well, as my tweets may tell; i’ve decided to redo my os setup on my HP DV6700T laptop. for a little while i was trying (not very hard) to sell my hp laptop since i was using my air or wind more when on the go.  however after realizing the costs of a macbook pro and how much i prob would get for my hp i decided on keeping my hp and in turn relook into hackintoshing it.

last year i tried using a kalyway osx86 distro/installer and had pretty good success except for no builtin wifi, shaddy shutdown/audio issues (you either get working shutdown and no audio, or audio and having to hard power down laptop; doh!) which are two big negatives if your trying to use it as your main os.

however this time i decided i’d try to use a newer distro/installer, iDeneb 1.4 (it also was patched to 10.5.6; another thing that usually broke my setup was updating!).

keep reading for my thoughts, list of working items, tips and a video demo.

update! sd/mmc/ms card reader working (see below)

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osx86, guides, laptop, hp, msi wind, fanboy, culture, hardware, mac, opinion, modding, geek, apple | 3 Comments »

yea.  i am one of those geeks.  the type that gets or builds a new pc/laptop/netbook and then tries to cram as many operating systems on it as i can.

at one point in my life i recall having a multiboot setup of 5 different os’s. recently i’ve triple booted my msi wind w/3 os’s and my macbook air w/a mere dual boot…

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osx86, tablet pc, ubuntu, life, laptop, msi wind, windows7, netbook, wind, fanboy, geek, linux, hardware, mac, apple, windows, vista, modding, mobile, opinion, pc | 2 Comments »

well, to my geeky delight  i arrived at work today and had a little surprise awaiting me at my desk: my msiwind solderless touchscreen kit!!!

i ordered the kit from ebay after seeing it being posted on the front page over at msiwind.net ( a direct link to Hoda’s page is here )

the biggest selling point of this touchscreen kit is the fact that it is solderless and also adds additional internal usb connections for other possible mods (ie integration of a gps dongle or perhaps even an internal 3G card?).

so, how hard was it to install? was it worth it? lets find out! keep reading for the setup notes and a video.

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osx86, laptop, msi wind, netbook, tablet pc, fanboy, vista, modding, geek, general gadgets | 10 Comments »

well, its been a few weeks since my last post again and i thought i’d check in as the holidays approach ever faster.  its been a while since i’ve blogged about my previous laptop purchase, HP DV6700T CTO so i thought i’d do a quick recap/followup on it.

also, thought i’d drop a few notes about some upcoming projects i have in the works (most of them involving my new fav netbook, msi wind).

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blu-ray, iphone, hp, msi wind, netbook, wind, osx86, htpc, vista, windows, modding, culture, hd, hardware | No Comments »

(thanks Q for the skin!)

if you have a msi wind and are running OSX Leopard on it, you probably have found out that yes the speakers work but the mic and headphone jacks do not.

as of right now, there is no software workaround known and most likely never will be (joel in the comments pointed me to this thread at msiwind.net on getting headphone working natively! no mic though ). 

so, what do you do if you still want to be able to use headphones and a mic?  do what i did, get an OSX compatible usb audio device; keep reading for a quick demo of the Plantronics Audio 480 System (newegg link approx $50)!

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msi wind, netbook, osx86, modding, mac, music, apple | 5 Comments »

well, after struggling with a bad dimm of memory in my MSI Wind; i am back on the Wind booting path. :) 

previously i had setup my MSI Wind to triple boot XP, Vista and OSX Leopard however i’ve been receiving quite a few remarks and comments on my triple booting video about ‘why no linux?’ on the Wind. 

So, today’s post will be for the Linux/Ubuntu fans out there that want to see how the Wind performs w/Ubuntu 8 on it.  in this post, i hope to highlight some tips and a general plan of attack on doing a triple boot setup of OSX, XP, and Ubuntu on the Wind (concepts are applicable to other netbooks/laptops/computers).

keep reading for the video and details!

