Pinwheels and Orange Peels

3.0

Got an original iPhone like me?  Wondering if 3.0 is worth the upgrade?  Worry not - I upgraded mine on day one of 3.0 availability, and it's working just fine, if not better than before.  Battery life is the same, performance is snappy.  How is it that Apple can continue to support, and even improve the user experience of, legacy equipment while nearly all other hardware/software vendors do just the opposite?  It's remarkable.  And Mrs Pinwheel's 3G is also upgraded to rave reviews.

Search, landscape keyboard, Find my iPhone (cool!), and the long-awaited cut/copy/paste are all there, and work with Apple's signature it-just-works awesomeness.

Apple has a handy chart that shows what each generation of iPhone offers what features with 3.0 here (hat tip ars technica).

Apple Liberals

It's sad but true: I've been using Apple products for about 5 years now, and I always get an icky feeling when I hang out on sites like MacDailyNews reading the comments.  Sure enough, someone always manages to turn the latest Apple news into a wacky liberal Bush-hating rant.  Now some researchers have gone and released a study claiming to show that "Mac People" are more open-minded and liberal than the unwashed, Windows-using masses.  To that I say "meh."

I think it gives Apple the wrong stink, and it's a shame because the products are fantastic, be you conservative, liberal, or somewhere in between.  I figure the only thing to do is continue to praise and use the products around my not-so-liberal friends, and someday we might change the culture of freakiness that still clings to the company.

Steve Jobs Killed the HD-DVD/Blue Ray Star

Steve Jobs/Apple just ended the high-def format war by killing both opponents with a single blow.  HD rentals right through the Apple TV with no computer needed to sync.  HD movies with 5.1 surround sound right to your TV.  For $3.99/$4.99.  I'm sure they'll eventually let you buy them.  If you were thinking about getting a high-def DVD player this year, don't.  It'll be OBE in 6 months.

UPDATE: And the new price is only $229!!!  I might drop cable and just go internet-only...

Consumer Stuff

I love what the intertubes have done for the plugged in consumer.  Sure, Google gives you 1.5B search results, but the first few are usually all you need.  And online shopping has reduced the need to hunt the elusive parking spot at the mall before Christmas.  I've recently started using two sites in particular that are there to serve the modern consumer.

The first one is called The Consumerist, and they post all kinds of tips and stories from ticked off consumers, then follow up with CEO/upper mgmt contact info and escalation tips and techniques.  It's the internet version of your local news media lambasting a business for poor treatment of a consumer.  Unfortunately, I'd also rate it "R" for strong language at times, so use at your own risk.  Still some good info there.

The second one, and the one I find myself sucked into for hours on end, is Consumer Search, and while they've been around since 2000, I never stumbled across them until recently.  I was looking for reviews on pressure washers, and of course was stonewalled by the subscription-only Consumer Reports when I found Consumer Search (CS).  CS does the research for you, and presents it in a well-thought and well laid out format for easy decision-making.  They hit Consumer Reports among others, and also take the user-supplied feedback on sites like Amazon.com and epinions.com into account.  They are kind of hit-and-miss for some of the items I wanted to see research on, but they had a lot of good stuff, too.  And most of it is pretty up to date.  For example, I looked at their "best used sports cars" page and found this:

The following   report was originally published on ConsumerSearch to cover new cars manufactured   and sold in the 2005 model year, and so can offer a good guide as   to which cars from past model years are good bets as used vehicles. We are keeping   this report on our site as a convenience to our readers who may be shopping   for a used car.

Although they didn't take reliability into account for the used cars, the above statement tells me they don't let their older reviews languish as new content is added.  Highly recommended.

Two Nights Wasted

I consider myself somewhat tech-savvy, having grown up with a C-64, 486, Pentiums of all kinds, and every Windows version since 3.1.  But I can't get Windows XP or Vista to install in Boot Camp, and I can't get my educational version of WinXP to install under VMware, although I do have Vista running virtualized.  It's pretty snappy, too, even with my paltry 1GB RAM.  But 3D doesn't work, so no Aero for me.

I've wasted two nights trying to slipstream SP2, virtualize XP, or Boot Camp XP, to no avail.  I thought I could try installing XP in VMware, but when I attempt it the version of XP I have asks me to insert a previous version, which I have (the original Win95 disk that came with our first "real" computer), but VMware doesn't allow the XP installer to eject the disk.  I tried everything I could think of to make it work, but in the end I'm out of luck.  The sad thing is, all I want to do is run Guild Wars so I can play online with my brother.  Is that too much to ask, Apple?  Is it?

*pout*

OK, so VMware virtualization of Vista is pretty nifty.  I had some problems with some programs not recognizing my DVD drive, but that was easily remedied by simply dragging the files into OS X and burning them there.  It's neat to seamlessly transition between two operating systems.  But still no Guild Wars.

Well, I'm ticked now

No, I'm not blogging this from Vista-on-Mac.  I got Boot Camp installed, the driver DVD made, and the Vista partition all set, but when I try to boot the Vista DVD to install it I get no video out of my ATI 1900XT.  I tried swapping outputs, running to VGA instead of DVI, and restarting many different ways.  No dice.

I'm ticked.  I know it's beta software, but don't advertise to the world that "Macs run Windows" if I can't get the top-shelf Mac to do so.  So my hard-earned cash resulted in a fancy coaster until Leopard is released, assuming Leopard has fixed the issues by then.

