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Here’s the next chapter in the Clover MacBook overhaul saga. Yesterday the “CD caddy” arrived which allowed me to install a second hard drive in the area the optical drive normally occupies. The goal is to run the OS an apps from a SSD, and have the 500GB drive on board for file storage.

The upgrade was pretty hairy, but ultimately successful. To disassemble the MacBook, I followed this guide which outlines replacing the CD drive. Of course in my case, the broken CD drive left and the CD caddy went in.

http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook-Core-2-Duo-Optical-Drive-Replacement/518/1

Basically, the battery comes out, and every visible screw comes out. The keyboard then pops out and lifts up exposing the board and components. Several cables get unplugged allowing the optical drive to be removed. I moved my 500 GB drive into the caddy and put the original 120GB drive in the normal drive bay. This will allow me to easily swap it out when it’s time to install the SSD. Given everything, this particular MacBook is very well designed and upgradable.

Oh, also, the new aftermarket battery came in which is being charged up as I type this. I wonder how the battery life will be with no CD drive and solid state. More to come!

Now this is a story all about how Clover got flipped-turned upside down. Or something like that. Anyhow, read on for some uber MacBook hackage!

Clover is my 2007-era pre-unibody MacBook. At the time I got it (and even still) I consider it one of the best computers I’ve owned. Not that it was the most top-of-the-line; it just did everything right. And it underlines everything right about Apple. It just works. Well things were good, but like Suzy the Blue Coupe it got older and clunkier. The battery doesn’t hold a charge, the optical drive literally eats CDs, a USB port is if-y, and ultimately I just wanted something newer and I good reeled in by a cheap Windows laptop with all the bells and whistles. (BluRay, HDMI, stuff you can’t even get on a Mac)

But you know what, as cool as that PC laptop is, it wasn’t Clover. It didn’t have the nice keyboard and multitouch trackpad, the sturdy case, the indescribable elegance that makes a Mac a Mac. This, in conjunction with my Iconia Android tablet downright sucking I realized I needed to return to the DARK SIDE! APPLE!

And I must say there’s an allure to a new MacBook Air. Speedy solid-state, long battery life, the elegance! But the thing is, I can’t make do with the small SSD drives on those things. I’m not completely in the cloud just yet – I’ve got TBs of data I carry with me: music, ISOs, software, various OSs and virtual machine. I need the space. My PC laptop’s drive is utterly full, I can’t imagine downgrading to 256GB.

So then the solution hit me today. I can resurrect Clover, I can mod it, I can rebuild it, make it faster, stronger, better!

Operation: Clover Reloaded

Already done…

• I’ve already upgraded the RAM from 2 to 4 gigs, which is fine for now.
• I’ve replaced the tiny 120GB hard drive with a 500GB one which is good too.
• Snazzy green SPECK case for style points! Take that MacBook air!

Next steps…

• I bought an aftermarket battery which claims to exceed the Apple battery (we’ll see)
• Here’s the really exciting one: REPLACE THE BROKEN OPTICAL DRIVE WITH SOLID STATE

MacBook Optical Drive Caddy

Yup! There is a kit that is essentially a SATA drive caddy, that is built to replace the stock optical drive. I just ordered this bad boy off Amazon. When it comes in I will make sure it works by re-installing Clover’s old 120GB hard drive (brining my total to 620GB) If the caddy works properly I will try to get my hands on a solid state laptop drive, preferably the 256GB, and replace the 120GB old drive.

My plan is to install my OS and apps on the solid state drive. This means Clover will be able to run off it, boot instantly, use a lot less battery because there will be no moving parts. Plus, there will be a huge speed increase. It will be awesome! The other drive I will configure to only spin up when I need it. All my junk can go here, but if I am just surfing the web I can run of the solid state.

I will follow up with more when this kit arrives!

SENT FROM MY MACBOOK

Well, the new iPad is old news now with it’s incredible screen, processing power, and various other goodies. I’m a fan of Android phones, but as far as tablets go I haven’t found something that’s all around

as good as the iPad. It’s consistently fast, reliable, and light… everything I want in a tablet.

Well, almost. Here’s a top 5 list of things that would make the iPad perfect in my opinion. (Ok it’s actually a top 6.5 list, but that just doesn’t have the same ring to it, now does it?)

