I’m sure this will piss off a few people (and already has some others), but I saw my third Red Sox game of the season this past Tuesday night. And this is after the World Series I said that it would be impossible for me to see even a single game. But I digress.
Anyway, Allison invited me to go with her as part of a package deal that her mother had access to. The package was a bus ride into Boston, as much beer as you could drink, a sandwich, and a ticket to the game. Not that bad.
This is a strange predicament that I’ve been placed in. Normally, I agree with what most Mac pundits say. However, many of them are being over-confident and taking Steve’s word for gospel. They’re not doing any analysis or technical reviews of the transition. Rather, they believe the marketing hype otherwise known as a keynote.
One of the primary concerns was the ability to run PowerPC software. This was addressed with a slick piece of software called Rosetta. Slick though it may be, it’s still emulation. In other words, it’s slow. To put that concern to rest, Steve told us it was fast enough. Fast enough? What kind of vague bullshit is that? I can let that go because, as I said before, keynotes are marketing hype. What’s sickening is the way in which evangelists are parroting this as if it was the result of some kind of scientific study.
So, after a lot of hemming and hawing, I’ve finally gone ahead and ordered an Elgato EyeHome. Dealnews alerted me about a deal to get a D-Link 5-port switch for $10. That was a good deal, so I ordered it.
Now, I’ve been looking for a good deal on a switch to attach to my DWL-G810 wireless bridge. Right now, it’s only attached to my Playstation 2. It only has a single ethernet port and because I’m too lazy to switch the cable over between the two devices.
Hacking Netflix had an article on “the worst movie ever”. The article mentioned that Netflix carried the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version.
I never thought of the possibility that Netflix had MST3K. But they do! In fact, they have a large selection (27 by my count) and they’re all in my queue now (which has reached triple digits in size). Does anyone else have the same desire to watch them all?
Apple released Security Update 2005-006. I’m not going to do my breakdown this time as I’m pretty busy. However, Apple’s notes should be fairy self-explanatory.
You’re going to want to head down to your local newsstand if you’re not a subscriber to Macworld magazine. The July 2005 issue features an article written by yours truly (it’s the sidebar on page 46). It’s already been published online, but there’s nothing like a physical copy right in your hands.
I plan on buying a couple copies so I can frame it as it’s my first published work. It’s quite an exciting day for me. Hopefully I can make this a more regular thing.
It’s not often that I can find fault with John Gruber of Daring Fireball. However, I think he may be downplaying some things in his latest entry Bombs Away. Considering all computer users are always looking towards their next purchase, the issue of when to buy is always paramount. He said:
This transition period is going to be hard on Apple, not hard on Mac users. If you?ve just purchased a machine recently, or need to buy one soon, you?re no worse off than you would have been if Apple had remained committed to producing new PowerPC hardware ? today?s machines would have been obsoleted by even-better machines next year no matter what processors they contained. And no one is abandoning PowerPC software development. I see no reason to expect Intel-only Mac software in the near future. Universal Binaries take full advantage of both Intel and PowerPC Macs. That?s worth repeating: Universal Binaries take full advantage of both Intel and PowerPC Macs.
One of the more overlooked aspects of the transition from PowerPC to Intel x86 CPUs is the effect it will have on the software you can run. I’ll be discussing this move and my take on it in a later article, but I think a subset of the transition strategy needs highlighting first.
You Won’t Feel a Thing # Steve made the transition sound utterly painless. According to him, developers will have to do little more than recompile their cocoa software. But what about existing software? Rosetta is the answer proclaimed Steve. Processor emulation will make it all better. Now, for the time being, I’m willing to ignore the inevitable confirmed speed cost, but what about compatibility and functionality? The keynote seems to make it seem like all your old software will just work. Well, I wasn’t buying that, My suspicion was rewarded when I read Apple’s document on Universal Binaries.
Well, I’m sure most everyone has read the CNet story on Apple switching Macs to Intel, the Wall Street Journal story, the Inquirer version, the Yahoo/AP version, or even the New York Times version.
The number of sources coming forward to confidently say that they are has turned even ardent disbelievers in the rumor, such as John Gruber, the other way (or maybe not). I’m personally in the “I think this is a load of crap” camp.
So I alluded to some problems I was having when combining Planet d00dism and Netflix‘s activity RSS feeds. However, based upon how the planet site currently looks, I overestimated the the effect that the deficiency in their feeds would pose.
You may notice that the first entries of Netflix are in a big clump. Obivously, all those movies didn’t go out and leave at the same time. This appears to have happened because Netflix doesn’t use the optional pubDate field of the RSS 2.0 format.