My wife’s Mac Mini was exhibiting odd behavior, namely, sporadic loss of sound. The internal speaker would suddenly become unavailable to the operating system. Furthermore, the speakers did have a slight hum when they were plugged into the Mac Mini. I had opened the Mac Mini up a couple times to upgrade the RAM, so I figured I must have inadvertently pulled the audio line. A few months later, the Mac Mini just outright refused to start up. I’d push the power button, I could hear it power on, but there was no startup chime and no boot-up. I figured the Mac had finally died, but I naturally wasn’t going to give up on it without an autopsy.

If you’ve ever looked at a tutorial on opening the Mac Mini, you know it isn’t the worst thing ever, but it definitely is more complicated than opening, say, a Mac Pro, or really any tower computer. One of the challenges is separating the top chassis, since it is connected with a few cables. One of these is a ribbon in the back, and this ribbon is what was giving me trouble. Take a look at the photo below.

As you can see, the connector was actually in the open position, so the ribbon was sitting loosely in the connector, sporadically losing its connection and wreaking havoc on the system. The ribbon must have eventually pulled away enough so that the computer couldn’t start up at all.

Here’s the ribbon properly inserted and the connector closed shut:

The Mac started fine after that, and it hasn’t had any startup or sound problems since.

You can view the MacRumors WWDC 2008 Spoiler Free news page if you want to do the same.

Well, now I have been feeling like I’d rather have an iMac because the price/performance ratio just doesn’t seem worth it anymore, even for a power user. With huge iMac screen sizes and affordable external RAID devices for fast hard drive access, my last motivating reasons for a Mac Pro have died. But the iMacs have been hanging around without a redesign for abnormally long as well.

And now you say they might finally get a redesign, and what’s more, it might happen in the summer and I don’t even have to wait until MacWorld in January?

Why do I continue to let the rumor sites play with my emotions? I am very excited.

Half-way through the article, I started realizing that it really may not be. Well, where’s the beef? What does a poweruser care about?

Processing power. Yes, the Mac Pro’s Xeon is better than the Intel Core 2 Duo. Now, forget about the 8-core Mac Pro. Unless money is immaterial to you, its ridiculous price tag makes the Mac Pro irrelevant for a consumer purchase discussion. That said, the Mac Pro has 4 cores, whereas the iMac has 2 cores. Nevertheless, a 2.66GHz Mac Pro’s overall benchmark of 299 competes with 2.16GHz iMac getting an overall benchmark of 245 and a 2.33GHz iMac at 259.

That seems significant, doesn’t it? Maybe. The zip archive benchmark took 2:01 on the Mac Pro, 2:15 and 2:22 on the iMacs; an MP3 encoding took 0:48 on the Mac Pro, 0:56 and 1:03 on the iMacs; the game ran at 91FPS on the Mac Pro, 74FPS and 83FPS on the iMacs. Those are certainly real differences. But be realistic. The zip took all 3 Macs two minutes. The encoding took all 3 Macs about a minute. We’re obsessing over seconds. And both computers played the game at over 60FPS. Many would argue that the magical 60FPS mark is all that really matters.

Disagree? Well, bear with me until we get to pricing.

Graphics Card. The Mac Pro comes standard with the Nvidia GeForce 7300GT 256MB. This is the same card in the high-end 24-inch iMac (albeit 128MB), and the mid-range iMacs have the decent ATI Radeon X1600. If you’re BIG into gaming, I suppose this would matter a bit. If you are a casual gamer or don’t do the amazing absolute latest and greatest games (I raise my hand on both counts), then the iMacs are absolutely adequate. But if it does matter to you, both cards let you upgrade to their 256MB equivalents.

Memory. Both Macs come with 1GB standard. The iMac maxes at 3GB. I’m sorry, that is more than adequate for a home consumer, even a poweruser. A home consumer buying a machine that can do 16GB of RAM but only using 1GB-3GB is like buying a mansion and never using 75% of the rooms. Furthermore, the Mac Pro RAM is more costly. Upgrading to 2GB costs $299 on a Mac Pro but only $175 on the iMac.

