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Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 1:16 PM

Apple’s newest iMacs are a fast set of machines and run Windows faster than any PC I’ve ever used, but unfortunately, Apple has yet to update Boot Camp with the required drivers to support the latest and greatest components. Mac OS X ships with the necessary software and works as expected, but Windows XP is met with some trouble. Right away, you’ll notice that your graphics resolution is set to a paltry 800×600, and you have no sound output as well. Here’s how to get those systems working until Apple can provide an “official” fix:

Graphics Drivers
Visit nVidia and download the “GeForce 9M Series (Notebooks)” driver package, as this is graphics chipset in the Early 2009 iMacs. Run the downloaded setup utility, next-next-nexting your way through the steps, and reboot at the end when prompted. Upon restart, you’ll be able to properly max out your display to the iMac’s native resolution.

Audio Drivers
Boot Camp 2.1 actually ships with RealTek HD audio drivers, as evidenced by the lack of a yellow exclamation mark for this system in Windows’ Device Manager, but they don’t seem to work properly, since there’s no sound output.

Visit RealTek, whose website is flaky at best, and download the “High Definition Audio Codecs” driver package for your OS. In this instance, I downloaded “Windows 2000, Windows XP/2003(32/64 bits) Driver only (Executable file)”, since I’m running Windows XP Pro SP2. Run this setup utility as well, rebooting again when done. After restarting, you should be greeted with Windows’ standard login sound, confirming the install worked.

Hopefully my poor experience with Windows XP and Boot Camp on a new 24″ iMac will help someone else!

Update: The Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard disc includes Boot Camp drivers for these iMacs. The Snow Leopard disc shows the OS installer when inserted and viewed under a Mac OS X system, but shows Windows drivers when viewed in Windows (it’s a “hybrid” disc). Just run the setup in Windows right off the disc, and you should be set.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Mac, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 9:24 PM

If you’re like me and still use Apple’s .Mac-bundled Backup utility over the hefty Time Machine, you’ll like this one. I’ve added a few more QuickPicks to my 2005 QuickPicks post, including SSH keys, .bash_login, Apache configuration, and Xcode settings.

One of these days, I’ll get a Time Capsule or other Time Machine compatible device, but for now, Backup works great as a lightweight little app that does what I need it to do, and is fairly extensible with QuickPicks.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Mac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 3:50 PM

These last few weeks, I’ve been teaching myself Cocoa to learn what makes Mac OS X and iPhone OS apps tick (not just for Flicks, but other software, too). While Objective-C is quite a departure from my usual web development world, Cocoa has quickly become one of my favorite languages, as it takes care of much of the drudgery of pure C and has plenty of useful frameworks to get your application up and running quickly. Here are some of the best resources I’ve found so far:

• Cocoa Dev Central and Become an Xcoder are both excellent tutorials for beginners, written in a clear, straightforward manner. They also explain the ins and outs of memory management, which is critical on platforms like the iPhone and iPod touch.
• Stanford’s CS193P lecture notes and examples have proven to be one of the best resources for learning Cocoa, particularly for the iPhone. These notes and tests offer Cocoa Touch in bite-size chunks, with a little bit of “on your own” work to ensure you know your stuff before moving on.
• Google Code Search is a good last resort for examples of how others are using a small bit of code or a particular class. For more accurate results, append “lang:objectivec” to your search string to narrow results to only Objective-C code.

If you already know Cocoa, feel free to share your go-to places for information in the comments!

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 21st, 2008 at 3:50 pm and is filed under Apps, Mac, Programming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 6:48 PM

A while back I detailed how to get Hamachi VPN running on Mac OS X, but times have changed, so here’s how to go about it under Leopard. Again, it’s a bit tricky, involving some Terminal work, but it’s pretty straightforward as far as command-line software goes.

Download and Install Tun/Tap
Hamachi for Mac OS X depends on some other tunneling software, a Tun/Tap kernel extension which does the low-level work. Download the latest Tun/Tap package and install it.

Download and Install Hamachi
Next, download the latest Hamachi for Mac OS X. Installation is a bit more complicated than the Tun/Tap drivers. Unzip the archive, and open up a Terminal window, and type “cd”, followed by a space. Don’t press Return just yet… Instead, drop the Hamachi folder right into the Terminal window, which will insert the path to that folder after the prefix you just typed:
cd /Users/you/Downloads/hamachi-0.9.9.9-20-osxNow hit Return, and the Terminal’s new working directory will be the Hamachi folder — this is just a quick drag-and-drop shortcut to avoid typing out the path to a folder you already have available.

Once in the Hamachi folder, type:
sudo ./installEnter your administrator password to perform the install.

Hamachi should now be installed, and you can initialize it for the first time by typing:
hamachi-initThis will generate public and private encryption keys in your Home folder, under “.hamachi/” (the inital . character makes the folder hidden from regular Finder views).

With both set-ups out of the way, it’s time to start using Hamachi!

Run Hamachi
Configure Tun/Tap by typing:
sudo ./usr/sbin/tuncfg

Start up Hamachi by typing:
hamachi startFollowed by:
hamachi login

At this point, you should be connected to the Hamachi service, but without a VPN for your computers to join. If you already have a network, or plan to join a trusted friend’s network, you can easily join it by typing:
hamachi join SomeNetworkReplacing “SomeNetwork” with the destination network name.

Most likely, though, you’ll need to create your own network:
hamachi create MyNetworkReplacing “MyNetwork” with a unique network name. If your desired network name does not already exist, you’ll be prompted to create a password for it — type carefully!

Now you should have a virtual network in place and can go online:
hamachi go-online MyNetworkAgain, replace MyNetwork with the network name you’ve joined or created.

To see other parties on the network, run:
hamachi list

If other computers are online, you’re ready to connect to them with any higher-level software like iChat via Bonjour, the Finder’s “Connect to Server” command, Safari, etc.

To log out of Hamachi and shut down VPN connections, type:
hamachi stop

For more information about how to use Hamachi, you can view its manual by typing:
hamachi -h

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 6:48 pm and is filed under Mac, Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 7:54 PM

The folks at Panic have been very busy for the last several months preparing a major update for their one-window web development app (covered earlier), Coda, and have finally delivered. Coda 1.5 brings tons of new features like multi-file search, customizable books, “reverse publish”, and more, but the one that really takes the cake is full Subversion support. None of that bolted-on nonsense, either — Panic went out of their way to carefully weave Subversion into the interface, presenting commands as needed. As if it couldn’t get any better, the update is free for registered owners!

If Coda is your primary tool for web development, and you already use Subversion, you’re most likely aware of Versions and Cornerstone, but now you can toss both of those apps and have your source code management built right into your leafy-green development environment. And, after reading how to go about setting up Subversion on MediaTemple, your Mac web development paradise should be complete, ready to start developing all those killer web apps you’ve been pondering. Check out Coda and get coding!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under Apps, Mac. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.