Nicest of the Damned

MacBook Air=Portable Cube

MacBook Air @ Macworld,
originally uploaded by viejomoeb.

I was excited about the rumors of an Apple subnotebook being announced today. I've loved what Apple has done in this space before, and have been a regular user of all three generations of Mac subnotebooks — the PowerBook Duo (I had a 230c), the PowerBook 2400c, and the 12" PowerBook G4.

Having watched the keynote, and gone over the specs with a fine-toothed comb, I'm mostly disappointed. The MacBook Air is a very sexy form factor surrounding some very ordinary parts -- you've got an iPod hard drive, integrated video that burns 144 megs of system memory, and 2 gigs of RAM that it appears are permanently attached, and cannot be upgraded. Unlike every portable Apple has ever built, the battery isn't even user swappable.

I initially thought Apple might take this opportunity to introduce a new form factor in between the MacBook and MacBook Pro that would, in a year or 18 months, serve as the model for the next revision of the MacBook. Such a machine would skimp a little in comparison with the Pro, but likely offer a dedicated video card, standard laptop components cleverly packaged, and an LED-backlit widescreen display.

Instead, what we got strikes me as a “café computer,” one that will be fine for e-mail and weblogging, but that I don't see using for on-the-go video work (there's not even a FireWire port) and that won't even open Photoshop. To better manage heat and power consumption, Apple has designed in a 1.6-gigahertz processor, significantly slower than a standard MacBook (and at least nominally slower even than the processor in the Mac mini). Instead of the commodity hard drive, a 5400-rpm Serial ATA model, the Air gets a 4200-rpm Parallel ATA model in the iPod's 1.8-inch form factor.

Apple has provided one option that could mitigate the machine's performance handicap a bit: A solid-state hard drive, currently 64 gigabytes. Unfortunately, building that drive in is a $999 option!

It's beautiful, certainly. Apple's design aesthetic seems to be collapsing in on itself, leaving just a single word: Thin. Beveled corners, like those on the iPod touch, make the Air's edges visually sharp, while the drop-down ports, required by the crazy thin-ness of the case, are very cool.

But it's beautiful at a price. Here's a machine for travelers that won't be able to connect to the in-room ethernet. Here's a machine that can't simultaneously handle a keyboard and mouse unless the keyboard provides USB pass-through (lots don't). I find myself wondering if it's true: You can be too thin.

Sitting here 10 hours from the keynote, the Air doesn't remind me most of the late, beloved 12" PowerBook or the 2400c, still my favorite computer of all time. The Mac it reminds me of is the Cube. Like the Cube, it's beautiful, offers little expansion capability, and looks pricey when compared to its Apple stablemates.

Is there a miniBook in the pipeline?

Apple Recon | Mac Book Mini

Apple Recon is reporting on rumors that Apple has a subnotebook in process, with specs and pricing in between the MacBook and MacBook Pro. The rumors suggest a 3.5 pound package, with a 12" 1280 x 800 monitor, hard drive and optical drive (and possibly a new caching flash drive as well), and 6 hour battery life.

If this comes to pass, I will be sorely tempted. My two favorite laptops of all time are the PowerBook 2400c and the 12" PowerBook.

I know such a machine is possible -- I'm currently using one, even if it has a Dell logo. It's not 3.5 pounds, and I'm sure Apple will bring other innovations to theirs (Apple Recon speculates on an LED backlight and the flash drive), but my Dell XPS M1210 matches this rumor, to be announced in June, today.

The base system is 4.3 pounds, and about the same size as a PowerBook 12", but it's got a lot of features I would be surprised to see in the final Apple release, as well: S-Video out, 2 gigs of memory with support for 4 gigs, and an ExpressCard 54 slot. Mine's got an extended battery, and it's good for 4-5 hours of wireless use, enough that I haven't really noticed the battery life. The 256-meg nVidia 7400 video card drives my 20" widescreen display alongside the internal LCD, and nVidia supplies a software wizard to gracefully set up multiple displays. There's plenty I don't like, of course: Something about the keyboard feels like it's coming off on my fingers, and there are media keys along the front of the case that I keep bumping by mistake. The topcase is a black plastic that picks up oil from my hands every time I pick it up. It's got the glossy screen, which is very bright, but I've found myself in two situations where I had to move the laptop to eliminate glare. If I were using it in the field, that number would be higher.

I love the rumored specs for an Apple subnotebook, although I wish it could fit an ExpressCard, since its target market (knowledge workers and execs on the go) are likely to take advantage of high-speed cellular wireless connections. Also, I hope the rumor is wrong about a 2-gHz ceiling on clock speed. If Apple addresses this giant, yet tiny, hole in its portable line, the machine should have at least a nominal speed increase over the MacBook.

iPhone 4+ years in the making?

Nicest of the Damned | isync + ical + ichat + inkwell = iphone?

I'm not usually one to self-link, but I'm getting some Google hits on the short post linked above from August 2002. It references a John Markoff story, now lost to the New York Times TimesSelect product, but the abstract is pretty prescient.

Remember, this is from August 19, 2002:

Apple Computer reportedly weighs introduction of hand-held device that would combine elements of cellphone and Palm-like personal digital assistant; forthcoming Macintosh OS X, Version 10.2, is being marketed as improvement for desktop computer users, but it has features that make more sense in hand-held device than desktop; move would play into Apple's so-called digital hub strategy, in which Macintosh desktop computer is center of web of peripheral devices of Steven P Jobs, Apple chief executive...

By the way, my very next post, later that day, was on a cool new RSS aggregator, called NetNewsWire, then in version 1.0b13.

Now we know what all those patents were about

We've got 6 months to chew on Apple's new iPhone, and there's still quite a bit that's unknown: How Cingular will bill for data, the battery's standby life, and about 100 different things about the phone software. Here's a couple quick nuggets:

•I suspect the low contrast, no-container interface (look at the Safari screen shot image here for an example: The forward and back arrows sit directly in the navbar, without a containing rectangle, like Safari today) will appear on the Mac, maybe as soon as Leopard.

