Category Archives: Labs

[MacOS] Install Leopard from .dmg Image to your System

“and first for something complete different”: Muzaq… coding or administrating system can’t do without gooood muzaq. Check our latest tunes here :-)

This time we’re gonna install Leopard from a .dmg image instead from DVD. The purpose is having a repair and recovery system by the hand in case you need it. My story is this: after having had a clean install of Leopard finished and having had applied all the updates, my MBP simply crashed again and again (two mouse pointers error – I found a solution in the meantime: that bug belongs to the Leopard Graphics Update – read it here howto fix it), since at that point I could not fix it, I then decided to reinstall. Something seemed fishy and would hopefully be gone after another fresh install. But as you expect: the same problem occurred again. I then decided to restore my previous tiger install and installed the Leopard DVD to a second partition. This way nothing can stop me, whereever I am, whatever does not work…

Ok what to do now?

I assume

You don’t have a bootcamp partition installed
means your harddrive is single partitioned
You got Tiger installed
You know the size of your harddrive (you can also find out in “Disk Utility”)

Now, let the game begin…

Insert Leopard installation DVD into your drive
Start “Disk Utility” to make a .dmg image of your installation DVD (see picture)
click the Mac OS X Install DVD (highlight it) and choose New Image

Choose Read as type of image and name it Mac OS X Install DVD(see picture)
Wait forever (15-20minutes)
Close Diskutility and
Open terminal and enter:
sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 139G "HFS+" "LeoInst" 10G
(in this example the total harddrive size is 149GB = “139G + 10G”)
This command resizes the first partition to 139GB and generates a second partition formated in “HFS+” with size of 10GB. The name of the second partition will be LeoInst (disk0s1 is in this case the EFI partition – see here, what makes the EFI partition so interesting, system partition starts at disk0s2 – that’s the partition we’re gonna resize and split into disk0s2 and disk0s3)
After having executed this command successfully you need to reboot
After reboot open “Disk Utility” again
You should now see two partitition on your harddrive (see picture)
Click on the second partition named “LeoInst”
Click “Restore”
As Source choose your Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg image (should be located on the desktop!)
As destination drag and drop the second partition called “LeoInst”
click “Restore”
Wait about forever to have the DVD copied to your drive (again 15-20mins)
Close Disk Utility
Go to “System Preferences” and choose “Startup Disk”
Choose your Mac OS X Install DVD (which is in fact now a partition) as start volume
reboot system and install Leopard

Additional notes

These instructions are intended to be applied to genuine Apple systems rather than HackMacs. In my case I used my MacBook Pro. Because of the different .kexts to be applied to HackMacs this guide will not work for those systems! Be warned!

[MacOS] Enable and Disable Hibernation

5 Replies

OSX supports real hibernation not only that sleep mode that costs electricity. It really supports it. But you gotta enable or disable it manually. So what to do:

open terminal window (I assume you’re logged in with your normal user account)
to disable hibernation, and enable standard sleep
enter this: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
to enable hibernation when closing the lid
enter this: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 1

Enjoy folks…

[MacOS] Change Time Machine’s Backup Intervalls

[iPhone] Convert Avi’s to iPhone mp4’s for free

11 Replies

“and first for something complete different”: Muzaq… coding or administrating system can’t do without gooood muzaq. Check our latest tunes here :-)

english

Deutschsprachige Version weiter unten…

Sadly but the iPhone and the iPod Touch doesn’t understand a regular DivX, XviD or anything else in AVI containers. So if you don’t like commercial software either there is a very nice way using the VideoLanClient MediaPlayer. Follow these steps:

Download VLC (link) for your platform and install it.
start VLC Media Player
click “File -> Open File” – a dialog pops up
“Browse” to the file you wanna convert (see pic for reference)
Enable “Streaming/Saving” and click on “Settings” – a new dialog pops up
here you choose the name and folder of the then converted file (means: target filename and folder)
choose “Encapsulation” as “mp4“
choose “Video” as “mp4v”
set video’s bitrate to “512 - 2048” kb/s (problems may occur above 2500 kb/s – btw: there is no need to convert an xvid with 800kb/s to mp4 with 2000kb/s. My experience says: 1024kb/s is way sufficient for the iPhone’s little display)
choose “Audio” as “mp4a“
set audio’s bitrate to “64 - 256” kb/s (I am really satisfied with 192kb/s but don’t hesitate to play with these configs)
click “OK” ;-) – you will land in the first window again
click here “OK" aswell
transcoding will begin
[Update] after transcoding you can start iTunes and import the movie into your iTunes’ movie database, then just sync it with your iPhone

Prolly some errors occur with dropped frames or something: you can almost forget them. So far I didn’t have any video that did not play properly on the iPhone…

This howto is based on notes by Tim Fick.

