From the Obituary:

MULBERRY -- Mrs. Norma Virginia Dunn of Mulberry died of heart failure Monday (Dec. 19, 2005) at home. She was 89.

Born in Detroit on Sept. 9, 1916, she came to Mulberry from Michigan. She was a homemaker and a Girl Scout troop leader. She was a member of the Methodist Women's Club in Michigan. She attended Covenant Presbyterian Church in Lakeland.

Mrs. Dunn is survived by her husband, Marcel W. Dunn; daughter, Mary Ellen McElwain, Mulberry; stepdaughter, Marlene Smelser, Indianapolis; five stepgrandchildren; 10 stepgreat-grandchildren; one stepgreat-great-grandchild.

Memorials may be made to Good Shepherd Hospice, 105 Arneson Ave., Auburndale, FL 33823, or the Alzheimer's Support Network, 660 Tamiami Trail N., Suite 21, Naples, FL 34102-8133.

By Any Other Name ...

Grandma Virginia – as she was known in the family – was my grandfather Dunn's second wife. If I remember family history well enough, his first wife passed away in 1982, very shortly after my family moved to the small town of Three Rivers, Michigan.

At the time, Virginia was our neighbor, and she quickly became known as "Aunt Virginia" to my older siblings. She was very attentive to our family, and she cared for us as if we were her own.

Eventually, Grandpa became friends with Virginia, and they were married just a couple of years after. At this point "Aunt Virginia" became Grandma Virgina to all but one of us. You see, my siblings were in their teens to early twenties when all of this happened. As for me ... I was three.

To me, Grandma Virginia was just plain "Grandma."

Tags: family

Screenshots of a new build of Windows Vista (formerly known as Windows Longhorn) appeared on Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows a few days ago. Being the desktop voyeur I am, I couldn't help but pop over and ogle the screens for a while. For reference, here are links to his screenshots: Installation; Desktop, My Computer, and Network; Control Panel and Aero Glass Customization; and Applications.

Once I started to delve into the screenshots a couple of things struck me.

• Translucency and text can work. If you look at the screens, you will notice that translucency is subdued behind areas that need text, like the Start Menu and location and search fields. In the case of window contents, translucency is completely eliminated, and that looks almost out of place in Vista. Translucent elements are prevalent in Vista, but they are implemented in a fairly nice manner.
  
  
• What did they do to the Start Menu? The Start Menu has been receiving tweaks pretty much since its first appearance. Now they have removed "Start" from the icon that activates the window, and have made the icon into a sphere that awkwardly protrudes from the task bar. This protrusion carries over to the user icon atop the Star Menu (when active). The user icon proudly protrudes from the top of the menu like some royal crest. Let's hope they kill this whole icon protrusion thing before people come to accept it.
  
  
• Outlook Express has become Windows Mail. Alright, call this Apple copying if you must, but I feel the name change is logical and welcome. "Outlook Express" tells you nothing of the application's function unless you use Outlook in your workplace. "Windows Mail" is a much more user-friendly name, and it's nice to see this change.

Overall, Windows Vista seems to be coming along well. Installation is still an ugly process (visually), but I'm sure that will be cleaned up before the public release. After all, installation gives users the first impression of your system. I can't say I've ever been a fan of Microsoft's default user interface for any of its versions of Windows. (I was a user back in the days of Windows 95 and Windows 98.) However, Vista seems to be gaining a nice sheen previously absent from Windows.
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Unfortunately, my mind keeps going back to Whistler. This was a nice evolution of the Windows interface that eventually transformed into the eyesore that is Windows XP. (Oddly enough, both Mac and Windows themers have created themes based on this visual style that never made it into a publicly available version of Windows.) Hopefully, Microsoft will keep these nice touches that are present in current builds of Vista and refine them rather than pulling out something completely different at the last minute. Windows XP is not nice to look at. Vista is, and I hope it stays that way.

Tags: microsoft, technology, software, opinion

"Did you get an XBox 360 yet?" That question (or a similar variation) has hit me upside the head at least ten times in the last week. It's not so much that my friends and family care that much about games. They don't, but they know I'm avid. However, they seem a little surprised when I answer that I have not, in fact, acquired an XBox 360 as of yet. Furthermore, holiday money probably will not go toward an XBox 360 either. Why? Because, when it comes to something as permanent as a game console, I prefer to wait a while before diving in.

With something like Mac OS X, I enjoyed being an early adopter. I was able to install the public beta on a machine that was not mission critical, and I knew Apple would correct any serious flaws with time. Granted, the Finder is still a pretty big flaw in and of itself, but most others have been ironed out. Furthermore, in the case of a computer operating system, many third party solutions crop up to enhance the user experience and fill in the holes. Most of these can be applied at little risk.

A console, on the other hand, is less flexible. If the unit I purchase has flaws that are corrected a few months later, guess what? Those corrections will most likely not apply to my console. As far as fixes go, if it's a hardware fix and you mess up, your warranty is voided, and you are out a console. I've had to replace a PS2 because of a faulty optical drive, and my brother-in-law's XBox had a power supply burn. There's no deleting a .plist file or downloading a patch to correct those problems.

So what about the XBox 360 concerns me at the moment? Well, first of all, there have been less than glowing reports of its DVD playback capabilities. Furthermore, some reports of freezing systems are going around (seemingly related to an overheating power supply), and Quake 4, one of the reasons I want an XBox 360, has been criticized for framerate issues. Now I know, the framerate issue could be conceivably corrected with a downloadable patch. Hopefully, Raven will do the right thing, and work toward such a correction.

A final issue I have is with the whole hard drive issue. I'm sorry, but $100 for a 20 GB hard drive? What a rip off! The 120 GB second hard drive in my PowerMac was right around $100. Also, those who buy an XBox 360 w/HDD will surely outgrow the hard drive quickly. What solutions are there available for transferring the data from one XBox hard drive to another? Again, only time will tell how these issues will be handled.

Right now, we are a two-console home. We have a PS2 and a GameCube. Right now, a Nintendo Revolution is almost a given because we are both Nintendo fans. So the battle will be between the PS3 and the XBox 360 at to who gets to occupy our TV's second AV input, and that brings me to the most important reason for waiting: I want something to compare the XBox 360 with. Other issues aside, I don't see myself rushing out to buy a 360 without being able to objectively compare it to the competition.

No, I have not purchased an XBox 360, nor do I have any plans to in the foreseeable future. Anyway, there are still plenty of GameCube and PS2 games to keep me occupied. I haven't even started Dragon Quest VIII or the most recent installments of my beloved Ratchet and Jak series! Call me around E3 2006. By then I might be getting worked up over this whole next-gen thing.

Tags: video games, opinion

I promised this post months ago, but I just haven't had the time to hash it out. Now seems as good of a time as ever since at least one of my grad classes is mostly caught up for the moment! This is by no means a comprehensive review of Mac OS X 10.4, but I hope it provides a decent overview and a good perspective on one person's experiences using this product.
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Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was released on April 29, 2005 to wide acclaim and wide criticism. As per Apple's recent tradition, the product was $129 ($69 for educators). There was much ado over "200 New Features" from Apple's PR, and there was general complaint and mockery regarding a $129 fee for a "point release" from the critical. The truth of Tiger is somewhere in the middle. You have to pick some pretty fine nits to find "200 New Features." On the other hand, Mac OS 10.4 is more than a general "point release."
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An OS By Any Other Name...

