10.6: A workaround for a Boot Camp x64 installation issue
Today I installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 via Boot Camp on my 2007 MacBook Pro 2.4GHz machine. I was stumped when I couldn’t install the Boot Camp drivers from the 10.6 DVD in Windows. I tried several different approaches, but every single try ended with the message Boot Camp x64 is unsupported on this computer model when launching the Boot Camp setup app. I could also not install the 3.1 update. The only visual indication was Nvidia drivers installing, and afterwards, it would simply quit while all the time there was no reference that I was actually about to install Boot Camp. Knowing that I didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t want to give up and finally found a solution. Here's a step by step guide: Boot into Windows 7 and insert your 10.6 DVD Right-click on Start » Programs » Accessories » Comman...
published yesterday, 23 hours 59 minutes ago, macosxhints
Experiment with GIMP's new single window mode
Are you curious, like me, about the new Single Window Mode (most excellent; see this article at Ars for more details) available in the newest unstable 2.7.x GIMP releases? Well, sadly, the final and stable GIMP 2.8 release won't come out before the end of this year, and there are still no experimental 2.7.x binary releases available for Mac OS X (via X11). One could always try to compile everything from source, but that might be quite complicated and time-consuming. So, let's look at another, definitely easier way of running GIMP 2.7.x on Mac OS X: not (semi) natively through X11, but through virtualization. First of all, we need a virtual machine with the latest Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic), or even 10.04 (Lucid, in Alpha at this time) installed: you can create a 32- or 64-bit Ubuntu VM in...
published on Wednesday, the 10. March 2010, macosxhints
Apple stepping up pressure on music labels to snub Amazon
Apple has allegedly been pressuring music labels to ditch Amazon MP3's "Daily Deal" promotions, lest they be excluded from being promoted through the iTunes machine. According to anonymous executives speaking to Billboard, Apple has always been uncomfortable with the labels double dipping with both iTunes and Amazon, but the company has ramped up its complaints lately in an attempt to retain its lead in the online music market. Though Apple still remains in the number one spot among all music retailers, the move is indicative that Apple takes competition from Amazon very seriously. One unnamed music executive said that, when Amazon first launched its Daily Deal section in 2008, the labels weren't included in the discussion and no one was given any special privileges for being there. Nowadays, however, Amazon has asked labels to give the company a one-day exclusive before street date in order to be featured in the Daily Deals. This was the turning point for iTunes, it seems—iTunes reps allegedly began threatening to "[withdraw] marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals" if labels continued participating. Speaking about iTunes, another major label executive told Billboard that "[t]hey are . . . diverting their energy from 'let's make this machine better' to 'let's protect what we got.'" Some of those threats have apparently worked: labels representing Corinne Bailey Rae, Lady Antebellum, and Ke$ha have all reportedly pulled out of Daily Deals consideration in favor of staying on Apple's good side. And, because Apple's distaste for the Daily Deals at Amazon has become widely known in the industry, other labels have decided not to play the game at all by holding back their online offerings on the street date and the day before. Amazon MP3 has been gaining popularity rather quickly since its launch in 2007, due largely to the fact that it was the first major online music store with a fully DRM-free library. In late 2008, market research firm NPD Group noted that Amazon MP3's gains were not coming at the expense of iTunes, though. Instead, NPD said Amazon had been building its own user base and that only 10 percent of Amazon's customers had previously bought through iTunes. Last year, however, NPD released a new report saying that Amazon had already taken the number two spot in online-only music sales—iTunes sat at 69 percent with Amazon MP3 at eight percent. Even though the differences in market share were significant, Apple knows that Amazon is gunning for its spot and that it's only a matter of time before the two are on more equal footing. Read the comments on this post
published on Wednesday, the 3. March 2010, ars-technica
Intuit releases first new Mac Quicken version in four years
After missing numerous deadlines, Intuit has finally shipped a new, modern version of Quicken for Mac OS X, dubbed Quicken Essentials for Mac. Long-time Quicken users may be disappointed that many features, in particular stock tracking and online bill pay, are missing after waiting four years for a new version. However, the company says this release is just a first step in a major overhaul of its personal finance software. Quicken Essentials for Mac tosses aside the user interface from older versions of Quicken, opting for a cleaner, Cocoa-based, more "Mac-like" interface designed to be more intuitive and easy to use. It simplifies the process of connecting to your bank and credit card companies for automatic importing of transaction data from over 12,000 institutions, with another 6,000 expected to add compatibility in the coming months. The new version will also import data from Quicken for Mac 2005, 2006, and 2007; Quicken for Windows 2007, 2008, and 2009; and Microsoft Money. The latter is especially handy for switchers. Despite the much nicer looking graphs and tag clouds showing you where your money is going, though, there isn't much here for users with needs beyond the basics of tracking bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and spending habits. Quicken Essentials for Mac doesn't include integrated online bill paying, nor does it allowing detailed tracking