Alex's Journal

Yesterday, Apple announced the release of Safari 4 at it’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Of course, I upgraded immediately from Safari 3 on my Mac. It seems like a pretty good update so far, but there is one major feature that Apple previewed in the beta version that didn’t make it to the final release.

One of my favorite features of Safari 4 Beta was the tabs on top, which Apple promptly got rid of in the final release of the browser. This feature I liked because I tend to overshoot the tabs quite often and, instead of selecting the tab I want, I click on a bookmark in my bookmarks bar. With the tabs on top, the problem was thus solved. Unfortunately, Apple did away with that feature with no option to change it back. I have to say that I’m fairly disappointed with that.

I realize, of course, that there are many good changes that came about in Safari 4. One of them being the better JavaScript performance through the new JavaScript engine, Nitro. I also really do like the way the new address bar looks. The changes were very subtle, but it looks better in my opinion. Apple, for some unexplained reason, removed the progress bar that was embedded in the address bar and was replaced with a small blue rectangle at the end that says “Loading…”.

Overall, it was worth upgrading despite the tabs now being in their traditional location underneath the bookmarks bar.

Yesterday I was finally able to order a brand new MacBook. I’m quite excited about it because it means I can finally rid myself of the stupid PC laptop with Windows Vista that I have been using now for a while. I hate that thing. Vista is slow, sloppy, ugly, unreliable and generally obnoxious to work with.

I went to a party on Saturday night and one of the guys who was there brought his computer. It was a brand new MacBook and the first one I’ve seen since Apple came out with their new line of MacBook and MacBook Pros on October 14th. I got to talking with him about it and quickly realized he wasn’t just some guy that follows the trend or buys technology-related items because that’s what the guy next to him bought. He knew what he was talking about in terms of computers.

After talking with him for a while, he mentioned that he just made the switch to Mac and that his MacBook was the first Mac he has ever owned. He also mentioned that he’s worked for Dell for a while, but that he had had enough of the problems attributed to Windows, so he decided to opt for a Mac. Based one what he has experienced so far with his Mac, he said that he will never go back to Windows again after getting used to the Mac.

Well, my Powerbook G4 is dead. It died two days ago as I was trying to work on another song. I’m pretty sure the harddrive is dead as right before it kicked the bucket, it was making strange noises coming from where the harddrive is located inside the computer. Then the computer locked up entirely as the harddrive continued to make clicking noises. I had to hard reboot it and it no longer found the harddrive when trying to boot.

Fortunately I just bought one of the second generation iPod Touches so I am still able to do Internet and e-mail. In fact I’m writing this entry on it and it seems to be doing fine.

But alas, I now have to go buy a new laptop because I don’t really think it’s worth fixing the old Powerbook. I was going to buy a new laptop soon anyway, but now I’m going to have to buy a new one much sooner than I was hoping to.

I give up. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, I decided to give Linux an honest try and I did. For most everyday needs, it’s fine. All of the software that one would need to perform most tasks on the computer is available for Linux and even better, most of it is free and open source. The problem is the niche software that I use. I have written about this problem before. It’s particularly Reason — the program I use to make most of my music. I have gotten a lot of great music creation software suggestions for Linux, but none of what I have been shown or have found on my own accord does what Reason does. For a while, I was using both Linux and Windows — Linux for most tasks and Windows for running Reason, but that got quite old quite fast and I found myself more and more just using Windows and not even bothering to boot into Linux again.

The other issue I’ve had with Ubuntu was a resolution issue that I can’t seem to find a solution for. I’ve consulted books and forums and neither have had a solution. Basically the problem I’m having is that it will only go to 1280×800 at 60 hertz. I need to run 1024×768 at 75 hertz which is the highest my (old) monitor will support. This means that every time I boot into Linux, everything is very distorted and I’ve noticed my monitor is not doing so well either. I’m able to change the resolution to 1024×768 at 60 hertz, but my monitor won’t display anything in that case.

I have also found myself being drawn more and more back to my PowerBook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4.11. I guess it wasn’t until I decided to venture out again into the world of Windows and even Linux that I realized how immune I had become to the problems both Windows and Linux are prone to having. While Linux is a much more viable option for stability and security, I have had issues with software and with the resolution. When it comes to Windows, I don’t think much explanation is necessary. It seems that almost everything I do is plagued with stability problems. I have even checked for hardware conflicts by stripping the hardware done to the absolute bare minimum needed to boot the computer, but to no avail. Because of that, it looks like I will be buying a new Mac laptop afterall.

I read an interesting article online that talks about the latest studies finding Firefox to be the safest browser available.

