Showing posts with label very usefull Done. Show all posts
Showing posts with label very usefull Done. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Tiger Direct Tutorials and STEVE JOBS and BILL GATES Interview @cyrustmybjaz29
Thursday, March 20, 2014
IBM study confirms customer experience is #1@@
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According to a new IBM Study released today, over 60% of CIOs seek to improve customer experience and change the way they engage with customers. More than 80% of CIOs surveyed are mining data for customer insights and shifting their focus to marketing, sales and customer service managers who work on finding, winning and retaining customers. Here's a snapshot of how CIOs want to spend more time on customer-related activities:
The report is based on face-to-face conversations with more than 1,600 CIOs from 70 countries and 20 industries worldwide. The research, conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, reveals that customers drive CIOs to turn their focus to the front lines. "The study validates the emerging reality that there is no longer any real distinction between the customer experience and contemporary business strategy," said Peter Korsten, global leader, IBM Institute for Business Value. A number of additional CIO insights are available in this detailed report.
One of the most significant ways that IBM is blazing a trail for transforming customer insights into customer-activated business strategies was shared at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. IBM demonstrated its Digital Experience Platform which has the capability of tracking any and all social media metrics of a company in a Minority Report-style dashboard. Leveraging technologies from partners like Mutual Mind, IBM displays a command center of powerful social media analytics that enable “Social Listening as a Service.” Executives can monitor and use metrics from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and other social media to promote their brands and fine tune frontline service to meet customer needs in a more timely way.
On average, a company needs to engage online customers within 5 seconds. Otherwise, 30% of potential customers leave and 40% never return. (source: Equation Research, 2010). One of the goals of the Digital Experience Platform is for companies to leverage social media metrics to become more agile with business decisions that reflect the sentiments of customers and employees. Customer Experience metrics also enable companies to personalize products and services to meet and exceed customer expectations. More information about IBM’s Digital Experience is available here.
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According to a new IBM Study released today, over 60% of CIOs seek to improve customer experience and change the way they engage with customers. More than 80% of CIOs surveyed are mining data for customer insights and shifting their focus to marketing, sales and customer service managers who work on finding, winning and retaining customers. Here's a snapshot of how CIOs want to spend more time on customer-related activities:
- +15%: Customer experience management;
- +6%: Sales and New Business Development;
- +2%: Marketing and Communications.
The report is based on face-to-face conversations with more than 1,600 CIOs from 70 countries and 20 industries worldwide. The research, conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, reveals that customers drive CIOs to turn their focus to the front lines. "The study validates the emerging reality that there is no longer any real distinction between the customer experience and contemporary business strategy," said Peter Korsten, global leader, IBM Institute for Business Value. A number of additional CIO insights are available in this detailed report.
One of the most significant ways that IBM is blazing a trail for transforming customer insights into customer-activated business strategies was shared at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. IBM demonstrated its Digital Experience Platform which has the capability of tracking any and all social media metrics of a company in a Minority Report-style dashboard. Leveraging technologies from partners like Mutual Mind, IBM displays a command center of powerful social media analytics that enable “Social Listening as a Service.” Executives can monitor and use metrics from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and other social media to promote their brands and fine tune frontline service to meet customer needs in a more timely way.
On average, a company needs to engage online customers within 5 seconds. Otherwise, 30% of potential customers leave and 40% never return. (source: Equation Research, 2010). One of the goals of the Digital Experience Platform is for companies to leverage social media metrics to become more agile with business decisions that reflect the sentiments of customers and employees. Customer Experience metrics also enable companies to personalize products and services to meet and exceed customer expectations. More information about IBM’s Digital Experience is available here.
Instant Apple iBooks How-To@@
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Do you love to read ebooks on the iPad? Are you a writer who wants to publish his or her own interactive ebooks for the iPad, and sell them on the iBookstore? Zeeshan Chawdhary, a highly experienced web and mobile developer who is currently the CTO of iCityConcierge Ltd, a travel startup, shows you how to do both in his new book Instant Apple iBooks How-to. To read ebooks, you use the app iBooks in your iPad. To write and publish ebooks, you use the app iBooks Author in your Apple MacBook or iMac. The first five sections describe how to use iBooks, and the rest tell you how to use iBooks Author 2.0, the latest version of the program as of this writing. You should also know how to create an HTML5 webpage.