of stocks and other investments. The latter is probably not a need of a majority of users, but the former has certainly become commonplace. Quicken Essentials for Mac also lacks the ability to export data to Intuit's own TurboTax software. Aaron Patzer, who became the new VP and general manager of Intuit's personal finance group after the acquisition of his online financial site Mint.com, agrees that Quicken Essentials for Mac isn't going to appeal to all users. "It's called 'Mac Essentials' because it's got the essential features used by 80 percent of the users we've surveyed and talked to," he told Macworld. "So we had to decide, do we want to put a product out that serves 80 percent of the market and is a vast improvement in so many ways, or do we delay it again?" A new version of Quicken for Mac was first demoed at Macworld Expo 2008, but it suffered a number of delays over the last two years. The long absence of an update of Quicken for Mac opened up an opportunity for a number of shareware tools to gain in popularity, including iBank, Cha-ching, and Money, to name a few. Quicken has an advantage with having support for the de facto standard format for financial data, but Intuit may have its work cut out for it to keep Mac users interested in its products. Patzer told Macworld that next year we can expect an updated version of Essentials as well as Quicken Deluxe for Mac, which is expected to include the missing functionality from the Essentials. Users that need those features now can either stick with Quicken for Mac 2007, or run a newer Windows version in Boot Camp or a virtual machine. Quicken Essentials for Mac is $70, and can be downloaded directly from Intuit's website. You'll need an Intel-based Mac and either Leopard or Snow Leopard to run it. Quicken for Mac 2007 is still available (also $70) for those running Tiger and/or PowerPC-based Macs. We'll be posting a more in-depth look at the new software as soon as we have a chance to spend some quality time with it.
published on Thursday, the 25. February 2010, ars-technica
Add Volumes for mount at login directly on OS X Server Mac
Today I needed to use Workgroup Manager to add a Login Item that Mounts an afp Volume. Apple provides no instructions for doing this while logged in directly on the server; instead this task is done using Workgroup Manager on a client (see this Apple support document). I didn't have my MacBook with me at the time, nor did I want to install the Server Admin Tools on another machine just for this one task. The solution is: Open Safari and enter the URL in the form of afp://IP-address-OR-Server-name/Share Point Drag the favicon (next to the URL) onto the Desktop. Drag the favicon into the System Preferences » Login » Items section of Workgroup Manager. Click Apply Now. Note that you do not need to add %20 to any white space when typing the URL in Safari; this will automatically be added when you drag the Favicon to the Desktop. Also, the colon and for...
published on Thursday, the 25. February 2010, macosxhints
Recover missing-but-there Time Machine backups
Yesterday, I had problems restarting my Mac mini, so I booted off an external hard disk with a clone, and fixed the startup problem. This morning, I needed to find a file in my Time Machine backup, but all my backups prior to the moment I booted from the external disk were dark in the Time Machine timeline (at the right of the screen). In the Finder, I could only access those created since last night. The backups were still there, though, and the Time Machine System Preferences pane recognized the date of my first backup as the oldest backup on my Time Machine disk. I searched for solutions, and found none. Then I recalled an older hint about browsing other Time Machine backups by holding down the Option key while clicking the Time Machine icon in the menubar. So I tried that. Only the one Time Machine disk showed up, and I selected it, and was able to access all my backups in the...
published on Friday, the 19. February 2010, macosxhints
Users having problems with Aperture 3, Airport base stations
Aperture 3 was released just last week, but users immediately began noticing issues with scratch disk space eating up their Macs' startup disk. Additionally, users of the latest revision of Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations have noticed problems using 802.11n's 5GHz channels. Aperture 3 users attempting to import libraries from Aperture 2 have left their machines crunching away at the data only to return later and find their Macs unresponsive. It appears that some users are running into a problem when Aperture tries to process images, which begins consuming all available disk space on the startup drive for virtual memory or scratch disk space. Once all the free space on the startup drive is used up, Mac OS X will become unresponsive. Not all users are affected by the problem, though, and no definitive cause has been determined. Still, the issue has made Aperture nearly unusable for some users—not the kind of thing professionals want in a tool that manages their workflow. Another problem has also plagued users of the most recent update of the Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations. Those models have a reconfigured antenna array (3x3 MIMO) which Apple said would offer a 50 percent boost in speed. However, users are finding that using the 5GHz channels actually results in decreased throughput. Users have reported consistent issues relying on 5GHz for 802.11n networking, with difficulties connecting, staying connected, and getting consistent throughput. Large file transfers have been especially problematic, which can be a real issue for Time Machine users backing up to a Time Capsule. So far, limiting connections to 2.4GHz or g-only connections seems to consistently alleviate the network problems. Several users have reported the issues to Apple, who have asked them to perform tests to narrow down the cause. However, none have been given a definitive fix or any indication that the problem could be solved with a firmware update.
