@rmz weBLOG

I was a huge fan of Quicksilver for years, however lately it does not launch some applications as I expect. Sometimes it just lists the webpages when I want to open an application.

 

 

 

Now I’m back to basic and it works so great. Minimal is better, I guess. Spotlight seems to improve after generations. In Leopard, I can launch any application as fast as Quicksilver using Spotlight. 

 

 

• Firstly, make sure that ‘Applications’ is selected in Spotlight system preference
• Then set up the shortcut that you usually used (in my case, I replaced it with my old shortcut for Quicksilver)
• Now when I want to launch anything, I just type the first two letters of that application. 
• I think using Spotlight instead of third party launcher, make my Mac cleaner and reduce the Finder crashing.

August 6th, 2008 | Tags: spotlight | Category: Sideblog | Leave a comment

I’m a huge fan of Gmail, which can do everything: Checking your other POP mail, forwarding mail etc. The only one functinality that would be killed is “PUSHING”. I think we gonna see it soon, because Yahoo already did it.

I tried to get Gmail to push to my iPhone, with a couple methods (web2mail Exchange server, YahooPush). After hours of experiment, the best method is forwarding Gmail to mobileMe and let Mobile me do the rest.

I have 3 seperate Email accounts so far (2 for my work and one for Google Apps), so I use Gmail to grab all the email into one single email and then use Gmail filter to labeling it. This lables will shows up in Mail App and iPhone Mail IMAP folder as well.

Then I just forward Gmail into my MobileMe account. This instruction is a good start. The trick is I have to set up SMTP for Gmail on iPhone in order to reply back the message via Gmail account.

For serveral other email accounts forwarding to Gmail like me, I have to set up fake POP mail so that I can use it to reply back via relevant email address.

August 2nd, 2008 | Tags: google, iphone, mail | Category: Sideblog | Leave a comment

I heard about Google supporting CalDAV a couple days ago but I just tried it out today. It’s so cool, just like I’m using IMAP calendar (not pushing though).

Everything you want to know about Google CalDAV and how to set up with iCal can be found at Google Support.

OK, here is how I make it to perfectly synchronize with iCal

• First you need to set up you calendar in Google Calendar
• I have setup the label for each calendar on my iCal
• Check the Calendar of each calendar by going to “Calendar Setting”

• Now go to iCal preperence

• Now click on “+” sign to add new calendar
• Put username (your gmail address), password
• On account URL put “https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/YOUR_CALENDAR_ID/user”
• Replace “YOUR_CALENDAR_ID” with your Calendar ID from Google Calendar

Done, now you can enjoy the new functionality of syncronizing iCal and Google Calendar. When I add new event in iCal, it will appear on Google Calendar instantenously, so it’s really like “PUSHING”. However, it you create new event on Google Calendar, you need to refresh iCal to see the updated event. Nevertheless, you can set the refreshing time to be in the interval of 1 minute which is almost “PUSHING” also.

I think now my mobileMe calendar and Google Calendar are syncronizing in the same rate. Be careful, mibileMe, if Gmail come put with Push … nobody gonna pay more than $100 a year anymore.

August 1st, 2008 | Tags: google, ical | Category: Sideblog | Comments (1)

Today I found a question in Thai forum about how to compose HTML email with Mail in Leopard. I think this should be easy, right? However, it quite tricky than I though. I assume that Mail 3.4 should provide some functionality to help composing HTML email. In fact, Apple wants to make composing email easy for beginners but quite inadequate for advance users. Here is what I did.

• Create HTML file and save it on your computer
• Open that HTML with Safari
• On Safari use File > Mail Content of this page

July 19th, 2008 | Tags: html, Leopard, mail | Category: Sideblog | Comments (1)

After I build my AppleTV hard drive from Scratch, I did some hacking so my AppleTV now can play any file formats and use external USB hard drive to store media (500GB). The big problem occurred when I rented “I am a legen HD” from iTunes and tried to play on my AppleTV (connected to Acer LCD). There is an error said

“This content requires HDCP for playback.

