Microsoft may have backed out of the show's live special, but Family Guy definitely has the geek cred thing down. [Nick McGlynn]

I say almost, because there was still some noticeable frame dropping. But still, I could actually watch HD flash video (windowed and full-screen) without it stuttering like a slideshow. One issue with YouTube: the CPU pretty much went into overload once the video was playing, and on the third viewing I had to Force Quit Firefox to wrestle back control.

But this is good news for hackintoshes, and netbooks in general. This is not hardware GPU acceleration (limited to Windows right now), it just seems to be better CPU usage. Earlier today I also posted about AnandTech's Flash 10.1 CPU-utilization tests: they still noticed improvements under OS X, too. If you've given Flash 10.1 a try, post a comment here so other readers can see what sort of netbook you have, and if it's worth trying.

For the record, my MSI Wind U100 has 2GB of memory, a 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, and integrated Intel 945 graphics. (Pic above is of the Dell Mini 9).

The (main) man behind the NetbookInstaller software, which takes care of enough of the under-the-hood tweaks to make netbook hackintoshing approachable, heard the plaintive cries of his flock, and handed down a decree from on high:

The kernel will be fixed. It'll just take a few weeks.

This certainty, combined with the flip-flopping Atom compatibility in earlier 10.6.2 builds, points to the breakage as an intentional choice, not just some incidental bug. Update: Actually, there's an interesting case to be made the 10.6.2 killed Atom in all builds of the update. Interesting. —Thanks, Eduardo!

Even better, for anyone who dove straight into the 10.6.2 update only to find themselves very suddenly without a working netbook, there's a quick fix: Downgrade your kernel! Using the same instruction set you can do a partial (excluding the kernel) upgrade to 10.6.2, but you're probably just best off waiting until everything is patched up right and proper. [Meklort, MyDellMini]

The video above shows what happens if you try to boot the latest 10.6.2 developer build on a Hackintosh. As you can see, not much. So if you're running OS X on Atom hardware, hold off on any updates until this whole mess gets sorted out. [OS X Daily]

The hidden tweaks are a mix of features that didn't quite make the final cut or were deemed too slight to deserve their own tick-box, and deep system changes that normally call for terrifying terminal commands. And they don't stop at Snow Leopard: Secrets, which has been around in one form or another for a while now, has collected a huge library of "gray" settings for other apps too, from Apple's various software suites to civilian apps like Skype and NetNewsWire. The app is free, and installs as a PrefPane. [Secrets via TUAW]

Like Fusion, Parallels supports OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0 for the full Aero 3D interface and 7x better graphics performance than before. It also has a migration tool to move a PC's info to your virtual machine. Overall performance-wise, it's three times faster than before, supports 8 virtual CPUs and automatically pauses the virtual machine whenever no Windows apps are running. Update: The Parallels guys point out that Fusion supports OpenGL 2.1 just in XP, but only 1.4 in Vista and Windows 7, while Parallels supports 2.1 in every version, which they say means games will run better in Parallels. We'll definitely be checking that out.

The new Crystal mode promises to make "Windows completely disappear" so apps run feel completely native, with full support for multitouch trackpad gestures and the Apple Remote, with a persistent Windows apps folder in the Dock. Parallels 5 is out today for $80 for the full version or $50 for the upgrade, though we don't blame you if you can't tell it apart from Fusion 3, so we'll be checking them out head to head soon. [Parallels]

The current recommendation is to stick with 10.6.1 if you're running Snow Leopard, or 10.5.8 if your Hackintosh has Leopard. You could also try upgrading to 10.6.2 using an older or modified kernel.

If this is a conscious strike by Apple, it's likely the Hackintosh community will find a work around, but it's definitely something to watch before your next update. [OS X Daily]

People who own PCs and Macs, the category I fall into, got 15% of the vote, which was also a little higher than I expected. Make of this what you will, but the difference between the poll compared to our OS tracking graphic pictured here should indicate why we wanted to focus on your own hardware—not the computer you use at work. At any rate, the race is really still too close to call. You have time to cast your vote and help tip the scales in your favor.

Before you answer the poll, keep this in mind: work machines don't count. Presumably, you made a personal choice between a Mac or a PC for your private computer—and that is the one we want to know about.