#6 – Native mouse support

I’ll throw this out now. Yes Android has these things, yes some of these can be achieved through jail breaking. But really, there are great keyboards for the iPad, why can’t they include touchpads or mouse support. On an android tablet, plug in a mouse and “presto” you get a cursor. Not so on the iPad, again unless you jailbreak it.

#5 – Flash support.

No, just kidding. I really don’t care about this bloated and dated technology. Sure it’s fun, but I don’t see the relevance in the post-pc era. I add it to my list because it’s the #1 thing I hear from other people, they want flash – or at least the option to be able to install it. (Hint hint)

#4 Emulators

I feel that Apple needs to relax a bit on their walled garden. If they allow iFart and plumbers crack, surely an emulator can’t be that bad? Well I suppose there are different forces at play, but last I checked emulation is legal in many cases, as long as the software is. There was an awesome DOS emulator in the app store, but it was pulled. Now it’s in Cydia. Hint-hint!

#3 Widgets/Sprockets

The Mac OS pioneered this, I think it would be nice to have in the iOS. Even if it were a standalone “dashboard” app, that would be nifty.

#2 – Expansion

I really really think the iPad needs at least an SD card slot, if not USB as well. I think this is more important than bumping the resolution, but what do I know. I don’t like having to carry around dongles to use a device that’s supposed to integrate with my music, camera, etc.

#1 – An open app store.

So again, the trend is, a lot of this is achieveable through Cyida and jailbreaking. But why should I have to do that? Don’t I own the device, can’t I use it how I want to? It’s legal and fair… so what gives? Android gives you an option to turn on external app support, why can’t Apple do this? Most users can stick with the app store, but power users should be able to take the risk and opt into developing and installing their own stuff.

Bonus: a cheaper nook-sized iPad, sized between iPod touch and iPad. For reading, and whatnot.

Again, I think iOS and the iPad is a superior tablet platform, maybe partly because it doesn’t have the complexities introduced in the items above. Then again, I’m sure Apple could find a way with this magical device!

I’m an Apple fanboy, I’ll admit it. But in my wildest dreams I never thought I’d see the day where you had to wait in line just to get into an Apple store. It seems like Apple can do no wrong these days, but a lot of people don’t know or don’t remember what being an Apple fan in the 1990s was like. Well, let me share 5 stories from the days of Simpsons, Sienfield, and Gil Amelio.

20th Anniversary Macintosh

Speaking of Seinfeld, Jerry himself had one of these in his TV show apartment in the mid to late 90s. If he actually purchased one, which was approximately the price of a Hyundai Excel, it would have been delivered via limo and set up by a guy wearing a tux. At least, that was what we read in MacAddict.

To be fair, it was a “before it’s time” concept and sleek design. But the price tag was way out of reach – even for Apple products.

Apple Pippin

“Ahead of it’s time” is a running theme here. Long before Microsoft bought it’s way into the video game market with the x-box… Apple tried with a box of their own. They came out with a video game system called the Pippin, which like most things Apple tried to do in the 90s was expensive, cumbersome, and failed to gain traction.

Mac OS “Copland”

Back in the mid-90s Apple faced what Microsoft faces now – an aging and bloated operating system. Mac OS 7, or System 7 as it were – was to be succeeded with a newly rebuild and optimized Mac OS for version 8 called Copland, named after composer Aaron Copland.

Over the years, delay after delay piled up and we were simply teased with demo disks, magazine articles, and the occasional Batman movie cameo. In the meanwhile, Microsoft released Windows 95 which blew the aging System 7 away.

Apple scrapped Copland and released a Mac OS 8 based on updated System 7 code. A new Mac OS wasn’t released until the 2000s when Mac OS X came out. Copland would have been sweet music to many Mac user’s ears if it was ever allowed to play.

Apple eMate

Many people know the Apple Newton, a touch screen PDA which handwriting recognition. It was parodied for it’s iffy recognition – but it was arguably a solid idea. The Newton OS found itself on this nifty device called the eMate. At a lower price-point, it was sort of like a netbook before netbooks… but it never really caught on.

Taco Bell had a promotion where you could win one of these, but all I ever won from them was the free gas.

The Apple QuickTake

The QuickTake was an early digital camera Apple released around 1994. As you’d expect it was expensive and never really caught on. The QUICK part of the name referred to QuickTime which as you know is Apple multimedia technology that we still get to install and run updates for today.

