Halo Series 6 Mega Bloks

I just picked up some new Halo Series 6 Mega Bloks figures today at the Walmart in Richmond, CA.

These are the codes for the Series 6:

A03092MM - Grey UNSC Spartan EVA (Common)
A05092MM - Purple UNSC Spartan EOD (Common)
A06092MM - Yellow Spartan Mark V (Rare)
A14092MM - Blue AC Elite / Cobalt UNSC Marine (Mystery)

Whoa!

So I ordered some black boots from "The Big Z". When the package came and I opened it, I was expecting my nice Giorgio Brutini boots. Lo and behold to my surprise, I got high heels. Navy high heel shoes. To be more exact, Lumiani Navy Alondra size 9.5.














Uh… I didn't order these. Is someone playing with me? This is the first time I got something other than what I ordered. Hmph! I must say though that "Z's" customer service was excellent. I called and explained what the problem was. There were chuckles and apologies. A reorder was made and a mailing label emailed.

Two days later my boots arrive and the heels sent off to the big shoe store in the sky.














Woo hoo!

Mega Blocks Halo - Versus Battle Pack

I picked up some new Mega Bloks Halo - Versus Battle Packs from Target over the holidays. Here is the video of what you get in the packages.



Blue Flight Elite and Red ODST Code is: A01091CS
Blue Marine and Red Elite Combat Code is: A03091CS

AVerMedia Game Capture HD Unboxing And Test

I picked up a AVerMedia Game Capture HD to record my gameplay on the X-Box 360. It doesn't need a PC to record. You just have to bring your own HD.

Asus Transformer Unboxing

"I Have The Con"

After at least 10-15 years the Lay-Z-Boy was sent away to recliner heaven. A replacement wasn't planned but there didn't seem to be a comfortable position to watch the TV anymore. So a trip to Scandinavian Designs was in order and a new recliner was purchased. A additional item was thrown in with the purchase as well. It was a little computer table. Now I can surf on the TV and WWW as well as sleep without getting up.

"Sulu, viewing screen on. Engage!"

G4 Hackintosh Update

Everything's been going okay with the G4 Hackintosh. It's in the living room connected to the 55" HD LCD Samsung TV. It's not getting that much use because the nephews are always on the 360. Which red ringed and was replaced with the Halo Reach Special Edition. Anyhow when I have the TV to myself, I watch twit.tv and my other media stuff.



I did change out the video card though. I pulled the 8800GT out as a backup if ever my 5770 gave out of my Mac Pro. I then replaced it with a Asus EN8400GS Silent. It was like $25 AR and very compatible. The forums all said that it worked out of the box and that I didn't need any kexts for it to work in a Hack. So far, I've not encounter any problems. I just plugged and played.

Encore! Encore!

For the Gleek in me.

Dell Inspiron 1545 "Hackintosh"

My Nephew received a Dell 1545 Inspiron early last year and after playing with it for a couple of months he didn’t like it. He wanted a Mac. So 10 months later his mother got him a MacBook. Of course since I’m the computer guy in the family, I was the one who had ordered them.

So here we have an unused Windows 7 Dell just gathering dust. Lucky for me the Hackintosh community is vibrant and always adding new builds. I’ve done my own fair share as well. I’ve have a MSI Wind netbook running 10.6.3 and a G4 Hackintosh running 10.6.4.

I hadn’t been checking the Hackintosh boards in a while but decided to see what if any success people had with the Dell 1545. And lo and behold there were many. And so another Hackintosh is grown.

So it took me a couple of tries and now I have a working Dell 1545 Hackintosh running 10.6.6. I found out a couple of things as well.

These are my specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.1 Mhz T4300
4GB RAM
320GB HD
Intel 4500HD Integrated Graphics
Dell DW1515 WLAN mini-card

Everything seems to work okay. Sleep works but the display does not turn off. You have to close the lid. Safari seems to always be crashing as well as Chrome. Firefox seems to work okay. I’m going to reinstall again and see how it goes. I’m very happy with the results. It’s pretty much an Vanilla install with a touch of kext adjustments. It’s the most of my other hacks though but this was just a unused notebook gathering dust.

I do want to add a time delay for Chameleon. I don’t always want to press a key to boot. I want it to wait about 10 seconds and then automatically boot into OS X. I’ll look around for the solution. I remember doing it for my MSI Wind and I think my G4 Hack does it as well. I haven’t booted that in a while now.

Automatic Mahjong Table

NYCC Wii Michael Jackson The Experience

2010 New York Comic Con

2010 New York Comic Con

2010 New York Trip

Apple ATI Radeon HD 5770 Unboxing

G4 Hackintosh Bootup

G4 Hackintosh Mod - Part 5

Success and Issues

Success and Issues with my G4 Hackintosh Mod.

I tried using the following for my build:

Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L (Rev 1.1, F6)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300
Zotac 9500GT 512
4GB OCZ Platinum
WD 2TB EADS
LG DVD Burner
Antec Earthwatts 500 PSU
Kakewalk 2.2 with Retail 10.6 on USB Flashdrive

At first boot I got the bootloader screen and then the Apple logo and loading. Then a blank screen. After a couple of reboots, the same thing as before. I was using the Zotac DVI output because the VGA is block by the rear panel and the VGA adapter can't fit. I then pulled out the Zotac card and used the onboard video. Hooray! I got the installer screen. I'm surprised that the onboard video worked. Nothing that I read had mentioned this before. It would have made things a lot easier.

Anyhow, I formatted the EADS and started the install. At 18 minutes before completion, it would stall and reboot. This occurred over the next couple of tries. Puzzled, I remember reading somewhere that EADS or green drives had problems being OS boot drives. I took my original 320GB drive from my 2008 Mac Pro, since upgraded, and after transferring the data over to the Pro, formatted and stuck it in the Mod.

Success! I ran the AzaliaAudio.pkg and sound is working. Everything except for sleep is working so far. I ran software update and it's fully up to date. The Zotac card and the EADS were the only two stumbling blocks that impeded me. The research helped but I need to be more sure and selective in my choices. What I still need is a video card that works.

I did order the ATI Radeon HD 5770 from the Apple Store for my 2008 Mac Pro. It should arrive in 1-2 weeks. I'll then put my Nvidia 8800GT in the Mod and see how that works. Too bad the Zotac didn't work out. I wanted the HDMI to hook up to my HD TV. Maybe next time.

Update: I've sent the Zotac card back to Amazon and the 5770 arrived the day after I ordered it but wasn't home to receive it. Darn! It was the weekend and FedEx doesn't deliver Mondays. Still waiting. I have to test the firewire card too. Video to follow. I also did a reinstall but used a 10.6.3 retail image. It worked as well.

G4 Hackintosh Mod - Part 4

G4 Hackintosh Mod - Part 3

Halo Reach

Halo Reach is out tomorrow. I pre-ordered it from Best Buy and will pick it up after work. My friend Prentiss is gonna come over and we'll be fraggin' together. The nephews may join us later but we'll start the campaign in "Heroic" mode first then "Legendary". I'm very excited yet saddened that this will be the last Halo game from Bungie. They've done some wonderful work to feed by addiction and are going to be sorely missed. I hope their future projects are just as exciting and addicting.

The G4 Hackintosh Mod is going on the backburner for awhile but stay tuned while I start the fight.

G4 Hackintosh Mod - Part 2

G4 Hackintosh Mod - Part 2