If you’ve been frustrated by the inability to skip past parts of DVDs on OSX the here is one solution. It’s a patch script that uses some binary hacking to remove the User Operation Prohibition locks from DVD playback software. Using UOP flags is a way to force users to watch trailers or warnings as part of the DVD experience. This script can patch Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard systems. It also has the ability to generate diagnostic information for other installations that will lead to expanded support in the future.

A friend recently commissioned us to install OSX on a netbook. We advised him to purchase the Dell Vostro A90. It’s essentially a rebadged Dell Mini 9, a model that has been discontinued, but is well suited for OSX. It’s only available with a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB RAM, and 16GB SSD. Depending on what deals are available, it’s $250-$300. We also had him purchase a 2GB stick of RAM which is the upper limit supported by the BIOS.

Having read Gizmodo’s guide earlier, we knew that process would not be too difficult. The install has actually gotten even easier in the last few months. We followed the DellEFI guide hosted on mechdrew without many problems. The only equipment we needed was a retail Leopard disk, a Mac, and our trusty USB/SATA adapter attached to an old 120GB laptop drive. We copied our image of a legitimate 10.5.6 retail disk to the harddrive and then used DellEFIBootMaker to make it bootable. We copied the DellEFI 1.2a5 program and the 10.5.7 cumulative update to the drive as well. With this, the drive had everything we needed to complete the install.

Plugging the drive into the Vostro A90 we dropped into the BIOS setup to turn on USB legacy support so we could boot the drive. We found that we’d often have to go to BIOS first, then exit in order to give the drive time to spin up and appear in the boot menu. After partitioning the laptop drive, the installation is identical to any other Leopard install. The process froze on us on two separate occasions before we got a complete install. It was just a matter of try, try again to get it to work. We think it may have been the fault of the drive we were using. After that completed, we were able to boot our brand new OSX machine and install the 10.5.7 update. We used DellEFI to install the permanent bootloader.

Everything seems to work fine and it’s a lovely little machine. We highly recommend the DellEFI single USB drive method which was Version 3.02 at time of writing.

[Bonus: Hack a Day wallpaper design by John Keppel]

Installing OSX on commodity PC hardware has advanced a lot since the early days of OSx86 when Apple switched to Intel. With the advent of netbooks, a new target platform has emerged; one that doesn’t have an official Apple equivalent. The small subset of models means that it’s easy to find someone else that has the same machine as you, but it still takes some forum walking to bring all the pieces together. Gizmodo has done this and compiled a comprehensive guide for the Dell Mini 9. The Mini 9 is a very nice machine and according to Boing Boing Gadgets’ chart, one of the most compatible with OSX. Earlier this week you could purchase a new one for just $200.

For Gizmodo’s install, they used a Leopard retail DVD with [Type11]‘s bootloader. They’re breaking the EULA, but at least it’s not piracy. They had to use both a DVD drive and a USB hard drive because device recognition was flakey. Despite this, the actual install process doesn’t appear to be too difficult. They say all the hardware works, “The Mini 9 is a beautiful OS X machine.” Check out this Hackit to learn about netbook OSX experiences from other Hack a Day readers.

We’ve been using Microsoft’s Media Center for a few years now and have grown to like it a lot. We’ve also noticed that more and more Apple computers have shown up on our home network and decided it was time to get everything working together smoothly. Follow along as we walk you through the hoops we jumped through to get everything cooperating.

To make things really easy, we could have ditched Media Center and used Macs all around. One thing that the Macs lacked was a complete 10’ interface for the television. Sure, you have Plex, Front Row, and EyeTV available; while each has their merits none of them were able to give a user a complete single TV viewing experience like Microsoft’s Media Center.

MCE, as it’s commonly referred to, can play back DVDs, music, videos, and broadcast TV all from one interface using a single remote. We wanted to build a home network that would centralize all our media, provide Time Machine backups for the Apple computers, and also act as a bittorrent client and print server.

We knew we could easily set up another Windows machine to act like a server, but Time Machine only supports writing to Mac formatted drives. There is information out there that shows how to get around this, but we didn’t want to risk our backups using unsupported methods. Running a NAS box was out as well for the same reason.

A 1TB Time Capsule could have been the answer to our problem since that would support Time Machine backups, and we could plug in a FAT32 formatted USB drive for the Windows computer. The issue here would be with the 4GB file size limitation, as most of the HD shows recorded are between 6-15GB. We would need a file system that would support larger file sizes like NTFS or HFS+.

We decided to base our server on a Mac running Leopard. All the drives would be Mac formatted to deal with the large file sizes and this would allow native Time Machine backups. As long as we enabled SMB support in Leopard, the Windows computers would be able to read and write to the Mac drives without any issues.

Since this would be a fully functioning computer we can configure it as a print server as well as a bittorrent client. Our list is rather simple and shows that it doesn’t take much to get a mixed computer network up and running.

