Alright, here’s something kind of nice about Windows XP. I’m sure it’s happened to every Mac user at least once. You mistakenly open several documents launching twenty different applications. Although Vista is plagued with annoying alerts and irrelevant messages, this is one of the few that should be in Mac OS X.
I wouldn’t typically say I talk much about other companies taking or building off of Apple design ideas. But I was in a Best Buy yesterday and found two computers side-by-side. One was the current iMac and the other was a desktop computer from HP with a monitor that looked a little too much like the iMac. It was black around the screen with a metal color around the edge. Like the iMac, the keyboard fits very well under the computer laying on the base.
Although, I have not too much against this kind of thing. I was actually a big fan of the eOne from eMachine.
Hairline cracks are still an issue with the MacBooks it seems. I purchased a MacBook about when they first came out. I posted previously about the problem I had with that first MacBook and hairline cracks. I actually ended up with a rather poor experience with AppleCare having my MacBook returned with several cracks still present, despite explicitly noting them on the phone. The MacBook was also returned with a new problem that wasn’t there before; the mouse button stuck and had to be pressed much harder and directly in the center to work.
Later, I upgraded to a MacBook with a Core 2 Duo and a bigger hard drive and more RAM. I’ve had it less than a year and I’m having a problem with hairline cracks again. It’s in about the same place where my wrist rests while typing. It’s a bit frustrating knowing that if I want this fixed, I will have to send it to Apple and go without it for seven to ten days.
Browsing through some of my archived data, I found this old project I had worked on in high school. This actually made for a great server at LAN parties for its time. It was also very durable and could take a kick.
Specs…
So what do I find underneath a power strip behind a desk all dusty and forgotten… a Palm Vx from 3com. I wanted one of these so badly when I was in high school. Having an amazing mobile device just seemed so cool. I ended up getting a far less expensive and less feature rich DaVinci. (Copying a certain older brother. You know who you are! Not the best tech investment.)
Now of course, I’m keen on my iPhone and even my slim and sleek Nintendo DS to compliment it. But nonetheless, this was an incredibly nostalgic moment. I immediately looked up all the old specs for the device. I recall there is still a big following for the Apple Newton. In fact, I know of at least one T-shirt you can buy supporting it. This has got me thinking about how tempting it would be to look into some old mobile devices that I can pick up for cheap that are incredibly hackable. I’m too scared to do anything to my iPhone. $400 is an expensive phone to break. And even if I can restore it fine, this is my main line of communication to the world. As soon as I start tinkering with it, I lose that connection while I’m hacking it.
I’ve got my Nintendo DS setup to play ROMs and games like Doom. It’s also setup to be an MP3 player. Which isn’t of much use with the iPhone.
I’m actually pretty amazed with how thin the Palm Vx was. I hadn’t held one since my hands weren’t fully grown. Soon as I get a chance I’m going to see about getting one and tinkering with it. Although, I’ll have to make sure it will work with my computer as best I can.
I remember considering my TI-86 graphing calculator as one of my awesome mobile devices. I use to program games for it with the scripting language they had for it. I could only view five lines of code at a time. That was pretty hardcore. Paradoxically, spending all my time programming using pretty advanced math for my age is the reason I received a D grade in my algebra class. “Hmm… as Adam’s teacher, I really need to get him to return to doing materiel that he finds remedial and not encourage his gift. Who cares if he’s acing all the tests? He needs to be doing his homework! Programming video games is no different than playing them.” Okay, I never actually heard my teacher say that, but I’m sure that’s what she was thinking.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my nostalgia. 
Let me first state that professionals do, in fact, use Windows. That’s just a catchy title. Or rather, a controversial, flame inducing title. But people that use their computers at home and techs that repair PCs with Windows will tell you that everyone uses Windows. Very not true. Home users needing something for internet and E-mail and word processing use Windows. And sure, maybe it’s 90% of the market. But we professionals are a little different. We need something more. We have specialized tasks that Windows may not be best suited for.
My inspiration for writing this was an experience I had at Best Buy. I was looking to purchase a USB wireless network adapter for an older Macintosh still running 10.2. The gentleman helping me proceeded to tell me that everyone hates Macs and nothing is compatible with them. I laughed and shrugged and said I liked them. As we spoke more, he asked me why I liked Macs. I shrugged again and said modestly, “Well, I’m an IT guy so I use it for a lot of things and so it’s kind of technical…” He said, “Oh no, go ahead…” I explained to him all the rich features of OS X and told him some of the applications I run and how much better it is on the Mac. He wasn’t all too familiar with what I was talking about, but nodded and conceded his unfamiliarity with that stuff. Later that day, I thought more about it and I speculated what he was probably using his computer for. And of course, I came up with gaming, internet, E-mail, word processing, and some media apps.
Now you take a look at the workstations from IBM, Sun, Novell, and Apple and none of them run Windows. But let’s also take HP as an example. They sell Windows PCs from HP at Best Buy. What they don’t sell at Best Buy from HP is their workstations running Tru64, HP-UX, OpenVMS, and Linux.
Scientists, graphic designers, architects… are they committed Windows users? A lot of them are needing some serious workstations that are good for people doing CAD/CAM, GIS, high performance technical visualization and defense application.
