Macs

Apple announced during a coneference call, that G5 iMacs are on the way. Here’s my spin: Apple must make the G5 iMac an entirely new form factor. I’m not talking about simply changing how it looks. It has stop being an all-in-one with little upgrade possibilities. The best form factor I think they could adopt would be that of the late G4 Cube. Putting the G4 Cube’s failings aside, I believe we can all agree that it had a large target audience. Those that want moderate expandability, flexibility as far as the display goes, and an inexpensive price. We all know that the G4 Cube’s failing was its price. Nothing else was wrong with the machine. Most of its customers were happy with the level of performance and expandability (the lack of PCI ports, etc. was not troublesome). In fact, many people were crying for a headless iMac. This I can go along with. ...

The weekend is a few scant hours away, as is yet another Red Sox game. I must be setting some kind of record here. I’ve gone for over two decades without going to a Red Sox game while living in Massachusetts, and now I’m going to at least three this year. The season isn’t even half over yet. My Macally BTMouseJr is on its way finally. I’ve been waiting with baited breath for it, obsessively checking my order status over at Page Computers *ding*. It has since gone to backorder status there, so it appears that this mouse is in high demand. Now I can shift my attention to UPS and their web based package tracking system. ...

Due to using a Windows XP based computer at work, I have become very familiar with Firefox. By far, one of its vest features is an extension for it called “Ad Block.” This sweet little add-on lets you quickly and easily block ads or other content. It’s completely intuitive. Right click on something and it will give you an option to “Block Image” or “Block iFrame” dependent upon what the ad is contained within. It will then allow you to edit the URL to replace sections that are variable with an asterisk (*). Quick, easy, effective, and has a hugely significant effect upon load time. ...

Bluetooth is still considered a hot technology and was meant as a cure all for wireless peripherals (such as Palm Pilots, mice, keyboards). Once Bluetooth hit the streets, we were supposed to see all kinds of new products, virtually eliminating products based on other wireless standards. That didn’t quite happen. Apple released their Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, but again, the one button mouse hinders its utility for many users (including myself). Logitech released the MX900, Microsoft released a Bluetooth version of their venerable Intellimouse Explorer, and Belkin released one as well. However, Logitech’s lacks drivers for Mac OS X, making all but the main three buttons useless (at least until the next version of USB Overdrive is released, which promises Bluetooth support), the same goes for Microsoft’s (but add the fact it uses the old form factor without the tilt-wheel, it doesn’t compare with the RF version), and Belkin’s, well, it doesn’t need drivers, but it chews through batteries from what I’ve read in reviews. ...

The first and most major news of this fine Monday is Apple’s preview of the next revision of Mac OS X, code-named Tiger. Apple’s introduced some very provocative new features, all of which are documented (albeit informally) at their Tiger preview site. The first feature to catch my eye was Spotlight. Based upon Apple’s new Metadata-based search technology, Spotlight brings live search to not just the file system or Mail atomically, it allows for system wide searching of many services including Mail’s messages, contacts, calendar entries, the filesystem, etc. all at the same time. Very cool. However, following a disturbing trend that Apple is perpetuating, Spotlight also very closely resembles one of my favorite pieces of software, LaunchBar. Live searching across multiple data types is what LaunchBar excels at (especially the upcoming 4.0 version which has many, many file types and databases integrated into its own search engine). ...

You’re all very tired of hearing about my latest purchase. Well, I have a nice L.L. Bean briefcase-like laptop bag that I’ve been using for about 4 years now. It’s a great bag. It served me well all through college. What made it even better was that it’s computer compartment fit my old Powerbook (the Pismo) perfectly. It was tight and snug in its padded compartment. It even had it’s own sleeve type thing that fit it. ...

Now that I’ve had my Pismo for 4 years, I’ve noticed some marks on the screen that aren’t oils or dirt. They’re scuff marks from my keyboard rubbing up against the screen. This has gotten exponentially worse since I actually started carrying my laptop to class with me (mostly because of the prevalence of wireless Internet available at U-Mass). It’s such a widespread problem that companies started selling screen protectors. This includes Other World Computing, Radtech, Shaggymac, Acme Made, and Marware. I know there are even more than that, but I didn’t feel like writing out URLs all day. ...

For my last birthday, I got an EyeTV from Elgato Systems. For those of you not familiar with the product, it’s essentially a TiVo type device for one’s computer. You can record TV shows to watch later, watch live TV (with a small time delay for encoding), and pause live TV (the feature I use most by far). In order to efficiently use the EyeTV, it’s necessary to have access to some type of TV guide in your computer that allows for channel selection and selection of shows to be recorded. Elgato provided this with an account at TitanTV. This had two limitations: it’s a web based interface and you had to use IE with it. Both of which are something I’m not interested in. ...

After four great years with my Pismo, it’s time I moved on. I’ve been putting off replacing it because it’s no longer my primary computer (not since I bought a Powermac MDD a couple years back). Being a college student, beer soaked up most of my free funds and as such, a new Powerbook wasn’t a reality until now (with my fabulous software engineering job, take that outsourcing!). Well, I’ve decided that portability is the way to go. The new Powerbook 12″ looks to be a good move up from a 500 MHz G3 to a 1.33 GHz G4 (which is faster than both of the 1 GHz processors in my Powermac). With the better video card, better optical drive, Airport card, etc., it should keep me entertained (at least for 2 years). I know I’m probably buying the last Powerbook G4, but that’s ok. I made my peace with getting the last Powerbook G3 and next to last Powermac G4. ...

I’ve been interested in Macs since early in my teens years while I played with my family’s Quadra 660av. I had to be satisfied with that for many years with the only major upgrade that I could get my father to go along with being a fancy new 56k modem (back when the two standards were duking it out). I was happy with that even though I watched the PowerPCs come out and climb to the hundreds of MHz. This is going to date me, but today’s teens have no respect or perception of reality. They even make me ashamed to be associated with them. ...