I've often said that Apple sells itself short in the nomenclature used for it's "X" systems. To illustrate this, some history:
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(At this point, some of my more tech-savy readers should skip ahead.) Mac OS X, pronounced "Mac Oh-Es Ten," is not really the tenth version of the Macintosh Operating System. The original Mac OS died with the passing of Mac OS 9. The current system is based on UNIX, and it is a marriage, sometimes inelegant and sometimes uncomfortable, of the Classic Mac OS and another OS project that was called NeXTSTEP. As such, Mac OS X 10.1 was really version one of a new product. (No, I refuse to count Mac OS X 10.0 as anything else than an expensive beta.)
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With each successive release, this product has matured considerably, so much so that screenshots of Mac OS X 10.1 look very foreign to someone used to working with Mac OS 10.4. In fact, these two systems look about as similar as Windows 98 and Windows XP. However, public perception can be that progress has been minimal because of how Apple has chosen to name their new operating system. It would be more accurate to view this product as Mac OS X Version 4 than as a simple point release.
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Installation and First Impressions

My system disks were of Mac OS X 10.4.0, and installation was breezy. It took a little over 20 minutes to install on my G5, but it took quite a bit longer on my PowerBook G3. After rebooting, there was some performance lag as Spotlight indexed my hard drive, but that was quickly resolved. I quickly played with as many toys as I could including Automator, Dashboard, Spotlight, and the snazzy new screen-savers! Everything worked as expected.
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My G5 seemed noticeably faster overall. I'm continually impressed how each Mac OS revision seems to make that machine snappier (even though it's a 1.8 GHz SP, which is supposedly adversely affected by 10.4). Startup time is also speedier. On average, my G5 takes roughly 30 seconds to boot. Unfortunately, Mac OS 10.4 has had the opposite affect on my PowerBook G3, and the poor thing seems to struggle under this system's weight. I guess I should have known I was in trouble when my old PowerBook was not on the initial list of supported hardware. (It appeared a few days later.)
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What about stability? So far, there have been no kernal panics. Actually, I have been fortunate enough to never have had one of these, and I have been an OS X user since the Public Beta came out. My PowerBook began my OS X experience, and my old Graphite iMac DV joined the X era when Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" came out. In addition to the lack of kernal panics on either my G5 or my PowerBook G3, I have experienced no system freezes, and the only application to "Unexpectedly Quit" has been Microsoft Word 2004 on my laptop. My desktop has had absolutely zero flakiness ... outside of some that was my own doing.
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My only real complaint is the fact that 10.4.1 and 10.4.2 (as well as some other miscellaneous updates) had already been released prior to my purchase of Tiger in late August, but the boxed version I got did not contain these updates, so both my desktop and my laptop had to download those updates after installation. I had kind of expected those updates to be "in the box" by then. For reference, 10.4.1 had been released May 16, and 10.4.2 had been released July 12. My purchase of Mac OS X 10.4 was on August 20.
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New Features

Dashboard: Dashboard is the flashiest of the new features, and it is the feature that will probably remain most associated with Tiger. Dashboard is a compnant of Exposé, which was introduced by Apple in 10.3 "Panther." Dashboard is a separate layer from the desktop that runs mini applications callsed "widgets." These widgets are one-trick ponies that can do things like track shipments, monitor the weather, control iTunes, convert measurements, and act as a calendar. There are thousands of widgets freely available for download on the Internet, and there are a few more sophisticated ones that cost a few dollars. Fortunately, Apple has included an interface for installing and managing widgets as of the 10.4.2 update.



By in large, I find Dashboard pretty useful. I used to run Konfabulator strictly in Konsposé mode, so Dashboard offered little adjustment for me. The screenshot shows my most frequently used widgets, and they all do the job well. My only gripe is with the general laginess of Dashboard when you open it the first time after login. Personally, I have to recommend a tiny app called Dashboard Starter if you think you'll use Dashboard a lot. All it does is launch Dashboard on login, thereby making the widgets more responsive once you are ready to use them.

Spotlight: Spotlight is the integrated system search feature of Mac OS 10.4. You can envoke Spotlight by clicking on a magnifying glass icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen or by using the keyboard command Command-Space. Spotlight searches while you type, which is fine on fast systems, but I wish there was the option for it to wait for you to hit Return on my slower G3 system. Most of the time, if I lose something, Spotlight can find it for me. However, on my PowerBook G3, I've noticed that about half of my documents never get searched, and I'm not sure how to correct that situation. I'm a pretty organized person and seldom lose track of where I have information stowed, but Spotlight has come in handy during those times I have lost track of stuff.

Here's what a Spotlight window looks like if you ask it to show you all results from the Spotlight menu. Could this be the future of the Finder?



Automator: Automator may be one of the cooler new features that few will discover and even fewer may use. I can't comment too much about Automator because I'm still learning about it. Basically, Automator is designed to bring one-step goodness to repetitive tasks. For example, you could apply a sepia tone filter to multiple photographs at once. You may want to assign Spotlight Keywords to multiple items, or you could name several files sequentially (August 01.pdf, August 02.pdf, etc.). There is a learning curve involved, but Automator is a nice example of how Apple sometimes succeeds in thinking outside the box. I think I'm going to really like Automator once I get used to it.

Here's a screen capture of one of Automator's sample workflows. You can add and rearrange steps using simple drag-and-drop.



Other New Features: QuickTime is now at verison 7 and supports a new high-definition codec. Unfortuantely, QuickTime 7 does not seem to be as responsive as QuickTime 6 was when viewing .mpg videos in a browser window (Safari or Firefox). Some new Finder features include Burnable Folders and Smart Folders. Both are quite useful, especially the Burn Folders, which allow you to set up a burn session without a CD or DVD actually being inserted in the drive. FIanlly, the built in RSS support in Safari is cool, but if you are used to a dedicated RSS aggregator (like NetNewsWire), Safari probably won't offer enough features to make you switch.

There are plenty more little touches that separate Mac OS X 10.4 from previous releases, but this gives an overview of some of the most obvious enhancements.

Under the Hood

More important than the superficial enhancements are the "under the hood" improvements to Mac OS X 10.4. These are the changes that most will never see or know about but that affect how the system and applications work. Apple refers to these as "key technologies," and they include such elements as H.264 support, Core Image, Core Data, and Core Audio. Core Audio was introduced in either Jaguar or Panther, and it created a robust set of integrated audio functionality right into the operating system that any application can potentially have access to. Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro is a good example of an application that takes advantage of Core Audio.

New to the Core Foundation Technologies are Core Image and Core Data. Core Data is over my head, but it meant to improve the data-model framework used by applications. Core Data is important to Spotlight's functionality, and it uses database concepts to organize and manage data from any application built to utilize it. This, like other Core Foundation Technologies, is aimed squarely at developers and making Mac OS X as attractive of a development platform as possible. Furthermore, Core Image, like Core Audio, provides developers with a respectable palette of image tools that can be seamlessly integrated into their application. Image Tricks by BeLight Software is a nice utility that is built entirely around the Core Image filters.

What does this mean to the end user? It means future Mac OS X applications can take advantage of all sorts of great technologies that would formerly have had to be integrated manually. Imagine a presentation application that could apply audio effects to sounds and music in the presentation, that could manipulate images right in the application by applying Gaussian blur and sepia tone filters without having to rely on a separate image editor, all while indexing every bit of content in your presentation for easy searching later. An application like this would be very possible utilizing Apple's Core Foundation Technologies (which makes me wonder what new features we'll see in Keynote 3). I don't understand half of the technical documentation regarding Core Foundation, but I do know that I've been impressed more than once by applications that make good use of these technologies.

Dashboard and Safari RSS are nifty and fun. Core Foundation Technologies are the stepping stones that will build the future of the Macintosh platform.
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The Interface.

See that cool screenshot? Yeah, Mac OS X 10.4 doesn't quite look that good. That screenshot is actually the product of two different interface modifications (iTuno and SmoothStripes Sunken Mod if you must know). Don't get me wrong, I really like the Aqua user interface, and I am a big fan of the new "Unified" look that Mail 2 sports. I just don't like how every other application seems to have a different version of Aqua applied to it. The Finder, for example, still looks basically like it did in the days of Jaguar, while iTunes has a drastically different appearance using similar elements, and don't get me started on GarageBand.

Aqua has evolved greatly since the days of Mac OS X 10.0. It is much more subdued than it used to be, and pinstripes are pretty much gone. However, it seems that Apple has been improving the interface in bits and pieces. Unfortunately for users, this results in a very inconsistent visual experience. On the other hand, this may be intentional. Software developers seem to be moving to having different applications having distinct looks and feels (Windows Media Player and Office 12 anyone?). It's just not my cup of tea. Fortunately, applications like Unsanity's ShapeShifter make modifying the systems appearance fairly painless.

The Kitchen Sink & Conclusion

I know there are many aspects of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger I have failed to overview in detail. For example, I haven't talked much about H.264, nor have I said anything about the new metadata features that have worked their way into Tiger. iChat AV has gone untouched on my computer, so there was no use in even mentioning it, and accessibility features as well as the new parental controls are absent from this overview. 10.4 is a huge system filled with features, and there is no way I'm going to be able to cover all of them.

