Mikofox's Cabin Fever Blog

“Spaces” and “Expose” are among the best features of Apple’s OS X graphic user interface. Not having this natively on Windows XP is a major setback, complicating switching between application windows, desktops or even attached monitors.
I customized my Windows XP install to have “Spaces” and “Expose” “Hot Corners” almost like one finds it on the Mac. Almost, because on the Mac you move the pointer into the corners – the action happens. Move it out of the corner – you are back where you were. Quicker and smoother action.

For Windows there is: Dexpot, a freeware (for personal use) which has a ton of customizing features. This overkill is confusing first, but I just used it to create 6 Spaces, then in “Plugins and Extras, I checked/customized “Dexgrid” and “MouseEvents” to reflect what I have on my Mac.

Not bad! Not quite as slick as on the Mac, but it makes XP less of a PITA to use. I read about it at Paul Spoerry’s blog. This should be built into Windows for sure.

All Desktops or Spaces

All Windows on All Desktops

All Application Windows in Selected Space

Generel Settings

Settings for Plugins

Configuration of Desktops

Hackintosh Multi-Boot Guide Simplified

Objective: Installing Mac OS 10.6.7, Windows XP, Ubuntu 11 on Dell Mini 10v with the help of a Mac and external HD docks/enclosures.

There are many (über-complicated) guides floating around in the Hackintosh community. Not one worked for me “out of the box” and I spent many hours/days trying to get a functioning “triple-boot”. Most of the problems come from the Windows install overwriting existing installs, or Bootloaders in the wrong place.

These items make it easier:
2 x USB sticks/SD cards
External HD Dock or Enclosure or Drive Adapter
A Mac Computer

1. Boot DM10 with Mac OS Install USB stick.
Create 5 Partitions in Disk Utility with MBR Partition Table. Windows Partition MUST be in FIRST Partition and installed FIRST.

2. Boot DM10 with GParted SD card/USB stick and re-format Windows partition to NTFS. (The above two steps probably can be done with GParted and the DM10v, if you do not have a Mac)

3. Boot into Windows Install disk, run standard install to FIRST Partition (/dev/sda1) without re-formatting partition.

4. Transfer DM10 HD to HD dock/external enclosure, connect to your Apple PC.
Use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone fresh/working OS 10.6.7 from another connected HD/USB stick into second partition (/dev/sda2)
Transfer HD back to DM10
Boot into USB Install stick and run NBI  NetBookInstaller 0.8.4-RC1 ( I use this version of NBI up to OS 10.6.6)
Boot into GParted SD card/ USB stick to set Boot flag to Mac partition (/dev/sda2) (Chameleon chooser may already work now, which probably would make next step redundant)
Boot into Mac Install USB stick, select Mac OS 10.6.7 and run NBI Special NetbookInstaller 20100616212351.app from stick. (This latest NetbookInstaller 0.8.5pre.app may also work) Install the Chameleon Bootloader only.

5. Install Ubuntu to sda3,
format to ext3, mount point /, set bootloader to sda3
Boot into GParted and name Linux partition to UBUNTU to show in Chameleon chooser.
Install Theme to your liking.

Some useful resources among many:
Allen Kelly’s Blog
mechdrew Guides
mydellmini Forum – Snow Leopard – Triple Boot
Ubuntu.com – MacBook – Triple-Boot
Voodooprojects – Bootloader Themes

I plan to update this mini-guide to Apple OS 10.6.8 and Windows 7 sometime.

Update 2012-03-14

Updating Mac OS 10.6.7 to 10.6.8

Did install Mac OS 10.6.8 update,
BEFORE hitting Restart ran NetbookInstaller 20100616212351.app ( do not run the NIB 0.8.4 version from the stick)
Could not boot afterwards, stuck at Mac boot loop,
downloaded Nawcom’s legacy kernel and SleepEnabler, unzipped both files and added them to the Mac OS Install USB stick,
transferred HD to external dock,
replaced the legacy_kernel file (just the file),
installed the SleepEnabler.kext from the desktop with KextBeast from TonyMac,
transferred HD back to Dell Mini,
startup into Mac OS and repaired permissions,
noticed that my custom theme was gone at reboot,
sleep and lid-sleep did not work, everything else worked,
installed custom theme from backup,
fixed sleep-wake issue and “Hibernate Image file too old by XXX Seconds” boot message by:
disabling legacy USB support in BIOS,
and running the following command in Terminal:
sudo pmset hibernatemode 0
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

then rebooted and ran the default hibernate setting for laptops again:
sudo pmset hibernatemode 3
sudo rm /var/vm/sleepimage

Now Wake-from-Sleep (everything) works and boot message is gone.