• Nobody seems to have any details about the phone running “OS X.” You can bet every Mac developer is working any available angle to find out more. I've seen one report that says it's a closed ecosystem and Apple's not even naming the processor (Update: make that two reports). Even if it is “OS X,” it's not OS X as we think of it -- you wouldn't be able to go buy FileMaker and run it on the phone. It's possible there's a super-secret version of Interface Builder and a compiler for the iPhone architecture running around in Cupertino, and Mac developers will have to redesign in the new IB and recompile for the new architecture. It will be really interesting to see how the “desktop class iPhoto, iTunes, and Safari” differ from the real thing. It may just be that, because Apple defines OS X, this phone runs OS X by definition, and the applications on the box are all it has or ever will have. If Microsoft can label every OS they sell as Windows, Apple can have three different OS X's (OS X, Server, and iPhone).

• When Jobs said the company was releasing 3 new devices, in one package, he really said a mouthful. The iPhone represents the most profitable, but by no means the only, combination of the widescreen, the touch pad, the phone, the iPod, and OS X Micro. Drop the phone, and you've got the widescreen video iPod most folks were expecting today. Drop the phone, add a keyboard, and you've got the Mac equivalent of a Pocket PC, only much cooler: it could include the multitouch interface and other touch screen goodness.

• I suspect the reason this was released as a single product, instead of a product line, is the continued success and profitability of the iPod. There are only two price points ($399, $449) between the current video iPod and the low-end iPhone, so to introduce an iPod Widescreen at $449, by dropping the radios from the iPhone, would cannibalize iPhone wireless revenue (and I'm sure Apple gets a taste of that), when Apple is confident they'll continue to sell as many video iPods and as many iPhones as they can turn out. If sales don't stack up, we'll see new combinations of the iPhone package sooner than otherwise.

Personally, I find the price high for a phone, and have never liked Cingular's data pricing. On the other hand, my previous phone lust object was the Nokia E61, which is available unlocked for between $375 and $450. Given the way the iPhone makes previous phones look like they have a crank, that may be a fair premium.

There are almost 2,000 (exactly 1984 at the moment, appropriately enough) photos tagged iPhone at Flickr tonight.

Biggest Macworld and switching to the PC

Hivelogic | Regarding Macworld 2007

O'Reilly MacDevCenter | Our Macworld Wishes

So the biggest Macworld in years starts tomorrow (Tuesday for Macworld Expo). Nobody seems to have a real handle on what Apple's going to do this year, so predictions are all over the place. Apple has pushed the hype by promising that “The first 30 years were just the beginning,” suggesting major things afoot.

Over at HiveLogic, Dan Benjamin offers a fairly safe list: Whatever Apple's iTV becomes, updates to the iMac, iPod, iLife and iWork, and a preview of Leopard, with Windows virtualization built in. All good stuff, with the virtualization probably the only controversial choice.

Benjamin doubts we'll see the iPhone/iPod phone, new iSights, or a Mac Pro update, widely expected because Intel will be announcing its new Kentsfield processors tomorrow. He rates as “possibilities” high-def iTunes (to support TV and movie content in HD), an update to the iPod Hifi, a MacBook Pro speedbump, and BlueRay support, and is holding his breath for a “true” video iPod, a nanoBook (an ultraportable laptop), and a Beatles iPod, heralding the arrival of the Beatles catalog on iTunes.

Over at O'Reilly's MacDevCenter, a survey of writers turns up a surprisingly common wish for a Core 2 Duo update of Apple's longstanding desktop form factor, last seen in, what, the 7600? For years, this was the most popular corporate Mac, in its IIcx/IIci/Quadra 650/Power Mac 7100/PowerMac 7500/7600 iteration, which usually shared a motherboard with Apple's top tower, albeit generally with a slower processor, and generally offered 3 slots. The iMac line is inherently wasteful in a corporate environment, because most companies are ready to upgrade the CPU long before the LCD has died, but the Mac mini is generally a little underpowered for corporate use. So I'll add this to my wish list (fat lot of good it will do).

Also looking back to the future are a couple of writers who want a replacement for the 12" PowerBook. That would be terrific. The Mac world significantly lags the PC world when it comes to sub-notebooks, and it seems like I'm seeing more and more of the smaller, lighter machines in airports. If you spend a lot of time on the road, and use your machine for office functions, a 12" (or smaller) machine you can hook to an external monitor in the office, with a decent keyboard and battery life, makes a lot of sense.

Also, three of their writers want changes to .Mac. One wants it eliminated (I don't see that happening), while another wants to see it significantly enhanced. I still would like to see .Mac become an extension of a home server product (like the HP MediaSmart server, but software or Mac mini-based and therefore cheaper), with two-way synchronization of selected files and folders between .Mac and the home server; automatic backup of purchased iTunes and other user content to the home server; domain, weblog, calendar and photo sharing support over the internet.

Meanwhile, I'm starting a new job tomorrow, and I hear they've got a sub-notebook Dell waiting for me. I'll be sure to let you know how that goes. It's been 5 years since I spent more than 30-45 minutes at a Windows desktop.

TiVo hasn't, so community builds TiVoToGo for Mac

Zatz Not Funny! TivoToGo On Your Mac

Every few weeks, I do a quick web-scan checking to see if TiVo has made any new announcements about a Mac client for TiVoToGo, the client software that lets you move TiVo'ed shows to your computer and then to iPods, PSPs, etc.

And every few weeks, I'm disappointed. Despite a Mac client that was demoed at CES in January and announced for “mid-2006,” then just 2006, there's been no more announced progress on this.

But earlier this week, I read that some wily hackers had figured out how to decrypt TiVo's files, which was really the only technical hurdle. Eventually, we'll get all-in-one tools with an actual user interface, but I've now used the command-line tool to grab three files off the house TiVos, converted one with iSquint, and viewed some of it with iTunes with no problems (the unencrypted files are MPEG2's that can be read by VLC).

Why no Mac viruses?

