One day last week my Amazon Kindle Fire shut itself down because its battery was empty. I forgot about it for a few days but eventually I hooked it up to a USB charger and left it charging overnight. Next morning I found the Kindle Fire in a reboot loop. When connected to the USB charger, it would reboot itself every 5-10 seconds. When not connected to the USB charger it wouldn’t even turn on. It looked like the battery was so badly discharged that the Fire couldn’t even get to the point where it would start recharging the battery – even with the USB charger cable plugged in. I tried all suggestions I could find, including holding the power button for at least 20 seconds but the Fire still wouldn’t exit the reboot loop.

Sending it in for a replacement was no option since it displayed the yellow boot loader triangle for a few seconds while booting. A pretty obvious sign that this device had been rooted :-/

My plan B is to buy a so called factory cable on eBay in order to find out what’s going wrong with my Fire. Since it takes some time for the cable to arrive from Hongkong, I once again tried to get the Fire out of this cumbersome reboot loop. And guess what, this time it worked! Here’s what I did:

1. Unplug the Kindle Fire from the USB charger cable
2. Press and hold the power button (it should not turn on because the battery has run dry)
3. While still holding the power button, plug the USB charger cable in (it should not turn on yet)
4. Wait for at least 40 seconds while still holding the power button
5. Once the kindle powers on, immediately let go of the power button and pray

For the first time ever, an OS X update breaks compatibility with the X58 Sabertooth chipset. After applying the 10.7.4 update most X58-based Hackintoshs will see (if booted with the -v option) an ACPI related kernel panic or the kernel will just hang early in the boot process with a message like

IOAPIC: Version 0×20 Vectors 64:87
IOAPIC: Version 0×20 Vectors 88:111

Reverting  back to an older AppleACPIPlatform.kext will most likely bring the Hackintosh back from the dead. In order to get access to the disk you’ll need some sort of OS X boot/recovery drive. Make sure you rebuild the kext-cache or temporarily disable support for kernelcache in Chimera/Chameleon.

See this thread on insanelymac.com for a working AppleACPIPlatform.kext. Hopefully, someone finds out what changes need to be made in the boot loader and/or DSDT.

One thing most folks do with their newly rented low end Linux VPS (virtual private server) is to run some benchmarks. Wildly popular are the “Cachefly test” for network performance, dd for disk IO and UnixBench for overall system performance analysis including the CPU. The results are then posted in threads on web hosting communities like webhostingtalk or lowendtalk just to name a few. What most enthusiasts miss when comparing VPS’, and in particular low end VPS’, is that it’s just a snapshot. There are dozens of virtual servers cramped into one physical server and anything that goes on in those other virtual servers automatically has an impact on a performance test. That’s why the results should be taken with a grain of salt – unless they’re consistent over time. Time in the sense of weeks and months.

The most popular benchmark for network connectivity seems to be the Cachefly test. Cachefly is a content delivery network (CDN) and is well interconnected in the western hemisphere. To show off their capability to deliver content they’ve set up a test file which can be downloaded using wget:

wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test

The download speed shown from wget basically indicates two things: how good is the routing/peering to Cachfly’s CDN network from your VPS providers’ data center. And as a by-product it may show what speed the Ethernet port had been capped at.

Here’s a sample result of a capped Ethernet port:

wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
--2012-02-20 22:15:08-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[==================================================================================================>] 104,857,600 10.7M/s in 8.9s

2012-02-20 22:15:17 (11.2 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

You can’t see this in the static output shown above but while downloading, the rate shoots up straight to 11-12M/s from the beginning and stays there. Obviously, this provider has capped the port speed to 100Mbps.

