Monthly Archives: March 2008

[MacOS] PWN2OWN Competition: Mac Book Air hacked first

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On the annual security conference CanSecWest the MacBook Air was the first to become compromised (link to german Heise.de article). The attackers used a not yet known way to get access to OSX 10.5.2 but it was necessary that a user opens a prepped webpage, typical network intrusions did not work. Apple is in the know and will release a security update. The most unanswered question is: did they hack the MacBook Air the first because the operating system has flaws or because the machine looks so nice? You gotta know: the hackers win the hacked machine…

[MacOS] Settings for ASUS P5LD2 VM DH incl. Sleep Mode

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So guys you have bought an “ASUS P5LD2 VM DH” motherboard because it was suggested to be working, but something does not work. The following article will show you how to configure the BIOS to make Leopard 10.5.2 working with its vanilla stock kernel. Before starting over please do me the favor and tell me:

Where do you come from?

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Thanks for participating. You know what? I’d only buy the “Intel Bad Axe D975XBX” as an alternative to that board but that lacks the possibility to overclock… Ok so how to proceed?

My equipment:

  • ASUS P5LD2 VM DH
  • Intel Core 2 Duo 6300 (2 x 1.8GHz)
  • Sapphire ATI HD 2600 XT (256MB)
  • 2GB memory
  • Samsung 250GB

What to do

I assume you know what to do to get into the BIOS. Automatic hardware recognition is almost perfect with some little additions to make vanilla kernels work.

I use BIOS Firmware revision 0702. If you don’t have that revision yet, do the following:

In BIOS set the following configuration:

  • Menu: Advanced -> CPU Configuration
    • Set Execute Disable Function to ENABLED (see picture)
    • CPU NX
  • Menu: Power (see picture)
    • Set Suspend Mode to AUTO
    • Set Repost Video on S3 Resume to NO
    • Set ACPI 2.0 Support to YES
    • Set ACPI APIC Support to ENABLED
    • Suspend and Sleep Mode

That should do. Save and Exit and install Leopard and become happy. Intel GMA 950 onboard graphics supports sleep mode. But I’d recommend using the “Sapphire ATI HD 2600 XT” (see here, how to install this graphics card). Tell me what your experiences are…

If the above helped you, please visit our sponsor and help us maintaining that site:

[Muzaq] Apple to offer Music via iTunes for Free?

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english

The Financial Times reports that Apple is talking to Music Labels about future models of Music marketing. One of the proposed options seems selling iPods with unlimited access to the iTunes music library. This all-you-can-eat model seems to be a reaction to Nokia’s “Comes With Music” strategy. Read the whole article here.

deutsch

Die Financial Times berichtet, dass Apple Gespräche mit Musik Labels führt über die Zukunft der Vermarktung von Musik. Einer der Vorschläge scheint zu sein, iPods mit unbegrenztem Zugang zum iTunes Musik Archiv zu verkaufen. Vermutet wird, dass es sich um eine Reaktion auf die Strategie von Nokia “Comes with Music” handelt. Den englischsprachigen Artikel findet man hier.

[iPhone] Adobe Flash to Come to the iPhone, though

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english

Adobe announced they begun to work on a version for the iPhone. When it will be due to release has not been said. Being realistic Adobe and Apple could make this feature an exclusive for the UMTS iPhone at the end of the year. I would not expect to have Flash released together with iPhone firmware 2.0 in june. This seems to be highly unlikely. Read more infos on Wall Street Journal…

deutsch

Adobe hat bekannt gegeben, die Arbeit an einer iPhone Flash Version begonnen zu haben. Ein Veröffentlichungstermin wurde nicht genannt. Realistisch scheint eine Veröffentlichung für Ende des Jahre, wenn das iPhone mit UMTS auf den Markt kommt (Vorsicht dies ist reine Spekulation, dem keinerlei belegbare Fakten zugrundeliegen). Weitere Details hat der Golem.de…

Datentarif zu teuer? Für nur 0,09€/min gibt’s Datenverbindung via UMTS/GPRS beicallmobile…

[internal] Some Pictures Screwed Up

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Obviously WordPress cannot handle several pictures with the same name being uploaded. It seems like it overwrites those yet existing without further notice. I think I found most of them but if you still find a picture that does not match the text just put a comment under that entry.

