The Computer Blog

Moving the Computer Blog

2010-02-11T13:19:00.007-06:00

I've been using Blogger to build and publish my blog, but rather than use their servers for hosting I have been using FTP to publish the blogs on my own site (The AndyZone). Recently, Blogger has decided that they are investing too many resources into maintaining FTP so they are ending that service as of March 31, of this year. Rather than surrender my content to their servers, I am switching to Wordpress and continuing to host the blogs on my own site. This notice will be the last entry made at this address.

To make WordPress work with my site, I had to make a small change in the blog's URL. This blog's new address will be: http://www.theandyzone.com/compublog/. Please bookmark the new address.

Thank you for your patronage.

Andy

Is the iCore iMac Really a Mac Pro Replacement?

2009-11-24T17:23:00.002-06:00

Whenever Apple releases a new batch of machines, they always publish a set of benchmarks demonstrating how much faster the newer systems are than the ones they replaced. That’s all well and good if you’re made of money and can afford to replace just bought systems with new ones. But the question that often becomes difficult to answer is how these new systems stack up against systems two or more generations back. By inference, we are to think they are faster without a doubt; but, as I’m going to show you here, that’s not always the case.

My curiosity about this became enflamed when the website Barefeats.com released a graph comparing the new i5 and i7 powered iMacs against current generation Mac Pro’s. I own a late 2008 8-core (dual processor four core) Intel Xeon powered 5400 Mac Pro running 14 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 3870 video card. I wanted to know how it would stack up against the new i7 iMac. To find out, I borrowed Barefeats’ data and ran Cinebench 10 under Snow Leopard and Windows 7. While running a single benchmarking program never gives you the full story, Cinebench has been a consistent way to perform single or cross-platform comparisons for some time. That’s not to say it’s perfect, as some of the test results will later raise some questions about how optimized it is for current versions of OS X.

First, you can see the Barefeats.com results at this page: http://www.barefeats.com/imi7.html. Only the multi-processor (Cinebench) results are shown, but the 8 core Mac Pro, a 2.93GHz machine with 12GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 4870 video card, comes in with a score of 25878. A four core version of the same machine comes in at 15521. The 4 core i7 iMac with a Radeon 4850 video card and 8 GB RAM comes in at a very close 15290, while the i5 iMac comes in at 12077. My 2.8 GHz 8 Core Xeon Mac Pro with 14 GB RAM an a Radeon 3870 video card came in at 18588 on the same test. The puts it below the 8 core 2.93 Ghz Mac Pro but above the i7 iMac. Based on that, from a performance perspective only, I would lose by moving to an i7 iMac, especially considering I can gain some more “oomph” by changing out my Radeon 3870 card for a 4870.

I haven’t seen or tried to look for benchmarks from a first generation four core 2.66 Mac Pro, but I suspect the current i7 iMac would give that machine a run for its money and perhaps even sneak past it.

All that said, if you’re really considering whether to go with an i7 iMac or a new Mac Pro, the picture gets a lot murkier once you step away from looking at performance alone. First, the new 27 inch iMacs have a display that’s second to none; I know of no other way to describe it than “absolutely stunning”. Secondly, with 1 TB and 2 TB options for hard disk storage (even if the 2 TB option is a bit pricey), you can order an iMac with lots of room, though admittedly a professional video shop might find even that space a bit confining. You can equip the new iMacs with up to 16GB of RAM, enough for a professional or semi-professional setting, though if you buy all that extra RAM from Apple you will probably break your piggy-bank. Moreover, you used to be able to buy a fully-equipped tower for $3000; but getting a top of the line Apple tower today will easily set you back $5000 or more. This cost escalation is further widening the line between consumer and “pro” machines to the point where Apple runs the risk of marginalizing itself too much and driving both semi-pro’s and pro’s to the Windows platform. Frankly, if something happens to my current Mac Pro and I choose not to repair it, I will be looking at an i7 iMac (or its replacement) rather than at a Mac Pro line for its replacement.

Now that we’ve discussed that, I’d like to discuss the Cinebench test results in more detail.

I’m running Mac OS X and Windows 7 64-bit, the latter under Boot Camp.

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6.2, 32 bit
Single CPU Rendering: 3241
Multi-CPU Rendering: 18588
Speed Up Factor: 5.74
Open GL: 6446

Operating System: Mac OS 10.6.2, 64 bit
Single CPU Rendering: 3245
Multi-CPU Rendering: 18564
Speed Up Factor: 5.72

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate, 64 bit
Single CPU Rendering: 3435
Multi- CPU Rendering: 20277
Speed-Up Factor: 5.90
OpenGL: 6597

The numbers seem to indicate that Cinebench performs better under Windows 7 than under Snow Leopard, but I honestly can’t say that’s a justified conclusion. The Cinebench download included a separate 64 bit optimized Cinebench test for Windows but only one for OS X. Additionally, Cinenbench reported it was running in 32 bit OS X even though Apple’s System Information confirmed that the 64 bit kernel and extensions for Snow Leopard were loaded. Therefore, I don’t have enough information to say for sure that Windows 7 is faster, but it does appear that Apple STILL isn’t doing everything it can to optimize performance under OpenGL, and it’s been that way for some time.

For curiosity and completeness’s sake, I also ran Cinebench on my 15 inch Unibody MacBook Pro powered by a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU running under 3 GB of RAM and with a Nvidia GeForce 9600M GPU. I ran Snow Leopard in both 32 bit and 64 bit modes.

Operating System: Mac OS 10.6.2, 32 bit
Single CPU Rendering: 2719
Multi-CPU Rendering: 4927
Speed-Up: 1.81
OpenGL: 4907
Operating System, Mac OS 10.6.2, 64 bit
Single CPU Rendering: 2725
Multi-CPU Rendering: 4908
Speed-Up: 1.80
Open GL: 4882

Once again, notice that 64 bit performance of multi-CPU rendering within Cinebench in Snow Leopard lags its 32 bit counterpart on two different machines with two different GPU’s. Again, that makes me question whether Cinebench really can take advantage of 64 bit functions in OS X, though the results are not so far apart from the Windows 7 results that a conclusion can be drawn either way.

The one thing that is clear, however, is that there is a huge performance difference between the i7 or i5 iMac and Apple’s current line of MacBook Pro laptops. If you’re performing tasks that require as much horsepower as you can afford, then you might want to consider moving to one of these iMacs rather than using your MacBook Pro as a desktop. If you need both a laptop and a desktop but can only afford one, then buying a MacBook Pro with an Apple 24 inch LED Cinema Display is certainly the way to go. (That’s how I’m operating though I use my Mac Pro to cover the performance gap as needed.) It all depends on how much Apple you can afford and how much sitting you’re willing to do.

Anyone Else Buy a Defective Windows 7 DVD?

2009-10-25T19:25:00.002-05:00

I went to Microcenter today and picked up a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate OEM. After returning home, I opened the package and found that the silver film on the bottom of the DVD had pulled off and a piece of it was sitting in the box. I've closed up the box pending an opportunity for me to return it to Microcenter in the next few days to get another copy.

This has been the first time in 23 years when I've bought software to find the media defective. I'm sure it happens from time to time to every manufacturer, but I'm, dismayed that this has happened with Windows 7 and concerned that some kind of generic defect may exist. When I go back to get another copy, you can bet I'll open that one in the store to guard against that possibility and to prevent another wasted 40 mile trip.

It's already enough hassle and expense to perform any move to Windows 7. Media defects are the last thing Microsoft needs. Hopefully, their quality assurance is good enough where the type of problem I encountered will be an isolated occurrence. If not, Microsoft may find it won the battle but lost the war.

Apple’s New Offerings- First Impressions and What’s Next!

