The Race to be Number One

When Apple began using Intel processors in their Mac computers, the race was on to be the first to run Microsoft Windows on the Apple hardware. Hackers took to the challenge, as they tend to do, with enthusiasm. Since Windows is designed specifically to run on Intel and other “x86-compatible” chips, the only roadblock preventing Windows from running on the new Macs was the system’s boot firmware.

Traditional Intel-based PCs use BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) for their boot environment

This is the code, almost like a mini operating system, that tells the various computer components how to start and work together. It also acts as an intermediary between the operating system (e.g., Windows) and the hardware (e.g., the disk drive). That way, the operating system just needs to know how to talk to BIOS, not necessarily every piece of hardware in existence (this is a different issue than device drivers and happens on a lower level).

Apple Uses EFI

Instead of BIOS, Apple computers use EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface), a newer alternative to the older BIOS standard. Accordingly, Apple OS X is designed to talk to EFI for hardware access.

The Difference is Vast

Because of the EFI/BIOS difference, running Windows on a Mac is like fitting a square peg in a round hole, even though they are now using the same x86-based CPUs. There’s nothing like a challenge to get the creative juices flowing in the hacker community, and in January 2006 enthusiast Colin Nederkoorn established a contest with a cash award to the first person who was able to boot Windows XP on a Mac. The contest was won by the team of Jesus Lopez Amaro (aka “Blanka”) and Eric Wasserman (aka “narf2006″) in March of the same year. The next month Apple released the first version of its Boot Camp software. It was as if the company, itself started by hackers in a garage, was waiting for the community to solve the problem before they stepped up with the official solution.

About BootCamp

Boot Camp is software offered by Apple that allows users to install and run Microsoft Windows operating systems on the Mac hardware in a painless and seamless manner. Boot Camp walks the user through the entire process of adding Windows to a Mac, from creating a partition on the hard disk to burning a drivers disc to actually installing Windows.

Full-Speed Ahead, None of that Virtualization Gibberish

Running Windows with Boot Camp is not an emulation like Virtual PC, it is a full-speed implementation of Windows on a Mac. Boot Camp simply takes all the guesswork out of the process and makes installing Windows as easy on a Mac as on any other computer. Boot Camp differs from modern full-speed virtualization programs like Parallels in that it provides an environment for dual-boot computing; resources are dedicated exclusively to the running operating system, not shared between a host and a guest OS.

In Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), Boot Camp was an optional download. In OS X 10.5 (Leopard), Boot Camp is included with the OS. Since the release of Leopard, Apple has stopped offering Boot Camp as a download for Tiger. You can get Boot Camp only by upgrading to Leopard.

Using Boot Camp is a three-step process:

1. Use the Boot Camp Assistant to prepare your Mac for a Windows installation;

2. Install Windows

3. Install Boot Camp drivers in the new Windows installation.

Backup First of Course

Since Boot Camp changes the configuration of your hard drive, be sure to back up all your important data before using Boot Camp to install Windows. When you’re ready to use Boot Camp, you can launch the Boot Camp Assistant from the Applications/Utilities folder.

The Boot Camp Assistant will assist in preparing your Mac for a Windows installation. Its primary purpose is to create a hard disk partition for Windows to use. A partition is a chunk of hard disk space an operating system can use for its files. The Boot Camp Assistant will ask you how much space you want to give to Windows. While you have to allow at least 5GB for a Windows partition, Boot Camp’s suggestion of 32GB is a good amount; it is the partition size limit for FAT filesystems. You can also select to divide your disk equally between OS X and Windows or enter a custom size for your Windows partition, but you cannot elect to give more space to Windows than you have free on the disk. If you have more than one disk, you can select it and use it in its entirety; you cannot eliminate your OS X partition from your startup disk using Boot Camp.

Partitioning is Done Automatically

Boot Camp will partition your hard disk as directed, and most of the time it will do so seamlessly and without destroying any of your data, but if something does go wrong, you’ll be glad you made a backup before you started.

This Good Assistant Does it all for you

After Boot Camp creates a partition for Windows, it is ready to do the installation for you. The Boot Camp Assistant will instruct you to insert your Windows XP or Vista disc. It has to be a 32-bit full-install disc, not an upgrade disk. For Windows XP, it must be a SP2 disc. No earlier editions of Windows are supported, though both Home and Professional versions of Windows XP are supported, as are the Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista.

