http://www.appleknacks.com/

The time has come to jump to my own website for a variety of reasons - mostly because I have no friggin’ clue how to fix Wordpress on here, haha.  But also to grow the site - I now have an updated Wordpress blog hosted on my own server (which includes file hosting, very fast @ 1.5 MB/s - no more Mediafire!) and will be expanding the blog items into Hackintosh, general Mac, and even Windows stuff!

My schedule has also changed, which is a big reason I am starting up a new blog for new projects - I am no longer doing 70+ hour weeks plus night school, so I have a bit more free time to post some cool stuff, which I’m really excited about.  Yes, I will be bringing the wiki back - complete with updates!  I’m still onTwitter as well (best way to contact me).

PCwiz has been a super gracious host for the past couple of years, so be sure to check out his new site as well (he’s also a ninja programmer in the iOS & OSX environments, so if you need a top-notch coder, check him out!).  And on that note  - so long, and thanks for all the fish!  Here’s to a new beginning!

1. Install Snow Leopard onto a hard drive
2. Run all system updates (up to 10.6.6 at the time of writing)
3. Clone this drive to a compressed DMG file

The idea is to have a 100% stock image of Snow Leopard, complete with system updates.  Since there are no Hackintosh drivers on this image, you can use it on real Macs or Hackintoshes just the same.  But why?  For time saving, of course!  A typical Snow Leopard installation on a fresh drive takes a good 30 minutes, plus another hour of running system updates to get it patched to the latest Apple point release.  Between rebooting and getting everything setup, you’re typically looking at 2 solid hours of setup work.  Ugh!  Who has that kind of time?

Drumroll…with a compressed DMG image that already contains a pre-setup system image (complete with updates!), this “fresh install” procedure usually takes under 5 minutes.  Yup - in less than 5 minutes, your blank drive has Snow Leopard along with the latest combo update and is ready to boot up! (or install Hackintosh drivers to and THEN boot up!)

Here was my basic workflow: I installed Snow Leopard to a blank hard drive, installed the 10.6.6 combo update, and ran the remaining system updates on it.  Then I cloned the entire drive to a DMG file using SuperDuper.  The resulting compressed image file weighed in at a mere 4.55gb (the Snow Leopard DVD image is 6.59gb & the full install on the hard drive took 6.38gb - both without the latest combo update!).  Next, I tested the restore speed from my internal 500gb 7200rpm hard drive to a USB-connected hard drive (using my spiffy USB Drive Dock), which gets maybe 30 Mbps of transfer on a good day, and had it ready to boot in 3 minutes and 32 seconds.  Now THAT’S what I call a time savings!

So to back up a little, creating a disk image of an existing drive is easy with SuperDuper (free version available!).  First select the drive you want to back up (on the left), and then select “Disk Image…” on the right, like this:

Second, save the image.  Give it a name (I name mine by the combo update they have, so if I’m saving Snow Leopard with 10.6.6, I call it “Snow1066″ for easy reference) and a location (I just drop it on my desktop).  Next select “Read Only Disk Image” for the image type and set the compression level to “High”.  Finally, set your phasers from “Stun” to “Kill”:

Once the image is done backing up, you will have a nice DMG file available for you to restore to a new drive.  This is your “master image” - Snow Leopard has already been installed, the latest combo update has been installed, and all of the minor updates have been installed.  The system is configured with a default username and password (I use “admin” for the user and “apple” for the password), the initial setup has already been done, and it’s ready to go!

To restore it to a new drive using SuperDuper, all you have to do is select the image file on the left side and the target hard drive on the right side and let it go to work.  Over a USB connection, it took less than 5 minutes, and if you have it directly connected over SATA, I’d imagine that’d be even faster!  This is useful not only for prepping new drives on real Macs, but also for Hackintoshes - you can simply install the bootloader and your Extras folder directly to the freshly-formatted drive, plug it into your Hack, and boot it up - phenomenal time savings!

So the next question is - how do you do this if you DON’T have a real Mac?  Well, that’s pretty easy too - if you are using a bootloader such as Chameleon that lets you select other drives, you can set your BIOS to boot to your main drive, then select your new drive to boot into.  This is like the old USB stick method, except your primary boot drive acts as the bootloader and driver-loader, so that your new drive remains clean and only has Snow Leopard on it (thus the “naked image” in the title - no Hackintosh drivers or bootloader of any sort on this drive!).  The easiest way to set this up for a fresh install is to restore Snow Leopard to a partition, boot to that, then install OS X to your bare drive, run updates, and then use SuperDuper to make an image.  I’ll break it down into the gory details for you:

