GeekLimit

I’ve just verified that this procedure works.  It was created through the combination of a few threads out there on the topic that were missing pieces of the puzzle in one way or another.

This procedure will set up your Macbook Pro in such a way that a menu will appear on boot that will require the selection of Mac OS (tested with 10.5.3), Windows (tested with Vista 64-bit), or Linux (tested with Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit - Alternate Install CD). This procedure assumes that you want the drive divided evenly between all operating systems, and can take up to 5 hours to complete, not including burning OS install disks. Most of this time will be spent waiting for progress bars, and the laptop will be unusable for work.  (So you can plan accordingly)

Install Mac OS X

(Assumes Mac OS X 10.5.3)

1. Back up all documents, including Notes files, browser bookmarks, etc. to the network or USB thumbdrive.
2. Install OS X to the Macbook Pro, using the entire hard drive.
3. Use the Boot Camp Assistant to partition the drive.
   1. Start the Boot Camp Assistant, located at /Macintosh HD/Applications/Utilities/Boot Camp Assistant
   2. The “Windows” partition shown will eventually become both the Windows and Linux partitions. Therefore, if you wish for the drive to be divided equally across all operating systems, slide the divider until the Windows partition takes up two-thirds of the disk.
   3. Click ‘Partition’ and wait for the process to complete.
   4. When the partitioning process completes, click ‘Quit and Install Later’. Do not use the Bootcamp installer.

Install Windows

(Assumes Windows Vista 64-bit)

1. Insert the Windows install CD or DVD and reboot the machine. Hold down the ‘c’ key to boot from the CD. (note: at this time, the Windows XP 64-bit install DVD does not recognize the keyboard or USB keyboards when booting from DVD)
2. Once the Windows installer loads, proceed as normal through the installation. When asked where to install Windows, select the partition that is approximately two-thirds of the disk. In testing, this was ‘Disk 0 Partition 3 BOOTCAMP 126.1GB’.
3. Highlight the partition and click ‘Drive Options (advanced)’.
4. Click ‘Format’ and ‘OK’.
5. Now that the drive is formatted, click ‘Next’. Windows will install.
   1. During the Windows install process, the machine may reboot on its own several times.
   2. Windows is rebooting and expecting to boot back into the installation process. You need to help it do so by holding down the ‘Option (Alt)’ key when the machine reboots, and manually selecting the ‘Windows’ hard drive. (not the ‘Windows’ CD)
   3. If you miss the chance to reboot into the Windows install process, the machine will boot into OS X. Just reboot the machine, hold down the option key, select the ‘Windows’ hard drive (not the CD) and continue from there.
6. Once installation is complete, the machine will boot into Vista and have the user complete the setup procedure.
7. Eject the CD from within Vista by clicking the drive once in ‘Computer’ and selecting ‘Eject’ on the title bar. Vista now needs drivers for the Macbook Pro hardware.
   1. If you want to be able to have greater control over the fans in the Macbook Pro cooling system, you need to install the ‘inputremapper’ application (tested version 1.0.04) first. This is recommended, as the Macbook Pro can run quite hot at times, dependent on the ambient air temperature.
      1. Download and install inputremapper. You will need to use a USB key, as the networking drivers for the Macbook Pro have not yet been installed.
      2. Reboot the machine, holding down the ‘option’ key and choosing the Windows drive.
   2. Install the Windows drivers for the Macbook pro hardware by inserting the ‘Macbook Pro Install CD 1′ in the drive. If the Bootcamp Drivers application doesn’t start automatically, double-click on the CD in ‘Computer’ and run WindowsSupport/setup.exe.
   3. Once the drivers are installed, eject the CD and reboot the machine into the Mac OS partition.

Install rEFIt

1. Boot into the Mac OS partition and install rEFIt. This is our boot menu application.
   1. Download and install rEFIt (tested version 0.11)
2. To set rEFIt to always be the boot menu, open a terminal window and give the command:

   /efi/refit/enable-always.sh

3. rEFIt has a default timeout of 20 seconds, then will boot into OS X. If you would like to disable the timeout:
   1. Open /efi/refit/refit.conf in Text Editor
   2. Change ‘timeout 20′ to ‘timeout 0′.
   3. Save and close.