Besides being a fore-runner in digital cameras in general it did do some neat tricks. For example, part of the QuickTime technology being released at the time included QuickTime VR which allowed for panoramic 360-degree photography.

Honorable Mention: HyperCard

HyperCard was a program on early Macs that allowed you to essentially drag-and-drop create programs by laying out objects on cards. The “stacks” where hyper-linked to each other. Hyper links then became popular elsewhere, such as on the slightly more popular world wide web. Yes the not-so-subtle implication there is that HyperCard helped popularize hypertext protocol and the web as we know it today. But hey, I’m just a fanboy.

Well, over the weekend I picked up a new Droid Bionic – which has been a great phone. The dual core processer is peppy, the 4G is amazing, and the memory is great for all those hungry android apps. Since it’s a new phone on the market I wasn’t sure what resources were available for tinkering around – and there’s actually a great website dedicated to the Bionic: www.droidbionicroot.com

I won’t take credit for the process of rooting it, it’s extremely simple and well documented on this website. I’ll summarize everything quickly though.

WHY ROOT?

You might be asking why would you want to to perform surgey on a brand new phone. Well, quite honestly – rooting a phone really makes it your own. There are risks, but the process has become extremely simple.

Some things you can do with rooted phones: remove the pre-loaded bloat software, enable free wifi tethering on your device (heck you already pay for data, right?), overclock, install custom roms, use advanced system configuration and backup software, install wireless security applications, and more.

The risk? Well, I have not seen it first hand – but supposedly it’s possible to render your phone unusable. More likely you would have to do a factory restore – but I have not even seen that occur with a rooting process. Normally it works or it doesn’t. I personally believe there is nothing wrong with it but I do not know if it specifically violates and warranty or terms of use with your provider – so before you proceed it’s probably worth doing the research for your specific service provider. Finally, it’s possible you may lose the ability to perform system updates. This is typical for droid rooting and iPhone jailbreaking.

HOW?

Rooting the bionic or droid 3 is very simple currently. It’s possible that in the weeks and months to come, updates will come to the android os that will disable this method – so be aware. Below is the droidbionicroot.com article on the process, I’ll summarize the steps below.

http://droidbionicroot.com/droid-bionic-root/how-to-root-droid-bionic/

• Turn on USB debugging in your application settings
• Plug in to your computer and set your phone to “charge only”
• Windows users will need the motorola drivers provided on the site
• The one-click rooting software is called Pete’s Motorolla Root tools – also available on the site
• Double click the root my phone to start the process. The phone will reboot a few times during the process.

NEXT STEPS

One of the first things I did after rooting the phone was installing anttech app manager which you can use to backup and remove the preloaded crap apps from your phone.

To get wifi tethering to work, there is another article on the site which goes through the steps: http://droidbionicroot.com/droid-bionic-tether/how-to-get-free-wifi-tether-mobile-hotspot-on-your-droid-bionic/ The process mentions you will need to purchase sqlite editor but this is unnecessary. Any sqlite client should work. I used a free app called “db browser”. In any case, the process involves opening com.motorola.android.providers.settings, exploring settings.db and locating the setting for entitlement_check… if it is set to zero it will allow the built-in wifi hotspot app to function. (phone will need to be restarted… possibly twice)

There are also resources on getting fm radio and other neat features working. Check the site out and good luck!

Yesterday, Microsoft opened Windows 8 up to the developer community. And seeing something new and shiny I had to grab a copy! Below are some thoughts and experiences with the vista… I mean vastly different version of Windows to come…

INSTALLATION

Since the software is pre-beta I’m not quite ready to have it as a primary OS on any of my computers – so I used a virtual machine. I started out using my favorite: VMWare… however both 32 and 64bit versions failed to start. However I did get to get a peak at the new BSOD which includes a big frowny To get set up, I ended up using Linux and VirtualBox. The installation process was pretty much standard fare…. not much different than Win Vista/7.

