What spawned my discussion about being surrounded by Macs in my day-to-day environment on campus was a friend of mine in my Compiler class (ECE466 for Statefolk). He had a 12" Powerbook and seeing him switch made me wonder exactly how prevalent these things had become.
Today he finds himself in a bit of a pickle, or more like a jar of pickles with a broken 12" Powerbook. His Powerbook will randomly shut off and not turn back on. A call to Apple results in little more than the following two options:
1) Reset your power management settings, or
2) Reinstall your OS
Now he tried the first option, and being that he was in class at the time the second option well, wasn't really an option. His issue has hardware-problem written all over it (at least the PC diagnostic side of me thinks so, but I claim no expertise in the Mac-arts) despite what Apple says. The problem exists regardless of whether or not the Powerbook is plugged in, so it's not a battery issue.
Any thoughts?
What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think. It seems to either work perfectly (and I mean perfectly), or have some extremely obscure problem (usually with an even more obscure fix). I'm just hoping I have none of the horrible problems I've read about the G5s; I have this bad habit of tempting fate, maybe I should quit while I'm ahead :)
I still keep my stance on Apple's Powerbooks: they are too bulky for my tastes. Make a thin-and-light notebook and I'll be a mobile convert, but sticking a 90nm PPC 970FX processor in a laptop is not the solution. Intel had the right mentality with Pentium M, a mobile processor has to be designed from the ground up to be a mobile processor - it cannot simply be a underclocked desktop part that can go to sleep every now and then. Until other companies decide to dedicate the resources necessary to implement a similar approach Intel will retain their tight grip on the mobile market. Apple isn't in the business of microprocessor design so I'm not faulting them, but there are others out there who are: they're at fault :) (I know it's not easy to design a chip, much less a good one so I will entertain and accept "easier said than done" responses to my comments). Oh and the same "designed to be a mobile chip first" applies to mobile GPUs as well; mobile gaming will not be a reality unless a similar approach is entertained.
It's bedtime for me, goodnight all :)
Today he finds himself in a bit of a pickle, or more like a jar of pickles with a broken 12" Powerbook. His Powerbook will randomly shut off and not turn back on. A call to Apple results in little more than the following two options:
1) Reset your power management settings, or
2) Reinstall your OS
Now he tried the first option, and being that he was in class at the time the second option well, wasn't really an option. His issue has hardware-problem written all over it (at least the PC diagnostic side of me thinks so, but I claim no expertise in the Mac-arts) despite what Apple says. The problem exists regardless of whether or not the Powerbook is plugged in, so it's not a battery issue.
Any thoughts?
What I've noticed from reading the Apple support messageboards is that Apple's hardware is not flawless as some like to think. It seems to either work perfectly (and I mean perfectly), or have some extremely obscure problem (usually with an even more obscure fix). I'm just hoping I have none of the horrible problems I've read about the G5s; I have this bad habit of tempting fate, maybe I should quit while I'm ahead :)
I still keep my stance on Apple's Powerbooks: they are too bulky for my tastes. Make a thin-and-light notebook and I'll be a mobile convert, but sticking a 90nm PPC 970FX processor in a laptop is not the solution. Intel had the right mentality with Pentium M, a mobile processor has to be designed from the ground up to be a mobile processor - it cannot simply be a underclocked desktop part that can go to sleep every now and then. Until other companies decide to dedicate the resources necessary to implement a similar approach Intel will retain their tight grip on the mobile market. Apple isn't in the business of microprocessor design so I'm not faulting them, but there are others out there who are: they're at fault :) (I know it's not easy to design a chip, much less a good one so I will entertain and accept "easier said than done" responses to my comments). Oh and the same "designed to be a mobile chip first" applies to mobile GPUs as well; mobile gaming will not be a reality unless a similar approach is entertained.
It's bedtime for me, goodnight all :)
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Adam K - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
What is up with PCWorld.com's website?http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,11527...
(super slow!) They need some quad Opterons, too, it seems!
Anonymous - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
Bluetooth better on a Mac?http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,11527...
Adam K. - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
Yes, this is very exiting (AnandTech Mac section). I predict that very soon after Anand officialy opens his Mac section, Apple with seize a larger market share than the 2% that they hold today.Why? People trust Anand. I don't need to tell you this, if you are here then you already know. This is a great opportunity for computer enthusiasts to learn an entirely new OS that is EXCELLENT.
I predict that many "die hard" PC users will adopt the Macintosh as their friend and the Mac zealots will open their minds too.
Thanks, Anand. This makes me happy.
:)
DrTrustme - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
"I wonder how MacinTouch compares to ArsTechnica?"They are different :-
ArsTechnica has the occasional tour de force article by John Siracusa et al, usually on processor or GUI design, and some news.
Macintouch is an indispensable up to the minute critique of updates & software/hardware by users. It is THE place to go before buying or installing something recently released.
SlashDot's Apple forum consistently has the best informed, best moderated, troll free Apple Mac discussions. http://apple.slashdot.org/
All are invaluable resources & deserve out support - you can help keep Macintouch up by clicking through it when you buy from Amazon.
Where Anandtech should look to add something is in Apple hardware analysis. It gets discussed well in fora at SlashDot & Ars but there isn't, to the best of my knowledge, a full Mac equivalent to Anandtech, Tomshardware or HardOCP. Beatfeats is a valiant attempt but appears under resourced. Anandtech would have added credibility being primarily a PC site... provided it managed to suppress the ZDnet, C/net delectation for Wintel sycophancy & Apple FUD. Credit where it is due though, recently there has been little of that here.
OoTLink - Monday, March 29, 2004 - link
One thing worth tying is camino's (http://www.mozilla.org/camino) latest nightlies. They seem to have the nice GUI features of safari, yet maintain the uber fast surf speeds of firefox, with some fixes that seem to make it act better overall.Well worth the try :)
Adam K - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
WOW, Anand, the site is loading super fast! (THE QUAD OPTERONS ROCK!!!)Damien Sorresso - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
When you reinstall your OS, it might be a good idea to keep your home directories and swap on a separate partition. All you need to do is move your /Users directory to another partition and then create a symlink called "Users" to that drive in your root directory.SwapCop will let you move your swap partition to a separate partition, as well.
Adam K - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
#39: So does neowin:http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?act=SC&c...
I posted Anand's blog:
Here:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=14...
Louis - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
I wonder how MacinTouch compares to ArsTechnica?http://www.arstechnica.com
They've got their own Mac forum
The Best - Sunday, March 28, 2004 - link
macosrumors.com is PURE TRIPE. The dude makes everything up. It's pure BS. He was outed a couple years ago.
Reliable Mac rumor sites are:
www.thinksecret.com (very high accuracy)
www.applesinsider.com
www.macrumors.com (they centralize the rumors)
avoid anything else.