Why '1984' will always be the only '1984'
by Jason Fox — 8:37 PM on February 6, 2012

It's been the same for almost three decades now. The Super Bowl rolls into view and the world goes all atwitter with talk about which television commercials will or will not ascend as the true stars of the game. The general news media always gets into the act, too, inviting folks like the lovely Sally Hogshead or that not-quite-so-lovely Donny guy to comment on which spot will wow the 14 consumers who haven't already seen every ad on YouTube. Local stations harass local agencies for their opinions. And, more than likely, every single interview, article and blog will make some reference to the Greatest Super Bowl Spot Ever Aired in the History of What Lawyers Make Everyone Refer to as The Big Game.

That spot, of course, is 1984, the commercial that ran one time during the 1984 Super Bowl, launching both the Macintosh computer and the game itself as a platform for advertising spectacle. On the off-chance you haven't seen 1984 recently, here it is:

1984 is an incredible spot, and would be even if it hadn't run on the Super Bowl. Of course, that it only ran one time—and in its full, 60-second form—only adds to its legend. (The fact its single airing was not purposeful does nothing to detract.) But people seem to forget that what really makes 1984 such a venerated spot in the halls of ad land are the same things that could quite possibly prevent such lightning from striking twice ever again.

First, though, we actually have to set aside the creative aspects. Yes, the creativity involved in producing the spot—from Lee Clow and company at Chiat\Day to director Ridley Scott to Steve Jobs himself—is astounding, but such creative mojo can be and is replicated today. Clow still runs the creative duties for Apple, and Scott continues cranking out films. Not to mention the other, numerous agencies dotting the land capable of coming up with such an idea. But what sets 1984 apart is a different set of circumstances from the usual great client + great agency = great spot equation.

One, the spot launched one of the most game-changing consumer technology products of all time: Macintosh. Sure, the Mac and its descendents languished with a 5% (or less) share of the overall PC market for years. But their impact was felt by all. The mouse. Desktop publishing. The graphical user interface. These are just a few of the computing features that, 28 years later, we all take for granted. Even if the Mac didn't originate them, it did combine them all in one decidedly un-PC product—and it popularized them enough for Microsoft to copy develop their own versions for Windows.

Two, 1984 solidified the personality of what would eventually become the most valuable brand in the world. Sure, the spot would be fondly remembered if Apple had gone on to bite the dust (as it was seemingly always on the cusp of doing in the 1990s). Instead, Apple wandered through wilderness of CEO shuffles for a few years, brought back its charismatic and visionary co-founder, and went on to unleash a few handy items like the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Also, the Cube. But still, Apple is now considered so cool that even the Occupy crowd gives it a pass for making so much dough. Would "Think Different" have ever been thought up if Big Brother had won the day?

Three, the product had the perfect villain. At the time of the Macintosh launch, everybody used MS-DOS-powered PCs. Sure, a few folks used Apple IIs, and fewer still (guilty) used crazy things like the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. But, by and large, it was a PC world. If you wanted to do serious things to tackle serious problems, you put up with the seriously unfriendly user interface that was the C-prompt of DOS. It was the computer you hated to use, but assumed you hated it because it was smarter than you.

Fourth, the timing of the launch allowed for one of the best plays on a cultural touchstone in the history of marketing. In the 35 years since George Orwell's 1984 had been published, the terms "Orwellian" and "Big Brother" had entered the lexicon as shorthand for abusive, totalitarian power. With the actual year of 1984 dawning, what better way to personify the overarching power of IBM and MS-DOS than a blatant play on Orwell? How much more powerful can product positioning be?

So, we have a Super Bowl launch of a—wait for it—paradigm-shifting product, the foundation of an eventual mega-brand, a perfect foil, and the perfect timing to play off the perfect cultural touchstone. How often is that going to happen? I don't know, but I'm guessing less than every 30 years, if at all.

We live in an increasingly fractured marketing landscape. Digital and social media have altered the way brands communicate to and with their customers. Yet every year, we all gather around the television, hoping to see magic—not on the field of play, but on the field of ideas. There have been some great moments through the years, but none approach 1984. And I doubt one ever will.

