As you may already know I use Dell Netbooks with Apple OSX and I previously wrote a post about how you can too.

I recently encountered a problem with the Dell Mini (Inspiron) 9 that I found no real helpful solution to fixing on the intarnets, so I thought I’d just take a moment to share what I did to fix it. Sort of.

Whatever you do, don’t buy a new Dell battery before you’ve tried this. If it doesn’t work, you’re probably better off buying a new (used) Mini 9 on e.g. eBay instead, cost/benefit wise. You can always use the old Mini 9 Hackintosh on mains in the kitchen, on the night stand, in the bathroom, give it to someone who could need a computer or whatever.

Problem / Symptoms:

• Battery not recognized on boot up (“Battery not identified, press F1 to continue”)
• OSX reports that the battery is 100% charged (although you know it’s not)
• White power/charging ligt and red low battery warning light blinking, disco style
• Battery will not charge whatever you (even downgrading BIOS to A00) do and will eventually run out of juice
• GOTO 10

Possible Causes:

• BIOS upgraded to A05 or above
• Something else (I have no idea. You tell me.)

Conditions / Prerequisites:

• Dell Mini 9 with blinking leds, disco style
• NetBookInstaller 0.8.4 RC1 “special edition”
• OSX Snow Leopard updated to 10.6.5 installed on said Dell Mini 9 by way of said version of NetBookInstaller
• USB stick with Dell I910 Mini/Vostro A90 USB Key Drive flashBIOS Utility installed (Don’t ask me how to get it. Search around.)
• Make sure the battery is connected to said Dell Mini 9

Recipe / Fix:

• Boot from said “Dell I910 Mini/Vostro A90 USB Key Drive flashBIOS Utility” on said USB stick
• Select the Mini/Inspiron A04 BIOS and flash it
• Wait for the flashing to complete and reboot the Netbook

Et voilà. On boot, there should be no nagging “battery not identified: press F1 to continue”, no more disco blinking of LED lights and the battery will now recharge. I hope. At least it now does for me. For good measures, let the Hackintosh recharge the recommended-from-Dell 12 hours before using it

I’ll mention here that this worked with the original Dell battery that came with the Mini 9 and with my Chinese 8 cell aftermarket battery.

Problems / Still to resolve:

• If you pull the mains power plug out, the red/white disco style blinking will return
• If you pull the mains power and re-insert it, OSX reports that the battery is 100% charged (although it’s not)
• If you pull the mains power and re-insert it, the Hackintosh will not recharge
• GOTO 10

Kludge to the Fix:

• Don’t pull the mains when turned on
• Re-insert mains
• Reboot
• Or turn off, turn on, let boot
• Or keep it turned off, connected to mains, see if the white charging light is on, if the battery is actually charged
• Or rinse, lathe and repeat the flashing of the BIOS if the battery won’t charge once again

Hey, at least you do not need to buy a new battery or a new Dell Mini 9. I never promised you a rose garden.

Here’s the official Dell response to Mini 9 and 10v battery problems on the Dell support forums, although it did not help me initially. I tried to flash the BIOS back to A00 through each revision up to and including A06 with no positive result. Flashing directly from A06 to A04 with the battery inserted seems to have worked for me.

This has nothing to do with the “Airplane Mode” on Linux issue or the 12 hours charge-up battery issue, mind you. Those are red herrings if you’re using OSX and have the symptoms I described above.

In other personal Hackintosh news, I recently acquired a Dell Mini 10v off of eBay and upgraded it with 2GB RAM, a 60G SSD and OSX 10.6.5. I find the size of the keys more convenient for work use than the Mini 9. My experience so far is that the Mini 10v works flawlessly with OSX 10.6.5 – including sleep. I’d recommend it instead of the Mini 9 if you’d ask for my opinion on the two.

I do have a 3G iPad and I’m really happy with it, should you be wondering, but I still find myself needing a “real” OS for work use from time to time. Maybe it’s more due to my mouse, keyboard, desktop paradigm conditioning over the years than the iPad iOS and Apps. Sure, I’d really love to get the new MacBook Air, but as a bootstrapping entrepreneur, I find the cost/benefit of a Hackintosh to be the more conscientious choice at the moment.

Do you use OSX on non-Apple hardware? Tell me about your experiences.

Bonus Material:

How to change the HD for a SSD in a Dell Mini 10v

How to upgrade the RAM in a Dell Mini 10v (Part 1 of 2)

How to upgrade the RAM in a Dell Mini 10v (Part 2 of 2)

I thought I’d give you guys a heads up on how I’ve fared with my Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh so far.