For readers: how to use iBooks
In these sections, you are introduced to features that enable you to browse and purchase ebooks (or download free ebooks), group these ebooks into different categories; or Collections, and add PDFs to the iBooks library. You also learn about tools that you can use while you read these books. These reading tools enable you to select text from the book to be copied, pasted, and emailed. In iBooks 3.0.2, which was current when he wrote this book, you can also change the color of the highlight when the text is selected, and use the Fonts and Themes feature to change the font size and family of the text, and the color of the book's background.
If you're using iBooks 3.1, please note that this version no longer has these last two features. The horizontal bar that appears when you select the text has also changed. When you tap the text to select it, only the words "Copy" and "Search" appear in the bar. If you tap one word, the word "Define" - which enables a box with a dictionary definition of this word to appear - will also show up in the bar. To view iBooks - and the rest of your iPad - in "night mode," go to your Settings app, press Accessibility, then switch Invert Colors to On.
For writers: how to use iBooks Author
Here, Instant Apple iBooks How-to teaches you how to create an interactive London travel guidebook by choosing a template (you can find templates in the program itself, or various websites), and editing the text and graphics. In iBooks Author 2.0, you can now directly drag images from websites onto placeholder images. Then you learn how to create a custom HTML5 Twitter widget that pulls tweets about London into the ebook, and a widget where a 3D object can be viewed and rotated in the ebook. When inserting a 3D object into your iBooks Author 2.0 document, make sure "Auto-rotate object when idle" is unchecked; otherwise the 3D object will not show.
My Verdict
I thought Instant Apple iBooks How-to was a really good quick-start book, and enjoyed using it. However, I wish it also included tutorials on other features iBooks Author supports; like exporting the ebook to PDFs, publishing the ebook for the iBookstore, and other widgets you can include in your ebook; like videos, audios, Keynote presentations, interactive images, image galleries, review questions, scrolling sidebars, and popover text boxes that appear when the user taps a graphic. I also thought it would have been nice if HTML5 code for the webpage in the Twitter widget had been included; in case there might be readers who are not familiar with HTML5 (I am). Instant Apple iBooks How-to is a well-written hands-on guide, but I feel it can use more detail.
In these sections, you are introduced to features that enable you to browse and purchase ebooks (or download free ebooks), group these ebooks into different categories; or Collections, and add PDFs to the iBooks library. You also learn about tools that you can use while you read these books. These reading tools enable you to select text from the book to be copied, pasted, and emailed. In iBooks 3.0.2, which was current when he wrote this book, you can also change the color of the highlight when the text is selected, and use the Fonts and Themes feature to change the font size and family of the text, and the color of the book's background.
If you're using iBooks 3.1, please note that this version no longer has these last two features. The horizontal bar that appears when you select the text has also changed. When you tap the text to select it, only the words "Copy" and "Search" appear in the bar. If you tap one word, the word "Define" - which enables a box with a dictionary definition of this word to appear - will also show up in the bar. To view iBooks - and the rest of your iPad - in "night mode," go to your Settings app, press Accessibility, then switch Invert Colors to On.
Here, Instant Apple iBooks How-to teaches you how to create an interactive London travel guidebook by choosing a template (you can find templates in the program itself, or various websites), and editing the text and graphics. In iBooks Author 2.0, you can now directly drag images from websites onto placeholder images. Then you learn how to create a custom HTML5 Twitter widget that pulls tweets about London into the ebook, and a widget where a 3D object can be viewed and rotated in the ebook. When inserting a 3D object into your iBooks Author 2.0 document, make sure "Auto-rotate object when idle" is unchecked; otherwise the 3D object will not show.
I thought Instant Apple iBooks How-to was a really good quick-start book, and enjoyed using it. However, I wish it also included tutorials on other features iBooks Author supports; like exporting the ebook to PDFs, publishing the ebook for the iBookstore, and other widgets you can include in your ebook; like videos, audios, Keynote presentations, interactive images, image galleries, review questions, scrolling sidebars, and popover text boxes that appear when the user taps a graphic. I also thought it would have been nice if HTML5 code for the webpage in the Twitter widget had been included; in case there might be readers who are not familiar with HTML5 (I am). Instant Apple iBooks How-to is a well-written hands-on guide, but I feel it can use more detail.
How HTML5's improving your relaxation time and finances 8 billion times a day@@
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In the late 90’s when the dot com stock bubble was going on, I transitioned to online trading through Datek (which TechCrunch lists as a precocious company in a schizophrenic industry), which was one of the few and early online trading companies. These were heady times for me, making and losing thousands of dollars in minutes, fortunately I made more than I lost, but this platform and idea changed the landscape of stock trading from being an exclusive club to something that anyone could easily do from home on their computer.