After you’ve inserted your Windows disc, press the “Start Installation” button in the Boot Camp Assistant to proceed. Your computer will restart and the Windows installation will begin. One of the first questions posed by the Windows installer is which disk partition to use for Windows. Boot Camp helpfully labels the partition as “<BOOTCAMP>” so be sure to select this one; do not attempt to create or delete any partitions during this phase. Once you select the partition, you must select the filesystem to use. If you use the FAT filesystem you will be able to read and write files from the Windows volume while in OS X, but if you select NTFS you will not be able to save files from OS X. If sharing data between OS X and Windows is important, select FAT. Otherwise, select NTFS for better security and performance.

From this point, Windows installation proceeds as it would on any other computer. When it is complete, you need to install the special hardware drivers for your Mac hardware, including Bluetooth, networking, audio, the iSight camera, etc. In previous versions of Boot Camp, you had to burn a Windows drivers CD during the Boot Camp Assistant phase of the installation, but in Leopard the Windows drivers are included on the Leopard install disc, so if you insert this disc while running Windows the Boot Camp drivers installation should start immediately; otherwise you can double-click the setup.exe on the optical drive (usually D:) to start the installation. The driver installation proceeds like most Windows installations do: automated with a reboot at the end.

That’s it

Windows is now running at full speed on your Mac, courtesy of Apple’s Boot Camp software.

You can choose to boot either OS X or Windows when you restart your Mac, and you get the best of both worlds.

About Mac OS X Leopard

The Leopard operating system, version 10.5, was released on October 26, 2007. Leopard is the sixth version of Apple’s Mac OS X operating system. The 10.5 version replaced Mac’s 10.4 Tiger.

Hewlett Packard Compatibility with OS X Leopard

Hewlett Packard acknowledges the incompatibilities between OS X Leopard and a number of their products. Leopard includes a built in Software Update tool, that will instantly update all HP printers and software utilities that have been released since the 2007 release of Leopard, but products released prior may require updates.

HP driver availability

However, according to the HP Support Pages user forums, the 4670 Scanjet model is not included in the list of products that will be made compatible. HP says that the age of the model means that it will be excluded from updated drivers, which I suppose is their way of suggesting that users upgrade their scanners.

Load Scanjet 4600 drivers

Fortunately, some users have found a way around the driver problem, and have figured out way to load another scanner driver for this OS.

1. Download the scanner driver package for the 4600 model. Go to the HP website, and select the tab named Drivers and Software. Select the option to locate drivers. Next, enter the number of your model - 4670 - and then select Mac OS X from the list of driver updates.
2. Under Mac OS X there is no listing for 4670, so select 4600 instead.
3. When the *dmg package loads on your desktop, click it twice to open
4. A window will open and display all the drivers that are in the package. Press the control button and click this window to display the contents of the package.
5. Select the listing named contents/macos/subinstallers
6. Click twice on the HP Scanjet 4600

Send Your Query to Hewlett Packard

Several users report this method working well for their scanners. Another viable option that has worked for many users is to run a Windows OS on your computer as well as your Mac OS, and launch your Scanjet from Windows instead of from Mac. Obviously this solution is less than ideal. I suggest you write to HP and include the details of your situation, even if just to add your name to the long list of people who are unsatisfied by HP’s compatibility and updates for this scanner.

How Does a Corrupted Autorun File Occur?

A corrupted Autorun file could occur due to an infection by a worm such as recycled/boot.com. This particular worm attacks internal drives as well as external, removable drives. The best way to remove this worm is to run an anti-virus application.

A corrupted Autorun file could also occur due to an infection by a virus. Again, the solution would be to run an anti-virus application.

Another cause of a faulty “Autorun” file could be a faulty installation of an upgrade of the operating system. This could be resolved with an uninstall of the upgrade and then a reinstall of it. I would suggest looking at the above solution first before attempting this strategy.

What is Autorun?

Autorun is one of the many files found on the Windows operating system. It is an instruction file that is used to open to a file or program automatically when selected.

Opening the Hard Disk Drive with Explorer

One of the options that you have for opening your hard disk drive when “open With” appears is “Explorer.” If you select this, your hard disk drive should open for you. However, this will not solve the problem with the improperly running “Autorun” file.

Opening the Hard Disk Drive with “Run”

An alternative solution would be for you to open the hard disk drive in the following manner. Go to “Start.” Select “Run.” In the white box that appears in the dialog box for “Run” type in the following: c:/ and click “ok”. This should open your hard disk drive for you.

Running an Anti-Virus Application

If you have an existing anti-virus application, you should run it now and see if that resolves the problem for you. If you don’t have such an application, I can recommend

You can follow this link to get additional information on this application as well as accessing a download for it: Anti-Virus Plus. This application is compatible with the following Windows operating systems: Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista. If you have a different operating system, you should consider a different application. Once you have cleared the virus from your computer, the autorun feature should work once again.

