If Apple says you can’t do it, then someone out there will find a way.

Per Macworld, hackers have found a way to circumvent the changes in Mac OS X 10.6.2 to allow the latest upgrade to Apple’s Snow Leopard to run on netbooks with Intel Atom processors. When Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.2 earlier this month, Intel Atom support was missing from the release. Though no Apple-sanctioned hardware uses the Atom processor, some low-cost netbook users would use the hack to install Mac OS X on their systems.

The hack applies only to a select number of “Hackintosh” users, as not all who install Mac OS X on unauthorized machines use netbooks with Intel Atom processors. Atom is a low-voltage microprocessor used in inexpensive portable computers.

According to MacWorld, support for Mac OS X 10.6.2 has been brought to the Atom processor thanks to a complicated hack that requires use of the Terminal and replacing the kernel of the operating system.

As developer builds of Mac OS X 10.6.2 were released, the status of Atom support fluctuated, leaving hackers wondering Apple’s purpose.

For those of you willing to tear your Mac OS X kernel apart and spend a considerable amount of time in the Terminal program, go to this Insanelymac forum thread and follow the directions to the letter to reenable Atom support for Mac OS X 10.6.2 on your Atom-based netbook.

And please don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Still unknown is whether Apple actually had any intent in disabling Atom processor support. It’s possible the situation could be much like the cat-and-mouse game with Palm, where Apple released minor updates to iTunes that served only to break compatibility with the Pre smartphone. Or, since Apple likely does not test its software on products it does not ship, the Cupertino, Calif., company may have accidentally broken compatibility with Atom processors.

Late Thursday, developer Mark/Space released The Missing Sync for Palm OS 6.0.6, a 40.1 megabyte download (via MacUpdate). The application syncs contact information, calendars and tasks with Address Book and iCal, and can also transfer photos, syncs contact photos, syncs music playlists and video, synchronizes notes with Microsoft Entourage, Bare Bones Yojimbo or Mark/Space Notebook, copy folders, documents and files to the Palm OS device, lets you save text messages and extract information, and copies your Treo and Centro call history to your Mac.

The new version offers the following fixes and changes:

- Fixed an issue that caused the application to hang, which caused an inability to connect successfully after computer sleep or Bluetooth changes.

Missing Sync for Palm OS retails for US$40, is also available as a US$30 “crossgrade” for users of other Mark/Space products. The software requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run.

GPS software firm TomTom has released version 1.2 of its popular iPhone application. The update adds support for both the iPod touch and the first-gen iPhone when used in conjunction with its car kit.

Per AppleInsider, version 1.2 was submitted on November 12th and was released Wednesday. The new version contains updates to maps and IQ Routes. Added features include advanced lane guidance, text-to-speech, integrated iPod player support, and support for the iPod Touch and first-generation iPhone.

The new version includes the following fixes and changes:
- Improved search and route summary screens.
- Updated map from v8.30 to v8.35.
- Updated points of interest database.
- Updated IQ Routes database with millions of new measurements.
- Added Advanced Lane Guidance in both portrait and landscape mode.
- Added Text-to-speech in English US, English UK, English Australia, French Canada, Spanish Latin America.
- Added Help Me! emergency menu.
- Added iPod player support.
- Added support for original iPhone and iPod touch (all models).

In order to successfully use the app on the newly supported Touch and 1st-gen iPhones, TomTom’s car kit is required. This is due to the fact that both devices lack an integrated GPS receiver.

TomTom’s car kit is a cradle which contains a GPS module, integrated speaker, charger, and line out. It is not required when the TomTom app is paired with the iPhone 3G and 3GS. The kit retails for US$119.95.

The updated application requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later to install and run and retails for US$99.99.

Late Wednesday, software giant Google released version 5.1.3533.1731 of its popular Google Earth program. The new version, a 15.9 megabyte download, adds the following new features:

- Improved Startup Time. The improvement is most noticeable when users launch the Earth application multiple times.
- Improved overall rendering performance. Changes include faster atmosphere rendering and using compressed textures whenever possible.
- Improved Road rendering Performance: Frame rate at places with dense road networks is three times faster than in previous releases.
- Improved memory utilization in the application.
- Significantly smoother frame-rate and less stuttering in the application compared to previous releases.
- Improved performance with large region based network link KML documents. Some of large KML documents are now processed and rendered at more than twice the speed of earlier releases.
- Improved KML document handling performance. Large regionated KML Image overlays are up to 80% faster than previous releases.
- Support for KML hint = moon or mars to switch to moon or mars based on kml document.
- Availability of one installer that installs both the Google Earth application and browser plugin.
- Desktop Application now works on Windows 7.
- Users can set the memory cache size up to 1024 MB now.

The new version requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run.

Late Wednesday, the Camino Project released version 2.0 of Camino, its free, open source web browser.
The new version, a 15.9 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

Improved tabbed browsing:
- The Tab Overview feature displays a grid of thumbnails of the tabs in the current window.

- Tabs can be rearranged by dragging and dropping.

- Command-click now defaults to opening links in new tabs instead of new windows.

New security features:
- Camino now supports the Google Safe Browsing service to provide warnings about many potentially malicious websites.

- Camino now displays error pages for secure web pages using invalid or untrusted certificates.

Full content zoom:
- Camino now has support for making the entire contents of a web page bigger or smaller.

Download notifications:
- If Growl is installed, Camino will generate notifications when downloads begin and finish.

- On Mac OS X 10.5 and higher, Camino will bounce the downloads folder in the Dock when a download finishes.

