Install Leopard with Your iPod [How To]
Install Leopard with Your iPod [How To]
I’ve got a bad habit of losing or scratching up my optical media, which is why one of the first things I do when I buy a new operating system—like Leopard—is copy an image of the disc to my hard drive. Once it’s in the digital realm on my hard drive, I can rest assured that no carelessness on my part will result in a $100+ coaster. But how do you use that disk image now that it’s not in DVD form? Well, I use it to turn my old iPod into a Leopard installation beast.
In general a plain jane external hard drive should work fine, too, but I generally use my iPod when I’m doing this, so that’s what I’m covering. You can just as easily replace “iPod” with “external hard drive” for the rest of the guide if you want to use an external drive or large thumb drive.
First, assuming you’ve got a copy of Leopard, you’ll need to create a disk image of the installation DVD. (If you happened to download the disk image off BitTorrent or something less legal like that, that disk image would work and you can skip this step, but I’d recommend going legit.) To do so, insert the disc, fire up Disk Utility on your Mac, select the DVD image in the sidebar (probably ends in .dmg), and click the New Image button at the top of the window. Give it whatever name you want (like Leopard.dmg) and save it to your hard drive.
When it’s done, you should have that disk image file on your desktop. Now it’s time to restore that image to your iPod (or other external hard drive) so you can boot from it to install Leopard. Here’s how that’s done.
First, assuming your iPod is mounted, you want to erase it. To do so, go back to Disk Utility, click on your iPod in the sidebar, and go to the Erase tab. Then just choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the drop-down and click the erase button. Disk Utility will ask for confirmation, you’ll confirm, and your iPod will be formatted and erased.
Now it’s time to restore the Leopard disk image to your iPod (or whatever external hard drive you’re using), and again you’ll be using Disk Utility. Make sure the iPod is selected in the sidebar, then go to the Restore tab. Drag the Leopard.dmg image into the Source box (or browse for it by clicking the Image button), drag the iPod into the destination, and click the Restore button. Now you’ll just have to site back and wait a few minutes while the disk image is restored to your iPod.
When it’s done, you’re ready to use that pod to install Leopard. Open the Startup Disk preference pane in your Preferences, choose Mac OS X, 10.5 on Your iPod, and click Restart.
From this point on, all you’ve got to do is follow our previous step-by-step guide to upgrading to Leopard. When all’s said and done, you’ve got the tools to update your computer to Leopard with nothing more than your trusty iPod.
I realize that this won’t be for everyone, but if you’ve ever wanted to know how to install OS X from an external drive or iPod (I chose my iPod because it’s older and perfect for this sort of thing, since it doesn’t have any really important data on it), now you know how.
PICTURES: Lexus LF-A is Now “King of the Ring”, Beats Porsche 911 GT2 (Video)
Make a Backup Google Account [How To]
If you’ve thought about the damage of having your Google account disabled or hijacked—like with the script vulnerability that left one designer completely out of the loop—it might be time to do something to ensure all your Google tools can’t be taken away in one fell swoop. The Google Operating System blog recommends a few moves to ensure uninterrupted access to your web apps, such as cloning your email into a new account, sharing Google Calendar and Reader, and creating extra authorized accounts. It’s not a total solution, but as the author points out:
… You’ll still be able to read your email, send messages, post blog posts, check your calendar, add new events, access important documents etc.
Those who want physical copies of their Google data should check out Adam’s guide to backing up your Google apps.
Previously mentioned shareware note-taking …
Previously mentioned shareware note-taking application EverNote is once again giving out free licenses at Giveaway of the Day, and this time it’s the portable edition.
Apple Wheeling and Dealing For Movie Rentals From Multiple Studios? [Itunes Movies]
According to the New York Times, Apple is in negotiations with multiple studios for iTunes movie rentals, not just Fox as was previously reported. The NYT sources did confirm the Fox deal but, not surprisingly, they declined to comment further saying only that more than one studio would be on the stage at Macworld. Wusses. [NYT]