Almost a year ago, the idea for this site began: first with a wiki, then with a forum, and finally a news blog. The computing world has changed drastically in that year - OS X started running on PCs, Apple introduced its new Intel Macs - and our site has changed with it. Since it was started as a place to discuss everything relating to x86 Macs, it has (famously) been home to many hacking OS X for their x86 hardware, as well as a large number of Intel Mac owners.
In order to stay at the cutting edge of this development, we’ve been talking with many of you over the past few months regarding how we can make the site better. We’ve listened to your suggestions and come up with a plan that will help the site be more relevant not only today, but in the future... to whatever exciting places that takes us.
On July 4th, we’re going to transition this site into a more compartmentalized design, each area giving very focused attention to specific areas. It will be made up of 3 parts: The OSx86 Project, TwinMac, and the forum with its awesome new name, Insanely Mac (more on that in a second).
The OSx86 Project
Everything you’ve loved in the past... just a lot clearer, more reliable, and easier to access.
98% of the folks who visit the wiki are looking for ways to install OS X on their PC. So we’re going to make it much easier to find what you’re looking for. The entire osx86project.org domain will be dedicated to OS X on PCs, which means more information at your fingertips. We’re going to totally redesign the wiki and create teams of users to patrol the pages to make sure the information posted is legitimate.
The news blog and the forum will be shifted to Insanely Mac (see below) for clarity and simplicity's sake (doesn't it make sense to make sure the OSx86 domain is actually about OSx86?)
TwinMac
Home of everything Intel Mac.
Just before Steve Jobs introduced the Intel Macs in January, several of us began a not-so-covert effort to come up with a dual booting guide for just about every situation. Except EFI. Since we thought the Macintels would look a lot like their pre-release brethren, we tailored the guides to things like GRUB, Acronis loader, etc.
While all our work was for naught, Apple soon came out with their own solution in Boot Camp. Parallels was introduced to run XP in OS X. Now we had something new to write about.
So expect some simple, easy to follow guides at TwinMac to get the most out of your Macintel. We hope to have this site fully up and running by the end of the summer.
Insanely Mac
Not afraid to think differently. Or crazily.
Over the past few months we’ve looked at every aspect of the forum and see what we liked and what needed improvement. The rapid changes in the Mac world had left the forum structure a little less that intuitive, but the content itself - and the helpful/respectful attitude - was great. We’ve integrated some innovative features in response to feedback from members, like The X Labs, and we wanted to continue that legacy.
So we decided to organize the forum based on the way our community uses it... and throw in a lot of cool features at the same time. Oh, and did we mention a new skin? Besides a new structure (which you can view and discuss here), we’re working on including blogs available for all users and a customizable wed-based RSS reader (to get your news fix on the go).
The most important change is a great system of news posting that means a lot more deep Mac and Intel tech news… with much of it submitted by you. The best way to describe it is more OSx86 Project news + deep Mac Tech news (none of the fluffy Apple news - we’re talking kernels, kexts, and hacks here) + news that we as a community choose. I’m really excited about this part - it may just become your main Mac news source.
We’ve got so many improvements lined up for the forum that we decided it should have its own name – Insanely Mac. All the great OSx86 help and discussion will be there along with the large number of Macintel owners, but the new name better fits the things we love about the forum: new and innovative (and occasionally crazy) ways of approaching Macs and OS X. The idea that unites our community is our desire to be the ones who look at the world differently and don’t settle for existing solutions. Crazy? Maybe. But man, is it fun.
Timeline
We hope you’ll enjoy these improvements as we roll them out this summer. The massive reorganization of the forum, along with rolling out of the Insanely Mac domain (don’t worry - all your old links will still work), will happen on our birthday, July 4th. An “independance day” of our own if you like. Other features will be introduced after that.
We’ll also be asking for some help, whether it be for teams of wiki moderators or “gurus” to give aid to users in the forum. After all, it’s community involvement that makes us just that - a community.
Thanks for making this site what it has become in the past year. Here’s hoping for many more.
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