At least not until one of my kids invents the next Macintosh. See you in 2032.

Later,

Fox

For more on the creation of Apple's 1984 ad, watch this clip of Lee Clow discussing the spot:

Come on, feel the video noize
by Jason Fox — 2:03 PM on January 30, 2012

When I was a kid—you know, back in the day—my parents had an 8-mm movie camera. Not Super 8, mind you. Just regular ol' 8. Thus consigning me to a life in which I did not create Alias, Lost, or direct Star Trek. On the plus side, I also didn't create Felicity, so there's that. The 8-mm camera shot on 25-foot rolls of film just to confuse the metrically challenged among us even more. Each reel lasted about three minutes, although you could always squeeze a few extra frames of hijinks onto the tail end. My dad almost exclusively shot outside, as the tri-bulb Light of Ra needed to expose the film properly indoors only made "the talent" scurry for cover like Nosferatu.

Once developed, these 8-mm films—or shorts if you're a hipster doofus—were just a knee-slappin' hoot to watch projected on our living room wall. Compared to today's home theater gear, I estimate the project pumped out a cool 18 lumens. And I do mean cool, as a 19-lumen light bulb would've caused spontaneous celluloid combustion and loss of my brother's Backwards is Beautiful Cub Scout film. I was going to explain what it was about, but I suspect your own interpretations are funnier. But for all these films lacked—sound, color fidelity, non-linear editing systems, Chewbacca—they did avoid one thing that has become a bit of a bane to the modern digital camcorder: video noise.

Now, film itself is rarely crystal-clear and free from visual defects—a post-Under Siege Steven Seagal bloatedly springs to mind. But film's version of noise is called grain. Even at its most egregious, film grain comes off as artsy. Video noise is just, you guessed it, fartsy. Video noise is the result of a couple of things: high ISO settings combined with sensors that can't really handle said settings, and compression artifacts. Do things just wrong, and you can end up with a shot that looks like a 4-bit animated GIF, only without the funny hamsters.

While technology continues to wage war against video noise (my new Panasonic DMC-GH2 is light-years ahead of my old Panny DVX-100a), the laws of photographic physics still apply, and getting a nicely exposed shot with a minimum of funk can still be challenging. Especially when shooting on auto mode, which most consumers undoubtedly do.

Until very recently, I had be using a Canon Vixia HF200 camcorder to film my offspring's most precious screamings. The HF200 was pretty swanky when I acquired it just before our youngest was born in November 2009. It shot 1080p at 24 FPS (my preferred frame rate) onto SD cards. No more digitizing MiniDV tapes from the DVX or Canon HV-20. Just copy the files and, um, wait for VoltaicHD to transcode the AVCHD into ProRes. But, like all cameras, the HF200 preferred more light to less, which was hard to achieve at 6 AM Christmas morning without disrupting the holiday vibe. Noise still ensued.

Grr. Arrg.

Now, most people would just live with the noise, cut their little video piece together for grandma and call it a day. These people are onto something. I, however, am just on something. The search for a good noise reduction plug-in for Final Cut Pro began. And by "good" I mean "good and cheapish." It's easy to throw pro bucks at pro solutions. I may have Final Cut Studio, but I'm not exactly Thelma Schoonmaker over here. I needed to make some very noisy shots only mildly obnoxious and do so on a budget.

And then I found Neat Video—a company with a noise reduction plug-in as awesome as their website is not (hello, 1996!). Technically, Neat Video uses a lot of math and CPU cycles to make your shots look like you almost know what you're doing if the poor composition and lack of a compelling narrative didn't give you away. The plug-in is incredibly easy to use. There's a lot of tweaking you can do, but for once, the auto setting usually works just as well as anything you can figure out. You do need to do it on a clip-by-clip basis as Neat Video literally samples the noise in each shot to build a map of grunge to nuke.

Granted, I did have to pop for the Pro version, which costs $99. Considering even cell phones shoot in HD now, I'm not sure who's going to buy the 720p-and-under Home version. But having used it for almost a year now, I must say it was a worthwhile investment. Which is more than I can say for my three shares of Zynga stock.

