Mucho Mac

I Tried to Ride the Fast Bus

2008-09-04T07:45:00.001-07:00

Several months ago I found a super bargain on a Digital Audio logic board through eBay. I bought it thinking I could play around with overclocking the bus speed per this guy's instructions. After some tedious wire and resistor placement I soldered everything into place and put the board into my Digital Audio. It worked! OS XC even seemed to boot faster. System Profiler didn't recognize the change but after running X bench I noticed a fairly big difference (668 to 748). But then reality set in. I started getting asked if I wanted to permit various programs to run and the system clock couldn't seem to hold the right time after every reboot. Sadly, I had been defeated. Oh well, it was worth trying. Now if I could only get the L3 cache on that dual 800mhz processor to register...

That's a Lot of Computer for Just $12

2008-08-05T13:27:00.000-07:00

Apparently there is a team at MIT that wants to build computers based on the Apple II for developing countries. The price for 30 year old technology? Just $12. In the same vain as the One Laptop Per Child program (which has failed miserably) this project aims at teaching people rudimentary skills instead of providing play toys (although with Apple II's I'm imagining there will be lots of required programming, which isn't so rudimentary). I say good for them! This is a great idea that will reach a ton of people. Thinking back to my own computer skills history, I actually started out on an Apple IIc circa 1985. It wasn't until 1997 that I was introduced to modern computing platforms in the form of Windows 98 and Mac OS 8. What a design that can last 30 years and still have such a following.

Fix Me Now

2008-07-24T13:32:00.001-07:00

After my overclocking mishap I'm back in business with a dual 800mhz processor! I scored this marvel from eBay at the astonishingly low price of $81 shipped. Normally these go for $100-$130, I got lucky. I have it installed now and it's running like a champ. The half-breed lives to fight another day.

Poof

2008-07-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

My Wife is frequently on my case regarding the slowness of one of our G4s. It has the dreaded 733mhz Quicksilver processor that lacks an L3 cache. Although this is bad for performance it's good for overclocking. I've seen websites as well as ebay listings that support this processor running up to 933mhz. Since my Wife and I just got hired on to do a big translation project I decided I better get things running faster so we can make more progress. With the best intentions I broke out the soldering iron and mapped out my plan. I had previously desoldered one of the resistors on this processor to bump it to 800mhz so I felt confident I could make the necessary solder drip for 867mhz. I was right. I put everything back together and it worked like a champ. Yay! But I got to thinking that if 867mhz was good, 933mhz would be great. Out came the soldering iron again. Surprisingly I was able to lay down two more solder blobs with little difficulty. I again reassembled everything and BAM, it wouldn't start up. Kernel panic. Oh well, I had to do it, otherwise I would constantly wonder. So with that gone I tracked down a new processor on ebay. I'm not sure how but I was able to find a dual 800mhz for $81 shipped! Hopefully that works out, otherwise I'm a computer down.

Turbo bus Speed?

2008-06-23T13:54:00.001-07:00

Ebay is a very dangerous tool. I was checking things out the other deal when I found a deal too good to refuse, a G4 Digital Audio motherboard for only $10 ($20 with shipping). That was too sweet of a deal to pass up, especially since I've been thinking to attempt a bus speed bus like this http://jonathanrenaud.g.googlepages.com/home2

Now that I have an extra motherboard I guess I have no excuse but to try for 150mhz over the 133mhz stock speed. Well, I guess I do have the excuse that I can't solder very well. But that's beside the point.

More OOMPH for the Half-Breed

2008-05-16T12:12:00.000-07:00

At 768mb my G4 hack project (DA computer with QS processor oc'd to 800mhz) has never been well endowed with RAM. Until now. I decided to spring for 2x 512mb sticks from other world computing . I decided to go with OWC for compatibility reason. I didn't expect any issue with other major brands but I wanted to be sure that in the severely unlikely event that it didn't work on an Apple that I could get a refund. Not much to say about it besides it's RAM. Now I'm sporting 1.25GB of crushing random access memory. It definitely helps performance but it's still a dog with the Quicksilver 733/800mhz processor (stupid lack of L3 cache!). I'm tempted to through in a dual 1.0ghz but those are pricey ($200 on ebay). My other thought was to do a dual 533mhz. Less numbers but more processors. Given Leopard's love of multiple processors that might be the way to go.

Another way to do it

2008-05-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

I run Leopard on my unsupported G4's and I think it works great. Personally, I don't think there should be a mechanism to prevent you from installing Leopard on your computer, it just doesn't make any sense. My two unsupported Macs, an 800mhz Digital Audio/Quicksilver (DA computer, QS 733mhz processor, overclocked to 800mhz) and a 500mhz Dual Gigabit, run it just fine. In fact, there isn't much difference from Tiger. If anything I think the dual 500mhz runs BETTER with Leopard. So if you want to install it on your G3 266mhz iMac and have nothing work and blindingly slow performance, that should be your call. That said I'm all for programs like Leopard assist, which helps you get Leopard going on your unsupported Mac.

Where have you gone Mighty Mouse?

2008-05-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

We NEED YOU Mighty Mouse! Or at least I need you. I don't understand why my wireless mighty mouse doesn't always connect to my Mac Book Pro. It's always iffy and many times I have to manually connect it (I know, the tragedy of it all!). Does anyone else have this problem? Seems worse since I installed Leopard. I suspect it's something with the mouse, not the computer or OS. I've updated the software so I guess there's not much else I can do besides bitch on a blog about it.

Dual 500mhz Gigabit Tribute

2008-04-17T09:07:00.001-07:00

This weekend I popped a hard drive with Leopard into my old 500mhz Dual Gigabit. I've contemplated installing Leopard on the machine's 'real' hard drive but I want to be sure Leopard will run like Tiger does. I really expected Leopard to be sluggish and irritating. Much to my surprise it runs great on Leopard! I think Leopard is designed to run best on dual processor setups, even if they are a scant 500mhz each. The running duties seem to be nicely distributed to each processor, allowing for even distribution of resources. Currently I have 1.5GB of RAM in it and it runs great so I think if I can do 2GB it will be that much better. I know Leopard loves RAM. I have to say that I have a soft spot in my heart for my Dual 500mhz Gigabit G4. It's an absolute pristine representation of a G4. Used by a local graphic designer for many years and then left for recycling at the university repair shop, it's virtually scratch free and in perfect working order. For being 8 years old it's still chugging away like a champ. I wouldn't run Photoshop or anything crazy like that on it but for surfing the internet and working office apps, it's just dandy. It's funny to think that it was originally released with OS 9 and still runs the most current OS without problems. For being 8 years old it also still has all the right features to keep you going, like a max of 2GB of RAM and 3 Firewire ports. Here's to you Dual 500mhz Gigabit, you Graphite Warrior of Digitalization.

Analogy

2008-04-03T10:31:00.001-07:00

Yesterday at work someone was attempting to use one of our G5s to view video files. First they couldn't get the optical drive door open (no biggie), then they complained about not knowing how minimize a window (to which I responded, there are only 3 buttons, try one of them), and after that she just didn't like Macs. What really griped me about this comment is the fact that she made zero effort to TRY and expected things to work on their own. I don't get it. But this made me think about how to explain how a Mac works and why you should use one. Here it is:

A Mac is like the metric system and a PC is like the old standard measuring system. The metric system is much easier to use, it's more accurate, and you can figure out manipulations pretty easily. The standard system works but it's cumbersome, prone to error, and difficult to manipulate. Using the standard system you might have to measure twice. Both will get the job done but one is more logically based, easier to use, and more efficient. It's science :)

New Old Studio LCD Display

2008-03-28T07:28:00.000-07:00

My old CRT Apple Studio Display that I picked up at a university auction 3 years ago finally gave up the ghost last week so I've been in the market for a new monitor. I guess I got my $10 out of it. I really didn't want to fork over a lot of cash for a new monitor and I was seriously considering a used 17" Apple Studio LCD. I was talking to the computer repair guys about my monitor situation and they informed me that the university shop might have some new old stock LCDs like the one I was looking at. After a quick chat with the manager he pulled one from their stock room and presented it to me. "$100", he said. The price floored me. I was amazed that I could purchase a monitor that originally retailed for $599.99 in 2004 for $100. He offered me a 22" for $350 but I had to pass. I don't know why, but for some reason I've always been fascinated with new old stock items. I finally got my chance to unbox a piece of my own. I forgot to upload the pictures last night but I will later. So far I love it!