It now supports OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0, giving you some more graphics powah in Windows, so you can run Windows' Aero interface with Flip3D (and play games, if you're daring). The more integrated Windows apps respond to commands like cmd+q and yes, work with Dock Expose. It's $80 for a fresh copy or $40 for an upgrade. [VMWare via AppleInsider]

Why You Should Do This

Last time we threw together a guide like this, things were different. Snow Leopard was but a glint in Steve Jobs' eye, and in terms of hardware, the Mini 9 was the best thing going—it was pretty much the only netbook you could guarantee would work perfectly. Not to mention the hackintosh process was much, much more complicated. And riskier! And yet, despite all this, it was easy to recommend loading a Mini up with OS X, because to put it bluntly, the results were fantastic.

But the Mini 9 was a bit too small for regular use, and even if it's still pretty easy to buy one, it's not officially part of Dell's product line anymore. Fast forward to now: the Mini 10v is a (quite similar) replacement for the 9, with a slightly larger screen, 160GB HDD standard, and 1GB or RAM. Most importantly, the keyboard is a bit larger, and the price is wonderfully low: $300 for a netbook that's completely ready for hackintoshing. Or to put it another way, the 10v is a $300 Apple netbook.

And it isn't just the hardware that's changed, it's the software. Snow Leopard is fast—faster than 10.5—and its new interface features, like Dock Expose, make using OS X on a netbook even easier. Finder is faster, Quicktime has a new interface. It's a pretty big upgrade from Leopard, is what I'm trying to say.

And installation tools have grown up too. Netbook hackintoshing used to be an all-day process, with external optical drives, Terminal commands, and numerous terrifying driver tweaks. Today, there are simple software utilities to take care of all this for you. So let's recap: Since 2008, the hardware has gotten cheaper and better, OS X more mature, and the installation process much simpler. Oh yeah, and Snow Leopard retail costs $30. (Though strict moralists should note that this is intended to be an upgrade.) There's never been a better time to hackintosh—not by a long shot.

That said, one thing hasn't changed. TERMINAL > SUDO REWRITE DISCLAIMER:

Even though we're using a standard retail-purchased copy of OS X, the disclaimer: Apple does not like Hackintoshing. It violates the OS X EULA, and probably won't make the Dell folks too happy either, should you need to return your hacked Mini 9 for service. So, as always, proceed at your own risk.

And of course, this tutorial messes with some pretty core components of your netbook, which means there's a real, if small, risk of brickage. Proceed at your own risk, again. Anyway.

What You'll Need

• Dell Mini 10v. The stock version, at $300, works perfectly. [Note: I'm getting a lot of questions about this, so just to be clear: This has to be a 10v, not a regular Mini 10. Lots of netbooks can be hackintoshed, but the Mini 10 has an incompatible graphics card/chipset. Sorry!]

• BIOS version lower than A06 (A05, A04, A03 all work fine)

Downgrade instructions are available here, though they require a Windows PC for creating a bootable DOS flash drive. There are a lot of scary acronyms here, but don't worry—it's no more than a few minutes of work.

• Retail copy of OS X 10.6 (NOT an OEM copy that comes with a new Mac). An ISO will do fine here too, but discs are just $30, you cheapskate. Upgrades to 10.6.1 should be applied after the fact.

• An 8GB (or larger) USB flash drive, the faster the better. External HDDs will work too.

• A Mac with a working optical drive, for preparing your flash drive

• Netbook BootMaker (a free Mac application)

Preparing Your Flash Drive

The 10v doesn't have an optical drive, and it's a pain in the ass to have to go find one, burn a new disc, and do things the old-fashioned way. Installing from a USB flash drive is much, much easier. So that's the method we'll be running with.

1. Insert your flash drive and OS X Retail install disk into your computer

2. Open Disk Utility (searching in Spotlight is the easiest way to find this)

3. Select your flash drive from the list on the left. Make sure to select the drive itself, not any partitions you may have written to it before.

4. In the right panel, select the "Partition" screen.

5. From the dropdown menu, select "1 Partition," then click "Options" below the partition map.

6. Select "Master Boot Record." This will ensure that your Mini 10v can boot from your flash drive. Select a name for your partition—doesn't really matter what—and apply your changes. Keep in mind this will delete anything you have on your flash drive right now, so back it up if need be.