Tiger is another step toward making Mac OS X a more robust and feature-rich environment to work in. Some features like Dashboard are very visible while others, like Automator, may seem more daunting to the average user. Some features have been left strangely hidden, like the Finder's Slideshow functionality, while many of the other enhancements are at the system level, invisible to most people. Overall, I'm glad we bought Tiger, and I'm really looking forward to the enhancements and changes that will be brought by Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in late 2006!

Tags: macintosh, software, opinion, tiger, os x

I'm convinced stop signs have some kind of weird improbability field hovering around them.

Don't believe me? Case in point: I'm driving home late at night. No one else appears to be on the road ... until I reach a stop sign, that is. We both reach the stop sign at the exact same moment, and we both awkwardly wait for the other to go. FInally I go, and the same thing happens at the next stop sign. This happens at three out of four stop signs near our neighborhood.

It's unnatural, I tell you. This has happened before. Despite the absence of any other visible traffic, the laws of probability seem to bend around stop signs, bringing two improbable objects to a single point in space at the same moment. It's more powerful than the Reality Distortion Field that surrounds Steve Jobs, and I believe Douglas Adams had it all wrong – You don't need a hot cup of tea to make the Infinite Improbability Drive. You just need a stop sign!

Tags: silly

The first order of business is to wish my wonderful wife a very happy birthday!!!

I know I'm a bit late posting about the latest Apple media event. There's really not much to say. I can't comment on Aperture because that application is way out of my league. However, I do think it's interesting that Apple is trying to distance it from Photoshop as much as possible. As far as I can tell, the two applications have little in common. I imagine many people who invest a great deal of time in one will also find the other valuable. If you are curious for more info on Aperture, visit Apple's product page. It's a neat looking web page.

PowerMacs

My 1.8 GHz PowerMac G5 looks positively anemic next to these beasts. Like the iMac, we have moved to DDR2 SDRAM, though the PowerMacs remained at the same 533 MHz memory the iMac has instead of being bumped to 667 MHz. Sometimes I think Apple is going all conservative on me. In addition to the new memory, the PowerMac has adopted PCI-Express as well as some serious graphics cards, including (finally) a professional level card with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500. The dual ethernet ports are also worthy of note for anyone wishing to turn a PowerMac into a server.

The big news, of course, is dual-core. Some early reports are indicating that the dual-core 2.3 GHz model is slightly faster than the previous generation dual processor 2.5 GHz machine. (The previous machine had two single-core processors in it.) I'm sure the many variables listed above were also contributors to this performance gain, but it is promising. I was perplexed when I saw the "new" machines were running at a slower clock-speed than the previous generation, but it seems the machines still have quite a boost in performance. (Incidentally, this is not the first time a "MHz regression" has occurred. According to MacTracker, the final G3 PowerBooks were running at 500 MHz, but the first G4 PowerBooks came out at 400 MHz.)

In all, the new PowerMacs are a very strong lineup. If Apple's claims are true about performance gains, then Macintosh-based professionals may want to snatch one of these up before "the Switch" if their current machine is growing long-in-the-tooth.

PowerBooks

Um, were these updated? Seriously, I like the new screen resolutions. Hopefully, the future onset of resolution independent user interfaces will allow them to pack the pixels even denser in the future. The product line has also been simplified. All PowerBooks have DVD-burners, but only the two larger models get dual-layer burning. Both larger models have 128 MB dedicated graphics memory, backlit keyboard, and optical audio. Truthfully, the 15-inch model seems to offer the best value, especially at my educator discount.

Are these updates exciting? No. Did I expect more? A little bit. Regardless, my PowerBook G3 has seen better days, so I might be trying to justify getting the 15-inch model. We'll see... I feel myself being swayed by Apple's beautiful product pictures...

Tags: macintosh, technology

Apple's media event on October 12 was something else. A new generation of iPods, a revision to the iTunes Music Store to support video purchases, and a revised iMac made for quite the event.

iMac Media Edition

My first impression: "Wow. It looks even sleeker!" I have been in love with the iMac G5 since it was introduced, and this package is just great. The processors are 1.9 GHz and 2.1 GHz for the 17" and the 20" models respectively. These machines are the first in Apple's lineup to support DDR2 SDRAM and PCI - Express graphics. This provides a clear indicator of the direction Apple will be taking with the future Intel - based Macintosh computers. I'm interested in seeing how the Radeon X600 XT (in the 20") performs, but, in all, the new iMac should completely smoke my current PowerMac G5.

The integrated iSight with PhotoBooth is cute. I imagine PhotoBooth will ship with all new iSights once those are revamped. (According to Steve Jobs, the iSight in the new iMac is somewhat better than the iSight you can buy off the shelf.) It's a cute add - on, but it's nothing that would sway me as a consumer one way or the other. Still, PhotoBooth does stand out as another app that shows off the versatility of Apple's Core Image technology.

Front Row is very intriguing. Now please take notice, Front Row is the name for the media software, not the remote itself (which is available as a separate purchase for use with iPods). Front Row seems superficially inspired by Windows Media Center Edition, but I won't be drawing too many comparisons as I've had little to no "hands - on" experience with either product. As far as Front Row goes, I was impressed with how seamlessly it integrates with the core operating system. I liked the simplistic interface and the simple remote. This stuff has great potential.

How do I rate the new iMac? Let me put it this way: I need a new Apple laptop, but I want one of these iMacs.

It's True!

So here is the much anticipated iPod Video. I like that it is just called iPod. For a while, the iPod line was getting too confusing, but now it's pretty simple again. Simply put, this is an iPod first and a video player second. The screen, though larger than the previous iPods, is still pretty small, and battery life with video playback is pretty abysmal. Still, it's a first step that's bound to gain momentum with time.

iPod nanos and iPods now mach as far as styling goes. The new iPod is even offered in black (which i am the only person on Earth who thinks this thing looks terrible in black). Even the Shuffle fits in visually, but one could easily be confused for the new remote Apple is bundling with the iMacs. The new iPods are somewhat thinner than their predecessors, but the sacrifice is loss of FireWire support. We should have seen that coming a mile away, but it's still a little disappointing.

Personally, I feel no motivation to purchase one of these as a video device. Although I might investigate how well one might handle an interactive QuickTime movie. As a potential first-time iPod buyer, though, these are make a compelling upgrade to the previous generation, and I may beg for one of these come Christmas instead of a Nano.

Video in iTunes

Of course, this is just amazing – not so much as it is now as much as what it could become. Right now, you pay $2 USD for a low - resolution video of a music video, Pixar short, or ABC/Disney television episode. However, this has amazing potential. First, there's the whole deal that you can download the most recent episode of a show they sell the next day after broadcast. Second, there is a serious potential to revolutionize media distribution should we see higher resolutions and more content creep in over time. Right now, the video component of iTunes is pretty bare bones, but the potential present is amazing. Remember how small the iTunes Music Store started out? I'm no TV fan, but it will be interesting to watch this grow.

Conclusion

I'm personally most excited about the new iMac. That machine is just great, hands down. I like the new iPod, but the video aspect bears no weight in my like or dislike of the product. It's just a cooler, higher capacity iPod to me. Video is just some nice icing on the cake, but that's okay to think. After all, at least a couple of times in his speech, Steve Jobs referred to the video functionality as a "bonus." Video in the iTunes Music Store has amazing potential, but it will take time to be realized. This is only the beginning for legal online video distribution.

Most intriguing product? Front Row. Where is Apple going with this? Where can they go with it? Right now, it is tied to the iMac, but the key there is right now. "At this time, its only on the iMac," Apple's Greg Joswiak said in a MacWorld interview. Front Row may eventually become a standalone product, or it may eventually be integrated with all copies of Mac OS X. With this new media center software, will we be seeing Macs with TV - tuner capabilities in the future? Will these changes affect the features built into Apple's displays? Only time will tell.