deutsch

See above for english language version…

Ok also für das Land der Filmfreunde eine kurze Übersetzung mit deutschen Bildern… Ihr kennt möglicherweise das Problem schon: das iPhone kann mit den allermeisten Eurer Videos nichts anfangen, außer mit diesem merkwürdigen .mp4 Format, mit dem sich Euer DVD Player oder das XBMC gar nicht gut vertragen. Das iPhone braucht also mal wieder eine Extrawurst und die lassen sich viele Hersteller von Konvertierungsprogrammen gerne ein wenig bezahlen. Im Folgenden findet Ihr allerdings eine Anleitung, bei der Ihr mit einem einzigen kostenlosen Tool (dem VideoLan Client) nach iPhone kompatiblem .mp4 konvertiert. Die Fotos sind von der Mac Version, der VLC sieht aber unter Windows (nahezu) identisch aus…

VLC herunterladen (link) und installieren
dann den VLC Media Player starten
klick “Ablage -> Datei öffnen” (unter Windows wird das “Datei -> Datei öffnen sein”) und ein Dialogfenster wird sich öffnen
“Durchsuchen“, um die zu konvertierende Datei auszuwählen (siehe Bild)
Haken rein bei “Streamen/Sichern” and klick auf “Einstellungen” – und es öffnet sich ein neues Dialogfenster
hier wählt Ihr nun den Zielnamen und das Zielverzeichnis
als “Verkapselungsmethode” (schon ein geiles Wort auf Deutsch, tsts…) nehmt Ihr “mp4“
dann “Video” auf “mp4v” stellen
und die Videobitrate zwischen “512 - 2048” kb/s festlegen (ab 2500 kb/s soll es wohl Probleme geben mit der Wiedergabe auf dem iPhone – aber es macht ohnehin keinen Sinn ein 800kb/s XViD nach 2000kb/s mp4 zu transkodieren. In meinen Fällen haben 1024kb/s für das Minidisplay the iPhones vollkommen ausgereicht und ich meine vollkommen ausgereicht)
dann noch “Audio” auf “mp4a” stellen
und die Audio Bitrate zwischen “64 - 256” kb/s festlegen (mir reichen 192kb/s vollkommen ;-)
dann auf “OK” klicken und Ihr landet wieder in dem ersten Dialogfenster
hier dann auch einfach “OK" klicken
und die Konvertierung beginnt
[Update] nach der Konvertierung startet Ihr iTunes und importiert den Film in die lokale iTunes Filmdatenbank. Diese kann dann aufs iPhone synchronisiert werden.

Enjoy

[MacOS] Read HFS+ Drives and DMG Images on Windows

english

As a dualbooter you are often confronted with the problem that you just saved a file on the other system. While being on OS X this is not a too big problem since you can at least access those NTFS (read only) and Fat32 (read/write support) drives. But being confronted with Microsoft Windows you are stuck.

But hey wait: try this nice Java Open Source Project: Catacombae HFS Explorer (link). It opens and extracts files from drives and images formatted in HFS+. Sadly it seems not be able to write to those disks. For having read and write access to your HFS+ disks I strongly recommend Macdrive 7.

tomanisch

Jeder von MacBook Pro oder Hackintosh Dualbootern kennt die Situation, dass wir gerade nach Microsoft Windows gebootet haben, aber eine bestimmte Datei leider eben unter OS X liegt. Für Leute, die nur lesend auf ihre OSX Partition zugreifen wollen, gibt es das Open Source Projekt Catacombae HFS Explorer (link). Schreiben kann dieses Programm auf HFS+ Dateisysteme aber leider noch nicht. Um lesend und schreibend auf die OS X Partition zuzugreifen, empfehle ich Macdrive 7.

[MacOS] Enable Quartz Extreme 2D

3 Replies

english

T_h_e___f_a_s_t___w_a_y

open terminal
enter: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Quartz2DExtremeEnabled 1
By the way: you may find this command on the net aswell: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver Quartz2DExtremeEnabled -boolean YES – it does perfectly the same like the first command and is only a matter of taste!
then reboot and be happy.

There is also another way via using QuartzDebug (search for it on the net, it required the Development tools on the Leopard disk)…

[MacOS] Experiences with Sapphire ATI HD 2600XT 256MB (Device ID 9588)

9 Replies

Abstract

After having had too much hazzle with the Gigabyte ATI x1650 (Device ID 71c6) I decided to buy a new graphics card. What made me buy that ATI (or in general an ATI card) again?

