A Sneak Peek of the MacBook of the Future

Apple looks at the MacBook Air as the "MacBook of the future, shipping today," according to COO Tim Cook. What does he mean?

It's all solid

If the MacBooks of the future are like the Air shipping today, the biggest difference internally is that they're going to move to flash memory—solid-state storage—across the board. It matches perfectly with what Apple itself says is so great about the Air and bringing the things it's learned from the iPad and iOS to Macs.

Moving to flash storage would deliver the biggest, most dramatic performance increase to the Mac, way more than any other component upgrade. Way more jaw-dropping than a screaming Intel processor, blistering Nvidia graphics chip or crazy amounts of RAM. Crazy fast startup times, instant on from sleep, and less fear about a catastrophic hard drive crash if you drop your MacBook. The truth is, performance increases—the kind you can really feel—have been hitting the point of diminishing returns with faster processors and graphics cards. There's only so much boost you notice. A second sliced here, a second there. But cutting the startup time down to 10 seconds? Launching programs instantaneously? The amazing performance you get out of flash storage is the kind of thing people really notice.

If you're not convinced by the performance power of an SSD, just look at some reviews of the MacBook Air. Even with a dinky 1.4GHz processor and 2GB of RAM, the 11-inch Air runs like the wind, for all but the most CPU-driven of tasks (namely, video). Imagine delivering that in every Mac. It's the kind of here-today-and-awesome-but-sorta-inaccessible technology upgrades that Apple likes to drop into its products as a differentiator, the kind of thing that puts them subtly ahead of other computer makers. (Like the retina display in the iPhone, multitouch buttonless trackpad, etc.)

Cost doesn't seem like much of an issue, either, since they're able to shove SSDs in their cheapest MacBook product, the $999 Air. I expect they can afford to put them into the pricier Pros. And even if it does cost more, it wouldn't be the first time they've offered more expensive components in a product that costs the same price, just look at the retina display in the iPhone 4. One possible issue though: less storage space. So, like the iPod classic sticks around, they'll probably still offer regular old spinny hard drives for data packrats.

The other bits

Thinner! Maybe lighter! Higher resolution screens by default. (Apple seems to have a boner for higher res displays lately.) Priced not unlike current MacBook Pros.

Overall, I think I'm a fan of the MacBook of the future.

Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.

Portal 2 on PS3 features cross-platform chat, multiplayer and a free Steam copy

Valve's announced that the PS3 version of Portal 2 will be quite chummy with its PC and Mac cousins come April 20, revealing full cross-platform compatibility: PS3 users can chat with Steam users, play multiplayer with them and even partake in cloud-based storage. The disparity between the PS3 and PC/Mac versions appears to be about non-existent now.

Additionally, those who pick up the PS3 game are ensured a free voucher for the Steam Play version of the game, should they link their PSN and Steam accounts. "We hope to expand upon the foundation being laid in Portal 2 with more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases," said Valve's Gabe Newell.

Head past the break for the full press release.

Source:Joystiq

Fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel finds release

Square Enix raised some ire by sending out a cease and desist against the release of a fan-made Chrono Trigger sequel, but the game has found its way out to the Internet anyway. Reddit user buu700 has posted what he says is a final build of Crimson Echoes, the sequel made by fans reusing the original game's sprites. He also leaked a game called Flames of Eternity a couple of weeks back, supposedly a fork of the fanmade title, which "diverged fairly heavily from what Crimson Echoes was intended to be."

Fans who've played the game say the characters are a little different than they remember (main character Crono, silent in the original, speaks, and a few of the dialects aren't quite right). But those hungry for some of the old 16-bit RPG magic will have to take what they can get -- at least until Squeenix's lawyers hear about it.

