Have Laptop Will Travel

OS X Update Kills Netbook Hackintosh Capabilities?

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Now this is just a rumor, but if this is true, man, this is going to suck big time for all you hackintosh enthusiasts. You see, the upcoming 10.6.2 update to Mac OS X apparently changes the way the OS interacts with the CPU. The changes are so drastic that it looks like the new version of OS X will not work with machines using Intel Atom processors.

We don’t know if it’s a necessity on Apple’s part or they just decided to annoy the hell out of hackintosh owners, but either way it is a bummer.

Of course, it might change and the final version of OS X 10.6.2 might just support Atom (heh, fat chance). But until then, hackintosh owners are advised to stay away from 10.6.2.

Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 now available for download

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If you haven’t heard yet, Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 is now available for download. To be honest, I’ve stayed away from Firefox for some time now because of the darned 3.5 version. It’s just too crash-happy on my Asus Eee PC.

I’m using it, and so far so good. Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 incorporates the following new features:

  • Users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
  • Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
  • Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
  • Support for the WOFF font format.
  • Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
  • Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.

Web developers and Add-on developers should read more detail about the many new features in Firefox 3.6 for developers on the Mozilla Developer Center. For the full list of changes since the alpha release, see this list (it’s big).

Please use the following links to download Firefox 3.6 Beta, or visit the beta download page:

Since this is a beta release, the usual caveats apply of course. For those using netbooks, how is Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 doing so far for you?

Jolicloud netbook OS Alpha users can invite friends

So let’s say you’ve been using the Jolicloud netbook OS for some time now. And you want your friends to actually join you for the ride, but dang, it’s a closed alpha and you can’t get your friends to use the new OS.

Now if you’re a Jolicloud user, you should be able to see 10 invites in your homebase so you can get your friends to use Jolicloud. If you have a friend who uses Jolicloud, this is the perfect time to bug your friend as well.

New Google Chrome beta features zippier performance

Subcribers to Google’s beta channel can now play with a new beta of Google’s hot Chrome browser. Non subscribers will usually get the stable builds of these beta versions at a latter date.

So what should we expect from this beta? Well, first, it is going to be a faster browsing experience. Benchmarks show that a 30 percent increase in performance can be expected from the new build. The benchmarks used are the V8 and SunSpider benchmarks, this means you can expect significant speed boosts in running JavaScript.

The improvements do not end with faster performance though. Google has programmed Chrome to be smarter in prioritizing the loading of pages when a user opens a new web page while other pages are still loading.

Chrome’s New Tabs page has also been improved along with the unique Omnibox. The New Tabs page is now customizable. Users can now pin frequently visited sites in certain locations. The Omnibox now also includes icons next to the suggestions as a way of differentiating between a web site address or a bookmark. An additional aesthetic improvement is the addition of customizable themes.

If you want to try it for yourself now, subscribe to Google’s beta channel. But if you’re not a fan of unstable betas, then just wait for when Google officially releases it.

Update 10.5.8 fixes vulnerabilities in Mac OS

Macintosh users should brace for another round of updates as Apple releases Security Update 2009 – 003 and Mac OS X v10.5.8.

The new updates address about 18 security vulnerabilities. Most of the identified vulnerabilities are considered critical and could have the potential of actually being exploited. For example, a vulnerability in the ColorSync profile could mean that opening a malicious image file will result in someone taking over your computer. Other similar flaws have been plugged with the new update. Among these is a potentially catastrophic vulnerability regarding AppleTalk response packets maliciously encoded that can execute arbitrary code execution.

You can access the update by visiting http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/.