Tag: mac

Best Ad Blocker for YouTube on iPhone & Android
Are you on the lookout for the best YouTube ad blocker? Then this post is exactly what you need.

YouTube is one of the most popular online video-sharing platforms in the world, with over 2.1 billion monthly active users. Giving creators, artists, and businesses the opportunity to promote and grow their audience. It also presents students with inexhaustible streams of information. The cherry on the cake? It’s completely free to watch and upload content on YouTube.

Yet, YouTube video ads and pop-ups can be ridiculously frustrating. Viewers find it difficult to stream content on YouTube without irksome ads flying all over their screens. It slows traffic, increases data usage, and makes you susceptible to online threats, spear phishing, and other malware.

Below, we compiled a detailed list of some of the best YouTube ad blockers to aid your free streaming on YouTube and protect your device from trackers.

Best Ad Blocker for YouTube on Android, Mac, And iOS

1. AdBlock

AdBlock is an open-source software that gives users control over unwanted YouTube ads and pop-ups. With over 60 million users worldwide, it blocks third-party trackers and enhances privacy.

Key features include:
- Custom ad blocking rules with filters, whitelists, and dark mode.
- Advanced privacy protection against malicious ads, scams, and phishing sites.
- Ad substitution—replace ads with images of animals, objects, or landscapes.
- Faster browsing with accelerated page load times.
- Cross-device compatibility, working on Android, iOS, and 40+ languages.
2. AdGuard

As the name implies, AdGuard blocks incredibly annoying ads and pop-ups on browsers and apps, particularly YouTube. It works by enabling a safe, web-browsing experience for users. AdGuard equally allows users high-level privacy protection from online malware and other threats harmful to their computers, networks, or servers.

Here are some key features of the AdGuard for YouTube ad-free experience:
- AdGuard is available on Android and iOS, going as far as offering compatibility with various other platforms such as Chrome Extension, Windows, and Mac.
- The YouTube ad blocker protects its users’ data from web trackers, consequently preventing personal information from being disseminated to unwanted sites.
- One significant benefit of AdGuard is that it filters adult content via parental control options that limit children’s exposure to unsuitable content.
- AdGuard also maintains web page functionality, ensuring pages load faster and limit traffic.
3. Luna

Luna is one of the top-rated mobile ad blockers, designed to block YouTube ads and pop-ups across apps and browsers without compromising user safety.

Key features include:
- Broad compatibility, blocks ads on Spotify, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Chrome, Firefox, and more.
- Data-efficient browsing for a smoother experience.
- Full support for Android and iOS, with both Wi-Fi and cellular data connections.
4. Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus is a free, open-source ad blocker designed to enhance the web browsing experience by eliminating video ads, pop-ups, and flashing banners.

Key features include:
- Faster page loading by blocking intrusive ads.
- Protection from online trackers, scams, and malware.
- Selective ad blocking allows support for non-intrusive ads that help websites generate revenue.
- Compatibility with desktop browsers and Android devices.
5. Ghostery

Ghostery is a powerful YouTube ad blocker designed specifically for Mozilla Firefox. It helps users eliminate unwanted ads, videos, and pop-ups, creating a smoother and distraction-free browsing experience.

Beyond ad blocking, Ghostery enhances web page speed and offers robust protection against spear phishing, spoofing, and other cyber threats.

Key Features:
- Customizable ad blocking – Choose which ads to block.
- AI-powered filtering for smarter, more efficient protection.
- Advanced privacy protection & anti-tracking to safeguard personal data.
6. StopAd

For those searching for the best YouTube ad blocker, StopAd is a powerful solution that does exactly what its name suggests—completely stops ads. Beyond YouTube, it blocks intrusive ads across various streaming platforms, ensuring a seamless viewing experience.

Compatible with iOS, Mac, and Android, StopAd offers:
- Full ad blocking – Eliminates all ad URLs, scans CSS, and filters HTML codes.
- Robust web protection – Shields against ID theft, bank phishing, and online scams.
7. YouTube AdBlock

YouTube AdBlock is a dedicated ad blocker for Microsoft Edge, designed to eliminate ads, prevent scams, and reduce data usage while browsing. This Edge-exclusive extension not only blocks all types of YouTube ads but also protects users from third-party tracking, spear phishing, and spoofing attempts.

Key features include:
- Unlimited YouTube ad-blocking for a seamless viewing experience.
- Enhanced privacy protection to prevent tracking activities.
- Cross-platform installation authorization for multiple operating systems.
- 30-day money-back guarantee for subscribers.
8. Total Adblock

Total Adblock is the ultimate YouTube ad blocker, designed to eliminate intrusive ads, pop-ups, alerts, and auto-play ads instantly. Available as a Chrome extension, it provides seamless browsing by blocking unwanted distractions on YouTube and other platforms.