Quartz Extreme 2D is mostly supported with ATI cards (see here how to do it)
ATI mostly support natively h264 HD decoding
Netkas wrote the driver :-)
supports dual heading
supports pivot
supports sleep mode (Update 18.03.2008: sleep works with ASUS P5LD2 VM DH aswell. See here how to configure BIOS settings of ASUS P5LD2 VM DH)

Where to obtain

German users are provided with a link to Amazon.de where they can buy exactly the graphics card I used for the following howto. But in contrast to my fellow german users the american users cannot be provided with such a link, because Amazon.com doesn’t offer that card. Search it elsewhere or just order from the german Amazon store using this link: Sapphire RADEON HD 2600 XT PCIe ). This should be most hazzle-free way for you…

How to install (_t_h_e___h_a_z_z_l_e___f_r_e_e___w_a_y_)

Ok so, after having bought this new graphic card, don’t just install it yet into your tower or desktop. Instead boot your system into OS X while having your old graphics card installed. Follow those steps:

Login into OS X as root.
Get the new Netkas Natit Driver (link)
install it to /System/Library/Extensions/
Make sure you set the right permissions to the Natit.kext : open terminal and type: chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/Natit.kext
shutdown your system, unplug electricity and replace your graphics cards
plug power chord and boot your system.
you should be done…

Circumventing issues

If anything does not work and your screen looks garbled. I recommend having an XP or Vista installed on another drive and use MediaFour’s MacDrive 7. So you can download the driver again and copy to your OSX partition and install it manually in single user mode (provide -s at OSX boottime).

Sapphire ATI2600 XT 256MB
with HP w2207 (click to enlarge)

Final words

We hope you had some fun and we could provide you with some help here. If you are satisfied with this solution, you may consider our sponsors. They really got the coolest offers. Thanks :-)

Addendums for the german speaking community

Falls Ihr Fragen zu der Anleitung habt, bitte in die Kommentare. Wenn sich mehr als fünf deutschsprachige Leute melden, übersetze ich den Artikel. Ansonsten: wer exakt die Karte sucht, die ich verwendet habe, kauft bitte im deutschen Amazon Shop genau diese Karte hier: Sapphire RADEON HD 2600 XT PCIe 256 MB DDR3 128 Bit, Dual DVI, TV-Out, HDMI, OpenGL, DirectX10 Retail!!!

[MacOS] Enable Screen Resolution / ATI x1650 Device 71c6

4 Replies

english only

The following assumes:

you got a clean 10.5.1 installation
updated to 10.5.2 (take Netkas recommendations into account!) and then
performed the Apple Leopard Graphics Update

And most likely since then you – as an ATI x1650 owner won’t be able to change the screen resolution and you have no QE/CI.After hazzling around with my system a lot I can at least offer a solution for the screen resolution problem. Requirements: you have no ATI hacks installed at all. Since I will modify the original ATINDRV.kext. I got device id 71c6 although this should not matter here. Before proceeding please do me the favor and tell me:

Loading ...

I assume:

you do backups of the files you’re going to modify, don’t you?
you already enabled root access to your system
you are logged in as root

copy /System/Library/Extension/ATINDRV.kext to your desktop
open the ATINDRV.kext package on your desktop
inside of this package go to /Contents/PlugIns/
open the ATY_Wormy.kext
inside this package go to /Contents/
open the file: Info.plist with your Texteditor
find this position: <key>IONameMatch</key> <string>ATY,Wormy</string>
and replace it with this:
<key>IONameMatch</key> <string>display</string>
find this position:
<key>IOProviderClass</key> <string>IONDRVDevice</string>
and replace with this:
<key>IOProviderClass</key> <string>IOPCIDevice</string>
save the changes and close the texteditor
replace the /System/Library/Extensions/ATINDRV.kext with the one you just edited on the desktop
reboot

After reboot the screen resolution should be selectable. Tell me your experiences. I did this with an ATI x1650 which got device id 71c6.

P.S. QE/CI will not be enabled with this! This will be part two ;-)

Loading ...

[iPhone] Edit Edge Settings under Firmware 1.1.4 and 2.0

40 Replies

Update 4: (November 27th, 2008): Another formerly fast way of editing has been reported to induce other issues and has thus been removed. Some links for Windows users have been updated.

Update 3: (July 21st, 2008): Pwnage 2.0 tutorial for firmware 2.0 finished (see here). The way to reenable the EDGE settings is still applicable. Please follow part II.)_T_H_E__Z_E_N__W_A_Y_ (scroll down).