To illustrate the niftiness of Neat Video, I've uploaded a truly horrific (noise-wise) clip of my son Simon from late 2010. His mom (my wife, Megan Fox) was tickling him before putting him down for a nap. The room was dark, with only two, dimmed 40-watt bulbs on overhead. The HF200 obviously cranked up the ISO as high as possible and let the noise fall where it may. The processed video isn't perfect, but it is highly usable. To see more shots, you can watch and cry and awwww over our 2010 family video, which has Neat Video applied to every shot. Watch them full-screen to see the effects better.

I've just started editing the Fox Family 2011 Year-in-Review saga. And I'll be slapping Neat Video on every shot in it, as well. For 2012, I've upgraded to the previously referenced Panasonic DMC-GH2, which somehow makes its noise feel a bit more like film grain. I've already passed a couple of clips from it through Neat Video, and it looks even better, as one would hope.

So, if you shoot stuff that you actually want to show other people, give Neat Video a look. I can't promise it'll turn you into the next J.J. Abrams. But you will probably end up better than the guy who directed this.

Later,

Fox

Apple rewrites the history books
by Jason Fox — 7:00 AM on January 23, 2012

To be precise, Apple has not quite rewritten the history books. They have reformatted them. Taken the flat, lifeless pages of text and transformed them into flat, video-linked pages of text. At least until the iPad 3D hits. (What? You haven’t heard about the iPad 3D? My Chinese contacts made it very clear that the next iPad would be 3D. Of course, buying eyewear from China may not have been the best idea. Especially since I haven’t worn contacts for 10 years thanks to lasers. Comedy!) Anyway, Apple unveiled its new iBooks 2 and iBooks Author program last Thursday at an event so special it was actually held at 9 a.m. CST instead of the usual noon. For once, I didn’t have to keep Frito dust from contaminating my Moshi keyboard.

Truth be told, for a change, I had planned on ignoring this particular Apple event. While I’m all for educating the young masses about isotopes, Waterloo, and igneous rocks, I am no longer a member of said masses. I graduated college 18 years ago and have been hustling punks off my lawn ever since. (And if you’ve noticed that I make some punk-and-lawn joke in nearly every MacHole, it’s because I’m crotchety in a way even Blue Star Ointment can’t soothe.) So the prospect of listening to someone who’s not Steve Jobs talk about iAbacus or some such for an hour didn’t really appeal to me.

Then I saw a tweet from Engadget with a link to their live event blog. Hmmm, mess with income taxes or watch text periodically scroll down my screen that has nothing to do with Hoth? The choice was clear: Check out the third day of the latest woot-off and then hit up Engadget. I was about ten minutes late to the party when I finally decided against the Leak Frog and finally peeked in on what the Apple folks were up to. Fortunately, reading about a live event doesn’t take nearly as much time as actually sitting through it. It’s a bit like how I watch NASCAR races—record them on TiVo and watch at triple speed until an interesting pass, wreck or fistfight happens. Sadly, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall rarely get down with the Marquess of Queensberry type of action. Although they could just be obeying the first two rules of Fight Club.

Regardless, what Phil and the gang were discussing was actually quite intriguing. Apple had signed on the four biggest publishers of high school and college textbooks to release their titles as interactive iBooks. Now, algebra would come to life just like that digital version of Grover’s “Monster at the End of this Book” I had downloaded over Christmas. Only in this case, the monster would be six more years of higher-level math courses culminating in the calculus of multiple variables probably not taught by Mr. Hooper. Because he died in 1982.

Having textbooks on an iPad is kind of a no-brainer. Except for the massive amount of effort it took to seal the deals with publishers and convert all of their titles. And add video and more interactive pictures. And clickable text. That sort of thing. And the pundits who write reviews of these things within minutes of their announcement (suck-ups) have already discussed the major impact on education this shift will probably bring—lower costs, more engagement, fewer redwoods harvested for Intro to Evil Human Consumption 101, and so on. And while that is all well and good, I also like to ponder the smaller shifts this move may engender. For example, now when a bully knocks some frosh’s books from his hands, said bully will be responsible for replacing an expensive electronic device. Now, only the rich can bully. I’m sure someone will occupy the in-school-suspension room over this. Now, college students can’t chalk up that $800 credit card charge to an OTB site to books. Although they might be able to hide the Beatles Anthology on their iTunes accounts, assuming their parents aren’t hip to the tech like me.

