Plymouth on VMWare
Posted by robg in uncategorized on June 15th, 2009
Enabling Plymouth on Fedora 11 for non-supported video cards is pretty simple. Check this doc for possible values.
To enable plymouth in 32 bit mode 1024×768 add this parameter to the kernel line of grub.conf:
vga=0x341
Ahhh pretty.
Bluetooth fixed on Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh
Posted by robg in uncategorized on May 19th, 2009
I followed this post to fix Bluetooth on my dell running OS X. I would recommend just following the first post, the script included later does some bad sed(ing), it changes far more values than it needs to. Sure the script works but it is a bit of a sledge hammer approach.
But following the first post I now have bluetooth working great, and tethering to my iphone (3.0) working as well. It is brilliant.
Replacing Mobile Me with Google Sync
Posted by robg in uncategorized on May 18th, 2009
Thanks to a fairly new project, Google Sync, I am now nolonger interested in a mobile me account.
It wasn’t the storage which interested me, and I am happy with picassa over Apple’s equivalent. But I use multiple computers, and I wanted the same calendar and mail on each computer and my iphone, and mobile me seemed the best way to do it. But now with Apple’s Address book able to sync with google, and Google Sync for the phone. I have all of my computers and iPhone syncing with the Google cloud, and staying in sync with each other.
Google Sync is also good news for linux users, allowing syncs without itunes. I think I’ll write a howto for linux users soon.
Read on for a how to. Read the rest of this entry »
Updating BIOS on mini 9 running OS X / Or creating a FreeDOS Bootable USB Drive
Posted by robg in uncategorized on May 6th, 2009
My Dell shipped with BIOS A01, A05 is the current one …. there is a WinXP download and a DOS download. Well I wasn’t about to re-install XP to upgrade the BIOS, so instead a made a bootable freedos usb stick.
Tip! Before you install OSX, upgrade the BIOS, I wish I had done this.
But if like me you need to do this another way, read on. You will need another computer. Read the rest of this entry »
Hackbook Mini 9
Posted by robg in uncategorized on May 6th, 2009
It has been done many, many times before, but let me say, it is awesome.
Wasn’t sure if I would like it or not, but it is amazing. Everything just seems to work. I have had a couple of hiccups, I cannot seem to tether a 3G phone without problems via bluetooth, and the the trackpad simply sucks, but it is great.
I used the howto from gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5156903/how-to-hackintosh-a-dell-mini-9-into-the-ultimate-os-x-netbook.
There is just one simple error in the post. Once you have booted from the usb, device 80 is the USB stick, not the SSD. All you have to do is select device 81, and you can boot from the internal drive. You do not need to use a CD Drive for the second part of the process like the howto suggests.
2 Libraries, 1 iPhone
Posted by robg in uncategorized on April 14th, 2009
My primary computer for syncing is my machine at work, but I occasionally want to add files from my home machines as well, and the iPhone will only sync with one library.
I found this: http://www.andrewgrant.org/2008/03/30/how-to-sync-an-iphone-with-two-or-more-computers.html
Leopard, sudo, proxies and environment variables
Posted by robg in uncategorized on April 3rd, 2009
Wow, just ran into this problem. The sudoers file on leopard has some new settings as default, which means that if you have environment variables set, they will not be inherited as superuser unless they are explicitly set.
# Defaults specification
Defaults env_reset
Defaults env_keep += "BLOCKSIZE"
Defaults env_keep += "COLORFGBG COLORTERM"
Defaults env_keep += "__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING"
Defaults env_keep += "CHARSET LANG LANGUAGE LC_ALL LC_COLLATE LC_CTYPE"
Defaults env_keep += "LC_MESSAGES LC_MONETARY LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME"
Defaults env_keep += "LINES COLUMNS"
Defaults env_keep += "LSCOLORS"
Defaults env_keep += "SSH_AUTH_SOCK"
Defaults env_keep += "TZ"
Defaults env_keep += "DISPLAY XAUTHORIZATION XAUTHORITY"
Defaults env_keep += "EDITOR VISUAL"At work I am behind a proxy, commands run as root from the terimnal are not inheriting my terminals proxy settings. MacPorts was failing.
There are 2 solutions.
Explicitly state the environment variable in the command line:
$ sudo env http_proxy=http://proxy.url:port/ commandor, add the environmant variable "http_proxy" to the list in /etc/sudoers.
New iPhone
Posted by robg in uncategorized on March 31st, 2009
YAY! Optus helped me. I have a new iPhone. Only 8gb this time but I decided to get insurance rather than the ponying up for the 16gb.
Played with Skype on the iPhone today. Very nice, would be nicer if it could keep me logged in to receive calls, but still nice.
iPhone Bake out
Posted by robg in uncategorized on March 31st, 2009
I got my iphone almost working again!
Its a simple recpe:
- Bottle of Distilled (De-mineralised) water
- Water damaged iPhone
- Rice (probably not necessary)
Wash iphone in distilled water. To insulate against the metal of the oven tray place iPhone on bed of rice. Bake for at least 4 hours at about 60 degrees centigrade .
Hopefully your iphone will again work, if not, throw iPhone away and eat rice.
The above worked for me, My iPhone still has some weirdness though. Camera is stuffed, as is the GPS. If the phone had been off when it was damaged I imagine that these problems wouldn’t have occurred. And the screen has some permanent water damage, a cloudy pattern which is always visible. Still better than a brick.
Makes me cry
Posted by robg in uncategorized on March 25th, 2009
I just got stuck in the biggest storm I have ever seen. iPhone was in my pocket, and now it has water damage and is broken.
I don’t think a gadget breaking has ever made me actually sad before.