Another look at the 20″ iMac Core Duo

Two weeks ago we arrived in Seattle. We planned at least seven weeks here. Being gone for so long required that I set up a portable office so Jen and I could work. She brought her laptop, I limited myself to the PowerBook and 20″ iMac Core Duo. Upon arrival, I accepted a one week contract job helping out Microsoft. That contract meant putting my iMac to work in new ways.

My project was the instruction of a course on LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Perl/Python) development. I had to document a process by which Microsoft employees could install LAMP on their computers and then use the LAMP stack in a development environment. Of course, it had to be delivered in the form of Word docs and PowerPoint “decks.” With that in mind, I had to have several things all running at the same time:

  • Windows XP
  • LAMP: Linux (via virtualization)
  • MS Word & PowerPoint

While instructing the course, I learned quite a few things about my Core Duo iMac, Parallels Desktop, and MS Office under Rosetta.

For starters, and reference, Parallels Desktop does a great job of running Windows XP. Previous to this contract, I had no problems running XP under it, but I had not really used it other than to boot it up and see that it worked.

Parallels Desktop & Boot Camp
While Parallels Desktop lets me run XP under Mac OS X, it is not quite as good as rebooting into XP via Boot Camp. I ran into a limitation when I installed and attempted to use Virtual PC 2004 for Windows. It simply will not run under XP when XP is running under Parallels, giving a “CPU not supported” error. Since I needed Virtual PC 2004 to work, I had to reboot into Windows under Boot Camp.

When Jon, the project manager, came over to broadcast the Live Meeting from my house, he looked at Windows XP on the screen and asked, “Where’s the computer?” I replied, “that is the computer.” Apple hardware rocks. As I have pointed out in previous articles, and continue to be surprised by, Windows XP runs much faster and smoother under Boot Camp on my iMac than on the dual 3.0GHz Xeon server I have. I was reminded of how “authentic” my experience was when MSN Messenger asked to enable my video camera. When I allowed it, the system promptly rebooted. I let it try once more with the same results before disabling the built-in iSight’s hardware profile. Am I the only one that finds it inexcusable that a vendor supplied chat program can crash the operation system?

MS Office & Core Duo Macs
Previously I noted that PowerPC apps like MS Office work just fine on the new Core Duo systems running under Rosetta. I have found that my assertation was a bit hasty. While Office does run and appears to work fine, when I began using it I found its performance is intolerably slow. I had to generate a number of PowerPoints and Word docs. None were very large, 15-30 slides for PowerPoint and 5-15 page Word docs. I started out building them on the iMac in Office 2004 but redraws, scrolling, and general use was too slow. This is on a 2GHz Core Duo with 2GB of RAM!

How slow is “too slow?” I did not bother with benchmarks because I had work to do. When I grabbed a scroll bar and drug, I would have to drag and wait for the screen to update, and it would often take up to a second and sometimes a few to redraw a page or a slide. This was after turning all of the auto-* features. If you are content with the speed of OS X or XP on a 4 year old computer, then the performance would be acceptable to you. For everyone else, if you must use Office regularly, avoid the new Intel powered Mac system unless you intend to buy the new version of Office the day it ships so you get get decent performance again.

I worked around the problem in two ways. The first was by running Office under XP (under Parallels). The rest of the time I edited the files on my aged but trustworthy G4 PowerBook. To summarize, the Core Duo equipped macs are really great systems, but if you spent a good portion of your day working in Office or any other app that is not yet Universal, you will want to continue using a PowerPC based Macintosh.

A cornucopia of things

Seattle
We are in Seattle (Lake City) at least until mid-July. We fled Texas to escape the heat. Jen found us a housesitting job.

Weather in Seattle is wonderful! It’s cold in the morning (60s) and warms up into the 70s during the day. There are no mosquitoes. The doors and windows of the house are open all day (and night). I can be out in the sun for hours and not get burnt. I burn in less than 40 minutes of Texas sun.