Daring Fireball: Jackass of the Week: Larry Seltzer

John Gruber goes off on the latest Windows-centric pundit to declare that the only reason Macs are essentially virus-free is that nobody's interested in them.

Seltzer's summary graph:

Opinion: The verdict is in: OS X is as insecure as anything out there, but somehow nobody—including attackers—cares.

Gruber focuses on the inconsistency that the Mac supports a healthy software market, likely one proportionate in size to the Mac market compared to the Windows market, but the Mac malware market is “nearly zero.”

Gruber misplays his case, however, when he says “Mac OS X’s malware market share hovers near zero (as did the classic Mac OS’s a decade ago).” Both Gruber and Seltzer seem to believe that the Mac has just never supported a virus-producing community. This is dead wrong.

The Mac environment wasn't always virus-free.

Once upon a time, I ran a few public-access labs at my university. These labs suffered several virus outbreaks, most notably catching WDEF before it was discovered in 1989. We also would occasionally see MDEF, nVIR, and Scores. The Mac's market share then was a little higher -- a little under 10 percent, versus 5 or 6 percent today -- but it was still a minority platform, with the great majority of computers running DOS or Windows.

And yet, there were 10 or 20 viruses running loose in the classic Mac OS ecosystem (compared to hundreds for DOS/Windows), and there are none running loose in the OS X ecosystem (compared to hundreds for Windows). Since the hardware was at one point exactly the same for either ecosystem, the difference must be in either the software or the user base.

But the OS X user base is decidedly more capable of creating a virus than the classic Mac OS ecosystem. Plenty of “alphageek” nerd users have made the switch, attracted by Apple's elegant hardware, (figuratively and occasionally literally) transparent interface, and Unix-y base. The only thing about the user base that discourages malware production is that most people who know enough to build a Mac virus can make a nice living as a programmer or administrator, so why foul the nest? Still, the number of users capable of generating theoretical Mac malware must be at least 5 times as large as it was before the release of OS X.

So if it's not the user base, it must be the software. The Unix security model is more secure than the pre-Vista Windows model, and must take the lion's share of the credit for the lack of OS X viruses. There may eventually be Mac OS X viruses, but to claim the reason there are none is that the platform is irrelevant is more than a little bizarre.

iTunes as video jukebox

Using iTunes to catalog video is working out pretty well; I'm beginning to build a video jukebox to go with the thousands of songs in the musical jukebox accessible through iTunes.

Network streaming is very good across a wired 100-megabit network, acceptable over 802.11g, and pretty pathetic over 802.11b. I've imported a bunch of old Apple commercials, various movie videos, and have started importing shows somebody in the family wants to keep after watching the EyeTV capture files. The iTunes interface is pretty good at navigating a lot of content quickly, and provides preview frames for videos to help distinguish similar movies.

There are a few rough edges, however, and I wonder if the day isn't coming when there are two paths into the iTunes Music Store, iTunes and “iVideo.”

Why? Inclusion of both video and audio content is feeling forced. I went to listen to my “recent additions” playlist off the G5, and iTunes keeps showing me (recently added) videos. I could rewrite my smart playlist to not include videos (and probably will), but there should be a simple way to choose one kind of content or the other, even (nay, especially) over the network. Right now I just want to listen to new songs, but to do that, I have to uncheck literally five-sixths of my “recent additions” playlist.

Playing videos back in iTunes is a decidedly inferior experience to, say, DVD Player. Besides the jumpy playback, there's also no clear way to fast forward or rewind. There is a hidden feature -- if you click on the tiny preview panel in iTunes, a full resizable window opens. That's an improvement.

Still better, Improved Movie Viewing in iTunes gives an AppleScript that will fire up local movies in QuickTime, giving a smoother full-screen experience with QuickTime Player's on-screen controls. Still, it's easy to imagine a better experience with a purpose-built video management and player program.

Apple ballyhooed the addition of parental controls for a variety of applications in Tiger and in iTunes starting with version 5, but it's really a pretty weak setup, with many of the weaknesses made clearer with the addition of TV shows to the content stream.

Problem 1: Only iTunes-purchased songs can be marked as “Explicit.” Believe it or not, I have some songs I would just as soon not share with my children, but I can't find a way to set the “Explicit” tag so they'll be locked out. Apple documents the “Explicit” tag for podcasters, but I don't see any way to set it on content that isn't coming from the Music Store.

Problem 2: Video content appears to be completely unrated. Leafing through the selection of TV shows available, there's not a single episode of “Desperate Housewives” that rates a parental advisory label, even though tonight's episode is rated TV-PG.

Once again, I have no way of setting local content so that my children can't see it. I created a streamable copy of “Office Space” on my G5 as an experiment; now it's visible on the network.

What I hope Apple will do: Update from the binary “explicit/okay” system to one that reflects the V-chip ratings or the MPAA ratings, on songs and videos. There are tracks and movies that I think are okay for my 10-year-old that aren't okay for my 4-year-old. Give users access to the rating system, so that users who have parental controls can't access content at MY option, not just Apple's.

iTunes 6.02: Now with video sharing

With all the attention on the new ministore presentation, no one seems to have noticed that iTunes 6.02 enables video-sharing to your local network. Whether it's intended for an upcoming home media appliance or not I don't know, but it brings videos up to par with music.

Neither Apple's main iTunes page nor its “Share & Stream” page mention this, and the Share & Stream page refers multiple times to “music sharing,” but it's definitely enabled, as the screenshot below demonstrates.

Once you've installed iTunes 6.02, that machine will publish a “Videos” playlist, visible to but not accessible by iTunes 6.01.

There's still some weirdness going on. I've upgraded to 6.02 on my wife's iMac, and I can't see two videos she bought with an earlier version of iTunes. From my daughter's partition on my G5, I can stream a music video she bought Thursday (probably with 6.02), but can't see two movies I converted to .m4v format after capturing them on my EyeTV, even though they show up as Videos in iTunes.