Install Linux

1. Enter the Linux install CD (tested Ubuntu Linux 8.04 Desktop 64-bit Alternate Install) and reboot the machine. Hold down the ‘c’ key to boot from the CD. You might need to use an external USB keyboard, as sometimes the Linux install CD doesn’t recognize the built-in keyboard correctly.
2. Install as usual, until you get to the partitioning section.
   1. When Linux installs, it will corrupt the portion of the Master Boot Record on the current Windows partition. In order for Windows to be usable, the MBR installed on this partition must be backed up.
   2. When the installation procedure asks about partitioning disks, exit to a command line and make a backup of the MBR of the Windows partition.
      1. In Ubuntu, this is done by pressing Alt-F2 to get a command line.
      2. Enter

         dd if=/dev/sda of=/tmp/sda.mbr bs=512 count=1

         and hit the ‘Enter’ key.

      3. Press Alt-F1 to return to the Ubuntu installation.
   3. Choose the ‘Guided - Resize…’ option. (in testing, this was ‘Guided - Resize SCSI3 (0,0,0), partition #3 (sda) and use freed s’)
   4. Make the Linux partition 50% of the resized space (one-third of the overall drive, if the Windows partition was two-thirds…)
   5. Continue the installation process.
   6. After the base Linux OS files are installed, but before installing a Linux bootloader, the MBR must be restored from the backup that was created earlier.
      1. In Ubuntu, this is done by pressing Alt-F2 to get a command line.
      2. Enter

         dd if=/tmp/sda.mbr of=/dev/sda

         and hit the ‘Enter’ key.

      3. Press Alt-F1 to return to the Ubuntu installation.
3. Continue the installation process until reaching the bootloader installation screen. (in testing, this was the ‘GRUB installation’ page.)
   1. In Ubuntu, do not install GRUB to the MBR. Windows needs the MBR as it is.
   2. When asked where to install GRUB, choose the Linux installation partition (not the swap). In testing, this was /dev/sda4. (Note that this partition is one greater than the partition specified on the ‘Guided - Resize…’ line of the ‘Partition disks’ screen.
4. When the installation is complete, eject the CD (if it is not done for you) and reboot the machine.

Update rEFIt

At this point, rEFIt will see all three operating systems and can load Mac OS and Windows, but needs to have its own partition records updated to be able to properly allow Linux to load.

1. Once the machine is rebooted and on the rEFIt screen, press the arrow keys until you reach the ‘Partitioning Tool’ icon. Press the ‘Enter’ key.
2. When it asks “May I update the MBR as printed above?” press the ‘y’ key. rEFIt’s partiton records will update.
3. You should now be able to boot into any Operating System.

Notes and Observations

General

• To disable the Apple ‘bong’ noise when the machine starts, install and configure StartupSound.prefPane.

Windows

• Windows will check (CHKDSK) its partition the first time it boots. It notices the difference in partition size. This is fine, let it check it. Windows still loads afterwards.
• The right-click behavior in Mac OS (Control-click) can be replicated in Windows by using inputremapper.

Linux

• To reduce the amount of time the GRUB menu appears when booting Linux (tested Ubuntu), edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst where it says ‘timeout 10′ to say ‘timeout 3′ or whatever your preference is.
• To replicate the right-click (and middle-click) functionality in Mac OS by using Control-click,
  • Go to System > Preferences > Keyboard > Accessibility tab > General - and enable “Allow to turn accessibility features on and off from the keyboard”
  • Go to System > Preferences > Keyboard > Mouse Keys tab > and enable “Allow to control the pointer using the keyboard”
  • From the terminal, type

    gedit ~/.xmodmap

  • Type:

keycode 116 = Pointer_Button3

keycode 108 = ISO_Level3_Shift

• • Save and close the file.
  • Go to System > Preferences > Sessions and click ‘Add’.
    • Name: xmodmap
    • Command: xmodmap /home/fuz2y/.xmodmap
    • Comment: Add middle- and right-click functionality
    • Click ‘OK’.
  • Restart X to use the changes (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace).

The “‘Lobster Eye’ X-ray focusing optics” device is a hand-held optical device able to see through walls, even shipping containers.  Their target market is law enforcement.  Great.  I love how they list “contraband hidden behind walls” as a use for this device.

“Anything behind walls” sounds too invasive…

“SCiB” touted to be safer than today’s Lithium Ion, lasts 10 years, charges in minutes (@ up to 50 amps).

1/3 pound (150 gram) cell is
- the size of a mobile phone
- provides 4.2 aH @ 2.4 volts. (devices)

4.4 pound (2 kg) cell is
- the size of a small paperback novel
- provides 42 aH @ 24 volts. (vehicles)

If they are able to deliver in mass production at a profit, this could be a major new development in both transportation and electronic devices.

