My older son ended up needing my (loaded) PowerBook for college, so I elected to take a small downgrade and replace it with a Macbook (not Pro) for myself.

Aside from a few annoyances, I'm pretty happy with it. I ended up partitioning the 120Gb drive into an 80Gb slice for Mac OS X and a 40 Gb slice for Windows XP. I plan on using the XP partition to hold games and viruses. And possibly Visual Studio 2005, which I picked up a copy of for $60 at the Microsoft Company Store when I was in Redmond.

I like the fact that when connected to an external monitor and keyboard, you can operate the Macbook closed. The actual operation seems to be fairly well thought out - close the Macbook, plug in the external monitor and keyboard and hit a key on the external keyboard to wake it up to display on the external monitor.

I don't care for the keyboard, which reminds me of the old TRS-80 Color Computer chicklet keyboard. Oh, and my Macbook is black and the lack of keyboard backlighting hurts.

Bootcamp is great, and XP runs nicely. The lack of a Delete key is a huge pain however, and having to press the right-hand Apple key while clicking in order to perform a right-click is just ridiculous. Isn't like 90% of the world right-handed? Aside from that, it's nice and fast and, in fact, regardless of what the armchair pundits speculated, the graphics adapter isn't bad - WoW runs at between 30 and 60 FPS.

I'm also trying out Parallels, since I occasionally have the need to run Windows Server 2003. I haven't decided though, whether it makes more sense to just boot from the XP partition and use VMWare.

I admit to using XFire on a semi-regular basis, as well as other less specialized IM systems. I was, therefore, delighted to see Xblaze - a plugin for the popular Adium IM application.

Xblaze encouraged me to switch from my normal configuration of iChat and MSN Messenger to a consolidated Adium setup, which is pretty handy - simplification is better, right?. Now all that's left is a Skype plugin, and my setup will be complete.

This was the tag line and message of this year's WWDC. Unsaid, but implied, was the message "pay no attention to Vista because Leopard will still outdo it". I suspect that Apple knows its history and remembers more than 10 years ago when another new version of Windows was on the way. Windows 95 succeeded in distracting attention from the Mac by duplicating (more or less) it's unique interface, even though a large number of people at the time mocked the Mac's cutesy desktop look-and-feel. Of course, those same people crowed the benefits of this UI once Windows duplicated it.

I've used the Vista beta and it's nice. It's still nowhere near as intuitive as Mac OS X: it seems that Microsoft has attempted a mostly superficial copy of the interface rather than any real ground breaking usability improvements. And it still has the dreaded registry. And an unbelievable number of inscrutable popup warning and confirmation dialog boxes.

Vista will however, distract quite a few people (and of course, the mainstream media) because of its superficial similarities to Mac OS X. And perhaps this is the genius of Microsoft at work.

From a developer's point of view, Mac OS X is vastly superior in its capabilities to Vista or any earlier version of Windows. The abundance of amazingly powerful APIs that are easy to use (think: CoreImage) and free development tools make it almost a pleasure to develop for. Except for the whole Cocoa memory management methodology, of course.

So Apple is mostly right. Mostly. From a technical point of view, it's assuredly easier to accomplish a task (and in a more elegant and satisfying way). Apple loses on the business attraction of developing for the Mac; lets face it, a 5% (or 10% or 12% or whatever the current claim is) market share isn't anywhere near as attractive as the 90 some-odd percent market share of Windows. And the market share, or rather the perception of market share, not the technical merits, will ultimately determine if this is the right platform or not.

As an aside, the question of percentages still needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the vast majority of installed Windows software is pirated. People affluent enough to purchase a computer in the first place go to great ends to steal a $20 piece of software (the lengths that some people will actually go to to try to steal our software is mind boggling; one day I'll list some of the better ones).

So whether or not the Mac and its associated peripherals is, in fact, the "right platform" remains to be seen. If market share continues to increase, developers will have both a compelling technology platform as well as a compelling business platform. Lets hope that Apple remembers Windows 95 and is ready for it.

Mac OS X Hacking Redux

If you've been following the OS X security follies, you may find this article of interest:

MacNN | Mac mini weathers 38hrs of attacks

This contest was presented after all of the questionable industry news regarding Mac OS X hacking. Seems the results were quite different than some others would have us believe.

