How To Live With 1024x600 Screen Resolution

Although I didn't get my HP Mini 311 back this week, I'm still hoping I'll be getting it back within next week. My target is Tuesday but in the remaining days between now and that fateful day, I still have to live with the 1024x600 screen of my HP Mini 1000.

Computing with a hackintoshed netbook with this screen resolution is bearable, even quite good in fact. Although the netbooks' Intel Atom chip hardly trumps a G4 PowerPC in iBooks, the fact that the former can run Snow Leopard and are lighter, more portable than the latter is enough for me to prefer hackintoshed netbooks than real iBooks.

So using hackintoshed netbooks on a daily basis spells happy days. Err, until you find yourself with lots of open apps and open windows. That 600 vertical real estate has forced me to put my Dock vertically on the left side for more comfortable workspace.

There was this one time that I had activated Spaces to organize my open windows but then they're not that many and I find myself getting confused with where to find each one. This wasn't the solution for me, clearly.

And then I stumbled upon an article in OS X Daily; "Enable Single Application Mode". And before you react violently, NO, this is not anything like Windows XP Starter Edition, but rather it "is a way to force Mac OS X to show only the application that is currently in use, all other open applications and windows will be minimized into the Dock. Selecting another application from the Dock will then minimize the current application, and the new selection becomes the only thing on screen."

Here's what it looks like in action:


It kinda reminds me of Ubuntu Netbook Remix's behavior, which is quite nice. :)

August 5, 2009

While the whole Philippine nation will remember yesterday as one of the most touching events in their history (me included in the "their" there) as they bade farewell to a great woman whose unfailing faith in freedom had fueled minds, fed souls of today who are now enjoying the democracy she helped bring forth, the rest of Apple-dom and Apple fanboys and girls alike will perhaps remember August 5, 2009 as the day that 10.5.8, what may be the last OS X Leopard update before Snow Leopard will be official, was released.

Delta Updater | Combo Updater

While I and my family remained glued to the TV set in the living to pay our respect to this great leader in the only way we could then, my fellow hackintoshers had already downloaded 10.5.8 from Apple's website and were trying it on their own iterations of MacBook Mini's each. Thus, when I visited myhpmini.com this morning fresh from grieving my country's loss of its valuable pillar of society, this was the conversation thread that welcomed me:

> Intel9295
Now, to any HP mini Hackintosh users: DO NOT UPGRADE! This update could break your install. Wait until someone more qualified does it (LeMaurien, we are looking at you) and see's what it does. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Don't be stupid.

> MrFairladyz » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:40 pm
My wifi wasnt working so i just updated to see what changes. So far, the display resolution issue is back (it only shows 640x480 instead of 1024x576... i think this is only a problem on the 110's, though.)

I'm re-installing all the kexts now.

edit: okay, i've re-installed the kexts. wifi is still not working (i don't know if it will mess up your wifi, but mine wasn't working to begin with.) Display and everything else is back to normal. No noticable changes, what was this update for?

> ravic » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:56 am
I was having lot of trouble with Bluetooth PAN, I wonder if this would fix it?
I will wait for some time before attempting to upgrade.

> ConfuzedOne » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:29 am

Don't be a chicken.. upgrade you fools! :P what's the worse thing that can happen? :P

> lukehale » Thu Aug 06, 2009 1:32 am

Only post-upgrade issue I have is my sleep fails to function, and I have to restart if I shut the lid :(. That also means bluetooth doesn't work because to get it working you have to close and reopen the lid. . . which causes it to sleep. . . which fails. Other than that it is working wonderfully. I will get back to you all if I find a solution to the sleep issue :)

Based from these results, it's basically the same conundrum of issues with hardware rendered non-functional by the update; not unlike what's happened with the other previous updates, 10.5.6 and 10.5.7. Among the issues, it's Sleep/Resume that's bothering me the most but I'm not losing hope - if people found solutions for this and a lot more others in 10.5.6 and 10.5.7, why not in 10.5.8? I haven't tried for myself the update yet so I find no reason to just dismiss this hurdle as unsurvivable ;)

I can't wait to get acquainted with 10.5.8. Now if only I hadn't a regular day job. . .

LABAN!