Key features include:
- Advanced ad blocking – Removes ads, notifications, and third-party trackers.
- Award-winning antivirus – Enhances security against malware and online threats.
- Faster browsing – Improves page load speed for a smoother experience.
- Customizable filters – Allows users to tailor acceptable ads for better control.
Compatible with multiple browsers and social media platforms like Facebook, Total Adblock ensures a secure and ad-free browsing experience.

9. AdBlocker Ultimate

AdBlocker Ultimate is a top-tier YouTube ad blocker designed to eliminate ads, pop-ups, and notifications for an uninterrupted browsing experience. While it’s highly rated for iOS devices, it also supports Android and Windows, offering robust protection against phishing, malware, hackers, and other online threats.

Key features include:
- Cross-platform compatibility – Available for iOS, Android, and Windows.
- Browser extension support – Works on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and more.
- Advanced security – Blocks intrusive ads while safeguarding against cyber threats.
- Custom whitelisting – Allows users to personalize ad preferences for trusted sites.
With AdBlocker Ultimate, users enjoy safer, faster, and ad-free browsing across devices.

Finding the best YouTube ad blocker depends on your device and browsing preferences. Whether you need a mobile ad blocker for YouTube, a fast YouTube pop-up blocker, or advanced privacy protection, these top-rated options ensure an ad-free, secure, and smooth streaming experience.
March 18, 2025
How to Download Chrome on Mac
Why do people download Chrome on Mac? Why do people prefer Google Chrome over Safari?. And why do people download Chrome, to begin with? The answer is simple; Chrome is faster than Safari—Apple’s web browser.

Today, web browsing has become indispensable, whether for shopping, streaming, or reading. However, choosing the right browser for your Mac might not be as simple as you imagined. In terms of user interface, Chrome offers a clean design, fast data syncing, and a vast library of extensions.

While Safari, Apple’s native browser, offers an excellent browsing experience, it may not always meet the diverse needs of users, particularly when it comes to extensions and cross-platform functionality. As a result, many users opt to download Chrome on Mac rather than use Apple’s Safari browser.

Steps to Download Chrome on Mac

Since Chrome doesn’t come pre-installed on a Mac, a manual installation is in order.
- Launch Safari by clicking on its icon in the Dock (a blue compass with a red needle).
- Visit the Google Chrome page in your browser and initiate the download by clicking “Download Chrome.”
- If the download doesn’t commence, locate and click “Download Chrome” in the upper-right corner.
- Once the download completes, you’ll find the file in your Mac’s download folder. Click on the Downloads icon, then double-click on googlechrome.dmg. A Downloads icon will also appear at the top-right corner of the Safari window, click on it to access the downloaded file. This action opens up a disk image.
- Drag and drop the Google Chrome icon into your Applications folder.
- To open Google Chrome, either select the icon from Launchpad or type “Chrome” into Spotlight (Command + Space).
- When launching Chrome for the first time, a security prompt will appear, indicating that it was downloaded from the internet. Click “Open” to proceed to sign in to your Google account. Opt to make Chrome your default browser and you’re good to go.
Check out our previous article on how to install Google Chrome on Ubuntu in 2023.
October 8, 2023
How to Reset a Laptop to Factory Settings on Windows & MAC
Installed software not designed for your laptop? Did you install a wrong driver on your laptop? Or did you mistakenly delete one of the important programs your laptop came with? Any of these will certainly affect the proper functioning of your laptop. Things like this happen to us sometimes. Events like this usually call for one thing, and that is resetting your laptop computer.

In this article, we explore a tutorial on how to reset a laptop, restoring it to factory settings. This tutorial covers procedures on how to reset laptops running windows and MAC OS back to their factory settings.

How To Reset/Restore A Laptop Running Windows Operating System Back To Factory Settings

Before you go ahead to formatting your windows laptop, please be aware that resetting your windows laptop will wipe out all your installed programs and files on your windows laptop. Using an external hard drive is a very secure way to back up your files. Once you have backup your files, you can proceed to reset your windows laptop using the steps listed below.

There is no autonomy when it comes to resetting windows laptops; there are several methods that can be employed in resetting a windows laptop. These methods are listed below.