Now here we are in 2014, but last year tradeMONSTER released their new HTML5 based trading platform that has radically changed the game for stock, options and futures traders. I was more interested in the technology used and the process to get there than in stock trading per se, as HTML5 has been the Shangri La for developers trying to make cross platform apps without having to resort to particular platform toolkits. It was with that in mind that I spoke with Sanjib Sahoo, CTO of tradeMONSTER:
Shawn Gordon:
Sanjib, first off, amazing job with the app, it is just gorgeous on all levels, the look, the responsiveness, the tech behind it; truly an impressive accomplishment.
Sanjib Sahoo:
Thank you, we’re very proud of what we put together, the market and industry seem to agree as well.
SG:
Speaking of the market, can you tell me a bit about the acceptance of it so far?
SS:
Since we launched last year there have been more than four million shares traded in the platform and over 350,000 user logins.
Can you give me a little history of where tradeMONSTER started at and where you are now before we jump in to the guts of the app? SS:
Sure. tradeMONSTER went from a startup in 2008 to the #2 online trading company in just five years. Our new platform was built in just nine months with a small internal team of 10 people that was augmented with about 10 outside contractors. Using an Agile methodology, we first scoped out the entire project, then broke it down in to four-to-five week Sprints. We tackled what we perceived as the most complex aspects first to make sure they were achievable, if we went down a path that wasn’t working, the short sprints allowed us to change course without too much investment in a particular methodology.
So, to be clear, this is a pure HTML5 play, taking advantage of all the promises that came with it? Surely it wasn’t as simple as we all dreamed. What were some of the challenges you ran in to?
SS:
Certainly there were challenges, probably the biggest related to Android fragmentation and more specifically with scrolling, animations, memory footprints, event handling and handling multiple http requests. That said, we were able to do
99 percent of it in pure HTML5,
then we have optimizations in the native layer. We spent a lot of our time coming up with optimizations, to reduce the load on the device as much as possible and keep the bandwidth usage as low as possible. For example, some devices have more horsepower than others. On a more powerful device, we’ll do the calculations on the device to take advantage of offloading some of that processing, but on a lower power device, we’ll do it on our servers before we push it to the client.
(Antutu is an overall system performance benchmark (CPU, graphics, storage)
SG:
Has the support of HTML5 on the various platforms gotten better since your initial release?
SS:
Oh yes, significantly. We recently released a real time market analysis tool for example. It goes through the entire universe of the market essentially, in less than a second and streams it to your phone. That is over eight billion data points over six trading hours a day.
SG:
You’ve filed for patents with regard to some of the technology that was built through this process. Is there anything you can speak to specifically or if it might be released to in the wild?
In the long, long, ago, in the before time, I would read the paper to research stocks and put buy and sell orders in to my stock broker, who also put in his two-cents of what I should buy and sell (he was rarely right) and he took a nice big commission for the privilege of it.
In the late 90’s when the dot com stock bubble was going on, I transitioned to online trading through Datek (which TechCrunch lists as a precocious company in a schizophrenic industry), which was one of the few and early online trading companies. These were heady times for me, making and losing thousands of dollars in minutes, fortunately I made more than I lost, but this platform and idea changed the landscape of stock trading from being an exclusive club to something that anyone could easily do from home on their computer.
Now here we are in 2014, but last year tradeMONSTER released their new HTML5 based trading platform that has radically changed the game for stock, options and futures traders. I was more interested in the technology used and the process to get there than in stock trading per se, as HTML5 has been the Shangri La for developers trying to make cross platform apps without having to resort to particular platform toolkits. It was with that in mind that I spoke with Sanjib Sahoo, CTO of tradeMONSTER:
Shawn Gordon:
Sanjib, first off, amazing job with the app, it is just gorgeous on all levels, the look, the responsiveness, the tech behind it; truly an impressive accomplishment.
Sanjib Sahoo:
Thank you, we’re very proud of what we put together, the market and industry seem to agree as well.
SG:
Speaking of the market, can you tell me a bit about the acceptance of it so far?
SS:
Since we launched last year there have been more than four million shares traded in the platform and over 350,000 user logins.
Can you give me a little history of where tradeMONSTER started at and where you are now before we jump in to the guts of the app? SS:
Sure. tradeMONSTER went from a startup in 2008 to the #2 online trading company in just five years. Our new platform was built in just nine months with a small internal team of 10 people that was augmented with about 10 outside contractors. Using an Agile methodology, we first scoped out the entire project, then broke it down in to four-to-five week Sprints. We tackled what we perceived as the most complex aspects first to make sure they were achievable, if we went down a path that wasn’t working, the short sprints allowed us to change course without too much investment in a particular methodology.