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osx86, ubuntu, laptop, wind, netbook, life, fanboy, hardware, apple, web, windows, modding, general gadgets | 19 Comments »

well, this week has been a busy week of MSI Wind installs and videos.  i thought i’d follow up my previous MSI Wind triple boot video w/my latest one.

this time around i decided to skip Vista and instead use Ubuntu 8 as my third OS (XP and OSX Leopard of course being the other two).  here is a quick video of my first boots to each OS.  check back on the weekend for a quick run-through on how to triple boot your MSI Wind.  keep reading for the embedded video.

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fanboy, ubuntu, osx86, msi wind, geek, mobile, hardware, windows, opinion, general gadgets | 5 Comments »

well, a few weeks back i posted a video on triple booting my MSI Wind with XP Prof (nlited), Vista Ultimate Ed, and OSX Leopard (10.5.2) and have noticed people have been looking for more info and videos on OSX running on it. 

this weekend i decided i’d record a quick video of my msi windmacbook and how garageband and vmware fusion runs on it(Unity works!).  my wind again does have a 250gb hdd, dell truemobile wifi card, 2gb total memory and voided warranty. ;)  read more and view the full post for the video, enjoy!

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fanboy, life, osx86, culture, opinion, mac, windows, apple | 4 Comments »

2008 sure seems to be the year of the netbook/ultra-portable laptop. 

 Asus was the first manufacturer, founding father/mother of the new and now very popular netbook category.  Asus introduced its Eee PC in late 2007 with the 701 based model.  Following the huge success and praise for such a small and affordable sub-notebook, tons of manufacturers began working on their own ‘Eee-killer’ netbook.

I had purchased an original EeePC 701(w/4GB SSD, Black, Webcam/Mic version) early in 2008 but after using for a month or so i ended up selling it.  The main reasons for selling was its tiny keyboard.  Performance and boot-up times on it were amazing and the form factor was great for such a low price tag. 

After selling my Eeepc to a co-worker, I decided I’d wait this one out a bit more and be a little smarter (ie not impulse buying.. hehe) and wait to see how the Intel Atom based netbooks looked.  HP’s Mini Note was tempting but the whole Via cpu not an Intel was a huge factor against it and the reason why I went with my MSI Wind. Keep reading for more details and the video demo!

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review, osx86, eee, fanboy, geek, vista, opinion, mobile, windows | 20 Comments »

well, i’ve realized a few things recently after reviewing some of my older blog posts, recipes.  1) i need to check my posts a bit more prior to posting (dang you grammar!!)  and 2) i need to do more followups after i do reviews.

most of the time, i’ve realized i’m a bit ‘geek-struck’ when i first get a new device and do a review on it.  a real test of any new device, toy is the first month of using it.  to me, the first month is very critical month for owning a device.  if i am not woo’ed over or impressed or get annoyed with it; i will turn around and either return it or resell it.   so this weekend, i thought i’d do a post one-month recap on my new shiny HP dv6700t.  Keep reading for some minor flaws and fixes i ran into while using Vista and OSX on it.

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osx86, review, laptop, blu-ray, hp, life, fanboy, vista, opinion, mobile, blogging, apple | 4 Comments »

HP Pavilion dv6700t CTO Laptop Review
by seamonkey420, 06/08/08

Introduction:

last week, i eagerly awaited and received my laptop (props to fedex and their excellent customer service!) that i built from HP.

prior to my purchase i had debated on whether i wanted to rebuild a new desktop computer or to go the laptop route and of course went the laptop route due to the fact that i was going to be traveling quite a bit this summer and i don’t really pc game anymore either (or alteast hardcore game, fps, etc).

so lets take a look at my HP dv6700t (my machine is the maxed out version) and some of its fun features and specs and how OS X Leopard runs on it. :)  a video demo of vista and osx leopard will be posted later next week, along w/a demo of the hp hdtv tuner. keep reading for the my review!

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review, osx86, laptop, blu-ray, life, blogging, opinion, geek, culture, vista | 64 Comments »

a few posts back i had mentioned that i was contemplating a full system upgrade either by building a totally new desktop or by going the laptop route.  well, this week i finally made my decision.  choosing between mobility/convenience vs raw power and upgradability is a hard choice for me since i’d like to have all four things at once (which you really can’t get in a desktop since well its a desktop and stuff). 

yup, a laptop would fit me the best right now.

however, after making my decision i realized that not only was i going to be getting a fast new laptop vs a desktop but i also was in turn going to be changing the way i computed, worked.