I'm experimenting now to see if I can figure out a way to make the older videos show up for sharing, and how to export EyeTV movies that can be shared. If you have any insight, please e-mail me.

Update: Blue Coconut, the application for downloading music from a networked playlist, works exactly the same with video files.

Update 1/19: Welcome Digg.com readers. I'm still looking for info on how iTunes decides which videos to display (I encoded a TV episode the other night, and get full audio, but only a still frame when I try to stream it). If you have any insights, please comment.

Bye, bye, PowerBook; hello, (gulp) MacBook Pro

Apple | MacBook Pro

So Apple managed to completely shroud much of what would be introduced today, and delivered higher-performance versions of the incredible iMac (formerly “iMac G5”) and PowerBook.

For some reason, Apple has chosen to set aside the “PowerBook”label, certainly one of the great brand names of all time, and has rechristened the Intel-driven portable line “MacBook Pro.” Steve Jobs said something about wanting the Mac name in their computer products, so it seems likely the consumer-level laptops, when introduced, will just be the “MacBook.” Somebody is bound to be manufacturing “PowerBook” stickers to cover the horrible name.

The MacBook Pro is an interesting hybrid. The sheet metal is very similar to the previous 15" PowerBook, but with a few notable changes. Most obviously, Apple has added a built-in iSight camera atop the display. The PC Card slot has been abandoned, replaced by the newer, smaller ExpressCard slot, for which I have seen exactly zero products. (Actually, there are 10.)

I'm also a little concerned that there was NO mention whatsoever of battery life. Intel's Centrinos have a good reputation on that, but this is a new processor. Presumably, if it was significantly better than the PowerBook, Steve would have mentioned it.

Strangest to me is the inclusion of a single FireWire port, limited to FireWire 400. One thing I was looking forward to in my next PowerBook was faster backups thanks to FireWire 800, but it's not to be, at least on the 15" model.

And why only a single form factor? If the existing 15" case could be re-engineered to take the new motherboard, and the iMac case could be re-engineered to take the new motherboard, why couldn't the 17" PowerBook case, or the 12" PowerBook, or the iBook? It looks like they're dipping a toe, to gauge how quickly people are going to migrate.

The iMac and the 15" PowerBook have been the meat-and-taters of Apple sales for years. The existing G4 and G5 models of each continue to be available -- no sudden influx of thousands of “refurbished” machines, no banishment from the Apple Store's front page. It looks to be, as with the first Power Macs and with OS X, another example of Apple soft-pedaling a transition, and taking it easy on its users.

Some Tiger notes

Photo by Frank Steele.

This is not a no-brainer, “everybody upgrade” release like Panther. With Panther, I upgraded Christy within a few days; Tiger will probably take a couple of months, despite some great new functionality.

I got a Micro Center flyer today, reiterating a good deal they have going through June 5: Get a $50 rebate on Tiger or a Tiger family pack, which reduces your overall price to $79.99, the lowest I've seen.

I did a ground-up install on the PowerBook, since it didn't like my volume bitmap, and I had to erase the drive.

On the G5, I did an upgrade in place, but came up with no printers installed. Samsung doesn't write Mac drivers anymore, and the SPL 2.5 driver I found on their website didn't work. Eventually, I tried an older driver (I think 2.0), and my printer magically reappeared. The HP inkjet (available across the network) added without a problem.

The iMac G4 at work installed while I was at lunch with, so far as I can tell, zero issues of any sort.

Some sticky bits:

If you're running Tiger, get the new Quicksilver, which features a new plug-in mechanism, and will be the basis of QS development going forward.

TiVo Desktop is not compatible with Tiger, adding insult to the injury that Macs aren't supported for TiVoToGo.

Imagine my shock when the Accuweather widget (one of the Tiger defaults) reported that it was 35 degrees in Atlanta. Mark at work noticed that a fix for this is to add "GA" to the search field on the back of the widget. Since I can't make it recur, it's possible this was fixed at the server.

Spotlight is awesome. If you don't keep everything neatly organized, Spotlight is for you. That's me to a 'T'. One small disappointment: It doesn't index your content on .Mac. That may be different if you keep a local copy of your .Mac contents.

Some of the propellerheads have been ragging on people who compare it to Quicksilver or Launchbar, but 80 percent of people could use Spotlight as an application launcher.

I do find it a little odd that you can't open the enclosing folder from Spotlight's menu (can you?); often I want to find a file (maybe a photo I've scanned) so I can see related materials. For that, you can use Spotlight's panel view, which is activated by option-command-space instead of command-space.

Spotlight will lead me to tag my iPhoto pictures.

Pivoting works, sort of. I think it's maybe just enabled for ATI video cards, since my G5 (with an ATI 9600 card) works, but my PowerBook (with an nVidia GeForce 420 Go) doesn't. I haven't tried the the Mac mini, but I hear it also works (with an ATI 9200).

I'm less impressed with Dashboard. The strangest thing to me is that it doesn't seem to update in the background, explaining the long delay when the dashboard is activated for the first time. I have a “This Day in History” widget loaded, but generally it's showing yesterday's events, since it doesn't flip over on its own. Merlin has asked the LazyWeb for a NextBus widget for San Francisco's MUNI, which I can't help with, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a MARTA widget in the next couple of months.

The new iSync included a piece of code (about 450k worth) that installs on my phone (a Nokia 3650). More applications can be sync'ed, including the controversial new version of Mail and your Keychains. Note that syncing Mail accounts may not be a good idea; in my case, which server I use for outbound mail changes on my PowerBook, but not on my home or work machine, so I don't want to propagate my PowerBook settings to the desktops.

Haven't tried Automator yet, despite having used AppleScript extensively.

Hello, iServe?

Apple to rule family room with entertainment server? | MacMinute News

The market for a small appliance server that could handle multimedia feels a lot like the MP3 player market pre-iPod these days.

Merrill Lynch analysts have finally caught on to what some of us have been saying for literally years: "A 200GB Apple server at a reasonable price and possibly with PVR technology could be Apple's next category killer," the firm said.