• Source: Reddit
• Via:Joystiq

Hey! Some new Telltale Jurassic Park screens

Game Informer has posted some of the first screens of Telltale's upcoming Jurassic Park. Additionally, the article lays out some more of the details that were recently revealed in the latest ish of Game Informer magazine. In particular, the piece details how Telltale is looking to focus on the human element of Jurassic Park and the interactions between its characters. This is opposed to the focus of nearly every other game based on the franchise: Kill a bunch of dinosaurs.

Head over to Game Informer for more details and screens of Jurassic Park. Once you've finished there, we did a little searching on YouTube, and we think we may have discovered some leaked gameplay footage.
Source: Game Informer
Via:Joystiq

Minecraft beta 1.2 update adds new recipes, squid and cake

As if we needed more reasons to love Minecraft, along comes update 1.2 which manages to somehow set the bar even higher. Not only does the update add note blocks with which players can create full musical instruments -- we're excited for the impending video of Dexys Midnight Runners' "Come On, Eileen" recreated in the game -- but there are also dyes you can harvest from flowers and a new Lapus Lazuli stone, plus additional crafting recipes including dessert-time staple, cake. We're less excited for the impending Portal jokes. Give it up, already!

The update also adds squids (to harvest black ink from as part of the new dye mechanic) and squashes several bugs, including better multiplayer synching and crashing when loading levels. There is a lot about this update that is still uncovered and if you want to join in on the hunt, we suggest you start with this thread on the official forums. Happy crafting!
Source: Notch, Minecraft forums

OnLive Playback game catalog free to all users through Jan. 31

When OnLive began testing its flat-rate $10 per month back catalog game offering, Playback, at the beginning of December, the company said that it would officially launch January 15, aka tomorrow. That's not happening -- instead, the Playback beta is being opened up to all users free-of-charge through the end of the month.

Initially, the Playback beta was accessible only to those users accessing the service via the OnLive MicroConsole system; it will now be available to everyone, on every platform, during this extended period. OnLive has promised that the catalog will include around 40 titles when it's out of beta (and people are being charged for it). Right now, it features about a dozen.
Source: BigDownload

#jailbreaking

How to Jailbreak Your 2G Apple TV

Mac OS X: The 2G Apple TV was jailbroken shortly after its release, but until now there hasn't been a simple jailbreaking method. That's all changed with Seas0nPass. More »

Strong Bad's Cool Game now on Mac, temporarily discounted

In honor of yesterday's "Trogday" observances (honoring the day that Strong Bad brought Trogdor the Burninator to life, in all his majesty), Telltale has announced that Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People is now playable by those who only have Macs in their thatched-roof cottages. THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGEEEEEEEEES!

Until January 20, the Mac and PC versions will be on sale for the same burninating price as the PSN release: $15 for the whole season. After that, they'll go back up to $30, which is still cheaper than the original WiiWare price of $10 per episode (there are five). You can use that beefy arm coming out of the back of your neck to click over to the product page on Telltale Games and save some money now.
Source: Telltale Games

Wesley Snipes bringing 'Julius Styles' to iOS this June

Let's role play for a second. You're Wesley Snipes, renowned action star, currently serving a sentence for tax evasion. You decide to create a new video game based on your action hero creation, Julius Styles (no relation), an amalgam of your lead characters in Murder at 1600, Passenger 57 and Art of War. This game will be accompanied by a movie following your release in 2013.

The game, entitled Julius Styles: The International, will feature a blend of action and puzzles and will debut on iOS this June, with XBLA, PSN and Android versions to follow. But who will develop this game? Who will tame this wild meerkat of an idea? And then it hits you. Lapland Studio, creators of WiiWare sensation Lead the Meerkats. Yes. It's all falling into place.