Toshiba Press Release

This is great - for those of you who have had the life-changing experience of owning a TiVo, things just got a lot better. TiVo has added bolean search to their wishlist management.

What this means is that while in the past, you were stuck choosing either to record:

• Any show named ‘Mythbusters’, or
• Any showing that listed ‘Adam Savage’, or
• Any showing that listed ‘Jaime Hyneman’, or
• Any showing on channel 48 at 9pm…
• (etc)

You can now use AND, OR or XOR…which TiVo calls ‘This and that’, ‘This or that’, and ‘This but not that’. So if you’re a big fan of the Mythbusters, and want to see where they pop up elsewhere other than on the show, you can record Mythbusters Wednesday nights, but you can also make a WishList to record shows where the title has the keywords ‘Jaime Hyneman’ AND ‘Adam Savage’.

Other uses for this might be if you’re a NASCAR fan and want just the races. You could choose keyword = ‘NASCAR’ AND category = ‘Auto Racing’. That way, you get the races and none of the NASCAR talk shows.

Or maybe you want all showings where title = ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ and keyword = ‘Andy Richter’, and nostalgicize about the old days.

A few notes, however: (TiVo this is your homework)

1. I could add multiple items, but had no way to select ‘AND’ or ‘OR’. It just shows a dot between the keywords, so I’m at a loss as to what that means. No idea where I can choose the ‘This but not that’. I have a pretty non-standard TiVo unit (Toshiba TiVo/DVD player), but that seems like a major voyage of the failboat on TiVo’s fault. Too difficult to have a lab with all the models in it to test feature rollouts?
2. TiVo’s database is terrible. It seems that I can only choose from actor’s names that will be on shows in the next few weeks. How hard could it be to give imdb.com a ring and work out a linkup? For example, I put in ‘Carolla’, and no listing for Adam. So no luck for people who want to catch Adam on any rare rerun of the Man Show? I realize his other shows aren’t in the rotation these days, but at least give people the capability to toss that net out there just on the offchance that they’re reshown at 3am some day.

Here’s my design of the PandoraPod. I’d love to see it, would you? I think it could be a hit. Not only does it let you be portable with your audio, but you get the benefits of the Music Genome Project along with you, and an easy way to expand your collection on the go…

Please comment with any suggestions as to what features you’d like to see, etc. I’d love to be doing this type of user experience development, think it’s a good idea? I enjoy creatively making things better, but I’ve basically been in an Admin role in different parts of IT thus far… (Plus, somewhere like San Jose is looking pretty nice right now, as it’s -15F out here in Chicago…)

Product picture:

(Don’t mind the pic, first time on GIMP and using a touchpad…)

Product Description:

Based on the Insignia NS-DA2G, this NS-DA4G-P player boasts the size of an Altoids gum tin, while remaining under a half-inch thick. Offering FM radio, 4GB of mp3 storage, and the Pandora music service, this player offers a superior listening experience, not only by delivering the music you know you love, but finding the music suited to your tastes that you don’t know about, just like Pandora.com! Not only are listeners able to carry their music with them, but they are also able to listen to their Pandora music channels, and even buy-on-the-fly the tracks they like! (DRM free, of course) Price: US$119.99

Product Specs:

• 4GB storage
• FM Radio with 20 presets
• WiFi 802.11g and Bluetooth enabled
• Just over 0.5″ thin and weighs only 1.5 ounces
• Supports MP3, WMA, OGG, Audible and JPEG formats

Product Accessories:

• Car radio faceplate dock, with WiFi extender antenna / SatNav network linkup and audio amplifier
• Recharging Desk dock with audio-in to computer (don’t need pandora in the browser to listen)
• Armband, NON-white earbuds

Menu Structure: (note - new menus are in bold, the rest is the same as the current NS-DA2G)

• Now Playing (Displays current source)
• Music Library (Plays mp3 collection)
  • Play all
  • Artist
  • Album
  • Track
  • Genre
  • Playlist
• FM Radio (plays Radio)
• Pandora (plays Pandora) (note - arrows up and down change channels, FF arrow skips song, ‘guide us’ button brings up Pandora-specific menu)
  • Rate
    • I like it
    • I don’t like it
      
  • Bookmark
    • Song
    • Artist
      
  • Buy
    • Buy-on-the-fly (PayPal? Pandora music store?)
      
    • Queue for later (iTunes / Amazon music store?)
      
