Pem’s Tech Blog

Is it possible, I wonder, to study a bird so closely, to observe and catalogue its peculiarities in such minute detail, that it becomes invisible? Is it possible that while fastidiously calibrating the span of its wings or the length of its tarsus, we somehow lose sight of its poetry? That in our pedestrian descriptions of a marbled or vermiculated plumage we forfeit a glimpse of living canvases, cascades of carefully toned browns and golds that would shame Kandinsky, misty explosions of color to rival Monet? I believe that we do. I believe that in approaching our subject with the sensibilities of statisticians and dissectionists, we distance ourselves increasingly from the marvelous and spell-binding planet of imagination whose gravity drew us to our studies in the first place.

This is not to say that we should cease to establish facts and to verify our information, but merely to suggest that unless those facts can be imbued with the flash of poetic insight then they remain dull gems; semi-precious stones scarcely worth the collecting.

When we stare into the catatonic black bead of a Parakeet’s eye we must teach ourselves to glimpse the cold, alien madness that Max Ernst perceived when he chose to robe his naked brides in confections of scarlet feather and the transplanted monstrous heads of exotic birds.  When some ocean-going Kite or Tern is captured in the sharp blue gaze of our Zeiss lenses, we must be able to see the stop motion flight of sepia gulls through the early kinetic photographs of Muybridge, beating white wings tracing a slow oscilloscope line through space and time.

Looking at a hawk, we see the minute differences in width of the shaft lines on the underfeathers where the Egyptians once saw Horus and the burning eye of holy vengeance incarnate.  Until we transform our mere sightings into genuine visions; until our ear is mature enough to order a symphony from the shrill pandemonium of the aviary; until then we may have a hobby, but we shall not have a passion.

– from Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, John Higgins

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/21 (Tuesday, July 21, 2009) :: Philosophy and Opinions :: No Comments »

Here’s what I am using (as of 2009/07/18):
* most of my hard drives are primarily for Windows and use NTFS; if necessary then I can use macfuse on Mac OS X
* my Mac Mini’s internal/boot drive will stay HSF+, (Mac OS X Extended (Journaled))
* my one OS X Time Machine hard drive will be NFS+, using MacDrive on Windows

The rest of this article is the details and background info…

Notes from simple CNET video, regarding native support:

* NTFS is standard for Windows
* HFS+ is standard for Mac OS X
* FAT32 is cross-platform
* FAT32 can not create a file bigger than 4 GB

Mac OS X: options to also write NTFS:
* macfuse
* Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X
* NTFS-3G

Windows: options to read/write HSF+:
* MacDrive: read/write, not free
* HFSExplorer: only does read

Notes based on: http://cnettv.cnet.com/format-drive-mac-os-x-windows/9742-1_53-50074180.html

So why would anyone want a file bigger than 4 GB?  Some obvious examples:
* large video file
* system backup disk image file, such as (Acronis True Image, or Norton Ghost)
* iso disc image (standard DVD is 4.7 GB, dual-layer is 8.5 GB, blu-ray is much more)

Mac OS X, More Details:
One catch is that Mac OS X Time Machine requires HFS+

Mac OS Extended is the same as HSF+ or HFS Plus

Mac OS X (Journaled): better, plus Mac OS X Time Machine requires journaling

HSF+, not case sensitive: By default, both my Mac Mini’s internal drive, and my recent purchase pre-formatted for Mac OS X external drive, were both not case sensitive.  They both came as and still are "(Mac OS X (Journaled))”.

UFS: Unix File System:
Another twist is the UFS file system, which is supported by Mac OS X.  UFS is case sensitive.

Case sensitive?
* UFS : yes
* NTFS: no
* Mac OS X Extended: no
* Mac OS X Extended, Case Sensitive: yes

Because UFS is case sensitive, this might be a theoretical concern for (compiling something for unix on Mac OS X) or (for using a drive with both Mac OS X, and Linux such as Ubuntu)

One reference says (If this kind of case-sensitivity is important to you, you can create a UFS partition or disk image and use that for your sources) — http://developer.apple.com/unix/crossplatform.html

However, at this point I am planning to just ignore that, and leave all my drives as not case sensitive (NTFS is not case sensitive) (my Mac OS X drives are not case sensitive).  Maybe I will worry about it later if I start running Ubuntu on one of my home computers.

