Archive for October, 2003
After a disappointing 0-3 loss last week, Autumn’s Ruby Rockets soccer team was able to “win 1-0″:/gallery/album33 against the Golden Eagles for the second time. Not many photos to show because when I’m in control of the camera I’m too busy cheering and screaming to take photos. Mommy was too busy chatting.
Aiden “loves playing ball”:http://www.snapturtle.com/gallery/album30?page=3. He’ll even play by himself, picking the ball up, throwing it ahead of himself and then crawling after it to rinse and repeat. I was able to catch a few shots of him in the moment, as normally he’ll stop playing once the camera’s come out.
October 26th, 2003
After worrying about what could happen with installing Panther on the family G4, turns out everything went very well. I selected the “Archive & Install” option with the migrate Users/ and Network Settings box checked. The install took about 40 minutes (long enough to watch Survivor on TiVo) and spanned 3 discs (I always choose the Japanese language kits).
My initial reactions to Panther are the following:
* The Finder is metal… and the special “drawer” that Apple has been touting isn’t my favorite thing right now. I really liked the old 10.2 Finder.
* All open and save dialogs use the new Finder style even though I don’t particularly like it, I appreciate the consistent dialogs.
* Panther feels snappier(tm). I ran some numbers before and after in XBench and Panther came out on top. 116 overall with 10.2.8 and 130 overall with 10.3. Specs: G4 upgraded to 1.4Ghz Sonnet Encore/ST, 1 GB RAM, GeForce 2MX (crappy card I know)
* Mail will no longer accept my self signed SSL certificate without prompting me each time I open Mail. That sucks because it’s annoying to click continue each time. Why do I use SSL for Mail? Why not.
* Safari is super fast now with sites like “IGN”:http://www.ign.com/. I use to have to use “Camino”:http://www.mozilla.org/ but I may switch to Safari as my default.
* I’ve been able to run a few shareware apps without any problems. Of course, both “Pixadex”:http://www.iconfactory.com/px_home.asp and “Candybar”:http://www.iconfactory.com/cb_home.asp are built for Panther.
All and all I’m very impressed. I can’t wait to see what speed improvements I get on the G3 iBook. Probably nothing major but I’m sure I’ll be able to notice.
Well that’s all I got right now but check out Mark’s “great review of Panther”:http://diveintoosx.org/panther/.
October 25th, 2003
I “mentioned yesterday”:/archives/2003/10/23/12.50.55/ that I wouldn’t be installing Panther on day one. Who am I kidding, forget that, I’m installing it once I get the chance (which may not be tonight as I’m going to Autumn’s school hoedown). Why miss out on some of the new features even though some existing applications may break. I’ve backed up my existing 10.2.8 G4 using “Carbon Copy Cloner”:http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html so if I do experience a horrible problem I can just restore from the backup painlessly (I hope).
The upgrade process always makes me a tad worried, what happens if it goes horribly wrong. At worst I’d have to restore from my 10.2.8 backup or just install 10.3 from scratch.
Which brings me to the question of do I upgrade my existing 10.2.8 install which is only a week old since it was re-installed fresh or do I install 10.3 fresh and archive the old 10.2.8 install? Previously I’ve upgraded from plain 9.1 to 9.2, then from 9.2 to 10.0, continuing on to upgrade 10.0 to 10.1 and finally from 10.1 to 10.2. Now, I never experienced any problems with just upgrading the existing OS although the recent “iChatAV crash”:/archives/2003/10/14/06.37.35/ which caused me to reformat may have had something to do with all those previous upgrades.
The FedEx man has my Panther package in route, only a matter of hours now until I throw caution to the wind.
Update: Through the wonders of ESP… err, cell phone technology, my wife has informed me that the “package” has arrived. Don’t run away now Mr. Panther, I’ll be home soon.
October 24th, 2003
Aiden will be 9 months old tomorrow. Boy has time flied. Feels almost like yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital and I had 3 weeks off… oh wait, that can’t be right.