2009-10-22T08:01:00.002-05:00

I haven’t run out to the local Apple Store yet to actually see if they have any of the new hardware, so what I’m going to say to you about it is based on what I’ve seen on the Net and on the news. The first thing I’m going to comment on is how irked Apple has to be that most of the media attention is focused on Apple’s smallest and cheapest product, i.e., the Magic Mouse! Sure, no one’s ever seen a 27 inch iMac before nor one with a quad-core CPU; but there’s a recession on and the media’s going to cover what everyone can afford….the new mouse!

In a true and basic irony, I’m going to say that the thing I most likely will buy is a Magic Mouse or two, depending on how my actual tryouts at the Apple Store go. I still think it will be a tough sell; after all, through the years Logitech has usually been my mouse supplier, with an exception for a few Microsoft mice and the McAlly Bluetooth Mouse I use with my MacBook Pro when on the road. But I’m always open to something new and if the Magic Mouse in any way makes my computing life easier, I’ll buy one for each Mac I own, which is currently two.

Speaking of that, my wife asked me if I would like one of the new 27 inch iMacs. That’s kind of like asking an alcoholic if he’d like another beer, and I acknowledge the parallel. Frankly, though, I’d have to give up my 8 core Mac Pro to justify that; and as sweet machine as the new, big iMac is, that’s not something I want to do. The Mac Pro’s power and expandability still holds an edge even over the top of the line iMac, though the distinction might not hold much margin in it. Still, I’ve always professed my love for iMacs and I can’t wait to at least see the new machines in the Apple Store. There’s just no way our budget could handle a $2000 hit, which is what it would pan out to be since I’d want the Core i5 powered beauty with an ATI Radeon 4850 GPU.

Amazingly enough, the new Mac we probably will buy is the new MacBook. We’ve been looking for a portable machine we can throw into the back of our small airplane and haul around with us when we travel in it, and I wanted it to not be my current MacBook Pro because of all the personal information it contains. My wife bought me a Lenovo netbook to fill the airplane companion role; and while it works for that, its screen is too small to work comfortably with the graphical, web-based flight planner I use. And having experienced the funkiness of even old reliable Windows XP on my last trip, I want to go back to using a Mac because…and here it comes….it just works! The new MacBook will work with the 24 inch LED Cinema Displays we both own and the only info on it would be from stuff we either loaded up just before our trips or made during. Yes, a MacBook Air would be a better fit and save us about two more pounds of weight; but I’m not sure I want to spend even $100 more for a machine we can’t hook up to our displays without an adapter. It’s just too appealing a thought that we could finish up any on-the-road projects by simply plugging the MacBook into our set-ups and using it like a desktop.

And now that I’ve covered Apple’s current offerings, I’m going to make a prediction. The next new product we will see….other than the Apple tablet…will be the emergence of a 27 inch LED Cinema Display with a Mini-Display Port. I believe that Apple will eventually offer this as a replacement for the 30 inch Cinema Display just as they discontinued the 20 inch Cinema and replaced it with the 24 inch LED. It will cost less than the current 30 incher to make it more competitive but will, as Apple always seems to do, be priced higher than a competing 27 inch display. It will include the standard USB-based iChat camera and extra USB ports but that is all.

Stay tuned. I talked to a salesman at our local Apple Store last night and he told me they already had the new MacBooks and were putting the new iMacs on the floor today. That would mean I could play with a Magic Mouse even if they don’t have any retail versions for sale. I’ll post some kind of review on the mouse whether I buy one or not. My wife is already hot for one, sight unseen.

The Nvidia 9400 GPU: The MacBook/Pro’s Achille’s Heel

2009-09-25T20:34:00.002-05:00

Last year, I bought a new MacBook Pro. It was my second MacBook Pro and probably my fourth Mac laptop and is a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo powered machine that originally came with a 250GB 5400 rpm hard drive and 2 GB of DDR-3 RAM (1067). My other laptops had been powered by ATI GPU’s and had dedicated video memory, so I didn’t realize when I bought this one what having a GPU running on shared memory could mean. I did what I always did when I wanted to expand it beyond the inadequate amounts of RAM Apple generally supplied its machines with, i.e., I bought extra RAM from third-party vendors who knew the make. I had never had a problem with any of the RAM being compatible with my machine until I bought this one. Now, I know that current models of the MacBook and MacBook Pro are handicapped and you must either buy RAM from Apple or know which memory modules are compatible with the Nvidia 9400M GPU’s Apple is sadly using in its machines.

Shortly after buying mine, I bought 4GB of DDR-3 RAM from Other World Computing. Because the size of my iTunes library would quickly overwhelm the hard disk in the MacBook Pro, I set the library up on a 500GB Bufflao Live Station NAS and then configured iTunes to run off that drive. (I used my 160GB Classic iPod as my iTunes depository when on the road.) It ran well except for one thing, and that was that I never knew when a playing video was going to hang. When it did, it would lock up my whole machine. Only a complete restart would clear the problem.

For a long time, I thought the problem was with my NAS. Then, I tried putting my iTunes library on a Firewire 800 drive. The problem remained. When lots of the Apple new laptop world was experiencing hangs because of their 7200RPM 500GB 2.5” Seagate hard drives, I thought that might be my problem, too, because I had upgraded my MBP using one. But it wasn’t. I had bought the version that did not have Seagate’s G sensor technology in it, so there was no conflict with Apple’s in my MBP. I then moved parts of my iTunes library onto the MacBook Pro’s internal hard drive and cleared the hangs for a short while by resetting the PRAM. That lasted until I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Then, hanging video began occurring in record time, forcing me to find and fix the problem once and for all. I suspected the problem was with my machine’s main memory or with its Nvidia GPU’s.

I ran Apple’s Hardware Test multiple times, engaging the extended hardware test, and the results were always the same. It said there was nothing wrong with my machine at all. I then booted the machine up on a copy of MEMTEST86.exe and ran multiple tests of the system RAM. It, too, reported no problems. That made me suspect the Nvidia GPU’s, even though they were the 9400/9600 pair and not the more problematic 8400/8600 pair Apple had extended warranties on. But how could all this testing hardware report everything was okay when I still had a problem?

The answer came to me a few days ago as I probed the Apple Support communities for any discussion of video hangs with the newer machines. I stumbled on a thread that began by discussing how all the MacBooks being upgraded by an IT department were showing signs of video hanging when they had been upgraded to 4GB of main RAM. Further down the thread, an Apple user suspected that the problem laid with the Nvidia 9400 GPU. Nvidia had published a list of compatible RAM part numbers. If you were using something else and had more than 3GB of RAM in your machine, then you would see the kind of symptoms I was experiencing. He listed the part numbers for the various DDR3 SODIMM’s that were compatible. Someone else provided a link to the Nvidia document that list had come from. I downloaded it, pulled my machine apart, and checked the part numbers on the RAM from OWC against the Nvidia supplied part numbers. They DID NOT match!

To test the 3GB practical limit theory, I pulled out one of the 2GB SODIMM’s from my MacBook Pro and left the other in. I played several videos that had hung the machine earlier in the day and they played with no problems. Checking my wife’s MacBook, I found she was running two 1GB Samsung SODIMM’s and pulled one out. Its part number DID match one on the Nvidia list, and both Samsung SODIMM’s in her machine had come from Apple. I then swapped one of her compatible 1 GB SODIMM’s for a 2GB SODIMM from OWC so that both our machines were running the same memory configuration and below the 3GB limit. I have run videos for hours on both machines with no hang-up’s.

Before Apple switched to Intel CPU’s and had a much smaller audience, it was famous for insisting its users run only its RAM, something they charged two to three times the market value for. Apple old-timers know to buy their RAM somewhere else, and it hasn’t been a problem for me until now. But with the touchy Nvidia GPU’s, you must either buy your RAM with your machine (from Apple) or you must know the specific part numbers for RAM that are compatible with the 9400 GPU if your Mac sports one. You can download the document that details that from Nvidia for free. Good luck, though, trying to figure out which third party vendors are using the right part numbers since they don’t usually tell you which manufacturer’s part number they’re sending you.