WINDOWS, TILES, CEILINGS, ETC

Once installed you are presented with the tiles interface. This is the mobile Windows Phone 7 style interface, for the two or three of you who know what that is. Microsoft has claimed this version of Windows is drastically different and you can see what they mean here. On one hand, it’s a very elegant touch based interface. On the other hand I’m using a laptop and it’s awkward to say the least. To be fair, both Apple and Microsoft seem to be heading in the direction of touch-over-desktop. It’s easy to see why, look at Apple who sells more iOS devices than Mac OS X devices. In any case it’s a bit of a gamble. This is a great interface for touch/mobile devices… but I didn’t find it intuitive on a regular computer. A lot of the elements are hidden which I think will confuse people. But for better or worse the desktop is still there as well….

DESKTOP

Behind the tiles is the regular Windows Vista/7 desktop we’ve been using for years. It really is still just Windows. The tiles interface strikes me like Windows Media Center running on top of the desktop. Classic, non-metro apps (more on this later) will still open in the desktop interface, complete with task bar. The old control panel and explorer are there as well. The explorer windows now have the ribbon interface, the windows are boxier, but otherwise it’s much of the same. The windows key and start menu will bring you back to the tiles interface.

METRO APPS

The new touch-based tiley apps are called Metro apps. They are basically along the lines of iPad apps, android apps, etc… which have a full-screen touch-based interface. Even Internet Explorer (IE 10) is Metro… see the screenshot later. The full screen mode is nice, and very reminiscent of a mobile browser.

THE VERDICT

Overall it’s probably too early to say. Playing around with it for a day it felt like a weird hybrid of Windows and a mobile OS. I like the design of the tiles and metro apps, but they seem to serve only touch devices and make no sense for traditional computers. The actual Windows behind the scenes hasn’t really changed and if anything suffers from losing the start menu. Plus, really simple things are fairly hard to find. Most of the time I found my self stumbling back to the classic control panels to do things like change screen resolution. So for a mobile OS, it’s cool. For a desktop, eh… maybe the verdict is still out.

Maybe there’s some truth the “post pc era” talk.

There are tools to change your login screen in Windows 7 and Vista, but why download and install something that you can easily do yourself! This is the trick manufacturers use to plaster their logo on the startup screen on your new pc. So why not customize it and pick something a little more fun?

The process is simple, but it involves changing a simple registry setting. Before freaking out, trust me it’s simple! However I will give you the standard warning of “be careful” because you CAN do damage in your registry if you’re not careful. Just follow along!

1. Prepare a picture to use. (The picture should be a .JPG under 245kb and the correct resolution of your screen… for best results)
2. Rename the picture to “backgroundDefault.jpg” and copy it into: C:\Windows\System32\oobe\Info\Backgrounds (If the backgrounds folder doesn’t already exist, create it. If you have a custom login screen already, with your manufacturer’s logo for instance, you can back up what’s there and replace it with your picture.)
3. To turn on/off the custom login screen you can use the registry. Go to your startmenu and type “regedit.exe”
4. Take a deep breath and navigate through the tree on the left to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background
5. On the right side you should now see “OEMBackground”, double click it. Under value data use 1 for on and 0 for off. This will turn the custom login screen on or off.

Presto chango! If you hit HOME+L (err, the windows key) you will lock your screen and you can see what your new login screen looks like. Remember to keep the file size low and try to match the resolution of your screen.

Happy hacking!

The Nook color is an elegant little eBook reader, but it’s also a powerful android tablet with the right software. The App store built in to the Nook along with the striped down OS suits ebook reading, but leaves much to be desired otherwise. The good news is it’s quick, easy, and free to install a REAL OS with a REAL app store on this device.

This method seems to be the easiest, plus it leaves your native OS and files intact. So you can go back to it’s normal eBook state. Even better, you can share the device with someone else, keeping your OS confined to the SD card. You will need at least 4gigs free on a micro SD to get started.

Oh and of course, the usual disclaimer about “do this at your own risk” applies here. I’m not responsible if you brick a nook. (or break anything else for that matter)

First, download the honeycomb image. This copy is ready to go on the Nook color. This is a torrent and you will need an app like uTorrent to do the download. http://www.rbrune.de/nookhoney04.img.zip.torrent

After it’s finished downloading, you will need to write the image to a micro SD card (again, at least 4gigs required) There are multiple ways to do this. Windows users can use a program like WinImage to write the .img file. Mac and Linux users can use the dd command, which is a little more involved.

