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Creating your own Mac OSX Lion 10.7 Thumb Drive in 4 easy steps (How-to)

nanofunk — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:19:05 +0000

Apple is selling Mac OSX on a Thumb Drive, but you can save some bucks and roll your own as simple as this:

1. Preparation: USB Stick
Insert an USB Stick that is big enough to fit the whole Mac OSX Lion installer. I can recommend the SanDisk Cruzer Blade 8GB, which you can get for less than $5.

2. Mac OSX Lion 10.7
get Mac OSX Lion from the App Store and download it.

3. Extracting the Install Data
Right click (option-click) on the just downloaded file and select "Show Package Contents". Get the file Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg and copy it to your Desktop.

4. Disk Utility
Open "Disk Utility" and drag InstallESD.dmg from the desktop to the left sidebar. Select the attached USB from left side and click on “Partition” tab. Select "1 Partion" and from choose “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” as partition type. Click on “Option” at the bottom, select “GUID Partition Table” and press OK -> Apply.
After formatting is done, select "Restore" and choose the USB Drive as destination and InstallESD.dmg as source. Click on "Restore" to have your Mac OSX Lion Boot drive created.

OCZ Vertex 3 Fail: “Runtime corruption detected on SSD” and why SSD drives are not safe yet.

nanofunk — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:53:19 +0000

After almost 9 months with the OCZ Vertex 3 SATA-6GBPs (read about my OptiBay two-drive setup) and mostly no issues, the drive died on me. Starting with several GSOD (Grey Screens of Death) on my OSX Lion MacBook Pro, the drive became more and more unreliable.

Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 9852)
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_HFSPlusBTInternalNode: catalog key #54 too big
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: Runtime corruption detected on SSD, fsck will be forced on next mount.
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 10370)
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_HFSPlusBTInternalNode: catalog record #22 keyLength=32 expected=65568
Nov 28 18:30:42 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: node=10965 fileID=4 volume=SSD device=/dev/disk0s2
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: Runtime corruption detected on SSD, fsck will be forced on next mount.
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs: FindNextLeafNode: Error from hfs_swap_BTNode (node 14503)
Nov 28 18:30:43 mbp kernel[0]: hfs_swap_BTNode: record #55 invalid offset (0x9B46)

It was getting slower and slower, reporting tons of errors in the Console.app. Then, it did not reboot anymore. Even in an external USB drive enclosure the drive did not mount anymore. Contacting OCZ about this issue, they sent me an RMA number right away and told me they will replace the drive. Does this mean our data is not safe in SSD? What can we learn from this?

First of all, it is a myth that SSDs are more reliable than hard drives. Secondly, they are not even fully supported on OSX yet (see Should I use Trim Enabler on Lion for the OCZ Vertex 3? No!) - at least if you install the drives yourself (which is also what I would suggest, since Apple does not offer any decent SATA 6GBPs drives yet).

So where is the proof, you ask?

Proof #1: The Hot/Crazy Solid State Drive Scale (via Coding Horror)

Super Talent 32 GB SSD, failed after 137 days
OCZ Vertex 1 250 GB SSD, failed after 512 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 251 days
G.Skill 64 GB SSD, failed after 276 days
Crucial 64 GB SSD, failed after 350 days
OCZ Agility 60 GB SSD, failed after 72 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 15 days
Intel X25-M 80 GB SSD, failed after 206 days

As a commenter put it: "Average life of SSD = 227.375 days (based on Wills' data)" - which is also what I can confirm.

SOLUTION: Backup early, backup often. Don't rely on the SSD and make two local backups plus one backup in the cloud.

Proof #2: long-term study of SSD failure rates (via Tomshardware)

SOLUTION: Buy drives that come with a very long warranty. Be prepared to let your drive replace for several times.

I am still waiting for my replacement OCZ Vertex and I will benchmark how fast it will die again. Since OCZ told me, it can take up to three weeks for my replacement to arrive, I bought myself a Seagate ST750LX003 750 GB SATA 600, Momentus XT, 8 GB SLC - it's a hybrid 750GB HDD with an 8GB SLC cache. The drive shifts data that is used often in the 8GB SLC SSD space automatically. While the SSD part of this hybrid drive can also fail, the data won't be lost and it will suffer just some minor speed loss (if it fails, since SLC is said to be more reliable than MLC chips). While this disk is now my main startup disk, i will go back to using the OCZ Vertex 3 again, once the replacement arrives. I just need to backup regularly - the speed gain is really worth the trouble.