Yesterday the Hackintosh asked me to download an Apple update and – fully acknowledging the risks – I installed it. Needless to say, the Hackintosh would not boot afterwards. As of yesterday I’m running Windows XP on the netbook again so be warned – you may not want to be as stupid adventerous as me.

That notwithstanding, the following issues would need to be resolved for me to be running OSX on the netbook permanently:

• No audio out (of the stereo jack that is – the speakers worked)

• No audio in (OSX could not find an input device, no mic!)

• No second monitor output (crashes when cable inserted in VGA port)

• No standby (needed to disable standby as it would crash, need reboot)

Some of you pundits out there may already know how to fix these issues, but I didn’t have the time so far to research and apply them myself.

Perhaps I’ll give OSX a second try on the netbook, but for now Windows XP will have to do – although it certainly is a rather drab experience after a couple of weeks with OSX.

Please do let me know how you’ve fared so far! Did you have any issues? Did you manage to solve them? How did you do it?

The following is a  description of how I installed OSX on my Netbook in case you were wondering. Update: Later I also wrote a post about how fix potential Mini 9 battery issues and upgrade RAM and installing an SSD with a Dell Mini 10.

As a short disclaimer I’d better tell you that I’m not a Mac. Never been. I’m pragmatic. To me, operating systems are just a means to an end. I don’t really care if it is from Finland, Redmond or Cupertino as long as it gets my job done. To date, Microsoft Windows got the job done just fine for me. Your mileage may however vary and I respect that.

But as Apple’s hardware and software has been improving from insanely overpriced and terribly underpowered to just slightly overpriced and adequately powered I’ve been thinking of making the switch. As my Netbook is currently my primary computer (after the iPhone, if you will), I figured installing OSX on it would be a low cost entry point to the weird and hopefully wonderful World of Apple OSX – I like to try before I buy. That and the fact that it makes for a nice talking piece in business meetings. ;)

I will get back to you with my experiences with the Hackintosh Netbook and OSX in a later post.

Enough gay banter. Let’s talk shop.

Hardware

• Dell Inspirion Mini 9

I don’t think you can get these directly from Dell anymore. I got mine new for ca. 200,- € on eBay with 16 GB SSD and 2 GB RAM.

• 8 GB USB memory stick

This is what you’ll first be installing OSX and Netbook Installer on. See below.

• A real OSX Mac with a DVD drive and admin priveleges

Access to a Mac is not strictly necessary, but it’s how I did it. Check out the other guides for more install options.

Software

• Netbook Installer

This is the (OSX) software that does all the magic, making OSX think your Netbook is a Mac, installing necessary modifications and making your USB memory stick boot.

• Original Apple OSX DVD

Regardless if you love or hate Apple, please show the developers some respect and buy an original DVD. A Snow Leopard upgrade DVD will also work and is cheaper than the whole hog. However, I’m not sure about the legality of installing from the upgrade DVD alone so do not consider this an endorsement of such a procedure.

The Recipe

All set? Got all the ingredients listed above at hand? Good. Now go follow the excellent instructions from mechdrew. FOLLOW. EACH. AND. EVERY. SINGLE. STEP. That’s it! Hopefully. And as always – consider paying your dues and donate to the developer(s).

Whoops

I almost got it right on the first try. Almost. Seems like I skipped a little too much of the instructions. Don’t be as stupid as me. Read the instructions carefully and follow each and every step – no matter how silly or weird they might seem. My mistake was not turning on WiFi and Bluetooth using Dell’s tool before turning off the Netbook and installing OSX.

Here’s an overview what you might need if you screw up like me and feel adventurous enough to give it a second or hundredth try:

Optional hardware

• USB DVD drive

To reinstall your Dell Windows XP OEM CD and Dell Recovery DVD.

• Another USB memory stick

To install PE the Builder image on. See below.

Optional software

• Dell Windows XP Home OEM CD

To reinstall XP if need be. Came with your purchase – hopefully.

• Dell Recovery DVD

To reinstall Netbook specific drivers if need be. Came with your purchase – hopefully.

• PE Builder

To create a bootable image of XP to put on a USB memory stick if need be. PE Builder will create a minimal version of your Windows OEM CD and comes with a handy set of tools of it’s own. Consider paying respect and donate to the developer if you like it.