Still no speed bus

2008-03-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

I've typed the code in openfirmware to overclock the bus speed like 15 times and it still doesn't work! Does anyone have any advice or alternate code to use? I swear, I can't be that stupid. I tried the magic code into the openfirmware of my Dual 500mhz Gigabit multiple times but it made no difference on each restart. The system profiler still reads 100mhz and nothing changes. I even tried the code to overclock it to 167mhz. I think the issue might be the particular models I have. I wonder if certain revisions were able to do it and others not. Or maybe I'm just not that good at typing in code.

Modifying the Frontside Bus Speed on a G4 using Open Firmware

2008-03-24T20:29:00.001-07:00

Well I've done CPU overclocking so now it's on to other types, like front side bus overclocking!! I've found various articles on www.XLR8yourmac.com and other places on how to change the bus speed on older 100mhz systems (like the Power Mac G4 Yikes!, PCI Graphics, Gigabit Ethernet) and I've really been wondering if that truly works. Basically you boot into open firmware (Apple-Option-O-F) and you type in a bunch of code. (I'll have to posts the links later as they're on a different computer). The code basically tells the computer to run a script to bypass the ROM and read from it to adjust the bus speed. Since I really wanted to try this but didn't want to mess up the Gigabit Dual 500mhz that my wife always uses I decided to give it a shot on my already modified Digital Audio 800mhz. But since this system is already running a 133mhz front side bus I decided to go to 167mhz, like what's found in later Mirror Door models. So I opened things in openfirmware, typed the code in, rebooted and crossed my fingers. It started fine, everything looked good. I opened system profiler for the moment of truth and.....it still read 133mhz. HMMM. I ran Geekbench and Xbench to be sure it just wasn't registering. Sure enough, no difference from previous runs. But I have to say, and maybe it's just a mental thing, it did feel a little faster. But that might also be the difference from the 733mhz to 800mhz overclocking. I haven't had much use with it since I modified it. But we'll see. Maybe later this week I'll change the bus speed on the Dual 500mhz Gigabit. I think I might have better luck with that. I have a feeling the modified Digital Audio doesn't register the changed bus speed because the memory isn't fast enough (SDRAM 133mhz). Problem is, the next step up is DDR RAM which won't physically fit in the slots. Maybe, maybe not.

update: I talked with the apple repair guys and they believe this might be try. They think it's plausible.
Helpful links if you want to try this (for 100mhz-133mhz):
http://xlr8yourmac.com/G4ZONE/sawtooth/SawtoothCPUdesign.html
http://xlr8yourmac.com/systems/sawtooth_bus_overclock/sawtooth_bus_overclock.html
http://jonathanrenaud.g.googlepages.com/home2

Turbocharged

2008-03-20T20:16:00.001-07:00

Well tonight I tried my hand at overclocking, with mixed success. I've been looking up a lot of info on the internet on how to overclock the 733mhz Quicksilver processor that I put in my Digital Audio. Since it doesn't have an L3 cache, it needs it. There's a lot of info out there on how to boost it to anywhere from 800mhz to 933mhz. The best info I found was on this site.
It took me a while to wrap my head around it but it's pretty easy. Basically you need to pull off one of the connecting tabs between two of the lines on the processor. Depending on which ones you modify, by either pulling it off or soldering one shut, you modify the multiplier which in turn modifies the speed. Since I knew I wanted to make the 733mhz processor the end product I decided to practice on the stock 533mhz that came with it. I got a little greedy on this one and went for 667mhz. This also was the easiest modification to do, just clip off one resistor. Well I clipped off one resistor and booted it up. IT RAN!!! For a while. After I put Geekbench on it froze and had to be restarted. On each subsequent restart it would think for along time, then flash a message saying it needed to restart. Rats. So I decided to back it off to a more reasonable 600mhz. This required soldering a resistor bridge. Well my soldering skills aren't the greatest and I ended up making a big mess. I still put it all back together and gave it a shot. Nothing. Wouldn't even boot. I think I soldered it to another resistor.
So with this failure under my belt I decided not to get greedy and keep things simple with the 733mhz. Although I've seen these processors on ebay clocked to 933mhz I decided that a modest boost to 800mhz would be safe enough. I desoldered the resistor and, after putting things back together, it ran! Surprisingly the extra 67mhz DOES make a difference. I ran xbench and geekbench in both Tiger and Leopard. Below are the scores. I'm really surprised that there's almost no difference on the geekbench scores between Leopard and Tiger. I think if I ever try overclocking again it will only be in cases where removing a resistor is necessary. Soldering sucks.

800mhz Quicksilver (in Digital Audio) 768MB RAM
Xbench
Leopard - 22.02
Tiger - 28.56

Geekbench
Leopard - 433
Tiger - 430

Proof

2008-03-15T15:22:00.001-07:00

Here's proof that you CAN get Leopard running on a non-supported machine. I think the easiest way to do it is open the computer in open firmware, type in a few lines of code that make it think there's a bigger processor inside and bam, you've got Leopard. Here's the link to the procedure I used from Lowendmac.com
http://lowendmac.com/osx/leopard/openfirmware.html

Benchmarks

2008-03-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are the benchmarks for my G4s, including the scores using Leopard. One thing I should note is that the 733mhz Quicksilver processor in the Digital Audio machine DOES win out over the original 533mhz processor. I posted previously that the 533mhz won but it doesn't look that way after I reviewed the numbers. I also included the numbers for the 733mhz QS processor in the DA board with a cooling fan (from a a Quicksilver). That seemed to make a difference in performance. I should note that there really doesn't seem to be a big difference in subjective performance ratings between Tiger and Leopard. Leopard occasionally takes a little longer to load Safari or Firefox but I think this is more due to low system memory (768MB). I haven't had much time using Leopard on the Gigabit Dual to see if it's an issue with greater memory installed.
One other thing about running Leopard on these machines is that I haven't experienced any problems so far. I've read some people using unsupported Macs are having trouble with DVD playback, Front Row, etc. So far I haven't found any issues. My guess is the people who are having trouble are the ones using the old ATI Rage Pro 16mb video cards.

Gigabit 500mhz Dual Processor (1GB RAM)
Xbench Tiger - 34.66
Xbench Leopard - 24.74

Geekbench Tiger - 504
Geekbench Leopard - 455

Digital Audio 533mhz (Single) (768MB RAM)
Xbench Tiger - 28.95
Xbench Leopard - 16.33

Geekbench Tiger - 368
Geekbench Leopard - 317

Digital Audio w/733mhz Quicksilver (768MB RAM)
Xbench Tiger - 26.63
Xbench Leopard - 16.42, 20.97 w/fan

Geekbench Tiger - 414
Geekbench Leopard - 357, 380 w/fan

Entering the Leopard Age

2008-03-10T07:59:00.001-07:00

Last week I was finally able to get a copy of Leopard. To be completely honest I was less than impressed at first glance. I didn't feel like it was performing as well as Tiger did and the new theme didn't feel right. But after a while the new look seemed to grow on me. I also decided to do a complete erase and install set-up rather than the upgrade I had previously done. The re-installation made a HUGE difference. Things definitely felt faster and more to my liking. I would highly recommend the erase and install method. After getting my Macbook Pro squared away I decided to try to get Leopard to run on my old graphite G4s (Gigabit Ethernet 500mhz dual, Digital Audio 533mhz/733mhz QS processor hack). I'll write up a post on exactly how I did this but the end of the story is a happy one, I got it to work :) So is Leopard worth the upgrade? That's debatable. Tiger was rock solid and really didn't have too many issues by version 10.4. It certainly wasn't perfect but there weren't many compelling reasons to make the change. For what I do, the upgrade is mostly cosmetic and to say you have the latest OS. Features like time capsule, stacks, expose, etc. aren't things I'll use every day but it's nice to know they're around.