Recently closed pages:
-The History menu now contains a sub-menu listing the last 20 closed web pages.

Improved support for Full Keyboard Access:
- When Full Keyboard Access is enabled, tabbing now moves correctly through the entire browser window.

Enhanced annoyance blocking:
- Camino now includes an exceptions list to allow disabling “Block Flash animations” on a per-site basis and an “Allow Flash From This Site” contextual menu item to ease adding sites to the exceptions list.

New AppleScript capabilities:
- AppleScripts can now obtain the HTML source or text of an entire web page or of a selection.

- Added AppleScript support for setting the active tab in each browser window.

Web content support:
- Camino now uses version 1.9.0 of Mozilla’s Gecko rendering engine, which contains thousands of bug fixes, better web plug-in compatibility and performance, enhanced support for web standards, and new technologies like JavaScript 1.8.

Camino requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to run.
If you’ve tried the new version of Camino and have any kind of feedback about it, let us know.

- DivX Player for Mac now plays DivX Plus HD (.mkv) videos and H.264/AAC/MKV videos from the Internet.
- DivX Player for Mac sports a brand new design with translucent windows, cleaner play controls and more.

DivX Player 7.2 requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later to install and run and retails for a US$19.99 registration fee.

Representatives from Mozilla, the company responsible for Firefox, have announced that the web browser will not be coming to the iPhone. Responding to questions from ElectricPig.co.uk, Mozilla’s European president, Tristan Nitot, said that Firefox on the iPhone isn’t an option with Apple’s current restrictions on web browsers that would compete with Mobile Safari.

“The issue is more with Apple than with us because they control the App Store and because they refuse applications which compete with something that is already on the phone. It’s unlikely that we’ll see a version of Firefox running on the iPhone,” said Nitot.

Nitot also stated that Mozilla is so sure it isn’t going to happen that he said the foundation isn’t even looking in to making a version for just in case Apple changes their mind.

“We’re not investing time and energy in this direction because we’re pretty sure it would be blocked by Apple, so we’re better off using our time in terms of development to do things on open platforms”.

“[Firefox for mobile] is a modern browser with all the bells and whistles that you’ll find in your desktop browser so you need a powerful operating system such as Android or Maemo or Windows Mobile,” he said. “The list of operating systems we want to support in the mobile world is already pretty long – I guess BlackBerry would be one of the last in our priority list”

Firefox Mobile will be launching on Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile, and Nokia Maemo tablets in December.

- VMM: reduced IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 guests; requires 64 bits support (VT-x only; bug #4392).
- VMM: fixed double timer interrupt delivery on old Linux kernels using IO-APIC (caused guest time to run at double speed; bug #3135).
- VMM: reinitialize VT-x and AMD-V after host suspend or hibernate; some BIOSes forget this (Windows hosts only; bug #5421).
- VMM: fix loading of saved state when RAM preallocation is enabled.
- BIOS: ignore unknown shutdown codes instead of causing a guru meditation (bug #5389).
- GUI: never start a VM on a single click into the selector window (bug #2676).
- Serial: reduce the probability of lost bytes if the host end is connected to a raw file.
- VMDK: fix handling of split image variants and fix a 3.0.10 regression (bug #5355).
- VRDP: fixed occasional VRDP server crash.
- Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, some guests were able to send / receive packets (E1000; bug #5366).
- Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, the PCNet card received some spurious packets which might confuse the guest (bug #4496).
- Shared folders: fixed changing case of file names (bug #2520).
- Windows Additions: fix crash in seamless mode (contributed by Huihong Luo).
- Linux Additions: fix writing to files opened in O_APPEND mode (bug #3805).
- Solaris Additions: fix regression in guest additions driver which among other things caused lost guest property updates and periodic error messages being written to the system log.

VirtualBox 3.0.12 is available for free and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run.

Printer driver updates may not be the sexiest thing to mention to your significant other after you’ve drawn her a hot bath, lit the candles and dimmed the lights, but they are necessary.

I mean, everyone needs to print.

Late Monday afternoon, Apple posted printer updates for Canon, Brother, HP, and Lexmark on its Support Downloads site..

Per Macworld, each of the four drivers contain the latest printing software for Snow Leopard from the respective hardware makers. The Canon, Brother, and HP drivers also include scanning software and require Mac OS X 10.6.1.

The four drivers and their files sizes include:

- Canon Printer Drivers for Mac OS X 10.6 (274.59MB)
- Brother Printer Drivers for Mac OS X 10.6 (99.9MB)
- HP Printer Drivers (387.44MB)
- Lexmark Printer Drivers for Mac OS X 10.6 (117MB)

Users can also snag the updated drivers via Mac OS X’s Software Update feature.

Apple lists detailed information about supported printer models on its web site.

Per Boy Genius Report, Apple will be offering the following deals on the Friday after Thanksgiving:

- Up to 30% off on all iPods (except iPhone and iPod shuffle).
- Up to 25% off Macs.
- Up to 15% off all accessories as well as Apple software and hardware.

The only catch is that the deals are only good on Friday, November 27th according to the rumor.

As mentioned over on the Apple Core, in 2008 Apple offered a US$101 discount on the unibody MacBook, a US$51 discount on the white MacBook, US$51 and US$101 off the aluminum iMacs, plenty of iPod discounts (US$11 off 8GB iPod nanos, US$21 off iPod classics, and US$21 off iPod touches) and a US$21 discount on Apple TV and 500GB Time Capsule.

If you’re inclined to go battle the herd, have at it and let us know how it goes.