Tags: macintosh, technology

From the Obituary:

Herbert Leo Smelser, Sr., age 94 of Elizabethtown, Kentucky and formerly of Searcy, died Thursday in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. He was a native of Manson, Arkansas and was a member of the College View Church of Christ in Elizabethtown. He retired from General Motors in Willow Run, Michigan. He is survived by three sons, Burris Dale Smelser of Bowie ,Maryland, Herbert Leo Smelser, Jr. of Indianapolis, Indiana, James Marion Smelser of Elizabethtown, Kentucky; two brothers, Marion Smelser of Westland, Michigan, Lehman Smelser of Jonesboro, Arkansas, two sisters, Evelyn Bush of Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, Frances Dance of Wayne, Michigan; 10 grandchildren; 25 great-grandchildren; and 3 great-great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife, Ethel Jane Smelser; and his parents, Jasper Marion and Pearl Novella (Melton) Smelser.

Modes of Transportation

Due to my being far younger than my siblings and cousins (14 years younger than my youngest brother), I have fewer memories of my grandfather during his active years. He was already 69 years old when I was born, and in his mid-seventies by the time I can form coherent memories of him and grandma.

One memory I do have of grandpa before he entered assisted living: His license was revoked in Arkansas because of his eyesight. Now Grandpa Smelser carried the Smelser gene to its fullest extent, and the Smelser gene is a very stubborn, sometimes obstinate, gene. The Smelser gene does not take "no" for an answer. The Smelser gene says, "It's my way or the highway." How many Smelsers does it take to change a light-bulb? Only one, but if two are in the room, it may never get done!

Well Grandpa Smelser was very independent along with being stubborn. The state told him he could no longer drive his car, but he wasn't about to let anyone else do his Wal-Mart runs for him. Fortunately, Wal-Mart was quite close to his house. Wal-Mart was less than a mile away, quite literally across the street. (The fact that this street is a highway bears absolutely no bearing to this story ... None at all.) This was not a distance Grandpa Smelser could have walked, but other solutions can be found for one possessing the Smelser gene.

He drove his riding mower.

Yes, you read that correctly. Grandpa Smelser drove his riding mower from his house on Smelser Lane (I am not making this up), across the highway, up the road about a quarter of a mile more, and into Wal-Mart's parking lot, where I assumed he parked in his usual handicapped parking space. It was best to never ask him why he did this. It was also best never to suggest he not do this. One never questions the Smelser gene once it guides you in its path.

This went on fine for several months until one day his dog Tango was chasing him rather vigilantly. Now Tango always chased the riding mower, but this time, he seemed a little more distraught over something. Thinking little of it, Grandpa Smelser continued his holy pilgrimage to Wal-Mart aboard his trusty lawnmower, in his own world, being annoyed by the heat at the seat of his pants and the fact that the lawnmower was not driving as well as usual.

Yes, the lawnmower's engine had caught on fire. Fortunately, Grandpa Smelser was not hurt. Of course, many members of the family used this event to illustrate just how unsafe it was to ride that lawnmower around and how he needed to allow others to assist him more.

Grandpa Smelser's response to the whole sordid affair? "I thought Tango was barking louder than usual."

The Indoor Bonfires

Speaking of fires, I think everyone in the family will always remember the fireplace in the house on Smelser Lane. (Seriously, I am not making the street name up!) It seemed like that fireplace was always roaring, no matter the temperature outside. "Ethel," Grandpa would say, "it's gettin' kinda breezy. I think it's time to throw some logs on the fire."
And so he would.

Mind you, "some" logs on the fire consisted of a pile that nearly filled the entire fireplace. From a child's point of view, it sure looked cool to have those logs burning, flames going so high into the chimney, you couldn't tell where they stopped. Man, was it hot though. I am a firm believer that Arkansas (despite weather reports to the contrary) never gets below 100º Fahrenheit during the summer, thereby singing my grandparents' skin to the point that 85º felt positively nippy. Hence, the eternal flame within the Smelser living room.

One visit, we noticed the air was getting rather hazy while the indoor bonfire was raging. Dad convinced Grandpa Smelser, with no little arguing, to put the fire out; but the haze persisted. Once the fireplace had cooled below the boiling point for human flesh, Dad inspected the fireplace to find the shell had cracked – actually, it had melted entirely away in one spot. As a result, smoke was pouring through the ventilation system that was intended to only transport the heat from the fireplace.

Before he was placed in an assisted living center, I don't know how many fireplace shells Grandpa Smelser would go through, but I do know this: The bonfires never stopped, nor did they shrink in size. It wasn't Grandpa's faulty the fire was too hot. The fireplace shell manufacturers (bless their hearts) needed to make them there shells stronger!

Conclusion

You have been a powerful force in our family for many years, Grandpa Smelser. You will be missed, but I hope to see you one day in our eternal home. Hopefully, fireplaces are made out of stronger stuff there than they are here on Earth!

Tags: family

I can't help but be terribly interested that many of my favorite music artists (particularly the ones who get their start circa 1960) seem to have close connections with each other.

Let's start with the Beatles: Out of that group, which I like in and of itself, came John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, all of whom I liked individually before I knew they were all Beatles. (I'm sorry Ringo fans, I'm not a fan of Ringo Starr's solo career.)

Of course, Eric Clapton performed with the Beatles on "While My Guitar Gently Sleeps." Billy Preston performed in "Let It Be" and would also later perform with Clapton who has also performed with percussionists Ray Cooper and Phil Collins. Incidentally, Collins appeared as an extra in the Beatles film A Hard Day's Night.

Ray Cooper has also performed with Elton John, Pink Floyd, and performed on the Concert for George after George Harrison's untimely death. Ray Cooper has also been affiliated with Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame who were also avidly supported by George Harrison (who appeared in Eric Idle's All You Need is Cash.)

Speaking of George Harrison, he once belonged to a group called the Traveling Wilburys with Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison ("O, Pretty Woman"), and Bob Dylan! Bob Dylan and Clapton appeared alongside George Harrison in the Concert for Bangladesh as did Ravi Shankar (who Philip Glass studied under for a few years).

Of course, Bob Dylan has ties to Woodie and Arlo Guthrie, and Paul Simon's early works are clearly inspired by Dylan, and Bob Dylan and Paul Simon have performed together.

On an entirely separate note, Dave Matthews Band has featured Alanis Morisette on vocals in their album Before These Crowded Streets. Now if I could somehow tie Dave or Alanis back to Bob Dylan or George Harrison, my twisted musical web would be complete.

"Open up my head and let me out." Do I have that song quote right? I'm a bit to sleepy at the moment to go look it up. Quite a bit has been going on lately, and I haven't had much time to post about any of it.

One of the more interesting tidbits lately has been some quotes attributed to Edgar Bronfman, Jr. of Warner Music Group where he attacks Apple's fixed pricing structure in the iTunes Music Store, and he claims right to a chunk of Apple's profit margins on the iPod because people buy the iPod to carry music they distribute. Interesting thoughts – however, I think this guy is only managing to confirm Steve Jobs comments about "greedy" record executives.

First, let's look at the pricing structure controversy. I agree with Mr. Bronfman completely on this. Charging $0.99 for every song is unfair. Prices should cap at $0.99/song for premium songs, and perhaps we can set a basement price of $0.49 for less popular material with prices in between the two limits for various material. That sound fair, right? Oh, you want to charge more for the popular tunes, even in 128 kbps encoding. Yeah, that's just greedy.

(By the way, I know Apple is responsible for the encoding quality of the songs downloaded from the iTunes Music Store, but I do think is should still be a factor in the price. If they start supporting 256 kbps or more, then we'll talk.)

Now let's examine the second point: The record labels deserve a cut of iPod sales. If we follow this reasoning, every publisher or developer that creates titles for the Macintosh deserve a percentage of every computer Apple sells. The same goes for Miscrosoft and Windows software. After all, who would buy a computer that runs no software? Every network and production studio should get a cut of every television sold. Every radio station should get a cut of every stereo sold. Every web site should get kickback from internet subscriptions.

I'm sorry, record labels are not special and do not deserve special treatment. They deserve no cut of the iPod pie any more than I deserve a cut of AOL's profits. Verdict: Greed.

I love music. I love listening to a wide variety of music from Bach to Bob Dylan, the Beatles to Dave Matthews to Philip Glass. However, it's sad to see the powers over such a worthwhile medium are so much more concerned with lining their pockets thatn they are the fair treatment of the consumers that support them. Then again, that really is one of the biggest weaknesses of the United States in general: "My money before your wellfare."