#fromthetipsbox

From the Tips Box: Online Shopping, Twitter for Mac, and Static Electricity

Readers offer their best tips for getting deals online, getting extra features in Twitter for Mac, and getting static out of your clothing. More »

Hackers claim to find Mac App Store loophole, pirating Angry Birds

Much like a gaggle of proud seamen, christening the bow of a shiny new ocean liner with a bottle of their most decadent champagne, the computer software pirating community has welcomed the Mac App Store into this world by reportedly discovering loopholes which allow them to plunder its wares for free. According to BBC News, one such loophole -- which only works on certain Apps and includes mobile darling Angry Birds -- simply requires the user to copy and paste the application's in-store purchase code. Why, that doesn't sound very difficult at all.

A group of hackers by the collective name of Hackulous also reported to BBC News that its developed a piece of software titled Kickback which can break the copy protection on any App on the store. A representative from the group told BBC, "We're not going to release Kickback until well after the store's been established," as they "don't want to devalue applications and frustrate developers."

Razer Hydra impressions: Super-precise motion controllers make it to PC, Portal 2 support in tow

Sixense was back at CES this year, showing off its TrueMotion-powered gaming wands. While a partnership with computer gaming peripheral maker Razer was announced at last year's CES, the fruit of that partnership was on display this year, with a brand name (meet the Razer Hydra), some industrial design, and some new Valve-created content for the hardware in the form of custom Portal 2 tech.

During our hands-off tour of the still-prototype hardware, we were consistently impressed with the controller's accuracy. Imagine dual-wielding two PlayStation Move controllers except – in place of the relatively cumbersome process of requiring a PlayStation Eye to track a glowing sphere to position the controllers in 3D space – the Hydra uses a small base station that creates an electromagnetic field with a radius of about six feet. That's it. That base station serves double duty as a stand to rest the presently wired controllers on. Worry not, wire-haters, a wireless model is in the works but, much like Razer's other hardware, it's going to perfect the technology with a wired release first before chasing the wireless solution.While there's no release date or price yet, we were told to expect them early next year which, considering it will be released in a special bundle with the April-released Portal 2 packed in makes sense. As for price, Razer's targeting a sub-$100 tag or, roughly what two PlayStation Move controllers would run you. That Portal 2 bundle will include a special version of the game, that includes not only native support for the Hydra controllers, but new maps and puzzle mechanics built exclusively for Hydra. In our brief tour, we saw "scalable cubes" which can be stretched along the x-axis. Stretch one side, rotate, stretch another side, rotate again. In one puzzle, a scalable cube was stretched into a bridge; in another, it was stretched on all sides until it was large enough (the mass increases as well, conservation of mass be damned!) to shatter a glass floor below.

In order to manipulate the cubes, you enter 1:1 mode by pressing '1' on the right stick, which locks free-look on the right controller and remaps it to control the object. You can then rotate, move, and place the object with an impressive amount of accuracy. Remember that PlayStation Move multitouch demo from the Engadget Show? Adjusting the size of a scalable cube is pretty much that. You're also able to rotate and reposition portals. Instead of simply reshooting a portal to another position, you can grab it, move it, and even twist it. The exit velocity of anything thrown into a portal will carry through, meaning some Hydra-based puzzles may take advantage of your ability to twist and re-align portals.

While Valve's Left 4 Dead 2 was shown off last year with 1:1 sword controls, the Sixense rep we spoke with couldn't confirm if that would ever be released. He did, however, share a video of Call of Duty: Black Ops being played with Sixense, using the Sixense MotionCreator tool, which remaps traditional keyboard/mouse controls to the twin motion sticks. You can also see apps like Boxee being controlled with Sixense, though with a 6' radius, you may need to park that electromagnetic base station on your coffee table for proper couch navigation. Since that range is wholly dependent on the size of the electromagnetic coil and power provided to it, it's possible we may see a larger range if consumer demand is there. Also not included in this launch release: Mac support. With Razer working to make its entire product line compatible with Apple's OS, we'd imagine some consumer demand there would go a long way.
In short, Sixense technology and the Razer Hydra product are very impressive. If you're not inclined to believe us, that's fine, but we'd also point out the tacit endorsement of Valve, not only one of the most talented FPS developers in the industry but one of PC gaming's most successful and influential supporters.

