Tag: technology

Apple is cozy with Microsoft Windows?

The year 2006 has brought many more forays into Windows than normal. Over a decade ago, I wrote software for DOS and subsequently various versions of Windows. After quitting my job at Kysor, I left Windows behind and my primary desktop OS has been either Mac OS or a variant of Unix (FreeBSD, BSDI, IRIX, or Linux).

For the last decade, I used Windows only when necessary. Earlier this year, I bought a new Core Duo iMac. I contributed to the XPonMac context to get XP working on it. I was even happier when Apple released Boot Camp soon thereafter. I installed XP and Firefox, rebooted, and didn’t use XP again. Then Parallels arrived. I downloaded and installed it. Not only did it work, it worked well. I installed FreeBSD, Debian, and WinXP just to have convenient access to them. Before June, I did actually used XP for one thing. I downloaded and installed the Blue Frog. Then Blue Security got DOSed off the planet.

I began 2006 with only occasional contact with Windows. Within a couple months, I had it installed on my iMac and a few months later I was actually using it. Then, just imagine my surprise when I was filling out the rebate form for my free iPod (which I bought with my new MacBook). The form was experiencing technical difficulties and yielded up an extremely interesting error message. Apparently Apple is also becoming much more familiar with Windows as well. Pay careful attention to the server tagline at the bottom of the error message.

Apple using Microsoft Servers

I am sure the explanation for why an Apple server is yielding up Windows .NET error messages will be interesting. For reference, I also saved the page as a web archive. The following is the .webarchive file generated by Safari. I have also posted a full sized image of the original screenshot.

Web Archive of Windows at Apple

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?

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”

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.

IntelliMac

On the very day the Mac Book Pro was announced, I placed my order. In fact, the order was placed within 5 minutes of the Apple Store being re-enabled (it’s typically disabled during such events). I was very excited to get it but all the orders got bumped back so I decided to cancel it and get a 20″ iMac Core Duo since it was available right away. On Tuesday I returned from school to find it sitting next to my desk.

If you have never bought a new Mac, then you might not appreciate the care and elegance with which Apple packages their computers. I’ve done it so many times that I expect it and hardly noticed the nice, well designed packaging. I had work to get done so I ripped it open, yanked out the goodies, and settled into hard core work playtime.

Other/DSC_5871.JPG

After setting up the iMac on my desk, it created a significant problem. I already had the 20″ and 23″ Cinema Displays hooked up to the G5 dual and they commanded a large portion of my desk. Adding yet another 20″ display consumed what was left. To relieve the crowding problem, I have moved the 20″ into our bedroom for watching movies when connected to the laptop. That will work until it or the 23″ gets sold on eBay.

My intent for this system is to replace one of my dual G5 systems which I can then sell on eBay. The reason it may achieve that goal is Continue reading “IntelliMac”

Presentation Devices for Mac OS X

One of my esteemed professors needs a remote for use in class. Actually, a couple of my professors are in need of a decent remote for their presentations in class. So, I did some searching around and found a couple good options, listed in order of recommendation.

Choice #1: Kensington Wireless Presentation Remote

Kensington Wireless Presentation Remote Control with Laser Pointer

All features of the Kensington are known to work reliably with Mac OS X. Simply click the link and it’ll take you to item at the Amazon.com store. If you order by clicking the link, they’ll even give me a little referral credit.

Choice #2: Logitech 2.4GHz Cordless Presenter

Logitech 2.4 GHz Cordless Presenter