Featured Mods

The utlimate iMac for your desk

Written by Chris Tangora

The Mac Mini's case is small and compact, able to fit in almost anything.  Even an iMac DV.  But with all of that extra space, what would you do?  Klaus Diebel, a life long modder, decided to make his a bass booming coffee maker.  Why not?  Now Klaus has the iMac CS for sale (each a custom job) for about 400 euros, plus the iMac case and optional Mini.

Take a look at Klaus' site (kiwidee.com) for more info on the iMac CS and his other mods (G4 Power Tower & the iMac RMS, aka mailbox).

OS Xbox Pro

Written by Chris Tangora

Will U. Design has a new mod out that features OS X (as well as Linux and W7).  Will isn't a Mac guy, but he soon realized that the people he wanted to work for were (video editing with Final Cut Pro).  He couldn't make himself walk into an Apple store, so he made himself a Hackintosh.  The thing that gets me is that the new Microsoft stores mimic the Apple stores so much!  Anyways, back to the story.

Since Will is so anti-Mac he wanted to make his Hackintosh with an homage to his Microsoft roots, so he grabbed an XBox and went to work.  Lots of work later (and an EFI-X dongle) he was able to get a triple boot system, the OS XBox Pro.  Reminds me of the XBox G4 from 2008's Mac Mod Challenge.

(photos from willudesign.com)

System Specs
Intel Core2 Q9550s
GeForce 9800MT
Dual 500GB HD (RAID 0)
160GB Boot Drive
300W TFX Micro PSU


Have fun working on OS X Will.



Lots of images and build info at  willudesign.com



P.S.  If you like it, you can vote for it on Intel's Core i7 Custom Challenge.

Vrrrm Vrrrrrm ... Moto G4, the fastest Mac ever!

Written by Chris Tangora

Talk about speeding up your Mac!

Forum member motoGfour strapped a 49cc engine to a G4 Graphite tower and now has himself one slick ride.  Project BURAN started out with the idea of taking a G4 and turning it into a bicycle seat.  Somehow that bike turned into a 49cc scooter.  Granted the MotoG4 can't surf the web anymore, but it sure can cruise around the culdesac.

Not sure how serious they are, but it looks like they are coming up with some different rankings for Mac Modded sport bikes...  hmmm... THAT would be interesting.

Posted on MacMod Forums

More info at motog4.co.cc

Apple I replica building

Written by Chris Tangora

Hackintoshes might be the rage right now, but Vince Briel is going old school with his non-Mac Apple computers.  Vince sells Apple I replicas that you build yourself.  Ken Gagne of ComputerWorld was at the 2009 KansasFest and took a class in how to assemble the Apple I replica from Vince and reports back on the process.  More info after the jump.

MacBook coversion to a Mini Pro

Written by Chris Tangora

We've seen a few people make different versions of Mini Pros, most use a Mac Mini to get the job done.  When I saw this Mini Pro mod what struck me most is how it started off, as a Mac Book.  The original Mac Book had an accident with H20 and the only piece that wasn't effected was the motherboard.  After some cutting, soldering, wiring and screwing the MacBook components to a Macally G-S350SUA hard drive case we have the Mac Pro Mini.

Lots of details available on wolphbite.com and pictures on his flickr stream.  Overview of mod after the jump.

From the Archives, The illusion case mod

Written by Chris Tangora

This one is a few years old, but thought it was worth visiting again.  There hasn't been much action over at envador.com for a while, so I was looking at some of his older mods and thought this was interesting.

A lot of case mods show off the insides of a case, with special lighting, illuminating liquids in a liquid cooled case, etc.  So I thought it was interesting when envador twisted it around to make a mod that was also an illusion.  Using slanted glass, envador was able to make the computer disappear.  It's a simple idea, yet very effective.  Now only if that was an Apple logo instead of a Window's cube.  Links and pix after the jump.

The iBed, your bedtop computer

Written by Chris Tangora

Ever have to shoot out that quick email before bed or wanted to wake up to the iTunes visualizer?   Lifehacker reader Nathan needed something to take his mind of losing his job, so he took a box of broken iBooks (from his previous employer) and started building a working iBook.  When he realized that the iBooks were having issues with their GPU and movement, he tried fixing it with fire, but couldn't completely fix it.  So he did the next best thing.  He made the laptop a stationary computer above his bed, a bedtop I guess you could say.  Click on the pic for a larger image, or read on for more info.

Atomwood, the Kitchen PC Mod

Written by Chris Tangora

Here's a beauty.  Modder Chris Cook has dubbed this mod, Atomwood.  Packed inside this nicely built wooden box lies a dual core Intel Atom 330 processor with 2GB of RAM.  Atomwood is going to be used as a web & email machine, so there isn't much it needs more than that.  Packed into about a 8.5" cube, the main part of the exterior is cut from a single piece of oak veneer plywood.  But don't you fall for plywood.  It took Chris an additional 6 hours to fix the splintering in the plywood due to the cuts he had to make.  Always use solid wood for your mods.  The detailing was done with Padauk, an African deep brown-red colored hardwood.

The end result is a nice small wooden beauty.  Check out the build log at bit-tech.net, then check out his other wooden mod, fivewood (also on bit-tech)

from 9gadgets via gizmowatch

iScion

Written by Chris Tangora

The Carputer isn't a new idea, it's been done to many, many cars and even with some Macs.  But this one stands out because it is a new car that is equipped with a Mac Mini system in it done quite well.  Hosted on mp3car.com, user Scatebase took a 2009 Scion XB and outfitted it with a Mac Mini and a touch screen & Griffin Powermate (among other things).  The end result is a Scion that has a full Mac running inside of it.

Scatebase even has the controls from the steering wheel built-in to the system (so it seems).  The Scion comes with a standard iPod connector, is built modularly (so it is easy to take apart) and has plenty of space behind the receiver to store the wires and other miscellaneous things you don't need showing.  It's still a work in progress (software issues and refining the bevel).  But this looks like a nice mod to be driving around town in.

Click on pictures for larger view.  More pictures on Scatebase's build-log.



Scatebase's Mini XB build-log on mp3car.com

MacMod Challenge Winner motivates another to put Leopard on 9600 Mod

Written by Chris Tangora

Nothing feels better than to have someone follow in your footsteps.  The 2008 MacMod Challenge winner James Little should be feeling pretty good right now as more and more people are following in his footsteps to bring their old Macs up to Leopard.  James was able to bring four classic Macs into the world of Leopard, using a variety of methods.  Now Carlos Castro has followed in his footsteps and has booted a 9600 into Leopard (editor's note, James also had a 9600 boot Leopard).

Posted on MacSales forum, user cgecastro was able to get the 9600 booting into Leopard without an additional Mac.  I'm always interested in how the deep dark belly of OS X can be hacked, so this was an interesting read (as it was also fun to re-read James' account).

Carlos' ModLog on MacSales Forum.

James' Original (winning) Mod Challenge Entry

UPDATE:

The Kexts and BW files from the original mod are now linked in the original MacMod Challenge entry, under Parts. -- Chris.