Hardware

• Mac desktop
• Client computers running Leopard and Windows Media Center
• 4 hard drives
• USB printer

Software

• Tweak UI
• Tweak MCE
• Transmission
• Reader Notifier
• Microsoft Remote Desktop Client

Additional setup information

• Working home network
• Static IP assigned to the server and MCE computers
• Wired connection from the router to the server and MCE computers
• Media Center computers should be setup with the same admin login and password and have auto login enabled.
• DVD movies ripped using the VIDEO_TS structure

Since our server would mainly be used to host the network drives, we really didn’t need the latest and the greatest computer. Our digital media hub is a first generation 1.42 GHz PPC Mac mini complete with 1GB of Ram, an 80GB hard drive, bluetooth and AirPort Extreme.

We used 3 375GB Seagate drives that we had laying around, each in their own FireWire enclosure. We also picked up a 500GB Iomega FireWire drive on clearance to act as our Time Machine disk. The reason we went with FireWire over USB was a matter of processor load. Since USB required the CPU to dictate where the data went unlike FireWire’s peer to peer method we felt it was best to unload as much strain from the CPU as possible.

We also thought about using a Power Mac G4/G5 but liked the size of the Mac mini. Even with the 4 external drives, the whole thing fits nicely in our bookshelf. Whatever Mac you decide to use, just make sure it meets the minimum specifications to run Leopard.

After the initial OS install and updates, we started on formatting the drives one by one. Using Leopard’s Disk Utilities we formatted each external drive as GUID Partition, Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Next each drive was given a logical name in the order they were installed under the mini: HDD001, HDD002, HDD003, and Time Machine.  HDD001 would serve as one of our DVD drives, as well as the drive used to keep our shared music, photos, and torrents, so we created the following folders: My DVDs, My Music, My Pictures, and Torrents. HDD002 would be only used for DVDs, so that drive only had one folder labeled My DVDs. That left HDD003 to serve as the drive for recording MCE shows, so a folder labeled RecordedTV was created. No folders were made on the Time Machine drive as each Mac connecting to it would be making their own folder when doing their backups.

We then proceeded to create the different user profiles that would be accessing the drives. To make it easier on ourselves we used the same admin login and passwords from the MCE computers, but instead of making them part of the Admin group we made them part of the Standard user group. Since we used the same login for each MCE computer we only had to make one user on the server. For the Mac computers we used individual login names and password that were in use on the computers themselves and gave them only sharing accounts.

From here we moved onto enabling file sharing setting, adding each of the 4 drives, and assigning the different users to each drives. The reason why we created different logins for the Mac accounts instead of using one generic one like the MCE account was to give different access to each user. Some only needed Time Machine access while others needed access to other drives. With the different accounts we were able to specify which accounts had access to which drives. Since we wanted to be able to map drives under Windows we enabled SMB support for the MCE user by clicking the Options button.

We also wanted to log into the computer remotely since this setup would be running without a monitor, keyboard or mouse connected directly to it. By enabling the Remote Management service we can now manage the computer via another mac or a computer running a VNC client, like on an iPhone.

Our Mac came with a built in WiFi card that we used as a secondary WiFi access point when guests come to visit. It’s an easy way to get them online without us having to give out the password to our main WiFi connection.

Under Internet Sharing we selected the Ethernet as the connection we wanted to share and Airport for the guest connection. Under the Airport options we gave it a different SSID than our main connection. Now when guest visit, we can remote into the server and enable the connection, when they leave we disable the service.

The last things we wanted our server to do was automate the download of torrents. This required the installation of Reader Notifier and Transmission. Reader Notifier works with Google Reader and will automatically download the torrent file based on our RSS subscription to our torrent directory. Transmission was then set to automatically monitor this directory for new torrent files, once Reader Notifier downloads the torrent, Transmission starts downloading.

If we wanted to add a new torrent feed we just have to add it to Google Reader. Because Transmission is set to monitor the torrent directory if anyone manually places a torrent file in that directory from any computer the download will start automatically as well.

Both 2005 and Vista versions of MCE do not support writing to a network attached drive. With a few changes in the registry, via TweakMCE, we corrected this and added a few enhancements along the way.

We started by locating the 3 media center services and stopping them for the time being. One at a time we double clicked each service and under the Log On tab changed the default setting to the “This account box” and entered in the admin name and password for the computer.

With the services still stopped we launched TweakMCE and navigated to TV > Storage Location For Recorded TV and replaced the current path with the UNC path to our new server (\\OSXServer\HDD003\RecordedTV). We did this as well to the Watched Folder For Recorded TV.

In order to take advantage of having our DVDs stored on the server we also enabled the My DVDs option under the DVD menu of TweakMCE.