“Firefox users were far and away the most likely to use the latest version, with an overwhelming 83.3 percent running an updated browser on any given day. However, despite Firefox’s single click integrate auto-update functionality, 16.7 percent of Firefox users still continue access the Web with an outdated version of the browser, researchers said.

The study also revealed that the majority of Safari users (65.3) percent were likely to use the latest version of the browser between December 2007 and June 2008, after Safari version 3 became available.

Meanwhile, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)’s Internet Explorer users ranked last in terms of safe browsing. Between January 2007 and June 2008, less than half of IE users — 47.6 percent — were running the most secure browser version during the same time period.”

ZDNet UK has created a list of some of the most annoying software and why it’s so annoying. Some of the software on the list includes Microsoft Outlook, Adobe Reader and Real Player.

I would have to say that pretty much everything they say on there is true and is extremely annoying. You can see the full list, reasons and screenshots at ZDNet UK.

I know I’ve talked about this before, but I think I’m going to talk about it again.

As I’ve already explained in my Switching from a Mac post, I’m looking at giving up my Mac and buying a PC. My reasoning is best explained in the other post, however, the primary reason I am going with a PC instead of a Mac is because of the hardware. The hardware Apple ships with Macs is just too expensive for what you get in my opinion. The only plus side to buying a Mac is you get Mac OS X which I will say is definitely a superior operating system when compared to the likes of Windows.

I was considering using Windows and just dealing with it for quite a while. It would be easier considering I would easily be able to get software, it would run all of the software I need and it does all of the basics such as internet, e-mail, etc that I need to do. Then I read this article: “Microsoft confirms Windows adheres to broadcast flag“. Here’s a sample:

“‘Microsoft has put the requirements of broadcasters above what consumers want,’ said the EFF’s Danny O’Brien. ‘They’ve imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment. Right now, the only way customers know what Microsoft has agreed to is when the technology they’ve bought suddenly stops working. Microsoft needs to come clean and tell its customers what deals it has made.’”

I know it’s not a big deal in the entire scheme of things and it’s not really this particular incident that turned me off of Windows so much all of a sudden either. It’s the fact that Microsoft continually screws its customers in favor of censorship or any form of hindrance to the user for large companies such as the broadcasting companies. This is no an isolated incident either. Look at how Microsoft so strongly supports DRM-protected music as just one example.

I have been considering using Linux for my day-to-day needs and only booting up into Windows when I have to use software that won’t run on Windows (such as Reason). I’ve decided I will probably experiment with this for quite some time before I decide on what to keep with. If I really like Linux, which I’m sure I will, I’ll probably stick with it. If not, then I guess I won’t. We’ll see.

Edit: I just read an Ars Technica article about Microsoft and the media companies. It’s an interesting read if you’re interested in it.

[digg=http://digg.com/apple/Switching_from_a_Mac]In technolgy news today it seems that all you hear about are high profile executives and long-time Windows programmers switching to Mac. You never seem to hear the stories about those who go from habitually using a Mac to Windows. The stories are just nowhere to be found. I, however, intend to change that with this post.

As some of you may already know, I have used a Mac for several years now. My first Mac was a 700 MHz iBook with 128 MB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.1. My current Mac is a 1.5 GHz PowerBook G4 with 768 MB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.4 which is certainly not anything impressive. As such, I am in the market for a new laptop, however, this time I have opted to buy a PC running Windows (or Linux; see some of my earlier posts regarding Linux) instead of a Mac. Why though?

The first argument I would like to get out of the way is Windows itself. I do not need Windows or any particular application that will run on it and not the Mac. Everything I do and have been doing for work or personal reasons I have been able to do on the Mac without any problems. My primary reason for looking for a PC isn’t the software, but rather the hardware.

The fact of the matter is that Apple’s hardware selection is severely limited and quite expensive. While it does look great and runs fine, I just can’t find any more justification for buying a Mac on hardware dictated by Apple that is more expensive. When looking at laptops or even their all-in-ones, Apple severely limits what kind of video card I can have, the size of hard drive available, etc.

For now, I’m going to just talk about the laptops as that is what I am looking to purchase. As an example, Apple’s MacBook line of laptops only comes with a video card with 144 MB shared memory. The video card is important to me and while Apple does offer a couple of different customization options, the video card is not one of them. There is no other option unless you look at their MacBook Pro line which also comes with a serious price jump.

As a comparison, I have chosen to place Dell’s XPS laptop against Apple’s MacBook. Both are in the price range I am looking to spend on a new laptop ($1000-$1500) and both have similar offers. Below I have listed the specifications for the configuration of each laptop you can get for $1499. The specifications are taken from Apple’s and Dell’s websites.

