Hacks
ZDNet Mac Pro and Xserve overclocking tool
One area that the Mac has long lagged behind its PC counterparts is in custom tuning, particularly overclocking. With the Intel Macs this has naturally started to change, though the toolset for overclocking in OS X has been rather barebones. So it’s interesting to see that the German division of ZDNet has released the ZDNet Clock tool for OS X.
Using the ZDNet Clock tool Mac Pro and Xserve owners (and those only) can boost the processor, front side bus, and memory frequency resulting in a not insignificant “free” performance gain. It should be noted that overclocking puts a strain on the hardware and should be used with caution as it’s certainly possible to damage your Mac. Furthermore, there are several side effects in OS X including distorted system time and problems when waking from sleep (the overclocking is disabled on wake). Nonetheless, for those of you out there lucky enough to have a Mac Pro (or Xserve) and crazy enough to push your hardware to the edge may want to have a look.
The ZDNet Clock tool is a free download from ZDNet (the link is in German, click the Jetzt herunterladen button to start the download) and requires a Mac Pro or Xserve running Leopard.
[via AppleInsider]
Popularity: 6% [?]
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... 
Use a Red Bull can as a radio interference shield
I love the iPhone, save for one thing. It sits on my desk every night, right near my computer, and the speakers I’ve got hooked up to it. And every 15 minutes, when the iPhone checks email for me, I get that buzzing — the sound of radio interference flying across my speaker wires. And almost every night, I have to jump out of bed angrily just to shut off the speakers and stop the buzzing. Little did I know, all I’ve ever needed was an empty can of Red Bull.
Yes, someone has fashioned a “shield” out of an emptied and carved up Red Bull can, and supposedly it works like a charm — just fashion it around the dock that came with the iPhone, use a little doublestick tape to make sure it stays on there (and I would maybe put some around the edges, too, so you don’t slice your fingers open every time you pull the iPhone off the dock), and no more buzzing sound.
The maker does wonder if it would affect the actual signal of the iPhone at all, but it hasn’t so far. If you’ve got a Red Bull can around to cut up and are driven as nuts as I am by that buzzing noise, here’s your makeshift solution. The other option is to buy speakers that don’t buzz, of course, but this seems a lot cheaper.
Popularity: 4% [?]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
Keep your iPhone from losing its cookies
I’ve been getting more and more frustrated with the fact that every time I load up Google Reader on my iPhone, I have to log in again. I tried it with and without my 1Password bookmarklet, checked my javascript and cookie settings, all to no avail. And it’s not just Reader, everywhere I turn, I’m logging in again. It was with great relief that I discovered the cure.
iRemember is a lightweight hack that makes a few tweaks and tells you it’s “safe to uninstall” before Installer even finishes cleaning up. Do you have a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch with a foggy memory? Add http://repo.ispazio.net to your sources in Installer, refresh and search for iRemember. Your favorite web apps will give you a much warmer welcome.
[via Lifehacker Read]
Popularity: 6% [?]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
Mod: use your MacBook Air Superdrive on any machine
If you’ve got a MacBook Air SuperDrive and you’ve been hankering to use it with other computers (Mac or PC), tnkgrl over at tnkgrl Mobile has a solution. With a $9 part and some intestinal fortitude, you too can make your MBA Superdrive universally compatible.
Using the drive with other computers has been a desire from its inception. After some experimentation, tnkgrl found that simply replacing the IDE to USB bridge within the drive did the trick. Of course, that means removing the daughter-board and relocating the 12 MHz crystal. For an experienced hardware hacker, no sweat. For the average Joe, well, it’s quite obviously an at-your-own-risk situation.
Check out the post at tnkgrl Mobile for the details.
Popularity: 7% [?]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
EFiX USB dongle for installing OS X on a regular PC
A while back the Mac web was abuzz about Psystar, the first commercially available hackintosh. Now comes EFiX, an USB dongle that will supposedly allow you “to install Mac OS X straight from the original DVD [onto a regular PC] without having to worry about patches, replacing files and anything like that.” Above you can see a video from netkas.org partially demonstrating a PC booting a MacBook repair disc. They say the product is in “the final testing phase,” with release planned for June 23, 2008. Whether Apple’s lawyers will ever let this see the light of day is something else entirely.
Popularity: 15% [?]
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...
