Get it here

Attempt #1: External Hard Drive

Since the PowerMac doesn’t have a DVD drive, I naturally can’t use the Retail DVD to install Leopard. So I used SuperDuper to make a bootable copy of the DVD onto a external hard drive (and doing so would allow me to modify a installer config file that specific the Minimum CPU requirement). There is just one problem with this method: The PowerMac G4 wont boot from USB external hard drive — only Firewire ones — and I don’t have a Firewire external hard drive.

Attempt #2: Target Disk

After a bit of googling, I found that many people have been able to install Leopard onto old machines by booting into target disk mode first. So I did that, and the installation went fine — except the PowerMac won’t boot afterward. It turned out that I used a Intel Mac Mini to perform the installation and the installer partitioned the hard drive of the target-disked PowerMac into GUID partitions. That’s no good: PPC Macs can only boot from APM partitions!

Attempt #3: SuperDuper

My last — and successful — attempt is simply to make a Bootable copy of the PowerMac G4’s hard drive content (which contains freshly installed Leopard) onto a disk image file, repartition the PowerMac’s hard drive into APM partitions, then restore the content of the drive from the disk image.

Ta-da ~~~ Leopard on Quicksilver PowerMac G4!

Download

I think it still looks pretty good.

Download

some_name%some_server@msn

and in order for those MSN contact to be displayed as the person’s name, my Address Book entry for those people must have “some_name%some_server@msn” as the person’s Jabber Handle. Since I am a reasonably lazy person and wasn’t exactly prepared to enter all those entries by hand, I wrote the following Applescript to automate the process.

This script will go through all iChat service, look for contact address that ends in “@msn”. Then for all those contacts, search the Address Book entries that contain the corresponding MSN address (some_name@some_server). Then check to see if that person already have a Jabber entry, if not add it.

tell application “iChat”

    set all_jabber_accounts to {}

    set unique_pairs to {}

    set added_jabber to “”

    repeat with this_service in services

        set all_buddies to buddies of this_service

        repeat with this_buddy in all_buddies

            if name of this_buddy ends with “@msn” then

                set all_jabber_accounts_ref to (a reference to all_jabber_accounts)

                set buddy_jabber to name of this_buddy

                if all_jabber_accounts_ref does not contain buddy_jabber then

                    copy buddy_jabber to the end of all_jabber_accounts_ref

                    set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to “@”

                    set parts to text items of buddy_jabber

                    set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to “”

                    set msn_address to item 1 of parts

                    set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to “%”

                    set parts to text items of msn_address

                    set AppleScript’s text item delimiters to “”

                    set msn_name to item 1 of parts

                    set msn_server to item 2 of parts

                    set buddy_msn to msn_name & “@” & msn_server

                    set this_pair to {buddy_jabber, buddy_msn}

                    set unique_pairs_ref to (a reference to unique_pairs)

                    copy this_pair to the end of unique_pairs_ref

                end if

            end if

        end repeat

    end repeat

    repeat with pair_i from 1 to the count of items in unique_pairs

        set this_pair to item [pair_i] of unique_pairs

        set buddy_jabber to item 1 of this_pair

        set buddy_msn to item 2 of this_pair

        tell application “Address Book”

            repeat with this_person in every person

                set is_this_person to false

                if (count of MSN handles of this_person) is greater than 0 then

                    repeat with i from 1 to the count of MSN handle in this_person

                        set this_msn_handle to value of MSN handle [i] of this_person

                        if this_msn_handle is equal to buddy_msn then

                            set is_this_person to true

                        end if

                    end repeat

                end if

                if is_this_person then

                    set needs_to_add to true

                    if (count of Jabber handles of this_person) is greater than 0 then

                        repeat with j from 1 to the count of Jabber handle in this_person

                            set this_jabber_handle to value of Jabber handle [j] of this_person

                            if this_jabber_handle is equal to buddy_jabber then

                                set needs_to_add to false

                            end if

                        end repeat

                    end if

                    if needs_to_add then

                        set added_jabber to added_jabber & “* “ & (name of this_person) & ” “

                        make new Jabber handle at end of Jabber handles of this_person with

                    properties {label:”Jabber MSN”, value:buddy_jabber}

                    end if

                end if

            end repeat

        end tell

    end repeat

    if added_jabber is not equal to “” then

        display dialog “Jabber MSN Account added to: “ & added_jabber

    else

        display dialog “No Jabber MSN Account added”

    end if

end tell

Now I can first navigate to the folder I wanted to got to in Terminal, then this script will open a new tab in the foremost window of Terminal, then “cd” into the directory of the previous tab.

tell application "Terminal"
    activate
    tell front window
        set cur_path to do script "osascript \
            -e 'tell application \"Terminal\"' \
            -e 'tell application \"System Events\" \
            to tell process \"Terminal\" to \
            keystroke \"t\" using command down' \
            -e \"do script with \
            command \\\"cd `pwd`;clear\\\" \
            in selected tab of the front window\" \
            -e 'end tell'" in selected tab
    end tell
end tell

Window -> Merge All Windows

Safari will consolidate all open windows into tabs in just one window. To execute this even faster, create a keyboard shortcut:

… it says Cmd-? for Help. Since I never used to access the help files on OSX, I was surprised to see Cmd-? still works and activated the help files.