Technically, probably, depending on the age and the size of the Mac Pro hard drive. Depending on the age of the G4, and its processing power, you might not be able to access more than a certain amount of GB. If the G4 is an older model, there might be a limit to the size of the drive it can recognize or access, but you will be able to get at least this much out of it.

Installation Tips

You are going to have to open your G4 to install the second drive, but first make sure that it is powered down and unplugged from its power source. You should also ground yourself because the inside of your computer is very sensitive to static electricity. You can get grounding mats for this, as well as bracelets to make sure you aren’t a conductor.

Is a Slot Available?

Once your computer is open, check that there is a slot for a second internal drive, which there should be if this is the first time you have added a hard drive. There is also an IDE ribbon that is connected to the drive that is already installed that needs to have a vacant spot to connect to the new drive. The ribbon is grey and might have either a red or a blue strip. The part that is already attached to your existing drive is called the primary IDE and on this part you can find a connector that looks the same as the one attached to the existing drive to connect to the secondary drive. This should all be there, either above or below the existing drive, along with a female power adapter with four prongs that you can find by following the power cords.

Installing the Drive

The drive should slide right into the slot and now you need to configure one a master and one a slave to organize the primary and secondary drives. For all this you will need to check some diagrams that are in the user manual for your G4. This will involve setting pins and adjusting jumper settings and should be relatively straightforward with the help of the pictures.

Recommendations

If you are adding a secondary drive, the installation process is not nearly as critical as if you were replacing the primary drive. However, you will want to be aware of the potential pitfalls.

When formatting a hard drive:

1. Begin by opening the system drive. On most computers, this will be labeled “Macintosh HD”.
2. Next, open “Applications.”
3. Double click on the “Disk Utility” so that it opens. A list of all of the available drives will appear on the left-hand side of the screen. The one that you are trying to format will be included in the list as long as you have physically attached it.
4. Click on the hard drive that you are attempting to format.
5. Click on the “Erase” tab that is located to the right of the hard drives. This action opens the list of options for erasing the hard drive so that it can be formatted to function on the Mac.
6. If you are not sure which option to pick, you should refer to the manual that came with your computer. In general, the best option for Mac OS X is to select “Mac OS Extended (Journaled). However, you should select the option that is best for your needs, so if this is something different, it really is okay to do so.
7. Now, name the hard drive. This is the name that will appear whenever the disk is in place on the Mac. Simply type the name that you have selected for the disk in the place next to the prompt for a name.
8. Now it is time to click the “Erase” button. You will be prompted to verify and you should do so. The disk will be erased once you click this option. Once this process is completed, the hard drive will appear with its new name on the left-hand side of the screen along with any other hard drives that already exist.
9. Change any settings for “Security Options” that you wish to make at this time by accessing this option through the “Erase” screen. Your hard drive has now been formatted properly.

The long and short of it is that you can’t link up your different computers to combine the processing power of each. The most you can do in this respect, without needing a sophisticated tool kit and a blowtorch, is link up your different systems into a Local Area Network so they can share data, Internet connectivity and files. To do this you will need a router, wireless if you would like to keep the laptop mobile. Apple produces one called the Apple Airport Base Station. Plug in the computers and then enable files sharing on each computer. Now, when you open the

Finder Window in one, the others will appear in the sidebar menu.

Still, it is possible that this type of computer network may actually slow computer processes down as they ship data back and forth across the LAN. It is not as simple as if you wanted to increase the CPU processing speed or add more RAM. If you want to increase the power of your computers, you might think about considering upgrading the speed and capacity of one of your systems by purchasing additional RAM and higher speed and quality CPU chips. This is generally not possible in laptops, where the chips are usually smoldered into the motherboard, but is likely fairly straight forward in your towers.

If the computer you use most often for high speed processing is equipped with a 3.2Ghz processor like in the new Mac Pro tower, you can upgrade by removing the existing processor and replacing it with the faster model, although the latest model of this design is pretty fast.

Since you don’t have the install disk that came with your computer you can’t use

Disk Utility, but if you could it would go like this:

Put the Mac OS X disk in the computer then restart the system while pressing down the “c” key. This will boot the computer from the disk and then open the Installer Menu. If prompted to, select your language to proceed, then select Disk Utility. It is important that you do not press Continue on the first Installer screen, as this will require you to reboot from the disk again. Next, find and select the First Aid menu. This will display a triangle that you select to view your hard drive and its volumes and partitions. Now you should choose the Mac OS X volume and then Repair.