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life, osx86, laptop, culture, opinion, mac, gaming, pc | 2 Comments »

yup, what was i thinking not taking a look at this app earlier when davak mentioned it in his blog….   handbrake is an all in one video converter program.  its for both apples and pcs and does basically all the major file types/device types from iphone to psp to ps3 to apple tv to x360 to quicktime..

anywho, handbrake is able to convert a dvd to a ps3 mp4 file in about 2 hours on my setup (2gb memory, athlon 64 dual core) the quality is very good and the consistency and stability is topnotch vs ps3 video 9.  i have not had the av sync problems i had w/PS3 video 9 (very annoying when the audio would get behind the video by a minute towards the end of some movies)

now if only i could put an even bigger hdd in my ps3! oh handbrake.. how i love thee..

htpc, ps3, osx86, iphone, x360, hd, geek, windows, mac, gaming, music, console, apple | 2 Comments »

Happy New Year to everyone!  This last year was a pretty crazy year in regards to technology, gaming and being a geek.  Today’s post will be a personal recap 2007, and what i thought was the biggest trend from it.

2007: The year that gaming really went mainstream?

2006 yielded an estimated 12 billion dollars in revenue for the video game industry however 2007 could end up being an even better year.  This year we saw the X360 sales thrive (not counting japan of course) w/the release of much the anticipated Halo3 (which itself set a record for most copies sold on release for any media; movie, music, game).  We also saw gaming go mainstream with the help of the casual gaming system, Nintendo’s Wii (ie money printing machine, hehe).   Sony’s PS3 also started to pick up steam in sales with the price drops and release of two new models; however the PS3 was/is still trailing the pack in sales but has seemingly helped the next-gen format war for blu-ray vs. hd-dvd (x360 did not include the hd dvd, optional drive vs sony making blu-ray a requirement in the ps3).

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fanboy, blogging, Zune, launch, ds lite, life, x360, iphone, osx86, ps3, wii, opinion, gaming, linux, hardware, applications, console, culture, geek, handheld, apple | 2 Comments »

just in the last month, ASUS has released its eagerly awaited Eee pc. the Eee pc is basically a super compact laptop made mainly for websurfing/chatting. it has a 7″ lcd and weighs in at around 2lbs. it has either a 2gb, 4gb or 8gb ssd harddrive and various memory flavors (4 different models total) and the best part being that the pricing on it is very reasonable; starting around $245 for the basic model to the top end model at $425. all models include wifi, usb ports, and the ssd. also, it comes with a preinstalled linux variant os; xp can be installed but you’d really want to do this if you have the 8gb version.

to me, i get to finally say ITS ABOUT TIME the small, mobile computing niche saw a device w/a realistic pricepoint. i really want to love the UMPC format but who really is looking to spend over $1,000 on an ultraportable laptop that only has 7″ screen and will probably only used for web surfing?

however, to me i see this device as being a fun, ongoing project. i’d really like to see if one can get OS X Tiger to run on it; since it does run an Intel processor vs a VIA or non-OSX86 compatible processor. i have not purchased the Eee pc yet but now have decided to wait for the black version and hopefully will be getting the 8GB version in the next month or so.

i’m very curious to see how XP runs on it, 1gb memory and an 8GB ssd should be pretty speedy. the Dell D430 i have runs XP pretty nicely, boot up time is around 19 seconds from start to desktop (it also has a 30gb SSD).

plus, streaming is where its at for music even though a nice ole USB flash drive or HDD would work just fine too. yes, harddrive space is not a limiter here, rather memory limited to 1gb may prove to be a downfall found out topend model does allow upgrade to 2gb but voids warranty in process, worth it imo.  also, top end 8GB model will not be available in USA; so it looks like i’ll have to ebay it or import it, boo!!  whats up with that ASUS?

but then again, it is only a $425 ultra portable.. anyone have one yet? let me know if its what you expected or not.

handheld, geek, osx86, laptop, mobile, opinion, hardware, linux, windows, general gadgets | 4 Comments »