In honoring my monthly photo gallery updates, I’ve added more photos to “Aiden’s October gallery”:/gallery/album30 and will add more through the end of the month so don’t miss out!
Can’t wait to see Aiden in his Dumbo outfit next week. His sister is going to dress up as Minnie Mouse (she grew to like her during our Disneyland trip).
October 23rd, 2003
Soon I will the proud owner of a new Panther as I received shipping notification early today. Of course, it’s not a real Panther, but in fact the latest upgrade to the “Mac OS X operating system”:http://www.apple.com/macosx/.
Although I’m very glad to finally be able to own the latest and greatest for the minds at Apple (I just love holding the box… sick I know), I don’t think I’ll be installing it for awhile. Normally I’d be the first to dive in and upgrade, “like Jonathan”:http://www.greencracker.com/mt/weblog/archives/000157.html, however knowing what I know about software there are bound to be problems. No software is ever perfect and the Mac OS X 10.3 isn’t going to break that mold. I’ll be watching for news about bugs and other anomalies that crop up before I take the plunge. Even if I do run into problems, it’s always a more “beautiful” problem than with Windows… usually.
Update: Need a reason to upgrade? ExposÈ and Fast User switching not enough for you? Check out “Apple’s feature comparison”:http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/compare.html between 10.3, 10.2, and OS 9 (for those in a cave). Also, “Apple’s technical specs”:http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/ on 10.3 are interesting to learn more about the new OS.
David Pogue (long time Mac fan) has written a “review for the NY Times”:http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/23/technology/circuits/23stat.html?ex=1067572800&en=81e858bada35d411&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE detailing why Panther rules.
October 23rd, 2003
Windows users just don’t know how lucky they are to be able to use the iTMS (iTunes Music Store) until they try it. “Walter Mossberg’s latest column”:http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20031022.html is dead on with his review of the new iTMS plus two other competing services. Although, I don’t think Walter realizes that even though you can’t put downloaded iTMS songs on any portable music device except the “iPod”:http://www.apple.com/itunes/, there really isn’t any other good portable players ;).
Maybe Nokia could learn something from Apple. Just do it instead of just hyping it.
October 22nd, 2003
I normally don’t post this kind of stuff due to my own self censorship policy on this topic. However, since I feel that what happened in “this case”:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/22/MNGCO2FN8G1.DTL is very important to everyone, I thought I’d share.
We all have visited the doctor, dentist, or some medical facility at least once in our lives (I guess you COULD have never… but anyway). What happens to all that paper work you leave behind? What happens to the doctors notes, voice mail, etc.? More oft than not, this information is sent to a company contracted by the medical firm to transcribe the information into their computer system for them.
What you may not know is that sometimes this information is then sub-contracted out to another company and sometimes a third or fourth time. It can get so diluted that the original company, in this case UCSF (University of California at San Francisco), had no idea that someone in Pakistan was in control of thousands of personal medical records. And guess what? She thought it would be “cute” to threaten UCSF by posting the records on the internet if she didn’t get paid for her work from one of the sub-sub-contractors who hired her.
bq. “A woman in Pakistan doing cut-rate clerical work for UCSF Medical Center threatened to post patients’ confidential files on the Internet unless she was paid more money.To show she was serious, the woman sent UCSF an e-mail earlier this month with actual patients’ records attached.” (source: “SFGate”:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/10/22/MNGCO2FN8G1.DTL)
Why do I care? I feel that it’s unethical to send medical records of any kind off-shore due to their nature of confidentiality. Unfortunately, there is NOTHING the United States government can do about someone in a foreign country violating our own laws. What should our government do? Make it illegal to off-shore medical records. Problem solved.
