Ashgadgets

Installing OS X Lion using a thumbdrive

ashvala — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 16:59:16 +0000

Welcome back to Ashgadgets.wordpress.com. Today’s post will be about creating a USB thumb drive which you can use to install OS X lion on supported Macs.

First off, here are a list of things you need:

A Mac running Snow Leopard version 10.6.6 or higher
$30 to spare
A thumb drive with a capacity of 5 Gigabytes or more.

Instructions:

Download the Lion Update app from the Mac App Store
Give the download some time, do something *productive* in those couple of hours.
After it finishes downloading, open Finder and click on the Applications directory
Scroll through the list until you see an “Install Mac OS X Lion” label.
Right click and select: “Show Package Contents”
Now follow this Linar Directory hierarchy: Contents > SharedSupport >
Plug in your thumb drive and open Disk Utility. (A spotlight search should suffice)
From the finder window, drag and drop the .dmg file you find in the SharedSupport directory into DiskUtility.
Return to Disk Utility, select the USB drive and select the partition tab
Click on the Current Scheme button and select single partition
Set partition format to Mac OS Extended.
Click on the options button below the partition table and select “GUID” as the partition table.
Click “apply”
Select the “Restore” button
Drag “InstallESD.dmg” into the “Source” field
Drag the partition you just created into the “Destination” field
Select restore and wait for 10 minutes
After the restoration is complete, restart your machine.

Whilst rebooting your machine, press the alt key as it boots up. You should see a “Mac OS X” label with a USB logo. The rest is fairly elementary. You should select the second option on the screen and there.

The only good thing that the thumb drive provides you with is that it’s a permanent copy of OS X Lion you possess. The downloaded file self-destructs after installation, and in case anything goes awry, you have a thumbdrive which you can use to restore your mac.

iPhone 4 vs iPhone 3Gs… #youprefer

ashvala — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:13:26 +0000

Here we go… Last year’s *latest* new iPhone is now being pitted against the new iPhone 4… Here is how they stack up:

1. Pixel Densities -

iPhone 4: 336 PPI

iPhone 3Gs: 163PPI

2.Resolution -

iPhone 4: 960×640

iPhone 3Gs: 320×480

3.Cameras -

iPhone 4: 5MP with LED flash+ Front Facing camera.

iPhone 3Gs: 3MP.

4.Processors:

iPhone 4: 1GHz Apple A4.

iPhone 3Gs: 600 MHz ARM A8 based.

5.Motion sensing:

iPhone 4: 3 axis Gyroscope(it is a enhancement to the Accelerometer)

iPhone 3Gs: 3 Axis accelerometer

6.Battery life:

iPhone 4:

Talk time:
Up to 7 hours on 3G;
up to 14 hours on 2G

Standby time:
Up to 300 hours

Internet use:
Up to 6 hours on 3G;
up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi

Audio playback:
Up to 40 hours

Video playback:
Up to 10 hours

iPhone 3G:

Talk time:
Up to 5 hours on 3G;
up to 12 hours on 2G

Standby time:
Up to 300 hours

Internet use:
Up to 5 hours on 3G;
up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi

Audio playback:
Up to 30 hours

Video playback:
Up to 10 hours

——————–

That should tell you a story…

Prices: $199 for the 16GB iPhone 4| $299 for 32GB iPhone 4| $99 for 8GB iPhone 3Gs.

It all boggles down to one’s personal choice. #youprefer.

iPhone 4 has arrived… And here is why you must buy:

ashvala — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:23:52 +0000

iPhone 4 is here!

Last Night(I stay in India =P), Steve Jobs released the magic trackpad… iPhone 4!

Well, here is why you must buy the phone, on June 28th…

It is a VAST improvement over iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 3G, iPhone 2G…
It is thinner than most smartphones in the market today.
It comes with a fabulous 5 MP camera with LED flash.
It records 720p HD videos at 30FPS.
It is extremely powerful! It runs on the same A4 chip that the iPad uses.
It runs iOS 4, so multitasking is a go.

Available June 24th… In USA, and other select nations…

Remains of the day… iPhone 3G starts running Google Android Froyo…

ashvala — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:56:04 +0000

Surely, we have heard of this before: iPhone 2G and 3G runs the Android OS. 2G and 3G ran (atleast I suspect) Android 1.6. Today, a person managed to boot Froyo(Yep, the latest android incarnation) on his iPhone 3G. Although the device does not recognize things like Wi-Fi, the GPU and overheats rather quickly, I am fairly certain that in the course of time, it will over come all those issues.

Pre-WWDC leaks cometh — Magic Trackpad…

ashvala — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:31:38 +0000

Magic Trackpad... By Apple

Like always… Image courtesy: http://engadget.com

Wow, a new apple peripheral… seems like Apple made it’s Multi-touch trackpad on their MacBooks now a peripheral for the desktop machines. Lets hope it accepts digitizers!

(Stay tuned for more posts on this year’s WWDC conference)

Lookit! Who has more security flaws!

ashvala — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:11:24 +0000

Sigh... Flash is it.

…And you thought Windows was the most insecure piece of software of all time.

(Note, this is for flash 10.0.45.2, adobe PDF reader 9.x, everything prior to these two mentioned wares)…

Just click here for more info. =D

Do let me know if anyone hears SPJ laughing out loud.

