I own two Logitech Harmony remote controls (the 880, for the family room, and the XBox 360 for the room with the games and PS3).  Up until recently I had no problems updating the remotes with my MacBook Pro.  However, this past week I wanted to update the XBox 360 Harmony remote with some new commands for the Mac Mini (more to come in another posting).

The way their software works is that you install it and then it forces an update when it’s opened.  Meaning you don’t have a choice and have to download the latest versions of their software.  However, they know the current Mac software is broken.  And they may fix it “in the next few months”.  WOW!  These guys are almost as bad as the Creative guys!  Don’t advertise shit that doesn’t work!

Luckily, I was able to get through my remote update needs by starting up Parallels and running the Logitech software in Win XP in Parallels.  Not horrible, but not a good experience.

What about the guy who changed DVRs and now has a basically useless remote control?  Logitech is basically making him go back to multiple remotes because they’re fucking stupid-ass developers don’t know how to QA something before releasing.

Imagine if others had this type of “QA” before release… “Sorry, OS X (or Windows) can no longer connect to the internet.  We’ll have it fixed in a few months.” or “Sorry, iTunes can no longer play music.  We’ll try to have it fixed in a few months.”

Logitech - get your shit together or get out of the game.

Tags: customer service, dickheads, Logitech

I’m attempting to create a Hackint0sh. I’ve got kick-ass hardware:

• P5B Deluxe Mobo
• 2×300GB SATA Drives
• 2GB 800MHz RAM
• 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo (E6600)
• 256MB GeForce 7600GT PCI-E
• Plenty of I/O ports in front and back (kick ass Antec case)

I don’t use my old Ubuntu config anymore, sadly. I’ve still got Windows running on the secondary drive, but I can convert that to a Boot Camp or Parallels machine, if need be.

I prepped by reading this article on Lifehacker, which really simplified this thread on OSX86Scene. While it all looked daunting, it was really quite simple (simplified from the Lifehacker entry):

• Make an image of my Leopard DVD (using Disk Utility, simple)
• Download any one of the files at the top of this thread. (Some links don’t seem to always work, but there’s four possibilities)
• Unzip the files from the download to your desktop.
• Edit the indicated files (see the Lifehacker thread)
• HIt F8, use -x -v when beginning Leopard install
• Use Disk Utility to create a MacOS partition.
• Install!
• Follow post installation instructions.

My pitfalls/warnings:

• My P5B Deluxe uses a JMicron IDE Controller. Both my DVD-ROM/RW drives were connected to this controller, and it was not allowing me to boot to the patched DVD. I tried a $27 E-IDE to SATA adapter, but that didn’t solve my problem. I had to buy a SATA DVD Drive ($45 for a DVD-/+ RW) for the disc to boot.
• I couldn’t keep my USB Drive inserted when rebooting for the PostPatch. I had to insert it after I had booted back via the DVD. Also, my front USB ports wouldn’t work for the USB Drive, I had to use the rear ports.
• I had to go through the Post-Installation (PostPatch) twice.
• I rebooted a zillion times, but after I did a power off/on and left the disc in the drive I was finally able to boot to Leopard. Let the timer run out on the Darwin Bootloader screen. Hitting buttons put me into the setup loop.
• I don’t have network connectivity for some reason

Now I am tired. I will have to figure out the network piece another time.

Edit: Updated 10.5.1 using the same Lifehacker instructions. Basically, update and re-do the post installation patch.

As an aside, I also installed VMWare Fusion. Awesomely (if that’s a word) enough, it found my “old” Windows partition and immediately let me start that up as a VM.

Somehow, after all my rhetoric about Apple, I ended up being a Mac user. How?

Well, I went to pick up my Lenovo T60p from our help desk. It took almost a month to arrive, and I was excited to get it. When I get there I noticed a whole row of Macbooks getting configured. I was surprised to see so many Macs, because as far as I knew our company didn’t support Macs as corporate computers. So I asked if we were now supporting Macs. The help desk guy actually went on and on telling me how much better they are, easier to maintain, more reliable, faster, etc. He showed me Parallels in Coherence mode (which rocks) and we talked about Boot Camp. By the end of our conversation, I wanted a Macbook Pro. He mentions that they’re the same price, and he has a 15″ MBP not allocated to anyone else. So I traded him. He gave my T60p to someone else and configured the MBP for me.

And I like it. I really, really like my Macbook Pro. So much so that I bought one for Neela. We were able to consolidate her iBook and her IBM R52 pieces of crap into one Macbook Pro running Parallels, too.

The only reason the Mac works for me is Parallels. Though, now, after using my MBP for about a month I only use Windows on my MBP for MS Office (primarily Outlook). Everything else works just fine in Mac OS X.

So yes I’m a convert. And it’s all easily explained by my earlier post about simplifying. Anything that makes my life easier is more than welcome. iLife and iWork simplify so many things, as does Automator.

One of our 2 Canon MP780 printers seems to have stopped working. The new equivalent model from Canon is the MP830. If I was still a Windows user, I’d probably dig it. However, being an Ubuntu user, I know it’s not the right choice for me.

So after much consideration, we bought an HP 7780. We also have an HP 7410. The 7780 adds to the feature list by allowing you to scan directly to a shared drive or memory card.

HP makes themselves the defacto winners of my printer wars because of HPLIP. They have done a great job of supporting Linux. (Oddly they do a crappy job of supporting Windows, but that’s not my problem anymore)