BoPL » Apple

OpenSolaris 2008.11

Paul — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:51:18 +0000

A while ago I posted on my adventures getting OpenSolaris networking to move from its natural state of notworking (see what I did there?) on a mac mini. Well today I installed the latest release candidate of 2008.11, the forthcoming update, and it went much more smoothly. You still have to install a driver (tip – usb keys work fine for file transfers), but once done restarting networking worked first time.

Apple set for decline, apparently

Paul — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 09:08:53 +0000

Via Wired:

Another reason for the Apple selloff: Two banks (Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital) cut their ratings on the stock.

“First, PC unit growth is decelerating and the remaining source of growth is increasingly in the sub-$1,000 marker, where Apple does not play” said Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Huberty, in a published note.

Oh if only there was some way Apple could lower the cost of their computers somehow. Obviously it sells the Mac Mini for less than $1,000 (even with added bling), but that doesn’t count because, um, it’s too small to be a real PC. And the news is grim on the laptop front, where the MacBook starts at $1099; there’s no way Apple could find room in its famously hefty margins to cut $100 off that. Looks like Apple is doomed.

Or maybe Morgan Stanley employ a bunch of shaved monkeys, and that’s why they’re doing so well at the moment.

OpenSolaris on Mac Mini

Paul — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:04:17 +0000

First of all, don’t. Just don’t. But if you must, here’s the driver to get the ethernet port to work on a Mac Mini under OpenSolaris. You’re welcome.

Tech Roundup

Paul — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:06:11 +0000

I upgraded to 10.5.2 on my Mac yesterday, and found that screen sharing no longer worked when trying to control a 10.5.1 machine. So upgrade all your machines if you’re upgrading any, and as it’s almost a third of a gig in size it’s worth downloading the install if you have more than one machine.

Beta 3 of Firefox is out, and seems to be working well on my Mac at least, so worth considering.

I’ve used DropCopy in the past to move files between different machines, but iChat in Leopard (and maybe before, I don’t know) lets you move files between Bonjour users very easily. Start up iChat on both machines, open the Bonjour users list, and you can move files the same as in a normal chat session, but faster.

Finally it appears that WordPress automatically backs up posts as you’re typing, so that if, for example, you accidentally pressed backspace outside of a text box, thereby moving back a page, you wouldn’t lose everything. Hypothetically.

Appletime

Paul — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 07:23:35 +0000

I joined a Netflix-like DVD rental service a while ago, based in part on the promise of a new iPod Shuffle after 3 months. I’d lost track slightly, so was pleasantly surprised when one arrived yesterday. As ever the packaging lives up to the rest of the product, and the machine itself is almost too small to believe. This is just the warm-up act though; the next version of OS X is released on Friday, and pretty soon after I’ll be in line to buy a couple of Mac Minis (one for us to use as a DVR, the other for my father to replace an aging PC). I’m no Josh when it comes to tech-love, but I must confess I’m moist with anticipation.

iPods

Paul — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:34:50 +0000

Head to a real or virtual Apple store near you to check out the new iPods. And by new, I mean like way new; this isn’t just a bump in capacity, this is 2 entirely new ranges, and revisions to everything that wasn’t new. As with the iPod Mini, replaced when it was still Apple’s highest selling product, Apple shows that one way to success is to just keep pushing out the greatness when it’s ready, not when your graphs show that your cash cow is waning.

Anyway, you can see the details for yourself, I just wanted to point out a minor detail. The iPod Classic (I feel like Classic should be written in curly script for some reason) now goes up to 160GB. I won’t bore you with tales of my first hard drive (20MB, if you’re asking), but dude, 160GB is just an assload of storage by anyone’s measure.

Numbers and Pages

Paul — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:45:14 +0000

Josh has tried Numbers, the new spreadsheet app from Apple, and finds it pretty but unusable for anything vaguely serious. This mirrors my experience with Pages, their word processing/DTP app. It’s lovely, the controls are almost always exactly where you expect and work how you expect, and it’s just a joy to use. Until you get past about four pages, when it bogs down so horribly that a third of my time is spent watching a beach ball spin. For reference I’m working on a 16 page document with a couple of embedded graphics, using a MacBook Core Duo 1.83GHz and 2G of RAM, and haven’t experienced such lag since using my 286 in 1990.

iPod Security

Paul — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:29:43 +0000

If you have an iPod, and are worried about getting it stolen, this could be the ultimate in protection.

Accent

Paul — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:26:29 +0000

I took the MacBook in today to get a new power supply (the old one wasn’t working properly because the pins that make the power connection wouldn’t tract (that’s the opposite of retract, right?) to make a connection). While in there the nice Apple man also changed the interior trim because of Orange MacBook Syndrome – though many found theirs changing colour within weeks, it’s taking about 9 months for mine, which shows what a light touch I have. Anyway, for obvious reasons they couldn’t replace the US keyboard with another US one, so I’m now using a UK one. Please let me know if you can no longer understand what I’m saying.

(Actually the key layout is physically different, unfortunately making the shift key I favour smaller, and moving the return key, which are two of the worst changes they could have made. Ah well.)

Mac crash

Paul — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:33:08 +0000

My MacBook just crashed, as in turned itself off without any warning. This has never happened to me before, and I’m a little freaked. The fact that there’s a green light flashing on the battery is a source of concern too.