Storage. I used to think this was a big point. The Mac Pro’s four internal SATA bays, with drive mirroring, means fast fast FAST! I was discussing this with a person I work with, and he mentioned that he was mirroring some external drives for the same purpose. Okay. So a couple external drives take a bit of desk space, but so does a huge Mac Pro tower.

Misc. Time for each opponent to pull out his unique powerup. Mac Pros have PCI Express slots. But most home users never use them. Both come with a standard keyboard and mouse, but the iMac comes with Wi-fi and Bluetooth as a standard option whereas the Mac Pro tacks on another $79 for those features.

So, let’s do the cage match. In one corner, we have the 2.66GHz Mac Pro (bench 299), with 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, Wi-fi/Bluetooth, and a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. In the other corner, a 24-inch 2.16GHz iMac (bench 245), with 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, Wi-fi/Bluetooth. To be fair, we’ll upgrade the graphics card to 256MB ($125) to match the Mac Pro.

What’s the final “score”? The 24-inch 2.16GHz iMac weighs in at $2,299. The 2.66GHz Mac Pro with 23-inch display weighs in at a whopping $3,776. How valuable are those few extra seconds for MP3 encoding now? Are they worth $1,477 dollars?

Do you feel like I skewed the numbers a bit in favor of my point? Well, there is some wiggle room. But what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

In favor of the Mac Pro:

1. I could save a few hundred dollars on a non-Apple monitor, to save some money on the Mac Pro. But to be fair, pick a high-quality model. Perhaps the Dell 24″ LCD. Pricegrabber is currently showing $585 which shaves $315 from the Mac Pro price.
2. You can upgrade the iMac to 2.33GHz for an additional $250. This brings the iMac and Mac Pro to a slightly closer speed comparison.

It is only fair to note a discrepancy in the iMac arrangement:

1. Very likely, you may not care about the 256MB upgrade for the iMac’s video card. Axe it. That saves us $125.
2. You could argue that getting a smaller LCD would significantly lower the price of the Mac Pro. But the same is true for the iMac: Going from 24-inch to 20-inch drops the iMac price $500 dollars! This probably gives the iMac a slight advantage, because you won’t find a quality 20-inch monitor for the Mac Pro for that much less. But the iMac is going to be generous and just consider the smaller-monitor argument disqualified.

My favorable Mac Pro adjustments closed the gap by $565, but the iMac savings opened it by $125 again. That makes the Mac Pro expense sit at $1,037 ahead of the iMac.

Again: Are a few extra seconds of encoding or zipping, or a few extra FPS, worth $1,000? Bear in mind that both of these configurations would produce super-fast, deluxe systems bearing 24-inch monitors. You are paying a thousand bucks for the capability of extensive future expansion. Expansion that you likely will not need within the life of your Mac, especially if you apply the $1,000 toward replacing your iMac with a newer model sooner than you would be able to replace your Mac Pro.

The obvious skewing factor is if you already have a great, large LCD. However, even if you have a display currently but would like to upgrade to a nicer one, the iMac seems to be a real powerhouse that could double as a fine time to make that display upgrade for an incredibly competitive price/performance ratio in comparison to the hefty Mac Pro.

This brings me to my point, though. Despite the fact that I’ve owned 2 of the 3 iMac designs, I have an aversion against the existing iMac design: The Jay Leno chin! What is UP with that big chin, which is only accentuated by the way the monitor swivels up and down??

Hark! AppleInsider says: Apple’s next-generation iMacs to add a touch of grace! The iMac has always been somewhat of a feature canvas for Apple’s artistic prowess in its design. Apple dominates in the laptop market for its excellent design that features beauty as well as usability and efficiency. But desktop machines are much easier to work with because size isn’t emphasized as heavily. With every revision of the iMac, even the Jay Leno design, Apple has progressively put its superior portable design expertise to use, resulting in sleek and beautiful desktop designs.

