>Falling Skies: an Alien Invasion Aftermath

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I love sci-fi and I love TV.   Series’ like the Stargate franchise or Battlestar Galactica, gets me hook to the TV Screen.  Since the Scifi channel (or should I say Syfy), has yet to release a noteworthy Scifi TV Series, I had to look for other alternatives.  Then came Falling Skies.

This is not your typical alien invasion storyline, like V.  The story starts 6 months after an alien invasion wherein humans are an endangered species.  This is a fight for survival.  It’s dark, gritty and it’s scifi!!

I’m particularly interested on the aliens.  The aliens have multiple legs, 6 legs I think, but their mechanized machines have only two.  Hmm… kinda weird.  This was discussed during the 2nd episode by a professor and Tom.  I really would want to know why.  The aliens also abduct children and place a, sort of, parasite on their backs.

I just hope this series won’t be cancelled.

 

>Game of Thorns Addict!!!

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This new HBO Series got me hooked.  HBO does produce great, addicting and exhilarating mini series, just like The Band of Brothers and now the Game of Thorns.  The story is really interesting, lots of things to look out for.  Lannister’s, Targaryen’s, Stark’s, Baratheon’s: these are prominent families featured in the series.  A power struggle in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros brings the series the thrill and the OMG factor which makes this series a great one.  You’ll never expect the events that follows and what implications of these events does to the whole story.

I’m practically interested on what lies beyond The Wall.  The Wall is like the barricade between the northern part and southern kingdoms of Westeros. 

In the season finale, Daenerys, one of the last Targaryens, sacrificed herself to the burning fire together with her dead husband, Khal Drogo, and the 3 dragon eggs.  After the fire burnt out, she was still alive in the middle of the ash and rubble and with her are 3 dragonlings (baby dragons).

I’m really excited for the 2nd season to be released.  How would the war between King Joffrey Baratheon of King’s Landing and Robb Stark from Winterfell end?  What would Jon Snow and the rest of the rangers find beyond The Wall?  How would the war look like when Daenarys, with her dragons, join the fray?

Excited much…

 

>My Mac OSX86 Audio Driver

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My installation of Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.7 is running smoothly  this past few days; but still without audio.  I installed VoodooHDA; a kext file for Intel HD audio driver.  At first, iTunes plays music but a few seconds after the music crackles then stops.  I had my hopes up for this driver.  I played the music over and over then I noticed that every time I move the mouse, the music would continue playing.  So, I played itunes again and this time I kept moving the mouse around.  The music played flawlessly.  Hmmm… this is weird.  This means that if I want to listen to music, I have to move the mouse around? Heh, hope someone figures this out and fix the kext file.

 

>Install Snow Leopard on a MSI WInd U230

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Ok my previous post was about my success install of Snow Leopard on my MSI Wind U230. This time I’ll try to recall the steps I took to install this OS (Operationg System). Hope I could enlighten other U230 owners who would want to install Mac OSX on their netbooks.

First off, this is the important specs of MSI Wind U230 that we will concentrate:

Processor: AMD Neo x21.6Ghz

RAM: 2gb

HDD: 320gb

Video: ATI HD 3200

Wifi: Atheros AR9285

Lan: Realtek RTL8186

Audio: Azalia Intel HD**

We are going to install the drivers of the above mentioned specs. I’ll provide some of the files I used to install to get the best Mac OSX experience.

Like I said in my previous post, I have tried a bunch of distros only iATKOSv7 and Snowleo Mac are the ones I successfully installed. Since iATKOS v7 is a Leopard (10.5.7) version, it’s quite outdated. So I installed SnowLeo MAC because it’s a Snow Leopard (10.6) install then we will upgrade it to 10.6.4..

SnowLeo MAC: I downloaded and burned this to a 4.7gb DVD disc. Note: this is a torrent download, so be sure you have a bittorrent client, it’s a 2.8gb iso file and it is bootable.

I partially followed this GUIDE. This guide is specifically made for AMD installs. Thanks to mtb_kng for posting this guide.

I’m not a programmer so everything I’ll be posting here are results of my research and experimentation. I’ll be posting links on sites I’ve researched and are quite helpful guides for a successful install.

Since the U230 has no dvd drive, I bought an external dvd drive just for this install and I really needed an external burner anyway. There are USB installs out there; Google is your friend.

Ok let’s start: I downloaded SnowLeo MAC, link above, and burned it to a 4.7gb dvd disc.