Think about this....

2008-02-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

Pictured above is the machine that Tim Berners-Lee wrote the first browser, World Wide Web. So if it weren't for Steve Jobs leaving Apple and forming Next Computer we wouldn't have the internet. Well, not really but kind of. It's not like the Next was the only computer out there.

733 mhz Quicksilver processor in a 533 mhz Digital Audio

2008-02-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

So here's what I've learned. You can stick a 733 mhz processor from a Quicksilver into a 533 mhz digital audio motherboard. Yes, it's true. But here's the kicker: You get NO performance gain. As a matter of fact, the 533 mhz DA BEATS the 733 mhz. (I'll post the xbench and geekbench results later). Seriously, I was stunned too. But this is logical as the 733 has no L3 cache. Why, I don't know. So there's something you can try at home. Just be aware that you need to add 12v of power to the fourth mounting point of the processor. This is easy to do, just buy a power connector extender, cut the wires from the connector, take the yellow one and put a loop wring on it (shield the other wires) and attach it to the card with a 5/16 screw/nut combo. Fires right up! From what I've read you can do this magic trick with ANY processor from a Quicksilver (mirror door procs. don't work). But if you do this and screw up your computer you didn't hear it from me. I give no guarantee for your actions! You can only do this with a digital audio motherboard, not with a Gigabit or AGP graphics board. Well, technically you can do it with those boards but you need to hack off the motherboard side IDE connector for the DVD rom for clearance.

GASP!!

2008-02-15T13:57:00.001-08:00

So I was updating my website last night,
in iWeb when the strangest thing happened, something very un-Mac like. It froze. I couldn't believe it. It just froze. I didn't know what to do, surely it was a mistake, surely I was just being impatient with my beloved machine. But no, it was indeed a freeze. NOOOOOOOO!!!! I cried. But it still didn't unlock my machine. Then I restarted it and everything was fine. I guess even Superman has bad days.

None of this on that

2008-02-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

None of This on any of that, OK? I was thinking today that there are linux distributions that run on Mac hardware. Then I thought, that's dumb! Why would you buy a Mac and then put Linux on it? You buy a Mac for the package deal, not just the hardware, especially since the hardware costs a fortune! It just doesn't seem right to me. I guess to each his own but it's definitely not my cup of tea. Stupid thought I know but it's something I wanted to post. I guess I don't have much of a rationale for it, just how I feel. Oh no, feelings! This blog is making me all mushy and stuff.

it's back!!

2008-02-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

I love this game!

I remember playing this at my friend Joel's house circa 1987 on his dad's old mac (classic? se? don't remember the model). Once the new version's finished I might have to get a copy.

Jumping Ship

2008-01-30T08:22:00.001-08:00

As expected, a lot of people are jumping from the Microsoft ship after the Vista debacle was unleashed. The issues don't seem to be bugs or problems, most people are used to those by now, but price. No one wants to pay big bucks for an OS and the hardware requirements make buying new computers pricey. Read this from the French

Everyone thought that there would be more Mac adopters after Vista but it seems people are going the freeware route. Given the main issue of people using Vista seems to be price and the cost premium of Macs it doesn't seem surprising. Their loss, I guess.

I Heart OS X

2008-01-29T18:28:00.001-08:00

So I've been playing around a lot with Linux lately, and I do mean a lot. Ubuntu, Mandriva, Freespire, gOS, Xubuntu, Dream Linux, Fedora. The list goes on. A lot of these had some good stuff about them but I came to one conclusion, I love OS X. There's only one and there's a reason I love it. It works, very well. Yay OS X

Vista Bad...Mac Good

2008-01-10T07:57:00.001-08:00

Well it's been a while but that doesn't mean I'm short on things to say. Much to my chagrin Windows has been taking up a good bit of my time lately. While visiting my in-laws for the holidays a power outage occurred while their computer was transferring files. It made Windows go bye bye. I tried to reinstall Windows on one of the drives but it wouldn't boot from the CD. I couldn't figure out how to access the bios so I decided to try it on the other drive. That just sent me in a vicious circle of partitioning, formatting, and copy the install files. Windows would just go through the motions and reboot, landing right back in the install. For the life of me I couldn't get it into the graphical phase of installing Windows. Eventually I figured out how to get into the bios, although that was pretty freakin difficult trying to figure out what I needed to set as everything was in Spanish. I eventually I got it. On my return I set to work on the old THinkPad that I thought I fried. My magic hands revived it but the random reboots persisted. I cracked open an old laptop I had on hand and took out the cooling fans to try and replace the ThinkPad's. That was a bitch to do. Then the fan didn't even work. So I put in the original fan, still have the random reboot problem. I even tried running it with 3 different power supplies. It seems to run fine off the battery, all 30 minutes of it's remaining life, so it must be power related. But what? HMMM. I even ordered a new processor for it. I got myself a Pentium III special on ebay for cheap. I'll go from 300 mhz to 600 mhz. Talk about power!
Then my brother calls. Even though I told him to get a Mac he bought a Dell box with Vista. He couldn't install his new game, apparently he didn't have admin rights, even though he did. So then he bought another game. That gives him a memory dump error when he tries to run it. I swear. I told him it's just a Vista problem. He didn't like that. I explained that Vista is like an autistic child, let it alone in the corner to do it's thing and it's fine. Try and alter it or make changes and it will freak out! At least one of my brothers listened to me and bought a Mac.

I'm like King Midas

2007-12-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

Well, maybe more like his 2nd cousin, the guy whose touch turns things into broken. I managed to fry not just one but 2 computers over the weekend! Yes, yes, I'm sure you're all wondering, how did he do it? How did me make this magic happen? Well let me tell you, it was easy. I fried my new experimental IBM ThinkPad 390E after I took out the processor and reapplied thermal paste. It kept rebooting randomly and overheating was deemed the culprit. Well that won't be much of a problem now as it won't even start. Nice. Then my PC gave up the ghost. I installed two case fans to keep things running cooler and one of them was kind of old. When my wife started to smell a burning odor I told her to ignore it as I figured it was dust burning off the fun. No no, that's the musky odor of a motherboard. Ah yes, the wonderful scent of burning ozone. HMMM. Take it in, yes it's rich, hearty aroma. I guess it makes sense. It was running kind of slow, especially at startup, and the CPU fan would intermittently start late. I think it may also be the culprit of the mysterious DVD drive that wouldn't connect. But I don't think it's the motherboard's fault. I blame the power supply. This is the second board I've fried and I think my el cheapo diablotek junker is the culprit. To be safe I'll buy a new one...and a new motherboard.
That's what I like about Macs, they use quality parts. I often curse them for their proprietary parts ways but I guess here's an instance where it makes sense. If you guarantee the machines have good parts and you make them incompatible with others you're getting more reliability. More reliability equals better reputation which makes satisfied customers that evangelize your product. Makes sense to me. Not that Macs don't have hardware issues. Oh they do. Just far fewer.

I wish....

2007-12-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

...I had an office like this. It's from the boys at RealMac, a small software company in England that puts out RapidWeaver, a really groovy website builder similar to iWeb. Way cool. I'm considering purchasing it. HMMM....