Honda Odyssey
We drove our new minivan up to Seattle. It is a 2004 Honda Odyssey. We got it last month with 26,000 miles. It is like new. It is so anti-Jetta. The Jetta is small, the Odyssey is not. The Jetta is frugal (35mph), the Odyssey is not (24). The Jetta begs to race down the backside of mountains at 120mph, the Odyssey says, “grow up, speed racer.” The Jetta is cute, the Odyssey is…is…practical. 534

The Jetta: Let’s DRIVE!
Odyssey: Let’s ride.

The Jetta: Go, Go, Go! Faster, faster, I can do it!
Odyssey: Hey, look at the pretty mountains and the cool morning air that I have conditioned to exactly 72° for your riding comfort. Would you like a massage with your soft cushy seats?

After driving 400 miles:
The Jetta: Stop? Why? I can go for 200 more miles on this tank!
Odyssey: I’m thirsty. Don’t you have to pee or something?

After looking at the pile of stuff to take for 6 weeks:
The Jetta: Where?
Odyssey: Is that it?

Things that would not have fit in the Jetta: 20″ iMac, crate full of rock climbing and camping gear, portable office (phones, routers, power adapters, etc), a really big bag of Kayla toys. It really was quite dramatic. We filled up the Odyssey with everything we wanted to bring and was still below the bottom of the windows.

Contrast that with our two weeks in Michigan over new years. The Jetta was packed to the gills with the roof rack on top and not an inch to spare anywhere.

Junior 2.0
We had Junior’s big ultrasound yesterday. Junior appears to be very healthy. In fact, Junior is quite vigorous, refusing to hold still for the ultrasound technician. She claimed never to have seen such an active fetus. There were a couple images she simply could not get because Junior refused to hold still. After 15 minutes trying to get a particular shot, in frustration she held the probe still and said, “Look at this, I’m holding this still and he is just going and going!”

Junior’s mommy was not the least bit surprised. Kayla was an active baby and we had nicknamed her “Dances in Womb.” Junior is hyperactive and seldom pauses. Junior is more like “Spastic Bounces Off Walls.” His activity level is almost constant. Many things about this pregnancy are different than the last, but of course, every pregnancy is different. The nausea that abated in the second trimester last time has not. Other little things are different. We had our suspicions.

As the technician probed, daddy and Kayla watched. I asked, “Did I just see what I thought I saw?” The technician slid a knowing grin and continued. She paused, and froze the screen. There it was again, and this time she caught it before Junior swam away. Junior is sporting the goods.

Workin’ for the man
The day after we arrived in Seattle, I got the phones set up and then they rang. A certain mega-sized monopolistic computer software corporation (MSMCSC) based in Redmond, Washington wanted my assistance. Oddly, they had no idea I was only a few miles away. So, I am finishing up a one week consulting project with, guess who?

More miles and smiles

We left Denver this morning. Wyoming was one mightly long boring state, but we’re in Utah now. The mountains are beautiful and this is certainly a part of the world that is not scenically challenged. We’re almost out of Utah now, and heading into Idaho. If all goes as planned, we’ll be sleeping in Boise by midnight. Kayla got chocolate for her birthday. Kayla likes chocolate.

Update: We have arrived in Seattle. It’s 53° out and that makes some of us very happy.

On The Road

We’re in Kansas. Bye bye Texas, Oklahoma is in the rear view mirror, and Colorado is in the near future.

9:45AM 26,543 – Depart Home
10:34AM 26,590 12.726G $34.60
12:41PM 26,734 6.018G $15.64 23.9mpg(1)
3:17PM Kansas Turnpike $1.50 (3)
6:27PM 27,097 15.203G $41.34 23.9mpg(2)
10:30PM 27,436 Arrival in Denver
12H:45M 893m 33.947G $91.58

Leg #1 stats: 893 miles in 12.75 hours = 70mph avg. speed(4)
Economy = 23.9mpg.

Notes:
(1) speeds driven on this tank were less than 70mph.
(2) speed varied between 70 and 80mph.
(3) Drove through a “brown out” where high winds and dust limited visibility to 20′.
(4) Faster speeds on the two latter tankfuls helped make up for extra stops for Kayla to play in the grass and stretch.

Intel iMac -vs- dual G5 performance continued.