IMPORTANT: When creating your PE Builder image, open the plugins prefs in the PE Builder application and enable “RpcSS needs to launch DComLaunch Service first – SP2 only”. You won’t be able to partition your disk(s) using diskpart without this plugin enabled.

• UBUSB

To put your PE Builder created image on your other memory stick and make it bootable.

The Optional Recipe

I experienced a world of pain trying to reinstall XP and Dell’s tools just so I could turn wireless on again. However, you may fare better. The point is not to give up.

Sometimes the OSX install will stop with an error message – just boot your PE image (see below) and reformat the disk and try again. Sometimes OSX won’t boot after installation – just turn the Netbook off and on again. It will eventually boot for you. I hope.

I dealt with disk problems during install by making an image of the Dell Windows XP Home OEM CD with PE Builder (remember to activate plugin – see above), copying it to another memory stick using UBUSB and booting from said stick. I would format, partition and rebuild as needed.

To reinstall Windows I needed a USB DVD drive to boot the Dell Windows XP Home OEM CD. Nothing else worked for me. My Samsung USB DVD writer worked just fine, though. If installing Windows gives you trouble, boot your PE Builder image and partition/activate/format your disk and fiddle about as needed.

After sucessfully installing the Dell Windows XP OEM CD, I installed the Dell specific drivers from the Dell Recovery DVD. You’ll have to install every driver and utility one after another manually using Dell’s interface (as far as I could gather). It’s a usability nightmare. Don’t get me started.

The important part is to reinstall all wireless drivers and the utility to turn wireless on and off. There’s a chance you won’t be able to install the Bluetooth drivers. I know I wasn’t. If it happens, just google for the Windows drivers.

After successfully installing all drivers for WiFi and Bluetooth, start the utility to turn wireless on and off from the sys tray and turn everything on. Shut down Windows. Install OSX – now with wireless capability.

Feedback

Have you installed OSX on your Netbook? What was your experience? How did you do it?

I happened to stumble in on an interesting presentation of the software based colour grading tool from Autodesk named ‘Lustre‘ at the IBC 2008 and bagged a small part of it. Have a look for yourself in the videos below.

Apologies for not catching the name of the presenters and for the poor sound quality of my Samsung NV8.

[tags]ibc, ibc08, ibc2008, autodesk, discreet, lustre, colour grading, color grading, colour, colour, post, post production, film, video, lighting, software, digital, film, cinema, cinematography[/tags]

Some of you may know NewTek from the good old Amiga days, the golden era of the VideoToaster and LightWave 3D. I certainly do. I’ve been a fan and user of LightWave 3D over the years.

So, it was with a certain nostalgic fervor I made it over to the NewTek stand at the IBC 2008. It turned out that I was in for a surprise. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that none other than the legendary Kiki Stockhammer is back at NewTek. Have a look for yourself in the video and picture below.

For those of you who might not know, Kiki at one point used to be the figure head of NewTek of sorts.

I lost Kiki off the radar way back when she left NewTek for Play Inc. in the mid to late 90s and was marketing a product called Trinity, a competitor of sorts to the VideoToaster of the time. Now as luck or faith will have it, it looks like Kiki Stockhammer is back with NewTek helping marketing a product named TriCaster – a product not at all unlike the Play Inc. / Trinity – if memory serves me correctly. I’d love to know for a fact if there’s an actual lineage or connection there.

In further cool trivia, Kiki Stockhammer appears to have a star trek sci-fi post punk band called Warp 11. I’d love to check them out if they should ever happen to play gigs in Europe!

[tags]newtek, videotoaster, toaster, trinity, lightwave, lightwave 3d, tricaster, 3d, play tv, star trek, warp 11, play, post production, amiga, play inc, television, video, desktop video, kiki, stockhammer, kiki stockhammer[/tags]

I got to see the worlds largest full HD Plasma, the Panasonic 103″, in action at the IBC 2008. Needless to say, it was quite impressive. Of note, it also featured touch sensitivity / interactivity. Have a look for yourself in the video below.

[tags]display, panasonic, plasma, 103″, hd, full hd, touch screen, touch, interactive, ibc, ibc08, ibc2008[/tags]

Here are some more quick and dirty videos I made of the RED ONE and both of the cameras from IKONOSKOP at the IBC 2008.

RED ONE

A-cam SP16 and dII

IKONOSKOP also has a sort of blog with reports from the IBC 2008.