Macs and VPNs

I've recently had the need to use my PowerBook on a Cisco VPN with pretty darn good results. If you're trying to do the same and/or running into VPN problems, this site has some pretty useful information:

Macs and Virtual Private Networks

And Finally

Thank you Matt Gemmell for the truely awesome Cocoa source code that you've made available. You have saved me much time and frustration:

Matt Gemmell » Cocoa Source Code

The flood of "news" regarding purported Mac OS X security flaws is starting to really annoy me. I'm not a zealot, nor am I so foolish as to think that OS X is completely immune to viruses, hackers, etc, but really, half truths and ommisions of critical information regarding these "trojans" and "hacks" doesn't serve anyone, unless the purpose is to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (those staples of the industry).

It really isn't much of a trojan if a user is required to enter their root password in order for it to operate. And finding out that the widely circulated report of Mac OS X being hacked within 30 minutes required the "hacker" to have a local account and ssh access...well...forgot to mention that, eh?

I understand that everyone wants publicity, and to sell advertising, and that riding Apple's coattails is a proven way to do this, but please, tell the whole truth.

3 stories that I've found funny (or at least, I had a chuckle when I read them) today...

Everyone loves a conspiracy theory, even if it's laughably tenuous. The comments on this article are what's funny though: "Professor of Pulled-from-asshology" indeed:

MacNN | Is Apple planning an OS switch?

Leave it to Apple to "fight" potential OS/X Intel pirates in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Unlikely to affect any pirates, but it's nice to see a company with a sense of humour:

Apple Hackers Encounter a Poetic Warning - Yahoo! News

And finally, this new Mac OS X worm:

"The malware infects other applications through the InputManager mechanism, inadvertently rendering them useless due to a bug in the malicious code."

Haha. Loser.

MacNN | New Mac OS X worm discovered

My wife's Mighty Mouse recently stopped scrolling down. Scrolling up was fine, scrolling sideways, no problem, but scrolling down...nothing. It seems that a number of others have experienced the same problem with the scroll ball as evidenced here and here. Fiddling around with the ball, I could feel some minor feedback in all directions but down. Suspecting dirt or oil preventing the ball from engaging whatever it is that it engages, I moistened a Q-Tip with isopropyl alcohol and swabbed the ball in a circular direction for about 15 seconds. After this, no more problems.

I ordered my wife one of the new dual-core iMacs early last week, with an expected ship date of January 26th. Imagine my surprise when I received this email on the 26th:

Due to an unexpected delay, we are unable to ship the following item(s) as follows / Dû à un délai non-anticipé, nous sommes forcés de reporter l'expédition de votre commande ainsi:

Z0CX0LL/A, IMAC 17/1.83/1GB/160GB/SD-USA
will now ship on or before / sera expédié au plus tard
le Mar 10, 2006
We regret any inconvenience this delay may cause. / Nous sommes désolés
de l'inconvénient que ce délai vous poserait.

Imagine my further surprise when I received this email on the 27th:

The following products shipped on 01/27/2006. Transit time will depend upon whether you have chosen standard or premium freight options. If your order is shipping standard freight, it should arrive within 12 days of shipment.

Les produits suivants vous ont été envoyés le 27.01.2006. Le délai de livraison varie en fonction du mode de transport choisi, par voie ordinaire ou exprès. Si vous avez choisi la voie ordinaire, votre commande devrait vous parvenir dans les 12 jours de la date d'expédition.

Product Description Qty Ext Price
Produit Désignation Qté Total
__________ ________________________________________ ____ ________________

Z0CX0LL/A IMAC 17/1.83/1GB/160GB/SD-USA 1 CAD XXXXXXXX
With the following configuration:
Configuré de la manière suivante:

Not that I (or rather my wife) is complaining, but that was a rather wild swing in delivery dates in the course of two days.

Incidentally, and quite timely, a new Dashboard widget which monitors Apple Order Status was recently released and can be downloaded here:

DashboardWidgets - Apple Order Status

Well, I'm a bit late on this update due to a variety of reasons.

I managed to replace the hard drive in my wife's iBook over the holidays using the directions which I linked in a previous post. Disassembly and reassembly was quite a bit easier than I expected it to be - so easy in fact that I did it twice after realizing that I had forgot to put the little bar that holds the hard drive in on the first try (!). Having all of the tools laid out beforehand, and a bunch of little baggies to hold parts simplified the process - it really is about 2 hours to replace the drive assuming you only have to do it once.

