Martin Gordon's Blog

Mac Pro
Apple announced the Intel-based PowerMac replacement today, the Mac Pro. The case is the same as the old PowerMacs, so the entrance banner I posted a few days ago was actually displaying the Mac Pro. Now that the space-heater G5s are gone there's a lot more room inside the case for expansion. The Mac Pro features four SATA drive bays, 8 RAM slots, 4 PCI-Express slots (one being double-wide), room for two optical drives and even two Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Something different for Apple is the fact that all the machines are Built-to-Order. You start out with the pretty hefty base config of Dual 2.66GHz dual-core Woodcrest Xeons, 1GB RAM, a 256 MB GeFore 7300GT, a 250GB hard drive, and "only" one SuperDrive. From there, the only downgrades available are Dual 2GHz Xeons and a 160GB hard drive for $2,124 ($2,029 edu). A fully loaded Mac Pro, with Dual 3GHz Xeons, 16GB RAM, 4×500GB hard drives, Quadro FX4500 512MB, 2×30" displays, and 2xSuperDrives goes for $17,134 ($15,246 edu). The max config (with OS X Server licenses, Apple Modem, etc) is $18,481 ($16,137 edu). New XServes based with similar configs were also announced.

Whereas the PowerMacs were a reasonable option for any "prosumer" (ugh, hate that word) Mac user wanting a decent, upgradable Mac, these Mac Pros are just overkill. There's an $800 difference between the high-end iMac and the low-end Mac Pro, and a $1,700 difference between the high-end Mac mini and the low-end Mac Pro (not to mention the HUGE performance gap). So will we be seeing a headless mid-range Conroe-based Mac anytime soon? I would surely hope so.

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With the Jobs keynote and Leopard preview a few hours away, here are three things I hope Apple fixes in the next iteration of the Finder:

1. Remember my settings. The Finder is notoriously bad about remembering my window settings. Every time I restart my computer, the Finder opens up two windows, but they aren't how I left them! The column sizes, sidebar size and window size are all wrong. It takes a few seconds to fix each time, but it's annoying nonetheless.
2. Cut. There's been a few times when I thought I'd copied data from one folder to another same-named folder on a different drive and deleted the "source" but I was really looking at the same folder in two windows. Now, I'll admit I'm a little too "Empty Trash" trigger happy, but would it really kill Apple to add a Cut command? The main argument I've heard against this is that a file can be effectively deleted by a simple cut/copy operation elsewhere (e.g., some text). The counter to this is to either make a seperate file clipboard or to replace the cut file once anything else is put on the clipboard. Safe and fun, what more could you ask for?
3. A real Spotlight window.I rarely use Spotlight because I don't like to wait for results to appear in the Spotlight menu. So when I really do want to find something, I'll call up the "More results" item and have a search results window pop up. I like to let this run in the background while I continue what I was doing, but finding the window again is a real chore since it doesn't show up when "window cycling" (Cmd+`) in the Finder (I don't remember off the top of my head if it shows up in Expose or not). So now I have to go through the trouble of moving everything around just to find the window and then put everything back the way it was. This is a pain. Please Apple fix it.

So there you have it. My three FTFF (Fix The F**king Finder) wishes. These aren't things that will show up on the Leopard feature list, but I think fixing these small rough edges would be steps in the right direction to fixing the Finder.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OS X, Leopard, Finder, FTFF, WWDC, keynote

Rumors are running rampant in the hours leading up to Steve Jobs' Worldwide Developers' Conference keynote. The image I posted on Flickr last week got mentioned in places, but only to show how overzealous Apple fans can get. It was pretty clear to me that nothing new would be shown on such a prominent banner, I just wanted to tag it so others could see the same. In any event, two pictures of Leopard banners from inside the Moscone Center have popped up; one reads "Introducting Vista 2.0" and the other reads "Hasta la Vista, Vista".

No live video feed is available, but MacRumors (among others, I'm sure) will be providing live coverage from their MacRumors Live website. The keynote starts at 1PM EST/10AM PST.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Steve Jobs, keynote, Leopard, OS X, Mac OS X, WWDC, Worldwide Developers Conference

Amit Singh, author of the upcoming Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach, has posted an uncut version of the Intro chapter of the book. About 70% of the chapter, which details the history of the Mac OS from the Apple I OS to the current OS X, was cut from the already-huge 1,680-page print version of the book. Because of all the research Amit put into the writing of the chapter, he didn't want it to go unread and so he posted the 140-page uncut version on his website.