One reason is that the default is (not case sensitive).  The other is that I’ve read some rumors suggesting it might cause some incompatibility problems with certain software.

Mac OS X Disk Utility doesn’t call it HSF+:
* Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
* Mac OS Extended
* Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive)
* Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)

As explained in my article, I am keeping the default: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

I feel like it could reduce confusion if they would just call it HSF+ instead of “Mac OS Extended”?  But then again, it is common to have more than one name for the same technology standard: consider (HyperTransport was originally LDT) and (FireWire is the common name for IEEE 1394).  And I guess Apple thinks they are making things simpler by using a more “friendly” sounding name.

When installing Mac OS X, you can choose UFS or HSF+:
I found this referenced in some Apple articles, such as: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1410?viewlocale=en_US

I’ve read there might be some theoretical scenario where you want a case sensitive file system on Mac OS X, such as for compiling certain unix code.  Maybe.

However, right now (2009/07/18), my Mac Mini OS drive and Time Machine drive are both HSF+, called Mac OS Extended (Journaled).  So that is my plan, unless at some point I hear about some good reason to use a case sensitive format, such as UFS or (Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled), which means HSF+ case-sensitive journaled).

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/18 (Saturday, July 18, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X, Operating System focused: Windows :: No Comments »

Since this blog has long lost any particular focus, just thought I’d throw this post out there, since sometimes I watch a video and take some notes during it.

“The boundaries between people are overwhelmed by our connections.  Your prosperity can expand America’s prosperity.  Your health and security can contribute to the world’s health and security.  And the strength of your democracy can help advance human rights for people everywhere.”

This is a very important basic economic concept.  The simple idea is that in a healthy civil free modern world, trade should be based on a non-zero-sum game (win-win, mutual benefit for both sides).  To some extent, there is not a fixed limited amount of resources.  Exploiting others (such as getting someone else to fall behind) is not the only way to get ahead.  It is less productive for some to get ahead at the expensive of others; it is more productive for everyone to get ahead.

My general personal thought is that this can be achieved by reducing global population growth of humans, and increasing work done by automation such as robots and computers .  If we can increase the robot/computer to human ratio, then long-term, robots and computers will do so much work that we will be free to just enjoy life or work on advancing other things further.  For example, we can end violence and disease, cure aging, pursue interests, explore the universe, and increase the quality of life per individual for all individuals.

Here are some other quotes from the speech:

“The true sign of success, is not whether we are a source of perpetual aid that helps people scrape by.  It’s whether we are the partners in building the capacity for transformational change.“

“Democracy, opportunity, health, and the peaceful resolution of conflict.”

“We all have many identities of tribe and ethnicity of religion and nationality.  But defining oneself in opposition to someone who belongs to a different tribe or worships a different prophet, has no place in the 21st century.  Africa’s diversity should be a source of strength – not a cause for division.  We are all God’s children, we all share common aspirations, to live in peace and security, to access education and opportunity, to love our families and our communities and our faith, that is our common humanity”

I watched it here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/11/obama-in-ghana-africa-not_n_229984.html

But obviously from the logo, it’s an msnbc.com video

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/12 (Sunday, July 12, 2009) :: Philosophy and Opinions :: No Comments »

Overall my first impressions are generally positive, though definitely not to the point that I’d even consider any chance of ever "switching".

However, one thing that has really bothered me so far is the differences in the keyboard shortcuts.  I have Ctrl mapped to whatever crazy Apple keyboard button does alt-tab and ctrl-c ctrl-v ctrl-x etc.  This is much better than having to press alt+c for copy etc.