At the end of the day, we had to take what our web platform was doing and make that functional, responsive and easily usable across multiple devices and form factors, all while keeping a unified code base.SG:
So, to be clear, this is a pure HTML5 play, taking advantage of all the promises that came with it? Surely it wasn’t as simple as we all dreamed. What were some of the challenges you ran in to?
SS:
Certainly there were challenges, probably the biggest related to Android fragmentation and more specifically with scrolling, animations, memory footprints, event handling and handling multiple http requests. That said, we were able to do
99 percent of it in pure HTML5,
then we have optimizations in the native layer. We spent a lot of our time coming up with optimizations, to reduce the load on the device as much as possible and keep the bandwidth usage as low as possible. For example, some devices have more horsepower than others. On a more powerful device, we’ll do the calculations on the device to take advantage of offloading some of that processing, but on a lower power device, we’ll do it on our servers before we push it to the client.
SG:
Has the support of HTML5 on the various platforms gotten better since your initial release?
SS:
Oh yes, significantly. We recently released a real time market analysis tool for example. It goes through the entire universe of the market essentially, in less than a second and streams it to your phone. That is over eight billion data points over six trading hours a day.
SG:
You’ve filed for patents with regard to some of the technology that was built through this process. Is there anything you can speak to specifically or if it might be released to in the wild?
Sunday, March 16, 2014
How to protect yourself?@@/ 10 Years of Mobile Malware: How Secure Are You?@@
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IDG Global Mobility Study says that more than 70% of employees access the corporate network using a personally owned smartphone or tablet with about 80% of them accessing their email on mobile device.
A devastating fact is that about 57% of mobile device users are not aware that mobile security solutions even exist! Moreover, nearly 1/2 of the mobile device users do not use the basic precautions such as passwords. So, what can you do to make it better?
Use a password or PIN on your mobile device. You probably think: "Yeah, but my mobile device is always near me, I don't need that stuff". Let me give you one more statistical data: "27% of ADULTS have lost their mobile device or had it stolen" - that is about 1/3 of adult mobile device owners. So consider even setting-up an Anti-Theft solution. Use a Mobile Security solution, it can be easily downloaded or installed from the store. If you are using business critical applications or you are having important data on your mobile device, consider buying advanced protection. Be careful with downloading applications and download apps only from legitimate stores. Always check what kind of data is application asking you to share and if it seems suspicious - do not install it.
Keep your operating system and apps up to date. This sounds simple, but many of users forget to update their devices on time. Do not log-in or run high-risk apps while on public (unsecured) WiFi network. This can be highly dangerous, especially if you are performing any kind of payment or similar activity. I would advise that you wait until you have secure connection or use VPN! Block web ads or avoid clicking on them. If it seems interesting, do the same search in search engine and you'll probably get a similar result.
Do not root the device. Of course you know that you will lose warranty if you do so, but it can also open other security holes, which you don't want to see open.Back-up your data. It's not so hard and it's quite fast. Educate yourself and/or your employees. Your behavior is very important. Don't be too curious, don't connect with unknown people, don't click on suspicious links. If you get an email from colleague or boss asking you to open some archive, link or enter credentials - call them and check if they really sent that. Always double check if you are suspicious - it is much cheaper than repairing potential damage!
And last, avoid browsing pornography web pages from mobile device. Especially pay attention if your kid is always going to toilette with tablet or phone, it can be suspicious More on this visit
more on this visit the advocator!!!
A devastating fact is that about 57% of mobile device users are not aware that mobile security solutions even exist! Moreover, nearly 1/2 of the mobile device users do not use the basic precautions such as passwords. So, what can you do to make it better?
Use a password or PIN on your mobile device. You probably think: "Yeah, but my mobile device is always near me, I don't need that stuff". Let me give you one more statistical data: "27% of ADULTS have lost their mobile device or had it stolen" - that is about 1/3 of adult mobile device owners. So consider even setting-up an Anti-Theft solution. Use a Mobile Security solution, it can be easily downloaded or installed from the store. If you are using business critical applications or you are having important data on your mobile device, consider buying advanced protection. Be careful with downloading applications and download apps only from legitimate stores. Always check what kind of data is application asking you to share and if it seems suspicious - do not install it.