Which is very annoying. After some googling and finding no solutions online, and trying various customization apps (Onyx, MacPilot, etc.) with no veil, I thought there must be something in the Finder’s preference file. And sure enough there is. In the Finder’s preference file, under:

Root -> StandardViewOptions -> ColumnViewOptions

There is a boolean entry called PreviewDisclosureState and its value was No. After I changed its vale to Yes, the large icon preview in Finder’s Preview Column is back again!

The second generation of the Tank Chair is even bigger and badder than the original, with a 24v, 2hp, 127rpm variable speed motor powered by four Optima Deep Cycle batteries. It also has a 22:1 gear ratio and it can handle a 10% incline with no problems. Gizmodo

A phone company cut off a FBI foreign-intelligence wiretap after the FBI failed to pay its bills, according to an internal audit. The disconnection was just one consequence of the FBI’s routine late payments to the nation’s telecoms for wiretaps and surveillance infrastructure. Wired

tell application "NetNewsWire"
    set articleTitle to (title of selectedHeadline) as string
    set articleURL to (URL of selectedHeadline) as string
    set articleBody to (description of selectedHeadline) as string

    -- The sed script below came from:
    -- http://bbs.applescript.net/viewtopic.php?pid=90736#p90736
    set cleanBody to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of (articleBody) & " | textutil -format html -convert txt -stdin -stdout"

    set messageBody to "================
    " & articleTitle & "
    ================

    " & articleURL & "

    " & cleanBody
    -- display dialog messageBody
    tell application "Mail" to activate
    tell application "Mail" to make new outgoing message with properties {subject:articleTitle, content:messageBody}
end tell

SEATTLE, Washington – January 8, 2008 – The Omni Group has announced the final release of OmniFocus 1.0, their advanced task management tool. OmniFocus is a personal productivity application that can be used to implement the Getting Things Done® work-life management method developed by David Allen, although it is flexible enough to accommodate different styles of personal organization.

OmniFocus is designed to quickly capture your thoughts and allow you to store, manage, and process them into actionable to-do items. Tasks can be assigned to projects and stored within contexts (for example: “Home”, “Work”, or “Garden”), with built-in visual cues that highlight the next action you need to take care of. OmniFocus helps you work smarter by giving you powerful tools for staying on track of all the things you need to do.

OmniFocus features include a quick entry panel, accessible via keyboard shortcut from any application, import for kGTD documents, iCal synchronization, extensive project and task filtering, file attachments, saved viewing perspectives, and more. More information, including a 15-minute quick start video and reference chart, is available at http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnifocus/.

OmniFocus licenses for $79.95. OmniOutliner Professional license owners are currently eligible for a 25% discount off the OmniFocus license fee. Quantity discounts, educational, and family pricing are available at https://store.omnigroup.com/.

About The Omni Group One of the first companies to develop software for the Mac OS X platform, The Omni Group is today a leading developer for Apple products and has designed and engineered an array of Mac OS X tools for productive creativity. Founded in 1993, The Omni Group is located in Seattle, Washington.

The solution I realize is actually very simple: Hide the iTunes window. Once the window is hidden as appose to being closed or minimized to dock, it will not pop up when auto-sync happens.

Symantec today released a new version of Norton Antivirus (site not updated) that is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The software features new vulnerability protection technology designed to prevent attacks occurring through applications connected to the internet. Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac also includes a sleeker redesigned user interface … via MacNN

DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form.

– New York Times, November 26, 1991

Notice something wrong? The supposedly “Application” folder icon on the right is actually just part of the background image! So in order to install Firefox, I have to open a Finder window, navigate to the Application folder, then go back to the install window and drag the icon over. If they have only made the icon a alias to the Application folder, it would be so much easier to install Firefox.

I use a iPhone in Canada with the Fido network and so far and the only problem I have is with the iTunes mobile store, which did worked the first time I tried and purchased a song from it but now no longer works for some reason. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in Canada with iPhone making purchases on iTunes mobile store, and Apple must have noticed that and closed it down. Anyway, it’s definitely worrisome to know that Apple is tracking the usage (at the very least) of the iPhone and could potentially do much more with the information they collect.