Just remember, if you buy third party RAM and put it in your Nvidia 9400 GPU toting Mac and start seeing video hangs, drop the total RAM down to 3GB or less or re-equip it with RAM that Nvidia says is compatible; and don’t wonder any more why all your testing shows not one problem. There isn’t anything broken; there is something that’s incompatible.

Running Windows 7 RC 64 and Liking It!

2009-05-27T17:47:00.003-05:00

I’m now running the 64 bit version of Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) on my 2008 Mac Pro. While I’ve only been using it for a few days, I have to say it is a marked improvement over Windows XP. It is smooth, crash free, and delicious, full of enough eye-candy to satisfy even the most gluttonous of computer wizards.

So far, what’s surprised me the most is the number of my old programs it is running without complaint. All but one of my primary flight simulators, including Jane’s F/A-18, Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, Microsoft Flight Simulator X, and X-Plane 9, work. The one that doesn’t is the original Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator nor will it load Star Wars Racer or other programs/installers closer to the Windows 98 era. I am running many of those programs, though, in a Windows XP virtual machine hosted by the free Virtual PC download from Microsoft. That said, running XP under Virtual PC isn’t hassle fre. It takes longer to load it up under Virtual PC than it does under VMWare’s Fusion on my MacBook Pro under OS X, though once it comes up it runs fairly effortlessly. It does exhibit one bug, and it does not see my CH Pro Combatstick when it’s plugged in, preventing me from testing any of my other sims or games, even though W7 does detect it. So, I’m only loading business programs on the XP VM for the time being. When I have more time, I’ll try to find a fix or some download associated with the RC that will fix it for me.

Office 2007 installed and ran without a hitch in both the W7 64 bit and XP VM environments, as did Symantec Anti-Virus 2009. I did have to buy an extra copy of the Symantec NAV to cover myself in the XP VM and also need to spring for a new CD burning utility since the last one I bought for Windows was Nero 6, and it’s incompatible with W7, according to the little window that popped up when I tried to load it. But I really don’t mind that. It’s a small price to pay to harness all the power in my Apple hardware.

Loading, unloading, and operation of applications has been both smooth and error-free. W7 provides a beautiful interface, and though not radically changed from that of XP, its small changes enhance the user experience. I liked what I was seeing enough to spend all my free time over three days to rebuild my Windows system around it; and though that has taken an excruciating amount of time, Microsoft says I can run on the RC until June 10, 2010. That’s smart marketing. You know I’ll buy a copy of it then even at a one-time, ridiculous Microsoft price. I’m hoping part of what that money will buy e is the ability to continue running then by plugging in a new “key” or, at worst, applying the final release via “upgrade”.

I’m still just playing, still on my honeymoon with this software, but I feel Microsoft has a winner in Windows 7, though not enough of one to convince me to switch off OS X. I like OS X’s simplicity and functionality and was more than ready to return to it after three days of nothing but Windows 7. For me, having and using W7RC is akin to having the best of both worlds and using whichever operating systems fits my mood or my task at hand. For those of you reading about my experiences, you need temper what I’m saying by only one thing, i.e., the knowledge that I’m running Windows 7 on a 2.8 GHz eight core machine with 16GB of ram and an ATI 3870 Radeon HD video card with 512MB video RAM on a PCI-E 2.0 bus. Your own mileage may vary, but that is always true.

Adobe Reader 9.1 for Mac Dumps Fonts when Printing

2009-04-21T17:53:00.000-05:00

My wife, who is an assistant professor of nursing at a university here, downloaded a .PDF copy of the “DASH Eating Plan” diet from the National Institute of Health’s website. When she printed it from her MacBook over our wireless network to our Okidata C3200N color printer, the copy came out with randomly missing fonts throughout the document. Wanting to eliminate the wireless network as the culprit, I downloaded the same document and re-printed it to the same color printer using our wired network and got the same result. Missing fonts were everywhere. I then closed Adobe Reader and opened the file in Apple’s Preview and tried printing it again. It worked just fine.

I went to the Adobe site and spent a few minutes looking for a Knowledge Base article on this problem but didn’t find anything. There is a generic “printing problem” article and you’re welcome to follow it but I don’t think it’s going to help you at all. So, if you run into this problem, just pull up the PDF file in Preview and have at it.

Almost Worthless

2009-04-21T17:48:00.001-05:00

We’ve all seen the new Microsoft ads, and there’s been plenty of press about them, so I won’t repeat any of that here. They’re not aimed at me and they’re almost worthless. The only thing they’ve done is pinpoint for me how much I love Apple’s OS X.

I’m not a Microsoft hater. Windows 7 is pretty cool, and I’ll update my XP set up on my Mac Pro to a Windows 7 sixty-four bit version if I can get all my flight simulators to work under it or get them to run somewhere else. And if it doesn’t cost too much. Otherwise, I’ll just keep my XP set-up. It’s paid for, and it works just fine.

That said, the ads made me go back and look at OS X and why I liked it. There are too many reasons to count, and one of them is that it largely “just works”. I’m not saying OS X never crashes; it does; but I never spend anywhere near the time trying to get the OS running or responding to crashes as I do and did when running Windows. That’s a fact. A lot of folks, especially those PC users who hate Macs and have never, ever used one, will discount what I’m saying about OS X because “I’m biased”. That totally overlooks the fact that unlike many people I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I started out with a DOS 3.1 IBM clone 286 PC, went from there to building my own PC’s and troubleshooting Windows systems for me and my friends and family, and—like many zealous PC users—even argued with a neighbor in New Mexico about the inferiority of his PowerPC Mac. I paid my dues with Windows and PC’s. I literally gave up decades of Windows experience when I switched to Macs. God, how I wish now I’d done it sooner! I might have ten novels out in the world instead of twenty or thirty PC’s, and most of those are in landfills now.

Believe me, there are times I wish the Apple Experience could be entered at less expense. But if you really want to see something that’s more expensive, go look at what it costs to buy a copy of Windows Vista. I can buy a family pack of five licenses for OS X for less than I’d spend on a single version copy of Vista, and every copy of OS X will have FULL functionality. That’s one reason why it’s no big deal for us to own multiple Macs, despite the cost of the hardware.

There's also a beauty and synergy when working with OS X on Apple hardware you almost can't pay enough for. That's the real reason why we continue to work with Macs. And it's something we're never going to find on a Windows PC. Been there; done that; priceless!

The New Apple Airport Extreme Basestation: Some First Impressions

2009-04-05T11:48:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago, I sprang for one of Apple’s new Airport Extreme Basestations. Our overall need to upgrade wasn’t strong, but the new station’s ability to run separate 802.11G compatible and 802.11 N only networks was a real draw for me. My wife’s new MacBook/Apple LED cinema set-up is relegated to network access via wireless connection alone; and I wanted the best for her I could get. While most of our Macs were “N” capable machines, our iPhones are first generation “G” only devices. So, that meant my wife’s connection would never be optimum on our “old” Airport Extreme which now was two generations old. It also only had 10/100 wired Ethernet connections while the rest of our wired network was equipped with Gigabit Ethernet connections; by upgrading to the new base station I could not only segregate my wireless networks but I would also make the router meet the rest of my wired network at 10/100/1000 Ethernet speeds.

The physical set-up was as easy as disconnecting my old unit and connecting the new one. I pulled up the Airport Utility on the CD that came with the unit to discover I already had that version installed, and there was no need to do it again. I launched the utility on my MacBook Pro and selected Manual Set-Up to configure the "new" networks. While it was not necessary to give the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless networks individual names, I did so to make management easy and ensure I got the segregation I was after. I also did not change any parameters in the set-up for our current N network on any of the Macs but did reprogram the iPhones to pick up the G compatible wireless band.