It will also be even easier to slack off while studying. Instead of having to set aside the 80-pound copy of “Janson’s History of Art” on it’s Doric column-style podium (sold separately) and then grabbing their iPads to LOL and OMG, students can just flip between the iBooks 2 app and Instafacesquarequora. Maybe a jailbreak app will even let users view a textbook on one side of the iPad 3’s Retina display and some backyard wrestling YouTube videos on the other. Dare to dream, people. Dare to dream. On a sadder note, students will no longer get the joy of perusing a used textbook and discovering the doodles of Calvin or Hobbes or Locke, assorted fraternity rallying cries, and dozens of assorted phalluses. I'm sensing another app opportunity.

Apple didn’t just leave textbook authors dangling in the wind when it comes to content creation. They also released the free iBooks Author program so you, yes you, Professor Roy F. Fox, Ph. D. of the University of Missouri, can create your very own whiz-bang iBook textbook, assuming you already have a stash of multimedia files handy or don’t mind yanking things off of Google image and video search. Cool. And not just for people like my uncle. I can make a book for my kids. Or a more interactive version of my ad portfolio. Or a really sweet interactive recreation of our future trek to Fantastic Caverns and the Precious Moments museum that will exploit the technology to its fullest and bring honor, glory and stalagmites to the memory of Steve Jobs.

Oh, and Apple also made some announcement about iTunes U upgrades or something, but I stopped reading the Engadget stream at that point. Had to see if there were any new Chuck Norris facts, dontchaknow.

Later,

Fox

Should new acquaintance be forgot
by Jason Fox — 1:17 PM on January 6, 2012

For Christmas this year, which is really last year but that seems confusing, my lovely wife did something she had only done once before in our eight years of marriage. That's right, she bought me a piece of consumer electronics. Sort of. She actually gave me an Apple Store gift card in the amount required to purchase a 64GB iPhone 4S with tax. Fantastic.

Seeing as how we celebrated Christmas on December 21 (as we were headed out on our own, myrrh-less pilgrimage the next day), I promptly headed to the nearest Apple Store, which opened at 9 o'clock, and absconded with a white version of Apple's latest Pocket Cray. A few hours later, I realized I was not a 14-year-old future Mrs. Bieber and exchanged the white model for a more Darth-like black.

Then we hit the road and I used it for a couple of weeks.

Then we got home and I promptly returned it.

Yes, it's true. I returned an Apple product. A very good Apple product, mind you. It just, well, wasn't good enough. Rather, it wasn't good enough to use my AT&T upgrade credit on. Or to stick with AT&T for another two years. Or to drop $431 on. Not when a new iPad may be released in a few weeks. Or, and let's be honest, when there's an iPhone 5 gestating for a summer release. Nonetheless, here is my mini-review of a phone I no longer own.

Thumbs up:

Speed. Wowsers, Penny, the 4S flippin' screams compared to my 3GS. Shocking? Not especially, but it was nice having apps respond nearly instantly instead of mimicking every version of Word ever.

Retina Display. While not new to the 4S or unwitnessed in the wild by yours truly, the Retina display just makes the phone a lot more enjoyable to use. Aside from the resolution, the brightness and color reproduction really stand out. When Apple rolls this high-DPI tech out into other products, I'll be in line. Assuming I have money. Hmm.

Camera. I knew I'd love the upgraded camera, and I wasn't disappointed. I was an Instagramming fool while in KC and Iowa, and the shots were just stunning for such a tiny lens. The HD video was equally impressive, allowing me not to worry about keeping my Canon HF200 close by. Almost kept the phone just because of this. Until I remembered I could put that $431 towards a Panasonic DMC-GH2.

