Mar 02
Feb 26
The two current solutions are to remove ‘GrowlMail.bundle‘ from “~/Library/Mail/Bundles” (or wherever it is installed), or to execute the command:
defaults write com.apple.mail GMSummaryMode -int 2
… to disable the Detailed Summary mode, which misinteracts with the Safari 4 version of WebKit.
Feb 10
We’ve recently been working on remodelling our corporate website, and the decision has been made to make use of the SilverStripe CMS.
Feb 05
At work we have several Sony laptops and have recently upgraded to the latest Vodafone-branded Huawei 3G/HSDPA modems… and on all laptops we’ve experienced intermittent connectivity and constant errors.
Jan 29
There is currently a great demand for laptops which provide the user-friendliness of a Mac without the cost and weight of a MacBook or MacBook Pro, or without the cost of size of a MacBook Air.
Given that the ever-increasing varieties of Intel Atom-based netbooks are low-cost and roughly equivalent in hardware terms to the original MacBook Air, they make a tempting target to conversions to “MacBook Mini”s.
Indeed, there are a large (and also increasing) number of guides which will tell you how to get OS X running using a variety of ISO images downloaded via BitTorrent and hacked kernels which then require extensive changes to the installed system and come with copious warnings not to upgrade the OS when Software Updater prompts you to… and even then it’s common for basic functions such as sleep or USB not to work (although it has to be said that no method is entirely free from caveats).
This guide doesn’t work like that. This guide will describe how to install OS X from an original Leopard installation DVD and how to end up with an entirely unmodified system (*) which will not break when Apple issues updates.
Jan 16
A Windows Vista-running PC decided to implode the other day, crashing with random noise on the screen (or a really strange frosting-type effect, where slightly off-white static quickly encroaches from the edges of the screen) after Windows has been running for a while, for a few minutes after starting a DirectX game, etc.
Jan 09
This Christmas, I received a single video-gaming related item: Prince or Persia, on the Xbox 360. Actually, I can’t remember the last game I bought for the Wii… it may have been Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Why this (not so) sudden apathy for the saviour of the games console? Because after a dream start to a console which has stratospherically exceeded even their own expectations (and perhaps herein lie the seeds of the problem), Nintendo have failed to capitalise on their lead at almost every juncture.
Dec 16
Well, good news and bad here…
The good news is that, with the DSDT fix (although in all honesty I’ve not tried without) the 10.5.6 upgrade does the right thing and reboots correctly. Even better, a modified SystemConfiguration is no longer needed in /System/Library. May be due to this, the screen is also no longer stuck at full brightness… although due to the following issue, I don’t know whether it can be modified.
Dec 09
If running Mac OS on a non-Apple laptop, then there’s a sting in the tail of the forthcoming 10.5.6 update: it appears that the new kernel only wants to run with ACPI HPETs, and will fail on boot if legacy i8254/RTC timers have interrupts assigned to them.
To fix this, a replacement ACPI Differentiated System Description Table is required. efi_boot, version 6.1 or above, has the ability to replace the DSDT supplied to the kernel from the system firmware with a customised one: Simply place the alternative DSDT.aml in the root of the EFI volume – generally /Volumes/EFI/.
Nov 15
Initially I ordered a Dell Inspiron 910/Mini 9, after reading about how easy it was to get Leopard running on these machines. However, after initially quoting 15 days delivery then then, on the 15th day, extended this to 30 days – at which point I cancelled the order.
Instead, due to its looks and frankly astonishing battery life, I ordered a Samsung NC10.
As it turns out, although all Atom netbooks are created equal, some are more equal than others – especially where OS X compatibility is concerned…