How To Reset A windows Laptop, Using Built-In Reset Option On Windows 10
1. On your windows laptop, Navigate through settings > Update & Security > Recovery.
2. Under “Reset this PC” click on get started
3. You will be presented with the option to keep files, or remove everything. Select your preferred option. Keeping your files will reset your windows laptop to default, keeping your files and uninstalling your installed apps. The ” Remove Everything option,” remove resets your windows laptop, completely wiping your computer, remove all files and installed apps.
Please Note that click the ”Erase Everything” option, will provide you with another set of options to choose from. You will be asked to select between Removing everything or remove files and clean drives. Selecting the latter will securely erase your hard drive, making it impossible to do any form of recovery.

4. Once you have selected the option of your choice, you can proceed to click the reset button.

How To Reset A windows Laptop, ” Fresh Start” Option in Windows 10

As earlier mentioned, there are different ways to re-setting your windows laptop. Using the Fresh Start option is another method. Steps to be followed when using this method are listed below:
1. On your windows laptop, Navigate through Settings > Update & security > Recovery page
2. Click the link ”Learn how to start fresh with a clean installation of windows” you will find it at the bottom of the page. You will be directed to windows defender security center. Click on Get started to proceed.
Note: Using the fresh start option, your files will be retained. There no option to remove all files. Also note that using the fresh start option, the latest version of windows will be automatically be downloaded on your windows laptop. Fresh start option reinstall all bloatware and keeps some of your settings intact.

Reinstall Using A Windows Installation Media

Using Windows 7 or later, this method is for you. The methods mentioned above is available on Windows 8 and above. If you use windows 7 or lower, you can reset your windows laptop using windows installation media.

What is windows installation media? Windows installation media is an ISO file burnt into a pen drive or DVD. Windows installation media allows you re-install windows from scratch, provided you have a product key.

How To Reset/Restore A Laptop Running MAC OS Back To Factory Settings

Unlike Windows operating system, re-setting laptops running MAC OS is a lot easier. There is autonomy here, as there is only one method of getting it done. The steps are listed below:

Note: Please be aware that re-setting your MAC Book will completely wipe your hard drive, no file will be left, and all settings will be restored to default. Backup your files if need be.
1. Hold Down Command and R keys on your keyboard, and turn on your MAC Book. Let
2. both keys go, when te Apple Logo pops up
3. Select Langauge and click the arrow facing right to continue
4. Select Disk utility and continue
5. Select your startup disk. Startup disk is named Macintosh HD by default
6. Click the erase button
7. From the drop-down menu, Select MAC OS Extended and click erase.
8. click done and the exit window
9. Connect to wifi
10. Select Reinstall MacOS
11. Click on continue and click agree
12. Select boot disk and click on Install
13. wait for the installation to complete
Note: Your MAC Book is will restart several times during the installation. You shouldn’t be bothered, as it is normal for it to reboot.

There you have it – a comprehensive tutorial on how to reset a laptop. As you might have already observed, re-setting a laptop isn’t as difficult as most people claim, all you have to do is follow the steps listed above. If you have any question, feel free to drop them in the comment section below.
March 5, 2019
New Generation of Mac Mini’s RAM cannot be upgraded

After encouraging customers to upgrade their Mac Mini RAM in 2012, Apple has decided it’s time customers lives with what they are offered.

Apple excited its users when they announced their newest Mac Mini some few weeks ago. However, Brian Stucki, who runs a Mac Mini hosting farm in Las Vegas has taken to twitter to announced that the new Mac Mini’s RAM is soldered to the board.

He also notes that the latest generation Mac Mini now has tamper proof screws, making things that are user serviceable that much more difficult to get to:

Confirmed: RAM in the new Mac mini is not user accessible. Hard drive can be replaced/upgraded, though not keeping warranty.
— Brian Stucki (@brianstucki) October 17, 2014

If people didn’t like to hear the confirmation of soldered RAM, wait until they see the foot of the Mac mini with tamper-proof screws.
— Brian Stucki (@brianstucki) October 18, 2014

An Apple support page found here seems to confirm the soldered-on RAM:

The memory for Mac mini (Late 2014) computers isn’t user accessible and is integrated into the main logic board. You can configure your computer’s memory at the time of purchase.

This is completely a contrast to the same page for the 2012 Mac Mini, which tells you exactly what sort of RAM to buy.

October 19, 2014
4 Beautiful Ways you can Customize your Mac

You may use your Mac for serious work, but sometimes it’s a good thing to add a touch of whimsy to it. Here are four quick tips for customizing OS X and making it a bit more fun to use.

Check them out below…

1. Try the iTunes Artwork screensaver

When you’re not working, by default your Mac’s screen turns black with a subtle, shifting white Apple icon and a bit of text, usually your username. But you need not settle for that. To pick something different, go to Apple menu > System Preferences, select Desktop & Screen Saver, and then click the Screen Saver tab. You’ll find a lot of fun options to explore here, such as “Word of the Day.” If you’re a music fan, though, try the iTunes Artwork screensaver, which displays a collage of random album covers from your iTunes library.

