..: schmeeve / a blog :..

Slicin'

These "perpendicular" drives out today, basically the Seagate and Hitachi's >= 750 GB, seem to be less than reliable. I swapped out my boot drives on my Quad Power Mac with two 1TB Hitachis, and put 'em in a RAID mirror to save myself the pain of doing backups. It took all of 1 day for problems to appear. I've RMA'd the drive, which had given me some issues before, but the lesson here is RAID mirrors are your friend. I've had similar odd behavior from a Seagate Barracuda 750 GB. These drives tend to run hot, and pressing them into any kind of major labor seems to wilt these precious little flowers. I'm a little annoyed that most manufactures now offer "Enterprise" class drives, supposedly giving you 24/7 reliability, which makes me wonder what the non-Enterprise drives lack. Apparently reliability. 950 GB of free space, 50% availability! Rock on.

Oh, and now that TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD officially support eSATA drive expansions, I have one sage piece of advice that will save you a ton of money: if you build your own, absolutely purchase a drive rated for DVR use. The Seagate DB35 or Hitachi CinemaStar series. The run quite a bit more silent (good in the living room), but also produce less heat, and seek slower, which doesn't thrash the head in 24/7 DVR use.

Tear Down the Wall

I mossied on over to Amazon's music store today, the latest iTunes "killer," and I was buying within a minute: my decade old rip of The Wall needed updating, and Amazon wanted me to have it DRM-free, both discs, for $8.99? Okay, sold. (iTunes: $16.99)

Beyond that, I don't have much to say, dear Amazon. DRM-free? Great. 10c cheaper for most tracks? Great. 2M vs. 6M songs? Well, you can work on that. iTunes vs. a browser and some proprietary software for anything more than a single track? A decent job, I'll admit, but I've already downloaded iTunes. At least my tunes are copied into iTunes.

I'll be watching. Lord Steve is likely fairly displeased, given the nearly 70% discount on DRM-free tracks and recent spats with the likes of NBC-Universal.

I do find it amusing the #1 song is Feist's 1234. Yeah, I don't know who the hell Feist is either, but my mad internet skillz has revealed it be an obscure Canadian emo-indie band featured in, hang on here, the latest iPod commercials.

Technorati Tags: amazon, amazonmp3, apple, ipod

iPhone Luv: Installer.app

Want to install SSH, native IM, IRC, even Apache on your iPhone? Check out Installer.app from Nullriver. Yep, the same folks that brought you WinAmp and dreamed up the Gnutella network. [That's Nullsoft, duh...]

As usual, proceed at your own risk...

Not Measuring Up: My iPhone Bill

I think my frequent access to Wi-Fi is screwing me of the opportunity to make my own video revealing a over 300 page bill from AT&T. (Methinks a lot of you would probably have no problem at all helping that poor girl with her bill.)

I'd given up paper billing for starters, but even the PDF version from the AT&T site came in at 178 pages. Every 15 minutes my iPhone checks email and uses EDGE? A new entry on the bill. All cost me $0.00. Fucking brilliant.

Even given the first 30 hours numbers and averaging $1 extra per mailing of the physical giaganto-bill (paper, postage, and packaging -- it requires a BOX not an envelope for most), that's $217k they wasted.

Given AT&Ts religious need to felate the Street, I'd be watching for that FCKUIPHONE "tax" to show up on your next bill.

iPhone Haters: Finally, a Legit Reason to Reject the Jesusphone

Yep, that's Karl Rove, our Dark Lord of the Sith.

Technorati Tags: iphone

iPhone Wallpaper

So, I held out two weeks, but then I had to do it. I got an iPhone on Monday. I've got a long list of quibbles, but as usual, Apple didn't fuck up.

Anyway, thought I'd share my fantastic wallpaper :-)

Not only will you have the must-have phone, you'll be the only one around sliding your finger across a goat's tongue.

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone

Cheap Mac Goodies: The MacUpdate Bundle

MacUpdate has a "bundle" which has the unique feature of unlocking additional applications depending on the number of sales.

The $49 bundle includes GraphicConverter, Fetch, iWOW, GarageSale, Cocktail, ProfCast, and Amadeus Pro as the first 7 apps. It's a good deal at that price, but at 2500 sales (almost there), Little Snitch is unlocked, 4000 includes Intaglio, and at 9999 TechTool Pro gets included.