Thumbs meh:

Siri. Cool tech that I may eventually use often. Or not. When it works, it's quite nifty and more convenient than typing in queries. But it's not yet the Majel Barrett we all hope it will be some day.

Lack of phone-specific upgrades. Honestly, a lot of the new stuff on the iPhone 4S is actually part of iOS 5. Since my 3GS runs that OS just swimmingly, I'm not missing out on software enhancements. Except for location-based reminders, I think. And while it would be nice to be reminded to pick up milk on my way home from the meth lab, it's not something to coveted. You know, unlike meth.

When the 4S came out, the general consensus amongst the nerd blogs was that owners of the 4 should wait for the 5, but 3GS owners should probably go ahead and make the jump. Frankly, if you've been using your 3GS for 30 months without much of an issue, I'd suggest waiting 6 or 7 more and going for the iPhone 5. Because if you're the type of person who has the money and desire to always have the latest tech toys, you already pawned off your 3GS on eBay long ago. The rest of us could use a little more bang for our fanboy bucks.

Later,

Fox

Island in the tech stream
by Jason Fox — 4:16 PM on December 19, 2011

It's been over a year since the second-generation Apple TV emerged from the Cupertino location of Hobbytown USA, yet the black, minier-than-a-mini set-top box remains intriguing for what it does and confounding for what it doesn't. It's much smaller and more powerful than the original Apple TV that debuted in 2007. Yet that new A4 chip still won't push out 1080p video, limiting itself to 720p just like its forbear. And it runs cooler because it lacks a hard drive. It's nothing but a streamer, baby. So I hope you like keeping your computer on all the time. At least until iTunes Match extends to videos. And good luck with that.

Still, it's a lot cheaper than the original ATV. When I was gifted my Gen1 over Christmas in 2008, I think it was just over $200 for a refurb 40GB version. How quaint. Of course, as I've written of before, I hacked that ATV with a 250GB drive and ATVUSB-creator to give it some additional oomph with Boxee and other bits. But in the end, that original ATV became nothing more than a way to watch home movies on our main television instead of having to gather the children around a laptop.

What I really wanted from my Apple TV was AirPlay and AirPlay Mirroring, features that the second generation now sports. These handy new standards from Apple let you beam video from one device to another—in my case, an iPhone to, hopefully, an Apple TV. Mirroring lets you, you know, mirror what's on one device to another. So you can play Infinity Blade II on your 80-inch AQUOS. Assuming you have an iPad 2 or iPhone 4S and an ATV 2, of course.

Which I don't. As in, I don't own any of those devices. I'm holding out for the iPad 3 that should hit in three or four months. I'd love a 4S, but might just hang on to my 3GS until the 5 arrives so I can get off the "S" upgrade train. And unless your memory or reading skills are truly horrific, you know my ATV status.

So what to do, what to do? What else? Hack that mother.

While I had initially set up my Apple TV in a hacked manner, its usefulness had waned over the years. As such, when Apple released its final update for the Gen1 ATVs, I went ahead and updated without re-hacking. Fortunately, using ATVUSB-creator is ridiculously easy. Plug in a USB stick, run the program. Take said USB stick, plug it into your ATV, restart ATV and watch the hacking unfold. Reboot. Done.

The hacking permits SSH access to your Apple TV, necessary for step two: Enabling AirPlay. Now, this isn't quite full-on Apple-approved AirPlay. It's AirPlay via a third-party iOS app called RemoteHD. RemoteHD can be used as a remote control for any Apple device, as well as viewing one device's screen on another. It is not specifically meant for Apple TV. But the devs were cool enough to add AirPlay enhancement to the mix. After sending three little commands via Terminal to the ATV, the RemoteHD components were installed.

Then I downloaded the actual app to my iPhone. At $7.99, it's a bit steep. A lot steep. But cheaper than a $90 ATV 2 (at Amazon). And really, I do it for you people, so it's a smallish price to pay. I fired up the app and, well, had no real idea what to do. I could control my ATV just fine, just like with Apple's own Remote app. No big whoop. But I couldn't find any hint of AirPlay. So I got all Millennial and called my mom who called the developers' moms and informed them that their sons were denying me entitled right to stream Ernie's Rubber Ducky song to my TV for my own entitled children to see.

