Al’s WebLog

Well, since it looks like I’m working from home starting in 2 weeks time I am going to need to replace Whistler and Avoriaz because a) they are noisy, b) they are old and slow, c) they take up to much room and d) they are noisy. I don’t need much umph, I just need small, quiet and 2 SATA (which I have). I am thinking an Asus T3-P5G965 S775 barebones with an Intel E6320 and some CorsairTwinX XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM. Other than ordering from Scan being a bad idea, anyone have any thoughts?

Oh, regards external hard drives, I got a Freecom USB/FW400 one, its good. No idea whats in it though, I CBA.

Update: Just ordered one box from Microdirect. As above but with OCZ RAM.

I have a need for external storage. Mainly to make ‘backups’ portable *cough*. I also feel the need for more disk on my MacBook so I can install Windows (work means I need to, sadly). So, I was thinking I’d buy an external 160GB 2.5″ drive and swap that disk into my MacBook and put the 60GB in my MacBook into the enclosure. PC World have Maxtor jobs for 80quid, which is nice, but I note from http://www.maxtorsolutions.com/en/catalog/OTIII_Mini/ that these claim to be ATA, now ATA to me means PATA and not SATA. I need SATA so ATA wouldn’t work - but of course ATA could be PATA or SATA so I am confused. Anyone know if a) the Maxtor minis are SATA b) the drive is swapable? Alternative options welcomed. Ta.

Update: It is a Seagate Momentus 5400.3 inside, which is an Ultra ATA/100 drive, so no go.

I have a router downstairs and a computer that needs access to it upstairs. Could I cable in hub into an AirPort Express upstairs and have it connect to another AirPort express downstairs that connects to the router? I should just stick a wireless card in the upstairs box shouldn’t I, why did I only think of that as I type this. Anyone recommend a wireless card to go in a Dell server running Linux (WPA 802.11g network)?

I other news, work looks bleak.

I have moved. Eclipse (my ISP) screwed up the ADSL migration, but thankfully BT managed to switch me early so I am sat on the sofa using my ADSL line Eclipse say won’t be up ’til Monday. So yes, no longer do I have a flat in Bath above a pub, but a house built 4 years ago (I would never buy a new build, its so cheaply built!) on an Estate in Westbury. Its nice though and the local kids are polite and say “hi” back when you walk past. More on the house another time, but for those of you that like maps, it is here.

In other news I suspect I’ll be made redundant this week when my employer folds the company. We’ll see…

If I bought Parallels for my Mac, would all the Nokia software work and would I be able to upgrade my phone with their software update stuff? Or shall I just abuse a Windows box at work? Work it is.

In other news I have a lurgy and feel like poo.

I finally dropped more RAM into my MacBook last night.

The original 512MB simply is not enough to run MacOSX in my view. Example, if I was using Safari and had 5 or 6 tabs open, closing a random tab that was not the foregrounded one would cause the spinning “beach ball of doom” to appear, often for long enough to make a cup of tea. Another example, I have the Applications folder in my Dock to act like a quick launch - on my old G3 iBook this worked fine, but on my CoreDuo MacBook I would have to click and hold down the button for 10-20 seconds before the folder popped up and opened.

But now, with the maximum of 2GB of RAM in my MacBook, all is well. I can open Safari AND iTunes without a visit from the beach ball. I can open tabs and flick between them with no lag. Google Reader works! Its great. I note that with just RSS Menu and Safari running my MacOSX sits there using 800MB of RAM… nice The new Micron RAM also seems to run warmer then the old standard Apple stuff, but not worryingly so.

Right, new bigger/faster hard disk next.

Bah. When I bought my MacBook at the start of July, 2GB of RAM for it was 180quid at Crucial.com. I didn’t buy it as I thought I would see how I went. Mid/end of July RAM was 140, I didn’t buy ‘cos I wanted to wait until after I was paid. I got paid, I looked at the price, now 160quid, I didn’t buy ‘cos it was only 140quid 2 weeks ago. I wait a week, 170, another week or 2, now 180, last week 200, now 214! Arse. I refuse to pay 216 quid. Apparently RAM prices will be high until the end of October. So, I’m on 512MB till November at least.

On a happier note, however, John Lewis have now sent me my free wireless mouse (a mighty mouse no less). So, Apple wireless keyboard and mouse up on Ebay next week.

A friend asked me today if my ADSL has been more unreliable, disconnects etc, after I moved to 8MBit. I thought about it and thought not, but in retrospect I think he is right, ADSL MAX sucks for uptime, mine is down again. Bastards. I need to make my router reboot itself when the line drops….

In other news I have become addicted to the two finger scrolling thing on my MacBook…

Its been a month since I bought my MacBook so I thought I’d air my views (its unlike me to have an opinion, eh!).

• Its thin. I had a G3/800Mhz iBook before (and have a G4/1.33GHz iBook for work) and it feels noticeably thinner but that makes me worry about snapping it.
• Its wide and shiney. The width of the screen is okay, TBH I don’t see much reason for this swing to wider aspect ratio monitors generally, but the glossy coating, whilst indeed making colours more vibrant does mean using a MacBook outside is nearly impossible. I don’t do that much, so…
• It gets warm. Especially by the power conector. However, its not a great deal warmer than either iBook ever got and I don’t feel overly worried.
• Its insensitive. The touchpad particularly at times seems not to work. I end up licking my finger a touch and pressing harder to make the mouse move. The wider button is also not great and rather vague, especially at the ends.
• Its sluggish. I do find that quite often it takes a second or two to figure out I clicked on a tab in Safari or on a different Terminal window. This makes the beach ball pop up for a moment whilst it pauses then doe things very quickly. Odd. This has gotten better over night though, with UB of Flash installed.
• It takes ages to charge. I don’t know why but it takes a bloomin’ age to charge the battery. The iBook would race up to 95% in an hour or so, then trickle the last 5% in another hour. The MacBook doesn’t race, it just takes about 5 hours to charge from 20% empty to full.
• Its an Intel.Yes, you knew that I know, but it means CodeTek’s Virtual Desktop Pro (for which I have paid!) doesn’t work.
• Its clicky. The keyboard is really nice. Its clicky yet it doesn’t feel to hard. Its just lovely

Stuff like the magnetic power cord and screen latch, well, they work but I don’t see much real in-use difference. I never had trouble with the old systems, new stuff works, so did old. I have not made any use of the remote control or iSight (anyone use iChat?).

I think I need to increase the RAM (its on stock 512MB), I’m pretty sure this will help the little freezes between apps (I guess I’m swapping?). I will also at some point put in a larger hard disk and probably make sure its a faster one.

So, would I buy another? Well, if my iBook had not died and I know now what I do about the MacBook I wouldn’t be rushing to buy one (esp if they are bringing out Memron ones next month, bastards) but overall I’m happy enough. Its a laptop (notebook, sorry) which runs Mac OS X at the end of the day and thats what I really want.

I finally got bothered enough to configure “friendly URLs” on my Gallery2 install, which I really should have done properly to start with when I migrated from G1 to G1. Looks much nicer now

Plus, it looked like today’s Hungarian GP will be a wet one. Is this a good thing? I can’t remember, its been so long since there has been a wet GP.