Report from the WWDC Floor

/

One of the UNI IT staff is at the WWDC show, and here's what he just sent to us:

I just browsed the iTunes Music Store on a PowerMac running a 3.6 ghz Intel chip. They have several of them set up in the labs here at WWDC.

I wanted to see if I could see Rosetta working so I downloaded Cyberduck and ran it. Either Cyberduck is "universal" (not likely!) or Rosetta is pretty transparent. I couldn't find it in Top.

If you sit down at one of these machines you can see the difference. There is a menu item by the clock that lets you turn hyperthreading on and off. Also, there is a preference pane called "Processor" that allows you to set hyperthreading on or off by default.

This is all very strange. It's even stranger when I think about the fact that after this week, I may not see another Intel based Mac for another year.

So long Big Blue

/

Wow, Cnet is reporting that Apple is moving to Intel CPUs, and will announce it on Monday. I'm surprised, though I know the PowerPC hasn't been scaling like it was supposed to... It's a great move on the desktop, my iMac G5 runs hot and the fans that keep it cool add a great deal of noise. On the other hand, my 1.33Ghz 12" PowerBook is a great little machine, and relatively quiet, even when I'm pushing it to the limit. It gets a little warm on the left palm, but it's quieter than even the Pentium M laptops I've had in the past.

Frustrating Tiger Bug

/

I've encountered my first frustrating Mac OS X 10.4 bug. This bug is driving me nuts at home, where I have three base stations covering my house. When I roam between them, I suddenly lose my connection and have to reestablish it. This better be fixed in 10.4.1 or I may be going back to OS X 10.3 until such time as it is, as it really sucks to be in the middle of an instant message conversation or file transfer and suddenly wind up disconnected. I can also try going back to just one wireless AP to cover my house, but I've had problems getting a solid connection throughout the whole house on one AP before.

Two Down

/

My PowerBook returned today from Apple. They replaced the hard drive and the "flex cable", whatever that is. The good news is that the noise is completely gone. The bad news is that I have to reinstall everything. I got the essentials put back together tonight, the rest will have to wait until tomorrow at work. I wouldn't mind doing this so much if Tiger (aka Mac OS X 10.4) wasn't coming so soon, which means I get to do it all over again...

One Down

/

Dell wins the prize for getting the first of my three impaired computers fixed, as the new power supply arrived today. Took me about 10 minutes to swap them, and I was back in business. That's one computer that has had its grind eliminated. The PowerBook made it to Memphis today, which is where Apple is repairing it. I haven't received a shipment notification yet, so I'm guessing I won't see it until Tuesday.

My iMac is awaiting the shipment label Apple is supposed to be sending me. They said they'd e-mail it to me as well, but it hasn't arrived, so I'm guessing they forgot. The saga continues...

The Fecal Touch

/

Ever have one of those weeks were everything you touch turns to crap? Last Friday I replaced the midplane on my iMac G5, in an attempt to end the buzzing noise that it's been driving me nuts with. No luck on that, and after Apple basically told me that they didn't have a fix, I complained to our Apple rep, who has gotten my case escalated with their customer support people. I told them I either want my machine fixed, replaced with a non-noisy one, or I want them to apply the purchase price as credit towards a PowerMac G5. The "Senior" Product Specialist who had my case thrust upon him is off today, so we'll see what he tells me tomorrow. Next, my PowerBook started suffering from a noisy hard drive or fan when it's not sitting level on a table. It's fine level, but as soon as you tilt it, it makes a bad noise. So, I called Apple on that, and they're sending me a box to send in my PowerBook for repair. They think it's the hard drive, which doesn't make me happy, as I don't want to have to reinstall all my apps if Tiger is only a few weeks away, but what can you do? So, I backed up my hard drive today, there's nothing "essential" that I only store there, but why make this harder than I have to.

Two hours after getting off the phone about my PowerBook, the power supply on my Optiplex GX270 decided to act up, it's making a horrible grinding noise now, as the bearing in the fan has given up the ghost. So, I generated an e-mail to Dell about that, hopefully one of their Subcontinental support people will have a new one over-nighted to me before this weekend.

I'd better go home soon, before I break something critical...