• Settings
  • Audio
    • Shuffle
      • On
      • Off
    • Repeat
      • Off
      • 1
      • All
    • Equalizer
      • Off
      • Rock
      • Jazz
      • Classical
      • Pop
      • Custom
    • A-B Repeat
      • Off
      • On
  • FM Settings
  • Display
    • Brightness
      • Level 1
      • Level 2
      • Level 3
      • Level 4
      • Level 5
      • Level 6
      • Level 7
      • Level 8
      • Level 9
      • Level 10
    • Rotation
      • Right Hand
      • Left Hand
    • Backlight
      • 2 Sec
      • 5 Sec
      • 10 Sec
      • 30 Sec
  • Time
    • Auto Power Off
      • 5 min
      • 10 min
    • Sleep
      • Off
      • 30 Min
      • 60 Min
      • 90 Min
  • System
    • Erase All
      • Yes
      • No
    • System Init
      • Restore Defaults
      • No
  • USB Mode
    • Media Manager
    • File & Folder
  • Information
  • Pandora Settings
    • User Information
      • Edit User Information
      • Add another User
        
  • WiFi Settings
    • Scan for Networks
    • Edit Saved Profiles
      
  • Bluetooth Settings
    • Make Discoverable
    • Connect to Devices

Afterthought: Ooh! What if it could read the ID3 tags off of your music collection, and build a new channel for you off of a particular Genre or group of selected songs? What about a temporary channel based off of whatever you currently have in the 4GB of storage? Nice!

edit: a few hours after I wrote this, Seagate announced D.A.V.E. Scoble has the inside track on what DAVE is. Check it out, it’s basicaly a generic 10 or 20GB hard drive with USB / WiFi / Bluetooth and an API to make it into whatever you want. If I can get my hands on one, I’ll learn whatever language the API is in, make a PandoraPod prototype (still need to figure out what device will tie into DAVE, and release the code, if it works.

Every review of the MacBook Pro I’ve seen goes on and on about how wonderful everything is about these user-lappy’s…until they get to the topic of cooling.

It seems that there is a general agreement that the MacBook Pro’s run way too hot for many people’s preference.  This seems to be a poorly defined threshold as to when the fans kick in or stay off.  As with many laptops, fan use has to be balanced with battery life, but it appears that Apple missed the mark with this one, with the result being a hotter-than-usual laptop.
Luckily, a freeware app from Lobotomo called Fan Control solves this.  You can set the default base fan speed, as well as the lower and upper temperature limits to properly cool your MacBook Pro to your liking.  Check out this freeware today, and say goodbye to your burning lap!

via kraneland

I’ve seen a few of these around the web, and they still continue to fascinate me. It’s amazing how easy it is o crack a safe these days. With parts commonly found in junked printers, this student took a half-brute-force, half-algoritmic approach to creating a robotic safe cracker.

The end result? Instead of a brute-force attack on the combination, which could theoretically take weeks, the safe was cracked in just a few days. Not bad!

Congrats to Kyle Vogt on using a bit of forthought in his algoritm to cut out 90% of the time cost. Am I cheering on the idea of making theft easier? No. Better cracking methods make better locks.

In 2003, IBM began releasing ThinkPad laptop computers with integrated accelerometers and associated software to protect the hard disks when the unit is dropped. Enterprising hackers from IBM and elsewhere have worked to develop modules for the Linux kernel to take advantage of these sensors. On-screen display orientation, desktop switching, even game control and real-time 3D models of the tilt of the laptop are now available. This article presents a new twist — knock codes — and a simple program to run commands when specific knock codes are detected.

For the first time, you can hit your computer and get a meaningful response! Using Linux® and the Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS) kernel drivers, you can access the embedded accelerometers on Lenovo (formerly IBM®) ThinkPads, then process the accelerometer data to read specific sequences of “knocking” events — literally rapping on the laptop case with your knuckles — and run commands based on those knocks. Double tap to lock the screen, and knock in your secret code to unlock. Tap the display lid once to move your mp3 player to the next track. The possibilities are endless.

[youtube]sbh_JGbPoJU[/youtube]

More here on how to accomplish this on your Thinkpad.

Well, now doesn’t that just freak you out…

[youtube]vx35zMyFJ94[/youtube]

Next step: Enter in the combined works of Einstein, and put him back on the lecture circuit, complete with interactive Q&A. (Just don’t lose the head, Philip K. Dick-style!)

I was actually lucky enough to hang out with ol’ Phil’s robotic head at Wired’s NextFest show when they were in Chicago. Pretty lifelike, except for the access panel on the back of the head being off and all…