WiFi

2007-12-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

So I've been living in the dark ages for almost 2 weeks now. Well, not really, just without wireless. Man, that sucks! Having only one computer with internet access totally blows. Not having wireless for the laptops? That's just cruel and unusual. So I bought myself a new router today, a fancy LinkSys WRTG54. Why do I bring this up? Apparently it's a good router for networking your Macs (ie accessing your desktop from your laptop within your home network). But there is a caveat, it's kind of hard to set up on a Mac desktop. Shouldn't be a problem for me, I'll just run it through my PC. My Ubuntu Studio experiment is going to have to wait a while longer. Those fuckers at Newegg.com rejected my debit card like 50 million times. Don't know what the issue is there but the bottom line is my nifty DVD-RW with Lightscribe will not be shipping. Maybe next month. I can't wait to have all of my Macs online again! I love them so. I dig my Linux experiments but nothing compares to the Mac. Random thought there.
I also made some headway on my IBM ThinkPad. Apparently the BIOS battery is dead. It kept crashing and then it was giving me a real time system clock error. Understandable I guess, it is 8 years old. I need to stop by radioshack tonight to pick up a new one.

Projects, Projects, Projects

2007-11-29T06:50:00.000-08:00

Alright, it's been a while since I last posted. You know how it is, with the holidays and stuff. I've had lots of little projects going on so here's the skinny.
I still haven't loaded Ubuntu Studio (mentioned last post) on my PC. The old school DVD-RW I had would cause Windows to stall at startup when connected (Ubuntu Studio is only DVD installable, no live disc like other Linux distros). So I tried it with other drives (CD and DVD) I had laying around. No go. I finally got so frustrated I took it to the computer repair guys. They concluded the DVD drive wasn't compatible and then proceeded to play games on it for the 1.5 days they had it. I can't complain, they didn't charge me anything. So I ordered a new drive from newegg.com. It's even got lightscribe. I'm top shelf, it's who I am.

Although Ubuntu Studio has been going no where fast I have been able to test drive other Linux distributions aimed at the 'creative folk'. I've been using 64Studio, Dyne:Bolic, Musix, and the venerable Ubuntu/Xubuntu. My brother gave me his old ThinkPad so it's now my Linux machine. I haven't used the creative Linux versions too much but I have been feeling out Ubuntu. I like it! It's pretty cool. Although it keeps crashing for no reason. So I tried Xubuntu, it's like Ubuntu light for slow computers (with a Pentium II 300mhz I'd say it falls in that category). I don't like it as much. It's based on a different desktop version and it's not as fun. Plus it doesn't come with OpenOffice, just AbiWord.

But in addition to my Linux adventures I've been keeping up with my Mac projects. My QuickSilver 733mhz processor finally arrived from ebay. After winning the auction I realized it wouldn't work on my AGP G4 due to voltage differences. I found instructions on how to provide the needed additional 12v but after I made all my preparations to install it last night I found out it wouldn't fit. The instructional I found online show the project on a Gigabit board, not an AGP. Damn. So I thought about putting it into my pristine Gigabit dual processor and put the Gigabit's DP into the AGP. But that seems wrong. So I guess I'll try and sell it back on ebay. Unless I find another use for it. HMMMM.....

My stupid media server project is in a similar state; the stalled kind. I've made a little (underline LITTLE) progress on transferring all of my music onto it. So far so good, it's just slow going. Several weeks ago I traded the Mac repair guy a PNY nVidia 6200 for an Mac card with S-video out that he was going to obtain somehow. I plopped one on my desk yesterday but it has no S-video out, and it's a flashed PC card. ARGH. But he did locate a video transfer thing on ebay that I bid on. Only problem is it hasn't been tested, could be DOA.

And to top it all off I was freaking out about my MacBook Pro. My wireless router died and when I tried to hook up the ethernet cable to the MB Pro it wouldn't recognize a signal. It also wouldn't read a USB card on the same side. DEAD MOTHERBOARD I feared. But after having the same network problem on my other machines I wonder if it's the modem. You have to restart the stupid thing every time you want to connect. HMMM. I'll have to call Time Warner. I brought the MB Pro to work today to try and connect. I think I still might have the repair guys replace the one speaker while it's under warranty. It kind of rattles.

So there's the project status for the moment. Lots going on and lots of fun. Although I did cut my finger on my PC's cooling fan last night. Ouch. Keep your fingers clear when it's on. Seriously.

This is Sweet!

2007-11-20T08:47:00.001-08:00

My wife is really into graphic design as a hobby so I was poking around to see how much an old license of Adobe CS3 would go for. Too much is the answer. So I started looking for freeware alternatives and there are some cool ones! Then I found this version of Ubuntu called Ubuntu Studio (www.ubuntustudio.org). It's a Linux distribution for people who are into music, video, and graphic design. And it's free! It looks great but we'll see how it works. I need to figure out how to get my PC to boot it like a dual operating system. That could be hard. I was all excited to install it on my old G4 but it looks like that might not be possible. What I've found so far indicates it's pretty much for intel processors only. HMMMM....

Are you kidding me?

2007-11-20T08:43:00.001-08:00

Our servers at work have been really struggling. Our main one was down for a morning, our FTP has been down for a while (the port died). I talked to our IT guy about it and apparently the Windows updates from last week crashed all of the servers on campus. Nice. Here, download this file, it will help your computer. CRASH. Funny.

Beautiful on the outside but...

2007-11-13T13:30:00.000-08:00

Man, G5/Mac Pros are BEAUTIFUL computers. I really love the way they look with the swiss cheesed front and back, beautiful aluminum skin, and neatly painted logos. The inside is equally as beautiful in a technical view, cooling fans everywhere with well thought out air flow. But man, have you ever tried working on one? Ouch! One of our G5's at work was low on hard drive space so I pulled an unused hard drive from another computer to put in the G5. GEEZ! Getting the stupid SATA and power connectors from the tight spot in the case was kind of hard. Sliding the drives in was a little tricky too. I guess I'm used to the ease of my old G4 Graphite. You open the case with ease and everything is at your disposal. Regardless, I was able to get everything working. I formatted the drive into the HFS format, set up a partition (or lack there of I guess) and installed it. Nice! Say hello to 149 GB of extra storage space. What really amazed me was how easy the computer recognized it. No pins were necessary, the computer didn't get confused over which drive to use, it just worked. I love it! The computer I took the drive out of, a Dell, threw a fit when I removed the drive. It kept asking where drive 1 was. I actually had to change the BIOS to make it stop. Not like that was a big deal but it's a lot more work than the G5 install/removal.

Choices

2007-11-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

As everyone knows, there's no such thing as a perfect product. The Mac is no exception. One thing that gripes me is the lack of availability of 3rd party parts. I'm not sure why this is, probably because of profitability issues, but there just isn't much out there for upgrades. I've been scrounging around lately trying to find a video card with s-video out for my media server project. You'd be surprised how difficult it is! Sure, there's stuff out there but a lot of it is REALLY expensive. Sure, you can buy a cheap PC card and flash the ROM but then you've got issues with reliability. Jump on tigerdirect.com or another computer supply store and you'll see that NONE of the cards say they're Mac compatible. I'm sure I'll resolve my lack of video card situation but I find it odd that it's so hard (that's what she said).

New addition

2007-11-01T12:57:00.000-07:00

Guess who just scored a vintage Powerbook 170? This guy! A vintage laptop has just been added to my collection. It's awesome, everything works on it and it really takes me back to the heyday of early laptops. System 7 is pretty fun to play with. It has a surprising amount of software on it for such a small hard drive. Funny thing is most of the programs are publishing type programs. It even has NetScape on it! My goal is to get it on the internet. My secondary goal will be to rebuild the battery. It looks easy enough online so I'll try it. It would be so sweet to bring that thing into a ritzy Starbucks location and start working on it. Sweet.