October 22nd, 2003
Apple has done what nobody thought was possible (including myself), added the Power PC G4 processor into the new “iBook”:http://www.apple.com/ibook/. We’re not talking about techincal impossibilities, more like marketing. Why would Apple want to sell an 800mhz G4 iBook with DVD/CDRW for $1099? Heck the top of the line iBook is the same 1Ghz speed as the low-end Powerbook G4 and the iBook $100 less. Sure, there are a few “features” missing from the iBook, most of them unimportant to the average consumer like DVI output (the iBook still has VGA/S-Video/Composite output). One thing that is disappointing is that they still support only 640MB of RAM.
bq. “With its extra long battery life, compact size and ultralight weight, the iBook G4 can accompany you everywhere. And with a choice of 12.1-inch or 14.1-inch displays, turbocharged 800MHz, 933MHz or 1GHz PowerPC G4 processors, 30GB, 40GB or 60GB Ultra ATA/100 hard disk drives, 256MB of RAM expandable to 640MB ó plus optional AirPort Extreme wireless networking and optional built-in Bluetooth wireless peripheral connectivity as well as conveniently located FireWire, USB 2.0 and Ethernet ports ó the iBook gives you astonishing performance in a stunning design.”
This is a bold move by Apple, one that I’ve very happy about frankly. I just hope they continue to sell through their whole line of laptops and not just the new iBooks. I for one am no longer interested in the $1599 12″ Powerbook G4 but will instead opt for one of the new iBooks when I’m ready to upgrade my existing iBook.
October 22nd, 2003
Alright! Someone at Nintendo finally figured it all out by releasing an original Super Mario game with new features! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the newest addition to the Game Boy Advance Super Mario remakes is none other than the all-time number one selling Mario game, “Super Mario Bros. 3″:http://www.gameboy.com/supermarioadvance4/ (named Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 for the GBA - say that ten times fast).
I love this game. My wife and I use to play this game a lot on the original NES when we first starting dating and that continued through our first few years of marriage. Later on, newer games came out that I had to try (unlike new women… haha!), so poor Mario got lost in the shuffle.
What is great about this remake is not only did they recreate the original in all it’s glorious detail, but finally Nintendo decided to add some new features into the mix (besides the over used Mario Bros. multiplayer game). By using your E-Reader device (you don’t have one of these yet?) and a second Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Player (you don’t have on of those either?) you can scan new items, levels, or game play demos directly into the cartridge. How genius! The game pak will hold 64 items/levels scanned from cards so you can take them with you instead of lugging around extra Game Boys and funky E-Reader devices. Oh yes, Nintendo has finally given the love to the little plumber and my beloved “Game Boy Advance SP”:http://www.snapturtle.com/gallery/album04.
To top it all off Nintendo included the original two player feature which allows someone to play as Mario and the other as Luigi, alternating turns when someone clears a level or dies. No other GBA ported Super Mario game supports two player within the original game (again, just the crap happy Mario Bros. Classic game).
Plugging this game into my Game Boy Player I can finally relive the games glory days while my wife and I reminisce about the simple times in life.
October 21st, 2003
Oh yes… Nokia shouldn’t play with fire, especially when it’s in the form of Nintendo’s Game Boy system.
The Nokia “N-Gage sold a meager 5,000 units”:http://ngage.ign.com/articles/455/455699p1.html in it’s first week at retail in the United States. Ouch! Add the lowly “500 sold in United Kingdom”:http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/33405.html, Nokia must be thrilled to have sold 5,500 units in a week.
Who in the hell wants a $299 wanna-be Game Boy/Phone/MP3 player? Anyone? Right… 5,500 people with way too much money or just too dumb to get the good stuff; Nintendo Game Boy, real phone, Apple iPod.
Seriously though, Nokia really thought that the N-Gage was going to be a hit.
bq. “We are targeting selling several million N-Gage units in 2004,” Nokia Mobile Phones spokesman Kari Tuutti told Reuters (source: “Reuters”:http://www.americasnetwork.com/americasnetwork/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=71666)
Poor Nokia. They’ve managed to sell a whopping 5,500 in 30,000 retail locations. That’s just plain sad. Throw in the towel now Nokia, Nintendo won this battle in the mid-80s with the first Game Boy.
October 20th, 2003
Next Posts
Previous Posts
Twitter