7. Once this is done, move from the "Partition" screen to the "Restore" screen in Disk Utility

8. For your Restore Source, select (by dragging) the OS X install disk from the left panel. Make sure this is the item called something to the effect of "Mac OS Install DVD," not "Optiarc DVD" or some other hardware title. For the destination, drag your newly-prepared partition over. Click restore.

This will take at least an hour, so go have sandwich or something. Or even better, skip ahead make sure your Mini 10v is ready for the install, as outlined in the next section.

Ok, once that slog is done, it's time to let Netbook BootMaker do its magic. And let me be clear: it is magic. What this utility will do is install a special bootloader on your flash drive, which allows your netbook to begin an OS X install. It also throws in a few driver tweaks, to make sure your 10v, y'know, work.

9. Running BootMaker is easy—just open the app, select your OS X partition on your newly-minted flash drive, and tell it to GO GO GO.

Aaaaand that's it! You're ready to start hackintoshing.

Installing OS X

First, you're going to need to do some light prep on your 10v.

10. Jump into the BIOS, since we're going to need to check on a few things. You can do this by restarting the 10v, and hitting F2 as the Dell logo first shows up.

11. Double-check to see if you have the right BIOS. As long as it's lower than A06, you're fine. If not, refer back to the "What You'll Need" section.

12. With the arrow keys, cycle over to the "Advanced" screen, where you'll see a list of options. USB BIOS Legacy support should be enabled, as should Bluetooth.

13. Now cycle over to the Boot screen. This is where you tell your 10v which drive to start from. During normal use, this will be the hard drive where your OS is installed. Since we're installing an OS today, though, you're going to want to select "USB Storage," and move it to the top by pressing the F6 key.

14. Once you're done, press F10 to save and exit. If you're ready to dive straight into the install, make sure you have your prepped USB drive plugged in and ready to go.

15. Plug your computer in, if it's not already. You don't want your netbook to die halfway though—this will only lead to sadness.

Next time you boot with your flash drive plugged in, you should see this screen. Don't be alarmed by the spinning pinwheel; just leave it for a few minutes. Your computer is thinking.

16. HAHA, BEHOLD! This screen here, it's awfully Apple-y! But you're not done yet. Let the install complete, following the regular prompts as you go. When it asks you where to install OS X, select and clear the entire HDD of your device. This will delete everything, so make sure you have your stuff backed up. Update: To be more specific on the "select and clear":

The first thing you need to do is format your HHD. Bring up Disk Utility in the installer select it at the highest level possible. Go to "Partition" and make it a single Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) partition. Before hitting Apply, go to Options and select GUID Partition Table. Then hit apply.

After about an hour, you're done. Seriously—that's it. Your first boot will take longer than normal, and your desktop may freeze for minutes at a time. Give it some time to figure everything out. Within about 10 minutes, your desktop should be ready to go.

Odds and Ends

By and large, your install should work out of the box. Sleep, shutdown/startup, sound, keyboard shortcuts, battery indicators, and anything else you can think of should be present and at attention, barring one glaring flaw: the trackpad. It's kinda shitty, and makes dragging-and-dropping nearly impossible. Here's what you need to do:

17. Go here, and download the attached trackpad driver.

18. Open Finder on your 10v, and press CMD+Shift+G (on this keyboard, that's Alt+Shift+G.) In the box that comes up, typed "/Extra" and press enter.
This will bring you to a hidden folder. Copy the .kext file you've download into the Mini10vExt folder, making sure to back up the one you're replacing.
19. Run the app in the "Extra" directory called UpdateExtra, which will alert OS X to the new drivers. Restart your computer.

Now you should be able to click and drag—the cursor should jump when your second finger makes contact. You should see, as you could before, a panel in the OS X preferences where you can adjust trackpad settings. Play with them as you like—two finger scrolling is great, and makes the 10v feel more like a genuine Apple netbook.

The only other issue you're likely to run into is the occasional too-tall settings screen. Here's an obscenely clever virtual screen resolution workaround for that.