HDCP isn’t supported by your HDMI connection.
Use the component video connection to watch this content.”

So I desperately cannot watch my rented movie unless I change my expensive HDMI to cheap Component cable. I don’t want to mess up with my cables which are quite difficult to reach, so I did a little google and found out that they are many similar cases over the net. I tried many thing but finally this is the step that works for me.

We need to update HDMI controller in AppleTV. Here are the steps.

• Go to http://mesu.apple.com/version.xml with Firefox (does not work on my Safari)
• Use Firefox to download 2 files (These file might change upon AppleTV firmware version)

hdmiutil
FW29050_20080205_dse_hex.sihex

• Copy those two files to AppleTV
• Use Terminal to run this command

$ chmod +x hdmiutil
$ chmod +x FW29050_20080205_dse_hex.sihex
$ ./hdmiutil FW29050_20080205_dse_hex.sihex

• Terminal should respond with this message

hdmiutil - HDMI Flash Utility Version 1.1000 (Mac)
For Programming Silicon Image's SiI1930 (DVI-HDMI) microcontroller.
Copyright (C) 2006-2008, NVIDIA Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Using default I2C configuration on Mac platform.
Temporarily disabling hotplug interrupt processing...
Firmware Filename: FW29050_20080205_dse_hex.sihex
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!! Do not interrupt power or hotplug displays during flashing process. !!!
!!! This might take a while to complete (approx 5 min for each file) !!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sector Erase 0%........10%.......20%........30%.......40%........
50%.......60%........70%.......80%........90%......100%
Programming 0%..........10%..........20%..........30%..........
40%..........50%..........60%..... (goes till 100%)
OK - file FW29050_20080205_dse_hex.sihex firmware flashed successfully!
Re-enabling hotplug interrupt processing...

• After unplug and re-plug, your AppleTV should be able to play rented HD movie.

Enjoy ^_^

July 17th, 2008 | Tags: apple tv, hdmi | Category: Sideblog | Comments (1)

Ok, I am stupid enough to upgrade my iPhone firmware from 1.4 to 2.0 via iTunes. So it took me 2 full days to figure out how to bring my iPhone back to life. Here is how I did.

You absolutely need iTunes 7.5 to restore your firmware 1.4 . I don’t want to mess up with my iTunes on my Mac (of course, because of all my precious music) so I just D/L iTunes 7.5 Windows version and run on Parallel Desktop.

• On Windows, when you connect your iPhone to iTunes 7.5, it will tell you to restore it. (If you first connect your iPhone with firmware 2.0 to Windows, it might say that your phone is not compatible with this version of iTunes. Dont’ worry about this message, just close the popup)
• Press Shift + Restore (Option+Restore on Mac) and select 1.4 firmware.
• When finish, you should get 1015 error (if you don’t try again). Don’t worry about the error. Close your iTunes, the iPhone will stuck in recovery mode.
• Use iBrickr to kick it out of recovery state.
• I have to restore 2 times in order to kick it out of recovery mode.
• This is the most important!!! YOU HAVE TO DOWNGRADE BASE BAND FROM 04.05.04_G to 04.04.05_G
• I used ZiPhone patch newest version to downgrade baseband (I tried many methods on the internet, none of them work for me)
• Once you downgrade baseband you should get signal even though you did not do any jailbreak,activate or unlock.
• Now you can use any method you want to unlock the phone. I used ZiPhone on mac to do everything.

Now I have to keep my iTunes 7.5 on Windows parallel just incase I mess up anything again because now we know that 7.7 have some kind of hacking protection.

UPDATE : iClarified has a very nice tutorial plus video instraction to downgrade the baseband now.