Things you’ll need:

a. a USB mouse

b. USB Keyboard

c. External DVD Drive (no need if you go for USB install)

d. Download the following:

Mac OSX 10.6.4 combo upgrade

Airport Utility

Legacy kernel

CPUID – save this text file on the drive

Maxxuss Patcher

kext files – these are the kext files I used contains kexts for keyboard & trackpad, ati driver, sleepenabler

THE STEPS:

1. plug in the external dvd drive, USB mouse and keyboard, and turn on the netbook

2. press F11 to show the boot selection, select the dvd drive

3. the bootloader loads up, press any key to get a boot command prompt.

4. on the prompt, type in cpus=1 -v press enter

5. wait for the installation to load

6. on the welcome screen, click on the bottom-right button

7. on the menu bar, click Utilities then Disk Utility

The Disk utility is where we format or erase the drive to prepare for Mac OSX installation. You may partition your drive, like I did. Heres what I did:

a. select the drive

b. on the right select Partition

c. Under Volume Scheme, select 2 partitions

d. select the top partition and name the volume; I named it Snow and the bottom partition Files

e. Under Volume Information, select format: Mac Os Extended (Journaled) for both partitions

f. click on the Options button below. here I selected MBR

g. Click Apply.

h. Close Disk Utility by clicking on the name Disk Utility on the menu bar, and select Quit

8. select next, then Agree

9. select destination; in my case I selected Snow , then continue

10. on the next page, click on Customize

11. These are the selections I installed :

a. 1st box must be ticked (this is the Base System install and the Tools)

b. Chamelion RC5, remove the check on the default RC4

c. Chocolate Kernel or Legacy Kernel: both will do since we will be replacing this once we upgrade

d. FakeSMC

e. Platform UUID

f. Apple driver RT8169 (under Lan)

g. AppleViaSata

h. IOATAFamily FIx

i. IOPCIFamily Fix

* Leave everything else as default

** Notice I have no Video, Audio, and Keyboard selected, kext files for these are provided above

12. continue with the install. It takes about 20 minutes to install.

13. once done, reboot

14. when chameleon boots up press down to drop down a bunch of selections

15. now type -v -f , just type and you’ll see this on the bottom left of the screen. then press enter

16. you’ll see a lot of scrolling words or phrases running down the screen. with a little bit of luck Mac OSX boots up.

17. once it boots up, it would set up your keyboard; be sure that the USB keyboard is still attached. Follow the instructions and fill out the required fields.. you may skip the Connect to Apple wherein it asks for your Apple ID. It is recommended you enter a password and never forget it because you will be asked alot in the following steps when installing the kext files.

18. ok, welcome to the Mac OSX desktop. now install the Mac OSX 10.6.4 combo update. this may take awhile.

19. Once done, DO NOT RESTART. install the Legacy kernel 10.4.

20. Now you can restart and pray it boots up.

21. Now we will install the drivers. Unzip the kext.zip file in a temporary folder.

22. now on the rightside of the dock you will find a blue folder icon with an A in it. This is your Applications folder. click it.

23. Scroll down and look for Tools folder, open it.

24. Open the Kext Helper b7 app. This app will help you install the kext files inside the kext.zip file.

25. Now drag all the .kext files you unzip to the Kext Helper app. Type in your password and click Easy Install.

26. Reboot and see if the keyboard and touchpad work, and if you’ll notice the resolution is different.

27. Install the Airport Utility. This will upgrade the Airport to detect the wifi. If after installing Airport Utility update, the wifi isn’t detected, try:

a. Restart the system

b. If still can’t be detected, install this kext AtherosFix using Kext Helper.

28. Now lets patch the system. Unzip the Maxxuss Patcher. Drag the CPUID text file over the Maxxuss Patcher icon, literary drag it.

29. Open the Marvin’s AMD Utility. It’s found in Applications folder, the one with and AMD logo. It’s going to ask for your password. Once it’s opened, select the second option: Make…. now on the right select destination /System/Library/.

30. Now run it. There will be a folder created in the desktop which would contain a CPUID.txt. Marvin’s Utility will stop responding, it’s ok, just Force quit it.

31. Open the CPUID text file in the new folder on the desktop. erase first few lines under the syntax with Front Row in it then save,

32. Drag this text file over Maxxuss Patcher icon to patch the cpuids found by Marvin’s Utility.

33. You’re Done. Congrats on your new OSX86 Snow Leo

I know this is a long blog but I had to make it as easy as possible to those aren’t techie enough about computers. You may notice that there is no sound. I’m currently looking for kext to make the audio work. I’ll just post it here when I find one.

These are the steps I took to run Mac OSX smoothly in my MSI Wind. It took me a week and several clean installs just to boot smoothly. It’s not perfect but I’m satisfied.