However, it still sucks.  ctrl+tab is doing alt+tab.  I have to use alt+tab for tabs switching in FireFox.  ctrl+shift+left/right doesn’t highlight text words properly.  alt+D doesn’t let me type in a web URL in FireFox (or Safari), and ctrl+E doesn’t let me do a web search in FireFox (or Safari).  On the xterm console window, I have to press alt+c instead of ctrl+c.  This reminded me that it’s not just Windows keyboard shortcut standards, but Linux too, that Mac OS X is breaking (for example, I can cut copy paste and alt+tab properly in RedHat, probably Ubuntu etc too etc).  Yes this is a complaint about vi too; shift+z+z is not the right way to save a text file, it’s ctrl+s.  However, vi is a specific old-world legacy application rather than the OS; the actual Linux OS GUI’s (desktop environments) that I’ve used have the correct keyboard shortcuts.

I have to say that I came pretty close to fixing this problem with a proper method such as (SMASH MAC MINI WITH SLEDGE HAMMER) or (reformat hard drive and install Windows 7 on it, or maybe Ubuntu).

I’m sorry if it sounds “hater” or narrow-minded.  I am fine with memorizing keyboard shortcuts: I think it’s a great convenience (and efficiency improvement) to use the keyboard most of the time (instead of the mouse).  However, I am not fine with memorizing a second set of keyboard shortcuts that are only used by Mac OS X!  Apple should follow the standard and try to minimize the differences between different default hotkeys for different OS’s and different applications and different platforms (such as mobile / smart phone).  Is it too much to ask for Alt+Tab and Ctrl+C to just work, regardless of what OS I am using!?

I really don’t want to sound pointlessly negative or “hater”.  Overall there’s a lot I like about it: I have some overall very positive impressions of Mac OS X and the Mac Mini (Mar 2009).  However, the keyboard shortcuts need to be fixed.

At this point I am probably going to look for some add-on software (or preferences) that will let you easily remap everything to be more like the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/11 (Saturday, July 11, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

Intro
The obvious thing to do is call #MIN and #DATA from your phone.  But I’m also going to share some methods I am now using to make it easier/faster to check from a computer.

URL Bookmark / Shortcut:
The first method is to just use a bookmark to the URL (or a shortcut for Windows desktop, taskbar, hotkey, etc) (https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/accountholder/overview/Overview.action); here’s an example using Google Chrome:

FireFox Plugin, or other application:
A second, even easier, method is this awesome FireFox plugin (which according to the web site, is still being maintained/updated: version 2.1 was released just yesterday) (http://verizon-minutes-used.blogspot.com/):

I expect the code for this FireFox plugin would just be a matter of logging into the webpage over http, and parsing the web page source code (HTML/XML) to extract the number from the right place.  I checked the web page view source and the source code (without extraneous paces) showed this XML:

<strong>Shared Usage:</strong>&nbsp;863 Anytime minutes</span>

So you could make additional programs to just parse this data, such as a widget for Vista or Yahoo Widgets or Google Desktop (or Mac OS X dashboard).  Put it next to a stock ticker and weather widget.  Or write a program/script to email or text yourself once a day, or even to check the value and send you an email/text when it goes over a certain number of minutes (such as each 100: 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, etc) and maybe once a week in addition to that.

The caveat is if Verizon changes the web page, you might have to update your code.  Fortunately, this FireFox plugin is still maintained/supported (version 2.1 was just released yesterday, 2009/07/10).

Calendar: set a reminder:
A third simple thing you can do (which I may do) (that doesn’t require to write and maintain code/script) is just set a reminder in your calendar to remind you to check it at a certain date/time.  The reminder could even include a link to the webpage.  With my example, I’m using Outlook, because I also have this reminder show-up on my Windows Mobile phone, and it can be set to recurring (such as every Wed at 8pm).