1. Create a Snow Leopard image using Disk Utility (from the official DVD install disc)
2. Create a partition on an available drive (boot drive, new drive, backup drive, USB stick) and restore your Snow Leopard image to it
3. Attach your new drive and format it using GUID
4. Reboot to your main drive, but select Snow Leopard image to boot into instead of your main drive
5. From the Snow Leopard installation screen, select your new drive and install Snow Leopard to it
6. When the system reboots, select the new drive to boot into
7. Go through the initial OS X setup, then install all of the system updates * This requires a few reboots, just do #6 over again until there are no more updates available
8. Boot back into your main system and use SuperDuper to clone the new drive to a read-only disk image with high compression

And here’s how to setup a fresh Hackintosh drive using that image:

1. From your current Mac/Hack, attach your new drive (USB, Firewire, SATA) and format it using GUID
2. Use SuperDuper to restore the system image to the new drive
3. Install your bootloader (ex. Chameleon)
4. Copy over your /Extra folder to the root of the drive
5. Install any other relevant drivers for your system (ex. VoodooHDA)
6. Stick the drive in your Hackintosh and boot it up!

The beauty of this is that it only takes about 5 minutes to “install” Snow Leopard with the latest updates onto a bare drive, complete with your Hackintosh bootloader and drivers (assuming you already have a working kit available).  If you’re using an installer package like the Lifehacker kit, then the you can skip steps 3-5 because installers like that include both the bootloader and the drivers!  This procedure won’t appeal to everybody, but if you find yourself constantly re-installing OS X, or if you wish you could quickly have a fresh, untainted Snow Leopard install to tinker with, then this is a great system for doing that speedy fast

I recently starting using a great (but rather expensive) keyboard shortcut utility called QuicKeys ($59.95).  There’s a lot of other apps to control input devices and handle keyboard shortcuts such as Quicksilver, Butler, ControllerMate, Keyboard Maestro, etc., but most are either very complicated or a little buggy.  So far QuicKeys has been extremely straightforward and reliable - that’s all I ask in a keyboard shortcut app!  Haha.

The actual setup is pretty simple: open QuicKeys and record your keystroke, then setup the mousewheel to activate the keystroke.  This sounds easy, but it’s a little complicated for the actual setup, so I’ve included some screenshots to walk you through the process.  When you’re creating your shortcut, select “device” under the Scopes & Triggers menu, then “Button 3″:

If your mouse button 3 doesn’t work right off the bat, you may need to configure it manually.  I didn’t install any drivers for the Microsoft mouse I was using at the time, so I went in and manually configured it in the Advanced Device Trigger Options menu:

And voila - I click on the scrollwheel button, and the screenshot utility activates!  This is soooo handy because I don’t even have to think about taking a screenshot, I just move my finger over an inch and tap the scrollwheel button, grab the section of the screen I want, and I’m done!  This is a great holdover until Snagit for Mac comes out

What you see in the image above is a lock icon on the menubar.  Clicking it drops down a menu, where you can select “Lock Screen”.  The screen then turns black, and moving the mouse or using the keyboard brings up a password prompt for your computer.  Previously I had used a Hot Corner that activated a password-protected screensaver, but I found that inconvenient because I would sometimes accidentally hit that corner and activate it.  This way is slightly more deliberate, which prevents accidental locking, but is also easy enough that there’s no barrier to doing it.

Activating this feature is simple: simply do a Spotlight search for “Keychain Access”, which is an application that is part of OS X’s security suite.  Open up the Preferences pane and check “Show Status in Menu Bar”, then close out of the app.

That’s it!  Now you can instantly lock you screen, without accidentally activating it like the Hot Corner method.

Update: If you want to setup a shortcut key to activate it (such as Windows+L or CTRL+ALT+DEL), there’s a real nice keyboard shortcut application called QuicKeys that will let you shortcut just about anything, include menulets.  The app is $59, although there is an unlimited trial available.  Easiest way to set it up is just to record yourself locking the screen and then go in and tie the keys you want to the action.

Also, make sure you hide the Dock icon in Preferences (so that it only lives in the menubar) and set it to start at login.  This is a really handy program.  Another handy trick is to tie the “Print Screen” button to OS X’s built-in screenshot utility - so instead of pressing CMD+Shift+4, you can just tap Print Screen to activate the screenshot tool.  Nifty!

The first question is, how do I call landlines with Skype? Skype to Skype calling is free, which is great if the person you’re calling uses Skype (nerd!), but not so great if you want to call an actual phone number. However, Skype offers really nice subscription services for calling landlines and mobile phones. I opted for the $2.99 a month Unlimited US/Canada plan. When I went to checkout, they offered a 15% package discount if you bought a year ahead for $30.84, so I went with that instead ($2.57 a month, woot!).

So now I can call landlines, but how do people call me? And what exactly shows up when I call people’s real phones? Random numbers, that’s what! Luckily Skype offers the ability to purchase an online number, so you can call and be called by actual phones. Since I had purchased a year’s subscription for calling, the online number was only $30 for the year (apparently a 50% discount). So we’re up to about $60 a year for unlimited calling with an actual phone number (although it seems kind of silly to me to split those services up, but whatever).

