January 24, 2008
Upgrades
I finally upgraded the hard drive in my MacBook Pro. Turns out it wasn't all that difficult. The screws are precision (all twenty-three of them) so they came out and went back in without too much fuss. I used SuperDuper! to clone my 100 Gb SATA internal to a new 250 Gb SATA (using an external NexStar 3 case), and I booted the MBP with the new drive before buttoning up the machine (just to make sure). Everything was cool except for Lil' Snitch, which complained about a rule change -- I think it was from changing the hard drive name.
Now instead of 3.98 Gb free, I have 149.88 Gb. Much better!
I'm going to use the 100 Gb drive as Anne's Time Machine backup disc when I install Leopard on her Mac.
I also got the Garmin C320 GPS and Beltronics V955 radar detector hardwired into the Rabbit (Caerbannog) at Circuit City today. It only cost $25 plus tax! They did an excellent job and now I have no cables running anywhere in the cabin. Park Cities is saying my monster mats aren't in yet ... so I probably won't have them until I do the whole license plate/splash guard install visit. Almost got the new car fully rigged.
Posted by Steven at 02:09 AM | Comments (1)
August 15, 2007
NeXT System on eBay
Cory Doctorow got all excited about a NeXT Cube system on eBay (he posted this on his blog Boing Boing).
The NeXT System on eBay
I gotta tell you, I'm not impressed. I have two complete NeXT systems, a Sept. 1989 Cube (S/N 3639) and a NeXTStation Color Turbo from 1992. The NeXTStation is fully assembled on my Ikea work desk, boots, runs, and has a valid Mathematica license running on it. Mind you, Mathematica on a 25 MHz 68040 with 32 Mb of RAM isn't going to blow you away, but it works. The NeXT Cube is in my closet, and probably still boots without a hitch. I have 100% of the documentation and boxes that came with the Cube and a ton of other NeXT 3rd party documentation, books and software.
And yeah, the NeXTStation has the NeXT-branded power cords.
What sucks about this guy's offer is that the Optical Disk is dead. I have about eight ODs I can't read, and as a result, have lost a staggering amount of original NeXT software as a result. My old SCSI 1 and 2 drives are getting long in the tooth, too, and that will also precipitate an eventual death for both systems.
I got my NeXT Cube (with printer) on 9/27/1989, a few weeks after attending NeXT Camp in Redwood City, CA. NeXTSTEP 1.0 had shipped the week before. I was there at the very beginning, and I have the gear to prove it.
Posted by Steven at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)
July 05, 2007
iPhone Sold Out!
According to online sources, the iPhone initial run of around 1,000,000 units is sold out. Speculation abounds as to how many units were bought explicitly for the purpose of reselling them, dissecting them, or hacking them, but I'll wager that the vast majority are being used as iPhones. Rumor has it that Flash support is coming soon; that will open up a lot of web pages that otherwise render ok.
It's still an amazing product ... the buyer's remose so many predicted just isn't there. This is a really powerful palm-sized computer.
Posted by Steven at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2007
I Got One!
Ok, ok, yes, yes, it's true. I stood in line (for a little under two hours) today and I Got One!
One what? Why, the new iPhone what else?
The most talked about piece of tech this year has at last gone on sale, and after much planning and waiting, I bought one on the opening day. Many of you may think this happens all the time for me, that I bought the original 5Gb iPod when it first came out (nope: waited until the third generation model, four years after introduction to buy one), the Nikon D70 when it first came out (nope: bought the follow on D70s eighteen months after introduction), or the iBook (nope: got my first Mac OS X capable computer in Dec. 2004, five years after Mac OS X shipped). So this is the first time I've ever been able to buy a new Apple product the day it was introduced.
So how is it?
It does everything I wanted it to do, with an elegance that makes the Treo 650 I was using look like a wooden cart. All the elements work together smoothly, creating a seamless cell phone, web browser, e-mail client and iPod. Even the applets for world clock, camera, photos and YouTube work very well and are surprisingly useful. The fact that it renders the browser and e-mail exactly as one sees it on the Mac is just incredible. Reading web pages becomes a treat instead of a chore, and monitoring my company servers, for instance, takes seconds instead of minutes on the Treo.
I've been discrete with it, not waving it around or showing it off. I will be putting the Band photos and video I take in the Fall on it so I will have access to the previous week's media when at games, so look forward to that kind of "hey, wanna see my grandkid's photos" action if you go to Boyd HS football games. Otherwise, I just use it like a miniature laptop, which is what it is ... plus a phone.