Scroll down the list of options in the left-hand column. When you see iTunes Artwork, click to select it, and then click Screen Saver Options. Here you’ll see the option to choose the number of album-cover rows as well as the “delay” in seconds. By default the delay is set to 2 seconds, meaning that every 2 seconds one of the album covers will flip to expose a new cover.

Click the Preview section of the preference pane to see the screensaver in action. You’ll notice that the different albums change at random, one at a time. As a bonus, if you spot an album you want to play, you can hover your cursor over its artwork and click to start the music.

The iTunes Artwork screensaver fills your Mac’s display with the covers of your albums. Even better, you can just click an album to get the music started.

2. Change your wallpaper…all day long

You probably know that you can change your Mac’s wallpaper—that is, the image or color on your Desktop. To do so, first open System Preferences (from the Apple menu or the Dock) and click Desktop & Screen Saver. Click the Desktop tab, and then you can choose an image from a number of folders, or from your iPhoto albums.

But there’s one setting that will make your Desktop a lot more interesting: At the bottom of the window, check Change Picture, and choose a frequency such as every 5 seconds, every day, or when waking from sleep. To make the image unpredictable, also select the Random Order option. Now you’ll never know which photo will come up, and your Desktop will be a source of surprise.

Bring unpredictability to your Mac by making the Desktop wallpaper change throughout the day.

3. Mix it up with emoji in file and folder names

Emoji are small graphics that work like fonts. You might see these little faces, animals, and other images pop up in text messages or tweets. But you may not realize that you can use them in your file and folder names too.

To change an item’s name and add an emoji character, select a file or folder in the Finder, and then press Return or Enter. This action will highlight the item’s name. Next, choose Edit > Special Characters, or press Command-Control-Space. You’ll see a pop-up palette; click any of the icons at the bottom. The clock icon shows characters you’ve recently used; the others sort special characters—including emoji—by category.

Make file and folder names more fun (and perhaps more memorable) by adding emoji. You can also use these small graphics in texts, email, and documents.

Browse through people (smiley faces and more), nature (including cute little animals and flowers), objects (such as food items and sports balls), places (buildings, vehicles, road signs), and symbols (for instance, from the zodiac), to find one you like. Click an emoji to add it to a file or folder name. You can type normal letters before or after the graphic. Emoji will make your file and folder names stand out, and they certainly won’t be drab.

4. Spice up folders with custom icons

Are you tired of all those boring blue folders in the Finder? Change them.

Want to have a folder with a picture of your pet, your child, or your favorite outdoor scene? Easy peasy.

Many sites offer free sets of icons that you can use to dress up your folders, like this one from IconArchive.

You can use almost any graphic—a photo of your child, a pet, album art from your favorite band—as a folder icon. If you want, you can even search Google for nice pictures to use, but keep in mind that they shouldn’t be too large, or they won’t be easily recognizable as icons. Better yet, download art specifically made to serve as folder icons, for instance from InterfaceLift or IconArchive.

Double-click a picture to open it in Preview, or open it in your favorite image editor. If you want to crop it, drag the crosshair cursor over the picture, and then choose Tools > Crop, or press Command-K. You might want to crop the picture to a square so that it will look more balanced as an icon. To do so, press the Shift key while dragging the crosshair cursor.

Next, press Command-A to select the picture, and then press Command-C to copy it. In the Finder, look for the folder that you want to sport the icon. Select it and press Command-I to display its Info window. Click the small blue folder icon at the Info window’s top-left corner. Press Command-V to paste your picture over the standard folder icon, and then close the Info window. The folder will now appear with its fancy new icon.

Credit: IDG News Service

January 14, 2014
Use 2go, BBM & Whatsapp on your Windows PC or Mac

Although future generations of PCs are likely to be operated on Android OS with Lenovo’s latest invention, Windows PC and Mac users can still enjoy Android apps without installing Android OS.

Bluestacks is a free software that allows you to use your favorite Android apps on a Windows PC or Mac. You can download apps like Angry Birds Space, 2go, Whatsapp or BBM to Go directly into Bluestacks, or sync the apps from your phone using the Bluestacks Cloud Connect Android app.

Using Bluestacks is similar to using an Android tablet: It works a bit like a widget. When clicked, the BlueStacks App Player will display the ten apps that have already been pre-installed and application suggestions which can be installed using Google Play Store. You can install more application by clicking on More below the big + sign. Bluestacks can be viewed in minimized or full screen.