Blue

2007-10-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

I had to go for some training at work yesterday and boy were there some technical difficulties. The training room is set up with 16 individual monitor, mouse and keyboard stations that all feed into a computer in the room. Each station receives its own access like a normal computer so everyone can follow along without have an individual computer. Great idea...in theory. The computer was running Windows Server '03 and first wouldn't let us log on. Then it wouldn't let me open Firefox (to be fair, this was probably a Firefox program). Given that the training was internet based I had to bit the bullet and use Internet Explorer. OUCH. Man was it SLOW. And I mean SLOW. Took forever to do things. The IT guy that was sitting in was able to get Firefox running on another machine and offered it to me. He said it was running at 3x the speed of IE. So to have 2 people trained they needed an IT guy to sit in just to babysit the Windows kid. How unfortunate is it that you need to waste resources like that?
In other news the media project is a no go for the moment. Stupid MyView doesn't work with OS X, AT ALL. I even tried downloading drivers for some of their other products. Didn't work. Oh well. I've been eyeing various video cards with S-Video out. We'll see what I can come up with.

Media server project....completed?

2007-10-19T12:40:00.000-07:00

So I think my little media project is about done. Maybe... I now have the audio cables I need to hook my old G4 to my tv but I need a video card or some other way to get the picture out of the computer and onto my tv. I just picked up an old Eskape Labs My View unit that might do the trick. Supposedly this hooks into your Mac via a USB cable and miraculously spits out your display on the other end via RCA cable or S Video. huh. Great concept but we'll see if it works. Problem is I'm not sure if it will work in OS X. The guys at the computer shop said it's been sitting in their store room for 7 years so they were more than willing to let me borrow it just to see if it works. It will work in OS 9 so maybe I'll just have to boot into OS 9. At any rate it will be a great weekend project. Now I just need a Bluetooth adapter for a wireless keyboard and mouse and a wireless card for network access, and...

Deal breaker

2007-10-16T14:34:00.000-07:00

Now I'm really unsure if I'll get Leopard, no special academic pricing! Well there is if you count $13 off retail. If you work at a university like I do that's one of the only perks! Although I did find a new feature through .mac that is appealing: follow my mac. Allows you to remote access your mac. Smoooth. That's what I've been attempting to do with my server project. Which will be done...sometime.....soon?

Leopard? yay or nay to the new tiger?

2007-10-16T07:39:00.000-07:00

Who's ready for Leopard? To ease the nail biting anticipation Apple has released a full list of the 316 new features. See here. Honestly, I'm not too stoked about it. I don't think I need any of the new features. I might consider the upgrade next year but that's a maybe. I want to see how the release pans out, really find out if it's worth it. If I do make the upgrade it will only be on my MacBook Pro. I don't think my G4 would be too happy running it. Tiger is stretching it for the old beast, Leopard might kill it. But then I'll have the problem of 2 OS versions running on my equipment. I'm not a big fan of that idea. There will inevitably be some issue that I can't resolve that will just piss me off to no end. We'll see. Maybe I'll change my mind later but as of now, I don't have much reason to.

Late birthday gift

2007-10-11T10:29:00.001-07:00

What do you get when you pair one of these with one of these? Sheer awesome, that's what! Who's the owner of a PowerMac G4 500mhz dual processor Gigabit Ethernet model? THIS GUY! I totally stumbled onto the deal of the century. I went over to ask my Mac repair friend about buying a 500mhz dual processor upgrade for my PowerMac G4 AGP. I found one on ebay for $66 (delivered) but I wasn't sure if it was a good deal and if it would even fit in my motherboard. After a brief discussion he said he'd get back to me. A minute later he comes and finds me with a G4 in hand. Apparently he had a personal one he wanted to sell with the dual proc., 1GB RAM, and an ATI Radeon 7000 video card. I won't even write the price because it was obscenely CHEAP but needless to say I snapped it up in a hurry! So last night I got to work setting it up. I was FINALLY able to pair the Studio Display (CRT) monitor I bought at an auction 2 years ago for $10 with a computer!! I was so stoked. The computer runs AWESOME, very fast, especially on the internet. I love it. Now the only question is, what to do with the old G4? HMMMM. What an awesome surprise for my Wednesday.

Converting

2007-10-08T11:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a great article on why windows users are hesitant to switch. In my opinion there are two big ones that the article doesn't highlight enough, price and compatibility. First off, it's a hard sell to get someone to pay over $1k for a laptop when they get get a Windows craptop for less than $.5K. What does a person get for the extra money? Well a computer savvy person understands the higher quality components, the extra software, the usability issues, and the reliability. Although you can find a laptop for half the price it will last 1/2 as long. It's true. Average lifespan of a windows pc is 2 years. It's almost 5 for a Mac. My graphite G4 that's still in use today is a testament to that (it's from 1999). And what about compatibility? That's the clincher for many people. I can't run the programs I need on it, say the naysayers. And you know what? Many times it's true. Take my job, for example. I work in a research lab where we do lots of numbers crunching and database shit. Guess what? Our main data analysis tool, SAS, isn't available for Mac. Neither is Access, our main database organization program. So, as you can see Macs don't fit in EVERYWHERE for EVERYONE. And that's fine. Oddly enough, though, all of our EEG data collection equipment runs on Macs. Food for thought I guess. Think about, why do you use a Mac? For me it's the reliability and cool stuff you can do with them. Working on a Mac is just stress free, even fun. System restart headaches? Almost never. Even if a program crashes the OS just keeps on ticking. Another reason I love them is the freeware that's available. Tons of free stuff out there to keep you occupied. Why are you on a Mac?

Virus

2007-10-05T13:59:00.001-07:00

Dudes, I have got me a virus. Been sick since about the time of my last post. But I'm on the mend and I think I'll pull through. But being sick has given me the opportunity to do some cool stuff since I can't get out too much. I've really been spending some time on Pages (the '06 version mind you. guy at the computer shop failed to mention the new version would be out in 2 weeks!) and I love it. The trial version I used was really sluggish and had a lot of hiccups but not so with the real version. Fun stuff. I also did some performance tests with my AGP G4 with Speed Freak. Believe it or not, it makes a measurable difference! I'll have to post more on that later. I also had some fun with old hardware parts. Ever wonder what the inside of a hard drive looks like? Let me tell you, it's pretty sweet. The actual disk surface is brilliantly reflective. Makes for a great mirror. Really cool to see the innards. I'm a huge fan of learning through disassembly.

Cheater!

2007-09-18T13:30:00.000-07:00

And I had pity on this guy for having to wait for an iPhone. Turns out he did better than everyone. I had cheaters. If you can't get one from your old pal Steve Jobs don't cut in line with John Q. Public to get one. Not cool.

Touche

2007-09-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

Touche, Touche. It's true, this article
is totally true. Very good argument.

2007-09-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

Oh Steve. People are royally pissed at him over the whole iPhone price cut. But you know what? That happens, much more than you think. Take new cars. When they first come out the price is high and stays high for a while. GM is the worst at this. They introduce a vehicle and the price starts out high. Then, after the manufacturing and set-up costs are recouped to some degree, the price drops. The same goes for lots of products, not just cars and computers. Can you go back and return your car because someone else got a better price? No. Regardless of it being 'just business' it's still a dick move, especially when the iPhone was over priced to begin with. Way over priced. The iPhone advertising campaign was a truly successful exercise in the gullibility of people. Did they not think Apple would make changes? Typically the Apple method is to release a product 8x better to get you to buy UP for more money because it's a must-have. Here's an interesting analysis of Steve's rationale for dropping the price. It's kind of a feasible argument on why the price drop happened. The important thing to remember, though, is that Jobs wasn't the sole person who made the decision. He alone can't control the prices. There are many people behind the scenes that are in on the decision. Regardless, Jobs is a control freak with an ego the size of Texas. But he does deliver and he's passionate as anyone about what he does. Although this may be true, he's not the only one to blame in this fiasco, he's just the most visible perpetrator.