Using dd to write the image…

BE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU ARE USING THE CORRECT DEVICE HERE, IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL YOU CAN DO SOME SERIOUS DAMAGE. There are several ways to determine which device the SD card is. Linux users can use the mount command, mac users can use the diskutil command. I used my MacBook to do the dirty work. The device on my computer was /dev/disk1 so the commands I used were…

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1

dd if=nookhoney04.img of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=1m

And this will write the image to the card. Be patient, it might take a few minutes. When this is done, eject the SD, power down the nook, insert the honeycomb SD and boot normally – it should boot right up into Honeycomb.

The next step is getting an app store on there, this will be covered in a future update – stay tuned & happy hacking!

SkyDrive is Microsoft’s cloud based storage solution. Basically, that’s a fancy way of saying an online place to store your files. The neat thing is you can access these files anywhere. But what would be even neater is if you could access these files right from “My Computer” in Windows explorer. And guess what, you can…

You accomplish this by using the “Map network location” toolbar item and connection via WebDAV. To determine what the WebDAV address is for your SkyDrive, check out this utility.

In the first screenshot I run the utility with my SkyDrive username and password. If you have hotmail or Windows Live mail you already have this login. (Otherwise, just create one!)

Next up, you’ll have to change around the URL slightly, see below for my example…

FROM: https://vu9x5m.docs.live.net/33d______c322/^.Documents

TO: \\vu9x5m.docs.live.net@SSL\33d______c322\^.Documents

Now, use the “Map a Network Drive” toolbar item in “My Computer” and enter this address. The username and password are just your Windows Live login again.

Presto! Your SkyDrive is right there in My Computer, making it easy to move files between computers!

Well, last time we covered jailbreaking an iPad it seems only fitting somehow to cover rooting an android phone as well. In my example, I’ll go over rooting a first gen Motorolla Droid with FroYo (Android 2.2.2) Gaining root access will give you lots of goodies like tethering, overclocking (speeding up), and allowing for custom ROMs to be installed. Read on!

The same cautions apply here as they did in the iPad article. Be careful, back up, do so at your own risk. I don’t take any responsibilities if things go horribly wrong. Also be sure you’re not breaking any of your service agreement with your cell provider. Not that you care about that, right?

Ok, here’s the deal. There are many ways to go about this. The way described below involves using a tool on your PC to send a pre-rooted update file to the phone. It is specific to a Motorolla Droid and a Windows PC. You will also need to open a RAR file, so grab WinRAR or 7-Zip. Ok, here we go! After backing up, here are the steps:

1 – Install Motorolla drivers on your PC

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Support/Experiences/Global_Drivers/USB_Drivers_32_bit_4.6.5.zip

http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Support/Experiences/Global_Drivers/USB_Drivers_64_bit_4.6.5.zip

The first is for 32 bit Windows, the second for 64.

Also, install RSD Lite. The file can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ufxs9lft9q2xwnu

2 – Download BOTH of these files you will flash to your phone. (Credit goes to MotoCache1)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10154179/AndroidPackages/MC1_A855_1282081087_Recovery-Only_SPRecovery_0.99.3b.zip

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10154179/AndroidPackages/MotoCache1_Complete_Root_v1.1-update.zip

Be sure to extract the zip files.

3 – Rename

Rename the root update file to “update.zip” Make sure it’s a valid zip file.

4- Plug your phone in and copy update.zip

Mount the phone normally, and copy update.zip to the root (highest level) of the phone’s sd card.

5 – Start phone in bootloader mode & flash SBF

Power off your phone, and start it holding UP on the keypad. Load up RSD lite and flash the SBF file to your phone. Your phone will reboot during this process. When it does, hold UP again to go back into the bootloader. Eventually RSD lite should report “PASS”

6 – Boot phone into recover mode

Restart the phone holding X on the keyboard. You should now have a custom menu here which you can navigate using the volume buttons. Use the camera button for “OK” and the power button for “back” If you need to mount your sd card you can do so. But ultimately you will need to go apply the update (update.zip) Also, you may have to allow update.zip to be installed (which is a menu option) This is just because the update.zip is unsigned.

Phew! That’s it, restart and enjoy your rooted droid!

So now what?

• Check out barnacle wifi tether in the app store, it will allow you to make a wifi hot spot.
• You can overclock the CPU using a program called “set cpu” – this will make the phone faster overall.
• Check out network security tools, packet sniffers, custom roms, and more!

Happy hacking!