Having installed Macintosh OS X on my Dell Mini 9 via the instructions here, the next challenge was to install the 10.5.7 update. Again using the mydellmini.com as my reference I waiting for other to try and install it. Conq was the first to get the steps up on the forum. Here is how to do it. I take no credit for this whatsoever.

Download the installer, don't use Software Update. Install 10.5.7, in my case i downloaded the Combo.

Let it reboot.

At the boot screen use the -x to enter Safe Mode. (You have to press esc on boot to have the option to type this in)

Remove custom dsdt.aml file (this file is on the root of the drive, just drag it to the bin)

After in Safe Mode run DellEFI. (I used version 1.1)

Do a customer install and, reinstall the Mini 9 Extensions, Install custom dsdt.aml file, and fix Bluetooth.

Reboot.

and all should be well.

Tags: Software, macintosh

Recently I had to play some mpeg2 files on my Mac and they just wouldn't play. This was odd as under Tiger they would play fine. I had Final Cut Studio v2 installed and this comes with the mpeg2 codec, so all should have been fine. I tried it on my machine at the office and that did the exact same thing. As one final test I went to a machine that had just had Final Cut Studio v2 installed on a new Leopard install. Amazingly the mpeg2 played. What was the difference?

The difference is. The other two machines had been upgraded to Leopard. After some investigation I found that the machines not playing mpeg2 had the codec in library/quicktime, whereas the machine that did work had the codec in system/library/quicktime. The screenshot below shows how it should be. I simply copies the codec from the working machine to the broken one and removed the old codec from library/quicktime.

Tags: video, Work, macintosh, Leopard