Click here to see the full Opus from last Sunday ... and what some of you think I'll be doing next year when iPhone Mark II comes out ...
Posted by Steven at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2007
H.O.M.O. For Life
What more can I possibly add to this?
Posted by Steven at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2007
Oh iPhone, is there Anything You Cannot Do?
(with Apologies to PVP's author) ...
Check out this hilarious spoof of Apple's upcoming iPhone.
Posted by Steven at 06:02 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2007
Ikea Update
Taking the white Apple theme to a ridiculous extent ... I've done more work on the loft office.
 |  |
| Cable nest before condoms. | Cabling after obscuring. Can't see the wires! |
I put all the cables into white cable "condoms" to visually obscure them. I added a white cylindrical trash can to match. The black file cabinet has been retired (donated to Boyd HS Band hall to house the future media archive), and a 12" round-cap replaces the end of the table edge.
Final result -- work area deluxe!
Posted by Steven at 08:51 PM | Comments (2)
February 21, 2007
iMac and iKea
After seeing what 'Soyburger' did with his Mac collection, I was inspired to update my own work area, especially for the new iMac. I knew that I wanted white desktop and I wanted more space to accomodate the HP LaserJet, NeXTStation Color Turbo, and the iMac Intel Dual Core 2 system with two displays. I also wanted to have room for my Epson flatbed scanner and my Nikon Coolscan V, so I could resume the slide scanning project I started in 2004. I knew I probably wanted to use Ikea for the furniture.
Last night I went out to Frisco and bought two desktops in the GALANT line from Ikea. I got the "corner desk, left" and the "desktop" (47") surfaces, and eight A-frame legs to hold them up. I bolted the two sections together, for a larger, sturdy surface that dwarfs what I originally had (6' x 2' rectangle). The results speak for themselves:
New "Shrine to Steve Jobs" work area featuring NeXT and iMac computers
I also got the PC bracket to hang under the right side of the desk, where I've currently got the Macintosh Quadra 840av. Next to it is the Silicon Graphics Indy, which didn't fit in the bracket (feh!). I plan to divest myself of the black filing cabinet, and when I do, I'll put a rounded corner end on the desk to compliment the rest of the desk.
I've also begun binding the cables under the desk to minimize their visibility. I hope to have them sequestered to trunks and tied to the A-frame legs (eventually) so no one need see them. About the only clutter on the desk is now associated with the iMac and the fact that I have three external hard drives attached to it. Eventually I'll move one of the SATA externals to the iMac (and blow the warranty) and lose the third drive leaving only one external. I got all the scanner s working last night, and I received Final Cut Pro today so I have a full multimedia development suite!
Posted by Steven at 07:55 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2007
Why I Use Macs
From Ken Rockwell's website, a great summary of the reasons why using Macintosh is better than Windows. Rockwell is a digital photography reviewer.
Posted by Steven at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2007
Seeing Double
Today I delivered my iMac G5 to Dan Bailey, and began the tranistion to the newer iMac Intel Dual Core 2 (2.0 GHz, 1 Gb, and 8x DVD-Dual Layer burner).
Dualing iMacs ... can YOU tell which is which?
Dan bought my 2 yr. old iMac G5, enabling my upgrade to the Intel model. It becomes the primary video editing suite machine in my arsenal, and continues to be Leo's primary computer. Since I made the jump to the MacBook Pro, I've been watching the rise of "universal binaries" and there seems to be a critical mass of software that runs at full speed on the Intel Mac now. Leo is also looking forward to some kind of Windows compatibility, but Parallels doesn't really run 3D games very well yet. I'd still rather run the Mac version of high end stuff.
Posted by Steven at 10:26 PM | Comments (0)
January 30, 2007
Home Apple Collection from Heaven
You think I collect too many Apple Computer machines? Check out this guy's collection in his basement. Not only is it staggering in scale, the layout, funiture and decore are fabulous.
Some day ... some day.
Posted by Steven at 01:31 PM | Comments (1)
July 06, 2006
Fifth Avenue Apple Store
What trip through geekdom's hallowed halls would be complete without a visit to Apple's flagship store in Manhattan on 5th Avenue?
Posted by Steven at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2006
MacBook Pro
Today I joined the PowerBook Generation.