I have my doubts 10k sales will get hit, but even at the 2500 level, it's a good deal for some great apps -- especially iWOW for iTunes (great sound enhancer, although Volume Logic is still my fav), the geeky tuning tool Cocktail, and swiss army knife of images, GraphicCoverter (something I've considered essential for at least a decade.) Little Snitch will likely be unlocked, an invaluable tool for you paranoid types worrying about apps "phoning home."

Why am I pimping it? Mostly because it's a good deal, although I have my quibbles about these bundles and if they actually benefit developers fairly. But, providing these heavy-weight anchors at the higher end does provide ample incentive.

And all this despite MacUpdate going wingnut Christian a few Christmases ago. Yet I still use 'em, as they're much better than that other update directory.

Jesusphone

What's this eyefone everyone keeps talking about?

And I overheard something about the rapture dropping at 6p tomorrow?

Technorati Tags: apple, iphone

Reversal of Fortune

How is it that installing Safari 3 on Windows doesn't require a restart, yet on Mac OS X it does? (And even the point release to 3.0.2) Isn't that bass-ackwards?

While I could investigate and find out why, I'll cop to being far too lazy. Anyone know what low-level voodoo requires a restart? Another extension special where it makes all things Apple priority #1 for the kernel?

Granted, the install process on Windows involves 72 different steps, so time-wise it might be a draw, including the Mac OS X reboot, but the last time I rebooted my computer was like 45 days ago.

At least I don't have to track down anymore weird Safari bugs anymore cuz Techcrunch trashes us... I knew they were fixed in WebKit many months ago, and when Apple delayed Leopard I thought i'd have to track it down and squash it, but then they went and released Safari 3 beta saving me much pain while lacking a debugger. But they stepped up and gave both -- a public release of a new Safari and a debugger. Thanks guys, I knew you were listening to me. :-)

Technorati Tags: apple, safari

15" MacBook Pro 7200rpm Drive Upgrade

After reading this report at Xlr8YourMac, I decided to try the same for myself. That guy had a brilliant idea -- buy a portable case with a 7200rpm Seagate Momentus already in it, which saves you a few bucks and gives you a home for your stock 5400rpm drive after the upgrade is complete. (Instant portable backup!)

I can't emphasize the importance of faster drives. It'd opt for more memory and faster drives over a few hundred MHz any time I bought a new machine. This MBP upgrade is well worth it, just as a RAID for your Mac Pro really makes it a Pro machine.

The installation took less than 30 minutes. I have a few caveats:

• Carbon Copy clone your stock drive onto the new drive before beginning
• Clear off a table -- give yourself plenty of workspace. Lay down a towel to protect your precious Book, and protect your Book from yourself and static electricity
• Create a way to organize the screws you remove. I labeled a few ramekins from the kitchen.
• Watch the OWC install vids as recommended. This is key and only takes 15 minutes.
• Make sure the little plastic notches in the front above your optical drive don't pop out when removing the keyboard mechanism. I heard something jiggling around inside my case after I had nearly closed it all up. So I re-opened the whole thing fearing it was a screw that could short something out only to find the little plastic piece floating around between the motherboard and keyboard.
• Make sure you have the right screwdrivers: a Phillips Head #0 and #6 Torx. Need a PC set? This $15 set from RadioShack should suffice.
• The Seagate runs a bit hotter, and these machines run hot anyway. Give smcFanControl a shot. I keep both fans around 4000rpm and the drive is still a bit warm under my left arm.

Direct from Apple you can only get 7200rpm drives with the 17" models. Those Books are just too large and impossible to use in anything but first class on a plane, which is why the 15.4"ers are my sweet spot. It's a damn shame because the faster drives make all the difference in the world. My Core 2 Duo MBP "felt" slower than my previous last-gen PowerBook (which had a 7200rpm drive) until I gave it this vital organ transplant.

And no, I'm not going to post a bunch of Xbench results. It's all about how it feels to you. If your machine feels "fast enough" for you today, then don't waste the money.

Where's Ellen?

I'm sure you're terribly interested in what happened to Ellen Feiss, God knows it's left a hole in my life for the past 5 years. So here ya go.

Briefly: Roxio Toast Titanium 8

Don't waste your money for the TiVo integration unless you use Toast all the time. (And if you do, this seems to be the cheapest option for upgrades.)

Use this. And it's free. Sure, the interface could use work, but it does work...

