Macopinion

The Road Warrior MailBag - December 4, 2006

Server insights....
The New MacOpinion
PowerBook 3400c
iBook woes; MacBook Query

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Server insights....

From Richard Ford

G'Day Charles,

Hope all is going well for you. As always an avid reader - getting more used to Mac each day. Really glad I made the switch, if I didn't have a million Linux servers (figuratively!) to look after, I would have stuck with Linux - but now I get my fix of both platforms everyday. With X11 installed, my PowerBook is just the sweetest sysadmin thing out there. With my GPRS phone and CDMA card, I an roam China and always be able to fix things in a pinch. Plus my Nokia E61 has SSH for it now - so I can fix anything at anytime - and I put a Mac theme on it for good measure!

Anyway, the reason for the email, server stats; I have many clients and my servers push over 1TB a month of traffic from here in Beijing. I just took this screen shot as a typical pure play amongst my servers when it comes to stat distribution.

For a long time, Mac hovered at about 2-3%, neck and neck with Linux. Firefox would command a steady 8-9%. Didn't look for a while (not my sites and I only care about aggregate and not the details) but while preparing an audit for a clients advertising sales kit, I noticed a major change. Firefox has really increased, Camino (What I use) is now actually visible and the Mac has pushed ahead of Linux to a very healthy 8%.

Most users of our servers are about 30% China and 70% the rest of the world.

Anyway - some stats from the horses mouth so to speak, Feel free to publish the pic.

As to servers, do you know of a way to put a second NIC on a Mac Mini? At their prices I can buy 10 or more of them for the same price as a medium redundant Dell Server and can then use them as front end nodes to protect my USD6K backends from the nastiness that is the net. But I need two NICs.... :-(

Cheers,
RF.

PS: I directly influenced about 7 people now to move to Mac.

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Hi Richard;

Thanks for the interesting information.

Congrats on the Mac evangelism.

My ignorance of server setup is encyclopedic, so I can't help you with the multiple NIC issue.

Readers may be able to share some insight.

Charles

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The New MacOpinion

From Richard Houston

Hi Charles,

Fantastic! I'm so glad MacOpinion is still there. I've enjoyed reading your twice weekly columns at MacOpinion for some time. The new web page looks good. I especially like the two "Spare" tabs -- an eye toward the future no doubt. Wish I'd thought of that for my own site.

Richard

PS: I use Freeway for my web design app. I don't know if you are familiar with it, but it's by far the best (IMO) Mac software for the job. Here's a link in case you're curious: http://www.softpress.com/

I'm not affiliated with them, just a happy customer.

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PowerBook 3400c

From Dara

Hi Charles,

Glad to hear from you, and to see that MacOpinion is on the road to recovery!

"I struck out on these two. The only issue I can think of with the 2400/3400 adapter issue would be possible connector plug incompatibility. Otherwise, it should work."

No worries. I was tempted to get it just to see what was so special, but now that I have a working AC adapter, my curious has mostly abated.

"I hadn't heard of the RAM slot clearance issue before. Maybe one of our readers can shed some light on this question."

I managed to find somebody else with a similar model machine who was willing to test the RAM for me, so I'm pretty sure it's not bad RAM. The fit in his machine was also rather tight, so I'm guessing my machine simple has a bad RAM socket. At 8+ years old, I guess it can be allowed some leeway!

Great little machine though, and I really love how quiet it is now. Just the very occasional noise of the processor fan spinning up once in a while. Very much unlike my old TiBook which could drown out a vacuum cleaner on occasion.

Best,
Dara

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Hi Dara;

Yes, some hard drives can get pretty noisy.

My silence champion is my G3 iBook with a 20 GB IBM HD. It's been used a lot of hours over nearly four years, and is still whisper-quiet. Speaks well of IBM (Hitachi) drives.

Charles

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iBook woes; MacBook Query

From John J. Kettlewell

Charles:

I'm beginning to think it must be the logic board. How are the latest MacBooks for problems?

JJK

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Hi John;

I think mobo is the most likely culprit for the erratic behavior you've previously described, especialy given the dual-USB iBook's history of such issues.

I completely understand why the MacBook has been a sales hit for Apple, but unfortunately, it has had its share of revision A problems - excessive heat buildup, strange "mooing noises", case discoloration and even cracking on some of the very early white models, and a "sudden shutdown" issue that would be have had me tearing my hair had I overridden my instincts and bought a first generation machine.

It's early days yet with the Revision B Core 2 Duo MacBooks that were rolled out last month, but I haven't seen any horror stories so far, and it is to be hoped that Apple has gotten the bugs ironed out with the second-go-round.

The revision B MacBooks have seen a significant value enhancement - that is the two top models have. The base, $1,099 machine gets a 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2 MB of L2 cache, but the rest of its (still impressive for the price) specification remains pretty much as before - 512 megabytes of RAM, 60 gigabyte hard drive, Combo optical drive, and so forth.

The middle, $1,299 MacBook, on the other hand, has a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo processor with twice the amount (4 MB) of level 2 cache as the base MacBook, a gigabyte of RAM, an 80 gigabyte hard drive, and a 6x dual-layer SuperDrive, thus putting more distance between itself and the entry-level model. Well worth the extra $200 I think. If you're smitten with the black livery of the top-end MacBook, it will still cost you another extra 200 dollars for the Darth Vader look, but you do get a 120 gigabyte hard drive as well. In my books, so to speak, the middle MacBook is definitely the value-leader, and I'm partial to white computers anyway

Charles

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