Or I just opened up YouTube, tapped the output button and selected the ATV. And it worked. Huzzah, yadda, yadda.

I'm glad it worked. I'm glad it was easy. I'm glad it was cheap. It'll tide me over until I upgrade everything (and will probably end up with some actual Apple TV TV instead of a box). But, of course, it's only halfway there. I can stream YouTube, my own videos and my own photos. But no mirroring of apps. So, no A Charlie Brown Christmas or The Monster at the End of This Book in 720p semi-glory.

Oh well. Not bad for mildly aged tech.

Later, Fox

Cue Mr. Collins, Mr. Phil Collins
by Jason Fox — 11:17 AM on November 30, 2011

Recently, I completed what felt like my forty-third Hackintosh build. It was, in fact, only my second assemblage of The Supreme Hackintosh. But the first that actually works as intended. At least so far. I did have to do one Time Machine restore after some unknown Zach Galligan pet weaseled into my system and corrupted the boot files. Otherwise, life with TSH 2.0 has been so peachy I'm considering buying a couple of old claw-foot bathtubs and putting them in a random field somewhere. So, to celebrate this triumph over kexts and BIOS settings, I did what any nerd would do: I bought a MacBook Air.

Yes, it's true. I've paired my all-conquering, quad core-crushing, 4.6GHz-cranking, 16,000 Geekbench score-sporting beast with a dual-core, 1.7GHz lightweight that has one-quarter the RAM and one-seventeenth the storage capacity. All for about the same price. Obviously, I've been dipping into Grandpa's special Christmas eggnog a bit early this year. And by "special" I mean "27-years-old," since Grandpa passed in 1984.

But before you lambaste me for caving in to good looks over performance (or insist I could've hacked an Asus Transformer Prime), let me 'splain. I work from home. I have three kids. Little kids. Awesome kids. Exuberant kids. Loud kids. The Hackintosh is many things, but portable is not one of them. So, when work really needs to get done, I have two choices: hit a Starbucks knock-off or grab the duct tape. (Just kidding! Gaffer's tape is the preferred adhesive for quieting tots.) Opting for option one meant exercising my option to abscond with my wife's MacBook Pro. Which used to be my MacBook Pro—a classic from 2006 with a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo processor and three fun-filled gigs of RAM. A machine whose fans seem permanently set to maximum spin. For many reasons, including wifely glares, I usually stayed put at the homestead.

And then I found it. A 2011 MacBook Air with a 13.3-inch screen, 4GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. Barely used. Wrapped in Zagg's InvisiShield—and installed at the Zagg training facility in Utah, no less! All for over $200 less than Apple charges. Even less than Amazon or MacMall. And there it was on eBay. No one bought it for three days due to what I can only guess was a listing snafu on the part of the seller (hint: use 13 and not 13.3 for screen size). It was a sign. On omen. Another synonym. It was meant to be. Sure, I'd have to sell my nice Martin acoustic and Epiphone Elite electric to pay for it, but who was I kidding? The Martin was way too nice given my abilities and I didn't even own an amp anymore for the Elite. And Walmart sells those $99 Stratocrapster setups anyway, right? Right?! Right.

Buy now? Yes, please.

Two days later, it arrived. Packaged as if delivered straight from Apple. The eBay seller wasn't exaggerating—the thing was flawless. And so, so light. I immediately put it in a manila folder and sent it to my wife via inter-home mail. Actually, what I really did first was start migrating files from the Hack. Over Wi-Fi. Slowly. Yes, while 802.11n is nifty for many things, transferring 200 gigs of junk still takes time. So I went to Fry's and bought a USB-to-Ethernet adapter. Not Apple's, which is a 10/100Mbps job. Bah! I snagged a Gigabit version for the same price. No, USB 2.0 can't handle Gigabit transfer speeds, but 320Mbits beats 100 by, I think, 3.2 times.