Apple iCloud is for iOS devices only, sorry OSX Lion users, you need Dropbox still.

nanofunk — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:41:48 +0000

Apple's latest hot shit, iCloud is in everyone's mouth, since it comes right with the 10.7.2 OSX Lion Update. But what does it actually bring for OSX-only users? Nada.

First of all the bad news: currently there is no way to store any files directly in iCloud. That makes Apple iCloud not a competitor for Dropbox at all. But why do they state "you can access your content on all your devices" when they actually don't mean your MacBook or Macbook Pro? Well, they currently mean "all your iOS devices". While Apple could offer such a service (Backups from your Computer to iCloud) in the near future, currently it really doesn't make any sense to use iCloud if you are not using any iOS 5 Device - and if you also care about backing up other things besides your address book and photographs, let's say your 3D-models or local databases. In this context I can totally recommend iBackup, a free tool for OSX users that need point-and-click backups. In this case, you can backup right to FTP or your Dropbox, which gives you cloud-power as well.

Coded Cultures – New Media Arts Festival in Vienna, Austria

nanofunk — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 07:56:24 +0000

This is an information from our Partner, 5uper.net:

In Autumn of 2011 the Festival Coded Cultures takes place for the 4th time, this year focusing on the topic "City as Interface". Ever since the foundation of the Festival in 2004 lay the general emphasis on creative practices of cultural development on the intersections of art, technology, science and design. It is our concern to decode de- velopments, concepts and projects in those “coded” structures of digital and (new) media production, which won’t open up easily to broader audiences. Over the years the alignment of Coded Cultures and its variations were orientated internation- ally with the focus on eastern Europe in 2004, Brasil in the following years and Japan in 2009. This year, Coded Cultures involves mainly participants from Europe with prominent attendees such as transmediale from Berlin, Media Lab Prado from Madrid, Amber Festival from Istanbul and the Enter Festival from Prague.

Coded Cultures 2011 presents itself on many different locations in Vienna, with the main focus on the Donaukanal (Danube Channel) and the surrounding Viennese city districts.

From 21st to 25th of September focus days will be held, which mainly will take place at the Viennese Danube Channel, the 2nd district of Vienna, Museums Quarter Vienna, the Badeschiff and the Odeon Theatre. From the 26th of September to the 2nd of Octo- ber workshops, presentations and artist-talks are taking place. Partners are Transmediale Berlin, Media Lab Prado Madrid, Enter Festival Prag and Amber Festival Istanbul (among many others). On the 1st of October the Festival is ending with a big event at the Badeschiff in cooperation with the viennese Waves Festival.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
CODED CULTURES was initiated by the group »5uper.net«: a network of producers, theorists, artists, designers, architects and programmers, which is active in the field of knowledge-work based on digital media related forms of art and culture. Recently, the Book "Coded Cultures: New Creative Practices Out of Diversity" published by Springer.

http://codedcultures.net
http://5uper.net
http://www.facebook.com/codedcultures
http://twitter.com/codedcultures
Coded Cultures: New Creative Practices Out of Diversity

Ableton Live 8.2.5 fixes Apple Mac OSX 10.7 Lion compatibility

nanofunk — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:22:59 +0000

Live 8.2.5, the latest version of Live 8, is currently available. This update includes full compatibility with Max OS X 10.7 Lion, improved synchronization with external MIDI devices, and other improvements and fixes. The update is free to all users of Ableton Live Lite 8, Live Intro, Live 8, and Suite 8.

Currently, Ableton Live 8 is $499.00 (new) and $425.00 (used).