It's an odd move, especially considering that after 2 years of promising TiVoToGo for the Mac, they've kinda-sorta-delivered it in a $99 package offered by a third-party. Roxio's included a "TiVo Transfer" program and a "Toast Video Player" application for playing the DRM protected files (which appears to be a stripped down version of ElGato's EyeTV software). About the only unique feature is an "auto-transfer" feature which allows you to flag a particular show for download. It does work, but again, not worth the money. I realize that the DRM codec is licensed and therefore cost someone money, but I'm not sure who in this case. I'd be interested to learn the biz details of this unholy marriage. Seems ElGato or Roxio could release this part alone for like $20-$30 and not piss quite as many people off.

Toast 8 suffers another interface change, this time with those lame "fade in" windows and other animations which look pretty if I were working a kiosk at a museum, but don't do much for productivity. (Thankfully, there is an option to turn them off.)

This also, of course, does nothing for that Series 3 sitting in my living room right now. (My CableCards don't come until Friday, Comcast "insisted" on "professional installation," but some mild amount of bitching got the $16 fee waived. I can deal with the $1.50/mo card rental fee -- I'll be saving a whole $2/mo when I send one those horrid boxes back w/the Comcast guy. And, oddly, I didn't get the "You'll have no OnDemand!" freak out, only a weak upsell for Digital Voice. I did find it amusing that the recorded message said I'd experience "longer than expected wait times" due to "strong demand for Digital Voice" and I got a live person within, oh, 20 seconds.)

Ah, technology...

So, I got a MacBook Pro (yeah, new one, Core 2 Duo Extreme Double SuperFast x2 Pro or whatever, dropped from Shanghai and double-boxed with the word "Apple" no where on the outside) and a 30" Cinema HD Display today. It's geek pr0n, and trust me, I'm smitten for the time being. So much screen real estate, coaxing Windows into Parallels, fun, fun, fun...

So, I've got the latest and greatest, right?

So here's my conundrum:

I did some "maintenance" on myself today -- manscaping, if you will -- and why the hell do I have 5 different tools to accomplish that task? That's right, FIVE. I'm not a fucking Yetti Schmeeve or anything, but jesus christ, it's just annoying. (And every guy does it, so shuddup, unless he's a hippie or, perhaps, Chinese.)

Sure, I suppose I could of accomplished it with one, but each has it's usefulness and efficiency in certain areas. Perhaps I'm just impatient, but with all the technology around us, it seems like I'd be able to get the uberGroomer and call it a day.

But no........

Home

Finally home from another two weeks on the road. One week in Atlanta, looks like no one's going to die. And a week in LA complete with $2200 hotel bill. I like this little boutique, but their WiFi sucks and apparently I was put in a room directly under the housekeeping quarters. Much noise and convo en Espanol early in the morning. But the beds are fantastically comfortable, the shower clean and hot -- a thankful change from having no hot water in Atlanta. FYI -- those exercise freaks who extoll the virtues of cold showers are filthy, filthy liars.

Mason washed my sheets and made the bed, which is nice, except that he somehow put a giant hole in them.

Ordered a new MacBook Pro today, too. Gonna pop my Intel-Mac cherry. Bit miffed there's no 7200rpm drives with the 15", but I can live with a 160G 5400. Got a 30" DIsplay today too, albeit through Amazon to save on taxes. My Apple fetish is very satiated. Of course, now I have t o figure out how to pay my income and property taxes.

Next up: glass of wine and bed.

Leopard

My friend has a copy of Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) from the WWDC, and I got a chance to play with it today.

The first thing I noticed is that it's basically the same as Tiger, which may cause many who aren't interested in the gee-whiz-bang uberfunctions and under the hood changes to say, "Uh? $129? Bite me."

There are lots of under the hood changes, and I plan to play with it a bit more, but Apple seems to be focusing on things like iChat, Mail, Time Machine, and Spaces (virtual desktops! oh, how 1998! albeit a nice implementation) when there's some things in real need of improvement. Like the Finder. It gets some improvements, but it's still just not what it needs to be. It remains the weakest link in the OS. At the very least, Apple should provide the hooks for Finder replacements (like PathFinder) to become "the" Finder, so I can really ditch the thing once and for all.