And this isn’t just the case for workstations. In the world of servers, super computers, and mainframes Windows is not king. When people need to do serious work, they do not necessarily rely on Windows.
I’ve found the only people telling me how Windows is better are PC technicians. Ones that spend most of their time piecing together PCs and formatting them to reinstall Windows in their professional life, and most of their time gaming and downloading pirated software from torrents in their personal life. Now, once again, professionals do use Windows. But professionals disproportionately use other operating systems.
Let’s look at some numbers. I’ll start with financial figures I grabbed from Wikipedia. Microsoft’s revenue from 2007 was $51.12 billion. Let’s compare that with Sun, Apple, Novell, and IBM. Sun had revenue of $13.873 billion in fiscal year of 2007. Apple was $24.01 billion. Novell was $1.2 billion from 2005. And IBM is listed as having revenue of $98.8 billion during the 2007 to 2008 fiscal year. Now of course, this doesn’t say much about Windows verses other operating systems. These companies sell a lot more than operating systems. But I think it’s food for thought, taken with a grain of salt, when considering these competitors sell operating systems other than Windows, and they’re doing quite well.
So let’s now look at some figures for Windows usage.
How about servers? Let’s look at web servers. (I’m going to make an assumption here and not bother doing the research. I’m going to assume that most computers running Apache are not running Windows. After all, why spend all that money on Windows with IIS, just to install Apache?) Currently, about 60% of the internet is Apache and only about 30% is IIS. Well below the oft quoted 90% of average users that use Windows.
Of the top 500 super computers as of November of 2007, only 6 were running Windows. (Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.) Linux is at the top of the list with 381 super computers using it. Redhat beats out Windows with 13. Mac OS X is even being run on 2 super computers. IBM’s AIX is running on 26 of them.
Ultimately, what I think I’m trying to get at is Microsoft with Windows does not control the world.
This is a quick little video demonstrating how to use the dictionary built into every Mac. It’s not a commonly known feature, so if you didn’t already know about it, I’m happy to introduce you to it.
This is a quick video tutorial I put together for creating a light sabre using Inkscape 0.46.
I wanted to test the screen capture software I’d just downloaded. And I must admit, I’ve never uploaded a video to YouTube or Google Video or any other sites. So I wanted to give that a try and see what the process was like and what options each site had. So I uploaded this video to Google Video. I’m not too happy with the quality of it. If I make another video like this, I’ll try another video hosting service just so I can compare.
The video is probably going to be more useful for people that are already a little familiar with Inkscape. The video demonstrates how to create a glowing effect and how to use a gradient to create the appearance of depth. Hopefully, some people may find it useful.
And of course, let me know what you think.
This Macintosh keyboard self-destructed. It’s from a Lime G3 iMac. Terrible smell of plastic. A poor child could have burned their fingers. 
I went to Macworld again this year. The MacBook Air is incredibly nice. It’s very portable and it’s something you have to pick up and hold to fully appreciate. I was always very happy with my 12″ iBook G4. I thought the size of that was just perfect. I was a little hesitant about a portable laptop with a 13.3″ screen, but it’s still surprisingly nice. Being so slim and light weight really makes up for the other dimensions.
I’d say there are a few good criticisms of the MacBook Air and what was announced, however. With the MacBook Air, Apple also released an external USB Super Drive. It seems that drive exclusively works with the MacBook Air. I was told by the Apple gentleman showing the laptop to me that the USB port had an additional line to provide more power, thus preventing the drive from working on other computers.
I thought the Remote Drive seemed pretty cool. I typically just use disk images on a file server that I mount, but I could see the benefit of having a mounted physical drive from any other networked computer. Asking about that, I was told that the Remote Drive software would only work for the MacBook Air. I can imagine scenarios where that software would be very convenient for me to use.
I have mixed feelings about gesture pads and I’m not certain how much success Apple will have with it. Looking at the MacBook Air, the trackpad button is much smaller and the trackpad itself is 20% larger than the MacBook. If Apple has a lot of success with gestures, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just remove that physical button altogether.
This probably only effects a small group of portable users. But many people buying these ultra-portable laptops are doing so because they’re doing a lot of moving around and field work. As a result, opportunities to plug into an outlet and charge your battery may be few. The MacBook Air does not have a user replaceable battery. So unlike many other laptops, you can’t carry around an additional battery to pop in once you’re running low on battery life. I personally have never needed to do that. Speaking anecdotally, I can think of only one person I’ve ever met that carried around a second battery. But I’m sure there’s some people out there that take long flights and need the additional battery while working on a plane, for example.
In addition to seeing the MacBook Airs, I also had a chance to browse the exhibit hall and for the first time used the ModBook. It’s a MacBook that is modded to be a tablet with the keyboard removed and touch screen added. This illustrates to me a demand for this kind of mobile Mac. I’d really like a computer that is something between my iPhone and my MacBook. I frequently walk around my workplace and could benefit from a Mac that is as easy to hold and use as a clipboard. My iPhone doesn’t have the software and my MacBook requires me to hold it in an awkward way and sometimes balance it on my knee to type.
I was told the ModBook also works with the Tablet Edition of Windows. The ModBook only comes in white, which is a shame, because the gentleman at Macworld had one specially made for him that was black and it actually looked really sleek.