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My Hackintosh Build

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:53:03 +0200

My new Custom build PC.

Got all the components from Saudi Arabia - Khobar. Did the build my self.

Outperforming Mac Pro 2.66 GHz Nehalem (Basic) which is Selling for SAR 10,500 at the local dealer in Saudi Arabia.

Mac Pro GeekBench Result: 9033
Mac Pro Geekbench result on GeekBench website

My Build GeekBench Result: 9246

Belive it or not, this monster is capable of converting a divx movie(1h 30m) to iPhone friendly format(MP4) in 8 minutes. This is using CPU stock speed 2.66 which can be easily overclocked to 4.0 GHz using a third party heatsink. And the CUDA feature of the graphics card was not used as well. Which is supposed to provide a performance boost in video encoding reaching 5x.

Components used:
- Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P
- Grapics card: nVidia 9800 GTX+ (Superclocked Edition)
- CPU : i7 920 2.66 Ghz
- Ram: 6GB 1333 MHz DDR3
- Power Supply unit: Thermaltake 700w
- Hard drive : WD Green 1 TB (Data), WD Blue 160GB (Mac OSX 10.6), WD Blue 160GB (Windows 7 64Bit + Ubuntu Linux 64Bit)
- Samsung DVD-RW Drive
- Case: Thermaltake Matrix

Note.
- The result showing in the video is lower because of running the QuickTime screen recording at the same time.
- The CPU is running at stock speed 2.66 GHz.
- My build has a better Graphics card nVidia 9800 GTX+ (Super clocked) compared to MacPro�s GT120 which is a rebranded GeForce 9500
- 6GB DDR3 compared to 3 GB in Mac Pro
- My custom build has 3 Hard Drives (160GB Snow Leopard, 160GB Windows 7 64Bit + Ubuntu 64 Bit, 1TB for Data+Media) compared to Mac Pro single 640GB drive.
- Cost of build is away cheaper.

YouTube Video:

Apple prices in Saudi Arabia; Up to 70% higher

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:23:51 +0200

A quick glance at the website of the Apple authorized distributor in Saudi Arabia �Arab Computers� will definitely shock you. Unfortunately all of the website content is in Arabic.

Buying Apple products through the designated distributor will cost you up to 68% more when compared to the US pricing.
I have come up with the following table and chart to illustrate the difference in pricing between Saudi Arabia and US.

Check out the pricing comparison chart:

Also a table with detailed pricing is available:

Pls note that the prices were quoted on Nov 9th from the following sources:

- Apple United States Store
- Apple authorized Saudi Arabia distributor website

Apple TV Review

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 23:08:55 +0200

After using the Apple TV for one month, here is my list of advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

Nice UI.
Has WiFi
Got Youtube which is an endless awesome experience. Provided that you have a good broadband.
Has optical output.
Has HDMI as well as component video output.
Extremely easy to use and configure.
Very cool screensaver effect.

Disadvantages:

No out of the box support for Divx/Xvid
iTunes doesn�t sync any format which is not supported. It syncs only h.264 and MOV.
No Arabic keyboard for Youtube.
No out of the box Arabic support in rendering Arabic text.
No out of the box external USB HD support.
No out of the box subtitles support.
No out of the box 5.1 audio out support.
It has the screen overscan activated by default which crops � inch of the video edges. I�ve noticed this after comparing a certain clip while playing on Apple TV and the PC monitor.
It doesn�t have a DVD drive.

However, my overall experience is terrific. Especially after overcoming most of the disadvantages after doing the following:

Enabling SSH. (The Apple TV runs a mini version of the Mac OS X)
Installing perian. Which allows you to play Divx/Xvid and plenty of other video file formats. And gives you subtitles support in the same time.
Installing A52Codec to enable 5.1 audio out support and hock it with my home theatre via an optical audio cable.
Enable external USB HD after applying a patch to the kernel.
Use an SFTP client to transfer the video files that are not supported by iTunes.
Installed the ATVFiles plugin which will allow you to browse the Apple TV file system and play any file which is supported by perian. i.e. Xvid/Divx.
Solved the arabic test/subtitles issue. You can refer my earlier posts for the solution.

Note. The steps taken to overcome the disadvantages needs some knowledge in terminal and ssh.

Apple TV perian subtititles size is too small

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:26:50 +0300

After installing ATVFiles and Perian so you can play Divx, Xvid and subtitles. Look at this webpage for a howto.

You should be getting small font subtitles on the TV.

Refer to this perian support ticket and the comments for the solution.

Note. If the arabic subtitles doesn't display normally (something like this ), refer to my earlier post: Apple TV & Arabic Text.

Apple TV & Arabic Text

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:01:31 +0300

Apple TV is a nice product however the arabic fonts are not supported out of the box.

As usual, Apple is paying no attention what so ever for the Arabic language. Who can believe that the ...iPod still doesn't support Arabic till now.