The next sample shows the wget result of a different low end VPS with excellent routing to Cachefly’s CDN:

wget -O /dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
--2012-02-20 22:21:55-- http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 140.99.93.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|140.99.93.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104857600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: `/dev/null'

100%[==================================================================================================>] 104,857,600 43.6M/s in 2.3s

2012-02-20 22:21:58 (43.6 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

Even though the second server is able to download from Cachefly at a much higher rate, that doesn’t indicate that network connectivity is superior to the first server in general. Downloading from Cachefly doesn’t say one thing about general network connectivity from your VPS to the rest of the internet – which usually is more important than just a fast route to Cachefly’s CDN. It even gets more complex: Cachefly is using directional (Anycast) DNS. Depending on your server’s geographic location, it may be routed to a completely different CDN server (as you can see in the samples above).

If you really want to get a picture of a VPS’ network connectivity, the Cachefly test should be just one indicator. You will have to include a whole range of test files from other hosts. One way to find test file URLs is to google for +VPS +test +files. You also find test URLs on low end VPS review sites, blogs, forums and data center web sites.

I’m deliberately not coming up with a list since I don’t want to cause bandwidth issues to anyone.

There are certain situations on the internet when you need to pretend to be someone you’re not. For instance, if you want to listen to Pandora. If Pandora detects that your IP address is not originating from the U.S., you will politely be told that licensing agreements prevent them from making their internet radio station available to you. Same with Netflix, Google voice, Hulu, parts of Youtube, just to name a few. To access these services from outside the U.S. all you need is a U.S. based VPN. The easiest way to get a U.S. based IP address is to subscribe to a U.S. based VPN service (like HideMyAss‘ Pro VPN) and route all your computer’s network traffic through a VPN tunnel as long as you need it. This wasn’t flexible enough for me. I wanted to go the extra mile and build my own VPN service, and set up a centralized network routing on my DSL router (a Fritz!Box 7390). That way, all traffic from my internal home network (be it from an Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, a Mac, or even a Windows PC) that I want to originate from an foreign IP address will automatically use the VPN, and all other traffic will use my usual WAN IP address from my DSL service provider. Read more »

Here’s a quick one. The route command won’t show you the full routing table in Mac OS X. You have to use the netstat command:

netstat -rn

This will print the numeric view. If you prefer host names, omit the n parameter:

netstat -r

If you’re trying to setup Adobe’s Digital Enterprise Platform (ADEP 10) and the ADEP configuration manager reports any of the following errors while bootstrapping, then I might have the solution for you.

com.adobe.pof.schema.ObjectTypeNotFoundException: Object Type: dsc.sc_property_editor not found

com.adobe.pof.schema.ObjectTypeNotFoundException: Object Type: dsc.sc_service_configuration not found

It took me days of experimenting until I figured this out by sheer luck. If you select UDP based cluster caching in the configuration manager, the document service component will use the specified UDP port while bootstrapping the core configuration. If another cluster is communicating over the same multicast port, bootstrapping the core component will fail with obscure error messages.

The official documentation says:

Note: The value for <port number> can be any available port between 1025 and 65535. The multicast port must be unique to the Document Services cluster (that is, the port must not be used by any other cluster on the same network, any attempt to use the same port by any other cluster on the same network would result in bootstrap failure). It is recommended that you configure the same <port number>
on all nodes in the Document Services cluster, as in this example: -Dadobe.cache.multicast-port=33456

I missed this section (as real programmers don’t read manuals :) and assumed that it is okay to use the same UDP cluster cache port number for different clusters in the same network. Obviously that’s not the case. I’m now using different port numbers for every ADEP cluster and haven’t seen a bootstrapping problem ever since.

If the configuration manager reports this error (Oracle WebLogic only):

weblogic.management.NoAccessRuntimeException: Access not allowed for subject: principals=[], on Resource AdobeService
Operation: set , Target: EnableSSL

Try to hit the initialize button again. I was able to get rid of the error this way. A more proper way would be to adjust the JMX security policies in WebLogic’s security realm configuration in the JMX Policy Editor. The affected properties are “Attributes: Permission to Write” and “Unregister instances of this
MBean using MBean server”, both need to have its role set to Anonymous. The exact steps are detailed in the ADEP installation instructions using WebLogic (see “Creating JMX policies for database initialization”). Make sure you remove those properties after the installation went through. Looks like a security hole to me if you leave them in.