I recently cleaned up an old video project that has been awaiting attention for almost a year. It was pretty simple footage and required only a few snips, clips and fades in iMovie to be considered “done.” While waiting for my shiny new iMac Core Duo to render the fades, a memory surfaced.

When using the dual G5 systems to edit video, the system would render fades and transitions in only a second or two. In fact, on long segments where lots of fades and transitions were necessary, think of a Ken Burns movie full of photos, the dual G5 could render them as fast as I could drop them into the pasteboard. It was difficult to “stack” a few renders to keep the dual G5 busy.

Fast forward to yesterday as I waited Continue reading “Intel iMac -vs- dual G5 performance continued.”

For Sale: G5 PowerMac Dual 1.8, SD, 160GB+900GB RAID, 1GB

It’s likely heading for eBay soon, but not before I offer it to friends and family. The system bone stock is worth about $1,200 on eBay. Compare to a new dual 2.0 which is currently $2,000. With all the extra drive space and RAM, it should fetch about $1,600. If you don’t need 900GB of storage, I can pull the disks and cut the price. Photos are available here. The eBay ad follows.

If you are looking to buy a dual G5, I assume that you already know all about them so I won’t repeat the obvious.

This system includes EVERYTHING that shipped with it from the factory. Box, keyboard, mouse, USB extender, vga adapter, airport antennae, unopened manuals, software recovery DVD, power cord, and modem cable.

What is different about my G5 from other dual 1.8s:

1. Single owner – purchased new, a copy of the sales receipt is included.
2. Perfect eBay feedback – Bid with confidence!
3. Applecare – purchased with CPU, good through 12/9/06.
4. 1GB of RAM.
5. Stock 160GB drive + 900GB!
5.1. (3) top of the line 300GB DiamondMax 10 drives in a CCD RAID.
6. Fast-Ethernet PCI card (adds second ethernet port)
7. SeriTek 4 port SATA PCI-X card
8. Lots of valuable extras!

That’s right, $600 worth of hard drives, a 4 port SATA card ( $125), and the G5 Drive Bracket (http://www.g5drivebracket.com/) are used to pack a few more disks in there and make a killer file server. If 900+160GB is not enough for you, install a few larger drives and have even more space! Voila, one big box that works great as a workstation with gobs o’disk or use it for network attached storage (NAS).

Other Installed Software:
Continue reading “For Sale: G5 PowerMac Dual 1.8, SD, 160GB+900GB RAID, 1GB”

Mother’s Day

Today we celebrate the most wonderful of humans. Mothers often make great sacrifices in personal comfort and many other personal ambitions for the sake of doing their very best to provide for another human. There are few mothers I have met that would not give everything they had and often more for the precious little charges in their custody.

I am thankful for my lovely wife and the love and affection she has for our children. After all the hours spent reading books and articles on caring for babies, the many hours spent hugging the porcelain throne, midnight and early morning awakenings to feed her, and all them diapers; after all that, she still loves the little thing. It is amazing, and it just makes her that much more lovable.

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To all you mothers, I salute you. To Jennifer: I salute and adore you. You were wonderful when I met you, and you are even more so now.

Schools Out!

Hooray! I have taken my last final and DTS has let out for the summer. I have been pounding the keyboard for the last couple days, catching up on projects that have languished in my inbox for far too long. I talked to Melissa Dewey yesterday and she commented that things must have been busy during the semester because I didn’t post much on my blog.

Not having a television, it is hard to imagine where all our time has gone. However, throughout the day, this breathtaking little beauty comes crawling or cruising into the room insisting on attention. She is quite pleased to absorb every spare second we will give her. She is still a perfect little angel. Quite honestly, it is hard to be the least bit objective about her. After all, she is so much more cute and loveable than anything else.

When Jen and I are not working, Kayla enjoys keeping our keyboards from experiencing any loneliness.
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We also have a few games she enjoys playing. A favorite is peek-a-boo, which sounds a bit like pah-poo. We now have a number of words, including da-dee, ma-ma, uh-oh, and mmm. The later is just what you’d guess, “Yo, big people, how about sharing that food down here, eh?” Speaking of size, she has gone from 19″ (birth) to 25″ (6 mos) to 28″ as 11 months. It is good to see that all the food she eats is going somewhere other than into the Diaper Genie.