More resources regarding the update:
MyDellMini “The Final 10.6.8 Update Thread”
The files needed to get 10.6.8 working: 10.6.8 Kit.zip
(did not use the Legacy Kernel installer from this, just the file)

WINDOWS XP

I customised my Windows XP install to have “Spaces” and “Expose” “Hot Corners” almost like one finds it on the Mac. Almost.

It’s called: Dexpot, is free and has a ton of customising features. This overkill is confusing first, but I just used it to create 6 Spaces, then in “Plugins and Extras I checked/customised “Dexgrid” and “MouseEvents” to reflect what I have on my Mac. Not bad!

Not quite as slick as on the Mac, but it makes XP less of a PITA to use. I read about it at Paul Spoerry’s blog. And no, I don’t agree with his opinion of the Mac UI and Finder and I won’t switch camps, unless Apple screws the Mac UI with iOS features.

When Mac OS 10.7 Lion was released, one of the new features Snow Leopard users longed for were the new, better sounding voices. When the Mac voice Alex was enthusiastically introduced by Steve Jobs in 2007, many assumed other, similar quality voices and languages would soon follow. We had to wait until 2011 when Apple introduced the new Lion OS with a whole range of new voices from Nuance (MacSpeech & Dragon Dictate). Unfortunately these voices are not available from Nuance (although they may be part of their software packages) or as a download from Apple for Snow Leopard users. Just copying the Voice folders and the MultiLingual.SpeechSynthesizer folder over from a Lion machine to the SL Speech folder does not work. The new voices can be played in the Text to Speech Preferences, but when selecting text in an application, it still will be narrated by the voice Alex.

The fix comes from a Russion site called Tea Blog, a Hackintosh community, whose owner/user “tea” has patched files in the Lion Synthesizers folder to make the new voices work in Snow Leopard. Many thanks for the work!
When I tried it first, it did not work, because I copied the Terminal instruction further down towards the bottom in the comments section, which contained several typos regarding the word Synthesizer, causing the Terminal command to fail. Additionally the site is in Russian and the translation into English adds some confusion.

I found this interesting geological formation on the new Google Satellite Map.
Eagle River & Rock River just north of Eagle Plains – Yukon, with Dempster Highway and Eagle River bridge in lower right corner. Just to the right there is a large burn area from last year’s forest/tundra fires.
Next time I’m in this area, I’d like to explore the ‘circle burn’ on the hill, but it’s probably much larger and further from the bridge than it appears in this image. Could it be an old volcano?

The image below shows bends on the lower Porcupine River, with the Black River on the bottom. Looks like a colorful piece of art, how the two rivers run parallel. The Black River flows into the Porcupine River and the Porcupine joins the Yukon River at the village of Fort Yukon – Alaska. It’s fascinating to follow the run of a river I’ve paddled in the past, and see all the spots where we camped from above.

Mackenzie River Delta
The Search Engine Provider Google has started to offer a new map & satellite service that can change the way we look at our planet.
There are already those who complain about privacy issues, but I see it as an excellent tool in many ways. It takes a little patience to navigate around and to zoom in on parts of North America, and not all areas have the greatest resolution images yet, but it will come in very handy when planning outdoor trips, especially canoe trips. One can follow a river’s bed just by using the arrow keys on the keyboard. It’s quite fascinating to see the places we live and move from a satellite’s perspective. You can even prove to your enviro-whacko friends, that forest fires are far more ‘destructive’ than any human activity ever could be. Of course there are more detailed satellite images from other companies, but they are not free or may not even be accessible outside the government sector.
All in all a great tool and I hope Google will improve this in a few ways, i.e. faster load time, maybe overlay a grid or search function to search by coordinates, show the dates when the images are taken or updated, if at all. That would compliment GPS navigation perfectly.
Now we only need smaller, mobile technology, to be able to get satellite internet on a river trip for example. So far, the hardware offered is still too big to be carried by non-motorized back country travelers.