Not to sound like a flip-flopping broken record or anything, but it is now confirmed that the latest 10.6.2 build 10C540 does not support the Intel Atom chip, the processor that is so common in Hackintosh Netbooks. Popular Hackintosher StellaRola has confirmed this with his sources, and he even includes a video of a MSI Wind U100 trying to boot 10.6.2 but it is stuck in a continuous reboot (shown below). With how fast things are changing (supported, unsupported), it’s a mystery as to whether the final release will include support for the Atom chip, but as we said before, if you’re a Hackintosh user you should probably avoid the update until it has been confirmed one way or another.

StellaRolla via 10.6.2 kills support for Atom processor

€ – If you want to reference the Euro symbol on your Mac, type the following command:

€ Euro Symbol – Option+Shift+2

A friend of mine just asked “How do I type the Euro symbol in OS X?” and he’s pretty tech savvy, so if he didn’t know than I’m sure many others don’t. The Euro is becoming increasingly powerful in global economics so it’s probably a good idea to know how to type the symbol, whether or not you ever use the currency itself or it’s symbol beyond your Mac is up to you though.

It’s worth noting that the Euro symbol is only available to type in some Mac OS X fonts, you won’t be able to use it with all font combinations, particularly some of the custom and funky font sets are lacking euro support.

Ever wanted to watch a movie in ASCII art? What’s that? You haven’t even thought about it before? In what might be the single most useless feature to ever grace a video player, VLC allows you to output any video playback as… ASCII art. Yes, the kind of ASCII art that was quite fancy on BBS’s in 1988. Other than the humor and prank value, I don’t see much point to this, but it is entertaining so here’s how you can watch movies in ASCII art with VLC player. BTW this tip is cross platform for all VLC players, Windows, Linux, and of course, Mac OS X.

Watch movies in ASCII art

* Go to VLC menu and to Preferences
* Click on the Video icon
* Click on the “Output Module” drop down, and select “Color ASCII art video output”
* Restart VLC, open a movie file, and be amazed

The screenshot above shows the visually stunning movie The Fall in visually ridiculous ASCII mode. Wow.

¢ is the symbol for the Cent, and typing it on your Mac may not be as obvious as it should be, but it’s easy.

Just hit Option+4 to type the cent symbol as shown here: ¢

Typing this should work in all Mac apps assuming you are using a font that has support for the cent symbol.

Free is the best price. MacHeist knows this and has managed to give away six very fine Mac OS X apps completely for free in their latest bundle. It’s a limited offer, as of today November 6, there are only 6 days left, so get in and download while you can.

Apps included are worth $154 combined, but are free for the next 6 days:

ShoveBox – shove information, URLs, notes, whatever, into a drawer to access later

WriteRoom – awesome writing app we have covered before, the best distraction free writing app I’ve ever seen

Twitterific – probably the best Mac Twitter client, sits in your menubar and makes tweeting and following tweets beyond easy.

TinyGrab – uploads screenshots to the web immediately for sharing with the anyone, very handy

Hordes of Orcs – desktop tower defense featuring Orc’s in beautiful 3d, a great game and fun way to waste time.

Mariner Write – (not free as of writing but will be soon) – a very powerful professional Mac word processor, with all the features you’d expect from Microsoft Office but a fraction of the price, or in this case, FREE!

Do yourself a favor and go on over to MacHeist to pickup this totally sweet Mac app bundle. All that’s required is a simple registration, if you never want to hear a peep out of them just set the email preferences to receive no email after signup.

MacHeist Nano Bundle

Typing the Apple Logo is a fun little trick that’s easy to do and looks pretty cool:



So how do you do it with your Mac keyboard?

Option+Shift+K will type the Apple logo as so: 

I have no idea what this is displayed like to a Windows user, so don’t be surprised if it looks like something totally different, but on Mac you will see the Apple logo in all it’s glory.

Note: see the comments below for how to type the Apple logo on various world keyboards. Thank you to our readers for supplying this information!

Here’s three helpful tips for quickly rebooting, shutting down, logging out, or sleeping your Mac:

Immediately Reboot Mac OS X
Control + Command + Eject

Immediately Shutdown Mac OS X
Command + Option + Control + Eject

Immediately Log User Out of Mac OS X
Control + Option + Shift + Q

Immediately Put Your Mac to Sleep
Command + Option + Eject (hold the buttons down for 2 seconds)

and a bonus tip!

Immediately Shut Off Your Mac Display
Shift + Control + Eject

Fortune Magazine has named Steve Jobs the CEO of the decade, and it’s a pretty fitting title really, the guy is a powerhouse. Nearly 10 years ago Apple was struggling to find their place in the technology world, there were rumors of collapse and impending bankruptcy or buyouts, the first release of Mac OS X (10.0) was a slow cumbersome dud, and they had just entered an extremely crowded MP3 player market with a seemingly overpriced product with a weird name, the iPod. Apple stock at the time was right around $7. Now fast forward to today, where the iPod is the only MP3 player people talk about, the iPhone is taking over the cellular world, and Apple’s market capitalization is greater than Google’s, with their stock sitting comfortably at $193. CEO of the decade? After pulling all that off, that might be an understatement.

Here’s the readers digest version as to why they think Steve Jobs is so remarkable, summarized in the articles first paragraph:

Youthful founder gets booted from his company in the 1980s, returns in the 1990s, and in the following decade survives two brushes with death, one securities-law scandal, an also-ran product lineup, and his own often unpleasant demeanor to become the dominant personality in four distinct industries, a billionaire many times over, and CEO of the most valuable company in Silicon Valley.

As a longtime Apple fan I think the article leaves out some of the other obvious and important contributions, but I can’t argue with much of what they do cite. If you’re a part of the Cult of Jobs, or just a fan of Apple, the Fortune article is worth a read:

Fortune: Steve Jobs – CEO of the Decade

It’s baaaaaack! Like a relentless zombie in a bad horror flick that just can’t be killed, the Intel Atom chip is now supported again in the latest developer build of 10.6.2, 10C53. This doesn’t mean much since it’s just a developer build, but for now Hackintosh Netbook users can feel a bit better about their uncertain future. StellaRolla reports:

…the latest development build Atom appears to have resurrected itself zombie style in 10C535. The Atom lives another day, but nothing is concrete until the final version of 10.6.2 is out.

So that’s all fine and dandy, but will the Atom truly survive? Time will tell.

Thank you to OS X Daily reader Tony for notifying us of this change!

[ StellaRolla via ArsTechnica ]

You can force Dock icons to magnify on the fly by holding down Shift-Control as you hover over them in the Dock. This key combination works to magnify even with Dock Magnification turned off in the Dock preferences.