Build a Hackintosh Mac and Install OS X in Eight Easy Steps: 2010 Edition

Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800

Update 3: Our latest Hackintosh build is now here, and it's easier than ever and full of step-by-step video goodness. I'd strongly recommend following the newest guide.

Update 2: In September 2009, I updated our Hackintosh build with a guide covering how to build a Hackintosh with Snow Leopard, start to finish.

Update 1: Building your Hackintosh just got a lot easier. After you build your system using the hardware I've listed in this article, here's how to install OS X on your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required.

If the high price tag for Apple hardware has kept you from buying a Mac but you're willing to roll up your sleeves and get adventurous, you can build your own "Hackintosh"-a PC that runs a patched version of OS X Leopard. What?!, you say. Apple's move to Intel processors in 2006 meant that running OS X on non-Apple hardware is possible, and a community hacking project called OSx86 launched with that goal in mind. Since then, OSx86 has covered major ground, making it possible for civilians-like you and me!-to put together their own Hackintosh running Mac OS 10.5. Today, I'll show you how to build your own high end computer running Leopard from start to finish for under $800.

Right now the cheapest Mac on sale at the Apple store is a $600 Mac Mini sporting a 1.83GHz proc, 1GB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. For $200 more, your Hackintosh can boast a 2.2GHz proc with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB drive, and a completely upgradeable case for expanding your setup in the future.

Building a DIY Mac requires some work on your part, so be ready to dedicate time to this project. To make things as easy as possible, I'm going to lay out how I built my Hackintosh from start to finish, from the hardware I used to the final patches I applied to the Leopard install. If you can build a Lego set and transcribe text, you've got all the basic skills required.

The Hardware

There's no definitive best bet for a Hackintosh hardware configuration, so you may be able to experiment and come up with a better selection of parts than I did. However, I can guarantee that Leopard will (or at least has) run successfully on this hardware setup.

To make things easy, I've put together my entire hardware setup as a wish list on Newegg. (You may notice that the total price is listed at around $850, but I knocked $110 off the price tag due to a couple of mail-in rebates-so "Under $800" it remains, however fudgingly.)

The build consists of a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a total of 4GB of RAM (four sticks at 1GB each), an ASUS P5W DH Deluxe motherboard, a GeForce 7300GT (the same basic video card that comes installed in the default Mac Pro configuration), a 500GB hard drive, a DVD burner, and an Antec Sonata case (which I've always liked for its looks and quiet fans). The motherboard is the most important element, since the patches we'll apply later are tailored specifically for this motherboard. You could probably tweak a lot of the other hardware without many complications, but if you stick with this motherboard and follow the installation instructions, you shouldn't see any major complications.

The Build

Now that you've got all the parts, it's time to start putting your Mac together. We've detailed every step of the computer building process at one point or another in the past here on Lifehacker, so rather than cover that ground again, I'll outline the process with links to our previous instructions. As always, be sure to read your hardware manuals before you begin-particularly from the motherboard-to get to know your hardware before you start the installation. Also, always remember to be careful of static electricity and always keep yourself grounded and your board unpowered until you're finished.

1. Install the motherboard and CPU: You can follow these instructions almost without variation, but the heatsink and fan installation, in particular, is a touch different. Rather than hooking the heatsink to your motherboard, the included Intel heatsink pops into place. For a more detailed description of how this works, consult your motherboard's manual and the manual included with your processor.
2. Install your RAM: The only thing you need to keep in mind when you're installing the RAM is that you should install the matched pairs-that is, the pairs that come in the same package-in like colored slots. This isn't strictly necessary, but it's a good practice and generally means better performance.
3. Install the video card: These instructions actually detail how to install a PCI card, which is just a more general way of looking at your video card. The card we're using is a PCI Express card and should be installed in the top (orange) PCI slot.
4. Install the hard drive and DVD drive: Your hard drive is an SATA drive, which is not the type of drive installed in the instructions (though they do address SATA drives). Just connect one of the power supply's SATA power cables to the drive and then connect the drive to the red SATA connector on your motherboard (it's labeled on the board as SATA1). Follow the same basic instructions to install your DVD drive but plug the drive into one of the other SATA ports (I used the SATA4 port).