Gosh, Windows 7 was giving me a really hard time when I tried to install it on a OCZ RevoDrive 3 PCI-Express SSD drive. Every installation attempt was greeted with this error message:

“Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition”

Strangely, the drive was working perfectly as a non-boot drive under an existing Windows 7 installation and also visible as a SCSI drive in the BIOS drive list. Here are the steps which finally worked for me:

1. Extract the RevoDrive 3 drivers on a FAT32-formatted USB flash drive
2. Disconnect any disk drives (except the DVD drive) by unplugging the SATA cables
3. Disconnect any USB devices (except for keyboard and mouse obviously)
4. Boot Windows using the Windows 7 installation DVD
5. When prompted for the target installation drive, choose “Load driver” (your list of available drives should be empty)
6. Plug in the USB flash drive containing the drivers (don’t plug it in earlier!)
7. Let Windows 7 load the driver from the flash drive
8. Unplug the USB flash drive
9. Choose the RevoDrive 3 as the installation drive and continue the Windows 7 installation
10. Once Windows 7 is installed, reconnect all your SATA and USB devices

This PCIe SSD is ridiculously fast! Being a Mac person this drive even makes me like Windows a tiny bit more ;-) Unfortunately, there are no drivers available for OS X Lion and according to OCZ there never will be. This super fast SSD would be such a wonderful addition to any Mac Pro or Hackintosh setup.

Want to use Bluetooth on your OS X 10.7 Lion Hackintosh? I went through several super-low-cost USB Bluetooth dongles until I found one that still works after waking the Hack from sleep, which seems to be a common problem for some Bluetooth dongles. I’m only using Bluetooth for my Magic Trackpad though but so far, this dongle works a treat. I got mine from eBay for $1.88 including free shipping (no kiddin’!) from this seller. The item is shipping from China, delivery may take 2 weeks. Read more »

While in Windows 7 the Radeon 6870′s GPU fan is almost inaudible under idle conditions, the fan is clearly audible in OS X Lion. In OS X the GPU fan is permanently changing its speed which creates quite some bothersome noise. If you can’t live with that noise, here’s a tip for the not-so-faint-of-heart about how to modify the fan control curve of your Radeon graphics card. This involves flashing your graphics card’s BIOS using an optimized temperature/fan-speed map. Ain’t that cool? :-) Read more »

If you’re about to build a new OS X 10.7 Hackintosh or to replace the graphics card in your current Hackintosh rig, you may want to consider the AMD Radeon HD 6870. Power-wise it’s a mid-range graphics card which comes with an affordable price tag. The big advantage of the Radeon 6870 is that it fully supports Quartz Extreme and Core Image (QE/CI) in OS X Lion out of the box, no additional kernel extension like ATY_y.kext needed. All you have to do is to set graphics enabler to YES in Chameleon’s com.apple.Boot.plist. If you don’t need a high-performance gamer graphics card, this is the one to go for!

AMD Radeon HD 6870 Series:
  Chipset Model:	AMD Radeon HD 6870 Series
  Type:	GPU
  Bus:	PCIe
  PCIe Lane Width:	x16
  VRAM (Total):	1024 MB
  Vendor:	ATI (0x1002)
  Device ID:	0x6738
  Revision ID:	0x0000

While many NAS-vendors like QNAP updated their products to ensure compatibility with AFP-shares in OS X Lion 10.7, things look different when it comes to Time Machine support. Most NAS-vendors still use an older version of Netatalk which supports AFP-shares in Lion (at least when using the DHX2 authentication module) but not the new Time Machine features introduced in AFP 3.3 like “Replay Cache”.