Of course, sacrifices had to be made due to the MBA's meager 256GB of storage. Fortunately, iCloud and iTunes Match made it unnecessary to copy over my music library. All I really needed were apps and a subset of client files. And with my handy-dandy Dropbox account, I could be sure I was working on current versions of whatever current projects I was currently working on while eating currant curry.

Otherwise, the MBA works like a Dancing with the Stars champ. Lithe, just powerful enough, and covered in a glowing sheen. Although I prefer Apple aluminum to DWTS spray-on orange. It's like having an iPad. That you can type on. And it has all your real apps. If I could detach the screen and start dragging files around with my finger it'd be perfect. Or perfect enough for now.

I once thought the MacBook Air line was rather silly. Because it was. Way too slow, way too little storage, way too little connectivity. I once still used the DVD drive with regularity. But the 2011 Sandy Bridge model is a real keeper. Maybe not for everyone. And it really can only serve as my secondary machine. But for someone like my wife, it's just right. Which is probably why Apple is reportedly busy putting the finishing touches on a 15-inch version.

Godspeed, gentlemen. Now harass your Chinese suppliers until a 1TB SSD is cost-effective.

Later,

Fox

The Supreme Hackintosh 2.0 part II: Ode to Joy?
by Jason Fox — 11:46 PM on November 15, 2011

Welcome, MacHolios (are you threatening me?). Join me now on a mythical, mystical, magical stroll down the paths of hardware procurement and operating system tomfoolery. 'Tis a journey filled with promises of cotton candy Geekbench scores, OS X Aslan compatibility and value, value, value. But also a road fraught with fraughtiness, oily kernel panics, network interface naming issues and a possible meltdown of the family's main memory repository.

We begin with the hardware. Since this is hack build numero dos, I only needed to procure a smattering of new bits: a Sandy Bridge motherboard, a new CPU, and RAM. I kept the case (Antec Sonata III), four SATA hard drives, a DVD writer, and a GeForce 9800 GTX graphics card. I considered (and still am considering) upgrading from the 9800, but wanted to do the initial re-build as cheaply as possible.

For the motherboard, I once again plead with the overlord of The Tech Report. Scott found a Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3. The Gigabyte Z68 series is the preferred board over at TonymacX86.com for Sandy Bridge builds, mainly due to the ease of overclocking. I think. But, after the issues I had the first time around, I wasn't going to venture out on my own with this decision.

Next up, the processor. This one you can probably guess. Exactly. I decided to build a Hack SE and pulled a Motorola 68000 from an old Amiga 500. I then rejiggered a Crutchfield wiring harness for a 1995 Isuzu Rodeo I still had in my random cable bin to get the contacts on the CPU to work in the LGA1155 socket. Cake. Then I put down the special brownies and headed to Microcenter for an Intel Core i7-2600K. That's right, I bought from a local retailer and paid sales tax. Why? Because, as the guy at Microcenter admitted, they sell processors as a loss leader in hopes of selling you more stuff. In this case, the 2600K was cheaper, even with tax, than the cheapest place I could find online by about five bucks. Madness. And for the Mac folks out there, the "K" in the name means the processor is unlocked and ready for sweet, sweet overclocking.

I also live near a Fry's. Which, for those who have never experienced one, is a bit like a giant Radio Shack but with more of a used car dealership vibe. Lots of stuff—from TVs to appliances to computer bits (even Mac)—most of which you should never buy unless it's on sale. Which the 16GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM I purchased was. And it had a rebate. Dropping $75 on that much RAM is not a bad thing. Especially since, as I've mentioned every single time I've talked about RAM prices, I once spent $1,100 on 32MB. That's an "M," people. Yes, I'm that old. No, I was not that rich.

Now for the assembly. The Sonata is a pretty decent case, but I do wish I'd opted for a full tower instead of a mid. Mainly because my hands seem to grow like the Grinch's heart whenever I reach them inside a case or try to wire a car a stereo. But since I couldn't quite justify one of those Stormtrooper-meets-Batman Thermaltake Level 10 jobs (I have no idea if they're any good—why research when you can't afford to buy, eh?), I stuck with risking bloody knuckles to save a few bones.