Developers, developers, developers, develop:
Ideally speaking, and long-term probably the better solution is to write code:

1) a Yahoo widget so I just press F8 in Windows to see my minutes ticker

2) a program that runs in the background (maybe even on a server) and sends me both a text message and an email (once a week) and (every time it reaches a landmark, such as: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 750, 800, 850, etc)

However, short-term I’m planning to try out the other methods I’ve mentioned, which don’t require code development/maintenance on my end.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/11 (Saturday, July 11, 2009) :: Mobile Devices/Services :: No Comments »

Keyboard Shortcuts
One of the biggest things that’s a disappointment so far is the keyboard shortcuts.  They’re not the same as on Windows!  ARGGG, why???

What the hell is Command Control Option?  Where is my Ctrl Windows Alt?  Windows+D, Alt+Tab, Alt+Shift+Tab, Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab; really using a mouse is for n00bs.  Okay, so (Command is like Control, Option is like Alt, and Control is like right-click).  That’s a start, but Alt-Tab doesn’t seem to work, though Windows+Tab does.  Obviously the problem is that I’m using a Windows keyboard with Mac OS-X.  But honestly, why don’t they just make it work out of the box anyway?  Come on Apple, this is NOT true simplicity.  Apple says “simplicity is you have to use our special keyboard or your life will suck”.  True simplicity would be my keyboard works with your stupid OS.  Ranting aside, I’ll wait to judge whether it’s an actual concern until after I research keyboard remapping, add-on software for Windows-like shortcuts on Mac OS X, or whatever.

(System Preferences –> keyboard & mouse –> modifier keys), the first thing I tried is to remap (Option to Command) and (Command to Option).  This makes alt+tab work (instead of being windows+tab).  However, copy/paste is alt+c alt+v, which is very annoying.

As far as which button on my keyboard maps to a software action in Mac OS X:
* ctrl key => control key
* windows key => command key
* alt key => option key

So what I did is map them like this:
* Control maps to Command
* Option maps to Control
* Command maps to Option

This person (http://www.tuaw.com/2008/09/11/mac-101-using-your-windows-keyboard/) said to do something different.  But my remapping let me do ctrl+a, ctrl+c, ctrl+v, ctrl+x, ctrl+n (for select all, copy, paste, cut, new).  My remapping Ctrl+Tab does the task-switching instead of Alt+Tab, and then Alt+Tab changes tabs in Safari web browser.  Not perfect, but at least a lot better.

Frankly it’s kind of driving me crazy at this point.  I prefer to use the keyboard as much as possible.  I was really annoyed that ctrl+e doesn’t let me do a google search in Safari.  And to do word-highlighting I have to do win+shift+right/left instead of ctrl+shift+right/left.  I was excited to open up an xterm console.  But when I wanted to kill a program, it was alt+C instead of ctrl+C !!!  Arg, I can only take so much of this horrible Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts…

To some (novice who uses the mouse too much?), this might sound petty.  But for me, it’s entirely a deal breaker – basically the difference between whether I will enjoy using the Mac vs. find it annoying and slow (slow in terms of UI, due to lack of standard Windows keyboard shortcuts).  It feels wayyy too slow for me to use the mouse for most things, after I am so used to using the keyboard shortcuts.

It’s bad enough that there are software engineers who write software programs that don’t use the correct standard Windows shortcut keys.  But changing the standard OS short-cuts like this?  It is just too much!  It is just too horrible!

This is not just an annoyance – it is a matter of life and death.  Of course I just with the hyperbole: I realize it’s just a keyboard (and keyboard shortcuts) and maybe in the long-run we’ll replace keyboard shortcuts with human-brain interfaces, or some alternative to Windows Ctrl Windows Alt keys (and the mouse/application key, which I also love btw, because it lets you right-click without using the mouse!).  But honestly, it drives me crazy, and using standard keyboard shortcuts is a huge improvement on efficiency for advanced keyboard-shortcut users who want the standard hotkeys to do the right thing (the standard thing)!

Probably long-term I will look into some settings/program that lets me completely replace my OS X keyboard shortcuts with Windows keyboard shortcuts.  This is one place where thinking different I think is really annoying.  Why can’t they just use the standard hotkeys that everyone already has muscle-memorized?

