Aehso’s Output

Hell Freezes Over (again): Apple Boot Camp

Apple are facilitating booting XP on a Mac via Boot Camp.

<jaw hits ground>

Unfortunately dual booting sucks. I’ve tried this many a time with various smells of Windows and Linux and found that I inevitably ended up spending most of my time in one of the OS’es - rebooting to complete a task is too much hassle in all but the most critical use cases. Over time, the OS that is run the least tends to get neglected, kind of like to a summer house garden.

Virtualization on the other hand. If they get OS X and Windows running side by side, now that would be something else. The Core Duo CPU in my new Mac Mini includes support for VT, I wonder if the rest of the hardware is compatible. Maybe in a year or so, with the release of Leopard, OS X will support this. I’d better start saving for a massive memory upgrade in the meantime…

[Update: A great quote from the associated /. discussion]

This will change the face of Apple computers.

Yeah, it’s the virtual ugly stick!

Accessorizing a Mac Mini

So I picked up a Core Duo Mac Mini last week while over at EclipseCon. Dinky isn’t the word, and quiet too, although that power brick is a monster. Elgato also released universal binaries for EyeTV (v2.1) last week so I’ve got my EyeTV set up already.

I really need to buy a few accessories though. First up was, err, a new 32″ accessory that is getting rave reviews. (The mini has both DVI and S/PDIF outputs so it should be able to make full use of the it). My aging JBL Pro-Logic amplifier also needs to be replaced with a unit that does 5.1 Digital box (with optical and coaxial digital I/O) but that’s not quite as urgent.

FrontRow rocks by the way, as does MediaCentral although it doesn’t show anything when I try use it to watch EyeTV. Hmmm…

Mac Mini Core Solo vs Core Duo

Initial benchmarks of the Core Duo Mac Mini’s performance relative to it’s Core Solo underling. There is not much of a difference that can’t be accounted for by the extra Ghz but wow that spare core proves very handy for those multithread tests.

I’ll be picking one up at the end of the month regardless, they seem to be reasonably capable of decoding 1080i HD streams (using VLC) from what I read so that makes it future proof enough for my living room for at least few years…

EyeTV 200 and CyTV

I got an EyeTV 200 yesterday and have it hooked up to my NTL connection as I type (me, an impulse shopper, no!) The picture quality is as good as you’d expect with an analog feed.  A hint to NTL Dublin customers - tell the EyeTV tuner software that you are in Germany in order to get it to scan the full frequency range used by NTL’s analogue service.  I’m especially impressed with my newfound ability to record TV programs (via the mobile tvtv EPG) while out in pub on a Friday night - I’ll never miss MOTD again!
I had also blogged about EyeConnect in the past but CyTV caught my attention this evening.  How about that, I can turn my EyeTV into a live streaming video server just like that.

It would be good if NTL would allow us to use a CAM with their digital service though…

Hannibal’s take on the Mac Intel switch.

Jon ‘Hannibal’ Stokes hits the nail on the head with his commentary on Apple’s move to Intel CPUs - DRM conspiracy theorists go home, it’s all about performance.

By the way, if understanding modern chipset architecture is important to you, you’d do worse than back-read through Hannibal articles on Ars - they guy has the knack of distilling complex architectures into great summaries - leaving you with just enough knowledge to be dangerous

The whole move des raise one interesting question though - if PC’s continue to be based on x86 architectures but the next generation home systems(PS3/XBox360,Revolution) are going to be PowerPC/Cell (IBM) based, is this going to lead to a greater technical divide between the “work” and “leisure” computing platforms?

Makes for an interesting scenario that - what protocols/hardware/software will we use to sync our home lives with our business lives?

For Mac heads - QuickTime stream of Job’s WWDC keynote.

Is available on Akami’s network - skip to 23 minutes in for the bombshell, and the reasoning behind. Lots of theories on why they are doing this.

The most plausable is that Apple have seen IBM’s roadmap for the PPC chipset and it doesn’t compete with Intels on bang-per-watt (not bang-per-buck!) - for laptops and portable devices, bang-per-watt is the important metric. Apparently IBM are more interested in the larger-volume XBox360 and PS3/Cell chip fabrication commitments so Apple were feeling a little unloved.

(The other theory is they moved because of the Pentium D, and it’s built in DRM. I’m not so sure that is a good enough reason to make such a risky migration - surely IBM could have developed a similiar capability for the PowerPC chipset?)

My opinion? It’s a Good Thing.

Panther 10.3.9 update breaks Java for some users.

Ars Technica have referenced a note on the Apple support site that basically says they broke something big in Java with Panther Update 10.3.9.

I like their way of detecting if your system is affected:

“open up a Terminal window and type java -version. If you get the message “segmentation fault” then you will need to follow the workaround”

LOL.

At least there is a way to recover though.

iPods annoy Microsoft execs.

Or maybe it’s only the executives that don’t have one that are annoyed. It seems that Microsoft’s campus is being over-run by white ear buds, despite there being several Microsoft centric offerings available.

The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player — that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft’s

That must really bug the crap out of the Windows Digital Media division alright (but only the ones that won’t buy one)…

Ovolab PLink.

Obolab PLink looks like a very cool Carbon OS X application that acts as a telephone call “processer” (for want of a better word!) for your home. It acts as an answering machine, call logger, DTMF based call router (think ‘press 1 for …, press 2 for …”, voice-mail to email bridge, all very customizable via AppleScript.

Nice, but people use mobile phones so much these days, would it be useful in the home? I think not. However, my guess is SOHO type professionals would love this.

Motorola executive gets it.

At CES 2005 Motorola’s president of the personal devices business gave a very interesting speech. This guy (or his speech writers) gets it alright - people want their new phone to have all the new features but they won’t use them. 99.5% of the day where is (a normal person’s) phone? Somewhere within reach, but discretely inactive. .4% of the time, you’re using it for a voice call or messaging. The other .1% of the time is the stuff the phone networks keep trying to ram down our throats - picture messaging, games, cameras. Useless crap. What’s most important in most consumers mind? Style first, usability second, useless crap a distant third. (Unfortunately for Nokia, they occasionally go a bit too far with the styling.

Maybe that’s why I like Apple’s stuff so much - simple interfaces to very capable and reliable ‘things’ that perform a specific function. I can’t wait for the Motorola “iPhone” but I really hope the Apple UI designers teach the Motorola phone engineers how to write a minimal interface first. My guess is the first stab will be a disaster to use but the second generation might be worth a look.