published on Wednesday, the 17. February 2010, ars-technica
iPhone hardware and OS beat Nexus One for 3D performance
The Google Nexus One originally wowed us with its 1GHz Snapdragon processor, handily beating the 600MHz ARM core that powers the iPhone 3GS on raw performance. However, it turns out that the iPhone's combination of PowerVR SGX GPU and support for ARM's Neon floating point optimizations still give it a significant edge over the Nexus One when it comes to 3D animation. Mobile developer Distinctive Games used a 3D game engine that taxes both the CPU and GPU to compare performance between an iPhone 3GS and a Nexus One. With a rendered background and two characters, iPhone clocks 60fps while the Nexus One manages just 30fps. The Nexus One has a much higher resolution than the iPhone—800 x 480 versus 480 x 320—so the Nexus One was limited to the lower resolution, resulting in an increase to 40fps. As the number of on-screen characters ramped up to eight, however, the iPhone managed a just-playable 29fps, while the Nexus One dropped down to 21fps. Distinctive tested the devices further and found that two things were limiting the frame rate. The GPU in the Nexus One appears to not be as robust as that in the iPhone for 3D performance, and the CPU is being limited because the Android NDK (native development kit—used for apps that need direct hardware access, like games) doesn't utilize ARM's Neon floating point optimizations. There is a workaround that allows taking advantage of the Neon instructions, but it involves recompiling the whole Android OS using GCC, and updating to a newer version of GCC for NDK compilation. iPhone developers already gain the benefits of these optimizations using the Xcode tool chain. Android uses a Java-based SDK and Google's own virtual machine for standard app development. The NDK, which enables native hardware development, is still relatively new. An expected hardware revision to the iPhone this summer—which may include a custom Apple-designed ARM-based processor—along with its more mature SDK, should keep the iPhone platform at the forefront of mobile gaming for some time to come.
published on Monday, the 15. February 2010, ars-technica
How To Replace FileVault With EncFS
agoston.horvath writes "I've written a HOWTO on replacing Mac OS X's built-in encryption (FileVault) with the well-known FUSE-based EncFS. It worked well for me, and most importantly: it is a lot handier than what Apple has put together. This is especially useful if you are using a backup solution like Time Machine. Includes Whys, Why Nots, and step-by-step instructions."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
published on Sunday, the 14. February 2010, apple-slashdot
Apple may be paying to get flawed iMacs back in the UK
Apple is reportedly offering UK iMac owners full refunds plus 15 percent of the original purchase price for 27" iMacs suffering any of the maladies that have plagued the model since its release in October of 2009. According to an Apple Authorized shop speaking to Gizmodo, Apple has already completed the transaction with two of the shop's customers. Apple seems to be brokering the deals due to a shortage in parts needed to repair the units, as well as a repair backlog of over 200 machines. The 27" iMacs have had problems from the get-go with some users reporting issues with discolored displays and others reporting flickering screens. Most recently, there were reports of an internal support document telling technicians to explain that slight screen variations are normal, but if the customer continued to complain, to say that the machine could be repaired in "approximately three weeks." If that wasn't enough, they were told to offer a refund, but not a replacement. When Ars called an official Apple Store in the US to inquire about refunds, they were of little help and recommended we make an appointment with a "Genius" or call the AppleCare support number. Likewise, when we called two Apple Certified dealers, we received very similar responses. One tech did direct us to the recently released firmware update, but was unable to tell us anything regarding refunds or part lead times. The reports are based on a small number of cases, but Gizmodo's source seemed quite confident that these were not isolated results. Nonetheless, we remain skeptical of Apple offering refunds—let alone refunds plus 15 percent—until more reports come in. That being said, if you are at your wit's end with your iMac, it can't hurt to ask. Maybe with the extra cash you can upgrade to a Mac Pro.
published on Thursday, the 4. February 2010, ars-technica