Archive for the 'Apple' Category

It Just Doesn’t Work

Published
by
C.G.
on November 3, 2006
in Apple and Computers
. 0 Comments

Apple promotes their software and hardware as products that just work. I guess it worked on me because I bought Mac mini thinking it would solve many of my computer problems. And while it did get rid of some, it created others… others that I haven’t even overcome yet (and don’t know if I will).

The first thing is that Flash player doesn’t seem to work correctly in Google Analytics. The bottom two windows - the Geo Map Overlay and the Visits by Source - show up just fine. The top two - Visits and Pageviews and Visits by New and Returning - do not. The only way I can get that information is if I change the size of the browser window. Now I’ll admit that this is in Firefox 2.0 and under Safari, it looks just fine. I’m not saying its a fault of Apple but it is an example of things not working - even if it isn’t their product that’s not. But the next and biggest problem I have is their fault.

Hello! I’m an Mac. And I’m a iPod. We should be able to talk to one another but we can’t. It must be because my iPod also talks PC because it was working perfectly with my PC and, for my Mac, it barely works at all. The problem is the iPod will not stay mounted and synchronizing ends after a few seconds. I know its not complete despite what the GUI tells me; I have changed playlists and downloaded music that never get propagated to the iPod after it says its done. Futhermore, my iTunes library has 8699 songs in it; during the initial loading (after restoring it 5 times) it says coping songs x of 8670. Where did the other 19 songs go? In an attempt to fix this problem, I’ve restored the iPod to the Mac format (several times) and changed what port (First, USB then Firewire) that the iPod was connected to. So far, I’m on my 6th reloading and I’m not confident it will work this time around either.

Another iTunes problem, it will NEVER remember my password for the iTunes store. I’ve asked that it remember it three times now… and I’m sure I’ll have to enter it again. I know I’ve told it to remember it; I did check that box. But every time I buy a song, I’ve got to fire up the keyboard just to get my music. I don’t buy a lot of music but I don’t want to waste my time typing in a password just to get what I want. That’s like signing the credit card slip every time for a 99 cent purchase. I might as well not buy the songs if the software isn’t going to work properly.

Those seem to be the big things right now. I’m sure more will follow as I go deeper into the OS. I know that much of what I face is a learning curve. It took me a few days to get used to the Debian Linux kernel for Ubuntu; the Darwin kernel might take as long too; the command lines are different and the keyboard shortcuts aren’t like those in Windows.

Like I said, those aren’t big deals. But the Flash Player and the iTunes/iPod combo was one of the main reasons for me wanting to spend the $$$ on the Mini. Without it working properly, I’m right back to where I was with Ubuntu.

Kiff, We Have A Conundrum!

Published
by
C.G.
on October 29, 2006
in Apple and Computers
. 0 Comments

So my wife, hot on the heels of getting her 24″ iMac, asked me if I wanted to stop into Tekserve, the real place to shop for Mac hardware in New York City, while walking around town. We had bought her new computer there and, knowing that I am very much interested in the Mac Mini, she thought they might have one to my liking. And while I would love a Mac, I am not sure the Mini is for me anymore. Making the idea of getting a Mini harder is that I’m not convinced I need it and, for some reason, its making me hesitant in buying one.

When I say the Mini might not be for me, I say that not because its small, or doesn’t have its own display like my wife’s shinny iMac. On the contrary, I like that about Apple’s entry level PC Mac; I have a 20″ LCD from Dell which I like very much and while not a wide screen like the iMacs, it does everything I need and I see no need to replace it yet. But what I do mean by ‘not sure it’s for me’ is that its not state-of-the-art technology and not the best of the best.

For starters, the video is an Intel 950 chip; not the nVidia or ATI cards offered on other models. It can support 1600×1200 resolution with the DVI interface (which I use) but that’s the max it can go. If I did upgrade to a widescreen display, the highest I could go is the 23″ screen which does 1900×1200 - a perfect resolution - but, as far as I know, reaches it in analog mode… Yuck! What’s worse is that the video memory is shared with the main system memory!! In my PC world, that’s a mortal sin!!! I wouldn’t even think to build a PC with an on-board video chip unless it was for the car, kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom. I’m sure it can display DVD video - HD video too - but not very well with that kind of video card.