While we’re on the subject…  I really wish at least Microsoft itself would do a better job with making the Windows Mobile keyboard shortcuts for the next version of Windows Mobile be more like normal Windows (XP, Vista, 7).  Microsoft doesn’t make their own hardware smart phones, but they should enable the shortcuts in Windows Mobile and push the hardware smart phone OEM’s to use them for the tiny smart phone QWERTY keyboards.

While we’re on the subject…  Any video game (or other interactive 3d application) that uses the keyboard to control a camera, should, in the vast majority of cases (possibly 100%) use WASD please!  And for my personal tastes, please use QE for rotate or orbit too!

Here are some references for the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts:
* http://www.seoconsultants.com/windows/keyboard/
* http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449
* http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms971323.aspx

Pardon the narrow-minded rant, but please, go forth and implement it correctly!  That means you Apple!

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/11 (Saturday, July 11, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: 2 Comments »

Software Updates
Even before messing with the keyboard/mouse stuff mentioned in the previous post, the first thing I did is run Software Update, and it found 13 updates (including a 449 MB download to upgrade from Mac OS-X 10.5.6 to 10.5.7) (btw, 10.6 "Snow Leopard" is coming out 2009/09 for a $29 upgrade price, so I’ll probably upgrade as soon as it comes out). I think the Mac Mini went into low power mode during the download, so it got interrupted, but I just started it again. After the reboot, I checked Software Update again, and it found 3 more updates to install: wow just like Windows Update. Then it asked me to reboot again for Bluetooth update. Oh well, I don’t complain, because I tend to like software to auto-update to the latest version.

Quick Boot
If I restart or shutdown-then-turn-on my Mac Mini, it’s literally less a minute before I can open up Safari web browser and surf the web.  I’m saying it like it’s a big deal, but probably my desktop used to boot about that fast: it just takes really long now because I have so much extra stuff that starts up during the boot.  Maybe one day my Mac Mini will take 5 minutes to reboot.  Well, hopefully not, but we’ll see .  Actually, hopefully one day I’ll get a fast SSD hard drive for it, and it will boot in 15-30 seconds?  We’ll see

Speakers
One big thing I noticed, especially when playing the DVD is that the Mac Mini has built-in speakers.  I actually didn’t think about this beforehand, but for me personally, this is a huge convenience for the Mac Mini as a secondary computer and as a portable computer.  Of course you can still plug-in external speakers/headphones, but as long as it doesn’t take up a significant amount of space/weight, then I’m all for having some decent convenience internal speakers, like this Mac Mini has.

Play DVD Movie: not enough buttons on Apple Remote
Well it’s got a DVD drive, so I might as well try it out, right?  I put in the DVD and it opened up in full screen and played, and my Apple remote worked.  However, I’m going to say that although I was not necessarily disappointed, my first reaction is that I like better my remote that I use for Windows Media Center (that came with my HP desktop for Windows XP).

The main reason is just because I like the bigger remote with more buttons.  For my personal tastes, so-called simplicity and so-called think different loses again.

With the Apple Remote, I was unable to change the volume during the DVD Menu, because volume up/down turns into a controller.  Similar problem, to fast forward or rewind, you have to hold down forward or back button; for me this is annoying because it’s less instant than having 2 separate buttons for skip-forward vs. fast-forward.  In fact, even my much larger many more buttons Windows Media Center remote I am not totally happy with because it doesn’t have enough buttons: many times I want to be able to press a button on the remote to fast-switch between sub-tittles and languages (such as English voice-over vs. native language).

Another remote quirk is that having to hold-down for fast-forward and rewind meant there were only two modes; 1x and 8x.  While on my Windows remote you can press/click it multiple times for like 1x 2x 4x 8x 16x 32x or something like that.

That said, I can probably just get a different Mac-compatible remote that has more buttons, and/or see if there is other remote-centric DVD movie playing software for Mac OS-X.  Assuming I can get a remote with more buttons that works with Mac OS X, these are probably just gripes about the remote.