The latest release of the 1.1.2 jailbreak now includes activation (the bit that allows you to use the phone without the connect-to-iTunes screen even if you don’t have an AT&T account), YouTube support, PowerPC support and, best of all, a statically compiled readline — so you don’t need that libreadline library installed as a separate piece. You can read more about the jailbreak and download the zip file from its Conceited Software page. — TUAW

I’m now just waiting for Independence to be updated with these feature …

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, sticky focus means that in order to focus a window with the mouse, the user would have to click somewhere on that window, whereas sloppy focus means that the user would have to simply move the mouse over some visible part of that window. In sloppy focus mode, the user can perform tasks such type text, scroll, etc. to a window that’s covered up partially by other windows.

In Leopard, the mouse supports limited sloppy focus for scrolling, meaning the user can scroll the content of a window without having to click on it first. I found this improvement very useful for me in situations like when all I’m interested in is the left half of the browse window, I can now scroll and read its content without having to bring the entire browser window to the front or having to resize the browser window.

The extra blank space made it hard for me to imagine that Apple would not, in the near future, implement the missing feature of Space to allow naming.

So I installed lighttpd from Installer.app. It will create a folder at

/var/root/Sites

which will be the root of the server. The default configuration had directory listing disabled which is good for security. But just to be more security, I changed a line in the config file of lighttpd located at

/usr/local/etc/lighttpd.conf

I changed the line number 3 from

# server.bind = "127.0.0.1" # Default: All

to

server.bind = "127.0.0.1" # Default: All

Now my iPhone http server can only be visited from the iPhone itself!

Anyway, I created a folder called “pdf” and put a 300 page textbook in there. Then I launch the built-in Safari and navigate to

http://127.0.0.1/pdf/textbook.pdf

and there we go — PDF without needing network connection.

The OpenMoko guys just don't get it. This is more of a competition to the windows mobile devices than to the iPhone. The design is hideous, if you take a careful look at the interface (browse the openmoko dev wikis etc) it is simply put together by monkeys that know how to write code, not by anyone with even a slightest sense of usability nor design in mind.

What I'm saying is that you can have lots of devices more feature rich and whatnot than an iphone/ipod like the nokia n800, the archos pmp's, the windows mobile phones etc. The reason they aren't successful is that those are only great until you realize that the device is going to be used by humans, not (code) monkeys with total indifference for art and design.

All I’m going to say is I couldn’t agree with him/her more.

tell application "iTunes" to update "navi_iphone"

Replace “navi_iphone” with the name of your iPhone or iPod

My Take: One of the thing people in favor of open 3rd application development have said over the year is the fact that there are “thousands of application” available. However, if one look carefully, many of those application are either very much outdated/unsupported, or useless “demo quality” such as currency converters or number base converters. There isn’t really many application that are truly useful, and wouldn’t crash the device. I wouldn’t mind at all if there is a set of application that Apple feel that’s very useful for most people and have been tested to be stable and would not crash the iPhone during a conservation.

While Mailplane.app is still in beta, you can already purchase a Personal License for $24.95, or with family option for an additional $8. And as an added bonus, if you purchase a license right now, you get the family option for free which allows 5 additional people to use Mailplane.app. I can’t seems to find a link to their store on he Mailplane.app website, a direct link is hare.

do shell script "killall Finder && open /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app"

tell application "Dock" to quit

Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.

My Take: Let’s look at two scenarios. Scenario 1: Apple release a firmware update and relocks many iPhones back to AT&T; and Scenario 2: Apple release a firmware and bricks many iPhones. Clearly Scenario 1 is better because even one doesn’t have the option of using AT&T(i.e. living in a different country), there would still most likely be a improved hack to reunlock the iPhone soon after that. And this scenario compare to Scenario 2, causes least amount of anger from iPhone buyers toward Apple. Therefore, I say that if Apple had a choice, it would choose to relock the iPhone instead of bricking it. And therefore, the release of today’s statement from Apple is a indication that Apple has no way(at least currently) of reversing the unlock process — the word they used, “irreparable”, implied such. However, based on the above, I would say that Apple would still avoid bricking the iPhone as much as possible, thus for the future, other than the most unlikely scenario of releasing a firmware update that would brick the iPhone, Apple would mostly likely be doing one(or both) of: continues to ignore the hacking community as it did for the Apple TV; or find a way to relock the iPhone — but that would mostly likely be quickly out-hacked by the hacking community.

Update Sept. 24, 2007 - 8:44PM PST

Apparently Phil Schiller of Apple wanted to make sure they’re not sending the wrong message and came out to clarify that the indent of the earlier statement made by Apple is not a warning for punishment(and it did sounded like one) but rather a disclaimer of responsibility.