When you've finished putting everything together, your open case should look like the nearly completed image below. In that picture, I've yet to install the hard drive and DVD drive and I still need to connect the case power and other connectors to the motherboard. (You may install other features of the motherboard if you prefer, like the FireWire connector for the back of the case).

To make sure everything's working properly, close it up, plug it into a monitor and keyboard and power it up. If the computer boots into the BIOS (by pressing Delete when prompted), you're ready to move on. If the computer won't boot, you may have to open the case back up and double-check your installation. Among other things, be sure that your RAM is properly seated.

I should note that at this point of my installation, I ran into a bum power supply unit (PSU) in my case. Unfortunately that meant that I didn't know whether the PSU was bunk or my motherboard was fried, and since I don't own a voltage meter it took an extra trip to Fry's and some troubleshooting to get to the bottom of it. The point is that when you're building a PC yourself, you can and should be prepared to run into snags, so if you're not ready to troubleshoot if a problem arises, you may want to think twice before trying this. That said, I've built several PCs in the past and this was my only major snag in the course of a build, so it's also very likely that your build could go off without a hitch.

Either way, as soon as you're able to boot into the BIOS, you're ready to get started with the pre-installation.

Pre-Installation

There are two things you need to tackle to prepare your computer for installation. First, you'll need to tweak your BIOS settings to properly work with the Leopard install. Second, you need to patch the Leopard DVD to install on your newly built Hackintosh computer.

Tweak your BIOS: The first thing I did once my build was finished was update my BIOS, since the default BIOS wasn't properly recognizing my processor. Luckily doing so is pretty simple. Just head over to the ASUS download site, narrow down, and then download the latest BIOS for your motherboard. Once downloaded, just stick the file on a USB flash drive. Then boot up your build and enter the BIOS setup. Like I said above, power on your computer and hit Delete when prompted to boot into the BIOS.

Once you're there, arrow to the Tools tab of the BIOS, select EZ Flash2, and then hit Enter. Now choose your flash drive by tabbing to the appropriate drive, find the BIOS file you downloaded, and install it. When the BIOS has updated, your computer should automatically restart.

Now that you've updated your BIOS, you're ready to get into some nitty gritty preparation. If you plugged in your drives like I suggested during your build, you should see your hard drive and DVD drive listed in the BIOS as Third IDE Master and Fourth IDE Slave. (Don't worry about the fact that your hard drive isn't listed as the Primary IDE Master.) Arrow down to IDE Configuration and hit Enter.

In the IDE config, you want to set "Configure SATA As" to AHCI. Next hit Escape once to go back to the Main screen. Now hit the right arrow key to move to the Advanced tab. In the Advanced section go to "Onboard Devices Configuration" and set "JMicron SATA / PATA Controller" to Disabled.

Now you need to arrow over to the Boot tab to configure the boot priority (which tells your computer what order you want to boot off devices in your computer). Go to "Boot Device Priority" and set your DVD drive as priority one and your hard drive as priority two.

Done? Then you're ready to move onto patching your Leopard DVD.

Patch Leopard for your Hackintosh: There are a couple of different ways one could go about creating a patched Leopard DVD. The easiest is probably to download an already patched version using BitTorrent (I can attest to having seen the patched version floating around before Demonoid went under, but it's probably available elsewhere as well). The second method requires patching a Leopard DVD yourself, which isn't really as hard as it sounds.