In fact, unrelated to the remote, I did notice that it doesn’t lag when switching between rewind vs. play.  On my Windows XP media center system, there’s an annoying delay in the audio for some reason when you stop rewinding and go back into play mode.

I think long-term, it’s (form factor, built-in speakers, fast-boot time) gives it great potential to upgrade to a Blu-ray movie player and other multi-media.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/11 (Saturday, July 11, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

Turning it on with a KVM

VGA: So the next thing I wanted to do is plug it into my KVM and hope it works.  Unfortunately my KVM is VGA, and the Mac Mini only comes with a mini DVI to DVI adapter, and the DVI output on this adapter does not include the analogue pins, so a DVI to VGA adapter won’t help.  So I went to Best Buy and got some mini Display Port to VGA adapter, and it worked with my KVM.

Mouse: I have an $80 wireless Logitech MX 1100 mouse with a pretty awesome scroll wheel, and a less exciting but reasonably functional USB wired mouse.  It worked, but it was way too sensitive, and the + – button to adjust sensitivity did not work immediately, so I initially used my backup mouse.

Keyboard: My Logitech G15’s advanced features (hardware macros, multimedia keys, mini display) does not work so great with KVM’s.  You have two options: the normal USB device plug/unplug which has a noticeable delay when you switch, or the standard emulated keyboard input which causes the keyboard to lose the advanced functionality.  My desktop (which I should admit was refurbished, which is probably why it’s broken) has some issue where it freezes/crashes when I do lots of USB plug/unplug.  Kind of off-topic, but I use a G15 even though I have it plugged into the KVM’s keyboard port instead of a USB port, so it has limited functionality.  In this mode, the Mac Mini detected it and it just worked.

Tweaking display, mouse, keyboard

Display: the default resolution was 800×600, but no big deal seeing as Windows does this too, so I changed it to 1280×1024 (ahh much better).

Mouse: Logitech’s website had a download for Mac OS-X for the MX 1100, so I downloaded/installed Logitech Control Center.  Even after installing this, the + – buttons still did not work.  Logitech Control Center said “No Logitech Devices Found”.  So far this is a disappointment, and I am using my backup mouse.

Keyboard: I tried my Logitech G15 with advanced functionality, and after I downloaded and installed Logitech GamePanel Software for Mac OS X (from Logitech’s website), this worked too.

So the only disappointment so far here is the Logitech G15 mouse is not useable for me, because the sensitivity + – buttons don’t work.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/10 (Friday, July 10, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

Unboxing

Because I am only half-serious about the blogging thing and I haven’t stream-lined the photo uploads to ftp (such as get a camera, Eye-Fi and auto-upload to my ftp), this is not much of an unboxing since it has no pictures (or video).  So I’ll just describe it some.

It came in a small box, and it had what it said it should: Mac Mini, mini-DVI to DVI-D (dual link) adapter, power adapter (yes it’s kind of a brick and if you carry it around that adds some weight/space in your backpack), $19 extra for Apple Remote.

I am going to admit that I enjoyed opening it, but I with any good gadgets / computers stuff, not just Apple.

Upgrading the RAM: with a putty knife

I take a while to decide these things, but I settled on the $600 model (120 GB hard drive, 1 GB RAM) but I paid the extra $150 for the faster CPU (2.26 GHz instead of 2.0 GHz): I’m sure it doesn’t increase the performance enough to justify the price difference, but unlike the RAM and hard drive you can’t easily upgrade the Mac Mini’s CPU because it’s apparently soldered or glued (epoxy) to the motherboard.

But I did do the upgrade the RAM, I ordered 4 GB (2GB x2, DDR3 PC3-8500), for $64, but with $4 and $5.61 tax, it was $73.59, which is significantly less than the $150 that Apple wanted for 4 GB.