Download Bluestacks

To download Bluestacks, proceed to Bluestacks download page, click on the download button that fits your OS description. The Download Now link will download a small installer file to your desktop. Remain online and double-click the installer to proceed with the actual download.

Please note that Bluestacks is currently in beta stage: Beta or prerelease software is not intended for inexperienced users, as the software may contain bugs or may potentially damage your system. I strongly recommend that users exercise caution and save all mission-critical data before installing or using this software.

I have personally tried this software on Windows XP, Windows 7 & Windows 8, the performance is great and it is worth trying!

DOWNLOAD BETA 1 FOR WINDOWS

DOWNLOAD BETA 1 FOR MAC

December 10, 2013
Create a Bootable Mac OS X Flash Drive

A bootable Mac OS X thumb drive comes in handy when you need to troubleshoot OS issues for yourself, your family, or your friends. It’s also extremely useful for keeping your basic setup consistent across multiple computers, if you find yourself switching hardware regularly; and I’ve had fun in the past setting up a bootable USB keychain loaded with all the apps and files I need to turn any Mac-compatible computer into a viable media center quickly and easily.
With Mac OS X Lion and a new piece of free software, it’s easier than ever to create a USB keychain that you can boot from. All you need is a few minutes, a copy of Lion, and a USB flash drive with at least 4GB of storage (though more is preferable).

Preparation

The first step in getting Lion onto your USB drive is to obtain a copy of the OS itself. Unfortunately, the file you download from the Mac App Store to your computer deletes itself after you update to Lion, so you’ll probably need to re-download the OS update.

This is a simple but slightly time-consuming process. Go into the App Store application and open the Purchases tab at the top of the screen. From there, you should see OS X Lion as one of your previous purchases.

Click the Download button next to Lion, note the directory that it downloads to and wait for the download to finish. During testing it took me about 50 minutes to re-download the 4GB or so of content that comprises Lion.

Once the OS has finished downloading (and you’ve verified that Lion has landed safely in your Applications folder), you’re ready to transfer it to your trusty USB flash drive.
If you already own a copy of OS X Lion, you should be able to download a fresh copy at any time from the Purchases tab of the Mac App Store.

To streamline the process, download the free Lion DiscMaker app. Downloading a third-party app just to handle this process is a bit of a bother, but Lion Discmaker enormously simplifies the process of installing Lion on a USB keychain.

Now, before you start formatting your drive, back up anything currently on your flash drive that you’d like to keep–because this process will completely erase the contents of the USB drive and rewrite it with a copy of Lion. You have been warned!

Creating Your Bootable Drive

Lion DiscMaker makes this part of the process a snap. Start the Lion DiscMaker app with your USB flash drive plugged in and with the Lion install file sitting inside your application folder. The app will give you the option of creating a bootable drive out of either a DVD or a USB keychain.

Select the USB keychain option. (If you happen to own a Mac with a disc drive, consider creating a DVD backup of Lion. I prefer keeping Lion on a USB keychain so that I can add files to the USB drive to customize the installation; but if you’re just looking for a bootable copy to troubleshoot your hardware, feel free to go with the DVD option and save yourself a little cash.)

Lion DiscMaker makes it easy to create a bootable thumb drive.
Once you’ve indicated that you want use a bootable drive, the app will ask whether you’d like to use a USB thumb drive or some other kind of disk. Select the USB thumb drive option again; and when prompted, choose the disk that you’d like to install Lion to. Select your flash drive and you should be ready to rock.

If you’re using a thumb drive that has only 4GB of free space, Lion DiscMaker will remind you that you won’t get a complete of OS X Lion package because there won’t be room for the “additional speech voices” package. This should be no great loss. Select Okay and then, to confirm that you’re aware the volume will be erased, click the Erase then create the disk button.

The copy procedure will take a few minutes and will open a few windows in your finder automatically, but Lion Discmaker should automate the whole process. All you have to do is wait for your Mac to cease displaying its “Copy in progress, please wait…” message, which will indicate that DiscMaker has finished installing Lion onto your flash drive. Once that’s done, you’ll have a bootable USB flash drive that fits in your pocket and can handle system recovery, OS installation, and even basic Web browsing in a pinch.

If you have any space left over on your flash drive, you can add a few of your favorite applications and files, to customize a new installation. Regrettably, these files won’t be accessible when you boot directly from the USB flash drive; but once the installation is finished, they can help you save considerable time while setting up a new computer.

Of course the bootable drive that this method creates is no substitute for a fully customized Mac OS X Lion-based computer, but considering how fast and easy the drive is to set up–and how much time it could save you the next time you need to reinstall or troubleshoot your Mac OS X–there’s no good reason not to make your own bootable copy of Lion to carry in your pocket. Good luck!