If you decide to go the first route and you find a pre-patched version off BitTorrent, you can skip to the next section. Otherwise, let's get down to work. To patch the Leopard install disc, you'll need a Mac and a pre-patched image of the Leopard installer on your desktop. You can get this in two ways: Either by downloading the image-again with BitTorrent-or by buying and then ripping a Leopard DVD to your hard drive. Either way you choose, when you're finished you should place the ripped installer on your desktop and make sure that it's named osx-leopard105.dmg.

Now it's time to get patching. To do so, you need to grab the patch files (created by the resourceful OSx86 forum member BrazilMac, who bundled the patch files and whose instructions I followed for the installation), which you can download from one of many sources here under the "FILES FOR THIS GUIDE" section at the top of the page. After you've downloaded the zipped patch files, unzip the archive and drag all of the contents of the archive to your desktop (it should contain two files and three folders in total).

UPDATE: We've removed direct links to the forum post containing the patch files on the OSx86 Scene Forum.

Now open the 9a581-patch.sh shell script in your favorite text editor. At the top of the file, replace XXX with your username on your Mac (so that it reflects the path to your current desktop). For example, mine would look like:

APDIR=/Users/adam/Desktop
DMG="/Users/adam/Desktop/osx-leopard105.dmg"

While we're at it, let's edit the 9a581PostPatch.sh file as well. This time, edit the fourth and fifth lines at the top of the file to look like this:

PATCH="/Volumes/LeopardPatch/leopatch/" # path to the patched extensions
LEO="/Volumes/Leopard" # path to Leopard installation

Save and close both files.

Finally, it's time to patch the DVD. Open up Terminal, type sudo -s, then enter your administrative password (your login password). Then type cd Desktop and hit Enter. Now you're ready to apply the patch. Keep in mind that you'll need plenty of space on your hard drive to perform the patch. I had around 20GB of free space when I did it, though I'm sure you could get away with less. To execute the patch, type:

./9a581-patch.sh

and hit Enter. The patch will now execute, which means you've got some time on your hands. You've been working your ass off up until this point, though, so kick back and relax for a bit. I didn't have a clock on it, but I'm pretty sure the patch took at least an hour on my MacBook Pro.

If you have trouble with the patch and you've got less free space, try freeing up some hard drive space and trying again. When the patch has successfully completed, you should see a new file on your desktop: Leo_Patched_DVD.iso weighing in somewhere around 4,698,669,056 bytes. Now we've got to burn this image to a DVD.

Luckily the patch removes lots of unnecessary files so we've shrunk the almost 7GB install DVD to 4.38GB, just enough to fit on a single-layer DVD. To burn the image, insert a blank DVD, open up Disk Utility, select the Leopard_Patched_DVD.iso file in the sidebar, and then click the Burn button. Once it's finished, you're finally ready to proceed to the installation.

But just one more thing before you do. Copy the patch files that we just unzipped from your desktop to a USB thumb drive and name the drive LeopardPatch. We'll need these files for the post-installation patch that we'll apply later.

Installation

If you've followed all of the steps up to this point, you should now be ready to fire up the patched Leopard install DVD. So power on your Hackintosh, insert the DVD, and let the boot process begin (you did remember to set the DVD drive as the first boot device, right?). You'll be prompted to press any key to start the installation or hit F8 for options. Hit F8.

You'll now see the boot: prompt. Enter -v -x and press Enter. (Don't ask me why, but this is the only way the install DVD would boot for me. Not using these options caused the boot to hang indefinitely every time.) You should now see lots of text scrolling over your monitor. You may even see some daunting errors. Don't be alarmed; just let it continue. After several minutes, the graphical Leopard installer should be staring you in the face.