New Kit and Shit

2007-09-06T13:49:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted but as long as my last post was I figured I'd give everyone a chance to digest my words.
What's up with blogger? I can't post a picture. Sorry. It wouldn't let me do links or pictures last night either but I was using Safari. No one loves Safari I guess, not even blogger.
So the new iPods are out. I have to say the Touch iPod has won me over. It's everything the iPhone is but sans phone. I love it. What grabs me is the wi-fi. I love wi-fi, especially in small devices. Fucking stellar. Plus it has the iPhone interface? I'm sold. Where do I sign? I have to say the new Nanos are kind of weird. Jury's still out on that one. Same with the new Shuffle colors. yuck. What kills me is that the touch version won't even be out until the end of the month. The nano won't even be here until the weekend. I guess the anticipation gets the sales. Check out Fake Steve Jobs, he's got some funny shit about it.

Attack of the clones

2007-08-28T11:54:00.000-07:00

Who remembers the Mac clones of the mid-90's? Oh those were the days. Here's a link to a history of one of the clone makers. Pretty interesting stuff. Apple begrudgingly make the call to license the OS as a last ditch effort to help save itself. It worked out OK as it gained them more market share but at the same time it diluted the brand (especially it's image) and confused consumers. What's interesting to note is Apple's market share in those days was about what it is today but it's coffers were nearly empty. The company nearly went under. The clone makers got the rug pulled out from under them as soon as Jobs returned as iCeo (that i is for interim) in '97. The first thing he did was pull the plug on the licensing deal. He was kind of sneaky about it, too. The clone makers were licensed only for System 7 versions of the OS. He used this loop hole to make the revised OS System 8 and that kind of took care of that. The licensing of the OS is always an issue with Apple fans. Some people believe that Apple did the right think by not licensing the OS early on, that it maintained the integrity of the brand and kept the quality of the products high. Others think it was a dumb mistake that let Windows come in and sweep up enough market share to become the standard. I go both ways on this. I do believe they kept product quality high by always being involved in the hardware step. That marriage of hardware and software makes sense and creates greater reliability. Apple's roots are in hardware so this all makes sense in terms of their philosophy.

However, the clone program was very successful. The clone mfrs. sold a lot of units and helped get more Macs, well Mac running computers, to the masses. Apple was careful to monitor the hardware end and everything seemed to work. Had Apple instigated a similar policy early on I think we would all be using Mac OS based computers instead of Windows. Microsoft saw the opportunity to make it big in software while Apple was stuck on hardware + software, thinking that's were the future would be. What Microsoft seized on, in a rather brilliant way in terms of marketing, was the need for unification and standards. This certainly led to some rather large compromises in the quality of the software and the PCs that it was married to. But Apple stuck to it's guns and continued making higher quality products that went against this grain. I think this was a great idea that resulted in fantastic products but the problem was they were charging way to much for them. Their profit margins hovered around 50% and that greed hurt when it came time to ship computers to the masses. Once Windows starting gaining huge volumes of market share with a Mac knockoff OS Apple sued declaring copyright infringement. A loophole in a contract made between John Sculley, Apples' early CEO, and Gates let Microsoft win that battle. What Apple should have done at that time was look at the reality of things. Microsoft is winning because they're using our ideas but putting them into cheaper machines. This is letting them become the standard as even the cheapest computer during this time is pretty expensive. So why not ramp up the same computers, or create a 'consumer computer' that is of the same quality as your lineup, and get millions out the door? Had Apple focused on this rather than being misguided on projects like the Newton and mismanaged by laurel resting attitudes we would all be using Macs and be far happier. And more productive.

2007-08-24T14:20:00.001-07:00

YES!! I love Macs. I had to upgrade some software on our two G5's at work and after some initial problems (the company sent me the wrong FTP address) I got things all straightened out. I also needed to connect the two G5's so they could share files directly without a third computer (server) in the middle. Done and done. What a good feeling. Everything just worked. I think I'll go home and do the same so I can share my porn, I mean business files between my Macs. Maybe my server plan is closer than I thought.

Perspective

2007-08-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a very interesting take on Apple's new Numbers program. From someone at Microsoft of all places! I guess it's from the Microsoft Business unit, the folks that make Office for Mac, so it's kind of expected that they have a more open mind. Man, I really want to get iWork '08!! If I hadn't blown all my money at Ikea this weekend I would. Stupid Ikea.

The author really hits on something I've believed for a very long time: Compatibility is what makes great software. The more compatible, the more useful and versatile. I think this really extends into the Mac vs. PC debate. If you can use it on both platforms then the real issues, such as reliability and hardware preference, can come out and that's really where the Mac wins. The two chief complaints of PC users are not being able to use a program on the Mac platform and the high cost of Mac hardware. If you eliminate the lack of use issue then the price premium for the hardware might be more appealing to people because you're not paying the high price plus the 'handicap' of not having all the software you want. Apple's definitely on track with the Intel chips because that's a start to cross platform compatibility. I don't expect Apple to be licensing their OS in the near future but I imagine that there will be more programs that can go between Mac and Windows platforms.

R.I.P AppleWorks

2007-08-16T13:59:00.000-07:00

Appleworks has died. It's true. But with the new iWork offerings it's not surprising, especially with Numbers being added. I kind of like Appleworks still. It's something far different from Word but still does the same things. What I love most about it is the look. Since it hasn't been updated for like 10 years it feels like the old school Macs. Sweet. Even with all it's shortcomings it's better than it used to be. I remember the FIRST version. It fit on a 5.25" floppy. Oh those were the days. Godspeed AppleWorks. Enjoy your retirement in software heaven. You're still on my desktop.

Tolerance

2007-08-14T12:24:00.000-07:00

Why is it that we set our standards so low for our computers? I was talking with a coworker and he just bought a laptop with Vista. He likes the laptop and the speed and went on about it. Then, almost as a side note, he tells me that Vista isn't so great, it randomly reboots once it's finished updating itself. Without warning. It just decides on it's own to close whatever you're working on and reboot. That's not a good feature. But it didn't seem to bother him. Or take the crazy errors we get from XP. I've been getting a VB script runtime error every time I log in for the last week. But we just go about our business, thinking it's normal. I tell you. But really we're kind of stuck because that's what the rest of the world uses. Kind of frustrating but what can you do? Oh I know, run a Mac! The only thing that prevents me from doing that at work is my need for Access. All of our research database stuff goes there and I can't get to it with a Mac. Otherwise I'd be all over it. I think Apple is needs to move towards more integration with Windows, only then will they gain more marketshare. They're on the right path with Boot Camp but I don't think running Windows on a Mac is the answer. Creating programs that are better than what Microsoft offers, that are 100% compatible will lead to greater sales. Only then will the common man see the premium price tag that Apple charges as worth it. In my opinion...

Hopefully the Free Software Foundation doesn't mind that I borrowed this pic from them. They want all digital things to be free, right? hehe. I guess that's why you can BUY their free software. Yes, you can BUY free software from them. Oh, I guess it's free in the open source sense, not price. But then why are they such proponents of 'free as in freedom'? Doesn't that mean without out price? Such contradictions. Check them out here.

iWork Upgrade is not happening

2007-08-10T13:07:00.000-07:00

So I'm a little behind the times and just picked up a copy of iWork '06 2 weeks ago. Little did I know the new version was coming out!! Doh. I was at the university computer shop complaining about it to the guy who sold it to me and one of his cronies thought I could get a free upgrade if I purchased it in the last 30 days. Cool! I thought. So I called Apple and you can't get an upgrade from iWork '06 to '08. I have a feeling it's because it includes a new app, something they don't want to give away will nilly. But the good news is you CAN get an upgrade form iLife '06 to '08 if you bought it recently (2 weeks or 30 days depending on who you ask). So that's something you've got going for you.

Santa Claus is dead

2007-08-09T07:05:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week the Fake Steve Jobs was unmasked as an editor at Forbes. This has completely ruined my enjoyment of the FSJ blog. It was funny thinking about some 30 something hipster impersonating Steve Jobs with his witty repertoire. Now we found out FSJ is some stuffy middle-aged fool. I've tried all week to enjoy the blog but now it's just not as fun. The writing doesn't seem as witty or free, especially now that the blog is published regularly in Forbes. That kills it right there. It's easy to fling insults and be funny when you're anonymous, there are no consequences. But now that he's outed and he has a 'sponsoring' publisher he needs to be more reserved. I can already see the change in the most recent posts. Above all I don't see why he had to admit who he was. Why not continue with the game? That would have been more fun. Oh well. I guess it is what it is. I just feel like someone pissed in my cheerios.

