Tag Archives: 10.5

[MacOS] MacUpdate Launched Holiday App Bundle for $49

 

 

Yeah, it was overdue already. The guys over at MacUpdate just launched their  pre-chrismas holiday app bundle. For US$49 you will get:

  • Data Rescue 3 (instead of US$99)
    One of the best data recovery tool for the Mac
  • Espresso 2 (instead of US$75)
    One of the best CSS, HTML, XML, JavsScript editing tools around
  • TotalFinder (instead of US$18)
    The Must-have tool, since Apple’s finder is really still total crap
  • TotalSpaces (instead of US$15)
    brings eventually back the grid-style spaces to OS X 10.7 and 10.8
  • Snapz Pro X 2.5 (instead of US$69)
    Screenshots and video capturing made as easy as possible
  • Mac DVDRipper Pro 4 (instead of US$25)
    Copying, Ripping and Converting DVDs made easy, in times of MacBookAirs this tool looks vintage to me ;-)
  • PopChar X 6 (instead of US$38)
    Accessing special font characters made easy, usable scenarios really unknown to me
  • MoneyWell 2 (instead of US$50)
    some finance manager, I would never use ;-)
  • Swift Publisher 3 (instead of US$30)
    never heard of that one, but sounds interesting
  • RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (instead of US$30)
    Sim Game in Theme Park style. For those of you who have enuff time for games ;-)
  • Company of Heroes (instead of US$30)
    never heard of that one, sounds like the typical military strategy game

Anyway: the bundle makes sense at least for the TotalFinder, DataRescue, TotalSpaces and Snapz Pro. Means you can’t do anything wrong by buying it. And who knows, probably PopChar, MoneyWell and Swift Publisher might turn out to be useful aswell. The first 12,000 buyers will get Live Interior 3D for free on top (saves you another US$129)…

Get the bundle here: https://www.mupromo.com

 

[Muzaq] Workaround for Audacity Crashing

Abstract

At least on a Mac Audacity seems to have issues when it comes to using third party plugins (i.e. AU or VSTs). To pinpoint which type of plugin is responsible for poor Audacity to crash, you can do the following.

I. Locate Audacity Config File

On a Crapple Mac the audacity.cfg file should be located here:
/Users/<your-username>/Library/Application Support/audacity

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[MacOS] VMWare Fusion 4.1 Allows Installation of Snow Leopard Client and Leopard Client Versions

Fusion 4.1 Allows Mac OS X Client Installations

With the release of Mac OS 10.7 Lion VMWare seem to have decided that all of Apple’s latest operating systems can be virtualized. VMWare Fusion 4.1. (released Nov 17th, 2011) thus allows the installation of all Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, and 10.6. Snow Leopard versions; vulgo: the server and client editions.

Voicemail From Infinite Loop

The tiny downside is, VMWare seem to have gotten an urgent call from a fruity garage company in Infinite Loop soon after their release of VMWare Fusion 4.1. That’s why they issued VMWare Fusion 4.1.1 (released Nov 23rd, 2011) almost immediately, thus effectively reverting the capability of virtualizing the Mac OS X client versions.

Fusion 4.1.1 Update Bars Client Installations Again

That means: if you are running VMWare Fusion 4.1, you should consider not to upgrade to 4.1.1. If you have a Mac OS X client version virtualized it would not boot anymore after the update to Fusion 4.1.1. For all the others, VMWare does not distribute version 4.1 anymore, only 4.1.1. So you would have to search the net for download possibilities of VMWare Fusion 4.1. Luckily there are still legal sources for the 4.1 download. Update: the download link distributes version 3.1.1 (sic!) at the moment. You’re on your own finding the 4.1 download on the net (filename: “VMware-Fusion-4.1.0-529802-light.dmg”). Good luck.

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[MacOS] Update 10.6.2 to Break Intel Atom CPU Support

According to Stellarolla’s blog the upcoming Snow Leopard update 10.6.2 and the Leopard update 10.5.9 will most likely break Intel Atom support. Thus rendering hackintosh installations on netbooks inoperable.

Although Apple does not provide products shipping with Intel Atom CPUs, the Mac OS kernel did support those. Now with the growing amount of hackintoshs it seems Apple tries to stop the use of their operating system on cheap an tiny netbooks.

Probably this is another indicator that Apple is going to bring the long rumored tiny tablet Mac. Anyway for people willing to maintain MacOS on their netbooks the easiest way is to not update to 10.6.2 or 10.5.9 at the moment.

» Stellarolla: “10.6.2 kills Atom and other news”…

[MacOS] Is EFI-X illegally using 3rd Party Program Code?

About a year ago a company called ASEM released a device called EFI-X. This device has been claimed to be capable of booting several Microsoft Windows versions and Mac OS X Leopard.

Legal concerns

From the beginning there were question regarding the legal status of the device. But ASEM claimed the device is legal, although it circumvents Apple’s binary protection using Apple’s copyrighted secret operating system keys (OSK1 and OSK2).

Technical issues

Anyway EFI-X devices had some issues. Many forums reported about problems with Bonjour and sharing in general. In the meantime articles from the official EFI-X support forums have been suddenly disappeared. Customers reporting issues or solutions and workaround to severe bugs have been banned from EFI-X support forums – our own help article to recover almost lost data was removed aswell and one of our members has been officially banned from their forums (the reason was this article in october 2008).

Examining EFI-X in deep

Now some frustrated customers who are on the other hand technologically very familiar have examined the EFI-X device in deep. One of the main points AsereBln found: in contrast to what EFI-X is stating: “Our approach is entirely different, (..) all our code and development is our own only” – they seem to be using program code that has been developed by the OSX86 community though. They seem to be using “Disabler.kext“. Moreover another user (RezRov) found out the EFI-X Windows update software seems to be violating the LGPL as it incorporates a modified USB device library (libusb-win32).

Use of possibly unlicensed 3rd party program code, possibly illegal use of Apple security keys, and customer support below grade for a 170€ (250US$) commercial product that seems to be the summary about a year after product launch.

Lessons learnt

We suppose end users should be aware of this possible hassle. Only an original Apple Mac is really hassle free and 100% compatible to a Mac. But if you are technologically interested and have the time and motivation search the OSX86 communities for setups. The OSX86 forums are full of knowledge and willing to help. But remember a PC won’t ever be 100% compatible to a real Mac.