Category: Tech

Rumor on the street said that the Apple Stores were going to have some of the Dual Core iMacs in stock on January 17th. So, yesterday, it was raining and I decided to have lunch at the mall and, incidentally, stop by the Pioneer Place Apple Store to see what’s up.

The sales guy near the door recognized me (I forget his name) and I asked him if they had any of the new tech to play with. He pointed me to the one display model they had, a 17″-er.

I walked up and checked “About This Mac” – sure enough, Intel-based. Nothing was open yet.

I recalled seeing someone post a hands-on with a Mac Book Pros where they tried to run every application on the machine to test its speed. Dan Lurie, the author, wrote that the machine bogged down for about 30 seconds, then all was right with the world and he could switch among all the running applications with no perceptible performance hit.

That sounded awesome.

So I tried it with the iMac. I figured, hey, it’s the same processor. Should give me the same result, right?

The machine chugged away, dutifully opening everything… the Dock got longer and longer, more icons appeared… icons were bouncing up and down as the programs launched… I noticed several of the Pro apps in there, like Logic or Soundtrack… whoa, they’ve loaded this machine down, haven’t they? The Adobe CS applications launched… Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS… the machine got slower and slower… the Dashboard slid in like molasses… icons stopped bouncing…

Yeah, this wasn’t working. It completely locked up after about a minute. No response. I tried bringing up the Force Quit menu and no go. I tried to Cmd-Tab to the Finder. Um, no.

Hmmm. Maybe this would have worked with just the shipping applications installed. But with all the other stuff added, no way.

BTW, I forgot to check the memory on this bad boy.

On the other hand, when I restarted it, the machine came up to the desktop in about 20 seconds. So, yeah, it boots fast.

Another sales guy came over and asked me if I was finding what I needed. With a huge grin, I told him of what I’d just tried. He told me that that was a pretty tough test. “I’m not even sure that one” pointing to the Quad G5 “would be able to do that.” I agreed but admitted it had been fun to watch it (not) happen.

He said he could do me one better. He walked over to a Dual Core G5, and explained that Adobe Illustrator CS, while a great program, was a huge memory hog. He showed me that it had 4 GB of memory installed. He proceeded to pull a photo from iPhoto, and open it in Illustrator. He explained that there’s a feature in Illustrator that will convert a bitmapped image into a vector-based image.

He opened Activity Monitor and then proceeded to make this conversion. It happened fairly quickly, and soon the image on the screen was full of literally thousands of those little Bezier curves, with their little square “handles”.

The Apple Store sales guy then explained that there are now operations one can perform on this vector-based image… but it requires a lot of memory and processor power, because the program has to load all of these curves into memory at the same time, then recalculate, and then apply those calculations to the image. I was with him and couldn’t wait to see how it handled it. What is it about blowing things up (in this case, metaphorically) that’s so fun?

He started the process, attempting to change one specific color in the image. Illustrator dutifully started making the change… slowly. Activity Monitor showed Illustrator taking 99.6% of the processor power, and over 1 GB of the actual memory (over 14 GB of virtual memory, whoa). At one point it spiked to over 100% of processor power… due to the machine having two processors (cores, same thing). The memory requirements kept creeping up…

He said it would probably stop at over 2 GB and then sit there for a while until it was done. So, to make it more interesting… he started launching more programs. Soundtrack, Logic, iDVD, Final Cut Pro… “Now, obviously, this isn’t a real-world test. No one would have this many programs open at once, seriously…” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I laughed, “deadlines are deadlines!” He laughed, too.

And, again, the machine chugged and chugged… Several applications showed that they were not responding… he said that, eventually, Illustrator would come back, but it would not be able to finish the operation. The memory usage kept climbing, 2.1 GB, 2.2 GB…

Finally, sure enough, Illustrator gave up. “Unable to complete the operation requested. There is not enough memory.” But, amazingly, none of the applications actually crashed. The system was still stable, and every launched application was now usable, though a bit slowly. Illustrator even did part of the process requested, so that we could try again if we wanted to.

Amazing machines… I so want one. Someday…

I did it. After work I marched down to the Pioneer Place Apple Store, and I bravely… put my name on a list to be called when they get the new MacBook Pros in stock.

I didn’t go crazy – I didn’t actually put any money down. But they are going to reserve one for me. That gives me until… whenever… to save up and decide if I’m going to upgrade. Apple says they’ll ship in February, but who knows with Apple.

Of course, one of the reasons given for Apple’s slipping ship dates on new computers has been the slow production of chips from Motorola and IBM. Now that they’ve got Intel supplying their chips and chipsets, hopefully, those days are behind them. We shall see.