July 10, 2012
How to install Windows 7 on your Mac: The Complete Walkthrough

How to install Windows 7 on your Mac: The Complete Walkthrough
Using Boot Camp to install Windows 7 on your Mac: The Complete Walkthrough

Somewhat similar to the Using Boot Camp to install Vista on your Mac walkthrough, this tutorial will take you every step of the way through installing Microsoft Windows 7 on your Intel Mac (running 10.5 or later), using Boot Camp.
Note: if you’d rather not dual boot OS X and Windows 7, you can always install Windows 7 in a virtual environment using Parallels Desktop 6.0 for Mac.

To install Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp you will need the following:

All firmware updates installed on your Mac (use Apple Button -> Software Update… to check)
A Windows 7 installation DVD
Your OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard installation DVD
Around 30GB of empty hard drive space on your Mac. You can probably get away allocating less than 30GB to Windows 7, but it will leave very little room to install anything in Windows.
An hour if all goes well, up to 5 hours if not
Though not absolutely required, it’s a VERY good idea to have a complete and up to date Time Machine backup of OS X – it really came in handy for me. Because part of the process involves partitioning your drive, there’s always the distinct chance something will go wrong and everything will be wiped out.
Patience, possibly a great deal of it. Having a book handy will also help kill time during the partitioning, installing etc).

Installing Windows 7 via Boot Camp

Here goes. First thing – close absolutely every open program you can. That includes those things running in the Apple Menu that you always forget about. Don’t worry about killing the Dock or Dashboard – having those running is fine.
Now open a Finder and navigate to Applications -> Utilities and double-click Boot Camp Assistant.

Click Continue on the initial Introduction screen. Ignore the fact that it doesn’t mention Windows 7 as a possible OS to install.
Now you have to decide how much space you want to allocate to Windows 7. You might be able to get away with going as low as 10GB, but I would highly advise against it. You’ll have almost no space left over to install software, and your page file in Windows might cause frequent crashes. I opted for 20GB, which left me with just a bit over 16GB to use after installing Windows 7.

To change the amount of space to dedicate to Windows 7, click the small divider between Mac OS X and Windows, and drag it to the left.

Once you’ve determined how much space you want to allocate to Windows 7, click the Partition button.
The partitioning itself doesn’t take particularly long. If you receive an error, proceed to step 10 of the “How to install Vista with Boot Camp” tutorial. It provides all the troubleshooting info you need to resolve partitioning issues. Once you’ve cleared up any problems, or if everything just goes smoothly, proceed with the next step in this tutorial.

Once completed you’ll notice a new BOOTCAMP drive on your desktop.

Now insert your Windows 7 DVD and click the Start Installation button.

Your Mac will restart, and Windows 7 will boot. You’ll be prompted with a window asking you which partition you want to install Windows on. Select the one with BOOTCAMP in the Name column. Selecting anything else may wipe out OS X or cause serious problems. Then select the Drive options(advanced) link.

With the BOOTCAMP volume still selected, click the Format link.

Click OK.

And Windows 7 will begin to install. It’s a fairly boring process, so you may want to grab yourself a cup of coffee or your beverage of choice. But don’t go too far away, because when your system reboots, you’ll need to remove the Windows 7 DVD.

With the Windows 7 DVD removed, your Mac will automatically boot back into Windows 7, and the installation will complete. You’ll be prompted to select your language, keyboard layout etc. The rest of the Windows 7 installation process is very straight forward.
Once the installation has completed and your Mac has restarted again, you’ll be able to use Windows 7. WiFi will work immediately (no drivers to install) so connect to the Internet. Windows 7 will then begin to download updates, including the proper video card driver. Let it do its thing.

Once completed, you’ll be prompted to reboot yet again. Do so.

Once Windows 7 boots back up again, you’ll notice the resolution is much better, and you can enable the advanced graphics features.

But if you check for sound, you’ll notice there are no sound drivers installed.

Insert your OS X Leopard (or Snow Leopard) DVD. When prompted, select Run setup.exe. Note: If you’re using Snow Leopard and a message pops up saying “Remote Install Mac OS X”, close that window and eject the CD. Put the CD in again and this time select “Open folder to view files”, navigate to the Bootcamp folder, and run setup.exe.

The Boot Camp installer will launch. Click Next to begin.

Select I accept the terms in the license agreement and then click Next again.

Make sure that Apple Software Update for Windows is checked, and click Install.

The Boot Camp installer will do its thing, and install all the required drivers.

Notifications will pop up with each driver that gets installed.

Once completed, click Finish.