I know Apple has its own agenda, and it may be playing cards that just make the record labels take the bad PR when iTunes Music Store prices rise, but I hope Steve Jobs rakes people like Mr. Bronfram across as many coals as he can before relenting. There, end soap box rant.

Wow, I actually started this post feeling all calm and serene, and now I'm all in a huff. That means I don't even want to start addressing these other comments from our (edit: sorry, Finland's) beloved record industry! ; )

Tags: riaa, opinion

... For brushed metal windows, that is. Perhaps I'm jumping the gun a little bit here, but the first thing I noticed about iTunes 5 is that it no longer sports a brushed window. It looks mildly like the unified approach that Mail 2 sports, though considerably darker. Still, it proves that there is hope for Apple and their windows yet.



Now mind you, I don't overly dislike brushed metal windows. In fact, Max Rudberg's Brushed theme for ShapeShifter used to get pretty frequent use from me. I just don't like the inconsistent use of brushed metal through Apple's applications. Hopefully, this is evidence that Apple is heading toward a more consistent Aqua interface in future OS releases. (Come on, you know you want to kill the brushed metal Finder, Apple!)

By the way, the iPod nano may just become my first iPod. That thing is (cue East Coast accent) wicked cool!

Tags: software, macintosh

Though my immediate family has not been affected by Katrina that I know of, some members of my church family have. Times like this can be difficult, but we need to remember to encourage and uplift each other however we can. Despite the errors and difficulties that have arisen amid the chaos, It warms my heart to see how many people have reached out to help those they can.

Keep praying for the hurricane victims, and find ways to help if you can.

Tags: events

I hate to add fuel to a fire that should have never started, but the recent attacks on the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) have got me thinking of how much we seem to need protection from ourselves.

You see, this whole brouhaha launched when some content that some described as "sexually explicit" was discovered in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The fact that this material is only accessible on the PC version of the game (not the console versions) by means of hacking the application seems to be completely irrelevant. As a result of the mess, the ESRB changed Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to Adult Only (AO) from Mature (M). (More Info Here.)

The issue is being brought up again with Capcom's stylish puzzle-shooter, Killer 7. Again, the same attorney, Mr. Jack Thompson, is behind the crusade, and he is appealing to his prior allies, Sen. Hilary Clinton and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, for support. The drive is to have Killer 7 changed from an "M" rating to "AO." This time, Mr. Thomson takes things one step further and claims the ESRB should be dismantled if they do not submit to his requests. (Article Here.)

So, I hear many of my readers asking, why do I seem to be taking the side of the ESRB and the video game publishers on this one? Am I not opposed to such material in entertainment media? Don't I believe that children should be protected from such content? Well, of course I do, and that's why I say buyers should look at the label and see it is already rated "M" for Mature.

It's very simple, "M" in the video game world is the equivalent on an "R" rating in the movie world, and "R"-rated movies with content much more explicit and disturbing are created and available in normal retail stores. We all know what an "R" rating means. Despite this, I know of people who won't let their children watch a movie if it's rated "PG-13," yet these same children have several "M"-rated video games.

It all comes down to being responsible consumers. Game ratings will not change the content in video games any more than movie ratings have helped movies become more wholesome and moral over the last couple decades. We parents have to become more informed about what content is in the games, and the way to do this is easy: Flip over the box, and read why the game is rated what it's rated.

For example, Katamari Damacy is rated "E" (for "Everyone"), and it is qualified with "Mild Fantasy Violence." Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is rated "T" (for "Teen"), and its content includes "Blood," "Suggestive Themes," and "Violence." Now let's take Killer 7, which is rated "M" for "Blood and Gore," "Intense Violence," "Sexual Themes," and "Strong Language." Based off of those descriptions alone, do you think it is possible to make responsible buying decisions for your family? I do.

Of course, this brings up a whole slew of other issues. One issue is consistany. If we are to be this strict on the gaming industry, why has explicit material become so common on TV and in movies. After all, Jennifer Garner is allowed to run around in fetish costumes in Alias during prime time with but a "TV14" rating while nudity is becoming more and more common in "PG-13" movies, and don't tell me that Desperate Housewives has no sexual content.

Another issue is that of built-in content versus mods and add-ons. This same Jack Thompson alleged that EA's The Sims titles should be changed to an "M" rating from "T" because one can download nude skins for the characters off of the Internet. EA neither creates or endorses this material, but those facts seem to be trivial.

Mr. Thompson, the solution is not to dismantle the only industry watchdog. The answer is in responsible, informed consumerism on the part of parents and caregivers – unless I'm solving the wrong problem. If the problem is trying to figure out how to gain more media and political attention, then you have found a topic that will get you that attention.

Tags: video games, opinion

On a personal note, we had a very nice trip to Florida last week. We stayed with my brother and his wife as well as their two sons. We had a great time with them, and I always regret leaving them because I know it will be a while before we see each other again,

The only touristy thing we did was seeing Bok Tower and Sanctuary. It was very nice but a little sad at the same time. While the sanctuary is beautiful, the evidences of last year's hurricanes still linger, and the damage will probably take many years to recover from.

On a slightly sad note, my grandmother (who is also in Florida) is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease, which many of you know is not a fun thing to witness. Right now, grandma's daughter and son-in-law are living with her. I don't know how her daughter does it, but she has the most positive attitude. Also, grandpa is very supportive of grandma, but it must be tough on him too.

It was nice to see everyone. Personally, I'd like to get back down to Florida one more time in 2005, but it's going to be tough with school starting back up in a couple of weeks (both teaching classes and taking classes). Still, it will be worth the effort to see them.

I think that's all I'm going to post on this topic. It's really good to be back home, and I hope some of my readers will keep my Florida relatives in their prayers.

Tags: family

Lately, I have been playing around with the demo for Sibelius 4. For those of you who don't know what this is, Sibelius is a music application that can be used to notate, print, and play music. (It can actually do quite a bit more, but this is not an in-depth review.) Very simply put, a program like Sibelius is to music notation as MS Word is to word processing.

I have been a Sibelius user for quite some time now. I used to swear by Finale, but it took Coda Music Technologies (now MakeMusic Inc.) so long aggravatingly long to release a Mac OS X native version of Finale that I jumped ship after playing around with a demo of Sibelius 2 under OS X. Now I am using Sibelius 3 for my daily music notation needs, so the announcement of version 4 quite naturally caught my eye.

From the onset, Sibelius 4 behaves more like a Mac OS X application than its predecessors. Instead of being an app in a folder with a bunch of other files it requires to operate, Sibelius 4 is a "package." Also, Sibelius 4 uses Mac OS X standard directories for filing specialized information.

Once the application launches, there are many small refinements and touches that instantly distinguish this version. The main toolbar is smaller and less gaudy. More useful commands are in that toolbar, and floating windows support transparency effects (like the Formatting Palette in Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac OS X.)

Good Experiences

Dragging symbols and articulations around feels generally snappier. The Worksheet Creator is great and will save me a lot of time in the future. The Preferences dialogue box is much better than the one(s) in Sibelius 3. I like having the option to activate and deactivate floating windows from the toolbar, and the Mixer seems more responsive and less buggy than in Sibelius 3. Furthermore, the new ability to copy & paste into a word processor works as documented for the demo. It pasted fine into Word and into Pages, but it looked horrible. I can't complain, though, because it's a documented limitation of the demo.

Next up is Dynamic Parts. One word: Wow. Now here come several more words. In the past, once a score is completed, you would have to "extract" the individual parts. This is time consuming, and changes you make in the score later are not reflected in any parts you've already extracted. Dynamic Parts changes this. As a score is being written, you can choose any part from a menu n the toolbar, and it instantly appears on screen. Any changes you make within that part are simultaneously reflected in the score and vice versa. This could potentially be a huge time saver.

Another neat aspect of Dynamic Parts is the fact that you can pull up all the parts in one dialogue, set the number of copies needed of each part, and have them all print out in a tidy little package. While this feature can't be completely tested in the demo, it is functional enough to give you a good idea of how it will work.

Finally comes the much hyped video capabilities in Sibelius 4. Basically, you can have a movie open that you might be writing music for, and you can see exactly how the music lines up with the video. This would have been so great to have when I was working on our fifth grade "Virtual Scrapbook" DVD. I'm just beginning to figure this feature out, but I am seriously liking what I am seeing.

