OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.1 released

The first Mac OS X 10.8 update is now available through the app store, weighing in at a surprisingly trim 24.2 Mb. It’s just installed on my Macbook Air while my main Hackintosh starts the ritual backup before a system update. No mention of the widely reported battery life issue 10.8 brought to some Mac laptop users.

No problems with the update on Apple hardware so far, the only warning I received was of incompatible software. This turned out to be the Avira antivirus I have been trying, but it’s still present and working correctly. Here are the official Apple release notes for issues addressed by the 10.8.1 update.

About OS X Mountain Lion Update v10.8.1

This update includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability and compatibility of your Mac, including fixes that:

• Resolve an issue that may cause Migration Assistant to unexpectedly quit
• Improve compatibility when connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server in Mail
• Address an issue playing audio through a Thunderbolt display
• Resolve an issue that could prevent iMessages from being sent
• Address an issue that could cause the system to become unresponsive when using Pinyin input
• Resolve an issue when connecting to SMB servers with long names
• Address a issue that may prevent Safari from launching when using a Proxy Automatic Configuration (PAC) file
• Improve 802.1X authentication with Active Directory credentials.

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5418.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Moving to Crashplan online backup

I recently detailed my problems with Backzup and LiveDrive, and have since found Carbonite’s throttling of backup speeds has made the service unusable. I had to contact Carbonite after upgrading my server from a 10.6 Atom to 10.7 i3 setup, as the backup set was frozen and a new one started. I had around 200Gb of data in the backup, and since Carbonite throttle backup speeds to make the service unusable at around 300Gb I could only get half way through the second backup. Contacting Carbonite about the problem resulted in having to delete all the backups and start again, but the speed stayed low and after six weeks I had backed up 60Gb.

I have had no reply from Backzup in the ten weeks since my account was suspended, and LiveDrive said it wasn’t their problem. Also, Firefox warns that https://backzup.com is untrusted as it uses a self-signed certificate, making me wonder how much thought the clowns behind Backzup gave their service. Time to switch to a new online backup company.

What’s up with Backzup?

On 14th December 2011 I signed up for a free 512Gb online backup account at Backzup. I was initially doubtful that the service could provide that amount of free backup, but it worked well. Backzup is (was?) a Livedrive re-seller, so the software you download is from Livedrive, and you use the Livedrive web site to manage or access your backup.

My reason for trying Backzup was a problem with my Carbonite account. I have used Carbonite for my online backup needs for over two years, and while the service has previously worked well I have now hit the point where Carbonite are throttling my backup so much it’s impossible to use. When I recently upgraded my server hackintosh I moved all the files from the old server to the new one using the Mac Migration Assistant. When I re-installed the Carbonite software on the new server and transfered the backup account the old backup set was retained, and a new one started. The backup set contains 189Gb, so the old 189Gb remained on the Carbonite servers and a new 189Gb backup was started. Carbonite slow down your backup once it gets too big, so mine is wallowing at around 300Gb with over 70Gb remaining. The upload speed is now limited to around 100kbit/second, so I am now waiting for 30 days since the old backup was last seen. At that time the old backup should be deleted, and I can finish the new backup in a reasonable time.

Backzup sounded like an ideal solution, offering 512Gb for free with no upload speed limits. I completed the initial backup of 204Gb in five days, which included suspending the backup a few times to do other things. The service then worked without issue until the 1st January 2012, when the Livedrive software reported it could not log into the account. My attempts to access the Livedrive web site returned a message that the account was suspended, but there is no way to contact Livedrive as I need to log into the account to access their support system. This happened at the point when I was considering upgrading to one of Backzup’s paid accounts, not for the extra space but to pay something for a good service.

Buying Lion on a Hackintosh

After the changes made upgrading my P35-DS3R/Q6600 hackintosh to 10.6.8, I expected downloading Mac OS 10.7 to be a breeze. It appears that the App store application has some built in checks that block the purchase/download on unsupported hardware. My first response was to try some different smbios.plist files, including the widely suggested MacPro 3,1 type, then try editing these. None of those attempts gave any success, so the next step was a search for suggestions from the many excellent Hackintosh forums.

