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Ah, the holy grail of running OSX on whatever hardware that you want, this is something that’s appealed to me. It’s not for everyone as there are some compromises and you have to like fixing things as it doesn’t ‘just work’ like on apple hardware. However there are people that want combinations of OSX + hardware that just isn’t available otherwise.

Hypothetically speaking, for me I like having OSX on a thinkpad as i love the thinkpad keyboards and build quality. My thinkpad also came with a 1680×1050 hi-res 15inch display which is not available from apple.

Until earlier this year the biggest issue with doing this was you had to use a distribution that had been massaged to run on alternative hardware. This all changed when folks released a new bootloader which provides the appropriate emulation to allow a retail (mostly unmodified) installation of OSX. What this means is that you can use the original kernel, the net win in this case is you can apply the kernel updates from Software Update with minimum (though not zero) fuss. With the old method you had to wait until a suitable modified patch was released or do an archive/reinstall with a recompiled installation disk. With the new way just run software update, reinstall some extensions and you’re up to date.

One of the best hardware choices for this new method of installation are the latest netbooks which run from $300-$500. Apple offers nothing even close to this in terms of size and cost, so it’s a compelling thing to do. The MSI Wind is a fantastic option, having seen the difficulties of installing the old way, installing the MSI Wind is a breeze. It’s the closest i’ve ever seen to being like the original apple experience. The only exception is that when you install the system update you need to remember to reinstall some of the core drivers, so it’s not quite as foolproof. For example i would not expect my girlfriend to be able to do this, but it’s something i could easily do.

Nearly all of the Wind hardware is supported either natively or with 3rd party drivers which work just as reliably as the native hardware. A big win is that the Wind supports sleep/hibernation, the battery life on sleep is not as good, but the actual user experience of sleep is just what you’d expect. I was so impressed by this that I sent this MSI Wind to Africa for 6 weeks and 4 weeks into the trip it’s doing just fine.

If you’re interested in doing this, do a google search, there are places that will (hypothetically) walk you through it.

Nothing like a modern day landgrab to get your weekend started! For those who were not aware Facebook.com started giving away usernames to members starting the past friday at midnight EDT. There is great coverage from www.mashable.com. But basically what they are allowing now is you can give out the url http://www.facebook.com/(your-user-name) instead of your username and a numerical string. Everybody only gets one name and i think new users have to wait a little while before they can request one.

I logged on right at midnight and i was surprised at how responsive the site was at that time. I think it’s a bit silly but i got the url i wanted :). You can request your own username at http://www.facebook.com/username

Sorry, just need to vent, and what good is a blog if you can’t vent a little to the world?

Backstory, i ordered something from dwr.com a few months ago and i knew it would be on backorder. DWR has a pretty good website but inexplicably their order fulfillment is terrible. I have been receiving email updates every 30 days to tell me that the item was still on backorder. So when i decided to go out of town last weekend i figure i was safe since i had not received a shipping notice. Well i check my credit card statements on Sunday and see the DWR charge. To my surprise, not only had the item shipped, it was already delivered and sitting outside my apartment.

I had to juggle a number of thing son my schedule to take care of this. It’s been a week since the item shipped and still no shipping notice from DWR! For a store that tries to sell you on the intangible value of original design and customer service it boggles my mind that their fulfillment is not better. I mean the whole concept of their retail showroom is for you to go home and order it online (or have them order it online for you) so they could at least email you when they ship your order!

Ok rant off.

IMG_0098.JPG, originally uploaded by minhi.

So i have a disproportinate number of bags for any single person. Lately my quest has been to buy a real piece of luggage, while i don’t travel a lot–maybe 1-2 times a month, it’s enough that i have a number of bags. A full delsey helium 22 inch rolling bag (hugely over-rated, even at the $45 marshalls price i paid i was not impressed). A half height roll-away (ricardo beverly hills) which is actually a good size but is hard to pack because it only has the one small opening up top, so everything comes out wrinkled.

I also have a number of duffels which are all serviceable but nothing great. I found this samsonite black label bag at tj maxx at a significant discount (like 90% off retail). It’s real leather and looks fantastic, but as a bag it’s a not 100% practical. I think the issue is that it’s a little awkward to carry on the shoulder, and loaded up it’s heavy to carry by the handles. Even empty the bag weighs 6-7 lbs, a lot of that is due to the detachable compartment on the bottom.

I like the bag enough that i plan on keeping it, but i’m not sure how long it will be until i look at another replacement. I think it’s a pretty nice weekend driving bag but for airport travel i might switch back to a roll-away since there is so much walking in that case.

More pictures at ny flickr pool, see the cool lining, http://www.flickr.com/photos/minhi/sets/72157619394882626/

Two opinions about OSX on netbooks, http://www.macsparky.com/2009/04/26/the-netbook-experiment/ and http://www.tuaw.com/2009/04/27/road-tested-why-the-hackb00k-is-a-fail/

I don’t agree with either, netbooks are about compromise and putting OSX on one (which in and itself is a different kind of compromise) will create issues.   You have to decide if you can live with these compromises, in these two cases the answer was no.  But i think the Dell Mini 9 is not the best starting platform, the complaint about small keyboards and limited disk space could be solved by selecting a netbook with a 10-inch screen and one that uses a regular (not solid-state) disk.  

There are also complaints about software updates, and while it is true some netbooks are difficult to update other’s you can simply run software update.   Other troublesome functions like sleep also work.  

I’ll have more on this next week 😉