This forces a reminder to me that there is a comment. And so I can identify the article that’s needs correction…

Thanks in advance

[MacOS] XBox Media Center XMBC for OSX

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Yes it is true. The “XMBC on OS X” project maintains a version solely for OS X. It is running quite stable and look well known from my beloved XBox. It seems like the x264 implementation is a lot faster than the one inside VLC. But on the other hand XBMC has for instance issues with AAC 5.1 sounds. Means you need to transcode AAC5.1 to AC3. Rebooting to windows and using Zoom Player is faster I must admit…

Before reading on please do me the favor to answer this question:

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Thank you for participating.

id63_xbmc

However this project looks really promising. I wish the dev team all the best and encourage you guys reading here to donate some euros to the XBMC dev team. They really need it.

Project Page: Link here
Download: Link here

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[MacOS] Solutions to Issues with Leopard Graphics Update 10.5.2

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I got to know this issue for the first time when I installed a clean Leopard 10.5.1 to my HackMac and then upgraded like Netkas recommends. Since I remembered the old Tiger times and my bunch of problems with my x1650 ATI (read some hints for the ATI x1650 here), I decided to reinstall the system from the peek without applying the Graphics Update. And this way it works. The only thing that may happen: as long as you do not install the Graphics Update, further updates may not be shown in the update manager.

Because all that hazzle with the x1650 graphics I had, I decided to get a new card (ATI Radeon 2600HD XT – read how to install it).

Last week I decided to update my MacBook Pro aswell – which was still running on Tiger. See the way I did it here. Ad the funny thing in the end was… Ok I upgraded to 10.5.2, did the reboot thing and did the Graphics Update and… tatatata….

Description of the Issue

My MBP did not show me any login screen anymore. Instead I got a fixed mouse pointer in the upper left and a second mouse pointer that could be moved. But no windows or login possibilities. Before reading on what I did, please do me the favor and tell me:

Where do you come from?

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Solving this damn issue manually

I can’t exactly say what those Apple Devs thought by themselves when releasing this Graphics Update but the internet is full of articles where people tell this update f*cked their systems. Ok lets try some things…

  1. turn off your system
  2. turn on and hold the following keys to reset PRAM: "command","option", "P" and "R" (means 'Apple-Key' and 'Alt-Key' and 'p' and 'r')
  3. your system will do the well known startup “boom” sound again and reset itself.
  4. hold the keys until you heard the “boom” sound three times
  5. let the system try to boot
  6. if everything is fine now: open your windows and shout “Thank you Alexander”
  7. if booting still fails shout whatever you feel like
  8. then do the following:
  9. in case you don’t have a second partition with the full installation of Leopard on it, you can now ask yourself why you did not read this article before. Instead get your Leopard DVD at hand and reboot your system holding the “ALT” key and choose to boot from DVD. Those of you who yet have a second partition and followed the guide mentioned above do the same but choose the second partition to boot.
  10. click thru all the messy questions and
  11. start the “Disk Utility” then
  12. choose your harddrive where the screwed Leopard install is on
  13. and click “Repair Disk Permissions“
  14. wait forever for this task to complete (in my case it took about 25 minutes, I first thought it hangs but it did not…)
  15. reboot your system
  16. you should be done now

Additional notes:

The steps I performed above are intended to be applied to a system with genuine Apple hardware. This will not work on HackMac systems!!!

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

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“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…

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

 

beforedmg

  1. Choose Read as type of image and name it Mac OS X Install DVD(see picture)

    makedmg

  2. Wait forever (15-20minutes)
  3. Close Diskutility and
  4. Open terminal and enter:
    sudo diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 139G "HFS+" "LeoInst" 10G
    (in this example the total harddrive size is 149GB = “139G + 10G”)
  5. 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)
  6. After having executed this command successfully you need to reboot
  7. After reboot open “Disk Utility” again
  8. You should now see two partitition on your harddrive (see picture)

    LeoInst

  9. Click on the second partition named “LeoInst”
  10. Click “Restore”
  11. As Source choose your Mac OS X Install DVD.dmg image (should be located on the desktop!)
  12. As destination drag and drop the second partition called “LeoInst”
  13. click “Restore”
  14. Wait about forever to have the DVD copied to your drive (again 15-20mins)

    diskutil01

  15. Close Disk Utility
  16. Go to “System Preferences” and choose “Startup Disk”
  17. Choose your Mac OS X Install DVD (which is in fact now a partition) as start volume
  18. 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!

[iPhone] T-Mobile’s iPhone Offer in Austria cheaper than in Germany

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german only

Dass das iPhone auch in Österreich von T-Mobile eingeführt wird, war gerüchteweise schon seit einiger Zeit bekannt. Nicht bekannt war, welche Tarife T-Mobile in Österreich anbieten würde. Traditionell ist Mobiltelefonieren in Österreich günstiger als in Deutschland und so ist es auch mit den Tarifen des iPhones. Laut Golem.de sehen die Tarife für Austria folgendermaßen aus:

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