UPDATE2: The Dev-Team released PawnageTool 2.1 which can easily Jailbreak/Activate/Unlock 2.0 firmware. The nice tutorial can be found at iClarified

July 14th, 2008 | Tags: iphone | Category: Sideblog | Comments (81)

For someone who accidentally formatted or bricked TV hard drive (like I did), here are steps that work for me on Leopard (10.5.4)

• Either you got new hard drive or bricked hard drive, you got to connect hard drive to you mac
• Use diskutil list to see your disk partition (we need to know where an TV hard drive is)
• Here is what proper partitions should look like when you finish (please note /dev/disk1 as you TV hard drive)

• Then delete and re-create partition table using command below in Terminal

gpt destroy /dev/disk1

gpt create /dev/disk1

• Now we need to partition harddrive, first create EFI partition

gpt add -b 40 -i 1 -s 409600 -t efi /dev/disk1

• Then create Apple_Recovery partition

gpt add -b 409640 -i 2 -s 819200 -t 5265636F-7665-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC /dev/disk1

• Next is OSBoot which is where the OSX fit in

gpt add -b 819240 -i 3 -s 1843200 -t hfs /dev/disk1

• The last partition is Media which is all the movies and songs are located. This partition you need to fill in the *size* part your self by looking at the end size using command

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1sudo gpt show /dev/disk1
gpt add -b 1843240 -i 4 -s *size* -t hfs /dev/disk1

• After partitioning, we need to format OSBoot and Media partition in HFS+ Format

diskutil eraseVolume "Journaled HFS+" OSBoot /dev/disk1s3

diskutil eraseVolume "Journaled HFS+" Media /dev/disk1s4

diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1

• Now you ready to restore OSBoot partition to working state. Download the latest AppleTV Take 2 software by checking link here http://mesu.apple.com/version.xml
• Then you can use Disk Utility to easily restore OSBoot partition
• Set the source to the newly AppleTV image that you just downloaded (2Z694-5428-3.dmg), and drag the OSBoot partition to Destination. After that press “Restore” button.

• This process took about 3 minutes, after this step you’re done.
• Connect TV hard drive back to TV
• Once you startup the TV, it will create EFI image in TV automatically
• I did the Factory restore to make sure that everything is working fine.
• Now your TV is ready to use (and to be hacked ^_^)

Thanks for http://wiki.awkwardtv.org/wiki/Prepare_a_Hard_Drive and http://smallnum.blogspot.com/2008/02/re-creating-apple-tv-from-scratch.html for a very useful information.

July 10th, 2008 | Tags: apple tv, Leopard, movie | Category: Sideblog | Comments (8)

I think there are many people accidentally delete or format theirTV hard drive (like I did). Obviously we need to buy a new hard drive or restore damaged hard drive to the functional state. There are many thread regarding this subject on over internet, but I think my method is simplest and easiest. Here is what I did.

1. Get the latest TV image from link below

AppleTV take 2.0.2 firmware

2. Connect your hard drive to your Mac.

3. Open the Disk Utility application. You should see new firmware that you just downloaded and TV and see your new connected hard drive.
4. Click on your new hard drive and go to restore tab.
5. Drag firmware to the ’source’ field and new hard drive to the ‘destination’ field, as in picture below.

6. Click on restore and you’re done.

PS. This method is working on my machine which I spent less than 10 minutes for the whole process. However, there is no ‘recovery’ partition created on this method (which is not important since everything on my AppleTV take 2.0.2 is working fine)

May 28th, 2008 | Tags: apple tv, Leopard | Category: Sideblog | Comments (4)

OK, here is my problem. My internet here in Melbourne is cheapter from 2am - 11am. So I’d like to schedule Transmission - a bit torrent application - to start automatically every night at 2am. Here is what I did.

• Open Automator and drag the Launch Application to the work flow area
• Choose your desired application

• Now save your automator go File > Save and choose save as Application

• Now it’s time to schedule your script. Launch iCal and create an event
• Choose your desired time
• On Alarm option choose to open file and choose your created automator

With the combination of Automator and iCal, we can set the timer of any applicaiton to auto start with only a few click. I think it’s a cool thing about Leopard.

May 13th, 2008 | Tags: application, Leopard | Category: Sideblog | Leave a comment