Posts tagged with "mac"

Install OS X On Your Chrome Notebook with Luigi

Got an early Cr-48 unit and you’re already tired of the demo nature of Chrome OS? Perhaps you’re simply looking for a way to do more with the Chrome notebook, like install a new OS on it? Two days ago, we saw hackers managed to install Windows and Mac OS X on the Cr-48, but the process required some serious manual tweaking. Luigi, a firmware toolkit developed by well-known Chrome OS “all-star” Hexxeh, can flash the Cr-48 device to install any OS “unmodified”. It’s fairly easy to use, but it still requires you to open the Chrome notebook and activate the developer mode.

However, it does require you to crack open your Cr-48. This is actually a security feature (if you can flash your firmware, so could a malicious program, and that could mean bricked device!), and so to disable it, you simply need to remove the bottom cover of your device. This does, of course, void any warranty you might have with Google and so you do so entirely at your own risk. This could, if it were to go wrong, turn your device into a shiny paperweight. Don’t come crying if it does.

To install Luigi you need to run a few terminal commands. After that, once the device is flashed and the custom firmware installed, you can plug in any USB stick or CD to install your new OS, like Snow Leopard. Sounds like fun if you have a Cr-48.

Demo video below. Read more

Ecoute 2.0 - Small, Powerful Alternative to iTunes

Just like any other alternative to iTunes on the Mac, Ecoute has been around for a while. Since Apple shipped its very own music player and digital hub years ago, many developers have tried to come up with original solutions for all those who couldn’t stand iTunes. And as iTunes grew bigger to accommodate apps, books, podcasts and just about anything you can put on an iPhone or iPod, thousands of users and even more developers started feeling the need of a minimal music player, again. What began as a hobby for a limited number of users (“let’s not use iTunes for music”) evolved into a real segment of a market willing to keep iTunes closed to listen to music libraries. And I understand the position of the users and developers that first thought about jumping out of iTunes: why would one need to stare at iTunes and all its features and options all the time, when you just need to listen to some music?

In spite of iTunes becoming many people’s less used music player over time, the apps that have surfaced in the past years that allow us to just play music are, in most cases, nothing but standalone iTunes controllers that strip away the clutter and focus on albums, artists and songs. They fetch a user’s library, take the music out of it and display it into a minimal, sometimes non-existent, user interface. Coversutra, Bowtie: they are two popular iTunes controllers for OS X that have gained support for other features such as last.fm scrobbling and iOS remote streaming. But in the end, they rely on iTunes.

So did Ecoute 1.0, and so does the just-released Ecoute 2.0. Ecoute is a well-known music player for OS X that plays music from iTunes, but doesn’t require you to keep iTunes running in the background. It automatically finds a user’s iTunes library file and takes content from there. It comes with a neat desktop widget for quick play / pause actions, but it’s also got its dedicated interface. Ecoute 2.0 depends on iTunes, but it adds great value while giving you a reason to stay out of Apple’s software at the same time. Read more

MacStories’ 2010 Roundup: Top 8 Apps for Kids

Welcome to another MacStories’ 2010 Roundup! In this new series, we collect the best apps released in 2010 for the Mac, iPhone and iPad — apps we have or will feature here on MacStories. Only the best apps, both free and paid. Apps you shouldn’t miss.

Do your kids often ask you do play with your iPads or iPhones? I know my 3.5 year old son does, he’s always asking me! Entertain your little ones with these iOS apps and games, great for toddlers, preschoolers, and big kids at heart.

Why 8? Because we tried and tried to narrow it down to 5 but we couldn’t do it! So, we have collected our top 8 apps for kids released this year. We think they are great apps you should go install right now. We could have included more, but we wanted to bring some of the best to your attention, not just the “pretty good” ones.

So jump after the break, and check our Top 8 list of kid’s apps for iOS.

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QuickCursor Brings Text Editors To Other Apps - Coming To The Mac App Store

Coming soon to the Mac App Store (which opens for business on January 6), QuickCursor is a new utility by HogBay Software (WriteRoom, PlainText) which will help you write text in any Mac app using your favorite text editor.

Say you’re composing a new message in Gmail through Safari, or writing down a long note attached to a task in OmniFocus; wouldn’t it be great to use your favorite text editor instead of an app’s standard text field? QuickCursor will do just that: as you can see in the demo video on HogBay’s website, with a keyboard shortcut you’ll be able to fire up your text editor of choice, write, close it and have the changes saved in the app you were using in the first place, like Gmail.

QuickCursor will work with a variety of text editors including the popular Espresso, WriteRoom and TextMate. We don’t know if the app will be available on January 6th for the Mac App Store grand opening, but we’re surely looking forward to it.

#MacStoriesDeals - Tuesday

Is your wallet surviving all the holidays? Here’s some great deals for today on iOS & Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get ‘em while they’re hot! iOS apps price drops are starting to show up again too!

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