Comparison: Canon Camera Roundup for Pro-DSLR Video

nanofunk — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:36:27 +0000

Since lot of people ask me, which (photo) cameras to buy which also work for filming, here is a short roundup of cameras that I find worth mentioning. All of the cameras mentioned will work with Magic Lantern:

On-screen audio meters

Manual gain control with no AGC

Zebra stripes (video peaking)

Custom Cropmarks for 16:9, 2.35:1, 4:3 and any other format

Control of focus and bracketing

(among other changes, such as Video-Bitrate setting)

Price/Value/Feature Comparison

Canon Rebel T1i Canon EOS 500D	Canon Rebel T2i Canon EOS 550D	Canon Rebel T3i Canon EOS 600D	Canon EOS 60D	Canon EOS 5D MKII

USA: $579.90 Europe: 449.00€ (used)	USA: $629.00 Europe: 549.99€	USA: $699.95 Europe: 646.99€	USA: 1,029.00$ Europe: 879.00€	USA: 2,499.00$ Europe: 1,890.00€
The Revel T1i was a great camera, although we cannot recommend it, since its successor is the 550D and the 600D. If you can get a cheap second hand alternative at ebay, you might get a deal, though. (Seen on ebay for $199 used)	The 550D is a great camera, although the 600D beats it in price/value. If you can get your hands on a cheap second-hand 550D, you might be able to even save some more bucks. (Seen on ebay for $399 used)	The 600D is our definite winner in price/value: feature-rich, reasonably priced, enjoyable to use and, most importantly, takes great pictures. It's relatively small, but is fully supported by Magic Lantern and you should be really happy with that camera if you use good lenses and fast Compact Flash Cards.	The 60D is a great camera, although almost in the same range as the 7D (which has no Magic Lantern support yet). If you are only shooting photos, go for the 7D - if you are doing video, save some bucks and go for the 600D. Invest the spare money in good lenses.	The best of all the cameras compared, if we leave out the price. While this is also the most pricy camera, it certainly gets beaten by the 600D when it comes to price/value. The Canon EOS 5D MKII is the best camera for digital video out there, although with the 600D and with fast enough SDXC cards, you will almost match the quality of the 5D MKII.

Conclusio: get the 600D if you need to save money, get the 5D MKII if you have some spare 3000$. Invest in good lenses, such as the Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, even if you are using it on the 600D (it will get converted to a 38-168mm, though). The Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS is a cheap but quite good alternative. Make sure you get a really fast SDXC card, since you will want to increase the Video Bitrate with Magic Lantern to make your videos quality increase as well. Recommendation: the Lexar Media 64 GB SDXC Flash Memory Card LSD64GCRBNA133 stores 64GB (!) and is blazingly fast.

Excessive Logging on Mac OSX 10.7 Lion: Repair the Keychain to solve the issues. ( deny file-read-data )

nanofunk — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:01:07 +0000

Lots of people complain about slow Mac OSX Lion performance, mostly caused by thousands of Log-Messages being written to the system log files. As Chief Tarun points out at the Apple Support Forums

I opened up the console app, and there were hundreds, if not thousands of logs just in the past 2 hours. And when I say 'get info' on Macintosh HD the used disk space is increasing every 5 to 10 seconds. This is the only concerning bug/glitch of noticed in Lion since upgrading.

I had exactly the same issue, checking my Console.app messages that told

"WebProcess(225) deny file-read-data /Users/foobert/Library/Application Support/Adobe/AIR/ELS/com.adobe.amp.4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1/ PrivateEncryptedDatak"

While one would think that uninstalling Adobe AIR would fix the issue, the problem resides at another point.

Solution:

1) Open "Keychain.app"
2) Go To "Keychain Access -> Keychain First Aid" to repair your Keychain.

Now the console messages disappeared and the system runs in "silent mode" again.

Install OS X 10.7 Lion on any Supported Intel Core 2 or Core i based PC & Make an OSX Lion Boot Disc

nanofunk — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:24:03 +0000

TonyMac recently described how to install Apple OS X 10.7 Lion on any Supported Intel Core 2 or Core i based PC. Here is the short version:

1. Get Mac OSX 10.7 Lion
A Retail Version has already been spotted in the german amazon store but it seems the product has already been removed from amazon. Other ways to create a bootable Lion DVD are outlined here:

* MacRumors Forums: Make an OS X Lion Boot Disc
* Download the Lion Boot Disc via Torrent (of course, only if you already legally own Mac OSX 10.7 Lion)

2. Get a Cheap USB Stick that works with OSX

3. Boot the Chimera Installer

4. Install Multibeast

Of course, you can also try the method outlined by tonymac: Installation of 10.7 Lion with Snow Leopard and Boot Partition. Please post any success or fail information in the comments section.