One method I found was to install the latest version of Tonymac86’s Chimera bootloader, V1.4.1. This is available from the Tonymac86 site as either a standalone installer or part of the MultiBeast package. The Lion purchase/download then worked perfectly. I had some unexpected side effects as well, such as losing my VPN configuration and being unable to get it working again. I searched for reasons for this and suspect it was something to do with changes to the Ethernet port en0 setup. The easiest and fastest fix was to copy the Lion installer to my server and restore the disk to the backup I had made just before installing Chimera, finally copying the Lion Installer back again. I always repeat how important it is to make a backup before any big changes to a hackintosh installation, and once again it saved me a lot of time and effort.

This ended up being a lot of effort to buy and download Lion. I’ve always felt it’s important to buy the software even if I’m not within the terms of the EULA by running it on generic hardware. At £20.99/$29.99 it’s very cheap compared to the cost up upgrading a Windows system, and rampant piracy within the hackintosh community will not encourage Apple to continue to ignore us as it has done so far. Also, I already save a huge amount running Mac OS on generic hardware, saving £21 more seems as petty.

10.6.8 on Hackintosh

This post has been delayed a long time, partly due to the changes I made to my Hackintosh during the 10.6.8 update and partly due to Mac OS 10.7 Lion. Previous 10.6.x updates had been fairly straightforward, often needing nothing more than a change to the PMversion of SleepEnabler in com.apple.Boot.plist. That approach didn’t work with the 10.6.8 update. I tried using PMversion=23 but this resulted in a crash during boot for PMversion/kernel miss-match. A search of several hackintosh forums showed that this was working for some people, while others were using PMversion=0 to disable SleepEnabler.

Jailbreaking iOS 4.3.1 with PwnageTool 4.3

PwnageTool and Redsn0w have been updated, and both allow jailbreaking a range of iOS devices without tethering. This walk through covers PwnageTool 4.3, with another covering Redsn0w to follow. The main difference between the two apps is the method of jailbreaking. PwnageTool makes a custom Firmware file that iTunes puts onto the device. Redsn0w jailbreaks a device after iTunes has installed a standard Apple Firmware.

Before starting a jailbreak using PwnageTool or Redsn0w you need the correct firmware for your device. I used a great guide at iClarified that links to every iPhone firmware that has been released. My iPhone is a 3GS so the firmware I wanted was the 4.3.1 (3GS): iPhone2,1_4.3.1_8G4_Restore.ipsw. Once downloaded and placed on my desktop I launched Pwnagetool 4.3.

10.6.7 On Hackintosh

Apple this week released Mac OS 10.6.7, the latest maintenance release for its Snow Leopard Operating System. I’ve tested this on my main hackintosh with no problems found. A new version 4.5 of Mail is installed as part of the update, which is incompatible with the Letterbox Mail add-on.

Letterbox developer Aaron Harnly has already released version 0.24b9 for 10.6.7 compatibility, so within 10 minutes of upgrading I had mail back to it’s widescreen glory. Thanks to Aaron for his work on this most useful and free plugin.

10.6.6 on Hackintosh

Mac OS 10.6.6 has been out for a couple of days now, and I have successfully updated my main hackintosh to this release. The previous 10.6.5 release had required the addition of “pmVersion=21” to the kernel flags section of my com.apple.Boot.plist file, but this latest update required no further modifications.

I haven’t found any problems with this release on my hardware. System updates always take a little longer on my hardware since I make a full bootable (and tested) backup before every major change, but that’s a good idea on Apple hardware as well since problems after updates are not unheard of.