There are more and more other players getting into the space: the latest is Axentra, who offer a HomeSeries NetBox starting at exactly the $499 price point I've suggested.

Their server is clean and white, gleaming like an iBook, although the back is still PC-ugly. Reviews have been mixed, noting especially a quite noisy fan: one reviewer notes "This is not a trivial problem. You likely would not want to place the Net-Box in a room where you were going to work all the time, and certainly not near sleeping areas."

As in 2001, there are enough competitors out there (Windows Media Center PCs, Axentra, the Linksys NSLU2), at all different price points, to validate the market. If somebody just combined an elegant, near-silent piece of hardware with an optimized server OS and streaming software, they would be poised for an iPod-like market dominator.

One of the reviewers quoted above says "there's probably not a lot of home and SOHO users, the target market, buying into Axentra's idea of server-based computing, even though there is something to be said for it. The concept is just a little too sophisticated." Talk about not getting it.

These computer things are supposed to do sophisticated things. How many people do you know that own domains? How many with family or small business e-mail addresses? How many with hobby, charity, or business-card web pages? How 'bout digital cameras, or DV camcorders? How many people own Tivos? How many have home networks and broadband? All these people are doing the sort of "sophisticated" things the Axentra, or an iServe, should make simple.

On the other hand, the Windows Media Center PCs are still, first and foremost, PCs. They don't make much of an effort to become an appliance, or to integrate with all the other PCs or Macs you probably have in your house already. Being PCs, they have to provide all the features people expect in PCs: floppy drives, optical drives, card slots and hard drive bays. All of these drive up prices and complexity.

The Linksys has the advantage of being pretty inexpensive, but it seems a little underpowered for media streaming, and all of the interesting stuff is being done outside of Linksys.

The Axentra is very much what I have in mind. If Apple doesn't launch a similar product by the time my clunky old K6-450 Linux box gives up the ghost, this looks like a great alternative.

Nothing left to take away: the iMac G5

Almost everybody reading this already knows, but Apple introduced the new G5 iMac today (actually yesterday, as I check the clock). Single processor, 1.6 or 1.8 gigahertz, hooked to Apple's great 17" or 20" LCD display. A little skimpy on memory with 256 megabytes stock on each model.

The big news is the minimalist design. It's a 2-inch deep rectangle, with an aluminum stand keeping the whole thing from floating off your desk.

Many of the stories talk about the debt the new design owes the iPod. I wonder if they considered putting a clickwheel under the display, to be used as a hardware equivalent of Synergy, and to allow scrubbing in other media apps.

If the monitor-spanning hack works with it, you could build an amazing system by hooking a new 20" display into a 20" iMac, all for around the price of a 17" G4 PowerBook.
Update: The monitor spanning hack works; here are pictures to prove it.

Speaking of, when will we see a G5 PowerBook? Checking out the innards, it looks like Apple could build a 17" G5 PowerBook right now, if people would buy a 3-inch-thick PowerBook. In other words, if they could design it like a Dell.

Taking the shorter list first, here's what I don't like about the new iMac:

The monitor is still locked into the CPU, so you're forced to upgrade them together.

No FireWire 800?

Things I love:

The pricing: the systems are $400-$500 less than the G4 systems they replace.

They're VESA-compliant, so you can hang the whole thing from a desk or wall mount.

Punditry:

Find myself agreeing with Chuck Toporek that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth should be standard to further cement Apple's place as the PC maker who includes what costs extra with the leading brand. I wonder if they're doing it to push build-to-order sales, since the integrated wireless options are only available through the online Apple Store.

Find myself disagreeing with Paul Jackson of Forrester Research that this machine should have been a media center PC competitor. Jackson obviously likes his, but I don't know a single Media Center PC owner, and I haven't seen any evidence from ads and store displays that they're setting the world on fire.

I continue to hold out hope that Apple will legitimize this space, as they did with MP3 players when they introduced the iPod, by introducing an iServe that, among other things, can interface with your cable or satellite provider and stream video to any computer in the house (and the TV, naturally). There have been a couple of rumors about iPod-related products in 2005, and if the iPod eventually supports video, the iServe is right there.

Side note: Jackson says, "Better still would have been a software option to turn this machine into a full Wi-Fi access point: Intel's Grantsdale chipset already promises this functionality for PC owners." It does this, Paul. So will any Mac with an ethernet port and an AirPort card since 1999. Simple matter of checking "Share my Internet connection through...."

Like Adam Engst's suggestion that a new iMac plus Open Door's Envision would be a dandy living room installation, that would double as a digital picture frame.

Adam repeats the conventional wisdom that Apple has to disable monitor spanning to differentiate Pro and Consumer machines, and Glenn Fleishman suggests monitor spanning would add $75 to $100 to retail price. I doubt it. The monitor-spanning hack above proves the hardware support has been included on almost every recent consumer Mac. It's entirely a marketing decision, and I think it's one that doesn't make much sense in 2004.

Now that the G5 Pro line is all dual, it's differentiated by 1) having twice the CPUs, 2) faster frontside bus, 3) more maximum memory, 4) PCI-X expansion, 5) FireWire 800, 6) digital audio both in and out, 7) gigabit ethernet, and 8) much beefier video cards. Letting the iMac span monitors would be a very powerful argument for why the Mac is worth the premium over a Wintel box. It would also probably sell a lot of Apple displays.

On the PowerBook side, most of the same differences persist, although my 12" model shares some of the limitations of the iBook. Once again, only the Pro models (the "PowerBooks") are allowed to span monitors, even though the iBook features a 32 megabyte ATI Mobility Radeon 9200. Again, Apple would be better served by shipping a software upgrade that enabled spanning across the product line and really playing up what a difference the extra real estate makes.

Update and some detail on “Running a Business...”

I'm overwhelmed by the response to my posting on how we're running my new company. It's been linked on a lot of sites that I read all the time, and a few that I'm just discovering, and I appreciate those links.

