It’s been a long time since I took a hard look at my backup situation, but a series of blog posts in my reader has caused some naval gazing. A long time ago in a computer far far away My backup plan was once dead simple. I used CCC or Super Duper to create a clone of my boot drive whenever I thought of it. Sometimes I was good and did it weekly, sometimes I went months without. ...
Something has been building steadily for a couple weeks now and I just can’t contain it anymore. After countless hours of reading though, the rage within me has reached the spilling level. I read nearly every Mac website I can find (via RSS). I can give non-Mac news sources a pass on this, but the rest of you should hang your heads in shame. Macworld, as in Macworld Magazine and Macworld Expo, is spelled as I have it. Macworld Expo is like Mecca, but for Mac users. It’s the ultimate event in the Mac universe. Given that fact, why is it so god damned hard to spell it right? ...
If you keep your eye on Macs, you probably already know about Boot Camp. It’s a bit of a surprise, but I suspect it was done so that users choosing to run Windows can do so in a safer manner with proper drivers. The drivers included with the new software are the key part of this announcement. Hacking the firmware to coerce a Mac into booting Windows took a little while, but it wasn’t really all that complicated. However, putting money into a development staff for Windows drivers is quite an expensive proposition and it goes to show Apple’s commitment to leverage the move to x86 to their full benefit. They can easily scoop up fence sitters that afraid of losing the ability to run Windows. ...
Back in December, I made some predictions. The quick recap is, I was completely right about the Powerbook (though I didn’t see the moronic name change coming). I didn’t see the iMac coming. The Mac mini rumor was nice, but ultimately, it wasn’t in the cards. My hope clouded my judgment. iLife ‘06 and iWork ‘06: Yawn. Again. I’m surprised at the complete lack of information about Leopard. The prospect of getting surprised is actually exciting. Apple may just sit on the features until after Vista appears. That might slow Microsoft just a bit. ...
Macworld’s lab tests of the new intel iMac confirm what I’ve been telling people since the Intel transition was announced. I can summarize the results pretty quickly. Considering that the Intel processor in the new iMac is a dual core, the speed isn’t really that much better. In fact, taking that into account, it’s slower. Also, Rosetta isn’t the panacea that everyone bought into. I knew it wouldn’t be. It doesn’t work with anything that requires precise timing and it’s slow. Slow. ...
Love to see your comments about MacWorld 2006 on your blog, if you have any. This year will be my first as an attendee, and I plan on drinking Steve’s Kool-Aid all week. Even sadder, I’m looking forward to it a little bit more than Christmas…..not sure what that says about me. So, if you have predictions, comments, hopes or desires you want to see happen that week, I think you have enough geeks that would enjoy hearing your perspective. ...
Maybe I’m just behind the times or didn’t read the news stories about the dual core G5s intently enough. Apple is using combination Airport Express/Bluetooth 2.0 cards in G5s now instead of the Airport Express cards used in all other Macs. From the Apple KB: Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) computers are designed to work with a combination AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card, which combines AirPort and Bluetooth wireless technologies on one card. Please note that other versions of AirPort cards cannot be used with Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) computers. Although the connector on the computer’s logic board will fit an AirPort Extreme card, it is meant for the AirPort Extreme with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR card only. Power Mac G5 (Late 2005) computers will not recognize an AirPort Extreme card if you attempt to install one. ...
I’ve been trying to get keychain syncing to work between my two Macs. You’d think that the login keychains would sync (especially since .Mac syncing is supposedly enabled), but they don’t. I decided to make a new keychain and try to get it to work. I start using the Reset function to try to force synchronization. And for those interested, no, I still haven’t had any success getting keychain syncing to work. It’s way too hard to get working. ...
Ever since Woot sent me a Motorola WA840G by mistake, it’s been augmenting my parent’s wired network as a wireless access point. It’s been working great for their needs (connecting my old Pismo via its Airport card). When I got home today for a Thanksgiving stay, I decided I’d update the firmware on all their network devices. The old Linksys router’s firmware hasn’t been updated in quite a while. That’s fine because the thing is rock solid. The Motorola access point had a new version with many new features, so I updated it. ...
John Gruber recently wrote about why going to a single computer (a Powerbook) is going to work for him in Full Metal Jacket. Naturally, his new philosophy reflects his personal needs. He does take a look at the opposite viewpoint using a single example (Jonathan Rentzsch), but his needs are overly specialized and overly rare. There are many more reasons one would want two machines. Tether To start, the big assumption for this article is that the user wants or needs a laptop. The reasons are fairly unimportant. I personally started with a laptop because I wanted mobility. ...