Iffy Experiences

Overall, the demo of Sibelius 4 is very good, and I am going to have to get pretty nit-picky here. (I love it when software is so good that I have to look for the flaws.)

First, there are a couple of visual bugs in the toolbar. The menus for Dynamic Parts and Page Zoom don't blend well with the toolbar, and the arrows to drop the menus down seem to be a few pixels off. Just as minor, launching the application seems to be slower than in Sibelius 3, but I'll write both of these off as quirks of pre-release software.

I'm not sure what I think of the playback controls being in their own floating window rather than in the main toolbar. It seems like unnecessary clutter. Also, in Sibelius 3, playback would begin from the last note you clicked on. Now you have to drag a slider to the point you want playback to begin at. This can be a real nuisance when working with long scores because the slider likes to reset at the beginning quite often.

As far as the keypad goes, it remains pretty much unchanged, but I would like to see it gain some flexibility. First, it would be nice if a tuplet section was added, so triplets, sextuplets, and the like could be controlled from the keypad. Also, a nice feature would be if the sections could be viewed simultaneously as expandable and collapsable sections. Again, I am thinking of something like the Formatting Palette in the Mac version of Office.

Expanding from that topic, many commonly used features, such as dynamic markings, tempos, clefs, and the like are buried in menus. While not suggesting that Sibelius gain the same visual clutter as Finale 2004, it would be interesting to see if they could include some kind of customizable toolbar in future versions of Sibelius where someone could keep commands they frequently use.

Finally, Finale has upped the ante on high quality audio samples by including 100+ sounds form Garritan Personal Orchestra in Finale 2006. Sibelius offers 100+ sounds with Kontakt Player Silver, but the real difference comes with the pitched instruments (instruments that can play a melody). Sibelius comes with 19 high quality pitched instruments. On the other hand, Finale 2006 will come with about 50 Garritan pitched instruments. To me, that seems like a point of competition which needs addressing.

The Unknown

There are some things about Sibelius that are still unknown. I've had some pretty weird bugs pop up when exporting to audio in Sibelius 3 from time to time, and I hope those are resolved in Sibelius 4, but that feature is unavailable in the demo. Also, as I understand it, Sibelius 4 will pre-load any sound libraries selected to eliminate the lag that exists when inputting notes or playing back a score for the first time. While this is sure to have benefits, I wonder this will affect Sibelius memory footprint. These questions won't be resolved until i can get my hands of a shipping copy, though.

Conclusion

Sibelius 4 is shaping up to be a very strong release. It retains the clean interface of Sibelius but almost to a fault. Again, the fact that many common items are buried in menus and dialogue boxes can be daunting to a user until they become well-versed in all of the keyboard commands. However, the benefits of Sibelius easily outweigh such small quarrels.

The only real point of contention I have with Sibelius is Kontakt Player Silver. In its current state, the high quality GPO sounds included with Finale 2006 soundly trump what is included with Sibelius, and I'm growing more of the opinion that Kontakt Player Gold should not be a separate $150 purchase, especially when comparing the lists of instruments included in Kontakt Player Gold and those included with Finale 2006.

As I said, though, Sibelius 4 has some strong features, but Sibelius needs to continue to innovate and provide value. Much of Sibelius' current Macintosh user base is probably a result of Finale ceasing to be a value for several years. Now that they have that base, they need to work to keep it.

Tags: software, technology, opinion, sibelius

Journals.ars has an entry posted in the M-Dollar section with screenshots of Longhorn Build 5203. For those of you unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, Longhorn is the code name for the next iteration of Microsoft Windows that is set to replace WindowsXP. Currently, Longhorn (or whatever it will be called) is set for release in late 2006, but some sources claim that the date will probably slip to early 2007. Being the geek that I am, I couldn't help but check the images out. Even though I'm a pretty die-hard Mac user, I still love ogling screenshots, especially desktops of any yet-to-be-released operating system (OS).

I can't comment on things like functionality or performance of this build. I personally haven't had the opportunity to play around with any Longhorn builds, so anything I say on those matters would be uninformed speculation. Therefore, these comments will be limited to the appearance of the Longhorn interface in this build. Please note that these comments may quickly become out of date seeing that this is unfinished software, and the interface may go through several revisions before the product's release.

Nice Comments

On the whole, the interface seems pretty sleek and elegant. It retains familiar Windows metaphors while visually separating itself from prior releases. With this release, Microsoft has definitely addressed the garishness of WindowsXP and the criticisms leveled toward the "plex" interface of previous Longhorn builds. Also, the icons are showing improvement. I especially like the Recycle Bin icon, but I wish the screenshots here included the full state of the Recycle Bin as well.

The "Computer" window in screenshot seven has nice progress bars visually representing how much of the disk space is currently being used. I have to admit that a similar function is lacking in the Mac OS X Finder. (Yes, I know that the FInder shows how much space is available at the bottom of the Finder window, but visual indicators are nice too.) Also the Spotlight...err, Search field in the Start Menu is a nice touch.

Concerns

Interface translucency is a very cool thing, and I am a sucker for glassy effects. However, translucency in the title bars may not be a good idea, especially in Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer where the location and search fields are also translucent. Some serious usability issues could come out of this (as Apple learned in the early OS X days when inactive title bars became translucent.) On the other hand, the blurring of the background through the translucent objects may alleviate this problem.

Another issue could be performance. Okay, now I'm speculating, but eye-candy like translucency and gaussian blurs eat processor cycles. Also, cool 3D effects have also been demoed – again more cycles. Hopefully the new Desktop Composition Engine (DCE, code named Avalon) will help take care of this, much as Quartz Extreme helps offload much of the eye-candy in Mac OS X onto the graphics processor. Additionally, Microsoft will probably let the user decide what eye-candy is active in the Appearance Manager.

Finally, Microsoft seems to be falling prey to the visual inconsistencies that have been cropping up in Mac OS X for the past few years. In Longhorn, there is a black gradient Taskbar which opens to a Start Menu that follows similar aesthetics. This contrasts with glassy windows in Windows Explorer as well as some applications like Paint and Internet Explorer. Furthermore, one of the screenshots shows navigation and information elements within two different file windows where the information has backgrounds of different colors. (Perhaps this isn't so bad because the different colors may represent different directories, but it still seems like overkill.) Then, also in this category, is Windows Media Player, which seems to follow its own set of rules separate and apart from the rest of the OS (much like iTunes does in Mac OS X).

Miscellany

What is with Microsoft's obsession with green elements? They are all over the place in XP, and here we see that the Star Menu's active state is green. Oh well, at least it doesn't clash with the rest of the interface like it does in XP's Luna style.

Is it me, or does the search icon in the Start Menu, Windows Explorer, and Internet Explorer look exactly like the icon for Apple's Spotlight and the search field in Safari? (Edit: I'll take this one back. After looking over GUIdebook, this icon seems a natural evolution of the icon Microsoft has used for search since Windows 95. Also, it's pointing the opposite direction from Spotlight's and Safari's icons.)

Conclusion

Microsoft is making progress with WIndows Longhorn, and it looks to improve on Windows' strengths while addressing some of its past weaknesses. It has hit some serious bumps in its development, and it will be some time before Longhorn reaches the potential that it initially promised. Regardless, this looks like it is shaping up to be a decent upgrade for Windows users, and while it may not inspire any switchers off the Mac (not me at any rate), it will have some of us wishing Mac OS X had translucent windows instead of brushed metal.

For further reading on Windows Longhorn, visit the Longhorn section of the SuperSite for Windows.

Tags: technology, microsoft, opinion, software

I really don't know what to say about these attacks, but I don't want to just ignore these events either. Those who were affected by the tragedy in London today will be in our families thoughts and prayers. I just wish people would realize that violence is not the answer and that reaction in and of itself is not validation for such atrocities.

Matthew 5:9. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

Tags: events

Okay, this will be quick and dirty. I never thought to mention this in my previous article because this issue never crossed my mind.

Using Intel processors will not open Macintosh computers up to waves of viruses, malware, or spyware. The vast majority of malicious software you hear about in the news targets Windows. Stated even more clearly, these viruses and such attack the software, not the hardware. Therefore, as long as you do not install Windows on your shiny new MacTel (which would be silly), you should be no more prone to virus attacks and such than you are right now.

