Hijinks Inc.

Category: Apple

  • Leopard Upgrade

    I upgraded to Leopard the other day, and overall I’m pretty happy with it. I like all the new features, tabs in Terminal is awesome, Spaces has increased my productivity by 7%, Stacks are so-so, Front Row going all Apple TV on me is amazing, Web Clipping almost makes Dashboard relevant again, iCal finally getting a dynamic icon is minor, but a nice touch, and OS X finally playing nice with my NAS (network attached storage) and the rest of my network is saving me a lot of trouble, however, there are some things that bug me.

    Booting is slow, I used to start my computer up and 30-35 seconds later I was good to go, but since I upgraded to Leopard its been booting in 55-70 seconds. It started taking over a minute to boot right after the upgrade, but after resetting my PRAM, and clearing my cache it sped up a bit.

    Sluggishness. Randomly, I’ll get beached balled. I’m just sitting there browsing the web and next thing I know, I’m looking at a spinning beach ball… for no apparent reason. This has happened a couple times since the upgrade, might be an issue with Firefox.

    Ejecting discs. I was burning a few CDs using Disc Utility, and after ejecting them from within Disk Utility I went back to my desktop to find them still listed… odd, I tried ejecting them from the desktop, that made them disappear, but then I opened Finder and one of them was still listed under devices, but I couldn’t eject it, I had to drag it off to the side and then it poofed out of existence.

    The latest build of Joost never quits since the upgrade, it just hangs, you have to Force Quit, then it cries. But that’s a problem with Joost, not Leopard.

    As justifcation of my speed complaints, I’m running 10.5.1 on a Macbook Pro, 2.4Ghz dual core and 4GB of RAM, so I think I should be running a bit faster than I am.

    Compared to my experience when upgrading to Windows Vista, my complaints with Leopard are minor, Vista caused me to suffer from depression and self loathing… Yeah, I’d rather not relive that time in my life. Back to focusing on the present, Leopard actually offers a worthwhile set of new features that are actually useful, Vista on the other hand, offers eye candy and headaches (Windows XP forever!).

    But Vista sucking so bad keeps me employed, so thanks Microsoft!

  • Super Mario Bros. 3 for the iPod touch

    Super Mario Bros. 3

    That’s right, I’m running Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES on my iPod touch, how cool is that?

    Update: Instructions for installing NES games on your iPod touch or iPhone can be found here

  • MacBook and Macbook Pro Updated

    Guess they weren’t kidding when they said updates in early November!

    The rumors were rampant about the pending upgrade; now the deal is done. The Apple MacBook has finally moved to the Santa Rosa architecture with a healthy GMA X3100 video bump from the lethargic GMA 950 of yore. Available now starting at $1,099 for the 13-inch, 80GB, 2GHz white model on up to $1,499 for the 160GB, 2.2GHz black variety of hard-posing laptop.

    The MacBook Pro can now be configured with an optional 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo for a $250 premium over the previous 2.4GHz flag-ship configuration.

    [From Engadget]

  • One step jailbreaking for iPhone and touch

    AppSnapp

    Gone are the days of manual jailbreaks and sitting there waiting a whole ten minutes for iJailbreak to do its stuff. Enter AppSnapp, now you can jailbreak your iPhone or touch without a computer!

    1. Jailbreaks iPhone/iPod Touch on 1.1.1
    2. Patches Springboard to load third party apps
    3. Activates non-AT&T iPhones automatically, while leaving already activated phones alone
    4. Fixes YouTube on non-AT&T iPhones automatically, while leaving already activated phones alone
    5. Installs Installer.app v3.0b5 on the iPhone/iPod Touch
    6. Fixes Apple’s TIFF bug, making your device MORE secure than it was without AppSnapp!

    Directions after the jump…

    (more…)

  • MacBook revision coming tomorrow?

    Updated: Nope, nothing… try again next week.

    Word on the street is that Apple might be releasing a revision to their MacBook line up tomorrow. Previous rumors have pointed to early November as a release date for the revision, so this wouldn’t be that far off.

    Details of the update are pretty much nonexistence, however, Apple’s Leopard update has revealed drivers for the newer Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics chip. This is the successor to the Intel GMA 950 which is currently used in the existing MacBooks. This would suggest that the next MacBook would see an upgrade to the Santa Rosa chipset. The driver, does appear functional and works when used on a PC laptop with the X3100 chipset.