Leopard on a PC Without Hacking, KDE Comes to OS X, New Mac Pro Benchmarked, and More

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News & Opinion

• Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required
• Good-bye to .mac
• KDE Desktop Coming to Mac OS X
• A Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OS X

Reviews

• New 2.8 GHz Mac Pro Matches Old 3.0 GHz Model
• The New Mac Pro's Achilles' Heel
• Mac Pro Performance Redux (January 2008)
• Apple Aluminum Keyboard Reviewed

Apple Updates

• How to Disinfect the Keyboard, Trackpad, and Mouse

Desktop Mac Deals

News & Opinion

Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required

Lifehacker says:

"Two months ago I walked through how to build a Hackintosh Mac on the cheap using PC parts. Since that post, the OSx86 scene has changed rapidly, and now you can install Leopard on your computer about as easily as installing Leopard on a Mac - no command line hacking required. In addition, the resulting installation is - theoretically, at least - can be upgraded without fear of breaking. As if the simplicity of the installation weren't already enough, the new installation tools fix any problems I've had in the past (for example, I no longer need to keep my install DVD in the drive to boot into OS X), and support the Wi-Fi card on my motherboard out-of-the-box. In short, it's a winner."

Link: Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required

Good-bye to .mac

AppleMatters' Chris Howard says:

"After some four years or so shelling out to Apple for a .mac account, I'm finally making the commitment to ditch it. It has never been an overly good value, but changing primary email addresses is always a pain in the butt and takes a bit of effort . . . and will probably cause a few lost contacts.

"I won't argue that for some people .mac is the ants' pants, and excellent value. But that crowd is shrinking...."

Link: Goodbye to .Mac

KDE Desktop Coming to Mac OS X

eWeek's Darryl K. Taft reports:

"Developers of KDE, the popular Linux desktop environment, are targeting Windows and enhanced Macintosh support.

"With release 4 of KDE, also known as the K Desktop Environment, officially announced Jan. 11, the developers of the free software environment said support for Windows and deep support for Mac OS X are on the horizon, with some pieces ready for evaluation now and others to be available by the summer....

"Benjamin Reed, a KDE developer . . . said of the libraries and applications KDE will port to the Mac OS."

Link: KDE Targets Windows, Mac OS X Support

A Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OS X

The AppleBlog's Bob Rudis says:

"This week Slashdot (and many, many others) reported that KDE 4.0 has been released for Windows and OS X. KDE (K Desktop Environment) has been a popular GUI for *nix systems and there have been ways of getting it to run (mostly) on OS X prior to this native port if you were willing to use X11 on OS X). RangerRick (of OpenNMS 'fame' did much of the heavy lifting for the Mac side of this project, including the package distributions.

"To start, you'll need to grab the torrent download - I picked the one labeled 'everything,' weighing in at over 2 GB....

"So, why would you need to run KDE? First and foremost: geek cred. OK, joking aside - and even if you're comfortable with your current geek karma level - KDE for OS X brings a plethora of applications for you to try out. While many have not been compiled/distributed yet, that site will give you plenty of browsing fodder, and the 'everything' bundle + other dmg packages deliver well over 130 pre-built OS X KDE apps."

Link: A Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OS X

Reviews

New 2.8 GHz Mac Pro Matches Old 3.0 GHz Model

Macworld's James Galbraith reports:

"Now that the week-long frenzy of Macworld Expo is in the rear-view mirror, Macworld Lab can turn its attention back to what we were working on prior to the annual Mac trade show - Speedmark results for the new Mac Pro systems announced the first week of January.

"The Friday before Expo began, we posted our test results for Apple's 'recommended' configuration - an eight-core 2.8 GHz system. The $2,799 system ships with 2 GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive and an ATI 2600 graphics card with 256 MB of video memory. We found that the 2.8 GHz eight-core model easily out-paced its four-core, 2.6 GHz predecessor while coming close to matching the speed of a previous-generation eight-core 3 GHz Mac Pro."

Link: Macworld Lab: More Mac Pro Benchmark Testing

The New Mac Pro's Achilles' Heel

The Baltimore Sun's David Zeiler says:

"With an extra 4 gigabytes of memory and two 500 gigabyte Seagate Barracuda hard drive successfully installed in my new Mac Pro, I fired up the benchmark programs to see if the upgrades have boosted performance."

"It appears having 4 sticks of memory installed does aid performance.

"Then I ran Xbench, which includes a hard disk test. More to the point, it allows you to test any installed hard drive, not just the boot drive. To my surprise, the new drive bested the Apple-supplied drive by about 33 percent - with a score of 70.38 versus 52.80...."

Link: The New Mac Pro's Achilles Heel

Mac Pro Performance Redux (January 2008)

Primate Labs says:

"A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the performance of the new Mac Pros. Unfortunately I only had Geekbench 2 results for the eight-core 2.8 GHz Mac Pro. I thought I'd follow up on that post with Geekbench 2 results for all three eight-core Mac Pros.

"Setup

• Mac Pro (Early 2008)
  • Two quad-core Intel Xeons @ 2.8 GHz, 3.0 GHz, or 3.2 GHz
  • 2.00 GB 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM
  • Mac OS X 10.5.1 (Build 9B2117)"

Link: Mac Pro Performance Redux (January 2008)

Apple Aluminum Keyboard Reviewed

SchwarzTech's Eric Schwarz reports:

"We managed to get our hands on Apple's new wired keyboard (it really doesn't have a name since it's a stock product with new machines), a $50 product that functions much like any other keyboard....

"First, the keys are identical to a MacBook - flat, little travel, and with space in between each key. Second, the Help key has been replaced with 'fn', which functions much like its notebook equivalent - the function keys now have other primary purposes, such as volume, brightness (if your machine supports that), and more. Third, the function keys go up to F19, allowing you to program just a bit more. Finally, our friend, the Apple key is now simply 'Command' with the cloverleaf logo - this should end some confusion, and make third-party keyboards match a bit more."

Link: Review: Apple Aluminum Keyboard

Apple Updates

How to Disinfect the Keyboard, Trackpad, and Mouse

A new Apple Knowledge Base article says:

"In addition to regular cleaning of your computer and input devices (keyboards, trackpads, and mice), you may find it necessary to disinfect them.

"Multiple people using the same computer, people using the computer when they were ill, and the particular environment where the computer is used, are a few reasons you may wish to disinfect areas of the computer that people come into contact with the most."

Link: How to Disinfect the Apple Internal or External Keyboard, Trackpad, and Mouse

Desktop Mac Deals

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