Mac OS X 10.6.2 Hacked To Allow Intel Atom Chip

As I previously thought, hackers have worked around Apple’s decision to disable the Intel Atom chip in the latestrelease of the operating system (10.6.2). It only took 2 weeks for hackers to figure out how to fix the change, however it doesn’t come without it risks. It’s a full-on replacement kernel for OS X. It was developed by a member of the InsanelyMac forum and it requires a bit of fine tuning to get installed. Download and use at your own risk, links below.

Download the patched kernel


Related:
Apple Killing Off Intel Atom Support
Mac OS X 10.6.2 Developer Build Fixes Atom Support

Blog Update 23/11/2009

Today I’m planning on doing quite a few new posts as recently I haven’t been posting many due to not having a computer for over a month and then lots of work for college. This is just a quick update to say that the blog is moving into more of technology than just Apple products but also other technology based articles.
Not only am I going to start doing more articles, I’m also going to start reviewing products as I’ve had some sent to me and I’ll be reviewing those shortly.
Unfortunately today I found out that the domain I was going to purchase this week has already been sold, so the website may be delayed for a while until I can think of the best domain to purchase.

R5 Release Dates (November 3rd – May 2010)

Check the R5 Release Dates page for the latest release dates. (Dates go up to December 2010)

November 2009
Bring It On: Fight to the Finish – November 3rd
Zombieland – November 5th
The Prince & Me 3: A Royal Honeymoon – November 5th
Hardwired – November 5th
Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure – November 5th
Banlieue 13 Ultimatum – November 12th
Julie & Julia – November 12th
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – November 12th
OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus – November 19th
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – November 19th
Little Hercules in 3-D – November 19th
Driven to Kill – November 19th
Hachiko: A Dog’s Story – November 19th
The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations – November 19th
Saw VI – November 26th
Playmobil: The Secret of Pirate Island – November 26th

December
My Sister’s Keeper – December 1st
Astro Boy – December 3rd
Jennifer’s Body – December 3rd (2nd Date)
Law Abiding Citizen – December 3rd
American Pie: Book of Love – December 8th
Inglourious Basterds – December 8th
2012 – December 10th
The Box – December 10th
Love Happens – December 11th
Funny People – December 15th
Zombieland – December 17th (2nd Date)
This Is It – December 17th
The Stepfather  – December 17th
Planet 51 – December 17th
The Private Lives of Pippa Lee – December 24th

January 2010
The Soloist – January 12th 2010
Shrink – January 21st 2010
The Final Destination – January 26th 2010
Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball – January 26th 2010
City Island – January 26th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – January 28th 2010
This Is It – January 2010 (2nd Date)

February 2010
The Informant!  – February 2nd 2010
500 Days of Summer – February 4th 2010
Whiteout – February 9th 2010
The Time Traveler’s Wife – February 9th 2010
Couples Retreat – February 9th 2010
The Invention of Lying – February 16th 2010
Amelia – February 18th 2010
Into the Blue 2: The Reef – February 18th 2010
Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead – February 18th 2010
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant – February 23rd 2010
The Blind Side – February 23rd 2010
Tooth Fairy – February 25th 2010

March 2010
Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove – March 2nd 2010
Fantastic Mr. Fox – March 4th 2010
The Marine 2 – March 4th 2010
Ninja Assassin – March 9th 2010
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief – March 11th 2010
Where the Wild Things Are – March 23rd 2010
Surviving Evil – March 25th 2010
The Cabin in the Woods  – March 25th 2010
Sherlock Holmes – March 30th 2010
The Wolfman – March 2010
A Christmas Carol – March 2010

April 2010
Paranormal Activity – April 6th 2010
It’s Complicated – April 20th 2010
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel – April 25th 2010 (2nd Date)

May 2010
Preacher’s Kid – May 4th 2010
Valentine’s Day – May 18th 2010

For the rest of the dates go to http://tinyurl.com/r5dates

Updated: 18th November 2009

Note: not all dates are 100% accurate and are likely to vary, please keep checking back for updated release dates.

Gigabyte Fixes iPhone Sync Issue With BIOS Update

The Intel P55 Express chipset had an issue that caused iPhones unable to sync. Gigabyte has issued a BIOS update Intel P55fixing the problem. The Intel P55 is Intel’s latest midrange chipset and is for Core i5 and Core i7 machines. The other two P55 motherboards, ASUS and MSI were also affected by the bug and there is an update for ASUS BIOS but it’s not the official fix. Hopefully both ASUS and MSI quickly update the BIOS to fix the issue.

iDashboard 1.0 for iPhone Released

iDashboard v1.0 has been released by WyndWarrior, it’s an iPhone utility which mimics the widget functionality of Mac OS X.