To digress a bit, before I had disconnected the “old” Airport Extreme basestation, I had run a file transfer performance test using my wife’s MacBook. I had placed a 191.1 MB video file on one our Buffalo 500GB NAS hard drives and then copied it to the MacBook’s desktop. It took 2 minutes and 14 seconds for the copy operation to take place. This equated to a 1.42 megabites/second transfer rate. Once I had the new network configuration in place (where my wife’s MacBook was using the “N’ only network), I repeated the copy request. The operation took only 21 seconds! That equates to 9.1 MB/sec, or 6.4 times faster!

I’m not saying for a moment you’ll see that kind of speed increase. I believe that some of what I’ve experienced is due to being able to segregate the networks but I also think some of it is a byproduct of the segregation, i.e., that I had some kind of interference going on that segregating the networks stepped me away from. Apple advertises 5 times faster performance than “previous” 802.11G networks which would seem to indicate that our old Airport Extreme had dropped down to G speeds because of the presence of our iPhones. I am also running one wireless mouse, a Logitech VX Revolution, which runs in the 2.4 GHz Range, the same frequency range as my now mixed G/N network or our old Airport Extreme basestation. It’s possible that the mouse was providing some interference that also helped slow our previous network set-up down.

But, no matter what the cause, the ability to set-up a mixed and pure “N” network on two different frequencies makes the new Airport Extreme Base Station worth the money. It also has a “Guest” networking feature I am not now using but that might also prove to be of benefit to visiting guests, though most of those are family whom I don’t mind allowing full access to our home network. I’ll write about that in the future once I have some experience with it.

The new AE base station also has Gigabit Ethernet networking; and while I am not attributing any of the speed increase I saw to that, it is possible that the extra bandwidth between the file server and the router played at least a small role.

Lastly, I can report that we have not had the problems some users have reported with wireless networking dropping under Firmware version 7.4.1. I updated the router to that firmware version a few weeks ago, and it did not seem to impact its performance negatively.

I haven’t really investigated whether our range has improved. I haven’t seen any differences one way or the other under our “everyday conditions”. I’ll comment on that later once I have a chance to take my MacBook Pro outdoors and outside the house.

Overall, I’m happy with this purchase. It achieved what I had hoped it would by providing my wife’s living room set-up faster file transfer speeds, which was the main thing I was after. I think my only criticism of this unit is that an attached USB drive is still not Time Machine compatible. It’s a silly way of forcing users to consider spending more for Apple’s Time Capsule. It really doesn’t do anything but demonstrate that sometimes Apple and Microsoft are not that different.

The Incredibly Inaccessible iTunes Store

2009-03-23T10:51:00.003-05:00

I’m one of those people who’ve invested over four years of my life watching, talking about, and buying up every episode there was of Battlestar Galactica. Despite the behests of one of my friends who was also a BSG fan, I bought my episodic copies from the iTunes Store rather the waiting for the DVD’s. I preferred the almost immediate access to the material, the ability to place episodes on my wife's or my iPods, the ability to run episodes on either 23 or 24 inch computer displays, and, finally, the ability to stream episodes to our HDTV via Apple TV in our living room. Yes, I do have every episode that defined the series; but I am beginning to curse my naivete in trusting the iTunes Store too much. Doing so has cost me quite a bit of money.

You see, I heard early on that BSG was being shot in High Definition, a fact that left me scratching my head as iTunes’ copies of the episodes only showed up in Standard Definition. I shrugged and pressed on, figuring incorrectly that the releases would stay that way. They did until Season 4 after NCB returned to the iTunes Store after a catfight with Apple. The episodes were now High Definition and cost a buck more. Frankly, that fact alone didn’t bother me, and Apple and NBC made it worth my while by including a standard definition copy as well. So, I bought Season 4, as I had done with the miniseries and Seasons 1,2,and 3 and realized at the end of it all that I had a mixed breed collection that contained only one season’s worth of HD episodes. Then, Seasons 1, 2, and 3 showed up in the iTunes Store in High Definition. Surely, I thought, Apple would give me some kind of credit for the Standard Definition episodes I already had paid for and didn’t need to download again.

I was wrong!

Yes, boys and girls, even though the music side of the iTunes Store has a “Complete My Album” feature that lets you get some credit when you’ve already bought songs included on an album you decide to later buy, there is NO such accommodation on the video (e.g, TV) side of the house. To upgrade my TV library of BSG to get HD versions of the show (so I can get full utility out of my APPLE TV!!!), I am paying FULL PRICE and BEING FORCED TO PAY FOR SD VERSIONS I ALREADY HAVE!!! You can bet that since I’m being forced to pay for them, I’m also making sure I download them, even though they are winding up as somewhat useless duplicates on my hard drive. This is causing me to re-consider and think more carefully about purchasing TV shows from the iTunes Store of an ongoing series. Apple needs to institute the same type of crediting system toward TV shows that it uses on music when duplicity exists in the purchase. In other words, if the customer already has copies of a video being downloaded, the some kind of credit toward the larger purchase needs to be made. If not, customers may decide (and I certainly would) that waiting for the DVD is indeed the thing since the tools exist to crank out each and every episode for my iPod or Apple TV with or without Apple’s help.

Secondly, I searched all over the Apple site for some way to give them feedback about this, but there is no official place to provide feedback about pricing at the iTunes Store. This is something Apple needs to fix. It might help them in negotiations with the music and movie studios to have that kind of consumer feedback, and it will help the iTunes Store appear to be more accessible than it is.

Samsung Spinpoint M6 versus Seagate Momentus 7200.4 in a MacBook Pro

2009-02-07T12:13:00.000-06:00

Last night, I installed one of the new Seagate Momentus 7200.4 five hundred gigabyte hard drives in my MacBook Pro. It is one of the first 7200 RPM drives for a notebook bringing desktop speed to your portable set-up. This is after a few weeks of running the Samsung Spinoint M6 in the same machine. Both these drives are some of the first 500GB size drives in a 2.5 inch format. So, what I intend to talk about today is a somewhat subjective comparison between the two in case you’re struggling about which one to buy for your MacBook or MacBook Pro.

Since they’re both 500GB hard drives, the trade-off’s you have to consider are speed, noise, heat, and power usage. Once you’ve seen the Seagate in action, you’ll have no doubts about its additional speed. Application launch times now rival those of any desktop. For exact numbers on how fast it is, go to barefeats.com and take a look at the read/write tests they ran. The Seagate beat everything they compared it against. So, if speed is more important to you than battery life, buy the Seagate and install it. You won’t be sorry.

If battery life is more important to you than speed, then the Samsung Spinpoint M6 is the drive to pick. The Seagate seems to drive my battery down at least twice as fast as the Samsung does under the same usage and the same power settings under OS X. (Yes, I know Tom’s Hardware said that the Seagate drive had one of the lowest wattage requirements when at rest; I have to report to you what my experience is…and I can watch the percentage readout tick down with the Seagate in my MBP.) The Samsung is slightly better in the “low noise” department as well, though the extra noise from the Seagate is a background “whoosh” that I have lean close into the machine to hear in a quiet environment. In most office environments, I doubt if you’ll notice any difference in the hard disk noise at all.

I haven’t noticed the MBP’s fans kicking on any more than they did before. I do feel the fans are closer to kicking on than they have been, but that’s all I can say about it.

Which do I like better? I honestly haven’t decided, yet. I’m running the Seagate to see how I feel. I may actually decide I like the lesser noise and better battery life I get out of the Samsung. Generally, though, I tend to like all the performance I can get. If living with the Seagate doesn’t prove too hard to live with, I may have given one of them a new home.