The uncut chapter and for that matter the rest of the book isn't for everyone, though, as he states on the site:

I hope you enjoy reading this document and the book. Just as this document provides a super-detailed history of Apple's operating systems, the book itself is super-detailed on the internals of modern day Mac OS X. It is not at all a book about using Mac OS X—it is about the system's design and implementation. Therefore, I expect it to appeal to all operating system enthusiasts and students.

Technorati Tags: Apple, history, Apple I, Mac OS, Mac, Mac OS X, books, online, technical, operating systems, computer science, ebook

David Morgenstern of eWeek speculates on which Macs will be allowed to run Leopard. His main two differentiating factors: G3s and VRAM.

The last G3 Mac released was the last round of iBook G3s in the fall of 2003. The last Mac released with <32mb of VRAM was the iBook G3 700 way back in 2002. Those are probably surefire cutoffs, and making one a requirement effectively makes the other one a requirement, except for the case of PowerMac G3s with upgradable video.

David also speculates that the G4 and/or <64mb VRAM could be left behind, but this is unlikely since Apple released iBooks with G4s and 32mb VRAM back in May. I think it's a definite possibility for Apple to leave behind all PowerPC processors for 10.6, which should be released sometime in 2008-9, at least two years after the Intel transition is finished (assuming Mac Pros at WWDC).

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac OS X, Mac, Leopard, Intel, PowerPC, G3, G4, G5, Intel Core Duo

The fact that I'm posting this at 5pm just goes to show how much I actually use iCal…

But anyway, today is iCal day. For those of you fortunate enough to not have iCal running, you'll notice that the application's icon matches today's date. That's because iCal was announced 4 years ago at Macworld New York on July 17, 2002.

So for old times' sake, fire up the little bugger and take it out for a spin, give it a little pat on the back for encouragement and hope that v3 in Leopard brings us great new features.

Technorati Tags: iCal, Apple, software, announcement, Mac OS X, OS X, Macworld, Leopard, anniversary

i use this is a brand new social Mac OS X application tracker. It features a Digg-like interface where instead of Digging news stories, you click "i use this" on an application that you use. In addition, you can add other users as friends and you're given a list of "neighbours" who I assume are chosen based on how similar your app usage is.

Even without the social aspect of it, this is a much better app tracker than the bloated VersionTracker and MacUpdate, which take forever to load and are loaded with intrusive ads. In contrast, I went through the first 20 pages of applications in a matter of minutes and picked a handful of apps that I currently use. There is only one AdSense text banner ad at the top of every page.

And of course, what would a Web 2.0 app be without tags? i use this supports tagging of applications and features a Top Tags sidebar. It also has a size-weighted tag cloud common to many other web apps as well. Also par for the course, here's the developer's blog.

I think my biggest concern about this site, apart from its somewhat limited appeal is the fact that "i use this" can't be verbed. It's easy to say "I dugg that story" but it's a bit awkward to say "I 'i used this' that app." It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. In addition, I didn't notice any RSS feeds. *tsk, tsk*

EDIT: Looks like either Firefox didn't autodetect the feeds or I was on a page that currently didn't have feeds. Here are the feeds available and the ones currently planned (at least as of March).

Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, Apple, Mac OS X, applications, software, Digg, social news, app tracker, social networking, i use this

As you may have no doubt read already, Apple's latest OS X update, 10.4.7, includes a new "feature" in which Dashboard phones home to Apple's servers (supposedly) in order to make sure that the local copy of widgets matches the copy on Apple's servers. The two URLs the new daemon, named dashboardadvisoryd, connects to are:
http://www.apple.com/widgets/widgetadvisory and http://www.apple.com/widgets/parser.info.

Much to the delight of security freaks and the chagrin of Mac haters, Wired's The Cult of Mac Blog has posted a handy one line command that will disable the program. Just launch Terminal and type:

Hit "return", type in your password, reboot and you're all set.

Technorati Tags: Dashboard, Apple, OS X, Mac OS X, widgets, terminal, security