And yet again you’ll be prompted to reboot. Remove your OS X Leopard DVD from the drive, and click Yes to restart.

At this point most of the hardware on your Mac should be working in Windows. However, some iMacs and MacBook Pro’s will have to update to the 3.1 version of Boot Camp for Windows. To do so, just follow the few steps in this tutorial.
Note: If you still have problems with sound not working, you’ll need to install the Realtek drivers.
That’s it, you’re done! When your Mac boots, hold down the Option key to select which Operating System you want to boot into.

June 15, 2012
How to install Vista on your Mac: The Complete Walkthrough

How to install Vista on your Mac: The Complete Walkthrough
Using Boot Camp to install Vista on your Mac: The Complete Walkthrough

This walkthrough will take you through every step of installing Microsoft Windows Vista on your Intel Mac (running 10.5 or later), using Boot Camp. It will cover a number of possible errors that you may encounter, and how to get around them. Each time I bring up an error I will explain in detail what you’ll need to do to resolve the issue and continue installing Vista. It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth the time and effort (for example, you may need to completely wipe your hard drive clean and restore from a Time Machine backup). It’s also possible that everything will go perfectly smoothly and you’ll wonder why you even needed a guide.

To install Vista on your Mac you will need the following:

All firmware updates installed on your Mac (use Apple Button -> Software Update… to check)
A Vista installation DVD (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business or Ultimate)
Your OS X Leopard installation DVD
At least 10GB of empty hard drive space on your Mac (you can probably get away with less but you’ll have almost no room to install anything other than the OS)
An hour and a half if all goes well, up to 5 hours if not
Though not absolutely required, it’s a VERY good idea to have a complete and up to date Time Machine backup of OS X – it really came in handy for me
Patience, possibly a great deal of it. Having a book handy will also help kill time during the partitioning, installing etc).

Installing Vista via Boot Camp

Here goes. First thing – close absolutely every open program you can. That includes those things running in the Apple Menu that you always forget about. Don’t worry about killing the Dock or Dashboard – having those running is fine.
Now open a Finder and navigate to Applications -> Utilities and double-click Boot Camp Assistant.

It’s not a bad idea to have the Setup Guide handy, just in case you need it. Click the Print Installation & Setup Guide button.
Click OK

If you have another computer around, and would like to save half a tree (printing the guide will use 20-something pages) – select the PDF button and choose Save as PDF

If you don’t want to download my copy, enter the appropriate info (most importantly, the download location so you can find it) and click Save. Transfer the PDF to your other PC/Mac so you can access it while actually installing Vista.

Back at the Introduction page of the Boot Camp Assistant, click Continue. Now you have to decide how much space you want to allocate to Windows Vista. You might be able to get away with going as low as 6GB, but I would highly advise against it. You’ll have almost no space left over to install software, and your page file in Windows might cause frequent crashes. I opted for 20GB, which left me with just a bit over 15GB to use after installing Windows Vista Ultimate and upgrading to SP1.

To change the amount of space to dedicate to Vista, click the small divider between Mac OS X and Windows, and drag it to the left.

When you’re happy with the amount of space that Vista will have, click Partition.

Watch the little status indicator..

and hold your breath that no errors occur. If you’re presented with a Start Windows Installation screen, proceed with step #11 below (and consider yourself very lucky). If you get an error, keep reading.

The most common error is that OS X couldn’t move a file and the partition could not be created. There are a couple of things that could be wrong, and I’ll outline how to fix them from the fastest method to the longest method. Cross your fingers that the fastest one will resolve your problem.

Close out of the Boot Camp Assistant and launch the Disk Utility by selecting Applications -> Utilities -> Disk Utility.

Select your Mac drive, or the partition you were trying to install Boot Camp on (if you have more than one). Click the Verify Disk Permissions button, then the Repair Disk Permissions button. Once that’s done, click the Verify Disk button, then the Repair Disk button if it’s available.

Now go back to step #1 and try it all over again (except you don’t need to print out the PDF twice). If you were able to create the partition, excellent, continue with step #11. If you got the same “can’t move file” error, download and install OnyX Once installed, launch it (you’ll probably be prompted for your password) and select the Maintenance tab. Click the Execute button and wait.