Keep your operating system and apps up to date. This sounds simple, but many of users forget to update their devices on time. Do not log-in or run high-risk apps while on public (unsecured) WiFi network. This can be highly dangerous, especially if you are performing any kind of payment or similar activity. I would advise that you wait until you have secure connection or use VPN! Block web ads or avoid clicking on them. If it seems interesting, do the same search in search engine and you'll probably get a similar result.
Do not root the device. Of course you know that you will lose warranty if you do so, but it can also open other security holes, which you don't want to see open.Back-up your data. It's not so hard and it's quite fast. Educate yourself and/or your employees. Your behavior is very important. Don't be too curious, don't connect with unknown people, don't click on suspicious links. If you get an email from colleague or boss asking you to open some archive, link or enter credentials - call them and check if they really sent that. Always double check if you are suspicious - it is much cheaper than repairing potential damage!
And last, avoid browsing pornography web pages from mobile device. Especially pay attention if your kid is always going to toilette with tablet or phone, it can be suspicious More on this visit
more on this visit the advocator!!!
Friday, February 21, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
App Developer Empire@@
I Guarantee That The Video Below Will Change Everything You Have Heard, Seen Or Tried In iPhone Dev Business...
Sunday, February 9, 2014
New Google Play Newsstand widget gets “mini card” view@@
Are you more of a headline kind of person, and don’t have the time to read entire news stories? Then Google Play Newsstand’s latest update should be right up your alley.
It features a “mini card” view that could save you lots of time while scrolling through your selected news.
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The new view boils all of the stories down into bite-sized headlines that you can check at a glance. If you want to know more about the story, just tap on the headline and read away.
It also compresses the amount of stories that appear on your widget screen as well, so you’re never overwhelmed by a flood of news.
The latest update also has a bunch of other features: you have new options for organizing your magazines, the capacity to have foreign news translated instantly, support for extra languages, and a whole bunch of glitch fixes.
It still looks like the same Google Plays Newsstand, more or less, but the latest update should give users a more pleasurable and versatile experience.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
How to Build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, Start to Finish@@
Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800 "Hackintosh"-a PC that runs a patched version of OS X Leopard. What?!, you say. Apple's move to Intel processors in 2006 meant that running OS X on non-Apple hardware is possible, and a community hacking project called OSx86 launched with that goal in mind. Since then, OSx86 has covered major ground, making it possible for civilians-like you and me!-to put together their own Hackintosh running Mac OS 10.5. Today, I'll show you how to build your own high end computer running Leopard from start to finish for under $800.
Right now the cheapest Mac on sale at the Apple store is a $600 Mac Mini sporting a 1.83GHz proc, 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. For $200 more, your Hackintosh can boast a 2.2GHz proc with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB drive, and a completely upgradeable case for expanding your setup in the future.
TweeTBuilding a DIY Mac requires some work on your part, so be ready to dedicate time to this project. To make things as easy as possible, I'm going to lay out how I built my Hackintosh from start to finish, from the hardware I used to the final patches I applied to the Leopard install. If you can build a Lego set and transcribe text, you've got all the basic skills required.
The Hardware
There's no definitive best bet for a Hackintosh hardware configuration, so you may be able to experiment and come up with a better selection of parts than I did. However, I can guarantee that Leopard will (or at least has) run successfully on this hardware setup.
SEXPAND
To make things easy, I've put together my entire hardware setup as a wish list on Newegg. (You may notice that the total price is listed at around $850, but I knocked $110 off the price tag due to a couple of mail-in rebates-so "Under $800" it remains, however fudgingly.)
The build consists of a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a total of 4GB of RAM (four sticks at 1GB each), an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, a GeForce 7300GT (the same basic video card that comes installed in the default Mac Pro configuration), a 500GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and an Antec Sonata case (which I've always liked for its looks and quiet fans). The motherboard is the most important element, since the patches we'll apply later are tailored specifically for this motherboard. You could probably tweak a lot of the other hardware without many complications, but if you stick with this motherboard and follow the installation instructions, you shouldn't see any major complications.
The Build
Now that you've got all the parts, it's time to start putting your Mac together. We've detailed every step of the computer building process at one point or another in the past here on Lifehacker, so rather than cover that ground again, I'll outline the process with links to our previous instructions. As always, be sure to read your hardware manuals before you begin-particularly from the motherboard-to get to know your hardware before you start the installation. Also, always remember to be careful of static electricity and always keep yourself grounded and your board unpowered until you're finished.
- Install the motherboard and CPU: You can follow these instructions almost without variation, but the heatsink and fan installation, in particular, is a touch different. Rather than hooking the heatsink to your motherboard, the included Intel heatsink pops into place. For a more detailed description of how this works, consult your motherboard's manual and the manual included with your processor.