Upgrading RAM on my HP desktop and my HP laptop is easy and simple.  Upgrading RAM on an Apple product is not so simple, because their cases are hard to open.  Kind of ironic with the “simplicity” marketing stuff.  In fact, on my HP tx1000, you can swap out both the battery AND the optical disc drive without removing a screw (no this is not a typo: you can take out the optical drive just as easy as the battery), and accessing the hard drive, RAM, or wireless chip is 1 or 2 screws each: very simple.  My HP desktop has a simple PDF doc that describes how to do it on their website.

On the Mac Mini, it’s not a big deal, but it’s definitely less simple.  But the good news is you can web search (google etc) to find video and picture tutorials to help make it still reasonably simple.

Upgrade Mac Mini: a few links:
* RAM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KaHNLR6Aac
* HDD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIiSaunTWWM&feature=related
* HDD x2 (replace optical drive): http://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repair/Mac-mini-A1283-Terabyte-Drive/660/1
  * have to solder a non-standard cable
* CPU is soldered so don’t bother upgrading it:
  * http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/03/more-mac-mini-details-soldered-processor-drive-upgrades.ars

So I did some reading and looked at pictures from other people who did it, and then I mostly just followed a video.  So it wasn’t bad.  The biggest difficulty is just opening/closing the screw-less case/shell.  But there are also some details about how the Mac Mini’s particular inside screws and parts come apart and go back together, such as the RAM has to go in at an angle a certain way.

To make it easier to open the screw-less case/shell, I got a 3” metal putty knife and a few other plastic putty knives, from the painting section at Walmart (I’m sure you can order them online or Home Depot, etc).  I guess this was another $5 to $10, so maybe rather than saving $75 I saved closer to $65, and spent a few extra hours deciding, researching, and doing it.  And then I have to admit I did scratch the case a little on the bottom when prying it open with the putty knife.  But overall I’m glad I upgraded the RAM myself instead of paying Apple $150 to do it.  It gave me some more case upgrading experience and now I have these extra putty knife tools

Someday I may do other upgrades too, like replace the DVD drive with (a Blu-ray drive) or (a second hard drive) or (a discrete GPU).  Or just replace the 5400 rpm 120 GB hard drive with a larger/faster hard drive or an SSD drive.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/10 (Friday, July 10, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »

Introduction
This is my first impressions with the Mac Mini, and really Mac OS-X in general.

I’m a huge Windows user, and do a significant amount of cross-platform development for Windows/Linux and use of Linux, especially the Linux/Unix command-line console (most of my Linux use is down via remote access to Linux machines, such as VNC with xterm consoles).  But Mac OS-X, of course I’m aware of it and pay attention to the tech news (or even tech tips) for it and know some who use it, but I’ve simply never owned a Mac OS-X system (at home or at office/work).

So I finally decided to try out Mac OS-X, with an actual official/legit Mac OEM computer.  So here is my first impressions experience.

I’m a huge Windows user, and do a significant amount of cross-platform development for Windows/Linux and use of Linux, especially the Linux unix command-line console (most of my Linux use is down via remote access to Linux machines, such as VNC with xterm consoles). But Mac OS-X, of course I’m aware of it and pay attention to the tech news (or even tech tips) for it and know some who use it, but I’ve simply never owned a Mac OS-X system (at home or at office/work).

So I’d like to preface that my intention is not in any way shape or form to even consider “switching” from Windows to Mac OS-X.  The real reason is to play with cross-platform development for 3d graphics/GPU software development (ie, DirectX for Windows, and OpenGL for cross-platform support).  In other words, I will develop something and get it to work on Windows (such as with Visual Studio C++), then test it out on Mac OS-X and fix any compiler errors or run-time bugs (such as with C++ XCode).

What Mac?

One big disappointment with Apple is the claim “simplicity is better than choice”.  It also bothers me that their computers tend to be overpriced relative to most other OEM’s (such as HP, Dell, Acer, Asus, etc).  However, because of Apple’s move to x86, you can run Mac OS-X on other hardware besides just Mac OEM hardware, although it’s not officially supported, and sounds like it might be hit or miss or something might break due to a future upgrade.