I bought a MacBook Pro today. (The 2.0 GHz, 100 Gb HD, 2 Gb model.) Believe it or not, I was waiting for the first round of bugs to get worked out (I got a Rev. D model) and a Windows solution (we have two, Boot Camp and Parallel's VM) to present itself.
I'm still moving stuff over to the new machine, getting used to its look and feel, and finding the somewhat elusive Universal Binaries (the Intel-native code). On the whole, it's a remarkable piece of engineering and a magnificent portable computer.
Posted by Steven at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2006
Dual Booting, At Last
In case you hadn't heard, Apple ships computers using Intel Pentium chips. So the next question on everyone's minds was ... when will I be able to run the Mac OS X and Windows on these machines? The answer is ... today.
I can almost feel the MacBook in my hands now ...
Posted by Steven at 05:31 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2006
Get an iLife?
Enough said? BTW, I wasn't obsessively hoping for a flat-panel video iPod like some of my friends. You know who you are (David, Nick, &c.). ;-).
Posted by Steven at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
Northpark Mall Apple Store Opening
This is the second Apple store opening I was able to make, and it did not dissappoint.
I parked near Nördstrom's, figuring that Steve Jobs always puts his Apple Stores near them in upscale malls, and I was right. The line to get into the store at 10:45am was pretty long, so I went into the bowels of NorthPark Mall for a stroll while waiting for the line to die down.
Surprisingly, much of the art work that has hung in the mall since the 1980's is still up, including the wall of Warhol prints.
When I got back to the Apple Store hall, the line had shortened considerably. The store is laid out the way that all of them are, but with some interesting tweeks. This is a full sized store, like the one in Barton Creek Mall, but without the theater in the back that Willow Bend Mall has.
A new feature that I've not seen before is the iPod Bar (across from the Genius Bar already in all Apple Stores). I didn't take too close a look, but I think it's just in response to having so many iPods out there and the need for funnelling customers to this counter for help.
The final photo is of my next laptop, the MacBook, and the cute sales clerk who wanted desperately to sell me one. Can it get any better than this?
Posted by Steven at 11:50 AM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2005
Inexpensive iPod
Check out this ad for 20Gb click-wheel iPods. This is the same deal we got on Alanna's iPod.
Posted by Steven at 10:11 AM | Comments (1)
June 07, 2005
Dvorak Weighs in on the Intel Mac
I'm no fan of John Dvorak, whom I consider a blowhard and a kind of OpEd writer who looks for the shocking thing to say about a company or technlogy, but he offered some interesting insights into the Intel/Apple shift.
The key here is that Apple and its BSD-UNIX kernel running on the Intel platform should outperform Windows by an extreme and I'd guess outperform the PowerPC running the same software too. So Jobs can change his comparison advertising from PowerPC versus Intel to OS-X versus Windows on the exact same chip. The publicity potential here is chart-topping. What Mac user won't enjoy this show once it gets going?I've never understood why the Mac nuts are in such denial over this platform shift. This change to Intel will not only save the platform but potentially drive it into a position of dominance. What will be lost, of course, is the niche and mystique aspect of the Mac which many of its users seem to relish as part of some misguided superiority complex.
A more interesting scenario to me is examining the possibility that Windows users can switch to the Mac OS on their Intel machines. Is this going to be possible?
I have always believed that Apple could enter the PC arena with an Intel-based computer that could run OS-X or Windows and begin to take market share away from Dell and HP.
Apple's machines can easily be sold as a Lexus compared to the Fords and Chevy's of Dell and HP. This means better margins than Dell and HP and increased sales thanks to a more normal computer architecture. This is the future of Apple if it's going to survive as a computer maker.
There are plenty of people who would pay a premium for a computer that didn't look like an old-fashioned PC. The case-mod movement has been indicating this trend for a decade. A good portion of the buyers today would like to see something around their desk that wasn't a beige box with all the appeal of 1977 Plymouth.
I wonder if my friend Andy would consider buying an Intel Mac after calling the Macintosh "gay" for the five years I've known him. That will be the acid test.
Posted by Steven at 09:02 PM | Comments (2)
April 28, 2005
Server Madness
All weekend I'll be moving my Red Hat (Fedora) Linux server to a new Mac Mini running Darwin. A first pass at moving SMTP/IMAP/POP was a freaking disaster, so I expect hassles all the way through. Don't be surprised if this website is hard to find. When it's over, I'll be able to power down the BelchFire 9000 whitebox PC that not-so-quietly heats the loft all year round, and in it's place will be a quiet, tiny Mac Mini.