[tags]red, red one, redone, acam, a-cam, a-cam sp16, super 16, a-cam dII, film, cinema, cinematography, digital, film making, indie, ibc, ibc08, ibc2008, ams, amsterdam[/tags]

Yes, I’m back and as it happens I’m attending the International Broadcast Convention 2008 in Amsterdam and I’ll be posting some impressions over the following days.

The launch of the A-Cam dII from Ikonoskop was my personal highlight today. Check out the friendly presentation given to me at the IBC in the video below. This may even be a world first.

To recap, Ikonoskop launched a Super 16mm film revival when they produced the A-Cam SP-16 – a highly affordable and modern Super 16 motion picture camera – back in 2004. I don’t know about you, but I was quite ecstatic about the camera back then.

Then came the digital revolution with the RED ONE. Sure, I was quite ecstatic about that camera too. However, it was not like you could ever afford one any-day-real-soon-now.

Then we all some creamed our their pants when Nikon finally launched a DSLR with HD video capabilities with the D90 (which was a little late and should have been included with the D300 already, if you ask me).

Today Ikonoskop launched their digital heir (or rather companion) to the A-Cam SP-16, the A-Cam dII. They call it a ‘High Definition RAW Format Motion Picture Camera’. It feels rock solid and very user friendly to the touch.

It’s available from December this year at 6.950,- EUR plus VAT including all you need to get started. That’s HALF the price of a RED ONE body only. You can preorder here.

Many thanks to Daniel Jonsäter who let me record his presentation. Thanks, Daniel!

Contrary to popular belief, Swedes and Norwegians do get along just fine. ;)

[tags]ikonoskop, a-cam, acam, raw, digital, Daniel Jonsäter, cinema, cinematography, film, indie, revolutionary, ibc, ibc2008, nikon, d90, red, redone[/tags]

I was reading Chris Pirillo‘s latest blog entry about backup and file management this morning and it inspired me to share what I do to back up and mirror the important stuff. (Watch the show featuring Chris’ dad if you haven’t already.)

The hardware: Two cheap and identical 500 GB external USB hard drives from TrekStor. € 99,- / USD 135,- each.

The software: MirrorFolder for Windows XP from TechSoft. € 28,5 / USD 39,- per computer license. (If anyone knows of a better software solution for mirroring and for other platforms, please leave a comment!)

Important files and folders on my workstation(s) and laptop are set to be automatically mirrored on both of the external disks. Projects, music, settings, etc are all mirrored on both of the disks for redundancy.

Further more, I can take one of the disks with me on the move without worrying too much about data loss.

Works for me ™.

What do you do? Please share your experiences and leave a comment!

[tags] Vidar Andersen, lessons learned, backup, file management, usb, Joe Pirillo, Chris Pirillo, back-up, MirrorFolder, TrekStor, TechSoft, mirroring, windows xp[/tags]

Some of you may remember Headplay, a wearable display – only a concept and a pitch for VC at the time. After what seems like ages (well, maybe more like six months), I finally got an email from Headplay last night announcing that they are now ready to ship. It’s allegedly available for shipping at USD 499.99.

I had almost forgotten about the concept designed by ideo and written it off as yet another vapourware product. At the time I learned about Headplay, icuity was building up hype for their wearable iPod display. There was also MyVu.

Headplay, as opposed to icuity and MyVu, sports an own media player – a separate box – that can reportedly play most familiar audio and video formats. Furthermore, where as the two other brands supports resolutions of 640 X 480 and 320 X 240 respectively, Headplay touts a native 800 x 600. However, there is no VGA or DVI port, only an y/c (svhs). There’s a page up on the site detailing the specs further.

Let me know how it works for you if you ever get your hands on one – or better yet, send me one to test!

Another new affordable wearable display to check out would be the icuity VR920 which includes stereo vision (Nvidia only) and head tracking. I have no information on how well it works at this time.

I’ve been looking for an affordable wearable display to use with a laptop for a couple of years now. A display I would actually buy would have to have at least 800 x 600 native resolution and a DVI or VGA interface. Optional niceties would be head tracking and stereo (twin) cameras. The threshold for me actually considering a purchase would probably be between USD 500 to 800, depending on specs.

Be sure to leave a comment if you know of other affordable and interesting wearable displays, or maybe you have some ideas for use that you would like to share? I would like to experiment with augmented reality myself. Virtual Light anyone?

[tags] wearable computing, display, goggles, hardware[/tags]