The Jay Leno iMac didn’t appeal to me. But now as I prepare to replace my primary Mac, the prospect of a new and exciting iMac design has reenergized my interest in the iMac. And according to AppleInsider, I might get my wish as early as WWDC.

Apple has simple instructions on how to set up driving striping on a Mac. No additional hardware or software is needed, except the extra drives, of course, to accomplish this.

In a perfect scenario, you should stripe two identical drives. You can stripe two differently-sized drives, but the striping will use “the lowest common denominator”. In other words, If you had a 160GB and a 250GB, when you stripe them, the 250GB only uses the first 160GB, and the resulting volume would be 160GB+160GB=320GB.

One approach you could take is to keep the factory-installed hard drive, purchase two new and identical drives, and stripe them. The factory-installed drive remains as a separate startup volume, and the two additional drives are striped together as your big, fast volume (e.g. 500GB if you have two 250GB drives, 1TB if you have two 500GB drives).

Since the Mac Pro has 4 hard drive bays, you would still have one drive bay for later expansion. At that later date when you decide to expand, a couple actions you could take are: (1) Get rid of the factory-installed drive and buy two more drives and have those two striped together, or (2) Buy a big drive that will be assigned as a Time Machine backup drive to use with Leopard when it comes out.

There are benefits to having the startup volume be a striped volume, but the biggest benefits are in storing large data on those drives, like video, photos, and audio, for manipulation in iMovie, iDVD, and so on.

It is important to note, however, that having a striped volume increases your risk of lost data by a factor of how many drives you have striped together. When your data is on one drive, you risk losing that data if that drive ever fails. When you now have a striped volume with two drives, if either drive ever fails, your data is lost. You can stripe 3 or 4 drives together for even FASTER data writing, but then obviously there’s an even greater chance of data loss. The more drives you have, the higher statistical probability that one of those drives will eventually die, and everything on the volume that the dead drive was a part of will be lost, because data on a striped volume is spread across all the drives.

As long as you are protecting yourself with a good, regular backup plan (especially with Time Machine when Leopard arrives), the added speed is certainly worth it.

iStat Pro is cooler than any of the tools they have. Developed as a dashboard widget, iStat Pro displays CPU temperature and fan speed, but also duplicates all the information in Activity Monitor, displaying typical geek Unix system info, like active processes, memory usage, and so on.

All in a dashboard widget, and all for free (donationware)!

That is exciting, and the timing is of course very comforting.

I was naturally livid when I read about Microsoft pulling UEFI support from Windows Vista on March 14. For many users who highly prefer Mac OS X but want the flexibility to use Windows when necessary, the Intel transition was an excitement followed by frustration when we realized that Windows XP was not cognizant of UEFI. For us, Windows Vista seemed the best, cleanest solution. eWeek’s David Morgenstern holds that Microsoft’s EFI pullback is Apple’s gain, which is a positive attitude but I don’t feel there is much realistic validity to his opinion; Vista’s EFI-lessness gives Mac users one more bullet on their bragging rights list. That helps us dual-boot Windows on our Macs how? And it makes Windows users wish they were running OS X for what major benefits?

Furthermore, Microsoft is not expressing any interest in expediting the development of a Universal, Intel native version of Virtual PC.

Although there have been understandable and reasonable explanations for both of these scenarios that are unrelated to Microsoft’s interest in the success of the new Macs, the zeal in us loyalists moves us to irritation and suspicion that Microsoft may be making a passive/aggressive move to frustrate the Intel transition.

Alas, another day, another innovation in this incredibly busy year in the Apple universe. Some hackers have finally been able to answer the challenge on OnMac.net to successfully get Windows XP installed on an Intel Mac! He has posted photos and even a video as proof of accomplishment, in addition to the required patched files and instructions. At this point, it has been tested and verified by numerous sources and testers.

My need to purchase a new PC just vanished.. Sorry, Dell!

Article: Web Site Reports Intel Mac Dual-Boot Breakthrough.