First, a few clarifications: Nobody would consider us an ‘enterprise’ — we've got seven employees or in-house contractors at the moment. On the other hand, that means we work with a lot more outside partners, on construction, manufacturing, and transit operations, so we rely on the Mac’s ability to read documents from the Windows world and work on them.

Second, some more specifics on what we‘re using:

Hardware:
• My PowerBook 12", an awesome road-warrior notebook
• The 17" iMac flat-panel
• PowerBook 15", a good desktop in a laptop case
• A couple of left-over G3 iMac DVs
• Compaq/HP Proliant servers running RedHat Linux
• A couple of white-box PCs, one running Windows XP
• We’ll occasionally use my Nikon Coolpix 880 or Sony TRV-33 camcorder for site surveys, quality assurance or demonstration purposes

Software:
• AEC's FastTrack Schedule. Early in MTNI's life cycle, I bought MS Project for the Mac, then (and still) frozen in Version 4.0, which shipped on (8?) floppy disks. It stopped working with OS 9, if I remember correctly, but by then, I had discovered FastTrack, which handles resource management, dependencies, and a whole lot of project management stuff I don't begin to understand.
• OmniGraffle is a terrific diagramming tool we’ve used for network diagrams, station sketches, and other drawing tasks.
• As I mentioned previously, we still use Office for the Mac for office apps.
• I use Entourage X for e-mail, mostly so I can use Softhing's Entourage E-mail Archive X, which I use to archive my e-mail out to FileMaker Pro. Everyone else is using Apple’s Mail.
• Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection, to (rarely) drive the single XP box from one of our Macs

I’m not going to go into much depth on our server software, but we use Python, PostGreSQL, and Apache, and build from there.

We’ve experimented with MovableType for a group weblog, but it hasn't taken off yet. I’m also intrigued by the capabilities of VoodooPad, and am considering building one or more project wikis with it.

iServe pieces continue to fall into place

Between Macworld, CES, and the efforts of the open-source community, we continue to move closer to the day when we'll all have an iServe in every pot.

New or recent releases that help:
• Ovolab's Phlink is an answering machine for your Mac with full programmability -- you can get an e-mail with the message anytime someone leaves you a message, or give everyone in your house their own PIN code, with calls being routed by PIN code.
• Perceptive Automation's Indigo interfaces with X10 home automation equipment.
• There's a detailed writeup on using a Linux box as an iTunes server, complete with Rendezvous support.
• There's also TunesAtWork, a Java streaming server you can run on a machine at home that provides a web interface to your iTunes library.
• Finally, on the client side, ElGato has introduced their new EyeHome, which brings your computer's music, photos, movies, and internet bookmarks into the living room, showing them on your TV, and playing them through your stereo.

I notice that this week, I can walk into CompUSA and plop down $99.99 and walk out with a 200-gigabyte drive (after a $70 mail-in rebate). Imagine the price a big manufacturer like Apple would get.

Everything iPod

iPod Battery FAQ

There's a new Frequently Asked Questions page about iPod battery issues. It includes (down toward the end) a very handy resource guide with links to almost anything you would want to know about the iPod.

By the way, my first-generation 5-gigabyte iPod is now 2 years old, and the other day, I did some battery testing. After 5 hours, it was still showing half-charge. That suggests that the battery lifespan issues are not universal. since my iPod has seen pretty heavy use.

Nearest thing to an iServe reviewed

nwfusion.com | Toshiba tops the all-in-one heap

The Magnia from Toshiba is the nearest thing to an iServe I've seen on the market today. It serves as the guts for New Millennium's FileMaker Server System.

Also, Mirra is shipping their PC-only personal server priced at $399 and $499.

12" PB meets 2400c

New 12" Powerbook compared to 2400

Here's a photo gallery from a lucky guy with a 12" PowerBook and a 2400. Helps reinforce my notion that the new miniBook is a spiritual successor to the Comet. For its time, the 2400c was the perfect laptop for me.

Spotted at O'Grady's PowerPage.

Yes, you will be mine

So I made it so today. I ordered a 12" PowerBook, fully kitted out with SuperDrive, 640 megs of RAM, AirPort Extreme, and 60-gig hard drive. I could have taken one home with a SuperDrive and 40-gig hard drive, but decided the hassle of upgrading the hard drive sooner, and the relatively good deal of 50 percent more space for $50, made it worth waiting for the build-to-order.

My sales experience was good. The Apple Store is extremely low-pressure. I've been there 3 times to look at the miniBooks, and I don't think I've ever been sold to. You just about have to rope somebody in to make a purchase. One of the current promotions nets you 10-percent off anything in the store on a single day, but requires you to buy your machine through the web at one of the retail stores.

The only negative of the whole process came after I had finished ordering the machine. I went to log out of the Apple Store page displayed on the iMac, and couldn't. I wasn't wild about leaving my session and personal identifiers up on a public machine, but neither of the store employees could figure out how to wipe the session. I messed around with it long enough to convince myself that no one could order additional hardware without my password, but still would have liked to remove my information.

More on miniBook

It's pretty much all over but the shouting; I'm pretty sure I'm going with the miniBook. I've seen some reports of the build-to-order SuperDrive systems shipping, but there appear to be a couple of shortages still constraining delivery: the Airport Extreme cards aren't ready, and the DDR266 memory isn't yet available through Apple.

Here are a couple more pictures I got the other day (click on either picture for a larger view):

This one gives you an idea of the changes to the keyboard.

Here's a user's-eye view.

miniBook face-to-face

So I've seen the new miniBook, and it's good.

Circumstances have conspired to give me an especially good feel for the right way to go on the upcoming PowerBook purchase. I'm spending the weekend (at least) in the company of a 500-mhz TiBook, so I can get a feel for how I like its form factor, which I've always felt is a little too big. I'm posting this through it.

The TiBook is still running OS 9, so it seems lightyears faster than the OS X Lombard PowerBook G3 I use most frequently. The extra screen real estate is nice, sure, but it doesn't seem to buy me anything I would really use all the time.