I.)_T_h_e___f_a_s_t___w_a_y_

(Outdated article removed)

II.)_T_h_e__z_e_n___w_a_y

The standard iPhone EDGE settings for Germany (means for people with legit T-Mobile iPhone service plans) are:

apn: smartsites.t-mobile username: t-mobile password: tm

Those settings cannot be edited and will always be applied to any T-Mobile SIM card. Problem is: customers with a non-iPhone contract cannot use EDGE then since they need different EDGE settings. Most likely those:

apn: internet.t-mobile username: t-mobile password: tm
To be able to change these EDGE settings in a pleasant way just do the following (I assume you got OpenSSH installed already):

1. use Cyberduck (Mac), SmartFTP (Windows) or any other SFTP capable client to connect via SFTP into your iPhone

2. go to /System/Library/Carrier Bundles/T-Mobile_Germany.bundle/ and download carrier.plist to your host

3. since you can’t edit this carrier.plist you first need to convert it
3.1. on OS X you can do it by installing the plist editor contained in Apple’s Developer Tools (bundled with XCode) on your Leopard or Tiger Retail installation DVD or available via download here (site requires registration. Btw: do you know Guerrillamail yet?).

3.2. Windows (and lazy OS X) users go here: http://140.124.181.188/~khchung/cgi-bin/plutil.cgi to convert the plist online. (This address seems not to exist anymore). We recommend to give

UltraEdit (shareware, btw: did you know, you can use UltraEdit on Mac OS aswell? Read here!),
XMLSpear (freeware) or
Notepad ++ (freeware)

a try (warning: we did not have the time to test this yet with either one of these tools. Your feedback is highly appreciated, thanks!).

4. Opening in one of these tools above mentioned, It should most likely look like this (click picture to enlarge):

5. So we need to add those tiny lines to get back EDGE editing capabilities:

<key>AllowEDGEEditing</key> <true/>

6. You will find “EDGE settings” menu under “Settings” » “General” » “Network” » “EDGE”. Enter the approprate APN and you’re done…

BTW: you can also change the APN settings permanently inside this carrier.plist file. Just locate and replace these lines:

<key>apn</key> <string>smartsites.t-mobile</string> <key>password</key> <string>tm</string> <key>username</key> <string>t-mobile</string>

with the appropriate APN settings of your contract…

Kudos to Volkspost (Volxpost) for his findings and his initial 1.1.3 tutorial.

[iPhone] Update, Activate, Jailbreak, and Unlock Firmware 1.1.4

english

iClarified just released a manual for jailbreaking, activating and unlocking firmware 1.1.4. Bootloader 3.9 seems to be required. They use a modified version of ZiPhone. I expect Zibri not to be happy with this. However this is not updating but recovering to 1.1.4 therefore I strongly recommend to do like iTunes recommends: to save the configuration of your iPhone automatically (means: contacts, calendar entries, text-messages, network configuration, weather etc.). I reinstalled those save configuration settings afterZiPhone activated the phone and before the unlock.

However I can confirm the howto (Mac version) works flawlessly. There is also a howto for Windows users – not tested though…

unlock114

german

Die Jungens von iClarified haben eine nette klar verständliche Anleitung verfasst, wie man Firmware 1.1.4 bearbeiten muss. Diese Anleitung benötigt Bootloader 3.9. Zum Einsatz kommt eine modifizierte Version von Zibris ZiPhone. Genau genommen ist der Prozess kein Updaten, sondern ein Recovern auf die Firmware 1.1.4. iTunes bietet deshalb vor dem Recovery-Prozess auch an, die Einstellungen zu sichern. Wenn Ihr das nicht macht, sind die Kontakte, Kalender Einträge, SMS Einträge, WLan Einstellungen, Wetter Einstellungen nach dem Recovern natürlich im Eimer. Meine Empfehlung daher, nach dem ZiPhone das Telefon aktiviert hat, könnt Ihr die gesicherten Einstellungen noch vor dem Unlock wieder in das Telefon zurückspielen…

Ihr findet das englischsprachige HowTo für Mac hier – es funktioniert einwandfrei. Eine Windows Variante gibt es ebenfalls, die ich jedoch nicht getestet habe…

ÏNCΘMPLΞTΞ-NΘΘZ

:|:WH4T:|:0TH3R:|:M3D!4:|: :|:W0NT:|:3XPL41N:|:

Category Archives: Labs

[MacOS] Install Leopard from .dmg Image to your System

[MacOS] Enable and Disable Hibernation

[MacOS] Change Time Machine’s Backup Intervalls

[iPhone] Convert Avi’s to iPhone mp4’s for free

english

deutsch

[MacOS] Read HFS+ Drives and DMG Images on Windows

english

tomanisch

[MacOS] Enable Quartz Extreme 2D

english

T_h_e___f_a_s_t___w_a_y

[MacOS] Experiences with Sapphire ATI HD 2600XT 256MB (Device ID 9588)

[MacOS] Enable Screen Resolution / ATI x1650 Device 71c6

english only

[iPhone] Edit Edge Settings under Firmware 1.1.4 and 2.0

I.)_T_h_e___f_a_s_t___w_a_y_

II.)_T_h_e__z_e_n___w_a_y

[iPhone] Update, Activate, Jailbreak, and Unlock Firmware 1.1.4

english

german