Feel better? Good. Now go take some deep breaths; play some Katamari Damacy, and don't worry about Macintosh security. It's still there.

Tags: security, macintosh, opinion

Now that I've had a couple of days to digest the information, I thought I'd post a few thoughts about the PowerPC to x86 transition Steve Jobs announced at this year's World Wide Developer's Conference (WWDC).

Weekend Jitters

The weekend before WWDC, rumors were spreading around the Internet that Apple was in talks with Intel, and these talks were going to lead to an announcement that Apple would be abandoning the PowerPC architecture for the x86 architecture. Sure, these rumors had been around for years, but this time it was different. Publications with more clout and reputation at stake were reporting these rumors as solid fact.

The Macintosh community was abuzz with discussions. Forum topics would surpass a thousand posts in under an hour, and the debate kept returning to the same basic theme: Could this be for real?

I have to admit to being a nay-sayer. I thought Apple was going to use Intel's ARM processor in future mobile devices. I even agreed with Daring Fireball's article that speculated (far-fetched as it may sound) that Intel had wooed Apple with its own variant of the PowerPC architecture. Perhaps they could provide the speed in the PowerPC that IBM had so far failed to deliver. The thought that Apple would take an undertaking this large seemed unrealistic, especially after the rocky OS 9 to OS X shift.

The Announcement

Incidentally, I had been preparing some thoughts about how Apple had grown content with its current position in the market and how it seemed to be a company that was finished, for the time being, with going out on limbs. I knew just how wrong that line of thinking was when the headline came up on MacCentral reading: "The Rumors Are True."

What was most surprising wasn't the shift itself, though. What was surprising was how Steve Jobs made it seem like this was not a big deal, and developers would be able to easily take this shift in stride. More so, he even had demonstrable evidence that this was the case. Rosetta will be able to run PowerPC compiled apps on the x86 processors (with some caveats we'll explore later). Mathmatica was recompiled for x86 in about two hours, and the new version of XCode can dual-compile applications, so a developer can ship software that can run on both architectures on the same disc.

"Impressive. Most impressive."

The comprehensiveness by which this transition is being handled should not, in retrospect, have been so surprising. After all, Apple is a company that thinks and plans before it acts. Additionally, Apple had already weathered a substantial platform transition in recent history from which they could learn. As it turns out, Mac OS X has been running on x86 machines practically from Day 1. In fact, its BSD core makes it inherently portable. Some saw this day coming. Fortunately, Apple had planned well for it.

The Timing

One of the arguments against this dramatic change happening now was the fact that the OS 9 to OS X migration was really only just settling down, even though it has been five years since the introduction of OS X. Why would Apple force its users and developers through another tectonic shift in such a short amount of time? Furthermore, such a shift would require time, and PowerPC Macintosh sales will surely take a hit with the promise of an entirely new architecture.

Right now, Apple is a strong company, both in public perception and financially. Possibly, Apple's executives see this as a good time to undertake this task for precisely that reason. PowerPC was putting Apple's lineup (especially the expensive stuff) in a precarious position, and the performance gap between high end Macs and PCs had ceased to narrow. In time, it may have even begun to widen again.

As a side note: Remember the days of the G4 towers? Back when they were introduced, everybody still measured processor speeds by megahertz. As Intel moved past the 1 GHz barrier, Motorola was still providing Apple with G4 chips running at about 600 MHz. Until the introduction of the G5, Apple's high end lineup was looking very weak. It looks like this time, Apple is trying to avoid history repeating itself.

Yes, Macintosh sales will drop off for a couple of quarters. Hopefully, iPod sales will help offset that. We may even see some price-cutting on PowerPC-based Macintoshes in order to get them out of the warehouses. Fortunately, Apple will be taking these lumps from a position of strength. Had they waited another couple of years, the outlook may have been more grim.

Fear and Paranoia

Of course, there are some who proclaim this as the Death of Apple. (In fact, I wonder how The Mac Observer's Apple Death Knell Counter is doing right now.) The biggest fear is, of course, that people will widely adopt Window's emulators for their Macs and the need for Macintosh software and game development will come to a screeching halt. This reasoning is a load of dingo's kidneys. Emulators are a pain. They also rob you of the Macintosh user experience, and some can even leave you vulnerable to viruses and malware.

Take X11 for example. Every Macintosh user has X11 available to them to provide a graphical interface for UNIX based apps (which are all free, I might add). Now raise your hand if you know what X11 is. Keep it up if you have installed X11 onto your Mac. Okay, now keep your hand up if you regularly use X11. Alright, I see about three hands, and mine is not one of them. I messed with X11 some and decided it was too much of a pain. Thanks for the option, but I'll stick with my native Mac OS X apps.

Mac OS X is a fully independent platform. Most users will not want to bother with emulators or virtual machines, and those hardcore geeks or gamers who do will be a vanishingly small percentage. Mac developers will still be needed, and the market is not going to vanish simply because of an architecture change.

The Trade Offs

There are definite gains in switching to the x86 architecture. Mac users will probably see more rapid adoption of PC-first technology alongside Apple's innovations. Macintosh ports will probably take less time in the long run. Speed will be a definite gain, and we will hopefully see more and better updates to Apple's laptop line (which used to be the strongest aspect of their product matrix). It's very likely that there are even more advantages I haven't even thought of yet.

However, there are some trade-offs. The mystique and elegance of the PowerPC architecture will be a thing of the past to Macintosh users. Sure, Macs will finally have performance parity, but there will no longer be that hope of one day PowerPC Macs will speed past WinTel systems. From a subjective standpoint, the switch to x86 makes Macs a little less special now. (See this article for more.) I just hope those "Intel Inside" stickers don't get plastered all over the hardware!

(Is this a good point to mention the whole frontside bus issue? Sure, we'll be seeing 3.2 GHz Macs soon, but their FSB will drop to 800 MHz. In fact, I could not find a single Intel processor with a FSB that surpassed 1 GHz like the G5s do. I wonder how that will affect things. It's weird to think that my 1.8 GHz G5 has a faster bus than a 3+ GHz Pentium 4.)

Additionally, software will be spotty for a while – even with Rosetta. Apps that require a G4/G5 processor do not seem to work. AltiVec instructions will be lost, and Classic apps will not work. Actually, the whole Classic thing doesn't bother me in the least, but it might affect someone. Hopefully, companies will release patches for existing products (if that is possible). However, I bet that if I want an x86 native version of Sibelius for the Macintosh, I'm going to have to save my pennies for a new version. Just like the migration from OS 9 to OS X, there are going to have to be some major software purchases.

Conclusion

I was dismayed at first to read the news that Apple would be switching to the x86 architecture, but now I am cautiously optimistic. The road will be a bumpy one, but at the end of it, I will still be a Mac user. After all, it's really the operating system and the software that makes a Mac what it is. Furthermore, I'm sure Apple will retain its great industrial design (and PowerMacs will hopefully get to shrink some now). Everything that makes an Apple an Apple will still be in place, and I guess that's all that really matters.

Tags: intel, opinion, macintosh

After 14 intensive hours of work, the DVD for the 5th grade completion ceremony is finished. As has been my practice for the las three years, no Microsoft products were harmed (read: used at all) for this product.

The Process

1. All photos of the children are organized in iPhoto and touched up or modified in Photoshop Elements 2.
2. The actual "slideshow" is put together in Keynote 2 and gets exported as a QuickTime movie.
3. Music was composed, orchestrated, and recorded in Sibelius 3 (with a little help from Audio Hijack).
4. Children's voiceovers are recorded in Audio Hijack. Both these voices and the music get imported and organized in to iTunes.
5. All media gets dumped into iMovie. Audio recordings are sorted through and added from within iMovie.
6. The whole package is exported to iDVD. A bonus slideshow is added from within iDVD. We burn, and DVD labels are created in Pages.

The Good

iPhoto is awesome. I organize everything image related in iPhoto – digital photographs, desktop pictures, stock photos. I love that program. Also, Keynote 2 is a great tool. I've discovered so many neat things about it during this last project. Apple's media browsers built into their iWork and iLife applications is also great. Since all of my audio was organized in iTunes, and all of the images were organized in iPhoto, all of my resources were no more than a click or two away – even if the application it was stored in was closed!