Once again, go back to step #1 and start all over again. If it worked this time, excellent, proceed to step #11. If it didn’t, you have another couple of choices. Neither is much fun. First, you can purchase defragging software (I’m not aware of any that are free/open source) such as iDefrag and hope that it resolves your problem (it might not). Second – and this is what I opted to do – re-install OS X by formatting the entire drive (all data will be lost), run software update to get all the firmware updates, install Vista via Boot Camp, and then restore OS X from a Time Machine backup. Like I said, not great choices. If you do decide to go the format and re-install route, I’ll outline it with a few more details –

Know that you might lose all of your data. Time Machine could fail, your roommate might decide now would be a good time to smash your backup drive – any number of problems could occur. This is my way of saying that I will NOT be held responsible if this method causes you all kinds of nightmares. With all of that said, it worked perfectly fine for me.
Make sure you have a 100% up to date Time Machine backup. Open Time Machine and select Back Up Now. If you opted not to back up certain folders, make sure you have the contents of those folders backed up – or remove them from the “don’t back these folders up” section of Time Machine.
Put your OS X Leopard DVD in your DVD drive, and restart your Mac.
Hold down the c key as your Mac restarts – this will force your Mac to boot from the DVD rather than the hard drive.
Follow the walk-through to install OS X. Make sure you select the “format this drive then install OS X” option
Once you’ve re-installed OS X, start your Mac and run the Software Update to make sure everything is up to date. Once completed, you’ll be prompted to reboot. Do so.
Once again, run the Boot Camp Assistant. This time you should have no problems at all
Carry on with step #11 below, and once you’ve completely finished installing Vista, perform a Time Machine restore. To do so, boot from the OS X DVD (hold down c as your Mac starts up) and from the Utilities menu, select Restore from Time Machine (or something like that, I forget right now). Let Time Machine do its thing (boring, takes forever) and once it’s done, reboot yet again. You’ll finally have a dual boot Mac w/ Vista and OS X.

Alright, time to install Vista. Put your Vista DVD in your DVD drive and click Start Installation.

A bunch of things will happen on their own. Don’t interfere with them. You’ll eventually land at a screen asking where you want to install Windows. Make sure, and I mean make sure you select the BOOTCAMP partition. Selecting anything else is going to force you to re-install OS X, and unless you have a recent Time Machine backup, you’ll lose all of your data.

Now click the Drive options (advanced) link/button. Click Format and once it’s done, click OK. Now you can click Next.

Now Vista will install. It takes a while and it’s not particularly entertaining. Vista will restart itself at least once during the installation. If by some chance – and this shouldn’t happen – when Vista restarts itself, and you end up back in OS X instead of Vista, restart again and this time hold down the Option key as your Mac starts. You’ll be presented with a number of drive icons to choose from. Double-click the Windows icon.

And now Vista has finished installing, you’ve setup your “account” in Vista, and you think you’re done. You’re not. Eject you Vista DVD from your DVD drive (if you have problems ejecting it go to the Computer view in Vista, click once on your DVD drive, and then select the Eject link that will show up in the menu. Now pop in your OS X Leopard DVD. You’ll be prompted “Install or run program” – click the Run setup.exe button.

You might be told that a system restart is pending and you can’t install anything yet. I never said this was a short process. Restart your Mac and make sure to boot into Vista.

This time when you Run setup.exe you’ll get the “Welcome to the Boot Camp installer” screen. Click Next.

Place a check in the “I agree” part, and click Next.

Make sure Apple Software Update for Windows is selected, and click Install.

Sit back and watch. Don’t interfere. Your screen may flicker, ignore it.

Also ignore any pop-ups that might appear in your System tray.

Almost done..

And now you’re done. Click Finish.

Restart yet again.

Note: when Vista boots, you might encounter a couple screens full of error messages (Unrecognized partition table for for drive 80, can’t boot from NTLDR from drive=0×80 etc). Ignore them, and let Vista continue to boot. I have a (bad) camera phone picture of some of the errors below.

This time when Vista starts, you’ll notice a new icon in the System tray – it’s the Boot Camp software. Click it once and a pop-up menu will appear.Select Boot Camp Control Panel….

On the first tab, Startup Disk you can select which Operating System you want to boot into by default. Just high-light the one you want – but remember – you can also choose to boot to the other OS by holding down the Option key while your Mac starts. Note: you can also define which OS you want to boot into by default in your Mac. Just select the Startup Disk option in your System Preferences.

Click the Brightness tab to adjust – you got it – the screen brightness.

Click the Remote tab. From here you can disable or enable the use of a remote infrared receiver. Your choice.

Select the Keyboard tab to make some keyboard changes. Boring.

And finally, select the Power tab. Do you want to automatically restart after a power failure? Here’s where you decide. When you’re done reviewing all of the Boot Camp Control Panel options, click OK.

And one last thing. Remember – no matter which Operating System, Vista or OS X, you decide to have as the one you automatically boot into when your Mac is turned on, you can select the other one by holding down the Option key as your Mac starts.

June 15, 2012