Lifehacker.Com Editor Builds a “Mac” PC for under $800

Last October I reported on how hackers had found a way to install Apple’s Mac OS X on regular old cheap PC hardware which attracted a lot of attention. It seems the folks at the productivity tips site Lifehacker.Com were intrigued enough to give it a shot.

“…Building a DIY Mac requires some work on your part, so be ready to dedicate time to this project. To make things as easy as possible, I’m going to lay out how I built my Hackintosh from start to finish, from the hardware I used to the final patches I applied to the Leopard install. If you can build a Lego set and transcribe text, you’ve got all the basic skills required”

“…All of your hardware should work exactly as you’d expect. Your sound, networking, and video will all work off the bat. (I haven’t tested the motherboard’s built-in wireless yet, but it reportedly works.) Your iPods will sync flawlessly, and CDs and DVDs read and burn just as you’d expect. Mail, Address Book, iTunes, and everything else I’ve tried so far work flawlessly. Firefox is browsing, Quicksilver is doing it’s thing, Spaces are rocking, Stacks are stacking, Cover Flow is flowing, and Quick Look is previewing.” Read the full story over on Lifehacker.Com

Installing Mac OS X Leopard on a PC

…“You can build your system for a lot less than a real Mac and get the performance of a top-dollar Apple machine. This is fact and a lot of the real Mac users will deny, but it is fact. My machine runs a e4300 Core Duo Processor over-clocked to 3.40 GHZ. Where can you get a 3.4-GHz Mac? It will cost you a fortune. I have 1066-MHz DDR2 memory. Where can you get that on a real Mac???”

“Why run OS X? Well, when you are just used to Windows, it is like living inside a house and not experimenting the whole world out there. Once you get out of it, it is just amazing. Mac is just that: You just feel like glued to the computer. Everything is just beautiful, the interface, the stability. Once you experiment it, you don’t want to go back to windows. Trust me.” Read the full how-to guide on OSx86Scene.com (found on MacUser.Com)

This post has been read by 901 unique visitors since being posted. (as of Nov 16 2007)

If Microsoft made toasters

I believe that Microsoft’s domination of the PC software market has dulled and altered our expectations of the ‘fit for purpose’ and ‘use from the box’ aspect of all - not just computer software - products we now shell out our hard earned for. Read more.

ExtremeTech: DirextX 10 Report Card.

To put it bluntly, the early news is not good. At this point, I’d give DirectX 10 in combination with the new generation of DirectX 10 hardware a C-. The job gets done, but it’s not pretty, elegant, nor particularly inspiring. Read more.

Play the hottest upcoming PC Game “Crysis” on a Mac!

Is gaming the one thing preventing you from jumping ship and moving from a Windows PC to a Mac? Well that excuse is now null and void. Now that Intel chips are inside all Macs and you can run Windows XP or Windows Vista on a Mac the door is open for PC gaming on a Mac. But what about all those bleeding edge games that make owning a PC a neccesity? Also a null and void argument. The newest Macbook Pro’s (and likely the impending new iMacs as well.) feature DirectX 10 capable Nvidia 8600 cards. Sweeeeeetness!

[Oct 31st 07 Update:] Since this post is getting a lot of traffic this week, I thought I’d link to this article for those still not quite ready to make the leap… Installing OS X Leopard on a high end PC (Tutorial)

[Feb 28th 08 Update:] This is now the hottest post on this site. Since being posted it has been read by 8,216 visitors (That’s a whole lot of gamers interested in gaming on a Mac.) Please check back soon for a follow up article where I will be running and benchmarking Crysis on a Mac.

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Nvidia’s “Windows Vista Capable” Faces Lawsuit.

Windows Vista users’ ongoing frustrations with graphics-card maker Nvidia have boiled over. A new Web site, NvidiaClassAction.info, created by IT consultant Dan Goldman, is gauging whether there is sufficient user interest to launch a class-action suit against Nvidia over the vendor’s allegedly spotty Windows Vista support. Read more.