Apple’s MacBook – $1499.00

• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 2 GB memory
• 144 MB shared video memory
• 250 GB hard drive
• SuperDrive 8x (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)
• Apple’s iSight webcam
• 13.3″ screen (max resolution of 1280 x 800)

Dell’s XPS laptop – $1499

• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 4 GB memory
• 256 MB of dedicated video memory (NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT)
• 320 GB hard drive
• DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW drive
• 2 MP webcam
• 15.4″ screen (max resolution of 1440 x 900)
• Finger print reader

For the same price, the Dell laptop has a much better value. Some of the key differences are that the Dell has almost double the video memory (and it’s dedicated too!), it has a much larger screen with a much higher maximum resolution, it has double the regular system memory, it has a much larger hard drive and it comes standard with a finger print reader. It seems to me that there is a large difference between the two.

Now I know what any Mac enthusiast might argue as I probably would have made the same arguments not too long ago myself. You don’t need a finger print reader. You don’t need all of that memory when you’re running a superior operating system such as Mac OS X that doesn’t consume as much memory as Windows. You don’t need the extra video memory. You don’t need a larger screen on a laptop because it makes it less mobile. You don’t need a bigger hard drive when a superior operating system like Mac OS X doesn’t take up a large portion of it. The quality of the iSight is better than any webcam Dell could put in their computers. And then of course, I can’t forget my favorite one which always serves as a “catch-all” for people Mac enthusiasts: Mac OS X is worth the extra expense!

I read back over the arguments and can’t believe I would have made them at any point in my life. First of all, from my own experience, I can say that Mac OS X DOES take up an enormous amount of memory a lot of the time. As my computer has gotten older and applications start to use more and more memory, I have taken on the habit of meticulously managing my memory usage. There are several occasions where I load up the Activity Monitor in Mac OS X and a Mac OS X process (or more than one) is consuming most or practically all of my memory.

Now we come to the video memory. That one is just a dumb argument to begin with as games and any graphics-heavy application require a certain amount of memory no matter what kind of operating system or hardware you are running. Logically, the more video memory you have the better these applications will run.

A larger screen is of course a matter of personal preference. My last two laptops, an Apple iBook and an Apple PowerBook, both had 12″ screens. To be quite honest, I am sick of having a tiny screen and want something much larger. The argument that a larger screen hampers the mobility of the laptop is true, however, mobility is not nearly as important to me at this point as a bigger screen is. One might argue I should just get a desktop then, but the problem with that is that mobility is still important to me; just not as important as a large screen.

We all know that Windows Vista is a hard drive hog so to speak. At a whopping 15 GB, it is an enormous operating system. Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) needs 9 GB of hard drive space. But even with a 15 GB operating system, that still doesn’t counter the gain in free hard drive space I would gain by going with the Dell instead of the MacBook.

Then of course we have the webcam and the finger print reader. The iSight might be better quality than that of Dell’s XPS webcam, I don’t know as I have no experience with webcams. And as I don’t intend to really use it, it doesn’t matter to me. Then we have the finger print reader which is just plain cool!

Now for my favorite argument: Mac OS X is worth the expense! No, it is not! While the operating system might not be plagued with viruses, malware and other forms of annoyances like Windows is, it is not worth the extra expense nor the nuisance of not being able to go down to the local computer shop or even Walmart to buy software.

While I still believe Apple does offer a quality product in both hardware and software forms, I don’t think that this “Apple tax” is something I care to continue paying for a computer of lesser ability. Mac OS X’s market share continues to grow, but I believe Apple’s practice of imposing their “Apple tax” on their hardware is either going to have to change or they will have to distribute a version of Mac OS X with an OEM license to other hardware makers such as Dell or HP. Otherwise their market share is going to hit a roof that they won’t be able to get around.

Well, unfortunately it would appear as though my harddrive in my 12″ Apple Powerbook is on its last leg. The symptoms that always occur such as random clicking coming from the harddrive and the entire system locking up while it’s busy doing that are becoming frequent events. The other major symptom is that occasionally when I boot my computer, no bootable drive can be found and I have to restart again. That normally takes care of the problem, but I don’t know how much longer that will take care of it.

I have backed up all of my data and I’m being very careful as to what else gets put on it. Normally a crashed harddrive would not be a big deal for me if I’m forewarned about it such as in this case because I normally have more than one computer readily available to take this one’s place. The problem, however, is that I am in Germany and will be here until late this summer and this is my only computer.

As I said in my last post, I am considering moving to Linux anyhow. As such, I’ve been doing research about Linux and as I was looking around, an idea came to mind. I realized that, in the event that my harddrive fails, I could just use a Linux live disk and still be able to access the internet and my e-mail. This would be very limiting as to what I could do with my computer, but it is much better than nothing. I’ve decided on using Fedora 8, as it is one of the only major distros that still support the PowerPC platform. We’ll see how it goes.