I still haven't started my wife's iBook hard drive replacement due to the fact that I'm just dreading doing it. I'm tentatively putting it off until after Christmas when I'll have more dedicated time. In the meantime...

Internet Explorer for Mac
It seems that Internet Explorer for Mac is finally going to be cancelled:

Internet Explorer 5 for Mac

I'm never really used it, so it doesn't really matter to me personally, but it is really a bit of an end of an era.

coconutIdentifyCard
In the "Fun Utilities" department, coconutIdentifyCard gives you detailed information on where your Mac (and/or iPod) were made, and is available here:

coconutIdentityCard tells When and Where your Mac / iPod was born - New Launches

Tiger-style menu bars in Cocoa
And finally, if you're looking to add the Tiger style menu bar to your Cocoa application, it's simply. In Interface Builder, simply go to the Inspector for the NSWindow in question and under "Attributes", select "Unified title/toolbar look". Voila.

So it looks like I'm going to have to go through the painful experience of replacing an iBook hard drive. It seems that my wife's iBook (which used to be mine) has had its drive fail (Disk Utility reports the S.M.A.R.T. status as "Failing").

I was actually just planning on sending it to Apple for repair, but I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to (!). A call to the 1-800-APL-CARE number sent me through a maze of separate automated menu systems from which I briefly emerged at one point to speak to an actual human, who unfortunately plunged me back into the maze. So I gave up and ordered a Hitachi 60GB 7200 RPM drive from Tiger Direct for $250 CDN with tax and shipping.

There are several step-by-step guides for replacing iBook drives - I'm following this one: Replacing the hard drive of a G4 iBook 800Mhz and recovering of the built-in mike.. I expect to spend most of a day and all of my patience doing this.

A useful tip, by the way:

Even though there are some pretty elaborate tools out there for keeping organized, I still find myself using Stickies constantly. It's always been a bit of a pain scrolling them though, so I was interested in this article from Macworld (which ends up working quite well):
Macworld: Mac OS X Hints: Scrollable Stickies

Although my WoW guild uses Ventrilo, I was still pretty excited to see that Mac users could now make use of Teamspeak. Not through, uh, Teamspeak itself, but through a 3rd party Teamspeak compatible client called "Teamspeex".

Lots of further information and mirror sites available here: Macologist :: Home and here: booleanís n3wblog. You probably won't be able to access the actual author's website since he's either getting denial-of-service attacks or a tremendous amount of interest :-)

Teamspeak has posted their reaction here: Teamspeak::News. According to various sites, there was initially a threat of legal action, but it seems that calmer heads have prevailed, and the Teamspeak folks are actually going to have a look at it.

A good article today at AppleMatters relating to the new cell-phone-with-iTunes-on-it and the iPod Nano. The phone is pretty disappointing, but is about what I expected given that it's a Motorola phone with iTunes support crammed into it rather than hardware actually designed by Apple.

iTunes Phone Falls Flat, nano Goes Huge

Every so often a piece of software comes along that shows off just what you can do with a Macintosh.

CoverFlow is an app that lets you browse your (iTunes) albums based on album artwork:

Artwork is pulled from a variety of different sources, including two different online sites as well as iTunes itself. But it isn't just the artwork that makes this fun: the animation used during navigation is...entrancing.

Coverflow is available as a technical demo (it works wonderfully well for me), at http://www.steelskies.com/coverflow/HomePage.html

I understand that iBooks are pretty nice and saying that this is a cheap price would be a big understatement, but really now.

CNN.com - Panic ensues in rush for cheap laptops - Aug 16, 2005:A rush to purchase $50 used laptops turned into a violent stampede Tuesday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.

(Via CNN.com)

Following in the vein of useless yet somewhat amusing Dashboard Widgets, I offer up my first creation. This widget uses the original BSD UNIX fortune program to deliver (you guessed it) a new fortune every time dashboard is entered:

I suspect that this widget will be of most interest to 40-something UNIX hackers who continue to remember the old days with a certain fondness...

Download BSD Fortune Widget

A little while ago, our ISP decided to switch from a perfectly functioning direct TCP/IP connection to PPPoE. I asked them why they were doing this and received a less than coherent response which basically boiled down to "we can manage things easier". Fine for them, but of course it caused problems for their customers.