Update
Doing this transition I have learned that the stuff that builds easily on Linux doesn't on Mac OS X. Feh.
I've hit dozens of irritating roadblocks in moving SMTP, IMAP, POP, and HTTPD from Linux to the Mac OS. I'm still far from done, but the pressing reason to do this has been put off (a bit) by lending my desktop PC to my friend who is buying the PC that runs Fedora (and is serving this content to you) so I don't have to finish this rollover right this minute. The pressure has added to my stress from work and this weekend I contracted a pretty nasty sore throat.
I'm still working on this mess ... IMAP has forced me to go deep into the code and I'm not happy about that, but that's life with a server-based e-mail solution. Hopefully tonite I'll get the Apache virtual hosts working and I can switch the web stuff off of Red Hat. We'll see.
Posted by Steven at 01:00 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
Apple Profits Up Sixfold
Apple Computer posted profits of $290M this quarter, more than six fold over the same quarter last year.
For the three months ended March 26, Apple's profit jumped to $290 million, or 34 cents per share, from $46 million, or 6 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding certain unusual items, the computer maker said it would have earned $299 million, or 35 cents per share. Revenue surged 70 percent to $3.24 billion from $1.91 billion. The company shipped 1,070,000 Macintosh computers and 5,311,000 iPods during the quarter, a 43 percent increase for computers and a nearly sevenfold increase for iPods from the same period last year. Profit margins also grew -- increasing to 29.8 percent from 27.8 percent a year ago.
Apple continues to amaze me.
Posted by Steven at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2005
Digital Yearbooks
Apple Computer is highlighting a high school that produced a DVD yearbook using Macintosh that blows away all previous yearbooks.
Most high school fundraising projects run along the lines of bake sales, carwashes, and the like, and the proceeds are typically limited. But at Los Alamitos High School (LAHS), students are looking forward to topping the $30,000 they raised during the 2003-2004 school year to create a state-of-the-art digital studio/lab. How will they pull this off? By producing a digital yearbook that will be sold at the end of the 2004-2005 term. Using such tools as Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro, “Los Al” students are learning sophisticated digital media production skills, even as they work towards their fundraising goal.
I could not agree more. This is the kind of setup and project I'd have jumped on in high school. And the skills these kids learn are useful in a wide variety of areas, not just video production.
Joe Bob sez check it out.
Posted by Steven at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)
March 01, 2005
Be More Productive, Use the Mac
Check out this essay about how using the Mac OS is more productive than Windows XP, and from a woman's perspective, no less.
Posted by Steven at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2005
Jef Raskin, Father of the Mac, Is Dead
 | Just saw in Infoworld that Jef Raskin, the man who initiated what became the Macintosh computer, has died of pancreatic cancer at 61. |
Jef Raskin, the lead designer of the first Macintosh computer and a pioneer in the development of user interfaces, died Saturday at age 61. He had been diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer, his family said in a statement.Raskin joined Apple Computer in 1978 as employee number 31 and headed the company's Macintosh development team from its inception until 1982. He named the project after his favorite type of apple, changing the spelling for copyright reasons.
He is credited with significantly advancing the design of user interfaces, which in the early 1980s were largely text-based and required users to memorize complex commands. Raskin convinced his peers at Apple that to reach a wider audience, the Macintosh needed an interface that was elegant and easy to use.
"Up to that time, at Apple and most other manufacturers, the concept was to provide the latest and most powerful hardware, and let the users and third-party software vendors figure out how to make it usable," he wrote later on his Web site.
Raskin left Apple in 1982, two years before the Macintosh went on sale, but he continued to influence the design of computers through his writing, lectures and consulting work. Soon after leaving the company he founded Information Appliance Inc., where he designed the Canon Cat computer for Canon USA, although the product was not a commercial success.
Posted by Steven at 02:39 PM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2005
It's Here, But I'm Not!
Anne tells me that her Mac Mini arrived yesterday, which means Apple delivered it a week early. A premie, as it were.
Now the work begins ... moving Anne's XP world to Mac OS X. Mail and web posting will be straightforward ... but the stubborn PC apps won't.
Posted by Steven at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2005
iMac Back
I went to the Apple Store (Willow Bend) last night after work, and goaded the tech there to fix my system while I waited. He replaced the main logic board, which is a pretty serious blow out. I guess whatever refurbishing was done on the system didn't stick.