December 2010 Macintosh Software Bundles

Software bundles have always been a great way of building up a collection of useful applications, and the massively discounted price means you only need a couple of top class apps to make the price a bargain. There are several software bundles available for Macintosh users right now, offering a range of applications for prices between $9.99 and $63. Unfortunately there’s nothing currently available from Macheist or MacUpdate. The bundles are listed here in increasing price, with the second price in brackets a pound/dollar conversion at the current exchange rate (on 6th December 2010).

Macbasket.com – 7 apps for $9.99 (£6.36), ending 9th December 2010:

1. NuKit – Finder productivity enhancer
2. Money³ – Financial Management
3. rooSwitch – profiles for your applications
4. Radium – Internet radio player
5. Healthnut – Diet/health tracker
6. Chronicle 3 – Manage your bills
7. Tracks -Play/browse music from the menubar

MacbundlePro – 7 apps for $19.95 (£12.69), ending 31st December 2010:

1. AirRadar 2 – Wireless network scanner
2. Inpaint – Remove objects from your images
3. MacHider – Hide private data
4. TranslateIt – Language translation
5. ManPower – Man page GUI
6. PacketStream – network monitoring tool
7. DVDsnap 2 – capture screen shots from Apple DVD player

Mac Bundle Box – 12 apps for $29 (£18.45), ending 23rd December 2010:

1. Compartments – Home inventory
2. QuickScale – Batch image resizing
3. Semonto – Web server monitoring for 6 months
4. Radium – Internet radio player
5. iCollage – Image scrapbook
6. AllMyTube – Download/convert FLV video
7. DVD Ripper – Convert DVD’s to other formats
8. PDF Converter – PDF to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, EPUB, Text and HTML
9. Photo Recovery – recover lost, deleted or formatted photos, videos and music files
10. iMedia Converter – DVD ripping and video conversion
11. TinyGrab – Screenshot utility
12. Caboodle – Snippet machine

BundlesForMac – 12 apps for $49.99 (£31.80), ending 15th December 2010:

1. skEdit – Text/html editor
2. Yummy FTP – FTP client
3. MyStuff – home inventory
4. BlogAssist – blog/website editor
5. AlienDestroyer – Secure erase sensitive data
6. Involer – Invoicing app
7. Deliver – File delivery to local and remote destinations
8. ProfCast – Lecture recording app
9. PDF to Word – Document converter
10. iCash – Personal finance
11. PDF to Epub – Document converter
12. GadgetTrak – Laptop theft recovery

MacPromo.com – 10 apps for £39.99 ($63), ending 31st December 2010:

1. TypeIt4Me – Text expander
2. PathFinder 5 – Finder replacement
3. DragThing – document, folder, and application and URL dock
4. Name Mangler 2 – Batch file renamer
5. Personal Antispam 10.6 – Antispam component of Intego Internet Security Barrier
6. MacFreelance 2 – Invoice management
7. Keyboard Maestro 4 – Keyboard macro app
8. Personal Backup – backup component of Intego Internet Security Barrier
9. Folx Pro – Download manager
10. CuteClips 3 – Clipboard history
11. The First 5000 buyers get Star Wars: Empire at War

iOS 4.2.1 Jailbreak released

New Firmware, New Jailbreak. Following yesterday’s release of iOS 4.2.1, redsn0w 0.9.6b4 is now available to jailbreak it. There are some conditions attached, so best read the post at the iPhone Dev Team Blog before attempting the jailbreak.

Another thing to remember is that this is still beta software, so may not work as expected. I followed the instructions the app gives to enter DFU mode, but found redsn0w stopped at the waiting for reboot screen. I got around this problem by putting my iPhone 3GS into DFU mode manually before running redsn0w, then pressing the power button when redsn0w stopped at waiting for reboot.

Once Jailbroken, there are a few more issues. SB settings isn’t currently working for me, and crashes springboard when I try to use it. No doubt this will be quickly fixed, but for now just remember this is new software, so either wait for the jailbreak ecosystem to catch up or enjoy the ride.

Update 25th November – Cydia updated SBsettings Toggles today, and SBsettings is now working perfectly with 4.2.1 on my 3GS.