Terminal Tip: Add scroll arrows to both ends of scroll bar
Have you been paging through a document and wished that the scroll arrows were at both ends of the scroll bar? With a simple Terminal hack, you can have it your way. Just open Terminal.app (Applications > Utilities) and type in the following command:
defaults write "Apple Global Domain" AppleScrollBarVariant DoubleBoth
You will need to restart your Mac to see the changes. If you want to change the scroll bars back to the normal way, just open the Appearance System Preference pane and select “Together” from the “Place scroll arrows section.”
For more tips and tricks like this, visit Apple’s Terminal Tips and Mac 101 sections.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Cool Hack: Running Leopard on an MSI Wind UMPC
Mac owners often look on with envy at the Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPCs) in the Windows world. These are truly tiny laptops, often with 10″ or smaller displays and weights that make a MacBook Air seem downright obese by comparison.
MoDaCo network founder and Microsoft MVP Paul O’Brien decided to get his OS of choice, Mac OS X 10.5.4, up and running on one of these little wonders. The machine is a variant of a recently released UMPC called the MSI Wind, which weighs in at 2.3 lbs and sports the new Intel Atom N270 CPU running at 1.6 GHz.
While Paul admits to a few small issues, he was not only able to load and run Leopard on the Wind, but he also documented the entire procedure in text and video (see above) if you want to make your own Ultra-Mobile Mac. After watching how easy the process is and finding out how inexpensive the Wind is, I’m tempted to try this myself! Be sure to let us know if you’re successful at following Paul’s footsteps.
Direct link to the video and step-by-step instructions.
Popularity: 12% [?]
MacBook Air SuperDrive super hack makes it work with any computer
As tnkgrl mentions at the outset of this hack, the MacBook Air SuperDrive is a nice little slice of hotness, retailing for a mere $99, and doing the whole external drive thing with Apple’s sense of style. Unfortunately, it only works with the MacBook Air due to a proprietary IDE to USB bridge, as tnkgrl discovered. For a mere $9 she was able to find a replacement part, and after pushing some internals around she had her self a Mac mini and HP Mini-Note-friendly USB disc drive. We’ve all been laboring under the assumption that Apple needed more than the standard USB power draw, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that she was able to pull this off with a regular part, and we demand Apple start selling $108 SuperDrives-for-all immediately. Er, please? * Read
Popularity: 13% [?]
EFiX wants to bring OSX86 to the masses
Word in the OSX86 world is that a new product will revolutionize (and simplify) the process of installing OS X on a PC — and that product is called the EFiX. The USB dongle allegedly pops into a free port and allows you to install the retail version of the Mac operating system on just about any system by automatically locating the proper hacks and drivers needed. Famed OSX86 hacker Netkas has demoed a beta unit on video (which you can see after the break) and claims that it’s working as it should. The manufacturer is aiming to have models available for purchase by June 23rd… barring any more “sabotage.” This sounds like a much more reasonable solution than marketing a Mac clone — feel free to send one our way whenever you like guys.
[Via Boing Boing Gadgets]
Popularity: 8% [?]
iPhone-powered Lego vehicle
If admiration of an iPod-powered Lego vehicle indicates that one is a nerd, then buy me a pocket protector and hike my pants up to my ribcage.The folks at BattleBricks have constructed just such a creature. Here’s (briefly) how it works. There are two iPhones involved. The one on the vehicle displays certain colors based on commands issued from the 2nd controller iPhone via a Safari app written with Google’s Web Toolkit. The vehicle executes a command based on the color it “sees.”
You can download the source code for yourself from Battle Bricks. Think of the applications! Frighten children and small animals, attach a small brush and clear away dust bunnies or deliver very small parcels.
Good work, guys. We love it.
[Via Ars Technica]
Popularity: 7% [?]