Next up, Windows XP on VMware's Fusion.  It's not as good, but I might be able to play Guild Wars then.  Why didn't I install XP instead of Vista?  I don't have an SP2 disc.  VMware will let you install just about anything.

Boot Camp

I finally got my copy of Windows Vista Home Premium today (no thanks to UPS - more on that later), so I'm going to do the Boot Camp thing and install Windows on my Intel-based Mac Pro.  My next post (if all goes well) will be from Firefox-on-Vista-on-Mac.

Here goes.

Vista pre-RC1

You may be aware that Microsoft is preparing to unleash their latest operating system, Vista, and that it has slipped many, many times on its rocky road to release.  I signed up to be a beta tester a couple of months ago, but never got a complete download.  I did beta test Office 2007, which is a slick update to that dominant set of productivity tools.  I experienced numerous crashes and occasionally very slow performance on my admittedly outdated desktop.  But back to Vista.

Microsoft just rolled up a bunch of bug fixes and released a pre-release candidate beta, build 5536.  I finally managed to get a complete download and have installed it on a 40Gb logical partition on my secondary hard drive.  Installation took about an hour.  I say "about" because around 2330 I stumbled off to sleep while the computer appeared stuck on a black screen of death with the words "Windows Vista (TM) Pre-RC 1 Evaluation copy.  Build 5536" stuck on the lower left-hand corner.  I woke to a login and setup screen, where I entered a few nuggets of info and then let Vista boot in all its glory.  It promptly told me the system had experienced a critical failure and needed to report the results to Microsoft.  Apparently, the system had a BSOD before ever even booting up.

My experience with Vista since then is quite good, actually.  It's stable (I'm typing this in Vista right now), pretty, and fairly responsive.  The eye candy is nice.  Firefox, Acrobat, Flash, etc, all work fine.  My peripherals all work except for the ancient gameport on the back of my equally ancient SoundBlaster Live! Value card.  Sound works, though.  So does the wireless network.  I haven't tried any 3D gaming, but my kids' edutainment software all works.

The Vista sidebar is kind of nice, but I prefer Yahoo's Widgets (especially the weather widget), so I installed that.  Works fine.

My system specs:
AMD Athlon XP O/C to 2.18GHz
512MB Dual-channel DDR RAM at 145MH
ATI Radeon 9700 (non-pro)

Vista gave the computer a 3.5 "Windows Experience Index" and disabled the Aero Glass desktop.  I turned it back on and it works and looks fine.  I'm happy with it.

Downsides?  It's RAM-hungry.  I'm at 75% utilization with Outlook, Firefox, and IE 7 running.  On bootup with nothing on it's at around 65%.  It's made me contemplate getting those 2Gb I've been wanting.  Some things are darn slow, like waking from sleep.  I turned that off after the first couple of times took over a minute.  Some of the help files aren't complete, and some point to XP items that aren't valid any longer.

Features Microsoft is touting, like whole-computer search indexing, are not obviously enabled.  I still haven't figured out if it's automatically indexing my other attached drives or if I need to tell it to do so. 

The bottom line is that this is, for a casual home user, a fancy, shiny, pretty, yet RAM-hungry, mostly cosmetic upgrade.  I'd take it on a new computer, but I probably won't pay to upgrade from XP.  That doesn't really matter though, since my next computer will be Apple's new Mac Pro running Jaguar, which will already be 5 years ahead of the next update to Vista.

Apple-icious

The Intel Assimilation is complete.  Apple revealed their Intellified Mac Pro workstation today at the WWDC, and it's a nice piece of kit.  Unlike the G5 Pro, every version of the Mac Pro comes as a blazing quad-core monster, with two of the latest "Woodcrest" dual-core Xeons in 2.0, 2.6, or (finally!) 3.0GHz.  That's right, Apple has actually made it to the promised 3GHz.

The standard configuration, shipping now for $2,499, is:

Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" processors

4MB shared L2 cache per processor

1.33GHz dual independent frontside buses

1GB memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC)

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory

250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive¹

16x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

For full specs, check out Macworld's overview.

I did notice the lack of Airport Extreme and Bluetooth, which are both included on the (much) cheaper iMac.  I suppose that could be due to the more business-oriented nature of the workstation, but I still think those should be default with the option to delete if desired.

Time to start saving those pennies.  Military members save $200 off the standard configuration if they log in through the "Federal Employee Purchase" store.  Thanks, Apple!

Beauty and the Beast

Why on earth would someone buy this ugly thing:

when you can buy this instead:

?

If the specs at the Reg are correct, the comparison is pretty close.  The processor in the Sony is a dual-core 2.8GHz Intel chip, the iMac has a dual 2GHz Core Duo chip.  The video card in the Sony is a Mobility Radeon X700, while the iMac sports a faster X1600.  Hard drives are identical at 250Gb.  Ditto RAM and the 20" screen.  And the iMac also only needs one cord if you order it with the optional (and gorgeous) wireless mouse and keyboard.  They retail at about the same price, too.  But with the iMac, you get the phenomenal iLife suite of personal multimedia software, the Front Row media showcase and remote, and a built-in iSight camera for web conferencing or just goofing around.

I know which one I'd choose.  What about you?