I read about SCOTY in the PC Magazine article, “WowWee Unveils First Robot Media Hub“. He can greet you, speak to you, play your music for you, and even read your email to you. Hey, some of those things would be kind of nifty! How nice would it be to just step into the office, and after being recognized and greeted, say “Play my ‘Soft Music’ mix” or “Read my new email” and have it happen? Beam me up, SCOTY!

Then I realized that the actual physical element of SCOTY is actually unimpressive. It is just a mess of microphones, speakers, and cameras, tied together with a plastic metal frame with lights and a couple motors to keep the camera pointed at you.

Take out a couple of those luxuries (namely, the lights and the motor for the camera), and what’s SCOTY got that my Mac with an iSight doesn’t have? It has a camera, microphone, and speakers. The rest of SCOTY’s impressive behavior is managed by software, even the facial and speech recognition, and the interface for communication.

Furthermore, I already know the groundwork is there in Mac OS technology for handling speech recognition and synthesis.

So why can’t I have a SoftSCOTY on my Mac? Read my mail. Run my iTunes. All the functionality is there. I just need an app that ties them together and throws in a speech communication interface.

Mac software uberdevelopers, make it happen!

Interestingly, it offers configurations with an Intel Core Duo or an Intel Core Solo. This was an expected step, although still exciting to see, as it likely is a precursor to the same type of configuration for the last remaining consumer-level Mac, an iBook replacement (very, very likely to be called a MacBook, sans the “Pro” moniker).

Not surprisingly–although I didn’t anticipate it–the Mac Mini comes with the new Front Row technology, which it is really perfect for, even more so than the iMac. Plug this sucker into your TV and set it in your home theatre setup, plug it into an AirPort Express, and you’ve got an immediate access station to music, video, and photos from your network.

Suddenly, I want one of these.

Darwine is an open source project for Macs (via OS X’s open source Darwin) that piggy-backs on the WINE open source project for Linux. Basically, it is a project to allow Windows applications to run on your computer without the Windows operating system. It does this by emulating the Windows APIs.

So a Red Hat box could run a Windows application side-by-side its X11 apps. This is obviously a bit easier on an x86 build of Linux; thus the separate project–Darwine–for running Windows apps on Mac OS X on a non-Intel processor. Well, with the advent of Mac OS X going Intel native, this task just got a whole lot easier. Which is a relative statement, of course, because in general the premise of the project is very challenging, and notably also very volatile. For instance, the project is limited in what applications can run, and this is after years of development during the stagnant period of Windows XP inactivity. With the release of Windows Vista, undoubtedly the project will be broken yet again for quite some time.

But my purpose isn’t pessimism. My featured article today (MacSlash: Darwine Not Functional On Intel Macs) reports the great progress they’ve made in getting Darwine to work on Intel Macs, and ponders the possibilities of future progress. It is exciting to see this development; it is very sad that this project will probably never have the time or development energy to mature into something that can be used on a wide scale.

Nevertheless, it is worth keeping an eye on!

Think back to the Sawtooth PowerMac G4s. Back then (Sept 1999), Apple promised the new Macs in 400MHz, 450MHz, and 500MHz iterations. Before shipping, Apple had to announce that the speeds were to be adjusted to 350MHz, 400MHz, and 450MHz due to matters outside their control–otherwise known as Motorola’s ineptness. As an added irritant, Apple had to maintain the same pricepoints for the three iterations, meaning people buying a 450MHz PowerMac at a midgrade pricepoint were now paying the price for the top-of-the-line model, since it now was the top-of-the-line model.

Enter Apple’s first product release with Intel as its chip supplier. Apple releases the product ahead of schedule, and when it comes time to finally ship the MacBook, Apple again alters the speeds, but this time they are increased from 1.67GHz and 1.83GHz to 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz. Why, for good measure, they even offer an upgrade option to 2.16GHz. Furthermore, these improved speeds are offered at the same pricepoints. So now the fella buying a 1.67GHz MacBook Pro just got upgraded to the 1.83GHz model for free.

This type of activity, spurred on by an obviously better B2B interaction between Apple and Intel, and just more competence on Intel’s part in comparison to Motorola, is just the kind of thing we want to see.