In order to ensure compatibility with OS X Lion’s Time Machine, NAS-vendors will have to use the latest Netatalk v2.2. Users trying to connect to a NAS-based Time Machine volume using an older Netatalk version are greeted with this error message:

The network backup disk does not support the required AFP features

Now, here’s the catch: the current Netatalk maintainer NetAFP.com decided to make this important release closed source, only releasing it to customers who are paying for commercial support (looks like you’re lucky if you own a Netgear or Drobo NAS!). With this move the maintainer deliberately grossly violates the GPL license which Netatalk is based upon in order to blackmail NAS-vendors into paying for commercial support. Make sure to check out Matthew Keller’s insightful response to NetAFP’s new closed source strategy. While both sides have their points I agree with Matthew that violating the GPL in order to earn money doesn’t sound like a solid business model.

Since NAS-vendors who advertise Time Machine compatibility in their products are in a locked-in situation, they only have two choices:

1. Fork the last available Netatalk version and continue the development on their own (or better: form an alliance between NAS-vendors to advance development of Netatalk)
2. Pay the current maintainer for commercial support and in turn get access to GPL-based software

I just hope things get sorted out quickly so we can all continue to use Time Machine backups using our Linux-based NAS’ with OS X Lion.

Today, I updated the i7 920 Nehalem quad core processor in my ASUS P6T based Hackintosh to an even more spiffy 970 6-core Gulftown CPU.  Since the i7 970 was retired and discontinued (EOL) recently, prices for the leftover stock have fallen sharply so I decided to get a new one as long as they’re still available. If you own an ASUS P6T make sure you use at least Bios rev. 1303 or the mainboard won’t recognize the 970.

Upon booting OS X I noticed that P-state P0 a.k.a “Turbo Mode” wasn’t working anymore with the new hexacore CPU on the mainboard. In order to get Turbo Mode back, I needed to edit Chameleon’s com.apple.Boot.plist. Here’s what I added:

	<key>GeneratePStates</key>
	<string>Yes</string>
	<key>GenerateCStates</key>
	<string>Yes</string>

With these settings Chameleon automatically takes care of the C-states and P-states for the CPU. Very cool, that saved me a lot of time messing around with the DSDT! You need at least a recent Chameleon version like RC5 though, the last official release from 2009 won’t support those properties.

Here’s the Geekbench score of the updated rig:

Mac OS X Lion boot performance has been optimized and shows off some ridiculous boot times if booting from an SSD. Here’s a video of an ASUS P6T based Hackintosh booting OS X Lion.

Inspired by MacRumors post about the new 27-inch BTO iMac being the fastest Mac ever, here’s the same with an ASUS P6T based Hackintosh, obviously it uses an SSD too just like the iMac shown in the video. The ASUS P6T rig is 2 years old and uses a Lynnfield Core i7 CPU (4 cores), so no fancy Sandy Bridge there.

Both videos were taken with an iPhone and no modifications were made, it’s straight from the iPhone’s camera.

Pretty sick, isn’t it?

The latest XPC EFI boot loader version 0.83.02 allows you to install Mac OS X 10.7 Lion dev preview 2 without having to change or copy a single file on the OS X install volume. Apart from configuring XPC it all works out of the box which simplifies installing OS X Lion a whole lot. XPC now fully supports the new disk-image based installation process that was first introduced in Lion dev preview 1 and is able to boot from mounted .dmg volume images. I just gave it a try and it worked flawlessly on my Hackintosh rig! Read more »

For unknown reasons, the iOS video player app found on all iPads locks itself up in rare situations. Opening the video app results in a black screen, all you can do is jump back to the home screen using the home button. Both, restarting the iPad or re-syncing it on iTunes won’t help.

Now before you restore your iPad, there are two quick things you could try first:

1. If you know the title of a movie on your iPad, use the search function to look it up and start it by tapping it
2. …or open the iPod app and select a video podcast or iPad video and play it

The video app should be working again from now on. If it doesn’t then I’m afraid, you probably have to do a full restore of your iPad.