Tag Archives: Snow Leopard

[iPhone] Adobe’s CEO Fires Back at Steve Jobs

On Wall Street Journal Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen yesterday nite answered to Steve Jobs latest attack. Jobs had released an open letter yesterday morning. The bottom line of Jobs’ letter is:

  • Adobe Flash is something from the past, as it is not open,
  • it is not energy efficient and
  • it does not unleash the full powers the individual platforms (meaning: the full power of Apple’s iPhone or iPad).

Narayan responded in the WSJ.com interview, that

  • It’s got nothing to do with technology, but with control.
  • Apple wants to maintain control on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch platforms.
  • he wonders if Flash is one of the most reasons for crashing a Mac, it’s also got much to do with the operating system
  • if hardware acceleration is provided from the operating system, playing Flash takes a lot lesser energy than on a Mac.
  • Flash is an open specification

Well, well, that love is not over. We wonder how far we’re away from the point when Adobe decides to stop developing for the Apple platform? Would Apple even care? Or would they just tell thousands of designers to switch to GIMP?

We hope you don’t mind, we embed the whole WSJ.com interview as Adobe Flash ;-)

[MacOS] Snow Leopard 10.6.2 Kernel Patched for Intel Atom Support

Teateam a russian speaking Mac OS developer binary patched the latest Mac OS X 10.6.2 Mach Kernel to eventually reenable support for Intel Atom CPUs. His kernel seems to be running well in 32bit and in 64bit mode. Atom CPUs are now reported as Intel Core Solo or Core Duo.

The patch seems only to consist of modifying a couple of (simply) assembler instructions to permanently set the CPU type. In the meantime Apple has released kernel sources and people are working on adding Atom CPU support in a proper manner.

Congrats Teamteam. That’s what Ilfak made IDA for ;-)

» Tea’s Blog: Kernel 10.2 for Intel Atom 330
» Apple.com: Sources for 10.6.2

[MacOS] 10.6.2 Update Released – Intel Atoms Killed

Apple’s 10.6.2 update closes lots of security holes that could be used to compromise systems. Safari, iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, and some other apps are rumored to be working more reliable after updating.

Apple pwns back

For OSX86 users on netbooks this update is far away from being recommended at the moment. The update now has proved what has been rumored some days ago: Intel Atom support has definitely been removed from the kernel.

Thus rendering Intel Atom based netbooks non working. Netbooks will not boot after updating as the following video by Stellarola shows. It shows the typical behaviour if the CPU is not supported by the kernel, OS X will instantly reset the system.

» Stellarola: Official – Atom not supported in 10.6.2
» Apple: About the 10.6.2. update
» Apple: Support Downloads for 10.6

[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] Comprehensive Gigabyte Hardware Specification List

With the advent of Snow Leopard many users have issues installing it onto PC based hardware. Well this is not very curious, since a PC is no Mac. Anyway as Gigabyte motherboards proved to be very close to the original Apple Intel specifications many people decided to buy those boards.

With the release of Snow Leopard DSDT patching seems to have become a must. Installation attempts will most likely fail without it. The intention of this list is to provide comprehensive information on the most used Gigabyte motherboards.

The original idea for this list was by a guy called ximekon (find original list here on InsanelyMac forums).

Model North- bridge South- bridge LAN Fire- Wire Audio BIOS Link Last Check
P35
P35-DS3L P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC888 F9 08/29/2009
P35-DS3 P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC889a F14 08/28/2009
P35-DS3R P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC889a F13 08/28/2009
EP35
EP35-DS3 P35 ICH9 RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F4 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3R P35 ICH9R RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F4 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3P P35 ICH9R Gigabit Yes ALC889a F6 08/28/2009
EP35-DS3L P35 ICH9 Gigabit -,- ALC888 F6 08/28/2009
EP35-DS4 P35 ICH9R RTL8111B -,- ALC889a F6 08/28/2009
EP45
EP45-DS3 P45 ICH10 2 x RTL8111C -,- ALC889a F9 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3R P45 ICH10R 2 x RTL8111C yes ALC889a F11c 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3P P45 ICH10R 2 x RTL8111C yes ALC889a F8 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3L P45 ICH10 RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F10 08/28/2009
EP45-DS3LR P45 ICH10R RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F2 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3 P45 ICH10 RTL8111C yes ALC889a F8 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3P P45 ICH10R RTL8111C yes ALC889a F9 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3L P45 ICH10 RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F5c 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3LR P45 ICH10R RTL8111C -,- ALC888 F5 08/28/2009
EP45-UD3R P45 ICH10R RTL8111C yes ALC889a F9 08/28/2009

you cant see this line, do you?

