Fix TimeMachine on OSX86

If your TimeMachine stops working on an OSX86 machine, this is most probably due to IONetworkingFamily.kext, located in /System/Library/Extensions/.

Just replace your current one with an older backup (from TimeMachine backup folder) using OSX86Tools. Using the same application you also can make occasionally (especially before making major updates to 10.5.x) a backup of your Kernel-Extensions.

Fix ALC889A sound for OSX86 after 10.5.5 update

Use OSX86Tools or Kext Helper to install only AppleHDA.kext from 889a.Audio.ICH10.zip, which can be downloaded from this forum post.

ATI Radeon HD 3850 on OSX86 10.5.5 (with sleep)

I finally managed to get my Asus ATI Radeon HD 3850 (EAH3850 Smart OC 1024 MB) to work with OSX86 10.5.5 using the following driver from lastExcile / Netkas (see also forum entry on InsanelyMac). Even sleep and wake-up works perfectly, which didn't work at all with my previous Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics card. The card is very silent and Aperture finally rocks (compared to Geforce 7300 GT 256 MB). Trying now another Asus ATI Radeon HD 3650 on another machine if sleep might work with a different motherboard.

Path to com.apple.Boot.plist

The file responsible for startup configuration
     com.apple.Boot.plist
can be found at
     /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/.

It is always good to make a backup of that file if "something" goes wrong.

Screenium for screencasts on Mac OS X

I wanted to record what I show to people regarding how they can do certain tasks on a Mac. Therefore I checked what Screencast applications are available for the Mac.

I stumbled on the following site comparing several applications, as well as this site giving some tips on how to do Screencasts and which are nice tools to help you doing them, such as Backdrop .

I finally decided to buy Screenium, because it seemed to have the most features for a reasonable price of only $20. It allows to fade in some text via hot-keys and also can embed the feed form a webcam aside the screen that is being recorded. Finally the recorded Screencasts can be easily exported to more compressed formats. It works fine with 1920x1200 resolution and does not use much resources when you record with 100%, not scaling down while you record. You always can afterwards reduce the resolution and optimize the overall file size of such recorded movies. So far I'm happy with it. It's easy to use, not overwhelmed with useless features and works very reliable.

Shutdown / reboot problems on OSX86

When your OSX86 based machine does not want to shutdown properly (fans still running although all LEDs are off), try to install the OpenHaltRestart kext extension. You might want to use the Kext Helper to easily install the kext module.

via InsanelyMac

Soundcard (ALC883) broken after 10.5.5 Update on OSX86

It can happen that after the 10.5.5 Update on OSX86, ALC883 based soundcards do not work anymore (not detected by OS X). To fix this, download the ALC883.dump.txt file and the AppleHDAPatcherv1.20. Unpack the latter, start the patcher and drag the dump file on it to patch the faulty kernel extension. Should also work with other ALC88X soundcards by using the appropriate dump file (Google is your friend for finding those).