Here's a picture comparing the 12-inch miniBook and the 15.2-inch TiBook on display at the Apple Store. The new keyboard on the miniBook is a noticeable improvement on the mushy keyboards Apple has used on laptops since the Lombard, at least. I sympathize with the people saying the silver coloring of the new keyboards isn't as attractive as the translucent keys of the older keyboards.

The Atlanta Apple Store sold out its first shipment of 12 miniBooks in less than a day, but they're still quoting 2-4 weeks for build-to-order models.

More 12-inch news: Here's a link to miniBook hard drive upgrade pictures. A report this morning on Macintouch says the miniBook gets extremely hot on the left palmrest (the miniBook at the Apple Store didn't seem unusually warm anywhere).

By the way, Howard joined us, and wrote up his thoughts on the littlest PowerBook.

Meeting the miniBook

There have been a number of reports that the 12" PowerBook is now available at the Apple Store. I meant to call today to confirm that the Lenox Square store has them, but at midafternoon, my cell phone rang. It was a friend standing in front of the miniBook display at Lenox.

The friend has gone through 2 TiBooks, a 500-mhz and a 1-Ghz, and was pretty impressed by the mini. My understanding is that the Build-to-Order models (with the SuperDrive, extra memory, and/or the larger hard drive) will take a while to filter into the pipeline.

When I was checking out prices at the Apple Store onlince, I spec'ed a SuperDrive model with base RAM and hard drive, since I remembered that Apple has traditionally made the upgrades a pricey option. At some point, they've changed that. The upgrade from a 40-gig to a 60-gig hard drive is a $50 option, for instance. Switching a 128-meg DIMM for a 512-meg, bringing the miniBook to 640 megs, is a $150 option, while Crucial wants $203 for the 512 DIMM.

So, tomorrow, I'm headed off to the Apple Store to get my claws on the new keyboard, see how hot the little sucker runs, and see when I could get a build-to-order model through the Apple Store. I'll be taking along my digicam, so I'll post some pictures tomorrow night.

On a related note, I found a miniBook photo gallery linked from MacSurfer.

Apple Thanksgiving+1 deals

Apple Store - Thanksgiving

Apple's running a special promotion tomorrow evening (6 p.m. to midnight) at retail locations, with "free stocking-stuffers, special values and a chance to win a new 15-inch iMac." The last time they did a special values promotion, it was 10 percent off any computer or display, so if you're in the market, this might be the perfect time....

'Book accessory

Griffin Technology

Griffin has released its entry in the laptop-stand category. Theirs is clear plastic, elevates the top of the portable's screen to about 16", and costs $39.99.

Seen at Gizmodo.

Chimera tricks and tips

eFritz | Tricks/FAQ for Chimera

A brief primer on ways to hack Chimera for things like auto-search of Google, viewing inline PDF files, mouse gestures, cleaning up after a corrupted Chimera, and more.
Seen at Forwarding Address: OS X.

One-stop Switch site

Other World Computing- Product Reviews

Mac retailer Other World Computing has collected up the "Switch" parodies, including the Will Ferrell ad shown only at Macworld, both the Anakin Skywalker parodies, a Lego parody, and more...

Seen at MacMinute.

Patches, I'm depending on you son....

OS X 10.2.2 released

Looks like a whole bunch of incremental improvements, including Apache 1.3.27.

Xserve minus = iServe

Update: Since Apple still hasn't introduced an iServe, I expanded on the idea in September 2003. Click here to see that post.

The Xserve has been available for almost a year now, and it's gotten good reviews as a workgroup server, with simple administration, good price-performance ratio, and terrific performance on AltiVec-friendly processes like Genentech's BLAST. They're likely due for a freshening, now that the top-of-the-line Power Macs have faster processors and the early adopters have all bought theirs.

The lowest-cost Xserves go for $2,999, and they're the first Apple machine to adhere to data-center standards for rackmounting, like all the competitive servers.

Apple has built an interesting product line, where you can (or have to) choose between the consumer models -- the iMacs and iBooks -- and the pro lines -- PowerMacs and PowerBooks. Why not extend that model to the Xserve, introducing a consumer-oriented iServe?

More and more homes have multiple machines and a home network. Just about all of those have issues sharing resources, whether that's just a printer, an MP3 library, digital photos saved on multiple machines, or a family web server that gets content from multiple machines. Why not introduce a product, the iServe, that could bring all those resources together?

Such a product would bring the server to the consumer market, and could naturally be the mail server, backup server, firewall, file and print server, and web and domain server for a household. Throw in an easy-to-use web filtering package to do net nanny duties, and parents would line up.

Depending on the price target, this could take the form of anything from a network-attached-storage (NAS) box, with very little processing power (with a 100 Gb drive for $499), to a fast G3 in a small form factor case (Cube, anyone?) with a minimal video card for $999. These are products that would appeal to the Apple faithful, but also to switchers, who presumably still have the PC around somewhere, and could use a server to facilitate data and resource sharing.

Of course, you can run most of the software that would make the iServe special on a PowerMac, but I think a lot of people would rather centralize shared information, and the iServe would also attract education and small business customers who might be put off by the Xserve's price and who don't have 19-inch racks in which to mount one. In my house, I use a Linux box in a similar role (it's serving you this page), partly because the nicest Mac in the house is a PowerBook, so it isn't always available.

To make this a total home run, include TiVo-like functionality, allowing the server to capture TV and stream it on demand to clients anywhere on the network.

New Apple portables arrive

They're headlining at Apple's web site this morning. Looks like Apple is delivering on the high end of what the rumors sites were expecting:

iBook

• iBooks drop $200, gain 100 mhz; low end is 700 mhz, CD-ROM, $999


• All iBooks have the Radeon 7500 graphics card


• All 800 MHz iBooks ($1299 and up) get 32 megs of video memory


• Press Release

PowerBook

• 867 MHz and 1 Ghz processors


• 3 prices: $2299 for 867, $2799 or $2999 for Ghz, depending on optical drive


• SuperDrive on $2999 model, otherwise combo drive


• Mobility Radeon 9000 across the board


• 32 megs of video RAM on 867s, 64 megs on gigahertzen


• Press Release

I don't see Apple selling a lot of gigahertz PowerBooks without the SuperDrive for only a $200 premium.