- Install your RAM: The only thing you need to keep in mind when you're installing the RAM is that you should install the matched pairs-that is, the pairs that come in the same package-in like colored slots. This isn't strictly necessary, but it's a good practice and generally means better performance.
- Install the video card: These instructions actually detail how to install a PCI card, which is just a more general way of looking at your video card. The card we're using is a PCI Express card and should be installed in the top (orange) PCI slot.
- Install the hard drive and DVD drive: Your hard drive is an SATA drive, which is not the type of drive installed in the instructions (though they do address SATA drives). Just connect one of the power supply's SATA power cables to the drive and then connect the drive to the red SATA connector on your motherboard (it's labeled on the board as SATA1). Follow the same basic instructions to install your DVD drive but plug the drive into one of the other SATA ports (I used the SATA4 port).
When you've finished putting everything together, your open case should look like the nearly completed image below. In that picture, I've yet to install the hard drive and DVD drive and I still need to connect the case power and other connectors to the motherboard. (You may install other features of the motherboard if you prefer, like the FireWire connector for the back of the case).
To make sure everything's working properly, close it up, plug it into a monitor and keyboard and power it up. If the computer boots into the BIOS (by pressing Delete when prompted), you're ready to move on. If the computer won't boot, you may have to open the case back up and double-check your installation. Among other things, be sure that your RAM is properly seated.
SEXPAND
I should note that at this point of my installation, I ran into a bum power supply unit (PSU) in my case. Unfortunately that meant that I didn't know whether the PSU was bunk or my motherboard was fried, and since I don't own a voltage meter it took an extra trip to Fry's and some troubleshooting to get to the bottom of it. The point is that when you're building a PC yourself, you can and should be prepared to run into snags, so if you're not ready to troubleshoot if a problem arises, you may want to think twice before trying this. That said, I've built several PCs in the past and this was my only major snag in the course of a build, so it's also very likely that your build could go off without a hitch.
Either way, as soon as you're able to boot into the BIOS, you're ready to get started with the pre-installation.
Pre-Installation
There are two things you need to tackle to prepare your computer for installation. First, you'll need to tweak your BIOS settings to properly work with the Leopard install. Second, you need to patch the Leopard DVD to install on your newly built Hackintosh computer.
Tweak your BIOS: The first thing I did once my build was finished was update my BIOS, since the default BIOS wasn't properly recognizing my processor. Luckily doing so is pretty simple. Just head over to the ASUS download site, narrow down, and then download the latest BIOS for your motherboard. Once downloaded, just stick the file on a USB flash drive. Then boot up your build and enter the BIOS setup. Like I said above, power on your computer and hit Delete when prompted to boot into the BIOS.
Once you're there, arrow to the Tools tab of the BIOS, select EZ Flash2, and then hit Enter. Now choose your flash drive by tabbing to the appropriate drive, find the BIOS file you downloaded, and install it. When the BIOS has updated, your computer should automatically restart.
Now that you've updated your BIOS, you're ready to get into some nitty gritty preparation. If you plugged in your drives like I suggested during your build, you should see your hard drive and DVD drive listed in the BIOS as Third IDE Master and Fourth IDE Slave. (Don't worry about the fact that your hard drive isn't listed as the Primary IDE Master.) Arrow down to IDE Configuration and hit Enter.
In the IDE config, you want to set "Configure SATA As" to AHCI. Next hit Escape once to go back to the Main screen. Now hit the right arrow key to move to the Advanced tab. In the Advanced section go to "Onboard Devices Configuration" and set "JMicron SATA / PATA Controller" to Disabled.
Now you need to arrow over to the Boot tab to configure the boot priority (which tells your computer what order you want to boot off devices in your computer). Go to "Boot Device Priority" and set your DVD drive as priority one and your hard drive as priority two.
Done? Then you're ready to move onto patching your Leopard DVD.
Patch Leopard for your Hackintosh: There are a couple of different ways one could go about creating a patched Leopard DVD. The easiest is probably to download an already patched version using BitTorrent (I can attest to having seen the patched version floating around before Demonoid went under, but it's probably available elsewhere as well). The second method requires patching a Leopard DVD yourself, which isn't really as hard as it sounds.