Some other observations:

• Spotlight seems faster, yet still a bit lacking. It's nice to recognize new types, and include meta searches, but why can't I ctrl-click from the results window and open as I please? This one place Windows just does it better.
• Mail has Notes and To-Dos. All fine and well, but not sporting a chub over this...
• Safari's new find is pretty cool, but it lacks one thing Firefox has had for years: just start typing and find -- if no cursor is focused. This seems basic.
• Safari web clippings into Dashboard: nice, but c'mon, that was too easy...
• Address Book needs Map Of options for more than MapQuest... GPS in cars is really common now, why not download to car? A few are starting to offer this.
• .Mac Sync has supposedly been improved, and includes a few new options. I haven't tried it, as it supposedly invalidates my "Tiger" style syncing, but the prefs now include Dashboard, Dock Items, and Preferences (which, not specified). This has been a major weak point for Apple. .Mac syncing is ugly at best, and an utter failure most of time. It's nice they opened up it up to third parties, but that doesn't work really either. The system is just boinked, period. But I want it -- my bookmarks, my address book, iCal items, Yojimbo items, whatever. This is all really vital. Apple -- this really needs to work.
• Time Machine. It's a back up system. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems to lack options that allow me to feel comfortable. Basically, the options are: ignore or include a volume, but what the hell are you backing up? How much is it going to cost me? Where are you going to store it?
• Brushed metal? Not? Who? What? When?... Just stop it. Unify. I know these things need changes over releases, but they need to relate to something. A type of application, functional use, easy of usability, whatever...

I've got my beefs. It's still, what, 6 months until release. Inevitably, someone will ask: "How about Vista?" Um, I've got the beta of that too, and it has some charms, and I hate to simplify, but OS X is not Windows. Thankfully, beautifully, praise-jesbusely, it's not Windows.

And Leopard doesn't suck 1GB just sitting idly at the desktop.

Apple OS Gallery

More 30th Birthday Apple goodness: Wired's OS Gallery, from the Apple II DOS 3.0 through OS X 10.0. Some of the more obscure ones: SOS, Lisa, MouseText, and the GS.

Clicking the thumbnails no worky, so here's some linkage:

• DOS 3.3
• SOS 1.3
• Lisa
• System 1.0
• MouseText
• Apple ][ Desktop
• MultiFinder
• GS
• HyperCard
• System 7
• Mac OS 8.5

Happy 5th!

Mac OS X turns 5 today. Ars takes a stroll down memory lane.

Gotta wonder what they'll do when they run out of stealthy flesh eating feline names. Mac OS X BooBooKitty? I'm outta here at the Lloyd Webber release.

Intakes, Pumps, and Exhausts

This thing's like a friggin' 747...

Mac pr0n

hawt.

Drool

I really want a new Power Mac. My poor machine is nearing it's 5th birthday, and while it's no dog and I've shoved a hefty amount of upgrades into it, I can no longer deny it's suffering from bus speed inadequacies and the woe of upgrades which are only partly compatible (for example, the FW 800 card I have in the machine prevents it from sleeping properly. WTF?)

So, I've been drooling over the Dual 2.7 G5 with all it's water-cooling goodness, and then I see this on MacObserver today hinting at dual-core machines from Apple based on the latest 970 from IBM. Perhaps September. Perhaps never. Whatever, I really want to love one of those machines, as a dual-core 2.7 is 30% faster than two 2.7's separate. Imagine two dual-cores in one machine. Oh, just imagine.

This isn't unlikely. IBM announced the chip last month, the only real potential large-volume buyer of such a chip being Apple. It may appear at the Paris Expo next month.

If Apple loves me, they'll deliver this machine as a testament to the PowerPC. The chip offers an ungodly amount of power and cutting-edge technology. So, Apple, please, give me one last PowerPC-based Mac before you stumble into the Intel world. I'll wait a few years until you get all the kinks worked out then happily get my Intel-powered Mac.

And, no, I won't buy a Windows machine. They totally disinterest me, with the exception of being able to play City of Villains.

iTunes 4.7.1

After installing the latest iTunes, I found it didn't want to play all my de-DRM'd music I had purchased through the iTMS. Granted, without FairPlay, the music industry would of never played with Apple in the first place, and I'd imagine what cropped up in 4.7.1 is just more knee-bending to the industry.

Anyway, long story short, the situation is easily fixable. Check out the JHymn page.

Octiv Volume Logic

Shameless plug:

I've been using Octiv's Volume Logic for about a year now, and while I admit it's a CPU hog, it's a miracle addition to iTunes.

In short, it gives concert-hall quality to iTunes, despite your speakers or headphones. Well worth the money.