One of the problems is the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) setting commonly required for PPPoE (1492) which is not the default MTU setting for Mac OS (1500). When this setting is mismatched, one typically experiences problems which manifest themselves as timeouts on some web page loads and the retrieval of email.

The ISP's tech support didn't know anything about this, but after a small amount of digging I came up with the method for changing the MacOS MTU setting following a reboot. Without further ado, here is the procedure for others who run into this problem. This procedure applies specifically to the AirPort connection.

• Launch Terminal
• Browse to the following directory: /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Kicker.bundle/Contents/Resources
• Use your favorite text editor to edit the file: enable-network
• Add this line before the 'exit' line: ifconfig en1 mtu 1492
• The AirPort card's MTU will now be set to 1492 when the system boots.

Well...here I am after the WWDC, waiting for my 7am flight out of SFO. What did I learn?

Apple is switching to Intel processors. This should just plain not matter to the average user (although all of the usual pundits are desperately trying to make it matter. Lets face it: your mother doesn't care whether her computer has a G5 PowerPC or a Pentium, as long as it works. And Apple is going to extraordinary lengths to make sure it will work, from adding a PowerPC translation layer (Rosetta), universal binaries (so that devleopers can deliver one binary for both processors) and just making it really really simple for developers to transition.

It doesn't matter, except that we'll likely see (eventually) somewhat faster systems (notably in Apple's laptop offerings). Should this stop you from buying a Mac now if you were already planning to? Probably not. Lets face it, two years from now your processor would likely have been outdated already, regardless of the switch.

Interesting note: you know you're getting old when the Apple guys felt they needed to spend 15 minutes explaining what big endian and little endian means. And only you and a few other people seemed to be bored during the explanation.

Recommended reading on the transition: Going for Broke

Dashboard turns out to be Apple's attempt at a personal "portal". Remember portals? They were going to take over the world, oh, back in 2000 or so. They didn't. Dashboard is prettier though than portals we've seen in the past but will still suffer from the usual portal-ly problems like lack of useful content and broken plugins (i.e. widgets) as developers rediscover the inherent problems of screen-scraping HTML content. Widgets are, however, extremely easy to write, and the widget framework is very friendly to such tasks as running a shell script or command line executable and wrapping the output in a pretty UI.

Spotlight will eventually make hierarchy folder structures obsolete. This isn't just my prediction. There's no excuse for any application not to provide a spotlight plugin for their document types. It's just that easy to write one.

I learned how to make an application installer. It's easy. Sadly, there's no uninstall. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either.

The WebKit technology is simply amazing, especially with the Tiger additions like WebArchives. These guys produce really well thought out technologies.

My personal pet peeves from the conference (and from most conferences I've attended):

• people who walk around a densely crowded show floor with open, full cups of coffee. The lids are there for a reason. You will spill the thing all over yourself and probably some others when some other situationally unaware developer type slams into you.
• people who insist on sitting on the edges of the rows of seats while the rest of the row is empty. You aren't so important that you need a quick escape after the session. Really. I mean it. No one likes climbing over you to get a seat and you'll probably get an open cup of coffee dumped on you.

It was a fun conference.

I have to say I've been (pleasantly) surprised by the utility of Dashboard.

While a lot of the widgets coming out are either highly specialized or of questionable (to me) use, there are a number that I either use quite often or which are particularly fun to have.

Out of the stock OS X widgets, I use the following regularly:

• Dictionary/thesaurus
• Weather
• Calendar

In addition, I have these installed (more for fun than for anything else):

iTunesLyrics

Grabs the currently playing iTunes song and gives you the lyrics for it.

http://www.dashboardwidgets.com/showcase/details.php?wid=486

WoW Server Status Widget

This widget lets you check the up/down status of your favorite US, British, French, or German World of Warcraft server from your dashboard

http://www.skia.net/dev.php

There are now a couple of different sites where you can see all of the new widgets that are starting to pop up - Dashboard WIDGETS, and of course Apple's widget site. Personally, since I'll be attending this year's WWDC, I'm going to make it a point to attend the widget-writing sessions and give it a go myself.

This is probably more information than anyone really needs on the new Powerbook Mobile Motion Sensor, but it's an interesting read and there're a number of cool visualization apps.

I do find it interesting when a piece of hardware has some awareness of the "real world" though. Anyone remember the Newton temperature sensor?

The PowerBook Sudden Motion Sensor [KernelThread]

(Via Gizmodo.)