After connecting the myriad cables to their respective connectors, it was time for the real fun to begin. Hopefully, it would not be ironic fun. Which isn't fun at all. First, I had to install Snow Leopard 10.6.8 so I could download Lion from the App Store. Following Tonymac's procedure here, I did just that. (And for those wondering at home, I installed the new system to the drive I had been using to backup my A/V files and not my current system drive. I may be an idiot, but I'm not dumb.) It actually worked. The first time. I almost stopped right there so as not to press my luck. But then the spirit of the late, great Peter Tomarken appeared in some thermal grease I'd yet to clean off my thumb and encouraged me to go for the big money while promising no whammies. Knowing not to doubt greased-based manifestations, I began the final chapter. Or countdown if you want the Europe song stuck in your head. Which it now is. You're welcome.

Once again, Tonymac provided the easy-breezy guide to Lion installation. A guide he has since updated to be even easier. The installation process itself was, not surprisingly, straightforward. But the proof isn't in the install. It's in the booting.

I booted.

I waited.

The screen went white.

The screen stayed white.

Then it happened. The glorious you've-just-installed-a-new-Mac-OS-setup-wizard-thing appeared! I busted out a puffy shirt and yelled huzzah! After getting past the wizard folderol, I made it to the desktop. Which I had also managed with my previous motherboard/CPU when the graphics demons wrecked everything. But not this time. No graphics issues. I should note that I was using the 9800 GTX and not the Z68's onboard HD 3000 graphics. I had read that using the onboard graphics had proven unreliable on Hackintoshes, so I went with the card. Later, while searching other issues, I discovered that all I needed to do was set some VRAM buffer sizes in BIOS to get the HD 3000 bits to work. And maybe they do, but I'm not in the mood to jack with iffy integrated graphics that probably aren't as good anyway.

A couple of minor problems did pop up. I had the same UUID issue that I'd encountered with my previous build. An issue that, left unresolved, prevents you from using the iTunes Store or the App Store. Fortunately, that fix was easy to find, since it's a common issue. A less common issue was the fact I could only plug in three of my hard drives. When I would plug in my Time Machine drive (at all, not only as the fourth), the machine wouldn't boot. The solution wasn't easy to find, but was easy to implement. Turns out Darwin gets stuck in some weird request loop and a simple addition to the bootloader script fixed the issue. Although no one has yet fixed Apple's issue of not being able to re-use a Time Machine backup set when you migrate machines. You can pull data from it, true. But you have to backup from scratch. Yay.

And that was it. Seriously. Nothing weird. No flaky bootloader issues like my first Hackintosh. No odd freezes. No clusters of unexplained kernel panics. Just a 4.6GHz (any faster caused crashes) Hackintosh spitting out Geekbench scores of 15,800. My first Hack rarely cracked 9,000. I even found a Bluetooth adapter on eBay for five bucks ($1.88 if you don't mind getting it from Hong Kong) that worked out of the box—I can finally use my Magic Mouse at home. I am very, very pleased.

The system profiler does not report the overclocked CPU speed. Bummer.

Geekbench doesn't see the CPU overclocking, either. Or get the bus speed correct. Whatever.

So, will I keep going down the Hackintosh route? I vowed "never again" after the first go-round. But now I'm not so sure. The resources are easier to find. The installs are simpler. And the value equation continues to be awesome. So, it depends. If I'm at a place in my life where I've got time to do it, I may give it another go in a couple of years. Unless my wife threatens to kill me. Which would not be without precedent.

But for now, joy does indeed reign supreme.

Later,

Fox

--- UPDATE - 11/17/2011 ---

I forgot one bit of oddness to report. My Hackintosh suffers from what is apparently a well-known bug with Gigabyte boards: It loses Ethernet connectivity if it's been shut down. The solution is to simply turn off main power to the case for a few seconds. An easy solution that took me a couple of hours to hunt down during the build. As I tend to leave my machine on for long periods of time, I had actually forgotten about this until this morning. When I couldn't get online.