Dude, it's totally new and rad...Kind of

2007-08-07T12:01:00.001-07:00

Well here it is in all it's glory. Not as substantial of a redesign as I expected but it's still pretty cool. Basically it's just a new skin, aluminum, instead of the clean room white plastic. There are technical improvements, faster processor, graphics card, more RAM capacity, but the look was what I expected to change the most. I have to say I'm slightly disappointed. It's more like a modification rather than a redesign. Oh well. The keyboard is way sweet! I can't wait to find out how much that costs. Hopefully not more thanthe $30 they charge for the pretty white one. I think the keyboard design was more substantial than the computer redesign New iLife and iWork too? Looks like I'll be blowing my load on new software this fall. I just bought iWork '06!!! I tell you. Speaking of iWork '06 I'll be posting my thoughts on that a little later. For now enjoy the new iMac.

iMac dujour

2007-08-06T12:35:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow we should be seeing the new imacs. I bet the mini gets axed. It's just like a good soap opera, who will live, who will die, and who will be reinvented? There's a lot of speculation that they'll look like this but I don' t think so. It doesn't look hip and stylized enough. I'm guessing they start departing from the refrigerator white. I doubt they'll put an aluminum shell on it like the mac pro. That seems to be they're big distinction across groups. Maybe back to colors again? As long as it's not Bondi Blue I think we'll be OK. We'll see.

Mac Village

2007-08-03T12:19:00.000-07:00

Here you go, make your own origami Mac. A good weekend project for those with nothing better to do. Also good for a friday afternoon work project if you know what I mean.

Helpful Tip

2007-08-01T07:39:00.001-07:00

Everyone loves Macs but the problem is they're freakin' expensive. But if you're willing to live with a slightly older machine you can score one for fairly cheap at university/state surplus auctions. I went to one last weekend and I saw old graphite G4's going for less than $50. Granted, they were pretty stripped but that's still not a bad deal. I was able to score one (graphite G4) about 6 months ago and after putting a new hard drive in it, a video card, and some RAM I had lying around I was good to go. I think the machine was about $50, the hard drive $70 and the rest of the parts were free. So for $130 I've got a solid working Mac. Not bad at all. If you're into more vintage Apples you can go CRAZY. PowerPCs like the one pictured were flying out the door at the auction for $5-10. Old G3 Blue and Whites were going for like $20. I even saw an old Quadra server go for about the same. Also check out university computer shops. They typically sell Macs at the student discount price to the general public.

You get what you pay for

2007-07-31T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well I had an interesting experience last night. I love iWeb and I was contemplating taking this blog in that direction. For those of you familiar with iWeb you'll know that's impossible as iWeb only allows you to do one site. But wait! This nifty freeware application, iWebsites, let's you run multiple iWeb sites. Nifty, huh? Well it turns out it's not so nifty. Or at least not so clear on how it works. Long story short, I ended up losing my entire website. You see, when you start up iWebsites it lists your new project and your old project. The only problem is it doesn't label your original project correctly (it says New or something). Since the panel came up with two new projects I deleted one as I didn't want to run two new projects, just one new one and my old one. Oops. That did it. So it looks like I'll be rebuilding my site from scratch. I'm also looking into other freeware web designing programs like nVu. I'll let you know how that goes. On the topic of freeware, another app that I found super useful is Speed Freak. If you run an older Mac with a PowerPC chip I highly recommend this app. It allows you to increase the amount of processor resources to the application running at the front (basically reprioritze your processor resources). I found it didn't run too well on my Mac Book Pro with Core Duo processor. It seemed like it just got confused and slowed it down. I'm guessing Speed Freak doesn't address both cores so you get a hang-up. I definitely notice a difference in my old AGP G4. Give it a shot!
PLEASE NOTE: No one asked me to post these programs, I did it on my own free will based on my personal experience.

Can I touch it?

2007-07-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

No Steve, I was talking about the iPhone. Yes, I have seen the iPhone and it is good. It's much thinner and lighter than I thought it would be. The interface is just awesome. The finger touch scrolling is entertaining enough to keep you just running through all your options and applications rather than actually using them. The image quality of the screen is INCREDIBLE. Really like a high quality mini-lcd. I even watched some You Tube clips and it works great. The only problem I had was trying to type in web addresses. That wasn't so great. I can see why people have such a hard-on for this little thing but to be honest it's not something I really NEED. But here's a testament to Apple's marketing and design execution: My wife thinks we need one! That speaks volumes to the coolness of the product and design when someone who could care less about electronic toys wants one.

Hey Steve, what do you think about the iPhone?

2007-07-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

What do you think of your iphone, Steve?
See what Woz has to say about the iPhone. On a previous post I said it was unfair he had to wait like everyone else. He co-founded Apple for crying out loud! This article clarifies that he CHOSE to get his own, waiting in line for hours and hours.
I just finished is biography. It wasn't bad but you could tell he had more motivation to do the project at the beginning. The first half is filled with long, detailed stories but after the halfway point he kind of hurries along and broadens the brush strokes. So much so that the ending was just completely thrown together in random order. But still good.

Job Satisfaction

2007-07-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

This poor guy at the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit sounds pretty disgusted with the way things are going.
Is Microsoft that insecure about it's products? It has a chokehold of 95% of the market on operating systems, probably even higher for office productivity, and they're scared? That just sounds weird to me. They should be gloating and celebrating. Slaughtering fatted calves and goats. You know, getting happy. I guess it just goes to show that money, or in this case market share, doesn't make happiness.

The Old Days

2007-07-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

Oh man! Who remembers the old Apple IIc? Sweet! I remember my family bought one, circa 1986. I thought it was so sweet. The case was really elegant and looked so high tech. I loved the sound of the 5.25" disk drive and it's startup chime. We pretty much just played games on it but man it was cool. We even had the color monitor. Not like this poor fucker with the monochrome. My parents still used that computer through 1999 or so. It was still working when they put it in the basement and it still works today. I pulled it out 2 months ago and it started right up!! Most of the disks still work but not all of them. Amazing. We even had the optional mouse. I remember going with my Dad to buy the whole package. I think it was like $1600 for the computer, color monitor, and mouse. The mouse was only good for Mouse Paint but that was worth it. I was captivated by that program. When I ran it again recently I thought the resolution was total crap. But considering how small the program was and the speed of the processor (a blazing 1 Mhz!!) it wasn't bad. The only downside to that machine growing up was that we didn't have a printer. We bought an ancient used Imagewriter from the local university computer store. It was pretty beat up but it worked. Sweet vintage technology. I always considered the IIc to be much superior to the IIe. I based that mostly on looks because the IIc looked so much classier. The IIgs was much better though. Cool.

Easy Mac

2007-07-19T09:41:00.001-07:00

OK, no dice on the HAL 9000 but I will take one of these. I'm hungry.

Open the pod bay door HAL

2007-07-16T07:58:00.001-07:00

I want a HAL 9000. Seriously, that would be so cool.

Poor Guy

2007-07-13T12:56:00.001-07:00

Speaking of the Woz...
How do you co-found a company and then not have any pull to get the company's new products? What a dick move by Apple. Maybe Woz chose to get one on his own. I've read articles where he said he always pays retail for Apple products. Let's hope. Had it not been for Woz and his designs Apple would not exist. The caption to this picture said he was having fun so I guess it's cool. I wonder what his number is. He goes on in great detail in his biography how he always wanted to have an all one digit number. He finally got it, 888.8888 but he kept getting calls with no one on the other end. He speculates babies were calling him. hehe.