Bliptronic 5000: the $39.90 Monome Rival

nanofunk — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:51:47 +0000

The Bliptronic 5000 is a great and super-cheap rival to the $500 Monome although not with such a great chassis and quality. But: it is chainable and has its own built-in sound engine (chiptunes-style, sound similar to the tenori-on or the casiotone)

createdigitalmusic posted some hacking tips, including information on how to build your own MIDI clocking and how to create a "switchonome". Another post by runagate describes how to Turn A $50 Bliptronic 5000 Into A Monome Controller [update: Bliptronome conversion kit for $68 USD].

Information via ThinkGeek:

Product Features

* Unusual retro synthesizer is played with a grid of glowing buttons
* Create looping patterns and change them dynamically while playing
* Chain multiple units together and create more complex melodies
* One octave range. 8 notes can be played simultaneously
* 8 different old-skool synth sounding instruments to choose from
* Sounds created using FM waveform synthesis
* Set the BPM (beats per minute) from 60 to 180 in 20 BPM increments
* Built in speaker with headphone jack and line-out jack
* Front panel is constructed from brushed aluminum
* Includes, manual and 2 link cables for connecting additional Bliptronic units
* Requires 4 x AA batteries (not included)

Install Mac OS X Lion 10.7 on PC Hackintosh

nanofunk — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:45:01 +0000

Its now possible to Install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on your PC with the standard Hackintosh techniques. That means, everything stays the same to get your hackintosh up and running, no worries. More information on the geeknizer blog entry or alternatively, watch the video below:

Steps to install OSX Lion:
1. Get the "GM" (Golden Master) of Lion via torrent
2. Get an EFI Boot Loader
3. Get a decent 8GB USB thumb drive and install the Golden Master on there.
4. Install using iBoot.

You can get detailed information on installing Mac OSX Lion 10.7 by reading the geeknizer blog howto.

[UPDATE] tonymacx86 showed how to Install OS X 10.7 Lion on any Supported Intel Core 2 or Core i based PC with xMove + MultiBeast. Furthermore, there is a Mac OSX Lion v10.7.2-HOTiSO that should also boot from any PC. Don't forget that you need to buy Apple Mac OS X Lion from the App Store to legally use it.

SoundCloud: New features, new premium accounts and more flexibility

nanofunk — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:53:32 +0000

SoundCloud gets cheaper. The new minimal paid account is now 29US$ per year. Lots of changes for the previous PRO users, since there are 5 account types now (they are called PREMIUM Users as of today). My current account - previously PRO LITE - has now changed to a PREMIUM SOLO account. They changed the counting of uploads from file counts to total length in minutes. Long-time PRO users got a mail yesterday, were they were given 60minutes extra as a gift (although this "gift" does not really show up in the upload panel, yet UPDATE: after mailing with soundcloud this seems to work as announced now. I got 12hrs 9min). Read more about all the changes in the article detail.

2 new Player Widgets are available. With the new "Artwork" and "Mini" Players, this makes a total of 3 available Player Widgets for SoundCloud.

While the Artwork Player is a great way to showcase album art in your SoundCloud tracks, the Minimal Player is great for embedding where there is not much space available. All in all, the two new Widget options are giving you more options on how to feature your tracks without having the usual SoundCloud look, that is the same on all sites using it (except color adaptions, which were possible before).

Stats have been totally revamped: Who, What, When, Which and Where can be found out for your Tracks now - but - depending on your account type. Full Stats are only available for Business PRO users, while the other accounts have different detail levels. The difference from the Premium SOLO to the full stats seem to be, that embedded, linked or posted tracks are not statistically tracked.

The sharing was also reworked, here's the quote from the official sendout: "Much asked for - here it is: private track sharing via secret link. Simply upload a track or set, generate a private link for it, then quickly share via email or IM. Plus with newly the added privacy options, you can now control if you want people to comment or your tracks or not, hide the stats around your track and make comments only visible to yourself. Perfect for when you're doing promo or need to keep the number of recipients private."

Finally, there are 2 Desktop uploading apps available as of today: "Scup and CloudPost are two nice little apps that let you upload your tracks and sets to SoundCloud right from your desktop". And "one more thing": the iPhone App for SoundCloud which can be downloaded for €0,79 or $0,99. Detailed reviews of all the apps right after I tested them.

Cheers and happy uploading.