The second thing that makes me nervous about getting the Mini is the speed of the hard drive. At first, I thought it was a miserable 4200 RPMs but my research tonight makes me feel a little better but not great; the speed is 5400 RPMs - which once was the standard speed for PCs having been replaced by 7200 RPM in all but the cheapest models. I’m concerned that even a 5400 RPM drive isn’t going to be fast enough. All my data will be on 7200 RPM serial ATA drives that I’ll cannibalize from my RAID’ed XP computer so I’m not concerned about my video or music not playing properly; I’m worried about the swap file. I don’t want the swapping to be slow and a 5400 RPM drive isn’t going to perform as well as the 7200 RPM drive I have in my XP and Ubuntu computers. I don’t even know what the cache size is and I imagine its not the 8 MB (or is it 16 MB?) I have on my current hard drives. I could just increase the RAM to make swapping less frequent but that’s another problem.

The Mini comes with what I consider a small amount of RAM. Even though Ubuntu and Linux/Unix like OSs can run on less, they obviously run better with more. The 512 MB of RAM just doesn’t do it for me. When started building my computers, I always made sure I had (at least) double the recommended RAM installed to make the computer as fast as it could be. And on my XP and Ubuntu images, I have 4GB. I don’t mind upgrading to more RAM - I’d gladly go to 1GB which is what most OS X systems have these days but with the shared video RAM eating into that, I will never fully use whatever RAM I have for applications (meaning more swapping). Even if I go to 2GB which is the max the Mini can handle, I still lose some of it. So I don’t know if paying the premium for more RAM really nets me all I’m paying for.

And that’s another thing. Even though the Mini is cheap, its not a big value. Add upgrades like the RAM, the keyboard (which isn’t included), the SuperDrive, the Bluetooth, and a few other things, you quickly approach the 17″ iMac price. When you do, get the iMac, you get a widescreen display, a faster CPU and a better video card with no shared memory. I really don’t think the 17″ iMac is for me either but you can’t deny the fact that for almost the same amount, you get a better computer. It makes it harder to justify paying almost as much as an iMac but with inferior video capabilities and a slower hard drive.

The last thing making this hard for me is what i will use it for. I intend to make this my main computer and will do everything I do on my XP and Ubuntu computers but it isn’t much. I don’t play games anymore and all I do is surf the web, write email (web-based email), play DVDs, buy, download, and listen to music on Apple’s iTunes Store, and occasionally I’ll do some word processing and spreadsheet work; I’ll never tax a computer like I did when I played Call of Duty 2. And since I do that already with my Ubuntu box (minus the iTunes), I don’t know if its worth spending the $850 dollars for a new computer. The only thing besides iTunes that I would enjoy out of OS X is Flash for my web browser.

My Windows XP box is in bad shape. The hardware is fine but like all XP computers, the software sucks. I’ve hated XP ever since it came out. In my mind, Windows 2000 was where it was at and if I wasn’t so keen on the Media Center software and games, I’d probably still run it. But my TV tuner is shot and Media Center doesn’t natively support FairPlay or my iPod so M$ loses out. Let’s not forget that my PC crashes often and I’m very, very, very very good at not installing stuff on my computers because I know how prone Windows is to crashes; I sweep for spyware and never install anything unless its absolutely needed because I don’t want to take the risk. So all I use XP for is the music part.

My Ubuntu box is great! Now that I got over the hassels of upgrading to Edgy Eft and installing my video drivers, I’m very happy. The 64-bit version is so much faster than the 32-bit; Firefox 2 was a big help in the speed department but I notice applications loading more quickly than ever before. Ubuntu has just about everything I need, too: office suite, FTP software, IM, BitTorrent, and 1000’s of free and/or open source software to pick up where the distribution ISO left off. But it doesn’t have iTunes which I mentioned and it doesn’t have Flash Player for Firefox. It’s not Ubuntu’s fault - it’s Adobe’s - but I can’t visit some sites at all because of it (also a fault of the web designers). So this fantastic piece of hardware & software has two Achillies’ heels that detract from the overall experience.

So the Mac Mini will step up and let me buy my music and browse flash enabled websites while letting me do everything I do on my Linux box now. I won’t miss anything from Windows, really, as most PC applications have a counterpart in the Mac world. I’ll still keep my XP image active for the rare times I need it and I’ll turn my Ubuntu desktop image into an Ubuntu LAMP server for my wife who wants to start coding (and I want to host my own blogs). But is it really worth the $850 to do all that? Should I spend a little more and go with the iMac? Will I notice the slow HD of the Mini? Will I care that some of the 1 GB (or should I go 2 GB) of RAM is used for the crappy video card? Will the next version of OS X need even more video RAM or application RAM? Should I get anything? If so, what should I get?