Read the article: MacWorld: Apple ships faster than expected MacBook Pro.

Please read his article: Apple on the Brink.

The premise is that Apple is “brain-dead” for not wanting to release OS X into the entire x86 jungle; yet, he opines, that is not what Apple really intends to do, and that, instead, Dvorak sees Apple’s bluff in his crystal ball.

And it really is a fantastic concept he has forecasted. I thoroughly enjoyed indulging myself in the unfolding of events that he described. As much as I would like seeing it happen the way he described, and as clever as Jobs et al have been of late, I find it very difficult to believe that the scenario that Dvorak has described is even remotely close to the truth. Frankly, I don’t think that he does either. Beware: This pat on the back is likely a slap in the face, if only we had turned around to pay attention.

This is Apple’s best quarter. Ever. Read about it: Apple Tops Its Quarterly Earnings Record.

One thing that is very encouraging about this is to see that the iPod is not the hero that saved the ailing team here. The iPod had a significant share, as expected, but it was just a team player on Apple’s championship team.

Other key players: Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac sales. Sure, we like it when the team keeps winning, even when these players were on the bench, but now that they’re back in the game–and exercising a killer instinct–the game is so sweet to see.

Mac OS X 10.4 was the best-selling software release in the company’s history; Mac sales experienced a 35% increase over last year; iPod sales had a “record quarter” for the ninth time in a row. When all the key players score triple-doubles, the fans just go wild.

And the timing couldn’t be more perfect, since Apple’s sales my go into slight hibernation as the world awaits the first x86-based Mac. But that’s okay–Apple is ready.

Check them out:
PowerPC on Apple: An Architectural History, Part I
PowerPC on Apple: An Architectural History, Part II

These are great reading for the pseudogeek. I say the pseudogeek, and not the ubergeek, because the ubergeek would already know all of this information, and it is too generalized. But for we geeks out there who also have lives, this is great reading, providing interesting facts and history, but without going overboard in depth.

My timing for blogging about these articles (which I’ve actually had bookmarked on my desktop for months) is ironic, being that it comes shortly after Apple’s announcement that it will be switching to the x86 architecture for future Macs over the course of the next 1-2 years.

I know, I have yet to blog about this; I have full intentions to. I purposefully did not blog about it when I first read about it, because first reactions sometimes can be very inaccurate ones. But the time is now ripe for comments, so I will be making some soon.

Again, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek irony, it is notable that the Ars Technica author wrote these articles at the behest of Mac enthusiasts, after he wrote a similar historical documentary on the Pentium line (Part I, Part II). I smell a “Part III” in the works!

Check this out: Giga ships 2GHz processor upgrades.

Back in the day, I concluded that processor upgrades would never hit more than the 1.4GHz that Apple raised the G4 line to. I suspected that the bar would never raise any higher. Thus, a 1.4GHz upgrade, a nearly maxed-out RAM capacity of 1.1GB, and a GF4Ti–which is about all a 133MHz FSB can handle–left my machine pretty saturated. And it did indeed stay that way for quite some time. I am very pleased with my upgrade decisions, and my processor upgrade card specifically has served me very well since I bought it in August 2003.

And yet here we are, with a 4-year old machine originally set at 733MHz now capable of pushing 2GHz. After four years–nearly two years since being upgraded–I thought my machine was finally losing the vitality it once had, and I finally saw a G5 purchase looming in my future. But with a 2GHz upgrade looking back at me, it looks like the G5 will have to wait a bit longer before it can get a piece of me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a sucker nor nieve. I appreciate that a G4 is still just a G4 and that it doesn’t hold a candle to a G5 per megahertz. I also appreciate that a G5 purchase would likely consist of a dual-processor system, which is even more powerful, especially for the apps that need it the most. And finally, I also appreciate that I’ll still have a suffocatingly narrow 133MHz FSB, compared to the G5 architectures that all straddle the 1GHz mark. Nevertheless, I know how pleased I am with my G4 running at 1.4GHz, and I know that an upgrade to 2GHz would be a huge shot in the arm. Considering the significant speed boost the upgrade would give my machine, and considering the cash back I would be able to garner by selling the 1.4GHz upgrade, a G5 just doesn’t look like a very wise choice. My Mac still has too much life left in it.

