The Tech Loft

THE UPDATE FROM 10.6.3 TO 10.7.2 I have spent a week of intense hackintosh ‘training’. I have managed to successfully install Snow Leopard 10.6.3, update it to 10.6.8, upgrade to Lion 10.7 and finally update to Lion 10.7.2. GRA-FIXED BUT…. The re-occurring issues i had after an update is getting full 3D acceleration out of my Asus nVidia 8400GS 512MB graphics card and getting back my audio. With the latest 10.7.2 update, one of my newest issues was not being able to access the App Store. And there I was, all excited thinking I was ‘the man’ for getting my hackintosh back up to 100%. THE CAUSE The problem is caused by a tag in the NetworkInterfaces.plist. Under the tag “IOBuiltIn”, you should find “true/”, but in my case I found “false/”. And this is the reason why you can’t login to the App Store. I have read suggestions like deleting the NetworkInterface.plist or re-install your network drivers. Nothing worked. So ...

Let me explain how I got here…back to Snow Leopard 10.6.3 on my hackintosh. I made the upgrade to 10.6.8, and for me it wasn’t easy because I lost sound on my hackintosh. A few weeks later, I figured it out and was cocky enough to try and make the update to Lion 10.7. Well…from reading some of the ‘How to’ guides, it seemed easy enough….for the most part, yes, it was easy. Networking, audio, I had the graphics going but it without full acceleration (QE). So night after night after night i was searching the hackintosh forums, posting for help…nothing. One or two readers tried to help, but I could get my hackintosh to recognize my video card and give me full video acceleration! It was really bothering, I pissed off at my computer, I was pissed off at the hackintosh forums….everything I tried to do, it either just didn’t work, or got my hackintosh to fail at boot. And so today I decided to install it all over, from the beginning. Gettin...

I upgraded to Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and all went well except for my audio. I lost sound on my hackintosh. I was quite pissed because being a total noob in the HACKINTOSH arena, I didn’t know where to begin my search to resolve my issue. A tip for those still on anything below 10.6.8 and thinking about upgrading, use the Mac OS X 10.6.8 Combo Pack . Don’t bother with the “Software Update” selection built into OS X. You can also reference my short guide to updating Snow Leopard 10.6.6 to 10.6.8 . I turned to Google but didn’t exactly find what I was looking for. That is until I looked at the specs of my motherboard’s audio chipset. I found out the chipset is Realtek ALC888B. So I began my search with “hackintosh Realtek ALC888B” then “hackintosh Realtek ALC888B no audio”. So I came across the following solutions: This finally got my audio back up and running…which got my audio working right away without reboot. Let’s ho...

Article first published as  Ubisoft’s Rocksmith: Day One  on Technorati. Today I received my copy of Ubisoft’s Rocksmith. I pre-ordered the game several months ago anticipating the day I can use my PlayStation 3 console and guitar together and rock out. The retail box of Rocksmith includes the game disc, fret board stickies and a cable to plug your guitar into your console’s USB port. Also note that the game developers have said that the cable can be used on PC as well….so I’ll be sure to try and use the guitar cable with GarageBand. At start up, I was greeted by an 11 Mb software update, once completed, the game loaded. You’re first ‘mission’ is to strum your guitar as loud and fast as you can to get your audience cheering. Once you get the crowd going, your guitar setup beings. The system asks you questions about your guitar such as head stock type and if you’re a leftie or rightie. The game also helps you tune your guitar and befo...

Although Assassin’s Creed, the first installment by Ubisoft to this franchise has been out for quite a few years now, there has been a lot of negative banter posted around the web about this game. I am writing this review simply to share my opinion on the matter and to try and give this game the commendations it deserves. If you were to compare this game with its sequels then sure, it looks pretty weak, but considering how long ago it was developed and how fresh the idea was at the time, Assassin’s Creed is a breakthrough. 2007 was a year where first-person shooters really took off, with highly popular games such as Call of Duty 4 and BioShock being released. Assassin’s Creed could have easily been pushed down gamers’ wish lists in favor of these more intense shooters but because of its fresh gameplay and storyline, it earned platinum status in less than a year. The game takes place in modern day and at the start you play as Desmond Miles, a bartender who is capt...

So I decided to have some fun. At work, a co-worker walked in and said that he had begun a video rental service, his business model; pay a one time admin fee of $20 and rent any movie you wish for as long as you want. When I first heard of this, I laughed, and I decided to ‘help’ the guy out by creating a Facebook page and commercial. Our Facebook page needs more LIKEs, we’d like to get to 25 so we can get the URL: www.facebook.com/PiraFlix so please, help us out and LIKE out Facebook page . But LIKE our page after you watch my video. So about the video. There isn’t much to say about it execpt I tried to make it like a real NetFlix commercial without the graphics and HUMANS. Yea, it’s all one big puppet show, thought it would make it funny that way. So here it is: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQbDrbnZ-cA You can also download the video and enjoy at home!

Calibration of your battery is essential every once a month, depending on your usage, it can be done once every six months. For your information, calibration is the act of discharging your macbook pro, android mobile phone, iphone, laptop or any devices’ battery power life until it is not bootable. Below is the step by step tutorial: Step 1 – Completely drain your battery until it completely shuts itself off. Step 2 – Turn the device on again and let it shut itself off one more time. Step 3 – Charge your device while it is off for over 8 hours. When you’re done, you should see a significant increase in your battery’s charge life. This can be seen with a dramatic increase in battery life even under heavy usage. We’ve tested this method on both our android mobile phone and Sony laptop and it works. Yet to test it on our iPad. We believe this battery calibration trick works on almost every notebook, laptop and mobile phone devices. If you happened to have a samsung, dell, hp, toshiba or a...