Since you don’t have the system disks that were included with your computer you should use the fsck command line tool. If the DOS-like mode you mention is text that says something similar to “file system dirty, run fsck” followed by a # command prompt then you are ready to go but if you are not receiving the error messaged detailed above, you will need to start your computer in Single User Mode to open a command line prompt. To do this you will need to turn off and power down your computer. Press the power key to turn it back on and then immediately press and hold down the Command/Apple button and the “s” key. If this is done correctly, white text will appear on the screen, concluding with a # sign, the command line prompt.

Next, type /sbin/fsck -fy and then hit Return and the tool will check the hard disk. If there is no problem on the hard drive, fsck will display a message that says “the volume —— appears to be OK”. If there are problems, the message will read “file system was modified”. In this case, repeat step two, re-enter the command line and run fsck again until you get the OK report. This time type reboot at the # command prompt, then Return to restart your computer. Hopefully this solves the problem.

The other thing worth trying, and perhaps worth trying first is a Safe Boot, but you must have OS X version 10.2 or newer to do it. First, shut down the computer and then press the power key to turn it back on. As soon as you hear the start up tone, press the Shift key and hold it down. It is important that you wait until you hear the tone to press Shift. Wait for the grey Apple and the spinning gear progress indicator then release Shift. This will launch a Safe Boot. Once it has fully loaded, turn it off and start it up again normally, pressing only the power button. Sometimes this is enough to restore the hard drive.

More important for your question than the type of recordable device you plan to use is the video program that you want to use. Different media players use different codecs. There is a popular QuickTime code called AC3 that plays AC3 audio in AVI files. In order to use this codec, you need to have installed DivX 5.1 to load the file into QuickTime. Then, using Mac OSX, you can put the AC3Codec.Component into the /Library/QuickTime folder. If you are using Mac OSX Leopard you might have noticed problems trying to play .avi video files in DivX, or you might not be getting any sound, if so, there are a couple QuickTime codecs available here http://installingcats.com/2007/11/30/play-avi-divx-codec-movies-on-quicktime-in-mac-os-x-leopard/ as well as detailed instructions for download and use.

There is another codec package called Perian that calls advertises itself as “the Swiss Army Knife for QuickTime”. It is a free download, available at http://perian.org/ that includes support for numerous media file types. There are some media types, for example WMA files that are not supported by Perian, for which you can download Flip4Mac to use with the QuickTime player. You should also visit http://labs.divx.com/codec for the absolute latest in codec releases and check out the advice offered for your specific system requirements.

Four popular web browsers for the Macintosh OS X platform are Safari, Firefox, Camino, and Opera. Each indicates a secure site differently. Here is what to look for to make sure your shopping or banking session is secure and immune from eavesdroppers.

The current version of Apple’s Safari web browser is 3.1.1. The Safari browser is often applauded for having good performance and excellent standards compliance. However, its security indicator leaves much to be desired. Safari indicates a secure SSL session by embedding a small padlock icon in the upper-right corner of the browser window. Clicking on this padlock opens the certificate details, by which a user may peruse the chain of authority that vouches for the site’s security. Hopefully future versions of Safari will have more accessible security indicators, but right now it’s just as easy to look for that little “s” in the address bar as it is to search for that padlock way in the corner.

Firefox is a popular cross-platform browser that offers users a similar experience whether it’s used on Windows, Mac, or Linux. It also has a great visual cue that a session is secure. In Firefox 2, an SSL-protected site results in the entire address bar turning yellow. It also places a padlock icon at the far-right edge of the address bar. Like in Safari, clicking this padlock opens a window in which the user can validate the SSL status of the site.

Camino, an OS X-only browser from the same Mozilla group that develops Firefox, is currently at version 1.6. It has a security cue similar to Firefox: the address bar turns yellow and a padlock appears next to the URL. In Camino, clicking the padlock offers the user the option of opening the Page Info window or the Site Certificate window.

Opera, another cross-platform browser — which even supplies versions for game consoles and smartphones — is a browser with a storied history. It started as a paid product with a free trial, changed to an ad-supported product, and current versions are entirely free to use. The current version of Opera, 9.2, identifies a secure site by putting not only a padlock but the identified company name in a gold box in the address bar. As in other browsers, clicking this indicator opens a security information window for the user to verify the contents.

Internet security is an ever-important facet of online life, and only becomes more relevant with time. It is important to understand the feedback our browsers provide us. Sometimes looking for “https” instead of “http” isn’t good enough, since many elements on the page might still be retrieved through insecure means. Understanding how these four Mac browsers provide security information means their users are better informed and better protected.