A Mac Guy Runs Windows 7 Betas

2009-01-19T09:42:00.003-06:00

I finally got the opportunity to download both the 32 bit and the 64 bit copies of the Windows 7 Beta (Build 7000) a couple of nights ago. I have the 32 bit copy running under VMWare’s Fusion 2.0 alongside a Windows XP virtual machine and the 64 bit copy is running under Boot Camp. I was not able to get the 32 bit beta to run under Boot Camp due to problems burning it to DVD which somehow make them not bootable. I solved that problem later using Finder and got the 64 bit copy to work right from the download.

To install Windows 7 under Fusion, I used the .iso file as the source for the installation files. That said, the first try seemed to hang during the “Completing Installation” phase of the Windows 7 installation. I stopped the installation, shut down Fusion, deleted the Windows 7 virtual machine from the Documents/Virtual Machine folder and then deleted the reference to Windows 7 from Fusion’s main window. I tried the installation again, and this time it went without a hitch.

I successfully installed Norton Anti-Virus 2009 (NAV 2008 would not install), and Microsoft Office 2007. Both ran with the same friskiness they have under XP Pro. I’ve had the most trouble trying to run Internet Explorer 8, which hung with almost any attempt to use it. That was all I got to do that night before running out of time.

The next evening I downloaded the 64 bit version of Windows 7 Beta and installed it via Boot Camp. That also took two tries not because of any technical difficulty but because of my ignorance. Sixty-four bit Windows 7 will not install into a FAT32 partition, which is what Boot Camp leaves you with after it re-partitions your hard drive. When the Windows 7 installation halts because of this, you simply need to select the Boot Camp Partition and select “Format” (which may be hidden behind the Advanced Disk Functions link). The partition will automatically be reformatted into NTFS. On my first attempt and after I did that, I wasn’t sure if I had just hosed my OS X installation, so I backed out. I reassured myself that everything was okay by using the Boot Camp Assistant to delete the Windows’ partition and then rebooted the MacBook Pro to check how it ran. It was fine. That gave me the confidence to jump back into the Windows 7 installation and complete it without a hitch.

Inside W7-64, I’ve loaded up a trial version of Office 2007 and the latest version of Firefox and they ran fine with the same speed you’d see under XP. My real interest was to see if my current batch of flight simulators and games would also run under that OS. I’m hoping they do because, from what I’m seeing, I would invest in a copy of the 64 bit version of Windows 7 for my Mac Pro to tap more of the machine’s raw power. Rather than risk my Mac Pro’s set –up, though, I decided to run my testing on my MacBook Pro.

I tried running the Boot Camp 2.1 update, which is a Windows application, in W7-64; but it crashed and died just after launch. So far, though, I don’t seem to be missing much without it. My McAlly Bluetooth mouse paired up with W7-64 without loading any additional drivers, though it did take several attempts to make it work.

I’ve seen enough of the 32 bit and 64 bit systems to preliminarily say they seem to perform equally well. If I buy one of them in the future, it would be the 64 bit version to run on my Mac Pro to better tap its power. That’s why I spent the rest of my time this week focusing on the 64 bit version and determining whether or not I would lose any of my flight simulators running under it. My oldest and one of my best flight simulators is Jane’s F/A – 18. It runs fine under XP Pro SP3 with compatibility mode set to Windows 2000. I decided to start my testing with that.

Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that it would not run natively under Windows 7. I decided to try running it under emulation, so I downloaded the 64 bit version of Virtual PC 2007 from Microsoft. (It’s free, by the way.) I had hoped I might run copies of Windows 95 or 98 or 98se I had, but I needed to provide a boot device to Virtual PC and while I did have boot floppies for all those operating systems in my closet, I had no way to make them readily available to this set up. (It would simply take more time than I had that evening to make it work out.) I did create a Windows XP Pro virtual machine but found out quickly that though Jane’s would install, only the cover screen would appear when the application was started and then the application would quit. I tried multiple compatibility settings but couldn’t find one that would work. At this point, my hope to run Jane’s under emulation appears dashed; the only way it will work is to run it on an XP system under Boot Camp. If I want to keep the sim then I have to forget about upgrading the Mac Pro’s Window’s partition or establish one on my MacBook Pro and see if XP will also drive my new 24 inch monitor. I may try that soon.

There's a trick to using the MacBook/Pro with the Lid Closed.

2008-12-13T12:22:00.001-06:00

There's a trick to using the MacBook/Pro with the Lid Closed. I discovered this morning that the differences between our MacBook and MacBook Pro boot sequences were due to a difference in procedure. In other words, using Apple's procedure (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3131) for booting the MacBook when it's hooked up to the 24 inch display was causing a lot of the sleep/hang/disconnect problems we'd been experiencing. Here's the procedure I've been using with my MacBook Pro and the new LED display that gives me a clean boot up, i.e., the exact same experience I'd have if I were doing the whole thing on an iMac:

(1) With the machine off, hook up all your connectors to your MacBook/MacBook Pro(power, USB/keyboard/mouse, mini-Display Port).

(2) Slide the machine forward so you can crack open the display enough to reach the Power button on the MB/MBP.

(3) Push the Power button and IMMEDIATELY close the lid.

(4) Slide the MB/MBP into place.

If you've done this right, you'll get the grey boot screen you'd see if you were booting up the MB/MBP on its native display. This procedure will also work for both the MB/MBP whether the power connector for the notebook is hooked to it or not. You can use this procedure to boot and run the MB/MBP on its battery while using the LED and an external keyboard and mouse with it, helping to extend the notebook's battery life.

The trick to this is to push the power button enough to ensure the boot is occurring and then to get the lid closed as early in the boot sequence as you can. It might take you a few trials to get it right, but once you do, I think you'll find that using the MB/MBP with your new LED display will be the great, hassle-free experience you were looking for.

Review on Apple's 24 inch LED Cinema Displays Posted

2008-12-03T03:33:00.002-06:00

In case you're not familiar with my entire website, I posted a review of Apple's new 24 inch LED Cinema Displays there. I decided to post it as a product review to keep it from being buried under the littany of blogs I write, even though I don't usually manage to get something up daily.

New MacBook owners might want to pay attention to the interaction between the display and the new MacBook, which doesn't seem to be as polished as its behavior with the new MacBook Pro. (I'll try to get time in the next few days to post some video demonstrating what I'm talking about.)

Click here to read the review.

Quicktime 7.5.7 for MacBook Family Only; HDCP Squashes a Sale

2008-11-29T05:54:00.003-06:00

If you’re an iTunes Store customer and you own one of the latest MacBook family machines, then make sure you either run Software Update or go to Apple.com and download the QuickTime 7.5.7 update. It corrects the iTunes Store bug that flags non-HD content as HD, preventing you from playing it back with a non-HDCP compliant display. It does seem to work; I can now play “Terminator 2” on my new MacBook Pro using my 20 inch Apple Cinema Display.

Make sure you understand, though, that it only fixes one “bug”. It does not impact true HDCP restrictions, which means you’ll still have to use a HDCP compliant player (and this includes the MacBook family of machines) and an HDCP-compliant display (currently the internal display of the MacBook or MacBook Pro or the new 24 inch LED Cinema Display).

During Black Friday, the Fry’s Electronics Store here put the LG GGW-H20L Blue Ray/HD ROM –DVD burner on sale for an amazing $89! I seriously thought about buying one, despite Apple’s lack of support for Blue Ray, and placing it in my Mac Pro. On the OS X side, I could at least use it for data storage and, using Boot Camp, I might be able to use it to watch high-definition movies (which I would have to buy) using Windows XP. But the burner’s box noted that the player must be part of an HDCP complaint set-up, which left me with a fair degree of certainty I’d get the dreaded “display not authorized” message with my system. Not only did that scotch $150 worth of sales, but it also made me realize there probably is no HD future for my Mac Pro. While I have no doubt that Apple will make Blue Ray a feature of future Macs, I also believe the cost for me to make my current (and up-to-date) Mac Pro HD capable is going to be more than I can stomach. From a consumer standpoint, HD content restrictions mean I have to commit not only our Macs but our entertainment systems to HD or avoid it entirely.