See the below out of the box Apple TV Arabic text handling:

Anyhow I'll explain what do you need to do in order to display the Arabic text correctly with Apple TV.

Note. Please proceed with the steps at your own risk.

You need the following before applying these steps.
a. An SSH enabled Apple TV. If yours is not SSH enabled, have a look at this HowTo.
b. A file transfer GUI ( Fugu for Mac Or WinFugu for Windows)
c. Putty if you are using windows for the steps.

Now let's start:

1- Connect to your Apple TV via the network using Fugu or WinFugu using the following address: AppleTV.local. Password is frontrow.
2- Copy the following files: "Geeza Pro Bold.ttf" & "Geeza Pro.ttf" to your AppleTV. You can find those files under /System/Library/Fonts/ in your Mac installation. [UPDATE] I noticed that if you copy those files from leopard, they'll cause AppleTV to crash/reboot. So here is a zip file of the tiger ones just in case.
3- ssh to your AppleTV:
ssh frontrow@AppleTV.local
password is frontrow. Then type the following commands in order:
sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/disk0s3 /
Enter the password frontrow when you're asked for it.
sudo cp ./Ge* /System/Library/Fonts/
4- Now turn off your Apple TV by unplugging the Power cable and plugging it again.

If everything goes fine you should be getting something like the following:

Fixing arabic subtitles issue with Perian

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 19:19:29 +0300

Perian is a Quicktime component for Mac. It's a nice component as it add the support for alot of the video formats which are not ...supported by default. It also has a nice feature which is the subtitles support.

However trying to play the standard Arabic subtitle files that are available on the internet doesn't work fine with perian. see the below screenshot:

After checking out the source code of the perian component and having a close look to the code, it was very clear that the guys are assuming that the subtitle file is encoded using the Unicode text encoding. Unlike allot of the Arabic subtitle files I've seen so far which are using Arabic (Windows) encoding.

So here you go the solution:
1- Rename the Arabic subtitle file (i.e. subtitle.srt --> subtitleOld.srt)
2- Open the subtitleOld.srt file with a Text editor specifying the Arabic (Windows) as the encoding. (MAKE SURE TO CHOOSE THE ARABIC(WINDOWS) WHILE OPENING THE FILE)
3- Save the file as subtitle.srt (without the Old part) specifying the Unicode (UTF-8) as the encoding. MAKE SURE TO SELECT THE UNICODE (UTF-8).
4- Delete the subtitleOld.srt file

You should be getting something like the below. Enjoy.....

Watch out! Phishing against the Saudi banks is increasing

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 11:39:01 +0200

With the current rise in the phishing websites targeted towards the online banking users both internationally and locally,

It's important that you guard your self against such scenarios.

28571 Total Phishing Reports received on August 2006.

I got an e-mail yesterday containing a phishing site URL. The site is targeting online banking customers for a famous local bank. It's Samba bank.

The phisher is not only getting the username and password. He is also asking the users to key in his National ID Number. Which is even worse.

I was curios to test the anti-phishing solutions introduced with the Mozilla Firefox 2 and MS Internet Explorer 7. And the result was as follows:

IE7 were able to alert me that the website is a suspected phishing one.
Mozilla Firefox 2 did alert me only after configuring the browser to use Google's Anti Phishing Technology.

To configure Firefox to use Google Anti-Phishing Technology, DO the following:
Go to Tools -> Options -> Security Tab -> Under Tell me if the website i am visiting is a suspected forgery, Tick By Asking Google about each website I visit.

Below are the screenshots of the browsers showing the alerts.

You can also find a step by step screenshots for enabling the Googl'e Anti-Phishing Technology in Mozilla Firefox 2.

To read more about fishing Click here

You better take care while using a Mac Laptop Next Time

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 02:52:56 +0200

Reason is...

You might get caught on Tape.

Don't miss the following story:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2220

The Mac Application that helps you to achieve that is the Automator.

Special dedication for World Cup Lovers

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 03:46:03 +0300

Don�t miss this companion.

Don't miss a single goal. Scores, videos, fans.

Follow the following 4 steps:
1. Download and Install Mozilla Firefox from http://www.getfirefox.com
2. Launch Firefox.
3. Visit the following website: http://www.mozilla.com/add-ons/jogacompanion/ and click on Free download link.
4. Wait until it gets installed, close and open the Mozila Firefox browser.
Enjoy�..

(Edit) You can change the theme to your favorite team from a country flag shown on the top right corner.

The World�s First Open Movie Released!

Wed, 24 May 2006 14:09:21 +0300

A new phenomena is making its debut in the movie industry; the world�s first Open Movie has been released on the Internet.

Not only would the movie be made using Open Source software, but the contents themselves were to be Open as well: all of the digital assets and production files are released under a Creative Commons license, allowing everyone to see how the movie was made, make changes to it and create a new, derived movie.

Movie name: Elephants Dream.
Open Source software used: Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU Public License.