One thing to worry about is battery life. If you go to the tech specs page for the new MacBook Pros, you will see that the battery is listed as a 60-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. But nowhere does it give any idea, y’know, how long that battery will actually last under normal usage. There’s a footnote at the bottom of the page that explains that “battery life depends on configuration and use”. Duh. And water is still wet.

The PowerBook tech specs show battery life, even if it is in the marketing-speak of “up to 5.5 hours” (my emphasis added). C’mon, Apple, throw us a friggin’ bone here. The marketing page shouts “More power, using less power” but these Intel chips are brand-new (rumor has it that they’re the chips Intel code-named Yonah – I’m going to have to dig into that at a later date) so all we have is what Intel and Apple are telling us. There’s no real-world experience yet. Should we be worried about the damn thing not being able to play a movie all the way through? Or are we going to be so awed by the MagSafe connector that we just won’t mind having to plug the damned thing in every hour or two? Although I have to admit, that MagSafe connector is freakin’ cool.

(By the way, does anyone else find the page design a little… um… hard to read? Gray letters on a black background may be sexy and all, but on my CRT at work (oops!) it’s dim.)

And… the 15″ and 17″ PowerBooks have a dual-layer SuperDrive… it appears the 15″ MacBook Pro doesn’t.

And… I’m also worried about getting bit by the Version 1.0 bug, the stuff that no one foresees. These are brand-new. By being one of the first to buy them, I might be paying a good chunk of money to be Apple’s beta tester. Oh, well. Such is life on the bleeding edge of technology.

Oh, well, at least it appears that there ain’t gonna be no fugly Intel stickers marring its beautiful aluminum frame. Thank goodness for small favors.

Holy crap! All the Apple rumors sites were predicting Intel-based Mac minis, or maybe Intel-based iBooks.

…but today Steve announced both Intel-based iMacs and Intel-based laptops!

Dual-Core Intel-based iMacs and laptops.

I don’t necessarily like the name “MacBook Pro”. Ugh. They’ve been Powerbooks for a long long time. Like, since the beginning. But, whatever. It doesn’t make them less sexy.

Me… want…

Anyone want to buy a 3-year-old iBook? 🙂 Oh, hell, I’ll probably keep it around for a while.

New phone coming tomorrow!

New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone! New phone…

More on using bots in online poker games:

For what it’s worth, game theory suggests that if it’s likely that the other players are cheating, then the only winning strategy is to cheat. But the only ethical strategy is not to play at all. But I find this whole concept fascinating. One of the developers of a commercial poker bot likens his efforts to civil disobedience.

That being said, I’ve spent the morning researching what it would take to do this.

First, the online casinos have detection methods, both overt and subtle, for detecting the main commercial packages. There are ways around those detection methods, but, like any measure/counter-measure situation, it’s not static. Each side is working to gain the upper hand, and at any given moment the advantage can shift.

Second, even if one is using one of the commercial packages, and especially if someone programs their own bot, one would have to have the skills of both a programmer AND a decent-to-good poker player in order to come up with a winning strategery. The author of the article I linked to below estimates that it can take as many as 2500 hours of programming to come up with a set of rules that will win over time AND code that into a bot. And even then, one can only win, say, $5 per table per hour on average. Sure, if it runs 24/7 that’s $840 per week per table… but one of the ways to detect bots is to watch players who play 24/7, so the longer it goes on the more risk of having an account siezed and any winnings taken.

So, like most things, there’s actually a lot of effort that would potentially be required to cheat and win at online poker. And it would take a large outlay of time and equipment and personnel to make big money. And, the more people you have involved, the more chances of getting caught or getting turned in.

Bummer. For a moment there I thought I’d found The American Dream (make buckets of money for free).

Comparing Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux

…or, more accurately, Mac users vs. Windows and Linux users, as told in pictures.

From the intro to the site:

The Mac Demographic

“I never liked the Macs and their frilly user interface. Being a Unix geek, I just wanted a set of Unix-like (or better) tools.”

“Why is ‘Fairplay(TM)’ so superior, other then the fact that it lives within the safe confines of the Apple reality distortion field, guarded by a phalanx of Apple fanbois?”

“Perhaps if you weren’t a fag using a fag computer this wouldn’t be a problem. Studies show that Mac users are fcuking retards who should be beaten and laughed at, and sent to live in Mac ghettoes where they get to pound their nobby, worthless, Apple hands on a single button mouse.”

Well, here’s the problem. The Mac OS, and in fact the entire Apple experience, is intuitive for a certain kind of person. Artists, fashion mavens, leftists, and other creative personalities can sit down with a 12-inch PowerBook running Tiger and comprehend its sensitive, tasteful aesthetic. It’s a rare instinct, this appreciation for beauty and truth; accountants and other such pencil-pushers haven’t a prayer.

In summary, unattractive squares should stick to Linux and Windows. Macs are for different thinkers.

The pictures tell the story: Macs are for the people who get laid.