Finally, of course it bothers me that everything is Intel (not AMD) and most of it is currently NVIDIA (although they do have some ATI options too with iMac and Mac Pro); hopefully they will change.  Sounds less likely because of the “simplicity is better than choice” mantra, but we’ll see; after-all even now they do have both NVIDIA and ATI options on some of their computers.

Since this is for cross-platform software development, and I want to test the software I develop on officially supported hardware, I decided to get actual Mac hardware.

For desktop you have 3 choices (2009/07): Mac Mini, iMac, Mac Pro.  Mac Pro is huge and very very expensive.  iMac is huge and attached to its monitor, which I don’t want because this is for a secondary machine probably using a KVM.

Mac Mini is not very powerful (uses laptop hardware), but it’s form factor is awesomely small and portable (2.9 pounds, weighs about the same as many netbooks, and less than any normal size laptop) (2 x 6.5 x 6.5 inches).  And it’s price is a lot more reasonable than Mac Pro.  And it would be great to make it easy to be portable and take it on trips (I travel frequently, and I don’t like having large heavy stuff to move for if/when I change apartments).

For laptops, the MacBook line has various choices: MacBook Air, MacBook, MacBook Pro.

MacBook Air is about as light weight as the Mac Mini, so I have to say I was pretty tempted, but in the end the price difference is what got me ($1500-$2500-ish vs. $600-$1000-ish): tempting yes.  Worth the extra money for me personally: no.

MacBook (standard) impressed me less.  Compared to Mac Mini, it has a battery, keyboard/touchpad, and display/LCD.  For me, this just wastes space/weight, limits the form factor, and costs extra.

MacBook Pro: One important issue for me is the graphics/GPU.  All the laptop hardware (including the Mac Mini) has the same NVIDIA graphics (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M).  Except the MacBook Pro, if you get the 15” model then you get both the integrated graphics (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M) and you can use the more powerful discrete graphics (NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT) (although I think you have to logout to do the software switch between them).  I was a big fan of this, except that it is 5.5 pounds and bigger, and more significantly the price was a lot more starting at $2000 for (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB).  Tempting, but I decided to stick with the Mac Mini.

Overall I do like their case and form factor designs, but it’s also important to point out that their choice is overall extremely limited compared to the rest of the PC world, and they really don’t necessarily have anything particularly unique (besides being official Mac OEM hardware), and a lot of their choices have trade-offs (such as MacBook air has few ports no optical drive; the batteries on the MacBooks are not easy to swap).  Still, I thought the Mac Mini sounded kind of cool, so I decided to try it out.  Low cost, light weight, awesome form factor.

Finally, I went with the Mac Mini, but my runner-ups were:
* MacBook Pro 15”: 5.5 pounds, (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB): the main reason I didn’t go with it was (price) and (weight/size), but I almost did anyway because of the GPU upgrade
* MacBook Air: 3.0 pounds: the main reason I didn’t go with it was price: on my current budget (very low), I had huge trouble justifying the extra $1000

What I’d change with the Mac Mini

Discrete GPU: As I’ve ranted about elsewhere, the first thing I’d consider is replacing the optical drive with a discrete GPU (such as the Mac Pro has 9600M GT with 256MB).  Because it’s just a CD/DVD drive, that’s not something I think most people use frequently anymore, and if you do, then you could do what the Mac Air does: either use an external drive (such as USB), or share another computer’s disc drive with Remote Disc (for me I’d use my Windows laptop or Windows desktop).

Blu-ray: If it was a Blu-ray drive and Mac OS-X supported Blu-ray DVD movies, I might not have said that the optical drive is just a waste of space/weight.  Maybe in 6-24 months, the latest version of Mac OS-X will support Blu-ray, and I can replace my Mac Mini’s CD/DVD drive with a Blu-ray/CD/DVD drive.

Pem (Admin) :: 2009/07/10 (Friday, July 10, 2009) :: Operating System focused: Mac OS X :: No Comments »