Chimera .6

Chimera Release Notes

Looks like the release of Chimera .6 is imminent. I've found it dependable enough to run using the nightly builds, though it does occasionally quit with lots of windows open on my 192-megabyte G3 PowerBook.

I like it enough that I'm running the Chimera wannabe browser, Phoenix, on the Dark Side -- both my Windows boxes.

The download should be available here, but as of now (8:30 EST), it looks like there's a placeholder file in place of the .gz file.

Spotted at MacSlash.

Switch2Mac must have been taken

Detto Technologies | Move2Mac

Detto, which sells IntelliMover to simplify moving from one PC to another, is shipping Move2Mac, which purports to move files, folders and some settings automagically from a PC to a Mac via USB.

Seen at MacMinute.

Those crazy Mac modders

Wired News: 'Modders' Can't Leave Macs Alone

and

Japan's Growing Mac 'Mod' Squad

Wired takes a look at Mac modders, in the US and Japan.

Speaking of tablets...

eBay item 2064507418 (Ends Nov-03-02 14:52:42 PST ) - Very RARE Vintage Apple Newton WALT Tablet

Someone's selling a prototype of a Newton tablet, which he claims was called a "WALT": the Wizzy Active Lifestyle Tablet. The one for sale is number 61 from 1993. It was developed in conjunction with BellSouth, which was also working on the Simon with IBM at the time.

Spotted at O'Grady's PowerPage.

iTinkering

confusticate.com | Figuring out how iSync interacts with .Mac

Some preliminary research towards figuring out what exactly goes on between your Mac running iSync and Apple's .Mac service. Eventually, this could lead to a .Mac clone that you could run locally, or that third-party providers could support.

Seen at inessential.com.

Election day = Apple announcements?

Mac Rumors: 19inch LCD's and PowerBooks November 5, 2002

Well, the PowerBooks that I thought would ship by the end of September probably won't even be announced in October, but rumors are that they're still on the way.

Also, Apple is expected to improve their range of LCDs by adding a mid-range 19" model with 1600 x 1024 resolution, which would make it a wide-screen model.

Hosanna! Monitor spanning on (most) iBooks!

Extended Desktop

Leave it to the Germans to fix the biggest annoyance with Apple's otherwise-sweet iBook. The page above details dual-head monitor support for the Radeon-based iBooks.

Seen at MacOS X Hints.

NetNewsWire gets more bandwidth-friendly

Ranchero Software: NetNewsWire Beta

Brent has a NetNewsWire Lite beta with support for both conditional "GET" and Etags. In non-technical language, this means the application won't download RSS feeds that haven't changed, so it will use less of my bandwidth and yours.

Cocoa Pie

bbum's rants, code & references : October 17, 2002

One of the very best things that's happened in the last couple of weeks is the emergence of PyObjC (I'm not linking here for reasons described below).

When AppleScript Studio debuted, allowing folks to couple Cocoa's Interface Builder and Project Builder with program logic in AppleScript, I started looking around for a similar tool for Python. I discovered that there was a longstanding project at SourceForge called PyObjC (don't bother going there -- the last release archived there is from January), which started as a project to bridge Python and Objective C in NextStep. I joined the mailing list, and followed the incremental progress toward making it a workable solution for OS X. Last week, there was finally a release that mostly works.

The link above points to a couple of different locations for downloads. There's a version .7.0 packaged up here, but it probably makes more sense to get it through CVS as described on Bill Bumgarner's page above -- a lot of changes are being made as people start using it (changelog here).

(Unregenerate Perl users can find a similar tool here, and Ruby fans can find the equivalent here.)

Propellerhead looks at new IBM chip

Ars Technica: A Brief Look at the PowerPC 970 (10/2002)

Here's the Ars Technica report on the IBM PPC 970, which is expected to appear in Apple CPUs (maybe servers, maybe desktops) sometime in late 2003 or early 2004. The reviewer's takeaway: As is, it's an incredible chip, clearly ahead of the competition, but by the time it's released, it will likely be about even with the AMD Hammer and Intel's x86-64 systems likely to be available in that time frame.

Why do people find Microsoft soulless?

Microsoft Insider - Mac to PC: Mission Accomplished, Convert Thrilled

Update: The above link is to a mirror of a page Microsoft took down earlier today.

So Microsoft took my advice and launched a "switch on a switch" web page. Go there (mirror again), then come back. I'll wait.

(FYI, the original page was at http://www.microsoft.com/insider/opsystems/windowsxp_setup.asp)

What's wrong with that page? Here's my quick list:

• It presents a face, but no name, so I don't believe this is a real person, but a composite.


• It's way too technical: " Now that I've given you the reasons why I converted, here's the skinny on the how" and she launches into a Mormon sex-manual of every single detail of what she had to do!


• Ten paragraphs later, we get "A Final Note about Hardware", where Microsoft claims some wiggle room by noting that Windows XP will install 'most' drivers for you, but that you can get other ones from manufacturers' web sites. What is this even doing in a document that's supposed to tell us why XP beats the Mac?

Comparing this page to the Apple Switch campaign is revealing. Microsoft's page is about the technology -- click this, update that. Apple's campaign is about the people. You get close-ups of every face, and every face has a name and a quote. The ads play up each switcher's personality, where the Microsoft page sucks it out.

If ever a page needed The Cluetrain Manifesto, this is it. "Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice."

Whether they're a windbreaker-wearing IT director for the mob, a possibly stoned high school girl, or a potbellied, bearded, eyeglass-wearing programmer, they're real people, and that authenticity lends credibility.

Update: Someone over at Slashdot posted a link (scroll down) to the stock photography Microsoft used for their model. I guess there was a good reason she goes nameless and borrows a face.

Bluetooth in Jaguar

Ken Bereskin's R