The Golden Gigabyte Model Rules

  • if last character of the model name is a “number” or a “P” (i.e. EP35-DS3 or EP45-DS3P etc.) it means ALC889a audio chipset
  • if last or penultimate character of the model name is an “L” (i.e. EP35-DS3L or EP45-DS3LR) it means ALC888 audio chipset
  • if last character of the model name is an “R” (i.e. P35-DS3R or EP45-UD3LR) it means SATA Raid controllers
  • The P35 or P45 strings in the beginning are fairly self explaining I suppose (P35 always with ICH9 and P45 always with ICH10)

Your Help is Wanted

Weather these rules nor the list above might be 100% accurate. It is only what I found on the net and summarized from the list above.

  • If you derived a DSDT.aml clean from a BIOS (like using Koalala’s DSDT patcher) and you fixed it for OSX86, you may post it in the comment’s section – don’t forget to tell how much RAM you had while compiling the DSDT.aml (Don’t add individual graphic or wi-fi strings. Just add onboard-devices like onboard-audio and onboard-ethernet.)
  • If your board is not on the list check Gigabyte’s pages and post the specifications in the comments section below.
  • If your board is listed but details above are wrong: please post it in the comments section below.
  • If you know the LAN chipset of the board and it is not listed precisely above (saying Gigabit) please post it in the comments section.

Please always crosscheck with the official Gigabyte specification page for your model (links to your model are included in the BIOS column) before adding a dsdt.aml or anything that could burn your BIOS.

[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.

[MacOS] Snow Leopard 10A432 Seeded to Devs / Release in August?

According to Mac4Ever (french) the Snow Leopard 10A432 version seems to be the Gold Master (GM) release, meaning this is the final release-to-manufactoring (RTM) version. Although latest rumors (german Golem.de) say Snow Leo might be released in late August, newest information tell release is in September.

[MacOS] Recommended Apps: QuickSilver

I. Abstract

You don’t like Spotlight, because it is too slow? But you want to to speed up command execution? Yes there is a nice freeware solution available called QuickSilver by BlackTree. Wikipedia writes: Quicksilver “allows users to use the keyboard to rapidly perform tasks such as launching applications, manipulating files and data, running scripts, or sending e-mail.”

II. Links

You’d better get used to using QuickSilver. We strongly recommend to not use Mac OS without it:

» Download QuickSilver
» BlackTree Website

III. Screenshots




[News] Steve Jobs back in Business

We’re almost sure, you read it already all over the net: Steve Jobs is back in his office. Rumors say he was transplanted a liver about two months ago and he is in good health condition.

Our comment

Does all these news affect anything? Currently it seems no.

Apple’s presentations can also be run by Tim Cook, Phil Schiller, Bertrand Serlet, and Scott Forstall as we’ve seen on the last WWDC. But what about the future? What about the products?

This year’s WWDC

This year’s WWDC did not have new big products. It was all about the operating system update to 10.6. (called Snow Leopard) and iPhone 3GS that mainly has been speed improved and now got features that many people said to be overdue.

The future?

What will be the next WWDC presentation about? Yet another Mac Book Super Pro? Or another iPhone 3Gs2?

Who will be the wholistic spin doctor who feeds the company with ideas and innovations? This is the main question. And we’re gonna find out within the next few years.

Competition

We suppose competition will become harder at least in the field of cell phones. As Palm hired Apple’s iPod architect Jon Rubinstein three years ago it seems Apple has lost someone knowing how to design user interfaces for digital media.

What leads us to the bold question: why not buying Palm to stop those “separatistic” tendencies and make Jon Rubinstein Steve Job’s successor?

[MacOS] Recommended Apps: SimplyRar and MacPar Deluxe

I. Abstract

Coming from the Windows world most of us people know the .rar archive format very well. Besides the newer 7zip format, Rar allows a good compression and is widely used on internet distribution.

II. What do we need?

People who only need to have a decompressor for compatibility reasons can use MacPar Deluxe. Users who also want to be able to compress files aswell need to get SimplyRar:

» For Uncompressing only use MacPar Deluxe (download here)…
» For Compressing and Uncompressing use SimplyRar (download here)…

III. How do these tools work?

III.I.MacPar Deluxe

MacPar Deluxe is intended for unpacking only. The part of the name Par indicates its main use, as it is a tool for people downloading things from the usenet. Par files are files that contain repair information for damaged main files. Anyway: MacPar Deluxe also contains a very simply unrar engine.

III.II. SimplyRar

SimplyRar is a graphical user interface for the free command line version of rar for Mac OS. It contains (almost) all features of the command line. As a switcher I currently cannot tell what features are missing in comparison to WinRar for Windows.