After saving each of our changes and exiting out of TweakMCE, we proceed to map each of the network drives we would be using making sure to use the same user name and password and selecting the reconnect at log on option. This will ensure that the drives will always be reconnected in case of reboot.

We then rebooted the computer and once back, launched MCE. Under the Videos menu we added the new drives making sure to include the 2 My DVDs folders as MCE will use this information to populate the new My DVDs menu on the home screen. Adding the network paths to the My Music and My Pictures directory also allowed the MCE computers to have access to the same content.

Like the server, we wanted to manage these computers remotely so we enabled the Remote Desktop Service. Microsoft makes a free client for the Mac and XP MCE/Pro has the remote client built in. Except for the different codecs needed to playback the various files that we wanted no further configurations were needed.

Setting up the Mac was rather quick since we would be connecting to another Mac for the drives. After launching Finder, we located the server to the left of the window. Selecting the server, we entered the shared user name we created on the server saving our login information to the keychain.

Enabling Time Machine to use a network drive is the same as selecting a locally connected drive. In the Time Machine preference screen select the Change Disk option to display all the connected drives. After selecting the drive labeled Time Machine we exited the screen, no hacks needed.

Unlike a Windows computer, OS X won’t automatically mount network drives on reboots. If we fail to mount the drives, Time Machine wouldn’t be able to perform it’s backups.. The easiest way we found was to create an Automator script at login to mount the drives.

Our first step was having Automator call out each drive we wanted to mount via IP. Once we had specified which drives we wanted, the next step was to have Automator connect to the server to mount the drives. Once we had verified that it was connecting to the correct drives, via the Run button, we saved it as an application and placed it in our applications folder. We then added this to the login items for each user we wanted to have access to the drives. Now on login, the script will automatically run and connect to the drives.

With our server now up and running, the MCE computers can now access the drives for movies, music, pictures, and share recorded shows. If our living room computer records an episode of Battlestar Galatica, all the MCE computers in the house can access it. Also, with MCE we now have access to all our DVDs anywhere in the house.

Because we chose to go with a Mac as a server, the Macs on our network can now back up wirelessly with Time Machine and share a printer as well.

If we had to do it over again, we would have gone with an Intel based mini as it comes with the Gigabit ethernet unlike the G4’s fast ethernet. In addition to that we should have gone with larger drives and tried Leopard’s built in software RAID. Other than that, we are please with our new home network.

It’s been a big week for the XBMC team. They announced the release of their first cross platform beta in preparation for a full release in October. XBMC started as a media center project for the original Xbox, but has expanded a lot since then. The new beta works on Linux, OSX (Leopard and Tiger), Windows, and Xbox. They’ve created XBMC Live, so you can get XBMC up and running quickly either by booting from the CD, from a flash drive, or using it to install to a disk. People have been writing add on apps too, like the XBMC Remote for iPhones.

This summer we covered both Boxee, a social version of XBMC, and Plex, the original XBMC OSX fork.

According to InsanelyMac forum member [qbattersby] the EFiX USB dongle he just received doesn’t seem to live up to expectations. We covered the EFiX when it was announced back in June. It’s designed to let you install OSX unmodified on commodity hardware. While using a MSI G965M motherboard, instead of installing OSX [qbattersby] was greeted with a flashing cursor with no option to continue onward.

A quick glance at the EFiX hardware compatibility chart does not list the MSI G965M as a board verified to work with the dongle and could explain [qbattersby] results. To his defense, he does explain that he will be testing it on a supported motherboard along with a retail copy of Leopard in the future. Hopefully, he will be able to post back that it works and his experience with the installation of Leopard.

While the EFiX seems to be shipping in some countries, enthusiasts in the US will have to wait a bit longer till distribution channels can be worked out.

One thing is for sure, if you do plan on going the EFiX route, make sure that the hardware you plan on using is listed on their site.

[via Engadget]

[via Engadget]

What Boxee adds is a social layer. In the application, it shows your friends’ viewing activities. You can add account info for various video services to get to your saved playlists and subscriptions. You can download podcasts and send your listening habits to Last.FM.

Your online profile can be hooked to Twitter, FriendFeed, and tumblr, which can publish your recommendations, what you’re watching, what you’re listening to, and what you’re rating.

It’s only alpha so you can expect some quirkiness, and no user guide makes it an adventure. We love the look of the interface. Unfortunately all the dynamic resizing, animated, sliding, floating info boxes make it behave like the zooming user interface‘s retarded cousin.

What about the OSXBMC port we covered last month? The developers have decided to fork the code and develop it independently from the Linux port. It will still be nearly in sync with the Linux port, but they’ll have the freedom to removes things that are broken or unnecessary.

In any case, it’s great to have two fine media center replacements for Apple’s Front Row.

[via InsanelyMac]
[photo: Mario Seekr]