I put in a Kingston 512 Mb DDR when I got home, and it booted fine. I loaded my .Mac info (deltosfleet) and registered the Apple Care for the system, so I'm back up.
Posted by Steven at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2005
New Photo Album Online
I signed up for a .Mac account (deltosfleet@mac.com) and one of the first things I did was fiddle with the online web site. Here is my first photo album. I'll change it as new images catch my eye.
Posted by Steven at 01:04 PM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2005
My First Hint Was The Word "Refurbished"
The iMac G5 completely crapped out last night. It was acting like there was a logic problem in the display system, and then the screen went completely dark. If I had enabled Apple Remote Desktop, I might have been able to log in and look around, but the screen/LCD subsystem was gone.
This morning I dashed to the Willow Bend Apple Store, already signed into the "Genius Bar". I had to wait a bit, but at least the tech/genius didn't argue with me about the problem: he, too, could see nothing on the screen.
I told him I wanted to buy the extended warranty (ironically, Apple will sell you this the same day you bring in a broken item), partially because I knew I had to before 3-2-05, and partially to soften him up. As it turned out, all he could do was order the parts and suggest that the unit might be repaired by Friday (I'm in Austin all next week), so Alanna and Leo will not be on iChat AV until then. I could have had the parts sent to the house, but I figured if the unit is in the Apple Store they will fix it more quickly if something else craps out.
When I ordered the unit, I couldn't figure out why Apple was offering refurbished verisons of a brand new product. Now perhaps I do ... the logic board was flaky and probably didn't pass all the tests or something screwy like that. The net lesson is (no, not that Apple is crap) to avoid "refurbished" items.
I hope.
Posted by Steven at 03:57 PM | Comments (0)
January 27, 2005
Genius
The New York Times is running an article on the Apple "Genius Bar" in their Apple Stores. Yesterday I had to rely on the Bar to restart my frozen iBook. I gotta admit, the article really nails this on the head.
If a problem can be solved on the spot, the Genius may disappear into the back and re-emerge with a piece of equipment restored to health. Broken iPods are often replaced at no cost, Mr. Marcantonio said, because if the warranty applies, the easiest thing to do is to hand the customer a new one.In some ways, this has little to do with keen technical knowledge and a lot to do with astute customer service.
The experience of Cecilia Joyce, a marathon runner who claims to be unable to live without her iPod, is a recent case in point. Ms. Joyce's iPod is packed with music like Boy George's rendition of "The Girl From Ipanema," which inspires her to run longer, sometimes even faster.
When her iPod's battery stopped holding a charge, Ms. Joyce went straight to the Genius Bar in San Francisco. She apologized to Mr. Marcantonio for having bought the device at a different Apple Store. Unfazed by this mundane detail, and without further ado, he gave Ms. Joyce a new iPod.
Were it not for the Genius Bar, Ms. Joyce might have gone an untenable two weeks without a device, the amount of time it could have taken to send it to be repaired or replaced.
Soon after the elated Ms. Joyce left, Mr. Marcantonio glanced down at his computer to see what troubled device was coming next. "Oh, it's an iPod Shuffle - this is going to be interesting," he said, delighted by his first encounter with the tiny new flash-based iPod.
Mr. Marcantonio picked up the white plastic stick and gave its miniature controls a quick poke.
Unlike the clerk in the Monty Python dead parrot skit, who refuses to concede that the bird he sold to a customer was in fact deceased, Mr. Marcantonio knows a dead iPod Shuffle when he sees one. The solution: give the customer a new one.
Genius.
Posted by Steven at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2005
PCs for Sale
Anyone want to buy slightly used AMD Athlon class PCs? I've got one or two I don't need anymore, and I need to sell at least one to buy Anne her Mac mini ...
Looking for around $300 for fully stoked systems with at least 512Mb DDR RAM, 80Gb+ HD, DVD-R burner + CD-RW burner (seperate units), asskick 3D accelerated video, and Firewire, USB 2.0, etc. Selling CPU case only (all cases are "modded" with windows, lights, colors, and lots of fans). I'll reset the system to Windows XP SP2 + updates, and load MS Office 2000 and a bunch of goodies like multimedia software.
Lest anyone think I'm joking ... I'm not.
Serious inquiries only, please.
Posted by Steven at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)