Monthly Archives: September 2007

Macs Really Do Run Windows Better

Weblog

~stevenf: “Let me stress this point: The retail boxed version of Windows WOULD NOT ACCEPT the license key from the CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY that was INCLUDED IN THE BOX WITH MY PC. The recovery discs are the only way to get the OS back onto the PC without burning an unnecessary second Windows license.”

I really wonder why people still use Windows. I have a Mac that runs the Mac OS natively, the Windows OS via a hardware abstraction/virtualization hack (aka [Parallels](http://parallels.com)) and if you want to get technical, runs Unix at the core and good ol’ DOS inside of Windows. All of this without bloat, slowdowns and more. Right now, I’m running a Mac web browser (Safari) plus Windows via Parallels running Outlook 2003 for my corporate email. I get two computers, better battery life than Windows and a machine that goes to sleep and lasts for hours.

I’m not a Mac “fanboy”. I’m a “getting on with my life” fanboy. Why aren’t you?

Ohto Tasche Fountain Pen – Pink Body

Weblog

JetPens: “The ingenious design of the Ohto Tasche allows one to carry it as a small compact pen when closed, but use it as a full sized fountain pen when open. This slim fountain pen measures 10.2 cm long when closed, 10 cm long when used by itself, and 14.7 cm when used with the cap on. Writes in nice, fine lines perfect for journals.”

Gigabyte: Decimal vs. Binary

Weblog

Coding Horror: “If you’re wondering where 35 Gigabytes of your 500 Gigabyte drive just disappeared to, you’re not alone. It’s an old trick perpetuated by hard drive makers– they intentionally use the official SI definitions of the Giga prefix so they can inflate the the sizes of their hard drives, at least on paper. This was always an annoyance, but now it’s much more difficult to ignore, as it results in large discrepancies with today’s enormous hard drives. When is a Terabyte hard drive not a Terabyte? When it’s 931 GB.”

Return of brubeck

Hardware, Weblog

I brought [brubeck](http://www.houseofwarwick.com/2006/08/17/more-on-writing-a-mac-app/#more-59) out of retirement today to see how the old guy would hold up. Actually, it’s every bit as good as my MacBook Pro. I’m running native software on the correct platform with MacOS X 10.4 as the OS. It’s remarkable how fast this is.

I’m writing this on MarsEdit 1.1.2 and it’s clear how far [Daniel](http://redsweatersoftware.com) has brought things along. I miss the Flickr integration already.

I do enjoy typing on the smaller keyboard. It has a greater key travel with a hit of ‘plastiky’ flex at the end. Even the key surfaces remind me of good days gone past–the left Command key is nearly worn slick.

*brubeck* is a time capsule, last used briefly in April this year when I thought I might sell it. The time before that? December 31st of 2006! It’s in need of a new PRAM battery (I think, since the clock isn’t right at startup) and the backlight intermittently dies when moving the screen hinge through its travel.

For an Apple iBook manufactured in 2002, it’s still useful.

Thanks, Apple!

Shopping in 1999 A.D.

Halo, Hardware, Weblog

Boing Boing Gadgets: “From the film 1967 1999 A.D., a short sponsored by the Philco-Ford Corporation, showing what home shopping would be like three decades in the future. Although they missed the frenetic pace of today’s online shopping experience—the housewife’s browsing looks almost leisurely—they guessed correctly on the abundance flat-panel screens (with multiple monitors, no less), even if they were off by about a decade. Oh course, they didn’t quite put together that we’d still be using keyboards for input.”

Acorn 1.0

Weblog

[GusMueller blog]: “Sometimes when you work alone, you start to talk to yourself. After time, you might even interview yourself.”

Gus pulled this trick over the weekend. Acorn, his new bitmap image edit is out. A had a brief chance to beta test before the public release and was impressed with the app’s overall polish. It took me three uses to figure out the new toolbar palette–mainly because it made too much sense and I was overthinking it!

Head over and pick up a copy and support indie Mac developers.