Archive for May, 2006

More MacBook Observations

May 29th, 2006

I’ve finally gotten settled into the o’l (new) MacBook and started doing some real computing on it. First, the specs: white, 2.0 Ghz dual core, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD. Last week basically consisted of getting it up and running, but now I’m finally getting a feel for just how great this machine is.

The first thing that struck me is the brightness of the display compared to my 12″ Powerbook. Granted my PB was 3+ years old so it wasn’t exactly cutting edge, but the MacBook’s display is very bright and the white makes the Powerbook’s white look brown. 🙂 The widescreen aspect ratio is a nice upgrade as well. I didn’t think I would care so much, but having room for a full sized text editor window with a palette is nice. 🙂 The second thing I’ve noticed is it’s whisper quiet. When the fans turn on they are at low speed and are very soft. Again, no comparison to my Powerbook which sounded like it was getting ready for take-off when the fan turned on.

Lastly, of course, is the speed. When I would build Maquarium it would take my Powerbook between 8-10 minutes to do a clean build. The new MacBook, it’s more like a minute and a half. Rosetta (the PPC emulation layer) seems to run as fast or faster than my Powerbook, with the exception of launching PPC applications. Once the application has been launched once however, re-launching it is faster than my Powerbook. The good news is, native Intel apps fly. I won’t belabor that point, but applications like Mail and Safari are noticeably faster than my 2.0 Ghz dual G5 at work.

All-in-all, Apple has really polished up their portable line and now is a great time to pick one up if you’re sitting on an old Powerbook or an old PC.

cheers, will
tv : stargate atlantis

# posted at 2:24 am by Will

Adobe CS 2 and MacBooks Don't Get Along

May 25th, 2006

Adding my 2 cents to the adobe who-ha which has been reported else where. I was lucky enough to pick up a MacBook to replace my aging 867 12″ Powerbook. As usual I was installing my apps onto my new machine and went to install CS 2. After taking others advice and not installing Version Cue (which I don’t use anyway), all was good and I was on disk *4* the absolute very end-of-the-end of the installation. Well, when the Adobe installer went to finish, it runs an application called “ActivationUtility”. Probably to ID tag my machine or what-have-you. That’s when things went south.

The ActivationUtility launched (as I could see in the verbose console logging) and my machine completely hung. The only thing I could do was move the mouse. This caused my first hard reboot of my brand new machine. That does not make me happy. What could Adobe do to make a machine stop responding?? Really, what could they do, cause I’d like to know so I can report it to Apple as a bug. After 2 more attempts to install the creative suite and hanging every time I’ve given up until Adobe releases some sort of patch.

Of course, after this all the CS applications were installed on my machine because the registration crap was the last thing to do. But when I tried to activate it using the activation application it failed of course. I called Adobe to try and manually register and of course, I can’t do that either. They suggested I reinstall at which point I told them their installer hangs on install. They had nothing to say except they’d transfer me to tech support. 🙁

I guess my point is, working with mega corporations is often under-whelming. Especially when you’re on the cutting edge although Intel Macs have been out for 6 months now, sigh.

cheers, will
tv : mythbusters

# posted at 5:45 am by Will

New MacBook first impressions

May 16th, 2006

Just a quick note, we (the Panic crew) went to the local Apple store this afternoon and checked out the new MacBooks. Well, to be technically correct we only saw a MacBook as they were still setting up the display, but the one we saw was the new black.

One major warning for anyone thinking the black is cool; the finish is matte. We all assumed it was to avoid Nano scratch 2.0, but it looks odd. A bit like a stealth bomber one might say. 🙂 Cool things are the keyboard and the magnetic latching. The shiny screen doesn’t bother me and looks ok. Overall I would say this is a very solid offering from our favorite fruit co.

cheers, will
music: heather nova | storm

# posted at 11:13 pm by Will