Somewhere in the next one to three years, prices to perform such a switch will fall to an acceptable level, and I’ll entertain it. But for now, the HD picture for us Mac owners is a fractured and expensive one; and the sour taste it’s leaving those of us who invested in Apple video editing and DVD manufacturing software is getting more bitter all the time.

You're a WHAT?

2008-11-28T14:26:00.000-06:00

Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” advertising campaign is meant to counter the effectiveness of Apple’s “Mac and PC” ads; but, unfortunately, all they really do is show that Microsoft is out of touch and just “doesn’t get it”. Microsoft’s ads try to offset the PC stereotype in Apple’s by displaying a wide range of PC users who are anything but stereotypes. They fail, not because the idea wasn’t a good one (it was), but because the execution of it was, quite frankly, inept.

Everyone knows as soon as an Apple ad starts that it is an analogy, a flight into fantasy, in which people play the parts of talking, thinking machines involved in the everyday life of a computer user. The ads create humorous but memorable stereotypes, make the advertising point, and vanish in a cloud of humor. They are smart, creative, and funny, which is why people enjoy and remember them.

In the Microsoft ads, however, people become de-personalized. They state flatly that they are a “PC”. Subconsciously, they tell the viewer that if they use Windows, they will become a machine; and it is exactly the machine-centric experience that Microsoft needs to help users forget. Frankly, I never could get past the “I’m a PC” utterances that made me wonder how such varied and smart people could ever get on TV and say such a thing. The phrase “I use a PC” would have largely salvaged the whole thing, though the seriousness of the ad campaign ensured it would never steal as many synapses in anyone’s brain as the Apple ads are guaranteed to do.

More on iTunes HD Restrictions and the New Apple Notebooks

2008-11-23T06:08:00.004-06:00

This morning I ran a few tests using my new 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro (late 2008) and my new Mac Pro (late 2008), purchased iTunes HD content, and my current Apple Displays to see which would trigger the dreaded “Display not authorized” messages. Here’s what I got:

MBP with 20 inch aluminum DVI Apple Cinema Display – no play (Display not authorized message);

MBP with 23 inch DVI Apple Cinema “HD” Display – no play (Display not authorized message);

Mac Pro with 23 inch DVI Apple Cinema “HD” Display – played

These results have some rather far-reaching implications.

First, the content restriction problems with external displays appear to be largely restricted to the new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook lines because of their implementation of HDCP or DPCP via the mini-Display Port. If you buy a current Mac Pro and run it with any of the Apple Cinema Displays (the 20 incher, the 30 incher, or a “discontinued” 23 incher), have an older MacBook or MacBook Pro and do the same, I believe you’ll be able to play HD content without any display restrictions. That’s based on my being able to play HD content on my MacPro using such a set-up. However, if you’re thinking about committing to such a set-up, unless you can do it at zero cost, you need to aim some serious questions at the Apple representatives in your local Apple Store before you buy. I only have a few machines to use as test rigs, and that’s certainly not enough to draw conclusions with a very high degree of certainty.

Secondly, it does appear that if you buy a new MacBook or MacBook Pro with a mini-Display Port, the ONLY external monitor you can currently use to watch iTunes Store HD content will be the 24 inch LED Cinema Display about a week away from release. I’ll let you know for sure if that’s the case as soon as we get ours.

Thirdly, Apple’s “discontinuance” of its 23 inch “HD” Cinema Display” at the same time as the release of the 24 inch LED Cinema Display implies that Apple intends for it to be the former’s replacement. Considering how many comments from professional users in various online forums have argued against the inclusion of both an iSight and glossy screens, the 24 incher is aimed squarely and only at the owners of the new Apple notebooks. Whether this signals a profound shift out of the professional computer market for the company, a market Apple has courted for years with its Final Cut products and its relationship (however rocky) with Adobe, remains to be seen; but it does appear that Apple is focusing in on its notebook market, almost to the exclusion of its other family members as well as its older equipment owners. If so, this could prove to be a fundamental mistake that will not only significantly impact its computer sales but its iTunes Store sales. At worst, it could put Apple in the position of having to buck some of the movie industry’s DRM constraints to improve both.

Consumers and the limited number of professionals who buy the new 24 inch LED displays, especially if the mini-port Display technology moves to the Mac Pro line, will be happy with their results; but if you want to use some other display and play iTunes Store HD content, I’d steer clear of any new Apple machine that includes the mini-Display Port as its only video interface. Your other and perhaps better option is to steer clear of any Apple iTunes Store HD content.

For me or any Apple fan, those are bitter pills to swallow, but sometimes the truth hurts; and this is one of those times.

“This movie cannot be played because a display that is not authorized to play protected movies is connected."

2008-11-18T12:57:00.003-06:00

As someone who tries to play by the rules, imagine my shock when, after buying and downloading “Terminator 2- Judgment Day” from the iTunes Store, I got this message when trying to play it back:

“This movie cannot be played because a display that is not authorized to play protected movies is connected.

Try disconnecting any displays that are not HDCP authorized.”

I was using my brand new MacBook Pro hooked up to an aluminum 20 inch Apple Cinema Display via a “mini-Display Port to DVI” connector. I remembered reading a year or two ago how the movie studios were insisting, as we moved into the HD era, of getting into restricting HD playback at the hardware level. So, I went out to Wikipedia and looked up HDCP to get a look at the standard. As I read, I realized the standard is implemented so that the playback device checks the receiver to ensure it is HDCP capable, i.e., it protects content; if not, then it refuses to play and issues an error message like the one I received. As I was seeing, it meant I might not be able to play HD content bought from the iTunes Store, or anywhere else, if I didn’t have hardware that was HDCP compliant. In other words, the only way any of us can guarantee we can play the stuff we buy that is HD is to ensure we have the newest in hardware.

On the streets that means if you’re going in to buy a new LCD for your computer, you need to find the specs and make sure it’s HDCP compliant, or you could have a problem.

Luckily, the same movie plays just fine on my 23 inch Apple Cinema Display being run by my Mac Pro. I suspect it will work just fine on our Apple TV, though I haven’t tried it, yet. It better work on the two new 24 inch LED Cinema Displays my wife just ordered for the two of us, or me and Apple are going to have some words! I couldn’t find a specific mention that they are HDCP compliant, but I can’t believe Apple would be dumb enough to release them at this stage of the game if they are not.

At least for the iTunes Store’s TV shows, when you buy a show shot in HD, you get both the HD and SD versions when you download. iTunes seems to automatically select the right version when you launch the show using Cover Flow; so, you’d never know this restriction is there without someone pointing it out. Perhaps, Apple and the movie studios need to take the same approach with their movies as well. Forcing a user to buy new hardware to view your content will backfire, and no one will be able to predict at any point whether the explosion will be big or small.

Apple Backs off 24 inch LCD Shipping Date

2008-11-14T10:01:00.002-06:00

I noticed this morning that Apple had mysteriously backed off its temporarily published shipping date for the new 24 inch LED LCD's. Apple's online store is back to carrying the date as a generic "November" instead of the "7 -10 business days" it ran for about the last two days. Obviously, Apple is having some kind of problem getting the units ready for consumption. That doesn't bode well for the the folks (like us) who bought MacBooks and MacBook Pros to use with the new displays as a system.

Is Apple Abandoning Its "Pro's"?