WWDC 2010 Steve Jobs’ keynote tomorrow… Predictions:

ashvala — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:02:51 +0000

WWDC or the World wide developer’s conference is where Apple devs meet, and Steve Jobs’ announces products and upgrades to their Macs and iPhones. So here come the predictions:

iPhone HD… [You know? Gizmodo's "A guy walks into a bar" iPhone]
MacBook Air refresh [Long adue... I guess Intel i3 + NVidia 330M are on the cards]
Mac OS X 10.7 [Apple has a habit of previewing new operating systems at WWDC]
Safari 5 [You know... With the new OS comes the new Web browser]
32 Terabyte RAM support [Because 2GB is not enough...(Note: Apple sez SL can support 16TB of RAM!)]
Exclusion of the iPhone 3G from the product line [This is bound to happen].

Well, lets just see what happens… Just wait for a day and see.

******WARNING: THIS WAS NOT A SPOILER!******

iPad is now up for pre order. To buy or not to!?

ashvala — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 07:40:04 +0000

Ok, iPad went up for per order 2 days back. The $499 question is whether it is actually worth buying an iPad…

I mentioned in all my previous posts, iPad is not really worth buying. I’d still say that…

Apple has a very very bad record with First Generation products, be it iMac, iPhone, Mac Mini et al. It is only with the second and third generations, that they become
any better as a device. The first gen iPhone, back in 2007 lacked a decent camera, 3G, GPS, some things phones made by Samsung and LG were already coming with. Then they released 3G, which fixed 2 of the 3 above mentioned issues.

The iPad is no different. It runs the iPhone OS, does not do Multi-tasking as apple claims as “It drains out your battery life” and does not have a front facing camera.
Perhaps one of the consequences of running the iPhone OS, is probably that you can install *only* Apple approved applications, which is what China does, approve a webpage before viewing.

Microsoft’s UMPCs such as the Samsung Q1UP-V does Multi-Tasking, but probably the only faulting is that it runs XP and does not have a capacitive screen. Or else it is a rather decent tablet.

iPad is even more poorly speced than the OQO machines. They are small and damn powerful. They can even do Hackint0sh! iPad is still stuck with 64GB, 1GHz and a rather useless iPhone OS.

A tablet is supposed to allow people to install Applications at will, probably this did not appear in SJ’s memo. When will I ever get to see Chrome running on the iPad, or when will I see someone run Linux on the iPad!? Distant dreams!?

Maybe, the iPad is just what it is meant to be: Between a laptop and a phone:
No Multitasking
No Phone functionality
No SMS
No application install at will.

I’d say, Wait for the second generation of the iPad to come out, for it will be more better than the one in offer.

Nexus One. My Impressions.

ashvala — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 08:14:27 +0000

Until a few months back, google had not entered the smartphone market. They did. Google released it’s first smartphone Nexus One, in association with HTC mobiles. Thanks to @aakaashjois for letting me use the phone for 30 minutes .

When you first pick up the phone, the first thing you would probably notice is the thinness of the phone. It is incredibly thin and is a hair thinner than the iPhone 3G(s). It was rather amazing that, given the thinness of the device, they managed to cram in more features than the iPhone, like a 5MP camera, a 1GHz Snapdragon and even a AMOLED display, all of which don’t fail to leave an impression.

The big question is, “is it *the* iPhone killer!?”. I’d doubt that statement. Call me a Apple Nazi if you please, but that is what it is, not an iPhone killer. Android and iPhone are poles apart. iPhone is easier to set-up OTB(Out of the box) than it’s rival Nexus One.

One of the main advantages the iPhone possesses is the amount of applications one has at their finger tips, something which android is already catching up on.

On Nexus one, the first thing one would notice is that it is not running the stock andorid UI. It is running a customized UI, such that it can take full advantage of the Snapdragon processor. I did run the multi-touch test, only to be disappointed. I also used the live wallpapers, something which probably holds no significance functionally, but looks fun and crazy.

The Nexus one I used was rooted with the Desire ROM. On the Desire ROM(which is quick[alpha 12]), it comes with HTC’s Leap and sense UI funtionality. Although it did lag a bit, it was usable and quite responsive.

The Nexus One is a step in the right direction for google, it is another wonderful feather in the cap. I’d call it a winner. Like everything in the world, it does come with it’s own pros and cons.

Nexus One — Recommended. 4/5
View This Poll

Of Android, SDK and Customizability:

ashvala — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:44:33 +0000

Well, the Android OS seems to be a big deal in the market today, it seems like it is the ultimate customizable OS and all that, but is it really the one that everyone should use!? I doubt that.

In my experience with the SDK, I have to admit, I have not been able to change the bottom bar! There are several tutorials on the net, which *enlighten* us on how to create a theme… Most of them ask you to root a phone and do lots of stuff! Please! I don’t even have an Android Phone to do any of this rooting and then going to some mode and then putting the theme in business.

The SDK is supposed to allow the user to do stuff the easy way, the Android SDK seems to be the other way round. I created an icon of the same size for the bottom bar, put it into some “android.2-1/data/res/drawable*” and boom, it reverts to the usual 1.6 UI. Howmuch more disappointed can one be!? A reversion of all things! Wonderful!

If there are phones like Hero and Nexus one which come with their own custom UI, mind you, there must be a guy on the net who would have posted an easy tutorial on how to do such changes to the default UI on the SDK. There is none! Which is a pain. Finally, all I want to do, is to create a good, easy-to-use User Interface! Is that too much to ask from google!?

If some one from Google is looking at this, please help me out! Ok?