove one of the fans because it didn’t leave enough clearance for the RAM chips.
*2 – When I first priced these drives, they were $65, but due to the flooding in Thailand where the drives were made, they doubled in price.

Hardware Installation:
Read the product instructions!!!!! Here are some snapshots of the build process:

Photos courtesy of Vince Ammann

Snow Leopard OS X Installation:
As I mentioned above, I heavily referenced tonymacx86.com for this project, including the OS X installation. I followed this page to the letter, and it worked perfectly. In case it’s not clear enough, I’ll spell it out a bit more:

1. I downloaded iBoot and created a CD from that ISO. I then set the CDROM as the first boot device in the BIOS.
2. I booted the computer using the iBoot CD and then followed the instructions on the guide page that I linked above.
3. During installation of Snow Leopard, I created a partition that was only 100GB in size and left the rest of the HDD as free space. I did this because I intend on triple-booting my computer with Windows 7 Professional and Kubuntu. I’ll probably write another blog post about that project.
4. I went to my university to download the 10.6.8 upgrade DMG, since it is a bit over 1 GB in size. My internet connection just isn’t fast enough to make that a viable download time.
5. When I got to the part about installing MultiBeast, I read in the installation guide about getting a pre-edited DSDT for my setup. You’ll have to register with his site, in order to get to that database. I found the appropriate DSDT for my motherboard and put it on the desktop and chose UserDSDT in MultiBeast.
6. After this, Snow Leopard worked as expected, but the PC wouldn’t boot from the HDD alone and required the iBoot CD to boot into Snow Leopard. So, I did some research and found a post in TonyMac’s forum that solved that issue. I can’t post a link to it, since you have to be registered to even read the forum. But the post that I found was under the topic called “System Specific 10.6 Guides Based on iBoot + MultiBeast only” by the user named TheSmartGuy and the post title was “Installing Snow Leopard (GA-P67A-D3-B3 + Core i5 2500K + GTX 460) – Everything works; no DSDT used – Includes workaround for random freezing due to Fermi graphics cards”.

I should say that the boot up isn’t seamless like if you bought an actual Mac, but I don’t have a problem with hitting the Enter key to continue the boot. Also, there were a couple of configurations that I had to set to get the system to work totally smoothly.

1. I disabled the Energy Saver from putting the monitor to sleep, as I couldn’t get it to wake from it after it had gone to sleep. This isn’t an issue for me, since I use a screensaver.
2. To switch from Line Out to Headphones, I have to do this manually under System Preferences -> Audio -> Output

Total build cost: $1218 with shipping (The monitor, mouse and keyboard are not included in that amount).
As spec’d on the Apple Store: $3274

Let me know if you have any questions!

Internet: The 21st Century Railway

As the Internet becomes a more robust technology, companies naturally seek to monopolize on this relatively new innovation. In recent weeks, companies like Verizon, MetroPCS and Comcast seek to control their stake in the Information Highway, but the FCC is attempting to regulate their control. The linked article above discusses incidences where MetroPCS seems to block the use of Skype on their basic data plan and Comcast charges Level3 for streaming videos from Netflix. The companies claim that the FCC is stepping out of their authority by imposing Net Neutrality regulations, but it’s important to consider history of a similar technological boom.

Back in the 1800s, as the industrial revolution began to gain momentum, railroads and rail companies started to sprout up and grow all over England and the US. However, just as now with the communications companies seek to control their portion of the Internet, so too did the rail companies try to control their rails. In an effort to curb monopolistic practices, though, the US Government created the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).

While I’m a proponent of less government and more free enterprise, I also believe that commerce gone unchecked leads to price gouging and inequity of service availability. And this is what we’re beginning to see. I just hope that justice prevails.

Symbolism

Everything is becoming symbolic. Nothing is original anymore.

The new HTC EVO 4G phone offered by Sprint comes equipped with a “kickstand”. It’s not really a kickstand, mind you. Honestly, are you going kick out this little stand? No, but this little feature is reminiscent of the feature on every kid’s bicycle had to have, otherwise, one would be relegated to lean one’s bike up against a tree. The horror.

If you happen to still have a desktop computer with a mouse, you’ll know that the “mouse” is not really a rodent. Somehow, from the humor of the developers, the word “mouse” now refers to a pointing device more so than it does to the furry creature that scampers in your kitchen at night looking for any leftover crumbs (we had a few of those in the old farmhouse in Latvia, but our cat took care of them). Even the term “monitor” has nothing to do with lizards nor the first ironclad warship.

Everything is now symbolic of something that existed before. I suppose this shouldn’t come as a surprise to me. We’ve been told by a wise sage centuries ago that there is “nothing new under the sun”.

I feel like my late brother. He would ask thought-provoking questions to which there weren’t really satisfactory answers. So what now? Go ahead and answer.

The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7

“Keep on failing. It works”

James Dyson, inventor of the revolutionary vacuum cleaner, talks on how failures are an integral part of the inventing process.

Sounds akin to Thomas Edison’s philosophy:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

New server, etc.

So I’ve recently moved my blog site to a new server. If I did everything correctly, you shouldn’t notice a difference. Let me know if you experience any difficulties.

Perhaps you will notice some images now on the right. They’re from our online gallery. Feel free to peruse!

Thanks for reading!

“I’m a Mac”… only if you qualify

According to this article, Apple has quite an unpleasant trick up their sleeve when it comes to the new Snow Leopard OS pricing. I fall into the category of someone who doesn’t qualify for the upgrade, since I’m still running a Powerbook G4. Bottom line: let’s stop trying to find our identities in technology & look at technology as what it’s supposed to be seen as: tools.

Groovy to the Futuristic Max, Dude!

I thought this was awesome.

YouTube - VW of the Future

Found at ecoscraps.com.

RIAA here to save the day? And everyone said?

A resounding NO! RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has become the legal form of music mafia. This article shows clearly how their tactics are going way too far and are not really helpful to the musicians whom they claim they would be protecting. As a musician myself, I understand how it would be helpful to have people actually pay for my music, but I would in no way want to cause my listener to spiral into such depression that he/she would consider suicide. Something needs to be done to stop this ridiculous charade of “lawful action”.

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8… No, really… I can wait.

As a web designer & developer since 1997, I have been annoyed with Microsoft’s blatent inconsistencies with their internet browser. To be honest, I didn’t really pay too much attention to it until 2005 when I discovered the idea of cross-browser compatibility. It was no easy bull to wrangle getting my websites to look consistent across browsers, and Internet Explorer (IE) was always the red-headed step-child of browsers that required tons of workarounds & hacks to make it work correctly. With the release of IE8, it seems that this won’t be much different.

And people wonder why I typically have a large disdain for Microsoft.