A multi page dashboard for your iPhone! Features a world clock, a calendar, a weather widget, a working calculator, lockscreen dashboard, and double-tap Dashboard. Also will have available widget packs for download in Cydia. Customization features include: wall-papers with auto-dim and the ability to change wallpapers through the photo app.

iDashboard

Steven Troughton-Smith is developing a similar application, which is not yet released.

iPhone Worm Rickrolls Jailbroken Devices

Over the past week there has been a lot of news over unsecured SSH on iPhone. First about the Dutch hacker who wasscanning the network for jailbroken users who had not changed their default SSH password. Now a hacker who goes by the name of “ikee” from Australia, created a worm that changes the home screen background to Rick Astley.

As I’m sure your aware by now this only affects users who have jailbroken their phone and installed OpenSSH, not just general users or who have jailbroken their device. If you have jailbroken your device and have got OpenSSH installed please read this guide on how to change your default password to ensure none of these worms or hacks will affect you.

Rickroll iPhone Worm

ikee says this is how the worm spread: “The code itself is set to firstly scan the 3G IP range the phone is on, then Optus/Vodafone/Telstra’s IP Ranges (I think the reason Optus got hit so hard is because the other 2 are NAT’d) then a random 20 IP ranges. I’m guessing a few phones hit a range that another vulnerable phone was on.”

Once one phone is infected it searches for phones with the default password and then begins the process again.

Dutch Hacker Hack’s Into Jailbroken iPhone’s

How To: Change Your iPhone’s SSH Password

The End Of Unlocking Coming Soon?

After today’s announcement from Telefonica Europe that O2 will unlock their iPhones to every network once the Apple iPhone 3G WWDC 2009iPhone is released on other networks means that perhaps other countries will have to follow suit and therefore perhaps the end of hacking to unlock the iPhone. Blacksn0w is the latest unlocking tool from GeoHot which unlocks the latest baseband, however I’m wondering as if to how they will roll out the unlock, either by a carrier update or software update I assume. But if so it won’t take a hacker too long to work out how it’s being unlocked and simply apply it to other phones making it harder for Apple to play the cat and mouse game.

The CEO stated that iPhones will be unlocked once the contract is up, but on Pay As You Go there is no contract so surly they should be sold unlocked, however the way it was started it seems that you have to go to get it unlocked and it won’t just be rolled out. And although I’m going to keep using O2 if they roll this out I’m going to unlock my 8GB iPhone 3G before I sell it to upgrade to a 3GS. Hopefully the rest of the world follows suit and the iPhone becomes a network free device.

O2 Will Allow Unlock For UK iPhone’s

O2 the current exclusive retailer of the iPhone and iPhone 3GS, although not for long; will be allowed to unlock their O2iPhones to other carriers as long as it’s the end of their contract period according to the CEO of O2’s parent company, Telefonica Europe. “Once the iPhone becomes available on other UK networks,” says Matthew Key, “we will allow O2 customers to unlock their iPhones, although of course they will still need to honour any outstanding contract period they have. At the end of their contract period, they are entirely free to move to another operator — though naturally we hope they won’t want to!”

Orange is starting to sell the iPhone from November 10th and Vodafone will be joining in on the iPhone in early 2010. O2 have had exclusivity on the iPhone since 2007 but once released on Orange and Vodafone an unlock will be allowed.

Mac OS X 10.6.2 Developer Build Fixes Atom Support

The latest developer build of Mac OS X 10.6.2 fixes support for the Intel Atom chip which was previously disbaled as anIntel Atom attempt to stop people loading their operating system onto hardware which it wasn’t intended for.

The update reportedly contains fixes for AirPort performance issues on newly released iMacs and “resolves a problem with plugging and unplugging to an Apple TV,” whatever that might mean. There’s fixes for VMWare, USB, Apple Filing Protocol, and tweaks to nearly 150 OS X components, including AppleBacklight, Battery Menu, Dictionary, Expose, FileSync, Family Controls, Fonts, Front Row, HFS, Inkwell, iPhoto, MobileMe, OpenCL, Parental Controls, QuickTime, Screen Sharing, Spell Checker, Spotlight, and Time Machine.

The final release is expected to be rolled out sometime in November.

Hopefully this will mean that Apple have changed their mind and will be allowing Intel Atom support again or that someone will manage to work out how to apply this to the final release if need be, so that the hackintosh community can continue.