I love the sound bugs make when you squish them under a solution.

AlexP, whose blog is also a great source for multitouch and the Sony PS3 Eye Camera and Windows drivers we used in the recent hackday, has been diagnosing his MacBook under Windows Vista. Hardware problems are often the source of sound blips on computers. I’ve talked previously about using the DPC Latency Checker to find this issue.

The good news: Alexander has found the problem (the Broadcom Wireless Adapter in some Apple MacBooks) and a solution (switching off Windows’ automatic wireless network search when you don’t need it). I actually wonder if a similar problem was culpable in early problems with network WiFi on Mac OS X Leopard. Whatever is going on, check out the fix here if you’re encountering this problem. And let us know if you’re seeing this on machines other than just the MacBook revision F; I’d imagine any PC with a similar wireless adapter might have the issue:

MacBook Rev. F Audio Skipping in Vista Analysis and Solution – Part 2

And yes, hardware/driver problems may frequently manifest as what Windows terms DPCs – basically, a symptom of hardware usage that can interfere with reliable audio performance. I’m curious whether WiFi connections specifically may be a cause in other cases. The problem is almost certainly not limited to computers from Apple – especially since, in this case, the MacBook is just behaving like any PC laptop with similar specs.

MacNN points to an Apple Support document announcing Boot Camp will cease to work “when Leopard is available to the public.” That means if you’re happily dual-booting Linux or Windows on your Mac, you may soon be unable to do so without a Leopard upgrade. Edit: This is technically inaccurate as written originally. What Apple says is that “The license to use Boot Camp Beta expires when Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is available to the public. To continue using Boot Camp at that time, upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.” So, in other words, portions should still work (the boot loader itself), but the license is no longer valid and the assistant will no longer function. It’s still unclear when the assistant ceases function, but it seems to be that its termination date, as baked into the assistant software, is December 31, 2007. That means you should be able to continue running Boot Camp indefinitely, even if it technically violates your license, and use the assistant until the end of the year (we think). If necessary, you may need to keep lawyers away from your desk. If you have beta 1.2 or earlier, the assistant software has already expired, though the bootloader should not. The 1.3/1.4 beta should expire soon, upon release of the new OS. -PK

This is especially bad news for music users, who almost never upgrade operating systems the day they ship because of compatibility and support issues. (Sure, Logic will support Leopard from day one … and your audio interface will be around in, what, three months, with Pro Tools months later?)