Late last night, after I got home, as I was plugging in my trusty 3+ year old G3 iBook, I noticed a strange thing. It wasn’t charging up. Normally, when it’s plugged in, there’s a light on the plug that lights up orange when it’s charging, and green when it’s fully charged. The light wasn’t coming on at all. I knew it had been working earlier that day, since I had left the house with a full charge. Sometime during the day, it had stopped working.

I wasn’t sure, however, if it was the adapter, or the iBook itself. The power plug was a little loose, and the thing was 3 years old, after all. It might have finally given up the ghost. Perhaps tearing it apart a couple of weeks ago had loosened something..? I didn’t know. I just put it to sleep and figured I’d worry about it in the morning.

In the morning, I verified that it still wasn’t charging (I had gone to bed still feeling the effects of two vodka martinis, after all) and that it wasn’t something silly like plugging it in to a dead power strip. It wasn’t. So, it was off to the Apple Store in Pioneer Place.

To the surprise of no one, I’m becoming a regular there, and the technician (oops, sorry, “Mac Genius”) who had helped me before, Brett, was there today, too. He plugged my iBook into the store’s charger, and the little orange light came on. He tried it on my charger, and, like before, nothin’. Reset the power manager after a reboot, same thing. All of this took less than 5 minutes, but covered the basics, and confirmed that it was, indeed, the power adapter, not the iBook.

“Is this still under warranty?” Brett asked.

“No.” I said.

Brett immediately replied with “I have no problem giving you a new power supply.”

I thought he meant that they had one in stock and that he could sell it to me. I was prepared to pay for a new adapter – after all, I had had to pay only $56 over the course of 3 years for repairs on the thing, and that (the keyboard) was damage I had done and out of warranty, too. I did have to send it back once for a video issue, but Apple covered the cost of that repair and had my iBook back in my hands within 3 days. So I was perfectly willing to buy the part to fix this problem, even though I suspected it was going to be around $100. Still worth it. “How much is that?” I asked.

Silly me. “Nothing,” Brett explained as if to a child. “It’s free.”

Oh! That’s so cool! “You guys rock!” I said.

“We do what we can,” he said, falsely modest.

Sadly, there went my excuse for replacing my ancient iBook with a new sexy PowerBook…

Dear iLounge:

I don’t care that you’ve taken the “iPod” out of the site’s name… well, technically just the “Pod”, but still…

It doesn’t matter.

You still need bandwidth. How am I supposed to get slightly-less RDF‘ed versions of Apple’s press releases if your site won’t load?

Respectfully,

A concerned surfer

I’m a text-aholic.

I kept spending a lot of money on T-Mobile because for the past year or so they didn’t offer unlimited text messaging, and there’s just no way I could hold myself to just 1000 texts per month. And, damn, they added up.

Just as I was thinking about switching to another carrier, T-Mobile finally offered unlimited. Yay!

Several of the folks I text with complain because I actually type out full words and sentences. For some reason, maybe I’m a traditionalist, but I just can’t bring myself to use text-speak, except for common phrases like “LOL” or “TTYL”. For the most part, I write as if I’m writing an email. I get charged (used to be charged) per message, not per character. And my thumbs are strong, strong like ox.

One of the things that allow me to type full words and sentences is T9 text input (I was surprised that they had a web-page, too). It’s a feature that predicts what you’re trying to spell, pulling from a stored dictionary and matching number input to letters and words. It’s kinda cool, actually.

But there are common words that would use the same number combinations; for instance, “if” and “he” both use 4-3. So the software, I believe, lets you choose from a list when it’s not sure which word you’re looking for. And the most frequently-used word is at the top of the list.

However, sometimes it’s just off. For the longest time, when I would try to enter the word “at” it would give me “bu” as the top choice. I would have to scroll down the list to choose “at”. What the…? “Bu” isn’t even a word! There were a couple of other instances like that, but the others used actual words, just not ones I normally use. It got frustrating, especially considering how much texting I do.

So, yesterday, I sat down with my phone to fix several of the more frustrating examples. I knew that if I consistently chose a word a number of times, the software would then move the word I want to the top of the list, making my life easier.

The really odd part is that different words took different numbers of times for entry before it consistently chose my intended word. But at least it’s done.

…is that weird? So be it.

It’s a simple change, and I should have made it days ago, when the page was first brought to my attention.

The change is simply an entry in the HOSTS file on a computer that can redirect a webpage (technically, a domain name) to another IP address.

I made this simple change on the four computers I use most, and, voila! that web page is now hidden from me. I no longer have to be reminded of its existence.

Now I just have to filter out email from certain specific addresses. Something my friends have been telling me to do for a much longer time.

I don’t exactly hate it when my friends are right, but I do tend to stubbornly cling to my old ideas sometimes way longer than I should.