Now, just to throw a wrench in things, Google Voice recently went public. While it has a lot of features, the core idea is that Google gives you a single phone number to act as a “shortcut” phone number to your home, work, and cell phone numbers, so when you move and depending on your current location, someone can always get ahold of you and you only have to worry about giving out one number. So of course, I wanted to integrate this with Skype!

Now that I had a phone number from Skype, I could setup Google Voice to forward from that number, but when I called back, my Skype number still showed up. I want people to see my Google Voice number! Fortunately again, Skype offers Caller ID, which lets you customize what people see as your number when you call them. For some reason, I couldn’t activate my Caller ID with my subscription fee, so I had to buy some Skype Credit in order to get it working (Note that it takes about 24 hours to setup a new Skype phone number and Caller ID.). The minimum I could get away with was $10 (couldn’t get less than a $10 credit), so I ended up with about $70 total for the year.  So to break it down:

1. $30.84 for a year’s worth of Unlimited US/Canada calling
2. $30 for a year’s access to a real phone number
3. $10 for the least Skype Credit I could buy (in order to setup Google Voice as my outgoing phone number on the Caller ID)

• Grand total: $70.84 per year (or about $5.91 a month)

So for just under $6 a month, I have unlimited calling, PLUS I can use my Google Voice number and get all those nifty features that go along with it (voicemail transcriptions to email, SMS to email, ring all my phones, etc. etc.).  And I can call from any computer or smartphone capable of running Skype, which includes the iFamily (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) plus Android cell phones and Windows and Mac computers.

Not bad!

The workflow is simple:

1. Acquire and activate an iPad 3G MicroSIM chip
2. Get a MicroSIM to SIM adapter
3. Change the APN settings on your iPhone

To begin with, you’ll need an iPhone (any will do).  It doesn’t need to be jailbroken.  Then you need to acquire an iPad 3G MicroSIM chip.  If you don’t have an iPad, you can buy a replacement chip from AT&T for about $15.  You will need an iPad 3G to activate it (if you don’t have one, mooch one off a friend or visit an Apple Store or Best Buy and use a paperclip to pop out the existing MicroSIM from a 3G model).  Just pop the new MicroSIM in the iPad 3G, go into settings, activate the chip (you’ll need a credit card), and then remove it.  Now the chip is ready to go!

Next, you’ll need to change the APN settings on your iPhone (this just sets it up for data-only use).  Just visit unlockit.co.nz on your iPhone, select Custom APN, type in “broadband” for the APN and create the profile, then apply it.  That’s it!  Now insert your iPad 3G MicroSIM into the SIM adapter (unless you have one of those spiffy new iPhone 4’s, which already use MicroSIM chips) and pop that whole thing into your iPhone.  You may get a message that the phone or card is now activated, as well as a text message or two from AT&T about your new service details.

Enjoy your new iPad Mini!

1. Insert your memory card
2. Drag the card’s icon onto the FlashDrop icon
3. Enjoy a full clone of your card in ISO format!

FlashDrop is an effortless way to ensure that you have a complete copy of any Flash memory card, USB stick, or folder.  This includes all of the media files on your memory card, plus the relevant folder structure and support files, which is extremely useful for anything that you want to keep a 1:1 copy of, such as memory cards containing AVCHD video files, client photography, and family movies and photos.

The ISO format is a nice method for archiving because it creates a single, uneditable file that you can mount just like a DMG, but is compatible with Windows and Linux systems (I recommend Pismo File Mount for reading ISO files on Windows).  FlashDrop basically creates a virtual memory card with write-protect permanently enabled!  This is convenient for throwing onto your backup drive for archiving, as well as burning to CD or DVD for permanent backup.

FlashDrop

FlashDrop saves the file to your desktop as “Archive.iso”, which you can then rename to whatever you want, such as today’s date or a more descriptive filename.  Note that you cannot drop individual files, only things with a folder structure such as a folder, hard drive, USB drive, or memory card.  Also note that FlashDrop will not overwrite an existing Archive.iso, so you will need to rename or move your previous backup before making a new one.

Download here

Icons by Sascha Hoehne.  Packaged by Platypus.  Code:

hdiutil makehybrid -o ~/Desktop/Archive.iso “$1″ -iso -joliet

This is a simple app that changes the default update server to one that doesn’t exist, so you never have to worry about accidentally downloading an update that breaks your Hackintosh! Also included is Revert for reverting the Software Update server back to normal, which is handy if you just want to run updates for things like iLife, Pro Apps, etc.  NoUpdate is highly recommended for hacks that you don’t ever wanted updated such as your girlfriend’s hack, your mom’s hack, your media center hack, and so on.

Download here

Icons by troyboydesign; packaged with Platypus.  Leopard & Snow Leopard compatible.  Terminal code for serious hackers:

To disable Software Update:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL “http://noserver.local”

To re-enable Software Update:

defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL