Although Lion shows up as available to install on the App Store, it returns an error when you try to install it

I tried to re-download OS X Lion on my macbook pro, but it knows that its installed already, and prevents you from re-downloading; however there is a work around, if you hold down the ‘option key’ (⌥) you can click on it to re-download.

After copying the install file to the mac mini, and trying to run it, the installer returns the following screen:

Telling me that MAC OS X 10.7 requires at least 2 GB of memory, which is still annoying since my mac mini only has 1 GB of memory; however this shows that the only thing the installer seems to be worried about is my lack of RAM…

There seems to be a  way around it, download a copy of Pacifist fromhttp://www.charlessoft.com/

Pacifist is a shareware application that opens Mac OS X .pkg package files, .dmg disk images, and .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, and .xar file archives and allows you to extract individual files and folders out of them. This is useful, for instance, if an application which is installed by the operating system becomes damaged and needs to be reinstalled without the hassle of reinstalling all of Mac OS X. Pacifist is also able to verify existing installations and find missing or altered files*, and Pacifist can also examine the kernel extensions installed in your system to let you see what installer installed them, and whether the installer was made by Apple or a third-party.

Pacifist is not yet compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” so the next steps were completed on my Mac Mini:

The File you need to open is OSInstall.mpkg in the Install Mac OS X Lion (right click ‘Show Package Contents’) > Contents > Shared Support >

Jump to Resources, and click on the padlock in the top right

The File you need to edit is the Distribution File

Changing var minRam = 1048; to 1024, re-package the distribution file, and see if the changes help (here is my copy of OSInstall.mpkg.zip)

Now while I now get the following screen, suggesting I can now attempt the install

It returns the following error

I will have to have a look, and see if the hackintosh community can offer any help.

One of those things I love about my Mobile Phone Contract is my unlimited data, way back at the beginning of time for “Smart Phones” I signed up on O2′s £25 Simplicity Contract, (February 2008) this let me have the fun and exciting offer as follows:

After a while they dropped the Price inc VAT to £20 (£20.42 now because VAT went back up). but they never removed the word Unlimited from the description of my Data allowance, or put an end date on it:

While I had a HTC Win6 phone it was all good; I had a little app that I could run that allowed me to use all that data (see unlimited anywhere o2?) however after a small accident involving either the washing up bowl, or a Pond (I forget the demise of it) I moved on after a while to a secondhand Apple iPhone 3 (Someone at work was upgrading from the iPhone 3 to a iPhone 4). however one thing I lost was the ability to tether my computer to my phone, as O2 seemed to think that was something they have the right to charge more for…

…as they sell it as a Bolt On; oh and as an interesting point of reference O2 don’t seem to know what their fair use policy is in regards to the amount of data I can use; (but they seem to think they should have the right to stop me accessing adult sites)

A while ago I bought a USB stick from Three and had it unlocked, a while after that I Acquired a Edimax 3G-6210N Wireless 150M portable 3G router, And I have been using that on and off with my O2 sim card without any problems, However today i spotted that Tether was in the iTunes Store; and with the associated Mac Client it would allow me finally to tether my Computer 1:1 to my Phone 

Tether is an application that just runs directly on your smartphone. This means you can access the internet anywhere, just like you could with an air card. Even if you’re stuck in the middle of no where with no available wifi hotspots, Tether will work through your cell phone’s data plan.

Instructions for using Tether

1. Download Tether Client (mirror on Dropbox) onto your Mac (Windows Client).
2. Install the client software.
3. Now, you need to install Tether for iPhone (seems to no longer be available in the UK iTunes Store) onto your iPhone (Also available on BlackBerry & Android).
4. Run Tether on your computer and on your iPhone.
5. You will be prompted to select either USB. Next connect your iPhone to your computer with the USB cable that came with your iPhone. You should now see data/packets flowing on Tether. That means you’re connected!

Run the software on your Phone

Run the software on your Mac

Wait for the browser window to pop up.

— This is no longer possible to set up due to the iPhone Tether App being pulled —

There are a number of advantages to iTunes & iPod Audiobook format when using an iPhone, iPod or iTunes to listen to Audiobooks:

• Because audio books are most of the time quite large files, it’s unlikely that you listen them in one piece. Your iPod remembers the position where you stopped listening the last time. So when you continue listening to your audio book, maybe days later, you don’t have to waste time finding the right position to start. This even works, if you are listening to music or other audio books in the meantime. — even after resynchronising your iPod.
• You can adjust the reading speed to your personal preferences. This seems not that important to me but it can be useful in certain situations.
• There’s a special Audiobooks entry in the menu of your iPod.
• Audiobooks can have chapter stops within them
• Audiobooks are automatically skipped during shuffle.

While the remember location feature is available for books in the MP3 format, the iPod format (.m4b) provides you with a single file for your entire audiobook, while having the option of preserving chapters.

I am playing with AudioBook Builder (Torrent link to allow for more testing before purchase(Updating will break the SN))

I have been testing AudioBook Builder with Terry Pratchett books, This post shows the Discworld Novel “The Light Fantastic” being converted to a single m4b file:

The files as acquired from TPB

Starting up AudioBook Builder

Create a new Project

Setup meta-data for the audiobook, including art work (acquired from Wikipedia)

Drag files from Finder to the chapters window

Click the ‘Join’ button to make a continues file; with no bookmarks (Remember position fulfils my requirements) you may want chapters.

Click on Build Audiobook, and in a few moments the files will appear as a single book in iTunes

If you need to edit the MetaData you can right click on the file and edit it in iTunes. at this point you can now delete the source files, and the Project file.

For more information on what you can do with The Pirate Bay and other Torrent sites, have a look at this post of mine: Book 10 – Cancel Cable: How Internet Pirates Get Free Stuff

As Part of my attempt to reduce the amount of stuff I have, I have been ripping my DVDs to my Mac; this allows me to store them on hard drive; and not need to get the disks out all the time; Also it allows me to watch them on my mac mini, which has a dead DVD rom drive (at some point I will put two 1 TB hard drives in it).

In General my work flow is to use The Little App Factory’s “RipIt” to both Rip the DVD to a full .dvdmedia folder of the disk, and most of the time also compress the film to an iTunes friendly file. RipIt will usually rip a disc within 35-40min. and then using the CLI version of HandBrake it will automatically the video for iTunes.

If I have only ripped a Disk to .dvdmedia I can then use HandBrake to produce the files for iTunes.

One of the things I am finding hard is the act of reading; Its still something I don’t get on with; oddly I find reading on my iPhone via the Kindle app easer than to read the pages of a Dead Tree Ware Book, I think that this is due to the line length being shorter, and the number of words per page being less; making the page easer to read for my poor addled dyslexic brain.

While I am not a huge fan of walled gardens; I think I will have to ask either bma, or Loupie if I can borrow their Amazon Kindle to see how I get on with the hardware version of the app, I also find that the Amazon Kindle app for my mac (and the kindle cloud reader) is not too bad to read; however using my mac to read tends to be too distracting, and a bit cumbersome to read quietly.

So here is hoping that I can get the remaining books read in time.

Setting the box up is easy; the instruction manual is well laid out and can answer all questions you need. my wifi is set up with WPA2 PSK, and a nice pass phrase; the settings for the o2 GPRS are as follows:

• APN/Access point: mobile.o2.co.uk
• Username: mobileweb
• Password: password
• Session type: Continuous / permanent
• Authentication: Normal
• Security: Off
• DNS Servers: 193.113.200.200 and 193.113.200.201

Note: The “Mobile Web” service must be enabled on your contract for these settings to work.

There are a number of other user names that should work; including faster; (with the same password). Other networks settings can be found here.

nbGypsyRover has a post showing them with a Zoom 3G router. I am curious to find out how other members of the boating community connect to the web (please answer in the comments section).

Historically I have used Virtual box for my virtualization needs; however it wont work properly under 64bit OS X.

Looking through Google; I found that Parallels fulfils my needs, as it will allow me to run the BootCamp partition as a VM;

One thing I some times worry about, is how to make a backup of my Mac’s Bootcamp partition. there are some sites that give you details; but they all point back to a app called WinClone:

If you want to make a quick clone of your bootcamp partition, or you want to migrate your bootcamp partition to a different machine, Winclone makes it a breeze. Winclone will create an image of your Windows partition, and allow you to quickly restore it to get you back up and running quickly.

For this you will need both WinClone and NTFSprogs; they are both free; (At the time of writing WinClones official site is dead).

First install NTFSprogs; this little app allows your mac to talk to NTFS partitions; (this will not work on FAT32) then run WinClone:

And that is that; while you cant get Time Machine to back up your Bootcamp Partition natively, you can back up images of it.

Apparently you can also use WinClone to change the size of your Bootcamp partition.

As I have a .ac.uk email address, I still have access to DreamSpark and as such access to a free copy of Windows 2008 R2; this will allow me to play with windows server settings; While most people may install Windows for games; I don’t play that many games (Portal is the only one I do play at the moment).

Downloading and burning the Windows iso was easy; as was burning it, installing it on my mac was also easy:

Using the Boot Camp Assistant under OS X is very easy; it just requires you to download a CDs worth of drivers and stuff for the Windows.

Windows setup is hard to Screen grab; but again just follow the guide; and follow that through. there are a number of customisations to make to Windows 2008 R2 to make it a sensible and useful Desktop OS.

I would recommend to any one that has an Intel mac that they install Windows if they have a copy, and the free hard drive space (My Windows Partition is 80 GB; plenty of room for all the software I will want to run under it.

To Configure Windows 2008R2 as a Desktop OS have a look at this site: Win 2008 r2 Workstation

By booting into windows and renaming the disk so that the first character in the label is a full stop it can now be changed and hidden. You cant change its name in OS X if its formatted as NTFS.

Fulla is the name of my ByteMark server; it is mounted via ExpanDrive using SFTP (SSH).

I have been playing with the Amazon Kindle iPhone app; and the Mac App, while the iPhone is not the best way to read an electronic book; it’s certainly not the worst. while the Mac App on my MacBook Pro is awesome

Looking at it objectivity; I think the Amazon Kindle would be a good ebook reader to buy (I have been playing with Loupie’s); I was thinking about getting an iPad; but now I have a fast mobile computer; I think the Kindle will work better to fill that requirement set; and I can still buy Dead Tree Ware books for Technical Subjects.

While I do like mac applications; I have to state that iBooks sucks; no ability to read the books from within iTunes makes it useless for reading on a mac.

However my biggest complaint about non Dead Tree Ware books is that you cant lend them out.

I am currently in the process of moving all files and settings from my two old computers; as well as files stored on two external drives, and other media; as well as de-duplicating files.

So thats another one of my Day Zero – 101 things in 1001 Days challenge complete.

• CPU: AMD SEMPRON 64BIT 3300 + 1600MHz HTT/128K
• Memory: 2048 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2×1GB)
• Motherboard: FOXCONN 760GX WITH SIS760GX CHIPSET, 8X AGP, SATA, 3 PCI
• Graphics Card: 256MB GEFORCE 6600 8X AGP + DVI + TV-OUT
• Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)
• Network Facilities: ONBOARD LAN & WIRELESS 802.11G NETWORK CARD
• Power Supply: Silent 550W PSU + 120mm Fan + 19.2 dBA CPU Cooler! Super Quiet!
• Firewire & Video Editing 3 PORT FIREWIRE CARD.

Ok, so looking at this, it seems a lot cheaper to upgrade my desktop a little, than buy a Mac Mini