Three Mac OS X Finds

Got a bunch of stuff I should post, and will soon, but some recent Mac OS X finds which I'm fond of:

• Path Finder: I used this back when it was called SNAX, and someone at work recommended it again. I've got a couple of peeves with it, and I think having an integrated text editor and terminal is kinda geekboy overkill (terminals as part of a window rather than being their own window strike me as stupid), but whatever. The smart sorting is nice, as are its column browsing and about a billion other features. (Uh, thanks Rob.)
• OmniWeb 5: This is still in beta and it shows. But it shows real promise. The tabbed browsing, while different, is really turning me on. You get thumbnails of web pages in a sidebar rather than tabs -- which is actually quite handy. Given a known website, you can look at the thumbnail and see "where it is." Other niceties include location shortcuts (for example, type "google schmeeve"), per-site customization, Safari bookmarks (it's live, not just imported), and other goodies. It's got a way to go, and this version uses Apple's WebKit, allowing the browser itself to focus on GUI gadgets and bells n' whistles. Me like. However, the unchangeable icon set is butt-f'ing ugly. Side note: disable FruitMenu if it crashes on launch. Side note 2: It's nice that there's such a variety of good viable browsers for Mac OS X: Safari, Firefox, Mozilla, Camino, OmniWeb, even iCab. God bless Mozilla.org for producing 3 of those. I still think Gecko rules, and were Camino given more attention that'd still be my everyday browser.
• NeoOffice/J: an implementation of OpenOffice tailored for Mac OS X. No X11 required. Again, beta, or really even alpha, but definitely much easier to install than OpenOffice.

mini iPods?

With Apple selling 1.79 iPods per minute in 2003, they're still not satisfied... Now, apparently aiming at the low-end MP3 market, a mini iPod is rumored for Expo 2004.

Think Secret pegs ~$100 mini iPods (in multiple colors) with 2-4GB capacities.

Also rumored: major iLife updates to iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, and iTunes.

I'm still lusting for the video iPod (probably reality but maybe not ready for primetime) and the Mac tablet, which is perhaps a bit more far fetched...

New iPods; stupid RIAA

Apple announced new iPods today, replacing the 15GB and 30GB models with 20GB and 40GB models at the same price points. Rumored goodies, such as video, may still come, but are not in this minor refresh.

Apple also announced they've sold 1M iPods, and more than 10M songs through the iTunes Music Store.

Meanwhile, the RIAA filed additional lawsuits today against 261 file swappers and promises "thousands more." My advice? Ignore them. It's all scare tactics, and statistically speaking, you're safe. There's several hurdles they need to overcome, including your ISP -- and many are fighting, including SBC. (If you're with Verizon, you're screwed. They'll sell you out.) Then there's also intent. Did you intend to pirate copyrighted material? It's hard to prove.

They've also introduced some lame-ass amnesty program, which is designed to make you admit pirate ways and legally sign you'll never do it again. It's cheaper than proving you actually did something wrong in the first place.

Previous rants about the RIAA are here and here.

Why IT doesn't like Macs

Robert Cringley suggests that Macs aren't more mainstream in business because of IT job security. A long known fact, Windows machines simply require more maintenance and support. It's sure-fire job security, and apparently something that's not overlooked by IT professionals in today's difficult market. Along the way, he tackles the moving-IT-to-India issue and its associated problems as well as Linux as a "OS for everyone."

I'm one of the few that has a Mac as my primary machine at work. I begged for a Mac within weeks of getting hired, after being given a Windows 98 laptop, and it was approved -- with which I attribute much of my productivity to. I truly treasure it, and believe it's been a huge advantage over those around me, especially with Mac OS X and it's Unix underpinnings.

Last week, everyone -- yes, EVERYONE -- in my group, was struck by the MS Blaster worm. Except me.

I do need Windows sometimes. Well, only for one in-house application, otherwise never. I turned off networking, and booted up Virtual PC with Windows 2000. I installed the patch to protect myself against the the Blaster worm, having downloaded it with my Mac browser. I was never exposed to it.

The Power Mac G5 is here. It's the fastest consumer/prosumer computer on the planet. Hyper-transport has approved as a standard. Am I expecting stellar sales for Apple? No, not really. They're not really cheap (albeit reasonably priced), but they are the best. I'll be buying one. And I'm okay with the masses avoiding Apple -- it's the same reason I avoid Wal-Mart. I know there's something better, and I'm happy with others not knowing. :-)

Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) Preview

ThinkSecret has posted Inside Panther: Part 2, including images from the Finder and other system components. The images that were included with Part 1 of the series were yanked down after Apple's lawyers came calling, so get a peek at these while they're still there.

Some of the more interesting screen shots include the new Print & Fax prefpane, Exposé (1, 2, 3, 4), Connect to Server window, Classic Menu, and closing minimized windows in the dock.