Lord Woz

2007-07-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

I started reading the biography of Steve Wozniak, iWoz last week. It's pretty entertaining. It's written as an easy read and basically just has Wozniak recount stories from his past. He seems to brag a bit about some stuff but overall it's good. It's hard to believe that a guy that didn't even have a degree was able to design such a sweet computer as the Apple II. It took IBM, the world's biggest computer company years to come up with a competing product, and that wasn't even very good! Amazing. I guess when you love to do something it shows up in the quality of the product.

Still no go on the iMac server project. I rewired the power supply adapter 2x and it still won't work. The Mac repair guy suggested shorting pins 1 and 4 on the motherboard, where the programmer's switch attaches. That didn't work either. HMMMM...

Who wants it?

2007-07-06T08:44:00.001-07:00

I believe Microsoft is trying to keep me down. Yes, it's all Bill Gates' fault! Last night the G3 iMac - Mac S/E 30 project should have hit paydirt but it didn't. I checked the wiring on my hacked up, homemade power harness and it's good. Plugged in the power supply, hit the programmers button and....NOTHING. But never fear. I think the problem may lie in the power supply. I'll try and test those out later. I might just sell the old Mac. Anyone? Anyone? Maybe I'll fix it. I think the wife would be happier with option one. So if anyone has any advice on what to check that'd be great. Maybe I need to sacrifice a virgin goat to Steve Jobs or something. Nah, then it would work, he'd steal my idea and claim it as it's own.

Dude, I'm calling you from my new iPhone...

2007-07-03T06:59:00.001-07:00

What's that? It sounds just like a normal phone? You can't tell at all that it's an iPhone. You're sure?

This is how many people's conversations have gone this week. So after all the standing in line the idiots have realized that it wasn't necessary. They still haven't sold out of the first batch of iPhones and the wait time from the Apple site is only 2-4 weeks. Wah wah wah. In all honesty people should hold off on buying one. Everyone knows how Apple works. They come out with a great product then they come out with a new one that has 3x the features and make you feel so dumb and inferior for having the old version that you get guilted into buying the new one. It's true.
A lot of people are speculating if Apple will release the iPhone to other companies. I don't think so. That's part of Apple's marketing gag, the exclusivity of it. How can you feel extra special and cool if you can pick one up anywhere? Believe me, Apple will churn these puppies out with At&t and ONLY At&t for as long as possible. And at only $500 who can resist?

Oops

2007-06-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

Oh this is hilarious! Poor guys PC dies in the middle of a presentation. Doh!
http://www.thinkswedish.com/#ContentHolder:feed=blog&Content:0=entries+1=entry+2=779

I'm Steve Jobs, but not the Original.

2007-06-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

Man, this week is dragging on and on. It's like a bad dream that just won't end. I haven't slept well all week and it's starting to catch up with me. Plus crap at work is grinding on me. It's incredible to me how many petty personal issues come up among employees. We're all adults. Or maybe we're not, and that's the problem. And to top it all off, I have a burning case of athlete's foot. OUCH.

I found this hilarious website that you should check out. It's actually a blog by 'Steve Jobs', the fake Steve Jobs. Pretty good stuff. http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/
There's tons of stuff on their about the freakin idiots waiting in line for a week for a stupid iPhone. Seriously. Reminds me of a segment of the Jim Rome show I heard. This guy finally gets on the phone with Rome after waiting for 3 hours and says "Rome, it's great to be on the show, I've been waiting three hours to talk" to which Rome promptly resonds "you should only wait that long to talk to the Pope" and hangs up. Hilarious.
Legend has it Steve Wozniak used a similar joke on his original dial a joke line he manned in the '70's. He'd say, "I bet I can hang up faster than you" and hang up before the person even could process what he said. Kind of funny. Well I hope that brightens your day.

The Power of the Mac

2007-06-26T12:29:00.000-07:00

So it's Tuesday. That's about all I have to say about that. Not a huge fan of the Tuesday. AT ALL. I'm really dragging today so I just stole a cup of coffee from the communal pot at work. I don't contribute for the coffee but I think my coworkers will forgive me this once. It's super weak so I wouldn't pay for it anyway.

I found this interesting tidbit on the web today:
http://hubpages.com/hub/_86_Mac_Plus_Vs_07_AMD_DualCore_You_Wont_Believe_Who_Wins

It's kind of funny because you really could do everything you basically need to do on an old Mac Plus (except for storage space. That 40MB HD won't hold much). Althouh the comparison doesn't produce any real data I still think it's a good lesson in needs versus wants. The line between the two is often confused. Do you really need something or do you just want it?
Anyway, here's a more realistic comparison that is pretty unbiased. You have to love OS X:
http://laptopmag.com/Features/Mac-OS-X-Tiger-vs-Windows-Vista.htm

An interesting thing happened earlier today. I installed Safari for Windows and included the Bonjour option. I have to say that Firefox still rules supreme in my world but I like the look of Safari, very modern. Somehow the Bonjour feature has given me access to a security camera in an adjacent office. Nothing too exciting as it's only the camera to the entrance of the computer help center. I guess I can't spy on their Dungeons and Dragons game. Oh well. Well I hope your Tuesday is going well. I'm going to spy on the help center customers.

New Week, Projects

2007-06-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Well today is a new day! Monday's are like a mixed blessing. Everything is new and fresh for the week but they always feel so stressful with lots of new demands and goals for the week. It evens out I guess. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are another story.

For me the weekend was sweet. I got to do a lot of fun things (among them swimming for the first time this season!) and it really felt like summer.

I even made some progress on my book about the early history of Apple Computer (Little Kingdom by Michael Moritz). I've really been getting in to Apple's history lately. This is my 3rd book on the topic and I hope to read more. It's just a fascinating story. It's amazing how close the world came to being Mac dominated rather than PC dominated. Had Apple realized early on the importance of the software, rather than the hardware, and licensed the OS things might be different. John Sculley's licensing with Microsoft also made the difference. He pretty much signed away proprietary rights of the Apple 'look and feel' and desktop arrangement to Microsoft. A small loophole in the contract allowed Microsoft to take it all and put it into Windows 95. Amazing that it took 11 years for the competition to catch up to the Mac's GUI, even with a free reign copy cat contract!

I was also able to secure more parts for my compact Mac server project. I'm hoping to put the innards of a G3 iMac into the shell of an old Mac S/E 30. I scored a hard drive I can use to test it out. I also need the drive to install OS 9 first so I can install a necessary firmware update that won't kill the system when OS X is installed. Done and Done. Now I just need a power supply.
Enjoy your day!

Satisfied with your job?

2007-06-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get the feeling that you should be doing something much cooler than you do? When you're a kid you always imagine yourself doing cool stuff for a living. When you're in college everything seems so idyllic and open that you imagine you know know to do anything. The world is truly your oyster. Then you get out into the real world and realize you won't do anything too cool. That you're not qualified to do everything. Heck, you're barely qualified to do anything because you don't have experience. Oh well. Don't get me wrong. Being a senseless drone in society has it's perks. Like a regular paycheck. I like my job but sometimes I imagine what a really cool job would be like. Oh well. Pretty profound for a second post, eh? Can anyone fill me in on how to put a picture to a post? I'm so smart.

Test post....Testes 1,2.....Testes 1,2

2007-06-21T12:51:00.001-07:00

Now I can be cool and different just like everyone else with my own blog. So original. Everyone else seems to have one of these and they provide me with quite a bit of entertainment from time to time. Hopefully I can entertain you too. I'm altruistic like that. I've been blogging for a while but my site runs on .mac and I can't update away from my mac (ie at work). Plus something's screwed up with my domain forward from Yahoo. If it will open for you I recommend it www.nebraskacyclist.com
I'm so ready for Friday. This week has drug on and on. Although the weekend will likely suck. I need to change the water pump in my truck. Looks easy enough but it never is. Hope your day at work is rolling solid.