Will rock ever beat paper? Will paper beat scissors?? And will scissors ever beat rock???

I definitely have a conundrum…

Widget Posting

Published
by
C.G.
on August 1, 2006
in Apple, Computers and Site
. 0 Comments

I just upgraded my wife’s G4 to Tiger so she could run the latest version of Quark. I don’t care too much about Quark but I’m all excited to use Tiger. So, of course, the first widget I downloaded was a WordPress blogging widget.

Let’s see if this works out. It could be better than Writely.

No Love for…

Published
by
C.G.
on July 14, 2006
in Apple, Computers, Linux and No Love
. 0 Comments

Today, I got no love.

You’ve heard me talk about the new Mac minis before and how I really want one. You’ve heard me talk about how I’m bored and I want new challenges - the new Macs and its OS being a part of that. But I don’t need to have a Mac to be happy in trying something new. I have Ubuntu for that - or so I had hoped and thought.

Ubuntu is a Linux distribution that is very popular. Not only does it look really cool, it can run off a single CD - no hard drive needed - which my developer friends enjoy for work projects. It has OpenOffice 2.0, Gaim, a full email and calendar client, FireFox, and many more applications that all run in a very user friendly interface.

Or so that’s what the web site leads me to believe.

See, I can’t install Ubuntu. I can’t even run XP right now. At this very moment, my PC is a big (but cool looking) decorative piece for my floor and desk. Everything was going smoothly with the install until I tried to delete the partition of my spare hard drive. I was about to apply a new partition when all of a sudden the whole PC turns off.

No Linux kernal crash dump. No other type of BSOD for Ubuntu. Nothing. Just off. Its as if I turned the computer off with the power switch. And now, it won’t turn back on. I don’t know what could be causing it. Every time I try something that helps me figure out what could be the problem, I run into something new that either I’ve never seen before or can’t explain.

I don’t think its a power supply problem because it does get full power right away. It still could prove to be a supply unit problem but that’s an expensive guess. 500W power supplies, that I need to power the video cards, two DVD-RWs, three HDs, and cold cathode kits. Anyway, it could be the power supply is tripping an internal fuse or just giving out because of heat. There is a fuse in the motherboard and maybe that’s tripping some how (although when a fuse goes on a motherboard… i think that’s the end of it). It could also be the switch. Maybe its fragged somehow.

My biggest fear is that something is wrong with something I can’t really repalce. The BIOS is that thing. If the BIOS is corrupt, it could do some crazy things. I would imagine that if it was damaged, I wouldn’t get past POST commands but its been a long time since I studied BIOS programming and architecture. I do have a bacup BIOS but I’m not sure how that works either.

So I was all excited to come home and install a new OS for my boring computer. I got a little frustrated with some install issues (that I finally overcame). Then, when I think I got past them all, my entire computer dies on me like it was Kenneth Lay… Jerk.

So I’m really not looking forward to spending money on fixing my computer. And while I’m not keen on spending even more money on a new Mac, I can’t help but want one SO BADLY!! I’m really loving this OS and I can’t wait to hack it and get into the core UNIX kernal and see what this puppy can do! A new power supply will cost between 150 and 200 dollars and the new Mac mini - the way I want it - will cost 650. Its a big difference.

There’s nothing stopping me from getting a power supply later for the computer but it would be a waste. If I go with the mini, I’m not going to run my PC anymore. I’ll take the drives out and use them as networked storage for my wife and I. She is going to start her own business and it will need lots of storage. Right now, I’ve got 468GB of storage that she and I can use for our music libraries, her graphic designs and layout files, and our growing picture library (not to mention any video library we create if we get a digial camcorder). I’m thinking we can cut out some of the storage she will need in her new G5 or Mac Pro (that is rumored to be coming soon).

Anyway… where is this all going? I got no love on the computer front today. No love from the new OS I wanted to install (it did give me some trouble that I had to work to overcome). No love from my computer because it pulled a Red Buttons on me. And no love from the Mac Mini gods for making such a desirable product that’s out of my reach. Damn you Mini gods!!

No love.