So There You Go

You've got yourself a fully-functioning, beautifully small Snow Leopard netbook, which'll do 90% of what a 13-inch MacBook can, at 70% the size and about 25% of the cost. Mine's close to perfect: With an extended battery, I'm pushing 7 hours of battery life with Wi-Fi, which makes my MacBook pro look like a LOSER. And tiny extra bit of size over the Mini 9 means the keyboard is just large enough to work on, meaning this thing isn't just a toy—it's a decent investment. This from a guy with banana fingers.

Performance is acceptable, meaning you can run regular apps like iTunes, Firefox—and even Photoshop in a bind. It's not noticeably slow during normal use, though it'll choke on higher-res Flash video (no YouTube HD, but SD works fine). As with any netbook, this pretty much can't be your main machine. But it's a brilliant extra portable machine, for toilet browsing, travel, class notes and the like.

Anyway, buckets of thanks to the MyDellMini forums, especially users MechDrew (site here) and Bmcclure937. Without their guides, I wouldn't have been able to write this one. And of course, a hat tip to Adam Pash, who was already elbow-deep in Snow Leopard hackintoshing when we were all still too afraid. See his fantastic guide to building the build your own desktop hackintosh here. UPDATE: And I'd be remiss not to mention Meklort, the main developer of the NetbookInstaller suite, which does most of the heavy lifting here. —Thanks, Brian!

So that's about it! Please add in your experiences in the comments-your feedback is a huge benefit to our Saturday guides. Good luck with your own Hackintoshing, and have a great weekend!

A message on MacOS Forge tersely states,

The ZFS project has been discontinued. The mailing list and repository will also be removed shortly.

There have been multiple explanations as to why Apple dropped ZFS support in Snow Leopard, and now there's more speculation to add into the mix. This time the story goes that when Oracle bought Sun, Oracle didn't want continue development on ZFS because they already had their own filesystem (BTRFS) in the oven.

ZFS was also apparently facing patent suits at the time. It all sounds like a complicated legal and political mess, which is probably why Apple just dropped it.

Whatever the true causes behind ZFS' sudden fall from grace may be, it's disappointing that we'll have to wait longer for a true filesystem upgrade in OS X. [AppleInsider]

You can actually download a trial version yourself before you hand over your $50. Keep in mind that you'll need to have a machine with one of these processors in order for this to work: Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, i7 or Xeon Nehalem. We haven't tested Rebel EFI, so we can't say how well it works. Let us know if you've had luck with it. [Psystar via LoopInSight]

Boot Camp, to be clear, is different from virtualization software like Parallels or VM Ware Fusion or Virtual Box, which you let you run Windows inside of OS X, almost like an application. Boot Camp runs Windows natively on a Mac—you power on, click the Windows icon at the boot manager, and it starts it up, just the same as if you'd powered on a Dell. Why Windows straight up on a Mac? To live a little. Or in my case, to play PC games.

What you'll need

• A Windows 7 disc
• A Snow Leopard disc
• An Intel-based Mac
• Free disc space!

More on system requirements here.

It's easy, probably

Boot Camp, and the process of installing Windows in most cases, couldn't be more straightforward, at least as far as operating system installs usually go. After you've got your Mac up and running like normal, fire up an app called Boot Camp Assistant (just use Spotlight). It'll warn you to back up your disk before installing Windows, which you should, since you are asking favors of the hard drive gods here.

Boot Camp Assistant will ask how much of your hard drive you wanna dedicate to Windows. You want more than the laughably small 5GB of space it suggests. Since I keep around 3-4 games on my Windows partition at a time, and I want some breathing room just in case, I stick with 40GB, but you probably really want no less than 20GB. Slide the bar toward the Finder face, granting Windows how much hard drive space you want it to have. After you click partition, Boot Camp Assistant will start getting your hard drive divvied up for some Windows action, which'll take a few minutes. Once that's done, you'll need your Windows disk.

If everything went according to plan, skip this next section!

If something went wrong

It's possible you'll get an error that says Boot Camp Assistant wasn't able to create the partition because some files couldn't be moved, and you need to format the drive into a single partition. Basically, what's happened here, most likely, is that your hard drive is fragmented like a mofo, and there's not enough contiguous space for Boot Camp Assistant to create the Windows partition. Yeah, disk fragmentation. In OS X. Believe it. From here, there a couple possible solutions.

