Planning to dual-boot with your Intel based PCs with Apple’s OS X Leopard, or just want to install Leopard on your Intel PCs? Well here is how you do it: the crew at OSx86 scene managed to break the barrier with Leopard and found a way to install it in Intel-powered PCs, and just the day before the launch of the highly acclaimed OS. Installing Leopard on an Intel based pc requires the following items: burnable DVD and USB thumb drive.

OSx86 managed to work out two installation methods, first of which uses a DVD-RW to mount a DVD image of the OS, or just setting up a partition to load the install files from. The steps may look difficult at first glance, but the how-to steps are thoroughly outlined so there shouldn’t be any problems in trying it out.

Still want to make Windows walk the plank? Check out that list first before deciding to install Leopard first.

My experience is mixed, obviously their are some driver issues, but nothing a little hunting a pecking wont fix. But right now I am running Leopard pretty flawlessly, not really any huge issues that have came up. Most users have experienced a very long install time; I as well have experienced that same problem. It took close to 1 hour and 45 minutes to do the install. 

Overall I am pretty happy with the results; I am impressed with the tools that OSx86 crews have developed as well, kudos to them. I am currently living in a Windows based world, and it is sometimes is nice to venture out to something different, but Leopard really is not that different. Time machine is neat, but really that is about. You will never be able to knock Apple’s UI’s, but I personally don’t feel like anything is that different from other recent Mac builds. One thing I can say is that Apple is trying to make the switch easier for Windows users. I find myself eerily intrigued by the new finder, which some what resembles explorer.

Now the last question I face myself is if I would do this to my other machines? The answer is yes. Their are a lot of features that I absolutely love with OSX that I just cannot do with Vista, and vice versa. OSX is like that weekend vacation, its soothing, calm, and fun. But when it comes to the work week Windows is God, so I love them both, I will be doing this to most of my machines, but I think I might wait a little longer to do it though. OSx86 promises better builds that are a bit tighter in the code department.

Now all I have to do is get Ubuntu 7.10 back up and running again, anyone up for a tri-boot? 

Well maybe not. I know everyone is sick of hearing about the Jesus phone, I know I most certainly am. But I wanted to touch on a topic that is driving me insane. I see new articles about it everyday. Its driving me crazy. Now all of you are saying, “What is driving you crazy?”, all the articles about people finally UNLOCKING THE iPhone! I have read hundreds of claims that people have unlocked the iPhone. But the thing is that is all we ever hear are claims. I know some people have actually done it, but to what extent are you prepared to go to unlock that ironclad device. In the end you might find yourself spending more on unlocking it then actually ponying up the cash for AT&T.

I understand the people that don’t want to give into the system, and that’s neat and all. But really why waste your time, energy, and hard earned money on simply unlocking a phone that might or might not work with your carrier. Plus what happens when your phone dies, or has a malfunction. Do you take it back to Apple? I don’t think that will really work. Granted most of the people that are trying to unlock these things are pretty savy with the gadgets, so I assume they would probably be able to fix most issues on their own, and that’s the rub, not everyone is savy with the gadgets. Its a glass half full type of situation.

Now some people are claiming they unlocked the phone monkeying around with the internal hardware, and some claim the TurboSim card unlocks the phone via blocking it from getting any AT&T info, and a recent one I heard today about people doing it via a firmware hack. Once again I reiterate that this is not a bad thing. This is how people discover things about technology and how innovations are created in the marketplace, simply by taking a device apart and seeing how it works. That’s how technology evolves, which is a great thing. But as these shenanigans keep on progressing I really do not see one true process to unlock these devious devices. So I say this once and once only, that the Apple iPhone is the most secure smart-phone to date. If the Apple iPhone was a building it would be Fort Knox, but I think it would be even more secure then Fort Knox. You see Fort Knox is not open to the public, which the iPhone is, and if Fort Knox was open to the public for 2 months people would have already found a way into the safes. But their are many claims of partially unlocked iPhones as well (Thats like partially stealing the gold then getting shot on the way out by the tower guards).

When I say secure, I don’t mean secure software, or secure from software exploits, I mean it is locked down to the mother-ship and the tractor beam is strong. Their are thousands of some of the best PDA/Smart-phone crackers in the world working on this, and no one has came out with a true unlock method for the masses. The funny thing is that whenever if ever their is one Golden Key to unlock the palace, Apple and AT&T will sit and watch as people start unlocking the phones. Now this is the painful part, they will watch, but they wont be upset. They will be sitting over a tech’s pc telling him to deploy the new firmware that will brick every single one. ONE KEYSTROKE. Then the process begins all over again.

My point to all of this is that the masses will not go along. Once they have touched that glassy interface they will not be able to go back to any other smart-phone. So they will eventually cough up the cash for the AT&T service, and it will come with another rush of profits for the two companies.

Like I wrote about last week, these companies thrive off control. They want to control the influx of information, they want to control your hardware and software. Frustrating at best, but what can we do? Except not buy there hardware and software. This is why I have taken a stand. I would love to have that gorgeous phone, but it does not work with my carrier. So I am waiting for the revised version of the HTC Touch.  To me its as close to an iPhone as any other device.

I guess I have not been struck with the Jesus phone syndrome yet?

Here are some examples of the claims I have been talking about:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I think ten example are enough, I could link to different stories all day.

Well what did you expect? Nothing was too much of a secret. But this is going to get some of you mac fans furious, but I am not one to consider feelings most of the time. Sorry that’s just me.

Well I had this long touching post written the day of Apples release of the new imac’s and .mac updates, but I never posted it. The reasons why I didn’t post it are many, but only one phrase sums it up for me, UN-IMPRESSIVE!

Yes the new imacs are pretty, just like the last ones. Yes the new keyboards are sleek. Yes some of the new software updates are neat. But did we expect anything different? It makes no sense to me why Apple would come out with all of these updates on the heels of the release of the Jesus phone. Why wouldn’t you release the new platform devices first, like the imac before you release the industry changing IPhone. I was so excited for the release of the new imacs, I really thought they would do something to trump the greatness of the IPhone, but that obviously did not happen. I thought just maybe they had a trick up their sleeve, but nothing.

Now I know a lot of people are saying that the new imacs are going to be great, which they most likely are. But I am just saying the announcement and keynote were just not exciting at all. I simply was not impressed. The thing is that we were and still in awe of the IPhone, so once again I ask the question why didn’t you come out with the new updates for the imacs and .mac first ???

Since quite a many Geeks use Mac OS X I figured this might be of some interest to some folks out of our 16 or so readers we currently have. Think Secret has posted that Apple has sent out a new Leopard build to developers offering a few UI tweaks including a "separator" graphic in the Dock that seems to be seen as a "new feature". Not sure how a separator graphic can be seen as a new feature but oh well.

Looks nifty don’t get me wrong. But for some reason - Leopard really isn’t as jaw-dropping as I was expecting from Apple. Then again I’m not really an Mac OS X user so if the OS X users are happy with the update that’s what counts right?