About a month ago she became highly mobile (crawling and cruising) so now she gets into everything. We like the toilet paper to stay on the rolls so the bathroom doors stay closed. We let her play in all the cupboards that don’t have glass or toxic cleaners in them. The cupboard doors used to have little pads on them to keep them from slamming. While unattented, she enjoys removing them, so now we don’t have a door left with them. They got in the way of, slam, slam, slam, which is far more fun than, dull thud, dull thud, dull thud.

When we are not otherwise occupied with Kayla, our work, or my homework, we learn how not to destroy Kayla’s chance of ever having a “normal” life. We have graduated from What To Expect When You’re Expecting to What To Expect: Your First Year. Now that Kayla is in her 11th month and the shelf of baby books is full, its time to step up a notch. I have started with with Making Children MIND without Losing YOURS by Kevin Leman. He’s the same guy that wrote Sex Begins in the Kitchen which is another book I enjoyed reading.

Kayla got a present in the mail today from Mike & Deb Surls. It was a small box which alone provided a good 25 minutes of entertainment.
Kayla's Present

The contents were a little more mysterious. Enclosed was a very cool Aerobie Superdisc (frisbee) which I suspect was for Jen and I. However, also enclosed is a package of blue washcloths and a blue receiving blanket. Our theory is that the blue items are the first gifts for Junior 2.0, and the Surls are rooting for a boy. I would like to have a boy and if we get one this time around I won’t have to twist Jen’s arm for number three. But if its a boy, then daddy gets the big snip snip. I am of two minds.

There is more news to post, but there’s also 173 emails and two inches worth of papers to finish dealing with.

Brain upgrade

Are you looking for a way to learn without moving off to Universityville?
Do you thirst for knowledge but haven’t the coin to pay college?
Do you want to learn but do not care about the sheepskin?
Do you need more structured learning than reading a book (ie, Audible.com)?

The solution has arrived. Turn off your TV, get all the brain pacifying music off that iPod and load it up with college courses for FREE! That’s right, college courses and complete lectures are now available, free of charge to anybody and everybody.

If you want to be educated, head on over to UC Berkeley
If you want theololy, head over over to Biblical Training.org

There are other free resources on the internet but most are worth what you pay for them. The two sites I just cited are both real colleges courses taught by honest accredited college professors. UC Berkeley’s content is obvious. Biblical Training is an excellent resource put together by Bill Mounce, the fellow who wrote the Greek textbook we learn from at DTS. He has collected courses from seminaries who voluntarily make their courses available.

This is a welcome trend and I preduct we will be seeing more of this in the future. Of course, learning from these courses will not earn you a degree but they will certainly enrich your mind.

To refurb, or not to refurb?

Today I have been asked again about the purchase of reburbished computers. Since I have answered this question in emails before, I have summarized those emails and published it here for the edification of others.

I have had mixed results with refurb gear. I had one arrive DOA and other with intermittent hardware failures that required sending it back. My “get a good one the first time” success rate is around 50%. I feel that whether or not a person should buy a refurb boils down to several key factors.

1. In exchange for saving some cash, you are taking the risk that your system is not going to arrive in “new” condition. This could include the inconvenience of sending it back and getting another one, costing you a week or two extra where you do not have use of the new computer. Further, it is possible that your computer has an intermittent hardware fault that passes Q.A. testing but still causes sporadic problems for you.

2. Technical savvy. If you are not familiar with how the computer should be working, then it could be faulty without you knowing it. For this reason, I do not advise new or less technically savvy computer users to get a refurbished computer.

3. If this will be another computer and you will not “need” it immediately, then you can risk getting a less than perfect computer the first time. The annoyance of sending it back and getting another one sent to you may not be as significant as $200.

I’m technologically savvy enough to know if there is something wrong with the hardware. I also have plenty of “extra” computing hardware so if a new computer arrives DOA, it is a slight inconvenience. However, I still almost always buy new. By exercising patience, I can usually score a system for enough of a discount that a reburb is no longer attractively priced.