If you're extraordinarily lucky, it's possible you might be able to simply restart your computer and stuff will just work. Probably not! From there, you proceed to the free and easy solution. Using Disk Utility, resize your main OS X partition, reducing it by 40GB (or however much you plan on making your Windows partition). Hit apply, and pray. If that goes peachy, you'll have 40GB of unused space on your disk. Go back to Disk Utility, and re-expand your OS X partition to reclaim the 40GB. After that's all done, run Boot Camp Assistant again, and since the hard work of moving files around on the disk was done by Disk Utility, you should be golden.

If, on the other hand, Disk Utility also refused to change your drive's partitions, you have two choices. The nuclear option is to back up, format your hard drive completely, then run Boot Camp and divide your hard drive into partitions from the Snow Leopard installation before restoring all of your OS X data via machine. Since my Snow Leopard install was practically virginal, as a totally clean (not restored) install that was only around 10 days old [ed. note—how the hell did your hard drive get so fragmented then?], I said screw that. Which led me to iDefrag.

It's a $30 defragmenting program. I don't know if my hard drive was really as disgustingly fragmented as it said, or if it'll ultimately help my Mac's performance, but it perfectly executed what I bought it for. Basically, you make a startup DVD (using your Snow Leopard install disc, so keep it handy), boot into it, and it shows you how gross and fragmented your hard drive is before going to work defragging it for a couple hours. Restart, you're back in OS X, and Boot Camp Assistant won't talk back to you again. At least, it didn't to me.

The part where you actually install Windows, so grab some tea

Okay, welcome back, people without problems. After the partioning is successful, Boot Camp Assistant will ask you to pop in your Windows disc. If you've got one of these Macs and 4GB of RAM, you should install the 64-bit version. If not, go 32-bit. Now, all of the pains and glories of installing Windows will actually commence.

After you pick the language and accept the terms, it'll ask you want kind of Windows installation you want. Pick custom, and you should get a list of hard drives to install Windows on. Make sure you highlight the correct partition and click format, which will transform it to Windows' native NTFS file system, if you're doing a partition that's bigger than 32GB for Windows. Then tell Windows to install itself there. Go make a drink, and come back 20 minutes later.

Welcome to Windows land.

Now what?

To pick between booting into OS X or Windows when you turn on your Mac, start holding down the Alt key before the gray screen appears when you power on. (You gotta be fast.) It'll give you the option to boot into Mac or Windows. Pick Windows, obviously. Once you're totally in Windows, like with the desktop and everything, you need to pop in the Snow Leopard installation disc, and run the Boot Camp installer, which puts in place all the drivers Windows needs to actually run decent on your Mac.

After that, you should run Windows Update to grab the latest goods from Microsoft, and I'd suggest, especially if you're running a unibody MacBook (or Pro) going to Nvidia's site and downloading their latest Windows 7 drivers for your graphics card (the 9M series for unibody MacBook Pros, 8M for the previous, non-unibody generation).

Overall, Boot Camp 3.0 in Snow Leopard works way better and more smoothly than before: Multitouch trackpads on MacBooks feel way less janky; shortcut keys, like for brightness or volume, work exactly like in OS X (before, you pressed the function key); and you can read your OS X partition's files from Windows now. (Back in OS X, you won't be able to write to your Windows partition if it's the NTFS format.) By the way, the command key, by default, is mapped as the Windows key, so you're probably gonna annoyingly bring up the start menu a whole bunch. It's natural.

Of course, you can argue that Windows is not as optimized as Mac OS X in that machine. On the other side, Apple's Intel-based hardware is really not that special. This shows in the gaming test, where Call of Duty 4 squeezes 5 more frames per second in Windows 7:

In other tests, however, Snow Leopard consistently beats Windows 7 running on this machine. Especially painful is the battery life test:

This one, however, can really be attributed to bad drivers, since the author of the tests says that he "was able to get just around an hour and a half with Windows 7 with general usage on the same machine" running Boot Camp 2.1 instead of the 3.0 version he used for the test. [CNET]