2008-11-14T10:00:00.002-06:00

For the last few years, it’s been apparent that Apple has been making several shifts. The most obvious one was to expand both its marketing and technological base by shifting to Intel processors. There has also been a shift away from the “prosumer” and toward a very differentiated “consumer” and “professional” class of customer (as evidenced in the ever widening capabilities and costs of the iLife and Final Cut Pro software suites). As I look at Apple’s latest offerings of machines and the features that the company is choosing to keep in and leave out, I have to wonder if Apple has already made a decision to abandon the professional market and target its great expertise more and more on becoming a consumer one.

Take a look at the design changes Apple has made to its notebook lines. The matte display screen and Firewire are two essential features most professionals insist on in their machines, yet they are both missing from Apple’s current MacBook line and one of them is missing on the MacBook Pro. The 23 inch Apple Cinema Display, squarely aimed at professionals using the Mac Pro, has now been discontinued and its replacement, if we read anything into the timing of the 23 incher’s discontinuance and the 24 incher’s emergence, houses a glossy screen and an integrated iSight, the latter a convenience consumers will love and corporations may eagerly ban. There is only one basic design for the Mac Pro, though it may be outfitted with several options that still allow one to expand its capabilities beyond the basic machine; but the iMac has taken the place of the single processor Mac Pro, making the high-end iMac, originally designed as a consumer’s machine, as the low end “pro” set up.

Some folks will say there really isn’t any differentiation between Apple’s consumer and professional products. They might be right. I’ll just sit back and watch where Apple goes over the next several years. I think I’m seeing the company slide into Consumerland.

Fusion Confusion

2008-11-01T04:53:00.000-05:00

My buddy Eric, who bought into being a Mac convert this past year, brought me a copy of the User Guide for VMWare’s Fusion 2.0. He had found a very interesting paragraph that seemed to imply that Fusion 2.0’s VMware Tools had solved the problem that drove me into always choosing one way to operate Windows on a Mac, i.e., via virtualization or Boot Camp. The best of both worlds would be to be able to use virtualization or Boot Camp at will. Yes, both VMWare’s Fusion and Parallels software let you set up a virtual machine using a Boot Camp partition, but switching back and forth between the two has been made impractical by Microsoft’s activation scheme. My experience was that every time I switched from one to the other and back, I would have to re-activate both operating system instances. Sooner or later (and usually sooner) this would cause me to hit MS’ activation limit, making my copy of Windows XP Pro a useless piece of crap. ..unless I bought another license for it. I have no intention of doing anything that remotely smacks of paying Microsoft for a subscription, no matter how much they’d like that.

I don’t have the paragraph in the user’s guide to quote from, but it seemed to imply that Version 2’ VMware Tools would keep XP from taking its knee-jerk activation action when you switched back and forth between the two environments. I tried to test that last night using the copy of XP Pro I had allocated for my MacBook Pro, but I ran into the activation limit before I could complete my tests. That said, what I saw made it look like nothing had changed, that XP would activate each time I switched environments. Eric also tried playing with his copy of XP Pro on his MacBook Pro and saw the same type of thing. Still, neither of us got results that were conclusive since we both ran into an activation limit before being able to do the “run Boot Camp, activate, run virtual, activate, switch back to Boot Camp and check for activation” methodology we needed.

Eric came back in this morning convinced that the paragraph is poorly written in that it employs an assumption that, even though you’re running off the Boot Camp partition, you’re going to run in virtualization forever after. Doing that would only require you to activate the virtual machine once, and you’d be left well enough alone. I think he’s right. The bottom line is that Microsoft’s activation scheme cripples uses of Windows XP it might be put to, whether the OS is being run on a Mac or a PC and pisses off only the customers who gave MS cash in good faith in the first place. Because of that, too, no matter whether you have virtualization software or Boot Camp loaded on your machine, you’re going to have pick one way of running and stick with it.

The Not Really User Serviceable Hard Disk

2008-11-01T04:50:00.002-05:00

Almost as soon as I bought my new MacBook Pro, I ordered 4GB of RAM and a new 500GB 2.5” hard disk from Other World Computing. They both arrived Thursday of last week. After reviewing the information in my new MacBook Pro’s User Guide, I thought that replacing the hard drive in the first MacBook Pro designed with a “user serviceable” hard disk was going to be a snap. And in some ways, it was. But I have to say there are also some significant “gotcha’s!” in the task that make me hope I never have to do it again. Likewise, while not significantly hard, swapping out memory also holds some of those same undocumented risks that can easily make you wish you’d taken the whole thing to an Apple Service Center in the first place.

First off, you must have the correct tools for this job. Getting to the hard disk itself only requires unlatching the bottom door and pulling it off. You’ll see the topside of the hard drive as soon as you do. It’s held in place by four lugs, two of which are under black plastic catches mounted in the body and two of which are held down on the other side by a black plastic bracket secured by a tiny, aluminum Phillips screw. You will need a Phillips PH00x40 size screwdriver to work with this screw. It has been torqued tight by a machine which will make you press down very hard on the screw to get it to loosen. The trick is to get it loose without stripping the head, which is moderately soft. Once the screw is loosened, the bracket lifts straight out. At that point, you can remove the connectors to the hard disk or carefully pull up on the plastic tab attached to the hard disk to swing it out of position. Once you have the hard disk loose, you’ll notice the four lugs that have been screwed into it and are used to position and secure the drive into place. These have to be removed from your “old” hard drive and placed on your new one. This will require a Torx T6 screwdriver. If you don’t have one of those (and few people I know do), go to an electronics or cell phone store and look for a tool kit that contains one or buy it as a single. Once you get the right tool, removing the lugs and replanting them on the replacement hard drive is a snap. Reassembling the hard disk is also easy as is mounting it in place. The hard part is securing the screw that holds the hard disk’s bracket in place and trying to get it torqued tightly without stripping it. As careful as I tried to be about that, the screw head was not in as good a shape as it was when I first started.

Replacing memory also became a nail-biting routine, not because of its technical difficulty but because of the tiny screws that are easily mangled and must be removed. There are eight of them, some long and some short, and the users guide does a good job of pointing that out. Again, you’ll have to apply more torque than you think to get them loose with a good fitting tool or you’ll strip the heads. Once you have all eight screws out, you lift off the rest of the computer’s bottom that wasn’t removed when you replaced the hard dive. The memory slots are at the center of the machine and nestled up against the small metal rail that separates the hard disk/battery cavity from the rest of the machine. The slots are stacked vertically, so you’ll remove the top memory stick and then the bottom one. When replacing memory, reaching the bottom slot is not too difficult though you’ll have to push past the top snaps and make sure that it’s the bottom snaps holding the bottom stick securely. Replacing the top memory stick is simply a snap in place move. Then, it’s a simple matter (if you placed your screws in some manner that lets you know which screws were where) of replacing the body screws and securing them without damaging them.
Frankly, the screws involved in all of this are so easily damaged that it would behoove Apple to make available replacement screw kits. After all, they’ve advertised these machines as having “user replaceable” RAM and hard drives while still maintaining the high engineering standards they are known for. Some users, though, are not going to be ready for that.

For Those Appeasers Accepting Apple’s Dropping Firewire…

2008-10-26T17:31:00.002-05:00

Last night, I began the process of upgrading my new MacBook Pro’s “user replaceable” hard drive. I had planned on putting the new hard drive in a Firewire 800 case and then simply cloning the machine’s hard drive over to it, but I had ordered the wrong case (i.e., one that works with PATA, not SATA, drives). Dropping back to punt became the order of the day. I pushed the upgrade forward by using a Firewire 800 external disk to clone the MBP’s hard drive to the external (Maxtor Personal Touch III) drive, and then booting the MBP up on the external drive and using Disk Utility to clone the external drive’s contents onto the internal hard drive. For those in various forums telling everyone to “get over” Apple’s omission of Firewire on the new MacBook, try what I just did using USB 2.0.

And don’t forget I mentioned in the blog before this how Migration Assistant worked over Firewire versus how it worked over Ethernet. The latter is just not mature.