If you decide to go the first route and you find a pre-patched version off BitTorrent, you can skip to the next section. Otherwise, let's get down to work. To patch the Leopard install disc, you'll need a Mac and a pre-patched image of the Leopard installer on your desktop. You can get this in two ways: Either by downloading the image-again with BitTorrent-or by buying and then ripping a Leopard DVD to your hard drive. Either way you choose, when you're finished you should place the ripped installer on your desktop and make sure that it's named
osx-leopard105.dmg.
Now it's time to get patching. To do so, you need to grab the patch files (created by the resourceful OSx86 forum member BrazilMac, who bundled the patch files and whose instructions I followed for the installation), which you can download from one of many sources here under the "FILES FOR THIS GUIDE" section at the top of the page. After you've downloaded the zipped patch files, unzip the archive and drag all of the contents of the archive to your desktop (it should contain two files and three folders in total).
UPDATE: We've removed direct links to the forum post containing the patch files on the OSx86 Scene Forum.
Now open the 9a581-patch.sh shell script in your favorite text editor. At the top of the file, replace XXX with your username on your Mac (so that it reflects the path to your current desktop). For example, mine would look like:
APDIR=/Users/adam/Desktop
DMG="/Users/adam/Desktop/osx-leopard105.dmg"
DMG="/Users/adam/Desktop/osx-leopard105.dmg"
While we're at it, let's edit the
9a581PostPatch.sh file as well. This time, edit the fourth and fifth lines at the top of the file to look like this:
PATCH="/Volumes/LeopardPatch/leopatch/" # path to the patched extensions
LEO="/Volumes/Leopard" # path to Leopard installation
LEO="/Volumes/Leopard" # path to Leopard installation
Save and close both files.
Finally, it's time to patch the DVD. Open up Terminal, type
sudo -s, then enter your administrative password (your login password). Then type cd Desktop and hit Enter. Now you're ready to apply the patch. Keep in mind that you'll need plenty of space on your hard drive to perform the patch. I had around 20GB of free space when I did it, though I'm sure you could get away with less. To execute the patch, type:
./9a581-patch.sh
and hit Enter. The patch will now execute, which means you've got some time on your hands. You've been working your ass off up until this point, though, so kick back and relax for a bit. I didn't have a clock on it, but I'm pretty sure the patch took at least an hour on my MacBook Pro.
If you have trouble with the patch and you've got less free space, try freeing up some hard drive space and trying again. When the patch has successfully completed, you should see a new file on your desktop:
Leo_Patched_DVD.iso weighing in somewhere around 4,698,669,056 bytes. Now we've got to burn this image to a DVD.
Luckily the patch removes lots of unnecessary files so we've shrunk the almost 7GB install DVD to 4.38GB, just enough to fit on a single-layer DVD. To burn the image, insert a blank DVD, open up Disk Utility, select the Leopard_Patched_DVD.iso file in the sidebar, and then click the Burn button. Once it's finished, you're finally ready to proceed to the installation.
But just one more thing before you do. Copy the patch files that we just unzipped from your desktop to a USB thumb drive and name the drive LeopardPatch. We'll need these files for the post-installation patch that we'll apply later.
Installation
If you've followed all of the steps up to this point, you should now be ready to fire up the patched Leopard install DVD. So power on your Hackintosh, insert the DVD, and let the boot process begin (you did remember to set the DVD drive as the first boot device, right?). You'll be prompted to press any key to start the installation or hit F8 for options. Hit F8.
You'll now see the
boot: prompt. Enter -v -x and press Enter. (Don't ask me why, but this is the only way the install DVD would boot for me. Not using these options caused the boot to hang indefinitely every time.) You should now see lots of text scrolling over your monitor. You may even see some daunting errors. Don't be alarmed; just let it continue. After several minutes, the graphical Leopard installer should be staring you in the face.
Format the install drive: I know that you're raring to install now that you're finally here, but there's one thing we need to do first: Format our hard drive so that it's prepared to receive the Leopard installation. So go to Utilities in the menu bar and select Disk Utility (if you don't have a working mouse yet, you can still access the menu bar from the keyboard). Once Disk Utility fires up, it's time to format the drive. Here's how:
SEXPANDInstall Leopard: This really is the easiest part-just follow the on-screen instructions and choose your newly created Leopard partition as the install destination. Then, before you make that final click on the Install button, click Customize and de-select Additional Fonts, Language Translations, and X11. These components were removed so we could fit everything on the patched DVD, so we won't be installing them now.
Now you're ready. Click install and grab a quick drink. In around 10 minutes, Leopard should have installed, leaving you with just one more step before you're running with the Leopard.