Format the install drive: I know that you're raring to install now that you're finally here, but there's one thing we need to do first: Format our hard drive so that it's prepared to receive the Leopard installation. So go to Utilities in the menu bar and select Disk Utility (if you don't have a working mouse yet, you can still access the menu bar from the keyboard). Once Disk Utility fires up, it's time to format the drive. Here's how:

1. Select your hard drive in the left sidebar.
2. Click on the tab labeled Partition.
3. Select a 1 partition Volume Scheme, name the volume Leopard, and choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format.
4. Last, click the Options button and choose Master Boot Record as the partition scheme.

Now that your drive is ready, so are you.

Install Leopard: This really is the easiest part-just follow the on-screen instructions and choose your newly created Leopard partition as the install destination. Then, before you make that final click on the Install button, click Customize and de-select Additional Fonts, Language Translations, and X11. These components were removed so we could fit everything on the patched DVD, so we won't be installing them now.

Now you're ready. Click install and grab a quick drink. In around 10 minutes, Leopard should have installed, leaving you with just one more step before you're running with the Leopard.

Post-Installation

After the installation completes, your computer will automatically restart. Unfortunately you're not ready to boot into Leopard just yet-you've got one thing left to do. So insert the thumb drive you copied the patches to and, just like last time, hit F8 when prompted by the DVD. Again, enter -v -x at the boot prompt and hit Enter. When the install disc finally loads, go to Utilities in the menu bar and select Terminal. It's time to apply the post-install patch.

When terminal loads, type cd /Volumes/LeopardPatch at the prompt and hit Enter to navigate to the patch directory. Now, just like when you patched the install disc, type:

./9a581PostPatch.sh

...and hit Enter. The script will move and copy files about (answer yes when prompted), and when it's finished, you'll be prompted to restart your computer. When your computer reboots this time, you're ready. It's time to boot into Leopard.

OSx86 on Your Hackintosh

Let your computer reboot, but be sure to leave the install DVD in the drive. When the DVD prompts this time, just let the countdown time out. When it does, your installation of Leopard will automatically boot up. You've done it!

From this point forward, you're running Leopard on your PC just as though you were running Leopard on a regular Mac. You'll be jubilantly welcomed in a handful of languages as if Steve Jobs himself is shaking your hand for a job well done. All of your hardware should work exactly as you'd expect. Your sound, networking, and video will all work off the bat. (I haven't tested the motherboard's built-in wireless yet, but it reportedly works.) Your iPods will sync flawlessly, and CDs and DVDs read and burn just as you'd expect.

On the software front, Mail, Address Book, iTunes, and everything else I've tried so far work flawlessly. Firefox is browsing, Quicksilver is doing its thing, Spaces are rocking, Stacks are stacking, Cover Flow is flowing, and Quick Look is previewing. I haven't tried Time Machine yet, but the patch we used reportedly works with Time Machine as well.

UPDATE: After you complete your install the first go round, here's how to upgrade to OS X 10.5.1 (the first update to Leopard) in just a few simple steps.

But Really, How Does It Work?

I'm still stretching my legs in this new build, and I'm planning on bringing some benchmarks to the table soon so you have a better idea how this machine matches up to its Mac counterparts, but so far it's running like a champ. UPDATE: I benchmarked my Hackintosh against a Mac Pro and MacBook Pro and it stood up very well. Check out the benchmarks here. The only problem with the install at the moment is that it won't boot without the Leopard DVD in the DVD drive at boot-meaning that every time you reboot you'll need to make sure that the Leopard DVD is sitting in the DVD drive. It's not a dealbreaker for me by any means, but it's an annoyance. I've found one post suggesting a workaround at the OSx86 forums (near the bottom of the first post in the thread), but I haven't tried it yet. If and when I do, I'll be sure to post an update.

And that's that. It's a chore to set up, to be sure, but it's also the most powerful Mac per dollar I've ever used. If you've got any experience building a Hackintosh of your own or you've got any questions, let's hear them in the comments.

Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who loves a good hack and cherishes his Macintosh, so building a Hackintosh was a perfect fit. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

Send an email to Adam Pash, the author of this post, at tips+adam@lifehacker.com.