Apple's Leopard already hacked for PC!

i love it.. as a windows user/pc user, i love how the other side claims that its product/os is nearly unhackable but yet only less than a day after being released; Leopard has been hacked and patched to work on an Intel/AMD based pc hardware. 

Daily Apps has the full guide to making your own patched dvd and installing over here:

http://dailyapps.net/2007/10/hack-attack-install-leopard-on-your-pc-in-3-easy-steps/

i plan to try the patch myself on my Tiger partition.  hopefully my network cards (one of the two hopefully) will be recognized and then i can try using Leopard as a main os for a week or two and give a write up on it.

just thought i'd let the uninformed informed! Go OSX86 Hackers and pc geeks!

my G5 logic board swap adventure...

well.. as i had previously blogged about, i've been working on a pals G5 tower just recently.  he had the logic board (ie motherboard for the windows hardware geeks) go bad and found out it would prob cost about $700 to get it replaced including labor.

so he went out and got a new board and then asked me to install it.  hell, i figured it couldn't be more than an hour long swap.  boy, was i wrong.  apple hardware is probably the worst designed for the DIYers in life.  i swear apple does this purposedly so they not only make money off of hardware but also off of service.

the hardest part of the swap was finding an appropriate tool to get to the screws on the heatsinks.  basically you need a 7-8" long screwdriver and torque wrench to get to them; however finding a place that makes this tool is next to impossible.  my pal decided to fabricate two specialized tools for the job.

after making the tools and of course tweaking them to fit; we had the heatsinks off and it was downhill from there! 

here's a great tip for anyone that messes with or takes apart hardware they are unfamiliar with; take photo of it as your doing it.  it will save you hours of troubleshooting and frustrations!  after i had the board swapped out and put back together, the G5 would boot but nothing would show for video.  after reading the service manual i found for the G5, realized the problem was the DIMM configuration; basically i had to move the four sticks to the 1/2 spots for each processor.  once i did that, bam! got the OS X boot screen and finally the desktop!

why apples are not oranges.. disassembling a Mac G5 Tower, arg!!

well, i apologize to my readers or followers for not updating in a few weeks.. been a busy geek lately and trying to catch the attention of a girl at the same time! i tell ya, a full time job indeed!

this last week, one of my mac pals called me and dropped off his G5 Mac.



basically he had it looked at and found out the motherboard/logic board went bad in it. the place he went to though wanted to charge him $700 to get a new board and to put it in. so he decided to go out and buy a new board (around $500) and asked me to remove and install the new one.





the removal was going great until i got to removing the two heatsinks for the processors. there are 4 screws that are nearly impossible to get to. to get to them, you really need a long (8inch or so) screwdriver w/a very narrow shaft to get to them. however, finding such a tool can be nearly impossible.

my pal decided to try out his welding skills and we have in turn gotten one of the two heatsinks off. we'll see if his second tool gets to the final screws.

this is my biggest gripe of apple products. they work great and have great warranties; but once that warranty is up and gone, your basically screwed and are better off getting a new mac if its a mainboard/logic board issue.

if my motherboard on my windows pc goes down, i can have a new board in in prob about 25mins if i have the part..

arggg!! i like oranges much better than apples when it comes to fixing.. hehe.. :P

i'll post a full dis-assemble pics later and also the order in which i did it and also a shot of the tools we made to get to the screws.

sony and its lack to support the multimedia functions of PS3

well, its been about 6 months now since i've had my ps3 and so far i'm not really regretting its purchase.  however, i have been VERY DISAPPOINTED with sony and its  lack of adding any functionality to the multimedia playback options of the PS3.  yes, they tout the PS3 as being more than a gaming machine but still leave us with a GIMPED media player and options.

help sites that aren't that helpful....

i admit it, i don't always have a solution for a problem and in turn need to use the power of the web and google to assist. 

for the most part, most 'howto' and 'help' web sites are pretty good.  however, every once in a while i'll run into one that REQUIRES you to register to view any of the responses.  an example, experts exchange (http://www.experts-exchange.com)  is a site that is like this.

i HATE these type of sites.  the most annoying part about these sites is that google seems to always put them at the top of most searches.  why would i want to join a site and in turn have to pay a fee to register to see a fix that was submitted by users? like most people, i just move on and find a more 'helpful' site that i can read the fix w/o having to register or pay.

this is why i applaud and love TechRX since you can read any of the recipes, without having to sign up or register or pay.

just a quick rant of mine i had to get off my chest, back to my research.