Post-Installation
After the installation completes, your computer will automatically restart. Unfortunately you're not ready to boot into Leopard just yet-you've got one thing left to do. So insert the thumb drive you copied the patches to and, just like last time, hit F8 when prompted by the DVD. Again, enter
-v -x at the boot prompt and hit Enter. When the install disc finally loads, go to Utilities in the menu bar and select Terminal. It's time to apply the post-install patch.
SEXPAND
When terminal loads, type
cd /Volumes/LeopardPatch at the prompt and hit Enter to navigate to the patch directory. Now, just like when you patched the install disc, type:
./9a581PostPatch.sh
...and hit Enter. The script will move and copy files about (answer yes when prompted), and when it's finished, you'll be prompted to restart your computer. When your computer reboots this time, you're ready. It's time to boot into Leopard.
OSx86 on Your Hackintosh
Let your computer reboot, but be sure to leave the install DVD in the drive. When the DVD prompts this time, just let the countdown time out. When it does, your installation of Leopard will automatically boot up. You've done it!
From this point forward, you're running Leopard on your PC just as though you were running Leopard on a regular Mac. You'll be jubilantly welcomed in a handful of languages as if Steve Jobs himself is shaking your hand for a job well done. All of your hardware should work exactly as you'd expect. Your sound, networking, and video will all work off the bat. (I haven't tested the motherboard's built-in wireless yet, but it reportedly works.) Your iPods will sync flawlessly, and CDs and DVDs read and burn just as you'd expect.
On the software front, Mail, Address Book, iTunes, and everything else I've tried so far work flawlessly. Firefox is browsing, Quicksilver is doing its thing, Spaces are rocking, Stacks are stacking, Cover Flow is flowing, and Quick Look is previewing. I haven't tried Time Machine yet, but the patch we used reportedly works with Time Machine as well.
UPDATE: After you complete your installthe first go round, here's how to upgrade to OS X 10.5.1 (the first update to Leopard) in just a few simple steps.
But Really, How Do
SEXPANDI'm still stretching my legs in this new build, and I'm planning on bringing some benchmarks to the table soon so you have a better idea how this machine matches up to its Mac counterparts, but so far it's running like a champ. UPDATE: I benchmarked my Hackintosh against a Mac Pro and MacBook Pro and it stood up very well. Check out the benchmarks here. The only problem with the install at the moment is that it won't boot without the Leopard DVD in the DVD drive at boot-meaning that every time you reboot you'll need to make sure that the Leopard DVD is sitting in the DVD drive. It's not a dealbreaker for me by any means, but it's an annoyance. I've found one post suggesting a workaround at the OSx86 forums (near the bottom of the first post in the thread), but I haven't tried it yet. If and when I do, I'll be sure to post an update. Hack Attack: How to install RAM in your Mac (and save big $$$)While there's no easy way to bring down the starting price of a new Mac, there are ways to save money if you're looking to go top-of-the-line on extras, specifically memory. For example, when I bought my MacBook Pro last month, I saved over $300 by upgrading the RAM myself, a process requiring only a few minutes. Here's how I did it.
First of all, a quick glance at the economics: The bargain basement MacBook Pro from Apple will set you back $1,999.00 with 512MB of RAM (hardly enough for a system running OS X, in my opinion). To really boost the power, I grabbed 2 x 1GB sticks of RAM from Newegg, which cost around $170. Had I ordered the 2GB RAM upgrade from Apple, the price of my MBP would have jumped $500.
Seems ridiculous for a five minute procedure and some cheap RAM, right? Apple's documentation for upgrading your MacBook Pro's memory should give you a pretty good idea of what's involved, but if you're still not convinced that upgrading the RAM yourself is doable, check out the video I made of my upgrade. (Music courtesy of Rayza via CCHits)
It really is that easy. In the off chance that you get everything back together and your MBP isn't booting up, you probably didn't get the memory pushed in all the way - open it up and make sure. Oh, and remember to unplug your computer before attempting any of this.
Hopefully that gives you an idea of just how simple the upgrade process is. If the MacBook Pro isn't your cup of tea, you can also follow these official Apple instructions on how to upgrade the RAM on your:
Since I couldn't find a guide from Apple for upgrading a Mac Mini's RAM from Apple, here's a good-looking tutorial for doing so.
For me, the cheap upgrade to the full 2GB of onboard RAM made the MacBook Pro a much more viable option. The Apple premium can definitely be hard to swallow, so when you make a purchase that big, every dollar you save feels pretty good.
Anyone out there considering the Mac switch? Let us know if this helps your decision, or what other factors are on your mind in the comments/http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qozs6KZoarA
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