My point is there are LOTS of uses for Firewire when you own a Mac and USB will just never be as good.

First Impressions of the new MacBook Pro

2008-10-20T20:51:00.002-05:00

Well, the last thing I thought I would do this weekend was to buy a MacBook Pro; but that’s what I did. After some discussion and hands on time with both the new MacBook’s and MacBook Pro’s, I bought the “entry level” 15” 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive, iSight, a single FW800 port, 2 USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and a mini-Display Port. I wanted to drop to the smaller 13 inch format of the MacBook, but I had to decide between it and Firewire in a notebook that would be used as a desktop replacement. As I had said it might in my last blog, the lack of Firewire in the MacBook did prove to be a deal breaker. While Apple may be happy with forcing me to step up to a MBP, many people won’t and I wouldn’t have done it, Firewire or no, without the hard disk and memory being user replaceable and the 24 inch LCD with iSight becoming available. It was the combination of all those things that convinced me to spend the money. (And now I need a two thousand dollar bailout!)

As always, the packaging was elegant. The first thing I saw after opening the box was the silver rounded rectangle of the notebook, wrapped in clear plastic, with a small black tag bearing silver letters saying “Designed by Apple”. After lifting out the computer, the black tag serves as a pull-tab to lift up a black plastic divider covering the power adapter and a recessed black box containing the user manual and the software DVD’s. The power adapter is the 85 watt version. After plugging it in, I pressed the machine’s power button and the machine booted into a Leopard welcome video welcome typical of Apple’s Macs. Once that was over, I found myself in the system’s Migration Assistant. Using a Belkin Firewire 400/800 cable my wife bought for me at the Apple Store, I connected the MBP to my 24 inch iMac, which I booted into Target Disk mode, and let Migration Assistant pull all my data and applications across. While it took about an hour and a half to get everything, it worked flawlessly. That experience was very different than what I went through using an Ethernet cable transfer between my wife’s new MacBook and her 20 inch aluminum iMac . With 16 minutes to go, the Ethernet Migration Assistant transfer bombed out; and it subsequently took me three tries to get most of her data transferred. The system issued an error message and refused to copy her VMWare Windows XP virtual machine image, something the MBP’s Firewire transfer did without a hitch. (Note: Target Disk Mode DOES exist on the new MBP. If you’re in Target Disk Mode and on battery, a nice little glass will appear at the bottom of the screen and its fullness will correspond to your battery’s charge.)

Once Migration Assistant Completed, the machine stepped through a few more windows before heading to the Desktop which it never reached. It seemed to hang short, so I held down the power button to shut the machine down and then restarted it. It went straight to the Desktop, and all the files I had seen on my iMac’s Desktop were there. One application had lost its bearings with respect to its database, an error easily corrected, and I loaded a few more that had been living on my old MBP.

Using an Apple Mini-Display port to DVI adapter, I hooked the new MBP up to a 20 inch Apple Cinema Display as well as an network drop and a spare power adapter, turned it on, closed its lid, and slid it onto the foot of the display. It came up on the 20 incher as expected. This is my temporary “at home” setup until Apple releases the new 24 inch Cinema displays with iSight next month. Then, the 24 inch display will become my MBP’s main screen when I am home, and the machine’s native 15 inch display the main screen when I am at work or on the road. For my Time Machine backup, I will use the same 500GB Firewire disk my iMac did.

(One note about running this machine with an external display. On this model, Apple moved the optical drive slot to the right, rear side of the machine. That makes it easier to insert/remove optical media when the machine is on your lap. But the notebook’s slender design makes inserting a CD/DVD almost problematic if the notebook is sitting on the foot of the display or beside it on a desk. For this purpose, it would have been better if Apple had left the optical drive in the front.)

The first time I really got to use the machine was at my office. The lighting there is not as ideal as it is at my home; the windows at my office are behind me and the desk the MacBook Pro sits on. Reflection at first was a significant problem, but I managed to mitigate most of it by closing up the window blinds tightly. While that didn’t get rid of the reflections entirely, it and turning the screen brightness all the way up did overwhelm them to the point of making them less than a nuisance. If I hadn’t been able to get the blinds behind me closed, I’d have been in big trouble. A matte screen machine, which is not an option in Apple’s current notebook line-up, would be much better for my office environment.

That said, I otherwise like the glossy screen. However, while attempting to calibrate the screen, I experienced some settings at the extreme ranges that made me wonder about the quality of the LCD’s being used in these machines. The native gamma was off the charts (above the 2.4 range).

I have a MacAlly Bluetooth Mouse I used with my old MBP; and, using Bluetooth, I was able to pair it with the new machine, though it took multiple tries. I have also noticed a bug in the Airport software where the Airport menu icon incorrectly displays Airport status when Airport is on and connected. (It looks like it’s still off.)

The notebook is very quiet. I haven’t noticed any noise at all and the fans have not come on yet during any use. I’m hoping it stays that way after I replace the native hard drive with a new Samsung 500GB hard drive later this week. I ordered it and 4GB worth of memory from Other World Computing and hope to have them both installed in the machine by the end of the week.

The trackpad is very responsive, no matter whether you’re pushing it to click or have it set to detect a finger tap. What’s really cool are the small videos that demonstrate the allowable finger motions when you go to the Trackpad icon within System Preferences. That’s a very nice touch and a great way to demo the capabilities of the device.

The keyboard feels just slightly different than the one on my old MacBook Pro. There’s not quite as much “give” in the keys, but I like that.

As for battery life, I ran the machine for about three hours on the battery alone while working on a Word document and with screen brightness set at “full”.

Overall, I like the new MacBook Pro. It’s a slightly better value than the one it replaced mainly because of its lower cost for equivalent performance, upgradeability, and the ability to hook up to the new displays, something I’ll have to wait to evaluate. I haven’t run any performance benchmarking tests, yet; but I’ll try to make time to do that tonight. All that said, if you have a previous generation MacBook Pro or one even two generations back and you’re happy with it, there is no compelling reason to switch to one of the new machines. Like always, you have to decide what’s best for you and whether spending the money it takes make sense in light of both other Mac and Windows alternatives.

The Apple Double-Standard: NO Firewire or Blue-Ray!

2008-10-17T22:01:00.001-05:00

In a characteristically terse and dismissive reply to an e-mail lamenting the loss of Firewire, Steve Jobs wrote back that most HD camcorders start around $500. Here’s my open response:

Well, Steve, maybe $500 is a small sum of money to you; but, if you haven’t heard, there is an economic meltdown going on. Hold onto that attitude and you’ll alienate your customer base and drive Apple into the ground.

What’s even worse about it, Steve, is that you either haven’t thought it through or you’re not as smart as you’re made out to be. Have you forgotten that Apple has not equipped its Macs with any kind of Blue-Ray support? What am I supposed to do what that HD video? Burn it to a SD DVD?

As a company, Apple’s looking arrogant. If there’s a faster way to kill sales with your current customer base, I don’t know what it is. Your “switcher” base alone cannot sustain you. You guys have screwed up. You need to either put Firewire back in the MacBook or start putting Blue-Ray support in all your Macs. It’s called putting your money where your mouth is. If you expect us to spend money to upgrade cameras, we expect you to spend money to upgrade the Mac to properly handle them.

ANDY

P.S. All this totally ignores that most people do not have Blue-Ray DVD players in their homes. SD is here for a while longer.

You also need to offer matte-screen options on all your notebooks.

The Bottom Line seems to be that Apple has stopped listening to its customers. Instead, the company seems to be driving further into a “we know what is best for you” mentality; and I’m sensing it so strongly that even for a guy like me who loves the Apple product line I’m starting to think about returning to the Windows world where I have more choice. I’d really prefer not to go there. To a large degree, whether I choose to or not, is up to you.