Getting away from Apple's products, Sibelius is really growing on me now that I am learning some more about it, but I have a long way to go. Now if only I could justify upgrading the instruments to Kontakt Player Gold! Also, Audio Hijack was great for recording the kids' voices. It also saved my tail once, and I'll talk about that further down in this post.

Also, Christine H. gets mentioned in the awesome category. She composed the beautiful music that went into this year's project. I merely acted as orchestrator and arranger.

The So-So

iMovie and iDVD were acting flakey this time around. For the first time, I began experiencing some slowdowns and unexpected terminations in iMovie, and iDVD got screwed up burning the first DVD and produced a coaster. I opened up my Process Viewer in OS X, and my CPU usage never maxed out, nor was I in any danger of running out of memory while iMovie was running. (Update: As far as iDVD goes, that coaster turned out to be my fault, so iDVD worked as well as expected.) I guess my main iDVD complaint is that I feel like I'm growing out of it.

The Bad

Things got rushed at the end, so there are still some details I am left unhappy with. That's my own fault. I did not pace myself as well this year as I have in previous years.

Keynote's "drop" slide transition did not translate well into video, and I wish I had made some time to compose some additional music for the extra slideshow. Another weird Keynote flaw was the "fly" transition: when I used it on an object (technically it's a text transition), it would leave artifacts only if the object was coming from the left side of the screen.

Finally, Sibelius was not behaving at all when I was trying to export the score as an audio track. It would always come out as an unreadable file. Fortunately, I was able to use Audio Hijack to record the music while it was playing, and that saved the day!

The End

Overall, the project went well. Now all that's left is duplicating a bunch of copies as parents order them. (I really need to invest in one of those disc duplicators before I fry my computer's optical drive!) The glitches seemed pretty random and isolated, and, overall, my "Made on a Mac" DVD was another relatively pain-free experience.

Product Links

• Apple iLife - includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iTunes, and GarageBand.
• Apple iWork - includes Keynote and Pages.
• Sibelius Software - makers of Sibelius 3 and distributors of Kontakt Player Silver and Gold.
• Rogue Amoeba - makers of Audio Hijack Pro.
• Adobe Photoshop Elements - less daunting and less expensive photo editing from the makers of Photoshop.

Tags: work, software

Okay short post, I promise. Revolution will have the ultimate in backwards compatibility if the reports are accurate. The XBox 360 will have "limited" backwards compatibility, and, yes, I'm hoping Halo, Halo 2, and Doom 3 are on that list, and the PS3 will have compatibility with the PS2.

Here's the real question: Will the PS3 be backwards compatible with PS1 games?

Tags: video games

I can never figure out why people spend so much money to make their desktop computer into a gaming rig. It's an exercise in futility at best. (And, yes, I know this slightly contradicts an earlier post, but I reserve the right to contradict myself any time I want to.) Half Life 2, Doom 3, the upcoming Unreal Tournament 2007 – all of these are games that people will upgrade their computers for. Even if we upgrade only one component, maintaining a desktop as a gaming solution can get spendy. Chances are, every time a new generation of graphics engine, a gamer will want to buy a new graphics card. Now take the ATI X800 for example. It's not even the best card out there, but it sells for about $300 – the price of and XBox and a PS2 combined.

To illustrate: My first-generation PowerMac G5 struggles to run Halo smoothly at high settings. (Granted, here is one advantage the desktop gamer will point out to the console gamer. Playing Halo on my Mac, I have the option to run at higher settings. THis point will be rendered moot a little later on.) If I wanted to get a mid-range Macintosh G5 graphics card, say a Radeon 9800 Pro SE, I would be set back between $230-$250 dollars. Again, this is not even the best card I could get, but it would do the job. Still, when UT 2007 comes out, it would be officially obsolete. Chances are, I will need a whole new tower to handle that monster.

Gaming can be very expensive.

Alternatively, though, lets assume we can forgo the graphics card upgrade (and whatever else could fall short – CPU, memory, hard drive space, etc.) and follow a cheaper alternative. How much would a new XBox be? On Amazon.com, I would be set back around $150. Along with this, I would now also be able to play Halo 2 and Doom 3, neither of which would have been viable with my previous solution because Halo 2 is not available for the Mac and the 9800 would most likely be scared of Doom 3 at anything but low settings.

Now that E3 has completed, console developers are even more attractive. The games demoed (and yes, I understand some pre-rendering was going on) were breathtaking. The FF VII demo, MGS 4, Killzone 2, UT 2007, Quake 4, Alan Wake, Project Gotham 3...Wow! And HD quality will be a given. This means that these games will look as good on your (nice) TV as they would on your (nice) computer screen.

This leads to another interesting point of discussion, though. None of these consoles (assuming Revolution has similar specifications) are particularly earth shattering. Sure, XBox 360 has 3 CPU cores, but, outside of that, you have your standard 3.2 GHz processors, 512 MB RAM, 500 MHz graphics card, nothing out of the ordinary. Despite this, these consoles will produce visuals that will trump similarly spec'd desktops. Yes, the whole machine is geared to be an efficient gaming powerhouse, and that explains some of the performance, but I think the rest of the credit belongs to the good console developers.

Take the current de facto console leader for example, the PlayStation 2. It has a 300MHz processor, 32 MB RAM, a 150 MHz graphics card with 4 MB VRAM and a 4x DVD-ROM drive. This thing is comparable to a second generation G3 iMac, but I dare any 400 MHz PC or Mac to successfully run Burnout 3, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, or Star Wars Battlefront. It would never happen. RTCW requires a 500 MHz processor on desktops and Star Wars Battlefront wants a 1GHz processor (not to mention 256 MB of RAM and 64 MB of VRAM). Even the XBox has a mere 733 MHz processor.

Again, the culprit is code. Console developers have a set overhead they know they have to work with. The parameters are immobile, and they have to squeeze as much power out of those concrete specifications as humanly possible, and may developers (Criterion, Naughty Dog, Square Enix) do a fine job of doing just that. Graphical disasters like Enter the Matrix are often the result of coders who cannot seem to respect those parameters well enough to stretch them to their limits.

On the other hand, PC-centric developers can often be guilty of creating resource-hungry monsters. (Although I have to hand it to Valve for the scalability of HL2.) Returning to Star Wars Battlefront, why do the specs more than double from the PS2 to the desktop? There has to be some jump, of course. The PS2 isn't running Windows XP or Mac OS X along with the game, but it seems that the real problem is that desktop developers have grown comfortable with the fact that their target audience's machine are upgradable. Therefore, they do not spend as much time and effort optimizing the code to run on a 400 MHz machine.

The moral of the story after this insanely long post? If I'm that desperate for a Halo or Doom 3 fix, I'm getting an XBox. (Although, by now, I might as well wait for the XBox 360.)

Tags: video games, macintosh

Okay, I don't know if Steve Ballmer really amuses me or really scares me. Between the developer's brainwashing mantra and the famous "monkey" dance, that man has demonstrated he has little to no dignity. I also love this article, where a USA Today reporter is interrupted three times by Ballmer. Ballmer claims that Microsoft "likes to be first" when the reporter is making the point that Microsoft is not always first to the market with a new idea or innovation. Actually, the reporter probably would have managed to put a positive spin on his point had Ballmer not been so belligerent.

Apple may not have the marketshare Microsoft has, but it can always point at Redmond and say, "Our CEO is cooler than your CEO."

Tags: technology, microsoft

My nephew Aaron got married to his fiancée Sarah this last weekend. They make a cute couple, and the ceremony was very nice. I don't know how I feel about Aaron growing up, though. I remember when he was born. Of course, I also have one other nephew and one niece graduating high school this May. Congratulations to them in advance!

Anyway, I hope Aaron and Sarah have many happy years together, and I wish them the best of luck as they begin their new life together. Here's to both of you!

Tags: family

Here we are at the beginning. Right now, this site is created and maintained with the excellent RapidWeaver created by the good folks at Realmac Software, Ltd. This is, in no uncertain terms, a great piece of software for someone like me who wants a nice, clean layout but also has to operate on a budget. I invite any of my Macintosh-using friends to check RapidWeaver out.

Anyway, welcome to the site, and I hope you visit back often. Who knows what craziness the future will bring this little hamlet in cyberspace.