Check it out at: http://www.applefritter.com/.

They’re doing some pretty wild things! Especially make a point to check out the forums.

The key, of course, to this new child in the Mac family, is the price tag. Indeed, the price tag is what drew so many rumors and the ThinkSecret.com lawsuit fiasco. By Apple’s response, you would have thought that ThinkSecret.com spilled all the beans. But one element of the release that may seem simple–although simplicity is not to be underrated with a company known for its powerful leverage over simplicity–is the name of this new product.

Yes, naming it “Mac mini”, akin to the iPod’s younger sibling, the “iPod mini” is simply genius. Apple’s family of computers and MP3 players hasn’t looked more handsome in years. Have you read any articles suggesting that Apple should find ways to emphasize the success of the iPod by drawing iPod fans to Apple’s computer line? For those that the price point doesn’t draw in, the amazing size and style of the Mac mini will seal their fate.

And why not release a headless and affordable Mac? After all, converted Windows users won’t need the Mac to come with a monitor when they can just use their existing monitor from their now-defunct PC. ;-D

This week, Apple receives commendation and condemnation in the same week: Commendation from Tom Yager for his great experiences with Apple hardware and software, condemnation from Ed Foster for its recent lawsuit against ThinkSecret.com.

Being that Tom Yager is the technical director for InfoWorld’s Test Center, his praises are something for Apple to be proud of. Read his praises in the article, Ahead of the Curve: Try as I might, I can’t wreck a Mac.

I hope it is believable when I say I am a bit underwhelmed by Mr. Foster’s article condemning Apple for its lawsuit against ThinkSecret.com. While nearly no Mac enthusiast is happy when Apple lashes out like this–especially when it is against “one of our own” in a Mac enthusiast site–we ought to recognize the validity of Apple’s concerns especially in this instance. If ThinkSecret’s reported rumors rang far too true to simply be rumors, Apple is wise for taking action and defending itself against unscrupulous individuals. Since such individuals keep themselves thoroughly concealed from Apple’s view, it is understandable that Apple pursue these individuals by attacking the organization that openly cooperated with such unlawful individuals. Anyway, enjoy his article at The Gripe Line: Apple As Big Brother.

First, and least impressive (but still impressive nonetheless), is the release of Apple’s new iMac G5. Think about the evolution of the iMac. It changes processors and styles as frequently as Madonna’s music style changes, and just like Madonna, it seems to be successful every time it does so. From the original pod-like iMac G3, which was the catalyst to Apple’s renaissance, to the awesome LCD iMac G4, to the new, still flat, iMac G5, the iMac has experienced big changes, inside and out. The iMac G5 is no exception; like their website says, “Where did the computer go?” Indeed, now the entire computer is wrapped up in the monitor, making it practically a tablet made for the desktop. It is very reassuring to see that Apple’s innovation still exists in the Mac division.

Meanwhile, and more importantly, it is very encouraging to see that the iPod is actually helping Mac sales, especially iBook sales. How is that? Please take note of the USA Today article: Students crazy about iPod follow the music to Apple laptops. The article reports that many college campus stores have found that the success of the iPod has led many students to the Mac as their laptop of choice for the new school year. This brand recognition is exactly what we hope to see when a company so diverse in innovation as Apple has success in a new industry, even though we fear it will not happen. Because the potential is always there for the up-and-coming to kill the older, less exciting product line. So really all Apple fans can now rejoice as we see the brand recognition beginning to reap the dividends.

The snare that Apple still should astutely avoid is that of distraction and division from multiple focuses. It hurt Apple back in the day of the Newton MessagePad, but of course, that was without Apple’s wonderboy, Steve Jobs. Yet, Steve Jobs himself has acknowledged that his focus is sometimes split due to his heavy involvement with Pixar. Let’s hope Steve et al can multitask as well as Panther can. ;-D